On the Study of Words by Richard Chenevix Trench (great book club books .TXT) 📖

sixteenth. A revival there might be, and indeed there was, of Greek learning at that time; but there could not be properly affirmed a revival of Latin, inasmuch as it had never been dead; or, even as those who dissent from this statement must own, had revived nearly two centuries before. 'Renaissance,' applied in France to the new direction which art took about the age of Francis the First, is another question-begging word. Very many would entirely deny that the bringing back of an antique pagan spirit, and of pagan forms as the utterance of this, into Christian art was a 'renaissance' or new birth of it at all.

But inaccuracy in naming may draw after it more serious mischief in regions more important. Nowhere is accuracy more vital than in words having to do with the chief facts and objects of our faith; for such words, as Coleridge has observed, are never inert, but constantly exercise an immense reactive influence, whether men know it or not, on such as use them, or often hear them used by others. The so-called 'Unitarians,' claiming by this name of theirs to be asserters of the unity of the Godhead, claim that which belongs to us by far better right than to them; which, indeed, belonging of fullest right to us, does not properly belong to them at all. I should, therefore, without any intention of offence, refuse the name to them; just as I should decline, by calling those of the Roman Obedience 'Catholics,' to give up the whole question at issue between them and us. So, also, were I one of them, I should never, however convenient it might sometimes prove, consent to call the great religious movement of Europe in the sixteenth century the 'Reformation.' Such in our esteem it was, and in the deepest, truest sense; a shaping anew of things that were amiss in the Church. But how any who esteem it a disastrous, and, on their parts who brought it about, a most guilty schism, can consent to call it by this name, has always surprised me.

Let me urge on you here the importance of seeking in every case to acquaint yourselves with the circumstances under which any body of men who have played an important part in history, above all in the history of your own land, obtained the name by which they were afterwards themselves willing to be known, or which was used for their designation by others. This you may do as a matter of historical inquiry, and keeping entirely aloof in spirit from the bitterness, the contempt, the calumny, out of which very frequently these names were first imposed. Whatever of scorn or wrong may have been at work in them who coined or gave currency to the name, the name itself can never without serious loss be neglected by any who would truly understand the moral significance of the thing; for always something, oftentimes much, may be learned from it. Learn, then, about each one of these names which you meet in your studies, whether it was one that men gave to themselves; or one imposed on them by others, but never recognized by them; or one that, first imposed by others, was yet in course of time admitted and allowed by themselves. We have examples in all these kinds. Thus the 'Gnostics' call themselves such; the name was of their own devising, and declared that whereof they made their boast; it was the same with the 'Cavaliers' of our Civil War. 'Quaker,' 'Puritan,' 'Roundhead,' were all, on the contrary, names devised by others, and never accepted by those to whom they were attached. To the third class 'Whig' and 'Tory' belong. These were nicknames originally of bitterest party hate, withdrawn from their earlier use, and fastened by two political bodies in England each on the other, [Footnote: In North's Examen. p. 321, is a very lively, though not a very impartial, account of the rise of these names.] the 'Whig' being properly a Scottish covenanter, [Footnote: [For a full account of the name see Nares, and Todd's Johnson.]] the 'Tory' an Irish bog-trotting freebooter; while yet these nicknames in tract of time so lost and let go what was offensive about them, that in the end they were adopted by the very parties themselves. Not otherwise the German 'Lutherans' were originally so called by their antagonists. [Footnote: Dr. Eck, one of the earliest who wrote against the Reformation, first called the Reformed 'Lutherani.'] 'Methodist,' in like manner, was a title not first taken by the followers of Wesley, but fastened on them by others, while yet they have been subsequently willing, though with a certain reserve, to accept and to be known by it. 'Momiers' or 'Mummers,' a name in itself of far greater offence, has obtained in Switzerland something of the same allowance. Exactly in the same way 'Capuchin' was at first a jesting nickname, given by the gamins in the streets to that reformed branch of the Franciscans which afterwards accepted it as their proper designation. It was provoked by the peaked and pointed hood ('cappuccio,' 'cappucino') which they wore. The story of the 'Gueux,' or 'Beggars,' of Holland, and how they appropriated their name, is familiar, as I doubt not, to many. [Footnote: [See chapter on Political Nicknames in D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature.]]

A 'Premier' or 'Prime Minister,' though unknown to the law of England, is at present one of the institutions of the country. The acknowledged leadership of one member in the Government is a fact of only gradual growth in our constitutional history, but one in which the nation has entirely acquiesced,—nor is there anything invidious now in the title. But in what spirit the Parliamentary Opposition, having coined the term, applied it first to Sir Robert Walpole, is plain from some words of his spoken in the House of Commons, Feb. 11, 1742: 'Having invested me with a kind of mock dignity, and styled me a Prime Minister, they [the Opposition] impute to me an unpardonable abuse of the chimerical authority which they only created and conferred.'

Now of these titles some undoubtedly, like 'Capuchin' instanced just now, stand in no very intimate connexion with those who bear them; and such names, though seldom without their instruction, yet plainly are not so instructive as others, in which the innermost heart of the thing named so utters itself, that, having mastered the name, we have placed ourselves at the central point, from whence best to master everything besides. It is thus with 'Gnostic' and 'Gnosticism'; in the prominence given to gnôsis or knowledge, as opposed to faith, lies the key to the whole system. The Greek Church has loved ever to style itself the Holy 'Orthodox' Church, the Latin, the Holy 'Catholic' Church. Follow up the thoughts which these words suggest. What a world of teaching they contain; above all when brought into direct comparison and opposition one with the other. How does all which is innermost in the Greek and Roman mind unconsciously reveal itself here; the Greek Church regarding as its chief blazon that its speculation is right, the Latin that its empire is universal. Nor indeed is it merely the Greek and Latin Churches which utter themselves here, but Greece and Rome in their deepest distinctions, as these existed from their earliest times. The key to the whole history, Pagan as well as Christian, of each is in these words. We can understand how the one established a dominion in the region of the mind which shall never be overthrown, the other founded an empire in the world whose visible effects shall never be done away. This is an illustrious example; but I am bold to affirm that, in their degree, all parties, religious and political, are known by names that will repay study; by names, to understand which will bring us far to an understanding of their strength and their weakness, their truth and their error, the idea and intention according to which they wrought. Thus run over in thought a few of those which have risen up in England. 'Puritans,' 'Fifth-Monarchy men,' 'Seekers,' 'Levellers,' 'Independents,' 'Friends,' 'Rationalists,' 'Latitudnarians,' 'Freethinkers,' these titles, with many more, have each its significance; and would you get to the heart of things, and thoroughly understand what any of these schools and parties intended, you must first understand what they were called. From this as from a central point you must start; even as you must bring back to this whatever further knowledge you may acquire; putting your later gains, if possible, in subordination to the name; at all events in connexion and relation with it.

You will often be able to glean information from names, such as, if not always important, will yet rarely fail to be interesting and instructive in its way. Thus what a record of inventions, how much of the past history of commerce do they embody and preserve. The 'magnet' has its name from Magnesia, a district of Thessaly; this same Magnesia, or else another like-named district in Asia Minor, yielding the medicinal earth so called. 'Artesian' wells are from the province of Artois in France, where they were long in use before introduced elsewhere. The 'baldachin' or 'baudekin' is from Baldacco, the Italian form of the name of the city of Bagdad, from whence the costly silk of this canopy originally came. [Footnote: [See Devic's Supplement to Littré; the Italian l is an attempt to pronounce the Arabic guttural Ghain. In the Middle Ages Baldacco was often supposed to be the same as 'Babylon'; see Florio's Ital. Dict. (s.v. baldacca).]] The' bayonet' suggests concerning itself, though perhaps wrongly, that it was first made at Bayonne—the 'bilbo,' a finely tempered Spanish blade, at Bilbao—the 'carronade' at the Carron Ironworks in Scotland— 'worsted' that it was spun at a village not far from Norwich— 'sarcenet' that it is a Saracen manufacture—'cambric' that it reached us from Cambray—'copper' that it drew its name from Cyprus, so richly furnished with mines of this metal—'fustian' from Fostat, a suburb of Cairo—'frieze' from Friesland—'silk' or 'sericum' from the land of the Seres or Chinese—'damask' from Damascus—'cassimere' or 'kersemere' from Cashmere—'arras' from a town like-named—'duffel,' too, from a town near Antwerp so called, which Wordsworth has immortalized—'shalloon' from Chalons—'jane' from Genoa—'gauze' from Gaza. The fashion of the 'cravat' was borrowed from the Croats, or Crabats, as this wild irregular soldiery of the Thirty Years' War used to be called. The 'biggen,' a plain cap often mentioned by our early writers, was first worn by the Beguines, communities of pietist women in the Low Countries in the twelfth century. The 'dalmatic' was a garment whose fashion was taken to be borrowed from Dalmatia. (See Marriott.) England now sends her calicoes and muslins to India and the East; yet these words give standing witness that we once imported them from thence; for 'calico' is from Calicut, a town on the coast of Malabar, and 'muslin' from Mossul, a city in Asiatic Turkey. 'Cordwain' or 'cordovan' is from Cordova—'delf' from Delft—'indigo' (indicum) from India—'gamboge' from Cambodia—the 'agate' from a Sicilian river, Achates—the 'turquoise' from Turkey—the 'chalcedony' or onyx from Chalcedon—'jet' from the river Gages in Lycia, where this black stone is found. [Footnote: In Holland's Pliny, the Greek form 'gagates' is still retained, though he oftener calls it 'jeat' or 'geat.'] 'Rhubarb' is a corruption of Rha barbarum, the root from the savage banks of the Rha or Volga—'jalap' is from Jalapa, a town in Mexico—'tobacco' from the island Tobago—'malmsey' from Malvasia, for long a flourishing city in the Morea—'sherry,' or 'sherris' as Shakespeare wrote it, is from Xeres—'macassar' oil from a small Malay kingdom so named in the Eastern Archipelago—'dittany' from the mountain Dicte, in Crete— 'parchment' from Pergamum—'majolica' from Majorca—'faience' from the town named in Italian Faenza. A little town in Essex gave its name to the 'tilbury'; another, in Bavaria, to the 'landau.' The 'bezant' is a coin of Byzantium; the 'guinea' was originally coined (in 1663) of gold brought from the African coast so called; the pound 'sterling' was a certain weight of bullion according to the standard of the Easterlings, or Eastern merchants from the Hanse Towns on the Baltic. The 'spaniel' is from Spain; the 'barb' is a steed from Barbary; the pony called a 'galloway' from the county of Galloway in Scotland; the 'tarantula' is a poisonous spider, common in the neighbourhood of Tarentum. The 'pheasant' reached us from the banks of the Phasis; the 'bantam' from a Dutch settlement in Java so called; the 'canary' bird and wine, both from the island so named; the 'peach' (persica) declares itself a Persian fruit; 'currants' derived their name from Corinth, whence they were mostly shipped; the 'damson' is the 'damascene' or plum of Damascus; the 'bergamot' pear is named from Bergamo in Italy; the 'quince' has undergone so many changes in its progress through Italian and French to us, that it hardly retains any trace of Cydon (malum Cydonium), a town of Crete, from which it was supposed to proceed. 'Solecisms,' if