its manifest conveniences, and
will hold its ground. 'Fatherland' (Vaterland) on the contrary will
scarcely establish itself among us, the note of affectation will
continue to cleave to it, and we shall go on contented with 'native
country' to the end{75}. The most successful of these compounded words,
borrowed recently from the German, is 'folk-lore', and the substitution
of this for popular superstitions, must be esteemed, I think, an
unquestionable gain{76}.

To speak now of other sources from which the new words of a language are
derived. Of course the period when absolutely new roots are generated
will have past away, long before men begin by a reflective act to take
any notice of processes going forward in the language which they speak.
This pure productive energy, creative we might call it, belongs only to
the earlier stages of a nation's existence,--to times quite out of the
ken of history. It is only from materials already existing either in its
own bosom, or in the bosom of other languages, that it can enrich itself
in the later, or historical stages of its life.

{Sidenote: _Compound Words_}

And first, it can bring its own words into new combinations; it can join
two, and sometimes even more than two, of the words which it already
has, and form out of them a new one. Much more is wanted here than
merely to attach two or more words to one another by a hyphen; this is
not to make a new word: they must really coalesce and grow together.
Different languages, and even the same language at different stages of
its existence, will possess this power of forming new words by the
combination of old in very different degrees. The eminent felicity of
the Greek in this respect has been always acknowledged. "The joints of
her compounded words", says Fuller, "are so naturally oiled, that they
run nimbly on the tongue, which makes them though long, never tedious,
because significant"{77}. Sir Philip Sidney boasts of the capability of
our English language in this respect--that "it is particularly happy in
the composition of two or three words together, near equal to the Greek".
No one has done more than Milton to justify this praise, or to make
manifest what may be effected by this marriage of words. Many of his
compound epithets, as 'golden-tressed', 'tinsel-slippered', 'coral-paven',
'flowry-kirtled', 'violet-embroidered', 'vermeil-tinctured', are
themselves poems in miniature. Not unworthy to be set beside these are
Sy