Giran; and in those languages, as well as in the English formerly, this supposed conjunction was pronounced and written as the common imperative, purely гIE, GIF, Gif.—Thus in B. Jonson's Sad Shepherd (which though it be

Hath lotted her to be your brother's mistresse,

GIF she can be reclaim'd; GIF not, his prey."

And accordingly our corrupted IF has always the signification of the present English imperative GIVE, and no other. So that the resolution of the construction in the instance I produced from Shakespeare, will be as before in the others.

"The King may have forgotten your good deserts; GIVE THAT in any way; he bids you name your griefs."

And here, as an additional proof, we may observe, that whenever the datum, upon which any conclusion depends, is a sentence; the article THAT, if not expressed, is always understood, and may be inserted after IF. As in the instance I have produced above, the poet might have

said

"GIF (THAT) she can be reclaim'd," &c.

For the resolution is,

"She can be reclaim'd, GIVE THAT; my largesse hath lotted her to be your brother's mistresse. She cannot be reclaim'd, GIVE THAT; my largesse hath lotted her to be your brother's prey."

But the article THAT is not understood, and cannot be inserted after IF; where the datum is not a sentence, but some noun governed by the verb IF or GIVE. As

EXAMPLE.

"How will the weather dispose of you tomorrow? IF fair, it will send me abroad: IF foul, it will keep me at home."

Here we cannot say—“ IF that fair, it will send me abroad: IF that foul, it will keep me at home."

Because in this case the verb IF governs the noun: and the resolved construction is

RESOLUTION.

"GIVE fair weather, it will send me abroad: GIVE foul weather, it will keep me at home."

But make the datum a sentence; as

"IF it is fair weather, it will send me abroad: IF it is foul weather, it will keep me at home;

And then the article THAT is understood, and may be inserted after IF. As," IF THAT it is fair weather, it will send me abroad: IF THAT it is foul weather, it will keep me at home."-The resolution then. being" It is fair weather, GIVE THAT, it will send me abroad: It is foul weather, GIVE THAT, it will keep me at home."

And this you will find to hold universally, not only with IF, but with many other supposed conjunctions, such as unless that, though that, lest that, &c. (which are really verbs,) put in this manner before the article

THAT.

We have in English another word, which (though now rather obsolete) used frequently to supply the place of IF. As,

cr AN you had an eye behind you, you might see more detraction at your heels, than fortunes before you.'

No doubt it will be asked; in this and in all similar instances what is AN ?

I do not know that any person has ever attempted to explain it, except Dr. S. Johnson in his Dictionary. He says,-" AN is sometimes, in old authors, a contraction of AND IF."-Of which he gives a very unlucky instance from Shakespeare; where both AN and IF are used in the same line;

An honest mind and plain; he must speak truth!
AN they will take it,-So. IF NOT, he's plain."

Where if AN was a contraction of AND IF; AN and IF should rather change places.

But I can by no means agree with Johnson's account. A part of one word only, employed to shew that another word is compounded with it, would indeed be a curious method of contraction: although even this account of it would serve my purpose: but the truth will serve it better: for AN is also a verb, and may very well supply the place of IF: it being nothing else but the imperative mood of the Anglo-Saxon verb Anan, which likewise means to GIVE or to GRANT.

Nor does AN ever (as Johnson supposes) signify AS IF; nor is it a contraction of them.

I know indeed that Johnson produces Addison's authority for it.

My next pretty correspondent, like Shakespeare's Lion in Pyramus and Thisbe, roars AN it were any nightingale."

Now if Addison had so written, I should answer roundly, that he had written false English. But he never did so write. He only quoted it in mirth. And Johnson, an editor of Shakespeare, ought to have

known and observed it. And then, instead of Addison's, or even Shakespeare's authority from whom the expression is borrowed; he should have quoted Bottom's, the Weaver; whose language corresponds with the character Shakespeare has given him.1

"I will aggravate my voice so (says Bottom) that I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove: I will roar you AN 'twere any nightingale.” If Johnson is satisfied with such authority as this for the different signification and propriety of English words; he will find enough of it amongst the clowns in all our comedies; and Master Bottom in particular, in this very sentence, will furnish him with many new meanings. But, I believe, Johnson will not find AN used for AS IF, either seriously or clownishly, in any other part of Addison or Shakespeare, except in this speech of Bottom, and in another of Hostess Quickly

"He made a finer end, and went away AN it had been any Christom child."

Now when I say that these two English words IF and AN which have been called conditional conjunctions, (and whose force and manner of signification, as well as of the other conjunctions we are directed by Mr. Locke to search after in-" the several views, postures, stands, turns, limitations, and exceptions, and several other thoughts of the mind for which we have either none or very deficient names,") when I say that they are merely the original Imperatives of the verbs to GIVE or to GRANT; I would not be understood to mean that the conditional conjunctions of all other languages are likewise to be found, like IF and AN, in the original imperatives of some of their own or derived verbs meaning to GIVE. No, if that were my opinion, it would instantly be confuted by the conditionals of the Greek and Latin and Irish and many living languages. But I mean that those words which are called conditional conjunctions are to be accounted for, in ALL languages, in the same manner as I have accounted for IF and AN. Not indeed that they must all mean precisely as these two do,-GIVE and GRANT; but some word equivalent. Such as, Be it, Suppose, Allow, Permit, Suffer, &c.

Which meaning is to be sought for from the particular etymology of each language; not from some unnamed and unknown-" turns, stands, postures, &c. of the mind."

In short, to put this matter out of doubt, I mean to discard all supposed mystery, not only about these Conditionals, but about all those words also which Mr. Harris and others distinguish from Prepositions, and call Conjunctions of sentences. I deny them to be a separate sort of words, or part of speech by themselves. For they have not a sepa

1 "The shallow'st thickscull of that barren sort,
A crew of patches, rude mechanicals,

That work for bread upon Athenian stalls."

rate manner of signification: although they are not "devoid of signification." And the particular signification of each must be sought for from amongst the other parts of speech, by the help of the particular etymology of each respective language. By such means alone can we clear away the obscurity and errors in which grammarians and philosophers have been involved by the corruption of some common words and the useful Abbreviations of Construction. And at the same time we shall get rid of that farrago of useless distinctions into Conjunctive, Adjunctive, Disjunctive, Sub-disjunctive, Copulative, Continuative, Subcontinuative, Positive, Suppositive, Causal, Collective, Effective, Approbative, Discretive, Ablative, Præsumptive, Abnegative, Completive, Preventive, Adversative, Concessive, Motive, Conductive, &c. &c. &c. -which explain nothing; and (as most other technical terms are abused) serve only to throw a veil over the ignorance of those who employ them.

You will easily perceive, Sir, by what I have said, that I mean flatly to contradict Mr. Harris's definition of a Conjunction; which, he says, is—“ A part of speech devoid of signification itself, but so formed as to help signification by making two or more significant sentences to be one significant sentence."

And I have the less scruple to do that; because Mr. Harris makes no scruple to contradict himself. For he afterwards acknowledges that some of them—“ have a kind of obscure signification, when taken alone; and that they appear in grammar like Zoophytes in Nature, a kind of middle beings of amphibious character, which, by sharing the attributes of the higher and the lower, conduce to link the whole together."

Now I suppose it is impossible to convey a Nothing in a more ingenious manner. How much superior is this to the oracular Saw of another learned author on language (Lord Monboddo), who amongst much other intelligence of equal importance, tells us with a very solemn face, and ascribes it to Plato, that-" Every man that opines must opine something, the subject of opinion therefore is not nothing."

1

But Mr. Harris has the advantage of a similie over this gentleman: and though similies appear with most beauty and propriety in works of imagination, they are frequently found most useful to the authors of philosophical treatises and have often helped them out at many a dead lift, by giving them an appearance of saying something, when indeed they had nothing to say. But we may depend upon it,-Nubila mens est, hæc ubi regnant. As a proof of which, let us only examine

1 "Il possède l'antiquité, comme on le peut voir par les belles remarques qu'il a faites. Sans lui nous ne sçaurions pas que dans la ville d'Athènes les enfans pleuroisat quand on leur donnoit le fouet.-Nous devons cette découverte à sa profonde érudition."

the present instance, and see what intelligence we can draw from Mr. Harris concerning the nature of Conjunctions.

First, he says (and makes it a part of their definition) that they are "devoid of signification." 1 Afterwards he allows that they have " a kind of signification." "But this kind of signification is obscure," i. e. a signification unknown: something I suppose (as Chillingworth couples them) like a secret tradition, or a silent thunder; for it amounts to the same thing as a signification which does not signify: an obscure or unknown signification being no signification at all. But not contented with these inconsistencies, which to a less learned man would seem sufficient of all conscience, Mr. Harris goes further, and adds, that they are a—“kind of middle beings" (he must mean between signification and no signification); "sharing the attributes of both;" (i. e. of sig. and no sig.) and "conduce to link them both" (i. e. signification and no signification) "together."

It would have helped us a little if Mr. Harris had here told us what that middle state is, between signification and no signification! what are the attributes of no signification! and how, signification and no signification can be linked together!

'

Now all this may, for aught I know, be-" read and admired, as long as there is any taste for FINE WRITING in Britain."-But with such unlearned and vulgar philosophers as Mr. Locke and his disciples, who seek not taste and elegance, but truth and common sense in philosophical subjects, I believe it will never pass as a "perfect example of analysis," nor bear away the palm for "acuteness of investigation" and "perspicuity of explication."-For, (separated from the FINE WRITING,) thus is the Conjunction explained by Mr. Harris ;

-A word devoid of signification, having at the same time a kind of obscure signification; and yet having neither signification nor no signification; but a middle something, between signification and no signification, sharing the attributes both of signification and no signification; and linking signification and no signification together.

If others of a more elegant Taste for Fine Writing are able to receive either pleasure or instruction from such "truly philosophical language," I shall neither dispute with them nor envy them but can only deplore the dulness of my own apprehension, who, notwithstanding the great authors quoted in Mr. Harris's Treatise, and the great authors who recommend it, cannot help considering this "perfect example of Analysis,' An improved compilation of almost all the errors which grammarians have been accumulating from the time of Aristotle down to our present days of technical and learned affectation.

as,

1 Observe Mr. Harris defines a Word to be "a sound significant." And now he defines a Conjunction to be a word (i. e. a sound significant) devoid of signification.