in the Composition of Nouns and Adjectives. 65 



in his Noctes Atticae, goes further, and says, " The particle ve 

 has a double and even contrary signification, for it has the power 

 both to increase and diminish the meaning # ." This royal mode 

 of solving the knot has often been adopted by ignorant per- 

 sons more anxious to give a ready answer, than to confess their 

 doubts, and thus excite others to explain the difficulty. It is 

 like the answer of the Cambridge man, who, shewing more than 

 a common want of knowledge, was at last ironically asked, if he 

 knew whether it was the sun that turned round the earth or the 

 earth round the sun, and answered, that they did duty alter- 

 nately; that sometimes the earth turned round the sun, and that 

 at other times the sun turned round the earth. It may be safely 

 affirmed, that no one word (and a particle is a word) ever could 

 have borne two contrary meanings, and that, if such be appa- 

 rently the case, it can only arise from the fact, that two words, 

 owing to the action of time, have been ground down into the 

 same form. Such was the case with the Greek particle a, called 

 both privative and intensive. The first represents av, the Greek 

 form of the Latin in, not the English un : the second represents 

 the Greek a^a, although at times it loses its aspiration. I shall 

 subsequently shew, that vce does not increase the meaning of any 

 Latin word. 



Ovid, in the third book of his Fasti, has the following lines 

 on the etymology of Vejovis : 



" Nunc vocor ad verbum, vegrandia Farra coloni 

 Quae male creverunt vescaque parva vocant. 

 Vis ea si verbi est, cur non ego Vejovis ^Edem, 

 Mdem non magni suspicer esse Jovem." 



Which may be thus translated : " Now for the meaning of the 

 word, husbandmen call the grain which has not well filled, ve* 



* " Ve enira particula * * * duplicem significatum eundemque inter sese diver- 

 sum capit. Nam et augendae rei et minuendae valet." 



VOL. XIII. PART I. I 



