_Alarm_ (Vol. ii., pp. 151. 183.).--The origin of this word appears to be the Italian cry, _all'arme; gridare all'arme_ is to give the alarm. Hence the French _alarme_, and from the French is borrowed the English word. _Alarum_ for _alarm_, is merely a corruption produced by mispronunciation. The letters _l_ and _r_ before _m_ are difficult to pronounce; and they are in general, according to the refined standard of our pronunciation, so far softened as only to lengthen the preceding vowel. In provincial pronunciation, however, the force of the former letter is often preserved, and the pronunciation is facilitated by the insertion of a vowel before the final _m_. The Irish, in particular, adopt this mode of pronouncing; even in public speaking they say _callum_, _firrum_, _farrum_, for _calm_, _firm_, _farm_. The old word _chrisom_ for _chrism_, is an analogous change: the Italians have in like manner lengthened _chrisma_ into _cresima_; the French have softened it into _chrÍme_. L. _Alarm._--It is in favour of the derivation _‡ l'arme_ that the Italian is _allarme_; some dictionaries even have _dare all'arme_, with the apostrophe, for to give alarm. It is against it that the German word _L‰rm_ is used precisely as the English _alarm_. Your correspondent CH. thinks the French derivation suspiciously ingenious: here I must differ; I think it suspiciously obvious. I will give him a suggestion which I think really suspiciously ingenious: in fact, had not the opportunity occurred for illustrating ingenuity, I should not have ventured it. May it not be that _alarme_ and _allarme_ is formed in the obvious way, as _to arms_; while _alarum_ and _L‰rm_ wholly unconnected with them? May it not sometimes happen that, by coincidence, the same sounds and meanings go together in different languages without community of origin? Is it not possible that _larum_ and _L‰rm_ are imitations of the stroke and subsequent resonance of a large bell? Denoting the continued sound of _m_ by _m-m-m_, I think that _lrm-m-m-lrm-m-m-lrm-m-m_ &c., is as good an imitation of a large bell at some distance as letters can make. And in the old English use of the word, the alarum refers more often to a bell than to any thing else.