Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/566

 562 Draper Spenser, however, was by no means the only archaist of the period; and it is not surprising that, in his borrowings, he hit upon a number of the pseudo-archaisms and coinages of his fellow-craftsmen. The following words do not appear in M. E., but were used by sixteenth century authors previous to the publication of the Calender in 1579. Some of them seem to have had a Romance origin, and some may have been dialectic; but Spenser probably took them from their immediate source. entrailed (VIII), *grosse (i X ), reliven not (XI), surly (VII), venteth (II). Significantly enough, half of these are used for rhyme-words. The Elizabethans had good reason to realize the difficulties of English rhyme as compared with the Italian which they were so commonly imitating. Perhaps under the influence of the Classical and Romance authors whom he was closely following in his eclogues, Spenser seems to have been responsible for several new loan-words from French, Latin, and Italian, or at least, loan-words in new mean- ings. *Overture (VII) is from the French; N. E. D. suggests that *stank (IX) is from the Italian, and that *crumenal (IX), Again, it is interesting to note that the rhyme seems to have forced Spenser to the use of these words. The case of "tinct" is fairly clear: Spenser was bound at once by the difficult rhyme of "extinct" and by his almost literal translation of the passage from Marot. 35 The unwonted word is not necessarily borrowed from or even suggested by the earlier poet; but the closeness of his imitations must at times have put Spenser hard to it for rhyme and meter. The lists of words already given that might come from dialect on the one hand, or Middle English or Middle Scots on the other, suggests the possibility of a considerable dialectical influence. Of course, most of the dialect-words of Spenser's 84 As Skeat's gloss shows, Chaucer regularly used this word to mean, as if, but the 1598 Chaucer, edited by Speght, gives aside also. This sense must have been gleaned either from a misinterpretation of Chaucer or from some pseudo-Chaucerian poems in the volume. Of course, Spenser could not have used this edition; and none of the earlier ones were glossed; but he may have mis-read the passage, just as Speght did in the 1598 ed. 36 See Reissert in Anglia, IX, 213.
 * Adawed (II), *ascaunce (III), 34 *borrell (VII), chamfred (II),
 * tinct (XI) and *dismount (V) are from Classical or Vulgar Latin.