"to mind what that method was *." The adverb peradventure, expressing a degree of evidence or credibility, cannot regularly be construed with the hypothetical conjunction if. It is only to affirmations and negations, not to bare suppositions, that all the adverbs denoting certainty, probability, or possibility, properly belong.

The following passage in the common version of the Bible is liable to the same censure: "Micaiah "said, If thou certainly return in peace, then hath "not the Lord spoken by met." The translators in this, as in some other places, have been misled by a well-meant attempt to express the force of a hebraism, which in many cases cannot be expressed in our language.

I shall conclude this article with a quotation from an excellent author, of which, indeed, it would not be easy to say in what part the solecism may be discovered, the whole passage being so perfectly solecistical. "As he that would keep his house in re"pair, must attend every little breach or flaw, and supply it immediately, else time alone will bring "all to ruin; how much more the common acci"dents of storms and rain? He must live in per

* Shaftesbury, Vol. III. Misc. ii. Ch. 3.

† 2 Chron. xviii. 27. Saci, in his French translation, hath expressed the sense of the original with more simplicity and propriety: “Michée "repartit, Si vous revenez en paix, le seigneur n'a point parlé par ma "bouche."

"petual danger of his house falling about his ears; " and will find it cheaper to throw it quite down, " and build it again from the ground, perhaps up

on a new foundation, or at least in a new form, "which may neither be so safe nor so convenient

as the old *." It is impossible. to analyse this sentence grammatically, or to say whether it be one sentence or more. It seems, by the conjunction as, to begin with a comparison, but we have not a single hint of the subject illustrated. Besides, the introducing of the interrogation, How much more

? after else, which could be regularly followed only by an affirmation or negation; and the incoherency of the next clause, He must liverender it indeed-all of a piece.

So much for the solecism, of which examples might be multiplied almost without end. Let those produced suffice for a specimen. It is acknowledged, that such negligences are not to be considered as blemishes of any moment in a work of genius, since those, and even worse, may be discovered, on a careful examination, in the most celebrated writings. It is for this reason acknowledged also, that it is neither candid nor judicious, to form an opinion of a book from a few such specks, selected perhaps from the distant parts of a large performance, and brought into our view at once. Yet, on

* Project for the Advancement of Religion. Last sentence.

the other hand, it is certain, that an attention to these little things ought not to be altogether disregarded by any writer. Purity of expression hath but a small share of merit; it hath, however, some share. But it ought especially to be remembered, that, on the account of purity, a considerable part of the merit discovered in the other virtues of elocution, to which it contributes, ought undoubtedly to be charged. The words of the language constitute the materials with which the orator must work; the rules of the language teach him by what management those materials are rendered useful. And what is purity but the right using of the words of the language by a careful observance of the rules. It is therefore justly considered as essential to all the other graces of expression. Hence, not only perspicuity and vivacity, but even elegance and anima tion derive a lustre.

SECTION III.

The Impropriety.

I COME now to consider the third and last class of faults against purity, to which I gave the name of impropriety. The barbarism is an offence against etymology, the solecism against syntax, the impropriety against lexicography. The business of the lexicographer is to assign to every word of the lan

guage, the precise meaning or meanings which use hath assigned to it. To do this is as really a part of the grammarian's province, though commonly executed by a different hand, as etymology and syntax. The end of every grammar is to convey the knowledge of that language of which it is the grammar. But the knowledge of all the rules, both of derivation, under which inflection is included, and of construction, nay, and of all the words in the language, is not the knowledge of the language. The words must be known, not barely as sounds, but as signs. We must know to what things respectively they are appropriated. Thus, in our own tongue, we may err egregiously against propriety, and consequently against purity, though all the words we employ be English, and though they be construed in the English idiom. The reason is evident; they may be misapplied; they may be employed as signs of things to which use hath not af fixed them. This fault may be committed either in single words or in phrases.

PART I-Impropriety in single words.

I BEGIN with single words. As none but those who are grossly ignorant of our tongue, can misapply the words that have no affinity to those whose place they are made to occupy, I shall take notice

only of such improprieties, as by some resemblance or proximity in sound, or sense, or both, a writer is apt unwarily to be seduced into.

It is by proximity in sound that several are misled to use the word observation for observance, as when they speak of the religious observation of a festival, for the religious observance of it. Both words spring from the root observe but in different, significations. When to observe signifies to remark, the verbal noun is observation; when it signifies to obey or to keep, the verbal is observance.

By a similar mistake endurance hath been used for duration, and confounded with it; whereas its proper sense is patience. It is derived from the active verb to endure, which signifies to suffer, and not from the neuter which signifies to last. In the days of Queen Elizabeth, the word endurance was synonymous with duration, whereas now it is in this acceptation obsolete. Nay, even in a later period, about the middle of the last century, several words were used synonymously, which we now invariably discriminate. Such are the terms state and estate, property and propriety, import and importance, conscience and consciousness, arrant and errant.

Human and humane are sometimes confounded, though the only authorised sense of the former is, belonging to man; of the latter, kind and compas sionate. Humanly is improperly put for humanely in these lines of Pope :