to their own inventions and difcoveries. When foreign inventions and discoveries are imported into this island, it is both natural and reasonable that the name fhould accompany the thing. Nay, in regard even to evils of foreign growth, I should not object to the obfervance of the fame rule. Were any one to infift, that we have not in our language words precifely correfponding to the French galimatias, phebus, verbiage, I fhould not contend with him about it; nor fhould I perhaps diflike, that the very name served to fhow, that these plants are the natives of a ranker foil, and did not originally belong to us. But if the introduction of exotic words were never admitted, except in fuch cafes, or in order to fupply an evident want amongst ourselves, we should not at present have one fuch term where we have fifty. The advice of the poet with regard to both the beforementioned forts of barbarifin, is extremely good. In words, as fashions, the fame rule will hold ; Be not the first by whom the new are try'd, Nor yet the laft to lay the old afide ". • Pope's Effay on Criticism. PART PART III. By the use of good words new-modelled. THE third fpecies of barbarifm, is that produced by new formations and compofitions, from primitives in present ufe. I acknowledge, that when the English analogy is obferved in the derivation or compofition, and when the newcoined word is wanted in the language, greater liberty ought to be given on this article than on the former. The reafon of the difference will appear from what hath been faid already. But fill this is a liberty which needs an excufe from neceffity, and is in no cafe pardonable, unless the words be at least not disagreeable to the ear, and be fo analogically formed, that a reader, without the help of the context, may eafily difcover the meaning. Now, if the plea of neceffity be requifite, what quarter is due to fuch frivolous innovations as thefe, incumberment *, portie *, martyrifed *, eucharifty, analyfe, connexity, Stoician", platonician, peripatetician, pythagorician*, fictious, majeftatic ‡, acception §, which were intended folely to express what had always been at Bolingbroke. + Prior. E e 2 leaft leaft as well expreffed by encumbrance, portico, martyr'd, eucharift, analyfis, connexion, Stoic, platonist, peripatetic, pythagorean, fictitious, majestic, acceptation. And if any regard is due to the ear, what shall we fay ofI cannot call it the compofition, but the collifion of words which are naturally the moft unfit for coalefcing, like faintauthors, faint protectrices, architectcapacity, commentatorcapacity, authorcharacter, and many others forged in the fame taste, to be found in the pages of a late right honourable author? And laftly, if the analogy of the language must be preferved in compofition, to what kind of reception are the following entitled, which have iffued from the fame fource, felfend, felfpaffion, felfaffections, felfpractice, homedialect, bellysense, and mirrcurwriting? New Ir may, indeed, be urged, that the pronoun felf is ufed in compofition with fuch latitude, that one can fcarcely err in forming new words with its affiftance. But this is a mistake. words may be formed by it; but they must be formed analogically. And the analogy of these formations may be understood from obferving, that when analyfed thus, they ought regularly to exhibit the fame meaning. Make one's felf, kimfelf, herself, itfelf, or themselves, as the fenfe requires, follow the laft word in the compound, with the prepofition intervening, with which the word, whether noun or participle, is usually conftrued. If the word be a fubftantive, the prepofition is commonly of, if the paffive participle, by, and if the active participle, no prepofition is requifite. Thus felflove is the love of one's felf. In the fame way are refolved, felfhate, felfmurder, felfprefervation. When we fay of a man that he is felfcondemned, we mean, that he is condemned by himself. A felfconfuming fire, is a fire confuming itself. Now to apply this obfervation, what is the meaning of the end of one's felf, the paffion of one's felf, the affections of one's felf, and the practice of one's felf? And if fome meaning may be affixed to any of thefe expreffions, it is eafy to perceive, that it is not the meaning of the author. Yet I can remember but two compounds that have obtained in English, which are not formed accord ing to the analogy above explained. One is felfwilled, fignifying perverfe, and now little used; the other is felfexistence, a favourite word of fome metaphyficians, which, if it fignify any thing Ee 3 more more than what is properly and clearly expreffed by independency and eternity, fignifies I know not what. In new formations, however, the rule ought to be followed, and not the exceptions. But what shall be faid of fuch monsters, as felfpractice, bellyfenfe, and mirrourwriting? Thefe, indeed, might have been regarded as flowers of rhetoric in the days of Cromwell, when a jargon of this fort was much in vogue, but are extremely unfuitable to the chafter language of the prefent age.. AGAIN, under this clafs may be ranked another modern refinement, I mean the alterations that have been made by fome late writers on proper names and fome other words of foreign extraction, and on their derivations, on pretence of bringing them nearer, both in pronunciation and in fpelling, to the original names, as they appear in the language from which thofe words were taken. In order to answer this important purpose, several terms which have maintained their place in our tongue for many centuries, and which are known to every body, must be expelled, that room may be made for a fet of uncouth and barbarous founds, with which our ears are unacquainted, and to fome of which it is impoffible for |