652 
tooing in early times. | Probably, there- 
fore, to paint the person is the species of 
indulgence whence cocreth, effeminacy, 
has its name. 
P. 25.. Some nations have used the 
word éu/] as an augmentative: the Eng- 
lish use the word horse, this being no. 
doubt the largest animal of-their ac- 
quaintance, before the southern ‘breeds 
of oxen were introduced. Thus we have 
horse-leech, horse-chesnut; horse-rauish, Borse- 
qwalnut, horse-emmet, horse-muscle, horse-crab, 
horse-godmother,horse-laugh ,horse-face, horte- 
cucumber, horse-marten,  hérse-mint, horse- 
pley,s Se. But’ our author seems-incor- 
rect in referring to this head the phrase 
sick ava horse: it is probably a corrup- 
tion of sick of his orts, sick of the dain- 
tieshe has eaten.  Orts, though obsolete 
now, is to be found in Skinner and Ju- 
nius: but a horse is not subject to vomit- 
ing. 
P.. 40. Some vague prate occurs 
about the abbreviation of those words 
ending in our and in ck, 1.'The most de- 
sirable plan would be to spell the verbs 
honour, favour, and their detivatives ho- 
nourable, favourable, with the #; and to 
spell the substantives hoor, favor, with- 
out the wu. Children and foreigners have 
often a difficulty in distinguishing our 
substantives from our verbs. 2 The 
substantives publick, musick, frolick, trafick, 
have nearly dropped the final £; but it 
would have been better to ‘drop the in- 
tervening c, because the ¢ is an equivocal 
letter, which stands for 5 in mice, rice, 
chaise, witch; for ts in much, rich, cha'r, 
chop; and for & in coffin, care, ache, antic, 
&¢. so that the less this letter is used, 
the less the difficulty of learning to read. 
P. 54. Unposible, unactive, unsuffira- 
ble, are unexceptionable words: the for- 
mative wy although Saxon, is so wholly 
English, that it cannot be annexed to 
words of Greek, Latin, and French ori- 
gin, without exciting that feeling of dis- 
pleasure which hybrid words uswally 
produce. Besides, the syllable tn, hav- 
niga double or triple sense, is often equi- 
vocal, and should be used as rarely as 
possible. Scholars mostly prefer to in- 
flect Greek roots with Greek formative 
syllables, Latin with Latin, and French 
with French ; atheous, indignant, indefeasi- 
ble; not unthcous, undignant, undefeasible ; 
but ail’ Gothic roots, with the Gothic 
syllable, unthrift, ungodly, unwalled, un- 
‘ gwarts.  ~ afi Ding 
P. 55." Shay and poshay for chaise and 
post chaise. These are euphonious collo- 
> . : 
PHILOLOGY AND CRITICISM. 
quial abbreviations, which perhaps merit 
adoption, because they rid the lanpuage 
of a gallicism, an anomaly, and an equi- 
vocation. 
P. 58 It is said in the note that quits 
is bad English, and is a school-boy’s 
adverb. A like reproach is»madex(p. 
60) to someawheres and often, ~The ree 
ular mode of forming adverbs. in all 
the Gothic dialects is toadd s. ‘Thus 
from the adjective unaware comes the 
adverb uzawares ; from the preposition bes 
side the adverb besides; the adverbializing 
s also occurs in backwards, forwards, up- 
wards, downwards, homewards, darklings, 
straitways, &Fc. Ina note’ to the same 
page, the expression for all that or afrall 
that, as it is pronounced, comes in re- 
view: it signifies notwithstanding that. 
Perhaps it is a corruption of after all 
that, or off qll that; or perhaps of afar 
all that, trom the Anglo-Saxon verb. 
afaran: the latter is most probable, and 
indicates the expedient form of writing 
the phrase. 
P. 89. The comparatives worser and 
lesser are reviled: they are both Saxon, 
in which language worse means bad, and 
less means small. The corruption con- 
sists in joining than to the positive 
P. 92. Ulpbolsterer is declared against 
as a corruption. Whence does it de-. 
rive? surely not from to uphold; the st 
would im this case never have intruded. 
From the Anglo-Saxon bolstre, bolster, 
comes bolsterer, a maker of ¢olsters ; the 
vowel prefixed ts a mere coaleseence of 
the article, as when we siy @ newt, an 
apoticary ; or as when the French say /e 
F’antin for the Antinous. But from 
‘poult, a'chicken, should derive poulter, a 
dealer im chickens, and not penlterer. 
P. 95. We are told that the ancient 
increment alder means older, whereas it 
means of all, and is a common prefix to 
superlatives in all the gothie ‘dialects. 
Thus aldirlevist lord signifies dearest of all 
masters. To write, | 
«© And in herarmes she bore her e/der young- 
est child,” ) 
would have been good English, while 
this prefix, which also occurs in the 
less equivocal form aller wasin use. 
P. 173. The regular and familiar 
adverbs afoot, aborseback, are censured ; 
they are regularly formed by prefixing 
the adverbializing a, like aboard, adrift, 
aloof, adays, anights, abreast, ahead, aside, 
and are equally entitled to reception. 
We might analogously say: What is 
atlock ? This formative syllable is pro- 
