1801.] Comments on Mafon’s Supplement to Fobnfon's Dictionary. 
fhould mean rhe quality of being captive. 
If this obfervation be well founded, it ac- 
counts in fome degree for the reluctance 
felt at employing this whole clafs of fub- 
ftantives in the plural number: that which 
is going on without interruption is as in- 
fufceptible of plurality as warmth or be- 
atitude. Still we can fay: the difagree- 
ing warmths of mineral {prings ; the be- 
atitudes promifed in the fermon‘on the 
mount; the contrivances of the knights 
to follow Armida, and the want of: va- 
riety in their captivances. 
Catfo.—A lady was complimenting Dr. 
Johnfon on the omiffion of all indelicate 
words in his Diétionary. ‘‘ I perceive, 
Madam, you have been poaching for 
them,”’ was the reply of the fhrewd cynic. 
The recorder of this word, and of its de- 
rivative, but ill imitates furely the cau- 
tion of his predeceffor: is it not a fami- 
liar oath or exclamation of the Italians, 
analogous in meaning to the Latin pales, 
and, like it, ufed occafionally for an adole- 
fcent, a blood: does not catzerie there- 
fore mean fubferviency to libidinous gra- 
tification? ‘Thus Ben Jonfon : 
Thefe be our nimble-fpirited cat/fos, that 
have their evafions:at pleafure. 
Every Man in his Humour. 
And Marlow: 
He looks like one that is employed in catzerte. 
Few of Malta. 
Mr. Mafon makes thefe words fynoni- 
mous with /windler and frindling. 
Celeftin.— Why not diftinguifh between 
the fubfiantive and the adjective ; between 
Pope Celeftin and the Celeitine Friars? Does 
any one write mafculin, feminin ? Ulage 
has eftablifhed the e final in ali adjectives 
formed by this rule of analogy: one al- 
ways reads the ‘Clementine conftitutions,’ 
the ‘Benedictine editions.” This remark 
would have been better placed at the word 
Benediftin. 
To chaldefe.—Is a verb fo anomalous 
to be received on fuch authority as. that 
-adduced by Mr. Mafon? Is the paflage 
from Butler’s Remains any thing fhort of 
nonfenf{e? 
That-men fo grave and wife 
Should be chaldes’d by gnats and flies, 
In what refpect can gnats chaldefe, or 
chaldaize, men: for the word is allowed 
to be formed from chaldee, a fyriac dialect 
of the Hebrew. In Butler’s fenfe of the 
word: He who chaliaized the book of 
Daniel chaldefed many a divine. See 
Hudibras, l. 1010. ee 
Cloud-top’d.—This is a vitious though’ 
acommon way of fpelling: for it is a 
e 
99 
bull in orthography to defcribe the unut- 
terable. A hard and a foft confonant 
cannot by any human. organs be pro- 
nounced in immediate fucceffion in the 
fame fyllables Rob’d, robb’d, ribb’d, 
are poflible founds ; fo are foapt, ftopt, 
Jipt : but to unite in one termination 4, d, 
&> VU, Or %, with p, ¢, k, fj or s, is inarti- 
culable. Thofe who write top’d or topp’d, 
lip’d or lipp’d, ftopp’d and ripp’d, pro- 
pofe to the organs of f{peech this impof- 
fible coalition. ‘Fhe reafon why the Ger- 
mans never learn to diftinguifh in fpeak- 
ing between dand ¢, b and p, is that the 
orthography of their language habitually 
confounds the difference, prefenting the 
letters 6 and d when they muft be pro- 
nounced p and #/, and converfely. Thus 
the Germans abfurdly write dt and 
Stadt, which muft be pronounced either 
Abd or Apt, either Statt or Stadd; the 
hard and the foft confonant cannot be 
both founded in one exhalation. There 
is a difficulty in writing the participle 
frriped in its contraéted monofyllabic form: 
the pmuft in pronunciation be followed 
by ¢, yet it fhould not be confounded with 
fiript, the regular contraction of /iripped. 
hy not piace an apoftrophe before the 
letter ¢, as readily as before a d, and write 
fiript ? | 
Committee.—This word is the regular 
perfonal fubftantive paffive of the verb zo 
commit, and means primarily, One to whom 
any thing 1s committed, a> in the inftances 
propetly adduced by Mi. Mafon. The 
parliamentary ule of the word is anoma- 
lous: it there means the collective body of 
perfons to whom any thing Is committed ; 
and, in that baragoinith fenfe, is accented 
on the fecond fyllable. 
Conftituent.—in the eftablifhed language 
of Englith polity conffituent hastong figni- 
fied he who defutes another : it is thus de- 
fined by Johnfon, it is thus employed by 
Burke. In this fenfe the primary are the 
confiituent affemblies of the French. But 
fome gallicizing writers have introduced 
an inconvenient practice of tranflating the 
French participle con/ituante (derived from 
the verb conjiituer to conftitute) by the 
word confiituent inftead of the word con/fi- 
tuting ; they have called the firlt national 
aflembiy of France the con/tituent infead. 
of the cox/fituting eflembly ; and thus they 
have prepared our ears for the dostrine 
that parliament is the fundamental con- 
ftituent authority, and eleétors the creas 
tures of its fiat. 
Confiitutionalif?. Mr. Mafon unaccount- 
ably defines this word az innovaior of the 
civil con/titution ; whereas it mult by its 
Oz firucture 
