own, would naturally incline them to.

Sometimes also we find them expressing a mean opinion of their native tongue. This, however, I am the less inclined to wonder at, as I am convinced that those only can speak of our language without respect, who are ignorant of its nature and qualities. Perhaps it is as capable of receiving any impressions that a man of taste and genius may chuse to stamp upon it, and is as easily moulded into all the various forms of passion, elegance, and sublimity, as any language, ancient or modern.

Some men of eminence in letters, having seen how well the fashionable world has succeeded in imitating the manners of the French, have endeavoured to raise themselves into reputation by importing their forms of speech; and, not contented with the good old English idiom, have dressed out their works in all the tawdriness of French phraseology.

But this injudicious fashion of adulterating our language with foreign mixtures, is more especially the case with respect to the Latin; to the laws of which, many of our writers, and indeed some also of our grammarians, have so strenuously endeavoured to subject our language, that Brown's prophecy, in the preface to his "Vulgar Errors," is at length come to pass, and "we are now

"forced to study Latin, in order to understand English." The complaint is not new, though the practice complained of is now become more frequent, and more extensive than ever. Our elegant and idiomatic satirist ridicules that

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easy Ciceronian style

"So Latin, yet so English all the while."

POPE'S EPILOGUE TO SATIRES.

Not only Latin words, but Latin idioms, are now invading us with so much success, that, do what we can, I fear we must submit to the yoke, and as our country was formerly compelled to become a province of the Roman empire, so must our language sink at last into a dialect of the Roman tongue. This event has been much hastened of late years. Some men, whose writings do honour to their country and to mankind, have, it must be confessed, written in a style that no Englishman will own: a sort of anglicized Latin, and chiefly distinguished from it by a trifling difference of termination; yet so excellent are these works, in other respects, that a man might deserve well of the Public who would take the trouble of translating them into English. As I do not notice these alterations in our language, in order to commend them, I shall not produce any particular instances. I shall content

myself with supporting the fact by the evidence of a truly respectable critic, now living. In the preface to his excellent Dictionary, he says, "so far have I been from any "care to grace my page with modern decorations, that "I have studiously endeavoured to collect my examples "and authorities from the writers before the Restoration, "whose works I regard as the wells of English undefiled; "as the pure sources of genuine diction. Our language, "for almost a century, has, by the concurrence of many

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causes, been gradually departing from its ancient Teu"tonic character, and deviating towards a Gallic structure " and phraseology; from which it ought to be our endea"vour to recal it; by making our ancient volumes the

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groundwork of our style, admitting among the additions "of later times, only such as may supply real deficiencies; "such as are readily adopted by the genius of our tongue, "and incorporate easily with our native idioms."

In his preface to the works of Shakespeare, we also find the following very applicable sentiments: "I believe "there is in every nation, a style that never becomes

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obsolete, a certain mode of phraseology so consonant "and congenial to the principles of its respective language, "as to remain settled and unaltered.

"The polite are always catching modish innovations,

" and the learned depart from established forms of speech, "in hopes of finding or making better; those who wish "for distinction, forsake the vulgar when the vulgar is right; but there is a conversation above grossness and "below refinement, where propriety resides, and where "Shakespeare seems to have gathered his comic dialogue. "He is therefore more agreeable to the ears of the pre"sent age than any other author equally remote, and "among his other excellencies deserves to be studied as "one of the original masters of our language." These passages I have inserted, because such a testimony from this great man will at least be thought impartial by every person acquainted with the characteristics of his style.

The alterations in our language here mentioned, are certainly not for the better: they give the phraseology a disgusting air of study and formality: they have their source in affectation, not in taste: yet novelty has its attractions, and what Quintilian says of Seneca's works, may be fairly applied to our later English writers: "In "eloquendo corrupta pleraque, et eo perniciosissima, "quod abundabant dulcibus vitiis." Though these exotic terms and phrases are not really better than our homebred English; yet their newness gives them a spurious sort of beauty: though they do not really enrich the dress

of our thoughts, yet they are a kind of tinsel ornaments admired because they glitter and glare. The writers I allude to may perhaps have succeeded in giving our language a higher polish; but have they not also curtailed and impoverished it? Perhaps they may have cleared it of some cant terms, low phrases, and awkward constructions: but what they may have gained in accuracy, have they not lost in variety? Have they not reduced all kinds of composition to an insipid uniformity? Is not the spirit of our language lowered, its freedom cramped, and its range of expression narrowed?

I shall not be required to prove this opinion by such of my readers as are acquainted with the works of Hooker, Taylor, Swift, Pope, Addison, and Dryden; with the prose of Cowley, and with Shakespeare's "immortal wit." However, the prevalence of fashion is so strong, that all resistance to this adulteration of our language may be ineffectual; and it is well worthy of notice, that every polite nation, hitherto distinguished in literature, has, after a certain period, declined in taste and purity of composition. The later Greek writers are known by the diminutive term, " Græculi," and the Augustan age denotes an æra before the Latin tongue was vitiated and spoiled by vain refinements and affected innovations. To prevent