OBS. 11.—­Right and wrong are not often compared by good writers; though we sometimes see such phrases as more right and more wrong, and such words as rightest and wrongest:  “’Tis always in the wrongest sense.”—­Butler.  “A method of attaining the rightest and greatest happiness.”—­PRICE:  Priestley’s Gram., p. 78.  “It is no more right to steal apples, than it is to steal money.”—­Webster’s New Spelling-Book, p. 118.  There are equivalent expressions which seem preferable; as, more proper, more erroneous, most proper, most erroneous.

OBS. 12.—­Honest, just, true, correct, sincere, and vast, may all be compared at pleasure.  Pope’s Essay on Criticism is more correct than any thing this modest pretender can write; and in it, he may find the comparative juster, the superlatives justest, truest, sincerest, and the phrases, “So vast a throng,”—­“So vast is art:”  all of which are contrary to his teaching. “Unjuster dealing is used in buying than in selling.”—­Butler’s Poems, p. 163. “Iniquissimam pacem justissimo bello antefero.”—­Cicero.  “I prefer the unjustest peace before the justest war.”—­Walker’s English Particles, p. 68.  The poet Cowley used the word honestest; which is not now very common.  So Swift:  “What honester folks never durst for their ears.”—­The Yahoo’s Overthrow.  So Jucius:  “The honestest and ablest men.”—­Letter XVIII.  “The sentence would be more correct in the following form.”—­Murray’s Gram., i, p. 223.  “Elegance is chiefly gained by studying the correctest writers.”—­Holmes’s Rhetoric, p. 27. Honest and correct, for the sake of euphony, require the adverbs; as, more honest, “most correct.”—­Lowth’s Gram., Pref., p. iv. Vast, vaster, vastest, are words as smooth, as fast, faster, fastest; and more vast is certainly as good English as more just:  “Shall mortal man be more just than God?”—­Job, iv, 17.  “Wilt thou condemn him that is most just?”—­Ib., xxxiv, 17.  “More wise, more learn’d, more just, more-everything.”—­Pope.  Universal is often compared by the adverbs, but certainly with no reenforcement of meaning:  as, “One of the most universal precepts, is, that the orator himself should feel the passion.”—­Adams’s Rhet., i, 379.  “Though not so universal.”—­Ib., ii, 311.  “This experience is general, though not so universal, as the absence of memory in childhood.”—­Ib., ii, 362.  “We can suppose no motive which would more universally operate.”—­Dr. Blair’s Rhet., p. 55.  “Music is known to have been more universally studied.”—­Ib., p. 123.  “We shall not wonder, that his grammar has been so universally applauded.”—­Walker’s