d
distresses it; things may be not only too little, but too much known, to
be happily illustrated. To explain, requires the use of terms less
abstruse than that which is to be explained, and such terms cannot
always be found; for as nothing can be proved but by supposing something
intuitively known, and evident without proof, so nothing can be defined
but by the use of words too plain to admit a definition.

Other words there are, of which the sense is too subtile and evanescent
to be fixed in a paraphrase; such are all those which are by the
grammarians termed expletives, and, in dead languages, are suffered to
pass for empty sounds, of no other use than to fill a verse, or to
modulate a period, but which are easily perceived in living tongues to
have power and emphasis, though it be sometimes such as no other form of
expression can convey.

My labour has likewise been much increased by a class of verbs too
frequent in the English language, of which the signification is so loose
and general, the use so vague and indeterminate, and the senses detorted
so widely from the first idea, that it is hard to trace them through the
maze of variation, to catch them on the brink of utter inanity, to
circumscribe them by any limitations, or interpret them by any words of
distinct and settled meaning; such are _bear, break, come, cast, fall,
get, give, do, put, set, go, run, make, take, turn, throw_. If of these
the whole power is not accurately delivered, it must be remembered, that
while our language is yet living, and variable by the caprice of every
one that speaks it, these words are hourly shifting their relations, and
can no more be ascertained in a dictionary, than a grove, in the
agitation of a storm, can be accurately delineated from its picture in
the water. The particles are among all nations applied with so great
latitude, that they are not easily reducible under any regular scheme of
explication: this difficulty is not less, nor, perhaps, greater, in
English, than in other languages. I have laboured them with diligence, I
hope with success; such at least as can be expected in a task, which no
man, however learned or sagacious, has yet been able to perform.

Some words there are which I cannot explain, because I do not understand
them; these might have been omitted very often with little
inconvenience, but I would not so far indulge my vanity, as to decline
this confession; for when Tully owns himself ignorant whether