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ballad-monger, was no longer imitated. Under the name of Mysteries, the acts of Saints and Martyrs were eagerly tran slated into dialogue: Rutebeuf composed the first semblances of tragedy: Livy was translated by Pierre Bercheurre; and Froissart founded an original reputation in history. Charles V. of France, surnamed the Sage, patronized various translations, and appointed Gilles Mallet to be keeper of his library; who, in 1375, made a catalogue of it, and reckoned 910 manuscriptvolumes. This was deemed a considerable collection in ages which preceded the printing-press: it was kept in a tower of the Louvre; and it formed the nucleus of that library which now passes for the completest in the world.

The invention of printing, which came into use about 1450, gave stability and diffusion to the subsequent efforts of authorship. The writers of the age of Francis the First are numerous and notorious but still they begin to require a glossary. After the introduction of Italian literature, and the revived study of the antients, the French language underwent new changes, and only acquired under Louis XIV. its present form. The necessity of providing interpretative works for every previous era of its condition was early felt. In 16551 Borel, a physician, published his valuable Trésor des Antiquités Françaises; which, though defective, as first essays usually are, contains much curious information. In 1766, Lacombe sent forth his Dictionnaire du vieux Langage; to which he afterward attached a supplement: but, though he added to the previous stock of words, his explanations are not critically just, nor are his quotations carefully copied. In 1777, Jean François printed his Dictionnaire Walon Roman Tudesque; which is a collection of living provincialisms rather than of obsolete words, and which is especially excellent for the interpretation of words in use near Swisserland, and along the Rhine.

Of all these sources, M. ROQUEFORT has availed himself; and also of a manuscript-glossary compiled by Barbazan, the Tyrwhitt of France, the editor of their Canterbury Tales, the Fabliaux et Contes des Poètes Français, mentioned in our subsequent article. He brings into the field of labour, besides these helpers, a competent acquaintance with the antient and manuscript-literature of his country; that command of libraries which is the privilege of the Parisian author; and a freedom from prejudice, which prevents him from being bent on discovering Celtic traces, or Cimbric traces, or Teutonic traces, in every strange word, and which is contented to look for its derivation. into the history of its appearance. The older forms of a given word describe the pronunciation of its real root. This is the sound canon of the present etymologist.

Of

Of the manner in which M. ROQUEFORT has performed this task, a better idea may be formed by a short extract, than by a long character. We will select it, not from among the early letters, which always obtain a preference of attention with dictionary-makers, but from the second volume, when the fatigues of authorship were beginning to induce some relaxation of attention. We take a portion of the words beginning with K.

K: Cette lettre étoit fort en usage dans la langue Françoise, dans les XI et XIIe siècles, et même dans le commencement du xe; mais à la fin elle commença à être moins fréquente, et disparut presqu'entièrement dans le XIVe siècle; elle s'y retrouve cependant encore, mais dans des copies d'ouvrages composés plus anciennement, et dont les copistes ont voulu conserver l'orthographe. Elle est toujours employée pour, ca, ce, cha et qua. Borel estime que cette lettre étoit un reste du langage que Pharamond (qui étoit Allemand) avoid apporté en France; et en effet, dit-il, elle est fort en usage en Allemagne, et dans tous les pays septentrionaux; il ajoute qu'autrefois flétrissoit de la lettre k les calomniateurs, qu'on leur appliquait sur le front avec un fer rouge, et que par cette raison ils étoient appelés kappophori. Il dit encore que quelques-uns croient que notre mot cape, ou chape, vient de cette lettre, parce qu'elle en a la figure; mais Barbazan pense, avec raison, que ces mots viennent de caput, parce que l'on n'appelle proprement cape ou chape, que le vêtement qui couvre de la tête aux pieds.

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Ka, lisez k'a: Qu'à, que à, qui à.

• Kabal, Kapal: Capital, fonds entiers de quelque tout, ce que possède; capitalis. Voyez Cabal.

Kabal: Monture, cheval; caballus. Voyez Cabal.
Kaban: Manteau de berger.

Kabas: Panier pour aller au marché; du Grec kabos.

Cabas.

• Kabasset: Casque, armure de tête.

Pon

Voyez

Kache, kace: Poursuite en justice, amende; le plaisir de la chasse; quassatio.

• Kachéor, kacéor, kachiere, kachierre, kacierres: Chasseur, veneur; de quassare, dont on a fait, dans la bas. lat. caciare, chaciare. Voyez Cachier.

• Fins Chevaliers angoisseux,

Qui a perdu son harnois,
Ne vielle, cui artli feu,
Maison, vigne, et blé et pois,
Ne kachiere, qui prend sois,
Ne moigne luxurieux,

N'est envers moi angoisseux,

Que je ne soie de ceus,

Qui aiment de sur leur pois.

XXVI Chanson du Roy de Navarre.

Kacier, kacher: Chasser, jouir du plaisir de la chasse.

Kadeau, kadel, kadele: Jeune chien; de canis.

Kadene, kaene, kaiëne, kaïne: Chaîne, lien, attache; catena.

Kaènê: Enchaîné.

• Kabourde:

Kabourde: Concombre.

• Kabus: Entêté, obstiné, têtu, opiniâtre; de caput. Kai: Barreaux, grille de fer.

• Kaiaux: Jouets ou joujous d'enfans.

Kaier: Chandelle de cire, flambeau.

• Kaière, kadere, kaïelle: Fauteuil, siége, chaise, chaire; cathedra. Je voi mervoilles bui c'est jour,

Dont Sainte Glise est coustumiere,
Ele fait lampe sans lumiere,
Car on met le fol en kaière,
Et cil qui sont de sens majours,
Sont vil et rebouté arriere.

Miserere du Reclus de Moliens, strophe 4.

• Kaillurs, lisez k'aillurs: Qu'ailleurs, qu'autre part ; d'aliorsùm.

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• Ensurketut devez saver

Ke le Rei la gent plus honurer,
Déit en sa Curt veraiement,
E en consistoire ensement
Plus k'aillurs, kar dune apent
Al Rei sées fere dréit à la gent,
K'aillurs sunt à tort grevez,
Là déivent estre relevez.

Kains: Nom propre, Cain.

Les Enseignemens d'Aristote.

Kains offri, s'offri Abel,

Mais au plus gent don, n'au plus bel,

Ne fist pas Diex plus bel semblant.

Miserere du Reclus de Moliens, strophe 74.

Kair: Renverser, culbuter, tomber; cadere.

Kaitif, kaitis; au fem. kaitive: Misérable, malheureux, infor

tuné; captivus.

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• Kaitiveté: Malheur, infortune; captivitas.

Kal, lisez k'al: Qu'à, qu'au.

Kalamay: La fête de la Chandeleur.

• Kalamel: Chalumeau.

• Kalenburdenes: Discours vagues et inutiles, balivernes, sottises, petits excès de jeunesse.

Kalende: Nom donné aux conférences des curés et aux confréries, qui se tenoient ou s'assembloient le premier jour de chaque mois. Kalendier: Calendrier.

Kalendre: Cigale, insecte.

• Kallemaine, pour Charlemagne; Carolus-Magnus, formé du Saxon kerl, fort, vigoureux; et du Latin magnus.

• Moult jert li regnes descréuz,
Apouries, et dechéus

De sa hautesce Souveraine,

Puis la mort au Roy Kallemaine.

Guill. Guiart, fol, 11. R°.

• Kallez :

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Kallez: Charles, nom d'homme.

Kambre: Appartement, logis, chambre; camera.

• Kambrelane, kamberlenc: Chambellar, valet-de-chambre. • Kamousser: Blesser, meurtrir, écraser.

• Kanabustin Tablettes, journal.

Plourez, amant, car vraie amours est morte
En chest païs, jamais ne le verrez,
Anuit par nuit vient buscant à no porte
L'arme de li qu'enportoit uns mauffex;
Mais tant me fist li Dyables de bontex,
L'arme mit jus tant qu'ele ot trois oés,
Pus et par ces oés iert li mons reteñus,
Che truis lisant en un kanabustin

Ou je le mis en escrit ier matin.

Servantois et Sotes Chansons, Mss. du 14° siècle, fonds de l'Eglise de Paris, fol. 310.

'Kanaster: Panier, manne à emballer des marchandises; canistrum. Voyez Canistre.

Kankal, lisez kank'al: Tout ce qu'à, tout ce qu'au.

• Al Rei ki soléit dunkes tréiter
Des grans bosoignes à espléiter,
Les aventures esclarir è mustrer,
E les bosoignes parfurnier,
E kank'al regne è à la gent,
Apendist de mustrer léaument.

• Kanne: Pot, cruche; canna. Kanoisne: Chanoine.

Les Enseignemens d'Aristote.

• Kansoun, kanson, kansou, kantsou: Chanson, petit poëme fort tourt, qui roule ordinairement sur des aventures d'amour; de canticum, et non de cantus sonus.

Kant: Tout, autant, combien; quantum. Kant k'il avoit : Tout ce qu'il possédoit, tout son avoir.

Kant: Lorsque, quand; quandò.

Kant: Chant, action de chanter; cantus; d'où kanter, kantar, chanter; cantare; en anc. Prov. cantar.

• Kantadour, kantaïre: Chanteur, chantre; cantator.

Kantref: Canton composé de cent villages.'

We are surprized not to find the word Kaynard, synonymous with Caignard, dog, which our Chaucer borrows from the French, and which Menage had explained.

In this manner, rare words are accompanied both by their French synonyms, and by their Latin roots; and it is asserted that twenty-five thousand words, not contained in the common French vocabularies, are here explained. Agreeable quotations from curious and inedited works are copiously interspersed; and a vast treasury of erudition, to which the poets of

every European nation had formerly access, is once more opened to inspection.

Be it allowed us to wish, that the letter K might recover the popularity which it appears to have enjoyed in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It represents invariably one distinct sound; whereas the letter c, which has been substituted for it, even in words derived from the Greek, represents the several sounds of k, of s, and of ts; as in cake, chaise, mice, and much. Such letters delay for many months every child who is learning to read; puzzle every foreigner who tries to pronounce by the book; torment the sensibilities of every one who has a taste for consistency; and irritate to pedagogical indignation, like a dunce's class, the temper of the philosophical grammarian.

British archeologists may derive numberless useful hints from the study of this Glossary. It will guide them to passages which our antient poets were consciously imitating, will explain to them allusions which disuse had obscured, and will complete their knowlege of customs which the antiquary has but imperfectly deciphered. Our own language has been prodigiously enriched with French words in their Romanse form; and, as we occasionally use them still in the sense which they possessed in old French, it is through a French glossary that the English philologer must often travel in search of definition.

This dictionary has moreover the great and the rare merit of being paged; which, for purposes of citation and of reference, is of no slight importance, especially to those who make manuscript-notes of their reading. The work deserves imitation in our own tongue; we have glossaries to Chaucer, to Spenser, and to individual writings of note: but we have no glossary on a broad and comprehensive scale, accommodated to the manuscript as well as the printed literature of our forefathers; portably concise, yet displaying the investigation of the etymo logist, the erudition of the bibliographer, and the information of the antiquary.

ART. VI.

Fabliaux et Contes des Poètes François, &c.; i. c. Fables and Tales of the French Poets of the Eleventh, Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Centuries; selected from the best Authors. Published by BARBAZAN. New Edition, augmented, and revised by the MSS. in the Imperial Library, by M. Méon. 8vo. 4 Vols. Paris. Imported by Payne and Foss.. HE fables and tales here reprinted were originally published during the year 1756 by M. BARBAZAN, in three small volumes. The work was then deservedly popular, as forming an essential document in the history of European poetry, and

TH

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