RESOLUTION.

Thieves may cut men's throats, (for) THAT (purpose) they rife by night.

After the fame manner, I imagine, may all sentences be refolved (in all languages) where the Conjunction THAT (or its equivalent) is employed: and by fuch refolution it will always be discovered to have merely the fame force and fignification, and to be in fact nothing else but the very fame word which in other places is called an Article or a Pronoun.

B.

For any thing that immediately occurs to me, this may perhaps be the case in English, where THAT is the only Conjunction of the fame fignification which we employ in this manner. But your last example makes me believe that this method of refolution will not take place in those languages which have different Conjunctions for this fame purpose. And if fo, I fufpect that your whole reasoning on this fubject may be without foundation. For how can you refolve the original of your last example; where (unfortunately for your notion) UT is employed, and not the neuter Article QUOD ?

"Ut jugulent homines furgunt de nocte latrones."

I fuppofe you will not fay that UT is the Latin neuter Article. For even Sanctius, who struggled so hard to withdraw QUOD from amongst the Conjunctions, yet ftill left UT amongst them without molestation

*

H. You

It is not at all extraordinary that UT and QUOD should be indifferently ufed for the fame conjunctive purpose: for as UT (originally written UTI) is nothing but : So is QUOD (anciently written QUODDE) merely Kaι óflı. "Quodde tuas laudes culpas, nil proficis hilum."

LUCILIUS.

(See Note in Havercamp's and Creech's Lucretius; where QUODDE is miftakenly derived from dride.) qu, in Latin, being founded (not as the English but as the French pronounce qu, that is) as the Greek K; Ka (by a change of the character, not of the found) became the Latin Que, (ufed only enclitically indeed in modern Latin). Hence Kaι it became in Latin Qu' otti-Quoddi-Quodde-Quod. Of which if Sanctius had been aware, he would not have attempted a distinction between UT and QUOD: fince the two words, though differently corrupted, are in fubftance and origin the fame.

The perpetual change of T into D, and vice verfa, is fo very familiar to all who have ever paid the fmalleft attention to Language, that I should not think it worth while to notice it in the prefent inftance; if all the etymological canonifts, whom I have feen, had not been remarkably inattentive to the organical caufes of thofe literal changes of which they treat.

Skinner (who was a Physician) in his Prolegomena Etymologica, speaking of the frequent tranfmutation of s into z, fays very truly" Sunt "fanè literæ fono ferè eædem."

But

H.

93

You are not to expect from me that I fhould, in this place, account etymologically for the different words which fome

But in what does that ferè confift? For s is not nearer in found to z, than P is to B, or than T is to D, or than F is to v, or than K is to G, or than TH () in Thing, is to TH (D) in That, or than SH is to the French J.

(N. B. TH and SH are fimple confonants, and fhould be marked by fingle letters. J, as the English pronounce it, is a double confonant; and should have two characters.)

For these seven couple of fimple confonants, viz.

differ each from its partner, by no variation whatever of articulation; but fingly by a certain unnoticed and almost imperceptible motion or compreffion of or near the Larynx; which caufes what Wilkins calls "fome kind " of murmure." This compreffion the Welch never ufe. So that when a Welchman, instead of

"I vow, by God, Dat Jenkin iz a Wizzard,”

pronounces it thus,

"I fow, py Cot, at Shenkin ifs a Wiffart ;"

He

fome languages (for there are others befide the Latin) may fometimes borrow and employ in this manner instead of their own common Article. But if you should hereafter exact it, I fhall not refuse the undertaking: although it is not the easiest part of Etymology: for Abbreviation and Corruption are always bufieft with the words which are most frequently in ufe. Letters, like foldiers, being very apt to defert and drop off in a long march, and especially if their paffage happens to lie near the confines of an enemy's country *. Yet I doubt not that, with this clue,

he articulates in every other respect exactly as we do; but omits the compreffion nine times in this fentence. And for failing in this one point only, changes feven of our confonants: for we owe feven additional letters, (i. e. feven additional founds in our language) folely to the addition of this one compreffion to feven different articulations.

"Nous avons deja dit, que l'alteration du derivé augmentoit à mesure que le temps l'eloignoit du primitif; & nous avons ajouté-toutes chofes "d'ailleurs egales,-parceque la quantité de cette alteration depend auffi "du cours que ce mot a dans le public. Il s'use, pour ainfi dire, en paffant dans un plus grand nombre de bouches, fur tout dans la bouche "du peuple: & la rapidité de cette circulation equivaut à une plus longue "durée. Les noms des Saints & les noms de baptême les plus communs, "en font un exemple. Les mots qui reviennent le plus fouvent dans les

langues, tels que les verbes Etre, faire, vouloir, aller, & tous ceux qui "fervent à lier les autres mots dans le difcours, font fujets à de plus grandes "alterations. Ce font ceux qui ont le plus besoin d'etre fixes par la langue

"ecrite."

Encyclopedie (Etymologie) par M. DE BROSSES.

you

you will yourself be able, upon inquiry, to account as eafily (and in the fame manner) for the use of all the others, as I know you can for UT; which is merely the Greek neuter Article or *, adopted for this conjunctive purpose by the Latins, and by them originally written UTI: the o being changed into u, from that propenfity which both the ancient Romans had †, and the modern Italians ftill havet, upon many occafions, to pronounce even their

*« Uri eft mutata ori."

J. C. SCALIGER, de C. L. L, Cap. 173.

So in the antient form of self-devotion.

VTEL. EGO. AXIM. PRAI. ME. FORMIDINEM. METOM. QUE. OMNIOM. "DIRAS. SIC. VTEI. VERBEIS. NONCOPASO. ITA. PRO. REPOPLICA. POPOLI

ROMANI. QUIRITIOM. VITAM. SALUTEM. QUE. MEAM. LECIONES. AUXSILIA. QUE. HOSTIOM. MEOM. DIVEIS. MANEBOUS. TELLOURI. QUE. DE"YOYEO,"

So in the laws of Numa, and in the twelve tables, and in all antient in-. fcriptions, O is perpetually found where the modern Latin ufes U. And it is but reasonable to fuppofe, that the pronunciation preceded the change of the orthography.

"Quant à la voyelle u pour ce qu'ils (les Italiens) l'aiment fort, ainfi que nous cognoiffons par ces mots Ufficio, ubrigato, &c. je penfe bien qu'ils la refpectent plus que les autres."

HENRI ESTIENE, de la precell. de la L. F.

own