tom sets at nought all the abstract rules of Grammarians.

"Furthermore," says Ben Jonson, "the Adverbs more and most are added to the Comparative and Superlative degrees themselves, which should be before the Positive,"-as in Sir Thomas More

"Forasmuch as she saw the Cardinall more readier to depart then the remnant; for not only the high dignitie of the civill magistrate but the most basest handycrafts are holy, when they are directed to the honour of God."

"And this is a certain kind of English Atticisme, or eloquent phrase of speech, imitating the manner of the most ancientest and finest Grecians, who, for more emphasis and vehemencies sake, used so to speake."

"

This English Atticisme," as Jonson calls it, is frequent in Shakspeare.

A small degree of a quality, less than the positive, is expressed by the termination ish: thus, sweetish and dampish denominate something of the qualities of sweetness and of dampness, leaving the degree indeterminate, but, at the same time, denoting that it does not amount to what we should call absolutely sweet and damp. The syllable ish is also added to substantives, as in the Adjectives Childish and Foolish, which express a degree of Childishness and Folly. Such Adjectives admit of more and less; and custom has even authorized the comparison of those in ful, though that termination, according to its origin (full), should be a superlative: the Queen of Portugal is designated as Her most faithful Majesty.'

174

NUMERALS.

When treating of substantives, we considered them either as separate things or as collections of individuals, as one or as several,—as singular or as plural. When the individual, or class, was not sufficiently distinguished from others by its name, it was more directly pointed out by means of its qualities, and hence the utility of adjectives. In regard to bulk, or magnitude, the adjectives great and small, modified by adverbs, are sufficiently discriminating; but when speaking of classes, or collections of individuals, of the same kind, we feel the want of a different mode of specification. These are not comparable merely as bulk to bulk, but as quantity to quantity, as few or many; and words which mark that species of comparison are termed Numerals, or, sometimes, NUMERAL ADJECTIVES.

The Gothic and the Greek languages have, each, a DUAL NUMBER, exhibiting a change in the termination of the substantive when it denotes two of the things signified; and the corresponding verbs, as well as the adjectives and pronouns, are altered in orthography to meet this change. That many of the objects of nature exist in pairs is matter of common observation : such are the eyes, ears, hands, &c. of the human body, and animals of almost every species when the sexes are included under one general name. The words both, shoes, stockings, gloves, &c. are English DUALS which are joined to the general plural because we have no Dual Verb.

Numeral Adjectives are of three kinds, as under:

The numerals in the first three columns may obviously be carried on to any extent; but the last (which consists of Anglicised Latin synonymes of the third) has seldom been extended farther, except in the case of Centuple, a hundredfold. Manifold is unlimited.

Though these Numerals act the part of adjectives in stating the quantity of a plural substantive, it is obvious that they do not admit of the degrees of comparison, they are all positive. The Cardinal Numbers (which is indeed the case with several other adjectives) are often treated as real substantives, and have even their plurals; for, in the arrangement of quantities, we may either count them one by one, or distribute them into twos, threes, fours, or any larger parcels.

There are other Numeral Adjectives which have

their places in the alphabetical order of the Dictionaries, but otherwise they constitute no consecutive series. There are Numeral Adverbs, too, which will afterwards come under our notice. The words 'Half, Third, Fourth,' &c. (expressing the several proportions of a whole when it is divided by two, three, four, &c.) are substantives.

177

CHAPTER XIX.

OF ADVERBS.

A

THE quality of a Substantive is expressed by an Adjective, and the energy of a Verb by an Adverb. substance may be more or less white, and an action may be more or less violent. The modification of verbs is various. It is dependent on different circumstances, such as time, place, manner, &c. which circumstances may be expressed, in every instance, by means of a substantive (qualified or not) and a preposition. 'He struck the ball' records a simple act; but 'He struck the ball, with force' gives a qualification to the verb. They treated him, with kindness (or in a kind manner);' 'I shall see him, in a short time,' &c. are other examples. The substantive, (with its accompaniments,) in such qualifying clauses, is a mere by-stander in the construction of the sentence; and, on that account, it is separated from the other parts by means of commas. In languages that have terminations, it is put in one or other of the oblique cases: being, as is usually said, governed by the preceding preposition, but, in fact, it is so written because holding an attendant situation in the group of words. The modifications produced by the relations of time, place, manner, &c. are so frequent that the petty clauses, by which they are expressed, are of perpetual recurrence.