1.  For the derivation of our article THE, which he calls “an adjective,” Dr. Webster was satisfied with giving this hint:  “Sax. the; Dutch, de.”—­Amer.  Dict. According to Horne Tooke, this definite article of ours, is the Saxon verb “THE,” imperative, from THEAN, to take; and is nearly equivalent in meaning to that or those, because our that is “the past participle of THEAN,” and “means taken.”—­Diversions of Purley, Vol. ii, p. 49.  But this is not very satisfactory.  Examining ancient works, we find the word, or something resembling it, or akin to it, written in various forms, as se, see, ye, te, de, the, tha, and others that cannot be shown by our modern letters; and, tracing it as one article, or one and the same word, through what we suppose to be the oldest of these forms, in stead of accounting the forms as signs of different roots, we should sooner regard it as originating in the imperative of SEON, to see.

2.  AN, our indefinite article, is the Saxon oen, ane, an, ONE; and, by dropping n before a consonant, becomes a.  Gawin Douglas, an ancient English writer, wrote ane, even before a consonant; as, “Ane book,”—­“Ane lang spere,”—­“Ane volume.”

OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.—­The words of Tooke, concerning the derivation of That and The, as nearly as they can be given in our letters, are these:  “THAT (in the Anglo-Saxon Thaet, i.e.  Thead, Theat) means taken, assumed; being merely the past participle of the Anglo-Saxon verb Thean, Thegan, Thion, Thihan, Thicgan, Thigian; sumere, assumere, accipere; to THE, to get, to take, to assume.

    ’Ill mote he THE That caused me
    To make myselfe a frere.’—­Sir T. More’s Workes, pag. 4.

THE (our article, as it is called) is the imperative of the same verb Thean:  which may very well supply the place of the correspondent Anglo-Saxon article Se, which is the imperative of Seon, videre:  for it answers the same purpose in discourse, to say.... see man, or take man.”—­Diversions of Purley, Vol. ii, p. 49.

OBS. 2.—­Now, between Thaet and Theat, there is a considerable difference of form, for ae and ea are not the same diphthong; and, in the identifying of so many infinitives, as forming but one verb, there is room for error.  Nor is it half so probable that these are truly one root, as that our article The is the same, in its origin, as the old Anglo-Saxon Se.  Dr. Bosworth, in his Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, gives no such word as Thean or Thegan, no such participle as Thead or Theat, which derivative is perhaps imaginary; but he has inserted together “Thicgan, thicgean, thigan, to receive, or take;” and separately, “Theon,