Page images
PDF
EPUB

3. The very varied and numerous situations of society, demanded the signification of many circumstances of action much more particu lar; and to express these, a large class of adverbs was devised.

These adverbs indicate quality and manner, either simply, as wisely, prudently, cautiously; or positively, as truly, certainly, unquestionably; or contingently, as perhaps, probably, possibly; or negatively, as no, not, erroneously; or conjointly, as together, generally, universally; or separately, as apart, solely, solitarily. Sometimes they denote magnitude, as wholly, altogether, exceedingly; or comparison, as preferably; or passion, as angrily, lovingly, furiously, valiantly; or merit, as learnedly, prudently, industriously.

4. The circumstances of action relative to place are imparted by another copious class of adverbs. The principal views which they exhibit are, whether the action is performed in a place, or in moving to it, through it, or from it. Of the first sort are here, there, where, within, without; of the second, hither, thither, and the compounds of the syllable ward, as toward, forward, backward, upward, downward; of the third, nowhere, elsewhere, everywhere; of the fourth, hence, whence, thence.

5. Of the adverbs which signify time and manner, two, one from each class, often attend on the same verb, by an analogy similar to the appearance of every verb, both in a tense and a mode, on the same occasion. The adverb significant of time is generally placed before the verb, and after it is placed the adverb significant of manner. That which precedes circumscribes the time expressed by the tense, and that which follows limits the manner expressed by the mood.

6. Adverbs are susceptible of comparison, sometimes regular, as soon, sooner, soonest; but oftener irregular, as readily, more readily, most readily. One adverb is frequently employed to qualify another, as too confidently, very seldom. And, finally, they are often applied to circumscribe adjectives, as unmercifully severe, highly criminal, superlatively excellent.

71. PREPOSITIONS are words prefixed to substantives, to denote the various relations which they bear to one another.

Illus. In English, they are generally monosyllabic words, chiefly employed to supply the deficiency of the inflections commonly called cases. But in the Welsh language they undergo inflection with the cases of nouns. In English they occasionally lend their aid to furnish compounded verbs, as foretell, undervalue; and in all cases they act as proportional ingredients of composition, by adding to it the full import of their powers.

72. CONJUNCTIONS are used to connect single substantives, clauses of sentences, or members of periods.

Illus. Conjunctions are divided into various classes, copulative, disjunctive, and adversitive; but their most useful distinction relates to the correspondence which they have to one another in different clauses or members of a period; and in the right management of which, both the perspicuity and propriety of language are not a little concerned.

Obs. We sometimes find pronouns connecting sentences as well as

conjunctions; and the latter not unfrequently, by a violent ellipsis, performing the substantive office of the former; but in this case the conjunction is usually connected with an indefinite relative, as "Let such as presume," for "Let them who presume."

73. INTERJECTIONS indicate those impressions which so suddenly and violently affect the mind of the speaker or writer, as to burst asunder the regular train of his thoughts and expressions, and thence demand immediate

utterance.

Obs. This definition demonstrates that the proper use of these words must be extremely limited; and experience proves that the incidents which excite such vehement agitation are not very common. Corol.)

(Art. 4. Illus. Interjections are sparingly used even in the glowing and animated languages of antiquity; and they appear less seldom with grace, in the more tame and phlegmatic tongues of modern times. They rarely occur with us but when they interrupt, not language, but silence; and there are few persons who court those seasons of high passion when their sentiments are too violent for communication by words, and with difficulty admit utterance, at intervals, by sighs and groans.

THE NATURE AND

CHAPTER II.

CHARACTER OF THE USE WHICH GIVES
LAW TO LANGUAGE.

74. ELOQUENCE has a particular connexion with language, as its intention is to convey our sentiments into the minds of others, in order to produce upon them a determinate effect; and language is the only vehicle by which this conveyance can be made.

Corol. The art of speaking, then, is not less necessary to the orator than the art of thinking. Without the latter the former could not have existed. Without the former, the latter would be ineffectual. And the operations of the latter go on by means of words, for there is no evidence that we think without language.

75. LANGUAGE is mainly a species of fashion,* in which, by the general but tacit consent of the people of a particular state or country, certain sounds come to be appropriated to certain things, as their signs, and certain ways of inflecting and combining those sounds come to be established, as denoting the relations which subsist among the things signified. (Chap. I. Book I. and Chap. I. Book II.)

Illus. 1. The philosophical view which we have taken of the chief

* Campbell, Phil. of Rhet. b. ii. c. 1.

principles and component parts of speech, (Art. 48. Obs.) shew us plainly it is not the business of grammar to give law to the fashions which regulate our speech. From its conformity to these it derives its authority and value.

2. Grammar, therefore, is nothing else than a collection of general observations, methodically digested, and comprising all the modes previously and independently established, by which the significations, derivations and combinations of words in that language, are ascertain ed. For these modes and fashions have no sooner obtained, and hecome general, than they are the laws of the language, and the grammarian's only business is, to note, collect, and methodize them.

3. But this truth concerns alike those comprehensive analogies and rules which affect whole classes of words, and every individual word, in the inflecting or combining of which a particular mode hath prevailed.

Corol. Hence every single anomaly, though departing from the rule assigned to the other words of the same class, and on that account called an exception, stands on the same basis, on which the rules of the tongue are founded, custom having prescribed for it a separate rule. (Art. 52 and 53.)

76. Use or the custom of speaking, is, then, the sole original standard of conversation, as far as respects the expression; and the custom of writing is the chief standard of style. (Art. 86. Illus.)

Corol. In every grammatical controversy, we are, consequently, as a last resort, entitled to appeal from the laws and the decisions of the grammarians to the tribunal of use, as to the supreme authority. (Art. 79. Illus.)

Obs. 1. The conduct of our ablest grammarians proves that this order of subordination ought never, on any account, to be reversed.

2. But if use be of such consequence in this matter, before advancing any farther, let us endeavor to ascertain precisely what it is, as it would otherwise be erroneous to agree about the name, while we differed about the notion that we assigned to it.

77. Reputable USE, sometimes called general use, implies, not only currency, but vogue, and may be defined, whatever modes of speech are authorized as good by the writings of a great number, if not the majority of celebrated authors: it is properly reputable custom. (Art. 80. Illus. and 86. Obs. 2.)

Alus. The good use of language has the approbation of those who have not themselves attained it. It is the fate of those who, by reason of their poverty and other circumstances, are deprived of the advantages of education, to hear words of which they know not the meaning, and consequently to produce and misapply them. An affectation of imitating their superiors, is, then, the great source of those errors of the illiterate, in respect of conversation and the application of words, which are beyond their sphere.

78. VULGARISMs are those terms and phrases which, notwithstanding a pretty uniform and extensive use, are con

sidered as corrupt, and, like counterfeit money, though common, not valued.

Illus. Their use is not reputable, because we associate with them such notions of meanness as suit those orders of men among whom chiefly the use is found. If we use them we do not approve them, and negligence alone suffers them to creep into our conversation or writing, except when they are put into the mouths of characters whom we are describing.

Corol. Their currency, therefore, is without authority and without weight.

79. We always take the sense of the terms and phrases belonging to any elegant or mechanical art from the practice of those who are conversant in that art; in like manner, from the practice of those who have had a liberal education, and are, therefore, presumed to be best acquainted with men and things, we judge of the general use of language.

Illus. But in what concerns words themselves, their construction and application, authors of reputation are, by universal consent, in actual possession of that standard which is authority; as to this tribunal, to which all have access, when any doubt arises, the appeal is always made. (Cor. Art. 76.)

Corol. The source, therefore, of that preference which distinguishes good use from bad, in language, is a natural propensity of the human mind to believe, that those are the best judges of the proper signs of speech, and of their proper application, who understand best the things which they represent. (Art. 77. and Illus.)

80. AUTHORS of reputation have been chosen rather than good authors, for two reasons:

First, because it is more strictly conformable to the truth of the case. Though esteem and merit usually go together, it is solely the public esteem, and not their intrinsic merit, which raises AUTHORS to this distinction, and stamps a value on their language.

Secondly, this character is more determinate than the other, and therefore more extensively intelligible. Between two or more authors, as to the preference in point of merit, different readers will differ exceedingly, who agree perfectly as to the respective places which they hold in the favour of the public. Persons may be found of a taste so particular, as to prefer Parnel to Milton, but none will dispute the superiority of the latter in point of fame.

Illus. By authors of reputation, we mean, not only in regard to knowledge, but as respects the talent of communicating that knowledge. There are writers who, as concerns the first, have been deservedly valued by the public, but who, on account of a supposed deficiency in respect of the second, are considered of no authority in language. We of course suppose that their writings are in the English tongue, in

all the various kinds of composition, in prose and verse, serious and ludicrous, grave and familiar.

81. NATIONAL USE presents itself in a twofold view, as it stands opposed to provincial and to foreign. (Art. 85. and 88.)

Illus. Every province has its peculiarities of dialect, which affect not merely the pronunciation and accent, but even the inflection and combination of words. It is thus that the idiom of one district is distinguished, both from that of the nation, and from that of every other province. The narrowness of the circle to which the currency of the words and phrases of such dialects is confined, sufficiently discriminates them from that which, commanding a circulation incomparably wider, is properly styled the language of the country.

Corol. Hence, we derive one reason, why the term use, on this subject, is commonly accompanied with the epithet general. (Art. 79.)

82. The ENGLISH LANGUAGE, properly so called, is found current, especially in the upper and middle ranks of life, over the whole British Empire.

Illus. Thus, though the people of one province ridicule the idiom of another province, they all vail to the English idiom, and scruple not to acknowledge its superiority over their own.

83. Of all the idioms subsisting among us, that to which we give the character of purity, is the most prevalent, though the language be not universally spoken or written with orthographical and grammatical purity.

Corol. The faulty idioms do not jar more with true English than they do with one another, and their diversity, therefore, subjects them to the denomination of impure.

84. Professional dialects, or the cant which is sometimes observed to prevail among those of the same handicraft, or way of life, must be considered, with little variation, in the same light with provincial dialects. (Art. 81. Illus.)

66

Illus. The currency of the former cannot be so exactly circumscri bed as that of the latter, whose distinction is purely local; but their use is not on that account either more extensive or more reputable. Thus: advice, in the commercial idiom, means information," or "intelligence;"-nervous, in open defiance of analogy, denotes, in the medical sense, 66 having weak nerves;"-and the word turtle, though preoccupied time immemorial by a species of dove, is employed by sailors and gluttons, to signify a tortoise."

66

85. NATIONAL USE, as opposed to foreign, is too evident to need illustration; for the introduction of extraneous words and idioms, from other languages and foreign nations, cannot be a smaller transgression against the established custom of the English tongue, than the introduction of words and idioms peculiar to some counties or shires of

« PreviousContinue »