bringg back. To relate in old English meant simply to bring back. So Spenser "Till morrow next again Both light of heaven and strength of men relate." But before this it had been commonly used in the sense of bringing back by recital, representing in story. "And relacion Maketh to the Quene how he had do." The term connects the matter closely with the speaker, making the action a strictly personal one. It is such an account as is given by an individual of facts which he has either actually experienced, or has assimilated and made his own. Therefore the virtues ofrelation are the virtues of the relater, such as come from a close observation, a lucid intellect, a sound judgment of the relative importance of events, sympathy, candour. Unlike narration, it may be very inartistic yet very effective, from the vivid and natural manner of the relater. A narrative gains by rhetorical completeness, a relation by unstudied simplicity. The narrator presents you with a finished account, the relater with the aggregate of his own experience in fact and feeling. It belongs, however, to a more familiar, shorter, less grave, and more personal subject than narrative, so that a very commonplace occurrence may become peculiarly interesting from the mind and manner of the relater. "Those relations are commonly of most value in which the writer tells his own story."-JOHNSON. "In the narration of the poet, it is not material whether he relate the whole story in his own character, or introduce some of his personages to relate any part of the action that had passed before the poem opens."- BLAIR. HISTORY (Gr. ioroglu, a learning by inquiry) is a formal and connected account of many events in series, for which some degree of importance is claimed as illustrative of men and nations, an account standing to a history as an item to a general sum. So we might speak of the account of the Plague of Athens as given in the history of Thucydides. For further remarks see HISTORY. The presumption at least is that a history is true. This is not necessarily the case with Story (the word is an abbreviated form of History), which may be fictitious. Where it is not fictitious there is still implied an inferior degree of dignity and importance, the subject turning generally upon incidents of private and domestic life, as the story of Robinson Crusoe, the story of Fabricius and the Elephant, the story of the Babes in the Wood. The interest of history lies in occurrences and transactions on a great scale; the changes of political constitutions; the deliberations of senates, the increase of popular power, the shock of battles, the celebration of triumphs, the pro-. gress of armies, the lives of factious and ambitious leaders, heroes, orators, statesmen. The interest of story lies in the adventures of persons more like ourselves generally, in personal enterprises, in scenes of home life. In history we look on as upon a grand spectacle. In story we identify ourselves with what is passing, and feel that fortune might have made us principal actors in it. Our minds are occupied engagingly, and the introduction of history plays only a secondary part. A story may instruct, but its first purpose is to entertain. It should combine, in an unpretending manner, the virtues of narration and relation. "A story in which native humour reigns, 'Tis often useful, always entertains." COWPER. In TALE (A. S. tal, a reckoning speech) the subject is often fictitious, not of necessity, but because the primary characteristic is not truth but relation. As a good story is entertaining, so a good tale excites sentiment or sympathy. A tale may be true or false, or a compound of truth and falsehood. A tale is etymologically a telling off or counting off (compare Account) of matters in narration. A tale is commonly a story of personal experience involving hap or piness or unhappiness, success glorious achievements, a tale of lying wonders. We may tell a tale as it has been told to us, or we may invent it, or mix narrative with invenion. As story borders more closely pon narrative, so tale upon relation. The character of a story depends more upon the matter, the character of a tale on the reciter. In the phrases tale-bearing, tale-telling, we seem to recognize the ideas of personal incident which receive a colour from the relater. "In thy faint slumbers I by thee have And heard thee murmur tales of wars." A DESCRIPTION (Lat. describere, to write off, to write down) professes to be a portraiture in language, giving the fact or the object as it strikes the eye or the mind with fidelity of representation. It is delineation in detail. It is not in itself a story or narrative, though it becomes a kind of story or narrative to him to whom it is given; as, e.g. a description of the whole appearance of a person where the sequence the order of the latter by likenesses and analogies to impressions derived through other senses. A description of a man would consist in specifying, numbering, measuring, and delineating, in giving his hue, complexion, stature, dimen sions, character of features, cha racteristic expression of countenance, apparent age, and so on. The blind man described his impression of scarlet, which was purely a mental one, by saying that he believed it must be like the sound of a trumpet, that is, that it stood to the impressions of sight as such sounds to the impressions of hearing. Spenser used the form discrive: representation and not of occurrence. Its excellence consists in fidelity to the original, and a fine and natural accuracy. External objects, occurrences, transactions, are the common subject of description, while philosophically, description is a kind of popular definition which consists in an enumeration of the essential characteristics of a thing. As description is word-painting, or word-sketching, the measure of description is the power of the describer over the representative employment of language, superadded to a natural capacity to receive vivid and exact impressions himself. The case is somewhat different between descriptions of outward objects and mental impressions or sensations. In the former case we describe by commensurate terms, in "How shall frail pen discrive her heavenly face For fear through want of skill her beauty to disgrace." An ANECDOTE (Gr. ávexdoros, not published) is literally an incident not given out or published, and so in private keeping or circulation. It is the relation of a characteristic matter of fact relating to individuals, and therefore stands to story as species to genus. It is commonly a passage of private life. "Antiquity has preserved a beautiful instance in an anecdote of Alexander the tyrant of Pheræ, who, though he had so industriously hardened his heart as to seem to take delight in cruelty, even murdering many of his subjects every day without cause and without pity, yet, at the bare representation of a tragedy which related the misfortunes of Hecuba and Andromache, he was so touched with the fictitious distress which the poet had wrought upon it that he burst out into a flood of tears."STERNE. ACCOUNTABLE. ANSWErable. RESPONSIBLE. AMENABLE. OBNOXILIABLE. SUBJECT. ous. ACCOUNTABLE (see ACCOUNT) means literally liable to be compelled to give an account or standing in such a relation as involves it. It is sometimes, like responsible, used in the abstract sense of being possessed of reason and so being master of one's own actions, and by consequence bound to render an account of them. As a synonym with the above-mentioned it denotes in a marked manner a personal service or relationship which is subordinate to some superior person, as a steward is accountable to his employer. It is a specific condition springing out of a specific relationship. The first point to be endeavoured after is to impress upon children the idea of accountableness, that is, to accustom them to look forward to the consequences of their actions in another world."-PALEY, This specific subordination does not attach, or not in so marked a manner, to RESPONSIBLE (Lat. respondere, to give answer), which is far more general. A responsible office may be one of great personal influence and dignity, and of moral responsibility rather than specific accountableness. Hence responsibility extends beyond acts to their issues. I am accountable to my superior for what I do. I may be held in the judgment of others responsible for the consequences of what I do. may, by a voluntary agreement, make myself responsible for what may occur to a person towards whom I stand otherwise in no relation of accountableness. "He has been pleased to ask, 'Is the doctor willing to be responsible at last for the nature, quality, and tendency of all his notions?""-WATERLAND. ANSWERABLE is in English what RESPONSIBLE is in Latin, and so expresses the simplest and most generic sense of these terms. It expresses a relation to simpler and commoner things for one's conduct in matters of minor trusts and mere ordinary duties. I am answerable when I take upon myself a common risk for the habits or good behaviour of another; for the safety of some article left in my keeping. I Am answerable in cases where some pledge has been given for the performance of an act or the fulfilment of an engagement, the breach of which would involve loss, disgrace, punishment, or disappointment. Accountable and answerable rather express the fact, and responsible the nature of condition. Hence there is in answerable a latent force which does not belong to responsible, or less observably that of being liable to punishment or penalty in case of failure in such trust or duty. "If I pay money to a banker's servant, the banker is answerable for it."-BLACKSTONE. This force of liability to punishment comes out more strongly still in OBNOXIOUS. This is due to the classic meaning of the term, which is properly applied to " one who, on the ground of a mischief or wrong committed by him, is justly liable to punishment (ob noxam pœna obligatus). It has what has been termed a lax and slovenly " use, as a "vague, unserviceable synonym for offensive. We punish, or wish to punish, those whom we dislike, and thus obnoxious has obtained its present sense of offensive." It may be added, that in this vague sense it has extended beyond subjects capable of punishment, and we speak of obnoxious smells. In its correct application it expresses not only a liability but, in some cases, that the stage has been reached when the possible position of the answerable has become actual, and punishment or resentment may be expected in consequence of the liability incurred. "Our obnoxiousness to the curse of the law for sin had exposed us to all the extremity of misery, and made death as due to us as wages to the workman."-SOUTH. AMENABLE (Fr. amener, to lead or guide to) means liable to some thing or person which has an inherent power to bind or compel, as laws, rules, authority, a parent, a governor. It sometimes further bears the sense of a natural willingness to recognize such power, and then becomes an epithet of moral conduct or character, as when one is amenable to discipline, advice, or reason, or simply amenable. To be amenable is to be accountable so far as one is bound by laws and regulations. "The sovereign of this country is not amenable to any form of trial known to the laws."-JUNIUS. LIABLE (Fr. lier, Lat. ligare, to bind) expresses in a simple and comprehensive manner a relative capability of being acted upon; and not only has nothing of the strictly personal action involved in accountable, or the moral dignity of responsible, but is applicable even to merely physical influences, as silver is liable to be tarnished by damp. It is, like answerable, used for certain common and familiar obligations, as to be liable "In geometry we are not liable to adopt the same paradoxical conclusions as in algebra, because the diagrams to which our attention is directed serve as a continual check on our reasoning powers."-STEWART. ACCREDIT. 41 ENTRUST, DELE GATE. COMMISSION. DEPUTE. It may be worth while in this place to notice the difference specifically between LIABLE and SUBJECT. Subject (Lat. subjicere, part. subjectus, to cast or place under) stands to nature as liable to circumstances. Men are subject to error from their mental, to death from their physical, to temptation from their moral constitution, to anger from the irritability of their temperament. They are liable to catch cold in draught, and to arrest for debt. From one point of view it may be said that we are subject, and become liable; or, again, we are subject to that which dominates over us as partaking a common nature, we are liable to what affects us as individuals. That to which we are subject, as, for instance, death, will overtake us sooner or later. That to which we are liable, as, for instance, accident, may be happily escaped, or by circumspection avoided. Subject imliable of a more casual influence. plies the pressure of a more uniform, "For what is strength without a double share Of wisdom? Vast, unwieldy, hurdensome, MILTON. DRYDEN. These words express the idea in common of reposing trust or conferring authority on another for a purpose of one's own. The simplest and most general is to ENTRUST, to place in a position of trust or by a converse use to commit to a person's trust or faithful keeping. We entrust persons with offices, property, or even secrets. In all cases we entrust on the ground of a belief of a sufficiency of inteiligence, and such personal regard to one's self, as well as such probity or character as would induce the other to act for our own interests, or at least not to neglect or oppose them. Him whom we entrust with anything we constitute a guardian on our own behalf. It is great folly to entrust matters of importance to the weak, the careless, the thoughtless, or the dishonest. "He (the Lord of all the families of the earth) will enter into a severe scrutiny how we may have employed all those talents that He hath entrusted us with."-SHARP. ACCREDIT (Fr. accréditer) is to place in the position of acting as one's representative, and of showing him to be so in a formal and public manner, it necessary, as by giving him credentials. It is a term of diplomacy. To accredit is to place in a position of public trust! "I am better pleased indeed that he (the reviewer) censures some things than I should have been with unmixed commendation; for his censure will, to use the new diplomatic term, accredit his praises." -COWPER. To DELEGATE (Lat. delegare, to entrust), is to cause to be done by another that which one has to do one's self. It is closely allied to DEPUTE (Lat. deputare, in the sense of to allot to), but both persons and duties may be delegated, while persons only are deputed. The appointment makes the deputy; the being sent elsewhere to act makes the delegate. A member of parliament is the deputy of the people as soon as he is returned; he is then delegate when he has gone to the metropolis to represent their interests. The term delegate is employed of important matters of public interest. A deputy may be no more than the representative of an official of low rank. The deputy merely does what the other is not present to do in person. The delegate has a greater freedom of responsible action, and may have but little less than independent powers. "This change from an immediate state of procuration and delegation to a course of acting as from original power, is the way in which all the popular magistracies in the world have been perverted from their purposes."-Burke, "Christes deputie or vicar."-UDAL. TO COMMISSION (Lat. committere, to entrust) differs from depute in that the latter refers to a continuous charge or vicarious office. He who is deputed is a representative; he who is commissioned has no representative capacity. To commission does not go beyond the act or work, and does not imply necesWe comsarily a permanent office. mission at will, and in cases where it suits our convenience to act through others. It is in general the superior that commissions the inferior in order to avail himself of his services. monarch, for instance, appoints a commission of inquiry in the interests of the public. It is evident that the commission depending upon the will and convenience of another may be of any character which it is consonant with such will and convenience to confer, from the execution of a trivial trust to the investiture of official dignity. A "We are to deny the supposition that he (Moses) was a private person at that time of killing the Egyptian, but that he was even then commissioned by God Governor of Israel, and, consequently, in the right of a governor might revenge the wrong done to his subjects."-SOUTH. ACCRUE. SUPERVENE. DEVOLVE. REDOUND. The ideas common to these terms are those of certain things coming upon or out of others, so that are affected by them. In Accus (Fr. accrú, part. of accroitre; Lat. accrescere, to grow to), that which accrues comes from a natural tendency in its cause to produce it, as wealth accrues from industry; that is, there is in industry an inherent aptitude to produce wealth. It is also a personally relative term, involving the idea of some person to whose benefit or harm the thing accrues. That which accrues is of the nature of increase, profit, or damage. It is, as it were, the fruit which a thing bears naturally. "Good men consult their piety as little as their judgment and experience when they admit the great and essential advantages accruing to society from the freedom of the press, yet indulge themselves in peevish or passionate exclamations against the abuses of it."-JUNIUS. SUPERVENE (Lat. supervenire, to come upon) expresses the simple event of one fact occurring upon another, which other may be itself a result. That which supervenes intensifies the preceding cause or pre-existent state of affairs. It comes in unexpectedly with little sequence apparently of cause and effect, yet with very decisive results. A man broke his leg by a fall, fever supervened, and he died. The effect of that which supervenes is in proportion to the aptitude of actual circumstances to be affected by it for detriment or improvement. "His good will, when placed on any, was so fixed and rooted, that even supervening vice, to which he had the greatest detestation imaginable, could not easily remove it."-FELL'S Life of Hammond. DEVOLVE (Lat. devolvère) is literally to roll down upon, but is employed only in the figurative sense, with an idea of transmission or succession. In the absence of one who has a duty to perform, that duty will often devolve upon one who is the nearest bound by obligation or interest to perform it. On the removal of the proprietor of an estate by death, the estate devolves upon the next heir; that is, alights as it were on him who is the next halting point in the course of the succession. Things which devolve are of the nature of duties, privileges, responsibilities, tasks, offices, obligations, powers, or possessions. "Which was augmented by the state of the sayd Richard, and the devolution of the same to Henry IV."--GRAFTON. TO REDOUND (Lat. redundare, to flow back, to redound) is to come back as a consequence of good or ill upon an actor, originator, or promoter, |