attached to the eye. This universal consent is the more remarkable, inasmuch as the connexion in question, though of course most appropriate and significant in itself, hardly seems to indicate the most prominent characteristic, or what we should deem to be par excellence the obvious qualities of the eye; in a word, we should scarcely expect a term derived from a physical attribute or property.

The eye is suggestive of life, of divinity, of intellect, piercing acuteness (acies); and again, of truth, of joy, of love: but these seem to have been disregarded, as being mere indistinctive accidents, and the primary idea which, by the common consent of almost all nations, has been thought most properly to symbolise this organ is a spring—fons, πηγή.

Thus, from עִין, manare, scatere, a word not in use, according to Fuerst, we have the Hebrew עַיִן, fons aquarum et lacrimarum, h. e. oculus. This word however, in its simple form, seems to have almost lost its primary signification, being used most generally in its secondary—oculus. (Old Testament Hebrew version, passim.) In the sense of fons, its derivative מַעְיָן is usually substituted.

Precisely the same connexion of ideas is to be found in the Syriac, the Ethiopic, and the Arabic.

Again, in the Greek we find the rarely-used word ὀπή, a fountain, or more properly the eye, whence it wells out,—the same form as ὀπή, oculus; ὢψ, ὄψις, ὄπτομαι. Thus, in St. James his Epistle, cap. iii. 11.: μήτι ἡ πηγὴ ἐκ τῆς αὐτῆς ὀπῆς βρύει τὸ γλυκὺ καὶ τὸ πικρόν.

In the Welsh, likewise, a parallel case occurs: Llygad, an eye, signifies also the spring from which water flows, as in the same passage of St. James: a ydyw ffynnon o'r un llygad (from one spring or eye) yn rhoi dwfr melus a chwerw?

On arriving at the Teutonic or old German tongue, we find the same connexion still existing: Avg, auga,—oculus; whence ougen ostendere—Gothis augo; and awe, auge, ave, campus ad

amnem. (Vid. Schilteri, Thes., vol. iii. ad voc.) And here we cannot help noticing the similarity between these words and the Hebrew יְאֹר, which (as well as the Coptic iaro) means primarily a river or stream from a spring; but, according to Professor Lee, is allied to אוֹר, light, the enlightenment of the mind, the opening of the eyes; and he adds, "the application of the term to water, as running, translucid, &c., is easy." Here, then, is a similar connexion of ideas with a change in the metaphor.

In the dialects which descended from the Teutonic in the Saxon branch, the connexion between these two distinct objects is also singularly preserved. It is to be found in the Low German, the Friesic, and the Anglo-Saxon. In the latter we have eá, eah, eagor, a welling, flowing stream; eah, ægh, eage, an eye, which might be abundantly illustrated.

We could hardly fail to find in Shakspeare some allusion to these connected images in the old tongue; no speck of beauty could exist and escape his ken. Thus:

Many of the phrases of the ancient tongues, in which the eye bears a part, have been handed down to us, and are still preserved in our own. My space, however, forbids me to do more than allude to them; but there is one very forcible expression in the Hebrew עַיִן בְּעַיִן, literally, eye in eye, which we render much less forcibly—face to face. The Welsh have preserved it exactly in their llygad yn llygad. Indeed, this is not the only instance in which they are proud of having handed down the Hebrew idiom in all its purity. Shakspeare twice uses the old phrase:

And in Tro. and Cres., Act III. Sc. 3; but it appears now to be obsolete.

Before concluding, I cannot help noticing, in connexion with this subject, the Old English term "the apple of the eye." I am unable to trace it beyond the Anglo-Saxon. The Teutonic sehandes ougen, pupilla oculi, is totally distinct; seha being merely medius punctus oculi, whence sehan, videre. In the Semitic languages, as well as in the Greek and Latin, the origin of the term is the same, and gives no clue to the meaning of the Saxon term. Thus, in the Hebrew אִישׁוֹן, dim. of אִישׁ, homunculus, the small image of a person seen in the eye. In Arabic it is the man or daughter of the eye. In Greek we have κόρη, κοράσιον, κορασίδον; and in Latin, pupa, pupula, pupilla.

Has any light been thrown on the Anglo-Saxon term? Can it be that iris, not the pupil, is taken to represent an apple? The pupil itself would then be the eye of the apple of the eye.

H. C. K.

—— Rectory, Hereford.

GOSSIPING HISTORY—DE QUINCEY'S ACCOUNT OF HATFIELD.

In proof of the severity with which the laws against forgery were enforced, I have been referred to the case of Hatfield, hanged in 1803 for forging franks. It is given very fully in Mr. De Quincey's "Literary Recollections of Coleridge" in the first volume of the Boston edition of his Works.

The story has some romance in it, and excited great interest fifty years ago. Hatfield had lived by swindling; and, though he underwent an imprisonment for debt, had, upon the whole, a long career of success. The last scene of his depredations was the Lakes, where he married a barmaid, who was called "The Beauty of Buttermere." Shortly after the marriage he was arrested, tried, and executed. Mr. De Quincey afterwards lived in the neighbourhood, dined at the public-house kept by Mary's father, and was waited upon by her. He had the fullest opportunities of getting correct information: and his version of the story is so truthlike, that I should have accepted it without hesitation but for the hanging for forging a