And, though he had no cause to fear,
"Curse you!" quoth he, "what do you here?"?
The Mouse indignant rais'd his head,
And thus, but without passion, said:
"No mouse alive would hither come
That had on earth another home.
'Tis not the risk we run, not that;
You ha'n't the heart to keep a cat.
Then traps, we know, are never set;
And why? because you grudge the bait..
We're in security, I grant,

But, safe from danger, die for want:
Tho' I should lodge here, why fear you?
When do you roast, or bake, or brew?
The mouse that trusted to your shelf
Would soon grow leaner than Yourself:
For never a morsel did I see

To put to the test my honesty.

But I disdain, Sir, to intrude

After your speech so gross and rude;
And think not that I make pretence ;

Upon my honour I'll

For in the rest of all

go hence :

your house

There's no fit lodging for a MOUSE."

We will not say as some have said, that wit and humour are of no party, but that they are of all parties; and therefore those Gr.2. readers, whose political opinions may not be in unison with the sentiments of Mr. H., should nevertheless peruse his verses with pleasure, and applaud their merit with sincerity.

ART. IX. Mr. Whiter's Etymologicon Magnum; or Universal
Etymological Dictionary.

[Article concluded from p. 134.]

OUR strictures on the preliminary positions of Mr. Whiter

G.

have carried us so much into detail, that we can spare but little room for the examination of the theory itself, and of the evidence which is brought to substantiate it :-a few general femarks, however, we shall now endeavour to subjoin.

In the first place, we must observe that the theory is imperfect and unsatisfactory.-We are told, in the outset, that the same consonants always express the same elementary slept till morning. When he encountered his host at breakfast, he told him what had happened." Aye, aye!" said the old gentleman, seriously, "I don't mind it myself; but to those who do, that is a nice Corner, in the rain."-See the Life of John Elwes, Esq. page 13.'-See also M. Rev, vol. i. N. S. p. 447.

meaning;

meaning; and we never advance beyond this general assertion. The author will not allow himself, even in the way of hypothesis or conjecture, to insinuate any thing like a reason in support of it, nor to give us the least assistance in guessing bow it should have come to be true. He repeatedly reminds us that it is his business to prove a fact, and not to account for it; and he seems to take no little merit for confining himself thus scrupulously. Now it appears to us that, in all cases in which the evidence is in any degree defective or suspicious, it is difficult to acquiesce in it without some previous concep tion of its probability: we must be able to imagine how a thing could have happened, before we can easily be persuaded of its existence; and in most cases we can be but little moved with a proof that does not either refer to some theory, or suggest it: but Mr. W. has very cautiously and studiously declined to give any opinion respecting the causes of that indelible significancy of the consonants, the belief of which it is his object to esta blish. Whether he concieves that there is a natural and intrinsic aptitude in these combinations to express the things which they are found so universally to signify, or whether this concurrence of meaning must be referred to their common origin in some primitive and conventional language from which alb the others have been derived, it is impossible to conjecture from any positions that appear in this volume.-The treatises of Des Brosses and Gebelin are in this respect much more complete and satisfactory.-By the notion of an instinctive imitation and an original significancy in certain sounds, they have both formed a theory that is entire and legitimate, that compre hends the whole of the facts which were meant to be brought under it, and accounts for them completely as soon as it is proved and established. If we be once satisfied that their doctrine is just and that their proofs are irresistible, we can have no doubt concerning the origin and progress of language, or the causes of those resemblances and contrarieties by which the words of it are connected.-With Mr. W. the case is remarkably different. His doctrines are not carried far enough to resolve any of the great difficulties of the subject: the most enlightened and most implicit of his followers can know and believe little more than the ignorant remainder of mankind: he perceives, to a greater extent, that coincidence of sound and meaning which is obvious in some degree to the slightest observation, and he believes that it belongs exclusively to the consonant elements of language: but as to the causes of its existence he has no faith and no revelation he is left, like the rest of thes world, to his fancies and conjectures, and has most of the

doubts and difficulties to encounter that afflicted him before his conversion.

There is, however, more than mere deficiency in this part of the performance :-though Mr. W. affects to renounce theory, yet his doctrine most evidently implies it, and requires us to adopt certain general positions that will not easily be admitted as self-evident. We cannot possibly believe that all consonant combinations have the same elementary meaning, except on the one or the other of these suppositions; 1st, that the element was of itself and intrinsically fitted by nature to express that meaning and no other; or 2d, that it was the conventional sign of some primitive object, or idea, from which all the rest of the words that contained it inherited their significancy. Without seeking to enlarge on the difficulties and objections to which both these suppositions are liable, we shall merely observe that there is something in Mr. W.'s own statement of the fact that seems to render them both inadmissible. There are only four or five consonants, it will be remembered, according to this author's doctrine; and, as some of these constitute significant elements in their single and solitary state, the whole number of elements cannot easily amount to more than twenty or thirty. If we really believe, therefore, that the primary significancy of words is derived from those elements, and continues to reside in them, we must also believe that there are no more than twenty or thirty words really distinct from each other in the whole compass of language; and that the savages, by whom the rudiments of speech were invented, understood the full force of those prolific radicals, and never applied one to signify what might have been expressed by some modification of another. To us it appears evident that this could never have been the case. As soon as the physical powers of the organ were fully developed, words would be invented arbitrarily that exhausted all its variations. An affinity of meaning would be so far from suggesting any affinity of sound, that it is probable that both of them would be overlooked. analogies by which our ideas are connected are but seldom perceived by the most reflecting part of mankind; and that resemblance of sound which may be supposed to exist among the letters of the same organ is equally unknown to the vulgar. It requires study and minute attention to detect the relationship of our ideas, or to make us conscious of the affinities of the sounds which we utter to the illiterate and unreflecting, these things have really no existence.It is necessary, however, according to Mr. W.'s theory, to suppose not merely that their existence was perceived at the first origin of language,

The

but

but that language was constructed with a view to them, and most carefully accommodated to all their shades of variation. We think, nevertheless, that it is the very height of extravagance, to suppose that those affinities, as they are laid down by Mr. W., were either perceived by the first formers of language, or secretly guided them in the blind work of its formation. -Having invented the word cup, for instance, to signify one object, it is impossible for us to imagine that they should have had any scruple or instinctive repugance in applying the word soap or sleep to signify another which had no sort of connection with it; and still less can we conceive that they saw any affinity between the idea expressed by cup, and that which was denoted by soap or sleep; or that they were guided, in giving a name to these objects, by any unconscious feeling of such an affinity.

If there were any primitive word or idea, from which all the rest could be supposed to germinate, we should conceive it to be the duty of the etymologist to point out that word to his disciples; or at least to indicate some particular idea to which all the others might be consistently referred as their primitive; although, from the lapse of time, it might have happened that the form of the primitive word could no longer be traced and ascertained. Mr. Whiter, however, is so far from pointing out any one definite word as the source of significancy to the rest, that he will not even allow some of his radical words to have had any definite meaning. The reader will find him maintaining, in the very outset of his work (p. 3.), that words may have been used without any fixed or precise signification, and may have occasionally expressed a great variety of those hundred meanings which lay folded up in the element. The same word, for instance, may have signified either hollow or high, a covering or a curve, because there is a certain affinity among these various significations, and because Mr. W. imagines that they may all be referred back to one common radical. We profess ourselves altogether unable to comprehend this doctrine : we are much more inclined to hold, with the mob of our old grammarians, that all words signified originally something individual and peculiar; and we are convinced that, at any rate, their signification must have been at least more precise at the origin than at any other time, and could not have been limited, though it might have been extended, by the progress of language.

In the second place, we conceive that the excessive latitude and uncertainty of the analogies, by which Mr. W. has endeavoured to prove the derivation of words or their affinity in meaning, would of itself be sufficient to take away all' credit

or authority from his system.-By the aid of his cognate consonants, we have seen that he can change almost any word into another; by his system of the cognation of ideas, he can establish a relation between any one meaning and another; and by the assistance of both, it would be wonderful if he should fail in marshalling up a formidable body of evidence:but they are pressed forces, and will not be true to his fortunes: they have no right to give testimony in the cause, and will be set aside as soon as they are challenged.

Nothing, indeed, we apprehend, can possibly be imagined more extravagant and improbable than the derivations of meaning on which Mr. W. rests the whole evidence of his system. The element c p., he says, has in its original the meaning of containing, and so would supply the name for all kinds of inclosures-now, one of the first and principal uses of inclosures, he observes, was to form a sleeping place; and thus the name of sleep will probably be derived from the same element. Again; all men have agreed in conceiving and describing sleep as something soft and smooth: but it is one of the qualities of soap and tallow to possess and impart smoothness and softness; and it is therefore reasonable to think that these substances would derive their name from sleep, and be denoted by the original element that signified containing.-We may ask whether there be any two ideas in existence that may not be proved to be twins, if this may be admitted as evidence of consanguinity? The name for sleep, it is scarcely necessary to observe, would most probably be invented long before inclosures had either a name or an existence; while the term soap is probably of very modern invention.

The general ideas of desire and power, the name of man and of every sort of dignity and baseness, are all referred to the ori ginal idea of containing, and connected by a similar genealogy with the parent element c. p. ; and really it is impossible to go through the different descents with any degree of seriousness or patience. Containing, Mr. W. observes, naturally suggests the idea of plenty and riches; riches are the object of desire; and the preservation or acquisition of them is the great purpose of power! Again; any thing that contains is apt to be swelled out or heaped up; and hence the notion of elevation is connected with it. Man is an elevated being, and therefore takes his name from the element of containing. Man, moreover, is a being very wise, witty, wicked, valorous, and fearful; and hence the names of wisdom, vice, courage, and cowardice, are borrowed from the name of man. Sometimes, indeed, they are made the element, and man takes his name from them! It would have been just as much to the purpose to have said that a wig

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