) He says
that the pronunciation _commandement_ was already going out of use two
centuries and a half ago. Mr. Pegge speaks of it as a common Cockneyism
at the beginning of this century. Sometimes this hastiness, however,
affects the value of an elucidatory note, as where he tells us that a
principality is "an angel of the highest rank next to divinity" [deity],
and quotes St. Paul, breaking off the passage at the word in question.
But St. Paul goes on to say _powers_,--and there were, in fact, three
orders of angels above the principalities, the highest being the
Seraphim. An editor should be silent or correct, especially where there
is no need of saying anything.
[Footnote J: It is singular, if the _s_ be a corruption, that the
Germans should have fallen into the same in their _vorwaerts_ and
_rueckwaerts_. We are inclined to conjecture the _s_ a genitival one,
supplying the place of a missing _of_ and _von_ respectively. We
formerly said, "of this side," "of that side," etc.; but the idiomatic
sense of _of_ is so entirely lost, that Mr. Craik (_English of
Shakspeare_) actually supposes _o'clock_ and _o'nights_ to be
contractions of "_on_ the clock," "_on_ nights," and that, although we
still say habitually, "_of_ late," "_of_ old." The French use of _de_,
and the Italian of _di_, is parallel. The Italians have also their
_avanti_ and _davante_, and no one forgets Dante's
"Di qua, di la, di su, di giu, gli mena."
]
But it is after Mr.
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