444
NOTES AND QUERIES. 1 1-2 s.r. JUNE 3,1916.
older series of ' N. & Q.' contain a great dea
of information. Oldys's letter is entitled :
" A Dissertation upon Pamphlets and the
undertaking of ' Phoenix Britannicus ' to revive
the most excellent among them. In a letter t<
a Nobleman. From the original MS."
After an introductory paragraph Oldys
continues :
" And, First, for the Derivation of the wore Pamphlet. I should think it little discredited by -what some Etymologists and those who torture words into Confessions of what they never were guilty, have, thro' the Confinement of themselves to some opprobrious signification censoriously suggested thereof. That one linguist having found a word which will illustrate the adaptness of these writings to the vulgar Consultation of the Populace, would derive it from TLdv and II as filling all places, which all vulgar and popular Things have the Property of doing [Minsheu's
- Guide to Tongues,' Fol. 1627]. Another Ori-
ginal, no less specious, has been offered me by an ingenious Friend, from II av and 0\yw, which by a Grammatical Turn, reaches to the Analogy of Sound and, by a Rhetorical Twist, to the plausible sense of influencing all Parties. But others, considering the subject of Pamphlets in a more copious and unbiassed Latitude, as having branched into all other Parts of Science, besides Religion and Politics, from the first Appropriation of the Name, and before their Engagement in Controversy could draw upon them any prevailing Sobriquet to their Disparagement, have, with less Partiality, concluded of these Tracts, whose Contents, therefore, as well as Dimensions, are so generally engaging to all Writers and Readers, so much more suited to every Body's Purchase, that the name is more properly derivable from nap and 0:X^w, as if they were a Kind of Com- position beloved by, or delighting all People [' Icon Libellorum,' in Pref.].
" But, notwithstanding this favourable Deri- vation, I should not be for going to Athens after one, or seeking it in any other of the more ancient Languages, seeing that Word Pampier for Paper [?], in one more Modern, more probable to me (as it seemed before to one of our most in- -dustrious Glossographers) for this of Pamphlet to be derived from [Skinner's ' Etymologicon Ling. Ang.,' Fol. 1671] the last Letter of the first Syllable being interwoven by Epenthesis to mollify the Sound ; and the last Syllable substi- tuted as a noted Term of Diminution in many Languages [Ib. in Voc. Let. and Sir Hen. Spel- man's ' Gloss.'] with the same Difference of Interpretation as between Charta and Chartula, or Papyrus and Papyrulus, Thus, also, in French, the Diminutive of the Word Livre, for a Book itself, is Livret ; and thus, in English, we have Aglet, Amulet, Bracelet, Chaplet, Corslet, Eaglet, Gafflet, Hamlet, Howlet, Oilet, Pallet, Pullet, Ringlet, Rivulet, and Twenty more with like Terminations to the same Sense."
There is a reprint of this dissertation on p. 98 of vol. iv. of Nichols's ' Literary Anecdotes,' from which the above passage has been omitted. In the course of his next paragraph Oldys continues :
" Thus I find, not a little to the Honour of our Subject, no less a Person than the Renowned
King Alfred, collecting his Sage Precepts and
Divine Sentences, with his own Royal Hand, into
Quaternions of Leaves stitched together [Sir John
Spelman's ' Life of Alfred the Great,' p. 205],
which he would inlarge with additional Qua-
ternions as Occasion offered ; yet seemed he to
keep his Collection so much within the Limits
of a Pamphlet - Size (however bound together at
last) that he called it by the Name of his Hand,
Boole, because he made it his constant Companion-
and had it at Hand wherever he was."
Pamphlets preceded printing, and thus also paper. But Alfred the Great carries us even farther back than the Middle Ages. The early printed pamphlets, curiously enough, were all in " quaternions of leaves," and consisted of so many sheets in quarto, each sheet containing 4 leaves or 8 pages.
Stephen Skinner's ' Etymologicon Linguae Anglicanse,' published in 1671, contains the following :
" PAMPHLET, Mins [heu] deflectit a Uav & nXTjflw q.d. ndjU7rX?70u>, quod sc. Stultorum plena sunt omnia, & talium librorum multitudine mundus aestuat, ingeniosius, credo, quam verius. Mallem deducere a Pampilet, vel contract e Pamplet, dim. Belg. Pampier (i.e.) Charta addito spiritu, hoc autem Pampier, per Epenthesin [indecipherable] m. ortum est a Lat. Papyrus [? Pampmus] q.d. Chartula seu Papyrulus (i.e.) Charta seu Libellus vilis."
Handle Cotgrave's ' French Dictionary ' [ed. 1650) contains the following : " Pam- pier ; m. ere ; f. Of, or belonging to a. Vineleafe ; also bearing onely leaves." In jhe same column Cotgrave gives also : ' Pampre ; f . A Vine leafe, or Vine leaves, a
Vine branch full of leaves." Littre does not cite Pampier, but cites Pampe as follows :
" Pampe (pan-p'), s.f. Feuille du ble\ de 1'orge, \ etc. (ce mot n'est pas du langage botanique) list. XIII e S. Un plain panier de penpes de ' roses a faire eaue de rose. Du Cange, pampa. j I. XIV e S. Pampes de jeunes roses, Menagier i. 5. Etym. Lat. Pampinus, avec changement < le genre (voy. Pampre).
ind also : " Pampre (pan-pr'). Tige de ') /igne couverte de feuilles." Quotations ollow, then :
"2. Feston de feuilles de vignes et de grappes de raisin, qui sert d'ornement a la cblonne torse.
The same etymology, from pampinus, follows.
French was the language of the Court in the Middle Ages. If we remember that the mediaeval English terms for "pamphlet" were also " panfletus," , " paunflet," " panflete," &c., we at once note the sound of the French pampe in them (" pan " for pam).
Correcting Oldys's authority, Skinner, and deriving the word " pamphlet " from pampe
