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 indispensable auxiliary to the study of synonyms; but in a composite language like English, where the root-forms 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 espe cially 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 establishsd 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 likeness 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 Synonyms, much used in this country, is valua

* 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 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.

ble chiefly for its exemplifications; but the author's 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.

+ 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 dépμa, a skin, because people lay on skins when they slept!” Crabbe, Syn. under sleep. With equal infelicity he derives daub from do and ub, über, over, signifying literally to do over with anything unseemly."

It must, however, be admitted that, absurd as such derivations, and those already referred to in a former lecture as given by Ménage, appear, and as very many of them undoubtedly are, they are, after all, not more surprising than certain well-ascertained results of scientific etymology. What, for instance, can be, prima facie, more incredible than that the Greek dakpy, the French larme, and the English tear, are not merely related, but are only different forms of a single word. Yet no linguist doubts the identity of the three so different vocables.

LECTURE XXVII.

TRANSLATION.

THE study of synonymy, or the discrimination between vernacular words allied in signification, and that of etymology, or the comparison of derivative words with their primitives, naturally suggest 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. Even the sensuous perceptions 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 equivalent to each other, though the epithets by which the objects are characterized, and the qualities ascribed to them, may differ. But the moment we step out of the domain of the senses, and begin to apply to acts and objects belonging to the world of mind, names derived from the world of matter, we diverge from each other, and every nation forms a vocabulary suited to its own moral and intellectual character, its circumstances, habits, tastes, and opinions, but not precisely adapted to the expression of the conceptions, emotions, and passions of any other people. Hence the difficulty of making translations which are absolutely faithful re-productions of their originals.

There are at the present day conflicting influences in operation which tend, on the one hand, to individualize the languages of Europe and make them more idiomatic and discordant in structure, and on the other, to harmonize and assimilate them to each other; and the same influences are acting respectively as hindrances and as helps to the making of translations between them. To the latter, the helps, belong the increased facilities of communication, the general study, in every country, of the literature of several others, the influence of two or three cosmopolite languages, like English, French, and German, the extended cultivation of philological science, and the universality of the practice of translation, which has compelled scholars to find or fashion, in their own speech, equivalents, or at least exponents, of the idioms of all others. The Caledonian, indeed, does not believe that the novels of Scott can be adequately translated into any foreign tongue; the German affirms that Richter is to be understood and enjoyed only in the original Teutonic; and the American doubts whether the Libyan English of Uncle Tom's Cabin can be rendered into any other dialect. Nevertheless, each of these has had numerous translations whose success proves that they are tolerable representatives, if not exact counterparts, of their originals.

The opposing influence is the spirit of nationality and linguistic purism, which has revived so many dying, and purged and renovated so many decayed and corrupted, European languages within the last century. In almost every Continental country, foreign words and phrases have been expelled, and their places supplied by native derivatives, compounds, and constructions; obsolete words have been restored, vague and anomalous orthography conformed to etymology or to orthoepy, and thus both the outward dress and the essential spirit of each made more national and idiomatic, and, therefore, to some extent, more diverse from all others, and less capable of being adequately rendered into any of them. At the same time, the purification and reconstruction of languages have brought them all back to certain principles of universal, or rather of Indo-European, grammar common to all, and in each, the revival of forgotten words and idioms has so enlarged their vocabulary, and increased their compass and flexibility, that it is easier to find equivalents for foreign terms and constructions, than when their stock of words and variety of expres