{219} Phillips, _New World of Words_, 1706. [‘Garble’ comes through old French _garbeler_, _grabeler_ (Italian _garbellare_) from Latin _cribellare_, to sift, and that from _cribellum_, a sieve, diminutive of _cribrum_.] {220} “But his [Gideon’s] army must be _garbled_, as too great for God to give victory thereby; all the fearful return home by proclamation” (Fuller, _Pisgah Sight of Palestine_, b. ii, c. 8). {221} [Compare the transitions of meaning in French _manant_ = (1) a dweller (where he was born--from _manoir_ to dwell), the inhabitant of a homestead, (2) a countryman, (3) a clown or boor, a coarse fellow.] {222} [These words lie totally apart. ‘Brat’, an infant, seems a figurative use of ‘brat’, a rag or pinafore, just as ‘bantling’ comes from ‘band’, a swathe.] {223} “We cannot always be contemplative, or _pragmatical_ abroad: but have need of some delightful intermissions, wherein the enlarged soul may leave off awhile her severe schooling”. (Milton, _Tetrachordon_.) {224} [Anglo-Saxon _cnafa_, or _cnapa_, a boy.] {225} [Mr. Fitzedward Hall in 1873 says ‘antecedents’ is “not yet a generation old” (_Mod. English_, 303). Landor in 1853 says “the French have lately taught (it to) us” (_Last Fruit of an Old Tree_, 176). De Quincey, in 1854 calls it “modern slang” (_Works_ xiv, 449); and the earliest quotation, 1841, given in the N.E.D., introduces it as “what the French call their antecedents”.] {226} See Whewell, _History of Moral Philosophy in England_, pp. xxvii.-xxxii. {227} For a fuller treatment of the subject of this lecture, see my _Select Glossary of English Words used formerly in senses different from their present_, 2nd ed. London, 1859. V CHANGES IN THE SPELLING OF ENGLISH WORDS When I announce to you that the subject of my lecture to-day will be English orthography, or the spelling of the words in our native language, with the alterations which this has undergone, you may perhaps think with yourselves that a weightier, or, if not a weightier, at all events a more interesting subject might have occupied this our concluding lecture. I cannot admit it to be wanting either in importance or in interest. Unimportant it certainly is not, but might well engage, as it often has engaged, the attention of those with far higher acquirements than any which I possess. Uninteresting it may be, by faults in the manner of treating it; but I am sure it ought as little to be this; and would never prove so in competent hands{228}. Let us then address ourselves to this matter, not without good hope that it may yield us both profit and pleasure.