when applied, as they are constantly, to cover this fundamental doctrine of the Exea TEPCEVTα, as enormous fallacies. We will allow that Vestris may be ignorant of the philosophy of dancing; so is Mr. Cline; and lectures from him on that art would soon leave him without bread. The uses and capabilities of the human nerves, like those of the letters of the alphabet, may be known to the anatomist and to the verbotomist; but the language which may be the result of their use, either by dancing, or speaking, or writing, is an art founded on education and arbitrary use. The dancing of Kamschatska, and the dancing of Paris, are as different as their languages, and Mr. Cline's anatomy would be of Jittle use in tracing the causes of that difference; nor would the verbal anatomy of those great sages, Tooke and Burdett, be of more avail in ascertaining the causes of the difference of their languages. The authority of Horace will therefore remain unimpeached by their philosophy; and until some better reasons are adduced than have yet appeared in the Επεὰ πτερόεντα, CUSTOM will be considered as the GREAT LAW of language. But we must proceed to other specimens of the author's mode of deducing philosophical conclusions from grammatical inquiries. F. Enough, Enough. Innumerable instances of the same may, I grant you, be given from all our ancient authors. But does this import us any thing? 'H. Surely much; if it shall lead us to the clear understanding of the words we use in discourse. For, as far as we know not our own our purposes are not endowed with words to meaning" as far as make them known;" so far we" gabble like things most brutish." But the importance rises higher, when we reflect upon the application of words to Metaphysics. And when I say Metaphysics, you will be pleased to remember, that ail general reasoning, all Politics, Law, Morality, and Divinity, are merely Metaphysics. F. Well. You have satisfied me that Wrong, however written, whether Wrang, Wrong, or Wrung (like the Italian Torto and the French Tort) is merely the past tense (or past participle, as you chuse to call it) of the verb to Iring; and has merely that meaning. And I collect, I think satisfactorily, from what you have said, that SONG-i.e. Any thing Singed, Sang, or Sung, is the past participle of the verb To Sing: as Cantus is of Canere, and Ode of arrow. That BOND -however spelled, and with whatever subaudition ap: BAND plied, is still one and the same word, and is merely the BOUND past participle of the verb To Bind. "As the custome of the lawe hem BONDE." page 29. We shall this serpent from our BONDES chase." page 56. "His power shall fro royalme to royalme As farre in south as any flode or any see." page 156 Of very force dryue hem and enchace." page 155. The author proceeds in this manner through six or seven quarto pages, and then starts something like an observation by way of relief to the reader. 'BOLT-is the same.You seem surprised: whịch does not sur prise me: because, I imagine, you are not at all aware of the true 4 meaning of the verb To Build; which has been much degraded amongst us by impostors. There seems therefore to you not to be the least shadow of corresponding signification between the verb and its participle. HUTS and HOVELS, as we have already seen, are merely things Raised up. You may call them habitations, if please; but they are not Buildings (i. e. Buildens:) though our modern architects would fain make them pass for such, by giving to their feeble erections a strong name. Our English word To Build is the Anglosaxon Bylban, to confirm, to establish, to make firm and sure and fast, to consolidate, to strengthen; and is applicable to all other things as well as to dwelling places. "Amyd the clois undar the heuin all bare you Douglas. booke 2. page 56. And thus a man of confirmed courage, i. e. a confirmed heart, is properly said to be a Builded, built, or BOLD man; who, in the Anglosaxon, is termed Byib, By bed, Le Lyd, Le-bylded, as well as Bald. The Anglosaxon words Bold and Bolt, i. e. Builded, built, are both likewise used indifferently for what we now call a Building (i. e. Builden) or strong edifice." P. 128. These repetitions, proper only for a dictionary, are conti nued to a tedious and useless length, as one tenth of them would have been sufficient to illustrate philosophic propositions. But Mr. Tooke had his common-place book to sweep, and his quarto volume to fill. The reader must therefore have patience with us, as we have with the author, and allow us to sift and rummage the rags and taiters he has thrown together. Of all the labours of the reviewer, and they are various, that of ascertaining the merits of a dictionary, is the most fatiguing. Voltaire, by rendering the form of a dictionary, the vehicle of wit and humour, though sometimes profligate, relieved this species of drudgery. Mr. Horne Tooke follows his example, haud passibus aquis. The derivation of words generally from the Anglo-Saxon, would be insufferably tedious, if the reader were not frequently roused by the author's political creed, which, like a snake in the grass, creeps through every part of the work. The following is a striking example. SCOT and SHOT are mutually interchangeable. They are merely one and the same word, viz. the Anglosaxon rceat, the past participle of rcizan; the re being differently pronounced. Scor free, scor and lot, Rome-scor, &c. are the same as shoт free, SHOT and lot, Rome SHOT, &c. The Italians have (from us) this same word SCOTTO, applied and used by them for the same purpose as by us. Dante uses it in his Purgatory: and is censured for the use of it, by those who, ignorant of its meaning, supposed it to be only a low, tavern expression; and applicable only to a tavern reckoning. And from this Italian SCOTTO the French have their Escot, Ecot, employed by them for the same purpose. : This word has extremely puzzled both the Italian and French etymologists. Its use and application they well knew they could not but know: It was-" L'argent jetté sur la table de l'hûte, pour prix du repas qu' on a pris chez lui."-But its etymology, or the real signification of the word, taken by itself (which alone could afford the reason why the word was so used and applied) intirely escaped them. Some considered that, in a tavern, people usually pay for what they have caten; these therefore imagined that scorro might come from Excoctus of Coquere; and that it was used for the payment of Excoctus cibus. Ereacto, Escoto, Scotto. Others considered that men did not always eat in a tavern; and that their payment, though only for wine, was still called SCOTTO. These therefore fixed upon a common circumstance, viz. that, whether eating or drinking, men were equally forced or compelled to pay the reckoning: they therefore sought for the etymology in Cogere and Excogere. Coacto, Excoacto, Errocto, Excolto, Scolto. Indeed, if the derivation must necessarily have been found in the Latin, I do not know where else they could better have gone for it. But it is a great mistake, into which both the Italian and Latin etymologists have fallen, to suppose that all the Italian must be found in the Latin, and all the Latin in the Greek: for the fact is otherwise. The bulk and foundation of the Latin language is Greek : but great part of the Latin is the language of our northern ancestors, grafted upon the Greek. And to our northern language the etymologist must go for that part of the Latin which the Greek will not furnish: and there, without any twisting or turning, or ridiculous forcing and torturing of words, he will easily and clearly find it.' r. 138. This observation, though it relieves us, as such, is certainly not just. By consulting Jones's origin of languages, and the prefaces and notes of William Owen to his dictionary and translations, it may be seen that the modern languages (and the Greek in this question is a modern language) have borrow. ed abundantly from the Celtic as well as the Gothic; and that the task of the etymologist is not half finished when he has traced all he can trace, into the Gothic. This is also extremely probable from history. For the Celts had overrun a great part of Europe, before they were pursued and conquered by the Goths; a more warlike peo ple, but less civilized. Mr. Tooke then offers some violence to his nature, to bestow a little praise on the memory of Gilbert Wakefield, a brother zealot in the random doctrines of reform; and we quote it as a new method of pointing censures, &c. by omitting, and leaving for the reader's imagination, all exceptionable passages. "It would therefore, I believe, have been in some degree useful to the learned world; if the present system of this country had not by a that vir tuous and harmless good man, Mr. Gilbert Wakefield. For he had, shortly before his death, agreed with me to undertake, in conjunc tion, a division and separation of the Latin tongue into two parts: placing together in one division all that could be clearly shewn to be Greek; and in the other division, all that could be clearly shewn to be of northern extraction. And I cannot forbear mentioning to you this circumstance; not to revive your grief for the loss of a valuable man who deserved but because, he being dead, and I speedily to follow him, you may perhaps excite and encourage some other persons more capable to execute a plan, which would be so useful to your favourite etymological amusement. I say, you must encourage them: for there appears no encouragement in this country at present swarm amongst us as numerously as our volunteers which with this advantage, that none of the And in how short a time! And the inhabitants of this little Island (the only remaining spot) Besieged collectively by France from without: in his house by swarms of growing rents, like the goods of an insolvent trader, are in the hands of his whilst his who now suddenly find that they too have a new and additional rent, beyond their agreement, to pay to a new and unforeseen landlord. of F. Turn your thoughts from this subject. Get out of the way fnis vast rolling mass, which might easily have been stopped at the verge of the precipice, but must now roll to the bottom. Why should it crush you unprofitably in its course? H. Ever right, Menenius. Ever, Ever.' This quotation not only illustrates the author's manner of interweaving his politics with grammatical disquisitions, but it may serve as a model for young and future libellers, the martyrs of some new systems of political constitutions. After six or seven pages of sarcasm, he attempts, we think in vain, a satisfactory definition of the word patch (P. 369,) which any oyster-woman, accustomed in her best humour to call her husband Cross-patch, would have defined for him. It is but justice, however, to say, that Mr. Tooke is often very happy in his definitions, and that he renders the perusal of them tolerable, when he has no prejudices to mislead him, either literary or political. The following, we think, the best instance of his style. Lowth observes that MANY is used "chiefly with the word Great before it." I believe he was little aware of the occasion for the frequent precedence of Great before Many; little imagining that there might be a Few MANY, as well as a Great MANY. S. Johnson had certainly no suspicion of it: for he supposes Few and Many to be opposite terms and contraries: and therefore, according to his usual method of explanation, he explains the word Few, by- Not many." What would have been his astonishment at the following lines? A comment of his upon the following passage, like those he bas given on Shakespear, must have been amusing. "In nowmer war they but ane FEW MENYE, Douglas, booke 5. page 153. |