ys, "_A_ is also an abbreviation of the Saxon _an_
or _ane, one_, used before words beginning with an articulation; as, _a_
table, _instead_ of _an_ table, or one table. _This is a modern change_;
for, in Saxon, _an_ was used before articulations as well as vowels; as,
_an tid, a_ time, _an gear_, a year."--_Webster's Octavo Dict., w. A_. A
modern change, indeed! By his own showing in other works, it was made long
before the English language existed! He says, "_An_, therefore, is the
original English adjective or ordinal number _one_; and was never written
_a_ until after the Conquest."--_Webster's Philos. Gram._, p. 20; _Improved
Gram._, 14. "_The Conquest_," means the Norman Conquest, in 1066; but
English was not written till the thirteenth century. This author has long
been idly contending, that _an_ or _a_ is not an _article_, but an
_adjective_; and that it is not properly distinguished by the term
"_indefinite_." Murray has answered him well enough, but he will not be
convinced.[136] See _Murray's Gram._, pp. 34 and 35. If _a_ and _one_ were
equal, we could not say, "_Such a one_,"--"_What a one_,"--"_Many a
one_,"--"_This one thing_;" and surely these are all good English, though
_a_ and _one_ here admit no interchange. Nay, _a_ is sometimes found before
_one_ when the latter is used adjectively; as, "There is no record in Holy
Writ of the institution of _a one_ all-controlling monarchy."--_Supremacy
of the Pope Disproved_, p. 9. "If not to _a one_ Sole Arbiter."--_Ib._, p.
19.

OBS. 19.--_An_ is sometimes a _conjunction_, signifying _if_; as, "Nay,
_an_ thou'lt mouthe, I'll rant as well as thou."--_Shak._ "_An_ I have not
ballads made on you all, and sung to fifty tunes, may a cup of sack be my
poison."--_Id., Falstaff_. "But, _an_ it were to do again, I should write
again."--_Lord Byron's Letters_. "But _an_ it be a long part, I can't
remember it."--SHAKSPEARE: _Burgh's Speaker_, p. 136.

OBS. 20.--In the New Testament, we meet with several such expressions as
the following: "And his disciples were _an hungred_."--SCOTT'S BIBLE:
_Matt_, xii, 1. "When he was _an hungred._"--_Ib._ xii, 3. "When he had
need and was _an hungered._"--_Ib. Mark_, ii, 25. Alger, the improver of
Murray's Grammar, and editor of the Pronouncing Bible, taking this _an_ to
be the indefinite article, and perceiving that the _h_ is sounded in
_hungered_, changed the particle to _a_ in all these passages; as, "And his
disciples were _a hunger