human
Living amongst dissenters who disliked forms of prayer, he committed to memory the whole of the baptismal and burial services; and, as his delivery was very energetic, his friends frequently heard dissenters admire his addresses, which they praised as being extempore effusions unshackled by the Prayer Book!
gpt
He understands this to mean
human
and he asks to what etymology this sense can be attributed. I suspect the Anglo-Saxon _bearo_, a grove or copse, is the word here preserved. As a wood forms a fence against the wind, and is habitually so used and regarded by the agricultural population, the association of ideas is suitable enough in this interpretation. _Bearo_, first signifying the grove itself, might easily come to mark the shelter which the grove afforded. But there is also a compound of this word preserved in the ancient charters, in which the fitness of a place as a pasture for swine is the prominent notion. Kemble, _Cod. Dipl._, No. 288.:
gpt
Hæc sunt pascua porcorum, quæ nostrâ linguâ Saxonicâ _denbera_ nominamus.