anterior and posterior, interior and exterior, prior and ulterior, senior and junior, major and minor; that they cannot, like other comparatives, be construed with the conjunction than. After all genuine English comparatives, this conjunction may occur, because it is the only fit word for introducing the latter term of comparison; but we never say one thing is former or latter, superior or inferior, than an other. And so of all the rest here named. Again, no real comparative or superlative can ever need an other superadded to it; but inferior and superior convey ideas that do not always preclude the additional conception of more or less: as, "With respect to high and low notes, pronunciation is still more inferior to singing."--Kames, Elements of Criticism, Vol. ii, p. 73. "The mistakes which the most superior understanding is apt to fall into."--West's Letters to a Young Lady, p. 117.
OBS. 5.--Double comparatives and double superlatives, being in general awkward and unfashionable, as well as tautological, ought to be avoided. Examples: "The Duke of Milan, and his more braver daughter, could control thee."--Shak., Tempest. Say, "his more gallant daughter." "What in me was purchased, falls upon thee in a more fairer sort."--Id., Henry IV. Say, "fairer," or, "more honest;" for "purchased" here means stolen. "Changed to a worser shape thou canst not be."--Id., Hen. VI. Say, "a worse shape"--or, "an uglier shape." "After the most straitest sect of our religion, I lived a Pharisee."--Acts, xxvi, 5. Say, "the strictest sect." "Some say he's mad; others, that lesser hate him, do call it valiant fury."--Shak. Say, "others, that hate him less." In this last example, lesser is used adverbially; in which construction it is certainly incorrect. But against lesser as an adjective, some grammarians have spoken with more severity, than comports with a proper respect for authority. Dr. Johnson says, "LESSER, adj. A barbarous corruption of less, formed by the vulgar from the habit of terminating comparatives in er; afterward adopted by poets, and then by writers of prose, till it has all the authority which a mode originally erroneous can derive from custom."--Quarto Dict. With no great fairness, Churchill quotes this passage as far as the semicolon, and there stops. The position thus taken, he further endeavours to strengthen, by saying, "Worser, though not more barbarous, offends the ear in a much greater degree, because it has not been so frequently used."--New Gram., p. 232. Example: "And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night."--Gen., i, 16. Kirkham, after making an imitation of this passage, remarks upon it: "Lesser is as incorrect as badder, gooder, worser."--Gram., p. 77. The judgement of any critic who is ignorant enough to say this, is worthy only of contempt. Lesser is still frequently used by the most tasteful authors, both in verse and prose: as, "It is the glowing style of a man who is negligent of lesser graces."--Blair's Rhet., p. 189.
"Athos, Olympus, Ætna, Atlas, made These hills seem things of lesser dignity."--Byron.
OBS. 6.--The adjective little is used in different senses; for it contrasts sometimes with great, and sometimes with much. Lesser appears to refer only to size. Hence less and lesser are not always equivalent terms. Lesser means smaller, and contrasts only with greater. Less contrasts sometimes with greater, but oftener with more, the comparative of much; for, though it may mean not so large, its most common meaning is not so much. It ought to be observed, likewise, that less is not an adjective of number,[182] though not unfrequently used as such. It does not mean fewer, and is therefore not properly employed in sentences like the following: "In all verbs, there are no less than three things implied at once."--Blair's Rhet., p. 81. "Smaller things than three," is nonsense; and so, in reality, is what the Doctor here says. Less is not the proper opposite to more, when more is the comparative of many: few, fewer, fewest, are the only words which contrast regularly with many, more, most. In the following text, these comparatives are rightly employed: "And to the more ye shall give the more inheritance, and to the fewer ye shall give the less inheritance."--Numbers, xxxiii, 54. But if writers will continue to use less for fewer, so that "less cattle," for instance, may mean "fewer cattle;" we shall be under a sort of necessity to retain lesser, in order to speak intelligibly: as, "It shall be for the sending-forth of oxen, and for the treading of lesser cattle."--Isaiah, vii, 25. I have no partiality for the word lesser, neither will I make myself ridiculous by flouting at its rudeness. "This word," says Webster, "is a corruption, but [it is] too well established to be discarded. Authors always write the Lesser Asia."--Octavo Dict. "By the same reason, may a man punish the lesser breaches of that law."--Locke. "When we speak of the lesser differences among the tastes of men."--Blair's Rhet., p. 20. "In greater or lesser degrees of complexity."--Burke, on Sublime, p. 94. "The greater ought not to succumb to the lesser."--Dillwyn's Reflections, p. 128. "To such productions, lesser composers must resort for ideas."--Gardiner's Music of Nature, p. 413.
"The larger here, and there the lesser lambs, The new-fall'n young herd bleating for their dams."--Pope.
OBS. 7.--Our grammarians deny the comparison of many adjectives, from a false notion
