o tell of the golden shoes
with which the folly of Caligula adorned his horse could scarcely
avoid speaking of _golden_ hoof-_irons_. The same inner
contradiction is involved in such language as our own, a "_false_
_ver_dict", a "_steel_ _cuirass_" ('coriacea' from corium,
leather), "antics new" (Harrington's _Ariosto_), an "_erroneous_
_etymo_logy", a "_corn_ _chandler_"; that is, a "_corn_
_candle_-maker", "_rather_ _late_", 'rather' being the
comparative of 'rathe', early, and thus "rather late" being
indeed "more early late"; and in others.

{276} ['Siren' is now generally understood to have meant originally a
songstress, from the root _svar_, to sing or sound, seen in
_syrinx_, a flute, _su(r)-sur-us_, etc. See J. E. Harrison, _Myths
of the Odyssey_, p. 175.]

{277} ['Chymist' seems to be the oldest form of the word in English; see
N.E.D.]

{278} {Greek: che:mia}, the name of Egypt; see Plutarch, _De Is. et Os._
c. 33.

{279} We have a notable evidence how deeply rooted this error was, how
long this confusion endured, of the way in which it was shared by
the learned as well as the unlearned, in Milton's _Apology for
Smectymnuus_, sect. 7, which everywhere presumes the identity of
the 'satyr' and the 'satirist'. It was Isaac Casaubon who first
effectually dissipated it even for the learned world. The results
of his investigations were made popular for the unlearned reader
by Dryden, in the very instructive _Discourse on Satirical
Poetry_, prefixed to his translations of Juvenal; but the
confusion still survives, and 'satyrs' and 'satires', the Greek
'satyric' drama, the Latin 'satirical' poetry, are still assumed
by most to have something to do with one another.

{280} ['Dirige' was the first word of the antiphon at matins in the
Office for the Dead, taken from Psalm v, 9 (Vulg.), in which occur
the words "_dirige_ in conspectu tuo vitam meam". See Skeat,
_Piers Plowman_, ii, 52. Hence also Scotch _dregy_, a dirge.]

{281} [Incorrect: the 'mid-wife' is etymologically she that is _with_
(old English _mid_) a woman to help her in her hour of need, like
German _bei-frau_, Spanish _co-madre_, Icelandic _naer-kona_,
"near-woman", Latin _ob-stetrix_, "by-stander", all words for the
lying-in nurse. Compare German _mit-bruder_,