I stand up for King Custom, or _Usus_, as Horace called him, with whom is
_arbitrium_ the decision, and _jus_ the right, and _norma_ the way of
deciding, simply because he has _potestas_ the power. He may admit one and
another principle to advise: but Custom is not a constitutional king; he
may listen to his cabinet, but he decides for himself: and if the ministry
should resign, he blesses his stars and does without them. We have a
glorious liberty in England of owning neither dictionary, grammar, nor
spelling-book: as many as choose write by either of the three, and decide
all disputed points their own way, those following them who please.
Throughout this book I have called people by the names which denote them in
their books, or by our vernacular names. This is the intelligible way of
proceeding. I might, for instance (Vol. I, p. 44), have spoken of Charles
de Bovelles,[604] of Lefevre d'Etaples,[605] of Pelerin,[606] and of
Etienne.[607] But I prefer the old plan. Those who like another plan
better, are welcome to substitute with a pen, when they know what to write;
when they do not, it is clear that they would not have understood me if I
had given modern names.
The principal advisers of King Custom are as follows. First, there is
Etymology, the _chiffonnier_, or general rag-merchant, who has made such a
fortune of late years in his own business that he begins to be considered
highly respectable. He gives advice which is more thought of than followed,
partly on account of the fearful extremes into which he runs. He lately
asked some boys of sixteen, at a matriculation examination in _English_, to
what branch of {325} the Indo-Germanic family they felt inclined to refer
the Pushto language, and what changes in the force of the letters took
place in passing from Greek into Moeso-Gothic. Because all syllables were
once words, he is a little inclined to insist that they shall be so still.
He would gladly rule English with a Saxon rod, which might be permitted
with a certain discretion which he has never attained: and when opposed, he
defends himself with analogies of the Aryan family until those who hear him
long for the discovery of an Athanasyus. He will transport a word beyond
seas--he is recorder of Rhematopolis--on circumstantial evidence which
looks like mystery gone mad; but, strange to say, something very often
comes to light after sentence is passed which proves the soundness of the
conviction.
The next adviser is Logic, a swearing old justice of peace, quorum, and
rotulorum, whose excesses brought on such a fit of the gout that for many
years he was unable to move. He is now mending, and his friends say he has
sown his wild oats. He has some influence with the educated subjects of
Custom, and will have more, if he can learn the line at which interference
ought to stop: with them he has succeeded in making an affirmative of two
negatives; but the vulgar won't never have nothing to say to him. He has
always railed at Milton for writing that Eve was the fairest of her
daughters; but has never satisfactorily shown what Milton ought to have
said instead.
The third adviser has more influence with the mass of the subjects of King
Custom than the other two put together; his name is Fiddlefaddle, the
toy-shop keeper; and the other two put him forward to do their worst work.
In return, he often uses their names without authority. He took Etymology
to witness that _means_ to an end must be plural: and he would have any one
method to be a _mean_. But Etymology proved him wrong, King Custom referred
him to his Catechism, in which is "a means whereby we receive the same,"
and Analogy--a subordinate of {326} Etymology--asked whether he thought it
a great _new_ to hear that he was wrong. It was either this Fiddlefaddle,
or Lindley Murray[608] his traveler, who persuaded the Miss Slipslops, of
the Ladies Seminary, to put "The Misses Slipslop" over the gate. Sixty
years ago, this bagman called at all the girls' schools, and got many of
the teachers to insist on the pupils saying "Is it not" and "Can I not" for
"Isn't it" and "Can't I": of which it came that the poor girls were
dreadfully laughed at by their irreverent brothers when they went home for
the holidays. Had this bad adviser not been severely checked, he might by
this time have proposed our saying "The Queen's of England son," declaring,
in the name of Logic, that the prince was the Queen's son, not England's.
Lastly, there is Typography the metallurgist, an executive officer who is
always at work in secret, and whose lawless mode of advising is often done
by carrying his notions into effect without leave given. He it is who never
ceases suggesting that the same word is not to occur in a second place
within sight of the first. When the Authorized Version was first printed,
he began this trick at the passage, "Let there be light, and there was
light;" he drew a line on the proof under the second _light_, and wrote
"_luminosity?_" opposite. He is strongest in the punctuations and other
signs; he has a pepper-box full of commas always by his side. He puts
everything under marks of quotation which he has ever heard before. An
earnest preacher, in a very moving sermon, used the phrase Alas! and alack
a day! Typography stuck up the inverted commas because he had read the old
Anglo-Indian toast, "A lass and a lac a day!" If any one should have the
sense to leave out of his Greek {327} the unmeaning scratches which they
call accents, he goes to a lexicon and puts them in. He is powerful in
routine; but when two routines interlace or overlap, he frequently takes
the wrong one.
Subject to bad advice, and sometimes misled for a season, King Custom goes
on his quiet way and is sure to be right at last.
"Treason does never prosper: what's the reason?
Why, when it prospers, none dare call it treason."
Language is in constant fermentation, and all that is thrown in, so far as
it is not fit to assimilate, is thrown off; and this without any obvious
struggle. In the meanwhile every one who has read good authors, from
Shakspeare downward, knows what is and what is not English; and knows,
also, that our language is not one and indivisible. Two very different
turns of phrase may both be equally good, and as good as can be: we may be
relieved of the consequences of contempt of one court by _habeas corpus_
issuing out of another.