Anti-Tooke; and which, as coming from a declared opponent, should receive some notice here. "I am a coming,-means, I exist in space-I on-ing (one-ing) COMING: In which instance, as in every other, the pronoun, (or noun,) have to consult it into difficulty and error. Of Johnson's Dictionary Mr. Richardson says "It is needless, and it would be invidious, to accumulate especial instances of failure;-the whole is a failure: and he describes it as "a collection of usages from English authors, explained to suit the quotations." It would have been well if Mr. Richardson had given such "explanations as suited the quotations," and were in accordance with usage; his sweeping censure would not then have been more applicable to his own work than to Johnson's, the design of which is to give actual and not imputed meanings. After this utter condemnation of his celebrated predecessor, Mr. Richardson adds, that "no author is known to have undertaken the composition of a new work, nor even to have engaged in the less honourable, but still arduous and even praiseworthy enterprise of remoulding and reforming the old." His contempt for Mr. Todd's labours he had long ago expressed in his Illustrations: and does he consider as beneath his notice, or can he have been ignorant of the existence of Dr. Webster's Dictionary, a work unquestionably much superior to his own, and indeed to every English Dictionary that has yet appeared? in which, whilst abundance of valuable etymological information is supplied, fidelity and accuracy in recording the meanings according to actual usage is not sacrificed in order to accommodate them to a preconceived system or to etymological conjecture. دو As the basis of the theory which it seems to be the object of Mr. Richardson's Dictionary to uphold, and which is to be found in his Preliminary Essay, he announces "with no assumption of unfelt diffidence" the following axioms. That all men, in all ages having had the same organs of speech and sense of hearing, every distinct articulate sound had a distinct meaning; that among all people having written language, each sound has a corresponding literal sign; and that "each letter was the sign of a separate distinct meaning,-of a word previously familiar in speech," p. 5. His principles must, he indeed informs us, p. 36, "be considered as exoteric doctrines intended only for the scholar ('esoteric' he must be supposed to mean: but in the Dictionary exoteric is mixed up with exotic). Whether the philological student will be aided or misled by viewing the subject through such a medium I shall not discuss; but with regard to those who have to consult a dictionary for the real meaning of words, foreigners for instance, strange indeed will be the perplexities into which some of Mr. Richardson's explanations must lead them.-The safe application of "the great first principle" upon which he states that he has proceeded in the explanation of words, that a word has one meaning, and one only, from which all usages must spring and be derived, and that in the etymology of each word must be found this single intrinsic meaning," involves in each case previous questions not only as to which is this single intrinsic meaning, but as to the unity of the word under con which is the sign of the grammatical agent of the adjective action, is, or ought to be, repeated to form the nominative or agent of that action. "In the small variety of names for beginning actions which thus appears, there is perhaps not one that is more logical, although at the same time none more vulgar, or debased, than the phrases I am a COMING,' 'I am a GOING.' Thus, when children or servants or other dilatory persons, are called upon to do any thing which they must commence forthwith, but which they have not yet begun, and proceed to do with besitation or reluctance, the ordinary reply is, I am a COMING;'—' I am a GOING to do it.' Now it is agreed among etymologists that A means ON, and oN means ONE. Hence the real import of the phrase I am a COMING is-I am on— —(onning)—(one-ing)—the ACT OF COMING, -that is (figuratively, and feignedly also,) I am MAKING Myself One WITH THE ACT OF COMING,-which amounts to feigning, I am COMING This Moment.' He is a "It is equally usual, likewise, to say, He is a FISHING. RIDING, He is a FIGHTING; even during the continuation of either of these actions in which case, it is plain, the expression is less figurative, or feigned; because the agent is actually at the moment DOING the action, although he cannot be LITERALLY ONE with it."-P. 345. Whatever the reader may make of all this, I confess that, of the various ways of treating the subject, I must prefer the Baconian mode pursued by Mr. Tooke. As in Physics, so in Philology, we shall attain truth by an accurate investigation of facts and phænomena, and not by ingenious and too often absurd conjectures which are independent of, or opposed to, them. Reasonings on language not deduced from the real sideration; lest what is taken for "a word" should really be two or more distinct words lurking under the appearance of one. And the individuality or identity of a word consists neither in the sound, the spelling, nor the sense,-paradoxical though this may seem, for these all undergo modifications,-but in its historical continuity, with regard to which facts must be our guide.-According to Mr. Richardson, Tell and Till are "the same word,"-to raise, the ground, or the voice: so, also, Love and Lift, to pick up: Fear and Fare, to run away.-Pref. p. 49. 1 Mr. Fearn here travels too fast for me to keep pace with him. We are told, however, by Dr. Murray, that if Mr. Tooke "had not been misled by some erroneous parts of Locke's philosophy, and the weaker materialism of some unintelligible modern opinions, he would have made a valuable accession to moral as well as grammatical inquiries."-Vol. ii. p. 342. For such a writer to bring a charge of "unintelligible opinions" is ludicrous enough. If Locke's philosophy, and what is here called Materialism, kept Mr. Tooke clear of such airy conceits as Dr. Murray's, that at least is something in their favour. this subject very ably treated in "A Letter on the Immateriality of the Soul, in reply to Mr. Rennel," (Hunter, 1821,) ascribed to a clergyman of the Irish church; also in Wallace's Observations on Lord Brougham's Natural Theology," (Ridgway, 1835.). See history of words are of about the same value as speculations in astronomy or chemistry unsupported by an acquaintance with the phænomena of nature.1 With facts, then, for our guides, we find that we need not have recourse to the remotest ages and to nondescript fictitious dialects in the investigation of the change of termination in our Present Participle and its relation to Verbals in ing; nor to subtile speculations and extravagant assumptions: but that the field of inquiry may be limited to our own language, and nearly to the period of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries :—and I recommend those who have opportunity to note any instances prior to the age of Chaucer where a verbal in ing is used strictly and unequivocally as a Present Participle. I trust that these notes, and the few that are scattered through the work, will not be thought foreign to its design, whether they coincide with Mr. Tooke, or propose explanations differing from those which he has given. It is one of his great excellencies that he always places honestly and fully before the reader all the data from which his deductions are made; so that even where he may be thought to err he is sure to be instructive. I have now only to acknowledge with thanks the advice and assistance which I have received in the preparation of this edition from my friends Sutton Sharpe, Esq., and Richard Price, Esq., the able editor of Warton's History of English Poetry; and shall conclude with expressing a wish that the work in its present form may prove acceptable to such as are fond of the studies which it was designed to promote. Red Lion Court, Fleet-street, : RICHARD TAYLOR. 1 "The wit and mind of man, if it work upon matter, which is the contemplation of the creatures of God, worketh according to the stuff, and is limited thereby but if it work upon itself, as the spider worketh his web, then it is endless, and brings forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness of thread and work, but of no substance or profit."-Bacon's Adv. of Learning. EIIЕA IITEPOENTA, ЕПЕА PART I. TO THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE ONE of her grateful Sons,-who always considers acts of voluntary justice towards himself as Favours,' -dedicates this humble offering. And particularly to her chief ornament for virtue and talent, the Reverend Doctor BEADON, Master of Jesus College. 1 Notwithstanding the additional authority of Plato's despicable saying-Cum omnibus solvam quod cum omnibus debeo-the assertion of Machiavel, that—Nissuno confessera mai haver obligo con uno chi non Toffenda-and the repetition of it by Father Paul, that-Mai alcuno si pretende obligato a chi l'habbi fatto giustitia; stimandolo tenuto per se stesso di farla-are not true. They are not true either with respect to nations or to individuals: for the experience of much injustice will cause the forbearance of injury to appear like kindness. 2 Senec. de Benefic. lib. vi. Discor. lib. i. cap. xvi. Opinione del Padre Fra Paolo, in qual modo debba governarsi la Republica Veneta per haver perpetuo dominio. Non ut laudemur, sed ut prosimus. Equidem sic prope ab adolescentia animatus fui, ut inania famæ contemnam, veraque consecter bona. In qua cogitatione sæpius defixus, facilius ab animo meo potui impetrare, ut (quamvis scirem sordescere magis et magis studia Literarum, maximeque ea quæ proprie artem Grammaticen spectant) nihilominus paulisper, non quidem seponerem, sed remissius tamen tractarem studia graviora; iterumque in manus sumerem veteres adolescentiæ labores, laboreque novo inter tot Curas divulgarem.-G. J. VosSIUS. Le grand objet de l'art étymologique n'est pas de rendre raison de l'origine de tous les mots sans exception, et j'ose dire que ce seroit un but assez frivole. Cet art est principalement recommendable en ce qu'il fournit à la philosophie des matériaux et des observations pour élever le grand édifice de la théorie générale des Langues.-M. Le Président de BROSSES. |