ancient Italy, notwithstanding her aversion to the naturalization of foreign words, has always given citizenship to foreign terms of warlike art, and the few Teutonic words which she received from her barbarous conquerors, such as guerra and brando, are of this description. It must always be so. Nations must receive terms of art in sciences in which they are themselves deficient, and of things which are new to them from their invaders. This has been observed in our own language, in which the live beast is known by a Saxon name, but when prepared for food, by a French denomination; and an ingenious gentleman, who (it is to be, hoped) will sometime or other publish his speculations on such subjects, has, upon this principle, explained one of the oddest anomalies in our language, to wit, that of a husband and wife in the same rank of our nobility, being dignified one by a Saxon, and the other by a French title of honour. I of course allude to the words earl and countess, the origin of the application of which terms he thus explains. The Norman count standing in the place of the Anglo-Saxon earl, being called to the discharge of his offices, and mixing necessarily with the original inhabitants, succeeded to his appellation; but his wife, keeping her state at home, and being altogether a personage for which there was no home equivalent, succeeded in maintaining her native title.
But I am deviating from the line of illustration which I had prescribed to myself.
The crowd by Rodomont of Sarza led, &c.
Stanza cxxvi. line 1.
I have translated the account of this storm very literally; and it is curious, as probably exhibiting the modes of attack and defence practised in the time of Ariosto; who, however, by omitting to state specifically what is nevertheless to be inferred from the narrative, has rendered his description, at first sight, somewhat obscure, a charge to which he is seldom open.
