Obs. 1. On the parchment were written books and records, and every kind of composition which its author wished to preserve; on the tablets of wax temporary matters of business, and epistles that were not designed for the inspection of a third person's eyes. The writing on parchment was the most expensive, but the most permanent; that on wax, the cheapest and readiest, but the least durable. (Illus. 1. Art. 41.)

2. Our present method of writing on paper, is an invention of no higher antiquity than the 14th century; and the invention of printing was reserved for an obscure monk in the beginning of the 15th. This inventor might probably receive a hint toward this invention, from the Roman practice of carving letters on boards of wood, and of employing them to abridge the trouble of writing, by stamping names and inscriptions on parchment and wax.

CHAPTER VI.

A COMPARISON

OF SPOKEN WITH WRITTEN LANGUAGE;

OR

Of Words uttered in our hearing, with Words represented to the Eye.

41. THE advantages of writing above speech are, that writing is both a more extensive, and a more permanent method of communicating our thoughts to mankind.

Illus. 1. More extensive, as it is not confined within the narrow circle of those who hear our words; but, by means of written characters, we can send our thoughts abroad, and propagate them through the world; we can thus lift our voice, so as to speak to those to whom, in our own country, we may not have access, and to men of the most distant regions of the earth. (Obs. 1. Art. 40.) 2. More permanent also, as it prolongs the voice to the most distant ages; and gives us the means of recording our sentiments to futurity, and of perpetuating the instructive memory of past transactions. (Obs. 2. Art. 40.)

3. It likewise affords this advantage to such as read, above such as hear, that having the written characters before their eyes, they can arrest the sense of the writer; they can pause and resolve, and compare at their leisure, one passage with another; whereas the voice is fagitive in passing; you must catch the words the moment they are uttered, or you lose them for ever.

42. But although these be so great advantages of written language, that speech, without writing, would have been very inadequate for the instruction of mankind: yet we must not forget to observe, that spoken language has a great superiority over written language, in point of energy and force.

Illus. 1. The voice of the living speaker makes an impression on the mind, much stronger than can be made by the perusal of any writing.

2. The tones of the voice, the looks and gestures, which accompany discourse, and which no writing can convey, render speech, when it is ingeniously managed, infinitely more clear, and more expressive than the most accurate writing. For tones, looks, and gestures, are natural interpreters of the mind. They remove ambiguities—they enforce expressions—they operate on us by means of sympathy.

3. And sympathy is one of the most powerful instruments of persuasion. Our sympathy is always awakened more by hearing the speaker, than by reading his works in our closet.

Corol. Hence, though writing may answer the purposes of mere instruction, as the symbolical language of Algebra does the mathematicial science-all the great and high efforts of eloquence must be made by means of spoken, not of written, language :—and thus have we traced from their origin, through different stages of improvement, language and style as the foundation of eloquence

BOOK II.

OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE; OR THE PRINCIPLES OF GENERAL GRAM- . MAR.

CHAPTER I.

OF THE SEVERAL PARTS OF WHICH SPEECH OR LANGUAGE IS COMPOSED.

43. THE structure of language is extremely artificial; and there are few sciences in which a deeper, or more refined logic is employed, than in grammar.

Obs. Without discussing the niceties of language in the several parts of speech of which it is composed, we shall now take a popular, but philosophical view of the chief principles, and component parts of speech, as far as they are necessary to illustrate general grammar, and to ascertain the maxims of correct taste and elegant composition.

44. The essential parts of speech are the same in all languages. There must ever be some words which denote the names of objects, or mark the subject of discourse; other words, which denote the qualities of those objects, and express what we affirm concerning them: and other words, which point out their connexions and relations.

Cor. The most simple and comprehensive division of the parts of speech, is, therefore, into substantires, attributives, and connectives. 45. The common division, or arrangement of all the words of our own language, comprises the

ARTICLE,
NOUN,
PRONOUN,

VERB,
PARTICIPLE,
ADVERB,

PREPOSITION,
INTERJECTION,
CONJUNCTION.

Obs. But the following paragraph will instruct us to direct our attention chiefly to the noun and the verb, as a few observations

will illustrate those other parts of speech, to which our ears have been familiarized.

46. Every thing about which our minds can be employed in thinking, every thing which can be the subject of our knowledge, must relate to substances that exist, either in reality, or in the imagination; or to actions, operations, and energies, which these substances produce on themselves, or on one another. Carol. Language communicates knowledge; its divisions of words, therefore, correspond with the divisions of our knowledge; its chief business is consequently reduced to two heads :

First, to exhibit names for all the substances with which we are acquainted, that we may be able to distinguish and recognize them, when they are mentioned by ourselves or others and

Secondly, to denote the actions, operations, and energies, which these substances generate upon themselves, or on one another.

47. NAMES are expressed by what grammarians call Nouns ; OPERATIONS are denoted by what they call Verbs: the other parts of speech explain, modify, extend, restrict, connect, or disjoin, the noun and the verb.

Cor. The two former are, therefore, the essential ingredients, or the columns of language; the latter are only occasional ingredients, or appendages of these pillars of the fabric. (Art. 44.)

48. The first process in the communication of knowledge is to contrive names for all the substances about which our knowledge is conversant, and by common consent to impose the same names on the same substances. (Art. 17 and 18.)

Illus. As substantives are the ground-work of all language, a language is perfect in respect of them, when a name has been given to every material or immaterial substance about which the people who use the language have occasion to speak or write. As their knowledge enlarges, as they obtain more ideas of substances than they have names to express, new names will be imposed on these new substances, which will consequently throw into their vocabulary as many new substantives, as may render their language adequate to the purposes of ready communication.

Corol. Hence, if every substance in nature required a particular name to distinguish it from all other substances; every mineral, plant, animal, and every part of every animal, should obtain a distinct name, which would increase the substantives of a language

24 Classification of Substantives into Genera, &c.

beyond all computation. But nature has reduced her productions into classes: the individuals of every class, resemble one another, in many particulars; and therefore it is that language hath not assigned a name to every substance. Even her different classes are formed with some common properties; and thus, in some particulars, the different classes resemble one another. Thus, the generic. word plant, expresses the common qualities of all vegetables; animal, the common qualities of all living creatures.

49. These GENERA are divided into what we term species, and these species are again divided into inferior species, or become genera to other species.

Illus. Thus, the word plant is a general term, which indicates trees, shrubs, grasses, and all vegetables which spring from a root, and bear branches and leaves. And under the comprehensive term animal. we range men, horses, lions, sheep, and, in short, all living creatures. But trees are again divided into oaks, pines, palms; and men into white, black, tawny, &c.

50. This arrangement abridges the number of nouns, and gives names only to classes of substances, compelling one name to point out a whole class.

Illus. Thus, tree expresses a whole genus of plants; each of the words oak, pine, palm, denotes a whole species. But language stoops not to give a name to every oak, and she hath left it to beings of a sentient nature, to particularize each other. (Corol. Art. 48.)

51. To characterise individuals by names, language departs from its ordinary analogy.

Illus. This necessity-a mere refinement in the communication of thought-extends to countries and cities, to all the individuals of the human race, and sometimes to the inferior animals.

For example: Italy, Rome; Greece, Athens; Alexander, Bucephalus, are all individuals; and the particular names which we appropriate to each of them, prevents ambiguous and disagreeable circumlocutions, or descriptions, to make it known.

52. We deduce, from these observations, the meaning of the grammatical division of nouns into COMMON and PROPER. The COMMON NOUNS are, (by the Illustration to Article 50) the names of classes of individuals. The PROPER NOUNS, (by the Illustration and Example of Article 51), are all names of individuals.

53. The noun tree denotes any individual of the