Black Musa: A Spanish Ballad [pp. 325-326]

Verbal Criticisms.-Black Musa: A Spanish Ballad.
grew warm: and each party sent a million of men
to the field. These have to be recruited every
year with at least four hundred thousand more.
Murders, burnings, ruin, devastations, multiply: the
world bleeds and groans, and the carnage continues. Our first minister, and he of India too,
often protest that they are acting purely for the
good of mankind: and at every protestation, a city
is destroyed and provinces are laid waste."
The next day, a rumor prevailing that a peace
was about to be concluded, both the Persian and
the Indian commander hastened to give battle. It
was a bloody one. Babouc saw every crime and
abomination. He witnessed the manceuvres of the
chief satraps, who did all they could to get their
general beaten: he saw officers slain by their own
troops; and soldiers giving a last stroke to their
dying comrades, in order to snatch from them a
few rags, bloody, torn, and covered with mud. He
entered the hospitals for the wounded, of whom the
greater part expired through the inhuman neglect
of those whom the King paid enormously for relieving them.-" Are these MEN t-" cried Babouc,"or savage beasts."
VERBAL CRITICISMS.
A-board; Onfire. A and On appear to have
changed places, in such phrases as "The house is
on fire." "We went a-board." Fire is more usually on the house than the house on it, and going
a-board is quite unmeaning.
Birmingham; Precedent; Yellow. There are
many words now pronounced by the uneducated
in a manner which was correct two or three centuries since, but which subsequent changes in the spellingo have rendered improper. Thus the town of
Birmingham in England is called by many in England Brummagem, a pronunciation not much amiss
formerly when the word was spelt Bromwycham.
The word Precedent was spelt two centuries since
President, as it is often heard pronounced at present. A book of forms in my possession, printed
in 1616, is called "A Booke of Presidents." The
word was formerly spelt zalowe, whence the vulgar pronunciation, yallow, is undoubtedly derived,
as well as our word sallow. The first letter of
zalowe is not altogether our modern z, though expressed in modern printing by it. It is a Saxon
letter, resembling in appearance our written z with
a tail. Whilst; this word is a corruption of
whiles, the plural of while (time). Whiles was
in use at the time the Bible was translated into
English, and as it is a prettier sounding word than
whilst, especially in verse, it is to be regretted that
it has become obsolete.
Sick. In previous papers under this title, it has
been shewn that guess, reckon and progress, as we
use them, are not Americanisms. Our trans-Atlantic
cousins are forgetting the language which their
and our forefathers spoke. The word sick furnishes us with another instance of this. In England they now confine it to persons affected with
nausea and vomiting-sick at the stomach. Persons otherwise unwell are said by the English, to
be ill, as we also say, but not sick, as we say.
But in the English Bible we constantly meet with
the word used in the same general way as we make
use of it, as "sick of a fever," "sick of palsy,"
and many similar phrases. Such expressions
in a modern book, the English would call Ameri
canisms.
Hesitancy. This is a barbarous word, which
some persons are trying very zealousy to introduce.
Hesitation is really an unexceptionable word, and
comes very naturally from hesitate, just as meditation from meditate, renovation from renovate,
and a number of similar words; but if we admit
hesitancy, we cannot shut the door upon meditancy,
renovaney, abdicancy, declarancy, &c. &c., whenever they may claim admission. D.
Philadelphia.
BLACK MUSA: A SPANISH BALLAD.
BY ARCHEUS OCCIDENTALIS.
I.
They have taken the Cuirass down, Count Sancho and his
chiefs;
They have left upon their ladies' lips a kiss for parting
griefs.
Each mounts a steed he won in fight, and goes to risk
again
A coal-black horse of Barbary, with a long and flowing
mane.
II.
And away o'er the mountains go Count Sancho and his
band,
Until beside Granada's gate the Spanish warriors stand.
Saith their chief unto the sentinel, "say in Black Musa's
ear,
The foe he wished so much to see, Count Sancho's self, is
here.
III.
" Say we have left young brides, whose eyes are brighter
than the Moor's;
And say the lords of Arragon wear longer swords than
yours;
Say here we'll bide till morning comes, to see how Musa
takes
This challenge from our Spanish lords, and what the cheer
he makes."
IV.
They told these words in Musa's ear, as he sat down to
meat,
And as the lightning leaves the cloud he sprung upon his
feet"What do these Christian heroes deem that clamor's din
affrights?
The boldest hearts in Barbary, Black Musa and his Knights.
1841.1
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