FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   >>  
cent, now presented nothing to my view but a sad spectacle of desolation." And he then proceeds with his melancholy reflections on so many perishing memorials of human glory and grandeur in so small a compass. G. W. T. Volney wrote thus: "Qui sait si sur les rives de la Seine, de la Tamise ... dans le tourbillon de tant de jouissances ... un voyageur, comme moi, ne s'asseoira pas un jour sur de muettes ruines, et ne pleurera pas solitaire sur la cendre des peuples et la memoire de leur grandeur?"--_Les Ruines_, chap. ii. p. 11. MACKENZIE WALCOTT, M.A. _Misapplication of Terms_ (Vol. ix., p. 44.).--I cannot pretend to set up my judgment against that of MR. SQUEERS, who has in his favour the proverbial wisdom of the Schools. Riddle, however, who I believe is an authority, gives the word LEGO no such meaning as "to hearken." If Plautus uses the word in that sense, as it is an uncommon one, the passage should have been quoted, or a reference given. The meaning of {362} the word appears to be "to collect, run over, see, read, choose." In justification of my criticism, and in reply to MR. SQUEERS, I shall quote Horne Tooke's remark, in speaking of "[Greek: ta deonta], or things which ought to be done;" _Div. Purley_, Pt. II. ch. viii. (vol. ii. pp. 499-501., edit. 1849): "The first of these, LEGEND, which means _That which ought to be read_, is, from the early misapplication of the term by impostors, now used by us as if it meant, _That which ought to be laughed at_. And so it is explained in our Dictionaries." At the hazard of being again deemed hypercritical, while on this subject, _the misapplication of terms_, I must question the correctness of the phrase "_Under_ the _circum_stance." A thing must be _in_ or _amidst_ its _circum_-stances; it cannot be _under_ them. I admit the commonness of the expression, but it is not the less a solecism. Can you inform me when it was introduced? I hope it is not old enough to be considered inveterate. The best authors write "in the circumstances;" and yet so prevalent is the anomaly, that in a very respectable periodical, not long since, the French "_dans_ les circonstances presentes," given as a quotation, is rendered "_Under_ the present circumstances." J. W. THOMAS. Dewsbury. _Hoglandia_ (Vol. viii., p. 151.).--In reply to an inquiry for the full title of a book from which a quotation is given in _Pugna Porcorum_, the
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   >>  



Top keywords:

circum

 

misapplication

 

SQUEERS

 

meaning

 

circumstances

 

grandeur

 
quotation
 

impostors

 

Dewsbury

 
THOMAS

present

 

rendered

 

things

 

Dictionaries

 
explained
 

laughed

 
Porcorum
 

Hoglandia

 

Purley

 

LEGEND


inquiry
 

expression

 

commonness

 

solecism

 

deonta

 
stances
 

inveterate

 

introduced

 

inform

 

authors


amidst

 

French

 

subject

 

circonstances

 

hypercritical

 
considered
 

presentes

 
deemed
 

anomaly

 

prevalent


stance

 
phrase
 

periodical

 

question

 

correctness

 

respectable

 
hazard
 

quoted

 
voyageur
 
jouissances