own diary-deciphered from shorthand with a spirit of unsubdued devotion to a sacred task-William Wilson, one of the four brethren, as the fathers of the Secession Church are endearingly called by their followers, was worthy of being so viewed, and his memory preserved in honourable remembrance. The affectionate and able chronicler of his life-son to one of the most learned and accomplished theologians and men of letters of the time, Dr Ferrier of Paisley-besides participating in these sentiments, had the honourable claim of lineal descent from Mr Wilson, to entitle him to undertake a task which he has judiciously performed; and he has thus given a personal and domestic interest to a volume which has intrinsically a general and intense one to a large section of the Christian public. The Memoir is divided, in the old style, into periods, and proceeds in a lucid manner, only broken by copious and interesting extracts from the correspondence, &c. of its theme. We presume the volume will command a wide circulation. man. The Portfolio of the Martyr-Student. London. MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE. THE APOLOGY. IN THREE PARTS. giving me little books of pictures, and explaining them to me. The appearance of this patroness of my early youth I have from that day clearly remembered: and it seems to have been impressed upon me in rather a whimsical way. On the lady's cheek was a small spot streaked with those wavy threads of red, to which immoderate sorrow, or indulgence, or natural decay, often attenuates the tints of a florid beauty. A leaf had fallen from one of my little books, and I remember to have asked a scarlet thread from her cheek to sew it again into its proper place. I omit farther record of my boyhood as common and uninteresting, and advance to deeper and more perilous details. One evening, in the eighteenth summer of my age. I was crossing on horseback a river about twenty miles from home, when the animal on which I rode was mas tered by the force of the current, which was heavily flooded from previous rains; and horse and rider were rolled down in the strong stream. From the first rush and thunder of waters in my Long-soul, a dim blank was over me till I awoke to a confused sense of what had befallen me, and of my now being which must have lasted during the night, for when I kindly ministered to. To this succeeded a heavy sleep. next distinctly awoke, the light of the sun through a green curtain fell with a fine haze upon my face as I lay upon an unknown bed, and the song of swallows from the eaves was as if it were the matin hour. "It is certainly morning," said I to myself, as I lay still, trying to remember how I had come thither. I was interrupt ed in my calculation, by the entrance of a good-looking man, apparently a farmer, who, after satisfying himself that I was fairly awake, began to congratulate me on my escape from drowning in the river, and then told me, in answer to my enquiry, that I had been saved by a young niece of his own, who having seen the failure of my horse, By Thomas Aird, Author of " Religious Characteristics," watched me as I was rolled down the river, till, on being &c. Speak of me as I am: nothing extenuate, PART II. borne near the bank where she was, she rushed in and drew me out at the peril of her own life. "I am sorry to say," he added, "that your horse perished; but this is comparatively nothing since yourself are safe. I mast now go for our sweet young surgeon, for, do you know, Or my parentage I can say nothing: a mystery over- you have got an ugly gash on your head against some hangs my childhood, which I have sought in vain to clear rock in the water, and it is needful now to have it dress up, and which I now believe must for ever remain dark ed." My host retired for a few minutes, and then reto me. There is nothing more common than to hear it turned, followed by a fair young creature, with salve and remarked, "How short seems our bypast life!" but to bandages for my head, whom, moreover, he introduced to me, sir, this moment the days of my boyhood appear so me as his niece, Emily Bonnington, who had saved my far remote that they seem to belong to some other earlier life. After I had fervently thanked my young preserver, world. Such are my farthest recollections of a sunny I submitted to her farther kindness, and she bound up world of yore, and of my being led out into the pleasant my head with the most tender care. I was then left fields by some kind playmate, of whom I remember only alone, under the recommendation of my kind host, that I the little feet that went before me. Would I could for- should try, if possible, to sleep again, as I felt a most get these early passages altogether, or knew them more violent throbbing in my head, and accordingly I lay back distinctly! Sometimes my spirit is so earnest, and, as I upon my bed, trying to compose myself anew to slum think, so near falling into the proper train of pursuing ber. What was it that invested my lovely preserver them, that in my anxiety-I may call it my agony-the with such an interest to me as I lay for hours, sleeping perspiration stands upon my brow. I see the dim some-none, but thinking only of her? Love-sudden love, it thing before me, yet never can overtake or unmask it could not be, for my heart and soul were inalienably de "You might as well Hunt half a day for a forgotten dream." The first point in my childhood which I clearly remember, is, that I was sitting alone plucking the blossoms from a fine bush of budding broom, when a crow alighted near my feet, and carried off a large worm. Then came a woman, whose face I cannot recall, with a little red shoe in her hand, which she put upon one of my feet; and then she took me up. Probably it had fallen off by the way, and I had been set down on the grass till she went back to seek it. The next point, and that to which I can follow back my continuous recollections, is my being in a room with an elderly lady, who took great pains to amuse me in voted to another. Nor yet could the strongest gratitude exhaust the mysterious regard which brought that young woman, Emily Bonnington, so near my heart. Had I seen that face of hers before? I could not say that I had; yet it haunted me less in reference to late things, than te a cloud of early reminiscences which came over me, as! lay without passion, without control, my spirit becalmed on a still sea of remembrance. About noon I arose, and joined my host in a short walk through his fields. In the afternoon I had an opportunity of questioning Emir Bonnington a little farther as to my preservation; and the graceful modesty with which she recounted the par ticulars, bettered the sweet impressions which her beauty was entitled to make on every heart, whether young of old, and left me to wonder how, in her humble sphere of rustic service, she had attained, or could preserve, her simple but true elegance. In accordance with my host's kind entreaties, I agreed to stay with him till the morrow, resolved then to take a seat homeward in the mail, which passed by near his house at an early hour. 66 The youth now bade her passionately adieu, which she returned evidently with the most confiding affection; and after she had watched him for some time as he hasted away through the green dewy parks, she turned with some low murmuring exclamation, and retired behind the house. Had I not known that young man, an interview like this, which I had undesignedly witnessed, so common betwixt lovers, might not have given me a thought beyond the moment; but I had at once recognised the youth, and what I knew of him made me anxious and unhappy in calculating the probable consequences of such a love to my young and beautiful preserver. He was a young gentleman of the name of Julius Wardrop, the only son of an old squire, who had an estate a few miles from Mountcoin, and another in that part of the country where Emily Bonnington resided with her uncle, the quick recollection of which circumstance made me better assured that I had truly recognised young Wardrop. I knew him to be bold, artful, and unprincipled; and even had it been otherwise, my knowledge of the disparity of their fortunes was entitled to justify my vexation to have found him the lover of Emily, and my fears for my beautiful little preserver, who had assuredly in return given him her heart. Dublin and London, where I spent a year in the farther advancement of my professional knowledge. On my way home from the latter city, the mail left me at an inn about ten miles from Mountcoin, where I resolved to stay all night, purposing to walk home early on the morrow. AfThis night, after I had slept, as I thought, for several ter I had rested awhile from the dizzy fatigue of travel.. hours, I awoke from confused dreams with an over-la-ling, I walked out on a balcony from one of the windows boured spirit. My ears had not yet got quite rid of yes- of the inn, to enjoy the beautiful summer evening, which terday's watery visitation, and I felt my head heavy and had been freshened by a thick shower. The glittering benumbed, whilst my stomach was oppressed with dis- blades of the green wheaten uplands owned the dropping agreeable nausea. To relieve myself a little, I arose and fatness of heaven; and as the fluttering breeze awoke, a went to the window, which I opened to taste the pure dewy fragrance was shaken from the budded spray of breath of the night. The moon was shining clearly down some sweetly-breathed birches that twinkled before me. from the zenith, and no cloud stained her blue noon. The Away towards the watery east, the rainbow was falling stars were aloof and fainting from her glorious presence. with yellow glory down on the green faces of the woods. My attention was, however, soon drawn from the beau- The little boy crept from the dropping shelter of the tiful wilderness of heaven by a low whispering beneath hedge, and renewed his rattle to frighten the birds from me, and looking down, I saw Emily Bonnington come the yellow plots of seeded turnips up in the sunny crofts; round in front of the house with a young man. while back, to cheer his bondage, came the village child"Fear not, Emily," I heard him say, my heart and ren, bareheaded, rejoicing beneath the skirts of the sumlove could afford to blazon you before the whole world." mer-shower, winking to the dewy sheen, and oft stretch"Enough for me," was her low sweet reply," that I ing their arms to the lovely rainbow. Such was the have staked my all on your good opinion,-honour my glad scene before me, which within a brief quarter of an pledge." hour was, though still fair as before in itself, to grow dark and unheeded from a change which came over my heart-for such indeed is the relative constitution of this world's beauty. As I stood before the window, I saw a carriage advancing along the highway with great rapidity, the harness glittering in the sun, and the glimmering wheels raising a mist which was left behind in a long trail. Onward the carriage came, and having been drawn up before the door of the inn, my antagonist Wardrop stepped from it, and turning, handed out a young lady, in whom, to my infinite surprise and horror, I recognised my own beloved Catherine Sinton. I say horror, for the air of necessary gallantry with which Wardrop did his devoir,-the confiding tenderness with which the lady leaned on his arm, and that peculiar softened and mellowed halo of beauty, of which the saffron robe is the emblem, and which, shadowing the warm and blushing brow, weighing the eyelid, and heightening the blooming honours of the cheek, leaves us never to mistake a young bride, carried to my heart, as with a stroke of lightning, that the lady was lost to me for ever, and was become the wife of another. No sooner were Wardrop and his young-(well, it must be so)—his young wife fairly into the inn, than I hurried down stairs to take my departure, not having magnanimity enough to stay an hour near so fearfullyinteresting a party. A single question to the coachman as I passed through the court-yard, brought down upon me an answer confirmatory of my suspicions, and without another moment's delay, I took my homeward road adown the river side, my crowding thoughts unable to arrange themselves, and my whole heart swallowed up in the overwhelming conviction that I had indeed lost all claim to my Catherine. She was the daughter of a gentleman in this neighbourhood, and I had loved her for many years with a growing passion, which, however, I never revealed to her; but this I had determined to do without further delay, and my departure from London was hastened even for this very purpose, as I could endure my absence from her no longer. So then I was too late! So then Catherine was lost to me for ever! With the burden of these bitter thoughts upon me, I wandered homewards, I know not how. I was not, however, so selfish in my own loss as altogether to forget Miss Bonnington, and my heart boiled with double indignation against Wardrop, as I could not but think that he must have deceived and forsaken poor Emily. Were we to refine and enquire curiously for motives, the emphasis which I laid on this part of his misconduct, might perhaps argue that my heart, on account of its own private feelings, was eager to find a just cause of anger against him. In the morning, when I saw her alone for a few minutes before my departure to join the mail, I was almost on the point of being so friendly, or so impertinent, as to warn her against him; but I dreaded so much the latter imputation, that I forbore. I did indeed give one vague and general caution. When about to go, I took a ring from my finger, and pressed her to keep it as a slight memento that I wished to be grateful. “I will keep it,” said she, taking the gem with graceful modesty, and be proud when I look at it to remember that Heaven made me the instrument of saving the life of a worthy young gentleman." "And may it be the ring of an elder brother," said I, willing to insinuate a general caution against Wardrop's possible villainy;" and may the memory which it recalls of thine own noble heroism, fortify thy soul to challenge and defeat the betrayer, should any one, presuming on his wealth or his wiles, ever tempt thy excellent ho nour!" To this appeal, which living and present apprehension made me utter with much solemnity, young Emily answered only with a keen and half-blushing look, and I bade her adieu. After finishing my medical studies at the University of Edinburgh, the liberality of my patroness, Mrs Has tings, who had been left with a handsome jointure by an old antiquary, allowed me to visit the medical schools of The very next day, by chance I met Emily's uncle, as he was on his way to a distant fair, and, on my enquiring for "If you are dishonoured, so are you avenged!" I remember to have cried, panting. I cleared the mist and blood from my eyes. A loud yell was in my ears. Emily had fainted, and fallen back on a chair. The face of my prostrate antagonist had been towards the door;he was now turning round to look for Emily, and I was horrified to see the bright blue eye of a stranger youth quivering in death. my fair preserver, he gave me to understand that she had her eyes, were a prelude to the subdued and softened "God knows, now left him; and this he did with such a sorrowful reluc- heart, which thus burst into sad flow. tance, that I dreaded the worst. He seemed angry, when Mr Hastings, I have much need to keep it, since it is the I attempted to follow up my enquiries a little farther, only little pledge left of my own self-respect. You must though I did it as incidentally as possible; but when I leave me, sir; I am dishonoured, God knows, enough. apologized, by stating the deep interest which I took in I cannot endure your kind cares. But remember, sir, I my beautiful preserver, whom, in her joy or her sorrow, am not dishonoured as you perhaps suppose. Hark! I could not but be bound now and then to see, I saw the hark! there comes Wardrop, my cruel-O, no! no! tear start in his eye, and, after a pause, he said :-" She-But he promised to be here to-night; and what must may be in sorrow, poor child, for aught we know, though be done with you ?" Ere I could turn from the maid, God forbid! The truth is, sir, she left us some three the door of our room was burst open, and I was suddenly months ago, and we know not how to find her. We have assailed and struck down by a blow from behind. I rehad two letters from her, however, in both of which she covered myself, yet reeling, but was again struck down. says she is well, asks pardon for her strange departure, A second time I rose ;-a knife came to my hand with begs our forbearance for a little longer, and promises soon fatal facility;-through mists, and the blood which came to return to us without dishonour. Would to Heaven over my temples, I saw my own arm raised flashing aloft; that day were come, my little Emily!" I was on the I heard the greedy knife gashing the side of that wopoint of mentioning my suspicions, from what I guessed man's seducer. of her love for Wardrop, but I refrained, because I might be wrong, and because, in the event of my suspicions being just, I thought it better not to give occasion to precipitate matters, by directing the interference of her fiery kinsman. I resolved to see her myself, if possible, without delay, anxious to redeem her gently from any error. I think there was no priggish impertinence in this wish of mine to interfere. I would but warn Miss Bonnington of Wardrop's marriage, and leave it to her good sense to do or avoid the rest. Having learned that he had gone back with his bride to Edinburgh, I followed, determined to make him tell me where Miss Bonnington was, (for I doubted not that under his auspices she had left her uncle's friendly roof,) and, moreover, to let him know that I would do my utmost to save that maiden from his farther villainy. The accumulated grief and indignation of my spirit threw me into a violent fever a few hours after my arrival in Edinburgh, and it was nearly a month ere I was again able to walk out. The very first evening after quitting my chamber, I saw, by chance, in the dim twilight, Emily Bonnington walking alone in an obscure street, forlorn and wo-begone, pale of countenance, slow and irregular in her step. She did not seem to recognise me as I passed by; and why did I pass by without addressing her? Oh, God! I wanted to see if she had not become one of those miserable women who give their beauty and their embraces for hire. She walked forward, however, without offering, or meeting with, interruption, and I followed, till, as she was about to be admitted into a house in a mean part of the city, I touched her on the shoulder from behind, announced my name, and asked if I might talk with her for a few minutes. "Help me to my sister," I heard him say, with an awful look to me of pathetic reproach. I was petrified; I could not move. With an energy that made the purple drops of life spirt and bubble from his side, he raised himself up, and, twisting himself twice round, was at the feet of Emily. He clasped them to his bosom, and kissed her ankles convulsively, with a fearful energy of love. Again he panted forth the name of his sister; then turned upon me his eye, in which death was mingled with a curse. I was brooking the last look which still glared, stiffening, against me, when, in a moment recollecting myself, I sprung to his ear, crying aloud, that I was not his sister's seducer. It was too late. There was no motion of doubt or belief. The film of death had fallen for ever on his eye. And judge me, Calvert, friend of mine, if the cloud of eclipse did not then fall on my heart, which no time shall lift or blot away! You may wonder, but I remember all these particulars distinctly, for I was calm in despair; I see the whole thing by night and day like a dark phantasmagoria; I have gone over the particulars, in my mind's eye, a thousand times, winning each one to its proper place, and arranging the whole like a dance, till the order is at length fixed inalienably before me. I think my cries brought the mistress of the house into the room; and I think it was the voice of her reproaches that first induced me to flee, which I did more from horror at my We were accordingly ushered, by a woman of decent deed, than fear from my responsibility. I descended a appearance, into a small room, when Miss Bonnington, stair, and hurried along the crowded streets. Every eye turning to me with a somewhat peremptory look, as if, seemed intent upon me; and I heard the sound of men's without delay, to know my business, I felt myself obliged feet, as if hurrying away to some judgment-some great to state at once for what reason I had sought her. She verdict against me. The coaches seemed to be rolling was angry and proud, and haughtily rejected my plea along the night-streets with greater speed and a louder that I saw her unfortunate. sound of wheels than usual; and they were filled, methought, with men who were in haste on my account. Lamps and torches, as I passed, flashed brightly in my face, as if for the wicked purpose of detection; and every motion of the crowded metropolis seemed instinct with earnestness in relation to my bloody offence. Without any formal choice of route, I made my escape from the city by a south road, merely because I had happened to fall upon it most readily. Three or four miles away the last din of the town, I sat me down on a green bank, weary and bewildered, and there fell fast asleep. I must have slept for several hours, for when I sat down, I saw the moon broad and red coming up above the horizon, and when I awoke she was riding high and clear. I have often wondered how, in my weakness after late fever, I could stand such fatigue and exposure; but such is the fact, that, despite of these untoward circumstances, I "Certainly, sir, in virtue of former acquaintanceship," replied she, with proud alacrity. "If so," she said, "my misfortunes are my own, and of my own free choice. I must be rid of your ring," she continued, “for I see that, in virtue of my having accepted it, you think yourself warranted in very unnecessary interference." Suiting the action to the words, she drew it forth, with peremptory haste, from a small box into which it had been carefully put, and was about to throw it into the fire, when I interposed. "Pause-hear me for one moment, Miss Bonnington," I cried. "I am newly redeemed from the gates of death, and my heart, when I saw you, could not be so callous, as not to prompt me to follow you, and ask whether you are unhappy. But I shall leave you this instant, if you will still preserve that little pledge." Her trembling pause, and the big blinding tears that, despite of her efforts to be firm, began to drop fast from from ained, upon the whole, my bodily strength very fast. When I awoke, as stated above, I was pretty calm in pirit, and could calculate the meaning and farther direcon of my flight. I was indeed sorry that, in a weak nd irritable mood, I had been induced to flee at all, which would be construed into an absconding from justice, and would thus bear the face of the worst guilt; and I had ome thoughts of returning back to the city and surrenering myself up to justice; but again I thought it better o go home and explain my unhappy predicament to Mrs Hastings, and there quietly abide the pursuit of the law. On reaching Mountcoin, I learned that Mrs Hastings ad the day before set out to see me on a third visit since ay fever began, and that, moreover, she meant to proceed nwards to Glasgow, there to stay for a few weeks. Scarcely had a day gone by when, as I had hourly anti-these fifteen years, it might be inferred she was long ago ipated, I was apprehended at Mountcoin for the murder f Mr Harry Bonnington, and conveyed to jail in Edinurgh. how to find that true mother of my life; and it must be my sacred duty to take care of her, for perhaps- -By Heaven! you have done grievously wrong, lady! Perhaps- -Who knows what may be her habits? Now, speak quickly-where am I to seek her?" There was a pause, as Mrs Hastings seemed alarmed at the earnestness of my manner and her own responsibility; but when I repeated my question with somewhat of sternness, she replied, meekly, that she knew nothing of the woman; that she had not seen her for fifteen years. She owned, moreover, with tears, that she had made it one condition of keeping me as her own son, that my wretched mother was not to see me more than once a-year, and that she was never to make known her relationship to me; wherefore, as she had not come to see me during all dead. I had to assent to this conclusion. But when Mrs Hastings, weakly and with little tact, promised at this moment to do any thing for me, and to leave me, when she died, all her substance, I declared it my purpose now to make my own way in the world, and never to keep her property from her natural heirs. In the course of a few months, my trial came on. The nain witness in the case was the landlady of the house which I committed the rash deed. According to her eposition, the deceased (Harry Bonnington) came furi- Accordingly, in a few weeks, I proceeded to sea, in the usly into her house on the evening in question, and she capacity of a surgeon's mate, after taking an affectionate aw him knock me down violently, and the blood spring leave of my kind old patroness, and promising to open a rom my head. She saw nothing farther, having re- punctual correspondence with her, and in all respects to reated to her own apartment in great alarm. Emily be her son, save in so far as regarded my name, and the Bonnington was named as a witness; but, alas! alas! ultimate possession of her property. I was soon advanhe had died-I presume of a broken heart-ere this day ced in my new occupation, and at length, after many years of trial. This was a thing to make my heart grow old of hard service, was appointed physician to a military hosn an hour! And then there was the second awful ex-pital in the Isle of Wight, where I remained till about lanation, made in the course of the trial, with farther articulars, of which I shall not trouble you—that I had lain that brother of hers, a brave and manly sailor-boy, it the very moment when, with a brother's piercing love, te had found out his unhappy sister's retreat, to win her ack from the spoiler! Under circumstances, it would eem, of strong palliation, a verdict of Manslaughter merely was found against me, and my sentence was three months' imprisonment. So soon as my confinement was ver, I went to wait on Mrs Hastings, with a confusion f feelings, in reference to her, which I cannot well exress. About a week after my first lodgement in jail, I ad written to her, explaining my unhappy situation, and raying her to come and see me; in answer to which, I eceived a letter from her, stating that she could not comly with my wish; adding, moreover, that I was not her that my real name was Bremner, that she had bought ne, when I was a child, from my mother, a vagrant wonan, who was unable to support me; that she had done ery much for me, but that I had testified my wild blood y my late horrible act, and that she was determined to ountenance me no longer. With this letter of hers in my hand, I now made my way, without ceremony, to her resence, and thus bitterly began :-" So, madam, in adition to your many excellent lessons, which have yet been sufficient to reclaim my savage nature, you must now ach me where to find this worshipful mother of mine." "My son! my own son, still!" cried she, weeping and mbracing me. "It was these greedy interested relations f mine who made me write that cruel letter. Oh! say ou forgive me, Edward, for you have been indeed a kind on to me!" In whatever may be the mere force of blood, there is least equal power in long habits of reverence and affecon; and now, in my turn, I embraced and forgave at ce the weak, but kind, old lady. "But yet," said I, ith severe solemnity, "there is something strange and vful in this relation of mine to an unknown mother, -ho may yet be alive, and whose name at least, if you nnot instruct me how to find her, I am determined Enceforth to bear, to honour the being who gave me a dy and a spirit. But, O! there must be more-far ore! You have blessed me, lady, with good instruction, r which I thank you. But you must now instruct me six months ago, when I was summoned to attend the death-bed of Mrs Hastings. According to my former resolution, I would accept none of her property in bequeathment, save this mansion, which she forced me to take as a pledge of my gratitude for the comforts which, in my boyhood, I had therein experienced. And here, having lately given up my professional duties, and retired on half-pay, I mean to spend the remainder of my life. I have lived here for three months now in almost perfect solitude. No one seeks my company, for it is generally reported, I believe, that I am fearfully distressed in mind for the murder (grant the term) which I committed in my youth. Nor is this altogether an idle report; for though I have forgot, in a great measure, Catherine Sinton, and others whom I loved as the friends of my youth, that boy Harry Bonnington haunts my soul day and night. I have travelled in various lands, seen many men and many cities," been in sea-fights many a one, yet, despite of all change of place, despite of every circumstance most likely to render a man callous, the guilty rashness of that carly blow of mine troubles me still. (Part III. in our next.) EПЕA ПTЕРOENTA" WINGED WORDS.” By William Tennant.* Wing'd words, that flew from babbling Babel forth, I CANNOT help considering the Hebrew plural terminations IM, IN, and UTH, as the origin, not only of the plural symbols EN and s of our northern languages, but also of those of the Greek and Latin, and all the other languages, ancient and modern, on both shores of the Mediterranean. For the Latin language had, like the Greek, only two plural terminations, 1 and Es, as PENNAI, DOMINOI, SERMONES, FRUCTUES, REES; and when we know that the Hebrews, Babylonians, and Syrians, suppressed the м in See a former Article, of a similar nature, in the Lit. Jour. Vol. II. p. 35. nov-PEEL from -GRIN from KINGOR-TUB and Por are from the German BUTT and TOPF, with many others unnecessary to particularize. It has been remark. ed, that young persons, beginning to spell and read, frequently, and without being conscious of it, pronounce the words backwards; but it has never, so far as I know, been observed that children, or uneducated persons, de, in their ordinary speech, utter words in their backward spelling. a frequently-occurring construction of their substantives, as did the Latins always before a vowel, as their poetry still testifies, the permanent loss of the omissible a need not be a matter of marvel. But the identity of the Hebrew plural UTH, with the Greek and Latin Es, or s, is not so obvious; yet it is, with great probability, deducible from the many manifest mutations of a similar kind that have taken place in other words. For we find, that in many, if not in all languages, the sound TH is commutable with s, proceeding, as it does, from this cause, that that particular conformation of the enunciative organs which To an observer of mental phenomena, it is interesting is necessary to pronounce TH, most easily and naturally to trace the words significative of mind, its operations and lapses into the utterance of s. An example of this exists affections, to their primitives, and to note how, in differ in our own language, in the third person singular, pres. ent languages, these relationships correspond. The word indic. as HATH, HAS, LOVETH, LOVES. And if this hap- signifying wIND is the root, I believe, in mostly all lanpens in the vocables of one language relative to itself, much guages, of words signifying SPIRIT OF MIND. The Sanmore is it likely to happen in words transmitted from one skrit syllable AN, denoting breath or wind, is the root of language to another, and exposed, in passing from land to the Greek avsμos, (and àw* dnu,) whence the Latin land, to many dangerous accidents of change. Accord- ANIMA and ANIMUS. We have a very old Scottish word, ingly, we find the Hebrew ATHUN, an ass, metamorphosed AYND, or END, denoting breath, which is evidently from into the Latin ASINUS; the Greek avnov adulterated into the same origin. The Greek vua, a spirit, is from the Latin ANISUM, ANISE: So the Latin first person plural vs, to blow-vxn, the soul, is connected with, or most MUS is formed from the Greek μsła, λɛyoμsła (in one of probably derived from, ↓ʊxos, cold air ;—our word SHB the dialects Asyopss) becoming LEGIMUS. So also the fu- is from SPIRO, to breathe or blow;-the Hebrew words, sion of the particle Oy, the original sign of the genitive denoting a SPIRIT, are all of similar signification, Aik er singular, into s, as Пurodev, Пuwvos, yndsv, yns.* The al- BREATH. Our word GHOST, or GHAIST, is of Saxon ori ternation of these letters may also account for the diver- gin, and the same with Gust, a blast of wind. Again, sity of the imperative of the second aorist, which appears many of the words denoting acts or affections of the mind. to trepidate between the particle 9 and s, as yvw, rn, appear to have been originally agricultural terms, exdos, Oss. And some words in Greek are written indiffer-pressive of rural labour. The Hebrew word ARESH, ently, as it would seem, with a ore, as Culos, Curros, whence ABYSSUS; nay, the Spartans seem to have pronounced the of nearly all Attic words, where that letter occurs, as an σ, as wagσivos, Aonvn, ogros, for agvos, Anun, ogos. And, with regard to other languages, we may remark, that the Arabians and Persians have a letter of nearly the same written symbol, but pronounced by the former people as TH, by the latter, who like softer sounds, as s. Moreover, the Chaldeans changed the TH of Hebrew words very frequently into SH. From all these instances, tending to prove the commutability of these apparently different sounds, we think we have warrant enough to infer the original identity of these plural terminations. think or meditate, means properly to PLOUGH-the Latin verb PUTARE, to think, signifies properly to PRUNE TREES the verb CERNERE, to discern or distinguish, denotes properly to SIFT CORN-the verb LEGERE, to read, seems to have its primary signification to GATHER FRUIT, FLOWERS, or LEAVES, (whence LECTUS, a bed, as being originally of leaves.) The Hebrew word AMER, a WORD or SAYING, denotes a branch; and the Latin word SERMO appears to be a derivative from SERO, to sow or plant. The worl SOLICIT, SOLICITOUS, denotes TURNING UP THE SOIL; the word TRIBULATION is from TRIBULA, the dray with which they threshed their corn. But once more, the Latin SAPIENTIA, wisdom, is derived from SAPIO, TO TASTE; the Hebrew word TOME, GOOD SENSE, OF DISCRETION, is derived from TOM, TO TASTE; the word GUST seems to have been used in Scotland in the sense of KNOWING BY EXPERIENCE. When we say A MAN OF TASTE, we mean also a man of intellectual discrimination and GOOD SENSE IN LETTERS, The Sanskrit word MAN-the Hebrew words CAE, er KIR, or KIRTE, a city, and BAL, a possession, or possessor. are to be found scattered nearly through the whole earth. The last word, BAL, is used both as a prefix in the sense of a possession, and as a suffix in that of possessor;-prefixed to names of places, as BAAL-GAD, BAAL-HERMON postfixed to many proper names, and particularly to sus dry famous persons in Tyre and Carthage, as ASDRUBAL HANNIBAL, ITHABAL. The word CAR, or KIR, or KIT a town or city, is used also both as a prefix and suffix, the same signification of city, as in the words CARIATHAIM, KIR-JATHJEARIM, CAR-THAge, Car-theia, and other names of towns in the north of Africa and southe Spain ;-in a suffix state it is to be found in TIGBANG It is an amusing, and not unprofitable, exercise to note, connected as it is with the origin and cognation of nations, the devastations committed on words by emigration. Some retain the first syllable; some retain the last; some the middle; some, in vagabonding thousands of miles, retain their principal consonants; some only one; some are so completely recast, that they retain no similitude to their originals, but are only to be recognised as the same, or as cognates, through the intervention of some middle language, which is the connecting bond that betrays them. But, amid all the numerous metamorphoses-more wonderful than those of Ovid-effected on far-travelled words, the most extraordinary and inexplicable is, that they should be pronounced and spelled backwards to their original formation. Of this there are so many examples, that amid the infinite multiplication of sounds in human speech, such a coincidence cannot be deemed fortuitous: it must be founded, we know not how, in nature. The Latin word TERRA, earth, is nearly the Hebrew word ARETS backwards. The Hebrew words AB, AM, signifying FA-CERTE, the city of Tigranes, and other towns of like ter THER and MOTHER, are either in their backward or straightforward spelling the origin of nearly all the words in the European languages denoting FATHER and MOTHER. In Chaldee, several words are just the Hebrew written backwards. The Latin PLUMBUM, lead, is from the Greek Mohdos-FORMA from μogon-NUM from uw LIGNUM from uλov-(English, a LOG)-NARIS from gv. Our English words, cow, LAME, are from VACCA and mination near the Euphrates;† and it is very remark * I would beg leave to suggest, with all becoming humility, to Pro fessor Dunbar, whether this root is not the etymon of the Greek pre noun autos, SELF. It is certain that the Sanskrit AUTMEN (Greek) auran) signifies BREATH, SOUL, SPIRIT, SELF; and it is certai that the Oriental NEFESH, signifying BREATH OF SPIRIT, appen be used in the Hebrew, as it undoubtedly is in the Arabic, for SELE SOUL, but I do not know if it can be traced to any root having th Sir William Jones suspects that our word SELF is synonymous w import. It is the German SELBST, and there, I believe, it ends This word CAR, KIR, KIRTE, seems to have had the same e * Of this change we have manifest proof in xadsy becoming exas. tensive sweep of possession from the southern shores of the Casp |