ANGLO-SAXON THE RULING LANGUAGE.

29

new comers; and thus it may exert, although not a positive, yet a negative, influence on the grammar of the other tongue. It has been so, as is generally admitted, in the instance of our own. "When the English language was inundated by a vast influx of French words, few, if any, French forms were received into its grammar; but the Saxon forms soon dropped away, because they did not suit the new roots; and the genius of the language, from having to deal with the newly imported words in a rude state, was induced to neglect the inflexions of the native ones. This for instance led to the introduction of the s as the universal termination of all plural nouns, which agreed with the usage of the French language, and was not alien from that of the Saxon, but was merely an extension of the termination of the ancient masculine to other classes of nouns."*

If any of you should wish to convince yourselves by actual experience, of the fact which I just now asserted, namely that the radical constitution of the language is Saxon, I would say, Try to compose a sentence of ten words and no more on any subject you please, employing therein only words which are of a Latin derivation. You will find it impossible, or next to impossible, to do it; whichever way you turn, some obstacle will meet you in the face. And while it is thus with the Latin, whole pages might be written, I do not say in philosophy or theology or upon any abstruser subject, but on familiar matters of com

* J. Grimm, quoted in the Philological Museum, vol. i. p 667.

mon everyday life, in which every word should be of Saxon derivation, not one of Latin; and these, pages in which with the exercise of a very little skill, all appearance of awkwardness and constraint should be avoided, so that it should never occur to the reader, unless otherwise informed, that the writer had submitted himself to this restraint and limitation in the words which he employed, and was only drawing them from one section of the English language. Sir Thomas Browne has given several long paragraphs so constructed. Take for instance the following: "The first and foremost step to all good works is the dread and fear of the Lord of heaven and earth, which through the Holy Ghost enlighteneth the blindness of our sinful hearts to tread the ways of wisdom, and lead our feet into the land of blessing."* This is not stiffer than the ordinary English of his time. I would suggest to you at your leisure to make these two experiments. Endeavour first to compose a sentence of some length upon any possible subject, from which every word which the Saxon has contributed to our tongue shall be rigidly excluded: you will find it, at least if I may judge by my own experience, wholly beyond your power. On the other hand with a little patience and ingenuity you will be able to compose a connected narrative of any length you please into which no Latin word shall be admitted, in which none but Saxon shall be employed.

While thus I bring before you the fact that it would

* Works, vol. 4, p. 202.

CONNECTING WORDS NOT LATIN.

31

be quite possible to write English, foregoing altogether the use of the Latin portion of the language, I would not have you therefore to conclude that this portion of the language is of little value, or that we could draw from the resources of our Teutonic tongue efficient substitutes for all the words which it has contributed to our glossary. I am persuaded that we could not; and, if we could, that it would not be desirable. I mention this, because there is sometimes a regret expressed that we have not kept our language more free from the admixture of Latin, a suggestion made that we should even now endeavour to keep under the Latin element of it, and remove it as far as possible out of sight. I remember Lord Brougham urging upon the students at Glasgow as a help to writ ing good English, that they should seek as far as possible to rid their diction of long-tailed words in 'osity' and 'ation.' He plainly intended to indicate by this phrase all learned Latin words, or words derived from the Latin. This exhortation rests on a certain amount of truth; no doubt there were writers of a former age, Samuel Johnson in the last century, Cudworth and Sir Thomas Browne in the century preceding, who gave undue preponderance to the learned, or Latin, portion in our language; and very much of its charm, of its homely strength and beauty, of its most popular and truest idioms, would have perished from it, had they succeeded in persuading others to write as they had written.

But at the same time we could almost as ill do without this side of the language as the other. It repre

still

sents and supplies as real needs as the other does. Philosophy and science and the arts of a high civilization find their utterance in the Latin words of our language, or, if not in the Latin, in the Greek, which for present purposes may be grouped with them. How should they have found it in the other branch of our language, among a people who had never cultivated any of these? And while it is undoubtedly of importance to keep this within due bounds, and, cæteris paribus, it will in general be advisable, when a Latin and a Saxon word offer themselves to our choice, to use the Saxon rather than the other, to speak of 'happiness' rather than 'felicity,' 'almighty' rather than 'ommipotent,' a 'forerunner' rather than a 'precursor,' these latter must be regarded as much denizens in the language as the former, no alien interlopers, but possessing the rights of citizenship as fully as the most Saxon word of them all. One part of the language is not to be cultivated at the expense of the other; the Saxon at the cost of the Latin, as little as the Latin at the cost of the Saxon. "Both are indispensable; and speaking generally without stopping to distinguish as to subject, both are equally indispensable. Pathos, in situations which are homely, or at all connected with domestic affections, naturally moves by Saxon words. Lyrical emotion of every kind, which (to merit the name of lyrical) must be in the state of flux and reflux, or, generally, of agitation, also requires the Saxon element of our language. And why? Because the Saxon is the aboriginal element; the basis and not the superstructure: consequently it comprehends all the

QUOTATION FROM DE QUINCEY.

33

ideas which are natural to the heart of man and to the elementary situations of life. And although the Latin often furnishes us with duplicates of these ideas, yet the Saxon, or monosyllabic part, has the advantage of precedency in our use and knowledge; for it is the language of the nursery whether for rich or poor, in which great philological academy no toleration is given to words in 'osity' or 'ation.' There is therefore a great advantage, as regards the consecration to our feelings, settled by usage and custom upon the Saxon strands in the mixed yarn of our native tongue. And universally, this may be remarked-that wherever the passion of a poem is of that sort which uses, presumes, or postulates the ideas, without seeking to extend them, Saxon will be the 'cocoon' (to speak by the language applied to silk-worms), which the poem spins for itself. But on the other hand, where the motion of the feeling is by and through the ideas, where (as in religious or meditative poetry-Young's, for instance, or Cowper's), the pathos creeps and kindles underneath the very tissues of the thinking, there the Latin will predominate; and so much so that, whilst the flesh, the blood, and the muscle, will be often almost exclusively Latin, the articulations only, or hinges of connection, will be Anglo-Saxon."*

I do not know where we could find a happier example of the preservation of the golden mean in this matter than in our authorized Version of the Bible. of the chiefest among the minor and secondary bless

* De Quincey, On Wordsworth.

One