"_Gossip._"--This word, in its obsolete sense, according no doubt to its Saxon origin, means a sponsor, one who answers for a child in baptism, a godfather. Its modern acceptation all know to be widely different. Can any of your correspondents quote a passage or two from old English authors, wherein its obsolete sense is preserved? N. L. J. [The word occurs in Chaucer, _The Wyf of Bathes Prologue_, v. 5825.: "And if I have a _gossib_, or a friend, (Withouten gilt) thou chidest as a frend, If that I walke or play into his hous." And in Spenser, _Faerie Queene_, b. i. c. 12.: "One mother, when as her foole-hardy child Did come too neare, and with his talons play, Halfe dead through feare, her little babe reuil'd, And to her _gossips_ gan in counsell say." Master Richard Verstegan is more to the point: "Our Christian ancestors, understanding a spiritual affinity to grow between the parents and such as undertooke for the child at baptisme, called each other by the name of _Godsib_, which is as much as to say, that they were _sib_ together, that is, _of kin_ together through God. And the child, in like manner, called such his God-fathers, or God-mothers."--_Restitution of Decayed Intelligence_, ch. vii. A quotation or two from that delightful old _gossip_, Mr. Pepys, will show its use in the middle of the seventeenth century: "Lord's Day. With my wife to church. At noon dined nobly, ourselves alone. After dinner, my wife and Mercer by coach to Greenwich, to be _gossip_ to Mrs. Daniel's child. My wife much pleased with the reception she had, and she was godmother, and did hold the child at the font, and it is called John."--_Diary_, May 20, 1666. "Lord's Day. My wife and I to Mr. Martin's, where I find the company almost all come to the christening of Mrs. Martin's child, a girl. After sitting long, till the church was done, the parson comes, and then we to christen the child. I was godfather, and Mrs. Holder (her husband, a good man, I know well) and a pretty lady that waits, it seems, on my Lady Bath at Whitehall, her name Mrs. Noble, were godmothers. After the christening comes in the wine {400} and sweetmeats, and then to prate and tattle, and then very good company they were, and I among them. Here was Mrs. Burroughs and Mrs. Bales (the young widow whom I led home); and having staid till the moon was up, I took my pretty _gossip_ to Whitehall with us, and I saw her in her lodging."--_Ibid._, Dec. 2, 1666.]