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

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

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

sentences.

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

In the first place, the brevity that is attainable in these languages gives them an immense superiority. Some testimonies in confirmation of this remark may be ob tained by comparing "the Latin examples of antithesis quoted in the notes of the third section of the preceding chapter, with any English translation that can be made

of these passages. And I suspect, if a version were attempted into any other European tongue, the success would not be much better. It is remarkable, that in any inscription in which it is intended to convey something striking or emphatical, we can scarcely endure a modern language. Latin is almost invariably employed for this purpose in all the nations of Europe. Nor is this the effect of caprice or pedantry, as some perhaps will be apt to imagine. Neither does it proceed merely, as others will suppose, from the opinion that that language is more universally understood; for I suspect that this is a prerogative which will be warmly contested by the French; but it proceeds from the general conviction there is, of its superiority in point of vivacity. That we may be satisfied of this, let us make the trial, by translating any of the best Latin inscriptions or mottos which we remember, and we shall quickly perceive, that what charms us expressed in their idiom, is scarcely supportable when rendered into our own*.

* Let us make the experiment on the inscriptions of some of the best devices or emblems that are extant. I shall give a few examples for illustration's sake, from the sixth of Bouhour's Entretiens d'Ariste et d'Bugene, called Les devises. The first shall be, that of a starry sky without the moon, as representing an as sembly of the fair, in which the lover finds not the object of his passion. The motto is, "Non mille quod absens." In English we must say," A thousand can"not equal one that is absent." Another instance shall be that of a rock in the midst of a tempestuous sea, to denote a hero who with facility baffles all the assaults of his enemies. The motto, "Conantia frangere frangit." In English, "I break the things which attempt to break me." In this example we are obliged to change the person of the verb, that the words may be equally applicable, both in the literal sense, and in the figurative, an essential point in this exercise of ingenuity. The personal pronoun in our language must always be expressed before the verb. Now the neuter it will not apply to the hero, nor the maculine he to the rock whereas the first person applies equally to both. The third instance shall be that of the ass eating thistles, as an emblem of a parasite who serves as a butt to the company that entertain him. The motto, "Pungant dum saturent." In English, "Let them sting me, provided they fill my belly." In all these, how nervous is the expression in the original; how spiritless in the translation! Nor is this recourse to a multitude of words peculiar to us. All European languages labour, though not equally, under the same inconvenience. For the French take Bouhours's version of the preceding mottos. The first is, " Mille ne valent pas ce que vaut une absente." The second," Il brise ce qui fait effort pour le briser." This version is not perfectly adequate. The Latin implies a number of enemies, which is not implied here, Better thus, " Il brise les choses qui font effort pour "le briser." The third is, Qu'ils me piquent, pourveu qu'ils me saouilent." These are in no respect superior to the English. The Italian and the Spanish answer here a little better. Bouhours himself, who is extremely unwilling, even in the smallest matters, to acknowledge any thing like a defect or imperfection in the French tongue, is nevertheless constrained to admit, that it is not well ad apted for furnishing such mottos and inscriptions.

The luggage of particles, such as pronouns, prepositions, and uxiliary verbs, from which it is impossible for us entirely to disencumber ourselves, clogs the expression, and enervates the sentiment.

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

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

whilst that by which their union is produced is scarcely perceivable.

Addison, if I remember right, somewhere compares an epic poem, (and the same holds, though in a lower degree, of every other literary production) written in Greek or in Latin, to a magnificent edifice, built of mar ble, porphyry, or granite, and contrast with it such a poem or performance in one of our modern languages, which he likens to such a building executed in freestone, or any of those coarser kinds of stone which abound in some northern climates. The latter may be made to answer all the essential purposes of accommodation as well as the former, but as the materials of which it is constructed, are not capable of receiving the same polish, and consequently cannot admit some of the finer decorations, it will not only be inferior in beauty, but its imitative ornament will be much less lively and expressive. It may nevertheless be equal to the other both in grandeur and in utility. If the representations that have been given of the Chinese language are genuine, if all their words are monosyllabic and indeclinable, if every relation and circumstance, even time and number, must be expressed by separate particles, I should think a performance in their tongue might be justly compared to a building in brick, which may be both neat and convenient, but which hardly admits the highly ornamented finishing of any order of architecture, or indeed any other species of beauty than that resulting from the perception of fitness. But this only by the way.

If I might be indulged one other similitude, I should remark, that the difference between the ancient Greek and Latin, and the modern European languages, is extremely analogous to the difference there is between their garb and ours. The latter will perhaps be admitted to be equally commodious, possibly for some purposes more so; but with its trumpery of buttons and button-holes, ligatures and plaits formally opposed to one another, it is stiff and unnatural in its appearance; whereas the easy flow and continually varied foldings of the former,