DISSERTATION IV. (continued 2)

The Greek and Roman writers were not guilty of such mistakes. Either the varieties of inflection in their languages, or superior care in the writers, made them attentive to the nice distinctions of time. In the following passage, the translators of the Bible, by adhering closely to the original, have avoided the common error before mentioned.

"I knew thee that thou art an hard man."—Matth. xxv. 24. "Εγνων ὁτι σκληρος ει ανθρωπος;" literally, having known that thou art an hard man. So also ver. 26, "Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap, where I sowed not;" "ηδεις ὁτι θεριζω." Had these passages been translated into the careless stile of modern conversation, and even of many excellent writings, they would have stood thus—"I knew thee that thou wast an hard man"—"thou knewest that I reaped where I sow not." But the general character and conduct of the person mentioned in this parable, are supposed to exist at all times while he is living; and this general nature of the fact requires the verb to be in the present time. To confirm this remark let the sentences be inverted; "thou art an hard man, I knew thee to be such, or I knew it." "I reap where I sowed not, thou knewest that." This is an indubitable evidence of the accuracy of the translation.[122]

An inversion of the order of the sentence in the passages first quoted, will show the common error in a most striking light.

"There was a God, two young men have made that discovery." "Men did God acceptable service, by abstracting themselves, &c. they have been taught this; it was their duty, they have been taught this." "The taxes we had to pay to government, if these were the only ones." This will not make sense to a man who has taxes still to pay; the writer's had to pay will not discharge the public debt. But it is unnecessary to multiply examples and arguments; the reader must be already convinced that these errors exist, and that I ought not to have been the first to notice them.

Sometimes this hypothetical tense is used with an infinitive for the future. In the following passage it seems to be correct.

"I wish I were to go to the Elysian fields, when I die, and then I should not care if I were to leave the world tomorrow."——Pope.

But the following are hardly vindicable.

"Suppose they marched up to our mines with a numerous army, how could they subsist for want of provision."——Moyle, Diss. on the Rev. of Athens.

"If they foraged in small parties."——Same.

The sense is future, and therefore should march, should forage, would have been more correct.

"I should not act the part of an impartial spectator, if I dedicated the following papers to one who is not of the most consummate and acknowleged merit."——Spect. Dedic.

If I should dedicate, would have been more accurate.

A similar fault occurs in the following passage.

Pope, Essay on Man.

If nature should thunder and stun him, is the meaning.

There is another article that deserves to be mentioned; which is, the use of a verb after as or than, apparently without a nominative.

"This unlimited power is what the best legislators of all ages have endeavored to deposit in such hands, as would preserve the people from rapine."——Swift, vol. 2. Contests, &c.

"Would preserve" seems to have no nominative, for hands cannot be inserted without changing the form of the sentence; in those hands which would preserve.

"A hypocrite hath so many things to attend to, as make his life a very perplexed and intricate thing."——Tillotson.

This mode of expression is however well established and occasions no obscurity. The truth is, as is an article or relative equivalent to that or which; and the criticisms of Lowth on the conjunctions, where he condemns the use of as and so in a number of instances, prove that he knew nothing about the true meaning of these words. See Diversions of Purley, page 283.

Another form of expression, peculiar to our language, is the participial noun, a word derived from a verb, and having the properties, both of a verb and a noun; as, "I heard of his acquiring a large estate." Acquiring here expresses the act done, the acquisition; yet governs the following objective case, estate. When a noun precedes the participle, it takes the sign of the possessive, "I heard of a man's acquiring an estate." This is the genuin English idiom; and yet modern writers very improperly omit the sign of the possessive, as, I heard of a man acquiring an estate. This omission often changes the sense of the phrase or leaves it ambiguous.

The omission of the sign of the possessive in the following example is a very great fault.

"Of a general or public act, the courts of law are bound to take notice judicially and ex officio, without the statute being particularly pleaded."——Blackstone Comment. vol. 1. p. 86.

The preposition without here governs the phrase following, which might otherwise be properly arranged thus, without the particular pleading of the statute, or without pleading the statute particularly. But as the sentence stands, there is nothing to show the true construction, or how the sentence may be resolved: Being and pleaded both stand as participles; whereas the construction requires that they should be considered as standing for a noun; for without does not govern statute; without the statute, is not the meaning of the writer. But it governs pleading, or refers immediately to that idea or union of ideas, expressed by being particularly pleaded. As these last words represent a noun, which is immediately governed by the preposition, without, the word statute should have the sign of the possessive, as much as any word in the genitive case, without the statute's being particularly pleaded; that is, without the particular pleading of the statute by the parties; for in order to make grammar or sense, statute must be in the possessive.

To confirm these remarks, I would just add, that when we substitute a pronoun in such cases, we always use the possessive case. Suppose the word statute had been previously used, in the sentence; the writer then would have used the pronoun in the close of the sentence, thus; "without its being particularly pleaded;" and I presume that no person will contend for the propriety of, "without it being pleaded."

So we should say, "a judge will not proceed to try a criminal, without his being present." But would it be correct to say, without him being present? This mode of speaking will not, I am confident, be advocated: But unless I am mistaken, this last expression stands on a footing with the example cited, without the statute being pleaded. Numberless similar examples occur in those modern writers who aim at refinement of language. "If we can admit the doctrine of the stomach having a general consent with the whole system."—"On account of the system being too highly toned," &c. It is strange the writers of such language do not see that there are in fact two possessives in such phrases—"on account of the too high toning of the system," and that both should be expressed; thus, "on account of the system's being too high toned."

It may be questioned whether the verb need may not with propriety be used in the third person singular of the indicative, present, without the usual termination of that person. Practice will at least warrant it.

"But tho the principle is to be applauded, the error cannot, and, in this enlightened age, happily need not be defended."——Erskine, Orat. Temp. vol. 1. p. 95.

"Now a person need but enter into himself and reflect on the operations of his own mind."——Nugent's Burlamaqui, 1. I. 9.

"Hence it was adjudged, that the use need not always be executed the instant the conveyance is made."——Blackstone, Com. b. 2. chap. 20.

Numberless authorities of this kind may be produced; but we may spare the trouble, and only advert to the constant practice of speakers of every class; "he need not;" "it need not." Indeed, he needs not, altho grammatically correct, is so offensive to most ears, that we have little reason to expect people will be persuaded to use it.

The same may be said of dare; "he dare not."

I am mistaken, Lowth reprobates as bad English; asserting that the phrase is equivalent to I am misunderstood. In this criticism the Bishop is mistaken most grossly. Whether the phrase is a corruption of am mistaking or not, is wholly immaterial; in the sense the English have used it from time immemorial and universally, mistaken is a mere adjective, signifying that one is in an error; and this sense the Bishop should have explained, and not rejected the phrase.

PARTICLES.

The same author disapproves of to after averse; another example of his hasty decision. The practice of good writers and speakers is almost wholly in favor of to, and this is good authority; the propriety of the English particles depending almost solely on their use, without any reference to Latin rules. Averse is an adjective, describing a certain state or quality of the mind, without regard to motion, and therefore averse from is as improper as contrary from, opposed from, or reluctant from. Indeed in the original sense of from, explained by Mr. Horne Tooke, as denoting beginning, averse from appears to be nonsense.

The following phrases are said to be faulty; previous to, antecedent to, with others of a similar nature. The criticism on these expressions must have been made on a very superficial view of the subject. In this sentence, "previous to the establishment of the new government, the resolutions of Congress could not be enforced by legal compulsory penalties;" previous refers to the word time or something equivalent implied, at the time previous, or during the time or period, previous to the establishment of the new government. This is the strict grammatical resolution of the phrase; and the usual correction, previously, is glaringly absurd; during the time previously to the establishment; into such wild errors are men led by a slight view of things, or by applying the principles of one language to the construction of another.[124]

"Agreeable to his promise, he sent me the papers;" here agreeable is correct; for it refers to the fact done; he sent me the papers, which sending was agreeable to his promise. In such cases, practice has often a better foundation than the criticisms which are designed to change it.

According is usually numbered among the prepositions; but most absurdly; it is always a participle, and has always a reference to some noun or member of a sentence. "According to his promise, he called on me last evening." Here according refers to the whole subsequent member of the sentence; "he called on me last evening, which (the whole of which facts) was according to his promise." No person pretends that "accordingly to his promise" is good English; yet the phrase is not more incorrect than "agreeably to his promise," or "previously to this event," which the modern critics and refiners of our language have recommended.

"Who do you speak to?" "Who did he marry?" are challenged as bad English; but whom do you speak to? was never used in speaking, as I can find, and if so, is hardly English at all. There is no doubt, in my mind, that the English who and the Latin qui, are the same word with mere variations of dialect. Who, in the Gothic or Teutonic, has always answered to the Latin nominative, qui; the dative cui, which was pronounced like qui, and the ablative quo; in the same manner as whose has answered to cujus, in all genders; whom to quem, quam, and what to quod. So that who did he speak to? Who did you go with? were probably as good English, in ancient times, as cui dixit? Cum quo ivisti? in Latin. Nay, it is more than probable that who was once wholly used in asking questions, even in the objective case; who did he marry? until some Latin student began to suspect it bad English, because not agreeable to the Latin rules. At any rate, whom do you speak to? is a corruption, and all the grammars that can be formed will not extend the use of the phrase beyond the walls of a college.

The foregoing criticisms will perhaps illustrate and confirm an assertion of Mr. Horne Tooke, that "Lowth has rejected much good English." I should go farther and assert that he has criticized away more phrases of good English, than he has corrected of bad. He has not only mistaken the true construction of many phrases, but he has rejected others that have been used generally by the English nation from the earliest times, and by arbitrary rules, substituted phrases that have been rarely, or never used at all. To detect such errors, and restrain the influence of such respectable names, in corrupting the true idiom of our tongue, I conceive to be the duty of every friend to American literature.

On examining the language, and comparing the practice of speaking among the yeomanry of this country, with the stile of Shakespear and Addison, I am constrained to declare that the people of America, in particular the English descendants, speak the most pure English now known in the world. There is hardly a foreign idiom in their language; by which I mean, a phrase that has not been used by the best English writers from the time of Chaucer. They retain a few obsolete words, which have been dropt by writers, probably from mere affectation, as those which are substituted are neither more melodious nor expressive. In many instances they retain correct phrases, instead of which the pretended refiners of the language have introduced those which are highly improper and absurd.

Let Englishmen take notice that when I speak of the American yeomanry, the latter are not to be compared to the illiterate peasantry of their own country. The yeomanry of this country consist of substantial independent freeholders, masters of their own persons and lords of their own soil. These men have considerable education. They not only learn to read, write and keep accounts; but a vast proportion of them read newspapers every week, and besides the Bible, which is found in all families, they read the best English sermons and treatises upon religion, ethics, geography and history; such as the works of Watts, Addison, Atterbury, Salmon, &c. In the eastern states, there are public schools sufficient to instruct every man's children, and most of the children are actually benefited by these institutions. The people of distant counties in England can hardly understand one another, so various are their dialects; but in the extent of twelve hundred miles in America, there are very few, I question whether a hundred words, except such as are used in employments wholly local, which are not universally intelligible.

But unless the rage for imitating foreign changes can be restrained, this agreeable and advantageous uniformity will be gradually destroyed. The standard writers abroad give us local practice, the momentary whims of the great, or their own arbitrary rules to direct our pronunciation; and we, the apes of fashion, submit to imitate any thing we hear and see. Sheridan has introduced or given sanction to more arbitrary and corrupt changes of pronunciation, within a few years, than had before taken place in a century; and in Perry's Dictionary, not to mention the errors in what he most arrogantly calls his "Only sure Guide to the English Tongue," there are whole pages in which there are scarcely two or three words marked for a just pronunciation. There is no Dictionary yet published in Great Britain, in which so many of the analogies of the language and the just rules of pronunciation are preserved, as in the common practice of the well informed Americans, who have never consulted any foreign standard. Nor is there any grammatical treatise, except Dr. Priestley's, which has explained the real idioms of the language, as they are found in Addison's works, and which remain to this day in the American practice of speaking.

The result of the whole is, that we should adhere to our own practice and general customs, unless it can be made very obvious that such practice is wrong, and that a change will produce some considerable advantage.

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