196 A Donative Inscription of the Tenth Century. [No. 3, 
It is to the kindness of Col. Sir Richmond Shakespear, C. B., that 
I owe the communication of the relic whose contents are about to 
be abstracted. So little corroded by time are the two copper tablets, 
on which the document is engraved, that scarcely any difficulty 
attended the decipherment of it to the last character. The tablets 
were exhumed, I am told, not far from Indore. 
The donor specified in the inscription is King Vakpatiraja, whose 
alternative name was Amoghavarsha. Among the epithets given 
to him are those of Favourite of the Earth and Favourite of 
coinage — ‘unreliable;’ or, perhaps, in more correct English too ‘ unrelyupon- 
able.' ” Selections Grave and Gay, Vol. XI., p. 244. The Literary Church- 
man for 1860, p. 3, in reviewing the Bampton Lectures for 1859, remarks ; 
“ Mr. Rawlinson has sometimes allowed this ungrammatical Americanism, — pp. 
48, 49, — which is sadly forcing its way into our language. Rely-on-able is too 
gross; hut reliable is absurd. Trustworthy is English.” Again, at p. 442, we 
read of some one as being “ more trustworthy, or — as our dreadful cockneys say — 
‘ reliable ;’ ” the word having undergone naturalization, at least in the vicinity of 
Bow bells, within the short space of eleven months. Strange to say, mtermedi- 
diately, at p. 390, an original critique is admitted, which speaks of “ reliable 
conclusions.” To turn to the Saturday Review, in No. 283, for the 30th of last 
March, it wishes that “Mr. Shirley would not write such Jupiter English as 
‘ reliable evidence.’ ” Yet, only fourteen pages back, a leading article of the 
same issue discourses of “ reliable labour and in old numbers of the paper, 
and also in the very latest, the obnoxious adjective intrudes again and again. 
The Dictionary of Dr. Worcester, by far the best of our language, an American 
work which came out in 1860, supplies the next and last quotation : “ Reliable — 
together with its derivatives, reliability and reliableness — is a very modern word, 
recently often met with ; and it has the sanction of some highly respectable autho- 
rities. But it is ill formed, and it cannot properly have the signification in 
which it is always used. Potential passive adjectives in able * * are derived 
from active verbs, as allow, allowable ; but adjectives derived from neuter verbs 
do not admit of this passive sense, as perish, perishable. In order to form a 
passive adjective from rely, we must annex on or upon, and give it the ludicrous 
form relionable or reliuponable, which would properly signify, ‘ that may be relied 
on or upon.’ The adjective uncomeatdble, found in the Tatler, and inserted by 
Johnson in his Dictionary, is formed on the same principle; and Johnson pro- 
perly styles it ‘ a low, corrupt word.’ But uncomeable, if there were such a 
word, would not admit of the sense, ‘ not to be come at.’ ” 
Now, ‘ accountable’ is that which may be accounted for. ‘ Available,’ in one 
of its acceptations, is that viliieh one may avail oneself of. 1 Demurrable,’ which 
we find in Hallam, is that which may be demurred to. Pope’s ‘ dependable’ is 
that which may be depended upon. ‘ Dispensable’. — less common than ‘ indis- 
pensable, which follows the same rule — is that which may be dispensed with . 
‘ Disposable is that which may be disposed of. ‘ Laughable’ may fairly be 
added to tl,e list ; and so may ‘ self-confident,’ ‘ self-denying,’ &c. &c. 
‘ Reliable has, thus, analogies ; not very many, it is true, and yet enough to 
prove that it keeps commendable company. But, even if it were in violation of all 
analogy, being vitally engrafted upon our language, any attempt to dislodge it 
will be nugatory, not to say illaudaole withal, when we take into account, that it 
does not precisely signify ‘ trustworthy,’ any more than ‘ reliance’ precisely sig- 
nifies ‘ trust.’ No one, in our days, scruples at ‘ starvation,’ or at ‘ truism ;’ 
and much more can be said for ‘ reliable,’ than for either of them, that ought to 
relieve the qualms of an ultra-purist. 
