repeated several times. More richer,' 'more worthier,' more corrupter,' and 'more worse' are all to be found in King Lear, one of our poet's later and more finished compositions. Double superlatives, such as 'most best,' 'most unkindest,' he has used much less frequently, i. e. in not more, I believe, than eight instances. Both these anomalies also may be considered as of Greek extraction, or at least they both occur not unfrequently in the Greek drama.* But it is somewhat remarkable that our translators of the New Testament, from Tyndale downwards, have chosen to introduce the double superlative in Acts xxvi. 5, after the most straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee,' though the original Greek is content with a single one. This is the only example of a double superlative which I have observed in the English Bible;† but the older version of the Psalms in the Prayer Book still retains the expression most highest' in more than a dozen places; where, Bp. Lowth has well remarked, it acquires a singular propriety from the subject to which it is applied, viz. the Supreme Being, who is higher than the highest.' Of the double comparative no scriptural example occurs to me except in the use of the word 'lesser,' in Gen. i. 16; The lesser light to rule the night,' * See Bishop Monk's note on the Hippolytus of Euripides, v. 487. The word 'chiefest,' however, which is in principle equally anomalous, occurs several times in both the Old and New Testament. and in three other texts. Dr. Johnson tells us that the adjective 'little' has two comparatives, 'less' and lesser;' but I am rather inclined to agree with Bp. Lowth that it is a barbarism, and that worser sounds much more barbarous only because it has not been so frequently used. And may not this have arisen from the fact that our translators of the Bible have accepted the one, but rejected the other? It is Lord Macaulay who speaks of our noble translation of the Bible' as 'a book from the authority of which there is no appeal, where the question is about the force of an English word.' 9. The grammar of the Verb presents to us little or no occasion for remark, without descending to minutia which would be felt by the general reader to be irksome, if not out of place. The remaining parts of speech, Adverbs, Prepositions, and Conjunctions, I shall also dismiss without much notice. The adverb 'when' was formerly often used with the addition of as' or 'that.' Thus in Matt. i. 18, we find, when as His Mother Mary was espoused to Joseph,' &c. And in King Henry IV. 2nd Part, When that your flock, assembled by the bell,' &c. Act iv. Sc. 2. In 1 Tim. v. 23, Use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thy often infirmities,' the adverb 'often' is employed to represent an adjective; as adverbs, we know, constantly are in Greek, with • History of England, ii. 486. the help of the article. And upon the authority of this passage Dr. Johnson, in his Dictionary, actually gives it as an adjective with the meaning 'frequent.' In like manner King Lear speaks of Cordelia as my sometime daughter,' Act i. Sc. 1. And in King Richard III. the same construction enables us to understand a difficult line where the Queen Elizabeth, widow of King Edward IV., says to Richard: But that still use of grief makes wild grief tame, My tongue should to thy cars not name my boys. 'Still use,' i. e. as Steevens explains it, constant use. In the same way Shakspeare uses the expression 'seldom pleasure' in his 52nd Sonnet :— So am I as the rich, whose blessed key Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure, For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.* i. e. for fear of blunting, &c. The use of the preposition 'for' prefixed to verbs of the infinitive mood would strike us now as a vulgarism; but we meet with it in our Bible as well as in Shakspeare. See, for example, Deut. iv. I, 'for to do them;' Matt. xxvii. 6, 'It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury;' Ps. lxxi. 16, P. B. version, 'all them that are yet for to come. In like manner we read in Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. 1, 'which for to prevent,' &c. * On the sentiment, see below, Part II. ch. ii. sect. 15. The separation of the two parts of which the preposition toward' is composed, by placing between them the noun which the preposition governs, is a peculiarity with which we are familiar from more than one passage in the English Bible. Thus in 1 Sam. xix. 4, Jonathan, speaking to his father Saul respecting David, says, 'His works have been to thee-ward very good.' And 'to God-ward' for 'toward God' occurs three times, viz. Exod. xviii. 19, 2 Cor. iii. 4, I Thess. i. 8. The counterparts to this usage in Shakspeare, are the following:In King Henry VI. 1st Part, Act iii. Sc. 3:— Hark! by the sound of drum you may perceive In Coriolanus, Act i. Sc. 6:— As merry as when our nuptial day was done, Compare also I go wool-ward,' in Love's Labour's lost, Act v. Sc. 2. The use of the preposition against' with reference to time is now become almost obsolete, yet I am not aware that we have any other word which supplies its place, and the notion which it expressed is one of frequent recurrence. Thus we read in Gen. xliii. 25, concerning the sons of Jacob, 'They made ready the present against Joseph came at noon.' And in Exod. vii. 15, The Lord said unto Moses, Get thee unto Pharaoh, in the morning; с lo! he goeth out unto the water, and thou shalt stand by the river's brink against he come.' In Hamlet it occurs three times : Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes, Act i. Sc. I. But as we often see against some storm, Act ii. Sc. z. Yea, this solidity and compound mass Act iii. Sc. 4. But so far as I have noted, it is not to be found more than thrice in all the rest of Shakspeare, viz. in Romeo and Juliet, Act iv. Sc. 1, against thou shalt awake;' Midsummer Night's Dream, Act v. Sc. 1, against your nuptial;' and in King Richard II.:— They'll talk of state, for every one doth so, Act iii. Sc. 4. In the phraseology of Shakspeare's time, the preposition or adverb was often repeated in a manner which we should now think slovenly. Thus we read in As you like it, Act ii. Sc. 7, 'The scene, wherein we play in;' and in Romeo and Juliet, Act i. Sc. 5, That fair, for which love groaned for: So too, in Job xli. 19, Out of his mouth sparks of fire leap out.' Matt. vii. 'Cast out the |