us; and in particular to prohibit any French phrafes from becoming current in this kingdom, when those of our own ftamp are altogether as valuable. The prefent, war has fo adulterated our tongue with strange words, that it would be impoffible for one of our great grandfathers to know what his pofterity have been do ing, were he to read their exploits in a modern newspaper. Our warriors are very industrious in propaga ting the French language, at the fame time that they are fo gloriously fuccefsful in beating down their pow ers. Our foldiers are men of ftrong heads for action, and perform fuch feats as they are not able to exprefs. They want words in their own tongue to tell us what it is they atchieve, and therefore fend us over accounts of their performances in a jargon of phrafes, which they learn among their conquered enemies. They ought, however, to be provided with fecretaries, and affifted by our foreign minifters, to tell their ftory for them in plain English, and to let us know in our mother tongue what it is our brave countrymen are about. The French would indeed be in the right to publish the news of the prefent war in English phrafe, and make their campaigns unintelligible. Their people might flatter themselves that things are not fo bad as they really are, were they thus palliated with for eign terms, and thrown into fhades and obfcurity but the English cannot be too clear in the narrative of thofe actions which have raifed their country to a higher pitch of glory than it ever yet arrived at, and which will be ftill the more admired the better they are explained. For my part, by that time a fiege is carried on two or three days, I am altogether loft and bewildered in it, and meet with fo many inexplicable difficulties, that I fcarce know which fide has the better of it, till I am informed by the Tower guns that the place is furrendered. I do indeed make fome allowances for this part of the war, fortifications having been foreign inventions, and upon that account abounding in foreign terms. But when we have won battles. which may be defcribed in our own language, why are our papers filled with fo many unintelligible exploits, and the French obliged to lend us a part of their tongue before we can know how they are conquered? They muit be made acceffary to their own difgrace as the Britons were formerly fo artificially wrought in the curtain of the Roman Theatre, that they feemed to draw it up in order to give the fpectators an opportu nity of feeing their own defeat celebrated upon the Rage: For fo Mr. Dryden has tranflated that verse in Virgil Purpurea inte ti tollunt aulea Britanni. Georg. 3. v. 25. The hiftories of all our former wars are tranfmitted to us in our vernacular idioms, to ufe the phrafe of a great modern critic. I do not find, in any of our chronicles, that Edward the IIId. ever reconnoitrea the enemy, though he often difcovered the pofture of the French, and as often vanquished them in battle. The Black Prince paffed many a river without the help of pontoons, and filled a ditch with faggots as fuccefsfully as the Generals of our times do it with fafcines, Our commanders lofe half their praife, and our people half their joy, by means of thofe hard words and dark expreffions in which our newspapers do fo much abound. I have feen many a prudent citizen, after having read every article, inquire of his next neighbour what news the mail had brought. I remember in that remarkable year when our country was delivered from the greatest fears and apprehenfions, and raised to the greatest height of gladness it had ever felt fince it was a nation, I mean the year of Blenheim, I had a copy of a letter fent me out of the country, which v was written from a young gentleman in the army to his father, a man of good eftate and plain fenfe: As the letter was very modeftly chequered with this modern military eloquence, I fhall prefent my readers with a copy of it... SIR, «UPON the junction of the French and Bavarian armies, they took poft behind a great morafs which they thought impracticable. Our General the next day fent a party of horfe to reconnoitre them from a little hauteur, at about a quarter of an hour's distance from the army, who returned again to the camp unobferved through feveral defiles, in one of which they met with a party of French that had been marauding, and made them all prifoners at difcretion. The day after a drum arrived at our camp, with a message which he would communicate to none but the General; he was followed by a trumpeter, who, they fay, behaved himfelf very faucily, with a meffage from the duke of Bavaria. The next morning our army being divided into two corps, made a movement towards the enemy: You will hear in the public prints how we treated them, with the other circumftances of that glorious day. I had the good fortune to be in that regiment that pushed the gens d'armes. Several French battalions, whom fome fay were a corps de reserve, made a fhew of refiftance; but it only proved a gafconade, for upon our preparing to fill up a little foffe, in order to attack them, they beat the chamade, and fent us Charte Blanche. Their commandant, with a great many other general officers, and troops without number, are made ifoners of war,and will I believe, give you a vifit in England, the cartel not being yet fettled. Not queftioning but these particulars will be very welcome to you, I congratulate you upon them, and am yout most dutiful son, &c.” The father of the young gentleman upon the perufal of the letter, found it contained great news, but could not guess what it was. He immediately communicated it to the Curate of the Parish, who upon the reading of it, being vexed to fee any thing he could not underftand, fell into a kind of paflion, and told him that his fon had fent him, a letter that was neither fish, flesh, nor good red-herring. I wish, fays he, the captain may be compos mentis; he talks of a faucy trumpet, and a drum that carries meffages: Then who is this Charte Blanche? He muft either banter us, or he is out of his fenfes. The father, who always look ed upon the Curate as a learned man, began to fret inwardly at his fon's ufage, and producing a letter which he had written to him about three pofts before, you fee here, fayshe, when he writes for money, he knows how to fpeak intelligibly enough; there is no man in England can exprefs him felf clearer, when he wants a new furniture for his horfe. In fhort the old man was fo puzzled upon the point, that it might have fared ill with his fon, had he not feen all the prints about three days after filled with the fame terms of art, and that Charles only writ like other men.-L. SPECTATOR, Vol. II. No. 165. SIR, "I AM an old man, retired from all acquaintance with the town, except what I have from your papers (not the worst entertainment of my folitude :) Yet-being ftill a well-wisher to my country,and the commonwealth of learning, a qua confiteer nullam tatis meæ partem abhorruife, and hoping the plain phrafe in writing that was current in my younger days,would have lafted for my time, I was flartled at the picture of mod. ern politeness, (tranfmitted by your ingenious corref pondent) and grieved to fee our fterling English language fall into the hands of clippers and coiners. That mutilated epiftle, confifting of hippo, rep's, and fuch like enormous curtailings, was a mortifying spectacle, except with the referve of comfort to find this and other abufes of our mother tongue, fo pathetically complained of, and to the proper perfon for redreffing them, the cenfor of Great Britain. "He had before reprefented the deplorable ignorance that for feveral years paft has reigned amongst our English writers, the great depravity of our tafte, and continual corruption of our ftile. But, Sir, be fore you give yourself the trouble of prefcribing remedies for thefe diftempers (which you own will require the greatest care and application) give me leave(having long had my eye upon thefe mifchiefs, and thoughts exercised about them) to mention what I humbly conceive to be the cause of them, and in your friend Horace's words, quo fonte derivata clades in patrium populumque fluxit. "I take our corrupt ways of writing, to proceed from the mistakes and wrong measures in our common methods of education, which I always looked upon as one of our national grievances, and a fingularity that renders us, no leis than our situation, -Penitus toto advifos orbe Britannos. "This puts me upon confulting the most celebrated critics on that fubject, to compare our practice with their precepts, and find where it was that we came fhort, or went wide. "But after all,I found our cafe required fomething more than thefe doctors had directed, and the principal defect of our English discipline to lie in the initiatory part, which although it needs the greatest care, and skill, is usually left to the conduct of those blind guides, viz. chance and ignorance. "I fhall trouble you but with a fingle inftance, purfuant to what your fagacious friend has faid, That he could furnish you with a catalogue of English books, that would coft you an hundred pounds at firft hand, wherein you could not find ten lines together of common grammar; which is a neceffary confequence of mifmanagement in that province. "For can any thing be more abfurd than our ways of proceeding in this part of literature? To pufh tender wits into the intricate mazes of grammar, and a Latin grammar? To learn an unknown art by an unknown tongue? To carry them a dark round-about way to let them in at a back-door? Whereas by teaching them firft the grammar of their mother tongue (fo easy to be learned), their advance to the |