66

would be ruined," which can only mean Iwe wished to be ruined."

The importance of attending to the distinction of shall and will, and to the nice distinctions of words generally, is strikingly illustrated by an incident in Massachusetts. 1844, Abner Rogers was tried in that State for the murder of the warden of the penitentiary. The man who had been sent to search the prisoner, said in evidence: "He (Rogers) said, 'I have fixed the warden, and I'll have a rope round my neck. On the strength of what he said, I took his suspenders from him." Being cross-examined, the witness said his words were: "I will have a rope," not "I shall have a rope." The counsel against the prisoner argued that he declared an intention of suicide, to escape from the penalty of the law, which he knew he had incurred. On the other hand, shall would, no doubt, have been regarded as a betrayal of his consciousness of having incurred a felon's doom. The prisoner was acquitted on the ground of insanity. Strange that the fate of an alleged murderer should turn upon the question which he used of two little words that are so frequently confounded, and employed one for the other! It would be difficult to conceive of a more pregnant comment on the importance of using words with discrimination and accuracy.

It would be impossible, in the limits to which we are restricted, to give all the nice distinctions to be observed in the use of shall and will. For a full explanation of the subject we must refer the unlearned reader to the various English grammars, and such works as Sir E. W. Head's treatise on the two words, and the works on Synonymes by Graham, Crabb, and Whately. Prof. Schele De Vere, in his late "Studies in Language," expresses the opinion.

that this double future is a great beauty of the English language, but that it is impossible to give any rule for its use, which will cover all cases, and that the only sure guide is "that instinct which is given to all who learn a language with their mother's milk, or who acquire it so successfully as to master its spirit as well as its form." His use of will for shall, in this very work, verifies the latter part of this statement, and shows that a foreigner may have a profound knowledge of the genius and constitution of a language, and yet be sorely puzzled by its niceties and subtleties. "If we go back," he says, "for the purpose of thus tracing the history of nouns to the oldest forms of English, we will there find the method of forming them from the first and simplest elements" (page 140). The "Edinburgh Review" denounces the distinction of shall and will, by their neglect of which the Scotch are so often bewrayed, as one of the most capricious and inconsistent of all imaginable irregularities, and as at variance not less with original etymology than with former usage. Prof. Marsh regards it as a verbal quibble, which will soon disappear from our language. It is a quibble just as any distinction is a quibble to persons. who are too dull, too lazy, or too careless to apprehend it. With as much propriety might the distinction between the indicative and subjunctive forms of the verb, or the distinction between farther and further, strong and robust, empty and vacant, be pronounced a verbal quibble. Sir Edmund W. Head has shown that the difference is not one which has an existence only in the pedagogue's brain, but that it is as real and legitimate as that between be and am, and dates back as far as Wickliffe and Chaucer, while it has also the authority of Shakspeare.

PRINCIPAL BOOKS CONSULTED.

ANGUS. Hand-Book of the English Tongue. London, 1863.
ARISTOTLE. Rhetoric. Translated by John Gillies. London, 1823.
SAMUEL BAILEY. Discourses on Various Subjects. London, 1862.
BLACKLEY. Word-Gossip. London, 1869. New York, 1867.
BOWEN. Treatise on Logic. Boston, 1874.
BREEN. Modern English Literature. London.
M. SCHELE DE VERE. Studies in English.
JOHN EARLE. Philology of the English Tongue.
FOWLER. English Grammar. New York, 1860.
F. W. FARRAR. The Origin of Language. London, 1860.
Chapters on Language. London, 1873.
GARNETT. Philological Essays, edited by his Son. London, 1859.
FLEMING. Analysis of the English Language. London, 1869.
GOULD Good English. New York, 1867.

Oxford, 1871.

G. F. GRAHAM. A Book about Words. London, 1869.

HARRISON. On the English Language. London, 1848.
SIR EDMUND W. HEAD. "Shall" and " Will.'

London.

LATHAM. The English Language. 5th ed. London, 1873.
MARSH. Lectures on the English Language.

MAX MÜLLER. Lectures on the Science of Language. (First Se

ries.) New York, 1862.

Lectures on the Science of Language.

ries.) New York, 1865.

MILL, J. S. A System of Logic. New York, 1869.

(Second Se

J. H. NEWMAN. The Idea of a University. 3d ed. London, 1873. NOTES AND QUERIES. London, 1852.

SHEDD. Homiletics and Pastoral Theology. New York, 1867. THOMSON. Outline of the Necessary Laws of Thought. New York. SIR JOHN STODDART. The Philosophy of Language. London, 1854. SMITH. Common Words with Curious Derivations. London, 1865. HORNE TOOKE. Diversions of Purley. (Ed. Taylor.) London, 1860. TRENCH. On the Study of Words. 13th ed. London, 1869. English, Past and Present. 6th ed. London, 1868. Select Glossary of English Words. 3d ed. London, 1865. WHATELY. Elements of Logic. New York, 1865.

Elements of Rhetoric. New York, 1866.

HENSLEIGH WEDGWOOD. Etymological Dictionary. London, 1872. W. D. WHITNEY. Language and the Study of Language.

E. P. WHIPPLE.

66

York, 1867.

New

The Life and Growth of Language. New York,

1875.

Essays and Reviews. Boston, 1856. Literature and Life. Boston, 1871. ESSAYS BY A BARRISTER. London, 1862.

INDEX.

Ascham, Roger, on the study of Bolingbroke, his attention to his

Boyle, Sir Richard, on Lucan, 196. celebrity, 348.

Canning, his command of lan- Coke, Sir Edward, his denuncia-