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bountiful and beneficent, either in giving money, or in assisting with our professional skill those that want it'.

'Solomon is the work to which he entrusted the protection of his name '. An excess of verbs and verbal nouns. 'Through his Solomon he hoped to become celebrated'.

'His praise endures for ever', 'They praise him for ever'. 'Britannia needs (no) 'not' bulwarks

(No) Nor' towers along the steep,

(Her march is) 'She marches' o'er the mountain waves, (Her home is on) 'She dwells upon' the deep'.

The foregoing alterations are not given as, in every respect, improving the passages quoted; they are intended to point out how far we can go in restoring the simple construction by the finite verb, in room of the abstract nouns; while in many instances, the gain in simplicity is compatible with all other good qualities.

Adjectives as Verbs.

Instead of a verb, transitive or intransitive, we have frequently an adjective, united with the verb 'be'. This is a perfectly regular process of the language, in the two following constructions:

First, in the compound terses of the verb, which are made up of auxiliaries and participles; I am coming', 'he

is moved'.

Second, in predicating facts or attributes expressed by adjectives: the wine is good', 'the stars are distant’.

The ordinary or typical adjective may be qualified by an adverb (chiefly of degree)—' very good', 'extremely remote'; or even by a phrase-' good to a slight extent', 'remote in a very great degree'. But in such expressions, we feel that the adjective is trenching closely upon the verb. As regards 'good', the most typical of adjectives, the phrase adjunct is perceptibly inelegant and awkward; while ' remote' scarcely differs from 'removed', the participle of a verb.

Adjectives of comparison are incomplete without an

adjunct to express what the comparison is; superior', 'inferior', 'equal', are followed by 'to' and the thing compared. The comparative and superlative degrees of all adjectives need to be similarly completed; 'sweeter than honey', 'best of beings'.

Fitness and unfitness likewise need a completing phrase, whether expressed by a verb, by an adjective, or by a noun. The verb form gives the cue, which is followed out in the other transformations. They are qualified for the work', 'they are fit for', 'they possess fitness for'. So with Proportion: 'proportioned to ', ' in proportion to', 'bearing no proportion to".

'Are you guilty of the crime charged?' Here 'guilty' is by accident an adjective, but in its nature it is a verb, and is completed by an adverbial adjunct. 'Do you admit the charge'? shows the typical verb form, which might have been taken as the model in the other expression.

The instances where the verb appears as an adjective without special justification are such as these: 'He is dependent', for he depends'; 'a circumstance suggestive of', for suggesting' or 'that suggests'. Such adjectives are followed by the same phrases as the verbs. 'I am not sure which', is for 'I do not know which'.

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The sentence, 'Be kindly affectioned one to another', is curiously transformed. The noun affection' is made a participle of a verb; the adjective 'kind' being turned into an adverb to qualify the compound tense.

THE ADVERB.

To discover the true nature of the Adverb, we must look at the Verb in its prevailing and typical character as indicating some kind of activity. Although action does not exhaust the predicating power of the verb, it is the thing that we must always start from. It belongs to the great mass of predications openly and avowedly; it is found in

many

others by implication; and even where it is wanting, the grammatical usage of the adverb is not essentially changed.

When an action is stated, mention has usually to be made of the circumstances of the action, such as the time and manner of it. So generally is the time demanded, that the verb itself incorporates the leading distinctions of time, as present, past, future. The Germans call the verb Time-word (Zeitwort).

Nevertheless, for a very large class of verbs, there is a circumstance more urgent even than time. Action implies movement or change: a transitive verb expresses a certain action taking place upon a certain object-'I draw water', 'bring the man'; and, to be complete, we must often assign some Direction of the action or movement-I draw water from somewhere, bring the man to somewhere. These words of direction are among the first necessities of language; they are the most essential accompaniments of the verb. They are, in fact, the Prepositions. But a preposition by itself is seldom definite enough; it gives a direction vaguely, but does not indicate the terminus. To supply this, we need a noun as the name of some object or landmark: 'I draw water from the well', 'bring the man to me'. Such is the adverbial phrase of direction, by far the most usual mode of informing us of the whence or the whither of any movement, activity, or change. Indeed, for qualifying verbs, in all ways, the phrase is much oftener used than the simple adverb. Examine a paragraph taken at random; and if you except the recurring words-not, only, there-for one adverb in a single word, you will find at least ten adverbial phrases.

The phrases made up of preposition and noun are thus the means of expressing Direction. But they do much more. This circumstance of direction, which is the meaning of the simple prepositions, is metaphorically employed for many other meanings. For example, Agency has very frequently to be stated along with an action: raised by him'. Now, to express the agent, we use the prepositions of close proximity, asby', 'with', 'through'; in naming what

stood by when the action took place, we suggest who did it. Again, the primary circumstance of Time, is expressed, in its more minute indications, by prepositional phrases: 'in the night', at one o'clock'; the prepositions, from signifying position in space, being transferred to position in time.

Another circumstance of actions is Degree. Movements, changes, effects, have all varieties of energy or intensity, and when this is expressed, it constitutes an adverbial adjunct. As we have Adjectives of degree, so we have Adverbs; indeed there are a few words, such as 'much', 'little', 'first', that serve both as adjectives and as adverbs. But, as with all the other adverbial circumstances, the phrases far outnumber the words.

Connected with Degree is Excellence or its opposite. We have frequent occasion to signify approbation or disapprobation of actions, and we have a class of words for the purpose-well, ill, badly, wretchedly; together with innumerable phrases.

The wide variety of circumstances included under Manner or Quality, and comprising the great body of adverbial adjuncts, find expression by very promiscuous means. It is well known that most Adjectives can be turned into adverbs, and that we thus obtain a very large number of our singleword adverbs. To understand fully the reason of this transmutation, we must begin a stage earlier, with the verb itself. Many of the adjectives that give birth to adverbs, are formed from verbs, and the force of the verb is passed over to the adverb. Take a few examples :-'they ran distractedly ' ; 'he was promoted deservedly'; we were delightfully surprised'; 'that was inadvertently done'; 'such things are laboriously executed'; 'walk circumspectly'; 'this has been ridiculously ascribed'. Obviously, all these adverbs could be given as a second clause; 'they ran, and were distracted'; he was promoted, and deserved it'; we were surprised and delighted'; 'that was done, and was not adverted to'; ' people labour when they execute such things'; 'walk and look well around you';' this has been ascribed, and we ridicule it'.

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Such is one of the ways of compressing sentences into single words, and of shortening speech, while at the same time making it less simple and easy to follow. As in the case of verbs turned into nouns, the change may be made recklessly as well as usefully, and so, now and then, we may, with profit, restore the original clause.

Hence when participial adjectives are converted into Adverbs, we might go at once to the fountain-head, and call it the conversion of verbs into adverbs. Of adjectives not in the participial form, there are yet a great many that come from verbs; such are the verbals in 'ble', and some in 'al', as 'continual', 'actual'; and we may say of these also, that they take over the action of one verb to qualify another verb; putting, as it were, two actions into one: he was unaccountably absent', 'he was absent and we could not account for it'.

Most probably all our adjectives began as verbs; they certainly began as words for active agency, just as their meaning still involves some power or efficacy to do something or another. 'Warm' means the power of imparting heat; 'good', 'bad', 'worse', when going with a noun, add a new power to the thing expressed by the noun, and the meaning might be given by a predicate verb. But, in order to explain the sources of the adverb, we need not go so far back as this. We may regard these typical adjectives as expressing their meaning by intrinsic right as adjectives, and not as masked or concealed verbs. Now we know that all adjectives may constitute predicates, by the help of copula verbs; John is wise', 'the men were brave'. Well, suppose John to be a judge, and to decide a difficult case with approbation here are two facts to be expressed, and we may give a clause to each, 'John judged a case', and 'John is wise'. If, however, we can stick the word 'wise' into the first clause, we may show our meaning in a single statement: John judged a case wisely'. The incorporating of the two facts has not merely the advantage of brevity, it has the farther advantage of connecting 'wise' with the act of judging. So the men fought', and 'the men were

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