HARD WORDS. 203 



ponderous soul, the eloquent Melancthon, the acute Erasmus, or the 

 prose of the divine Petrarch, whose " words are as deep waters," 

 wherein the concord of sound and sense are beautifully preserved. 

 If we examine into the rise and progression of language, we 

 shall find that words proceed from two sources ; first by creation — 

 that is a reciprocity of sound with such as is created by external ob- 

 jects, and which the Greeks termed ovoftaroirouu — onomatopoeia — such 

 as the words, crash, dash, hiss, grunt, grunnitus porcorum, tinnitus 

 aeris, or voXvQXotfffros 6a.\a.<r<ri — the many sounding ocean — the sound 

 being an echo to the meaning; and, secondly, derivatives from 

 other languages in the universal Babel. Creation begins and al- 

 most ceases with the origin of language — derivation perfects it. 

 If we examine our own tongue, how much has it been enriched of 

 late years by the appropriation of words originally applied to the 

 sciences, but now become colloquial terms.* Thus every new word, 

 especially if a synonyme, gives facility to our ideas, and with the 

 immense advantage of variety of form, perhaps the most essential 

 distinction in modern literature; for, as our modern Horace justly 

 remarks — 



" True wit is nature to advantage dress'd ; 

 What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd. 



Verbal affluence depends less upon a knowledge of primary words 

 than of compounds and synonyms. A very few sounds are adequate 

 to express our mere wants, or even general ideas ; but to ring the 

 changes of thoughts in its myriaded shades, its degrees and associa- 

 tions, requires not only the full tone but its sixteenths.f In my 

 frequent country ramblings, I have often amused myself with thus 

 dallying with words — turning them into every possible change and 

 inflection — and not unfrequently have been startled by the appari- 

 tion of a thought at once pronounced from obscurity to light. I 

 have pursued these configurations until the labour has been forgot- 

 ten in the excitement, whilst thought rushed on thought without 

 effort or solicitation, carried forward by successive propulsion, until 

 my arteries have quickened, and my mind glowed with a new inspi- 

 ration. The forms of things unknown are bodied forth in sounds ; 

 and if the glory of thought be unequally possessed, clearness and 

 perspicuity of style will add importance even to trifles. 



* As amalgamation, exacerbation, diathesis, disruption, plethoric, homoge- 

 neous, &c. 



f It is related of the sublime Mozart that he could detect the sixteenth 

 of a tone. 



