throwing aside the correct phraseology, and confining ourselves to the received mode, let me observe how incongruous our combined pronoun appears in this situation. Of these double personal pronouns, as I may call them, the nominative in the singular number is my self, and not me self; and in the second person it is thy self, and not thee self. Why then shall the accusative in the third person (viz. him-self) be received in the polite world, and by both the universities, into the place of the nominative "his-self?" It is the same with us in the plural number; for we very conveniently make the word "themselves" serve our purpose both in the nominative and in the accusative; while, on the other hand, the cockney is right in his plural nominative "theirselves," and only errs when he uses the same word for the accusative.

Dr. Johnson unguardedly, but very obligingly for me, admits "his-self" to have been anciently (though he goes but a very little way back for his authority) the nominative case of this double pronoun, and quotes the words of Algernon Sydney, "Every of us, each for his-self." Time will not subvert a real nominative case, however incongruously it may be abused; and I wonder that Dr. Johnson should doubt for a moment, and (as his word anciently implies) ever suppose otherwise.

Dr. Wallis, who published his grammatical work in 1653, lays the charge of vulgarity upon the courtier, and acquits the cockney, "Fateor tamen," says he, "him-self et themselves vulgo dici pro his-self et their-selves."

Now, sir, this matter might, upon the whole, be brought to a very easy compromise, if the cockney would but adopt the courtier's" them selves" for his accusative, and the courtier would condescend to accept the cockney's accusative "theirselves," instead of his own nominative "them-selves."

The like exchange would as easi•

ly reconcile them in their uses of the singular number; for let the courtier, instead of saying "He came himself," use the cockney's expression "He came his-self;" and, on the other hand, in the place of "He hurt his-self,” let the cockney say with the courtier, "He hurt himself," and all would be well, according to the present acceptation of these phrases, and these jarring interests be happily accommodated; but I am afraid that the obstinate and deep-rooted principles of education on one hand, and of habit on the other, must forbid the exchange.

I am sensible that it is accounted elegant and energetic language to use "himself" nominatively when intended to enforce personality, as in the following two examples:

"Himself hasted also to go out." "Himself an army."

No one, I believe, will be hardy enough to vindicate this as grammar; but it is allowed in all arts to break through the trammels of rule to produce great effects.

Dr. Johnson was not aware of the authenticity of dialectical expressions, and has been guilty of many omissions, and blundered in his etymologies. More may be said in support of the poticary of the cockney than the apothecary of the learned and fashionable world, which has usurped its place:

Henry Knighton, who lived about 1393, had the word apothecarius.

Dr. Johnson says, from apotheca, a repository: and that it means "a man, whose employment is to keep medicines for sale; Greek Añoðnun.”

Chaucer, who wrote before the introduction of Greek, writes “ Potecary." Chaucer died in 1400. (N. B. Greek known in England in 1453.)

In the Liber Niger Dom. Reg. Anglia, temp. Edward IV, who reigned from 1461 to 1483, it is written poticary.

Stevens's Dictionary has boticario, and derives it from bote, a gal

lipot. Botica is a shop in Spanish (French boutique), but emphatically the shop of an apothecary.

The A may be our article, which use has added to the words, together with the article an, which is a pleonasm.

Per contra, we have appellatives, which, by withdrawing a letter from the word per apharesin in the article, has absorbed it, as, from anaranja, we have formed an orange. Avanna, we call a fan, which should be termed an avan; from Abeli we say a lily: so, by dropping the A entirely, we have made saffron from assafran: all from the Spanish. Not content to say a boticario, or, Anglicè, boticary, but we must double the article and say an aboticary.

Junius calls it vocabulum sumptum ex Græco; but adds, minus commode; and refers us to Vossius, lib. I. de Vitiis Sermonis, c. 32. Apothecaries anciently sold wine and cordials.

"The emperor is somewhat amended, as his poticarie saith." A bookseller who keeps a shop (a bibliotheca), might as well be called a bibliothecary.

Perhaps the poticary or boticario was so called, to distinguish him from the initerant medicine-monger; for I am willing to suppose there have been quacks as long as there have been regular men in the profession of physic.

Apollo was little more than an empiric; for it was one of his inferior occupations. Opifer per orbem. His son Esculapius was a physician.

Q. If Apollo, by the term Opifer, was not a midwife? The apothecaries proud of the connection, by his figure in Dutch tile in their shops.

In the comedy of the Four P's, by J. Heywood, published 1569, one of them is the poticary; and I never heard that he was arraigned by the critics for pseudography. They are the Pothecary, the Pedlar, the Palmer, and the Pardoner.

Mr. Nares says, that potecary is

very low; and so it is to our ears at present.

You might as well say that periwig is Greek, from flp, circum (Græcè) and wig (Anglice); whereas it is only unfortunately a corruption of the French peruque.

The boticario (or poticary) was perhaps to the quack, who carried his medicines about for sale, as the stationer (or shop-keeper) was to the hawker and pedlar.

For the Literary Magazine.

POETRY AND PAINTING COM

PARED.

BEYOND the poet in the strength of his conceptions, as well as in the force and fidelity with which they are expressed, the painter is more alive to what passes around him; external objects take a stronger hold of his imagination; the impressions of beauty, of grandeur, of sublimity, sink deeper into his soul. His art, estimated by its noblest examples, considered in every view of mental or manual ability, appears to be the most arduous enterprise of taste, and, without injustice to other pursuits, may be termed the most extraordinary operation of human genius; in its theory and principles unfolding the most subtle refinements of intellect, in its practice displaying the most dextrous achievement of mechanical skill.

The only character, indeed, that can pretend to rank with the painter in the great scale of human ingenuity is the poet; but he has not been satisfied with equality; he has commonly aspired to a higher station; and, having been usually judge and jury in the cause, he has always taken care to decide it in his own favour. Yet an impartial investigation of the powers displayed in both arts; of the qualities from nature and education which they respectively require, would perhaps amend the record, if not reverse the decree. What is there of intellec

tual in the operations of the poet which the painter does not equal? what is there of mechanical which he does not surpass? He also is one" cui sit ingenium, cui mens divinior." The "os magna sonaturum," indeed, is not his; but he has a language more general, more eloquent, more animated; as much more arduous in its attainment as it is more extraordinary in its effects. Where their arts resemble, the painter keeps his level with the poet; where they differ, he takes a more elevated ground.

The advantage which poetry possesses over painting, in continued narration and successive impression, cannot be advanced as a peculiar merit of the poet, since it results from the nature of language, and is common to prose.

The eye of the painter is required to be as much more sensible and acute than the eye of the poet, as the accuracy of him who imitates should exceed that of him who only describes. What is the verbal expression of a passion, compared to its visible presence; the narration of an action to the action itself brought before your view? What are the "verba ardentia" of the poet, to the breathing beauties, the living lustre of the pencil, rivalling the noblest products of nature, expressing the characteristics of matter and mind, the powers of soul, the perfection of form, the brightest bloom of colour, the golden glow of light? Can the airy shadows of poetical imagery be compared to the embodied realities of art?

Where the poet cursorily observes, the painter studies intensely; what the one carries loosely in his memory, the other stamps upon his soul. The forms and combinations of things, the accidents of light and colour, the relations of distance and degree, the passions, proportions, and properties of men and animals; all the phenomena of “the visible diurnal sphere," the painter must treasure up in his mind in clear, distinct, indelible impressions, and with the powers of a magician call them

up at a moment's warning, like "spirits from the vasty deep" of his imagination,

" To do his bidding, and abide his will."

From the nature of the medium through which the poet operates, he has an advantage over the painter, which considerably facilitates his progress. As verse is constructed of language, modified by number and measure, the poet may be said to pursue, in some degree, a preparatory course of study from his cradle; he never talks but he may be considered as sharpening his tools, and collecting his materials; his instrument is never out of his hands, and whether he reads, writes, or converses, he exercises his faculties in a way that appears to have a direct reference to his art, and to be a prelude to his perform

ance.

The painter, on the other hand, makes use of a medium that has no analogy to speech, no connection with any of his ordinary habits or acquirements; his art speaks a language of the most uncommon construction, and most comprehensive influence: demanding the unremitting application of a life to produce that facility of expression, that fluency of graphic utterance, by which only he can hope to address himself effectually to the passions and understandings of men.

If to become familiar with the writings of the ancients, to comprehend their beauties, and compose in their language, be the proudest attainments of the scholar and the poet, how much more worthy of admiration is the skill of him who pours forth his ideas in the glowing language of Nature; who becomes familiar with all her beauties, who learns by heart all her characters, though numerous and varied, to an extent that reduces the amplitude of the Chinese tongue to a contracted alphabet; and who can trace them through all their combinations, from the simplest blade of grass in the field, to the most complex ex

To this eulogy of painting every painter will cordially assent, but the poet will not so promptly acquiesce in his own degradation. Impartial judges will maintain that the pow ers of the painter and the poet are both creative; and, when employed under the inspiration of real genius, the effects of both are eminently striking.

In some instances the painter has the advantages of the poet, and in others the reverse is equally true. If the former exceed the latter in the exactness with which his conceptions are embodied, the latter often presents pictures to the imagination which the former cannot express by the utmost force of his art. The painter can only catch a particular instant, while the poet can exhibit the progress of an action; and, though the artist may boast of the superiority of imitation over description, he must know that "the poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling" often sees more than lines and Becolours can possibly exhibit. sides, an impartial estimate must not overlook the superior number of the poet's pictures. While the painter is laboriously embodying a a single image, the poet produces a thousand pictures, and, though each individual sketch may be inferior to the painter's individual labour, a thousand of the first may be collec tively of more value than the single one of the last.

3

A.