The Grammar of English Grammars. Goold Brown
a Young Lady, p. 117.
OBS. 5.—Double comparatives and double superlatives, being in general awkward and unfashionable, as well as tautological, ought to be avoided. Examples: "The Duke of Milan, and his more braver daughter, could control thee."—Shak., Tempest. Say, "his more gallant daughter." "What in me was purchased, falls upon thee in a more fairer sort."—Id., Henry IV. Say, "fairer," or, "more honest;" for "purchased" here means stolen. "Changed to a worser shape thou canst not be."—Id., Hen. VI. Say, "a worse shape"—or, "an uglier shape." "After the most straitest sect of our religion, I lived a Pharisee."—Acts, xxvi, 5. Say, "the strictest sect." "Some say he's mad; others, that lesser hate him, do call it valiant fury."—Shak. Say, "others, that hate him less." In this last example, lesser is used adverbially; in which construction it is certainly incorrect. But against lesser as an adjective, some grammarians have spoken with more severity, than comports with a proper respect for authority. Dr. Johnson says, "LESSER, adj. A barbarous corruption of less, formed by the vulgar from the habit of terminating comparatives in er; afterward adopted by poets, and then by writers of prose, till it has all the authority which a mode originally erroneous can derive from custom."—Quarto Dict. With no great fairness, Churchill quotes this passage as far as the semicolon, and there stops. The position thus taken, he further endeavours to strengthen, by saying, "Worser, though not more barbarous, offends the ear in a much greater degree, because it has not been so frequently used."—New Gram., p. 232. Example: "And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night."—Gen., i, 16. Kirkham, after making an imitation of this passage, remarks upon it: "Lesser is as incorrect as badder, gooder, worser."—Gram., p. 77. The judgement of any critic who is ignorant enough to say this, is worthy only of contempt. Lesser is still frequently used by the most tasteful authors, both in verse and prose: as, "It is the glowing style of a man who is negligent of lesser graces."—Blair's Rhet., p. 189.
"Athos, Olympus, Ætna, Atlas, made
These hills seem things of lesser dignity."—Byron.
OBS. 6.—The adjective little is used in different senses; for it contrasts sometimes with great, and sometimes with much. Lesser appears to refer only to size. Hence less and lesser are not always equivalent terms. Lesser means smaller, and contrasts only with greater. Less contrasts sometimes with greater, but oftener with more, the comparative of much; for, though it may mean not so large, its most common meaning is not so much. It ought to be observed, likewise, that less is not an adjective of number,[182] though not unfrequently used as such. It does not mean fewer, and is therefore not properly employed in sentences like the following: "In all verbs, there are no less than three things implied at once."—Blair's Rhet., p. 81. "Smaller things than three," is nonsense; and so, in reality, is what the Doctor here says. Less is not the proper opposite to more, when more is the comparative of many: few, fewer, fewest, are the only words which contrast regularly with many, more, most. In the following text, these comparatives are rightly employed: "And to the more ye shall give the more inheritance, and to the fewer ye shall give the less inheritance."—Numbers, xxxiii, 54. But if writers will continue to use less for fewer, so that "less cattle," for instance, may mean "fewer cattle;" we shall be under a sort of necessity to retain lesser, in order to speak intelligibly: as, "It shall be for the sending-forth of oxen, and for the treading of lesser cattle."—Isaiah, vii, 25. I have no partiality for the word lesser, neither will I make myself ridiculous by flouting at its rudeness. "This word," says Webster, "is a corruption, but [it is] too well established to be discarded. Authors always write the Lesser Asia."—Octavo Dict. "By the same reason, may a man punish the lesser breaches of that law."—Locke. "When we speak of the lesser differences among the tastes of men."—Blair's Rhet., p. 20. "In greater or lesser degrees of complexity."—Burke, on Sublime, p. 94. "The greater ought not to succumb to the lesser."—Dillwyn's Reflections, p. 128. "To such productions, lesser composers must resort for ideas."—Gardiner's Music of Nature, p. 413.
"The larger here, and there the lesser lambs, The new-fall'n young herd bleating for their dams."—Pope.
OBS. 7.—Our grammarians deny the comparison of many adjectives, from a false notion that they are already superlatives. Thus W. Allen: "Adjectives compounded with the Latin preposition per, are already superlative: as, perfect, perennial, permanent, &c."—Elements of E. Gram., p. 52. In reply to this, I would say, that nothing is really superlative, in English, but what has the form and construction of the superlative; as, "The most permanent of all dyes." No word beginning with per, is superlative by virtue of this Latin prefix. "Separate spirits, which are beings that have perfecter knowledge and greater happiness than we, must needs have also a perfecter way of communicating their thoughts than we have."—Locke's Essay, B. ii, Ch. 24, §36, This mode of comparison is not now good, but it shows that perfect is no superlative. Thus Kirkham: "The following adjectives, and many others, are always in the superlative degree; because, by expressing a quality in the highest degree, they carry in themselves a superlative signification: chief, extreme, perfect, right, wrong, honest, just, true, correct, sincere, vast, immense, ceaseless, infinite, endless, unparalleled, universal, supreme, unlimited, omnipotent, all-wise, eternal." [183]—Gram., p. 73. So the Rev. David Blair: "The words perfect, certain, infinite, universal, chief, supreme, right, true, extreme, superior, and some others, which express a perfect and superlative sense in themselves, do not admit of comparison."—English Gram., p. 81. Now, according to Murray's definition, which Kirkham adopts, none of these words can be at all in the superlative degree. On the contrary, there are several among them, from which true superlatives are frequently and correctly formed. Where are the positives which are here supposed to be "increased to the highest degree?" Every real superlative in our language, except best and worst, most and least, first and last, with the still more irregular word next, is a derivative, formed from some other English word, by adding est or most; as, truest, hindmost. The propriety or impropriety of comparing the foregoing words, or any of the "many others" of which this author speaks, is to be determined according to their meaning, and according to the usage of good writers, and not by the dictation of a feeble pedant, or upon the supposition that if compared they would form "double superlatives."
OBS. 8.—Chief is from the French word chef, the head: chiefest is therefore no more a double superlative than headmost: "But when the headmost foes appeared."—Scott. Nor are chief and chiefest equivalent terms: "Doeg an Edomite, the chiefest of the herdsmen."—1 Samuel, xxi, 7. "The chief of the herdsmen," would convey a different meaning; it would be either the leader of the herdsmen, or the principal part of them. Chiefest, however, has often been used where chief would have been better; as, "He sometimes denied admission to the chiefest officers of the army."—Clarendon, let us look further at Kirkham's list of absolute "superlatives."
OBS. 9.—Extreme is from the Latin superlative extremus, and of course its literal signification is not really susceptible of increase. Yet extremest has been used, and is still used, by some of the very best writers; as, "They thought it the extremest of evils."—Bacon. "That on the sea's extremest border stood."—Addison. "How, to extremest thrill of agony."—Pollok, B. viii, l. 270. "I go th' extremest remedy to prove."—Dryden. "In extremest poverty."—Swift. "The hairy fool stood on th' extremest verge of the swift brook, augmenting it with tears."—Shak. "While the extremest parts of the earth were meditating submission."—Atterbury. "His writings are poetical to the extremest boundaries of poetry."—Adams's Rhetoric, i,