"awfully" are really almost elbowing the legitimate significations out of countenance and out of use. To use "awful" in its proper sense is to lay oneself open, if not to misapprehension, at least to bad puns and foolish jests. What, for instance, would modern slangy talkers and degraders of words make of Keats's line in "Isabel:

His heart beat awfully against his side, or Keble's:

Towards the East our awful greetings

Are wafted.

bler ranks of society. The young lady in Dickens who "couldn't abear the men, they were such deceivers," Tennyson's northern farmer, who "couldn abear to see it," and the old lady who "can't abide these newfangled ways" might all be said to speak vulgarly, as fashion of speech now goes. But "abear" and "abide," although not now generally used by educated people, are words that have seen better days. It is only in comparatively recent years that they have been condemned as vulgar. "Abear," in the sense of to endure or to suffer, was good English in the days of King Alfred, and for centuries after. Like many other good old English has found a home in the dialects; and words, exiled by culture from London, it there are few provincial forms of English element. To "abide," in its now vulgar speech in which "abear" is not a familiar sense, is not quite so old as "abear," but is still of respectable antiquity. A character in "Faire Em," one of the plays of doubtful authorship sometimes attrib uted to Shakespeare, says, "I cannot abide physic." Drayton makes a curious "holocaust" of victims in cases where past tense of it: "He would not have the devouring element has had no share aboad it." The word can hardly yet be whatever in the catastrophe described. Isaid to have entirely dropped out of litIt is in the manufacture of new and unnecessary verbs, by the mangling or twist-erary use, for Sir Arthur Helps, in the first chapter of his book on "Animals and their Masters," remarks that “ can't abide pamphlets in these days." People

There are some poor words that have become so familiar to newspaper readers in their depraved significations, that they are now hardly noticed. The verb "transpire" is the best known of these. "Ovation" is another word daily degraded from its proper place in the language; and although the verb "to ovate" is not yet naturalized among us, its introduction is only too probably, alas, a mere question of time. In sensational descriptions of great disasters we too often read of a

ing of innocent substantives that some writers do most offend. A contributor to Bentley's Miscellany, nearly thirty years ago, wrote of some one whom, "as men said, the Nonconformists ambitioned to send into Parliament." This ugly verb, although it also occurs earlier in a letter of Horace Walpole's, has happily not yet become popularized. A journalist wishing to state that some important personage was waited on by a deputation, has been known to write that the said personage was "deputated " by his visitors. In the favorite newspaper of a certain religious body, local leaders of the organization are constantly said to be "farewelling," when they are transferred from one sphere

of work to another. But the list need

hardly be prolonged. This form of the depravation of words is too common to have escaped the notice of any reader who preserves some respect for his native tongue,

"To ax," for ask, is undoubtedly nowabut it really represents the earliest form days degraded to the rank of a vulgarism, of the word, and was in regular literary use for centuries, until it was supplanted by "ask," which had formerly been simply

a current form in the northern dialect. To "ax" still survives in the dialects of midland and southern England. So that when a lady of the Sairey Gamp school 'axes yer pardon for makin' so bold," she is using a verb that was literary English from the days of Chaucer and earlier to nearly the end of the sixteenth century. Coverdale's translation of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, published in 1535, has " Axe and it shal be given you." Wiclif, earlier, has the same spelling. By the recognized form, and "axe" does not Shakespeare's time "ask had become appear in any of the earlier editions of his plays.

Another example of the survival in dialect of a word or phrase once in literary use is to be found in the expression to be "shut of," meaning to be rid of. This is still very commonly heard in the northern parts of England, but could hardly now be

Here the words seem to have a slight flavor of the later restricted meaning. But the earlier and better signification is more plainly seen in Udall's use of the phrase. The reference was obviously to propor

used in either prose or verse having any pretension to literary form. It is to be found in a variety of our older writers; in the pamphlets of Nashe and in the "Holy War" of Bunyan. An example may be given from Massinger's "Unnatural Com-tion and a sense of what was fitting and bat: "7

We are shut of him,

He will be seen no more here.

at a com

appropriate, derived by analogy from the operations of a builder or designer.

In the course of its downhill career a of form as well as of meaning. Occasionword often undergoes some slight change stance of this is the word "peach." This ally it casts a syllable. A curious inis an aphetized form of the verb " "apthe fifteenth till about the middle of the peach." The latter word was in use from seventeenth century; and side by side

Yet another word that has undergone depravation is to "square "in the sense of to quarrel. In the newspaper reports of police-court cases one may read how some offender "squared up panion or at the police, but the phrase is pretty certain to be marked off as slangy by the use of inverted commas. But" to square " in a quarrelsome sense is very form " old and respectable English. An excellent example of its literary use is to be charge:

with it there existed the now familiar peach." Both meant to accuse or

found in the exquisite poetry of the "Mid-Now, by mine honor, by my life, by my troth, summer Night's Dream." In the second I will appeach the villain, act of that delightful play, Puck, describing the quarrel between Oberon and

Titania, says:

And now they never meet in grove or green,
By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,
But they do square, that all their elves for
fear

Creep into acorn-cups and hide them there.

"On the square "is a phrase now seldom heard save amongst those who, in their own language, live or work "on the cross." They know and use the phrase, but take care not to put it into practice, for, as Freeman says in the old play of the 66 'Plain Dealer: "Telling truth is a quality as prejudicial to a man that would thrive in the world as square play to a cheat.' The cheat likes to have the square play on the side of his pigeons, for the process of plucking is greatly facilitated by conduct like that of Ingoldsby's "Black Mousquetaire," who

When gambling his worst, always played on the square.

66

99

cries York in the last act of "Richard II."
As "appeach" went out of use
began to undergo depravation.

peach

A curious example of the word in its transition state is to be found in "Hudibras," a great repertory of seventeenthcentury vulgarisms. In the lines :

Make Mercury confesse and peach Those thieves which he himself did teach, although its primary signification is evidently to accuse, yet the word seems to have half a reference to its modern colloquial sense. In another fifty years

66

peach "had almost descended to its present level, and was used much as it is to-day. Arbuthnot, in the appendix to his satire of "John Bull," 1712, a work which contains a great many colloquialisms, says that a certain euphoniously named Ptschirnsooker "came off, as rogues usually do upon such occasions, by peaching his partner; and being extremely forward to bring him to the gallows, Jack was accused as the contriver of all the roguery." AnThis modern limitation of the phrase is other remarkable feature in the history of simply a depravation of an older and this word is that with "appeach " and wider meaning which was long current "peach a third form was simultaneously in literature. Udall's sixteenth-century in use. Caxton, in his translations, introtranslation of the Apophthegms of duced the word "empeche," a much betErasmus has "out of square." The sense ter representative than "appeach" of the of a certain passage, says the translator, old French original empechier, although will not be out of square if one particular Caxton took his word not from this but signification of a Greek vocable be pre- from the contemporary French verb emferred to another. In Chapman's version pescher. In the altered form of "im. of the Odyssey are the lines: peach" the word is still retained in use. It is a case of the survival of the fittest. Of the three rival forms, one died out altogether, another underwent depravation

66

I see, the gods to all men give not all
Manly addiction; wisedome; words that fall
(Like dice) upon the square still.

and is now a familiar item in the slang of the criminal classes, while the third still flourishes and retains its original meaning.

Many other instances of the decline and fall of words might be given. Such expressions as to "make bones of," to "fadge," to "knock off," to "cut," in the sense of "to run off," and "along of," meaning on account of," were all for merly in constant literary use. The proc ess is a natural one, and depravation of this kind will always be going on. It is not possible to prevent it, but it is possible, unfortunately, to hasten it; and this is constantly being done by the slangy tone, the loose habit of colloquially twisting and misapplying words, that pervade so much of modern speech. It is a case of "giving a dog a bad name." If once a slang meaning or application be tacked on to an innocent word, the tendency is for the looser and more depraved meaning to oust the original and correct signifi

cation out of colloquial use, and finally out of both spoken and written language.

It is, of course, possible to go too far in the opposite direction, and by too great a conservatism to impede the natural progress of the language, to restrict its growth and stunt its development. This was the tendency during the greater part of the eighteenth century. But there is little fear nowadays, and indeed but little possibility, of thus hindering the free play of the language. The danger lies, as has been pointed out, in the opposite direc tion. Englishmen are justly proud of their noble literature, a literature second to none that the world has seen, and it is surely not unreasonable to protest against wanton and unnecessary depravation of the vehicle by which that literary heritage has been handed down to us, and through which many and glorious additions are being and will be made thereto, for the instruction and delight of future ages. GEORGE L. APPERSON.

In time

- they (Black "Seidaran

THE BLACK WATCH. Not many of those | knew no mode of life but that of war.
who have of late years watched with interest
the brilliant services of the oldest Highland
regiment have ever attached any meaning to
its second title, "The Black Watch." Yet
in these words are contained the story of its
origin and much of the romantic associations
of its early days. In the first quarter of the
eighteenth century, when Rob Roy held the
position of "uncrowned king" of the 1High-
lands north of Loch Lomond, and when the
proudest nobles had no scruple in entering
into secret agreements with this robber chief,
the state of the Borderlands was such that
"sober people were obliged to purchase some
security to their effects by shameful and igno-
minious contracts of blackmail." In every
district was some Highland bandit who called
himself the "captain of the watch," and whose
followers were known by that name. With
him a go-between communicated, and such as
wished to deal with this wild insurance com-
pany paid the stipulated sum, while those who
declined those irregular contracts had to find
their own protection. The significance of the
title "Watch" was twofold. Their duties
were to see that those who paid were not mo-
lested, and to make it certain that those who
refused the stipend should be plundered with-
out fail. Thus these corps throughout the
Highlands became a recognized institution, and
comprised in all a considerable body of men,
who were inured to every hardship, and who

the Duke of Montrose and others pressed upon
the government the necessity of taking the
control of the country out of the hands of
these lawless tax-gatherers, and it was conse-
quently determined to enrol from among the
Highlanders themselves certain bands of
frontier police. Accordingly in the year 1729
a number of loyal Highlanders were formed
into six independent companies, and the offi-
cers were taken chiefly from the clans Camp-
bell, Grant, and Munro.
To these, as a
matter of course, the local name of "Watch"
descended, and as they continued to wear the
dress of the country-which consisted so
much of black, blue, and green tartan
were soon known as "Freicudan Du ""
Watch), in contradistinction to
Dearag," or red soldiers. Ten years later,
when England was agitated by the question
whether the Spaniards had or had not cut off
an ear from the head of the smuggler Captain
Jenkins, and when it was resolved that the
matter was to be decided by a war instead of
ocular demonstration, King George II. issued
a royal warrant incorporating the six compa-
nies of the Black Watch into a regiment, and
gave the command to Colonel John Earl of
Crawford. In the month of May following,
these companies, with four others newly
raised, were assembled in a field between
Taybridge and Aberfeldy, and constituted
into the Highland regiment.

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