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principles and component parts of speech, (Art. 48. Obs.) shew us plainly it is not the business of grammar to give law to the fashions which regulate our speech. From its conformity to these it derives its authority and value.

2. Grammar, therefore, is nothing else than a collection of general observations, methodically digested, and comprising all the modes previously and independently established, by which the significations, derivations and combinations of words in that language, are ascertained. For these modes and fashions have no sooner obtained, and become general, than they are the laws of the language, and the grammarian's only business is, to note, collect, and methodize them.

3. But this truth concerns alike those comprehensive analogies and rules which affect whole classes of words, and every individual word, in the inflecting or combining of which a particular mode hath prevailed.

Corol. Hence every single anomaly, though departing from the rule assigned to the other words of the same class, and on that account called an exception, stands on the same basis, on which the rules of the tongue are founded, custom having prescribed for it a separate rule. (Art. 52 and 53.)

76. Use or the custom of speaking, is, then, the sole original standard of conversation, as far as respects the expression; and the custom of writing is the chief standard of style. (Art. 86. Illus.)

Corol. In every grammatical controversy, we are, consequently, as a last resort, entitled to appeal from the laws and the decisions of the grammarians to the tribunal of use, as to the supreme authority. (Art. 79. Illus.)

Obs. 1. The conduct of our ablest grammarians proves that this order of subordination ought never, on any account, to be reversed.

2. But if use be of such consequence in this matter, before advancing any farther, let us endeavor to ascertain precisely what it is, as it would otherwise be erroneous to agree about the name, while we differed about the notion that we assigned to it.

77. Reputable USE, Sometimes called general use, implies, not only currency, but vogue, and may be defined, whatever modes of speech are authorized as good by the writings of a great number, if not the majority of celebrated authors: it is properly reputable custom. (Art. 80. Illus. and 86. Obs. 2.)

Illus. The good use of language has the approbation of those who have not themselves attained it. It is the fate of those who, by reason of their poverty and other circumstances, are deprived of the advantages of education, to hear words of which they know not the meaning, and consequently to produce and misapply them. An affectation of imitating their superiors, is, then, the great source of those errors of the illiterate, in respect of conversation and the application of words, which are beyond their sphere.

78. VULGARISMs are those terms and phrases which, notwithstanding a pretty uniform and extensive use, are con

sidered as corrupt, and, like counterfeit money, though common, not valued.

Illus. Their use is not reputable, because we associate with them such notions of meanness as suit those orders of men among whom chiefly the use is found. If we use them we do not approve them, and negligence alone suffers them to creep into our conversation or writing, except when they are put into the mouths of characters whom we are describing.

Corol. Their currency, therefore, is without authority and without weight.

79. We always take the sense of the terms and phrases belonging to any elegant or mechanical art from the practice of those who are conversant in that art; in like manner, from the practice of those who have had a liberal education, and are, therefore, presumed to be best acquainted with men and things, we judge of the general use of language.

Illus. But in what concerns words themselves, their construction and application, authors of reputation are, by universal consent, in actual possession of that standard which is authority; as to this tribunal, to which all have access, when any doubt arises, the appeal is always made. (Cor. Art. 76.)

Corol. The source, therefore, of that preference which distinguishes good use from bad, in language, is a natural propensity of the human mind to believe, that those are the best judges of the proper signs of speech, and of their proper application, who understand best the things which they represent. (Art. 77. and Illus.)

80. AUTHORS of reputation have been chosen rather than good authors, for two reasons:

First, because it is more strictly conformable to the truth of the case. Though esteem and merit usually go together, it is solely the public esteem, and not their intrinsic merit, which raises AUTHORS to this distinction, and stamps a value on their language.

Secondly, this character is more determinate than the other, and therefore more extensively intelligible. Between two or more authors, as to the preference in point of merit, different readers will differ exceedingly, who agree perfectly as to the respective places which they hold in the favour of the public. Persons may be found of a taste so particular, as to prefer Parnel to Milton, but none will dispute the superiority of the latter in point of fame.

Illus. By authors of reputation, we mean, not only in regard to knowledge, but as respects the talent of communicating that knowledge. There are writers who, as concerns the first, have been deservedly valued by the public, but who, on account of a supposed deficiency in respect of the second, are considered of no authority in language. We of course suppose that their writings are in the English tongue, in

all the various kinds of composition, in prose and verse, serious and ludicrous, grave and familiar.

81. NATIONAL USE presents itself in a twofold view, as it stands opposed to provincial and to foreign. (Art. 85. and 88.)

Illus. Every province has its peculiarities of dialect, which affect not merely the pronunciation and accent, but even the inflection and combination of words. It is thus that the idiom of one district is distinguished, both from that of the nation, and from that of every other province. The narrowness of the circle to which the currency of the words and phrases of such dialects is confined, sufficiently discriminates them from that which, commanding a circulation incomparably wider, is properly styled the language of the country.

Corol. Hence, we derive one reason, why the term use, on this subject, is commonly accompanied with the epithet general. (Art. 79.)

82. The ENGLISH LANGUAGE, properly so called, is found current, especially in the upper and middle ranks of life, over the whole British Empire.

Illus. Thus, though the people of one province ridicule the idiom of another province, they all vail to the English idiom, and scruple not to acknowledge its superiority over their own.

83. Of all the idioms subsisting among us, that to which we give the character of purity, is the most prevalent, though the language be not universally spoken or written with orthographical and grammatical purity.

Corol. The faulty idioms do not jar more with true English than they do with one another, and their diversity, therefore, subjects them to the denomination of impure.

84. Professional dialects, or the cant which is sometimes observed to prevail among those of the same handicraft, or way of life, must be considered, with little variation, in the same light with provincial dialects. (Art. 81. Illus.)

Illus. The currency of the former cannot be so exactly circumscribed as that of the latter, whose distinction is purely local; but their use is not on that account either more extensive or more reputable. Thus: advice, in the commercial idiom, means " information," or "intelligence;"-nervous, in open defiance of analogy, denotes, in the medical sense," having weak nerves;"-and the word turtle, though preoccupied time immemorial by a species of dove, is employed by sailors and gluttons, to signify "a tortoise."

85. NATIONAL USE, as opposed to foreign, is too evident to need illustration; for the introduction of extraneous words and idioms, from other languages and foreign nations, cannot be a smaller transgression against the established custom of the English tongue, than the introduction of words and idioms peculiar to some counties or shires of

England, or at least somewhere current within the British pale.

Obs. The only material difference between them is, that the one is more usually the error of the learned, the other of the unlearned. But if, in this view, the former is entitled to greater indulgence from respect paid to learning; in another light, it is entitled to less, from its being more commonly the result of affectation.

Corol. Thus, two essential qualities of usage, in regard to language, have been settled, that it be both reputable and national.

86. Present use is that which falls within the knowledge or remembrance of men now living, and which, in fact, regulates our style. (Art. 76.)

Пlus. 1. If present use is to be renounced for ancient, it will be necessary to determine at what precise period of antiquity, we are to obtain our rules of language. But one might be inclined to remove the standard to the distance of a century and a half, while another may, with as good reason, fix it three centuries backwards, and another six. Now as the language of any one of these periods, if judged by the use of any other, would, no doubt, be found entirely barbarous; either the present use must be the standard of the present language, or the language does not admit of any standard: but experience proves, that critics have not the power of reviving at pleasure old fashioned terms, inflections and combinations, and of making such alterations on words, as will bring them nearer to what they suppose to be the etymon; and hence we infer, that there is no other dictator here but use. Nor will it ever be the arbitrary rules of any man, or body of men whatever, that will ascertain the language; yet words are by no means to be accounted the worse for being old, if they are not obsolete; neither is any word the better for being new. On the contrary, the sovereign dominion of custom over language, evinces, that some time is absolutely necessary to constitute that custom or use, on which the establishment of words depends. Yet it is certain, that when we are in search of precedents for any word or idiom, there are certain mounds, over which we cannot leap with safety. The authority of Hooker or of Raleigh, how great soever their fame be, will not now be admitted in support of a term or expression not to be found in any good writer of a later date.

2. But the boundary must not be fixed at the same date in every species of composition. Poetry, which hath ever been allowed a wider range than prose, enjoys, in this respect, a singular indulgence to compensate for the peculiar restraints which she is laid under by the measure. And this indulgence is fraught with a twofold advantage; convenience to the poet, and gratification to the reader. Diversity in the style relieves the ear, which hath little delight from sameness of metre. But still there are limits to this diversity. The authority of Milton and Waller remains unquestioned; and our best poets of the present day rarely venture to introduce words or phrases, of which no example could be produced, since the times of Spenser or Shakspeare.

3. And even in prose, the bounds are not the same for every kind of composition. In matters of science, for example, the terms of which, from the nature of the subject, are not capable of such accuracy as those which belong to ordinary compositions, and are within the reach

of ordinary readers, there is no necessity of confining an author within a narrow circle. But in composing pieces which come under this last denomination, as history, romance, travels, moral essays, familiar epistles, and the like, it is safest for an author to consider those words and idioms as obsolete, which have been disused by all good writers, for a longer period than that to which the age of man extends.

Obs. I. The expressions, recent use, and modern use, have been purposely avoided, because they seem opposed to what is ancient; and the word present has been chosen, because, in respect of place, it is opposed to absent, and in respect of time, to past or future, which have now no existence. When, therefore, the phrase present use occurs in this volume, its proper contrary is-obsolete, not ancient.

2. Though we have acknowledged language to be a species of fashion or mode, as doubtless it is;* yet being much more permanent than those things to which the words fashionable and modish are applied, the former phrases are not meant to convey the ideas of novelty and levity, but recur to the standard already assigned, ( Art. 77. Illus. and 80. Illus.); the writings of a plurality of celebrated authors. Thus have we established, as general principles,

That use is the sole mistress of language.

II. That her essential attributes are reputable, national, and present. III. That grammar and criticism are but her ministers; and though, like other ministers, they would sometimes impose upon the people, the dictates of their own humor as the commands of their sovereign, they are not so often successful in such attempts, as to encourage the frequent repetition of them.

IV. That what has been said of the English, applies to every tongue whatever; it is founded in use or custom,

Whose arbitrary sway,

Words, and the forms of language, must obey.†

And, V. That it is not by ancient, but by present use, that the style of every language must be regulated.

THE

CHAPTER III

NATURE AND USE OF VERBAL CRITICISM, WITH ITS PRINCIPAL RULES OR CANONS, BY WHICH, IN ALL OUR DECISIONS, WE OUGHT TO BE DIRECTED.

87. ALL the various qualities of elocution, have their foundation in PURITY, and the great standard of purity is use. (Art. 76, 77. and 86.)

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