But this is rather a consideration in Ethics than a question in Philology. When a man speaks as he believes though erroneously, he is blameless, and we may not apply the harsh epithet false to his testimony: but it would be an unparalleled abuse of words, to say he was speaking truth.

That two persons may contradict each other and yet both speak truth, is a discovery which, I doubt not, has surprised many readers of Horne Tooke's work. * But it is only changing the meaning of a word,-and in this way a child may make any number of paradoxes.

"Mihi non invenustè dici videtur, aliud esse "Latinè, aliud Grammaticè loqui," says Quintilian, alluding to some difficulties and false refinements of the grammarians of his day; and if our etymologists will allow the word Truth to have no other meaning but belief, it may well be said, Aliud est Anglicè, aliud etymologicè loqui.

* Croaker. Then you are of my opinion?

Honeywood.-Entirely.

Mrs. Croaker. And you reject mine?

The

Honeywood.-Heavens forbid, Madam. No sure, no reasoning can be more

just than yours.

Mrs. Croaker.-O, then, you think I am quite right?

Honeywood.-Perfectly right.

Croaker. A plague of plagues, we can't be both right.
My hat must be on my head or my hat must be off.

The Good-Natured Man, Act. iv.

According to Mr. Tooke, Mrs. Croaker might tell her husband his hat was on his head, and his friend Honeywood contradict her, and say it was off; and yet both might be speaking truth.

Frelon.-Qu'est-ce, apres tout, que la verité? la conformité à nos idées : or ce qu'on dit est toujours conforme à l'idée qu'on a quand on parle; ainsi iln'y a point proprement de mensonge.

Lady Alton.-Tu me parais subtil: il semble que tu aies étudié à Saint Omer.

Voltaire's Ecossaise, Act. II. se. IV.

remark will apply to several other explanations of words given in The Diversions of Purley, as of Hell, Guilt, Just, Right, &c.

VII. Dr. Jamieson, and Mr. Lye, whom he follows, derive THRESHOLD or THRESHWALD, Anglosaxon Threscwald, "from thresc-an ferire and "wald lignum, i. e. the wood which one strikes "with one's feet in entering or going out of a house." ButBut-pace hominum eruditissimorum— I cannot help thinking strike-wood, struck-wood, or thresh'd-wood, no very probable designation for what one never strikes or threshes but inadvertently. Threxwald and threcswald were other forms of the word in the Anglosaxon; and perhaps it is rather from thure or thurruke, i. e. door (see Diversions of Purley, vol. i. p. 336) and wald lignum, Thure's-wald or Thurruke's-wald januæ lignum, the wood, board, or plank, of the door-way, which we cross in entering; in the cottages of the poor, generally the lower part of the wooden frame that holds the door. In Scotland, it is now often called the door-stane: in German, it is thurschwelle, from thur door, and schwelle the sole or sill. Dure and Thure were used indifferently in the Anglosaxon, and Chaucer has both Dressholde and Thressholde :

And as she would over the dressholde gon
The Marques came, and gan her for to call,
And she sette down her water potte anon
Beside the thressholde of the ox stall,
And down upon her knees she gan to fall.

The Clerke of Oxenforde's Tale, fol. 45. p. 2. col. i.

91

On H. Tooke's List of Past Participles.

A GREAT object in the formation of language seems always to have been, to make it easily attainable or intelligible; it being so contrived that one word, when known, generally helps to explain several others. Derivative as well as Figurative terms must be accounted for partly on this principle. For instance, ROOF, according to Mr. Tooke, is the Anglosaxon hrof, and the past participle of raefnan sustinere, to sustain. The circumstance of the roof being sustained or borne up, would make this name more easily understood (while raefnan continued in use) than an arbitrary sound, expressing no circumstance of the thing designated, would have been. But other circumstances might have been taken advantage of for the same purpose, as its covering the house: thus the corresponding word in Latin is tectum, from tegere to cover.

The number of nouns which Mr. Tooke shews to have been originally "past participles," has perhaps surprized most readers of his book; and, with the derivatives otherwise formed from verbs,

they might lead to a supposition, that verbs must have been invented before nouns, were not both these parts of speech equally necessary in every sentence. The fact is, after a certain number of arbitrary words or roots are established, new names when wanted (that they may be more easily understood) are made from those old words: some striking circumstance, or characteristic mark, of the things to be named, being expressed by the derivative. And the most striking circumstance or distinguishing mark is, either, 1st, The powers, or 2dly, The accidents or affections of thingswhat they do, or what is done to them: which is expressed by verbs. Active powers are expressed by verbal nouns ending with ER, STER, ING, ANT, TH, &c. Passive nouns, or such as express what has been done, has happened, or may often happen to the things denoted, are generally past participles; as bearn, roof, shot, &c.

But verbs are formed from nouns, as well as nouns from verbs; and Mr. Tooke is too anxious to swell his list of "past participles." Such of them as have a passive sense will generally be allowed to be what he calls them, as drop (dripped), flood (flow'd), &c.; such also as are distinguished by the participial terminations D, T, or EN, or the customary change of the characteristic vowel, and are clearly connected in meaning with the verb from which he derives them, although they may not have a passive sense; as frost from freeze, &c. But we are diverted with his zeal for past

participles, when he tells us, that GREEN is the past particple of the Anglosaxon verb grenian, virescere; SMEAR the past participle of the Anglosaxon verb smyrian, ungere; SHEEN the past participle of the Anglosaxon verb scinan, splendere, fulgere; WELL the past participle of the Anglosaxon verb villan, ebullire, effluere; HINGE the past participle of Hang; THACK or THATCH of thecan or thacan, tegere, &c.: especially when we observe that these nouns exist in the Anglosaxon, as well as the verbs, though Mr. Tooke gives the Anglosaxon form of the verb only, and not of the noun, in order (as it would seem) that the verb may appear the older word of the two. What more reason is there for saying the Anglosaxon smere (smear) comes from smyrian, grene (green) from grenian, than vice versâ grenian from grene? &c.