grammatical term, relating solely to the disposition of words in in a sentence; the second signifies to fabricate or build. The common relation in which the two verbs stand to the same appellative, hath misled some writers to confound them; so far at least as to use improperly the word construct, and speak of constructing, instead of construing a sentence; for I have not observed the like misapplication of the other verb. We never head of construing a fabric or machine.

Academician is frequently to be found in Bolingbroke's works for academic. The former denotes solely with us a member of a French academy, or of one established on a similar footing; the latter of a Platonic philosopher, one of that sect which took its denomination from the Grecian academy; or more properly from the grove of Academus, where the principles of that philosophy were first inculcated.

By a like error, the words sophist and sophister are sometimes confounded; the proper sense of the former being a teacher of philosophy in ancient Greece; of the latter, a specious, but false reasoner.

"To demean one's self" has been improperly used by some writers, misled by the sound of the second syllable, for "to debase one's self," or "to behave meanly;" whereas the verb to demean implies no more than the verb to behave. Both require an adverb, or something equivalent, to enable them to express whether the demeanour or behaviour is good or bad, noble or mean.

E'er, a contraction of the adverb ever, hath, from a resemblance, or rather an identity in sound, been mistaken for the conjunction ere, before; and in like manner it's, the genitive of the pronoun it, for 'tis, a contraction of it is.

In the same way bad is sometimes very improperly used for bade, the preterite of the verb bid, and sate for sat, the preterite of sit. The only proper use of the word bad is as a synonyma for ill; and to sate is the same in signification as to glut.

The word genii hath by some writers been erroneously adopted for geniuses. Each is a plural of the same word genius, but in different senses. When genius in the singular means a separate spirit or demon good or bad, the plural is genii; when it denotes mental abilities, or a person eminently possessed of these, the plural is geniuses. There are some similar instances in our tongue of different plurals belonging to the same singular in different significations. The word brother is one. The plural in modern language, when used literally for male children of the same parent or parents, is brothers; when used figuratively for people of the same profession, nation, religion, or people considered as related by sharing jointly in the same human nature, is brethren. Anciently this last term was the only plural.

I shall next specify improprieties arising from a similitude in

sense, into which writers of considerable reputation have sometimes fallen. Veracity you will find, even among such, applied to things, and used for reality; whereas in strict propriety the word is only applicable to persons, and signifies not physical, but moral truth.

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"There is no sort of joy," says Dr. Burnet, more grateful to the mind of man, than that which raiseth from the invention of truth." For invention he ought to have said discovery. Epithet hath been used corruptly to denote title or appellation; whereas it only signifies some attribute expressed by an adjective.

In the same way, verdict hath been made to usurp the place of testimony; and the word risible hath of late been perverted from its original sense, which is capable of laughing, to denote ridiculous, laughable, or fit to be laughed at. Hence these newfangled phrases risible jests, and risible absurdities. The proper discrimination between risible and ridiculous is, that the former hath an active, the latter a passive signification. Thus we say, "Man is a risible animal."- "A fop is a ridiculous character." To substitute the former instead of the latter, and say, "A fop is a risible character," is, I suspect, no better English, than to substitute the latter instead of the former, and say, "Man is a ridiculous animal." In confirmation of this distinction it may be further remarked, that the abstract risibility, which analogically ought to determine the import of the concrete, is still limited to its original and active sense, the faculty of laughter. Where our language hath provided us with distinct names for the active verbal and the passive, as no distinction is more useful for preventing ambiguity, so no distinction ought to be more sacredly observed.

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But to proceed; the word together often supplies the place of successively, sometimes awkwardly enough, as in the following sentence. I do not remember that I ever spoke three sentences together in my whole life." The resemblance which continuity in time bears to continuity in place is the source of this impropriety, which, by the way, is become so frequent, that I am doubtful whether it ought to be included in the number. Yet, should this application generally obtain, it would, by confounding things different, often occasion ambiguity. If, for example, one should say, "Charles, William, and David, lived together in the same house," in order to denote that William immediately succeeded Charles, and David succeeded William, every one would be sensible of the impropriety. But if such a use of the word be improper in one case, it is so in every case.

By an error not unlike, the word everlasting hath been emSpect. No. 1.

7 Theory of the Earth, B. i. Ch. 1.

ployed to denote time without beginning, though the only_proper sense of it be time without end; as in these words, "From everlasting to everlasting thou art God9." It may further be remarked of this term, that the true meaning is so strongly marked in its composition, that very frequent use will not be sufficient to prevent the misapplication from appearing awkward. I think, besides, that there is a want of correctness in using the word substantively. The proper expression is, " From eternity to eternity thou art God."

Apparent for certain, manifest, (as it has been sometimes employed by a very eminent author, the late Lord Lyttleton,) is often equivocal, and can hardly ever be accounted entirely proper. Both etymology and the most frequent use lead us so directly to the signification seeming as opposed to real, or visible as opposed to concealed, that at first we are always in hazard of mistaking it. For the same reason I do not like the phrase to make appear (though a very common one) for to prove, to evince, to show. By the aid of sophistry a man may make a thing appear to be what it is not. This is very different from showing what it is.

Abundance, in the following quotation, is, I imagine, improperly used for a great deal."I will only mention that passage of the buskins, which, after abundance of persuasion, you would hardly suffer to be cut from your legs1."

The word due, in the citation subjoined, is not only improperly, but preposterously employed. "What right the first observers of nature, and instructors of mankind, had to the title of sages we cannot say. It was due perhaps more to the ignorance of the scholars, than to the knowledge of the masters." The author hath doubtless adopted the word due in this place, as preferable at least to the word owing, which, though an active particle, is frequently, and some think inaccurately, employed in a passive sense. Thus, in order to avoid a latent error, if it be an error, he hath run into a palpable absurdity; for what can be more absurd than to say, that the title of sages is due more to ignorance than to knowledge? It had been better to give the sentence another turn, and to say, "It took its rise perhaps more from the ignorance of the scholars, than from the knowledge of the masters."

I shall add the improper use of the word surfeit, in the following quotation from Anson's Voyage round the World: "We thought it prudent totally to abstain from fish, the few we caught at our first arrival having surfeited those who ate of them3." I should not have mentioned, indeed I should not have discovered, this impropriety in that excellent performance,

9 Ps. xc. 2.
2 Bolingb. Phil. Ess. ii. Sect. 1.

1 Swift's Examiner, No. 27.
3 Anson's Voyage, B. iii. C. 2.

which would have passed with me for an expression somewhat indefinite, had it not been for the following passage in a late publication. "Several of our people were so much disordered by eating of a very fine-looking fish, which we caught here, that their recovery was for a long time doubtful. The author of the account of Lord Anson's Voyage says, that the people on board the Centurion thought it prudent to abstain from fish, as the few which they caught at their first arrival surfeited those who ate of them. But not attending sufficiently to this caution, and too hastily taking the word surfeit in its literal and common acceptation, we imagined that those who tasted the fish, when Lord Anson first came hither, were made sick merely by eating too much; whereas, if that had been the case, there would have been no reason for totally abstaining, but only eating temperately. We, however, bought our knowledge by experience, which we might have had cheaper; for though all our people who tasted this fish ate sparingly, they were all soon afterwards dangerously ill." I have given this passage entire, chiefly because it serves to show both that an inaccuracy, apparently trifling, may, by misleading the reader, be productive of very bad consequences; and that those remarks which tend to add precision and perspicuity to our language are not of so little moment as some, who have not duly considered the subject, would affect to represent them.

To this class we may reduce the idiotism, or the employing of an English word in a sense which it bears in some provincial dialect, in low and partial use, or which perhaps the corresponding word bears in some foreign tongue, but unsupported by general use in our own language. An example of this we have in the word impracticable, when it is used for impassable, and applied to roads; an application which suits the French idiom, but not the English. Of the same kind, are the following Gallicisms of Bolingbroke: "All this was done, at the time, on the occasion, and by the persons, I intends," properly mean. "When we learn the name of complex ideas and notions we should accustom the mind to decompound them, that we may verify them, and so make them our own, as well as to learn to compound others." Decompound he hath used for analyze, misled by the meaning of the French word decomposer, which is not only different from the sense of the English word but contrary to it. To decompound, is to compound of materials already compounded.

The use made of the verb arrive, in the subsequent passage, is also exceptionable in the same way: "I am a man, and can

4 Byron's Voyage, Chap. xi.
5 Of the State of Parties.
6 Phil. Ess. i. Sect. 4.

not help feeling any sorrow that can arrive at man." In English, it should be, "happen to man."

To hold, signifying to use, and applied to language; to give into, signifying to adopt, in the figurative sense of that word; are other expressions frequently employed by this author, and of late by several others, which fall under the same censure. Even our celebrated translator of the Iliad hath not been clear of this charge. Witness the title he hath given to a small dissertation prefixed to that work. "A view," he calls it, "of the epic poem," in which short title there are two improprieties. First the word poem, which always denotes with us a particular performance, is here used, agreeably to the French idiom, for poetry in general, or the art which characterizes the performance; secondly, the definite article the is employed, which, though it be always given to abstracts in French, is never so applied in English, unless with a view to appropriate them to some subject. And this, by the way, renders the article with us more determinative than it is in French, or perhaps in any other tongue. Accordingly, on the first hearing of the title above mentioned, there is no English reader who would not suppose, that it were a critical tract on some particular epic poem, and not on that species of poesy.

Another error of the same kind is the Latinism. Of this, indeed, the examples are not so frequent. Foppery is a sort of folly much more contagious than pedantry; but as they result alike from affectation, they deserve alike to be proscribed. An instance of the latter is the word affection, when applied to things inanimate, and signifying the state of being affected by any cause. Another instance is the word integrity, when used for entireness. But here, I think, a distinction ought to be made between the familiar style and that of philosophical disquisition. In the latter, it will be reasonable to allow a greater latitude, especially in cases wherein there may be a penury of proper terms, and wherein, without such indulgence, there would be a necessity of recurring too often to periphrasis. But the less, even here, this liberty is used, it is the better.

To these properly succeeds that sort of the vulgarism? in which only a low and partial use can be pleaded in support of the application that is made of a particular word. Of this you have an example in the following quotation: ""Tis my humble request you will be particular in speaking to the following

8

7 Spectator, No. 502. T.

Accordingly Bossu hath styled his performance on the same subject, Traité du Poëme Epique. It is this title, I suppose, which hath misled the English poet.

9 I say, that sort of the vulgarism, because, when the word is in no acceptation in good use, it is a sort that partakes of the barbarism; but when a particular application of a good word is current only among the lower classes, it belongs to the impropriety.