polite; easily admit of er and est. Words of more than two syllables hardly ever admit of those terminations.

In some few words the Superlative is formed by adding the adverb most to the end of them; as, nethermost, uttermost, or, utmost, undermost, uppermost, foremost.

In English, as in most languages, there are some words of very common use, (in which the caprice of Custom is apt to get the better of Analogy), that are irregular in this respect: as, good, better, best; bad, worse, worst; little, less*, least; much, or many, more, most; and a few others. And in other languages, the words irregular in this respect, are those which express the very same ideas with the foregoing.

VERB.

A VERB is a word which signifies to be, to do, or to

suffer.

There are three kinds of Verbs; Active, Passive, and Neuter Verbs.

66

A Verb Active expresses an Action, and necessarily implies an Agent, and an Object acted upon; as, to love; “ I love Thomas."

Lesser, says Johnson, is a barbarous corruption of less, formed by the vulgar from the habit of terminating Comparisons in er."

"Attend to what a lesser Muse indites." Addison.

"The tongue is like a race-horse; which runs the faster, the lesser weight it carries." Addison, Spect. N 247.

Worser sounds much more barbarous, only because it has not been so frcquently used.

"Changed to a worser shape thou canst not be."

Shakespear, 1 Hen. VI.

"A dreadful quiet felt, and worser far

Than armis, a sullen interval of war." Dryden.

The Superlative least ought rather to be written without the a, being contracted from lessest; as Dr. Wallis hath long ago observed. The conjunction of the same sound, might be written with the a, for distinction.

YOL. I.

N

A Verb

A Verb Passive expresses a Passion, or a Suffering, or the Receiving of an Action; and necessarily implies an Object acted upon, and an Agent by which it is acted upon; as, to be loved; "Thomas is loved by me."

So when the Agent takes the lead in the Sentence, the Verb is Active, and is followed by the Object; when the Object takes the lead, the Verb is Passive, and is followed by the Agent.

A Verb Neuter expresses Being; or a state or condition of being; when the Agent and the Object acted upon coincide, and the event is properly Neither action nor passion, but rather something between both; as, I am, I sleep, I walk.

The Verb Active is called also Transitive; because the action passeth over to the Object, or hath an effect upon some other thing: and the Verb Neuter is called Intransitive; because the effect is confined within the Agent, and doth not pass over to any object.

In English many Verbs are used both in an Active and Neuter signification, the construction only determining of which kind they are.

To the signification of the Verb is superadded the designation of Person, by which it corresponds with the several Personal Pronouns; of Number, by which it corresponds with the number of the Noun, Singular or Plural; of Time, by which it represents the being, action, or passion, as Present, Past, or Future, whether Imperfectly, or Perfectly; that is, whether passing in such time, or then finished; and lastly of Mode, or of the various Manners in which the being, action, or passion is expressed.

In a Verb, therefore, are to be considered the Person, the Number, the Time, and the Mode.

The Verb in some parts of it varies its endings, to express, or agree with, different Persons of the same number: as, "I love, Thou lovest, He loveth, or loves"

So

as,

So also to express different Numbers of the same person: "Thou lovest, Ye love; He loveth, They love *.

So likewise to express different Times in which any thing is represented as being, acting, or acted upon: as, "I love, I loved; I bear, I boer, I have borne."

The Mode is the Manner of representing the Being, Action, or Passion. When it is simply declared, or a question asked, in order to obtain a declaration concerning it, it is called the Indicative Mode; as, "I love; lovest thou?" when it is bidden, it is called the Imperative; as, "love thou:" when it is subjoined as the end or design, or mentioned under a condition, a supposition, or the like, for the most part depending on some other Verb, and having a Conjunction before it, it is called the Subjunctive; as, "If I love; if thou love:" when it is barely expressed without any limitation of person or number, it is called the Infinitive; as, "to love:" and when it is expressed in a form in which it may be joined to a Noun as its quality or accident, partaking thereby of the nature of an Adjective, it is called the Participle; as, loving t

But to express the time of the Verb the English uses also the assistance of other Verbs, called therefore Auxiliaries,

In the Plural Number of the Verb, there is no variation of ending to express the different Persons; and the three Persons Plural are the same also with the first Person Singular: moreover in the Present Time of the Subjunctive Mode all Personal Variation is wholly dropped. Yet is this scanty provision of terminations sufficient for all the purposes of discourse, nor does any ambiguity arise from it: the Verb being always attended either with the Noun expressing the Subject acting or acted upon, or the Pronoun representing it. For which reason the Plural Termination in en, they loven, they weren, formerly in use, was laid aside as unnecessary, and hath long been obsolete.

+ A Mode is a particular form of the Verb, denoting the manner in which a thing is, does, or suffers: or expressing an intention of mind concerning such being, doing, or suffering. As far as Grammar is concerned, there are no more Modes in any language, than there are forms of the Verb appro

priated

ticle has in these phrases: it means a small or great number collectively taken, and therefore gives the idea of a Whole, that is, of unity. Thus likewise a hundred, a thou sand, is one whole number, an aggregate of many collectively taken; and therefore still retains the Article a, though joined as an adjective to a plural Substantive; as, a hundred years.

"For harbour at a thousand doors they knock'd;
Not one of all the thousand, but was lock'd."

Dryden.

The Definite Article the is sometimes applied to Adverbs in the Comparative and Superlative degree; and its effect is to mark the degree the more strongly, and to define it the more precisely: as, "the more I examine it, the better I like it. I like this the least of any."

SUBSTANTIVE.

A SUBSTANTIVE, or NOUN, is the Name of a thing; of whatever we conceive in any way to subsist, or of which we have any notion.

Substantives are of two sorts; Proper and Common Names. Proper Names are the Names appropriated to individuals; as the names of persons and places: such are George, London. Common Names stand for kinds, containing many sorts; or for sorts containing many individuals under them; as Animal, Man. And these Common Names, whether of kinds or sorts, are applied to express individuals, by the help of Articles added to them, as hath been already shown; and by the help of Definitive Pronouns, as we shall see hereafter.

Proper Names being the names of individuals, and therefore of things already as determinate as they can be made, admit not of Articles, or of Plurality of Number; unless by a Figure, or by Accident: as, when great Conquerors are called Alexanders; and some great Conqueror

An

An Alexander, or The Alexander of his Age: when a Common Name is understood, as The Thames, that is, the River Thames: The George, that is, the Sign of St. George: or when it happens, that there are many persons of the same name: as, The two Scipios.

Whatever is spoken of is represented as one, or more, in Number: these two manners of representation in respect of Number are called the Singular, and the Plural, Number.

In English, the Substantive Singular is made Plural, for the most part, by adding to it s; or es, where it is necessary for the pronunciation: as king, kings; fox, foxes; leaf, leaves; in which last, and many others, f is also changed into u, for the sake of an easier pronunciation, and more agreeable sound.

Some few Plurals end in en; as, oxen, children, brethren, and men, women, by changing the a of the Singular into e*. This form we have retained from the Teutonic; as likewise the introduction of the e in the former svllable of two of the last instances; weomen, (for so we pronounce it,) brethren, from woman, brother: something like which may be noted in some other forms of Plurals: as, mouse, mice; louse, lice; tooth, teeth; foot, feet; goose, geesė. The words sheep, deer, are the same in both Numbers. Some Nouns, from the nature of the things which they express, are used only in the Singular others only in the Plural, Form: as, wheat, pitch, gold, sloth, pride, &c. and bellows, scissars, lungs, bowels, &c.

The English Language, to express different connexions and relations of one thing to another, uses for the most part, Prepositions. The Greek and Latin among the ancient, and some too among the modern languages, as the

And anciently, eyen, shoen, housen, hosen: so likewise anciently sowen, cowen, now always pronounced and written swine, kine.

German,