a "drawing of men" (as in war), is preferable to draught, the latter having several other meanings. Relative, in the sense of "member of a family," is preferable to relation. We should say I sprang and I shrank, rather than I sprung and I shrunk, since sprung and shrunk are also the participial forms; a thing hidden or forgotten, rather than hid or forgot, hid and forgot being the forms of the past indicative. A similar argument applies to gotten; but some prefer got, on the ground that gotten is harsh or affected.

A century ago there was a question between "I have eat" and "I have eaten,' "I have wrote " and "I have written,' 99 "I have bore" and "I have borne; "1 but usage has determined in favor of the latter form in each pair. "I have drank" is still 2 found instead of "I have drunk;" but the great weight of authority, as well as the principle of this canon, favors the latter. "I sung," 3 "I drunk," "I begun," "I have spoke,' ,"4" I have beat," though often used colloquially for "I sang,” “I drank,” “I began,” “I have spoken," "I have beaten," and sometimes to be found in good authors, hardly fall under this canon, so strongly does usage favor the second form. Under this head may be classed a few words that, though apparently meaning the exact opposite of each other, are sometimes used in the same sense. Thus unloose is found in the sense of "loose," 5 disannul in the sense of "annul," 6 unravel in the sense of " "ravel,' embowel in the sense of "disembowel," 8 unrip in the sense of "rip."9 In all these cases, the second word of each pair is preferable to the first.

Canon II. In doubtful cases, the analogy of the language should be regarded.

In the third person singular of the present tense of the verbs "to dare" and "to need," dare and need are some- The canon of times written instead of dares and needs. Under this analogy. the latter form, which is that of almost all English verbs, is to be preferred.10

canon,

On the principle of analogy, would rather and might better are

1 Lowth: Grammar. Campbell: Rhetoric.

2 Noah Webster: Dictionary.

4 Charles Reade.

6 G. Herbert.

8 Hallam.

10 See, however, p. 15.

3 Tennyson.

5 Shakspere.

7 Young.

9 Bacon. Jeremy Taylor.

preferable to had rather and had better. The latter forms have long been in use, and are still found in good authors as well as in good society; but they have no apparent advantage over the other forms, which are in at least equally good use, and are also in accordance with the analogy of the language.

Canon III. Other things being equal, the simpler and briefer form should be chosen.

"We say either accept or accept of, admit or admit of, approve or approve of; in like manner address or address to, attain or attain to. The canon of In such instances it will hold, I suppose, pretty generbrevity. ally, that the simple form is preferable. This appears particularly in the passive voice, in which every one must see the difference. 'His present was accepted of by his friend'-'His excuse was admitted of by his master' 'The magistrates were addressed to by the townsmen,' are evidently much worse than 'His present was accepted by his friend' — 'His excuse was admitted by his master'. 'The magistrates were addressed by the townsmen.' We have but too many of this awkward, disjointed sort of compounds, and therefore ought not to multiply them without necessity."1

Some of the expressions quoted by Campbell are no longer met, but compounds as awkward and disjointed as any he condemns are daily multiplied without necessity. For instance, we examine into, open up, curb in, clamber up into, breed up, mix up, freshen up, fill up, brush off of, crave for, bridge over, follow after, treat upon, trace out, connect together, slur over, soften off, meet with, meet together, enter into. In all such cases, the added particle, wherever it is not needed to complete the meaning, should be omitted, as being always superfluous and often worse than superfluous.

Under this canon, nowise, likewise, anywise, are preferable to in nowise, in likewise, in anywise. We still, however, have to say in this wise, in that wise, in such wise, no shorter forms being in good use. "House to let" is preferable to "house to be let;" whence, thence, and hence, to from whence, &c.

Canon IV. Of two forms of expression otherwise in equally good use, the one which is more agreeable to the ear should be chosen.

1 Campbell: Rhetoric, book ii. chap. ii.

Under this canon, Dr. Campbell prefers delicacy, authenticity, and vindictive, to delicateness, authenticalness, and vin- The canon of dicative, — decisions which have been sustained by time. Scarcity is, in like manner, supplanting scarceness.

euphony.

The principle of euphony has, perhaps, a greater influence upon the language than some grammarians admit. Not infrequently, it overrides other principles. Thus, notwithstanding Canon I., it prohibits dailily, holily, jollily, heavenlily, timelily, homelily, and the like, preferring to such forms the inconvenience of having but one form. "daily," "homely," &c. - for both adjective and adverb; and it overrules the argument that would make forwards and backwards the sole adverbial forms in order to distinguish them from the adjectives forward and backward. "Forwards, march!" would be intolerable. So, too, as between beside and besides, toward and towards, homeward and homewards, the ear naturally chooses the form that sounds best in the sentence; as, "The ploughman homeward plods his weary way."1 Notwithstanding Canon II., euphony frequently prefers need and dare to needs and dares; as,

"What is not true in the case of this usage need not be true.” 2 "A bard to sing of deeds he dare not emulate." 8

4

Brevity, too, may be sacrificed to euphony. "With difficulty" is preferable to difficultly; "most honest, beautiful, pious, distant, delicate," to honestest, beautifullest,5 piousest, distantest, delicatest;5"most unquestionable, virtuous, indispensable," to unquestionablest, virtuousest, indispensablest; and the same principle holds with many dissyllabic and with most polysyllabic adjectives.

6

6

It is, of course, wrong to give undue weight to considerations of euphony, -to sacrifice sense to sound, strength to melody, or compactness to pleasant verbosity; but wherever one can, without serious loss, substitute a word that is agreeable to the ear for an extremely

1 Gray: Elegy in a Country Churchyard.

2 Dr. J. H. Newman: Essays, Critical and Historical, vol. i. P. 3 Scott.

224.

4 Yet Bentham condemns words that he calls "difficultly pronounceable.” 5 Ruskin.

6 Carlyle.

disagreeable one, or avoid an expression unusually difficult to pronounce, this should be done.

Canon V. In the few cases in which neither perspicuity The canon of nor analogy, neither sound nor simplicity, deancient usage. termines the question between two forms of expression equally favored by good authors, we should choose the one which conforms to the older usage.

On this ground, "jail," the form used in America, is preferable to gaol; 1 "begin" to commence ("Things never began with Mr. Borthrop Trumbull: they always commenced both in private life and on his handbills " 2); "photographer" to photographist, and the like; "trustworthy' to reliable 3 (where there is no difference of meaning). Though, under this canon, man of science" is preferable to scientist, the superior brevity of scientist is likely to carry the day; though the active participle in ing is in many cases preferable to the passive form with being, "corn is selling" to is being sold, a house is building" to is being built, yet the modern form is sometimes necessary to remove ambiguity: "is beating," for instance, will hardly do for is being beaten.

66

Valuable as these canons are in determining the choice between two forms of speech equally favored by good use, helpful as they may be in keeping both archaisms and vulgarisms out of the language, there supreme. can be no appeal to them in a case once decided. In such a case, the protests of scholars and the dogmatism of lexicographers are equally unavailing.

Good use

It was in vain that Swift fought against the words,

1 Macaulay. Gladstone.

2 George Eliot: Middlemarch, book iii. chap. xxxii.

3 The argument from analogy against this word, to the effect that, if it is to exist at all, it should be relyuponable, is, however, answered by the existence, in spite of the alleged analogy, of familiar words like indispensable, disposable, not to speak of laughable, inextricable, — words which it is possible to distinguish from reliable. See "On English Adjectives in Able, with special reference to Reliable," by Fitzedward Hall (1877).

4 Coined, it is said, by Dr. Whewell.

mob, banter, reconnoitre, ambassador; that Dr. Johnson roared at clever, fun, nowadays, and punch; that Dr. Campbell lost his temper over dancing attendance, pellmell, as lief, ignore, subject-matter; that Bishop Lowth insisted that sitten though, as he admitted, "almost wholly disused"-was, on the principle of analogy, the only correct form for the past participle of to sit; that Landor wished to spell as Milton did, objected to antique and to this (in place of these) means, declared "passenger and messenger coarse and barbarous for passager and messager, and nothing the better for having been adopted into polite society," and said that to talk about a man of talent was to talk "like a fool; "1 that Coleridge insisted on using or with neither; that the (London) Times for years wrote diocess for "diocese," chymistry for "chemistry; or that Abraham Lincoln wrote in his messages to Congress abolishment instead of "abolition." It is in vain that the writer who cannot forgive the language for taking so kindly to its, would have poets called "makers," and rhyme, "rime;" or that Mr. E. A. Freeman seeks to resuscitate the more part in the Biblical sense of "the greater part," and mickle in the sense of "great," -as in his "mickle worship," "mickle minster of Rheims."3 The recent efforts by grammarians on both sides of the water to keep telegram out of the language utterly failed. So did the attempt, in the following letter, by the late Senator Sumner to substitute a rare for a well known word:

"With these views I find the various processes of annexion 4 only a natural manifestation to be encouraged always, and to be

1 Landor: Works, vol. iv. pp. 175, 231. Forster: Life of Landor, book viii. 2 See p. 3. 3 History of the Norman Conquest. 4 The question was whether to annex Charlestown to Boston.