_Tyncen_, the diminutive of _tunne_, is not only a genuine Anglo-Saxon word, but the type of a class, of whose existence in that language no Saxonist, I may say no Teutonist, not even the perspicacious and indefatigable Jacob Grimm himself, seems to be aware. The word is exactly analogous to Ger. _toennchen_, from _tonne_, and proves three things:--1. That our ancestors formed diminutives in _cen_, as well as their neighbours in _ken_, _kin_, _chen_; 2. That the radical vowel was modified: for _y_ is the _umlaut_ of _u_; 3. That these properties of the dialect were known to Alfred the Great when he added this curious statement to the narrative of Orosius. E. THOMSON. * * * * * NOTES ON SEVERAL MISUNDERSTOOD WORDS. (_Continued from_ p. 376.) _Imperseverant_, undiscerning. This word I have never met with but twice,--in Shakspeare's _Cymbeline_, with the sense above given; and in Bishop Andrewes' Sermon preached before Queen Elizabeth at Hampton Court, A.D. 1594, in the sense of unenduring: "For the Sodomites are an example of impenitent wilful sinners; and Lot's wife of _imperseverant_ and relapsing righteous persons."--_Library of Ang.-Cath. Theology_, vol. ii. p. 62. _Perseverant_, discerning, and _persevers_, discerns, occur respectively at pp. 43. and 92. of Hawes's _Pastime of Pleasure_ (Percy Society's edition). The noun substantive _perseverance_=discernment is as common a word as any of the like length in the English language. To omit the examples that might be cited out of Hawes's _Pastime of Pleasure_, I will adduce a dozen other instances; and if those should not _be enough_ to justify my assertion, I will undertake to heap together two dozen more. Mr. Dyce, in his _Critique of Knight and Collier's Shakspeare_, rightly explains the meaning of the word in _Cymbeline_; and quotes an example of _perseverance_ from _The Widow_, to which the reader is referred. Mr. Dyce had, however, previously corrupted a passage in his edition of Rob. Greene's _Dramatic Works_, by substituting, "perceivance" for _perseverance_, the word in the original quarto of the _Pinner of Wakefield_, vol. ii. p. 184.: "Why this is wondrous being blind of sight, His deep _perseuerance_ should be such to know us." I subjoin the promised dozen: "For his dyet he was verie temperate, and a great enemie of excesse and surfetting; and so carelesse of delicates, as though he had had no _perseuerance_ in the tast of meates," &c.--"The Life of Ariosto," Sir John Harington's Translation of _Orlando Furioso_, p. 418. "In regarde whereof they are tyed vnto these duties: First by a prudent, diligent, and faithfull care to obserue by what things the state may be most benefited; and to haue _perseuerance_ where such marchandize that the state most vseth and desireth may be had with greatest ease," &c.--_The Trauailer_, by Thomas Palmer: London, 1606.