able style. This at least is certain, that the Latin language has struck its roots so deeply and so permanently in our own language, that we cannot extirpate it, if we would; for we must know Latin, if we would thoroughly understand our own mothertongue; even those who are least learned, and most disposed to undervalue classical attainments, are very liable to further what others would call the corruption of our language, by the introduction of new terms erroneously formed after a Latin model1; and whatever changes may take place in the professional education of Englishmen-though the Universities may cease to bestow the highest degrees in their faculties upon those who have passed through the Latin exercises of their schools-though the meeting of Convocation may never again be inaugurated with a Latin sermon at St. Paul's-though a study of Justinian and Gaius may be pronounced of no use to the lawyer-though even Roman history may lose its general interest-though physicians may decline to prescribe and apothecaries to dispense according to the phraseology of a Latin materia medica-though the House of Commons may no longer bestow the sanction of parliamentary applause on well applied quotations from the classical authors still, a competent acquaintance with the language and literature of ancient Rome will be indispensable to every one, who lays claim to a complete cultivation of his reason and taste, and who wishes either to understand and enjoy the writings of our best authors, or to enrich the English language with new examples of its capacity for terse arguments, happy expressions, and harmonious periods. 1 It would be easy to cite a long list of words in -ation, which are not formed from Latin roots, and are certainly not due to the Latin scholarship of those who first used them. The verb "to base" for "to cause to rest on a basis or foundation" is a modern corruption so common that I cannot hope to have avoided it in my own writings, though I am quite aware that according to all analogy "to base" or "abase" must mean to depress" or lay low, not "to build up." |