to set an example of a pure and simple taste in writing, to which England owes more than to his zeal and success in the cultivation of Greek. He rejected the use of foreign words and idioms, and endeavored to show in his Toxophilus, which he dedicated to "all the Gentlemen and Yomen of England," and intended for a model of a pure English prose style, that such a subject might be treated with grace and effect in English as well as in Latin. Himself one of the most learned and accomplished scholars, he places his preference for the former upon the ground that “ as for the Lattine or Greeke tongue, everye thinge is so excellentlye done in them, that none can do better. In the Englishe tongue, contrary, euery thing in a mannere so meanlye both for the matter and handelinge, that no man can do worse... Many Englishe writers.... usinge strange wordes as Lattine, French and Italian, do make all thinges darke and harde."

Not less credit is due to the zealous and distinguished, but unfortunate author of the first English work on Rhetoric. Thomas Wilson, whom Elizabeth had frequently employed as ambassador in her negotiations with Mary Stuart and the Low Countries, and who died 1581 as dean of Durham, left, among numerous writings, his "System of Logik," and "Art of Rhetorik," for the " use of all suche as are studious of eloquence, sette forthe in Englishe." His indignation at the reckless manner in which foreign words of all kinds and languages were introduced, was only equalled by his contempt for some efforts at alliteration made by contemporary authors. With regard to the former he says: "Some seek so far outlandish English that they forget altogether their mother's language, and I dare swear

this, if some of their mothers were alive, they were not able to tell what they say: and yet their fine English clerks will say that they speak their mother tongue, if a man should charge them with counterfeiting the King's English. Some far-journeyed gentlemen, at their return home, like as they love to go in foreign apparel, so they powder their talk with oversea language. He that cometh lately out of France, will talk FrenchEnglish, and never blush at the matter. Another chops in with English-Italianated, and applieth the Italian phrase to our English speaking. The fine courtier talks nothing but Chaucer ..... the unlearned or foolish fantastical, that smells but of learning (such fellows as have seen learned men in their days) will so Latin their tongue that the simple cannot but wonder at their talk, and think surely they speak by some revelation.” He expresses as energetically his preference for those who can write elegant English, which he seems to mention as a talent somewhat rare in his days, for he says: "I knowe some Englishemen that in this poinct have suche a gift in the Englishe as fewe in Latin have the like." Such just and patriotic views ought to have met with better reward, but poor Wilson, who was tried in Rome, "coumpted an heretike," and narrowly escaped to "his deare countrie," remarked not without bitterness: "If others never gette more by bookes than I have doen, it wer better be a carter than a scholar, for worldlie profite" a sentiment, no doubt, re-echoed in many an age and distant country.

The English language, thus established by literature, scon found its grammarian also. An attempt, at least, was made to settle the orthography of the still strangely mixed idiom, and

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in W. Bullokar's "Bref Grammar for English, for the spedi parcing of English spech, and the easier coming to the knowledge of grammar for other langages," we find, by the side of much affectation and gross ignorance, an earnest desire to give a more rational form to old and to newly coined words; and, curiously enough, perhaps the first attempt at a phonographic mode of spelling English.

It is an equally striking evidence of the influence which literature constantly exercises on that language which it employs as its instrument, that the subsequent period presents, as it were, a retrograde movement in the development of the English. The country was fairly overflooded with Latin. The sovereign, notwithstanding he had once ordered his son Henry to write to him in English, "because it best becometh a king to purifie and make famouse his own tongue," did all in his power to deserve the title of "king pedagogue of a nation of pedants," and his example was but too subserviently followed by court and people. Latin was the language of European literature, and English scholars read little but Latin-need we wonder that they imbibed a habit of thinking Latin, and of transferring, when they wrote, Latin idioms to their style? For new thoughts and new inventions, brought by the full tide of reviving knowledge, new terms had to be created, and these were, as a matter of course, chosen from the Latin. But Latin was made to do more than its legitimate duty of refining and purifying the vernacular; it was used without necessity and regularity. Sir Thomas Browne, Jeremy Taylor, Donne, Burton, and others, mostly recluse men, writing far from the world, and not for the many but for the few, who constituted the class of

learned men in those days, introduced thousands of words which never have taken root in English, and have since become obsolete. Pedantry, however, was popular for the time; and if divines and philosophers ever could destroy a language, it would certainly have been done then. The good sense of the people, and a returning consciousness of the superiority of their mothertongue, caused them, fortunately, soon to drop words which could be found as brief and forcible in English; as, for instance, Jeremy Taylor's coinage of funest (sad), effigiate (conform), respersed (scattered), deturpated (deformed), clancularly (stealthily), ferity (fierceness), correption (rebuke), intenerate (soften); whilst others, which he used incorrectly, like immured for encompassed, extant for standing out, insolent for unusual, contrition for bruising, and irritation for making void, were never allowed to pass current. Latin influence was also felt in the structure of the language; English particles were disused, because the synthetic Latin had none, and long periods and complicated constructions abound even in the works of Hooker and Milton. They may have given, as Coleridge thinks, “a stately march and sometimes majestic and organ-like harmony" to their diction; but they did not agree with the simple directness of the English, and, on the whole, have contributed but little to the improvement of that language. Milton's genius brought, once more, the aid of literature to the rescue of the threatened language. In his speech for a free press, he inveighs earnestly against authors who are "thus apishly Romanizing, and whose learned pens can cast no ink without Latin." In his works he showed, by his excellent judgment and exquisite taste, the proper use that ought to be made of the idioms of

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classic languages: not to mould the outward form of the vernacular by them, but to infuse into it, by their aid, a classical spirit. Upon this principle he acted himself, with unerring instinct; and although all the most idiomatic writers of that period, South and Swift not less than others, were early tinctured with classical literature, Milton alone was both the most learned of poets and the purest Saxon writer of his age, using the Latin to adorn his style, and at the same time proving the English to be equal to the most sublime conceptions.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

The Restoration-French in England-Addison and the Essayists-Johnson's Dictionary-Horne Tooke-Recent changes in English.

AFTER the English language had thus been firmly established in its essential features, and seemed to be secured against the most imminent dangers, literature was content to direct its gradual refinement by filing away asperities, throwing out redundancies, and naturalizing useful exotic terms. This guidance became most visible when new efforts were made by wellmeaning but injudicious writers, to add stores of foreign words to a tongue that needed them not.

The Restoration had already brought, with its young monarch and merry court, a number of French words and expressions. Their taste and associations were all derived from France; a knowledge of her manners and language was con