it comes to have different significations, and those so distinctly
marked, that the separation may be regarded as complete. Examples of
this are the following: ‘dívers’, and ‘divérse’; ‘cónjure’ and
‘conjúre’; ‘ántic’ and ‘antíque’; ‘húman’ and ‘humáne’; ‘úrban’ and
‘urbáne’; ‘géntle’ and ‘gentéel’; ‘cústom’ and ‘costúme’; ‘éssay’ and
‘assáy’; ‘próperty’ and ‘propríety’. Or again, a word is pronounced with
a full sound of its syllables, or somewhat more shortly: thus ‘spirit’
and ‘sprite’; ‘blossom’ and ‘bloom’{104}; ‘personality’ and
‘personalty’; ‘fantasy’ and ‘fancy’; ‘triumph’ and ‘trump’ (the
_winning_ card{105}); ‘happily’ and ‘haply’; ‘waggon’ and ‘wain’;
‘ordinance’ and ‘ordnance’; ‘shallop’ and ‘sloop’; ‘brabble’ and
‘brawl’{106}; ‘syrup’ and ‘shrub’; ‘balsam’ and ‘balm’; ‘eremite’ and
‘hermit’; ‘nighest’ and ‘next’; ‘poesy’ and ‘posy’; ‘fragile’ and
‘frail’; ‘achievement’ and ‘hatchment’; ‘manœuvre’ and ‘manure’;--or
with the dropping of the first syllable: ‘history’ and ‘story’;
‘etiquette’ and ‘ticket’; ‘escheat’ and ‘cheat’; ‘estate’ and ‘state’;
and, older probably than any of these, ‘other’ and ‘or’;--or with a
dropping of the last syllable, as ‘Britany’ and ‘Britain’; ‘crony’ and
‘crone’;--or without losing a syllable, with more or less stress laid on
the close: ‘regiment’ and ‘regimen’; ‘corpse’ and ‘corps’; ‘bite’ and
‘bit’; ‘sire’ and ‘sir’; ‘land’ or ‘laund’ and ‘lawn’; ‘suite’ and
‘suit’; ‘swinge’ and ‘swing’; ‘gulph’ and ‘gulp’; ‘launch’ and ‘lance’;
‘wealth’ and ‘weal’; ‘stripe’ and ‘strip’; ‘borne’ and ‘born’; ‘clothes’
and ‘cloths’;--or a slight internal vowel change finds place, as between
‘dent’ and ‘dint’; ‘rant’ and ‘rent’ (a ranting actor tears or _rends_ a
passion to tatters){107}; ‘creak’ and ‘croak’; ‘float’ and ‘fleet’;
‘sleek’ and ‘slick’; ‘sheen’ and ‘shine’; ‘shriek’ and ‘shrike’; ‘pick’
and ‘peck’; ‘peak’, ‘pique’, and ‘pike’; ‘weald’ and ‘wold’; ‘drip’ and
‘drop’; ‘wreathe’ and ‘writhe’; ‘spear’ and ‘spire’ (“the least _spire_
of grass”, South); ‘trist’ and ‘trust’; ‘band’, ‘bend’ and ‘bond’;
‘cope’, ‘cape’ and ‘cap’; ‘tip’ and ‘top’; ‘slent’ (now obsolete) and
‘slant’; ‘sweep’ and ‘swoop’; ‘wrest’ and ‘wrist’; ‘gad’ (now surviving
only in gadfly) and ‘goad’; ‘complement’ and ‘compliment’; ‘fitch’ and
‘vetch’; ‘spike’ and ‘spoke’; ‘tamper’ and ‘temper’; ‘ragged’ and
‘rugged’; ‘gargle’ and ‘gurgle’; ‘snake’ and ‘sneak’ (both crawl);
‘deal’ and ‘dole’; ‘giggle’ and ‘gaggle’ (this last is now commonly
spelt ‘cackle’); ‘sip’, ‘sop’, ‘soup’ and ‘sup’; ‘clack’, ‘click’ and
‘clock’; ‘tetchy’ and ‘touchy’; ‘neat’ and ‘nett’; ‘stud’ and ‘steed’;
‘then’ and ‘than’{108}; ‘grits’ and ‘grouts’; ‘spirt’ and ‘sprout’;
‘cure’ and ‘care’{109}; ‘prune’ and ‘preen’; ‘mister’ and ‘master’;
‘allay’ and ‘alloy’; ‘ghostly’ and ‘ghastly’{110}; ‘person’ and
‘parson’; ‘cleft’ and ‘clift’, now written ‘cliff’; ‘travel’ and
‘travail’; ‘truth’ and ‘troth’; ‘pennon’ and ‘pinion’; ‘quail’ and
‘quell’; ‘quell’ and ‘kill’; ‘metal’ and ‘mettle’; ‘chagrin’ and
‘shagreen’; ‘can’ and ‘ken’; ‘Francis’ and ‘Frances’{111}; ‘chivalry’
and ‘cavalry’; ‘oaf’ and ‘elf’; ‘lose’ and ‘loose’; ‘taint’ and ‘tint’.
Sometimes the difference is mainly or entirely in the initial
consonants, as between ‘phial’ and ‘vial’; ‘pother’ and ‘bother’;
‘bursar’ and ‘purser’; ‘thrice’ and ‘trice’{110}; ‘shatter’ and
‘scatter’; ‘chattel’ and ‘cattle’; ‘chant’ and ‘cant’; ‘zealous’ and
‘jealous’; ‘channel’ and ‘kennel’; ‘wise’ and ‘guise’; ‘quay’ and ‘key’;
‘thrill’, ‘trill’ and ‘drill’;--or in the consonants in the middle of
the word, as between ‘cancer’ and ‘canker’; ‘nipple’ and ‘nibble’;
‘tittle’ and ‘title’; ‘price’ and ‘prize’; ‘consort’ and ‘concert’;--or
there is a change in both, as between ‘pipe’ and ‘fife’.
Or a word is spelt now with a final _k_ and now with a final _ch_; out
of this variation two different words have been formed; with, it may be,
other slight differences superadded; thus is it with ‘poke’ and ‘poach’;
‘dyke’ and ‘ditch’; ‘stink’ and ‘stench’; ‘prick’ and ‘pritch’ (now
obsolete); ‘break’ and ‘breach’; to which may be added ‘broach’; ‘lace’
and ‘latch’; ‘stick’ and ‘stitch’; ‘lurk’ and ‘lurch’; ‘bank’ and
‘bench’; ‘stark’ and ‘starch’; ‘wake’ and ‘watch’. So too _t_ and _d_
are easily exchanged; as in ‘clod’ and ‘clot’; ‘vend’ and ‘vent’;
‘brood’ and ‘brat’{112}; ‘halt’ and ‘hold’; ‘sad’ and ‘set’{113}; ‘card’
and ‘chart’; ‘medley’ and ‘motley’. Or there has grown up, besides the
rigorous and accurate pronunciation of a word, a popular as well; and
this in the end has formed itself into another word; thus is it with
‘housewife’ and ‘hussey’; ‘hanaper’ and ‘hamper’; ‘puisne’ and ‘puny’;
‘patron’ and ‘pattern’; ‘spital’ (hospital) and ‘spittle’ (house of
correction); ‘accompt’ and ‘account’; ‘donjon’ and ‘dungeon’; ‘nestle’
and ‘nuzzle’{114} (now obsolete); ‘Egyptian’ and ‘gypsy’; ‘Bethlehem’
and ‘Bedlam’; ‘exemplar’ and ‘sampler’; ‘dolphin’ and ‘dauphin’; ‘iota’
and ‘jot’.
Other changes cannot perhaps be reduced exactly under any of these
heads; as between ‘ounce’ and ‘inch’; ‘errant’ and ‘arrant’; ‘slack’ and
‘slake’; ‘slow’ and ‘slough’{115}; ‘bow’ and ‘bough’; ‘hew’ and
‘hough’{115}; ‘dies’ and ‘dice’ (both plurals of ‘die’); ‘plunge’ and
‘flounce’{115}; ‘staff’ and ‘stave’; ‘scull’ and ‘shoal’; ‘benefit’ and
‘benefice’{116}. Or, it may be, the difference which constitutes the two
forms of the word into two words is in the spelling only, and of a
character to be appreciable only by the eye, escaping altogether the
ear: thus it is with ‘draft’ and ‘draught’; ‘plain’ and ‘plane’; ‘coign’
and ‘coin’; ‘flower’ and ‘flour’; ‘check’ and ‘cheque’; ‘straight’ and
‘strait’; ‘ton’ and ‘tun’; ‘road’ and ‘rode’; ‘throw’ and ‘throe’;
‘wrack’ and ‘rack’; ‘gait’ and ‘gate’; ‘hoard’ and ‘horde’{117}; ‘knoll’
and ‘noll’; ‘chord’ and ‘cord’; ‘drachm’ and ‘dram’; ‘sergeant’ and
‘serjeant’; ‘mask’ and ‘masque’; ‘villain’ and ‘villein’.
{Sidenote: _Words in Two Forms_}
Now, if you will put the matter to proof, you will find, I believe, in
every case that there has attached itself to the different forms of a
word a modification of meaning more or less sensible, that each has won
for itself an independent sphere of meaning, in which it, and it only,
moves. For example, ‘divers’ implies difference only, but ‘diverse’
difference with opposition; thus the several Evangelists narrate the
same event in ‘divers’ manner, but not in ‘diverse’. ‘Antique’ is
ancient, but ‘antic’, is now the ancient regarded as overlived, out of
date, and so in our days grotesque, ridiculous; and then, with a
dropping of the reference to age, the grotesque, the ridiculous alone.
‘Human’ is what every man is, ‘humane’ is what every man ought to be;
for Johnson’s suggestion that ‘humane’ is from the French feminine,
‘humaine’, and ‘human’ from the masculine, cannot for an instant be
admitted. ‘Ingenious’ expresses a mental, ‘ingenuous’ a moral,
excellence{118}. A gardener ‘prunes’, or trims his trees, properly
indeed his _vines_ alone (pro_vigner_), birds ‘preen’ or trim their
feathers. We ‘allay’ wine with water; we ‘alloy’ gold with platina.
‘Bloom’ is a finer and more delicate efflorescence even than ‘blossom’;
thus the ‘bloom’, but not the ‘blossom’, of the cheek. It is now always
‘clots’ of blood and ‘clods’ of earth; a ‘float’ of timber, and a
‘fleet’ of ships; men ‘vend’ wares, and ‘vent’ complaints. A ‘curtsey’
is one, and that merely an external, manifestation of ‘courtesy’.
‘Gambling’ may be, as with a fearful irony it is called, _play_, but it
is nearly as distant from ‘gambolling’ as hell is from heaven{119}. Nor
would it be hard, in almost every pair or larger group of words which I
have adduced, as in others which no doubt might be added to complete the
list, to trace a difference of meaning which has obtained a more or less
distinct recognition{120}.
But my subject is inexhaustible; it has no limits except those, which
indeed may be often narrow enough, imposed by my own ignorance on the
one side; and on the other, by the necessity of consulting your
patience, and of only choosing such matter as will admit a popular
setting forth. These necessities, however, bid me to pause, and suggest
that I should not look round for other quarters from whence accessions
of new words are derived. Doubtless I should not be long without finding
many such. I must satisfy myself for the rest with a very brief
consideration of the _motives_ which, as they have been, are still at
work among us, inducing us to seek for these augmentations of our
vocabulary.
And first, the desire of greater clearness is a frequent motive and
inducement to this. It has been well and truly said: “Every new term,
expressing a fact or a difference not precisely or adequately expressed
by any other word in the same language, is a new organ of thought for
the mind that has learned it”{121}. The limits of their vocabulary are
in fact for most men the limits of their knowledge; and in a great
degree for us all. Of course I do not affirm that it is absolutely
impossible to have our mental conceptions clearer and more distinct than
our words; but it is very hard to have, and still harder to keep, them
so. And therefore it is that men, conscious of this, so soon as ever
they have learned to distinguish in their minds, are urged by an almost
irresistible impulse to distinguish also in their words. They feel that
nothing is made sure till this is done.
{Sidenote: _Dissimilation of Words_}
The sense that a word covers too large a space of meaning, is the
frequent occasion of the introduction of another, which shall relieve
it of a portion of this. Thus, there was a time when ‘witch’ was applied
equally to male and female dealers in unlawful magical arts. Simon
Magus, for example, and Elymas are both ‘witches’, in Wiclif’s _New
Testament_ (Acts viii. 9; xiii. 8), and Posthumus in _Cymbeline_: but
when the medieval Latin ‘sortiarius’ (not ‘sortitor’ as in Richardson),
supplied another word, the French ‘sorcier’, and thus our English
‘sorcerer’ (originally the “caster of lots”), then ‘witch’ gradually was
confined to the hag, or female practiser of these arts, while ‘sorcerer’
was applied to the male.
New necessities, new evolutions of society into more complex conditions,
evoke new words; which come forth, because they are required now; but
did not formerly exist, because they were not required in the period
preceding. For example, in Greece so long as the poet sang his own
verses ‘singer’ (ἀοιδὸς) sufficiently expressed the double function;
such a ‘singer’ was Homer, and such Homer describes Demodocus, the bard
of the Phæacians; that double function, in fact, not being in his time
contemplated as double, but each part of it so naturally completing the
other, that no second word was required. When, however, in the division
of labour one made the verses which another chaunted, then ‘poet’ or
‘maker’, a word unknown in the Homeric age, arose. In like manner, when
‘physicians’ were the only natural philosophers, the word covered this
meaning as well as that other which it still retains; but when the
investigation of nature and natural causes detached itself from the art
of healing, became an independent study of itself, the name ‘physician’
remained to that which was as the stock and stem of the art, while the
new offshoot sought out a new name for itself.
Another motive to the invention of new words, is the desire thereby to
cut short lengthy{122} explanations, tedious circuits of language.
Science is often an immense gainer by words, which say singly what it
would have taken whole sentences otherwise to have said. Thus
‘isothermal’ is quite of modern invention; but what a long story it
would be to tell the meaning of ‘_isothermal_ lines’, all which is
summed up in and saved by the word. We have long had the word
‘assimilation’ in our dictionaries; ‘dissimilation’ has not yet found
its way into them, but it speedily will. It will appear first, if it
has not already appeared, in our books on language{123}. I express
myself with this confidence, because the advance of philological
enquiry has rendered it almost a matter of necessity that we should
possess a word to designate a certain process, and no other word would
designate it at all so well. There is a process of ‘assimilation’
going on very extensively in language; it occurs where the organs of
speech find themselves helped by changing a letter for another which
has just occurred, or will just occur in a word; thus we say not
‘_adf_iance’ but ‘_aff_iance’, not ‘re_n_ow_m_’, as our ancestors did
when the word ‘renommée’ was first naturalized, but ‘re_n_ow_n_’. At
the same time there is another opposite process, where some letter
would recur too often for euphony or comfort in speaking, if the
strict form of the word were too closely held fast, and where
consequently this letter is exchanged for some other, generally for
some nearly allied; thus it is at least a reasonable suggestion, that
‘cœ_r_uleum’ was once ‘cœ_l_uleum’, from cœlum: so too the Italians
prefer ‘ve_l_e_n_o’ to ‘ve_n_e_n_o’; and we ‘cinnamo_n_’ to
‘cinnamo_m_’ (the earlier form); in ‘turtle’ and ‘purple’ we have
shrunk from the double ‘_r_’ of ‘turtur’ and ‘purpura’; and this
process of _making unlike_, requiring a term to express it, will
create, or indeed has created, the word ‘dissimilation’, which
probably will in due time establish itself among us in far wider than
its primary use.
‘Watershed’ has only recently begun to appear in books of geography; and
yet how convenient it must be admitted to be; how much more so than
‘line of water parting’, which it has succeeded; meaning, as I need
hardly tell you it does, not merely that which _sheds_ the waters, but
that which _divides_ them (‘wasserscheide’); and being applied to that
exact ridge and highest line in a mountain region, where the waters of
that region separate off and divide, some to one side, and some to the
other; as in the Rocky Mountains of North America there are streams
rising within very few miles of one another, which flow severally east
and west, and, if not in unbroken course, yet as affluents to larger
rivers, fall at least severally into the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. It
must be allowed, I think, that not merely geographical terminology, but
geography itself, had a benefactor in him who first endowed it with so
expressive and comprehensive a word, bringing before us a fact which we
should scarcely have been aware of without it.
There is another word which I have just employed, ‘affluent’, in the
sense of a stream which does not flow into the sea, but joins a larger
stream, as for instance, the Isis is an ‘affluent’ of the Thames, the
Moselle of the Rhine. It is itself an example in the same kind of that
whereof I have been speaking, having been only recently constituted a
substantive, and employed in this sense, while yet its utility is
obvious. ‘Confluents’ would perhaps be a fitter name, where the rivers,
like the Missouri and the Mississippi, were of equal or nearly equal
importance up to the time of their meeting{124}.
{Sidenote: ‘_Selfishness_’, ‘_Suicide_’}
Again, new words are coined out of the necessity which men feel of
filling up gaps in the language. Thoughtful men, comparing their own
language with that of other nations, become conscious of deficiencies,
of important matters unexpressed in their own, and with more or less
success proceed to supply the deficiency. For example, that sin of sins,
the undue love of self, with the postponing of the interests of all
others to our own, had for a long time no word to express it in English.
Help was sought from the Greek, and from the Latin. ‘Philauty’
(φιλαυτία) had been more than once attempted by our scholars; but found
no popular acceptance. This failing, men turned to the Latin; one writer
trying to supply the want by calling the man a ‘suist’, as one seeking
_his own_ things (‘sua’), and the sin itself, ‘suicism’. The gap,
however, was not really filled up, till some of the Puritan writers,
drawing on our Saxon, devised ‘selfish’ and ‘selfishness’, words which
to us seem obvious enough, but which yet are little more than two
hundred [and fifty] years old{125}.
{Sidenote: _Notices of New Words_}
Before quitting this part of the subject, let me say a few words in
conclusion on this deliberate introduction of words to supply felt
omissions in a language, and the limits within which this or any other
conscious interference with the development of a language is desirable
or possible. By the time that a people begin to meditate upon their
language, to be aware by a conscious reflective act either of its merits
or deficiencies, by far the greater and more important part of its work
is done; it is fixed in respect of its structure in immutable forms; the
region in which any alteration or modification, addition to it, or
substraction from it, deliberately devised and carried out, may be
possible, is very limited indeed. Its great laws are too firmly
established to admit of this; so that almost nothing can be taken from
it, which it has got; almost nothing added to it, which it has _not_
got. It will travel indeed in certain courses of change; but it would be
as easy almost to alter the career of a planet as for man to alter
these. This is sometimes a subject of regret with those who see what
they believe manifest defects or blemishes in their language, and such
as appear to them capable of remedy. And yet in fact this is well; since
for once that these redressers of real or fancied wrongs, these
suppliers of things lacking, would have mended, we may be tolerably
confident that ten times, yea, a hundred times, they would have marred;
letting go that which would have been well retained; retaining that
which by a necessary law the language now dismisses and lets go; and in
manifold ways interfering with those processes of a natural logic, which
are here evermore at work. The genius of a language, unconsciously
presiding over all its transformations, and conducting them to a
definite issue, will have been a far truer, far safer guide, than the
artificial wit, however subtle, of any single man, or of any association
of men. For the genius of a language is the sense and inner conviction
of all who speak it, as to what it ought to be, and the means by which
it will best attain its objects; and granting that a pair of eyes, or
two or three pairs of eyes may see much, yet millions of eyes will
certainly see more.
{Sidenote: _German Purists_}
It is only with the words, and not with the forms and laws of a
language, that any interference such as I have just supposed is
possible. Something, indeed much, may here be done by wise masters, in
the way of rejecting that which would deform, allowing and adopting that
which will strengthen and enrich. Those who would purify or enrich a
language, so long as they have kept within this their proper sphere,
have often effected much, more than at first could have seemed possible.
The history of the German language affords so much better illustration
of this than our own would do, that I shall make no scruple in seeking
my examples there. When the patriotic Germans began to wake up to a
consciousness of the enormous encroachments which foreign languages,
the Latin and French above all, had made on their native tongue, the
lodgements which they had therein effected, and the danger which
threatened it, namely, that it should cease to be German at all, but
only a mingle-mangle, a variegated patchwork of many languages, without
any unity or inner coherence at all, various societies were instituted
among them, at the beginning and during the course of the seventeenth
century, for the recovering of what was lost of their own, for the
expelling of that which had intruded from abroad; and these with
excellent effect.
But more effectual than these societies were the efforts of single
men, who in this merited well of their country{126}. In respect of
words which are now entirely received by the whole nation, it is
often possible to designate the writers who first substituted them
for some affected Gallicism or unnecessary Latinism. Thus to Lessing
his fellow-countrymen owe the substitution of ‘zartgefühl’ for
‘delicatesse’, of ‘empfindsamkeit’ for ‘sentimentalität’, of
‘wesenheit’ for ‘essence’. It was Voss (1786) who first employed
‘alterthümlich’ for ‘antik’. Wieland too was the author or reviver of
a multitude of excellent words, for which often he had to do earnest
battle at the first; such were ‘seligkeit’, ‘anmuth’, ‘entzückung’,
‘festlich’, ‘entwirren’, with many more. For ‘maskerade’, Campe would
have fain substituted ‘larventanz’. It was a novelty when Büsching
called his great work on geography ‘erdbeschreibung’ instead of
‘geographie’; while ‘schnellpost’ instead of ‘diligence’, ‘zerrbild’
for ‘carricatur’ are also of recent introduction. In regard of
‘wörterbuch’ itself, J. Grimm tells us he can find no example of its
use dating earlier than 1719.
Yet at the same time it must be acknowledged that some of these
reformers proceeded with more zeal than knowledge, while others did
whatever in them lay to make the whole movement absurd--even as there
ever hang on the skirts of a noble movement, be it in literature or
politics or higher things yet, those who contribute their little all to
bring ridicule and contempt upon it. Thus in the reaction against
foreign interlopers which ensued, and in the zeal to purify the language
from them, some went to such extravagant excesses as to desire to get
rid of ‘testament’, ‘apostel’, which last Campe would have replaced by
‘lehrbote’, with other words like these, consecrated by longest use, and
to find native substitutes in their room; or they understood so little
what words deserved to be called foreign, or how to draw the line
between them and native, that they would fain have gotten rid of
‘vater’, ‘mutter’, ‘wein’, ‘fenster’, ‘meister’, ‘kelch’{127}; the first
three of which belong to the German language by just as good a right as
they do to the Latin and the Greek; while the other three have been
naturalized so long that to propose to expel them now was as if, having
passed an alien act for the banishment of all foreigners, we should
proceed to include under that name, and as such drive forth from the
kingdom, the descendants of the French Protestants who found refuge here
at the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, or even of the Flemings who
settled among us in the time of our Edwards. One notable enthusiast in
this line proposed to create an entirely new nomenclature for all the
mythological personages of the Greek and the Roman pantheon, who, one
would think, might have been allowed, if any, to retain their Greek and
Latin names. So far however from this, they were to exchange these for
equivalent German titles; Cupid was to be ‘Lustkind’, Flora ‘Bluminne’,
Aurora ‘Röthin’; instead of Apollo schoolboys were to speak of
‘Singhold’; instead of Pan of ‘Schaflieb’; instead of Jupiter of
‘Helfevater’, with much else of the same kind. Let us beware (and the
warning extends much further than to the matter in hand) of making a
good cause ridiculous by our manner of supporting it, of assuming that
exaggerations on one side can only be redressed by exaggerations as
great upon the other.
{FOOTNOTES}
{38} Thus Alexander Gil, head-master of St. Paul’s School, in his book,
_Logonomia Anglica_, 1621, _Preface_: Huc usque peregrinæ voces in
linguâ Anglicâ inauditæ. Tandem circa annum 1400 Galfridus
Chaucerus, infausto omine, vocabulis Gallicis et Latinis poësin
suam famosam reddidit. The whole passage, which is too long to
quote, as indeed the whole book, is curious. Gil was an earnest
advocate of phonetic spelling, and has adopted it in all his
English quotations in this book.
{39} We may observe exactly the same in Plautus: a multitude of Greek
words are used by him, which the Latin language did not want, and
therefore refused to take up; thus ‘clepta’, ‘zamia’ (ζημία),
‘danista’, ‘harpagare’, ‘apolactizare’, ‘nauclerus’, ‘strategus’,
‘morologus’, ‘phylaca’, ‘malacus’, ‘sycophantia’, ‘euscheme’
(εὐσχήμως), ‘dulice’ (δουλικῶς), [so ‘scymnus’ by Lucretius], none
of which, I believe, are employed except by him; ‘mastigias’ and
‘techna’ appear also in Terence. Yet only experience could show
that they were superfluous; and at the epoch of Latin literature in
which Plautus lived, it was well done to put them on trial.
{40} [Modern poets have given ‘amort’ a new life; it is used by Keats,
by Bailey (_Festus_, xxx), and by Browning (_Sordello_, vi).]
{41} [‘Bruit’ has been revived by Carlyle and Chas. Merivale. Its verbal
form is used by Cowper, Byron and Dickens.]
{42} Let me here observe once for all that in adding the name of an
author, which I shall often do, to a word, I do not mean to affirm
the word in any way peculiar to him; although in some cases it may
be so; but only to give one authority for its use. [Coleridge uses
‘eloign’.]
{43} _Essay on English Poetry_, p. 93.
{44} _Dedication of the Translation of the Æneid_.
{45} [i.e. the promoters of Classical learning.]
{46} We have notable evidence in some lines of Waller of the sense which
in his time scholars had of the rapidity with which the language
was changing under their hands. Looking back at what the last
hundred years had wrought of alteration in it, and very naturally
assuming that the next hundred would effect as much, he checked
with misgivings such as these his own hope of immortality:
“Who can hope his lines should long
Last in a daily changing tongue?
While they are new, envy prevails,
And as that dies, our language fails.
* * * * *
“Poets that lasting marble seek,
Must carve in Latin or in Greek:
_We_ write in sand; our language grows,
And like the tide our work o’erflows”.
Such were his misgivings as to the future, assuming that the rate
of change would continue what it had been. How little they have
been fulfilled, every one knows. In actual fact two centuries,
which have elapsed since he wrote, have hardly antiquated a word or
a phrase in his poems. If we care very little for them now, that is
to be explained by quite other causes--by the absence of all moral
earnestness from them.
{47} In his _Art of English Poesy_, London, 1589, republished in
Haslewood’s _Ancient Critical Essays upon English Poets and Poesy_,
London, 1811, vol. i. pp. 122, 123; [and in Arber’s _English
Reprints_, 1869].
{48} London, 1601. Besides this work Holland translated the whole of
Plutarch’s _Moralia_, the _Cyropœdia_ of Xenophon, Livy, Suetonius,
Ammianus Marcellinus, and Camden’s _Britannia_. His works make a
part of the “library of dullness” in Pope’s _Dunciad_:
“De Lyra there a dreadful front extends,
And here the groaning shelves _Philemon_ bends”--
very unjustly; the authors whom he has translated are all more or
less important, and his versions of them a mine of genuine
idiomatic English, neglected by most of our lexicographers, wrought
to a considerable extent, and with eminent advantage by Richardson;
yet capable, as it seems to me, of yielding much more than they
hitherto have yielded.