their credit, if it were well understood and confidered. For I am afraid, my lord, that with all the real good qualities of our country we are naturally not very polite. This perpetual difpofition to fhorten our words, by retrenching the vowels, is nothing elfe but a tendency to lapfe into the barbarity of those northern nations, from whom we are descended, and whofe languages labour all under the fame defect. For it is worthy our observation, that the Spaniards, the French, and the Italians, although derived from the fame northern ancestors with ourselves, are with the utmost difficulty taught to pronounce our words, which the Swedes and Danes, as well as the Germans and the Dutch, attain to with eafe, because our fyllables refemble theirs in the roughness and frequency of confonants. Now, as we ftruggle with an ill climate to improve the nobler kinds of fruits, are at the expence of walls to receive and reverberate the faint rays of the fun, and fence against the northern blafts, we fometimes by the help of a good foil equal the production of warmer countries, who have no need to be at fo much coft and care. It is the fame thing with respect to the politer arts among us; and the fame defect of heat which gives a fircenefs to our natures, may contribute to that roughness of our language, which bears fome analogy to the harsh fruit of colder countries. For I do not reckon that we want a genius more than the reft of our neighbours: but your lordship will be of my opinion, that Q3 we we ought to ftruggle with these natural difadvantages as much as we can, and be careful whom we employ, whenever we design to correct them, which is a work that has hitherto been affumed by the least qualified hands. So that, if the choice had been left to me, I would rather have trufted the refinement of our language, as far as it relates to found, to the judgment of the women, than of illiterate court-fops, half-witted poets, and university boys. For it is plain, that women in their manner of corrupting words do naturally dif card the confonants, as we do the vowels. What I am going to tell your lordship appears very trifling: that more than once, where fome of both fexes were in company, I have perfuaded two or three of each to take a pen, and write down a number of letters joined together, just as it came into their heads; and, upon reading this gibberish, we have found that which men have wrote, by the frequent encountering of rough confonants, to found like High-Dutch; and the other by the women like Italian, abounding in vowels and liquids. Now, though I would by no means give ladies the trouble of advising us in the refor. mation of our language, yet I cannot help thinking, that, fince they have been left out of all meetings, except parties at play, or where worse designs are carried on, our converfation hath very much degenerated. In order to reform our language, I conceive, my lord, that a free judicious choice should be made of fuch perfons, as are generally allowed lowed to be beft qualified for such a work, without any regard to quality, party, or profeffion. Thefe, to a certain number at leaft, fhould affemble at fome appointed time and place, and fix on rules, by which they defign to proceed. What methods they will take, is not for me to prefcribe. Your lordfhlp, and other perfons in great employment, might pleafe to be of the number; and I am afraid fuch a fociety would want your inftruction and example as much as your protection; for I have, not without a little envy, obferved. of late the ftyle of fome great ministers very much to exceed that of any other productions. The perfons who are to undertake this work will have the example of the French before them to imitate, where thefe have proceeded right, and to avoid their mistakes. Befides the grammar-part, wherein we are allowed to be very defective, they will obferve many grofs improprieties, which however authorised by practice, and grown familiar, ought to be difcarded. They will find many words that deserve to be utterly thrown out of our lan guage, many more to be corrected, and perhaps not a few long fince antiquated, which ought to be restored on account of their energy and found. But what I have mot at heart, is, that fome method fhould be thought on for afcertaining and fixing our language for ever, after fuch alterations are made in it as fhall be thought requifite. For I am of opinion, Q4 that that it is better a language should not be who ly perfect, than that it should be perpetually changing; and we must give over at one time, or at length infallibly change for the work, as the Romans did, when they began to quit their fimplicity of ftyle for affected refinements, fuch as we meet in Tacitus and other authors; which ended by degrees in many barbarities, even before the Goths had invaded Italy. The fame of our writers is ufually confined to these two islands, and it is hard it should be limited in time as much as place by the perpetual variations of our speech. It is your Lordship's obfervation, that, if it were not for the Bible and Common Prayer Book in the vulgar tongue, we fhould hardly be able to underftand any thing, that was written among as an hundred years ago; which is certainly true: for those books, being perpetually read in churches, have proved a kind of standard for language, efpecially to the common people. And I doubt, whether the alterations fince introduced have added much to the beauty or ftrength of the English tongue, though they have taken off a great deal from that fimplicity, which is one of the greatest perfections in any language. You, my lord, who are fo converfant in the facred writings, and fo great a judge of them in their originals, will agree, that no tranflation our country ever yet produced hath come up to that of the Old and New Teftament: and by the many beautiful paffages, which I have often hit the honour to hear your lordship cite from thence, thence, I am perfuaded, that the translators of the bible were mafters of an English style much fitter for that work, than any we fee in our prefent writings; which I take to be owing to the fimplicity that runs through the whole. Then as to the greatest part of our liturgy, compiled long before the tranflation of the Bible now in ufe, and little altered fince; there feem to be in it as great ftrains of true fublime eloquence, as are any where to be found in our language; which every man of good tafte will obferve in the communion Service, that of burial, and other parts. But when I fay, that I would have our language, after it is duly correct, always to laft, I do not mean that it fhould never be. enlarged. Provided that no word, which a fociety thall give fanction to, be afterwards antiqua ted and exploded, they may have liberty to receive whatever new ones they fhall find occafion for; because then the old books will yet he always valuable according to their intrinsic worth, and not thrown afide on account of unintelligible words and phrafes, which appear harth and uncouth, only be cause they are out of fashion. Had the Roman tongue continued vulgar in that city till this time, it would have been abfolutely neceffary, from the mighty changes that have been made in law and religion, from the many terms of art required in trade and in war, from the new inventions that have happened in the world, from the vast spreading of navigation and commerce, with many other obvi |