Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/238

 second syllable; as, an united people, an historical account, an heroic action."--Ib., p. 85. "A is used when the next word begins with a consonant; an, when it begins with a vowel or silent h."--lb., p. 129. If these rules were believed and followed, they would greatly multiply errors.

OBS. 16.--Whether the word a has been formed from an, or an from a, is a disputed point--or rather, a point on which our grammarians dogmatize differently. This, if it be worth the search, must be settled by consulting some genuine writings of the twelfth century. In the pure Saxon of an earlier date, the words seldom occur; and in that ancient dialect an, I believe, is used only as a declinable numerical adjective, and a only as a preposition. In the thirteenth century, both forms were in common use, in the sense now given them, as may be seen in the writings of Robert of Gloucester; though some writers of a much later date--or, at any rate, one, the celebrated Gawin Douglas, a Scottish bishop, who died of the plague in London, in 1522--constantly wrote ane for both an and a: as,

"Be not ouer studyous to spy ane mote in myn E,    That in gour awin ane ferrye bot can not se." --Tooke's Diversions, Vol. i, p. 124.

"Ane uthir mache to him was socht and sperit;    Bot thare was nane of all the rout that sterit." --Ib., Vol. i, p. 160.

OBS. 17.--This, however, was a Scotticism; as is also the use of ae for a: Gower and Chaucer used an and a as we now use them. The Rev. J. M. M'Culloch, in an English grammar published lately in Edinburgh, says, "A and an were originally ae and ane, and were probably used at first simply to convey the idea of unity; as, ae man, ane ox."--Manual of E. Gram., p. 30. For this idea, and indeed for a great part of his book, he is indebted to Dr. Crombie; who says, "To signify unity, or one of a class, our forefathers employed ae or ane; as, ae man, ane ox."--''Treatise on Etym. and Synt.'', p. 53. These authors, like Webster, will have a and an to be adjectives. Dr. Johnson says, "A, an article set before nouns of the singular number; as, a man, a tree. This article has no plural signification. Before a word beginning with a vowel, it is written an; as, an ox, an egg; of which a is the contraction."--Quarto Dict., w. A.

OBS. 18.--Dr. Webster says, "A is also an abbreviation of the Saxon an or ane, one, used before words beginning with an articulation; as, a table, instead of an table, or one table. This is a modern change; for, in Saxon, an was used before articulations as well as vowels; as, an tid, a time, an gear, a year."--Webster's Octavo Dict., w. A. A modern change, indeed! By his own showing in other works, it was made long before the English language existed! He says, "An, therefore, is the original English adjective or ordinal number one; and was never written a until after the Conquest."--''Webster's Philos. Gram., p. 20; Improved Gram.'', 14. "The Conquest," means the Norman Conquest, in 1066; but English was not written till the thirteenth century. This author has long been idly contending, that an or a is not an article, but an adjective; and that it is not properly distinguished by the term "indefinite." Murray has answered him well enough, but he will not be convinced.[136] See Murray's Gram., pp. 34 and 35. If a and one were equal, we could not say, "Such a one,"--"What a one,"--"Many a one,"--"This one thing;" and surely these are all good English, though a and one here admit no interchange. Nay, a is sometimes found before one when the latter is used adjectively; as, "There is no record in Holy Writ of the institution of a one all-controlling monarchy."--Supremacy of the Pope Disproved, p. 9. "If not to a one Sole Arbiter."--Ib., p. 19.

OBS. 19.--An is sometimes a conjunction, signifying if; as, "Nay, an thou'lt mouthe, I'll rant as well as thou."--Shak. "An I have not ballads made on you all, and sung to fifty tunes, may a cup of sack be my poison."--Id., Falstaff. "But, an it were to do again, I should write again."--Lord Byron's Letters. "But an it be a long part, I can't remember it."--SHAKSPEARE: Burgh's Speaker, p. 136.

OBS. 20.--In the New Testament, we meet with several such expressions as the following: "And his disciples were an hungred."--SCOTT'S BIBLE: Matt, xii, 1. "When he was an hungred."--Ib. xii, 3. "When he had need and was an hungered."--''Ib. Mark'', ii, 25. Alger, the improver of Murray's Grammar, and editor of the Pronouncing Bible, taking this an to be the indefinite article, and perceiving that the h is sounded in hungered, changed the particle to a in all these passages; as, "And his disciples were a hungered." But what sense he thought he had made of the sacred record, I know not. The Greek text, rendered word for word, is simply this: "And his disciples hungered." And that the sentences above, taken either way, are not good English, must be obvious to every intelligent reader. An, as I apprehend, is here a mere prefix, which has somehow been mistaken in form, and erroneously disjoined from the following word. If so, the correction ought to be made after the fashion of the following passage from Bishop M'Ilvaine: "On a certain occasion, our Saviour was followed by five thousand men, into a desert place, where they were enhungered."--Lectures on Christianity, p. 210.

OBS. 21.--The word a, when it does not denote one thing of a kind, is not an article, but a genuine preposition; being probably the same as the French à, signifying to, at, on, in, or of: as, "Who hath it? He that died a Wednesday."--Shak. That is, on Wednesday. So sometimes before plurals; as, "He carves a Sundays."--Swift. That is, on Sundays. "He is let out a nights."--Id. That is, on nights--like the following example: "A pack of rascals that walk the streets on nights."--Id. "He will knap the spears a pieces with his teeth."--More's Antid. That is, in pieces, or to pieces. So in the compound word now-a-days, where it means on;