prehension of the syntax, and not _vice versa_. Thus the
words stand _literatim et punctuatim_: 'They say, miracles are past: and
we have our philosophical persons to make modern and familiar things,
supernatural and causeless.' The comma ought to have been placed after
'familiar,' the sense being this--and we have amongst us sceptical and
irreligious people to represent as trivial and of daily occurrence
things which in reality are supernatural and causeless (that is, not
lying amongst the succession of physical causes and effects, but sent as
miracles by the immediate agency of God). According to the true sense,
_things supernatural and causeless_ must be understood as the subject,
of which _modern and familiar_ is the predicate.

Mr. Grindon fancies that _frog_ is derived from the syllable [Greek:
trach (k)] of [Greek: batrachos]. This will cause some people to smile,
and recall Menage's pleasantry about Alfana, the man of Orlando; It is
true that _frog_ at first sight seems to have no letter in common except
the snarling letter (_litera canina_). But this is not so; the _a_ and
the _o_, the _s_ and the _k_, are perhaps essentially the same. And even
in the case where, positively and literally, not a single letter is
identical, it is odd, but undeniable, that the two words may be nearly
allied as mother and child. One instance is notorious, but it is worth
citing for a purpose of instructive inference. 'Journal,' as a French
word, or, if you please, as an English word--whence came that?
Unquestionably and demonstrably from the Latin word _dies_, in which,
however, visibly there is not one letter the same as any one of the
seven that are in journal. Yet mark the rapidity of the transition.
_Dies_ (a day) has for its derivative adjective _daily_ the word
_diurnus_. Now, the old Roman pronunciation of _diu_ was exactly the
same as _gio_, both being pronounced as our English _jorn_. Here, in a
moment, we see the whole--_giorno_, a day, was not derived directly from
_dies_, but secondarily through _diurnus_. Then followed _giornal_, for
a diary, or register of a day, and from that to French, as also, of
course, the English _journal_. But the _moral_ is, that when to the eye
no letter is the same, may it not be so to the ear? Already the _di_ of
_dies_ anticipates and enfolds the _giorno_.

Mr. Grindon justly remarks upon the tendency, in many instances, of the
German _ss_ to reappear in English forms as _t_. Thus _heiss