I would press the point more rudely upon you, and more
particularly, than does Newman. And first, for Latin--
I waive that Rome occupied and dominated this island during 400
years. Let that be as though it had never been. For a further
1000 years and more Latin remained the common speech of educated
men throughout Europe: the 'Universal Language.' Greek had been
smothered by the Turk. Through all that time--through the most of
what we call Modern History, Latin reigned everywhere. Is this a
fact to be ignored by any of you who would value 'values'?
Here are a few particulars, by way of illustration. More wrote
his "Utopia," Bacon wrote all the bulk of his philosophical work,
in Latin; Newton wrote his "Principia" in Latin. Keble's Lectures
on Poetry (if their worth and the name of Keble may together save
me from bathos) were delivered in Latin. Our Vice-Chancellor, our
Public Orator still talk Latin, securing for it what attention
they can: nor have
The bigots of this iron time
_Yet_ call'd their harmless art a crime.
But there is a better reason why you should endeavour to
understand the value of Latin in our literature; a filial reason.
Our fathers built their great English prose, as they built their
oratory, upon the Latin model. Donne used it to construct his
mighty fugues: Burke to discipline his luxuriance. Says Cowper,
it were
Praise enough for any private man,
That Chatham's language was his mother tongue,
And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own.
Well then, here is a specimen of Chatham's language: from his
speech, Romanly severe, denouncing the Government of the day for
employing Red Indians in the American War of Independence. He is
addressing the House of Lords:
I call upon that right reverend bench, those holy ministers
of the Gospel, and pious pastors of our Church--I conjure
them to join in the holy work, and vindicate the religion of
their God. I appeal to the wisdom and the law of this learned
bench to defend and support the justice of their country. I
call upon the bishops to interpose the unsullied sanctity of
their lawn; upon the learned judges to interpose the purity of
their ermine, to save us from this pollution. I call upon the
honour of your lordships to reverence the dignity of your
ancestors, and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit
and humanity of my country to vindicate the national
character. I invoke the genius of the Constitution. From the
tapestry that adorns these walls the immortal ancestor of this
noble lord [Lord Suffolk] frowns with indignation at the
disgrace of his country. In vain he led your victorious fleet:
against the boasted Armada of Spain; in vain he defended
and established the honour, the liberties, the religion--the
_Protestant religion_--of this country, against the arbitrary
cruelties of Popery and the Inquisition, if these more than
Popish cruelties and inquisitorial practices are let loose
among us--to turn forth into our settlements, among our
ancient connexions, friends, and relations, the merciless
cannibal, thirsting for the blood of man, woman, and child!
to send forth the infidel savage---against whom? against your
Protestant brethren; to lay waste their country, to desolate
their dwellings, and extirpate their race and name, with these
horrible hell-hounds of savage war!--hell-hounds, I say, of
savage war! Spain armed herself with blood-hounds to extirpate
the wretched natives of America, and we improve on the inhuman
example even of Spanish cruelty; we turn loose these savage
hell-hounds against our brethren and countrymen in America, of
the same language, laws, liberties, and religion, endeared to
us by every tie that should sanctify humanity....
My lords, I am old and weak, and at present unable to say more;
but my feelings and indignation were too strong to have said
less. I could not have slept this night in my bed, nor reposed
my head on my pillow, without giving this vent to my eternal
abhorrence of such preposterous and enormous principles.
That was Chatham. For Wolfe--he, as you know, was ever reading
the classics even on campaign: as Burke again carried always a
Virgil in his pocket. _Abeunt studia in mores._ Moreover can we
separate Chatham's Roman morality from Chatham's language in the
passage I have just read? No: we cannot. No one, being evil, can
speak good things with that weight; _'for out of the abundance of
the heart the mouth speaketh.'_ We English (says Wordsworth)
We must be free or die, who speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spake....
You may criticise Chatham's style as too consciously Ciceronian.
But has ever a Parliamentary style been invented which conveys a
nobler gravity of emotion? `Buskined'?--yes: but the style of a
man. 'Mannered'?--yes, but in the grand manner. 'Conscious'?--
yes, but of what? Conscious of the dignity a great man owes to
himself, and to the assembly he addresses. He conceives that
assembly as 'the British Senate'; and, assuming, he communicates
that high conception. The Lords feel that they are listening as
Senators, since it is only thus a Senate should be addressed, as
nothing less than a Senate should be addressed thus.
Let me read you a second passage; of _written_ prose:
Laodameia died; Helen died; Leda, the beloved of Jupiter,
went before. It is better to repose in the earth betimes than
to sit up late; better, than to cling pertinaciously to what
we feel crumbling under us, and to protract an inevitable
fall. We may enjoy the present while we are insensible of
infirmity and decay: but the present, like a note in music,
is nothing but as it appertains to what is past and what is
to come. There are no fields of amaranth on this aide of the
grave; there are no voices, O Rhodopè! that are not soon mute,
however tuneful; there is no name, with whatever emphasis of
passionate love repeated, of which the echo is not faint at
last[3].
Latin--all Latin--down to its exquisite falling close! And I say
to you, Gentlemen, that passages such as these deserve what
Joubert claimed of national monuments, _Ce sont les crampons qui
unissent une génération à une autre. Conservez ce qu'ont vu vos
pères,_ 'These are the clamps that knit one generation to
another. Cherish those things on which your fathers' eyes have
looked.'
_Abeunt studia in mores._
If, years ago, there had lacked anything to sharpen my suspicion
of those fork-bearded professors who derived our prose from the
stucco of Anglo-Saxon prose, it would have been their foolish
deliberate practice of composing whole pages of English prose
without using one word derivative from Latin or Greek. Esau, when
he sold his birthright, had the excuse of being famished. These
pedants, with a full board, sought frenetically to give it away--
board and birthright. _'So when this corruptible shall have put
on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality'_
--almost, I say, these men had deserved to have a kind of speech
more to their taste read over their coffins.