finishing with a cross; the water is Tas given in Supplement, p. 597,

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Chryseis.-Critical Dissertation on But, Quin, &c.

ary, were well founded, your Correspondent "C. W." (last volume, p. 482), has a right to "beg the question," and to require a solution of the palpable contradiction between the accounts given of the capture of Chryseis, daughter of Chryses, the priest of Apollo; who is generally supposed to have been taken, together with her cousin Briseis, at Lyrnessus; but whom Professor Damm asserts to have been taken in the city of Chrysa.

Your Correspondent knows this to be a matter of some difficulty, and he will therefore make due allowance for any deficiency in my attempt at an elucidation; more especially, as the task has been imposed on me by himself, instead of my having volunteered in this arduous undertaking,

Chryseis, although the daughter of Chryses, Priest of Apollo, and born at Chrysa; yet being the wife of Ection, King of Lyrnessus; was, in all probability, in that city when sacked by the Grecians. Briseis, the daughter of Brises (brother to Chryses) and a native of Lyrnessus, was of course residing there with her husband Mines. It may therefore be (I think) justly inferred that the two first-cousins, Chryseis and Briseis, were together taken captives at Lyrnessus.

According to Homer, Chryseis was restored to her father Chryses, at Chrysa; and from this circumstance, and that of her having been born in Chrysa, the supposition of Professor Damm has probably arisen. Homer gives us no further intelligence than that" Chryseis was restored to her father at Chrysa.' E. T. PILGRIM.

To solve the intricacies of language is not an easy task. To explore the origin of words, to investigate the peculiarity of idiom, is adventurously to sail on a sea beset with rocks and quicksands. It is therefore with diffidence I have attempted a solution of the peculiar idiom, which forms the subject of the Letter of your Correspondent LELIUS (Part i. p. 592); and if I may be deemed to have satisfactorily succeeded, I must ascribe that success to any thing rather than to superior critical acumen. May I then be allowed at once to suggest, that although the particle but has usually been unreflectingly considered as a conjunction, yet that it sometimes

[Sept.

is not a conjunction, but most strictly. an adverb, and it is under this construction I shall attempt to show that its use in the instances cited is not only not pleonastic, but strictly correct, and its meaning as distinct and forcible. In my proof of this position, I will first have recourse to analogy, and I thus beg leave with LALIUS (yet with more confidence) to direct the attention of your readers to the prototype in the Latin language of this particle but, its prototype I mean as an adverb, the word quin; and here I must first advert to the etymology of that word, of which many of your readers are probably not aware; it springs then from the union of the negative particle ne with the neuter ablative of the pronoun qui or quis, i. e. qui, thus forming together qui ne, and signifying why not, wherefore, &c. When these words preceded another beginning with a vowel, we may well presume the elision, with an apostrophe of the final e, and by the gradual coalition of the remaining consonant n with the preceding word qui, and the omission of the distinctive mark of the ablative case, we have thus clearly and decidedly the word quin. Its progressive formation will thus be quine, quin', quin. I must again, however, Sir, remind your readers that this critical etymology only applies to the adverb quin.

Having thus traced its origin, I will now proceed to descant on the correspondent analogy and use of the adverbs but and quin. I do not deny that the word but may be otherwise used adverbially, yet it is my intention to limit this letter to its application especially on two occasions only. Your readers will then, Sir, on reflection and research, find that the Latin adverb quin and its correspondent English adverb but, are peculiarly added to verbs expressive of doubt. Of this use LELIUS himself has cited an authority from Terence, and we may repeatedly observe it in Cæsar. Let us turn our attention to the latter author, and cite one or two instances. In the speech of Divitiacus, the Eduan, to Cæsar, we have this passage: "Hæc, si enunciata Ariovisto sint, non dubitare, quin de omnibus obsidibus, qui apud eum sint gravissimum supplicium sumat." Here we may well presume that the conjunction ut is understood; the meaning of the sentence will then

be thus: "If these things should be told to Ariovistus, he had no reason to doubt that he would heavily revenge himself on all the hostages which were in his hands.' If we thus supply the conjunction ut, the adverb quin then becomes strongly intensive; we may thus conclude that Ariovistus meant not simply that he did not doubt, but that he had the fullest reason to believe. Again, in the 2d book, 2d sect. of the Commentaries on the Gallic War (edit. not. var.) we have this passage, Tum vero dubitandum non existimavit, quin ad eos duodecimo die proficisceretur." Here also in strict propriety we should supply the conjunction ut, and the meaning of the sentence will be, "Then he thought there was no doubt whatsoever, that he should march against them within twelve days." You will permit me also here to remark, Mr. Urban, that an error in punctuation of the early typographers hath tended to perpetuate the misapprehension of the use of this particle. The word quin in the above and similar instances truly pertains to the first portion of the sentence, and the comma ever ought to follow, and not to precede that word, when thus used adverbially with the conjunction ut understood; we shall then read the last cited quotation thus: "Tum vero dubitandum non existimavit quin, (ut) ad eos duodecimo die proficisceretur." I should much doubt whether the

word quin as a conjunction in the Latin language was not of posterior introduction; and for this supposition the following arguments may, I think, be reasonably relied on; first, its clear etymological origin as an adverb; and, secondly, that although thus qui ne exactly corresponds with the Greek expression of Tun, yet the latter language has, I believe, no single word analogous to that of quin, taken as a conjunction.

LELIUS, at the close of his Letter, refers to our great lexicographer Johnson, and considers him to have sanctioned the common and (as LELIUS supposes) the erroneous use of the particle but; yet it appears evidently that Johnson never turned his peculiar attention to the use of this particle distinctly as an adverb, and as a conjunction, he thus confuses its meanings, and embraces them all as under the latter part of speech, since in his twelfth definition of the word as a conjunction,

he says,

"It is used after no doubt, no question, and such words, and signifies the same with that. It sometimes is joined with that." I cannot, however, with deference agree with him either as to its being synonimous with that, or a mere expletive, when joined with it. I think that the meaning of the two particles, whether expressed or understood, after verbs of doubt, are most fully distinct, that in such instances when either one is expressed, the other is understood, and that whenever the words but that are thus unitedly presented, an additional and yet more intensive force is given to energy of language.

I have thus, Mr. Urban, discussed a subject which may be barren of all interest to many of your readers; inmy ferences may possibly be obviated by others, and my conclusions perhaps be satisfactory but to the few: such as they are, I submit then to general judgment; I launch them exposed as they are to rocks and quicksands, without any peculiar anxiety as to their fate, however ardent may be my feeling as to their correctness, since I am well aware of the intricacies of language, and the difficulty of precisely defining the extent and peculiar use of its particles.

Mr. URBAN,

E.D.

Little Horwood Vicarage, Aug. 7. relaxation from my clerical A and scholastic duties, I have often amused myself with philological studies. The result of these has been laid before the public, in "The Elements of Anglo-Saxon,' " and other small works. Still I am conscious many deficiencies may be pointed out; and as they have been composed at different intervals, amidst the distractions of a laborious profession, some errors may be discovered. Under this conviction I must acknowledge that Reviewers have treated my little publications with more favour than I expected. Your Reviewer thus introduced my "Elements of the Anglo Saxon:" "This work will prove a most valuable acquisition to the library of the philologer and antiquary." When I made a selection of what I considered most valuable in "The Elements," and published it under the title of "A compendious Grammar of the primitive English or Anglo-Saxon Language," I thought I was rendering

228

Mr. Bosworth on his Anglo-Saxon Grammar.

Saxon students some service. The manner in which I have done it appears, however, to have excited considerable merriment in the mind of your Reviewer; nor could I help smiling at the grotesque appearance which my homely but healthy Saxon boy made, when dressed up by your Reviewer in finical French "flounces, furbelows, and millinery."

Your Reviewer observes, "Mr. Bosworth gives no ablative case in the Anglo-Saxon, whereas both Hickes and Ingram retain it, and certainly with correctness." Now he might as well find fault with all our Greek

grammarians for omitting the ablative case. He then adds: "The sign to implies one case; by, with, and in, another; and from á distinction from all of the preceding. In the philosophy of grammar, therefore, there are as many distinct cases as there are distinct senses in the acts denoted by the signs.' I do not exactly know what your Reviewer means by "the acts denoted by the signs;" but the sense of the preceding part appears to be this: To implies one case, by, with, and in, another, and from another; there are, therefore, as many distinct cases as there are distinct relations between words. Prepositions denote the relation that subsists between words, but will your readers believe there are as many cases as there are prepositions? Who would think of making fifty cases in English?

Your Reviewer calls my plain definitions"French pleonasms," and the A, B, C, of grammar," but if he had learned such A, B, C, and read my definition of a case, he would have avoided such blunders. I have said, "A case is a change in the termination of a noun, adjective, and pronoun, to express their relation to the words with which they are connected in the sentence." If this definition be admitted, I defy your Reviewer to find more cases than I have given.

I leave your readers to judge between us. Your Reviewer asserts, "There must be a passive voice in all languages." I say in parsing every word should be considered a distinct part of speech: we do not call "to a king" a dative case in English, as we do regi in Latin, because the English phrase is not formed by inflection, but by the auxiliary words to a. If these auxiliary words do not forma cases in

[Sept.

English nouns, but are universally rejected, why may we not reject all those moods, tenses, &c. which are formed by auxiliaries? Thus, Ic mæg beon luros, I may be loved, instead of being called the potential mood pass. is more rationally parsed by considering I mæg a verb, and the indicative mood present tense, 1st sing.; beon, the infinitive mood of eom am, after the verb mæg; and luros, as the perfect participle of the verb lupian, to love.

With an error in the reference, giving p. 79 for 59, your Reviewer introduces a quotation from the learned Dr. Hickes; but the quotation, if carried a few lines further, would modify the use of the particle ge nearly as I have."

Your Reviewer then says, "We cannot speak in too high terms of the Preface. It is an excellent dissertation upon the origin of the Saxons and their language. We recommend Mr. Bosworth (in order) to render it perfect, to consult Tyrwhitt's Essay on the Language and Versification of Chau

cer. He will there see the alterations of the ancient Anglo-Saxon made by their posterity in the process of converting it into modern English." What has the conversion of the ancient Saxon into modern English to do with remarks on the origin of the Saxons and their language? In the Preface it was desirable to shew the origin of the Saxons and their language, that the student might know something of the people and language of which the Grammar treats; but the Preface would have been an improper place to show the manner in which the present English is formed from the Saxon; I have, therefore, reserved that subject for the latter part of the work. -If your Reviewer had consulted my "Elements," he would have seen I had no need of such advice. In p. 76 I say, "that those changes in Saxon, which are generally denominated dialects, appear in reality only to be the alteration observed in the progress of the language as it gradually flowed from the Anglo-Saxon, varying or casting off many of its inflections, till it settled in the form of the present English; in the same manner as upon the fall of the Roman empire, those people who derived their language from the Latin, finding that the relation of words could be expressed with greater facility by prepositions, tacitly

be

be

TOO

200