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- Nº. XI • . - -
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PR E FA C E
H. Y. T H E E D I TO R. S.
Many words are accounted synonymous which
are not so in reality; and indeed it may reason-
ably be disputed whether two words can be found
in any language which express precisely the same
idea. However closely they may approximate to
each other in signification, still can the discrimi-
nating eye of the critic discover a line of separa-
tion between them. They agree in expressing one
principal idea, but always express it with some
diversity in the circumstances. They are varied
by some accessory idea, which severally accom-
panies each of the words, and which forms the dis-
tinction between them.
As they are like different shades of the same co-
lour, an accurate writer can employ them to great
advantage by using them, so as to heighten and
finish the picture he gives us. He supplies by
the one what was wanting in the other, and thus
adds to the force, or to the lustre of the image
which he means to exhibit. But, with a view
to this end, he must be extremely attentive to the
A.
- 2 P B E FA C E.
choice he makes of them, for the generality
of writers are apt to confound them with each
other, and to employ them with promiscuous care-
lessness, merely for the sake of ſilling up a period,
or of diversifying the language : by using them as
if their signification were precisely the same, they
unwarily involve their ideas in a kind of mist.
So numerous indeed are the instances of a diffe-
rence in meaning between words reputed synony-
mous, both in the English and French languages,
that the Abbé GIRARD was induced to collect the
principal ones which occur in the latter; a task he
performed with such uncommon ability and dis-
cernment that it was crowned with the happiest
success; so that his Treatise on the French Syno-
nymies still continues to be thought a valuable ac-
quisition to the stock of literature. So great indeed
was the estimation in which it was held, that in a ſew
years aſter its publication, an imitation of it appea-
red in England; but it was only in the year 1794 that
Mrs. ProzzI (formerly Mrs. THRALE) so well
lºnown in the literary world for her different publi-
cations, and her intimacy with the learned Dr.
Johnson, brought out the work we have now the
pleasure of presenting to our Readers,” and which
is totally grounded on the structure of the English
language.
* There are some who are of opinion that divers ar-
ticles in it were drawn up by that great Lexicographer
himself. -
P R E FA C E, 3
We shall not enter info any discussion of its
merits, the successive editions it has passed through
being the best proof of the estimation in which it is
held.
If to excel in the casy and familiar, as well as in
the more chaste and polished style of conversation,
so essential to good composition, be deemed of
high importance in our relations with civil society,
no work can, perhaps, more effectually and di-
rectly conduce to the attainment of these advan-
tages than the present one.
To foreigners, who study and wish to improve in
the English language, it ought to be an inseparable
companion, since the diſſerent examples cited in
it, not only shew, in the clearest point of view,
the diſſerent meanings between words reputed sy-
nonymous, but likewise the necessity of attending,
with the utmost care, to the exact signification of
words, if ever we wish to speak or write with pro-
priety and precision.
To Englishmen likewise, and particulary to all
Professors of the English language, it cannot fail
to prove of the highest utility, by pointing out
to them the faults which indifference or inadver-
tence sometimes exposes them to commit; and it
will also make them avoid those foreign idioms
which they are apt to engraſt upon their own tongue,
4 P R E F A C E.
when they are at a distance from the country where
it is spoken.
We have taken the liberty to omit some long di-
gressions of the Authoress, which from the nature
of their subject, would have been of no utility to
foreigners, and would have swelled our publica-
tion beyond its limits. In lieu of which, however,
for the improvement of the Reader, we have in-
serted, as notes, definitions and observations of other
Writers on the subject; and selected a few sen-
tences , by way of examples, which will be found
both useful and entertaining.
*
IBRITISH SYN ONY MY.
A.
The first word which on a cursory survey of al-
phabetical arrangement appears to have many bro-
thers in signification is the verb abandon, and he
brings with him no inconsiderable number; for ex-
ample:
º
To ABANDON, FORSAKE, RELINQUISH, GIVE UP, DLSERT,
QUIT, LEAVE.
Of these seven verbs then, so variously derived,
though at first sight apparently synonymous, con-
versing does certainly better shew the peculiar ap-
propriation than books, however learned; for
whilst through them by study all due information
may certainly be obtained, familiar talk tells usin
half an hour —- that a man forsakes his mistress,
abandons all hope of regaining her lost esteem ,
relinquishes his pretensions in favour of another;
gives up a place of trust he held under the go-
vernment, deserts his party, leaves his parents in
affliction, and quits the kingdom for ever.
Other instances will quickly prove to a foreigner
that 'tis a well-received colloquial phrase to say,
you leave London for the country : telling us, you
6 ERITISH SYN ONY MIY.
*
A.
quit it, seems to convey a notion of your going
suddenly to the Continent. That any one de-
serts it can scarcely be said with propriety, un-
less at a time of pestilence or tumults of a danger-
ous nature, when we observe that the capital is de-
serted: although by an overstrained compliment a
lady may possibly hear such a word sometimes from
a man who pretends affectedly to consider her de-
sertion of the metropolis as half criminal. That
you give up London looks as if you meant in fu-
ture to reside upon your own estate in the country,
I think; while, to relinquish a town life seems as
if something was required to make the sentence
complete: as we relinquish the joys of society
for the tranquil sweets of solitude, and the like.
To forsake London would be a foppish expres—
sion; and to say we were going to abandon it, as
if it could scarce subsist without us, would set
people o'laughing. The participles from these
verbs evince the various acceptations of their prin-
cipals. That fellow is given up to every vice,
is an expression popular and common; but when
we speak of him as abandoned of all virtue, or
forsaken of all good, the phrase approaches to
solemnity, and is at least expressive of the man's
total ruin, even in this transitory world.
He is now nearly given up by society , say
people in common conversation, when telling rak-
& ) º
ish stories of a man whose conduct has merited
|BRITISH SYN ON Y WIY. 7
A.
the neglect of his virtuous companions; but soon
as they describe a human creature deserted of
every friend, and left on a desolate island, aban-
doned to sorrow and remorse, new sensations are
excited, commiseration takes its turn ; nor can the
most rigid refuse pity to such a state of distress.”
ABASEMENT;ºpepaLssion, DERELICTION, BEING BRought
Low, &c.
These terms are given as synonymous in every
dictionary, I believe; yet I once knew a man
incapable of depression though his abasement
was notorious : and it will probably be justly re-
corded of a great lady (whose fall from perhaps
the very first situation of social life has called out
much of our attention in these modern times) that
though brought exceedingly low from a strange
combination of unexpected events, while suffering
severe depression of spirit, not without frequent
dereliction of her fine faculties, yet no one has
hitherto been able to observe the smallest devia-
tion towards abasement in her general character
of dignity.
* “ It is an act of the greatest baseness to desert one’s
frieud in distress, o says one of the Seven Wise Men of
Greece.
8 I} R IT IS II SYN ON Y M Y,
A.
ro A DLT, I. NCOURAGE, PUSH Forw AR D, support, MAINTAIN,
Are five verbs much alike in their general signi-
fication, yet easily diversified by the manner of
applying Qºm in familiar life , and so certainly
capable offéculiar appropriation, that even those
who are themselves ignorant of any reason why
they use expressions of such correctness in common
talk will hardly miss of managing the matter
lightly. We may for instance by ill chance hear
one conſident fellow saying to another : « the
young Countess does sure enough appear plainly
to encourage our friend Clodius's pretensions :
now if you will undertake to abet his cause with
your sword, I have myself at present money to
maintain it, and an acquaintance at hand besides
that can support him with good interest; and so
push forward his prosperous fortunes upon this
probable hazard, that he shall soon be in a situa-
tion to repay us all. x *
To ABHOR, To LoATHI, To DETEST, TO HATE,
Are likewise apparently synonymous expressions
of acrimonious dislike, yet may be made appli-
cable to those qualities which call for words denot-
ing particular sentiments of disgust; and a lady of
*
* When our opinions are just we have an undoubted
right to unaintain them.—G.
BRITISH SYN ONY MY. 9
A.
no deep literature will scarcely fail to utter her
aversion for a disagreeable lover in terms wholly
unequivocal , and which could not easily be
changed to advantage by the most learned profes-
sor, when she says : « I hate Caprinus for the
affectation ever visible in that ugly person of his ,
while I loath its nastiness; we all agree to de-
test his conduct, I believe, and for my own part
I abhor his principles. 2 *
ABJECT, MEAN, DESPICABLE, worTHLEss, v1LE, DESTITUTE ;
All adjectives of most contemptible import
truly, yet such as a fallen courtier might deserve,
even in their full extent and accumulated strength
of expression, if, being originally a man of high
birth and good education, his sentiments were not
the less despicable, and if, his vile intentions and
worthless heart laid open , he became, when desti-
tute of royal favour, studious by mean artifices
to obtain its restoration, and abject in his manners,
when hopeless of its return.
**
ABILITY, CAPACITY, Power :
These substantives, though often used in place
of each other , prove that their meanings are not
* We detest the man guilty of a mean action; the spend-
thrift abhors avarice; and the miser profligacy.—P.
#
****
#’
IO BRITISH SYN ONYMY.
A.
synonymous by their requiring adjectives confes-
sedly different to attend them. Thus we say a
man of strong or weak ability, because that word
denotes an active quality of the mind; while to
describe the limits of capacity, the terms large
and small, wide and narrow, shallow or profound,
are the properest, because capacity is a passive
quality of our intellect, and implies that the
speaker here considers mind as a recipient , and
must bestow on it such epithets alone as suit that
supposition.”
E X A M P L E.
Clarendon being a man of forcible and vigorous
abilities, was an exceedingly useful servant to
a prince of disputed power ; and having besides
an excellent and extensive capacity, he stored his
mind with a variety of ideas that entertained him-
self and his friend in retirement.
AcquireMENTS, ACQUISITIONS, ATTAINMENTS :
All mean things obtained by chance, or else
procured with difficulty: we have put the last first.
The words are fieatly separated in common con-
versation, and adapted by custom to the peculiar
* The finisher of the telescope was certainly a man of
ability.—T.
* ~x.
* *
BRITISH SYN ON Y MIY. II
A.
uses of talents, riches, or power. Dercylis (say
we ) has made considerable acquirements since
the education her father now gives her has com-
menced ; and it was singularly happy for his
family, that the sudden acquisition of fortune
fell to him at a time when his children were all
young : the brother is breeding to the church, I
hear, and doubt not but his attainments will do
them all the credit they deserve. The last of
these words seems, I know not why, to be almost
set apart for serious and even solemn purposes.
We say the attainment of our salvation , not its
acquirement or acquisition.
Active, Assiduous, SEDULous, DILIGENT, INDUSTRIous;
Qualities all of the same genus certainly, but
differing in species as a Linnaean would say. We
shall elucidate the whole by an example: the king
is happy who is served by an active minister, ever
industrious to promote his country's welfare, not
less diligent to obtain intelligence of what is pas—
sing still at other courts than assiduous to relieve
the cares of his royal master, and sedulous to study
the surest methods of extending the commerce of
the empire abroad while he lessens all burthens
upon the subjects athome. When these words are
'applied to mere mental perfection, we say a lad
I 2 BRITISH SYNONY MIY,
A.
of an active and diligent spirit, or else of an
assiduous temper, or sedulous disposition; but they
can scarcely be used vice versa without some
impropriety, because activity and diligence are
qualities of the man, to which assiduity and a
sedulous behaviour in the boy do naturally dis-
pose him. The last mentioned epithet is less fre-
quently opposed to inaction however, or lifeless
stupidity, than the others are, and justly; because
it implies a mere tranquil and steady employment,
either of body or mind ; and this from its very
derivation, as he may surely be deemed no better
than a consummate idler, who is sedulously bent
upon cutting a cherry stone into six chairs and a
table, for ten years together, instead of pursuing
some business, honourable or profitable, by which
both himself and the community might have been
reciprocally benefited. This kind of plodding, per-
tinacious temper may be turned to good account
in young people however, who, if they have luck,
may get into a line of the law, where little more
is wanted than such a disposition to lead them on,
by their own rule, fair and softly, to a considerable
height; yet some addition of assiduity in pleas-
ing the attorneys has been known to quicken their
progress."
* A man should be assiduous in what he undertakes, ex-
peditious in affairs that require dispatch, and quick in the
execution of orders.--T.
º
HRITISH SYN ONY MIY. 13
A.
AcuteNEss, SHARPNESS, QUICKNESS, KEENNESS,
If applied to intellect, a man is said to reason
with the first of these qualities, I think; to converse,
if such be his custom, with the second; to conceive
with the third, and to dispute or argue with the
fourth. When turned into adverbs and applied to
objects of mere sensation, we say: the student learns
quickly; his sister discerns distances acutely; and
the razor shaves keenly. Coarse people have mean-
time, by the too frequent use of their favourite
figure Aphaeresis, rendered it vulgar to call any one
an acute fellow by the way of saying he is a sharp-
witted one ; it having been a practice lately among
low Londoners to say, when they like a boy, how
'cute he is so that the word would now shock
a polished circle from its grossness. A nation
like ours, where reception depends less on esta-
blished rank than on that gained by talents and man-
ners, has a natural tendency to keep the language
of high people, apart from that of the low; and
while the senator of Venice hears his gondolier
talk just like himself without being surprised or
offended, nor thinks of desiring his son to avoid
mean phrases used by the coffee-house boy, our
parents and school-teachers wear out their lives in
keeping the confines of conversation free from all
touch of vicinity with ordinary people, who are
known to be such here, the moment they open
E} .
I4 BRITISH SYN ONY MIY.
A.
their mouths. Whole sentences are often dismissed
the drawing-room only because they are familiar
in a shop. He is a rough diamond, says the upper
journeyman at his club, when speaking of the
apprentice, whom he conceives to be a person of
intrinsic worth, but wanting polish. Now 'tis im-
possible to find a better phrase for such a character;
yet no gentleman or lady uses the expression be-
cause it is a favourite with the vulgar. A thousand
such others might be found. Let not my foreign
readers however, hastily condemn the word acute;
for, in a serious sense, it is still a good one ; nor
will any Englishman accuse them of impropriety
for saying Mr. Burke is an acute reasoner, or that the
feelings of Mrs. Siddons must be singularly acute, or
she could not so sharpen distress in representation.
ADVICE, COUNSEL, DELIBERATION:
Of these I know not whether it might not be
justly affirmed, that the first chiefly belongs to the
science of medicine; the second is appropriated
by the law; while political subjects require cool
deliberation. A native is in no danger of mistaking
here; but a stranger may perhaps be glad to have it
suggested to him, that the minister was detained by
advice of his physicians from attending the deli-
berations of yesterday's committee; where things
passed so perversely during his absence, that coun-
BRITISH synonymy. I5
A.
sel must actually be asked of the judges now con-
cerning the result. *
AFFABILITY, CoNDESCENSION, COURTESY, GRACIOUSNEss,
Are nearly synonymous, though common dis-
course certainly admits that an equal may be
affable, which I should still think wrong in a
printed book, and unpleasing every where, be-
cause the word itself seems to imply superiority.
We will allow however that the lofty courtesy of
a princess loses little of its graciousness, although
some condescension be left visible through the ex-
terior affability; but that, among people where ta-
lents or fortune only make the difference, a strain
of polished familiarity, or familiar politeness (call
it as you will ) is the behaviour most likely to at-
tract affectionate esteem.
* * - -
AFFECTION, PASSION, TENDERNESS, FONDNEss, LovE :
The first four of these words, so commonly,
so constantly in use, are, although similar, cer-
tainly not synonymous, and the last, which al-
ways ought and, I hope, often does comprehend
them all, is not seldom substituted in place of its
own component parts; for such are all those that
* Give advice with sincerity, and counsel with art and
modesty; counsel given with an air of impertinence renders
the counsel despised, and the counsellor odious.--T.
16 BRITISH SYN ONYMY.
A.
precede it. Foreigners however will recollect, that
the first of these words is usually adapted to that
regard which is consequent on ties of blood; that
the second naturally and necessarily presupposes
and implies difference of sex; while the rest with-
out impropriety may be attributed to friendship,
or bestowed on babes. I have before me the defini-
tion of fondness, given into my hands many years
ago by a most eminent logician.
& Fondness, 2 says the Definer, 4 is the hasty
and injudicious determination of the will towards
promoting the present gratification of some parti-
cular object. ^ -
« Fondness, 2 in the opinion of Dr. Johnson, a is
rather the hasty and injudicious attribution of ex-
cellence, somewhat beyond the power of attain-
ment, to the object of our affection. »
Both these definitions may possibly be included
in fondness; my own idea of the whole may be
found in the following example:
Amintor and Aspasia are models of true love:
'tis now seven years since their mutual passion was
sanctified by marriage; and so little is the lady's
affection diminished, that she sat up nine nights
successively last winter by her husband's bed-side,
when he had a malignant fever that frighted rela-
tions, friends, servants, all away. Nor can any
one allege that her tenderness is ill repaid, while
we see him gaze upon her features with that fond-
BRITISH synoxy M.Y. 17.
A.
ness which is capable of creating charms for itself
to admire, and listen to her talk with a fervour of
admiration scarce due to the most brilliant genius.
For the rest, 'tis my opinion that men love for
the most part with warmer passion than women
do—at least than English women, and with more
transitory fondness mingled with that passion :
while ’tis natural for females to feel a softer ten-
derness; and when their affections are completely
gained, they are found to be more durable. *
AFFLICTIon, LAMEXTATIos, SADxEss, soakow, MISERY ;
GRIEF, coxcERx, Cox(PUNCTION, CONTRITION, DISTRESS.
We are come, as Pope says, by a melancholy
though suddden transition, from
Love, Hope, and Joy, fair Pleasure's smiling Train,
- to
Hate, Fear, and Grief, the family of Pain.
These dismal substantives are not however syno-
nymous; for there may be much lamentation cer-
tainly with little distress, and grief enough, God
knows, without due contrition: which last word
ever carries a religious sense along with it, and is
chiefly used upon pious occasions as preparatory to
* Shakespeare gives a delicate description of love.
Love's feelings are as soft and sensible
As are the tender horns of cockled snail.
18 BRITISH SYN ON YXIY.
A.
serious amendment, and a new life. There are,
notwithstanding all this, examples enough, I fear,
of worldly situations that may unhappily include
the whole synonymy. For instance:
Our friend's unexpected death impels many of
our common acquaintance to make heavy lamen—
tation ; some of them feel sincere sorrow ; and I
profess myself sensible of very particular concern.
His family is in the deepest sadness, as I hear,
and you will doubtless be led to pity their afflic-
tion, when told that the posture of their pecuniary
affairs is likely very much to heighten the dis-
tress. His son's grief is possibly connected with
compunction too, as fearing his extravagant con-
duct might have hastened his father's end: and
when his silly widow sees the misery brought upon
her more deserving children by that blind partia–
kity she shewed to her eldestboy, her heart will, I
hope, feel contrition enough to produce true repen-
tance for the wretched part she has acted.
AMIABLE, LovELY, cHARMING, FASCINATING.
These elegant attributives (so the learned James
Harris terms adjectives denoting properties of
mind or body) appear at first more likely to turn
out synonymies, than upon a closer inspection we
shall be able to observe; while daily experience
evinces that there is almost a regular appropria-
IBRITISH SYN ONY ºf Y. I9
A.
tion of the words; as thus: an amiable character, a
lovely complexion, a charming singer, a fasci-
nating converser; the first of these appearing to
deserve our love , the next to claim it, the third to
steal it from us as by magic; the last of all to
draw, and to detain it, by a half invisible, yet
wholly resistless power. Nor does the epithet
ever come so properly into play as when tacked
to an unseen method of attracting : for positive
beauty needs not fascination to assist her con–
quests; and positive wit seeks rather to dazzle and
distress than wind herself round the hearts of her
admirers, while there is a mode of conversing that
... seduces attention, and enchains the faculties.
«When Foote told a story at dinner time”, said
Dr. Johnson, & I resolved to disregard what I
expected would be frivolous; yet as the plot
thickened, my desire of hearing the catastrophe
quickened at every word, and grew keener as we
seemed approaching towards its conclusion. The
fellow fascinated me, Sir; I listened and laughed,
and laid down my knife and fork, and thought of
nothing but Foote's conversation. »
AMICABLE, AMICAL, FRIENDLY.
The second of these adverbial adjectives is lat-
ely come very much into favour, and one hears
it now perpetually in fashionable and literary
52O JBRITISH SYN ON Y MY,
A.
circles. I cannot however delight in it myself;
perhaps because, turning over Johnson's folio, no
trace of it, or of its opposite, inimical, can be
found. This last seems to have been lately called
up from the school-room to the house of com-
mons, and from thence , of course , into the best
company. I cannot find it — « 'tis not in the
bond, ... 2 as old Shylock says; yet it may be useful
in places where I know not how to substitute a
better.
E X A M P L E :
Machaon gave very friendly advice to Dornton
and his Brother, wishing them at least to part on
amicable terms; the youngest is certainly inclined
to a consumptive habit; so he wisely recommended
country air and asses milk to him, as particularly
amical to the constitution.
ANTIPATHY, AVERSION, DISGUST.
The first of these disagreeable sensations, we
find chiefly excited I believe by inanimate things,
or brutes. One man alleges his unconquerable
antipathy to a cat; another encourages his aversion
to a Cheshire cheese; and while English ladies
think it delicate to faint at touch or even sight of
a frog, or toad; Roman ladies, accustomed to
noisome animals from the matural heat of their cli–
mate, fall into convulsions at a nosegay of flowers,
BRITISH SYN ONY MIY. 2. I
A.
or the scent of a little lavender water. To such
fastidious companions it would not perhaps be
wholly unreasonable to feel a certain degree of
disgust; and Arnold of Leicestershire tells us from
experience, that increasing antipathies should be
particularly dreaded, as almost a certain indica-
tion of incipient madness.
Al JTHORITY AND POWER.
That these till lately venerated substantives are
no longer received as synonymous, the state of
Europe demonstrates at this dreadful moment,"
when its fairest district revolts against the author
of our holy religion, wresting all reverence from
his name, his house, his ministers; and rendering
ecclesiastical authority, a noun of no importance
in their new formed vocabulary, by dividing it
essentially from power, which in these days as in
those before civilization, is transmitted to the hand
of the strongest. Yet is not philology forgotten.
Authority does not naturally mean power, but
the just pretension to it. Shall the vessel fashioned
say to the potter: why hast thou made me thus?
cries an inspired writer; while Milton gives the
following confirmation of our meaning:
Thou art my father, thou my author—Thou
My being gav'st me—Whom should I obey
But thee &
* Mrs. Piozzi's Synonymies were published in 1794.
22. - BRITISH SYN ONY MIY.
A.
Another example from our great dramatic poet,
Rowe, will point out, better than I could, the
difference betwixt authority and power
The resty knaves are over run with ease,
As plenty ever is the nurse of faction.
If in good days like these the headstrong herd
Grow madly wanton and repine —it is
Because the reins of power are held too slack,
And reverend authority of late
Has worn a face of mercy, more than justice. *
f
Aw FUL, REVERENTIAL, soleMN.
The last of these epithets begins the climax :
A Gothic cathedral (we say) is a solemn place;
its gloomy greatness disposes one to reverential
behaviour, inspiring sentiments more sublime,
and meditations much more awful than does a
structure on the Grecian model, though built for
the same purposes of piety.
The word awful should however be used with
caution, and a due sense of its importance; I have
heard even well-bred ladies now and then attribute
that term too lightly in their common conversation,
* When two authorities are up, neither supreme, how
soon confusion may enter 'twixt the gap of both, and take
the one by the other!—S.
BRITISH SY NO NY MY. 23
B.
connecting it with substances beneath its dignity.
Such mesalliances offend the sense of high birth
natural to a Saxon.
Azur E, SAPPHIRE, BLUE.
These are all pressed into the service as adjec-
tives, each being able to stand alone as nouns well
substantiated, at least two of the number; our
first being that lapis lazuli from which the painters
ultramarine is made, azul in Spanish, and in
English azure; the second a well known gem; the
third, if we ask for dyers blue, will be found a
powder prepared from indigo, &c.; we use them
adjectively, and almost synonymously however.—
Minerva's azure eyes, so often mentioned by Pope
in his exquisite translation of Homer, have fastened
those two words for ever to each other, and if a
foreigner should take the next instead of it, all
would laugh. The sapphire main and sapphire
sky are both permitted and approved in poetry,
while it would be pedantry to use any word but
blue when speaking of furniture or dress.
BASE, Low, SoFDID ; PALTRY, sorry, Poor.
These wretched epithets would be perfectly sy-
nonymous in their application to intellectual depra-
24 BRITISH SY NONY MY.
B.
vity, did one not discern inherent worthlessness
in some of them, acquired poverty of spirit in
the others. A man may be born a low, and ,
as we say, a poor creature; an Englishman must
however learn to say sordid, sorry, and base, I be-
lieve; which last word, though it leads the way
here in a new letter, being the vilest of its class,
may be considered as the most distant of all devia-
tions from good, in every sense it is used. Base
birth in human creatures; base fruits in horticul-
ture; base metals in the mineral kingdom; base
dialects, such as that of St. Giles's, in the English
language. i. - -
E X A M P L E :
Misellus was a lad of low extraction, and stu-
dious of base practices even in his school-days;
but now grown rich, it was a sordid thing that they
relate of his corrupting an ignorant maid to sell her
wealthy inexperienced mistress; and when he of
fered the wench a paltry present, it should at least
have been , what she expected ... a gold ring,
but it was only base metal, and not worth half a
crown. This seemed a sorry trick even in him, and
beneath the natural narrowness of even so poor a
creature. “
* Want of fortune unluckily renders a man low; and
want of character renders him base.—P.
BRITISH SY NONY MY. 25
B.
EEAUTIFUL, H AND SOME, GRACEFUL, ELEGANT, PLEASIXG.;
PRETTY, FINE,
Are, however desirable epithets, by no means
strictly synonymous; and though, upon à cursory
view, the six last appear included in their princi-
pal which takes the lead, conversation will soon
inform us to the contrary, while, talking of a
graceful dancer now upon the stage, we shall find
in her person, if not put into motion, no claim at
all upon our first attributive: nor does that first ne-
cessarily comprehend the other excellencies; for
though the situation of Mount Edgcumbe be con-
fessedly more beautiful than Shenstone's Leasowes,
taste would lead many men to prefer the latter, as
more pleasing: and at the time when true perfec-
tion of female beauty appeared among us in the
form of Maria Gunning, I well remember hearing
men say that other women might justly be preferred
to her as pleasing, and perhaps graceful too, in a
far more eminent degree ; and so true was the ob-
servation, that her inferiors made it their amuse-
ment to steal away lovers from her, who com-
manded admiration they had no chance to attain.
The word elegant can scarcely be used with more
propriety than on such occasions when people
select as pleasing what produces a train of ideas
most congenial to our own particular fancy. Pearls
are, on this principle, accounted by many people
C
26 BRITISH SY NO NY M.Y.
B.
to be more elegant than diamonds, which we all
allow to be finer, handsomer, and infinitely more
beautiful. And one says popularly, that Pope's
Rape of the Lock is an elegant poem, and Milton's
Paradise Lost a fine one. Greville's Stanzas to In-
difference are however exquisitely pretty, and some
parts of Mr. Whalley's Ode to Mont Blanc, un-
commonly beautiful. Burke (whose own compo-
sitions include every species of excellence) says,
that beautiful objects are comparatively small, but
to minute perfection I should give the adjective
pretty. Insects of various colours, and delicate
formation, butterflies above all, are justly termed
pretty. Some shells too, slight in their texture, and
of tints as tender, claim this epithet, and can
claim no more ; for; while the apple and peach-
bloom have among vegetables the same pretension,
an orange-tree richly furnished, growing in the
natural ground as I have seen them on the Borro-
maean Islands to a considerable height, and rose-
trees in the Duke of Buccleugh’s pleasure-grounds,
or those of Hopeton-House, are decidedly beau-
tiful. One large and wide spreading beech-tree, or
full-bodied oak, single in a verdant meadow, I
should select for a fine object to repose the eye
upon in autumnal seasons when the tint begins to
shew more richness than mere maturity produces,
and excites a train of reflections full of pensive dig-
nity; while the old-fashioned avenue of lime trees
BRITISH synonym Y. 27
B.
long-drawn, and feathering down so as to hide all-,
stem, makes a handsome appearance in July,
when filled with fragrance and redolent with bloom.
Were we speaking of architecture, I should direct
foreigners to call the Pantheon at Rome a fine
building, Saint Peter's a beautiful one, our own in
London, dedicated to St. Paul, a very handsome
edifice, the Redentore at Venice, planned by Pal-
ladio, and our own sweet Doric, done by Inigo
Jones, I reckon elegant fabrics; while King's
Cofiegeat Cambridge, elaborately pretty, gives de-
light to every beholder. The word handsome cer-
tainly annexes fewer ideas of pleasure than the rest,
because we have appropriated it now and then
somewhat meanly. We certainly say in English
a handsome kitchen, and a handsome piece of roast
beef; nor do we give higher appellatives to a large
woman painted by Rubens with more strength of
colour than dignity or grace. When we speak of
a handsome house and gardens, our hearers turn
not, I believe, their imaginations to recollect Villa
Albani or even Castle Howard, while a drive round
London realizes the idea at less expence or trouble
nearer home. *
ſº º - g $9 º N
* * A beautiful woman is an object of curiosity; a hand-
some woman of admiration; a pretty one, of love. We say
a beautiful tragedy, a pretty comedy.—T. &
28 BRITISH SY NONY MY.
a'
B.
, *. - 'i - -
1.EAUTY, GRACE, ExPRESSION ; CARRIAGE, ELEGANCE AND
SYMMETRY,
Are substantives on which so many volumes
have been written, that one would think it impos-
sible it should be still agreeable to read about
them; yet is every writer tempted to extend on
such a subject -- every student attracted to con-
tinue a page where those names begin the leaf.
And it is perhaps not wholly tedious or uninterest-
ing to observe, that more, much more is required
to describe beauty, than is comprehended in the
common acceptation of the adjective beautiful:
for, while symmetry suffices to constitute a perſect
form in many works of nature, and some of art,
as the mountain at the head of Loch Lomond in
Scotland, and the Antonine column at Rome,
far more is demanded by connoisseurs who deal in
animated excellence. A horse, for example, is
scarcely allowed to possess true beauty, till his
owner can boast for him a brilliancy of coat, what-
ever the colour may be; a decided elegance as
well as symmetrical proportion in his shape;
grace presiding in every motion, with eyes and ears
expressive of a long-traced lineage, and even of ap-
parent sensibility to his own praise and value,
Haughty carriage is indispensable to brute perfec-
tion. The peacock is handsomer than the Chinese
pheasant, because he is prouder; and the feline
BRITISH SYNoNYMY. 29'
B.
race take much from their own beauty by substi-
tuting the earpression of insidiousness instead of
pride. &
Indeed we are not correct when we require only
expression in a human face, for there are earpres-
sions which disgrace humanity. Among our own
species we must meantime confess, that we love a
lofty consciousness of superiority, just stopping
short of a vain-glorious ostentation. Os homini
sublime dedit, &c. The late Earl of Errol, dressed
in his robes at the coronation of King George the
Third, and Mrs. Siddons, in the character of Mur-
phy's Euphrasia, were the noblest specimens of
the human race I ever saw while he, looking like
Jove's own son Sarpedon, as described by Homer,
and she, looking like radiant Truth led by the wi-
thered hand of hoary Time, seemed alone fit to be
sent out into some distant planet, for the purpose of
shewing its inhabitants to what a race of exalted
creatures God had been pleased to give this earth
as a possession.
With regard to mere grace, I am not sure which
produces most pleasing sensations in the beholder;
which, in a word, gives most delight, that well
varied and nicely studied elegance, carried to per-
fection, though by an inferior form, as in the
younger Vestris; or that pure natural charm re-
sulting from a symmetric figure put into easy mo-
tion by pleasure or surprise, as I have seen in the
3o BRITISH synony M.Y.
B.
late Lady Coventry. To both, attesting spectators
have often manifested their just admiration by re-
peated bursts of applause, particularly to the
countess, whom I saw one night at the theatre stretch
out her arm with such a peculiar, such inimitable
manner, as forced a loud and sudden clap from
all the pit and galleries; which she, conscious of
her charms, delighted to increase and prolong, by
turning round with a familiar smile to reward the
enraptured company. - • .
In her description alone might then all our syno-
nymy be happily engaged; and truly might we say
that her unrivalled, her consummate beauty was
the effect of perfect symmetry, spontaneously pro-
ducing grace invincible, although her mien and
carriage had less of dignity than sweetness in it;
and the expression of her countenance, illuminated
by the brightest tints, although lovelily mutable,
as Mason says, in verses alone worthy the original,
was always the expression of pleasure felt or
pleasure given. Her dress was seldom chosen with
elegance, as I remember; and I recollect no
splendour except of general beauty about her."
BLAzE AND FLAME,
Appear to be synonymous, yet are scarcely so
* Prettiness carries an idea of simplicity; handsomeness,
of nobility; beauty, of majesty,+T. -
BRITISH SYNoNYMY. 31
T}.
in a literal, and certainly not, in a figurative sense.
We say indeed with equal propriety that the house
is in a blaze, or that it is in a flame. Both mean
light bodies set on fire so as to produce luminous
effect. Yet all know flame to be the mere volatile
parts of the fewel rarefied so as to kindle easily.
Sir Isaac says, flame is no other than red-hot
smoke : but there are bodies which do not fume
copiously, while others do ; and we use the two
words when we say gunpowder is set in a blaze
most quickly when the heat is communicated by
a spark, while spirit of wine takes fire by the flame
of a lighted candle; as some tempers are provoked
to violence by fierce opposition, some others by a
hint dropt more obscurely ; all this goes right as
to the literal sense of our expression. With regard
to the figurative, should a foreign gentleman un-
luckily listen while an English friend happened to
be speaking of his favourite lady, and in a gay
humour called her an old flame of his, which men
do commonly enough, and should the uninformed
stranger, in a spirit of imitation, think it a good
notion for him to call her his blaze , not the
gravest of the whole party would probably forbear
laughing, though no one person in the company
could give a reason why, but that it is not cus-
tomary. Doctor Johnson affirms, hastily, that this
noun is never appropriated to the passion of love,
and perhaps it may be so: the verb is used, most
32 } R ITISH SYN ONY MY.
B.
certainly ; nor would the most accurate converser
scruple to assert that Rufus's troublesome passion
for his Naevia blazes out at every turn, so that
there is no such thing as escaping the flame.
Shakespeare brings both words into contact when
describing popular fury: in his Coriolanus one says,
« They are in most warlike preparation truly, and
we shall come upon them in the very heat of their
division; the main blaze of it is past indeed, but a
small thing would make it flame out again.”
BLISS, HAPPINESS, FELICITY,
Are three of the strongest words mankind have
been able to invent for a sensation they know so
very little about ; and we may observe that the
first of these has been, long ago, nearly discarded
from common talk as too sublime and perfect,
being now used only in a solemn sense, and with
allusion to eternity; but if felicity could be ever
found on earth, it might most justly be expected
from a marriage of two persons eminently quali-
fied to make each other's happiness, in a union
first formed by love , continued by friendship,
and so cemented by virtue as may give the part-
ners a well-founded hope of everlasting bliss in
the world to come.* -
* Happiness consists in the possession of honours, friends,
BRITISH SY NO NY MIY. 33
B.
BLOCKHEAD, DOLT, DUPE, GULL.
Of these harsh appellatives, the first is most in
use, and justly, for they are by no means strict
in their synonymy, though too much resembling
one another in effect. A man may however be
dupe to an artful courtesan, or a projecting chy–
mist, without being a blockhead at his book at all,
or apparently doltish in company : now such a
character might with most propriety be called a
gull; but that unlucky word, derived from the
old French guiller, is grown obsolete likewise,
and since Ben Johnson's days dismissed our lan—
guage without leaving a successor of equal value.
He uses it in a comic dialogue with excellent ef-
fect, and I feel sorry that 'tis turned into the
streets and alleys of London with the first letter
changed: in that sense Fielding confirms its de-
gradation.
To BOAST, TO BRAG, To WAUNT, To PUFF.
The first and third of these are best to recom-
mend for the use of ſoreigners; there is a gross
vulgarity in the other two, unless applied with
particular care and attention. The reason is, they
and health ; the satisfaction of the mind alone constitutes
felicity: bliss is a portion of the godly, and depends, in
every religion, on the persuasion of the heart.—T.
2"
34 BRITISH SYN ONY MY.
B.
are but too expressive; so much so, I suppose, we
have worn them out , and they are gone with our
dirty cards down to the second table. It is observ-
able meantime that Italians always speak genteel
English, although broken, as we call it, while Ger-
mans choose the coarser word if one can be found
synonymous. The reason is simply this: a Ro-
man or a Florentine naturally catches at a Latin
derivation ; an inhabitant of Dresden or Berlin at
a Saxon or Dutch etymology: the first tells you
he deviated exceedingly from the right path be-
tween Warwick and Kennelworth , if he means
to inform you how he lost his way; a Prussian will
say that he swerſed. Of the verbs before us, an
Italian would soon find out that a dirty postillion
vaunted of his horsemanship; while an honest Ha-
noverian would see nothing in the late pompous
accounts of Abyssinia given by a modern traveller
of eminence, but that the writer was a pragging
fellow ; just as he would say of Sir Sampson
Legend in Congreve's Love for Love, who, to fright
old Foresight, says, & I know the length of the
Emperor of China's foot,have kissed the great Mo-
gul's slipper, and rode a-hunting upon an elephant
with the Cham of Tartary.» Such boasts as these,
however, are at worst only contemptible; but the
word puff is come into discredit for dishonesty of
late, since for the newspaper trick of calling unde-
8.5
served attention to violet soap, or other equally
BRITISH SYN ON Y MIY. 35
- B.
paltry commodities, we have adopted the term
puff.
BoID, SAUCY, AUDACIous, IMRUDENT.
& You are a saucy fellow, º says dying Cathe-
rine in Shakespeare's Henry the Eighth, when a
messenger running in hastily forgets his due obei-
sance to the expiring Queen, who adds with equal
dignity and pathos : « Deserve we no more reve—
rence P × A bold man is one who speaks blunt
truths, out of season perhaps, and is likely enough
to be called saucy, though naturally unwilling to
be so. Clytus was bold when he thwarted Alexan-
der's pride at the feast; and Sir Thomas More lost
one of the wisest heads ever worn by man through
his honest boldness, or bold honesty. Impudent
is chiefly appropriated to coarse vices in conver-
sation; that adjective, and its synonymous sub-
titute, audacious, are used by us chiefly on rough
occasions, where virtue has no place. It had a
higher rank in Latin: Unus et hic audar, says,
Ovid, mentioning a stout-hearted mariner willing
to face that storm which, threatening, kept the rest
at home: but we have degraded it from its original
rank, and say familiarly, an impudent young man,
last week in Ireland, forced a fine girl away from
her parents' house, and married her wholly with-
out their consent, and half without her own , be-
36 BRITISH SYN ON YMY.
B.
cause he fancied her possessed of a considerable
fortune. When the mistake was at length disco-
vered, he boldly, brought her back ruined, re-
plied to the remonstrances of her old father with a
saucy air, and audaciously denying his marriage,
turned her back upon their hands, quitted the
island, resolving to scorn all thoughts of reparation,
and to return no more. *
Book, volumE, work.
These words may easily be confounded cer-
tainly, yet would the mistakes be of more conse-
quence to literature than to common discourse ;
for although book by its derivation apparently
means the flat form , originally made of beech
wood, in which the works of learned men are now
regularly comprised, it has assumed another sense
besides, and points out the sections into which
those great works are divided. We say the fif-
teenth or twentieth book of Homer's Iliad, and tell
how Herodotus called his nine books by the names
of the nine Muses, &c. while volume, derived a
volvendo, from the rolling them upon sticks as a
mercer rolls silk, only that the parchment was
* Impudent implies shamelessness, or want of modesty;
saucy means insolence and abuse ; an audacious man is
steeled against reproof. A bold man, conscious of his
worth, never deserves the above appellations.—T.
‘DRITISH SYN ONYMY. 37
*
B.
kept firm by two ram's horns at the ends, signifies
thequantity of books divided by the author into
portions, and called volumes. Before the art of
printing, which is a very late one , was known , a
library consisted in an immense number of these
volumes: the earliest we read of is the House of
Rolls in the scripture mentioned by Esdras, and
supposed to be built by Nehemiah--a library
having been always an appendage to a church;
and accordingly the library of the Vatican is now
one of the most splendid in Europe. The Ptole-
maean and the Alexandrian libraries have filled
the world with their fame——perhaps with their
smoke too, since as Pope says one might
From shelf to shelf see greedy Vulcan roll,
And lick up all their physic of the soul.
But those who signalize themselves in the cause of
liberty, falsely so called , have ever waged war
against book learning; and when democracy burns
with most fervour, it points the fire towards all
repositories of literature, and combats the Arts,
the Altar, and the Throne, as if it considered them
united very closely. See the insurrection of Jack
Cade in England; the Mountain-faction in France,
and every other burst of popular phrensy. Mean-
time, the materials of which books were made
being changed from stone, on which the long-re-
wered, and now first insulted, Decalogue was given,
T)
38 BRITISH SYNONY MIY.
B.
and treaties engraved between Greece and Persia,
as our Marbles at Oxford can testify, vegetable
substances were put in place of mineral ones, and
the burning of books became a punishment for
authors; and so grievous a one did poor Labienus
find it, that we read how he shut himself up in
the tomb of his ancestors, and actually pined his
life away between grief and rage for the loss of his
dear volumes; though he had not neglected, while
in his possession, to get them all by heart, so that
his counsel cried out : « you had better burn the
man too. 2 There is still a saying I believe among
the learned: legere et negligere mec legere est; and
the Spaniards themselves cry out ; libro cerrado,
no saca letrado.” -
BRANCH, ARM OF A TREE, BOUGH,
Are nearly, if not entirely, synonymous: the two
first have the same root, as to etymology; and bough
is a saxon word not far distant in meaning. A
foreigner may use which he pleases in the strict and
literal sense; and yet, the instant they become figura-
tive, none will do but the first upon the list before us.
We say that every branch of the Missisippi is larger
* Judge not of an author by the largeness of the volume.
Many books would be more valuable if reduced to one.—G.
BRITISH SYNoNYMY. 39.
than our European rivers, if exception be made for
he Danube; yet where the vast body of waters,
brought into the Atlantic by the river St. Lawrence,
rolls its enormous tribute to the ocean, it appears
an arm of the sea. Bough admits of no such use;
although in some remote provinces, when a man
is in high spirits, and seems to entertain flighty
notions of his own greatness, we say : he is got
up among the boughs. The various ramifications
of science are familiarly termed branches of lite-
rature; and the clerks, in every office signified
through the court register, know the precise value
of what they, in true office cant, call a branch
of business. The collateral relations to a great fa-
mily are branches from the old genealogical tree;
and where they consider themselves as such, it is
seen in the attachment shewn by them to the pa-
rent stem : this is still frequent in Wales and Scot-
land, where, if these new-fangled notions of liberty
and independence pervade not, good examples
may yet be given perhaps of firm adherence to
our old national constitution, church and king; .
remembering that reverence is due to government,
and veneration to the trunk of sovereignty, howe-
ver some of the branches, decayed by time or in-
jured by storms, may, to a fastidious taste and
hasty-judging eye, appear to disgrace its general
form and majestic beauty. Cutting them off will,
at any rate, be worse; the circulation of vitality

4o BRITISH SYN ONYM Y.
B.
must stop, and every twig must feel the sad, the
certain effect. * *
Dut the censurers will say we have branched out
too far from our subject; and by that censure fo-
reigners will find that this noun makes a verb of
common use, which arm and bough are incapable
of doing.
*…
r
• *
To BRANDISH, To FLOURISH weAPONs ABOUT.
Verbs denoting mean actions of pretended va-
lour, which only tend to make the actor ridicu-
lous; at least they are so accepted in familiar and
common chat. In poetry the first word has a se-
rious sense enough : He brandished HIGH HIS
STEEL.” Yet it is even there very near to aludicrous'
image, and must be used cautiously; it is so closely
connected in affinity with what we call vapouring
and flourishing, in order to obtain an ill-deserved
character among our companions for
* a
BRAVERY, vALour, FEARLESSNESs, FoRTITUDE, INTREPIDITY
AND COURA.G.E.
Of these glorious qualities who is there would -
not delight to discriminate the different features,
* And never brandish more revengeful steel
Over the glittering helmet of my foe.—S.
BRITISH SYN ONY MIY, 4I
*.
*4,
B.
and trace the near approaches to synonymy? as the
six brothers are indeed wonderfully alike, though
not essentially the same ; as Ovid says,
Facies nom omnibus una,
Nec diversa tamen qualem decet esse sororum.
And here conversation comes in to fix the rule :
for if ſoreigners, when they see a sea-boy mount
the mast in a hard gale, attentive to his duty and
heedless of the storm, say, he is a man of valour,
they mistake the phrase, and must begin to learn
from custom, more than science, perhaps, to call
him (as he certainly is) a brave little fellow. When
told too of Lord Peterborough, that he endured the
painful operation of lithotomy without shrinking
or fainting, having previously stipulated that, he
should not be bound; and that though free he ne-
ver impeded the surgeons, but turned by their di-
rection to receive each pang they were obliged to
inflict, we must remember that the virtue he then
displayed was fortitude, not bravery ; while an
agile rope-dancer, and those light active fellows
that vault through a hoop set on fire, or fly over
eight horses' backs and one rider, for five shillings
a night, are mere instances of fearlessness growing
out of habit, and acquaintance with that mode of
exerting it. How they would face danger in any
other shape I know not, but true courage despises
it in all : and though Marshal Turenne might per-
42 BRITISH SYNONYMY.
B.
haps have been laughed at by a modern glazier's
apprentice, were he set to clean a two pair of stairs
window outside upon a tottering board, as may
be frequently seen in the city of London, Caesar
would have been laughed at only for his awkward-
ness, I trust, for fear seemed to find no place in
the heart of Caesar.
Great Julius, on the mountain bred,
A flock, perhaps, or herd had led ;
He who controll'd the world had been
But the best wrestler on the green, \,
says Waller: yet he would have been the first and
best in every situation, I doubt not. While such
however is the value of words that they alone give
well proportioned praise to heroes and to martyrs,
let no one say synonymy is of small importance.
Examples, meantime, of firm and patient suffe-
rance may be found equal even to the highest
expectation among the female sex, and that among
women most delicately bred too ; witness Mary
Queen of Scots and Anna Boleyn, who both met
death in his most dreadful form ; perhaps, with
unabated fortitude, though neither of them would
probably have shewn courage in a battle, or have
been able to look without evident marks of terror
in their countenances upon those acts of intrepidity
often displayed in war.
Heaven, when its hand pour’d softness on our limbs,
Unfit for toils, and polish’d into weakness,
Made passive fortitude the praise of woman.
BRITISH SYN ONY MIY, 43
B.
Yet is this quality, however estimable, only a single
ingredient among the rest; which, joined together,
compose a character of perfect courage; while
bravery may be daily found among the coarsest
mortals, among brutes; for never yet did modern
pugilist or Roman gladiator go beyond a high bred
game-cock, bravest of terrestrial animals! in that
undaunted power of resistance and felf-defence,
that pertinaciousness of attack, and resolution never
to yield, which constitutes real bravery. Walour,
positively so called, differs from all these, but
least from this last named energy: it is confessedly
sought in its proper place, the field; and whilst
..I should be tempted to give the Spartan Boy or
London 'Prentice as instances of sturdy bravery,
Charles of Sweden should remain my example of
heroic valour. When hopeless and even careless
of success, he fought against fire and sword to de-
fend his intrenchments at Bender, 'twas thirst of
fame inspired his frantic valour. When Isadas the
Lacedaemonian, starting from his bath at the sound
of the warrior-trumpet, rushed naked against an
armed force of well-disciplined troops, and mowed
down multitudes in his fit of glorious phrensy, such
valour forced a statue from his country, while its
government with equal justice punished his con-
tempt of decorum. & Rise thou in thy strength,
thou mighty man of valour, 2 cries the angel to
Gideon, the Israelitish hero ; and we annex no
44 BRITISH SYN ON Y WIY.
B.
other idea than that of valour to the fictitious
knights of the twelfth century, Amadis de Gaul or
Belianis of Greece, who killed dragons, rescued
damsels, &c. whilst intrepidity is a quality of
the mind. Yet even that fervour of a gallant soul,
by which Sir Edward Hawke was happily impelled
to attack and vanquish far superior force, 'mid ris-
ing tempests, falling darkness, and the just terror-
of experienced mariners, a lee-shore; that gene-
rous, that magnanimous sentiment which prompt-
ed the Prince of Orange, in his early years, to
oppose the conquests of Louis XIV, and project
the drowning his whole country to save it from
invasion; promising to open the sluices by de-
grees, and lay his own little body in the last dyke.
This nobleness of nature, this spirit of intrepi-
dity, must yet be seconded by a power of inven-
tion, a coolness of resolution, an unwearied temper
to persist in each greatly-formed design, before
we can venture any mortal man as a right example
of perſect, genuine, and uncontrovertible courage.
To this distinguished honour, however, great as
it is, John Duke of Marlborough , Frederic the
Third, King of Prussia, and, far beyond them both,
the first Roman Caesar, purchased the just preten-
sion by a series of years spent in continual alarm,
danger in every shape, and contempt of it on every
occasion; tedious though active hours passed in
perpetual wars; long habits of a camp, with all its
ſº
RBITISH SYN ONY MY. 45
T}.
train of certain, its constant preparation for uncer-
tain, evils; well tried and habitual fearlessness of
accidents; fortitude to support ill health and pain,
even equal to that valour with which that General
often tempted perilous situations, compose the
life and character of the immortal Julius, whose
personal bravery during the execution of his great
designs, failed not to second with resistless power.
the intrepidity with which his soul had conceived
them; leaving thus, by a steady yet animated cou-
rage, an example which two or three men alone
have been found able to follow (and that at a dis-
tance) for eighteen hundred years.
BRood, CLUTCH, PROGENY OF FEATHERED ANIMALS.
It is distressing enough to foreigners when they
find us arbitrarily calling the young domestic fowl
which follow a turkey a fine brood, when we talked
but two minutes before of a clutch of chickens,
and perhaps cry out in the next breath: here's a
flock of young geese on the water | The first of
these words however must be their decided choice;
as in saying that they cannot be wrong: the last
word does not strictly allude to the goslings, but
means the number all together; and the second
word is only used from the trick ahen has to herself
almost, of calling her little ones so closely round
her in times of danger, that you may clutch or
46 BRITISH SYN ON Y M Y.
*
B.
make a handful of them, as we say. Mr. Addison,
who was more an elegant author than good natu-
ralist, teaches them in his Spectator to say a brood
of ducks, when he expresses his admiration of the
providence by which all the works of heaven are
governed; and he is the best language-master :
though that very paper betrays the little skill with
which he looked on such matters in a thousand
instances. i
BRook, Rivu LET, STREAM, RIVER,
Are much in the same manther synonymous, so
far as relates to poetical use, &c. but Mr. Locke
shews us how to separate them in conversation ,
and how they really separate by nature, when he
tells us that & springs make little rivulets, and
these united form brooks, which, coming forward
in streams, compose great rivers that run into the
sea. Doctor Johnson, whose ideas of any thing
not positively large were ever mingled with con-
tempt, asked of one of our sharp currents in North
Wales : has this brook e'er a name P and received
for answer: why, dear Sir, this is the river Ustrad.
—Let us, said he, turning to his friend, jump
over it directly, and shew how an Englishman
should treat a 17’elch river. *
º
* A rivulet is a much larger stream than a brook, and runs
between banks ; a brook winds its way through meadows.
We say a rapid stream, a clear rivulet, a gurgling brook. —T.
BRITISH SYNoNYMry. 47
B.
To BustLE, TO BE BUSY, TO BE EMPLOYED OR STIRRING,
TO BE NOTABLE.
These all seem female qualifications, or at
highest, commercial ones. A notable woman,
we say, is of admirable utility in a small shop of .
quick trade, and numerous customers : such a
one will bustle better through life than her hus—
band, and be stirring earlier in a morning, be-
cause she is not like him tempted to drink over
night : her busy fingers ever employed will find
time to work even while she sits behind the coun-
ter, if she has in her that true spirit of housewife-
ry which distinguishes the female sex : for whilst
men think with our great Lord Bacon (at least in
general) that riches are for spending, and spend-
ing is for honour, women for the most part con-
sider riches as good for mere accumulation and
saving. The merchant therefore says, Riches
having wings to fly away, we will send some flying
forth to fetch in others; while his wiſe , when
suffered to preside in such matters, makes haste to
clip the feathers, and depends on parsimony rather
thaffhazard for future provision of wealth. This
temper therefore, though destructive in the exten-
sive schemes of commerce, is yet excellent in the
petty paths of a lucrative life; and such women
are not difficult to find in London or Amsterdam.*
* & Come, bustle, bustle, caparison my horse, o says
Shakespeare in his Richard III.—G.
48 BRITISH SYNONYMY.
CALM, SERENE, TRANQUIL, PEACEFUL, QUIET, STILL.
Mr. Addisson has been censured, and not un-
justly, for giving the two first epithets to his angel:
Calm and serene he drives the furious blast—
because, says the critic, those words being strictly
synonymous, the poet has in this too much cele-
brated simile been guilty of unpardonable tauto-
logy; yet are the words merely misapplied, or
rather applied unluckily than ill; for if in far in-
ferior verses you should read that
When calm the winds, serene the sky,
Our thoughts enjoy tranquillity;
Thro' the still hours when peaceful night
Does man to quiet rest invite —
we should discover in these lines, however flat and
insipid, no glaring fault of the same kind, although
their brevity brings all the accessory words crowd-
ing together. ‘Perhaps indeed as adverbs they
may have a closer affinity; yet I see no reason
for it: to use them as adjectives seems the more
obvious sense , and then they harmonize well
enough.” *
cANDour, PURITY of MIND, OPENNESS, INGENUITY,
SINCERITY.
These terms again, though pleasingly analo-
gous, are not allied in an exact synonymy: and
* Be still, my soul, enjoy thy tranquil peace.
Calim and serene I'll end my peaceful days.-P.
BRITISH SYN ON. Y.M.Y. 49
g-- -
C.
we might add with propriety unreservedness too,
a quality much like the others but forgotten upon
the list. This last is however particularly valu-
able in youth , and engaging beyond all others to
people intrusted with the guidance of young minds;
yet would such conductors do well to remember
that innocence is intended one day to ripen into
virtue, and good parts to be matured into wisdom;
so that if a young man can keep his purity of mind
and candour, both which imply but whiteness,
not transparency, till five-and-twenty years old, we
will say, it is a great matter in this wicked world,
and it is enough ; for, who in these days will dare
to wish a window before his breast , as that old
Roman did who desired every passer-by might
witness his most secret thoughts P” Such openness
of temper would ruin all our friendships, since it
were no prudence to confide in him who professes
total unreservedness ; and although disguise is
mean, we must own that nakedness is no less in-
decent : and with perfect ingenuity do I confess
my persuasion, that those who harangue loudest
and longest in praise of bold sincerity desire more
frequently to practise than endure it; to be upheld
in their privileges of prescribing to their neigh-
bours, and of dealing out blame with more sincere
* Sincerity is always esteemed ; ingenuity often betrays
itself.-T. -
E.
5o RRITISH SYN ONY M. Y.
C.
than tender kindness, rather than feel any wish
to be told their own faults, and profit by the in-
formation.
cHole:RIC, PASSIONATE, IRASCIBLE, INDIGNANT, ANGRY,
wkATH FUL, violent, HASTY, TESTY, PEEVISH, FRETFUL.
Of these unpleasing words some are synonymous
to each other, and some are not; the first is the
least, the second, most in use. A man merely
of a hasty temper is often termed passionate,
though that quality implies a mind little under its
own control upon any occasion; and people easily
endure to have their neighbours give them a cha-
racter for being passionate when in my accepta—
tion of the word they are nothing less. An iras-
cible disposition is often attributed to nations, or
to districts. Natives of Wales are justly charged
with promptitude to sudden resentment, while
the Portuguese have been observed coolly to study
for a moment of future revenge; and I have myself
heard General Paoli praise a Corsican for having
professed himself contented to die, could he in his
last pangs be gratified with, seeing his enemy's
agonizing grin ; that was the very phrase. Cho-
leric has, by frequent adaptation to ludicrous
characters on the stage, contracted somewhat of
comical , that excites laughter merely by pro-
nouncing it: so in a smaller degree does testy,
BRITISH SY NONY WIY. 5 I
C.
which idea the fancy feels ever disposed to con-
nect with old age, and snappish though toothless
ill-humour; whilst the word peewish best expresses
female frowardness, and delicacy worn too thin to
endure the handling. Angºr has a much more en-
larged signification. We say an angry father, an
angry sky, an angry viper, or an angry wound: but
fretful is with most propriety attributed to feeble
infancy, or helpless sickness, when the weak though
painful cry for assistance is ill understood, or bru-
tally neglected.
Indignant meantime derives from a higher stock,
and feels a wicked world as it were unworthy of
its favour. Jugurtha was indignant when he con-
templated the venality of Rome , and Juvenal
indignantly satirizes her grosser vices. Cato's great
soul, indignant of the age he lived in , left the
earth, as fable supposes Astraea to have done : he
died of indignation. Let not meanwhile a com-
mon mortal of these common times fancy him-
self privileged to imitate such examples, or heat
up a temper naturally choleric into studied vio-
lence for small offences, and call himself indig-
nant, lest, though he frighten his wiſe perhaps, and
harass his servants, as the Rambler says, the
rest of the world will just look on and laugh
till the petty chagrin which first agitated his anger,
though apparently derived from an Italian word
sciašurina, meaning a slight misfortune, end in
52 BRITISH SYN ON Y MIY.
C.
serious disadvantage, and open mortification. But
it is time to call in the word of all our synonymy
the most grave and solemn, while wrathful really
seems as if set apart in our language to represent
and describe nothing less than Almighty Power
offended : it is therefore seldom used except on
occasions when we conclude the wrathful Deity
disposed to punish sinful men for so long insulting
his endurance of their guilt and folly. *
CLEAR, PEf LUCID, TRANSPARENT.
These, when applied to water, are adjectives'
strictly synonymous : the German rivers have just
title to them all, but we must use only the first
if speaking of air or weather. Describing the Elec-
tor of Saxony's famous diamond indeed, every
epithet expressive of perfection might be intro-
duced ; suffice it to observe, that this beautiful
produce of nature, in size equal to the stone of a
common apricot, is singularly clear, and of the most
Cassius: - -
« Fret till your proud heart break.
c. Go, shew your slaves how choleric you are,
« And make your bondmen tremble. ,
Garth gives a fine description of a frantic man :
« He swells with wrathful and outrageous moans;
« He frets, he fumes, he stares, he stamps the ground.”
* Brutus, in Shakespeare's Caesar, says contemptibly to
BRITISH SYNONY MY. 53
C.
pellucid whiteness, and that, being set transparent,
its peculiar brilliancy, and freedom from flaws are
the more easily distinguished and admired.*
CLEveR, DEXTRous, SKILFUL ;
To which might be added another pretty word
well taken into our language without alteration of
spelling, and called tidroit. This adjective should
not have been omitted on the list, as it will be very
suitable to foreigners, and less approaching to vul-
garity than clever, which, if applied to things high
or serious, frightens one. We say : the minister
managed adroitly in procuring men eminently skil-
ful in the art of engineering, and equally deactrous
in the manual use of such machines; for , let a
fellow be as clever as he can, without practice no
person will arrive at being neat-handed and deac-
trous about any thing, least of all in matters where
complicated machinery is in question: I have there-
fore little opinion of those contrivances and mo-
dern inventions to prevent fire or thieves; parti-
cularly a piece of workmanship once shewn me of
* We cannot help inserting the beautiful lines of Den-
ham, on the Thames, where we distinctly find an alliteration
in the last word but one of the second line:
“Tho' deep, yet clear, tho' gentle, yet not dull;
“Strong, without rage, without o'erflowing full, o
54 BRITISII syNoNYMy,
C.
a ladder and fire engine combined, which alter-
mately prevented the operation of each other. Few
things indeed are more offensive than those futile,
and half impracticable devices to snuff a candle af-
ter some new method; by which tricks clever fel-
łows however are skilful enough to get money from
neighbours more rich than wise, who like the lady
in Young's Satires . .
To eat their breakfasts will project a scheme,
Nor take their tea without a stratagem;
to the contriving of which we leave them, and pass
on to other words. *
CLOSE, SECRET, PRIVATE.
And here, instructed by Sir Francis Bacon, we
might easily bring in this synonymy to illustrate
the character of Henry the Seventh of England,
who, although a just man and eminently constant
in his friendships, was so close, that even those
who were admitted to pass private hours with him
never knew any thing of his secret counsels, nor
could pretend even to guess at his future intentions.
Such a man is best represented by one who, walk-
ing with a dark lantern in the night, contrives to
throw the light on his companions, and discovers
* He who invented the art of printing was clever, dez-
trous, and skilful.—P.
B.B. IT IS H S Y NO NY MI Y, 55
C.
their faces while his own keeps hid. We must
not suffer foreigners however to think the adverbs
are exactly synonymous. Close is an epithet they
will often have opportunity to give our atmosphere
here in Britain; the other two would be ridiculous:
the private drawer of an escritoir too must be shut
close, we will add, or all the papers there, perhaps
containing secret intelligence, will be discovered
and exposed. *
CLose, covetous, AvAR1cious, stincy ; PARSIMonious,
NEAR, NIGGARDLY, PENURIOUS.
The first and fourth upon this hateful list are
strictly synonymous, and stingy is a mean word:
close should be used instead of it. The other terms
are often confounded too, though the qualities
differ exceedingly. The last—named prince was
eminently parsimonious even of his people's mo–
ney, while his rejection of America's treasure
proves him by no means avaricious : but Catiline,
alieni appetens, sui profusus, was a covetous cha-
racter though delighting in expensive dissipation.
Of all sovereigns Galba seems to have been most
close and near; niggardly in giving, and in spend-
ing penurious : the reason was probably because
he came late into the possession of wealth, and
* Keep thy own thought: be secret as the grave.—P.
56 BRITISH SYN O NY M. Y.
C.
was afraid to part with what he had so lately ob-
tained. Nothing loses respect from intimacy so
completely as riches. A gamester never regards
that which he sees changing hands so constantly :
his wish for money is but to play with it; no
care for what it purchases disturbs him; the house
of a gamester is disordered like his mind ; but no
man is more willing to let it glide through his fin-
gers; and if even his wife will watch him home,
after a winning day, she may get a share of the
plunder. How different the man who leads by
choice a parsimonious life in order to bestow his
superfluities upon the poor! Such a character is
praise-worthy in the sight of God and Man, pro-
vided he contrives to throw no disgrace upon his
own virtue by an appearance of stingy closeness,
which offends all though it injures none. *
COLD, CHILL, BLEAK.
Our climate affords frequent opportunities for
these uncomfortable epithets, I fear it will be said.
We must teach those the use of words who are
unaccustomed to their necessity : yet when I saw
the poor at Milan running about the streets with a
* He who fails to bestow when necessary, or when he
bestows gives too little, draws on himself the epithet of
niggardly; he who longs for the goods of another is co-
vetous ; he who grasps at wealth by all means whatever,
avaricious.—T.
BRITISH SYN ON Y AIY, 57
C.
little pipkin hung at their arm with fire in it, to
hold their bleak blue noses over for fear they
should drop off with the cold, I thought our own
London not quite so starving a place : however,
our long winters give a chill to the blood, which
natives of a warmer country are apt to think never
gets thawed till May. Their frosts are sharp, but
short; and the situations of their towns somehow
have not a bleak appearance as in Germany.
British industry gives an air of convenience, nay of
snugness, even to the coldest scenes of life; and when
I saw a bright sun gild the lawn before Inverary-
Castle, where fourscore hay-makers enlivened the
place with their songs, while they adorned it by
their labours; roses blooming in the garden, fish
caught that moment from the lake, and strawber-
ries presented to us at the inn that we might eat
them at our leisure in the chaise, I regretted very
little the heats of a stronger coloured climate.
COMMERCE, TRADE, TRAFFIC, BUSINESS,
Are nearly synonymous, and used for each
other upon all great occasions. England may
with propriety be said to have any, or all of these,
commerce, trade, traffic, or business with those
other nations between whom and herself there is
kept a perpetual intercourse. Yet common con-
versation shews us the shading thus : when one ob-
serves that people in business take a just and rati-
58 BRITISH SYNONY MY.
C.
onal interestin what concerns the state of commerce
in Great Britain, where the admirable roads, na-
vigable canals, and other works of immense cost and
labour, have so facilitated internal communication
of one city or town with another, that as much
benefit has in these late years accrued to petty traf.
fic, as to trade in general. Such are the advan-
tages of mercantile people taking a share in the
conduct of a state, which, small in itself, owes much
of its dignity to the extensiveness of its commerce.
The word in question was originally accented
on the last syllable, at least when used participially,
as Milton did :
« Her looks commercing with the skies. * *
CRIME, SIN AND VICE; CRIMINAL, SINFUL AND vicious,
Are by no means strictly synonymous; for al-
* Traffic relates more to the exchange of merchandise;
trade and commerce to that of buying and selling, with this
difference, that trade seems to imply the manufacturing and
vending of merchandise within ourselves; commerce, ne-
gociating with other countries. We traffic with other na-
tions that have not the use of money by bartering one kind
of merchandise for another. Trade is looked upon by the
wisest men to be the support of a state; the great and ex-
tensive commerce, therefore, that England holds with other
nations, makes us the glory and admiration of the world.-T.
To business that we like we rise betimes, and go to it
with delight.—S.
BRITISH SYN ONY MIY. 59.
C.
though there are too many actions which include
them all, yet are the words still in their natures
separate. The first alluding to our human laws,
expresses a breach made in social ties, and the
necessary compacts between man and man. The
second implies offence against God; and the last
a depravation of the will increased by indulgence
into gross enormity. Thus forgery is a crime,
for example, infidelity a sin, and gaming a vice.
Milton says, the soul imbodies and imbrutes,
till man contrives at last to stupify even the sense
of fear, and soon incurs, by some nefarious
deed, not only future punishment from God,
but immediate vengeance for violated laws; when
having begun a vicious course of life, and not being
contented to lead a sinful one, he becomes a cri-
minal at last, and dies with pain and in disgrace.
Let every gay fellow recollect besides, that though
to be called vicious scarce offends him, that is the
only epithet among the three which can without
impropriety be bestowed on brutes. We say po-
pularly a vicious horse, a vicious bull, &c.—the
others would not do. * -
* “Through tatter'd cloaths small vices do appear;
“Robes, and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,
« And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks:
« Arm it with rags, a pigmy’s straw doth pierce it: ,
says Shakespeare in King Lear; and in All’s Well that
Ends Well, he remarks that “ our crimes would despair if
we were not cherished by our virtues. 2
6o BRITISH SYNoNYMY.
gº's #:
C.
cRoss, UNLUCKY, vex ATIOUs, PERVERSE.
These , though each has a meaning appropri-
ated singly to itself, are nearly synonymous
when applied to accidents alone. It was unlucky
(we say) to be denied by one's servants when
a friend knocked at the door with whom I hap-
pened to have serious business, to whom I had al-
ready solid obligations, and whose visit I had re-
quested might be made on that particular day for
my own convenience. Things will draw cross some-
times, but this was a case peculiarly vexatious;
and I have seldom been more provoked or morti-
fied than I once was by this perverse accident.
- - * *
To CROSS, TO THw ART, To OBSTRUCT, TO EMBARRASS,
- TO HIN DER.
« Evermore crost and crost! nothing but crost' »
says Petruchio when no one dared cross him : a
common disposition enough in those who have had
their own way till they feel more disposed to in-
terpose obstruction in the schemes of others, than
to suſfer any impediments to their own. For pre-
venting this depravity of mind nurtured by long
indulgence; a little roughness from the playfellow
in early youth might easily suffice; or else a little
reflection in our riper years. Yet some instruc-
tors of mankind have found, that to cure this com-
BRITISH SYN ONY MY. 6I
C.
plaint ’tis necessary above all to cross people in
their infancy by perpetually thwarting their in-
tents, obstructing their little projects for petty
amusement, and contriving incessantly to hinder
enjoyments not in themselves irregular, and em-
barrass designs not evil in their own natures.
Though this be esteemed, however, by some wise
people, a good and reasonable mode of education,
my head, upon the maturest deliberation, condemns
the principle as erroneous, while my heart rejects
the practice as tyrannical. *
To crush, To overwhelm, To RUIN,
Are nearly, if not strictly, synonymous, and
imply a fall of some immense weight, whether
Tiquid or solid, on the unlucky creature crushed,
overwhelmed, and ruined by the blow. Upon
these principles we are however led against our
will to disapprove the use of this metaphor by
Mr. Gray, who breaks out in the beginning of his
beautiful ode, & Ruin seize thee, ruthless King! »
for it is the quality of ruin to crush, not seize.
Famine may be well said to seize a man for the
purpose of devouring, as a hungry wolf or tiger;
but the elephant crushes his antagonist with his
*Sure one of you does not serve heaven well, that you are
so crost, says Shakespeare in the Merry Wives of Windsor.
F
62 BRITISH SYNoNYMY.
C.
weight. When an old castle crumbles by time,
and totters to its fall, how are the neighbouring
fields overwhelmed ! how sits the sad owl hooting
among the wrecks of ruined greatness | When a
gallant ship splits with the weight of waters on her
bosom, how stands the mariner astonished at such
ruin J how is the stoutest heart appalled ! the live-
liest hopes crushed 1 the most aspiring courage
overwhelmed ! when the faithless element,on which
last night she conquered a powerful rival, now,
vindicating her own superior dignity, swells with
a tempest, and treads down among the unfathom-
able depths of a boiling ocean the victors and the
vanquished -
So perished the Centaur! so was sunk the Thun-
derer! clasped in the arms of Victory, and crushed
with all their honours on their head | * ---
To cry, To weep,
Are really, and I think completely synony-
mous, only that the last verb being always appro-
priated to serious purposes, we scarcely use it in
colloquial and familiar discourse, unless ironi-
cally; for it is, as we say, a tragedy word, and, do
* Dryden emphatically says : y
CC —— — The overthrow,
« Crushing, to dust pounded the crowd below ;
« Norfriends their friends, nor sires their sons could know!»
3.
* A /
B RIT IS H SYN O'N YAIY. 63
C.
not cºr so , is the phrase to children or friends we
are desirous of comforting. Tears have a very
powerful effect on young people; and, indeed, on all
those who are new in the world; but veterans have
seen them too often to be much affected; and since
the years 1779 and 1780, when I lived a great deal
with a lady who could call them up for her own
pleasure, and often did call them at my request,
the seeing one weep has been no proof to me that
any thing sad or sorrowful had befallen ; and per-
haps some of the sincerest tears are shed when
reading Richardson's Clarissa, or seeing Siddons
in the character of Mrs. Beverley. With regard
to real anguish of the heart, an old sufferer weeps
but little :
Slow-pac'd and sourer as the storms increase,
He makes his bed beneath th' inclement drift;
And scoruing the complainings of distress,
Hardens his heart against assailing want—
like Thomson's Bear, so beautifully described by
a poet, equally skilled in the knowledge of life and
nature. *
* To cry implies shedding of tears audibly; to weep,
shedding of tears in silence. Children commonly cry; grown
persons generally weep. Crying is found by experience to
give greater relief to sorrow than bare weeping.—T.
Shakespeare, in the Third Part of Henry III, makes
Richard, Duke of Gloucester, say :
« I cannot weep, for all my body's moisture
« Scarce serves to quench my furnace-burning heart: 2 and
64 BRITISH SYN ONY MY.
..º
C.
CYNICAL, SNAPPISH, SNARLING, TAUNTING, SARCASTIC.
These currish qualities (for the generous ma—
ture of a well-bred dog denies affinity with any
such) although the derivation of the first word did
certainly come from him, are very near, if not ex-
actly, synonymous. Yet I must say, that the sar-
castic gentleman, who, when at club, lies close to
give his neighbour a biting answer if he can, will
not confess himself a cynic; which in common and
corrupt use, seems to imply misanthropy and dis-
tance from mankind, rather than ill-humour when
among them. The snappish housekeeper mean-
while, that gives short answers to the poor visitant
niece , and tauntingly notices her low-bred chil-
dren's gross avidity for cakes they cannot be sup-
posed to get at home, seems the domestic like-
liest to bear rule in the establishment of a snarling
old bachelor, whose reviling humour, in the last
stage of live, drives even his dependent relations
from the door, and leaves him in the end a prey
in Titus Andronicus, the Tribune Marcus remarks that,
« To weep with them that weep, doth ease some deal. 2
Dryden, speaking of a young lady, says:
« —— Her head declined -
« Like a fair flower surcharged with dew she weeps. 2
BRITISH synon YMY. 65
C.
to still meaner animals than they; hirelings and
servants who, knowing well his temper,
In prove that heady rage with dangerous skill,
And mould his passions—till they make his will.
cuRIOUs, INQUISITIVE, ADDICTED TO INQUIRY..
These adjectives are not strictly synonymous in
conversation language ; their approach towards
each other is nearer in books, where the more se-
rious sense is adopted. The man, indeed, who feels
as if complimented, by being styled a philosopher
addicted to inquiry, is but little delighted at seeing
himself classed among those inquisitive mortals,
who are miserable if any transaction, however trifl-
ing, chance to escape their spirit of petty research,
and more curious than useful investigation. These
diligent gentlemen, who make anecdote their study,
and an intimate acquaintance with every body's
business but their own, the sole source of their best
pleasures in society, are the people we call inqui-
sitive, and in the language of low females, Gossip-
ers ; a word taken from the sponsors to a baby at
his baptism , because much chat is supposed to
be going forward at a christening. Inquisitive
they certainly must be, as to obtain facts of this
nature many questions must be asked ; and he
who relies for reception at one house, only upon
his skill at finding what is done at another, will,
66 BRITISH SYNoNYMY.
`N
C.
after a short triumph, run much hazard, I fear, of
being shut out of all.
Scire volunt secreta domſs, atque inde timeri.
And who can blame a general indignation felt
against the spies of human kind 2 Every excel-
lence may be perverted to a defect, nay to a crime,
as every food may by some process be turned into
poison; and I have been told that 'tis in the power
of chymistry to extract a spirit from a common
loaf of bread, so acid, that coral, and even gems,
may be dissolved in it. Let the man born useful and
insipid tremble as he reads, and fear lest a genius
for curious research and honest enquiry into moral
life may, if indulged, lead people on degenerating,
as it is further followed, into a restless and inquisi-
tive spirit, fatal to others peace, productive of
none to the possessor. He who attends to charac-
ters too much, learns to accommodate his eyes to
minute objects, and his mind too : like him who
peeps through microscopes all morning to view the
down upon an insect's wing , while an eagle soars
over his head unnoticed in the clouds. It was thus
the great Lord Verulam suffered his servants to
plunder clients with impunity, while he diverted
himself with watching the many changes in a thief's
complexion , and valued himself on knowing, at
whatever distance, the looks of a creditor, a bor-
rower, or a lover. -
..ºf
BRITISH SYNoNYMY. 67
DANGER, PERIL, RISK, HAZARD,
Can scarce be reckoned as strictly synonymous with
any of the ensuing substantives, unless peril, which
is a word seldom pronounced at all, except upon
very serious, or wholly ludicrous occasions. Much
of our English humour consists in taking a heavy
word for a light purpose; and were a lady to resist
a journey to Lisbon, alleging gravely the perils of
the deep, all would laugh, although the hazard is
surely something. But danger and risk are con-
versation words, the others not; and that the first
is capable of sublime imagery, and majestic
loftiness when used in poetry, Collins's fine verses
are a proof. -
Danger: whose limbs of giant mould
No mortal eye can fixed behold,
When forth he stalks a hideous form,
Howling amidst the midnight storm;
Or throws him on the ridgy steep
Of some loose hanging rock to sleep—
Substitute any of the other words for it, you convert
the passage into deformity, because they will not,
as that does, admit personification. *
* The aspiring man, spurred on by ambition, fears no
danger; leaves to hazard his health and happiness; runs
every risk to attain his end, and does it at his peril–T.
68 BRITISH SYNoNYMY.
D.
TO DEFY, TO CHALLENGE.
These words are synonymous when applied to
a single combat between particular people; but the
first verb is vastly more comprehensive than the
second. Antony challenged Augustus to commit
the fate of universal empire to his single arm, con-
scious that in such a contest (as his opponent ea-
sily discovered) the advantages lay all against Oc-
tavius, who, for that reason, laughed at his proposal,
and, with due dignity, defied such empty menaces.
A man, whose situation is wholly desperate, may
indeed challenge the seven champions if he chooses,
without fear of losing the victory, because no loss
can set him any lower: but who is he that would
be mad enough to enter the lists?
Our two words were not ill exemplified in a very
different line of life, when a flashy fellow, known
about London by the name of Captain Jasper, some
twenty years ago, burst suddenly into the Bedford
Coffee-house, and snatching up a hat belonging to
some one in the room, cried out : « whoever owns
this hat is a rascal, and I challenge him to come
out and fight. A grave gentleman sitting near the
fire replied, in a firm, but smooth tone of voice:
« whoever does own the hat is a blockhead, and
I hope we may defy you, sir, to find any such fool
here. × Captain Jasper walked to the street door,
BRITISH synonymy. 69
D.
and discharged a brace of bullets into his own head
immediately. *
To DEC ENERATE, TO LAPSE FROM A BETTER To A worse
STATE, TO GROW WILD OR BASE, TO PEJORATE.
The first of these is the true expression, from
which the others do in earnest only degenerate, or
tell by periphrasis merely what that verb gives in a
breath: for things may grow worse and worse, pe-
jorating every instant; yet if the parent stock was
worthless, our first word is no longer of use. Nero
and Domitian, for example, were depraved; but
Commodus and Caracalla added degeneraçr to
every other vice; and although the naturalists do
dispute whether animals or vegetables are capable
of degenerating, they are but little inclined to neg-
lect their barley till it grows wilder and baser, and
becomes oats in their field: much less do they
delight to see their wheat turn darnel, as it un-
doubtedly will if care is not taken, which every
farmer knows. Another set of philosophers hold
*To challenge is often used in a different sense; a fo–
reigner will, therefore, not be displeased to see it almost
synonymous to the verb to claim. You challenge that book
as yours, but I defy you to prove it. It means also to ac-
cuse, to object to a person on account of partiality. He
challenged one of the jury, supposing him to be a friend to
his adversary.—G.
7o BRITISH SYNoNYMY. .
. . . D.
a perpetual degeneration of the human species; and
a well-known writer supposes Helen, when Troy
was besieged for her sake, to have been at least
eight feet high; while the Oriental Jews hold an
opinion that proves her much degenerated, when
they represent Eve the mother of mankind so tall
as that, when she lay down to repose herself on the
peninsula of Malacca, her heels rested on the island
of Ceylon.
To deröe ATE, to Lessen THE value of, to DisPARAge.
These verbs are nearly synonymous, only the
first requires an ablative case aſter it, the last an
accusative ; the middle one is a circumlocutory
phrase. An example might easily be made to run
thus, connecting in some measure this article with
the preceding. When Bolingbroke gave the world
his idea of a patriot king, the author was well
known to be a man much disaffected to the then
present government, loose in his principles, and
a professed contemner of the Christian system; yet
could he find no purer model of true patriotism in
monarchic life than our glorious queen Elizabeth,
whom he holds forth as a pattern of princely ex-
cellence. Since it has been the mode, however, to
disparage royalty, all the petty pens have been
blunted with endeavours to lessen the value of her
kingly virtues, and derogate from her understanding
BRITISH SYNoNYMY. . 71
..
* D
*
by charging her with weakness in imagining her-
self handsome , merely because she wished if
possible to add the influence of a woman to the
authority of a sovereign : while the noble writer
just mentioned, whom all mankind consider as a
consummate politician, saw clearly, and says in
her praise boldly, that she had private friend—
ships and acknowledged favourites, but that she
never suffered her friends to forget she was their
queen, and when her favourites did, she made
them feel that she was so; for, adds he, decorum
is as necessary to preserve the esteem, as conde-
scension is to win the affection of mankind. Con-
descension however in its very name and essence
implies superiority. Let not princes flatter them-
selves therefore; they will be watched in private
as much as in public life ; and those who cannot
pierce further, will judge of them by the appear-
ances they shall exhibit in both. As kings then ,
let them never forget that they are men; as men,
let them never forget that they are kings. *
* Lord Bolingbroke says in another place, & A king
inspired with real love of his country is inestimable,
i. he, and he alone can save a state whose ruin
is far advanced ; but it is by his dignity and courage he
must save it, not his degradation. The utmost that a private
man can do, who remains untainted by general contagion,
is to keep the spirit of virtue alive in his own and perhaps
a few other breasts ; to protest against what he cannot
hinder, and claim what he cannot recover; and if the king
72 . BRITISH synonymy.
DESPONDENCY, HOPELESSNESS, DESPAIR,
Form a sort of heart-rending climax rather than
a parallel--a climax too which time unhappily
scarce ever fails of bringing to perfection. The
last of the three words implies a settled melan-
choly, I think , and is commonly succeeded by
suicide : very absurdly, sure , as our country,
where 'tis asserted the sin of self-murder most ob-
tains, is the country whence hopelessness is more
completely banished than from any region under
heaven. - -
So many vicissitudes of fortune, so many chang-
es, so many chances to repair a broken property
occur in England, that a man is blameable here
even for despondency—— unpardonable if he gives
way to despair : while sentimental distress is per-
haps harder to endure here than in several places,
and female resentment may be reasonably high in
proportion as 'tis fatal. A woman deserted by her
lover is not in fear of being forsaken by the herd
in cities where less observation watches the con-
duct of social life; but while her name is bandied
about by every mouth, her figure caricatured in
every print-shop of London, poor Olympia, we say
makes himself a private man, he can do no more : whereas
from the keystone of the building we expect that which
alone can restore it to firmness and solidity.”
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