Rome, and the sixth from St. Peter, sought for the chains, with which St. Peter was bound at Rome, under Nero; and having found them, she kissed them and was healed; and Quirinus and his family were baptized. Tunc dictus Alexander Papa hoc festum in calendis Augusti celebrandum instituit, et in honorem beati Petri ecclesiam in urbe fabricavit, ubi ipsa vincula reposuit, et ad vincula nominavit, et calendis Augusti dedicavit. In qua festivitate populus illic conveniens ipsa vincula hodie osculatur.'" Durand. Rationale divin. Offic. lib. vii. p. 240. The festival was instituted on occasion of finding the chains, and of the miracle wrought by them, and so was intitled Festum Sancti Petri ad vincula; and because the part upon which it was performed was the gula or throat, in process of time, it came to be called Gula Augusti. It took the name of Peter-mass partly from the apostle, and partly, as I think, from its being the day, when the Rome-scot or Peter-pence, in ancient time, (when that tribute was paid in this kingdom) was levied. The Confessor's law is very express, "The Peter-penny ought to be demanded at the feast of the apostles Peter and Paul*, and to be levied at the feast called ad vinculat." Eccles. Laws of Edward the Confessor, A. D. MLXIV. c. 11. We come now to Lammas, of which there are two etymologies. The first is in Cowel: "Lammas-day," says he, "is the first of August, so called, quasi Lamb-mas, on which day the tenant that held lands of the cathedral church at York, which is dedicated to St. Peter ad vincula ‡, were bound, by that tenure, to bring a living lamb into the church at high mass." Cowel's Interpreter. But this custom may seem too local, to give occasion to so general a name, and therefore the etymon given us by Mr. Wheatly from Somner, I would chuse to prefer. These gentlemen derive it from the A. Saxon hlafmasse, that is, Loaf-mass, it having been the custom of the Saxons to offer that day, universally throughout the whole kingdom, an oblation of loaves, made of new wheat, as the first fruits of their new corn. It appears from many passages in the Saxon chronicle, that this name is of great antiquity; in some of them there is the h prefixed, which shews it has no relation to the lamb, agnus; * June 29. Mr. Johnson says, King Offa chose this time for the payment of the Peter-pence, because on this day the relicts of St. Alban, the martyr, were first discovered to him. This is not true; it is dedicated to St. Peter, but not to St. Peter ad vin cula, The feast of the dedication is Oct. 1. See Mr. Drake's Eboracum. and in others, as anno 913, 918, 921, and 1101, it is ex pressly written hlafmasse, and the learned editor and translator of the Saxon annals renders it every where very justly, by Festum Primitiarum. Now as to the point in hand, Lammas-day was always a great day of accounts; for in the payment of rents, &c. our ancestors distributed the year into four quarters, ending at Candlemas, Whitsuntide, Lammas, and Martinmas, and this was every whit as common as the present division of Ladyday, Midsummer, Michaelmas, and Christmas. In regard to Lammas, besides it being one of the usual days of reckoning, it appears from the quotation taken above from the Confessor's laws, that it was the specific day whereon the Peter-pence, a tax very rigorously exacted, and the punctual payment of which was enforced under a penalty, by the law of St. Edward, was paid. In this view, then, Lammas, stands as a day of accounts, and latter Lammas will consequently signify the last day of accounts, or the day of doom, which, in effect, as to all payments of money, and in general, as to all worldly transactions whatever, is never. Latter here is used for last, the comparative for the superlative, just as it is in a like case in the book of Job xix. 25. "I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day, upon the earth," meaning the last day. That the last day, or the latter Lammas, as to all temporal affairs, is, indeed never, may be illustrated by the following story. A man at confession owned to his having stolen a sow and pigs. The father confessor exhorted him to restitution. The man said, some were sold, and some were killed; but the priest not satisfied with that, told him they would follow him to the day of judgment, if he did not make restitution: upon which the man replies quickly, I'll restore 'm THEN, as much as to say, never. 1754, Sept. Yours, &c. G. P. XIV. On the Propriety of Language in the Lord's Prayer. MR. URBAN, A CERTAIN old Clergyman, in my neighbourhood, having formerly read the petition of Who and Which, in the Spectator, No. 78, has at last taken it into his head, to the great scandal of many honest and well-meaning people, when he repeats the Lord's Prayer, to say, Our father who art in heaven, instead of Our father which art in heaven, according to the form prescribed in the book of Common Prayer, which he has solemnly obliged himself to observe. He puts me in mind of a nice gentleman, now dead, who, when Lady W. was to return thanks in the church, after childbirth, thought it too familiar, and even bordering upon rudeness, to say, O Lord save this woman thy servant, and therefore he altered it to O Lord save this Lady thy servant, and instructed the clerk to reply; Who putteth her Ladyship's trust in thee. But to the point; that paper in the Spectator was not written by so great a judge of language as to induce one greatly to regard it; on the contrary, the observation there made is drawn merely from modern use, and betrays, in my opinion, great ignorance as to the ancient state of our language, and therefore one would wish that such innovations as these, taken up without sufficient grounds, might be entirely discouraged. The Lord's Prayer, as it stands in the liturgy, is not taken from our present translation of the New Testament, and yet in this it is, which art in heaven, both in Matthew vi. and Luke xi. Neither is it taken from an older translation in use in Queen Elizabeth's time, where the address is in like manner expressed in both those texts. Nor, lastly, is it copied from Archbishop Cranmer's Bible, where again you will find it represented no otherwise. From whence one may reasonably conclude, that the use of which for who in this case, cannot but be true English, these several translations being made by different authors, and who all of them, as must be presumed, had a competent knowledge of our language. I observe next, that in this very service of ours, which is in other places used for who; as in that case cited by the Spectator, Spare thou them, O God, which confess their faults; and this other in the visitation of the sick, O Lord save thy servant, which putteth his trust in thee. Prayer for Ember weeks, those which shall be ordained. So in the gospel for Thursday before Easter we read, And one of the malefactors which were hanged, railed on him, &c. Psalm xvii. 7, we have, Thou that art the saviour of them which put their trust in thee; and verse 13, Deliver my soul from the ungodly, which is a sword of thine. Again, Ps. xviii. 2. I will call upon the Lord which is worthy to be praised; and verse 17, them which hated me. But what is most remarkable is that passage in the communion office, Glorify your father which is in heaven, it is so exactly corresponding to this in question. Mr. Urban, here are no less than nine passages produced from our liturgy, wherein the word which is applied to persons, and occurs for who, and may not one justly wonder how any one pretending to be so nice and delicate, as the gentleman above-mentioned, could possibly overlook them? There are probably other places of the same kind, but these he reads often, and it is really a matter of surprise, that all of them should always have escaped his notice, particularly that they should have done so, since he has entertained his scruple about the justness and purity of such expressions. A third argument for the purity of this word in this acceptation, I deduce from the Latin relative qui, which is applied both to persons and things, just as our which is, and as il quale and le quel are in the Italian and French. But what prevails most with me is, that I have observed our ancient authors using which, of persons, as well as things. I will here cite a few examples from some of our oldest writers. A manciple there was of the temple, Of which all catours might take ensample, Chaucer, p. 5. Edit. Urry. He geveth his graces undeserved, And fro that man whiche hath him served, As he that plaieth at the dies. Gorwer, Confess. Amant. fol. 7. b. The morowe was made the maydens bridalle, And there might thou wit if thou wilt, which they ben al That longen to that lordship. Pierce Plowman, fol. viii. b, That he was gessid the sone of Joseph, which was of Helie, which was of Matath, which was of Levy, &c. Wickliffe's N. Testam. Luc. iii. See also Archbishop Cranmer's Bible there; Queen Elizabeth's Bible, and our present translation, both there and Rev. 1. but more particularly John xviii. a chapter read four times in the year, (and therefore the more strange it should pass unnoticed) where which for who occurs no less than seven times. These, Mr. Urban, may be thought authorities sufficient for the usage of any word; and I dare say, that upon occasion they might be doubled and trebled; but I rather choose to enter now a little into the reason of the thing, where I would observe, that I do not take this word which, when applied to persons, to be so purely a relative as who is, but rather to be an elliptical way of speaking. For example, the words, Luke iii. 23, being the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli, I conceive may be filled up thus, being the son of Joseph, which Joseph was the son of Heli; in which case you cannot with any tolerable propriety substitute who in the place of which. So in the prayer, Our father which art in heaven, the full locution would be, Our father, which father art in heaven. And in Tom Hearne's pref. to the Antiquities of Glastonbury, p. xci. you have "which Walter" in a like case. And hence, as I conjecture, arose the expression the which; for this, when it is used of a person, as I suppose it is sometimes, manifestly is demonstrative, and requires a supply of the preceding proper name, whatever it be; and in that case again you cannot change which for who, for we never say the who. The which is unquestionably good English, as might be easily shewn, were it needful, and yet some people have been willing to except against it, and, in particular, I remember to have seen it somewhere objected, as obsolete and incorrect, to Mr. Tindal the translator of Rapin. But there are other cases, where, as it should seem, who or whom cannot well be put for which, as 2 Kings ix. 5. Unto which of all us? and Luke xiv. 5, which of you, &c. In this last place, whatever may be thought of the former, it would sound very harsh, I am certain, to an English ear, to hear it read who of you? But then, though the terms of who and which are not always convertible, yet this hinders not but that in most cases they may be used the one for the other, and consequently that whosoever should choose to say Our father which art in heaven, will no more offend against propriety, and the genius of the English idiom, than he that would rather write, Our father who art in heaven, and consequently that there is no occasion for an alteration, nor any reason in the world why a reader should depart from the common form. I Chesterfield, July 18, 1754. 1754, July. am, yours, &c. G. P. |