is its primary, and "a rumour" its secondary meaning.

I have no doubt there are many instances, and old ones, among our poets,
and prose writers too, of the use of the noun _annoy_. I only remember
at present Mr. Wordsworth's--

"There, at Blencatharn's rugged feet,
Sir Lancelot gave a safe retreat
To noble Clifford; from annoy
Concealed the persecuted boy."

3. _Parliament._--FRANCISCUS's etymology of Parliament (Vol. ii., p.
85.) is, I think, fit companion for MR. HICKSON's derivations of _news_
and _noise_. I take FRANCISCUS for a wag: but lest others of your
readers may think him serious, and be seduced into a foolish explanation
of the word _Parliament_ by his joke, I hope you will allow me to
mention that _palam mente_, literally translated, means _before the
mind_, and that, if FRANCISCUS or any one else tries to get "freedom of
thought or deliberation" out of this, or to get Parliament out of it, or
even to get sense out of it, he will only follow the fortune which
FRANCISCUS says has befallen all his predecessors, and stumble _in
limine_. The presence of _r_, and the turning of _mens_ into _mentum_,
are minor difficulties. If FRANCISCUS be not a wag, he is perhaps an
anti-ballot man, bent on finding an argument against the ballot in the
etymology of _Parliament_: but whatever he be, I trust your readers
generally will remain content with the old though humble explanation of
_parliament_, that it is a modern Latinisation of the French word
_parlement_, and that it literally means a talk-shop, and has nothing to
do with open or secret voting, though it be doubtless true that Roman
judges voted _clam vel palam_, and that _palam_ and _mens_ are two Latin