306 DISQUISITIONS en the 



this we can add, what I believe will pretty generally be found to 

 hold true, that thofe who affect mod to defpife this branch of 

 ftudy, have feldom any thing better to fubftitute in its place, 

 a fufficient vindication will, I hope, be afforded, for employ- 

 ing a little literary leifure in the culture even of this apparently 

 unpromifing field. 



These confiderations may, I truft, then, plead my apology for 

 taking up the attention of the Society at this time with fome ety- 

 mological hints and conjectures, — not, I own, directed towards 

 the more extenfive tracts in which profounder fcholars often wifh 

 to range, but confined within the narrow limits of a particular 

 branch of a particular language, — a language, however, juflly 

 admired for copioufnefs and elegance, and a branch of it which 

 at different times has been thought worthy the attention of cri- 

 tics of no inferior note. 



By the ingenious and elaborate refearches of recent etymolo- 

 gifts, the ftructure of language has been made to affume a Am- 

 pler drefs than what grammarians had once thought proper to 

 invefl it with. The parts of fpeech, as they are technically term- 

 ed, have been reduced from their numerous claffes to two ; the 

 connecting particles, ufually termed and fuppofed indeclinable, 

 have been completely excluded from their feparate rank ; and by 

 tracing out the genealogical relations of words, all have been 

 fairly fhown to belong to one or other of the claffes of Nouns or 

 Verbs *. 



The 



* Even this clarification of words might be ftill farther Amplified, and either 

 ihe noun or the verb fhewn to be the root of all language. Etymologifts have dif- 

 fered 



