in the Composition of Nouns and Adjectives. 65 
in his Noctes Atticze, goes further, and says, “ The particle ve 
has a double and even contrary signification, for it has the power 
both to increase and diminish the meaning *.” This royal mode 
of solving the knot has often been adopted by ignorant per- 
sons more anxious to give a ready answer, than to confess their 
doubts, and thus excite others to explain the difficulty. It is 
like the answer of the Cambridge man, who, shewing more than 
a common want of knowledge, was at last ironically asked, if he 
knew whether it was the sun that turned round the earth or the 
earth round the sun, and answered, that they did duty alter- 
nately; that sometimes the earth turned round the sun, and that 
at other times the sun turned round the earth. It may be safely 
affirmed, that no one word (and a particle is a word) ever could 
have borne two contrary meanings, and that, if such be appa- 
rently the case, it can only arise from the fact, that two words, 
owing to the action of time, have been ground down into the 
same form. Such was the case with the Greek particle «, called 
both privative and intensive. The first represents a, the Greek 
form of the Latin in, not the English un: the second represents 
the Greek cpa, although at times it loses its aspiration. I shall 
subsequently shew, that ve does not increase the meaning of any 
Latin word. 
Ovip, in the third book of his Fasti, has the following lines 
on the etymology of Vejovis: 
< Nunc vocor ad verbum, vegrandia Farra coloni 
Quze male creverunt vescaque parva vocant. 
Vis ea si verbi est, cur non ego Vejovis /&dem, 
7®dem non magni suspicer esse Jovem.” 
Which may be thus translated: “ Now for the meaning of the 
word, husbandmen call the grain which has not well filled, ve- 
i ee Se 
* « Ve enim particula * * * duplicem significatum eundemque inter sese diver- 
sum capit. Nam et augende rei et minuendz valet.” 
VOL. XIII. PART [. I 
