Bolingbroke, Pope, and Gay. And if he had been pleased to go further back than Shakespeare, he might also have given instances of the same from every writer in the English tongue'. It is the idiom of the language. He is therefore

"

Had there been choice, what would I not have CHOSE?"

'I made a sacred and a solemn vow
To offer up the prisoners that were TOOK."

Dryden, Rival Ladies, act 4. sc. 3.

Dryden, Indian Queen, act 2. sc. 1.

Ibid. act 2. sc. 1.

"Let me then share your griefs, that in your fate Wou'd have тоOK part."

In one moment this new guest

Has DROVE me out from this false woman's breast."

Ibid. act 3. sc. 1.

Part of which poem was wRIT by me."-Connection of the Indian Emperor to the Indian Queen.

Dryden, Indian Emperor, act 2. sc. 1.
Ibid. act 3. sc. 2.
Ibid. act 4. sc. 1.

"You might howe'er have тOOK a fairer way."

His mind is SHOOK."

High trees are SHOOK, because they dare the winds." Dryden, The Maiden Queen, act 2. sc. 5. "Peace, peace, thou should'st for ever hold thy tongue; For it has SPOKE too much for all thy life." Courage, my friend, and rather praise we heaven, That it has CHOSE two such as you and me."

Ibid. act 5. sc. 1.

Dryden, Amboyna, act 5. sc. 1.

"Guilt and distraction could not have SHOOK him more."

"

Dryden, Edipus, act 4. sc. 1.

As well thou may'st advise a tortur'd wretch,
All mangled o'er from head to foot with wounds,

And his bones BROKE, to wait a better day." Ibid. act 4. sc. 1.]
["All the moderns who have WROTE upon this subject."-Dr.

Taylor, Elements of Civil Law, 1755. p. 10.

Were WROTE originally in Latin."—Ibid. p. 22.

Providence, which has wove us into this texture."-Ibid. p. 84. "The mistakes upon this head have AROSE from hence." Ibid. p. 152. "Tullius, being CHOSE king by the suffrage of the people."

Ibid. p. 206.

"The ancient statuary has been thought to have AROSE from this figure."-Ibid. p. 459.

"

I have SPOKE to it in my Commentary upon the Sandwich Marble.” -Ibid. p. 467.

undoubtedly in an error, when he says that "This abuse has been long growing upon us, and is continually making further incroachments." For, on the contrary, the custom has greatly decreased and as the Greek and Latin languages have become more familiar to Englishmen, and more general; our language has continually proceeded more and more to bend and incline to the rules and customs of those languages. And we have greatly benefited by those languages; and have improved our own language, by borrowing from them a more abbreviated and compact method of speech. And had our early or later authors known the nature of the benefits we were receiving; we might have benefited much more extensively.

However we shall be much to blame, if, with Dr. Lowth, we miss the advantage which our less cultivated language affords us by its defects: for by those very defects it will assist us much to discover the nature of human speech, by a comparison of our own language with more cultivated languages. And this it does eminently in the present instances of the Past Participle and the Noun Adjective. For, since we can and do use our Noun itself unaltered, and our Past Tense itself unaltered, for the same purpose and with the same meaning, as the Greek and Latin use their Adjective and their Participle; it is manifest that their Adjective and Participle are merely their Noun and Past Tense, Adjectived.

"Budæus in particular has WROTE upon it very largely."-Dr. Taylor, Elements of Civil Law, 1755, p. 490.

"I find one Lucullus, whose life is WROTE by Plutarch."-Ibid. p. 512.

"We are assured, that the following words were not WROTE in his time.”—Ibid. p. 555.]

[Our older writers, who are admirable for their rhythm and cadence, availed themselves of this latitude, in giving harmony to their language: thus, in the same chapter,

1 Kings, viii. 13.-"I have surely BUILT thee a house to dwell in." 27.-" how much less this house that I have BUILDED." 43.-"this house which I have BUILDED is called by thy

name."

44.-" toward the house that I have BUILT for thy name."-ED.]

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

F.-WELL. Now for your four Abbreviations: which, you say, we have adopted from those other languages.

H.-That which I call the Potential Passive Adjective is that which our antient writers first adopted; and which we have since taken in the greatest abundance: not led to it by any reasoning, or by any knowledge of the nature of the words; but by their great practical convenience and usefulness. I mean such words as the following, whose common termination has one common meaning.

These words, and such as these, our early authors could not possibly translate into English, but by a periphrasis. They therefore took the words themselves as they found them and the same practice, for the same reason, being followed by their successors; the frequent repetition of these words has at length naturalized them in our language. But they who first introduced these words, thought it necessary to explain them to their readers and accordingly we find in your manuscript New Testament, which (whoever was the Translator) I suppose to have been written about the reign of Edward the third'; in that manuscript we find an explanation accompanying the words of this sort which are used in it. And this circumstance sufficiently informs us, that the adoption was at that time but newly introduced.

"I do thankingis to God up on the UNENARRAble, or, that may not be told, gifte of hym."-2 Corinthies, cap. 9.

"Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift."-Modern Version,

ver. 15.

"Whom whanne ye han not seyn ye louen, in to whom also now ye not seynge bileuen, forsoth ye bileuynge shulen haue ioye with outeforth in gladnesse UNENARRABLE, that may not be teld out."-1 Petir, cap. 1.

"Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable."-Modern Version, ver. 8.

"From hennesforth brithren, Whateuer thingis ben sothe, whateuer thingis chaist, whateuer thingis iust, whateuer thingis holi, whateuer thingis AMYABLE, or, able to be louyd."-Philippensis, cap. 4.

"Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely."-Modern Version, ver. 8.

"The whiche is not maid up the lawe of fleshly maundement: but up vertu of lyf INSOLIBLE, or, that may not be undon."—Ebrewis, cap. 7. "Who is made not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after power of an endless life."-Modern Version, ver. 16.

the

because

1 I suppose it to be about this date; amongst other reasons, it retains the Anglo-Saxon Theta, the ambiguous 3, and the 1 without a point over it. But I am not sufficiently conversant with Manuscripts to say when the use of these characters ceased.

"Forsothe wisdom that is fro aboue, first sotheli it is chast, aftirwarde pesible, mylde, SWADIBLE, that is, esi for to trete and to be tretid." -James, cap. 3.

"But the wisdom that is from above, is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated."-Modern Version, ver. 17.

Gower, in his Conf. Amant. (written, as he informs us, in the sixteenth year of Richard the second) has taken very little advantage of this then newly introduced abbreviation. He uses only six of these words, viz. Credible, Excusable, Impossible, Incurable, Invisible, Noble; and one, made by himself, I believe, in imitation, Chaceable.

"She toke hir all to venerie,
In foreste and in wildernesse,
For there was all hir besinesse
By daie, and eke by nightes tide,
With arowes brode under the side,
And bow in honde, of whiche she slough
And toke all that hir lyst enough

Of beastes whiche ben CHACEABLE."

Gower, lib. 5. fol. 90. p. 2. col. 1.

Chaucer uses many more of these words than Gower did; but in nothing like such quantities as have been since employed in our language.

F.—I understand you then to say that the words in our language with the termination BLE, are merely the Potential Passive Adjective: and that we have adopted this termination from the Latin, for the purpose of abbreviation. But the Latin Grammarians had no such notion of this termination. They have assigned no separate office, nor station, nor title, to this kind of word. They have not ranked it even amongst their participles. They call these words merely Verbalia in Bilis: which title barely informs us, that they have indeed something or other to do with the verbs; but what that something is, they have not told us. Indeed they are so uncertain concerning the relation which these words bear to the verb; that most of the grammarians, Vossius, Perizonius, Goclenius, and others, tell us, that these Verbalia in Bilis signify sometimes passively and sometimes actively. And I am sure we use great numbers of words with this termination in English, which do not appear to signify either actively or passively.