The Grammar of English Grammars. Goold Brown
fly is Hell; myself am Hell;
And in the lowest depth, a lower deep, Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide, To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heaven.' P. Lost, B. iv, l. 73." Blair's Lectures, p. 153; Murray's Grammar, p. 352.
OBS. 15.—Milton's word, in the fourth line above, is deep, and not depth, as these authors here give it: nor was it very polite in them, to use a phraseology which comes so near to saying, the devil was in the poet. Alas for grammar! accuracy in its teachers has become the most rare of all qualifications. As for Murray's correction above, I see not how it can please any one who chooses to think Hell a place of great depth. A descent into his "lower deep" and "other deep," might be a plunge less horrible than two or three successive slides in one of our western caverns! But Milton supposes the arch-fiend might descend to the lowest imaginable depth of Hell, and there be liable to a still further fall of more tremendous extent. Fall whither? Into the horrid and inconceivable profundity of the bottomless pit! What signifies it, to object to his language as "unintelligible" if it conveys his idea better than any other could? In no human conception of what is infinite, can there be any real exaggeration. To amplify beyond the truth, is here impossible. Nor is there any superlation which can fix a limit to the idea of more and more in infinitude. Whatever literal absurdity there may be in it, the duplication seems greatly to augment what was even our greatest conception of the thing. Homer, with a like figure, though expressed in the positive degree, makes Jupiter threaten any rebel god, that he shall be thrown down from Olympus, to suffer the burning pains of the Tartarean gulf; not in the centre, but,
"As deep beneath th' infernal centre hurl'd, As from that centre to th' ethereal world." —Pope's Iliad, B. viii, l. 19.
REGULAR COMPARISON.
Adjectives are regularly compared, when the comparative degree is expressed by adding er, and the superlative, by adding est to them: as, Pos., great, Comp., greater, Superl., greatest; Pos., mild, Comp., milder, Superl., mildest.
In the variation of adjectives, final consonants are doubled, final e is omitted, and final y is changed to i, agreeably to the rules for spelling: as, hot, hotter, hottest; wide, wider, widest; happy, happier, happiest.
The regular method of comparison belongs almost exclusively to monosyllables, with dissyllables ending in w or y, and such others as receive it and still have but one syllable after the accent: as, fierce, fiercer, fiercest; narrow, narrower, narrowest; gloomy, gloomier, gloomiest; serene, serener, serenest; noble, nobler, noblest; gentle, gentler, gentlest.
COMPARISON BY ADVERBS.
The two degrees of superiority may also be expressed with precisely the same import as above, by prefixing to the adjective the adverbs more and most: as, wise, more wise, most wise; famous, more famous, most famous; amiable, more amiable, most amiable.
The degrees of inferiority are expressed, in like manner, by the adverbs less and least: as, wise, less wise, least wise; famous, less famous, least famous; amiable, less amiable, least amiable. The regular method of comparison has, properly speaking, no degrees of this kind.
Nearly all adjectives that admit of different degrees, may be compared by means of the adverbs; but, for short words, the regular method is generally preferable: as, quick, quicker, quickest; rather than, quick, more quick, most quick.
OBSERVATIONS.
OBS. 1.—The genius of our language is particularly averse to the lengthening of long words by additional syllables; and, in the comparison of adjectives, er and est always add a syllable to the word, except it end in le after a mute. Thus, free, freer, freest, increases syllabically; but ample, ampler, amplest, does not. Whether any particular adjective admits of comparison or not, is a matter of reasoning from the sense of the term; by which method it shall be compared, is in some degree a matter of taste; though custom has decided that long words shall not be inflected, and for the shorter, there is generally an obvious bias in favour of one form rather than the other. Dr. Johnson says, "The comparison of adjectives is very uncertain; and being much regulated by commodiousness of utterance, or agreeableness of sound, is not easily reduced to rules. Monosyllables are commonly compared. Polysyllables, or words of more than two syllables, are seldom compared otherwise than by more and most. Dissyllables are seldom compared if they terminate in full, less, ing, ous, ed, id, at, ent, ain, or ive."—Gram. of the English Tongue, p. 6. "When the positive contains but one syllable, the degrees are usually formed by adding er or est. When the positive contains two syllables, it is matter of taste which method you shall use in forming the degrees. The ear is, in this case, the best guide. But, when the positive contains more than two syllables, the degrees must be formed by the use of more and most. We may say, tenderer and tenderest, pleasanter and pleasantest, prettier and prettiest; but who could endure delicater and delicatest?"—Cobbett's E. Gram., p. 81. Quiet, bitter, clever, sober, and perhaps some others like them, are still regularly compared; but such words as secretest, famousest, virtuousest, powerfullest, which were used by Milton, have gone out of fashion. The following, though not very commonly used, are perhaps allowable. "Yet these are the two commonest occupations of mankind."—Philological Museum, i, 431. "Their pleasantest walks throughout life must be guarded by armed men."—Ib., i, 437. "Franklin possessed the rare talent of drawing useful lessons from the commonest occurrences."—Murray's Sequel, p. 323. "Unbidden guests are often welcomest when they are gone."—SHAK.: in Joh. Dict.
"There was a lad, th' unluckiest of his crew, Was still contriving something bad, but new."—KING: ib.
OBS. 2.—I make a distinction between the regular comparison by er and est, and the comparison by adverbs; because, in a grammatical point of view, these two methods are totally different: the meaning, though the same, being expressed in the one case, by an inflection of the adjective; and in the other, by a phrase consisting of two different parts of speech. If the placing of an adverb before an adjective is to be called a grammatical modification or variation of the latter word, we shall have many other degrees than those which are enumerated above. The words may with much more propriety be parsed separately, the degree being ascribed to the adverb—or, if you please, to both words, for both are varied in sense by the inflection of the former. The degrees in which qualities may exist in nature, are infinitely various; but the only degrees with which the grammarian is concerned, are those which our variation of the adjective or adverb enables us to express—including, as of course we must, the state or sense of the primitive word, as one. The reasoning which would make the positive degree to be no degree, would also make the nominative case, or the casus rectus of the Latins, to be no case.
OBS. 3.—Whenever the adjective itself denotes these degrees, and is duly varied in form to express them, they properly belong to it; as, worthy, worthier, worthiest. (Though no apology can be made for the frequent error of confounding the degree of a quality, with the verbal sign which expresses it.) If an adverb is employed for this purpose, that also is compared, and the two degrees thus formed or expressed, are properly its own; as, worthy, more worthy, most worthy. But these same degrees may be yet otherwise expressed; as, worthy, in a higher degree worthy, in the highest degree worthy. Here also the adjective worthy is virtually compared, as before; but only the adjective high is grammatically modified. Again, we may form three degrees with several adverbs to each, thus: Pos., very truly worthy; Comp., much more truly worthy; Sup., much the most truly worthy. There are also other adverbs, which, though not varied in themselves like much, more, most, may nevertheless have nearly the same effect upon the adjective; as, worthy, comparatively worthy, superlatively worthy. I make these remarks, because many grammarians have erroneously parsed the adverbs more and most, less and least, as parts of the adjective.