Specimen of an Etymological Vocabulary, or Essay by Means of the Analitic Method to Retrieve the Ancient Celtic (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1768 Excerpt: ... Philip le Bel alludes in his famous letter to Boniface VIII. which he begins with, " Sciat tua "maxima Fatuitas, &c." This Feajl of Fools had, however, its designed effect, and contributed perhaps more to the exter Among these buffoon personages, as before observed, they introduced an Andrew, or Htad-Druid, whence we have our word Merry-Andrew, mination initiation of those Heathens than all the collateral aids of sire and sword, which were hot either spared in the persecution of them; but, as there is hardly a greater absurdity in the world, nor a more common one, than the continuance of customs after the original cause of them has ceased, the people, long after' the cessation of any apparent political necessity for such drolls, remained so captivated with the merriment of them, the grosser the better for them, that, the primary object of them being vanished, the jest began to threaten a recoil on the clergy itself who had instituted them. Then it was that councils, popes, bishops, very earnestly set about the suppression of those anniversary buffoonries; which, however, they have hardly, in some parts, accomplished to this day, though they have employed for that end, censures, interdictions, and even prayers, public processions, and fasts. POPE. This word, in the original signifying Head, like 2$uin (King) also Head, receives its degree of importance from its context, tacit or express; but by custom it has been appropriated to spiritual or judicial dignitaries. Every parish had its Pope, as every company of Tanners, or Shoemakers, of Bakers, had its king. Paus was also an antient name for the pope as the head of the law, divine and human: it is contracted from Pal-vass (the / liquifying as usual, and the v quiescent). It signisies the H...