from salus; its primary meaning is to alleviate disease. Metaphorically it is applied to other forms of useful assistance, especially to the participation of labor.

Succor is a running-up-to, and implies celerity of

exertion.

Relief is from the french relever, to lift again, and were better spelled releef and to releve; it is the service rendered after an unfortunate catastrophe.

We aid the sluggish; we assist the combatant; we help the sufferer; we succour the endangered; we relieve the disappointed. The aider should be active; the assistant, strong; the helper, wise; the succourer, speedy; the reliever, bountiful.

Actor. Player.

Both these words describe one who performs on a theatre: the first with relation to the character, the second with relation to the profession. Friends, who on a domestic stage allot parts to each other, and repeat a drama, are actors, but not players. Many a libertine has taken to the stage for a maintenance, and has become a player without becoming an actor. The great theatres engage those who act well; the strolling companies those who play cheap. The actor is he who represents a fictitious personage; the player he who does it for the diversion of an audience. Actor excites the idea of an artist who imitates human manners; player of a hireling amuser. We say a great actor, not a great player: we say a company of players, not a company of

actors.

In english, comedian is one who acts in comedy: and tragedian, one who acts in tragedy: but im french, comedian answers to our word player, and is applied to actors of either description.

Resemblance. Conformity.

Things alike in appearance have resemblance; things alike in reality have conformity. A portrait resembles the original: a bust is conformal with the plaster-cast. Semblance is the object of comparison in the one case; form in the other. There is a reseniblance between the doctrines of Luther and Calvin, not an entire conformity. There is much conformity in the structure of animals, between which there is little resemblance.

Junction. Union.

The latin jungere is etymologically connected with jugum, yoke; jungere equos curru, is to harness hoses in a chariot. To join, is to bring into juxtaposition, in circumstances which favour a suspicion of compulsion.

Union is derived from unus, one, and means making into one.

Junction implies a less intimate connection than union. Union implies a less separable connexion than junction. Travellers, armies, join: partners, lovers, unite.

An unhappy couple is joined, but not united: an unmarried couple is united, but not joined.

The union of two rivers, not the junction of two rivers, if their confluence is the thing described. The junction of two rivers, not the union of two rivers, if the canal, which connects them, is the thing de scribed. Parallel roads can never unite; but they may be joined by a cross road.

To accumulate. To amass. Things which when heaped together do not unite, are said to be accumulated: things which when heaped together do unite, are said to be amassed: The avaricious man accumulates guineas; he amasses

landed property.

amass.

Such at least is the french and english use of these two words. I cannot perceive that the latin etymon cumulus necessarily means a heap of things separate, but rather a high heap, being etymologically connected with culmen. Virgil has aquæ cumulus. In this case one ought to say, to accumulate honors; to amass sordid gains.

Essay. Dissertation. Disquisition. Tractate.
Tract. Treatise. Memorial. Investigation.

All these words are employed by authors to entitle compositions of lesser or greater length. Essay means trial, attempt, and implies that a writer con siders his production as immature or incomplete, as the harbinger of some future effort or performance. Disserere is to debate or argue; dissertation, therefore, signifies a discussion, or argumentation: it is with propriety applied to compositions having a logical form. Disquirere is to search out; disquisition answers to the english word search; it is fitly ap plied to the examinations of the antiquary or of the experimentalist. Tractatus signifies a handling, or, by a natural metaphor common to the classical lan guages, a handling in the mind, a comprehension of the different parts of a subject. Cicero mentions a tractatus artium; and Pliny quotes other books similar in title. Treatise is an impure corruption of tractate, to which the ignorance of Shakspeare has. given currency.

The time has been my fell of hair

Would at a dismal treatise rouse."

The latin verb tractare becomes traiter in french: thence the substantive traité, whence Shakspeare ought to have formed the word treaty; but he gives a plural termination to a singular substantive, The

word treaty is sometimes used with propriety, as when we say the European cabinets are all employed in the treaty of peace,' that is, in the handling, or.. negociating, of peace; but the contract, or agreement, is not so correctly called the treaty. To handle is not to shake hands.

The word treatise should be banished as impure, and the word treaty employed as identical in meaning with tractate, which by some writers has been inconveniently abridged into tract, and thus becomes confoundable with another tract, from tractus, region.,

Hume called the first collection of his enquiries concerning the principles of morals, treatise of human nature; but to the second and emended edition he prefixed the too modest denomination, Essays. There are many admirable dissertations among the Tracts of Thomas Cooper, of Manchester. Sayers's Dis quisitions offer models of attic grace and simplicity. Milton's Tractate of Education recommends an italian pronunciation of the latin vowels.

The word essay has been essayed so often, that it is become a trivial title, and will probably give place. to attempts or endeavors. The word memoir, or memorial, is little used in England, much on the continent, for the designation of those disquisitions of the archæologists, which have for their object to define or preserve memorable particulars. There is a mixture of toil and thought, of research and specula tion, in the business of the etymologist, which adapts his labors for the epigraph investigations irom vestigium, footstep; he pursues his quarry step by step

On. Upon.

The preposition notwithstanding, and the conjunction inasmuchas, have not lost the meaning implied in their component parts, though they are often written as single words; neither ought upon. It can

only be used with propriety where the words up and on may both be employed. Set the sugar-basin upon the shelf;' but not Set down the coalshoot upon the ground.'

Upon means up, on the top of, and is applied to matter; as upon the table, upon the chair. Trusler.

The use of upon for on is so common in the sacred books, that wherever a scripture-style is aimed at, it must be purposely affected: the translaters of the bible were better Hebræans than Anglicists.

A similar remark might be applied to the words unto and until, which are compounded of on and to, and of on and till.

- Entertaining. Diverting.

That is entertaining which keeps up mirth between us; that is diverting which turns aside our attention. I am entertained by the conversation within; I am diverted by the bustle in the street. A well-placed anecdote entertains; a pun diverts. An entertaining man is a correct companion; a diverting man is often a troublesome one. Preparations are made to entertain; that which is unexpected diverts.

Perspiration. Sweat.

That moisture which passes invisibly through the pores of the skin, which is breathed through, is called perspiration; that moisture which passes visibly through the pores of the skin, which sues through, is called sweat. We perspire naturally, as in our sleep; heat and exercise make us sweat. The word perspiration, not exciting any indelicate idea, is substituted for sweat, when such idea is to be shunned. That lady perspires with dancing.

Landscape. Prospect.

The english formative syllable ship, like the ger