By this means we are deprived of one test of the value of words,— namely, permanence". If language, under its former guardianship, lost, in many cases, its accuracy of application, the danger that it should do so now is infinitely greater. When we consider this danger, it is difficult to conceive how men, who have themselves received to a certain extent a classical education, can join in the outcry against what are called the learned languages. Yet some of our cleverest humourists-not perhaps without a tincture of envy-who have, or fancy they have a grudge, against scholars as a separate class, seem to consider themselves bound to keep up the foolish feud between wit and learning. Such men do themselves little credit by their hostility. The humourists of a former day were content to lash pedants, bookworms, and recluses, but they had too much sense to ridicule the study of Greek and Latin in the abstract. Imagine, if you can, Butler, or Dryden, or Swift, or Pope, or Gay, making a mock at scholarship. Perhaps, in this respect, their example might not be unworthy of the notice even of a Dickens. But whatever the opinion of popular writers, utilitarian,† or humourous, may be, it is pre-eminently the duty of all who are worthy to be called critics in the present day, to keep a strict watch upon the language, apart from the other qualities of books upon which they sit in judgment; to check the wanton introduction of foreign idioms, the inroad of provincialisms, and all ignorant and absurd usages of words. If one of the first-rate periodicals would make a few severe examples every season, the real service they would render to the cause of letters would be quite inestimable, but alas! of some of the critics we may say truly, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? § * Coleridge notices this in a passage rather more cautious than that of Guizot referred to in our first paper on this subject: -- "I would not lose any opportunity of impressing on the mind of my youthful readers the important truth, that language, as the embodied and articulated spirit of the race, as the growth and emanation of a people, and not the work of any individual act, or will, is often inadequate, sometimes deficient, but never false or delusive. We have only to master the true origin, and original import of any native, and abiding word, to find in it, if not the solution of the facts expressed in it, yet a finger-mark pointing to the road in which this solution is to be sought." (Notes to "Aids to Reflection.") Many of the words noticed in our former numbers, especially such as have been enlisted in the service of excited feeling, prove that mere continuance is a very imperfect test of the justifiableness of current usage; where there has been no strong interference of passion in their favour, many words once fashionable have been dismissed as improper or superfluous: of this numerous instances might be given: so far Time has been a test. † Science, to whom Madam Utility professes herself much devoted, insists upon using, as her interpreters, those two ancient and learned ladies, Greek and Latin. Madam Utility, who is conscious of backbiting dreadfully the two blue-stockings, bridles up a little, but is obliged to submit to the introduction. Altogether, the position is an amusing one. An accurate philologist, and observer of our national diction recently noticed to us, that several foreign idioms were becoming nationalized in consequence of the translations, necessarily rapid, made for our newspapers, from foreign journals, thus gradually affecting the style of the writers. § We are glad to find a well-read critic, in the last Edinburgh Review but one, A few words more before we conclude this digression. With all the opportunities which we moderns have had of improving upon the language of our ancestors of the time of Elizabeth, of adding, selecting, correcting, compounding, how is it that we are constantly referred to the writers of that day-we care not of what sort,-philosophers, poets, divines, for vigorous, expressive language. For an effect so general there must have been a very general cause. Can any of our readers assign a more probable one than that at which we have already hinted when speaking of the diction of Shakspeare: namely, that at that period there was a vast importation* of words from the Latin and Greek languages; that the authors who introduced these words knew well their precise significance, and used them strictly, or at any rate, only" parcè detorta," and that since that time they have been gradually losing the sharpness and delicacy of their first mintage? In looking over the article in the Edinburgh Review, referred to in our note, we find an objection raised against Bishop Jeremy Taylor and others for their over-Latinity, and especially for striving to bring back to their strictly etymological sense words which had already deviated from it. This objection was anticipated, in a note on Barrow, in our December number. We must be careful not to let affectation declaim against affectation. There can surely be no objection, absolutely, where we think it necessary to borrow from the classical languages, to borrow in an honest straightforward manner. If it can be proved that we get a direct gain of a word by departing from this strict primitive sense that thus we can express a modification of thought really required by our circumstances-then such a departure may of course be justified. But when no such benefit is secured; when, as we have shown it frequently to be the case, we actually lose by the departure a concise expression with which the primal language could not supply us, and, by half corrupting the Greek or Latin word, we only "add the sum of more to that which was too much," multiplying equivalents needlessly; then the fair inference is, that the deviation commenced rather from ignorance than from any instinct of necessity. In such ---- speaking thus:-" When we reflect on the enormous breadth both of the old world and the new over which this noble language is already spoken, or is fast spreading, and the immense treasures of literature which are consigned to it, it becomes us to guard it with jealous care as a sacred deposit—not our least important trust in the heritage of humanity: our brethren in America must assist us in the task." *These importations are sometimes expressly noticed: thus Miss Aikin, in her Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth, quotes from Puttenham's Art of Poetry : "Of this number are conduct,' a French, (or rather Latin) word, but well allowed of us, and long since usual; it sounds something more than the word, leading, for it is applied only to the leading of a captain, and not as a little boy should lead a blind man. 'Idiom' from the Greek, significative,' borrowed of the Latin, and French, but to us brought in first by some nobleman's secretary, as I think, yet doth so well serve the turn as it could not now be spared, and many more like usurped Latin and French words, as method,'' methodical,' 'assubtiling,' refining,' compendious,' prolix,' 'figurative,' inveigle,' a term borrowed from our common lawyers, impression,' also a new term, but well expressing the matter, and more than our English word 'penetrate,' 'penetrable,'' indignity,' in the sense of unworthiness, and a few more." Better specimens, however, might have been taken than those which Puttenham has selected. cases, surely no good reason can be given, as long as there is the least chance of restoring a word, why learned men, such as were Taylor and others referred to by the reviewer, should obey popular practice, or, from a foolish kind of language-patriotism, endeavour almost to disguise the origin of words fairly taken from another language, by a sort of sham naturalization. It is very well to talk of the vigour which language gains by the open air of the common converse of mankind, and the pedantry of diction formed and used by secluded students, whose privacy, for argument's sake, is somewhat exaggerated, as in "Mother Hubbard's Tale :" "Simple men which never came in place Of world's affairs, but in dark corners mew'd, Muttered of matters as their books them shew'd, There is some truth here, but by no means all the truth. Language is a delicate instrument, as well as a powerful one: had it not been for scholars, or pedants, if so you like to call them, we should have had but few of those Latin derivatives allowed on all hands to be most valuable, except, indeed, through the medium of French. Considering this obligation, we cannot see why scholars should be blamed for persisting in using words in the sense which they, and they alone, know to be the true one. When a word has fairly got beyond a scholar's power or influence, he is then, if writing a popular treatise or addressing a common audience, bound to speak intelligibly, and this is all that can be said: if he can, or thinks he can, restore a word, he is quite justified in the attempt. We might speak somewhat differently, if it were possible to suppose that peculiarities of this kind in the styles of Barrow, Taylor, and men of that stamp, were chiefly the result of the mere ostentation of learning; they were far above it. On the contrary, it was, in all probability, the ostentation of learning in those who did not really possess it, which was chiefly the very cause of the corruptions; for those are the fondest of hard and learned words who least know their meaning; and why should the ostentation of the learned be nauseated, and that of the ignorant made laws for language and receive a general sanction? It was not long ago that we heard the motion of a drunken man down stairs described as being "promiscuous;" how soon is this to be one of the admitted senses of the word? With regard to the language of the uneducated, spoken and written, we will offer three quotations, and leave the reader to judge :— "For blacksmiths and teamsters do not trip in their speech; it is a shower of bullets. It is Cambridge men who correct themselves, and begin again at every half sentence," &c.-Emerson, Essay on Montaigne. "The fault of the people when they write is ever to abandon the heart, which is their stronghold, to go and borrow abstractions and vague generalities from the upper classes. They have a great advantage, but do not appreciate it—that of not knowing the conventional language, of not being, as we are, besieged, pursued, by ready-made sentences, formulas which present themselves of their own accord when we write, and take their places upon our paper; and yet this is precisely what our studious workmen envy us, and borrow from us, as far as they can. Michelet's People. "The Guardian directs one of his pupils to think with the wise, but speak with the vulgar; this is a precept specious enough, but not always practicable. Difference of thoughts will produce difference of language. He that thinks with more extent than another will want words of larger meaning; he that thinks with more subtlety will seek for terms of more nice discrimination; and where is the wonder, since words are but the images of things, that he who never knew the original should not know the copies ? ***** That the vulgar express their thoughts clearly is far from true; and what perspicuity can be found in them proceeds, not from the easiness of their language, but from the shallowness of their thoughts. He that sees a building as a common spectator contents himself with relating that it is great or little, mean or splendid, lofty or low; all these words are intelligible and common, but they convey no distinct or limited ideas. If he attempts, without the terms of architecture, to delineate the parts, or enumerate the ornaments, his narration at once becomes unintelligible."-Johnson, “Idler,” No. 70. From these three extracts the reader may make a very fair estimate of the merits, the liabilities, and the defects of popular diction. Some words are injured by an over-usage, which seems mainly to depend on fashion or caprice. It is the general fate of favourites to be spoilt, and this is the case especially with those words which Ben Jonson called "the scented terms of the time." These being plied in season and out of season,-as natural poverty of diction is glad of the aid and authority of fashion,-gradually lose their precision of sense, which they often recover but imperfectly when the fashion has gone by. We do not, however, assert that no account whatever can be given of the popularity of such expressions: the hacknied “splendid," "tremendous," and less refined "stunning," may be the natural productions of an age like our own, prolific in discovery and wonder. It is, on the whole, extraordinary how soon language has purified itself from the effects of any merely temporary influence. How litte is left, for instance, comparatively speaking, of the pious slang of the Roundheads or the profane slang of the Cavaliers. The fact is, that when any particular class of opinions have existed in excess long enough to produce nausea and reaction, the very words which have been party favourites have been afterwards cast forth as abominations; less, perhaps, from a feeling of their frequent impropriety and untruth, than of their wearisomeness. Where the excitement and extravagance have not been such as to be followed by this sensation of disgust, the traces left in language have been much more lasting. Thus the French influence, chiefly active in the time of Pope and Young, commencing earlier, has been far more abiding in its effect than either of the political and religious causes referred to above; for in the party terms referred to there was no sense of increased knowledge nor much actual novelty, and the opinions which they embodied or exhibited were, in their excess at least, transient. Of Gallicisms there may have been "a wasteful and ridiculous excess" at first; but many that were retained were useful, and really enriched the language: we mean simply the words, for the phrases (with which we have not here to do), both from the classics and French, are much more questionable in their effect, being more intimately connected, in one sense, than single words with the genius and circumstances of the nations with whom they originate, and to whom, consequently, they are more appropriate, than to those who merely adopt them at second-hand. THE PUBLISHERS AND THE IRISH NATIONAL EDUCATION COMMISSIONERS. MESSRS. Longman and Mr. Murray have recently published a correspondence with Lord John Russell on the subject of "The Publication of School Books by Government at the Public Expense." They state, that "Government has established a manufactory of school books in Ireland. These books, produced by irresponsible parties, at the public expense, have not only the patronage of the Commissioners of Education in Ireland, but are now largely introduced into England. Such proceedings are obviously inconsistent with all sound principle; and, while they are subversive of the rights, and injurious to the interests, of private persons engaged in the composition and publication of school books, they are not less injurious to the scholars and the public." They urge the consideration of the subject upon his Lordship, because the government undersells the booksellers, not by producing the books at a lower first cost, but by selling them at less than cost price and paying the difference out of the public purse; because it is inconsistent with free trade, and unjust to tax the publisher and to employ the taxes to which he contributes to undersell him. That the fact of their being published by the Government virtually creates a monopoly, against which it is useless for private enterprise to struggle. As a principle, we are ready to admit that such matters as these are always best left to private enterprise, and that Government seldom takes them in hand without some mismanagement; but to look at the question fairly we must go back to the year 1833, when the system of National Education was established in Ireland, and call to mind the difficulties which the Board had to encounter before they could hope to establish a system which should be accepted and supported by the priests and the clergy. Not the least difficulty was the agreement upon a series of books; and though we are speaking without any positive knowledge on this point, we are quite sure that it must have been a subject of most anxious deliberation to the Board. We are fully assured that there was not then, and is not to this day, any series of books that would have answered their requirements-cheapness, with a proper moral and religious tone, without anything that could be objected to by the members of either church; and we are equally certain that they could not have made a selection from the books of all the publishers in the kingdom that they would have found altogether suitable. They adopted the only course which they could adopt-they published a series of elementary books of their own;* and we think they would * The following extract from their rules shows the perfect fairness with which the Commissioners act in the matter: "The use of the books published by the Commissioners is not compulsory; but the titles of all other books which the conductors of schools intend for the ordinary school business are to be reported to the Commissioners, and none are to be used to which they object; but they prohibit such only as may appear to them to contain matter objectionable in itself, or objectionable for common instruction, as peculiarly belonging to some particular religious denomination." |