having a right to, or power over, that with which it is so connected. In this we attend more particularly to the proprietorship, and in that to the state of subjection. These different modes of expression have often no distinguishing mark excepting that of emphasis, which points out the word on which we wish the meaning of the sentence principally to depend, by a more forcible tone of pronunciation. When we say, This is Alexander's house," we mean that the house is a part of the property, or one of the things belonging to Alexander; but, when we say, "This is Alexander's house," we state that the house belongs to Alexander, and not to another.

It is not, however, to the possessive case alone that we are to refer the ambiguity which we have noticed; nor is it there that emphasis is exclusively requisite. There is, perhaps, no phrase that may not thus have its various modifications of meaning, which, beside punctuation, and the other marks of modern invention, require, for their resolution, that we should enter into the views, and catch a portion of the spirit of the writer. For example, "John struck James" shews the same agent, action, and object, in whatever manner it may be pronounced; and yet it may, with the change of emphasis, make different impressions on the mind of the hearer, by fixing his attention on either of the words more strongly than on the others. "John struck James" shews that John was the individual who gave the stroke, when a different person might have been suspected. "John struck James" specifies the particular mode of attack; and "John struck James" denotes that James, not another, was the person who suffered. In writing, where the ear cannot judge, and at the period prior to the use of a separate character to mark sounds of superior impression, many cases of dubiety must have occurred, had not words of a more discriminating kind been added to the phrases. It was on this account that such words as own, self, and same, became necessary: "Alexander's own house," contains a double possessive, and fixes the proprietor in the mind of the reader; and "John himself struck James," more particularly refers to John as the striker.

The apparently superfluous addition of own, self, &c. might, in vocal discourse, be, in general, superseded by the accompaniments of tone and gesture; and it was, doubtless, to preserve, in some degree, the effects of those fleeting emotions, that the accents of the ancients were invented. Accent is to words. what emphasis is to sentences: it marks the articulation on which the attention, in imitation of the voice, is required peculiarly to rest. If our principle be just, that every word of two or more syllables is merely a combination of as many separate words, accent and emphasis must be the same; and every compound, with its accentuated syllable, will be evidently a minor sentence, with its emphatical word. There will then be a basis on which pronun

of another. Thus, kingdom is a country under the government of a king, and freedom is the state or condition of being free. The termination in both cases is the same, and the distinction arises from the words to which it is joined. The state of being free does not imply a figure very different from the original meaning of the term; but that of a king suggests a separate idea: it is necessarily connected with grandeur and with power. From the Greek demo, I build, was formed domos, (the Latin domus, and our dome,) a house. Dominus, among the Romans, was its master; and, by an easy transition, the name of the habitation of a family came to signify that of a nation. Domus was a state, or country; and dominus, its lord. From the same root is domineer, tame, &c.; but to dwell longer on this subject would be to anticipate our future explanations.

The Saxon had, or hade, was merely another orthography of hafd, the head, and, when conjoined with any other noun, it denoted the state or power of that noun,-all that was contained under the term. The English termination HEAD, or (more generally) HOOD, has a like effect. MAIDENHEAD, CHILDHOOD, and MANHOOD, are abstract denominations, and express respectively the whole of what is contained under the general terms Maiden, Child, and Man: what constitutes the class without adverting to individuals. In old English, this affix was a separate word, as woman hede for womanhood, God hede for Godhead, &c. We shall afterwards find that the verbs To HOLD (Scotch had) and To HAVE, are etymologically connected with head, the Saxon hafd. In the law phrase To Have and To Hold," they each denote possession, the former general, and the latter continued. Head is metaphorically a cover, and to cover is to hold or contain. HooD, in its separate usage, has a restricted sense. Like the kindred word HAT, it no longer denotes the head itself, but a cover for that part of the body, in the same manner that CAP has sprung from the Latin caput. In that language, capere is equivalent to the verb To hold, in all its usages. Caput, the head of a discourse, in passing through the medium of the French, has given us the term CHAPTER; while the hard c is retained in capital, captain, &c. It is thus that languages are expanded, and that a few monosyllables, originally descriptive of prominent natural objects, produce, by their metapho rical relations, the bulky fabric of a modern dictionary.

The termination SHIP, in friendship, guardianship, partnership, and many other words, is equivalent to head, or hood; for, had we occasion to express the abstract value of a noun, which has not hitherto been so generalized,-all that is contained in its meaning, or comprehended in its definition,—the addition of head, hood, or ship, might be made indifferently. Thus the term war might transmit one of its shades of meaning into either of the compounds war-hood, war-head, or war-ship. Indeed, the terminations seem to flow from like

sources. We may have observed, in the comparison of letters, that there is a regular gradation from k to sh; and, from the variation of orthography, we have several words which are, respectively, of synonymous origin, and differ only in the circumstances in which they are now applied. It is thus that we have shake and quake; shiver and quiver; short and curt; shrink and cringe; shy and coy, &c. The Latin caput, the German kopf, the French chef, the German termination schaft, the Dutch schap, the Danish skab, the Saxon scipe, and the English ship, have all an evident fraternity. In Scotland, this termination has the hard sound, as masterskip for mastership, heirskip for heirship, &c.

It may be observed of the terminations head, hood, and ship, that they are properly added only to such words (of Saxon derivation) as are previously considered as nouns : falsehood and hardship are the only doubtful exceptions. Adjectives, however, are often raised to the rank of abstract (or generalized) substantives; and those adjectives which are indigenous to the language undergo that change by the addition of the termination NESS. This syllable appears in the Anglo-Saxon, but always in composition. Some etymologists would derive it from the Latin nasus, the nose, (which is the most prominent part of the face, as the head is of the body,) and have deprecated the ludicrous idea which it conveys, as being solely the offspring of early associations. This origin would account very well for its application when designating a promontory, as in the geographical names Sheerness, Dungèness, &c. in which it assimilates to the word CAPE (caput), or HEADLAND; but, as an abstract termination, the etymology is at least doubtful. It is, probably, an old definitive, or mark of existence, like the and it, or the Latin esse, to which it bears an outward similarity. The French termination èsse has the same import in that language, and is also the definitive mark of a feminine noun: Petitèsse, for example, is littleness, from petit, little; and tendrèsse is tenderness, from tendre, soft. The Saxon affix (from which ness is more assuredly descended,) was written variously esse, ysse, nesse, and nysse, and nouns with that termination were, like the French, always feminine. In old English it was nesse, with the final e; and the cause why the n was prefixed seems to be, that adjectives and participles, to which, only, this termination is joined, were then universally written with a final e (whether mute, or vocal, was indeterminate); and the n became necessary to prevent the hiatus, for the same reason that it was occasionally added to the article a. Why the n was sometimes omitted, and oftener inserted, in the Saxon termination, is difficult to discover, for we know little of the euphony of that language.

The transformation of qualities into substances is the work of imagination. We add a definitive to the adjective either by a prefix or a termination, and immediately a substantive is formed. We have then an it,—a or the something.

g

Green, for example, is merely a sensation of the mind, arising from a particular modification of the rays of light, and has no existence separate from the body that reflects those rays. In grammatical language it is an adjective, and must be conjoined with a substantive before it can express a determinate idea; but, when we choose to speak of "the green," "green itself," or "greenness,' we create a metaphysical Being, of which we may speak as of a real existence. Of this class of substantives, those in ness are by far the most numerous, amounting to about thirteen hundred; but there are other formations of the same kind which deserve notice :

A number of substantives in TH, though apparently monosyllables, are real compounds; thus, breadth is equivalent to broadness, length to longness, and strength to strongness. This affix is evidently the definite article the, and in former times was so written; wealth was wealthe, or the weal; and health was healthe, or the heal. The roots of most of those substantives have an antiquated orthography, so as to vary from the adjectives of the present day; but they are, nevertheless, sufficiently near to demonstrate their identity. Filth is obviously foulness, although fil and foul have different vowels.

The Romans formed abstract nouns from adjectives by one or other of the affixes tas and tudo; and those have originated the English terminations TY and TUDE, which are added chiefly to words of Latin derivation. Take, for example, the following Latin adjectives :

Ty was formerly TIE, in place of which the French (who have appropriated the same terminations,) employ té. Both nations use freedoms with this affix, by adding it to words that have little or no affinity to the Latin tongue. Thus we write safety or nicety, instead of safeness and niceness, and have borrowed the word gaiety (gayness), directly from the French gaieté.

In the same manner as the absence, or the addition, of a plural termination distinguishes the noun into one or many, we may conceive other terminations which would diminish or increase its size. Such affixes exist in most languages, but they are seldom of general application. The Latin diminutives were ulus

and culus, (varied with gender,) and have been partially transmitted to us along with certain words to which they were annexed. Thus we have particle, from particula, a small part; and globule, from globulus, a little globe. Cellula is a cellule, or little cell; and tabernaculum is a tabernacle,-a small or temporary dwelling. From these and other examples, ULE and CLE may be now considered as English diminutives. The Latin culus, in some words, took the form of unculus, as in homunculus, a little man; and the Saxons had the diminutive incle, which does not now appear, unless, perhaps, in some frequentative verbs.

From the German kind, a child, is formed the diminutive termination KIN, as lambkin, a young lamb; bodkin, a small body, &c.; and those in ock, by contraction, as hillock from hillikin. KIN, KIND, and KINDRED, are derived from the same source. They signify, of the same family,—children of the same parents. Kindlich, the German etymon of our KINDLY, denotes filial affection. The German klein, little, or small, and the Saxon hlæne, or læne, lean, or slender, allude to the state of a child. LING (a termination inherited from the Anglo-Saxons,) is either a diminutive, as little, or descriptive of family, as kind. Hence we have darling, (or dearling,) firstling, foundling, gosling, &c. Some of these have a caressive signification, by recalling to our minds the simplicity of childhood. If, however, we look at this state from another point of view, it will present an object with no will of its own, but completely under the power of another. The affix ling is, therefore, often expressive of contempt, as applied to slavish dispositions and situations, such as worldling, hireling, &c. This allusion is common to every language, and worldling is not a more peculiar idiom than the scripture phrase "children of the world." LET (apparently a contraction of little,) is also a diminutive termination in the words hamlet, a small village; croslet, a small cross; streamlet, a little stream, &c.

The Scotch attribute much of the beauty of their national poetry to the frequent use of diminutives, which are sometimes doubled in the same word; but the Italians have an advantage, in this respect, over all the other nations of Europe. Their diminutives have each a masculine and a feminine termination, by which they accommodate themselves to almost every substantive, (and even to adverbs,) at the pleasure of the writer; and hence that tenderness of expression which is the boasted excellence of their tongue. Ino, etto, and ello, are of the masculine; and ina, etta, and ella, of the feminine gender. The ello and ella are evidently compounded with the pronouns lo and la, he and she. The others appear to be corrupted from inlo and inla, etlo and etla; and, consequently, in, et, and el, are the true Italian diminutives. The French