_"To Commit" in the Sense used by Junius._--On looking into Walker's
_Dictionary_, a short time since, I found the following remark, which
seems to have escaped every inquirer into the authorship of the letters
of Junius:--
"_To_ COMMIT.--This word was _first_ used in Junius's letters in a
sense unknown to our former English writers, namely, _to expose_,
_to venture_, _to hazard_; this sense is borrowed from the French,
and has been generally adopted by subsequent writers."
Can any of your readers produce an instance of the use of this word in
the sense here applied to it, _prior_ to the appearance of Junius? Such
a parallel would carry more weight with it than the countless examples
of verbal singularities with which almost every _discoverer_ of Junius
has encumbered his essay.