{194} [See also J. C. Hare, _Two Essays in Eng. Philology_ i. 47-56.] {195} Thus Wallis (_Gramm. Ling. Anglic._, 1654): Singulari numero siquis alium compellet, vel dedignantis illud esse solet, vel familiariter blandientis. [For a good discussion of the old use of ‘thou’, see the Hares, _Guesses at Truth_, 1847, pp. 169-90. Even at the present day a Wessex matron has been known to resent the too familiar address of an inferior with the words, “Who bist thou _a-theein’_ of”? (_The Spectator_, 1904, Sept. 3, p. 319).] {196} What the actual position of the compellation ‘thou’ was at that time, we may perhaps best learn from this passage in Fuller’s _Church History, Dedication of Book_ vii.: “In opposition whereunto [i.e. to the Quaker usage] we maintain that _thou_ from superiors to inferiors is proper, as a sign of command; from equals to equals is passable, as a note of familiarity; but from inferiors to superiors, if proceeding from ignorance, hath a smack of clownishness; if from affectation, a tone of contempt”. {197} See on this subject of the dropping of grammatical gender, Pott, _Etymologische Forschungen_, part 2, pp. 404, _sqq._ IV CHANGES IN THE MEANING OF ENGLISH WORDS I propose, according to the plan sketched out in my first lecture, to take for my subject in the present those changes which in the course of time have found place, or now are finding place, in the meaning of many among our English words; so that, whether we are aware of it or not, we employ them at this day in senses very different from those in which our forefathers employed them of old. You observe that it is not _obsolete_ words, words quite fallen out of present use, which I propose to consider; but such, rather, as are still on the lips of men, but with meanings more or less removed from those which once they possessed. My subject is far more practical, has far more to do with your actual life, than if I had taken obsolete words, and considered them. These last have an interest indeed, but it is an interest of an antiquarian character. They constituted a part of the intellectual money with which our ancestors carried on the business of their life; but now they are rather medals for the cabinets and collections of the curious than current money for the needs and pleasures of all. Their wings are clipped, so that they are “_winged_ words” no more; the spark of thought or feeling, kindling from mind to mind, no longer runs along them, as along the electric wires of the soul. {Sidenote: _Obsolete Words_}