The Life of Words as the Symbols of Ideas. Translated
from the French of Arserie Darmatetter. (Began Paul, Trench, and Co.)— We can heartily recommend this little book, containing lectures privately delivered last year in London, and now translated from the French. They are full of ingenious suggestion. We may instance especially the chapter on " Destructive Agencies," from which we select the following :—" Caput disappeared before testa, the fragment of a broken pot, figuratively the receptacle of the grain, whence the word tete. The language of the people in our days is beginning to
replace tie, which is too abstract, by bowie, a ball We have remarked a popular tendency to prefer words of scientific formation to indigenous French words, as more fashionable and in better style. So stager disappeared before naviguer; franchir, to free, before liberer; mdretd, maturity, before maturity; frelete, frailty, before fragiiite; geindre, to groan, before genii,; moutier, a monastery, before monastere ; the ,affix •aison before the mac -cation." We notice that the word -yhavees is mis-spelt with a " x " in text and index.
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