of visible objects, on account of an obscure resemblance which the organs of voice are capable of assuming to such external qualities. By this natural mechanism, they imagine all languages to have been at first constructed, and the roots of their capital words formed.*

* The author who has carried his speculations on this subject the farthest, is the President Des Brosses, in his "Traité "de la Formation Mechanique des Langues." Some of the radical letters or syllables which he supposes to carry this expressive power in most known languages are, St, to signify stability or rest; Fl, to denote fluency; Cl, a gentle descent; R, what relates to rapid motion; C, to cavity or hollowness, &c. A century before his time, Dr Wallis, in his Grammar of the English Language, had taken notice of these significant roots, and represented it as a peculiar excellency of our tongue, that, beyond all others, it expressed the nature of the objects which it named, by employing sounds sharper, softer, weaker, stronger, more obscure, or more stridulous, according as the idea which is to be suggested requires. He gives various examples. Thus; words formed upon St, always denote firmness and strength, analogous to the Latin sto; as, stand, stay, staff, stop, stout, steady, stake, stamp, stallion, stately, &c. Words beginning with Str, intimate violent force and energy, analogous to the Greek crew; as, strive, strength, strike, stripe, stress, struggle, stride, stretch, strip, &c. Thr, implies forcible motion; as, throw, throb, thrust, through, threaten, thraldom. Wr, obliquity or distortion; as, wry, wrest, wreath, wrestle, wring, wrong, wrangle, wrath, wrack, &c. Sw, silent agitation, or lateral motion; as, sway, swing, swerve, sweep, swim. Sl, a gentle fall, or less observable motion; as, slide, slip, sly, slit, slow, slack, sling. Sp, dissipation or expansion; as, spread, sprout, sprinkle, split, spill, spring. Terminations in Ash, indicate something acting nimbly and

As far as this system is founded in truth, language appears to be not altogether arbitrary in its origin. Among the ancient Stoic and Platonic philosophers, it was a question much agitated, "Utrum nomina rerum sint naturâ, an imposi"tione? quo lɛσí;” by which they meant, Whether words were merely conventional symbols, of the rise of which no account could be given, except the pleasure of the first inventors of language? or, Whether there was some principle in nature that led to the assignation of particular names to particular objects? and those of the Platonic school favoured the latter opinion.*

sharply; as, crash, gash, rash, flash, lash, slash. Terminations in Ush, something acting more obtusely and dully; as, crush, brush, hush, gush, blush. The learned author produces a great many more examples of the same kind, which seem to leave no doubt, that the analogies of sound have had some influence on the formation of words. At the same time, in all speculations of this kind, there is so much room for fancy to operate, that they ought to be adopted with much caution in forming any general theory.

* Vid. Plat. in Cratylo. "Nomina verbaque non posita for"tuito, sed quadam vi et ratione naturæ facta esse, P. Nigidius "in Grammaticis Commentariis docet; rem sane in philoso"phiæ dissertationibus celebrem. In eam rem multa argu❝menta dicit, cur videri possint verba esse naturalia, magis "quàm arbitraria. Vos, inquit, cum dicimus, motu quodam "oris conveniente, cum ipsius verbi demonstratione utimur, et “labias sensim primores emovemus, ac spiritum atque animam porro versum, et ad eos quibus consermocinamur intendimus.

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This principle, however, of a natural relation between words and objects, can only be applied to language in its most simple and primitive state. Though in every tongue, some remains of it, as I have shewn above, can be traced, it were utterly in vain to search for it throughout the whole construction of any modern language. As the multitude of terms increase in every nation, and the immense field of language is filled up, words, by a thousand fanciful and irregular methods of derivation and composition, come to deviate widely from the primitive character of their roots, and to lose all analogy or resemblance in sound to the thing signified. In this state we now find language. Words, as we now employ them, taken in the general, may be considered as symbols, not as imitations; as arbitrary, or instituted, not natural signs of ideas. But there can be no doubt, I think, that language, the nearer we remount to its rise among men, will be found to partake more of a natural expression. As it could be

"At contra cum dicimus Nos, neque profuso intentoque flatu " vocis, neque projectis labiis pronunciamus; sed et spiritum et "labias quasi intra nosmet ipsos coërcemus. Hoc sit idem et in " eo quod dicimus, tu, et ego, et mihi, et tibi. Nam sicuti cum "adnuimus et abnuimus, motus quodam illo vel capitis, vel ocu"lorum, a natura rei quem significat, non abhorret, ita in his "vocibus quasi gestus quidam oris et spiritus naturalis est. Ea"dem ratio est in Græcis quoque vocibus quam esse in nostris "animadvertimus."

A. GELLIUS, Noct. Atticæ, lib. x. cap. 4.

originally formed on nothing but imitation, it would, in its primitive state, be more picturesque; much more barren indeed, and narrow in the circle of its terms, than now; but as far as it went, more expressive by sound of the thing signified. This, then, may be assumed as one character of the first state, or beginnings, of language, among every savage tribe.

A second character of language, in its early state, is drawn from the manner in which words were at first pronounced or uttered by men. Interjections, I shewed, or passionate exclamations, were the first elements of speech. Men laboured to communicate their feelings to one another, by those expressive cries and gestures which nature taught them. After words, or names of objects, began to be invented, this mode of speaking by natural signs, could not be all at once disused. For language, in its infancy, must have been extremely barren; and there certainly was a period, among all rude nations, when conversation was carried on by very few words, intermixed with many exclamations and earnest gestures. small stock of words which men as yet possessed, rendered these helps absolutely necessary for explaining their conceptions; and rude, uncultivated men, not having always at hand even the few words which they knew, would naturally labour to make themselves understood, by varying their tones of voice, and accompanying their tones with

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the most significant gesticulations they could make. At this day, when persons attempt to speak in any language which they possess imperfectly, they have recourse to all these supplemental methods, in order to render themselves more intelligible. The plan, too, according to which I have shewn that language was originally constructed, upon resemblance and analogy, as far as was possible, to the thing signified, would naturally lead men to utter their words with more emphasis and force, as long as language was a sort of painting by means of sound. For all those reasons, this may be assumed as a principle, that the pronunciation of the earliest languages was accompanied with more gesticulation, and with more and greater inflexions of voice, than what we now use there was more action in it; and it was more upon a crying or singing tone.

To this manner of speaking, necessity first gave rise. But we must observe, that after this necessity had, in a great measure, ceased, by language becoming, in process of time, more extensive and copious, the ancient manner of speech still subsisted among many nations; and what had arisen from necessity continued to be used for ornament. Wherever there was much fire and vivacity in the genius of nations, they were naturally inclined to a mode of conversation which gratified the imagination so much; for, an imagination which is warm, is always prone to throw both a great deal of action, and a variety of tones, into discourse.