s. 279. The remainder of this chapter is devoted to miscellaneous remarks upon the true and apparent genders of the English language. 1. With the false genders like _baron_, _baroness_, it is a general rule that the feminine form is derived from the masculine, and not the masculine from the feminine; as _peer_, _peeress_. The words _widower_, _gander_, and _drake_ are exceptions. For {222} the word _wizard_, from _witch_, see the section on augmentative forms. 2. The termination _-ess_, in which so large a portion of our feminine substantives terminate, is not of Saxon but of classical origin, being derived from the termination _-ix_, _genitrix_. 3. The words _shepherdess_, _huntress_, and _hostess_ are faulty; the radical part of the word being Germanic, and the secondary part classical: indeed, in strict English grammar, the termination _-ess_ has no place at all. It is a classic, not a Gothic, element. 4. The termination _-inn_, so current in German, as the equivalent to _-ess_, and as a feminine affix (_freund_=_a friend_; _freundinn_=_a female friend_), is found only in one or two words in English. There were five _carlins_ in the south That fell upon a scheme, To send a lad to London town To bring them tidings hame. BURNS. _Carlin_ means an _old woman_: Icelandic, _kerling_; Sw., _kaering_; Dan. _kaelling_. Root, _carl_. _Vixen_ is a true feminine derivative from _fox_. German, _fuechsinn_. _Bruin_=_the bear_, may be either a female form, as in Old High German _pero_=_a he-bear_, _pirinn_=_a she-bear_, or it may be the Norse form _bjoern_=_a bear_, male or female. Words like _margravine_ and _landgravine_ prove nothing, being scarcely naturalised. 5. The termination _-str_, as in _webster_, _songster_, and _baxter_, was originally a feminine affix. Thus, in Anglo-Saxon, Sangere, _a male singer_ } { Sangestre, _a female singer_. Baecere, _a male baker_ } { Bacestre, _a female baker_. Fidhelere, _a male fiddler_} were { Fidhelstre, _a female fiddler_. Vebbere, _a male weaver_ } opposed { Vebbestre, _a female weaver_. Raedere, _a male reader_ } to { Raedestre, _a female reader_. Seamere, _a male seamer_ } { Seamestre, _a female seamer_. The same is the case in the present Dutch of Holland: _e.g._, _spookster_=_a female fortune-teller_; _bakster_=_a {223} baking-woman_; _waschster_=_a washerwoman_. (Grimm, Deutsche Grammatik, iii. p. 339.) The word _spinster_ still retains its original feminine force. 6. The words _songstress_ and _seamstress_, besides being, as far as concerns the intermixture of languages, in the predicament of _shepherdess_, have, moreover, a double feminine termination; 1st. _-str_, of Germanic, 2nd. _-ess_, of classical, origin.