The derivation of _lumber_ is peculiar. As the Lombards were the bankers, so they were also the pawnbrokers, of the Middle Ages. The “lumber-room” was then the place where the Lombard banker and broker stored his pledges, and _lumber_ gradually came to mean the pledges themselves. As these naturally accumulated till they got out of date or became unserviceable, it is easy to trace the steps by which the word descended to its present meaning. _Obsequious_ implies an unmanly readiness to fall in with the will of another; but in the original obsequium, or in the English word as employed two centuries ago, there was nothing of this: it rather meant obedience and mildness. Shakspeare, speaking of a deceased person, says,— “How many a holy and obsequious tear Hath dear religious love stolen from mine eye, As interest of the dead.” _Property_ and _propriety_ were once synonymous, both referring to material things, as the French word _propriété_ does now. Foreigners do not often catch the distinction at present made in English between the two words; and we know a French gentleman who, recently meeting with some pecuniary reverses, astonished his friends by telling them that he had lost all his “propriety.” A poet is a person who writes poetry, and, according to the good old customs, a proser was a person who wrote prose, and simply the antithesis of poet. The word has now a sadly different signification; and it would not be considered very respectable to term Addison, Irving, Bancroft, or Everett “prosers.” INFLUENCE OF NAMES. The Romans, from the time they expelled their kings, could never endure the idea of being governed by a _king_. But they submitted to the most abject slavery under an _emperor_. And Oliver Cromwell did not venture to risk disgusting the republicans by calling himself king, though under the title of Protector he exercised regal functions. The American colonies submitted to have their commerce and their manufactures crippled by restrictions avowedly for the benefit of the mother-country, and were thus virtually _taxed_ to the amount of all that they in any instance lost by paying more for some article than it would cost to make it themselves, or to buy it of foreigners. But as soon as _a tax_ was imposed _under that name_, they broke out into rebellion. It is a marvel to many, and seems to them nearly incredible, that the Israelites should have gone after other gods; and yet the vulgar in most parts of Christendom are actually serving the gods of their heathen ancestors. But then they do not _call_ them _gods_, but fairies or bogles, etc., and they do not apply the word _worship_ to their veneration of them, nor _sacrifice_ to their offerings. And this slight change of name keeps most people in ignorance of a fact that is before their eyes.