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MULTITUDE, CROWD, THRONG,

SWARM.

The idea of many is common to all these terms, and peculiar to that of multitude, from the Latin multus; crowd, from the verb to crowd, signifies the many that crowd together; throng, from the German drängen to press, signifies the many that press together; and swarm, from the German schwärmen to fly about, signifies running together in numbers.

These terms vary, either in regard to the object, or the circumstance: multitude is applicable to any object; crowd, throng, and swarm, are in the proper sense applicable only to animate objects: the first two in regard to persons; the latter to animals in general, but particularly brutes. A multitude may be either in a stagnant or a moving state; all the rest denote a multitude in a moving state;

A multitude is incapable of framing orders. TEMPLE. A crowd is always pressing, generally eager and tumul

tuous;

The crowd shall Cæsar's Indian war behold. DRYDEN.

A throng may be busy and active, but not always pressing or incommodious. This term is best adapted to poetry to express a multitude of agreeable objects; I shone amid the heav'nly throng. MASON.

It is always inconvenient, sometimes dangerous to go into a crowd; it is amusing to see the throng that is perpetually passing in the streets of the city: the swarm is more active than either of the two others; it is commonly applied to bees which fly together in numbers, but sometimes to human beings, to denote their very great numbers when scattered about; thus the children of the poor in low neighbourhoods swarm in the streets;

Numberless nations, stretching far and wide,

Shall (I foresee it) soon with Gothic swarms come
forth,

From ignorance's universal North. SWIFT.

MEETING, INTERVIEW.

Meeting, from to meet, is the act of meeting or coming in the company; interview compounded of inter between, and view to view, is a personal view of each other. The meeting is an ordinary concern, and its purpose familiar; meetings are daily taking place between friends;

I have not joy'd an hour since you departed,
For public miseries and private fears,

But this bless'd meeting has o'erpaid them all.
DRYDEN.

The interview is extraordinary and formal; its object * Vide Roubaud:

is commonly business; an interview sometimes takes place between princes, or commanders of armies;

His fears were, that the interview betwixt
England and France might through their amities
Breed him some prejudice. Shakspeare.

TO FREQUENT, RESORT TO, HAUNT. Frequent comes from frequent, in Latin frequens crowded, signifies to come in numbers, or come often to the same place; resort, in French ressortir, compounded of re and sortir, signifies to go backward and forward; haunt comes from the French hanter, which is of uncertain original.

Frequent is more commonly used for an individual who goes often to a place; resort and haunt for a number of individuals. A man is said to frequent a public place; but several persons may resort to a private place men who are not fond of home frequent taverns; in the first ages of Christianity, while persecution raged, the disciples used to resort to private places for purposes of worship.

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Frequent and resort are indifferent actions; but haunt is always used in a bad sense. A man may frequent a theatre, a club, or any other social meeting, innocent or otherwise; For my own part I have ever regarded our inns of court as nurseries of statesmen and lawgivers, which makes me often frequent that part of the town.' BUDGELL. People from different quarters may resort to a fair, a church, or any other place where they wish to meet for a common purpose;

Home is the resort

Of love, of joy, of peace, and plenty, where
Supporting and supported, polish'd friends

And dear relations mingle into bliss. THOMSON. Those who haunt any place go to it in privacy for some bad or selfish purpose;

But harden'd by affronts, and still the same,
Lost to all sense of honour and of fame,

Thou yet canst love to haunt the great man's board, And think no supper good, but with a lord. LEWIS. Our Saviour frequented the synagogues: the followers of the prophet Mahomet resort to his tomb at Mecca: thieves haunt the darkest and most retired parts of the city in order to concert their measures for obtaining plunder.

PEOPLE, NATION.

People, in Latin populus, comes from the Greek λαὸς people, πληθύς a multitude, and πολὺς many. Hence the simple idea of numbers is expressed by the word people: but the term nation, from natus, marks the connexion of numbers by birth; people is, therefore, the generic, and nation the specific term. A nation

is a people connected by birth; there cannot, therefore, strictly speaking, be a nation without a people: but there may be a people where there is not a nation. *The Jews are distinguished as a people or a nation, "Nation, people."

according to the different aspects under which they are viewed: when considered as an assemblage, under the special direction of the Almighty, they are termed the people of God; but when considered in regard to their common origin, they are denominated the Jewish nation. The Americans, when spoken of in relation to Britain, are a distinct people, because they have each a distinct government; but they are not a distinct nation, because they have a common descent. On this ground the Romans are not called the Roman nation, because their origin was so various, but the Roman people, that is an assemblage living under one form of government.

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In a still closer application people is taken for a part of the state, namely, that part of a state which consists of a multitude, in distinction from its government; whence arises a distinction in the use of the terms; for we may speak of the British people, the French or the Dutch people, when we wish merely to talk of the mass, but we speak of the British nation, the French nation, and the Dutch nation, when public measures are in question, which emanate from the government, or the whole people. The English people have ever been remarkable for their attachment to liberty; It is too flagrant a demonstration how much vice is the darling of any people, when many amongst them are preferred for those practices for which in other places they can scarce be pardoned.' SOUTH. The abolition of the slave trade is one of the most glorious acts of public justice, which was ever performed by the British nation; When we read the history of nations, what do we read but the crimes and follies of men? BLAIR. The impetuosity and volatility of the French people render them peculiarly unfit to legislate for themselves; the military exploits of the French nation have rendered them a highly distinguished people in the annals of history. Upon the same ground republican states are distinguished by the name of people but kingdoms are commonly spoken of in history as nations. Hence we say the Spartan people, the Athenian people, the people of Genoa, the people of Venice; but the nations of Europe, the African nations, the English, French, German, and Italian nations.

PEOPLE, POPULACE, MOB, MOBILITY.

People and populace are evidently changes of the same word to express a number. The signification of these terms is that of a number gathered together. People is said of any body supposed to be assembled, as well as really assembled;

The people like a headlong torrent go,

And every dam they break or overflow. SHAKSPEARE. Populace is said of a body only, when actually assembled ;

The pliant populace, Those dupes of novelty, will bend before us. MALLET. The voice of the people cannot always be disregarded;

the populace in England are fond of dragging their favorites in carriages.

Mob and mobility are from the Latin mobilis, signifying moveableness, which is the characteristic of the multitude: hence Virgil's mobile vulgus. These terms, therefore, designate not only what is low, but tumultuous. A mob is at all times an object of terror : the mobility, whether high or low, are a fluttering order that mostly run from bad to worse; By the senseless and insignificant clink of misapplied words, some restless demagogues had inflamed the mind of the sottish mobile to a strange, unaccountable abhorrence of the best of men.' SOUTH.

PEOPLE, PERSONS, FOLKS.

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The term people has already been considered in two acceptations (v. People, Nation; People, Populace), under the general idea of an assembly; but in the present case it is employed to express a small number of individuals: the word people, however, is always considered as one undivided body, and the word person may be distinctly used either in the singular or plural; as we cannot say one, two, three, or four people: but we may say one, two, three, or four persons: yet on the other hand, we may indifferently say, such people or persons; many people or persons; some people or persons, and the like.

With regard to the use of these terms, which is altogether colloquial, people is employed in general propositions; and persons in those which are specific or referring directly to some particular individuals: people are generally of that opinion; some people think so; some people attended;

Performance is even the duller for

His act; and, but in the plainer and simple
Kind of the people, the deed is quite out of
Use. SHAKSPEARE.

There were but few persons present at the entertainment; the whole company consisted of six persons ; You may observe many honest, inoffensive persons strangely run down by an ugly word.' SOUTH.

As the term people is employed to designate a promiscuous multitude, it has acquired a certain meanness of acceptation which makes it less suitable than the word persons, when people of respectability are referred to: were I to say, of any individuals, I do not know who those people are, it would not be so respectful as to say, I do not know who those persons are in like manner one says, from people of that stamp, better is not to be expected; persons of their appearance do not frequent such places.

Folks, through the medium of the northern languages, comes from the Latin vulgus, the common people it is not unusual to say good people, or good folks; and in speaking jocularly to one's friends, the latter term is likewise admissible: but in the serious style it is never employed except in a disrespectful

manner: such folks (speaking of gamesters) are often put to sorry shifts; I paid some compliments to great folks, who like to be complimented.' HERRING.

GENTILE, HEATHEN, PAGAN.

*The Jews comprehended all strangers under the name of " nations or gentiles: among the Greeks and Romans they were designated by the name of barbarians. By the name Gentile was understood especially those who were not of the Jewish religion, including, in the end, even the Christians; for, as Fleury remarks, there were some among these uncircumcised Gentiles, who worshipped the true God, and were permitted to dwell in the holy land provided they observed the law of nature and abstinence; There might be several among the Gentiles in the same condition that Cornelius was before he became a Christian.' TILLOTSON.

Some learned men pretend that the Gentiles were so named from their having only a natural law, and such as they imposed on themselves, in opposition to the Jews and Christians, who have a positive revealed law to which they are obliged to submit.

Frisch and others derive the word heathen, from the Greek Ovos, a nation, which derivation is corroborated by the translation in the Anglo-saxon law of the word haethne by the Greek ovos. Adelung, how ever, thinks it to be more probably derived from the word heide a field, for the same reason as pagan is derived from pagus a village, because when Constantine banished idolators from the towns they repaired to the villages, and secretly adhered to their religious worship, whence they were termed by the Christians of the fourth century Pagani, which, as he supposes, was translated literally into the German heidener a villager or worshipper in the field. Be this as it may, it is evident that the word Heathen is in our language more applicable than Pagan, to the Greeks, the Romans, and the cultivated nations who practised idolatry; and, on the other hand, Pagan is more properly employed for any rude and uncivilized people who worship false Gods.

The Gentile does not expressly believe in a Divine Revelation; but he either admits of the truth in part, or is ready to receive it: the Heathen adopts a positively false system that is opposed to the true faith; the Pagan is the species of Heathen who obstinately persists in a worship which is merely the fruit of his own imagination. The Heathens or Pagans are Gentiles; but the Gentiles are not all either Heathens or Pagans. Confucius and Socrates, who rejected the plurality of Gods, and the followers of Mahomet, who adore the true God, are, properly speaking, Gentiles. The worshippers of Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, and all the deities of the ancients, are termed Heathens. The worshippers of Fo, Brama, Xaca, and all the deities of savage nations, are termed Pagans.

• Vide Roubaud: "Gentils, païens.”

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The Gentiles were called to the true faith, and obeyed the call: many of the illustrious Heathens would have doubtless done the same, had they enjoyed the same privilege; Not that I believe that all the virtues of the Heathens were counterfeit, and destitute of an inward principle of goodness. God forbid we should pass so hard a judgement upon those excellent men, Socrates, and Epictetus, and Antoninus.' TILLOTSON.

There are many Pagans to this day who reject this advantage, to pursue their own blind imaginations; And nations laid in blood; dread sacrifice

To Christian pride! which had with horror shock'd
The darkest Pagans, offered to their gods. YoUNG.

FAMILY, HOUSE, LINEAGE, RACE. Divisions of men, according to some rule of relationship or connexion, is the common idea in these

terms.

Family, from the Latin familia a family, and famulus a servant, in Greek quixía an assembly, and the Hebrew bor to labor, is the most general term, being applicable to those who are bound together upon the principle of dependance; house figuratively denotes those who live in the same house, and is commonly extended in its signification to all that passes under the same roof: hence we rather say that a woman manages her family; that a man rules his house.

The family is considered as to its relationships; the number, union, condition and quality of its members: the house is considered more as to what is transacted within its walls. We speak of a numerous family, a united or affectionate family, a mercantile house; the house (meaning the members of the house of parliament.) If a man cannot find happiness in the bosom of his family, he will seek for it in vain elsewhere; To live in a family where there is but one heart and as many good strong heads as persons, and to have a place in that enlarged single heart, is such a state of happiness as I cannot hear of without feeling the utmost pleasure.' FIELDING. The credit of a house is to be kept up only by prompt payments; or, in a general sense of the term, the business of the house is performed by the domestics; They two together rule the house. The house I call here the man, the woman, their children, their servants." SMITH.

In an extended application of these words they are made to designate the quality of the individual, in which case family bears the same familiar and indiscriminate sense as before: house is employed as a term of grandeur.

+ When we consider the family in its domestic relations; in its habits, manners, connexions, and circumstances; we speak of a genteel family, a respectable

↑ Vide Abbé Girard: “Famille, maison.”

SON.

family, the royal family; 'An empty man of a great family is a creature that is scarce conversible.' ADDIWhen we consider the family with regard to its political and civil distinctions, its titles and its power, then we denominate it a house, as an illustrious house; the house of Bourbon, of Brunswick, or of Hanover; the imperial house of Austria. Any subject may belong to an ancient or noble family. Princes are said to be descended from ancient houses; The princes of the house of Tudor, partly by the vigor of their administration, partly by the concurrence of favorable circumstances, had been able to establish a more regular system of government.' HUME. A man is said to be of a family or of no family: we may say likewise that he is of a certain house; but to say that he is of no house would be superfluous.* In republics there are families but not houses, because there is no nobility; in China likewise, where the private virtues only distinguish the individual or his family, the term house is altogether inapplicable.

Family includes in it every circumstance of connexion and relationship; lineage respects only consanguinity family is employed mostly for those who are coeval; lineage is generally used for those who have gone before. When the Athenian general Iphicrates, son of a shoemaker, was reproached by Hermodius with his birth, he said, I had rather be the first than the last of my family. David was of the lineage of Abraham, and our Saviour was of the lineage of

David;

We want not cities, nor Sicilian coasts,

Where king Acestes Trojan lineage boasts. DRYDEN.

Race, from the Latin radix a root, denotes the origin or that which constitutes their original point of resemblance. A family supposes the closest alliance; a race supposes no closer connexion than what a common property creates. Family is confined to a comparatively small number; A nation properly signifies a great number of families derived from the same blood, born in the same country, and living under the same government and civil constitutions." TEMPLE. Race is a term of extensive import, including all mankind, as the human race; or particular nations, as the race of South-sea islanders; or a particular family, as the race of the Heraclides: from Hercules sprung a race of heroes;

Nor knows our youth of noblest race,

To mount the manag'd steed or urge the chace;
More skill'd in the mean arts of vice,

The whirling troque or law-forbidden dice. FRANCIS.

in Latin indigena, from inde and genitus, signifies sprung from a particular place.

The epithet natal is applied only to the circumstance of a man's birth, as his natal day; his natal hour; a natal song; a natal star ;

Safe in the hand of one disposing pow'r,

Or in the natal, or the mortal hour. POPE. Native has a more extensive meaning, as it comprehends the idea of one's relationship by origin to an object; as one's native country, one's native soil, native village, or native place, native language, and the like; Nor can the grov❜ling mind

In the dark dungeon of the limbs confin'd,
Assert the native skies or own its heav'nly kind.

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Native (v. Natal) is to natural as a species to the signification natural; but many things are natural genus: every thing native is according to its strict which are not native. Of a person we may say that his worth is native, to designate that it is some valuable property which is born with him, not foreign of his disposition, that it is natural, as opposed to that to him, or ingrafted upon his character; but we say which is acquired by habit. Native is always employed in a good sense, in opposition to what is artful, assumed, and unreal; In heaven we shall pass from light of everlasting day.' SOUTH. the darkness of our native ignorance into the broad Natural is used in.

an indifferent sense, as opposed to whatever is the effect of habit or circumstances; 6 Scripture ought to be understood according to the familiar, natural way of construction.' SOUTH. When children display themselves with all their native simplicity, they are interesting objects of notice: when they display their natural turn of mind, it is not always that which tends to raise human nature in our esteem.

NATAL, NATIVE, INDIGENOUS.

Natal, in Latin natalis, from natus, signifies belonging to one's birth, or the act of one's being born; but native, in Latin nativus, likewise from natus, signifies having the origin or beginning; indigenous,

* Abbé Roubaud: "Race,

RELATION, RELATIVE, KINSMAN,
KINDRED.

Relation is here taken to express the person related, and is the general term both in sense and application; relative is employed only as respects the particular individual to whom one is related; kinsman designates the particular kind of relation, and kindred is a collective term to comprehend all one's relations or

lineage, famille, maison.”

those who are akin to one. In abstract propositions we speak of relations; a man who is without relations feels himself an outcast in society; You are not to imagine that I think myself discharged from the duties of gratitude, only because my relations do not adjust their looks to my expectation.' JOHNSON. In designating one's close and intimate connexion with persons we use the term relative; our near and dear relatives are the first objects of our regard; It is an evil undutifulness in friends and relatives, to suffer one to perish without reproof.' TAYLOR. In designating one's relationship and connexion with persons kinsman is preferable; when a man has not any children he frequently adopts one of his kinsmen as his heir: when the ties of relationship are to be specified in the persons of any particular family, they are denominated kindred; a man cannot abstract himself from his kindred while he retains any spark of human feeling; Herod put all to death whom he found in Trechoritis of the families and kindred of any of those at Repta.' PRIDEAUX.

KIND, SPECIES, SORT.

Kind, comes most probably from the Teutonic kind a child, signifying related, or of the same family; species, in Latin species, from specio to behold, signifies literally the form or appearance, and in an extended sense that which comes under a particular form; sort, in Latin sors a lot, signifies that which constitutes a particular lot or parcel.

Kind and species are both employed in their proper sense; sort has been diverted from its original meaning by colloquial use: kind is properly employed for animate objects, particularly for mankind, and improperly for moral objects; species is a term used by philosophers, classing things according to their external or internal properties. Kind, as a term in vulgar use, has a less definite meaning than species, which serves to form the groundwork of science: we discriminate things in a loose or general manner by saying that they are of the animal or vegetable kind; of the canine or feline kind; but we discriminate them precisely if we say that they are a species of the arbutus, of the pomegranate, of the dog, the horse, and the like. By the same rule we may speak of a species of madness, a species of fever, and the like; If the French should succeed in what they propose, and establish a democracy in a country circumstanced like France, they will establish a very bad government, a very bad species of tyranny.' BURKE. Because diseases have been brought under a systematic arrangement: but, on the other hand, we should speak of a kind of language, a kind of feeling, a kind of influence; and in similar cases where a general resemblance is to be expressed; An ungrateful person is a kind of thoroughfare or common shore for the good things of the world to pass into.' SOUTH.

Sort may be used for either kind or species; it does

not necessarily imply any affinity, or common property in the objects, but simple assemblage, produced as it were by sors, chance: hence we speak of such sort of folks or people; such sort of practices; different sorts of grain; the various sorts of merchandizes: and in similar cases where things are sorted or brought together, rather at the option of the person, than according to the nature of the thing; The French made and recorded a sort of institute and digest of anarchy, called the rights of man.' BURke.

KINDRED, RELATIONSHIP, AFFINITY, CONSANGUINITY.

The idea of a state in which persons are placed with regard to each other is common to all these terms, which differ principally in the nature of this state. Kindred signifies that of being of the same kind (v. Kind); relationship signifies that of holding a nearer relation than others (v. To connect); affinity (v. Alliance) signifies that of being affined or coming close to each other's boundaries; consanguinity, from sanguis the blood, signifies that of having the same blood.

The kindred is the most general state here expressed: it may embrace all mankind, or refer to particular families or communities; it depends upon possessing the common property of humanity, or of being united by some family tie;

Like her, of equal kindred to the throne,

You keep her conquests, and extend your own.
DRYDEN.

The philanthropist claims kindred with all who are unfortunate, when it is in his power to relieve them. The term kindred is likewise distinguished from the rest, as it expresses not only a state, but the persons collectively who are in that state; Though separated from my kindred by little more than half a century of miles, I know as little of their concerns as if oceans and continents were between us.' CowPER.

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Relationship is a state less general than kindred, but more extended than either affinity or consanguinity; it applies to particular families only, but it applies to all of the same family, whether remotely or distantly related; Herein there is no objection to the succession of a relation of the half-blood, that is, where the relationship proceeds not from the same couple of ancestors (which constitutes a kinsman of the whole blood), but from a single ancestor only." BLACKSTONE. The term relationship is likewise extended to other subjects besides that of families. Men stand in different relations to each other in society;

The only general private relation now remaining to be discussed is that of guardian and ward.—In examining this species of relationship I shall first consider the different kind of guardians.' BLACKSTONE.

Affinity denotes a close relationship, whether of an artificial or a natural kind: there is an affinity between

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