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APPENDIX II.

Verbal Innovation and Rare Words used by the
Romantic Poets of the 18th. Century.

Readers will not find in this appendix the mediaeval words, phrases, and forms deliberately employed by Shenstone in "The Schoolmistress", Thomson in "The Castle of Indolence", Chatterton in the "Rowley Poems", Mickle in "The Concubine", and by other writers. But these expressions, of course, represent one of the most marked features of the 18th Century Romantic vocabulary.

Nor will they find any purely Scottish words, however rare some of them may have been in Scotland itself. The popularity of Ramsay's poetry ensured indulgence for the Scots tongue, which steadily became more familiar to those who dwelt South of the Tweed; moreover, Scottish expressions helped to rid English verse of a specifically poetic vocabulary. With regard to the following lists, which have been checked by recourse to the magnificent New English Dictionary (referred to as "N.E.D") and to the Spenser, Shakespeare and Milton concordances, it may be observed that the term "poetry" implies real poetry, not mere versifiers' productions, and that the adjective “rare”, "obsolete", etc., mean that the words in question were so at the time when they were used; indication is given as to whether a word is a complete neologism or has been first employed in a certain sense; a familiar vocable used, by innovation, as another part of speech, is considered a coining; while by the phrase, "first [or "probably first"] example in poetry" (written "Ist or prob. Ist ex. in poetry"), it will naturally be understood that the word has been earlier used, perhaps quite commonly, in prose; the final 'ed' of verbs and pcpl. adjectives is never given as' 'd' in these notes.

While Lady Winchelsea's few Romantic poems offer no

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thing, Pope's "Eloisa to Abelard" (1717) contains 'glue' 'clasp in close and enveloping fashion', a neologism in this sense and unnoted by the N.E.D.; 'shagged' 'made rough' (p'pcpl.), rare; 'spiry' 'crowned with spires', rare; irradiate' (vb), among the 1st exx. in poetry; and 'amicable', prob. Ist ex. in poetry.

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In Parnell's "Poems", published in 1721 by Pope, we find two neologisms, 'tanning' (pcpl. adj.) 'that tans, makes brown', and 'ravished' (adj.)= 'ravishing', 'delightful' (N.E. D. doesn't give the word in this sense, but it seems the right interpretation); 'Sink' = 'sinking motion' (in dancing), earliest verified ex. in poetry; 'twisting [pines]' (pcpl. adj.), prob. Ist. ex. in poetry; 'purpled ([air]' (pcpl. adj.), rare.

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Ramsay uses no English Coinings or rare words. But Thomson is rich therein. "Winter" (1726) has three coinings ; 'redressive', 'taleful', 'dimply'; 'constringent', "luculent' in sense of bright', 'disastered' = 'ruined' or 'unfortunate', prob. 1st. exx. in poetry; and as other rare words, 'presageful', 'heapy', 'hag' as verb, 'tempest' as verb. "Summer” (1727) has two complete neologisms, 'formful' 'apt to create forms', and 'unboastful' ; and 'eflulged', a coining as a vb. trans. (1st. ex. in N.E.D., 1729), and 'harmonise' as 'reduce to internal harmony', 1st exx. in poetry: 'immingle', 'blushful', 'illapse', "savaged' as p. pcpl. pass. Other rare words :Other rare words: 'ecliptic', deathful', 'impregned' as p.pcpl. pass., 'incomposed', "commoved' ditto, 'diffusive', 'effuse' as adj., 'erroneous' 'errant', 'ridgy', 'towery', 'lawny', 'plumey', 'spiry', 'thistly', 'foodful', 'gaze'= 'gaze at', 'serene' as verb, 'keen' do., 'saint' do., 'sinewed' as pcpl, 'nectared' as adj.

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'inexhaustive',

"Spring" (1728). Coinings:-'amusive', disparting' as pcpl. adj, 'infusive' in sense of 'having the power of infusing'. Ist. ex. in poetry :-'detruded' as p. pcpl. pass., poss. Ist. ex. in poetry: 'prelusive'. Other rare words are 'vernant', 'distent' as p.pcpl. pass., 'innumerous': 'immumerable', 'commixing' as verb, 'successless', irriguous', 'gelid', 'examinate' as adj. and 'approvance'.

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"Autumn" (1730). Neologisms :-'ovarious', 'skied' as adj., and 'miny' in sense of 'subterranean' or 'like a mine'. 1st ex. in poetry 'horrific'. Prob. 1st exx. in poetry : 'concoctive' in sense of 'tending to mature by heat', 'incult', 'innoxious'. Among the earliest exx. in poetry: 'bo

real', 'directive', 'inspect' as noun. Other rare words :- 'subversed', 'flatted' as pcpl. adj., 'green' as verb, 'protended', 'turgent', 'magnific'.

In Glover's poem "On Sir Isaac Newton" (1728), we meet with the coined form 'effulgency', of which the N.E.D. gives no instance.

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Somerville's "Chase" (1735) has a problematic neologism: the N.E.D. gives 'glouting' 'surly', 'sulking', which clashes with the context: I hazard the interpretation 'gluttonous', from Old French glot', 'glous', or 'gloz', variants meaning 'greedy' or 'greedy' man', Modern French 'glouton'. There are also the rarities, 'concoctive", 'credit' 'do credit to', and 'meteorous'.

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In Dyer's "Ruins of Rome" (1740) we find 'inscriptive', a neologism in the sense of 'inscribed; 'ophite', 1st. ex. in poetry, and ‘rotund' a very early ex. in poetry; 'sleeky' and 'towery', rare; 'chapiter', obsolete in this spelling.

Young by his "Night Thoughts" (1742-4) has enriched the English tongue with the following coinings: 'babies' = 'makes as babies', 'makes babies of'; 'cutaneous' in sense of 'external'; 'harmonist' in sense of 'singer'; 'horologe' as adj. ; 'mismeasured' (p.pcpl.); 'parsoned' as pcpl. adj.: 'solute' in sense of care-free'; 'rove' in sense of 'a rambling'; 'terraefillial'; 'unlectured' 'not lectured upon'; 'unabsurd'; 'unrefunding' as pcpl. adj. ; 'un-adept'; 'unraptured' as adj.

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1st exx. in poetry :-'entenders' as vb. trans. ; 'minutes' = 'notes in detail'; 'unalienably'; 'antemundane'; 'unbottomed' as 'unbased'; 'inconceivables' as noun; 'prelibation' as= 'foretaste' and 'plumping', verb trans., 'making fat'. Probable 1st exx. in poetry -- 'defecate' verb trans., 'indagators', 'feculent', 'displosion', 'corrugate' as adj.

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Among the earliest exx. in poetry:- 'fuliginous', 'resorbs' vb. trans., 'disploding' as pcpl. adj., 'fodders' as vb. trans., 'labyrinthian'. Other rare words:-'embruted', a variant of 'imbruted', 'balsamic', 'plausive, 'dismission', 'feculence', 'tempest as vb. trans., 'compassioned' as p.pcpl., 'insuppressive'= 'not to be suppressed', 'conglobed' as p.pcpl., 'enterpriser', 'refuse' as vb. intrans., 'elance' as vb. trans., 'earths' = 'buries', 'effuse' as adj., 'complicate'= 'complicated', 'raptured', 'rapturous'.

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For the period before 1750, Thomson, among the Roman

tics, was the most striking figure in the matter of vocabulary, while Young comes second. Notable too is Blair, whose 'Grave' contains, for its size, an unusual number of coinings, rare words, and words employed in an original manner. In this poem (1743), we have two certain neologisms, 'chequering' as pres.pcpl. of a vb. intrans. and 'writhy' 'given to writhing'; as for clubs' in the sentence 'Ne'er younker... clubs a smuttier tale', which the N.E.D. states = 'contributes as one's share', the context favours the interpretation "tells roughly and vigorously'. We find the following prob. Ist. exx. in poetry :'complexionally' 'temperamentally', "busto' 'bust'; and these rare words 'rooked' = 'crouching' or 'squatting', 'errors' 'wanderings', 'insurancers', 'volumes' 'rings' or 'coils', 'lag' 'lagging' or 'weary', and 'sunder' as vb. intrans. Akenside's 'Pleasures of Imagination" (1744) has the coining 'incorruptive'; and three rarities, illapse' as noun, 'midway' as adj., and frontless' as 'shameless'. In the "Hymn to the Naiads" (1746), we find the rare word, 'interminated' = 'boundless'; while "The Poet" (1744) contains "pulverulent', a neologism in the sense of 'dusty'.

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Armstrong's "Art of Preserving Health" is not, of course, a Romantic poem; as a whole, far from it. But as a didactic poem containing numerous, though brief, passages distinctly Romantic, we may note the following words (all purely technical terms excluded) :-'irremedicable', not given by the N.E.D., is a neologism, while pleuritic' is a neologism in the sense of likely to cause pleurisy'; 'nutrimental' and 'recremental' (as = 'of the recrements) are here used probably for the first time in poetry; 'roscid' 'dewy', 'irremeable' 'not to be travelledalong again', and 'colliquation' = 'melting' are rare words. In Armstrong's poem "A Day" (1761) we come on the coining "Ipecacuan', adj.

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Joseph Warton offers in his "Odes" (1746) untillaged', Ist. ex. in poetry; 'diseaseful', prob. 1st ex. in poetry in sense of tending to cause disease'; 'harmonize' 'make in harmony with what is around one', rare and nibbling' as pcpl. adj., rare in poetry. In a poem written and pub. 1762, we find ‘nectareous', a rare epithet.

In Thomas Warton's "Pleasures of Melancholy" (1747) we find the rare words 'daedal', 'assuasive', '(slow-) dittied', 'tradeful', 'diffusive' as here used. In his other serious poems,

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mostly published during the period 1757-1777, we meet with 'glad' as vb. trans., 'sheen' as adj., and 'metheglin', all rare, and with 'brambled', which seems to be a neologism as an adjective.

Collins, in the "Odes", issued in December 1746, has the following coinings :-- ‘ennobling' as adj., earlier than any ex. in N.E.D.; ‘sheety', in a variant reading of the "Ode to Evening"; 'gemmed' p.pcpl. pass. Prob. 1st. ex. in poetry-enthusiast' as adj. Rare words 'emblaze' as verb trans., 'pillared' as adj., 'thymy', 'unboastful', 'warbled and pebbled' as adjectives.

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In a variant reading of "An Epistle to Sir Thomas Hanmer", pub. 1746, we discover 'myrtled' as adj.; this word, constituting a neologism, does not figure in the N.E.D.

In the "Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland", composed in 1749 but not published till 1788, we have two neologisms, 'osiered' and 'unrustling' as adjs., and a prob. 1st ex. in poetry, 'quaggy'.

"On our late Taste in Music", pub. in 19th. century, we find the coining 'marmoric', earlier than any ex. in N.E.D.; ' emasculate', which, as vb. trans., is prob. 1st. in poetry; and 'enervate' as adj., 'eunuch' as adj., and 'bubbled' as vb. trans, rare words.

Hamilton of Bangour, whose "Poems" appeared in 1748, though many pieces had earlier figured in periodicals, contributed considerably to the poetic wealth of the century. 'Semblant', in a poem pub. 1725, is a neologism in the sense of 'creating an appearance'; 'essenced' 'sprinkled with scent', 1737,

is rare; arbourette' (usual spelling 'arboret')= 'a little arbour', and 'unfrequented', both 1739, rare. Among the words appearing in the 1748 volume, ‘jejune' as=‘unproductive' or 'poor' (of soil), rare; 'inobedient', rare in poetry; 'unprompt', adj. prob. Ist ex. poetry; 'unstarred' and 'unwithheld', pcpl. adjs., rare. In 1760 came an enlarged edition, containing 'alimental' and 'refluent', rare; 'laver' 'washing basin', which, though very common in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, has become obsolete by the middle of the 18th. ; 'sejoined' pcpl. adj., prob. 1st ex. in poetry; and 'irremediless', used by mistake for 'remediless', is rare.

Smart's "Song to David" presents no neologisms or very rare words, but his volume of "Poems" issued in 1752 and inclu

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