e exception of the
lion's hide thrown round him--_and the long, flowing peruke_ of the
times! O Jupiter _tonans_! let us have either the lion or the ass--only
let it be _veracious_!

To proceed: 'Auburn' is probably connected with _brennan_, and means
_sun-burned_, analogous, indeed, to 'Ethiopian' ([Greek: Aithiops]),
_one whom the sun has looked upon_.

How seldom do we think, in uttering 'adieu,' that we verily say, I
commend you _a Dieu_--to God; that the lightly-spoken _good-by_ means
_God be wi' you_,[3] or that the (if possible) still more frequent and
_unthinking_ 'thank you,' in reality assures the person addressed--_I
will think often of you_.

'Eld' is a word that has the poetic aroma about it, and is an example
(of which we might adduce additional cases from the domain of 'poetic
diction') of a word set aside from a prose use and devoted exclusively
to poetry. It is, as we know, Saxon, signifying _old_ or _old age_, and
was formerly in constant use in this sense; as, for instance, in
Chaucer's translation of _Boethius de Consolatione Philosophiae_, we find
thus:

'At laste no drede ne might overcame tho muses, that thei ne weren
fellowes, and foloweden my waie, that is to saie, when I was
exiled, thei that weren of my youth whilom welfull and grene,
comforten now sorrowfull weirdes of me olde man: for _elde_ is
comen unwarely upon me, hasted by the harmes that I have, and
sorowe hath commaunded his age to be in me.'

So in the _Knightes Tale_:

'As sooth in said _elde_ hath gret avantage;
In _elde_ is both wisdom and usage:
Men may the old out-renne but not out-rede.'

Oh! what an overflowing fulness of truth and beauty is there wrapped up
in the core of these articulations that we so heedlessly utter, would we
but make use of the wizard's wand wherewith to evoke them! What an
exhaustless wealth does there lie in even the humblest fruitage and
flowerage of language, and what a fecundity have even dry 'roots'!

'Thinkest thou there were no poets till Dan Chaucer?' asks our great
Thomas; 'no heart burning with a thought, which it could not hold, and
had no word for; and needed to shape and coin a word for--what thou
callest a metaphor, trope, or the like? For every word we have, there
was such a man and poet. The coldest word was once a glowing new
metaphor, and bold questionable originality. 'Thy very ATTENTION, does
it not mean an _attentio_, a STRETCHING-TO?' F