our language as it is ourselves that are in fault? Be it so we do not dispute the fact: we only endeavour to render you duly sensible of it. Perhaps that which has been indicated is a great excellence in our own composition as well as in our language; and infinitely preferable to the dry, pure light of reason; just as many prefer fiction to fact, and romance to history only recognize the wide difference between them, and the opposition of the one to the other; and do not attempt to make a precious compound of things so radically incompatible; for nothing surely can well be more blundering than to mistake rhetoric for logic; or to attempt to unite and intermix them; or to hope to reason sentimentally and to sentimentalize rationally. If, therefore, true theory and sound philosophy, increase of knowledge and intellectual improvement, less misunderstanding and more candour, more deliberative discussion and less illiberal and angry controversy, more of enlightened union and less of blind factious hostility, &c. &c; if all these were nothing, it is, at least, something to avoid the charge of absolute folly.

THE GRAMMATIC DISTINCTIONS OF WORDS.

WE commence with what are commonly called the parts of speech; which are usually said to be nine in all; but which Mr. Tooke, as well as others before him, reduced to two at the most. Many of this author's remarks are not only acute but just; and it will be proper to examine what he has advanced concerning the different kinds of words.

THE DOCTRINE OF HORNE TOOKE EXAMINED.

MR. HORNE TOOKE (as well as Plato and other ancients, and Vossius and other moderns) resolves all the parts of speech into noun and verb. Thus far he is very explicit and very positive; but farther he deposeth not so peremptorily as a witness is wont to give evidence who testifieth what he knoweth of his own knowledge. He affirms, indeed, that the verb is properly a noun; but he adds, that it is something more than a noun: what that something more or verbalizing property is, he either could not or would not inform the world. Here the sprightly author of the Diversions, (which are most diverting when least instructive,) coquets with the reader; or, what is more probable, shies at his subject; for though his manner seems to say, You do not know what I have got here; we suspect he had nothing at all, save a little affectation. We have long regretted

the destruction of his etymologic papers, (though he had, probably, good reasons for committing them to the flames; for it was, perhaps, one of the most judicious acts of his whole life,) merely from eager curiosity to learn how he was to dispose of the verb and to disengage himself from the wonderful promises which he had held out to the world: not that we think the world has suffered any material loss by the catastrophe; for without an etymologic regeneration, almost miraculous at his period of life, we consider it morally impossible for him to think a good thought or speak a right word concerning the derivation of a great part of the English language.

The opinions of Horne Tooke (though hitherto wholly barren of any important effects or useful results) have met with cordial reception: and all who now write about grammar acknowledge his authority. That acute thinker and hardy reasoner, that heretical Catholic, the late Dr. Geddes, expressed the hope of being able to prove at some future period that all verbs were originally nouns. In this opinion the learned Doctor was avowedly saying after the quondam vicar of Brentford; who also hoped to be able to accomplish very extraordinary things at some future period. Numerous learned testimonies in favour of his opinions might be adduced from recent grammatic works. The following is a pretty good synopsis of his principles: it is extracted from a recent grammar, the ninth, we believe, in the Saxon line of descent; and which is remarkable for nothing

so much as the author's diffidence of his own understanding, and his extreme deference for the grammatic and metaphysical inanities of other writers; a most curious collection of which is presented to the public.

Here is the synopsis:

"Every abstract term in language had, originally, a sensible, palpable meaning, generally a substantive meaning. Adjectives are, originally, either nouns or verbs. Pronouns take their rise from nouns, verbs, and numerals. Articles, or, more properly, definitives, are nothing but pronouns used in a particular sense, and for a particular purpose. Interjections are chiefly verbs; some are substantives. Adverbs, for the most part, originate in adjectives; a few are verbs and nouns. Conjunctions and prepositions are generally verbs and nouns.

"Nouns constitute, in general, the primitive words in all languages. Verbs are the first-born offspring of nouns. They are nouns employed in a verbal sense; at least the greatest quantity of words are of this class; a few, indeed, appear to have started into being at once as verbs, without any transmigration through a substantive state."

If the sum and substance of Horne Tooke's grammatic Diversions were prepared to go into a nutshell, we know not that more could be made of them concerning the parts of speech. But as usually happens, we have not the pure, unqualified doctrine of Horne Tooke from his disciples: it is much diluted

much reduced below spirit-proof-greatly adulter ated (like the philosophy of Hobbes in the Essay of Locke) when it comes to be retailed out to the public. We have marked the admixture by italics. Nouns, it appears, do not absolutely constitute the primitive words, but do so in general. Verbs are the first-born offspring of nouns; some, it appears, however, did not come into the world in the ordinary way of generation; they are the offspring of no vocabulary parents whatever; they started into being at once as verbs, without any lingering process of parturition, nay, without any transmigration through

a substantive state.

We have not time at present to admire the poetic beauties of the passage, or the sublime doctrine of transmigration; and it would be unfair to make Horne Tooke responsible for the admixtures and admissions of his disciples. His coquetting inexplicitness respecting the verb as being a noun, yet something more than a noun, has been noticed. If he had not entangled himself with en and th and to as meaning do, and as being necessary verbal adjuncts, it would have been easy to understand what (we should have supposed) he must have intended by verbs being something more than nouns. The following are examples of nouns, employed in a verbal sense, without the assistance of verbal adany junct: Gallant men eye the fair-hand them a chair, or seat them on a sofa-back their friends-face their enemies-spur their horses-chain their dogs-ken