Chapter VII: Part 7

The use and custom of our country has already chosen a kind of penning, in which she has set down her religion, her laws, her private and public dealings; every private man has, with the approval of his country, so drawn his private writings, his evidence, his letters, that the thing seems impossible to be removed by so strong an alteration, though it be most willing to receive some reasonable pruning, so that the substance may remain, and the change take place in such points only as may please without novelty, and profit without forcing. For were it not in good sooth too violent a step to offer to overthrow a custom so generally received, so definitely settled--nay, grounded so securely as shall shortly appear--by altering either all or most of our letters? Were it not a sign of a very simple orator to think that by so strange an innovation he could persuade custom to divorce himself from so long and so lawful a match? Nay, were it not wonderful even but to wish that all our English scripture and divinity, all our laws and policy, all our evidence and writings were penned anew, because we have not that set down in writing which our forefathers meant, but either more or less, owing to the insufficiency of our writing, which is not able to set faithfully and fully down what the mind conceives? They will say that they do not mean so radical a change. But they must needs mean it, because it must either follow at once upon the admitting of this new alteration, which is too great in sense, or, after a term of years, which is too great in thought. For with a new writing coming in, and the old character growing out of knowledge, all records of whatever kind must needs either come over to the new fashion, or remain worm-eaten like an old relic, to be read as the Roman religion written down under Numa Pompilius was read by those of Cicero’s time, when every word was as uncouth and strange as if it had come from some other world. But am I not undertaking a needless task in disapproving what I need not fear, because there is no danger in it, the very usage of our country refusing it already? I grant I am. But yet I must say something that I may not seem to contemn, since if I say nothing my opponents may then seem to have said something. But certainly I hold the thing to be much too cumbersome and inconvenient, even though it were likely to be profitable, but where no likelihood of any profit at all is in sight, and the change itself seems neither necessary nor easy, I cannot approve the means, though I bear no grudge to its proposers, who deserve great thanks for their good intentions. For their labour is very profitable to help forward some redress, though they themselves have not hit on it. For while different men attempt to solve the problem, some one or other will hit it at last, whereas the case would be desperate if it were never dealt with. But this amendment of theirs is too far-fetched, and without its help we understand our print and pen, our evidence, and other writing. And though we grant some imperfection, as in a tongue not yet fully developed, yet we do not admit that it is to be perfected either by altering the form or by increasing the number of our familiar letters, but only by observing where the tongue by her ordinary custom yields to the refining process, as the old, and therefore the best, method leads us. For it is no argument, when faults are found, to say this is the help, and only this, because no other is in sight. But whenever the right is found by orderly seeking, then the argument is true, that it was not thoroughly sought, when it was denied to exist. And to speak impartially between the letter and sound on the one side, and custom and the letter on the other side, letters can express sounds with all their joints and properties no more fully than the pencil can the form and lineaments of the face, whose merit is not life but likeness; for the letters, though they yield not always what sound exactly requires, give always the nearest, and custom is content with this. And therefore if a letter do not sound just as you wish, yet hold it as the next best, lest if you change you come not so near. And though one letter be used in diverse, or even contrary sounds, you cannot avoid it by any change, seeing that no other has been liked hitherto but this which we use. Certainly, so far as I have observed, we are as well appointed for our necessity in that way, and as much bound to our general custom for the artificial tones of our natural tongue as any other nation is to any other language, whether ancient in books or modern in speech. And whatever insufficiency seems to be in its writing, it will excuse itself, and lay the whole blame upon the insufficient observer for not seeking the solution in the right way. This will be found true, when it shall be seen that by sufficient care it may be made clear and pure without any foreign help, and without either altering the form or increasing the number of our ordinary letters, but only by notes of its own breeding, which, being already in use, desire nothing else but some direction from art. This I am in good hopes of performing, according to the plan of the best refiners in the most refined tongues, with such consideration as either breeds general rules, or else must bear with particular exceptions. I will mark what our customary writing will yield us in the way of notes, without dreaming of change, which cannot stem so fatal a current as custom runs with. I will therefore do my best to confirm our custom in his own right, which will be easily obtained, where men are acquainted with the matter already, and would be very glad to see wherein the correct manner of their writing stands, and a great deal more glad to find it so near when they thought it to be further off. Thus have I run through these alleged infirmities in our tongue, whose physicking I like not this way, and therefore I will join close with my own observation to see if that will help.

Those men who will give any certain direction for the writing of any tongue, or for anything else that concerns a tongue, must take some period in its history, or else their rules will prove inapplicable. For every tongue has a certain ascent from the lowest to the highest point, and a descent again from the highest to the lowest; and as in the ascent it has not reached a secure position, because it is not thoroughly reduced to art, so in the descent it comes to be not worth noting, because it gets rude again, and in a manner withered. Hence it comes that the age of Demosthenes is the prince of Greece, as that of Cicero is the flower of Rome, and if the languages of these countries had not been committed to the security of books, they would have been of little worth; nay, they would have been forgotten altogether, long before our day, as the spoken tongues of those nations, changing continually since the periods named, are now quite altered, or at least are nothing like what they were in their prime, though still blooming in another form. So that books give life where bodies bring only death. Consider the Greek and Latin writers before the ages of those men, and by comparing them with these, you will see the difference that I spoke of, the earlier being too rude to be brought under rule, and the later departing from established rules and yielding to change. This period of full development, with the ascent to it and the decline leading to decay, shows us that everything belonging to man is subject to change, the language changing also, but never dying out. It must needs be therefore that there is something of the nature of a soul in every spoken tongue that feeds this change even with perceptible means. For if any tongue be fixed, and free from movement, it is enshrined in books, not subject to ordinary use, but made immortal by the register of memory.

This secret mystery, or rather quickening spirit, that dwells in every spoken tongue, and therefore in our own, I call “prerogative,” because when sound has done his best, when reason has said his best, and when custom has carried into effect what is best in both, this prerogative will resist any of them, and take exception to all their rules, however general and certain. It thus makes way for a new change, which will follow at some stage of the language, if the writer’s period be chosen at the best. I cannot compare this customary prerogative in speech to anything better than to those who devise new garments, and are left by law to liberty of device. Hence it comes in the matter of apparel, that we do not remain like ourselves for any length of time, though what is most seemly, like a rule of art, pleases the wisest people best. From this same liberty of speech to carve out a way for itself, come the exceptions to our general rules. Hence it comes that _enough_, _bough_, _tough_, and such other primitives are so strangely written, and more strangely sounded. In this way prerogative seems to be like quicksilver, ever stirring and never settled, though the general custom always offers itself to be ordered by rule, as a close friend to reason. This stirring quintessence, leading to change in a thing that is naturally changeable and not blameworthy for changing, some not very well-advised people consider as an error, and a private misuse, contrary to custom, because it seems to be a very imperious controller, but in this they are deceived. For indeed, though this prerogative, by opposition in particular cases, checks general conclusions, yet that opposition came not from individual men; it is a private thing itself, and the very life-blood which preserves tongues in their best natural form, from the first time that they grew to be of any account till they come to decay, and begin a new period, different from the old, though excellent in its kind, which in its turn must give way to another when the time is ripe.

I take this present period of our English tongue to be its very height, because I find it as excellently refined, both in its general substance and in its customary writing, as either foreign workmanship can give it gloss, or home-wrought handling can give it grace. When the period of our nation which now uses the tongue so well is dead and departed, another will succeed, and with the people the tongue will alter. A later period may in its full harvest prove comparable to the present, but surely this which we now have seems to be at its best and bravest, and whatever may become of the English State, the English tongue cannot prove fairer than it is at this date, if it may please our learned class to think so of it, and to bestow their labour on a subject so capable of adornment, and so fitting to themselves. The force of prerogative is such that it cannot be disobeyed, though it seems to derange some well-ordered rule, and make people wonder who do not weigh the cause.

For this reason, when any case arises quite contrary to the common precept, though not to the common custom, then we must needs think of the power of prerogative, a great princess in influence, and a parent to corruption, but intending to raise another Phœnix from the former ashes. He who refuses to grant such a prerogative to any tongue, denies it life, unless he means, by registering some period in it of most excellent note, to restrain prerogative, and preserve the tongue, which he secures by writing from being profaned by the people; it becomes then a learned tongue and exempt from corruption, as our book-languages are, whose rules are so secure that they dream of no change. This prerogative and liberty which the nation has, to use both speech and pen at will, is the cause why English writers are finer now than they were some hundred years ago, though some antiquary may consider the old writing finer. But the question is wherein fineness consists. So was Sallust deceived among the Romans, living with Cicero, and writing like ancient Cato.

In this prerogative of writing, the very pen itself is a great influence and has marvellous authority, for being the secretary who carries out what is expressed by the intelligence, it presumes upon this to venture, as far as any counsellor may, though never against reason, whose instrument it is to satisfy the eye as the tongue satisfies the ear. Custom, whose charge prerogative is, as the pen is his conveyer, favours the pen very greatly and will not hesitate to maintain that a dash with a pen may hold for a warrant, when both speed and grace bid the pen be bold. Hence it comes that in our language so many z’s are heard, and so few seen, owing to the regard for dexterity and speed in the fluency of writing; and as the pen can do this, I take it as a matter of prerogative, for the sake of smoothness, that our tongue uses _z_ so much for _s_.

But it may be said that all our exceptions, due to most reasonable prerogative, may well be reduced to a general form, which I do not at all deny, though I see some difficulty in altering what our custom has thus grasped, and it were almost too much to require any wise and learned man so to arrest exceptions, particularly where no standard can be fixed. He who wishes this seems to conceive of such a thing, but even if it were attempted, the stream of custom would break out again immediately in some other way, and cause an even greater gap, for no banks can keep it in so narrowly but those that are content to be sometimes overflowed, and no strength can withstand such a current but those stays which in the fury of water will bend like a bulrush.

If any pen, either through ignorance or pretension, offend against reason, and intrude upon prerogative, that is no good quill, and it will not be upheld by me; nor is that current to be called _custom_ which holds by usurpation; nor is that cause to be accounted _reason_ which has any other beginning than genuine knowledge, or any other ending than the nature of the thing will seem to admit. Certainly, when I consider the matter deeply--and my thoughts on it have not been slight or superficial--I cannot see why, when the imperfections are removed that always accompany perfection, and can easily be removed, to the satisfaction of the wise who are not blinded with their own habits, the tongue as well as the pen may not quite well have its prerogative, since our custom has become so well-ordered that it may be ruled without chopping or changing a single letter, or otherwise begging more aid from foreign invention than I have already sufficiently set down.

These are my suggestions for the regulation of our tongue and the fixing of a standard in its writing. If I have in any way hit the mark, I shall be warranted by the right, though it may not seem so to some, and in this I must be comforted, even if I cannot content all.

THE PERORATION.

_To my gentle readers and fellow-countrymen, wherein many things
are handled concerning learning in general, and the nature of
the English and foreign tongues, besides some particular remarks
about the writing of books in English._

My fellow-countrymen and gentle readers, my first purpose in taking up this subject, and venturing into print, of which till lately I have stood in awe, was to do some good in the profession in which I have for many years been engaged, and by giving my experience in the teaching of the learned tongues, to lighten the labour of other men, because I had discovered some defects that required a remedy. But the consideration of these led me a great deal further than I dreamed of at first. Intending to deal only with the teaching of languages in the Grammar School, I was enforced by the sway of meditation to think of the whole course of learning, and to consider how every particular thing arose in a definite order. For without that consideration how could I have discerned where to begin and where to end, in any one thing that depends on a sequel and proceeds from a principle? For the subject I am dealing with is a matter of ascent, where every particular that goes before has continual reference to what comes after, if the whole scheme is scientifically arranged. In this course of mine, the elementary principles may be compared to the first groundwork, the teaching of tongues to the second storey and the after-learning to the upper buildings. Now as in architecture and building he were no good workman who did not plan his framework so that each of the ascents should harmonise with the others, so in the stages of learning it were no masterly part not to show a similar care, and that cannot be done till the whole is thought of and thoroughly shaped in the mind of him who undertakes the work.

After I had formed an opinion both as to where lay the blemishes which disfigured learning and as to how they might be redressed, as well for my own practice as by way of advice to others, I came down to particulars and began to examine even from the very first what went before the tongues in the orderly upbringing of children. This was the first task that claimed me before I fell to further thoughts and the last too, even when I had considered all that followed, but it was then undertaken more advisedly. I entered upon an investigation into the whole early training all the more readily because I perceived great backwardness in the learning of tongues through infirmities in the elementary groundwork. What a toil it is to a grammar master when the young child who is brought to him to teach, has no foundation laid on which anything can be built! I undertook, therefore, to enquire into all those things that concern the elementary training, as a stage in teaching preceding the study of grammar, hoping by my own labour to be of use to a multitude of masters. Moreover, as this matter concerns learners who have not yet entered upon Latin, and teachers who may have only mediocre learning, I thought it best to publish in the tongue that is common to us all, both before and after we learn Latin.

But here there are three questions that may perhaps be asked: First, what those blemishes are which I observed in the main body of learning, a subject so closely investigated in our day by such a variety and excellence of learned wits that every branch of it is thought to have recovered the consideration it had at its highest point; secondly, why in regard to methods of teaching I do not content myself with following the precedent of other writers, who in great numbers have written learned treatises with the same end in view, but rather toil myself with a private labour, the issue of which is uncertain, whereas the previous writers on the subject, being themselves learned, and having achieved success, may be followed with assurance; thirdly, if it is my endeavour to handle a learned subject in the English tongue, why I take so much pains and such a special care in handling it, that the weaker sort, whose benefit I profess to consider--nay, often others also of reasonable study--can with difficulty understand the couching of my sentence and the depth of my meaning.

While I answer these questions, I must pray your patience, my good masters, because the things may not be lightly passed over, and in satisfying your demands I shall pave the way for the suit I have to make to you.

First, as for my general care for the whole course of learning, I have thus much to say. The end of every individual man’s doings for his own advantage, and the end of the whole commonweal for the good of us all, are so much alike in aspect, and so entirely the same in nature, that when the one is seen the other needs little seeking. Each individual man labours in this world in order to win rest after toil, to have ease after work; he does not wish to be always engaged in labour, which would be exceedingly irksome if it were endless. The soldier fights in his own intention perhaps to gain ease through wealth, which he may win by spoil; in outward appearance he labours for the advantage of his country by way of defence and security. The merchant traffics in his own intention to procure personal ease through private wealth; to the public he seems to labour for the common benefit, by supplying wants in necessary wares for general use. Indeed, all men, whatever be their occupation, while seeking private ends in their actions, at the same time concur in serving general ends. Thus it appears that ease after labour is the common aim of both private and public efforts, because everyone in the natural course of his whole conduct has regard to the general prosperity and quiet, which maintain his own personal well-being. Then the means both of coming by this end, and when it is come by, of maintaining it in state, must needs lie in such directions as make for the peace and quietness of a State, for the keeping of concord and agreement without any main public breach, both in private houses and generally throughout the whole government. These peaceable directions I call, and not I alone, by the simple name of _general learning_, comprising under it all the arts of peace and the ministry of tranquillity--a matter of great moment, being the only right means to so blessed a thing as fortunate peace, imparting the benefit of public quietness to every household, as a central fountain serves every man’s cistern by private pipes, and if it be not sound, conveying the blemish like the infected water of a fountain, or the corrupt blood that escaping from the liver poisons the whole body. Even war itself, a professed enemy to learning, because it is in feud with peace, may by just handling be shown to work for peace at home by uniting the minds of all against a common foe. By the employment of learning in every department all princes govern their States; the general control is exercised through grave and learned counsellors and wise and faithful justiciaries, and the particular control, in religion by divines, in the health of the body by physicians, in the maintenance of right by lawyers, and so on in every particular profession, from the greatest to the meanest, throughout the whole government--a most blessed means to a most blessed end, a learned maintenance of a heavenly happiness in an earthly State of a heavenly constitution. Therefore, any error in this means is an injury indeed, and deserves to be thought of as a hindrance to peace, and a pernicious destroyer of the best public end, beginning perhaps as a small spark, but always gathering strength by the confluence of similar infection in some other parts, till at last it sets all on fire, and bursts out in a confusion, the more to be feared that it festers before it breaks into flame, and shrouding itself under a show of peace, consumes without suspicion, and escapes being brought to terms as a professed enemy. I may say that in my reflection on this subject of the ascent of learning from the elementary stage, I thought I found these four imperfections in the whole body of learning--in some places an excess, in others a defect, in others too great a variety, in others too much disagreement. These are four great enormities in a peaceable means, breeding great diseases, and bidding defiance to quiet, both within the State in the governing direction, and outside it by evident inflammation, and they are therefore to be thought of not only for complaint in particular cases, but by magistrates in regard to their amendment.

As for _excess_ I conceive that as in every natural body the number of sinews, veins, and arteries to give it life and motion, is definite and certain, so in a body politic the distributive use of learning, which I compare to those parts, is everywhere certain. And whatever is more than nature requires in either of them, as in the one it breeds disease, so in the other it causes destruction by breach of proportion, and so consequently of peace. In natural bodies excess appears when one or more parts encroach on the others and enfeeble them. In communities this excess in learning is to be discerned when the private professions swell too much and so weaken the whole body, either by the multitude of professional men, who bite deeply where many must be fed and there is little to feed on, or by unnecessary professions, which choke off the more useful, and fill the world with trifles, or by an infinitude of books, which cloy up students, and weaken them by an intolerable diffuseness of treatment, fattening the carcass but lowering the strength of pithy matter. Do not all these surfeits exist at this day in our own State? Are they not enemies to the common good, being grown out of proportion? Are they not worth consideration and redress?

I pass now to the question of defect. In a natural body there is too little, when either something necessary is wanting, or what is there is too weak to serve its purpose. And does not learning show the same defects, disquieting to a State, when the necessary professional men are wanting either in number or in worthiness; where show takes the place of sound stuff; where in place of real learning only superficial knowledge is sought, enough to make a shift with; when necessary professions are despised and trampled under foot, because the cursory student has to post away in haste; when there is a lack of needful books to further learning, and those we have are of little use owing to insufficiency of treatment? This corruption in learning any man may see who desires to seek out either the malady or its cure; it is a breach of proportion, and therefore of peace, in a commonwealth, a pining evil which consumes by starving.

As for diversity in matters of learning, I think that as it proceeds from differences in ability, in upbringing, in intelligence, in judgment, because these are much finer in some than in others, it does a great deal of harm to the peace of any State, especially where its leaders, though they may not fall out, but merely express their opinions, yet divide studies according to their favourites, considering the importance of the subjects less than the attraction of the authors. If this diversity breaks out in earnest, as it has frequently done in our time, while printing itself, which in its natural and best uses is the instrument of necessity and the exponent of learning, becomes very often too easy an outlet for vaunting ambition, for malicious envy and revenge, for all passions to all purposes, what a sore blow is given to the public quiet, when the means to welfare is made an instrument of distemper! For will not he fight in his fury who brawls in his books? Do not those minds seem armed for open conflict--nay, do they not arm others too by pressing enmity forward--which in private studies enter into combats on paper; which by too much eagerness make a great ado in matters better quenched than stirred to life; which whet their wits beforehand to be wranglers ever after, and as far as lies in them disturb the general welfare? What I disapprove of is needless combats in learning; those that are fruitful may go on, yet with no more passion than common civility and Christian charity will allow. Excess overburdens, defect weakens, diversity distracts, but dissension destroys. You know yourselves, my learned readers, what a wonderful stir there is daily in your schools, through diverging opinions in logic, in philosophy, in mathematics, in physics. The lawyer generally abstains from controversal writing, because he does not gain by it what he seeks; pleading in the Common Courts offers a better pasture for a lean purse than a busy pen. The dissension in divinity is specially fierce, the more so because it often falls out that the adversaries intermingle their own passions with the matters they treat of. For while our religious doctrines sometimes require defence, disputes might often be compounded, if men’s feelings were as readily cooled as they are inflamed. But in the meanwhile how greatly is the general peace disturbed by dissensions that turn aside a worthy means, to maintain a wrong and become a slave to some inordinate passion! I cannot enter fully upon this subject, but touch upon it merely that my good readers may understand how much my desire for the furtherance of learning was increased after I had noticed these inconveniences, though at first I meant only to help the teaching of the learned tongues. Agreement among the learned is the mother of general contentment; by carping and contradicting they trouble the world and taint themselves, bearing all the while the name of Christians--a title which enjoins us to avoid contention, even by the submission of those who are wronged, and charges us to defend our religion, not with passionate minds, but with the armour of patience and truth. These were the blemishes which I saw by the way, and lamented in the body of learning. The amendment which I desire rests upon two great pillars--the professors of learning, who must give intelligence of the error, and the principal magistrates--nay, even the sovereign prince--who being God’s great instruments to procure quietness for our souls and bodies, our goods and actions, must bring about redress in so important a matter as the course of learning.

The prince may cut off what is in excess, make up what is deficient, reconcile diversities, expel dissensions, by his lawful authority for the general good; and everyone will submit, because everyone is benefited. This, indeed, confirms Plato’s saying that kings should be philosophers; that is, that all magistrates should be learned. It is a great corrosive to the whole body of learning, which is the procurer of peace, when those who have to direct gain their wisdom only through experience. That is much, but experience and learning together make the better equipment. It is an honourable conception, besides that it tends to the general good, for a learned and virtuous prince, assisted by wise counsel, to reduce the number of those that follow learning, by some principle of selection in every department, to decide what kinds of learning are most useful to the State, and to appoint a reasonable number of such books as have the best methods of treatment. The final authority in regard to every profession has always lain with the prince. Action has been taken before in all the directions I have spoken of, both by consent of the learned and by command of good princes. As our country is small, the thing could be the more easily done; as our livings are limited, it is the more needful; as the evil is great, we are the less able to bear it; as our sovereign is learned, we shall be the readier to give ear; as our people are of good understanding, they are the better able to inform her. But as the physician does not thrive by the prevention of disease, nor the lawyer grow rich by arresting contentions, nor a divine prosper so much in a heaven where all is good as on earth where all is evil, and as private profit will be followed, though it bring confusion to the State, redress will not stir, because it judges the world to be in some fault which it is loth to confess. However, to secure some redress and help in this matter at the hand of the ruler, is the duty of all who make a profession of learning, if they will but consider the reputation of learning in our day, whether from the contempt in which some professions are held, or from a deficiency in those who enter them.

In the professors of learning, to whose solicitation this point is recommended, two things are chiefly required. First, that with minds given to peace they should study soundly themselves, and that the matter be worthy and taken in due order. For sound learning will not so soon be shaken at every eager point of controversy as that which is shallow. Orderly progress gives security, and a pacific temper furthers the end that is desired both privately and publicly. The consent of the learned and their quiet inclination are a great blessing to any Commonwealth, but especially to ours in this contentious time, when overwhetted minds do very little good to some worthy professions. The distracting division of minds into sects and sorts of philosophy did much injury in the countries where it befel, and those nations among which religious dissensions arose have never been quiet since. The second point required in a student is not to seek his own advancement so much as that of the things he professes, and indeed the possession of these things is the best means to advance himself, for, where ignorance is blamed, knowledge is approved, even though the approver may not be learned. He who studies soundly recommends letters by his own example; he who solicits the help of those in authority advances learning still further; he who uses his pen to strengthen the best current of opinion proves the genuineness of his desire by his own practice. In this last form my own labour seeks to recommend uniformity, to strip off what is needless, to supply some defects, to help everyone to as quiet a course as I can temper my style to.

The second question which I said might be demanded of me, why I do not follow the precedent of those learned writers who have handled the subject with great admiration may be very soon answered. I admit that the number of those who have written upon the upbringing of children might be considered sufficient, and I grant the excellence of many of them, such as Bembus, Sturmius, and Erasmus. But the situation is different. A free city and a country under a monarchy are not in the same position, though they agree in some general respects, in which indeed these writers do not dissent from me. Nor do I fail to follow good writers, taking example from those authors who taught all the later ones to write so well. I am the servant of my country; for her sake I labour, her circumstances I must consider, and whatsoever I shall pen I shall myself see it carried out, by the grace of God, in order the better to persuade others by offering the proof of trial.

The third question, as to my writing in English, and my being so careful--I will not say fastidious--in expression, concerns me more nearly, for it has some importance. It is the opinion of some that we should not treat any philosophical subject, or any ordinary subject in a philosophical manner, in the English tongue, because the unlearned find it too difficult to understand in any case, and the learned, holding it in little esteem, get no pleasure from it. In regard both to writing in English generally, and my own writing in particular, I have this to say: No one language is finer than any other naturally, but each becomes cultivated by the efforts of the speaker who, using such opportunities as are afforded by the kind of government under which he lives, endeavours to garnish it with eloquence, and enrich it with learning. Such a tongue, elegant in form and learned in matter, while it keeps within its natural soil, not only serves its immediate purpose with just admiration, but in foreigners who become acquainted with it, it kindles a great desire to have their own language resemble it. Thus it came to pass that the people of Athens beautified their speech in the practice of pleading, and enriched it with all kinds of knowledge, bred both within Greece and outside of it. Thus it came to pass that the people of Rome, having formed their practice in imitation of the Athenian, became enamoured with the eloquence of those from whom they were borrowing, and translated their learning also. However, there was not nearly the same amount of learning in the Latin tongue during the time of the Romans as there is at this day by the industry of students throughout the whole of Europe, who use Latin as a common means of expression, both in original works and in translations. Roman authority first planted Latin among us here, by force of their conquest, and its use in matters of learning causes it to continue. Therefore the so-called Latin tongues have their own peoples to thank, both for their own cultivation at home and for the favour they enjoy abroad. So it falls out that, as we are profited by means of these tongues, we should pay them honour, and yet not without cherishing our own, in regard both to cases where the usage is best and to those where it is open to improvement. For did not these tongues use even the same means to cultivate themselves before they proved so beautiful? Did the people shrink from putting into their own language the ideas they borrowed from foreign sources? If they had done so, we should never have had the works we so greatly admire.

There are two chief reasons which keep Latin, and to some extent other learned tongues, in high consideration among us,--the knowledge which is registered in them, and their use as a means of communication, in both speaking and writing, by the learned class throughout Europe. While these two benefits are retained, if there is anything else that can be done with our own tongue, either in beautifying it, or in turning it to practical account, we cannot but take advantage of it, even though Latin should thus be displaced, as it displaced others, bequeathing its learning to us. For is it not indeed a marvellous bondage, to become servants to one tongue for the sake of learning, during the greater part of our time, when we can have the very same treasure in our own language, which forms the joyful title to our liberty, as the Latin reminds us of our thraldom? I love Rome, but I love London better; I favour Italy, but I favour England more; I honour the Latin tongue, but I worship the English. I wish everything were in our tongue which the learned tongues gained from others, nor do I wrong them in treating them as they did their predecessors, teaching us by their example how boldly we may venture, notwithstanding the opinion of some among us, who desire rather to please themselves with a foreign language that they know, than to profit their country in their own language, which they ought to know. It is no argument to say: Will you dishonour those tongues which have honoured you, and without which you could never have enjoyed the learning of which you propose to rob them? For I honour them still, as much as any one, even in wishing my own tongue to be a partaker of their honour. For if I did not hold them in great admiration, because I know their value, I would not think it any honour for my own language to imitate their grace. I wish we had the stores with which they furnished themselves from foreign sources. For the tongues that we study were not the first getters, though by learned labour they prove to be good keepers, and they are ready to discharge their trust, in handing on to others what was committed to them for a term, and not in perpetuity. There can be no disgrace in their delivering to others what they received on that understanding. The dishonour will lie rather with the tongue that refuses to receive the inheritance intended for it and duly offered to it, and from this dishonour I would our language were free. I admit the good fortune of those tongues that had so great a start over others that they are most welcome wherever they set foot, and are always admired for their rare excellence, disposing all men to think little of any form of speech that does not resemble them, and to rank even the best of these as marvellously behind them. The diligent labour of the learned men of ancient times so enriched their tongues that they proved very pliable, as I am assured our own will prove, if our learned fellow-countrymen will bestow their labour on it. And why, I pray you, should such labour not be bestowed on English, as well as on Latin or any other language? Will you say it is needless? Certainly that will not hold. If loss of time over tongues, while you are pilgrims to learning, is no injury, or lack of sound skill, while language distracts the mind from the sense, especially with the foolish and inexperienced, then there might be some ground for holding it needless. But since there was no need for the present loss of time in study through labouring with tongues, and since our understanding is more perfect in our natural speech, however well we may know the foreign language, methinks necessity itself calls for English, by which all that bravery may be had at home that makes us gaze so much at the fine stranger. But you will say it is uncouth; so it is, through being unused. So was it with Latin, and so it is with every language. Cicero himself, the paragon of Rome while he was alive, and our best pattern now though he is dead, had great wrestling with such wranglers, and their disdain of their natural speech, before he won from the public of his time the opinion in which he was held by the best of his friends then, and is held by us now. Are not all his prefaces to his philosophical writings full of such conflicts with these cavillers? English wits are very well able, thank God, if the good will were present, to make that uncouth and unknown learning very familiar to our people in our own tongue, even by the example of those very writers we esteem so highly, who having done for other languages what I wish for ours in the like case, must needs approve of us, unless they assert that the merit of conveying knowledge from a foreign tongue died with them, not to revive among us. But whatever they may say to continue their own credit, our fellow-countrymen cannot but think that it is our praise to obtain by purchase and transplanting into our own tongue what they were so desirous to place in theirs, and are now so loth to forgo again; it is indeed the fairest flower of their whole garland, for these tongues would wither soon, or decay altogether, but for the great knowledge contained therein. If our people were not readier to wonder at their workmanship than to take trouble with their own tongue, they might have the same advantage. Our English is our own, and must be used by those to whom it belongs, as were those others that were ranked with the best.

But it may be replied that our English tongue is not worthy of such cultivation, because it has so little extent, stretching no further than this island of ours, and not even over the whole of that. What though this be true? Still it reigns here and serves our purpose; it should be brushed clean in order to be worn. Are not English folk, I pray you, as particular as foreigners? And is not as much taste needed for our tongue in speaking, and our pen in writing, as for apparel and diet? But, it will be said, our State is no empire, hoping to enlarge itself by ruling other countries. What then? Though it be neither large in possession, nor in present hope of great increase, yet where it rules it can make good laws to suit its position, as well as the largest country can, and often better, since in the greatest governments there is often confusion.

But again, it will be urged, we have no rare knowledge belonging to our soil to make foreigners study our tongue as a treasure of such store. What of that? We are able by its means to apply to our use all the great treasure both of foreign soil and of foreign language. And why may not English wits, if they will bend their wills to seek matter and method, be as much sought after by foreign students for the increase of their knowledge as our soil is already sought after by foreign merchants for the increase of their wealth? As the soil is fertile because it is cultivated, so the wits are not barren, if they choose to bring forth.

Yet though all this be true, we are in despair of ever seeing our own language so refined as were those where public orations were held in ordinary course, and the very tongue itself made a chariot to honour. Our State is a monarchy, which controls language, and teaches it to please; our religion is Christian, and prefers the naked truth to refinement of terms. What then? If for want of that exercise which the Athenian and the Roman enjoyed in their spacious courts, no Englishman should prove to be a Cicero or a Demosthenes, yet in truth he may prove comparable to them in his own commonwealth and in the eloquence that befits it. And why not indeed comparable to them in all points that concern his natural tongue? Our brain can bring forth; our ideas will bear life; our tongues are not tied, and our labour is our own. And eloquence itself is limited neither to one language nor to one soil; the whole world is its measure, and the wise ear is its judge, having regard not to greatness of state, but to the capacity of the people. And even though we should despair of altogether rivalling the excellence of foreign tongues, must our own therefore be unbeautified? It should certainly strive to reach its best if I could help. We may aspire to come to a certain height, even though we can pass no further. The nature of our government will admit true speaking and writing, and eloquence will be approved if it gives pleasure and is worthy of praise, so long as it preaches peace, and tends to preserve the State. Our religion does not condemn any ornament of language which serves the truth and does not presume overmuch. Nay, may not eloquence be a great blessing from God, and the trumpet of his honour, as Chrysostom calls that of St. Paul, if it be religiously bent? Those who have read the story of the early church find that eloquence in the primitive Christians overthrew great forces bent against our faith, and persuaded numbers to embrace the cause, when the power of truth was joined to force in the word. We should seek eloquence to serve God, but shun it to serve ourselves, unless we have God’s warrant.

But will you thus break off communication with learned foreigners by banishing Latin, and putting her learning into your own tongue? Communication will not cease while people have cause to interchange dealings, and it may easily be continued without Latin. Already in some countries, whose languages are akin to the Latin, the learned class are weaning their tongues and pens from the use of Latin, both in written discourse and spoken disputation, to their own natural speech. It is a question not of disgracing Latin, but of gracing our own language. Why should we honour a stranger more than our own, if the purpose be served? And although, on account of the limitations of our language, no foreigner would seek to borrow from us as we do from other tongues, because we devise nothing new, though we receive the old, yet we ourselves gain very much in study by being set from the first in the privy chambers of knowledge, through the familiarity of our native speech. Justinian the emperor said to the students of law, when he gave imperial force to his Institutes, that they were most happy in the advantage of hearing the Emperor’s voice at first hand, while those of earlier times were delayed for four whole years. And does not our study of foreign languages take us fully four years? If this were the only hindrance indeed, and if we gained otherwise, we could bear the loss. But it is not only time that is lost in studying foreign tongues, though we must use them till we learn to do without them. Who can deny that we understand best in our natural speech, seeing that all our foreign learning is applied through the medium of our own language, and learning is of value only in so far as it is applied to particular uses?