Encyclopaedia Britannica; or, A dictionary of arts and sciences, compiled upon a new plan … > Volume 2, C-L

LAS 1 «■
Jt--(Re powr of ours, there behoved to be three
words at leaft. However, if all this was done that
ts, if there was a diftiniS conjugation formed for. every
forty or fifty verbs;—if each of the tenfes was properly
formed, and all of them different from every other
lenfe as well as every other,verb; .and thefe a!J. carried
through each of the different perfcns, fo as to be all dif-.
ferent from one another;—and if likewife there was a
diftindt word to mark each of the feparate meaning's which
the fame tebfe could be made to affume by means of the
emphafis ;—and if all this infinite variety of words could
be formed in a difHndt manner, different from each other
and harmonious j—kthts language would have powers
greater than any that could be formed by auxiliaries, if
it were peffible for the human powers to •acquire fuch a
degree of knov/ledge as to be able to employ it with fa¬
cility. But how could this be atta-ned, fihce upwards
■of ten thoufand words would be neceffrty to form the
variations of any one verb, and a hundred times that
number would not include the knowledge of the verbs alone
of fuch a language * ?—How much, thenefoi’e, ought we
to admire the fimple perfpicuity of our language, which
which enables us, by the proper application often or twelvd
feemingly trifling'words, the meaning and ufe of which’
can be attained with the utmofl eafe, to exprefs all that
could be expreffed by this unwieldy apparatus ? What'
can equal the fimplicity or the power of the one method,
but the well known powers of the twenty-four letters,
the knowledge of which can be obtained with fo much
cafe:—and their power knows no limits ?-—or what can
be compare’d to the fancied perfefliqh of the other, but
the tranfcrpt of it which the Chinefe feem to have formed
in their unintelligible language ?
Having thus confidered pretty fully the advantages and
defe&s of each of thefe two methods of varying verbs,
we cannot help feeling'a fecret wi(h arife in our mind, that
there had been a people fagacious enough to have united
the powers of the one method with thofe of the other;—
nor can we help being furprifed, that, among the chan¬
ges which took place in the feveral languages of Europe
after the down fall of the Roman monarchy, fome of them
did not accidentally ftumble on the method of doing it.—
From many concurring circumftances, it feetns probable,
that the greateft part, if not all the Gothic nations that
over-ran Italy at that time, had their verbs varied by the
help of auxiliaries ; and many of the modern European
languages which have fprunjj from them, have fo far bor-
rowed*from the Latin, as to have fome of the tenfes of
their verbs infledted: yet the Englifh alone have in any
inftance combined the joint powers of the two: which
could only be done by forming inflexions for the different
tenfes in the fame manner as the Latins, and at the fame
time retaining the original method of varying them by
auxiliaries; by which means either the one or the other
method could have been employed as occafion required.
We have luckily two tenfes formed in that way; the
Vol. II. No. 63. 2
) LAN
prefent of the indicative, and the paji. In almoft all
our verbs thefe can be declined either with or without
"auxiliaries. Thus the prefect, without an auxiliary, is,
■Hone, l.’writey /fpeak ; with an auxiliary, 1 do write,
l dp lev*, I do J'peak. In the'fame manner, the pad
tenfe, by inflexion, is, l loved, I wrote, I fpcke-. by
auxiliaries, l did love, I did fpeak, 1 did write. Every
author, who knows any thing of the power of the Englifli
language, knows the ufe which may be made of this di-
ffinXion. What a pity is it that we fltould have ftopt
fhort fo foon ? how blind was it in fo many other nations
to imitate the defeXs, without making a proper ufe of
that beamifuManguage which is now numbered among
the dead ?
After the verbs, the next moft confiderable variation
we find between the Analogous and trnnfpofstive lan¬
guages, is in the nouns; the latter varying the different
cafes of the.fe by inft:flion ; whereas the former exprefs
all the different variations of them by the help of o*
ther words prefixed, called preprJitions. Now, if we
confider the advantages . or difadvantages of either of
thefe methods under the fame heads as we have done the
verbs, we will find, that with regard to the firfl: parti¬
cular, v/z. variety of founds, almoff the fame remarks may
be made as upon the verbs ;—for if we compare any par¬
ticular noun by itfelf, the variety of found appears much
greater between the different cafes intheTV^wy^^r/t'if, than
between thetranOation of thefe in the Analogous language.
Thus, £ex, regis, reg 1, regem, are more di-
ftinX from one another in point of found, than the tranf-
lation of thefe, a king, of a king, to a king, a king, &c.
But if we proceed one ftep further, and confider the va¬
riety which is produced in the language in general, by
the one or the other of thefe methods, the cafe is entire¬
ly reverfed. For as it would have been impolfible to form
diftinX variations, different from one another, for each
cafe of every noun, they have been obliged to reduce all
their nouns into a few general claffes, called dechnfi-ons,
and endowed all of thofe' included under each clafs with
the fame termination in every cafe ; which produces a like
fimilarity of found with what we already obferved was
occafioned to the verbs from the fame caufe ; whereas in
the analogous languages, as there is no neceflity for any
conftraint, there is almolt as great a variety of founds as
there are of nouns. The Latins have only five different
declenfions, fo that all the great number of words of this
general order muff be reduced to the very fmall diverfity
of founds which thefe few claffes admit of; and even the
founds of thefe few claffes are not fo much diverfified as
they ought to have been, as many of the different in
the different declenftons have exactly the fame founds, as
we fhall have occafion to remark more fully hereafter.—
We might here produce examples to fliew the greit Ji-
snilarity of founds between different nouns in the Latin
language, and variety in the Enfglifli, in the fame way
as we did of the verbs: but as every reader, in the leaff
9 K acquainted
* This afleftlon may perhaps appear to many very much exaggerated: but if any fliould think fo, we only beg the fa¬
vour that lie will fet himielf to mark all the variation of tenfes, mode, perfon, and number, which an Engiifli verb can
be made to alfiime, varying each of theferin every way that it will admit, both as to the diverfity of exprelfions, and the
Xnphafis; he will foon be convinced that we have here faid nothing more than enough.