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from the Greek TаToc; or Theot. Hoн; or the AngloSaxon Deah. But our English words Head and Heaven are evidently the past participles Heaved and Heaven of the verb To Heave: as the Anglo-Saxon Deafod, Deard, caput, and Deofen, Deafen, cœlum, are the past participles of the verb Deafan, Deofan, to heave, to lift up. Whence Upon also may easily be derived, and with the same signification. And

I believe that the names of all abstract relation (as it is called) are taken either from the adjectived common names of objects, or from the participles of common verbs. The relations of place are more commonly from the names of some parts of our body; such as, Head, Toe, Breast, Side, Back, Womb, Skin, &c.

Wilkins seems to have felt something of this sort, when he made his ingenious attempt to explain the local prepositions by the help of a man's figure in the following Diagram. But confining his attention to ideas (in which he was followed by Mr. Locke), he overlooked the etymology of words, which are their signs, and in which the secret lay.

"For the clearer explication of these local prepositions (says he) I shall refer to this following Diagram. In which

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by the oval figures are represented the prepositions determined to motion, wherein the acuter part doth point out the tendency of that motion. The squares are intended to signify rest or the term of motion. And by the round figures are represented such relative prepositions, as may indifferently refer either to motion or rest."

In all probability the Abbé de l'Epée borrowed his method of teaching the prepositions to his deaf and dumb scholars from this notion of Wilkins.

"Tout ce que je puis regarder directement en Face, est Devant moi tout ce que je ne peux voir sans retourner la tête de l'autre côté, est Derrière moi.

"S'agissoit-il de faire entendre qu'une action étoit passée? Il jettoit au hasard deux ou trois fois sa main du côté de son épaule. Enfin s'il désiroit annoncer une action future, il faisoit avancer sa main droite directement devant lui."-Des Sourds et Muets, 2 édit. P. 54.

You will not expect me to waste a word on the prepositions touching, concerning, regarding, respecting, relating to, saving, except, excepting, according to, granting, allowing, considering, notwithstanding, neighbouring, &c., nor yet on the compound prepositions In-to, Un-to, Un-till, Out-of, Through-out, Fromoff, &c.

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B.-I certainly should not, if you had explained all the simple terms of which the latter are compounded. I acknowledge that the meaning and etymology of some of your prepositions are sufficiently plain and satisfactory and of the others I shall not permit myself to entertain a decided opinion till after a more mature consideration. Pedetentim progredi, was our old favourite motto and caution, when first we began together in our early days to consider and converse upon philosophical subjects; and, having no fanciful system of my own to mislead me, I am not yet prepared to relinquish it. But there still remain five simple prepositions, of which you have not yet taken the smallest notice. How do you account for IN, OUT, ON, OFF, and AT?

H.-Oh! As for these, I must fairly answer you with Martin Luther," Je les défendrois aisément devant le Pape, mais je ne sçais comment les justifier devant le Diable." With the common run of Etymologists, I should make no bad figure by repeating what others have said concerning them; but I

despair of satisfying you with any thing they have advanced or I can offer, because I cannot altogether satisfy myself. The explanation and etymology of these words require a degree of knowledge in all the antient northern languages, and a skill in the application of that knowledge, which I am very far from assuming and, though I am almost persuaded by some of my own conjectures concerning them', I am not willing, by an apparently forced and far-fetched derivation, to justify your imputation of etymological legerdemain. Nor do I think any further inquiry necessary to justify my conclusion concerning the prepositions; having, in my opinion, fully intitled myself to the application of that axiom of M. de Brosses (Art. 215.)-"La preuve connue d'un grand nombre de mots d'une espèce, doit établir une précepte générale sur les autres mots de même espèce, à l'origine desquels on ne peut plus remonter. On doit en bonne logique juger des choses que l'on ne peut connoitre, par celles de même espèce qui sont bien connues; en les ramenant à un principe dont l' évidence se fait appercevoir par tout où la vue peut s'étendre."

CHAPTER X.

OF ADVERBS.

B. THE first general division of words (and that which has been and still is almost universally held by Grammarians) is into Declinable and Indeclinable. All the Indeclinables except the Adverb, we have already considered. And though Mr. Harris has taken away the Adverb from its old station amongst the other Indeclinables, and has, by a singular whim of his own, made it a secondary class of Attributives, or (as he calls them) Attributes of Attributes; yet neither does he nor any other Grammarian seem to have any clear notion of its nature and character.

In the Gothic and Anglo-Saxon, ÏNNA, inna, means uterus, viscera, venter, interior pars corporis. (Inna, inne, is also in a secondary sense used for cave, cell, cavern.) And there are some etymological reasons which make it not improbable that our derives from a word originally meaning skin. I am inclined to believe that IN and out come originally from two Nouns meaning those two parts of the body.

B. Jonson' and Wallis and all others, I think, seem to confound it with the Prepositions, Conjunctions, and Interjections. And Servius (to whom learning has great obligations) advances something which almost justifies you for calling this class, what you lately termed it, the common sink and repository of all heterogeneous, unknown corruptions. For, he says,"Omnis pars orationis, quando desinit esse quod est, migrat in Adverbium."

H.-I think I can translate Servius intelligibly-Every word, quando desinit esse quod est, when a Grammarian knows not what to make of it, migrat in Adverbium, he calls an Adverb.

These Adverbs however (which are no more a separate part of speech than the particles we have already considered) shall give us but little trouble, and shall waste no time for I need not repeat the reasoning which I have already used with the Conjunctions and Prepositions.

All Adverbs ending in LY (the most prolific branch of the family) are sufficiently understood: the termination (which alone causes them to be denominated Adverbs) being only the word LIKE corrupted; and the corruption so much the more easily and certainly discovered, as the termination remains more pure and distinguishable in the other sister languages, the German, the Dutch, the Danish, and the Swedish; in which it is written lich, lyk, lig, liga. And the Encyclopædia Britannica informs us, that-"In Scotland the word Like is at this day frequently used instead of the English termination Ly. As, for a goodly figure, the common people say, a good

like figure."

ADRIFT

is the past participle Adrifed, Adrif'd, Adrift, of the AngloSaxon verb Dɲipan, Adɲifan, To Drive.

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Prepositions are a peculiar kind of Adverbs, and ought to be referred thither."-B. Jonson's Grammar.

"Interjectio posset ad Adverbium reduci; sed quia majoribus nostris placuit illam distinguere; non est cur in re tam tenui hæreamus.”Caramuel.

CHEZ est plutôt dans notre langue un Adverbe qu'une Particule.” -De Brosses.

nella.

"Recte dictum est ex omni adjectivo fieri adverbium."-Campa

"And quhat auenture has the hiddir DRIFFE ?"

i. e. Driffed or Driffen.

Douglas, booke 3. p. 79.

AGHAST, AGAST,

may be the past participle Agazed.

"The French exclaim'd-The Devil was in arms.

All the whole army stood AGAZED on him.”

First Part of Henry 6, act 1. sc. 1.

Agazed may mean, made to gaze: a verb built on the verb

To gaze.

In King Lear (act 2. sc. 1.) Edmund says of Edgar,

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Gasted, i. e. made aghast: which is again a verb built on the participle aghast. This progressive building of verb upon verb is not an uncommon practice in language.

In Beaumont and Fletcher's Wit at several Weapons, (act 2.) "Sir Gregory Fopp, a witless lord of land," says of his clown,

"If the fellow be not out of his wits, then will I never have any more. wit whilst I live; either the sight of the lady has GASTERED him, or else he 's drunk."

I do not bring this word as an authority, nor do I think it calls for any explanation. It is spoken by a fool of a fool; and may be supposed an ignorantly coined or fantastical cant word; or corruptly used for Gasted.

An objection may certainly be made to this derivation: because the word AGAST always, I believe, denotes a considerable degree of terror; which is not denoted by the verb To Gaze: for we may gaze with delight, with wonder or admiration, without the least degree of fear. If I could have found written (as I doubt not there was in speech) a Gothic verb formed upon the Gothic nouns ArIS, which means Fear and Trembling (the long-sought etymology of our English word Ague'); I should have avoided this objection, and with full

1 Junius says "AGUE, febris. G. Aigu est acutus. Nihil nempe usitatius est quam acutas dicere febres."

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