ART. V. Latin Synonyms, with their different Significations, and Examples taken from the beft Latin Authors. By M. J. B. Gardin Dumefnil, late Profeffor of Rhetoric in the College of Harcourt, and Principal of the College of Lewis the Great, in the Univerfity of Paris. Tranflated into English, with Additions and Corrections, by the Rev. J. M. Goffet, Teacher of the Latin and French Languages in London. 675 pp. THIS 15s. Payne, &c. 1899. 8vo. HIS is a faithful tranflation of a valuable work on a difficult and important fubject. Whether there be in any language words fo perfectly fynonymous as to denote exactly the fame idea or conception, has long been a ma'ter of controverfy among metaphyficians and the profounder grammarians. Into that controverfy we mean not to enter; because if there be fuch fynonyms, their number must be very small, and they are not the fynonyms on which M. Dumefnil employed his learning and his labour. In all copious and polifhed languages, however, there are various claffes of words, which are commonly called fynonymous, because through cach clafs runs one principal idea or notion, common to the whole, but diversified or modified in each feparate word by a particular combination with one or more acceffary ideas peculiar to that word, and diftinguishing it from the other words of the clafs. To apprehend with accuracy, and ftate with clearness, the nice fhades of meaning which conflitute these diftinctions among the fynonyms, even of our mother tongue, is often a difficult tafk; but in a dead language it muft be much more difficult, and in fome cafes, we fufpect,. impoffible. In the Latin language there is indeed much valuable affiftance to be found by the claffical scholar who labours to ascertain the precife import of terms. Cicero himself has left a variety of useful obfervations on this fubject; many valuable hints are likewife thrown out on it by Varro, Quintilian, and Seneca; and much useful information may be gleaned from Afconius Pedianus, Nonius Marcellus, Feftus, Donatus, and Servius. Among more modern writers, Scioppius, Vavaffeur, Scaliger, Henry Stephens, and Gefner, have diftinguifhed themfelves in this department of literature; and even in the edition of Sanctius's Minerva, by Perizonius, the reader will find several obfervations tending to ascertain the diftinction between words, commonly faid to be fynonymous. Availing himfelf of thefe aids, and of the admirable model placed before him, in the Synonymes François, of the Abbe Gi rard, rard, M. Dumefnil undertook, about forty years ago, to explain the Latin fynonyms, for the benefit of the ftudents in the Univerfity of Paris; and in the year 1804, Dr. Hill, of Edinburgh, performed a fimilar tafk, for the inftruction of the British youth. Of Dr. Hill's work, which feems to have been begun and finished without the author's knowledge that fuch a work as that of which the tranflation is before us, had ever existed, we have given a fufficient account elsewhere*; and we are now called on to bring our readers acquainted with M. Dumefnil's explanation of Latin Synonyms, which Mr. Goffet, on the other hand, has made an English book,without feeming to have availed himself of the aid which he might have occafionally derived from the Scotch profeffor, to improve the work of the ingenious Frenchman. That he is no ftranger to Dr. Hill's Synonymes, is apparent from his fhort preface, in which he informs us, that "He had proceeded fome length in his tranflation, when, upon obferving an advertisement of Dr. Hill's Latin Synonymous Words, he thought he had no longer need to perfevere. But the opinion of several competent judges, well acquainted with the nature of Dr. Hill's work, juftified his own, that the neceffity of continuing his undertaking was by no means fuperfeded by the above publication." In this opinion we heartily concur with Mr. Goffet and his friends. Compared with the work before us, Dr. Hill's quarto volume is very defective; whilft the plan on which it is conftructed is perhaps lefs proper in itself, and certainly lefs adapted to the wants and capacities of youth. Our translator affures us, that the prefent volume contains the explanation of near 7000 words, while the number of words explained by Dr. Hill certainly exceeds not 1000. In eftablifhing the correctness of his explanations, M. Dumefnil feldom does more than give examples, from the best Roman authors, of the words being ufed in the fenfe in which he understands them; while Dr. Hill too often affigns to the words which he explains, a meaning deduced from fome metaphy. fical theory of his own; and then produces extracts or fentences from the Latin Claffics, in which the words feem to be used in the fenfe which that theory requires. That there is danger in this laft mode of proceeding were metaphyfical theories applicable to the explanation of fingle terms-is obvious to every man who has obferved how apt a favourite * See our 26th vol. p. 393. theory theory is to warp the judgment, even in fciences where the ideas are more accurately defined, and the diftinctions more ftrongly marked, than those which are presented to the mind by the fynonymous words of a language. But metaphyfical theories feem not to be at all applicable to the explanation of fingle terms, if those terms be not compounded of others, of which the meaning is perfectly underflood by the metaphyfician. Had it fo pleafed the authors of language, the primitive words might all have interchanged their fignifications; for there is no natural relation whatever between articulate founds, and the ideas which, by compact, those founds are made to denote; and pater might have de noted a daughter, and filia, a father, with just as much propriety as pater fignifies father, and filia, daughter, by the confent of the authors of the Latin tongue. The cafe, however, is widely different with refpect to compound words, and fuch as imply relations; for when the primitive terms are fixed, they must be combined together or compounded, fo as to denote the relations or connections which fubsist among the ideas, which thofe terms are made to denote. Hence the rules of fyntax, and the principles of etymology, have their foundation in the laws of human thought; and that language must be the most perfect, of which the grammar is the most confonant to these laws. It is not however by stating fuch laws, and deducing from them the fuppofed import of terms, that the fynonyms of a dead language can be explained; but by a careful investigation of the fenfe in which fuch words are ufed by the beft writers; and then, if it be thought of importance, by fhowing that fuch ufe is confonant to the laws of human thought, and naturally results from them. Dr. Hill seems to have adopted the former of these methods, and Dumefnil the latter. Both authors begin their works with an explanation of the propofitions A, Ab, Abs; but their investigations are purfued in very different orders. The Scotch Profeffor declares at once, that "The primary notion, fuggefted by thefe three propofitions, is the fame; that of the continually increafing diftance of a body in motion, in refpect to a point from which that motion commenced. Till a change of place exifts, they fuggeft nothing; and, regarding the moving body only in respect to the point of outfet, they an nounce one of its relations, by governing the term which expreffes that point." In fupport of this theory, Dr. Hill quotes two paffages from Virgil: "A Troja ventofa per æquora vectus;" and * Argiva phalanx inftructis navibus ibat à Tenedo;" in one of of which the increased, and in the other the increasing distance of a body in motion from a certain point, is indeed fuggefted; but in neither cafe is this fuggeftion made by the prepofition a. In the former cafe it is by the participle vectus, and in the latter, by the verb ibat; and, for any thing that we can perceive to the contrary, the prepofition fuggefts neither motion nor reft, but merely diftance, or the beginning of distance. He is however fo perfectly convinced of the truth of his own. theory, that he purfues the illuftration of it through eight quarto pages, endeavouring to fhow, by quotations, which to us appear foreign from the purpofe, how this original notion comes to be fo modified as to give to the prepofition, by which it is fuggefted, no fewer than ten different fignifi cations. These are, "1. FROM, as expreffing the continually increafing distance of a body in motion, &c.; 2. FROM, as denoting interval between bodies, &c.; 3. NEAR TO; 4. IN THE HOUSE OF; 5. IN THE SERVICE OF; 6. BEING ON THE SIDE OF, or FAVOURABLE TO; 7. TOWARDS; ON THE QUARTER OF; IN RESPECT TO ; 8. BY MEANS OF, or ON ACCOUNT OF; 9. CONTRARY TO THE INTEREST OF; 10. AFTER; SINCE A DEFINED TIME." The claffical scholar, we fufpect, will be furprized to find that the prepofition A or Ab, implies fo many various and difcordant notions as thefe; and we are perfuaded that the metaphyfician will find it difficult, if not impoffible, to conceive how the primary notion of the CONTINUALLY INCREASING DISTANCE OF A BODY IN MOTION from the point whence that motion commenced, can be modified into the notions of NEAR TO; IN THE HOUSE OF; IN THE SERVICE OF; TOWARDS; CONTRARY TO THE INTEREST OF, &c. Let us now see how Dumefnil afcertains the import of thefe prepofitions. Inftead of firft figuring to himself the import of 4 or Ab in the abstract, he feems to have thought, as we do, that words, denoting relations, which cannot be conceived without taking into the conception the related ideas, cannot be explained but in connection with the wards expreffing thofe ideas. He therefore adopts the method of induction, first explaining the moft common phrafes in which A or Ab occurs, and thence inferring, or leaving his reader to infer, the primary notion suggested by the prepofition. Far from fetting out with a declaration of the import of A or Ab by itfelf, and then hunting for paffages in which the prepofition may be tortured into that meaning, he explains the following words and phrafes. 1. A Prima; Primùm; Primò. "A PRIMO (tempore underflood) at first, at the beginning. (better from the firft, from the beginning.) Utinam id à primo tibi effet vifum. Cic.-PRIMÙM relates to the order of things. Primum igitur eft de honefto, tum de utili differendum. Cic.PRIMÒ relates to time. Primò Gabiniâ lege, biennio poft Caffiê. Cic. "2. Ab aliquo tempore. Intra aliquod tempus. "AB ALIQUO TEMPORE denotes a space of time quite ended frather from the conclufion of a certain fpace of time,) whereas INTRA ALIQUOD TEMPUS denotes a pace of time still lasting frather within a space of time ftill lafting or going on when the thing fpoken of happened.) Ab horâ tertiâ bibebatur. Cic.Quæ intra decem annos nefariè flagitiosèque gefta funt. Id. "3. Ab initio. Initio. à Principio. Principio. "AB INITIO, from the beginning. Quod tibi effet et antiquiffimum, et ab initio fuiffe conftante famâ atque omnium fermonecelebratum eft. Cic.-INITIO, at the beginning. Cùm id mihi propofitum initio non fuiffet, Cic. Initio and ab initio are emplayed only to mark the time; whereas à PRINCIPIO and PRIN CIPIO are very properly used to denote the order of things. Principio generi animantium omni eft à naturâ tributum, ut, &c. Cic. -Principio cœlum et terras campofque liquentes, &c. Virg.— Vellem à principio te audiiffe. Cic." P.1. We quote thefe examples, not as the beft fpecimen of M. Dumeril's method of explaining fynonymous words, and ftill lefs as an induction of phrafes fo complete as to exhibit fully the radical meaning of fuch words as a and ab; but merely to fhow the method in which he proceeds to ascertain the meaning of fuch words as neither are compounded nor. can be traced to any theme in the Latin language. It is well obferved by Sanctius*, that a or ab is employed to denote the relation of an inftrument to fomething performed by means of it, of which he gives the following inftances among feveral others: "Pectora trajectus Lynceo Caftor ab enfe, Ovid Faft, Lib. 4, Ver. 709, 710. "Ne timeam gentes, quas non bene fubmovet Ifter: Id. Trift. Lib. 2, Ver. 207, 208. "Neve peregrinis tantum defendor ab armis." * Minerv. Lib. 4. Cap. 6. Ibid. Ver. 421. |