Besides number, substances have the natural distinction of gender, and it was therefore indispensable that language should possess a mode of denoting it.

Things must be of the masculine or feminine gender, partake of both or neither; and, as the monstrous objects possessing both genders, are happily confined to the regions of romance, it only remained that language should have the means of expressing the masculine, feminine, and neuter. No language can exceed the English in the philosophical propriety and simplicity of its sexual distinctions, which is the more remarkable, seeing the Anglo-Saxons, as the Latins, resorted to the artificial mode of characterizing their genders by certain terminations; which were often applied indiscriminately to males, females, and neuters. With us, males are masculine, females feminine, and inanimate things are neuter.*

The exceptions to this rule are few, and of a nature so interesting, that we could not wish it otherwise. When the occasion warrants the liberty, there is a pleasure in witnessing the triumphs of rhetoric over logical precision, and we unreluctantly surrender our judgments to the enchanting influence of imagination. Thus we say of the sun, he is setting; and of the moon, she shines. A ship is made feminine, as a great receiver and container. In addition to the neuters, which custom, by a figure of speech, has thus converted into the masculine and feminine, our language affords every facility to the personifications of eloquence and poetry :

used without declining. Thus an infant pratler says, "This is brother George hat," without producing obscurity; but, at an advanced age, he will of course say, George's hat. We still say indifferently, he follows the plough tail, or the plough's tail; and we always say, a shirt collar. These and many other undeclined nouns, we generally get over by saying, they are employed as adjectives, without any alteration of form, whereas they appear to be properly considered as nouns in the genitive case, without the distinguishing particle of declension.

The possessive plural is but a repetition or reduplication of the possessive singular. We have stated that a smith's shop is a contraction of a smithes shop; so smiths' shops is a farther contraction of smitheses shops: We thus decline an English noun :

N. Smith,
P. Smith's,

O. Smith,

N. Smiths;
P. Smiths';

O. Smiths;

N. Smith,
N. Smithes.
P. Smithes, P. Smitheses.
O. Smith, O. Smithes.

It must be recollected, therefore, that the ideas of plurality and possession, are by no means inherent, in the terms employed, but are superadded by the associations of the mind.

The chastity of the English language, which, in common usage, dis tinguishes by genders no words but what signify beings, male and female, give thus a fine opportunity for the prosopopæia; a beauty unknown to other languages where every word is masculine or feminine.-Kames's Elements of Criticism, ch, 20, s. 4.

hence the earth is rendered feminine, as the great mother of created things, &c.

O Earth, behold, I kneel upon thy bosom,
And bend my flowing eyes to stream upon
Thy face, imploring thee that thou wilt yield
Open thy bowels of compassion, take
Into thy womb the last and most forlorn
Of all thy race, Hear me, thou common parent,
I have no parent else.

Be thou a mother,

And step between me and the curse of heav'n,
Who was who was, but is no more a father;
But brands my innocence with horrid crimes;
And, for the tender names of child and daughter,
Now calls me murderer and parricide.

CONGREVE.

Night is rendered feminine from its peaceful influence :—

Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne,
In rayless majesty now stretches forth
Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumb'ring world.

The Seasons are personified agreeably to their diversified

nature:

Now Summer with her wanton court is gone
To revel on the south side of the world,
And flaunt and frolic out the live-long day;
While Winter, rising pale from northern seas,
Shakes from his hoary locks the drizzling rheum.

ARMSTRONG.

Death is masculine, from its irresistible force.

"Even the

vulgar," says Harris, "with us, are so accustomed to this notion, that a female death they would treat as ridiculous."

Dire was the tossing, deep the groans Despair,
Tended the sick, busiest from couch to couch:
And over them triumphing Death his dart
Shook; but delayed to strike.

MILTON.

On the same principle, our immortal bard has energized Thunder :

The Thunder,

Wing'd with red light'ning and impetuous rage,
Perhaps has spent his shafts.

This matchless power of our language is still more strikingly conspicuous, in the following beautifully spirited

lines:

1

At his command th' uprooted hills retir'd

Each to his place; they heard his voice and went
Obsequious; Heav'n his wonted face renew'd,
And with fresh flowrets hill and valley smil❜d.

VOL. III. PART I.

H

On which the author of Hermes makes these just reflections: "Here all things are personified; the hills hear, the valleys smile, and the face of heaven is renewed. Suppose, then, the poet had been necessitated by the laws of his language to have said, each hill retir'd to its place,Heaven renewed its wonted face ;-how prosaic and lifeless would these neuters have appeared; how detrimental to his prosopopoeia which he was aiming to establish. In this, therefore, he was happy, that the language in which he wrote imposed no such necessity, and he was too wise to impose it on himself."

The English language has three methods of denoting sex, by different words, as boy, girl; by a change of termination, as hunter, huntress; or by prefixing a masculine or feminine term, as a man-servant, a maid-servant.

It does not comport with our design to particularize the terminations of gender, but it may be interesting to notice, that the termination er has been traced from the Saxon word oer, which was the Gothic term for man: thus a pleader was equivalent in meaning to a plead-man; a widower, a widowman; a philosopher, a philosophy-man; hence, the impropriety of applying such terms to females; nor is it surprising that we have no suitable words, whereby to designate the character of our fair friends who devote themselves to philosophy, astronomy, &c. seeing the interesting occurrence is comparatively recent; much rather, however, would we that a term should be invented, that a circumlocution should be employed, or an anomaly exist, to describe the new character, than that, if the genius of language possessed the power, it should forbid the character for want of a descriptive term...

IS THERE REASON TO BELIEVE THAT THE DOCTRINES OF PHRENOLOGY ARE FOUNDED IN TRUTH?

THE ADVOCATES of PHRENOLOGY, commenced the Discussion by observing, that, whatever might be the essence or elemental nature of the human mind, it was manifest that the brain was the seat of its faculties-it was the instrument by which the mental functions were performed-it was the organ, or series of organs, of all intellectual power.

It was apparent, also, that upon the state and condition of the brain, depended the perfect development of the mind, and the faculties were deranged, suspended, or annihilated, in precise correspondence with the brain.

It had, indeed, been asserted by some distinguished opponents of the system,* that men did not think by means of their brains, but that intellect, for aught they knew or felt, might reside in some other part of the nervous system, or in some other region of the body. But the notion was sufficiently general, to render proof unnecessary, that the head was really the seat, and the brain the organ, of thought; and until its abode was detected in some other part of the human frame, mankind would, it was presumed, be content to believe that it was at least more likely, and appeared to be more proper, that we should use our brains for the purpose of thinking, than any other conceivable portion of the structure!

If we considered the nature and progress of the brain, it was reasonable to suppose that it would produce some effect or impression on the form of the skull. The latter was perfectly soft and unossified, until long after the brain had been completely formed. It became hard and bony by slow degrees. The skull, and all the other ossified parts of the human structure, underwent, in common with its softer and less durable portions, a gradual and constant change and renovation, until a late period of life.

The action, therefore, of the brain upon a substance, thus, at first peculiarly flexible, and subsequently slowly hardened, at all times, changing, progressing, or retrogressing, might be readily comprehended. It was reasonable to suppose that the skull must thus, from its very nature, undergo some modification, by the constant, the unceasing, and energetic action of the brain.

Was it then difficult to believe, that the effect of this action would be externally manifested? and that the manifestation would be proportioned to the degree of force, energy, and continuity of the internal power?

It was unquestionable that no two skulls were ever precisely alike, and there was as much diversity in their shape as in the elements of the human character. The phrenologist ascribed these dissimilarities of form, to the action of particular portions of the brain, and contended, that peculiar propensities, sentiments, and talents, were marked by correspondent prominences. In short, that the varieties of the head were conformable to the varieties of the character. The old theory of mental philosophy maintained that the

*The Edinburgh Reviewers.

brain acted as a single organ. The new system sought to establish a plurality of organs. Such a doctrine was in perfect harmony with the general system of nature. The mental and moral characters of human beings were not only various, but contrasted. One class was interested only in the mere external aspect of the creation-they were observant, but not peculative. Another delighted to trace the analogies and resemblances, the differences and oppositions, of the phenomena of the universe, and to investigate their causes and purposes. A third viewed nature "with a poet's eye," and decorated all dull reality in vivid and exaggerated colours. These were the matter-of-fact men-the philosophers-the poets.

As these different classes of intellectual development existed, and as they evidently proved the existence of different powers or faculties, was it unreasonable to conclude, that those powers should employ different instruments of action? All the analogies of nature were in favour of the hypothesis, and, as one instance, it was adduced, that the mind did not see or hear by the means of one organ; and, as the senses had each its separate instrument, so it was maintained, that the several faculties had each their appropriate organ.

In proof of the separate locality of thought, or that some parts only of the brain were employed in certain mental operations, it was urged that every one must have felt relief after a long study, by a change of subject;-that those who had been deeply engaged in the comparison of facts and objects, or in tracing and investigating their relations and causes, however wearied by the application, found the fatigue removed by turning to some other branch of study, or contemplation;-that, as well might we suppose all the fibres of the body were employed in every instance of muscular action, as that the whole brain was essential to the performance of every act of thought. By a change of corporeal exercise, by substituting the ride for the walk, or vice versa, the pain of the wearied muscles was removed by the employment of others. So a change in the exercise of the mind was followed by a similar effect, and the inference was, that it was occasioned also by a change of organ, or instrument of mental action.

Again, it was deduced, that certain parts of the brain were necessary to the performance of many of the functions of the mind, by the fact of partial loss of power by external injury, by madness, or disease; and it was argued, that if the entire brain acted simultaneously and collectively, in every mental operation, the injury of a part of it would only affect its general power, and not any specific function. All the faculties