Book: Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860




Mr. Fisher treats of the "Law of the Territories" in two essays,--the
first considering more particularly "The Territories and the
Constitution," the second, "Popular Sovereignty in the Territories." The
first commences with a quotation so happy that it has all the effect of
original wit:--

"The wily and witty Talleyrand was once
asked the meaning of the word 'non-intervention,'
so often used in European diplomacy.
'It is a word,' he replied, 'metaphysical and
political, not accurately defined, but which
means--much the same thing as intervention!'
The same word has been frequently
employed, of late years, in our politics, with
the same difference between its professed
and its practical signification. It was introduced
for the first time in reference to the
government of the Territories, when it became
an object for the South to gain Kansas as a
Slave State. Two obstacles were to be overcome.
One was the Missouri Compromise,
which was a solemn compact between North
and South to settle a disturbing and dangerous
question; the other was a possible majority
in Congress, that, it was feared, might prohibit
slavery in the new Territory. Southern
politicians had at the time control of the government;
and they got rid of both difficulties
by repealing the Missouri Compromise in the
Kansas and Nebraska Bill. By necessary implication,
arising from the relation of the Territories
to the rest of the nation, by the language
of the Constitution, and by the uniform
construction of it and practice under it from
the earliest period of our history, the Territories
had been subjected to the absolute control
of the General Government. By the Kansas
and Nebraska Bill they were withdrawn
from that control. The principle of Popular
Sovereignty, it was said, applied to them as
well as to the States; and this bill declared
that the people of the Territories should be
perfectly free to choose their own domestic
institutions and regulate their own affairs in
their own way."

The means employed to carry out this plan and the ultimate failure of
the plan itself are sketched with a boldness and vigor that our limits,
much to our regret, forbid our reproducing. Mr. Fisher, however, fails
to notice the wretched plea put forth by the Democratic managers,
in favor of the recognition by Congress of the Lecompton
Constitution,--that it had been officially authenticated. All might be
wrong, but the official record pronounced it right; and behind that
record Congress had no authority to go. And this plea was advanced in
the face of overwhelming evidence tending to show that the officials,
for whose record so inviolable a sanctity was claimed, were appointed
for the express purpose of falsifying that record! If confirmation be
wanted, we need go no farther than the fate of Robert J. Walker, who was
eager to make Kansas a Slave State, but was so false to every principle
of Democratic integrity as to confine himself to legitimate means to
bring about that result,--a remissness for which he was promptly removed
by President Buchanan! Mr. Fisher pertinently says,--

"Two great facts were plainly visible through the flimsy web of attorney
logic and quibbling technicality, not very ingeniously woven to conceal
them. One of these facts was, that the people of Kansas were heartily
and almost unanimously averse to slavery; the other was, that the
Government was trying by every means in its power to impose slavery upon
them."

After describing the contemptuous rejection by the people of Kansas of
the pro-slavery constitution, Mr. Fisher proceeds with an analysis of
the Kansas-Nebraska fraud, so clear and so masterly that we must again
quote his own language, with an occasional condensation or omission.

"It was clear, therefore, that the principle of Popular Sovereignty,
introduced by the Kansas and Nebraska Bill, a principle before unknown
to the law and practice of our government, would not suit the South.
It appeared too probable that not only the people to inhabit all the
territory north of 36 deg. 30', but also much territory south of it, would,
like the people of Kansas, reject slavery, if left to regulate their
domestic institutions in their own way. What, then, were Southern
politicians to do? Invoke the ancient and long exercised, but now denied
and derided power of Congress over the Territories? This might prove a
dangerous weapon in the hands of possible future Northern majorities. It
was obviously necessary to withdraw slavery alike from the control of
Congress and of the people of a Territory. Some ingenuity was required
for this. The doctrine that the Constitution extends to the Territories
(a doctrine broached before by Mr. Calhoun, but always defeated on the
ground that the Constitution, by its language and the practice under it,
was made for States only, and that the Territories were subject to the
supreme control of Congress,--a control frequently exercised, not only
independently of the Constitution, but in a manner incompatible with it)
was introduced, with other innovations, into the Kansas and Nebraska
Bill. The Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court followed, by which
the Constitution recognizes slavery as a national institution. It
recognizes slaves as mere property, differing in no respect from other
merchandise. The Territories belong to the nation. Every citizen has
equal rights to them and in them. Why, therefore, may not a Southern
man, as well as a Northern man, go into them with his _property_? What
right has Congress to place the South under an ignominious bar of
restriction? The Constitution declares that slaves are property; that
all the States and the people have equal rights. The Territories belong
to all. Therefore, under the Constitution, they should be enjoyed by
all.

"By this ingenious logic the Kansas and Nebraska Bill is made to
contradict itself. It first declares that the Constitution extends to
the Territories; in other words, slavery exists there by force of the
Constitution, without reference to the will of the people. It then says
that the people of the Territories shall be 'perfectly free to form and
regulate their domestic institutions in their own way.'

"The contradictions, duplicity, and absurdity of the law are obvious at
once. The first sentence announces a change in the settled principles
and policy of the Government; else why declare that the Constitution
'_shall_' extend to Nebraska, if it already extended there? Then comes
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The reason given for this is,
that it is inconsistent with the non-intervention by Congress with
slavery, recognized in the Compromise of 1850. But that law declares
positively that Congress does not intervene, _because it is
'inexpedient'_ to do so; and gives the reason why it is inexpedient. The
_power_ of Congress _was asserted_ by Mr. Clay, who made the law, and
the terms of it were chosen for the very purpose of preventing any
inference being drawn from it against that power.

"It is remarkable, too, that the Bill, whilst declaring the _perfect_
freedom of the Territories, should still have left them subject to the
power of the President, who, as before, is permitted to appoint their
Governor, Judges, and Marshals, officers who are his agents, and without
whose sanction the acts of the Territorial Legislature can neither
become laws, nor be construed and applied, nor executed. So that the
will of the people may be defeated, should it happen to be opposed to
the will of the President: as was seen in the case of Kansas.

"Why," Mr. Fisher asks, "is the anomalous monster of Popular Sovereignty
to be introduced with reference to slavery? Is it because slaves are
'mere property'? Why, then, not subject all property, land included, to
popular control? Is it because the subject of slavery is an exciting
topic, a theme for dangerous agitation, to be checked only by placing
the subject beyond the power of Congress? The answer is, that Congress
cannot abdicate its power on the ground of expediency. If it may give up
one power, it may give up all. Nor can Congress delegate its power for
the same reason. Trust power, from its very nature, cannot be delegated.
To break down great principles, to set aside ancient usage, to abandon
legal authority, in order to appease the contests of parties, is too
great a sacrifice. No true peace can come of it; only suppressed and
adjourned war."

The natural inference from the extracts we have given would be that Mr.
Fisher was a member of the Republican party. But such is not the fact:
Mr. Fisher rests his hope upon a party "yet to be organized." "The
extreme Northern, or Free-soil, or Abolition party is only less guilty
than the extreme Southern and Democratic party." Which? Does Mr. Fisher
mean that "Northern," "Free-soil," and "Abolition" are synonymous terms?
And does any or do all of them mean the Republican party? Or, finally,
does Mr. Fisher shrink from the conclusions presented by his logic, and
is his vaguely convenient linking together of different words intended
to leave his position gracefully doubtful? And in that case, do the
Baltimore nominations, with their innocent unconsciousness, supply his
political needs? It is not easy to answer these questions. We begin now
upon the views of a Pennsylvania Oppositionist; and quicksilver defied
not more utterly the skill of Raymond Lullius than the doctrines of the
Philadelphia school perplex the inquiries of sharply defined New England
minds. The rudimentary state of Republican principles may nowhere else
be so clearly seen as in Pennsylvania. Four years of the Democratic
administration of her "favorite son" have done much to make her less
favored sons into good Republicans; but the State needs another
Democratic President. Mr. Fisher appears to much more advantage in
pulling down than in building up. We have hitherto seen only the keen,
fearless dissector of fraud and hypocrisy; we are now to contemplate a
circumspect alarmist, who dreads to call things by their right names
for fear of unpleasant consequences. He is such a master of English,
so judicious in the use of middle terms,--so shrewd a fencer
altogether,--that even his timidity cannot make him other than a
formidable opponent.

Mr. Fisher, believing that slavery receives ample protection from a fair
interpretation of the Constitution, holds that

"Congress has plenary power over the Territories, often exercised on
this subject of slavery. It may be said that Congress has on various
occasions prohibited slavery in the Territories. True; but with the
consent and cooeperation of the Southern States. The people of all the
States have equal right in the Territories. To exclude the people of the
Slave States, therefore, _without their consent_, would be unequal and
opposed to the spirit of the Constitution."

Certainly it would. Who proposes to do it? No living man, woman, or
child. It is worth noticing, by the way, that the Republican party is
not committed to the doctrine of carrying out the principle of the
Wilmot Proviso. But supposing it were, Mr. Fisher's argument has
no force or direction, unless he can establish his suppressed
premise,--that the exclusion of slavery from the Territories is the
exclusion of "the people of the Slave States" from the Territories.
And to make that good, all Mr. Fisher's skill and ingenuity will
be required. Why so many Northern politicians should have weakly
surrendered this point is a mystery. Because the slaveholders (who are
not, Mr. Fisher, "the people of the Slave States," by any means, but a
small portion of them) are at home a privileged aristocracy, have they
any claim to the same position abroad? If so, on what does it rest? The
laws of the Southern States? They are now beyond their jurisdiction. The
common law? To that wise and beneficent law slavery is a thing unknown.
The Constitution? It is silent. There is no exclusion of the Southerners
even proposed. Let them come: but when they claim to carry with them
the right to hold a certain class of men as property because they
are recognized as property by certain local regulations elsewhere
prevailing, they must not complain, if such a claim be disallowed. The
Southerner's complaint, that he is accustomed to the institution of
slavery, is fairly met by the Northerner's retort, that he is accustomed
to the institution of freedom.

Now, which voice shall prevail? Neither party has any more right than
the other; and neither party has any right at all. The Territories are
in a state of wardship; and Congress is to decide as it thinks best for
their welfare, present and future; and if Congress thinks that a nation
prospers with free institutions and droops under slavery, then let
Congress admit the Territory as a Free State. True, there is some
inconvenience to the slave-holder; but from so abnormal a relation as
slavery some inconvenience must result. When admitted to be a necessary
evil, it is barely tolerable; when boastingly proclaimed to be a
sovereign good, it is fairly intolerable. And it is both criminal and
foolish to try to make good all the evils inseparable from slavery by
systematic injustice to other interests.

"Slavery has changed. When Southern
men consented to its prohibition, they hoped
and believed that the time would come when
it could be abolished altogether. They have
as much right to these as to their former opinions,
and to have them represented in the
Government."

Here Mr. Fisher hints at, rather than fully states, the grand retort of
the Southerners,--"Our fathers, you say, were opposed to slavery: very
good; but we are not: why should we be bound by their opinions?" A mere
misapprehension of the force of the argument. The Southerner of 1860 is
_not_ bound by the opinions of Madison and Jefferson; but the North
may fairly adduce the opinions of those men, who were framers of the
Constitution, not as binding upon their descendants, but as serving to
explain the meaning of disputed provisions in that Constitution. The
Constitution binds us all, North and South: then recurs the question,
What is the meaning of its provisions? and _then_ the contemporaneous
opinions of its framers come legitimately into play as an argument.

Of the Missouri Compromise Mr. Fisher says,--

"It may be said that this law was a violation
of the equal rights of the Southern people,
by excluding them from a large portion
of the national domain. The answer is, not
merely that this was done with their consent,
their representatives having approved the law,
but that the law did recognize their rights,
by dividing between them and the Northern
people all the territory then possessed by the
Government."

We are surprised that upon his own presentation of the case this simple
question does not occur to Mr. Fisher: Supposing the South and the North
to have had equal and conflicting rights in the national domain, and
supposing that there was need of some arbiter, and remembering that
Congress undertook the duties of arbiter and decided that the
division under the Missouri Compromise gave each section its rightful
share,--then, with what propriety can the South, after occupying its own
share, call for a portion in the share allotted to the North?

The second essay, on "Popular Sovereignty in the Territories," presents
comparatively few salient points. A very spirited and just history of
the working of the Administration schemes in Kansas, a restating of
some of the arguments against the Kansas-Nebraska Act set forth in the
preceding essay, and a remonstrance against the headstrong course of
Southern politicians are its most noticeable features.

"The Union, the Constitution, and the
friendship of the North: these are the pillars
on which rest the peace, the safety, the
independence of the South. The extraordinary
thing is, that for some years past the South
has been, and now is, sedulously employed in
undermining this triple foundation of its power
and safety. Its extravagant pretensions,
its excesses, its crimes, are rapidly cooling
the friendship of the North,--converting it,
indeed, into positive enmity. Its leading politicians
are ever plotting and threatening disunion.
disunion will he proffered to them from the North, not
as a vague and passionate threat, but as a positive
and well-considered plan, backed by a
force of public opinion which nothing can resist.
Ere long, the South is likely to be left
with no other defence than the Union it has
weakened and the Constitution it has mutilated
and defaced.

"The makers of the Kansas and Nebraska
law were clumsy workmen. They forgot to
provide for the case of an anti-slavery President.
They will, perhaps, learn wisdom by
experience.

"'To wilful men
The injuries that they themselves procure
Must be their schoolmasters.'

"Those who framed the Constitution and laid
the foundation of this Union understood their
business better. That Constitution was intended
to protect the South, and has protected
it. Southern politicians cannot improve
it. For their own sakes they had better
let it alone."

We have given enough to show that in discussing Mr. Fisher we are
dealing with two different men. The field is now clear for the great
political contest of 1860. Mr. Fisher may have allied himself before
this with the Republicans, or may look to have his anticipations
fulfilled by that third party who are as unconscious of wrong as
powerless to rectify it, "the world-forgetting, by the world forgot." We
wish him well through his troubles.


_A Dictionary of English Etymology._ By HENSLEIGH WEDGWOOD, M. A. Late
Fellow of Chr. Coll. Cam. Vol. I. (A-D.) London: Truebner and Co., 60
Paternoster Row. 1859. pp. xxiv., 507.

There is nothing more dangerously fascinating than etymologies. To the
uninitiated the victim seems to have eaten of "insane _roots_ that take
the reason prisoner"; while the illuminate too often looks upon the
stems and flowers of language, the highest achievements of thought and
poesy, as mere handles by which to pull up the grimy tubers that lie at
the base of articulate expression, shapeless knobs of speech, sacred to
him as the potato to the Irishman.

The sarcasms of Swift were not without justification; for crazier
analogies than that between Andromache and Andrew Mackay have been
gravely insisted on by persons who, like the author of "Amilec,"
believed that the true secret of philosophizing _est celui de rever
heureusement_. It is only within a few years that etymological
investigations have been limited by anything; like scientific precision,
or that profound study, patient thought, and severity of method
have asserted in this, as in other departments of knowledge, their
superiority to point-blank guessing and the bewitching generalization
conjured out of a couple or so of assumed facts, which, even if they
turn out to be singly true, are no more nearly related than Hecate and
green cheese.

We do not object to that milder form of philology of which the works
of Dean Trench offer the readiest and most pleasing example, and which
confines itself to the mere study of words, to the changes of form and
meaning they have undergone and the forgotten moral that lurks in them.
But the interest of Dr. Trench and others like him sticks fast in words,
it is almost wholly an aesthetic interest, and does not pretend to
concern itself with the deeper problems of language, its origin, its
comparative anatomy, its bearing upon the prehistoric condition of
mankind and the relations of races, and its claim to a place among the
natural sciences as an essential element in any attempt to reconstruct
the broken and scattered annals of our planet. It would not be just to
find fault with Dr. Trench's books for lacking a scientific treatment
to which they make no pretension, but they may fairly be charged with
smelling a little too much of the shop. There is a faint odor of the
sermon-case about every page, and we learn to dread, sometimes to skip,
the inevitable homily, as we do the moral at the end of an AEsopic fable.
We enter our protest, not against Dr. Trench in particular, for his
books have other and higher claims to our regard, but because we find
that his example is catching, the more so as verbal morality is much
cheaper than linguistic science. If there be anything which the study of
words should teach, it is their value.

There are two theories as to the origin of language, which, for
shortness, may be defined as the poetic and the matter-of-fact. The
former (of which M. Ernest Renan is one of the most eloquent advocates)
supposes a primitive race or races endowed with faculties of cognition
and expression so perfect and so intimately responsive one to the
other, that the name of a thing came into being coincidently with the
perception of it. Verbal inflections and other grammatical forms came
into use gradually to meet the necessities of social commerce between
man and man, and were at some later epoch reduced to logical system by
constructive minds. If we understand him rightly, while not excluding
the influence of _onomatopeia_, (or physical imitation,) he would attach
a far greater importance to metaphysical causes. He says admirably
well, "La liaison du sens et du mot n'est jamais _necessaire_, jamais
_arbitraire_; toujours elle est _motivee_." His theory amounts to this:
that the fresh perfection of the senses and the mental faculties made
the primitive man a poet.

The other theory seeks the origin of language in certain imitative
radicals out of which it has analogically and metaphorically developed
itself. This system has at least the merits of clearness and simplicity,
and of being to a certain extent capable of demonstration. Its
limitation in this last respect will depend upon that mental
constitution which divides men naturally into Platonists and
Aristotelians. It has never before received so thorough an exposition
or been tested by so wide a range of application as in Mr. Wedgwood's
volume, nor could it well be more fortunate in its advocate. Mr.
Wedgwood is thorough, scrupulous, and fair-minded.

It will be observed that neither theory brings any aid to the attempt
of Professor Max Mueller and others to demonstrate etymologically the
original unity of the human race. Mr. Wedgwood leaves this question
aside, as irrelevant to his purpose. M. Renan combats it at considerable
length. The logical consequence of admitting either theory would be that
the problem was simply indemonstrable.

At first sight, so imaginative a scheme as that of M. Renan is
singularly alluring; for, even when qualified by the sentence we have
quoted, we may attach such a meaning to the word _motivee_ as to find in
words the natural bodies of which the Platonic ideas are the soul and
spirit. We find in it a correlative illustration of that notion not
uncommon among primitive poets, and revived by the Cabalists, that
whoever knew the Word of a thing was master of the thing itself, and an
easy way of accounting for the innate fitness and necessity, the fore
ordination, which stamps the phrases of real poets. If, on the other
hand, we accept Mr. Wedgwood's system, we must consider speech, as
the theologians of the Middle Ages assumed of matter, to be only
_potentiated_ with life and soul, and shall find the phenomenon of
poetry as wonderful, if less mysterious, when we regard the fineness of
organization requisite to a perception of the remote analogies of sense
and thought, and the power, as of Solomon's seal, which can compel the
unwilling genius back into the leaden void which language becomes when
used as most men use it.

There is a large class of words which every body admits to be imitative
of sounds,--such, for example, as _bang, splash, crack_,--and Mr.
Wedgwood undertakes to show that their number and that of their
derivative applications is much larger than is ordinarily supposed. He
confines himself almost wholly to European languages, but not always to
the particular class of etymologies which it is his main object to trace
out. Some of his explanations of words, not based upon any real or
assumed radical, but showing their gradual passage toward their present
forms and meanings, are among the most valuable parts of the book.
As striking proofs of this, we refer our readers to Mr. Wedgwood's
treatment of the words _abide, abie, allow, danger, and denizen_. When
he differs from other authorities, it is never inconsiderately or
without examination. Now and then we think his derivations are
far-fetched, when simpler ones were lying near his hand. He makes the
Italian _balcone_ come from the Persian _baia khaneh_, an upper chamber.
An upper chamber over a gate in the Persian caravanserais is still
called by that name, according to Rich. (p. 97.) Yet under the
word _balk_ we find, "A hayloft is provincially termed the _balks_,
(Halliwell,) because situated among the rafters. Hence also, probably,
the Ital. _balco_, or _pulcoy_ a scaffold; a loftlike erection supported
upon beams." As a _balcone_ is not an upper chamber, nor a chamber over
a gate, but is precisely "a loftlike erection supported upon beams," it
seems more reasonable to suppose it an augmentative formed in the usual
way from _balco_. Mr. Wedgwood's derivation of barbican from _bala
khaneh_ seems to us more happy. (Ducange refers the word to an Eastern
source.) He would also derive the Fr. _ebaucher_ from _balk_, though we
have a correlative form, _sbozzare_, in Italian, (old Sp. _esbozar_,
Port, _esboyar_, Diez,) with precisely the same meaning, and from a
root _bozzo_, which is related to a very different class of words from
_balk_. So bewitched is Mr. Wedgwood with this word _balk_, that he
prefers to derive the Ital. _valicam, varcare_, from it rather than from
the Latin _varicare_. We should think a deduction from the latter to the
English _walk_ altogether as probable. Mr. Wedgwood also inclines to
seek the origin of _acquaint_ in the Germ, _kund_, though we have all
the intermediate steps between it and the Mid. Lat. _adcognitare_.
Again, under _daunt_ he says, "Probably not directly from Lat. _domare_,
but from the Teutonic form _damp_, which is essentially the same word."
It may be plain that the Fr. _dompter_ (whence _daunt_) is not directly
from _domare_, but not so plain, as it seems to us, that it is not
directly from the frequentative form domitare.--"_Decoy_. Properly
_duck-coy_, as pronounced by those who are familiar with the thing
itself. '_Decoys_, vulgarly _duck-coys_.'--Sketch of the Fens, in
Gardener's Chron. 1849. Du. _koye_, cavea, septum, locus in quo
greges stabulantur.--Kil. _Kooi, konw, kevi_, a cage; _vogel-kooi_, a
bird-cage, decoy, apparatus for entrapping waterfowl. Prov. E. _Coy_,
a decoy for ducks, a coop for lobsters.--Forby. The name was probably
imported with the thing itself from Holland to the fens." (p. 447.)
_Duck-coy_, we cannot help thinking, is an instance of a corruption like
_bag o' nails_ from _bacchanals_, for the sake of giving meaning to a
word not understood. Decoys were and are used for other birds as well as
ducks, and _vogel-kooi_ in Dutch applies to all birds, (answering to our
trap-cage,) the special apparatus for ducks being an _eende-kooi_. The
French _coi_ adverbialized by the prefix _de_, and meaning quietly,
slyly, as a hunter who uses decoys must demean himself, would seem
a more likely original.--_Andiron_ Mr. Wedgwood derives from Flem.
_wend-ijser_, turn-irons, because the spit rested upon them. But the
original meaning seems to have no reference to the spit. The French
_landier_ is plainly a corruption of the Mid. Lat. _anderia_, by the
absorption of the article (_l'andier_). This gives us an earlier form
_andier_, and the augmentative _andieron_ would be our word.--_Baggage_.
We cannot think Mr. Wedgwood's derivation of this word from _bague_ an
improvement on that of Ducange from _baga_, area.--_Coarse_ Mr. Wedgwood
considers identical with _course_,--that is, of course, ordinary. He
finds a confirmation of this in the old spelling. Old spelling is seldom
a safe guide, though we wonder that the archaic form _boorly_ did not
seem to him a sufficient authority for the common derivation of _burly_.
If _coarse_ be not another form of _gross_, (Fr. _gros_, _grosse_,)
then there is no connection between _corn_ and _granum_, or _horse_ and
_ross_.--"_Cullion_. It. _Coglione_, a cullion, a fool, a scoundrel,
properly a dupe. See Cully. It. _cogionare_, to deceive, to make a dupe
of.... In the Venet. _coglionare_ becomes _cogionare_, as _vogia_ for
_voglia_.... Hence E. to _cozen_, as It. _fregio_, frieze; _cugino_,
cousin; _prigione_, prison." (p. 387.) Under _cully_, to which Mr.
Wedgwood refers, he gives another etymology of _coglione_, and, we
think, a wrong one. _Coglionare_ is itself a derivative form from
_coglione_, and the radical meaning is to be sought in _cogliere_, to
gather, to take in, to pluck. Hence a _coglione_ is a sharper, one who
takes in, plucks. _Cully_ and _gull_ (one who is taken in) must be
referred to the same source. Mr. Wedgwood's derivation of _cozen_ is
ingenious, and perhaps accounts for the doubtful Germ, _kosen_, unless
that word itself be the original.--"_To chaff_, in vulgar language to
rally one, to chatter or talk lightly. From a representation of the
inarticulate sounds made by different kinds of animals uttering rapidly
repeated cries. Du. _keffen_, to yap, to bark, also to prattle, chatter,
tattle. Halma," etc. We think it demonstrable that _chaff_ is only a
variety of _chafe_, from Fr. _ecauffer_, retaining the broader sound of
the _a_ from the older form _chaufe_. So _gaby_, which Mr. Wedgwood (p.
84) would connect with _gaewisch_, (Fr. _gauche_,) is derived immediately
from O. Fr. _gabe_, (a laughing-stock, a butt,) the participial form of
_gaber_, to make fun of, which would lead us to a very different root.
(See the _Fabliaux, passim_.)--_Cress_. "Perhaps," says Mr. Wedgwood,
(p. 398,) "from the crunching sound of eating the crisp, green herb."
This is one of the instances in which he is lured from the plain path by
the Nixy _Onomatopoeia_. The analogy between _cress_ and _grass_ flies
in one's eyes; and, perhaps, the more probable derivation of the latter
is from the root meaning to grow, rather than from that meaning to eat,
unless, indeed, the two be originally identical. The A. S. forms
_coers_ and _goers_ are almost identical. The Fr. _cresson_, from It.
_crescione_, which Mr. Wedgwood cites, points in the direction of
_crescere_; and the O. Fr. _cressonage_, implying a verb _cressoner_,
means the right of _grazing_.--Under _dock_ Mr. Wedgwood would seem
(he does not make himself quite clear) to refer It. _doccia_ to a root
analogous with _dyke_ and _ditch_. He cites Prov. _doga_, which he
translates by _bank_. Raynouard has only "_dogua_, douve, creux,
cavite," and refers to It. _doga_. The primary meaning seems rather
the hollow than the bank, though this would matter little, as the same
transference of meaning may have taken place as in _dyke_ and _ditch_,
But when Mr. Wedgwood gives mill-_dam_ as the first meaning of the word
_doccia_, his wish seems to have stood godfather. Diez establishes the
derivation of _doccia_ from _ductus_; and certainly the sense of
a channel to lead (_ducere_) water in any desired direction is
satisfactory. The derivative signification of _doccia_ (a gouge, a tool
to make channels with) coincides. Moreover, we have the masculine form
_doccio_, answering exactly to the Sp. _ducho_ in _aguaducho_, the _o_
for _u_, as in _doge_ for _duce_, from the same root _ducere_. Another
instance of Mr. Wedgwood's preferring the bird in the bush is to be
found in his refusing to consider _dout_, to extinguish, (_do out_,) as
analogous to _don, _doff_, and _dup_. He would rather connect it with
_toedten, tuer_. He cites as allied words Bohemian _dusyti_, to choke, to
extinguish; Polish _dusic_, to choke, stifle, quell; and so arrives at
the English slang phrase, "_dowse_ the glim." As we find several other
German words in thieves' English, we have little doubt that _dowse_ is
nothing more than _thu' aus_, do (thou) out, which would bring us back
to our starting-point.

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