[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. White has been bitten by the oestrum of Shakspearian pronunciation that he becomes thoroughly contradictory of himself, especially after he has taken up the notion that “Much Ado about Nothing” is “Much Ado about Noting,” and that the th was not sounded in the England of Shakspeare.  After that, his theory of rhetorical variety seems to become that of Geoffroy, “dire, redire, et se contredire.”  First he tells us, (Vol.  II. p. 94,) that “the old form ‘murther’ should be retained because it is etymologically correct, and because it was the uniform orthography of the day, [a hasty assumption,] and the word was pronounced in accordance with it.”  Next, (in order to sustain his anti-th theory,) he says, (Vol.  III. p. 227,) that “the last syllable of ‘murder,’ then written murth_er_, seems to have been pronounced somewhat like the same syllable of the French meurtre.”  He assures us (Vol.  III. p. 340) that raisin was pronounced as we now pronounce reason, and adds, “The custom has not entirely passed away.”  Certainly not, as any one who knows Thackeray’s “Mulligan of Ballymulligan” is aware.  But Mr. White (having forgotten for a moment his conclusion that swears was anciently sweers) quotes (Vol.  V. pp. 399-400) from the “Haven of Health” as follows:—­“Among us in England they be of two sorts, that is to say, great Raysons and small Raysons” (the Italics are our own).  In “Love’s Labor’s Lost,” he spells Biron Birone, (Chapman spelt it Byron,) as being nearer the supposed pronunciation of Shakspeare’s day; but finding it rhyming with moon, he is obliged also to assume that moon was called mown, and is severe on Mr. Fox for saying Touloon.  He forgets that we have other words of the same termination in English for whose pronunciation Mr. Fox did not set the fashion.  The French termination on became oon in bassoon, pontoon, balloon, galloon, spontoon, raccoon, (Fr. raton,) Quiberoon, Cape Bretoon, without any help from Mr. Fox.  So also croon from (Fr.) carogne,—­of which Dr. Richardson (following Jamieson) gives a false etymology.  The occurrence of pontoon in Blount’s “Glossographia,” published before Mr. Fox was born, shows the tendency of the language.[K] Or did Mr. Fox invent the word boon?