How often have I led the sportive choir,

With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire.
And haply, though my harsh touch, FALTERING still,
But mocked all tune, and marr'd the dancer's skill,
Yet would the village praise my wondrous power,
And dance forgetful of the noontide hour.

Goldsmith.

While through the broken pane the tempest sighs,
And my step FALTERS in the faithless floor,
Shades of departed joys around me rise.

Rogers.

IV. From to light (A. Saxon leoht-an, geliht-an), "to give light or illuminate," past tense and past participle lit, is formed the frequentative to GLITTER. The G is the common prefix of Anglosaxon verbs GE. TO GLITTER, is used in speaking of a multitude of shining objects, or one of great splendour, but with peculiar propriety of a shining body or bodies in motion, giving frequent flashes or gleams of light.

The scene upon the lake was beautiful. One side of it was bordered by a steep crag, from which hung a thousand enormous icicles all GLITTERING in the sun. Guy Mannering.

But now the clouds in airy tumult fly,

The sun emerging opes an azure sky;

A fresher green the smelling leaves display,

And, GLITTERING as they tremble, cheer the day.

Before the battle joins, from far

Parnell.

The field yet GLITTERS with the pomp of war.

Dryden.

And groves of lances GLITTER in the air.

Pope.

æraque fulgent

Sole lacessita, et lucem sub nubila jactant.

Eneid. VII.

GLITTERIS and schane.

G. Douglas's Translation, p. 226.

I swear by all those GLITTERING stars.

Otway.

Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun,
When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,
GLISTERING with dew; fragrant the fertile earth
After soft showers; and sweet the coming on
Of grateful evening mild; then silent Night
With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon,
And these the gems of heaven, her starry train:
But neither breath of morn, when she ascends
With charms of earliest birds; nor rising sun
On this delightful land; nor herb, fruit, flower,
GLISTERING with dew; nor fragrance after showers,
Nor grateful evening mild; nor silent Night,
With this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon,
Or GLITTERING star-light, without thee is sweet.

Milton.

It is not easy to define the difference of meaning expressed by to GLISTER, and to GLITTER, but they could not with propriety change places in the last quotation. Is it that to glister is more applicable to the surface of a body not naturally luminous, though shining at the time, and that to glitter is also used in this way, -but spoken with greater propriety than glister, of luminous bodies? Etymology, however, gives no support to this distinction.

V. TO GLISTER comes from a similar root, the Anglosaxon lix-an, lucere, which has not been retained in the English, as it has in some of the cognate tongues. It is in the Swedish lys-a, past

participle lyst; in the German (with the prefix GE) gleiss-en, past participle gleissete or gleisste.

VI. TO GLIMMER seems to be a frequentative from to gleam, Anglosaxon, geleom-an, lucere. It is explained by Dr. Johnson, "to shine faintly," and it may have acquired this sense, by having first been employed to denote the frequent or fitful gleaming, or unsteady light (as it generally is) of what shines faintly

When o'er the dying lamp, the unsteady flame
Hangs quivering on a point, leaps off by fits
And falls again.

Addison.

With yawning mouths and with half open'd eyes,
They ply the distaff by the winking light,
And to their daily labours add the night.

The wife and husband equally conspire

Dryden.

To work by night, and rake the winter fire:
He sharpens torches in the GLIMMERING room, &c.

But now the lights are waxing dim and pale,
And shed a fitful gleaming o'er the room.

Dryden.

Wilson.

There is a similar frequentative verb used in the north of Scotland, to BLINTER, formed from to blink (preterite and past participle blink't), to gleam, and signifying to give repeated blinks or starts of light, as a dying lamp; and hence, to shine faintly and unsteadily.

So the Anglosaxon verb scim-an or scim-ian, lucere, to shine, in the frequentative form to SHIMMER, has come to signify shining faintly or glimmering.

With sic wourdis he schoutand did persew,

And

ay

the GLIMMERAND brand baith schuke and schew. G. Douglas's Virgil, p. 342.

Around his head he toss'd his GLITTERING brand.

So when a smooth expanse receives imprest
Calm nature's image on its watery breast,
Down bend the banks, the trees depending grow,
And skies beneath with answering colours glow;
But if a stone the gentle sea divide,
Swift ruffling circles curl on every side,
And GLIMMERING fragments of a broken sun,
Banks, trees, and skies in thick disorder run.

The scatter'd lights that skirt the bay
All, one by one, have died away;

The only lamp of this lone hour

Dryden.

Parnell.

Dr. Johnson, "TO GLIMMER (glimmer, Danish), to shine faintly, &c."

The Danish verb glimm-er, is the same in pronunciation as our word to gleam; the ER is only their mark of the infinitive mood.

VII. TO CHATTER, is another instance, according to Johnson, of our having taken an infinitive termination from the French, as part of the word. He derives it from caqueter; and supposes to chat

contracted from it.

"He chats-he chatters." I think the latter word expresses more than the former, and is a frequentative from it. Both signify "to talk idly

"or prattle." The frequentative also signifies "to make a noise as a pie, or other inharmonious 66 bird."

TO CHATTER, "to make a noise by collision of "the teeth," is, perhaps, a frequentative from to chaw, preterite and past participle chaw'd or chaw't.

Like him who chaws

Sardinian herbage to contract his jaws.

Dryden.

When the rain came to wet me once, and the wind to make me CHATTER.- King Lear.

VIII. Dr. Johnson, "TO HOVER (hovio, to hang over, Welsh), to hang in the air overhead, with"out flying off one way or another, &c."

This is one instance where the great lexicographer has failed to make "the explanation and "word explained reciprocal." We do not say a chandelier hovers, though it hangs over head without flying off one way or another.

TO HOVER, always implies motion, and is a frequentative from to heave (preterite and past participle hove), from which Bailey also derived it. It is applied with peculiar propriety to a hawk, when, looking for prey, he hangs in the air, without flying off one way or another; and then what strikes us in his action but the frequent heaving of his wings, by which he supports himself? It is also well applied to the lark, when he

Mounts and sings on flittering wings.

* So garrire in Latin has both these significations.

I can prattle like a magpie.

Congreve.

Burns.