" Goddes determinacions be hydden from us, and euery wyn* dowe SHYT up, where we myghte pere unto them."

Gardeners Declaration against Ioye, fol. 45, pag. 2.

" His disciples knew not how he entryd, the dores being SHIT." A Declaracion of Christe. By Lohan Hoper, cap. 8.

I do not know that it is worth while; but it can do no harm to notice, that the expression of.... getting SHUT of a thing....means....to get a thing THROWN off or cast from us. And that a weaver's SHUTTLE OF SHITTLE (shut-del, shit-del) means a small instrument shot, i. e. thrown or cast.

" An honest weaver, and as good a workman
"As e'er SHOT SHUTTLE."

B. and Fletcher, The Coxcombe, pag. 334. A SHUTTLE-Cork or SHITTLE-cork has the same meaning. i. e. A cork thrown or cast (backward and forward.)

SHEET, (whether a SHEET for a bed, a SHEET of water, a SHEET of lightning, a SHEET anchor, &c.) is also the same participle sceat.

What we now write SHEET anchor was formerly written SHот anchor.

" Certaine praiers shoulde ther be sayd; and this was against "the stone the very shote anker."

Sir T. Mores works. A dialogue, &c. 2d boke, pag. 195. "Thei runne to the heresie of the Donatistes as to a SHOOTE anker."

Traictise of the pretensed Marriage of priestes, chap. 2.

But, besides the above different ways of writing and pronouncing this same participle, as with other verbs; we have, with this verb, another source of variation. The Anglo-Saxon sc was pronounced both as su and as sk. The participle therefore of scitan, upon that account, assumes another apparently different form: and this different pronunciation (and consequently different writing) has given us scor, SCOUT, SCATE, and SKIT.

Scor and SHOT are mutually interchangeable. They are merely one and the same word, viz. the Anglo-Saxon sceat, the past participle of scitan; the sc being differently pronounced. Scor free, scor and lot, Rome-scor, &c. are the same as SHOT free, SHOT and lot, Rome SHOT &c.

The Italians have (from us) this same word scorto, applied and used by them for the same purpose as by us. Dante uses it in his Purgatory: and is censured for the use of it, by those who, ignorant of its meaning, supposed it to be only a low, tavern expression; and applicable only to a tavern reckoning. And from this Italian scotto the French have their escot ecot, employed by them for the same purpose.

This word has extremely puzzled both the Italian and French etymologists. Its use and application they well knew: they could not but know : it was...." L'argent jetté sur la table de l' hôte, pour prix du repas qu'on a pris chez lui."....But its etymology, or the real signification of the word, taken by itself, (which alone could afford the reason why the word was so used and applied) intirely escaped them. Some considered that, in a tavern, people usually pay for what they have eaten: these therefore imagined that SCOTTO might come from excoctus of coquere; and that it was used for the payment of excoctus cibus. Excocto, escotto,

Others considered that men did not always eat in a tavern; and that their payment, though only for wine, was still called SCOTTO. These therefore fixed upon a common circumstance, viz. that, whether eating or drinking, men were equally forced or compelled to pay the reckoning: they therefore sought for the etymology in cogere and excogere. Coacto, excoacto, excocto, excotto, scotto. Indeed, if the derivation must necessarily have been found in the Latin, I do not know where else they could better have gone for it. But it is a great mistake, into which both the Italian and Latin etymologists have fallen, to suppose that all the Italian must be found in the Latin, and all the Latin in the Greek: for the fact is otherwise. The bulk and foundation of the Latin language is Greek; but great part of the Latin is the language of our northern ancestors, grafted upon the Greek. And to our northern language the etymologist must go, for that part of the Latin which the Greek will not furnish: and there, without any twisting or turning or ridiculous forcing and torturing of words, he will easily and clearly find it. We want therefore the testimony of no historians to conclude that the founders of the Roman state and of the Latin tongue came not from Asia, but from the north of Europe. For the language cannot lye. And from the language of every nation we may with certainty collect its origin. In the same manner; even though no history of the fact had remained; and though another Virgil and another Dionysius had again, in verse and prose, brought another Æneas from another Troy to settle modern Italy, after the destruction of the Roman government; yet, in spite of such false history, or silence of history, we should be able, from the modern language of the country (which cannot possibly lye) to conclude with certainty, that our northern ancestors had again made another successful irruption into Italy, and again grafted their own language upon the Latin as before upon the Greek. For all the Italian, which cannot be easily shewn to be Latin, can be easily shewn to be our northern language.

It would therefore, I believe, have been in some degree useful to the learned world; if the present system of this country had not, by a

that virtuous and harmless good man, Mr. Gilbert Wakefield. For he had, shortly before his death, agreed with me to undertake, in conjunction, a division and separation of the Latin tongue into two parts: placing together in one division all that could be clearly shewn to be Greek; and in the other division, all that could be clearly shewn to be of northern extraction. And I cannot forbear mentioning to you this circumstance; not to revive your grief for the loss of a valuable man who deserved

but because, he being dead and I speedily to follow him, you may perhaps excite and encourage some other persons more capable to execute a plan, which would be so useful to your favourite etymological amusement. I say, you must encourage them: for there appears no en

1

couragement in this country at present

which sworn amongst us as numerously as our volunteers

this advantage, that none of the former

on account of their principles.

Good God! This country

What cannot an

atchieve! America,

with

are ever rejected

!.....

Corsica, Hanover,

with all our antient dependents, friends and allies

And in how short a time!

And the inhabitants of this little

Island (the only remaining spot)

Besieged collectively by France from without:

in his house by swarms of

whilst his growing rents, like the goods of an in

solvent trader, are

in the

hands of his

who now suddenly

find that they too have a new and additional rent, beyond their agreement, to pay to a new and unforeseen landlord. (4)

F. Turn your thoughts from this subject. Get out of the way of this vast rolling mass, which might easily have been stopped at the verge of the precipice; but must now roll to the bottom. Why should it crush you unprofitably in its course ?

H. "Ever right, Menenius. Ever, Ever." (4) The blanks in these two pages stand exactly as in the original ....the state of the press in England rendering the publication of the truth dangerous. The judicious reader may easily fill them up. AMER. EDIT.