the introduction of the art; they pasted the blank sides together, which made them appear as one leaf.

"The European blocks were carved upon beech, pear tree, and other soft woods, which soon failed, and the letters frequently broke; this put them upon the method of repairing the block by carving new letters, and placing them in, which necessity seems to have suggested the hint of moveable types of metal; these were not so liable to break as the soft European woods, which had been before used. One great and obvious advantage of moveable types was, that by separating them they would serve for any other work; where as the blocks of wood served only for one work; though the use of moveable metal types was a very fortunate discovery, yet they derived their origin rather to the imperfection or unfitness of our woods for printing blocks, than from any great ingenuity of those who first used them. In short necessity, the mother of all arts, introduced moveable types.

"It has been a matter of contest, who first practised the art of printing in Europe. Faust or Fust of Mentz, Gutenburg of Strasburg, and Coster of Haerlem, have each their advocates. The pretensions in favour of Fust seem to be the best supported; but we shall not trespass upon the patience of our readers by entering into a discussion of this matter, because such a discussion would, in our opinion, be of little importance, it having been generally agreed, that priuting with moveable types was not practised till after the middle of the fifteenth century, although

prints from blocks of wood are traced as far back as the year 1423.

It seems probable, that the art of printing might have been introduced in Europe by some European who had travelled into China, and had seen some of their printing tablets, as it is known that several Europeans had been over-land into China before this time; and what strengthens this probability is, the Europeans first printed on one side of the paper only, in the same manner as the Chinese do at present, but, however this may be, the progress of the art was as follows: "First, pictures from blocks of wood without text.

Secondly, pictures with text

"Thirdly, whole pages of text cut on blocks of wood, sometimes for the explanation of prints which accompanied them. And,

Fourthly, moveable types. Specimens of all which are given in the Idée generalé des Estampes just referred to."

An appendix concerning the radical letters of the Pelasgians closes the volume. The domestic erudition is the most valuable part of it. The printing is exquisitely beautiful. The illuminated engravings, the vellum paper, display to advantage the allied arts. The au thor will descend to posterity as an adept in diplomatic science, and a tasteful cultivator and patron of the connected branches of literature.

received diction. Too much of this blunder-mustering occurs in these anecdotes: they consist chiefly of vitious expressions, enumerated without censure.

The form of reviewal most adapted to guard our speech against the intrusion of these metropolitan provincialisms, would be a perpetual commentary, a discussion, word by word, of the claims of each to retainal or dismissal. But this would be too voluminous for us, too tedious for our readers. We must restrict ourselves therefore to desultory annotations.

P. 92. The etymology of cockney is discussed. Junius had already settled the point: it is originally Welsh, connected with the root cocr, indulgent, and means a spoilt child. In Brittany the woad, whence a sort of European indigo is made, is called cocagne, and, as it requires a loamy fertile soil, the name pays de cocagne is come to signify a plentiful country. This cocagne was used for ta

Ssb

tooing in early times, Probably, therefore, to paint the person is the species of indulgence whence cocreth, effeminacy, has its name.

quial abbreviations, which perhaps merit adoption, because they rid the language of a gallicism, an anomaly, and an equi

vocation.

P. 58. It is said in the note that quits is bad English, and is a school-boy's adverb. A like reproach is made (p. 60) to somewheres and oftens. The regular mode of forming adverbs in all the Gothic dialects is to add s. Thus from the adjective unaware comes the adverb unawares; from the preposition be side the adverb besides; the adverbializing

с

P. 40. Some vague prate occurs about the abbreviation of those words ending in our and in ck. 1. The most desirable plan would be to spell the verbs honour, favour, and their derivatives honourable, favourable, with the u; and to spell the substantives honor, favor, with out the u. Children and foreigners have often a difficulty in distinguishing our substantives from our verbs. 2. The substantives publick, musick, frolick, traffick, have nearly dropped the final k; but it would have been better to drop the intervening, because the c is an equivocal letter, which stands for s in mice, rice, chaise, witch; for ts in much, rich, chair, chop; and for k in coffin, care, ache, antic, &c. so that the less this letter is used, the less the difficulty of learning to read. P. 54. Unposible, unactive, unsufferable, are unexceptionable words: the formative un, although Saxon, is so wholly English, that it cannot be annexed to words of Greek, Latin, and French origin, without exciting that feeling of displeasure which hybrid words usually produce. Besides, the syllable in, having a double or triple sense, is often equivocal, and should be used as rarely as possible. Scholars mostly prefer to inflect Greek roots with Greek formative syllables, Latin with Latin, and French with French; atheous, indignant, indefeasi, ble; not untheous, undignant, undefeasible; but all Gothic roots, with the Gothic syllable, unthrift, ungodly, unwalled, un

awares.

P. 55. Shay and poshay for chaise and post chaise. These are euphonious collo

wards, downwards, homewards, darklings, straitways, &c. In a note to the same page, the expression for all that or afrall that, as it is pronounced, comes in review: it signifies notwithstanding that. Perhaps it is a corruption of after all that, or off all that; or perhaps of afar all that, from the Anglo-Saxon verb afaran: the latter is most probable, and indicates the expedient form of writing the phrase.

P. 89. The comparatives worser and lesser are reviled: they are both Saxon, in which language worse means bad, and less means small. The corruption consists in joining than to the positive.

P. 92. Ulpholsterer is declared against as a corruption. Whence does it derive? surely not from to uphold; the st would in this case never have intruded. From the Anglo-Saxon bolstre, bolster, comes bolsterer, a maker of tolsters; the vowel prefixed is a mere coalescence of the article, as when we say a newt, an apoticary; or as when the French say le L'antin for the Antinous. But from poult, a chicken, should derive poulter, a dealer in chickens, and not poulterer.

P. 96. We are told that the ancient increment alder means older, whereas it means of all, and is a common prefix to superlatives in all the gothic dialects. Thus aldirlevist lord signifies dearest of all masters. To write,

"And in her armes she bore her alder youngest child,"

would have been good English, while this prefix, which also occurs in the less equivocal form aller was in use.

P. 173. The regular and familiar adverbs afoot, ahorseback, are censured: they are regularly formed by prefixing the adverbializing a, like aboard, adrift, aloof, adays, anights, abreast, ahead, aside, and are equally entitled to reception. We might analogously say: What is aclock? This formative syllable is pro

bably a contraction of the earlier form of the preposition now written on. It ought not to be confounded with the verbal augment a, which is of French origin, and which serves to transmute nouns into verbs, as from base to abase, from certain to ascertain, &c.; or with the participial augment a, which is of gothic origin, and which serves to form the participle present of the neuter, or middle voice. The hay is amaking.

"Thou, now adying, sayst thou flatt'rst me." To go abunting. But the active participle will not receive this augment: they are hunting the hare.

P. 177. The participial augment y is called an excrescence, a redundance, in ybuilt, ybrought, yloved. Where the participle is not distinguished by its termination from the preterite, it is surely some object to distinguish it by a prefix. The most convenient form which our verbs can assume, is to form the preterite in ed, and the participle in en: show, showed, shown; owe, owed, owen; cast, casted, casten; wherever usage offers the choice, it is desirable to employ the mixture of both conjugations.

P. 181. Self is a substantive, signifying soul. It ought to be united with the possessive, not with the personal pronoun. His self, her self, their selves, (as Sir William Jones has observed), are purer expressions than the received ones. Our author, instead of attending to this, fact, proposes to adopt the hisself of the Londoners in the nominative case only, and to continue employing in the accusative the barbarism himself.

P. 228. The participle went is from the verb to wend, which means to turn, and is scarcely obsolete. It is not a proper substitute for the past tense of to go, in such phrases as I went strait forwards. Why not resume I goed, or I gang?

P. 249. Mr. Pegge very properly censures Johnson's dictionary, of which only the preface is well executed; but his criticism is too vague to be instructive. The late Dr. Geddes had, it is said, an interleaved copy of Johnson's dictionary, in which he had inserted many words occurring in oriental books of travels, with proper definitions and vouchers. It is much to be wished that this, and all similar supplements to John son's dictionary, were published; the smaller collections of words in magazines, and the larger in distinct volumes. Without such contributions from differ.

tnt quarters, a complete English dicionary will hardly be achieved.

P. 259. The syllables er, ist, ism, and ize pass in review. Our author asks why we do not say a bookist, a battist, a stationist, as well as a druggist, a tobacconist, an organist? The syllable er is originally Saxon, connected with the word herr, master, and with the pronoun er, he, and is used in all the gothic dialects to form personal substantives masculine from verbs. So bake, baker; drum, drummer; fish, fisher. This syllable, closely resembling the Latin or and the French eur, has been frequently substituted to those syllables in words of French and Latin origin. So stationer, trumpeter, governer, translater; although the two last words are sometimes written with or. The syllable ist is of Greek origin : it seems connected with the root to stand, and signifies a stander. It is fitly used to inflect words of Greek derivation: Kizga, K.zpiorns; organ, organist; Plato, platonist; analyze, analist; sophist, theorist, methodist, monarchist. From an affectation of learning, probably, some authors have called themselves tourists, some apoticaries druggists, and a subsequent subdivision of this trade, tobacconists: these are all hybrid words. The formative syllable ism being of Greek origin, is not frequently combined with words of any other derivation: Platonism, sophism, methodism, catholicism, theism; except that in the schools of philosophy all opinions are classed in isms, and all sectators in ists. Materialism, puritanism, libertinism, jesuitism, jacobinism, protestantism, republicanism; materialist, spiritualist, idealist, Calvinist, philosophist, dogmatist, revolutionist, &c. several of which words are hybrid, or made up of different languages. The syllable ize is originally Greek: to theorize, to philosophize, to cauterize; but it is used very familiarly both in the French and English writers of late date, to form adjectives into verbs. So human, hu manize; provincial, provincialize; volatile, volatilize, (and not volatize, as Mr. Burke writes); familiar, familiarize. There is an unwillingness to annex this syllable to all words of northern derivation, and to those adjectives of southern derivation, which do not terminate in liquids.

P. 267. Minshew is probably right in the derivation of haberdasher; it was a nick-name given to the German jews, from their offering petty wares with the phrase hab er dass, herr,-buy you this, Sir. Mr. Pegge is probably right in deducing