currants at all, but dried grapes, though grapes of diminutive
size{260}.

{Sidenote: '_Court-cards_'}

'_Court_-cards', that is, the king, queen, and knave in each suit, were
once 'coat-cards'{261}; having their name from the long splendid 'coat'
(vestis talaris) with which they were arrayed. Probably 'coat' after a
while did not perfectly convey its original meaning and intention; being
no more in common use for the long garment reaching down to the heels;
and then 'coat' was easily exchanged for 'court', as the word is now
both spelt and pronounced, seeing that nowhere so fitly as in a Court
should such splendidly arrayed personages be found. A public house in
the neighbourhood of London having a few years since for its sign "The
George _Canning_" is already "The George and _Cannon_",--so rapidly do
these transformations proceed, so soon is that forgotten which we
suppose would never be forgotten. "Welsh _rarebit_" becomes "Welsh
_rabbit_"{262}; and '_farced_' or stuffed 'meat' becomes "forced meat".
Even the mere determination to make a word _look_ English, to put it
into an English shape, without thereby so much as seeming to attain any
result in the way of etymology, this is very often sufficient to bring
about a change in its spelling, and even in its form{263}. It is thus
that 'sipahi' has become 'sepoy'; and only so could 'weissager' have
taken its present form of 'wiseacre'{264}.

{Sidenote: _Transformation of Words_}

It is not very uncommon for a word, while it is derived from one word,
to receive a certain impulse and modification from another. This extends
sometimes beyond the spelling, and in cases where it does so, would
hardly belong to our present theme. Still I may notice an instance or
two. Thus our 'obsequies' is the Latin 'exequiae', but formed under a
certain impulse of 'obsequium', and seeking to express and include the
observant honour of that word. 'To refuse' is 'recusare', while yet it
has derived the 'f' of its second syllable from 'refutare'; it is a
medley of the two{265}. The French 'rame', an oar, is 'remus', but that
modified by an unconscious recollection of 'ramus'. 'Orange' is no doubt
a Persian word, which has reached us through the Arabic, and which the
Spanish 'naranja' more nearly represents than any form of it existing in
the other languages of Europe. But what so natural as to think of the
orange as the _golden_ fruit, especially when the "_aurea_ mala" of the
Hesperides