166 Aug. Western: Anm. af What the author wants to prove, and, as far as I can see, does prove, is partly that some adverbs which originally mean completeness of degree, have gradually come to mean only a high or very high degree of a quality, partly that some which originally are «word-modifiers» have in course of time developed a new shade of meaning, and become «sentence-modifiers» (for these terms see Sweet, A New English Grammar § 357 foll). Of the first of these changes good examples are given in the Introductory Chapter to Part I, which contains an outline of the history of such adverbs and adverbial phrases as immediately, by and by, anon, ever and anon, preseníly, soon, just now. Highly interesting is the history of dy and by, which originally means in regular order, one by one, then near together, side by side, then nearly, approximately, from which there is only a short step to the temporal sense of ἐπ immediate succession, straightway, which has further been worn down to the present sense of presently, before long. — As to the phrase ever and anon, Which according to Murray means «ever and again, every now and then, continually at intervals», the author suggests that the and is intrusive, and due to the phrase and anon, occasionally found from Shakespeare downwards in the sense of «and presently again». This seems highly probable when it is remembered that Norwegian possesses the phrase a/t i ett, which corresponds very nearly in form and exactly in meaning to the English phrase in question. In the following chapters this weakening-process, as well as the change from <«word-modifiers» to <«sentence-modifiers», are shown by a detailed treatment of the words mentioned above. Of these, full and pure must have gone through the weakeningprocess very early, both of them occurring in Middle English in the sense of very, though pure is also found in the sense of completely, e. g. pur blind, completely blind, which is the modern purblind, half-blind. It would even seem that full is no good example of this weakening. As an adjective, indeed, it means completeness, but as early as the 14th century, when it first occurs as an adverb, it means the same as the modern very, and it is not till Shakespeare’s time that it acquires the sense of the modern fully, e. g. full three thousand. 1t seems therefore that the development is, in this word, the reverse of what the author wants to prove. Even pure does not seem to have developed the meaning of very out of the meaning of completely, as it occurs in M.F. in both senses, but in Mod. E. only in the latter, except in the above mentioned purblind. More interesting is its adjectival use as a «sentence-modifier», e. g. for his pure love = purely for his love, especially as in Norwegian the adjectives pur and ren can be used exactly in the same manner: Żan gjorde det af ren kjærlighed does not mean