ittle lad, and not
a 'ladkin', a little worm, rather than a 'wormling' (Sylvester). It is
true that of diminutives very many still survive, in all our four
terminations of such, as 'hillock', 'streamlet', 'lambkin', 'gosling';
but those which have perished are many more. Where now is 'kingling'
(Holland), 'whimling' (Beaumont and Fletcher), 'godling', 'loveling',
'dwarfling', 'shepherdling' (all in Sylvester), 'chasteling' (Bacon),
'niceling' (Stubbs), 'fosterling' (Ben Johnson), and 'masterling'? Where
now 'porelet' (=paupercula, Isai. x. 30, Vulg.), 'bundelet', (both in
Wiclif); 'cushionet' (Henry More), 'havenet', or little 'haven',
'pistolet', 'bulkin' (Holland), and a hundred more? Even of those which
remain many are putting off, or have long since put off, their
diminutive sense; a 'pocket' being no longer a _small_ poke, nor a
'latchet' a _small_ lace, nor a 'trumpet' a small _trump_, as once they
were.

{Sidenote: _Thou and Thee_}

Once more--in the entire dropping among the higher classes of 'thou',
except in poetry or in addresses to the Deity, and as a necessary
consequence, the dropping also of the second singular of the verb with
its strongly marked flexion, as 'lovest', 'lovedst', we have another
example of a force once existing in the language, which has been, or is
being, allowed to expire. In the seventeenth century 'thou' in English,
as at the present 'du' in German, 'tu' in French, was the sign of
familiarity, whether that familiarity was of love, or of contempt and
scorn{195}. It was not unfrequently the latter. Thus at Sir Walter
Raleigh's trial (1603), Coke, when argument and evidence failed him,
insulted the defendant by applying to him the term 'thou':--"All that
Lord Cobham did was at _thy_ instigation, _thou_ viper, for I _thou_
thee, _thou_ traitor". And when Sir Toby Belch in _Twelfth Night_ is
urging Sir Andrew Aguecheek to send a sufficiently provocative challenge
to Viola, he suggests to him that he "taunt him with the licence of ink;
if thou _thou'st_ him some thrice, it shall not be amiss". To keep this
in mind will throw much light on one peculiarity of the Quakers, and
give a certain dignity to it, as once maintained, which at present it is
very far from possessing. However needless and unwise their
determination to 'thee' and 'thou' the whole world was, yet this had a
significance. It was not, as now to us it seems, and, through the silent
changes which language has undergone, as no