Next to these should naturally be placed the Saxon formatives, such as those in -7, -m, -n, -r, and -sh; those in -y, -ing, ly, some, -ed, -ward, full, -less.

In -1, -el, or -le:-idle, evil, little, middle, brittle, stickle (= steep, still used about Dartmoor, and entering into the word stickleback, and the local name Sticklepath, near Oakhampton), tickle.

A fine local example of brittle, in the form of brutel, occurs in a legend carved on an oak clothes-bat in the collection of the Rev. George Weare Braikenridge, of Christchurch, Clevedon. It appears to have been a wedding-gift, and altogether it is a remarkably interesting object, the more so as it is dated. The inscription is :

IF. YOV LOVE. ME. LEND ME. NOT

VNTO A. SLLET FOR I. VERY. BRVTEL

WOOD.

To these should be added brindle; for although we have cast it into other forms, as brinded (Milton), or the more common brindled, yet the pure word still lives in New England, where they talk of a 'brindle yearling,' or, as I believe it is spoken, 'brindle yerlin.'

The fact is, we are no longer conscious that this termination makes an adjective: it is no longer in productive operation. This is the reason why brindle has been converted into brindled, because all men know that the termination -ed signifies the possession of a quality, but they do not know that -le has this signification. In the same manner we now say new-fangled, but the original word is new fangil or new fangel, as in the Babees Book, p. 9, where the letter N is exemplified by the following line of N-initials :

To Noyous, ne to Nyce, ne to Newfangill.'

:

(Not to be) too pressing, nor too fastidious, nor too newfashioned.

ticle, tickle (above, p. 152).

So ticle be the termes of mortall state.'

The Faerie Queene, iii. 4. 28.

The Earl of Murray standing in so tickle terms in Scotland.'-Earl of Pembroke, 1569; quoted by J. A. Froude, History of England, ix. 427.

As brindle has been altered into brindled, so tickle into ticklish.

The old word wittol, knowing,' which had a sinister meaning in Shakspeare's time, has been restored to comparative innocence by Dr. Anster in his translation of Goethe's Faust:

In -m.

'Unmannerly wittol
Be quiet a little.'

These have never been numerous within historical times. In Saxon there was earm =

poor, and rum = wide, the former of which is extinct, and the latter altered to roomy. The only extant adjectives that I can quote in this class are grim, warm.

There is a fine old poetic word brim, with much the same variety of meaning as the modern brave

'She was brim as any bear.'

Prim is obscure: Richardson says it is short for primitive. I would rather believe it to be a northern form of brim. Halliwell gives 'Prim, a neat pretty girl. Yorksh!'

Mim is perhaps worthy of mention: it means daintily shy. Out of these two vocables is made the jingling junto mimminy primminy.

In -n, or -en. Here we are much richer: even, own, open, fain, stern, heathen, wooden, tinnen, woollen, elmen, treen (made of tree, arboreus; Spenser, Faerie Queene, i. 2. 39), leaden, hempen, threaden, oaten, olden, golden.

This class of adjectives cannot be separated by any decisive line from the participial forms, such as drunken, shrunken, &c.

elmen.

'When the elmen tree leaf is as big as a farding,
It's time to sow kidney beans in the garding;
When the elmen tree leaf is as big as a penny,
You must sow your beans if you mean to have eny.'
Popular Rhyme.

leaden.

'A leaden acquiescence.'-Marvel, Doctor Johns, c. 22 (1866).

wooden.

'Wooden wals.'-Spenser, Faerie Queene, i. 2. 42.

oaten.

'Nought tooke I with me but mine oaten quill.'-Colin Clouts Come Home Againe, 194.

silvern, golden.

'Speech is silvern, but silence is golden.'-Thomas Carlyle.

Milton has the beautiful expressions coral-paven and

azurn.

hempen.

Slow are the steeds that through Germania's roads
With hempen rein the slumbering post-boy goads.'

Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin, The Rovers, 1798.

Tennyson has cedarn—

'Right to the carven cedarn doors.'

Recollections of the Arabian Nights.

This formative has been partially supplanted by the Latin -ian. Thus our ancestors before the revival of letters never said Christian but 'Christen': 'A Christen man,' &c.

A magazine lately started by Blackheath School took the waggish name of The Blackheathen. Critics asked why not rather Blackheathian? The reply might justly be that the Latin formative to a pure English compound is incongruous. This is, in fact, only one of a multitude of little tokens that our language is sated with classicism.

Of local names this form is found in Furzen Leaze, between Cirencester and Kemble.

In -r or er. Examples:-wicker, slipper (the elder form for the modern slippery). Slipper is still the common word in Devonshire, where they say, 'It's very slipper along the roads to day.' A good illustration is afforded by the following line from Surrey, the Elizabethan poet :

'Slipper in sliding as is an eeles tail.'

In -sh, or by disguise -ch, representing the Anglo-Saxon adjective in -isc.

This may be called, more than any other particular form, the native adjective. It is the form of the adjective 'English' itself, and generally of our adjectives by which we designate nationalities:-Welsh, Irish, Scottish, French, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Spanish, Turkish, Flemish, Polish. In a few cases, however, we have admitted the Latin adjective -anus, as Roman, Italian, Russian, German. Here the Germans, truer to old habit, still say Römisch, Italienisch, Russisch, Deutsch. The antiquity of this form is sufficiently demonstrated by the fact that it is the prevalent 'gentile' adjective with all the nations of our family. The Germans call themselves Deutsch, the Danes call themselves Dansk, the Norwegians call themselves Norsk, the Swedes call themselves Svensk. Besides the recognised nations, there is many an obscure community that asserts its gentility by setting up an -ish of its own. A friend, fresh from travel, writes that when he arrived at the Tyrolese valley which is called Gröden Thal, he asked whether they spoke Italienisch or Deutsch there? He was answered that they spoke Grödnerisch. And as an illustration how green and vigorous the form is in German to this day, we may observe it combining with some of the most modern classical innovations, and making

adjectives like metaphorisch, metaphorical; metaphysisch, metaphysical; methodisch, methodical; metonymisch, μerwvvμikós. In England the tide of classicality drove back this and many other forms. The Latin -an was the ready substitute for -ish. In 1535, Miles Coverdale, in Daniel i. 4, has ‘and to lerne for to speake Caldeish a form that will be sought in vain in our present Bible.

elvisch = elf-like, uncanny, shy,

at the close of the Prioress's Tale :

'He semeth elvisch by his countenaunce,
For unto no wight doth he daliaunce.'

churlish.

Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansions tread,
And force a churlish soil for scanty bread.'

Oliver Goldsmith, The Traveller.

This termination is also put to adjectives, with a diluting effect, as longish, sweetish.

In -y or -ey, representing the Saxon adjective in -ig, as æmtig, empty.

Examples:-bloody, burly, corny (Chaucer, Milton), dainty (Spectator, 354), dirty, doughty, dusty, fatty, flighty, fusty, filthy, flowery, foody, gouty, haughty, heady, hearty, inky, jaunty, leafy (Mark xi. Contents), lusty, mealy, mighty, milky, misty, moody, murky, musty, nasty, noisy, oily, plashy, pretty, ready, reedy, rusty, saucy, silky, silly, speedy, steady, sturdy, sulky, trusty, weedy.

The word silly has the appearance of belonging to another group, namely, those in -ly. But the Saxon sal-ig and the transition form seely were the precursors of the form silly, which appears as early as Spenser :

She wist not, silly Mayd, what she did aile.'

The Faerie Queene, iii. 2. 27.