dered stiff and formal, and therefore ill adapted to the style of conversation? Shall we then restore what is called the grammatical, because the most common order, and say, "I have at length gotten information of the man whom you were so anxious to discover?" The arrangement here is unexceptionable, but the expression is unanimated. There is in the first manner something that displays an ardour in the speaker to be the messenger of good news. Of this character there are no traces in the last; and in the second there is a cold and studied formality which would make it appear intolerable. So much is in the power merely of arrangement. Ought we then always to prefer this way of placing the preposition after the governing word? By no means. There are cases wherein this is preferable. There are cases wherein the other way is preferable. In general, the former suits better the familiar and easy style, which copies the dialect of conversation, the latter more befits the elaborate and solemn diction, which requires somewhat of dignity and pomp.

But to what purpose, I pray, those criticisms which serve only to narrow our range, where there would be no danger of a trespass, though we were indulged with more liberty? Is it that the genius of our language doth not sufficiently cramp us without these additional restraints? But it is the unhappiness of the generality of critics, that when two modes of expressing the same thing come under their consideration, of which one appears to them preferable, the other is condemned in gross, as what ought to be reprobated in every instance. A few contractions have been adopted by some writers which appear harsh and affected; and all contractions without exception must be rejected, though ever so easy and natural, and though evidently conducing to enliven the expression. One order of the words in a particular ex

About the beginning of the present century, the tendency to contract our words, especially in the compound tenses of the verbs, was undoubtedly excessive. The worst of it was, that most of the contractions were effected by expunging the vowels, even where there was no hiatus, and by clashing together consonants of most obdurate sound, as Swift calls them. This produced the animadversion of some of our ablest pens, Addison, Swift, Pope, and others, whose concurring sentiments have operated so strongly on the public that contractions of every kind have ever since been in disgrace, even those of easy pronunciation, and which had been in use long before. Yet our accumulated auxiliaries seemed to require something of this kind. And though I am sensible that wasn't, didn't, shouldn't and couldn't, are intolerably bad, there are others of more pleasant sound, to which our critics, without any injury to the language, might have given a pass. On the contrary, even those elisions whereby the sound is improved, as when the succession of an initial to a final vowel is prevented (which in all languages men have a natural propensity to avoid by contracting,) as I'm for I am; or when a feeble vowel is suppressed without harshness, as in the last syllable of the preterites of our regular verbs (which without a contraction we can never bear in verse); or when some of our rougher consonants are cut off after other consonants, as 'em for them; (these I say) have all shared the same fate. Some indulgence, I think, may still be given to the more familiar style of dialogues, letters, essays, and even of

ample seems worthy of the preference; and it must be established as a rule, that no other order in any case is to be admitted.

But we are not peculiar in this disposition, though we may b peculiar in some of our ways of exerting it. The French critics, and even the academy have proceeded, if not always in the same manner, on much the same principle, in the improvements they have made on their language. They have indeed cleared it of many, not of all their low idioms, cant phrases, and useless anomalies; they have rendered the style in the main more perspicuous, more grammatical, and more precise than it was before. But they have not known where to stop. Their criticisms often degenerate into refinements, and every thing is carried to excess. If one mode of construction, or form of expression, hath been lucky enough to please these arbitrators of the public taste, and to obtain their sanction, no different mode or form must expect so much as a toleration. What is the consequence? They have purified their language; at the same time they have impoverished it, and have, in a considerable measure, reduced all kinds of composition to a tasteless uniformity. Accordingly, in perhaps no language, ancient or modern, will you find so little variety of expression in the various kinds of writing, as in Frenchi. In prose and verse, in philosophy and romance, in tragedy and comedy, in epic and pastoral, the difference may be very great in the sentiments, but it is nothing, or next to nothing, in the style.

popular addresses, which like comedy are formed on the dialect of conversation. In this dialect, wherein all language originates, the eagerness of conveying one's sentiments, the rapidity and ease of utterance, necessarily produce such abbreviations. It appears indeed so natural, that I think it requires, that people be more than commonly phlegmatic, not to say stupid, to be able to avoid them. Upon the whole, therefore, this tendency, in my opinion, ought to have been checked and regulated, but not entirely crushed. That contracting serves to improve the expression in vivacity is manifest; it was necessary only to take care, that it might not hurt it in harmony or in perspicuity. It is certainly this which constitutes one of the greatest beauties in French dialogue; as by means of it, what in other languages is expressed by a pronoun and a preposition, they sometimes convey not by a single syllable, but by a single letter. At the same time, it must be owned, they have never admitted contractions, that could justly be denominated harsh; that they have not, on the other hand, been equally careful to avoid such as are equivocal, hath been observed already. We are apt to imagine, that there is something in the elision of letters and contraction of syllables, that is particularly unsuitable to the grave and solemn style. This notion of ours is, I suspect, more the consequence of the disuse than the cause; since such abbreviations do not offend the severest critic, when they occur in books written in an ancient or a foreign language. Even the sacred penmen have not disdained to adopt them into the simple, but very serious style of holy writ. Witness the κάγω for και εγω, απ' εμου for απο έμου, κάκεινος for και εκείνος, and many others. No doubt desuetude alone is sufficient to create an unsuitableness in any language. I will admit further, that there is some convenience in discriminating the different characters of writing by some such differences in the style. For both these reasons, I should not now wish to see them revived in performances of a serious or solemn nature.

Is this insipid sameness to be envied them as an excellence? Or shall we Britons, who are lovers of freedom almost to idolatry, voluntarily hamper ourselves in the trammels of the French academy? Not that I think we should disdain to receive instruction from any quarter, from neighbours, or even from enemies. But as we renounce implicit faith in more important matters, let us renounce it here too. Before we adopt any new measure or limitation, by the practice of whatever nation it comes recommended to us, let us give it an impartial examination, that we may not, like servile imitators, copy the bad with the good. The rules of our language should breathe the same spirit with the laws of our country. They ought to prove bars against licentiousness, without being checks to liberty.

SECTION III.-Modern languages compared with Greek and Latin, particularly in regard to the composition of Sentences.

Before I conclude this chapter, I must beg leave to offer a few general remarks on the comparison of modern languages with Greek and Latin. This I am the rather disposed to do, that it will serve further to illustrate the principles above laid down. I make no doubt but the former have some advantages in respect of perspicuity. I think not only that the disposition of the words according to certain stated rules may be made more effectually to secure the sentence against ambiguous construction, than can be done merely by inflection, but even that an habitual method of arranging words which are in a certain way related to one another, must, from the natural influence of habit, on the principle of association, even where there is no risk of misconstruction, more quickly suggest the meaning, than can be done in the freer and more varied methods made use of in those ancient languages. This holds especially with regard to Latin, wherein the number of equivocal inflections is considerably greater than in Greek; and wherein there are no articles, which are of unspeakable advantage, as for several other purposes, so in particular for ascertaining the construction. But whilst the latter, though in this respect inferior, are, when skilfully managed, by no means ill adapted for perspicuous expression, they are, in respect of vivacity, elegance, animation, and variety of harmony, incomparably superior. I shall at present consider their advantage principally in point of vivacity, which in a great measure, when the subject is of such a nature as to excite passion, secures animation also.

In the first place, the brevity that is attainable in these

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languages gives them an immense superiority. Some testi[BOOK III. monies in confirmation of this remark may be obtained by comparing the Latin examples of antithesis quoted in the notes of the second part of the preceding chapter, with any English translation that can be made of these passages. And I suspect, if a version were attempted into any other European tongue, the success would not be much better. It is remarkable, that in any inscription in which it is intended to convey something striking or emphatical, we can scarcely endure a modern language. Latin is almost invariably employed for this purpose in all the nations of Europe. Nor is this the effect of caprice or pedantry, as some perhaps will be apt to imagine. Neither does it proceed merely, as others will suppose, from the opinion that that language is more universally understood; for I suspect that this is a prerogative which will be warmly contested by the French; but it proceeds from the general conviction there is, of its superiority in point of vivacity. That we may be satisfied of this, let us make the trial, by translating any of the best Latin inscriptions or mottos which we remember, and we shall quickly perceive, that what charms us expressed in their idiom, is scarcely supportable when rendered into our owna. luggage of particles, such as pronouns, prepositions, and auxiliary verbs, from which it is impossible for us entirely to The Let us make the experiment on the inscriptions of some of the best devices or emblems that are extant. the sixth of Bouhour's Entretiens d'Ariste et d'Eugene, called Les devises. The I shall give a few examples for illustration's sake, from first shall be, that of a starry sky without the moon, as representing an assembly of the fair, in which the lover finds not the object of his passion. The motto is, "Non mille quod absens." that is absent." Another instance shall be that of a rock in the midst of a temIn English we must say, pestuous sea, to denote a hero who with facility baffles all the assaults of his eneA thousand cannot equal one inies. The motto, "Conantia frangere frangit." things which attempt to break me.' the person of the verb, that the words may be equally applicable, both in the liteIn this example we are obliged to change In English, "I break the ral sense, and in the figurative, an essential point in this exercise of ingenuity. The personal pronoun in our language must always be expressed before the verb. Now the neuter it will not apply to the hero, nor the masculine he to the rock; whereas the first person applies equally to both. The third instance shall be that of the ass eating thistles, as an emblem of a parasite who serves as a butt to the company that entertain him. The motto, "Let them sting me, provided they fill my belly." the expression in the original; how spiritless in the translation! Nor is this rePungant dum saturent." course to a multitude of words peculiar to us. In all these, how nervous is In English, though not equally, under the same inconvenience. For the French, take Bouhours's version of the preceding mottos. The first is, "Mille ne valent pas ce que vaut All European languages labour, une absente." The second, "Il brise ce qui fait effort pour le briser." This version is not perfectly adequate. The Latin implies a number of enemies, which is not implied here. Better thus, "Il brise les choses qui font effort pour le briser." The third is, "Qu'ils me piquent, pourveu qu'ils me saouïlent." respect superior to the English. The Italian and the Spanish answer here a little better. Bouhours himself, who is extremely unwilling, even in the smallest matters, These are in no to acknowledge any thing like a defect or imperfection in the French tongue, is nevertheless constrained to admit, that it is not well adapted for furnishing such mottos and inscriptions.

disencumber ourselves, clogs the expression, and enervates the sentiment.

But it is not in respect of brevity only that the ancient tongues above-mentioned are capable of a more vivid diction than the modern. For when, in the declensions and conjugations, the inflection, as is frequently the case, is attended with an increase of the number of syllables, the expression on the whole cannot always be denominated briefer, even when it consists of fewer words. However, as was observed before, when the construction is chiefly determined by inflection, there is much ampler scope for choice in the arrangement, and consequently the speaker hath it much more in his power to give the sentence that turn which will serve most to enliven it.

But even this is not all the advantage they derive from this particularity in their structure. The various terminations of the same word, whether verb or noun, are always conceived to be more intimately united with the term which they serve to lengthen, than the additional, detached, and in themselves insignificant, syllables or particles, which we are obliged to employ as connectives to our significant words. Our method gives almost the same exposure to the one as to the other, making the insignificant parts and the significant equally conspicuous; theirs much oftener sinks, as it were, the former into the latter, at once preserving their use, and hiding their weakness. Our modern languages may in this respect be compared to the art of carpentry in its rudest state, when the union of the materials employed by the artisan, could be effected only by the help of those external and coarse implements, pins, nails, and cramps. The ancient languages resemble the same art in its most improved state, after the invention of dovetail joints, grooves and mortices, when thus all the principal junctions are effected by forming properly the extremities or terminations of the pieces to be joined. For by means of these the union of the parts is rendered closer, whilst that by which their union is produced is scarcely perceivable.

Addison, if I remember right, somewhere compares an epic poem, (and the same holds, though in a lower degree, of every other literary production) written in Greek or in Latin, to a magnificent edifice, built of marble, porphyry, or granite, and contrasts with it such a poem or performance in one of our modern languages, which he likens to such a building executed in freestone, or any of those coarser kinds of stone which abound in some northern climates. The latter may be made to answer all the essential purposes of accommodation as well as the former, but as the materials of which it is constructed, are not capable of receiving the same polish, and