UNtVE'J' TY OF CAmFCiWIA SAN DiSeO '''''''fiiiw^iiiiiWtiiirW'''niiTifiiii 3 1822 02674 0050 d f>rl/r.. [^k^/g,.,...,^}] ^^^ jff^/y^^ ^^^^'^^/■a^ /^^^a^r^^^^ ^,^^:/^ — THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. LONDON : PRINTED BV SAMUEL BENTLKY, Bangor House, Shoe Lane. THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR; A NEW AND FACETIOUS Jntrotiurtion to tfic «i?ngli6^ Cotigur, BY THE AUTHOR OF THE COMIC LATIN GRAMMAR. rj^-r^L-v^j-it^ aS^'^-Zv EMBELLISHED WITH UPWARDS OF PIPTV CHARACTERISTIC ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. LEECH. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 1840. TO MR. GEORGE ROBINS, A Writer unrivalled in this or any other Age for AN ORIGINALITY OF STYLE, (if the expression may be pardoned) quite unique, and a Dexterity in the Use OF Metaphor unparalleled; whose multifarious and sublime — it would not be too much to say talented — Compositions would, it may be fearlessly asserted, afford any ENTERPRISING PUBLISHER a not-every-day-to-be-met-with, and not in-a-hurry-to-be-relinqulshed oppor- tunity for an ELIGIBLE INVESTMENT OF CAPITAL, forming a Property which, under judicious management, would soon become entitled to the well-merited appellation of a PRINCELY DOMAIN ! ■which, without exciting a blush in the mind of veracity, might be said (in a literary point of view) to be fertilised by a meandering rivulet of Poetry, comparable for Beauty and Picturesque Effect to THE SILVERY STREAM OF THE ISIS; whose richness (equalled only by his fidelity) of description, presenting a re- freshing contrast to the style of his various compeers, precludes the attempt to perpetrate a panegyric, otherwise than by assuming the responsibility and risk of applying to him the words of our IMMORTAL BARD: " Take him for all in all We ne'er shall see his like again." This little Treatise on COMIC ENGLISH is, with the most profound Veneration, Admiration, nay, even with Respect (and the terra is used " advisedly") humbly dedicated by HIS MOST OBLIGED AND MOST OBEDIENT SERVANT, THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. It may be considered a strange wish on the part of an Author, to have his preface compared to a donkey's gallop. We are nevertheless desirous that our own should be considered both short and sweet. For our part, indeed, we would have every preface as short as an orator's cough, to which, in purpose, it is so nearly like ; but Fashion requires, and like the rest of her sex, requires because she requires, that before a writer begins the business of his book, he should give an account to the world of his reasons for pro- ducing it; and therefore, to avoid singularity, we shall proceed with the statement of our own, excepting only a few private ones, which are neither here nor there. VIll PREFACE. To advance the interests of mankind by pro- moting the cause of Education ; to ameliorate the conversation of the masses ; to cultivate Taste, and diffuse Refinement; these are the objects which we have in view in submitting a Comic English Grammar to the patronage of a discerning Public. Nor have we been actuated by philanthropic mo- tives alone, but also by a regard to Patriotism, which, as it has been pronounced on high autho- rity to be the last refuge of a scoundrel, must necessarily be the first concern of an aspiring and disinterested mind. We felt ourselves called upon to do as much, at least, for Modern England as we had before done for Ancient Rome ; and having been considered by competent judges to have in- fused a little liveliness into a dead language, we were bold enough to hope that we might extract some amusement from a living one. Few persons there are, whose ears are so ex- tremely obtuse, as not to be frequently annoyed at the violations of Cirammar by which they are so often assailed. It is really painful to be forced, in walking along the streets, to hear such phrases as, " That 'ere /iomnibus." " Where 've you Inn." PREFACE. IX " Vot^s the Aodds?" and the like. Very dreadful expressions are also used by draymen and others in addressing their horses. What can possibly induce a human being to say " Gee woot ! " "'Mather way!" or "Woa?" not to mention the atrocious " Kim aup ! " of the ignorant and degraded costermonger. We once actually heard a fellow threaten to " pitch into" his dog! mean- ing, we believe, to beat the animal. It is notorious that the above and greater enor- mities are perpetrated in spite of the number of Grammars already before the w'orld. This fact sufficiently excuses the present addition to the stock ; and as serious English Grammars have hitherto failed to effect the desired reformation, we are induced to attempt it by means of a Comic one. With regard to the moral tendency of our labours, we may here be permitted to remark, that they will tend, if successful, to the suppres- sion of evil speaking. We shall only add, that as the Spartans used to exhibit a tipsy slave to their children with a view to disgust them with drunkenness, so we, by giving a few examples here and there, of in- PREFACE. correct phraseology, shall expose, in their naked deformity, the vices of speech to the ingenuous reader. VW LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. FRONTISPIECE. Page MINERVA TEACHING . . . .X JOHN BULL .... 12 THE "prodigy" . . . .14 "jane you know who" ... 18 mutes and liquids . . . .23 awkward lout . . . . 24 ha ! ha ! ha ! ho i ho ! ho ! he ! he ! he ! . 27 "0!, WHAT, A, lark! HERE, WE, ARE ! " . 28 ALDIBORONTIPHOSCOPHORMIO AND CHRONONHOTONTHOLOGOS 34 SINGLE BLESSEDNESS ... 40 APPLE SAUCE . . . . .45 MATILDA . . . .48 A SOCIALIST . . . . . .50 "shan't I SHINE TO NIGHT, DEAR?" . . 51 JULIA . . . . .57 A VERY BAD CASE . . . .59 A SELECT VESTRY . . . . fi{) SELF-ESTEEM .... 78 " FACT, MADAM ! " " GRACIOUS, MAJOR ! " . .82 YEARS OF DISCRETION ... 81) 'l SHALL GIVE YOU A DRUBBING!" . . 97 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. a comical conjunction "as well as can be expected" "how's your inspectouI" . "what a duck of a man!" the flirt the captain . . . . the duke of wellington "oh! you GOOD-FOR-NOTHING MAN ! " the young gentleman " a'irtue's reward" "not to MINCE MATTERS, MISS, I LOVE YOu' the FRENCH MARQUIS "the engaged ones" " the ladies !" "hit one of your own size!" all for love , "tale of a tub" . "a RESPECTABLE MAn" DOING WHAT YOU LIKE WITH YOUR OWN " WHAT A LITTLE DEAR ! " BRUTUS .... THE TWO DOVES "the NASTY LITTLE SQUALLING BRAT" . " OH, JEMIMA !" LOVE AND MURDER STANDING ON POINTS "WHERE GOT'sT THOU THAT GOOSE?" Page lOG 108 119 120 122 128 131 137 139 142 145 149 153 150 158 169 170 177 180 ]a3 187 190 205 214 216 218 219 PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. Our native country having been, from time immemorial, entitled Merry England, it is clear that, provided it has been called by a right name, a Comic Grammar will afford the most hopeful means of teaching its inhabitants their language. That the epithet in question has been correctly applied, it will therefore be our business to show. If we can only prove that things which fo- reigners regard in the most serious point of view, and which, perhaps, ought in reality to be so con- sidered, afford the modern Minotaur John Bull, merely matter of amusement, we shall go fax towards the establishment of our position. We hope to do this and more also. Births, marriages, and deaths, especially the latter, must be allowed to be matters of some consequence. Every one knows what jokes are B 2 PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. made upon the two first subjects. Those which the remaining one affords, we shall proceed to consider. Suicide, for instance, is looked upon by Mr. Bull with a very different eye from that with which his neighbours regard it. As to an abortive at- tempt thereat, it excites in his mind unmitigated ridicule, instead of interest and sympathy. In Paris a foolish fellow, discontented with the world, or, more probably, failing in some attempt to make himself conspicuous, ties a brickbat to his neck, and jumps, at twelve o'clock of the day, into the Seine. He thereby excites great admi- ration in the minds of the bystanders ; but were he to play the same trick on London Bridge, as soon as he had been pulled out of the ^ater he would only be laughed at for his pains. There was a certain gentleman, an officer in the navy, one Lieutenant Luff; at least we have never heard the fact of his existence disputed; who used to spend all his time in drinking grog ; and at last, when he could get no more, thought proper to shoot himself through the chest. In France he would have been buried in Pere La Chaise, or some such place, and would have had an ode written to his memory. As his native country, however, was the scene of his exploit, PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. d he was interred, for the affair happened some years ago, in a cross-road ; and his fate has been made the subject of a comic song. That our countrymen regard Death as a jest, no one who considers their bravery in war or their appetite in peace, can possibly doubt. And the expressions, " to hop the twig," " to kick the bucket," " to go off the hooks," " to turn up the toes," and so on, vernacularly used as synonymous with " to expire," suflficiently show the jocular light in which the last act of the farce of Life is viewed in Her Majesty's dominions. An execution is looked upon abroad as a se- rious affair ; but with us it is quite another mat- ter. Capital punishments, whatever they may be to the sufferers, are to the spectators, if we may judge from their behaviour, little else than ca- pital jokes. The terms which, in common dis- course, are used by the humble classes to denote the pensile state, namely, " dancing on nothing," *' having a drop too much," or " being troubled with a line," are quite playful, and the " Last Dying Speech" of the criminal is usually a spe- cies of composition which might well be called " An Entertaining Narrative illustrated ^\'ith Hu- mourous Designs." The play of George Barnwell, in which a de- 4 PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. luded linendraper's apprentice commits a horrid murder on the body of a pious uncle, excites, whenever it is represented, as much amusement as if it were a comedy ; and there is also a ballad detailing the same circumstances, which, when sung at convivial meetings, is productive of much merriment, Billy Taylor, too, another ballad of the same sort, celebrates, in jocund strains, an act of unjustifiable homicide. Even the terrors of the other world are con- verted, in Great Britain, into the drolleries of this. The awful apparitions of the unfortunate Miss Bailey, and the equally unfortunate Mr. Giles Scroggins, have each of them furnished the materials of a comical ditty; and the terrific ap- pearance of the Ghost of a Sheep's Head to one William White, — a prodigy which would be con- sidered in Germany as fearful in the extreme, has been applied, by some popular but anonymous writer, to the same purpose. The bodily abla- tion of an unprincipled exciseman by the Prince of Darkness, a circumstance in itself certainly of a serious nature, has been recorded by one of our greatest poets in strains by no means re- markable for gravity. The appellation, "Old Nick," applied by the vulgar to the Prince in question, is, in every sense of the words, a nick- PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. o name ; and the aliases by which, like many of his subjects, he is also called and known, such as « Old Scratch," « Old Harry," or " The Old Gentleman," are, to say the very least of them, terms that border on the familiar. In the popular drama of Punch,* we observe a * It may be said that Punch is a foreign importation. True ; and the same assertion may be made respecting the drink of tliat name, the ingredients of which are all exotic, ex- cept tlie water : nevertheless the peculiar fondness of our countrymen for it will hardly on that account be questioned. But the real fact is, that there is nothing outlandish about Punch except the name, and even that has been Anglicised. We arc proverbial for improving on the inventions of other nations, but we have done more than improve upon Punch ; we have entirely remodelled his character ; and he is now no more an Italian than the descendant of one who came in with the Conqueror is a Norman. The correctness of this position will be found to be singularly borne out on a perusal of that celebrated Avork, " Punch and Judy ;" in which (no doubt from unavoidable circumstances) the dialogues were actually taken down from the mouth of an Italian, one Piccini, an itin- erant exhibitor of the drama. The book is, or ought to be, in everybody's hands. Still, let any one refer to that particu- lar part of it, and, provided that his taste is a correct one, he will not fail to be struck with the deteriorating effect which Signor Piccini's broken English and Italian loquacity have produced on the spirit of the original. Nothing is more clia- ractcristic of the real Mr. Punch than the laconic manner in which he expresses himself, and nothing at the same time is more English. As to the embellishments of his discourse, in- troduced by Piccini, they are about as appropriate and admi- rable as Colley Gibber's improvements on Richard the Third. b PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. perfect climax of atrocities and horrors. Victim after victim falls prostrate beneath the cudgel of the deformed and barbarous monster ; the very first who feels his tyranny being the wife of his bosom. He, meanwhile, behaves in the most heartless manner, actually singing and capering among the mangled carcases. Benevolence is shocked. Justice is derided. Law is set at nought, and Constables are slain. The fate to which he had been consigned by a Jury of his Country is eluded ; and the Avenger of Crime is circum- vented by the wily assassin. Lastly, to crown the whole. Retribution herself is mocked; and the very Arch Fiend is dismissed to his own dominions with a fractured skull. And at every stage of these frightful proceedings shouts of up- roarious laughter attest the delight of the be- holders, increasing in violence with every addi- tional terror, and swelling at the concluding one to an almost inextinguishable peal- Indeed there is scarcely any shocking thing out of which we can extract no amusement, ex- cept the loss of money, wherein, at least when it is our own, we cannot see anything to laugh at. Some will say that we make it a principle to convert whatever frightens other people into a jest, in order that we may imbibe a contempt PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 7 for danger; and that our superiority (universally admitted) over all nations in courage and prowess, is, in fact, owing to the way which we have ac- quired of laughing all terrors, natural and super- natural, utterly to scorn. With these, however, we do not agree. Our national laughter is, in our opinion, as little based on principle as our national actions have of late years been. We laugh from impulse, or, as we do everything else, because we choose. And we shall find, on exa- mination, that we have contrived, amongst us, to render a great many things exceedingly droll and absurd, without having the slightest reason to assign for so doing. For example, there is nothing in the office of a Parish Clerk that makes it desirable that he should be a ludicrous person. There is no reason why he should have a cracked voice ; an inability to use, or a tendency to omit, the aspirate ; a stupid countenance ; or a pompous manner. Nor do we clearly see why he should be unable to pronounce proper names ; should say Snatchacrab for Senna- cherib, or Leftenant for Leviathan. Such, never- theless, are the peculiarities by which he is com- monly distinguished. We are likewise at a loss to divine why so stu- diously ridiculous a costume has been made to 8 TRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. enhance the natural absurdity of a Beadle ; for we can hardly believe that his singular style of dress was really intended to inspire small children with veneration and awe. It can scarcely be supposed that a Lord Mayor's Show was instituted only to be laughed at ; yet who would contend that it is of any other use ? Nor could the office of the Chief INIagistrate of a Cor- poration, nor that of an Alderman, have been created for the amusement of the Public : there is, however, no purpose which both of them so fre- quently serve. If the wig and robes of a Judge were meant to excite the respect of the community in general, and the fear of the unconscientious part of it, we cannot but think that the design has been un- successful. That the ministers of justice are not, in fact, so reverently held, by any means, as from the nature of their functions they might be ex- pected to be, is certain. A magistrate, to go no further, is universally known, if not designated, by the jocose appellation of " Beak." Butchers, bakers, cobblers, tinkers, costermon- gers, and tailors ; to say notliing of footmen, wait- ers, dancing-masters, and barbers, have become the subjects of ridicule to an extent not warranted by their avocations, simply considered. PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 9 But the comical mind, like the jaundiced eye, views everything through a coloured medium. Such a mind is that of the generality of Britons. We distinguish even the nearest ties of relationship by facetious names. A father is called " Dad," or " The Governor ;" an uncle, " Nunkey ; " and a wife, " a rib," or more pleasantly still, as in the adver- tisements, an " encumbrance." Almost every being or thing, indeed, has in English two words to ex- press it, an ordinary and an odd one ; and so greatly has the number of expressions of the kind last mentioned increased of late, that, as it appears to us, a new edition of Johnson's Dictionary, enriched with modern additions, is imperatively called for. When we talk of odd words, we have no fear that our meaning will be misunderstood. It is true that there are some few individuals who complain that they do not see any wit in calling a sheep's-head a "jemmy," legs " bandies," or a hand a " maw- ley;" and it is also true that there was once a mathematician, who, after reading through Mil- ton's Paradise Lost, wanted to know what it all proved ? And now that we are speaking of names, we may mention a few which are certainly of a curious nature, and which no foreigner could possibly have invented ; unless, which would be likely enough. 10 PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. he meant to apply them seriously. The names we allude to are names of places — and pretty places they are too ; as, " jNIount Pleasant," " Paradise Row," « Golden Lane." Then there are a great many whimsical things that we do : — When a man cannot pay his debts, and has no prospect of being able to do so except by working, we shut him up in gaol, and humorously describe his condition as that of being in Quod. We will not allow a man to give an old woman a dose of rhubarb if he have not acquired at least half a dozen sciences ; but we permit a quack to sell as much poison as he pleases, with no other diploma than what he gets from the " College of Health." When a thief pleads "Guilty" to an indictment, he is advised by the Judge to recall his plea; as if a tiial were a matter of sport, and the culprit, like a fox, gave no amusement unless regularly run down. This perhaps is the reason why allowing an animal to start some little time before the pur- suit is commenced, is called giving him law. When one man runs away with another''s wife, and, being on that account challenged to fight a duel, shoots the aggrieved party through the head, the latter is said to receive satisfaction. PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 11 We never take a glass of wine at dinner without getting somebody else to do the same, as if we wanted encouragement; and then, before we ven- ture to drink, we bow to each other across the table, preserving all the while a most wonderful gravity. This, however, it may be said, is the natural result of endeavouring to keep one an- other in countenance. The way in which we imitate foreign manners and customs is very amusing. Savages stick fish- bones through their noses ; our fair countrywomen have hoops of metal poked through their ears. The Caribs flatten the forehead ; the Chinese com- press the foot ; and we possess similar contrivances for reducing the figure of a young lady to a re- semblance to an hour-glass or a devil-on-two- sticks. There being no other assignable motive for these and the like proceedings, it is reasonable to sup- pose that they are adopted, as schoolboys say, "for fun." We could go on, were it necessary, adducing facts to an almost unlimited extent; but we con- sider that enough has now been said in proof of the comic character of the national mind. And in conclusion, if any foreign author can be produced, equal in point of wit, humour, and drollery, to 12 PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. Swift, Sterne, or Butler, we hereby engage to eat him; albeit we have no pretensions to the cha- racter of a " helluo librorum." THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. " English Grammar," according to Lindley Murray, " is the art of speaking and writing the EngUsh language with propriety." The Enghsh language, written and spoken with propriety, is commonly called the King's English. A monarch, who, three or four generations back, occupied the English throne, is reported to have said, " If heebies will be boets, they must sdarve." This was a rather curious specimen of " King's English." It is, however, a maxim of our law, that " the King can do no wrong." Whatever bad English, therefore, may proceed from the royal mouth, is not " King's Enghsh," but " Minister's English," for which they alone are responsible. For illustrations of this kind of " English " we beg to refer the reader to the celebrated English Gram- mar which was written by the late Mr. Cobbett. King's English (or, perhaps, under existing cir- cumstances we should say, Queen's English) is the C 14 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. current coin of conversation, to mutilate which, and unlawfully to utter the same, is called clipping the King's English; a high crime and misdemea- nour. Clipped English, or bad English, is one variety of Comic English, of which we shall adduce in- stances hereafter. Slipslop, or the erroneous substitution of one word for another, as "prodigy" for "protegee," lie's only a little " prwligj" of mine, Doctor. THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR lo "derangement" for "arrangement," "exasperate" for "aspirate," and the like, is another. Slang, which consists in cant words and phrases, as "dodge" for "sly trick," "no go" for "failure," and " Carney" "to flatter," may be considered a third. Latinised English, or Fine English, sometimes assumes the character of Comic English, especially when applied to the purposes of common discourse ; as " Extinguish the luminary," " Agitate the com- municator," " Are your corporeal functions in a condition of salubrity?" "A sable visual orb," "A sanguinary nasal protuberance." American English is Comic English in a ^'^ pretty particular considerable tarnation''' degree. Among the various kinds of Comic English it would be ^^ tout-a-fait" inexcusable, were we to ^^manquer" to mention one which has, so to speak, quite ^^ bouleverse^d" the old-fashioned style of conversation; French-English, that is what ^^nous voulons direJ^ " Avec un poco" of the " Italian o," this forms what is also called the IVIosaic dialect. English Grammar is divided into four parts — Orthography, Etymology, Syntax, and Prosody ; and as these are points that a good grammarian always stands upon, he, particularly when a pe- dant, and consequently somewhat Jiat, may very properly be compared to a table. PART I. ORTHOGRAPHY. CHAPTER. I. OF THE NATURE OF THE LEITERS, AND OF A COMIC ALPHABET. Orthography is like a junior usher, or instruc- tor of youth. It teaches us the nature and powers of letters and the right method of spelling words. Note. — In a public school, the person corre- sponding to an usher is called a master. As it is sometimes his duty to flog, we propose that he should henceforth be called the " Usher of the Birch Rod." Comic Orthography teaches us the oddity and absurdities of letters, and the wrong method of spelling words. The following is an example of Comic Orthography : — islinton fotcentli of my Deer jemes fohuary 1840. wen fust i sawed yu doun the middle and up agin att Vite condick ouse i maid Up my Mind to skure you for my hone for i Felt at once that my appiness was at Steak, and a scnsashun in my Bussum I coudent no ways accompt For. And i ORTHOGRAPHY. l7 said to mary at missis Igginses said i theres the Mann for my money o ses Shee i nose a Sweeter Yung Man than that Air Do you sez i Agin then there we Agree To Differ, and we was sittin by the window and we wos wery Neer falhn Out. my deer gemes Sins that Nite i Haven t slept a Wink and Wot is moor to the Porpus i Have quit Lost my Happy tight and am gettin wus and wus witch i Think yu ort to pitty Mee. i am Tolled every Day that ime Gettin Thinner and a Jipsy sed that nothin wood Cure me But a Ring. i wos a Long time makin my Mind Up to right to You for of Coarse i Says jemes will think me too forrad but this bein Leep yere i thout ide Make a Plunge speshialy as her grashius madjesty as Set the Exampel of Popin the queshton, leastways to all Them as dont Want to Bee old Mades all their blessed lives, so my Deer Jemes if yow want a Pardoner for Better or for wus nows Your Time dont think i Behave despicable for tis my Luv for yu as makes Me take this Stepp. please to Burn this Letter when Red and ex- cuse the scralls and Blotches witch is Caused by my Teers i remain till deth Yure on Happy Vallentine jane you No loho. c 3 18 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. poscnp nex Sunday Is my Sunday out And i shall be Att the corner of Wite lion Street pentonvil at a quaw- ter pas Sevn. Wen This U. C. remember Mee i- g- ORTHOGRAPHY. 19 Now, to proceed with Orthography, we may re- mark, that A letter is the least part of a word. Of a comic letter an instance has already been given. Dr. Johnson's letter to Lord Chesterfield is a capital letter. The letters of the Alphabet are the represen- tatives of articulate sounds. The Alphabet is a Republic of Letters. There are many things in this world erroneously as well as vulgarly compared to " bricks." In the case of the letters of the Alphabet, however, the comparison is just; they constitute the fabric of a language, and grammar is the mortar. The wonder is that there should be so few of them. The English letters are twenty-six in number. There is nothing like beginning at the beginning ; and we shall now therefore enumerate them, with the view also of rendering their insertion subsidiary to mythological instruction, in conformity with the plan on which some account of the Heathen Deities and ancient heroes is prefixed or subjoined to a Dictionary. We present the reader with a form of Alphabet composed in humble imitation of that famous one, which, while appreciable by the dullest 20 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. taste, and level to the meanest capacity, is never- theless that by which the greatest minds have been agreeably inducted into knowledge. THE ALPHABET. A was Apollo, the god of the carol, B stood for Bacchus, astride on his barrel; C for good Ceres, the goddess of grist, D was Diana, that wouldn't be kiss'd ; E was nymph Echo, that pined to a sound, F was sweet Flora, with buttercups crown'd ; G was Jove's pot-boy, young Ganymede bight, H was fair Hebe, his barmaid so tight; I, little lo, turn'd into a cow, J, jealous Juno, that spiteful old sow ; K was Kitty, more lovely than goddess or muse; L, Lacooon — I wouldn't have been in his shoes ! M was blue-eyed Minerva, with stockings to match, N was Nestor, with grey beard and silvery thatch ; O was lofty Olympus, King Jupiter's shop, P, Parnassus, Apollo hung out on its top ; Q stood for Quirites, the Romans, to wit ; 11, for rantij)ole Hoscius, that made such a hit; S, for Sappho, so famous for felo-de-se, T,for Thales the wise, F. 11. S. and M. D: ORTHOGRAPHY. 21 U was crafty Ulysses, so artful a dodger, V was hop-a-kick Vulcan, that limping old codger ; Wenus — Venus I mean — with a W begins, {Vell^ if I ham a Cockney, ivot need of your grins ?) X was Xantippe, the scratch-cat and shrew, Y, I don't know what Y was, whack me if I do ! Z was Zeno the Stoic, Zenobia the clever. And Zoilus the critic, Victoria for ever ! Letters are divided into Vowels and Conso- nants. The vowels are capable of being perfectly ut- tered by themselves. They are, as it were, in- dependent members of the Alphabet, and like independent members elsewhere form a small mi- nority. The vowels are a, e, i, o, u, and some- times w and y. An I. O. U. is a more pleasant thing to have, than it is to give. A blow in the stomach is very likely to W up. W is a consonant when it begins a word, as " Wicked Will Wiggins whacked his wife with a whip ;" but in every other place it is a vowel, as crawling, drawling, sawney, screwing, Jew. Y follows the same rule. A consonant is an articulate sound ; but, like an old bachelor, if it exist alone it exists to no 22 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. purpose. It cannot be perfectly uttered without the aid of a vowel ; and even then the vowel has the greatest share in the production of the sound. Thus a vowel joined to a consonant becomes, so to speak, a " better half:" or at all events very strongly resembles one. Consonants are divided into mutes and semi- vowels. The mutes cannot be sounded at all without the aid of a vowel. Like young ladies just "come out," they are silent as long as you let them alone. Some have compared them, on account of their name, to the " Original Good Woman ;" but how joining her to anything except to her head again would have cured her of her dumbness, it is not easy to see. B, p, t, d, h, and c and ^ hard, are the letters called mutes, or, as some have deno- minated them, black letters. The semi-vowels, which are^ I, m, n, r, v, s, Xy z, and c and ff soft, have an imperfect sound of themselves. Well ! half a loaf is better than no bread. L, m, 11, r, are further distinguished by the name of liquids. Like certain other liquids they are good for mixing, that is to say, they readily unite with other consonants ; and flow, as it were, into their sounds. ORTHOGRAPHY. 23 The specific gravity of liquids can only be ren- dered amusing by comical figures. The gravity, too, of a solid is generally the more ludicrous. y^- S_ ^t MUTES AND LlftUIDS. 24 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. A diphthong is the union of two vowels in one sound, as ea in heavy, cu in Meux, ou in stout A triphthong is a similar union of three vowels, as eau in the word beau ; a term applied to dan- dies, and addressed to geese : probably because they are birds of a feather. A proper diphthong is that in which the sound is formed by both the vowels : as, aw in awkward, ou in lout. ORTHOGRAPHY. 25 An improper diphthong is that in which the sound is formed by one of the vowels only, as ea in heartless, oa in hoax. According to our notions there are a great '& many improper diphthongs in common use. By improper diphthongs we mean vowels unwarrant- ably dilated into diphthongs, and diphthongs mis- pronounced, in defiance of good English, and against our Sovereign Lady the Queen, her crown and dignity. For instance, the rustics say, — " Loor ! whaut a foine gaal ! Moy oy ! " " Whaut a precious soight of crows ! " " As I was a comin' whoam through the corn fiddles (fields) I met Willum Jones." After this manner cockneys express them- selves : — " I sor (saw) him." « Dror (draw) it out." " Hold your jor (jaw)." " I caun't. You shaun't. How 's your Maw and Paw ? Do you like taut (tart) ?" We have heard young ladies remark, — " Oh, my ! What a naice young man !" " What a bee— eautiful day I " " I 'm so fond of dayncing !" Dandies frequently exclaim, — 26 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. " I 'm posdvely tiawed (tired)."" " What a sweet tempaw ! (temper)." " How daughty (dirty) the streets au ! " And they also call, — Literature, " literetchah." Perfectly, " pawfacly." Disgusted, " disgasted." Sky (theatrical dandies do this chiefly) " ske- eye." Blue, " ble— ew." We might here insert a few remarks on the nature of the human voice, and of the mechanism by means of which articulation is performed ; but besides our dislike to prolixity, we are afraid of getting down in the mouthy and thereby going the wrong way to please our readers. We may never- theless venture to invite attention to a few co- mical peculiarities in connection with articulate sounds. Ahem ! at the commencement of a speech, is a sound agreeably droll. The vocal comicalities of the infant in arms are exceedingly laughable, but we are unfor- tunately unable to spell them. The articulation of the Jew is pecuUarly ridi- culous. The " peoplesh " are badly spoken of, and not well spoken. ORTHOGRAPHY. 27 Bawling, croaking, hissing, whistling, and grunt- ing, are elegant vocal accomplishments. Lisping, as, " thweet, Dthooliur, thawming, kweechau," is by some considered interesting, by others absurd. Stammering is sometimes productive of amuse- ment. Humming and hawing are ludicrous embel- lishments to a discourse. Crowing like a cock, braying like a donkey, quacking like a duck, and hooting like an owl, are modes of exerting the voice which are usually regarded as diverting. But of all the sounds which proceed from the human mouth, by far the funniest are Ha ! ha ! ha ! — Ho ! ho ! ho ! and He ! he ! he I 28 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. CHAPTER II. OF SYLLABLES. Syllable is a nice word, it sounds so much like syllabub ! A syllable, whether it constitute a word or part of a word, is a sound, either simple or com- pound, produced by one effort of the voice, as, " O !, what, a, lark ! — Here, we, are ! " rn ^^^ ORTHOGRAPHY. 29 Spelling is the art of putting together the let- ters which compose a syllable, or the syllables which compose a word. Comic spelling is usually the work of imagina- tion. The chief rule to be observed in this kind of spelling, is, to spell every word as it is pro- nounced ; though the rule is not universally ob- served by comic spellers. The following example, for the genuineness of which we can vouch, is one so singularly apposite, that although we have al- ready submitted a similar specimen of orthography to the reader, we are irresistibly tempted to make a second experiment on his indulgence. The epistolary curiosity, then, which we shall now proceed to transcribe, was addressed by a patient to his medical adviser. « Sir, " My Granmother wos very much trubeld With the Gout and dide with it my father wos also and dide with it when i was 14 years of age i wos in die habbet of Gettin whet feet Every Night by pumping water out of a Celler Wich Cas me to have the tipes fever wich Cas my Defness when i was 23 of age i fell in the Water betwen the ice and i have Bin in the habbet of 30 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. Getting wet when traviling i have Bin trubbeld with Gout for seven years " Your most humbel " Servent Clearkenwell" Chelsea College has been supposed by fo- reigners to be an institution for the teaching of orthography ; probably in consequence of a pas- sage in the well known song in " The Waterman," " Never more at Chelsea Ferry, Shall your Thomas take a spell." Q. Why is a dunce no conjuror ? A. Because he cannot spell. Among the various kinds of spelling may be enumerated spelling for a favour ; or giving what is called a broad hint Certain rules for the division of words into syllables are laid down in some grammars, and we should be very glad to follow the established usage, but, limited as we are by considerations of comicality and s])ace, we cannot afford to give more than two very general directions. If you ORTHOGRAPHY. 31 do not know how to spell a word, look it out in the dictionary, and if you have no dictionary by you, write the word in such a way, that, while it may be guessed at, it shall not be legible. 32 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. CHAPTER III. OF WORDS IN GENERAL. There is no one question that we are aware of more puzzling than this, " What is your opi- nion of things in general ? " Words in general are, fortunately for us, a subject on which the formation of an opinion is somewhat more easy. Words stand for things : they are a sort of coun- ters, checks, bank-notes, and sometimes, indeed, they are notes for which people get a great deal of money. Such words, however, are, alas ! not English words, or words sterling. Strange ! that so much should be given for a mere song. It is quite clear that the givers, whatever may be their pretensions to a refined or literary taste, must be entirely unacquainted with Wordsv; orih. Fine words are oily enough, and he who uses them is vulgarly said to "cut it fat;" but for all that it is well known that they will not butter parsnips. Some say that words are but wind : for this reason, when people are having words, it is often said, that " the wind 's up." ORTHOGRAPHY. 33 Different words please different people. Pliilo- sophers are fond of hard words ; pedants of tough words, long words, and crackjaw woi'ds; bullies, of rough words; boasters, of big words; the rising generation, of slang words; fashionable people, of French words; wits, of sharp words and smart words ; and ladies, of nice words, sweet words, soft words, and soothing words; and, indeed, of words in general. Words (when spoken) are articulate sounds used by common consent as signs of our ideas. A word of one syllable is called a Monosyllable : as, you, are, a, great, oaf. A word of two syllables is named a Dissyllable ; as, cat-gut, mu-sic. A word of three syllables is termed a Trisyl- lable; as, Mag-net-ism, Mum-mer-y. A word of four or more syllables is entitled a Polysyllable ; as, in-ter-mi-na-ble, cir-cum-lo- cu-ti-on, ex-as-pe-ra-ted, func-ti-o-na-ry, met-ro- po-li-tan, ro-tun-di-ty. Words of more syllables than one are sometimes comically contracted into one syllable ; as, in s'pose for suppose, b'lieve for believe, and 'scuse for ex- cuse: here, perhaps, 'buss, abbreviated from omni- bus, deserves to be mentioned. In like manner, many long words are elegantly trimmed and shortened; as, ornary for ordinary, 34 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. "strornary for extraordinary, and curosity for curi- osity ; to which mysterus for mysterious may also be added. Polysyllables are an essential element in the sublime, both in poetry and in prose; but espe- cially in that species of the sublime which borders very closely on the ridiculous ; as, " Aldiborontiphoscophormio, Where left'st thou Chrononhotonthologos?" 'fa-^ ORTHOGRAPHY. 35 All words are either primitive or derivative. A primitive word is that which cannot be reduced to any simpler word in the language ; as, brass, York, knave. A derivative word, under the head of which compound words are also included, is that which may be reduced to another and a more simple word in the English language ; as, brazen, Yorkshire, knavery, mud-lark, lighterman. Broadbrim is a derivative word; but it is one often applied to a very primitive kind of person. PART II. ETYMOLOGY. CHAPTER I. A COMICAL VIEW OF THE PARTS OF SPEECH. Etymology teaches the varieties, modifications, and derivation of words. The derivation of words means that which they come from as words; for what they come from as sounds, is another matter. Some words come from the heart, and then they are pathetic ; others from the nose, in which case they arc ludicrous. The funniest place, however, from which words can come, is the stomach. By the way, the Lord Mayor would do well to keep a ventriloquist, from whom, at a moment's notice, he might ascertain the voice of the corporation. Comic Etymology teaches us the varieties, modi- fications, and derivation, of words invested with a comic character. Grammatically speaking, we say that there are, in English, as many sorts of words as a cat is said ETYMOLOGY. 87 to have lives, nine; namely, the Article, the Sub- stantive or Noun, the Adjective, the Pronoun, the Verb, the Adverb, the Preposition, the Conjunc- tion, and the Interjection. Comically speaking, there are a great many sorts of words which we have not room enough to par- ticularise individually. We can therefore only afford to classify them. For instance ; there are words which are spoken in the Low Countries^ and are High Dutch to persons of quality; as in Bil- lingsgate, Whitechapel, and St. Giles's. Words in use amongst all those who have to do with horses. Words that pass between rival cab-men. Words peculiar to the P. R. where the order of the day is generally a word and a blow. Words spoken in a state of intoxication. Words uttered under excitement. Words of endearment, addressed to children in arms. Similar words, sometimes called burning, tender, soft, and broken words, addressed to young ladies, and whispered, lisped, sighed, or drawled, accord- ing to circumstances. Words of honour; as, tailors' words and shoe- makers' words; which, like the above-mentioned, or lovers' words, are very often broken. £ 38 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. With many other sorts of words, which will be readily suggested by the reader's fancy. But now let us go on with the parts of speech. 1. An Article is a word prefixed to substantives to point them out, and to show the extent of their meaning ; as, a dandy, an ape, the simpleton. One kind of comic article is otherwise deno- minated an oddity, or queer article. Another kind of comic article is often to be met with in Bentley's Miscellany. 2. A Substantive or Noun is the name of any- thing that exists, or of which we have any notion ; as, tinker^ tailor, soldier, sailor, apothecary, plough- hoy, thief. Now the above definition of a substantive is Lindley Murray's, not ours. We mention this, be- cause we have an objection, though, not, perhaps, a serious one, to urge against it ; for, in the first place, we have "no notion" of impudence, and yet impudence is a substantive ; and, in the second, we invite attention to the following piece of Logic, A substantive is something, But nothing is a substantive ; Therefore, nothing is something, A substantive may generally be known by its taking an article before it, and by its making sense of itself: as, a treat, the vinlliyruhs, an ache. 3. An Adjective is a word joined to a substantive ETYMOLOGY. 39 to denote its quality ; as a ragged regiment, an odd set. You may distinguish an adjective by its making sense with the word thing : as, a poor thing, a siceet thing, a cool thing ; or with any particular substan- tive, as a ticklish position, an awkward mistake, a strange step. 4. A Pronoun is a word used in lieu of a noun, in order to avoid tautology : as, " The man wants calves ; Ae is a lath ; he is a walking-stick." 5. A Verb is a word which signifies to be, to do, or to suffer : as, I am ; I calculate ; I am fixed. A verb may usually be distinguished by its making sense with a personal pronoun, or with the word to before it : as I yell^ he grins, they caper ; or to drink, to smoke, to chew. Fashionable accomplishments ! Certain substantives are, with peculiar elegance, and by persons who call themselves genteel, con- verted into verbs : as, " Do you xcine ?" " Will you malt ? " " Let me persuade you to cheese ? " 6. An Adverb is a part of speech which, joined to a verb, an adjective, or another adverb, serves to express some quality or circumstance concerning it : as, " She swears dreadfully ; she is incorrigibly lazy ; and she is almost continually in liquor." 7. An adverb is generally characterised by an- swering to the question, How? how much? when? 40 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. or where ? as in the verse, " Merrily danced the Quaker's wife," the answer to the question, How did she dance ? is, merrily. 8. Prepositions serve to connect words together, and to show the relation between them : as, " Off with his head, so much /or Buckingham !" 9 A Conjunction is used to connect not only words, but sentences also : as, Smith arid Jones are happy because they are single. A miss is as good as a mile. SIKGLF. BLESSEDNESS. ETYMOLOGY. 41 10. An Interjection is a short word denoting passion or emotion : as, " Oh, Sophonisba ! So- phonisba, oh!" Pshaw! Pish! Pooh! Bah! Ah! Au! Eughph! Yah! Hum! Ha! Lauk ! La! Lor ! Heigho ! Well ! There ! &e. Among the foregoing interjections there may, perhaps, be some unhonoured by the adoption of genius, and unknown in the domains of literature. For the present notice of them some apology may be required, but little will be given ; their inser- tion may excite astonishment, but their omission would have provoked complaint: though unpro- vided with a Johnsonian title to a place in the Eng- lish vocabulary, they have long been recognised by the popular voice ; and let it be remembered, that as custom supplies the defects of legislation, so that which is not sanctioned by magisterial autho- rity may nevertheless be justified by vernacular usage. 42 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. CHAPTER II. OF THE ARTICLES. The Articles in English are two, a and the ; a becomes an before a vowel, and before an Zi which is not sounded : as, an exquisite, an hour-glass. But if the h be pronounced, the a only is used : as, a homicide, a homoeopathist, a hum. This rule is reversed in what is termed the Cock- ney dialect : as, a inspector, a oflBcer, a object, a omnibus, a individual, a alderman, a honour, an horse, or rather, a norse, an hound, an hunter, &c. It is usual in the same dialect, when the article an s'hould, in strict propriety, precede a word, to omit the letter n, and further, for the sake of euphony and elegance, to place the aspirate h be- fore the word ; as, a /«egg, a /^accident, a Aadverb, a Aox. But sometimes, when a word begins with an A, and has the article a before it, the aspirate is omitted, the letter a remaining unchanged : as, a 'ogg, a 'edge, a 'emisphere, a 'ouse. ETYMOLOGY. 43 The slight liberties which it is the privilege of the people to take with the article and aspirate become always most evident in the expression of excited feeling, when the stress which is laid upon certain words is heightened by the peculiarity of the pronunciation : as, " You Aignorant Aupstart ! you ^illiterate 'og ! 'ow dare you to /ioffer such a /dnsult to my Aunderstanding ? — You are a /tobject of contempt, you Aare, and a Ainsolent wagobond ! your mother was nothing but a Aapple-woman, and your father was an 'uckster !" Note. — In the above example, the ordinary rules of language relative to the article and aspirate (to say nothing of the maxims of politeness) are com- pletely set at nought; but it muat be remem- bered, that in common discourse the modification of the article, and the omission or use of the aspi- rate, are determined by the Cockneys according to the ease with which particular words are pro- nounced ; as, " Though Aimpudent, he warn't as impudent as Bill wur." Here the word impu- denty following a vowel-sound, is most easily pro- nounced as Aimpudent, while the same word, com- ing after a consonant, even in the same sentence, is uttered with greater facility in the usual way. A or a7i is called the indefinite article, because it is used, in a vague sense, to point out some one 44 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. thing belonging to a certain kind, but in other respects indeterminate; as, " A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse ! " So say grammarians. Eating-house keepers tell a different story. A cheese, in common discourse, means an object of a certain shape, size, weight, and so on, entire and perfect ; so that to call half a cheese a cheese, would constitute a flaw in an in- dictment against a thief who had stolen one. But a waiter will term a fraction, or a modicum of cheese, a cheese; a plate-full of pudding, a pud- ding; and a stick of celery, a celery, or rather, a salarij. Nay, he will even apply the article a to a word which does not stand for an individual ob- ject at all ; as a bread, a butter, a bacon. Here we are reminded of the famous exclamation of one of these gentry : — " Master ! master ! there 's two teas and a brandy-and- water just hopped over the palings !" The is termed the definite article, inasmuch as it denotes what particular thing or things are meant; as, " The miller he stole corn, TIte weaver he stole yarn, And the little tailor he stole broad-cloth To keep the three rogues warm." ETYMOLOGY. 45 A substantive to which no article is prefixed is taken in a general sense ; as, " Apple sauce is proper for goose ; " that is, for all geese. APPLE-SAUCE. A few additional remarks may advantageously be made with respect to the articles. The mere substitution of the definite for the indefinite article is capable of changing entirely the meaning of a 46 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. sentence. " That is a ticket" is the assertion of a certain fact; but "That is the ticket !" means something which is quite diiferent. The article is not prefixed to a proper name; as, Stubbs, Wiggins, Chubb, or Hobson, except for the sake of distinguishing a particular family, or description of persons ; as, He is a Burke ; that is, one of the Burkes, or a person resembling Burke. The article is sometimes also prefixed to a proper name, to point out some distinguished individual; as. The Burke, or the great politician, or the resurrectionist, 13urke. Who is the Smith? The indefinite article is joined to substantives in the singular number only. We have heard people say, however, " He keeps a wine-vaults ; " or, to quote more correctly — waltz. The definite article may be joined to plurals also. The definite article is frequently used with ad- verbs in the comparative and superlative degree : as, " The longer I live, the broader I grow;" or, as we have all heard the showman say, " This here, gentlemen and ladies, is the vonderful beagle of the sun; the 'otterer it grows, the higherer he flies!" ETYMOLOGY. 47 CHAPTER III. SECTION I. OF SUBSTANTIVES IN GENERAL. Substantives are either proper or common. Proper names, or substantives, are the names belonging to individuals : as William, Birmingham. These are sometimes converted into nicknames, or f/nproper names : as Bill, Brummagem. Common names, or substantives, denote kinds containing many sorts, or sorts containing many individuals under them : as brute, beast, bumpkin, cherub, infant, goblin, &c. Proper names, when an article is prefixed to them, are employed as common names : as, " They thought him a perfect CI tester field ; he quite asto- nished the Broions" Common names, on the other hand, are made to denote individuals, by the addition of articles or pronouns: as, " There was a little man, and he had a little gun." « That boy will be the death of me !" 48 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. Substantives are considered according to gender, number, and case ; they are all of the third person when spoken of^ and of the second when spoken to : as, Matilda, fairest maid, who art In countless bumpers toasted, O let thy pity baste the heart Thy fatal charms have roasted ! ETYMOLOGY. 49 SECTION II. OF GENDER. The distinction between nouns with regard to sex is called Gender. There are three genders ; the Masculine, the Feminine, and the Neuter. The masculine gender belongs to animals of the male kind : as, a fop, a jackass, a boar, a poet, a lion. The feminine gender is peculiar to animals of the female kind : as, a poetess, a lioness, a goose. The neuter gender is that of objects which are neither males nor females : as, a toast, a tankard, a pot, a pipe, a pudding, a pie, a sausage, a roll, a muffin, a crumpet, a puff, a cheesecake, a bun, an apricot, an orange, a lollipop, a cream, an ice, a jelly, &c. &c. &c. We might go on to enumerate an infinity of ob- jects of the neuter gender, of all sorts and kinds ; but in the selection of the foregoing examples we have been guided by two considerations : — 1. The desire of exciting agreeable emotions in the mind of the reader. 2. The wish to illustrate the following propo- sition, " That almost everything nice is also neu- ter." Except, however, a nice young lady, a nice duck, F 50 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. and one or two other nice things, which we do not at present remember. Some neuter substantives are by a figure of speech converted into the mascuhne or feminine gender: thus we say of the sun, that when lie shines upon a Sociahst, he shines upon a thief; and of the moon, that she affects the minds of lovers. A son A LIST. There are certain nouns with whicli notions of strength, vigour, and the hke quahties, are more j)articularly connected; and these are the neuter substantives which arc figuratively rendered mas- culine. On the other hand, beauty, amiability, and ETYMOLOGY. 51 SO forth, are held to invest words with a feminine character. Thus the sun is said to be masculine, and the moon feminine. But for our own part, and our view is confirmed by the discoveries of astro- nomy, we believe that the sun is called mascuHne from his supporting and sustaining the moon, and " Shan't I shine to-night, dear? " 52 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. finding her the wherewithal to shine away as she does of a night, when all quiet people are in bed ; and from his being obliged to keep such a family of stars besides. The moon, we think, is ac- counted feminine, because she is thus maintained and kept up in her splendour, like a fine lady, by her husband the sun. Furthermore, the moon is continually changing ; on which account alone she miffht be referred to the feminine gender. The earth is feminine, tricked out, as she is, with gems and flowers. Cities and towns are likewise femi- nine, because there are as many windings, turnings, and little odd corners in them as there are in the female mind. A ship is feminine, inasmuch as she is blown about by every wind. Virtue is feminine by courtesy. Fortune and w/.s-fortune, like mother and daughter, are both feminine. The Church is feminine, because she is married to the state; or married to the state because she is feminine — we do not know which. Time is masculine, because he is so trifled with by the ladies. The English language distinguishes the sex in three manners ; namely, 1. By different words ; as, MAI.K. FK.MAI.K. Bachelor Maid. Boar Sow. ETYMOLOGY. MALE. FEMALE. Boy Girl. Bull Cow. Brother Sister. Buck Doe. Bullock Heifer. Hart Roe. Cock Hen. Dog Bitch. Drake Duck. Wizard Witch. Earl Countess. Father Mother. Friar Nun. 53 And several other Words we don't mention, (Pray pardon the crime,) Worth your attention, But wanting in rhyme. 2. By a difference of termination ; as, MALE. Poet Lion FE.MALE. Poetess. Lioness, &c. 3. By a noun, pronoun, or adjective being pre- fixed to the substantive ; as, r 3 54 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. MALE. FEMALE. A cock-lobster A hen-lobster. A jack-ass A jenny-ass (vernacular). A man-servant, A maid-servant, or flunkey. or Abigail. A he-bear (like A she-bear (like King Harry). Queen Bess). A male flirt (a A female flirt (a rare animal). common animal). We have heard it said, that every Jack has his Jill. That may be; but it is by no means true that every cock has his hen ; for there is a Cock-swain, but no Hen-swain. Cock-eye, but no Hen-eye. Cock-ade, but no Hen-ade. Cock-atrice, but no Hen-atrice. Cock-horse, but no Hen-horse. Cock-ney, but no Hen-ney. Then we have a weather-cock, but no weather- hen ; a turn-cock, but no turn-hen ; and many a jolly cock, but not one jolly hen ; unless we except some of those by whom their mates are pecked. Some words; as, parent, child, cousin, friend, neighbour, servant, and several others, are either male or female, according to circumstances. The word blue (used as a substantive) is one of this class. It is a great i)ity that our language is so poor in the terminations that denote gender. Were we to ETYMOLOGY. 55 say of a woman, that she is a rogue, a knave, a scamp, or a vagabond, we feel that we should use, not only strong but improper expressions. Yet we have no corresponding terms to apply, in case of necessity, to the female. Why is this ? Doubtless because we never want them. For the same reason, our forefathers transmitted to us the words, phi- losopher, astronomer, philologer, and so forth, without any feminine equivalent. Alas ! for the wisdom of our ancestors ! They never calculated on the March of Intellect. We understand that it is in contemplation to coin a new word, memberess ; it being confidently expected that by the time the new Houses of Par- liament are finished, the progress of civilisation will have furnished us with female representatives. In that case the House will be an assembly of Speakers. But if all the old women are to be turned out of St. Stephen's, and their places to be filled with young ones, the nation will hardly be a loser by the change. SECTION III. OF NUMBEU. Number is the consideration of an object as one or more ; as, one poet, two, three, four, five poets ; and so on, ad infinitum. 56 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. Other countries may reckon up as many poets as they please ; England has ojie more. The singular number expresses one object only ; as, a towel, a viper. The plural signifies more objects than one; as, towels, vipers. Some nouns are used only in the singular num- ber; dirt, pitch, tallow, grease, filth, butter, aspa- ragus, &c. ; others only in the plural; as, galli- gaskins, breeches, &c. Some words are the same in both numbers ; as, sheep, swine, and some others. " A doctor, both to sheep and swine," Said Mrs. Glass, " I am ; For legs of mutton I can dress, And shine in curing ham." The plural number of nouns is usually formed by adding s to the singular; as, dove, doves, love, loves, &c. Julia, dove returns to dove. Quid pro quo, and love for love ; Happy in our mutual loves, Let us live like turtle doves ! ETYMOLOGY. 57 When, however, the substantive singular ends in X, ch soft, sh, ss, or s, we add es in the plural. But remember, though box In the plural makes boxes, That the plural of ox Should be oxen, not oxes. 58 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. A few Singular Plurals, or Plurals popularly varied, are as follow : — SINGULAR. PLURAL. Beast Beastes, beastices. Crust Crustes. Gust Gustes. Ghost Ghostes. Host Hostcs. Joist Joistes. Mist Mistes. Nest Nestes. Post, &c. Postes, postices, &e. Note. — The singular is often used, by a kind of licence conceded to persons of refinement, for the plural; as, " May I trouble you for a bean?" " Will you assist Miss Spriggins to a jiea?" So also people say, " A few (jreen." " Two or three radish" &c. SECTION IV. OK CASE. There is nearly as much difference between Latin and English substantives, with respect to the number of cases pertaining to each, as there is between a quack-doctor and a physician ; for while in Latin substantives have six cases, in English they have but three. But the analogy should not ETYMOLOGY. 59 be strained too far ; for the fools in the world (who furnish the quack with his cases) more than double the number of the wise. A VERY BAD CASE. The cases of substantives are these : the Nomi- native, the Possessive or Genitive, and the Ob- jective or Accusative. The Nominative Case merely expresses the name of a thing, or the subject of the verb: as, " The doctors differ;" — « The patient dies ! " 60 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. Possession, which is nine points of the law, is what is signified by the Possessive Case. This case is distinguished by an apostrophe, with the letter s subjoined to it : as, " My soul's idol ! " — " A pudding's end." But when the plural ends in 5, the apostrophe only is retained, and the other s is omitted: as, « The Ministers' Step ; "— « The Rogues' March ; " — " Crocodiles'' tears;" — " Butchers' mourning." When the singular terminates in ss, the letter s is sometimes, in like manner, dispensed with : as, " For goodness' sake!" — " For righteousness' sake !" Nevertheless, we have no objection to " Guinness's " Stout. The Objective Case follows a verb active, and expresses the object of an action, or of a relation : as, " Spring beat Bill ; " that is. Bill or " William Neate." Hence, perhaps, the American phrase, " I '11 lick you elegant" By the by, it seems to us, that when the Ame- ricans revolted from the authority of Fngland, they determined also to revolutionise their language. The Objective Case is also used with a preposi- tion : as, " You are in a mess." English substantives may be declined in the following manner : — ETYMOLOGY. 61 SINGULAR. What is the nominative case Of her who used to wash your face, Your hair to comb, your boots to lace ? A mother! What the possessive ? Whose the slap That taught you not to spill your pap, Or to avoid a like mishap ? A mother s ! And shall I the objective show ? What do I hear where'er I go ? How is your ? — whom they mean / know. My mother / PLURAL. Who are the anxious watchers o'er The slumbers of a little bore, That screams whene'er it doesn't snore ? Why, mothers! Whose pity wipes its piping eyes, And stills maturer childhood's cries, Stopping its mouth with cakes and pies ? Oh ! mothers' ! And whom, when master, fierce and fell, Dusts truant varlets' jackets well, Whom do they, roaring, run and tell ? Their motliers ! G 62 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. CHAPTER IV. OF ADJECTIVES. SECTION I. or THE NATURE OF ADJECTIVES AND THE DEGUEES OF COMPARISON. An English Adjective, whatever may be its gen- der, number, or case, Uke a rusty weathercock, never varies. Thus we say, "A certain cabinet; certain rogues." But as a rusty weathercock may vary in being more or less rusty, so an adjective varies in the degrees of comparison. The degrees of comparison, like the genders, the Graces, the Fates, the Kings of Cologne, the Weird Sisters, the Jolly Postboys, and many other things, are three; the Positive, the Comparative, and the Superlative. The Positive state simply expresses the quality of an object; as, fat, ugly, foohsh. ETYMOLOGY. 63 The Comparative degree increases or lessens the signification of the positive ; as, fatter, ugher, more foolish, less foolish. The Superlative degree increases or lessens the positive to the highest or lowest degree ; as, fattest, ughest, most foolish, least foolish. Amongst the ancients, Ulysses was the fattest, because nobody could compass him. Aristides the Just was the ugliest, because he was so very plain. The most foolish, undoubtedly, was Homer ; for who was more natural than he ? The positive becomes the comparative by the addition of r or er ; and the superlative by the ad- dition of st or est to the end of it; as, brown, browner, brownest ; stout, stouter, stoutest ; heavy, heavier, heaviest ; wet, wetter, wettest. The ad- verbs more and most, prefixed to the adjective, also form the superlative degree; as, heavy, more heavy, most heavy. Most heavy is the drink of draymen : hence, per- haps, the weight of those important personages. More of this, however, in our forthcoming work on Phrenology. Monosyllables are usually compared by er and est, and dissyllables by more and most ; except dis- syllables ending in y or in le before a mute, or those 64 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. which are accented on the last syllable ; for these, like monosyllables, easily admit of cr and est. But these terminations are scarcely ever used in com- paring words of more than two syllables. We have some words, which, from custom, are irregular in respect of comparison ; as, good, bet- ter, best; bad, worse, worst, &c. Much amuse- ment may be derived from the comparisons of ad- jectives, as made by natural grammarians ; a class of beings who generally inhabit the kitchen or stable, but may sometimes be met with in more elevated regions. A few examples will not be out of place. We are not speaking of servants, but of degrees of comparison ; as. POSITIVE. COMPARATIVE. SUPERLATIVE. Good More better, Most best. batterer or more bestcst. bettercr. Tight More tigliter, tigliterer or more tigiiterer. ]\lo.st tightest. Bad Wuss or wusscr Wust or wusscst. Handsome More handsomer like jVIost handsomest. Extravagant Extravaganter, Extravagantcst, more extravaganter. most extravagantest. Stupid Stupiili'r, Stii|)i(lest, more stu]iidcr. most stujiidest. Little Littler, more littler. Littlest, most littlest. With many others. ETYMOLOGY. 65 Here also may be adduced the Yankee's " no- tion" of comparison; "My uncle's a tarnation rogue ; but I 'm a tarnationer." SECTION II. A FEW REMARKS ON THE SUBJECT OF COMPARISON. Comparisons appear to have been strongly dis- approved of by Dr. Johnson. " Sir," said he, " the Whigs make comparisons." It must be confessed that the Doctor's meaning is not quite so evident here as it is in general ; but that may be the fault of his biographer. Perhaps some of the Whigs had been making comparisons at his expense, or impertinent comparisons, which his temper, being positive, may have tempted them to indulge in. Or they may have been out in making their com- parisons, which, in that case, must of course have been bad. But a truce to speculations of this kind, on the saying of one, another of whose dog- mas was, that "the man who could make a pun would also pick a pocket." We only hope, that such comparisons as we may make, will no more vex his spirit now than they would once have aroused his bile. Lindley Murray judiciously observes, that "if we consider the subject of comparison attentively, G 3 66 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. we shall perceive that the degrees of it are infinite in number, or at least indefinite :" and he proceeds to say, " A mountain is larger than a mite ; by how many degrees? How much bigger is the earth than a grain of sand ? By how many degrees was Socrates wiser than Alcibiades? or by how many is snow whiter than this paper? It is plain," quoth Lindley, " that to these and the like ques- tions no definite answers can be returned." No ; but an impertinent one may. Ask the first charity-boy you meet any one of them, and see if he does not immediately respond, " Ax my eye ;" or, " As much again as half." But when quantity can be exactly measured, the degrees of excess may be exactly ascertained. A foot is just twelve times as long as an inch; a tailor is nine times less than a man. Moreover, to compensate for the indefiniteness of the degrees of comparison, we use certain ad- verbs and words of like import, whereby we render our meaning tolerably intelligible; as, "Byron was a much greater poet than Muggins." " Honey is a great deal sweeter than wax." " Sugar is con- sidernhli/ more pleasant than the cane." " Maria says, that Dick the butcher is Ity far the most killing young man she knows." The words very, exceedingly, and the like, placed ETYMOLOGY. 67 before the positive, give it the force of the super- lative ; and this is called by some the superlative of eminence, as distinguished from the superlative of comparison. Thus, Very Reverend is termed the superlative of eminence, although it is the title of a dean, not of a cardinal ; and Most Reverend, the appellation of an Archbishop, is called the superlative of comparison. A Bishop, in our opinion, is Most Excellent. The comparative is sometimes so employed as to express the same pre-eminence or inferiority as the superlative. For instance ; the sentence, " Of all the cultivators of science, the botanist is the most crafty," has the same meaning as the following: " The botanist is more crafty than any other cul- tivator of science." Why? some of our readers will ask — Because he is acquainted with all sorts oi plants. 68 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. CHAPTER V. OF PRONOUNS. Pronouns or proxy-nouns are of three kinds; namely, the Personal, the Relative, and the Ad- jective Pronouns. Note. — That when we said, some few pages back, that a pronoun was a word used instead of a noun, we did not mean to call such words as thingumi- bob, whatsiname, what-d'ye-call-it, and the like, pronouns. And that, although we shall proceed to treat of the pronouns in the English language, we shall have nothing to do, at present, with what some people please to call •^Yo\\o\x\\-ciatiun. SECTION I. OK TIIK rKKSONAI, I'ltONOlNS, " Mr. Haddams, don't be personal, Sir!" " I 'm not. Sir." " You bar. Sir ! " " What did I say, Sir ?— tell me that." ETYMOLOGY. 69 " You reflected on my perfession, Sir ; you said, as there was some people as always stuck up for the cloth ; and you insinnivated that certain parties dined oif goose by means of cahhaging from the parish. I ask any gentleman in the westry, if that an't personal?" A SELECT VESTRY. 70 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. " Veil, Sir, vot I says I '11 stick to." " Yes, Sir, like vax, as the saying is." « Wot d'ye mean by that. Sir?" « Wot I say. Sir ! " " You 're a individual, Sir !" " You Ve another, Sir ! " " You 're no gentleman, Sir ! " " You 're a humbug, Sir !" " You 're a knave. Sir ! " " You 're a rogue. Sir !" " You 're a wagabond. Sir !" " You 're a willain. Sir ! " "You're a tailor, Sir!" " You 're a cobbler, Sir !" (Order ! order ! chair ! chair ! &c.) The above is what is called personal language. How many different things one word serves to express in English ! A pronoun may be as per- sonal as possible, and yet nobody will take offence at it. There are five Personal Pronouns; namely, I, thou, he, she, it ; with their plurals, we, ye or you, they. Personal Pronouns admit of i)erson, number, gender, and case. Pronouns have three persons in each number. ETYMOLOGY. 71 In the Singular; I, is the first person. Thou, is the second person. He, she, or it, is the third person. In the plural ; We, is the first person. Ye or you, is the second person. They, is the third person. This account of persons will be very intelligible when the following Pastoral Fragment is reflected on: — HE. / love thee, Susan, on my life : Thou art the maiden for a wife. He who lives single is an ass ; She who ne'er weds a luckless lass. If's, tiresome work to live alone; So come with me, and be my own. SHE. We maids are oft by men deceived ; Ye don't deserve to be believed ; You don't — but there 's my hand — heigho ! Tlieij tell us, women can't say no ! The speaker or speakers are of the first person ; those spoken to, of the second ; and those spoken of, of the third. 72 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. Of the three persons, the first is the most uni- versally admired. The second is the object of much adulation and flattery, and now and then of a little abuse. The third person is generally made small ac- count of; and, amongst other grievances, suffers a great deal from being frequently bitten about the back. The Numbers of pronouns, like those of sub- stantives, are, as we have already seen, two; the singular and the plural. In addressing yourself to anybody, it is custom- ary to use the second person plural instead of the singular. This practice most probably arose from a notion, that to be thought twice the man that the speaker was, gratified the vanity of the person ad- dressed. Thus, the French put a double Mon- sieur on the backs of their letters. Editors say "We," instead of "I," out of mo- desty. The Quakers continue to say " thee" and " thou," in the use of which pronouns, as well as in the wearing of broad-brimmed hats and of stand-up collars, they perceive a peculiar sanctity. Gender has to do only with the third person singular of the pronouns, he, she, it. He is mas- culine ; she is feminine ; it is neuter. ETYMOLOGY. 73 Pronouns have the like cases with substantives ; the nominative, the possessive, and the objective. Would that they were the hardest cases to be met with in this country ! The personal pronouns are thus declined : — FIRST PERSON FIRST PERSON CASE. SINGULAR. PLURAL. Nom. I We. Poss. Mine Ours. Obj. Me Us. Pronouns, you see, are declined without fuss. CASE. SECOND PERSON. SECOND PERSON. Nom. Thou Ye or you. Poss. Thine Yours. Obj. Thee You. How glad ; [ shall be when my task I 've got through ! Now the third person singular, as we before ob- served, has genders; and we shall therefore de- cline it in a different way. Variety is charming. Nom. Poss. THIRD PERSON SINGULAR. MASC. FEM. NEUT. He She It. Well done Kit! His. Hers Its. Now Tom's quits. 74 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. CASE. MASC. FEM. N] Obj. Him Her It. Deuce a bit! PU1RAL. Nom. They Poss. Theirs. Obj. Them. Reader, Mem. We beg to inform thee, that the third person plural has no distinction of gender. SECTION II. OF THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS, The Pronouns called Relative are such as re- late, for the most part, to some word or phrase, called the antecedent, on account of its going be- fore : they are, who, wJiich, and tliat : as, " The man who does not drink enough when he can get it, is a fool; but he that drinks too much is a beast." JVJiat is usually equivalent to that which, and is, therefore, a kind of compound relative, containing both the antecedent and the relative ; as, " You want ?/'/m^you'll very soon have !" that is to say, the tiling which you will very soon have. ETYMOLOGY. 75 Wio is applied to persons, ichich to animals and things without life ; as, " He is a gentleman lolio keeps a horse and lives respectably." " To the dog which pinned the old woman, they cried, ' Caesar ! ' " " This is the tree tvhich Larkins call- ed a Aelm." Larkins. — " I say, Nibbs, ven is a helm box like a asthmatical chest ? " Nibbs.— "Ven it 's a coffin." That, as a relative, is used to prevent the too frequent repetition of ivho and which, and is ap- plied both to persons and things ; as, " He that stops the bottle is a Cork man." "This is the house that Jack built." Who is of both numbers ; and so is an Editor ; for, according to what we observed just now, he is both singular and plural. Jf7io, we repeat, is of both numbers, and is thus declined : — SINGULAR AND PLURAL. Nominative. Who Is the maiden to woo ? Genitive. Whose Hand shall I choose? Accusative. Whom To despair shall I doom ? Which, that, and ichat are indeclinable; except 76 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. that whose is sometimes used as the possessive case of which ; as, " The roe, poor dear, laments amain, Wlwse sweet hart was by hunter slain." Thus whose is substituted for of which, in the following example : — " There is a blacking famed, of which The sale made Day and Martin rich ; There is another blacking, ichose Compounder patronised the Muse." * Who, ivhich, and lohat, when they are used in asking questions, are called Interrogatives ; as, " Who is Mr. Walker?" " Which is the left side of a round plum-pudding?" ^^ What is the dam- age?" Those who have made popular phraseology their study, will have found that which is sometimes used for tvhereas, and words of like signification; as in Dean Swift's " Mary the Cookmaid's Letter to Dr. Sheridan" : — " And now I know whereby you would fain make an excuse, * See Warren's " Ode to Kitty of Shoe Lane," Advertise- ments, London Press, passim. ETYMOLOGY. 77 Because my master one day in anger call'd you a goose ; Whichf and I am sure I have been his servant since October, And he never called me worse than sweetheart, drunk or sober." What, or, to speak more improperly, wot, is generally substituted by cabmen and costermongers for who ; as, " The donkey wot wouldn't go." " The man icot sweeps the crossing." That, likewise, is very frequently rejected by the vulgar, who use as in its place ; as, " Them as asks shan't have any ; and them as don't ask don't want any." SECTION III. OF THE ADJECTIVE PRONOUNS. Adjective pronouns partake of the nature of both pronouns and adjectives. They may be sub- divided into four sorts : the possessive, the distri- butive, the demonstrative, and the indefinite. The possessive pronouns are those which imply possession or property. Of these there are seven ; namely, my, thy, his, her, our, your, their. The word self is added to possessives ; as, my- self, yourself, " Says I to myself, says I." Self is H .3 78 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. also sometimes used with personal pronouns; as, himself, itself, themselves. His self is a common, hut not a proper expression. SELF-ESTEEM. The distributive are three: each, every ^ cither; they denote the individual persons or things sepa- rately, which, when taken together, make up a number. Each is used when two or more persons or ETYMOLOGY. 79 things are mentioned singly ; as, " each of the Catos ; " " each of the Browns." Every relates to one out of several ; as, " Every mare is a horse, but every horse is not a mare." Either refers to one out of two ; as, " When I between two jockeys ride, I have a knave on either side." Neither signifies " not either ;" as " Neither of the Bacons was related to Hogg." The demonstrative pronouns precisely point out the subjects to w^hich they relate ; such are this and that, with their plurals these and those; as, " This is a foreign Prince ; that is an English Peer." This refers to the nearest person or thing, and to the latter or last mentioned; that to the most distant, and to the former or first mentioned ; as, " This is a man ; that is a nondescript." " At the period of the Reformation in Scotland, a curious contrast between the ancient and modern eccle- siastical systems was observed ; for while that had been always maintained by a Bull, this was now supported by a Knox." The indefinite are those which express their subjects in an indefinite or general manner; as, some, other, any, one, all, such, &c. 80 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. When the definite article the conies before the word other, those who do not know better, are ac- customed to strike out the he in the, and to say, f other. The same persons also use other in the com- parative degree ; for sometimes, instead of saying quite the reverse, or perhaps re?yerse, they avail themselves of the expression, more f other. So much for the Pronouns. ETYMOLOGY. 81 CHAPTER VI. OF VERBS. SECTION I. OF THE NATURE OF VERBS IN GENERAL. The nature of Verbs in general, and that in all languages, is, that they are the most difficult things in the Grammar. Verbs are divided into Active, Passive, and Neuter ; and also into Regular, Irregular, and De- fective. To these divisions we beg to add another ; Verbs Comic. A Verb Active implies an agent, and an object acted upon ; as, to love ; " I love Wilhelmina Stubbs." Here, I am the agent ; that is, the lover ; and Wilhelmina Stubbs is the object acted upon, or the beloved object. A Verb Passive expresses the suffering, feeling, or undergoing of something ; and therefore implies an object acted upon, and an agent by which it is acted upon ; as, to be loved ; " Wilhelmina Stubbs is loved by me." 82 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. A Verb Neuter expresses neither action nor passion, but a state of being ; as, I bounce, I lie. Fact, Madam !" Gracious, Miijorl' Of Verbs Regular, Irregular, and Defective, we shall have somewhat to say hereafter. Verbs Comic are, for the most part, verbs which cannot be found in the dictionary, and are used to ETYMOLOGY. 83 express ordinary actions in a jocular manner; as, to "morris," to "bolt," to "mizzle," which signify to go or to depart ; to " bone," to " prig," that is to say, to steal; to " collar," which means to seize, an expression probably derived from the mode of pre- hension, or rather apprehension characteristic of the New Police, as it is one very much in the mouths of those who most frequently come in con- tact with that body : to " lush," or drink ; to " grub," or eat ; to " sell," or deceive, &c. Under the head of Verbs Comic, the Yankee- isms, I " calculate," I " reckon," I " realise," I " guess," and the like, may also be properly enu- merated. Auxiliary, or helping Verbs (by the way, we marvel that the Americans do not call their ser- vants auxiliaries instead of helps,) are those, by the help of which we are chiefly enabled to con- jugate our verbs in English. They are, do, be, have, shall, will, may, can, with their variations ; and let and must, which have no variation. Let, however, when it is anything but a helping verb, as, for instance, when it signifies to hinder, makes lettest and letteth. The phrase, " This House to Let," generally used instead of " to be let," meaning, in fact, the reverse of what it is in- tended to convey, is really a piece of comic English. 84 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. To verbs belong Number, Person, Mood, and Tense. These may be called the properties of a verb ; and like those of opium, they are sopo- riferous properties. There are two very impor- tant objects which the writer of every book has, or ought to have in view, to get a reader who is wide awake, and to keep him so : — the latter of which, when Number, Person, Mood, and Tense are to be treated of, is no such easy matter; see- ing that the said writer is then in some danger of going to sleep himself. Never mind. If we nod, let the reader wink. What can't be cured must be endured. SECTION II. OF NUiMHER AND PERSON. Verbs have two numbers, the Singular and the Plural ; as, " I fiddle, we fiddle," &c. In each number there are three persons ; as SINOrLAR. PIARAL. First Person I love We love. Second Person Thou lovest Ye or you love. Third Person He loves They love. What a deal there is in every Grammar about love ! Here the following Lines, by a Young Lady (now no more), addressed to Lindley Mur- ray, deserve to be recorded : — ETYMOLOGY. 85 Oh, Murray ! fatal name to me, Thy burning page with tears is wet ; Since first ' to love' I learned of thee, Teach me, ah ! teach me ' to forget ! ' " SECTION III. OF MOODS AND PARTICIPLES. Mood or Mode is a particular form of the verb, or a certain variation which it undergoes, showing the manner in which the being, action, or passion, is represented. The moods of verbs are five, the Indicative, the Imperative, the Potential, the Subjunctive, and the Infinitive. The Indicative Mood simply points out or de- clares a thing: as, " He teaches, he is taught;" or it asks a question : as, " Does he teach ? Is he taught?" Q. Why is old age the best teacher ? A. Because he gives you the most lorinkles. Q. Why does a rope support a rope-dancer ? A. Because it is taught. The Imperative Mood commands, exhorts, en- treats, or permits : as, " Vanish thou ; trot ye ; let us hop; be off"! " The Potential Mood implies possibility or liberty, I 86 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. power, will, or obligation : as, " A waiter may he honest. You may stand upon truth or lie. I can filch. He would cozen. They should learn." The Subjunctive INIood is used to represent a thing as done conditionally ; and is preceded by a conjunction, expressed or understood, and accom- panied by another verb : as, " If the skies should fall, larks would be caught." " Were I to punch your head, I should serve you right ;" that is, " if I were to punch your head." The Infinitive Mood expresses a thing generally, without limitation, and without any distinction of number or person : as, " to quarrel, to fight, to be licked." The Participle is a peculiar form of the verb, and is so called, because it participates in the pro- perties both of a verb and of an adjective: as, " May I have the pleasure of dancing with you V " Mounted on a tub he addressed the bystanders." " Havinrj uplifted a stave, they departed." The Participles are three ; the Present or Ac- tive, the Perfect or Passive, and the Compound Perfect : as, " I felt nervous at the thought o{ pop- ping the question, but that once popped, I was not sorry for having popped it." The worst of popping the question is, that the report is always sure to get abroad. ETYMOLOGY. 87 SECTION IV. OF THE TENSES. Tense is the distinction of time, and consists of six divisions, namely, the Present, the Imperfect, the Perfect, the Pluperfect, and the First and Second Future Tenses. Time is also distinguished by a fore lock, scythe, and hour-glass ; but the youthful reader must bear in mind, that these things are not to be confounded with tenses. The Present Tense, as its name implies, repre- sents an action or event occurring at the present time : as, " I lament ; rogues prosper ; the mob rules." The Imperfect Tense represents a past action or event, but which, like a mutton chop, may be either thoroughly done, or not thoroughly done ; were it meet, we should say under-done : as, " When I ivas a little boy some fifteen years ago, My mammy doted on me — Lork ! she made me quite a show."" " When our reporter left, the Honourable Gen- tleman was still on his legs." 88 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. The legs of most "Honourable Gentlemen" must be tolerably stout ones ; for the " majority' do not stand on trifles. However, we are not going to commit ourselves, like some folks, nor to get committed, like other folks; so we will leave *' Honourable Gentlemen" to manage matters their own way. The Perfect Tense declares a thing to have been done at some time, though an indefinite one, ante- cedent to the present time. That, however, which the Perfect Tense represents as done, is com- pletely, or, as we say of John Bull, when he is humbugged by the thimble-rig people, regularly done ; as, " I have been out on the river." " I have caught a crab." Catching a crab is a thing regularly (in another sense than completely) done, when civic swains pull young ladies up to Richmond. We beg to inform persons unacquainted with aquatic phrase- ology, that " pulling up " young ladies, or others, is a very different thing from " pulling up " an omnibus conductor or a cabman. What an equi- vocal language is ours ! How much less agree- able to be " pulled up " at Bow Street than to be " pulled up " in a wherry ! bow wide the discre- pancy between " pulhng up " radishes and " pul- ling up " horses ! ETYMOLOGY. 89 The Pluperfect Tense represents a thing as doubly past; that is, as past previously to some other point of time also past ; as, " I fell in love before I had arrived at years of discretion." The First Future Tense represents the action as yet to come, either at a certain or an uncertain I ;3 90 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. time ; as, " The tailor will send my coat home to- morrow ; and when I find it perfectly convenient, I shall pay him." The Second Future intimates that the action will be completed at or before the time of another future action or event ; as, " I wonder how many conquests I shall have made by to-morrow morn- ing." N.B. One ball is often the means of killing a great many people. The consideration of the tenses suggests various moral reflections to the thinking mind. A few examples will perhaps suffice : — 1. Present, though moderate fruition, is pre- ferable to splendid, but contingent futurity ; i. e. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. 2. Imperfect nutrition is less to be deprecated than privation of aliment; — -a new way of putting an old proverb, which we need not again insert, respecting half a loaf. 3. Perfect callidity was the distinguishing attri- bute of the Curved Pedestrian. Callidity is another word for craftiness ; but for the exercise of the reader''s ingenuity, we forbear to mention the person alluded to as so remarkable for his astutious qualities. ETYMOLOGY. 91 Q. What species of writing is most conducive to morality ? A. Zeor^-hand. SECTION V. THE CONJUGATION OF THE AUXILIARY VERBS To HaVE AND To Be. We have observed that boys, in conjugating verbs, give no indications of delight, except that which an ingenuous disposition always feels in the acquisition of knowledge. Now, having arrived at that part of the Grammar in which it becomes necessary that these same verbs should be con- sidered, we feel ourselves in an awkward dilemma. The omission of the conjugations is a serious omission — which, of course, is objectionable in a comic work — and the insertion of them would be equally serious, and therefore quite as improper. What shall we do ? We will adopt a middle course ; referring the reader to Murray and other talented authors for full information on these matters ; and requesting him to be content with our confining ourselves to what is more especially suitable to these pages — a short summary of the Comicalities of verbs. The Conjugation of a verb is the regular com- 92 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. bination and arrangement of its numbers, persons, moods, and tenses. The Comicalities of verbs consist in certain li- berties taken with their numbers, persons, moods, and tenses. The Conjugation of an active verb is called the Active ^'^oice, and that of a passive Verb the Pas- sive Voice. If verbs have voices, it is but reasonable that walls should have ears. The auxiliary and active verb To Have is thus peculiarly conjugated by some people in some of its moods and tenses. TO HAVE. INDICATIVE MOOD. PRESENT TENSE. SINGULAR. PI.rUAI,. 1. Pers. I has. 1. Pers. We has. 2. Thee 'st. 2. Ye or you has. 3. He 've. 3. They has. PERFECT TENSE. SINGULAll. IM.l IIAI,. 1. I'zehad. 1. We'ze had. 2. Thee 'st had. 2. Ye or you 'ze had. 3. He 've had. 3. They 'ze had. ETYMOLOGY. 93 FIRST FUTURE TENSE. SINGULAR. PLURAL. 1. I sholl or ool ha'. 1. We shool or ool ha'. 2. Thee shat or oot 2. Ye or you sholl or ool ha'. ha'. 3. He sholl or ool ha'. 3. They sholl or ool ha'. IMPERATIVE MOOD. SINGULAR. PLURAL. 1. Let me ha'. 1. Let's ha'. 2. Ha', or ha thou, or 2. Ha, or ha ye, or do do thee ha'. ye, or you ha'. 3. Let un ha'. 3. Let um ha'. POTENTIAL MOOD. PRESENT TENSE. SINGULAR. PLURAL. 1. I med or can ha'. L We med or can ha'. 2. Thee medst or canst 2. Ye or you med or can ha'. ha'. 3. He med or can ha'. 3. They med or can ha'. SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD. PRESENT TENSE. SINGULAR. PLURAL. 1. If I has. \. If we has. 2. If thee hast. 2. If ye or you has. 3. If he ha'. 3. If they has. 9i THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. INFINITIVE MOOD. Present, To ha'. Perfect, To a had. PAUTICIPLES. Present or Active, Havun or Avun. Perfect, 'Ad. Compound Perfect, Havun 'ad. The auxiUary and neuter verb To Be, is mal- treated as follows : TO BE. (Toby or not Toby? — that is the question !) INDICATIVE MOOD. PRESENT TENSE. SINGULAR. PLUUAL. 1. I be. 1. We be. 2. Thee hist. 2. Ye or you be. 3. He she or it am. 3. They be or am. IMPERFECT TENSE. SINCULAIl. ri.l HAI,. 1. I wor, or wus. 1. We wus. 2. Thee wort. 2. Ye or you wus. 3. He wur. 3. They wur. " When I say as you was, I mean, as you were." ETYMOLOGY. 95 PERFECT TENSE. SINGULAR, PLURAL. 1. IVe a bin. 1. We've a bin. 2. Thee 'st a bin. 2. Ye or you 've a bin. 3. HeVe a bin. 3. They've a bin. IMPERATIVE MOOD. SINGULAR. PLURAL. 1. Let I be. 1. Let we be. 2. Be thee or 'st thee be. 2. Do 'ee be. 3. Let un be. 3. Let um be. INFINITIVE MOOD. Present Tense, For to be. Perfect, For to ha' bin. PARTICIPLES. Present, Beun. Perfect, Bin. Compound Perfect, Havun bin. If being a younster, I had not been smitten, Of having been jilted I should not complain, Take warning from me all ye lads who are bitten, When this part of Grammar occurs to your brain. As there is a certain irdensity of feeling abroad, which renders people indisposed to trouble them- selves with verbal matters, we shall take the li- berty of making very short work of the Regu- lar Verbs. Even Murray can only atford to con- jugate one example, — To Love. The learner 96 THE COMIC EXGLISII GRAMMAR. must amplify this part of the Grammar for him- self: and we recommend him to substitute for " to love," some word less harrowing to a sen- sitive mind : as, " to fleece, to tax," verbs which excite disagreeable emotions only in a sordid one ; and which also, by association of ideas, conduct us to useful reflections on Political Economy. We advise all whom it may concern, however, to pay the greatest attention to this part of the Grammar, and before they come to the Verbs Regular, to make a particular study of the Auxiliary Verbs : not only for the excellent reasons set forth in " Tristram Shandy," but also to avoid those awk- ward mistakes in which the Comicalities of the Verbs, or Verbal Comicalities, chiefly consist. " Did it rain to-morrow ?" asked Monsieur Gre- nouille. " Yes it was ! " replied Monsieur Crapaud. We propose the following as an auxiliary mode of conjugating verbs : — " I love to roam on the crested foam. Thou lovest to roam on the crested foam, He loves to roam on the crested foam, We love to roam on the crested foam. Ye or you love to roam on the crested foam. They love to roam on the crested foam," &c. These words, if set to music, might serve for a grammatical glee, and would, at all events, be ])roductive of mirth. ETYMOLOGY. 97 The Auxiliary Verbs, too, are very useful when a peculiar emphasis is required : as, " I shall give you a drubbing ! " " Will you ? " "I know a trick worth two of that." "Do you, though?" " It might" as the Quaker said to the Yankee, who wanted to know what his name might be ; " it might be Beelzebub, but it is not." Now we may as well say what we have to say about the conjugation of regular verbs active. 98 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. SECTION VI. THE CONJUGATION OF REGILAR VERBS ACTIVE. Regular Verbs Active are known by their forming their imperfect tense of the indicative mood, and their perfect participle, by adding to the verb ed, or d only when the verb ends in e : as, PRESENT. IMPERFECT. PERF. PARTICir. I reckon. I reckoned. Reckoned. I realise. I realised. Realised. Here should follow the conjugation of the regu- lar active verb, or, as a Cockney Romeo would say, the regular torturing verb, To Love ; but we have already assigned a good reason for omitting it; besides which we have to say, that we think it a verb highly unfit for conjugation by youth, as it tends to put ideas into their heads which they would otherwise never have thought of; and it is moreover our opinion, that several of our most gifted poets may, with reason, have attributed those unfortunate attachments which, though formed in early youth, served to embitter their whole lives, to the poison which they thus sucked in with the milk, so to speak, of their Mother Tongue, the Grammar. ETYMOLOGY. 99 Verbs Passive are said to be regular, when their perfect participle is formed by the addition of d, or ed to the verb : as, from the verb " To bless," is formed the passive, « I am blessed, I was blessed, I shall be blessed," &c. The conjugation of a passive verb is nothing more than the repetition of that of the auxiliary To Be, the perfect participle being added. And now, having cut the regular verbs (as Alex- ander did the Gordian knot) instead of conjugating them, let us proceed to consider the IRREGULAR VERBS. SECTION VII. Irregular Verbs are those of which the imper- fect tense and the perfect participle are not formed by adding d or ed to the verb : as, PRESENT. IMPERFECT. PERFECT PART. I blow. I blew. blown. To say I am blown, is, under certain circum- stances, such as windy and tempestuous weather, proper enough ; but 1 am blowed, it will at once be perceived, is not only an ungrammatical, but also a vulgar expression. 100 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. Great liberties are taken with the Irregular Verbs, insomuch that in the mouths of some per- sons, divers of them become doubly irregular in the formation of their participles. Among such Irre- gular Verbs we may enumerate the following : — PRESENT. IMPERFECT. PERF. OR PASS. PART. Am wur bin. Beat bet or bate bate. Burst bust busted. Catch cotch cotched. Come kim comed. Creep crup crup. Drive druv driv. Freeze friz froze. Give guv giv. Go goed went. Rise riz rose. See sid sin, &c. Some verbs which in this country ' are held to be regular, are treated as irregular verbs in Ame- rica: as, PHESENT. IMPERFECT. PEUK. OR PASS. PART. Row rew rown. Snow snew snown. ETYMOLOGY. 101 SECTION VIII. OF DEFECTIVE VERBS. Most men have five senses, Most verbs have six tenses ; But as there are some folks Who are bhnd, deaf, or dumb folks, Just so there are some verbs Defective, or mm verbs, which are used only in some of their moods and tenses. The principal of them are these : — IMPERF. PERF. OR PASS. PART Can could nix. May might — Shall should — Will would — Must must — Ought ouffht — — quoth — There is not, perhaps, anything in the defective verbs peculiarly valuable in a comic point of view. However, it should not be forgotten, that Can is one of the signs of the pox-ential Mood ; Willi Would, reminds us of the Drapier's Letters. Must is for the House of Commons (it used to be for the King). K 3 102 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAIklMAR. Ought, ought, with 1 before it, stands, (in school- boy phrase) for 100. 'Tis naught, so to speak, however, says Mur- ray. ETYMOLOGY. 103 CHAPTER VII. OF ADVERBS. Having as great a dislike as the youngest of our readers can have to repetitions, we shall not say what an adverb is over again. It is, nevertheless, right to observe, that some adverbs are compared : as, far, farther, farthest; near, nearer, nearest. In comparing those which end in /y, we use more and and most : as, slowly, more slowly, most slowly. Q. Who, of all the civic functionaries, moves " most slowly ? " A. Mr. Hobler. There are a great many adverbs in the English Language : their number is probably even greater than that of abusive epithets. They are divisible into certain classes ; the chief of which are Number, Order, Place, Time, Quantity, Manner or Quality, Doubt, Affirmation, Negation, Interrogation, and Comparison. A nice little list, truly ! and perhaps some of our readers may suppose that we are going to ex- emplify it at length : if so, all we can say with re- gard to their expectation is, that we wish they may 104 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. get it gratified. In the meantime, we will not turn our Grammar into a dictionary, to please anybody. However, we have no objection to a brief illus- tration of the uses and properties of adverbs, as contained in the following passage : — *' Formerly., when first I began to preach and to teach, whithersoever I went, the little boys followed me, and now and then pelted me with brick-bats, as heretofore they pelted Ebenezer Grimes. And whensoever I opened my mouth, straightways the ungodly began to crow. Oftentimes was I hit in the mouth with an orange : yea, and once, moreover, with a rotten egg ; whereat there was much laugh- ter, which, noticithstanding, I took in good part, and wiped my face, and looked pleasantly. For peradventure I said, they will listen to my sermon ; yea, and after that we may have a collection. So I was nowise discomfited; wherefore I advise thee, Brother Habakkuk, to take no heed of thy per- secutors, seeing that I, whereas I was once little better off than thyself, have 7ioio a chapel of mine own. And hereiji let thy mind be comforted, that, preach as much as thou wilt against the Bishop, thou wilt not, therefore, in these days, be in danger of the pillory. Howbeit," &c. Vide Life of the late pious and Rev. Samuel Simcox (letter to Habakkuk Brown). ETYMOLOGY. 105 CHAPTER VIII. OF PREPOSITIONS. Prepositions are, for the most part, put before nouns and pronouns : as, " out of the frying-pan into the fire." Two prepositions, with and without, are some- times (as we have been informed) used in the place of substantives : as, " cold without, warm with" The preposition of is sometimes used as a part of speech of peculiar signification, and one to which no name has as yet been apphed : as, " What have you been doing of?" At and up are not rarely used as verbs, but we should scarcely have been justified in so classing them by the authority of any polite writer ; such use of them being confined to the vulgar: as, " Now then. Bill, at him again." " So she upped with her fists, and fetched him a whop." After is improperly pronounced arter, and against, agin : as, " Hallo ! Jim, vot are you arter ? don't you know that ere 's agin the Law?" 106 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. CHAPTER IX. OF CONJUNCTIONS. A Conjunction means literally, a union or meeting together. An ill-assorted marriage is A COMICAL COKJUNCTION. ETYMOLOGY. 107 But our conjunctions are used to connect words and sentences, and have nothing to do with the joining of hands. They are chiefly of two sorts, the Copulative and Disjunctive. The Copulative Conjunction is employed for the connection or continuation of a sentence : as, " Jack and Gill went up the Hill," " I will sing a song if Gubbins will," " A thirsty man is like a City Giant, because he is a Gog for drink." The Conjunction Disjunctive is used not only for purposes of connection, but also to express opposition of meaning in different degrees : as, " Though Lord John is as cunning as a Fox, yet Sir Robert is as deep as a Pitt." " We pay less for our letters, hut shall have to pay more for our panes : they have lightened our postage, but they will darken our rooms." Conjunctions are the hooks and eyes of Lan- guage, in which, as well as in dress, it is very possible to make an awkward use of them : as, " For if the year consist of 365 days 6 hours, and January have 31 days, then the relation be- tween the corpuscular theory of light and the new views of Mr. Owen is at once subverted : for, ' When Ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise :' because 1760 yards make a mile ; and it is uni- versally acknowledged that ' war is the madness 108 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. of many for the gain of a few :' therefore Sir Isaac Newton was quite right in supposing the diamond to be combustible." The word as, so often used in this and other Grammars, is a conjunction : as, " Mrs. A. is as well as can be expected." ,y|W||fK;i;.^rjdr!^.^,M^I,i!liiyilll!!!lii^ ETYMOLOGY. 109 The Siamese twins formed a singular conjunc- tion. A tin pot fastened to a dog's tail is a disagree- able conjunction to the unfortunate animal. A happy pair may be regarded as an uncommon conjunction. 110 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. CHAPTER X. INTERJECTIONS. We have said almost enough about their Ety- mology already. Still, it may not be superflu- ous to bestow a passing notice on the singularly expressive character of certain of these parts of speech, heard, it is true, repeatedly; but unac- countably omitted in all previous Grammars. For instance, how many lives does the warning, " Hoy ! " of the coachman or cab-driver daily save ? What an amount of infantile aberrations from propriety is the admonitory " Paw-paw ! " the means of check- ing. With what felicity is acquiescence denoted by " Umph !" The utility of the Interjections on various occasions, such as our meals, for example, in enabling us to economise our speech, is very striking. ETYMOLOGY. Ill CHAPTER XL OF DERIVATION. Those who know Latin, Greek, Saxon, and the other languages from which our own is formed, do not require to be instructed in philological de- rivation ; and on those who do not understand the said tongues, such instruction would be thrown away. In what manner English words are de- rived, one from another, the generality of persons know very well : there are, however, a few words and phrases, which it is expedient to trace to their respective sources ; not only because such an ex- ercise is of itself delightful to the inquiring mind ; but because we shall thereby be furnished (as we hope to show) with a test by means of which, on hearing an expression for the first time, we shall be able, in most instances, to decide at once re- specting its nature and quality. There are several words in the English Lan- guage which were originally Terms of Art, but came in process of time to be applied metapho- 112 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. rically to the common purposes of discourse. Thus lodgings are sometimes called quarters; a word which, in its restricted sense, signifies the lodg- ings of soldiers ; ill habits, like diseases, are said to be remedied ; men hope, as if indicted for an offence, that ladies will acquit them of inatten- tion, and so forth. When, as in the instances cited, the word or phrase can be traced back either to one of the Learned Professions, or to any source savouring of gentility, it is esteemed a proper one, and there is no objection to its use. Now we have divers other words, of which many have but recently come into vogue, which, though by no means improper or immoral, are ab- solutely unutterable in any polite assembly. It is not, at first, very easy to see what can be the ob- jection to their use ; but derivation explains it for us in the most satisfactory manner. The truth is, that the expressions in question take their origin from various trades and occupations, in which they have, for the most part, a literal meaning; and we now perceive what horrible suspicions respecting one's birth, habits, and education, their figurative employment would be likely to excite. To make the matter indisputably clear, we will explain our position by a few examples. ETYMOLOGY. 113 WORDS AND PHRASES. Bone (to steal), Chisel (to cheat), Clout (to beat), To cut it fat. To come it strong, To draw it mild, To drop off the hooks. To miss your tip. To be done, To be done brown. To collar (to seize). To be walked off, A sell, A shine, A wipe (a handkerchief), A mawley (a hand), To welt (to beat), To leather (ditto). To strap (ditto). To hide (ditto). Spicy (showy). To hang out (to dwell), A drag (carriage), Swamped (ruined), WHAT DERIVED FROM. Butchers. Carpenters. Scullions. Cooks. Publicans. Ditto. Butchers. Footmen. Cooks. Ditto. Thieves or police- men. Ditto. Jews. Shoe-boys. Blackguards in ge- neral, from its use. Prizefighters. Cobblers. Ditto. Ditto. Curriers. Grocers. Publicans. Stage-coachmen. Watermen. L 3 114 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. WORD? AND PHRASES. WHAT DERIVED FROM. To put one's oar in (to inter- fere), Watermen. Get on with your barrow, Dogs'-meat-men. Kidderminster (for carpet). Upholsterers. Mahogany (for table). Ditto. Dodge (trick), Pickpockets. (N.B. All those are obliged to have recourse to the dodge^ who are in the habit of outrunning the constable.) But, to proceed with our Etymology: To bung up an eye, Brewers. To chalk down, Publicans. A close shaver (a miser), Barbers. To be off your feed. Ostlers. Hold hard (stop), Omnibus-men. Numerous examples, similar to the foregoing, will, no doubt, present themselves, in addition, to the mind of the enlightened student. We have not, however, quite done yet with our remarks on this division of our subject. The intrinsic vul- garity of all modes of speech which may be traced to mean or disreputable persons, will, of course, not be questioned. But — and as we have got hold of a nice bone, we may as well get all the marrow we can out of it — the principle which is now under ETYMOLOGY. 115 consideration has a much wider range than is ap- parent at first sight. Now we will suppose a red-hot lover addressing the goddess of his idolatry — by the way, how strange it is, that these goddesses should be always having their temples on fire, that a Queen of Hearts should ever be seated on a burning throne ! — but to return to the lover : he was to say some- thing. Well, then, let A. B. be the lover. He expresses himself thus : — " Mary, my earthly hopes are centred in you. You need not doubt me ; my heart is true as the dial to the sun. Words cannot express how much I love you. Nor is my affection an ordinary feel- ing : it is a more exalted and a more enduring sen- timent than that which usually bears its name. I have done. I am not eloquent : I can say no more, than that I deeply and sincerely love you." This, perhaps, will be regarded by connoisseurs as tolerably pathetic, and for the kind of thing not very ridiculous. Now, let A. S. S. be the lover; and let us have his version of the same story : — "Mary, my capital in life is invested in you. You need not stick at giving me credit ; my heart is as safe as the Bank of England. The sum total of my love for you defies calculation. Nor is my attachment anything in the common way. It is a 116 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. superior and more durable article than that in general wear. My stock of words is exhausted. I am no wholesale dealer in that line. All I can say is, that I have a vast fund of unadulterated aflFec- tion for you." In this effusion the Stock Exchange, the Mul? tiplication Table, and the Linendraper's and Gro- cer's shops have been drawn upon for a clothing to the suitor's ideas; and by an unhappy choice of words, the most delightful and amiable feelings of our nature, without which Life would be a Desert and Man a bear, are invested with a ridiculous dis- guise. We would willingly enlarge upon the topic which we have thus slightly handled, but that we feel that we should by so doing, intrench too far on the boundaries of Rhetoric, to which science, more particularly than to Grammar, the consideration of Metaphor belongs; besides which, it is high time to have done with Etymology. Here, then, gentle- men, if you please, we shall pull up. " Pull up ! what an expression !" " Well, Sir, did you never hear that next to the Bar the first school of grammatical elegance is the Stage?" PART III. SYNTAX. " Now then, reader, if you are quite ready, we are— All right! * * * *" The asterisks are intended to stand for a word used in speaking to horses. Don't blush, young ladies ; there 's not a shadow of harm in it : but as to spelling it, we are as unable to do so as the ostler's boy was, who was thrashed for his ignorance by his father. " Where are we now, coachman?" SYNTAX. " The third part of Grammar, Sir, wot treats of the agreement and construction of words in a sen- tence."" " Does a coachman say icot for loliich because he has a licence?" « Can't say. Ma'am ? " " Drive on, coachman." And toe must drive on, or boil on, or whatever it is the fashion to call getting on in these times. 118 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. A sentence is an aggregate of words forming a complete sense. Sometimes, however, a sentence is an aggregate of words forming complete nonsense : as, " They are very civil and attentive to the small- est order, and furnish a house entirely complete, for twenty-seven guineas, all new and well seasoned." — Advertisement in the Times. Sentences are of two kinds, simple and com- pound. A simple sentence has in it but one subject and one finite verb ; that is, a verb to which number and person belong : as, " A joke is a joke." A compound sentence consists of two or more simple sentences connected together : as, " A joke is a joke, but a 'ducking is no joke. Corpulence is the attribute of swine, mayors, and oxen." Simple sentences may be divided (if we choose to take the trouble) into the Explicative or explain- ing ; the Interrogative, or asking ; the Imperative, or commanding. An explicative sentence is, in other words, a direct assertion : as, " Sir, you are impertinent." — Johnson. An interrogative sentence " merely asks a ques- tion :" as, " Are you a policeman ? How 's your Inspector ?" SYNTAX. 119 / / / " How's your Inspector? An imperative sentence is expressive of command, exhortation, or entreaty : as, " Shoulder arms ! " " Turn out your toes V " Charge bayonets !" A phrase is two or more words properly put to- gether, making either a sentence or part of a sen- tence : as, " Good morning ! " " Your most obe- dient !" 120 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. Some phrases consist of two or more words improperly put together : these are improper phrases : as, " Now then, old stupid ! " " Stand out of the sunshine ! " Other phrases consist of words put together by ladies : as, " A duck of a man," " A love of I M I i I i I 1 J What a duck of a man !' SYNTAX. 121 a shawl," " so nice," " quite refreshing," " sweetly pretty." " Did you ever ?" " No I never !" Other phrases again consist of French and English words put together by people of quality, because their knowledge of both languages is pretty nearly equal: as, " I am au desespoir," *' mis hors de combat," " quite ennuye," or rather in nine cases out of ten, " ennuyee,"" — " I have a great envie" to do so and so. These constitute an important variety of comic English. Besides the above, there are various phrases which we may call elliptical phrases, consisting principally of the peculiar terms employed in the different trades and professions : as, « A Milton Lost," by booksellers. " A Lady (of the Lake) in sheets," do. " One college (pudding) for No. 6," by waiters. " To carry off: " as, " See how the old woman in a red cloak carries off the tower," by painters, &c. The principal parts of a simple sentence are, the subject, the attribute, and the object. If you want to know what subjects and objects are, you should go to the Morgue at Paris. But in Grammar — The subject is the thing chiefly spoken of; the attribute is that which is affirmed or denied of it ; and the object is the thing affected by such action. M 122 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. The nominative denotes the subject, and usually goes before the verb or attribute; and the word or phrase, denoting the object, follows the verb ; as, " The flirt torments her lover." Here, afiirt is the subject; torments, the attribute or thing aflfirraed ; and her lover, the object. -^ii.H SYNTAX. ] 23 Yes, and a pretty object he is too, sometimes. But then we shall be told that he is not an ob- ject — of attachment. Alas ! that is the very reason why he is an object — of compassion, or ridicule, according to people's dispositions. It may be also said that the flirt herself is a pretty object. All we can say is, that we never saw such a flirt, nor do we believe that we ever shall. To torment, it seems, is the attribute of the flirt, as it is that of the . Well ! no matter. Much good may the fellowship do her : that is all ! It strikes us, though, that we are somewhat di- gressing from our subject, namely Syntax, which, Principally consists of two parts (which the flirt does not, for she is all body and no soul) Concord and Government. Concord is the agreement which one word has with another, in gender, number, case or person. Note. — That a want of agreement between words does not invalidate deeds. We apprehend that such an engagement as the following, properly authen- ticated, would hold good in law. I ose Jon stubs too Poun for valley reseved an promis to pay Him Nex Sattaday Signed Willum Gibs is X INIark March 18, 1840. 124 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. Also that a friend of ours, to whom the follow- ing bill was sent, could not have refused to dis- charge it on the score of its incorrect grammar. 1835 Mr. Jenery 10 To J. Burton. /. s. d. Reparing of Towo Tables & Muex Stand . . . .040 Aultern of 2 Blines & Toulroler .010 Botal jock braket & seter jobs .040 [et cetera) Newpot board Barers & scirtin &c. stapel . . . .050 Locks to Cubard dowrs & Esing do laying down flour cloth & fiting up ^o 7 Top of Butt Fixing Lether to ) & Cuting of shet- 4 Dowrs in parlor J ers in first flour J 1 Blin 2 par of Roler End & Rack pu- ^ leys fixing of certin Laths in Largin v q 2 10 of ole of washing stand & 2 holefass ) Fixing wcbbin to Stand and fixing Legs to washing stulc . .016 Fiting up front of Dustbin & Cubbard on Landing altern lock of seler dowr 2 1 11 4 SYNTAX. 125 Government is that power which one part of speech has over another, in directing its mood, tense, or case. Government is also that power, of which, if the Chartists have their way, we shall soon see very little in this country. Hurrah ! No taxes ! No army ! No navy ! No parsons ! No lawyers ! No Commons ! No Lords ! No anything ! No nothing ! To produce the agreement and right disposition of words in a sentence, the following rules (and observations ?) should be carefully studied. RULE I. A verb must agree with its nominative case in number and person : as, " I perceive." " Thou hast been to Brixton." " Apes chatter." " French- men gabble." Certain liberties are sometimes taken with this M 3 126 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. rule : as, " I own I likes good beer." You'm a fine fellow, aint yer ? " " He *ve been to the Squire's." Such modes of speaking are adopted by those who neither know nor care anything about grammatical correctness : but there are other per- sons who care a great deal about it, but unfortu- nately do not knoic what it consists in. Such folks are very fond of saying, " How it rain !" " It fit you very well." " He say he think it very un- becoming," " I were gone before you was come," and so forth, in which forms of speech they per- ceive a peculiar elegance. The infinitive mood, or part of a sentence, is sometimes used as the nominative case to the verb : as " to be good is to be happy :" which is as grammatical an assertion as " Toby Good is Toby Happy;" and rather surpasses it in respect of sense. " That two pippins are a pair, is a pro- position which no man in his senses will deny." " To be a connoisseur in boots, To hate all rational j)ursuits. To make your money fly, as though Gold would as fast as mushrooms grow ; To haunt the Opera, save whene'er There 's anything worth hearing there ; To smirk, to sniilc, to bow, to dance, To talk of what they eat in France, SYNTAX. 127 To languish, simper, sue, and sigh, And stuff her head with flattery ; Are means to gain that worthless part A fashionable lady's heart." Here are examples enough, in all conscience, of infinitive moods serving as nominative cases. All verbs, save only in the infinitive mood or participle, require a nominative case either ex- pressed or understood : as, " Row with me down the river," that is " Row thou, or do thou row." " Come where the aspens quiver," " come thou, or do thou come." " Fly not yet ; " " fly not thou, or do not thou fly." " Pass the ruby ; " " pass thou, or do thou pass the ruby" (not the Rubicon). "Drink to me only;" "drink thou, or do thou drink only." " Wake, dearest, wake ; " " wake thou, or do thou wake." " Tell her I love her; " " tell thou, or do thou tell her I love her." In short, you cannot listen to a hawker of ballads, crying his commodities about the streets, without hearing illustrations of the foregoing rule. " Move on !" the well known mandate of poUcemen to those who create obstructions, is a very common exemplification of it. The nominative case is easily understood in the latter instance ; and the person addressed, if he pretend that it is not, does so at his own peril. 128 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. A well known popular song affords an example of the violation of this rule. " Ven as the Captain corned for to hear on 't, Wery much applauded vot she 'd done." The verb a})plauded has here no nominative case, whereas it ought to have been governed by the pronoun he. " He very much applauded," &c. SYNTAX. 129 Every nominative case, except when made ab- solute, or used, like the Latin Vocative, in ad- dressing a person, should belong to some verb, implied if not expressed. A beautiful example of this grammatical maxim, and one, too, that explains itself, is impressed upon the mind very soon after its first introduction to letters : as, « Who kiird Cock Robin? /, said the sparrow, With my bow and arrow ; I kilFd Cock Robin." Of the neglect of this rule also, the ballad lately mentioned presents an instance : as, " Four-and'twenty brisk young fellows Clad in jackets, blue array, — And they took poor Billy Taylor From his true love all avay." The only verb in these four lines is the verb took, which is governed by the pronoun tliey. The four-and-twenty brisk young fellows, therefore, though undeniably in the nominative, have no verb to belong to : while, at the same time, what- ever may be thought of their behaviour to Mr. William Taylor, they are certainly not absolute in point of case. 130 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. When a verb comes between two nouns, either of which may be taken as the subject of the af- firmation, it may agree with either of them : as, " Two-and-sixpence is half-a-crown." Due re- gard, however, should be paid to that noun which is most naturally the subject of the verb : it would be clearly wrong to say, " Ducks and green peas is a delicacy." " Fleas is a nuisance." A nominative case, standing without a personal tense of a verb, and being put before a participle, independently of the rest of the sentence, is called a case absolute: as, " My brethren, to-morroio being Sunday, I shall preach a sermon in Smith- field; after which we shall join in a hymn, and that having been sung. Brother Biggs will address you."" The objective case is sometimes incorrectly made absolute by showmen and others : as, " Here, gentlemen and ladies, you will see that great war- rior Napoleon Bonaparte, standing agin a tree with his hands in his i)ockets, liivi taking good care to keep out of harm's vay. And there, on the extreme right, you will observe the Duky \e\- linton a valkiiig about amidst the red-hot cannon balls, him not caring von straw." SYNTAX. 131 RULE II. Two or more singular nouns, joined together by a copulative conjunction, expressed or understood, are equivalent to a plural noun, and therefore re- quire verbs, nouns, and pronouns, agreeing with them in the plural number : as, " Veal, wine, and vinegar " (take care how you pronounce these words) " are very good victuals I vow." " Burke and Hare were nice men." " A hat without a 132 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. crown, a tattered coat, threadbare and out at el- bows, a pair of breeches which looked like a piece of dirty patchwork diversified by various holes, and of boots which a Jew would hardly have raked from a kennel, at once proclaimed him a man who had seen better days." This rule is not always adhered to in discourse quite so closely as a fastidious ear would require it to be : as, " And so, you know, Mary, and I, and Jane was a dusting the chairs, and in comes Missus." RULE III. When the conjunction disjunctive comes be- tween two nouns, the verb, noun, or pronoun, is of the singular number, because it refers to each of such nouns taken separately : as, " A cold in the head, or a sore eye is a great disadvantage to a lover." If singular pronouns, or a noun and pronoun of different ])ersons, be disjunctively connected, the verb must agree with the person which stands nearest to it : as " I or thou art." " Thou or I am." " I, thou, or he is" &c. But as this way of writing or speaking is very inelegant, and as saying, " I^ither I am, or tiiou art," and so on, will always render having recourse to it unneces- SYNTAX. 133 sary, the rule just laid down is almost useless, ex- cept inasmuch as it suggests a moral maxim, namely, " Always be on good terms with your next door neighbour." It also forcibly reminds us of some beautiful lines by Moore, in which the heart, like a tendril, is said to twine round the " nearest and loveliest thing." Now the person which is placed nearest the verb is the object of choice; ergo, the most agreeable person — ei-go, the loveliest person or thing. Should a conjunction disjunctive occur between a singular noun or pronoun, and a plural one, the verb agrees with the plural noun or pronoun : as, " Neither a king nor his courtiers are averse to butter:" (particularly when thickly spread). "Da- rius or the Persians were hostile to Greece." RULE IV. A noun of multitude, that is, one which signifies many, can have a verb or pronoun to agree with it either in the singular or plural number ; according to the import of such noun, as conveying unity or plurality of idea: as, "The Parliament is — " we do not choose to say what. " The nation is hum- bugged." " The ministry are exceedingly well pen- N 134 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. sioned." " The multitude have to pay many taxes." " The Council are at a loss to know what to do." " The people is a many-headed monster." We do not mean to call the people names. We only quote what all parties say of it when out of office. When they are in, it is — why, we may ex- haust the alphabet about it, as Sterne tried to do about Love ; but he couldn't get farther than R. ; and therefore, if we break down, it is no matter. So we will e'en try a leap; and as the maxim "audi alteram partem" is a favourite one with all rightly constituted minds, our own inclusive, we will see what can be said on both sides. The people, then, is termed. By tlie Ins. By the Outs. An apprehensive people, An addle-headed people. A blessed people, A burdened people. A chivalrous people, A currish people. A delightful people, A disgusting people. An enlightened people. An embruted people. A free j)eople, A fettered people. A glorious people, A grovelling people. A high-minded people, A hoggish people. An intelligent people. An impenetrable people. A judicious people, A jolter-headed people. A knowing people, A knotty-pated people. A lively people, A lubberly people. SYNTAX. ISt By the Ins. A magnanimous people, A noble people, An obliging people, A pious people, A quiet people, A righteous people, A sensible people, A Tory people, An upright people, A virtuous people, A Whig people. An X-cellent people, A yielding people, A zetetic people, By the Outs. A miserable people. A niggardly people. An odious people. A profane people. A quarrelsome people. A rascally people. A stupid people. A truculent people. An unprincipled people. A vicious people. A wicked people. An X-ecrable people. A yelping people. A zany-people. And now for a little more Syntax. RULE V. Pronouns agree with their antecedents, and with the nouns to which they belong, in gender and number: as, " This is the blow which killed Ned." " England was once governed by a celebrated King, who was called Rufus the Red, but ivhose name was by no means so illustrious as that of Alfred." His Grace and the Baronet had put on their boots." " The Countess appeared, and she smiled, but the smile belied her feelings." 136 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. The relative being of the same person with the antecedent, the verb always agrees w'ith it: as, " Thou who leamest Syntax." " I who enlighten thy mind." The relative ivhat (incorrectly pronounced) is sometimes used in a manner which is very ex- ceptionable : as, " The gentleman ivot keeps the wine-vaults." " None but lovers can feel for them 7vot loves." We mention this error once more, in order to insure its abandonment. The objective case of the personal pronouns is by some, for want of better information, employed in the place of these and those : as, " Let them things alone." " Now then, Jemes, make haste with them chops." " Give them tables a wipe." " Oh ! Julier, turn thein heyes away." " What 's the use o' mancipatin' thcyyi niggers ?" " Don't you wish you was one of theyn lobsters?" " I think them shawls so pretty !" " Look at them sleeves." The adverb there, is sometimes, with additional impropriety, joined to the pronoun them : as, " Look after them there sheep." The objective case of a pronoun in the first per- son is put after the interjections Oh ! and Ah ! as, " Oh ! dear me," &c. The second person, however, requires a nominative case : as, " Oh ! you good-for- nothing man ! " " Ah ! thou gay Lothario ! " SYNTAX. 137 " Oh! you good-for-nothing man !" RULE VI. When there is no nominative case between the relative and the verb, the relative itself is the no- minative to the verb : as, " The master loho flog- ged us." " The rods wliich were used." But when the nominative comes between the relative and the verb, the relative exchanges, as it N 8 138 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. were, the character of sire for that of son, and be- comes the governed instead of the governor; de- pending for its case on some word in its own mem- ber of the sentence : as, " He icho is now at the head of affairs, ichom the Queen dehghteth to honour, whose PaviHon (if the Court had been there) might have been at Brighton, and to lolwm is intrusted the helm of state — is a Lamb. Well, it is to be hoped that he will get on in his boat a little better than a bear; though why that animal is considered so peculiarly at sea when on the water, we cannot tell. Man is the only sailor except the nautilus that we know of. Even the steer is no steersman. The bear, however, is an ill- conditioned, awkward creature, and very likely to upset the boat ; while the more gentle lamb, what- ever may be the perils of his situation, leaves the rudder alone, remains quietly in his place, and goes with the stream. RULE VIL The relative and the verb, when the former is ])receded by two nominatives of different persons, may agree in person with either, according to the sense : as, " I am the young gentleman tclio do the lovers at the Wells ; " or, " icho does" SYNTAX. 139 Let this maxim be borne constantly in mind. " A murderer of good characters should always be made an example of^ RULE VIII. Every adjective, and every adjective pronoun, re- lates to a substantive, expressed or implied: as, 140 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. *' Dando was an unprincipled, as well as a voracious man." " Few quarrel with their bread and but- ter ; " that is, " few persons." " This is the wonder- ful eagle of the sun." That is, " This eagle,'' &c. Adjective pronouns agree in number with their substantives : " This muff, these muffs ; that booby, these boobies ; another numscull, other numsculls." Some people say " Those kind of things," or, " Tills four-and-twenty year," neither of which ex- pressions they have any business to use. A good deal of speculation has been expended on the word means in connection with an adjective pronoun. Some will have it that we should say, "By this mean;" "By that mean;" "By these means;" " By those means :" others, that we should say, " By tins means,''"' and so on. The practical rule to be observed is, to treat the substantive, means, as a singular noun when it refers to what is singular, and when it relates to that which is plural, as a j)lural one. llie word mean is seldom used in the same sense with means. We have been induced to advert to this question, by the desire of giving the reader a caution respecting the use of this same word, means. It is not uncommon to hear it said in the streets and elsewhere, " Well, and then, you know, Jem was took afore the beak, 1)i/ means of which he had three months." " Sail was quite SYNTAX. 141 intosticated, by means of which (or vich) she wor fined five bob," &:c. We will not shock the refined grammarian by the multiplication of examples of this kind; suffice it to say, that the phrase "by means of which" is substituted for "in conse- quence of which," or, " on which account," by the lower or illiterate classes. Adjectives are sometimes improperly used as adverbs : as, " He behaved very bad." " He in- sulted me most gross. '^ " He eat and drank un- common." " He wur beat very severe." " It hailed tremendous" or, more commonly, " trenienjus" RULE IX. The article a or an agrees with nouns in the singular number only : as, " A fool, an ass, a simpleton, a ninny, a lout — I would not give a farthing for a thousand such." The definite article the may agree with nouns in the singular and plural number : as, " The toast, the ladies, the ducks." The articles are often properly omitted ; when used, they serve to determine or limit the thing spoken of: as, " Variety is charming." " Fami- liarity doth breed contempt." " A stitch in time saves nine." " The heart that has truly loved never forgets." 142 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. The article a or an is sometimes (we grieve to say it) applied to nouns in the plural number : as, " A wine-vaults." "An oyster-rooms." But this misapplication of the article is positively shock- ing. RULE X. One substantive, in the possessive or genitive case, is governed by another, of a different mean- ing : as, " A fiddle-stick's end." " Monkey's al- lowance." " Virtue's reward." SYNTAX. 143 Pronouns, as well as nouns, are thus governed by substantives : as, " The woes of a kitten (like those of a Poet) are expressed by its mews." RULE XI. Active verbs govern the objective case : as, " I kissed her." " She scratched me." " Virtue re- wards her foUoicers." For which reason she is like a cook. Verbs neuter do not govern an objective case. Observe, therefore, that such phrases : as, " She cried a good one," " He came the old soldier over me," and so forth, are highly improper in a grammatical point of view, to say nothing of other objections to them. These verbs, however, are capable of governing words of a meaning similar to their own: as, in the affecting ballad of Giles Scroggins — " I wont, she cried, and screamed a scream." The verb To Be has the same case after it as that which goes before it : as, " It was /," not " It was me."" " The Grubbs were thejj who eat so much trifle at our last party;" not "The Grubhses were them." RULE xn. One verb governs another that depends upon it. 144 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. in the infinitive mood : as, " Cease to smoke pipes." " Begin to loear collars.'" " I advise you to shave."'' " I recommend you to go to church." " I resolved to visit the United States. " And there I learned to ivheel about And jump Jim Crow." In general, the preposition to is used before the latter of two verbs ; but sometimes it is more pro- perly omitted : as, " I saw you take it, young fel- low ; come along with me." " Let me c/et hold of you, that 's all !" « Did I hear you speak ?" " I Ul let you knoiv /" " You dare not hit me." " Bid me discourse." " You need not sing." The preposition for is sometimes unnecessarily intruded into a sentence, in addition to the prepo- sition to, before an infinitive mood : as, " How came you for to think, for to go, for to do such a thing?" "Do you want me for to punch your head?" Adjectives, substantives, and participles, often govern the infinitive mood : as, " Miss Hopkins, I shall he happy to dance the next set with you." " Oh ! Sir, it is impossible to refuse you." " Have you an inclination to waltz?" "I shall be de- lighted in endeavouring to do so." SYNTAX. 145 The infinitive mood is frequently made absolute, that is, independent of the rest of the sentence : as, " To say the truth, I was rather the worse for liquor." " Not to mince matters, Miss, I love you.' "To begin at the right end." «To cut a long tale short," &c. 146 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAJIMAR. RULE XIII. The relation which words and phrases bear to each other in point of time, should always be duly marked : instead of saying, " Last night I intended to have made strong love to her," we should say, " Last night I intended to make strong love to her;" because, although the intention of making strong love may have been abandoned (on reflec- tion) this morning, and is now, therefore, a thing which is past, yet it is undoubtedly, when last night and the thoughts connected with it are brought back, again present to the mind. RULE XIV. Participles have the same power of government with that of the verbs from which they are de- rived : as, " Oh, what an exquisite singer Rubini is ! I am so fond of hearing him." " Look at that horrid man ; I declare he is fptizzinf/ vs ! " " No, he is only taking snuff." " See, how that thing oppo- site keeps making eyes." " Yes, she is ogling Lum- ley ; I should so like to pinch her !" " How fond they all are of ^rearing mustaches/ Don't you Hke it?" "Oh, yes! there is no resisting them." " Heigho ! I am dgi7ig to have an ice — " SYNTAX. 147 Young man for a husband, Miss ? For shame, Sir ! don't be rude ! Participles are sometimes used as substantives : as, " The French mouth is adapted to the making o/' grimaces." " The cobbler is like the parson ; he lives by the mending o/* soles." "The tailor reaps a good harvest from the sewing of cloth." " Did you ever see a shooting o/'the moon?" Is this what the witches mean when they sing, in the acting play of Macbeth, "We^y by night?" If they " shoot the moon," they are shooting stars. There is a mode of using the indefinite article a before a participle, for which there is no occasion, as it does not convert the participle into a sub- stantive, and makes no alteration in the sense of what is said; in this case the article, therefore, is like a wart, a wen, or a knob at the end of the nose, neither useful nor ornamental : as, " Going out a shooting." " Are you a coming to-morrow?" " I was a thinking about what Jem said." " Here you are, a going of it, as usual ! " A liberty not unfrequently taken with the Eng- lish Language, is the substitution of the perfect participle for the imperfect tense, and of the im- 148 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. perfect tense for the perfect participle : as, " He run like mad, with the great dog after him." " Ma- ria come and told us all about it." *' When I had xcrote the Valentine, I sealed it with my thimble." " He has rose to (be) a common-councilman." " I was chose Lord Mayor." " I Ve eat (or a eat) lots of venison in my time." " I should have spoke if you hadn't put in your oar." " You were mistook." " He sent her an affecting copy of verses, which was wrote with a Perryian pen." RULE XV. Adverbs are generally placed in a sentence be- fore adjectives, after verbs active or neuter, and frequently between the auxiliary and the verb : as, " He came, Sir, and he was most exceedingly drunk ; he could hardly stand upon his legs; he made a very lame discourse; he spoke incoherently and ridiculously ; and v;as impatiently heard by the whole assembly." " He is fashionably dressed." " She is conspicuously uylyP " The eye of jealousy is proverbially sharp, and yet it is indisputably green." " Britons may often be sold, but they loill never be slaves." " 'I'he French Marquis was a very charming man ; he danced excpiisitdy and nind)ly, and was greatly admired by all the ladies." SYNTAX. 149 Several adverbs have been coined in America of late ; and some of them are very remarkable for a "particular" elegance: as, "I reckon you're catmoampoushj chawed up." In the example just given there is to be found, 150 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. besides the new adverb, a word which, if not also new to the English student, is rendered so both by its orthography and pronunciation ; namely, chawed. This term is no other than " chewed," modified (as words, like living things, would seem to be), by transportation to a foreign country. " Chawed up" is a very strong expression, and is employed to signify the most complete state of discomfiture and defeat, when a man is as much crushed, mashed, and comminuted, morally speaking, as if he had literally and corporeally undergone the process of mastication. " Catawampously" is a concentration of " hopelessly," " tremendously," " thoroughly," and " irrevocably ;" so that " catawampously chaw- ed up," means, brought as nearly to a state of utter annihilation as anything consistently with the laws of nature can possibly be. For the meta- phorical use of the word " chawed," made by the Americans, three several reasons have been given : 1. Familiarity with the manner in which the alli- gator disposes of his victims. 2. The cannibalism of the Aborigines. 3. Tlie delicate practice of chewing tobacco. Each of these is supported by numerous arguments, on the consideration of which it would be quite out of the question to enter in this place. SYNTAX. 151 RULE XVI. Two English negatives (like French lovers) de- stroy one another, — and become equivalent to an affirmative : as, " The question before the House was not an unimportant one;" that is, " it was an important one."" " His Lordship was free to con- fess that he did not undertake to say that he would not on some future occasion give a satisfactory answer to the right honourable gentleman." Thus, at one and the same time, we teach our readers Syntax and secretiveness. It is probable that small boys are often unac- quainted with this rule ; for many of them, while undergoing personal chastisement, exclaim, for the purpose, as it would appear, of causing its duration to be shortened — " Oh pray, Sir, oh pray, Sir, oh pray, Sir ! I wor^t do so no more !" RULE XVIL Prepositions govern the objective case: as, " What did the butcher say of her ?" " He said that she would never do for him ; that she was too thin /or a loifc, and he was not fond of a spare rih.** The delicate ear is much offended by any devia- tion from this rule : as, in a shocking and vulgar song which it was once our misfortune to hear : — 152 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. " There I found the faithless she Frying sausages ybr he" As also in the conversation of rustics : as, " It 's all one to tee." " Come out of they ''taters ! " " He went to the Parson's tcith /." " From he to they an 't more nor dree mile." We had occasion, in the EtjTnology, to remark on a certain misuse of the preposition, ojl This, perhaps, is best explained by stating that of in the instances cited, is made to usurp the government of cases which are already under a rightful juris- diction: as, " JJ'hat are you got a eating of?" " He had been a beating of his wfe." RULE XVIII. Conjunctions connect similar moods and tenses of verbs, and cases of nouns and pronouns : as, " A coat of arms suspended on a wall is like an executed traitor ; it is hanged, drarrn, and quarter- ed." " If you continue thus to drink brandy and water and to smoke cigars, you will be like Boreas the North wind, who takes * cold without ' wherever he goes, and always ' hloics a cloud' when it comes in his way." " Do you think there is any thing between /(i/n awcZ Acr ? " "Yes; he and she are engaged ones.'' SYNTAX. 153 ^d..^- ^^<^J^-^f^-i Note. — To ask whether there is any thing be- tween two persons of opposite sexes, is one way of inquiring whether they are in love with each other. It is not, however, in our opinion, a very happy phrase, inasmuch as whatever intervenes between a couple of fond hearts, must tend to prevent them from coming together. Pyramus and Thisbe, as 154 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. Ovid informs us, had more between them than they liked — a conjunction disjunctive in the shape of a walL And by the bye, now that we are speaking of Pyramus and Thisbe, we may as well expend a word or two on a matter which, though of much interest, has never yet been noticed by the learned. Pyramus and Thisbe, it is well known, used to kiss each other through a hole in the wall which sepa- rated them. Now we have always been puzzled to imagine how they managed it We are told by the Poet that they lived — " Ubi dicitur altam Coctilibus muris cinxisse Semiramis urbem" — that is to say, where Semiramis is said to have sur- rounded a lofty city — not with cock-tail mice, as Mr. Canning facetiously translated " Coctilibus muris," — but with hricli ivalls. The wall which separated two adjoining houses must have been at least a brick thick ; and although it be possible, " with Love's light wings" to " o-erperch" an exceedingly high wall, it occurs to us that it would be no easy thing for Love's long lips, let them be as long as you will, to reach through a moderately thick one. We do not know exactly what was the breadth of an Assyrian brick, but sujjposing it to have been three inches, an inch and a half of lip would have SYNTAX. 155 been required on the part of either lover for a kiss which could barely be sworn by ; — a sort of pre- sentation salute ; — but for one worth giving or taking, we must allow an additional half inch of mouth to the gentleman. After all, their noses must have been so much in the way, that to make the operation at all feasible, either these features must have been particularly flat, or the aperture a very large one ; whereas it is well known to have been merely a chink. Common observation on the part of their respective parents would have de- tected such a gap, and common prudence would have stopped it up. How, then, are we to recon- cile Ovid's story with truth? Now, remember, reader, what has been said about noses and lips. Our deliberate opinion is that Pyramus and Thisbe were a couple of negroes. We shall be told that it is one utterly irreconcileable with the description of them given in the Metamorphoses. No matter — " The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, Are of imagination all compact." And considering that the lover — " Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt," we do not see why Abyssinian charms should not be transformed by a poet into those of Assyria. And so, having proved (to our own satisfaction 156 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. at least) that the beautiful Thisbe was a Hot- tentot Venus, we will resume the consideration of conjunctions. RULE XIX. Some conjunctions govern the indicative ; some the subjunctive mood. In general, it is right to use the subjunctive, when contingency or doubt is impHed : as, " If I xccrc to say that the moon is made of green cheese." " If I were a wiseacre."" ^^ If I were a Wiltshire-man." " A lady, unless she he toasted, is never drunk." And when she is toasted, those who are drunk are generally the gentlemen. SYNTAX. loT Those conjunctions which have a positive and absolute signification, require the indicative mood : as, " He who fasts may be compared to a horse : for as the animal eats not a bit, so neither does the man partake of a morsel." " The rustic is de- luded by false hopes, for his daily food is gam- mon." Every philosopher has his weak points, and in the Sylva Sylvarum may be found some gammon of Bacon. RULE XX. When a comparison is made between two or more things, the latter noun or pronoun is not governed by the conjunction than or as, but agrees with the verb, or is governed by the verb or prepo- sition, expressed or understood : as, " The French are a lighter people than we," (that is " than we are,") " and yet we are not so dark as they," that is, " as they are." " I should think that they admire me more than them," that is, " than they admire them." " It is a shame, Martha ! you were thinking more of that young officer than me," that is, " of me." Sufficient attention is not always paid, in dis- course, to this rule. Thus, a schoolboy may be 158 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. often heard to exclaim, " What did you hit me for, you great fool ? you 're bigger than me. Hit some one of your own size !" " Not fling farther than him? just can't I, that's all!" " You and I have got more marbles than them." SYNTAX. 159 RULE XXI. An ellipsis, or omission of certain words, is frequently allowed, for the sake of avoiding dis- agreeable repetitions, and of expressing our ideas in few words. Instead of saying " She was a little woman, she was a round woman, and she was an old woman," we say, making use of the figure Ellipsis, " She was a little, round, and old woman." When, however, the omission of words is pro- ductive of obscurity, weakens the sentence, or involves a violation of some grammatical principle, the ellipsis must not be used. It is improper to say " Puddings fill who fill them ;" we should supply the word those. " A beautiful leg of mutton and turnips" is not good language : those who would deserve what they are talking about ought to say, " A beautiful leg of mutton and fine turnips." In common discourse, in which the meaning can be eked out by gestures, signs, and inarticu- late sounds variously modified, the ellipsis is much more liberally and more extensively employed than in written composition. " May I have the plea- sure of — hum? ha?" may constitute an invita- tion to take wine. " I shall be quite — a — a — " may serve as an answer in the affirmative. " So 160 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. then, you see he was — eh ! — you see ," is perhaps an intimation that a man has been hanged. "Well, of all the — I never!" is often tanta- mount to three times as many words expressive of surprise, approbation, or disapprobation, ac- cording to the tone in which it is uttered. " Will you ? — ah ! — will you ? — ah ! — ah ! — ah I " will do either for " Will you be so impertinent, you scoundrel? will you dare to do so another time?" or, " Will you, dearest, loveliest, most adorable of your sex, will you consent to make me happy; will you be mine ? speak ! answer, 1 entreat you ! One word from those sweet lips will make me the most fortunate man in existence ! " There is, however, a kind of ellipsis which those who indulge in that style of epistolary writ- ing, wherein sentiments of a tender nature are con- veyed, will do well to avoid with the greatest care. The ellipsis alluded to, is that of the first person singular of the personal pronoun, as instanced in the followino- model of a billet-doux : — CanibcrwoU, A])ril 1, 1840. MY I) i: A REST FANNY, Have not enjoyed the balm of sleep all the livelong night. l''.ncountcrcd, last night, at the SYNTAX. 161 ball, the beau ideal of my heart. Never knew what love was till then. Derided the sentiment often ; jested at scars, because had never felt a wound. Feel at last the power of beauty — Write with a tremulous hand ; waver between hope and fear. Hope to be thought not alto- gether unworthy of regard : fear to be rejected as having no pretensions to the aflFections of such unparalleled loveliness. Know not in what terms to declare my feelings. Adore you, worship you, dote on you, am wrapt up in you ! think but on you, live but for you, would willingly die for you ! — in short, love you ! and imploring you to have some compassion on one who is distracted for your sake Remain Devotedly yours T. Tout. RULE XXII. A regular and dependent construction should be carefully preserved throughout the whole of a sentence, and all its parts should correspond to each other. There is, therefore, an inaccuracy in the following sentence ; " Greenacre was more admired, but not so much lamented, as Burke." 162 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. It should be, " Greenacre was more admired than Burke, but not so much lamented." Of these two worthies there will be a notice of the following kind in a biographical dictionary, to be published a thousand years hence in America. Greenacre. — A celebrated critic who so cut up a blue-stocking lady of the name of Brown, that he did not leave her a leg to stand upon. Burke. — A famous orator, whose power of stopping people's mouths was said to be prodigious. It is farther reported of him that he was only once hung up, and that on the occasion of the last speech he ever made. Perhaps it may be said that the rule last stated comprehends all preceding rules, and requires exemplification accordingly. We therefore call the attention of the reader to the following paragraph, requesting him to consider what, and how many, violations of the maxims of Syntax it contains. " We teaches, that is, my son and me teaches, they boys English Grammar. Tom or Dick have learned something every day but Harry what is idler, whom I am sure will never come to no good, for he is always a miching and doing those kind of things (he was catch but yesterday in a skittle grounds) he only makes his book all dog's SYNTAX. 163 ears. I beat he, too, pretty smartish, as I ought, you will say, for to have did. I was going to have sent him away last week but he somehow got over me as he do always. I have had so much trouble with he, that between you and I, if I was not paid for it, I wouldn't have no more to do with such a boy. There never wasn't a monkey more mischievious than him; and a donkey isn't more stupider and not half so obstinate as that youngster." The Syntax of the Interjection has been suffi- ciently stated under Rule V. Interjections afford more matter for consideration in a Treatise on Elocution than they do in a work on Grammar; but there is one observation which we are desirous of making respecting them, and which will not, it is hoped, be thought altogether foreign to our present subject. Almost every interjection has a great variety of meanings, adapted to particular occasions and circumstances, and indicated chiefly by the tone of the voice. Of this proposition we shall now give a few illustrations, which we would endeavour to render still clearer by the addition of musical notes, but that these would hardly express, with adecjuate exactness, the modulations of sound to which we allude ; and besides, we hope to be sufficiently un- 164 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. derstood without such help. This part of the Grammar should be read aloud by the student ; or, which is better still, the interjection, where it is possible, should be repeated with the proper in- tonation by a class ; the sentence which gives oc- casion to it being read by the preceptor. We will select the interjection Oh ! as the source from which our examples are to be drawn. " I '11 give it you, you idle dog : I will ! " « Oh, pray. Sir ! Oh, pray, Sir ! Oh ! Oh ! Oh !" " I shall ever have the highest esteem for you, Sir ; but as to love, that is out of the question." " Oh, Matilda ! " " I say, Jim, look at that chaffinch : there 's a shy!" " Oh, Crikey ! " " Miss Tims, do you admire Lord Byron ? " " Oh, yes ! " " What do you think of Rubini's singing ? " " Oh ! " " So then, you see, we popped round the corner, and caught them just in the nick of time." « Oh ! " " Sir, your behaviour has done you great credit." "Oh!" " Oats are looking up." "Oh!" SYNTAX. . 165 " Honourable ^Members might say what they pleased; but he was convinced, for his part, that the New Poor Law had given great general satis- faction." «0h! oh!" There being now no reason (or rule) to detain us in the Syntax, we shall forthwith advance into Prosody, where we shall have something to say, not only about rules, but also of measures. 166 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. PART IV. PROSODY. Prosody consists of two parts; wherefore, al- though it may be a topic, a head, or subject for discussion, it can never be a point; for a point is that which hath no parts. Besides, there are a great many lines to be considered in the second part of Prosody, which treats of Versification. ITie first division teaches the true Pronunciation of Words, including Accent, Quantity, Emphasis, Pause, and Tone. Lord Chesterfield's book about manners, which is intended to teach us the proper tone to be adopt- ed in Society, may be termed an Ethical Prosody. Lord Chesterfield may have been a polished gentleman, but Dr. Johnson was of the two the more shining character. PROSODY. 167 CHAPTER I. OF PRONUNCIATION. SECTION I. OF ACCENT. Though penetrated ourselves by the desire of imparting instruction, we are far from wishing to bore our readers; and therefore we shall en- deavour to repeat nothing here that we have said before. Accent is the marking with a peculiar stress of the voice a particular letter or syllable in a word, in such a manner as to render it more distinct or audible than the rest. Thus, in the word theatre, the stress of the voice should be on the letter e and first syllable the ; and in contrary, on the first syl- lable con. How shocking it is to hear people say con-trdry, the-dtre ! The friends of education will be reminded with regret, that an error in the pro- nunciation of the first of these words is very early impressed on the human mind. 168 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAiMMAR. « Mary, Mary, Quite contrary, How does your garden grow?" How many evils, alas ! arise from juvenile asso- ciations ! Words of two syllables never have more than one of them accented, except for the sake of ])ecu- liar emphasis. Gentlemen, however, whose pro- fession it is to drive certain public vehicles called cabs, are much accustomed to disregard this rule, and to say, "p6-lite" (or "pur-lite"), " gen-teel,'' " c6n-cern," " po-lice,"''' and so on : nay, they go so far as to convert a word of one syllable into two, for the sake of indulging in this style of pronun- ciation; and thus the word "queer" is pronounced by them as " kc-vcer." The word " a-men," when standing alone, should be pronounced with two accents. The accents in which it usually is pronounced are very inelegant. Clerks, now-a-days, alas ! are no scholars. Dissyllables, formed by adding a termination, usually have the former syllable accented : as, " r(')uUsh, blockhead," &c. The accent in dissyllables, formed by prefixing a syllable to the radical word, is commonly on the PROSODY. 169 latter syllable : as, " I protest, I declare, I entreat, 1 adore, I expire." ALL FOR LOVE. Protestations, declarations, entreaties, and ado- rations, proclaim a swain to be simply tender ; but expiration (for love) proves him to be decidedly soft. A man who turns lover becomes a protest-'axxi ; and his conduct at the same time generally under- goes a reformation, especially if he has previously been a rake. Q 170 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. The zeal, however, of a reformed rake, like that of Jack in Dean Swift's " Tale of a Tub," is some- times apt to outrun his discretion. When the same word, hemfi; a dissyllabic, is both a noun and a verb, the verb has mostly the accent on the latter, and the noun on the former syllable : as, PROSODY. 171 " Molly, let Hymen-s gentle hand Cement our hearts together, With such a cement as shall stand In spite of wind and weather. " I do presage — and oft a fact A presage doth foretoken — Our mutual love shall ne'er contract, Our contract ne'er be broken." There are many exceptions to the rule just enunciated (so that, correctly as well as familiarly speaking, it is perhaps no rule) ; for though verbs seldom have an accent on the former, yet nouns frequently have it on the latter syllable : as, " Mary Anne is my delight Both by day and eke by night ; For by day her soft control Soothes my heart and calms my soul ; And her image while I doze Comes to sweeten my repose ; Fortune favouring my design. Please the pigs she shall be mine ! " The former syllable of most dissyllables ending in y, our, oiv, le, ish, ck, ter, age, en, et, is accented : as, " Granny, noodle," &c. Except allow, avow, endow, bestow, below. 172 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. " Sir, I cannot allow You your flame to avow ; Endow yourself first with the rhino : My hand to bestow On a fellow below Me ! — I 'd rather be — never mind — /know." " Music," in the language of the Gods, is some- times pronounced " mii-sic !" Nouns of two syllables ending in «*, have the ac- cent on the former syllable : as, " Butcher, baker." It is, perhaps, a singular thing, that persons who pursue the callings denoted by the two words se- lected as examples, should always indicate their presence at an area by crying out, in direct de- fiance of Prosody, "But-cher, ba-ker;" the latter syllable being of the two the more strongly ac- cented. Dissyllabic verbs ending in a consonant and e final, as " Disclose," " repine," or having a diph- thong in the last syllable, as, " Believe," " de- ceive," or ending in two consonants, as " Intend,'' are accented on the latter syllable. " Matilda's eyes a light disclose. Which with the star of Eve might vie ; Oh ! that such lovely orlis as those Should sparkle at an apple-pie ! PROSODY. 173 " Thy love I thought was wholly mine, Thy heart I fondly hoped to rule ; Its throne I cannot but repine At sharing with a goosb'ry fool ! " Thou swear'st no flatterer can deceive Thy mind, — thy breast no coxcomb rifle ; Thou art no trifler, I believe. But why so plaguy fond of trifle ? " Why, when we 're wed — I don't intend To joke, Matilda, or be funny ; I really fear that you will spend The Honey Moon in eating honey ! "" Most dissyllabic nouns, having a diphthong in the latter syllable, have the accent also on that syllable: as, " A Hamlet that draws Is sure of applause." A Hamlet that draios ? There are not many who can give even an outline of the character. In a few words ending in ain the accent is placed on the former syllable : as, " Villain," which is pronounced as the natives of Whitechapel pronounce " willing." Those dissyllables, the vowels of which are separated in pronunciation, always have the ac- cent on the first syllable : as, lion, scion, &c. •i 3 174 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. When is a young and tender shoot Like a fond swain ? When 'tis a scion. What 's the most gentlemanly brute Like, of all flow'rs ? A dandy lion. ' Trisyllables, formed by adding a termination or prefixing a syllable, retain the accent of the ra- dical word : as, " Loveliness, shcepishness, Whig- gery, knavery, assurance." The first syllable of trisyllables ending in ous, al, ion, is accented in the generality of cases : as in the words " serious, capital," &c. " Dr. Johnson declared, with a serious face, That he reckoned a punster a villain : What would he have thought of the horrible case Of a man who makes jokes that are killing ? " In his diction to speak 'tis not easy for one Who must furnish both reason and rhyme ; " Sir, the rogue who has utter'd a capital pun. Has committed a capital crime." Trisyllables ending in c " is equivalent to asking if you think that the flavour of the pine-apple improves that especial form of alcohol. A well-known instance of an emphasis impro- j)erly placed was furnished by a certain Parson, who read a passage in the Old Testament in the following unlucky manner : " And he said unto his sons, Saddle me the ass; and they saddled ///w." Young ladies are usually very emphatic in ordi- nary discourse. " What a little dear I Oh ! how sweetly pretty ! Well ! 1 never did^ I declare ! So nice, and so innocent, and .so good-tempered, and so affectionate, and sucli a colour ! And oh ! such lovely eyes ! and such hair ! He was a little duck ! he teas, he ivas, he was. Tzig a tzig, tzig, tzig, tzig, tzig ! " &c. &c. &,c. PROSODY. 183 This emphatic way of speaking is indicative of two very amiable feelings implanted by nature in the female occiput, and called by the Phreno- logists Adhesiveness and Philoprogenitiveness. Those who attempt to imitate it will be conscious, 184 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. while forcing out their words, of a peculiar men- tal emotion, which we cannot explain otherwise than by saying, that it is analogous to that which attends the act of pressing or squeezing ; as when, with the thumb of the right hand, we knead one lump of putty to another, in the palm of the left. Perhaps we might also instance, suck- ing an orange. In all these cases, the organ of Weight, according to Phrenology, is also active; and this, perhaps, is one of the faculties which in- duce young ladies to lay a stress upon their words. Nevertheless, we fear that a damsel would hardly be pleased by being told that her weight was con- siderable, though it would, at the same time, griev- ously offend her to accuse her of lightness. Here we need scarcely observe, that we refer to light- ness, not of complexion, but of sentiment, which is always regarded as a dark shade in the character. This defect, we think, we may safely assert, will never be observed in emphatic fair ones. But we have not yet quite exhausted the sub- ject of emphasis, considered in relation to young ladies. Their letters are as emphatic as their lan- guage is, almost every third word being underlined. Such epistles, inasmuch as they are addressed to the heart, ought not to be submitted to the ear; nevertheless we must say that we have occasionally PROSODY. 185 been wicked and waggish enough to read them aloud — to ourselves alone, of course. The reader may, if he choose, follow our example. We sub- join a specimen of female correspondence, en- deared to us by many tender recollections, and admirably adapted to our present purpose. My dear Paul, When we left Toum on JVednesday last the weather was so very rainy that we were obliged to have the coach loindoios up. I was terribly afraid that Matilda and I would have caught our Death of cold; but thank Goodness no such un- toward event took place. It was very uncomfortable^ and I so wished you had been there. When we got home who do you think was there ? Mr. Sims ; and he said he thought that I was so much groicn. Only think. And so then you know we took some refreshment, for I assure you, what with the journey and altogether we were very nearly famished ; and w^e were all invited to go to the Chubbs' that Evening to a small Tea Party, for which I must own I thought Mr. Chubb a nice man. After tea we had a carpet waltz, and although I was very tired I enjoyed it much. There were some very pretty girls there, and one or two agreeable young jnen ; but oh ! &c. R 3 186 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. The remainder of this letter being of a nature personally interesting to ourselves only, and likely, in the opinion of some readers, to render its in- sertion attributable to motives of vanity, we shall not be found fault with for objecting to transcribe any more of it. SECTION IV. OF PAUSES. A Pause, otherwise called a rest, is an absolute cessation of the voice, in speaking or reading, during a perceptible interval, longer or shorter, of time. Comic Pauses often occur in Oratory. " Un- accustomed as I am to public speaking," is usually followed by a pause of this sort. A young gentle- man, his health having been drunk at a party, afforded, in endeavouring to return thanks, a signal illustration of the Pause Comic. " Gentlemen," he began, "the Ancient Romans," — (A pause), — "I say. Gentlemen, the Ancient Romans," — (Hear!) — "The Ancient Romans, Gentlemen," — (Bravo ! hear ! hear !) — " Gentlemen — that is — the Ancient Romans" — " were very fine fel- lows. Jack, I dare say," added a friend, pulling the speaker down by the coat-tail. That notable Ancient Roman, Brutus, is repre- sented by Shakspere as making a glorious pause : as. PROSODY. 187 " Who 's here so vile that would not love his country? If any, speak, for him have I offended. I pause for a reply." 188 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. Here, of course, Brutus pauses, folds his arms, and looks magnanimous. We have heard, though, of an idle and impudent schoolboy, who, at a public recitation, when he had uttered the words " I pause for a reply," gravely took out his pen- knife and began paring his nails. This was minding his j)airs with a vengeance. A very long pause, particularly accompanied by a very serious look on the part of the speaker, as good as tells the audience that something of great importance is coming. It is therefore ne- cessary to have something of real consequence to bring out. The following extract from a political harangue will show how essential it is to attend to this point : — " And, Gentlemen, when I consider, I say, when I consider the condition of the masses of this country, I do think, and it is my opinion, that the Government has much to answer for. But not to dwell on that point, what have been the deeds, what have been the proceedings, I may say, of the Government itself? They have increased taxation, they have swelled the National D<.'bt, they have assailed the liberty of the subject, they have trampled the })oor man in the dust; he asked for liberty, and they made him a slave ; he demanded PROSODY. 189 the Charter, and they loaded him with fetters ; he knelt for protection, and they gave him the Poor Law; he cried for bread, and they gave him the bayonet. By what name, by what term, by what expression, are we to designate such tyranny ? (A long pause) .... Gentlemen! — it is uncon- stitutional ! ! ! " SECTION V. OF TONES. Tones consist of the modulations of the voice, or the notes or variations of sound which we use in speaking: thus differing materially both from emphasis and pauses. An interesting diversity of tones is exhibited by the popular voice at an election. Also by dust-men, milk-women, and pot-boys; and by fruiterers, hearth- stone-venders, ballad- singers, Last-Dying-Speech-hawkers, and old clothesmen itinerant. We cannot exactly write tones (though it is easy enough to write notes), but we shall nevertheless endeavour to give some idea of their utility. A lover and a police-magistrate (unless the two characters should chance to be combined, which sometimes happens, that is, when the latter is a lover of justice) would say, " Answer me," in very different tones. 190 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. Observe, that two doves billing resemble two magistrates bowing ; — because they are beak to beak. A lover again would utter the words " For ever and ever," in a very ditFerent tone from that in which a Parish Clerk would repeat them. A young lady, on her first introduction to you, says, " Sir,"" in a tone very unlike that in which she sometime afterwards delivers herself of the same monosyllable when she is addressing you under the influence of jealousy. As to the word " Sir," the number of construc- tions which, according to the tone in which it is spoken, it may be made to bear, are incalculable. We may adduce a few instances. PROSODY. 191 " Please, Sir, let me off my imposition." « No, Sir ! " « Waiter ! you, Sir." " Yes, Sir ! yes, Sir ! " " Sir, I am greatly obliged to you." " Sir, you are quite welcome." " Your servant, Sir " (by a man who brings you a challenge). " 'Servant, Sir" (by a tailor bowing you to the door). " Sir, you are a gentleman ! " " Sir, you are a scoundrel ! " We need not go on with examples ad infinitum. If after what we have said anybody does not un- derstand the nature of Tone, all we shall say of him is, that he is a Tony Lumpkin. 192 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. CHAPTER II. OF VERSIFICATION. Hurrah ! It is with peculiar pleasure that we approach this part of Prosody ; and we have therefore pre- faced it with an exclamation indicative of delight. We belong to a class of persons to whom a cele- brated phrenological manipulator ascribes " some poetical feeling, if studied or called forth ;" and, to borrow another expression from the same quarter, we sometimes "versify a little ;" that is to say, we diversify our literary occupations by an occasional flirtation with the muses. Now it gives us great concern to observe that popular literature is be- coming very prosaic. Poetry and Boxing have gone out of favour together, and most probably, — though we have not quite time enough just at present to show how, — from the same cause; namely, bad taste. We mention Boxing along with Poetry, because it is remarkable that their decline should have been contemporaneous; and because PROSODY. 193 we are of those who beheve that there exists an essential similarity between all the branches of the Fine Arts ; and moreover, because — and we men- tion it as a fact no less singular in itself than cre- ditable to the paper in question — that a cele- brated weekly periodical bestows especial patron- age on both. With regard to Boxing, we are glad to see that a few patriotic individuals have of late been endeavouring to revive the taste for it; and we have some hope that their exertions, backed by certain cases of stabbing which every nov/ and then occur, will eventually prove successful. But no one can be found to labour in an equal degree for the advancement of poetry. Our innate modesty is prompting us to say, that we fear we can do but little in the cause; but early impressions are known to be very strong and lasting : and we have a notion that, in teaching youth to make verses, we shall in a great degree contribute to the breeding up of a race of poets, and thereby secure, not only laurels, at least, for them, but also gratitude, vene- ration, and all that kind of thing, for ourselves. We have a great respect for the memory of our old schoolmaster; notwithstanding which, we think we can beat him (which, we shall be told by the wags, would be tit for tat) at poet-making, though, indeed, he was a magician in his way. " I '11 make s 194 THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. thee a poet, my boy," he used to say, " or the rod shall." Let us try what we can do. A verse consists of a certain number and variety of syllables, put together and arranged according to certain laws. Verses being also called dulcet strains, harmo- nious numbers, tuneful lays, and so forth, it is clear that such combination and arrangement must be so made as to please the ear. Versification is the making of verses. This seems such a truism as to be not worth stating; but it is necessary to define what Versification is, because many people suppose it to be the same thing with poetry. We will prove that it is not. " Much business in the Funds has lately been Transacted various monied men between ; Though speculation early in the week Went slowly ; nought was done whereof to speak. The largest operations, it was found. Were twenty-five and fifty thousand /;oMW