n of the passage
three or four years ago, but which was given up without sufficient
investigation, owing to an impression that if such had been the meaning,
it was so simple and obvious that nobody could have missed it.

An emergency, which I need not explain here, has within these few days
recalled my attention to the subject; and I have no reason to be
ashamed, or to make a secret, of the result.

_Tyncen_, the diminutive of _tunne_, is not only a genuine Anglo-Saxon
word, but the type of a class, of whose existence in that language no
Saxonist, I may say no Teutonist, not even the perspicacious and
indefatigable Jacob Grimm himself, seems to be aware. The word is
exactly analogous to Ger. _toennchen_, from _tonne_, and proves three
things:--1. That our ancestors formed diminutives in _cen_, as well as
their neighbours in _ken_, _kin_, _chen_; 2. That the radical vowel was
modified: for _y_ is the _umlaut_ of _u_; 3. That these properties of
the dialect were known to Alfred the Great when he added this curious
statement to the narrative of Orosius.

E. THOMSON.

* * * * *

NOTES ON SEVERAL MISUNDERSTOOD WORDS.

(_Continued from_ p. 376.)

_Imperseverant_, undiscerning. This word I have never met with but
twice,--in Shakspeare's _Cymbeline_, with the sense above given; and in
Bishop Andrewes' Sermon preached before Queen Elizabeth at Hampton
Court, A.D. 1594, in the sense of unenduring:

"For the Sodomites are an example of impenitent wilful sinners; and
Lot's wife of _imperseverant_ and relapsing righteous
persons."--_Library of Ang.-Cath. Theology_, vol. ii. p. 62.

_Perseverant_, discerning, and _persevers_, discerns, occur respectively
at pp. 43. and 92. of Hawes's _Pastime of Pleasure_ (Percy Society's
edition). The noun substantive _perseverance_=discernment is as common a
word as any of the like length in the English language. To omit the
examples that might be cited out of Hawes's _Pastime of Pleasure_, I
will adduce a dozen other instances; and if those should not _be enough_
to justify my assertion, I will undertake to heap together two dozen
more. Mr. Dyce, in his _Critique of Knight and Collier's Shakspeare_,
rightly explains the meaning of the word in _Cymbeline_; and quotes an
example of _perseverance_ from _The Widow_, to which the reader is
referred. Mr. Dyce had, however, previously corrupted a passage in his
edition of Rob. Greene's _Dramatic