There can of course be no difficulty in choosing passages in the text of Shakspere, illustrative in every way of the language and furnishing subject of verbal study, but I will not forbear pointing out that less familiar though very remarkable passage-the speech of Ulysses, beginning,

'Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,'

It is not neces

in the third scene of the third act of Troilus and Cressida. sary here to show by actual quotation how passages from the text of Milton may also be used, though this should be only when accompanied with a distinct knowledge of the nature of his English. The text of Wordsworth may be used to show what is the English of our own day in admirable purity, and the student of the language will feel it by examining minutely and critically the words in almost any selection from his poems. For example, let the fitness and expressiveness of the words in these stanzas be considered:

Lives there a man whose sole delights
Are trivial pomp and city noise
Hardening a heart that loathes or slights
What every natural heart enjoys?
Who never caught a noon-tide dream
From murmur of a running stream;
Could strip, for aught the prospect yields
To him, their verdure from the fields;
And take the radiance from the clouds
In which the sun his setting shrouds.

A soul so pitiably forlorn,

If such do on this earth abide,
May season apathy with scorn,
May turn indifference to pride;
And still be not unblest-compared
With him who grovels, self-debarred
From all that lies within the scope
Of holy faith and Christian hope;
Or shipwrecked, kindles on the coast
False fires, that others may be lost.

'On the Founding of Rydal Chapel.'

The study of the English language should be cultivated by means of quotations from the prose literature also, with the especial care that no author be resorted to, no matter how brilliant his reputation, unless he be distinguished for the purity of his language and some of the varied excellencies of English style. Instruction may be gained from the gorgeous

diction of Jeremy Taylor, or the stately eloquence of Milton's prose; or, on the other hand, from the simple and idiomatic strength of Swift. A style combining in a great measure these opposite qualities may be found in the speeches and writings of Burke, whose manly and statesmanly philosophy found utterance in English that is worthy of his high and practical wisdom. Let such a passage as this be set before the student, to dwell on the language of it with the verbal care that is bestowed on the text of an ancient author:

"Hitherto the name of poor (in the sense in which it is used to excite compassion) has not been used for those who can, but for those who cannot labour-for the sick and infirm; for orphan infancy; for languishing and decrepid age: but when we affect to pity as poor, those who must labour or the world cannot exist, we are trifling with the condition of mankind. It is the common doom of man that he must eat his bread by the sweat of his brow, that is, by the sweat of his body, or the sweat of his mind. If this toil was inflicted as a curse, it is as might be expected from the curses of the Father of all blessings-it is tempered with many alleviations, many comforts. Every attempt to fly from it, and to refuse the very terms of our existence, becomes much more truly a curse, and heavier pains and penalties fall upon those who would elude the tasks which are put upon them by the great Master Workman of the world, who in his dealings with his creatures sympathizes with their weakness, and speaking of a creation wrought by mere will out of nothing, speaks of six days of labour and one of rest. I do not call a healthy young man, cheerful in his mind, and vigorous in his arms, I cannot call such a man, poor; I cannot pity my kind as a kind, merely because they are men. This affected pity only tends to dissatisfy them with their condition, and to teach them to seek resources where no resources are to be found, in something else than their own industry, and frugality, and sobriety."— Letters on a Regicide Peace.' Let. III.

Our language, in another of its phases, may be studied in the letters of Cowper, which are justly characterized as the pattern of pure graceful idiomatic English. The merit of the style of Cowper's best biographerSouthey-has also often been acknowledged, and it would be easy to use quotations from his various and voluminous prose works. A passage in one of them-his Colloquies'-is so appropriate to the subject of this introduction, that I am led to insert it here:

·

"There is another mischief arising out of ephemeral literature, which was noticed by the same great author, (Ben Jonson.) Wheresoever manners and fashions are corrupted,' says he, 'language is. It imitates the Dublic riot. The excesses of feasts and apparel are the notes of a sick state; and the wantonness of language of a sick mind.' observation of a man well versed in the history of the ancients and in their

This was the

literature. The evil prevailed in his time to a considerable degree; but it was not permanent, because it proceeded rather from the affectation of a few individuals than from any general cause. The great poets were free from it; and our prose writers then, and till the end of that century, were preserved, by their sound studies and logical habits of mind, from any of those faults into which men fall who write loosely because they think loosely. The pedantry of one class and the colloquial vulgarity of another had their day; the faults of each were strongly contrasted, and better writers kept the mean between them. More lasting effect was produced by translators, who, in later times, have corrupted our idiom as much as, in early ones, they enriched our vocabulary; and to this injury the Scotch have greatly contributed,-for, composing in a language which is not their mother tongue, they necessarily acquire an artificial and formal style, which, not so much through the merit of a few as owing to the perseverance of others, who for half a century seated themselves on the bench of criticism, has almost superseded the vernacular English of Addison and Swift. Our journals, indeed, have been the great corrupters of our style, and continue to be so; and not for this reason only. Men who write in newspapers and magazines and reviews, write for present effect; in most cases this is as much their natural and proper aim, as it would be in public speaking; but when it is so, they consider, like public speakers, not so much what is accurate or just, either in matter or manner, as what will be acceptable to those whom they address. Writing also under the excitement of emulation and rivalry, they seek, by all the artifices and efforts of an ambitious style, to dazzle their readers; and they are wise in their generation, experience having shown that common minds are taken by glittering faults, both in prose and verse, as larks are with looking-glasses."-SOUTHEY'S 'Colloquies,' vol. ii. p. 296.

Of another contemporary author, whose writings might be advantageously used as models, it has been well said that Arnold's style is worthy of his manly understanding and the noble simplicity of his character.' A few sentences of historical description will show the justice of this praise, while it adds another specimen of the kind of English, which should be employed in the study of the language:

"Before the sweeping pursuit of Hannibal's Numidians, crowds of fugitives were seen flying towards the city, while the smoke of burning houses arose far and wide into the sky. Within the walls the confusion and terror were at their height: he was come at last, this Hannibal, whom they had so long dreaded; he had at length dared what even the slaughter of Cannæ had not emboldened him to venture; some victory greater even than Canna must have given him this confidence; the three armies before Capua must be utterly destroyed; last year he had destroyed or dispersed three other armies, and had gained possession of the entire south of Italy; and now

he had stormed the lines before Capua, had cut to pieces the whole remaining force of the Roman people, and was come to Rome to finish his work. So the wives and mothers of Rome lamented, as they hurried to the temples; and there, prostrate before the gods, and sweeping the sacred pavement with their unbound hair in the agony of their fear, they remained pouring forth their prayers for deliverance. Their sons and husbands hastened to man the walls and the citadel, and to secure the most important points without the city; whilst the senate, as calm as their fathers of old, whom the Gauls massacred when sitting at their own doors, but with the energy of manly resolution, rather than the resignation of despair, met in the forum, and there remained assembled, to direct every magistrate on the instant, how he might best fulfil his duty.

"But God's care watched over the safety of a people, whom he had chosen to work out the purposes of his providence; Rome was not to perish.

* * * * *

* * * "Hannibal, at the head of a large body of cavalry, came close up to the Colline gate, rode along leisurely under the walls to see all he could of the city, and is said to have cast his javelin into it as in defiance. From farthest Spain he had come into Italy; he had wasted the whole country of the Romans and their allies with fire and sword for more than six years, had slain more of their citizens than were now alive against him; and at last he was shutting them up within their city, and riding freely under their walls, while none dared meet him in the field. If any thing of disappointment depressed his mind at that instant; if he felt that Rome's strength was not broken, nor the spirit of her people quelled, that his own fortune was wavering, and that his last effort had been made, and made in vain; yet, thinking where he was, and of the shame and loss which his presence was causing to his enemies, he must have wished that his father could have lived to see that day, and must have thanked the gods of his country, that they had enabled him so fully to perform his vow.”— ARNOLD'S History of Rome,' chap. 44.

In bringing these somewhat desultory remarks to a close, I must state that I have thought proper to refrain from adding any thing in the way of doubt or difference of opinion to the explanations of the synonyms given in the volume. I have not felt the necessity of interfering with the book in such a way, and will only introduce here a few lines to be taken in connection with the title shall and will. The following is the explanation given by Wallis in his Grammar of the English Language (1699): it is of authority as being the distinction drawn by a mind so logical and so well trained in the processes of exact science as that of the Savilian Professor of Geometry.

"Shall et will indicant Futurum.

"Quoniam autem extraneis satis est cognitu difficile, quando hoc vel llud dicendum est (non enim promiscue dicimus shall et will); neque

tamen alii quos vidi ullas tradidere regulas quibus dirigantur: has ego tradere necessarium duxi, quas qui observaverit hac in re non aberrabit.

In primis personis shall simpliciter prædicentis est; will quasi promittentis aut minantis.

"In secundis et tertiis personis, shall promittentis est aut minantis ; will simpliciter prædicentis."— Grammatica Linguæ Anglicanæ.'

I have been tempted to extend this Introduction beyond what I at first intended, by a desire to promote an important but much-neglected subject of study. In pointing out some of the uses of this volume as a text-book, I hoped at the same time to suggest some of the means by which in many and various ways the systematic study of our own language may be made interesting. To prove that I do not speak with undue earnestness respecting the intrinsic value and interest of the study, I add, in conclusion, a few authorities, which, I am sure, cannot fail to make an impression upon those who have the cause of sound education at heart.

"Exceedingly irksome as the mere learning of rules about a language, which we are actually speaking, is, that very irksomeness may be useful if it is made a step to the very delightful exercise (I should think there were very few more delightful) of ascertaining what the laws are which we do actually follow, and must follow, when we speak so as to make ourselves intelligible to others. This is one part of the study of language, but the mind of the pupil will become very cold and formal, though possibly very acute and ingenious, if it is made the only one. The consideration of words, of their connections with each other, of their origin and history, and of the new meanings they contracted as they came in contact with new subjects, is the other and vital part of it. How deep an interest boys at a very early age may take in this pursuit! what clearness, liveliness, honesty, it gives to their minds! At the same time, what a sense of awfulness and mystery in themselves, and in that language which they are every day using! consequently, what a serious meditative habit it cultivates in them, without in the least destroying the gaiety of their spirits, I think we may all have observed. I can conceive scarcely any pursuit a teacher can engage in, which would bring him in so many rewards of increased acquaintance with his pupil's mind, and with his own, or one therefore for which it would be more his duty to train himself diligently and systematically.”'Lectures on National Education,' by the Rev. Professor Maurice, of King's College, London.

"A word which has no precise meaning, can but poorly fulfill its office of being a sign and guide of thought: and if it be connected with matters interesting to the feelings, or of practical moment, it may easily become mischievous. Now in a language like ours, in which the abstract terms are mostly imported from abroad, such terms, when they get into general circulation, are especially liable to be misunderstood and perverted; inasmuch as

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