-um_.

_Caution._--_Which_, is _not_ the neuter of _who_.

s. 190. Just as there are in English fragments of a gender modifying the
declension, so are there, also, fragments of the second element of gender;
viz., the attribution of sex to objects naturally destitute of it. _The sun
in _his_ glory_, _the moon in _her_ wane_, are examples of this. A sailor
calls his ship _she_. A husbandman, according to Mr. Cobbett, does the same
with his _plough_ and working implements:--"In speaking of a _ship_ we say
_she_ and _her_. And you know that our country-folks in Hampshire call
almost every thing _he_ or _she_. It is curious to observe that country
labourers give the feminine appellation to those things only which are more
closely identified with themselves, and by the qualities or conditions of
which their own efforts, and their character as workmen, are affected. The
mower calls his _scythe_ a _she_, the ploughman calls his _plough_ a _she_;
but a prong, or a shovel, or a harrow, which passes promiscuously from hand
to hand, and which is appropriated to no particular labourer, is called a
_he_."--"English Grammar," Letter v.

s. 191. Now, although Mr. Cobbett's statements may account for a sailor
calling his ship _she_, they will not account for the custom of giving to
the sun a masculine, and to the moon a feminine, pronoun, as is done in the
expressions quoted in the last section; still less will it account for the
circumstance of the Germans reversing the gender, and making the _sun_
feminine, and the _moon_ masculine.

s. 192. Let there be a period in the history of a language wherein the
_sun_ and _moon_ are dealt with, not as inanimate masses of matter, but as
animated divinities. Let there, in other words, be a time when dead things
are personified, and when there is a _mythology_. Let an object like the
_sun_ be deemed a _male_, and an object like the _moon_, a _female_, deity.
We may then understand the origin of certain genders.

The Germans say the _sun in _her_ glory_; the _moon in _his_ wane_. This
difference between the usage of the two languages, like so many others, is
explained by the influence of the classical languages upon the
English.--"_Mundilfori had two children; a son, M[^a]ni (Moon), and a
daughter, S[^o]l (Sun)._"--Such is an extract out of an Icelandic
mythological work, viz., the prose Edda. In the classical languages,
however, _Phoebus_ and _Sol_ are masculine, and _Luna_ and _Diana_
femini