Hit V
 
 THE 
 
 PHILOLOGICAL ESSAYS 
 
 OF THE LATE 
 
 REV. RICHARD GARNETT 
 
 OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 
 
 EDITED BY HIS SON. 
 
 WILLIAMS AND NORGATE, 
 
 14 HENRIETTA STREET, CO VENT GARDEN, LONDON; 
 
 AND 
 
 20 SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH. 
 
 1859.
 
 PRINTED BY B. G. TEUBNER , LEIPZIG.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 MEMOIR I XVI 
 
 EXGLISH LEXICOGKAPHY 140 
 
 1. A Dictionary of the English Language. By S.Johnson, 
 LL. D. With numerous Corrections and Additions, by 
 the Rev. H. J. Todd, A.M. 4 vols. 4to. London. 1818. 
 
 2. A Dictionary of the English Language. By Noah Web- 
 ster, LL. D. 2 vols. 4to.- New York. 1828. Reprinted, 
 London, 1832. 
 
 3. A New Dictionary of the English Language. By Charles 
 Richardson. Parts I. and II. London. 1835. 
 
 ENGLISH DIALECTS 41 77 
 
 1. Provincial Glossary. By Francis Grose, Esq. London. 
 1811. 
 
 2. Supplement to the Provincial Glossary of Francis Grose, 
 Esq. By Samuel Pegge , Esq. London. 1814. 
 
 3. An Attempt at a Glossary of some Words used in Cheshire. 
 By Roger Wilbraham, Esq. London. 1826. 
 
 4. Observations on some of the Dialects in the West of 
 England. By James Jennings. London. 1825. 
 
 5. The Hallamshire Glossary. By the Rev. Joseph Hunter. 
 London. 1829. 
 
 6. The Dialect of Craven. With a copious Glossary. By 
 a Native of Craven. 2 vols. 8vo. London. 1828. 
 
 7. The Vocabulary of East Anglia. By the late Rev. Ro- 
 bert Forby. 2 vols. 8vo. London. 1830. 
 
 8. A Glossary of North Country Words. By John Trotter 
 Brockett, F. S. A. Newcastle-upon-Tyne. 1829. 
 
 9. An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language. 
 By John Jamieson, D.D. 2 vols. 4to. Edinburgh. 1808. 
 
 10. Supplement to ditto. 2 vols. 4to. 1825. 
 
 11. Glossary of Archaic and Provincial Words. By the late 
 Rev. Jonathan Boucher. 4to. Parts I. and II. London. 
 1832, 1833.
 
 IV 
 
 Pg. 
 
 PBICHARD ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES 78 110 
 
 The Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations proved by a com- 
 parison of their Dialects with the Sanscrit, Greek, La- 
 tin, and Teutonic Languages. By James Cowles Pri- 
 chard, M.D., F.R.S., &c. Oxford. 8vo. 1831. 
 
 ANTIQUARIAN CLUB- BOOKS Ill 146 
 
 Publications of 
 
 1. The Cymmrodorion Society. 1762, &c. 
 
 2. The Society of Antiquaries. 1770, &c. (Layamon , edit- 
 ed for the Society of Antiquaries by Sir F. Madden. 
 3 vols. 1847, 8vo.) 
 
 3. The Commissioners on the Public Eecords of the King- 
 dom. 1802, &c. 
 
 4. The Roxburghe Club. 1819, &c. 
 
 5. The Surtees Society. 1837, &c. 
 
 6. The English Historical Society. 1838, &c. 
 
 7. The Camden Society. 1838, &c. 
 
 8. The Cambridge Camden Society. 1841, &c. 
 
 9. The Percy Society. 1841, &c. 
 
 10. The Welsh MSS. Society. 1840, &c. 
 
 11. The Chetham Society. 1844, &c. 
 
 12. The British Archaeological Association. 1845, &c. 
 
 ON THE LANGUAGES AND DIALECTS OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS . 147 195 
 ON THE PROBABLE RELATIONS OF THE PICTS AND GAEL WITH 
 
 THE OTHER TllIBES OF GREAT BRITAIN 196 204 
 
 ON THE ORIGIN AND IMPORT OF THE AUGMENT IN SANSCRIT AND 
 
 GREEK 205213 
 
 ON THE ORIGIN AND IMPORT OF THE GENITIVE CASE .... 214 227 
 
 ON THE DERIVATION OF WORDS FROM PRONOMINAL AND PREPOSI- 
 TIONAL ROOTS 228 240 
 
 ON CERTAIN INITIAL LETTER - CHANGES IN THE INDO - EUROPEAN 
 
 LANGUAGES 241 259 
 
 ON THE FORMATION OF WORDS BY THE FURTHER MODIFICATION 
 
 OF INFLECTED CASES 260 281 
 
 ON THE RELATIVE IMPORT OF LANGUAGE 282 288 
 
 ON THE NATURE AND ANALYSIS OF THE VERB 289 342
 
 OF THE LATE 
 
 REV. RICHARD GARNETT. 
 
 The subject of this biography was born, July 25., 1789, 
 at Otley in Wharfedale a locality distinguished alike for 
 natural beauty and the independent, intelligent character of 
 the inhabitants, and in or near which his family, supposed 
 to have originally come from Westmoreland, have been resi- 
 dent for several centuries. His father, Mr. William Garnett, 
 was a manufacturer of paper, and is still remembered as a 
 man of unusual ability and force of character; his mother's 
 maiden name was Rhodes. At an early age, he was sent to 
 the grammar-school of his native place, an establishment 
 whose condition at that period was so different from what it 
 is at present, that the reputation he in due time acquired of 
 being better qualified to teach his master than the latter to 
 teach him must by no means be taken as denoting a very 
 advanced stage of scholarship. As was to be expected, his 
 original destination was to a life of business, it being in- 
 tended to place him with a house engaged in foreign com- 
 merce. This proved ultimately most advantageous, as it led 
 to his being sent to Leeds and placed with an Italian gentle- 
 man named Facio, for the sake of receiving instruction in 
 the principal Continental languages. Here the foundation of 
 his subsequent linguistic attainments was laid by a thorough 
 acquisition of French and Italian; he also attained considerable 
 proficiency in German. His literary affections, however, were 
 at this period of his life decidedly engrossed by the Italian 
 poets, and much is yet extant to evince the warm admira- 
 tion he entertained for many of these, and for Petrarch in 
 particular. By the time he quitted Mr. Facio (about 1803) 
 the intentions entertained respecting his destination in life 
 had undergone a change, and he remained several years at 
 home, assisting his father in his manufactory. But it soon 
 appeared that this was not at all his vocation. He was, in- 
 deed, far from deficient either in the industry or the pru-
 
 II MEMOIR. 
 
 dence requisite for success in trade, and no one could be 
 less inclined to the disdain which some men of more erudi- 
 tion than sense have affected to entertain for commercial 
 pursuits. But his residence with Mr. Facio had powerfully 
 stimulated his native enthusiasm for literature, and when he 
 found the indulgence of this incompatible with the position 
 of a manufacturer, he hesitated not to exchange the latter 
 for the former, even though the comforts of home, the society 
 of those most dear to him, the prospect of affluence and the 
 satisfaction of a settled position in life had to be resigned at 
 the same time. Nor was this all. Not only had he to go forth 
 for a season upon the world, but the attainment of his wishes 
 demanded an amount of labour which few, perhaps, would 
 have possessed resolution to encounter. His ultimate goal was 
 the Church --a profession for which his inborn piety and 
 habitual seriousness seemed to have marked him out from the 
 cradle, but from which his high sense of duty and respon- 
 sibility , as well as the feeling of combined modesty and self- 
 respect which never, throughout his life, permitted him to 
 undertake anything which he did not feel certain of being 
 able to perform with credit, could not but withhold him till he 
 should t'eel his qualifications for the position far more in ac- 
 cordance with his own lofty standard than was ever the case 
 during his residence at Otley. He must have felt, also , that 
 the want of serviceable connections, as well as of the showy 
 accomplishments of the* popular divine, debarred him from 
 every chance of distinction, save such as might be the meed 
 of unusual merit and acquirements. Before all things, it was 
 necessary to obtain a thorough acquaintance with Latin, of 
 which he knew little, and with Greek, of which he knew 
 nothing. This as well as a competent knowledge of tech- 
 nical divinity and no despicable amount of Hebrew -- was 
 the work of something less than four years, much occupied 
 with other tasks. In 1 809 he quitted his father's roof to teach 
 at the school of the Rev. Evelyn Falkner, Southwell - - in 
 1813 he was ordained by the Archbishop of York, after an 
 examination in which he displayed an amount of knowledge, 
 especially Scriptural, declared by that prelate's chaplain to 
 have surpassed every thing that, in his official capacity, had 
 previously come under his notice. Traces of the severity of 
 his application at Southwell survive in the mass of marginal 
 notes that cover his books, as well as in his recorded feat 
 of mastering the whole Iliad in a month. CC -I finished it," 
 he remarked to one of his brothers, "but it nearly finished me." 
 His first pastoral charge was. at Hutton Rudby, in Cleve- 
 land, whither he went as curate to the Rev. Mr. Grice. It
 
 MEMOIR. Ill 
 
 would have been difficult to find a more congenial spot than 
 this quiet, secluded hamlet, with its grey old church pictu- 
 resquely situated on a knoll rising in front of an amphi- 
 theatre of wood, the blunt contour of the Cleveland hills in 
 the distance, and the foaming Leven at its foot. Add to this 
 that some of his warmest friendships were contracted here, 
 and it will not seem surprising that he should have regretted 
 to exchange the tranquil scene for manufacturing, bustling 
 Blackburn, whither he repaired in 1815 as curate of the Parish 
 Church and second master of the Grammar School. Here too, 
 however, he was not long without contracting intimacies 
 that rendered his residence extremely happy. The most im- 
 portant of these, no doubt, w r as that which speedily united 
 him with his Vicar, the Rev. Dr. Whitaker, a man of original 
 character, a kind heart, and abundant learning, whose histo- 
 ries of Craven and Whalley entitle him to a place in the first 
 class of British antiquaries. Dr. Whitaker doubtless rejoiced 
 to find a congenial spirit in his curate, and his advice and 
 encouragement must have been of essential service to the 
 young student, who received an additional and melancholy 
 proof of the regard in which he was held in the Doctor's 
 dying request that he would preach his funeral sermon ( 1 821 ). 
 The late excellent Rev. S. J. Allen, subsequently Vicar of 
 Easingwold, and author of "Lectures in defence of the Church 
 of England," may also be named among his most intimate 
 and valued Blackburn friends. The sphere of his attachments, 
 however, was by no means confined to this locality. He had 
 never ceased to maintain a most affectionate intercourse with 
 his family, and his native place afforded him at least one 
 other friend for wjiom he invariably entertained the highest 
 regard, and whose name a disastrous fate has identified with 
 the history of British discovery in Africa. This w r as Mr. 
 Joseph Ritchie the grandson of the Dr. Ritchie frequently 
 mentioned in AVesley's journals, and the unfortunate compa- 
 nion of Captain Lyon's unsuccessful attempt to penetrate into 
 Central Africa by way of Fezzan. As a medical student, 
 Mr. Ritchie at one time resided in the metropolis, and mixed 
 much in literary circles,* and it may easily be imagined how 
 invaluable his correspondence (which has been preserved, and 
 is remarkable for liveliness of expression and independence 
 of thought) must have been to the secluded student at South- 
 well, the most retired of towns, where, while the grey Minster 
 still endures in undecay ing beauty, the stately archiepiscopal 
 
 * An allusion to him will be found in Milnes's Life of Keats also in 
 Haydon's Memoirs, vol. I., p. 388.
 
 IV MEMOIR. 
 
 palace lies in ivied ruin, and which is perhaps the only place 
 in the kingdom where a railway has been closed from actual 
 want of passengers. 
 
 1824 and 1825 were important years in Mr. Garnett's life. 
 In the first he was united to his first wife, Margaret, daughter 
 of the Rev. Godfrey Heathcote, of Southwell. In the second 
 he made his first appearance as a writer by publishing a 
 series of articles on the Hamiltonian system of tuition in the 
 Kaleidoscope, a literary journal issued at Liverpool. The 
 present writer has a dim recollection of having seen the 
 numbers containing these essays , but the copy has long 
 been lost, and he knows not where to find another. As 
 will appear in the sequel, they were by no means laudatory 
 of Mr. Hamilton, who would seem to have met with a full 
 measure of the caustic severity which sciolists of all des- 
 criptions were tolerably certain of encountering at the hands 
 of his critic. About this time also commenced Mr. Garnett's 
 correspondence with Southey, whose acquaintance he had 
 'made a few years previously. That this acquaintance soon 
 ripened into cordial esteem, is evinced, among other testi- 
 monies, by the following passage in a letter from the Lau- 
 reate to Mr. Rickman, dated April 10., 1826, and printed in 
 Mr. Warter's collection of Southey's correspondence, Vol. III., 
 pp. 5 40-541- 
 
 'The packet which comes herewith contains a note of intro- 
 duction to Turner* for Mr. Garnett, who is a curate at Black- 
 burn, and a very remarkable person. He did not begin to learn 
 Greek till he was twenty, and lie is now, I believe, acquainted, 
 with all the European languages of Latin or Teutonic ori- 
 gin, and with sundry Oriental ones. I do not know any man 
 who has read so much which you would not expect him to have 
 read. He is very likely to distinguish himself in his vocation 
 by exposing the abominable falsifications of such men as Milner 
 and Lingard, whom he has industry enough to ferret out through- 
 out all their underhand ways. The Bishop of Chester** knows 
 him, and I hope will give him some small preferment, on Avhich 
 he may have leisure for turning his rare acquirements to good 
 use. He was the schoolfellow and intimate friend of that poor 
 Ritchie who lost his life in one of the African expeditions.' 
 
 The nature of Southey's correspondence with Mr. Garnett 
 will be explained by the allusions to Milner and Lingard. 
 Lancashire, as the reader may be aware, is the most Roman 
 
 * Sharon Turner, the historian, whose friendship also Mr. Garnett 
 had the good fortune to acquire. 
 
 ** Dr. Blomfield, afterwards Bishop of London.
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 Catholic county in Great Britain. Its rude and uncivilized 
 condition at the Reformation prevented the new doctrines from 
 making progress until much of the zeal with which they were 
 originally urged had evaporated, and hence the number of the 
 Catholic gentry is so great that, since the Emancipation Act 
 has rendered them eligible, nearly half the county sheriffs 
 have belonged to the ancient faith. There are also a great 
 number of Irish immigrants, attracted by the pressing demand 
 for labour and the geographical position of the county. It 
 is not, then, surprising that the clergy of the rival commu- 
 nions should frequently come into collision ; that, especially 
 at a period when " the Catholic question " was the question 
 of the day each should resort to the aid of the press for 
 the discomfiture of its opponents, nor, assuredly, that Mr. 
 Garnett's learning and abilities should have been employed 
 on behalf of the Church to which his attachment, however 
 temperate and rational, was always firm and cordial. It may, 
 however, be affirmed with certainty that his motives for en- 
 gaging in the controversy were not quite the same as those 
 of most of his coadjutors. He never felt any uneasiness at 
 the apparent progress of the Church of Rome ; there is nothing 
 in his writings to show that he doubted either the justice or 
 the expediency of Emancipation ; nor could he ever discover 
 the Pope in the Apocalypse, or any incompatibility between 
 the precepts of Catholicism and a good life attended by the 
 Divine favour. No man, in a word, was ever less of a bigot, 
 or less obnoxious to the charge of narrow-mindedness. His 
 was the literary branch of the controversy; his prodigious 
 reading had ranged over the whole field of ecclesiastical 
 history and hagiology ; and, himself a man of the purest inte- 
 grity, he felt indignant at the disingenuousness with which 
 too many Roman Catholic controversialists* have striven to 
 misrepresent facts disadvantageous to their cause, as well as 
 the mendacity so unscrupulously employed to procure the ca- 
 nonisation of some whose saintly virtues might have been 
 thought to suffice without the aid of supposititious miracles. 
 Perhaps the most masterly of Mr. Garnett's many powerful 
 contributions to the "Protestant Guardian," is the series of 
 papers devoted to the exposure of the mass of falsehood ac- 
 cumulated around the venerable name of Francis Xavier 
 and it is not without a sigh that the Editor refrains from 
 offering any example of the vast erudition, masculine energy 
 
 * This is not meant as an indiscriminate censure. Mr. Garnett frequently 
 eulogises the candour of Tillemont, and holds him up as an example and 
 rebuke to less scrupulous writers.
 
 VI MEMOIR. 
 
 of diction and scathing sarcasm buried in the forgotten co- 
 lumns of an obscure provincial journal. 
 
 Southey's letters principally relate to his own and Mr. Gar- 
 nett's share in the Roman Catholic Controversy under the 
 date, however, of March 31., 1825, he thus alludes to the 
 latter's remarks on the Hamiltonian system: - 
 
 'I thank you for your Hamiltonian controversy --a subject 
 concerning which I knew very little before; but it is always 
 worth while to know upon what gross error, or misapprehended 
 truth, any popular delusion or system of quackery is founded. If 
 there be anything useful in his method, I apprehend it can be 
 nothing more than would be attained by following old Lilly's in- 
 structions for beginning as soon as possible to exercise the pupil 
 in literal translation. You have made a lively and amusing pam- 
 phlet. ' 
 
 Southey was the means of introducing Mr. Garnett to the 
 Rev. J. Blanco White, who soon became one of his most 
 valued friends and correspondents. Some passages of this 
 excellent man's letters are sufficiently interesting in them- 
 selves arid characteristic of the writer, to warrant their in- 
 sertion even in this brief memoir: 
 
 7 Paradise Row, Chelsea. 
 
 June 16th. 1826. 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 C I take the pen in hopes of forwarding this letter under a Go- 
 vernment frank together with a copy of my answer to Mr. Butler, 
 which I beg you to accept. You will see that I have taken the 
 liberty of inserting in a note the passage from Villani which you 
 had the goodness to send me. There is nothing so painful to me 
 as the necessity of carrying on a controversy of this kind. My 
 health suffers considerably from it. My mind was agitated while 
 writing, and now that the Letter is published, I fear that in my ve- 
 hemence I may have exceeded the limits of Christian moderation. 
 I certainly did not allow my feelings to direct my pen without en- 
 deavouring to weigh what the nature of the subject and all its 
 circumstances required 
 
 ...When do you intend to favour us with your intended work? 
 From the sketch I had the pleasure of reading, I feel assured that 
 it will be of the greatest service to the good cause.' 
 
 Oriel College, Oxford. 
 
 March 19th. 1827. 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 'Your very kind letter has been for some time in my hands, 
 though I have not been so fortunate in regard to the pamphlet. 
 My intimate friend, the Rev. Mr. Butler, whom I believe you saw
 
 MEMOIR. VII 
 
 at my Chelsea lodgings, has promised me to send it by the first 
 opportunity; and I hope to have the pleasure of reading it ere 
 long 
 
 I believe I told you in London that having determined 
 
 to fix myself somewhere out of that great Babylon , I had chosen 
 Oxford as my residence. This determination I put in execution 
 in October last, and after very near six months' residence, I have 
 every reason to be satisfied with it. My degree enables me to 
 join the Society at Oriel College, which I consider as my home 5 
 though I do not live within its walls, and being allowed to dine 
 in the Hall, I can live with more economy here than in London. 
 My health is little more or less the same as formerly, subject to 
 daily sufferings, and constant weakness 
 
 You have seen, I suppose Dr. Philpotts' Letter to Can- 
 ning. It is written with uncommon ability, and has, I believe, 
 great effect. I hope you will soon publish your intended work 
 be cautious, however, how you deal with the book-sellers. I have 
 been exceedingly ill-treated by Mr. ' 
 
 Oxford, Aug. 20th, 1827. 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 ' I feel very much obliged to you for the two Nos. of the Pro- 
 testant Guardian , which I conceive to be a very useful publica- 
 tion. Your letters on the Breviary are remarkable for that kind 
 of accurate knowledge which you have a peculiar ability to collect 
 and digest. If the Roman Catholics, in the mass, were open to 
 conviction, I do not know anything more likely to produce it than 
 the rooted love of falsehood and deception which their church dis- 
 plays 111 the Breviary. Your letters will be useful not only in a 
 controversial point of view, but also as specimens of historical 
 criticism 
 
 I aln sorry to find that Colburu is advertising a work by 
 
 me. I bad intended to write something as a supplement to Do- 
 blado; but as I grow older Spanish subjects become more and 
 more painful to me ; and having attempted them in different views, 
 I find myself under the necessity of relinquishing the work. 
 
 Have you seen my Letter to the converted Roman Catholics? 
 It is a mere trifle-, but I believe that in the controversy with Ro- 
 manists it is of the greatest importance to show the great question 
 at issue the supreme authority on matters of Faith as de- 
 tached as possible from all collateral points. Such is the object 
 of my little tract. I do not think that it has attracted the notice 
 of the public, which makes me suspect that I have missed the true 
 way of treating that important point.' 
 
 It will be seen that Mr. Garnett at this time meditated, and had 
 probably nearly completed, a substantial work on the Roman
 
 VIII MEMOIR. 
 
 Catholic controversy. But the hand of domestic calamity 
 was now to intervene. In July, 1826, he had quitted his cu- 
 racy for the incumbency of Tockholes, near Blackburn, on 
 which occasion an exceedingly handsome testimonial, the 
 subscription for which was by no means confined either to 
 his own congregation or to persons professing the same reli- 
 gious sentiments, was presented to him, accompanied by a 
 highly flattering address. Nor were Bother marks of the esteem 
 of his fellow-townsmen wanting: 
 
 'Sure we are, said the Blackburn Mail, that if a conscientious 
 ^discharge of duty, dictated by the loftiest principles, and accom- 
 panied by soundness of judgment, kindness of heart, and superior 
 yet unobtrusive attainments as a scholar and divine, can secure 
 esteem either in public or social life, the subject of this grati- 
 fying tribute will be surrounded where he is going, and where- 
 ever his lot may be cast, by as sincere well-wishers as he leaves 
 behind. ' 
 
 The subject of this gratifying tribute, had not, however, 
 been long at Tockholes before the scene began to overcloud, 
 and in October, 1828, the deepest gloom was thrown over 
 his mind by the untimely death of his wife,* followed within 
 three months by that of his only child, an infant daughter. 
 These calamities changed the whole current of his existence. 
 Controversy was thrown aside, never to be resumed, and 
 he eagerly sought an opportunity of quitting a spot once 
 beloved beyond all others, but where everything now re- 
 minded him of his melancholy bereavement. This desire was 
 gratified through the friendly intervention of the venerable 
 Dr. Woodhouse, Dean of Lichfield, a relative of his departed 
 wife. In May, 1829, Tockholes was exchanged for a Priest- 
 Vicarship in Lichfield Cathedral, and he entered upon an 
 entirely new sphere of social intercourse and literary acti- 
 vity. The following letter from Blanco White needs no 
 comment: - 
 
 * Margaret Garnett could claim the honours of a literary ancestry, her 
 grandfather, Dr. Ralph Heathcote, having been an eminent divine in the 
 18th. century (see Nicholls, 'Literary Anecdotes,' vol. Ill , pp. 531 544.) 
 and the blood of Simon Ockley, the famous Orientalist, and Mompcsson, 
 the heroic vicar of Eyam, also flowing in her veins. Her own character 
 was thus sketched by one who knew her well: "A lady who will be long 
 and deeply regretted by every class of society amongst us, whose several 
 orders she was formed to attach to herself, and to each other, by her 
 gentle, cheerful, and charitable disposition, her unfeigned and exalted 
 piety, her exemplary discharge of duty domestic or social, and the humble 
 and unostentatious but active and persevering exercise of every Christian 
 virtue." This gentleness, however, co-existed with much sagacity and in- 
 tellectual vigour, and a remarkable talent for repartee.
 
 MEMOIR. IX 
 
 Oxford, Nov. 10th., 1828. 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 'Had it been in my power to administer to you any consolation 
 by letter when I heard of your great affliction, you may believe 
 that no press of business would have prevented my writing. The 
 sympathy which I felt would, however, have induced me to send 
 you a word of condolence, if I had known where to address you. 
 I feel therefore very much obliged to you for letting me know that 
 you are now in your former residence ; and am glad to find that 
 you are determined to occupy your mind on literary subjects 
 
 Would you like, for instance j to write an account of some 
 
 of the Spanish Chronicles? The embassy to Tamerlane by Ruy 
 Gonzalez de Clavijo is full of curious matter. Gibbon was not 
 able to consult it. The Chronicle of Don Alvaro de Luna is also 
 very interesting, especially if compared with that of Don Juan II, 
 written by the Condestable's enemies. The reign indeed of Juan II. 
 is one of the most remarkable in Spanish history. If you wish to 
 have my copy of the Chronicles, I will send them to you by coach 
 or waggon. I have them here , and if you write so that I may re- 
 ceive your letter before the 20th you shall have them immediately.' 
 
 It does not appear that this friendly offer was attended by 
 any immediate result. It may, however, have been owing 
 to Mr. White that Mr. Garnett, soon after his removal to 
 Lichfield, became a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Metro- 
 politana', then in course of publication under the direction 
 of the Rev. Edward Smedley author, among other works, 
 of an admirable "History of the Reformed Religion in France." 
 To the Encyclopaedia Mr. Garnett contributed several chap- 
 ters on the ecclesiastical history of the fourth century, as 
 well as a review of the theological literature of the same 
 epoch. At a later period, when, after the death of Mr. Smed- 
 ley, the superintendence of the undertaking had passed into 
 the hands of the late Rev. H. J. Rose, his connection with 
 it was resumed, and he supplied several miscellaneous articles, 
 the most important being those on "Superstition," "Univer- 
 sity," and "Writing." A letter from Mr. Rose, referring to 
 the second of these essays, seems worthy of preservation 
 from the interest of the subject and the clear enunciation 
 of the writer's views views, it should be added, substan- 
 tially in harmony with those of his contributor: - 
 
 < As to the professional and tutorial systems I think your 
 
 remarks are just, although they will bear modification i. e., as 
 it seems to me, it is not possible properly to teach mathematics 
 or many other branches of science by oral lectures, but many of 
 the accessory branches of knowledge are well communicated in
 
 X MEMOIR. 
 
 that way. By accessory I mean those branches of knowledge 
 which are not the staple commodity of the education given, and 
 are not required from young men. Thus, I think, as mathematics 
 and classics are required from young men, they cannot be effi- 
 ciently taught by viva voce lectures. Those who are careless 
 would get no profit from such lectures nor perhaps can they be 
 fully taught even to those who wish for improvement and inform- 
 ation. But take botany for example. The public lectures give 
 very excellent outlines of the science, the professor examines and 
 gives the cream (to use a vulgar phrase,) of all the new disco- 
 veries and brings them before his class and he gives examples 
 either by drawing or by dissected flowers to illustrate the prin- 
 ciples of the science, and, although a person would not become a 
 first rate botanist by attending a course, he obtains a considerable 
 stock of knowledge and is set upon his journey towards acquiring 
 a full knowledge of the subject. In this way public oral lectures 
 are admirable so in chemistry, geology, &c. &c. In short I 
 think in all cases where to communicate the knowledge of a science is 
 the desideratum, public oral lectures are of admirable use, though 
 not sufficient in themselves. But where the effect on the mind of 
 the student is the principal matter, there public lectures will gene- 
 rally be of little utility , and therefore the great business of an 
 University must necessarily be carried on chiefly by some such 
 expedient as a tutorial system. But public lectures by the pro- 
 fessors of the University are always to be united with this system 
 as keeping up a high tone , and giving a stimulus to college lec- 
 turers. ' 
 
 This, however, belongs to a later period of .Mr. Garnett's 
 life. From the time of his arrival in Lichfield, his studies 
 were almost entirely directed into a philological channel. 
 The study of languages had, indeed, always been his favour- 
 ite occupation we have already seen Southey's testimony 
 to the extent of his linguistic acquirements in 1826, and the 
 mass of notes covering the pages of his Spanish dictionary 
 attests the zeal with which he had applied himself to the idiom 
 of Cervantes in particular. Hitherto, however, philological 
 lore had been amassed as a means, not as an end, and tongues 
 acquired not for their own sake, but for that of the literary 
 monuments they possessed. This was now to cease, and the 
 future Quarterly reviewer entered upon his new career at 
 the most auspicious period imaginable, when Rask and Grimm 
 and W. Humboldt and many an illustrious fellow-labourer were 
 beginning to shed a light upon the science sufficient to dis- 
 play, without exhausting, the treasures awaiting the first 
 fortunate explorers of its virgin realms. 
 
 No further occurrence. of importance marked Mr. Garnett's
 
 MEMOIR. XI 
 
 existence till 1834, Avhen a second marriage (with Rayne, 
 daughter of John Wreaks Esq., of Sheffield, and mother of 
 his three surviving children,) insured the felicity of his re- 
 maining years. The following year witnessed the appear- 
 ance of his first contribution to the Quarterly Review, which 
 is also the first piece published in the annexed collection. 
 The sensation it occasioned in learned circles was very great, 
 and he was not long without gratifying proof of the atten- 
 tion it excited on the Continent. It also procured him the 
 friendship and epistolary communications of several scholars 
 devoted to similar pursuits, among whom are especially to 
 be named Sir F. Madden, of the British Museum, and Hen- 
 sleigh Wedgwood Esq., the latter of whom was induced by 
 his admiration for the article to address a long and valuable 
 letter to the as yet unknown author, of which, as well as 
 of several subsequent communications of much interest, the 
 Editor (by permission) has availed himself in his scanty an- 
 notations. Two additional articles succeeded in 1836, in the 
 autumn of which year the Dean and Chapter of Lichfield 
 presented him to the vicarage of Chebsey, a village in the 
 neighbourhood of Stafford. His residence in this agreeable 
 locality was, however, of short duration, he being, in February 
 1838, appointed Assistant Keeper of the Department of Printed 
 Books in the British Museum, an office then vacant through 
 the resignation of the Rev. H. F. Gary, the distinguished trans- 
 lator of Dante. He had noAV at length attained a position in 
 entire harmony with his desires, and the remaining twelve 
 years of his existence glided by in calm uneventful happi- 
 ness, occupied in the discharge of his official duties, the 
 persevering prosecution of philological researches, and the 
 education of his children, to which no man could have been 
 more devoted. He maintained a regular correspondence with 
 the late Professor Molbech , of Copenhagen , a man of cha- 
 racter and pursuits kindred to his own, and exchanged let- 
 ters at intervals with other men of learning, The following 
 letter from John Mitchell Kemble is at once too interesting 
 and too characteristic to be omitted: 
 
 My dear Mr. Garnett, 
 
 C I am at length prisoner at large, that is, my tether extends to 
 the whole area of my bedroom , which is something for a man who 
 has been nearly ten days in bed: and so, having ascertained that 
 I am in a fair way of recovery, I set to again with redoubled vi- 
 goxir. The longer Bewcastle inscription, of which Holmes * sent 
 
 * The late -John Holmes Esq., Assistant Keeper of MSS. in the British 
 Museum.
 
 XII MEMOIR. 
 
 me a copy, from the Gentleman's Magazine of 1742, is a. crux: but 
 I have the key to it thus far the inscription is in Latin, and 
 refers to one Baldgar, who was somebody's father and somebody's 
 brother. Interesting information, this! But we will hope it will 
 not stop here. 
 
 If you have any bowels of compassion, and any specimens of 
 Northumbrian Anglo-Saxon, you will lend me the latter for a few 
 days. I am working at my grammar, literally from memory, hav- 
 ing given Thommerel all I had of the Durham book, and my tran- 
 scripts in hand being nearly confined to Vesp. A. 1, which is not 
 pure Northumbrian : thus I am in what the Yankees in their ver- 
 nacular call "a precious nip and frizzle of a fix." Nor can I, 
 in my present condition, haunt the Museum for the purpose of col- 
 lating and collecting. This rere-winter troubles me : I was be- 
 ginning to think of striking my tents and migrating when lo ! frost 
 and snow forbid me. One comfort is that it will kill the 
 grubs in the earth : they have been a sort of locust plague in my 
 little Egypt for the last three years. Per contra is alarm for the 
 laurels, and the horse chestnut buds, which were beginning to swell 
 and look gummy. So the Gods give us all things mingled ; neither 
 white nor black, but speckled ! I have been reading Ettmiiller care- 
 fully : I dare say he is quite right in many of his remarks upon my 
 preface, but I do not think him fair to me, considering that in the 
 main he adopts my views, and without them would probably have 
 had none of his own. However in this I suppose I undergo the 
 common fate of predecessors. The main question was Beowulf 
 an Angle, i. e. a Mercian poem? remains I think as I left it. That 
 Wermund is Garmurid I continue to assert: that the Offa of the 
 poem is the Offa primus of the Mercian line I reassert: that he is 
 the Offa of Saxo I am certain , and Ettmuller cautiously avoids 
 the consequences from the lines "sycldan geomor woe, haelethum 
 to helpe, Henninges maeg, nefa Swerting," and the allusion in 
 the travellers' song to the duel on the Eider. Nor does the exist- 
 ence of a tribe of Geats in Sweden prove much, till we rid our- 
 selves of Geat the eponymus, and God of the Saxons in England. 
 The identification of Hygehic necessarily modifies a very few of 
 my views; but in my preface I treated him as one of the person- 
 ages who might be historical, and certainly was not mythic. That 
 Hygd is a lady I still think open to doubt, though Thorpe has 
 always held the affirmative. It is not without importance that the 
 right of succession in the eldest son is recognised throughout the 
 poem: as far as I can judge this was the Mercian i. e. Angle law, 
 and was certainly not the Saxon, the latter taking from the royal 
 family him who suited them best. Ettmiillers translation I have 
 not yet read attentively: I should think the Germans would find it 
 as easy to learn the A.-S. as the language into which it \& for (Hutched?
 
 MEMOIR. XIII 
 
 This letter is undated, but from the mention of Ettmuller's 
 edition of Beowulf was probably written in the spring ot 
 1841. In the following year one of Mr. Garnett's warmest 
 wishes was realised by the formation of the Philological 
 Society, due in great measure to the exertions of his sincere 
 friend and indefatigable fellow -labourer E. Guest, Esq., and 
 of which he long continued one of the most active mem- 
 bers. The whole of his papers are reprinted in this vo- 
 lume. In 1848 he furnished his last contribution to the 
 Quarterly, and in the July of the folloAving year, discussed his 
 friend Mr. Cureton's "Corpus Ignatianum" in the Edinburgh 
 Review. The article is not reprinted here, as being scarcely 
 in harmony with the general character of the collection ; yet, 
 as the precise value of the Syriac text published by Mr. 
 Cureton seems still a subject of controversy, it may not be 
 inexpedient to place Mr. Garnett's opinion on record : 
 
 To the above lucid and convincing statement we shall merely add 
 that similar conclusions drawn from similar evidence would have been 
 acquiesced in at once in the case of a profane author. Let us suppose 
 that certain passages occurring in a play of Euripides, known only 
 from one or two manuscripts of the fourteenth century, had been pro- 
 nounced spurious by Bentley and Person on the ground of their faulty 
 versification, barbarous phraseology, and allusions to events of the 
 period of Augustus and Tiberius ; and that, when these were cleared 
 away, all the rest was worthy of the reputed author, and suitable 
 to the age in which he lived. This criticism, if well supported by 
 facts, would certainly be entitled to consideration. But suppose 
 further that, years after the death of these critics, manuscripts six 
 or seven centuries older should be produced from an Egyptian ca- 
 tacomb, in which the precise passages excepted against were 
 omitted, to the manifest improvement of what remained, the literary 
 world would immediately admit that Bentley and Porson had been 
 in the right, and would unite in applauding their learning and 
 sagacity. But in the theological world such convictions are estab- 
 lished much more slowly, for in that world, unfortunately, there 
 is always a larger class of men who will resolutely shut their ears 
 against the demonstrations of common sense, rather than renounce 
 one of their favourite idols. [After some remarks on the retention 
 of the celebrated verse of the " Three Heavenly Witnesses" as a 
 case in point, the writer continues:] We are told by Guibert, Abbot 
 of Nogent in the tenth century, that it was not safe to question the 
 current popular legends of miracles; as the old women not only 
 reviled bitterly those who did so , but attacked them with their 
 spindles ! The Corpus Ignatianum will excite something of a 
 similar feeling though the feeling will probably not be mani- 
 fested in precisely the same manner. There may not be material
 
 XIV MEMOIR. 
 
 inkstands thrown at the editor's head, but there will be brandish- 
 ing of pens, and a considerable amount of growling in cliques and 
 coteries. However, magna esiverilas, and those who assail it will 
 in the end damage nobody but themselves. 
 
 ED. KEV. No. CLXXXI. 
 
 This, with the exception of the concluding papers on the 
 Nature and Analysis of the Verb, was Mr. Garnett's last 
 literary labour, in, \ 848 he had begun to suffer habitually 
 from catarrh, and by the winter of 1849 it was but too 
 evident that his health was declining. Still the progress of 
 decay was very gradual, and his sons, at least, had little 
 suspicion of its extent till the means of comparison between 
 the actual and former state of their parent's health were 
 afforded by a visit to Otley in June 1850, when it appeared 
 that he who in the previous September had been accustomed 
 to walk upwards of four miles daily to visit his aged mother- 
 in-law, was then unable to go much beyond the garden. 
 On his return to London, however, he attempted to resume 
 his official duties, and it was only at the pressing instance 
 of the present Principal Librarian (at that time Keeper of 
 the Printed Books, and ever the warm-hearted friend of him 
 and his,) that he consented to apply to the Trustees for 
 leave of absence. This was immediately granted, but the 
 decline of his health could not be arrested, and terminated 
 in a peaceful death on September 27. 1 850. He was interred 
 in Highgate Cemetery. 
 
 There are many and obvious reasons why the present 
 writer should refrain from attempting any estimate of the 
 extent and importance of his father's philological and ethno- 
 logical labours. Not the least weighty is that the work has 
 to a considerable extent been already performed by a pen 
 as competent as his own is the reverse. The Editor's pleasure 
 in adducing the following important testimony can only be 
 equalled by that which he feels in recording that Dr. La- 
 tham was himself the first to draw his attention to its exist- 
 ence, and suggest its insertion in the present publication: 
 
 The chief writings that, either by suggestions, special indica- 
 tions, or the exposition of known facts, have advanced Keltic eth- 
 nology, now come under notice; and first and foremost amongst 
 them the writings of the philologue so often quoted Mr. Gar- 
 nett. These have touched upon the grammatical structure , the 
 ethnological relations of the stock in general, and the details of its 
 constituent elements
 
 MEMOIR. XV 
 
 1. The oblique character of the pronouns of the persons of verbs 
 is his palmary contribution to philology to philology, however, 
 rather than to ethnology. 
 
 2. His other notices are : 
 
 a. In favour of the language of ancient Britain being that of 
 ancient Gaul, and of both being British rather than Gaelic. 
 
 b. In favour of the Picts having been Britons rather than 
 either Gaels or Germans. 
 
 c. In illustration of the affinities of Keltic tongues with the 
 German, Slavonic, and other undoubted members of the Indo- 
 European stock, and with the Albanian, Armenian, and other 
 branches beyond it 
 
 And here I may be allowed to express the hope, not only 
 
 that Mr. Garnett's papers on the Keltic tongues, but that all his 
 
 writings on philological subjects may be published. They are by 
 
 far (fie bcsl works in comparative grammar and ethnology of the century. 
 
 Latham's Edition of Prichard on the Eastern origin of the Celtic 
 
 nations. Pp. 371 372. 
 
 Extreme weight is universally accorded to the philologi- 
 cal judgments of Dr. Donaldson. He thus expresses himself 
 in his New Cratylus (page 47, 2nd edition) : 
 
 'Mr. Garnett, whose comprehensive and truly philosophical 
 analysis of the constituent elements of language was first made 
 known in a notice of Dr. Prichard's Celtic work, has since then 
 developed his views in various contributions to the records of the 
 London Philological Society , and we do not know whereto look for 
 sounder or more instructive examples of linguistic research. ' 
 
 The reader of the papers thus highly eulogised must, how- 
 ever, be?ir in mind that they by no means appear in the 
 form which the author would have wished to impart to 
 them. As examples of scientific research, they are per- 
 haps the most valuable of his writings, but in a literary 
 point of view, lie must be judged, if he is to be judged 
 candidly, by his contributions to the "Quarterly Review." In 
 these he was enabled to follow the natural bent of his mind by 
 mingling the d-ulce with the utile anecdote, allusion, humour 
 were all in place and it may be asserted with some con- 
 fidence that the science on which he wrote never before or 
 since gained so much in agreeableness with so little loss of 
 profundity. There is a sort of dry warm raciness about these 
 pleasant papers, "like clear sherry, with kernels of old au- 
 thors thrown into it," as Hazlitt says of the prose of the 
 writer's friend Southey. This tone would not have suited 
 papers read before a learned Society, and hence, Mr. Gar- 
 nett's productions of this nature are rather to be regarded
 
 XVI MEMOIR. 
 
 as abstracts of treatises he could have written than substan- 
 tial literary productions. It is much to be regretted that he 
 was never enabled to work them up into essays after the 
 mayner of his articles in the Quarterly, when his extraordi- 
 nary powers of illustration and amplification* would as- 
 suredly have transformed the brief memoranda into a fas- 
 cinating book. A yet more serious cause for regret is 
 his inability to carry out a design he long entertained of 
 producing an independent work on English provincial dia- 
 lects a task of national importance which still remains 
 unperformed, notwithstanding the abundance of materials. 
 No reader of the essay on the subject reprinted in this vo- 
 lume will question his remarkable qualifications for such an 
 undertaking. 
 
 The pleasant duty remains of thanking those to whose 
 friendly assistance the Editor has been indebted during the 
 prosecution of his task. His acknowledgments are due, in 
 the first place to the Philological Society for permitting the 
 reprint of Mr. Garnett's papers from their published Trans- 
 actions, and to Mr. J. Murray for a similar favour as regards 
 the articles which appeared in the Quarterly Review. He 
 has also to express his especial obligations to Dr. Latham, 
 to Dr. Donaldson, to T. Watts, Esq., of the British Mu- 
 seum, to Hensleigh Wedgwood, Esq., the Treasurer, and 
 F. J. Furnivall, Esq., the Secretary of the Philological So- 
 ciety. r> ri 
 April 20., 1858. 
 
 * Notwithstanding the amount of his philological attainments, Mr. Gar- 
 nett was anything but a mere linguist. It would have been difficult to find 
 anything with which he was not more or less conversant, from Sanscrit and 
 Mathematics to chess and the manufacture of artificial flies (he was an en- 
 thusiastic angler.) The extent of his acquaintance witli elegant literature 
 .is best shown by the copiousness of illustration from this source, observ- 
 able in his more finished writings. His library may be said without exagge- 
 ration to have contained examples of every printed language , and every 
 species of composition.
 
 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 
 
 [Quarterly Review, September, 1835.] 
 
 1. A Dictionary of the English Language. By S. Johnson, LL. D. 
 With numerous Corrections and Additions, by the Rev. 
 H. J. Todd, A. M. 4 vols. 4to. London. 181 8. 
 
 2. A Dictionary of the English Language. By Noah Webster , 
 LL.D. 2 vols. 4to. New York. 1828. Reprinted, Lon- 
 don, 1832. 
 
 3. A New Dictionary of the English Language. By Charles Ri- 
 chardson. Parts I. and II. London. 1835. 
 
 Though we were never enrolled in Pinkerton's corps of 
 mighty Goths, being neither believers in his theories, nor ad- 
 mirers of the spirit and temper in which he maintained them, 
 we do not mean to deny that we feel a strong partiality 
 for almost every branch of the great Gothic and Teutonic 
 family, by whatever appellation it may be designated. We 
 may, perhaps, be a little out of humour at present with the 
 Belgians* -- but we have a great regard for the Dutch, a 
 still greater for the Germans, and an absolute enthusiasm 
 for all the sons of Odin, whether Danes, Swedes, Norwe- 
 gians, or Icelanders. Our Gallic neighbours, or rather the 
 doctors of one of their literary sects, may still affect to doubt 
 c si un Allemand peut avoir de Fesprit' but if even these 
 fine gentlemen reflect on the part acted by the Germans 
 and their kindred on the theatre of the world since Armi- 
 nius struck Rome the blow from which she never recovered, 
 they can hardly deny them power and valour, and a know- 
 ledge of the arts by which dominion is acquired and pre- 
 served. Our interest on behalf of this remarkable race ex- 
 tends not only to their history and civil polity, but also to 
 their language, in all its branches We well remember our 
 delight at the discovery that Justin and Justinian originally 
 bore the respectable names of Upright and Stock. We look 
 upon Ulphilas's Mceso- Gothic Gospels as one of the most 
 precious relics of antiquity, and would have every word of 
 genuine Teutonic descent carefully preserved, whether spoken 
 by the prince or the peasant. 
 
 * An allusion to the conservative politics of the Review. ED. 
 
 1
 
 2 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 
 
 Of course, we include English in our list of favourites , 
 and believe, as in duty bound, that, take it for all in all, 
 there is no tongue superior to it in the whole European 
 circle. We arc disposed, also, to take it as we find it, and 
 are very far from wishing to banish any terms of southern 
 descent that can produce proper warrants of naturalization. 
 We are fully sensible of the advantage of possessing such 
 words as flower, florid, flourishing , along with their counter- 
 parts bloom, blooming, blow, blossom ; and feel as every one 
 must that the union of the two classes furnishes a strength 
 and richness of diction, and a choice of terms to express 
 primary and secondary ideas, compared with which the vo- 
 cabulary of the French and the Italians is poverty itself. 
 But, after all, terms of Saxon and Northern origin consti- 
 tute the sinews of our speech, and must be the most atten- 
 tively studied by those who would form clear ideas of its 
 genius and structure. Indeed, one principal reason why we 
 prize a knowledge of the German and Scandinavian dialects, 
 and would recommend it to others, is that they throw a light 
 on the analogies of our own language, and the principles of 
 its grammar, which cannot be obtained from any other source. 
 We know that it is easy to sneer at such pursuits, and to 
 ask who but a dull pedant can see any use in confront- 
 ing obscure and antiquated English terms with equally ob- 
 scure German ones, all which might, without any great in- 
 jury, be consigned to utter oblivion? It would have been 
 equally easy to ask fifty or sixty years ago and would at 
 that time have sounded quite as plausibly what can be 
 the use of collecting and comparing unsightly fragments of 
 bone that have been mouldering in the earth for centuries? 
 But now, after the brilliant discoveries of Cuvier and Buck- 
 land, no man could propose such a question without exposing 
 himself to the laughter and contempt of every man of science. 
 Sciolists are very apt to despise Avhat they do not under- 
 stand ; but they who are properly qualified to appreciate the 
 matter know that philology is neither a useless nor a trivial 
 pursuit, that, when treated in an enlightened and philo- 
 sophical spirit, it is worthy of all the exertions of the sub- 
 tlest as well as most comprehensive intellect. The knowledge 
 of words is, in its full and true acceptation, the knowledge 
 of things, and a scientific acquaintance with a language can- 
 not fail to throw some light on the origin, history, and con- 
 dition of those who speak or spoke it. Who knew anything 
 about the gipsies, till an examination of their language 
 proved beyond all doubt that they came from the banks of 
 the Indus? Who knows anything certain about the Pelasgi?
 
 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 3 
 
 And who does not perceive that two connected sentences of , 
 their language would tell us more clearly what they really 
 were than all that has hitherto been written about them? \ 
 The Irish antiquaries give magnificent accounts of the learn- / 
 ing and civilization of their ancestors two or three thousand ; 
 years ago ; but Avhen we find that their language , in some I 
 respects a copious as well as beautiful one, is utterly des- / 
 titute of scientific terms, and cannot convey the import of > 
 them without a clumsy periphrasis, we are enabled to ap- I 
 preciate such statements at their real value. 
 
 We are aware that Dugald Stewart, while combating the me- 
 taphysical conclusions of Home Tooke, thought proper to speak 
 somewhat slightingly of etymological investigations. With all 
 due respect for such authority, we think that he took an insuf- 
 ficient as well as an unfair view of the matter. When he repre- 
 sents the cultivation of this branch of knowledge as unfavour- 
 able to elegance of composition, refined taste, or enlargement 
 of the mental faculties, he seems to have forgotten the gram- 
 matical and etymological speculations of Plato, Caesar, and 
 Cicero and that the collection and comparison of the provin- 
 cialisms of Germany was a favourite employment of the illus- 
 trious Leibnitz. We fully assent to Mr. Stewart's strictures 
 on the absurdity of Tooke's favourite position, that words 
 ought always to be used in their primitive signification. A wise 
 man employs the language of the country according to its 
 current acceptation , as he uses the national coin according to 
 its current value, taking care in both cases to choose the 
 genuine and reject the counterfeit. But when Mr. Stewart 
 tries to make it appear that it is better in many cases to re- 
 main ignorant of the original meaning of words than to know 
 it, we think him singularly unfortunate both in his position and 
 in the illustration which he brings forward to support it. The 
 learned Professor says : - 
 
 'The argument against the critical utility of these etymological 
 researches might be carried much farther, by illustrating their 
 tendency with respect to our poetical vocabulary. The power of 
 this ( which depends wholly on association) is often increased 
 by the mystery which hangs over the origin of its consecrated , 
 terms; as the nobility of a family gains an accession of lustre, when 
 its history is lost in the obscurity of the fabulous ages. 
 
 'A single instance will at once explain and confirm the foregoing 
 remark. Few words , perhaps , in our language have been used 
 more happily by some of our older poets than harbinger : more parti- 
 cularly by Milton , whose "Paradise Lost" has rendered even the 
 organical sound pleasing to the fancy 
 
 1*
 
 ENGLISH LEX ICO GRAPH V. 
 
 "And now of love they treat, till th' evening star, 
 
 Love's harbinger, appear'd." 
 
 How powerful are the associations which such a combination of 
 ideas must establish in the memory of every reader capable of feel- 
 ing their beauty; and what a charm is communicated to the word, 
 thus blended in its effect with such pictures as those of the evening 
 star, and of the loves of our first parents! 
 
 'When I look into Johnson for the etymology of harbinger, I find 
 it is derived from the Dutch herberger , which denotes one who 
 goes to provide lodgings or a harbour for those that follow. Who- 
 ever may thank the author for this conjecture, it certainly will 
 not be the lover of Milton's poetry. The injury, however, which 
 is here done to the word in question, is slight in comparison of 
 what it would have been, if its origin had been traced to some 
 root in our own language equally ignoble, and resembling it as 
 nearly in point of orthography. y Philosophical Essays, p. 195. 
 
 This is elegantly and plausibly expressed, and will doubt- 
 less appear very convincing to a certain class of readers. 
 In our opinion the criticism is radically unsound, and more 
 worthy of Lord Chesterfield than of Dugald Stewart. In 
 fact, the implicit adoption of the principle involved in it 
 would make us quarrel with half our national vocabulary, 
 which must, in the nature of things, have been applied to 
 low and familiar objects, when it was the language of a rude 
 and barbarous people. Let us apply the canon to another 
 expression, much more homely in its origin and associations 
 than harbinger. We need not inform our readers who wrote 
 the following passages 
 
 c Though the yesly waves 
 Confound and swallow navigation up.' 
 
 * These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, 
 
 They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar 
 Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar. ' 
 
 With all due reverence for Partridge's maxim de gustibus 
 we cannot help maintaining that no man can perceive the 
 full power of the above nervous expressions, unless he knows 
 precisely what yeast means; and, moreover, that the critic 
 who would quarrel with them on account of the connexion 
 of the word with malt, hops, and beer -barrels, and propose 
 the substitution of froth, foam, or any similar milk and water 
 expression, had better shut up Shakspeare and Byron, and 
 devote himself to the study of French tragedies. It seems 
 as absurd to quarrel with a forcible and appropriate poetical 
 epithet on account of the homeliness of its origin, as it would
 
 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 5 
 
 be to despise a beautiful butterfly, because it was once a 
 caterpillar; and, to pursue the analogy, it is as interesting 
 and instructive to trace the progress of language from rude- 
 ness to refinement, as to watch the successive transformations 
 of the various tribes of insects. 
 
 Once more: Mr. Stewart describes philologists as a useful 
 sort of inferior drudges, who may often furnish their betters 
 with important data for illustrating the progress of laws, of 
 arts, and of manners, or for tracing the migrations of man- 
 kind in ages of which we have no historical records. It does 
 not seem to have occurred to him that it is very possible 
 for the profound philologist, and the enlightened antiquary 
 or historian, to be united in the same person; and that he 
 who derives this species of knowledge from the fountain- 
 head , must possess a great superiority over him who has it 
 at second or third hand, as all can testify who know and 
 are able to appreciate the profound researches of such men 
 as the late illustrious Humboldt.* Had Mr. Stewart himself 
 possessed a little more of this sort of knowledge, he would 
 never have brought forward that most extraordinary theory 
 of the origin of Sanscrit, which he supposes to be a mere 
 factitious language, manufactured by the Bramins on the 
 model of the Greek. This, we are willing to admit, is the 
 most flagrant absurdity that has emanated from the Scotch 
 school since the days of Monboddo. 
 
 Our anxiety to vindicate a favorite pursuit has rather led 
 us astray from our purpose, which is, to make some remarks 
 on the present state of English Lexicography. We shall not 
 laboriously attempt to demonstrate the value of a good dic- 
 tionary, or to show that there is as much reason for com- 
 piling a good one of the English language as of any other. 
 Even supposing that we did not require such a work for 
 ourselves, it must at all events be wanted by those foreigners 
 who take an interest in our literature. In most parts of 
 Europe, a knowledge of English is now a necessary part of 
 a liberal education, and the scholars of Germany and Den- 
 mark are not satisfied with a meagre school vocabulary, but 
 go to the best and most original sources of information, 
 wherever they can procure them. It is,' therefore, of great 
 importance to them that the words of our language should 
 be carefully collected and correctly explained, as they can- 
 not always have recourse , like ourselves, to living sources 
 of information. We heartily wish, for their sakes, as well 
 as for our own credit, that they had some better guidance 
 
 * Wilhelm Humboldt not the author.of "Kosmos." ED.
 
 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 
 
 than they can command at present. We fear that our best 
 means and appliances are far from trustworthy, and we feel 
 rather inclined to agree with a worthy Hibernian of our 
 acquaintance, who declared that the only good English dic- 
 tionary we posess is Dr. Jamieson's Scottish one. None of 
 our lexicographers has equalled, or even approached, the 
 venerable Doctor's industry in collecting words, or his skill 
 and care in explaining them ; and though etymology is his 
 weakest point, he has, even in this department, a decided 
 superiority over his southern competitors. Etymology and 
 philology do not seem to thrive on British ground. We were 
 indebted to a foreigner (Junius) for the first systematic and 
 comprehensive work on the analogies of our tongue, and it 
 is humiliating to think how little real improvement has been 
 effected in the two centuries that have since elapsed. We 
 have manifested the same supineness in other matters con- 
 nected with our national literature. We have allowed a Ba- 
 varian to print the first edition of the Old Saxon evangeli- 
 cal harmony the most precious monument of the kind, next 
 to the Moeso- Gothic Gospels -from English manuscripts. In 
 like manner, we are indebted to a Dane for the first printed 
 text of Beowulf, the most remarkable production in the whole 
 range of Anglo-Saxon literature; and we have to thank an- 
 other Dane for our knowledge of the principles of Anglo- 
 Saxon versification, and for the only grammar of that lan- 
 guage which deserves the name. We have had, it is true, 
 and still have, men who pride themselves on their exploits 
 in English philology, but the best among them are much on 
 a par with persons who fancy they are penetrating into the 
 profoundest mysteries of geology, while they are only ga- 
 thering up the pebbles that lie on the earth's surface.* We 
 admit that Hornc Tooke dug more deeply than his compe- 
 titors, and by no means without success; but, for want of 
 practical knowledge, he often laboured in the wrong vein, 
 and as often failed to turn the right one to the utmost ad- 
 vantage. 
 
 One principal cause for the little progress hitherto made 
 in this branch of science is, that it has too often been studied 
 as physiology was before the time of Galileo and Bacon. 
 It was found easier to guess than to explore; consequently, 
 almost every etymologist instead of forming his system 
 
 * We are far from intending to include all our Aii;ito-tin.r<>i< sdiolais of 
 the present day in this censure. We admired, and sincerely regret, Mr. 
 Conyl>eare. Some others of them especially Mr. Komhle and Mr. Thorpe 
 have also done good service in this department , and we sincerely hope 
 hat they will live to do a great deal more.
 
 .ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 
 
 from a copious and careful induction of facts sets out with 
 a determination to reduce everything to a certain preconceived 
 chimerical theory. One starts with the doctrine, that Celtic was 
 certainly spoken in Paradise; another assumes the identity 
 of Irish with Phoenician; a third undertakes to prove that 
 Welsh is the oldest daughter of the Hebrew. Murray clearly 
 sees all languages lurking in nine uncouth monosyllables 
 like forests of oaks in a few acorns ; Voss is content with 
 extracting Greek from a couple. On this, a German philo- 
 logist, of a better stamp, sarcastically observes, that we may 
 just as well undertake to derive every word in our language 
 from the vowel A; and that, if such theories are to be to- 
 lerated at all, the simplest must necessarily be the best. All 
 extravagances of this sort deserve to be classed with Darwin's 
 process for manufacturing animal bodies from irritable fibres ; 
 and make us long for the re-appearance of Aristophanes on 
 earth, to put the dreaming authors fairtoTKrav hrjgav ISQEIS 
 
 - in the Clouds. 
 
 Another great source of failure has been, that nearly all 
 our English etymologists took up their trade without suffi- 
 cient capital; and showed themselves grievously deficient in 
 the various kinds of knowledge requisite to pursue it with 
 success. It is not sufficient to collect a mass of apparently 
 similar words, according to their initial letters in dictionaries; 
 an etymologist ought to know the affinity and different de- 
 grees of affinity between languages to study the genius 
 and grammatical structure of each and, above all, to 
 possess a certain intuitive quickness of perception, com- 
 bined with sound judgment, capable of distinguishing the 
 real from the imaginary. Without this faculty of discrimi- 
 nation, mere ponderous learning is often worse than useless 
 
 - the more a man knows, the more blunders he is likely to 
 commit. We have a 'signal example of this in our country- 
 man llickes. Few works exhibit more zeal and industry than 
 his 'Thesaurus;' and those who can separate the wheat from 
 the chaff may glean from it a great deal of valuable inform- 
 ation. Nevertheless, we should be sorry to send a fellow- 
 creature thither for elementary instruction. Though he had 
 so little discrimination as to confound old Saxon and Fran- 
 cic the very north and south poles of the Germanic dialects 
 
 -he, in an unlucky hour, took upon himself to determine 
 !'.< cathedra the different periods of the Anglo-Saxon language, 
 and to classify its written monuments according to their 
 different degrees of purity or impurity. His method of pro- 
 ceeding was summary enough: he first constructed a gram- 
 matical and critical system of his own, on the most erro-
 
 8 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 
 
 neous and imperfect data; and then proceeded to stigmatise 
 everything that did not seem to accord with it, as Dano- 
 Saxon, and corrupt. As he was unable to distinguish be- 
 tween archaisms and poetical forms , and actual corruptions , 
 he has included under the above head innumerable composi- 
 tions which do not exhibit a single Danish peculiarity, gram- 
 matical or verbal; some of them, in fact, being written be- 
 fore the Danish invaders were seen or heard of. Most un- 
 fortunately, he has" been looked up to as a paramount author- 
 ity for more than a century ; consequently, his labours have 
 been, in many respects, more injurious than beneficial. We 
 do not hesitate to say, that a man may learn more of the 
 genius of the Anglo-Saxon language, and of the true principles 
 of its grammar, from Rask, in a single week, than he will 
 be likely to do in a year from the ponderous, ill-digested, 
 and bewildering compilation of Hickes. 
 
 Of course, not much was to be expected from the succes- 
 sors of Hickes, who had his faults without a tithe of his 
 learning or industry. Some of them seem to have been qua- 
 lified for the office they undertook, in the same way as the 
 macers in the Scottish courts, 'of whom,' as the author of 
 Redgauntlet records, f it is expressly required that they shall 
 be persons of no knowledge.' Not only do they manifest a 
 gross ignorance of the grammatical structure of the langua- 
 ges they have to deal with, but a total want of perception 
 of their most obvious analogies. The changes in corres- 
 ponding words of kindred languages are not arbitrary and 
 capricious, but regulated by fixed and deeply -seated prin- 
 ciples; especially in the radical words of the more ancient 
 dialects. When we meet with a simple verbal form in Anglo- 
 Saxon, we know beforehand in what shape it may be ex- 
 pected to occur in Icelandic, as well as what further modi- 
 fication it is likely to undergo in Danish and Swedish. Of 
 this sort of knowledge the very foundation of all rational 
 etymology our word-catchers do not seem to have had the 
 smallest tincture, and consequently they are perpetually al- 
 lowing themselves to be seduced by imaginary resemblances 
 into the most ludicrous mistakes. One of their deficiencies 
 is extraordinary enough in these days of universal diffusion 
 of knowledge. We have taken some pains in making our- 
 selves acquainted with our recent lexicographers and gloss- 
 arists, and find great reason to doubt whether any two of 
 the whole tribe have so much as a school-boy acquaintance 
 with modern German. It is well known that this language 
 is of the utmost importance to the philologist, not only 
 on account of the extent of its vocabulary and the num-
 
 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 9 
 
 her and value of its ancient .literary monuments, but fur- 
 ther, because the best works on almost every branch of 
 the subject are only accessible to a person acquainted with 
 it. Perhaps the writings of Grimm, Bopp, and their coad- 
 jutors men who seem likely to effect the same sort of re- 
 volution in European philology that Cuvier wrought in the 
 sciences of comparative anatomy and geology have scarce- 
 ly had time to make their way among our scholars: but 
 how conies it that so little use has been made of works 
 which have been forty or fifty years before the public? We 
 indeed occasionally meet with references to Schilter, Haltaus, 
 Wachter, and Richey, whose Latin furnishes some clue to 
 their meaning ; but we have looked in vain for an etymology 
 from the valuable Bremiseh-Sachsisches Worterbuch the 
 Holsteinisches Idiotikon the elaborate work of Stalder on 
 the dialects of Switzerland ; and what is still more extra- 
 ordinary, we have not found the smallest notice taken of 
 the celebrated dictionary of Adelung which, as a compre- 
 hensive etymological depository, perhaps claims precedence 
 over every European work of the same class. We can only 
 account for this by concluding that the key to those trea- 
 sures was wanting. The explanations and definitions are 
 German GcpodQa TSVTOVSS consequently, any attempt of 
 the uninitiated to give us the benefit of them would have 
 had the success of George Primrose's well-meant attempt to 
 teach the Dutch English. 
 
 It is, however, time to take some notice of the different 
 works we are professing to review. The limits of an article 
 necessarily preclude all detailed analysis of their contents; 
 we shall, therefore, give our opinion of their respective me- 
 rits as briefly as we can. Concerning Mr. Todd's labours, 
 we do not think it necessary to say much. He has shown 
 much industry in collecting words from our old writers; and 
 has made sundry corrections, which are not without their 
 value. In short, it is easy to perceive that he has read many 
 books, and remembers a great deal of what he has read; 
 and that he is sufficiently accurate in matters connected with 
 his own particular department. But his acquaintance with 
 the language is more scholastic than vernacular; and he too 
 frequently reminds us of Lightfoot, who, after drawing up a 
 most learned' and elaborate topographical description of Je- 
 rusalem, was completely lost on the road to his own field. 
 He has most especially failed in adapting his work to the 
 present state of science. Innumerable terms of art are wholly 
 omitted, and the explanations of many that are given arc 
 either defective or absolutely erroneous; in short, he seems
 
 10 
 
 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 
 
 to think that the terminology of science remains nearly what 
 it was in the days of Greorge II. The department of British 
 botany, in which precision was both necessary and easily 
 attainable, is executed throughout in the most slovenly and 
 incomplete manner. Instead of the nomenclature ofLinnseus, 
 Mr. Todd has either given the exploded and forgotten de- 
 finitions of Miller's dictionary, or none at all; consequently, 
 a foreigner would, in a vast majority of instances, be un- 
 able to discover what is meant. Let the following familiar 
 words respecting which one would think there could be 
 no mistake serve as a sample : - 
 
 1. c COCKLE (coccel, Sax.; lolium, zizania, Lat.), a weed that grows 
 in corn. The same with corn-rose, a species of poppy. ' 
 
 Here is a confusion of three distinct plants, Lolium le- 
 mulentum, or darnel Agrostemma githago , the corn-cockle 
 and Papaver rhceas, the wild poppy. 
 
 2. * WAYBREAD (plantago), a plant. ' 
 
 What plant? Is it Plantayo MAJOR media lanceolala 
 coronopus or marilima? A reference to the Saxon tvcf/l>r<f<l, or 
 the German wegebreit, would have shown that the proper ortho- 
 graphy is way#mfe; and also have served to identify the species. 
 
 3. 'CRANBERRY, the whortleberry or bilberry. 3 
 
 No more than a raspberry is a blackberry as every man, 
 woman, or child, that has tasted a cranberry-tart, can testify. 
 We hope it is unnecessary to tell our readers in what the 
 difference consists; but we ask seriously, whether foreigners, 
 who find these gross blunders in our most accredited dictio- 
 naries, will not have cause to say, that Englishmen neither 
 know their own language, nor the most common natural 
 productions of their own country? 
 
 As specimens of English natural history, the above are 
 doubtless bad enough; they are, however, by no means the 
 worst samples of the march of information among us. Our 
 readers are probably aware that an Almanac is annually 
 published under the superintendence of the Society for the 
 Diffusion of Useful Knowledge with sufficiently lofty pre- 
 tensions, and bearing in front the names of an ex -Lord 
 Chancellor, and we know not how many cabinet ministers. 
 The one published in 1832 is garnished with a calendar of 
 British zoology, furnished, we suppose, by a professor of the 
 London University* certainly by some one to whom the 
 
 * The time has long gone by if it ever existed when the teaching of 
 University College could be censured with justice. It may be feared, 
 however, that, as a popular branch of knowledge, natural history (except 
 as regards sea-slugs) is little more advanced now than in 1835. ED.
 
 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 11 
 
 sound of Bow-bell is more familiar than the zoology of this 
 or any other country. Among the natural phenomena in 
 January, we are gravely informed that the hearth-cricket, the 
 bed-flea, and the cheese-mile may be seen in their respective 
 haunts, particularly on fine days ! Undoubtedly ! and so may 
 bugs and other little creatures familiar to man ! In February, 
 ' the grayling ascends rivers from the sea.' We believe 
 grayling are about as plentiful in the sea as herrings are in 
 Virginia Water. In June c the sheep Ovis aries is shorn 
 and washed!' (qu. washed and shorn?) a piece of natural 
 history worthy of the wight who pronounced St. Paul's a 
 great natural curiosity. In November, 'hares remain much in 
 their dens' (fearful places, no doubt); and the in-June- 
 shorn-and- washed ovis aries e pairs ' (we thought the ram was 
 rtr greats}, c and utters its peculiar cair -- being, we" sup- 
 pose, silent at all other seasons. In December, the different 
 species of swallows like Horrebow's owls 'are not found:' 
 we needed no ghost to tell us that. Surely such stuff as 
 this and there is plenty of the same sort is not much 
 better than Francis Moore's astrology! A botanical and floral 
 register, in a subsequent Almanac, is pretty much of the 
 same calibre. If the countrymen of Linnseus get hold of 
 these publications which they will naturally regard as con- 
 taining the concentrated wisdom of the Society what an ele- 
 vated idea they will have of the state of knowledge among 
 us ! But we must come back to our dictionaries. 
 
 AVe had seen Dr. Webster's work so highly praised, par- 
 ticularly by his countrymen, that we were led to form high 
 expectations of its merit. These expectations have, in a great 
 measure, been disappointed. We give the author credit for 
 great industry some of which is not unsuccessfully directed. 
 He has added many words, and corrected many errors, espe- 
 cially in terms relating to natural history and other branches 
 of modern science. But the general execution of his work 
 is poor enough. It contains, indeed, the words in common 
 use, with their ordinary acceptations, but conveys no lumin- 
 ous or correct views of the origin and structure of the lan- 
 guage. Indeed, as an attempt to give the derivation and prim- 
 ary meaning of words it must be considered as a decided 
 failure ; and is throughout conducted on perverse and errone- 
 ous principles. The mere perusal of his Preface is sufficient 
 to show that he is but slenderly qualified for the undertaking. 
 There is everywhere a great parade of erudition, and a great 
 lack of real knowledge ; in short, we do not recollect ever to 
 have witnessed in the same compass a greater number of cru- 
 dities and errors, or more pains taken to so little purpose.
 
 12 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 
 
 In his sketch of languages, he describes Basque as a pure 
 dialect of the old Celtic: it is neither allied to the Celtic nor 
 to any other European family of tongues. * He states further, 
 that he * has no particular knowledge of the Norwegian, Ice- 
 landic, and the dialects or languages spoken in Switzerland, 
 further than that they belong to the Teutonic or Gothic fa- 
 mily.' Could a man who professes to have spent half his 
 life in comparing languages be ignorant that Iceland is the 
 venerable parent of the whole Scandinavian tribe; and, con- 
 sequently, of first rate importance in tracing the origin of 
 words? He discovers that the prefixed a in arvake, ashamed, 
 &c. is formed from the Anglo-Saxon ge with which it has 
 not the smallest connexion; and, moreover, that the same 
 particle (ge) is retained in the Danish and in some German 
 and Dutch words. It is notoriously of the most extensive use 
 in Dutch and German and the very few Danish words in 
 which it occurs are one and all borrowed from the Lower 
 Saxon. With equal felicity he asserts that the prefix be is of 
 extensive use in Danish and Swedish. Just as much as hyper 
 and peri are in Latin; be like ge is in those two languages 
 a borrowed particle, arid from the same quarter. He thinks 
 the negative prefix o in Swedish is probably a contracted word, 
 being unable to perceive its identity with the German and 
 English un. As might be supposed from these specimens 
 Dr. Webster's application of the northern tongues to English 
 etymologies is often erroneous and perverse enough it is, 
 however, upon the whole, better than we should have anti- 
 cipated from one so slenderly acquainted with their structure 
 and peculiarities. He has taken great pains in collecting and 
 comparing synonymes from different languages, and is often 
 sufficiently happy in the explanation of individual terms. 
 But the ambitious attempt to develope the radical import of 
 words was an undertaking far beyond his strength and ac- 
 quirements. In nineteen instances out of twenty his explan- 
 ations are founded on a mere petitio principii, and frequently 
 they are too ludicrous to deserve a serious refutation. Our 
 readers may judge of them by the following sample: 
 
 c Heat usually implies excitement; but as the effect of heat as 
 well as of cold is sometimes to contract I think both are sometimes 
 from the same radix. ' 
 
 We fear the doctor had forgotten the fable of the satyr and 
 the traveller, when he penned the above choice sentence. 
 
 The main feature of the doctor's work and the point on 
 
 * It is now usually considered as a member of the Turanian class of lan- 
 guages. ED.
 
 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 13 
 
 which he evidently most prides himself is a laborious pa- 
 rallel between Hebrew with its kindred dialects and those 
 European languages from which English is derived. We he- 
 sitate not to say that it is a waste of time and labour to 
 attempt to establish an analogy between two classes so totally 
 unlike in their component elements, as well as their entire 
 mechanism and grammatical structure. There are, it is true, 
 a certain number of verbal resemblances, which, when care- 
 fully examined, generally prove more apparent than real. It 
 is seldom that an affinity can be proved, and when a remote 
 one does exist, the discovery of it rarely throws any light on 
 the origin or philosophy of languages like ours. We will 
 produce a single example of the fallacy of trusting to resem- 
 blances of this sort. In Matth. i. 2. et seq., the Syriac translator 
 renders tytvvrjGs by -few (auled or avled}', in the modern 
 Danish version we find avlede, apparently so closely resem- 
 bling the Syriac term, in sound, spelling, and signification, 
 that many a smatterer in etymology would jump to the con- 
 clusion of a corilmunity of origin. But an examination of 
 the grammatical inflexions proves that there is not the smallest 
 affinity between the two. The roots have just one letter in 
 common, and the apparent similarity is, in fact, a proof of 
 real difference, being accidentally brought about in each 
 word by a totally opposite process of inflexion. Yet, unskil- 
 ful as it would be to identify the above words with each 
 other, it would hardly be so bad as deriving preach [Lat. 
 prsedicoj from the Hebrew barak to bless or establish 
 [Lat. sto ! ! !] from yatzab which Dr. Webster does without 
 the smallest symptoms of remorse, or apparent suspicion of 
 the absurdity and impossibility of the thing. These speci- 
 mens may make us thankful that the doctor's 'Synopsis of 
 the Principal Uncompounded Words in Twenty Languages' 
 is * not published and perhaps never will be.' It would 
 certainly be a formidable addition to the mass of etymolo- 
 gical trash already before the world. 
 
 The above strictures on the application of Oriental lan- 
 guages to etymology must, of course, be understood to refer 
 to those of the Semitic family. With respect to Persian, the 
 case is very different, and though Dr. Webster's etymologies 
 from this source are not always to the purpose, they are 
 more frequently so than those from Hebrew and Arabic. 
 In fact, the Persian language is an undoubted descendant 
 of Sanscrit, or some ancient tongue closely allied to it: wo- 
 fully disfigured and corrupted, it is true, but still retaining 
 sufficient traces of its origin. It is, therefore, capable of 
 furnishing valuable materials for the illustration of the great
 
 14 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 
 
 Indo-European tribe, if used skilfully and soberly, but the 
 mischief is, that half-learned philologists are always attempt- 
 ing to make some kind of coin pass for more than its real 
 worth. Various attempts, for example, have been made to 
 deduce German en ligne droite from the old Persian. 
 Von Hammer, if we recollect rightly, maintains most perti- 
 naciously, that not only the language, but the German men 
 and the German horses are from this quarter, being the un- 
 doubted descendants of the warriors and steeds of Darius 
 the son of Hystaspes. The verbal coincidences between the 
 two languages are indeed so numerous, that a sufficiently 
 plausible theory may be constructed by any one who takes 
 care to exhibit everything that suits his purpose, and to keep 
 all the rest out of sight, according to the established prac- 
 tice of system-mongers. But when carefully and impartially 
 examined, they only go to prove a remote collateral affinity. 
 The majority may be accounted for by a common descent 
 from Sanscrit or its parent, and the points of dissimilarity 
 are much more numerous than those of agreement. Still the 
 latter are well worthy of notice, not only as illustrative of 
 the history and affinities of language, but also of the man- 
 ners, customs, and religious opinions of antiquity; and oc- 
 casionally we are amused by meeting with things of this 
 sort, where we should hardly expect, a priori, to find them. 
 We will produce a couple of instances which have not, to 
 our recollection, been noticed before. 
 
 We have observed that the Semitic languages do not throw 
 much light on those of Europe. This remark, however, does 
 not necessarily apply to the exotic terms that have found 
 their way into some Semitic dialects. In a remarkable Syro- 
 Chaldaic lectionarium in the Vatican library, supposed by 
 Adler to be in the Jerusalem dialet, vnodijiiaTcc, Luke xv. 22, 
 is rendered "piTO, that is, in a more European dress, shwtin, 
 or shooin precisely the word which a West Riding York- 
 shireman uses for shoes. Hence, it appears, that those Hie- 
 rosolymitan Christians, if such they were, not only, to use 
 the Beaufoy phrase had their feet accommodated with shoes, 
 but, moreover, had a very tolerable sort of English name for 
 them. The termination in is the Chaldee or Syriac plural : 
 the word itself cannot be referred to any known Semitic root. 
 It is not very easy to explain how this Germanic word got 
 into an Aramean dialect, but we believe the history of its 
 progress thither would be both curious and instructive, if it 
 were possible to trace it. 
 
 Much has been written to little purpose, respecting the 
 origin of Yule. We are not without a suspicion that the fol-
 
 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 15 
 
 lowing curious passage may in some way be connected with 
 it. The substance of the story is in the Shah Nameh, but 
 we prefer Castell's account, we know not whence derived, 
 as more clear and consistent. In his Persian lexicon are the 
 following articles : 
 
 c SHEB YELDA. Anni nox longissima. SEDEII ET SEDHEH. Sextus 
 decimus dies mensis Behraen [i. e. medii mensis hyemis] magis 
 solennis et festus. Item, Nox qusedam f'esta qua ignes' solenni 
 ritu exstruunt; al. sfieb say eh, et shcb yelda [see above] 5 Turc. sa- 
 yeh-bmdsy dictum. Tempore Regis Huslienk [Hoshung] magnus 
 extitit draco, ut aiunt; quem ipse rex lapide petens forte fortuna 
 alium lapidem jactu tetigit; quorum lapidum collisioue ignis ex- 
 citatus, qui herbas et arbores circumcirca consumpsit, earumque 
 incendio draco ille periit. Lseti incolse sumpserunt de hoc igne, 
 et veluti trimnphales ignes ubique extruxernut. Qui mos ab eo 
 tempore ad hoc usque solemnis mansit.' 
 
 The story is not a bad one, though not quite so marvel- 
 lous as Baron Munchausen's destruction of the bear by the 
 collision of two flints. We lay no great stress on the verbal 
 resemblance between yelda and yule, which may be wholly 
 casual, but we consider the similarity of the two festivals, 
 and especially the exact correspondence of the season of 
 celebration, as very remarkable. If we mistake not, Firdusi 
 deduces the whole system of fire-worship from this source 
 we think the other the more plausible version of the matter 
 
 we do not say more true. The feast was evidently , in its 
 origin, in honour of the sun's passing the winter solstice. 
 The story of the dragon we conceive to be an ancient mythus 
 that has appeared in more than one shape, and as we ve- 
 hemently suspect, also to be traced to an astronomical origin. 
 The most obvious parallel is the destruction of the Lernsean 
 Hydra by Hercules. In both cases we have a monster sub- 
 dued by a professed hero -errant, and by the assistance of 
 fire; it happens too, oddly enough, that lolaus, or lolas, 
 who furnished Hercules with the burning brands from the 
 adjoining forest, bears a name very capable of petrifaction. 
 A clever mythologist might construct a theory out of much 
 scantier materials. If the author of Nimrod, for instance, 
 takes the matter in hand, we have no doubt of his explain- 
 ing every part of it as ingeniously as he resolved St. Cuth- 
 bert into an avatar of Cmh the bright. He would have little 
 difficulty in identifying Hercules with Hoshung the hydra 
 with the dragon lolaus with the stone or the stone with 
 lolaus ad lihihim ; or, in proving that the Persian S/teb yelda 
 
 the Theban lokca and the Scandinavian Yule, were ori- 
 ginally one and the same festival; and finally, that the re-
 
 16 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 
 
 suscitation, or rejuvenescence of lolaus, charioteer of Hercu- 
 les (i. e. of the sun), has a reference to the renewal of the 
 solar year. We do not presume to decide such recondite 
 questions, but merely wish to suggest, that a careful exa- 
 mination of the Indian and Persian traditions might perhaps 
 throw some light on the mythology of Scandinavia, where we 
 find the same blending of Sabianism, pantheism, and wor- 
 ship of deified heroes as in that of Greece, Egypt, and Hin- 
 dostan, and resemblances in detail too numerous to be al- 
 ways accidental. 
 
 To those who care more about the business of real life 
 than the genealogy of gods and demigods,' it may be more 
 interesting to learn that Persia was not only, like Scotland, 
 literally a land of cakes * with frontiers called marzha or 
 marches, under the care of a marzuban or cuslos conftniurn (An- 
 glice, warden of the marches) but that the inhabitants 
 were moreover well acquainted with the truly English games 
 of tipcat** and leap-frog. They who maintain that our an- 
 
 * Kak, panis biscoctus. Castell. Lex. Pers. col. 434. The word is also 
 found in Syriac, Arabic, andChaldee, evidently borrowed from the Persian. 
 Vide Michaelis' edition of Castell's Syriac Lexicon, p. 404. In the Ger- 
 manic languages cake is significant, being formed from cook, like ntfifia from 
 TTSTtrw ; as is manifest in Lower .Saxon, koken, to cook, kaukc, a cake, and 
 still more plainly in the Scottish form, cookie. It would be curious to trace 
 the exact degrees of relationship between the Persian and Teutonic terms 
 and the Latin coquo. Compare Sanscrit pac, to cook, Phrygian bekos, bread, 
 and our own bake. 
 
 ** We transcribe the following articles for the benefit of those who have 
 not access to that extraordinary monument of ill-requited learning, Gas- 
 tell' s Lexicon Heptaglotton. 
 
 'Chelu chub (q. d. paxillus et baculus), Lusus genus puerorum; ligni 
 teretis extremum alio ligno percutiunt , atque ita in ae'rern subsilieus pro- 
 pellunt. ' Lex. Pers. col. 211. This game was formerly well known in 
 Yorkshire under the appellation of trippets. In the southern countries it is 
 called tipcat; in Northumberland trippet and coit. 
 
 ' Me/hid, Mezid et Mezideh. Lusus uomen quo aliqui quotcunque proni, 
 ad genua manibus compositis consistunt, quorum extremus semper caeteros 
 omnes supra dorsum transilit, et primo loco se eodem modo rursus consti- 
 tuit.' col 508. We leave it to persons better versed in the antiquities of 
 popular sports than ourselves to decide whether the above were among the 
 games invented by the Lydians in the time of the great famine, which en- 
 abled them to pass every alternate day during eighteen years without eat- 
 ing. Vide Herodot. lib. 1, col. 94. 
 
 The following passage proves that the plough-drill is neither an English 
 invention nor a very recent one : 
 
 'Kesht karideh; ager aratus, seminatusque simul ut in Curdistan 
 dum aratur, per exiguum foramen desuper granum decidit quovis momento 
 ante vomerem, et parum a latere, quod subversa deiiide terra obtegitur.' 
 Lex. Persicum, col. 458. 
 
 It seems the barbarous Kurds are at least no' novices in agriculture.
 
 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 17 
 
 cestors were once tributaries of { the Grand Cyrus, ' are wel- 
 come to suppose that those words and things accompanied 
 the Sakai Sunu, or Sacse, on their passage from the banks 
 of the Jaxartes to the shores of the Baltic ; and that our ad- 
 jective bad, a word only found in Persian and English, is 
 from the same quarter. 
 
 On the whole, Dr. Webster's quartos were hardly worthy 
 of being reprinted in England. Of the next work on our 
 list, Mr. Richardson's, we are inclined, on many accounts, 
 to judge favourably. We do not consider it perfect, either 
 in point of plan or execution, but we hope it is likely to 
 become the foundation of a better dictionary than we have 
 hitherto possessed and that, in the mean time, the honour- 
 able zeal of the author may be properly encouraged by the 
 public. His selection of words is, in the main, judicious, 
 and he has shown laudable industry in the collection of au- 
 thorities for their different acceptations. We still adhere to 
 the opinion which we formerly expressed, that it would be 
 a more scientific, and in all respects a preferable arrange- 
 ment, to give the significations of words in the natural order 
 of succession, for we hold Grandgoustier's golden rule *de 
 commencer par le commencement 9 to be as applicable to 
 etymology as any other subject. A chronological table of 
 authors would enable every reader to classify the quotations 
 according to their respective ages; and it is of much more 
 consequence to ascertain what a word originally meant, than 
 to know by what English author now extant it happened to 
 be first used. We think, moreover, that there is too often 
 a scantiness in Mr. Richardson's definitions, calculated to 
 leave imperfectly informed persons, and especially foreigners, 
 at a loss; and that the more remote senses of words, which 
 are precisely those that most need explanation, are often 
 wholly overlooked. For example, under Aberration, no notice 
 is taken of the astronomical and optical employment of the 
 
 The missionary Garzoni, who resided in Kurdistan from 1764 to 1782, des- 
 cribes the valleys and champaign country as being at that time in a high 
 state of cultivation. As his ' Grammatica e Vocabolario della Lingua 
 Kurda' is in few hands, the following extract from the preface may not be 
 unacceptable to our readers : 
 
 ' Li paesi Kurdi sono tutte montagne altissime appartenenti al monte 
 Tauro, con le loro bellissime valli, fertili di frutta e riso. I loro monti so- 
 pratutto abbondano di ottima galla, della quale li mercanti esteri ne fanno 
 ungrancommercio, trafficandolanella Asia minore, inSoria, in Aleppo, indi 
 in Europa; per li buoni pascoli abbondano pure d'ottime pecore, e capre, 
 in cui consiste la maggior entrata. Le pianure poi a pie de' monti, tanto 
 dalla parte di Persia, quanto dalla parte di Mesopotamia, sono fertilissime 
 di grano, lino, bombace e sesamo.' p. 5. 
 
 2
 
 18 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 
 
 term ; and under Alchymy, the primary meaning is left to be 
 collected from an absurd and erroneous etymology of Vossius, 
 and the secondary one, viz., c a factitious or mixed metal,' 
 from a passage in Milton, unintelligible to common readers. 
 We could easily show that Mr. Richardson has omitted many 
 words employed by the writers of the middle ages - but we 
 do not find fault with this; we rather object to his having 
 admitted too many. In our opinion, archaic and provincial 
 terms belong rather to a glossary than to a standard dic- 
 tionary of a cultivated language. A repository of such words, 
 to be of any real value, ought to be complete; and it is 
 easy to perceive what dreadful confusion it would cause, to 
 blend a huge mass of antique and dialectical forms with the 
 English of the present day. We conceive the following would 
 be a proper division of the different periods of our tongue: 
 1. An Anglo-Saxon lexicon, concluding with the eleventh 
 century. 2. A glossary of archaic, and, what is much the 
 same thing, provincial English, to the end of the fifteenth 
 century. 3. Classical and modern English, from A. D. 1500, 
 to the present time. Words belonging to the second period 
 must of course be referred to for the illustration of those in 
 the third but ought not to be classed with them. 
 
 We shall not enter into any detailed examination of the 
 etymological portion of Mr. Richardson's work, the defects 
 of which are not so much chargeable on himself, as on the 
 guide whose dicta he implicitly follows. He appears to take 
 it for granted that the author of the Diversions of Purley 
 proves every thing that he asserts, and that all rational and 
 philosophical English etymology must be founded on his sys- 
 tem. As we think there are no sufficient grounds for this persua- 
 sion, and that the general prevalence of it would be more likely 
 to impede the improvement of sound philology than to pro- 
 mote it, we shall avail ourselves of the present opportunity 
 of making some strictures on this celebrated work, which has 
 been praised and censured without sufficient discrimination. 
 
 It cannot be denied that Tooke has done some service to. 
 the cause of English philology. He has successfully exposed 
 the dreaming theories of Harris and Monboddo. He has made 
 valuable remarks on various grammatical subjects, and is 
 frequently sagacious and happy in the explanation of parti- 
 cular words. Even his errors and paradoxes are not with- 
 out their use. They are supported with an ingenuity that 
 compels us to admire when we feel obliged to withhold our 
 assent, and not unfrequently contain approximations to truth 
 which more wary and cautious inquirers may turn to good 
 account. In short, we know few books more instructive than
 
 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 19 
 
 the Diversions of Purley, to those who are able and willing 
 to think for themselves; but those who are content to take 
 up their opinions on trust, that is to say, the great majority 
 of readers, are as likely to be misled by its author as di- 
 rected aright. No one appears to have formed a more accurate 
 estimate of the merits and defects of the work, than the late 
 accomplished editor* of Warton's History of English Poetry 
 
 whose remarks are so distinguished by moderation and 
 candour, as well as by their general truth and discrimination, 
 that we make no apology for laying them before our readers. 
 
 c To those who will be at tlie trouble of examining Mr. Tooke's 
 theory, and his own peculiar illustration of it , it will soon be evi- 
 dent, that, though no objections can be offered to his general re- 
 sults, yet his details, more especially those contained in his first 
 volume, may be contested nearly as often as they are admitted. 
 The cause of this will be found in what Mr. Tooke has himself re- 
 lated , of the manner in which those results were obtained , com- 
 bined with another circumstance, which he did not think it of im- 
 portance to communicate , but which, as he certainly did not feel 
 its consequences, he could have no improper motive for concealing. 
 The simple truth is , that Mr. Tooke, with whom, like every man 
 of an active mind, idleness in his case, perhaps, the idleness 
 of a busy political life ranked as an enjoyment, only investi- 
 gated his system at its two extremes, the root and the summit, the 
 Anglo-Saxon, and English from the thirteenth century downwards, 
 and having satisfied himself on a review of its condition in 
 these two stages, that his previous convictions were on the whole 
 correct, he abandoned all further examination of the subject. The 
 former, I should feel disposed to believe, he chiefly studied in 
 Lye's vocabulary of the latter , he certainly had ample expe- 
 rience. But in passing over the intervening space , and we might 
 say for want of a due knowledge of those numerous laws which 
 govern the Anglo-Saxon grammar and no language can be fa- 
 miliar to us without a similar knowledge a variety of the fainter 
 lines and minor features, all contributing to give both form and 
 expression to our language, entirely escaped him; and hence the 
 facilities with which his system has been made the subject of at- 
 tack, though in fact, it is not the system which has been vulnerable, 
 but Mr. Tooke's occasionally loose application of it. ' Warlori 's 
 History of English Poetry, vol. ii. pp. 493-4. ed. 1824. 
 
 To this we assent, with some little limitation. We are of 
 opinion that Tooke signally failed in establishing some lead- 
 ing points of his system, and that his knowledge of ancient 
 English literature was more multifarious than accurate. He 
 
 * Richard Price, Esq. ED. 
 
 2*
 
 20 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 
 
 frequently mistakes the meaning of his English quotations, 
 as well as of his Scottish ones, and often draws sweeping 
 and utterly unwarrantable conclusions from the blunder of 
 a printer, or a mere misconception of his own. What Mr. 
 Price observes of his Anglo-Saxon scholarship is equally 
 applicable to his acquaintance with the German and Scandi- 
 navian dialects. There is sufficient evidence that he did not 
 possess an accurate grammatical knowledge of any one of 
 those languages, and of their general analogies and distin- 
 guishing peculiarities he knew nothing at all. It is 7 there- 
 fore, not wonderful that he fell into many gross mistakes ; 
 there is more cause to be surprised that he was so often in 
 the right. 
 
 Our limits do not permit us to enter into any detailed 
 analysis of Tooke's work, we shall merely produce some 
 instances of what we conceive to be practical errors, and 
 leave our opinion of his principles to be collected from our 
 strictures on their particular application. Mr. Price observes 
 that the details in the first part of his work, namely, his 
 much vaunted analysis of particles, may be contested nearly 
 as often as they are admitted. We venture to go further, 
 and to pronounce that it is, both in principle and execution, 
 the most erroneous and defective part of the system, and 
 that it contains very little indeed that can be safely relied 
 upon. 
 
 One copious source of error, affecting more or less every 
 branch of Tooke's system, is the assumption that Anglo- 
 Saxon and its sister dialects may be practically regarded as 
 original languages, and, consequently, that the bulk of the 
 abbreviated forms of speech, which we call particles, may 
 be traced to verbs or nouns, actually existing in one or 
 more of that tribe. All this is more easily asserted than 
 proved: in fact, we have almost invincible evidence that the 
 assumption is a downright petitio principii and totally erro- 
 neous. Collateral dialects, so closely related as those in 
 question, as certainly prove the existence of a parent lan- 
 guage, as the co-existence of brothers and sisters implies a 
 father before them; and as we have reason to suppose that 
 Hecuba had a mother, though we do not know who she 
 was, it is at least possible, that this more ancient Teutonic, 
 or whatever we choose to call it, might not itself be an ori- 
 ginal tongue, but a scion from a still older form of speech. 
 If, therefore, Anglo-Saxon is a nala natarum, a language 
 several descents removed from a primaeval one now lost, but 
 in all likelihood closely related to Sanscrit, is it to be sup- 
 posed that all its component elements are self -existent and
 
 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY 21 
 
 self-derived? Must all the primitive circulating medium be 
 cast into the crucible and recoined? May not some of the 
 pieces have come down to us, somewhat clipped and de- 
 faced, as might be expected, but still substantially the same 
 coin? A little further consideration will show that, next to 
 the numerals and pronouns, no words are more likely to 
 have been thus transmitted than particles, especially prepo- 
 sitions, which are absolutely necessary both to the precision 
 and facility of languages constructed like ours. They bear 
 a close analogy to the symbols in algebra, and language 
 would be as unintelligible without words denoting the sepa- 
 ration and connexion of particulars, as the demonstrations of 
 the analyst without signs denoting positive, negative, and 
 proportional quantities. Prepositions, therefore, must have 
 existed from a very early period, and if our ancestors found 
 a quantity of suitable ones ready made to their hands, we 
 see no earthly reason why they should reject them in toto. 
 Let us examine how far this a priori reasoning is borne out 
 by facts in a particular instance. If we search for the ori- 
 gin of the preposition over , we find the equivalent words 
 ofer, yfir, and upar, in the oldest monuments of the Anglo- 
 Saxon, Icelandic and German. Three or four centuries ear- 
 lier occurs the Gothic ufar, then the Latin super, and Greek 
 vitsQ, and in Sanscrit, the most ancient and unmixed lan- 
 guage of the whole class, upari,* all precisely in the same 
 signification. We entertain not the smallest doubt of the 
 original identity of all the above words, and would as soon 
 believe that the Athenians sprung out of the ground like 
 mushrooms , as that ofer is formed from an indigenous Anglo- 
 Saxon root, totally unconnected with the Sanscrit. That 
 we may not appear to rest our cause on a solitary instance, 
 we shall examine a number of Tooke's etymologies of par- 
 ticles, beginning with the prepositions, the most ancient and 
 simple words of the class. 
 
 1 THROUGH. No other than the Gothic substantive dauro, or the 
 Teutonic substantive thuruh, and, like them, means door, gate, 
 passage. ' 
 
 To say nothing of confounding Teutonic titri (door) with 
 the Old Saxon thuruh (through), it is sufficient to observe, 
 that in the very Gothic dialect here appealed to, through 
 and door are different words, and from different roots, as is 
 clearly shown by Ulphilas's thairh aggvu daur (Matth. vii. 
 
 * Compare Persian eber.
 
 22 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 
 
 13.), through the strait door. It is, indeed, easy to assert 
 that -th is here substituted for d, and equivalent to it, but 
 before we assent to this, we desire to have an unequivocal 
 instance of such a change in the initial consonants of con- 
 temporary words in any Teutonic language. Medial and 
 final consonants are variously modified, but initials are tena- 
 ciously preserved unaltered, by Goths, Saxons, and Scandi- 
 navians, and we have no more right to assume the identity 
 of lhairh and daur, than we have to confound thorn and turn, 
 in English. We venture to substitute the following etymo- 
 logy, more as probable, than absolutely certain. Sanscrit, 
 trl, transgredi, (of which Latin trans seems a participial form) ; 
 old Swedish, tccra, permeare, transirc ; Gothic, thairks, foramen, 
 and thairh, whence Anglo-Saxon, thurh; English, through. 
 Compare Welsh, trwy Gaelic and Irish, troimh, tre, trid, 
 through and probably Gothic thaurn, Anglo-Saxon , thorn , 
 spina, q. d. the piercer. We may just observe that the Sans- 
 crit, trl, appears to be the root of the comparative affix f.ara 
 (Greek, TSQO$, Persian, ter\ q. d. exceeding, or exactly equi- 
 valent to our passing strange, passing fair. 
 
 'Or. A fragment of Gothic, afara, posterilas. ANGLO-SAXON, 
 afora, proles. ' 
 
 No more than the Latin post is from English posterity , as 
 will appear from the following synonyms. Sanscrit, apa, 
 Greek, CMTO; Latin, ab; Old German, aba, apa\ Gothic, Ice- 
 landic, /; ANGLO-SAXON, of. The Gothic noun afar is two 
 descents removed, being from the particle afar, post, which 
 is evidently derived from af. 
 
 r To, is the Gothic substantive taui or tauhls, i. c., act, effect, re- 
 sult, consummation. Which Gothic substantive is indeed no other 
 than the past participle tauid, or tauids , of the verb taujan, agere. 
 In the Teutonic this verb is written tuan or tuon, whence the mo- 
 dern German thun, and its preposition varying like the verb, hi. 
 In Anglo-Saxon the verb is tcogan, and preposition to. ' 
 
 This assemblage of errors and crudities is enough to make 
 one exclaim with Toinette, Ignorantm , ignoranta , ignorantum! 
 The Gothic particle, here entirely overlooked, is du tan j an 
 is not the Teutonic tuon, but zatvjan, quite a distinct verb. 
 The German preposition is not lu, but zu the Anglo-Saxon 
 teogan does not mean to do, but to dram or low (German, 
 zteheri)] and finally, the particle to cannot be derived from 
 do in any Germanic dialect, old or new, without a gross 
 violation of the elementary principles of language. Let our 
 readers just compare the following parallel forms
 
 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 23 
 
 Vert* Preposition. 
 
 Gothic , du. 
 
 Old German, tuan, tuon, za, zi, zuo. 
 
 Old Saxon and Anglo-Saxon, don, te, to. 
 
 Modern German, thun, zu. 
 
 Dutch, doen, te, toe. 
 
 English, do, to. 
 
 Surely this dissimilarity, running as it does through so 
 many languages, is a pretty strong proof of a radically dis- 
 tinct origin! Respecting the true etymon of to, the best 
 philologists have nothing but conjectures to offer, and we 
 purposely refrain from adding to the number. 
 
 'By is the imperative by5 of the ANGLO-SAXON beon, to be.' 
 
 This is not only an assertion without proof, but as extra- 
 vagant a proposition as ever was advanced. By simply de- 
 notes juxtaposition ; be can convey no other idea than that 
 of essential identity ; and how those two notions are to 
 be reconciled with each other, we are unable to perceive. It 
 is comparatively small criticism to remark that, after all, 
 byo" is not the imperative of bcon, but the indicative present, est. 
 The most probable etymon of by appears to be the Sanscrit 
 nbhi. Another form, api, seems the prototype of the Greek 
 ejtl, and the old Latin ape: Gloss. Philoxeni ape, nagix. 
 
 'BEYOND, the imperative be with the past participle geond, of 
 the verb gun, gangan, or gongan, to go, and means, be passed.' 
 
 A Saxon past participle in ond would be as strange a phe- 
 nomenon as a Latin past participle in cms or ens. We believe 
 that geond belongs to the class of pronominal particles, a 
 numerous family that Tooke does not seem to have dreamt 
 of. Gothic j dinar, sxslvos, jaind, jaindre, sxst, sxslGs, Bava- 
 rian cnt, enont, from the demonstrative pronoun ener , Ger- 
 man jencr. It is remarkable that this pronoun does not ap- 
 pear in Anglo-Saxon, though we have it in the English yon, 
 whence yond, yonder, beyond. The Anglo-Saxon geond (beyond), 
 and geond (through), are apparently the same word, having 
 reference, in the former instance, to a certain remote point, 
 and in the latter, to the intervening space. In like manner, 
 over may either include the sense of trans or per, according 
 to the context. 
 
 It would be tedious to enter into a minute examination 
 of every individual preposition. Tooke's etymologies of down 
 and about are very properly corrected by his editor, and we 
 could easily show that his resolutions of from, for, without, 
 under, are grossly erroneous; that those of in and out are
 
 24 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 
 
 unsupported by evidence and without intrinsic probability, 
 and that the root of against is not a past participle, but a 
 noun substantive. Between and betwixl are in the main cor- 
 rectly explained; and in his etymology of with, which we 
 allow to be highly ingenious and plausible, he is right as 
 to the primary signification, but greatly mistaken in making 
 it, more suo, a verb in the imperative mood. 
 
 We must dispatch the remaining particles as briefly as 
 we can, consistently with a due examination of Tooke's prin- 
 ciples, which are most fully developed in his theory of con- 
 junctions. For the little virtuous peace-making particle IF, 
 which he places in front of his array, he appears to have 
 felt a peculiar affection, if we may judge from the pains 
 that he takes to establish its genealogy. In fact, we believe 
 that this word was the foundation of his whole system. 
 Having discovered, as he thought, that if is the imperative 
 of give, he naturally enough concluded that other particles 
 might be accounted for by the same process. Accordingly, 
 he expends a profusion of labour and perverse ingenuity in 
 detecting imperatives where none ever existed, or possibly 
 could. In the present instance, a comparison of the cognate 
 languages proves that if is neither an imperative of give nor 
 of any other verb; consequently, any system founded on 
 that basis is a mere castle in the air. It is unnecessary to 
 repeat Dr. Jamieson's statement of the matter } which is, in 
 our opinion, perfectly decisive against Tooke's etymology.* 
 We shall merely observe, that the great variety of ancient 
 forms makes it extremely difficult to determine the precise 
 etymon. Some are not unlike the Sanscrit iva sicut 
 others have plainly the form of nouns e. gr. the old Ger- 
 man ibu, ipu, may be resolved into the ablative or instru- 
 mental case of iba, ipa, dubium. Compare the Icelandic efa , 
 to doubt, eftj a doubt, ef, if. 
 
 c BUT.' There is no single word which Tooke has laboured 
 with more diligence and acuteness than this, none concern- 
 ing which he delivers his conclusions more confidently, and, 
 we venture to say, none in which he has more signally and 
 demonstrably failed in establishing them. His theory of two 
 buts one the imperative of botan, and the other the imper- 
 ative of Anglo-Saxon beon, combined with ntan q. d. be out, 
 is a chimera from beginning to end. We assert most con- 
 
 * Vide Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary , vol. i. art. Gif. The Doctor 
 justly observes that neither the Gothic jabai, the Alemannic ibu, ob , oba, 
 nor the Icelandic if or e/", can be formed from the verbs denoting to give in 
 those languages. The Frisic and Old Saxon synonyms are equally unfa- 
 vourable to Tooke's hypothesis.
 
 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 25 
 
 fidently, that but is, under every shade of signification, 
 simply bi utan (exactly the Greek jraptxrog), under which 
 form it plainly appears in Old Saxon. This compound term 
 is peculiar to the Saxon and Belgic dialects; in Scandina- 
 vian and Old German we find the simple forms utan, tizzan; 
 and a decisive argument against all necessity for two English 
 buts is that utan and uzzan, originally denoting extra, are 
 unequivocally employed in the various senses of vero, sed, nisi, 
 pneter, and sine. In fact, the office of but, under all its 
 modifications, is merely to discriminate sometimes with 
 more , and sometimes with less , precision. In the beginning 
 of a sentence it usually denotes transition, in the middle it 
 is commonly adversative ; and in each case , any word author- 
 ized by the custom of the language, conveying the idea of 
 distinction , may be used to express it. Thus the Greek aAA 
 denotes diversity; the modern German sondern, separation: 
 the Icelandic helldiir (potius), Dutch maar , French mats, 
 Spanish mas, and several others imply preference. It is 
 worthy of notice , that the Latin sect* anciently signified with- 
 out (sine), as our but still does in some provincial dialects. 
 Did our limits permit, we could easily show that the con- 
 junction as is not, as Tooke affirms, equivalent to that } but 
 to thus or so ; that and cannot be derived from anan, to 
 give, because no such verb exists; that though is in all pro- 
 bability a pronominal particle; and since no corruption of 
 seen or seeing, but simply after that. We further maintain 
 that else, unless, and least have not the smallest connection 
 with lesan, to dismiss. The first is a genitive absolute form 
 of elle, alius, reliquus; the second, merely on less i. e. at 
 or for less ,( French a moms, Danish med mindre , literally 
 ivilh less}', and the original form of the third, Anglo-Saxon 
 thy Ites, exactly corresponds with Latin eo minus. We think 
 we could, moreover, show that Tooke's resolution of English 
 pronouns into Anglo-Saxon verbal forms, is as preposterous 
 in principle as it is thoroughly erroneous in its details. Most 
 of our European pronouns are found already existing in the 
 most ancient Sanscrit monuments, and frequently under 
 nearly identical forms. Let our readers compare our Anglo- 
 Saxon article se , seo, that, Gothic sa , so, thata, with the 
 Sanscrit sa, sa , tad, or tat, and analyse their respective in- 
 flections. They will then be able to judge how far se is likely 
 
 ' Earn pecuniam eis sed fraude sua solvito. ' Fragm. Leg. xii. Tabu- 
 lar, apud Scaliger. ad Festum. Se in the same signification is of more com- 
 mon occurrence ' se dolo malo; ' 'se fraude esto. ' Both forms seem to be 
 merely ablatives of sui, q. d. by itself, apart; consequently including the 
 same idea of separation as Germ, sondern.
 
 26 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 
 
 to come from seon, or the from thean, or any Saxon verbs 
 whatever. Our readers may not be displeased to know the 
 sentiments of two of the first philologists in Europe , Bopp 
 and Grimm, on some of the above points. The former, after 
 observing that the bulk of words composing the Sanscrit 
 language are formed from monosyllabic verbal roots, adds, 
 that c we cannot refer to this source either the numerals, the 
 pronouns, or the majority of the prepositions and other part- 
 icles, most of which last class may be traced with more or 
 less certainty to pronominal roots. ' On the prepositions and 
 prepositional particles Grimm remarks 
 
 e We are far from being able to trace their origin and peculiar 
 formatioH in all cases. The oldest , like the pronouns with which 
 a number of them are undeniably connected , belong to the more 
 obscure parts of language those of more recent formation may 
 be more easily deduced from substantives or adjectives. ' 
 
 On the whole, then, we are of opinion that Tooke has sig- 
 nally failed in some of his leading conclusions respecting 
 our English particles. He overlooked the share which pro- 
 nouns have in their formation; he sought the origin of the 
 prepositions where it is no more to be found than the source 
 of the Nile is in Egypt; and he forced upon many particles 
 a verbal signification which they are not capable of oearing. 
 According to Plutarch , the Delphian El supported the tri- 
 pod of truth ; we fear that Tooke's if imperative led him into 
 a labyrinth of error. Indeed, we doubt whether any ge- 
 nuine simple preposition or conjunction ever was, in point 
 of fact, a verb imperative, or could be in the nature of 
 things. Imperatives are often employed as interjections or 
 interjectional adverbs never, we conceive, as conjunctions, 
 properly so called still less as prepositions or pronouns. 
 
 We have not leisure to examine Tooke's explanations of 
 English adverbs, much less to point out all the errors of detail 
 in the second part of his work. In the principles there laid 
 down we agree with him to a certain extent. It seems cu- 
 rious, yet it is an undoubted fact, that we can discover no 
 nouns, denoting material objects, of a strict primary signi- 
 fication; all whose origin can be traced conveying a second- 
 ary or relative idea. A fox, for example, is a particular 
 animal, distinguishable by well recognized characters from 
 every other; but the name by which we designate it is not 
 a primitive word, originally and essentially appropriate to 
 the species, or even to the genus. On the contrary, Grimm 
 has snown, that in English and German, fox simply denotes 
 hairy, in Sanscrit, the feminine noun lomasd q. d. } villosa,
 
 H LEXICOGRAPHY. 27 
 
 from lomas (hair) means a fox; while the masculine lomasa 
 (villosi(s), denotes quite a different animal, a ram. In other 
 languages, e. y. in the Icelandic refr, and Persian roubahj 
 the idea of hairiness quite disappears, and Reynard is de- 
 signated by another single quality, Ihievishness. The reason 
 of this is obvious. Though a fox is an individual, he is 
 composed of an aggregate of particulars, which no simple 
 word is capable of expressing. We therefore denote this 
 complex idea by a term expressive of some single quality, 
 and though the term may in itself be equally characteristic 
 of a rat or a squirrel, it answers every purpose of oral com- 
 munication , as long as people agree to employ it in the same 
 sense. Tooke had consequently no difficulty in showing, that 
 many names of material objects are mere verbal nouns. He 
 has also shown that many adjectives were originally parti- 
 ciples ; though he too frequently refers those of remote origin 
 to English or Saxon roots. There is, however, one part of 
 his work calculated, as we think, to convey false notions, 
 both of language and philosophy. We find in all languages 
 a number of what are commonly called abstract nouns that 
 is, nouns not significative of sensible or material objects, 
 but of mental conceptions. Tooke's peculiar grammatical 
 and metaphysical notions rendered him anxious to get rid of 
 them; accordingly, he made an indirect attempt to prove 
 that no such words really exist. It is indeed true that the 
 ideas expressed by them have only a relative , not an inde- 
 pendent or positive existence. Without space there can be 
 no extension without matter there can be neither length , 
 breadth, nor thickness; but matter being granted, the above 
 properties of it necessarily follow. Our senses, it is true, 
 cannot discern them, except as attributes of a material ob- 
 ject; but the whole science of pure geometry proves that the 
 mind is capable of conceiving them abstractedly that is , 
 without the smallest reference to matter. The words deno- 
 ting such ideas form, therefore, a distinct as well as a highly 
 important and interesting class; and the facility and nicety 
 of discrimination with which the Indo-European tongueses- 
 pecially Sanscrit, Greek, and German are capable of ex- 
 pressing them, add greatly to their richness and beauty, and 
 give them a marked superiority over all the Semitic family. 
 Tooke only attempted a small portion of our English ab- 
 stract nouns, in anything like a direct method; but this por- 
 tion was too hard for him. He resolves those ending in (h 
 into third persons of verbs , though no word can at the same 
 time be a noun substantive and a verb in any person; and 
 he all along confounds agent and patient, subject and pre-
 
 28 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 
 
 dicate, in the most arbitrary and illogical manner. We shall 
 not now stop to examine whether month is moonelh, fifth 
 fiveth, or knave (German, knabe , a youth ! !) which he has 
 dragged in among the abstracts ne hafalh, qui niliil habet; 
 but we will just bestow a few words on his famous etymo- 
 logy of truth. We are not going to animadvert on the moral 
 and metaphysical part of the question, which has been suf- 
 ficiently done already, but merely to view it in a philologi- 
 cal light. 
 
 The whole of Tooke's case rests on two assumptions: first, 
 that to trow simply denotes to think or believe, secondly, that 
 truth originally meant, and still does mean, what is trowed, 
 and nothing more: and on the strength of these conclusions, 
 neither of which he has proved, he flatters himself that the 
 old-fashioned notion of truth is totally exploded. We venture 
 to think that the following statement is rather more germane 
 to the matter. Sanscrit dhru , to be established fixum esse ; 
 whence, dhruwa, certain i. e. established] German, trauen, to 
 rely, trust; treu, faithful, true niGros] Anglo-Saxon, treow , 
 fidus, treowth, fides niGtig both subjectively and objective- 
 ly; English, true, truth. To these we may add, Gothic, triggvus, 
 Icelandic , tryggr , fidus , securus , tutus : all from the 
 same root, and all conveying the same idea of stability or 
 security. Truth, therefore, neither means what is thought nor 
 what is said, but that which is permanent , stable, and is and 
 ought to be relied upon, because, upon sufficient data, it is 
 capable ot being demonstrated or shown to exist. If we ad- 
 mit this explanation , Tooke's assertions, that there is nothing 
 but truth in the world; in other words, that there is no 
 difference between truth and falsehood; that without mankind 
 there could be no truth , i. e. without mankind there could 
 be no other mode of existence ; and that two contradictory 
 propositions may be true because believed by the uttercrs, 
 which amounts to saying, that a thing may be and not be 
 at the same time become vox et prceterea niliil. In all in- 
 quiries after truth the question is, not what people, who may 
 or may not be competent to form an opinion, think or believe , 
 but what grounds they have for believing it. A man may 
 feel persuaded that two and two make five, or that the angles 
 of a triangle are equal to three right angles; but he can 
 neither prove these propositions to others, nor have them de- 
 monstrated to himself, because they come under the Houhyn- 
 ymn category of things that are not. Mr. Stewart observes, 
 that Tooke avoids all reference to mathematical science; 
 we trow that he had good reasons for this omission. 
 
 We think we have shown that Tooke's doctrines are not
 
 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. . 29 
 
 to be admitted without restriction; and that his application 
 of them is far from being universally correct. It may per- 
 haps be said, that it is easier for a man to find fault with 
 the doings of other etymologists than to produce anything 
 more to the purpose himself. But though it would be pes- 
 simi exempli, and fatal to the whole craft of reviewing, to 
 admit that no man is entitled to criticise a poem unless he 
 is able to write one, we shall, on the present occasion, imi- 
 tate the example of c Milburn, the fairest of critics,' and 
 give those, who may think themselves aggrieved by us, 
 their revenge. They may, if they please, consider the fol- 
 lowing detached articles as a specimen of a new Etymolo- 
 gicon Anglicanum, and deal with them as they think fit. At 
 all events, the observations may serve as an extension of 
 our critique on the books we have been professing to re- 
 view, and as a vehicle for communicating some etymologies 
 which, whether right or wrong, do not appear to be gener- 
 ally known. 
 
 ABEAID, BRAID. Our etymologists have given the various 
 significations of these words more or less correctly, and re- 
 ferred some of them to the Icelandic and Anglo-Saxon bregda. 
 No one has, as far as we know, attempted to assign the 
 primary sense, or to classify the numerous and seemingly 
 unconnected acceptations.* This, we think, may be done as 
 follows. The Icelandic verb bregda , and its corresponding 
 noun bragd, denote 1. sudden, quick motion whence 
 braid, a start; 2. removal 'the kerchiefe off her hede she 
 braide, 9 3. transition, change to a different state of things 
 v. t. q., c out of her sleep she braide', 9 4. change of coun- 
 tenance , gesture whence the provincial term to braid of 
 one's parents i. e. } resemble tnem vultu vel gestu referre; 
 5. change produced by artificial means, to braid, nectere 
 hence metaph., as Dr. Webster well observes; 6. deceit, to 
 deceive nectere dolos. The simple verb also denotes to re- 
 proach whence our upbraid the precise force of which is 
 not quite obvious; it seems to include the idea of a sudden 
 stroke or attack. Boucher's fancy of a connection between 
 abraid and broad is quite out of the question. We give this, 
 out of a multitude of instances, to show the light thrown on 
 
 * ' The original application of braid is to a loud noise, to almost any des- 
 cription of which it is constantly applied in our older writers. Hence it is 
 transferred to the accompanying motion which is the cause of that noise. 
 In Douglas' Virgil it is said of the winds breaking out of Aeolus' cavern 
 that they forth brayed in ane rout. ' 
 
 Letter front H. Wedgwood, Esq., to the author.
 
 30 . ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 
 
 our language by the Icelandic, which has hitherto been most 
 strangely neglected by our lexicographers. 
 
 AGOG. We shall say nothing of the innumerable con- 
 jectures respecting this word, except that Mr. Richardson's 
 deriyation from the Gothic gaggan, to go, is against all ana- 
 logy. He ought to have known that this verb is in reality 
 gangan, and cannot possibly be the parent of either gag or 
 gog. We believe that the Roxburghshire phrase, on yogs , 
 adduced by Mr. Brockett, points to the true origin; viz., 
 Icelandic, a gcegium on the watch or look-out from the 
 neuter passive verb gcegiaz, to peep or prey. 
 
 AISTRE, ESTRE. This word has long been a crux etymo- 
 logorum, even Adelung confesses that he has nothing satis- 
 factory to offer respecting it. Though found in one form or 
 other all over the north of Europe, it is evidently not a na- 
 tive, but an exotic term of art. We believe the following 
 to be the true history of it. Italian, lastra (tabula laptdea), 
 a stone or marble slab used for flooring laslricare, , to lay 
 a stone floor; lastrico, a pavement or stone floor /U-fro- 
 (jtQoros. By a confusion between the initial consonant and 
 the article, common in Italian (comp. azzurro, from lazur , 
 ninferno for inferno), laslrico became astrico a word pre- 
 served by Florio and Torriano, though omitted by Albert! 
 and the * Vocabolario della Crusca. ' In this form the Italian 
 architects employed in our ecclesiastical edifices imported it 
 into the transalpine regions, where, under the further mu- 
 tations of aesterich, estrich, astre, estre, aistre, it appears at 
 various times under the following gradation of meanings : 
 1. stone floor, pavement, paved causeway; 2. plaster-floor, 
 also ceiling; 3. hearth, fire-place; 4. apartment; 5. dwelling- 
 house. It is curious to see how nearly people often approach 
 the truth without being able to find it. Schmcller traces 
 the word to astrico, but no further; and Adelung actually 
 refers to Ducange for lastra, without suspecting that it furn- 
 ishes a clue to the whole matter. We leave those who have 
 leisure and opportunity to inquire whether the original form 
 is lastra or aslra. Frisch gives aster, lapis quadratus; but 
 we can find no other authority for the word. 
 
 ALDER. 'French, aulne, aune; Italian, alno; Spanish, 
 alamo; Latin, alnus: so called quod alatur amne. 9 Richardson. 
 
 Neither a complete etymology, nor entirely correct. The 
 Spanish synonym is aliso, not alamo, which means a poplar', 
 and the following are surely more nearly related to an Eng- 
 lish word than terms of Latin extraction: Anglo-Saxon, 
 celr (also alor , air apparently dialectical forms); old High 
 German, elira } and, by transposition, en'la; modern German,
 
 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 31 
 
 erle', Lower Saxon, eller (still used in Yorkshire and Scot- 
 land) ; Icelandic , celn , elni (resembling the Latin) ; Swedish, 
 al (the simple root); Danish, die. This is a sample of the 
 care of our lexicographers in collecting Teutonic etymologies. 
 Though the above synonyms illustrate several curious points 
 relating to the formation of language, not one is given by 
 Todd or Richardson ; and Dr. Webster only has the Anglo- 
 Saxon air not so genuine a form as celr. We adduce this 
 word chiefly for the sake of showing how unsafe it is to 
 catch at mere resemblances in sound or spelling. Schmeller, 
 in his valuable Bavarian Dictionary , observes , that the ter- 
 mination ter or der is a relic of an ancient word denoting 
 tree holun-der, elder-tree; wachol-der, juniper-tree. It might 
 seem an obvious deduction from analogy, that alder is also 
 al-lree, but this, though plausible enough, would be an er- 
 roneous conclusion. The d in alder is of very recent date, 
 being introduced, euphonm gratia, to prevent the unpleasant 
 collision between / and r. The Germans seem to have trans- 
 posed their elira for the same reason. The derivation of alnus 
 from alo does not seem very probable; it is more likely to 
 be connected with a class of words denoting moisture uligo, 
 ulva, &c. 
 
 * ASHLER STONES. < Stones as they come from the quar- 
 ry.' Todd, Webster. Meant, we suppose, to prove Pope's 
 dictum , that a dictionary-maker does not know the meaning 
 of two words put together. If any inquisitive foreigner should 
 happen' to learn that our most superb public edifices St. 
 Paul's and York cathedrals, for example are ashler-work', 
 that is, constructed (as here defined) of stones as they come 
 from the quarry; what an elevated opinion he must form of 
 English architecture! No one, as far as we know, has at- 
 tempted an etymology of the word; which seems to be con- 
 fined to the British islands: we believe it to be Celtic. The 
 Gaelic is clach shreathal (pronounced shreat) ; L e., stone laid 
 in rows from srcah , a row. We have another Celtic term 
 still more extensively diffused viz., gavelock, a large crow 
 used by masons and quarrymen. A lynx-eyed antiquary 
 might here find materials for some speculation respecting the 
 native country of the workmen employed in the construction 
 of our old castles and cathedrals. But indeed, speaking 
 seriously though we suspect Sir Francis Palgrave exag- 
 gerates the amount of the Celtic element in our actual lan- 
 guage we can have no doubt that that element is a very 
 considerable one; and that the author, if there ever shall be 
 
 * More commonly spelt &$\\lar. ED.
 
 32 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 
 
 one, of a complete English Lexicon, will be, inter alia, a 
 Celtic scholar.* 
 
 AVERAGE. We believe our English termination has here 
 helped to confound three perfectly distinct words. The old 
 law-term denoting the service which a tenant was bound to 
 render to his lord with teams and carriages, is from Latin, 
 barb, averium, .originally, goods, property; in a secondary 
 sense, jumentum, Scotice, aiver (compare chattel and cattle). 
 The marine term French, avarie, is the German haferey; 
 Lower Saxon, haverije meaning, in the first instance, har- 
 bour dues', more commonly, a contribution towards loss or 
 damage incurred at sea;** and in a still more extensive ac- 
 ceptation, a mean proportion between unequal quantities. 
 Lastly, average or averish, after-grass, stubble a sense, 
 we believe , confined to the Anglian and Northumbrian coun- 
 ties is the Icelandic afrelt or afretlr; Danish, afred, aevret 
 primarily , an inclosure, also pasturage after-grass. We 
 are ashamed to say, that a whole bevy of provincial glossar- 
 ists have acquiesced in the portentous mongrel etymology 
 of hirer, eatagel Tell it not at Copenhagen! Had they re- 
 solved the parallel term eddish into eatage, it would have 
 been more to the purpose. This is a word of remote anti- 
 quity. In Ulphilas, we find atisks , seges, in Anglo-Saxon, 
 edisc, vivarium', in the Leges Baju variorum, ezzisczun ap- 
 parently, park or paddock-fence; in various glosses of the 
 eighth and ninth centuries ezzisc , ezzisca, seges; and in the 
 modern Bavarian, alzen, to depasture atz } eddish, after- 
 math and essisch , a common field ; all from the verbs etan , 
 ezzan, essan, to eat. In average the primary import is in- 
 closure the derivative, food or pasturage in eddish, ori- 
 ginally food, there is a curious fluctuation between the two 
 meanings. It is not unworthy of notice, that in Greek ropcog 
 means both gramen and hortus: if food or pasturage is the 
 original sense, the Persian khorden, to eat, furnishes a plau- 
 sible etymology. 
 
 AWARD. Of the various etymologies proposed for this 
 word, we shall merely observe, that Tooke's c a determin- 
 ation a qui c'est a garder ' is the clumsiest and worst. Award 
 has evidently a subjective, not an objective meaning; and 
 an etymon that confounds the two ideas, seems neither lo- 
 
 * The hint thus given was eventually followed up by the author himself. 
 See the papers on the languages of the British islands in this volume. ED. 
 
 ** 'Tout dommage survenu a des marchandises. ' Bescherel. Diet. Nat. 
 It also denotes damage sustained by vessels see the report on the con- 
 dition of Prince Napoleon's yacht in the appendix to Lord Dufferin's "Let- 
 ters from Hihg Latitudes."
 
 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 33 
 
 gical nor very probable. We have nothing certain to offer 
 in lieu of it; but, like Rumour, we have ? a couple of sup- 
 poses.'* Qvardi, in Icelandic, is a half-ell, statute measure, 
 whence the verb aqvarda, to allot; i. e., to give a man his 
 measure. If we suppose this to have come in with the North- 
 men, and to have become a forensic term, it follows, that 
 when our barristers and commissioners make their awards, 
 they are dealing out justice by the half-ell. They who think 
 this trap boutiquier , may take refuge in the Lower Saxon 
 warden, to fix the worth, to estimate. In the Rouchi or Va- 
 lenciennes dialect, which has borrowed a good deal from the 
 Belgic, auvarde is an expert, or legal appraiser 
 * Utrura horum mavis accipe ! ' 
 
 BIRCH. This tree of knowledge bears a name analogous 
 to the one so well known at Eton and Westminster, not 
 only in all the German and Slavonic tongues, but also in 
 the Sanscrit b'hurjja. On this foundation Klaproth builds 
 an argument for the northern origin of the dominant race in 
 Hindostan. It seems birch was the only tree the invaders 
 recognized, and could name, on the south side of the Hi- 
 malaya; all others being new to them. The inference may 
 be right or wrong it is, at all events, ingenious. 
 
 BLIND. We admit the ingenuity of Tooke's derivation 
 from blinnan, to stop, but, like Miss Edgeworth's hero, Mr. 
 Macleod, we think it may be dooted for the following rea- 
 sons: 1. blinnan does not mean to stop up, obturare, but 
 simply to cease, discontinue; 2. it is not a simple verb, but 
 in reality be-linnan, as is proved by the old high German 
 gloss pi-linnan, cessare, and the Icelandic Hnnan, the prepo- 
 sition be or bi not being known in this language ; nevertheless 
 the adjective is exactly the same, blindr, though it is not 
 easy to see how it could be formed from the simple linnan. 
 We say nothing respecting the real etymology , because we 
 believe that nothing is known of it beyond the Moeso-Gothic 
 blinds. Schmitthenner's reference of it to blenden, occoecare, 
 seems to be a hysteron-proteron. Blenden is a causative verb, 
 denoting to make blind, like raise from rise, set from sit, con- 
 sequently of more recent origin than the adjective. Grimm's 
 derivation from blandan,** to confuse, is more probable, but 
 not quite convincing. 
 
 * I do not think you need go any farther than garder to look for aivard. 
 You look for a fair conclusion amongst the troubles submitted to your 
 award. Look is constantly used in this sense in Robert of Gloucester, 
 e. gr. "To stonde at lokinge (by the award) of the bishop Watre." ' 
 Letter from H. Wedgivood, Eq. , tothe author. 
 
 ** (I think blend is the same as blandan, rather to 'mingle' than to 'con- 
 
 3
 
 34 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 
 
 COTTER. Our readers are doubtless aware that the ap- 
 pellations, Colarii, Coscez, Bordarii, in Domesday, have caused 
 our antiquaries a great deal of perplexity. We do not un- 
 dertake to settle the entire question, but we may perhaps 
 furnish somethiug like a clue to one of the terms. :In Lower 
 Saxony, the former abode of our ancestors, the following 
 classes existed late in the eighteenth century: 1. baiter , the 
 Anglo-Saxon ceorl , one who holds and cultivates a farm of 
 not less than a carucate or ploughgate of land, commonly 
 about thirty acres; 2. halbmeyer , in Brunswick halbspanner , 
 a smaller farmer occupying only half the amount; 3. kaler- 
 kother, kotsass, kossat, one who holds a cottage and a quan- 
 tity of land not exceeding the fourth part of an ordinary 
 farm, having no plough or team, and, consequently, no land 
 under tillage; 4. brinksilter , who has nothing but a cot, and 
 a small garden or croft, sometimes culled, hand frohner , from 
 being chiefly occupied in servile manual labour for his feu- 
 dal superior. The above words are used with some occa- 
 sional latitude of application, but we believe that we have 
 given the original meanings. There is no etymological con- 
 nexion between bordarius and brinksitter, the former being 
 derived from bord, a cottage, the latter from brink, a small 
 croft; nor do they appear to have denoted the same class 
 of persons ; but we have not the smallest doubt of the ori- 
 ginal identity of coscez with kosmt, or kotsass. It is evident 
 that the Anglo-Saxons brought the term with them from 
 Germany, and, consequently, that something like the same 
 gradations of society existed among them in their Pagan 
 state as at the time of our national survey. We believe that 
 a careful study of the old Lower Saxon, Frisic, Danish, and 
 Icelandic laws would amply repay the legal and constitu- 
 tional antiquary as well as the philologist.* 
 
 CURL. Among various etymologies for this word, only 
 one of which is to the purpose, Mr. Todd gives pleasantly 
 enough, Danish krille, which means to itch\ The Icelandic 
 krutta does, indeed, signify to curl, but this is as etymolo- 
 gically distinct from krille as xpuog is from XQLOS. The pri- 
 mary meaning of the word seems to have ceen hitherto over- 
 looked. We conceive that our curl, the Scottish curling (a 
 
 fuse' primarily. N. (For this and subsequent notes distinguished by the 
 initial N the editor is indebted to E. Norris Esq. Secretary to the Koyal 
 Asiatic Society). 
 
 * We may take this opportunity of directing the attention of the reader 
 curious in such matters to a valuable little tract on Ancient Juries, lately 
 published ,by Mr. Repp, an Icelander of extensive learning, employed in 
 the Advocate's Library at Edinburgh.
 
 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 35 
 
 game on the ice), with the verb to hurl , including the Corn- 
 ish hurling (a sort of cricket), are merely different forms 
 and modifications of roll. In Schmeller's Dictionary we find 
 krollen, to curl the hair; horlen, hurlen, to roll, to play at 
 skittles. Scroll is also of the same family, exactly answer- 
 ing to Latin volumen. Compare troll, stroll, &c. 
 
 DEARTH. Tooke, in his antipathy to abstracts, explains 
 dearth into dereih, Anglo-Saxon derian, nocere. This we hold 
 to be just as felicitous as the Bishop of Winchester's guess 
 that a lugy meant a cathedral.'* It is a noun formed from 
 the adjective dear , like caritas from earns, and etymologi- 
 cally speaking, neither denotes suffering nor scarcity, but 
 simply costliness, high price Old German, tiur , precious, 
 tiuran, to hold dear, glorify. The 'German equivalent for 
 derian is derjan or daron , Isedere as distinct from tiur and 
 dear as light is from darkness. 
 
 EXCEPT. It has been the fashion since the appearance 
 of the Diversions of Purley to call except, save , and similar 
 expressions, verbs in the imperative mood. Dr. Webster, 
 though he professes to have made no use of Tooke's writ- 
 ings, frequently advances the same doctrines in nearly the 
 same words, and is very severe on grammarians who regard 
 such words as conjunctions. In the examples, 'Israel burned 
 none of them save Hazor only ' c I would that all were as 
 I am, except these bonds' he considers it as certain that 
 save and except are transitive verbs with an object following 
 them. We hesitate not to say that they cannot be verbs, 
 imperative or indicative, because they have no subject, and 
 that a verb could not be employed in any language that dis- 
 tinguishes the different persons without a gross violation of 
 idiom. This will clearly appear if, in the vulgar Latin ver- 
 sion of the latter sentence, 'Opto omnes fieri tales, qualis 
 et ego sum, exceptis vinculis his,' we substitute e cxcipe vin- ^\ 
 cula hcec,' or any other person of excipio. The fact is, that 
 in the above instances save is an adjective with the force ^ 
 of a participle (Latin, salvus], and except an abbreviated 
 participle; in short, these and many similar forms were ori- 
 
 inally ablatives absolute, a construction as familiar in Anglo- 
 axon, Old German, and Icelandic, as in Latin, but neces- 
 sarily less apparent in modern languages , in which the dis- 
 tinctions of case are obliterated. The following examples, 
 all taken from existing versions of the New Testament, show 
 the progress of the ablative participle to an indeclinable 
 word. Icelandic *undanteknum thessum bondum,' exactly equi- 
 
 * Vide Fortunes of Nigel, vol. iii. c. 9, p. 250. 
 
 3*
 
 36 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 
 
 valent to exceplis vinculis his Italian, eccetluate quests catena, 
 preserving the number and gender, but losing the case; 
 Spanish, salvo estas prisiones; Portuguese, excepto estas pri- 
 zoens] German, ausgenommen diese Bcinde, where all distinc- 
 tion of number, case, and gender is lost. Such phrases as 
 demus ita esse , French supposons quit vienne, sometimes ren- 
 dered in English by verbs and sometimes by conjunctions, are 
 different constructions, totally unconnected with the point in 
 debate. 
 
 HAGGLE. Mr. Todd refers this word to the French liar- 
 celery and Dr. Webster tries to connect it through the me- 
 dium of higgle with the Danish hykle, to play the hypocrite. 
 Hykle is borrowed from the German heucheln , and neither 
 agrees with our English word in form nor meaning. A de- 
 rivation furnished by Schmeller is somewhat curious. Ha- 
 keln,* literally to hook, also applied to a sort of boys'-play, 
 in which each inserts his hooked forefinger into that of his 
 opponent, and tries to drag him from his standing- whence 
 metaphorically to strive, wrangle. According to this etymon, 
 haggling is 'playing at finger-hookey.' 
 
 LOUD. Mr. Tooke confidently refers this word to the 
 Anglo-Saxon hlowan, to low, 'and exults greatly at the dis- 
 covery that some of our old writers wrote it lorvd. They who 
 are acquainted with the capricious orthography of the middle 
 ages will be able to appreciate this sort of evidence at its 
 real worth. Until it is shown by what process hlud can be 
 extracted from hlowan, which we do not think a very easy 
 task, we shall prefer believing that loud does not mean what is 
 lowed or bellowed, but what is heard. We do not, indeed, 
 find any simple verb, hluan, or htuen, to hear; but there 
 are the following traces of one 'Gothic hliuma, the ear, 
 evidently a verbal noun Old German, hliumunt, hearsay, 
 report; hlosen, to listen; and many others. On this sup- 
 position, the Anglo-Saxon hlud, Old German, hlut , Modern 
 German laut, loud , also, sound, will denote quod aure perci- 
 pitur. It is, at least, certain that a similar verb has nearly 
 gone the round of the European languages: Greek xlvcd , 
 Latin duo, clueo, inclytus , Lithuanian klausyti, Irish cluinim, 
 Welsh clywed, besides several Sclavonic words. The root of 
 all is to be found in the Sanscrit sru, to hear, in which the 
 s is palatal, consequently organically allied to the initial con- 
 sonant of jtA.va and its fellows. 
 
 MUCH, MORE. According to Tooke, ( more, most, areffrom the 
 
 * Compare hackle ED.
 
 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 37 
 
 Anglo-Saxon mowe, a mow, or heap, q. d. mower, morvest. Much is 
 abbreviated from tnokel, mykel, mochel, muchel, a diminutive 
 of mo.' 
 
 More strange, we fear, than true! We know the Greeks 
 had their dovi.6rQo, and similar words, but nobis non licet 
 esse tarn disertis. We affirm, without fear of contradiction, 
 that there is not an instance of a substantive in the compar- 
 ative or superlative degree, in a single Germanic dialect of 
 which we have any knowledge. The remainder of the state- 
 ment is equally incredible. It would be difficult to show 
 how the Gothic mikils , a word known to be more than four- 
 teen hundred years old, was manufactured from either mo 
 or morv\ and such phrases as se mycel Alias, that is, accord- 
 ind to our oracle, Atlas the little mow, sound as odd to us, 
 as meritorius, respectable, worthy of the gallows , did to Golow- 
 nin's Japanese pupils. The real positive of more must be 
 sought in a very different quarter. Sanscrit, maha, great, 
 a present participle of mah, to grow, increase; Persian mih; 
 Greek {isyas , jieyaAog; Gothic, mikils; Old German, mihhil; 
 Icelandic, mikill; Anglo-Saxon, micel; Latin, magnus. For 
 the comparative, we have Greek, [isftav; Gothic, maiza; 
 Latin, major \ Icelandic, meiri; Old German, mero; Anglo- 
 Saxon , mara cum multis aliis. If these comparatives are 
 not from a more simple and primitive form than the posit- 
 ives now extant, the medial consonant may be dropped eu- 
 phonice gratia. It re-appears in fif yitiros , and maximus, i. e., 
 mag-simus, but not in Gothic, maists,- nor any of its Ger- 
 manic brethren. This example may direct us where to look 
 for the verbal roots of many of our simple adjectives. 
 
 * ODD. Owed, wanted to make up another pair. ' f ORT, ORTS , 
 from Anglo-Saxon , oretlan, deturpare , z". e. } made vile or worth- 
 less. ' Tooke. 
 
 Just as much as Cinderella's cock-tailed mice were identi- 
 cal with the coctiles muri of Semiramis. Odd does not sig- 
 nify deficiency but surplus; ort has not the least connexion 
 with orettan: and both are, in fact, different forms of the 
 same word. In Icelandic, oddr , is a point, cuspis; Danish, 
 odd, the same; Swedish, udd, a point, also odd in the Eng- 
 lish sense. In German, the primary meaning of ort is also 
 point. To establish a connexion between the two, we must 
 have recourse to the Bavarian dialect. In this, ort not only 
 denotes point, but also beginning, the end of a thread or skein 
 and what is most to our purpose, ort oder eben, is exactly 
 our odd or even. In odd, the idea is that of unity, a single 
 point, hence one over; orts are waste or superfluous ends,
 
 38 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 
 
 leavings* The latter is the German form, the former the 
 Scandinavian, in which the r is assimilated to the following 
 consonant, by a very common process in Icelandic e. gr., 
 broddr, *a sting, Anglo-Saxon, brord, rodd , voice, Anglo- 
 Saxon, reord. 
 
 SPICK and SPAN. These words have been sadly tortured 
 by our etymologists we shall, therefore, do our best to 
 deliver them from further persecution. Tooke is here more 
 than usually abusive of his predecessors; however, Nemesis, 
 always on the watch, has permitted him to give a lumber- 
 ing, half Dutch, half German, etymology, of * shining new 
 from the warehouse' as if such simple colloquial terms were 
 formed in this clumsy round-about way. Spick-new is simply 
 nail-new , and span-new, chip-new. Many similar expressions 
 are current in the north of Europe; fire -new, spark- new, 
 splinter-new , also used in Cumberland; High-German, nagel- 
 neUj eqivalent to the Lower Saxon spiker-neu, and various 
 others.** The leading idea is that of something quickly 
 produced or used only once. The Icelandic spcmn signifies 
 not only chip, but spoon, whence we may infer, that as the 
 Latin cochlear denotes the employment of a shell to convey 
 pottage to the mouth, our unsophisticated ancestors once used 
 a chip for the same important purpose. We hope none of 
 our c exclusives ' will quarrel with the word or the thing on 
 this account; for our part, AVC think that those little disclo- 
 sures of ancient manners are not the least interesting part 
 of etymology. 
 
 STEPFATHER. Tooke refers this with great confidence to 
 the Danish sled fader , q. d., paler vicarius; proving that he 
 knew little either of the history or analogy of language. 
 Sted fader is a corrupt word of yesterday: the genuine term 
 stiv fader is legitimately connected with all the older dialects ; 
 and we would sooner believe, on the authority of Mascarillc, 
 that the Armenians change nis into rin , than that our an- 
 cestors ever converted sled into step. We have no doubt 
 that Junius is right in referring the word to steop, orphamts. 
 The simplest, and consequently the original forms, Icelandic, 
 sliupr , Old German, stilt f } do not denote step-father or mo- 
 
 * " When numbers are considered as odd or even they seem to be consid- 
 ered as placed in two rows and if the ends of the rows are even with 
 each other, we call the number even; if one row projects beyond the other 
 it is an odd number; and the Icelanders have yddia to project from udd. 
 1 don't think you alluded to the expression odds and ends, which is a 
 common one. '' 
 
 Letter from //. Wedgwood, Esq.) to the author. 
 
 ** Compare bran-new from (he fire, (breurihig) N.
 
 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 39 
 
 ther, but step -child, orphan; and all doubt respecting the 
 parent -verb is removed by the Carlsruhe glossary of the 
 eighth century, in Graffs Diutiska, which gives us pirn ar~ 
 sliuphit suniu = ultra urbabor (orbabor) filio. We take this 
 opportunity of observing, that those who wish to investi- 
 gate the original forms and significations of the Teutonic 
 tongues , must seek them in the vocabularies of the eighth 
 and ninth centuries, where they are sometimes more plainly 
 developed than in the Gothic of Ulphilas. The mere Eng- 
 lish or Latin scholar, however, had better let them alone, 
 as it requires considerable knowledge of languages, and a 
 certain skill in conjectural criticism, to use them to any 
 good purpose. For example , potho , apostolus, conveys 
 no idea to those who do not know that Bothe, in modern 
 German, is a messenger; and lancnasech, aqmlus * has by 
 some been interpreted eagle, and by others, dark -coloured, 
 dusky ; whereas, it means neither, but having a long (aquiline] 
 nose. In a very ancient glosssary preserved at St. Gall, we 
 find singularis , epur to understand which , we must re- 
 member the German eber, a boar, and the Italian cinghiale, 
 or French sanglier , wild boar. This, which was written in 
 the seventh century, illustrates the early formation of the 
 rustic Roman; and the following specimens equally show 
 the antiquity of some familiar terms in our own language : 
 - Ctausura, piunte (pound); scopa; pesamo ( besom ); pala ; 
 scuflii ( shovel ) ; sublimitare ; drisgusli ( threshold ) : stool, thro- 
 nus, seems to have lost a little of its pristine dignity. 
 
 WRITE. The Germans undoubtedly derived their verb 
 scltreiUen, and probably the art of writing with pen and ink, 
 from the Romans. But the existence of an older verb, rizan, 
 originally, like the Anglo-Saxon wrilan, Icelandic rita, de- 
 noting sculpere, incidere, as well as the general diffusion of 
 Runic characters among the various tribes, seem to imply 
 that they were not wholly without letters before the Roman 
 period. Otfried accurately discriminates between the two 
 words. In the account of the woman taken in adultery, he 
 says, ' Christ reiz mit demo fingero , ' digito exaravil; but 
 Pilate's, What I have written, is 'thaz ih scrib,' quod 
 scrijtsi. Graben appears from the glossaries to have been si- 
 milarly employed to denote Uterus inddere, also to write. 
 The preterite of ffraben, gruob, grub, furnishes an etymology 
 
 * Farmatia (pharmacia). poisun , seems to show that the compiler of this 
 glossary was not an apothecary. The author of Douglas would have been 
 delighted with "nectareus , van darette ," unless he had discovered that 
 claret does not here mean Lafitte or Chateau Margaux , but sweetened ivine, 
 clary.
 
 40 ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. 
 
 for Grub Street, which we would recommend the inmates of 
 that classical region by all means to adopt. 
 
 Sed manum de tabula We have endeavoured to show that 
 the field of English philology is far from being exhausted, 
 and we should be glad to see it treated with something of 
 the same rigorous and scientific application of principles and 
 copious induction of particulars, that have been exercised 
 upon some of the sister tongues. Much has been done and 
 is still doing by the Germans and Danes, which ought to 
 excite our emulation, and which we may turn to our own 
 advantage.
 
 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 
 
 [Quarterly Review, February 1836.] 
 
 1. Provincial Glossary. By Francis Grose, Esq. London. 
 1811. 
 
 2. Supplement to the Provincial Glossary of Francis Grose, Esq. 
 By Samuel Pegge, Esq. London. 1814. 
 
 3. An Attempt at a Glossary of some Words used in Cheshire. 
 By Roger Wilbraham, Esq. London. 1826. 
 
 4. Observations on some of the Dialects in the West of England. 
 By James Jennings. London. 1825. 
 
 5. The Hallamshire Glossary. By the Rev Joseph Hunter. 
 London. 1829. 
 
 6. The Dialect of Craven. With a copious Glossary. By a 
 Native of Craven. 2 vols. 8vo. London. 1828. 
 
 7. The Vocabulary of East Anglia. By the late Rev. Robert 
 Forby. 2 vols. 8vo. London. 1830. 
 
 8. A Glossary of North Country Words. By John Trotter 
 Brockett, F. S. A. Ncwcastle-upon-Tyne. 1829. 
 
 9. An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language. By 
 John Jamieson, D.D. 2 vois. 4to. Edinburgh. 1808. 
 
 10. Supplement to ditto. 2 vols. 4to. 1825. 
 
 1 1 . Glossary of Archaic and Provincial Words. By the late 
 Rev. Jonathan Boucher. 4to. Parts I. and II. Lon- 
 don. 1832, 1833. 
 
 It is justly observed by Johnson whose theoretical ideas 
 of philology were, like those of many teachers and preach- 
 ers, much better than his practical performances that the 
 language of our northern counties, though obsolete, (i. e., 
 discontinued in written compositions ,) is not barbarous. On 
 another occasion the Doctor told Boswell, that his meditated 
 dictionary of Scottish words would be a very useful contri- 
 bution towards the history of the English language. For 
 our part, we never refer to that extraordinary work, Cot- 
 grave's French Dictionary the value of which is perhaps 
 now better known in France than in England without a 
 feeling of regret that its author did not employ the same 
 industry and research in collecting the obsolete and dialecti- 
 cal words of his native tongue. Not a few works, both in
 
 42 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 
 
 verse and prose, current in his time, and containing, doubt- 
 less, valuable materials for the illustration of the literature 
 of the Elizabethan period, are irretrievably lost; and since 
 then many genuine Saxon words have gradually disappeared 
 from the language of common life, especially in the south- 
 ern and midland counties, which, if carefully preserved, 
 would have freed the present race of antiquaries and critics 
 from a great deal of uncertainty and error. However, it 
 avails nothing to lament the archaisms which have sunk in 
 the ocean of oblivion, together with Wade and his boat 
 Guingelot. We cannot, perhaps, repair the injury we have 
 sustained in this way, but we may check its increase by 
 making a diligent collection of those which still survive. 
 The books named at the head of the present article show 
 various attempts of this sort have been made, and in va- 
 rious quarters. They possess, as might be expected, dif- 
 ferent degrees of literary merit; but all furnish materials of 
 some value to the philologist and the critic, and will doubt- 
 less be thankfully received by those who are aware of the 
 importance of the subject. 
 
 We consider it superfluous to discuss the causes of dialect 
 in the abstract, or to attempt to establish a clear and posit- 
 ive distinction between the vaguely employed terms dialect 
 and language. The apparently simple question, is Gaelic 
 a tongue per se, or a mere dialectical variety of Irish ? is 
 not without its intricacies nay, not without its perils 
 to a peaceably disposed man. Within the English pale the 
 matter is sufficiently clear; all agree in calling our standard 
 form of speech the English language, and all provincial de- 
 viations from it at least all that assume a distinct specific 
 character dialects. How and when those different forms 
 originated has never yet been fully explained: there is, how- 
 ever, no doubt that some of them existed at a very early 
 period. Bede observes, that Ceawlin was the West Saxon 
 form of Cselin; and a nice observer may detect diversities 
 of grammatical and orthographical forms in our Anglo-Saxon 
 MSS., according to the province of the transcriber.* The 
 remarks of Higden on the subject, though neither very pro- 
 found, nor, as we think, quite correct, are by no means 
 devoid of interest: 
 
 ' Although the English, as being descended from three Ger- 
 man tribes, at first had among them three different dialects; 
 namely, southern, midland, and northern: yet, being mixed in the 
 
 * The late Mr. Price promised a work on the Anglo-Saxon dialects: we 
 do not know whether his collections on the subject are still in existence.
 
 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 43 
 
 first instance with Danes, and afterwards with Normans, they 
 have in many respects corrupted their own tongue, and now af- 
 fect a sort of outlandish gabble (peregrines captant boalus et 
 garritus). In the above threefold Saxon tongue, which has barely 
 survived among a few country people ,* the men of the east agree 
 more in speech with those of the west as being situated under 
 the same quarter of the heavens than the northern men with 
 the southern. Hence it is that the Mercians or Midland English 
 partaking , as it were , the nature of the extremes understand 
 the adjoining dialects, the northern and the southern better 
 than those last understand each other. The whole speech of the 
 Northumbrians, especially in Yorkshire, is so harsh and rude, 
 that we southern men can hardly understand it.'** 
 
 We see here that Higden (writing about A. D. 1350) was 
 only aware of the existence of three different forms, which 
 he regards as analogous to the dialects spoken by the Jutes, 
 Old Saxons , and Angles , by whom the island was colonized. 
 It is, however, certain that there were in his time, and 
 probably long before , five distinctly marked forms , which 
 may be classed as follows : 1 . Southern or Standard Eng- 
 lish , which in the fourteenth century was perhaps best spoken 
 in Kent and Surrey by the body of the inhabitants.*** 2. 
 Western English , of which traces may be found from Hamp- 
 shire to Devonshire, and northward as far as the Avon. 
 3. Mercian, vestiges of which appear in Shropshire, Staf- 
 fordshire, and South and West Derbyshire, becoming dis- 
 tinctly marked in Cheshire , and still more so in South Lan- 
 cashire. 4. Anglian, of which there are three subdivisions 
 - the East Anglian of Norfolk and Suffolk ; the Middle 
 Anglian of Lincolnshire , Nottinghamshire , and East Derby- 
 shire; and the North Anglian of the West Riding of York- 
 shire spoken most purely in the central part of the moun- 
 tainous district of Craven. 5. Northumbrian ; of which we 
 shall treat more fully in the sequel. This sketch is only to 
 be considered as an approximation to a geographical arrange- 
 
 * This , literally interpreted , would denote that the Anglo-Saxon lan- 
 guage was not yet quite extinct. 
 
 * Polychronicon K. Higdeni, ap. Gale, pp. 210, 211. 
 
 *** "The only MS. I recollect, which presents us with an autograph 
 specimen of a dialect at a certain period , is that of the Kentish speech 
 written by Dan. Inchbold of Northgate, Canterbury, in 1320, and preser- 
 ved among the Arundel MSS. This exhibits all the pecularities of the East 
 Somersetshire dialect; when therefore you state that the standard English 
 was best spoken in the 14th century by the body of inhabitants in Kent and 
 Surrey , you must confine your remark to the upper classes of the laity and 
 clergy." 
 
 Letter from Sir F. Madden to the author.
 
 44 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 
 
 ment ; for in this , as in all other countries , dialects are 
 apt to get out of bounds, or to mix with their neighbours. 
 For example the pronunciation in the parishes of Halifax 
 and Huddersfield is decidedly Mercian; while that of North 
 Lancashire, Westmoreland, and Cumberland exhibits many 
 Anglian peculiarities, which may have been occasioned in 
 some degree by the colonies* from the south planted in that 
 district by William Rufus. 
 
 We refrain from entering at present into the obscure and 
 difficult subject of the origin and early history of the West- 
 Saxon, Mercian, and Anglian dialects; especially as valu- 
 able materials for its illustration will shortly be laid before 
 the public. When we are in possession of Layamon and 
 the semi-Saxon gospels, illustrated, as we doubt not they 
 will be, by. the care and skill of Sir Frederick Madden and 
 Mr. Kemble, we trust they will clear up many points con- 
 nected with the early history of our language that are now 
 involved in a good deal of uncertainty. We have not space 
 to point out the distinctive peculiarities of our provincial 
 dialects, consisting chiefly in minutiae of grammar and pro- 
 nunciation, which it is sometimes difficult to render intelli- 
 fible. Those of the West of England are exhibited by Mr. 
 ennings, and those of East Anglia by Mr. Forby, in the 
 introductions to their respective Glossaries. Some inform- 
 ation respecting the Halifax dialect will be found in Wat- 
 son's history of that town ; or in the Appendix to Mr. Hunt- 
 er's ' Hallamshire Glossary.' It may not be unacceptable 
 to some of our readers to know that Robert of Gloucester's 
 language is decidedly West Saxon,** that the peculiarities 
 of c Pier's Plouhman's Vision' belong to the Mercian dialect; 
 and that Manning's version of Langtoft's c Chronicle' i.s 
 written in the English of his age, with a pretty copious 
 sprinkling of Middle Anglian. We know of no production 
 of the middle ages in the Yorkshire Anglian or the Lanca- 
 shire Mercian. Of the latter there is not even a decent 
 vocabulary, though it is highly important to the philologist, 
 
 * Saxon Chronicle, A. D. 1092. A comparison of Anderson's ballads 
 with Burns's songs will show how like Cumbrian is to Scottish, but how 
 different. We believe that Weber is right in referring the romance of Sir 
 Amadas to this district. The mixture of the Anglian forms, gwo, gwon , 
 hwoim , boyd-word, ( in pure Northumbrian , gae , gone, banes, bod nonle , ) 
 with the northern term tijnt, Iccnl, hal/te, mare, and many others of the same 
 class , could hardly have occurred in any other part of England. 
 
 ** It is worth observing that the language of Layamon just one step 
 removed from Anglo-Saxon bears an unequivocal analogy to the present 
 West of England dialect; a pretty strong proof that the distinguishing pe- 
 culiarities of the latter are not modern corruptions.
 
 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 45 
 
 on account of its peculiar grammatical structure and its many 
 genuine Saxon terms. However, a tolerably correct idea of 
 it may be formed from Collier's justly celebrated c Dialogue 
 between Tummus and Meary;' which is not only a faithful 
 exhibition of the dialect, but perhaps the truest picture of 
 the modes of thought and habits of the class of people des- 
 cribed in it, in their native breadth and coarseness, that 
 has hitherto appeared. The mixture of population conse- 
 quent upon the spread of the cotton manufacture has greatly 
 deteriorated the purity of the Lancashire speech; but our 
 worthy friend the Laird of Monkbarns might still .have found 
 the genuine Saxon guttural in the mouths of old people. 
 A single word still remains generally current, as a memor- 
 ial of its former prevalence namely Leigh, a town near 
 Wigan; pronounced nearly like the German leich, both by 
 gentle and simple. 
 
 The most important of our provincial dialects is undoubt- 
 edly the Northumbrian both on account of the extent of 
 the district where it prevails, and its numerous and inter- 
 esting written monuments. It is the speech of" the peasantry 
 throughout Northumberland, Durham, the North and East 
 Ridings of Yorkshire, nearly the whole of the extensive 
 Wapontake of Claro in the AVest Riding, and the district 
 called the Ainsty or liberties of the city of York. What is 
 spoken in Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Lancashire to 
 the north of the Ribble, is substantially the same dialect, 
 but with many verbal varieties, and a less pure pronuncia- 
 tion. It is, as might be expected, more like English to the 
 south of the Tees, and more like Scotch as we approach 
 the Tweed, but its essential peculiarities are everywhere 
 preserved. It is unquestionably pace Ranulphi Higdeni 
 dixerimus the most pleasing of our provincial forms of 
 speech , especially as spoken in the North and East Ridings 
 of Yorkshire. The Durham pronunciation, though soft, is 
 monotonous and drawling; and that of Northumberland is 
 disfigured by the burr and an exaggerated Scotch accent. 
 
 The resemblance between this dialect and the lowland 
 Scotch will strike every one who compares Mr. Brockett's 
 glossary with Dr. Jamieson's dictionary, or Minot's poems 
 with Barbour's Bruce. In fact, it is still a matter of debate 
 among our literary antiquaries, whether some of our metri- 
 cal romances * Sir Tristrem,' for example* were written 
 
 * The writer's views respecting the dialect of Sir Tristrem were subse- 
 qiiently fully stated in a long note to the edition of Warton's English 
 Poetry published by Mr. R. Taylor in 1840. ED.
 
 46 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 
 
 to the north or the south of the Tweed. In our opinion, 
 both may be practically considered as forming one and the 
 same dialect. The vocabularies, it is true, are not perfectly 
 identical, many words being used in Scotland which are 
 unknown in England, and vice versd; but the verbal forms, 
 the grammatical constructions, and all other distinguishing 
 characteristics are the same in both countries. And now 
 questions arise on which much Christian ink. has been shed, 
 and no small acrimony displayed: Where was this dialect 
 first manufactured , and out of what materials? Was it im- 
 ported into Scotland from England, or into England from 
 Scotland, or did it grow up in both countries simultaneously? 
 We thought, on concluding many years back an examin- 
 ation of the points of history and geography involved in 
 the above questions , that they had all been set at rest long 
 ago by Usher and Lloyd ; and notwithstanding the arguments 
 adduced by Dr. Jamieson the present champion of the 
 Pinkertonian hypothesis we think so still. On one side 
 we have the positive testimony of contemporary authors - 
 on the other, the dreams of Pinkerton, and the assertions 
 of Dempster and Hector Boethius: men who thought it the 
 duty of an historian like that of an ambassador to tell 
 lies for the good of his country. We could easily show that 
 the cardinal argument for the Scandinavian origin of the 
 Picts 'the very corner-stone of Dr. Jamieson's theory 'is 
 a three-fold begging of the question 5 but we consider it su- 
 perfluous to discuss a point, which, after all, we do not 
 feel concerned to prove or disprove.* Whatever might be 
 the race or language of the Picts, it is difficult to deduce 
 the origin of the Scoto-Northumbrian dialect from them for 
 this weighty reason , that two of the three millions who speak 
 it inhabit districts where that people never had a permanent 
 settlement during any known period of their history. We 
 first find them mentioned at the end of the third century, 
 in conjunction with the Irish. Their precise abode is not 
 specified, but we know that they did not occupy either Lo- 
 thian or Galloway during the latter part of the fourth cen- 
 tury. In the time of Valentinian, the ancient frontier of 
 
 * We the more willingly waive this subject at present, because we know 
 that a work in which it is largely discussed will shortly issue from the 
 press. We allude to Mr. William Skene's Essay on the Highlanders of 
 Scotland, which obtained the Highland Society of London's gold medal 
 for 1835 but which the author is understood to be bringing before the 
 public at large in a much extended form. ( a ) 
 
 ( a ) For some remarks on this book sec the essay on (he lang-uag-es of Ilie British is- 
 lands. Ed.
 
 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 47 
 
 Antoninus was restored by the establishment of the new pro- 
 vince of Valentia, having the Clyde and the Forth for its 
 northern boundary. After the usurpation of Maximus, the 
 barbarians beyond the frontier made repeated irruptions, 
 which were successively repelled , till the iinal departure of 
 the Roman forces, in the time of Honorius, left the north- 
 ern part of the province at their mercy for several years. 
 We have tolerably express testimony as to the proper terri- 
 tory of the Picts at this period, Gildas, speaking of their 
 destructive invasion when the Roman, forces were withdrawn, 
 describes them as a transmarine nation from Hie north words 
 which Dr. Jamieson seizes upon in confirmation of his theo- 
 ry of their Scandinavian origin. Bede, however, who had 
 evidently this passage of Grildas before him, will inform us 
 in what sense his expressions are to be understood, -'We 
 call these people (the Scots and Picts) transmarine not be- 
 cause they were situated out of Britain, but because they 
 were separated from the territory of the Britons by the in- 
 tervention of two arfns of the sea , of considerable length and 
 breadth; one of which penetrates the land of Britain on the 
 side of the eastern sea, the other of the western.' Thus, 
 according to the idea of Bede, who knew a great deal more 
 about the Picts than we do - c transmarine from the north' 
 means neither more nor less than from the other side of 
 the Friths of Forth and Clyde. As Dr. Jamieson lays great 
 stress on Bede's account of the Scythian origin of this people, 
 he cannot decently reject his testimony in the present in- 
 stance. ' Testem quern quis inducit pro se tenetur reci- 
 pere contra se.' 
 
 As we are not writing the history of those ages , we shall 
 content ourselves with observing that the Britons, after en- 
 during the depredations of the barbarians for several years, 
 at last derived courage from despair, and drove them back 
 to their own territories. Gildas expressly states that, in his 
 time, they were ' seated in the extremest parts of the island, 
 occasionally emerging from thence for purposes of plunder 
 and devastation;' and the whole tenor of Bede's history 
 plainly shows that he knew of no* Ptetish community to the 
 
 * Dr. Lingard whose general perspicacity in questions of this sort we 
 cheerfully acknowledge is evidently mistaken in placing Candida Casa 
 (or Whitherne in Galloway) in the Pictish territory, on the strength of its 
 heing the cathedral of St. Ninian, the apostle of the southern Picts. This, 
 we think , will appear from the following considerations: 1. In the time 
 of Ninian , who died A. D. 432, the province of Valentia was , at least no- 
 minally, in the possession of the Romans, or Romanized Britons. 2. In 
 the passage of Bede referred to by Dr. Lingard, Ninian is said to have
 
 48 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 
 
 south of the friths, from the arrival of the Saxons to his 
 own time. Any one who bestows a moderate degree of at- 
 tention on the early history of the island, will perceive that 
 the conquests of Ida and his immediate successors in Ber- 
 nicia were not made over Picts, but 13ritons of Cymric race; 
 and that in the time of Oswy and Ecgfrid , the Saxons had 
 not only military possession of a considerable tract of Pict- 
 ish territory to the north of the Forth, but had even made 
 some progress in colonizing it. It is true that the battle of 
 Drumnechtan, A. D. 685 7 re-established the independence 
 of the Picts ; but it is equally certain that they made no 
 permanent conquest in the Northumbrian territory after that 
 period. This is decisively proved by the fact, that, at 
 the time Bede wrote his history, A. D. 731, Abercorn, 
 in Linlithgowshire, was within the Saxon limits, being 
 described by him as situated c in the Anglian territory, but 
 adjoining the frith which separates the land of the Angles 
 from that of the Picts.' During the next 120 years, we find 
 them engaged in a series of sanguinary conflicts with the 
 western Britons, the Scots, and the Danes; and before A. D. 
 850, they ceased to exist as an independent nation. We 
 leave our readers to judge how probable it is that the Picts 
 should plant a language, which it has never been proved 
 that they spoke, in a district of which they never, as far 
 as we know, had the civil administration for ten consecu- 
 tive years. 
 
 We shall now bring an argument or two on the other 
 side of the question, and leave our readers to judge which 
 way the evidence seems to preponderate. 
 
 erected his church at Candida Casa of stone , ' insolito Brittvnibus more. ' 
 3. In a preceding passage (Eccl. Hist., 1. i., c. 1.), Bede expressly describes 
 the frith of Clyde as the Boundary between the Britons and the Picts, 
 ' sinus maris permaximus , qui antiquitus gentem Britonum a Pictis secer- 
 nebat. ' ' Antiquilus secernebat' does not mean that the Picts afterwards 
 gained a settlement to the southward, but refers to the subsequent occu- 
 pation of Argyle by the Scots. 4. The population of Strath Clyde to the 
 north, and of Cumberland to the south, was undoubtedly British. 5. The 
 writer of Ninian's life expressly says , that after ordaining bishops and 
 priests among his Pictish converts, and putting all things in order, ' ad 
 Ecclesiam suam est regressus' 1 i. e. to his British cathedral at Candida 
 Casa. In another instance, Dr. Lingard goes still more widely astray (vol. 
 i., p. 278), when he places the Badecanwyllan of the Saxon chronicle in 
 Lothian. It is undoubtedly as Gibson supposes Bakewell, called 
 Bathequell as late as the 13th century; and Peace/and, where the chro- 
 nicler places it, is not the land of the Picts, but the Peak in Derbyshire. 
 The reference to Camden is nothing to the purpose. He had no better 
 authority for asserting that Lothian was called Pictland, than Hector Boe- 
 thius who contrived to extract the name out of the Pentland hills as 
 the Portuguese find Ulysses in Lisbon.
 
 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 49 
 
 Let us first consult the Highlanders, who are universally 
 allowed to be great genealogists, and to have excellent tra- 
 ditional memories. They were well acquainted with the Scan- 
 dinavians, whom they, as well as the Irish and the Welsh, 
 uniformly call Lochlinneach ; and have ' also sundry tradi- 
 tions respecting the Cruithneach or Picts. But do they ever 
 call the Lowland Scots, or their language, by either of those 
 appellations? No such thing! they regularly apply to both 
 the term Sassgunach* or Sassenach the very word which 
 they, as well as the Irish, Manks, Armoricans, and Welsh, 
 also constantly employ to denote English and Englishmen. 
 If Dr. Jamieson will clearly and satisfactorily explain how 
 a people and tongue not Saxon came to be so styled by their 
 Gaelic neighbours, we will almost promise to believe in his 
 Pictish etymologies. 
 
 Our next appeal shall be to the language itself. The ge- 
 neral drift of Dr. Jamieson's reasoning is, that the Picts 
 were a Scandinavian people, speaking a language identical, 
 or nearly so, with Icelandic. If this really were the case, 
 we say with confidence that the Lowland Scotch cannot be 
 its lineal descendant, for this plain reason, that it is not, 
 as to its structure and basis, a Scandinavian dialect. A 
 tongue of Xorsc extraction is distinguished from a German, 
 Belgic, or Saxon one by several broadly marked and un- 
 equivocal peculiarities. In all the latter the definite article 
 is a distinct prepositive term: e. g., Germ., der konig; 
 Ang.-Sax., so cyning; Eng., the king. In the Scandinavian 
 dialects it is uniformly postpositive and coalescing with its 
 substantive, analogous to the status emphaticus of the Ara- 
 miean languages: e.g.- Icelandic, homing, king komin- 
 ginn , the king; Danish, mand, man manden, the man. 
 In Icelandic and its descendants there is a simple passive 
 voice ek clska, I love; ek ehkast , I am loved: in all the 
 German and Saxon languages the passive is formed by the 
 perfect participle and the verb substantive, like the German 
 ich werde geliebet. The above, as well as many peculiarities 
 in the substance and form of the pronouns and numerals, 
 are as conspicuous in Danish and Swedish, after five centu- 
 ries of adulteration with Low German, as in the most an- 
 cient Icelandic monuments; and it is impossible for a per- 
 son, even slightly acquainted with their structure, to read 
 
 * It may be objected they also call the Lowlanders, Dubh Gall a 
 name formerly given by the Irish to the Danes. This , however, is not a 
 national appellation, but a term of contempt, denoting black strangers; 
 also applied to Englishmen, but never to the Picts. 
 
 4
 
 50 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 
 
 two consecutive sentences in one of those three languages, 
 or any of their subordinate dialects ; without perceiving to 
 what family they belong. In Lowland Scotch, on the con- 
 trai'y, we meet with nothing of the kind. There we find 
 not the smallest Vestiges of a postpositive article or a pas- 
 sive voice; and the pronouns, numerals, and most of the 
 particles, plainly belong to the Saxon family. 
 
 For the proof of those assertions we refer our readers to 
 the grammars of Grimm and Rask; reserving to ourselves 
 the privilege of saying a few words about Scottish jmrlicU's. 
 We shall preface our remarks with an extract from a work 
 well known to Dr. Jamieson, in the hope that an argument 
 founded on the principles there laid down will have some 
 weight Avith him and his disciples. 
 
 'The particles, or winged words, as they have been denomin- 
 ated, are preferred in proof of the affinity between Greek and 
 Gothic,* for several reasons. These are generally of the highest 
 antiquity, most of them having received their established form 
 and acceptation in ages prior to that of history. They are also 
 more permanent than most other terms; being constantly in iise, 
 entering into the composition of many other words; constituting 
 an essential part of every regular language, and determining the 
 meaning of every phrase that is employed to express our thoughts. 
 They are also least likely to be introduced into another language ; 
 because, from the various and nice shades of signification which 
 they assume, they are far more unintelligible to foreigners than 
 the mere names of things or of actions; and although the latter, 
 from vicinity or occasional intercourse, arc frequently adopted, 
 this is rarely the case as to the particles; because the adoption of 
 them would produce an important change in the very structure of 
 a language which has been previously formed.' - Jamicson, Her- 
 mes Scylhicus, p. 2. 
 
 All this is very excellent, and furnishes an infallible cri- 
 terion for tracing the affinities of tongues. Whoever takes 
 the trouble to compare the particles especially the simple 
 prepositions and conjunctions in Icelandic and Anglo- 
 Saxon will find sufficient resemblance to prove that they 
 are kindred tongues ; and sufficient dissimilarity to show that 
 they do not belong to the same division of the great Germanic 
 family. Many particles in the two languages are identical, 
 or nearly so, in sound and meaning many are of cognate 
 
 * It seems, rather an extraordinary instance of nyctalopia to sec the affin- 
 ity between Greek and Gothic, and not to see that between Lowland 
 Scotch and Anglo-tSaxon.
 
 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 51 
 
 origin , but differ materially in form and many others 
 have nothing in common ; proving clearly that the two tribes 
 who spoke those languages must have been long and widely 
 separated after branching off from the parent stock. The 
 case is equally clear with respect to the derivative langua- 
 ges. Our English particles show a direct descent from Ang- 
 lo-Saxon; while those of Denmark and Sweden are, with 
 the exception of a few Lower Saxon terms, as unequivo- 
 cally from the Icelandic. Every smatterer can see that the 
 Danish preposition imod (contra) is not from Anglo-Saxon 
 ongean, but from Icelandic amoti, or imoli; and that this last 
 cannot possibly be the parent of our English word against. 
 Now, if the Lowland Scottish be tried by this criterion, the 
 result will be anything but favourable to the theory of its 
 Scandinavian origin. The presence or absence of a few 
 Norse particles proves nothing decisive either way. Those 
 which are wanting may have become obsolete, and those 
 which actually occur might be introduced by the Danish 
 invaders. But the existence of a large mass of words of 
 this class, which never were Icelandic, but have their un- 
 doubted counterparts in Anglo-Saxon, fixes the character of 
 the dialect beyond all controversy. We could furnish a long 
 list of such terms; we will at present content ourselves with 
 a few of the most ordinary and essential particles in Anglo- 
 Si;xon and Icelandic leaving it to our readers * ayont the 
 Tweed' to decide whether the Scottish equivalents are more 
 nearly allied to the former or the latter. 
 
 English. Anglo-Saxon. Icelandic 
 
 through 
 
 ourh 
 
 i gegnum 
 
 against 
 by 
 among 
 between* 
 
 ongean 
 bi, be 
 gemang 
 betveonum 
 
 i mot'i 
 hia (Dan. hos) 
 a medal 
 a milli 
 
 about 
 than 
 
 ymbutan, abutan 
 (Sonne 
 
 kringum 
 enn 
 
 but 
 
 butan 
 
 cnn , helldur 
 
 or 
 neither 
 
 oo<5e 
 nauoer 
 
 eda (Dan. eller) 
 hverki 
 
 and 
 
 and 
 
 ok 
 
 not 
 
 na 
 
 ecki 
 
 yet 
 yesterday 
 
 By* 
 
 gystrandag 
 
 enntha 
 1 gser 
 
 * The old Scottish form alwecxh is clearly the Lower Saxon (wise/ten. 
 Amc/l, between, is found in Northumberland, but not in Scotland. 
 
 4*
 
 52 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 
 
 English. Anglo-Saxon. Icelandic, 
 
 soon . sona, suna snart 
 
 when hvaenne nser, er 
 
 how hvu , liu hversu. 
 
 We do not think it necessary to give the Northumbrian 
 forms, as they are in general mere dialectical variations 
 from southern English; ex. gr., abool for about, among for 
 among; and generally identical, or nearly so, with the Low- 
 land Scottish. We admit that a number of particles occur 
 in this last-named dialect which are not found in modern 
 English; nor can it surprise any one acquainted with the 
 history of the British islands during the ninth and two fol- 
 lowing centuries, to find a few of Scandinavian descent, 
 especially among the adverbs. But the number of ancient 
 and radical particles derived from this source is much smaller 
 than might have been expected. In fact, we doubt whether 
 Dr. Jamiesons Dictionary furnishes six simple prepositions 
 and conjunctions unequivocally of Norse origin. 
 
 The evidence furnished by the preposition by is so strong 
 that we could be content to rest our case on it alone. There 
 is not a vestige of the word in Scandinavian,* either as a 
 separate particle or in composition. In Lowland Scottish it 
 is extensively employed in both capacities, and enters in- 
 timately into the very structure of the language; often coa- 
 lescing so closely with the fellow-members of a compound 
 term as to be with difficulty distinguished. It is sufficient 
 to allege the following vernacular terms in proof of this as- 
 sertion: altoon (supra) q. d., a, or o/j-be-ufan; bid (sine), 
 be-utan; ben (inner apartment), be-innan ; Inil (outer apart- 
 ment), of the same origin as bill (without); to say nothing of 
 be-east, be-west, belive, be dene , and a multitude of others. 
 To sum up the matter in a small compass, we say, most 
 confidently, that if the truly Christian sentiment* let by-yam's** 
 be by-yunes,' and the familiar household words but and hen 
 are genuine Scottish phrases, Scottish is not and cannot be 
 a Scandinavian dialect. 
 
 'But,' says Dr. Jamieson, c it cannot be a dialect of the 
 
 * To those who allege the use of he as a prefix in Danish and Swedish , 
 we reply with the following passage from Molbech's excellent Danish Dic- 
 tionary: 'The particle be is a mere borrowed word from the German; 
 nearly all the words compounded with it are more recent than the four- 
 teenth century, and a great part of them not older than the sixteenth, se- 
 venteenth and eighteenth. ' 
 
 ** We may just observe, that the auxiliary be (esse) is as foreign to the 
 Scandinavian dialects as the preposition by. The Icelandic verb is v< ra ; 
 Danish vft-rc ; Swedish vara.
 
 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 53 
 
 Anglo-Saxon , as there is no good reason for supposing that 
 it was ever /wj/or/erf from the southern part of the island.' 
 Hero we plainly perceive the fallacy which pervades every 
 part of the Doctor's Dissertation. We know that the speech 
 of Lothian was neither imported from the Thames, the Severn, 
 nor the Trent; but we know too that it stands in the closest 
 affinity to that used on the banks of the Tees and the Tyne ; 
 being, in fact like that Northumbrian Saxon, with a 
 strong infusion of Danish and a small portion of Norman 
 French: the very mixture which the known history of the 
 district would lead us to expect. A careful grammatical 
 analysis shows, moreover, that the Saxon forms the older 
 portion or basis of the dialect; the two other component ele- 
 ments being demonstrably of more recent introduction. Clear 
 as all this seems, Dr. Jamieson makes a bold attempt to 
 bring the 'blue bonnets over the border.' He winds up an 
 elaborate endeavour to prove that the term Yule must have 
 been derived from the Scandinavian Picts, with the following 
 observation : 
 
 'The name Yule is, indeed, still used in England; but it is in 
 the northern counties, which were possessed by a people origin- 
 ally the same with those who inhabited the Lowlands of Scotland.' 
 
 Yaleat quantum! We happen to know that the term Yule 
 is perfectly familiar throughout the West Hiding of York- 
 shire, south of the Wharf and Ouse, where a dialect pre- 
 vails quite distinct from the Northumbrian, and where, ne- 
 vertheless, every peasant burns his Yule-log and eats his 
 Yule-cake, up to the present time. Did they learn all this 
 from the Picts? Certainly not, but from the Duties, who 
 once constituted more than half the population in our east- 
 ern counties , from the Welland to the Forth ; and of whom 
 we find unequivocal traces, as well in the dialects as in the 
 topographical appellations* of the district. The proposition 
 that the northern counties were possessed by a people ori- 
 ginally the same with those who inhabited the Lowlands of 
 Scotland, being one of those commonly called convertible, 
 we beg to state it in the following form: The Scottish Low- 
 lands were possessed by a people originally the same with 
 those who inhabited the north of England, i. e., in the 
 first instance, Northumbrian Angles, afterwards blended with 
 Danes : and the Dano-Saxon dialect of this mixed race has 
 
 * A plain instance occurs in the present name of Whitby. In the lime 
 of Bele , and long 1 after, it was called Streoneshalch; which the Danish 
 occupants changed to Hvitby q. d., the white town. All the by's in our 
 Anglian and Northumbrian provinces are of a similar origin.
 
 54 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 
 
 in substance simultaneously descended to the present occu- 
 pants of both districts. Q. E. D.* 
 
 We recommend to Dr. Jamieson's consideration the fol- 
 lowing short passage from Wallingford, as, in our opinion, 
 worth the whole of Pinkcrton's Inquiry: - 
 
 c Swcyn , king of Denmark, and Olave, king of Norway, a short 
 time before invaded Yorkshire, and reduced it to subjection. For 
 there is , and long has been , a great admixture of people of Dan- 
 ish race in that province, and a great similarity of language.' - 
 (Chron. apud Gale, p. 570.) 
 
 This concluding observation, equally applicable to North- 
 umberland and Lothian, furnishes an easy and satisfactory 
 solution of the entire question. 
 
 We have already observed that the works we have under- 
 taken to review have different degrees of literary merit: 
 some are necessarily meagre for want of materials; others, 
 on account of the limited opportunities enjoyed by their com- 
 pilers. In perusing their lucubrations we have frequently 
 found cause to smile at their interpretations, and still more 
 frequently at their etymologies; for every glossarist is, ex 
 officiOy an etymologist. We are not, however, disposed to 
 scrutinize severely the defects of men who have done their 
 best, but rather to thank them for preserving what might 
 otherwise have been irretrievably lost. In the words of 
 Wachter, 'Juvat hac obsoleta servari, aliquando profutura. ' 
 The spirit of scientific and rational etymology cannot fail to 
 arise amongst us ere long, and whenever that happens 
 these volumes will supply it with abundance of materials. 
 Even Grose's c Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue ' 
 furnishes matter on which a skilful and perspicacious critic 
 might employ himself to good purpose. 
 
 Some of the compilations before us are in all respects too 
 slight for any extended criticism. Among the smaller ones, 
 the most respectable in point of execution is Mr. Wilbraham's 
 c Cheshire Glossary.' His words are well selected, and often 
 judiciously illustrated; and his etymologies, though fre- 
 quently defective, are seldom extravagant. The insertion of 
 the South Lancashire words which belong to the same 
 dialect would have added considerably to the value of 
 
 * Our readers can hardly need to be told that the Lowland Scotch poets 
 of the Middle Age always call the language in which they composed, [nyUs 
 English. For example, Uunbar in one of his controversial pieces says : 
 ' I have on me a pair of Lothian hips 
 
 Sail fairer Inglis mak, and mair perfytc, 
 Than them canst blabber with thy Carrick lips.'
 
 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 55 
 
 the work. Many genuine Mercian terms might also be 
 gleaned in Staffordshire , Shropshire, and Derbyshire: the 
 sooner this is done the better, as every successive gener- 
 ation loses something of the speech of its forefathers. 
 
 The Norfolk and Craven Glossaries are on a larger scale, 
 and both arc highly creditable to the zeal and industry of 
 the authors. They furnish the fullest view of the two prin- 
 cipal branches of the Anglian dialect that has hitherto been 
 given ; and ought carefully to be consulted by every one who 
 wishes to investigate the general analogies of our tongue. 
 \Ve would particularly recommend the perusal of the Craven 
 Glossary to our dramatists and novelists, who, when they 
 introduce a Yorkshire character, generally make him speak 
 something much more like Hampshire occasionally even 
 broad Somersetshire. * They have, however, now the means 
 of studying the purest form of the West Riding dialect , 
 synthetically as well as analytically. The respectable author 
 has embodied the speech of the romantic and interesting dis- 
 trict where he resides, in a couple of dialogues, which, 
 though not equal to Collier's in dramatic effect, are not des- 
 titute of merit. We can, at all events, vouch for the ge- 
 neral accuracy of the dialect and idiom. 
 
 The most copious and best executed of our English voca- 
 bularies is undoubtedly Mr. Brocket!' s ' Glossary of North 
 Country Words.' He had ample materials to work upon, 
 and he has turned them to good account. His work, though 
 the fullest of matter, exhibits by far the smallest proportion 
 of corrupt forms; and his explanations, especially of North- 
 umberland words, are generally correct and satisfactory. 
 A few North Yorkshire words appear to have escaped his 
 notice; and we have reason to believe that many provincial 
 terms, current in Westmoreland and Cumberland, have never 
 been collected by any glossarist. Most of these belong to 
 the Northumbrian dialect, and ought to be embodied in Mr. 
 Brockett's work. It is, of course, the business of the na- 
 liicti to collect and transmit them , and we hope that some of 
 them will take the hint. 
 
 Dr. Jamieson's Dictionary has been so long before the 
 public, and its merits are so well known, that any praise 
 on our part would be superfluous. As we trust that another 
 edition will be published ere long, incorporating both parts 
 of the work in one regular series, we take the liberty of 
 
 * The little farce of the 'Register Office' is an exception. The Cleve- 
 land dialect is there given with perfect fidelity , and must have been copied 
 from the life.
 
 56 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 
 
 suggesting that it might bo advantageously enlarged from the 
 following sources: 1. The Scottish' Acts of Parliament, 
 published by the Record Commission ; especially the first vo- 
 lume if it ever appears.* 2. The ancient northern metrical 
 romances; many of which are still in MS. 3. Mr. Brockett's 
 Glossary; which is, in all essential points, in the same dia- 
 lect as Dr. Jamieson's Dictionary, and furnishes valuable 
 materials for its elucidation and correction. 
 
 We shall devote more space to the last book on our list 
 Boucher's 'Archaic and Provincial Glossary' on account 
 of the comprehensiveness of its plan, and our wish that a 
 work which has long been a desideratum in our literature 
 should be executed in a creditable and satisfactory manner. 
 The first part was published in 1832, accompanied with a 
 promise that the following portions should appear at inter- 
 vals of two months. It is ; however, so much easier to pro- 
 ject than to execute, that the three years which have since 
 elapsed have barely sufficed for the production of part the 
 second.** We are without means to account for this extra- 
 ordinary delay; and, to say the truth, we shall not much 
 regret it, if it gives the conductors an opportunity of re- 
 forming the defects of their plan, and availing themselves 
 of better sources of information than they at present seem 
 to enjoy. We shall freely point out what we conceive to be 
 the imperfections of the work, and sincerely hope that our 
 observations which are prompted by no hostile spirit of 
 criticism will be taken in good part. 
 
 In the first place, we cannot but regret that it has been 
 thought expedient to publish the materials collected by Mr. 
 Boucher, without any attempt at selection or discrimination. 
 Mr. Boucher was a most worthy man, and exercised laud- 
 able zeal and industry in the prosecution of his favourite 
 object. He has collected a multitude of words from a va- 
 riety of sources, among which there is much that is valuable 
 and well worthy of preservation. It is, however, easy to 
 perceive that he was deficient in critical acumen, and im- 
 perfectly versed in the various branches of knowledge re- 
 quired for the scientific execution of a work of this sort. 
 His Introduction shows that his ideas of the origin and af- 
 filiation of languages were singularly confused and erroneous. 
 
 * We ourselves rather despair of living to see either this volume 
 (which, considering the erudition and ability of its editor, could not fail 
 to be of great importance) or the 'Anglo-Saxon and Welsh Laws. 1 
 Everything interesting to the philologist and the general -scholar seems to 
 be studiously kept back to the very last. [Both have been published. ED.] 
 
 ** No more was published. ED.
 
 KX(iLISlI DIALECTS. 57 
 
 He regards (p. 2) all the European languages as derived 
 from Celtic, and Celtic from Hebrew. In the next page he 
 tells us that r the languages of Europe may be traced to two 
 sources Celtic and Gothic ; if indeed these two are radic- 
 ally different.' By and by, he informs us, that the Ger- 
 mans, Hungarians, and Turks, are ofScfavonian origin; and 
 then , that the Sclavonian language is supposed to have been 
 formed from a mixture of Grecian, Italian (!!!), and Ger- 
 man. He discovers that the vocabulary of Icelandic is scant// ; 
 and that it is so nearly allied to Celtic that a Welshman or 
 Bas-Breton could easily make himself understood in Iceland ! 
 It is not to be expected that a man with such confused and 
 imperfect notions should be equal to a task that requires 
 qualifications of no ordinary description ; he might be useful 
 as a pioneer, but he could never become a wise master- 
 builder. The business of the present editors surely was not 
 to cram down the throats of the public everything that Mr. 
 Boucher had committed to paper, good or bad; but to pro- 
 ceed on a principle of rigorous selection and compression , 
 and to adapt the work to the present advanced state of phi- 
 lological knowledge. Instead of this , they have given all 
 Mr. Boucher's crudities, along with a good many of their 
 own, and overloaded what is really valuable with a huge 
 mass of useless and erroneous matter. The portion that has 
 hitherto appeared is liable to the following exceptions. 
 
 1 . One principle which ought to be strictly adhered to in 
 works of this kind, is the rigid exclusion of mere modern 
 words. The book before us professes to be supplementary 
 to our ordinary dictionaries, and composed of different ma- 
 terials; it was , therefore, equally unnecessary and improper 
 to encumber it with such every -day words as 'abeyance, 
 abnegation, abstract, abut, acolyte, acquittance, action, ad- 
 miral, admiralty, advocate, advowson, affianced, alcove, 
 apprentice,' and a multitude of others of the like sort. The 
 admission of them destroys all unity of plan, and makes 
 an useless addition to the bulk and cost of tbe book. The 
 prolixity with which they are treated makes the matter still 
 worse: we have eight mortal columns about the game of 
 barley-ftreak a word neither archaic nor provincial. It is 
 no satisfaction to the public to be told that all this is de- 
 rived from Mr. Boucher's MSS. The business of the editors 
 of such works is to give us what we want, and not what 
 we do not want. 
 
 2. It is of still greater importance to exhibit words in their 
 genuine forms. Corruptions likely to create real difficulty 
 may be briefly noticed, in order to refer them to their true
 
 58 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 
 
 source ; but those which involve no difficulty whatever should 
 be peremptorily rejected. In the unsettled orthography of 
 the middle ages, a word is often found in half a dozen dif- 
 ferent shapes all erroneous, but easily intelligible. The 
 blending these and the genuine terms into one heteroge- 
 neous mass, as our editors have done, can only tend to 
 swell the work with useless matter, arid to confuse the ana- 
 logies of our tongue. Surely any schoolboy could discover 
 the meaning of abhomhuthlv , anouyh, anndder, auncian, with- 
 out the aid of an archaical glossary; and the simple observ- 
 ation, that our provincials frequently omit the aspirate, 
 would have precluded all necessity for the incertion of such 
 words as alpurth, afwes, arm, f/sh, awer, and many more of 
 the same class. This indiscriminate heaping together of 
 every vicious form found in an old book or MS. necessarily 
 causes endless repetitions. After a good deal of prosing 
 about a corrupt word, we are referred to another distortion 
 of it, where we find nearly the same matter repeated and 
 sometimes a word hardly worth giving at all occurs no less 
 than three times. What would our Greek and Latin lexi- 
 cons be, if every error and corruption of the middle ages 
 had been registered with equal fidelity? 
 
 ,'5. In Mr. Boucher's portion of the work, a number of 
 purely Scottish words occur. These, we conceive, ought to 
 have been omitted by the present editors, since as they now 
 stand they are positive blemishes. The book has clearly 
 no pretensions to the character of a complete Scottish dic- 
 tionary which it ought to be, if meant to be of any value 
 as a book of reference and the little which is given is not 
 to be relied upon. The following may serve as a sample of 
 the care and skill bestowed on this department. 
 
 'BACHLE, BAUGH. To distort, reproach.' 
 
 This definition is backed by four quotations. In the first, 
 bachle means to put out of shape; in the second it is a sub- 
 stantive, denoting an old shoe or slipper; in the third, hmiclilt/ 
 is an adverb, meaning imperfectly, indifferently; and in the 
 fourth, baugh is an adjective, signifying poor, mean, infe- 
 rior. Many other interpretations of Scottish words are 
 equally defective. There was no great harm in Mr. Bou- 
 cher's collecting them and interpreting them as well as he 
 could; but there is now no excuse for giving mutilated and 
 erroneous accounts of terms fully and correctly explained by 
 Dr. Jamieson six-and twenty years ago. 
 
 We mention these defects, in the hope of their being 
 avoided in the remaining portion of the work; which, after
 
 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 59 
 
 all drawbacks, contains much that is really of value. Two 
 of the conductors (Mr. Hunter and Mr. Stevenson) are known 
 as men of research , and well qualified to furnish materials 
 from sources to which few can have access. Many of Mr. 
 Stevenson's contributions from the MSS. in our public libra- 
 ries are peculiarly important, and his Anglo-Saxon etymo- 
 logies are generally correct. He does not succeed so well 
 in his illustrations from other languages, but non omnia pos- 
 suttiHS omnes. If he and his fellow-labourers will collect all 
 the words which deserve a place in an archaic and provin- 
 cial glossary, accompanied with data for ascertaining their 
 meaning, they will be entitled to the thanks of the public 
 whether their etymologies are right or wrong. 
 
 We think ourselves bound in fairness to give some spe- 
 cimens of the works which we have noticed, both for the 
 sake of justifying our criticisms, and of pointing out some 
 sources whence this part of our language may be illustrated, 
 that have hitherto been used imperfectly, or not at all. We 
 therefore warn our readers, that we are about to occupy a 
 number of pages with dry disquisitions about words and syl- 
 lables, in order that those who have no relish 'for such mat- 
 ters may proceed per saltum to the next article. Our quo- 
 tations are from Boucher's Glossary, when not otherwise 
 specified. 
 
 *AANDORN, ORNDORN, ORN-DINNER. ' 
 
 This word appears in our glossaries in nine or ten dif- 
 ferent shapes , all equally corrupt. The true form is nndorn, 
 or widcrn; Goth., undaurn; Ang.-Sax., undcrn; German, nn- 
 lern. The word is sagaciously referred by Schmeller to the 
 preposition untcr , anciently denoting between (compare Sans- 
 crit, antat-,* Lat., inter}, q. d. the intervening period; which 
 accounts for its sometimes denoting a part of the forenoon, 
 or a meal taken at that time and sometimes a period be- 
 tween noon and sunset. It occurs in the former sense in 
 Ulphilas, undaurnimal, agiGrov (Luc. xiv. 12); in the latter, 
 in the Edda (Voluspa), where the gods are said to have di- 
 vided the day into four parts ?nyrgin, morning; milhean dag, 
 noon; undern , afternoon; aftan, evening. The Lancashire 
 form oandurth approaches most nearly to the AVelsh antertli, 
 forenoon; fancifully resolved, as we think, by Owen into 
 an tarlh = without rct/iaxr. We rather suspect a connexion 
 with the Sanscrit antar. 
 
 * This is the true etymon of our under not, as Tooke absurdly main- 
 tains , the Belgic on neder.
 
 60 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 
 
 ' ALDER. A common expression in Somersetshire for cleaning 
 the alleys in a potatoe-ground; i. e., for ordering them, or putting 
 them into order.* 
 
 A most profound conjecture! Wo conceive the word means 
 to ridge an operation usually performed when potatoes 
 are hoed. Bavarian alden, a furrow. It is uncertain whe- 
 ther the Icelandic allda, a wave, is of kindred origin. 
 
 ' ALLER.' 
 
 Mr. Boucher, misled by Keyslcr, describes the alder- tree 
 as held in great veneration by our ancestors. Keysler's 
 statement evidently belongs to the elder. The Danish pea- 
 santry believe this tree to be under the protection of a sort 
 of goddess called Hyldemoer, who avenges every injury of- 
 fered to it, and do not venture to cut an elder bough with- 
 out falling on their knees and thrice asking permission. 
 Several traditions on the subject are given in Thiele's 
 'Danske Folkesagen,' pp. 132-197. The resemblance of this 
 hyperborean deity to a Grecian Hamadryad is not a little 
 curious. 
 
 c AME, v. a.' 
 
 We are left by Mr. Boucher to choose among eight mean- 
 ings affixed to this word by Hcarnc, four of which are cert- 
 ainly wrong. It is from the German ahmen. Bavarian, 
 amen, hdmen, properly to gauge a cask, also to fathom, 
 measure. This is evidently the sense in his second quotation 
 from Langtoft 
 c A water in Snowden rennes, Auber is the name, 
 
 An arm of the sea men kcnnes, and depnes may none ame.' 
 
 We are not aware of its ever being used by the Germans 
 to denote compute, reckon; as it seems to be in the passage 
 first cited 
 
 ' Of men of armes bold, the number they ame. ' 
 The connexion between the two ideas is however obvious 
 enough. A diligent examination of our old writers would 
 perhaps decide whether our aim comes immediately from this 
 source, or more indirectly so through the medium of the 
 French csmer. - - Vide Ducange in Esmerare. An archer 
 taking aim, measures or computes the distance. 
 
 'AMELCORN. A species of wild wheat, no longer cidlivated. 
 There is little doubt that this word is deduced from that which fol- 
 lows it [amcll, between] , being so named from occupying a middle 
 space between wheat and barley. ' Slcvntnon. 
 
 We doubt it greatly. It is simply the Upper German amel- 
 korn i. e., Irilicum spella , more commonly weisscr-dinkcl,
 
 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 61 
 
 or sommer dinkel. It is rightly described by Cotgrave as 
 starch -corn, being used for that purpose on account of the 
 whiteness of the flour- [ compare Or. au,vA.ov, Lat., amylum; 
 Fr., amidon , starch]. The Scandinavian preposition amttli is 
 unknown in Germany, and has moreover the tonic accent on 
 the second syllable. 
 
 c AN; UNNE. To give, consent, wish well to. Saxon, annan, 
 unnan. ' ~ 
 
 Lye's anan, dare, has led our etymologists grievously 
 astray. The real infinitive is unnan, and the primary sense 
 of the verb is not to give (dare), but to favour, wish well to ; 
 hence sometimes to grant as of favour, concedere. Dr. Ja- 
 mieson's interpretations to owe, and to appropriate, are 
 totally inadmissible. The old German form ge-unnan is the 
 parent of the modern verb gonnen, and gunst, favour. This 
 leading sense of indulgence , favour the prominent one in 
 all the Germanic dialects shows the improbability of Home 
 Tooke's etymology of and,.q. d. ; an ad, add to the heap, in 
 a forcible light. 
 
 c ANCOME, a small ulcerous swelling formed unexpectedly.' 
 
 None of our editors attempt an etymology of the word 
 nor would one be easily found if hunted for in the usual 
 way, juxta seriem lilerarum. A slight tincture of Icelandic 
 grammar would however have taught them that the accented 
 particle a is equivalent to our on', and pursuing this hint, 
 they would have readily found in Haldorson's Lexicon ako- 
 ma , vulnuscuhnn , ulcmculum, and have learnt at the same 
 time that the genuine form is oncome. The Icelandic word 
 also denotes a sudden shower, analogous to the Yorkshire 
 and Scottish down come. We shall take occasion from this 
 word to dwell a little on the importance of the accents of 
 words in etymology. The Anglo-Saxon system of accentu- 
 ation has been illustrated with accuracy and ability by Mr. 
 Kemble, in a paper lately published in the 'Gentleman's 
 Magazine' (July, 1835).* We shall therefore confine our re- 
 marks to Icelandic, to which the other ancient Germanic 
 languages bear a general analogy. 
 
 Any one who looks into Haldorson's Lexicon, or a crit- 
 ical edition of any Icelandic author, will perceive many ac- 
 centuated words, some of which are monosyllables. These 
 accents do not so much denote the rhythmical tone of syl- 
 
 * We are happy, by the way, to see what fresh spirit and interest have re- 
 cently been infused into the venerable and valuable Miscellany of Mr. 
 Urban.
 
 62 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 
 
 lables as the quantity ; i. c v the presence of vowels long by 
 nature 7 frequently convertible into diphthongs. These are 
 radically and etymologically different from the short vowels, 
 and must be carefully distinguished from them in tracing 
 the origin and connexion of words. For example, tin, friend, 
 is the old German mini] but vin, vinum, is the German wein. 
 In like manner, sal is the German seele, Eng. soul] mor , 
 ericetum, Eng. moor] sto, locus, Ang.-Sax. stow; Iru, fides, 
 German treue. A few practical applications of this observa- 
 tion to the branch of etymology that we are now treating 
 will show the matter in a clearer light. 
 
 C FRAV, FREV,/ro. ' Craven Glossary. Cumbrian. 
 
 Barbarous corruptions! many of our readers will say. 
 They are nevertheless genuine descendants of the Scandi- 
 navian frd, still pronounced frav* in Iceland. As a corol- 
 lary, we may add, that in the Icelandic lexicons we find a 
 (ciyna, ow's feminina ,} a word to all appearance utterly un- 
 like any known synonym. But when we observe the accent, 
 and learn that it is pronounced aw or av by natives, we 
 immediately perceive its identity with the Sanscrit arvi] Gr., 
 6'Cg (L c. ; ofis)] Lat., ovis] provincial German, awv\ and our 
 own, ewe. 
 
 'LEAGIT, or LEIGH, a scythe. It may he from lea, meadow, 
 and ug , cut; or Swed., licj a scythe.' Brocketl. 
 
 The first of these derivations, apparently borrowed from 
 Willan, is downright naught; the second is something to 
 the purpose. Both leagli and lie are from the Icelandic liar, 
 falx. The terminating gh in the Northumbrian word, how- 
 ever pronounced, evidently originated in the accented vowel 
 of liar. 
 
 ' LOVER, LOOVER, a chimney, or rather an aperture in the roof 
 of old houses, through which the smoke was emitted.' Craven 
 Glossary. 
 
 This word is used by Spenser and Langland. Our etymo- 
 logists, not knowing what to make of it, derive it lino 
 consensu from the French Vouvertc. It is plainly the Ice- 
 landic liuri (pronounced liorvri or liovri)] Norwegian, More; 
 West Gothland, liura; described in the statistical accounts 
 of those countries as a sort of cupola with a trap-door, serv- 
 ing the two-fold purpose of a chimney and a sky-light.** 
 
 * DOVER, to slumber: Icelandic, doftva, slupcre.' Jamicson. 
 Certainly not from dofwa, but from dura, nearly equival- 
 
 * Compare the modern Greek pronunciation ofvavg, fiovg nafs, io/J>',&c. 
 **Li6ri is evidently derived from lids, light analogous to Fr. lucarnc.
 
 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 63 
 
 ent in sound to durra, and meaning exactly the same thing 
 as dovcr ; viz., per inferralta dor mire. 
 
 It would be easy to multiply similar instances : the above 
 will show the power of the Scandinavian accents, and the 
 necessity of attending to them in etymological researches. 
 It is remarkable, that the Northumbrians and Scotch have 
 in many cases preserved the ancient Norse pronunciation 
 more faithfully than the Swedes and Norwegians. Respect- 
 ing the Ionic accent it is sufficient to observe that, in 
 ancient and dialectical words, it is almost invariably placed 
 on the radical syllable. This short rule will enable our 
 readers to demolish a multitude of etymologies old and new. 
 
 ' APPULMOY, a dish chiefly composed of apples.' 
 
 Mr. Stevenson's emendation, appitlmos, and his derivation 
 from the Old Saxon mitos (food), though timidly proposed, 
 are indubitable. MHOS, mues, moos, and their compounds, 
 arc used extensively in Germany to denote preparations of 
 reyelables. Bavarian, melker-mues, a sort of furmity; Brem- 
 ish- Saxon, kirsclunoos , a preparation of cherries ; and, to 
 come more immediately to the point, Lower Saxon, appel- 
 nidtm (ap. Richey Idiot. Hamburg, and Schiitz, Holsteinisches 
 Idiotikon); Danish, aelJemos, and German, apfelmuss, all de- 
 note a sort of apple-sauce or marmalade. It is extraordin- 
 ary that a man of Mr. Stevenson's research did not stumble 
 on a word found in more than a dozen dictionaries and vo- 
 cabularies. 
 
 ' AREN , are. This pleonastic termination of the plural fire is 
 common in old writers.' Boucher. 
 
 This final n or en is no pleonasm, but the regular gram- 
 matical plural, especially in the Mercian dialect. Every 
 South Lancashire clown of genuine breed conjugates his 
 verbs according to the following model: 
 
 Singular. Plural. 
 
 1st person, please, pleasen, 
 
 2d pleases, pleasen, 
 
 3d pleases, pleasen. 
 
 It is remarkable that this Mercian plural resembles the 
 German form Helen , lielet, Helen, much more nearly than the 
 Anglo-Saxon lufiath. There are many reasons for believing 
 that the written Anglo-Saxon , though perhaps generally un- 
 derstood by our ancestors, was by no mean's universally spoken. 
 
 ' ASK, a newt or lizard.' 
 
 Mr. Boucher's idea of a connexion between this word and 
 the Irish and Gaelic iasy (fish), easy (eel), is entitled to
 
 64 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 
 
 some attention. An affinity with the Greek aoxis is possible, 
 but not easily proved. "We adduce the word chiefly for the 
 sake of pointing out a remarkable connexion between one 
 set of words denoting sharp or thorny objects, and a second 
 signifying fishes or reptiles, which runs through several 
 languages. The following, inter alia, may serve as a specim- 
 en: Sanscrit, alii , a serpent; Greek, f'^tg, %idva, a vi- 
 per e%tvo$, a hedgehog syxehvs, an eel, (compare Latin 
 anyuis, anguilla Old German unc, a serpent;) Bavarian, 
 ayel, a horse-fly or gadfly; German, eyel, a leech iyel , a 
 hedgehog; Icelandic; eglir , a snake; Gaelic, asc* a ser- 
 pent; easy, an eel; iasy , a fish: Welsh, bal I -ay ,** a porcu- 
 pine; ball-arvy, a hedgehog. The German iyel, hedgehog, 
 (Ang.-Sax. iyil } } is undoubtedly so called from its sharp 
 thorns- (compare Teutonic eyida, a harrow; Latin, occa; 
 Ang.-Sax., eyla , arista, carduus.) 'Eyjtvog is probably of 
 cognate signification. "Eyi, etydva, egel, a leech, and aycl, 
 a gad-fly, seem to derive their names from the sharpness of 
 their bite; y%2.vs and anguilla from the resemblance to a 
 snake. The ancient German eyidehsa, a lizard; Ang. Sax., 
 abfcxe; modern German eidechse, is commonly resolved into 
 eyi-\-dehsa. The analogy of the preceding terms makes us 
 think that it is rather eyida -f- uhsa , or ehsa. The former 
 part of the word either includes the idea of fear, disyusl , or 
 of something sharp or prickly. In this latter case, the name, 
 though not applicable, as far as we know, to our European 
 lizards, would exactly suit the lacerla slellio. It is very pos- 
 sible that the Germans may have brought the name from the 
 East, and applied it to the reptiles they found in Europe, 
 as the lonians named the formidable Egyptian crocodile alter 
 the lizards in their own hedges. Vide Herodot., ii. 69. 
 
 The tyro in etymology may exercise himself in tracing 
 the root ac or ay } through the various tongues in which it 
 occurs, and may observe how the idea of material sharpness 
 is transferred to bodily sensations, and then to mental emo- 
 tions: ex. gr. './/fc , aKKvfta, afti's, a^f^' acuo , acus, actcs, 
 
 - Teut., ekke (edge), ackes (axe); Icel., eyyia (acuere, hor- 
 tari Anglice, to egg on); German, ccke, corner; Bavar., 
 igeln, prurire, (compare Germ, Jucken } Scott, yeuk , Eng. itch,) 
 - acken (to ache), a^og; Ang. Sax., eye, fear eyeslich, hor- 
 rible Eng. iiyty, Icel., ecki, sorrow; Germ., ekel, disgust, 
 cum plurimis aliis. It is possible that Ang. Sax. eye, an 
 
 * Halliimshire people still sometimes call an adder ;ni anker. Ki>. 
 ** Asy, a splinter; awch, awg, sharpness, keenness. Omen's Welsh Dic- 
 tionary.
 
 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 65 
 
 eye, may be of the same family. Compare the Latin phrase 
 acies oculorum. 
 
 c AWBELL. A kind of tree, impossible to state the exact spe- 
 cies -not observed in the cognate languages. Stevenson. 
 
 Evidently the abele= poplar,* found in German and its 
 dialects under the forms alber , albboom, ubelen, abelke, albe. 
 The cognate languages occupy a very large field, of which our 
 etymologists have only explored a few corners; they should, 
 therefore, be cautious how they make general assertions res- 
 pecting them. 
 AWK , 1 
 
 ALOORKE, 
 
 ASKEW, J- Oblique, awry, left, &c. 
 
 ASLET, ASLOWTE, 
 ASOSH, 
 
 We class these words , all of which convey the same rad- 
 ical idea, together; chiefly as a text for a long dissertation 
 on right and left. Respecting Tooke's etymology of the for- 
 mer word, (that which is ordered or commanded,} we shall 
 briefly observe that it is at once refuted by a comparison 
 with the Greek op^os, our own upright , and the Lower Sax- 
 on comparative form recliter.. Apparently, Tooke was not 
 aware that the phrase right hand was introduced into the 
 Teutonic tongues at a comparatively recent period. It oc- 
 curs once or twice in the Anglo-Saxon Gospel of Nicodemus, 
 but is totally unknown in the Old German and Scandina- 
 vian languages. The common Anglo-Saxon term is stvithre , 
 q. d. maims fortior but there is an older form in Csedmon ; 
 teso, the affinities of which are worth observing: Sanscrit, 
 dakshinn\ Gr. de&og, ds^tre^os ; Lat. dexter, Lithuanian, 
 deszine; Gothic, taihswo; Old German, zeso, zesrvo; Irish and 
 Gaelic, (lefts (whence deasil}] Welsh, deJieu ; words all indub- 
 itably of the same origin. That right simply means straight, 
 direct, will, we think, appear from the application of its 
 opposite left, which, we venture to affirm, never means the 
 remaining hand. The following synonyms from the cognate 
 languages may serve to exercise the ingenuity of our readers, 
 and to show how boldly Tooke could draw a sweeping con- 
 clusion from very scanty premises. 
 
 Goth. hleiduma\ Icelandic, Old German, and Ang. -Sax. 
 vinslrf, n'inistar, tvinsfai", Swedish, laella; Danish, keit, kavet; 
 Belg. lufte, German and its dialects, abig, absch, affig, arvech, 
 giibisch, ylink, letz, link , lucht '. hichter, lurk, lurz, schenk, slink, 
 
 * The name is properly restricted to the white poplar (populus alba.} ED. 
 
 5
 
 06 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 
 
 sluur, schwude; besides a multitude of minor variations.' 
 Leaving some of the above terms to the disciples of Tooke, 
 we shall observe in general , that the numerous words de- 
 noting left may be classed under two leading ideas defi- 
 ciency and deviation. Of the first, we have a plain instance 
 in the Italian memo manca. The second is clearly percept- 
 ible in the Greek Gxcuog , denoting oblique,* left, and also 
 by an obvious metaphor, foolish, awkward, rude; compare 
 Lat. sccevus, Icel. skeifr , oblique, Dan. skiev , Germ, schief, 
 and our own askew, together with the apparently collateral 
 forms GxEkka , to warp; tfxo/Udj, GxahrjvoSi Scot, and Yorksh. 
 skellered, warped by drought; Danish skele , to squint (Sco- 
 tice, to skellie), and perhaps aslowle and asleet. The ancient 
 gloss in Graff's Diutiska, awikke, devia, shows that the same 
 idea is contained in the provincial German awech, a dialec- 
 tical variety of the forms dbig , affig, &c. The English coun- 
 terpart awk, anciently, as appears from the Promptorium 
 Parvulorum, left, more generally denoted inversion or per- 
 version; awk end; awk stroke, i. e. a back stroke (Ital. 
 un riverso); and the adjective awkward. With the prefix ye 
 it became gawk, gawky, left-handed, clumsy, evidently the 
 origin of gauche, a word which has greatly distressed the 
 French etymologists. The common German term link is ap- 
 parently connected with lenken, to bend, turn; compare tin- 
 quo, obliquus, and perhaps Af^piog, AixQitpi's. The Bavarian 
 denk is remarkable as an instance of the interchange of / 
 with d, parallel with daxQv, lacruma; dingua (ap. Varro), 
 lingua. The Belgic and Lower Saxon luffe, luchl, /itchier, 
 show that their English sister left is not from leave, at least 
 not its past participle. The true origin is in nubibus if 
 any body can honestly connect it with Aai'og and Icevus , ** or 
 with the root of the German link we have no great ob- 
 jection. The Old German lurk furnishes an etymon not 
 only for aloorke, awry, but also for lurk, latere, clam sub- 
 ducere se, (compare Belg. slink, left, with our slink away,} 
 for lurch, the lateral heave of a ship, and lurcher. The Ba- 
 varian form lurz also denotes the loss of a double game at 
 cards, whence our term, lose one's lurch left in the lurch. 
 The Gothic hleiduma is in the superlative form (compare 
 Lat. dexlimus) ; it is apparently connected with the Gaelic 
 and Irish cli, cliih, Armoric cley, left', the old German kleif, 
 
 * Passow, vir magnus, sed qui in etymologia parum videbat, n.akes Iffl 
 the primary signification of GXKIOS, and oblique the remotest, an evident 
 hysteron-proteron. 
 
 ** Compare icctpos, left handed (ap. Hesychium).
 
 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 67 
 
 oblique; and perhaps with xAt'i/a, xfarvg, and clivus. The 
 form irinistur , with its kindred by far the most prevalent 
 in Old German, Anglo-Saxon, and Scandinavian nas been 
 commonly referred to van , defectus. We suspect it to be the 
 Sanscrit and Bengali warn, left, with a comparative suffix. 
 Asosh may possibly be connected with the Welsh astv, asrvys 
 = left, or osff = oblique; but however this may be, we have 
 little doubt that asiv is legitimately descended from the Sans- 
 crit sawya. Schwude, a term used by German waggoners, 
 bears a strong resemblance to the Welsh chwilh. 
 
 We have dwelt a little on this subject, in order to show 
 the copiousness of the Germanic tongues , and the connexion 
 between the different branches of the Indo-European family. 
 
 Ar.MBYR, AWMYR. A measure of uncertain capacity, from 
 amphora , apq>OQSVf. 
 
 Though this etymon has the sanction of Ihre a name 
 never to be mentioned without respect it is nevertheless 
 erroneous. Awmyr is the German eimer, denoting a bucket 
 - and a liquid measure varying in capacity according to 
 the locality anciently empar, i. e., a vessel with a single 
 handle; consequently, to deduce it from a^ifpoQevs & vessel 
 with two handles is like identifying solo with duel. The 
 real counterpart of Ujupoqevg is zwipar; in modern German 
 zuber or zober , a large double-handled vessel containing eight 
 eiincrs; in Lower Saxon tover and tubbe whence our tub. 
 The above etymologies were unknown, even to Adelung, 
 Before the publication of the Old High German glosses. 
 
 BA, BOTH. 
 
 This remarkable word is made the vehicle for two very 
 unfortunate guesses. The Latin bis is not a genitive abso- 
 lute of the Gothic ba, both, but from the Sanscrit dwis, in 
 Greek , dropping the labial, dtg; in Zend and Latin, drop- 
 ping the dental, bis; the Icelandic, more faithful to its ori- 
 gin, exhibits tots var; English, twice. The conjecture that 
 our both is compounded of ba-\-ttva, is instantly shown to be 
 impossible by the German form beide, compared with zrvei. 
 The real genealogy of both is as follows: Sanscrit ub'ha, 
 lib' hem, (whence, inserting the liquid a/tqpw, ambo,') Lettish, 
 abbu, Slavonic, obo, oba; Gothic, by aphseresis, ba, subse- 
 quently enlarged into bajoths (vid. Ulphilas, Matt. ix. 17, 
 Luc. v. 38.); whence the Icelandic. lxidir\ German, beide, 
 Bavarian, baid, bod; English, both. The hypothesis of a 
 Gothic origin of the Latin language, or any considerable portion 
 of it. may be easily demonstrated to be a mere chimera: the 
 languages are connected not by descent, but collaterally. 
 
 5*
 
 68 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 
 
 BAWSAND. Streaked with white on the face , applied to horses 
 and cattle. 
 
 Dr. Jamieson refers this word to Ital. ; ba/zano, while-foiled ] 
 while Mr. Stevenson laboriously endeavours to trace it to 
 the iitnos rpaMos of Belisarius. The readers of their lucu- 
 brations are likely to be in the same predicament as the 
 Breton peasants mentioned bv Madame de Sevigne, who 
 thought their cure's new clock was the gabelle, until they 
 were assured that it was the jubilee. The matter lies on the 
 surface. Brock is a badger; barvsin, ditto; brock -faced (ap. 
 Craven Glossary, and Brockett), marked with white on the 
 face like a badger; barvsirid, ditto. This simple analogy 
 weighs more with us than five hundred pages from the By- 
 zantine historians. 
 
 BLACK -CLOCK. The common black-beetle. -- HaUumshire 
 Glossary. 
 
 The word clock peculiar, we believe, in this sense, to 
 the North- Anglian district is used as a generic term for 
 all coleopterous insects: ex.gr. brown-clock, the cock-chafer, 
 lady-clock, the lady-bird (coccinella seplem punctata), bracken- 
 clock, a species of melolontha, willow-clock , and many others. 
 This might seem a mere arbitrary designation, or local per- 
 version of some more legitimate term. It is, however, a ge- 
 nuine Germanic word, and of remote antiquity, as is shown 
 by the ancient gloss published by Gerbert -- * chuleich , sca- 
 rabajus.' It appears from Schmeller, that kieleck Avas the 
 Bavarian appellation for the scambtfus stercorarius , late in 
 the seventeenth century. The preservation of this term in 
 a remote English province is a good illustration of Hire's 
 excellent aphorism <Non enim ut fungi nascuntur voca- 
 bula.' 
 
 Both Tacitus and Ptolemy describe the Angli as a tribe 
 of Suevi, an account which we believe to be confirmed by 
 the numerous coincidences between the Dialects of South 
 Germany and those of our Anglian and Northumbrian coun- 
 ties. Indeed, we have our reasons for thinking that the 
 language of the Angles was in many respects more a German 
 than a Saxon dialect, and that it differed from the speech 
 of Kent, Sussex, and Wessex, both in words and grammar.* 
 We expect that the publication of the Durham and Rush- 
 worthian glosses will either confirm or disprove this con- 
 jecture. 
 
 * On the distinction between the Angles and the Saxons, see Dr. Don- 
 aldson's valuable contribution to the second volume of the Cambridge 
 Essays. ED.
 
 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 69 
 
 HELDER or ELDER , sooner (rather). Perhaps from the word 
 older. Halifax Glossary, ap. Hunter. 
 
 'ETVpokoyia ypccwdftfTcm? ! The cognate languages show 
 that hdder is the true orthography , consequently the word 
 has nothing to do with old. It might seem most obvious to 
 refer it to the Icelandic helldur, potius, proclivius } with which 
 it agrees pretty exactly both in form and meaning. But so 
 few Scandinavian particles have become naturalized among 
 us, that it is safer to have recourse to the Saxon form ge- 
 ha'ldre, absurdly derived by Lye from htelan, to heal. The 
 true root is hald acclivis; Icelandic Imldr. Compare, 
 Suabian, haldcn, a declivity, halden, to slope ; Upper Austrian, 
 hiilder, hdtter, rather, sooner; German, hold, huld, &c. The 
 analogy between these words and the Latin clivus, proclivis, 
 proclivius, is sufficiently evident, both in the primary sense 
 of the terms as attributes of material objects, and their se- 
 condary application to denote operations or affections of the 
 mind. 
 
 GAR. To cause, make. Jamieson, Brockelt, Craven Glossary. 
 This word may be regarded as the Shibboleth of a lan- 
 
 uage wholly or partially Scandinavian. The Germans and 
 axons regularly employ machen, macan, which, in its turn, 
 is unknown in pure Norse. Garon, to prepare, used by Ot- 
 fried, has been long obsolete; a descendant, however, exists 
 in gerlen , to tan leather , formerly gararven. The root of 
 the Icelandic verb gora appears to exist in the Sanscrit kri, 
 facere; Persian, kefden; Greek, XQaiva, Latin, cra>; and 
 the gipsy gerraf Imper. gcrr. undoubtedly of Oriental 
 extraction. Mr. Boucher, in his remarks under ' bamboozle', 
 confounds the gipsy language with the flash of our thieves 
 and pickpockets, not knowing apparently that this remark- 
 able race have a regularly constructed tongue, with eight 
 cases to its nouns, and more inflections for its verbs than 
 we ourselves can boast of. We are not going to digress into 
 an analysis of it, but shall merely observe that the name 
 by Avhich they call themselves, Smle, (i. e., people of SindJ 
 bears an odd resemblance to that of the ancient inhabitants 
 of Lemnos, the Ztivnes dygiorpajvoi of Homer, commonly 
 supposed to be a tribe of Pelasgi. An intrepid antiquary, 
 capable of seeing a long way into a millstone, might patch 
 up a fraternity between the two , by some such process as 
 the following. The Pelasgi were an Oriental race the 
 ZivTiig were Pelasgians Lemnos , the place of their abode, 
 was the workshop of Vulcan the present Sinte, also 
 Oriental, have from time immemorial exercised the trade of
 
 70 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 
 
 tinkers; ergo, &c. As Gobbet used to say we do not vouch 
 
 for the fact. 
 
 LATE, or LEAT. To search or seek; Icelandic, leyla \lcitci\. 
 Recte! This word will enable us to correct an erroneous 
 
 interpretation of Sir Tristrem : - 
 
 * Wha Avad Icsinges layl 
 
 Tharf him ne further go ' 
 
 which lait Dr. Jamieson renders c give heed to. ' The mean- 
 ing evidently is, 'He who would seek after falsehoods needs 
 not to go any further.' The term lail, familiar to the in- 
 habitants of the English northern counties , is, we believe, 
 wholly unknown in Scotland proper; affording a presump- 
 tive argument, that the poem in which it occurs was written 
 to the south of the Tweed. This we believe to have been 
 the case with several other metrical romances usually claimed 
 as Scottish. It is not sufficient for those who make this 
 claim to show that they exhibit many words commonly em- 
 ployed in Scotland, unless they can also produce a number 
 that were never used in England. 
 
 'LATHE, a barn.' Craven Glossary. 
 
 From the Danish lade. It is well known that Chaucer puts 
 this word in the mouth of one of his north country clerks 
 in the 'Reeve's Tale,' who, as the narrator informs us, 
 were of a town hight Strolher. Dr. Jamieson, deceived by 
 the Northumbrian words employed by the speakers, boldly 
 claims them as Scots, and maintains that Strothcr is cert- 
 ainly Anstruthcr in Fife. We say, certainly not: but, as 
 Dr. Whitaker long ago observed in his History of Craven, 
 Long Strother in the West Riding of Yorkshire. This may 
 be proved inter alia- by the word lathe, common in York- 
 shire and its immediate borders, but never heard in Scot- 
 land. Long Strother, or Longstroth* dale, is not a town, 
 but a district, in the north-west part of the deanery of Craven, 
 where the Northumbrian dialect rather preponderates over 
 the Anglian. Chaucer undoubtedly copied the language of 
 some native; and the general accuracy with which he gives 
 
 * This appellation exhibits a curious jumble of Celtic and Teutonic. 
 Strother appears to have originally been Strath-fur , the long valley. The 
 present form is a good example of the difference between the Celtic and 
 Teutonic idioms. By the way the oddest .specimen of the jumbling of those 
 dialects that we know of occurs in the name of the mountain at the head of 
 the Yarrow, viz. Mounfltenjerlaw. lien- y air, or Ben- farrow, was no 
 doubt the old Celtic name, and the Romanized Provincials and the Danes 
 successively gave the Mont and the Laiv, both of which superfluities tire 
 now preserved incumulo. [See 'alsoBrindon Hill in Somersetshire. Bryn.W. 
 dun, Sax. Hill, English, all meaning alike. N.]
 
 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 71 
 
 it, shows that he was an attentive observer of all that passed 
 around him. 
 
 We subjoin an extract from the poem, in order to give 
 our readers an opportunity of comparing southern and 
 northern English, as they co-existed in the fifteenth 
 century. It is from a MS. that has never been collated; but 
 which we believe to be well worthy the attention of any 
 future editor of the Canterbury Tales. The italics denote 
 variations from the printed text: 
 
 c John higlite that oon and Aleyn highte that other : 
 
 Of oo toun were tliei born that highte Strother, 
 
 Ffer in the north I can not tellen where. 
 
 This Aleyn maketh recly al his gere 
 
 And on an hors the sak he caste anoon. 
 
 Fforth goth Aleyn the clerk and also John , 
 
 With good swerde and bokeler by his side. 
 
 John knewe the weye hym nedes no gide ; 
 
 And atte melle the sak a down he layth. 
 
 Aleyn spak first : Al heyle , Symond in fayth 
 
 How fares thi fayre daughter and thi wyf ? 
 
 Aleyn welcome quod Symkyn be my lyf - 
 
 And John also how now, what do ye here? 
 
 By God , quod John Symond , nede has na pere. 
 
 Hym bihoves to serve him self that has na swayn; 
 
 Or ellis he is a fool as clerkes sayn. 
 
 Oure maunciple I hope he wil be ded 
 
 Swa iverkes hym ay the wanges in his heed. 
 
 And therefore is I come and eek Aleyn 
 
 To grynde oure corn , and carye it hum agayne. 
 
 I pray yow spedes* us heihen that ye may. 
 
 It shal be done, quod Symkyn, by my fay ! 
 
 What wol ye done while it is in hande? 
 
 By God, right by the boper wol I stande , 
 
 Quod John, and see horv gates the corn gas inne; 
 
 Yil sangh I never , by my fader kynne , 
 
 How that the bopcr wagges till and fra ! 
 
 Aleyn answorde John wil ye swa? 
 
 Than wil I be bynethe , by my crown , 
 
 And se how gales the mele falles down 
 
 In til the trough that sal be my disport. 
 
 Quod John In faith , I is of youre sort 
 
 I is as ille a meller as are ye. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 And when the mele is sakked and ybounde, 
 * Appareutly a lapsus calami for spede.
 
 72 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 
 
 This John goth out and fynt his hors away 
 And gan to crie , harrow , and wele away! 
 Our hors is lost Aleyn , for Godde's banes , 
 Stepe on thi feet come of man attanes ! 
 Alias , oure wardeyri has his palfrey lorn ! 
 This Aleyn al forgat bothe mele and corn 
 Al was out of his myride, his housbonderie. 
 What whilke way is he goon ? he gan to crie. 
 The wyf come lepynge in at a ren; 
 She saide Alias , youre hors goth to the fen 
 With wylde mares, as faste as he may go. 
 Unthank come on his hand that band him so 
 And he that bel sholde have knet the reyne. 
 Alas, quod John, Alayn, for Criste's peyne, 
 Lay down thiswerde, and I tvil myn alswaj 
 
 I is ful swift God wat as is a ra 
 
 By Goddes hcrle he sal nougt scape us bathe. 
 Why ne hadde thou put the capel in the lathe? 
 
 II hayl, by God , Aleyn, thou is fonne. ' 
 
 Excepting the obsolete forms he then (hence), srva, lorn, 
 whilke, alswa, capel all the above provincialisms are still, 
 more or less, current in the north -west part of Yorkshire. 
 Na, ham(e), fra, banes, allanes, ra, bathe, are pure North- 
 umbrian. Wang (cheek or temple) is seldom heard, except 
 in the phrase wang tooth, dens molar is. Ill, adj., for bad 
 lathe (barn) 'and fond (foolish) are most frequently and 
 familiarly used in the West Riding, or its immediate borders. 
 Several of the varice lecliones are preferable to the corres- 
 ponding ones in the printed text, especially the line - 
 
 c I is as ill a meller as are ye. ' 
 
 Now Tyrwhitt's reading, c as is ye,' is a violation of idiom 
 which no Yorkshireman would be gnilty of. The apparently 
 ungrammatical forms, / is, thou is, are in exact accordance 
 with the present practice of the Danes, who inflect their 
 verb substantive as follows : 
 
 Sing. Plur. 
 
 Jeg er, Vi ere, 
 
 Du er, I ere, 
 
 Han er, Do ere. 
 
 In Yorkshire. 
 
 Sing. Plur. 
 
 I is, We are , 
 
 Thou is , Ye are , 
 
 He is, They are.
 
 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 73 
 
 It is worth observing, that the West Riding dialect ex- 
 hibits, at least, as great a proportion of Scandinavian terms 
 as the speech of the more northern districts. This we re- 
 gard as a proof that Anglian -and Northumbrian were distinct 
 dialects prior to the Danish invasion. We subjoin a specimen 
 of the Northumbrian dialect as it existed in the fifteenth 
 century, extracted from a poem* written by a monk of 
 Fountain's Abbey 
 
 ' In the bygynnyng of the lyf of man , 
 Nine hundreth wynteres he lyffed than. 
 Bot swa gret elde may nan now bere; 
 For sithen man's life become shorter; 
 And the complexion of ilka man 
 Is sithen febeler than was than. 
 Now is it alther febelest to se ; 
 Tharfor man's lyf behoves short be; 
 For ay, the langer that man may lyffe, 
 The mair his lyfe now sal him greve. 
 For als soon as a man is aide, 
 His complexion waxes wayk and calde : 
 Then waxes his herte herde and hevye, 
 And his heade grows febill and dyssie: 
 His gast then waxes sek and sair, 
 And his face rouches mair and mair. 
 * * * * 
 
 Of na thing thar they sail have nede ; 
 
 And without any manner of drede , 
 
 Thai sail noght fare as men fare here, 
 
 AVho live evermair in drege and were. 
 
 For here baith king and emperour 
 
 Have drede to tyne thair honour; 
 
 And ilka ryche man has drede alswa 
 
 His gudes and riches to forgae. 
 
 Bot thai that sail gain heaven's blysse , 
 
 Sail never drede that joy to mysse : 
 
 For thai sail be syker ynoghe thare, 
 
 That thair joy sail last ever mare. ' 
 
 A comparison of these lines with the extracts from Bar- 
 bour and Wyntoun, in Ellis's 'Specimens,' will show the 
 similarity of the language. The diction of the two Scottish 
 writers is in several respects more English than that of the 
 Yorkshireman. 
 
 * Clavis &cientiae, or Bretayne's Skyll-kay of Knowing-, by John de 
 Wageby our specimen is from a publication by W. Jos. Walker, A. D. 
 1816.
 
 74 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 
 
 The difference between the northern and midland dialects 
 will most clearly appear on comparing with the above an 
 extract from that lately recovered and highly curious piece 
 of antiquity , 'Havelok the Dane' 
 
 e The lond he token under ^ote , 
 Ne wisten he non other bote, 
 And helden ay the rithe [ ] * 
 
 Til he komen to Grimesby. 
 Thanne he komen there, thanne was Griinded, 
 Of him ne haveden he no red; 
 But hise children alle fyve 
 Alle weren yet on live ; 
 That ful fay re ayen hem neme , 
 Hwau he wisten that he kerne, 
 And maden ioie swithe mikel, 
 Ne weren he nevere ayen hem fikel. 
 On knes ful fayre he hem setteu, 
 And Havelok swithe fayre grcttcn, 
 And seyden, "Welkome, loverd dere! 
 And welkomc be thi fayre fere ! 
 Blessed be that ilke thrawe, 
 That thou hire toke in Gode's lawe ! 
 \V el is hus we sen the on lyve, 
 Thou mithe us bothe selle and yeve; 
 Thou mayt us bothe yevc and selle 
 With that thou wilt here dwelle. 
 We haven, loverd, alle gode, 
 Hors, and neth , and ship on flode, 
 Gold, and silver, and michel auchte , 
 That Grim ure fader us bitawchte. 
 Gold , and silver , and other fe , 
 Bad he us bitaken the. 
 We haven shep , we haven swin, 
 Bi leve her, loverd, and all he thin; 
 Tho shalt ben loverd , thou shalt ben syre , 
 And we sholen serven the and hire; 
 And hure sisters sholen do 
 Al that evere biddes sho ; 
 
 He sholen hire clothen, washen , and wringen, 
 And to hondes water bringen; 
 He sholen bedden hire and the, 
 
 * Hiatus: Sir F. Madden conjectures 'wey.' Perhaps 'sti.' Corap. v. 
 2618, 10 
 
 ' He foren softe bi the sli, 
 Til he come ney at Gritnesbi. '
 
 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 75 
 
 For levedi wile we that she be." 
 Hwan he this ioie haveden maked, 
 Sithen stikes broken and kraked , 
 And the fir brouth on brenne; 
 Ne was ther spared gos ne henne, 
 Ne the hende , ne the drake ; 
 Mete he deden plente make , 
 Ne wantede there no god mete; 
 "YVyn and ale dcden he fete, 
 And made hem glad and blithe; 
 Wesseyl ledden he fele sithe.'* 
 
 It would lead us to far to discuss all the dialectical pe- 
 culiarities of this poem, which is on many accounts one of 
 the most remarkable productions of its class. It is easy to 
 see that it is written in a mixed dialect more Mercian 
 than Manning's Chronicle more Anglian than Peirs Plouh- 
 man more northern than G ewer's Confessio Amantis 
 and more strongly impregnated with Danish than any known 
 work of the same period. This blending of different forms 
 renders it probable that the author was a native of East 
 Derbyshire or Leicestershire , where the Mercian and Middle 
 Anglian meet, and where there was a powerful Danish co- 
 lony during many years. The Scandinavian tincture ap- 
 pears, not only in individual words, but in various gram- 
 matical inflexions, and most remarkably in the dropping of 
 the final d after liquids shel, hel, hon, bihel which exactly 
 accords with the present pronunciation of the Danes. The 
 confusion between aspirates and non- aspirates, generally 
 reputed as a cockney ism hure (our), hende (duck, Danish 
 mind, Germ, ente,') eir, ether, is, for heir, hetlter,'his is com- 
 mon to the vulgar throughout the midland counties. The mix- 
 ture of dialects is sometimes exhibited in the same words ; for 
 example, carle (husbandman) and kist (chest) are Anglian 
 forms, and the equivalents cherle, chisl, Mercian. 
 
 We add a short specimen of the present vulgar dialect of 
 Cleveland ; being Margery Moorpoot's reasons for leaving 
 Madam Shrillpipes' service:^- 
 
 c Marry because she ommost flyted an' scau'ded me oot o' my 
 wits. She war t' arrantest scau'd 'at ever I met wi' i' my boorn 
 days. She had sartainly sike a tongue as never war i' ony wo- 
 man's head but her awn. It wad ring, ring, ring, like a larum , 
 frae morn to neet. Then she wad put hersel into sike flusters, 
 'at her feace war as black as t' reckon creukc. Nea, for 't matter 
 
 * Havelok, pp. 66-68, vv. 1109-1246.
 
 76 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 
 
 o' that, I war nobbut reetly sarra'd ; for I war tell'cl aforehancl by 
 some vara sponsiblc fowk, 'at she Avar a mere donnot. '* 
 The resemblance to Scotch is sufficiently obvious. The fol- 
 lowing is a short sample of the Craven dialect. The inter- 
 locutors are deploring the ignorance of some grouse-shoot- 
 ers, who did not know what to make of Yorkshire oat- 
 cakes : 
 
 * Giles. Thou sees plainly how th' girt fonlin didn't 'ken what 
 havver cakes war. 
 
 * Bridget. Noa, barn, lie teuk''cm, as they laid o't fleak, for 
 round bis o' leather. I ax'd him to taste it; an seca taks up 't bee- 
 som start, potters yan down an' keps it i' my appron. He then 
 nepp'd a lile wee nooken on't, not t' validum o' my thoum naal, 
 an' splutterd it out ageean, gloaring gin he war puzzom'd, an' 
 efter aw I could say, I cudnt counsel t' other to taste ayther it or 
 some bannocks.'?* 
 
 It will be perceived that the above is North - Craven , and 
 slightly tinctured with Northumbrian. The proper Anglian 
 terms for ken, seea, yan, gin, ayther are knaw\ sou] one 
 (pron. jvuti); as ?/"; anther. 
 
 As a specimen of the Lancashire dialect, we give Collier's 
 excellent apologue of the tailor and the hedgehog ; just pre- 
 mising that the sage light of the village there pourtraycd is 
 meant as an emblem of a reviewer. 
 
 f A tealyer i' Crummil's time, Avar throng*** poo'ing turmets in 
 his pingot, an' fund an urchon ith' had-lond rean; he glender'd 
 at 'thing, boh cou'd mey noAvt on't. He whoav'd his whisket 
 owr't, runs whoam, an' tells his neighbours he thowt in his guts 
 'at he'd fund a thing 'at God newer mede eawt; for it had nother 
 head nor tele, bond nor hough, midst nor eend. Loath to believe 
 this , hoave a dozen on 'em wou'd geaAv t' see if they cou'd'n 
 mey shift to gawm it; boh it capt 'em aAv; for they newer a Avon 
 on 'em e'er saigh th' like afore. Then they'dn a koawnsil, an' 
 th' eend on 't AVUI-, 'at tey'dn fotch a lawm , fawse, OAvd felly, het 
 an elder, 'at cou'd tell oytch thing, for they look'nt on him as th' 
 hammel scoance, an' theawt he'r fuller o' leet than a glow-worm's 
 tele. When they'dn towd him th' kese, he stroak'd his beard, 
 sowghd an' order' d th' wheelbarroAV Avi' th' spon UCAV tr indie to 
 be fotch't. ' r i\vur done, an' they beawld'n him aAvey to th' urch- 
 on in a crack. He gloard at 't a good while, droyd his beard 
 
 * From the farce of The Register Office. 
 
 ** Craven Dialect, vol. ii. p. 300. 
 
 *** Pronounced thrtmk. In this and the preceding specimens, we have 
 occasionally adjusted the orthography to the English or Scottish standard, 
 where the pronunciation does not materially differ.
 
 ENGLISH DIALECTS. 77 
 
 deawn, an' wawtecl it ow'r wi' his crutch. "Wheel me abeawt 
 agen o' th' tother side," said he, "for it sturs an 1 by that it 
 su'd be whick." Then he dons his spectacles , steared at 't agen, 
 an' sowghing said, "Breether, its summot; boh feather Adam 
 nother did nor cou'd kerson it wheel me whoam agen.'" 
 This resembles Anglian more than Northumbrian but is 
 sufficiently distinct from both. The shibboleth of the three 
 dialects is house, which the Northumbrian pronounces hoose, 
 the North Anglian Moose nearly like au in the Italian 
 flaiito and the inhabitant of South Lancashire in a way 
 quod liter is dicere non est but generally represented in print 
 by heatvse. 
 
 We know no better specimen of the genuine West of 
 England dialect than Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle. The 
 present Somersetshire and Devonshire are more barbarous 
 and ungrammatical than the northern dialects and their 
 distinguishing peculiarities are well known. 
 
 We could extend our remarks on every branch of this 
 copious subject to a much greater length, but the above 
 may suffice specimini* t/ratia. We have perhaps already 
 given our readers cause to twit us with the [irjosv uyv.v of 
 the Grecian sage, and to tell us that our lucubrations on 
 the barbarisms of our provinces are about as acceptable to 
 the public, as the Antiquary's dissertation on Quicken's -bog 
 was to the Earl of Glenallan. However greatly, therefore, 
 we may long to prove that dreigh (tedious) is closely related 
 to doli%6$ } and that leemers } a north-country phrase for ripe 
 nuts, profoundly referred by our glossarists to les mftrs, is 
 more nearly akin to leprosy , we shall for the present be 
 silent about these and other matters of similar importance. 
 As Fontenelle observes, a man whose hand is full of truths, 
 will, if he is discreet, often content himself with opening 
 his little finger. 
 
 * View of the Lancashire Dialect, Introduction.
 
 PKICHAED 
 ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES. 
 
 {Quarterly Review, September, 1830.] 
 
 The Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations proved by a compar- 
 ison of their Dialects with the Sanscrit, Greek, Latin, and 
 Teutonic Languages. By James Cowles Priehard, M.D., 
 F.R.S., &c. Oxford. 8vo. 1831. 
 
 The Cimmerians, says Homer,* dwell at the extremity of 
 the ocean , enveloped in clouds and utter darkness. Some 
 of this darkness appears to have clung to all tribes bearing 
 the name, whether related to each other or not. Were the 
 ancient Cimmerians Celts? were the Cimbri of kindred 
 race ? do the modern Cymry derive their pedigree 7 and 
 consequently their name and language, from the same 
 source? These questions have been boldly answered in the 
 affirmative; and the supporters of this hypothesis have ex- 
 pended a good deal of learning and ingenuity in tracing the 
 march of the Cimmerii from the Euxine to the British chan- 
 nel almost as minutely as Xenophon describes the ad- 
 vance and retreat of the Ten Thousand. We do not mean 
 to say that the theory itself is either false or improbable; 
 but we doubt whether any satisfactory evidence has been 
 brought to prove it. Hitherto the matter rests on a few 
 plausible conjectures and a similarity of names a most fal- 
 lacious argument in all cases. We know that our neigh- 
 bours and fellow-subjects, the modern Cymry, are distinct 
 from oui'selves, both in race and language; but as to their 
 origin and early history, they are still, like their namesakes 
 of old , rjSQi KCil vscpety xexaA,viiu,evoi and likely to re- 
 main so. 
 
 Various attempts have been made to throw light upon the 
 primordia of the people, by means of their language, which, 
 excepting perhaps the Basque, appears to be the most an- 
 cient, the most singularly constructed , and the most true to 
 its original form, of all European tongues. Most of those 
 
 * Odyssey, 1. xi. verses 13 15.
 
 PRICHARD ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES. 79 
 
 attempts have signally failed, owing to the erroneous prin- 
 ciple on which they were undertaken. It was argued that, 
 as the Celts came from the east, they must have spoken an 
 Oriental language; consequently one more or less related to 
 Hebrew the most ancient of Oriental tongues; a complete 
 non s<'(/ui(ur\ It must be admitted that a few remarkable 
 coincidences have been pointed out, but the majority of al- 
 leged resemblances are altogether visionary. It -is very pos- 
 sible that the Celts may have picked up a few* Semitic 
 words in their progress through Asia, especially from the 
 East Aramaean, or Ohaldee, which has interchanged many 
 vocables with Old Persian, and perhaps with other adjoin- 
 ing dialects; but it would be as easy to trace the bulk of 
 the Celtic languages to Formosa or Madagascar, as to the 
 land of Canaan. 
 
 These matters are, however, better understood than they 
 were a century ago. It has been discovered that there are 
 eastern languages of venerable antiquity, totally distinct 
 from Hebrew, but bearing the closest affinity to the prin- 
 cipal European tongues. It is now as certain that Greek, 
 Gothic, and Slavonic are the descendants of some ancient 
 dialect nearly related to Sanscrit, as that Portuguese is de- 
 rived from Latin. The affinity of Celtic to this great family 
 has been doubted, and even flatly denied. Colonel Vans 
 Kennedy, in his elaborate * Researches into the Origin and 
 Affinity of the principal Languages of Asia and Europe,' 
 goes so far as to affirm that 'the British or Celtic language 
 has no connexion with the languages of the East, either in 
 words or phrases, or the construction of sentences, or the 
 pronunciation of letters.' This positive declaration, from a 
 man of undoubted information and research, might seem de- 
 cisive of the question. But when we find that he denies, 
 in equally positive terms, the affinity between Sanscrit and 
 Persian, which Sir William Jones and Professor Bopp have 
 made as clear as the noon-day sun, we may be permitted 
 to suspect that he has, in both cases, pronounced his verdict 
 rather too hastily; and that Celtic may, in forensic language, 
 be fairly entitled to a new trial. Dr. Prichard has under- 
 
 * Two coincidences are worth pointing out, on account of the extensive 
 diffusion of the terms. Syriac N3^a3 (gabino), a ridge or summit; Welsh, 
 ce/n , a ridge, whence Gehenna mons hod, les Cevennes; Chevin, or She- 
 vin, a sleep rocky ridge in Wharfdale. Syriac NT) 3 (turo) mons; Welsh, 
 tor, a protuberance ; twr, a heap or pile. Compare Mount Taurus, in Asia 
 die Tain-en, i. e., the higher Alps in the Tyrol, and the numerous tors 
 in Derbyshire and the West of England.
 
 80 
 
 PRICHARD ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES. 
 
 taken its cause, and as we think, with considerable success. 
 He has not indeed exhausted the subject: nor has he dwelt 
 upon the remarkable difference between Celtic and the lan- 
 guages more obviously related to Sanscrit, so much as he 
 fairly might have done. But he has, to a certain extent, 
 proved his point , and is entitled to the merit of being the 
 first who has investigated the origin of the Celtic tongues 
 in a rational and scientiiic manner. If we are not mistaken, 
 one part of his researches throws a new and most important 
 light on the formation of language. This we shall advert 
 to more fully in the sequel, especially as the author himself 
 does not seem fully aware of the consequences deducible 
 from his statements. 
 
 The main strength of the Doctor's case seems to lie in the 
 analogy which he has established between the numerals, the 
 names of persons, and degrees of kindred, and of the most 
 ordinary natural objects, in the Celtic dialects, and in the 
 class of languages with which he compares them. Words 
 of this description are of remote antiquity, and commonly of 
 indigenous growth 5 since we cannot suppose that any people 
 endued with the faculty of language could be long without 
 them. Yet the coincidences between the two classes are too 
 numerous and too striking to be the effect of accident; and, 
 as Dr. Prichard well observes, the Celtic cognates appeal- 
 under a peculiarity of form, which is the surest test of ge- 
 nuineness. For example : it is undisputable that the Sanscrit 
 stvasurah (father-in-law), Russian svekor, German sclm-aycr , 
 Latin socer,* Greek exvyog, and Welsh chrvegrivn, arc of 
 common origin, and equally so that they are, in no instance, 
 borrowed words, but formed, independently of each other, 
 from the same primeval term, according to the genius and 
 organic peculiarities of the respective tongues. Many of the 
 adjectives and common verbal roots, adduced by Dr. Prich- 
 ard, are undoubtedly akin to each other; but some of his 
 examples, we fear, only resemble each other in sound. The 
 proof derived from pronouns and particles would have been 
 more complete, if they had been more minutely analysed; 
 but perhaps the nature of those important words was not so 
 well understood five or six years ago as it is at present. 
 The Celtic personal terminations of verbs are undoubtedly 
 formed on the same principle as the Sanscrit and Greek, as 
 well as of similar materials. We think the perfect identity of 
 the two classes is rather questionable; but we do not con- 
 
 * Terence's Hecyra, compared with socrus, is an obvious instance of the 
 difference between an imported and a vernacular word.
 
 PRICHARD ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES- 81 
 
 sider the evidence supplied by the Celtic tongues less val- 
 uable, because it is of an independent nature. In one im- 
 portant point a real and fundamental difference seems to 
 have been mistaken for a resemblance. The permutations 
 of initial and final consonants in Welsh and Sanscrit are, 
 upon the whole, correctly stated; but we fear the analogy 
 attempted to be established between the two is hardly so 
 good as Fluellen's parallel between Macedon and Momnouth. 
 The case may be briefly stated as follows: --In Welsh, 
 initial consonants are changed into others of the same organ, 
 to denote a diversity of logical or grammatical relation: in 
 Sanscrit, finals are changed exclusively for the sake of euphony ; 
 that is to say, the change is made in a different manner, 
 and on a radically different principle. It is true that final 
 consonants are occasionally commuted in Welsh, and initials, 
 though in but few instances, in Sanscrit. These permuta- 
 tions are, however, in both cases, of little consequence, 
 and depend upon partial, not general, laws. It is hardly 
 fair or philosophical to deduce leading analogies from a few 
 trivial exceptions. 
 
 In the statement of initial permutations in Erse, there 
 appears to be a small oversight. Dr. Prichard observes that, 
 in this language, each consonant appears in two forms only, 
 termed the plain and the aspirated. Apparently he was not 
 aware of a further modification produced by what the Irish 
 grammarians call eclipsis, that is, by a prefixed consonant 
 usurping, as it were, the office of the original one. Thus, 
 Italic (town) appears not only in the aspirated form bhaile 
 (pronounced vaile) , but also in the eclipsed form mbaile, pro- 
 nounced maile, exactly analogous to bara, vara } .mara (bread), 
 in Welsh. Clumsy as this orthography seems, it has the 
 advantage of showing the primary initial, which persons, 
 imperfectly versed in Welsh, cannot always readily find. It 
 might also have been observed that in Manks, commonly 
 regarded as an Erse dialect, most of the initial consonants 
 have three different forms. 
 
 In another instance Dr. Prichard seems disposed to adopt 
 a conclusion not quite warranted by his premises. As it re- 
 lates to a point of some consequence in tracing the analogy 
 of languages, we shall quote the passage at length. 
 
 'It is to be observed that H never stands as the initial of a 
 word in Erse in the primitive form, or is never, in fact, an inde- 
 pendent radical letter. It is merely a secondary form, or repre- 
 sentative, of some other initial, viz., F or S. It must likewise he 
 noticed that the same words which begin with S or F, as their 
 primitive initial in the Erse, taking H in their secondary form, 
 
 6
 
 82 PRICHAUD ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES. 
 
 have, in Welsh, 11 as their primitive initial. This fact affords an 
 instance exactly parallel to the substitution in Greek of the 
 rough and soft breathings for the JEolic digamma , and in other 
 words for the sigma. Oi'va), as it is well known, stands for /otVo), 
 KamQog for ftons^o^ , and ema probably replaced a more ancient 
 form of the same word, viz., Gema; stands for tfti; vg and 
 Q7ro> for 6vg and G^OTTOO. These instances might lead us to sup- 
 pose, as Edward Lhuyd had long ago observed, that the Greek 
 language had originally a regular mutation of initial consonants, 
 similar to that of the Celtic: though it was lost, except in these 
 instances, or rather, as pointed out by these vestiges, previously 
 to the invention of letters. ' pp. 31, 32. 
 
 Now, supposing that Gtitra. and itra\ oivos and olvog , 
 were once contemporary forms in the same dialect of the Greek 
 language, a proposition which it might be rather difficult 
 to prove this would be far from amounting to c a regular 
 mutation of initial consonants, similar to the Celtic.' In 
 Celtic the different forms are used, according to certain 
 fixed rules, to denote different grammatical relations. In 
 Manks, for example, sooill (an eye) in the vocative, and 
 after certain prepositions, becomes hooill; and shassoo (to 
 stand) is, in a variety of constructions, converted into 
 hassoo. But do we find any such limitations in the employ- 
 ment of 6v and ug? or have we any proof that certain 
 tenses or moods of avdooco regularly had the digamma, 
 while others as regularly wanted it? In Greek, and the lan- 
 guages allied to it, a mixture of forms either denotes a 
 blending of dialects, or a transition- state of the language. 
 Herodotus employs Gvs and vg indifferently; more recent 
 prose-writers use only the latter. The classical language of 
 Upper Saxony, chiefly derived from Southern or Upper Ger- 
 man, has a number of duplicate forms from the Lower 
 Saxon, and sometimes employs the two classes indiscrimin- 
 ately. But variations of this sort bear no analogy to per- 
 mutations like pen, head; eiben, his head; eiphcn, her head; 
 vy mhen, my head. The entire system is, as far as we 
 know, peculiar to the Celtic tongues, and it exhibits a phe- 
 nomenon as curious as it is difficult to account for.* In many 
 
 * We are persuaded that this Celtic process is essentially the Sanscrit 
 Sandhi, the only difference being that in Sanscrit the final letter of a word is 
 influenced by the initial of the next word , and in Celtic the initial is in- 
 fluenced by the final preceding. Instead of lal murnri, orthattaama, an Indian 
 would write Ian murari and shun mama. A Welshman says Yn Xnw instead of 
 ynDuw, and sailk vdynedd instead of snilh lili/nedd. In the last example the 
 influence of a nasal in saith (septem) remains, although the sound itself lias 
 disappeared. It would require a long dissertation to demonstrate the changes
 
 PRICHARD ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES. 83 
 
 cases these changes serve as substitutes for Greek and Latin 
 terminations: e. gr., in Irish, geal is pulcher , gheal, pulchra; 
 mor j magnus; mhor, magnet; masc., crann mor , great tree; 
 fem., clock mhor , great stone. A careful comparative analysis 
 of the different Celtic dialects might, perhaps, furnish some 
 clue to the mystery. 
 
 We could point out many discrepancies between the Cym- 
 ric branch of the Celtic, and what the German philologists 
 call the Indo-European family -viz. Sanscrit, Zend, Greek, 
 Latin, Gothic, Slavonic, Lithuanian, with their descendants 
 -we will, however, content ourselves with briefly indicat- 
 ing three of the most obvious. 
 
 1. In the latter* class of languages, substantives, adject- 
 ives, and pronouns, have a neuter gender a feature which, 
 we believe, distinguishes them from all others. At least, 
 there are no traces of any such thing in the Semitic, Celtic, 
 Polynesian, or any other family of tongues which we have 
 had an opportunity of examining. / ( j(/ 0~A 
 
 2. They have also comparative and superlative degrees 
 not only parallel in signification but of cognate origin, 
 being all clearly connected with one or the other of the two 
 leading forms in Greek TE QOS raros (or Latin timus] ; 
 icov iGrog. The Welsh forms are equivalent in signification, 
 but of totally different structure. Even Menage would hardly 
 have ventured to class flu, duach, duaf (black, blacker, black- 
 est] , with any Greek or Latin paradigm. The Erse dialects, 
 which form their comparative and superlative by means of 
 prefixed particles (e. gr., geal, white; tiios gile, more white; 
 as (jile , most white) are still more remote. 
 
 3. In AVelsh and Armoric, nouns and adjectives have, pro- 
 perly speaking, no cases, the different relations of words to 
 each other being either denoted by the collocation, by a 
 change of initials, or by the employment of particles. The 
 few inflexions of Erse nouns bear no analogy to those of the 
 Indo-European class, with the exception of the dative plural 
 in bh } which, as Dr. Prichard observes, presents a remark- 
 able resemblance to the Sanscrit bhyam, and Latin bus. The 
 Doctor regards the AVelsh as having lost its inflexions: we 
 are inclined to think that it never had them, and that in this 
 
 to the sonant and aspirate , but it is believed that it would not be a very 
 difficult task. N. 
 
 * This, of course , does not apply to English, Italian, &c., which have 
 lost their distinctive terminations. However , they still exhibit traces of 
 it in the pronouns. It is remarkable that in Lithuanian -a language in 
 many respects most closely allied to Sanscrit the neuter gender is retained 
 in adjectives and pronouns, but not in substantives. 
 
 6*
 
 84 PRICHARD ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES. 
 
 and several other respects , it manifests a more primeval 
 structure than the languages of the Erse family. * There are 
 some plausible grounds for conjecturing that most of the ter- 
 minations in Greek and its kindred are of comparatively re- 
 cent origin; and that, before these existed, grammatical re- 
 lations were expressed in a way somewhat analogous to the 
 Celtic process of modifying the sense of words by a change 
 of their radical vowels. This appears , inter alia, in the form- 
 ation of particles from pronominal roots e. yr., Welsh pa, 
 who, or what pe , if po, by how much (quo. quanta} 
 prvy , to. This is not unlike the changes in the vowels of 
 the Latin pronouns hie and qui, for which the German phi- 
 lologists account by supposing them to be formed from se- 
 veral distinct roots > ha, hi, ho, hu, &c. We regard this 
 supposition as both improbable and unnecessary, and think 
 it much more likely that the vowels were changed to express 
 a difference of grammatical relation. It is possible, that the 
 strong inflections in Greek and German verbs, Gitsiga, 
 6HBQG), sGitaQov , EffxoQtt ; Germ, ipres.finde, pret. fund, part. 
 ge-funden, &c., may have partly originated in a similar prin- 
 ciple. We say partly , as there is reason to believe that some 
 of them are merely euphonic. 
 
 Upon the whole we are of opinion that the affinity be- 
 tween Celtic and the Indian family of languages is only par- 
 tial, and that the ancestors of the Cymry in particular, must 
 have been separated from the primeval stock, long before 
 Sanscrit existed in anything like its present form. Indeed, 
 Dr. Prichard himself has made out a much stronger case for 
 the Germanic and Slavonic tongues , than for those which he 
 professedly treats of. In one family, the affinity is chiefly 
 in small classes of words, or individual terms; in the others, 
 it pervades the whole structure of the respective languages. 
 
 * The enlarged acquaintance with ancient Celtic which we owe mainly to 
 Zeuss* enables us to reply to the objections in the three paragraphs here 
 numbered. 1. The Celtic had a neuter gender. In Irish nouns its chief 
 characteristic was the identity of the nominative , accusative and vocative 
 cases singular, and the plural termination in a; this is like Latin and 
 Greek. In Welsh the demonstrative liyn is neuter, as distinct from hwn, 
 m. and fion, fern. 2. The old Irish comparative ended in ilhir or I'M, and the 
 superlative in em or emem, usisil, inlin , inlimem , Zeuss p. 282; clearly ana- 
 logous to Latin. The oldest Welsh superlative was duam from du, like Latin 
 /'acilimus] ditach probably came from duas, like theGothic comparative. Zeuss 
 p. 305. For the Irish cases yet in use, another, close connection with those 
 of the Indo-Germanic tongues , see a paper by Hermann Ebel in Kuhn und 
 Schleicher's Beitrage zur vergleichenden Sprachforschung, 1857, pp. 159 
 187. Of the Cymrii class the Cornish had the genitive case made by a change 
 of a to e, or e to y; aamarh, a horse, merh; pen, head, pyn. See Lhuyd's 
 ArchieologiaBritannica. p. 242. N.
 
 PRICHARD ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES. 85 
 
 Nevertheless, though Dr. Prichard may have attempted to 
 prove too much, he deserves praise for establishing a point 
 which had eluded the researches of his predecessors, and 
 which may eventually prove a valuable contribution towards 
 the history of the human race. We feel no disposition to 
 cavil at occasional errors of detail which we have noticed in 
 the course of the work, especially as the data necessary for 
 correcting them were in many instances unknown when he 
 wrote it. In the case of another edition being called for , 
 an attentive study of Bopp's f Comparative Grammar,' and 
 Pott's 'Etymological Researches,' would, as we think, in- 
 duce him to alter or modify some of his conclusions, as well 
 as enable him to supply some deficiencies. We cannot, how- 
 ever, refrain from expressing a . wish that he had omitted 
 the parallel between the Indo-European and the Semitic lan- 
 guages, in which, we fear, he succeeds no better than the 
 multitudes who had made the same attempt before him. In 
 nearly every instance the identity of the terms compared is 
 questionable, and in many it is demonstrably imaginary. 
 We will content ourselves with examining a couple of ex- 
 amples which, at first sight, appear very plausible. In Chal- 
 dee, ^nbn (tlithay) denotes third (tertius), and this, it must 
 be allowed, looks and sounds very like the Sanscrit tritaya. 
 But when we learn that, in the Chaldee word, the third con- 
 sonant belongs to the root (nbn, three) and in the Indian 
 term to the termination like the Greek TQI ralos we 
 immediately discern a material difference between them. This 
 becomes still more conspicuous upon comparing the Sanscrit 
 tri, or Greek tgsls , with the Hebrew uiVd (shelosh), of 
 which the Chaldee word is merely a dialectical form. Again : 
 our English wrong is compared to the Hebrew y-i, evil. 
 Supposing, for argument's sake, that the latter ought, as 
 Dr. Prichard represents it, to be pronounced rong , and its 
 original import to be perverted, distorted, still nothing is 
 gained, unless it could be shown to be connected with the 
 Anglo-Saxon verb wringan torquere , from which our Eng- 
 lish adjective is notoriously derived. The following consi- 
 derations are, we think, sufficient to show the futility of all 
 attempts to establish a close affinity between the two classes. 
 In the Semitic tongues, the great bulk of the roots are trilit- 
 eral , independently of the vowels necessary for articulating 
 them. They must in many cases be at least disyllables, and 
 may, for aught we know, have been originally trisyllabic. 
 The Sanscrit roots, on the other hand, are uniformly mono- 
 syllables frequently a single consonant followed or preceded 
 by a vowel, and rarely comprising more than a vowel and
 
 86 PRICHAIID ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES. 
 
 two consonants. They ; therefore, who maintain that Sans- 
 crit and Hebrew were originally identical, must either ad- 
 mit that the radical terms in the former language have been 
 mutilated by wholesale, or that those of the latter have gained 
 additional elements, i. e., are in reality compound words.* 
 Admitting the possibility of all this, still it is clear that no- 
 thing can be done in the way of comparative analysis, until 
 it is shown which of the two suppositions is the true one.** 
 
 We now proceed, according to our promise, to consider 
 the light which Dr. Prichard's researches appear to have 
 thrown on the formation of language in general, at least of 
 such languages as resemble the Indo - European and Celtic 
 families in structure. The Semitic tongues furnish a few 
 valuable analogies and general principles ; and it is probable, 
 that a partial connexion exists between them and the Japhetic 
 class. A few names of natural objects are alike in each; 
 and occasionally a resemblance, either real or apparent, may 
 be traced in the pronouns and particles. Nearly all beyond 
 this is mere conjecture, or assertion without proof; and we 
 wish our readers to bear in mind that much of what we are 
 going to say is inapplicable, or at best of doubtful appli- 
 cation, to Hebrew and its cognates. To make our argument 
 more intelligible, we shall begin with a few preliminary re- 
 marks on radical or primitive words. We do not profess, 
 like Monboddo or Murray, to develope their origin, but merely 
 to offer an opinion respecting their nature. 
 
 We observed, on a former occasion, that the manner in 
 which philology has hitherto been studied, has proved one of the 
 most serious obstacles to its advancement. This we believe to 
 be signally the case with respect to what is commonly called 
 universal grammar. Most of those who have undertaken to 
 investigate its principles have gone the wrong way to work , 
 and instead of carefully analyzing language to discover what 
 it actually is, they set about demonstrating, a priori , what 
 it ought to be. For example, we are told by reputable 
 authors, that the mind of man is conscious of simple exist- 
 ence, whence the verb to be, 'the root of all other expres- 
 sion/ and that it is capable of sensations and emotions, to 
 express which, men invented verbs passive. Again: mankind 
 
 * This composition must , if it ever took place at all, have been effected 
 before the Assyrians, Hebrews, Arabs, and Ethiopians, became distinct 
 peoples. Allowing for dialectical variations , all have the same triliteral 
 roots. 
 
 ** Semitic philologists have shown that a large number of the apparently 
 triliteral roots are really biliteral; the so-called triliterals are not necessarily, 
 compound words , unless we would consider stay, stand, and stop , to be 
 compounds. N.
 
 PRICHARD ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES. 87 
 
 have an active principle of will, or volition, the operations 
 of which they denote by verbs active, manufactured for the 
 purpose; and as an act implies an efficient cause , they found 
 it necessary to represent that cause by a personal pronoun. 
 Further: men are sensible of the existence of material ob- 
 jects, which they express by distinct terms called nouns sub- 
 stantive; and as these objects are possessed of certain dis- 
 tinguishing characteristics, another class of words, called 
 adjectives, was invented to represent them. And finally: 
 as persons and things stand in various relations towards 
 each other of time, place, and many other modifications of 
 their respective existences, it became necessary to describe 
 those relations by several different classes of words, usually 
 denominated adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions. .. 
 
 All this sounds plausible enough ; and AVC think it very 
 possible that Psalmanazar fabricated his P'ormosan language 
 on some such principles. The theory too, agrees, or seems 
 to agree pretty w r ell with the existing state of our own and 
 many other tongues; but applied to the elementary principles 
 of the class of languages which we are now considering, we 
 believe it to be erroneous in almost every particular. A ri- 
 gorous analysis of the Indo-European tongues shows, if we 
 mistake not, that they are reducible to two very simple 
 elements. 1. Abstract nouns, denoting the simple properties 
 or attributes of things. 2. Pronouns, originally denoting the 
 relations of place. All other descriptions of words are form- 
 ed out of these two classes, either by composition, or sym- 
 bolical application. As we are not aware that the matter has 
 ever been represented in this point of view by any of our 
 predecessors, it will be necessary to produce arguments and 
 facts to justify it, and, in Jeanie Deans's phrase', to go to 
 the root of the matter. 
 
 The common definition of a noun is that it is the name of 
 a thing and most philologists have proceeded on the ap- 
 parently obvious conclusion, that the first step in language 
 would be to give appellations to sensible objects. We main- 
 tain , on the contrary, that primitive nouns are not names of 
 things , at least not of substances or material objects, but of 
 their qualities or attributes.* There is, in this respect, a strict 
 analogy between the operations of language and those of 
 the mind. Our notions of matter are conceptions founded on 
 perception ; in other words , we judge of it by its properties, 
 as they are discernible by our bodily senses. The profound- 
 
 * See, however, the modification of this view in the Essay on the Re- 
 lative Import of Language. ED.
 
 85 PRICHARD ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES. 
 
 est philosophy and the most refined chemistry can carry us 
 no farther than this. The words expressive of those notions 
 are the earliest in language, and for a very good reason. 
 They are simple conceptions, and consequently may be ade- 
 quately denoted by simple terms. This is practically shown 
 by reference to the Sanscrit roots, to which the bulk of that, 
 and many other languages , may be traced. The Indian gram- 
 marians uniformly, and as we believe rightly, define them 
 by abstract nouns ; and they will be found on examination 
 to express simple qualities, having no existence except as 
 predicated of some given subject. Some of them are em- 
 ployed as abstract nouns in their simplest form, many others 
 become so by the addition of a small suffix, apparently of 
 pronominal origin; and, as we shall hereafter show, they do 
 not lose this character when they become component parts 
 of other words. 
 
 But, it will be asked, what are names of things? We 
 answer , they are attributive nouns-, used by a sort of synec- 
 doche, to express a substance by one or more of its dis- 
 tinctive qualities. A concrete noun, that is, the name of a 
 material object, stands for an aggregate of qualities, the full 
 import of which, as we observed on a former occasion, it is 
 clearly incapable of conveying. This may be instanced by 
 as simple an idea of the class as it is possible to conceive 
 viz. atom. The original aro^og is a compound word se- 
 lected by a distinguished philosopher , from the most expres- 
 sive language in the universe, to denote the smallest pos- 
 sible modification of matter. Nevertheless, it says too much 
 and too little too much, as being applicable to other things, 
 and consequently ambiguous too little, because it does not 
 express all the properties even of an atom. The same is, 
 and ever must be, true of all concrete nouns: the only re- 
 source, therefore, is to fix on some prominent attribute, and 
 agree to let the word denoting it stand for the aggregate, 
 as we let an abbreviation stand for an entire word , or allow 
 a piece of paper not worth a farthing to pass current for 
 five or fifty pounds. We gave an instance of this kind in 
 a former article, relating to the word fox, and could adduce 
 some thousands of the like character if it were necessary. 
 We will content ourselves with a single additional example, 
 which may, perhaps, be new to many of our readers. 
 
 A Middlesex man would probably be much surprised to 
 hear a Norfolk farmer talk of the havoc made among game 
 and poultry by lobsters, and, on the matter being explained, 
 would doubtless think lobster a mighty absurd appellation for 
 the common stoat. But, in Katterfelto's phrase, there is a
 
 PRICHARD ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES. 89 
 
 reason for everything, if people only knew it. The same 
 animal is, in Yorkshire, called a clubster , or clubstart i.e. 
 clubtail. The Norfolk and Yorkshire terms are evidently al- 
 lied in origin, and both express the idea meant to be con- 
 veyed, viz. an animal with a thick tuft on its tail,* which 
 is a true description as far as it goes. From this and many 
 similar instances we may perceive that language is not so 
 arbitrary a thing as many have supposed. Primary words 
 may have been arbitrarily imposed, for anything we know 
 - but, when it was once agreed that they should convey such 
 and such meanings, the subsequent application of them be- 
 came subject to certain definite rules, and we have no more 
 right to pervert this established meaning, ad libitum, than 
 we have to alter the received value of the Arabic numerals. 
 For instance, to designate a stoat or a squirrel by an ex- 
 pression equivalent to sine caudd, would defeat the purpose 
 for which language was given to mankind. 
 
 Metaphysicians and philologists frequently talk of men in- 
 venting words to denote the operations of the understanding. 
 We may be assured that they did no such thing; they only 
 made new applications of those that already existed , accord- 
 ing to some real or supposed analogy. The primitive ele- 
 ments of speech are demonstrably taken from the sensible 
 properties of matter, and nihil in oratione quod non prius in 
 sensu may be regarded as an incontrovertible axiom. Lan- 
 guage has not even distinct terms for the functions of the 
 different bodily senses, much less for those of the mind. 
 The epithet o|v, primarily meaning sharp-pointed or edged, 
 is metaphorically applied to denote acid, shrill, bright, nimble, 
 passionate, perspicacious, besid.es many minuter shades of 
 signification. We may hence perceive the absurdity of those 
 metaphysical theories which make language co-extensive with 
 thought, and, as it were, identical with it and the un- 
 avoidable imperfection of it as a medium of metaphysical in- 
 vestigation. 
 
 There has been much wrangling among grammarians as 
 to the nature of adjectives, and their claim to be considered 
 a distinct part of speech. Tooke's chapter on the subject 
 is in many respects one of the best portions of his work. 
 He has shown satisfactorily that simple adjectives only differ 
 from substantives in their application, and that those with 
 distinctive terminations are in reality compound words, hav- 
 ing substantives for their basis. He does not indeed ex- 
 
 * Compare afoovQog, a cat, (according to Buttmann, aib).ovQO$ , ) 
 o$, a squirrel, &c. &c.
 
 90 PKICHARD ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES. 
 
 plain the nature of the additional elements very happily, 
 when he resolves en, ed , and ig into his favourite imperatives, 
 give, add, join] arid he has, moreover, weakened his lead- 
 ing position by his loose and inaccurate method of stating 
 it. He says 
 
 'An adjective is the name of a thing, -which is directed to be 
 joined to some other name of a thing. ' 
 
 Again 
 
 C I maintain that the adjective is equally and altogether as much the 
 name of a thing as the noun substantive. And so I say of all words 
 whatever. For that is not a word which is not the name of a 
 thing. Every word being a sound significant must be a sign, and 
 if a sign, the name of a thing. But a noun substantive is the 
 name of a thing and nothing more. 
 
 c lf, indeed, it were true that adjectives were not the names of 
 things, there could be no attribution by adjectives; for you cannot 
 attribute nothing. How much more comprehensive would any term 
 be by the attribution to it of nothing'? Adjectives, therefore, as 
 well as substantives, must equally denote substances; and sub- 
 stance is attributed to substance by the adjective contrivance of 
 language. ' 
 
 On being reminded of the distinction between substance 
 and essence , Tooke replies 
 
 c Well; I care not whether you call it substance, or essence, or 
 accident, that is attributed. Something must be attributed, and 
 therefore denoted by every adjective.'* 
 
 All this jangling might have been avoided if, instead of 
 saying that words denote things or substances, terms at the 
 best of ambiguous import, and open to endless cavil, it had 
 been stated that they denote the attributes and categories, or 
 relations of things. It might be difficult to prove that space 
 is a substance, according to any legitimate meaning of the 
 term; but there can be no doubt as to its being an attribute 
 of every material substance, which must be more or less ex- 
 tended. We conceive that nouns may be defined as follows : 
 -I. abstract nouns, denoting qualities of things simply; 
 2. concrete nouns, in which a single attribute stands synec- 
 dochically for many, 3. adjectives, /. c. attributes used as 
 descriptive epithets, being sometimes simple terms, e.g. black, 
 white, choice; sometimes compound words, as sorrowful, god- 
 like, friendly, careless, weeds which it is unnecessary to 
 analyze. Simple adjectives only occur in particular lan- 
 
 * See Divertions of Purley , vol. ii. pp. 428434; 438439.
 
 PRICHARD ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES. 91 
 
 guages. In Sanscrit, Greek, Latin, and many others, all 
 adjectives have distinctive terminations, which, as Tooke 
 acutely remarks, were originally separate words. Most of 
 these terminations have a possessive signification : for example, 
 barbalus = barba prseditus; others denote similarity, abund- 
 ance, privation, analogous to our like, fill, less] and in all 
 cases they do not so much belong to the attribute as to the 
 subject. Vir opulentus is equivalent to vir prccdilm divitiis; 
 and the termination lentus , undoubtedly significant, to bor- 
 row Tooke's phrase, puts the word in condition to be joined 
 to some substantive. 
 
 It has been debated whether an adjective is equivalent to 
 the circumlocution with the genitive case. This we appre- 
 hend may or may not be the case, according to circumstances. 
 Paternus amor is potentially equivalent to patris amor, the 
 ending nits having a possessive import; and it is actually so 
 when spoken of a father , but not when applied to any other 
 person. An uncle may feel an affection for his nephew 
 equal to that of a parent, or even greater , and in this sense 
 his attachment may be called paternal; nevertheless, it is 
 not the affection of a father , but that of an uncle. In the 
 latter case our own language furnishes a strictly proper term 
 fatherly , i. e., vi termini , fatherlike. If a bond fide father 
 were the subject of the discourse, paternal would be the 
 more legitimate expression of the two ; and it would be truly 
 absurd to scout it on account of its Latin descent , when it 
 adds so decidedly to the precision of our language. 
 
 We believe that no part of speech has been so completely 
 misunderstoood as the verb. Tooke's dictum that a verb is 
 a noun and something more, is true* as far as it goes; but 
 he has not informed us what this something more is, nor 
 has any one else, as far as we know, given a satisfactory 
 account of the matter. Grammarians could not help seeing 
 that a noun lies at the root of every verb: for example, 
 that dream (somm'um) is included in / dream (somm'o), and 
 they tell us that the difference consists in the enunciative or 
 assertive power of the latter. But how did it acquire this 
 power V or in what additional elements does it consist? Some 
 say , in the verb substantive understood a supposition lo- 
 gically impossible, as the phrase ego (sum] somnium proves 
 on the face of it. Others, among whom is Harris, say that 
 if we divest a verb of the accessaries of mood, tense, num- 
 ber, and person, a participle remains, so that yQcupo is po- 
 
 * At least it is true of finite verbs; not however, as Tooke represents 
 the matter , of the roots or themes of verbs.
 
 92 PRICHARD ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES. 
 
 tentially lyoi (ffyu) yQafpav. This, indeed, is more in ac- 
 cordance with the principles of logic; but it is contradicted 
 by the form, which, when the personal termination is re- 
 moved, has no distinctive element of a participle in it. What 
 do we discern in ypa<p of the stubborn <ov ovrog , the ad- 
 dition of which constitutes the participle; and which, in one 
 form or other, has stood its ground for thousands of years, 
 from the Sanscrit tup an , tupantas = rvntcuv , rvitrovtos, 
 down to the modern German liebend? In fine, what proof 
 have we of the transition from yQacpeov eya to yQcccpa , any 
 more than for Menage's transmutation of raposo into renard? 
 A verb divested of its paraphernalia may become an Irish 
 participle , which is a mere abstract noun ; but certainly not 
 a Greek, Latin, or even an English one. 
 
 Some progress was made in ascertaining the nature of 
 verbs, when it was shown that the personal terminations 
 are in reality personal pronouns. Still the old difficulty re- 
 mained as to the body of the word. Pott, whom we regard 
 as one of the most acute of European philologists, observes 
 that the verb is divisible into three constituent parts root, 
 connective vowel, and termination [yga(p-o-^Bv , pet-i-mus] 
 answering to the predicate, copula, and subject, of a lo- 
 gical proposition. We do not clearly see how a mere eu- 
 phonic syllable, often wanting, can constitute a legitimate 
 logical copula ; but supposing that mus is nos, and i a con- 
 nective, meaning something or other what is pell In other 
 words, what is & verb divested of its usual adjuncts? We 
 answer boldly that there is no such thing in existence. 
 Every verb includes in it a subject and predicate, or makes 
 an assertion respecting some given person or thing. It must 
 therefore have a subject, that is to say, it must be in some 
 person. Take away this subject, and the verb becomes a 
 noun, as the supines are in Latin, and the infinitives in all 
 languages. The root of the verb is therefore a noun or attri- 
 bute ; and the personal terminations, as we have seen, are to 
 be resolved into pronouns. It only remains to inquire what 
 is the nature of the copula or connexion between them. 
 
 We have observed that Dr. Prichard's statements respect- 
 ing the Celtic languages throw a new and important light 
 on the formation of language; and this we hold to be parti- 
 cularly the case with respect to the verb. He has shown 
 that the personal terminations in Welsh are pronouns, and 
 that they are more clearly and unequivocally so than the 
 corresponding endings in Sanscrit or its immediate descend- 
 ants. However, he lays no stress upon a fact which we 
 cannot but consider highly important: viz. } that they are
 
 PRICHARD ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES. 9J 
 
 evidently in slatu regiminis, not in apposition or concord: in 
 other words, they are not nominatives, but oblique cases, 
 precisely such as are affixed to various prepositions. For 
 example, the second person plural does not end with the no- 
 minative chwi, but with ech, rvch, och, ych, which last three 
 forms are also found coalescing with various prepositions 
 irvch ', to you; ynoch, in you; wrlhych, through you. Now the 
 roots of Welsh verbs are confessedly nouns, generally of 
 abstract signification; ex. gr. dysg is both doctrina, and the 
 2. pers. imperative, dace: dysg och or rvch, is not, there- 
 fore, docetis or docebitis vos; but doctrina vestritm, teaching of 
 or by you. This leads to the important conclusion that a 
 verb is nothing but a noun, combined with an oblique case 
 of a personal pronoun , virtually including in it a connecting 
 preposition. This is what constitutes the real copula between 
 the subject and the attribute. Doctrina ego is a logical ab- 
 surdity; but doctrina mei, teaching of me, necessarily in- 
 cludes in it the proposition ego doceo, enunciated in a strictly 
 logical and unequivocal form. 
 
 If we mistake not, this view of the subject derives an im- 
 portant confirmation from a parallel construction in some of 
 the Semitic languages. It is well known that this class of 
 tongues has no simple present tense, for which various peri- 
 phrastic forms are occasionally substituted. The present of 
 the verb substantive is often denoted by an abstract noun 
 denoting being, combined with the oblique cases of the dif- 
 ferent personal pronouns. The Hebrew word is d? p (yesh); 
 but, as there might be some question as to the real nature and 
 import of this word, we prefer adducing the Syriac form,- 
 rps (ith) , the plural of which is employed in stalu regiminis, 
 along with pronominal suffixes to express the various per- 
 sons of the verb to be, according to the following paradigm : 
 
 TPN , ithai , literally existentise mei = sum 
 "prpN , ithaich , tui = es 
 
 TjirpN , ithau , sui = est 
 
 "prPN 7 ithain , ,, nostri = sumus 
 
 pavpN , ithaichun, vestri = cstis 
 
 ptT^n^N, ithaihun, ,, illorum = sunt 
 
 We omit the feminine forms, which are exactly on the same 
 principle. Compare the Welsh future* byddav, from the 
 root bod, being, existence 
 
 Sing. 1. byddav, ero PI. byddwn 
 
 2. byddi byddwch 
 
 3. bydd byddant 
 
 * The Welsh has no simple present tense, the future is occasionally em- 
 ployed instead of it.
 
 94 PEICHARD ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES. 
 
 There is another form, oedd* commonly called an imperfect, 
 but seemingly an aorist 
 
 Sing. 1. oeddwn, eram, fui PI. 1. oeddym 
 
 2. oeddit 2. oeddych 
 
 3. oedd 3. oeddynt 
 
 The analogy between the above Syriac construction and 
 those Celtic forms is striking, and there can be no mistake 
 respecting the precise nature of them , especially of the first. 
 Ti^N is unequivocally a noun plural ; and the pronominal 
 suffixes are not nominatives in apposition or concord with 
 the noun, but oblique cases sub regimine. When participles 
 or adjectives are used with a pronoun to express the present 
 tense, as is frequently the case, the Syriac idiom invariably 
 requires nominatives in concord, analogous to the Latin 
 prior ille [esl], amantes nos [sumus]. In this Aramaean con- 
 struction, we see, if we are not deceived, the true primary 
 elements of a verb; and, among European languages, the 
 Welsh deserves the honour of having maintained them in 
 the greatest purity. It is not surprising that they cannot be 
 so clearly identified in Sanscrit, where so much has been 
 sacrificed to sound. There is, however, no doubt that the 
 Sanscrit personal terminations are pronouns, and it is equally 
 certain that they have not the forms of nominatives. Mi in 
 asmi (sum) may be a modification of the genitive me=ma-], 
 or of the locative mayi; but it cannot without violence be re- 
 solved into the nominative aham. More on this hereafter. 
 The following conspectus of the present indicative in five 
 branches of the Indo-European family will show the intim- 
 ate connection between them, and the mutilation which our 
 own language has suffered : 
 
 Sanscrit* 
 
 manayami manayamas 
 
 manayasi manayat'ha 
 
 manayati man ay an ti 
 
 Pracril. 
 
 manemi manemha 
 
 manesi maned'ha 
 
 manedi manenti 
 
 Doric. 
 
 ri&svri 
 
 * With the leave of the Welsh grammarians, we are disposed to identi- 
 fy oedd with the noun oed , time, age, duration, so that oedd-nn is literally 
 ilvralio mei=fni. 
 
 ^ t 
 
 * " 
 
 J frAn 
 
 t ^// O</''^X?
 
 PRICHARD ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES. 95 
 
 Old High German. 
 
 varmanem vnrmanemes 
 
 varinanes varmanet 
 
 varmanet varmanent 
 
 La I in. 
 
 moneo monemus 
 
 mones monetis 
 
 monet monent. 
 
 The Welsh verb, though constructed on similar principles, 
 seems, as we have already observed, to be composed of 
 different materials from the rest. A minute analysis of the 
 personal endings and other component parts of the Sanscrit 
 and Greek verb would carry us far beyond our limits. We 
 must, therefore, refer our reader -to Bopp's c Conjugations- 
 System der Sanskrita-Sprache,' and to Pott's 'Etymologi- 
 sche Forschungen. ' He may not perhaps assent to all the 
 conclusions of these eminent philologists, but he will find 
 abundant cause to admire their learning and ingenuity. 
 
 If our theory of a verb is correct, it follows that the 
 usually received definitions of it are either erroneous or in- 
 complete. It is said essentially to imply action or motion, 
 and we are even gravely informed that such terms as rest, 
 lie , sleep , are not less actions than walk, fly , kill. Are, then, 
 action and inaction convertible terms? or when we say, 'the 
 pyramids stand on the banks of the Nile,' do we assert 
 that they either act or move? The truth is, that all those 
 who fancy that verbs are distinguished from nouns, as ani- 
 mals are from plants, by a sort of inherent vitality, have 
 proceeded on an utter misconception of their real nature. 
 Motion or action is no more inherent in a verbal root than 
 a meat-roasting quality is inherent in a smokejack, or the 
 power of forging a horseshoe in a smith's hammer. Both 
 these require an extrinsic moving power to make them effi- 
 cient and so do the themes of verbs. Their office is simply 
 to denote the categories or predicaments of given subjects, 
 which may either express existence, motion, action, sensa- 
 tion, or their opposites. The active power is in the person 
 or agent take away this-, and there remains a mere ima- 
 ginary quantity, or mental abstraction, ready indeed to be- 
 come an attribute of any suitable subject, but no more cap- 
 able of positive existence without one, than the whiteness 
 of snow can remain after the snow is melted. 
 
 Our remarks can, of course, only be fully applicable to 
 language in its original and genuine form. All language 
 becomes merely mechanical in process of time in the mouths 
 of the people, who seldom fail to corrupt what they do not
 
 96 PRICHARD ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES. 
 
 altogether understand. Bopp observes that when the force 
 of the pronominal suffixes of verbs was no longer felt 7 they 
 were replaced, or rather expounded, by detached pronouns 
 prefixed; and in some tongues, the comment has nearly 
 caused the disappearance of the text. The finite verb of 
 our remote ancestors, with its array of significant personal 
 ending, bore some analogy to a locomotive carriage, having 
 a propelling force within itself. We have allowed the wheels 
 and machinery to go to decay , but to borrow an excellent 
 illustration of Tooke's we still make a shift to drag the 
 body of the vehicle as a sledge. Such phenomena belong- 
 to the corruptions of language, not to its legitimate opera- 
 tions. 
 
 We have thus endeavoured to show that nouns,* adject- 
 ives, and verbs are attributive words, either simply or in 
 combination with an additional element. We now proceed 
 to the second division of the subject. 
 
 Strictly speaking, pronouns may be called attributives, as 
 they express an attribute of a peculiar kind ; but for pract- 
 ical purposes it is more convenient to consider them as a 
 separate class. When we describe them as a primitive part 
 of language, we speak of language in its known and visible 
 state, not as it may have existed at a period about which 
 we have no evidence. There is reason to believe that pro- 
 nouns were, in reality, formed upon local particles, ana- 
 logous to the s, b, 73, of the Hebrews; but the existence of 
 such is more a matter of probable inference than a positive 
 testimony. The Latin is, simple as it seems, includes three 
 distinct ideas person, masculine gender, and place; but 
 though the portion of it denoting place may have once existed 
 separately, we cannot trace it with any certainty, while, on 
 the other hand, we find many prepositions, conjunctions, 
 and adverbs unequivocally formed from pronouns. The 
 number of pronominal roots in Sanscrit seems to have been- 
 more considerable than it is at present. Some, which only 
 appear as particles, or portions of compound words, occur 
 as distinct pronouns in the cognate languages, and the 
 Celtic dialects help to supply several chasms. Professor 
 Bopp considers the monosyllabic forms as the only primitives ; 
 and these are found to be chiefly demonstratives, or relatives. 
 We subjoin a list of them, with a few of the corresponding 
 forms in other languages : 
 
 * For brevity's sake we omit all consideration of participles, which arc 
 composed of the same materials as certain classes of adjectives, and are 
 often identical with them.
 
 PRICHARD ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES. 97 
 
 A, only found in composition in Sanscrit, but extensively em- 
 ployed in Celtic , both as a demonstrative and a relative. 
 
 I. (this) Lat. is ; old German , i-r. 
 
 K A. Lat. quis; Lettish, ka-s; Gothic, hva-s. 
 
 T A. Gr. TO; Gothic, thala. 
 
 P A. Welsh, pa, who or what. 
 
 S A. fern sa; Zend, ha, M; Dor. o, a; Gothic, sa, so; Ang. 
 Sax. se , seo. 
 
 V A.) 
 
 M A. > In oblique cases and compounds. 
 
 N A.) 
 
 Y A. The Sanscrit relative. 
 
 The following may be probably deduced from Sanscrit 
 particles and compounds ; and cognate languages: 
 
 D A. Sanscrit , i-dam , this ; Gr. 6e ; Irish , da , if. 
 
 R A. Sanscrit, pa-ra, alius ; Gaelic, ra, ro, very, exceeding; 
 Welsh, rhy , ditto. 
 
 Other monosyllabic forms occur, but they seem to be 
 either deflected or compounded from the above: e. gr., tya, 
 (his, that, is considered by Bopp as compounded from ta -j- 
 ya; and ki, ku, seem to be mere modifications of ka, ac- 
 cording to the ancient principle of altering the radical vow- 
 els of words to denote a change of signification. Simple and 
 insignificant as the above elements appear, they have exer- 
 cised a most extensive influence upon language ; and we be- 
 lieve that every tongue of what is called the Caucasian fa- 
 mily is indebted to these, or at least to similar elements, 
 for much of its organisation. It would require many vo- 
 lumes to discuss the subject in. all its bearings; we shall, 
 therefore, at present, confine ourselves to a brief sketch of 
 a few of its principal features. 
 
 Most grammarians have regarded the personal pronouns 
 as a kind of substantives, intrinsically denoting the person 
 speaking, the person spoken to, and the person spoken of. 
 We consider this theory to involve an utter impossibility. 
 No 'word can intrinsically denote a person, that is, a being- 
 combining in itself a multitude of distinct qualities, known 
 and unknown, still less any or every person. It can only 
 express some characteristic attribute ; and in the case of the 
 words we are treating of, this attribute must be strictly ap- 
 plicable to every instance in which they are employed. Ego, 
 for example, must denote some adjunct or relation of the 
 person speaking, just as much as triangle expresses the most 
 prominent characteristic of the mathematical figure so called. 
 This relation, we conceive, can only be that of place] in 
 other words, what we call personal pronouns are, at least
 
 98 PRICHARD ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES. 
 
 originally were, nothing more than demonstratives. The pos- 
 sibility of this is shown by reference to the Latin language.* 
 Hie, iste , 'Hie, are notoriously a sort of correlatives to ego, 
 lu, sui, and, if the custom of the language allowed it, might, 
 on every occasion, be substituted for them, without pro- 
 ducing the smallest ambiguity. Instances of their being 
 actually thus employed are not uncommon. Thus, c Tu, si 
 hie sis, aliter sentias. 7 -- (Terence, Andr. 2, 1.)= 'If you 
 were /, you would think differently;' and C O isli qui ad 
 deorum nos cultum invitatis. 5 ' (Arnob., 1. 1.) = C O you 
 who invite us to worship your gods! '_ besides the well-known 
 formulae of the Greek tragedians, ovrog avrjQ --^= syco , and ca 
 OVTO$ = GV. We do not, indeed, perceive much resemblance 
 between the demonstratives and the nominative cases of per- 
 sonal pronouns in Greek, Latin, or even in Sanscrit; but 
 the coincidences in oblique forms, in the personal endings of 
 verbs, and in particles, are so close and so numerous, as 
 to render the affinity of the two classes more than prob- 
 able. This will appear more clearly from the following 
 paradigm of the Sanscrit 1st perfect; evidently an older 
 form than the present, and the undoubted archetype of the 
 Greek 2d aorist. 
 
 Sing. 1. a-tuda-m. PI. a- tn da-ma. 
 
 2. a-tuda-.s. a-tuda-ta. 
 
 3 a-tuda-t. a-tuda-n. 
 
 We see no absurdity in supposing the above terminations 
 to be relics of the demonstratives ma, sa, ta , = hie, isle, 
 ille. Sa and ta actually exist in Sanscrit, and ma, as a 
 proper demonstrative, may be deduced from i-ma , this ~ 
 the ancient Greek form, plv and a variety of particles. 
 Its relation, in point of signification, to hie, may be infer- 
 red from the Greek [lev, fifra, the Arrnoric pronominal suf- 
 
 * The same distinction is observed in many Asiatic languages. We re- 
 quest the attention of our readers to the following instances : 
 
 Armenian, , la, na; 
 
 Chinese, die, na, nai; 
 
 Japanese , kotio, sono, ano ; 
 
 Tagalian, dini, f/itf), diynn. 
 
 All the above forms correspond precisely to kic t fstc, ille; and are systemat- 
 ically employed to distinguish objects connected with the first, second, 
 and third persons. In the Tonga language, the particles my, utoo, auf/i, q. 
 d. hue, istiic, illiic, are used, with great nicety of discrimination, to direct 
 the action of the verb towards the first, second, and third persons, respect- 
 ively. Many proofs might be adduced of the close connexion subsisting 
 between the demonstrative and personal pronouns, as well as of the simi- 
 larity of their component elements in nearly all the known Asiatic and Eu- 
 ropean tongues.
 
 PRICHARD ON THK CELTIC LANGUAGES. 99 
 
 .fix md = Lat. ce, Fr. ci; e. gr., an den ma, this man (cet 
 homme-ci), and its employment in several* languages to 
 form datives and accusatives, both including the idea of con- 
 nexion or acquisition. Its affinity to the oblique cases of 
 the pronoun J, in Sanscrit, Greek, Gothic, and some scores 
 of tongues besides, will hardly be disputed. 
 
 The terminations of the Sanscrit present are, sing., mi, si, 
 ti] pi., max, tha , nti , almost exactly the Doric forms in (ii. 
 They arc evidently composed of the same elements as the 
 endings in the preceding paradigm , but are more fully de- 
 veloped. According to our theory of. the verb, they were 
 originally oblique, probably instrumental,** cases of pro- 
 nouns, in construction with nouns, the preposition included 
 in the case forming the copula. 
 
 We apprehend this view of the subject will help to ex- 
 plain an apparent anomaly in several languages, viz., the 
 discrepance between the nominative of the pronoun of the 
 first person and its oblique cases, and the absolute want of 
 a nominative in the paradigms of ov and suL Most gram- 
 marians regard the nominatives of the above words as lost, 
 we are of opinion that they never existed for this suffi- 
 cient reason that they were not wanted. The subject of 
 the proposition was sufficiently pointed out by the personal 
 termination, and the employment of a separate pronoun pre- 
 fixed, appears to have been an innovation first introduced 
 for the sake of emphasis, and even now but sparingly al- 
 lowed in some languages. Had a nominative, corresponding 
 in form to mei, ever been in current use, as the subject of 
 the verb, as we employ the pronoun /, it is incredible that 
 it should totally disappear, when it must have been one of 
 the most common words in the language. The present Greek 
 and Latin nominatives, eya (eyav], ego, and the German 
 ich, anciently ih, may be traced to the Sanscrit aham. Pro- 
 fessor Bopp regards ah as the root of this word = Germ. 
 ich. We rather think, with Graff, that the terminating m, 
 which appears in all the oblique cases, is the real root; and 
 that aha is a particle prefixed for the sake of emphasis, per- 
 haps related to iha=here, nearly analogous to the Italian eccomi. 
 
 Our readers will easily apply the above observations to 
 the remaining personal pronouns, singular and plural; and 
 
 * Mi, ma, mo. occur in many languages as interrogative and indefinite 
 pronouns, which are often closely connected with demonstratives and re- 
 latives. 
 
 ** One strong ground for this supposition is , that the ancient Latin im- 
 peratives, estod vivitoil and the analogous Veda imperative Jiva-tiil 
 vivilo are unequivocally in the ablative form. 
 
 7*
 
 100 PRICHARD ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES. 
 
 will not fail to observe the analogy between the first person 
 of each in the verbal paradigm. The characteristic termin- 
 ation of the third person plural Sanscrit, nti } Latin and 
 old German, nt has given grammarians a great deal of 
 trouble. Dr. Prichard ingeniously suggests the Welsh hwynl 
 (they) in regimine, ynl as the probable origin of it, and 
 we have no doubt that there is a connexion between this 
 pronoun and the Welsh verbal terminations, ant , enl , ynl. 
 We do not, however, believe that the Sanscrit or Latin 
 forms were derived from the Celtic, or that those languages 
 ever had a separate pronoun resembling hwynl in form and 
 meaning. We think it more probable that the similarity of 
 the respective endings arises from their being formed by a 
 combination of the same primeval elements, viz. the demons- 
 trative roots net + la. The Esthonian need (illi) may have 
 been formed by a similar process. 
 
 We cannot help thinking it a strong confirmation of our 
 theory, that the different pronouns and personal terminations 
 are in many cases commulable with each other i. e. the 
 element which in one dialect stands for the first person, in 
 another represents the second or third, and vice versa. This 
 will appear more evidently from the following conspectus of 
 a few pronominal roots, with some of their ostensible de- 
 rivations : 
 
 MA. Esthonian, ma] Welsh, mi] Irish, me] Persian, men] 
 Finnish, mi-na , I; Gr. yuv , him; Hungarian, ma-ga } ipsemet. 
 Plur. 'Finnish, me] Lithuanian, mes] Slavonic, my ; Gr. 
 fi-^,g, we; v(i-}ies, you. 
 
 VA. Gothic, vit] Slavon. va, vj'e, we-two] Sanscrit, 1st pers. 
 dual, tuda vas, we-two strike plur. vayam; Zend, vaem 
 (we); Goth. veis] Germ, wir] Ang. Sax. we. 
 
 Second Person. Sanscr. ace. dual. vdm] Zend. vdo] Sla- 
 von. (dative) vama, you-two. Plur. Sanscr. ace. vas; Zend. 
 vo ] Lat. vos] Slavon. vy. 
 
 NA. (In the Finnish dialects this or thai] Pali, nam, that; 
 Gr. vlv , him, her, them.) Sanscr. ace. dual, nau, us-two; 
 Gr. vcii] Slavon. (dat.) nama. Plur. Sanscr. ace. nas] Zend. 
 no] Lat. nos] Welsh, ni] Slav, (gen.) nas] Pali, ne , nd, 
 those. 
 
 SA. (In Sanscrit and Armenian, this, Irish, so, ditto) 
 Esthonian, sa, Finnish, Si-nci, Gr. <Jv, thou. Irish, se, he; 
 sinn , we; sibh, you; siad , they. Germ, sie, she, they. 
 
 The above apparent anomalies and interchanges, capri- 
 cious as they seem, are easily explained, if we suppose 
 that the pronominal roots nad primarily a local signification. 
 Assuming, for the sake of argument, that VA was equi-
 
 PRICHARD ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES. 101 
 
 valent to the Greek ovtog, it is easy to conceive that some 
 tribes might use it in the dual and plural to express* rve = 
 Lat. hi, while others, with perfect propriety, applied it to 
 denote y0M = isti. The same principle will serve to establish 
 an affinity between the Greek pronominal forms <5<pl, Gqxa'C, 
 <5<pat, 6cpst$. Several of the German philologists have pointed 
 out the probable connexion of (ftps, Ocpas, and 6(pls with 
 the Sanscrit sva, and Latin sui. However, not being able 
 to divest their minds of the idea of a radical distinction be- 
 tween the second and third persons, they violently derive 
 Gtpu'C from Sanscr. tvam, thou. We think it clear that all 
 the above forms are from the same root , having primarily 
 the force of avrog, or ipse, which, as every schoolboy knows, 
 are of all persons. Otherwise, it is not easy to explain how 
 Homer could use GrptGiv in the sense of vobis (II. x. 398), 
 or how the possessive Gcpersgos could be employed indiffer- 
 ently to denote his, our, your, and their. Vide Hesiod, 
 Opera et Dies, v. 2, Theocritus, Id. 22, v. 67. 
 
 We procesd to consider the affinity, or rather the identity, 
 of pronouns and single particles, the establishment of which 
 is, perhaps, the most important discovery in modern philo- 
 logy. We shall preface our remarks with an extract from 
 Sir Graves Haughton's Bengali Grammar, which, among 
 some more than questionable positions and offensively au- 
 dacious assumptions, contains several really ingenious and 
 valuable observations. 
 
 ' Prepositions were originally employed to contrast the relative 
 positions of the different objects of nature; which were of course, 
 in the infancy of society, the first things that required the employ- 
 ment of speech for their description. But, in proportion as the 
 impressions received through the senses began to be comprehend- 
 ed , the operations of the intellect were developed , and man be- 
 came (?) a reasoning being; and almost imperceptibly, a new ap- 
 plication of language was required, to express the various re- 
 lations of abstract ideas. And though there may seem to be no- 
 necessary connexion between the relations of material things and 
 abstract notions , yet, as the comprehension of the latter gradually 
 arises out of the consideration of the modes of material objects; 
 so language, which had resulted horn the necessity of describing 
 whatever was within the scope of the senses, (?) came at last to 
 be employed to denote the abstract conceptions of the mind; be- 
 
 * Jiopp, who generally considers the personal pronouns as a sort of 
 substantives, radically distinct from each other, admits that the Sanscrit 
 nan (nos) is probably from the demonstrative root na; and originally had 
 the import of the Latin hi. It does not seem to have occurred to him that 
 f hi can denote no*-, hie must be equally capable of denoting ego.
 
 102 PiUCHAUD ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES. 
 
 cause it was ready at hand, and saved the trouble of a new con- 
 vention between the interlocutors. Hence , it must be purely me- 
 taphorical, as often as it is employed in the description of abstract 
 ideas. 
 
 ' But the obvious distinction between language which had been* 
 invented (?) to describe natural objects, and its figurative applica- 
 tion to denote abstract ideas, must never be lost sight of in pract- 
 ice. Thus , when prepositions are employed for the purposes for 
 which they were invented, they mark the relations of local po- 
 sition; as, "the bird flew to, above, below, before, behind, &c., the 
 tree." But, when the same prepositions are borrowed to express 
 abstract conceptions, as, "fancy triumphs over reason," or, 
 "the mind revolts against oppression," they imply nothing more 
 than a mere mental contrast; and by convention we agree to think, 
 that what we assimilate in our minds to above and before, &c., is 
 better than what we designate by below and behind, &c., though there 
 can be neither up nor down, before or after, in what is altogether 
 intellectual. 
 
 'From what has been remarked above, it will be evident that 
 prepositions were, in the origin of language, almost as indispens- 
 able as verbs; for, without their aid, no verb except a neuter one 
 could have conveyed a definite idea ; as the prepositions alone 
 
 denote the action of -the verb And what may tend to 
 
 prove their specific formation for their present use is, that they 
 are almost universally the shortest words , and are incapable of 
 being decompounded.' -- Rudiments of Bengali Grammar, pp. 
 106 8. 
 
 We refrain from meddling with the Monboddism. of the 
 above passage; but the observations oh the primary and se- 
 condary applications of prepositions, and their importance 
 in language, command our entire assent. We do not, how- 
 ever, regard prepositions and conjunctions, in their existing 
 form, as primitive words, but as formed by inflection and 
 composition from pronouns, chiefly demonstratives; at least, 
 if any are entitled to be considered as original words, the 
 simple forms [iev , d, QK, xe , rs, ys , ne, ve, ce, que, &c., 
 many of which are also found in Sanscrit, are the most 
 
 * Theorists talk of the invention of words by savages , as if it were one 
 of the easiest matters in the world. We beg to ask whether they invent any 
 new words (i. e. original words) now-a-days; and if not when the process 
 ceased and why 1 } We believe it to be almost as easy to create a new part- 
 icle of matter , as for a man savage or civilized to invent a fresh verbal 
 root, and make it pass current as such. How many vocables have the Chi- 
 nese added to their stock during the last three thousand years? or where 
 do we find any recent terms not formed by derivation or composition from 
 previously existing elements?
 
 PIUCHAKD ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES. 103 
 
 likely to be so. The pronominal origin of many particles 
 is too obvious to be insisted upon. It will hardly be denied 
 that quo, qua, qui, quam, quum , and our own where, whence, 
 tr/ii/ , irhitlter , &c., are mere modifications of qui and who, 
 and that the Greek GJ, ore, and German wie, wo, wenn, 
 Otc. &c., are of similar origin. In like manner cUAa is 
 merely a neuter plural of aAAog; a/tgot, Kfuplg, evidently con- 
 nected with c^uqpGj; and sed, se (withoirt), as we formerly 
 observed, arc apparently ablatives of mi. We consider it 
 as equally certain that si (if) is the ablative of the ancient 
 demonstrative pronoun sis = is q. d. *in this [case], and sic 
 the same word, with the addition of the enclitic ce q. d. 
 in this [manner]. Most of the Greek prepositions occur in 
 Sanscrit under almost identical forms, and nearly all may 
 be deduced, with more or less certainty, from Sanscrit pro- 
 nominal roots. Sir G. Haughton observes that aito, JIQO, 
 jtccQcc, <5vv , VTIO , Ttsgl, 0x2, VTtsQ, are evidently identical 
 with the Sanscrit and Bengali words apa , pra , para,sam, 
 upa. part, apt, upari. He also refers TCQOQ to pur as (before) ; 
 we think that prali , exactly the Homeric jrport, furnishes 
 a more satisfactory etymology. 
 
 We refer our readers to Professor Bopp for a further in- 
 vestigation of the origin of the Sanscrit particles. Some of 
 his etymologies are confessedly conjectural, others we con- 
 ceive to be perfectly satisfactory. He appears to have estab- 
 lished his leading positions that pronouns and particles 
 are closely related, and that they form a totally distinct class 
 from nouns and verbs on a firm basis. We have only 
 space for tAvo examples. 
 
 Grammarians are greatly puzzled to account for the 
 various and seemingly conflicting meanings of the preposition 
 TtaQa. We think they may be all satisfactorily deduced from 
 its etymon, the Sanscrit indefinite pronoun para = alias, 
 which is evidently capable of denoting addition, juxtapo- 
 sition, approach, and similar relations, in which one thing 
 is viewed in conjunction with another, and departure, devia- 
 tion, distortion, change, &c., where a thing is considered 
 as distinct from another. TlaQsio , KOjpecpt, jtccQapdMa . are 
 examples of the former idea; and jraparp/^co , naQaTpKna, 
 naQa^KLVO^ itaQaxova, naQOQKO , and a multitude of similar 
 expressions, some literal and some metaphorical, but all 
 including the idea of difference belong to the latter. We 
 
 * Cf. Havelok, vv. 2119, 20 
 
 ' Thou mayt us bothe yeve and selle 
 With that them wilt here dwell : ' 
 i. e. if thou wilt; a literal translation of si.
 
 104 PKICHARD ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES. 
 
 shall not at present discuss the probable affinity between 
 TCKQK and TtsQl, TtQO , TtsQciv , prce , per, &c., respecting which 
 much might be said , but we think it important to observe 
 that the two leading significations which we have pointed 
 out in TtKQK, also appear in the German ver and its cog- 
 nates. Thus vcrschaffen, to procure, vergrossern, to increase, 
 veralten, to grow old, vernehmen, to perceive, have a sort of 
 acquisitive sense; while verachten, to despise, verderben , to 
 destroy, verfuhren, to lead away, seduce, verkaufen, to sell, 
 and a multitude of others, convey an apparently opposite 
 idea. This latter idea of change, distortion, injury, &c., is 
 the more prevalent one in Anglo-Saxon and English words 
 compounded with for forego, foreswear, forget, for- 
 sake, the Scottish forspeak , and many others. The editor 
 of the * Diversions of Purley' (Mr. R. Taylor) well observes 
 that Tooke's etymology of for viz. Gothic fairina (cause) 
 - does not apply to cases of this description*, and that 
 the various significations of for can only be studied to ad- 
 vantage by comparing the various Teutonic languages. The 
 Sanscrit etymon, which we have suggested for naga, seems 
 equally capable of explaining the intensive and privative 
 acceptations of our for and the German ver. 
 
 Another family of words in the European languages re- 
 *sembling in sound, but apparently different in signification 
 seem to have the Sanscrit relative pronoun ya = qm , as 
 their common ancestor. In the Indian dialects a multitude 
 of particles are formed from this pronoun, analogous to the 
 derivatives of qui and its cognates e. gr. Sanscr. yat, that, 
 quod yatas , whence, o&sv] yadCi, when, ore; yadi, if; 
 yadiwu, or, si-ve. The same element occurs in the part- 
 icles of many other languages, in nearly the same signifi- 
 cations, and they will generally be found to include the 
 force of a demonstrative or relative pronoun. For example, 
 Goth, jah, Old Germ, jet, joh, Finnish jet emd, may be 
 resolved into in this or that (suppl. manner], nearly equival- 
 ent to our also. The Greek re, from the demonstrative 
 root TA, and Latin que, from the relative KA, are ap- 
 parently of parallel import. We believe the same signifi- 
 cation to be included in Goth, jai, ja, Germ, ja , Ang. Sax. 
 
 * Tooke's etymology is ludicrous enough when examined. Fairina is 
 itself a derivative word, and though it corresponds to afai'a, it is not in 
 its sense of cause or reason , but always in that of fan) I or crime. The same 
 word is found in old German' vir-ina , scehis. A little attention would 
 have shown that our preposition for stands for three different German 
 words , fur , vor , and ver , and that our conjunction for is in all cases a cor- 
 ruption of the Anglo-Saxon forihy or fortham exactly the Italian perche.
 
 PRICHARD ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES. 105 
 
 gea, yese, Frisic je, Welsh and Armoric jei=yes.* In the 
 Scandinavian dialects j'a is the answer to simple interroga- 
 tions, and ju, jo, to questions including a negative. In all 
 cases we conceive the particle simply means in this (manner), 
 thus Latin Ha. The Sanscrit yadi appears to furnish a 
 clue to the Gothic jabai, Frisic jef, Ang. Sax. gif, Old 
 Germ, ibu, ubi, Lettish ja, Finnish jos^= if ** all denoting 
 in n-ltich or in thai [case or supposition] = Latin si. Jabai 
 from which the other Germanic forms are descended ap- 
 pears to have originally been a dative or instrumental case 
 of ya, analogous to tubya = Latin tibi (compare ibi } ubi, Gr. 
 Pfytpi, Slavonic tebje = tibi). 
 
 The relative import of the particle is most clearly discern- 
 ible in the distributive phrases, Ang. Sax. ge sceap, ge oxan 
 -both sheep and oxen, or, more familiarly, what sheep, 
 tvliat oxen; Latin qua'*' 4 '* oves, qua boves; Ital. die piccoli, 
 che grand! both small and great; or in the comparative 
 construction Germ, je mehr, je besser, Lat. quo plus, eo 
 melius; sometimes je mehr, desto besser, quo plus, hoc melius. 
 The above instances may serve to illustrate the manner 
 in which adverbs and conjunctions are formed from pro- 
 nouns. It will be observed that all those phrases, as well 
 as all cases in which particles are formed from adjectives, 
 are elliptical, requiring the words jilace, time, manner, v. t. 
 q. to complete the sense e. gr. wde, in this [place]; ibi 
 (from is) in that [place]; [taxgav [odoi/]; primo [loco]; sero 
 fteinpore]; certo [naodoj. We do not stop to inquire whether 
 such words are still adjectives and pronouns, or have be- 
 come different parts of speech, our business being merely 
 to show what they originally were. The process by which 
 pronouns or pronominal adverbs might be converted into 
 prepositions will be readily understood by considering the 
 constructions ubi gentium, quo terrarum, hie loci, eo loci, 
 and many others, where the relations of place, time, &c., 
 are expressed in a manner closely analogous to government 
 by a preposition. For example, hie might easily have been 
 employed to denote cis , juxta, or any other relation of prox- 
 
 * Tooke's derivations of yes from ay es , have that, or the Fr. imperat. 
 pi. a yez , are supremely absurd: it is as notorious as a matter of fact 
 can be, that the Anglo-Saxon gese the parent of our yes existed long 
 before the modern German es or the French aye: were heard of. 
 
 ** We believe this to be the true etymplogy of if; not, as we formerly 
 suggested , Sauscr. i oa , sient, or Germ, iha , doubt. 
 
 *** The German Je, Dan. jo, Swed. jit, have the same distributive force 
 in the phrase je zwei und zwei = two and two Gr. avcc dvo. In many 
 constructions they have a restrictive power, exactly, equivalent to the 
 Greek particle ys t which we believe to be of cognate origin.
 
 106 PBICHAKD ON TUE CELTIC LANGUAGES. 
 
 | 
 
 imity, and eo was as capable of signifying w//r, Irans, and 
 similar ideas of remoteness as the words now sanctioned by 
 custom. The Anglo-Saxon yeoml, beyond, is a mere de- 
 monstrative pronoun, expressing elliptically what the Ger- 
 man jenseits describes more fully. IJsgav is apparently a mere 
 accusative feminine of Sanscr. para, q. d. on the other [side]. 
 We must again refer our readers to Professor Bopp for 
 a full exposition of the manner in which pronouns enter 
 into the composition of words the terminations and cases 
 of nouns and participles the formation of abstract sub- 
 stantives and the suffixes of adverbs. A single example 
 may serve to give our readers some idea of this part of the 
 subject. The distinguishing termination of many Sanscrit 
 genitives is sya e. gr., ta-sya of this = Or. rofo. This 
 termination is apparently compounded from the demon- 
 strative and relative pronouns sa -f- ya having in con- 
 junction a possessive import. The same appears in ma- 
 nushya, man or human (compare Gerrn. mensc/i), from manu, 
 and bears a remarkable resemblance to the ending of dr}{io 
 (jtog q. d., belonging to the people. The same explan- 
 ation will serve for the Sanscrit participial suffixes tas, 
 vas, nas (Latin, tits, mis, nus), which are all apparently 
 formed by the combination of pronominal roots, and have 
 a sort of possessive signification. At least we regard this 
 theory as much more probable and rational than that of Mr. 
 A. W. Schlegel, who treats the formative syllables, produc- 
 ing such numerous and important modifications of the mean- 
 ing of words, as in themselves destitute of signification. 
 Speaking of the family of languages with inflections, he ob- 
 serves 
 
 c Le merveillcux artifice de ces languos cst, de former une im- 
 mense variete de mots, et de marquer la liaison des idces que 
 ces mots designent, moyenuant un assez petit nombre de syllabes 
 qui, consideres separement, n' on t point de signification, mais qui 
 de'terminent avec precision le sens du mot auquel elles sont join- 
 
 tes On decline les substantifs, les adjectifs, et les 
 
 pronoms , par genres , par nomhres , et par cas ; on conjugue les 
 verbes par voix , par modes, par temps, par nombres et par per- 
 sonnes , en employant de meme des desinences et quolquefois des 
 axigments qui, separement, ne signiftcnt rien.' - Observations sur la 
 Langue el la Lilleralure Provencales. 
 
 We consider this hypothesis as chimerical, and next to 
 impossible. We believe that in language ex nihilo nihil fit, 
 and we are at a loss to conceive how elements, originally 
 destitute of signification, can determine the sense of any-
 
 PRICHARD ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES. 107 
 
 thing with precision. To assume that they have no mean- 
 ing, because we cannot always satisfactorily explain it, is 
 only an aryumettlum ad iynorantiam. A mere Englishman 
 sees no distinct meaning in the final syllables of m&n-hood, 
 priest-hood, -widow - hood , or of the German frci-heit , schon- 
 heitj weis-7/tvY. But a Bavarian, accustomed to talk of the 
 { gute,' or 'schlechte hait,' of things, can tell him at once 
 that the termination in both languages denotes quality, state, 
 condition.* It is, therefore, lawful to conclude, from ana- 
 logy, that the terminations in liber-fr/s, TtQao-r^g , and many 
 other abstract terms, have a distinct meaning, which was 
 perfectly understood when they first began to be employed. 
 It is foreign to our present purpose to enter into a length- 
 ened discussion respecting the composition of words a fea- 
 ture which so remarkably distinguishes the Indo-European 
 from the Semitic languages. We will, however, briefly ad- 
 vert to a species of composition of which traces appear in 
 many languages. Grammarians have noticed the existence 
 of words in cognate dialects, agreeing in all respects, ex- 
 cept in possessing or wanting an initial s, e. gr. , fu'xpo?, 
 GUMQOS fallo, (JcpdAAa Goth., ufar** Lat. , super. This 
 prosthetic s is of common occurrence in the Teutonic dialects; 
 and Grimm sagaciously observes that it is in all probability 
 a remnant of some ancient particle. We have reason to 
 think that the remark was capable of a much more extensive 
 application, and might be made to illustrate an important 
 feature in the early formation of language. It will be found 
 on examination that several other letters are employed in a 
 similar manner. It is also remarkable that they are chiefly 
 the same elements which form the basis of the pronominal 
 roots , as will appear from the examples which we are 
 about to adduce. The most common prefixes are a (with its 
 equivalents e, 6), p (b, f, ph), t (d, th), k (c, q), &c., 
 which are employed in a manner that can hardly be deemed 
 arbitrary or accidental. We subjoin a few specimens of 
 each out of many hundreds : 
 
 A, &c. Lat. mulgeo; Ger. melken. Gr. d^f'tyo). 
 
 ructo fQevyoo. 
 
 Sanscr. danta; Lat. dens. o-dovg. 
 
 Sanscr. naman ; Lat. nomen. ovo^ia. 
 
 Sanscr. nak'ha; Germ, nagel. ovv. 
 
 * In old German, licit also denotes person. It occurs in the same sense 
 in the ancient metrical version of the Athanasian Creed, published by 
 Hiclies. Thesaurus, vol. i. p. 233 'Xe the hodes oht mengande' 'nei- 
 ther anght confounding the persons.' 1 
 
 ** Greek vitlq is not a parallel case. The spiritus asper almost invariably 
 becomes s in Latin consequently VTCSQ and super are exactly equivalent.
 
 108 PRICHARD ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES. 
 
 To these we are disposed to add the copulative a in 
 aAo^og, ardKavrog, &c., and the syllabic augment Sanscr. 
 a tudam, Gr. k'tvnov, Avhich we believe to be a, particle. 
 P, &c. Lat. rogo. Sanscr. p-rach; Germ, f-ragen. 
 
 Gr. Q'rl'yvvfii. Icel. b-raka; Lat. f-rango. 
 
 Lat. latus. Gr. n-lctTv$; Germ, b-reit. 
 
 Bavar. lukken. Erig. pluck. 
 
 Gael, iasg (fish). Lat. piscis; Welsh, pysg. 
 T, &c. Germ, reiben. Gr. tQifieiv. 
 
 Sanscr. asru; Lithu. aszara. daxQV. 
 
 Lat. ros. dgoaog. 
 
 Germ, rupfen. Sgixm. 
 
 K , &c. Lat. amo. Sanscr. kam. 
 
 Lettish, lobit (to flay). Lat. g-lubo. 
 Lat. Isetus. Iceland, g-lad. 
 
 Lat. rapio. Sanscr. grabh ; Icel. gripa. 
 
 Lat. nodus. Icel. k-riut. 
 
 Lat. aper; Germ. eber. Gr. K-CXTCQOS. 
 
 S. The most common of all prefixes, especially in Erse 
 and Lower Saxon. We add the following to the numerous 
 instances adduced by Grirnm. (Gram. ii. 701.) 
 
 Lat. memor. Sanscr. s-mri (to remember). 
 
 Germ, link (left). Belg. s-link. 
 
 Lat. nare (to swin). Sanscr. s-na; Gael, s-namh. 
 
 Lat. nere (to spin). Gael, sniomh. 
 
 Germ, reihe (row). Ghel. sreadh. 
 
 Gr. KIQK>. Icel. skara. 
 
 Lat. limus. Germ, schleim. 
 
 Many words seem to exhibit two or three gradations of 
 this kind of composition, e. gr., Sanscr. h'p, to anoint (com- 
 pare Homer's Mil' fkaiov} ; Gr. K^sicpo ; Goth, s-a-lbon ; Germ, 
 rollen; Bavar. k-rollen; Eng. s-c-roll. We have actual evi- 
 dence of the composition of many words bearing a consider- 
 able analogy to the above examples, especially in the Ger- 
 manic dialects. Beichte (confession), bleiben, block, glaube, 
 glied, gnade, flazan, fliesan, Avith many others, are known 
 to be respectively compounded with the particles be, ge, fra. 
 Fret, simple as it appears, consists of two distinct elements, 
 - Goth, fra + itan = ex-edere ; so that the modern Ger- 
 man ver-fressen (to devour) is twice compounded with the 
 same particle. Even many of the words usually regarded 
 as Sanscrit roots are capable of being resolved into still simp- 
 ler elements. For instance, the root i denotes to go (Lat, 
 i-re, Gr. isvai); ri, also to go, may very possibly be a com- 
 pound of ra + i = pergere; Iri (to pass), ta + ri q. d. ; 
 go thither; slri, to strew, or spread, a further formation with
 
 PRICHARD ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES. 109 
 
 the particle sa, and so of many others. Our readers will 
 find much ingenious speculation on this subject in Pott's 
 'Etymologische Forschungen. ' We consider many of his 
 conclusions as highly deserving of attention; but we do not 
 feel disposed to agree with him in referring the above pre- 
 fixes to the Sanscrit prepositions, in their present form , which 
 is evidently not their primeval one. We think, for example, 
 that tri is probably compounded , not , however, with the pre- 
 position alij but with the pronominal or prepositional root 
 ta. \Ye freely admit that all this is, in a great measure, 
 conjectural, and requires to be confirmed by a more copious 
 induction from cognate dialects. Could the fact be suffi- 
 ciently established, it would afford scope for much curious dis- 
 cussion respecting the formation of language, and might per- 
 haps serve as a clue in tracing the affinities of tongues, com- 
 monly supposed to be entirely unconnected. It is scarcely 
 possible for two languages to be more unlike than Sanscrit 
 and Chinese; but it is by no means improbable that both 
 were at a very early period much in the same condition and 
 partly composed of the same elements. Both consist of mo- 
 nosyllabic roots; and a few more pronouns and particles, 
 employed copiously in the connexion and composition of words, 
 might have made the latter not unlike the former. But 
 while the component elements of Greek and Sanscrit have, 
 as it were, crystallized into beautiful forms, Chinese, as an 
 oral language, has remained perfectly stationary, and is 
 still, as it was 3000 years ago, * arena sine calce.' 
 
 We think one point satisfactorily established, namely, 
 that pronouns and simple particles, instead of being, as Tooke 
 represents, comparatively modern contrivances, are in real- 
 ity of the most remote antiquity, as well as of first-rate im- 
 portance in language. The oldest dialects have invariably 
 more words of this class than the more recent ones, as may 
 be seen by comparing Homer with Sophocles, or the Gothic 
 of Ulphilas with the German of Luther. Their antiquity may 
 be further proved by a comparison of different families of 
 languages. Of all European tongues Finnish is perhaps the 
 most remote from Sanscrit. The numerals have nothing in 
 common, and there are very few coincidences in the names 
 of ordinary objects. Nevertheless the personal, demonstra- 
 tive, and relative pronouns, and the terminations of the verbs, 
 are composed of nearly the same elements in both. It would 
 be as absurd to ascribe this coincidence to accident, as to 
 suppose that one race had borrowed terms of this sort from 
 the other; the only rational supposition is, that they are in 
 both languages derived from the same source, and conse-
 
 110 PRtCHARD ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGRS. 
 
 quently existed long before Sanscrit and Finnish had assumed 
 their present forms. Tooke's corollary proposition, that lan- 
 guage, in its in-artificial state , was destitute of pronouns 
 and particles , is the very reverse of truth ; it being well 
 known that the barbarous South-Sea islanders have many 
 more than the most cultivated Europeans. An Englishman 
 or a Frenchman has only one word for we, but a native of 
 Hawaii or Tahiti has perfectly distinct terms for all the fol- 
 lowing combinations, I -j- thou; I + he ; I -f- you; I + 
 they ; I -f- my company. So 'unsafe is it to construct theo- 
 ries on insufficient evidence, or none at all! 
 
 We have thus endeavoured to convey our ideas of the 
 primeval nature of language, and to exhibit a small portion 
 of the evidence on which they appear to be founded. Had 
 our limits allowed, we could have confirmed some of our 
 positions by a much more extensive induction ; but we trust 
 we have said sufficient to excite investigation and discussion. 
 Our object has not been to advance paradoxes, but to en- 
 deavour to throw light on the real elements of language, and 
 to show what it is apart from the confessedly artificial di- 
 visions of grammarians. If our speculations are proved to 
 be erroneous, we shall be ready to renounce them for some- 
 thing better; if they are sound, their truth will eventually 
 be recognized. They at least represent language as a more 
 simple thing than it is commonly supposed to be; and, if 
 well-founded, may serve to elucidate some of the sciences 
 more immediately dependent upon language. Whether they 
 will help to settle the old quarrel between the nominalists 
 and realists or not, is more than we will venture to affirm; 
 but we are persuaded that the proving or disproving them 
 would be of some consequence to universal grammar, and 
 perhaps to logic and metaphysics.
 
 ANTIQUARIAN CLUB -BOOKS. 
 
 \ Quarterly Review, March, 1848.J 
 
 Publications of 
 
 1. The Cymmrodoriun Society. 1762, &e. 
 
 2. The Society of Antiquaries. 1770, &e. (Layamon, edited for 
 the Society of Antiquaries by Sir P. Madden. 3 vols. 
 1847, 8vo.) 
 
 3. The Commissioners on llie Public Records of the Kingdom. 
 1802, &c. 
 
 4. The Roxburgh* Club. 1819, &c. 
 
 5. The Surtees Society. 1837, &c. 
 
 6. The English Historical Society. 1838, &c. 
 
 7. The Carnden Society. 1838, &c. 
 
 8. The Cambridge Camden Society. 1841, &c. 
 
 9. The Percy Society. 1841, &o. 
 
 10. The Welsh MSS. Society. 1840, &c. 
 
 11. The Chelham Society. 1844 ; &c. 
 
 12. The British Archceological Association. 1845, &c. 
 
 It has been a frequent subject of complaint with the luu- 
 datores temporis acti that the present utilitarian age cares for 
 nothing not immediately subservient to its own wants or en- 
 joyments; that even knowledge is not sought after for its 
 own sake , but only with a view of getting something by it. 
 The titles at the head of the present article seem, however, 
 to manifest a tolerably prevalent eagerness real or affected 
 to learn something of what time has forgotten, without 
 reference to the honour or profit to be derived from the 
 study. We feel no disposition to quarrel with this spirit in 
 any of its shapes. The information elicited is often inter- 
 esting even useful; and the speculations arising out of it, 
 though frequently visionary, are harmless enough, when they 
 do not lead to fierce disputes de umbra asini. We wish plenty 
 of game and good success to the whole fraternity of archae- 
 ologists, from the explorers of barrows to the excavators of 
 Nineveh. Objects ot little value in themselves may be of 
 great importance in the hands of those who know how to 
 make use of them. The coins of '.Ariana Antiqua' have
 
 112 ANTIQUARIAN CLUB-BOOKS. 
 
 enabled Prinsep, Lassen, and Wilson to retrieve whole dy- 
 nasties of Bactrian sovereigns; and, in our own country, the 
 arrow-head of flint, the brazen celt, the steel spear-head, and 
 the chased helmet tell their respective stories of different 
 states of civilization, and furnish their quota to the philo- 
 sophic historian. Even what is simply curious is not to be 
 despised on that account. We like to learn the shape and 
 size of an Assyrian shield, even if we learn nothing else 
 relating to it; and we notice, by no means with indifference, 
 the resemblance between the head-gear of the Sacian chief 
 on the monument of Behistun and a modern Astrachan cap. 
 
 We nevertheless confess that there is one branch of anti- 
 quarian research which we regard as far superior to the rest. 
 Had the most skilful draughtsman furnished us with the most 
 accurate delineation of the last-mentioned relic of by-gone 
 ages, we should have felt that his merit was but small com- 
 pared with that of the officer who has removed the veil of 
 more than twenty centuries from the inscriptions, thus en- 
 abling us not only to identify the personal representation of 
 Darius, but to trace the stirring events of his reign, and, 
 still more, to discern the impress of his mind. We need 
 not as yet give another lecture on this discovery; but w r e 
 may be just allowed to remark that the philosophical and 
 ethnological results of it are not the least interesting. We 
 have here a full confirmation of a point only imperfectly 
 known before, namely, that the Achsemenian sovereigns 
 spoke a language closely resembling the Vedic Sanscrit, both 
 in -words and organization; arid, consequently, were perhaps 
 as nearly connected in race with the Brahminic conquerors 
 of India as 'the Icelanders are -with the South Germans. 
 
 A similar discovery of considerable interest, although the 
 interest is of a somewhat different nature, was made not 
 long ago in our own country. The stone cross at Ruthwell 
 had excited and baffled the curiosity of whole generations of 
 antiquaries. All could see that it was of ecclesiastic origin, 
 and of a period anterior to the Norman invasion; but the 
 Runic inscription, being mistaken for Scandinavian, served 
 to obscure the matter instead of clearing it up. It was not 
 till after repeated failures by the best foreign scholars that 
 the sagacity of Mr. J. Kemble* placed the matter in its true 
 light. He showed clearly that the verses are not Scandi- 
 navian, but Anglo-Saxon the language that of the age and 
 province of Bede and the inscription itself a portion of a 
 
 * Vide Archseologia, vol. xxviii. pp. 327 372 , and vol. xxx. pp. 31 46.
 
 ANTIQUARIAN CLUB BOOKS. 113 
 
 spirited poem on the Crucifixion and Passion of our Lord. 
 By a singular combination 
 
 ' quod optanti divum promittere nemo 
 
 Auderet' 
 
 the whole poem is discovered in a MS. long buried in a 
 Vercelli library, the corresponding passages of which only 
 differ in dialect from the lines engraved on the cross. Half- 
 a-dozen ingenious explanations have been given of the beau- 
 tiful design on the Portland vase, each perhaps possible 
 in itself, but not one productive of conviction. The artistic 
 merit of the monument is of course unaffected by our ignor- 
 ance; but who does not feel that a single Greek or Latin 
 distich, connecting it with a favourite classical subject, might 
 have given it an interest far beyond what it now possesses ? 
 Such things are in themselves mere words; but, like the 
 Spanish licentiate's epitaph , they are the clue to the soul that 
 lies buried; and he who digs for it judiciously will, like the 
 sagacious student, not fail of his reward. Thus we trust 
 that Major Rawlinson will, ere long, evoke Nebuchadnezzar 
 and Sennacherib as successfully as he has produced Darius. * 
 
 It will be said, perhaps, that all this has little relevancy 
 to those who must confine their explorations within our own 
 four seas. The chapter of ancient British inscriptions is an 
 absolute blank, and the scanty amount of Roman and Runic 
 Saxon is at length exhausted. What, therefore, remains 
 but earth-work, stone-work, and the c auld nick-nackets ' of 
 Captain Grose ? We answer a great deal on paper and 
 parchment. There is, perhaps, no nation in Europe that can 
 compete with us in the number and value of our vernacular 
 literary monuments from the eighth to the fourteenth cen- 
 tury: some of which for example, the code of Anglo-Saxon 
 laws, the poem of Beowulf, various pieces in the Vercelli 
 and Exeter books, &c. &c. are unique of their kind. The 
 Icelandic Sagas, though superior as compositions, are of 
 considerably later date ; and the German literature prior to 
 the twelfth century has little originality to boast of. Yet so 
 incurious were we of our riches, that, till within a very re- 
 cent period, the number of Anglo-Saxon works published 
 averaged about three in a century, and of middle-English 
 ones in their genuine form scarcely so many. It is well 
 that something has been done of late to redeem us from this 
 reproach; but still a great deal remains undone. We do 
 not hesitate to say that there are valuable materials for the 
 elucidation of national theology, hagiology, popular opinions, 
 
 * It is needless to remark how splendidly this hope has been realised. ED.
 
 114 ANTIQUARIAN CLUB-BOOKS. 
 
 and particularly the origin and progress of our native lan- 
 guage, which have not* perhaps been seen by ten persons 
 now living, and whose very existence is unknown to the 
 great mass of our literary public. 
 
 The adventurers in this field may be classed something in 
 the same way as our money-dealers individual discounters, 
 private firms of a few partners, and joint-stock associations 
 on a large scale. Some of the second division appear to 
 have acted on the principle that curious and recondite in- 
 formation, like money-profits, is too good a thing to be dif- 
 fused among the multitude, and ought to be strictly confined 
 to their own fraternity. We are quite willing that family 
 documents, which not more than twenty people are likely to 
 care about, should be hoarded as cabinet curiosities 5 neither 
 do we quarrel with those who have restricted to five-and- 
 twenty copies re-impressions of uniques , of which there was 
 already one too many. But the case is different with works 
 possessing, not merely a British, but an European interest. 
 For example, take the Chronicle ofMailros, brought forth 
 for the first time in an accurate and complete form , by one 
 of the very few editors competent to such a task, under the 
 auspices of a Scottish Society. It is not so generally known 
 as it ought to be that this work is of the first importance 
 for the ethnological and civil history of our border counties, 
 completely refuting the crude theories propagated by Pin- 
 kerton and his disciples, which have met with too much ac- 
 ceptance both in Great Britain and on the continent. But 
 how are the majority of the literary world to know better? 
 A foreigner or a provincial student who inquires for the 
 Bannatyne book is told that it is not to be had for money; 
 his only resource is to take an expensive journey, or give 
 an extravagant price for an inaccurate and defective edition 
 in a voluminous collection of ' Scriptores. J We must say 
 that we more admire the system of certain English Societies, 
 who place a reasonable number of copies within reach of the 
 public, both to the satisfaction of the literary world, and to the 
 benefit of their own funds. We should be less inclined to com- 
 plain of the close Clubs if they left a more free course of 
 action to other parties ; but in more instances than one they 
 have shown themselves not a little sensitive about any ap- 
 parent invasion of their supposed monopoly. It was no- 
 torious that a new and enlarged edition of 'Havelok the 
 Dane' was greatly wanted, and, as a matter of courtesy, 
 the Club under whose auspices the work came forth were 
 requested to allow of its re-impression, under the superin- 
 tendence of the gentleman who is every way the best enti-
 
 ANTIQUARIAN CLUB-BOOKS. 115 
 
 tied to the office.* This simple request was positively re- 
 fused! and was only at length conceded with an indifferent 
 grace, on discovering that the execution was likely to get 
 into the hands of another party, little qualified to do justice 
 to the subject. Surely this is not the way to diffuse a taste 
 for our early language and literature! On another occasion 
 some influential members of the Roxburghe were told that 
 more than half their publications were wanting in our great 
 national repository. The reply was ' We are glad to hear 
 it ! ' Doubtless a society has a right to be thus exclusive ; 
 and so has a Duke to build a wall twenty feet high round 
 his park. We, however, prefer the taste and feeling of the 
 man who leaves an open paling. 
 
 This niggardly spirit is not confined to small literary co- 
 teries. One of the German editors of the 'Nibelungen Lied' 
 congratulates his readers that the oldest and best manuscript 
 of that noble poem was saved from 'the fate of being trans- 
 ferred to England there to lie useless and unknown of in 
 some private collection.' This sarcasm does not apply to 
 all English owners of collections;** but more than one in- 
 stance has come to our knowledge where permission to con- 
 sult documents essential to the integrity of a published series, 
 was pointedly refused though they are of high interest to 
 the European literary public, and not of the smallest per- 
 sonal consequence to the proprietor. Sometimes the exist- 
 ence, or, what amounts to the same thing, the locality of 
 a literary treasure is studiously concealed. The York Mys- 
 teries the most curious and important collection of the 
 kind after the Townley have disappeared for the third 
 time to an unknown ' limbus librorum , ' where they will pro- 
 bably slumber as unprofitably as they did at Strawberry 
 Hill and at Bristol. Our next account of them may possibly 
 be that they arc for ever lost, having been subjected to the 
 same fate which befel the Sebright, the Hafod, and so many 
 other private collections. 
 
 Our readers will not expect a detailed critique of all the 
 publications comprehended in our list. We say nothing of 
 many of the Roxburghe books, for reasons already intimated. 
 There are however good ones, as well as bad and indiffer- 
 ent. 'Havelok the Dane,' ' William and the Were Wolf,' 
 the ' Early English Gesta Romanorum , ' and several others, 
 are valuable monuments of our early language and literature, 
 and ought to be rendered more generally accessible. Things 
 
 * Sir F. Madden. ED. 
 
 * * The liberality of Sir Thomas Phillips is especially worth}- of praise. 
 
 8*
 
 116 ANTIQUARIAN CLUB BOOKS. 
 
 which have only a conventional worth might lose a portion 
 of it if placed within everybody's reach; but we cannot 
 conceive that either natural or intellectual products, if intrin- 
 sically good, are depreciated by their abundance. Who 
 would now lay a heavy import-duty on oranges and pine- 
 apples, or venture to talk of editions of Don Quixote 'strictly 
 limited to twenty-five copies ' ? Havelok the Dane would not 
 in any case command so many readers as Guy Manncring; 
 but there is no doubt that an edition of a few hundred copies 
 would have been willingly received, and might have directed 
 towards this branch of study the minds of many who only 
 wanted an accidental impulse. 
 
 We have great pleasure in bearing our testimony not only 
 to the superior liberality of the English Historical Society, but 
 to the judicious choice and careful execution of their works 
 themselves. Mr. Kemble's Anglo-Saxon Charters equally 
 important to the philologist and to the legal and constitu- 
 tional antiquary^ -Mr. Stevenson's Ecclesiastical History and 
 Opera Minora of Bede Mr. Hardy's William of Malmsbury 
 
 Mr. Coxe's handsome and complete Roger of Wendover 
 
 in short, the Society's publications in general form a 
 series which any man may be glad to place in his library 
 as satisfactory editions of intrinsically valuable books. Nen- 
 nius would admit of further elucidation by a good Celtic 
 scholar; but the text is a decided improvement, and the 
 notes are sensible and useful as far as they go. 
 
 Next to the English Historical we feel disposed to rank the 
 Surtees, both on account of the liberality of its constitution 
 and the general value of its books. If a portion of these 
 possess only a local interest, we must remember that the 
 society was organized for local purposes and with a restricted 
 sphere of action; and we are willing to connive at a few 
 ' Wills,' 'Inventories,' and similar dry bones of ancient 
 literature, in consideration of the sterling value of other 
 publications. Not to dwell upon Reginald's account of St. 
 Cuthbert, the collection of Durham historians, and other 
 works the importance of which is obvious at once, we would 
 specify the Townley Mysteries, the Durham Ritual, and the 
 Anglo-Saxon and Northumbrian Psalters, as monuments, 
 each unique in its kind, and furnishing materials for the 
 elucidation of our northern dialects, both of the Saxon and 
 mediaeval period, which it would be vain to search for else- 
 where. Even the c Liber Vitse, or list of benefactors to the 
 shrine of St. Cuthbert,' possesses an interest far beyond 
 what might have been expected from a mere catalogue of
 
 ANTIQUARIAN CLUB BOOKS. 117 
 
 names. The initiated may there distinctly trace the changes 
 of the original stock of Northern Angles caused by succes- 
 sive infusions of Scandinavian, West Saxon, aud Norman 
 blood, till all become blended in that current English nomen- 
 clature which to this very day bears the plain impress of 
 all. On many accounts therefore we are wellwishers of the 
 ( Surtees , ' and would gladly see it organised on a broad 
 basis and in the receipt of an income adequate to more ex- 
 tensive operations. 
 
 The Camden Society is undoubtedly the one which, from 
 its numbers, the professed comprehensiveness of its plan, and 
 the high literary character of many of its members, bids the 
 fairest to supply a notorious deficiency in our literature, 
 namely, in the departments of our early national history 
 and the illustration of the early period of our language. 
 With all our wealth and all our affectation of public spirit, 
 not only the Germans, Danes, and Swedes, but even the 
 Bohemians, have surpassed us in their well-directed, syste- 
 matic, and successful cultivation of those fields. What have 
 we to put in competition with the Monumenta Germanica of 
 Pertz, the Scriptores Rerum Danicarum of Suhm and Lange- 
 bek, the similar Swedish collection of Geijer and Afzelius, 
 the long list of Icelandic Sagas, the Wybor Literatura Ceske, 
 and the numerous lexicographical, antiquarian, and historical 
 labours of Jungmann, Schafarik, Hanka, and Palacky? 
 Conscious of this unsatisfactory state of affairs, we could 
 not but rejoice when twelve hundred men banded themselves 
 together with the avowed purpose * of perpetuating and ren- 
 dering accessible whatever is valuable, but at present little 
 known, amongst the materials for the civil, ecclesiastical, or 
 literary history of the United Kingdom.' After a trial of 
 nine years, AVC are constrained to say that the results do 
 not precisely correspond with our expectations. Much of 
 what has appeared is of comparatively limited interest, be- 
 longing rather to private biography than to general history, 
 and being, moreover, of a period requiring little additional 
 illustration. It works of this kind are to form the staple, 
 it is impossible to foresee any end of them, since they may 
 be found in our libraries by hundreds and thousands, 
 quite equal in intrinsic merit to those that have already 
 appeared. Among the few publications strictly historical, 
 the value of the Chronicle of Joceline de Brakelonde is cheer- 
 fully acknowledged. We could also recommend the trans- 
 lation of Polydore'Virgil to the careful study of the present 
 race of tourists and travellers, in order that they may learn, 
 if possible, to tell a plain story in plain words. Some of
 
 118 ANTIQUARIAN CLUB-BOOKS. 
 
 the purely historical works appear to us undeserving of the 
 Society's patronage; others have been marred in the exe- 
 cution, of which more anon. What we are most dissatisfied 
 with is the little that has been contributed towards the illus- 
 tration of the progress of our vernacular language. It was 
 understood at the commencement that this was to form one 
 of the Society's chief objects; and the most rational method 
 of promoting it would seem to be the publication of the re- 
 mains of our early national writers if not of the Anglo- 
 Saxon period, yet at all events of those from the twelfth 
 century to the end of the fourteenth. Hitherto, however, 
 works of this class have hardly constituted one in ten of the 
 Society's publications; and we have reason to believe that 
 proposals to edit very valuable ones have been absolutely 
 discouraged by leading members of the Council, on the 
 ground that they would not suit the taste of the generality 
 of readers. We thought that societies calling themselves 
 learned were not organized to pander to the corrupt taste of 
 a frivolous and novel-reading generation, but to try to direct 
 it into better channels. Something, however, has been done 
 in this department, and a portion of it well. Mr. Albert 
 Way's Promptorium Parvulorum is a truly valuable contri- 
 bution, and we sincerely hope that he will shortly find lei- 
 sure to give us the remaining portion of the work. Dr. Todd's 
 Apology for the Lollards, and Mr. Robson's Three Metrical 
 Romances , are also creditable to the editors. The Romances 
 have a special value, as being almost the only known spe- 
 cimens of the ancient North Lancashire dialect. The Poems 
 on Richard II., edited by Mr. T. Wright, and the Thorn- 
 ton Romances, by Mr. J. O. Halliwell, would also come 
 within the category but we have not had the means of 
 testing their accuracy, and we have our reasons for distrust- 
 ing everything done under the superintendence of those two 
 gentlemen, if the task demand the smallest possible amount 
 of critical skill or acumen. 
 
 Mr. Halliwell has been known some time as a dilettante 
 in the literature of the middle ages, and seems to possess a 
 pretty good opinion of his own qualifications. In this we 
 are sorry that we cannot agree with him. We arc not going 
 to wade through the whole series of his publications, but 
 shall select one, which, as it was undertaken on the 'vo- 
 luntary principle,' may be fairly taken as a criterion. Some 
 five or six years ago Mr. Halliwell and Mr. Wright edited, 
 conjunctis curis, a miscellany entitled 'Reliquise Antiquse; or, 
 Scraps from Ancient Manuscripts. ' It did little credit to 
 their discrimination in selecting materials, or their skill in
 
 ANTIQUARIAN CLUB-BOOKS. 119 
 
 editing them; but as they were under no obligation to at- 
 tempt matters which they felt themselves unable to grapple 
 with, it is at least an unobjectionable test of their capabili- 
 ties. No one can cast a cursory glance over Mr. HalliwelFs 
 contributions without stumbling on many passages which 
 have neither sense nor grammar; but as it might be alleged 
 that he had faithfully copied his authorities, we will exa- 
 mine how far this is the case. In vol. i. pp. 287 291, he 
 produces a Latin poem from a Lansdowne MS. of the fif- 
 teenth century, worthless enough at the best, but so full of 
 stumbling-blocks of all sorts that we felt curious to ascertain 
 who had actually perpetrated such nonsense. Our collation 
 with the MS., which is not more difficult to read than the 
 generality of the same period, gave a result of more than 
 thirty gross errors of transcription, with as many false 
 punctuations, in the course of two pages many of them 
 subversive of every shadow of meaning. If any reader has 
 the courage to encounter pages 289 and 290 in their published 
 form, we request that he will not impute to the scribe such 
 grammar as c vox iste [est] jocunda,' or such grammar and 
 prosody united as c nulla premia sequitur,' or 'aguis' for 
 c ignis,' or 'male perire fam?e' for 'rnalo perire fame.' 
 We also counsel him not to puzzle himself with 'me retro 
 pingere querit,' c Jhesus calamabat Petrum,' or 'Emerunt 
 vagam. ' These and many similar readings are entirely due 
 to the editor, who might have found in MS. pungere, clama- 
 hm , and vaccam, if he had known how to look for them. 
 f Stermito ' and ' streo ' arc blunders which an ounce of scho- 
 larship would enable any man to correct to sternuto and screo, 
 particularly as the vernacular 'snese* and 'spitte' happen 
 to be in their company. But 'Arbor Lcncester' and *cimlice' 
 quoe vendit omasum' are awful bugbears, and calculated to 
 cause deep musings. We therefore beg, in all charity, to 
 inform the reader that 'Lencester' is neither the upas-tree 
 nor the deadly night-shade, but Icnte stet; and 'cimlise,*- 
 incredible as it may appear nothing worse than mulicr. 
 
 We think it will hardly be denied that an editor of this 
 calibre miscalculated his powers when he undertook such a 
 work as the e Chronicle of William de Rishanger. ' The only 
 known copy was obviously made by an ignorant scribe, and 
 swarms with corruptions of every kind and degree. This 
 was a tolerable reason why it should not be undertaken by 
 an editor morally certain to add as many more of his own. 
 That he has done so will become speedily evident to any 
 one who is able to compare the printed text with the MS., 
 and, consequently, the edition is totally worthless in a crit-
 
 120 ANTIQUARIAN CLUB BOOKS. 
 
 ical and historical point of view. However, he had the 
 prudence to avoid a rock upon which his coadjutor Mr. 
 Wright sustained a most grievous wreck: he refrained from 
 giving a translation of his author. Indeed, that would have 
 been a task beyond the powers of the best scholar in Europe. 
 It may be said that blunders of this sort are simply the 
 fruits of ignorance and carelessness, such as a little experi- 
 ence might enable a man to avoid. We fear that in the case 
 of Mr. Halliwell they are associated with a more incurable 
 deficiency, namely, a total inability to enter into the true 
 spirit of this species of study. There is sometimes as great 
 a difference between persons enrolled in the nomenclature 
 of the same erudite class, as there was between the author 
 of the 'Antiquary,' who could enjoy the racy qualities and 
 appreciate the knowledge of a Monkbarns, and the barber 
 Caxon, whose business was with the outside of his honour's 
 head. For example, Percy, Warton, Ellis, and Price 
 were something more than mere mechanical transcribers of 
 ancient poetry. They had enlightened views of the true 
 functions of editor in this department of literature, and we 
 overlook their occasional inaccuracies and errors in consi- 
 deration of the learning, the elegance, and good taste of their 
 illustrations, and the originality of their remarks. Any one 
 who is desirous to see a direct contrast to all this may find 
 it in Mr. Halliwell's edition of the * Harrowing of Hell, a 
 Miracle Play, written in the reign of Edward II.' This, 
 though no c Miracle Play,' but simply a narrative poem, 
 partly in dialogue, is extremely curious, and would have 
 furnished an editor of a different stamp with materials for 
 many interesting remarks respecting the dialect, the grammar 
 and prosody, and the style and composition of the piece. 
 Mr. Halliwell has, however, contrived to overlook every- 
 thing of real interest, and his publication is only remark- 
 able for the shallowness and irrelevancy of the preface, the 
 farthing-candle style of the notes, and the slovenly inac- 
 curacy of what he calls the translation. The only term that 
 he attempts to explain, amidst a number of very unusual 
 ones, is 'thridde half yer,' a phrase familiar to every reader 
 of modern German; and his only effort at criticism is to 
 pronounce the contest between Jesus and Satan- to be 'miser- 
 able doggrel. ' Such things are matters of taste ; we for our 
 part think it 'much superior to the editor's version of the 
 whole piece, both in force and propriety of expression. There 
 are indeed some ludicrous deviations from modern ideas of 
 congruity, as well as some curious special pleading. If hon- 
 est Sancho Panza had taken cognizance of the piece, he
 
 ANTIQUARIAN CLUB-BOOKS. 121 
 
 would doubtless have remarked on the oddity of making 
 the devil swear 'Par ma fey,' like a good Old Christian, 
 and putting a metaphor taken from the game of hazard in 
 the mouth of the Saviour. A professed editor might law- 
 fully enough have made the same observation, but all that 
 Mr. Halliwell has done is to obscure the, matter as much as 
 possible. Thus : 
 
 ' Still be thou , Satanas ! 
 The is fallen ambes-aas' 1 
 
 i. e. ames-ace, the lowest throw on the dice. This he has 
 chosen to render 
 
 'Be quiet, Satan! 
 Thou art defeated.' 
 
 But observe how he can pervert the sense of the very plain- 
 est passages : 
 
 . 'When thou bilevest [i. e. losest, renouncest] all thine one, 
 
 Thenne myght thou grede and grone. ' 
 HuUirvell. *- 'When thou hast none but thine own left, 
 Then mayst thou weep and groan ' 
 
 the precise contrary of the sense meant to be conveyed. 
 Again 
 
 'Habraham, ych wot ful wel 
 Wet tbou seidest everuchdel, 
 That mi leve moder wes 
 Boren and shaped of thi fleyhs [flesh].' 
 Halliwell. 'Abraham, I well know 
 
 Everything thou sayest, 
 
 That my beloved mother was 
 
 Born and formed of thine!' 
 
 Here the plain declaration that the Virgin was of the seed 
 of Abraham is distorted to something which the author never 
 dreamt of. Such arc the fruits of people meddling with 
 matters which they have neither learning to understand nor 
 wit to guess at. 
 
 Mr. Wright, the coadjutor in the r Reliquiae,' and one of 
 the chief working members of the Camden and some other 
 societies, has employed himself during a pretty long period 
 with the literature of the middle ages, and has had consi- 
 derable practice in extracting and editing MSS. reliques of 
 various sorts. On the strength of this he has in a manner 
 constituted himself editor-general in Anglo-Saxon, Anglo- 
 Norman, Middle-English, and Middle-Latin, and seems to be 
 regarded by a certain clique as a supreme authority in all
 
 122 ANTIQUARIAN CLUB-BOOKS. 
 
 departments of archaeology. He has indeed some requisites 
 for making himself useful in a field where industrious work- 
 men are greatly wanted. But his activity is so counterba- 
 lanced by want of scholarship and acumen, that he can never 
 be more than a third or fourth rate personage, bearing about 
 the same relationship to a scientific pnilologist and antiquarian 
 that a law-stationer does to a barrister, or a country druggist 
 to a physician. 
 
 We have stated that we have had no means of testing the 
 accuracy of Mr. Wright's first Camden publication -- the 
 * Poems on Richard II.' The second, entitled 'Political 
 Songs of England, from John to Edward II.,' swarms with 
 errors of transcription and interpretation equally gross; we 
 need not hesitate to assert that no work more fatal to all 
 claims of editorial competency has appeared since Hartshorne's 
 'Ancient Metrical Tales.' A single page will justify this 
 assertion. One piece (pp. 44 46) is a song levelled against 
 simoniacal prelates. The poem is perfectly easy to any one 
 who understands the most ordinary classical and scriptural 
 allusions; but a man who understands neither, and whose 
 acquaintance with Latin idiom and syntax is matter of history 
 or romance, may very possibly make sad havoc of it. Pass- 
 ing over the memorable 'fungar vice totis'* an enormity 
 
 * P. 44, 1. 3, of the poem 'Fungar tamen vice totis,' appropriately 
 rendered 'I will assume all characters in turn.' It is hardly necessary to 
 say that ' cotis ' stands as plainly in the MS. as in any black-letter Horace. 
 We subjoin a few random specimens of the editor's happy perception of 
 the sense of his originals, when he has succeeded in reading them rightly. 
 P. 11: Noah, David, and Daniel 'morum vigore nobiles ' are compli- 
 mented on being ' noble in the vigour of good breeding. ' Again , p. 14 
 
 'Vitium est in opere, virtus est in ore.' 
 
 'While vice is in the tvork, virtue is in the face.' 1 
 
 P. 32 ' Calcant archiprsesules colla cleri prona, 
 
 Et extorquent lacrimas ut emungant dona. ' 
 
 'The archbishops tread under foot the necks of the clergy, and extort 
 tears , that the;/ mat/ be dried by gifts, ' We imagine that ' emungere dona ' 
 would be more likely to empty the pockets of the inferior clergy than to 
 dry up their tears. With equal felicity, 'optim nictuenda facultas' (p. 34) 
 is rendered , ' the revered possession of riches ; ' and ' rerutn mersus in ar- 
 dorcin' [absorbed in the passion for wealth], 'immersed in the heat of 
 temporary [temporal?] affairs. ' It will not avail to say that all or any of 
 the above blunders originated in typographical errors. A hardworked 
 man might possibly overlook even such a misprint as 'totis for 'cotis;' 
 but when he ventures on translation he volunteers the measure of his foot. 
 We may add from the Appendix, p. 344, a pleasant example of skill in the 
 language of the middle ages: 'Pride hath in his paunter [net; panthera 
 Fr. panticre"] kauht the heie and the lowe; ' the said paunter being grave- 
 ly expounded in a glossarial note by ' pantry. ' We presume the editor
 
 ANTIQUARIAN CLUB-BOOKS. 123 
 
 which only one graduate of five years ' standing was capable 
 of perpetrating we request attention to the following 
 stanza: 
 
 ' Donum Dei non donatur 
 Nisi gratis conferatur ; 
 Quod qui vendit vel mercatur, 
 Lepra Syri vulneratur; 
 
 Quern sic ambit ambitus 
 
 Ydolorum servitus 
 
 Templo sancti spiritus 
 
 Non compaginatur. ' 
 
 Here the satirist, who has just been complaining of the scan- 
 dalous trafficking in sacramental ordinances, proceeds to de- 
 clare that the man who sells or buys the gift of God is in- 
 fected with the leprosy of (Naaman) the Syrian (transferred 
 to Gehazi as a punishment for his covetousness) ; and adds 
 alluding to well known passages in the Epistles of St. 
 Paul that he whom pecuniary corruption , which is idolatry, 
 thus influences, is no member of the temple of the Holy 
 Spirit. We beg the reader to observe how admirably this 
 has been understood by the translator: 
 
 c God's gift is not given if it be not conferred gratis; and he 
 who sells and makes merchandize of it, is, in so doing, struck 
 with the leprosy of Syms: the service of idols, at which [head 
 of Priscian! servitus quern}] his ambition thus aims, may not 
 be engrafted on the temple of the Holy Spirit. ' 
 
 Translated indeed! The rendering of the concluding stanza 
 of the poem is equally absurd ; but we have not space for 
 it. Partridge, or Hugh Strap, would have shown himself 
 a Bentley in comparison. We proceed to examine his qua- 
 fications in two departments in which he has made himself 
 tolerably prominent Anglo-Saxon and Early English. The 
 first piece we had occasion to bring to the test was a metri- 
 cal fragment on the Virgin Mary, apparently a production 
 of the thirteenth century, printed in <Reliquia3 Antiquse,' 
 vol. i. p. 104. In this, consisting of just six lines, there 
 are five false readings, three of them destructive to the 
 sense on for hit, oatvcth for harveth, and orvre for ervre, 
 to say nothing of two obvious corruptions, unintelligible as 
 they now stand, but removable by two monosyllables in 
 
 had hoard of people 'eaten up -with pride,' and concluded that this vo- 
 racious personage must needs have a larder for his provender. Not a bad 
 parallel to Le Roux de Lincy's transmutation of 'Bran the Blessed* into 
 ' Brau le Blesse'. '
 
 124 ANTIQUARIAN CLUB BOOKS. 
 
 brackets. We were next startled, in a metrical version of 
 the 'Ave Maria' of the same period (p. 22), at the totally 
 unknown formula 'the lavird thick the,' which turned out, 
 as everybody can foresee, to be a blunder for 'the lavird 
 with the' (Dominus tecum!) One of the few really good 
 things in the volume is an elegant and spirited paraphrase 
 of the 'Gloria in excelsis' (p. 34), evidently of the best age 
 of Anglo-Saxon poetry. On inquiring whether this had fared 
 any better than the rest, we found, besides minor errors, 
 the following gross corruptions ; sigercest for sigefcesl (vic- 
 torious), dretunes for dreames (joy), and ge-meredes for ge- 
 neredes (salvasti) words not even Anglo-Saxon , and to- 
 tally unauthorized by the MS., which, like all of that period 
 (ninth century), is perfectly easy to read. Nor is this all; 
 the editor has contrived to expose himself still more glar- 
 ingly in a passage where he has preserved the letters of the 
 original. The well-known expression of the Vulgate, 'et in 
 terra pax hominibus bonce voluntatts,' is almost literally re- 
 produced in the paraphrase 
 
 ' And on eorthan sibb 
 gumena ge-hwileum 
 godes willan ' 
 
 which last line is actually printed in the Reliquiae 'Godes 
 willan' voluntate Dei! On the very next page is a prose 
 version of the Pater Noster, apparently of the tenth century: 
 Hoping that this had surely escaped, we soon found that we 
 had supposed too fast atyf, permit, staring us in the face 
 instead of alys , deliver! Thus we have a phenomenon re- 
 served for the present age an editor of large pretensions 
 who not only tramples on the most ordinary rules of Latin 
 syntax, but has shown himself totally ignorant of the most 
 hackneyed phrase of Horace, the story of Naaman, the words 
 of one of the most familiar Psalms, the 'Gloria in excelsis,' 
 the Angelical Salutation, and the Pater Noster! 
 
 A performer capable of blundering so dreadfully where 
 everything is easy and straightforward, cannot be expected 
 to succeed very well where there is a little scope for criti- 
 cism. Among the pieces contributed by Mr. Wright to the 
 'Reliquiae Antiquse' is a collection of Middle-English (and 
 Anglo-Norman) Glosses by Walter de Bibblesworth. It has 
 been observed on a former occasion in this journal (vol. liv. 
 p. 329) that ancient glossaries, though highly valuable in 
 themselves, are better let alone by novices, as it requires 
 considerable knowledge of languages, and a certain skill in 
 conjectural criticism, to use them to any good purpose. For
 
 ANTIQUARIAN CLUB BOOKS. 125 
 
 example, with regard to c honde, aleine,* it is necessary not 
 only to be aware of the capricious employment and omission 
 of the aspirate, but to know <onde, breath,' a very un- 
 common word in that sense in order to restore the gloss 
 to its true form, 'onde, haleine.' We therefore find no fault 
 with Mr. Wright for not having grappled with the numerous 
 difficulties of the above piece, some of which might baffle a 
 scholar; but we cannot help saying that he has displayed an 
 absolutely astounding degree of ignorance with respect to 
 some of the easiest and most common terms in both langua- 
 ges. Thus it requires no great conjuration to see that 
 e tharine' and 'henete' are not even English words, and 
 that the corresponding 'bouele' and c lezart' absolutely re- 
 quire 'tharme* [A. S. thearm; Germ, darm] and 'hevete* 
 [evet or eft]. Should any inquisitive German or Dane at- 
 tempt to sift this vocabulary for etymological materials, we 
 beg to inform him that 'szynere, une lesche,' is not a gui- 
 nea called in flash language a shiner but a shiver or slice 
 of bread; and that segle is neither rick nor rice, which <ric' 
 might be conjectured to stand for, but what gods call secale 
 cereale, and mortals rye. We would also hint that there is 
 no such English plant as 'sarnel,' nor any French one 
 known by the unpronounceable name of 'le necl,' but that 
 darnel, Fr. ivraie, and ne'ele hodie nielle Anglice cockle, 
 are better known than liked in both countries. We trust 
 to his own sagacity for discovering that 'tode, crapanl,' 
 should be crapat/t, and that neither a 'feldefare,' nor any 
 other member of the genus Turdus , was ever called * grue, ' 
 >a fowl which, if it were carnivorously disposed, could eat 
 a dozen fieldfares to breakfast, but very possibly 'grive.' 
 Some of the articles are quite as enigmatical as Mr. Halli- 
 well's c Arbor Lencester;' for example, we find, p. 79, col. 
 1, c bore, tru of a nalkin, de fubiloun.' A great bore 
 indeed! in its present shape but reducible to reasonable 
 dimensions by substituting, from one of the editor's own 
 authorities, 'tru de subiloun bore of an alsene, i. e. awl,' 
 a good old-fashioned name for that classical implement 
 and still preserved in the elsin of our northern counties. Oc- 
 casionally the editor has the grace to manifest a little mis- 
 giving that all is not right, sometimes with reason and some- 
 times without. For instance, he boggles at c suluuard, pu- 
 lois? and 'brocke, ihelson?' as well he may, they being 
 phantoms of his own conjuring up for fulmard and thessoun, 
 alias tessoim, a well-known old French word for a badger. 
 Once more, p. 80, col. 2: 
 
 'Avenes eyles (?) des arestez.'
 
 126 ANTIQUARIAN CLUB BOOKS. 
 
 To be sure this does look rather odd ; but a tanl soil pen 
 Norman-Saxon scholar, or anybody more disposed for inquiry 
 than helpless wonderment, could readily have produced from 
 Cotgrave 
 
 'Areste the eyle,* awne, or beard of an eare of corne.' 
 
 Our readers may judge from the above samples, which 
 are capable of being multiplied ad infinilum , how well qua- 
 lified Mr. Wright is to edit Chaucer's Canterbury Tales 
 a task requiring, above all others, a combination of scru- 
 pulous accuracy, sound learning, critical discernment, and 
 classical taste which he nevertheless has had the modesty 
 to undertake. They may also perceive with what singular 
 grace and propriety he vituperates his predecessor Tyrwhitt 
 for philological deficiencies! Tyrwhitt had only a moderate 
 knowledge of Early English, which there were few means 
 for studying scientifically in his day. But he was, in the 
 comprehensive sense of the terms, a sound and elegant 
 scholar and a judicious critic; and though he may be now 
 and then caught tripping, he never exposes himself so egre- 
 giously as Mr. Wright does and will continue to do if he 
 is left to himself. We would by no means be understood 
 to affirm that all his publications are as irredeemably bad as 
 the portions that we have specified. When his way is quite 
 plain and smooth, when his MSS. are legible, and the sense 
 cannot be mistaken, he sometimes gets on pretty well; but 
 he almost infallibly stumbles over a difficulty of the size of 
 a pebble. His place in this department of literature ought 
 to be the secondary one of purveying the raw material for 
 more skilful editors; and, if he is wise, he will confine him- 
 self to this office, in which, we allow, he may make him- 
 self tolerably useful. 
 
 Half-learned smatterers, who never swarmed more than 
 they do at this time, are the very plague and pestilence of 
 our literature; and everything to which they give a perma- 
 nent shape becomes a permanent injury. Much of what has 
 been lately put forth had better have rested on the shelves 
 of our great libraries; the publications, as we now have 
 them, are much worse than the very worst MS. exemplars. 
 The errors of these are comparatively harmless as long as 
 they are let alone, and often furnish the means for their 
 own rectification; but when wafted on the wings of a thou- 
 sand printed copies, there is no foreseeing what mischief 
 they may do. We will give a couple of instances. Some 
 
 * From Anglo-Saxon ejle, arista.
 
 ANTIQUARtAN CLUB BOOKS. 127 
 
 fifty or sixty years ago, Pinkerton took upon himself to 
 edit a series of metrical romances and other pieces under 
 the title c Ancient Scottish Poems.' Dr. Jamieson, believing 
 all these to be Scottish, which several of them are not, and 
 committing the still greater mistake of supposing them to 
 be reasonably accurate, industriously transferred all the 
 words which seemed to need explanation to the pages of 
 his Dictionary. This he did in perfect good faith; but it 
 is now notorious that many of them are no words at all, 
 and never were, but mere blunders of Pinkerton, who, being 
 neither palaeographer nor philologist, has, as might be ex- 
 pected, perpetuated in print all sorts of monstrosities. How- 
 ever, they remain embodied in Dr. Jamieson's work, and 
 are frequently appealed to by British and foreign philologists, 
 particularly if they happen to countenance some blunder or 
 crotchet of more recent sciolists. Again, in 'The Arrival of 
 Edward IV. in England,' a narrative of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury, printed for the Camden Society about eight years ago, 
 we have these words, without note or comment appended: 
 
 'Wherefore the Kynge may say, as Julius Caesar sayde, he that 
 is not agaynst me is with me.' p. 7. 
 
 We fear it would be difficult to find this in Csesar's Com- 
 mentaries, but most people may remember something like 
 it in the Gospels. We believe that this truly astounding 
 iext originated in the following manner. The earlier copies 
 had in all probability r J. C. sayde,' an abbreviation of 
 which there are numberless instances. Honest John Stow, 
 the writer of the Harleian transcript, or the scribe whom he 
 followed, being laudably desirous of making everything 
 quite plain and clear to his readers, filled up the blank in 
 his own way by enlarging J. C. into Julius Ca'sar. After 
 the lapse of two centuries and a half Julius Csesar is roused 
 from his repose in the Harleian collection to be duly instal- 
 led in a thousand copies of the Camden Society's maiden 
 publication, there to remain as a monument of the wisdom 
 of our ancestors and ourselves, and as a puzzle to future 
 generations of mole-and-bat critics. It might appear incred- 
 ible that men who have read and written so much should 
 have learnt so little. But persons of his class are often like 
 the country foot-post, who travels more miles in a year than 
 anybody, but only knows the road from Weston to Norton, 
 and sees very little even of that. His object is to earn his 
 weekly wages, not to study the flowers which spring by his 
 path, or the birds which cross it, or to know the hills and 
 spires which break the monotony of the distant horizon. But
 
 128 ANTIQUARIAN CLUB BOOKS. 
 
 let us not be too hard on these lettered culprits. The stream 
 of shallow and frothy literature would not flow along and 
 spread itself as it docs , if the minds of readers were not 
 in a c concatenation accordingly. 1 The facilities for acquiring 
 knowledge multiply every day, but we doubt whether there 
 ever was a period exhibiting such a dearth of solid general 
 information among persons presumed to be well educated. 
 Such knowledge is little sought after, because it requires 
 habits of attention and observation which most of the pre- 
 sent generation find it troublesome to acquire. They see 
 objects without observing them, and learn things without 
 knowing them. Thus, shallow and ignorant writers are safe 
 while they are sure of readers of the same quality. When 
 Mr. Thomas Wright, in his Glossary to 'Piers Ploughman,' 
 gravely expounds brok by 'an animal of the badger kind,' 
 the downright silliness of the remark is not so obvious to 
 those who do not know that the species of badgers in the 
 world known to Langland amount to just one; and, conse- 
 quently, 'donkey, an -animal of the ass kind,' would be a 
 less gratuitous piece of information. But enough for the 
 present of Zoology. 
 
 We are not unaware of the important undertakings of the 
 University of Oxford in this department of literature, espe- 
 cially Wicliffe's Bible and Orm's Paraphrase and Exposition 
 of the Gospels; and when those works are properly before 
 the public, as we trust they shortly will be, we may pos- 
 sibly direct the attention of our readers towards them in a 
 more special manner.* We rejoice, meanwhile, that we 
 have at length the means of dwelling a little upon a highly 
 important publication of the Society of Antiquaries , namely, 
 a complete edition of Layamon's 'Brut, or Chronicle of 
 Britain,' in two texts, under the superintendence of Sir F. 
 Madden. This poem had been partially known for the last 
 fifty years by the remarks and extracts of Tyrwhitt, Ellis, 
 Sharon Turner, Conybeare, and others. But the specimens 
 furnished by those scholars were brief, and neither their 
 readings nor their interpretations were always to be relied 
 upon. It was subsequently treated in a more satisfactory 
 manner by two gentlemen who have made this branch of 
 literature their especial study. Mr. Kemble furnished a 
 valuable paper on the grammar and dialect in the 'Philo- 
 
 * Wiclitfe's Bible was published in 1850 by the Rev. .T. Forsliall and Sir 
 P. Madden , and the Ormulum made its appearance in 1852 under the aus- 
 pices of the Rev. R. M. White. The proof-sheets had been previously sub- 
 mitted to Mr. Garnett's inspection, and his services were handsomely 
 acknowledged by the accomplished editor. ED.
 
 LAYAMON'S BRUT. 129 
 
 logical Museum;' and Mr. Guest gave an able analysis of 
 Layamon's Metrical System, together with a long extract 
 from one of the texts, accompanied by a translation, in his 
 'History of English Rhythms.' But the great point was to 
 place the entire poem within reach of those who have neither 
 opportunity nor inclination to grapple with the obscurities 
 of MSS. ; and this has now been done under a very careful 
 eye, and with a rich accompaniment of elucidations. 
 
 Our readers do not require to be told that a poem of more 
 than thirty thousand lines, of the transition period of our 
 language embodying a greater amount of a peculiar form 
 of that language than can be collected from all other known 
 reliques of the same century must be of no small import- 
 ance for the grammar and history of the vernacular tongue. 
 The changes that gradually made English something differ- 
 ent from Anglo-Saxon are neither to be vaguely attributed 
 to a supposed Norman influence, which was a mere trifle 
 as regards its vocabulary, and absolutely nothing as to gram- 
 mar and idiom, nor to be guessed at per saltum, but to be 
 traced by a careful historical induction through all the stages 
 of which we possess written documents. No one can hence- 
 forth attempt such a task without a careful study of Laya- 
 mon, any more than a man, knowing nothing of Homer and 
 Herodotus , ought to dogmatize about early and later Ionic. 
 Sir Frederick Madden well observes, that a composition of 
 such great length must assist us in forming a better notion 
 of the state of our language at the end of the twelfth and 
 the beginning of the thirteenth centuries, than could be ob- 
 tained from the short and scattered specimens already in 
 print; and that, by the aid of the second text, composed 
 long after the former, though immediately founded npon it, 
 we are enabled to perceive at once the still further change 
 that the language had undergone during the interval, and 
 note to Avhat extent the diction and forms of the earlier text 
 had become obsolete or unintelligible. 
 
 The Spectator remarks that there exists a natural curiosity 
 to know something of the personal circumstances and history 
 of an author newly brought under our notice. With respect 
 to Layamon our curiosity must, in a great measure , remain 
 at fault. He cannot, indeed, be asserted to be a non-entity, 
 or mere verbal abstraction, as certain new-light critics pre- 
 dicate of Homer. However, we know hardly as much of 
 him as we do of Hesiod, and that little is entirely communi- 
 cated by himself his own age, and four or five succeed- 
 ing ones, observing a provoking silence respecting one who 
 underwent no small amount of mental and bodily toil for 
 
 9
 
 130 ANTIQUARIAN CLUB BOOKS. 
 
 their amusement. He informs us that his father's name was 
 Leovenath; that he exercised the profession of a priest at 
 Erneley-on-Severn, adjoining to Radstone; 'ther he bock 
 radde;' and that he conceived the happy thought of record- 
 ing the 'Origines Britannia^ 3 confining himself, with more 
 moderation than some Irish antiquaries, to the period after 
 the flood. As the libraries, public and private, of his own 
 district were but scantily supplied with the necessary author- 
 ities, our zealous priest made a pilgrimage 'wide through 
 the land' in search of materials. Having succeeded in pro- 
 curing the English book made by St. Bede, the Latin one 
 of St. Albin and St. Austin, and the 'Brut d'Angleterre ' of 
 Wace, he thus graphically describes the good account to 
 which he turned them : 
 
 'Lajamon leide theos hoc, 
 & tha leaf wende. 
 he heom leofliche bi-heold, 
 lithe him becrdrihten. 
 fetheren he nom mid fingren, 
 & fiede onboc-felle, 
 & tha sothe word 
 sette to-gadere: 
 & tha tlire boc 
 thrumde to ane.' vol. i. p. 3. 
 
 'Layamon laid before him these books, and turned over the 
 leaves ; lovingly he beheld them. May the Lord be merciful to him ! 
 Pen he took with fingers, and wrote on book-skin, and the true 
 words set together, and the three books compressed into one.' 
 
 We suspect that the art of thrumming three or more old 
 books into one new one is by no means obsolete among ori- 
 ginal authors of the present day; though, perhaps, few of 
 them would avow it so frankly as the good Priest of Erne- 
 leye. It would, however, be great injustice to consider Laya- 
 mon as a mere compiler. He availed himself, as he needs 
 must, of the facts and legends recorded by his predecessors; 
 but he often made them his own by his method of treating 
 them. Respecting his obligations to Wace's version of Geoff- 
 rey of Monmouth, Sir F. Madden says: 
 
 'This is the work to which Layamon is mainly indebted, and 
 upon which his own is founded throughout, although he has exer- 
 cised more than the usual licence of amplifying and adding to his 
 original. The extent of such additions may be readily understood 
 from the fact, that Wace's Brut is comprised in 15,300 lines, whilst 
 the poem of the English versifier extends to nearly 32.250, or more 
 than double. These additions and amplifications, as well as the
 
 LAYAMON'S BRUT. 131 
 
 more direct variations from the original, are all pointed out in the 
 notes to the present edition; but their general character, as well 
 as some of the more remarkable instances, may be properly no- 
 ticed here. In the earlier part of the work they consist principally 
 of the speeches placed in the mouths of different personages, 
 which are often given with quite a dramatic effect. The dream 
 of Arthur, as related by himself to his companions in arms, is the 
 creation of a mind of a higher order than is apparent in the creep- 
 ing rhymes of more recent chroniclers , and has a title, as Turner 
 remarks, to be considered really poetry, because entirely a fiction 
 of the imagination. The text ofWace is enlarged throughout, and 
 in many passages to such an extent, particularly after the birth 
 of Arthur, that one line is dilated into twenty; names of persons 
 and localities are constantly supplied , and not unfrequently inter- 
 polations occur of entirely new matter, to the extent of more than 
 a hundred lines. Layamon often embellishes and improves on his 
 copy, and the meagre narrative of the French poet is heightened 
 by graphic touches and details, which give him a just claim to be 
 considered, not as a mere translator, but as an original writer.' 
 
 After giving a minute account of the more remarkable 
 additions to Wace, Sir Frederick observes, 
 
 ' That Layamon was indebted for some of these legends to Welsh 
 traditions not recorded in Geoffrey ofMonmouthorWace, is scarce- 
 ly to be questioned; and they supply an additional argument in 
 support of the opinion that the former was not a mere inventor. 
 Many circumstances incidentally mentioned by Layamon are to 
 be traced to a British origin as, for instance, the notice of 
 Queen Judon's death; the mention of Taliesin and his conference 
 with Kimbelin; the traditionary legends relative to Arthur; the 
 allusions to several prophecies of Merlin; and the names of vari- 
 ous personages which do not appear in the Latin or French writers. 
 References are occasionally made to works extant in the time of 
 
 Layamon, but which are not now to be recognised 
 
 From these and other passages , it may be reasonable to conclude 
 that the author of the poem had a mind richly stored with legend- 
 ary lore, and had availed himself, to a considerable extent, of the 
 information to be derived from written sources. We know that he 
 understood both French and Latin; and when we consider that 
 these varied branches of knowledge were combined in the person 
 of an humble priest of a small church in one of the midland counties, 
 it would seem to be no unfair inference that the body of the clergy, 
 and perhaps the upper classes of the laity, were not in so low' a 
 state of ignorance at the period when Layamon wrote , as some 
 writers have represented.' - Preface, vol. i. pp. xiii. xvii. 
 
 After showing that the date of the composition of the poem 
 
 9*
 
 132 ANTIQUARIAN CLUB BOOKS 
 
 may with great probability be fixed about A. D. 1205, and 
 that the influence of Norman models, though considerable as 
 to the external form of the work, was insignificant with re- 
 lation to its phraseology, the editor observes, 
 
 'It is a remarkable circumstance, that we find preserved in 
 many passages of Layamon's poem the spirit aud style of the 
 earlier Anglo-Saxon writers. No one can read his descriptions of 
 battles and scenes of strife without being reminded of the Ode 
 on a-Ethlestan's victory at Brunan-burh. The ancient mythological 
 genders of Ihe sun and moon are still unchanged , the memory of 
 the wilena-gemol has not yet become extinct, and the neigh of the 
 hcengest still seems to resound in our ears. Very many phrases are 
 purely Anglo-Saxon, and, with slight change, might have been 
 used in Csedmon or ./Elfric. A foreign scholar and poet (Grundt- 
 vig), versed both in Anglo - Saxon and Scandinavian literature, 
 has declared that, tolerably well read as he is in the rhyming 
 chronicles of his own country aud of others, he has found Laya- 
 mon's beyond comparison the most lofty and animated in its style, 
 at every moment reminding the reader of the splendid phraseology 
 of Anglo-Saxon verse. It may also be added, that the colloquial 
 character of much of the work renders it peculiarly valuable as a 
 monument of language, since it serves to convey to us, in all pro- 
 bability, the current speech of the writer's time as it passed from 
 mouth to mouth. ' pp. xxiii., xxiv. 
 
 The justice of the above criticism will be manifest to any 
 one who, with a competent knowledge of Layamon's language, 
 compares his orations and descriptions of battles with the 
 corresponding passages of Wace or Robert of Gloucester. 
 In the latter everything is flat and tame, many degrees 
 below Geoffrey of Monmouth's prose in point of graphic 
 power and animation ; but Layamon often shows considerable 
 skill and discrimination in selecting those parts of the nar- 
 rative most capable of poetic embellishment; and, though he 
 had to struggle with a language which was ceasing to be 
 Anglo-Saxon but had not yet become English, he not un- 
 frequently manifests great felicity of diction, and a ready 
 command of words suitable to the subject. Much of this 
 must be necessarily lost on the mere English scholar, as 
 the proper appreciation of it depends upon the perception of 
 the true force and import of the Saxon and semi-Saxon terms 
 that constitute the chief staple of the poem. We therefore 
 recommend those who wish to form a judgment of the merits 
 of our early English epic to devote a little attention to the 
 language of Alfred and his predecessors ; and , whatever they 
 may think of the c Brut,' they may at all events 'acquire a 
 kind of knowledge creditable to an Englishman, and capable
 
 LAYAMON'S BRUT. 133 
 
 
 
 of becoming useful in a variety of ways. Those -who are 
 unwilling to pass this ordeal must consent themselves with 
 Sir Frederick Madden's translation. 
 
 We cannot conclude our remarks on the original sources 
 and character of Layamon's work without a few w r ords on 
 the obligations of our own literature and that of all Western 
 Europe to a writer whom it has been greatly the fashion to 
 abuse Geoffrey of Monmouth. We leave entirely out of 
 the question the truth or falsehood of his narrative. Scarcely 
 a Welshman of the old school could now be found to vouch 
 for Brutus' s colonization of Britain; though we dare say it 
 is to the full as true as the settlement of Italy by ^Eneas', 
 and many other things gravely recorded by Livy and Dio- 
 nysius of Halicarnassus. The merit of Geoffrey consists in 
 having collected a body of legends highly susceptible of 
 poetic embellishment, which, without his intervention, might 
 have utterly perished, and interwoven them in a narrative 
 calculated to exercise a powerful influence on national feel- 
 ings and national literature. The popularity of the work 
 is proved by the successive adaptations of Wace, Layamon, 
 Robert of Gloucester, Mannyng, and others ; and its influence 
 on the literature of Europe is too notorious to be dwelt 
 upon.* It became, as Mr. Ellis well observes, one of the 
 corner-stones of romance; and there is scarcely a tale of 
 chivalry down to the sixteenth century which has not di- 
 rectly or indirectly received from it much of its colouring. 
 Some matter-of-fact people, who would have mercilessly 
 committed the whole of Don Quixote's library to the flames, 
 Palmeriu of England included, may perhaps think this par- 
 ticular effect of its influence rather mischievous than bene- 
 ficial. We are far from sympathizing with such a feeling. 
 Whatever might be the blemishes of this species of litera- 
 ture, it was suited to the taste and requirements of the age, 
 and tended to keep up a high and honourable tone of feel- 
 ing that often manifested itself in corresponding actions. 
 Above all , we must not forget that it is to the previous exist- 
 ence of this class of compositions that we are indebted for 
 some of the noblest productions of human intellect. If it 
 were to be conceded that Wace, Layamon, and the whole 
 cycle of romances of the Round Table might have been con- 
 
 * ee particularly Mr. Panizzi's remarks on the influence of Celtic legends, 
 in the Essay on the Romantic Narrative Poetry of the Italians , prefixed to 
 his edition of the Orlando Innamorato and Orlando Furioso , vol. i. pp. 34 
 46, 390 92, &c. Mr. Beresford Hope has made an amusing attempt to 
 show that Geoffrey's story of Brutus and his descendants may be substan- 
 tially true. Essays, pp. 95141.
 
 134 ANTIQUARIAN CLUB BOOKS 
 
 signed to oblivion without any serious injury to the cause 
 of literature, we may be reminded that Don Quixote cer- 
 tainly, and Ariosto's Orlando most probably, arose out of 
 them. Perhaps Gorboduc, and Ferrex and Porrex, might 
 not be much missed from the dramatic literature of Europe ; 
 but what should we think of the loss of Lear and Cymbe- 
 line? Let us, then, thankfully remember Geoffrey of Mon- 
 mouth, to whom Shakespeare was indebted for the ground- 
 work of those marvellous productions, and without whose 
 'HistoriaBritonum' we should probably never have had them. 
 A spark is but a small matter in itself; but it may serve to 
 kindle a 'light for all nations.' 
 
 The metre of Layamon is remarkable for its constant fluc- 
 tuation between two perfectly distinct systems, the allite- 
 rative distich of the Anglo-Saxons, and the more recent 
 rhymed couplet partially employed by the early Welsh bards, 
 and on a still more extensive scale by the Norman trouve- 
 res. Supposing that we have the poem nearly as the author 
 left it, this irregularity is a strong indication of the rudi- 
 mentary and unsettled state of our language and literature 
 at the commencement of the thirteenth century. The remarks 
 of the editor will place the matter in a clearer light : 
 
 'The structure of Layamon' s poem consists partly of lines in 
 which the alliterative system is preserved, and partly of couplets 
 of unequal length rhyming together. Many couplets indeed occur 
 which have both of these forms, whilst others are often met with 
 which possess neither. The latter, therefore, must have depended 
 wholly on accentuation, or have been corrupted in transcription. 
 The relative proportion of each of these forms is not to be ascer- 
 tained without extreme difficulty, since the author uses them every- 
 where intermixed, and slides from alliteration to rhyme, or from 
 rhyme to alliteration, in a manner perfectly arbitrary. The alli- 
 terative portion, however, predominates on the whole greatly over 
 the lines rhyming together, even including the imperfect or asso- 
 nant terminations, which are very frequent. In the structure of 
 Layamon's rhyme , Tyrwhitt thought he could perceive occasion- 
 ally an imitation of the octo-syllabic measure of the French ori- 
 ginal, while Mitford finds in it the'identical triple measure of Piers 
 Ploughman. The subject, however, has been discussed more fully, 
 and with greater learning, by Mr. Guest in his "History of Eng- 
 lish Rhythms , " in which he shows that the rhyming couplets of 
 Layamon are founded on the models of accentuated Anglo-Saxon 
 rhythms of four, five, six, or seven accents. A long specimen is 
 given by him in vol. ii. pp. 114 124, with the accents marked 
 both of the alliterative and rhyming couplets, by which it is seen
 
 LAYAMON'S BRUT. 135 
 
 that those of six and five accents are used most frequently, but 
 that the poet changes at will from the shortest to the longest mea- 
 sure, without the adoption of any consecutive principle. In the 
 later text, as might be expected, both the alliteration and rhyme 
 are often neglected; but these faults may probably be often attri- 
 buted to the errors of the scribe.' -- pp. xxiv. , xxv. 
 
 This is perhaps all that, in the present state of our in- 
 formation, can be safely advanced on the subject of Laya- 
 mon's metrical system. The rhythmical irregularities here 
 adverted to are the more remarkable when contrasted with 
 Langland, who, though a century and a half later, adheres 
 with the utmost strictness to the alliterative system of the 
 Anglo-Saxons; and with Orm, -who, in a work of about 
 the same extent, employs scrupulously throughout the fifteen- 
 syllable couplet, without either rhyme or alliteration, but 
 modulated with an exactness of rhythm which shows that he 
 had no contemptible ear for the melody of versification. It 
 is true that in this instance we have the rare advantage of 
 possessing the author's autograph, a circumstance which 
 cannot with confidence be predicated of any other consider- 
 able work of the same period. The author was, moreover, 
 as Mr. Thorpe observes, a kind of critic in his own language; 
 and AVC therefore find in his work a regularity of orthogra- 
 phy, grammar, and metre, hardly to be paralleled in the 
 same age. All this might in a great measure disappear in 
 the very next copy; for fidelity of transcription was no vir- 
 tue of the thirteenth or the fourteenth century, at least with 
 respect to vernacular works. It becomes, therefore, in many 
 cases a problem of no small complication to decide with cer- 
 tainty respecting the original metre or language of a given 
 mediaeval composition, with such data as we now possess. 
 As the general subject, and its particular application to the 
 work of Layamon, present several points of considerable 
 interest, we shall devote a little space to the discussion of 
 them. Sir F. Madden says: 
 
 ' With respect to the dialect in which Layamon's work is written, 
 we can have little difficulty in assuming it to be that of North 
 Worcestershire, the locality in which he lived; but as both the 
 texts of the poem in their present state exhibit the forms of a 
 strong western idiom, the following interesting question immedi- 
 ately arises how such a dialect should have been current in 
 one of the chief counties of the kingdom of Mercia? The origin of 
 this kingdom, as Sir Francis Palgrave has remarked, is very ob- 
 scure; but there is reason to believe that a mixed race of people 
 contributed to form and to occupy it. We may therefore conclude, 
 either that the Hwiccas were of Saxon rather than Angle origin,
 
 136 ANTIQUARIAN CLUB BOOKS 
 
 or that, subsequent to the union of Mercia with the kingdom of 
 Wessex, the western dialect gradually extended itself from the 
 south of the Thames, as far as the courses of the Severn, the Wye, 
 the Tame, and the Avon, and more or less pervaded the counties 
 of Gloucester, Worcester, Hereford, Warwick, and Oxford. 
 
 ' That this western dialect extended throughout the Channel 
 counties from east to west, and was really the same as the southern, 
 appears from a remarkable passage in Giraldus Cambrensis (writ- 
 ten in 1204), in which he says, "As in the southern parts of Eng- 
 land , and chiefly about Devonshire, the language now appears more 
 unpolished (tncomposita), yet in a far greater degree savouring of 
 antiquity the northern parts of the island being much corrupted 
 by the frequent incursions of the Danes and Norwegians so it 
 observes more the propriety of the original tongue, and the an- 
 cient mode of speaking. Of this you have not only an argument 
 but a certainty, from the circumstance that all the English books 
 of Bede, Rabanus, King Alfred, or any others, will be found 
 written in the forms proper to this idiom." It is difficult at pre- 
 sent to understand how far Giraldus meant to assimilate together 
 the spoken language of Devonshire and the written works of Alfred 
 and others, but in all probability the chief difference must have 
 consisted in pronunciation, and in the disregard of certain gram- 
 matical forms, which would not of themselves constitute a separate 
 dialect. There can be no doubt that the written language , pre- 
 vious to the Conquest, was more stable in its character, and more 
 observant of orthographical and grammatical accuracy, than the 
 spoken 5 but it is impossible to collate together Anglo-Saxon ma- 
 nuscripts without being struck with the occasional use of anoma- 
 lous forms, which are termed by grammarians, rather too arbitrarily 
 perhaps, corruptions. Without therefore going so far as Ritson 
 (whose opinion of itself was little worth), that "the vulgar Eng- 
 lish of the period was essentially different from the Saxon used in 
 the charters of the Conqueror;" or Sir Francis Palgrave, who 
 thinks "that a colloquial language, approaching nearly to modern 
 English, seems to have existed concurrently with the more culti- 
 vated language which we call Anglo-Saxon," there are many 
 reasons to induce us to believe that the spoken language in the 
 reign of Edward the Confessor did not materially differ from that 
 which is found in manuscripts a century later. 
 
 'That the dialects of the western, southern, and midland coun- 
 ties contributed together to form the language of the twelfth and 
 thirteenth centuries , and consequently to lay the foundation of 
 modern English, seems unquestionable; and it is remarkable that 
 the same period is pointed out by philologists for the origin of 
 Italian from the ancient and varied dialects of that country. ' 
 Pref.) pp. xxv. xxviii.
 
 LAYAMON'S BRUT. 137 
 
 The above statement furnishes a very probable view of 
 the subject, and we are by no means prepared to say that it 
 is not the correct one. However, we would observe that there 
 are few matters more difficult than to determine, a priori, in 
 what precise form a vernacular composition of the thirteenth 
 century might be written, or what form it might assume in a 
 very short period. Among the Anglo - Saxon charters of the 
 eleventh and twelfth centuries, many are modelled upon the li- 
 terary Anglo-kSaxon, with a few slight changes of orthography 
 and inflection , while others abound with dialectical peculiari- 
 ties of various sorts. Those peculiarities may generally be 
 accounted for from local causes. An East Anglian scribe does 
 not employ broad Western forms, nor a West-of-England 
 man East -Anglian ones, though each might keep his pro- 
 vincial peculiarities out of sight, and produce something not 
 materially different from the language of ^Ifric. It is not 
 very easy to affirm what course was taken by Layamon. 
 It is not improbable that he might write in the dialect of 
 his district, or, at all events, that traces of it might be 
 found in his work. If we assume this, which is not abso- 
 lutely certain, two questions of no very easy solution arise 
 whether those broad Western forms , so prominent in the 
 poem, actually emanated from the author, and whether they 
 really belonged to the North Worcester district? To decide 
 the first point, it would be necessary to have access either 
 to the priest's autograph or to a more faithful copy of it 
 than it was the practice to make either in his age or the 
 succeeding one. A transcriber of an Early English compo- 
 sition followed his own ideas of language, grammar, and 
 orthography; and if he did not entirely obliterate the cha- 
 racteristic peculiarities of his original, he was pretty sure, 
 like the Conde de Olivares, *d'y mellre teaucoup du sien. 9 
 The practical proof of this is to be found in the existing 
 copies of those works, almost every one of which exhibits 
 some peculiarity of features. We have Trevisa and Robert 
 of Gloucester in two distinct forms { Piers Ploughman* in 
 at least three and Hampole's c Pricke of Conscience' in 
 half a dozen, .-without any absolute certainty which approxi- 
 mates most to what the authors wrote. AVith regard to Lay- 
 amon, it might be supposed that the older copy is the 
 more likely to represent the original; but we have internal 
 evidence that it is not the priest's autograph, and it is im- 
 possible to know what alterations it may have undergone 
 in the course of one or more transcriptions. Again, assu- 
 ming that he would write in the dialect of his district, it 
 may be doubted whether the Western peculiarities in ques-
 
 138 ANTIQUARIAN CLUB BOOKS 
 
 tion really belonged to that district. The most prominent 
 ones occur pretty frequently in charters and other docu- 
 ments of the Channel counties, and those immediately ad- 
 joining, from the twelfth century downwards; but we have 
 not been able to trace similar ones in Worcestershire docu- 
 ments, which are pretty numerous, and of much the same 
 period. We should rather expect, in the locality of Arley- 
 liegis, a dialect resembling that of 'Piers Ploughman,' as 
 edited by Dr. Whitaker; and if we could suppose that a 
 transcriber south of the Avon substituted v for initial f, 
 and eth for final en in plural indicatives, it would be no 
 more than has actually been done in other instances. Sir 
 F. Madden observes that forms belonging more properly to 
 the Mercian and Anglian dialects occasionally present them- 
 selves, and though they are too few to ground any positive 
 conclusion on, it is by no means impossible that they may 
 be vestiges of a more original type oi the poem. Questions 
 of this sort are to be decided by evidence, and we must be 
 content to let the present one remain in abeyance till we 
 meet with the author's own copy, or find direct proof of 
 the prevalence of a Western dialect in North Worcestershire. 
 As the poem now stands, the preponderance of forms be- 
 longs to the literary Anglo-Saxon , or may be directly dedu- 
 ced from it: the numerous provincialisms are those of the 
 southern and south-western counties, and might easily be 
 introduced by transcribers of that district. 
 
 Though in the present, and various other instances, it is 
 difficult to arrive at a positive conclusion respecting the ori- 
 ginal form of a mediaeval composition, there are certain 
 criteria which will frequently enable us to determine approxi- 
 matively in what district a given copy of it was made. 
 Much misapprehension prevails on this subject, and many 
 grievous mistakes have been made by editors and commen- 
 tators in assigning MSS. to localities to which they could 
 not possibly belong. It may not, therefore, be inexpedient 
 to point out a few characteristics that may serve to guide 
 us in a great number of cases. 
 
 The whole body of our Anglo-Saxon literary monuments, 
 from the eighth century downwards, is reducible to two 
 great divisions, West-Saxon and Anglian. Political events 
 gave a decided preponderance to the former, so that, to- 
 wards the end of the ninth century, we perceive its influence 
 on the written language in almost every part of England. 
 It also appears to have acted powerfully upon the spoken 
 dialect of the Western Mercians, who were originally Ang-
 
 L AY AM ON ',S BRUT. 139 
 
 les, but who seem to have gradually adopted various pecu- 
 liarities of the West -Saxon speech. The Anglian branch, 
 including the Northumbrian division of it, once boasted of 
 a flourishing and extensive literature; but civil commotions 
 and the ravages of foreign invaders gradually caused the 
 bulk of it to disappear. A few fragments fortunately es- 
 caped the general wreck. Besides the verses uttered by 
 Bede on his death-bed , the inscription on the Ruthvvell Cross, 
 and the fragment of Caedmon printed in Wanley's Catalogue, 
 we have in the Durham Ritual, published by the Surtees 
 Society, and in the celebrated Gospels, Cott. MS. Nero, D. 
 4 , undoubted specimens of the language of Northunibria in 
 the tenth century. A portion of the Gloss to the Rushworth 
 Gospels in the Bodleian Library, supposed to have been 
 written in Yorkshire, is in the same dialect. The Glosses 
 to the Psalter, Cott. MS. Vesp. A. 1, also printed by the 
 Surtees Society, though more southern, are of the same 
 generic character, that is to say, Anglian as distinct from 
 \Yest-Saxon, and, on account of the antiquity and purity 
 of the language, they are the most valuable monument of 
 the class. Those pieces present a form of language differ- 
 ing in many important points from the West-Saxon, and 
 approximating in some degree to the Old-Saxon and the 
 Westphalian dialect of Old-German. The dialects descended 
 from this were, in the eleventh century, and perhaps still 
 earlier, distinguished from those of the south and west by 
 the greater simplicity of their grammatical forms; by the 
 preference of simple vowels to diphthongs, and of hard guttur- 
 als to palatals ; by the frequent and eventually almost universal 
 rejection of the formative prefix ge\ and by the recurrence 
 of peculiar words and forms, never found in pure West- 
 Saxon. Another characteristic is the infusion of Scandinavian 
 words , of which there are slight traces in monuments of the 
 tenth century, and strong and unequivocal ones in those of 
 the thirteenth and fourteenth. Some of the above criteria 
 may be verified by a simple and obvious process, namely, 
 a reference to the topographical nomenclature of our pro- 
 vinces. Whoever takes the trouble to consult the Gazetteer 
 of England will find, that of our numerous 'Carltons' not 
 one is to be met with north of the Mersey, west of the 
 Staffordshire Tame, or south of the Thames; and that 'Fis- 
 kertons,' 'Skiptons,' 'Skelbrookes,'* and a whole host of 
 
 * The only exception as to words beginning with Sk appears to be Skil- 
 gate , in Somersetshire. Skenfreth , in Monmouthshire , is of Celtic origin. 
 Two remarkable words are Skephouse (Sheephouse)-Pool, near Bolton Abbey,
 
 140 ANTIQUARIAN CLUB BOOKS 
 
 similar names, are equally introuvables in the same district. 
 They are, with scarcely a single exception, Northern or 
 Eastern; and we know, from Aelfric's Glossary, from Do- 
 mesday and the Chartularies , that this distinction of pro- 
 nunciation was established as early as the eleventh century. 
 'Kirby, 1 or 'Kirkby,' is a specimen of joint Anglian and 
 Scandinavian influence, furnishing a clue to the ethnology 
 of the district wherever it occurs. The converse of this rule 
 does not hold with equal universality, various causes having 
 gradually introduced soft palatal sounds into districts to 
 which they did not properly belong. Such are, however, of 
 very partial occurrence, and form the exception rather than 
 the rule. 
 
 If we apply the above criteria to the concluding portion 
 of the Saxon Chronicle, comprising the reign of Stephen, we 
 find a systematic omission of the prefix ge in all participles 
 except* gehaten (called); muneces (monks), for munecan\ the 
 definite article the of all genders, numbers, and cases; forms 
 such as carlamen, scort, scce (she), a word ucknown in the 
 West-Saxon. We have internal evidence that this portion 
 of the Chronicle was written at Peterborough. Again, in 
 the Suffolk charters of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, 
 in Kemble's Codex Diplomaticus , vol. iv., and Brit. Mus. 
 Add. MS. 14847, we meet with kirke, ekelike (eternal), alke 
 (each), unnen (granted) for geunnen, sal (shall), and aren 
 (sunt), itself a sufficient indication of an Anglian dialect at 
 that period. The above peculiarities, and many similar ones, 
 are those of the northern and eastern district already speci- 
 fied; and they may serve as tests of other productions of 
 the same locality. We have no direct evidence where Orm's 
 Paraphrase of the Gospels was written; but, when we find 
 the same systematic omission of the formative ge, the same 
 predilection for hard gutturals e. gr. cwennkenn for quen- 
 chen a definite article nearly indeclinable, thessr (their) 
 for heora, the plural verb substantive arm, and moreover a 
 strong infusion of Scandinavian words and phrases, we see 
 at once that it is neither Southern nor Western, but Eastern 
 Midland, and most probably penned within fifty miles of 
 Northampton. 
 
 The language of the Southern district, of which the Thames 
 
 and Skutterskelf=Shivering-Self or Cliff, near Stokesley, in Cleveland. 
 The only Charltons in this northern and eastern district are four hamlets 
 in Northumberland, sectional divisions of the same township, and there- 
 fore reducible to one. 
 
 * It is singular that this word retained the prefix in the Northumbrian 
 dialect, after every other had lost it.
 
 LAYAMON'S BRUT. 141 
 
 and the Gloucestershire Avon may be broadly assumed as 
 the northern boundaries, is easily distinguished from that of 
 the eastern and northern divisions. Not to mention the to- 
 pographical nomenclature, such as Charlton or Chorlton, 
 Shipton or Shepton, Fisherton, &c. &c., instead of the hard 
 forms above specified, we find, from the twelfth century down- 
 wards, chirche, muchel, thincke, worche , eche (eternal), hrviche,* 
 or hnmche, with a multitude of similar forms, not accident- 
 ally or partially, but systematically employed. Provincialized 
 monuments of this branch also exhibit initial v for /", ss for 
 sh, and in Kent, z for s , and all that properly belong to 
 it are remarkably tenacious of Saxon forms, which all but 
 disappeared in some other districts before the middle of the 
 thirteenth century. The prefix ge (y, ?'.) is rarely dropped; 
 the inflections of nouns, pronouns, and verbs are West- 
 Saxon , with slight modifications ; and the archaic idioms and 
 inversions contrast strongly with the perspicuity and sim- 
 plicity of more northern compositions. Those peculiarities, 
 and the gradual manner in which they arose, are exempli- 
 fied in various charters and other documents, as may be seen, 
 for example, in Kemble's Codex Diplomaticus ; vol. iv. Chart. 
 773 and 799. The former of these, dated A. D. 1044, is 
 tolerable West-Saxon; the version of the thirteenth century 
 annexed to it shows a pretty copious sprinkling of provincial 
 forms; also the second, written about 1300; but a mutation 
 of a grant of 1053 is still broader; while all three, with all 
 of the same class, retain numerous forms and inflections, 
 which it would be vain to search for in the Chronicle of 
 King Stephen or Grin's Paraphrase. 
 
 The Western Mercian bears a general resemblance to the 
 Southern class in its adoption of soft palatal forms and the 
 partial retention of archaic inflections. The shibboleth of it, 
 as a distinct dialect from Northumbrian and North-Anglian 
 on the one hand, and Southern and South- Western on the 
 other, is the indicative plural in en we ye they lov- 
 en still current in South-Lancashire. This form also ap- 
 pears to have been popularly known, if not in East-Anglia 
 proper, at all events in the district immediately to the west- 
 ward, since we find it in Grm, in an Eastern-Midland copy 
 of the Rule of Nuns, ssec. xiii., and in process of time in 
 Suffolk. Various conjectures have been advanced as to the 
 origin of this form, of which we have no certain examples 
 
 * It is curious to trace the gradual retreat of whilk before which, from 
 Kent to Berwickshire.
 
 142 ANTIQUARIAN CLUB BOOKS 
 
 before the thirteenth century.* We believe the true state 
 of the case to have been as follows: It is well known that 
 the Saxon dialects differ from the Gothic, Old-German, &c. 
 in the form of the present indicative plural making all 
 three persons to end in aj) or ad; we 56 hi lufi-a)3 
 (ad). Schmeller and other German philologists observe 
 that a nasal has been here elided, the true ancient form 
 being and, ant, or enl. Traces of this termination are found 
 in the Cotton MS. of the Old Saxon Evangelical Harmony, 
 and still more abundantly in the popular dialects of the 
 Middle-Rhenish district, from Cologne to the borders of 
 Switzerland. These not only exhibit the full termination ent, 
 but also two modifications of it, one dropping the nasal and 
 the other the dental. E. g.: 
 
 Pres. Indie. Plur. 1, 2, 3 liebent; 
 
 lieb-et; 
 
 ,, lieb-en; 
 
 the last exactly corresponding with the Mercian. It is 
 remarkable that none of the above forms appear in classical 
 German compositions, while they abound in the Miracle- 
 plays, vernacular sermons, and similar productions of the 
 thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, specially addressed to 
 the uneducated classes. We may, therefore, reasonably con- 
 clude from analogy that similar forms were popularly current 
 in our midland counties, gradually insinuating themselves 
 into the written language. We have plenty of examples of 
 similar phenomena. It would be difficult to find written in- 
 stances of the pronouns scho, or she, their, you, the auxili- 
 aries sal, suld, &c. &c., before the twelfth century; but their 
 extensive prevalence in the thirteenth proves that they must 
 have been popularly employed somewhere even in times which 
 have, left us no documentary evidence of their existence. 
 
 Compositions more or less Mercian are pretty numerous: 
 the difficulty of arranging them arises from the rarity of 
 pure, undoubted specimens. Many of our present copies 
 have passed through the hands of several transcribers, each 
 of whom has altered something; while others are notoriously 
 adaptations of Northumbrian or Southern compositions to a 
 Midland dialect. The systematic employment of verbal 
 plurals in en is the most certain proof of Mercian influence. 
 It is a question of fact, not always of easy determination, 
 whether that influence is original or secondary. From its 
 central position this dialect was liable to be acted upon by 
 its neighbours on all sides, and to act upon them in its turn, 
 
 * Sceolon, aron , and a few similar words , are no real exceptions, being 
 in structure not present tenses but preterites.
 
 LAYAMON'S BRUT. 143 
 
 on which account Midland compositions appear under innu- 
 merable modifications, and are extremely difficult to classify. 
 Though the above rules prove nothing positive respecting 
 the original dialect of Layamon, they may serve to show 
 where the two existing copies were not written. No such 
 composition at that period could be penned in Northumbria, 
 in Yorkshire, or eastward of the direct line from London 
 to Sheffield. Our own opinion is that both were transcribed 
 to the south of the Avon, and that the priest of Ernley's 
 original language though retained in substance agreed 
 more closely with the literary Anglo-Saxon than cither text 
 does at present. We would further observe that it is not 
 from this form that our present English is directly descended. 
 A language agreeing much more closely with our standard 
 speech in words, in idiom, and in grammatical forms, ex- 
 isted in the Eastern Midland district before Layamon's { Brut' 
 was written. This form, which we may, for the sake of 
 distinction, call Anglo-Mercian, was adopted by influential 
 writers and by the cultivated classes of the metropolis be- 
 coming, by gradual modifications, the language of Spenser 
 and Shakspeare. Whoever takes the trouble to compare 
 Chaucer with Orm's Paraphrase and Mannyng's Chronicle 
 making allowance for the provincialisms of the latter will 
 at once perceive their strong resemblance in grammar and 
 idiom ; and this resemblance will be rendered still more evi- 
 dent by contrasting all three with Layamon or Robert of 
 Gloucester. Sir Francis Palgrave's theory of a colloquial 
 language, nearly approaching to modern English, concurr- 
 ently existing with Anglo-Saxon may be partially true as 
 to certain northern and north-eastern counties; but it is to- 
 tally erroneous with respect to the southern and south-west- 
 ern districts. Orm's Paraphrase is more English than 
 Anglo-Saxon, while Layamon's 'Brut' of the same period 
 is more Anglo-Saxon than English. Contemporary Kentish 
 and Hampshire documents follow still more closely the ana- 
 logy of the ancient speech of Wessex. Particular words 
 were admitted into the standard speech from those extreme 
 southern dialects ; but their general influence upon it during 
 the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was very inconsider- 
 able. After the fourteenth century the cultivated language 
 began to act powerfully upon all provincial forms, and it is 
 still daily reducing them within narrower limits. The adop- 
 tion of the speech of Leicestershire* and Northamptonshire 
 
 * We 1 elieve Mr. Guest was the first to point out the analogy between 
 the Leicestershire dialect and classical English. ' IJistory of English 
 Rhythms,' vol. ii. p. 193.
 
 144 
 
 ANTIQUARIAN CLUB BOOKS 
 
 as the standard form, in preference to that of Kent and 
 Surrey, is one of the many phenomena which we can per- 
 ceive, but cannot account for otherwise than conjecturally. 
 It is possible that Chaucer and Wickliffe may have exercised 
 something of the same influence in England as Dante and 
 Boccaccio did in Italy, and Luther in Germany. 
 
 As a specimen of the work and a text for the application 
 of the foregoing rules and remarks, we shall select some 
 lines from the account of the flight of Childric and the 
 death of Colgrim, being the continuation of the extract 
 given by Mr. Guest, 'History of English Rhythms,' vol. ii. 
 pp. 114123. 
 
 FIRST TEXT. MS. COTT. 
 
 Calig. A. ix. 
 
 f Tha zet cleopede Arthur : 
 athelest kingen. 
 gurstendaei wses Baldulf : 
 cnihten alre baldest. 
 nu he stand on hulle : 
 & Avene bi-haldeth. 
 hu ligeth i than straeme : 
 stelene fisces. 
 mid sweorde bi-georede; 
 heore sund is awemmed. 
 heore scalen wleoteth : 
 swulc gold-faze sceldes. 
 ther fleoteth heore spiten : 
 swulc hit spseren weoren. 
 
 Efne than worde: 
 tha the klg seide. 
 he braeid hseze his sceld: 
 forn to his breosten. 
 he igrap his spere longer 
 his hors he gon spurie. 
 Neh al swa swi[the] : 
 swa the fuzel flizeth. 
 fuleden than kinge : 
 fif and twenti thusend. 
 whitere monnen : 
 wode under wepnen. 
 Tha iseh Colgrim : 
 wfer Arthur com touward him. 
 ne mihte Coign for than waele: 
 fleon a nare side, 
 ther fseht Baldulf: 
 bi-siden his brother, 
 tha cleopede Arthur: 
 ludere stefne. 
 Her ich cume Colgrim : 
 to cuththen wit scullen roaclien. 
 nu wit scullen this lond dalen ; 
 swa the bith alre luththest. 
 
 SECOND TEXT. MS. COTT. 
 
 Otho. C. xiii. 
 c Zet him speketh Arthur: 
 baldest alre kinge. 
 zorstendai was Baldolf: 
 cniht alre baldest, 
 nou he stond on hulle : 
 and Avene bi-holdeth. 
 hu liggeth in than streme: 
 stelene fisces. 
 
 Efne than worde 
 that the king saide. 
 he breid hehze his scelde: 
 up to his breoste. 
 he grop his spere longe: 
 and gan his hors sporie. 
 Neh al so swithe: 
 so the fowel flieth. 
 folwede than kinge: 
 fif and twenti thousend. 
 
 Tho iseh Coign: 
 war Arthur com toward him. 
 ne mihte he fliht makie: 
 in nevere one side. 
 
 tho saide Arthur: 
 
 to Colgrim than kene. 
 
 Nou we solle-this kinelond: 
 deale ous bi-twine.
 
 LAYAMON S BRUT. 
 
 145 
 
 JEfne than worde : 
 tlia the king saide. 
 his brode svvoerd he up ahof : 
 and ha'rdliche adtin sloh. 
 and smat Colgrimes haelm : 
 that lie amidde to-clsef. 
 and tliere bare hod: 
 that hit at the breoste at-stod. 
 And he sweinde touward Baldulfe: 
 rnit his swithre hude. 
 & swipte that hrefved of: 
 forth mid than holme, 
 tlia loh Arthur : 
 the althele [athele] king, 
 and thus geddien agon: 
 mid gomenfulle worden. 
 Lien nu tliere Colgrim : 
 thu were iclumben haze, 
 and Baldulfthi brother: 
 lith bi thire side. 
 nu ich al this kine-lond : 
 settean eorwer [eowerjahjerehond. 
 dales & dunes : 
 & al mi drihtliche vole, 
 thu clumbe a thissen hulle: 
 wander ane hseje. 
 swulc thu woldest to hsevene: 
 nu thu scalt to haelle. 
 ther thu miht kenne: 
 much of thine cunne. ' 
 - Layamons Erut, vol. ii., pp. 471 
 
 Efne than word: 
 
 that the kinge saide. 
 
 his brode sweord he ut droh: 
 
 and uppe Colgrim his helm smot. 
 
 and to-cleof thane brunie hod: 
 that hit at the breoste a-stod. 
 And lie a wither sweyncde : 
 to Baldolf his brother, 
 and swipte that heved of 
 forth mid than helme. 
 tho loh Arthur the king : 
 
 and thes worde saide. 
 
 Li nou thar Colgrym : 
 
 the [thou] were iclemde to heze. 
 
 and Baldolf thin brother : 
 
 lith bi thine side. 
 
 nou ich al this kinelond: 
 
 sette in zoure tweire bond. 
 
 ze clemde to hehze: 
 uppen thisse hulle. 
 ase theh ^e wolde to hevene : 
 ac nou je mote to helle. 
 and thare jeo mawe kenne : 
 moche of zoure cunne.' 
 
 -6. 
 
 Admidst the rudeness of its versification and language, 
 the reader who is capable of picking out the meaning will 
 not fail to discern in this episode (which is too long for 
 us to give in exlenso) a considerable portion of rough vi- 
 gour, occasionally enlivened with graphic touches. In the 
 lines now quoted, the comparison of the Saxons submersed 
 in the Avon to dead fishes, though somewhat fanciful, pre- 
 sents a striking picture to the mind's eye. The addresses of 
 Arthur are, as a general's should be, brief and energetic; and 
 the author shows his natural good taste in not dwelling upon mi- 
 nute details of slaughter. In this respect he presents an advan- 
 tageous contrast to some. Italian epic- writers , who are often 
 so long in killing or half-killing a champion that the reader 
 feels tempted to skip a leaf or close the book. Arthur's 
 sarcasm respecting Colgrim's share of the kingdom will re- 
 mind the classical scholar of Marius's reply to the ambassadors 
 of the Cimbri, and the reader of c lvanhoe' of Harold's an- 
 swer to Tosti. We must also bear in mind that this episode, 
 with many similar ones, is no servile copy. As the editor 
 observes in his note, 'This long and highly poetic narrative 
 
 10
 
 146 ANTIQUARIAN OLIIT! BOOKS 
 
 is due to the imagination of our English poet; for in his 
 original, the conclusion of the battle, the death of Baldulf 
 and Colgrim, and the flight of Cheldric, are described in 
 four lines. ' 
 
 A comparison of the two texts will show the numerous 
 liberties taken by the more recent transcriber, in transposing, 
 altering, and abridging those passages which he did not like 
 or could not understand. Several parallel cases might be 
 pointed out; and this shows how unsafe it frequently is to 
 speculate on the original form of a mediaeval composition 
 from such copies as we happen to possess. Both our exist- 
 ing MSS. of the 'Brut' are of the same age the second 
 probably not fifty years later than the first; yet we find a 
 visible change in language, and, what is still worse, a strong 
 propensity to tamper with the integrity of the matter. If 
 the older MS. has undergone a similar ordeal, which is by 
 no means unlikely, it .must be difficult indeed to fix the 
 original readings. Each, however, may be taken as an 
 evidence, more or less exact, of the grammar and dialect 
 of the period and locality to which it belongs. The analyses 
 of the grammatical peculiarities of the work, furnished by 
 Mr. Kcmblc, Mr. Guest, and Sir Frederick Madden, save 
 us the trouble of entering into further detail respecting them; 
 and we cannot do better than refer our readers to what they 
 have said. Those who wish to trace the literary history of 
 the poem , and its connexion with the legends of contem- 
 porary and succeeding writers, will find ample satisfaction 
 in the notes of the editor. With a full sense how heavily 
 the task must have pressed on a gentleman not a little bur- 
 dened already with official duties, we cannot but thank him 
 for his labours, and congratulate him on their successful 
 termination. It would certainly be no charity to wish to 
 bind him again to a similar undertaking: but we cannot 
 refrain from expressing a hope that when the incdited por- 
 tion of Robert of Brunnc's Chronicle makes its way to the 
 press, he may have an opportunity of contributing to its 
 illustration. The value of that work as a monument of lan- 
 guage, and a repository of early traditions, is not suffi- 
 ciently known; and the incidental observations of Sir Fre- 
 derick Madden, in his notes on Lay amen, show that he is 
 fully qualified to do justice to the subject.
 
 ON THE LANGUAGES AND DIALECTS OF 
 THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 
 
 [Proceedings of (he Philological Society, Voh I $- II.} 
 
 The author believes that many members of the Society 
 feel a particular interest in the investigation of the langua- 
 ges and dialects now or formerly current in the British 
 islands; and he proposes to submit a few remarks on such 
 points connected with them as appear most worthy of 
 notice. 
 
 The Celtic dialects have obviously the first claim on our 
 attention on the ground of priority: and it is, moreover, a 
 matter of curiosity to inquire what influence they have exer- 
 cised upon our present forms of speech. It is also of some 
 importance to the general philologist to ascertain what place 
 they occupy in the European and Asiatic families of langua- 
 ges. Till lately they were supposed by various eminent 
 scholars to form a class apart, and to have no connexion 
 whatever with the great Indo-European stock. This was 
 strongly asserted by Col. Vans Kennedy, and also main- 
 tained, though in rather more guarded terms, by Bopp, Pott 
 and Schlegel. The researches of Dr. Prichard in 'The 
 Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations,' and of Professor 
 Pictet of Geneva, in his truly able work, c Sur I' Af finite des 
 lanyues Celliqucs avec le Sanserif, ' may be considered as hav- 
 ing settled the question the other way ; and as proving satis- 
 factorily that the assertions of the philologists above-mentioned 
 were those of persons who had never properly investigated 
 the matter, and were consequently incompetent to decide 
 upon it. The demonstration of Pictet is so complete, that 
 the German scholars who had previously denied the con- 
 nexion, now fully admit it; and several of them have written 
 elaborate treatises, showing more affinities between Celtic 
 and Sanscrit than perhaps really exist. This may serve to 
 show the danger of dogmatizing in philology upon insufficient 
 data. 
 
 It is but justice to the memory of a meritorious Celtic 
 scholar, Edward Lhuyd, to observe that he clearly pointed 
 
 10*
 
 148 ON THE LANGUAGES AND DIALECTS 
 
 out the affinity between the Celtic dialects and such Indo- 
 European languages as were then known , nearly a century 
 and a half ago. Sanscrit had at that period scarcely been 
 heard of in Great Britain; but the many coincidences which 
 Lhuyd incidentally shows between Welsh, Gaelic, &c. and 
 the Greek, Latin and Teutonic tongues, prove that he was well 
 aware of the affinity between them. One instance which he gives 
 is so creditable to his sagacity, and withal so instructive, 
 that we may be permitted to dwell a few moments upon it. 
 
 No German or English philologer has, as far as the author 
 knows, given a satisfactory etymology of the term summer. 
 Lhuyd justly observes that it is, etymologically speaking, 
 the same word as the Welsh hav; and that the proof of this 
 maybe found in the Irish forms samli and samradh , the Gaelic 
 s answering to the Cymric h. Professor Pictet has observed 
 the affinity between the Sanscrit root 'sum and the Irish 
 samhy both involving the idea of mild, soft, gentle-, scimhradh 
 being literally the mild or genial quarter. The Sanscrit 
 term is recognised by the German philologists as the root 
 of the ancient Teutonic samft= English soft: and the author 
 thinks it afforded a more likely etymology for the Greek 
 adjective rjuzgog, mild, tame, and for ^s^a, clay, than has 
 hitherto been offered. It would seem very unlikely, a priori, 
 that day and night could be derived from the same root; yet 
 there is reason to believe that such is the case in one in- 
 stance. ' Samani, confessedly from ''sam, is a Sanscrit term 
 for night, apparently on account of its stillness] as summer, 
 and ijue(Kt. supposing them to be from the same root, con- 
 vay the idea of a mild genial temperature. An analogy of 
 this kind between such apparently remote languages as Welsh, 
 German, Greek and Sanscrit, is calculated to suggest a 
 variety of important reflections. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to adduce the testimonies of Caesar and 
 Tacitus as to the similarity between the ancient British and the 
 Celtic of Gaul. The declaration of Caesar that the language 
 of the Belgse differed from that of the other Gauls, is ex- 
 plained by Strabo, who describes the different tribes as 
 IIIXQOV itaQakkdrrovTEc; r"g yhuGGais , slightly diverging 
 in language; in other words, the difference was merely dia- 
 lectical. Several elaborate attempts have been made to show 
 that the language of the Gauls and other continental Celts, 
 and consequently that of a majority of .the Britons, was in 
 fact Gaelic ; the Armoric and Cymric dialects being peculiar 
 to the Picts. Though our materials for deciding this ques- 
 tion arc not very copious, it is believed that, if fairly ex- 
 amined and used, they will be found sufficient. Besides
 
 OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 149 
 
 many proper names, Greek and Latin authors have preserved 
 several hundred Gallic words, many of them appellations of 
 plants and other common objects. A considerable proportion 
 may be identified as still subsisting, or capable or explana- 
 tion in living Celtic tongues; but, as far as they go, they 
 do not afford much countenance to the Gaelic hypothesis. 
 Some of them are undoubtedly found in Gaelic, but very 
 few exclusively so; and what may be considered as decisive 
 of the question is, that the forms of the most remarkable 
 words cannot be reconciled to the peculiarities of the Gaelic 
 dialects. 
 
 The following instances, to which many others might be 
 added , may perhaps be regarded as affording some counten- 
 ance to this assertion : 
 
 Petorrifum , a four-wheeled carriage; adduced as a Gallic 
 word by Cicero, Quintilian and others: Welsh, peder, four, 
 and rhod, a wheel. 
 
 Pempcdula, according to Dioscorides, Apuleius, and other 
 ancient medical writers , the Gallic name of the Quinque folium, 
 or cinquefoil. In Welsh, pumdalcn-, from pump, five, and 
 dalen, a leaf. We may here observe the analogies of the 
 ^olic if spite, five and the Sanscrit dala, leaf. 
 
 Candetitm^ according to Columella, a Gallic measure of 
 100 feet. Welsh, cant, a hundred. 
 
 The above etymologies may be considered as certain ; and 
 it is equally certain that words including those elements 
 cannot be Gaelic, to the genius and structure of which 
 they are totally foreign. The Gaelic terms for four, five, 
 hundred, are respectively cealhair , cuig , cead; it is therefore 
 as impossible that the words we have adduced should be 
 Gaelic, as that TErQacpvklov , JtevTcccpvMov , and exccTopitedov 
 should be pure Latin. 
 
 Again, Epona, a deity said to be adopted from the Gauls, 
 was the goddess of horses ; Eporedia, now Ivrea in Piedmont, 
 and its inhabitants , the Eporcdices, were so called from their 
 devotion to horse-racing and skill in horse-breaking. Ep. is 
 not extant in Welsh as a simple term for a horse , but Pel- 
 letier gives it as ancient Armorican, and it still subsists in 
 compounds and derivatives: ebran, horse-provender; ebol, a 
 colt (eqindeus), and some others. RJiedu and rliedeg are the 
 common Welsh terms for to run or to race. The Gaelic 
 word for horse is each ; whence we may infer that the Epo- 
 redices did not employ that dialect, but one analogous to 
 that of the Cymru or Armoricans. 
 
 Further, Halle and Halle in are names of various places in 
 Southern and Middle Germany possessing salt-works; and in
 
 )() ON T11K LANGUAGES AMD DIALECTS 
 
 some localities Hall is used as a simple appellative, denot- 
 ing any place where salt is manufactured. It is well known 
 that Southern Germany was long occupied by Celtic tribes, 
 many of them emigrants from Gaul, and this at once points 
 out the Cymric and Armorican hat, hak'ii, salt, as the ety- 
 mology of such places. The Gaelic sal -anti, and the Ger- 
 man salz } are equally out of the question. 
 
 A great mass of collateral evidence might be adduced 
 from continental proper names, ancient and modern; such 
 as Nanluales, Nanlouin, Nanteuil, and many others, obviously 
 from nanl, a valley, a word unknown in Gaelic: from words 
 still current in France, ex. (jr. yoelan, a gull, Breton gwclen, 
 Welsh ywylan, Gaelic fadun\ yocmon, sea-weed, Welsh ywy- 
 mon, Gaelic feaman; and from the fact that most of the 
 words preserved by ancient authors agree more nearly with 
 the Welsh or Armorican equivalents than with the corres- 
 ponding terms in the Irish or Highland dialects. Vclarus, 
 water-cress, would appear at first sight to come nearer the 
 Gaelic Molar than the Welsh berwr. But the truth is, that 
 biorar (from bior, water) is the ancient and genuine Gaelic 
 form; velarus and biolar being mere euphonic modifications 
 to avoid the unpleasant concourse of two r's. At all events, 
 the Armorican form lelcr comes as near as the Gaelic. 
 
 It is right to observe, that there is one ancient Gallic 
 term which, as far as our present information goes, can 
 only be explained from the Gaelic, namely, carbidolupon, 
 the Plantayo major, or broad-leaved plantain. The plant in 
 question had the credit of possessing vulnerary properties; 
 and, supposing carbidolupon to mean wound-wort, it readily 
 resolves itself into the Gaelic ccarbadh, wound or cut, and 
 lubh or luibh herb , a term not found in Welsh, tieliocanda, 
 Achillcva millcfolium, or yarrow, inight bear cither the inter- 
 pretation of hundred flowers or hundred-leaves. In the former 
 case, the first portion of the word would appear to be the 
 Gaelic billeoy , leaf; in the latter, the Welsh blocn, flower, 
 would come as near as any Gaelic word; but in every case, 
 the latter half, canda, hundred, would be non-Gaelic. Sco- 
 biis, the elder-tree, is plainly the Breton skao and Welsh 
 ysyaw. The Gaelic word is droman. One of the most re- 
 markable among the few relics of ancient Gaulish that we 
 possess, occurs on a tablet found at Paris A. D. 1711, re- 
 presenting a bull, with three birds, and bearing the inscrip- 
 tion TARWOS TRIGARANOS. The monument is supposed 
 to have reference to the mythology of the ancient Gauls : 
 the words of the inscription arc (bating the terminations o.v) 
 Welsh to a letter; Utrw, bull, tri, three, and gtiran, crane.
 
 OF THE BUITISH ISLANDS. 151 
 
 In Gaelic, tarblt, bull, and Iri, three, agree pretty well; 
 but corr, or corr-mJioinidlt , is a totally different word from 
 gdran. We may here observe the obvious analogy between 
 go-ran and the Greek ysQavos, and may also remark that 
 the Celtic word ,is significant , being derived from gar, a 
 shank , and consequently is not a borrowed word , though the 
 Greek term possibly may be. 
 
 If we have succeeded in establishing the point that the 
 language of the ancient Gauls bore a general analogy to the 
 dialects of Wales and Armorica, it will follow, as a corollary, 
 that the same analogy extended to the language of South 
 Britain. It has already been observed that attempts have 
 been made to deny this , and to show that the ancient South 
 Britons were Gael, and that the Welsh language was, before 
 and during the Roman period, confined to the provinces 
 north of the Forth and Clyde. Much stress has been laid 
 on the testimony of E. Lhuyd, who thought he could detect 
 in the names of rivers and other local appellations in South 
 Britain, traces of an older Gaelic population. It may here 
 be observed, that by those ancient Gael (or Gwyddel as he 
 calls them) Lhuyd neither means the Scott nor the Britons 
 of the Roman period, but a primitive race whom he sup- 
 poses to have preceded the Cymru in Britain and the Mile- 
 sians in Ireland, and whose existence in the former country, 
 though possible enough, is purely hypothetical. It is more 
 to the point to observe that Lhuyd's premises do not bear 
 out his conclusions, scarcely one of the terms which he 
 alleges being exclusively Gaelic. One on which he lays 
 great stress is Wish, the name of several British rivers, 
 which he observes is the Gaelic uisge, water. But though 
 wysg in Welsh does not now precisely mean water, it means 
 a stream or current, and, metaphorically, course, career, an 
 analogy of import sufficiently close to justify the belief of 
 its being of the same origin as the Gaelic word. It would 
 be easy to show that all the other words which he alleges 
 are known to the Welsh or Armorican dialects, either as 
 simple terms or in compounds and derivatives; consequently 
 the hypothesis attempted to be founded on them falls of it- 
 self to the ground. 
 
 It is not meant to be asserted that the language of the 
 Southern Britons was, strictly speaking, Welsh. The Cym- 
 ric or Welsh was not the whole British language, but a 
 particular dialect, chiefly prevalent in certain northern and 
 western provinces. Caesar informs us that many Belgse were 
 established in the southern parts of the island , and the 
 Welsh themselves make a distinction between the Lloegrians
 
 152 ON THE LANGUAGES AND DIALECTS 
 
 and the Cymru. Giraldus Cambrensis, speaking of the 
 Welsh and Cornish languages, expresses an opinion that 
 the latter bore the most analogy to the speech of the ancient 
 Southern Britons; and there are plausible reasons for be- 
 lieving that idea to be well-founded. That the ancient 
 South British could not be Gaelic, is shown abundantly 
 by the topographical nomenclature of the country, both an- 
 cient and modern. The non-Gaelic terms, pen, pant, nanl, 
 comb (W. cwm), a valley, chevin (W. cefn), a ridge, and 
 many similar ones, occur in almost every country; while, 
 on the other hand, peculiar Gaelic terms found in almost 
 every barony in Ireland, such as cluain, plain, sliabh, mountain, 
 are totally unknown in England. Another argument may 
 be deduced from Celtic terms still current, especially in 
 provincial dialects, which it is believed are more numerous 
 than is commonly supposed. 
 
 The pointing out of particular instances will belong to a 
 subsequent branch of our inquiry; at present it may be ob- 
 served, that though the Cornish and Breton regularly cor- 
 responding with the Welsh in forms (which is the most 
 certain proof of affinity), it is not to be denied that they 
 not unfrequently agree with the Irish in particular words. 
 For example, Ir. athair, serpent; Bret. aer. Ir. alachl, with 
 young; Bret. #/#, to calve, yean. Ir. boabhalta, simple, 
 stupid; Bret, bavedik. Ir. bochd, poor; Corn, bochodoc. Jr. 
 faobhar , edge of a sharp instrument; Corn, fyvar-, with many 
 others. We are not, however, to regard such words as 
 borrowed from the Gaelic (of which there is no proof), but 
 as collaterally descended in both classes from the ancient 
 Celtic. The Breton asrech, Corn, edrak, edrcge, Ir. ailltriylte, 
 repentance, are remarkable for their resemblance to the 
 Gothic idreigon, to repent, which the Teutonic philologists 
 know not well how to analyse. Another word of unknown 
 origin used by Ulphilas, viz. aibr , gift or offering, bears a 
 strong likeness to the Welsh aberlh, sacrifice. These in- 
 stances might almost Jead one to suspect that our present 
 text of the Gothic Gospels was revised in some locality where 
 Celtic theological terms were current: but it would be un- 
 safe to erect a theory upon so slender a foundation. 
 
 Some eminent scholars, particularly Adelung, and Price 
 (the editor of Warton's 'History of Poetry'), have expressed 
 an opinion that Welsh was, in fact, the language of the 
 Belgic Gauls, and state as a proof of this, that it exhibits 
 strong symptoms of admixture with Teutonic. There appears 
 to be no solid foundation for this hypothesis. There arc 
 undoubtedly a number of Teutonic words in the American
 
 OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 153 
 
 dialects, and still more in the Irish, which mat/ have been 
 derived from the Belgae of Gaul or Britain, or the Firbolg, 
 said to have preceded the Scoti in Ireland. But the Cymru 
 proper were, of all known Celtic tribes, the most remote 
 from Germanic influence. It is not to be supposed that 
 Belgic immigrants in Hampshire and Wiltshire could influ- 
 ence the language of Strath Clyde, Cumberland, or North 
 Wales 5 and excepting a few terms adopted at a compara- 
 tively recent period from the Anglo-Saxon or English, there 
 is nothing in the whole compass of the language that can 
 be proved to be borrowed from the Teutonic. Words with 
 Germanic prefixes and affixes are totally unknown; and 
 where the terms are cognate, the peculiarity of form proves 
 the Welsh ones to be genuine. For instance, cas, to hate, 
 is not borrowed from the German hassen , nor hal, salt, from 
 salz. any more than the Greek a&s is borrowed from sal, 
 or SQXCO from serpo, or vice versa. One observation appears 
 to be nearly conclusive as to this point. It is a well-known 
 peculiarity of the Germanic tongues, that they abound in 
 words beginning with s, followed by one or more conso- 
 nants ; and similar combinations are also admissible in Gaelic 
 and Armorican. But no such union would be tolerated in 
 Welsh. An initial s is invariable followed by a vowel ; and 
 when the etymology would require the concurrence of a con- 
 sonant, it is either elided, as in seren, star, Armorican 
 steren ; or the pronunciation is softened by prefixing a vowel, 
 as ysnoden, a band or fillet, Lowland Scotch snood. This 
 remarkable peculiarity is scarcely to be reconciled to the 
 idea of a strong admixture of German blood and German 
 language. The fact is , that Adelung set out with a precon- 
 ceived idea of the radical non-affinity of the two classes of 
 tongues; and whenever he met with a Celtic word resemb- 
 ling a German one, directly concluded that it must have 
 been borrowed. For example, he takes it for granted that 
 the Celtic abhall (ctfalt) apple, was borrowed from the Ger- 
 man apfel, though the word is found in all the Celtic, Teu- 
 tonic and Sclavonic dialects, and does not in reality belong 
 to one more than another, having descended to all from 
 some common source. 
 
 These remarks on the Celtic languages have been made 
 artly with the view of stating some of the apparent grounds 
 or considering them as branches of that great family of 
 tongues which has spread itself from Central Asia to the 
 extreme west of Europe. One of the latest writers on the 
 subject, Mr. Johnes, though he regards Asia as the cradle 
 of the race, thinks it probable that the Celts did not, as is 
 
 F,
 
 154 ON THE LANGUAGES AND DIALECTS 
 
 commonly supposed, pass by the Euxinc and the Danube 
 in their progress westward, but by Syria and Africa into 
 Spain, and- afterwards into Gaul. The serious objections to 
 this hypothesis are: 1. There is no mention whatever in 
 ancient history of Celts either in Syria, Egypt, or Mauri- 
 tania. 2. Ancient writers uniformly represent the Celts as 
 intruders from the eastward upon the Iberians. 3. There is 
 no positive trace of Celticism in any known African lan- 
 guage; while every Indo-European dialect, from Hindostan 
 to Portugal, shows unequivocal proofs either of admixture 
 with Celtic elements or of a community of origin, and not 
 unfrequently of both. In the Romance languages , and some 
 of the Germanic dialects, this phenomenon may be easily 
 explained on historical and geographical data; but there are 
 languages extensively prevalent, spoken by tribes remote, as 
 far as we know, from -all direct Celtic influence, that ne- 
 vertheless exhibit many remarkable correspondences with 
 that class of tongues, some of which are apparently too 
 close to be explained by a remote collateral affinity. It will 
 be sufficient to give a few select instances from the Arme- 
 nian and the Slavonic, both of which differ as strongly from 
 Celtic in their organization and general characteristics as 
 any members of the Indo-European family differ from each 
 other : 
 
 AKMKNIAN. CELTIC. 
 
 dsiern ...... hand .......... G*. & W. dourn, dorii, fist. 
 
 khuir 
 
 sister 
 
 W. 
 
 chwaer. 
 
 djur 
 ardj 
 dzarr 
 
 water 
 bear 
 tree 
 
 W. 
 
 W. 
 
 dwr. .^ <~j 
 arth. pis ^ 3 J 
 derw, oak.'? xT^c/* Is* 
 
 mis 
 
 flesh 
 
 
 
 mes , dish , meal. 
 
 datel 
 
 to judge 
 
 
 
 dadlen, to litigate 
 
 bari 
 
 good 
 
 Bret, 
 
 brao ; G. breagh. 
 
 Pag-anel . . . 
 
 to salute 
 
 . W. G. 
 
 pog, a kiss. 
 
 tun 
 
 house 
 
 G. 
 
 dun, a fort; W. din. 
 
 phait 
 
 wood 
 
 G. 
 
 fiadh ; W. gwydd. 
 
 am 
 
 year 
 
 . G. W. 
 
 am, lime. 
 
 oskr 
 
 bone 
 
 W. 
 
 asgvvrn. 
 
 gloukh 
 
 , head 
 
 W. 
 
 clog, inpcn-glog ; G. cloghan, skull. 
 
 sir 
 
 love 
 
 . W. G. 
 
 serch. 
 
 air 
 
 man 
 
 G. 
 
 fear; W. gwr. 
 
 amis 
 
 month 
 
 W. 
 
 mis. 
 
 lousin 
 
 moon 
 
 
 
 lloer. 
 
 khoz 
 
 swine 
 
 
 
 hwch. 
 
 arjat 
 
 silver 
 
 G. 
 
 airgiod. 
 
 ainarn 
 
 summer 
 
 
 
 samhradh. 
 
 boun 
 
 trunk, stock . . . 
 
 W. 
 
 bon; G. bun. 
 
 * G. Gaelic; W. Welsh; Bret. Breton.
 
 OF TUE BRITISH ISLANDS. 
 
 155 
 
 ABMENIAN. 
 I werah. . . . over, itpun. . . . 
 
 kin woman 
 
 ter, lord; gen. tearau 
 
 khagzr .... sweet 
 
 ail . . . . but 
 
 CELTIC. 
 gwor, gor;.G. for. 
 
 W. 
 G. 
 W. 
 
 G. &il,othev. (Cf. Gr. 
 
 The coincidences with the Slavonic dialects are much too 
 
 numerous to be here given at length. In the following list 
 an attempt is made to point out some of the most remark- 
 able : 
 
 SLAVONIC. CELTIC. 
 
 baba an old woman Ir. badhbh , sorceress. 
 
 blag good breagh ; Bret. brav. 
 
 blesk brightness blosg, light. 
 
 blejat (lias.) to bleat W. bloeddiaw, to cry out. 
 
 blato mud llaid. 
 
 N | to prick , lo tiult n-il!t \ .. . 
 
 bodat (Has.) < '. , j pwtiaw , to butt , poke. 
 
 borja I fxjhl Ir. borr, victory; borras, soldier. 
 
 bran battle braine , chaplain , chief. 
 
 brija / shave W. byrraa , to crop. 
 
 * Br'z quick pies ; Ir. brise ; E. brisk. 
 
 , , , r< (braighe; W. bre, high around; 
 
 briag bank , shore G. { , 
 
 ) Sc. brae. 
 
 vitaz conqueror W. baddyg. 
 
 vlaga moisture gwlych ; Ir. fliach. 
 
 vladaika . . . ruler gwledig ; Ir. f 1 ;ti t h . 
 
 vlas hair gwallt; Ir. folt. 
 
 vl'k wolf Ir. breach. 
 
 vl'na n'ool W. gwlan; Ir. ollan. 
 
 , , , T (bran, raven , black, : W. bran, 
 
 vraii raven , black Ir. { 
 
 \ raven. 
 
 vriema , yen. vriemene, time I!ret. breman, now. 
 
 varit (lias.), to boil W. berwi. 
 
 voz upwards; vaisok, high. . Ir. aas , up ; aasal, high noble. 
 
 v'rt garden gort. 
 
 viera faith W. gwir : Ir. fior , true. 
 
 glava head pen-glog; Ir. clogan, skull. 
 
 glas voice W. llais. 
 
 gor'kai .... bitter Ir. gear, sour, sharp. 
 
 grom thunder Uret. karau (xfpauvog). 
 
 debel thick W. tew. 
 
 dlaiii palm of the hand W. G. doarn. 
 
 dl'g debt Ir. dligLe;^W. dyled. 
 
 dol valley W. dol. 
 
 drozd, drozg thrush tresglen. 
 
 dibri valley dyffryn. 
 
 zima winter graaav, anciently gaem. 
 
 kash'lt .... cough G. cas ; W. pas. 
 
 kobnila . . . mare capall ; W. keffyl, horse. 
 
 * The medial comma represents the hard jerr. A soft jerr is denoted 
 by W.
 
 156 
 
 ON THE LANGUAGES AND DIALECTS 
 
 SLAVONIC. 
 
 kolieno knee G. 
 
 kovatz smith W. 
 
 kradu / steal G. 
 
 kr'vf blood W. 
 
 krag (Polish) circle 
 
 liek medicine Ir. 
 
 lag grove 
 
 inal little 
 
 minu / pass 
 
 ml'zu / milk Ir. 
 
 more sea W. G. mor. 
 
 mas flesh W. mes , a meal; E. mess. 
 
 rad milling 
 
 pani (Illyr.) . trunk of a tree 
 
 rouno fleece W. 
 
 salo fat Ir. 
 
 slob weak , infirm W. 
 
 slava glory Ir. 
 
 slug servant 
 
 slied footsteep 
 
 snieg snow 
 
 8oloma(Rus.) straw W. 
 
 son (Kuss.) . sleep G. 
 
 such dry W. 
 
 srzde heart G. 
 
 srieda middle W. 
 
 turn hedge G. 
 
 cherv norm 
 
 shirok broad 
 
 shui left, sinister W. 
 
 CKLTIC. 
 
 glun ; W. glin. 
 
 gov. 
 
 creachaim. 
 
 crau. (Lat. crnor). 
 
 crwn, round. 
 
 leigheaclid. 
 W. llwyn (Rom. /U/yyog). 
 mal , small , light. 
 
 myned , to go. 
 
 blighim. 
 
 rhad , free , gratuitous. 
 
 bon; Ir. bun. 
 
 rhawn; Ir. ron , hair of animals 
 
 saill. 
 
 clov. 
 
 cliu (Gr. xfo'og). 
 
 sgolog (Ger. schalk). 
 
 sliocyt (E. slot), 
 sneacht. 
 
 calav. 
 
 suain. 
 
 sych. 
 cridlie. 
 craidd. 
 dun, fort. 
 crumh. 
 sir, long. 
 
 aswy. 
 
 Many of the above terms have undoubtedly only a colla- 
 teral affinity, as they co-exist in Sanscrit and other langua- 
 ges; but others are, as far as is at present known, peculiar 
 to Celtic and Slavonic, and exhibit an absolute identity of 
 form and meaning such as we should hardly expect, a priori, 
 to find in languages so remote from each other. Among the 
 former class may be noticed the root cas (cough), as a good 
 example of the agreement as well as of the difference of the 
 various members of the great Indo-European family of ton- 
 gues. The Sanscrit kds, Gaelic cas, Lithuanian kosulys, a 
 ough, koslu, I cough, and Slavonic kusheli , exhibit the gut- 
 tural initial; the German husten, Lowland Scotch host, Ar- 
 menian huz, the aspirate; the Welsh and Armoric pas, and 
 Greek /3^, the labial; and the Latin lussis, the dental. The 
 Kurdish yoka bears a singular resemblance, not only to the 
 upper German kauchcn and the English cough, but also to 
 several Finnish dialects; Finnish proper, kohkri , l><">l.li<i; Es- 
 thonian kohha] Hungarian kb'he; Lappish kossas. We may 
 here remark, by the way, that this and a variety of similar 
 instances would lead one to suspect that the Finnish and
 
 OP THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 157 
 
 commonly so-called Indo-European languages may be more 
 nearly related to each other than the generality of philolo- 
 gists seem willing to allow. Another word, appearing in 
 both lists; Armenian tun, house, Slavonic turn, a hedge, is 
 deserving of notice for its probable identity, not only with 
 the Celtic dun , din , but also with the German zaun , a hedge ; 
 Anglo-Saxon tun, a hamlet; and lowland Scotch town, a 
 homestead. The radical idea is that of inclosure, as is proved 
 by the primary verbs; Anglo-Saxon tynan (still extant in 
 the Lancashire tyne, to shut), and Irish dunaim, I shut, in- 
 close, barricade. Another remarkable word is Russian son, 
 Gaelic suain, sleep. Though these words are undoubtedly 
 cognate with the Sanscrit swapna, it is worthy of notice that 
 they agree closely in form with the Pracrit suna, produced, 
 agreeably to the genius of that dialect, by the elision of the 
 medial consonants. The Greek and Welsh have duplicate 
 forms: Gr. vxvog, W. hep, from swapna; and Gr. svvq, W. 
 hun , from suna. A similar phenomenon may be observed 
 in the Pali and Pracrit pati, Doric xori, Armenian pat; com- 
 pared with Sanscr. prati , Ionic HQOTI,, ordinary Hellenic 
 jtQo$. It is possible that a careful analysis of Pali and Pra- 
 crit forms, for which there are unfortunately few facilities 
 at present, might lead to the discovery of analogies between 
 Sanscrit and the languages of Europe which have not hi- 
 therto been suspected. . 
 
 The extensive affinities of worm, which is found in one 
 form or other in nearly all languages of the class , have been 
 repeatedly noticed by German philologists as examples of 
 the interchange of the guttural initial (Sanscrit krimi, Lithu- 
 anian krimis} with the palatal (Slavonic cherv) and the labial 
 (Latin vermis, Engl. worm, Welsh pryv). They appear to 
 have overlooked our grub, which has a decidedly Celtic 
 aspect, and, rather an unusual phenomenon in English words, 
 agrees more closely with the Gaelic form crumh than the 
 Welsh pryv. This however does not prove it to be adopted 
 from the Gaelic, since, though the Welsh prefers the labial 
 form to the guttural, it has in many cases duplicate forms, 
 e. g. crys and pres, haste. Cruv may therefore have existed 
 in the Llocgrian British though not now found in Welsh. 
 
 With respect to the second class of terms, namely those 
 apparently peculiar to Slavonic and Celtic , the resemblance 
 of such terms as vran and bran, raven; kovalz and gof, smith; 
 rhiduika and gwledig , chief, illustrious; is too obvious to be 
 here insisted on. It is difficult to say how far they may or 
 may not be borrowed, as we have scarcely any data for as- 
 certaining the ancient juxtaposition or absolute separation
 
 158 ON THE LANGUAGES AND DIALECTS 
 
 of the tribes. Tacitus informs us that the language of the 
 vEstii* approximated to that of the Britons. If that were 
 really the case, it might be conjectured that there is at least 
 one relic of their speech in the Lithuanian mcrga, maiden 
 (Welsh mercli), a term which has not a little puzzled the 
 native etymologists. Generally speaking, however, the 
 Lithuanian and Lettish languages show fewer correspond- 
 ences with Celtic than are found in the ecclesiastical dialect, 
 or ancient Slavonic. This, there is reason to believe, was 
 the language of the Pannonian provinces , where it is possible 
 those who spoke it might have more or less intercourse with 
 Celtic tribes. 
 
 A remarkable word found in all the Slavonic dialects, but 
 admitting of no etymological explanation within their limits, 
 is bolvan, an idol or statue. Pott, in his c Dissertation on 
 the Lithuanian Language,' after giving the forms of it in 
 the different dialects, adds "Mini etymon vocis ignotum." 
 Grimm also points it out as a very peculiar word in the 
 last edition of the 'Deutsche Mythologie' without attempt 
 ing to account for it. An etymology, appearing at least 
 plausible, is furnished by the Armorican peulvan, of which 
 Pelletier gives the following account in his 'Dictionnaire do 
 la Langue Bretonne':< fc PEULVAN: a long stone, erected 
 perpendicularly in the form of a pillar or post ; a rough un- 
 wrought column. This word is current in Basse Cornouaille, 
 towards Audierne, where several of those stones occur on 
 the high roads and in waste places. It is a compound of 
 pcul post or pillar and man, figure, personage, appear- 
 ance; signifying perhaps the appearance of a man standing 
 upright; the form of the first plural (pcnlranct) denoting 
 beings that are animated, or reputed to be so. May not 
 our ancestors have placed those stones as objects of some 
 sort of worship or religious ceremony, and as a kind of idol?" 
 The idea that those monuments were objects of religious re- 
 verence in the Druidical times is generally adopted by the 
 antiquaries of Britany, and it is stated that the peasantry 
 have still some vague superstitions respecting them. We 
 may here remark, that the Wallachian balavanu, evidently 
 the same as the Slavonic word, simply means a large stone, 
 thereby approximating more to the Celtic peulvan in material 
 import. . If we admit the identity of the terms, it would 
 follow that the Slavonians have been the borrowers in this 
 
 * The name of Ac&lii may have been given to some of the neighbouring 
 tribes, as well as to the Finnish race, which is represented by the modern 
 
 Eat*.
 
 OP THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 159 
 
 instance ; the component parts of the word being significant 
 in Celtic but not in Slavonian; nor, it is believed, in any 
 other Indo-European language. This might lead to an in- 
 teresting inquiry whether, and to what extent, the mythologies 
 of the two races appear to be connected. The setting-up a 
 pillar of stone or wood as a rude symbol of some deity ap- 
 pears to have been a practice almost universal with pagan 
 nations. 
 
 The occurrence of Celtic words in the Albanian language 
 may be easily accounted for, as we know that Celtic tribes 
 were intermixed with the Thracians as late as the time of 
 Trajan. One of the most remarkable coincidences is the 
 term for egg : Albanian PEL (pronounced vi\ Cymric wy. Here 
 again the Gaelic iibli is more remote, though it accords very 
 well with the Latin ovum and Greek oaov (.ZEolic coFoV). 
 (iroufi, woman, may be referred either to the Gaelic gruay 
 or Welsh gwraig. Dovre, hand, is more analogous to the 
 Welsh or Gaelic dourn than to the Slavonic dlani. Most of 
 the words common to Celtic and Albanian are however 
 identical with those already pointed out in the Slavonic dia- 
 lects, and may have been introduced from that quarter. 
 
 We now come to the portion of the subject most imme- 
 diately interesting to ourselves, the inquiry how far the 
 Celtic dialects appear to have influenced the current langua- 
 ge of England. Though this at first sight appears a simple 
 question, it is not without its difficulties', at least, there are 
 many points on which we cannot arrive at absolute certainty. 
 Our parent language , the Anglo-Saxon , is , as a whole , very 
 distinct from Welsh, or any other Celtic dialect; still there 
 is a certain affinity between them, and it is necessary to 
 distinguish carefully between what has been derived from 
 what is merely collateral. Again, where terms have been 
 actually adopted, it is not always clear which was the bor- 
 rowing party. When different races are in contact there is 
 generally some interchange of vocables , and after a lapse of 
 many centuries it is not in every case practicable to ascertain 
 the original proprietorship. Moreover, Welsh and Armorican 
 are partially Romanized languages, yet having many original 
 roots closely cognate with the Latin; so that, in attempting 
 to eliminate mere Latinized words, it is often difficult to 
 know where to stop. Adelung, the author of 'Mithridates,' 
 appears to have regarded the Germanic and Celtic languages 
 as radically unconnected with each other; and, in pursuance 
 of this idea, gives a long list of terms ostensibly borrowed 
 by the Celts from their neighbours. On this one of his
 
 160 ON THE LANGUAGES AND DIALECTS 
 
 countrymen, much his superior as a comparative philologist, 
 makes the following judicious remarks: 
 
 "Adelung's comparison of modern Celtic words with Latin 
 and German is very far from satisfactorily establishing the 
 point which among others he attempts to deduce from it, 
 namely, that the Cymru are undoubted descendants of the 
 Belgse, who are described by Caesar as much intermixed with 
 Germans; and who consequently, on their emigration to 
 Britain, brought with them many terms adopted from the 
 Low German. Now many of the words alleged by him are 
 not borrowed at all; and respecting others, it may be ques- 
 tioned whether they were not, on the contrary, borrowed by 
 the German from the Celts. To answer such nice questions 
 properly requires a more profound and comprehensive in- 
 vestigation than has hitherto fallen to the lot of this class 
 of languages. In some words the determination is easy ; in 
 others, perhaps, absolutely impossible. In future it will be 
 necessary carefully to separate what is really extraneous 
 from the Celtic tongues before they can be safely employed 
 for ethnographical or philological purposes. Little attention 
 has hitherto been paid to this matter, and consequently a 
 helpless confusion has arisen with respect to these languages 
 and their genealogical relation to other branches, which it 
 will cost endless trouble to unravel*." 
 
 It is not our present purpose to enter upon the comprehensive 
 field here pointed out, though we may furnish a few hints 
 and data towards its fuller exploration. The inquiry with 
 which Ave are more immediately concerned is, whether the 
 Germanic tribes, and more particularly the Anglo-Saxons, 
 adopted words of Celtic origin, and to what extent V That 
 some such process did take place is probable in itself and 
 confirmed by the experience of many parallel cases. The 
 Romans themselves adopted various Gallic words; and our 
 intercourse with the East has served to introduce a number 
 of Persian, Indian and even Chinese terms into our own 
 language. It is, moreover, evident from the account given 
 by Caesar and others, that the Gauls, though inferior to the 
 Greeks and Komans in civilization, were more advanced 
 than the Germans; and we know that the colonial Britons, 
 prior to the breaking up of the Romans Empire, had ac- 
 quired all the useful and ornamental arts of the Romans. 
 The invading Franks and Anglo-Saxons consequently found 
 many implements, processes and artificial productions, of 
 
 * Pott. (ap. Ersch and Gruber's Encyclopaedia); Art. INDOGEKMANISCHKU 
 SPUACHSTAMM.
 
 OP THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 1(31 
 
 which they previously knew little or nothing; and what is 
 more likely than that they should partially adopt the names 
 by which they were designated? We may also easily con- 
 ceive that they would be occasionally struck by the apparent 
 oddity of the words current among the conquered race, and 
 employ them themselves in a familiar or ludicrous sense, 
 in the same way that flash terms are frequently used by 
 educated Englishmen. An instance of each description will 
 help to illustrate our meaning, We know from Martial that 
 bascauda was a British word in the time of Domitian; and 
 there is not the smallest reason to doubt that the Welsh 
 basgawd and our own basket are perfectly identical with it 
 in origin. Again, the verb to bother is seldom used by our- 
 selves except in the comic or familiar style: but in the Irish, 
 from which we originally adopted it, it is a perfectly serious 
 word, and occurs repeatedly in the Scriptures in the sense 
 of mente affligi or conlitrbari. The same observations might 
 be extended to other classes of words ; but to proceed to 
 our immediate object of showing how far those influences 
 have operated upon our current speech, we shall first pro- 
 duce a select list of terms relating to the ordinary arts of 
 life, such as agriculture, masonry, carpentry, cookery, needle- 
 work, &c. &c., which appear to be of Celtic origin. A few 
 French, Italian and Germanic terms will be given for the 
 sake of illustration, as also some, apparently of Latin origin, 
 when there appears reason to believe that they were adopted 
 from the Celtic inhabitants of the island, and not from the 
 Latin or Anglo-Norman. 
 
 Welsh. 
 
 * basgawd basket. 
 
 berfa barrow. 
 
 ( button, Fr. bonton from bouter 
 
 botwm \ ' , 
 
 I to push. 
 
 brag , malt, whence ) brasium , Lat. barb. 
 
 bragodlyn , spiced wort ) bragget. 
 
 bran, skin of wheat bran. 
 
 brat, clout, rag brat, a chiltfs pinafore, Yorksh. 
 
 i T ( broder, Fr. broider, E. nrocl, a 
 
 brodiaw , to darn . embroider . . . { . ' 
 
 | point. 
 
 hrywes, bread dipl in dripfiiny, &.c. brewis, Yorksh. 
 bwyell, hatchet Ger. beil; E. bill. 
 
 * The Celtic terms in the following lists are Welsh , except when other- 
 wise specified. Ff represents the ordinary f. Single f is pronounced like v. 
 Abbreviations: W. Welsh; (f. Gaelic: Br. Breton; Fr. French; Ital. 
 Italian; Ger. German; Sc. Lowland Scotch : Prov. Provincial. [For some 
 additions to the original list, the Editor is indebted toll. Wedgwood, Esq.] 
 
 11
 
 102 ON THE LANGUAGES AND DIALECTS 
 
 Welsh. 
 
 cab, caban, lint cabin. 
 
 cae, enclosure, hedge quay. Port, cazo Dkade. 
 
 caman, road Ital. camino; Fr. chemin. 
 
 , , .. ( caned, applied lo vinegar, &c. 
 
 can , wniic, < / n / /, / 
 
 ( full of while (lakes. 
 
 cawg, cup coggie, Sc. 
 
 ceubal, boat cobble. 
 
 clwt, patch; clytiaw , lo patch . . clout. 
 
 cnap, button ) , , 
 
 ' , > knob, 
 
 cnwb , knob ) 
 
 craft, claps, brace cramp-iron; Fr. agraffe. 
 
 crampoez,Br.(Oorn. crampotban) crumpet. 
 
 crochan , a pot crock , crockery. 
 
 crog, a hook crook. 
 
 crogi , lo hang , suspend Fr. crocber, accrocber. 
 
 crwt, a crust Fr. crouste. 
 
 cwcb, boat cock-boat. 
 
 cwysed (from c\vys,ridge, furrow) gusset, gousset a pocket. 
 
 'h/f ..cCzlLcJ 1 . a /cni f e Sc - s ull y- 
 
 Z cyl, cylyn kill, Prov.; kiln, Eng. 
 
 chwiogen , cake, manchel .... whig, Yorksb., a sweetened cake. 
 
 dantaetli , choice morsel dainty. 
 
 darn, a patch darn. 
 
 deintur, frame for sir etching cloth tenter, 
 
 dref, bundle-, drefa, 24 sheaves . tbreave. 
 
 ffasg, a bundle fadge , Yorksb. 
 
 fflaim, cattle-lancet fleam. Du. vlieme. 
 
 fflasged, large wicker vessel . . . flasket, Yorksb., a pail. 
 
 fflaw , shiver, splinter flaw. 
 
 ffris, nap of cloth frieze. 
 
 ffynel, air-hole, chimney funnel. 
 
 gaflacb , fork gavelock, iron crow. 
 
 gardas (gar, shank, tas, lie) . . garter, jarretiere. 
 
 gefyn, feller gy vc - 
 
 greidell , iron baking-plate .... griddle. 
 
 rual gruel. 
 
 gwain, a carriage wain. 
 
 g_aIL, rampart wall. 
 
 gwald, hem, border welt. 
 
 gwdyn, a with woodie, Sc. 
 
 gwialen, a rod gaulc, Fr. 
 
 gwiced , little door wicket. 
 
 gwlanen (from gwlan , wool) . . . flannel; lloref. flannen. 
 
 gwlyb, liquor flip. 
 
 gwn, robe gown. 
 
 OL y-W , (M 
 I
 
 OP THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 163 
 
 Welsh, 
 
 gwyfr wire. 
 
 ( windle, measure of capacity. 
 
 gwyntell.&orfrt j Lan( ! asbire . 
 
 ( ffoit, a mill-course' also a river 
 
 gwyth , channel, water-course . . { . ri1 , . 
 5 * I in Cheshire. 
 
 heislan heisyllt, instrument to j 
 
 drey* /7.r ) 
 
 hem, a border hem. 
 
 hob , measure of capacity hoop, qr.ofapeck, N. Yorksh. 
 
 hws, a covering'^ hwsan , a hood . housing, nonper to sweep. 
 
 hwff, a hood howve, O. Eng. 
 
 kadnk, Br. (G. aclhag) shock of I hattock Yorkgli> 
 
 corn ) 
 
 Hath, rod . . . lath. 
 
 llogell, drawer , partition .... locker. 
 
 llwyar, a spoon loffel, Germ. 
 
 \\ymry, jetty made with oatmeal . flummery. 
 
 masg, stitch in netting mesh. 
 
 magi , stitch in knitting maille, Fr. 
 
 matog mattock. 
 
 mop, mopa, maukin, &c mop. 
 
 mwrtbwyl , hammer martello , Ital. 
 
 paeol, a pail or pot pail. 
 
 pan, cup, bowl pan. 
 
 pare , field, inclosure park. 
 
 parsel, shooting butt . bersaglio, Ttal. 
 
 peg, pegecl, a measure peck. 
 
 pelecl, little ball, bullet pellet. 
 
 picyn , a small hooped vessel . . . piggin. 
 
 piser, a jug (Bret, picher) . . . . pitcher,pitsenDu. to draw water. 
 
 potes, a cooked mess pottage. 
 
 ., ) bloomery , melting furnace, foun- 
 
 plymwriaeth , lead-work | , J ^ 
 
 posned, saucepan posnet, Yorksh. 
 
 rhail, a fence, mound rail. 
 
 rhasg , a slice rasher. 
 
 rhasgliaw, to slice off, rasp . . . racier, Fr. 
 
 rhic, rhig, notch, groove ridge. 
 
 rhigol, trench, drain rigole,Fr. 
 
 rhill, a row drill. 
 
 rhim , raised edge or border .... rim. 
 
 rhuwch, rough garment rug. 
 
 sawduriaw, to join, cement. . . . solder. 
 
 saim, grease seam, lard, Prov. 
 
 socli, sink, drain sough. 
 
 It*
 
 JO-1 ON THE LANGUAGES AND DIALECTS 
 
 Welsh. 
 
 sopen, lump, bunch sop, Prov. Jump of hay. 
 
 s winer, a beam summer-tree. 
 
 sy th , stiffening , glue , &c size. 
 
 tacl, instrument, tool tackle. 
 
 taradr , an auger tarriere , Fr. 
 
 tasel, fringe, tuft tassel. 
 
 teddu , to spread ted , to spread hay. 
 
 tincerdd, literally, tail- trade, lun>- ) . , f Q . , 
 
 esl craft I 
 
 torth, loaf; Br. tartez, cake . . . tart; Fr. tourte. 
 
 tres , chain or strap for drawing . trace. 
 
 trul, a borer. . j , ... , . ,, 
 
 v , > drill; Ital. tnvella. 
 
 truhaw , to bore j 
 
 ystwc , shock of corn stook , N. Eng. 
 
 Some thousands of familiar terms, to all appearance Celtic, 
 might be collected from the various Romance, and Germanic 
 languages, especially from the provincial dialects. The fol- 
 lowing list, selected from a much larger one, may serve as 
 a specimen : 
 
 anterth , forenoon oandurth, / T -. . 
 
 , .., > Lancashire. 
 
 enderv , Br., afternoon yeandurth, ) 
 
 asbri, trick, mischief spree? 
 
 baldorddus, prating balderdash. 
 
 bas , low, shallow bas, Fr. ; base ? 
 
 bamein, Br., to bewitch, cheat . . bam, imposition. 
 
 blew, hair of animals flew, O. Eng. ; fur. 
 
 iblod, Dan., soil (metaph., soft. 
 
 blod, Br., soft, lender ] ' c ' , , ' \ 
 
 I titmd- be. blate). 
 
 bourd, Br , trick , jest bourd, Sc. 
 
 braoued, Br. ; polio coda brodo, Ital.; broth. 
 
 broud, Br., goad, point prod, Prov. 
 
 burel, Br., coarse clolh borel, O. Eng. 
 
 bwg, hobgoblin hug, bugbear. 
 
 bwgwl, ditto bogle, Sc. 
 
 bygylu, to threaten bully. 
 
 byrdew, short and thick, squabby . purdy , Durham, 
 
 carawl (properly low-sony) . . . carol, 
 
 cebyr, rafter (Bret, kebr, a cnu/>!e) chevron. 
 
 cecys, hemlock kex. 
 
 cefn (Br. kein), back chine. 
 
 ceitlen, smock frock kittel, Ger. 
 
 cic, foot; ciciaw, strike with the t , . , 
 
 f \ KKK. 
 
 foot, ) 
 
 cil, recess gill , N. Eng., a ravine.
 
 OP THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 105 
 
 Welsh. 
 
 cluder, hci>, ni/c ) ... . v , , 
 
 . '. / ' . , J . . cluther, Yorksh. 
 cludeinaw, gather in a heap) 
 
 cnipvvs, a fillip nawp, Yorksh. 
 
 cnoc, a rap knock. 
 
 cnbl, round summit hillock .... knoll. 
 
 cnul, cnull, passing bell knell; knoll , Yorksh. 
 
 cob, a thump cob, cobbing. 
 
 coblyn, a sprite goblin; cf. Ger. kobold. 
 
 cocru , to indulge cocker. 
 
 cog, truncheon; cogel, short staff . cudgel. 
 
 crim, crimp, ridqe . . . . ) 
 
 . ' . v i \ crimp, 
 crimpiaw, to raise in ridges } 
 
 cris, scale, crust: crisb, crisp caol- 1 
 
 / crist) 
 
 ing ; crisblu , crumbling I 
 
 crwth, fiddle . ) i 
 
 , . ., > crown, crowder. 
 
 crythw r, /wafer ) 
 
 crwcan, to bend- crwcwd, squat- \ 
 
 * .} \ crouch. 
 ling; cwrc, cwrcwd, ul . . . .) 
 
 cwrian, to squat cower. 
 
 cwta, short cutty, Sc. 
 
 cwtws, a lot cut (draw cuts). 
 
 cwll, separation ; cyllu, separate . cull. 
 
 chwant, desire want. 
 
 chwap, smart stroke whap. 
 
 chwedleua, to prate, gossip . . . twaddle, 
 
 dwn, dusky (Gael, don, brown) . dun. 
 
 elv, Bret., white poplar alb , Ger. 
 
 esmwyth, even, soft smooth. 
 
 fagl , blaze, flame fackel , Ger. torch. 
 
 filawg (properly starting, skitlisfi), 
 
 a young mare 
 
 foriwr , explorer, scout foriere, Ital. 
 
 fug, deception fudge. 
 
 fwg, dry grass fog; Yorksh. eddish] Sc. moss. 
 
 fwrw, fwrwr, down fur. Joder. 
 
 fwtog, scut, short tail fud; Prov. Ger. and Sc. 
 
 gil, fermentation gyle-fat, Yorksh.; wort-tub. 
 
 glwth, voracious glouton, Fr. ; glutton. 
 
 glyn , valley glen. 
 
 grawn , roe of fishes rawn , N. Eng. 
 
 grymialu, to murmur grumble. 
 
 gwammalu, to waver wamble, wabble. 
 
 gwastel, Bret., cake wastcl; O. Fr. gastel. 
 
 gwariaw, to spend ware, Yorksh.
 
 166 ON THE LANGUAGES AND DIALECTS 
 
 I 
 Welsh. 
 
 gwas , youth servant \ vassus, vassallus, Lat. barb.; 
 
 gwasawl , serving ( vassal. 
 
 gweddu, to yoke, unite, marry . . wed. 
 
 gwica, to carry about for sale, ) 
 
 jf . . hawk, hawker, 
 
 gwicawr , pedlar ) 
 
 gwichyn, a pole-cat fitch, iitchet. 
 
 gwyal , mark goal. 
 
 gwychr, valiant wacker, Ger. 
 
 wylaw , to weep wail. 
 
 hebog, accipitcr hawk. 
 
 hecian, to halt, limp hitch. 
 
 herlawd, a youth harlot, O. Eng.; & man-servant. 
 
 herlodes, a hoyden harlot, merelrix. 
 
 hochi, to expectorate hawk. 
 
 hoeden, a flirt hoyden. 
 
 hwch , a swine hog. 
 
 llachiaw, to cudgel lick. 
 
 Haw, hand] llawf, palm Ion, Isl.; loof, Sc. 
 
 llawd , youth lad. 
 
 llodes , a girl lass. 
 
 llithraw , to glide, slip slidder, Prov. 
 
 llug,r/z/; incomp.e.gr. / 
 
 to i ' ., > . . . lukewarm, 
 
 llugdwym, tepid .) 
 
 llumon, chimney him, Sc. 
 
 loumber , Br. ditto loovcr, Prov. 1'ouvre. 
 
 madredd, pus matter. 
 
 1U , ., I moult OD. 0. Fr. : montone, Ital.: 
 
 mollt , a whether < 
 
 ' ram ; mutton. 
 
 mwygl, tepid, sultry muggy. 
 
 nugiaw, to shake nudge. 
 
 on, to attempt, venture oss, Lancash. 
 
 pan , down, four, nap pane , 0. Eng. 
 
 paneg, penygen , entrails .... paunch. 
 
 piciaw, to throw pitch. 
 
 pigwn, turret, alarm-lower, &c. . . beacon. 
 
 pine, smart, gay pink, to adorn, &c. 
 
 posiaw, to interrogate, embarrass, pose, puzzle. 
 
 priawd, possessed, owned, spouse . > , . , 
 1 . i . i- , \ bride, 
 
 priodas, marriage; priodi,/o marry ) 
 
 pwea, hobgoblin puck. 
 
 pwmp , round mass; dim. pwmpl, 
 
 knob, &c 
 
 pwtian, to thrust, bull put, pote,Prov. ; to poke , bull. 
 
 rhawd, a drove, heap rout, 0. Eng., a crowd. 
 
 ruth, Corn., ditto routh , Sc., abundance.
 
 OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 167 
 
 Welsh. 
 
 rhwyb , In Icai , switch rive. 
 
 rhwyg , ditto . . . . ' rug, Sc. to tear. 
 
 skor, l$r.,prop, tiny shore. 
 
 skomjez (f'r. skourr, branch, &c.) scourge. 
 
 sil, Br., strainer sile, Yorksh. 
 
 souba, Br., to dip sop, soup. 
 
 soegi, to sleep soak. 
 
 stanka, Br., to dam up, obstruct . stanch. 
 
 tal , lofty, of high stature tall. 
 
 tariaw, to loiter, slay tarry. 
 
 tasg, a job, piece-work task. 
 
 tociaw, to cut short dock. 
 
 topyn, a crest toppiu, Yorlcsh. 
 
 tosiaw , to jerk, throw toss. 
 
 tripiaw , to stumble trip; cf. Fr. trebucher. 
 
 trocldi , move forward, progress . trudge. 
 
 tnvyn, a snout trogne, Fr. 
 
 \vyna, oena, to bear lambs. . . . yean. 
 
 The above examples, which arc not a twentieth part of 
 what might be alleged, will, it is presumed, show how ne- 
 cessary it is for the etymologist to take the Celtic element 
 into consideration in the investigation of the languages of 
 Western Europe. It is believed that most of the above 
 terms are genuine Celtic, though it is possible that in a feAv 
 cases the counterparts given may not oe derived from them, 
 but only collateral. It may, however, be observed, that 
 the finding an isolated term in an Anglo-Saxon or German 
 vocabulary by no means proves it to be vernacular to that 
 language. Many words occur in 'Lye's Dictionary,' for 
 instance , derived from the glossaries of the eleventh century, 
 which are notoriously not genuine Anglo-Saxon, and cannot 
 be traced to any known roots in the Germanic tongues. For 
 instance, we find comb, a valley, which is not Saxon nor 
 ever was, being evidently the Welsh crvm. It is obvious 
 that many other terms may be in the same predicament; 
 even the presence of a word in a number of ancient dialects 
 does not prove it to belong to that class of languages. It 
 will be sufficient for the present to adduce a single example. 
 
 The word leather, in one form or other, occurs in all 
 the Celtic and most of the Teutonic dialects; the question, 
 therefore, is to determine in which it is most likely to be 
 vernacular. It is to be observed in the first place , that the 
 manufacture of leather Avas undoubtedly more extensively 
 practised by the Gauls than by the Germanic tribes, as de-
 
 168 ON THE LANGUAGES AND DIALECTS 
 
 scribed by Tacitus. Secondly, the word is of ancient cur- 
 rency among the Celts, as is shown by its appearing in all 
 the dialects, and in the earliest known compositions; for ex- 
 ample, in the poems of Taliesin, believed to be of the sixth 
 century. Moreover, there is a strong evidence that it never 
 was a vernacular Anglo-Saxon term. It scarcely ever ap- 
 pears as a distinct word, its occurrence being nearly con- 
 tined to a few compound names of manufactured articles, 
 for Avhich ^Ifric's glossary is almost the sole authority. 
 Finally, it is important to observe that it is significant in 
 Celtic, being derived from W. lied, G. leal/tan, broad, flat; 
 while in the Germanic dialects it has no known etymology. 
 Should all these considerations lead us to conclude that the 
 Germans borrowed the word from the Celts, it is obvious 
 to infer that the same process might take place with respect 
 to many other terms of similar import. 
 
 The various speculations connected with general philology 
 deducible from the subject which we have been considering, 
 would lead us into too wide a field at present. Some of them 
 may perhaps afford matter for a subsequent paper; it will 
 be sufficient on this occasion to advert briefly to a single 
 class of words, which appears to present some interesting 
 phenomena. 
 
 Words with initial yw in Welsh or Breton generally cor- 
 respond with the Sanscrit and German initial tv } Latin v, 
 Italian gu, French g, and Gaelic f\ e. gr. W. gtveu, to 
 weave; Sansc. we] Bret, gtvasla, to ravage; Lat. vaslare; 
 Ital. guastare; O. Fr. yasler; Eng. waste; Gael, fasaich. SOUK: 
 words of this class deserve to be more particularly adverted 
 to. It is well known that a number of vocables in the Teu- 
 tonic dialects begin with </?/, or some equivalent combina- 
 tion; and it is remarkable that a great proportion of them 
 correspond to Cymric terms with initial tjw or civ. The 
 Moeso-Gothic, the oldest Germanic language, exhibits in its 
 present state eleven leading words of this class, eight of 
 which may be referred with great probability to Cymric or 
 Armorican counterparts, 
 qvainon (or in Gabelentz's ortho-^ 
 
 graphy, qainon, to whine; Du. / W. cwyno. 
 
 kwynen) j 
 
 qairnus , quern or hand-mill ; in / gwyraw , to revolve, (cf. North 
 
 Ilolstein, quarr i Frisic, querdel, 
 
 qairrus , placid, mild] Swcd. qvar. gwar, id. 
 qal (u. v. subjugation) ; A. S. ! 
 
 cwacle, destruction, &c. 5 cwcl- / gwalla, to injure, destroy. 
 
 Ian, to quell, kill J
 
 OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 169 
 
 qens, a woman g\ven(properly a fair one), female. 
 
 qithan(0. Germ, quedan, to say) gwedyd. 
 
 \nivs, alive (vivus) gwio, Br., vivacious. 
 
 qistjan, to destroy gwasta, Br., id. 
 
 The three remaining terms qiman, to come, qilhus, the 
 womb, and qramms, wet (Dan. klarn, Eng. clammy), may 
 possibly be connected with W. camu , to step; ceudatvd, the 
 womb or inside; and gtvlyb, moisture, Bret, gleb; but they 
 do not manifest the strict parallelism of form which appears 
 in the other words. 
 
 The following coincidences with Anglo-Saxon and the Low 
 German dialects may also be noticed : 
 
 cwacian, to quake, A. S gwegiaw, to totter. 
 
 cwarteru (custodiw- domus), prison gwared , to guard 
 
 cwanian , to pine, languish .... gwan , weak, feeble. 
 
 quad , Low Germ., bad gwaeth , worse. 
 
 quaddern , to prate chwedleua , id. 
 
 quarke, the throat gwar, the neck. 
 
 quinka, to flutter, start gwinka, Br., to wince. 
 
 quide,/o complain (A. S. cwythan) gwyth, wrath, indignation. 
 
 quasse, Prov. Dan., to squeeze . gwasga, id. 
 
 quakka, to croak, quack gwacha , Br., to croak. 
 
 cuthe, A. S., known gwydd, knowledge. 
 
 quaint! O.Fr. coint), smart, spruce. \ . /r> i .\ , 
 
 XT T- i i i ( ffwamt (Br. koant). neat, trim. 
 
 &c-5 N. lorksh., \v\ieut,slrangc ' 
 
 (gwib, sudden course: chwinyn 
 quip, sarcasm, &c. . , . 
 
 ( quick turn. 
 
 quibble, verbal evasion, &c. . . . gwibl, a turn, quirk. 
 
 quer, Germ, alhwarl gyy r 5 oblique, awry. 
 
 ( gwerbel, Bret., a tumour; cf. 
 
 quarl, Low Germ., pustule, blislcr< warble, a swelling in cattle 
 
 ^ caused by insects. 
 
 quail, Swed., evening gwyll, darkness, 
 
 queelder, Du., low ground outside \ gwaelawd, low ground, a bottom; 
 
 the dikes ) gwaelder , lowness. 
 
 The above and similar words may furnish a useful clue 
 for tracing the origin of many French and Italian words 
 commencing with g and gu. For example, the comparison ,, ' 
 of galopper and gualoppare, shows that u or w was an ori-j^ ' 
 ginal portion of the word ; and this directs us to W. givil- tf ' $ 
 hobain, literally to make quick jumps, an excellent analysis 
 of the meaning of the term. The Scottish wallop is the same 
 word with the loss of the guttural. 
 
 Many more coincidences might be produced, particularly 
 
 vn -
 
 170 ON THE LANGUAGES AND DIALECTS. 
 
 from the Romance and provincial German dialects; but the 
 above are sufficient to establish the analogy. Commonly 
 the above initials correspond to a simple w in Sanscrit : for 
 instance, wad, to speak, is the root agreeing with the W. 
 ytucdijd, and O. Germ, quedan; but sometimes a different 
 characteristic appears: e. gr. jiva is the Sanscrit representa- 
 tive of Goth, qivs] hansa (goose) of Bret, grvaz and haril 
 (green) ofW.yrvcrdd. It may, therefore, be suspected that 
 those and similar words have emanated from primitive forms 
 resembling the Celtic, and that the prototype of haril, for 
 example, was more like W. ywcrdd than the Latin viridix. 
 Something analogous appears to have existed in some of the 
 older German dialects; at least Paulus Diaconus assures us 
 that Woden was called Gwoden by the Langobardi. The 
 resemblance of the Langobardic form to the Gwydion of 
 Welsh mythology is not unworthy of notice. O'Brien's ety- 
 mology of Dia Ceadaoine, the Irish name of Wednesday, 
 q. d. the day of Gwodan, is specious enough, but will riot 
 bear examination. It is merely cead, or ceud aoine, the 
 former feisty Friday, simply called aoine, the fast, being re- 
 garded as the more considerable one. 
 
 The initial dim in Welsh words is in some cases a mere 
 mutation of yw, but in general it corresponds to the Sanscrit 
 and German srv , srvasri, sister, W. chwaer; wvadu, sweet, 
 W. cliwcg; swid, to sweat, W. chwysu. The W. cJtwcch, six, 
 in conjunction with the remarkable Pushtoo spush, would 
 imply that the Sanscrit shash w r as originally sivask , or some- 
 thing like it. The Gaelic generally preserves the sibilant 
 and drops the labial; e. gr. sior, tister, sanl, desire (W. 
 chwanf), which again would suggest a suspicion that a si- 
 milar process may have taken place with the Sanscrit s'ans, 
 desidcrare. A root swans, supposing it to have ever existed, 
 would exactly harmonize with W. chwant, desire, chwennych 
 to wish, according to the usual law of permutation. The 
 Germanic dialects, it is Avcll known, agree most faithfully 
 with the Sanscrit in this combination. The Slavonic ones, 
 including Lithuanian and Lettish, stand in the next degree 
 of proximity, but occasionally manifest a disposition to drop 
 the labial. The other cognate languages either substitute a 
 guttural or an aspirate, harden the w into p, vocalize it, 
 or drop it altogether, as will be rendered manifest by tracing 
 the Sanscrit swid, to sweat, and srvid, white, through their 
 various affiliations. Pictct refers the Gaelic spcur , sky, fir- 
 mament, to Sanscrit swar\ if it really is of that origin, and 
 not, as there is room to suspect, a mere disfigurement of 
 sphccra, it is a remarkable instance of the hard or Median
 
 OF TJ1E BRITISH ISLANDS. 171 
 
 form in a western dialect. Piiithar, G., sister, in which the 
 sibilant appears to be dropt, seems to give some countenance 
 to its genuineness. Compare W.yspyddyn, the white thorn; 
 Armenian spid, white 5 Pers. sipid, etc. etc. 
 
 There are some remarkable coincidences between Welsh 
 and Armoriean words commencing with gw, and Sanscrit 
 roots with initial s'tv (palatal s), which it would exceed our 
 present limits to discuss more particularly. 
 
 In concluding, for the present, the Celtic portion of our 
 subject, a few miscellaneous observations will be offered on 
 such points as appear most interesting to the general philo- 
 logist. As a preliminary to this, it may be advisable to 
 make a few further remarks on the genuineness of the Celtic 
 terms, placed in comparison with those of other European 
 languages, arid the means by which that genuineness may 
 be tested. There are cases in which it is difficult to arrive 
 at any absolute certainty: for example, the resemblance 
 of the Welsh celu (to conceal) with the Latin celo would 
 create a suspicion that the former was borrowed from the 
 latter ; while on the other hand , the way in which it branches 
 out into derivatives and compounds is strongly in favour of 
 its originality. The safest principle in this investigation is 
 to regard that language as having the best ctaim to origin- 
 ality which furnishes the most satisfactory explanation of 
 the original roots, or component elements of words. Most 
 persons, for example, would be apt to suppose that the fa- 
 miliar term funnel was undoubtedly a vernacular English 
 word, and to repudiate all idea of a Celtic origin for it. 
 Nevertheless it will be found, on examination, to have 
 neither etymology nor intrinsic meaning in Teutonic; while 
 the Welsh ffyncl (air-hole) is d^monstrably derived from 
 fftvn, breath, referred with great probability by Pictet to 
 Sanscrit pavana, and exactly equivalent to Latin spiracuhim. 
 Coble, a boat, admits of no satisfactory explanation from 
 Anglo-Saxon or German sources; but the Welsh ceubal may 
 be resolved into hallow shaft or trunk: thus showing both 
 the antiquity and genuineness of the term. The word bride 
 occurs indeed in all the Germanic dialects, Gothic included, 
 but it is in all a perfectly isolated term, without intrinsic 
 meaning. Some German philologists have indeed referred 
 it to Sanscrit pn , amare ; an etymology which violates the 
 established laws of permutation of letters. In all known 
 Teutonic cognates of this root, we regularly find f instead 
 of />: frion , to love: freyen, to woo; freund, friend, etc. etc. 
 It would have been more to the purpose to compare Greek 
 to obtain by purchase; which is strictly cognate
 
 172 ON THE LANGUAGES AND UJAhKCTS 
 
 with Welsh priarvd (proprius), possessed, owned, a spouse; 
 the stem of priodi, to marry; priodus, marriage; and many 
 words of allied import, llic allusion is to the custom, al- 
 most universal among semi-eivilized nations, of purchasing 
 a bride from her parents. The Germanic term has every 
 appearance of having been borrowed; the Celtic words are 
 undoubtedly original. Another remarkable instance occurs 
 in the word travail, labour, sorrow, &c. ; French travail: the 
 origin of which is nowhere to be found, except in Welsh 
 trafael, a compound of the prefix tra, exceeding, arid mat' I, 
 work, labour; consequently not borrowed from the French 
 or English. The word undoubtedly came to us through the 
 medium of the Norman French: but we have another form 
 of it deduced more directly from the original; viz. turmoil, 
 stir, bustle; and moreover the simple form moil, to labour; 
 a word common in our older writers. 
 
 Another important criterion for determining the genuineness 
 of words, is the observation of the forms peculiar to the 
 various languages and dialects. It is well known , for ex- 
 ample, that the spirilus aspcr in Greek does not in general 
 correspond with h in Latin, but is a representative of a 
 more ancient sibilant or digamma; and the same aspirate in 
 the Germanic tongues is a modification of a more primitive 
 guttural, k or g. It has already been observed by Lhuyd 
 and others, that where the Greek and Latin differ, the Welsh 
 generally corresponds with the former and the Gaelic with 
 the latter; and that the Teutonic tongues bear a greater 
 analogy to the Gaelic than the Cymric, especially in the 
 sibilants, as may be instanced in Greek flUg; Welsh Imlen 
 (salt); Latin sal; Gaelic salami] German salz. When there- 
 fore we find words current in the Teutonic dialects in which 
 this analogy is not observed, we may suspect them not to 
 be original. The term hatvk (Old German happuc) is found 
 in one form or other in all the dialects ; but instead of fol- 
 lowing, as it regularly ought to do, the analogy of Gaelic 
 seabhog, it agrees with Welsh hebbog, and was therefore 
 probably borrowed from a Cymric dialect. The Welsh 
 ha/yn, a haven or harbour, seems to be significant in 
 the sense of a still, calm place] and if it be original, 
 the German ha fen is evidently not. In like manner the 
 Gaelic sciceal (flax -comb) shows the Welsh heislan, hew/Ill, 
 to be genuine words, and our hackle or hale lie I most pro- 
 bably adopted ones. Hem and seam are radically the same 
 word; but the latter is the only legitimate Germanic form. 
 Pursuing the same analogy with respect to the gutturals, we 
 may feel pretty confident that our corner is not of Teutonic
 
 OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 173 
 
 origin, but from the Welsh or Bret, cornel] the true Anglo- 
 Saxon form being hyrn. Cyrm, cry or clamour; cyrman, to 
 cry, though of ancient standing in Anglo-Saxon, are sus- 
 picious from their agreement with the Celtic garm, and are 
 probably not so genuine as the other form hryman. 
 
 Words adopted by the Celtic tribes from the Latin occa- 
 sionally furnish interesting data respecting the ancient pro- 
 nunciation of particular letters; for example, ysgeler, wicked- 
 ness, Latin scelus, must have been adopted by the colonial 
 Britons from the Romans, as it was never current among 
 the Anglo-Saxons or Normans; and serves as an evidence 
 at the present day that c before e had the hard sound, not 
 the soft palatal or sibilant one now given to it by most 
 modern Europeans. From the description given by Quinc- 
 tilian and others of the harsh sound of the Latin /*, it is 
 conjectured to have partaken in some degree of the nature 
 of a sibilant. This idea receives some countenance from a 
 singular phenomenon in Irish; namely, that certain words 
 obviously borrowed from the Latin do not commence with 
 /", but with s. A few instances are, Irish sorn, oven, Welsh 
 ffwrn, Latin fvrnus] Irish siiist, a flail, Welsh ffust, Latin 
 fustis; Irish srian, a bridle, Latin frq;nwm; Irish seinisler, a 
 window, Latin fenestra. It is difficult to assign any cause 
 for this discrepancy, except we suppose a marked distinction 
 between the pronunciation of the Latin element and the or- 
 dinary /*, which is a very common constituent of Irish words. 
 
 The insertion or omission of a nasal element, something 
 analogous to the Sanscrit anwrvara, is very common in the 
 Celtic dialects. The general tendency of the Gaelic, as 
 compared with AVelsh, is to drop the nasal sound; for ex- 
 ample, Welsh cainCj branch, Gaelic geug, Welsh dant, tooth, 
 Gaelic deud; Welsh cant, hundred, Gaelic cead, with many 
 others. The employment of this element in the Cymric dia- 
 lects sometimes appears a little capricious: for instance we 
 \ia\elleipr, flaccid, English limber; lleiprog muraena, English 
 lamprey; tampyr , a wax-light, English taper; and llimp, 
 smooth, soft, agreeing closely with English limp. An at- 
 tention to this phenomenon will frequently enable us to detect 
 analogies which otherwise would not be very obvious: for in- 
 stance, the Anglo-Saxon .9/0, M. G. sinth semita, does not 
 bear a very close resemblance to Welsh hynt, way, path, 
 journey. But when we learn, by comparing the other Teu- 
 tonic dialects, that the original form is smd, and remember 
 that the Cymric h regularly answers to the Teutonic s, we 
 have less difficulty in admitting an original affinity between 
 the two. It is even possible that semita may be the same
 
 174 ON THE LANGUAGES AND DIALECTS 
 
 word, with the insertion of a vowel. The Gaelic saod, 
 track, journey, agrees with the Anglo-Saxon in the omission 
 of the nasal. 
 
 Pott, treating of the remarkable propensity of the Pali 
 and Pracrit dialects to reject a liquid following a mute, ob- 
 serves that a similar phenomenon sometimes presents itself 
 in other languages, instancing the Low German bost, En- 
 glish boast, as probably identical with High German .sv'rA 
 briisien. The Welsh fl'rost, bragging, boasting, appears to 
 give some countenance to this idea. Other instances of the 
 same phenomenon occur in Anglo-Saxon spaccan, English 
 speak, compared with German sprechcn; and Anglo-Saxon 
 specca, English speck, speckle , compared with the Yorkshire 
 spreckle and the South German spreckeln. The Welsh forms 
 brych, variegated, ysbrychu, to speckle, show that the r is 
 original. By the same analogy, to pat may very well be 
 from the Welsh pr allow , to stroke or fondle; and to fume, 
 from Welsh ffromi, to chafe, be indignant. Many similar 
 instances might be given from a great variety of languages. 
 
 A number of interesting examples might be produced of 
 the manner in which labials and gutturals are interchanged 
 in the Celtic dialects, And in words which other languages 
 appear to have adopted from them. Thus we have in Welsh 
 ceru and bicru, to wrangle, English bicker; Gaelic seasg, 
 dry, Bret, hesk, Welsh hysp; Welsh llac, ys-lac, slack, Ger- 
 man sclilaff; Gaelic sgoll, to split or cleave, German spallen; 
 with a multitude of others. The keeping this peculiarity 
 in mind will render many etymologies very obvious which 
 have hitherto been little known. Sometimes a dental appears 
 as the substitute of the labial or guttural: as Gaelic cas } 
 cough, Latin tussis; Gaelic ceathair, four, Greek 
 This permutation is however comparatively infrequent. 
 
 It has been frequently observed by philologists, that new 
 words appear to have been formed in various languages by 
 prefixing a consonant to the simple root. Many curious il- 
 lustrations of this process may be derived from the Celtic 
 dialects. If, for example, we take a number of simple words 
 commencing with l } we shall find that the corresponding 
 terms in other languages, and even in the same language, 
 frequently prefix a guttural, palatal, or sibilant element. 
 Thus Welsh llab, stroke or blow, appears in the augmented 
 forms clap, flap, slap; Welsh Uac, laxus, slack; Welsh liny, 
 segnis, remiissus, lag, laggard, flag, slug, sluggard; Welsh 
 Jlavar , loqu</la, Danish klavrc, to prate, Sc. claver, Sp. pa- 
 labra, word, speech; Welsh llawr , area, also in the enlarged 
 form clarvr } Gaelic clar, blar , a flat surface, plain, English 

 
 OP THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 175 
 
 floor. A comparison of the different Welsh and English forms 
 will show that the words rib, ridge, brim, brink, crimp , s/rijH-, 
 all include the same radical, modified according to the pro- 
 cesses already pointed out; viz. by the interchange of labials 
 and gutturals; the insertion of a nasal, or the prefixing of 
 one or more consonants. 
 
 One of these preformatives , if they are to be regarded 
 as such, is deserving of more especial notice. Grimm, in 
 his c Deutsche Grammatik,' observes that the initial s fre- 
 quently appears to have originally been a distinct component 
 element, probably a particle; and that the root of the Anglo- 
 Saxon amttel , English small, for example, appears to exist 
 in the Slavonic mal, little. This sagacious conjecture is ex- 
 cellently confirmed by the co- existence of the simple and 
 the augmented forms in Welsh; mal, light, fickle, ys-mal, 
 light, small; ys being a common prefix, apparently answer- 
 ing to the Latin ex in its intensive signification. A know- 
 ledge of this phenomenon enables us to establish a connexion 
 between a multitude of words in all the Indo-European langua- 
 ges, especially between the Celtic and Teutonic branches. 
 The following list, which is capable of being greatly en- 
 larged, may serve as a specimen: 
 
 Welsh. 
 
 pawd, shank ys-ba\vd(Wm/6'-&on?);spawd,Prov. 
 
 brig, shoot ys-brig; sprig. 
 
 brych, varicrjaled ys-brych ; spreckled, Yorksh. 
 
 garm.cry ys-garmes , conflict ; skirmish. 
 
 cawd, covering ys-g&wd, shadow; schatten.Germ. 
 
 cin,sA'M ys-gin, fur-robe; skin. 
 
 gogi, shake, jog ys-gogi; shog, Sc. 
 
 crafu, scratch ys-grafu; scrape. 
 
 ere, cry ys-gre; schrey, Germ. 
 
 crech, cry ys-grech; shriek, screech. 
 
 cub, bundle . . ! y**fc**ff>; sceaf, A.-S.; 
 
 scop a, Lat. 
 
 ys-gubor, earn; scheuro, Germ. 
 cud, motion. . jys-gmiaw, move hastily; scud, 
 
 scuttle. / 
 
 cwta, short ys-gwt, short- tail] sent. 
 
 llac, lax ys-rac; slack. 
 
 llaif, ciilling-o/f ys-leifiaw, slice; sliver, Prov. 
 
 llwch , slaynum ys-lwch/gtMgpmre; slough. 
 
 mal, light ys-mal ; small. 
 
 mwg, smoke ys-mwca.ch, puff of smoke; smoke. 
 
 nodon, thread ys-noden, filled; snood , Sc.
 
 176 ON THE LANGUAGES AND DIALECTS 
 
 Welsh. 
 
 par, spear ys-par; spear. 
 
 paith , prospect ys-peithiaw, explore', spy. 
 
 pig,p0tn{ yS'pig; spike. 
 
 ys-pigawd; spigot. 
 pin, sharp point, pin ys-pin, thorn; spina , Lat. 
 
 nine chaffinch (ys-bincyn; spink, bull-spink, 
 
 pine, ctutf/m . j Yorksh. 
 
 plyg, fold ys-ptyg; splice. 
 
 twc , cut ys-twc, shock of corn ; stock, Prov. 
 
 gwain, service ys-wain, esquire; swain. 
 
 It will be seen from the following instances that the Gaelic 
 frequently agrees with the Teutonic and other dialects in 
 prefixing the sibilant, when the corresponding words in Welsh 
 want it. 
 
 Welsh. 
 
 llai, mud G. laib, slaib; slab, slabby. 
 
 llif'u, grind, polish sliob; schleifen, Germ. 
 
 llimp, soft sliom , smooth, slender; slim. 
 
 llyngcu , swallow sluig; schluc ken , Germ. 
 
 mer , marrow smior; smior, Isl., butter, &c. 
 
 naddu, to cut snaidh; schneiden, Germ. 
 
 nofio, to swin snamh; sna, Sanscr. 
 
 nyf, snow sneachd; snieg, Slav. 
 
 bar, rail, shaft sparr, beam; spar. 
 
 colpo, Ital, blow sgeilp, stroke; skelp, Yorksh. 
 
 calidus, Lat sgald; scald. 
 
 kel, Bret, narration ...... sgeul; spell? A.-S. 
 
 Sometimes the Teutonic dialects, as well as the Latin, 
 omit the initial s of the analogous Gaelic words : 
 
 Gaelic. 
 
 slad, steal W. Iladratta; latro, Lat. 
 
 slat, rod Hath; lath. 
 
 snathad, needle nydell; nadel, Germ. 
 
 sniomh,$/>m nyddu; nere, Lat. 
 
 sneedd , larva pedicitli nedd ; nit. 
 
 soadal * P^gh-sla^ pattle, Sc. 
 
 ' | short oar paddle. 
 
 spairt, plaster parge. 
 
 stang, pool tank. 
 
 streup, altercation threap , Prov. 
 
 Generally speaking, however, the Teutonic, especially the 
 Belgic and Low German dialects, agree with the Gaelic 
 more frequently than with the Welsh.
 
 Of THE HRlTtSH ISLANDS. 177 
 
 The following Anglo-Saxon words with the sibilant initial 
 may be referred, with more or less probability, to the an- 
 nexed simple forms in Celtic: 
 
 Anglo-^axon. Welsh, 
 
 scearf'an , In cut in pieces .... cerfio , to cut. 
 seen , bright, clean, sheen .... cain , bright. 
 
 scop , stem, trunk cyff. 
 
 scriftan, to wander crwydraw. 
 
 scrob, shrub craobh; Gael. tree. 
 
 scycels, mantle kougoul; Bret, cloak. 
 
 slican, to strike llaciaw , to beat. 
 
 slio, smooth, mild llaidd. 
 
 sliw, dyed, coloured 11 iw, colour. 
 
 slog, slough llwch. 
 
 smae'Se, smooth mwyth, esmwyth; Gael, maoth. 
 
 sparran , to shut, fasten bar. 
 
 spearca , spark gwraich. 
 
 straede , step troed, fool. 
 
 straegan, strew traff, ys-traff, spreading. 
 
 strec , brave, stout trech. 
 
 swaec, savour chweg, stveel. 
 
 swaeo , footstep gwadn, fofe. 
 
 sweard, sward, turf gweryd. 
 
 sweor, neck gwar. 
 
 The following miscellaneous words are of similar cha- 
 racter : 
 
 Welsh. 
 
 glafoerio slavor. 
 
 grill, sharp, creaking shrill. 
 
 gwegiaw, to toiler swag. 
 
 gwichiaw , cry sharply squeak. 
 
 pwcca, hobgoblin spuken, Germ., to be haunted. 
 
 tarpare, Ital. to prune sterp, Bret., pruning-hook. 
 
 ranipev , Fr. lo creep skrampa , Bret. 
 
 grin , Eng skrina, Bret. 
 
 tronle , O. F. trollop stroulen, Bret. 
 
 Much light would be thrown on the science of compara- 
 tiy,e etymology, if we could positively ascertain in every 
 case whether the simpler or the fuller form ought to be re- 
 garded as the original. For example, have the Sanscrit sna, 
 to bathe, Gaelic snamh, to swim, gained a prefix; or have 
 the Latin int-rc, Welsh iiu/io, lost a primitive initial? This 
 inquiry is beset with numerous difficulties, and many spe- 
 cious arguments might be alleged on both sides of the ques- 
 tion. The Welsh prefix tjs may be plausibly accounted for as 
 a significant element, modifying in many instances the import of 
 
 12
 
 178 ON THE LANGUAGES AKD DIALECTS 
 
 more simple roots, which therefore maybe reasonably presumed 
 to have had a distinct previous existence. The comparison of 
 a number of languages is also generally in favour of the 
 simple form. The ostensible root mal, denoting comminution, 
 diminution, v. t. //., occurs in a multitude of tongues , Semitic 
 included; while ys-mal and small are exceptional forms, and 
 very probably compounds. On the other hand, it must be 
 remembered that certain combinations of letters admissible 
 in one language arc not tolerated in others. No Welsh word 
 can commence with s followed by a consonant; nor can a 
 liquid or a medial mute follow an initial s in Latin. If there- 
 fore original words, differently constituted, existed at all, 
 they must necessarily undergo some modification to adapt them 
 to Roman or Cymric organs. Supposing the Latins to adopt 
 the Sanscrit root smr)', to remember, it is very likely that 
 they would drop the sibilant, especially in a reduplicate form 
 like mcmor. It is true that the objectionable sound might be 
 and actually was got rid of in a variety of ways : by inserting or 
 prefixing a Vowel; by vocalizing the second consonant, especially 
 if a labial; by substituting a tenuis for a medial ; or by dropping 
 the second consonant instead of the first. Thus we find the Ger- 
 man schwesler , which comparatively ICAV nations in the world 
 could utter with facility, under the various modifications of 
 sister, soror, sior , piulhar , chrvacr , //or, and kho] and our 
 own star, as aGrrjp, scr , aud sifarah; while the Sanscrit lam 
 possibly have lost its initial. It has been remarked on 
 a former occasion that the Welsh often overcomes the difficult 
 articulation by prefixing a vowel, e. g. ysf/t'h'r, from Latin scelus ; 
 but there are some remarkable instances of an elision of the 
 second consonant which do not appear to be generally known. 
 
 Welsh. 
 
 stan, 0. Germ., Lat. slare . . . safu. 
 staff .............. saflSvn, beam, shaft. 
 
 staunen, Germ., to wonder . . . sunu. 
 sterno, Lat., lo spread ..... sarnu. 
 
 GTfQya, to love ......... serch. 
 
 stoppel, Germ , stubltle ..... sofl. 
 
 stimulus , a goad ........ swrmvl. 
 
 stun .............. synu , In be stunned or amazed 
 
 stiirzcn , Germ., lo fall ..... syrthiaw. 
 
 stifi, A.-S., stiff ........ syth. 
 
 A little examination would probably bring to light many 
 others, and help to establish analogies scarcely suspected. 
 For instance, Gaelic sit, to drop, distil, Welsh hiflhi , may 
 possibly be cognate with Latin slillo. Thus the Latin limm, 
 mud, appears to be related to our slime, and limns, askance, 
 
 ~v 
 U
 
 01' rill-: UUlTlSH ISLANDS. 179 
 
 to the Low German slittr. and as a Latin word cannot com- 
 mence with si, it is very likely that the sibilant may have 
 been rejected. Many similar phenomena might be pointed 
 out, some of which may pernaps become the subject of a 
 separate paper. At present we shall conclude this division 
 of our subject with observing, that an accurate knowledge 
 of the permutations of sound in cognate languages is the 
 very foundation of all rational etymology. Much has been 
 undoubtedly accomplished in this department, but large fields 
 still remain comparatively unnexplored. It is believed that 
 the light which might be thrown on this subject by a care- 
 ful study of the peculiarities of the Celtic languages, renders 
 them eminently worthy of the attention of philologists. 
 
 In proceeding to give some account of the dialects which 
 immediately succeeded, and to a considerable extent supp- 
 lanted the British Celtic, it is proposed to commence with 
 those peculiar to our Northern provinces, not as being ne- 
 cessarily first in order, but as those which upon the whole 
 are the most susceptible of classification and illustration. 
 
 As the invading Saxons consisted of several different tribes, 
 it is reasonable to presume, from known analogies, that 
 diversities of dialect already prevailed among them; and this 
 presumption is confirmed by incidental expressions of Bede 
 and other early writers. Ihe Mercians of the midland pro- 
 vinces, the three divisions of East, Middle and North Ang- 
 les, and the Northumbrians, extending from the Humber to 
 the Forth, are distinctly stated to have been descendants of 
 the Angli, who were a powerful tribe on the continent as 
 early as the time of Tacitus. We know that those northern 
 tribes had their popular and religious poetry, and, in pro- 
 cess of time, vernacular translations from the Scriptures and 
 other devotional works, entirely or chiefly in their own dia- 
 lect. For example: the poems of Csedmon, a native of the 
 north-east of Yorkshire, were not, we may presume, origi- 
 nally in the ordinary West-Saxon dialect, in which we now 
 have them, but in the form exhibited in the specimen, un- 
 fortunately very brief, printed by Wanley from an ancient 
 manuscript. An elaborate analysis of the peculiarities of 
 this fragment, by Professor Halbertsma, will be found in 
 the introduction to Dr. Bosworth's Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. 
 The Runic inscription on the Ruthwell Cross, illustrated by 
 Mr. Kemble, and the verses said to have been pronounced 
 by Bede on his death-bed, as given in the St. Gallen ma- 
 nuscript of Cuthbert's letter, relating his last moments, pre- 
 sent the same peculiarities of form and orthography, but 
 they are too scanty to afford us anything approaching to 
 
 12*
 
 ISO OK 'filE LANGUAGES AND DIALECTS 
 
 a view of the dialect as a whole. Some monuments have 
 however survived the general wreck of the Northumbrian 
 and Anglian literature, of considerable value in a philolo- 
 gical point of view. The first in time and importance, but 
 which has not hitherto met with the attention that it de- 
 serves, is the Cotton MS. in the British Museum, Vespasian 
 A. I., a Latin Psalter of the seventh century, with an inter- 
 lineary Anglo-Saxon gloss, apparently of the ninth century, 
 or possibly still earlier. A short comparison of this gloss 
 with the Psalter published by Spelman, or any other of the 
 ordinary West-Saxon texts, will show that it differs from 
 them considerably in orthography, in grammatical forms, and, 
 not unfrequently, in its vocabulary also. In short, it is not 
 West-Saxon, but belonging to the Anglian class of dialects ; 
 and its general correspondence with other known monu- 
 ments, to be noticed hereafter, renders it highly probable 
 that it emanated either from Northumbria or some adjoining 
 locality. A regular specification of all its peculiarities would 
 occupy too much space, and would require a fuller examin- 
 ation of the MS. than it has hitherto received. Occasion- 
 ally too the MS. fluctuates between common West-Saxon and 
 Anglian forms; but the latter have such a preponderance as 
 to give a decided character to the text. Among orthogra- 
 phical peculiarities, the most prominent is the regular sub- 
 stitution, of oe for the broad e of the West-Saxon, corres- 
 ponding to uo in Old High-German and the accented 6, and 
 occasionally ae in Icelandic: e. gr. 
 
 boen, prayer; West- Saxon, h< : n. 
 
 boec, books; , hec. 
 
 coelan, to cool: 
 doeraan, to judge-, 
 foedan, to feed : 
 speed , fortune; 
 swoet, stveel: 
 woenan, to think : 
 
 celan. 
 
 deman. 
 
 f i'd an. 
 
 spt'd. 
 
 swot. 
 
 \vrnan. 
 
 The analogy of the cognate dialects shows that the Anglian 
 is the more original form. 
 
 Other variations in vowels and diphthongs, though pretty 
 frequent, are not so constant as the above. There is a ge- 
 neral tendency to substitute simple sounds for complex ones: 
 e. gr. a for the West-Saxon ca : all, omnis, W.-S. cull: c for 
 ir: ' (ft'ff, day, W.-S. day; fet, vessel, W.-S. fa>1: also for eo: 
 leJit, light, W.-S. leolil: occasionally o for u: Ihnrh , through, 
 W.-S. thurh. A thorough examination of the MS. might 
 perhaps enable us to discover and classify other pecu- 
 liar forms.
 
 OF THE BRITISH ISLAND.'. 181 
 
 The grammatical inflexions also present noticeable varia- 
 tions from the ordinary type. The plural of feminine nouns 
 in the sixth form of Rask commonly ends in e: theode, po- 
 puli, W.-S. theoda. Feminines in u preserve that vowel 
 throughout the singular: e. gr.ffifu, gift; gen. dat. ace. fjifu, 
 instead of W.-S. gife. The same vowel occurs in many ad- 
 jectives and participles feminine, where the ordinary dialect 
 has more frequently c: as micelw, magna, W.-S. mycle. In 
 the personal pronouns , the accusatives mec, (hec, vstc, eoivic, 
 answering to the German mich, dich, euch, are of regular 
 occurrence. In the demonstrative pronoun or article, the 
 nom. fern, is generally sic instead of seo, and in the oblique 
 cases e takes place of ?: e. gr. gen. thes, there, W.-S. thfes, 
 (lucre. The dative masc. and neut. in both numbers is uni- 
 formly tfucn, a form deserving of notice for its correspond- 
 ence with the Moeso-Gothic lhaim. Passing over a number 
 of other minute variations in nouns and pronouns, we may 
 observe that the most marked characteristic of the dialect 
 appears in the tirst person singular of the present indicative 
 of regular verbs, which uniformly terminates in u or o, pre- 
 senting a close analogy to the Old Saxon and Lithuanian, 
 but long obsolete in the West-Saxon. Thus getreorvu, I be- 
 lieve; cleopiu, I call; sellu, I give; ondredu, I fear; sillo, I 
 sit; drinco, I drink; ageldu, I pay or yield, where a later 
 hand has added 1'. [vel] offrige', getimbru, instruam; gloss a 
 secuniix mtinuy 1'. [acre; according to the ordinary dialect. 
 The second person generally ends in s instead of s(, both in 
 the present and imperfect: neosas, thou visitest; accrres, thou 
 turnest away; gesettes, thou placest; lufedes, thou lovedst; 
 gewonades, thou diminishedst; neasades , thou visitedst ; smir- 
 edes, thou didst anoint; where it will be observed that edes 
 or ades is substituted for the ordinary ending of the second 
 person imperf. odest. The third pers. pi. imperf. also fre- 
 quently ends in un fnlcdun, they became corrupt, W.-S. 
 fnlodon, another point of agreement with the Old-Saxon. 
 The verb substantive has also several peculiarities, the most 
 remarkable of which is the plural of the present indicative 
 earun (sumus, estis, sunt), the original of the English are, 
 but totally unknown in West -Saxon. Another important 
 characteristic of the dialect is the frequent omission of the 
 preh'x ge in past participles: fiercd, praised, W.-S. geherod', 
 btedsad, blessed, W.-S. gebletsod\ soth, sought, W.-S. gesoht; 
 thus approximating in some degree to the Norse tongues. 
 The importance of this characteristic will appear when we 
 come to classify the more recent dialects. 
 
 The documents which we have next to consider belong to
 
 182 ON THE LANGUAGES AND DIALECTS 
 
 a period when lapse of time and external causes appear to 
 have affected in some degree the purity of the dialect ; but, 
 in recompense, we have the advantage of knowing pretty 
 accurately to what locality and what age they are to be re- 
 ferred. We here allude to the gloss of the celebrated Dur- 
 ham Gospels (Cotton MS. Nero, D. 4.), and that of the 
 < Rituale Ecelesise Dunelmensis,' lately edited for the Sur- 
 tees Society by Mr. Stevenson. A chronological note in 
 the latter document fixes the date of a portion of the MS. 
 in A. D. 970, and the identity of the dialect, and it is also 
 believed of the hand- writing in both, conspire with all the 
 external evidence which we posses, to induce us to refer 
 the whole Anglo-Saxon portion to Durham or its vicinity, in 
 the tenth century. These texts agree with that of the Psal- 
 ter in the general cast of the orthography: e. gr. in substi- 
 tuting a for the West-Saxon ea: all, omnis; arm, brachium : 
 e for aj: feger, pulcher; and for co: Icht, lumen: oe for </: 
 docma, judicare. On the other hand, there arc various pe- 
 culiarities sufficient to give a distinct character to the text; 
 one of the most remarkable of which is the frequent sub- 
 stitution of i for e both in simple syllables and diphthongs: 
 yilcf for yclef, mccgi for ma'ye, tli/ostrum for tlicoxlnnn, Itiara for 
 hear a [W.-S. lieora], itver for cower. The differences in gram- 
 matical forms may be attributed partly to the effect of time 
 and partly to extraneous influences. In the first person of 
 verbs, o is much more frequent than u: fehto, pugno; bcto, 
 castigo; wuldriyo, glorior. The plural <5 is commonly soft- 
 ened down to s: biddas, prccamur; yitrocdes , induite; wyrcas, 
 facite. The final n is generally dropped in infinitives : yi- 
 mersiya, celebrare; cuoclha, dicere; inuyconya, intrare. The 
 oblique cases and plurals of Aveak nouns (Rask's 1st class) 
 drop the final n in all genders: hear (a, corda; earllie (dat.), 
 terra; nome (W.-S. noman), nominis; and not unfrequently 
 an is converted into o or u: cyo, oculi; tvilyo and wilyu, pro- 
 phetse (gen. sing, and nom. plur.). The last two peculiarities 
 approximate to the Icelandic, which also drops the final n, 
 and as they do not occur in the older text of the Psalter, 
 they may possibly be the results of an intermixture with 
 the Northmen. The writer has not met with purely Scan- 
 dinavian words, either in the Gospels or the Ritual; but a 
 friend, well acquainted with the former MS., informs him 
 that ly, a town or village, and al , the prefix to the Norse 
 infinitive, occur once or twice. It is proper to observe that two 
 of the above supposed indications of a more recent age also 
 occur on the Ruthwell Cross, namely the infinitive in a: 
 halda for hyldrm, or hatliljnn-. and the termination of weak
 
 OF THE BRITfSH ISLANDS. 1 S3 
 
 nouns in u for cm: an yulyu for on gealgan. If therefore this 
 monument is to be referred to the ante-Danish period, which 
 the history of the district would rather incline us to suppose, 
 those peculiarities, and perhaps some others, must be con- 
 sidered as belonging to this particular subdivision of the 
 dialect. Possibly the Ruthwell and Durham texts may be 
 Northumbrian, in the strict sense of the word, and the 
 Psalter, Anglian or Mercian. 
 
 The last considerable text of this class is the gloss to the 
 Bodleian MS., commonly called the Rushworth Gospels, re- 
 specting the locality of which we can form at least a prob- 
 able presumption. The gloss was the work of two scribes, 
 Owen and Farmcnn, the latter of whom describes himself as 
 priest at Harawuda or Harewood. The only Harewood spe- 
 cified in the Domesday survey is the well-known place of 
 that name in Wharf dale in Yorkshire; and the analogy of 
 the dialect to that of the Durham texts enables us to fix the 
 origin of it with tolerable certainty in a northern county, 
 as likely York as any other. Wanley, who was a good 
 judge of the age of MSS. , refers the Saxon portion of it to 
 the end of the ninth or the beginning of the tenth century. 
 It appears indeed, from the grammatical forms, to be some- 
 what older than the Durham Gospels, but in all material 
 points the dialect is the same. A connected specimen, in 
 which the discrepancies from the ordinary West-Saxon arc 
 specified , will show the nature of the text more satisfactorily 
 than the enumeration of isolated words. It is observable 
 that the earlier portion of the gloss , executed by Farmcnn, 
 approximates in several points to the ordinary dialect, where 
 that of his coadjutor Owen agrees closely with the Durham 
 texts. For example, in the Gospel of St. Matthew, the pre- 
 sent indicative commonly ends in e and the infinitive in an: 
 sprece, loquor; sprecan, loqui. Phenomena of this kind may 
 be attributed to the political and literary preponderance of 
 the West-Saxon branch in the ninth and tenth centuries. 
 
 The result of the foregoing investigation is, that there 
 exists a class of documents exhibiting a marked difference 
 in orthography and grammatical forms from the ordinary 
 West-Saxon tongue. Two of these, the Durham Gospels and 
 the Ritual, may be referred with certainty to the heart of 
 Northumbria; and another with great probability to the W r est 
 Riding of Yorkshire, in a locality where, at this day, a 
 river forms the boundary between the Northumbrian and 
 North -Anglian dialects. The remaining one, the Cotton 
 Psalter, cannot with certainty be proved to be of Northum- 
 brian origin, geographically speaking ; but the general agree-
 
 184 ON THE LANGUAGES AND DIALECTS 
 
 merit of its forms with those of the other monuments enables 
 us to pronounce with tolerable confidence, that it belongs 
 to that Anglian division of which the Northumbrian was a 
 branch. It is moreover the oldest and purest considerable 
 specimen of that class, and therefore occupies an important 
 place among the Teutonic dialects , to the general grammar 
 and analogies of which it affords many valuable illustrations. 
 It is hardly necessary to say that all the documents of which 
 we have been treating are of the highest importance for the 
 study and elucidation of our vernacular dialects ; and we may 
 be allowed to express a hope that they will ere long be render- 
 ed more * available to the public than they have hitherto been. 
 Our Lord's dialogue with the woman of Samaria is given 
 as a specimen of the Rushworth text, from which it will be 
 seen to agree more generally with the Durham monuments 
 than with the Psalter. A comparison of the corresponding 
 passage from the llatton Gospels will show that the latter 
 text, though upwards of two centuries later, preserves, with 
 but slight deviations, the grammatical forms of the West- 
 Saxon; thus proving that the leading peculiarities of the 
 glosses arc inherent in the dialect, and not the corruptions 
 of a more recent period. 
 
 John iv. 1 26. Want of access to the Rushworth and 
 Hatton MSS. has made it necessary to trust to a transcript, 
 occasionally, it is feared, of doubtful accuracy. The Hatton 
 text is that of the ordinary Anglo-Saxon Gospels, with slight 
 verbal and orthographical variations. The Rushworth gloss, 
 like all others of the same character, adheres servilely to 
 the order and phraseology of the Latin , of which it frequently 
 mistakes the true sense. Consequently it is totally subver- 
 sive of the vernacular idiom, and is chiefly valuable for its 
 grammatical forms. 
 
 RUSHWORTH GOSPELS. IIATTON GOSPELS. 
 
 JOHN, chap. iv. JOHN, chap. iv. 
 
 Thaet forthon [the hseleml] on- Tha so hajlend wiste thset tha 
 
 gsett [thaette] griherdon tha aide Phariseigchyrdenthret lie hpeftle 
 
 wearasthsette//icliail[end]monige ema [ma] leorning-cnihta thonne 
 
 thegnas wyrceth and fulwath Johannes: thoahseh;vlend wH'ul- 
 
 thonne loh' [annos]: //?/* the, 1' lode achysleoriiing-cnihtas: Tha 
 
 swa he, the hail' ne fuhvadc ah for/lot lie Judea land and for eft 
 
 thegnas his : forleort Judeam cor- on Galilca. hyrn gobyrede tha-t 
 
 * The writer may be allowed to state that the Psalter is now printing 
 for the Siirte^'H Society, under the superintendence of the Rev. Joseph 
 Stevenson.
 
 OP THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 
 
 185 
 
 tho and foenlc ef'ter son a in Gali- 
 leain. was gi cUefendiic wutudl' 
 [ice] hine thatte of [cr] foenlc 
 Iherh tha burig [Samaria], com for- 
 thou in tha castre Samar', thio is 
 ptcweden Sichar, nch l/ta-r by rig 
 thatte saldc Jacob Joscpes suno 
 his. was wutudl 1 ther wail la Ja- 
 cobes. The hal' fort lion tvocrig 
 was of gouge, siteudewas, T sat, 
 swa ofer tham rvoella: tid wa's 
 swelce thio sexta. wif [com] ofl/wr 
 liyrirj to hladanne that waiter, 
 c.wathhiiu//Je'har ; seln\& drinca. 
 thcgnas wutudl'. fucrdun in castre 
 thatte mete bohlun him. cwseth f 
 thon to him that \\-\flhio Samari- 
 tanesca, 1m thu Jndesc mith thy 
 arth drincende from me giowcs tu 
 tha the mith thy wifs [sie?] Sa- 
 maritanesc? ne for thon jfrbjreKc 
 bith Judea to Samaritauiscum. 
 i//oudswarade the hal 1 and cwath 
 him, gif thu ivistcs bus \domum,. 
 Lat.] Godes and hwelc were se 
 the cwieth the sel me drinca thu 
 wutudl'. 1' woenis mara, gif thu 
 geortvades [giowades?] from him 
 and [he] gisalde the water cwic 
 welle. cwiethtohimtluvtwif, driht 
 [en] ne m [inV] hwou tha hlado 
 iuviest thu, and the pytt neb is : 
 hwona, F hwer, fortbon ha;fest thu 
 wa'ter cwic welle? ah ne arthu 
 mara feder usum Jacobe setbe sal- 
 dc us Ihiosne pytt, T n-rvlla, and he 
 of him dranc and suno bis and 
 feothor fota, T neaeno [netenu], 
 his? ^j'ondsworade the bnel' and 
 cwa i th. eghwelc setbe drincetb of 
 waetre this [*tbset ic seld\ [selo?] 
 in ecnisse : setbe wutudl' drincetb 
 of wa-tre that ic seld him ne thyrs- 
 tre in ecnisse. ah water that ic 
 
 be scolde faran thurh Samaria 
 land, witelice be com onSamarian 
 cestre the ys genenmed Sichar 
 neab tham tune the Jacob sealde 
 Josepe hissuue. thar WJES Jaco- 
 bes wylle. se halend satfettbam 
 welle , tha he was werige gan : 
 and hyt was mid-dayg. tba com 
 thar an wif of Samaria wolde 
 water feccau. Tha cwaetb se ba3- 
 lend to byre, gyf me drincan. bys 
 leoruing - cnibtes ferdon tha to 
 thare ceastre woldon heom mete 
 beggen. Tha cwatb thset Sama- 
 ritanisse wif to bym, bu mete 
 bydst thu ad me drinken tbonne 
 tbu ert Judeisc and ic cm Sama- 
 ritanisc \vyf? ne brucatb Judeas 
 and Samaritanisce metes atga- 
 dere. Tha answcrede se halend 
 and cwsetb to byre, gif tbuwistes 
 Godes gyfe and hwat se ys be 
 cwatb to the, sele me drinken, 
 witoldlice thu bede hyne that he 
 sealde the lyfes water, tha cwselh 
 that wif to bym, leofne, thunafst 
 nan thing mid to hladcne, and 
 tbes pett ys deop : bwanen hafst 
 thu lyfes water? cwest tbu that 
 thu mare sy tbonne ure fader 
 Jacob se the us tbisne pyt sealde, 
 and be and hys beam and hys 
 uytauu of tbam druncan? Tha 
 andswerede se hsel' and cwsetb 
 to byre , ale thare therst eft the 
 of tbisse wateredrinketh ; witod- 
 lice jelc thare the drincth of tbam 
 watere the ic bym sylle beoth on 
 him wylla forth farendes wa>teres 
 on ece lyf. tha cwath that wif 
 to him, hlaford sele me that me 
 ne therste , ne ic ne tburfe her 
 water fecchan. tba cwath sa [se] 
 halend to byre, ga and clype 
 
 * A blunder for thyrsteth.
 
 186 
 
 ON THE LANGUAGES AND DIALECTS 
 
 seldliim bith in l/tcem wsella waitres 
 suites 'mlit'c ecuin. cwaith him thait 
 wif, drill' scl me this waiter thait 
 ic ne thyrhte, ne ic ne cynw hitler 
 tohladanne, 1'to f'yllaimc. cwaith 
 him l/teli 1 [ailend], eeig were thin- 
 Una and cym hither, ondsworade 
 thait wif and cwaith him ne Itufu ic 
 wer. cwaith to lurl/te ha:l' weltlui 
 cwede tlia-tte ie ae lutfo wer. life 
 forthon weoras thu ha 1 files and nu 
 thonne ha'fes ne is thin wer. this 
 sothlice thu cwedc. cwaith him 
 thait wif drih' ic yisiom forthon 
 wilgii arlh thy [thu]. laidrcs urcs on 
 more thissum griworthadun and gie 
 cwcolhas tha>tte in hierus' [alcmj 
 is lliio stow ther grnvorthade ge iji- 
 daifnathis. cwaith hire the haT la 
 wif gi\ei' me forthon com thiu tid 
 thonne ne onrnorum thissum ne in 
 hierusal' to WQfthadun thone 
 f seder, gie rvorlhigas thaitte we 
 [gie] ne wulun. we wordigath 
 tlia-tte we wulun we ; thaitte f ' thon 
 hailo of Judeum. ah com thio tid 
 and nu is thone sothlice weorthi- 
 gas ge-worthadun thon f aid or in 
 gaste and mith sothfaist' [nisse]. 
 f'thon and the feeder hiai soccclh 
 Ihuslico f'thon gcworthigas hine. 
 ingasteandsothfaistnisseus</2dai- 
 fnath to worthanne. cwaith to him 
 thaitwif, icwatthaitte thef//corna 
 com ***** y/sa-gcth 
 alle. cwaith hir the hail' ic am sethe 
 ic sprcco Ihec mith. 
 
 thiune cheorl and cum hider. tha 
 hym answerede thus thaitwif and 
 cwivth, nabbe is luonne cheorl. 
 tha cwaith se halcnd to hyrc, wel 
 thu cwethe thait thu uaifst ceorl. 
 witodlice thu hafst lit' cheorles, 
 and se the thu nu hafst nis thin 
 ceorl: xt tham thu segdest soth. 
 Tha cwaith thait wif to hym, leof, 
 thas me thincth thu ert witega. ure 
 fadereshyo gebeden on thisserie 
 dune and go secgeth thait on 
 Jerusalem syo stow the thait man 
 on gebydde. Tha cwa;th se hal- 
 cnd to byre; la Avif, gelef me 
 thait seo tid cyiuth thonne ge 
 nc hiddeth tham fader ne on 
 tliisise dune ne on Jerusalem, ge 
 gebiddeth thait ge nyten. we 
 gebiddeth thait we witon ; for 
 tham the hale is of Judeum. ac 
 seo tid cymth and nu ys thonne 
 sothe ge-bedincn biddeth thonne 
 father on gaste and on sothfa-st- 
 nysse. witodlice se fader secth 
 swilce the hyne gebiddeth. gast 
 ysGod and tham the hine biddc th 
 gebyrcth thait hyo gebidden on 
 gaste and onsotbfaistnysse. That 
 wifcwsethto him,ic watthaitMes- 
 sias cymth, lluut ys ge-nemned 
 Crist, thonne he cymth he cyth 
 us ealle thing, se hailend cwaith 
 to byre, ic hyt em the with the 
 sprece. 
 
 Unfortunately there is a complete chasm of several cen- 
 turies in the literary history and monuments of the Northum- 
 brian dialects; no considerable specimen being extant exhi- 
 biting their state in the eleventh, twelfth, or thirteenth 
 centuries. 
 
 In the fourteenth we find abundant remains, and such 
 as entitle the Northumbrian to rank as a leading literary 
 dialect. It may be questioned indeed whether the procluc-
 
 OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 187 
 
 tions of the northern bards did not exceed those of their 
 brethren in the south in number and merit, prior to the ap- 
 pearance of Gower and Chaucer. Our present business how- 
 ever is with their language, which, when compared with 
 that of the Durham Gospels, will be found to have under- 
 gone a considerable change. Of the Saxon declensions of 
 nouns little remains except the genitive singular; the definite 
 or emphatic form of the adjective has totally disappeared; 
 the article (se, sie, J3set) appears in the form the in all gend- 
 ers; the feminine pronoun of the third person (hie or hyo) 
 becomes she or scho ; the genitive plural heara or hiara (eorum, 
 caruni) is superseded by the possessive their, and the first 
 person of the present indicative in o or u } the most remark- 
 able characteristic of the ancient dialect, is attenuated to e. 
 The plurals of verbs in s, which in the Durham and Rush- 
 worth texts appear along with the more ancient form in 1h } 
 are generally retained, especially in the imperative mood; 
 while the prefix ye, which there was already a tendency to 
 omit in Northumbrian Saxon as early as the days of Bede, 
 is scarcely to be met with in the fourteenth century, except 
 in the single participle ihalen (called or named). Many words 
 are also found which do not occur in the earlier texts, or in 
 the West-Saxon dialect. Some of these were in all proba- 
 bility current among the Angles, but there are many others 
 which do not appear to have ever been Saxon, in the strict 
 sense of the term. The history of the district would lead us 
 a priori to attribute the introduction of them to the Northmen ; 
 and we have both external and internal evidence that such 
 a process actually took place. Giraldus Cambrensis and John 
 of Wallingford assert in direct terms that there was a strong 
 infusion of Danish in the population and the language of 
 our northern provinces; and, if confirmation of their testi- 
 mony were needed, it would be abundantly supplied by the 
 names of landed proprietors preserved in the Domesday 
 Survey, by the present topographical nomenclature of the 
 district, and by a multitude of Avords, unequivocally of Norse 
 origin. The change of the local name Streoneshalch to Hvitby 
 or Whitby, consequent on the Danish occupation of the dis- 
 trict, is Avell-ascertained, and it is believed that all the 
 names oj towns and villages in by in the north and east of 
 England are of similar origin. Derby, for example, did not 
 receive its present name till the ninth or tenth century, its 
 original Saxon appellation being Northweorthig. 
 
 A remarkable coeval monument, both of the state of the 
 population and of the language, which there are good rea- 
 sons for attributing to the age of Edward the Confessor, is
 
 188 ON THE LANGUAGES AND DIALECTS 
 
 still extant in Aldburgh church, Holderness, in the East 
 Riding of Yorkshire ; it is an inscription commemorating the 
 foundation of the edifice, or more probably of a preceding 
 one, in the following terms: 
 
 Ulf hct arsuan cyrice for hanum and for Gunthara saula*. 
 Ulf bid erect the cliurch for him and for the soul of Gunthar. 
 
 Waving the consideration of those points which more imme- 
 diately concern the historian and the antiquary, it will be 
 sufficient for us to observe that the name of the founder 
 Ulf is unequivocally Norse, the Anglo-Saxon form being 
 Wulf\ and that the form of the dative pronoun hanum is 
 unknown in all Saxon dialects, being in fact identical with 
 the Old-Norse hanum,** Swedish hotiom. A comparison of 
 the Icelandic Landnama Bok or Roll of Proprietors with the 
 Domesday Survey of Yorkshire would furnish many coinci- 
 dences of names of general occurrence in the Scandinavian 
 provinces, but not known as Anglo-Saxon or German. 
 
 It appears that this admixture of the Northmen in the 
 population of the Northumbrian provinces had not produced 
 its full effect upon the language in the tenth century; as, 
 with the exception of one or two isolated words, there is 
 nothing that can be satisfactorily referred to that class of 
 dialects, either in the Durham texts or the Rushworth Gos- 
 pels. In the fourteenth century the traces of this influence 
 become much stronger. The 'Cursor Mundi' and the North- 
 umbrian metrical version of the Psalms abound with words 
 totally unknown in the Saxon dialects, but of regular occur 
 rence in Icelandic, Danish and Swedish. One of the most 
 remarkable of these is the Scandinavian prefix to infinitives, 
 fit think, at do, instead of to think, to do; which, as Mr. Ste- 
 venson justly observes,*** is an unequivocal criterion of a 
 purely northern dialect, and an equally certain one of the 
 Scandinavian influence whereby that dialect has been modi- 
 fied. Its retention in the present local speech of Westmore- 
 land f is a sufficient proof of its being truly vernacular. 
 Another remarkable Scandinavianism is the particle sum in 
 
 * Arcluuologia, vol. vi. p. 40. There is some doubt whether the second 
 name should be read Gunthar or Gunwar. Brooke, the author of the paper 
 in the ' Archa-ologia, ' translates "for liamim'" "pro ftano" 1 ' as if it were a 
 proper name, contrary to all grammar. 
 
 ** As extant in Runic inscriptions. The present Icelandic form is honwn. 
 *** Boucher's Glossary, v. at. 
 
 f Vide Wheeler's Dialogues, first published in 17'.) I. The first para- 
 graph of the prefatory discourse furnishes the two following examples: 
 "I lied Hie el dea," "I had little to do;" " A wark ets fit for nin but parson 
 et dea, " " A work that's fit for none but a parson to do. "
 
 OF THE BRITISH ISLAKDS. 180 
 
 the sense of as, Danish som: e. g. " swa sum we forgive oure 
 detturs, " so as we forgive our debtors. This form appears 
 to be now obsolete; but war for was, Dan. var; war. worse, Dan. 
 riterre; and the apparently ungrammatical inflexions of the 
 present tense singular, /, thou, he tJiinks, perfectly analogous 
 to the Danish jcy, (lit, han laenker, are still regularly current in 
 North Yorkshire. Besides these we find, both in ancient and 
 modern'times, braid to resemble, Swedish braas; "han braas pa 
 sin fader;" inYorkshire, Ct he braids on his father," i. e. takes 
 after or resembles him; el din firing, Dan. eld fire; force 
 waterfall, Isl. fors; gar make or cause, Isl. gilra; gill ravine, 
 narrow valley, Isl. gil; greet weep, Isl. grata; kel carrion, 
 Dan. kind flesh; lail seek, Dan. lede; lathe barn, Dan. lade; 
 lilc little, Dan. /tile; with innumerable others, either totally 
 unknown in Anglo-Saxon or found under perfectly distinct 
 forms. It is proper to observe that some of those words 
 and forms are not peculiar to the Northumbrian district, 
 but are also current in the North -Anglian dialect of the 
 West Riding of Yorkshire, where they were equally intro- 
 duced by the Danes. 
 
 It would lead us too far to discuss the distinctive peculia- 
 rities of the different subdivisions of the Northumbrian dia- 
 lect. A form of speech, extending at one time from the 
 I lumber to the Forth, and from the German Ocean to the 
 Irish Channel, could hardly be expected to preserve a per- 
 fect uniformity under the various influences, both social and 
 political, to which it has been subjected during eight or nine 
 centuries. At present we find the Northumbrian proper, in- 
 cluding North and East Yorkshire, the lowland Scottish of 
 the Lothians , the Cumberland and Westmoreland dialects, 
 and the North Lancashire, all to exhibit their respective fea- 
 tures of difference ; chiefly consisting in minutiae that it would 
 be difficult to make intelligible in a small compass. A little 
 knowledge of those characteristics w r ould however have pro- 
 ved very serviceable to our editors of ancient poetry and 
 compilers of glossaries, who have created no small confusion 
 by assuming many compositions to be Scottish which were 
 in all probability written between the Humber and the Tyne, 
 certainly to the south of the Tweed. Thus Jamieson cites 
 as Scotch at least a dozen works which have no real claim 
 to that character; and Sir Walter Scott has grounded a va- 
 riety of theories respecting the composition of Sir Tristrem 
 on the supposed fact of its having been produced within the 
 Scottish border. The writer has elsewhere* given his rea- 
 
 * Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. i. p. 100. ed. 1840.
 
 100 ON THtf LANGUAGES AND DIALECTS 
 
 sons at length for believing it to have been a Northumbrian 
 poem, the only existing copy of which was transcribed and 
 considerably altered in a midland county. The 'Proces of 
 the Sevyn Sages' was edited by Weber from the Auchinleck 
 MS. under the gratuitous idea that it afforded the purest 
 and most original text. He speaks disparagingly of the 
 Cotton MS. (Galba, E. 9.), pronouncing it to have been al- 
 tered by a Scottish transcriber. The truth is, that the Cot- 
 ton text is not Scottish but pure Northumbrian ; and a care- 
 ful comparison of the two will, it is believed, furnish abund- 
 ant evidence that the Auchinleck copy is a rifaccimento or 
 adaptation of the original Northumbrian text to the dialect 
 of the midland counties, not ahvays very skilfully executed. 
 The same process appears to have been exercised on 'Ha- 
 velock the Dane,' though more of the northern character 
 has been preserved; und there are also copies of the 'Cur- 
 sor Mundi' in Midland English, though it can be easily 
 proved it was originally written in Northumbrian. This was 
 in fact the literary dialect of the whole North of England, 
 and no native of that district would have written anything 
 in Southern English which he meant to have currency 
 among his immediate neighbours. A short extract from the 
 c Cursor Mundi' will place this point in a clear light. 
 Speaking of a legend of ,,our Levedi and Saint John," the 
 author states: - 
 
 "In a writto this ilkc I fand; 
 Himself it wroght I understand. 
 In suthrin Englys was it drawn, 
 And I have turnid it til ur awn 
 Langago of the northern lode 
 That can non other Englis rede. '' 
 
 The number of the literary monuments of Northumbria, 
 from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, precludes us 
 from giving anything like a general view of them, or at- 
 tempting to specify the changes which gradually took place 
 in the language. As it may not however be uninteresting 
 to compare its earlier with its declining state, a specimen 
 of each is exhibited for that purpose. The first is taken 
 from the Northumbrian Metrical Psalter, Cotton MSS., Ves- 
 pasian, D. 7. 
 
 TWENTY-THIKD [TWENTY-FOURTH] PSALM. 
 
 Of Lavcrd is land & f til lied his; 
 ErJ)oli world & alle }>ar in is. 
 For over sees it grounded he,
 
 OF THfl HRITI.SH ISLANDS. 191 
 
 And over stremes grained it to bo. 
 
 Wha sal stegh in hille of Laverd winli, 
 
 Or wha sal stand in his stede haliV 
 
 Underand of hend bidene, 
 
 And pat of his hert es dene: 
 
 In unnait pat his saule noght nam, 
 
 Ne sware to his neghburgh in swikedam. 
 
 He sal fang of Laverd blissinge, 
 
 And mercy of God his helinge. 
 
 Ks is the strend of him sekand, 
 
 Pe face of God Jacob laitand. 
 
 Oppenes your yates wide, 
 
 Ye ]iat princes ere in pride, 
 
 And yhates of ai nphefen be yhe, 
 
 And king of blisse income sal he. 
 
 Wha es he king of blisse V Laverd strang, 
 
 And mightand to light, Laverd mightand lang. 
 
 Oppenes, &c. 
 
 Wha es he king of blisse at isse? 
 
 Laverd of mightcs es king of blisse. 
 
 It is worth while to observe how many pure Saxon and 
 Norse terms occur in this short piece, most of them now sup- 
 planted by words of Latin origin: viz. grailhed prepared, 
 stegh ascended, winli gracious, widerand innocent, unnait 
 vanity, swikedam deceitfulness, fang receive, strend generation, 
 lailand inquiring, tiphefen elevated. Many of these terms 
 have a singular emphasis to those who understand the ety- 
 mology of them ; wider and, for example, is the precise counter- 
 part of Lat. innoccns. A careful study of the remains of our 
 language , as written and spoken in the thirteenth and four- 
 teenth centuries, will indeed show that a vast number of 
 Latin and Romance words have been since introduced Avith- 
 out being absolutely needed. 
 
 Our next specimen is from the York Mysteries , formerly 
 in the library of Lord Orford and afterwards in the posses- 
 sion of Mr. Bright. This collection is interesting on many 
 accounts, and not the least so as being an undoubted and 
 authentic specimen of the language of the city of York dur- 
 ing the latter part of the fourteenth century. At that time 
 the speech of the southern parts of the island had begun to 
 make considerable inroads upon that of the more cultivated 
 classes in the north, and a great portion of the Mysteries is 
 almost as much metropolitan as Northumbrian. Fortunately 
 an older copy of the play describing the creation of our first
 
 192 ON THE LANGUAGES AND DIALECTS 
 
 parents , lias been preserved along with the more recent re- 
 vision. Though this, as compared with the 'Cursor Mundi' 
 or the Psalter, is much softenc'd down, it still retains strong- 
 traces of its original Northumbrian character. The various 
 readings are from the more recent copy. 
 
 YORK MYSTERIES. 
 
 CARDMAKER'S PLAY. 
 
 .Detts. In hevyn and erthe duly bedene, 
 Of v. days werke evyn on to ende, 
 I have complete by curssis clene ; 
 Me thynkc y e space of yame well spende. 
 
 In hevyn er angels fay re and brigbte, 
 Sterne,s and planetis yar curssis to ga 1 . 
 Ye mone servis on to y e nyght, 
 The son to lyghte y e day alswa 2 . 
 
 In erthe is treys and gres to springe; 
 Bestis .and foulys bothe grot and smalle; 
 Fysschis in flode; alle othyr thyng 
 Thryfte and have my blyssyng alle. 
 
 This werke is wroght now at my wille ; 
 
 But 3et can I no best see 
 
 Yat acordys be kynde and skyll, 
 
 And for my werke myght worschippe me. 
 
 For porfytte werke ne ware it nane 3 . 
 But ought ware made y l myglit it .;eme. 
 For love mad I yis warlde 1 alane ': 
 Therfor my loffe sail (j in it seme. 
 
 To kepe this warlde 1 bothe mare 7 and lesse, 
 
 A skylfulle best yane wille I make 
 
 Eftyr my schape and my lyknes, 
 
 The \vilke salle (i worschippe to my [me] take. 
 
 Off' ) '' symplest part of erthe y l is here 
 I sail'' make man, and for yis skylle, 
 For to abate his hauttande chere, 
 Bothe his gret pride and othor ille. 
 
 1 K. goo. a also. 3 none. 4 worlde. 5 alone. {i simile. '' more.
 
 OP THE! BRITISH ISLANDS. 
 
 And also for to have in mynde 
 How simpylle he is at hys makyng. 
 For als febylle I sail (i fynde hym 
 Qwen he is dede at his endynge. 
 
 For yis reson and skylle alane s , 
 I sail 6 make man lyke on to me. 
 Ryse up y u erthe in blode and bane 9 , 
 In schape of man I commaunde the. 
 
 A female sail 10 y u have to fere; 
 Her sail I make of y' lyft 11 rybe : 
 Alane 8 so sail" y u nought be here 
 Withoutyn faythefull frende and sybe. 
 
 Takys now here y e gast 12 of lyffe 
 And ressayve bothe youre saules 13 of me. 
 The femalle take y u to y' wyffe ; 
 Adam and Eve your names salle G be. 
 
 A(](tm. A lorde! full mekyll is y 1 mighte; 
 And yat is sene in ilke a syde. 
 For now his here a joyfull syght, 
 To se yis worlde so lange 14 and wyde. 
 
 Mony 15 divers thyngis now here es 
 
 Oft 1 bestis and foulis bothe wylde and tame 
 
 j et is nan made to y e [y 1 ] liknes, 
 
 But we alone; a lovyd by y'name! 
 
 Eve. To swylke a lorde in all y e degre 
 Be evirmore lastande lovynge, 
 Yat tyll 16 us swylke 17 a dyngnite 
 Has gyffyne before alle othyr thynge. 
 
 And selcouth thyngis may we se here 
 Of yis ilke warlde, so lange 14 and brade 18 , 
 With bestis and fowlis so many and sere: 
 Blessid be he y 1 [hase] us made ! 
 
 h allone. 9 bone. 10 shalte. " lefte. 12 goste. 13 soules. 
 longe. 1r> many. 1G to. 1T suclie. 1R broode. 
 
 13
 
 194 ON TUB LAXGUAGKS AND DIALECTS 
 
 Adam. A blyssid lorde ! now at y' wille 
 
 Syne 1 " we er wroght, woche saff to telle, 
 
 And also say us two un tylle 
 
 Qwate 20 we sail do and whare 21 to dwelle. 
 
 Dais. For yis skyl made I 3ow yis day 
 My namo to worschip ay whare 21 . 
 Lovys me for y l and lovys me ay 
 For my makyng, I axke no mare'- 2 . 
 
 Bothe wys and witty sail" y" be, 
 Als man y' I have made of nogbt. 
 Lordschippe in ertbe yan graunt I tbe ; 
 Alle tbynge to serve the y 1 I have wroghte. 
 
 In paradyse salle fi je same wone: 
 Of erthely thyng get 30 no nede: 
 Illc and gude, 2;t both salle 3e kone : 
 I salle 3011 lerne 3onre lyve to lede. 
 
 Adam. A lorde! sene we salle 1 ' do no thyng, 
 lint louffe y e for y' gret gudnesse 24 , 
 We sail 1 ' ay bay to y' byddyng, 
 And fulfill it both more and less. 
 
 Eve. His syng sone he has on us sette 
 Bcforne alle othre thyng certayne. 
 Hem for to love we sail 6 noght lett, 
 And worschip hym with myght and mayne. 
 
 Deits. At hevyne and erth first I begane, 
 
 And vi days wroglite or I walde 25 ryst. 
 My warke is endyde now at mane; 
 Alle lykes me welle, but yis is beste. 
 
 My blyssyng have yai ever and ay ! 
 The seveynte day sail ray restyng be: 
 Yus wille I sese, sothely to say, 
 Of my doyng in y' s degre. 
 
 ''-' sethon. 20 \vlintle. 21 where. M more. 23 goode. n gooduesse. 
 \vol,le.
 
 ')!' THE HIUTISH ISLANDS. 195 
 
 To blys I salle jow bryng: 
 forays forth 30 tow with me! 
 , j e salle fi ly ffc in lykyng ; 
 
 My blyssyng wyth 3ow be. Amen. 
 
 Here, besides a gradual approximation of the orthography 
 to the southern standard, it will be observed that the forms 
 none, atane, tmrlde, lange, brade, &c. become in the later 
 copy none, alone, world, long, broad; and that the Northum- 
 brianisms swa , gude , sail, snilke, til, have respectively be- 
 come so, good, shall, such, to. The present participle in and, 
 a certain criterion of a northern dialect subsequent to the 
 thirteenth century, and the imperative plural in ,5, with a 
 few other peculiarities, are preserved in both copies. 
 
 13*
 
 ON THE PROBABLE RELATIONS OF THE 
 PICTS AND GAEL 
 
 WITH 
 
 THE OTHER TRIBES OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 [Proceedings of the Philological Society. Vol. I.] 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to observe, that there are few 
 points of ethnology on which historians and antiquaries have 
 been more at variance with each other, than respecting the 
 real race of those inhabitants of a portion of Caledonia po- 
 pularly known by the designation of Picts. The difficulty 
 arising from this discrepancy of opinion is increased by the 
 scanty and unsatisfactory nature of the materials now avail- 
 able to those who wish to form an independent judgement. 
 No connected specimen of the Pictish language has been 
 preserved; nor has any ancient author who knew them from 
 personal observation, stated in direct terms that they ap- 
 proximated to one adjoining tribe more than another. They 
 are indeed associated with the Scots or Irish as joint plun- 
 derers of the colonial Britons ; and the expression of Gildas 
 that they differed in some degree from the Scots in their 
 customs, might seem to imply that they did bear an analogy 
 to that nation in certain respects. Of course, where there 
 is such a lack of direct evidence, there is more scope for 
 conjecture; and the Picts are pronounced by different inves- 
 tigators of their history to have been Germans, Scandina- 
 vians, Welsh, Gael, or something distinct from all the four. 
 The advocates of the German hypothesis rest chiefly on 
 Tacitus's description of their physical conformation. Dr. 
 Jamieson, assuming that the present Lowland Scotch dialect 
 was derived from them, sets them down as Scandinavians; 
 Bishop Lloyd and Camden conceive them to have been of 
 Celtic race, probably related to the Britons; Chalmers, the 
 author of 'Caledonia,' regards them as nothing more than 
 a tribe of Cambrians or Welsh; while Skene, one of the 
 latest authors on the subject, thinks he has proved that they 
 were the ancestors of the present race of Scottish Highlanders. 
 
 There is no reason to doubt that there was some point of 
 distinction between the Picts and the adjoining tribes. Nen- 
 nius describes them as one of the four nations then inha- 
 biting Britain; and Bede represents them as distinct from
 
 ON THE PROBABLE RELATIONS OF THE PICTS AND GAEL 197 
 
 the Britons and the Scots, both in nationality and language. 
 Inues, who was almost the first to throw a little light upon 
 the chaos of ancient Scottish history, considers them to have 
 been those ancient Caledonian tribes who retained their in- 
 dependence; and that their language differed from that of 
 the colonial Britons in having remained unmixed; while that 
 of the latter was partially Romanized. This supposition is 
 probably not far from the truth. That the Picts were ac- 
 tually Celts, and not of Teutonic race, is proved to a de- 
 monstration by the names of their kings; of whom a list, 
 undoubtedly genuine from the fifth century downwards, was 
 published by Innes, from a manuscript in the Colbertine li- 
 brary. Some of those appellations are, as far as we know 
 at present, confined to the Pictish sovereigns; but others 
 are well-known Welsh and Gaelic names. They differ, how- 
 ever, slightly in their forms from their Cymric equivalents; 
 and more decidedly so from the Gaelic ones; and, as far as 
 they go, lead to the supposition that those who bore them 
 spoke a language bearing a remote analogy to the Irish with 
 its cognates, but a pretty close one to the Welsh. 
 
 In the list furnished by Innes the names Maelcon, El pin. 
 Taran (i. e. thunder), Uven (Owen), Bargoilj are those of 
 personages well known in British history or tradition. 
 // rt/ust. which appears as Fergus in the Irish annals, is the 
 Welsh Gtvrgusl. Talory, Talorgan, evidently contain the Bri- 
 tish word Tal forehead, a common element in proper names; 
 ex. gr. Talhaiarn, Iron Forehead; Taliesm, splendid fore- 
 head , &c. Talc\tr<ja'u\ Avould signify in Welsh golden or 
 splendid front. Three kings are represented as sons of Wid, 
 in the Irish annals Foil or Foith. In Welsh orthography* it 
 would be Gtvycld, wild; a common name in Brittany at the 
 present day, under the form of Gtvez. The names Drust, 
 Drostan, Jf'rrtt/, Necton (in Bede Naif an], closely resemble the 
 Welsh Trir.ff. Trtvslftn, Guriafl, .\tri/(hon. It will be sufficient 
 to compare the entire list with the Irish or Highland gene- 
 alogies, to be convinced that there must have been a ma- 
 terial distinction betweeen the two branches. Most of the 
 Pictish names are totally unknown in Irish or Highland hist- 
 ory, and the few that are equivalent, such as Angus and 
 Fergus, generally differ in form. The Irish annalists have 
 rather obscured the matter, by transforming those names 
 according to their national system of orthography ; but it is 
 remarkable that a list in the 'Book of Ballymote,' partly 
 given by Lynch in his 'Cambrensis Eversus,' agrees closely 
 with Innes, even preserving the initial tv or u where the 
 Gaelic would require /*. This, by the way, is an independ-
 
 198 ON THK 1'IIOUABLE RELATIONS OF THE TICTS AND GAEL 
 
 dent testimony of the authenticity of the Colbertinc list, 
 which, there is reason to believe, was compiled at or near 
 Abernethy, in the very heart of the Pictisli territory, and 
 consequently from original materials. 
 
 The philological inferences to be deduced from this docu- 
 ment may be thus briefly summed up ; 1 . The names of 
 the Pictisli kings are not Gaelic, the majority of them being 
 totally unknown both in the Irish and Highland districts, 
 while the few which have Gaelic equivalents decidedly differ 
 from them in form. Cineod (Kenneth) and Domhnall or 
 Donncl, appear to be the only exceptions. 2. Some of them 
 cannot be identified as Welsh ; but the greater number arc 
 either identical with or resemble known Cymric names; or 
 approach more nearly to Welsh in structure and orthography 
 than to any other known language. 3. There appears ne- 
 vertheless to have been a distinction, amounting at all events 
 to a difference in dialect. The Pictish names beginning with 
 tv would in Welsh have gm , as Grvrywl for Wrgusl, and so 
 of the rest. There may have been other differences, suffi- 
 cient to justify Bede's statement that the Pictish language 
 was distinct from the British, which it might very well be 
 without any impeachment of its claim to be reckoned as 
 closely cognate. 
 
 The remaining direct evidence as to the character of the 
 Pictish language unfortunately lies in a very small compass. 
 Almost the only Pictish word given as such by an ancient 
 writer is the wellknown Pen val (or, as it appears in the old- 
 est MSS of Beede, Peann fahet), the name given by the Picts 
 to the Wall's End, or eastern termination of the Vallum of 
 Antoninus. It is scarcely necessary to say the first part of 
 the word is decidedly Cymric; pen, head, being contrary to 
 all Gaelic analogy. The latter half might be plausibly 
 claimed as the Gaelic fal; gwall being the more common 
 term in Welsh for a wall or rarnpart, Fal, however, does 
 occur in Welsh in the sense of inclosure, .a signification not 
 very remote. 
 
 There is a collateral evidence on this subject which does 
 not appear to have been sufficiently attended to. In the 
 Durham MSS of Nennius, apparently written in the twelfth 
 century, there is an interpolated passage, stating that the 
 spot in question was in the Scottish or Gaelic language cal- 
 led Cenail. Innes and others have remarked the resemblance 
 between this appellation and the present Kinneil; but no 
 one appears to have noticed that Cenail accurately represents 
 the pronunciation of the Gaelic cean fhail, literally head of 
 wall, f being quiescent in construction. A remarkable in-
 
 WITH THE OTHER TRIBES OF GREAT BRITAIN. J99 
 
 stance of the same suppression occurs in Athole, as now 
 written, compared with the Ath-fothla of the Irish annalists. 
 Supposing then that Cenail was substituted for Pean fuhcl 
 by the Gaelic conquerors of the district, it would follow that 
 the older appellation was not Gaelic, and the inference would 
 be obvious. It is proper to observe that the terminus of 
 the wall of Antoninus is commonly placed at Carriden, se- 
 veral miles to the eastward. There are, however, strong 
 reasons for believing that Kinneil was the real termina- 
 tion, which it would be foreign to our particular province 
 to discuss. 
 
 Another evidence, and a decisive one if admitted in its 
 literal import, is that the Irish missionary St. Columba was 
 obliged to employ an interpreter when preaching to the 
 Northern Picts. Skene, who regards the Picts as Gael, 
 endeavours to get rid of this by making the interpretation 
 refer to the Latin Bible, not to the saint's discourse; and 
 quotes Adavnnanus as saying merely "verbum Dei per inter- 
 protatorem rccepto. " The entire passage , as it stands in 
 Colganus. is as follows: "Alio in terapore quo Sanctus 
 Columba in Pictorum provincia per aliquot deniorabatur dies, 
 quidam cum tota plebeius familia, verbum vi/fc per inter- 
 pretatorem, Sancto pnrdicante viro, audiens credidit, credens- 
 que baptizatus est." Adamn. ap. Colyamtm, 1. ii. c. 32. 
 Here it will be observed, Adamnanus does not say "verbum 
 Dei" which might have been construed to mean the Scrip- 
 ture, but "verbum vita', sancto prcedicante w'ro," which can 
 hardly mean any thing but "the word of life, as it was 
 preached by the saint. " A subsequent biographer will in- 
 form us how he understood the passage There is a volu- 
 minous Irish life of St. Columba by Magnus O'Donnel, who 
 states that he diligently consulted all sources of information 
 then extant (/. e. about A. D. 1500), among which were some 
 very ancient vernacular biographies. In the abstract of 
 O'Donnel's work given by the Bollandists , the transaction 
 already referred to is described in the following terms: - 
 "Demorante viro Sancto in prsedicta Pictorum regione, ac 
 verbum vitse gentili populo annunciante, inter alios adfuit 
 quidam plebeius percupidus intclligere quse pra?dicabantur. 
 Et quia idiomatis, in quo verba salutis proponebantur, erat 
 ignarus, accivit interpretem per cujus expositionem mysteria 
 iidei a Sancto prsedicata attente intelligens, ac aure ac animo 
 devota excipiens, ipse cum uxore. liberis ac tota familia tidem 
 Christi amplexus. salutari lavacro a viro Sancto regeneratus 
 est." O'Donnel, 1. ii. c. 75. Here the biographer plainly 
 asserts that the plebeian Pict did not understand St. Coluni-
 
 200 ON THE PROBABLE RELATIONS OF THE PICTS AND GAEL 
 
 ba's language, tc idiomatis erat ignarus," consequently his 
 vernacular language was not Gaelic. 
 
 Chalmers, who perhaps maintains the absolute identity of 
 the Picts with the Welsh rather too strongly, observes that 
 the ancient topographical appellations of the Pictish terri- 
 tory can in general only be explained by the Cymric dia- 
 lects, giving as one strong point the number of local names 
 beginning with the Welsh prefix alter , which he remarks 
 was in several instances subsequently changed by the Gael 
 into inver; Inverin, previously Aberin; Invernethy, formerly 
 Abernethy. Skene, who felt the force of this argument, tries 
 to get rid of it by maintaining that aber is essentially a 
 Gaelic word, being compounded of a(h, ford, and bior, wa- 
 ter; and intimating that it cannot be similarly resolved in 
 Welsh. We shall not stop to remark on the utterly gratui- 
 tous nature of this etymology, nor to inquire whetter the 
 estuary of a large river is a suitable place for a ford; but 
 shall merely observe that the term may be much more 
 satisfactorily accounted for by a different process. There 
 are three words in Welsh denoting a meeting of waters; 
 aber, cynver and ynver ; respectively compounded of the par- 
 ticles a, denoting juxtaposition, cyn (Lat. con), and yn, with 
 the root ber flowing, preserved in the Breton verb bcri to 
 flow, and all virtually equivalent to our word confluence. 
 Inver is the only term known in any Gaelic dialect, either 
 as an appellative or in proper names; and not a single lo- 
 cal appellation with the prefix aber occurs either in Ireland, 
 or the Hebrides, or on the west coast of Scotland. Indeed, 
 the fact that inver was substituted for it after the Gaelic 
 occupation of the Pictish territories, is decisive evidence on 
 the point; for, if aber was a term familiar to the Gael, why 
 should they change it? 
 
 It will be sufficient to mention two more local appellations 
 which can only be explained from the Cymric, viz. the Ochil 
 Hills in Perthshire, Welsh uchel, high; Gael, nasal; and 
 Brun Album, according to the author of the tract c l)e Situ 
 Albanise' (supposed to be Giraldus Cambrensis), the name 
 of the Dorsum Britannia^, or ridge dividing the Picts from 
 the Scots; Welsh bryn, a ridge. The wellknown Gaelic ap- 
 pellation is Drum Albain. Ochillree in Ayrshire, within the 
 limits of the Strath-Clyde Britons, is easily resolved into 
 uchel, high, and Iref or (re, hamlet or habitation; and is 
 only mentioned here for the sake of the analogy. Bryn- 
 eich was the British name of the province of Bernicia, quasi 
 regio montana. 
 
 The Celtic terms adduced by Chalmers from the old Scot-
 
 WITH THE OTHER TRIBES OF GREAT BRITAIN. 201 
 
 tish laws are not so conclusive; most of them admitting of 
 explanation from the Gaelic. Those from the Lowland Scotch 
 dialect would be of some weight, if we knew precisely in 
 what part of Scotland they originated; respecting which there 
 is a lack of information. A sufficient number of Cymric 
 words proper to the district between the Forth and the Frith 
 of Murray, would go a great way towards determining the 
 points in dispute; and it is believed that such might be 
 found, if properly sought for. 
 
 Respecting the territorial limits of the Picts, we may ob- 
 serve that much confusion has arisen from regarding Gal- 
 loway as one of their ancient provinces. It is certain that 
 in the age of Bede, and long after, there were no Picts in 
 Galloway, which is uniformly represented as a British pro- 
 vince (occasionally encroached upon by the Northumbrian 
 Saxons), from the fifth to the ninth century. It is believed 
 that Jocelin, abbot of Furness in the tenth century, is the 
 earliest author who describes it as a Pictish territory; and 
 subsequently, the Picts of Galloway are mentioned by several 
 authors, down to the twelfth century. Lines supposes them 
 to have been refugees from the Scottish invasion ; and Chal- 
 mers regards them as emigrants from Ireland, where there 
 were several tribes of Cruithne, of whom little is known 
 except that they were regarded as distinct from the Irish 
 proper. We have now no materials for deciding this ques- 
 tion, any further than by remarking that in this later pe- 
 riod the term Picts was applied with some laxity of sig- 
 nification. After Kenneth Mac Alpin's conquest, the Scot- 
 tish kings are often called Pictish kings, and kings of the 
 Picts, because they then ruled over the Pictish territory; 
 and their subjects in Lothian are sometimes called Picts, 
 though the majority of them Avere probably Saxons. It is 
 therefore possible that the inhabitants of Galloway might 
 be called Picts, though they were not properly such; as 
 the English are popularly called Britons from inhabiting 
 Great Britain. 
 
 There has been some dispute respecting the import of the 
 various terms by which the Picts have been designated. The 
 idea that they were called CruHlmeach by the Gael, because 
 they were eaters of wheat, appears to have no sufficient foun- 
 dation. Both Lhuyd and O'Brien concur in regarding the 
 word as eqiiivalent to brillmeach, variegated, from their cus- 
 tom of staining their bodies. Chalmers ingeniously suggests 
 that the Brython, mentioned in the Welsh Archaeology as d, 
 tribe distinct from the Lloegrians and the Cymru, were no 
 other than the Picts; and that Cruithne is merely the Gaelic
 
 202 ON THE PROBABLE RELATIONS OF THE PICTS AND GAEL 
 
 form of Brylhon, substituting as usual the guttural for the 
 labial. Cruithneaeh may however be regularly derived from 
 cruth, figure or shape, and in this case both terms, as well 
 as the present name of the Bretons, lirezoinick , from Brez, 
 Welsh brtih, variegated, woule be synonymous with the Latin 
 Picli. This appears more probable than Owen's interpretation, 
 I'ciihwyr, quasi, inhabitants of the plains, which wo know many 
 of them were not; but, on the contrary, tenants of the most 
 rugged mountain districts in all Britain. 
 
 It will be easily understood from the preceding remarks, 
 that the writer considers Skene's hypothesis of the substan- 
 tial identity of the Picts with the present Highlanders as to- 
 tally ungrounded. There are, probably enough, descendants 
 of the Picts both in the Highlands and the Lowlands; but 
 that the Scoto-Irish race gained the predominance in the 
 former district, is demonstrated by the language, which does 
 not differ in any essential point from that of the opposite 
 coast of Leinster and Ulster; bearing, in fact, a closer re- 
 semblance than Low German does to High German, or Da- 
 nish to Swedish. The Albanic Duan, of the twelfth century, 
 follows the analogy of the Irish grammar throughout, and 
 a recent Gaelic grammarian (Munro), observes that Knox's 
 Liturgy and other compositions of the sixteenth century do 
 not differ from the Irish of the same period. It is believed 
 that no instance exists of a similar identity of speech be- 
 tween tribes of different origin, as the Picts are allowed to 
 have been, separated by their geographical position and 
 living for centuries under a distinct government. If we 
 suppose the Dalriadic Scots, whose migration from Ireland 
 to the west coast of Scotland in the fifth century is a well- 
 nscertained historical fact, to have eventually become su- 
 perior in numbers to the Picts, as AVC know they did in mi- 
 litary and political power, the final prevalence of their lan- 
 guage is easily accounted for. 
 
 The subject of the general relation of the Irish or Gaelic 
 to the other Celtic tongues, is too copious and difficult to 
 / be fully discussed at present. It resembles the Welsh in 
 V many points of grammatical structure, in a considerable 
 ^proportion of its vocabulary, and in that remarkable system 
 Vof initial mutations of consonants which distinguishes the 
 ^/Celtic languages from all others in Europe. On the other 
 hand, it differs in several material points, particularly in 
 having a distinct genitive and dative case; the latter, in the 
 plural number, bearing an evident analogy to the Sanscrit 
 and Latin, to which languages it also approximates in many 
 affixes and other formatives. unknown in Welsh. To de-
 
 WITH THE OTHER TRIBES OF GREAT BRITAIN. 203 
 
 termine its exact place in the Indo-European family is per- 
 haps the most difficult problem in philology. When all has 
 been separated which can be fairly considered as analogous 
 to the Cymric and Armorican, there still remains a great 
 preponderance of terms which cannot be satisfactorily re- 
 ferred to any one race known to have inhabited Europe. 
 Some are found in Finnish; many more in Slavonic and the 
 Romance dialects; while those corresponding to Sanscrit vo- 
 cables are perhaps the most numerous and remarkable of 
 any. Some philologists have expressed an opinion that the 
 Scoti or Milesians were of Germanic race; or at all events 
 had been subjected to Germanic admixture; and the language, 
 as we now find it, certainly gives some countenance to that 
 hypothesis. For example, teanga is the only word current 
 for tongue, totally different from the Welsh tavod; and Iciyhis, 
 to heal, leciffh, physical, are evident counterparts of our Saxon 
 term leech. The following words, constituting a very small 
 proportion of what might be produced, may serve as further 
 specimens of the class : 
 
 Beit, both. 
 
 Coiiine, woman, queau. 
 
 Daor , dear. 
 
 Dorcha, dark. A, ~~-~ 
 
 Dream, company, people; A S. truma; O. E. trorae. yf/f/fty J 
 
 Drong, throng. 
 
 Faigh, to get, obtain; Dan. faae. 
 
 Feacht, fight. 
 
 Frag, woman, wife; Germ. frau. 
 
 Laire , thigh ; Dan. laar. 
 
 Lagh, law. 
 
 Lab, lip. 
 
 Laoidh, poem, lay; Germ. lied. 
 
 Lasd, loading, ballast; Germ. last. 
 
 Leos, light; Isl. lios. 
 
 Lumhan , lamb. 
 
 Sar, very exceeding; Germ. sehr. 
 
 Seadha, saw. 
 
 Seal, a while, space of time; A. S. sael, sel. 
 
 Seam, a peg or pin; Dan. sbm, nail. 
 
 Sgad, loss, misfortune; Dan. skade. 
 
 Sgaoil, separate, disperse; Stv. skala. 
 
 Sgeir, rock in the sea, skerry; Isl. sker. 
 
 Sgarbh, a cormorant; Isl. skarfr. 
 
 Snaig, creep, sneak. 
 
 Sneachd, snow. 
 
 Sliochd, family, race; Germ, geschlecht.
 
 204 ON THE PROBABLE RELATIONS OF THE PICTS AND GAEL. 
 
 Slug, swallow; Germ, schlucken. 
 
 Smachd, power, authority ; Germ, macht. 
 
 Smeoraich , smear. 
 
 Snaidh , cut; Germ, schneiden. 
 
 Spaisdrich , walk ; Germ, spazieren. 
 
 Spar, a beam or joist. 
 
 Streang, a string. 
 
 Srearnh, a current, stream. 
 
 Steagaim, parch, fry; 8w. steka , to roast, fry, broil. 
 
 Strith, strife; Germ, streit. 
 
 Trath, time, season; A. S. thrag; O. E. throw. 
 Some of the above terms may have been introduced in 
 the ninth and following centuries by the Northmen; but 
 many of them occur in the oldest known monuments of the 
 language ; they are also accompanied by many compounds 
 and derivatives, which is commonly regarded as a proof of 
 long naturalization; and are moreover current in Connaught, 
 Avherc the Danes never had any permanent settlement. One 
 of the most remarkable indications of a Teutonic affinity 
 is the termination nas } or ww, exactly corresponding to our 
 ness in greatness, goodness; ex. (jr. breitheanma*, judgment, 
 fiadhm'.v, witness, &c.* This affix is too completely incorpo- 
 rated in the language to be a borrowed term, and it more- 
 over appears to be significant, in the sense of state, condition, 
 in Irish, though not in German. As far as the Avriter knows, 
 it is confined to the Gaelic and Teutonic dialects. The Irish 
 scalbh, property, possession; adj. sealbhach, propriiis, would 
 also furnish a plausible origin for the German selber, self, a 
 word which has no known Teutonic etymology. These ap- 
 proximations and various others which might be pointed out, 
 not only to German but to Latin, Sanscrit, and other lan- 
 guages of their class, seem to show that the distinctive por- 
 tion of the Gaelic tongues is of comparatively later intro- 
 duction into the west of Europe, and that the Cymric and 
 Armorican have more faithfully preserved the peculiarities 
 of the ancient Celtic. For instance, the entire want of 
 cases in Welsh, Cornish and Breton, is a mark of antiquity 
 exhibited by no other European tongue, in its original condition. 
 Respecting the affinity of the Gaelic dialects to each other, 
 it will be sufficient to say that Irish is the parent tongue; 
 that Scottish Gaelic is Irish stripped of a few inflections; 
 and that Manks is merely Gaelic with a few peculiar words 
 and disguised by a corrupt system of orthography. 
 
 * A writer in the ".Saturday .Review " has pointed out that this remark 
 is incorrect. En.
 
 ON THE ORIGIN AND IMPORT OF THE 
 AUGMENT IN SANSCRIT AND GREEK. 
 
 [Proceedings of the Philological Society. Vol. I.] 
 
 It has long been suspected that the vowel-prefix to cer- 
 tain past tenses (Sanscr. , Gr. s) was originally a distinct 
 element, potentially modifying the signification of the verb 
 in its expression of the various relations of time. Not to 
 dwell upon its restriction to particular tenses, it may be briefly 
 observed, that in the older compositions in Sanscrit it is some- 
 times omitted, and sometimes separated from the verbal 
 theme and placed between two prepositions. In Greek, the 
 Ionic and ^olic dialect frequently reject it altogether; and 
 in certain verbs compounded with prepositions it is not un- 
 frequently prefixed to the preposition instead of the radical 
 portion of the verb. All these phenomena seem totally in- 
 consistent with the idea of its being any integral part of the 
 verbs to which it is joined; as it is notorious, that though 
 the constituent parts of compound terms may be disjoined 
 by tmesis, the elements of truly simple words never are. 
 Various theories have been advanced by grammarians to ac- 
 count for the origin and ascertain the precise force of this 
 prefix. Some, confining their views to the Greek language, 
 suppose it to have originated in the imperfect of the verb 
 substantive, i\v or 1), was; an hypothesis involving a gross 
 solecism, and subversive of all the established analogies of 
 the Indo-European languages. Buttmann conjectures it to 
 be nothing more than a mutilation of the reduplicate prefix 
 of the perfect, so that ervitrov was originally ratvitrov. 
 Though this idea might appear to derive some countenance 
 from the epic forms of the second aorist, in which the syl- 
 labic augment and the reduplication appear to be employed 
 almost indifferently, a slight comparison with the analogous 
 forms in Sanscrit will show it to be totally untenable. Pott 
 also regards the augment as a sort of imitation of the re- 
 duplication, but does not adduce any arguments in support 
 of his position that appear of much cogency. Bopp has ad- 
 vanced an hypothesis, which has, at all events, the merit of 
 originality not to say singularity. He supposes the aug- 
 ment to be identical with the negation prefix a or an (Gr. 
 ttj av), so that sksyov for instance is to be resolved into -
 
 ON THE ORIGIN AND IMPORT 
 
 Afyov, I say no longer = I said] the prefix not conveying a 
 negation of the action, but simply of its present occurrence. 
 In the last published part of his < Vergleichende Grammatik/ 
 Bopp labours to vindicate his theory against some severe 
 and cogent remarks of Lassen in the 'Indische Bibliothek;' 
 but his defence is more remarkable for its learning and in- 
 genuity than for its success in convincing the reader. He 
 himself, indeed, seems to have some misgivings respecting 
 the soundness of his hypothesis, since he admits that the 
 prolix in question may be only collaterally related to the 
 negative particle, as being derived from the same demon- 
 strative pronominal root; and that, instead of denying the 
 actual presence of the action, it may merely affirm its re- 
 moteness. He affects indeed to consider the two solutions 
 as virtually identical ; to which it is sufficient to reply, that 
 the latter hypothesis is completely subversive of the former, 
 and that the same element could hardly signify that, (here, 
 yonder, then, affirmatively, and express, vi termini, a negative 
 proposition at the same moment. The object of the present 
 paper is to show that the explanation which Bopp himself 
 allows to be admissible, -- namely, that the augment may 
 be regarded as a demonstrative particle, primarily express- 
 ing remote place, and secondarily remote time, -- is the one 
 which unites the most probabilities in its favour. One can- 
 not help feeling some surprise at the extremely limited view 
 which has hitherto been taken of this question. Some have 
 confined their investigations to the Greek, which gives ab- 
 solutely no data for deciding the point: others have gone 
 no further than the Sanscrit, which does not furnish any 
 very satisfactory ones. The most rational and philosophical 
 method of proceeding would have been to inquire how the 
 same modification of time is expressed in other languages, 
 especially those cognate with Greek and Sanskrit. If we 
 find that any of those distinguish the past from the present 
 by means of prefixes, and further, that those prefixes have 
 a distinct meaning, suitable to the functions which they 
 discharge, it is, a priori, very possible that the augment 
 in Greek and Sanscrit may be of similar origin and si- 
 milar import. 
 
 The Latin language will not afford us any assistance in 
 this investigation; since, though it has partially retained the 
 reduplication, it exhibits in its present state no distinct 
 traces of a syllabic augment, or substitute for one. If we 
 proceed to the Celtic, we shall find that all the dialects re- 
 gularly form the preterite by the aid of prefixes, some of 
 which are plainly significant. These preformatives are pretty
 
 OF THE AUGMENT IN SANSCRIT AND GREEK. 207 
 
 numerous in Welsh, especially in ancient poetical compo- 
 sitions; but the one most commonly employed is ; e. gr. 
 canu, to sing; a ganodd , cecinit; cam, to love; a garodd, 
 amavit. In old manuscripts the particle is regularly joined 
 to the verb in writing; aorug, he made, or did; aganodd, he 
 sung; so that, had this orthography been persisted in, the 
 prefix would have appeared as integral a part of the verb 
 as a in Sanser., atudat, or c in (Jr., ervitrf. 
 
 The precise force ot the Welsh element in this combina- 
 tion can only be inferred by analogical reasoning. As a 
 pronoun, a denotes who, which, that; as a preposition, with; 
 and as a conjunction, and. Reasons will be produced in 
 the course of the present paper for believing that its original 
 import was there, or then; denoting with greater precision 
 the time of the action expressed by the verb. That it had 
 a distinct meaning may be inferred from its changing the 
 initial of the verb to which it is joined : a ganodd from canu ; 
 a dorrodd, broke, from torn. This phenomenon in the Cel- 
 tic languages almost invariably denotes a grammatical or 
 logical relation; namely, government, concord, composition 
 or other modification of a word by something in immediate 
 conjunction with it. It would be contrary to the analogy of 
 the language to suppose that this effect could be produced 
 by a verbitm otiosum, or mere expletive. 
 
 Though a is sometimes used in Irish as a sign of the 
 preterite tense, it is of comparatively unfrequent occurrence. 
 The particle most commonly employed is do, which is sel- 
 dom omitted, except when the verb precedes its subject. 
 As a particle, do signifies to, and is employed as the sign 
 of the dative and the infinitive. In ancient Irish we find 
 greater variety of particles, and sometimes a combination of 
 them, employed for the same purpose. At, ad, no, ro, ad no, 
 do no. and do ro seem to be used indiscriminately, except 
 that sometimes the compound forms may have the idea of 
 greater precision or emphasis annexed to them. No and do 
 no are interpreted by the lexicographers to signify then, 
 which we believe to be the real import of most of those 
 formative particles, the Greek and Sanscrit augment inclu- 
 ded. The prefix ro has its exact counterpart in the Welsh 
 rhy, often used by old writers to form the perfect, pluper- 
 fect and future tenses. The element is significant in both 
 languages as a particle implying excess, what is over and above, 
 or further; and appears, when joined with verbs, to answer 
 pretty accurately to our moreover. We may here remark 
 the similarity of the Homeric particle pa, so frequently used 
 in transitions. The common idea, that this word was form-
 
 208 ON THE OltlGlN AND .IMPORT 
 
 ed by aphseresis from KQK, is both gratuitous and contrary 
 to analogy. We believe the opinion of Mr. Donaldson in 
 the * New Cratylus , ' who regards it as an independent 
 term, implying addition, excess, remoteness, both alone and 
 in composition, to be much better founded. It is indeed 
 just as easy to affirm that KQK is a compound, as that QCC 
 is an abbreviation. 
 
 The Gothic language exhibits a few instances of redupli- 
 cation in preterites; but, with the exception of the particle 
 ga, which will be noticed Jiereafter, neither it nor any other 
 Germanic dialect has any thing formally corresponding to 
 the augment. There is, however, a curious analogy in Up- 
 per German, which, if it had occurred to Bopp, might pos- 
 sibly have made him doubt the soundness of his theory re- 
 specting the negative import of the augment. Both in Old 
 and Middle High German we find the particles tho, do, liter, 
 der, prefixed to verbs in the past tense, without any special 
 reference to the idea of then or there, but simply, as it would 
 seem, to denote the completion of the action. In translations 
 from the Latin it frequently corresponds to the preterite in 
 that language, unaccompanied by any particle. Thus in 
 Tatian's 'Evangelical Harmony,' we find "quad tho Maria" 
 dixit Maria; f * tho ward gitruobit" = turbatus est; "tho 
 ther stigun sine bruoder" = ut autcm ascenderunt fratres 
 ejus. In the writings of the middle ages we find do and 
 der employed nearly in the same manner. In the first edi- 
 tion of the Upper German Bible, A. D. 1462, are twenty 
 examples of this construction in the first chapter of Genesis; 
 as for example, ver. 3 4, ce Un Got der sprach (dixit) liecht 
 werde gernacht. Und das liecht ward gemacht; un Got der 
 sache (vidit) daz liecht das es ward gut." So der rieff = 
 vocavit; der macht = fecit; der beschuoff = creavit, &c. 
 &c. Not only der, but also kin and her are frequently join- 
 ed to verbs and participles in Middle High German to 
 increase the emphasis and show that the action is done 
 thoroughly. 
 
 The verb in the Slavonic languages presents some remark- 
 able phenomena, well worthy the consideration of the phi- 
 lologist. It is known that in this class of tongues a re- 
 gular, perfectly philosophical distinction is made between 
 perfective and impcrfective verbs, that is, between those ex- 
 pressing an action completed at once and not repeated, and 
 those denoting continuance or reiteration. Thus to diy, im- 
 plying a continued action, is regarded as imperfective; but 
 to bury, which is done only once to the same subject, is a 
 proper perfective. Sometimes this distinction is inherent in
 
 of THE AUGMENT IN SANSCRIT AND GREEK. 209 
 
 the form of the verb; but in many cases, verbs naturally 
 imperfeetive, become perfective in the preterite by prefixing 
 a preposition. What particular preposition may be employed 
 with individual verbs depends on the custom of the lan- 
 guage; those denoting out, from, by, with, after, are most 
 commonly in use. Thus kropliu, I besprinkle, might denote 
 a hitbil of so doing; to express a single definite act of it, 
 already accomplished, would require po or na (after) to be 
 prefixed to the simple preterite. The future perfect is formed 
 in a similar manner by prefixing some one of the above- 
 in pntioned particles to the present tense. In all those com- 
 pound phrases a sort of feeling appears to prevail, that the 
 particle is necessary to convey the idea of completeness of 
 action or precision of time, and in a great many cases the Sla- 
 vonic preterite perfective would correspond pretty accurately 
 with the Greek or Sanscrit aorist, used definitely. 
 
 The only remaining European language which seems to 
 offer any analogy is the Albanian, which forms the future 
 by prefixing do te to the present: e. gr. thorn, I say, do te 
 thorn, I shall say. As a particle of place do signifies where; 
 if transferred to express the idea of lime, it would naturally 
 denote when or then, which may be employed with equal 
 propriety in a future or a past acceptation. Thus the Irish 
 ro == moreover, is used with preterites, and its counterpart, 
 the Welsh rlnj, both with the preterite and future. 
 
 The languages of Central Asia also present a few analo- 
 gies. The ancient Armenian prefixes e to the preterite, ex- 
 actly like the Greek; but this formation is confined to the 
 third person of one particular conjugation. The Kurdish 
 also employs several particles in the "formation of past tenses; 
 as che kiria . fecit, from the root ken, make, &c. We have 
 no means of ascertaining whether those particles have a 
 distinct meaning, or what it is. In Persian the particle be 
 or bu, prefixed to the present, converts it to a future: pvr- 
 scm, I ask, Intinirsem, I shall or will ask. The Georgian 
 also employs a variety of pretbrmativc particles in conju- 
 gation, but the precise analysis of them has not hitherto 
 been made known. 
 
 In the Coptic language the system of verbal prcformatives 
 is more fully developed than in any of the Indo-European. 
 Every tense has its appropriate particle, apparently meant 
 to express the particular modification of time supposed to 
 be included in the entire phrase. Thus c is the sign of the 
 present tense; na of the imperfect; a of the preterite defi- 
 nite; sha of the preterite indefinite; ne //-and ne sha of the 
 pluperfect: c-na the future; tfi or 1a-rc the future indefi- 
 
 14
 
 210 ON THE ORIGIN AND IMPORT 
 
 nitc, &c. It is true that several grammarians regard those 
 prefaces as auxiliary verbs; but there are reasons, which wo 
 cannot here discuss at length, for believing that most of 
 them are of pronominal origin. The particle ent or et } used 
 in one of the preterite formations, is confessedly identical 
 with the relative pronoun in form; and 13enfey admits that 
 they are, in all probability, of common origin. 
 
 In the languages of Southern India the system of verbal 
 formatives expressing the time of the action is carried to 
 a great extent. Thus Anderson observes (Rudiments of 
 Tamul Grammar, page 44), 'The Tamul grammarians resolve 
 most of the derivative forms of a verb into three parts; 
 viz. payhudi the root, viyJiudi the form of termination [distin- 
 guishing the persons], and idcimilei the intermediate argu- 
 ment, which is generally employed as the formative of the 
 different tenses.' MacKerrell also remarks (Grammar of 
 the Carnataca Language, p. 85), f Verbs in the Carnataca 
 language, whether possessing an intransitive or a transitive 
 meaning, are conjugated by adding to their roots, in three 
 of the tenses (viz. present, past and future), certain affixes 
 expressive of time; and to these the affixes denoting per- 
 sons being attached , the inflexion is complete.' The par- 
 ticles thus employed are pretty numerous, and the rules for 
 the application of them are rather intricate; but it is ob- 
 vious that they are all regulated by the same general prin- 
 ciple, of specifying the time of the action more precisely than 
 could be done by merely using the verbal root with its 
 persona) affixes. 
 
 The Polynesian languages, especially those of the eastern 
 division, furnish copious and valuable materials for the il- 
 lustration of the point in question. The whole conjugation 
 of the verb as far as distinction of tense is concerned - 
 depends on the employment of certain particles, which, al- 
 lowing for the difference of dialect and pronunciation, are 
 nearly common to the great body of the east insular Poly- 
 nesians, properly so called. A minute account of them will 
 be found in Humboldt and Buschmann's great work, 'Uebcr 
 die Kawi Sprache:' it will be sufficient for us to observe, 
 by way of specimen, that in Tahitian the present is generally 
 distinguished by the particle nei and the preterite by net. 
 The original import of nei, as a local particle, is here, and 
 its derivative one, as an adverb of time, now, which shows 
 at once its force as a formative of the present tense. Nn 
 in like manner signifies, as a separate particle, there and 
 then, and is employed to express the preterite tense in a way 
 exactly analogous to the r der sprach' of the Middle High
 
 01* THE AUGMENT IN SANSCRIT AND GREEK. 21 1 
 
 German. In Kawi and Tagala this prefix is regularly in- 
 corporated with the verb. Kawi, hem, assemble; pret. nahem, 
 assembled: Tagala, pinto, demand; pret. naminta, demanded 
 p being converted into m by an euphonic process well 
 known to Malay scholars. It is obvious that the circum- 
 stance of the prefix being incorporated in writing in these 
 latter dialects, is one of the accidents of language, or a 
 mere orthographical fashion, and makes no difference as to 
 the actual force of the particle, which we may safely con- 
 clude to convey the sense of then in all cases where it is 
 used to denote an action that is past. 
 
 Passing over other languages of this family, we shall briefly 
 observe, that the most western one, the Malagasy, forms its 
 tenses with remarkable neatness and precision by prefixing 
 the particle mi for the present, m for the preterite, and /// 
 for the future ; e. gr. solo (verbal root) = substitution : 
 ;;i/solo (aho), 1 substitute; w'solo, I substituted; /j/solo, 1 
 shall substitute. When we take into consideration the un- 
 doubted affinity of the languages, there can be little question 
 that these particles have the same force as the Tahitian, 
 Philippine and Javanese prefixes already specified. The idea 
 of precision of time is carried so far by the Malagasy, that 
 they even combine it with local particles. Respecting this 
 peculiarity Mr. Freeman observes, ct The want of a substan- 
 tive verb, corresponding with the esse of the Latins, and to 
 be employed in the same manner, is compensated in many 
 cases by a mode of structure which prevails extensively in 
 the Malagasy language, and which constitutes one of its 
 marked peculiarities; namely, that of making adverbs and 
 prepositions susceptible of tense or time, by distinguishing 
 the past from the present*." Thus amy and tamy both have 
 the general signification of at, with, by; but to express the 
 idea of present time , "& with," amy would be employed; 
 while tamy would include the category of past time, **was 
 with:" e. gr. tf ny mazava mahazava ao amy ny maizina," 
 the light shineth in darkness; but with a past signification, 
 tc ny Teny tamy n'Andriamanitra ," the Word was with God. 
 This may serve as an instance, among innumerable others, 
 that languages commonly reputed barbarous may not be 
 without their refinements. 
 
 It would far exceed our limits to attempt anything like 
 an individual discussion of the numerous languages of the 
 American continent. It will be sufficient to observe that 
 
 * Observations on the Malagasy Language , ap. Ellis. History <f Mada- 
 gascar , vol. i. p. -I',) 1 .). 
 
 14*
 
 "212 ON THE ORIGIN AND IMPORT 
 
 most of those respecting which we possess definite infor- 
 mation bear a general analogy to the Polynesian family and 
 the languages of the Deccan, in their methods of distin- 
 guishing the various modifications of time. In the Arau- 
 canian die is the sign of the second present; Int. of the im- 
 perfect; uye of the imperfect; a of the future, and aim of 
 the aorist. In many cases those formative particles have 
 a determinate signification ; e. gr. in Guarani, bia or lihu = 
 afterwards, forms the imperfect, and raco = already, or 
 naco = certainly, the perfect, provided it speaks of a cir- 
 cumstance which the narrator has seen. In some instances 
 those distinctive particles are interposed between the verbal 
 root and the personal termination, and sometimes those three 
 constituents are so thoroughly incorporated that it requires 
 a careful analysis to separate them. We may, however, 
 venture to assert in general terms, that a South American 
 verb is constituted precisely on the same principle as those 
 in the Tamul and other languages of Southern India; con- 
 sisting like them of a verbal root, a second element defin- 
 ing the time of the action, and a third denoting the sub- 
 ject or person. 
 
 The object of the foregoing remarks is to endeavour to 
 establish the point of a frequent employment of particles 
 determining more or less precisely the time of the action 
 expressed by verbs, in a great variety of languages. In 
 many cases those particles, though no original part of the 
 verbal root, are essential to the integrity of the verbal phrase, 
 which could not predicate time or completed action without 
 them. Some of them, for instance the Celtic and Coptic n, 
 agree exactly in form with the Sanscrit augment, there; 
 being no external difference between Sanscr. as'rnnshit = 
 Gr. fxAvs and the Welsh aglywai or aglybu, audivit, written 
 as it was once the practice to write them. The identity of 
 the Celtic element with the Sanscrit one cannot perhaps be 
 proved by any direct evidence now within our reach. We 
 are aware that the Indian grammarians represent the aug- 
 ment as being destitute of signification in itself; and argu- 
 ments from the analogy of other languages are all that we 
 have to oppose to this assertion. Those which we have ad- 
 duced are not, it is presumed, entirely destitute of weight; 
 and they form only a small portion of the evidence bearing 
 upon this point which might be collected. It would be easy 
 to affirm that the Gothic particle ya, Germ, ye, which never 
 appears out of composition , has no original independent 
 meaning: but it is imagined that no one would persist in 
 that opinion after carefully comparing the different dialects,
 
 OF THE AUGMENT IN SANSCRIT AND GREEK. 213 
 
 and observing how frequently it modifies the sense and the 
 circumstances of propositions. One of its functions is ex- 
 actly equivalent to that of the Greek augment, there being 
 a number of verbs exhibiting simple forms in the present, 
 but regularly prefixing ga or ge to form the preterite and 
 the past participle. The actual import of this particle can 
 only be inferred from analogy. Grimm has adduced strong 
 reasons for believing it to be cognate with the Latin cum, 
 to which it is clearly equivalent in <7#-sintha, companion, 
 coitinerant, from sinthan, to go or travel, and many similar 
 compounds. As a formative of the preterite, it may be pre- 
 sumed to be parallel with the Slavonic s' = with, employed 
 much in the same way: e. gr. beregii, I am considering; perf. 
 sbereg, I have (fully) considered. 
 
 After all, the strongest argument in favour of the theorv 
 now advocated is, that the great majority of prefixes in all 
 known languages are evidently significant; and that our 
 being unable to trace the derivation or meaning of a few 
 only proves our want of information. It may be said that 
 many of the analogies that have been adduced are from 
 barbarous languages, and consequently of little weight. To 
 this it is easy to reply, that the ancestors of the Greeks 
 were at one period much more barbarous than the Malays 
 or Javanese of the present day, and that the languages of 
 uncivilized races are not necessarily deficient in regularity 
 of structure or propriety of expression. And if, as there is 
 good reason to believe, such languages often show the ori- 
 ginal force of the component parts of words more clearly 
 than those which have been subject to a long process of re- 
 finement, that very circumstance shows that the philosopher 
 and the comparative etymologist may profitably include them 
 in the compass of their researches.
 
 ON THE ORIGIN AND IMPORT 
 OF THE GENITIVE CASE. 
 
 {Proceedings of the Philological Society. Vol. II.] 
 
 To constitute connected and intelligible language, it is not 
 sufficient to place words in juxtaposition; it is also of par- 
 amount necessity that the relations of the words with each 
 other should be correctly indicated. In the Indo-European 
 languages, the relations of verbs are denoted by personal 
 terminations, elements implying time, contingency - - v. t. 
 q. -- and those of nouns by changes of form called cases. 
 It has been common among grammarians to regard those 
 terminational changes as evolved by some unknown process 
 from the body of the noun, as the branches of a tree spring 
 from the stem ; or as elements unmeaning in themselves, but 
 employed arbitrarily or conventionally to modify the mean- 
 ings of words. This latter theory is countenanced by A. 
 W. Schlegel, in a well-known passage in his work, 'Obser- 
 vations sur la Langue et la Litterature Provengales,' the 
 following extract from which will sufficiently explain the au- 
 thor's views. After dividing all known languages into three 
 classes; languages destitute of grammatical structure, lan- 
 guages employing affixes, and languages with inflexions, he 
 observes, respecting the class last-mentioned: 
 
 e l am of opinion, nevertheless, that the first rank must be 
 assigned to languages with inflexions. They might be de- 
 nominated the organic languages, because they include a liv- 
 ing principle of development and increase, and alone pos- 
 sess, if I may so express myself, a fruitful and abundant 
 vegetation. The wonderful mechanism of these languages 
 consists in forming an immense variety of words, and in 
 marking the connexion of the ideas expressed by those words 
 by the help of an inconsiderable number of syllables, which, 
 viewed separately, have no signification, but which deter- 
 mine with precision the sense of the words to which they 
 are attached. By modifying radical letters, and by adding 
 derivative syllables to the roots, derivative words of various 
 sorts are formed, and derivatives from those derivatives. 
 "Words are compounded from several roots to express com- 
 plex ideas. Finally, substantives, adjectives and pronouns 
 are declined, with gender, number and case; verbs are con-
 
 ON THE ORIGIN AND IMPORT OP THE GENITIVE CASE. 215 
 
 jugated throughout voices, moods, tenses, numbers and per- 
 sons, by employing, in like manner, terminations, and some- 
 times augments, which by themselves signify nothing. 
 This method is attended with the advantage of enunciating 
 in a single word the principal idea, frequently greatly mo- 
 ditied and extremely complex already, with its whole array 
 of accessory ideas and mutable relations/'* 
 
 The writer having already stated his objections against 
 this theory of Schlegel, in an article in a well-known period- 
 ical, does not need to repeat them at present. It is doubt- 
 less known to those acquainted with the modern school of 
 (lorman philology, that several distinguished contemporaries 
 of Schlegel have espoused a doctrine diametrically opposite 
 to his. Not to mention W. Humboldt and Pott, Professor 
 Franz Bopp has, in his 'Comparative Grammar,' instituted 
 an elaborate analysis of all the grammatical terminations, 
 with a view of identifying them with pronouns or pronomi- 
 nal roots. We shall not now inquire whether all his assump- 
 tions are to be implicitly relied upon: but no one acquaint- 
 ed with his works will refuse him the credit of great learn- 
 ing, research and ingenuity, or deny that he has made out 
 a primu facie case for his leading position deserving at least 
 an attentive consideration. 
 
 The object of the present paper is chiefly to discuss a 
 single point of the general subject; namely, the probable 
 origin and import of the termination of the genitive case, 
 especially in Sanscrit masculine nouns in #, which if they 
 do not constitute the bulk of the language, form at all events 
 a considerable proportion of it. The termination in question 
 is stjft; nom. rrikfdi. a wolf; gen. vrikasya; which Bopp iden- 
 tifies with the Vedic pronoun sya; observing that this pro- 
 noun is evidently compounded from the demonstrative sa- 
 tins, and the relative y = who. Bopp does not attempt to 
 give the rationale of the combination; nor has he, or any 
 other German author, as far as we know, shown by an ex- 
 tensive induction from other languages, that there is any 
 proper or usual connexion between the functions of the re- 
 lative pronoun and those of the genitive case. 
 
 It would be rash to assert that the genitive always and 
 necessarily includes a relative pronoun, since there is no 
 doubt that this modification of the sense of a noun may be, 
 and in fact frequently is, expressed in other ways. Evi- 
 dence will however be produced to show that it can be so 
 expressed; and that there is ground for inquiring whether 
 
 * P. 14 et seq.
 
 210 ON THE ORIGIN AND IMPORT 
 
 the principle may not operate in cases which have not hi- 
 therto been supposed to include this clement. 
 
 The Semitic languages, which, generally speaking, have 
 no cases, employ various contrivances for expressing the re- 
 lation of possession or qualification, usually denoted by the 
 genitive of the Indo-Europeans. The most common method 
 in the older languages is the so-called xfatus conslruclus. In 
 this, as is well known, the modified word is not, as with 
 us, the predicate or qualifying noun, but the subject or lead- 
 ing one. For example, in the Hebrew phrase father <>/' 
 the king (abi-melech), ub } father, shortens its vowel and is 
 augmented by a terminal syllable; while melech, king, re- 
 mains unaffected: much as if we were to say palris rex, in- 
 stead of pater rcgis. Some remarks on the supposed analy- 
 sis of this construction will be given hereafter: at present it 
 is more properly connected with the leading object of the 
 present essay to observe, that besides this method of ex- 
 pressing the genitive case, there is a periphrasis with the 
 relative pronoun, of most common occurrence in the Aramean 
 languages, but not unknown in Hebrew. 
 
 Thus, Hebr. shir asher le Shelomoh, the song of Solomon, 
 literally, the song which to Solomon. Syriac, nauso rf-simo, 
 chest of silver = chest which silver. Frequently this con- 
 struction is rendered more precise, particularly in Chaldee 
 and Syriac, by connecting with it a pronominal suffix: em- 
 he d- Jeshua = the mother of him-who Jesus, i. e. the mother 
 of Jesus; barth-/i0-</-Herodia, the daughter of her who Hc- 
 rodias. As this form furnishes a complete and intelligible 
 resolution of the phrase, it is possible that there may be an 
 ellipsis of the personal pronoun in those cases where the 
 relative alone is employed ; a supposition which may not be 
 without its use when we come to consider parallel cases from 
 other languages. 
 
 The Samaritan d, the Ethiopic za and the Amharic ija are, 
 in like manner, at once relative pronouns and signs of the 
 genitive case, as will be shown by subsequent examples. 
 The last-mentioned is remarkable for its external identity 
 with the Sanscrit relative ya , which however in all proba- 
 bility is purely accidental. The vulgar Ai-abic has several 
 analogous methods of expressing the genitive, as may be 
 seen in Bombay's 'Grammatica Mauro- Arabica.' One of 
 these signs of possession, dsa, appears to be closely cognate 
 with the Ethiopic za, originally a relative pronoun. Of the 
 various prefixes indicating the genitive given in Professor 
 Newman's contribution to our knowledge of the Berber lan- 
 guage, lately published in the 'Zeitschrift fur die Kunde
 
 OF THE GENITIVE CASE. 217 
 
 des Morgenlandes,' several are clearly identical with forms 
 of the relative pronoun, as we shall have a future oppor- 
 tunity of pointing out more fully. This, by the way, may 
 serve as a further confirmation of the true Semitic character 
 of the Berber. 
 
 It is true that most grammarians regard the Aramean pre- 
 positive dolath, when it is the sign of the genitive case, not 
 as a relative, but a preposition or particle, equivalent to the 
 Latin de. AYc have however a decisive proof to the con- 
 trary in the Ethiopic. When the leading noun is masculine, 
 za, the masculine relative, is employed as the sign of the 
 genitive; but when the governing noun is feminine, the con- 
 nective is not cr/, but enta, the feminine form of the relative. 
 It is hardly necessary to say that a mere particle could not 
 be affected in this way, the feminine gender of a preposition 
 being something difficult to conceive. 
 
 Several other African languages present results perfectly 
 analogous. The forms of the Coptic have not been suffi- 
 ciently studied to justify the expression of a positive opinion 
 as to their nature. Several however of the signs of the ge- 
 nitive case correspond so closely in form with various de- 
 monstrative and relative pronouns, as to excite a strong 
 suspicion of the community of their origin. Leaving this 
 point for further investigation, we proceed to observe, that 
 in the Galla language kan is both the relative pronoun and 
 the sign of the genitive case: e. (jr. eni kan duffu, he that 
 comes; kitaba kan dalota, kan Jasus Christos, the book of 
 the generation of Jesus Christ: lit. the book which the gene- 
 ration who Jesus Christ. The Yoruba language, spoken on 
 the western coast, exhibits precisely the same phenomenon, 
 except that // supplies the place of kan : ille ti mo wo, the 
 house which I pulled down; ille // babba, house of father. 
 The similarity of the Yoruba ti to the Syriac cl and the 
 Ethiopic :a is probably accidental, but the functions of each 
 are precisely the same. 
 
 Some of the Polynesian languages express the relation of 
 possession by the mere juxtaposition of the terms, and con- 
 sequently throw no light on the point which we are dis- 
 cussing. The greater part of them however employ prefixes, 
 many of which are identical with forms of demonstrative or 
 relative pronouns, or so similar as to encourage the belief 
 that they are of kindred origin. Thus, in Malagasy, ny is 
 both demonstrative pronoun or definite article, and the sign 
 of the genitive case: ny filazany ny razany ny Jaisosy Krai- 
 sty, the book of the generation of Jesus Christ. In the Mar- 
 quesan, the Hawaiian and the New Zealand languages, net
 
 218 ON THE ORIGIN AND IMPORT 
 
 is equally the pronoun of the third person = he, that, &c. 
 and the prefix denoting the genitive. Respecting the last- 
 mentioned language, Dr. Dicffenbach observes in the sketch 
 of New Zealand Grammar appended to his 'Travels/ that 
 the relative is expressed by the f/cnilivc of the personal pro- 
 noun: e. gr. the man who showed, te tangata nana c waka- 
 kite, lit. the man of him showed. This resolution of the 
 phrase appears so much at variance with the principles of 
 logic that there is great room to question its soundness. The 
 analogy of other languages would rather lead us to believe, 
 that for the sake of greater precision, the demonstrative 
 element na is doubled to form a relative, much as in Norse 
 and Anglo-Saxon : sa-er^ S-p6' who, ///. the-thc, or the-that. 
 The object of this duplication appears to be to establish a 
 more precise connexion between the antecedent and the re- 
 lative clauses, a portion of the complex expression being 
 referred to each. 
 
 The forms which we have hitherto considered are strictly 
 analytic, and in some of them, especially the Aramean and 
 the Ethiopic, the identity of the genitival prefixes with the 
 relative pronoun does not admit of a doubt. Now, though 
 synthetic forms are not necessarily strictly parallel with the 
 analytic ones of the same import, it is clearly possible that 
 they may be so. No one disputes that the Latin mcciun is 
 in all respects equivalent to ffvv tfioi, or that the Spanish 
 future cantare, I will sing, is a mere transposition of lt< : <!< 
 rtiti/ttr, I have to sing. In like manner, when we find in 
 Sanscrit or any similar language a termination potentially 
 equivalent to a prefix in a Semitic tongue, or to a signifi- 
 cant postfix in a Tartarian or American one, there is at 
 least an ostensible ground for inquiring whether all may not 
 virtually be different shapes of the same thing. 
 
 We can indeed have no direct evidence respecting such 
 forms as the Sanscrit vrlkasya, since we know too little of 
 the earliest state of the language to pronounce positively 
 respecting the precise force and composition of its numerous 
 affixes. But we can perceive that the termination of the 
 word in question is to the eye and the ear the same as the 
 relative pronoun yd] and we may argue without imputation 
 of any great rashness, that if which wolf can mean of a 
 wolf in Syriac or Ethiopic, wolf which may have precisely 
 the same import in another tongue. This view may be 
 strengthened by further analogies, some of which we shall 
 briefly notice. 
 
 In the popular dialects of India related to Sanscrit, and 
 commonly supposed to be descendants of it, the genitive is
 
 OF THE GENITIVE CASE. 219 
 
 in most cases formed by affixes, commonly ka, k~i y ke, which 
 exhibit the remarkable peculiarity of always agreeing in 
 gender with the governing noun. Thus in the phrase "the 
 brother of Jesus" the genitive would be JesuA'a; but "the 
 mother of Jesus" would require a different form, JesuA'I. 
 Here, we may observe in the first instance that this phe- 
 nomenon proves clearly that the affix does not belong to the 
 noun to which it is attached, but to the one which governs 
 it, and with which it is in grammatical concord. Secondly, 
 the termination is in the majority of instances identical with 
 the Sanscrit interrogative pronoun, which in many languages 
 is notoriously closely connected with the relative in import, 
 and frequently in form, and may in fact become a substitute 
 for it in propositions where doubt or contingency is implied. 
 We shall probably therefore not greatly err if we resolve 
 the expression into the component parts brother rvho Je- 
 sus, mother who Jesus, i. e. of Jesus, analogous to the con- 
 structions which we have been considering in analytic lan- 
 guages. It may be also worth inquiring whether the same 
 solution is not applicable to the numerous Sanscrit attribu- 
 tives in ka and ya, which are generally equivalent to the ge- 
 nitive of the noun from which they are formed, and are 
 compounded with an element externally not differing from 
 the interrogative and relative pronouns. In Slavonic there 
 is a general disinclination to the employment of the genitive 
 case, the place of which is supplied by possessive adjectives. 
 One leading form of those in ii, fern, it/a, is identical with 
 the emphatic or definite form of ordinary adjectives, which 
 in the cognate Lithuanian are visibly formed by affixing 
 the demonstrative pronoun j'is. Bopp, in his 'Comparative 
 Grammar,' refers this element to the Sanscrit relative y, 
 and argues with great probability that the definite forms 
 of adjectives in all the ancient Teutonic languages are of 
 the same origin. Supposing this point to be established, 
 it is obvious that a genitive case, equivalent in import 
 and similar in form , may include the same element 
 within it. 
 
 Here again the analytic languages serve to aid our theory. 
 By prefixing the relative, the Syriac, Ethiopic, and other 
 tongues form adjectives from substantives, ordinal numbers 
 from cardinals, and possessive pronouns from personal suf- 
 fixes, and there seems nothing extravagant in supposing that 
 a relative or any other pronoun may exercise the same func- 
 tions at the end of a word that it does at the beginning. 
 It \vould indeed be easy to point out many instances where
 
 220 ON THE ORIGIN ANJJ IMPORT 
 
 tlie postfixes of older languages have become prefixes or dis- 
 tinct prepositive words in more recent ones. 
 
 We may here properly consider the Afghan or Pushtu, 
 both on account of its local position and its general affinity 
 to the dialects of India Proper. Some of its forms arc re- 
 markable , and it is conceived of great importance for the 
 elucidation of the present inquiry. Respecting the genitive 
 case, Professor Dorn in his valuable Memoir on the Pushtu* 
 makes the following observations: 
 
 < c The genitive is formed by prefixing the word da, which 
 however is not to be regarded as a proof of affinity between 
 Pushtu and Semitic ("inasmuch as in Chaldee also, d serves 
 to form the genitive). This d [in Pushtu] is evidently of 
 the same origin as the German der, die, das; and we shall 
 hereafter find it again among the pronouns. I conceive in- 
 deed that this da was originally written dak, and that it is 
 nothing more than the pronoun demonstrative. This idea is 
 confirmed by our finding dah in Pushtu works employed as 
 a sign of the genitive case, as for example dah clu /aim, of 
 both worlds." 
 
 Professor Ewald takes the same view of the matter in his 
 paper on the Afghan language published in the 'Zoitschrift 
 fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes , ' some time before the ap- 
 pearance of Dorn's Memoir, where he observes that the ge- 
 nitival prefix da is a demonstrative with the force of a re- 
 lative. Neither Dorn nor Ewald gives any analysis of an- 
 other remarkable prefix of the genitive, viz. tsa, restricted in 
 that particular form to the pronoun of the first person, but 
 probably identical in origin with sa, the prefix of the second 
 person: e. gr. md f I; tsa-ma, of me; (d, thou; sa-(d, of tlicc. 
 Here we may observe, that the consonant Isa, peculiar to the 
 Afghan language, is not related to the dentals or sibilants, 
 but to the palatals, being in fact frequently commutable 
 with cha = Pers. ; and we may therefore reasonably 
 suspect from known analogies, that, as a formative of the 
 genitive case, it is a mere mutation of the relative pro- 
 noun cliah. 
 
 The above phenomena are the more important from the 
 circumstance that the Pushtu is confessedly an Indo-European 
 dialect, occupying a medium place between the Persian and 
 the dialects of India. If, as we have great reason to be- 
 lieve, its genitival prefixes are equivalent in import and 
 cognate in origin to the postfixes of the Hindee dialects, 
 and those again may be traced to the Sanscrit relative or 
 
 * Mc'moires do I'Acade'inio Impcrialc des Sciences de St. Pc'tersbourg', 1810.
 
 OF THE! GEKJT1VE CASE. 221 
 
 interrogative pronoun, various interesting- conclusions, too 
 obvious to be insisted upon, would be deducible from the 
 fact. It is remarkable that the postfix to the genitive case 
 in Sikh or Punjabi is da, identical in form with the Afghan 
 prefix; and that there are traces of da as a demonstrative 
 root in various Indian languages: e. yr. Sanscr. idam, this; 
 Zend, dem, dim = Sanscr. tarn, Gr. TQV: accusative of the 
 demonstrative pronoun />= Sanscr. sa. It is possible indeed 
 that this form may be only a modification of the more ori- 
 ginal root 1a ; but it is found in so many languages, that it 
 may at all events be regarded as very ancient. 
 
 With respect to the languages of Southern India not re- 
 lated to Sanscrit, the Tamul, of which the others are only 
 sub-dialects, presents no direct analogy, since in it the re- 
 lative pronoun is entirely wanting, being usually supplied 
 by the participle. There is however a construction in the 
 higher dialect, or Shem Tamul, which seems to deserve a 
 little notice. A class of participial words called vineiycch- 
 chams is used extensively to supply the place of conjunc- 
 tions and other connectives. Thus enani, the past vinei- 
 yechcham of cnakiralu y to say, to call, performs the func- 
 tions of thai (quod or ul) and its future ehhum serves to de- 
 note a general relation between the terms which it connects, 
 equivalent to a genitive case. Thus, puyal-ehhum-vari, the 
 water of the clouds, literally, the water which may be, or 
 is to be, called clouds; in other words, water respecting 
 which clouds may be predicated, or more concisely, cloud- 
 waler. It is obvious that the word which, or that } supposing 
 it to exist in Tamul, might exercise precisely the same 
 office, quod being potentially equivalent to TO Asyopsvov ; 
 and thus it appears that the above construction bears a 
 close analogy to the bulk of those which we have already 
 analysed. 
 
 The Tartarian class of languages also furnishes a valu- 
 able confirmation of this theory, which cannot be better 
 stated than in the words of Dr. W. Schott (Versuch iiber 
 die Tatarischen Sprachen, pp. 52, 53): "The Turco-Tar- 
 tarians denote the genitive by the form ning , which may 
 be recognized as the Manchu m with a nasal increment. 
 This nasal addition answers [in sound] with the Turco-Tar- 
 tarians to the German ng\ with the Osmanlis however it is 
 softened to n. The ring of the Turkish dialects may be re- 
 garded as the full form of the genitive of the higher Asia- 
 tics, or at least most nearly approaching it: and we actually 
 find in the Manchu itself a postpositive particle ningyi ?, which
 
 "2T2 OK THE onlGiK AND 
 
 does not indeed become a genitive in that language *, but 
 expresses a relation, or stands for the relative pronoun. 
 The agreement in form of both is too striking to be ex- 
 plained as merely casual; and as to the transition of the 
 relative into a genitival particle, we find examples of it in 
 other languages. Several Chinese elements, which origin- 
 ally only expressed a relation to .something preceding, a 
 sort of relative pronoun or articulm postpositivm , become also 
 exponents of a genitival relation. This transition is shown 
 in a remarkably unequivocal manner by the particle ti } pe- 
 culiar to the modern style , which is as frequently a sign of 
 the genitive as a relative**: e. gr. ngo-ti, mine, from vyo, 
 I: thus, ngo-ti liiung , my (older) brother, and on the same 
 principle, ngo-ti phung-yeu ti hiung-?/, my friend's brother. 
 The word governed becomes connected with the governing 
 one, as a sort of possessive adjective." 
 
 Schott's remarks on the extension of the principle to the 
 Finnish languages are curious and instructive, but cannot 
 be conveniently abridged so as to find a place in the pre- 
 sent paper. 
 
 We may here briefly notice the Semitic construct form 
 mentioned at the commencement of the present paper. In 
 Hebrew masculines singular, the governing noun does not 
 alter its termination, except in a few instances; but in Ethi- 
 opic, the syllable a is regularly affixed: c. gr. wald, son: 
 waldrt Maryam, the son of Mary. A probable explanation 
 of this form may be found in languages where the govern- 
 ing noun is regularly accompanied by a pronominal affix 
 denoting his, her, its: v. t. q. as in Hungarian, where "the 
 birth of Jesus," Jesus, or Jcsusnak sziuettes-e, is literally 
 "Jesus," or "to Jesus, birth his." If therefore we sup- 
 pose that the termination a in Ethiopia construct nouns, -i 
 and it in Hebrew and Arabic ones, and i or Hi in feminines, 
 are derived from pronominal affixes, which they are not un- 
 like in form, we shall have, at all events, a plausible solu- 
 tion of the matter. 
 
 In the Albanian language, the governing noun, if mascu- 
 line, regularly subjoins i, but if feminine, e, which are in 
 fact a demonstrative pronoun of the third person. Similar 
 to this is the izafei construction of the Persians, where an 
 ?", written in certain cases, but more generally in unpointed 
 
 * It appears however as the formative of the absolute possessive pro- 
 noun, which is notoriously allied to the genitive in many language*: e. gr. 
 mi m-nqye = le viim. 
 
 ** The identity of this Chinese particle with the // of the Yorubas in form 
 and functions is not a little curious.
 
 OF THE GEX1T1VE CASE. 223 
 
 texts only perceptible in the pronunciation, is subjoined to 
 the governing noun: dosl-\ pitser, the friend of the boy; 
 /w.svr-I (Just , the boy of the friend. Pott in his remarks 
 on the Bcluchi language ingeniously suggests, that this syl- 
 lable is in fact a relative pronoun, cognate with the Sans- 
 crit i/a. Supposing this to be the case, it would be exactly 
 analogous to the Semitic constructions with the relative pre- 
 fix, but would ditfer in the order of its arrangement from 
 the Sanscrit, assuming the latter to include the relative in 
 the termination of the genitive. 
 
 According to Lassen, the same formation of the genitive 
 occurs in Pehlevi: kup-i-Fars, mountain of Persia; it is also 
 employed as a connective between the substantive and the 
 qualifying adjective: andarvailntshan, the bright atmosphere. 
 Respecting these constructions, Lassen observes, "I believe 
 that this is in both cases to be explained from the relative 
 ji [yi] for j'a [ya]. Constructions in Zend like gaum jim 
 Sughdn sajanem = regionem quam Sughdae situm ; put/irhn 
 jal Aiirraf axpahe = filium quod (quern) Aurvataspis, in which 
 the relative denotes the connexion of a qualifying word with 
 a preceding noun, lead to this assumption." This Zend 
 construction is remarkable for its similarity to the analytic 
 forms employed in Semitic. 
 
 The above is only a small part of the evidence which 
 might be adduced in support of the assumed connection be- 
 tween the termination or prefixed sign of the genitive case 
 and the relative, or occasionally, the interrogative or de- 
 monstrative pronoun. Even languages which have no distinct 
 relative, but express it synthetically, help to confirm the 
 theory; as for instance, in Basque the relative postfix is an, 
 and a common termination of the genitive en. Similar phse- 
 nomena are presented by several American languages, if the 
 analyses in Adelung's c Mithridates ' are to be relied on. 
 
 In conclusion we briefly observe, that the object of all 
 the different forms of the genitive case is to establish the same 
 sort of connexion between words, that the relative does be- 
 tween clauses] namely, to show that one of them may be 
 predicated of the other; thus serving as a kind of logical 
 copula. It is in fact of the very essence of human intellect 
 to perceive the relations of things , and of human language 
 to enunciate them ; and if we could not refer those relations 
 to their proper subjects and objects, we should not be able 
 to make our ideas intelligible. The particular point which 
 we have been discussing is still open to further investigation; 
 since many of the phenomena connected with it have not 
 even been adverted to. Could the view we have taken of
 
 224 ON THE ORIGIN AND IMPOlil' 
 
 it be finally established, it would lead to the presumption 
 that Schlegel's theory of the non-significance of grammatical 
 inflexions must be radically unsound, since it is clear that 
 if one termination be originally significant, all others may 
 be equally so; and it is reasonable to suppose that the lan- 
 guages of the Indo-European class, which Schlegel had prin- 
 cipally in view, are organized throughout on the same ge- 
 neral system. Arguing a priori, it seems more rational to 
 presume that the human mind would employ means obviously 
 adapted to a definite end, than that it would be guided by 
 blind chance or mere caprice in its operations. It would 
 also, be difficult to give a plausible reason why the bar- 
 barous Finns, Tartars, and similar tribes should express 
 logical and grammatical relations by significant postfixes, 
 and that the most, cultivated and intellectual races in the 
 world should employ mere jargon for the same purpose. Such 
 theories appear too nearly related to the exploded doctrine 
 of occult causes in natural philosophy; and if they are to 
 bo admitted, they ought at all events to be more satisfactorily 
 proved than has hitherto been done. 
 
 A few select examples of the principal constructions alluded 
 to in the preceding inquiry are here subjoined. 
 
 Hebrew , Asher. Relative : aslier lo hayyam , cnjus est mare ; lit. 
 who to him [is] the sea. 
 
 Sign of Genitive: haggibborim usher le-David, the warri- 
 ors of David. 
 Contracted form, sh. Shc-l-\, of me; lit. which to inc. 
 
 mittatho she-le Shelomo, the couch of Solomon ; /?'/. the couch 
 
 of him, who, or which, to Solomon. 
 
 Chaldee, di. Rel. : rft medar-Aon, whoso habitation; ///. who ha- 
 bitation of them. 
 
 Gen.: nehar di nuv, river of fire. 
 
 Syriac, d. Rel.: rf-bar David, who [was] the son of David. 
 Gen.: cthobo rf-musiqi, book of music. 
 br-e-rf-Chakim, the son of Hakim; lit. son of him who 
 
 Hakim. 
 Samaritan, d. Rel.: cul rf-ramach, all which creepeth. 
 
 Gen.: baraha tf-Pharan, the wilderness of Pharan. 
 Ethiopia, z, enla. Rel.: walcl z-rakab-o, the son who found him. 
 enfft atmaq-o, [she] who baptized him. 
 
 Gen.: Mazmor za Dawith, psalm of David. 
 
 Anqatz enla aamay, the gate of heaven. 
 
 Amharic,z/r/. Rel. and Gen.: yanabara //o-IIeli leclsh, who was the 
 son of Heli,
 
 OF THE GENITIVE CASE. 225 
 
 Vulgar Arabic, dsa* , dse. Gen.: el sifr else 'Ikitab, the volume of 
 the book. 
 
 The Berber forms are so peculiar, and withal so important 
 that they appear to deserve a more detailed examination. The 
 first thing which strikes us is the variety of forms, greatly 
 exceeding that of any other Semitic dialect. Some of these 
 are evidently compound, others abbreviated, and some ap- 
 parently mere dialectical variations. It is difficult to de- 
 termine the original forms with certainty; but as far as may 
 be judged from a comparison of the cognate dialects, the 
 following appears to be an approximation to the real state 
 of the case. There is one set of forms consisting of a con- 
 sonant followed by a simple vowel : rva ; tha or ta , gha or 
 i/a] na] da or dsa] ka] or of a consonant preceded by a 
 vowel: aw] ath] agh or ay] an ; al] ads or ad] ak. 
 
 These are sometimes combined into such forms as awtvi] 
 aghi or ayyi] akkci] anni] wayyi] sayyi] winna] widsa] tvidsak] 
 ainva; anta] natta, nyawmi] or abbreviated into the simple pre- 
 fixes: TV; u] ds or d] gh or y] n] k. 
 
 In their primitive acceptation, they appear for the most 
 part, if not altogether, to have been demonstratives] but they 
 are also extensively employed in the following capacities: 
 1. personal pronouns; 2. relatives and interrogatives ; 3. par- 
 ticles, especially prepositions and conjunctions; 4. genitival 
 prefixes; 5. formatives of verbs and abstract nouns. To 
 enter into all the details of the above divisions would amount 
 to an analysis of the entire structure of the Semitic langua- 
 ges, on which, it is believed, they are calculated to throw 
 considerable light. It may be sufficient for our present pur- 
 pose to observe that the shorter forms an, am, al } ay, aw, 
 ghi or yi, ni, n, tv, u, are preferred as signs of the genitive 
 case; being at the same time occasionally used as re- 
 latives, though not so frequently as the longer forms. A few 
 examples may suffice for the present. 
 
 Relative, rvi ikhza Rabbi , whom God cursed. 
 
 ur illi w-araykishnan, there is not [any] who enters. 
 Genitive, akadum aw warghaz, the face of the man. 
 
 The form most commonly employed is an (relative and 
 demonstrative anni"), especially with substantives and pro- 
 nominal suffixes. 
 
 baba, father; gen. a/z-baba. 
 thakli, female slave ; gen. on-thaklr. 
 rt/j-nagh , of us. 
 
 * The same element appears to be included in the relative pronoun efteilxi, 
 q d. the who. Dsu is also said to be used as a relative by the Tajjite Arabs. 
 
 15
 
 226 ON THE ORIGIN AND IMPORT 
 
 arc-wan, of you. 
 an-san , of them. 
 
 Sometimes, as in Aramaic, the pronominal suffix is also in- 
 serted: e. (jr. 
 
 ammi-s a?2-baba, son of the fathftr ; 
 
 lit. son of him who father. 
 
 Examples of the remaining forms , too numerous to be here 
 specified, will be found in Newman's Grammar, and Venture's 
 French and Berber Dictionary, lately published by the So- 
 ciete de Geographic at Paris. 
 Galla, kan. Rel.: eni kan duffu, he that comes. 
 
 Gen. : kan Judaia bosonati , in the wilderness of Judea. 
 Yoruba, ti. Rel. : ille ti mo wo, the house which I pulled down. 
 
 Gen.: ille ftbabba, house of father. 
 Malagassy, ny. Demonstr. and gen.: ny inpanjaky ny Jiosy. the 
 
 king of the Jews. 
 Hawaiian, na. [Pronoun of third person, he, it.] 
 
 Gen.: para'u na te Atua, the word of God. 
 Sanscrit, ya. [Relative.] Gen.: vrikas-ya , of a wolf. 
 
 ka-s [Interrogative.] Gen.: asma-/rm, of us. [Compare 
 the possessive forms mama/*, meus; tava/ca, tuus; 
 nsma/frt (in the Vedas), noster.] 
 
 Ilindostani. Gen. masc. form, Kuda-Aa beta, son of God. 
 Gen. fern, form, Yisu-/a ma, mother of Jesus, 
 GuzeratT, no. [Pali demonstr. na?] 
 
 Gen.: chokara-Hti, of a boy. Fern.: Yisuwl ma, mother of 
 
 Jesus. 
 Punjabi, da. [Zend, demonstr. da?] 
 
 Gen. kavi-fte, of a poet. Fern.: Yisurft mata, mother of 
 Jesus. [Compare the Pushtu genitival prefix, rf-badi- 
 shah, of a king, &c., and the demonstrative pronoun dd 
 saray , this man.] 
 
 In other dialects we find cho , cM, jr>, jl } as terminations 
 of the genitives. These may be probably regarded as mo- 
 difications of the Sanscrit interrogative and relative pronouns, 
 /-s, ya. Jo, je, are relatives in HarotT, GuzeratT, and it 
 is believed also in other dialects. 
 
 Persian, Pehlevi, BeluchT, i. Gen.: kup-i-Fars, mountain of Persia. 
 Albanian, i. e. [Definite article, the.] 
 
 Gen.: Pirri i Abrahamit, son of Abraham. Fern.: emma e 
 
 Jesuit , mother of Jesus. 
 
 The Manchu postfixed relative ninyge, nyyc , of which 
 i g a collateral form, has a variety of functions, scrv-
 
 OP THE GENITIVE CASE. 227 
 
 ing, inter alia, to form 1. Participles, active and passive: 
 6 ai^as and TO aoiEvov. 2. Possessive 
 
 adjectives, often resolvable into a genitive: 
 human, q. d. characteristic of man. 3. Possessive pronouns : 
 m'mi-nyge, mine, q. d. quod met (est). This is with great 
 probability identified by Schott with the Turco-Tartarian and 
 Finnish forms of the genitive. 
 Uiglmr , Jaghatai. &c., ning , at-ning, of a horse. 
 Osraanli, tin, mm: adem-M//, of man; cheshmeh-w//), of a fountain. 
 Finnish, Lappish, &c., n, en: cala-?z, of a fish; kabmak-e;z, of a boat. 
 Hungarian, nek, en*: a-tenger -;*&, of or to the sea ; a-hegy-e?z- 
 tal , on the other side of the mountain. 
 
 The hypothesis of Bopp, that the possessive terminations 
 of Indo-European adjectives, numerals, &c., and the form- 
 atives of many abstract nouns were originally pronouns, 
 seems to derive some support from the following analytic 
 constructions in Semitic. 
 
 Syriac, ruch, spirit, d-ruch [HI. which spirit = 
 Cardinals: tren, 2; tloth, 3. 
 Ordinals: da- tren, second; da- tloth, third. [Compare Sanscr. 
 
 dwitiyfl , tritiyu , &c.] 
 
 Ethiopic , tzarq , rag; z-tzarq, ragged: lamtz, leprosy; 2a-lamtz, 
 leprosus : Maryam, Mary; 2-Maryam, Marianus. 
 Cardinal: selus, three. 
 Ordinal : menbaka 2-selus , lectio ferise tertise. 
 
 * The variety of functions exercised by the element na and its modifi- 
 cations in languages of almost every part of the world is not a little remark- 
 able. Compare New. Zeal, nana, Lazian na/n qui; Gael, nan, nam, plur. 
 gen. article; Sanscr. nam, termination of gen. plur.; Pali and Armenian 
 7/rt = hic, iste, &c. Other examples have been already given. All these 
 significations may be referred to the simple demonstrative pronoun as the 
 radix. 
 
 15*
 
 ON THE DERIVATION OF WORDS 
 FROM PRONOMINAL AND PREPOSITIONAL 
 
 ROOTS. 
 
 [Proceedings of (he Philological Society. Vol. II.] 
 
 The languages commonly called synthetic agree uniformly 
 in this leading i'eature of being resolvable into a compara- 
 tively small number of elements, usually denominated roots. 
 In Hebrew there are few derivative words which are not 
 capable of being referred to their parent stem; or when this 
 cannot be done within the limits of the Hebrew itself, the 
 root wanted may generally be supplied from the Arabic or 
 some other cognate dialect. We here speak of the Semitic 
 roots as they are usually given by grammarians, and do not 
 now enter into the controverted question whether they are 
 primary or in reality compounded. In Welsh also there are 
 lew derivatives which may not be satisfactorily accounted 
 for either from the radicals of that language, or from the 
 Armorican and Gaelic dialects. In like manner the Indian 
 grammarians have reduced the whole of the Sanscrit lan- 
 guage to a comparatively small number of d'haloos or roots ; 
 and there is no reason for doubting that in a great majority 
 of cases the secondary and composite forms are rightly re- 
 ferred by them to their originals. There may be room to 
 question their conclusions in particular instances, espe- 
 cially with regard to pronouns and particles ; and it may be 
 also suspected that a number of ostensible roots are in real- 
 ity mere varieties of form or collateral descendants from 
 some unascertained primitive. 
 
 These roots are commonly regarded as mere abstractions, 
 that is, not actual practical words, but words in posse ; and 
 they are generally explained, either by an abstract noun in 
 the locative case, or a verb in the third person; indeed they 
 are almost universally represented to be roots of verbs, and 
 consequently more nearly related to the verb than to any 
 other part of speech. Bopp and Pott, who frequently question 
 the positions of the Indian grammarians, do not dissent from 
 them in this general view of the subject; except that, in- 
 stead of deriving pronouns and simple particles from verbal 
 roots, they consider them, or the elements out of which they 
 are formed, as a class apart, neither descended from verbs,
 
 OX THE DERIVATION OF WORDS. 229 
 
 nor in any way related to them. With respect to the non- 
 derivation of those elements from verbs, they are probably 
 in the right; but whether, on the other hand, verbs and 
 other parts of speech may not occasionally be deriyed from 
 them, is a different question, which a small amount of re- 
 search will enable us to decide in the affirmative. Proofs 
 might be multiplied from many languages; we shall at pre- 
 sent content ourselves with a few examples from the Old 
 High-German. 
 
 ABA. The Old-German preposition corresponding to the 
 Sanscr. apa, Gr. ano, is aba, only occurring in this form 
 in the oldest monuments of the language. From this we 
 have the adjective ab-uh, sinister, perverse, i. e. deviating, 
 branching into several derivative nouns, along with the verb 
 abahon, to abominate. A verb more directly formed from 
 the root may be inferred from the participial form aband, 
 evening, /. e. declining, which again is enlarged into the 
 verb abanden, vesperascere. 
 
 ABAR, AFAR, AVAR. This word, evidently a comparative 
 form of the preceding, is in Gothic a preposition, with the 
 sense of Lat. post] but in Old-German it is an adverb, com- 
 monly denoting again. From it the verb avaron, to repeat, is 
 directly formed , together with a number of nouns in all the 
 dialects ; among which may be specified Goth, afar, series, 
 and Ang.-Sax. afara , eafora, a descendant. 
 
 OBAR, UBAR. This preposition, found in nearly all the 
 Indo-European dialects, forms in O. H.-Germ. the verbs 
 obaron, to put off , prolong, and ga-obaron , to surpass, over- 
 come. Compare Lat. superare. 
 
 ANU, without. Mod. -Germ. olme. Indanon , afterwards 
 cntanen, to deprive. 
 
 IN forms the verb innoti, bearing the various meanings 
 of to annex, bring, receive, admit, &c. along with the nouns 
 innod , viscera, innole, indigena, and several others. From 
 the comparative form innaro, inner, is derived mnaron, to 
 insinuate; and with the prefix er, erinnern, to remember. 
 
 Hz, out. From this come the verbs uzon, to renounce; 
 ga-uzon, to remove, exclude. From the comparative uzaro 
 is derived the present Germ, aussern, to express, enunciate. 
 The Engl. titter is evidently of cognate origin. 
 
 NIDAR, below, beneath. Nidarjan, to humble , condemn ; 
 ganidaron, to cast down; with many nouns and adjectives. 
 
 NAH , near, after. Nahen, to approach ; zuonahen , to hasten, 
 come near. 
 
 SAMAX, with, together. Samanon, to gather, congregate; 
 with a multitude of derivatives.
 
 230 ON THE DERIVATION OF WORDS 
 
 SUNTAR, apart. Suntaron, to separate. 
 
 The above list might be greatly enlarged ; but enough has 
 been given to show, not merely the abstract possibility, but 
 the fact pf the derivation of verbs and other parts of speech 
 from simple particles: analogies will readily suggest them- 
 selves from the Greek and other languages, but they are too 
 obvious to be here dilated upon. It may perhaps be objected 
 that all the above instances are of comparatively recent date, 
 and that no similar principle of formation can be traced in 
 the earliest stages of language. It is apprehended that we 
 know too little of language in its infancy, either to affirm 
 or deny this proposition on direct and positive grounds : 
 the utmost that we can expect to accomplish is to deduce 
 probable conclusions from the data and the analogies within 
 our reach. It is however conceived, that there is no inhe- 
 rent improbability in the supposition 'that verbs and other 
 words might equally be formed from similar elements at a 
 much earlier period. 
 
 Terms expressive of local relations must have existed in 
 every regularly organized language at least as early as some 
 other classes, and the powers of combination and symbolical 
 application inherent in the human mind could be as easily 
 exercised on words expressing separation and connexion in 
 space, as upon any other attributes cognizable by the senses. 
 That those terms are themselves of the highest antiquity is 
 admitted by the best philologists; indeed Bopp does not 
 scruple to characterize them as "antediluvian." The origin 
 of the words themselves is a question which we do not under- 
 take to discuss. It is not perhaps absolutely impossible that 
 they were primarily onomatopoeia? , or imitations of natural 
 sounds; but there are many difficulties in the way of such 
 an hypothesis. Wiillner, and other writers who have la- 
 boured with great ingenuity to account for the formation of 
 language by this process, have felt the difficulty of dealing 
 with this branch of the subject; and while they allow that 
 pronouns and particles are an original and very important 
 part of language, they admit that it is not easy to establish 
 a connexion between the enunciation of a sound and the 
 idea of a place. 
 
 Waving therefore the discussion of this point as being 
 beyond our means of information, we proceed to inquire 
 whether there is any evidence of particles and pronouns hav- 
 ing actually become roots of verbs and nouns at an early 
 stage of the Indo-European languages. We shall begin with 
 a class of languages which have hitherto been only partially 
 employed for purposes of general philology, but which it
 
 FROM PRONOMINAL AND PREPOSITIONAL ROOTS. 3 
 
 is believed are calculated to throw considerable light on 
 several obscure phenomena. 
 
 The Cymric and Armorican preposition denoting over, 
 upon, is (jwar or giror , commonly abbreviated to gor in the 
 former language, but subsisting in its original form in the 
 latter. The corresponding Gaelic term is for, now obsolete 
 except in composition. Now there is a large class of words 
 nouns, adjectives and verbs which may be more naturally 
 and obviously referred to this preposition as their root, than 
 to any other in the compass of the Celtic languages. Thus 
 we have W. grvarad, covering; grvarchiiu, to enclose; grvared, 
 to guard; giver, a shade, and many similar words. These 
 again have their counterparts in Germanic, Latin, and Sla- 
 vonic words commencing with TV or v, or in Greek words 
 which formerly had the digamma. Many of these terms are 
 referred by Pott, Benfey, and other German philologists to 
 the Sanscrit varCimi or varayami (from the root vri), com- 
 monly denoting to cover or to choose. Admitting this , it fol- 
 lows that if the Celtic terms are related to the corresponding 
 Teutonic, &c. , they must be equally so to the Sanscrit; in 
 other words, Sanscr. varumi, Goth, ivarjan, Celt, grvarad, 
 &c., all denoting covering, must be of common origin. The 
 next step in the investigation is to see what probable grounds 
 we have for referring these terms and their cognates to a 
 local or prepositional relation as their original root. 
 
 Pictet, in his c Affinite desLangues Celtiques avec le Sans- 
 crit,' observes that the Irish frith and W. grvrth= against, 
 are the counterparts of Sanscr. prati, Gr. TIQOTL, and that 
 Ir. for, W. gtvor or gor, correspond to pra, para, Gr. XQO 
 and TIKQK. Among the Celtic prepositions which have no 
 formal representatives in Sanscrit or Greek, he specifies Ir. 
 fa, fo, sub, apud, &c., W. gtva, <?o=under. Against the 
 etymology of frith and givrth there is nothing to object: with 
 respect to for and gor* , it is to be observed that they, as 
 well as the Lithuanian per, always signify over, upon, and 
 therefore are potentially equivalent to Sanscr. upari, Gr. 
 VICEQ, Germ, itbar , &c. With respect to fa, fo, &c. , it is 
 strange that Pictet did not perceive that they bear precisely 
 the same relation to Sanscr. upa, Gr. VTIO, that frith, &c. 
 do to prali, XQorl , with their cognates; a relation further 
 borne out by the analogy of the Slavonic and Lithuanian po, 
 pod, under, after, &c., which are clearly cognate with the 
 corresponding Sanscrit and Greek, and also it is believed 
 
 * The Welsh equivalent of nuoa is ger=by, adjoining.
 
 232 ON THE DERIVATION OF WORDS 
 
 with the Celtic. Thus we have a strict parallelism through- 
 out: gwa, fa = upa; yrvar , for-~upari, and gtvrth, frilh 
 = prali. 
 
 If therefore the preposition {/war, upon, is cognate with 
 Sanscr. iipuri, and is at the same time the root of grvarad, 
 covering, &c. which come as naturally from it as supero docs 
 from super it folloAvs that upari and varumi are related to 
 each other, and that an element simply denoting upon, over, 
 may be the primordial one in the latter word. If this point 
 could be once well-established, it would lead to conclusions 
 important in themselves, and calculated to simplify in no 
 small degree the current ideas of the organization of lan- 
 guage. We shall at present hypothetical ly assume this position, 
 and proceed to inquire how far the actual phenomena of 
 language are found to coincide with it. 
 
 As preliminary to the ensuing discussion we may observe, 
 once for all, that the Cymric gw = Irish f, is convertible 
 in Welsh to a simple guttural g , c (cli), or to a labial b, p 
 (in): in Sanscrit it corresponds generally to rv, occasionally 
 to s;y; to a labial, guttural, or palatal: in Slavonic to v, a 
 labial or palatal: in German to qu, rv, g , b, p. Correspond- 
 ences with other dialects will occasionally be noticed in the 
 sequel. R is also commutable with other liquids, generally 
 with I, and is not unfrequently transposed; e. gr. var, bar, 
 par, may become respectively vra, bra, pra, &c. We shall 
 also consider the Sanscrit roots, varn, to colour; vrit, hvri, 
 clhvri, generally denoting turning, deflection, v. t. q. val, to 
 cover; hval , to move to and fro the corresponding forms 
 to which in other dialects frequently interchange significations 
 as etymologically related to each other and belonging to 
 the class which we are proposing to examine. If we assume 
 then that gwar , upon, over, may become the parent stem of 
 verbs and nouns, as the Germ, ubar becomes ubaron, the 
 words most obviously connected with it are those simply 
 denoting superposition, covering or elevation. Among these 
 we may class grvarad, gmarch, gwarth, covering; gtvarchdu, 
 to enclose; gtver , a shade; gtveryd, turf, sward. In the Teu- 
 tonic languages we have Goth, war j an, to cover; O. II.- 
 Germ. tvara, a dwelling; rverjan , to dress; A.-S. wreon, to 
 cover. In Slavonic vrieti, to cover or shut up, whence vrata, 
 a door or gate; vr'ch, a summit (comp. Armen. i rverah, over, 
 upon); and many similar words. The Sanscrit words derived 
 from var (vri\ denoting clothing, equipment, armour, and 
 other modes of covering, are pretty numerous; one of the 
 most remarkable is urnd, wool, which it is curious and in- 
 structive to trace through the cognate dialects. The initial
 
 FROM PRONOMINAL AND PREPOSITIONAL ROOTS. 233 
 
 v or w vocalized in urna, and dropt in lana, reappears in 
 Slnvon. I'l'iia, Lithuanian wilna, Goth, mulla, where n is as- 
 similated to the preceding liquid. The Welsh gtvlan pre- 
 sents the fullest form of the word, as Gael, ollan, and Gr. 
 fQiov the weakest. The Latin villas, vellus (for vilnus, velnus?) 
 are probably related. The antiquity of the term and the at- 
 tribute meant to be denoted by it are sufficiently evident. 
 The English flannel, from W. gwlanen , which might have 
 been a Gaelic form, is a good example of the change often 
 made in adopted words. 
 
 Passing over for the present the numerous formations in 
 gn-al, val , bal, &c., believed to be connected with the above, 
 we may next observe, that there is an easy and obvious 
 transition from the idea of covering to that of defence or 
 protection. Connected with this we have in Welsh givared, 
 to guard (whence Ital. guardare , Fr. garder); gtvarant, se- 
 curity; giversyll, a camp; grverthyr, a fortification. In Teu- 
 tonic, war j an, irerjan (O. H.-G.), to defend; gamer, defen- 
 sive armour; A.-S. mer , a wear or embankment; with a mul- 
 titude of similar words in many languages. Allied with the 
 idea of defence is that of prohibition, examples of which 
 are W. givarddu , to forbid; Germ, wehren, to keep off; rvar- 
 nen, to warn. From the notion of protecting, the transition 
 is also easy to that of watching, observing, beholding, see- 
 ing; as may be seen in the Ital. guardare, to guard or watch, 
 to observe, to look; Germ, marten, to beware, to perceive \ 
 analogous to which is Lat. tueor , to defend, to behold. A 
 simpler form occurs in the A.-S. tvcer, wary, Germ, ge-wahr, 
 observant ; with which the Gr. OQO , to guard , ogcca , to see, 
 may possibly be connected. The Welsh gimjliaw , to watch; 
 gun/led, girded, to see; appear to be from the same root, sub- 
 stituting / for r; as may be inferred from Bret, gwere, Irish 
 fairc] watch, where r is preserved. Another modification of 
 the same idea is that of endurance, continuance; as may be 
 seen in the German war ten, to watch, also to expect, wait; 
 and in a more simple form in O.-Germ. weren, to abide, 
 endure; mirig , permanent; and in a metaphorical sense, A.- 
 S. rveorig, weary, tedious. 
 
 Pott and other German philologists also refer to the same 
 root Germ, mar, Lat. verus, true; q. d. covered, protected, 
 secure. If we admit this, the W. gwir , Gael, fior, true; 
 Slavon. vicra, faith, belong of course to the same category. 
 Airain. what is covered may at the same time be concealed, 
 whence A.-S. nrcon, to hicle ; Dan iraa, O.-Enjr. nro , a 
 secret corner. Comp. Lat. velare , revclare.
 
 234 ON THE DERIVATION OF WORDS 
 
 The next class of words which we propose to consider as 
 connected with the root in question, is that involving the 
 idea of crossing, deviating, turning, &c., .both literal and 
 metaphorical. A relation between this and the former class 
 is easily established if we keep in mind that what lies or 
 passes over a surface may cross it, or deviate from what is 
 assumed to be its proper direction, or go beyond its natural 
 limits. Thus trans/re /lumen may be indifferently rendered 
 to go over the river, or across it, or beyond it; and he who 
 thus crosses a river deviates at the same time from the na- 
 tural direction of its current, and may also turn from it by 
 passing further. The most original Celtic form appears to 
 be the Breton gtvara, to bend; whence gtvarek , a bow (com- 
 pare Lat. arcus); grvarog, a yoke. The Welsh ymyr , oblique, 
 curved; grvyrarv , to bend; Irish /iar, crooked, slightly deviate 
 in form, while the Eng. wry transposes the liquid. The 
 German furnishes the full form qucr, across, athwart; and 
 the weaker werran, to disturb, confuse; ga,-tvtrran , to over- 
 turn; wir-t, deflected, distorted. If we regard the Sanscrit 
 vrU as connected with the simpler form vrt } we are enabled 
 to connect with this class the Lat. vertere, to turn; Germ. 
 rverden, to become, q. d. to turn out; Slavon. vratili , to turn; 
 Lithuanian rverstij to turn, roll; A.-S. tvra'lhtan, to wreathe, 
 entwine; and many other words. The list might be extended 
 to some hundreds of terms, by including all the varieties of 
 form caused by a substitution or modification of radicals, a 
 few specimens of which will be given in the tables. 
 
 The secondary and metaphorical ideas connected with the 
 relation of turning , are too numerous to be specified individu- 
 ally. A multitude of words bearing the literal significations 
 of roll, twist, throw, variegate, corrupt, surround, shake, 
 and the moral or metaphorical ones of err, deceive, pervert, 
 transgress, &c., referable more or less directly to the .class 
 under consideration, will readily occur to the comparative 
 philologist. To choose, JSanscr. varaydmi , O.-Gcrm. tvdjon, 
 'Lith. welili, Gr. atpg'ojwa, may be explained as to set aside, 
 out of a larger number = Lat. scligere. To will, AAfelsh gtvyll, 
 yrvyllys (voluntas), Germ, tvollen, Lat. volo, Gr. fiovJ.o[icci, is 
 evidently related, as may be seen at once from the Lat. 
 op(o, to wish and to choose. 
 
 The extent of the field of investigation ostensibly con- 
 nected with the particular class of words under consideration, 
 may be inferred from ihe circumstance that Benfey, in his 
 'Griechisches Wurzel-Lexicon , ' traces to them nearly a 
 thousand Greek vocables; and had he been fully aware of 
 the resources derivable from the Cymric and Armorican dia-
 
 FROM PRONOMINAL AND PREPOSITIONAL ROOTS. 235 
 
 lects, he might easily have found many more. These dia- 
 lects satisfactorily explain many phenomena otherwise not 
 easily accounted for; as for instance gwar, gwyr , oblique, 
 curved , show at once the possible connexion between Germ. 
 quer, Lat. varius, varus, Engl. wry, Gr. yvgos, to say no- 
 thing of Lat. curvus, Gael, cor, car, turn, twist; Gr. fvyaiE,, 
 awry; with a multitude of words more or less deflecting 
 from the original type, but easily reducible to it according 
 to recognized analogies. 
 
 We have all along treated the w r ord gwar in the light of 
 a simple and independent radical; there is however every 
 reason to believe that it is in reality a comparative form of 
 f/trtt (gwo, go], as Sanscr. upari is of upa , and Goth, ufar of 
 ///'. To speak more strictly, gwar is a combination of two 
 prepositional elements, gwa -\- ar , the latter having in itself 
 the sense of upon, over, in all the Celtic dialects. Each of 
 these elements is the parent of other words: thus gwa is 
 enlarged into gwadn, base, foundation (comp. Germ. lnden)\ 
 gn-ad-clan-d , dregs; givael, low, base (Lat. vilis); gwas, a ser- 
 vant, vassal: while ar becomes W. aros, abiding, dwelling; 
 Gael, aid, lofty (Lat. arduus); airde, height; ardaighim, to 
 elevate, &c. That the Sanscr. upari, Goth, ufar, should be 
 compounds is easily conceivable, if we reflect that A.-S. 
 but an (our buf) is composed of three distinct elements, bi-ul- 
 (in, and abutan (about) of four. If therefore gwar , to cover, 
 turn, &c., is connected with the preposition, it is not in the 
 strict sense of the term a primary word ; and if we are cor- 
 rect in the view which we have all along taken of the matter, 
 the same will apply to the Sanscrit vri and the other osten- 
 sible roots supposed to be connected with it. It is believed 
 that they are all reducible to one leading notion, viz. that 
 of covering , as included in the preposition or adverb upon, 
 which again is itself probably of pronominal origin. 
 
 This view of the matter is further strengthened by the 
 comparison of the collateral element iar in Gaelic, = over, 
 upon, in conjunction with W. tra, tros, over, tnvy , through, 
 &c., with the Sanscrit root In, to pass over, and its numerous 
 cognates. Words- apparently including this element abound 
 in every branch of the Indo-European family; and they 
 will be found on examination to run parallel throughout, or 
 nearly so, with the class previously examined, in the senses 
 of covering, preserving, sjvatching, turning, throwing, trans- 
 gressing, &c. This coincidence is easily accounted for if 
 we suppose -that both classes contain the same prepositional 
 element w = over, upon giving pretty nearly the same 
 force to each. It is believed that the same element, both
 
 236 ON THE DERTVATION OF WORDS 
 
 in the simple form ar and the augmented tar, enters into 
 the comparative forms of adjectives and particles, and various 
 other formations in which the idea of more, further } v. t. q. 
 is included. 
 
 It will perhaps be thought that it is a series of ungrounded 
 assumptions to regard the words in question as connected 
 with each other, w r hereas they may be independent roots, 
 To this it may be replied, that it is equally an assumption 
 to maintain that they are totally unconnected with each other ; 
 and if they are related, as the general analogy of their forms 
 would rather lead us to believe, it is clear that they cannot 
 be at the same time collateral and primary. The science of 
 comparative etymology does not, like arithmetic or geometry, 
 rest upon certain and demonstrable premises , but consists 
 in a series of presumptive deductions from such analogies 
 of form and meaning as can be traced in languages known 
 or believed to be cognate. We have no direct evidence that 
 wary, warn, wear, weary, wry, wreathe, writhe, are all from 
 the same root; but it is conceived that no one who has 
 traced them carefully through all the kindred dialects would 
 venture to assert that they are radically and totally distinct. 
 An attempt has been made to show that those, and multi- 
 tudes of similar Avords may be referred to one simple local 
 relation; and if this be really the case, it is obvious that 
 the same principle may be applicable in many more cases. 
 Such w r ords as nsQaco, itSQaCva in Greek, and samanon, uzon, 
 &c. in German, show that particles may and actually do 
 become the parent stems of verbs; and it is at least as in- 
 telligible and easy that over should become cover, or cross, 
 as that out should come to denote speak, or in, remember. 
 If it should be found, on further investigation, that this 
 principle of derivation has prevailed to a great extent, it 
 will follow that the doctrine of Bopp and Pott, viz. that the 
 pronominal and prepositional roots constitute a class apart, 
 wholly unconnected with the elements of verbs, cannot be 
 supported. On the contrary it would seem more probable 
 that those roots are in many cases the real primordia of the 
 ostensible d'hatoos or verbal roots, and that they in fact con- 
 stitute the basis of no inconsiderable portion of the Indo- 
 European languages. 
 
 The following words, constituting a very small portion of 
 the aggregate, seem directly referable to the Sanscrit roots 
 hvrt, vrl, vr\t, hval , val , already assumed to be related to 
 each other. The Celtic words are Welsh when not other- 
 wise specified.
 
 PROM PRONOMINAL AND PREPOSITIONAL ROOTS. 
 
 237 
 
 gwal , enclosure. 
 
 gwalc, palisade (cf. Ital. palco). 
 
 gwalch, adj. towering, sub. falcon. 
 
 gwalen , Bret, a ring. 
 
 gwall, defect, error. 
 
 gwar, Bret, crooked, vaulted. 
 
 gwar, neck (from turning^ cf. SI. 
 
 vrat). 
 
 gwara, to fence, 
 gwarad, covering, 
 gwarant, security, 
 gwarch , covering, 
 gwarchau, to enclose, 
 gwarddu, to prohibit. 
 gwared , to guard. 
 gwaremm , Bret, a warren, 
 gwarez, Bret, shelter, protection, 
 gwarog, a yoke, 
 gwarth , covering, 
 gweilging, a cross-beam, 
 gweili, a surplus, 
 gweled, to see. 
 gweli, an exposure, 
 gwell , better. 
 
 gwellt, grass, sward (cf. gwallt, 
 
 hair of the head) 
 gwer, a shade, 
 gwere, Bret, a watch-tower, 
 gwerthyd, a spindle (Ir. fearsaid). 
 gweryd, sward, 
 gwil, turn off, start, 
 gwilc'hu, Bret, to squint, 
 gwill, apt to stray, 
 gwir, true, 
 gwladychu, to govern (cf. Germ. 
 
 walten). 
 
 gwores, open, exposed, 
 gwrag, curved handle, v. I. q. 
 gwregys, girdle, 
 gwrith, apparent, 
 gwrydd, a wreath, 
 gwylchu, to seem or appear, 
 gwylied , to watch, 
 gwyll, will, 
 gwyllt, wild, 
 gwyr, oblique, 
 gwyrain, to elevate. 
 
 Slavonic, Lithuanian, &c. 
 
 varati, Serv. to deceive. 
 
 variti, SI. to proceed. 
 
 wahrpsta, Lettish, spindle. 
 
 wahrst, to bolt. 
 
 wahrstiht , to roll to and fro. 
 
 wahrti, a door. 
 
 wairitees, verb. refl. to beware. 
 
 wairoht, to augment. 
 
 waldiht, to govern. 
 
 walgs, cord, rope (from twisting). 
 
 warra, power. 
 
 warren, adv. exceedingly. 
 
 warreht, to be powerful. 
 
 wehrigs , observant. 
 
 weley, Lithuan. late. 
 
 wercziu, I turn over. 
 
 werpju, I spin. 
 
 weru , I close ; at-w- = I open 
 (cf. Welsh a-gori; Bret, di- 
 gori , to open ; Lat. a-perio, 
 o-perio). 
 
 willoju, I seduce (Lett, wilt, to 
 deceive). 
 
 wirrags, Lett, a whirlpool. 
 
 wirs, upon. 
 
 wirssus , Lith. a summit. 
 
 wirst, Lett, to rise upwards. 
 
 wirstu, Lith. I overturn, become 
 (cf. Sanscr. vrit, to turn, to be- 
 come; Germ, werden). 
 
 wirtis , a whirlpool. 
 
 wirwe, a cord. 
 
 woloju, I roll about. 
 
 z'welgiu, I see, look. 
 
 z'wairu, I squint.
 
 238 
 
 ON THE DERIVATION OF WORDS 
 
 The corresponding forms in the pure Slavonic dialects 
 generally transpose the liquid, as will appear from the fol- 
 lowing examples : 
 
 wlada, Bohern. power , govern- 
 
 ment (cf. W. gwlad, country; 
 
 Bret, glad, patrimony; 
 
 flaith, sovereignty). 
 wladnauti, to move, stir, 
 wlati, Slav, to fluctuate, 
 wlna, Bohem. wool. 
 
 Ir. 
 
 wratiti , to turn. 
 
 wratky, giddy. 
 
 wreteno, a spindle. 
 
 vrieti. Slav, to shut. 
 
 vr'gu , I throw (cf. Lat. torqueo). 
 
 vr'zu, I open. 
 
 vr't, a garden. 
 
 vr'tieti, to turn round. 
 
 vr'ch, a summit. 
 
 wrat, turn, return. Serv. vrat, 
 
 neck. 
 wrata, a door. 
 
 Some of the principal Teutonic equivalents having been 
 given in the course of the preceding paper, it will not be 
 necessary to repeat them. The Greek forms are reserved 
 for an inquiry which it is proposed to make into the powers 
 and affinities of the digamma. The following Latin words 
 may be referred with more or less probability to the same 
 class of roots: 
 
 vellus, a fleece, 
 velum, a veil, covering, 
 vcrtere, to turn, 
 vertex, summit, 
 verus , true, 
 volvere, to roll, 
 vortex, a whirlpool. 
 
 valeo, to be powerful, 
 valgus, bandy-legged, 
 vallum, an entrenchment. 
 valvjE, folding-doors, 
 varioli , small-pox (cf. W. breeh, 
 
 variegated; also small-pox), 
 varius, changeable, &c. 
 varus,crooked(cf.pr3e-varico,&c). 
 
 The above words, to which a multitude of similar ones 
 might easily be added, correspond pretty strictly with the 
 forms assumed as their radicals. There are, moreover, an 
 immense number of terms which are referable to the same 
 origin, by taking into account the changes briefly indicated 
 above by elision, transposition, and the substitution of ele- 
 ments etymologically cognate. A few examples will serve 
 to illustrate this portion of the subject. 
 
 The following are cognate forms with the elision of the 
 labial: 
 
 gail, the eye-lid, 
 gallt, a steep or cliff, 
 gardd, an enclosure, 
 garth, a rampart, 
 geol, a prison. 
 
 gour, Bret, slowness, leisure. 
 
 gol , a covering. 
 
 golwg , sight. 
 
 gor, Bret, a tumour. 
 
 gorch , a fence.
 
 FROM PRONOMINAL AND PREPOSITIONAL ROOTS. 
 
 239 
 
 Bret, gorre , top , surface. 
 
 gorrea, to raise. 
 
 gorrek, slow, idle (in some 
 
 dialects gwurck). 
 gorroen, cream. 
 
 gourinn, lintel of a door, 
 gouvzizu, to delay, put off. 
 
 In Breton, words of this description are frequently still 
 further .abbreviated by the elision or transposition of the 
 leading vowel. 
 
 gorddi, to impel forward. 
 
 gored, a wear. 
 
 gorel , opening. 
 
 gores, open, exposed. 
 
 goreu, superior, best. 
 
 gori , to brood. 
 
 gorraant, exuberance. 
 
 gormu, to force in, intrude (cf. 
 
 glad, patrimony; 
 glao, rain; 
 gleb , moist; 
 gliz, dew; 
 gloan, wool; 
 grac'h, old woman; 
 greg, woman ; 
 grisien, root; 
 
 "Welsh gwlad. 
 
 gwlaw. 
 
 gwlyb , moisture. 
 
 gwlith. 
 
 gwlan. 
 
 gwrach. 
 
 gwraig (cf. Germ. frau). 
 
 gwraidd. 
 
 These and similar forms show that words commencing 
 with a guttural followed by a liquid, may correspond to a 
 Sanscrit, German or Slavonic w\ e. gr. glad, to Germ, ivallcn; 
 gloan, to Sanscr. wna, Bohem. rvlna , Germ, tvolle. A little 
 inquiry will enable us to discover a multitude of words 
 commencing with a labial or guttural followed by / or r, 
 under significations precisely analogous to the words already 
 given, and in all probability of kindred origin. A few ex- 
 amples from the Lithuanian and Lettish will place this point 
 in a clearer light. 
 
 Lith. breest, to increase. 
 Lett, brunnas, armour. 
 
 glahbt , to guard, protect. 
 Lith. globoju, I embrace. 
 Lett, gredsens , a ring. 
 
 greest, to turn. 
 
 greests, a coverlet, 
 greest-balki, cross-beam. 
 
 Lith. greju, I surround, enclose. 
 
 Lett, greiss, awry, crooked. 
 
 Lith. greziu, I turn,bore, encircle, 
 wind (cf. Bohem. wrtiti, 
 vrtati, to turn, shako, 
 
 waver, move, churn, bore, 
 &c.). 
 
 grysstu , I turn, return. 
 Lett, klaht, to cover. 
 
 klaidiht, to wander about. 
 Lith. klaupju, I kneel down. 
 
 klesscziu, I tremble. 
 
 kloju , I cover. 
 
 klonoju, I bow down. 
 
 klydoju , I wander. 
 Lett, krahpt, to deceive. 
 
 krampis , a bolt. 
 Lith. krattau, I shake.
 
 240 
 
 ON THE DERIVATION OF WORDS. 
 
 Lith. kreipju, I turn, return. 
 priess, prep, against =W. 
 gwrth. 
 
 Lith. krauju, I heap up. 
 
 kreikiu , I strew. 
 krehvas, crooked; cf. W. 
 crwm; Ger. krumm. 
 
 It is not meant to be asserted that all the above words 
 are certainly connected with the Sanscrit and Celtic roots 
 which we have been examining; but the connection is the- 
 oretically possible, according to known analogies. The pro- 
 bability of its subsistence is greatly strengthened by the 
 Persian, in which a Sanscrit or Teutonic iv regularly becomes 
 a guttural : e. gr. guruzah , hog or boar = Sanscr. varaha 
 (comp. Lat. porcus, Germ, ferch, Eng. tiarrorv-pig, Gr. #ofpog) ; 
 yardun-iden , to turn Sauscr. vrtt, Lat. verto, &c. ; garm = 
 Germ, warm; kirm = Germ. wurm. The Slavonic and Lithu- 
 anian languages manifest a considerable resemblance to the 
 Persian, both in words and characteristic elements. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to say, that words commencing 
 with bal, bar , pal , par, &c. are still more likely to be related 
 to the family of words which we have been examining; in- 
 deed the affinity of many of them does not admit of a doubt. 
 This will become obvious on comparing such words as bal, 
 peak; balch, proud; bar, summit; hern, aheap; pare, en- 
 closure; Fr. parcr, to keep off; Span, parar , to stop, &c., 
 with the preceding lists and with the Gaelic. Gtveilging, W. 
 a cross-beam (from grvail, superincumbent), becomes in Gaelic 
 baircin. It is in all probability also the etymon of Engl. 
 balk and Germ, galge, a gallows. Many similar instances 
 might easily be collected.
 
 ON CERTAIN INITIAL LETTER -CHANGES 
 IN THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 
 
 [Proceedings of the Philological Society. Vol. II.] 
 
 In the various branches of the great Indo-European family 
 of languages, we find that multitudes of words differ from 
 their cognates in form; and, to a certain extent, according 
 to definite laws of permutation. This is more particularly 
 the case with respect to their initial elements. If we take 
 Sanscrit, Latin, Slavonic, or any other considerable member 
 of the group as a standard, numerous instances occur in 
 which a collateral language replaces an initial conjunct con- 
 sonant by a simple one, or vice versa, and substitutes a 
 guttural for a labial, a palatal for a guttural, an aspirate for 
 a sibilant, or one liquid semivowel for another. In many 
 ca&es those permutations are well-understood and easily ac- 
 counted for, but with regard to some of them there appears 
 to be a little misapprehension. 
 
 It is usual to account for the substitution of a guttural 
 for a labial, and similar phenomena, by the assumption 
 that one is changed into the other. This appears actually 
 to take place in a number of instances; as for example in 
 the Neapolitan cchiii from pt'u, Lat. plus: Gaelic caisg from 
 pascha, and many others. But there are cases in which there 
 is reason to believe that both the labial and guttural are in 
 reality derivative sounds, collaterally descended from a more 
 complex element, capable of producing both. The practica- 
 bility of the process may be manifest by an obvious instance. 
 If we could only compare Gr. dig and Lat. bis with each 
 other, we should be compelled to affirm either that the labial 
 \vas the representative of a dental, or that the words had 
 no etymological connexion. But a reference to the Sanscrit 
 <//r/x, at once shows that each has taken a portion of a more 
 complex sound; the Greek having elided the labial, and 
 the Latin dropped the dental. Bellum from due/htm is a 
 parallel instance. The grammarians inform us that bonus 
 was originally <lu<nis\ and if so, it is very possible that the 
 Welsh tlitin, beautiful, daiomis, good, may be representatives 
 of the ancient form, minus ?/, which in all probability ema- 
 nated from a v or tv.
 
 242 ON CERTAIN INITIAL LETTER-CHANGES 
 
 The same observation may perhaps serve to explain certain 
 phenomena connected with the Greek digamma. This ele- 
 ment is supposed by some to have been a mere aspirate, 
 and by others to have corresponded precisely with the Latin 
 v or German w. The former supposition appears to be con- 
 tradicted by the prosody of the Homeric poems: and though 
 the latter agrees better with the collateral forms in other 
 languages, it is not without its difficulties. 
 
 Priscian, after observing that it had commonly the force 
 of a consonant in prosody, adds, "The ^Eolians are also 
 found sometimes to have employed the digamma as a double 
 consonant, as Nt<SroQa df Fov jrcudog. " This view might be 
 confirmed by numerous examples from Homer, in which an 
 initial digamma frequently lengthens a preceding short vowel. 
 As this never takes place with a Latin v, it is reasonable 
 to presume that there was some difference in their respective 
 powers; and this presumption appears to be strengthened 
 by various phenomena presented by the Grecian dialects 
 arid the languages to which they are etymologically related. 
 Words known to have had the digamma in the time of Homer, 
 in other branches of the Greek language replace this ele- 
 ment by a simple guttural or labial; and occasionally it 
 appears to be represented by a sibilant, alone, or in con- 
 nection with a labial. On this and other grounds, Mr. 
 Donaldson (New Cratylus, p. 119 el seq.~] argues that the 
 original digamma must have had a complex sound, consisting 
 of a guttural combined with a labial, the former element 
 being also convertible into a sibilant.* It is the object of 
 the present paper to bring further evidence in favour of the, 
 general correctness of the above theory, from some collateral 
 sources of illustration which it did not enter into Mr. Donald- 
 son's plan to notice. 
 
 The illustration most in point is furnished by the Welsh. 
 In this language the digamma, with its equivalents in other 
 tongues, is usually represented by yw\ m being nearly un- 
 known in Cymric as a primary initial consonant. It was 
 shown on a former occasion that the labial element may 
 either be elided , as in W. grvlan , wool ; Bret, gloan ; or that 
 the conjunct consonant may become a simple labial, as batch 
 from gwalch. Precisely the same phenomenon is presented 
 by the various dialects of the Greek. The grammarians 
 and lexicographers have preserved a number of words in 
 which y or /3 appears as a prefix to the vowel initial of the 
 
 * Hoefer, in his 'Beitrjigc zur Etymologik ' , lias taken jiretty nearly the 
 same view of the subject.
 
 IN THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 243 
 
 ordinary dialect; and in almost every instance the words 
 thus augmented are known, or may be strongly suspected 
 anciently to have had the digamma. 
 
 The correctness of the forms commencing with gamma is 
 admitted by Buttmann and Giesius, who agree in regard- 
 ing the phenomenon as a dialectical peculiarity. On the 
 other hand, Ahrens, in his elaborate work on the Doric 
 dialect, is inclined to consider them as corruptions, or errors 
 of Hesychius or his transcribers, who, not understanding 
 the real nature of the digamma, substituted for it the cha- 
 racter most similar in form. This summary method of de- 
 ciding the point seems rather to cut the knot than to untie 
 it; at all events it is an unsafe species of criticism to con- 
 demn everything as corrupt which we do not perfectly under- 
 stand. "We know that in Persian and other languages a 
 guttural was the regular substitute for a Greek digamma,* 
 and it is obvious that a change which took place in a cog- 
 nate language might be equally admissible in a sister dialect. 
 
 As points of this kind are better illustrated by evidence 
 than by abstract reasoning, an attempt will be made to sup- 
 port the genuineness of these and other apparently anomal- 
 ous forms by instances from collateral languages. 
 
 Among the Hesychian glosses we find yor-i/og, oivog , with 
 several derivatives, for which the critics without the small- 
 est hesitation bid us substitute Fotvog. Undoubtedly this 
 was a genuine form; but if we suppose, which is very 
 possible, that the digamma was a double consonant, com- 
 prising a guttural and a labial, like the Welsh gwyn, or the 
 Georgian yhn-ini, it is obvious that the former element might 
 prevail in particular localities as the labial did in others. 
 This view appears to be confirmed not only by the Welsh 
 and Breton forms , but by the Armenian gini. 
 
 Another remarkable gloss in Hesychius is yags$ = aQ, 
 which appears from the analogy of other words to have 
 been a Boeotian form. "EaQ is well known to have had the 
 digamma (com)). Lat. vcr } Icelandic ver): but there is also 
 the evidence of the Armenian garoun, in favour of the gut- 
 
 * Mr. Donaldson observes, after Burnonf, tliat Neriosergh, who trans- 
 lated into Sanscrit tlio Pehlvi version of the Yacna , represents the Zend v 
 by the Sanscrit c/hv or yv; thus for vuhumano , fiavam, cavangh, lie writes 
 yhvahmnnn , lta</iiuna . pagtiamgha, (Xew Cratylus , p. 120.) It may be further 
 observed that the modern Persian occasionally substitutes a labial, e. gr. 
 dm/, wind; hist. 20; Sanscr. vinsnti. It may therefore be reasonably inferred 
 that, the ancient Persian archetype of those various articulations must have 
 had a power bearing some analogy to that which we attribute to the di- 
 gamma. 
 
 10*
 
 244 ON CERTAIN INITIAL LETTER-CHANGES 
 
 tural. The Persian baJtar presents another form of the labial ; 
 the Gaelic earrach is exactly parallel with the ordinary Greek. 
 Benfey and other German philologists suppose a connexion 
 with Sanscr. vasania, s, as is frequently the case, being- 
 softened to r. This idea appears to be confirmed by the 
 Slavonic vesna , and perhaps by the Cornish giiantoitt , \\ . 
 gwanrvyn, where s or r may have been elided. The Lithu- 
 anian tvasara, summer, appears to be from the same root. 
 
 Ahrens, who is unwilling to admit that the simple gut- 
 tural could become a representative of the digamma , allows 
 that there is competent authority for it in the word yQivog, 
 a hide or shield; which is also known to have had the di- 
 gamma. Its' genuineness is further attested by the Welsh 
 croen, skin or hide. The Bohemian blana may possibly bo 
 related , / being frequently substituted for r in the Slavonic 
 dialects. The direct affinity of the Norse brynja, a coat of 
 mail, is doubtful; it being apparently from the Slavonic 
 brona, which is referable to a root implying defence or pro- 
 tection, analogous to Germ, rvehren. 
 
 Many other examples might be given wherein a guttural 
 initial in other languages, or in the dialects of Greece it- 
 self, corresponds with the digamma. Some of these have 
 been noticed in former communications, and a few others 
 will be pointed out in the sequel. We proceed to adduce 
 evidence in favour of other words where inscriptions or 
 glosses appear to prefix a labial. 
 
 In the Tables of Heraclea, published by Mazoc-hi, the 
 digamma is regularly prefixed to the numeral six and its 
 derivatives: F', Ff^xovra, FfWog, &c. This is pro- 
 nounced by Ahrens to be a recent corruption, since neither 
 the Sanscrit shash, Lat. sex, nor Gothic saihs , show any 
 traces of a digamma. This is true ; there is however no lack 
 of evidence for it from other quarters. The fullest form 
 extant is the Zend ksvas; and it is curious to observe how 
 the component elements of the word appear and disappear 
 in the cognate dialects. The Welsh chwech has preserved 
 the guttural and labial; the Affghan shpaj } or spash, the 
 sibilant and labial; the Albanian yinst, the mere guttural; 
 while the Armenian wetz corresponds pretty closely with the 
 digamma-form of the tables. The Lithuanian szessi agrees 
 closely with the Sanscrit: the ordinary Greek !' substitutes 
 an aspirate initial, and the Gaelic ae drops the final. The 
 Heraclean forms, which doubtless agreed with the current 
 language of the locality, are therefore not entirely unsup- 
 ported by analogy; and this example may serve, among 
 
 IMS;
 
 IN THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 245 
 
 many others, to show how unsafe it is to decide points of 
 this kind upon a narrow induction. 
 
 It is a well-ascertained peculiarity of the JEolic dialect 
 that ft was apparently prefixed to words beginning with Q 
 in the ordinary language, as /3po'dov for 6dov. Some gram- 
 marians regard this as a merely arbitrary process ; but Pris- 
 cian more correctly observes that it was a mutation of the 
 (liganima: and this VICAV is fully confirmed by the analogy 
 of the cognate languages. An excellent example is furnished 
 by /3ot or /Jpttfda, the JEolic form of Qta, which closely 
 agrees on one side with the Gothic vaurl-s, and on the other 
 with Welsh givraidd , Bret, grisien. The Sanscrit bradhna 
 may also be of the same family. Another Sanscrit term for 
 root jbudhna, has a remarkable resemblance to the Welsh bun, 
 also found in Persian and in some Slavonic and Finnish 
 dialects. If budhna be a mutation of bradhna, as it possibly 
 may , all the above forms are reducible to a common origin. 
 Byodov may be compared with the Armenian ward, /3@a, 
 PQatdios = Qa, QadiOSj with the Anglo-Saxon hrced, ready, 
 where h represents a more ancient guttural; /3paxog, a rag, 
 with A.-S. hracod, ragged , and perhaps with Welsh brat, 
 rag, bratiarvg , ragged. Fgrjl-is, quoted by Trypho from 
 Alcseus, shows that (jrJGGa had the digamma; and this at 
 once connects the verb with Germ, brechen, Lat. frango, and 
 possibly with W. bran, brittle, brcuddilaw, to comminute, 
 and Slavon. brchu, to grind. 
 
 It appears from Herodian and Hesychius that the Boeotian 
 form of yvvrj was (lava, gen. fiavfjxos; respecting which 
 Ahrcns observes, after Grimm, that a comparison of the 
 Gothic quino shows that both yvvrj and fia.va have sprung 
 from a more ancient yFavoc, which also illustrates the mu- 
 tations of the vowel. This is so obvious and satisfactory a 
 solution, that it is strange that Ahrens did not think of 
 applying it in those cases where he questions the genuineness 
 of the simple guttural. He might also have found an ad- 
 mirable confirmation of it in the Welsh given, in conjunction 
 with its synonym benytv, which are doubtless according to 
 the same analogy. The Irish has also the duplicate forms 
 eninne and bean. The Armenian kin closely agrees with yvvij. 
 The Slavonic zhena (pron. jena, more Gallico) turns the 
 guttural to a palatal. The Scandinavian kone vocalizes the 
 labial : the North-Yorkshire whean is a softening of the Anglo- 
 Saxon en-en. 
 
 In like manner the Elean Fpa'rpa for p^rgcc. along with 
 its primitive FQS'CO and several cognate terms, may be re-
 
 246 ON CERTAIN INITIAL LKTTKK-C11ANGES 
 
 ferred to the Irish briathar, a word ; Goth, vmird] Lithuanian 
 tvardas, a name; Russ. yovoriti, to speak; to say nothing of 
 
 Lat. verbum. FrjQvs, speech; the Welsh yair , a word, and 
 Lat. yarrio, are reducible to the same origin, if we suppose 
 an elision of the labial. From a comparison of fiQoy%os, 
 frog, a word preserved by Ilesychius, Berifey inters that 
 rana was originally vrahna: the Cornish hranay , Fr. yrcnoidll.^, 
 and Armen. yorl, equally speak for a guttural. The York- 
 shire /'rosk , Germ, frosch, insert a sibilant; the Danish fro 
 drops the final ; the Lettish rvarde agrees pretty nearly with 
 the Armenian. 
 
 An instance of the compound initial ym being represented 
 by the hard labial p, occurs in W. pare, an inclosure, Kng. 
 park] which we need not hesitate to connect with ytvarcltaii, 
 to inclose"; and perhaps with Fsgya, to restrain, Ffpxog, 
 inclosure. Another, not commonly known, is furnished by 
 Germ, pfennig , Kng. penny. Though this is found in most 
 of the Teutonic and Slavonic dialects, it is confessedly not 
 vernacular in any of them ; and many unsuccessful attempts 
 have been made to account for it. It is believed that the 
 true etymon is the Breton ymennek , a diminutive of yrvcn, 
 white; the coin being, as is well known, originally of silver. 
 The Spanish blanquillo, and the Slovak belizh, from bel, white, 
 are of exactly parallel import. The Welsh ceiniawy , together 
 with its root can, white, show an elision of the labial. 
 Another instance would appear to be presented by .77aog, 
 given by Scylax as a name of the Cretan city called by 
 Herodotus "Oa,og, and on coins Fd^og. The genuineness of 
 the reading in Scylax has been doubted, but the above ex- 
 amples show that such a form would not be absolutely im- 
 possible. 
 
 A few miscellaneous words, chiefly from inscriptions and 
 ancient grammarians, are annexed, with illustrative forms 
 from corresponding dialects. They are principally words 
 known or presumed to have had the digamma. 
 
 t]dv ...... W. chrveg, sweet, [cf. A.-S. svcec, odor, sapor.] 
 
 , lambs ..... Kuss. baron; Pers. barah; Armon. garr. 
 
 W. gwacddi, to shout. 
 
 W. daiv] Gael, daigh] Sanscr. dah] to burn. 
 Gael, ubh, A.-S. (eg] Lat. ovum. 
 Bret, gwesker] W. gasper] Gael, fcasan'] 
 Manks. fcuslor [cf. west, western]; Litli. 
 tvakaras. 
 
 . . . Germ, iverkcn] W. yorug, made, did; Bret. 
 yra, do [coinp. Gr.
 
 IN THE INDO-EUKOPEAN LANGUAGES. 247 
 
 Fixart. 20 Ir. fie he , fichit ; W. ugainl\ Pers. bisl. 
 
 *~oiKog Lat. vicus, W. #vV/, town, hamlet. 
 
 Folg (as inferred j n ,. . ,, r ,_ ,, ., r ,-, 
 
 i- \i ir I Bret. /ri; W.//Vo(Vf, the nostrils comp.banscr. 
 
 Iroin the lioineric > , - ,, , XT v , L , 
 
 , {(jlmuia, Ital. grugno, N.-xprksh. grroonj. 
 
 yalc=:<uUg W. gwala, enough. 
 
 yikkut, (it.v. to pluck) Lat. i>//o; A. -S. pullian't 
 
 ytk'kitfxi = Gvveik-tj- 1 W. chwylaw, to turn, revolve; Slav. tvi/tVi, 
 
 <7r ; f to roll. 
 
 yearia ~ i^iaria . . . W. givisg, apparel; Lat. vcslis. 
 
 yiria , osier W. gwden ; Eng. rvilhy. 
 
 yotda = oldce W. gwydd, knowledge; A.-S. wilan, to know. 
 
 The application of this analogy enables us not unfrequently 
 to recover, at least conjecturally, a form that had been lost. 
 From a comparison of galleria, ambulatoriurn, Hire ingeni- 
 ously infers that the French aller was originally gutter. This 
 conjecture derives a collateral support from the Breton bale'a, 
 to walk; ball, avenue; in conjunction with Germ, wallen; 
 and all the forms taken in conjunction lead to the conclusion 
 that the primary Celtic verb was grvalla. 
 
 Most of the permutations which we have been consider- 
 ing may be summed up in the counterparts for wind, in the 
 different branches of the Indo-European family: Welsh 
 yirynt, Sanscr. vahanla, Lat. vcntus, Slavon. vietr, Lithuanian 
 tvejiSj Beluchl gwath, Irish gaolh, Persian bad. These forms 
 not only illustrate the changes of the initial , but the appear- 
 ance and disappearance of the nasal. The Greek avs^ios 
 is probably from the same root, but with a different suffix. 
 In its present form it bears an external resemblance to the 
 Gaelic anail, W. anadl, breath. 
 
 The above examples, to which many others might be added, 
 lead to the belief that the commonly received theory of 
 labials and gutturals being commutable with each other is 
 not in all cases strictly correct; but that each has frequently 
 had an independent origin in a more ancient complex sound. 
 The general progress of language is towards euphony and 
 attenuation of articulations ; it is therefore much more likely 
 a priori that m or v should be modifications of gw, or some 
 similar combination, than that the process should have been 
 reversed. Words commencing with qv in Gothic, or cn> in 
 Anglo-Saxon, appear in other dialects with the simple labial, 
 e. (jr. A.-S. ovunian, Germ, weinen; and in this and similar 
 cases there can be little doubt which form is the more 
 ancient. 
 
 The establishment of this theory of an original complex
 
 248 ON CERTAIN INITIAL LETTER-CHANGES 
 
 sound, divisible in the way AVC have been supposing, would 
 enable us to bring many apparently unconnected words to- 
 gether, and to diminish the number of ostensible roots. If 
 we assume a primitive grval , qtval, v. t. q. signifying to turn, 
 roll, &c., it is easy to conceive how it might on one side 
 become the parent of the Welsh chrvylarv, to revolve; Sanscr. 
 hval, to turn; A.-S. hrveol, wheel; O.-Germ. hrvel, crooked; 
 Slavon. kolo* a wheel, kolievali , to agitate; and on the other, 
 of Slavon. valid. Germ, rvalzen, Lat. volvere, to roll; with 
 many similar words in most European languages. Formerly 
 the only method of connecting dkivdsco and xaJitvtieQ to- 
 gether, was by supposing that a guttural had been dropped 
 or assumed. But the knowledge that the former anciently 
 had the digamma places the matter in a different light, and 
 makes it at all events probable that they are in reality col- 
 lateral formations, and that they, together with their cog- 
 nate xvAt'cj, aAf'o, to wander about; stivea, to involve, &c., 
 have a common origin with the Latin volvo, and the Welsh 
 chrvylaw , i. e. a root grval or qrval, or something similar. 
 
 There is another remarkable mutation of the initial w, 
 which though of partial occurrence, appears to be well- 
 established. Graff observes that this element occasionally 
 resolves itself into ^/&, e. gr. ubisandus, a low Latin word 
 for rvisant, a bison. Other examples are ubandns for rvan- 
 tus, a glove (Ital. guanto}; ubartellus for quariellus, a quarter 
 measure. It would be worth inquiring whether a similar 
 principle of formation may not have operated at a more 
 ancient period; whether, for instance, the Latin uvidus may 
 not be etymologically connected with our wet, and the Sla- 
 vonic voda, water. The Celtic, Slavonic and Lithuanian 
 words corresponding with Sanscr. upa ) upari; Goth, uf, under; 
 Germ, ubar, over; show no traces of a prepositive vowel: 
 the initial u of the latter class of words may therefore have 
 been evolved from a consonant according to the same ana- 
 logy. It will not be denied that it was just as possible in 
 the nature of things for grvar or war to become iibar , as for 
 
 * This word, with its derivative kolasa (Polisli\ a wheel-carriage , may 
 perhaps throw somelight on a disputed point of ethnology (Ovid, Trist.) : 
 
 "Gens inculta nimis veliitur crepitante colossa; 
 Hoc verbo currum, Scytha, vocare soles." 
 
 This remarkable word is perfectly Slavonic, both as to its root and ter- 
 mination. The few words of ancient Scythian that have reached us gener- 
 ally correspond with Slavonic, Teutonic, Medo-Persian, or some other 
 Indo-European dialect. We may hence plausibly infer that the Scythians 
 were not, as Rask supposes, Tschndes or Finns, but more nearly allied to 
 the Slaves , if not their direct ancestors.
 
 IN THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 249 
 
 n-ftn/its to become nlHtndns. The prepositive vowel in o/ 
 a spit, compared with Lnt. veru } W. ber, may possibly be 
 an analogous formation. Compare also ofiQipog, otpQvs, with 
 their cognates in other languages. According to the same 
 principle, the Goth, vbils may be related to W. gwall , or 
 Lat. vilisj while the Norse ill-r may have lost its initial. 
 Further examples of a similar process will be given in treat- 
 ing of the liquids. 
 
 With respect to the letter /, Grimm and other German 
 philologists observe that it is the least variable of all sounds, 
 especially at the beginning of words. It is true that in the 
 languages usually compared with each other, / as an initial 
 is seldom replaced by any other simple consonant. The 
 Sanscrit affords examples of inter-change between / and r: 
 e. gr. lohita and rohita, red; loman and rdman, hair; but they 
 are not numerous. If however we take a more compre- 
 hensive induction, and inquire at the same time whether the 
 ordinary / of the Greek, Latin, and Teutonic languages 
 may not occasionally be represented by a more complex 
 sound, we shall discover phenomena which at all events 
 appear to deserve a careful investigation. We may observe 
 as a preliminary to the present inquiry, that an Englishman 
 or German is apt to take a limited view of the subject, 
 because he only knows of one power of the letter /, and 
 naturally supposes that the same is the case in all other 
 languages. This however would be a very erroneous im- 
 pression. The Armenian, for example, has two perfectly 
 distinct elements: one, at least in the modern language, 
 answering to the ordinary English or Latin /, and another, 
 which, whatever may have been its ancient pronunciation, 
 has now assumed that of gh, guttural. Several Slavonic dia- 
 lects have also two distinct fs; the difference between them 
 is not hoAvever easily rendered intelligible through the medium 
 of our own language. The Welsh also possesses a twofold 
 element of this class: one secondary, that is, only employed 
 in construct or compound words, and not differing in power 
 from the same character in our own language; and another 
 primary, usually, for want of a better sign, written //. 
 
 This character, invariably used at the beginning of words 
 not in grammatical construction, is sometimes erroneously 
 compared to the initial II in Spanish llano, llamar, &c. It has 
 however a totally different power, bearing nearly the same 
 relation to a simple / that our th does to t: indeed it is some- 
 times described by Englishmen as equivalent to thl] but 
 though this combination approximates in some degree to the 
 sound, it contains too much of a dental admixture. Though
 
 250 ON CERTAIN INITIAL LETTER-G'UANGES 
 
 the same sound has not as yet been found in any other lan- 
 guage, there is no doubt of its great antiquity; and it is 
 believed that the cxistenee of it in Welsh may serve as a 
 clue for the explanation of certain apparent anomalies in other 
 tongues. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to say, that when people attempt 
 to express articulations difficult or impracticable to their vocal 
 organs, they try to represent them by the best substitutes 
 that they can find. Englishmen, when they employed Welsh 
 proper names learnt by the ear, were aware that their own 
 simple I conveyed no adequate idea of //, and the common 
 resource was to employ fl in the place of it. Thus Shaks- 
 pcare's Fluellin is merely a Saxon transformation of Llewe- 
 lyn, and the surname Floyd, which has now become fixed, 
 is nothing more than Llwyd or Lloyd, adapted, or attempted 
 to be adapted, to English organs. Now if we suppose that 
 the sound of the Welsh II, or a still older articulation out 
 of which it was formed, existed in the parent language of 
 the Indo-European class, and was gradually disused by va- 
 rious tribes in the course of their divergence from the ori- 
 ginal stock, it is obvious that substitutes would be employed 
 for it, varying according to circumstances. Some nations 
 might express it in one w r ay, and some in another, but all 
 would endeavour to convey an idea of the original sound as 
 nearly as their vocal organs permitted them. 
 
 If therefore we take the known English instances of Floyd 
 and Fluellin as a criterion , we might expect to find other 
 and still older examples of the same substitution. The follow- 
 ing list of words, which might be greatly augmented, ap- 
 pears to give some countenance to this supposition: 
 
 llab, stroke flap. 
 
 llac, slack, relaxed flacddus , Lat. 
 
 llawr, area flour. 
 
 llawv, palm of the hand. . . . folmc, Ger. 
 
 llawr, many fleira, Isl. 
 
 Hetty, dwelling fletl, Anglo-Sax. 
 
 luath, Gael, swift fliotr, Isl.; (led, Eng. 
 
 Sometimes, by an easy change, b or p appear instead of/. 
 
 llacluaw , to beat, lick plaga, L. ; placu, I strike, Lith. 
 
 llawn , full plenus. 
 
 leach , Bret, place plecus, Lith.; plcck , Lane. 
 
 ledan, broad , Lat. latus . . . . Ttkarvg; plains, Lith. 
 
 lyj a, it rains, Lith pluil, Lat. 
 
 IQVCO, I wash pluuju, I rinse, Lith. 
 
 A
 
 IN THE INDO-EUHOl'EAN LANGUAGES. 251 
 
 lein, Bret, summit ....... bleun, W. 
 
 llian, linen ........... blianl, O.-Eng. fine linen, &c. 
 
 Sometimes a vowel seems to be inserted, in order to faci- 
 litate the pronunciation: - 
 
 llavar, speech .......... palabra, Span. * 
 
 ll;i\vv, palm, Gael, lamh, hand 
 
 This resolution into a liquid preceded by a labial is by 
 no means the only one which the class of words under con- 
 sideration appears to admit of. It has already been observed, 
 that one of the Armenian letters related to / has in more 
 recent times assumed the sound of gh. A similar phseno- 
 menon is presented by the Spanish language, in which the 
 Latin // not unfrequcntly becomes a pure guttural, as in 
 mufjcr from mulicr , and Jtoja from folium. MoAi$ and fioytg 
 exhibit the same species of affinity; it is therefore not sur- 
 prising to find words commencing with / in one dialect, in 
 another exhibiting this element in connexion with c, ff, or 
 / . A few examples will show the matter in a clearer light. 
 
 llavar, speech ......... klavre, Dan. to prate. 
 
 llai , mud ............ clay. 
 
 llais, voice ........... gfas, Slav. 
 
 llathru, to shine ........ glitter. 
 
 llawtl, a youth ......... glott, O.-Swed. 
 
 llavn, blade .......... glafwcn, O.-Swed. a lance. 
 
 laeccan, A.-S. to seize) , . n , 
 
 ' . , T , , , .... qlacaim , Gael. 
 laikau, Lith. I hold .1 
 
 luppu, Lith. I strip ...... glubo, Lat. 
 
 There is a still further modification of this element, perhaps 
 more extensively prevalent than any of the others. The 
 Welsh // has a sort of sibilant sound, easily reducible to si 
 by organs unable to pronounce it or the English th, as is 
 notoriously the case with most of the Indo-European nations. 
 Accordingly we find that words with this initial frequently 
 reappear in Gaelic and Teutonic under the form si, or in 
 the modern German schl , as will appear from the following 
 instances: 
 
 llaciaw, to beat ......... slacair, Gael. 
 
 lladyr, theft .......... slad, 
 
 llai, mud . . . . , ....... slaib, 
 
 Hath, rod, lath ......... slat, - 
 
 llovyn, lock of hair ...... slanihagan, 
 
 Ihvyvan, an elm ....... -. sleamhan, 
 
 llil, host, army ......... sluagh,
 
 252 ON CKRTA1N INITIAL LETTER-CHANGES 
 
 llivaw , to grind schleifen , Germ. 
 
 llawg , swallowing schlucken, 
 
 Harp, rag slarfwtt, O.-Swed. 
 
 The above examples, to which many others might be ad- 
 ded, appear to establish the fact, that words with the initial 
 / are liable to have this element modified by a labial, gut- 
 tural or sibilant prefix. It is not perhaps possible, with our 
 present means of information, .to lay down any single rule, 
 capable of accounting for all those modifications. It might 
 be conjectured that the forms with prefixes are the more 
 original , and that the Welsh // for example represents several 
 distinct classes of conjunct consonants, in the same way as 
 the Spanish llamar, llama and Hag a are respectively to be 
 referred to clamare, flamma and plaga. It is however a serious 
 objection to this theory that the same root not unfrequently 
 appears under all the different forms, and has sometimes a 
 twofold aspect even in the same dialect. 
 
 Thus besides llab, a stroke or blow, we have the forms 
 dab, flap, slap] German, klopfen , to beat; Slavon. klepati: 
 along with the Germ. Ian, lukewarm, we have W. clannr; 
 Gr. ^/U'apog; Belg. flauw', O.-Swed. flia, to thaw; and along 
 with W. llwfr , E. lubber, appear the O.-Swed. flepr, Gael. 
 sliobair, in the same sense. Again it might be supposed that 
 the simple liquid sound is the original one, and that the 
 labials, gutturals and sibilants are distinct prefixes, bearing 
 some analogy to prepositions, and having formerly a distinct 
 meaning which cannot now be traced. This is undoubtedly 
 possible, and might be supported to a certain extent by 
 actual examples. We know that the Anglo-Saxon blinnan, 
 to cease, and Germ, bleiben, to remain, are no simple verbs, 
 but compounds of bilinnan and biliban; and in the Slavonic 
 dialects an immense number of words, commencing with si 
 or vl, require the removal of the initial in order to arrive 
 at the real root. 
 
 There are however many cases in which it would be un- 
 safe to apply this solution. Supposing the Armenian lou or 
 lov, a flea, to be a genuine original form, it is not likely 
 that it should be transformed into floh, Mocha, pnlex and 
 V>vAA, without any visible reason or change of meaning, 
 by means of a prefix with which it could very well have dis- 
 pensed. Again, the Arm. Inset, to hear or listen, has in 
 other languages the counterparts kiu, hlu , shin, sru, while 
 in the Pali and in certain Greek forms, the supposed radical 
 liquid entirely disappears, e. gr. Pali svyate, he irf heard = 
 Gr. KKOVETKL. It appears much more likely, a priori, that
 
 IN THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 253 
 
 all these forms are organic modifications of the same primitive 
 root, than that they should be compounds, made out of dif- 
 ferent elements, in languages closely related to each other. 
 
 If one might venture to hazard a conjecture on a point 
 respecting which there is confessedly no evidence beyond 
 that afforded by an inductive comparison of forms, it would 
 be a suggestion analogous to that lately proposed respecting 
 the digamma and its cognates, namely, that none of the 
 known forms are, strictly speaking, original; but that all 
 have branched out of some still older element, capable, 
 according to known phonetic laws, of producing them all. 
 It has been shown that the archetype of the digamma, 
 whatever it was, has given birth to labials, hard and soft, 
 gutturals, palatals, and sibilants; and that the Wesh //has 
 within the last few centuries been resolved into fl: it is there- 
 fore very possible that it may itself be the descendant of a 
 stronger and fuller sound, capable of being modified in various 
 ways. The comparison of a few cognate forms may serve 
 as a groundwork for an attempt. to reduce the varieties to one 
 standard. 
 
 The Latin Us, lifts, corresponds pretty accurately in form 
 with W. Hid, anger, strife; and with these the Anglo-Saxon 
 flytan, to scold, quarrel, and the Lettish kilda, strife, may 
 very well have affinity, according to analogies already 
 pointed out. In like manner locus agrees regularly with Bret. 
 leach , with which Lith. plecus and Lancash. pleck appear to QC V ^ 
 be cognate. But further, Quintilian has preserved two re- 
 markable archaic forms, stlis and stlocus, initial combinations 
 of which there is only one other example in Latin, viz. 
 stlalarius, apparently connected with talus. Now, assuming 
 a primitive articulation bearing some analogy to the Welsh 
 //, but with a certain admixture of the guttural element, it 
 is not difficult to conceive that/7yfrm might be evolved from 
 it in the same way as Floyd has sprung from Lloyd; kilda, 
 according to the analogy of O.-Swed. glafrven from W. llavn, 
 and stlis, like slarfwa from W. Harp. The insertion of the 
 dental may be explained on the principle of euphony, the 
 combination si not being tolerated in Latin. A parallel in- 
 stance occurs in Fr. esclave, esclavie, where the guttural 
 is not radical, but inserted to prevent the collision of s and 
 /. Benfey compares Germ, streiten, to strive, and Sanscr. 
 snni , an enemy; if the latter is really cognate, it would 
 furnish another argument against the originality of the dental 
 in stlis and sllocus. 
 
 The synonyms for milk show a still greater variety of 
 forms, all of which are however reducible to one origin.
 
 254 ON CERTAIN INITIAL LETTER-CHANGES 
 
 Lat. l<tc\ AV. Uaclh, blith; Gael, b'lt'ffh" Gr. 
 
 Slav, mlit'l;; A.-S. mcolc\ Lat. mult/co, 1 milk; Lith. MC/:><: 
 
 Gr. ttjt&yti). Respecting the interchange of b and / as ini- 
 
 tials, compare Sanscr. bru, Zend mn'i, Bohem. mlnwiti, to 
 
 speak; Saner, mrilas, Gr. /Jpo'rog, a mortal; witli many 
 
 others. 
 
 The above examples, selected from a much greater num- 
 ber, show, it is conceived, that Pictet was far from being 
 justified in broadly stating that the Celtic / accurately cor- 
 responds with the Sanscrit one (including of course the other 
 cognate dialects) in every situation. It is believed, on the 
 contrary, that few elements are capable of a greater variety 
 of modifications, for the view we have just taken by no 
 means exhausts the subject. Many instances might be given 
 of / being completely vocalized, or converted into an arti- 
 culation of a class totally distinct from its own ; but they 
 do not so properly belong to the present division of our 
 subject, which professes only to treat of the modifications 
 of initial sounds. It is presumed that enough has been ad- 
 vanced to show that the scale of permutations in the Indo- 
 European languages, as laid down by Grimm and Pott, will 
 admit of being considerably extended beyond the limits which 
 they have assigned; and that it is very unsafe to fix upon 
 Sanscrit or any other known language as a model to which 
 all others are to be referred. It is believed that there are 
 numerous phenomena in language of which neither Sanscrit, 
 Greek, Teutonic, nor all in conjunction, can furnish a satis- 
 factory solution; and that the real original articulations of 
 speech have in many cases yet to be ascertained. This can 
 only be attempted by a copious induction of all known va- 
 rieties of cognate forms, and all that we can rationally expect 
 to achieve is an imperfect approximation to the truth. 
 
 Reasons have now been given for believing that in many 
 cases the initial / is not, strictly speaking, an original 
 sound, but a modification of a more complex element, which 
 was equally capable of becoming a labial, a guttural, or a 
 sibilant combined with the simple I. There appear to be 
 grounds for extending the same theory mnlalis ntitlundis 
 to the other liquids r and n, sonic of which it is proposed 
 briefly to consider. 
 
 It has been already observed, that an Englishman on- 
 ly acquainted with one sound of the letter 7, is apt to 
 take a limited view of the subject. The same remark is 
 equally applicable to the other liquids, especially to r. 
 A native of our southern counties, accustomed to enun- 
 ciate this element with a delicate, sometimes scarcely per-
 
 IN THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 255 
 
 ceptible vibration, naturally thinks his pronunciation the 
 standard and only genuine one, and regards every marked 
 deviation from it as a defect in utterance or a provincial 
 peculiarity. Nevertheless there are few foreigners who do 
 not give it a much stronger dental intonation, nearly resem- 
 bling the one still current in Westmoreland, while in North- 
 umberland and some parts of Germany, the sound meant 
 for r has no lingual vibration at all, but becomes a deep 
 guttural, neither very easy to describe nor to imitate, but 
 almost exactly corresponding to the Arabic c, ghain. 
 
 The further we pursue the inquiry the more complicated 
 it becomes. In Tamul there are three r's, one ordinary and 
 two cerebral; in Hindostam two, one of which is cerebral; 
 in Armenian a soft and a hard ; in several Slavonic dialects 
 a soft one, nearly corresponding to the Sanscrit rY, and a 
 peculiarly harsh one, including a sibilant admixture. In 
 Welsh, the common soft r is unknown as a primary initial 
 of words, the aspirate form < ^_being invariably considered 
 as the primitive. The same appears to have been the case 
 in Greek ; and in certain districts of the Tyrolian Alps, 
 every initial r is attended by a strong aspirate, the com- 
 bined sound of which, according to Schmeller, may be re- 
 presented by Jifir. In some adjoining districts the vibration 
 entirely disappears, the aspirate alone remaining, especially 
 in the middle of words: thus for example, fort becomes fuhht, 
 and gar ten , gahhtcn. 
 
 In some languages r is frequently commutable with other 
 letters, particularly / and d\ while in others it is altogether 
 wanting, as for example in Chinese and some African and 
 American dialects, where /, d, s, n, are substituted for it, 
 according to circumstances. We have neither the leisure 
 nor the means for investigating and accounting for all the 
 above variations, to which others might be added, as many 
 of the dialects in question have neither been grammatically 
 analysed, nor sufficiently compared with their cognates. We 
 shall therefore, for the present, confine ourselves chiefly to 
 that class where the element appears in intimate connexion 
 with an aspirate or a guttural. 
 
 As the general progress of languages is tOAvards the atte- 
 nuation and softening of articulations, it may be assumed 
 that the aspirated forms in Welsh, Greek and other lan- 
 guages are more original than their weaker correspondents, 
 the latter, at least in Welsh, being regarded as gramma- 
 tical modifications of the former. In other words, the aspi- 
 ration is not adventitious or capriciously employed, but in- 
 
 ryfri^-tilfi ,/ 
 
 ' k
 
 256 ON CERTAIN INITIAL LETTER- CHANGES 
 
 herent, and to a certain extent essential. And as we know 
 that the aspirate is in innumerable cases a mere modification 
 of a still stronger sound, especially of the gutturals A' or y, 
 to which in fact it is closely related, it is very possible that 
 the Greek and Celtic aspirated r may not itself be original, 
 in the strict sense of the term, but a softening of a still 
 more primitive sound. This, like many similar theories, is 
 neither to be dogmatically asserted nor capable of direct 
 proof: but it is at all events lawful to inquire whether there 
 may not be some known element of speech hypothetieally 
 capable of accounting for the various phsenomena. 
 
 It has been observed, that the substitute for what we sup- 
 pose to be the true sound of r in Northumberland and some 
 parts of Germany, is an articulation closely resembling the 
 Arabic ghaili. This being formed very deeply in the throat, 
 is obviously capable of being variouly modified. It may be 
 either attenuated to ain , a guttural formed higher in the 
 throat, or still further to a: if uttered with a certain de- 
 gree of vibration, it might be made nearly equivalent to ghr, 
 capable of being softened into yr ; or if prolonged with a 
 nasal intonation, it might gradually become yn or ng. More- 
 over, as it is an articulation of extreme difficulty to those 
 to whom it is not vernacular, it is easy to conceive that 
 other races who have had occasion to adopt Arabic words 
 including this element, would attempt to approximate to the 
 sound, some in one way and some in another, according to 
 the diversity of their vocal organs. Silvestre de Sacy, who 
 observes that this element is a compound of gh and r, and 
 that the sound of it is variously described in Roman cha- 
 racters by gr , ffhr, hr, or rh, compares it to the Provencal 
 r, which apparently does not materially differ from the burr 
 of the Northumbrians. The Persians and Turks give it the 
 sound of our ordinary hard g , while in some parts of Africa 
 it appears to approximate to the r, with a greater or less 
 admixture of a guttural or aspirate intonation. And as there 
 is a great tendency in languages to divide complex elements, 
 it is very possible, a priori, that in the case of an original 
 sound of this nature, one tribe or nation might reject the 
 guttural or aspirate portion of it, and that another might 
 drop the vibration, so that words primarily commencing 
 with ffhain, or something equivalent, might have their re- 
 presentatives in others with an initial </, h, or a simple r, 
 according to circumstances. 
 
 All these gradations appear in the Vedic Sanscrit t/ru'li'li. 
 Iccl. (/re/pa, Welsh rheibiaw , Latin rapio, Irish f/nhlinil. This 
 last-mentioned form follows the analogy of the Pali, in which
 
 IN THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 257 
 
 the r of yrub'h would be elided; and as many words in most 
 Indo - European languages are parallel with the soft forms 
 of Pali or Pracrit rather than with the stronger ones of 
 Sanscrit, it is very possible that capio and rapio may be 
 different forms of the same word. Thus, the Slavonian 
 yreblo, an oar, would in Bohemian become hreblo; in Welsh 
 w r e have, transposing the aspirate, rhrvyf; in Gaelic, without 
 the aspirate, ramh, Lat. remits, while, supposing a liquid to 
 have been elided, the Greek 900*1} may be of the same pe- 
 digree. 
 
 In the above instances and many similar ones , we have 
 nothing but analogy to guide us; but there are cases in 
 which the descent of a simple r from a more complex sound 
 is historically certain. Not to insist upon the softening of 
 the Greek and Welsh aspirate forms in Latin and Gaelic, 
 there are in Icelandic a multitude of words commencing 
 with hr, so strongly articulated, that the Feroese, who 
 write entirely by the ear, regularly represent it by AT. 
 Many of these have their counterparts in Anglo-Saxon , un- 
 der the same form; and there are traces of the employment 
 of the aspirate in the corresponding terms in Old High 
 German. But in the modern dialects, German, Danish, 
 English, &c., the h has entirely disappeared; and there would 
 be no proof of its ever having existed, if we had only the 
 present condition of these languages to guide us. A num- 
 ber of the above words have their counterparts in Welsh, 
 generally under the initials rh: e. gr. A.-S. hrim, hoar-frost, 
 W. rlieiv , Gael, rt-oclh, Engl. rime, Germ. reif. The Greek 
 XQVOS is probably of the same family. The West Riding 
 Yorkshire hime bears a curious resemblance to the Sanscrit 
 /lima , Gr. #~fi, and it is not impossible that a liquid may 
 have been elided in both. If therefore we admit the Ice- 
 landic and Anglo-Saxon forms as the true representatives 
 of the Welsh ones, and the latter again as a single organic 
 element, it seems to follow that all may have descended 
 from some more primitive articulation, originally employed 
 as a simple element, but capable of being subdivided and 
 variously modified. Whether this archetype bore some ana- 
 logy to the Arabic y/ifdn , or the Northumbrian r, or not, is 
 a matter of speculation; it is believed that this theory is 
 sufficient to explain most of the phenomena which we have 
 been considering. 
 
 The originally complex nature of this element may also 
 be inferred from the remarkable fact, that in a number of 
 languages, particularly those of the Tartarian family, it never 
 appears as an initial letter, at least in vernacular words. 
 
 17
 
 258 
 
 ON CERTAIN INITIAL LETTER-CHANGES 
 
 Words ostensibly beginning with it in Turkish will be found 
 on examination to have been adopted from the Arabic, Per- 
 sian , or some European tongue, and even these borrowed 
 terms are occasionally adapted to native organs by prefixing 
 a vowel Orosz, for Rosz, a Russian. The Manchu, Mon- 
 golian and Calmuck strictly adhere to the same analogy. 
 The Basque regularly prefixes a vowel and doulles the con- 
 sonant; a peculiarity adopted in many Spanish words, ap- 
 parently through Basque influence, as may be seen by com- 
 paring arrecife, a reef, with Fr. recif, along with a multitude 
 of others. We may here suggest that it would be a matter 
 of curious speculation to trace the Indo-European words corn 
 mencing with r or its combinations to their equivalents in the 
 Tartarian dialects, supposing any to exist. It is clear that if 
 . they are to be found, it must be under some other form, 
 and the identification of those forms could not fail to clear 
 i up points in philology which are at present involved in ob- 
 scurity. 
 
 It is not meant to affirm that all initial r's are to be 
 accounted for by the theory that we have suggested ; it is 
 only advanced as an hypothesis capable of accounting for a 
 certain class of them. It is generally admitted that the ele- 
 ment in numerous instances is only secondary, being a mere 
 mutation of s, I, n, d, and perhaps of other articulations. 
 Lepsius expresses an opinion , that it is in no case a primary 
 sound, but, as an initial, generally a descendant from an 
 older /. Like many similar conjectures, this is incapable of 
 direct proof; and it may be doubted whether it is sufficient 
 to explain all known phenomena. It is not to be denied that 
 it is the proper solution for particular instances. 
 
 A few examples arc subjoined in illustration of the above 
 points : 
 
 Gael. rarah , an oar] Slav, greblo. 
 
 ran, a cry] Sc. croon. 
 
 rbbach, coarse; Germ. grob. 
 Welsh rhad, Lat. gratia. 
 
 rhathu, Eng. grate, 
 rhawth, gluttony] Sc. greed. 
 
 rhegen , landrail ; crake, 
 rheibiaw, to snatch] Eng. grip, crib. 
 rhew,/rosf; Gr. KQ-vog. 
 
 rhinciaw, to gnash] Fr. grincer. 
 rholiaw, to roll] Bavar. krollen. 
 
 rhynu, to shake] Gael, crionaich. 
 Sanscr. rud, to weep] Goth, gretan.
 
 IN THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 259 
 
 Goth. raupjan, to phick; Eng. crop. 
 
 rikan , to heap up\ Welsh crug, aheap. 
 
 Sometimes the Welsh has the guttural where other languages 
 only exhibit the simple liquid, e. gr. 
 
 Welsh grab, cluster, grape; Germ. rebe. 
 grawn, roe; Sc. raun. 
 
 It would be easy to show that the letter n presents many 
 similar analogies. Thus the Anglo Sax. hnfecan corresponds 
 to Lat. necare, and Jmitu to Welsh nedden, Eng. nit. In the 
 Indo-Chinese, Tartarian and Polynesian dialects, there is 
 an initial nasal n, usually represented by ng, capable of 
 being variously modified. Thus the Chinese ngo, ego, Ti- 
 betan nga , becomes in Burmese no: while the Manchu rela- 
 tive postfix nge appears in Turkish in the form A/, glii. Many 
 similar instances might easily be collected. 
 
 17*
 
 ON THE FORMATION OF WORDS BY THE 
 
 FURTHER MODIFICATION OF 
 
 INFLECTED CASES. 
 
 [Proceedings of the Philological Society, Vol. HI.] 
 
 It is pretty generally admitted by modern German philo- 
 logists that the possessive pronoun in many languages is 
 either directly formed from the genitive case of the personal, 
 or is closely related to it. In many instances the two classes 
 are interchangeable with each other; and there is, in a great 
 majority of languages, a decided resemblance of form: 
 thus me-uSj lu-us, su-us, are naturally referable to me-i, 
 tu-i, su-i, and the German mein-er, dein-er, &c. , with the 
 disjunctive forms der mein-ige, der dein-ige, show an equally 
 close affinity to the personal genitives mein, dem. Now it 
 seems clear that a similar mode of formation is abstractedly 
 possible in other classes of words. Adjectives, in most cases, 
 bear the same analogy to substantives that pronouns posses- 
 sive do to personal, and if one species of words could be 
 formed on the basis of an inflected case, there seems no 
 valid reason why another might not be equally so. Of course 
 we do not here speak of such words as sorrowful, truthful, 
 godlike, respecting the composition of which there is no 
 manner of doubt; but of adjectives like diog, r][iccTLO$, &c., 
 having a common base with the corresponding substantives, 
 but distinguished from them by their application , and by 
 terminations which appear to have no separate meaning. It 
 is not necessary here to repeat what has been advanced on 
 former occasions respecting the significance or non- signifi- 
 cance of those elements; the object of the present paper 
 being to show that there are at the least plausible grounds 
 for believing that many of the words in question are formed 
 from nouns, and not from the nominative or the crude form, 
 but from oblique cases. 
 
 It has been already remarked, that in some classes of lan- 
 guages the whole process of formation is carried on by means 
 of postpositions, generally of a known and determinate signi- 
 fication. One of the most remarkable of these appears to
 
 OX THE FORMATION OF WORDS &C. 261 
 
 be the Basque. In this there are no prepositions, in our 
 sense of the term , nor scarcely any separate particles of 
 relation ; the connection and separation of terms being shown 
 by postfixes respectively denoting of, to, for, in, with, by, 
 and all other ordinary relations of time, place or manner. 
 'When these postfixes are combined w r ith nouns, they are of 
 course equivalent to the cases of corresponding meaning in 
 other languages , and a certain number of them are exhibited 
 as such by the native grammarians. It is one of the many 
 peculiarities of this language , that any case, singular or plural, 
 is capable of becoming the basis of a fresh formation. Every 
 case of a noun , or every person of a verb may be made to 
 constitute a fresh stem, capable, according to circumstances, 
 of being conjugated as a verb, declined as a new noun or 
 adjective, or employed as an adverb. This unlimited capa- 
 bility of expansion is of course subject to some restrictions 
 in practice, and the majority of derivatives obtained in this 
 way will, be found to consist of abstract nouns and adjectives. 
 Thus L'Ecluse, in his 'Grammaire Basque,' observes that 
 four adjectives may be formed from the oblique cases of every 
 noun , generally from those which correspond to the genitives 
 and datives in other languages. For instance, egun-eco, for 
 a day, one of the datives of eyun, by appending the post- 
 positive article becomes egunecoa, daily, which is in itself 
 capable of being carried through a long series of inflections. 
 In like manner, ceru-co, lurreco, datives of ceru, heaven, 
 lurra, earth, form ceru-co- a, heavenly, lurrecoa, earthly: 
 gen. cenicoaren, lurrecoaren, &c. &c. The analysis is simple 
 and obvious, the, or that, for heaven or earth. It is plain 
 that similar words are equally capable of becoming substan- 
 tives if used in a concrete sense. 
 
 The illustrations of this principle furnished by the Hunga- 
 rian language are almost as numerous and important as those 
 supplied by the Basque. The common sign of the genitive, 
 both singular and plural is e, which is in fact itself an ob- 
 lique case of the pronoun of the third person o, and has the 
 force of the Latin sui or ejus. Every noun or pronoun aug- 
 mented with this element, may, as in Basque, become a fresh 
 stem, capable of inflection through all the usual cases. Thus 
 ///-<', gen. of ?/;-, dominus, may become ur-e't (ace.), domi- 
 nicum; ur-e-tol (ablat.), dominico, plur. vr-ak-e, quod est 
 dominorum, &c. This process may be still further varied 
 by the insertion of the pronominal affixes; e. gr. ur-am = 
 dominus mem, may become itr-am-e, qui est domini mei, 
 and so on through all the persons singular and plural. The 
 application of the principle is not confined to the genitive :
 
 262 ON THE FORMATION OF WORDS 
 
 several other formations with postpositions, corresponding to 
 the cases in other languages, are equally capable of becoming 
 new nominatives, not unfrequently used as different parts 
 of speech. Thus the formation called the casus substilutivus, 
 ansAvering to the nuncupalivus or predicative case of the Fin- 
 nish and Lappish grammarians, may be employed either as 
 an adverb or the stem of a verb: e. gr. city a, a father, aly-ul, 
 as or like a father, Germ, vater-lich', konyor , mercy, konyor-ul, 
 in a merciful manner, or as v. a. to pity. The caritive or 
 privative case, formed in Hungarian by the post -positive 
 talan or allan, may equally become an inflected adjective, 
 answering to the German formation in -los: e. gr. atya-Uan, 
 subst. without a father, adj. fatherless; plur. atyatlan-ok == 
 Germ, valer-lose. 
 
 The same principle prevails to a considerable extent in all 
 the Finnish dialects. In these the caritive case is regularly 
 employed as an adjective, sometimes unaltered, and some- 
 times with a slight addition , as Finn, armo, love, affection; 
 caritive case armo-tta, without affection; adj. armotto-m, 
 imfeeling; plur. armottom-al. Other cases may be treated in 
 the same manner : thus armoin-en, merciful, is formed on 
 the basis of the genitive plural, and armoll-men, of the same 
 signification, from the dative singular. Many of the abstract 
 nouns in the Finnish dialects are formed upon the same or 
 similar principles. 
 
 It is readily conceded, that no language of the Indo- 
 European class, in its actual state, exhibits anything ap- 
 proaching to a parallel with the general structure of the 
 Basque. Though there is little doubt that the formative ter- 
 minations of Sanscrit, Greek, Latin, German, &c. were 
 originally postpositions, they are now so closely incorporated 
 with the words to which they are attached, that their sepa- 
 rate existence and proper import can only be inferred by 
 analogical reasoning. Nevertheless there remain partial evi- 
 dences, scarcely equivocal, of the operation of the same 
 principle of formation, leaving room to suspect that a careful 
 investigation might bring to light many others. 
 
 Many examples of adjectives and other words formed from 
 cases, or terminations having the force of cases, of simple 
 substantives, might be produced from a variety of languages, 
 a selection from which will be given in the tables. It is 
 obvious that derivatives from adverbs, prepositions arid other 
 particles are reducible to the same category, it being noto- 
 rious that the great bulk of those words are merely oblique 
 cases of nouns or pronouns. Thus, in Icelandic there are 
 a number of derivatives from the conjunction ef, if; which
 
 BY THE FURTHER MODIFICATION OF INFLECTED CASES. 263 
 
 itself, as may be proved by an extensive induction, is only 
 an ablative or instrumental case of a pronominal root resol- 
 vable into with that; a phrase actually employed instead of 
 ?/, in old English poetry. 
 
 Some obvious examples are furnished by the language of 
 the Ossetes. In this are a multitude of nouns ending in aen, 
 denoting the place appropriated to any particular action, 
 regularly inflected through a variety ot cases in both num- 
 bers. They are all however mere dative cases of the cor- 
 responding abstract nouns: e. gr. zaunaen, a walking -place 
 (ambulatorium), is the dative of zaim, ambulatio, being in 
 fact an elliptical expression of [place] for walking. Several 
 other classes of words are formed from oblique cases of 
 nouns in a manner exactly analogous. The Georgian lan- 
 guage furnishes a curious parallel to the above -specified 
 formation. The particle sa, having, according to Brosset, 
 the force of for, is, when postfixed to a noun, the sign of 
 the dative case, e. gr. marili, salt, marilstf, to salt. But 
 when prefixed, it converts the noun either into a substantive 
 implying use, application, instrument, v. t. q. , or into an ad- 
 jective of possession, quality, &c. Thus sa-marile is a 
 thing for salt, i. e. salt-cellar; while from rvardt, rose, dat. 
 ward-s, are formed sa-warde, adj. rosy, and s-wardi, 
 subst. a rosary or chaplet. It is obvious that the force of 
 the particle is the same, whether postfixed or affixed, and 
 that the slight difference in application is merely for the 
 sake of distinction. Most of the ordinary adjectives of the 
 Ossetes and many Armenian ones are either simple genitives, 
 though capable of inflection when used substantively, or 
 formed from the genitive case with a slight change of form. 
 Similar phenomena are presented by languages of a more 
 decidedly Indo-European structure. For example, in Ger- 
 man there is an unequivocal instance of the formation of an 
 adjective from a dative in the word vorhandener. This is 
 regularly inflected as an adjective of three terminations, both 
 in the indefinite and definite form , and does not differ either 
 in form or application from the great body of words of the 
 same grammatical class. Nevertheless, it is a mere secon- 
 dary formation from the dative plural of hand, in construc- 
 tion with the preposition vor, being in fact nearly equivalent 
 in its composition to the Basque aurre-coa (present = pro 
 facie or conspectu). Several other compounds from hand fol- 
 low the same analogy. 
 
 Another example, equally decisive, is furnished by the 
 Greek Aptog, generally allowed by philologists to be formed 
 from ifpij the ancient dative or instrumental of t'g, force;
 
 264 ON THE FORMATION OP WORDS 
 
 which is also used adverbially by Homer and other epic 
 writers. In fact, the Avord consists of three distinct elements : 
 I, the root cpL, sign of the dative or instrumental case 
 and os, a postpositive pronoun or article bearing the same 
 relation to the aspirated 6 that the Sanscrit root a does to 
 sa; and is altogether the precise counterpart , as to its struc- 
 ture, to the Basque lurre-co-a, earthly, and a multitude of 
 similar words*. 
 
 It is hardly credible that there should be only one word 
 in the Greek language formed upon this principle ; . and a 
 little inquiry will show us a multitude of adjectives, which, 
 judging from their form, may be according very well to the 
 same analogy. Thus there is no difficulty in referring ^ufprj- 
 tiios to the Ionic dative plural tyfUipgtft; and if this is ad- 
 mitted, it will follow that rjpdriog may be equally from the 
 dative singular of ^p, and (tiaios, with a profusion of 
 similar terms, from /3i'a, anciently fiiai. Certain cases extant 
 in Sanscrit and other languages, though not formally exist- 
 ing in Greek and Latin, have nevertheless left traces of 
 their influence; for instance, the Latin run, domi, Gr. o/'xot, 
 and several local adverbs, &c. in i, may be naturally refer- 
 red to the Sanscrit locative in i or e = ai. And as the 
 ancient Attic form for ol'xoi, was ol'xei, this may very well 
 lie at the root of the adj. oixs og. In like manner Greek 
 and Latin adjectives in vog, nits, may possibly be connected 
 with the Sanscrit instrumental case -ena (for -alna). Thus, 
 supposing fiiaiog to be formed from the dative singular, 
 yusQivog may equally be connected with an ancient instru- 
 mental, rjitegiog with a locative, and rj^iQ^0tog with the 
 dative plural. Lapide-us, marmore-us, and a variety of other 
 terminations, may with more or less probability be referred 
 to existing or obsolete inflections of the cognate nouns. 
 
 The above brief sketch might be augmented by examples 
 from nearly all known classes of synthetic languages, there 
 being few which do not in one way or other adopt an in- 
 flected case, or a composition equivalent to a case, as the 
 basis of a new formation. We trace similar phenomena even 
 in languages commonly, though very incorrectly, supposed 
 to be destitute of grammatical relations. In Burmese, simple 
 nouns may become adjectives by means of a prefixed or 
 affixed pronominal particle, sometimes equivalent to a case, 
 and this adjective may again be declined with all postposi- 
 
 * If we assume an ancient dative of vis . corresponding in form to libi. 
 xifti, the proper name Vibius might be formed from it on precisely the same 
 principle as iqpios from i'g.
 
 BY THE FURTHER MODIFICATION OF INFLECTED CASES. 265 
 
 tives usually employed as signs of cases. In Tibetan , which 
 appears to form the connecting link between the Indo-Chi- 
 nese and the Tartarian languages, adjectives and other parts 
 of speech are formed by the addition of demonstrative pro- 
 nouns to the noun -substantive, and the new word thus arising 
 may itself be inflected through a variety of cases singular 
 and plural. If we pass to the Manchu, the Mongolian and 
 other cognate tongues, we find abundant evidence of the 
 same nature; of which we may briefly notice a single item. 
 
 In a former paper on the origin of the genitive case, it 
 was observed, that in the Turco- Tartarian languages that 
 case is formed by the postfix ning (Western Turkish un-nun, 
 presumed on strong inductive grounds to have been origi- 
 nally a relative pronoun. Thus the Eastern Turkish men-ing, 
 genitive of men , I , is used in conjunction with a substantive, 
 just like Lat. meus. In ordinary Turkish it is indeclinable; 
 but in the Tschuwaschian dialect it is inflected through all 
 the cases: e. gr. mamjng , meus, manyng -yng, mei; and so 
 on through both numbers. In all the proper Turkish dialects 
 the disjunctive possessive pronoun is formed by the addition 
 of the ordinary relative ki to the conjunctive form. Thus, 
 Western Turkish 1)en-um-ki\ Tschuwaschian manyng- ki = 
 Germ, der meiniyc] the final element being regularly inflected 
 according to circumstances, as manyng -ki-nyng = des mei- 
 nigeiij where the original pronoun substantive man is aug- 
 mented by the agglutination of three pronominal endings. 
 
 In Galla the same class of elements concur to form a 
 possessive pronoun in a somewhat different order: ko, the 
 oblique form of the pronoun of the first person, has for its 
 dative ko-ii, which in its turn becomes a perfect pronoun 
 possessive by prefixing the relative kan: kan-ko-ti = 6 ffiog. 
 In the Turkish form, the analysis is me- of -who, in Galla 
 who- me -to. 
 
 When we inquire whether any of the corresponding Indo- 
 European terms are capable of a similar resolution, we find 
 in Sanscrit two sets of possessive pronouns: one madlya, 
 Iwadiya , &c. apparently formed on the basis of the ablative, 
 with a suffix identical in form with the ordinary relative ; 
 another mama-ka, tava-ka manifesting the same relation 
 to the genitive, with a suffix corresponding to the interro- 
 gative pronoun, also capable of being employed as a relative. 
 If analogical reasoning is to be allowed in such cases and 
 AVC have frequently no other clue to guide us we are naturally 
 led to the Ibelief that the above -specified Turkish, Galla, 
 and Sanscrit terms, to which many others might be added.
 
 266 ON THE FORMATION OF WORDS 
 
 are all composed of similar elements and were originally 
 combined on similar principles. 
 
 A few examples illustrative of the above views are sub- 
 joined. 
 
 The system of adopting an inflected case as the basis of 
 a new formation is carried out with great regularity, and in 
 the most unequivocal manner , in the Armenian adjective 
 pronouns. The examples furnished by this language arc 
 peculiarly important from its being of the Indo-European 
 family. 
 
 1. es, ego ...... Gen. im , mei, meus. 
 
 2. dou . i ..... - kho , tui ; khoh , tuus. 
 
 3. [iu] ........ iur, sui, suus. 
 
 Plur. J ........... - mer, nostri, noster. 
 
 2 ........... dser , vestri , vester. 
 
 Wanting. 
 
 Demonstratives. 
 sa, hie ......... so-ra ) < 
 
 I . , T / TOVTOV 
 
 da, iste ........ do-ra ) 
 
 na, ille ........ - no-ra o SKSIVOV 
 
 Excepting the slight variation in the second person sin- 
 gular, all the words in the second column are equally geni- 
 tives of the primitives, and nominatives of the possessive or 
 adjective pronouns. In the latter capacity they can be re- 
 gularly declined in all cases of both numbers. Ihis principle 
 of super- formation is applicable in a partial degree to other 
 cases: thus, i 'menj, ablative plural of es, I, may become 
 i 'menj-kh = 01 cc<p' rjpKtv, i 'menj-ilz = tctv acp' rjpav, 
 &c. &c. Even the relative pronoun or, qui, appears to be 
 an abbreviated genitive of 6, quis? 
 
 The Georgian adjective pronouns closely follow the same 
 analogy : 
 
 1 pers. me ....... Gen. cheni, mei, meus. 
 
 2 shen ...... shoni, tui, tuus. 
 
 3 iglii ...... - misi , sui , suus. 
 
 Plur. 1 ......... - chweni, nostri, noster. 
 
 2 . . ....... - thkweui, vestri, vester. 
 
 3 ......... - mathi, avroav, b avrcav. 
 
 All the above forms are regularly inflected throughout; 
 thus cheni, as a possessive, makes gen, chenisa, dat. chem>a } 
 and so of the rest.
 
 BY THE FURTHER MODIFICATION OF INFLECTFD CASES. 267 
 
 In Basque, the possessive pronoun is formed directly from 
 the genitive of the personal by appending the article : 
 
 ene, nere, mei; one-a, nere-a, meus. 
 
 hire , tui ; hirea , tuus. 
 
 bere, sui; berea, suus. 
 
 gure , nostri; gurea, noster. 
 
 zure,vestri; zurea, vester. 
 
 beren, CCVTUV; berena, 6 avrcov. 
 
 The disjunctive or definite possessive form of the Ossetes 
 is according to the same principle, being produced by ap- 
 pending the demonstrative element on to the simple genitive, 
 which is also employed as a conjunctive possessive: 
 
 az , ego Gen. ma, man, mei, meus. 
 
 man-on = Fr. le mien. 
 
 It is believed that the distinctive terminations as, os, us, 
 in Sanscrit, Greek and Latin, had a similar origin. 
 
 It would be endless to multiply examples, as there are few 
 declinable adjective pronouns which do not manifest the 
 same process of formation. Let it be conceded that the La- 
 tin possessive cuj-m, cuj-fi, citj-um, is formed from the 
 genitive of quis, and it immediately follows that meus, tints, 
 suus, with the corresponding forms in the cognate languages, 
 must be placed in the same category. It equally follows 
 that other parts of speech, adjectives for example, might 
 follow the same analogy. To the examples already given 
 the following may be subjoined: 
 
 Mordtvinian (Finnish Dialect). 
 
 Gen. kliv-en, of a stoue, and stony. 
 Dat. salme-nen oculatus. 
 
 Carilive. prav-teme ucpgcov. 
 
 Abl. pak (body) , pak-es pregnant. 
 
 Ossete. 
 
 Gen. lag-ij , of a man , and manly. 
 Dai. bon-jen daily. 
 
 zaun-jen ambulatorium. 
 
 Abl. dor-oj stony. 
 
 Basque. 
 
 Gen. sing, guizon-aren-a, of man, human. 
 
 - plur. guizon-en a 6 uv&fftontov 
 Dat. egun-e-coa daily. 
 
 ceru-co-a heavenly.
 
 268 ON THE FORMATION OF WORDS 
 
 Adjective proper. Bayona-co-a, Fr. Bayonnais. 
 Plur. Indiet-a-co-a, one from the Indies. 
 
 All the above words can be regularly inflected , the oblique 
 case being taken as a new nominative. There is reason to 
 believe that a multitude of apparent nominatives in nearly 
 all synthetic languages are, in reality, oblique cases of more 
 primitive forms, or formed from them by a slight modifica- 
 tion. North American -Indian, and Australian names of 
 places are almost invariably in the locative case, with the 
 force of at, in. Europeans never hearing them in any other 
 form, naturally regard them as nominatives, and regularly 
 use them as such*. It is easy to conceive that many similar 
 phenomena might occur, particularly when the force of the 
 component elements of words came to be less understood. 
 
 We now proceed to a question of considerable importance 
 in philology, namely the true force and analysis of the pre- 
 sent participle in the Indo-Germanic family of tongues. 
 
 It may be assumed as a general maxim, that analytic forms 
 in one language may, and often do potentially correspond 
 with synthetic ones in another, consisting in fact of the same 
 or equivalent elements differently arranged. Though this 
 principle has not been sufficiently kept in view', it is believed 
 that it is capable of illustrating a number of points which 
 have hitherto been misunderstood, or involved in a good 
 
 * Compare the Turkish Islamboul from fig xqv noliv , containing nearly 
 the same elements in an inverse order. 
 
 NOTE. Dr. Donaldson remarks as follows upon some ideas broached in 
 this essay (New Cratylus, pp.474 475, second edition.) 'Mr. Garnett seems 
 to have overlooked the distinction between those nouns which are formed 
 from oblique cases by the mere appendage of a new system of inflexions, 
 and a different class of secondary structures which affix to the new crude- 
 form the pronominal terminations enumerated in a preceding chapter. 
 Thus it is plain to see on the one hand that dVyfio-ffto-g is merely the geni- 
 tive Srjuo-Gio made the vehicle of a new set of case-endings and that %QV- 
 fffo?, %idvto$ &c. are similarly derived from weaker forms of the genitive. 
 But it is equally clear, on the other hand , that a form like i'cpiog contains 
 something more than an oblique case and a new system of case-endings; 
 and a comparison of 'lipixlrjs, Oi-hfvs &c. would lead us to doubt whether 
 
 the first part is to be regarded as merely the dative of t'g There 
 
 seems to us to be the same objection to Mr. Garnett's theory respecting 
 the derivation of the participle from an ablative of the verbal root ' Dr. 
 Donaldson adduces several other instances in support of his views , the 
 essence of which , however, has been already given. The second edition 
 of the New Cratylus appeared only a shoit time before Mr. Garnett's 
 death , and whether the latter might or might not have seen occasion to 
 modify the doctrine of his paper in accordance with the suggestions of his 
 distinguished critic cannot now be known. ED.
 
 B? THE FURTHER MODIFICATION OF INFLECTED CASES. 269 
 
 deal of obscurity. It is well known that in Sanscrit, Greek, 
 Latin, with their descendants, and all the Teutonic and Sla- 
 vonic dialects without exception, the participles of the pre- 
 sent tense are reducible to a common origin, of which the 
 Lat. amans, amanlis, may conveniently be given as the type. 
 But even within the limits of the British islands we find two 
 languages of considerable importance the Welsh and the 
 Irish, which have, strictly speaking, no present participle, 
 but express it periphrastically by means of the infinitive or 
 verbal noun combined with a preposition : e. gr. W. yn sefyll, 
 in standing; Ir. ag seasamh, on standing = in statione, snl 
 TGJ iGravai. If therefore these analytic forms are equal in 
 power to a present participle, it follows that the synthetic 
 participle itself may have been originally an ablative, in- 
 strumental or locative case ; at least in particular languages, 
 for it is not meant to assert that it could not be expressed 
 in any other manner. 
 
 It may not be unknown to the readers of Mr. Donaldson's 
 c Varronianus' that the writer several years ago expressed 
 an opinion that the Sanscrit present participle was origin- 
 ally an ablative of the verbal root, and that the following 
 iip of this position would lead to important consequences in 
 philology. Subsequent researches having tended to confirm 
 this idea, it is now proposed briefly to consider a few of the 
 data on which it is founded. 
 
 The crude form or base of the ordinary present participle 
 active in Sanscrit regularly terminates in -at, some of its 
 inflections being regularly deducible from this stem and others 
 from one augmented with a nasal, analogous to the Lat. 
 -ans*, -antis. Adjectives having the same ending appear to 
 have been originally participles: for instance mah-at, great, 
 may either be an adjective or a modification of the parti- 
 ciple present from the root mrih, to grow. In the first place 
 then it is to be observed, that the syllable at is the regular 
 termination of the ablative case of the a-declension of mascu- 
 line nouns, that is to say, of the great body of nouns in 
 the language. Again, we have reason to believe from the 
 analogy of the Zend, the Oscan, and the ancient Latin, that 
 as, the present ending of the ablative in nouns terminating 
 in consonants, is not the true ancient form, but either a 
 softening of at, or what is more probable, a genitive em- 
 ployed as a substitute for the ablative, the two cases being 
 
 * It is however important, to observe, that the nasal element is by no 
 means essential to the participial formation ; there being whole classes of 
 verbs in which it disappears altogether.
 
 270 ON THE FORMATION OF WORDS 
 
 identical in form, in the singular, in most of the declen- 
 sions.* The existence of a more ancient ablative in til, 
 analogous to the Zend, may be inferred from the pronominal 
 ablatives mat, tvat, asmat, ymhm(tl=me , le , nobis, volris, which 
 may have had their counterparts in the consonantal declension 
 of nouns, either in Sanscrit or in some still more primitive 
 language. It is generally admitted that the personal pro- 
 nouns have, cci'leris paribus , preserved the greatest propor- 
 tion of ancient forms. It has already been shown that in 
 the Celtic languages the periphrastic forms in or on-standing, 
 arc equivalent to the Lat. stans or Germ, slehcnd: to which 
 we may add the familiar phrase a (i. e. on) hunting, pre- 
 cisely corresponding with the Gaelic ay sealgadh. The next 
 step in the investigation is to find actual oblique cases of 
 verbal nouns employed in the same manner. These are so 
 numerous that it will be necessary to confine ourselves at 
 present to a few select instances of this particular con- 
 struction. 
 
 In the Basque language the great majority of verbs con- 
 sist, in the present tense, of an ostensible participle in en 
 or ean, combined with the auxiliary am or have. This sup- 
 posed participle may be employed separately and inflected 
 like any other noun or adjective, and is commonly dismissed 
 by the native grammarians without any particular remark, 
 as being nearly parallel to an ordinary Greek or Latin par- 
 ticiple of the present tense. But the Abbe Darrigol,** the 
 only writer who has discerned the true analysis of the Basque 
 verb, will teach us in what light it ought to be regarded. 
 
 "The expression erorlean signifies in falling; but by what 
 secret? It is this: the point where one is (ubi] is expressed 
 by the positive case (i. e. locative, or case of position): as 
 barnean, in the interior; elchean, in the house, ohean, in the 
 bed, &c. Now, the action which one is at present perform- 
 ing may be regarded as the point where one is, and thence 
 be also expressed by the positive case; whence the phrase 
 erortean is nothing more than the infinitive (verbal noun) 
 erortea, the act of falling, put in the positive case: therefore 
 it signifies literally in the falling (dans le tomber). We are 
 now in a condition to appreciate properly an infinite number 
 of words, commonly called verbs. Let us take for example 
 the ostensible verb "to fall;" it makes in the present tense 
 
 * Compare the French de , employed both as the sign of the genitive 
 and the ablative. 
 
 ** Dissertation critique et apologe'tique snr la Langue Basque, pub- 
 lished anonymously, but known to be the work of M. Darrigol.
 
 BY THE FURTHER MODIFICATION OF INFLECTED CASES. 271 
 
 erorten niz, I fall; erorten hiz , thou fallest &c. If what we 
 have said of the expression erortean is correct, the phrase 
 crorlcan niz must denote I am in the falling, or in the act of 
 falling. It is true that we say by syncope erorlen for cror- 
 teuu ; but of what consequence can the suppression of the a 
 be, since we say indifferently according to the dialect, et- 
 c he an , etchen , or etchin, in the house? If however any im- 
 portance is to be attached to this vowel , we may be allowed 
 to believe that its absence denotes the absence of the article, 
 which does not appear improbable. It follows from this ob- 
 servation that in the formulas of the present tense, erorten 
 niz, erorten hiz, &c., the word erorlen, which expresses the 
 action of falling, is not a verb, but, in reality, a noun in 
 the positive case." 
 
 The author proves with equal evidence that the other 
 tenses of the Basque regular verb are formed on the same 
 principle, and correspond to different cases of nouns, the 
 perfect to a dative signifying to, and the future to another . 
 dative with the sense of for. This is so completely the case, p- 
 that the very same words are indifferently oblique cases of 
 nouns or tenses of verbs according to circumstances. Baratcen, 
 Ixiratceri, baralceco, may either be m, to, or for a garden 
 (y. d. a resting-place), or with the proper auxiliaries may 
 denote cesso, or quiesco, cessavi, cessabo. It is highly credit- 
 able to the sagacity of the Abbe Darrigol to have satisfac- 
 torily resolved a point which had not only escaped the notice 
 of the Basque grammarians, but even of the illustrious 
 William Humboldt. 
 
 By the aid of the light derived from this language we 
 may be enabled to discover similar phenomena in many 
 others. In a multitude of languages in all parts of the 
 w r orld, we find tenses of verbs formed from the verbal noun 
 by means of postpositions, which again often correspond 
 with the cases of the same element employed as a substan- 
 tive or adjective. 
 
 In the structure of the participle, the Hungarian, especially 
 as written in the fifteenth century, equals the Basque in the 
 importance and clearness of its forms, and exceeds it in 
 their variety. More than a dozen different forms equivalent 
 to the Latin participle in -ans or -ens occur in the ancient 
 Gospels published by Dobrentei, nearly every one of which 
 is resolvable into the verbal root, accompanied by postfixes 
 denoting for, in, on, with. The one ending in -va, -ve, 
 commonly used in construction, is, when employed absolutely, 
 nearly equivalent to the Latin gerund in do, or ablative 
 absolute; thus ditser-ve, from the root ditser, praise, might
 
 272 ON THE FORMATION OF WORDS 
 
 be rendered laudando, laudante, or simply laudans. For the 
 sake of further emphasis it may be augmented by the par- 
 ticle an, en = super, in: tnond-va-n, saying; dilser-ve-n, 
 praising. These are the forms commonly used in the modern 
 language; and taken analytically, they are rather gerunds 
 than participles in apposition, as this part of speech is 
 commonly understood. But in the ancient language, those 
 ostensible gerunds are capable of being regularly inflected 
 through cases and numbers: e. gr. rak-va, cedificans , dat. 
 rak-va-nak = cedificanti, ace. rak-va-t = cedificanlem , plur. 
 rak-va-k = cedificantes. These forms admit of no other ana- 
 lysis than cm, quern, qui in cedificalione , or in cedificando, 
 being in fact precisely equivalent to the Welsh y rhai yn 
 adeiladu, those building. For the sake of rendering the 
 logical copula more precise and complete, this form is often 
 augmented with pronominal suffixes in statu obliquo : e. gr. 
 mond-va-m; dicens (ego); mond-va-d , dicens (tu) ; mondva- 
 jok, dicentes (illi). This presents a remarkable analogy to 
 the Galla language, in which the presents participle, being 
 in fact a dative case of the verbal noun, is construed with 
 pronominal suffixes in exactly the same manner: as adema, 
 act of going; dat. ademe-li, ademe-ne-ti, I going; literally, for 
 going of me. The Welsh ynei dywedi= dicens, (ille), literally, 
 in ejus dictione, contains the same elements expressed in a 
 more strictly analytic form. 
 
 Other examples of Hungarian participles, equally clear 
 in their analysis, and important in their bearing upon ihe 
 theory in question, will be given in the tables. The inves- 
 tigation of the cognate forms of the Finnish family of ton- 
 gues is rendered difficult by the recent state in which we 
 now possess them, and the extreme imperfection of most of 
 their grammars. Nevertheless they occasionally present 
 valuable illustrations of the operation of the same principle. 
 Gamander and Rask long ago observed that the Lappish 
 present participle is nothing more than an oblique case of 
 the verbal noun: as orrom, state of being; particip. orrom-en, 
 literally, in or for being. (Jastren remarks that other dia- 
 lects present the same construction with slight variations in 
 form. 
 
 Passing over for the present the examples afforded by 
 the Tartarian and some African languages, we shall pro- 
 ceed to those of the Indian peninsula. In most of the Hind- 
 ustani dialects the tenses of the regular verb are composed 
 of participles combined with an auxiliary, which participles 
 again often correspond in form with the oblique cases of 
 nouns. We shall at present confine our attention to the
 
 BY THE FURTHER MODIFICATION OF INFLECTED CASES. 273 
 
 Mahratta, which appears to present several interesting phse- 
 nomena. 
 
 Dr. Stevenson observes, in his Mahratta Grammar, that 
 sutun, a past participle of sut-ane , to get loose, is formed 
 from the root by means of the postposition -Tin. The same 
 element is also employed in the formation of the ablative 
 case: e. gr. ghar-un , fromffhar, a horse. Dr. Stevenson does 
 not give the analysis of the other participles, but it is 
 obvious that the preterite sutalil has a close resemblance to 
 the dative ghardla = equo , and the present participle sutat, 
 an equally close one to the locative ghar-ut. According to 
 this analysis the Mahratta and Basque participles would run 
 pretty nearly parallel to each other , the sense deducible 
 from the latter being equally applicable to the former. Other 
 Indian dialects present similar phenomena; but the. point 
 which we are at present most interested in ascertaining is, 
 what evidence there is for regarding the Sanscrit present 
 participle, with which that of most European languages is 
 closely connected, as an oblique case of the verbal root, 
 considered as an abstract noun. 
 
 It might be supposed that if confirmations of this theory 
 were to be found anywhere, they would be most likely to occur 
 in the oldest monuments of the language. The grammatical 
 peculiarities of the Vedas are unfortunately little known, at 
 least to the public, but it is believed that evidence of some 
 importance may be gleaned from Rosen's confessedly imper- 
 fect Notes on the Rig- Veda. One doubt which suggets itself 
 is, whether an ablative or other oblique case could govern 
 another noun in the same way that a Latin participle appears 
 to govern an accusative or dative. On this point Rosen 
 observes, p. lv., with respect to the expression surgam dri'se 
 (nearly parallel to Gr. rjhov ogduari, instead of ijAt'ov), "This 
 employment of the mere verbal root, placed in the sense of 
 a numen actionis, and accompanied by an accusative, is re- 
 pugnant to the custom of the more recent language." He 
 gives a number of examples of verbal roots inflected in va- 
 rious cases , some governing other nouns , and some not ; but 
 serving to establish two points, first, that the verbal root 
 is capable of being inflected like a noun, and secondly, that 
 it may ostensibly govern an accusative case*. 
 
 The next question which arises is , whether the crude par- 
 ticiple ever appears to perform the functions of the fuller 
 form. On the compound vidadvasum , q. d. knowing treasure, 
 
 * Compare the construction in Plautns : "Quid tibi earn est tactio.'' The 
 writer is indebted for this important illustration to Professor Key. 
 
 18
 
 274 ON THE FORMATION OP WORDS 
 
 Rosen remarks, "I now prefer believing that this is com- 
 pounded of the participle vidat and the substantive vasn, so 
 that the latter depends on the former. Compare the fragment 
 of an ancient poem, quoted by Yaska, vidadvasur , thesau- 
 rorum gnarus. This license which we see employed by 
 the ancients, of forming compounds in such a manner that 
 the participle of the verb active is prefixed to a noun, which, 
 if the composition is dissolved, is found to be governed by 
 the verb , afterwards became obsolete. Examples of words 
 thus compounded are: bharadvaja, sacra ferens; mandayal- 
 sakha, amicos exhilarans; kshctyad-vira , viros necans, &c. 
 Unless I am mistaken, examples of this construction abound 
 in the writings of the Greek poets , but under a somewhat 
 altered aspect. For in the first place, the dental letter, the 
 proper termination of the crude participle (bliarat , kshaynl: 
 compare rvitrovr- amant- , instead of the primitives rvyiror- 
 (tmal-) according to a well known law of Greek euphony, is 
 changed into the sibilant, so that 
 zla[id6-i7tiio$ stand for qppr-/3)g 
 
 JTOg, &C." 
 
 This analysis of the Greek compounds must be allowed 
 to be ingenious and plausible; what we are chiefly con- 
 cerned to observe is, that the crude form of the participle 
 was regularly employed in composition by the most ancient 
 Sanscrit writers, virtually, if not formally, affecting the 
 noun with which it was joined. The same form also ap- 
 pears to be employed absolutely in the Vedas: thus drnrut 
 (Rig-Veda, p. 3, 1. 2), rendered celertter by Rosen, seems 
 to be formed from dru , currere, according to the analogy 
 of bhaval from bhu , and might be indifferently rendered (ac- 
 codite) currentes, currendo , cvrsu, or cursim. 
 
 With respect to the termination of the Sanscrit ablative, 
 Bopp regards it as formed by the postposition (77, itself a 
 modification of the pronominal root a. It is not unimportant 
 to observe that this element appears to exist in an indepen- 
 dent form in the Vedas. On the participle at (Rig-Veda, 
 p. 0,1. 1) Rosen remarks, "Probably at is the ancient 
 ablative of the same pronominal theme a, the genitive of which 
 is asija, discharging the office of an adverb, and employed 
 
 in the same sense as tatah, atah The 
 
 Zend adver-.b dal, tune, deinde , is doubtless of the same ori- 
 gin and structure." 
 
 The Lithuanian and Lettish languages also present some 
 interesting phenomena, which are more valuable on account 
 of the close relationship confessedly subsisting between 
 these tongues and the Sanscrit. In the former, the present
 
 BY THE FURTIIEH MODIFICATION OF INFLECTED OASES. 275 
 
 participle e. gr. jesskas (the latter vowel nasal), fern. 
 jesskanti from jessk.au, I seek shows at once its identity 
 with the Sanscrit and its congeners, being evidently a soft- 
 ening oi jesskan-t-s , as Lat. aman-s of aman-t-s. This form 
 of the Lithuanian participle does not differ materially in 
 construction or inflection from its correspondent in Sanscrit, 
 except that the development of the neuter gender is more 
 restricted. But there is an indeclinable modification of it 
 in -ant, sometimes employed as an infinitive, sometimes as 
 a gerund, and, in certain constructions, as a participle, 
 which bears a remarkable analogy to the crude form of the 
 Sanscrit; jcssk-anl, to seek, in seeking, or simply, seeking. 
 The relation of this element to the inflected participle is 
 proved by the fact that each of the four participles , present, 
 imperfect, perfect, and future, has its corresponding inde- 
 clinable. That it has moreover the force of an ablative, in- 
 strumental, or locative case, may be inferred not only from 
 its employment as a gerund in do-jesskant = qucerendo but 
 moreover from its being regularly used in construction with 
 a dative or ablative noun: diewui dudant=Dco dante ; duk- 
 terei jesskant = /ilia quti'irnle, exactly equivalent to Latin 
 ablatives absolute, except that the participial element does 
 not appear to be declined , it being considered unnecessary 
 to add further inflection to a word already containing the 
 force of an ablative within itself. 
 
 The Lettish forms present a remarkable analogy to those 
 Sanscrit participles which reject the nasal. The absolute 
 or indeclinable form dnhdohl, almost identical with Sanscrit 
 dadai , by adding a terminational s, the sign of the mascu- 
 line gender in Lithuanian and Lettish as well as Gothic, 
 becomes a present participle, capable of inflection throughout 
 both numbers, dohdohts = 8C8av, fern, dohdoti. Both forms have 
 in various constructions the force of a dative or ablative: 
 c. gr. es dsirdeju eijoht . I heard while going, i. e. in going; 
 saulitei lezzoht = sole orientc : also in phrases expressing 
 contingency: ne weens essohi mahjas, if, lest, v. I. q. no one 
 be at home, i. e. no one in being: nl-eeschoht , if he comes, 
 i. e. in (the case or circumstance of) his coming. The ori- 
 ginal structure of these forms can only be inferred by in- 
 ductive and analogical reasoning ; as nothing like direct his- 
 torical testimony can- be expected with regard to the phe- 
 nomena of a language of which there are no monuments older 
 than the sixteenth century. But the theory that the so-called 
 infinitives or gerunds, Lith. jesskanl , Lott. dnhdfihf , were 
 originally ablative forms, convertible into declinable parti- 
 
 18*
 
 276 ON THE FORMATION OF WORDS 
 
 ciples by the addition of a pronominal termination, is sup- 
 ported both by external and internal evidence, and appears 
 amply sufficient to account for the peculiar force of the 
 words and all other phenomena. If this be conceded res- 
 pecting the Lithuanian and Lettish, it must be equally so 
 with regard to Sanscrit, Greek, Latin, and Teutonic, the 
 present participle being indisputably formed on the same 
 model in all. 
 
 With respect to the participle, the evidence may be briefly 
 stated at follows: Languages destitute of this element 
 supply its place analytically by means of the verbal noun 
 combined with a preposition. 2. Other languages represent 
 it by an oblique case of the verbal noun , generally the 
 ablative, locative or dative, which case in certain instances 
 is itself capable of further inflection. 3. Various oblique 
 cases of the verbal root are in ancient Sanscrit employed in 
 a manner analogous to participles, and are even capable of 
 governing nouns. 4. The crude state of the Sanscrit present 
 participle presents a decided analogy to certain forms of 
 the ablative, not only in that language, but in other ancient 
 dialects. 5. Various adjectives in Greek and other tongues 
 appear to be formed from oblique cases of substantives, by 
 adding the sign of the gender ; it is therefore a priori pos- 
 sible that a participle may be formed in the same way. 
 
 It is not meant to be denied that there are certain diffi- 
 culties and objections in the way of this theory, as far as 
 Sanscrit and its immediate cognates are concerned, some of 
 which may possibly be removed when we become better 
 acquainted with the language and the grammar of the Vedas. 
 The strength of the case, it is conceived, lies in the com- 
 bination of evidence afforded by the analytic languages , and 
 those in which the precise force of the component parts 
 is known. Thus, supposing draval to signify running , it is 
 equivalent to the Welsh yn rhedeg , the Basque locative 
 eyaten, the Lapland tvarremen, the Lat. currens, currcndo, 
 cursu, cursim, and the Greek fyapof, $(K>/MO and dQopddrjv. 
 Some of those forms are either decided ablatives or locatives, 
 or potentially equivalent; it is therefore very possible that 
 they may lie at the root of currens, Germ, laufend, &c., 
 though not formally conspicuous. It is certain that this ana- 
 lysis is perfectly adequate to account for the peculiar force 
 and application of the participle, and is capable of being 
 stipported by a much larger induction than it has been found 
 consistent with present limits to give. Some philologists, it 
 is true, regard the formative suffixes of words as a kind 
 of oft'osfi elementa, originally destitute of signification, but by
 
 BY THE FURTHER MODIFICATION OF INFLECTED CASES. 277 
 
 degrees employed to modify the meaning of the terms to 
 which they had been affixed by accident or caprice. It might 
 be replied, that it is difficult to conceive how an element 
 totally unmeaning in itself can modify the meaning of any- 
 thing, and that no such arbitrary process is known to be 
 exercised in any part of the world, in which we have lan- 
 guages exhibiting every possible shade of barbarism and 
 refinement. But there is a consideration which seems to 
 place the improbability of the theory in a still stronger light. 
 When connected language is logically analysed , it is found 
 to consist of a series of subjects, leading and subordinate, 
 connected with certain predicates, either by simple juxta- 
 position or by means of a grammatical copula. This copula 
 is frequently a qualifying suffix, and though formally atta- 
 ched to the predicate, it does not, as a qualifying element, 
 belong to it, but invariably to the subject. This applies to 
 the personal terminations of verbs, the finals of compound 
 adjectives and adverbs, and the characteristic endings of 
 inflected participles. For instance, the -[it, of LGrrj^i be- 
 longs as much to the subject or person as 7 in f l stand/ 
 and in the phrase I/online hero, it is the hero who is charac- 
 terized as being like something not the lion. These, and 
 thousands of similar phrases may be expressed analytically ; 
 and when this is the case, we find that people, if they 
 mean to make themselves understood , employ terms obviously 
 expressing or implying the particular relation which they 
 wish to convex to the mind of the hearer. No man, des- 
 cribing a local relation, says in when he means out, or to- 
 wards instead of from still less does he employ words to- 
 tally destitute of signification; knowing that in the first case 
 he would convey a false idea, and in the latter no definite 
 idea whatever. ^Participation in an action is equally expres- 
 sed by terms significant of the connection bet\veen the sub- 
 ject and the object. A Welshman does not resolve ego cur- 
 rt'ns by means of a negative, disjunction, or unmeaning 
 term-, but says, quite rationally, myfi yn rhedey , I in (or a 
 -= o/> ) running the particle in belonging subjectively to 
 I and only objectively to the act of running. The Hunga- 
 rian arranges the same materials in a different order : I run- 
 niny-in, or occasionally runniny-in-my; and though the phrases 
 appear to be synthetically enunciated, they are just as ca- 
 pable of analysis, and as truly significant in every part as 
 tlieir Celtic equivalents. To deny this, to assert, for ex- 
 ample, that ben in mend-ben, a Hungarian participial phrase 
 for going , is destitute of signification, though when prefixed 
 to pronouns, bcn-ncm, ben-ned, &c,, it clearly denotes in
 
 278 ON THE FORMATION OF WORDS 
 
 me, in thee, would be as absurd as to maintain that though 
 cum, employed separately, means with ^ it has no intrinsic 
 meaning in mecum, tecum. 
 
 Reasoning analogically from the above premises, we may 
 argue, that as the characteristic terminations of Greek and 
 Sanscrit participles, -wi>, -ovGcc, -ov , &c., belong subjec- 
 tively to the person or thing in concord with them, they 
 were originally placed there to express the relation between 
 that subject and the action predicated of it, and that a term 
 or combination of terms intrinsically denoting that relation 
 would not fail to be chosen. Of this we possess a twofold 
 evidence), that of analytic languages, and synthetic lan- 
 guages of which the analysis is certainly known; while all 
 the reasonings on the other side amount simply to the aryu- 
 mentwn ad ignorantiam: "we do not know .the meaning of 
 this element, therefore it never meant anything." Some 
 persons, for example, would maintain that the Sanscrit suffix 
 -vat, used as a formative of adjectives, adverbs and parti- 
 ciples, is naturally void of significance, though in the two 
 former cases it closely corresponds with the German lick = 
 like] and though there was a logical reason for employing 
 it in every instance where it occurs; namely, it qualifies 
 the subject of the proposition, not the term to which it 
 appears to be joined. The origin and primary force of the 
 suffix is matter of conjecture: a theory capable of explain- 
 ing many of its applications is, that like the Latin so-cal- 
 led adverb qui, it is an ablative or locative case of the pro- 
 nominal root va, and conseo.uently capable of denoting /ton; 
 thus, in what manner, like*. The subsequent incorporation of 
 elements expressing gender, number and case is a distinct 
 process, every branch of which is to be explained on its own 
 grounds. In some languages, Hungarian for example, those 
 additions are unequivocally to be recognized as such: in 
 Greek and Sanscrit, in which euphonic considerations have 
 exercised so powerful an influence, they are often only to 
 be inferred from analogical reasoning. The peculiar force 
 of the Sanscrit or Slavonic locative is expressed in a whole 
 multitude of languages formally destitute of that case, by a 
 preposition plainly denoting in ; we may therefore rationally 
 conclude that the locative termination had originally a similar 
 meaning, either expressly or by implication; and that it 
 would never have been employed to express a twofold rela- 
 
 - * Compare cog, as, thus, with the terminatious of xaAtog, KCOKOS, &c. 
 
 (/Compare also the Ossete adjectives in -ay = how. svallon-rtu , child-like, 
 childish.
 
 BY THE FURTHER MODIFICATION OF INFLECTED CASES. 279 
 
 tion between subject and predicate , one moreover absolutely 
 necessary to be made clearly intelligible , unless it had con- 
 veyed the notion of in to the mind the very first time it 
 was used. In all investigations of this sort we may con- 
 fidently lay down the following rule: "Every combination 
 in language is an act of the will and reason of man: con- 
 sequently it was made upon rational grounds, and must be 
 explained on rational principles, and no others." 
 
 Some select examples illustrative of the above views are 
 subjoined: 
 
 Cltincw. The relative or demonstrative particles che , chi, 
 are extensively employed in the ancient language: 1. As 
 formatives of adjectives and abstract nouns: shing-c/?, holy, 
 ching-/6', perfection. 2. To express the genitive case: tien- 
 chi , of heaven. 3. To form the participle : ngwei-c^, doing. 
 
 The correspondent in the modern language is //: e. gr. 
 
 Adj. pe-ft', white. 
 
 Gen. tung-/i, of copper. 
 Parlicip. mai-/i, selling. 
 Burmese. (Prti , verbal root.) 
 
 Get). postfix i * (eug.) , part, pru-i, doing. 
 Abl. ka, parlicip. indef. pru-ka. 
 mlia, pruh-mha. 
 
 Instrumental, nhani , part, phiperf. pru-nhseu prih**. 
 praen , part, indef. pru-sa** prsen. 
 si (thang, thi), part. pres. prusi. 
 Locative. . . mu-kah , part, aorist, pru-rnu-kah. 
 
 All the above participles can be regularly declined in both 
 numbers. Several others are formed by postpositions, equi- 
 valent to signs of cases, though not formally used as such. 
 The particle si (more properly thang or tht), originally a 
 demonstrative pronoun, is remarkable for its strict paral- 
 lelism with the Chinese chi or 1i. Compare the various 
 offices of the Sanscrit element ya as a relative, a sign of 
 the genitive case, a formative of adjectives and participles, 
 &e. &c. 
 
 Tibetan. Pres. particip. (construct, form), gen. jed-pei, 
 doing. Several other participles are formed upon the same 
 principle. 
 
 The analogy appears to run through the Manchu, Mongol, 
 
 * For the sake of uniformity and more ready reference, the orthography 
 of Schleiermaclier's 'Grammaire Barmane' has been followed. 
 
 ** Prih is a sign of a completed action; sa. a connective particle.
 
 280 ON THE FORMATION OF WORDS 
 
 and Turco- Tartarian languages, somewhat modified in the 
 last by the employment of auxiliary verbs. Thus, in Manchu, 
 the future participle is formed by adding the particle ra, 
 re khoacha-r, about to nourish which may in its turn 
 have various signs of eases after it. Dr. W. Schott has 
 shown, by a copious induction from the different dialects, 
 that this formative is a particle denoting for, towards, em- 
 ployed in that sense both with nouns, verbs, and particles. 
 It is remarkable that this element is employed in the same 
 acceptation in a great variety of apparently unconnected 
 languages. 
 
 Basque. Pres. particip. Locative, ethortcen, coming. 
 Preterite . . . Dative. . ethorri. 
 Future .... '2nd Dat. ethorrico. 
 
 Many other participial forms in Basque are equally cases of 
 the verbal noun, or analogous to them in structure. 
 
 Lapland. Locative ', orrom-en, being. 
 
 Hungarian. Present or aorisl, imitative case , moncl-w, saying. 
 Preterite, ancient locative, ditser-, having praised. 
 
 Augmented forms men-ve-n, going. 
 
 mene-o/, 
 meno-ften, 
 mene-fe, 
 eleven-^, living. 
 
 The above forms, used for greater precision or emphasis, 
 are a sort of compound cases: -n, -ben, -I = in, represent- 
 ing the locative, and -61, -ul = like, as the cams sitbsli- 
 titlivus. Several are obsolete, or nearly so, in the modern 
 language. Some are found regularly declined by old 
 writers *. 
 
 Galla. Pres. particip., Dative . aderae-ft', going. 
 
 Past particip., Ablal. . ademna-m, having gone. 
 Sechuana. Pres. part. Ablal. . rek-aw^, buying. 
 
 Haussa. Pres. part. . Gen.**, wa-soh. ) , 
 
 tt . JX loving, 
 
 (postnxed) . . song, ) 
 
 Mahralla. Pres. part. Locative chalat, walking. 
 Prel. . . . Dative . chalala, 
 Pluperf. . Ablat. . chal-iin, 
 
 * It is believed that the participles of the languages of the Deccan, 
 Tamul , Teloogoo , &c. , to which the Singhalese may be added , are orga- 
 nized on the same principles as those of the Tartarian stock. 
 
 ; * This is a remarkable instance of a distinct nasal element changing its 
 position and becoming incorporated with the verbal noun. Several analo- 
 gous cases are furnished by the Polynesian languages.
 
 BY THE FURTHER MODIFICATION OF INFLECTED CASES. 281 
 
 Bengali ......... Locative kari-te, doing. 
 
 Doogra ......... Locative mara-de, leaping. 
 
 Punjabi ......... Gen. . . kar-cla, doing. 
 
 The other Indian dialects related to the Sanscrit generally 
 correspond with the Hindi, and appear for the most part to 
 be ablative, instrumental, or locative cases, slightly modified. 
 Thus in the Braj-Bhasha, which may be conveniently as- 
 sumed as the type of all the rest, the ablative terminates 
 in -ten, and the present participle in at, 'tu, or fi marat, 
 mar-/?/, mar/I, striking. The Ujjein chala-few approaches 
 still more nearly to the form of the Braj. ablative: and it 
 is certain that in nearly all the bhashas or subsisting dialects, 
 the participles are formed by postfixes closely analogous to 
 those employed in the declension of nouns. A good com- 
 parative analysis of the different forms would be of great 
 importance, as the whole structure of the verb depends upon 
 them*. 
 
 The few present participles occurring in the old Persian 
 inscription at Behistun end in aniya, chartan-iya, &c., which 
 also occurs as a termination of the locative. We also find 
 the ablative in -at, paruvi -?//, ab antique. 
 
 Sanscrit. Pres. part. Ablative? sas-at. 
 
 (crude form) .... tan-vat. 
 
 Vedic form ..... dra-vat. 
 
 Lithuanian. Gerundial form. . sukant, in turning. 
 
 Pres. part ....... sukas-f-anti, turning. 
 
 Lettish. Gerundial form. . . . essoht, in being. 
 
 Pres. part ....... essots-f-essoscha, being. 
 
 Carinlhian Slavonic. Pres. part, delajoch-f-ocha, doing. 
 
 This last form is evidently the same as the Lettish, with- 
 out the final s, which does not appear as a sign of gender 
 in the proper Slavonic dialects. Several of them however 
 append a demonstrative pronoun in the definite form, which 
 amounts to the same thing. 
 
 * The writer is indebted to Professor D. Forbes for interesting and 
 valuable information on the above points. 
 
 w 
 
 7
 
 ON THE RELATIVE IMPORT OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 [Proceedings of the Philological Society, Vol. II.} 
 
 The ordinary definition of words in general is, that they 
 arc names of things. Though this position was maintained 
 by Home Tooke with great ingenuity, it is far from being 
 satisfactory. The analysis of language shows that names of 
 material objects are uniformly descriptive epithets, and 
 consequently not original; and there are moreover multitudes 
 of words which are certainly not names of things',, according 
 to any legitimate meaning of the term. The statement that 
 they are pictures of ideas appears still more liable to objection ; 
 in fact, it scarcely conveys any definite idea to the mind, 
 so long as the terms idea and picture are so vaguely em- 
 ployed as is the case at present. 
 
 In an essay on the subject in a well-known periodical, 
 Avords were defined by the writer as being indicative of the 
 qualities or attributes of things. Though this might be 
 defended, it is liable to the objection that things are often 
 designated from qualities which they do not possess. A 
 slight examination of the articles commencing with an, in, 
 tin, in a Greek, Latin, or English lexicon, will supply abun- 
 dant examples of this, and a negative quality is, as far a:-> 
 property is concerned, no quality at all. It is therefore 
 proposed, in lieu of the above definition, to state that they 
 express the relations of things ; and this , it is believed , is 
 strictly applicable to every word in every language, and 
 under every possible modification. Names of material ob- 
 jects express the individual qualities or the relations of those ob- 
 jects; names of mental faculties or phenomena are borrowed 
 from the sensible properties of matter; and all other words, 
 without exception, help to denote some category, circumstance 
 or mode of existence. This existence may 'be either past, 
 present or future, actual or hypothetical ; but in one or other 
 of these ways it must be at the root of all language ; for ex 
 nihilo nihil fit. As the arithmetician cannot operate upon mere
 
 I 
 
 ON THE RELATIVE IMPORT OF LANGUAGE. 283 
 
 cyphers, so language cannot deal with absolute nonentities, 
 for this simple reason, that nullities cannot stand in any 
 possible relation towards each other. As the able translator * 
 of Sir William Hamilton's Essays well observes . tc Not only 
 all knowledge, but even all thought is ontological, inasmuch 
 as every judgment, every nation, every thought, has for its 
 object an existence actual or possible, real or ideal. Eve- 
 rything that is affirmed or denied is affirmed or denied 
 respecting beiny , and being is what is affirmed or denied of 
 all things. As, in the reality of things, besides being there 
 is nothing, in like manner, in the human mind, there is 
 not a single thought which has not being for its principle, ^ 
 its foundation, and its object. There is therefore no question / 
 whether our reason can know being; fo in reality it does * 
 
 not and cannot know any thin sr.'V/V^ 
 
 J >^/\^v 
 
 The following remark by the same author is worthy of 
 particular attention ; as though not made by him with re- 
 ference to that point, it appears to constitute the very foun- 
 dation of the true philosophy of language : -"Our knowledge 
 of beings is purely indirect, limited, relative; it does not 
 reach to the beings themselves in their absolute reality and 
 essences, but only to their accidents, their modes, their 
 relations, their limitations, their differences, their qualities; 
 all which are manners of conceiving and knowing which 
 not only do not impart to knowledge the absolute character) 
 which some persons attribute to it, but even positively ex- 1 
 
 elude it Matter (or existence, the object of sensible 
 
 perception) only falls within the sphere of our knowledge 
 through its qualities; mind, only by its modifications; and 
 these qualities and modifications are all that can be compre- 
 hended and expressed in the object. The object itself, , 
 considered absolutely, remains out of thp reach of all con- 
 ception." yfikfi *>SMktS 
 
 It is of the utmost import ance to 7 keep the above obser- 
 vation in mind in all speculations upon the nature of lan- 
 guage. We are incapable of knowing any particle, aggregate 
 or modification of matter as it is in itself; we only know it 
 in its relations of similarity, diversity, or whatever else 
 they may be, towards other objects of our perception. And 
 as we know relations only, it follows that they are all that 
 we can Hunk of or talk about. A further consequence is, 
 that no words are in their origin of concrete signification. 
 
 * M. Louis Peisse: 'Fragmens de Philosophic par M. W. Hamilton ' 
 Pref. p. 88.
 
 I 
 
 284 ON THE RELATIVE IMPORT OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 All indicate phenomena which have no distinct independent 
 existence, but only a relative one. 
 
 The relations in Avhich the objects of our perceptions stand 
 towards each other may be and are manifold and various. 
 They may be near or distant, like or unlike, higher or lower, 
 better or worse, united or separate, or in any conceivable 
 degree of affinity or nonaffinity. Kow, of objects standing 
 in such relation towards each other, the word descriptive 
 of that relation may become the name by which any one of 
 them is popularly designated. They may be characterized 
 from what they do or do not do to each other, or from any 
 possible shade of resemblance or contrast. Of course , the 
 most obvious and prominent relations are most likely to be 
 fixed upon ; but this is by no means necessarily the case : 
 a terrestrial object, for instance, might receive its name from 
 the sun, the moon, or the polar star, if any relation, real 
 or supposed, could be traced between them. Either term of 
 the relation may acquire its appellation from it: supposing 
 A and B to.be considered with reference to each other; A 
 might be designated from some phenomenon connected with 
 B, or vice versa, or either of them might be characterized 
 from something derived mediately through A or B from C 
 or D. In scholastic language, such names may be either 
 subjective or objective, a point which , though hitherto greatly 
 overlooked, is of the utmost importance in the analysis of 
 language. A few examples will place the matter in a clearer 
 light. 
 
 In most Indo-European languages the numeral or adjective 
 one forms various compounds and derivatives, often bearing 
 apparently opposite significations. Thus, from the Irish unn 
 we have aonach, a waste or moor, also a fair or great as- 
 sembly; aonta and aontugadh , celibacy, also a joint vote or 
 consent; with another derivative, aontumudh , marriage. In 
 Welsh , nntref (im , one + fref, town or habitation) means, 
 of the same abode, townsman; while untuawg (im , one, ///, 
 side) does not denote on the same side or allied, but one- 
 sided, partial. Germ, einseilig. In like manner the Latin 
 i/niats implies solitude or singularity, and unilas association 
 or community. The concord of this discord is easily found, 
 if we consider that the term one may either refer to one as 
 an individual, or in the sense of an aggregate. In its first 
 acceptation aonach denotes solitude, implying that wastes or 
 moors are commonly destitute of population ; in its second 
 it denotes aggregation, or the meeting of a multitude of 
 people with a general unity of purpose. In like manner,
 
 ON THE RELATIVE IMPORT OF LANGUAGE. 2S5 
 
 the words other, another, may either express difference or 
 addition, according as they are taken in a disjunctive or 
 conjunctive sense. 
 
 In Anglo - Saxon the abstract noun ccmla or ccrnetla means 
 leisure, idleness, and its adjective cemlig, idle, vacant, empty. 
 The Old -German emazzig , modern emsig , is the same word, 
 but with a totally opposite meaning; namely, busy, indus- 
 trious, occupied. Ihe clue to this may be found in the 
 Latin vacare , which, taken absolutely , denotes being /vacant 
 or idle; but when joined with negotio or some similar word, 
 is equivalent to occupari, and implies diligence and close 
 attention. The same diversity of meaning occurs in 6%6h] 
 and G^o^a^etv. %6fa] means leisure, idleness and at the same 
 time a school, with its manifold occupations, not because 
 people necessarily idle away their time at school, but be- 
 cause they are free from manual labour and all similar 
 interruptions of their studies. Thus vacans negotio and emsig 
 express vacuity or leisure not absolute and entire, but 
 from all business except that in hand; and, by implication, 
 time and power to attend to it alone. Had our word empti- 
 ness followed the same course as the Latin and German, it 
 might very well have acquired the sense of diligence or in- 
 dustry along with its present one, the primary idea being 
 the same in all. It may be observed, once for all, that as 
 every voltaic current has its positive and negative pole, so 
 every relation has its positive and negative, or subjective 
 and objective aspect, either of which may give its character 
 and complexion to the word used to express it. To borrow 
 Euler's excellent illustration of negative quantities, a man's 
 debts are negative as far as relates to right of property, but 
 positive with respect to his obligation to pay them; while, 
 with respect to his creditors, the same debts are negative 
 as to actual possession, but positive as to right. The word 
 may pass from its positive to its negative acceptation, or 
 vice versa: for instance, when we speak of a deceased mer- 
 chant's debts, we are supposed to mean the sums due from 
 him; but when we talk of his good and bad debts, we are 
 understood to imply those owing to him by others. 
 
 The following may serve as a familiar example of the 
 same thing receiving different names from its different at- 
 tributes. In Icelandic, lyckill , a key, is derived, naturally 
 enough, from ///r/.vV/, to shut or lock; and the German schliis- 
 sel (from schliessen), the Greek xAffj, with many other terms 
 in various languages , follow the same analogy. But a key 
 may be employed to open as well as to shut, and therefore it
 
 286 ON THE RELATIVE IMPORT OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 is with equal propriety in Welsh called ayorad, from agori, 
 to open. In other languages it is designated by terms im- 
 plying crookedness, from its usual form; and it might be 
 equally denominated from the idea of access , security, con- 
 finement, prohibition, or any other notion connected directly 
 or indirectly with a key or its offices. 
 
 Again, the word lee, as applied to the side of a ship, is 
 referred by etymologists and it is believed rightly to the 
 Anglo-Saxon hleo, shelter, as being covered or protected 
 from the direct action of the wind. Dr. Jamieson excepts 
 to this derivation, on the ground that it is not applicable to 
 lee-shore. A little consideration would have shown him 
 that there is no real ground for the objection. When a ship 
 ascends the Thames with a cross north wind, the Essex side 
 is the weather -shore and the Kentish the lee -shore not 
 because they are respectively exposed to and sheltered from 
 the wind, the reverse being the case, but with relation to 
 the weather-side and lee -side of the ship that is passing. 
 The term is subjective as applied to the ship, and objective 
 with reference to the shore. This example, with many si- 
 milar ones, may serve to show, that as rays of light may 
 be refracted and reflected in all possible ways from their 
 primary direction, so the meaning of a word may be de- 
 flected from its original bearing in a variety of manners ; 
 and consequently we cannot well reach the primitive force 
 of the term unless we know the precise gradations through 
 which it has gone. Had lee -side been lost or forgotten, 
 we should have been not a little puzzled to give a rational 
 explanation of lee -shore. 
 
 There is perhaps no more remarkable instance of the 
 intrinsically relative nature of language than the names of 
 the points of the compass, at least in certain classes of 
 tongues. Everybody admits that these points vary according 
 to locality, and that the north of London is not the north 
 of New York. Most people however would suppose that, 
 with reference to a fixed point, Greenwich Observatory for 
 example, the terms for the cardinal divisions could not with 
 propriety interchange with each other. This may be true 
 as to the Teutonic languages, in which the precise original 
 import of the terms is uncertain. But there are tonguos in 
 which, paradoxical as it may seem, any given point might 
 have bot;n designated by the name of any other. ]n ihc 
 Semitic languages, and to a great extent in the Celtic, oast, 
 west, north, south, are respectively equivalent to before, 
 behind, /eft, right. The congruity and propriety of tho ap
 
 ON THE RELATIVE IMPORT OP LANGUAGE. 287 
 
 pellations evidently depend on the ancient practice of direct- 
 ing the view towards the rising sun, specifically for devo- 
 tional purposes. But there was clearly no natural invincible 
 necessity for taking this precise point of view and no other. 
 The direction fixed upon might just as easily have been the 
 setting sun, the meridian , or the north pole. In the first 
 case every present designation would have been completely 
 reversed. Kedem (front), now east, would have become 
 west; yamin (right), south, would have been transformed to 
 north, and so of the rest. In the second case all the points 
 would have shifted ninety degrees sunwards; in the third 
 they would have made a similar move in the opposite di- 
 rection : thus all might travel by just stages round the hori- 
 zon, and four different Semitic or Celtic, tribes might have 
 come to employ the same set of words in four perfectly 
 distinct acceptations. It now remains to show that this is 
 not mere theory, but that it has to a certain extent been 
 realized in practice. 
 
 In Mosblech's 'Vocabulaire Francais - Oceanien , J art. NORD, 
 we find the following passage: "The Islanders (Marquesans, 
 Hawaiians, &c.) turn to the west in order to find the cardi- 
 nal points; whence it comes that they call the north, right 
 side, and the south, left side." A glance at the comparative 
 tables in Humboldt and Buschmann's great work, 'Ueber 
 die Kawi-Sprache,' will confirm the accuracy of this state- 
 ment with respect to various tribes of Polynesians, western 
 as well as eastern. When an Arab visits Java, he turns 
 in the same direction as a Javanese to look at the southern 
 cross; but if asked to express this direction in words, the 
 Arab will say that it is right (yemen), and the Javanese 
 left (kidul). In like manner, while looking out for omens, 
 the Greek augur faced towards the north , the Roman to the 
 .south; consequently the left, apiGTSQa, of the former was 
 the western quarter, while the heva of the latter was the 
 direct contrary. Thus, while each looked towards the east 
 for auspicious omens , they denoted them by names of di- 
 ametrically opposite import. As connected in some degree 
 with this subject, it may be observed, that our Anglo- 
 Saxon ancestors called the right hand se swiore, the stronger * 
 or better hand, while the Greek KQKJTSQK, also meaning ' 
 belter, was applied to the left. The Saxon simply meant to 
 express physical superiority; while the superstitious Greek, 
 both in this case and in that of the synonymous term svc^vv^os, 
 strove to avoid words of inauspicious import. Thus we find 
 that the Avord left has been, in point of fact, employed by 
 different races to denote cast, west, north and south, and
 
 288 . ON THE RELATIVE IMPORT OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 that the simple relation itself may be, and is expressed by 
 terms in one language, -which in another have a totally dif- 
 ferent meaning. 
 
 The above examples, to which thousands of similar ones 
 might be added, may serve to illustrate the positions advan- 
 ced above, that words express the relations of things, and 
 that those relations may be indifferently positive or negative, 
 objective or subjective.
 
 ON THE NATURE AND ANALYSIS 
 OF THE VERB. 
 
 [Proceedings of the Philological Society. Vol. III.] 
 
 It is well known that there has been great difference of 
 opinion among philologists as to the priority and relative 
 importance of the different parts of speech, as they are 
 commonly classified by grammarians. Nearly all have con- 
 curred in regarding nouns and verbs as the two principal 
 classes; and though a few, among whom may be specified 
 M. Court de Gebelin and Professor Lee, have maintained 
 the necessarily higher antiquity of the noun, the opinion of 
 those who consider verbs as the roots of all language appears 
 to have met with more general acceptance. 
 
 In certain languages, for example in Hebrew, Arabic and 
 Sanscrit, the primitives or roots have been diligently collect- 
 ed, and those roots are generally regarded either as actual 
 verbs, or, at all events, more closely allied to verbs than 
 any other part of speech. There is again much discrepancy 
 of opinion as to what constitutes a verb, and in what essen- 
 tial particular it differs from a noun. The definitions most 
 commonly given are, that its essence consists in expressing 
 motion, or action, or existence] and most grammarians seem 
 to be possessed with the idea that the verb is endowed with 
 a sort of inherent vitality, making it to differ from a noun 
 much in the same way that an animal does from a vegetable. 
 It is believed that not one of the above theories will bear 
 examination. There are many verbs which express neither 
 motion, action, nor existence, but their exact opposites, 
 while at the same time many other words express those 
 ideas with precision without being verbs. Moreover all words, 
 whatever they may signify, being mere sounds, expressed 
 by the same vocal organs, it is hard to see how one can be 
 possessed of more vitality than another. They may represent 
 life or action something in the same way as pictures or statues 
 do, but they cannot themselves partake of those attributes. 
 It is believed that much of the misapprehension and error 
 prevalent on this subject has originated in confounding the 
 finite verb with the root from which it is formed. It has 
 
 19
 
 290 ON THE NATURE AND ANALYSIS 
 
 been admitted that the essence of this part of speech con- 
 sists in predication or assertion, a view to which no objection 
 can be made. But this immediately destroys its claim to be 
 considered as a primitive element of speech. There can be 
 no predication in the concrete without a given subject', every 
 verb therefore must have its subject; that is, speaking 
 grammatically, it must be in a definite person. The term 
 expressing this person is an element perfectly distinct from 
 the root; and when it is taken away, there is no predication 
 and consequently no verb. In short, a verb is not a simple, 
 but, ex necessario, a complex term, and therefore no pri- 
 mary part of speech. 
 
 It may be said that though the Semitic and Sanscrit roots 
 are not actually verbs, they are capable of becoming so by 
 the aid of certain adjuncts, and therefore may be regarded 
 as verbs in posse. Admitting this to be true, it is no special 
 peculiarity of the words in question. In Sanscrit, almost 
 any noun may become what is called a denominative verb; 
 and in Basque and many American languages, not only 
 nouns, but adverbs, conjunctions, in short, nearly all terms 
 in the respective vocabularies, may be conjugated through 
 a long array of moods and tenses. If therefore there is 
 any occult principle in Sanscrit or Semitic roots, predispo- 
 sing them to become verbs, it is by no means their exclusive 
 property, any more than liability to electric influences is 
 peculiar to metals. 
 
 Philologists who admit the greater antiquity of nouns, 
 and regard verbs as formed from them, commonly analyse 
 the latter as consisting of a noun connected with a subject 
 or nominative by means of a verb substantive understood. 
 This theory is totally untenable, for the plain reason that it 
 involves the logical absurdity of identifying the subject with 
 the predicate. "Ego (sum) sornnium" can by no legitimate 
 grammatical or logical process be brought to mean "ego 
 somnio," any more than cc ego (sum) navis" could denote 
 "ego navigo." Yet it is not possible to find a better solu- 
 tion, so long as we entertain the currently received notions 
 of the form and nature of the pronominal subject, and re- 
 gard the predicate as a simple noun in apposition w r ith it. 
 We believe that this popular view of the subject has tended, 
 more than any other cause, to obscure the true nature and 
 origin of the verb. Grammarians have not been able to 
 divest themselves of the idea that the subject of the verb 
 must necessarily be a nominative ; and when it was ascer- 
 tained that the distinctive terminations of verbs are in fact 
 personal pronouns, they persisted in regarding those pro-
 
 OF THE VERB. 291 
 
 nouns, as bond fide nominatives, abbreviated indeed from 
 the fuller forms, but still performing the same functions. 
 
 The writer has long felt a conviction that the usually re- 
 ceived theory can neither be reconciled with the principles 
 of logic , nor with the actual phenomena of language. Some 
 of his ideas on the subject were submitted to the public in 
 an article printed in a wellknown periodical in the year 1836. 
 In this, an opinion was advanced that the root or predica- 
 tive part of a simple verb is, or originally \vas, an abstract 
 noun, and that the personal terminations are pronouns not 
 however nominatives in apposition, but in regimine, or oblique 
 cases. This idea was grounded in the first instance on an 
 induction from the actual phenomena presented by the Welsh 
 language. Edward Lhuyd observed, a century and a half 
 ago, that the personal terminations of verbs in Cornish are 
 manifestly pronouns; and in our own time Dr. Prichard, in 
 'Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations/ has made the same 
 remark respecting the Welsh. But it was observed in the 
 article already alluded to, that the terminations in question 
 have not in Welsh, as might be expected, the forms of no- 
 minatives, but those of oblique cases precisely such as 
 appear in combination with prepositions , or under the regi- 
 men of nouns. It was also shown that this connexion in 
 regimine, assuming it to be real, furnishes a sufficient copula 
 between the subject and the predicate, which no ingenuity 
 can extract from a nominative in apposition with a simple 
 noun. The possibility of a combination of this sort assum- 
 ing the functions of a verb, was further shown by a remark- 
 able instance from the Syriac. In this language a periphrastic 
 present tense is formed by combining the plural of the abs- 
 tract substantive iih = existence, being, with the oblique 
 ^es of the personal pronouns: e. gr. ithai-ch, existential 
 tui = es; iihai-hun existentise illorum = sunt. 
 
 The analysis of these phrases is clear and certain. Illtai 
 is unequivocally a noun substantive, in the plural number, 
 in the construct form and in regimen of a pronoun in an 
 oblique case, answering to our genitive, while we find that 
 the combination of those elements is equivalent to a word 
 commonly supposed to lie at the root of all verbal expres- 
 sion. Another remarkable instance is furnished by the 
 Feejee language. In this, besides the ordinary Polynesian 
 verb formed by a combination of the root with prefixed 
 particles and pronouns, there is a more simple one arising 
 out of the union of a noun with a pronominal suffix in obit- 
 </>{. Thus loma y literally denoting heart, and metaphorically 
 mind, will, is regularly employed in conjunction with the 
 
 19*
 
 292 ON THE NATURE AND ANALYSIS 
 
 genitives of the personal pronouns in the sense of the Latin 
 verb volo: e. gr. loma-qu, literally, heart of me = I will; 
 loma-munu ~- thou wilt; loma-na = he will; loma-mudpu 
 = ye will or wish. 
 
 The above instances, to which multitudes of similar ones 
 might be added, are decisive as to the possibility of the 
 functions of a verb being performed by a noun in combina- 
 tion with the oblique form of a pronoun, and they moreover 
 include categories commonly regarded as peculiarly essential 
 to the part of speech at present under consideration. Being 
 and will are usually regarded by metaphysical grammarians 
 as the two ideas necessarily inherent in the verb, and in 
 fact constituting the difference between it and the noun. 
 But, if beings of me can be made equivalent to I am, and 
 heart of me to / will t it follows a fortiori, that any other 
 verbal category may be enunciated in a similar manner. 
 
 It is not meant to be asserted that every finite verb in 
 every language is capable of being analysed in precisely the 
 same manner. At present it is only contended that a noun 
 in construction with a pronoun is capable of being employed 
 as a verb, and that there is no lack of instances in which 
 it actually is so. It is also clear that if verbs are neces- 
 sarily complex terms , they cannot be the primordia or roots 
 of language, and that the definitions usually given of them 
 are erroneous or incomplete. The true definition of the verb 
 appears to be, that it is a term of relation or predicate in 
 grammatical combination with a subject, commonly prono- 
 minal. In some languages, any word in any given part of 
 speech is capable of being made the basis of a verb, and of 
 being regularly conjugated through moods, tenses and per- 
 sons; in others this license is considerably restricted. Ge- 
 nerally speaking, simple abstract nouns are the most con- 
 venient materials, and may be regarded as the basis of the 
 oldest forms, but prepositions and other particles are equally 
 capable of being employed. The form of the combination 
 between the predicate and its pronominal subject may also 
 vary according to circumstances and the genius of particular 
 languages. To specify every actual modification would re- 
 quire an analysis of all languages spoken on the face of 
 the globe; but most of those which have been examined 
 appear to be reducible to two leading- classes: 1. abstract 
 nouns, and occasionally other parts of speech in grammati- 
 cal connexion with pronominal subjects in oblique cases, 
 analogous to the examples already given; 2. participles, or 
 nomina acloris, in construction with a subject in the nomina- 
 tive, or more rarely in the instrumental, ablative or locative
 
 OF THE VERB. 293 
 
 case. This latter class comprises the Tibetan, Mongolian, 
 Basque, and many other languages; and is not unknown in 
 Indo-European and Semitic. As a general rule it may be 
 stated, that if the predicate is a nominative, the subject is 
 in obliquo'i and conversely, if the subject is nominative the 
 predicate is an oblique case, a participle, or in regimen by 
 a preposition. Occasional variations will be pointed out in 
 the sequel. 
 
 In proceeding to give practical illustrations of the theory 
 now advanced, we may conveniently begin with the Coptic, 
 both as being an isolated language and on account of the pe- 
 culiarity and originality of its grammatical forms. Notwith- 
 standing the comparatively recent state in which the bulk 
 of its literature has reached us, there is no reason to doubt 
 that it has preserved a considerable portion of the ancient 
 language of Egypt, and what is of no small importance, 
 without any material disturbance of itsgrammatical character. 
 Champollion observes, 'Grammaire Egyptienne,' chap. 3, 
 that the greatest part of the words of the Egyptian language 
 are to be found in the hieroglyphic and hieratic texts, ex- 
 pressed in phonetic characters, and only differing from the 
 same words written in the Grecian letters called Coptic by 
 the absence or different position of some vowels, rarely by 
 the transposition of certain consonants ; and that there is no 
 language which does not exhibit still greater orthographical 
 changes in an equal lapse of time. He further shows that 
 nearly all the articles, pronouns and formative particles may 
 be identified in the hieroglyphic and hieratic texts; and that 
 when phonetically expressed, the Coptic forms are with slight 
 exceptions mere transcriptions of them. In both classes the 
 nominatives of the personal pronouns, employed separately, are 
 accurately distinguished from the oblique cases , used as af- 
 fixes and suffixes in construction with nouns, verbs and parti- 
 cles Again, what are called the roots of verbs are at the same 
 time nouns (or occasionally pronouns or particles), and Pey- 
 ron observes that there is no way of distinguishing between 
 a Coptic finite verb and the corresponding noun with pro- 
 nominal affixes, except that the latter usually has the ar- 
 ticle, which is wanting in the former. In the Coptic and 
 recent demotic texts, the pronouns in construction precede 
 the noun and the verb ; but in the hieroglyphic and hieratic 
 monuments they are regularly postfixed, a transposition which, 
 as Lepsius observes, frequently appears as a mark of distinc- 
 tion between the modern and the ancient state of a language. 
 
 What is most essential to our present purpose is to ob- 
 serve, that in both states of the language the pronouns em-
 
 294 ON THE NATURE AND ANALYSIS 
 
 ployed as oblique cases in construction with nouns and pre- 
 positions, and those serving to indicate the persons of verbs, 
 are peri'ectly identical. TV, for example, is indifferently to 
 give or gift', and in an ancient text, ti-k , ti-f, ti-n, or ti-en, 
 would generally correspond to Lat. das, dat, damns. But if 
 the definite article is prefixed, the same phrases immediately 
 become thy, his, our gift, and so on through all the per- 
 sons. It seems inconceivable that the pronominal suffixes 
 ~k , -f, -n, should mean of me, of him, of us in the latter 
 instances, and thou, he, we in the former, words for which 
 the language affords perfectly distinct terms: or that //, merely 
 meaning gift in one class of terms, should by some unknown 
 mystical process become invested with an active character 
 and be transmuted into a word of a totally different class. 
 
 If it be conceded that ti is in both classes essentially the 
 same word, it necessarily follows that the pronominal ad- 
 juncts of each have precisely the same power; in other words, 
 they have the construction of oblique cases, not of nomi- 
 natives, as nominatives are usually understood. Gift I, for 
 I give, would be a downright absurdity; but gift of me or 
 by me necessarily implies I give, or did, or shall give , accord- 
 ing to circumstances. The same remarks might be extended 
 to the entire conjugation of the Egyptian verb. Let any 
 one , previously divesting his mind of the usually received 
 notions of the essential difference between nouns and verbs, 
 examine the paradigm of taka, ostensibly to destroy , in Tat- 
 tam's Grammar, together with the words classed under the 
 same root in Peyron's Coptic Lexicon, and he will find that 
 under every modification, tako considered separately means 
 destruction, and nothing else; other supposed senses arc not 
 inherent, but depend altogether on the qualifying adjuncts. 
 With the articles it is a noun substantive, with the relative 
 pronoun it becomes an adjective or a participle, and when 
 predicated of a given subject, according to the forms above 
 specified, it assumes the functions of a verb. Take this 
 predication away and all traces of the verb immediately 
 vanish. What are called the auxiliary and substantive verbs 
 in Coptic are still more remote from all essential verbal 
 character. On examination they will almost invariably be 
 found to be articles, pronouns, particles, or abstract nouns, 
 and to derive their supposed verbal functions entirely from 
 accessories, or from what they imply. 
 
 An attempt has noAV been made to show that the basis 
 or root of the verb is a simple predicate, usually an abstract 
 noun, and that its supposed distinctive character arises en- 
 tirely out of its combination with a subject, commonly a
 
 OP THE VEKB. 295 
 
 presonal pronoun in an oblique case. Special illustrations 
 of those positions have been given from the Coptic and other 
 languages. It is now intended to consider some phenomena 
 presented by the Semitic dialects. 
 
 The analysis of the ordinary verb in the Semitic tongues, 
 especially in Hebrew, Syriac and Arabic, is not so obvious 
 and certain as it is in Coptic. Many euphonic changes have 
 taken place ; and the singular structure of the future in par- 
 ticular has not been satisfactorily explained by any philolo- 
 gist. 
 
 The resemblance of the personal terminations in the pre- 
 terite to the pronouns attracted however the attention of 
 grammarians at an early period , and it has been pretty ge- 
 nerally allowed, that those endings are in point of fact per- 
 sonal pronouns, modifications of them. They are commonly 
 regarded as abbreviations of the ordinary nominatives, and 
 this opinion appears to be countenanced by Dr. Lee in his 
 Hebrew Grammar. He has however pointed out several in- 
 stances in which the forms do not correspond, and when 
 we attempt to carry the principle throughout the cognate dia- 
 lects, we find the discrepances so numerous and serious, as 
 to excite considerable doubts respecting its soundness. For 
 example, there is a periphrastic present tense in Syriac in- 
 dubitably formed by the addition of the nominative personal 
 pronouns to the present participle. But the terminations 
 thus obtained are so different from those of the ordinary 
 preterite , that it is scarcely possible to refer them to a com- 
 mon origin. To go no further than the first person, (jelleth 
 = occldi can hardly be composed of the same materials as 
 <lolel-no = ego occldens or occldo. In the latter the termina- 
 tion is simply eno = ego, with a quiescent initial; but if 
 the dental ending of the latter ever was a nominative, it 
 must have been totally different from any nominative now 
 found in the languages. 
 
 It is believed that the Ethiopic and Amharic dialects fur- 
 nish the most satisfactory explanation of the true structure 
 of the Semitic verb. In both these the conjugation of the 
 verb presents several peculiarities, and if we are not mis- 
 taken , those peculiar forms have a more original and organic 
 cast than the corresponding ones in the more cultivated dialects. 
 One remarkable distinct is, that in several persons the Ethiopic 
 substitutes gutturals, accompanied by fuller vowel sounds for 
 the dentals of the Hebrew and other dialects. For example, 
 the Hebrew forms lamad-ti, doceo; lamctd-t, doces; Icmad- 
 tem y docetis, would in Ethiopic be lamad-ku, lamad-ka, la- 
 mad-kemmu. The reason for regarding the latter forms as
 
 206 ON THE NATURE AND ANALYSIS 
 
 more original than their Hebrew cognates is, that they cor- 
 respond in general with the oblique cases of the pronouns 
 employed in construction with nouns and prepositions. 
 
 When the forms of the verb and noun happen to corres- 
 pond, their respective combinations with pronominal suf- 
 fixes are often perfectly identical. Thus nagyur , noun subst., 
 denotes speech, discourse; and as the base of a verb of the 
 second conjugation, analogous to the Heb. ptel, meaning to 
 relate or speak, nagyar-ka, considered absolutely, may 
 either denote sermo tvus or lu locutus es; and in the plural 
 naggarna , sermo nosier or locuti sumus; nagyar-ke?ntnu, .SVT///O 
 vester or locuti estis. Some of the above forms cannot without 
 violence be deduced from the nominatives of the personal 
 pronouns. Na, the suffix of the first person plural, might 
 possibly be a fragment of nefma, but it is not so easy, by 
 any legitimate process, to extract ka from anta, or krinmit 
 from antmu. On the other hand, identity of form may be 
 fairly regarded a priori as an indication of original identity 
 of power, at least till we have some proof to the contrary. 
 If the strongly marked form kemmu, in combination with a 
 noun, means vestrum and not vos, it seems more rational to 
 conclude that it had originally the same power in the verb, 
 than to assume without a shadow of proof that it was once a 
 nominative, or to deduce it from a word organically different. 
 
 It is admitted that this identity of the personal terminations 
 of verbs and the pronominal suffixes of nouns in Ethiopic 
 is not carried through all the persons of the ordinary preterite. 
 The discrepances may however either be accounted for by 
 the process of abbreviation in forms frequently and fami- 
 liarly employed, which is common to many languages, or 
 may be partially explained by reference to other dialects. 
 There is however a formula frequently employed as a sub- 
 stitute for the ordinary verb, in which the nature and con- 
 struction of the pronominal suffixes is perfectly unequivocal. 
 In many constructions , and more particularly in order to 
 express a contingent future, what is called the infinitive, 
 but, as is also the case in other Semitic languages., in rea- 
 lity is a mere abstract noun, is employed in both numbers 
 and in all persons, with precisely the same suffixes as any 
 ordinary substantive. Thus gdbir , to do , or more properly 
 act of doing , is employed in combination with suffixes ac- 
 cording to the following paradigm: 
 
 Sing. \. gabir-ya. 2. gabir-ka. 3- gabir-6 
 
 1'lur. ]. gabir-na. 2- gabir-kennnu. 3. gabir omu. 
 
 Taken absolutely, these combinations simply denote doing of
 
 OF THE VERB. 297 
 
 me, thee, him, &c., but in connected composition they are 
 used extensively to signify when I go, or when I shall go, 
 &c., through all the persons. A similar construction occurs 
 in Hebrew, but it is employed in a much more partial man- 
 ner. In Amharic it is used much in the same way as in 
 Ethiopic, with some slight variations in form. The remarks 
 <>f Isenberg on this idiom, which he designates the construc- 
 tive mood, may help to throw some light upon its nature: 
 
 t: This (the constructive) is a singular mood which has noth- 
 ing corresponding either in. European or in other Semitic 
 languages: although its form, as far as the simple one is 
 concerned, answers the Ethiopic infinitives gabir and gabro; 
 but this mood is not an infinitive. It has nothing of a sub- 
 stantive character; whereas the infinitive is the first verbal 
 substantive, possessing both the characters of substantive 
 and verb. Nor is there any other mood to which it exactly 
 corresponds; neither participle nor gerund nor finite verb 
 will answer it, although it may be occasionally translated 
 by either, and sometimes by an adverb. It occupies an in- 
 termediate station between the infinitive and the finite verb ; 
 has four forms, one of which is simple, one augmented, and 
 two compound; and is flexible like the finite verb, having 
 afformatives , resembling the suffixed pronouns, partly of the 
 noun and partly of the verb. The simple form is used for 
 amplifying: the other forms, on account of the auxiliaries 
 which are attached to them, for constituting sentences. AVhen 
 the nature of this mood is understood , we hope the designa- 
 tion constructive will be justified , not having been able to fix 
 upon any better. 
 
 ct The simple form kabr (a modification of the radix kcbr, 
 'honour,' which may be considered as containing the idea 
 of an agent, and of an action or a concrete being, and an 
 abstract state or condition, &c.} assumes peculiar forms of 
 pronouns, which must not be taken as possessive (nominal), 
 but as personal (verbal) ; nor as the other verbal suffixes 
 which are in the accusative, but they are nominatives." 
 /neither y. Grammar of the Amharic Language, pp. 69, 70. 
 
 It is not difficult to perceive that while the premises are 
 here correctly stated, the author's reasonings upon them 
 are , like those of most grammarians , influenced by the 
 hackneyed idea of the necessarily intrinsic difference be- 
 tween the noun and the verb. Ludolf, rightly as we be- 
 lieve, treats the Amharic construction as perfectly analogous 
 to the Ethiopic one already analysed; and it will be obvious 
 on examination that the root is a mere verbal noun, com- 
 monly denoting state or action, and that the pronominal
 
 298 ON THE NATURE AND ANALYSIS 
 
 endings arc nothing more than the ordinary oblique cases 
 of the personals, in some cases slightly modified. Kabr for 
 example, taken absolutely, means nothing more than the 
 state or category of being honourable; and kabr-c, with the 
 suffix of the first person, means my being honourable, or 
 more simply, my dif/nily , just as much as beth-e means my 
 home. It may indeed, in connected discourse, require to be 
 rendered by when 1 am or shall be honourable; but this sense 
 depends on the combined power of the elements, not upon 
 anything inherent in the root. 
 
 The arguments for the hypothesis now advanced, dedu- 
 cible from the Semitic languages, may be briefly stated as 
 follows: 1. In most of them a mere abstract noun with 
 oblique pronominal suffixes is unequivocally employed f to 
 express the verb substantive, commonly regarded by gram- 
 marians as the verb par excellence. 2. The personal termin- 
 ations of the Ethiopic and Amharic preterites generally 
 correspond with the pronominal suffixes employed with 
 nouns , the difference in meaning being often only determin- 
 able by the context. The preterite, in other dialects, is 
 evidently formed upon the same principle : whether the Ethio- 
 pic or the Hebrew has preserved the more ancient type is 
 a question of fact not easy to be decided from such data 
 as we now possess. 3. The infinitive in other words, the 
 verbal noun is regularly employed in the Abyssinian dia- 
 lects in combination with oblique pronominal suffixes to 
 supply a deficient tense of a regular verb ; the literal reso- 
 lution of the phrase being act or stale of me, of Ihee, of him, 
 &c. , according to circumstances. These forms are probably 
 more recent than the regular preterite; but in them, as well 
 as in the periphrasis of the verb substantive already alluded 
 to , there appears to have been an intention to proceed upon 
 the original principle of formation. In the older as well as 
 in the more recent, there is no doubt that the pronominal 
 termination stands for the subject of the proposition, and 
 the root for the predicate; the only dispute is, what is the 
 nature of the connexion between them? ISo reason appears 
 to have been hitherto assigned why it may not be the same 
 in one case as in the other, except the assertion that the 
 roots of verbs are and must be intrinsically different from 
 nouns, which in fact amounts to begging the entire question 
 at issue. 
 
 There are other phenomena in the Semitic languages 
 apparently tending to confirm the hypothesis now advanced, 
 which will be more conveniently discussed in another division 
 of the general subject.
 
 OF THE VERB. 299 
 
 We proceed to consider the evidence deducible from a 
 class of languages nearly related to the Turco-Tartarian fa- 
 mily , namely the Tschudish or Finnish, of which the Lap- 
 pish and Hungarian are now generally admitted to be mem- 
 bers. The Hungarian was indeed for a long time regarded 
 as a language sm generis; but in the last century, Saj no- 
 vies, and subsequently Gyarmathi, brought abundant evidence 
 to show that it is closely related to the Lappish, Finnish, 
 and Esthonian, both in words and construction. Though their 
 demonstration was in some respects more empirical than 
 scientific, and was capable of being carried much further, it 
 was sufficient to establish their leading position; insomuch 
 that Adelung, whose ideas respecting the origin of lan- 
 guage inclined him to believe in the existence of perfectly 
 isolated ones, admitted that the connexion could not be 
 denied. 
 
 A still greater step was made in our own time by Dr. W. 
 Schott of Berlin , who showed by an able and extensive in- 
 duction, that the Manchu, Mongolian, Calmuck, Turco- 
 Tartarian, Tschudish, and Hungarian are all members of 
 one great family of tongues, divisible indeed into classes, 
 but still bearing abundant marks of a community of origin. 
 One general point of agreement among them is, that they 
 have no single class of words bearing the distinct and ex- 
 clusive character of roots of verbs. The abstract noun forms 
 most commonly the basis of the conjugational system, but 
 by no means necessarily and peculiarly so; other parts of 
 speech, not excluding particles, being often capable of con- 
 struction with pronominal terminations, so as to be perfectly 
 equivalent to verbs in other languages. 
 
 The folloAving remarks of Gabelentz, in his valuable sketch 
 of. the Grammar of the Mordwinian language in Lassen's 
 'Zeitecbrift fiir die Kunde des Morgenlandes/ will help to 
 place the capabilities of this member of the great Finnish 
 family in a clearer light. After observing that it is impor- 
 tant to study all the languages of the class in conjunction, 
 in order to form an adequate idea of the variety and copi- 
 ousness of their forms, he adds: 
 
 "In this point of view, the Mordwinian is not one of the 
 least interesting. One circumstance in particular is well cal- 
 culated to attract the attention of the philologist. It has 
 hitherto been considered a distinctive characteristic of the 
 American languages at all events of the greater part of 
 them that they can employ almost every word as a verb, 
 and represent the varied relations for which other languages 
 employ auxiliaries, particles, pronouns, and suchlike, by
 
 300 ON THE NATURE AND ANALYSIS 
 
 the forms of the verb itself. As these forms are rather su- 
 peradded to the verb from without than developed from it 
 inwardly, those languages have been called polysynthetic, 
 with the intention of thereby designating a peculiar class of 
 tongues. But the Mordwinian furnishes evidence that the 
 Old Continent can produce an instance of polysynthesis, 
 though it may be not quite so perfect. Or could such forms 
 as asodav-lasamisk , 'you will not let me know'; maronzolt, 
 'they were along with him'; kostondado, 'whence are you:" 
 prcivevlemeh , 'they were without understanding'; pazontm, 
 <T am the Lord's'- tsuralan, C I am thy son'; and many si- 
 milar ones, be well regarded in any other light*?" 
 
 It will be sufficient to observe for the present, that though 
 the above combinations are employed as verbs, and have 
 regular conjugational endings, they are for the most part 
 nothing but particles or nouns in construction with pronomi- 
 nal suffixes in dbliquo. Thus the base of maronzoll is simply 
 the particle metro = apud; and of kostondddo, kosto = undc; 
 prdvevtemelt being a formation on the caritive case of an ab- 
 stract noun , pazonan a similar one on the genitive of paz, 
 'Lord,' and Isilratan a combination of a concrete noun with 
 the suffixes of two personal pronouns, equivalent to vios 
 -6ov -fiov, q. d. 'son of thee -- [condition] of me.' It is 
 sufficiently obvious that no one of the above combinations is 
 or can contain in itself a verb, as that part of speech is 
 usually conceived by grammarians, and that their apparent 
 verbal character consists in the predicative form in which 
 they stand, and nothing else whatever. 
 
 The so-called regular verbs in this family of languages 
 will be found on examination to consist of the same or very 
 similar materials. The analysis of the forms is more clear 
 and certain in some than in others, owing to a variety of 
 causes. Several of those tongues, particularly the Finnish 
 and Esthonian, are remarkably sensitive to peculiar laws 
 of euphony, in obedience to which vowels are modified and 
 consonants changed or elided so as greatly to disguise the 
 original forms of words. In some also the so-called inflex- 
 ions of the verb do not appear to be simple modifications 
 of pronouns, but coalitions of the oblique pronoun Avith par- 
 ticular case-endings or postpositions of the verbal noun, 
 occasionally so transposed , abbreviated or softened down as 
 to render the analysis of them somewhat difficult. 
 
 There are however several languages in which the con- 
 formity between the respective persons of the verbs and 
 
 * Zeitschrift fur die Kuude des Morgenlandes vol. ii pp. 256, 257.
 
 OF THE VERB. 301 
 
 ordinary nouns in construction with oblique personal pro- 
 nouns is almost complete. In the Wotiak, nouns ending in 
 vowels are. combined with this class of pronouns according 
 to the following paradigm: 
 
 pi [for pi-i] ft/his mei. 
 pi-ed. . . . - tut. 
 
 pi-ez .... - ejus. 
 pi my ... - noslri. 
 
 pi-dy . . . - vestri. 
 
 pi-zy ... - eorum. 
 
 In verbs, the endings of the simple preterite are as fol- 
 low: 
 
 Singular. Plural. 
 
 1. bera-i, dixi. beva-my, diximus. 
 
 2. bera-d, bera-dy, 
 
 3. bera-z , bera-zy , 
 
 Here it is evident, that, with the exception of the coalition 
 of two short vowels into the corresponding long one in pi, 
 the two sets of terminations are perfectly identical. 
 
 In Tchcremissian the noun is combined with pronouns 
 according to the following scheme: 
 
 ata-m pater mei. 
 
 ata-t - tut. 
 
 ata-*sha ... - sui, ejus. 
 
 ata-na - noslri. 
 
 ata-da ..... - vestri. 
 
 ata-sht .... - eorum. 
 
 Compare the conjunctive 'form of the verb: - 
 
 Singular. Plural. 
 
 1. isclitene-m, faciatn. ischtene na , faciainus. 
 
 2. ischtene-t, ischteno-da. 
 
 3. ischtene-she, - isehtene-sht. 
 
 Here again the agreement is complete , except that the third 
 person singular ends in -she instead of -sha. 
 
 The endings of the present and perfect indicative jxchfc-tn 
 facio ; tar/tfaut-jn, feci, are perfectly analogous, as far as 
 the first and second persons of both numbers are concerned. 
 In the third person there is some discrepancy; but Wiede- 
 mann, in his elaborate Tcheremissian Grammar, p. 122, 
 
 Pronounced like * in pleasure, 'i he English sound of s/i is expressed 
 by sclt.
 
 302 ON THE NATURE AND .ANALYSIS 
 
 shows clearly that the third person singular of the present 
 tense, ischfaor ischtesch, has no pronominal ending or proper 
 sign of person at all, being in fact a mere verbal noun, 
 employed indifferently as substantive, adjective, or verb; 
 and that the third person singular of the preterite, iscltlrn, 
 is another verbal noun, having frequently the construction 
 of a present or aorist participle, or a Latin gerund in do. 
 In fact, ischl-esch has precisely the form of the predicative 
 case, used in various Finnish dialects to express the cate- 
 gory, circumstances or condition of a given subject, as the 
 instrumental is in Slavonic. According to this analysis, 
 ischtesch denotes in the act or category of doing, just as 
 mar-esch signifies in the character, condition or category of 
 a man. Frequently this form requires to be rendered for, 
 in which case it is nearly equivalent to a dative. Ischl-eH, 
 used as the third person of the preterite, seems to bear a 
 like analogy to an ablative or locative, not unlike the Welsh 
 construction of the preposition yn with nouns, adjectives, and 
 infinitives. It is believed that the conjunctive form given 
 above has the same element for its basis : e. (jr. ischlcnesh-cm, 
 in [the case of] my doing = if I do. 
 
 It is unnecessary to enter minutely into the investigation 
 of the corresponding forms in Finnish and Esthonian. For 
 the most part they are of the same origin as those already 
 specified, m being usually attenuated to n, I to d, &c. , ap- 
 parently for the sake of eupiiony. It is somewhat remarkable 
 that in Syrianian the personal endings of verbs differ from 
 the suffixes of nouns throughout the singular and closely 
 agree with them throughout the plural. In Lappish, the 
 pronominal suffixes employed with nouns do not appear in 
 any single tense of the verb, but most of them may bo 
 elicited from the various parts of the entire conjugation. In 
 Mordwinian also, the adjuncts of the noun not found in the 
 indicative tenses present themselves in the conjunctive and 
 the imperative. 
 
 The reason of these discrepancies appears to be, that in 
 their earlier state those languages, like many others, had 
 duplicate and even triplicate sets of pronouns, some of 
 which were employed in one kind of construction and some 
 in another. For example, the termination of soda-tadn , c ye 
 know,' does not bear the smallest resemblance to that of 
 (el-ante , 'your body.' But that tado is really a pronoun of 
 the second person plural is proved by its being employed in 
 the definite conjugation, in which the verb and its regimen 
 arc included in the same combination: -- e. gr. sof/(/-(f/fI//-z, 
 ? he judges you,' where the final consonant is the regular
 
 OP THE VERB. 303 
 
 sign of the third person, abbreviated from zo = ejm, and 
 ludif the regimen or objective case = voices* In fact, a ge- 
 neral comparison of the dialects shows that the guttural 
 and dental forms are used interchangeably with nouns and 
 verbs, and that one is often merely a modification or muta- 
 tion of the other. Thus in Hungarian and Lappish the 
 plural of nouns ends in k, in Finnish in /, and in Estiionian 
 in d. As all the languages have the same origin, it is 
 reasonable to conclude that the dental forms are mere soften- 
 ings of the guttural, like our modern mate from the Old- 
 English make, A.-S. ma>g. 
 
 The last language of this class which we shall have oc- 
 casion to consider is the Hungarian, perhaps as remarkable 
 as any for the distinctness of its forms and the striking 
 similarity of the two classes of words which it is at present at- 
 tempted to identify with each other. As in most languages 
 of the class, the place of pronouns possessive is supplied 
 by suffixes attached to the noun, and it his hardly possible 
 to compare these suffixes with the personal endings of the 
 verb without admitting a community of origin. For example 
 kezy 'hand,' is connected with oblique forms of pronouns as 
 follows: 
 
 kez-em, kez-ed, kez-e. 
 
 mamis mei, tui, ejus. 
 
 kez-tink. kez etek, kez-ek. 
 
 noslri , veslri, eorum. 
 
 Compare the preterite of the definite conjugation , /. c. of a 
 verb followed by a regimen with a definite article, an ob- 
 jective personal pronoun, v. 1. q. 
 
 Singular. Plural. 
 
 1. osmert-em, cognovi. \. esmert-iik [imlcf. conj. esmert-iink]. 
 
 2. esmert-ed, 2. esmert-etek. 
 2. esmert-e, 3. esmert-rk. 
 
 It will be seen that the correspondence of the two sets of 
 endings is perfect, with the exception of iik instead of inik 
 in the first person plural ; which form however duly appears 
 in the indefinite conjugation. Some of the remaining tenses, 
 both of the definite indicative and conjunctive, differ slightly, 
 in one or two persons, chiefly as it seems for the sake of 
 euphony, or through the retention of older forms. There 
 is considerable discrepancy between the inflexions of the 
 definite and the indefinite conjugations, owing to the latter
 
 304 ON THE NATURE AND ANALYSIS 
 
 having adopted forms of pronouns now obsolete in other 
 combinations. 
 
 The resemblance between the two classes of endings did 
 not escape the notice of the Hungarian grammarian Marton, 
 who however strangely assumes that the pronominal suffixes 
 of nouns, -- and infinitives, which have precisely the con- 
 struction of nouns, are borrowed from the finite verb; 
 thus taking it for granted, without evidence, that the verbal 
 combination is the older of the two. Another native gram- 
 marian, Revay, whose acumen unfortunately was not quite 
 equal to his industry, shows by an elaborate induction that 
 the endings of finite verbs are all of pronominal origin, and 
 that those of the definite conjugation are identical with the 
 suffixes of nouns. On these and similar phenomena he 
 grounds some speculations respecting the rudimentary state 
 of the language, which appear to contain a strange mixture 
 of truth and error. 
 
 After observing that the radical terms employed to denote 
 action, passion, or state, had originally rather the force of 
 nouns than verbs, and that they became verbs first by the 
 annexation of personal pronouns, and then by the progres- 
 sive augmentation of the forms of inoods and tenses, he 
 remarks: - 
 
 "In the early state of languages the primary names of 
 things were chiefly monosyllables, which also furnished verbs 
 in their most simple form, before the more enlarged and 
 artificial forms made their appearance. There remain, even 
 at the present day, some nouns of this kind, being at the 
 same time verbs; for example, /i/^y, signifying both 'frost' 
 and 'it freezes'; also luk* , 'habitation,' which, augmented 
 by the affixing of a pronoun, is used as a verb, lak-ik, 
 'habitat.' In the infancy of the language, the forms fayy-en, 
 fagy-te, fagy-o, arose from the inartificial annexation of the 
 pronoun , having both the force of the noun and of the verb, 
 when predicated of persons: primarily denoting gdu, ego, 
 tu, ille, instead of gelu, meum , tuum, suum, and then ye- 
 lasco, gelascis, gelascit. Afterwards, by a more perfect for- 
 mation which is still in use, a distinction was made be- 
 tween them in this way, namely that fagy-om, fagy-od, ffigy-(i 
 or -ja, lak-om, lak-od, lak-ju, where employed as nouns, 
 and fayy-ok , fagy-oz , fagy , lak-om, lak-ol, lak-ik, as verbs." 
 
 That the rudimentary words of language were nouns , and 
 that verbs arose out of them by the annexation of personal 
 pronouns, are positions which we feel by no means inclined 
 
 * Now only used in composition.
 
 OP THE VERB. 305 
 
 to dispute. But that the pronouns thus employed as the 
 subjects of propositions were, as Revay imagines, originally 
 nominatives, is not only unsupported by evidence, but re- 
 pugnant to the very nature of things. It is totally incre- 
 dible that habitntio ego could ever be used in regular and con- 
 nected speech to express either babitatio mei or habito. All 
 known languages are constructed on strictly logical princi- 
 ples, and one in which no distinction could be made between 
 asimts ego and asinns mei would be unfit for the purposes of 
 intercourse between man and man. From the very earliest 
 period there must have been some method of expressing 
 attribution; and when pronouns were employed, this was done 
 either by putting them in oblique cases, or by means of 
 possessive pronouns , nearly all of which are formed on ob- 
 lique cases ; and in many languages more than one pronoun 
 is employed in order to render the attribution more clear. 
 Sometimes, as in Welsh and Finnish, the nominative is used 
 pleonastically along with the oblique case for the sake of 
 emphasis ; but the proof that the oblique form is the essential 
 element is, that it is optional to omit the former, but not 
 the latter. Even in ancient Chinese, a marked distinction 
 is made between apposition and attribution. Notwithstanding 
 this fundamental error as to the nature of the relation be- 
 tween the noun employed as a verb and its pronominal affix, 
 Revay's remarks, as applied specifically to the Hungarian 
 language, are extremely valuable and contain the germ of 
 an important principle. He gives elsewhere various examples 
 of nouns which are at tjie same time verbs, and observes 
 that many more such were current in an earlier state of the 
 language. The formal difference which he attempts to esta- 
 blish between the verb and the noun is fallacious, as the 
 examples which he gives are both in the indefinite conjuga- 
 tion. When the definite conjugation is employed, there is, 
 as we have already shown, no external difference worth 
 mentioning. For instance, le'r may be indifferently noun, 
 adjective, or verb, in tho respective acceptations of spatium, 
 spaliosiiSj sputinm habeo, or transeo; and te'r-em, te'r-ed, te'r-i, 
 might cither denote spa Hum mei, tui, sm, or, as verbs in the 
 definite conjugation, transeo, transis, transit. Thus ir-om may 
 be either unguentum mei or scribo; tudal-om, scientia mei or 
 scire facio; vadasz-om, venator mei or venor; nyotn-om, vesti- 
 gium mei or calco; and lep-cm, tegimen mei or tego. In modern 
 Hungarian, esfi denotes pluvia, and es-ik , pluit\ but in the 
 fifteenth century the simple root es was employed in both 
 senses. There is little doubt that at an early period this 
 identity of the verbal root with the noun was a general law 
 
 20
 
 306 ON THE NATURE AND ANALYSIS 
 
 of the language. At present the abstract noun commonly 
 differs from the simplest form of the verb by the addition 
 of a formative syllable, usually as or at: e. yr. /r, scribit; 
 iras } scriptio; ir-al, scriptum. Such formatives, introduced 
 for the sake of explanation or distinction, often belong to a 
 comparatively recent period of a language, as may be seen 
 by comparing Gothic with modern German. 
 
 The observation already made respecting the Turco-Tar- 
 tarian verb ; that it is almost entirely an aggregation of 
 participles and pronouns , is in a great measure equally ap- 
 plicable to the Hungarian. The present tense has been al- 
 ready analysed, as consisting of the simple root in con- 
 struction with personal pronouns, in obliquo. The imperfect 
 esmere'-m, anciently esmereve-m or esmereje-m, is formed on 
 a modification of the present participle: the perfect esmert-em 
 is nothing but the perfect participle esmert, with the usual 
 pronominal endings; and esmertend-6 , the future participle, 
 is equally the basis of the future tense, esmertend-cm. In a 
 former paper, "On the Origin of the Present Participle," 
 the writer took occasion to show that the Hungarian parti- 
 ciples have generally the forms and the construction of ab- 
 lative or locative cases. We have also seen that the personal 
 endings of the definite conjugation are recognized by the 
 native grammarians as identical with the pronominal suffixes 
 regularly employed with nouns. If we admit both parts of 
 this analysis , it seems to follow that there is an oblique re- 
 lation in both constituents of the verb , constituting the same 
 kind of double attribution that has already been pointed out 
 in Burmese and Tibetan. Jt is not a little remarkable more- 
 over, that in Tibetan and Hungarian this phenomenon is 
 exhibited in verbs with a definite regimen, or in the lan- 
 guage of Latin grammarians , transitive verbs. A similar 
 construction also prevails in Basque and Greenlandish ; in 
 the latter of which the subject of the transitive verb has 
 regularly the form of a genitive. Now we can scarcely con- 
 ceive anything more repugnant to the ideas usually enter- 
 tained of the finite verb, than that it should be formed out 
 of the combination of an ablative base in construction with 
 a pronominal genitive; yet this is the case in a variety of 
 fanguages, if identity of form is to be trusted. The simpler 
 torm , in which the pronoun alone is put in the oblique case, 
 occurs however more frequently. It is indeed asserted by 
 some grammarians, that those apparent oblique cases are, 
 jn the conjugation of the verb, really abbreviated nomina- 
 iives; but this explanation will not account for instances 
 where the element is lengthened instead of being short-
 
 OP THE VEUB. 307 
 
 ened, nor for those where the actual nominatives have 
 nothing in common with the verbal inflexions, being in fact 
 composed of letters of totally different organs. It seems 
 much more legitimate and rational to consider identity ot 
 form as an indication of identity of power and meaning, till 
 some good reason is given to the contrary. 
 
 It may not be amiss to add a few supplementary remarks 
 on some Caucasian languages, the exact place ot which has 
 not as yet been accurately determined, but exhibiting some 
 points of resemblance with the Finno-Tartarian family. In 
 the principal of these, the Georgian, tie conjugation of the 
 verb is singularly intricate, and the attempts of grammarians 
 to analyse it have not been very successful. Many of the 
 paradigms in Brosset's Grammar are confessedly erroneous; 
 and Bopp's attempt to account for the characteristic forms 
 from the Sanscrit is little calculated to produce conviction. 
 Thus much may be affirmed, that the root of the verb is 
 regularly an abstract or verbal noun, which becomes a verb 
 by the instrumentality of particles and personal pronouns. 
 It is remarkable that these elements, indicating the person 
 or subject, are not, as in the Indo-European and most other 
 languages, terminational, but prefixed, and in some dialects ( 
 curiously infixed in the middle of the verb. In some tenses / 
 they are only employed in a fragmentary manner, but in{ 
 others their correspondence with the personal pronouns is 
 pretty exact; and what is of most consequence to our present 
 argument, they have the forms of the oblique cases, which 
 are totally different from the regular nominatives. Thus 
 the root qwar , * to love,' forms its pluperfect tense in the 
 singular number by inserting, after the formative particle 
 she, the syllables mi, gi, u } as follows: 
 
 1st pers. she-miqwarebia , amaveram. 
 2nd she-giqrvarebia , 
 3rd she nqtvarebia, 
 
 The above elements m, g , u, are precisely those employed 
 as the dative or objective cases of the personal pronouns in 
 construction with transitive verbs, though the first person 
 agrees pretty well with w<? = ego, the second and third are 
 totally unlike, sfien=tu, ?///?= ille. To say therefore that 
 they are nominatives, or ever were, is a mere arbitrary 
 assumption. Even Bopp admits that they are oblique cases, 
 both in form and construction, but assumes that this and 
 similar tenses are in reality in the passive voice, without 
 making the smallest attempt to prove them so. 
 
 The Lazian, Suanian, and Mingrelian, on which light has 
 
 20*
 
 308 ON THE NATIIHE AND ANALYSIS 
 
 been recently thrown by the researches of Rosen, are lan- 
 guages of the same class as the Georgian; and it will be 
 sufficient to say of them that they exhibit the same charac- 
 teristics as have already been specified, some more and some 
 less completely: and where the forms differ, the principle is 
 obviously the same. 
 
 In all there has evidently been a great abrasion of cha- 
 racteristic forms, especially of the pronominal prefixes. In 
 the Suanian, some tenses accurately distinguish the three per- 
 sons singular and plural; in others, as also in Georgian 
 and Mingrelian, the singular and plural forms of those ele- 
 ments are the same; while in Lazian scarcely any personal 
 characteristic has survived beyond an obscure indication of 
 the first person. There is however a class of dialects which 
 it is conceived clearly exhibits the original principle of orga- 
 nization in the whole Caucasian group; namely the Abchas- 
 sian and Circassian, with their immediate cognates. The 
 Circassian is at present unfortunately only known to us by 
 the notoriously inaccurate statements of Klaproth ; but as it 
 is admitted to be closely related to the Abchassian, we will 
 abstract the extremely interesting and important remarks of 
 Rosen respecting the structure of the verb in the latter: - 
 
 "The Abchassian verb, interesting on account of its great 
 simplicity, exhibits equal completeness and consistency in 
 its formation. We here find the personal conception or cha- 
 racteristic, indispensable to the finite verb, completely de- 
 tached from the termination, so that the plurality of the 
 subject is not, as is still the case in the Suanian, expressed 
 by a modification of the ending, but, more naturally, by 
 means of the pronominal prefixes of the several persons. 
 The termination simply and abstractedly denotes the verbal 
 action with its relation to time, and in this capacity can 
 admit of alteration neither on account of number nor person. 
 The pronominal prefixes, on the other hand, are different 
 according to the six relations of person which they repre- 
 sent, and cannot on their part undergo alteration according 
 to tense or time." 
 
 Rosen proceeds to remark that the six personal charac- 
 teristics are perfectly identical with the personal pronouns, 
 being respectively: - 
 
 Sing. 1. s, z, Phir. ]. h, 
 
 2. w, M, 2. sh, 
 
 3. , 3. r. 
 
 which are generally prefixed to the verbal root, but some- 
 times infixed or intercalated in what appears to us a singular
 
 OF THE VERB. 309 
 
 manner. He makes however no observation on a point 
 which we conceive to be of some consequence, namely that 
 the above elements are not nominatives, but oblique cases, 
 employed indifferently as genitives in construction with nouns, 
 as datives or objective cases with transitive verbs, and as 
 pronominal subjects with all verbs without exception. For 
 example, ab, * father,' is attributed to the different persons 
 in the following manner: 
 
 s-ab, pater mei. 
 
 tv-ab, tui. 
 
 i ab, ejus. 
 
 h-ab , pater nostri. 
 sh-ab, vestri. 
 r-ab eorum. 
 
 Compare with the above present tense of the verb neh-oit, 
 * to pray ' : 
 
 Sing. 1. s-nehoit, oro. Plur. 1. ha-nchoil, oramus. 
 
 2. ti-nehoii, oras. ~2. sh-nehoil, oratis. 
 
 3. i-nehuil, orat. 3. r-nehoit, orant. 
 
 Here we see that the forms of the pronominal elements 
 are perfectly identical in both classes; and there seems no 
 reason to doubt that the force or construction is, or origi- 
 nally was, the same in both. We may venture to affirm 
 that s-nehoit primarily denoted oratio mei, just as s-ab means 
 mei pater. 
 
 When the dialects more immediately connected with the 
 Abchassian are better known, we shall doubtless be able 
 to derive important conclusions from them. The opinion of 
 Rosen, who has enjoyed better means of information than 
 any other European, is, that the Iberian and Circassian di- 
 visions all originally belong to one family of tongues, though 
 in various stages of development; the Abchassian having 
 preserved most of the original type, and the Georgian having 
 deviated the most widely from it; owing probably to the 
 greater amount of cultivation bestowed upon it and mixture 
 with other tribes. If our remarks on the nature of the re- 
 lation between the Abchassian verbal root and its pronominal 
 subject are well-founded*, it is obvious that- the same prin- 
 ciple of formation may have originally operated in the entire 
 family; a point, which, if well-established, would afford no 
 small confirmation to the argument of the present scries of 
 papers. 
 
 The next division of the general subject which it is pro- 
 posed to consider, is that of the great family of Polynesian 
 languages ; a class equally remarkable for its peculiar struc- 
 ture and the immense extent of territory over which it is 
 spoken.
 
 310 ON THE NATURE AND ANALYSIS 
 
 It is still a controverted question how far this family may 
 be affirmed to consist of several distinct races partially in- 
 termixed, or to be in reality reducible to one common type. If 
 physical characteristics were to form a criterion, there ap- 
 pears a marked distinction between certain light- and dark- 
 coloured populations, and several writers have supposed 
 that there is nothing in common between the two except a 
 few borrowed words. On this ground the Australians, the 
 Papuans, the Feejees, the Harafooras of the Philippine and 
 Molucca islands, and the Malagassy, have been sometimes 
 separated from the proper Malayan and Polynesian tribes, 
 and assumed to be radically distinct from them , both in race 
 and language. 
 
 The Australian languages certainly differ materially from 
 those of the Malayan type, though a similarity of structure 
 may be traced. Respecting the Papuan Negrito, there is great 
 want of information, especially as to grammatical character; 
 hoAvever, the vocabularies hitherto collected present a num- 
 ber of Malayan words. - But if language is to be regarded 
 as a criterion, the Feejee, the Moluccan Harafoora, and 
 the Malagassy are closely connected with the main stock; 
 in fact they are in several respects more perfectly organized 
 than the Malay or Javanese. We may therefore venture 
 to include them in the class of which we are now treating, 
 and reason from the phenomena which they present. 
 
 It was observed in the first paper of the present series, 
 that in the Feejee language the functions of a verb may be 
 discharged by a noun in construction with an oblique pro- 
 nominal suffix, e. gr. loma-qu = heart, or will of me., for 
 T will. Though there are examples of this in other languages 
 of the family, it is not the ordinary way in which the Po- 
 lynesian verb is formed. So far is the finite verb from being 
 a simple original element, that it commonly requires to be 
 equipped with an array of particles, prefixed, infixed, or 
 postfixed, as the case may be, before it can act in that 
 capacity ; and the basis on which this complex expression 
 rests is generally a noun, sometimes a mere adverb or pre- 
 position. The peculiar organization of the class is most 
 fully exhibited by the languages of the Philippine Islands, 
 and next by the Malagassy; the Malay and Javanese having 
 lost a good deal of their original type, though they exhibit 
 traces of it in particular instances. 
 
 Almost all philologists who have paid attention to the 
 Polynesian languages, concur in observing that the divisions 
 of parts of speech received by European grammarians are, 
 as far as external form is concerned, inapplicable, or nearly
 
 OF THE VERB. 311 
 
 so, in this particular class. The same element is admitted 
 to be indifferently substantive, adjective, verb or particle, 
 and the particular category in which it is employed can only 
 be known by means of its accessories. Thus Roorda, in 
 his notes to Gericke's Javanese Grammar, observes that 
 the root of every verb is necessarily a noun, and that its 
 verbal character depends entirely on the pronouns and par- 
 ticles by which it is modified. William Humboldt also, in 
 his great work 'Ucber die Kawi-Sprache ,' repeatedly states 
 that no very distinct line of discrimination can be drawn 
 between nouns and verbs, and that the passive verb in par- 
 ticular, the class most commonly employed in the more per- 
 fectly organized tongues, can only be resolved into a forma- 
 tion equivalent in force and construction to an abstract noun. 
 
 In Tagala there are two principal modes of formation, 
 commonly called active and passive. In the former, the 
 ostensible verb is construed with the nominatives of the per- 
 sonal pronouns, according to the following paradigm: 
 
 1. 2. 3. 
 
 1st Future Sing, susulul . . co, c, siya, 
 
 ' Plur. . . /yo, cayo, sila; 
 
 usually considered as equivalent to scribam, scribes, &c. 
 
 In the passive voice the personal pronouns are regularly 
 appended in the genitive case; e. gr., 
 
 \. 2. 3. 
 
 Sing, susulalin, co, mo, niya , ) -, . 
 
 T^l * * t *s" tUlll <, (XL . 
 
 rlur. titin, tnyo, w/a, ) 
 
 Here it might be alleged, that in the active voice the per- 
 sonal pronouns are plainly nominatives, and consequently 
 susulat, the base to which they are appended, must have the 
 true force of a verb. 
 
 It is however easy to show that the formations above spe- 
 cified are neither actives nor passives, nor verbs at all, in 
 the sense in which that part of speech is commonly under- 
 stood. The root of the formation is a noun siilul, Arab. 
 sitrat , writing. The aggregation of particles expressing the 
 various modifications of time, converts it into a nomen ac- 
 (oris, nearly equivalent to an active participle, in the former 
 class; and into a nomen actionis or passionis in the latter. 
 The proof of this is, that the entire phrase in both classes 
 is convertible into a virtual participle by merely prefixing 
 the definite article, thus: -
 
 312 ON THE NATURE AND ANALYSIS 
 
 Active Pres. . . ung sungmusulal . . o 
 - Perf. . . any sunymulat ... 6 
 
 Fut. . . ang susulat ..... 6 ygdfyav. 
 Passive Pres. . any sinulnl=ro yQayopsvov, &c. 
 
 In this construction the force is the same whether the per- 
 sonal pronoun is expressed or not. Any sungmusulal aco is 
 simply scribens eyo , and any sinulal co, scriptum or scriplio 
 mei. This explains at once the reason why nominatives are 
 employed in the so-called active form and oblique eases in the 
 passive. It is also completely subversive of the supposed 
 verbal character of the phrase. *O ygdcpav j>oj is sufficiently 
 intelligible; but it is not so easy to make sense or grammar 
 of 6 eya ygoKpa. 
 
 Another strong argument against this presumed verbal 
 character is furnished by the remarkable fact, that in tran- 
 sitive constructions the so-called passive form is preferred 
 to the active, especially with a definite regimen. When 
 the object of the action is a personal pronoun, a noun in 
 construction with a possessive pronoun or a definite article, 
 or anything of which the individuality is plainly specified, 
 the passive form of construction is indispensably requisite. 
 Thus the absolute phrase, I will cat, is expressed by the ac- 
 tive voice, with the personal pronoun in the nominative, 
 cacan-aco\ but, / will eat the rice, by the passive, cacanin-co 
 ung palay , the personal pronoun being here in the genitive. 
 This is seemingly analogous to the Latin construction come- 
 delur a me; but the true analysis is, the eating of me , or 
 my eating, \will be\ the rice, = comesliu mei, or mea. The 
 supposed verb is in fact an abstract noun , including in it 
 the notion of futurity of time (forthwith, hereafter, v. I. #.), 
 in construction with an oblique pronominal suffix; and the 
 ostensible object of the action is not a regimen in the accusa- 
 tive case, but an apposition. It is scarcely necessary to 
 say how irreconcileable this is with the ordinary grammatical 
 definition of a transitive verb ; and that too in a construction 
 where we should expect that true verbs would be infallibly 
 employed, if any existed in the language. 
 
 The Malagassy stands next to the Philippine dialects in 
 the regularity of its forms and the apparent complexity of its 
 structure, being capable, by means of its numerous prefixes 
 and affixes, of expressing the times, circumstances and other 
 relations of actions with great nicety of discrimination. In one 
 particular it seems at a first glance to differ materially from 
 the branch which we have just been considering. Each of the 
 fifteen voices of the Tagala has its corresponding passive, the
 
 OP THE VERB. 313 
 
 oblique form of construction already noticed prevailing in all. 
 But the thirteen voices of the Malagassy verb, as c'assed by 
 grammarians, have all the forms of actives or neuters, and 
 though the oblique form of expression is not absolutely un- 
 known, it is of comparatively infrequent occurrence. This 
 difference is however more apparent than real. The place 
 of the passive forms is sufficiently supplied by participial or 
 abstract nouns, having precisely the same oblique form of 
 construction as the Philippine passives, and often modified 
 by prefixes and affixes in "a similar manner. 
 
 The rule of employing the oblique construction with a de- 
 finite regimen docs not appear so imperative as in Tagala; 
 but, whether necessary or not, it is a very common idiom, 
 examples occurring in almost every page of the Malagassy 
 version of the Scriptures. Thus, *I love' may be expressed 
 by the simple form izaho tia, or with the pronoun in the ge- 
 nitive, tia ko. It is equally permissible to say fitiava' ho, 
 the literal rendering of Avhich is simply amor me/. Mr. Free- 
 man observes, in the short sketch of grammar appended to 
 his 'Account of Madagascar,' that verbal roots are transform- 
 ed into participles by prefixing the particles voa, ova, or 
 ; and that the pronominal affixes again convert these par- 
 ticiples into verbs; e. gr. ova = change; a-ova = changed; 
 a-ova-ko = I changed. He further observes that another 
 form is made by giving a participial termination to the root, 
 adding -cna , -ina, -ana or -aina, and sometimes -vina, -vana, 
 -zena, -zana , or some similar adjunct; the final syllable 
 being rejected when the pronominal affix is appended, as 
 fmiiatra , known; fanfftfr' ao, thou knowest, or knewcst; 
 fanta-ny , he knows or knew. 
 
 It is stated in the Malagassy dictionary that there has been 
 a difference of opinion among the Missionaries as to some 
 of those forms being really participles, or more properly 
 participial nouns. There are ample grounds for believing 
 that, in point of fact," there is not such a thing as a true 
 participle, analogous to a Greek or Latin one, either in Ma- 
 lagassy or in any other Polynesian language. Their place is 
 supplied , as in the Celtic languages , by a circumlocution 
 with the abstract noun and particles expressive of time, 
 place, or some similar adjunct; and the formative syllables, 
 as well as the grammatical construction, are those of nouns, 
 and not those of verbs. Filiavana, for example, corresponds 
 accurately to dileclio, and is currently employed in that sense; 
 though, with a suitable pronominal affix, it is used as equi- 
 valent to a verb. The form of the personal pronoun clearly 
 shows the true character of the word. If it were analogous
 
 314 ON THE NATURE AND ANALYSIS 
 
 to the passive participle dilectw, or the active aorist 
 
 it would be construed with the nominative, izaho fitiavana- - 
 
 not with the genitive, fitiava'-ko. 
 
 The above examples from the Tagala and Malagassy, to 
 which many similar ones might be added from other langua- 
 ges, are of considerable value as establishing one important 
 point in the general argument. "Whatever may be thought 
 of the proposition that all verbs were originally nouns, there 
 can be no question that nouns in conjunction with oblique 
 cases of pronouns may be and, in fact, are employed as 
 verbs. Some of the constructions above specih'ed admit of 
 no other analysis; and they are no accidental partial phe- 
 nomena, but capable of being produced by thousands. Ihey 
 may therefore be safely regarded as organically belonging 
 to the languages in which they are found ; and they are the 
 most marked and prevalent in the most fully organized ton- 
 gues, and employed precisely in those constructions in which, 
 according to European ideas , a bond fide verb would appear 
 to be most imperatively called for. 
 
 The true character of many of the forms to which we 
 have adverted is so obvious, that it was hardly possible that 
 it could altogether escape the notice of philologists. Thus, 
 Roorda observes, that in the Harafoora of Ceram, a lan- 
 guage allied in some respects to Malay, and in others to 
 Javanese, but presenting more of the original type than cither, 
 the personal pronouns used in conjugating verbs are often 
 in the oblique or genitive form; and that many combinations 
 called verbs are in reality nothing but nouns. For instance, 
 pina-sanih-an, the ostensible passive of sanih, to agree, im- 
 mediately acquires the sense of agreement, determination, through 
 the mere prefixing of the indefinite or definite article. 
 
 William Humboldt also admits that the Tagala passive 
 forms and the Malagassy participial ones are in reality to 
 be resolved by abstract nouns, and that the noun lies at the 
 base of all the verbal formations. But being unable to di- 
 vest his mind of the prevalent idea of an essential and ra- 
 dical difference between the verb and other parts of speech, 
 he endeavours to make it appear that this character resides 
 in the verb substantive, which is to be supplied by the mind 
 in all cases where the functions of the verb proper are to be 
 called in requisition. This theory presupposes the existence 
 of a verb substantive in the languages in question, and 
 consciousness of that existence and of the force and capa- 
 bilities of the element in those who speak them. Unfortunate- 
 ly the Spanish grammarians, to whom we are indebted 
 for what knowledge we possess of the Philippine dialects,
 
 OF THE VERB. 315 
 
 unanimously concur in stating that there is no verb substan-(' 
 tive either in Tagala, Pampanga, or Bisaya, nor any means 
 of supplying the place of one, except the employment of 
 pronouns and particles. Mariner makes a similar remark 
 respecting the Tonga language, and we may venture to af- 
 firm that there is not such a thing as a true verb substantive 
 in any one member of the great Polynesian family. 
 
 It is true that the Malayan, Javanese and Malagassy gram- 
 marians talk of words signifying to be; but an attentive com- 
 parison of the elements which they profess to give as such, 
 shows clearly that they are no verbs at all, but simply pro- 
 nouns or indeclinable particles, commonly indicating the 
 time, place or manner of the specified action or relation. It 
 .is not therefore easy to conceive how the mind of a Philip- 
 pine islander, or of any other person, can supply a word 
 totally unknown to it, and which there is not a particle of 
 evidence to show that it ever thought of. To say that it is 
 sufficient for the mind to supply the idea of existence, would 
 attempt to prove too much, it being clear that the mind is 
 equally capable of supplying it in any other case whatever. 
 A more suitable opportunity may perhaps occur of showing 
 that many of the current notions respecting the nature and 
 functions of the verb substantive are altogether erroneous, 
 and that they have been productive of no small confusion in 
 grammar and logic. 
 
 A second theory respecting the so-called Polynesian verbs 
 is, that their essential character resides in the formative pre- 
 fixes employed to distinguish the different tenses and voices. 
 This will be found on examination to be equally untenable. 
 Those formatives cannot communicate the character of a verb 
 to any other part of speech ; for this plain reason , that they 
 do not possess any such character themselves. They are in 
 fact mere particles, indicating some attendant circumstance, 
 and occurring in other combinations in the unequivocal sen- 
 ses of to, for, after , further , like, or something similar. Thus 
 the Malayan de , the formative of the so-called passive voice, 
 is simply in, on, at', the Malagassy ho, interpreted shall, or 
 shall be, in reality means for; and the Harafoora toro, also 
 a formative of the future, answers pretty exactly to the Fr. 
 pour or Germ, um = in order that. It is evident therefore 
 that the combination of such elements with nouns or adjec- 
 tives cannot convert them into verbs, any more than the 
 prefixing a Greek or Latin preposition can make a verb out 
 of a word that is not one already. Explanations of this sort, 
 which are in fact mere suggestions of a mm causa pro causa. 
 are little calculated to advance the progress of philology,
 
 316 ON DE NATURK AND ANALYSIS 
 
 and only lead one to suspect that there is something unsound 
 and unsubstantial in the hypothesis which they arc advanced 
 to support. 
 
 We now come to a class of tongues, which, when the 
 circumstances of those who speak them are considered, might 
 a priori be thought as likely as any to exhibit the pheno- 
 mena of language in nearly their original state, namely those 
 of the great Continent of America. Our knowledge of them 
 indeed only dates from the sixteenth century ; but we also 
 know, that before that time they had neither been corrupted 
 by the caprices of writers nor the refinements of gramma- 
 rians. We then may safely regard all principles of forma- 
 tion common to them and those of the Old World as equally 
 original, and inherent in the very nature of language. 
 
 The scanty and unsatisfactory nature of the materials at 
 present accessible, renders a general connected analysis of 
 the verb in the South American languages an undertaking 
 of no small difficulty. Many dialects are barely known by 
 name ; of many others we have nothing beyond meagre and 
 inaccurate vocabularies; and those that have been gramma- 
 tically analysed, have been commonly treated by men dis- 
 posed to refer everything to classical models, and to find 
 everywhere something like Latin cases, moods and tenses. 
 The multiplicity of forms and the uncertainty of their proper 
 analysis is another great obstacle. Besides the absolute, 
 oblique and possessive forms of the pronouns, wo often find 
 triplicate and even quadruplicate sots employed in the con- 
 jugation of the verb, each tense having its appropriate one. 
 Sometimes those variations may be accounted for as being 
 combinations of several elements, namely of particles de- 
 noting the time of the action, and very frequently of other 
 pronouns in the objective or dative case, which coalesce 
 with the proper subject of the verb in such a manner as to 
 make it hardly distinguishable. 
 
 In other cases this solution is only matter of conjecture, 
 or to be inferred by analogical reasoning. But, amidst 
 much that is at present obscure and doubtful, there is no 
 lack of instances in which the analysis of the simple tenses 
 of the verb is perfectly certain. The pronouns employed 
 in conjugation are readily recognised as such, and when 
 this is the case, it is important to observe that they com- 
 monly agree with the oblique forms employed as posscssives, 
 scarcely ever with the absolute form of the nominative, ex- 
 cept in a few cases where the same word is indifferently 
 used in both capacities. For example in the Lule, a language
 
 OF THE VKRB. 317 
 
 spoken to the west of the Paraguay, the personal pronouns 
 are as follows: 
 
 1. 2. 3. 
 
 Nominative Sing. quis^ ue, meolo. 
 
 Plur. ua , mil, meolo. 
 
 Genitive or) Sing, s, c, ce, p. 
 
 Possessive (Plur. cen , lorn, pan. 
 
 The latter set of forms is identical with the personal endings 
 of the ordinary verb; e. (jr., mait-ce, thy will; loot-ce, thou 
 art; tanta-cen, our bread; lopsam-cen, we forgive. 
 
 The identity of the oblique cases of the pronouns with the 
 personal formatives of verbs is equally close in the Moxan, 
 the Ma'ipurian, and the Mixtecan. In the Araucanian , the 
 Betoi, the Mexican, and several other languages, the re- 
 semblances of the two classes are considerable, but do not 
 amount to perfect identity. In Guarani and some other 
 tongues the same forms serve both as absolute nominatives 
 and as possessives, the personal characteristics of verbs being 
 totally different, while in others no resemblance can be tra- 
 ced in any of the three classes; and again in some there are 
 five, six or seven sets of personal pronouns, with scarcely 
 a single element in common. It would be vain to attempt 
 to reconcile all these discrepancies with the aid of our pre- 
 sent means of information ; the comparison of a number of 
 kindred dialects might possibly help to clear up a part of 
 them. 
 
 Some points, from which interesting and important con- 
 clusions may be drawn, have been obscured by the errone- 
 ous views taken of them by European philologists. W. 
 Humboldt, in the introductory part of his work 'Ueber die 
 Kawi Sprache,' vol. i. pp. 188 9, among some remarks on 
 the structure of the South American verb, all ingenious, 
 but occasionally questionable, has the following observations 
 on the conjugation of the Maya dialect: 
 
 "The affixed pronoun of the second leading class is also 
 employed as a possessive pronoun in conjunction with sub- 
 stantives. It betrays a total misapprehension of the differ- 
 ence between the noun and the verb to allot a possessive 
 pronoun to the latter, to confound our ccttiny with we eat. 
 This however appears to me in those languages which are 
 guilty of the fault, to consist chiefly in a want of properly 
 discriminating the different classes of pronouns from each 
 other. For the error is evidently more trifling when the 
 conception of the possessive pronoun is not laid hold of 
 with due precision, and this I believe to be the case in the
 
 318 ON THE NATURE AND ANALYSIS 
 
 present instance. In almost all American languages , the 
 perception of their structure is to be deduced from the pro- 
 noun; and this, in the manner of two great branches, winds 
 itself around the noun as a possessive, and around the verb 
 as governing or governed; and both parts of speech usually 
 remain united with it. Commonly the respective languages 
 have different forms of pronouns for each class. But when 
 this is not the case, the idea of the person is connected with 
 either part of speech in an uncertain ; changeable und inde- 
 terminate manner." 
 
 The illustrations author seems to regard the agreement of 
 the possessive and conjugational pronouns as a sort of error 
 in language, originating in the want of due discrimination 
 on the part of those who commit it. It is apprehended that 
 the error is not in the language, or the people who speak 
 it, but in ourselves, when we attempt to adjust apparently 
 novel grammatical phsenomena to our own preconceived ideas. 
 Were the instance of the Maya language a solitary one, there 
 might be room for suspecting some error or corruption in 
 the matter. But when we find a multitude of languages in 
 all parts of the known world in the same predicament, we 
 may venture to affirm that there must be some good reason 
 for it. This reason we believe to be, that there is no essen- 
 tial difference between the simple noun and the verb; and 
 that in an early stage of language our eating might very well 
 mean precisely the same thing that me eat does at present. 
 With respect to the Maya language in particular, the f ra- 
 ni ers of it can hardly be suspected of inability to discriminate 
 between the different classes of pronouns, there being few 
 nations who make so many distinctions as they do. They 
 have four different sets of conjunctive pronouns: one em- 
 ployed before the verb or noun as a sort of auxiliary or 
 verb substantive; another in the same capacity after them; 
 a third serving as possessives and conjugational pronouns 
 with nouns commencing with consonants; and a fourth em- 
 ployed with the same parts of speech when they begin with 
 vowels. Besides all these they have long and distinctly 
 marked forms for nominatives absolute: tinmen, ego; tinmenel, 
 tu; tumen, ille ; tamcn, nos. &c. Now they could certainly 
 employ the last -mentioned class in conjugating the verb, if 
 they entertained the same ideas about nominatives and their 
 necessary conjunction with verbs that are current among 
 European grammarians. But instead of saying tamen zaalzic, 
 we forgive, as according to Humboldt's reasoning they ought 
 to have done, they choose to employ c'zaatzic, just as they 
 say, c'ztipil, our sin; or ca-ywn } our father. We may surely
 
 OF THE VERB. 319 
 
 give them credit for knowing how to combine the elements 
 of their own language in a proper manner and according to 
 rational principles. And if we find it difficult to reconcile 
 their system with our own I, we, ye, they love, it may be 
 as well to inquire whether they or ourselves have departed 
 furthest from the original principle of formation. 
 
 With respect to the North American dialects, at least some 
 of the principal ones, our means of information are tolerably 
 ample. Much light has been thrown on their organization 
 by the labours of Eliot, Zeisberger, Heckewelder, School- 
 craft, and more recently by Howse, whose Grammar of the 
 Cree language contains, along with a good deal of question- 
 able reasoning, a valuable collection of materials. It is 
 pretty universally recognized that these Northern languages 
 do not differ as to their general character from those of 
 Southern and Central America. Du Ponceau does not hesi- 
 tate to say, that all the languages from Greenland to Cape 
 Horn are formed upon the same principle. This is rather a 
 hazardous assertion to make, while there are so many of 
 which we know absolutely nothing; but it is believed to be 
 substantially correct, as far as our present means of infor- 
 mation extend. The most remarkable feature of the family 
 to an European is the polysynthetic character of the verb ; 
 in other words, its capability of aggregating the component 
 parts of an entire clause of a sentence into a single word,' 
 or at least what appears as such to'^the ear, and is written 
 as such by grammarians. 
 
 There has been however a great deal of exaggeration and 
 misapprehension on the subject. It would be a mistake to 
 suppose that every person of every tense is an intricate 
 polysynthetic combination. Many such doubtless occur; but 
 there are many others just as simple as the ordinary verbs 
 in other languages , and substantially formed upon the same 
 principles. The error has been in regarding elements as 
 integral portions of the verb which are mere accessories, 
 variable according to circumstances. An Indian, for exam- 
 ple, if he wished to say, "I give him the axe," would not 
 only embody the subject 7, the dative him, together with an 
 objective pronoun if, in one combination, but would more- 
 over intercalate axe, in an abbreviated form perhaps, but 
 still distinguishable by one familiar with the language. It 
 is however clear that him, it, axe, are no integral or neces- 
 sary elements. The verb still remains a verb when they 
 are omitted; the only essentials of it being the subject and 
 the root or verbal noun. The point which we are most con-
 
 320 ON THE NATURE AND ANALYSIS 
 
 cerned to investigate is the nature of the connection between 
 the two. 
 
 It was observed at an early period by grammarians that 
 there is no difference between the Indian possessive forms 
 used in combination with nouns, and the personals employed 
 in conjugating verbs. Du Ponceau remarks, that Eliot, in 
 his Grammar of the Massachusetts language, does not con- 
 sider the pronoun as a part of speech, but only speaks of 
 it as a possessive form of the noun and the verb; and that 
 this is in fact the principal part which it plays in those lan- 
 guages. He further states that there is no difference in them 
 between the personal and the possessive pronoun in the in- 
 separable form; they are distinguished by the sense of the 
 phrase and the nominal or verbal terminations of the word 
 to which they are joined. Heckewelder also observes in his 
 grammar of the Lcnni Lenape or Delaware, that the pos- 
 sessive pronoun is the same as the personal, separable and 
 inseparable, which is used in a possessive sense, and that 
 no ambiguity results from this similarity; the meaning being 
 always understood from the context, or the form or the in- 
 flection of the word with which the pronoun is combined. 
 Howse also states in his Cree Grammar, that the possessive 
 pronouns before nouns are expressed in the same manner 
 as the personal before verbs; and his paradigms show that 
 .the forms are the same in both cases. 
 
 In the Sahaptin, an Oregon dialect, it is remarkable that 
 there is a duplicate conjugation of the verb, the personal 
 pronouns in one division being nominatives, and in the 
 other regularly genitives; the form of the root also being 
 different for each. For example, c he is,' according to the 
 former construction, is expressed by ipi hitvash; but accord- 
 ing to the second by ipnim mh; ipnim being the genitive of 
 the pronoun of the third person. It seems evident that in 
 the first instance the supposed verbal clement is in the ca- 
 pacity of being put in apposition with its subject, bearing 
 in fact some analogy to our present participle, but that in 
 the second it can only be attributed to it in the manner of 
 a noun substantive. 
 
 It may be observed in general terms, that there arc many 
 differences of detail in the Northern Indian languages. 
 Scarcely any two have precisely the same personal pronouns 
 throughout, or arrange them in the same order in construc- 
 tion. But the agreement of those employed in conjugating 
 the simple verb with the possessivcs used in conjunction 
 with nouns is 'a general feature among them. This does not 
 arise from poverty of forms, there being commonly a dis-
 
 OF THE VERB. 321 
 
 tinct and marked form for the absolute nominatives. These, 
 in Cree for example, are in the singular: 1. netha, I; 2. 
 l;<'lhd, thou; 3. ivetlm, he, or it; while the possessives and 
 i'ormatives of verbs are, 1. net, 2. kel, 3. oo?; or still more 
 briefly, tie, ke, oo. If therefore the possessives have the 
 force and construction of oblique cases, it is difficult to assign 
 a valid reason why the conjugational ones, identical with 
 them in form, and admitting of the same analysis, should 
 not partake of the same character. 
 
 The Greenland, of which the Esquimaux is merely a dia- 
 lect , was for a time supposed to be genetically distinct from 
 the so-called American Indian languages, but it is now al- 
 lowed that it agrees with them in all their most marked 
 peculiarities of structure. It differs from all of them hitherto 
 known in its vocabulary; but it has the same polysynthetic 
 character, embodying as they do the subject and predicate 
 along with all their accessories, in one compact phrase; 
 being one word to the ear, or to the eye when written, but 
 sometimes capable of being resolved into a dozen. The 
 same remarks that have been made respecting the pronouns 
 of the Northern Indian tongues are applicable to the Green- 
 land or Esquimaux. The arrangement differs, the posses- 
 sives and verbal formatives being commonly prefixed in the 
 former and postfixcd in the latter ; but the personal termi- 
 nations of the simple tenses regularly resemble the prono- 
 minal suffixes of nouns, not the absolute forms or nomina- 
 tives. It is true that several forms are used with nouns 
 which do not occur in the conjugation of the verb, but this 
 is owing to a regard to euphony, not to any radical differ- 
 ence in the elements themselves. 
 
 It has already been observed that very exaggerated and 
 erroneous ideas have been advanced respecting the structure 
 of the class of languages of which we have been treating 
 in the present paper. They have been represented as the 
 products of deep philosophic contrivance, and totally differ- 
 ent in organization from those of every known part of the 
 Old World. The author of 'Mithridates' regards it as an 
 astonishing phenomenon, that a people like the Greenlanders, 
 struggling for subsistence amidst perpetual ice and snow, 
 should have found the means of constructing such a complex 
 and artificial system. It is conceived that there cannot be 
 a greater mistake than to suppose that a complicated lan- 
 guage is, like a chronometer or a locomotive engine, a pro- 
 duct of deep calculation and preconceived adaptation of its 
 several parts to each other. The compound portions of it 
 
 21
 
 322 ON THE NATURE AND ANALYSIS 
 
 are rather formed like crystals, by the natural affinity 
 of the component elements; and, whether the forms are 
 more or less complex, the principle of aggregation is the 
 same. 
 
 There is a logical faculty' inherent in the mind of attri- 
 buting its proper relations to each given subject, and, when 
 enunciated in words, those subjects and relations which 
 belong to each other are naturally and properly placed in 
 juxtaposition. In the Indian languages, and probably in 
 many others when in their original and inartificial state, there 
 is moreover an evident anxiety to leave nothing implied that 
 is capable of being expressed within a given compass. In 
 the abstract, giving is a single word, denoting a simple 
 action; but in the concrete, there are implied the accessory 
 notions of a person giving, a thing given and a receiver; 
 all of which an American Indian would think it necessary 
 to express in mentioning a specific act. Languages in a 
 more advanced state are less solicitous about formally enun- 
 ciating what can be readily supplied by the understanding. 
 In the well-known passage in Alciphron, "I want fifty 
 pieces of gold, and not letters si' [is qpt/Ufg, tfog," it is 
 clear from the context that the full meaning ol the last word 
 is, "give [me money\." Nevertheless an Algonquin would 
 think that he left the matter imperfect if he did not say, 
 "money give thou it me," or something equivalent. 
 A Basque would embody all the pronouns with the verb, 
 but would separate the word money ; a Mordwinian would 
 perhaps strike out the objective pronoun il } as superfluous, 
 carefully retaining "give me thou"; an European thinks 
 the simple 60$ sufficiently significant and more emphatic. 
 In none of the combinations, long or short, is there any- 
 thing marvellous, or anything implying the exercise of pro- 
 found ingenuity or previous calculation. On this point Mr. 
 Albert Gallatin well observes: "The fact, that, although 
 the object in view was, in every known Indian language 
 without exception , to concentrate in a single word those 
 pronouns with the verb, yet the means used for that purpose 
 are not the same in any two of them, shows that none of 
 them was the result of philosophical researches and precon- 
 certed design. And in those which abound most in inflec- 
 tions of that description, nothing more has been done in that 
 respect, than to effect, by a most complex process, and with 
 a cumbersome and unnecessary machinery, that which in 
 almost every other language has been as well, if not better, 
 performed through the most simple means. Those transitions, 
 in their complexness and in the still visible amalgamation
 
 OF THE VERB. 323 
 
 of the abbreviated pronouns with the verb, bear in fact the 
 impress of primitive and unpolished languages*." 
 
 To this we may add, that the same method of formation 
 is not unknown in other languages, modern as well as an- 
 cient. In the Semitic dialects, for example, the objective 
 pronoun is regularly incorporated with the different persons 
 of the finite verb, just as it is in Basque or American In- 
 dian. Du Ponceau observes, that the French phrase "tu 
 m'etourdis," only differs from the corresponding Algonquin 
 in the method ot writing it. He might have remarked that 
 the Italian combination, daro(telo= dare-habeo-tibi-illud, 
 embodies in itself more elements than many of the American 
 polysynthetic forms represented as so very wonderful, but 
 which we may be assured were formed in the same manner 
 and on exactly the same principles. 
 
 There are two points connected with the leading object 
 of the present essay which it may not be amiss to notice. 
 The first is, that in the American languages generally, in 
 the Basque, and to a great extent in the Mordwinian dialect 
 of the Finnish, the capability of receiving conjugational in- 
 flections is not limited to one particular class of words, but 
 extends to all parts of speech. Not only substantives and 
 adjectives, but adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, interjec- 
 tions, and even certain classes of pronouns receive the pro- 
 nominal affixes and are carried through the different persons 
 according to the usual analogy of a transitive or intransitive 
 verb. Now it may be fairly inferred that where all words 
 are or may be verbs , none arc essentially or peculiarly so. 
 Their capability of assuming personal forms evidently de- 
 pends upon some principle common to all, not the property 
 of a single class. This we believe to be nothing more or 
 less than predication. All words express relations, and all 
 relations may be predicated of the subjects to which they 
 belong. When those subjects are represented by pronouns, 
 their union with the predicates , it according to certain 
 grammatical forms, becomes to all intents and purposes a 
 verb, whatever the term might originally denote, or what- 
 ever class of words it might belong to. 
 
 The same extensive principle of formation may be traced 
 in other classes of languages. To say nothing of denomi- 
 native verbs from nouns, we have evdai^iov *.' , ftaxapt'^w, 
 rum plurimi* tiliis , from adjectives; ^CDQL^O from an adverb; 
 Germ, inwm , ubaron, our own utter, and many other 
 
 * Archreologia Americana , vol. ii. pp. 202 3. 
 
 21*
 
 324 ON THE NATURE AND ANALYSIS 
 
 Teutonic verbs from prepositions', the Icelandic efa, dubi- 
 tare, from a conjunction; aioj and the Germ, tichzen, to 
 groan, from interjections. The fact is, that the current 
 ideas of primitive verbs, constituting a sort of native pri- 
 vileged class or aristocracy in language, is totally unfounded. 
 There is no intrinsic difference between them and the ordi- 
 nary terms constituting the mass of language, though there 
 is an adventitious one, resulting from their combination 1 with 
 an additional element. 
 
 The other point appearing to call for notice is the appa- 
 rently singular practice in the Greenland and many Ameri- 
 can languages of employing a different verb for every dif- 
 ferent manner in which an action may be done. Thus in 
 Chilian, elun is, to give; eluguen, to give more; e1udu(int<'ii } 
 to desire to give; elurquen, to appear to give; arid so on, 
 through a long list of possible modifications. Gallatin re- 
 marks of the Northern Indian languages, that by affixing, 
 prefixing, or inserting an arbitrary particle, or rather an 
 abbreviated noun, verb, adverb, preposition, or conjunction, 
 the verb is made to designate the specific modification of the 
 action; each modification apparently constituting a different 
 mood or voice of the primitive verb. 
 
 In the Greenland language this principle is carried to an 
 almost unlimited extent. Fabricius gives in his grammar a 
 list of nearly three hundred postpositions, by the aid of which 
 complex verbs may be formed from simple ones, and this 
 by no means exhausts the number. Some of those postpo- 
 sitive elements correspond to Greek or Latin prepositions in 
 composition; others are adverbs, or similar words expressive 
 of the manner or circumstances of the action ; and not un- 
 frequently three, four, or even more, are appended in close- 
 ly consecutive series; the last regularly receiving the pro- 
 nominal conjugational affixes. All this seems very strange 
 and intricate to us; but it depends in reality on a very 
 simple principle. In such Greek words as litntQQ%t(a , oio- 
 jro/U'co (solus degere], aMoytgovso , ere QOTCQOGOTI^O , the mo- 
 difying elements are prefixed to the verb, the combination 
 being regarded as one word and capable of being predicated 
 of one given subject. In Greenland similar elements are 
 regularly postfixed, and with less restriction as to their num- 
 ber. All however relating to the same subject are consider- 
 ed as forming one aggregate, and are predicable in the 
 aggregate of that subject, just as the Greek combinations 
 above specified are of theirs, only in a different order. As 
 the genius of the language requires the personal terminations 
 to be placed last, they thereby become immediate appcn-
 
 OF THE VERB. 325 
 
 dages of the adverb or other modifying word, instead of the 
 leading verb, arid frequently with a separation of many syl- 
 lables from it. This shows clearly that the personal termi- 
 nations are no inherent portions of the verb, evolved as it 
 were out of its substance, like the branches of a tree out of 
 its trunk, otherwise they would have adhered to it more 
 closely. There is no want of parallel examples in languages 
 of the Old World, some of which we may find occasion to 
 advert to in the further prosecution of the subject. 
 
 \Ve now come to the most important and perhaps the most 
 difficult portion of the general subject, namely the applica- 
 tion of the principle attempted to be established to the great 
 and important family of Indo - European languages. Many 
 of the phenomena noticed in the languages of which we 
 have previously treated are both obvious and unequivocal, as 
 far as outward form is concerned. They are indeed admit- 
 ted in particular cases by philologists who hold the ordinary 
 opinion respecting the distinct elementary nature of the verb. 
 But in the greatest part of the Indo-European languages the 
 analysis of the component elements of this part of speech is 
 by no means so simple and self-evident as it is in some other 
 families. Various causes may be assigned for this, one of 
 which is, that in the early period of the parent language a 
 number of elements were employed as personal terminations 
 which cannot now be traced among the separate personal 
 pronouns. Another reason is , that in some of the leading 
 tongues, more particularly in Sanscrit and Greek, a vast 
 number of articulations have been sacrificed to considerations 
 of euphony, the restoration of which is often a matter of 
 conjecture, and sometimes altogether impracticable. One 
 point however is conceded, even by some who would be 
 disposed te deny that the theory of the original identity of 
 noun and verb is applicable to languages of this type, name- 
 ly that the personal terminations of the simple verb, or 
 at all events a portion of them, are of pronominal origin. 
 This concession at once establishes a certain degree of ana- 
 logy between them and the tongues of which we have already 
 treated. It now remains to inquire how far this analogy 
 may be presumed to extend. 
 
 It would be both tedious and unnecessary to examine in 
 detail all the members of the family now under considera- 
 tion. They are all confessedly descended from the same 
 general stock, and if a great leading principle of organiza- 
 tion can be established respecting any one of them, it must 
 equally apply to all. It is proposed at present to examine 
 the Celtic portion, more especially the Welsh, which appears
 
 326 ON THE NATURE AND ANALYSIS 
 
 to exhibit phenomena of considerable interest and import- 
 ance to the comparative philologist. 
 
 It was observed nearly a century and a half ago by Kd- 
 ward Lhuyd, that the distinctive terminations of the Cornish 
 verb were clearly connected with the pronouns. It is but 
 justice to a meritorious and ill -requited scholar, to give 
 his own words on the subject, which show how far he was 
 in advance of his age as a scientific philologist: "We 
 may observe, that the verbs have derived their distinction 
 of persons originally from the pronouns, in regard we find 
 yet some footsteps of them in their termination. For the 
 last letter in Guelav [I seej is taken from vi, I; the last of 
 Guelon [we see], from ni, we; of Gueloch and Gueloh [ye 
 seej, from chui and hut, ye; and in Guelanz, the third per- 
 son plural, the pronoun [which] is almost wholly retained 
 for anz, onz, or oinz , is but the same with our Welsh wjnl 
 or huintf they*." 
 
 Dr. Prichard, who does not appear to have been aware 
 of the above statement of Lhuyd, makes a perfectly ana- 
 logous one with respect to the personal terminations of the 
 verb in Welsh, in his well-known work, 'The Eastern Ori- 
 gin of the Celtic Nations.' Both those eminent scholars 
 refer those terminations to the ordinary nominatives of the 
 
 Ecrsonal pronouns, of which they consider them to be ab- 
 reviated forms. As far back as A. D. 183(i, the writer 
 believed that he saw reason to allege strong objections to 
 this view of the matter, which he expressed in the following 
 terms in a critique on Dr. Prichard's work : cc We have 
 observed that Dr. Prichard's statements respecting the Celtic 
 languages throw a new and important light on the forma- 
 tion of language; and this we hold to be particularly the 
 case with respect to the verb. He has shown that the per- 
 sonal terminations in Welsh are pronouns, and that they 
 are more clearly and unequivocally so than the corresponding 
 endings in Sanscrit or its immediate descendants. However, 
 he lays no stress upon a fact which we cannot but consider 
 highly important, viz. that they are evidently in stalu regi- 
 mi)iis, not in apposition or concord: in other words, they are 
 not nominatives, but oblique cases, precisely such as are 
 affixed to various prepositions. For example, the second 
 person plural does not end with the nominative chtvi, but 
 with cchj rvch, och, ych, which last three forms are also 
 found coalescing with various prepositions wch, to you; 
 
 * Arclueologia Britannica , vol. iii. p. 246.
 
 OF THE VERB. ,327 
 
 ynoc/i, in you; wrthych, through you. Now the roots of Welsh 
 verbs are confessedly nouns , generally of abstract significa- 
 tion: ex. gr. dijsg is both doclrina and the 2nd pers. impera- 
 tive, doce; dysg-och or -tvch is not, therefore, docelis or 
 docebitis vos; but doctrina vestriim, teaching of or by you. 
 This leads to the important conclusion that a verb is nothing 
 but a noun, combined with an oblique case of a personal 
 pronoun, virtually including in it a connecting preposition. 
 This is what constitutes the real copula between the subject 
 and the attribute. Doclrina ego is a logical absurdity;, but 
 doclrina /net, teaching o/"me, necessarily includes in it the 
 proposition ego doceo , enunciated in a strictly logical and 
 unequivocal form*." 
 
 The above theory was supported by a reference to the 
 Syriac periphrastic verb substantive, also alleged at the 
 commencement of the present series of papers. The appli- 
 cation of the whole process of induction from the Coptic, 
 Semitic, Finno - Tartarian and other classes of languages is 
 too obvious, to be here insisted upon. No one capable of 
 divesting his mind of preconceived systems who compares 
 the Welsh prepositional forms er-ov, er-ot, er-o, er-om 
 cr-ocli, er~ynt, for me thee, &c. , with the verbal forms 
 air-ov, car -of, car-o, car-om, car-och, car-ont or car- 
 irynt, I, &c. will love, will deny the absolute formal iden- 
 tity of the respective sets of endings, or refuse to admit 
 that the exhibition of parallel phenomena in languages of 
 all classes and in all parts of the world, furnishes a strong 
 pritnd facie ground for the belief of a general principle of 
 analogy running through all. 
 
 The above Welsh terminations are easily identified with 
 the corresponding ones in Sanscrit, Greek, Latin, &c., with 
 the exception of the second person singular in t, and the 
 second plural in ch. The former may be readily understood 
 to be an older form than the ordinary sibilant, especially if 
 we compare the Doric or Latin tu with the Ionic <Sv. The 
 guttural form of the second person plural is not so easily 
 reducible to the ordinary dental endings in other languages. 
 A comparison with the Irish sibh, vos, and other etymologi- 
 cal data, seems to indicate a connexion with the reflective 
 pronouns sva, sni, &c. , self, which are frequently employed 
 to represent more than one person. Compare the Greek 
 dual forms tfqpGM, tfqDOJ, and the Sanscrit sva, suffix of the 
 second pers. imperative in the Atmanepadam or middle 
 voice. 
 
 * Quarterly Review , vol. Ivii. pp. 93, 04.
 
 328 ON THE NATURE AND ANALYSIS 
 
 The Armoric and Cornish terminations arc for the most 
 part mere dialectical varieties of the Welsh. The Irish verb 
 differs considerably, the entire conjugation having every 
 appearance of being a fragmentary collection of synthetic 
 and analytic as Avell as active and deponent forms. The 
 third person singular of every tense is most commonly ana- 
 lytic, while the terminations -maid, -itiaoid, -maois, which 
 have no counterparts in Welsh or Armorican, exhibit a remark- 
 ble resemblance to the Greek [is&a and the Zend-w^V/Ac. 
 Many of the other synthetic forms agree more or less closely 
 with their correspondents in other dialects, sometimes with 
 one branch and sometimes with another. Thus the termination 
 of the conditional -fann or -fmn, unknown in Welsh, appears 
 in the Breton kan-fenn, I would sing; and the dental charac- 
 teristic of the second person plural in several tenses, for which 
 in Welsh we find a guttural, also occurs in the Breton pre- 
 sent and future kani-t, ye sing, kanot, ye will sing. 
 
 The most ancient and genuine forms of the preterite also 
 manifest a general community of origin with their Cymric 
 counterparts; ex. gr. 
 
 Irish. Sing. 1. ghlanas. Plur. ghlansam. 
 
 2. ghlanais. ghlanabhar. 
 
 3. ghlanastar. ghlansat. 
 
 Welsh. Sing. 1. gwelais. Plur. gwelsam (or -som). 
 
 2. gwelaist. gwelsach (or -socli). 
 
 3. gwelodd (or gweles). gwelsant. 
 
 It may be here observed, that the Irish third pers. plu- 
 ral, as well as many other cognate words, regularly elides 
 the nasal element of the Armorican and Cymric dialects. 
 The remarkable termination of the second person plural, 
 -bhar unknown, it is believed, in all other Indo - European 
 dialects is referred by Pictet to the Sansc. vas, vos. Bopp, 
 with his usual eagerness to find a Sanscrit archetype for 
 everything, likely or unlikely, endeavours to extract it from 
 -dhvam, the termination of the second pers. plural of the 
 Sanscr. middle voice. It is conceived that it would be a 
 much more obvious process to refer it to the oblique case 
 of the personal pronoun bhar = veslrum , which is not only 
 the same word formally, but furnishes a very appropriate 
 meaning. Even admitting Pictet's identification with va$, 
 which involves no impossibility, it would not, if an original 
 Sanscrit element , be the nominative \ymjam\ , but the geni- 
 tive, dative, or accusative. In fact, examples of forms 
 identical with actually existing nominatives, employed as 
 personal terminations of synthetic Indo-European verbs, have
 
 Ita 
 
 OF THE VERB. 329 
 
 yet to be produced, and it is presumed that such are not 
 readily to be found. Pictet indeed alleges from the Welsh 
 "Englynion clywed" the formula " glytvaisli~aitdivisline f }" 
 as an example of the full nominative form ti, employed as 
 an inflexional termination. He might equally have quoted 
 from several poets caravi, I love, as a parallel instance of 
 the use of the nominative mi. Every Welsh scholar however 
 knows them to be mere euphonic abbreviations of gtyrvaisl 
 It, carav vi, the nominative being annexed as in Latin or 
 
 : Ti ilian, for the sake of emphasis or metre. 
 Besides the evidence deducible from the identity of the 
 rsonal terminations of verbs and the prepositional forms 
 of pronouns in Welsh , there is another of no small weight, 
 furnished by the consideration of the formation and structure 
 of the entire body of verbs in the language. In Sanscrit 
 and the classical tongues , verbs are usually divided into 
 two distinct classes, primitive and derivative, a large pro- 
 portion of which latter class are styled denominatives , as 
 being formed directly from nouns. Thus cano is supposed 
 to be a primary or radical word, while vulnero, puerasco, 
 &c. are allowed to be formed from vulnus and puer. Such 
 words are, it is well known, very numerous in Greek, and 
 they are perhaps still more so in Welsh, which is excelled 
 by no language of the family in the power and variety of 
 its synthesis. The following example will give some idea 
 of its copiousness and plastic power, and of the manner in 
 which verbs are formed from nouns, simple and derivative, 
 abstract and concrete : 
 
 llym , guide , ruler ; llywed, llywedu, llywia tv, to guide. 
 
 llytvatvd, guidance; llywodu, to conduct. 
 
 Ihjwiad ; llywiadu. 
 
 llyivianl : llyrviannu. 
 
 llywodraelh, governance; llywodraelhu , to govern. 
 
 Ibjtvodri ; llymodrii. 
 
 llyivydd, a president; llyrvyddu, to preside. 
 
 llyivyddiad, presidency; llyrvyddiudu. 
 
 llyivyddiaelh ; llyrvyddiaethu. 
 
 To which may be added, as of the same origin, llyweth, a 
 muscle, i. e. a guider] llytvethu, to be muscular. 
 
 Here we see that a series of nouns from the same stem, 
 denoting guide, ruler, or guidance, governance, become re- 
 spectively the bases of verbs of cognate import. It is also 
 obvious that the shorter and the longer forms are all on 
 the same footing; llywed and Mjwiarv being as clearly formed 
 from llyw , as llyrvyddiaethu from llyivyddiaeth. Except in the 

 
 330 ON THE NATURE AND ANALYSIS 
 
 number and variety of forms , this phenomenon is in no 
 way remarkable, and presents itself in one shape or other 
 in most languages. In all of them the concrete or abstract 
 noun is predicated of the usual pronominal subjects, accord- 
 ing to recognized forms, and thus becomes a verb. But it 
 is of no small importance to observe, that it is impossible 
 to establish any distinction in this respect between Welsh de- 
 nominative verbs and those which correspond to the so-cal- 
 led primitives in other tongues. It has already been ob- 
 served that the roots of verbs in this language are confessedly 
 nouns; dysg , for example, being at the same time teaching, J 
 instruction, and the root of the verb dysg-u, to teach. InM 
 like manner, can-n, to sing; car-u. to love; cas-au, to 
 hate; ccl-u and cudd-io, to conceal; cwyn-o, to complain; 
 with multitudes of others, have for their roots the still sim- 
 pler forms and ideas, can, song; cur, love; can hatred; eel, 
 cudd, covering, concealment; ctvyn, murmur; and the same 
 may be affirmed of almost every verb in the language. The 
 correctness of the view taken by the native grammarians in 
 regarding the noun as the root may be supported by many 
 considerations. In the noun both notion and form are simple, 
 either as subjects or predicates; in the finite verb they are 
 complex, necessarily comprising both subject and predicate, 
 each element capable of being separately conceived. Again, 
 if the supposed primary verbs and the denominatives are 
 traced either in ascending or descending series, it is impos- 
 sible to discover that any one link of the chain is formed 
 on a different principle from the rest. Car-u, to love, is 
 as readily and legitimately referable to car as its basis, as 
 its cognate car-ueiddiaw is to caruaidd , or llywodraeth-u to 
 llyrvodraeth. 
 
 If this is conceded respecting the Welsh, it must equally 
 hold good with respect to Greek, Latin, German, and other 
 languages, now universally admitted to be cognate with 
 Celtic. Can-o, cel-o, xsvd-oo, Germ, ich rveine , anciently 
 wein-em, must have been formed in the same manner and 
 on the same principle as their counterparts can-af, cd-a/\ 
 cuddi-af, ctvyn- af, and if one class originally meant so/if/, 
 concealment , lamentation of or by me, the others must at one 
 time have had the same import. If the writer is not mista- 
 ken, this view receives a strong confirmation from the Vcdic 
 Sanscrit, in which, as Rosen observes, the assumed d'hatoo 
 or verbal root is frequently employed as a nomen ctio>iis, 
 and regularly inflected through most of the ordinary cases. 
 Thus, as to outward form, those roots appear to be exactly 
 on the same footing as the Welsh primitives of which we 

 
 OF THE VlOKli. 331 
 
 have been speaking; and when combined with the usual 
 personal terminations, or other words when in the form of 
 finite verbs , they are capable of exactly the same analysis. 
 In fact, the writer believes that they admit of no other, 
 cither as to form, the known analogies of other languages, 
 or the principles of logic. 
 
 But it will perhaps be objected that the simple Welsh 
 forms can, eel, &c., thougli allowed to be nouns, are equally 
 imperatives of the second person, and that this is the true 
 root of the verb. This objection, though specious, admits 
 of an easy reply. A little consideration will show that no 
 part of the verb approaches so nearly in its nature to a noun 
 as the second person of the imperative, and that a simple 
 noun is, in point of fact, often employed in the place of it. 
 When the crier of the court calls "silence!" or the drill -ser- 
 jcant "attention! 1 ' the effect produced is exactly the same 
 as if verbs were used instead. The person addressed con- 
 strues the term, noun though it be, as a command to per- 
 form or refrain from a certain specified action, and does 
 accordingly. Consequently according to the axiom , f ' things 
 equal to the same thing are equal to each other," it seems 
 that if nouns may be imperatives, imperatives may very 
 well be nouns. 
 
 Nor is this faculty restricted to the noun, a simple par- 
 ticle being equally capable of exercising the same functions. 
 The German interjectional adverb fort\ Eng. away\ may be 
 legitimately rendered by abi\ or abitol the Ital. via, origi- 
 nally a noun, having precisely the same force. In the 
 plirase "away with you!" a pronominal adjunct is introdu- 
 ced, and in this familiar expression we see the germ of the 
 process by which the simple noun or particle became arrayed 
 with personal suffixes, so as to put on the character of the 
 complex term called the verb. We may at the same time 
 discern the precise nature of the copula or connexion between 
 them, which, when the pronominal element is in obliquo, is 
 necessarily a virtual preposition. Many proofs indeed .may 
 be given that personal terminations are neither the exclusive 
 property nor integral portions of such verbs as we find in 
 Greek and Latin. In the Semitic languages many particles 
 are construed with oblique suffixes, the combination having 
 all the force of a verb : ex. ^iy (odeni) , literally yet of me 
 = I am yet. The compound preposition V?b (la-al), over, 
 upon, is in Ethiopic conjugated throughout as a verb, in the 
 sense to be over, surpass, c. The Gothic phrases hirjats 
 = TCKQSGTOV, hirjilh = 3i<xQ(>T . are said by grammarians 
 to be dual and plural imperatives; and so they are, as to
 
 332 ON THE NATURE AND ANALYSIS 
 
 import and outward form; but when analysed, they are con- 
 fessedly mere modifications of the adverb her, which in its turn 
 is of pronominal origin. Many words, supposed to be pri- 
 mary and radical verbs, would, if properly examined, turn 
 out to be of similar descent. 
 
 In the writer's paper "On the Formation of Words from 
 Particles," many instances were given of Old -German verbs 
 formed directly from prepositions and other indeclinable*; 
 and many others might have been produced from Welsh. 
 At present, a couple of examples may suffice. The adverb 
 or conjunction mal, like, as, so, is obviously the basis of < 
 the verb mal-u, to guess, imagine, q. d. to liken* (Or. 
 ,W). In the same manner the preposition rimy , before, 
 is the parent orha~v } to go before, also to oppose. Both 
 are regularly conjugated throughout, and their respective 
 imperatives are mal, rlwy. Now we may fairly ask, if these 
 supposed radical imperatives really are radical in this par- 
 ticular application; whether, in short, they are anything 
 more than particles employed with reference to a particular 
 subject? whether, in short, our own forward*, is not, to all 
 intents and purposes, as good an imperative as rhagt If 
 this is not the case, by what process did the particle be- 
 come a word of a totally different class ? 
 
 Some persons who still cling to the same species of mysti- 
 cal jargon in philology that has been so long exploded in 
 natural philosophy, will be ready to say that the word used 
 as a verb is endued with an occulta vis, or innate vital 
 energy, rendering it capable of expressing action or motion; 
 in short, that can, sing! differs from can, song, in the same 
 degree that a magnetized steel bar differs from an ordinary 
 one, or a charged Leyden jar from a discharged one. It 
 will be time enough to consider this assumed energetic 
 principle when it has been made manifest by something like 
 a rational analysis. At present the writer expresses his 
 total disbelief of its existence ; nay , even of the possibility 
 of its being infused into any sort of word whatever. There 
 is indeed such a principle connected with language, but it 
 resides in the human mind, not in the elementary sounds 
 or combinations of sounds of which human speech is com- 
 posed. 
 
 A few remarks on the formation of the causative verb in 
 Celtic may serve to close this branch of the discussion. 
 Pictet, who is as usual followed by Bopp, has the following 
 theory on the subject: 
 
 * Still used for (/ness in some pnrts of Lancashire.
 
 OF THE VERB. 333 
 
 "Verbs of the tenth class [in Sanscrit] adding ay to the 
 root, which ay equally distinguishes the causatives and a 
 portion of the denominatives, find their representatives in 
 the Irish verbs in iyh or aiyh, also comprehending causatives 
 and denominatives. In Welsh, the formation of causatives 
 and denominatives is operated by the insertion of ia or i, 
 another modification of the Sanscrit ay; thus bhavayumi, 1 
 cause to be (causative of bhu) , is in Welsh lywiwyv , 1 vivify; 
 in the infinitive bytviatv. An example of a Sanscrit verb of 
 the tenth conjugation, having its analogous one in Irish, is 
 Itltitxli, to adorn, forming in the present bhushaydwi. The 
 Irish beos-aigh-im, I adorn, from the root beos } whence the 
 adjective beosach, beautiful, is the complete facsimile of 
 it*." 
 
 The identification of the Celtic causative verb with the 
 Sanscrit form , would lead to consequences which Pictet was 
 far from contemplating. The Irish terminations which he 
 gives are the ordinary, though by no means the only ones 
 in that dialect ; but 'his statement of the Welsh forms gives 
 a very insufficient view of the matter. Verbs implying 
 causation are very frequent in this latter language, which 
 possesses an almost illimitable faculty of forming them. The 
 point of uiost consequence for our present investigation is, 
 that the great mass of them is based, not upon what are 
 called primary verbs, but on nouns and adjectives, most 
 commonly on the latter. Either the simple or the derivative 
 adjective may become the stem, and as derivative forms are 
 pretty numerous, the array of causative verbs, of synony- 
 mous or slightly varying import, is in a similar ratio. This 
 will appear clearly from an analysis of the example adduced 
 by Pictet himself; bywiarv, to vivify. This has nothing 
 whatever to do with Sanscr. bhavaydmi or its root, being 
 directly formed from the adjective byrv , living, which it is 
 hardly necessary to say is cognate with Gr. /5tog, Lat. vivus, 
 &Q., referred by Bopp himself to the Sanscrit root jlv. Si- 
 milar verbs are formed from the derivatives ofbyw, as may 
 be seen from the following list: 
 
 bytv, living; bywdu, to vivify. 
 
 by maw. 
 
 bytvaidd ; byweiddiau. 
 
 byniawg ; byrvioccdu. 
 
 De I'AftJiiite des Langnes Celtiqnes, pp. 148, 149.
 
 334 ON THE NATURE AND ANALYSIS 
 
 Here we see that the simple adjective and its three enlar- 
 ged forms have branched out into six verbs, all signifying 
 to cause to live. Theoretically speaking, every adjective in 
 the language is capable of being treated in the same way, 
 and examples of causatives from nearly every known form 
 might easily be collected. That the first two verbs in the 
 list are formed from the adjective, and not from a more 
 primitive verb, is proved first by the analogy of many thou- 
 sands of similar formations ; and secondly by the fact that 
 no simple verb analogous to Lat. vivo exists either in Welsh 
 or any other Celtic dialect. c I live ' can only be expressed 
 by C I am living,' or more properly by C I am in living/ si- 
 milar to e m vivis sum' or the Old -English 'I am on live,' 
 of which alive is merely a various form. 
 
 With respect to the form Injwiofji (from bywiawg), it is 
 important to remark that it is etymologically cognate witli 
 the Irish forms in aighim, or more frequently in my him ^ also 
 derived by the best Irish grammarians from nouns or ad- 
 jectives in ach. Thus, among multitudes of similar instances, 
 Ir. salach } filthy; salaiyhim , I pollute; lorrfich, pregnant; 
 torraighim, ingravido, are etymologically the same words as 
 Welsh halawg, hnloyi ; loratvg , lorof/i. We may therefore feel 
 assured that Pictet's example beosuighim is formed, according 
 to the same analogy, directly from the adjective beosach, not 
 from the imaginary root beos ; and consequently if it is for- 
 mally identical with Sanscrit bhiislmydmi , it follows that the 
 base of the latter is equally an adjective or a noun. That 
 this is a possible supposition would appear from the circum- 
 locutory form of the perfect, bhiishftyAm~babhuba j &c. } where 
 the first word lias both the form and the construction of a 
 noun. This is in fact admitted by modern Sanscrit gramma- 
 rians, though they are not exactly agreed as to the analysis 
 of the phrase; Bopp resolves it into the accusative femi- 
 nine, but Dr. Trithcn observes, that though this solution 
 may suit the formations with the auxiliary chakiira =feci, it 
 will not do so well for those with dsa or babhuva=fui. A 
 locative case would be most according to the analogy of 
 other languages; but this differs from the Vcdic locative 
 masculine sivayd in the nasal termination, and from the or- 
 dinary locative feminine sir ay urn in the quantity of the pen- 
 ultimate*. It can however hardly be separated from the 
 
 * Forms with a long penultimate are however found in particular roots, 
 as.well as in many denominatives based upon nouns and adjectives: thus- in 
 panayum chakara = laudavi, the first word has precisely the form of a lo- 
 cative of the S declension. It may not be irrelevant here to observe that 
 the Indian grammarians usually define the d'hatoos or roots by an abstract
 
 OX THK VERB. 335 
 
 base of the entire verb, and consequently if it be a noun, 
 that must be equally so, or at all events closely related to 
 that part of speech. 
 
 Denominatives , -which are confessedly formed from nouns, 
 have nearly the same form of conjugation, and indeed there 
 seems no invincible reason why a causative should not be 
 formed from a noun or adjective in Sanscrit as well as in 
 other languages. 
 
 The "Welsh forms byiriatvl , bytvioli, are of interest, from 
 the circumstance that we know their precise analysis. The 
 termination mil is etymologic-ally the same as Gael, ail, Ir. 
 aJN&rtf=like ; so that byniawl is literally 'life-like.' We may 
 here observe that lich is a common element in German cau- 
 sative verbs: ex. gr. rer-herr-lich-en, to glorify. Many 
 examples of a similar employment of the same element in 
 Old -High -German may be found in Graffs Sprachschatz, 
 Art. LIK. It is also remarkable that in many Polynesian 
 languages the causative is formed by the prefix maca , or 
 some dialectical variation of it, which as a separate particle 
 denotes like, an, how. There is reason to believe that many 
 of the formative suffixes in a multitude of languages had 
 originally the same import, and that this apparently simple 
 element lias exercised no small influence on the organization 
 of human speech. 
 
 Except as to the great variety of forms in Welsh, the 
 connexion of the causative verb with the adjective is no special 
 peculiarity of that language. It Lithuanian , almost every 
 adjective has its corresponding causative, and nearly every 
 page of a Greek, Latin, or German Dictionary will furnish 
 examples of the same class of words formed according to 
 the same or a similar analogy. Nor will it avail to say that 
 they may be in reality formed from the original verbal root, 
 and not from the noun or adjective derived from that root. 
 It is notorious that many of them are based directly upon 
 augmented forms, of which they include the full significa- 
 tion, and of which the Lat. melior-are, Germ, besser-n, 
 nryer-n, rcrJierrlicb - en , are sufficient instances. Now, if it 
 
 noun in the locative case: ex. gr. the numerous roots signifying to go, arc 
 commonly explained by gntau = in going. Welsh yn myned. This is, in 
 fact, the nearest approach that can be made to the abstract notion of a 
 verb, and would, in combination with a subject in the nominative, be ex- 
 actly equivalent to a Maiichu or Mongolian one. It is however evidently 
 not. a simple but a complex expression, combining the idea of an abstract 
 relation with an element denoting place, and parallel iu every respect, ex- 
 cept that of form, to the analytic phrases with-i/i or on in Celtic and other 
 languages.
 
 336 ON THE NATURE AND ANALYSIS 
 
 be of the essence of a verb to denote motion or action, and 
 the faculty of doing this resides in the roots of primitives, 
 it might ue expected that terms expressing action causing 
 another action , would, a fortiori, be entitled to rank in the 
 same category; or at all events that their relation to words 
 endued with the supposed characteristic would be clear and 
 unmistakeable. On the contrary, we find that while many 
 of the so-called primitive verbs are neuters, those possessed 
 of this double energy are formed in countless multitudes 
 from that third-rate part of speech, the adjective, and 
 may even come from particles, words still lower in the 
 grammatical scale. Thus vacare, to be empty, a term neither 
 expressing motion, action, nor result, nor anything in short 
 beyond absolute negation, is allowed to enjoy all the native 
 dignity of a primary verb, including of course the motive; 
 and active energies distinguishing that part of speech from 
 others; while vacitare , which does express an action perform- 
 ed and an effect produced, must get its energies as it can, 
 through the medium of the adjective vacuus. This may be 
 philosophical, but it seems hardly reconcileable to the 
 principles of common sense; it is however only one out of 
 thousands of glaring inconsistencies which the usual theory 
 involves. 
 
 The truth is, that the definition of a verb, as a word 
 intrinsically denoting action or motion, is exactly on a par 
 with the old one of a bird as a creature whose esssential 
 characteristic is to fly, of which the production of an ostrich 
 or an apturyx is a sufficient refutation. The following 
 appears to the writer a more legitimate view of the ques- 
 tion. All words denote relations, and every relation is 
 capable of being predicated of a suitable subject. When 
 this is done according to certain grammatical forms, the 
 combined predicate and subject become a verb, whatever 
 the nature or import of the former may be. Some langua- 
 ges, as was observed in the first paper of the present series, 
 can carry this principle of formation to an almost illimitable 
 degree; in others it is more restricted in general practice. 
 There are however abundant traces in the latter class of 
 the original operation of the principle. Almost every Indo- 
 European language furnishes instances of verbs formed from 
 nouns, adjectives, pronouns aud particles; and those secon- 
 dary and tertiary formations are found capable of expressing 
 all the same modifications of idea as their supposed primi- 
 tives in some cases still more emphatically. On the other 
 hand, the roots of those primitives are found in whole clas- 
 ses of languages to be identical with simple nouns of cog-
 
 OF THE VERB. 337 
 
 nate meaning, while in others the noun only differs from 
 the assumed root in an adventitious termination, commonly 
 of pronominal origin. We may therefore rationally conclude 
 that the simple verb is formed from a simple noun, pronoun 
 or particle, and the derivative one from a form that has re- 
 ceived some augmentation; but that, as to the original and 
 characteristic principle of structure, there is not the smallest 
 difference between the two. 
 
 In closing, for the present, the discussion of this exten- 
 sive subject, it is proposed to make a few remarks upon the 
 so-called verb-substantive, respecting the nature and func- 
 tions of which there has perhaps been more misapprehension 
 than about any other element of language. 
 
 It is well known that many grammarians have been accus- 
 tomed to represent this element as forming the basis of 
 all verbal expression , and as a necessary ingredient in every 
 logical proposition. It would seem to follow, from this state- 
 ment, that nations so unfortunate as to be without it, could 
 neither employ verbal expression nor frame a logical propo- 
 sition. How far this is the case will be seen hereafter: at 
 present we shall make some brief remarks on this verb, and 
 on the substitutes usually employed in dialects where it is 
 formally wanting. It will be sufficient to produce a few pro- 
 minent instances, as the multiplying ,of examples from all 
 known languages would be a mere repetition of the same 
 general phenomena. 
 
 In the portion of the essay relating to the Coptic, it was 
 observed: < c What are called the auxiliary and substantive 
 verbs in Coptic are still more remote from all essential verbal 
 character (than the so-called verbal roots). On examination 
 they will almost invariably be found to be articles, pro- 
 nouns, particles, or abstract nouns, and to derive their sup- 
 posed verbal functions entirely from their accessories, or 
 from what they imply." In fact any one who examines a 
 good Coptic grammar or dictionary will find that there is 
 nothing formally corresponding to our am, art, is, was, &c., 
 though there is a counterpart to Lat. fieri (sthopi) a'nd another 
 to poni (chi, neuter passive of chej; both occasionally rendered 
 to be, which however is not their radical import. The Egyp- 
 tians were not however quite destitute of resources in this 
 matter, but had at least half-a-dozen methods of rendering 
 the Greek verb-substantive when they wished to do so. The 
 element most commonly employed is the demonstrative pe, 
 te, ne, used also in a slightly modified form for the definite 
 article; pe = is, having reference to a subject in the singu- 
 lar masculine; te , to a singular feminine; and ne = are, to 
 
 22
 
 338 ON THE NATURE AND ANALYSIS 
 
 both genders in the plural. The past tense is indicated by 
 the addition of a particle expressing remoteness. Here then 
 we find as the counterpart of the verb-substantive an element 
 totally foreign to all the received ideas of a verb ; and that 
 instead of its being deemed necessary to say in formal terms 
 'Petrus est,' ( Maria est,' 'homines simt,' it is quite sufficient, 
 and perfectly intelligible, to say, 'Petrus hie,' 'Maria hcec," 1 
 'homines hi.' The above forms, according to Champollion 
 and other investigators of ancient hieroglyphics, occur in the 
 oldest known monumental inscriptions, showing plainly that 
 the ideas of the ancient Egyptians , as to the method of ex- 
 pressing the category to be, did not exactly accord with those 
 of some modern grammarians. 
 
 Another word employed to represent the verb-substantive 
 is ouon, used nearly in the same manner as pe to denote is, 
 and with the addition of a demonstrative particle , was. Some- 
 times, with a slightly varied form of construction, it is 
 used in the sense of have, nearly as the Latin formula esl milii. 
 The radical import is however neither is nor has, nor that 
 of a verb of any sort, it being simply the indefinite pronoun 
 corresponding to aliquis , some one, and occasionally employed 
 in the sense of nmts. Thus the literal rendering of Petros 
 ne ouon, is simply, 'Peter then one, or some one/ Petrus 
 erat. Here then we find another pronominal element used as 
 the counterpart of is or was, much in the same way as the 
 demonstrative already indicated, except that the original sig- 
 nification is more vague and indefinite. Several other words 
 are employed for the same purpose, among which may be 
 specified a, o, arc, er, el, all apparently pronouns or pro- 
 nominal particles, and not differing materially in use or 
 construction from pe or ouon. 
 
 There is however another and a very common method of 
 expressing the verb -substantive, capable of more extensive 
 development, and of much greater variety of modification. 
 Whoever refers to Peyron and Tattam for the detailed con- 
 jugation of the verb to he, will find a most imposing assem- 
 'blage of forms, varied through all persons singular and plu- 
 ral, and nominally comprising more tenses than Greek or 
 Latin can boast of. A little examination will however show 
 that all this array consists of nothing more than the suffixes 
 of the personal pronouns, exactly the same as those 
 employed in construction with nouns and verbs, combined 
 with particles of time and place that modify the sense of 
 the phrase according to circumstances. Thus the masculine 
 suffixes of the three persons in the singular, either em- 
 loyed absolutely, ti , k, f, or with the preform atives a
 
 OF THE VERB. 339 
 
 or <?, respectively denote sum, es , est, and by varying the 
 preformative particles, they are made to express almost every 
 possible modification of time or contingency. Again the 
 consuetudinal tense formed by the combination of the suffixes 
 with sha , sha-ti, sha-k, sha-f, &c., 'to be usually, or ha- 
 bitually/ is commonly rendered soleo esse, and most 
 grammarians regard the formative as a bond fide auxiliary 
 verb, having the force of the Latin one. It is however no 
 verb at all, but a mere particle, having, among other signi- 
 fications , that of usque , and therefore well-suited to express 
 the continuance or habituality of an action. 
 
 It will perhaps be said that such an abnormal language 
 as the Coptic is not to be taken as a criterion of others, which 
 may be organized on totally different principles. There might 
 be some force in the objection, if other languages presented 
 us with no instances of parallel constructions. This negative 
 argument will not however hold good, nearly every apparent 
 Coptic peculiarity having its counterpart in languages belong- 
 ing to almost every quarter of the globe. Thus, every Se- 
 mitic scholar knows that personal pronouns are employed to 
 represent the verb - substantive in all the known dialects, 
 exactly as in Coptic, but with less variety of modification. 
 In this construction it is not necessary that the pronoun should 
 be of the same person as the subject of the proposition. It 
 is optional in most dialects to say either ego ego, nos nos, 
 for ego sum, nos sumus, or ego ille, nos illi. The phrase ,,ye 
 are the salt of the earth," is in the Syriac version lite- 
 rally "you tliey (i. e. the persons constituting) the salt of the 
 earth." Nor is this employment of the personal pronoun con- 
 fined to the dialects above specified, it being equally found 
 in Basque, in Galla, in Turco-Tartarian, and various Ame- 
 rican languages. 
 
 It will be said that there are in all the Semitic dialects 
 verbs regularly conjugated in the acceptation of am, was, 
 &.c. , and defined as verbs-substantive by grammarians. This 
 is true; but at the same time it may be observed, that the 
 numerous substitutes employed show that it would have been 
 very possible to do without them. Neither does it follow 
 that every word conjugated as a verb is formed on a true 
 verbal root. The Syriac periphrastic form already noticed 
 more than once, itlia-i, ithai-ch, &c. , is indisputably based 
 on a construct noun in the plural number, and the etymo- 
 logically cognate Hebrew yesh, which, Avith the exception of the 
 root being singular instead of plural, has precisely the same 
 construction, must be regarded as standing on the same foot- 
 
 22*
 
 340 ON THE NATUHE AND ANALYSIS 
 
 ing. In other Semitic words , the signification 'to be' is not 
 the primary one. The Arabic /can is currently used in this 
 sense, but a comparison with the other dialects shows thaf the 
 primary import is simply 'to stand/ a word, as it is scarcely 
 necessary to say, used as a substitute for the verb-substan- 
 tive in a variety of languages. 
 
 With respect to the term most commonly employed in He- 
 brew and Aramaic (Heb. hat/ah, havah , Syriac hvo y &c.), 
 the resemblance to the pronoun of the third person ku, hi, 
 is so obvious, that many of the best modern Semitic scho- 
 lars regard the latter as the real base of the verb. The pos- 
 sibility of this is readily conceived , if we consider that when 
 the pronouns themselves were familiarly used to denote is, 
 was, &c. , it was a very easy matter to add the personal ter- 
 minations, pro re nattL Several eminent German philologists, 
 among whom may be specified Hoffmeister and Schwarze, 
 have generalized this theory, regarding for example the 
 Sanscrit as-mi = Lat. sum, with all their Indo-P]uropean cog- 
 nates, as no proper verbal root, but a formation on the de- 
 monstrative pronoun sa, the idea meant to be conveyed being 
 simply that of local presence. Professor Newman seems to 
 give some countenance to this theory, in a paper lately pub- 
 lished in the 'Classical Museum.' 
 
 Finally, we may briefly observe that particles, sometimes 
 with pronominal suffixes, and sometimes without them, are 
 used in various parts of the world in place of the verb-sub- 
 stantive, some nations in fact having no other way of ex- 
 pressing it; while others neither employ verb, pronoun, noun 
 nor particle, but leave the predication to be gathered from 
 the arrangement of the terms of the proposition. This is in 
 fact often done in languages which have a verb-substantive, 
 or even several; and in practice scarcely any difficulty or 
 ambiguity is ever found to arise from this so-called ellipsis. 
 The Magyars, for example, have words denoting to be, or 
 capable of being employed in that sense. It is however con- 
 sidered rather inelegant to use them in formal composition, 
 and in the best writers whole consecutive pages may be found 
 without an is or a was enunciated in terms. 
 
 Now it seems that the above-specified facts , to which a 
 multitude of analogous ones might easily be added, justify 
 us in entertaining a doubt whether the ordinary theory of the 
 verb - substantive as a sort of sine-qua-non in language and 
 logic, can be rationally or consistently maintained. Whatever 
 intrinsic vitality there may be in is or was, it does not seem 
 easy to extract much from (his or thai; still less from here 
 or there , words currently used as substitutes. Nor are our
 
 OP THE VERB. 341 
 
 difficulties lessened by finding that millions of people are 
 totally destitute of the term, or of any means of sup- 
 plying its place, not having in fact the smallest conception 
 of the existence of such an element. Indeed the writer be- 
 lieves that a verb-substantive, such as is commonly conceived, 
 vivifying all connected speech, and binding together the terms 
 of every logical proposition, te much upon a footing with 
 the phlogiston of the chemists of the last generation, regarded 
 as a necessary pabulum of combustion, that is to say, vox_el 
 prwterca niliil. 
 
 He further believes that many of the extravagances pro- 
 mulgated on the subject have arisen from the utterly erroneous 
 idea of an intrinsic meaning in words, constituting them 
 the counterparts and equivalents of thought. They are 
 nothing more, and can be nothing more than signs of 
 relations, and it is a contradiction in terms to affirm that a 
 relation 1 can be inherent. Nor had those employed to express 
 mental categories originally that power ; all, without exception, 
 being metonyms adopted from terms indicating the sensible 
 relations of matter; it is therefore obviously out of the ques- 
 tion that they should at the same time be capable of intrin- 
 sically expressing the phenomena of mind. Moreover, of all 
 mental categories, the idea of being was perhaps the least 
 capable of being so expressed. Let any man endeavour to 
 form a clear idea of the nature of existence in the abstract, 
 and explain in what it consists; he will then see how likely 
 it is that persons in a rude state of society should find a 
 term intrinsically expressing what the profoundest metaphy- 
 sician is unable to give a tolerable definition of. Happily there 
 is no need for any such effort "of the intellect, there being 
 scarcely any category capable of being enunciated in so 
 many different ways, all and any of them amply sufficient 
 for practical purposes. There is surely nothing profoundly 
 intellectual in the Latin words exsisto and exsto, taken 
 in their ordinary and literal acceptations. The former, vi 
 termini, denotes to put forth, present; the latter, to stand 
 forth, or out; yet both are currently employed in a secon- 
 dary sense, to express existence or being. But though the 
 primary words say nothing about being, they both] clearly 
 imply it, and this in fact is all that is wanted. What is put 
 forth or stands forth is prominent; what is prominent is con- 
 spicuous; and what is conspicuous may be lawfully presumed 
 to exist. The same holds good of the innumerable other terms 
 used as substitutes for the cabalistic to be. If a given sub- 
 ject be 'I,' 'thou/ 'he/ 'this/ 'that/ 'one'; if it be 'here/ 
 'there/ 'yonder/ 'thus/ 'in/ 'on/ 'at/ 'by'; if it
 
 342 ON THE NATURE AND ANALYSIS O^ TIlM VKRB. 
 
 'sits/ 'stands/ 'remains/ or 'appears/ we need no ghost to 
 tell us that it is, \\or any grammarian or metaphysician to 
 proclaim that recondite fact in formal terms. The same 
 principle is applicable in a great measure to language as a 
 whole. Words are not to be interpreted so much from what 
 they actually say, as from what they imply; and they per- 
 form every function that they can be reasonably expected to 
 perform, when the implication is understood by the speaker 
 and the hearer.
 
 1^000 670 649 3 
 
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