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I beg leave also to refer to this head, that very natural
and very general custom in all languages, of transferring
the name of one object to another which resembled it; or
where the things themselves were not alike, yet if the
sensations which they excited were similar, their names have
generally been so, and they who first imposed seem to have
appealed to their feelings in doing so. The application of
this to the present subject may be as follows: A
sharp-pointed hill was in Cumberland called a Cop,
which, according to Cambden, is a very old word; hence a
conical piece of butter, (a very common thing, especially in
the mountainous parts,) or any thing else, hath the same
title; and a little stool, the top and diverging feet of
which resemble a truncated cone, hath the diminutive name of
Coppy: hence too, perhaps, the words copse and
coppice, with several others, might be derived. A bright
flame is in several dialects called a Low; and a
certain disorder of the fingers, from its colours, and the
nature of the pain, is called a Whitlow; much in the
same manner as the Greeks from fire gave name to a
Fever, and the Latins to Inflammation. Such
resemblances are, however, sometimes urged further, as shall
be noticed more at large hereafter: at present, it may
suffice to observe, that when the motion of a top is
imperceptible, it is said to sleep; hence the phrase "as
sound as a top;" and as tops were made of horn, hence that
vulgar one of "sleeping horn-hard." It may be well enough to
compare these with that derivation which the Greeks made
from the same word, especially as the difference of
circumstances have rendered them so very remote from one
another; after deriving their name of a Horn from that which
signified the head, they applied, according to Eustathius,
the verb immediately deduced from thence to the mixing of
the liquors which they drunk; because their
drinking-vessels, as is the case in many places at this day,
were mostly of such materials, and from thence gave a name
to every kind of goblet; somewhat in the same manner as we
give to any vessel that contains ink for immediate use, of
whatever kind of substance it may be, the name of Ink-horn.
To causes equally obvious, and equally general, may be
referred the custom of affixing opprobrious epithets; such
as were formerly that of a Sybarite, and that of a
Chalcedonian; and such as in England is that of a Wise Man
of Gotham: but in Cumberland, especially the British name
Gock or Gowk, for a Cuckow, being still
retained, a blockhead is frequently, on account of a
ridiculous story of a cuckow and the people of a certain
valley, and of the egregious folly with which the agents are
taxed, entitled the Gowk of that valley.
The resort also of loungers and idle persons, (as may be
found in Hesiod,) was the shop of a smith, especially in
country places, and in the Winter season. In Rome it was a
barber's shop; but in most parts of England a smithy has
always been, in places remote from great towns, their place
of rendezvous, and the center of their news, scandal, and
criticism. Such power has similarity of circumstances on the
ways of men, in places sufficiently distant from one
another!
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To this head also belong the rents and dues which are paid
by tenants, &c. to their superiors, and that with
propriety enough; since, even in the courts of justice, the
validity of such exactions, has frequently or indeed for the
most part, no other sanction but that of immemorial custom.
Alluding to this subject, I beg leave to remind the reader,
that, according to general observation, where money, the
nominal representative of property, is scarce, or where it
is not known at all, what is now called in a vulgar dialect
jobbing, couping, and swapping, becomes of
course trade, commerce, and merchandize: we find generally
that the current specie of such times has been cattle; and
it is instanced as an example, that from them was the mode
of computation in the days of Homer, and that hence the
Latins derived their name of Money; and indeed it seems
natural enough, that a staple commodity should answer for
money where money is not. It is from these principles that
the petty feudal Lords exacted their rents and dues in this
kind of money; or in another commodity equally staple in
such times, and that was in personal labour. The relicks of
this ancient mode of taxation, though at this time of day
exceedingly mitigated, or in some places entirely
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