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Unless it is used with skill and discretion, the cumulation of the formal adverb is apt to generate fulsomeness. Nay, even singly put, a certain moderation is requisite for a pleasing effect. In short, this form will not bear a very heavy charge, and when the weightiest demonstrations of this kind have to be made, it is found by experience that the requisite display of adverbiality is accomplished with another sort of instrument.

As a bridge from this section to the next, the words from 2 Cor. ix. 7, 'not grudgingly or of necessity,' will do very well. Or the following:

worthily and to great purpose.

'Notwithstanding, though it [the Septuagint] was commended generally, yet it did not fully content the learned, no not of the Iewes. For not long after Christ, Aquila fell in hand with a new Translation, and after him Theodotion, and after him Symmachus: yea, there was a fift and a sixt edition, the Authours wherof were not knowen. These with the Seuentie made vp the Hexapla, and were worthily and to great purpose compiled together by Origen.'-The Translators to the Reader, 1611.

Here we have an adverb of the formal kind coupled with one of the phrasal, to which we now proceed.

3. Of the Phrasal Adverb.

The Phrasal Adverb is already considerably developed, and it is still in course of development; but it attracts the less attention because the thing is going on under our eyes. As the general progress of our language involves the decay of flexion and the substitution of symbolic words in its place, so this alteration befalls particular groups of words more or less, in proportion to the degree of their elevation and consequent exposure. The substantive, which is the primary presentive, and which lies at the base of the rest, is naturally

least affected; while the adverb, which is the tertiary or topmost presentive, is naturally the most exposed to the innovations of symbolism.

This expansion of the language seems to call for a corresponding enlargement in the sense of such a term as 'adverb.' If willingly is an adverb in the sentence 'I gave him sixpence willingly,' then what am I to call the phrase 'with a good will,' if I thus express myself: 'I gave him sixpence with a good will'? In its relation to the mind this phrase occupies precisely the same place as that word; and if a different name must be given on account of form only, our terminology will need an indefinite enlargement while it will have but a superficial signification. I would rather call them both adverbs, distinguishing them as Formal and Phrasal. Often we see that we are obliged to translate a formal Greek adverb by a phrasal English one, thus óμovμadóv, in Acts ii. 1, with one accord; àñeрionáσтws, I Cor. vii. 35, without distraction; adiadeinтws, 1 Thess. v. 17, without ceasing.

Of a child, in Mark ix. 21, is our rendering of maidióber, an adverb of the formal and conventional type.

Genitival forms of the adverb having ceased to grow in the language, their place is supplied by the formation of phrasal adverbs with the symbol of; as, of a truth, of neces sity, of old.

of old.

'And all be vernal rapture as of old.'

Christian Year, Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity.

The symbol of has taken the place of the genitival flexion, and we may say generally, that in the modern action of the language the prepositions have taken the place of oblique cases. They enter freely into the formation

of phrases which do the office both of the adjective and of the adverb.

As a word may be an adjective or an adverb according to its relative place in the sentence, so also there is many a phrase which, according to its position, is either an adjective of the third class or an adverb of the third class; that is to say, either a phrasal adjective (adjection), or a phrasal adverb (adverbiation). See how this acts, for example, in the phrases in joke, in earnest. If we say 'he is in joke,' or 'in earnest,' they are adjectives; but if we say 'he said so in joke,' or 'in earnest,' they are adverbs.

Here we have to do only with the adverbial office of such phrases.

Examples: at best, at intervals, at large, at least, at length, at most, at random, at worst; in earnest, in fact, in good faith, in jest, in truth, in vain.

at present.

'But at present we may accept these simple laws without going further back.'-Alfred Russel Wallace, Creation by Law.

at last.

'So that one may scratch a thought half a dozen times, and get nothing at last but a faint sputter.'-James Russell Lowell, Fireside Travels, 1864, p. 163.

in jest.

'We will not touch upon him ev'n in jest.'

Alfred Tennyson, Enid.

In presence is a phrasal adverb which we have borrowed from the French, en presence; as

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The phrasal adverb in fact has of late been sometimes modified to in effect, after the French en effet.

A phrasal adverb which has coalesced into one vocable, is that which is formed with the a-prefix, as abed, afield, agog, aloud, afar, afoot, aright, awork. In our earlier printed literature, and down to the close of the sixteenth century, this adverb is printed as two vocables :

a right.

They turne them selues, but not a right, & are become as a broken bowe.' -Miles Coverdale, Hosea vii. 16.

I derive this a from the French preposition à; thus afoot represents à pied.

Another form of the phrasal adverb is where a noun is repeated with a preposition between, as wave after wave, bridge by bridge, &c.

And then the two

Dropt to the cove, and watched the great sea fall,
Wave after wave, each mightier than the last,
Till last, a ninth one, gathering half the deep
And full of voices, slowly rose and plunged
Roaring, and all the wave was in a flame.'

Alfred Tennyson, The Coming of Arthur.

'Not to be crost, save that some ancient king
Had built a way, where, link'd with many a bridge,
A thousand piers ran into the great Sea,

And Galahad fled along them bridge by bridge.' Id.

Another form of this adverb is that which is inducted by the demonstrative pronoun, or the definite article, or any other word of a pronominal nature. Such are, in the following quotations, the adverbs that time, no thynge, the while, the right way, the wrong way. It makes no difference whether a preposition be understood, as if those phrases were abbreviations for 'at that time,' in no respect,' 'for the while,' 'in the right way,' 'in the wrong way.' Such a consideration makes no difference in regard to the adverbial nature of the phrases, and has, in fact, no place here.

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that time, no thynge.

'Irlond pat tyme was bygged no þynge
Wyp hous ne toun, ne man wonynge.'

R. Brunne's Chronicle (Lambeth MS.)

TRANSLATION.Ireland at that time was not-at-all built with house nor town, nor man resident.

the right way, the wrong way.

The right thing believed the right way must inevitably produce the perfect life. Either, then, the civilised world believes the wrong thing, or it believes the right thing the wrong way.'-Laurence Oliphant, Piccadilly, (1870), p. 274.

the while.

'Yet, while they use greater earnestness of entreaty than their Lord, they must not forget His dignity the while who sends them.'—J. H. Newman, vol. i. serm. xxiii.

Room enough must be given to the term 'adverb' to let it take in all that appertains to the description of the conditions and circumstances attendant upon the statement contained in the sentence. If I say, 'I gave him sixpence with a good will,' and if the phrase 'with a good will' is admitted to a place among adverbs, then there is no reason to exclude any circumstantial adjunct, such as, with a green purse, or without any purse to keep it in. If any one objects to this as too vague a relaxation of our terminology, I would propose that for such extended phraseological adverbs we adopt the title of Adverbiation. Such a term would furnish an appropriate description for the relative position of a very important element in modern diction. At the close of the following quotation we see a couple of phrases linked together, which would come under this designation :

'I had a very gracious reception from the Queen and the Prince Consort, and a large party of distinguished visitors. The affability and grace of these exalted personages made a deep impression on me. It might be copied by some of our grocers and muffin-bakers to their great improvement, and to the comfort of others surrounding them.'-The Public Life of W. F. Wallett, the Queen's Jester, 1870.

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