That engenders thunder in his breast.-Shakspere.

i. e. is engendering thunder, &c.

Such words are sometimes placed first, for the sake of emphasis.

Comes the blind Fury with abhorred shears
And slits the thin-spun life.-Milton.

NOUNS.

80. Noun, from the Latin nomen, 'name,' is the name of any thing we can perceive by means of (1) the senses, or (2) the understanding:

(1) Thunder, lightning, cold, perfume, acidity;
(2) Justice, virtue, truth.

Words of the first class are sometimes called concrete terms; those of the second, abstract terms. 81. In speaking of nouns, we must consider Gender, Number, and Case.

Gender.

82. The word Gender is derived from the Latin genus, a kind or class.

There are three kinds or genders of nouns; (1) those indicating the male sex, as boy, father: (2) those indicating the female sex, as girl, mother: (3) those that are neither male nor female, as book, house. The first are commonly called masculine; the second

feminine; and the third neuter, from a Latin word meaning neither.

It is important not to confound Gender, i. e. a grammatical term signifying a class of nouns, with Sex, i. e. the distinction between male and female.

83. In the ancient, and in most modern languages, nouns with certain terminations are of a definite gender, without reference to the sex of the thing described. Thus in Latin, puella, a girl, and villa, a farm, are both feminine. In French, fille, a daughter, and ville, a city, are both feminine. So in Anglo-Saxon, wyrhta, a workman, and steorra, a star, are both masculine. In modern English this artificial system does not exist. As a general rule gender is determined by sex alone.

84. Nouns of the neuter gender in English are unaltered; but there are three ways of distinguishing the masculine and the feminine.

(1) By employing a different word for each sex :

(2) By prefixing a word indicating the sex:

He-goat, she-goat; cock-sparrow, hen-sparrow; manservant, maid-servant.

(3) By suffixing a syllable:

Lion-ess, vix-en, spin-ster, widow-er, d-rake.

85. The syllable -er (Anglo-Saxon, -ere) was originally a masculine suffix; Anglo-Saxon, sang-ere, a male sing-er. It is now used principally to denote an agent, without reference to sex.

86. The syllable -rake was a masculine suffix in most of the Gothic dialects, but not in Anglo-Saxon, In modern English it occurs only in the word d-rake. The d is the last letter of end or and, a duck. The words duck and drake are etymologically distinct ; they are Scandinavian, and came from the north with the wild-fowl they represented.

87. The ordinary feminine suffix is -ess. It is not Anglo-Saxon, but was introduced into the language with the Norman-French, and has displaced the suffix of the mother-tongue. In mistress, the a of master has been modified by the suffix -ess.

88. The usual feminine suffix in Anglo-Saxon was -estre or -istre; in later English, -ster. In early times, brewing, baking, weaving, spinning, fulling, &c., were carried on exclusively by women. Hence such names as Maltster, Brewster or Browster, Baxter or Bagster, Spinster, Kempster, Whitster.

The feminine signification is still preserved in spinster and foster (food-ster)-mother. In old English, tap-ster meant a 'bar-maid;' fruit-ster, a 'female fruit-seller;' chide-ster, a 'female scold,' &c.

It is also found in combination with the Norman -ess; seam-str-ess, song-str-ess.

-ster is now used as a suffix of depreciation; as youngster, punster, &c.

89. -in is a feminine suffix in many Indo-European languages: Latin, reg-in-a; Greek, hero-in-a; German, freund-inn, a female friend. A single example exists in English; vix-en, a female fox; Anglo-Saxon, fix-en; the o of fox being modified by the suffix -en.

90. As a general rule, the feminine is formed from the masculine; but in the words drake, gand-er, widow-er, the masculine is formed from the feminine. The first two instances may be thus explained. The flocks are composed chiefly of female birds. Hence a distinguishing name would be first applied to them. Afterwards it became necessary to distinguish the less numerous males, and a masculine suffix was added to the existing word.

Widow and widower in Anglo-Saxon were wuduwe (f.) and wuduwa (m.). The final vowels were gradually lost, and widow in old English is both masculine and feminine. The word was afterwards limited in its application to women; and when it again became necessary to distinguish a man who had lost his wife

by a single word, the masculine suffix was added to the recognised feminine widow.

Lady is an irregular derivative from lord. AngloSaxon, hlaf-ord, loaf-giver (m.); hlæfd-ige, lady. Nephew, niece; Latin, nepos, neptis.

91. Neuter nouns have no generic ending; but certain pronouns and their compounds still retain a neuter suffix t; i-t, tha-t, wha-t, whi-t, augh-t, naught, no-t. In other Indo-European languages this suffix appears in the forms d, t, s, n, and m.

92. When an inanimate object is represented as a living person, it is said to be personified. Poets and uneducated persons are fond of this form of speech. Hence in English, as in other languages, imaginary sex is often bestowed upon words of the neuter gender:

For Winter came: the wind was his whip:
One choppy finger was on his lip:

He had torn the cataracts from the hills,

And they clanked at his girdle like manacles.

Shelley.

With the uneducated, inanimate objects, to which the speaker is most attached, are usually considered feminine.

93. The religions of the ancient world personified visible objects, such as the sun, the moon, the ocean; and moral qualities, such as truth, mercy, vengeance. The influence of the old writers is felt in later ages. Our Saxon ancestors, taught by their national faith,