thing, is so uncertain as" this popular honour, public esteem, or "general reputation." And so of all similar examples.
OBS. 7.--In all comparisons, care must be taken to adapt the terms to the degree which is expressed by the adjective or adverb. The superlative degree requires that the object to which it relates, be one of those with which it is compared; as, "Eve was the fairest of women." The comparative degree, on the contrary, requires that the object spoken of be not included among those with which it is compared; as, "Eve was fairer than any of her daughters." To take the inclusive term here, and say, "Eve was fairer than any woman," would be no less absurd, than Milton's assertion, that "Eve was the fairest of her daughters:" the former supposes that she was not a woman; the latter, that she was one of her own daughters. But Milton's solecism is double; he makes Adam one of his own sons:--
"Adam the goodliest man of men since born His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve."--P. Lost, B. iv, l. 324.
OBS. 8.--"Such adjectives," says Churchill, "as have in themselves a superlative signification, or express qualities not susceptible of degrees, do not properly admit either the comparative or [the] superlative form. Under this rule may be included all adjectives with a negative prefix."--New Gram., p. 80. Again: "As immediate signifies instant, present with regard to time, Prior should not have written 'more immediate.' Dr. Johnson."--Ib., p. 233. "Hooker has unaptest; Locke, more uncorrupted; Holder, more undeceivable: for these the proper expressions would have been the opposite signs without the negation: least apt, less corrupted, less deceivable. Watts speaks of 'a most unpassable barrier.' If he had simply said 'an unpassable barrier,' we should have understood it at once in the strongest sense, as a barrier impossible to be surmounted: but, by attempting to express something more, he gives an idea of something less; we perceive, that his unpassable means difficult to pass. This is the mischief of the propensity to exaggeration; which, striving after strength, sinks into weakness."--Ib., p. 234.
OBS. 9.--The foregoing remarks from Churchill appear in general to have been dictated by good sense; but, if his own practice is right, there must be some exceptions to his rule respecting the comparison of adjectives with a negative prefix; for, in the phrase "less imprudent," which, according to a passage quoted before, he will have to be different from "more prudent," he himself furnishes an example of such comparison. In fact, very many words of that class are compared by good writers: as, "Nothing is more unnecessary."--Lowth's Gram., Pref., p. v. "What is yet more unaccountable."--ROGERS: in Joh. Dict. "It is hard to determine which is most uneligible."--Id., ib. "Where it appears the most unbecoming and unnatural."--ADDISON: ib. "Men of the best sense and of the most unblemished lives."--Id., ib. "March and September are the most unsettled and unequable of seasons."--BENTLEY: ib. "Barcelona was taken by a most unexpected accident."--SWIFT: ib. "The most barren and unpleasant."--WOODWARD: ib. "O good, but most unwise patricians!"--SHAK.: ib. "More unconstant than the wind."--Id., ib. "We may say more or less imperfect."--Murray's Gram., p. 168. "Some of those [passions] which act with the most irresistible energy upon the hearts of mankind, are altogether omitted in the catalogue of Aristotle."--Adams's Rhet., i, 380. "The wrong of him who presumes to talk of owning me, is too unmeasured to be softened by kindness."--Channing, on Emancipation, p. 52. "Which, we are sensible, are more inconclusive than the rest."--Blair's Rhet., p. 319.
"Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears Had left the flushing in her galled eyes."--Shak.
OBS. 10.--Comparison must not be considered a general property of adjectives. It belongs chiefly to the class which I call common adjectives, and is by no means applicable to all of these. Common adjectives, or epithets denoting quality, are perhaps more numerous than all the other classes put together. Many of these, and a few that are pronominal, may be varied by comparison; and some participial adjectives may be compared by means of the adverbs. But adjectives formed from proper names, all the numerals, and most of the compounds, are in no way susceptible of comparison. All nouns used adjectively, as an iron bar, an evening school, a mahogany chair, a South-Sea dream, are also incapable of comparison. In the title of "His Most Christian Majesty," the superlative adverb is applied to a proper adjective; but who will pretend that we ought to understand by it "the highest degree" of Christian attainment? It might seem uncourtly to suggest that this is "an abuse of the king's English," I shall therefore say no such thing. Pope compares the word Christian, in the following couplet:--
"Go, purified by flames ascend the sky, My better and more Christian progeny."--Dunciad, B. i, l. 227.
IRREGULAR COMPARISON.
The following adjectives are compared irregularly: good, better, best; bad, evil, or ill, worse, worst; little, less, least; much, more, most; many, more, most.
OBSERVATIONS.
OBS. 1.--In English, and also in Latin, most adjectives that denote place or situation, not only form the superlative irregularly, but are also either defective or redundant in comparison. Thus:
I. The following nine have more than one superlative: far, farther, farthest, farmost, or
