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B. As far then as regards the Article, Mr. Harris seems at present to be the author most likely to meet with your approbation: for he not only establishes its necessity, in order "to circumscribe the latitude of genera and species," and therefore treats of it separately; but has raised it to a degree of importance much beyond all other modern Grammarians. And though he admits of only two Articles, "properly and strictly so called," viz. A and THE; yet has he assigned to these two little words full one-fourth part in his distribution of language: which, you know, is into-" Substantives, Attributives, Definitives, and Connectives."

H.—If Mr. Harris has not entirely secured my concurrence with his doctrine of Definitives, I must confess he has at least taken effectual care to place it compleatly beyond the reach of confutation.

He says,

1. "The Articles have no meaning, but when associated to some other word."

2. "Nothing can be more nearly related than the Greek article 'O to the English article THE."

3. "But the article A defines in an imperfect manner." 4. "Therefore the Greeks have no article correspondent to our article A.”

5. However, "they supply its place."

-And How, think you?

6. "By a Negation"—(observe well their method of supply) -"by a negation of their article 'O;" (that is, as he well explains himself,)-" without any thing prefixed, but only the article 'O withdrawn."

7. "Even in English, we also express the force of the article A, in plurals, by the same negation of the article THE."1

"It is perhaps owing to the imperfect manner in which the Article A defines, that the Greeks have no article correspondent to it, but supply its place by a negation of their Article 'O.-'0 avôρwños eñεσeν, THE man fell; aveрwños eneσev, ▲ man fell ;-without any thing prefixed, but only the Article withdrawn.

"Even in English, where the Article A cannot be used, as in plurals, its force is expressed by the same negation.-Those are THE men, means, Those are individuals of which we possess some previous knowledge.Those are men, the Article apart, means no more than they are so many vague and uncertain individuals; just as the phrase,-A man, in the singular, implies one of the same number."-Book 2. chap. 1.

Now here I acknowledge myself to be compleatly thrown out; and, like the philosopher of old, merely for want of a firm resting-place on which to fix my machine: for it would have been as easy for him to raise the earth with a fulcrum of ether, as for me to establish any reasoning or argument on this sort of negation. For, "nothing being prefixed," I cannot imagine in what manner or in what respect a negation of 'O or of THE, differs from a negation of Harris or of Pudding. For lack however of the light of comprehension, I must do as other Grammarians do in similar situations, attempt to illustrate by a parallel.

I will suppose Mr. Harris (when one of the Lords of the Treasury) to have addressed the Minister in the same style of reasoning." Salaries, Sir, produce no benefit, unless associated to some receiver: my salary at present is but an imperfect provision for myself and family: but your salary as Minister is much more compleat. Oblige me therefore by withdrawing my present scanty pittance; and supply its place to me by a negation of your salary."-I think this request could not reasonably have been denied: and what satisfaction Mr. Harris would have felt by finding his theory thus reduced to practice, no person can better judge than myself; because I have experienced a conduct not much dissimilar from the Rulers of the Inner Temple: who, having first inticed me to quit one profession, after many years of expectation, have very handsomely supplied its place to me by a negation of the other.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE three following chapters (except some small alterations and additions) have already been given to the public in A Letter to Mr. DUNNING in the year 1778: which, though published, was not written on the spur of the occasion. The substance of that Letter, and of all that I have further to communicate on the subject of Language, has been amongst the loose papers in my closet now upwards of thirty years; and would probably have remained there some years longer, and

have been finally consigned with myself to oblivion, if I had not been made the miserable victim of-Two Prepositions and a Conjunction.

The officiating Priests indeed' were themselves of rank and eminence sufficient to dignify and grace my fall. But that the Conjunction THAT, and the Prepositions or and CONCERNING (words which have hitherto been held to have No meaning) should be made the abject instruments of my civil extinction, (for such was the intention, and such has been the consequence of my prosecution,) appeared to me to make my exit from civil life as degrading as if I had been brained by a lady's fan. For 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 grimgribber of Westminster-Hall is a more fertile, and a much more formidable, source of imposture than the abracadabra of magicians.

Upon a motion made by me in arrest of judgment in the Court of King's Bench in the year 1777, the Chief Justice adjourned the decision: and instead of arguments on the merits of my objection, (which however by a side-wind were falsely represented by him as merely literal flaws,) desired that Precedents might be brought by the Attorney General on a future day. None were however adduced but by the Chief Justice himself; who indeed produced two. (Thereby depriving me of the opportunity of combating the Precedents and their application, which I should have had if they had been produced by the Attorney General.) And on the strength of these two Precedents alone, (forgetting his own description

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Attorney General Thurlow-since Chancellor and a Peer.
Solicitor General Wedderburne-since Chancellor and a Peer.

Earl Mansfield, Chief Justice.

Mr. Buller-since a Judge.

Mr. Wallace-since Attorney General.

Mr. Mansfield-since Solicitor General and C. J. of the C. Pleas.

Mr. Bearcroft-since Chief Justice of Chester.

"Lord Mansfield,

"If the Defendant has a legal advantage from a Literal flaw, God forbid that he should not have the benefit of it."-Proceedings in K. B. The King against Horne.

"Lord Mansfield,

"I fancy the Attorney General was surprized with the objection."

and distinction of the crime to the Jury,) he decided against me.1

I say, on the strength of these two precedents alone. For the gross perversion and misapplication of the technical term de bene esse, was merely pour éblouir, to introduce the proceedings on the trial, and to divert the attention from the only point in question-the sufficiency of the charge in the Record. -And I cannot believe that any man breathing (except Lord

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1 The Attorney General, in his reply, said to the Jury, "Let us a little see what is the nature of the observations he makes. In the first place, that I left it exceedingly short and the objection to my having left it short, was simply this; that I had stated no more to you but this, that of imputing to the conduct of the King's troops the crime of murder. Now I stated it, as imputed to the troops, ORDERED as they were upon the PUBLIC SERVICE.'

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Lord Mansfield to the Jury: "Read the paper. What is it? Why it is this; that our beloved American Fellow-subjects-in REBELLION against the State-not beloved so as to be abetted in their REBELLION." Again,-" What is the employment they (the troops) are ORDERED upon? Why then what are they who gave the Orders? Draw the conclusion." Again,-" The unhappy resistance to the LEGISLATIVE AUTHORITY of this kingdom by many of our Fellow-subjects in America: the LEGISLATURE of this kingdom have avowed that the Americans REBELLED: Troops are EMPLOYED upon this ground. The case is here between a just Government and REBELLIOUS subjects."-Again, "You will read this paper; you will judge whether it is not denying the Government and Legislative authority of England.” And again," If you are of opinion that they were all murdered (like the cases of undoubted murders, of Glenco, and twenty other massacres that might be named), why then you may form a different conclusion."

And again-" If some soldiers, Without authority, had got in a drunken fray, and murder had ensued, and that this paper could relate to that, it would be quite a different thing from the charge in the information: BECAUSE it is charged-as a seditious Libel tending to disquiet the minds of the People." (See the Trial.)

A man must be not only well practised, but even hackneyed in our Courts of Justice to discover the above description of my crime in the Prepositions OF and CONCERNING. Be that as it may: It is evident that the Attorney General and the Chief Justice did not expect the Jury to be so enlightened; and therefore (when I had no longer a right to open my lips) they described a crime to them in that plain language which I still contend I had a right to expect in the Information; BECAUSE " A seditious Libel tending to disquiet the minds of the people,' -has been determined to be mere paper and packthread, and no part of the Charge.

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Mansfield) either in the profession or out of it, will think it an argument against the validity of my objection; that it was brought forward only by myself, and had not been alleged before by the learned Counsel for the Printers. This, however, I can truly tell his lordship; that the most learned of them all (absit invidia), Mr. Dunning, was not aware of the objection when I first mentioned it to him; that he would not believe the information could be so defective in all its Counts till I produced to him an Office Copy: when to his astonishment he found it so, he felt no jealousy that the objection had been missed by himself; but declared it to be insuperable and fatal: and bad me rest assured, that whatever might be Lord Mansfield's wishes, and his courage on such occasions, he would not dare to overrule the objection. And when, after the close of the first day, I hinted to him my suspicions of Lord Mansfield's intentions by the "God forbid ;" and by the perverted and misapplied "De bene esse," in order to mix the proceedings on the trial with the question of record; he smiled at it, as merely a method which his lordship took of letting the matter down gently, and breaking the abruptness of his fall.

Strange as it may appear! One of those Precedents was merely imagined by the Chief Justice, but never really existed. And the other (through ignorance of the meaning of the Conjunction THAT) had never been truly understood; neither by the Counsel who originally took the exception, nor perhaps by the Judges who made the decision, nor by the Reporter of it, nor by the present Chief Justice who quoted and misapplied it.

Mr. Dunning undertook to prove (and did actually prove in the House of Lords) the non-existence of the main precedent. And I undertook, in that Letter to Mr. Dunning, to shew the real merits and foundation, and consequently Lord Mansfield's misapplication of the other. And I undertook this, because it afforded a very striking instance of the importance of the meaning of words; not only (as has been too lightly supposed) to Metaphysicians and School-men, but to the rights and happiness of mankind in their dearest concerns the decisions of Courts of Justice.

In the House of Lords these two Precedents (the foundation of the Judgment in the Court of King's Bench) were abandoned and the description of my crime against Government

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