n's seal, which can compel the
unwilling genius back into the leaden void which language becomes when
used as most men use it.

There is a large class of words which every body admits to be imitative
of sounds,--such, for example, as _bang, splash, crack_,--and Mr.
Wedgwood undertakes to show that their number and that of their
derivative applications is much larger than is ordinarily supposed. He
confines himself almost wholly to European languages, but not always to
the particular class of etymologies which it is his main object to trace
out. Some of his explanations of words, not based upon any real or
assumed radical, but showing their gradual passage toward their present
forms and meanings, are among the most valuable parts of the book.
As striking proofs of this, we refer our readers to Mr. Wedgwood's
treatment of the words _abide, abie, allow, danger, and denizen_. When
he differs from other authorities, it is never inconsiderately or
without examination. Now and then we think his derivations are
far-fetched, when simpler ones were lying near his hand. He makes the
Italian _balcone_ come from the Persian _baia khaneh_, an upper chamber.
An upper chamber over a gate in the Persian caravanserais is still
called by that name, according to Rich. (p. 97.) Yet under the
word _balk_ we find, "A hayloft is provincially termed the _balks_,
(Halliwell,) because situated among the rafters. Hence also, probably,
the Ital. _balco_, or _pulcoy_ a scaffold; a loftlike erection supported
upon beams." As a _balcone_ is not an upper chamber, nor a chamber over
a gate, but is precisely "a loftlike erection supported upon beams," it
seems more reasonable to suppose it an augmentative formed in the usual
way from _balco_. Mr. Wedgwood's derivation of barbican from _bala
khaneh_ seems to us more happy. (Ducange refers the word to an Eastern
source.) He would also derive the Fr. _ebaucher_ from _balk_, though we
have a correlative form, _sbozzare_, in Italian, (old Sp. _esbozar_,
Port, _esboyar_, Diez,) with precisely the same meaning, and from a
root _bozzo_, which is related to a very different class of words from
_balk_. So bewitched is Mr. Wedgwood with this word _balk_, that he
prefers to derive the Ital. _valicam, varcare_, from it rather than from
the Latin _varicare_. We should think a deduction from the latter to the
English _walk_ altogether as probable. Mr. Wedgwood also inclines to
seek the origin of _acquaint_ in the Germ,