word "currency" was formerly used for paper "passing for money in the colonies". But unless Mr. Gould is prepared to show that that is its exclusive meaning i.e., that it does not mean coin likewise, he cannot justly censure me for saying that he spoke of coin when he used the word currency. Currency" is a term which is applicable to anything which passes current as money. "Abraham weighed to Ephron four hundred "shekels of silver, current money with the "merchant": Gen. xxiii, 16. When, therefore, I stated that Mr. Gould speaks of a word under the similitude of a coin, while, as he says, he really speaks of a word under the similitude of

66

paper passing for money", the cause of the error must, in justice, be attributed to him for his having used, in a conventional and restricted sense, the word "currency", which is a general term for "the aggregate of coin, notes, bills, etc., "in circulation in a country". If I have been misled as to Mr. Gould's meaning, it is his language which has misled me; for he not only speaks of spurious currency, but of its being unconsciously accepted as genuine, and mixed up and paid out with "standard currency". Surely this language is more applicable to coin, than to

paper, seeing that, according to the 'Encyclopædia 'Britannica', 8th edition, Vol xv, p. 430, “by the “standard of money is meant the degree of "purity or fineness of the metal of which coins

66

66

66

are made, and the quantity or weight of such "metal in them". But Mr. Gould's use of the word currency" is objectionable for another reason: he uses the word as if it were synonymous with promissory note; whereas, the word is descriptive not of a part, merely, but of the whole-"the aggregate of coin, notes, bills, etc., in circula❝tion in a country". A promissory note may be current, as legal tender; but it is not "currency"; and the calling it that, is a technical use of the word which a writer on the proprieties of language ought not to adopt. But granting, for the sake of argument, that "currency" means a promissory note, I have still to learn how a promissory note can be purified by an endorsement.

CRITICISM XIX.

EDWARD S. GOULD.

THE principle charge which Mr. Gould brings against The Dean's English' is, that in certain passages in it there are nouns which are followed by present participles, and yet are not in the possessive case. For instance, I say, on page 42;-"I spoke of editors falling into mistakes”. Again, page 56;—" We may properly speak of a "word being not strictly a neuter substantive, "but we cannot properly speak of a substantive "being strict". Mr. Gould says;

"The three italicized words should be in the "sive case."

posses

I have well weighed Mr. Gould's opinion upon this matter; I have consulted the highest authorities upon it, and I am compelled still to differ with Mr. Gould. There are passages in The Dean's 'English' which I had considered would be better with the noun in the possessive case; and, in the present English edition of the work, they

stand so; but in none of the instances quoted should Mr. Gould's alteration be made; as I will prove to him by quotations from an authority to which he himself has appealed.

I did not intend to reply to Mr. Gould's comments on this subject, because, fully to discuss it would occupy more space than could be devoted to it here. It fills fourteen closely printed large octavo pages in G. Brown's 'Grammar of English 'Grammars'. Still, lest, being silent, my silence should be misconstrued, and a wrong impression be produced as to the value which I set upon Mr. Gould's remarks concerning nouns which precede present participles, I will quote a few passages from the valuable work just mentioned (second edition); merely prefacing those passages by the statement that I entirely agree with the opinions which they express:

66

Page 503.-"Though the ordinary syntax of "the possessive case is sufficiently plain and easy, there is, perhaps, among all the puzzling "and disputable points of grammar, nothing difficult of decision than are some "questions that occur respecting the right "management of this case."

"more

Page 642.-"The observations which have

"been made

show that possessives before "participles are seldom to be approved."

Page 642." This brings us again to that "difficult and apparently unresolvable problem, "whether participles as such, by virtue of their "mixed gerundive character, can, or cannot, govern the possessive case; a question, about 'which, the more a man examines it, the more "he may doubt."

66

66

Page 643.-"The following example, from "West's Letters', is manifestly inconsistent with "itself; and, in my opinion, the three posses"sives are all wrong: 'The kitchen too now "begins to give dreadful note of preparation; "not from armorers accomplishing the knights, "but from the shopmaid's chopping force-meat, "the apprentice's cleaning knives, and the "journeyman's receiving a practical lesson in "the art of waiting at table.' It should be: "not from armorers accomplishing the knights, "but from the shopmaid chopping force-meat, "the apprentice cleaning knives, and the journeyman receiving,' etc. The nouns are the principal words, and the participles are ad"juncts."

666

66

Page 643.-"The leading word in sense ought