My dear Sir,
Although I have made good progress with the paper <1> I have not had time to complete it, and in fact can now scarcely get half an hour to work at it, and a thing of this kind to be done at all well should be worked at continuously. However I will not leave it undone. I got your note and the Literary Gazette; <2> and in fact the latter has been the chief cause of delay, as you had anticipated not a few things I had written. With regard to the philological matters in your note. Gracilis I cannot derive from gratia, if for no other objection, because ilis is so common a suffix of verbs, to wit utilis, mollis (movilis) agilis habilis &c, besides the meaning is much more lanky than elegant. Purgare I am afraid to class with spargere &c because of the Conjugation. As remigare is formed immediately from remex, ultimately from ago so navigare seems to me to imply an adj. navex. Then again we have laevĭagare, mitĭgare and purgare which may also ultimately come from agere. Castīgare I think is not so formed but rather from an obsolete adj. castigus = castivus from a verbal base cas or car signifying cleanse of which castus is the perf. part. carere to card is the same word. castrum has an old meaning ‘sieve’ whence castare <vincum?> to strain wine. Forcellini has confounded these words with another altogether independent family, which I dealt with in an older paper of the Philol. Trans. deriving them from cad-ere and caed-ere fall or fell. I omitted in the paper in question to add the fact that castrare arboreum is to lop a tree (see Forcellini) and thus the Eunuchizing process readily follows. Did you note that the Q. R-er misquotes your σκεςβολεω as σκςβαλλω and your two words σκως βαλλειν as one σκωςβαλλεω thus showing his ignorance of the mode in which Greek Compounds are formed.
Have you further noticed that Liddell & Scott in their 4th Lexion speak of σκςβολος as of uncertain derivation, and hint at its containing in the 1st syllable the same root as κεςτορεος!
I believe I told you I was working at a Latin Dicty However I have not done one word of it since September.
I was pleased at finding in the last no of the Classical Museum a new translation of crispans manu hastilia of Virgil, clasping grasping, clenching (not vibrating) The writer justly relies on the French idiom crisper les mains.
There are two or three errors I was in my L. Gr. I may as well have correct.
P. 180 note F. I have laughed at Forcellini for connecting αναγκη and neζsic. I was wrong, for αναγκη owes its initial α to the Greek habit of prefacing a vowel to a root, always however selecting <ill. del.> one which is in accordance with the vowel of the <substantiel?> word. This removed, we have in ναγκη a radical syllable which represents the Latin nect.
P. 134. last line of text. Consternare is no way connected with sternere. On the contrary it means to cause people to start up suddenly, and in fact is connected with our very word start, and I am not sure but it is also related to sternatare.
P. 158. Eja is mistranslated. It is I am pretty certain a corruption of audia ‘d’ye hear’. I have collected all the passages I can find and this translation suites them all. Obedire is of course a compound of Audire. Secondly d before an i is often taking the sound of j, both the sound we English, and that wh. the Germans give it; I say both because the ancient Italians seem to have possessed both sounds. Witness their words Giovanni Giove &c, as well as the Greek Ζευς which I always sound like an English word Juice.
Thirdly a final ă seems to me nearly always to represent a lost <nasal?>. δεκα <,?> εννεα are Examples, also ετυψα ετιθεα τετυφα. The neuters in a I believe to correspond to our plurals in en oxen &c. Putting this together<.> The forms of Eja and audin agree very fairly. But ohe <illeg> <satis?>.
Yrs truly
T. H. Key
U. C. L.
Ap. 4. 1848
Notes:
1. See Doc. No: 06058.
2. Probably WHFT, ‘The Reviewer Reviewed’, The Literary Gazette and Journal of belles lettres, science and art, n.1615, 1 January 1848, p. 3. A defense of WHFT, English Etymologies (London: J. Murray, 1847).