THE EDITOR'S PREFACE

TO THE EDITION OF 1829.

IN preparing for the press and printing this enlarged edition of Mr. Horne Tooke's Diversions of Purley, an undertaking assigned to me by the Publisher, on his becoming possessed, by assignment from the Author's representatives, of the copy containing his last corrections and additions, it has been my endeavour in the first place to remove the many inaccuracies of the former Edition by a collation of the citations in which the work abounds with the originals so far as they were within my reach; and, next, to incorporate in it, as well as I was able, the new materials in such a manner as should not interfere with the integrity of the former text. As these additions, written in the Author's interleaved copy, and which especially in the Second Part are very abundant, were wholly without any references connecting them with the text, and sometimes written at a distance of several pages from the passages, to which they seemed to belong, I must beg the Reader's indulgence if I should at any time have failed in this part of my task; reminding him that, all the new matter being distinguished by brackets' [], he may use his own judgement as to its relation to the text.

A work of such celebrity, connected with studies to

The brackets in p. 201-212, do not, as elsewhere, denote new matter.

which I had been much attached, having been thus intrusted to my care, I was tempted, during its progress, to hazard a few notes in my capacity of Editor: and though it may have been presumptuous in me to place any observations or conjectures of mine on the pages of Mr. Tooke, yet I must plead in excuse the interest excited by the investigations which they contain.

ADDITIONAL NOTES

BY THE EDITOR1.

P. 38. GRIMGRIBBER.

"Mankind in general are not sufficiently aware that words without meaning, or of equivocal meaning, are the everlasting engines of fraud and injustice and that the grimgribber2 of Westminster Hall is a more fertile, and a much more formidable, source of imposture than the abracadabra of magicians."Mr. Tooke makes this remark after having stated that his first publication on language was occasioned by his having "been made the victim" in a Court of Law "of Two Prepositions and a Conjunction," OF and CONCERNING, and THAT, "the abject

1 The number of these notes has been considerably increased in the present Edition.

2 I know not whence Mr. Tooke got this word, which was also used by Mr. Bentham, to mean, I suppose, the jargon used as a cover for legal sophistry. It may be connected with Grimoire, respecting which Dr. Percy has the following note :-"The word Gramarye, which occurs several times in the foregoing poem (King Estmere), is probably a corruption of the French word Grimoire, which signifies a Conjuring Book in the old French romances, if not the art of necromancy itself."Vol. i. p. 77. Perhaps both are referable to Grammar,' which might have been looked upon as a kind of magic. The French Grimaude is a grammar-school boy. May not also the Scotch Glamer, Glamour, a charm, have the same origin?

instruments of his civil extinction." In a recent case the Preposition UPON seems to have played a similar part in the hands of some who "perché non erano grammatici, eran perciò cattivi legisti."

The point at issue was the meaning of UPON, as a preposition of Time, that is, as employed to express the relation as to time between two acts; the Declaration now required of magistrates, &c., by the Act 9th Geo. IV., being directed to be subscribed "within one calendar month next before, or UPON admission to office." If then the Declaration shall not have been subscribed within the space of one month next before admission, it is to be subscribed UPON admission. "The words 'next before,' of course," says the Attorney-General, "are clear; next before must make it antecedent to his admission."—Q. B. p. 68'. And let us be thankful that next before is still permitted to mean antecedent. But alas for the doubts and difficulties in which the other alternative is involved! Does UPON also mean antecedent to?

or subsequent?

"That 'upon' may mean before there can be no doubt at all;" says the Attorney-General.-Q. B. p. 16. Now here it is upon his admission' that he is to do this. I say that that is before he is admitted."" "I do not say that 'upon' is always synonymous with 'before.' It may possibly be after, it may be concurrent, but it may be prior?".-ib. p. 15. "One of your Lordships mentioned," adds Sir J. Campbell, “looking to this very Rule, that it was drawn up UPON reading the affidavit of David Salomons.' The affidavit had been read before your Lordships granted the Rule. Now your Lordships will read 'upon' as meaning before, if in that way the intention of the legislature will best be effected." -p. 16. "Lord DENMAN. Upon reading the affidavits' is 'after reading the affidavits.' Then if the two are analogous, upon admission' is * after admission;' so that it will be after his admission that he is to make the Declaration. ATTORNEY-GENERAL.-Suppose it were, that upon making the Declaration he is to be admitted. Mr. Justice PATTESON.-That would be intelligible: and then I should say the Declaration would be first. Mr. Justice COLERIDGE.-But here it is, that upon admission he is to make the Declaration :. . . . . You say, it means before. Read it so; then it is 'shall within one month next before, or before his admission." "-Q. B. 17, 18.

1 The extracts marked Q. B. are from the arguments in the Queen's Bench, 1838; and those marked Exch. are from the Proceedings in the Exchequer Chamber on a Writ of Error, 1839; both printed from the Notes of Mr. Gurney.

Sir F. Pollock says, with perfect truth, it has son bearing the import of before."

no meaning in John

"Sir F. POLLOCK.-Now, my Lords, the question is, What is the meaning of the word 'UPON'? .... In the first place, in plain English, among a number of meanings given to 'upon'-upwards of twenty, I think.— Mr. Justice LITTLEDALE.-Twenty-three, I think : and there may be a great many more enumerated from Johnson's Dictionary. Mr. Justice COLERIDGE. It could hardly mean either indefinitely before, or indefinitely after, for that would be no time; then you must add something to the words before or after. Sir F. POLLOCK. -My Lord, there is no meaning in Johnson bearing the import of before. Mr. Justice LITTLEDALE.-There is one which means concurrently'2: that is, I think, the eighteenth. Sir F. POLLOCK.-There is one which is in consequence of;' then if it is to be in consequence of admission, admission is to come before it. There is another,supposing a thing granted' here admission was not granted, but refused. There is another, in consideration of,' which certainly does not import that the act done in consideration, is to go before the act in consideration of which it is done; and there is another, which is at the time of, or on occasion of.' Mr. Justice LITTLEDALE.-That is the one I meant to refer to. Sir F. POLLOCK.-But there is a general observation in Johnson in connection with all these. It always retains an intimation, more or less obscure, of some substratum, something precedent.' Now, my Lord, let us see what are the legal instances in which the word 'upon'.is used. I am quite surprised, I own, that my learned friend should refer to the expression on payment of costs,' and 'upon reading the affidavit,' to show that the admission is to come after, because the payment of costs comes before; and it is the second time3 he has fallen into the error. Says my learned friend, upon the payment of costs' means that payment of costs is to come first, and therefore on admission' means that admission is to come last; that is really my learned friend's argument. ... Upon reading the affidavit' certainly imports that the rule is granted after that; and that is one instance in which it is impossible not to perceive that upon' must import the precedence of the act which is so introduced."-Q. B. pp. 39, 40.

Several of these are, as is usual with Johnson, meanings not of the word he explains, but of some other word in the sentence: thus, 2. Thrown over the body. Thrown her night gown upon her." 3. By way of imprecation. "My blood upon your heads;"-"Sorrow on thee." 5. Hardship or mischief. 'If we would neither impose upon ourselves." In these it is clear that throw, body, imprecation, mischief, blood, or sorrow, are no meanings of upon. As well might it be said that upon means blessing, "Blessings on thee!”—or ink, Ink upon paper."

2 The example quoted is from Swift: "The king upon this news marched." The news obviously preceded the marching; and they were not concurrent.-ED.

3 It will be seen in the subsequent proceedings, that Sir J. Campbell does not abandon this mode of reasoning, by which it might as well be proved that after means before. "B comes after A: then A comes before B:-Therefore after means before.-Q. E. D.”

Notwithstanding Sir J. Campbell's suggestion that the law was to be expounded "without very nicely scanning or criticizing the language employed,"-p. 24; and "without entering into any very nice criticism of the words,"-p. 65; "the lauguage employed" being "not very happily selected," p. 68, the Court of Queen's Bench gave the following clear and straightforward judgement :

'We are of opinion that, as the Declaration is to be made upon admission, the Admission is the first thing to be done."-Judgement of the Court, delivered by Lord Chief Justice Denman, p. 54.

This judgement has, however, since been reversed by the other Judges in the Exchequer Chamber, and the question decided on grounds quite independent of philology. Sir J. Campbell thus objects to it, in the proceedings on the Writ of Error, 1839:

"The effect of this decision of the Court of Queen's Bench is, that a Jew or a Mahometan may be Lord Mayor of London."-Exch. p. 12. "My Lords, can your Lordships suppose that those who framed that Act of Parliament really had it in contemplation that there might be a mayor of any corporation in England who was a Mahometan or a Pagan?”—p. 71. "There certainly was the greatest anxiety that no one should be admitted until he had made a declaration in the form given; so that no one who was not a Christian-that neither Jew nor Papist nor Infidel-should be allowed to be admitted."—p. 12.

"Sir F. POLLOCK.-My learned friend seems to me to have a pious and a Christian horror of a Jew wearing the Lord Mayor's chain:" yet "a Jew may be Lord Chancellor, Lord Treasurer...."-Exch. p. 37. "The Court of Queen's Bench have chosen to put their Judgement upon the broad plain ground; they say 'upon' means after; and we can give no sensible construction to the Act unless we so read it.”p. 59. "There is nothing in which the dexterity of an advocate is so conspicuous as in turning the question. In the Court below, my learned friend said the question was this,-whether corporations should be inundated with Jews, Turks, and Atheists: at any rate, my Lords, that is not the legal question."-p. 70.

"ATT. GEN.—I acknowledge that my learned friend will find no difficulty in citing instances where 'upon' means after; where' upon' doing an act means after doing the act; but there are others where 'upon' doing the act means before the act is done. Suppose a new trial granted upon' payment of costs; the costs are to be paid before the new trial takes place. Sir F. POLLOCK.-The payment of costs comes first:-and here we say the admission comes first."-Exch. p. 27. “ATT. GEN.—There are, I think, thirty meanings given in Johnson's Dictionary to the word 'upon.' Baron ALDERSON. If one man is to do one thing upon another man's doing another, then each