great measure diminished by the concluding remark in that paragraph. Indeed, it would be fele de se, in a body of men like Reviewers, to join in indiscriminate and vehement declamation against persons of a speculative turn.-With regard to our remark on the application or non-application of Dr. H.'s principles to the proposed Iron Bridge over the Thames, we stated it with doubt, and merely as our opinion; the reasons for which will farther appear in our account of Mr. Atwood's Dissertation on Arches, in p. 41, &c. of this Review →By ob serving that certain of Dr. H.'s propositions were the same with those of Emerson, we had no intention to convey any imputation of plagiarism, but merely thus to impart an idea of them to mathematical readers, who must be well acquainted with Emerson's work.-Even the delay of our account of the Doctor's tract is in his opinion a mark of hostility: but surely Dr. Hutton must be aware that, among the numbers of publications which issue from the press, it must be and is the lot of a great many to wait for notice in our Review much longer than his work was retarded; and in the present case the MS. was accidentally mislaid.

To conclude; we cannot admit the propriety of viewing the article in question in the light in which Dr. Hutton has placed it, and we positively disclaim all those motives of personal ill-will to which he has referred it.

INTELLECTUAL PHYSICS.

A volume in 4to. with this title was printed in the year 1794, and distributed within a limited circle. A copy of it was put into our hands, and accordingly we gave an account of it in Vol. xx. of our New Series, p. 292. It has lately been again circulated, and, properly speaking, has now been first published; the author hoping that, under the present circumstances of the world, and at the present crisis, some such induction up to first principles as this Essay pursues, some such truths as this induction elicits,' may lead to some good use. We shall be happy if the event should correspond with the laudable views of this respectable writer; who, we now learn from the prefixed advertisement, is Governor Pownall.

The packet from Wells is received, but we do not see what use we can make of its contents.

In our account of Dr. White's edition of Abdollatiph, Rev. April, p. 341. 1. 9. from the bottom, the word printed was incautiously substituted for published.-Professor Paulus did not print Dr. White's former edition of Abdollatiph, but merely published the copies of it which the Doctor had presented to him, and printed only an explanatory preface.

P. 429. 1. 29. for

war to peace,' r. peace to war.-P. 446. 1. 8. fr. bott. for Noctura, r. Nocitura.

The APPENDIX to VOL. XXXVI. of the M. R. is published with this Number, and contains various articles of FOREIGN LITERATURE, with the Title and Index to the Volume, as usual.

THE

MONTHLY REVIEW,

For JUNE, 1802.

ART. I. Etymologicon Magnum, or Universal Etymological Dic tionary, on a new Plan. With Illustrations drawn from various Languages: English, Gothic, Saxon, German, Danish, &c. &c. Greek, Latin,-French, Italian, Spanish,-Galic, Irish, Welsh, Bretagne, &c. :-the Dialects of the Sclavonic; and the Eastern Languages, Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, Sanscrit, Gypsey, Coptic, &c. &c. Part I. 4to. pp. 570. l. 1s. sewed. Robinsons,

&c.

ET

TYMOLOGICAL discussions are generally conceived to be peculiarly dry and uninteresting; dullness and lexicography have been long very closely associated in the minds of the public; and if the author of a large volume on the origin and relations of words do not come before them provided with a reasonable stock of tediousness, his erudition will be very liable to be called in question. There are appropriate defects, it is imagined, which indicate corresponding excellencies; and characteristic faults, without which no species of composition can easily be admitted as genuine.-For the sake of the work that is now before us, we are inclined to hope that this rule will admit of some occasional exceptions; since it is altogether unprovided with the customary badge of dullness, and is even deficient perhaps in the ordinary gravity of learning. It has merits, however, which may be allowed to counterbalance these deficiencies; and which intitle it to be received as an erudite and ingenious performance.

It is no light nor vulgar praise, indeed, to the author of the present volume, (who, we learn from the preface, is Mr. Walter Whiter,) that he has been enabled to make an interesting and amusing book on such a subject. At the same time that he is more systematic and original than any of his predecessors, he has contrived to captivate the fancy and support the attention of the reader by the variety and felicity of his illustrations, by the vivacity of his remarks, and by the constant acuteness and perspicuity of his reasonings. VOL. XXXVIII,

I

Accuracy

Accuracy and precision were not, perhaps, to be expected in a production of this nature: but their place is here supplied by the utmost copiousness of materials. In this respect, Mr. W. has surpassed all former etymologists. If his instances be not always in point, they are always in abundance; his reduction, if not uniformly correct, is at least sufficiently extensive; and whatever may be thought of his theory, it must be confessed that he has supported it by a greater number of examples, and a wider range of illustration, than were ever employed on such a subject. He has derived his proofs from every quarter of the world, and from every rank of society: he has appealed not only to the classical languages of antiquity and the mingled dialects of modern Europe, but to the radicals of the Eastern tongues, the jargon of the wandering Gypsies, and the slang even of pick-pockets and street-walkers; he has endeavoured to ascertain the rude metaphysics and unsteady associations, by which savages would be guided in the first formation of language; and he has taken into account the different changes that could be produced on it by the variations of the organ, the increase of ideas, the errors of ignorance, the perversions of caprice, and the daring irregularities of passion. In all this variety, much repetition naturally occurs: he has travelled in a course that leaps back repeatedly on itself; and he has often stopped to indulge himself with a view of the ob jects which he had abandoned. Sometimes, he returns to an argument because it was left too weak and insufficient, and sometimes because its strength had not been put to any proper use he comes back, in short, at one time to borrow, and at another to lend; and he finds so many occasions for looking behind him, that the reader despairs of getting forwards. All this serves, indeed, to bind the different parts of the work more closely together but it is binding them by a cord which is tied in a very puzzling knot; and we are sometimes more provoked with its intricacy than convinced of its strength.

Although, however, we are prepared to bear the most ample testimony to the genius and erudition of this singular writer, we are very far from professing to be converts to his system; or even from thinking that it possesses any great degree of probability. On the contrary, we cannot help considering the work as a new instance of genius misapplied; and of learning, industry, and talents, unprofitably wasted in the pursuit of an unattainable object. To deduce one language from another, to trace the present form of a word upwards to an older form of it, and to demonstrate the law of that variation to which it has been exposed, would form a task that may be generally practicable and often very useful; it would have a tendency to

promote

promote and preserve that purity and precision of expression, which are so grateful both to the taste and the understanding; and it would give us some insight into that moral and intellectual progress of our nature, with which we shall be the more able to co-operate, the more perfectly we comprehend it. The etymologist, therefore, who limits himself to this object, may reasonably hope to accomplish all that he has undertaken; he may satisfy both himself and his readers; and he may turn his learning and his sagacity to a good and a sure account. When, however, he presumes to go beyond these limits, and to determine, not the earlier, but the original form of words, he has plainly embarked on an enterprize of great hazard, and must proceed without any assurance of success; he must regulate his course almost entirely by conjecture; and he must be guided in his conjectures by lights that are at once scanty, variable, and obscure. The analogies and metaphors, by means of which the significancy of language has been fixed and extended, are for the most part so extremely feeble and remote, that it seems impossible to ascertain them by any sort of reasoning à priori. There are many words, indeed, which bear the record of their descent in their features; and it is principally by comparing the fact, as it proves to be in these instances, with any conjecture which could have been previously formed respecting it, that we discover the fallacy of such a mode of investigation. Every thing, in short, that is not very obvious in this part of etymology, is always very uncertain: the greater part of words may be referred with equal probability to any one of an hundred radicals; and it seems as hopeless a task to determine their true original, as it would be to decide the original forms of the pebbles that are rounded on the shore, or of the clouds that are fleeting over the face of the heavens.

Such, however, is the task that must be undertaken by every author who professes to compile an Etymologicon Magnum; or to deliver a general theory concerning the origin and derivation of words. The fault is in the subject itself; and we are far from imputing to Mr. Whiter those deficiencies which belong to the nature of the work. For the means which he has employed to perform it, and the selection of expedients which he has adopted to facilitate it, he is more justly answerable.

The theory, which it is the object of this volume to illus trate and confirm, may be stated in a very few words.-After having laid down the two following preliminary positions; 1st, that in all questions of etymology the vowels are to be entirely omitted or disregarded; and, 2d, that certain consonants, which are recognized as cognate, are always to be considered as equivalent or identical; the author comprizes the whole of

his doctrine in this short theorem:- That the same combina. tions of the same or of equivalent consonants have the same virtual and elementary meaning, in all the languages with which we are acquainted.'-The two former principles are very fully stated and supported in an introductory discourse of forty pages; and the body of the work itself is devoted to the proof of the theorem. -The Introduction is rather diffusely written; and it betrays an appearance of anxiety mixed with confidence, which we are always ready to excuse in the performances of an original writer. It is proper to lay before our readers some of the most important passages in this part.

After having lamented the want of some general and extensive principle in the doctrine of former etymologists, and compared the present state of their art with the imperfect condition of arithmetic before the invention of algebra, Mr. W. proceeds to state the progress of his own discoveries in the following

terms:

Having seen that in the forming of any system it was necessary to adopt a known and acknowledged principle, universally prevailing, I began to consider, 1st. What great-general fact existed; and, 2d. Whether it could be applied to any purposes in the adoption of a new theory. 1 sought for information in those words which were most familiarly employed; as it is manifest, that if any uniformity was observed in words so perpetually liable to change from frequent use, I had the strongest evidence for concluding, that such an uniformity was generally prevailing. FATHER in English I perceived to be FADER in Saxon-VATER in German-PADRE in Italian and Spanish-FADER in Islandic and Danish-VADER in Belgic-PATER in Latin, and PATEER (Tang) in Greek: In other cases of the Greek Pateer, we have PATER and PATR (Пalg o;—Пalg-os): And if the changes of the word were to be represented, as it is sounded in different dialects of the kingdom, it might be written Feethir-Fauthir, and in various other ways. In Persian, Father is PADER, and in Sanscrit, PEETRE, as I find it represented by Mr. Wilkins in his Notes to the Heetopades (page 307.). A more striking uniformity, we shall instantly acknowledge, cannot well be imagined than that which is exhibited in the preceding terms. We here perceive, though the word FATHER has assumed these various forms, that the difference arises only from the change of the vowels themselves or of their place; but that the same consonants, or those which all Grammarians, at all times, have acknowledged to be cognate, have still been preserved. In our earliest stages of acquiring knowledge, we learn that "Inter se cognatæ sunt, II, B, D,—K, F, X—T, A, 0,”—P, B, F, -K, G, Ch—T, D, Th; and that these letters are called cognate, because they are changed into each other in the variations of the same word. Without embarrassing the reader or myself in this place by defining the identity of a word, I shall appeal only to the ordinary conceptions, which every one has admitted on this subject. All would allow, that Father, Fader, Fater, Padre, Fader, Vader,