he embraced the opportunity of publishing his disappointment and spite; of declaring "I meddle in these matters, because I hate fraud, pity the misery it has occasioned, and mourn over the hatred it has excited against free institutions." Such opprobrious epithets as he was accustomed to use to others, he pours out most copiously against the inhabitants of Pennsylvania; he abuses them for their dishonesty, calls them "men who prefer any load of infamy, however great, to any pressure of taxation, however light," and tells them that their "government is unstable, in the very foundations of social life."

From the "Letters and Correspondence," we see in him no little excitement on the subject. Writing to his friends, he says: "I hope you were pleased with my attack upon the Americans they really deserved it-it is a monstrous and increasing villany. Fancy a meeting in Philadelphia, convened by public advertisement, where they came to resolutions that the debt was too great for the people to pay; that the people could not pay it, and ought not to pay it. It is a fortunate thing for the world that the separate American States are making such progress in dishonesty, and are absolutely refusing to pay their debts. They would soon have been too formidable if they had added the moral of good faith to their physical strength. I verily believe they are cracking; for a nation cannot exist in such a state of morals. There is nothing in the crimes of kings worse than this villany of democracy." After all this, there was no occasion for him to say "I envy Lord Byron for his skill in satirical nomenclature."

In following Sydney Smith through the evening of his days, we hoped that we should at last see some of that seriousness and sobriety which become the man of years, the professed Christian, and the minister of religion. But he had such a dread of gravity, and such a horror of solemnity, that he would not yield, but fought against them most vigorously, even when life was closing and the grave opening. At the age of seventy-two he writes to a friend-"I am learning to sing some of Moore's songs, which I think I shall do to great perfection"-no doubt some of those convivial songs which would lead him to drive away melancholy. It was probably sug gested by a visit which the poet had made to him a few

weeks before; for he says "We have had little Tommy Moore here, who seemed to be very much pleased with his visit; he talked and sung in his peculiar fashion, like any nightingale of the 'Flower Valley,' to the delight of us all." After the death of Sydney Smith, this poet was applied to, to write the memoir of his friend, but his serious and sudden illness prevented. It was truly unfortunate that the design was not executed. It would have been peculiarly fitting for two such intimate friends to be thus associated; for the minister of religion, to whom Byron dedicated some stanzas in his "Don Juan," to have his life written by Thomas Moore.

But little is said of his death, nothing of his feelings, in view of the past, or hope of the future. It was to be expected that these things would be hurried over. One last saying, however, is striking, uttered when he must have known that there was no hope of recovery-"I feel so weak, both in body and mind, that I verily believe that if the knife were put into my hand, I should not have strength or energy enough to stick it into a Dissenter." There is "a ruling passion strong in death;" there are exceptions to the remark of Young,

"Men may live fools; but fools they cannot die."

Though Sydney Smith was through life an enemy of evangelical religion, and a very unsuitable man for the clerical profession, there is much to admire in the manly perseverance with which he laboured in an obscure parish, for the improvement of the people according to his own standard of religion. He was a disappointed man, more to be pitied than either admired or imitated.

ART. III.-Principles of the Philosophy of Language.

THE application of inductive analysis to language has been too long and too greatly neglected. That the phenomena of human speech are among the most interesting which experience offers for investigation, is shown sufficiently by the unwearied attempts of philologists, puerile and unphilosophic though they be. Such efforts are of very old date. At no period in man's progress could the inquiry perhaps be void of interest:-Whence originated the representative or suggestive power of the terms which he employs? That a science which has to be reduced to practice should stretch its roots far back into antiquity, is not always an advantage. Practical rules which become current and gain authority, retard the improvement of principles. The philosophy of language has, from obvious circumstances, rested longer under this retarding influence than any other branch of inquiry.

That instances or phenomena are to be classified, so that inductions be founded on analogies pervading groups, is the indispensable requisite of all sound inductive reasoning. An exposition serving for one instance, must serve for all analogous instances. It is on the more general forms of phenomena, and not on the special or less general, that trustworthy expositions are to be founded. In classifications, moreover, groups of equal rank ought to be distinguished by differences of equal value; and every real analogy should have its due. weight in determining the character and the boundaries of the groups which are formed.

These are simple and obvious rules; but scarcely a chapter of a book on philology or grammar can be found in which they are philosophically carried out. Grave and important discussions are, to some extent, influenced by this neglect. Take for instance, the meaning assigned to aid when it is represented as a compound of dei and the participle v. This, it it has been presumed, renders it equivalent to the English word eternity. The exposition, however, is founded on the special

nominative form of the participle, neglecting the more general form containing 7, as in ovra; and is, moreover, inconsistent with other analogies. So we have Niebuhr assigning provincia as a form of proventus; and Smith coinciding with G. C. Lewis, in deducing it from providentia. Jachel strives to connect the language of the ancient Roman tribes with that of Germany, through such fancies as that magistratus is the combination machste rath. Here the analogy to supinal substantives, such as ploratus, fletus, tractus, &c., is overlooked. So when βασιλεύς is made a compound of βάσις and λεώς or λαός, its relationship to acúç, yovɛúç, &c., is neglected. Similar instances might be multiplied to any extent. It may be apprehended that a great deal of this puerile and arbitrary dependence on similarities in sound is due to the evil example and authority of Aristotle, or of works ascribed to him. Curious instances occur in the treatise Περί τοῦ κόσμου.

Whether we deal with the formation of words, or with the character and effect of the variations which they undergo, our object ought to be to reach the great forms of mental conception, under the influence of which these constituents of speech originated. These ideas when unfolded ought to be the foundation of all practice in using or imparting a language; and it is through analogies or dissimilarities in this respect, that the relationships of tongues are best traced or established. Vocal similarities, or resemblances among words, serve to indicate only subordinate relations between subdivisions of great forms of language. We become conscious in seeking to acquire a new tongue, that while the memory is more easily charged with the words, the great struggle in the mind is to modify its conceptions of things and their relations into the new forms required by the idioms of the language. Their older forms of thought may be retained by a people, which has admitted of an entire change in the words of its language; and the relationships of languages, when correctly treated, will afford sure indications of relationships of races, inasmuch as these underlying and permanent ideas may bring into connection dialects which show outwardly, or in their vocal elements, no sign of affinity.

Presuming that language is the produce of the human facul

ties, or assuming the parallel case, that men without a language had to form one for themselves, it is obvious that there are but two sources from which sounds could be derived capable of being immediately intelligible. One would be found in the natural sounds indicating our emotions or efforts, and the other would be by imitation of the sounds produced by external objects. Nothing merely conventional could be admitted; for means of communication must precede all conventions. Words or their elements derived from the natural signs of emotion may be expected to bear, in all languages, a great degree of resemblance. Those derived from the other source would necessarily vary in different regions, and under the different relations men might bear to external objects. The modes of working up these elements into expanded forms of speech might establish still more notable discrepancies.

It seems an indispensable condition of the expansion of a language, that it take place by combination of elements. The written language of China is an instance of this. The principles on which combination takes place cannot differ absolutely in different languages. They can only differ relatively in the extent to which they are separately carried out. The elements may, when included in combinations, retain conspicuously their original character, or they may be greatly modified by contraction. There may be more or less of generalizing power in the minds of those who form these combinations. When the habits of generalization are weak, combinations will be to a greater extent fortuitous, or will resemble clauses of sentences descriptive of objects. This will constitute the agglutinate form of speech, the elements generally remaining recognizable. Where habits of generalization have become strong, elements expressive of notions of a high degree of generality, serve as the constituents of a multitude of terms; and, by extensive modification and union, form the terminations pervading extensive classes of words. This circumstance characterizes the more perfect forms of the Japetian or Indo-Germanic group of tongues.

We may assume that modifications of the idea expressed by a term could be indicated only by attaching to the term some element significant of the additional conception which gives