Chapter 1

forbidden words, and their philosophy.

{166} _Literature of Greece_, p. 5.

{167} [Notwithstanding the analogous instance of ‘abbess’ for ‘abbatess’ this account of ‘lass’ must be abandoned. It is the old English _lasce_ (akin to Swedish _lösk_), meaning (1) one free or disengaged, (2) an unmarried girl (N.E.D.)]

{168} In Cotgrave’s _Dictionary_ I find ‘praiseress’, ‘commendress’, ‘fluteress’, ‘possesseress’, ‘loveress’, but have never met them in use.

{169} On this termination see J. Grimm, _Deutsche Gramm._, vol. ii. p. 134; vol. iii. p. 339.

{170} [_The Knightes Tale_, ed. Skeat, l. 2017.]

{171} [Yes; so in N.E.D.]

{172} I am indebted for these last four to a _Nominale_ in the _National Antiquities_, vol. i. p. 216.

{173} The earliest example which Richardson gives of ‘seamstress’ is from Gay, of ‘songstress’, from Thomson. I find however ‘sempstress’ in the translation of Olearius’ _Voyages and Travels_, 1669, p. 43. It is quite certain that as late as Ben Jonson, ‘seamster’ and ‘songster’ expressed the _female_ seamer and singer; a single passage from his _Masque of Christmas_ is evidence to this. One of the children of Christmas there is “Wassel, like a neat _sempster_ and _songster_; _her_ page bearing a brown bowl”. Compare a passage from _Holland’s Leaguer_, 1632: “A _tyre-woman_ of phantastical ornaments, a _sempster_ for ruffes, cuffes, smocks and waistcoats”.

{174} This was about the time of Henry VIII. In proof of the confusion which reigned on the subject in Shakespeare’s time, see his use of ‘spinster’ as--‘spinner’, the _man_ spinning, _Henry VIII_, Act. i. Sc. 2; and I have no doubt that it is the same in _Othello_,