191 



quality (I. 285,) etherlal temper, and to the ablative temporis, (I. 36,) 

 what time. He seems to have longed for an ablative case in English, 

 which would supersede the necessity of a preposition. Even in his 

 prose he has such expressions as " Things worthier silence." 



It is a peculiarity, and, to say the truth, a defect in the Latin 

 language, that it hardly acknowledges the use of verbal substantives, 

 i.e. substantives derived from verbs and expressing the action of the 

 verb. The German forms a verbal substantive from every verb by the 

 termination "ung;" e.g. "Erbauung, Eroberung." Equivalent to this 

 is the English termination " ing," which looks like that of the participle 

 pi'eseut, but is in reality to be considered as quite different, e.g. 

 the building, the taking. Such substantives being very rare in Latin, 

 and even where they exist, being hardly agreeable to the Roman ear,* 

 it is usual to circumscribe such expressions, where they would occur, 

 by the participle of the verb. The Roman, therefore^ instead of saying 

 " Two hundred years after the building of the city," says " Two 

 hundred years after the city built:" fost urbem conditam. This con- 

 struction, which is not an improvement upon English, but the reverse, 

 Milton has imitated, T. 373 : — 



" Foi' never since created man 

 Met such embodied force ;" 

 i.e. since the creation of man. And again, I. 635 : — 



" For me bo witness all the host of heaven, 



If counsels different, or danger shunned 



By me have lost our hopes ;" 

 i.e. the difference of counsels and the shunning of dangers. 



One of the greatest imperfections of the English language is the 

 almost total absence of distinctive genders in substantives, and the 

 consequent want of terminations. This not only contributes to deprive 

 the language of the graceful undulation othermse produced by the 

 admixture of short terminational syllables, but it ties down the 

 construction (i.e. the arrangement of words) to a stereotyped form, 

 compelling us to sacrifice originality, variety, and vigour, to per- 

 spicuity. One of the consequences of this circumstance is, that the 

 use of adjectives instead of substantives is considerably circumscribed. 

 The Greek and the German languages have the greatest freedom 

 in this respect. The Latin lacks the article, and is thus restrained 



• The Greek language delights and abounds in these words. This is au indication and a 

 proof of the fundamental diU'erence of the two nations. The Greek was inclined to generalize 

 and form abstract ideas ; observing towns built, be embodied the process in a word, 

 building. The Roman only noticed the individual act : he formed no theory upon it, and no 

 word to denote the process. 

 Q 



