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 RtPLYTOTHECALUMNICS 
 AND MISREPRESENTATIONS 
 OF PROFESSOR T. H. KEY
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 ^A REPLY 
 
 TO THE 
 
 CALUMNIES AND MISREPRESENTATIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 PROFESSOR T. H. KEY. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. JOHN WILLIAM DONALDSON. .B.D. 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 VAIIUONIANUS, THE NEW CRATYLOS, &c, &r. 
 
 KepSoi Se Tt ixaKa tovto KepSa\(ov TeA(6ei ; 
 
 ore yap elvaKiov irivov exoifas ^aQv 
 
 ffKevas Irepos, afidirTtaT6s eii-u, (peWhs &s vinp ipKos, aA./uct9. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE : 
 J. AND J. J. DEIGIITON; 
 
 LONDON : LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS. 
 
 MDCCCXLIV.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTKD BY ROIiSON, LEVEY, AND FRASKI-VN, 
 Great New Street, Fettor Lane.
 
 ^ r-. 
 
 A REPLY, ^'TU'^Zi 
 
 ETC. 
 
 V 
 
 / 
 
 Mr. T. H. Key, a philologer whose merits, so lar as they 
 have been known to me, I have always most willingly acknow- 
 ledged, has reprinted, with certain additions, a number of 
 articles which, it seems, he contributed to the Penny Cyclo- 
 pcedia. In a prefatory letter, which he has addressed to my 
 friend Mr. Long, he indulges in a violent tirade against a 
 book called Varronianus, which I had published about a fort- 
 night before the date of his letter. Kal /c€pa/ji€v<i Kepa^iel 
 Koreei kol reKTOvi reKTcov, is an adage which I would ratlier 
 see justified by an adversary than by myself; and if Mr. 
 Key had contented himself with his attempt to disparage me, 
 I should not have noticed his attack. But he is not satisfied 
 with vilification. He has the presumption to maintain that 
 I am indebted to him, though I have not acknowledged my 
 obligations, for all the little good which he can find in Far- 
 ronianus. This is an assertion the truth of which I feci 
 myself bound to controvert. Censure and criticism may be 
 left to themselves ; but distinct accusations, however frivo- 
 lous, eager, and inconsiderate, must be met by exposure 
 and confutation. 
 
 Mr. Key's attack is directed chiefly against the 7th and 
 10th chapters of Varronianus, of which (he says, in p. 12) 
 I have " borrowed a great part from the productions of one 
 English wTitcr," namely, himself; and the chapters referred 
 to are severally accused in pp. 2 and 6. 
 
 Before I proceed to examine this calumny in detail, I 
 must beg leave to make a few remarks on the manner in 
 which scholars in general have tliought themselves entitled 
 to use the labours of their predecessors and couteni])<)raries. 
 In regard to original results, general principles, emendations 
 of corrupt passages, every thing, in fact, wiiich amounts to 
 
 1993262
 
 discovery, it is held that the most scrupulous references ought 
 to he made to the source from which the information is 
 derived. But with regard to the mere raw materials of scho- 
 larship — quotations, illustrations, lexicography, tabular com- 
 parisons, &c., it is held that every scholar is entitled to 
 consider them as the advantages with which he was born — 
 his ra virdp'^ovTa, his starting point, the iirt^daei'i re koX 
 opfjial of his own investigations. This principle was distinctly 
 avowed by a very eminent scholar, Dr. Blomfield, the present 
 Bishopof London, when he was obliged to defend himself from 
 a charge of plagiarism brought against him by a veteran per- 
 former of the part in which Mr. Key has just made his debut. 
 " Once for all, I observe," says his Lordship {Museum Criticum, 
 ii. p. 499), " that I never did nor do at present conceive, that 
 in quoting an author in the way of illustration (not of emenda- 
 tion), a critic is bound to mention all the preceding scholars 
 who have quoted him for the same purpose. ... It has not 
 hitherto been considered necessary. Person uses without 
 scruple the same passages which had been adduced by Barnes, 
 Valckenaer, Musgrave, and others, without mentioning their 
 names ;" and then he gives various instances. Upon this prin- 
 ciple, which applies with still greater force to the case of 
 those verbal analogies so common in books on comparative 
 philology, I have invariably acted and professed to act. Those 
 who have read my prefaces are aware that I have always 
 professed to avail myself of all existing materials ; and while 
 I have been guided by my own judgment as to the occasions 
 on which I should make a direct and express citation from 
 another author rather than an indirect and tacit reference to 
 his work,'* it will be found, I conceive, that in all my works 
 I have rather exceeded than fallen short in my appeal to 
 authorities. Mr. Key has perceived this (p. 4), but is unable 
 to understand why " a book so overloaded with the names of 
 German, French, Italian, and other writers," should not make 
 more frequent mention of himself. I shall find him a reason 
 in the sequel, which, I fear, will not be very satisfactory to 
 
 * Sometimes, indeed, the direct reference is impossible : for those who read 
 much, and have tenacious memories, carry about with them a large stock of 
 information, which they could not, if they wished it, distribute among the authors 
 from whom the separate parts of it were derived.
 
 his " personal vanity" (p. 5). But to return to the principle 
 of tacit reference ; it is a very common practice ^vith scholars 
 to content themselves with this notice of the works of those 
 who have gone over the same ground with themselves, and 
 who may be considered as, ui some measure, their literary 
 predecessors. Very many, whom I could adduce, have ap- 
 plied this rule in larger measure than I have ever ventured to 
 do. How often has Porson mentioned his rival Hermann ? 
 Although the Bishop of St. David's was well acquainted with 
 IMitford ; although he wrote his History of Greece with Mit- 
 ford constantly before him, and must have been indebted more 
 or less to his predecessor, when and how often does he men- 
 tion him by name, or refer to his volumes ? Does Dr. C. Words- 
 worth's Athens and Attica swarm with references to Colonel 
 Leake ? and yet there is scarcely a page in the book in which 
 there is not some correspondence of illustration. Nay, more, 
 the identification of Mount Lycabettus with the hill of St. 
 George is due to Dr. Forchhammer, whose discovery I com- 
 municated to the Journal of Education (ix. p. IGo) in lSo4: 
 yet Dr. Wordsworth, though acquainted with Forchhammer's 
 pamphlet (see p. 54), has given Forchhammer's discovery, 
 and the induction on which it rests, without any reference 
 to him. But the most cogent example is furnished by Mr. 
 Key himself. In a passage to which I shall return before I 
 have done \nXh. him (p. 78, note), he cites, what I consider as 
 a discovery resting on a sufficient induction, as the imagination 
 of " a recent writer," without any further reference to my 
 book, or to the reasoning which has led me to my conclusion. 
 I should have thought that in a book which commenced with 
 an attack upon one of my works, he ought not to have made 
 any allusion to that work without a direct citation ; but whe- 
 ther he was right or wrong in availing himself of the principle 
 of tacit reference in so strong a case, he has thereby, at all 
 events, deprived himself of the right to challenge the same 
 privilege when adopted by others. 
 
 I now come to the details of Mr. Key's misrepresentations. 
 
 I. With regard to the 7th chapter of Varronianus. Mr. 
 Key, with inefl'able modesty, declares (pp. 2, 3) that he feds 
 himself debarred from speaking on the merit of that chapter, 
 because the great hulk <f it is ])oiro\ved iVoni himself ! and
 
 6 
 
 he then proceeds to claim " an aggregate of six pages or 
 more" as taken without acknowledgment from his Penny- 
 Cyclopoidia contributions. As he does not mention the 
 number of pages in my 7th chapter, it will be considered 
 that either his candour or his arithmetic is at fault when he 
 calls six pages the (jreat hulk of thirty-seven. But have I 
 borrowed from him even " an aggregate of six pages or more" 
 in my chapter of 37 pages ; or am I indebted to him for any 
 thing which demanded more than the tacit but virtual refer- 
 ence which I have made to his crude mass of second-hand 
 illustrations? The 7th chapter oi Varronianus is merely an 
 application to the Latin language of the principles developed 
 in the chapter on the Greek alphabet in the Neiu Cratylus 
 (pp. 9G-138). Mr. Key insinuates that I was even then 
 acquainted with his bungling approximation to my theory 
 about the original sixteen letters. Although I have written 
 in the Penny Cyclopaedia, it was not till lately, not till 
 after I had made some advance in the manuscript of Var- 
 ronianus, that I had ready access to a copy of that miscel- 
 lany. At the time of the publication of the Neiv Cratylus 
 I was very slightly acquainted with the work; and with 
 regard to Mr. Key's article on " the Alphabet" in gene- 
 ral, I must content myself with declaring, on the word of 
 a gentleman, that up to this moment I have not read that 
 article. I have, indeed, verified his reference to p. 380 of 
 the Penny Cyclopedia, vol. i., and there find, what I expected, 
 that Mr. Key has, like every body else, discovered, or heard 
 of, some prima-facie traces of organic arrangement in the 
 alphabet. For all beyond that first, tottering, and uncertain 
 step, he must accept my guidance. I utterly deny that I am 
 indebted to Mr. Key for a single idea in the Varronia7ms, or 
 any other of my writings ; and indeed it would be strange if 
 I had borrowed from an author who has shewn himself so 
 incapable of understanding the first principles of my philology. 
 I am, however, most willing to admit, that shortly before I 
 sent the Varronianus to the printer, I became acquainted with 
 Mr. Key's articles on the separate letters, and that I used 
 them occasionally, as I used maps, dictionaries, grammars, and 
 other works of reference, and on the principles explained above. 
 I admit also that I did not think these papers worthy of more
 
 tlian the tacit and general references which I liave made to 
 them. Thus, in p. 192, I say : " It is generally laid down 
 that F and v are both labio-dental aspirates, and that they 
 differ only as the tenuis differs from the medial" (compare 
 Mr. Key's book, pp. 60 and 104) ; " and one philologcr has 
 distinctly asserted their identity, meaning perhaps that in 
 Latin f = the English v, and u = the English w\" Again : 
 p. 198, *' It has been a common opinion with philologers that 
 there were were different classes of the tenuis guttural, &c." 
 (compare Mr. Key's book, p. 89). Now, it must be clear to 
 any reader, from this mode of reference, that I did not know 
 the author or authors of these articles in the Penny Cyclo- 
 jycpclia ; that I regarded these articles as mere compilations (as 
 I still believe them to be) ; and that I considered them (as I 
 still do) utterly devoid of any original merit or individuality 
 of character. Indeed, I should experience no great difficulty 
 in indicating the sources from which they were derived by the 
 " useful labour" (p. 3) of Mr. Key ; but I find no fault with 
 this gentleman for availing himself of existing materials. 
 Perhaps, indeed, he ought not to have seemed to claim as 
 his own discovery the true analysis of the French future 
 (pp. 123, 130), which w^as established by Raynouard (see Lewis 
 on the Romance Languages, pp. 194, sqq^, and is well known 
 to every writer on comparative philology (see Bopp, quoted in 
 the New Cratylus, p. 454): but I should not have mentioned 
 this, except in the case of one who has such peculiar notions 
 about plagiarism. Now I contend, that even if I had made 
 great use of Mr. Key's articles on the consonants, I was quite 
 entitled to do so, in accordance with the practice of other 
 scholars; and considering that they were anonymous, that 
 they were not original, that they involved no new principles, 
 but consisted only of hackneyed and commonplace illustra- 
 tions, in constant and colloquial use among scholars, a direct 
 reference to them would have been making an acknowledg- 
 ment where no acknowledgment was due. But I will go a 
 step further. Mr. Key has grossly exaggerated the use w hicli 
 I have made of his materials — if, indeed, they can be called 
 his, more than mine. I will point out all the instances in 
 which I used his papers for the purpose of suggestion. 
 I*. 191, he suggested to me Scaliger's epigram. For the
 
 8 
 
 rest, see New Cratylus, pp. 136, 188, &c., where are some 
 principles of philology unknown to Mr. Key, and by which 
 I have explained cage, rage, &c., forms which Mr. Key 
 cites, but does not elucidate. I have taken the French 
 words in pp. 194, 203, &c., from Mr. Key, because it would 
 have been mere affectation to go over the same ground again 
 in such trumpery minutiae : a French dictionary, a compara- 
 tive atlas, and a treatise on the Romance languages, would 
 have furnished me with as many more as I pleased; but I 
 preferred to indicate the last user of the materials by con- 
 fining myself to his examples. Here and there another illus- 
 tration or two, already known to mc, may have been suggested 
 by him ; but the amount of the whole might be written down 
 in a very short paragraph. If, by using such materials, 
 Mr. Key has made them exclusively his own — if every phi- 
 lological illustration is rov (})6d<7avT0<; dp-Trayi], and is never 
 to be used again, then happy, in comparison with Mr. Key 
 and myself, were those scholars of the sixteenth century, who 
 lived amidst a profusion of unappropriated materials. But 
 I do not admit that such an employment of materials conveys 
 any right of property in them, — otherwise Mr. Key is both 
 a poacher and a game-preserver, and claims a right of pro- 
 perty over the " spoils of his own forays" (p. 4). 
 
 II. Of the 10th chapter of Varronianus, Mr. Key ven- 
 tures to assert (p. 6), that " the whole framework of" my 
 " argument, together with all the details in support of it, are 
 drawn (he believes he may say exclusively) from his own " 
 two papers " on the metres of Terence." He does not here 
 say that I have made no acknowledgment ; but he calls my 
 note (in p. 277) " a something by way of reference." I do 
 not know what more I could have said than : " The reader 
 who desires a more copious induction cannot do better than 
 consult an excellent article on the subject in the Journal of 
 Education, written, I believe, by Professor T. H. Key." I 
 did not refer to the article on Terentian metres in the Penny 
 Cyclopcedia, because it appeared to be merely a second and 
 inferior edition of the paper in the Journal of Education, to 
 which it refers, as I do, for more detailed information. From 
 p. 277 to p. 280, any reader will perceive that I have acknow- 
 ledged my obligations to Mr. Key ; and I repeat, that I con-
 
 9 
 
 sider his article in the Journal of Education an excellent 
 induction of examples. That the reference is continuous will 
 be seen from the top of p. 280 : *' The following reasons have 
 been adduced," &c. If a handsome and complimentary refer- 
 ence to Mr. Key is plagiarism, I am certainly guilty here. 
 That the rest of the chapter belongs exclusively to me ; that 
 the idea upon which it rests has been more clearly and dis- 
 tinctly developed by myself than by any other writer ; that I 
 have constantly dw^elt upon that idea, in conversation and in 
 teachmg, for the last ten years and more ; all this I would 
 most strongly maintain, without, however, denying the merits 
 of Mr. Key's labours in a limited department of the same field. 
 In support of this assertion, I will seek no other testimony 
 than that of Mr. Key himself, p. 7: "I cannot help regretting," 
 says he, " that in adopting my view, that the French language, 
 as regards number of syllables, more closely approaches to 
 the Latin pronunciation than even the modern Italian, he " 
 (Mr. Donaldson) " has read my arguments so hastily as to put 
 them into a different, and what appears to me a contradictory 
 form. But it would require too great a space to enter into 
 the necessary details in explanation on the present occasion." 
 A more modest man would have found less difficulty in 
 accounting for the ftict, that my views and his own do not 
 exactly correspond : but Mr. Key's standing rule is — if Mr. 
 Donaldson agrees with me, he must have copied from me ; if 
 he differs, he has read my writings too hastily ! 
 
 There are still some minor misrepresentations in Mr. Key's 
 book, to which it is my duty to reply. 
 
 In p. G he says : " A portion of a note (p. 275) on a sub- 
 ject sctircely connected with the business of the chapter, has 
 a marked resemblance to two other articles in the Journal of 
 Education (iv. S5Q) and the Penmj Cyclop<edia (v. Arsis) ; 
 and, indeed, the whole of this note, though professing to open 
 a new discovery, teaches what has been taught in the Latin 
 lecture-room of University College ever since the year 1828, 
 and I believe elsewhere also." My answer to this insinuation 
 is simply this : that I had never seen the articles referred to ; 
 and if I had seen them, I should still have tluniglit it neces- 
 sary to write my note; for, on verifying Mr. Key's references, 
 1 do not find any anticipatioJi of my doctrine; and Mr. Long,
 
 10 
 
 to whom I communicated the substance of tliat note, as far as 
 my own doctrine was concerned, professed that it was new to 
 him ; and yet he was the editor of the Penny Cyclopoidia and 
 of the Journal of Education. 
 
 I fmd anotlier of Mr. Key's assumptions in pp. 8, 9, 
 where he speaks of some remarks about annus and anna as an 
 extract from his article on the Roman Calendar in the Dic- 
 tionary of Antiquities. The only ground for this assumption 
 seems to be, that as I wrote the preceding article, on the Greek 
 Calendar, I must have read his paper, which immediately fol- 
 lows. It may be Mr. Key's practice to be always perusing his 
 own writings ; but 1 can assure him that I have never looked 
 at my own article on the Greek Calendar since I corrected the 
 press of it, and that I was unacquainted with my neighbour 
 till he called my attention to it. For the similarity between 
 his remarks and mine, which is not very great, I can easily 
 account; we probably derived our common -places from the 
 same sources. The author of a book called Varronianus might 
 be supposed to know that annus had been explained by Varro, 
 L. L. vi. 8, p. 76. Miiller : for the rest, if it is necessary to 
 adduce a secondary authority, I may have been indebted more 
 or less to the Lexicon Philologicum of M. Martinius (s. vv. 
 annus and perenna) ; a work perhaps not unknown to Mr. 
 Key. But, according to this acute critic, — at once accuser 
 and judge, — I have not merely copied, but my extract is not 
 in point ; " for though the special character of a year is 
 that it returns like a ring into itself, a river, whatever its 
 motion be, does not find its way back to its own source." I 
 dare say Mr. Key thought this a great stroke of humour ; for, 
 on the strength of it, he calls my explanation of the Tuscan 
 word ril " somewhat unsatisfactory work." I have been stu- 
 dious of brevity throughout my little book, and especially in 
 the lexicographical part of it; and having shewn the con- 
 nexion of ri-l with words implying the motion of running 
 water, I merely added, " how well suited this connexion is 
 for the expression of time, need not be pointed out to the 
 intelligent reader ;" and then I went on to establish the con- 
 nexion between annus and perentiis, a word especially applied 
 to the motion of water. If I have expressed myself too 
 concisely, I am prepared to vindicate my jiaternal rights, on
 
 11 
 
 the Platonic principle (Phcedr., p. 275 e), by expantling, for 
 the benefit of Mr. Key, the outline which I have given in 
 pp. 122, 3, 4. 
 
 Without entering at length into the question, how far 
 the ideas of progressive time and recurrence ai'e connected 
 with our conceptions of the regular flowing of water, we 
 may easily satisfy ourselves of the fact, that every language 
 abounds m outward indications of such a feeling. With 
 regard to the connexion of progressive time and recurrence, 
 as the cycles of hours and seasons are always recommencing, 
 it is plain that our first notions of progression in time must 
 be nearly allied to, if not identical with, those of recurrence ; 
 and there is no object presented to the senses which is more 
 likely to suggest the idea of the course of time, than the 
 noiseless but unceasing flow of the running stream. Every 
 language abounds in familiar illustrations of this feeling. In 
 Latin, for instance, the word labi is applied indifiercntly to 
 the motion of water and the lapse of time; the same is the 
 case with _y7?/6ve,* and every one knows the double signification 
 of the word " tide." But an etymological analysis of the 
 words which imply " flowing," " progression," and " recur- 
 rence," wall demonstrate, as far as such matters admit of 
 proof, that these ideas are connected by the link of asso- 
 ciation. 
 
 The particle which, in the Latin language, expresses 
 return, reversion, or recurrence, is that which forms the first 
 sylhible of these very words — namely, the prefix re. I have 
 elsewhere shewn, that in the Indo-Germanic languages the 
 root ra or 7'e denotes properly motion in a direct line. Now, 
 the idea of motion in a direct line is the idea of perpetual 
 recurrence, for the line is a series of points with evanescent 
 intervals ; and this again is the idea of progressive time. 
 Hence, as speech is co-ordinate with reason, the root whicli 
 expresses progression also expresses recurrence. 
 
 In the Greek language, the particle which expresses recur- 
 rence or reversion is va- or a-va-. Whether this is the same 
 as ra, I will not pause to inquire. But it will not be denied 
 that while viofiai, via-ao/xat, v6aT0<i, &c. exjiress return and 
 recurrence, wiiich is also conveyed by the prelixes a-va- and 
 va-, and while veo<t implies cha)i<fe, which is included in the
 
 12 
 
 idea of motion {N. Crat. p. 62), the words veco, vafxa, &c. 
 express the onward progress of the stream. 
 
 It is obvious, then, that the ideas of recurrence and pro- 
 gression meet in the roots re and na. Now, our conception 
 of " a year" is made up of these two ideas. It is, therefore, 
 most reasonable to expect, that in the Indo-Germanic family 
 of languages one or both of these roots would be found in 
 words signifying that period, which includes all the changes 
 of the seasons — which is always progressive, yet always re- 
 commencing ; always changing, but always resuming its iden- 
 tity. There is scarcely any reason for doubting, that in the 
 old Etruscan language ril signifies " a year." Here we have 
 the root ri=re, with the affix -l = d (comp. v7-8iov with 
 fi-lius, Virgi-Uus with Firgi-nius, and the patronymics Servi- 
 lius, &c. with ^Arpel-ST}'?, &c.) ; so that the word signifying 
 " a year" corresponds in formation with pel-rov, pel-Opov, 
 &c., denoting the motion of water. And with regard to the 
 Latin synonym annus, more anciently written d-nus, it is 
 equally clear that this word denotes at once the " ever-flow- 
 ing" (ae-vao<i), and " the ever-returning" (del veo/ievo?). Ac- 
 cordingly, d-nus stands on precisely the same footing as d-ril, 
 the god, as it seems, of the Tuscan year. 
 
 Similar remarks might be made about per-eimis and 
 ju-gis = diu-gis ; but this point has been already examined by 
 Doderlein in the first section of his Lateinische Synonyme. 
 
 When, therefore, we read that o KVKXof tmv (hpicov e? 
 TcovTo Tj-epuoov 7rapajiv€Tat {Herod, ii. 4), such expressions, 
 referring as they do to the recurrence and recommencement 
 of the year, do not at all interfere with the notion of jDro- 
 gressive and continuous motion and advance which we attach 
 to the definition of time. On the contrary, they are inti- 
 mately connected, if not identical; else how could the pro- 
 foundest of poets express himself thus ? 
 
 ndTiaOt fii) TToWobs en 
 Tpoxoiis afj.iWr]T7}pas 7]\lov reXSiv.* 
 
 So that Mr. Key's puerility about the opposition between a 
 ring and a river merely exhibits his own want of depth and 
 accuracy. 
 
 * Soph. Jntiff. 1065.
 
 13 
 
 Again, in p. 14, I find the follo\\nng note : " Mr. Donald- 
 son classes K Avith z and y, as subsequently employed by the 
 Romans. This is a strange error from one who has written 
 some fifty pages on the old Roman language. The old inscrip- 
 tions of the language offer abundant examples of k, which, in 
 fact, began to disappear just as z and y came into use." Any 
 one, merely reading this note, would suppose that I had been 
 speaking of the age of letters as determined by inscriptions. 
 I said nothing about the inscriptions ; though the oldest in- 
 scriptions in which k occurs are subsequent to the connexion 
 between the Romans and the Greeks ; and some of the gram- 
 marians even mention the ludi magister who added k to the 
 Latin alphabet (see Schneider, Elemeyitarlehre, p. 289, sq.). 
 I was speaking of the original Latin alphabet, from which, 
 according to my theory, the letter k must be excluded. 
 
 In p. 78 Mr. Key has a note, to which I have already 
 referred ; he says : " A recent writer imagines that postea 
 and qu(B owed the length of their final vowels to previously 
 existing forms, ^o^^eac, quae. To this view there is the fatal 
 objection that is and qui are never demonstratives, and this 
 afifix is only added to demonstratives." Any one who had 
 not read Varroniaiius (pp. 91, ^oo) would suppose that the 
 author, who is here the object of Mr. Key's sneer, was unac- 
 quainted with Mr. Key's views on the subject, and had thrown 
 out an unsupported conjecture. Those who will make the 
 necessary reference to my book, will find that I knew and 
 formally rejected Mr. Key's explanation as " having nothing 
 to support it ;" and that my own view rests on the following 
 induction : — Fost-hcic =post-hce-c occurs in Latin ; also, qud- 
 proj^ter^qucB-propter, and mea refert^mece reifert, accord- 
 ing to Verrius Flaccus {apud Fest. p. 282, quoted by me 
 p. 2o^). Therefore d may represent ce. Now, (B=:ai, and 
 as in all other cases in Greek and Latin the neuter plural of 
 the nominative and accusative ends in a, the only way of 
 accounting for <:s in qucE = quai is to suppose that the addi- 
 tional vowel stands as the representative of a lost guttural 
 fulcrum; and if this explains qud=qti<s, it may also ex])laiu 
 ed in posted, &c. ; for there is no reason why we should not 
 have post-ea-c in old Latin as well as j)ost-esa-/c in Oscan. 
 Mr. Key's objection is fatal only to his own pri'tensious as
 
 14 
 
 a pliilologer. Not to speak of the actual occurrence of the 
 forms eis-ce (Plaut. Mercat. prol. 91), ejiis-ce (Aul. Gell. 
 lemm. c. xiv. 1. iii.), &c., all pronouns were originally demon- 
 stratives ; and the pronouns qui, si-c, hi-c, is, are four forms 
 of the same pronomiiial root, signifying relative proximity, in 
 which the guttural element has successively degenerated, ac- 
 cording to a law well known to philologers. Now, the affix 
 ce=zci {ci-tra, &c.) is only a fifth form of the same prono- 
 minal element ; and I am unable to see why it may not 
 have appended itself in the infancy of the language to qni- 
 and is, as well as to hi-c and si-c (see N. Crat. p. 170, &c.). 
 Mr. Key has not ventured to deny that post-illd may have been 
 post-illa-c ; and in endeavouring to explain these forms by a 
 comparison oi post-quam, ante-quam, he has not observed that 
 quam is here not an accusative ^SXqx post, ante, but the con- 
 junction quam = " than" {i. e. the locative case of the rela- 
 tive), just as m postedquam, antedquam. 
 
 In pp. 5, 6, Mr. Key endeavours to annihilate my 8th and 
 9th chapters by citing a single instance from each, which he 
 represents as samples and specimens of the whole. They 
 shall serve as samples and specimens of Mr. Key's abilities 
 and philological attainments. 
 
 After an imperfect reference to what I have said about 
 the confusion of ablative, genitive, and objective notions in 
 the cases ending in m and d in Latin, and v and 9 in Greek, 
 he says, with a sneer, " I know not why he omits in this 
 category the nominative and vocative, seeing that his evi- 
 dence bears still more strongly upon them. Now, such a 
 doctrine once admitted nullifies a large half of the syntax of 
 language." The last remark falls harmlessly on an author 
 who has endeavoured to explain the antagonism of etymology 
 and syntax {N. Crat. pp. 52, sqq.). With regard to the no- 
 minative, I believe most scholars and logicians will agree with 
 me in thinking that it is subjective rather than objective ; and 
 the vocative, if the Professor of Comparative Philology will 
 excuse me for giving him such a piece of information, is no 
 case at all, but either the nominative used interjectionally, 
 or else the mere crude-form of the noun. 
 
 " As a specimen of the mode in which our author conducts 
 his analysis of the Latin verb," he selects the explanation of
 
 15 
 
 ama-ui as derived from ama-fui, which I have taken, with 
 some important confirmations, from Bopp's Vergleichende 
 Grammatik, duly referred to in the preceding page (p. 25^). 
 Now we have Mr. Key in a dilemma. Either he, a Professor 
 of Comparative Philology, is unacquainted with Bopp's Com- 
 parative Grammar (and, to say nothing of my reference, this 
 would not be very creditable to him) ; or, knowing that the 
 theory was Bopp's, he attributes it to me, because he thinks 
 he can raise a laugh out of it. But is the theory so ludi- 
 crous? Mr. Key says that as fui was oviginaWy fuvi=fu-fiii, 
 therefore, by my own theory, fui=^fu-f i(l=fu-fu-f id, and so 
 on ad infinitum. Reasoning worthy of Mr. Key's clearness 
 of perception. For his argument amounts to this: if fui was 
 a shortened form of fu-vl=fu-fui, therefore it was a short- 
 ened form of fu+fu+fu+fu+Scc. + i. Q. E. D. ! On the 
 same principle there must have been an original re-[«]-plica- 
 tion (w being infinite) of every re-(7?<-plication ; so that when 
 Horatius ran away from the Curiatii, he must in those early 
 days have expressed his act with the stammering perfect cu- 
 cu-cu-cu-cu{ + 8cc.)-curri. No one but a philologer can fully 
 appreciate the portentous blunder which Mr. Key has com- 
 mitted here. Fu-vi=fu-fui is the real perfect of fio. This 
 reduplicated form has been shortened, like many other Latin 
 perfects, into fui, and in this state was employed to make 
 the perfect of the vowel-verbs, and of jyossum, &c. This, 
 I conceive, is certain; and the doctrine gains much confir- 
 mation from my view of the forms arcesso, &c. Ridicule is 
 a dangerous Warnerian implement in the hands of such men 
 as Mr. Key ; and many an engineer of his calibre has been 
 thus hoist by his own petard. 
 
 I now take my leave of Mr. Key ; and I can assure him 
 that I have not without the most painful reluctance been 
 drafj-^ed into this controversy with him. I have not said nuich 
 about the unfairness and want of generosity which character- 
 ise the whole of his procedure, and the tone of ridiculous 
 assumption which he has thought lit to adopt ; I have also 
 kept silence on the subject of those peccadilloes which cK) not 
 immediately concern his attack upon me. But I do not pro- 
 mise the same reserve in future ; wlicreforc dcsinat i/ia/cdi- 
 cere, malefacta ne noacat sun. Looking merely to the uii-
 
 16 
 
 importance of my little book, and the slight value of m-' 
 alleged obligations to him, it may be supposed that he has tc 
 a certain extent succeeded in exciting a fluctus in sivipulo, 
 but, in thus reviving the old question as to what is and whalj 
 is not plagiarism, he has rather approximated to the harmlesjj 
 efforts of the man who tried to create a storm by stirring thef 
 German Ocean with a tea-spoon. If we are to encourage the 
 jealous vanity of those who consider their own writings ad 
 the only alembicks from which knowledge can be distilled^ 
 we must, in the end, sacrifice the interests of literature oni 
 the altar of individual selfishness : but the world has not! 
 hitherto paid much attention to charges which, though oftenj 
 advanced, have been very rarely sustained. 
 
 The vvork which Mr. Key has selected as the object of 
 his vituperation was originally designed to be an article in! 
 a review; and although it has grown into a little book, iti 
 still remains, what it was, a general survey of the knowledge! 
 now before the world on the subject of Latin philology,} 
 regulated by my own theory, and extended by the results! 
 of my original investigations. It is not the work on which! 
 I rest my claim to be considered an original philologer; on 
 the contrary, it is merely a supplement to the New CratylusA 
 Those, however, who are competent judges will easily con- 
 vince themselves, that, whatever may be the merits or defects! 
 of Varronianus, they would have been just what they are, if j 
 the Professor had never lived or written. The motives which j 
 have impelled Mr. Key to this imprudent aggression are 
 sufficiently transparent; but he will find, sooner or later, 
 that the disparagement of others is not the best road to 
 fame ; and one of these days he will regret that his first! 
 avowed publication commenced with a wanton and calumnious 
 attack on the only scholar who has mentioned his name with 
 commendation. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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