"Incredibile prope dictu est," says Freigius in the life of Ramus, "sed tamen verum, et editis libris proditum, in Parisiensi Academia doctores extitisse, qui mordicus tuerentur ac defenderent, Ego amat, tam commodam orationem esse, quam Ego amo, ad eamque pertinaciam comprimendam consilio publico opus fuisse." The Sorbonne and the Faculty of Theology at Oxford joined in levelling their ecclesiastical thunders against such a grammatical heresy. This absurdity, as a general doctrine, took its rise from two passages in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, in the prophecies of Isaiah and Malachi, where the Deity is made to speak of himself by the pronoun of the first person singular, joined to the verb of the third singular, and by the pronoun of the first person singular with a noun in the plural number in apposition. Our translators have wisely not attempted to inoculate this Hebraism on our English idiom, if indeed it be a Hebraism. May it not be considered as a usage confined to that Being in which all persons and all things are comprehended, and in reference to human powers of discrimination, confounded? On grounds somewhat similar, the compilers of our Liturgy have chosen to commence the Lord's Prayer, "Our Father, which art in heaven," rather than who: a point on which there has been much controversy; but, in my opinion, the rendering of the Liturgy has sound judgment on its side. Ego addet, the Latin translation of the Hebrew, may be reduced to common grammar by considering the phrase as strongly elliptical: Ego sum ille; then, qui addam, or, qui addet, will be rendered equally amenable to general syntax. Domini ego is rather more stub born, and hardly borne out by the resource of an ellipse: but obscurity on an incomprehensible subject is not only excusable, but a mode of the sublime; and however difficult, or even impossible it may be to construe the expression without a solecism, its spirit seems tantamount to the assertion, "There are none other gods but me." The phrase, verba dare, is used in a peculiar sense, refining on the first and obvious bearing of the words, as in the following line of Ovid: Verba dat omnis amor, reperitque alimenta morando. The following passage of Ausonius refers to the historical origin of the epithet tacitæ, applied by Virgil to Amycle. It reminds one of the fable and the proverb about calling wolf. The city had been so often and so causelessly alarmed by the cry, "The enemy is coming," that any such announcement was constituted a high crime and misdemeanor. The enemy did come; the law was duly obeyed, and the city taken: Ac velut baliis habites taciturnus Amyclis, In the second line Harpocrates is meant, the name being etymological, from σιγάω and λεώς, He is mentioned as a god in connection with Isis and Osiris, and was worshipped among the Lares, to inculcate the moral, that family secrets ought to be kept. Macrobius, on Scipio's Dream, lib. ii. cap. 1., endeavours to explain the doctrine of Pythagoras respecting the music of the spheres. Here we find the rudiments of modern harmonics, and the system of concords and discords on arithmetical principles: -" Hemiolius est, cum de duobus numeris major habet totum minorem, et insuper ejus medietatem; ut sunt tria ad duo. nam in tribus sunt duo, et media pars eorum, id est, unum. et ex hoc numero, qui hemiolius dicitur, nascitur sympnonia, quæ appellatur à Évre." Here surely is an διὰ πέντε. approach to those arithmetical proportions of first, third, and fifth, on which the system of thorough bass is founded in modern music as a practical art. There seems also, in the passage just quoted, an obscure hint of a major and minor key. Oscines, Varro tells us, are "Aves ore et cantu auspicium facientes." From óxos, soot, or the black and thick substance produced by smoke, comes the adjective Voλóevres, as used in the following passage: "Exasov Εκαςον δὲ τούτων, καλασκῆψαν εἰς τὴν γῆν, σκηπτὸς ὀνομάζεται. τῶν δὲ κεραυνῶν, οἱ μὲν αἰθαλώδεις, ψολόεντες λέγονται· οἱ δὲ ταχέως διάττοντες, ἀργῆτες· ἑλικίαι δὲ, οἱ γραμμοειδῶς φερόμενοι. Arist. Lib. de Mundo. The Greek word yúpos signifies a small mass of flesh of a round figure. Hence a frog is called yugivos at the commencement of its generation, as being a shapeless black lump, with no parts distinctly indicated but two large eyes and a tail. Thus Plato in Theæteto : — Ἵνα μεγαλοπρεπῶς καὶ πανὺ καταφρονητικῶς ἤρξατο ἡμῖν λέγειν· ἐνδεικνύμενος ὅτι ἡμεῖς μὲν αὐτὸν ὥσπερ θεὸν ἐθαυμάζομεν ἐπὶ σοφία, ὁ δ ̓ ἄρα ἐτύγχανεν ὢν εἰς φρόνησιν οὐδὲν βελτίων βατράχου γυρίνου, μὴ ὅτι ἄλλου του ἀνθρώπων· We see here why γυρίνοι came to signify, in a metaphorical sense, fools and stupid per sons. There were two Greek words, συμβολὴ and σύμ boλov, both from the same compound verb. The Pythagoric symbols were certain pointed and short sentences, often obscure and enigmatical, employed as means of instruction by Pythagoras. The word afterwards came to signify the payment of a person's scot, or quota of a reckoning, whence our legal term of paying scot and lot, meaning parochial payments, which give a title to the rights and privileges of a parishioner. This compound phrase sometimes assumes the proverbial sense of a sound drubbing: as when Falstaff says, that if he had not counterfeited, that hot termagant Scot would have paid him scot and lot too. In the following passage symbola, not symbolum, is used for a reckoning: Phædrum, aut Cliniam Dicebant, aut Niceratum; nam hi tres tum simul Amabant. "Eho! quid Pamphilus ?" "Quid? symbolam Dedit; cœnavit." Gaudebam. Terent. in Andria. Pamphilus supped, and paid his reckoning. The word is used in another sense for a badge, or rallying point, for persons of the same party; conformably to which, it is applied to regimental colours, to a royal or national standard. Zuμbox also, but not σúμboλov, takes the signification of a conference or parley, and of comparison. It is also synonymous with a type, in the scriptural sense of the latter word. The goddesses presiding over fate and fortune are etymologised by Pomp. Festus in the following terms: Tenitæ credebantur esse sortium deæ, dictæ quod tenendi haberent potestatem." The Tubilustria was the day of benediction at Rome for the trumpets dedicated to sacrifices:"Tubilustria dies appellabant in quibus agna tubas lustrabant. Tubilustria quibus diebus adscriptum in fastis est, cum in atrio sutorio agna tubæ lustrantur, ab eis tubos appellant, quod genus lustrationis ex Arcadia Pallanteo transvectum esse dicunt.". Pomp. Fest. Proxima Vulcani lux es; Tubilustria dicunt: Ovid. Fast. lib. v: |