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* * * * *
* * * *
* * * * *
Series Six:
_Poetry and Language_
No. 1
John Oldmixon, _Reflections on Dr.
Swift's Letter to Harley_ (1712);
and
Arthur Mainwaring, _The British
Academy_ (1712).
With an Introduction by
Louis A. Landa
The Augustan Reprint Society
September, 1948
_Price: 75 cents_
_GENERAL EDITORS_
RICHARD C. BOYS, _University of Michigan_
EDWARD NILES HOOKER, _University of California, Los Angeles_
H. T. SWEDENBERG, JR., _University of California, Los Angeles_
_ASSISTANT EDITOR_
W. EARL BRITTON, _University of Michigan_
_ADVISORY EDITORS_
EMMETT L. AVERY, _State College of Washington_
BENJAMIN BOYCE, _University of Nebraska_
LOUIS I. BREDVOLD, _University of Michigan_
CLEANTH BROOKS, Yale University
JAMES L. CLIFFORD, _Columbia University_
ARTHUR FRIEDMAN, _University of Chicago_
SAMUEL H. MONK, _University of Minnesota_
ERNEST MOSSNER, _University of Texas_
JAMES SUTHERLAND, _Queen Mary College, London_
Lithoprinted from copy supplied by author
by
Edwards Brothers, Inc.
Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A.
1948
_INTRODUCTION_
The two tracts reprinted here, as well as Swift's _Proposal for
correcting, improving and ascertaining the English tongue_, which
occasioned them, may be viewed in the context of the many seventeenth-
and eighteenth-century suggestions for the formation of a British
Academy. They are in part a result of the founding of the French Academy
in 1635, although the feeling in England that language needed regulating
to prevent its corruption and decline was not purely derivative. By the
close of the seventeenth century an informed Englishman might have been
familiar with a series of native proposals, ranging from those of Carew
of Antony and Edmund Bolton early in the century to that of Defoe at the
close. Among the familiar figures who urged the advantages of an Academy
were Evelyn, the Earl of Roscommon, and Dryden. Of these Dryden was
particularly vocal; but Evelyn's suggestion, associated as it was with
the Royal Society, was rather more spectacular. In 1665 he set forth for
the Society's Committee for Improving the Language an exhaustive
catalogue of the forces tending to the corruption of the English tongue.
Those, he declared, are "victories, plantations, frontiers, staples of
commerce, pedantry of schools, affectation of travellers, translations,
fancy and style of court, vernility and mincing of citizens, pulpits,
political remonstrances, theatres, shops, &c." There follows Evelyn's
careful formulation of the problems facing those who would refine the
language and fix its standards.
This sense of the corruption of the language and of the urgent need for
regulation was communicated to the eighteenth century, in which a number
of powerful voices called for action. Early in the period Addison
advocated "something like an Academy that by the best Authorities and
Rules ... shall settle all Controversies between Grammar and Idiom"
(_The Spectator_, No. 135). He was followed by Swift, who in turn was
followed by such diverse persons as Orator Henlay, the Earl of Orrery,
and the Earl of Chesterfield. Curiously, Johnson's appears to be the
only weighty voice in opposition: "the edicts of an English Academy," he
insisted, "would probably be read by many, only that they might be sure
to disobey them."
But if the two tracts reprinted here may be viewed in this context, they
may also be seen from another vantage--as part of the interminable
wrangling in the period between Whigs and Tories, even over a matter so
apparently non-political as the founding of an Academy. Since it was
Swift's "petty treatise on the English Language"--the epithet is
Johnson's--which provoked these two replies, we must look briefly at
his handiwork. Swift was undoubtedly guilty of pride of authorship with
respect to his _Proposal_, which appeared on May 17, 1712, in the form
of a _Letter to the Earl of Oxford_. He had touched on the problem
earlier in the _Tatler_ (No. 230), but this is a more considered effort.
In June, 1711, he first broached to Harley the idea of "a society or
academy for correcting and settling our language," and with Harley's
approval he began to compose the _Letter_. Yet it was eight months
before the document reached Harley and another two months, during which
it circulated among friends, before Swift retrieved it for the printer.
Thus, and this fact has significance, the _Proposal_ had its inception
and its first consideration in the Tory circles attached to the Harley
ministry. A few days before its publication Swift wrote to Stella:
"I suffer my name to be put at the End of it, wch I nevr did before in
my Life."
Now this willingness to publish under his own name also has a special
significance. It is not merely, as is often assumed, that he cherished
the project, though very likely that played a part. He was motivated,
I am convinced, by a desire to flaunt the _Proposal_ as a party
document. It is true that he wrote to Stella two weeks after its
publication that "there are 2 Answers come out to it already, tho tis no
Politicks, but a harmless Proposall about the Improvement of the Engl.
Tongue." "I believe," he added, "If I writt an Essay upon Straw some
fool would answer it." But this disclaimer is ingenuous in the light of
the political overtones in the _Proposal_; for example, the extended
praise of Barley as one who saved his country from ruin "by a foreign
war and a domestic faction." In fact, the lengthy panegyric of the Lord
Treasurer, as well as other matter, is bluntly and deliberately
partisan. It could not conceivably have been interpreted otherwise by
contemporaries; nor could Swift have been unaware of its provocative
impact upon his readers. Oldmixon remarks ironically of this part the
_Proposal_--and small wonder that he does--that it is "incomparable,
full of the most delicate Eulogy In the World." Furthermore Swift knew,
in view of his position as leading writer for the Tory ministry, that to
sign his name was to invite attack--even if he wrote, as he says, upon
straw.
There is no doubt he thought the formation of an Academy a matter of
great importance. Why then did he deliberately introduce controversial
elements and thus make impossible a discussion of his proposal wholly on
its merits? I suggest as a possible answer that he wished the Whigs to
dissociate themselves from the project and that he used the tactics
expected to achieve this end, in the desire that entire credit for the
founding of the Academy should rest with Harley and Harley's supporters.
The partisan approach was therefore shrewdly calculated to provoke
opposition and to avoid any leaven of Whiggism in the "institution and
patronage" of the Academy. Swift wanted the contemporary prestige, as
well as the favorable verdict of posterity, to be unmistakably placed.
Nevertheless there was no intention of excluding meritorious Whigs from
the original membership--only, as is clear from Swift's attitude, from
the "institution and patronage" of the Academy. In a list of
Academicians drawn up by Swift and Harley, unhappily not extant, members
of both parties were included--so Swift wrote to Archbishop King in
Dublin, and there is no reason to doubt it. Even Oldmixon grudgingly
reports that Swift had promised "the Whigs that they shall come in if
they will." However violent his partisanship at times, Swift could and
did respect merit; and Harley was always ready to placate individual
members of the Opposition. There is therefore no need to take seriously,
as Oldmixon and the authors of _The British Academy_ pretend to do, the
list of potential members of the Academy printed first in the _Amsterdam
Gazette_ and quoted in _The British Academy_. It will be seen at a
glance that they constitute that dinner group of Tory "Brothers," the
Society to which Swift belonged, a group sufficient for its avowed
purpose--"to advance conversation and friendship, and to reward
deserving persons"--but of course he would not have accepted them _in
toto_ for the Academy.
The Whig writers began their attack on the _Proposal_ immediately. In
the _Medley_, founded by Mainwaring and Oldmixon "to provide an Antidote
against the Poison of the Examiner," there is a brief reference in the
issue of May 19-23, 1712, to "the very extraordinary Letter to a Great
Man," followed in the next issue by an extended political attack with
the _Proposal_ as the point of departure. Thus at the outset Swift's
pamphlet was treated as a party document. At the same time the Whig
writers were readying two pamphlets in answer, both announced in the
_Medley_ of May 19-23 as soon to be printed. Apparently neither of these
appeared, at least not under the announced titles; but by May 26
Oldmixon's _Reflections_ had been published anonymously and was referred
to in the _Medley_ as "a very ingenious Pamphlet." As any reader of the
_Reflections_ will observe for himself, the pamphlet opens on a violent
political note and sustains it throughout. Although Oldmixon is more
concerned to level charges against Swift--a lewd, irreverent cleric,
a turncoat, a party scribbler, etc.--than to deny the validity of
Swift's views concerning the language, he does directly challenge
certain points. And he arrives at a conclusion which may well have been
the result of honest conviction rather than mere party opposition: that
it is neither desirable nor possible to fix the language forever. In a
sense this was the chief issue, and the one where the authoritarian view
as represented by Swift and others was most vulnerable. Is it possible,
by the edicts of an academy however eminent its members and respected
its authority, to negate or control the principle of change inherent in
language? Unfortunately Oldmixon did not live long enough to see his
attitude aggressively expounded by one of greater stature who also took
issue with Swift, both in the _Preface to the Dictionary_ and in the
life of Swift.
_The British Academy_, published May 30, 1712 (advertised in the
_Spectator_ of that date), is of composite authorship. The one person
known to have had a hand in it--"a great Hand," says Oldmixon--is
Arthur Mainwaring (_The life and posthumous works of Arthur Maynwaring,
Esq._ [London, 1715], p. 324; this is the source of most of our
knowledge of Mainwaring.). The identity of Mainwaring's collaborators is
a matter of conjecture. Perhaps the most eligible are those who assisted
with the _Medley_, as Steele, Anthony Henley, and White Kennett. Among
other possibilities are such active Whig writers as Thomas Burnet and
George Duckett; and even Oldmixon cannot be ruled out. Doubtless
Mainwaring was the inspiring spirit--of this as well as other attacks
on the group surrounding Harley. Poet, ardent Jacobite convert to
Whiggism, member of the Kit Kat Club, member of Parliament, and Auditor
of the Imprest, Mainwaring had a brief but full career. It included a
part in the _Whig Examiner_ and chief responsibility for the _Medley_.
In the course of his political opposition he appears to have developed a
genuine hatred of Swift, to whom he always referred, if Oldmixon's word
can be trusted, as "one of the wickedest Wretches alive." By May, 1712,
when _The British Academy_ was published, he was already ill of the
disease which ended in his death a few months later; but he seems to
have retained his vigor and his clear intelligence to the end. _The
British Academy_ is shrewdly conceived to cast odium on Swift's proposal
for an Academy by identifying its potential members as a Tory faction
and the whole project as merely a scheme to provide Harley with a set of
pensioners who would be obliged in gratitude "to revere his Virtue and
his Memory." Whereas in the _Reflections_ Swift is assaulted with hard
obvious blows, in _The British Academy_ a more subtle intelligence is
evident: the attack is oblique and ironic, and a tone of Addisonian
urbanity is fairly well maintained. Nevertheless it is not as literature
that these two answers to Swift are to be judged. They are minor, though
interesting, documents in political warfare which cut athwart a
significant cultural controversy.
-- Louis A. Landa
Princeton University
John Oldmixon's _Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley_ (1712) is
reproduced here, with permission, from the copy owned by the University
of Chicago Library; Mainwaring's _British Academy_ (1712) is reproduced
here, with permission, from the copy owned by the Newberry Library,
Chicago.
* * * * *
* * * *
REFLECTIONS
on
Dr. _Swift_'s
LETTER
to the
Earl of _OXFORD_,
About The
_English_ Tongue.
_LONDON:_
Sold by _A. Baldwin_ at the _Oxford Arms_ in
_Warwick-Lane_. (Price Six Pence.)
THE PREFACE
_The Bold Manner of publishing the +Letter+ for +correcting, improving+,
and +ascertaining the+ English +Tongue+, made me conclude there was
something very extraordinary in it, and more than any one could expect
from Persons that were never thought to trouble themselves much about
+Fine Language+. But upon dipping into it, I found there was nothing
worthy the Character the Author acquir'd by other Ingenious Pieces in
our Tongue, tho' I confess, it was not so much for the Beauty of his
Style as for other Qualities, some of which a Divine need not brag of._
_'Tis probable, our late Correspondence with +France+ put such a Whim
into some Folks Heads, and because they have an +Academy+ for the same
Use at +Paris+, we forsooth must have one at +London+. The Foreign News,
which sometimes tells us more Truth of our doings here than our own, has
the very Names of the Members of the +Academy+ which the Doctor speaks
of. I do not find that it is come to any thing more yet than meeting
over a Bottle once a Week, and being Merry. At which Times People mind
talking much, more than talking well. I shou'd have taken what is
printed in the +Amsterdam+ Gazette to have been only a dull +Dutch+ Jest
upon those Men, if this +Letter+ had not been written, and some broad
Hints given, that we are to be happier than we thought of, and to be
surpriz'd with a Society that shall make us as Polite as that of
+Reformation+ has made us +Godly+; and I wish it may answer the Ends of
it with all my Heart. But the more I reflected upon this +Project+ and
the +Projectors+, the more I was diffident of it, for the Reasons
mention'd in the following Pages._
_I know very well the Epistle has but a sorry Reputation, even with the
Writer's own +Party+, that it is looked upon as a silly superficial
Performance, and to be design'd only for an Opportunity to shew what a
+Nack+ he has at +Panegyrick+. Be that as it will, after I had
consider'd the Subject he writes more leisurely than I was won't to do,
I was loth to lose those Considerations; and having put 'em into this
Form, I flatter'd my self the Publick would not receive them ill; at
least all those whom Faction and Prejudice have not render'd Insensible
of Truth and Reason, and to such, a Man must be well set to work that
writes a Task suitable to the Integrity and Ability of +Abel+ and his
Brethren, among whom I am very unwilling to reckon our Author._
REFLECTIONS
on
Dr. _Swift_'s Letter,
about
Refining the ENGLISH TONGUE.
I should be guilty of the greatest Folly in the World, if I should go
about to give a Character of Persons of whom I have no manner of
Knowledge. To speak well or ill of 'em wou'd be equally Ridiculous and
Dangerous: For it must be all Invention, and I might then abuse a Man
both in my Praise and Dispraise. It is thus with me with Respect to the
Author of the Letter lately publish'd about our Language, and to his
Patron. I know neither of them, and if I say a Word more than
themselves, or the World have said of them, I must have recourse to
Fiction, which I cannot think of without abhorrence, where Reputation is
concern'd.
That good old Church Martyr the Earl of _Strafford_ was of Opinion,
_Common Fame_ was enough to hang a Man, as in the Case of the Duke of
_Buckingham_, when he was impeach'd by the Commons for Male Practices in
his Ministry; and there were no better Grounds for accusing him, than
that every Body said so. I am quite of another Mind, and let the World
say what they will of any one, I am for condemning no body but whom the
Law Condemns, and therefore in these Reflections I shall not consider so
much how to please the Spleen of one Party, as how to expose the
Arrogance of another, who would lord it over us in every Thing, and not
only force their Principles upon us, but their Language, wherein they
endeavour to ape their good Friends the _French_, who for these three or
fourscore Years have been attempting to make their Tongue as Imperious
as their Power.
This most Ingenious Writer has so great a Value for his own Judgment in
Matters of Stile, that he has put his Name to his Letter, and a Name
greater than his own, as if he meant to Bully us into his Methods for
pinning down our Language and making it as Criminal to admit Foreign
Words as Foreign Trades, tho' our Tongue may be enrich'd by the one, as
much as our Traffick by the other. [Sidenote: _Page 28._] He would have
it _corrected, enlarg'd and ascertain'd_ and who must do it? He tells
you with great Modesty and Discernment in the 27th Page, _The Choice of
Hands should be left to him_, and _he would then assign it over to the
Women_, because they are softer mouth'd, and are more for _Liquids_ than
the Men, as he try'd himself in a very notable Experiment. I wonder a
grave, serious Divine, who is so well vers'd in College Learning, should
in Compliment to a certain Lady, whose Breeding and Conversation must
have given her wonderful Opportunities to refine our Tongue, imagine,
that the Two Universities would give up so Essential a Branch of their
Privileges to the Ladies, and take from them the Standard of _English_.
This puts me in mind of _Fontenelle_'s way of Learning a Language, which
he recommends to be by having an Intrigue with some Fair Foreigner; and
beginning with the Verb _I Love, You Love_, &c. It is well enough from
Him, a _Papist_, or _Layman_, but for a Protestant Divine to erect an
Academy of Women to improve our Stile, is very extraordinary and
gallant, and little agrees with the cruel Quotation of the Author of
_the Tale of a Tub_, p. 163.
---- _Cunnus Teterrimi Belli_
_Causa_ ------------
That Excellent Moralist has not been pleas'd to discover himself, nor to
Print his Name, but has set his Mark to his Works, which he has
Embellish'd with new Flowers of Rhetorick, that shew what a Genius he
has for refining Language, and how happily one may use the Figures of
Cursing, Swearing, and Bawdy, which before were entirely exploded. Tho'
we cannot well suppose the Writer of that _Merry Tale_ is any way
related to the Author of the Letter, yet out of my great Zeal to promote
his Project of polishing Us, I must refer to some shining Passages in
that incomparable Treatise, and let the World judge if any Man can be
more fit to Preside in a Society for refining the _English_ Tongue.
[Sidenote: _Tale of a Tub. p. 109_] _Z---nds where's the wonder of that?
By G--- I saw a large House of Lime and Stone travel over Sea and Land.
By G--- Gentlemen, I tell you nothing but Truth, and the Devil broil
them eternally that will not believe me._ If there is any Thing like
this in our Language from the lewdest of our Stage-Writers, I give them
over to Mr. _Collier_ and the Reformers to do with them what they
please. Yet I am inform'd these Florid Strokes came from the Pen of a
Reverend Doctor, who has sollicited lately for a Deanery, and sets up
mightily for a Refiner of our Tongue, which he would adorn with some
more such graces of Speech; as, [Sidenote: _Preface, p. 21._] _Lord,
what a Filthy Croud is here; Bless me! what Devil has rak'd this Rabble
together; Z---nds, what squeezing is this! A Plague confound you for an
overgrown Sloven? Who in the Devil's Name, I wonder, helps to make up
the Crowd half so much as your self? Don't you consider with a Pox, that
you take up more room with that Carcass than any Five here? Bring your
own Guts to a reasonable Compass, and be d----d._ I tremble while I
repeat such Stuff, which I defy any Man to match in any Language, Dead
or Living, _Pagan_ or _Christian_; and yet this is the Eloquence, as is
pretended, of a sound Orthodox Divine; one of the Champions of our
Church, and the design'd Chairman of a new Academy to reform and improve
our Stile. I shall only add here another Flower in p. 101. _If you fail
hereof G---- damn you and yours to all Eternity_, says the same Reverend
Author, whose Works on some other Occasion I shall examine, as to their
Divinity, Piety, and other Merit, that the World may see on what Foot
that Author has establish'd his Fame, and how judiciously a Man of his
Cloth made himself first known to the World. Whether the late
_Examiner_, the _Miscellanies in Prose and Verse_ publish'd by
_Morphew_, and some more such Political and Pious Productions, did not
come from the same Hand, I shall not determine. They are generally said
to be written by the same Person, and how nearly related that Person is
to our Letter Writer, is as well known as that he is a Doctor of
Divinity, and hopes to make his Fortune by Preferments in that Church of
which he is so bright an Ornament, as appears by what has been already
quoted; by which one may perceive, how well qualify'd he is to form
Schemes, for the _refining of our Tongue_, and the _Advancement of
Religion_; of both which he has written. The latter does not come under
Consideration so naturally in this Discourse as it will in another, and
therefore it shall be deferr'd till such an Opportunity offers. Perhaps
Our Elegant Writer will pretend to justify these Innovations in our
Speech, for which the best Critick upon him would be my Lord Chief
Justice, by the Example of our Modern Poets, and the Oaths and Curies of
the Stage, where I never heard any thing so very Lewd, in Defyance of
our Religion, Laws, and whatever is held Sacred by Christians, and
Protestants. If he had a hand in the _Conduct of the Allies_, the
_Remarks_, and other such Factious Papers, as is reported, and he never
once thought fit to disown, being more Proud of the Honour done him in
it, than asham'd of the Falshood and Scandal of those Libels, it is no
strange Matter that a Man of such a Conscience should do or write any
Thing; Cursing and Swearing being not so bad as the Robberies that
Libeller has committed on the good Name of the best and greatest Men of
this Age and Nation.
The merriest part of the Project he has been hatching, for an _English_
Academy to bring our Tongue to his pitch of Perfection, is that he has
assign'd, that Task to the _Tories_, whose Wit have so distinguish'd
them in all Times. If there had ever been a Man among 'em who had a
right Notion of Letters or Language, who had any relish of Politeness,
it had been something. But as there never was one, unless it were two or
three Apostate Whigs who had been bred up by the Charity of those
Friends they deserted, that had any smattering of Learning, except in
Pedantry, nor Tast of any Books but _Eikon Basilike_, and the
_Thirtieth_ of _January_ Sermons; 'tis amazing that he shou'd be so
foolish as to fancy, that Learning which always goes by the Stile of
Common-wealth, would submit to the Arbitary Government of an Ignorant
and Tyrannical Faction. Nor is it at all strange, that those, who by
their Practices and Principles, have for above Fourscore Years been
doing their utmost to Enslave us, shou'd always have a Contempt for Wit
and Eloquence, which ever have been the Friends of Reason and Liberty.
Whoever reads the Thirty Fifth Chapter of _Longinus_ will find, that
'tis impossible for a Tory to succeed in Eloquence, and that if they
cannot impose so far on Men's Understandings, as to make Fustian pass
for Oratory, their Project of an Academy, will be as Chimerical as if
they shou'd flatter us with a Trade and Settlements in the Moon. The
Reader will not be displeas'd, to see what the Ancients thought of the
Capacity of Men of such Principles in Matters of Eloquence, and let a
long Experience among us, prove the right Judgment the _Philosopher_ in
_Longinus_ made of them 1500 Years ago. He is treating of the _Causes of
the Decay of Humane Wit_; _I can never enough admire_, said he, _how it
came to pass, that there are so many Orators in our Times, and so few of
'em rise very high in the Sublime; so Steril are our Wits now a Days; is
it not_, continues he, _because what is generally said of Free
Governments, that they nourish and form great Genius's is true?
especially, since almost all the Famous Orators that ever flourish'd and
liv'd died with them? Indeed, can there be anything that raises the
Souls of Great Men more than Liberty; any thing which can more
powerfully excite and awaken in us that Sentiment of Nature which
provokes us to Emulation, and the glorious desire of seeing our selves
advanc'd above others? Add to this, that the Rewards propos'd in such
Governments, whet and perfectly Polish the Orators Wit and make 'em
cultivate the Talents Nature has given them; insomuch, that we see the
Liberty of their Country shine in their Orations._ He goes on, _but as
for us, who were early taught to endure the Yoke of Domination, and have
been, as it were, wrapt up in the Customs and Ways of Arbitrary Rule;
who in a Word, never tasted that living and Flowing Spring of Eloquence
and Liberty; we commonly, instead of Orators, become pompous Flatterers,
for which reason, I believe a Man Born in Servitude, may be capable of
other Sciencies, but no Slave can ever be an Orator, since when the Mind
is depress'd and broken by Slavery, it will never dare to think, or say
any thing bold. All its Vigour evaporates of it self, and it remains
always as in Bonds; in short, to make use of +Homer+'s Expression._
_The Day that makes a Free Born Man a Slave,_
_Robs him of half his Vertue._
It is observable, that _Boileau_ has no manner of remark on all this
Passage; it wou'd not have agreed with his Pension, from his Master the
_French_ King, to have said a Word in praise of it, nor with his
Conscience to have condemn'd it; but _Dacier_, who had a _Hugonot_
Education, observes speaking of Liberty, shining in the Orations of
Orators living in Free States, that as those _Men are their own Masters,
their Mind us'd to this Independence, produces nothing but what has the
Marks of that Liberty, which is the Principal Aim of all their Actions._
Now what a Friend the Letter writer, is to Liberty, we may see in the
_Examiner_ of the 26th of _April_, 1711, which, tho', it may be he did
not Write himself, whatever some People say to the contrary, he and his
Party have sufficiently own'd to make them accountable for every Word in
that and the rest of them. The reason why _Publick Injuries are so
seldom redress'd is for want of Arbitrary Power_, he calls it
_Discretionary_; 'tis true, and if I have wrong'd him, by putting
Arbitrary in its Place; I ask his Pardon.--
Having said thus much of his Party in general, I might descend to
Particulars, and examine the sufficiency of the Characters of his
Academicians, a List of them being handed up and down, in which the
Author is not forgot. It is set off with Names that must not be
repeated, and amongst the rest are a Doctor or two, two or three Poets
and Tell Tales, and that Learned and Facetious Person Mr. _D----ny_,
whose very Name gives unspeakeable Hopes of the Progress of such a
Society, in refining our Language, which he and most of his Brethren are
so great Masters of, that if twenty of the List will oblige us with as
many Lines of Common Sense and Common Grammar, I will be bound to read
every thing that shall be publish'd by this Famous Academy, that is to
be or under their Auspices, tho' I had much rather change that Pennance
for _Ogilby_ and _Blome_. To give us the better _Idea_ of his _Scheme,
he has consulted with very Judicious Persons_; we may judge of what
truth there is in his _Panegyricks_, by that of the deceas'd _Examiner_
on himself; where he says, _he had written with so much Reputation, and
so much to the Confusion of the Whigs, that they themselves have a Value
for his Person and Abilities, tho they have an Aversion to his Cause_.
Of the same size, I doubt not, are the able and judicious Persons he has
consulted about his Design, which must be own'd to be very good in it
self, and capable of such Improvement as wou'd make it one of the
Glories of Her Majesty's most Glorious Reign. But alas, he will never
have the Honour of it. A Noble Lord, on whom he has written _Libels_ and
_Encomiums_, was the first that thought of such a thing, and some Years
since nam'd forty Gentlemen to be Members of an Academy, on a Foundation
refining on the _French_ of which Number I am very well satisfy'd, not a
Man of his most Illustrious Band wou'd ever have been, and that tho' he
is so generous as to promise the Whigs that they shall come in if they
will, he must look 'em out better Company, or his Academy will have the
Glory of this great Work to themselves. Indeed the way is prepar'd for
them to _Immortality_, two _English_ Grammars having been publish'd
within this Twelvemonth, and it remains to him and his Fraternity, to
add a _Dictionary_ worthy those Immortal Labours; for which, there are
not a Set of Men in _England_ better qualify'd, and so equal to so
honourable a Task.
One wou'd think, that towards advancing this Scheme, all the _Literati_
of this Kingdom had sent their Powers to Him. That all the Whigs as well
as Tories had entrusted him with their Proxies; for he says _I do here
in the Name of all the Learned and Polite Persons of the Nation
complain, &c._ Whereas whatever has been brag'd by him in other Papers
of the Nine in Ten, being on his side for the Land and Church Interest,
not nine in a thousand will trust him with that of Wit. And I do here in
the Name of all the Whigs, protest against all and every thing done or
to be done in it, by him or in his Name; being a Person with whom they
will have no manner of Dealings, as he very well knows, or they might
now have had him Scribbling for them as well as when that Discourse was
written _of the Contests and Dissentions of the Nobles and Commons in
+Athens+ and +Rome+_, wherein it is said, _'tis agreed, that in all
Governments there is an absolute unlimited Power which naturally and
originally seems to be plac'd in the People +in the whole Body+;
wherever the Executive part lies_; again, _this unlimited Power plac'd
fundamentally in the Body of a People, &c._ and that he wrote better
then than he has done since is not to be wonder'd at, if there is any
truth in what _Longinus_'s Philosopher says.
It would be a poor Triumph to convict him of an Error in History 1700
Years ago, where he tells us, That _Caesar_ never attempted this Island;
_no Conquest was ever attempted till the Time of +Claudius+_, since I do
not find that he or his Brethren have any Notion at all that Truth is
necessary in History: For they deny what was done Yesterday, as frankly
as if it had been in _Julius Caesar_'s Time; yet he himself has been
sometimes forc'd to confess the Power of Truth, and pay Allegiance to
it; as where he says, the great Reason of the Corruption of the _Roman_
Tongue _was the changing their Government into Tyranny, which ruined the
Study of Eloquence_; and because the _Whigs_ shall have a Share in it,
he adds, and their calling in the _Palatines, their giving several Towns
in +Germany+ the Freedom of the City_. A very pleasant Reason that; for
when the _Roman_ Language was in the height of its Purity in the
_Augustan_ Age, the Cities of _Asia_ and _Africk_ were admitted to that
Privilege, as much as the _Europeans_ were afterwards; and yet it cannot
be pretended the _Moors_ were naturally more Polite than the _Germans_.
It is plain therefore this was a Party Stroke in favour of the
_Naturalization_ Act, to shew what Inconveniences it hinders by
preventing Foreigners coming among us to debauch our Stile, as may be
seen by the prodigious Number of _Dutch_ Words that K. _William_ brought
with him into _England_.
Another Instance of the forc'd Homage he pays to Truth, is his blaming
_the Slavish Disposition of the Senate and People of +Rome+, by which
the Eloquence of the Age was wholly turn'd into Panegyrick_. Now
considering how many Pages he has prodigally bestow'd upon it, in the
very Letter I am taking cognizance of is it not very odd he should call
Panegyrick _a Slavish Disposition_, and worse still that he should term
it the _most barren of all Subjects_; what if I could prove, that above
half of his Three Sheets of Paper are of that kind of Panegyrick, which
is so fatal to great Men. The _Greeks_ said, _Flatterers were like so
many Ravens croaking about them, and that they never lifted a Man up but
as the +Eagle+ does the +Tortoise+, in order to get something by the
fall of him._
It is a sad Case, when Men get a habit of saying what they please, not
caring whether True or False: Who can without pity see our Letter Writer
accuse the Famous _La Bruyere_, for being accessary to the declining of
the _French_ Tongue, by his Affectation; when it is notorious, that _La
Bruyere_ is the most masterly Writer of that Nation, and that his
Affectation was in the Turn of his Thought, which he did to strike his
Readers, who had been too much us'd to dry Lessons to receive any
Impression by them. He says, he has many Hundred _New Words, not to be
found in the Common Dictionaries before his Time_. I should be glad to
know, who are those Lexicographers, whose Knowledge in the _French_
Tongue he prefers to _La Bruyere_'s; since _Richelet_ and the _Academy_
are not of his AEra, I should rejoyce with him, if a way could be found
out to _fix our Language for ever_, that like the _Spanish_ Cloak, it
might always be in Fashion; but I hope he will come into Temper with the
Inconstancy of Peoples Minds, of which he complains, and that we are in
no Fear of the Invasion and Conquest he talks of, comforting himself,
_that the best Writings may be preserved and esteem'd_, meaning his own
and his Friends, which no doubt would fare much better than Mr. _Locks_
or Mr. _Hoadly_'s; for Conquerors are not us'd to take much Care of
those that write against them.
I like extreamly his rejecting the Old Cant of _Forty One_, and giving
the _great Rebellion_ its true Name _Forty Two_: But, if I had been he,
I would not have named it at all. For there are a great many Men in
_England_, who, tho' they were not concern'd in it themselves, yet they
do not love to hear of it, for the sake of those that were; and it
certainly was an Error in delicacy to touch upon so tender a Part, no
Man of Honour caring to have his Father and Grandfather call'd Rogue and
Rebel to his Face, especially if such Grandfather or Father had no other
Fault in the World but his Rebellion; which after so many Acts of
Oblivion, and a Revolution besides, can not be a Crime of that Nature,
as to last to the 3d and 4th Generation. He is much to be commended
however for his Impartiality, and pleading Guilty to the Charge of the
_Whigs_, that the _Licentiousness_ which enter'd with the
_Rystauration_, infected our Religion and Morals. How it corrupted our
Language I can't imagine, when the greatest Master of it Arch-Bishop
_Tillotson_, flourish'd all that Time; but I find he is more conversant
in the Court Poetry and the Plays, than the other elegant Writings of
those Times: Be it as it will, he would lay an Infinite Obligation upon
us, if he would recommend us to any Author in the Reign of King
_Charles_ the Martyr, which he distinguishes as the Golden Age of
Politeness; who wrote with the Purity of _Dryden_, _Otway_, and
_Etheridge_, and with less Affectation, which in Comick Writings is
unavoidable, and in the best never us'd but to be expos'd. Yet the
_Poets_ he affirms have _contributed very much to the spoiling the
Tongue_: And who would he have to restore it? Himself, and his Brethren.
Himself a Poet of Renown, and who, if he would once speak his Mind,
I make no question is Prouder of his _Elegy upon Patridge_, and his
Sonnet on Miss _Biddy Floyd_, than of all His Prose Compositions
together, or even that elegant Poem, call'd _The Humble Petition of
+Frances Harris+_, which is the Pink of Simplicity.
_Therefore all the Money I have, which God knows is a
very small Stock,_
_I keep in a Pocket ty'd about my middle, next my Smock:_
_So when I went to put my Purse, as God would have it,
my Smock was unript,_
_And instead of putting it into my Pocket, down it slipt._
_Then the Bell rung, and I went down to put my Lady to Bed,_
_And God knows, I thought my Money was as safe as my Maidenhead._
There is a great deal more of it, all as Easy and Natural as this, in
the true Stile of Mrs. _Abigail_, and just as Amphibuous. It is as much
Poetry as Prose, Pretty and Innocent, according to the Rules of
Criticism; which the Author has taken more care not to break, than the
First Commandment; tho' one wou'd think it was his Business to have been
mindful of it; and if he had left the Smock to be upript by the Butler,
it wou'd have done every whit as well. I cannot help taking notice, that
the Clamour he raises about the Poets of King _Charles_ the Second's
Reign, the only Age of Poetry in _England_, is for their Contractions
and leaving out the _Eds_ and _Eths_, wherein he offends intollerably in
this very Dogrel of his. Who wou'd have said _Smock unript and down it
slipt_, and not _unripped_ and _slipped_; there is a waggery in it much
better than any _Hudibrastick_; for it wou'd have run thus:
_So when I went to put my Purse as God wou'd have it,
my Smock was unripped,_
_And instead of putting it into my Pocket down it slipped._
It will be no Authority with him, that Mr. _Dryden_ commonly contracted
the Syllables that end _in Ed or Eth_. He was a Poet, and tho' certainly
in most cases the sound is sweetned by it, yet it offends those who are
not for losing a Letter, and were they _Frenchmen_, would doubtless be
for pronouncing every one of them, as well as Writing, to the great
strengthning of that Enervate Tongue, which languishes in reading for
want of the _Ez's_ and _Er's_, so barbarously mangled in Pronounciation.
A great Lord, and one who wou'd be worthy of a Place, which is deny'd
him in this Academy, having written against my Lord _Rochester_ in an
_Essay upon Poetry_, Mr. _Wolseley_, attacks the _Essayer_ in a Preface
written on purpose, and printed before _Valentinian_, wherein he has
criticis'd on his Lordship's Poem, and on these two Lines in particular.
_That Author's Name has undeserved Praise,_
_Who pall'd the Appetite he meant to raise._
Where he observes the Advantage the Verse had in the _Ed_, for without
it it must have hobled on Nine Feet instead of Ten. _What does that Ed_,
says he, _in +undeserved+ do there? I know no Business it has, unless it
be to crutch a Lame Verse, and each out a scanty Sense; for the Word
that is now used is Undeserv'd. I shou'd not take notice of such a Thing
as this, but that I have to do with a giver of Rules, and a Magisterial
Corrector of other Men; tho' upon the observing such little Niceties,
does all the Musick of Numbers defend. But the Refinement of our
Versication is a sort of Criticism, which the +Essayer+, if we may judge
of his Knowledge by his Practice, seems yet to learn; for never was
there such a Pack of Stiff ill sounding Rhimes put together as his Essay
is stuff'd with: To add therefore to his other Collections, let him
remember hereafter, that Verses have Feet given 'em either to walk
gracefully and smooth, and sometimes with Majesty and State like
+Virgils+, or to run light and easy like +Ovid+'s, not to stand
stockstill like Dr. +Donne+'s, or to hobble like indigested Prose: That
the counting of the Syllables is the least Part of the Poets Work, in
the turning either of a soft or a Sonorous Line; that the +Ed's+ went
away with the +For to's+, and the +Until's+ in that general Rout that
fell on the whole Body of the +thereon's+, the +therein's+, and
+thereby's+, when those useful +Expletives+, the +altho's+ and the
+Unto's+, and those most convenient +Synalaepha's+ +'midst+, +'mongst+,
+'gainst+, and +'twixt+, were every one +cut off+; which dismal
Slaughter was follow'd with the utter Extirpation of the ancient House
of the +hereof's+ and the +therefrom's+, &c. Nor is this Reformation the
Arbitrary Fancy of a Few, who would impose their own Private Opinions
and Practices upon the rest of their Countrymen, but grounded on the
Authority of +Horace+, who tells us in his Epistle +de arte Poetica+,
that Present Use is the final Judge of Language, (the Verse is too well
known to need quoting) and on the common Reason of Mankind, which
forbids us those antiquated Words and obsolete Idioms of Speech, whose
worth Time has worn out, how well soever they may seem to stop a Gap in
Verse, and suit our shapeless Immature Conceptions; for what is grown
Pedantick and unbecoming when 'tis spoke, will not have a jot the better
grace for being writ down._ This Gentleman's Opinion, and that of
others, which agrees with his, justify'd by the Example of all the
Polite Writers in King _Charles_ the Second's Reign, which probably may
be the _Augustan_ Age of _English_ Poetry, is not to warrant the
Affectation of such as are for the _Can'ts_, the _Don'ts_, the _Won'ts_,
the _Shan'ts_, &c. but to refer to the Ear the cutting off those useless
Syllables the _Ed's_ and _Eth's_ both in Verse and Prose; and I question
whether any one wou'd not be better pleas'd to hear _disturb'd_ read
than _disturbed_, and _rebuk'd_ than _rebuked_, tho' the Doctor wonders
how it can be endur'd.
How intolerable must those two Lines of _Hudibras_ be to him then, on
more Accounts than one.
_Hence 'tis that 'cause y' 'ave gain'd o' th' College_
_A quarter Share at most of Knowledge._
Where there are almost as many Abreviations as there are Words, and I
question whether the being an _Hudibrastick_ is sufficient to excuse it,
if it is, otherwise inexcusable; perhaps the Reader may not be
displeas'd to see the Lines that follow, which are no great Digression
from our Subject.
_Y' assume a Pow'r as absolute,
To judge and censure and controul,
As if you were the sole, Sir Poll;
And sawcily pretend to know
More than your Dividend comes to.
You'll find the Thing will not be done
With Ignorance and Face Alone:
No, tho' y' have purchas'd to your Name,
In History so great a Fame,
That now your Talent's so well known
For having all belief out grown
That every strange prodigious Tale
Is measur'd by your +German+ Scale,
By which the +Virtuosi+ try
The Magnitude of every Lye, +&c.+_
Which may very well be introduc'd as often as one has occasion to speak
of the late _Examiner_, or any one that belongs to him. Let this Learned
Doctor and his new Academy do their utmost to furnish our Language with
what the _French_ call _Chevilles_, with his _Thoroughs_, _Althoughs_,
and the whole Army of antiquated Words before-mention'd; I can't imagine
Mr. _Dryden_'s Poetry will be in any Danger of becoming unintelligible,
tho' he has us'd Abreviations as much as any Polite Writer; and will
preserve that Character when the Doctor's is forgotten, unless we should
return to our Original Barbarity, as he says we incline to do. He
complains the Refinement of our Language has hitherto been trusted to
_illiterate Court Fops, Half-witted Poets, and University Boys_. He
would have a thin Society, if he should exclude all such from his own
Academy: And if the Choice be in himself, as he seems to insinuate,
I believe the Reformation of our Language would have just as much
success as the Reformation of our Manners, which, 'tis said, none have
more corrupted than the very Reformers. He gives us his Word, That _the
Style of some great Ministers very much exceed that of any other
Productions_. Where I wonder are the Instances of this Excellence? In
Speeches in Parliament, for themselves or others, or what Works of
theirs has been communicated to him, that he should know more than all
Mankind? One would think he was their Master by what he says, in the
next Page, _What I have most at Heart, is some Method for ascertaining
and fixing our Language for ever._ Now you must know, that this Reverend
Author, who is so concern'd for the Fixing our Language, has himself a
Style of a very deficient Character; in which the Reader will perceive
how much we shou'd be _improv'd_, by having his manner _ascertained and
fixed_; for doubtless he thinks his own the best, and his Friends know
no better than to be of his Mind. _He would be more comprehensive_, says
an Author of Note, _if he would alter and correct his Style, which is
too loose and diffus'd in all Conscience. So that when I read him
sometimes for a good while together, tho' I go on very evenly and
smoothly, I find it difficult to recollect what I have been doing, and
whether I have been reading or sleeping. My present Advice to him
therefore is, that he would study +Tacitus+, and such other Politicians
as say much in few Words: And if he obstinately persists in the same
Childish fondness for his Style, I shall be obliged to shew in how small
a Compass the whole Substance of what he says, may be contained. All
this vile Drudgery will I submit to for his sake_, &c. But so little
likelihood there is of his mending his Style by reading _Tacitus_, that
he defies him and charges him with the Corruption of the _Roman_ Tongue,
by saying that in Two or Three Words, about which such a Genius as he is
might have employ'd Twenty or Thirty. This Brevity he calls Affectation,
and assures us, it brought Barbarisms into the _Latin_ Tongue, even
before the _Goths_ invaded _Italy_. However he exposes his own
Ignorance, he should have been careful not to have discover'd his
Friends: Does the _Translation_ of the _Bible_ teach us to understand
_Fairfax_? Are that and the _Common-Prayer_ the Standard of Language?
Yet he affirms, that without them one cou'd not understand any thing
written a hundred Years ago. Whereas the _Jerusalem_ of _Fairfax_ is
older than that, and whoever reads it will find the Language as new as
any can be expected from the New Academy these Fifty Years. For our
Tongue is not so variable in the best Authors as the Doctor represents
it, and the difference between the present _English_ and the _English_ a
Hundred Years ago, is not so great as between the Old and Modern
_French_ in that Term. Of all the Parts of Learning, that is surely the
least ally'd to Politeness that deals in Old Musty Manuscripts, and
affects a Knowledge in Tongues which have not one Polite Book to
recommend them. How such a Quality can be serviceable to the Advancement
of Wit and _Eloquence_, I cannot conceive; but there are some Characters
in the World, that encroach upon all others, and some Men that for their
Interest will say any thing that comes uppermost, either for or against
another. The Knowledge of Tongues is certainly very useful; but if a
Person knows a great many Ancient and Modern, and can hardly speak
intelligibly in his own, He shou'd be no Orator for me. I would no more
value his Learning than Sir _Hudibras_'s, of which the Doctor puts me in
mind more than once by his Compliments, especially of this Passage in
the first Canto.