and by omitting the reflexive pronoun se a transitive verb becomes by ellipsis intransitive, as, in the phrase, nox precipitat (sc. se). Thus to couch down is for se collocare in its original Latin form; to interfere is a short form of inter (alios) ferre (se).

In our compound forms of verbs, made after the model. of that abundant class in German, whose combining particles are separable in practice from the verbs to which they are united in sense, we have ellipses of every kind of curious signification. If the reader will ask himself what nouns were used or plainly implied after these various adverbial appendages in their first and proper use as prepositions, he will find much to amuse if not instruct him. They are such as these: to burn up, to burn down, to swallow up and to swallow down, to fix up, dress up, hurry up, hurry on, come on, come out, look out, wake up, give in, give out, give up, talk up and talk down, starve out, scare up, dash out.

The adverbial particle most combined in this way with verbs is the word up; and the one verb that surpasses any and all others, in the variety and strangeness of the senses that it takes or gives in combination with other words, of whatever sort, nouns, adjectives and adverbs, is the verb get. In evidence of this remark, consider such adverbial combinations with this sort of polyglot verb, as these: to get along, by, in, on, out, up, down, over, through, off, away, behind, etc. etc.; and such different senses as this Protean word has, in such phrases as, to get a fortunc, a cold, a blow, a fall, a wish; and to get well, clear, rid, warm, wet, dry, fixed, done. The word keep stands perhaps next to get, in variety of sense.

§ 5. Some English words have been much corrupted in their apparent etymology, by a false popular pronunciation of them as baluster (Gr. BaλavoTiov the blossom of the pomegranate, It. balaustra of same sense, It. balaustro a small pilaster (from resemblance in its form), Fr. balustre), which is almost universally pronounced and spelled bannister; postumous (Lat. postumus, Span. postumo) which is

spelled posthumous (as if from post humum); asparagus (ἀσπάραγος from σπαράσσω to lacerate, referring to its irregular head) is extensively called and written sparrowgrass; pompion (Dutch pompoen) is getting to be quite generally spelled, as it is pronounced, pumpkin; cigar (Lat. cicada, a grasshopper, Span. cigarra- and cigarron, a big cicada and a big cigar, from resemblance of shape, Fr. cigare) is now quite often spelled segar.

§ 6. As in Greek and Latin there are verbs of double forms, modified by reduplication or nasalization, so as to express in the two classes of verbs themselves, in a condensed way, a weaker and a stronger sense; and as in Latin there are a few duplicate verbs having in particular a causative sense, (as sisto, reduplicated form of sto, meaning to cause to stand, and jacio to cast, or cause to lie, from jaceo to lie), so in English there are a few duplicate verbs having a causative force; and they are all of German origin: as to lay causative of to lie, and so, set and sit, fell and fall, raise and rise.

§ 7. As there is a portion of every language, which is used as current coin by the cultivated classes only, and forms what is ordinarily termed their standard speech, or what in French is called "la langue oratoire," -- so of course is it in English; and in as marked a degree, as can be found in any other language ancient or modern. And not only so, but, as in no other language unless it be the Latin, is it true that there is a large branch of the language that is used only or chiefly for the purposes of poetry. But for their rhythmical value, they would pass at once by general disuse out of the language, and this although having many of them the merit of brevity compared with other forms which are retained, as well as also being much more conformable to their originals. They are such as mount (Lat. mons) compared with mountain (Fr. montagne from the adj. montanus); fount (Lat. fons) and font, compared with fountain (Fr. fontaine); and so with eve and morn compared with evening and morning; and ere, yore, olden, yon, sire, afar, reft, ire, clime, lave, lit (for lighted), spake,

writ (for written), eyrie, eaglet, sheen, marge, blithe, ween,

etc.

§ 8. Abstract relations are expressed in English more copiously and exactly, than in any other language except the German.

It is especially rich in particles, as prepositions, conjunctions, and qualifying adverbs of every possible shade of sense and degree of force. There is, for example, in the precise use of a given preposition always in English, a closely defining power, which the Latin ablative, with its limited range of possible signification, though much more versatile in use than any other case in Latin, did not at all possess; nor the Greek dative, which was the Latin dative and ablative combined. And besides the greater variety of modal forms in the English subjunctive, already alluded to, even compared with the German, which is yet our chief parent-tongue, what a rich variety of minute, subjunctive senses have we at command, in what may be called our subjunctive conjunctions, or, those conjunctions which give to verbs in connection with them a contingent or relative

sense.

We have with the German the two articles; which, while they are by true grammatical analysis, but shortened forms of the demonstrative and numeral pronouns with which they correspond, are yet almost or quite as useful as they, in particularizing objects; while the Greek has only one of them and the Latin neither.

In respect also to grammatical gender, while being less pictorial than the Latin, Greek, and German, we are more philosophical than they, in predicating sex only where it really belongs, and so in making all things, besides living beings, directly impersonal. We do not therefore, like the Germans, speak of a boot as him, nor, like the Latins, call a mountain masculine and a tree feminine. And as a proof how curiously extremes can sometimes meet in this world, the words in German for maiden, young lady, and wife (das mädchen, das fraülein and das weib) are all neuter, in obedience to the usual neuter character of the terminations in which they all end.

In conclusion. The grand inward, ever-working, everassimilative, energies of the English tongue and the accumulative influences and evidences of individual homegrowth, do not show themselves, as in Latin and Greek, in any perfected grammatical forms as such, or in any phonetic harmony or homogeneousness of development, in even its lexical elements; but rather in an intense unity of bearing and sense in all the material elements of the language; making it a splendid unique product by itself, as it were, of all foregoing humanity and human progress:- so that it has in it, as the great ultimate language of the world in these times, all the power, for exactness, of the Latin; for versatility of expression, of the Greek; for range of beauty, of the German; and for solemn grandeur, of the Hebrew itself: with all the upper lights of revelation glowing full and strong in the vaulted sphere of its past and present literature.

The Latin roots selected for use in the continuation of this Article, as the "brief illustrative synopsis" promised in the title, will be chosen chiefly for two purposes: to exhibit the mode, in which words hang in clusters, as the true normal mode of their growth and at the same time to show what variations of form words of the same immediate origin may assume.

The connections of words in the same language, of the same ultimate origin, will be found to be as remarkable for their mutual strangeness of form and sense, as any one can have ever conceived the connections of various families of nations, or of languages, with each other to be.

ARTICLE III.

PERMANENT PREACHING FOR A PERMANENT

PASTORATE.

BY REV. LEONARD WITHINGTON, D.D., NEWBURYPORT, MASS.

SOME eminent critics found their systems on very narrow principles. Almost every critic has a system, and his remarks revolve around one centre-point, and, if its position is a false one, his criticism is imperfect. Longinus on the Sublime is a kind of canonical book, though it is hard to find out what his sublime is. He has no centre-point. Dionysius Halicarnassus, in his criticism on Herodotus and Thucydides, seems to have romance in his eye, rather than truthful history. He blames Thucydides for not being as pleasing as Herodotus; that is, for not telling as many lies. Dr. Bentley is very minute on the chronology of Milton's Paradise Lost; the very last thing my humble self would think of in reading that divine poem. Dr. Johnson, in his Lives of the Poets, has one ruling canon; and that is, the CURIOSITY With which we read a book to the end and "cast our eyes," he says, "on the last leaf, as a solitary traveller in a desert looks at the setting sun." He even applies this rule to Milton: "But original deficiency cannot be supplied. The want of human interest is always felt. Paradise Lost is one of the books which the reader admires, lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is. Its perusal is a duty rather than a pleasure. We read Milton for instruction, retire harrassed and overburdened, and look elsewhere for recreation; we desert our master and seek for companions."

Coleridge, though a worse critic, has a far more noble. canon: "Not the poem which we have read, but that to which we return with the greatest pleasure, possesses the genuine power and claims the name of essential poetry."2

Lives of the Poets, Vol. I. p. 167.

2 Biographia Literaria, Vol. I. p. 22.