Gradely.—­I think this word is very nearly confined to Lancashire.  It is used both as an adjective and adverb.  As an adjective, it expresses only a moderate degree of approbation or satisfaction; as an adverb, its general force is much greater.  Thus, used adjectively in such phrases as “a gradely man,” “a gradely crop,” &c., it is synonymous with “decent.”  In answer to the question, “How d’ye do?” it means, “Pretty well,” “Tolerable, thank you.”

Adverbially it is (1.) sometimes used in sense closely akin to that of the adjective.  Thus in “Behave yourself gradely,” it means “properly, decently.”  But (2.) most frequently it is precisely equivalent to “very;” as in the expressions “A gradely fine day,” “a gradely good man”—­which last is a term of praise by no means applicable to the mere gradely man, or, as such a one is most commonly described, a “gradely sort of man.”

Though one might have preferred a Saxon origin for it, yet in default of such it seems most natural to connect it with the Latin gradus, especially as the word grade, from which it is immediately formed, has a handy English look about it, that would soon naturalise it amongst us. Gradely {335} then would mean “orderly, regular, according to degree.”

The difference in intensity of meaning between the adjective and the adverb seems analogous to that between the adjectives proper, regular, &c., and the same words when used in the vulgar way as adverbs.

G.P.

[Footnote 3:  Dictionary of Provincialisms.]

[Footnote 4:  Dictionary of Provincial Words.]

* * * * *

PASCAL AND HIS EDITOR BOSSUT.

(Vol. ii., p. 278.)

Although I am not afraid of the fate with which that unfortunate monk met, of whom it is said,—­

  “Pro solo puncto caruit Martinus Asello,”

yet a blunder is a sad thing, especially when the person who is supposed to commit it attempts to correct others.

Now the printer of the “NOTES AND QUERIES” has introduced, in my short remark on Pascal, the very error which has led the author of the article in the British Quarterly Review, as well as many others, to mistake the Bishop of Meaux for the editor of Pascal’s works.  Once more, that unfortunate editor is BOSSUT, not BOSSUET; and if it may appear to some that the difference of one letter in a name is not of much consequence, yet it is from an error as trifling as this that people of my acquaintance confound Madame de Stael with Madame de Staal-Delauney, in spite of chronology and common sense.  Again, by the leave of the Christian Remembrancer (vol. xiii. no. 55.), the elegant and accomplished scholar to whom we owe the only complete text of Pascal’s thoughts, is M. Faugere, not Fougere.  All these are minutiae; but the chapter of minutiae is an important one in literary history.