ORIGIN OF "PAMPHLET."

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 12015, 17 October 1904, Page 7

ORIGIN OF "PAMPHLET."

I Dr. Murray, in his " New. English Dictionary," refers to the derivation, given of "pamphlet," as follows:—"Love is the true and original theme of- a pamphlet; for it wns 'Pamphflus seu de Amoire,' a little poem which the thirteenth century public pored over with immense delight, that gave a name to all other opuscula issued 'in pamphlet form.' Chaucer and Gower both refer to it; tlie students of the University of Paris, it appears, got into trouble because thus exotic production tempt:«i them away from their more seriom studies. The sudden extension in the use of words is curious, and philologists have been much at sea over its origin. Some suggest old French paumefueillet, a leaf of tho size of the hand, or thai "you can hold iv tha hand; others, 'paginafllata,' others 'par un fikt, , held 'by a thread,' and another idea is a nasalised diminutive form of papyrus. Skeat epeaks of a female historian in tlve first century colled Pamphila, who wrote epitomes of history, and from whose name ' pamphileius might have been coined. Bjit Dr. Murray is able to produce passages in middle Dutch and French {tlie catalogue of the Louvre Library) of the thirteenth century actually referring, under the name of Panflf* and "Pamphilet, to the poem which demoralised the young men of Pans, ana this is » distinct advance in the inquiry which seems to rule, out of county tne learned Pamphila and her eprtomee.