It is your lordship's observation, that if it were not for the Bible and
Common Prayer Book in the vulgar tongue, we should hardly be able to
understand anything that was written among us a hundred years ago; which
is certainly true: for those books, being perpetually read in churches,
have proved a kind of standard for language, especially to the common
people.... As to the greatest parts of our liturgy, compiled long before
the translation of the Bible now in use, and little altered since, these
seem to be in as great strains of true sublime eloquence as are anywhere
to be found in our language.--J. SWIFT. _A proposal for correcting,
improving and ascertaining the English Tongue_ (Letter to the Earl of
Oxford).