and valuable. It is much to be regretted that a practice, which seems so clearly necessary for the preservation of life, should have been regarded as immoral, and have been assailed with all the force of prejudice. Like many other points in medicine, it is a choice between two evils; and when its advantages and disadvantages have been fairly estimated, it may become not merely allowable, but an imperious duty, to perform the operation. Dr. Bostock communicates a second paper, containing some Experiments on the Bark of the Coccoloba Uvifera, the object of which was to compare an extract procured from this bark with the kind usually employed. He finds that, although the substances are considerably similar, they differ in so many particulars as to prove that they are not obtained from the same plant. Dr. Bree has met with another case of what he considers to be Splenitis; which, like the one related in the former volume, he subdued principally by a long and persevering course of purgatives. The next paper is by Mr.Charles Bell, and contains an accurate Account of the Muscles of the Ureters, and their Effects in the irritable States of the Bladder; and we have afterward the History of a Case in which a Calculus was voided from a Tumour in the Groin, by Mr. Chevalier. A very interesting communication next ensues, from Dr. Berzelius of Sweden, on Animal Fluids. The essay contains nearly 80 pages, embracing a very wide field of observation and experiment, and may be considered as a summary of all the author's multiplied researches on these subjects. He begins with an analysis of blood, each of the constituents of which are separately examined, and an account is given of the effect of different re-agents on them; he then proceeds to the different secretions, bile, saliva, mucus, serous fluids, and the humours of the eye; then some of the excretions, as the perspiration and the urine; and he concludes by an examination of the properties and constituents of milk. We should be unable to detail even a part of the numerous facts and opinions which are brought forwards in this paper. A long discussion occurs respecting the nature of the colouring matter of the blood, the quantity of iron which it contains, and the state in which it exists there; and the presence of the lactic acid is announced, as forming a frequent constituent of the serous fluids. author coincides with Dr. Bostock in supposing that no gelatine is contained in the blood; and, in general, it may be observed that his experiments agree very nearly with those of Drs. Marcet and Bostock, which have been related in the former volumes of these Transactions, The Another Another case is reported, by Mr. Langstaff, of Fungus Hama» todes, or of one of those fungous affections which attacked various parts of the body, both internal and external, and at length produced death. Also, an interesting History of a severe Affection of the Organs of Respiration, with the Appearances on Dissection, and Remarks, by Dr. Wilson Philip, of Worcester; and a curious Account of a new Mode of Treatment in chronis Rheumatism, and especially in Sciatica, communicated by Dr. Marcet. The latter case is drawn up by the patient himself; who, after having suffered from his disorder during several years, and having found no permanent relief from any application, at length removed it by sweating in body-cloaths,' on the Newmarket plan. Some Remarks on the Use of Nitrat of Silver, for the Detection of minute Portions of Arsenic, by Dr. Marcet. An objection to the accuracy of this test (which was proposed in a paper by Dr. Roget in the second volume of these Transactions) having been suggested, Dr. Marcet recommends a modification of the process, by which any doubts respecting it may be removed. The volume concludes with a minutely related account of a Case of remitting Ophthalmia, which occurred to the author, Dr. Curry, and which was effectually relieved by a full dose of opium given previously to the exacerbation; - opium taken after the fit had commenced was of no service. The brief account which we have given of the contents of this volume will enable our readers to form some judgment respecting its merit, and must, we think, have proved to them that its value is at least equal to that of its predecessors. We have, however, one charge to bring against the Society, viz. the extremely inaccurate manner in which the work is printed; some of the errors being of such a nature as materially to affect the sense of the passage, and to leave it doubtful what was the word intended by the writer. ART. IX. A Grammar of the English Language: containing a complete Summary of its Rules, with an Elucidation of the general Principles of elegant and correct Diction, accompanied with Critical and explanatory Notes, Questions for Examination, and appropriate Exercises. By John Grant, A.M. 12mo. 6s. bound. Sherwood and Co. 1813. GRAMMARS of the English language abound, and yet we have few that are good. That which Wallis of Oxford composed, and which Bowyer reprinted in 1765, is one of the best but, being written in Latin, it is less adapted for the use of schools than for that of grown gentlemen. Wallis had taken the the right course to understand English: he learned the AngloSaxon and the Low-Dutch, the first of which is a parental and the second a fraternal language to our own. By the analogy of other similar Gothic dialects, he could trace the structure of this, and knew the difference between an exception and a regular inflection but many grammarians do not, and class as anomalous such plurals as feet, teeth, geese, lice, mice, which are remains of a Gothic rule. About the year 1750, Farro, about the year 1760, Fleming, and about the year 1770, Greenwood,-was the popular grammarian: but in 1775 the Grammar of Bishop Lowth, like Aaron's rod, had swallowed up all its competitors. Three grammars have since excited considerable attention; that of Coote, published about 1790, which professes to adopt the discoveries of Horne Tooke; that of Lindley Murray, published about 1795, which imitates the method of Wallis; and that of Dr. Alexander Crombie, published about 1800, which displays metaphysical more than glossological learning. Murray's Grammar has been deservedly the most successful as a popular manual; and it is with this especially that the present author must expect a dangerous comparison. Both these writers treat first of orthography: but Mr. Murray's analysis of the letters, and theory of the division of syllables, appear to us preferable to those of Mr. Grant. Both omit to treat of those words which are differently spelled by different authors; yet a most important province of the grammarian is to favour the prevalence of the better usage, where any opposition of authority exists. For instance: words derived from Latin supines are sometimes spelled by scholars with an s, but more generally with a c: such as offense, expense, defense; offence, expence, defence. Why do not the professed lawyers of language tell us the rule of court? The fact is that they correct their very grammars by the printer's dictionary, which they should qualify themselves to edit, and which they should criticize courageously. Messrs. Murray and Grant both devote their second part, or chapter, to etymology; or the formation of words one from another. Mr. Murray reckons nine, while Mr. Grant makes ten, parts of speech; the participle being honoured by him with a separate and independent existence. Neither of these gentlemen appears to us to have determined from observation the number of the parts of speech, but each seems quietly to have copied some old list in some old Latin grammar. The parts of speech are not metaphysical categories, growing out of universal Grammar, or the theory of language in general; they are mere technical subdivisions, growing out of the structure of a parti a particular language, which have for their object to class together words inflected by a similar rule of analogy. Hence a sweeping allotment of indeclinables is precisely the first best resource of the classifier. In languages of southern (or rather of Latin) origin, the parts of speech are more numerous than in languages of northern (or Gothic) origin. In English, why should we class under different heads the words this, the, that? If we call them articles, or particles, pronouns, or adnouns, they are still words of the same class; the indicating a middle situation between this and that, this indicating a more contiguous, and that a more remote situation than the. Of the, the old plural was they, which is now used only as a nominative to verbs. Mr. Grant makes (p. 25.) some good observations on the article, which he would term the definitive. Another case of impropriety is the calling in an English grammar by the name preposition, which means put before, those separable inflective syllables, with which our verbs are frequently combined. To stand by, to look over, to set on, are instances of verbal composition, in which not a preposition, but an affix, is employed; yet, as we can say a by-stander, an overlooker, and onset, we ought not to include any idea of place, or position, in the definition of this class of words. Under the head prepositions, (p. 105.) Mr. Grant takes no notice of our peculiar, and to foreigners difficult, management of the preposition. To see through you is to penetrate your intentions; to see you through (a business) is to help you out of a difficulty. To go under is to pass beneath; to undergo is to suffer. To forego is to go before; to forgo is to go without. To stand under is to stay beneath; to understand is to compre- . kend. To overcast is to grow gloomy; to cast over is to fling from on board of a ship, or over a wall, &c. To take under protection is to bestow shelter generally; to undertake protection is to promise it in case of need. To take over is to carry across; to overtake is to pursue so fast as to catch. To do over is to obtain an advantage; to overdo is to work excessively. To come over is to desert to the other side; to overcome is to vanquish. To run cut is to quit the house; to outrun is to surpass in speed. To stand with is to be in alliance; to withstand is to be in hostility. To draw with is to assist in drawing; to withdraw is to go away. To hold with is to agree in sentiment; to withhold is to keep a thing out of reach. To wear out is to exhaust, or consume; to outwear is to last longer than something else. To overthrow is to pull down; to throw over is to fling across. An offset is the shoot of a pullulating plant; a set-off is an indeminty. To burn out is to extinguish; to outburn is to be brighter than another fire. To swear for is to support with an oath; oath; to forswear is to commit perjury. To postpone a preposition in English totally alters its signification. In the class of adjectives, we are surprized to see Mr. Grant giving countenance (p. 52.) to some equivocally correct comparatives. Thus, from the adjective hind, it is legitimate to form hinder and hindest, or to form hindmore and hindmost, which last have prevailed in writing, in order to avoid ocular equivocation but it is not legitimate to combine both forms of inflection, and to say or to write hindermost. : At p. 80. a curious note occurs concerning the use of shall and will; from which it appears that the received version of the Bible is at variance with the Common-prayer-book in the use of these auxiliaries. Hence Dissenters, who read every Sunday in the Bible, so commonly differ from Churchmen, who read every Sunday in the Common-prayer-book, in the appli cation of these defective verbs. Mr. G. supplies at p. 90. a list of verbs commonly called irregular. Some of these are irregular only by contraction: such are the verbs of which the infinitives terminate with a t. From a natural difficulty in pronouncing rapidly the sound ed after the letter t, this termination has in conversation been habitually omitted; and the omission, which in comedies or novels, where the language of conversation is imitated, was a thing of course, has finally travelled into solemn oratory, and into literature for the closet. Such are the verbs cast, cost, hit, hurt, knit, let, burst, must, rid, put, shed, shut, shred, set, spred, &c. Many of these verbs might, with entire euphony, and without any violation of English analogy, receive at least a participial inflection. We might say casten, hitten, shedden, shutten, as Lowth recommends. Other verbs called irregular ought rather to be classed as of the second conjugation; being inflected by a peculiar rule of analogy common to most of the Gothic dialects. Such are the verbs which form the past tense by changing the vowel of the present tense, and the participle in en: as break, broke, broken; blow, blew, blown; chide, shid, chidden; bite, bit, bitten; behold, beheld, beholden; arise, arose, arisen; bind, bound, bounden; choose, chose, chosen; cleave, clave, sloven; grow, grew, grown; draw, drew, drawn; eat, ate, eaten; fall, fell, fallen; freeze, froze, frozen; get, got, gotten; hide, hid, hidden; hold, held, holden; know, knew, known; ride, rode, ridden; show, shew, shown; sink, sank, sunken; sit, sat, sitten; slide, slid, slidden; smite, smote, smitten; speak, spake, spoken; steal, stole, stolen; stride, strode, stridden; strow, strew, strown; swell, swoll, swollen; take, took, taken; thrive, throve, thriven; wear, wore, worn; write, wrote, written; and several others. As these verbs are the completest in the REV. JULY, 1814English X |