!

there by in a maner alle men of worship maye disscover a gentylman fro a yoman, and from a yoman a vylayne. For he that gentyl is wylle drawe hym unto gentil tatches, and to folowe the custommes of noble gentylmen."

That most of these words pointed originally to a real difference between the objects or the processes indicated by them, there is little doubt, but the etymology of many of them is lost, and those not now retained in different, or, if similar, more general applications, have become wholly obsolete, though some which have disappeared from literature still exist in popular or provincial usage.

The study of synonyms has always been regarded as one of the most valuable of intellectual disciplines, independently of its great importance as a guide to the right practical use of words. The habit of thorough investigation into the meaning of words, and of exact discrimination in the use of them, is indispensable to precision and accuracy of thought, and it is surprising how soon the process becomes spontaneous, and almost mechanical and unconscious, so that one often finds. himself making nice and yet sound distinctions between particular words which he is not aware that he has ever made the subject of critical analysis. The subtle intellect of the Greeks was alive to the importance of this study, and we not only observe just discrimination in the employment of language in their best writers, but we not unfrequently meet with discussions as to the precise signification of words, which show that their exact import had become a subject of thoughtful consideration, before much attention had been bestowed upon grammatical forms. In a tongue in the main homogeneous, and full of compounds and derivatives, the source of the word would naturally be first appealed to as the key to its interpretation. Etymology is still an indis

pensable auxiliary to the study of synonyms; out in a composite language like English, where the root-fcrms are inaccessible to the majority of those who use it, the primary signification of the radical does not operate as a conservative influence, as it did in Greece, by continually suggesting the meaning, and thus keeping the derivative or compound true to its first vocation. Words with us incline to diverge from the radical meaning; and therefore etymology, though a very useful clew to the signification, is, at the same time, a very uncertain guide to the actual use, of words. And this is especially true of what may be called secondary derivatives, or words formed by derivation or composition from forms, themselves derivative or compound, or borrowed from foreign sources. The study of words of this class is one of the most difficult points of our synonymy; and it is often a very puzzling question to decide why, for example, two substantives allied in meaning should be distinguished by one shade of signification, and the corresponding adjectives, which we have formed from them, by a totally different one. I objected to the latter part of Webster's definition of synonym, because, by applying that name to all words "containing the same idea," it makes different parts of speech synonyms, which is contrary to established usage. We have no term to designate words differing in etymology, and in grammatical character, but otherwise agreeing in meaning; but to pairs of words, derived from the same root, and differenced in meaning only by grammatical class, we apply the epithet conjugate, or, more rarely, that of paronymous. Strictly speaking, the ideas expressed by the two must be identical; but, as they are more generally distinguished by some slight difference of meaning, the term conjugate is loosely used to

express identity in etymology, with only general ikeness of meaning, in words of different classes. Cost and costly, for example, are strictly conjugate; faith and faithful, in some of their senses, are exactly so, in others not; while grief and grievous, polish of manner and politeness of manner, grace and gracious, pity and pitiful, as ordinarily used, express quite different ideas. The verb to affect has a number of disparate uses in its different inflected forms and its derivatives. When it means to produce an effect upon, to influence, or to like, to have a partiality for, it has no conjugate noun; for affection, in neither sense, exactly corresponds to the verb. Affect, to simulate, to pretend, and affectation, are conjugate, although not generally considered so, because most persons are not aware that the unnatural airs, called affectation, are really founded in hypocrisy, or false assumption. The participles and participial adjective affecting, touching, or exciting to sympathy or sorrow, and the passive form affected, have still another meaning, in which the active verb is rarely employed.

Few languages are richer than English in approximate synonyms and conjugates; and it is much to be regretted that no competent scholar has yet devoted himself to the investigation of this branch of our philology. The little manual, edited by Archbishop Whately, containing scarcely more than four hundred words, is, so far as it goes, the most satisfactory treatise we have on the subject.* Crabbe's

*The Saxon part of our vocabulary, partly from the inherent character of the class of ideas for the embodiment of which it is chiefly employed, and partly because of its superior expressiveness, is generally very free from equivocation, and its distinctions of meaning are usually clearly marked. The number of Anglo-Saxon words approximate to each other in signification is small, and the distinction between those liable to be confounded is grammatical, more frequently

Synonyms, much used in this country, is valuable chiefly for its exemplifications; but the author's great ignorance of etymology has led him into many errors;* and it cannot pretend to compare with the many excellent works on the synonymy of the German, French, Danish, and other European languages. But in the increasing interest which the study of English is exciting, this, as well as other branches of lexicography, will doubtless receive a degree of attention, which will contribute to give to the history of English a rank corresponding to the importance of that tongue, as one of the most powerful instruments of thought and action assigned by Providence to the service of man.

than logical. In the Treatise on Synonyms, edited by Whately, something more than four hundred and fifty words are examined and discriminated, and of these less than ninety are Anglo-Saxon. The relative proportions in Crabbe's much larger work are not widely different.

* Exempli gratia, doze, (allied to the Anglo-Saxon, dwæs, and the Danish verb, döse,) we are informed, is a "variation from the French dors, and the Latin dormio, to sleep, which was anciently dermio, and comes from the Greek dépua, a skin, because people lay on skins when they slept!" Crabbe, Syn. under sleep. With equal learning and felicity, he derives daub from "do and ub, über, over, signifying literally to do over with any thing unseemly."

LECTURE XXVII.

TRANSLATION.

THE study of synonymy, or the discrimination between vernacular words allied in signification, and of etymology, or the comparison of derivative words with their primitives, naturally suggests the inquiry how far there is an exact correspondence of meaning between the native vocabulary, and that of foreign tongues, or, in other words, whether a poem, a narrative, or a discussion, composed in one language can be precisely rendered into another. If we may trust the dictionaries, almost every English word has synonyms in the speech to which it belongs, and equivalents in every other; but a more critical study of language, as actually employed, teaches us, first, that true synonyms are everywhere of rare occurrence, and secondly that, with the exception of the names of material objects and of material acts, there is seldom a precise coincidence in meaning between any two words in different languages. The sensuous perceptions, even, of men are not absolutely identical, but they nevertheless so far concur, that we may consider the names given in different countries to things cognizable by the senses as