more perhaps than at any former time-it so happens that a new kind of words is making its appearance; pure English, introduced chiefly by the students of German literature. Our forefathers followed their taste, and these are seemingly guided by nothing but taste; it so happens that the former went wrong, it so happens that the latter are right. They are right, (if we may judge,) but it is to be wished that they were right on principle; else their very love for the German mind may mislead them in the end. For the Germans are doing all they can to cripple their language, out of love to the dead tongues, as if a man were to chop off his own leg in admiration of wooden ones.

Let us know, then, distinctly where we are, and what we are about, and whither our language is driving. There are two roads before it, a northern and a southern, a German, and a Roman: it hovers betwixt the two; and it is for us to say which it shall take. We may choose the one or the other, but let us choose with our eyes open, let us choose on principle. To this end some observations have already been adventured; and it may help still further to a sound opinion, if we bring to mind the historical position of the language, and if we can find the present value of its two great elements.

To begin with the latter: what part of the language is native, and what share of it foreign? This can be answered very nearly. In round numbers, the native or Saxon words have to do with the sensible world, and foreign words with the spiritual; the former stand for things particular and concrete, the latter for things general and abstract. There are exceptions; general words Saxon, particular words foreign; and the language is thus gifted with many synonyms, both pleasing from their variety and helpful from their number; but the rule is, that whenever we leave the lower ground of the material, and mount into the airy regions of the immaterial; whenever we begin to abstract, to generalize, to classify, we then begin to use Latin and Greek words.

A wrong use, however, has been made of this fact it has been said, that Saxon is barren of words, and that if English were robbed of its Greek or Latin terms, it would be shorn of its main strength. We would rob it of nothing that is really valuable. Of course, were we to weed out a number of its

denial.

There is no doubt, he said, but Eng lish is " plenteouse enougbe to expresse ou myndes in any thinge whereof one man hat used to speke with another." It has no lac of words for the things of sense, and whence but from these (with which every languag teems, and English overflows) are obtaine those abstract or scientific or philosophi names which mark what cannot be perceive by sense? Granting that Saxon is withou such words, is it not unreasonable to ask list of philosophic names ready made? Th stuff is there-full store-for making thes words, and if nobody makes them, why blam the language? Let us rather blame our selves. The Saxon is not a whit worse of than the Latin or Greek; for there was time when these had no philosophic lan guage, and when the wise men had to fram one for themselves.

But the other inquiry is awaiting, namely as to the rise and progress of the language How came our tongue to be what it is? And what verdict doth history pass on the ques tion we are now discussing?

In the fifth century, the Saxons becam masters of England, and their speech was spoken throughout the land, though with a small sprinkling of words from the British By the end of the tenth century, they were themselves overcome by the Danes, who, firs landing in 787, passed into the country in large numbers, settled there, and, at last after a long string of defeats and victories gained completely the upper hand, wher (about fifty years before the Norman Con quest) Canute ascended the throne, and thereby the Saxon had a new sprinkling of words from the Norse. But a greater change was wrought upon it by the French, with many of whose idioms, as wel! as words, it was enriched, at the time of the Norman Conquest, as we naturally, but very loosely say; for he who has got no further than Goldsmith's History, should know, that after all his endeavors (this, however, is a fable of the Abbot of Croyland's, William made no endeavors) to make French the popular language, the English still gained ground; and that it had adopted much more of the French idiom for two or three reigns before, than during the whole line of Norman kings succeeding. Moreover, the fact that other countries, whose languages are laden with Norman words, were themselves unvi

235

ich, we know, did. If to this be added ew words of monkish Latin, we shall have e matter of the English language as spoken out Chaucer's time, the old English. With cleve, we may call Chaucer himself "the st finder of our language."

A simple enough truth is drawn from all A simple enough truth is drawn from all s, to wit, that Saxon is the staple of the guage. There are many, however, who nk or speak as if they thought (see the st page of Ivanhoe) that somehow or other Saxon and French went halves, forming alliance on the same footing; and hence e present English; hence also the right of r neighbors to smuggle into it so many ore of new words yearly. Though this ere true, the right would not follow, and uch less when false; Saxon is the root d stem, the Langue d'ouie, but an ingrafted

anch.

The after history of the language is fraught ith weighty lessons. It teaches us that, otwithstanding the body of the English ngue being Saxon, and French, Latin, and reek words no better than adopted aliens, ar countrymen have ever been bent on sting and overbearing the former, and on ndling and cherishing the latter. It teach, on the other hand, that, one after anoer, our best writers have lamented such owardness, always bidding them trust more its own inward powers; and that their ords have booted us little, having seldom een hearkened to, and forgotten indeed metimes by themselves, weary as they ere with swimming against the tide.

It is notorious, that at the revival of letrs, very many Greek and Latin words were awn into the language; many more than eeded, and which have therefore been partpruned away. This has been remarked, r instance, in the Prayer-book, where Latin ad Saxon words of the same meaning go vo and two-words of a feather flocking toether; the Saxon being the least worthy, ad like decoy ducks valued only for catchthe wild. We should remember, hower, how difficult it must always be to think one language and write in another.

g

The rage for foreign words waxed hotter id hotter under the Stuarts. It seems, >wever, to have had no favor in the eyes of imes the First; for we find him advising s son, Prince Henry, to write in his own nguage, among other reasons, because "it est becometh a king to purifie and make mouse his own tongue.' But the flame

the very language that has preserved his name, thanklessly wrote

"Poets that lasting marble seek,

Must carve in Latin or in Greek." Milton, again, was content with these British islands as his world; yet even he did all he could to accommodate the English to the he could to accommodate the English to the shape of the Latin tongue. Most authors either wrote in Latin, or, as Dryden says of their own. Newton, long after, wrote his great work in Latin; and in it, or in French, Leibnitz, his rival, wrote almost entirely, and what little was in German, is said to have been very sorry.

Ben Jonson, did a little too much romanize

A voice had indeed been lifted from the first:

An outery was not long of being raised against this partiality for the Roman tongues. Robert of Gloucester, Robert of Brunne, Higit in no kindly tone; while after them, in the den, and others, had long before spoken of sixteenth century, Sir Thomas More, Sir John Cheke, Roger Ascham, Wilson, Puttenham, Carew, Spenser, Chapman, Arthur Golding, and others, declared loudly against thus making free with the language, taking their stand upon the necessity of keeping, what they called, the birth tongue pure and entire, and of speaking it plainly for plain Englishmen in the words of Robert de

Brunne

"for the love of simple men That strange Inglis cannot ken."

They were talking, however, to the wind; no one minded what they said. Each was wedded to his own opinion, and never swerved from it. The scholar thought the language worthless, unless it had a goodly leaven of Latin and Greek, for why, it was barren of words; the gentleman would none of it, but spiced with French, for why, it was low; the leech would have it dosed, himself knew with what, for why, marry! because it was understood; and it was only a few that, seeing its real power, felt that it needed no foreign help, and mourned that its wells were becoming defiled. But these were the chosen few, whose opinions will carry weight through all time. In the present, the seventeenth century, Milton had already, in his speech for a free Press, lashed those who were thus "apishly Romanizing," and whose learned pens "could cast no ink without Latin;" and now again, they were mildly upbraided by Dryden, (mildly, for himself was an offender, and took unon him to call the

descriptions of the outward bodied world, and when they came to speak of the inner, thoughten world, stood stock still, till being driven again to the Latin and Greek names, they seemed to grant that Saxon had failed them. They had a fear which the increasing study of German has very much lessened; they were afraid of being singular, knowing how often peculiarities have been nicknamed affectation, as when the Lyrical Ballads were sneered at on this score. When a writer lays down a rule, and taking or mistaking it for a golden one, always sticks to it, he may be laughed at for his pains, but hardly, we think, for putting on airs; sinner he may be for laying down the rule, but sinner he is not for walking by it; he is your true man. Those, indeed, who would mend their language, by giving an example, must dare seem quaint; but they will only seem so, and further acquaintance will wear away the awkwardness of a new expression. We are glad, therefore, at the growing attention paid to German and old English authors, and hopefully look forward to the time when our language, which has all its life been a wayfarer, shall return to its early home and natural condition, and nobody shall wonder or fret at the change. Meanwhile one cannot choose but notice the increasing favor shown to Saxon expressions; and it is curious to see how, in one way or another, praise of this kind is dealt out; either unawares in some passing remark, or broadly and knowingly, as when Southey is lifted to the skies for his rich flow of Saxon, when Johnson is tumbled to the nether shades for marring his English with Latin, or when the Bible and Bunyan are applauded for having no big words. In almost every newspaper one may read such things; and perhaps, like straws, they tell how the wind blows better than publications carrying more weight.

We hasten, however, to learn what men of higher standing say, and here we must be very brief. We shall afterward have to notice an objection made to Saxon, and, for the present, quote from Robert Hall what bears upon it. His friend and biographer had used the word felicity three or four times together, and was asked by Hall why he did so, since happiness was a better word, more musical, and genuine English, coming from the Saxon. "Not more musical," said his friend. “Yes” he replied "more musical

his writings always seemed like a newly and thickly metalled road-very hard driving. There is no English author, however, who does not deal pretty freely in words from the classical languages, and hardly any who have qualms of conscience in doing so. Perhaps Southey dropped most thoroughly the acquaintance of such foreigners, and when he came to write English, allowed the remembrance of every other tongue escape him. In a letter to his friend, William Taylor of Norwich, he says:-"I can tolerate a Germanism for family sake; but he who uses a French or Latin phrase where a pure old English word does as well, ought to be hung, drawn, and quartered for high treason against his mother tongue." (The letter is dated February 1803.) His exception of German is markworthy; as likewise his statement, in the former part of the same letter, that he learnt to write English, not from any English author, but by hearing of Bürger's language, and seeing a translation of it; to be marked, we say, because Southey, among others, has been spoken of as having had a very loathing of everything German. Alike at fault are that lust of novelty, which takes after the Germans in everything, and would wrest a noble language like ours into the crooked proportions of one not yet full-framed; and that drowsy, unclannish taste, which can pass words from the French, or any of the Roman languages, and visit with all the vials of their wrath every endeavor to enrich the English tongue, by borrowing from the Northern group, as if that were unlawful gain, when, in truth, it can be shown that we borrow of the latter in a manner far more lawful than from the former. Those who give way to the first of these impulses will soon cool down; and those who yield to the second, will soon die out; yet it may not be in vain to remind the one, that there is nothing about which a people are more touchy and unforgiving, because there is nothing to whose powers and failings they are more keenly alive, than language-the messenger of their thoughts and that, therefore, in idly tampering with the English tongue, they are playing with an edge-tool that will stab their reputation ere long; and we remind the other, that both Scott and Southey-Southey, purest of late writers-were brightened up by the fires of German literature, and that it would be no

great wonder if English and German were in