64 Rev. Mr Williams on the Force of the prefix Vce or Ve 



in the severer sciences — in unfolding the mysterious powers of 

 matter — in discovering the laws according to which they operate 

 — and in subjecting them to the dominion of man. It is with 

 these feelings, and also from a wish to contribute to the great 

 work now so admirably carried on by the German scholars, and 

 by some distinguished fellow-labourers in this country, that of 

 uniting the present and the past, the remote and the near, by 

 proving the consanguinity of the great Caucasian branch of the 

 human family, that the following statement has been drawn up 

 on the force of the Latin particle ve or (as it was written by the 

 more ancient Romans) vce # . 



in tenui labor. 



Ve seems to have been in common use at an early period of 

 the Roman Republic, as we find it in connection with some of 

 the most ancient part of their mythology, as in Vedius, Vejovis, 

 and Veflamen. Yet when their critics and grammarians, the na- 

 tural produce of a later period, and of more quiet times, began 

 to inquire into the origin and first meaning both of words in 

 common use and of obsolete expressions, ve or vce no longer ex- 

 isted, except as a part of compounded words. By comparing, 

 however, in certain cases, the simple word, as grandis, with its 

 compounded form, as vegrandis, they were enabled to ascertain its 

 original force, without, however, proceeding further, and apply- 

 ing such a discovery to the solution of many etymological diffi- 

 culties. " Ve" (says Festus) " was prefixed by the ancients to 

 a small thing, whence Vejovis, little Jupiter f ." Soon after, he 

 adds, " they used ve instead of very small £." Aulus Gellius, 



* " Ve, particula qua? in aliis atque aliis vocabulis variatim per has duas literas, 

 cum a litera media immissa dicitur." 



-f- " Ve enim syllabam praeponebant parvae rei, unde Vejovem, parvum Jovem. 1 ' 

 — Valpy's Delphin. p. 1005. under Vesculus. 



| " Ve pro pusillo utebantur. 11 — Ibid. eod. pag. under Vescus. 



