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AMEUICANISM AMERICUS VF.SPUCIUS. 



have tlwin selves adopted the very words which (hey 

 fount rly condemned. ( >i' the words (lius sanctioned 

 by tluiii, tin; verb to advocate was, no longer ago 

 in the year 17!>3. denounced ;is one of the 

 v.ords which the Americans hail " invented, with- 

 out any apparent reason," iiml which the Knglish 

 had " altogether declined to countenance." But 

 this ill-fiited word, which was then proscribed as an 

 American intruder into the language, has more 

 iv liceu d -covered to have been used so long 

 ago as the age of Milton, the excellence of whose 

 jirose writings had, until modern days, been entirely 

 lost sight of in the splendour and majesty of liis 

 poetic diction. We have still, however, some doubt 

 whether Milton used this word in the sense now 

 infixed to it both in Britain and America ; it was 

 certainly used in a different sense by his contem- 

 poraries, and the present meaning of it had not 

 In en sanctioned, as we strongly believe, by any 

 Milwqnent writers (if we except a single instance in 

 Dnrkc's works), until it was brought into general 

 use in America, by the writers of that country, and, 

 more recently, by the authority of Milton's name, 

 among English writers, some of whom now claim it 

 as their own, with as much zeal as it was once con- 

 demned. (See Todd's edition of Johnson's Diet.) 

 Some other words, which were either newly-coined, 

 i'.- old ones newly brought into use in America, have 

 been admitted into good writing in England. The 

 particulars in which Americans have departed from 

 Knglish usage, may be reduced to the following 

 -i -s : 1. Words entirely new, of which the num- 

 ber is extremely small ; e. g. caucus, bootable. 2. 

 Words to which is affixed a meaning different from 

 that of the English ; e. g. clever, to girdle. 3. Words 

 whose original meaning has been preserved by 

 Americans, while the English have given them 

 a new signification. 4. Provincialisms, originally 

 taken from different counties in England, by the 

 first emigrants, to America, and still used there, just 

 as they are in the mother country at this day. This 

 class of words may be said to be wholly confined to 

 the language of conversation. 5. Words which liave 

 become obsolete in England, but are still in use in 

 A merica ; as, to tarry. It may be further remark- 

 ed, that, in aU these classes, a great proportion of 

 the words are of local use, technical, mere vulgar- 

 ians, or used, only by individual writers, whose 

 caprice and affectation of style are not followed by 

 the nation at large. We have observed, that single 

 words and expressions had been occasionally men- 

 tioned by American writers many years ago. The 

 first attempt to make a general collection 01 all such 

 words as had been supposed to be American pecu- 

 liarities, was that of Mr John Pickering, who pub- 

 lished a Vocabulary of them in the Memoirs of the 

 American Academy (vol. 3, p. 439), in the year 

 1809. This valuable collection was afterwards re- 

 printed, with large additions by the author, under 

 the title of A Vocabulary, or Collection of Words 

 and Phrases, which have been supposed to be 

 Deculiar to the United States of America (8vo., 

 pp. 206, Boston, 1816), and was accompanied with 

 a Memoir on the present State of the English 

 Language in the United States. It contains a list 

 of about 500 words and phrases, which are all care- 

 fully examined, and traced, in almost every instance, 

 to an English origin. This Vocabulary has been 

 freely used in the late valuable American edition ol 

 J ohnson , by M r Worcester, who observes that it " has 

 had a salutary influence on our literature, by calling 

 the attention of our scholars to the occasional devia- 

 , tions of American writers from pure English." Mr 

 Webster's new Dictionary of the English Language 

 (published 1829, New- York) contains many word* 



with their American significations ; but this work is 

 not so complete in Americanisms as the Vocabulary 

 of Mr Pickering, above-mentioned. We shall 

 recur to this subject under the article English Lan- 

 guage. We cannot conclude these remarks, with- 

 out directing the reader's attention to the circum- 

 stance, that Britain and the Tinted Slates of 

 America ati'ord the first instance in history of two 

 great, independent, and active nations daily de- 

 veloping new and cliaractcristie features, .situated at 

 a great distance from each other, and having a 

 common language and literature. These relations 

 must, sooner or later, exert a decisive influence upon 

 the common dialect; for no language is MI settled 

 as not to undergo continual changes, if spoken l>\ ;. 

 nation in the full vigour of social and political life. 

 Authority, in regard to language, will go far, but 

 never can withstand for a long time the energies 

 and wants of a free, industrious, and thinking people, 

 Spain and Portugal, indeed, with the independent 

 nations of South America, present an instance in 

 many respects parallel ; but the contest of language, 

 will be more languid, in proportion as then' is less 

 energy and activity in the mother countries, and 

 less progress in the arts and sciences, as well as less 

 political advancement, in the states which have 

 lately shaken off the yoke. 



AMEUICUS VEBPUCIUS ; properly jlmerigo J'ca- 

 pucci; born March 9, 1451, at Florence, of an 

 ancient family. He early made great progress in 

 natural philosphy, astronomy, and geography, at tliat 

 time the tliree principal branches of science studied 

 at Florence, on account of their importance in re- 

 lation to commerce. In 1490, lie went to Spain for 

 the purpose of trading, and was at Seville when 

 Columbus was making preparations for his second 

 voyage. The success of Coluuibus's undertaking 

 excited Vespucci to give up trade, and explore 

 these newly-discovered countries. According to 

 his own account, in one of his letters, he entered on 

 his first voyage, under the command of admiral 

 Ojeda, May 20, 1497, who left the harbour of Cadiz 

 with four ships, and, after a voyage of thirty-seven 

 days, reached the main land of America, explored 

 the bay of Faria, and the coast for several hundred 

 miles, and, after eighteen months, returned to Spain, 

 and was received with distinction by the court at 

 Seville. In May, 1499, he began his second voy 

 age, the fruit of which was the discovery of a mul- 

 titude of small islands. This is his own account. 

 But it is fully proved, that no such voyage as the 

 one first mentioned was made, and that his first 

 expedition to the new continent was in 1499, under 

 the command of Ojeda, a year after the discovery 

 and examination of that part of the coast by Colum- 

 bus. Other accounts of Vespucci are, also, incon- 

 sistent with the statement above given. (See In ing's 

 Columbus.) After this, he entered the service of 

 king Emanuel of Portugal, and made two voyages 

 in Portuguese ships ; the first, May 10, 1501 ; the 

 second, May 10, 1503. The object of this last 

 voyage was to find a westerly passage to Malacca. 

 A. arrived at Brazil, and discovered the bay of All 

 Saints. In 1505, he again entered the sen-ice ot 

 the king of Spain, but made no more voyages, as 

 appears from memoranda, showing that he was at 

 Seville till 1508, at which time he was appointed 

 principal pilot. His duties were to prepare charts, 

 and prescribe routes for vessels hi their voyages to 

 the new world, which soon received his name. This 

 honour certainly belonged to Columbus rather than 

 to A., for the prior discovery of the continent by the 

 former is not to be questioned. We have a chart of 

 America laid down by A.; a journal of four of his 

 voyages, printed at Paris, 1532, in the Latin Ian- 



