n; as
_fearful_, that which gives or which feels terrour; a _fearful prodigy_,
a _fearful hare_. Some have a personal, some a real meaning; as, in
opposition to _old_, we use the adjective _young_ of animated beings,
and new of other things. Some are restrained to the sense of praise, and
others to that of disapprobation; so commonly, though not always, we
_exhort_ to good actions, we _instigate_ to ill; we _animate, incite_
and _encourage_ indifferently to good or bad. So we usually _ascribe_
good, but _impute_ evil; yet neither the use of these words, nor,
perhaps, of any other in our licentious language, is so established as
not to be often reversed by the correctest writers. I shall, therefore,
since the rules of style, like those of law, arise from precedents often
repeated, collect the testimonies on both sides, and endeavour to
discover and promulgate the decrees of custom, who has so long
possessed, whether by right or by usurpation, the sovereignty of words.

It is necessary, likewise, to explain many words by their opposition to
others; for contraries are best seen when they stand together. Thus the
verb _stand_ has one sense, as opposed to _fall_, and another, as
opposed to _fly_; for want of attending to which distinction, obvious as
it is, the learned Dr. Bentley has squandered his criticism to no
purpose, on these lines of Paradise Lost:

--In heaps
Chariot and charioteer lay overturn'd,
And fiery foaming steeds. What _stood, recoil'd_
O'erwearied, through the faint Satanic host,
Defensive scarce, or with pale fear surpris'd,
_Fled_ ignominious.--

"Here," says the critick, "as the sentence is now read, we find that
what _stood, fled_:" and, therefore, he proposes an alteration, which he
might have spared, if he had consulted a dictionary, and found that
nothing more was affirmed than, that those _fled_ who did not _fall_.

In explaining such meanings as seem accidental and adventitious, I shall
endeavour to give an account of the means by which they were introduced.
Thus, to _eke out_ any thing, signifies to lengthen it beyond its just
dimensions, by some low artifice; because the word _eke_ was the usual
refuge of our old writers, when they wanted a syllable. And _buxom_,
which means only _obedient_, is now made, in familiar phrases, to stand
for _wanton_; because in an ancient form of marriage, before the
Reformation, the bride promised complaisance and obedience, in these
terms