general, thence acquires the sense of foundation, root, or standing place. It thus becomes suitable to denote certain prepositional relations, as above, under, superior to, by reason of, on account of, consequent. Most of the prepositions accordingly, which in the languages of Europe denote such relations, rest on this very word father,' in its simple, primæval, onomatopoetic form of ab, just now cited. The Græco-Latin languages retain it in their vπo, išov, ip, año, aß, eñɩ, sub, suf, ab, af, ef. The Gothic tongues, rising from the same source, carried it into central and northern Europe, where it assumed the shapes of af, auf, op, uf, ufa, ufan, ufon, &c. In England we possess it in the thence derived up, upper, upward, upmost, above, of, off, ebb. 293. Father, or paternity, also implies energy, vigour, and power. These lead to and imply possession. On the primeval ab rests accordingly the verb to have, in Anglo-Saxon habban, in Latin habeo, whence the French form avoir. From habeo, through habilis, comes able, literally father-like.' Enable, disable, unable, ability, inability, are the same word with prefixes. Habit, habitude, habitation, inhabit, are likewise from habeo, and denote that which we have' as our own property. The same general sense is conveyed in happiness, literally 'having;' wealth or possession being correspondent with enjoyment, penury with misery. The Hebrew, Greek, and Latin words for happy possess the same physical signification. (tobah), stands for ‘abundance' in Eccl. v. 10, for 'delight' in Psalm xvi. 3, for ‘gladness' in cvi. 5. Homer applies μákap at one time to a rich farmer (Il. xi. 68), at another to the felicity of the immortal gods. (Ib. i. 339.) Felix, (whence felicity), in Virgil continually denotes 'productive' or rich, just as infelix is continually put for barren.' Thus, felicibus ramis, with luxuriant boughs (Georgic ii. 81); infelix oleaster, the unproductive wild olive. (Ib. 314.) The relation is repeatedly illustrated in colloquial discourse, as when we say 'happily endowed,' meaning richly or plentifully endowed. To be made 'happy,' and to make her "one's own," are synonymous for the gaining of a wife. It is for the same general reason that possessions are called 'goods,' goodness and riches. (the latter in their emblematic character) being original and inseparable allies. Cicero, speaking of the equivalent Latin term bona, says he wonders whence it arose, seeing that true riches are not those of the coffer. (Paradoxes i. vi.) Identical with 'have' is 'give,' the g and h exchanged as in gape and hope. (273.) Give it me is the same as · let me have it.' From 'give' is in turn descended the conjunction if,' originally spelt gif.' If it be fine' is literally given, it be fine,' that is, 'having fine weather' we will do so and so. 294. The verbs to be, bide, and abide, are also originally derived from ab, father, because in paternity, being,' that is, life in its highest quality and vigour, is naturally implied. Our abode' therefore is where we have our being.' Be, when used as a prefix, still implies the same thing, as in because, beside, besiege. The preposition by is of similar purport. By night and by day, for instance, literally mean 'being' night and being' day. To bid is to order to remain or 'be' where you are; thence to ask, intreat, demand. All these facts are made quite plain by the comparative etymology of the Anglo-Saxon root-words. 6 295. The correspondences of offspring furnish language with the beautiful and poetic figures wherein things are spoken of as sons, daughters, and children. Orpheus and Tibullus call the stars 'daughters of the night.' In the former, night is also called 'mother of dreams.' In Pindar, showers of rain are the daughters of the clouds,' (Olymp. xi. 3); wine is the offspring of the vine.' (Nem. ix. 123.) The latter occurs also in Anacreon and in the Gospel of St. Matthew. Eschylus terms fishes the mute children of the sea' (Persians, 576), flowers the children of the all-producing earth. (Ib. 617.) When Daphne, the virgin turned into a laurel, was fabled to be the daughter of the river Peneus, it was but a poet's way of telling that the laurel flourished on its banks. When the Greeks made the Muses the daughters of Mnemosyne or Memory, it was but a similar poetic way of saying that all philosophy and imagination are born of ideas collected from the survey of external nature. The Hebrew Scriptures abound with such expressions, and shew an immense variety in the application. Thus, the literal meaning of the word translated hostages' in 2 Kings xiv. 14, is 'sons of pledging.' The word for arrow,' as in Job xli. 28, is literally son of the bow.' A spark of fire is the child of the burning coal.' All through the Bible, son and daughter further stand in splendid symbolism, for Divine Truth, in its various developments. As its receivers and performers, and thus its impersonated progeny, the regenerate, collectively forming the church, are by turns sons of God," and 'virgins of Zion." 296. To express the filial relation, terms are often borrowed from insensible nature. Children, for example, have in all ages been called by the name of seed, the seeds of a flower being the germs of a new generation. Such terms are also exchanged among the different forms. of nature, as when Homer and Virgil call sparks σπéрμа Tupòs and semina flamma, literally fire-seed.' In Hebrew an only son is called a 'live coal,' i. e., a particle of fire by which rekindling may be effected. In the same way the Greek Coruρov denotes the last hope of a race almost extinct. 297. The terms which rest on the peculiar functions of sex constitute the large group at whose head stands the verb to 'know' (Anglo-Saxon cnawan), literally to procure offspring,' as in Genesis iv. 1, 17, 25, &c. It is transferred to the acquiring of mental progeny, or knowledge,' because physical corresponds to intellectual generation, whence also we speak of our conceptions,' and of giving birth to our ideas. Cnawan is radically the same as the Greek and Latin γένω, γεννάω, νοεω, γινομαι, уiуvóσкw, geno, gigno, genero, nascor, (gnascor) gnosco, cognosco, &c., which are modifications of a common base, and the roots of the words acquaint, acknowledge, recognize, engender, generate, ignorant, progeny, progenitor, genius, ingenious, pregnant, incognito, connoisseur, &c.; all of them terms conveying an expressive reference either to the gaining of family, or to the want of it. The allied Anglo-Saxon cennan is the parent of con, ken, and cunning. The auxiliary verb can is the same word, 'knowledge' being 'power.' 298. From the same roots are derived almost all the words denoting circumstances of time, place, quality, and relationship, as connected with or produced by birth. In this division come indigenous, kin, kindred, genus, generic, genesis, genealogy, general, kind, cognate, homogeneous, heterogeneous, benign, malign, primogeniture, degenerate, regenerate, together with a multitude of others. 'Nature' is so called, because the genitrix of all things. Begin' because progeneration is the first act in the history of life. Kindle is the same word. 299. Resting on no casual or artificial circumstances, but on the original and immutable harmonies of things, it necessarily follows that the terms we procure from the material world wherewith to express our thoughts and feelings, will in return be found to be the truest and most graceful wherein we can speak of nature itself. Especially is this the case with what we call the 'beauty' of nature. The beauty of the material world is but a reflection or transcript of those primitive beauties of creation which the intellectual eye alone perceives, and hence the language that will adequately describe the latter, must of necessity befit the former. Language, in a word, repays to nature all that it borrows, and with interest. 300. The forms of expression in which this is done, constitute that most charming and poetic department of language called Personification. Usually this name is restricted to that elegant usage of the poets wherein they attribute to inanimate nature acts, properties, and quali 6 ties conspicuously belonging to man. In all ages, for instance, the morning has been personified as a lovely goddess, rosy-fingered,' saffron-robed,' and by name Aurora. In all ages, the sea, by reason of its destructiveness to ships and sailors, has been called cruel, avaricious, and remorseless; and when quiet, has been said to 'sleep' and to 'repose.' But Personification in reality embraces a far wider range. For as man, for his part, is a microcosm, so nature, for her part, is man expanded and displayed.* Every term and expression accordingly, in which we speak of natural objects, is essentially a metaphor of something human, and thus a true personification. That those very terms were derived from nature in the first place, involves, however, no inconsistency. They are reflections of her own gifts. The vocal things of nature, as we have already seen, lay the basis of language, by uttering sounds which serve for names, first for themselves, and then, by correspondence, for the dumb ones. These sounds, as we have also seen, are then adapted by man into words delineating himself and his constitutional phenomena. Then they are returned to nature by Personification, as so many cultivated and polished children rendered comely and meaningful by living awhile with men. 301. Personification, therefore, instead of being a custom exclusively of the poets, belongs largely to common speech, many of the expressions of which prove by their infinite beauty that the best part of all language is actual poetry, the gods walking upon the earth. We speak, for example, of the sighing of the wind, the dancing of the waves, the smiling looks of nature. So too of the bosom of the earth, and the face of the sky. We say that the spring awakes,' that brooks of water 'sing,' that plants and blossoms 'love' the sunshine. Eschylus, Pindar, Virgil, Milton, Shakspere, Byron, Shelley, and all other great poets abound with language of precisely the same character, and in variety so profuse, that to illustrate each separate kind would be to quote all their most admired and familiar passages. That most beautiful figure, for instance, of the sea laughing, smiling, or dimpling, occurs in countless places, especially in ancient verse, as in old Eschylus' inexpressibly rich and lovely allusion to the unnumbered smiles of ocean's waves.' (Prom. 89.) The finest modern instances are supplied by Milton and Campbell, 'Cheer'd by the grateful smell, old Ocean smiles.' (P. L. iv. 165.) * Not, however, in mere imitation of man's frame, but because the same spiritual causative essences underlie all things; expressing themselves in the forms of external nature on the one hand, in the constitution of man upon the other. 'Hail to thy face and odours, glorious Sea! "Twere thanklessness in me to bless thee not, Great, beauteous being, in whose breath and smile Inhales salubrious thoughts.' (View from St. Leonard's.) 302. No less poetic are the familiar expressions-it threatens to rain, it promises to be fine, to be enticed out. So when we call the weather 'inclement' it is saying literally that it has no clemency or mildness about it.* If anxious to discover the particulars of some past event, we say, still in the language of true poetry, that we trace it out, literally 'track its footsteps.' 'To investigate' is of the same meaning, being from the Latin vestigium, a foot print. Vestiges,' accordingly, are the foot prints left by something that has passed that way before. Investigation' is the searching for them. The old-fashioned English word to speer' or inquire for (Anglo-Saxon spirian, German spüren), is an equally beautiful metaphor, being radically connected with the AngloSaxon spor (German spur) a footstep. To injure' a thing is literally to act illegally towards it; the word implying that the object spoken of, tree, garden, river bank, or whatever it may be, has its rights the same as men have. The Greeks used the synonymous adikéw in precisely the same way, as in that expressive phrase of Thucydides, rǹv yn tǹv ПIλaráïïda μǹ ådıkê, 'to do no damage to the territory of Platea.' 303. Personifications referring to qualities often develope a multitude of beautiful relations. We say 'develope,' because personifications, like all other true figures, are dictated by our instincts. Take, for example, the familiar uses of the word 'lovely,' that is, love-like. Love is the most sweet and precious quality of all that constitute the spirit; the spring, when rightly directed, of all delight, joy, peace, gladness, and consolation. Hence in our inmost perceptions we feel love to be the counterpart of whatever in external nature awakens in our bosoms sprightly and pleasing emotion, and straightway we describe those things as love-like. Thus, a lovely prospect, a lovely evening, a lovely woman, a lovely flower, a lovely breeze, a lovely song. When our instincts prompt us to use the epithet, each one of these is touching our hearts just as does the activity of a pure and delicate affection. The poets, as might be expected, use the figure in abundance. It is interesting to notice how those of ancient times seem to have anticipated some of its most elegant and appropriate uses. Homer has ῥέεθρα * Qua sit clementissimus amnis. 'Where the river glides with mildest (that is, smoothest) current.' (Ovid. Met. ix. 16.) Z |