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perative, purely GIF, gif, gif."—" Accordingly, our corrupted IF has always the signification of the present English imperative GIVE, and no other."

There are some facts here to be examined before we proceed to theories. 1. It is not true that the English conjunction has always the sense of give. Allowing that it sometimes may be explained as meaning supposition or concession, it has often also the signification of pure uncertainty, and is synonymous with whether, in which cases it would be preposterous to convert it into give. "I doubt IF it be SO. "Uncertain IF by augury or chance." "She doubts IF two and two make four." Diversity of conjecture, or alternative possibility, is the idea in these expressions, and not supposition or assumption. The question is, whether the notion of dubiety is not the prevailing idea in all the uses of the conjunction IF.

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2. It is not true, as Tooke says, that in the Gothic and Anglo-Saxon languages, the conjunction and imperative GIF were written in the same way. In the Gothic language there is no such conjunction as GIF, and so there can be no identity with the imperative of the verb.

3. In Anglo-Saxon, the correspondence of two words by means of the letter G is always equivocal, and requires confirmation from other sources, that letter being employed in the double capacity of expressing the radically different sounds of the proper G, and the semivowel Y. From a resemblance of the conjunction gif, and the verb gif, in Anglo-Saxon, we cannot conclude that the words are the same, but must look to the cognate languages to see if the agreement is also found there.

Now, it has been shown by Jamieson and other writers, that a reference both to the Gothic and the other Teutonic tongues, is destructive of the alleged identity we are now considering. Mr Taylor, the editor of the

new edition of Tooke now before us, and who has too often suffered his own judgment and intelligence to be overmastered by a timid respect for his author,* has noticed this fallacy, and we shall here transcribe his correction of it. We only premise that GIBAN is the Gothic verb to give, and that its imperative is GIB, or rather GIF. It has nearly the same form in all the other Teutonic languages; and it will be observed how completely in all of them, except the Anglo-Saxon, the form of the conjunction keeps aloof from that of the verb, with which it has been so rashly identified.

"The derivation of IF, from the imperative give, seems very plausible, so long as we limit our view to the English form nexion with the Scotch GIN, supposed of the word, especially as taken in conto be the participle given. But we cannot arrive at a correct opinion, without viewing the word in the forms in which it appears in the cognate dialects, and which do not seem at all referable to the verb to give.

"Thus in Icelandic we have ef, si, modo, with the verb efa, ifa, dubitare; and the substantive efi, dubium, and its derivatives. See Ihre, v. Ief, dubium. In old German it is ibu, ipu, ube, oba, yef, &c.; and in modern German ob, in the sense only of an, num,--all of which must surely be identified with the Gothic IBA, IBAI, and YABAI, which latter Grimm (Deutsche Grammatik, vol. iii. p. 284,) considers as a compound of YA and IBAI, and supposes that the sense of doubt is included in the Gothic word, and that IBAI may be the dative of a substantive IBA, dubium, with which also he conjectures some adverbs may be connected, (ib. p. 110.) In old German, he remarks, the substantive iba, dubium, whose regular dative is ibu, was preserved in the phrases mit ibo, dne iba, (p. 150, 157.) Wachter gives the same account, and adds, Hæc particula apud Francos eleganter transit in substantivum iba,' and 'tunc dubium significat,' &c. In the Anglo-Saxon gif, Grimm considers the g

* We may observe, however, that Mr Taylor is not always himself quite correct, and would instance one example in which he is wrong while endeavouring to correct others. He says (Additional Notes, p. 36) that loose and lose "have come down to us as representatives of two quite distinct families; and I see no evidence of their com-. mon parentage." It is true that LAUSYAN, to loose, and LIUS-AN, to lose, are different Gothic verbs, but their connexion is obvious, LIUS-AN, perdere, amittere, makes in the preterite LAUS, perdidi; which is undoubtedly connected with the adjective LAUS, liber, vacuus, loose or empty, and with the causal verb LAUSYAN, liberare, to loosen, or make loose. The mistake is, however, of no great moment to any argument involved in it.

prefixed, as representing the Gothic Y in YABAI; and the old Frisic has ief, gef, ieftu, iof, which Wiarda considers the same with the Francic oba and iba."

TAYLOR'S Tooke, Additional Notes, p. 11.

It is well known, as acknowledged by himself in the Diversions, that Tooke had found this conjecture as to the conjunction if, in the Etymologicon of Skinner, who was a clever though not a learned man. The hint thus derived seems to have fairly run off with him. Mounted upon this borrowed horse of Skinner's, which now, too, turns out to be broken-kneed, Tooke rode on with that recklessness and with that result which is generally the fate of those who have no business to ride at all. Out-skinnering Skinner, he saw imperatives in every thing, when in fact they had no existence whatever in the form and for the purposes to which he was applying them. It would be endless to expose his various forced and fallacious explanations of other conjunctions, in all of which he might be demolished in the same way as in the examples we have now enlarged upon.

We should not dismiss the two lead. ing assumptions from which the theory starts, without noticing the etymological explanation with which Mr Tooke has favoured us of the pronoun

that.

"THAT (in the Anglo-Saxon thaet, i.e. thead, theat) means taken, assumed; being merely the past participle of the Anglo-Saxon verb thean, thegan, thion, THIHAN, (Goth.,) thicgan, thigian; sumere, assumere, accipere; to THE, to get, to take, to assume."-P. 344.

There is to be found in this passage about as much error and absurdity as could well be contained in so small a

space.

1. If any thing be certain in etymology, it is that the English demonstrative that is identical with the Gothic THATA, the neuter of the article. Mr Tooke, in acknowledging the influence and supremacy of the Gothic, has fortunately supplied us with as excellent a stick for belabouring his own shoulders as hand could desire.

2. Mr Tooke in the passage quoted confounds together two or three Saxon verbs that are essentially distinct. If we do not greatly mistake, theon, to thee, thrive, or grow, though it has itself two forms, is in each of them

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quite different from thicgan, to take or taste.

3. None of the verbs mentioned by Tooke could, with all his confusion, be brought to give the pronoun that as a past participle. All of them are strong verbs, that is, verbs which make the past participle in n instead of d, a subject on which Tooke has himself dilated sufficiently to make his ignorance or disregard of it inexcusable. The past participle of thicgan, (Anglo-Saxon,) to take, is thigen, or thegen. Will this give the Anglo-Saxon that or that? The past participle of the Gothic THEIHAN, to grow or thrive, is THAIHANS.

Will this afford us the Gothic THA TA?

4. No reasonably well-informed man can doubt that the English pronoun is the legitimate descendant of a long line of ancestors that have been pronouns from the earliest antiquity, and that would scorn the brand of the bar sinister thus attached to them by Tooke, who would make them a sort of by-blows from the cadets of a family of verbs. According to the regular law of interchange from tenues into aspirates, and medials into tenues, we recognise the English that in the last syllable of the Latin is tud, and in the Sanscrit tad or tat, the Zend tat, and in the mutilated form of the Greek TUS all words of similar import and character, through all the Indo-Teutonic languages. The wide diffusion of a pronominal root characterised by the dental consonants, whether t, th, or d, according to the genius of the different dialects, is too obvious to require more than sugges tion.

The absurdity of the conjecture of Tooke's, which we have now exposed, is equalled by many others in his book, and among the rest by the analogous discovery that the pronoun it, or hit, is "merely the past participle of the verb HAITAN (Gothic), hætan (Anglo-Saxon), nominare!" As far as the Gothic is concerned, the matter is easily disposed of. The neuter pronoun there, as in English, wants the aspirate, and appears as ITA: while the past participle of HAITAN, to call, is HAITANS. Nothing but the most leaden ignorance and the most brazen presumption could have hazarded a conjecture like this of Tooke's. The genealogy of ITA is

clear, and connects it regularly and closely with the Latin id. It is possible that the Anglo-Saxon hit, which is aspirated, is no corruption of ITA, but an offshoot from a separate yet connected stem; but even here, the theory that hit is the past participle of hatan, which makes hæten, is beyond measure extravagant.

Having noticed some of Tooke's speculations on pronouns and conjunctions, let us take a sample of his discoveries in the class of prepositions. The first example we shall take is the preposition through. The fallacy of our philologer's doctrine on this head has been already exposed by other writers; but we must take leave to say a few words yet on the subject. It is not worth while to extract the passage, which is long and confused, but we shall give the substance. It contains a precious jumble, which we must try somewhat to set right.

The proposition maintained by Tooke is, that through is no other than "the Gothic substantive DAURO, or the Teutonic substantive thuruh." We pass over this Teu tonic substantive, with which we have not the pleasure of being acquainted, and we then come to this allegation that the English through is the Gothic DAURO, a door. Why this is said rather than that the English through is the English door, we don't perceive -except to show off the writer's knowledge of Gothic. What advance have we made by removing the field of enquiry to that venerable dialect? If we say that in English through is door, we just make a gratuitous assertion, which carries no conviction along with it. Well, then, in Gothic how does it stand? DAURO or DAUR is the Gothic for door, while THAIRH is the Gothic for through. Are we any nearer our point? Not an inch. It will as little be denied that

THAIRH is the root of through, as that DAUR, or DAURO, if Tooke will have it so, is the root of door; and THAIRH and DAURO are as wide asunder as their English relatives. It is idem per idem. Had we got into a pure and primitive language, where the streams had converged into one fountain, we should have made some progress. But here is nothing of the kind; and the obstinate unbeliever in the identity of through and door, while stated in English, is as hard of faith, or perhaps harder, when the Gothic

THAIRH and DAURO are placed before him. The non-identity, indeed, becomes more probable when we find the words still separated from each other in the earliest form of our language, and at a backward distance of 1400 years. There is not a vestige of authority for holding the case to be different in Anglo-Saxon, where dur, or duru, is a door, and thurh, through

words still divided from each other by a barrier of distinction which as yet we have not found to be over-passed.

But then the Greek Suga is called into play; and it is said, and said correctly, that Suga is the Gothic and English door, while Suga resembles through

and that therefore door and through must be the same. The question, however, always returns-if they are the same, why are they different? How have they kept asunder in the Teutonic languages so long and so steadily, if they are such near relations; or rather if, as Tooke says, they are the same individual? Further, we have not yet found in Greek that Suga means through, or that the word for through in Greek resembles Juga. Perhaps, as door, when traced into Greek, becomes Juga, which is something different, the other word through, if traced in the same way, may also become equally different; and thus the Greek for door and for through be as wide apart as the Gothic, the Saxon, or the English. And so, substantially, it is; because, although we have no preposition in Greek which connects itself with through, we have many words in that language which indicate penetration, or permeation, and which are obvious cognates of through. Now, how are these words characterised? By a 9? Not so-but by rg. Thus, Tege, TITAN,

Two, &c.; and, in connexion with these words, and the Sanscrit root tr-, to pass over, we probably possess the Latin trans. It matters little, therefore, that

door, in passing into Greek, becomes Suga with an aspirate, if through or its cognates, in undergoing the same process, does not retain but loses the aspirate, and diverges into a different sound, still preserving the separation. We have thus two parallel lines, of which one, when it enters the territory of the ancient languages, deviates towards the direction of the other; but that other does not remain sta tionary or coalesce with its antagonist, but retreats to another position equally distant as before. The parallelism is

thus still preserved, and their common origin as far as ever from being established. There is a shift in the strata, but each bed is still distinct and different from its neighbour. We may infer from these facts what is truly the case, that certain consonants, in passing from Greek to Gothic, undergo a certain change, but even in that change the same relative distance of different words is preserved inviolate; nor are we entitled to infer identity in distinguishable words, till we find those words identified in some one language proceeding on a regular and consistent system.

The words door and through are in no language the same in their initial consonant, except in the modern Low German, where the apparent assimilation arises from the accident that those dialects, in their existing form, have lost the dental aspirate, or th, and are thus unable to keep up the distinction which intrinsically belongs to the words in question. In the High German, the words are not confounded; as durch and thür 'where, however, the th is merely a mode of writing t) are as much divided as through and door. Tooke himself adverts to the interchange of the letters in German and English, though he mistakes in supposing that the German thür takes the place of the English through. But he has not the sense to see the legitimate conclusion, that when, amidst all these turnings and shiftings, the two words, though often changing places with each other, keep still as distinct as oil and water, there must be an inherent, as there is undoubtedly an immemorial, diversity in their origin.

Tooke refers to the Oriental languages; but, without entering further on this field, we may affirm that they will serve his purpose as ill as the Germanic.

To take another instance-we are told by Tooke that "the preposition TO (in Dutch written TOE and TOT, a little nearer to the original,) is the Gothic substantive TAUI or TAUHTS, i. e. act, effect, result, consummation; which Gothic substantive is indeed itself no other than the

past participle TAUID or TAUIDS, of the verb TAUYAN, agere. And what is done, is terminated, ended, finished."

But was Tooke a Gothic scholar,

and not aware that the Gothic form of the preposition to is DU? If he was aware of this fact, why not attempt to explain his grounds for holding that DU was the same word as TAUID? If he was not aware of it, what shall we say to his scholarship? The derivation is every way absurd.

Again, he tells us, "I imagine also that OF (in the Gothic and AngloSaxon AF and af) is a fragment of the Gothic and Anglo-Saxon AFARA, posteritas, &c., afora, proles.” “That it is a noun-substantive," &c. This is bold, at least; and we shall also call it convincing, when we find any one who can believe that the Latin preposition post is a fragment of posteri tas. Does the blindest etymologist not see that AF is not the remnant but the origin of the Gothic AFARA, or AFAR, succession; and is itself a Teutonic form of the Greek ¿ò, and the Latin ab.

Proceeding now to nouns and adjectives, we find them almost all referred by Mr Tooke to the participles or other parts of verbs. Let us examine a few of his most striking examples.

It is a common theory of Tooke's to designate nouns as the past parti ciples of connected verbs, which verbs are themselves derived from those very nouns. Thus deal is said to be the past participle of the verb DAILYAN, (Gothic,) dælan, (Anglo-Saxon,) to divide. It is perfectly certain that DAILS, the Gothic for a part or share, is not the derivative, but the primitive of the verb DAIL-YAN, to deal or make into shares: and deal is just as much its past participle as pars is the past participle of partior. There are throughout the work innumerable instances of this gross error.

But it is an equally common tendency of this great grammarian's to designate nouns as the past participles of verbs with which they have no earthly connexion. We shall give a few instances at random. Some of them stand little in need of comment.

Knight, we are told, is "the past participle of cnythan, to knit, nectere, alligare, attacher."-" Knight is cnyt, un attaché!

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"Wench is the past participle of wincian, to wink; i. e. one that is winked at!!"

The vernacular for a crepitus ventris, "a very innocent word," is the

same as fared, or gone; "the past participle of faren, to fare or go!!!" "BLIND-blined, blin'd, is the past participle of the Old English verb to blin, (Anglo-Saxon blinnan,) to stop." Then follow various unnecessary quotations to prove that there is, or once was, such a word as blin.

Now, in this last derivation, there are one or two things requiring correc. tion; but, in noticing them, it is necessary to premise, that as the adjective BLINDS is a genuine Gothic word, we shall have done little towards its elucidation unless we can explain it on Gothic data. We observe, then

1. That there is no such simple verb as blinnan, the original being LINNAN, which appears in Gothic in the form of another compound, AFLINNAN, cessare. B-linnan, in Anglo-Saxon, is a contraction of belinnan; but such a form does not occur in the Gothic language, and would scarcely be congenial to its character. If there were any corresponding Gothic word, we should probably find it rather as GA-LINNAN, from which it would be absurd to derive BLINDS.

The

2. Blind cannot be the past participle of blinnan, even if such an original verb would explain it in Gothic as well as in Anglo-Saxon. verb pointed at, whatever is its form, is conjugated strong, and the past participle would be BLUNNANS in Gothic, as it is blunnen in AngloSaxon, with either of which it would be quite gratuitous to identify the adjective BLINDS, blind.

3. The joint result of these two views is, that Tooke asserts the Gothic adjective BLINDS to be the participle LUNNANS, or GA-LUNNANS, which it cannot be, except under a system by which any one thing may be proved to be any other.

of owe.

Of the same character and quality is the etymology given from Tooke's interleaved copy of his own book, that good is ge-owed, or the past participle Execrable as this is upon its own showing, it appears, when fully investigated, to be still more detestable. If any past participle of the Saxon verb to owe were formed with the prefix, it would be ge-agen, which is but a poor etymology for gód, good. Tooke, however, is fond of filling up words with the prefix ge. Thus

"YOKE is the past participle of the

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This is altogether very bad. He has again been misled by the AngloSaxon g, which, in the word geoc, represents a proper y, and has nothing to do with the prefix ge. If he had had the Gothic before him, he would have seen there the primitive word YUK, a yoke, the cognate of the Latin jugum, and Greek suyos, (as well as of the Sanscrit yuj,) and as different from ge-ican or ycan, which is a derivative of the Gothic AUKAN, to eke, as jungo is from augeo. We pass over the other blunders in grammar in this passage with a remark, that the identification of the past tense and past participle is a proof of great and fundamental ignorance.

Take some other instances ad aperturam:

"LEWD-LAY-Lewd, in AngloSaxon Lowed, is almost equivalent to wicked;" "it means misled, led astray, deluded," &c.—Lew'd is the past participle, and lay is the past tense, and therefore past participle (!) of the Anglo-Saxon verb læwan, prodere, tradere, to delude, to mislead. Lewd, in its modern application, is confined to those who are betrayed or misled by one particular passion; it was anciently applied to the profanum vulgus at large, too often misled through ignorance."-P. 292.

This would really have been inexcusable in any other man than Tooke, who, forgetting in active life the distinction between a clerk and a layman, may be forgiven for not remembering about it in etymology.

It is obvious from this passage itself that Tooke connected lewd with leod, and thought them past participles of lawan. But was he ignorant that Leod, the name for a people or nation, was a great and honourable word, diffused widely among the Teutonic tribes, and incapable of being derived from the

mean source to which this foolish man ascribes it? A name for a people, signifying deluded, is not likely to be imposed in any circumstances, either by the agents or the patients of the delusion. But our German ancestors

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