strappado',
'tornado', 'vanilla', 'verandah'. 'Buffalo' also is Spanish; 'buff' or
'buffle' being the proper English word; 'caprice' too we probably
obtained rather from Spain than Italy, as we find it written 'capricho'
by those who used it first. Other Spanish words, once familiar, are now
extinct. 'Punctilio' lives on, but not 'punto', which occurs in Bacon.
'Privado', signifying a prince's favourite, one admitted to his
_privacy_ (no uncommon word in Jeremy Taylor and Fuller), has quite
disappeared; so too has 'quirpo' (cuerpo), the name given to a jacket
fitting close to the _body_; 'quellio' (cuello), a ruff or _neck_-collar;
and 'matachin', the title of a sword-dance; these are all frequent in
our early dramatists; and 'flota' was the constant name of the
treasure-fleet from the Indies. 'Intermess' is employed by Evelyn, and
is the Spanish 'entremes', though not recognized as such in our
dictionaries. 'Mandarin' and 'marmalade' are our only Portuguese words I
can call to mind. A good many of our sea-terms are Dutch, as 'sloop',
'schooner', 'yacht', 'boom', 'skipper', 'tafferel', 'to smuggle'; 'to
wear', in the sense of veer, as when we say '_to wear_ a ship';
'skates', too, and 'stiver', are Dutch. Celtic _things_ are for the most
part designated among us by Celtic words; such as 'bard', 'kilt',
'clan', 'pibroch', 'plaid', 'reel'. Nor only such as these, which are
all of them comparatively of modern introduction, but a considerable
number, how large a number is yet a very unsettled question, of words
which at a much earlier date found admission into our tongue, are
derived from this quarter.

Now, of course, I have no right to presume that any among us are
equipped with that knowledge of other tongues, which shall enable us to
detect of ourselves and at once the nationality of all or most of the
words which we may meet--some of them greatly disguised, and having
undergone manifold transformations in the process of their adoption
among us; but only that we have such helps at command in the shape of
dictionaries and the like, and so much diligence in their use, as will
enable us to discover the quarter from which the words we may encounter
have reached us; and I will confidently say that few studies of the
kind will be more fruitful, will suggest more various matter of
reflection, will more lead you into the secrets of the English tongue,
than an analysis of a certain number of passages drawn from different
author