ON THE

ENGLISH LANGUAGE

BY

GEORGE P. MARSH

FIRST SERIES

"What! craue you wine, and haue NILUS to drinke of?"
PESCENNIUS NIGER to his Soldiers in Egypt,

G. SANDYS's Relation, 1615, p. 99.

REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION.

NEW YORK:

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of
New York.

COPYRIGHT, 1881, BY

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.

EDWARD O. JENKINS' SONS, NEW YORK.

TO MY DEAR WIFE,

CAROLINE CRANE MARSH,

WHO DEVOTED TO ME HER YOUTH AND BEAUTY AND HAS GIVEN ME HER MATURER AGE, HAVING BEEN, FOR MORE THAN FORTY YEARS, MY EVER FAITHFUL AND MOST AFFECTIONATE COMPANION, MY WISEST COUNSELLOR AND MY MOST EFFICIENT AID,

This Book,

WHICH OWES, IN LARGE MEASURE, TO HER CULTURE AND HER TASTE WHATEVER IT MAY POSSESS OF

CRITICAL AND

ESTHETICAL MERIT,

IS

LOVINGLY AND REVERENTLY DEDICATED.