respect, from the Greek and Latin. In the French and Italian, from whatever cause it has happened, so it is, that the neuter gender is wholly unknown, and that all their names of inanimate objects are put upon the same footing with living creatures; and distributed, without exception, into masculine and feminine. The French have two articles, the masculine le, and the feminine la; and one or other of these is prefixed to all substantive nouns in the language, to denote their gender. The Italians make the same universal use of their articles il and lo, for the masculine; and la for the feminine.

In the English language, it is remarkable that there obtains a peculiarity quite opposite. In the French and Italian there is no neuter gender. In the English, when we use common discourse, all substantive nouns, that are not names of living creatures, are neuter without exception. He, she, and it, are the marks of the three genders; and we always use it, in speaking of any object where there is no sex, or where the sex is not known. The English is, perhaps, the only language in the known world (except the Chinese, which is said to agree with it in this particular) where the distinction of gender is properly and philosophically applied in the use of words, and confined as it ought to be, to mark the real distinctions of male and female.

Hence arises a very great and signal advantage of the English tongue, which it is of consequence to remark.* Though in common discourse, as I have already observed, we employ only the proper and literal distinction of sexes; yet the genius of the language permits us, whenever it will add beauty to our discourse, to make the names of inanimate objects masculine or feminine in a metaphorical sense; and when we do so, we are understood to quit the literal style, and to use one of the figures of discourse.

For instance; if I am speaking of virtue, in the course of ordinary conversation, or of strict reasoning, I refer the word to no sex or gender; I say, "virtue is its own reward;" or, "it is the law of "our nature." But if I choose to rise into a higher tone; if I seek to embellish and animate my discourse, I give a sex to virtue; I say, "she descends from heaven;" "she alone confers true honour "upon man ;" "her gifts are the only durable rewards." By this means we have it in our power to vary our style at pleasure. By making a very slight alteration, we can personify any object that we choose to introduce with dignity; and by this change of manner, we give warning that we are passing from the strict and logical, to the ornamented and rhetorical style.

This is an advantage which not only every poet, but every good writer and speaker in prose, is, on many occasions, glad to lay hold of, and improve; and it is an advantage peculiar to our tongue; no other language possesses it. For, in other languages, every word has one fixed gender, masculine, feminine, or neuter, which can,

* The following observations on the metaphorical use of genders, in the English language, are taken from Mr. Harris's Hermes.

upon no occasion, be changed; ager, for instance, in Greek, virtus in Latin, and la vertu in French, are uniformly feminine, She, must always be the pronoun answering to the word, whether you be writing in poetry or in prose, whether you be using the style of reasoning, or that of declamation: whereas, in English, we can either express ourselves with the philosophical accuracy of giving no gender to things inanimate; or by giving them gender, and transforming them into persons, we adapt them to the style of poetry, and, when it is proper, we enliven prose.

It deserves to be farther remarked on this subject, that, when we employ that liberty which our language allows, of ascribing sex to any inanimate object, we have not, however, the liberty of making it of what gender we please, masculine or feminine; but are, in general, subjected to some rule of gender which the currency of language has fixed to that object. The foundation of that rule is imagined, by Mr. Harris, in his " Philosophical Inquiry into the Principles of Grammar," to be laid in a certain distant resemblance, or analogy, to the natural distinction of the two sexes.

Thus, according to him, we commonly give the masculine gender to those substantive nouns used figuratively, which are conspicuous for the attributes of imparting, or communicating; which are by nature strong and efficacious, either to good or evil; or which have a claim to some eminence, whether laudable or not. Those again, he imagines, to be generally made feminine, which are conspicuous for the attributes of containing, and of bringing forth; which have more of the passive in their nature, than of the active; which are peculiarly beautiful, or amiable; or which have respect to such excesses as are rather feminine than masculine. Upon these principles he takes notice, that the sun is always put in the masculine gender with us, the moon in the feminine, as being the receptacle of the sun's light. The earth is, universally, feminine. A ship, a country, a city, are likewise made feminine, as receivers, or containers. God, in all languages, is masculine. Time, we make masculine, on account of its mighty efficacy; virtue, feminine, from its beauty and its being the object of love. Fortune is always feminine. Mr. Harris imagines, that the reasons which determine the gender of such capital words as these, hold in most other languages, as well as the English. This, however, appears doubtful. A variety of circumstances, which seem casual to us, because we cannot reduce them to principles, must, unquestionably, have influenced the original formation of languages: and in no article whatever does language appear to have been more capricious, and to have proceeded less according to fixed rule, than in the imposition of gender upon things inanimate; especially among such nations as have applied the distinction of masculine and feminine to all substantive nouns.

Having discussed gender, I proceed, next, to another remarkable peculiarity of substantive nouns, which, in the style of grammar, is called their declension by cases. Let us, first, consider what cases signify. In order to understand this, it is necessary to observe, that, after men had given names to external objects, had particularized

them by means of the article, and distinguished them by number and gender, still their language remained extremely imperfect, till they had devised some method of expressing the relations which those objects bore, one towards another. They would find it of little use to have a name for man, lion, tree, river, without being able, at the same time, to signify how these stood with respect to each other; whether, as approaching to, receding from, joined with, and the like. Indeed, the relations which objects bear to one another, are immensely numerous; and therefore, to devise names for them all, must have been among the last and most difficult refinements of language. But, in its most early periods, it was absolutely necessary to express, in some way or other, such relations as were most important, and as occurred most frequently in common speech. Hence the genitive, dative, and ablative cases of nouns, which express the noun itself, together with those relations of, to, from, with, and by; the relations which we have the most frequent occasion to mention. The proper idea then of cases in declension, is no other than an expression of the state, or relation which one object bears to another, denoted by some variation made upon the name of that object; most commonly in the final letters, and by some languages, in the initial.

All languages, however, do not agree in this mode of expression. The Greek, Latin, and several other languages, use declension. The English, French, and Italian, do not; or, at most, use it very imperfectly. In place of the variations of cases, the modern tongues express the relations of objects, by means of the words called prepositions, which denote those relations, prefixed to the name of the object. English nouns have no case whatever, except a sort of genitive, commonly formed by the addition of the letters to the noun; as when we say "Dryden's Poems," meaning the Poems of Dryden. Our personal pronouns have also a case, which answers to the accusative of the Latin, I, me; he, him; who, whom. There is nothing, then, or at least very little, in the grammar of our language, which corresponds to declension in the ancient languages.

Two questions, respecting this subject, may be put. First, Which of these methods of expressing relations, whether that by declension, or that by prepositions, was the most ancient usage in language? And next, Which of them has the best effect? Both methods, it is plain, are the same as to the sense, and differ only in form. For the significancy of the Roman language would not have been altered, though the nouns, like ours, had been without cases, provided they had employed prepositions: and though, to express a disciple of Plato, they had said, "Discipulus de Plato," like the modern Italians, in place of "Discipulus Platonis."

Now with respect to the antiquity of cases, although they may, on first view, seem to constitute a more artificial method than the other, of denoting relations, yet there are strong reasons for thinking that this was the earliest method practised by men. We find, in fact, that declensions and cases are used in most of what are called the mother tongues, or original languages, as well as in the Greek

N

and Latin. And a very natural and satisfying account can be given why this usage should have early obtained. Relations are the most abstract and metaphysical ideas of any which men have occasion to form, when they are considered by themselves, and separated from the related object. It would puzzle any man, as has been well observed by an author on this subject, to give a distinct account of what is meant by such a word as of or from, when it stands by itself, and to explain all that may be included under it. The first rude inventers of language, therefore, would not for a long while arrive at such general terms. In place of considering any relation in the abstract, and devising a name for it, they would much more easily conceive it in conjunction with a particular object; and they would express their conceptions of it, by varying the name of that object through all the different cases; hominis, of a man; homini,to a man; homine, with a man, &c.

But though this method of declension was, probably, the only method which men employed, at first, for denoting relations, yet, in progress of time, many other relations being observed, besides those which are signified by the cases of nouns, and men also becoming more capable of general and metaphysical ideas, separate names were gradually invented for all the relations which occurred, forming that part of speech which we now call prepositions. Prepositions, being once introduced, they were found to be capable of supplying the place of cases, by being prefixed to the nominative of the noun. Hence, it came to pass, that as nations were intermixed by migrations and conquests, and were obliged to learn and adopt the languages of one another, prepositions supplanted the use of cases and declensions. When the Italian tongue, for instance, sprung out of the Roman, it was found more easy and simple by the Gothic nations, to accommodate a few prepositions to the nominative of every noun, and to say, di Roma, al Roma di Carthago, al Carthago, than to remember all the variety of terminations, Romæ, Romam, Carthaginis, Carthaginem, which the use of declensions required in the ancient nouns. By this progress we can give a natural account how nouns, in our modern tongues, come to be so void of declension: a progress which is fully illustrated in Dr. Adam Smith's ingenious Dissertation on the Formation of Languages.

With regard to the other question on this subject, Which of these two methods is of the greatest utility and beauty? we shall find advantages and disadvantages to be balanced on both sides. There is no doubt that, by abolishing cases, we have rendered the structure of modern languages more simple. We have disembarrassed it of all the intricacy which arose from the different forms of declension, of which the Romans had no fewer than five; and from all the irregularities in these several declensions. We have thereby rendered our languages more easy to be acquired, and less subject to the perplexity of rules. But, though the simplicity and ease of language be great and estimable advantages, yet there are also such disadvantages attending the modern method, as leave the balance, on the whole, doubtful, or rather incline it to the side of antiquity.

For, in the first place, by our constant use of prepositions for expressing the relations of things, we have filled language with a multitude of those little words, which are eternally occurring in eve ry sentence, and may be thought thereby to have encumbered speech, by an addition of terms; and by rendering it more prolix, to have enervated its force. In the second place, we have certainly rendered the sound of language less agreeable to the ear, by'depriving it of that variety and sweetness, which arose from the length of words, and the change of terminations occasioned by the cases in the Greek and Latin. But, in the third place, the most material disadvantage is, that, by this abolition of cases, and by a similar alteration, of which I am to speak in the next lecture, in the conjugation of verbs, we have deprived ourselves of that liberty of transposition in the arrangement of words, which the ancient languages enjoyed.

In the ancient tongues, as I formerly observed, the different terminations, produced by declension and conjugation, pointed out the reference of the several words of a sentence to one another, without the aid of juxtaposition; suffered them to be placed, without ambiguity, in whatever order was most suited to give force to the meaning, or harmony to the sound. But now, having none of those marks of relation incorporated with the words themselves, we have no other way left us, of showing what words in a sentence are most closely connected in meaning, than that of placing them close by one another in the period. The meaning of the sentence is brought out in separate members and portions; it is broken down and divided: whereas the structure of the Greek and Roman sentences, by the government of their nouns and verbs, presented the meaning so interwoven and compounded in all its parts, as to make us perceive it in one united view. The closing words of the period ascertained the relation of each member to another; and all that ought to be connected in one idea, appeared connected in the expression. Hence, more brevity, more vivacity, more force. That luggage of particles, (as an ingenious author happily expresses it), which we are obliged always to carry along with us, both clogs style, and enfeebles sentiment.*

"The various terminations of the same word, whether verb or noun, are always conceived to be more intimately connected with the term which they serve to lengthen, than the additional, detached, and in themselves insignificant particles, which we are obliged to employ as connectives to our significant words. Our method gives almost the same exposure to the one as to the other, making the significant parts, and the in significant, equally conspicuous; theirs much oftener sinks, as it were, the former into the latter, at once preserving their use and hiding their weakness. Our modern languages may, in this respect, be compared to the art of the carpenter in its rudest state; when the union of the materials employed by the artisan, could be effected only by the help of those external and coarse implements, pins, nails, and cramps. The ancient languages resemble the same art in its most improved state, after the invention of dovetail joints, grooves, and mortices; when thus all the principal junctions are effected, by forming properly the extremities or terminations of the pieces to be joined. For, by means of these, the union of the parts is rendered closer, while that by which that union is produced, is scarcely perceivable." The Philosophy of Rhetoric, by Dr. Campbell, vol. ii. p. 412.