The English Language.

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ART. III.-1. The English Language. By R. G. LATHAM, M.D., late Professor of the English Language and Literature, University College, London. Second Edition. London, 1848. 2. Outlines of English Literature. By T. B. SHAW, B.A., Professor of English Literature in the Imperial Alexander Lyceum of St. Petersburg. London, 1849.

3. The Rise, Progress, and Present Structure of the English Language. By the Rev. M. HARRISON, A.M. London, 1848.

THE fact is now generally acknowledged that-owing to whatever cause, whether to want of skill, or of care, or of lovethe laws of the English tongue have (great and small) been oftener and more glaringly broken, and that by some of its best writers, than those of almost any other refined language. It is therefore gratifying to see, from the number of works which are now devoted to this subject, that greater attention is bestowed upon the principles of our language than at any former time. Three of these works head our paper; whereof the first is by far the ablest, the second (of which only one chapter is allotted to the language) is perhaps the most readable, and the third is the latest and most practical.

Commending them to our readers, we shall take leave of these books for the present, and turn to a part of the field they have but slightly touched upon; inquiring what have been the past, and what are the present tendencies of the English tongue, with regard to the matter it employs, and whether these may be deemed for good or evil.

Our countrymen have always been prone to overlook the inborn strength of their own language, and to draw on the riches of a foreign element. In the thirteenth century, Robert of Gloucester could utter the taunt, that nowhere but in England did men slight their mother tongue

'I ween there be ne man in world contreyes' none

That ne holdeth to their kind (natural) speech, but England lone;' and it might have been uttered many times since. For instance, looking into any newspaper of the day, we find ourselves entreated to buy Antigropelos, Euknemida, Rypophagon, and so forth; and we afterwards find that these are not, as would be expected, the names of unknown curiosities from a far land, but of things not more uncommon than ridingboots, gaiters, and shaving soap. These are but the bolder tokens of deeprooted evil; of great affectation, of false delicacy, of greater love to a foreign language than to our own, of mistrust in the powers of

English, and therefore of their gradual decay from want of exercise; evils which have all along been the besetting sins of our literature, which have abated at times, and which now at last give some promise of entirely disappearing. Yet these tendencies were for good as well as for evil. By contact with the Roman languages, ours became more polished; and it was moreover enriched with many new tones, words, and idioms.

But, although it may be allowed that, in times past, such a leaning was not altogether hurtful, it is not too much to say that it was overdone even then; and that, if persevered in now or hereafter, nothing but evil can come of it. That it was overdone will be shown afterwards by a passing glance at the history of the language; and that it bodes unmitigated evil for the future is evident, inasmuch as we have already reaped all the advantages that it had to bestow. Our speech can hardly become more polished than it is, and certainly not by means of one less polished than itself; hardly also may its tones be improved, for, though it has not the prevailing mellowness of the Italian, or the sustained dignity of the Spanish, it has, like the pianoforte, such a happy blending of both, that any change would only take away from what is a great beauty, variety in the compass of sound; and as for more words and phrases, the English tongue is already so fully equipped, and so powerful, that (take it for all in all) it stands at the head of living languages. The evils, therefore, of such a course cannot be balanced by any benefit.

These evils are briefly twofold, trenching as they do upon the picturesque beauty of the language, and upon its fertility. Upon these two our argument is mainly founded, although there are others to rest upon. Much weight, however, cannot be laid on the first, as the parties who chiefly offend give little heed to the beautiful, and can only be reached by motives of more striking utility. Such a motive is the other. Every language has a seed within itself, and there can be no doubt that to each one its own fruit is always better than the fruit of any other, and that, therefore, when new words are needed, we should get them from the natural sources of the language. But the seeds of the English tongue have been stunted in their growth, and have long lain dormant, till we have well-nigh killed them. Whenever new words have been wanted, they have been grafted from without, instead of growing from within, and they have been grafted even when there has been no want. Now, is it not a woful spectacle to behold a language, very widely spread, endowed with the noblest literature in existence, lauded as second only to the Greek for vigour and beauty, and yet (we will not say wanting productive power, but) lying fallow-producing little of its own, and indebted for almost every new word

Progress of Reformation.

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to languages less powerful and less beautiful than itself? It cannot yet be said with truth, that it has entirely lost its productive power, but it soon may, and already it has been greatly weakened. We have forgotten much, but we have not forgotten all, and there is therefore time to remedy the mischief. This can only be done by giving fuller and fairer play to the native, that is, the great Saxon element of the language; and we are thankful that people are beginning to see the matter in this light; otherwise, considering how many new words are being added to our language, the greater part of which come from abroad, our tongue might be in danger of dying out: a dialect might indeed outlive, but it would not be Motherenglish, it would be Doglatin.

The evil, then, is being somewhat amended, but it is to be feared almost unwittingly. This, indeed, marks the history of our language above every other, that its changes have taken place haphazard, without help of reason or foreknowledge. Every one who knows anything of its history, must have seen changes made in gross ignorance of its make and laws, and according to the random whims of taste, often a bad one; nay, some of them were the effects of downright laziness. It is always easier to take a word ready made from another language, than to find or coin one in our own, as it has always been cheaper for slaveholders to import or buy slaves than to rear them; and, accordingly, says Tyrwhitt, the poets, after the Conquest, saw it their interest to borrow as many words as they could from France; and being, for a long time chiefly translators, "the expedient saved them the trouble of hunting for correspondent terms in Saxon." Yet, though one cannot help thinking the taste bad which directed many of these changes, it was not unnatural, seeing our native literature had not then a gleaning of the renown it has since reaped. We of the present day cannot agree with it, because the immortal writings of our ancestors have given us another taste, a greater liking for English than for Latin or French; still more are we at odds with their reason, because they had very little reason; they did not ask for reasons in making the changes which they did; and, accordingly, we not only think that the beauty of the language has been marred, but are sure that its prolific power and strength of frame have been very much weakened. Like that eagle which stole from the altar a piece of flesh to which some embers were sticking, and thereby burnt up his nest, the more we have thieved from the classical dictionaries, the more has the inward life of the English tongue been scorched and dried up.

We are reforming the language thus partially and unwittingly, because the evil is but dimly seen; but, were it even seen

fully, any attempt at amendment must be greatly hindered by the principle on which every rule for English composition has been founded, That we should keep to the fashion. Our language may be tight-laced, but no matter, saith the grammar, custom wills it. That whatever is is right, is its first maxim; and many are the rules for finding what may be deemed reputable usage. Having no love for sudden, sweeping revolutions, we do not quarrel with this, except in so far as it blinds us to higher principles, and to the real errors of the language. But we are sure that far too much stress has been laid on the maxim, and far too much deference paid to usage, when we know that such a man as Fox forbore the use of very good words, simply because not found in writers like Dryden. This has arisen from an idea that our tongue is fixed, and has been fixed ever since the days of Queen Anne, like Attic Greek, or classical Latin. But no language, while living, has ever stood still, and English hath always been on the wing: it cannot, therefore, and will not now remain at rest. Not a few are the words daily coined; none of the later poets have given so many new words as Tennyson. Wherever there is original thinking, the mind craves for original wording; wherever there are poets there are wordminters; the very name of the Danish Scald told he was a smoother of language. But while so many new words are being framed-more perhaps than at any former time-it so happens that a new kind of words is making its appearance; pure English, introduced chiefly by the students of German literature. Our forefathers followed their taste, and these are seemingly guided by nothing but taste; it so happens that the former went wrong, it so happens that the latter are right. They are right, (if we may judge,) but it is to be wished that they were right on principle; else their very love for the German mind may mislead them in the end. For the Germans are doing all they can to cripple their language, out of love to the dead tongues, as if a man were to chop off his own leg in admiration of wooden ones.

Let us know, then, distinctly where we are, and what we are about, and whither our language is driving. There are two roads before it, a northern and a southern, a German and a Roman: it hovers betwixt the two; and it is for us to say which it shall take. We may choose the one or the other, but let us choose with our eyes open, let us choose on principle. To this end some observations have already been adventured; and it may help still further to a sound opinion, if we bring to mind the historical position of the language, and if we can find the present value of its two great elements.

To begin with the latter: what part of the language is native,

Opinion of Sir Thomas More.

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and what share of it foreign? This can be answered very nearly. In round numbers, the native or Saxon words have to do with the sensible world, and foreign words with the spiritual; the former stand for things particular and concrete, the latter for things general and abstract. There are exceptions; general words Saxon, particular words foreign; and the language is thus gifted with many synonyms, both pleasing from their variety and helpful from their number; but the rule is, that whenever we leave the lower ground of the material, and mount into the airy regions of the immaterial; whenever we begin to abstract, to generalize, to classify, we then begin to use Latin and Greek words.

A wrong use, however, has been made of this fact: it has been said, that Saxon is barren of words, and that if English were robbed of its Greek or Latin terms, it would be shorn of its main strength. We would rob it of nothing that is really valuable. Of course, were we to weed out a number of its words, and not plant others instead, we should leave the language bare; but bare is not barren. This objection is as old as Sir Thomas More, and he answered it with a flat denial. There is no doubt, he said, but English is "plenteouse enoughe to expresse our myndes in any thinge whereof one man hath used to speke with another." It has no lack of words for the things of sense, and whence, but from these (with which every language teems, and English overflows) are obtained those abstract or scientific or philosophic names which mark what cannot be perceived by sense? Granting that Saxon is without such words, is it not unreasonable to ask a list of philosophic names ready made? The stuff is there-full store-for making these words, and if nobody makes them, why blame the language? Let us rather blame ourselves. The Saxon is not a whit worse off than the Latin or Greek; for there was a time when these had no philosophic language, and when the wise men had to frame one for themselves.

But the other inquiry is awaiting, namely, as to the rise and progress of the language. How came our tongue to be what it is? And what verdict doth history pass on the question we are now discussing?

In the fifth century, the Saxons became masters of England, and their speech was spoken throughout the land, though with a small sprinkling of words from the British. By the end of the tenth century, they were themselves overcome by the Danes, who, first landing in 787, passed into the country in large num bers, settled there, and, at last, after a long string of defeats and victories, gained completely the upperhand, when (about fifty years before the Norman Conquest) Canute ascended the throne, and thereby the Saxon had a new sprinkling of words from the