Here the only term which is not in -er, is, oddly enough, a curt form of the old Saxon webbere, weaver.

In Bristol there is (or was) a street called Tucker Street, in which stood the Hall of the Weaver's Guild, till it was destroyed in making a new road to the railway station. This street is called in mediæval deeds Vicus Fullonum, and the present name is to the same effect. For the word Tucker (anciently Toukere) is equivalent to clothier. In German the common word for cloth is Tuch.

This form is highly verbal in its constitution. It springs up out of almost any verb as naturally as a participle. Thus we make hater, hoper, hopper, runner, talker, thinker, walker, &c. This spontaneity has rather suffered from neglect of its use. The word standers in Troilus and Cressida, iii. 3. 84, is less to be regarded as a noun than as a verbal inflection:

'Tis certaine, greatnesse, once falne out with fortune,
Must fall out with men too: What the declin'd is,
He shall as soone reade in the eyes of others,
As feele in his owne fall: for men, like butter-flies,
Show not their mealie wings but to the Summer :
And not a man for being simply man,

Hath any honour; but honour'd for those honours
That are without him; as place, riches, and fauour,
Prizes of accident as oft as merit:

Which when they fall, as being slippery standers,
The loue that leand on them as slippery too,
Doth one plucke downe another, and together
Dye in the fall.'

escaper.

'And Iehu said, If it be your minds, then let no escaper goe.'- - 2 Kings ix. 15, margin.

Among the signs of reviving interest in early English is to be noted an occasional straggler of this class welcomed back again. The word comer took the place of a Saxon cuma, and though its range was much narrowed by our

adoption of the French stranger, yet it never quite died out. It occurs once in the Bible of 1611, twice in the plays of Shakespeare, and once in the poetical works of Milton. Of late it has been getting more common.

'Christians in general, therefore, would oppose to such a creed as that of the Pall Mall Gazette, not the pretence of conclusions which they can demonstrate against all comers, but strong and deep convictions continually assailed and sometimes agitated by insoluble difficulties.'-J. Llewelyn Davies, The Gospel and Modern Life, p. xiii.

In some instances our nouns in -er, ier, represent the French -ière, as river (rivière), barrier (barrière).

There is another form, -eer, of more limited use, as muleteer, charioteer, pamphleteer, privateer.

This form is sometimes used half-playfully :

fellow-circuiteer.

The enormous gains of my old fellow-circuiteer, Charles Austin, who is said to have made 40,000 guineas by pleading before Parliament in one session.'-Henry Crabb Robinson, Diary, &c., 1818.

-ее. This termination is from the French passive participle.

Examples:-devotee (Spectator, No. 354), guarantee, mortgagee, trustee.

Illustration:

referee.

'In this clamour of antagonistic opinions, history is obviously the sole upright impartial referee.'-J. B. Lightfoot, Philippians, 1868.

The original passive character of the form still shines out in most of the examples; and often there is an active substantive as a counterpart. Thus lessor, lessee; mortgagor, mortgagee.

In -ard. Examples:-bastard, buzzard, coward, dastard,

U

dotard (Spenser, Faerie Queene, iii. 9. 8), drunkard, dullard, haggard (a sort of hawk), laggard, mallard, niggard, pollard, sluggard, standard, tankard (= a little tank, French étang, Latin stagnum), wizard.

Here should be mentioned also two national designations, Spaniard, Savoyard.

Among these must not be included mustard, of the origin of which word the following story has been told:- It is said that the first depôt in Europe for the sale of sinapis was at Dijon, and that the jars were marked with the local motto Moult me tarde, which in French of the fifteenth century meant I am very impatient. And that to the condensation of this motto we owe the noun mustard, which is an anglicism of the French moutarde.

placard.

'Good Lord, how cross and opposite man's conceit to God's, and how contrary our thoughts unto His! For even ad oppositum to this position of His, we see for the most part that even they that are the goers forth seem to persuade themselves that then they may do what they list; that at that time any sin is lawful, that war is rather a placard than an inhibition to sin.'-Lancelot Andrewes, Sermon on Deut. xxiii. 9.

wizard.

And down the wave and in the flame was borne

A naked babe, and rode to Merlin's feet,

Who stoopt and caught the babe, and cried "The King!
Here is an heir for Uther!" And the fringe

Of that great breaker, sweeping up the strand,
Lash'd at the wizard as he spake the word,
And all at once all round him rose in fire,

So that the child and he were clothed in fire:

And presently thereafter followed calm,

Free sky and stars.'-Alfred Tennyson, The Coming of Arthur.

In -ure (Latin -ura, as mensura).

Examples-measure, seizure, suture, treasure (assimilated),

verdure.

Illustration:

closure.

And for his warlike feates renowmed is,

From where the day out of the sea doth spring,
Untill the closure of the Evening.'

Faerie Queene, iii. 3. 27.

In -ise or -ice: after two or three various Latin terminations, but typically from -itia.

Examples covetise (Spenser), cowardice, fool-hardise (Spenser), justice, malice, merchandise, nigardise (Spenser), ' notice, queintise (Chaucer), riotise (Spenser).

gentrise, covetise.

'Wonder it ys sire emperour that noble gentrise

That is so noble and eke y fuld with so fyl couetyse.'

Robert of Gloucester, p. 46.

feyntyse, koyntise ( = quaintise).

'So that atte laste Gurguont was kyng

Stalworthe man and hardy and wys thou3 alle thyng,

Muche thing that ys eldore loren thorw feyntyse,

Thoru strengthe he waun seththe azein and thoru ys koyntise.'

averice, coveytise.

Robert of Gloucester, 39.

This myraclis pleyinge is verre witnesse of mennus averice and coveytise byfore, that is maumetrie, as seith the apostele, for that that thei shulden spendyn upon the nedis of ther nezeboris thei spenden upon the pleyis.'—A Sermon against Miracle-plays, in Mätzner's Altenglische Sprachproben, Pt. II. p. 233.

Franchise was a great word in the French period, and it had a wide range of significations. Among other things it meant privilege, exemption, and also good manners, good breeding, which latter occurs among the numerous renderings of this word in Randle Cotgrave's Dictionarie of the French and English Tongves, 1611.

franchise.

'We mote, he sayde, be hardy and stalworthe and wyse,
3ef we wole habbe oure lyf, and hold our franchise.'

That fro his lust yet were him lever abyde,

Than doon so high a cheerlinch wrecchednesse

Agayns fraunchis of alle gentilesce.'

Chaucer, The Frankeleynes Tale, l. 11828, ed. Tyrwhitt.

malice.

And it is a great subtilty of the devil, so to temper truth and falsehood in the same person, that truth may lose much of its reputation by its mixture with error, and the error may become more plausible by reason of its conjunction with truth. And this we see by too much experience; for we see many truths are blasted in their reputation, because persons whom we think we hate upon just grounds of religion have taught them. And it was plain enough in the case of Maldonat, that said of an explication of a place of Scripture that it was most agreeable to antiquity; but because Calvin had so expounded it, he therefore chose a new one. This was malice.'-Jeremy Taylor, Liberty of Prophesying, xi. 2.

To this class belonged the French word pentice or pentise, of which the last syllable had been already before Shakspeare's time anglicised into 'house,' making a sort of a compound, pent-house.

We must admit into this set such words as prejudice, service, and we cannot make the Latin termination -itium a ground of distinction in English philology, where words are assimilated in form.

In the sixteenth century these words were often written with a z. No variety of sense or even of sound appears to have been connected with this orthography. It was mere fashion. As y was a fashionable substitute for i, and as it was modish to elongate words by a final e, so also with the z as a substitute for s. Queen Elizabeth wrote her name with a z, and that alone was an influential example. In some cases the fashion disappeared and left no traces