P. 234.

To LONG or BELONG. Lelang. ALONG on: LONG of: ALONG with. The distinction between the two senses of the word ALONG, (or rather of the two words,) as shown. in the passage from Gower,

"I tary forth the night ALONGE,

For it is nought on me ALONGE
To slepe,"

is attributed by Mr. Tooke wholly to the difference of their prefixes, as being respectively the representatives of Andlang and Lelang. He refers the LANG or LONG in the latter as well as in the former to Lengian, To make long, lengthen. It seems to me however that in these words, thus written alike, the second syllable in each is as entirely distinct in meaning and origin as the prefix. "To slepe is nought on me alonge." We shall in vain, I think, attempt to make out any relation to the notion of length, here, any more than in the word BELONG, which word also, it is remarkable that Junius does not notice, and Skinner merely says of it, "a Teut. Belangen, Anlangen." I conclude therefore that the root to which Lelang is to be referred is not Lengian, To lengthen, but LANGEN, pertinere, for which see Wachter. From this we have also, in Kilian, " Belangh, Verlangh, necessitas, res necessaria, res momentosa,-Een saecke van groot verlangh;" and "Belanghen, pertinere :"-in Schilter, " Gilengido, affinitates; Gilanger, propinquus ;" and, in Ten Kate, vol. ii. p. 84 and 261, "Belang, Gelang, quod alicui quid refert :Belangen, spectare ad aliquid ;" to which he refers the termination LING; the idea conveyed in all of which is that of close and intimate connection, and not at all of longitudinal dimension. Of the termination LING Somner says, "adjuncti cui additur notat subjectum," as in Foundling, Hireling, Duckling, Nestling, Firstling, Groundling, Fatling, Sapling, Worldling, indicating that the quality or circumstance closely belongs to the subject'. That Cling and Clench may be con

1 "LING oritur a langen, spectare, pertinere, et hinc, substantivis annexum, ex substantivo suppositum facit personale, et quodvis subjectum denominationis, quatenus subjectum, illud ad substantivum sub aliqua ratione pertinere creditur." And, "Ex adjectivo facit substantivum, ea qualitate præditum cui annectitur." Wachter, Prolegom. Sect. vi. e. g. Youngling, Darling. See also Grimm, ii. 352, and 356 for adverbs in lings:-Scotch, Blindlins, Scantlins; and Darkling, Milton.

nected with this root as intensitives, I would only submit as a hasty conjecture; and Fling and Sling in a contrary sense. Our early writers frequently use Long as a verb, without the prefix Be, in the sense of pertain. So Chaucer :

"That appertaineth and longeth all onely to the judges."

Tale of Melibeus. Along, in the sense of length, was formerly written Alonsgt. And it is to be remarked that Along, when the representative of Lelang, is always followed by on, upon, at, of, or the Noun in the genitive case, as in "on preorte gelang:"

"æt þe ir une lif gelang." Our life is along at Thee. -"hit is at Loder dome gelang."-"Which was upon the kynge alonge."-Gower. " 're dɲinca hir gelang."-Oros. 5. 8. Along with should seem also to be from Langen, pertinere, as well as Along of, and to have no relation to Length. Latimer and Ridley were sentenced along with Cranmer. "And he to England shall along with you."- Hamlet, iii. 3. Johnson, explaining the expression in Pope "Come along," by onward, absurdly derives it from the French Allons. Richardson gives Along and Belong as verbs, in the sense of To lengthen; but with no instances of either in that sense none, I should think, exist. He also gives the following senses of Belong To reach, To attain, To appertain: the last being the only real one-the others imagined, merely to make out a supposed etymology. The other senses of Langen mentioned by Wachter, are trahere, expetere, prolongare, porrigere, tangere, and, metaphorically as he supposes, pervenire, from which he would derive the sense, pertinere but the connection seems very remote and doubtful, and a confusion of the agent with the object.

:

P. 243.

ABOUT.—Mr. Tooke seems to have gone astray in his account of this word; and very strangely, as its history seems tolerably clear. He appears to have been put on a wrong scent by Spelman, who derives it from the French Bout and Abouter; and overlooking Skinner's derivation of it, which he quotes, and Junius's, which he omits, he says, in p. 243, Spelman, Junius, Skinner, and Menage all resort to FrancoGall. for their etymology." This is certainly not true with regard to Junius and Skinner, however some of the passages

as quoted by him from them may have this appearance. What is given from Junius relates to a different word, 'BUT, Scopus,' and has no reference to ABOUT; his account of which, being omitted by Mr. Tooke, I here insert:

"ABOUT, circum, circa. A.-Saxones abutan vel abuton dicebant; quæ videri possunt facta ex illo embe utan quod occurrit Marc. 14. 47; An of dam þe þaɲ embe utan stodon, Unus ex circumstantibus. Vide tamen Spelmanni

Glossarium in Abuttare."

Skinner, as will be seen in the first quotation from him, (p. 242.) which is the whole of what he says upon the word ABOUT, derives it unhesitatingly from A.-S. abutan, ymbutan. The other passages which Mr. Tooke quotes from Skinner treat of ABUTT and BUT, which he derives from the FrancoGall. BOUT, and have no reference whatever to ABOUT.

Skinner errs in compounding Abutan of the Latin preposition Ab and the Saxon utan; for analogy obviously leads us to consider the A as a contraction of the Saxon On (as Again, ongean; Away, on peg; Aback, on bæc, &c.) and it is sometimes written with On, which requires butan, and not utan. The word is found in the following forms: onbutan, onbuton, abutan, abuton; embe utan, embutan, ymbeutan, ỳmbutan, ýmbuton; all orthographical variations of two, onbutan and ÿmbutan; and these, though really distinct words, as being compounds of butan and utan with the distinct prepositions On and Ym or Ymbe, yet seem to have coalesced in the course of time, not greatly differing in sense or sound, to form our present word ABOUT, which is the representative of both. Of this I think no one will doubt who attends to the idiomatic features in which it exactly resembles its progenitors, as the following phrases of King Alfred and the

The tendency of similar words to coalesce in the course of time, and from being confounded in popular use, is one of the phænomena of language to be noticed: For example mystery (uvorýpiov), and mistere, ministerium, maisterie, mestiero, métier, an art or craft:-the French Isle, Ital. Isola, Lat. Insula, confounded with Island, (properly Iland) A.-S. Ealond, Eitland. So Unter and Inter, Beorn and Bearn. Thus has Weremuth been transformed into Wormwood, Σrapis ȧypia into Stavesacre; Febrifugium into Featherfew; Frithborg into Friborg, out of which mistake grew the word Frankpledge; Knave converted into Nativus, &c.

Saxon Chronicle will show: feoɲɲan ymbuτon, far about; þæɲ ỳmbutan, thereabouts; non ymbutan, north about: ruð ýmbutan, south about.

With regard to Onboda, I cannot imagine where Mr. Tooke got it, or how it could be connected with ABOUT. [Having thus called in question the reality of this word in the edition of 1829, I had supposed that it would not again be cited without some proof that it had an existence; but Mr. Richardson, in his lately published Dictionary, under the words About and Abut, still refers us to "Abuta, Onbuta, Onboda; Boda, the first outward extremity or boundary of anything;" all of which are, so far as I can find, mere creatures of the imagination, or of some mistake. Mr. M'Culloch, also, in his Grammar, 1835, refers to this fictitious Saxon "Abuta, the verge or extremity of a thing." It is to be regretted that those who claim credit for founding new grammars and dictionaries on the principles of Mr. Tooke, should make them the means of diffusing and perpetuating all his errors in detail.

I find that the subject is sometimes interposed between the two prepositions, as in King Alfred's Orosius, b. 1. ch. 1. p. 22. Of þæm lande pe ýmb hỳ utan pæɲan." Of the lands that round them about were. ymb liðan utan, circumnavigare. And so the Icelandic description of the annular eclipse of August 5, 1263, in Haco's Expedition, ed. Johnstone, p. 44: "Sva at lítill hringr var biartur um sólina utan." So that a little ring was bright about the sun or, round the sun about."Ymb þa runnan utan." Bed. 645, 22.-Utan-ýmb sometimes occurs for ymb-utan.-I confess I do not understand the ground of Mr. Grimm's question (Grammat. iii. 265,) as to the import of the a in about, considering the analogy of similar words compounded with on.

P. 247.

DOWN, ADOWN.-Mr. Tooke shows clearly that his predecessors had entirely failed in their endeavours to investigate the origin of this Preposition; and gives a new and ingenious conjecture, in the absence of any thing satisfactory.

I have given in the Note to p. 247 what occurred to me, whilst employed upon that part of the work, as the true explanation of this preposition which has so much puzzled our etymologists. The most perplexing questions sometimes admit

of a very simple solution. We must return for its origin to our substantive Down, A.-S. Dune, a hill. Those indeed who looked to this source had been so much at a loss how to connect a preposition signifying depression with a substantive which denoted elevation, that the question must have seemed to Mr. Tooke quite open for fresh conjecture'. When, however, I met with Of dune in Anglo-Saxon, no doubt remained that the mystery was solved, and that all the obscurity had been occasioned by the disappearance of the particle prefixed. There is no need therefore any longer to torture Dune or Down, and to make it appear to signify the reverse of that which it really means, a hill; for as Of dune means Off or From Hill, it must imply Descent; and Down is only put for Adown or Opdune by an elision of the prefix. As aduna, adune, with their compounds, are also found, we can have no doubt that the A in this case has arisen from the Op rapidly pronounced'; and instead of Adown being from a and the preposition down, as Dr. Johnson tells us, the fact is just the reverse,—Down is contracted from Adown or Adune, and Adune is from Of dune1.

As the instances which I have as yet found of the use of Of dune are but six, of which Lye gives references only to five, and those dispersed under different heads, and, unlike his general practice, without the context, I have thought it might be satisfactory if I furnished the reader with the following:

Under Ordune, Deorsum, Lye only refers us to Of and Dun. "Of. Of. De."—" OF þam munte." "Of heofonum. De cœlo." "Of bune. Deorsum; Oros. 3. 5. Boet. 25.”

Conjecture cannot supersede historical fact; and it ought never to be adopted in etymology, unless to explain those words of which the existence precedes record. Mr. Tooke, who had more intellect than northern lore, frequently advances a rash though always an ingenious conjecture: but Mr. Richardson pursues the same untracked course with still less caution, and often connects (like Mr. Whiter in his Etymologicon) words as obviously distinct in pedigree as a negro and a white." -Monthly Review, for Jan. 1817, N. S. vol. lxxxii. p. 86.

CASA.

So in the case of "De chez," p. 162, where chez is the substantive

3 Thus Ashamed from offceamos; Athirst from orðýpste; apinchep from orpinchep, Layam.

4 So Declivis, from de and clivus.