these circumstances may operate or the extent of their effect on Bonaparte's mind: but we are disposed to augur favourably on viewing them in connection with that anxious solicitude for peace which we know to be general throughout France, as well as with the sacrifices which he himself was willing to make until his infatuation with regard to Spain put an end to negotia tion. Without hazard, therefore, of being charged with sanguine expectations, we may infer that the experience of late years will have a tendency both to moderate his tone in the stipulations of a treaty, and to give us some additional security for its observance when it is concluded. ART. V. On the Greek Prepositive Article, its Nature and Uses; a Grammatical Dissertation. By Daniel Veysie, B. D. Rector of Plymtree, Devon; and late Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. 8vo. pp. 40. 25. Rivingtons. 1810. WE find persons of great understanding," says Jeremy Taylor, "oftentimes so amused with the authority of their church, that it is pity to see them sweat in answering some objections which they know not how to do, but yet believe they must, because the church hath said it. So that if they read, study, pray, search records, and use all the means of art and industry in the pursuit of truth, it is not with a resolution. to follow that which shall seem truth to them, but to confirm what before they did believe." (Liberty of Prophesying, sect. 10. p. 1013. 3d edit. 1674.) We have formerly had occasion to observe (M. R. Vol. xx. p. 27. N. S.) that Mr. Veysie, though not very far gone in heresy and free-thinking, is by no means to be considered as one of Jeremy Taylor's team. He ventures to think for himself; and apparently, as far as we can judge of the internal determinations of any man's mind, with the laudable "resolution of following that which shall seem truth to him." We Tejoice whenever we meet with a person of this description, though his opinion may differ from our own; because, as we have lived some time in the world, we know how difficult it is, "with all appliances and means to boot," to discover truth. The lamp of human wisdom burns with such a feeble light, that, if the road be in any degree intricate and difficult, the best sighted among us stands in need of every eye around him, as well of his own, to keep him in the right path. It is a lamentable thing, therefore, to observe so many of our fellow-travellers, either by their own folly or by the knavery of others, walking blindfolded; and it becomes more deplorable in proportion to the importance of the country to which they are travelling.-When REV. FEB. 1812. M we we last had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Veysie, he was on the road of religious inquiry. We then expressed our satisfaction at the disposition which he manifested for a liberal investigation, even of a mystery; and our pleasure is here renewed at finding that he preserves the same love of freedom in pursuing the grammatical path, in which, to the incalculable benefit of the science, it has never yet been determined by authority that mysteries are necessary. The great stress, which expositors of the N.T. have laid on the presence or absence of the prepositive article induced Mr. V. to examine the subject for himself; and his freedom from all such prejudice in favour of his individual opinion as would make him retain it in opposition to truth and reason, and his conviction that we all stand much in need of the assistance of others in our inquiries, induced him to examine Dr. Middleton's late work on this question before he published his own, in the plan of which he had already madę considerable progress when the Doctor's treatise appeared. The consequence of this examination was ą persuasion that Dr.M. had failed in his attempt to explain the nature of the article, though his work is replete with learning, and contains a mass of materials collected with great industry, which cannot but be highly serviceable to every future investi gation.' Of these materials, Mr. V. has not hesitated to make free use; chiefly in order to shew that the very examples, by which Dr. M. has illustrated his own hypothesis, may all be fairly accounted for upon the principle assumed in the dissertation' before us. This principle is that the article is demonstrative, not definitive: but, before he enters into any detail of his ideas, Mr. V. premises that the Greek & and the English the, though they have the same general nature, have not precisely the same uses. To illustrate this position, he quotes a few sentences from the beginning of Xenophon's Anabasis; in some of which the article is omitted in the original when it should be inserted in the translation, and inserted in the original when it should not be rendered by the in the translation. Though there is no article in πρεσβύτερος μεν Αρταξέρξης, νεώτερος δε Kupos, (Xenoph. Anab. init.) a translator would find it convenient,' he says, to insert two in his version; and it would * Sce Rev. Vol. Ixii. N. S. pages 68, 145, 266, 381. and 447. (Numbers for May, June, July, and August, 1810.) N. B. In the above articles, the following errata, which escaped our notice, obscure the sense. P. 389. 1. 22. for Acts xvii. 6.' read, Acts xvi. 6.-Ib. line 10. fr. bott. for Heb. ix. 29.' read, Heb. xi.29. -P. 391. 1. 28. for the meaning,' read, the meeting.-P. 394. 1.13for definite,' read indefinite. - P. 447. l. 10. fr. bott. for determi nation,' read, termination. be sus be proper to render υπωπίευε τελείην τε βια, by he pected the end of his life," and is Karwas medior by "in the plain of Castolus ;" because it does not satisfy the sense of the passages to translate, " in plain," or even "in a plain,” nor to translate "end," or "an end of the life." This remark is very true; and we have declared in our review of Dr. Middleton's book that we regarded translators, more particularly of the N. T., as by much too stiff and formal in their endeavours to insert or to omit the article in their versions, exactly as it is inserted or omitted in the original. (See vol. lxii. pp. 387, 388, and 395, and also pp. 161. and 162. and the examples in p. 281.) They would sometimes do much better if they were to invert their practice, and were to omit the article in their translation when it is inserted in the original, and vice versa; and if they were sometimes to use the indefinite article when the definite is employed in the original. This, however, only proves that á difference exists in the idiom of the two languages, not that there is any difference in the nature or use of the article. By use we mean its office, the end and design of using it. In the first of the foregoing sentences from Xenophon, the verb substantive is omitted where a translator would find it convenient' to insert it in his version: but nobody says, or supposes, on this account, that any difference prevails in the nature or use of the verb substantive in the two languages. Nor does an idiomatic insertion or omission of the article prove its nature, or use, to be different in different languages. In Greek, the *Toy μodiov (Matt. v. 15.) & σp (Id. xiii. 3.) are very properly rendered a bushel,' and a sower.' The Greek writer, by annexing the only article in his language to the adjective podios, (for such we take it to be in its origin, whether Greek or Latin,) and to the par, ticiple op, shews that he not only means these words to be understood substantively, but that he also means them to be numbered, and understood definitely. It is evident, however, from the nature of the case, that he does not intend to speak of a definite or particular modios, or oralpar. These words, therefore, though they are both definite, are neither of them definite in their own classes. The one is not a definite podios, but a definite utensil called podios; and the other is not a definite opwv, but a person of a definite occupation called pay. All that the Greek writer does here by his definite article, indirectly and with some ambiguity, the English translator does directly and without any ambiguity, by means of his indefinite article. In this ambiguous and, to some readers, as it appears, perplexing situation, many Greek nouns are found; and it is the duty of an English translator, when he finds them so situated, to rescue them from their ambiguity; which if he fails to do, he does not render justice to his own language and its indefinite article. M 2 article article varies its termination according to the number, gender, and case of its substantive; in English, no such variation takes place: but who thinks of mentioning this fact as constituting à difference in the nature and uses of the article in the two languages? The use, and the only use, of inserting it in Greek is to shew that the word to which it is prefixed is more definite than it would be without the article. In English, and in all other languages that have an article, it is used exactly in the same way. In all languages, therefore, its nature and use are not only generally, but precisely, the same. (See M. R. vol. lxii. p. 159.) As to T8 Big being translated his life,' it is a very proper translation: but 78 no more signifies his, in Greek, than the signifies his, in English. It is an idiom of the Greek language to use the personal pronoun with an article, in preference to the possessive pronoun without. Thus, instead of my, thy, or his life, the Greeks say the life of me, thee, or him. (see Rev. vol. lxii, p.162.*) This usage is so constant and uniform that when, for the sake of brevity, the pronoun is omitted and the article employed alone, every reader who is conversant with the language instantly supplies the ellipsis for himself without any difficulty or hesitation, and construes the words as if the possessive pronoun had been used instead of the article . Our definite * A reason may be assigned for this practice in the Greek language which does not exist in ours. In Greek the possessive pronoun must conform to the number, gender, and case of the noun to which it is annexed: but if the possessive pronoun required be of the third person, and the noun be of a different gender from that of the person possessing, some ambiguity, or doubt, might arise as to whether the possessor were male or female. Ὁς πατηρ is either his father or her father. This ambiguity is avoided by using the article with the personal pronoun in Greek; and saying πατηρ ails or aum;; and our language allowing no concord between the gender and number of the possessive pronoun, and that of the noun annexed, no ambiguity can occur. The mind contracts such a habit of doing this that it sometimes deceives itself, and is apt to suppose that there is something possessive in the nature of the article. Thus Mr. Veysie imagines that it has a double power of marking or pointing out both the determined signification and also the possessive relation,' of the noun; (p. 19. and see the whole section;) in the same way, we render the personal pronoun so habitually by the possessive, that we often lose sight of the difference between the two. Boys construe ramp ay so constantly "our father," that it excites some little surprize when they are told that this is not the literal translation of the words; and, trifling as the difference is between "our father," and "father of us," we have seen instances of the sense of a passage being mistaken from not attending to that difference, article article is often, though by no means so often as the Greek, used with a similar ellipsis of which we shall see more hereafter. That the use of the article in the foregoing sentences of Xenophon is precisely the same, that is, that the same effect precisely is produced by its insertion and its omission as in English, may perhaps be more apparent to some readers if those sentences be rendered literally, thus: "Artaxerxes, it seems, was older, and Cyrus younger."-"He suspected the life's end."—" On Castolus's plain." After these preliminary observations, Mr. Veysie proceeds to establish his position that the article is not definitive but demonstrative; and by the help of a little logic, which appears to us, perhaps from our want of comprehension, to be more technical than instructive, he soon arrives at the following general character,' or definition of the article; that it is a demonstrative, prefixed to words whose signification is determinate, and necessarily refers to something known or ascertained.' The various ways in which the article is employed for the purpose of demonstrating, Mr. V. reduces to eight cases; four of which he considers as principal, and the other four as subordinate and growing out of the former. These eight cases together comprehend most of Dr. Middleton's canons for the insertion of the article; and in some instances the cases and the canons exactly coincide. Thus the first of Mr. Veysie's cases is when the article demonstrates a noun and makes it determinate on account of renewed mention; and his second is when the noun is used xa? sŝox, under which head he also comprehends nouns that are monadic. His third case is when the noun signifies something which bears a tacit, or unexpressed, relation to some other thing in the discourse; in which case, observes Mr. V., the article marks the relation of the noun, as well as its determinate signification.' This rela tive power,' which Mr. V. attributes to the article, and which, he says, 'is a very frequent and very important one, and will serve to explain the use of the article in many passages where it is otherwise inexplicable,' is the same with that which is at tributed to it in Dr. Middleton's fourth canon, where he says that the article has the sense of a possessive pronoun. We intend presently to make a few remarks on this supposed power, or sense, of the article, but we will first finish our enumeration of Mr. Veysie's eight cases. His fourth is when the noun signifies something which bears a relation that is not tacit, but expressed by the actual addition of some adjective, or of some pronoun, noun, or sentence which supplies the place of an adjective. His fifth is the case of Regimen or of correlatives, as Dr. M, Calls it; that is, of one noun governing another in the genitive M 3 case |
