hall be under a sort of _necessity_ to retain _lesser_, in
order to speak intelligibly: as, "It shall be for the sending-forth of
oxen, and for the treading of _lesser_ cattle."--_Isaiah_, vii, 25. I have
no partiality for the word _lesser_, neither will I make myself ridiculous
by flouting at its rudeness. "This word," says Webster, "is a corruption,
but [it is] too well established to be discarded. Authors always write the
_Lesser_ Asia."--_Octavo Dict._ "By the same reason, may a man punish the
_lesser_ breaches of that law."--_Locke_. "When we speak of the _lesser_
differences among the tastes of men."--_Blair's Rhet._, p. 20. "In greater
or _lesser_ degrees of complexity."--_Burke, on Sublime_, p. 94. "The
greater ought not to succumb to the _lesser_."--_Dillwyn's Reflections_, p.
128. "To such productions, _lesser_ composers must resort for
ideas."--_Gardiner's Music of Nature_, p. 413.

"The larger here, and there the _lesser_ lambs,
The new-fall'n young herd bleating for their dams."--_Pope_.

OBS. 7.--Our grammarians deny the comparison of many adjectives, from a
false notion that they are already superlatives. Thus W. Allen: "Adjectives
compounded with the Latin preposition _per_, are already superlative: as,
_perfect, perennial, permanent_, &c."--_Elements of E. Gram._, p. 52. In
reply to this, I would say, that nothing is really superlative, in English,
but what has the form and construction of the superlative; as, "The _most
permanent_ of all dyes." No word beginning with _per_, is superlative by
virtue of this Latin prefix. "Separate spirits, which are beings that have
_perfecter_ knowledge and greater happiness than we, must needs have also a
_perfecter_ way of communicating their thoughts than we have."--_Locke's
Essay_, B. ii, Ch. 24, Sec.36, This mode of comparison is not now good, but it
shows that _perfect_ is no superlative. Thus Kirkham: "The _following_
adjectives, and _many others_, are _always in the superlative degree_;
because, by expressing a quality _in the highest degree_, they carry in
themselves a superlative signification: _chief, extreme, perfect, right,
wrong, honest, just, true, correct, sincere, vast, immense, ceaseless,
infinite, endless, unparalleled, universal, supreme, unlimited, omnipotent,
all-wise, eternal_." [183]--_Gram._, p. 73. So the Rev. David Blair: "The
words _perfect, certain, infinite, universal, chief, supreme, right, true,
extreme, superior_, and some others,