Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1852-11-06

sponded to our thanks The absence of the word iron
their vocabularies would of itself have been PRIOR
sufficient proof that the feeling Of gratitude and
obligation wholly absent from their breasts, and
cordngy the good missionary declares that though in
yeterae beggars they said more obtaining wha
they sought than g this will be useful to me-" :" th
is what wanted Still further illustrate how exact
y language is the mirror of peoples mind, canno
refrain from quoting still another example nsanced by
Mr. Trench from Mofats Missionary Labors in South
Africa" The Bechuanas, Cafre tribe, employed for
mery the word g Mormo !" to designate Him that is
above attaching to it the notion of supreme divine
being Pkis word with the spiritual idea corresponding
to it, in the increasing sayagery and degradation of the
people, Moa found to have vanished entirely from the
language of the present generation although here and
there he could meet with old man. scarcely
in thousand who remembered in his youth to have heard
speak Of Mormo' 1t is thus that language may be
employed to and gauge the progress rerogres
sion of nations inner and outer life, just from the
graded scale Of their Nilomeer the people of Egypt
wont learn the rise subsistence of the stream and
predict the future harvest.
1t is thus that to quote the word Of distinguished
Hungarian scholar who has long, however, been resi-
dent of country and of whose curious and original
work entitled 'Gossology &c. intend to speak at
early day. it is thus that languages the result
and mirror and vehicle of all the wisdom and the gno
rance the liberty and the slavery of manknd1 of all its
geographic historic social, polite, scholastic &C. rela
TONS strving actngs and successes in Short they
picture exhibiting the lights and shades the glory and
shame of each tribe people, and nation If would de-
fine the Intellectual moral and aesthetic position Of
nation, must ask it, with the old sage Loqase, III n
noscan speak out that may know thee tongue out
thy log-os
ar1iu lapu in Ipht
much to say as has been said, that knowledge Of
more value may be conveyed the history ola word than
by the history of campaign Flanguage contains in the
successive deposes by which it has been formed only
fossil poetry" writer Of own has said, but
Mr. Trench further alleges fossil ethics and fossil history
WELL will it not repay to dig deep into these success
sve strata which have been deposited from age to age
here rich layers of words that mark the when an in
teectual Anakim lived the earth here the terms in
which lie embedded the virtues and the vices of extinct
generations and there the mental which great wits
and statesmen and and warriors have dropped
the sands Of time during the flight of centuries while
through all and each there golden vein of poetry
and sacred truth? There is speech language
where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out
through all the EARTH and their words the end of the
world"
The history of any word that has an honorable
",
have through scoundrels since the food is often
richer in its lessons and things contemporaneous
with its prevalence than the annals which detail the
quests of Tamerlane the barren victories of Alex
ander. In tracing simple and common word the
English Wdges' through its kindred and allied terms,
ragern "Wager-of- battle" .Wager-of-law 'sengage
men mortgage" &c., and then tracking it through the
French Jgage," engagr," cages &c., and through
the Italian gaggio, Rgagiare," gaggio-morto," &C.,
and through the medieval Latin, "gagiaor contra
gagamentun, t'padium-mortuum," until finally re-
mount to the old Roman lawterms of cas-" cadaSi
g padimoniua," spades" &C., hold in hands an
Aradne's thread which conducts through the winding
of legal quirks and social revolutions and arbi
trary customs and supersttous exactons covering
than thousand years. passing do from the da
lect of Roman Forum with its confusion and
contention of clients to the argon of medieval times
with its terms Of knghthood and feudasm, and from
these the growth of the bel partar oseano with
its mingled speech of ursconsus and brgands until
reach in the familiar words of wager mortgage"
and ,oages the index fingers which point to the very
age and body of own times; and thus historically
uniting the g wages" of political gamblers the chances
of Scott and Graham "Pierce and King" and the
rawlings of French Socialists the relations of Wages
and Capital" with the formal jurisprudence of Rome
with the Laws of the Twelve Tables the forensic harangues
of Cicero, the history of Livy, vid Lvy, book ill.,
49, and the witty satres of Horace. (Hor Serm Lib.
o.
Words, then, have history and history too replete
with information curious and instructive. Each
word" said old thinker, is piece of the human
soul y and of the soul has been said by Plato and
sung by Wordsworth, that
"0ur Life's Star
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds Of glory do We come
From God who is our home"
may say the with equal truth Of each word
each piece of the soul that cometh from affair." And
viewed in this light moreover, the study Of words
interest and grandeur to the true phiOlog
mark this compound reader pheo-logo to which mere
quibbers and wordwrights and phrasemongerers may
attain, but which, nevertheless be enjoyed by