has all the authority which a mode originally
erroneous can derive from custom_."--_Quarto Dict._ With no great fairness,
Churchill quotes this passage as far as the semicolon, and there stops. The
position thus taken, he further endeavours to strengthen, by saying,
"_Worser_, though _not more barbarous_, offends the ear in a much greater
degree, because it has not been so frequently used."--_New Gram._, p. 232.
Example: "And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day,
and the _lesser_ light to rule the night."--_Gen._, i, 16. Kirkham, after
making an _imitation_ of this passage, remarks upon it: "_Lesser_ is _as
incorrect_ as _badder, gooder, worser_."--_Gram._, p. 77. The judgement of
any critic who is ignorant enough to say this, is worthy only of contempt.
_Lesser_ is still frequently used by the most tasteful authors, both in
verse and prose: as, "It is the glowing style of a man who is negligent of
_lesser_ graces."--_Blair's Rhet._, p. 189.

"Athos, Olympus, AEtna, Atlas, made
These hills seem things of _lesser_ dignity."--_Byron_.

OBS. 6.--The adjective _little_ is used in different senses; for it
contrasts sometimes with _great_, and sometimes with _much_. _Lesser_
appears to refer only to size. Hence _less_ and _lesser_ are not always
equivalent terms. _Lesser_ means _smaller_, and contrasts only with
_greater_. _Less_ contrasts sometimes with _greater_, but oftener with
_more_, the comparative of _much_; for, though it may mean _not so large_,
its most common meaning is _not so much_. It ought to be observed,
likewise, that _less_ is not an adjective of _number_,[182] though not
unfrequently used as such. It does not mean _fewer_, and is therefore not
properly employed in sentences like the following: "In all verbs, there are
no _less_ than three things implied at once."--_Blair's Rhet._, p. 81.
"_Smaller_ things than three," is nonsense; and so, in reality, is what the
Doctor here says. _Less_ is not the proper opposite to _more_, when _more_
is the comparative of _many: few, fewer, fewest_, are the only words which
contrast regularly with _many, more, most_. In the following text, these
comparatives are rightly employed: "And to the _more_ ye shall give the
_more_ inheritance, and to the _fewer_ ye shall give the _less_
inheritance."--_Numbers_, xxxiii, 54. But if writers will continue to use
_less_ for _fewer_, so that "_less cattle_," for instance, may mean "_fewer
cattle_;" we s