Inter Edvardum Bourke et Stephanum Pearce, vulgo dic- quarta et quinta cum Pullo Burkius ultro Lucia ferox interdum, et parte severa ab utraque est, * Melissus is celebrated by Pindar in two odes, 3d and 4th of the Isthmian. Semper inæquali, et cedendo victus abire. ΣΤΕΦΑΝΟΝ ΣΤΕΦΑΝΩΙ ΣΤΕΦΑΝΩΣΑΣ, V. Ρ.+ + V. P. may stand for Victoria Pugilistica, Victor Pearcius, Versus Paramiacus, or any thing else that the reader chooses. CORRESPONDENCE. Philosophical Grammar. Mr. EDITOR, Those who have applied their minds to that curious and instructive study, which seems to unite the abstractions of metaphysics with the plainest and most obvious phenomena collected from experience, I mean the study of universal or philosophical grammar, must be convinced that the method suggested by Mr. Horne Tooke, is the only one which can ever place the science on a solid foundation. He has pursued strictly and faithfully that system of reasoning by induction from facts, of which Bacon sketched the project, and Newton applied the principles. As the laws of motion are no more than the history of certain facts, which invariably occur under similar circumstances, in all the cases which fall within our observation, so the general laws of language may in time be deduced from the history of that process, which the mind has adopted in all countries, as the means of communicating its conceptions. The instances contained in that admirable treatise, are confined to the languages immediately connected with our own ;-but the general principles of the work, must derive great additional support from instances of the same nature in other languages. Accordingly we find, wherever we make the enquiry, that the strictest conformity exists in the practice of nations, which could have had no connection with each other, and could only have adopted the same method in forming their language, because the common principles of reason are the same in all. The accuracy with which the author has stated his facts, is not less remarkable than the justness with which he has deduced his inferences; the changes he has stated in the Saxon, are often exactly correspondent to what we may observe in the Greek; and the mutual agreement of particular instances, is the strongest confirmation of the general rule. Etymology is thus rescued from fanciful speculation and dogmatical pedantry, and placed under the protection of unerring experience; and the more, we examine, the more shall we acknowledge the justice of the punning compliment, paid by one of the greatest men of the age, to the Επεα Πτερπενία, Ως αξ' εφώνησεν τῳ δ'ΑΠΙΕΡΟΣ έπλετο μύθος. 361 Philosophical Grammar. The preposition "toward" is derived from the verb "to ward," which originally signifies to look at, but afterwards, as Mr. Tooke observes, was figuratively used to express the idea of protecting. There is a common phrase" look to it," for take care of it, which precisely accords with this remark. The latin verb tucor, has the same double sense, of guarding and simply looking at. In the former it is universally known; and though the latter is a less common application, yet we find it distinct and unequivocal, in the line where Virgil says of Dido, that she was weary of looking on the sky: our 66 -"tædet cœli convexa tueri. to intelligible words. The combinations must have Now, Sir, a process somewhat similar to this, must Since, says Mr. T. is an abbreviation of seen as. Now let us see how we should translate the word into Greek. The first synonime that presents itself in that language is d, which cannot but come from "on the sight of," or ** and saw video, and means in other words, "Seen as."-One of the two senses of the word "but," or rather one of the two words which are spelt in the same manner, is derived from the Saxon Botan, to boot, to add, and means the same as and. There is great reason to suppose that the Greek particles, which is uniformly rendered by but," is nothing more than the imperative of di, to join, of which the signification is exactly the same.- -Again, a corrupt use of the same word in its I saw BUT two; it other sense is animadverted on. should be, I saw not but two. The same fault may be found (among other instances) in the Septuagint translation of the second book of Kings, chap. 17. Πλην ψυχήν ένας ανδρος συζητείς, κ. τ. λ. You seek (not) but one man's life, &c.-A conjecture is advanced, at first sight somewhat paradoxical, in the 2d. edition of the Diversions of Purley, that the word desire," may have arisen longing," as applied to " from the idea of our stretching, or lengthening ourselves, towards the object of our wishes. The Greek word Ops has both meanings, and Philip is describedge, by Demosthenes to be a TY TRELOVOG OPEŸORGEvos, ever These are a very few stretching himself after more. instances, out of a great variety that might be brought, of the coincidence between the deflexions of meaning which have pursued the same work in other languages, ver. 3. A more common termination for Latin substantives formed from adjectives and expressing qualities is that my theory rests upon mere conjecture, and may itas; in attempting to account for which I am aware which has so often distinguished speculations on lanbe thought to partake of that fantastic character guage. But it appears natural to convert an adjective into a substantive by uniting the former with some very general and obvious quality in which almost all substances may be supposed to participate. Such a quality will perhaps most commonly have a physical existence, as in the instances already suggested of sical nature still more universally inherent in all existhead and acies. But there are qualities of a metaphying things, and which might therefore be selected with even greater propriety. One of the foremost of these is the idea of their having existed, or what we call Thus aterna atas would in Latin tas. come to represent eternity. Verus is an epithet, i. e. it signifies a quality considered as belonging to an individual: when the old Romans wished to generalise it, they united it to a general quality belonging to all substances, and vera alas, or veritas, became the sigur of abstract truth. In vari-elas, soci-ctas and the like, the termination approaches still more nearly to ætas ; and though the Etonians will never allow the supposition that the stubborn diphthong should be lost in There is another part of language which has always struck me as particularly curious, and to which I believe no attention has been paid. I mean the magicitas and tas, yet they must admit that their favourite of particular terminations. and those which Mr. Tooke has traced in the Saxon and northern idioms of Europe. A word will entirely change its nature, will express an abstract instead of a concrete quality, by the addition of some common ending, mess, in English, itas in Latin, &c. How do these combinations acquire this virtue? It will be no answer to say that all language is the creature of arbitrary convention, which might give what meaning it pleased to particular scraps of words, as well as to complete words. This arbitrary convention has always No followed, and not led, the custom which had stamped a value on current sounds, which first received their meaning from the frequency of individual use. common council of mankind, ever met to agree that combinations insensible in themselves should have a particular force, when united in a particular manner severe. quantity has been often exposed to outrages still more In the present instatice it may have resulted from that propensity to make words most commonly in use, consist alternately of long and short syllables, which among the ancients often produced involuntary iambics, and still more frequently betrays the English into blank verse as smooth as tragedy. This conjecture about ætas may perhaps be thought to derive some plausibility from our use of age in a στο δέλιον ημας. member Homer's celebrated line quoted by Longinus: similar sense-surplusage, cordage, package, &c. The Ημισυ γαρ τ' αρετης αποκίνυτο Grecks made a user nap stand for liberty, and we all The last two words of which, the time of slavery, or the slavish age, are put for slavery in the abstract Mentum is another common termination, and has | I mean that of the queen dying by poison, and also the same force as men, minis. Testamentum, testamen, the mention of the "brazen cannon," are the main testaminis. There is an irregular verb in our gram-arguments on which the hypothesis rests. If these, mar called com-miniscor, (of course originally miniscor) || which Mr. P. considers as merely the ornaments put of which the participle is com-mentum. It is translated to devise." Mens, mentis, is the mind; the source of all our devices, conceptions, and inventions. The nature and degree of relationship among these words are above my ingenuity to trace; but surely there is a family likeness strong enough to serve at least as a presumptive proof of their affinity. on after the building is erected, were placed as the foundation stones, I should certainly consider the superstructure as very frail indeed, and would almost exclaim with E" what cannot be proved to mean any thing?" But it is from the general resemblance of the two stories, and from the alterations, when any are introduced, being for the most part to bring them nearer together, and upon a variety of marked and indisputable coincidences, that the hypothesis rests. I am free to acknowledge myself to have been, from the first, a believer in the hypothesis; and I am not willing to be so easily laughed out of what I consider as a valuable elucidation of one of Shakspeare's plays. Your Correspondent E. D. in your Number for Nov. the 16th 1803, has given a general sketch of the argument; and for the information of your readers, who may not have seen the pamphlets in question, I will beg leave farther to state the very remarkable account of the murder of the late king in Mr. Tooke has often observed upon the anomalous nature of the adverb. And the most devoted follower of grammatical rules would find it extremely difficult so to define an adverb as to distinguish it in all cases from the adjective. The common people say, he acted very noble ;” "he walked very grand." And the most refined might remark, that he was drest fine or finely, she looked beautiful or beautifully without any impeachment on the accuracy of the phrase. Most of our adverbs are made by the addition of y, like; and it might be difficult to refer the words, godlike, likely, goodly, masterly, ghastly, &c. to either species. If they are adjectives, how are theyHamlet; and shew, that there is scarcely a circumto be converted into adverbs? To avoid the cacophony of likelyly, &c. we periphrastically say, that a man acted in a friendly way.-The Latin adverb is most commonly formed by adding iter. Flens quam familiariter!Weeping in how feeling a way! And it is remarkable that iter is only added to those adjectives that end in is, and more easily coalesce with the folJowing vowel. : These chimerical conjectures may suggest facts incompatible with their justice which would destroy them, or other facts of a concurrent nature, which would be their best confirmation. The subject of language is one of the most extraordinary which can engage our attention it calls forth the most subtle operations of the mind, yet the vulgar are in full possession of it: its use is perfectly understood; of its origin we are almost wholly ignorant. It is like the principles of trade, which we are all in the daily habit of applying to our immediate necessities, while the most acute among us can hardly comprehend them in the abstract. CINCINNATUS. Anti-Fluellen's Reply to E. (respecting Shakspeare's Mr. EDITOR, Your Number for December the 16th 1803, has only lately fallen into my hands, and I have read your Correspondent E's “ Observations on Mr. Flumptre's Hypothesis respecting Shakspeare's Hamlet." I read it "again," and without reading it "again," I am at "no loss determine that it is an ironical ridicule of such hypotheses," with a spice of the old pleasantry of "honest Finellen, and his comparison of Alexander and Henry the Fifth." But it seems, from Mr. P's appendix, p. 45, that even the captain's cudgel could not prevail on him to submit and swallow the leek. Your correspondent E, however, returns to the charge "full of jests, and gypes, and knaveries, and mocks," and wishes to prevail upon your readers to believe, that what Mr. P. calls 46 the last" and a " trifling circumstance," (see observations on Hamlet, p. 30) stance which has not its parallel, either literal or figu- ""Tis given out, that, sleeping in my orchard® Rankly abused: but know, thou noble youth, that incestuous, that adulterate beast, Sleeping within mine orchard, Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand, No reckoning made, but sent to my account *Orchard,* for GARDEN, (says Mr. Steevens.) So in Romeo and Juliet: The orchard walls are high, and hard to climb. * From Hort-yard, from the Latin Hortus, a garden. With all my imperfections on my head: O horrible! O horrible! most horrible!" Act I. Sc. 5. So much for Hamlet. Now for the history. "Some time before the death of Lord Darnley, he was seized with a very dangerous and violent distemper, which was imagined to be the effect of poison; † he however got the better of it. The manner of his death was mysterious: the house in which he lodged was blown up at night with gunpowder, and his body was found lying in an adjacent garden, untouched by fire, and with no bruise or mark of Observations, p. 15. violence about him." When Mary was brought prisoner to Edinburgh, after her surrender to the rebels at Carberry-hill, Malvill says, "the common people cried out against her at the windows and stairs. Others again evidenced their malice in setting up a banner or ensign, whereupon the king was painted lying dead under a tree," and the young prince upon his knees praying, "Judge and revenge my cause, O Lord." Tytler's Inquiry, Vol. II. p. 173. represented by the historians of that time as an ugly man." Observations, p. 26. In the same manner the King's speaking of his having been taken off" in the blossom of his sin," seems incompatible with the ideas we have of his age and good qualities, not to say virtues; but it is most truly applicable to Lord D. who was murdered in the 21st year of his age. Observations, p. 30. cruel and horrid murder of the most excellent, most Bothwell, it may be added, was indicted for the high, and most mighty prince the King, the late most dear spouse of the Queen's Majesty, our sovereign lady, &c." as he was taking his rest, &c." and was by him" killed traiterously and cruelly, wilfully, and by premeditated felony." State Trials. other passages from different parts of the play; parThese resemblances will be strengthened by a few ticularly the directions for the dumb shew in the play scene. Act III. Sc. 2. "Enter a King and a Queen, very lovingly; the Queen “Revenge this foul and most unnatural murder." Hamlet. embracing him, and he her. She kneels, and makes shew In a letter of Mr. P.'s in the European Magazine for of protestation unto him. He takes her up, and declines April 1799, on this subject, he quotes Dr. Robertson, his head upon her neck: lays him down upon a bank of vol. i. p. 449, who says, on the authority of Craw-flowers; she seeing him asleep, leaves him." And again : ford, several suspected persons were seized, captain Blackadder and three others were condemned and executed; but no discovery of importance was made. If we believe some historians, they were convicted on sufficient evidence. If we give credit to others, their sentence was unjust, and they denied with their latest breath any knowledge of the crime for which they suffered." Is not this, with the name of Black Adder, alluded to in "Its being given out that a serpent stung him?" in the forged process of his death, and in "The serpent, that did sting thy father's life, Now wears his crown?" With respect to the term "adulterate beast," in Hamlet, no mention is made of any illicit connection before marriage. But Bothwell was openly accused of adultery. The contrast of the "natural gifts" of the two Kings is pointed, and does not seem consistent with the other circumstances in the play. "Claudius was younger than Hamlet's father, that, unless he was deformed, (and it does not appear that he was) having youth in his favour, the contrast could not be so very great. Old Hamlet had a son thirty years of age at this time, and other passages in the play, lead us to suppose that the King and Queen were certainly past the prime of life, not to say old. "Lord D. was the handsomest young man in the kingdom. Bothwell was twenty years older than Mary, and is + Dr. Robertson (in his History of Scotland, Vol. i. p. 405.) speaking of the illness of Lord Darnley a short time before his death, and that it was imputed to the effects of poison; adds in a note, "Buchanan and Knox are positive that the King had been poisoned. They mention the black and putrid pustules which broke out all over his body." Buchanan's words are," blew pustules arose all over his body, with so much pain and torment, that there was little hopes of his life." He says before, the poison wrought sooner, than those who gave it supposed it would." See Mr. P.'s Appendix, p. 31. In the dumb shew of the play, we have this number mentioned. "The prisoner, with some two or three mutes." And the confederacy of Murray, Morton and Lethington, were in fact the instigators of Bothwell to the murder. "Sleep rock thy brain: And never come mischance betwixt us twain." Mr. Tytler, in his Inquiry, Vol. II. p. 80. Commenting on Dr. Robertson's account of this transac tion, says: "She leads her husband, the destined victim to the house of slaughter; she attends him with the most assiduous care. She was seldom, says our author, from him through the day; she slept several nights in the chamber under his apartment. The very night of his death, she passed several hours with him, she affectionately kissed him at parting, and taking a ring from her finger, she put it on his. And the scene being now prepared, horresco referens, she leaves him to his fate; leaves him in the hands of his bloody executioners!" In a letter on this subject in the European Magazine, for March 1799, the following very remarkable particular is pointed out, a farther allusion to "the very day of the week on which the murder was perpetrated, mentioned by Hamlet, though in an indirect manner. And he could not well be more explicit, without fixing it beyond a doubt to Mary's story." "In Act II. Sc. 2, where Hamlet is with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, occasionally throwing in his wild flights and insinuations concerning the purder, his situation in the court, and the business he has in hand towards his "uncle-father and aunt-mother," he sees Polonius, and says he is coming to tell him of the players, and determines to play him off; and, that he may not give him a clue to his information, he turns to them in a grave manner, and says, You say right, Sir; on Monday morning; 'twas then indeed." Dr. Robertson, Vol. I. p. 411, says, “on Sunday the ninth of February, about 11 at night, the Queen left the Kirk of Field, in order to be present at a masque in the palace. At two next morning (MONDAY) the house in which the King lay was blown up with gunpowder." "The curse, which the player Queen invokes upon herself, should she marry again after the death of her first husband, is exactly what befell Mary on that occasion : "Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light! Act. 3. Sc. 2. This is not the usual strain of a poet writing from his own general ideas of what a Queen would think to be the worst that could befall her. But of an imagination fixed to one particular object, and describing that. The word prison is very remarkable.” Appendix, p. 53. These, Sir, are the kind of resemblances upon which Mr. P. rests his hypothesis; and, in my estimation, they are very strong. And to expect that the two stories, and every particular in the play are to correspond with the history of Mary, in order to establish the hypothesis, is neither reasonable, nor what experience in other cases at all give us authority to expect. Mr. P. in his Appendix. p. 3, &c. has given us an account of some "dramas which professedly have a reference to the occurrences and characters of the times in which they were written, and we find, that it is not the way with dramatists to adhere very minutely to the circumstances attached to the history or character to which they wish to allude; but introduce a few striking features to constitute the likeness." After instancing several plays, Mr. P. adds, "these are sufficient to shew the manner in which authors dramatise particular characters and events, and the impression they make on an audience or a reader." "When a story occurs to an author, paraliel, even in a few circumstances, to one of modern times, which he wishes to dramatise, he avails himself of it, and introduces, sometimes only a few, sometimes more, circumstances to adapt it to his second design; while the audience, on their part, "give up the reigns of their imagination into his hands," are carried along with him, and give their approbation and sanction to the likeness. But, where the story is too barren of circumstances, or he wishes it to bear more upon his second design, or to introduce any particular incident or circumstance attached to his modern characters, be departs from his original, and inserts circumstances and incidents of his own. In doing this, particularly if he is an author who does not greatly study correctness, we are not to be surprized, if, whilst his imagination is at work upon two, and in some respects different stories, that he should sometimes fall into mistakes and inconsistencies: in following his second design, he departs in some measure, and perhaps involuntarily, from his first. This is what, I think, we should constantly keep in mind, in considering the present play. Inconsistencies there certainly are in it, which, by my hypothesis, and keeping the two stories in mind, are in my judgment, plausibly, and surely very probably, accounted for; it is but reasonable then to suppose the hypothesis to be true And if there are sufficient characteristics to fix a resemblance, we are not to be surprized that there are not more." P. 9. 10. In concluding this argument the words of an able critic (Bp. Hurd in his Introduction to the study of the Prophecies. p. 120) may be applied with little alteration and with considerable effect. "On the whole, the general evidence for the truth of this hypothesis, as resulting from the coincidences of the two stories, though possibly not THAT which some may wish or expect, is yet apparently very considerable. Some coincidences might fall out by accident; and more might be imagined. But when so many and such are brought together and compared, it becomes ridiculous (because the effect is in no degree proportioned to the cause) to say of such coincidences, that they are the creatures of FANCY, or could have been the work of CHANCE," Your correspondent E. D. attributes the slow progress which Mr. P.'s hypothesis has made in gaining credit, either to the diffidence of the author or the jealousies of his opponents. I am far from intending. to impute to Mr. P. a want of diffidence in his manner of bringing forward his hypothesis. But perhaps if he could have repressed the ambition (and that perhaps a laudable one) almost inseparable from a young author, and brought out his pamphlet without any name to it, it might have had a fairer chance of making its way in the world. An anonymous author might be a great one; but it was scarcely to be expected, that those who had grown grey in the labours of commenting, should submit to be informed by a novice in the garden of criticism. If in the course of our enquiries (said the late Bp. Hallifax, in his sermon on Eccles. I. 18. preached before the University of Camb. in the year 1708) we have happily hit on any new invention, which from its apparent utility we wish to communicate to the public, our arguments, if addressed to the many, will not be attended to ; or will not be understood, if we confine ourselves to the few, who are judges of our proper worth, their jealousy or their malignity will prompt them to envy us the merit of the discovery, and to defraud us of our just praise. Thus with one set of men, the scholar will be treated as a stranger; by another, he will be suspected as an enemy: minds inferior to his own will not comprehend his reasoning; his equals and his superiors will perversely shut their eyes and not suffer themselves to see and be convinced by it; whilst a third sort, immersed in the gratifications of sense, and habituated to a state of indolence and inactivity, will never think it of importance enough to be regarded, and will implicitly resign their understandings to be directed by the crowd." I am, Sir, your humble Servant, ANTI-FLUELLEN. Feb, 29, 1804. P. S. Your correspondent E. objects to E. D.'s argument of Shakspeare having altered the proverb from galled horse" to "galled jade," to make it apply to Mary; as he says the appellation of jade for a worthless woman, was posterior to the time of Shakspeare," and refers to Minshew, to shew that he has no such meaning for it. But I apprehend in this case, that Shakspeare himself is as good authority as Min |