[109] I imagine that "plagues" should here be plague, in the singular number, and not plural. "Ero more ius, o mors; morsus tuus ero, inferne."—Vulgate. "[Greek: Pou hæ dikæ sou, thanate; pou to kentron sou, aidæ;]"—Septuagint, ibid.
[110] It is hoped that not many persons will be so much puzzled as are Dr. Latham and Professor Fowler, about the application of this rule. In their recent works on The English Language, these gentlemen say, "In certain words of more than one syllable, it is difficult to say to which syllable the intervening Consonant belongs. For instance, does the v in river and the v in fever belong to the first or to the second syllable? Are the words to be divided thus, ri-ver, fe-ver? or thus, riv-er, fev-er?"—Fowler's E. Gram., 1850, §85; Latham's Hand-Book, p. 95. Now I suppose it plain, that, by the rule given above, fever is to be divided in the former way, and river in the latter; thus, fe-ver, riv-er. But this paragraph of Latham's or Fowler's is written, not to disembarrass the learner, but just as if it were a grammarian's business to confound his readers with fictitious dilemmas—and those expressed ungrammatically! Of the two Vees, so illogically associated in one question, and so solecistically spoken of by the singular verb "does," one belongs to the former syllable, and the other, to the latter; nor do I discover that "it is difficult to say" this, or to be well assured that it is right. What an admirable passage for one great linguist to steal from an other!
[111] "The usual rules for dividing [words into] syllables, are not only arbitrary but false and absurd. They contradict the very definition of a syllable given by the authors themselves. * * * * A syllable in pronunciation is an indivisible thing; and strange as it may appear, what is indivisible in utterance is divided in writing: when the very purpose of dividing words into syllables in writing, is to lead the learner to a just pronunciation."—Webster's Improved Gram., p. 156; Philosophical Gram., 221.
[112] This word, like distich and monostich, is from the Greek stichos, a verse; and is improperly spelled by Walker with a final k. It should be hemistich, with the accent on the first syllable. See Webster, Scott, Perry, Worcester, and others.
[113] According to Aristotle, the compounding of terms, or the writing of them as separate words, must needs be a matter of great importance to the sense. For he will have the parts of a compound noun, or of a compound verb, to be, like other syllables, destitute of any distinct signification in themselves, whatever may be their meaning when written separately. See his definitions of the parts of speech, in his Poetics, Chapter 20th of the Greek; or Goulston's Version in Latin, Chapter 12th.
[114] Whether worshipper should follow this principle, or not, is questionable. If Dr. Webster is right in making worship a compound of worth and ship, he furnishes a reason against his own practice of using a single p in worshiper, worshiped, and worshiping. The Saxon word appears to have been weorthscype. But words ending in ship are derivatives, rather than compounds; and therefore they seem to belong to the rule, rather than to the exception: as, "So we fellowshiped him."—Herald of Freedom: Liberator, Vol. ix, p. 68.
[115] When ee comes before e, or may be supposed to do so, or when ll comes before l, one of the letters is dropped that three of the same kind may not meet: as, free, freer, freest, freeth, freed; skill, skilless; full, fully; droll, drolly. And, as burgess-ship, hostess-ship, and mistress-ship are derivatives, and not compounds, I think they ought to follow the same principle, and be written burgesship, hostesship, mistresship. The proper form of gall-less is perhaps more doubtful. It ought not to be gallless, as Dr. Webster has it; and galless, the analogical form, is yet, so far as I know without authority. But is it not preferable to the hyphened form, with three Ells, which has authority? "GALL-LESS, a. Without gall or bitterness. Cleaveland."—Chalmers, Bolles, Worcester.
"Ah! mild and gall-less dove,
Which dost the pure and candid dwellings love,
Canst thou in Albion still delight?"—Cowley's Odes.
Worcester's Dictionary has also the questionable word bellless. Treen, for trees, or for an adjective meaning a tree's, or made of a tree, is exhibited in several of our dictionaries, and pronounced as a monosyllable: but Dr. Beattie, in his Poems, p. 84, has made it a dissyllable, with three like letters divided by a hyphen, thus:—
"Plucking from tree-en bough her simple food."