The English Language. "AH who can hope his line should long In closing the first division of the present paper it was determined that another and concluding number would be devoted to a consideration of the best means of cultivating an acquaintance with the English language; the danger of corruption to which it is exposed from innovation; with some allusion to British criticism upon the manner in which the English language is written and spoken in America; and an examination of its future prospects, in regard to its prevalence and extension. In reference to the first branch of the subject, we may remark, that undoubtedly the first place is to be assigned to a careful perusal of the best authors, with a special attention to their peculiar turns of thought, and modes of expression. A good style, like good manners, must be formed by frequenting good company, not for the purpose of imitating any particular individual, but of catching the nameless graces of all. A correct taste in regard to fine writing can only be formed, like taste in the fine arts, by the careful inspection of good models. Different writers have different excellencies; and he who would form a correct taste and a good style, must not confine his attention to a few favorite authors; but must suffer his mind to roam, somewhat at large, over the fields of English literature. NO. 2 A frequent reference to a standard dictionary, in connexion with extensive reading, is also of great importance, in order to the maintenance of purity and propriety of composition. Without such a help, always at hand, and frequently resorted to, there are few persons thorized words, or of giving to legitimate who would not be in danger of using unauwords an unauthorized meaning. In selecting a dictionary as a standard, great judgment and discretion should he exercised. Johnson's dictionary, with its latest improvements, particularly his quarto, possesses many advantages over any others which have ever been written. The idea of supporting and illustrating the meaning of words by quotations from distinguished authors, was a peculiarly happy conception; and this feature in Johnson's dictionary will be highly valued by every critical scholar. The meaning of words is more accurately ascertained by inspecting the manner in which they have been used by good authors, than it can possibly be from any definition. The authority of some authors is superior to that of others; and a means is afforded by this dictionary for distinguishing between words of modern use, and those which must be considered as well nigh obsolete. Next to a careful perusel of the best classical English writers, with the aid of a good dictionary, the greatest help to a thorough acquaintance with the English will be found in a knowledge of the Latin language. The English has derived more words from the Latin, than from all other foreign sources; and these words are some of the most expressive and forcible in the language. The Latin language possesses peculiar advantages as an expositior of the English. The words which have been derived from the French, have been taken with little change of form; and to trace them back to their source, furnishes little or no clue to their meaning. It is not so with words derived from the Latin. Those words which are simple in the English, are often compound in the Latin, and the simple Latin words of which they are compounded, often furnish the best interpretation of the English word which has been derived from them. To give a few examples: what better definition can be given of circumambient, than is derived from the Latin words, ambio, to encompass, circum, around; of circumjacent, than jacio to lie, circum, around; of suburbs, than sub, around, urbs, the city; of circumlocution, than loquor, to speak, circum, around; of omniscient, than omnis, all, scio, to know; of consanguinity, than con, together, sanguinis, from sanguis, blood; of pusillanimity, than pusillus, weak, animus, soul, or mind; of retrospect, than retro, backward, and specto, to view? The same is true in hundreds of cases. And even where the Latin word is not a compound, it will furnish a clue to the primary meaning of the English word which has been derived from any other source. To the Latin scholar, the words in the English which have been derived from the Latin, have a peculiar precision and force, since they thus become their own interpreters; and in his knowledge of the Latin, he carries around with him, at all times, a most convenient portable dictionary. The Greek language, also, from which many valuable English words have been derived, possesses, to a great degree, the same advantages as the Latin, and is highly worthy of the attention of the English scholar. If the same attention were bestowed upon this language which is extensively given to the French, many young ladies might learn to read with facility the New Testament in the original language. They would thus not only be able to understand the criticisms on the original Scriptures, which they will frequently meet with, and be able to form a judgment of their correctness, and would become acquainted with the most beautiful language of antiquity, but they would furnish themselves with a valuable means of an extended acquaintance with their own rich tongue. Lady Jane Grey, in whom the Christian may glory, and of whom, if pride were ever admissible, every female might be proud, who, at the early age of seventeen, was cut down by the hand of violence, was familiarly acquainted with this language. The New Testament was a part of her daily reading; and she generally read it in the original Greek, and with the same facility with which she read the English. The French deserves only the third place among foreign languages, as an auxiliary to English literature. It is a help, however, which is by no means to be contemned; for the English is indebted to it for many of its words, and the French has receieved a high degree of cultivation by the labors of many distinguished scholars, and embodies much valuable literature and science. Languages, like nations, have had their rise, their glory, and their decline. The sun of English literature has risen in peculiar brightness, has ascended the heavens in majesty, and is shedding its meridian splendor on the world. Who would not regret to behold it descending toward the horizon, even though it should scatter brilliancy over a hemisphere in its setting glory? It is interesting to inquire what are the dangers of corruption to which the English language is exposed, and how they may be avoided. The greatest danger of corruption to which it is exposed is innovation. In the earlier state of a language, when it is progressing in improvement by the labors of genius and taste, innovation is the prime source of its advancement. But when a language has received the finishing touch of improvement, and become substantially settled, innovation is to be steadily frowned upon. With the models of Grecian sculpture and architecture before him, where is the artist who will pretend that excellence is to be attained in these fine arts by innovation, and not by imitation? There is nothing more beautiful than simple beauty itself. The Italians attempted to improve the Corinthian, the most elegant order of Grecian architecture, by combining the beauties of the Ionic and of the Corinthian; but in the judg ment of all good taste, they marred what it and who write it; and it is of great consewas their purpose to adorn. quence that they use the same words, and in the same senses, and even that they write them with the same orthography. No single man, and no small body of men, have a right to interfere with the common property of all. It has required the labor of ages to bring the English language to its present perfection and When a language becomes substantially settled, innovation must be considered a kind of literary treason. A language becomes settled when no authors may be expected to arise in it, more distinguished than those who have already arisen. In this view of the subject, must not the English language be con-uniformity; and he who attempts, by bold sidered as settled? When will more lllustrious authors arise, than those who have already shed a glory on English literature? innovations, to trespass upon its laws, and to break up its foundations, should be regarded as the foe of English literature. This subject addresses itself with peculiar force to American writers. While it is undoubtedly true that the English language is more correctly spoken by the great body of the people of the United States than by those of Great Britain, it is also to be confessed, that American writers are less distinguished for their purity of style than English scholars. While the eloquence of the American Congress is fully equal to that of the British Parliament, and American statesmen may claim, without arrogance, to be the instructors of the world in political science; while American divines have a pathos and force which can scarcely be found on the other side of the Atlantic; while medical writers have risen in the United States, on whom the collected learning of Great Britain has conferred the highest literary honors; while American poets and miscellane There is, indeed, cheering proof that the English language is not on the decline. The later writers in every department of literature and science are not inferior to their predecessors. Campbell, and Rogers, and Montgomery, and Scott, and Byron, and many others, have adorned the fields of poetry. Reed, Stewart, and Brown, are scarcely inferior to Locke in metaphysical authorship. Webster, as a lexicographer, is no unworthy successor of the illustrious Johnson. If natural philosophy and physical astronomy have made little advancement since the time of Newton, other departments of physical science, and particularly chemistry, have been signally advanced; and the latter has been beautifully illustrated by Sir Humphrey Davy, and a multitude of others. In fictitious writing, no former author, for beauty of decription and elegance of language, will bear a comparison with Sirous writers have commanded wide transatWalter Scott. And for a pure, classical, and elegant style, nothing in the whole range of the English classics will surpass that of Washington Irving, the American. Theology has been elegantly as well as forcibly illustrated by Blair and Campbell, Porteus and Dwight. The progress of science, among those who speak and write the English language, is undoubtedly onward. New discoveries are making, and new terms will be required to express them. But, with this exception, innovation is the bane of the English language. To all that is old and all that is new in New words which are unnecessary only encum- British literature and science, the American ber a language, and increase the difficulty of public has an easy access. Book-sellers can learning and of writing it. To borrow the obtain and print these works without the exsimilitude of an elegant author, "Of what use pense of paying for a copy-right, and they can is it to introduce foreigners for the defence of therefore poorly afford to be patrons of Amea country, when its native citizens are abun-rican literature. Authorship in the United dantly sufficient for its protection?" Language States, with the exception of the department is the common property of those who speak of school-literature, has generally been a poor lantic approbation; it is still true, that elegance of style is not a prominent characteristic of American writers. It is from those who make literature and authorship a profession, that we are principally to expect a careful attention to the niceties of language. Such characters are not often to be found in the United States. This circumstance is not to be attributed to a poverty of genius, nor to a destitution of knowledge, but to the peculiar condition of the country. the defence of his favorite scheme. This work, while it undoubtedly possesses great merit, and is probably the most learned etymological dictionary in the language, contains many innovations in orthography, and in some other respects, which it is believed will never Great Britain or America; and if they are not expunged from the work by some friendly hand after his death, (for he would not probably suffer it to be done during his life,) they will prevent it from becoming an authoritative standard of the language. trade. Dr. Noah Webster has received more from the avails of his spelling-book, the work of a year's employment in early life, in the midst of other avocations, than he can ever expect to receive from the avails of his great dictionary, the learned effort of no small part of a long and laborious life. Other employ-be sanctioned by the great body of scholars in ments have held out the prospect of wealth and of fame, which literature has been unable to present. The consequence has been, that comparatively few authors have arisen in the United States to adorn English literature, and to cultivate the refinements of the English language. A carelessness in regard to the use of words, as to purity and propriety, has been the inevitable result. The octavo volume by John Pickering, of Salem, a distinguished American scholar, the object of which is to detail the words which have been used by American writers which are not sanctioned by good authority, presents a formidable host of intruders, that have invaded the purity of the English language, and that are to be driven from the country by the combined exertions of American scholars. On no subject is American scholarship more vulnerable by British critics, than in regard to purity and propriety of language, and on none have their animadversions been more unsparing. Even if they were actuated only by jealousy and rivalship, it would be wise to listen to their remarks. The maxim should be adopted, "Fas est ab hoste doceri :" but the language in which their criticism is expressed, as well as other circumstances, often forbids the idea that they are chiefly governed by such unworthy motives. The following extracts from some of their best reviews, may be considered as expressing the general sense of the literary public in Great Dr. Noah Webster is one of the few men in the United States, who have made literature a profession; and in one department he has attained to distinguished eminence. His name is not to be mentioned but with respect; yet he has attempted innovations in the lan-Britain on this subject. guage, which the literary public have refused to sanction. In early life, he started with the idea of spelling the language as it is pronounced, and published an octavo volume, consisting of dissertations on the English language, which was written in this manner. That work is a literary curiosity. He who has fallen upon it for the first time, may have conjectured, for the moment, that it was Dutch, or some other foreign language; but would hardly have thought that it was none other than his mother tongue. This experiment failed; but the author of it was not discomfited. In subsequent publications he attempted minor alterations; and as a proof of the absurdity of the scheme, he sometimes spelled the same word differently in different parts of the same volume. These alterations were not adopted by the literary public. In the publication of his great dictionary, Dr. Webster has opened a powerful battery for The British Critic for February, 1810, in a review of Bancroft's Life of Washington, says: In the style we observe with regert, rather than astonishment, the introduction of several new words, or old words in a new sense; a deviation from the rules of the English language, which if it continues to be practised by good writers in America, will introduce confusion into the medium of intercourse, and render it a subject of regret that the people of that continent should not have an entirely separate language as well as government of their own. Instances occur in almost every page." The same Review, in April, 1808, in its account of Marshall's Life of Washington, says: "In the writings of the Americans, we have discovered deviations from the purity of the English idiom, which we have been more disposed to censure than to wonder at. The common speech of the United States has departed very considerably from the standard adopted in England; and in this case it is not to be expected that writers, however cautious, will maintain a strict purity. Mr. Marshall deviates occasionally, but not grossly." The Eclectric Review for August, 1813, in noticing the Sketches of Louisiana, by Major i A. Stoddard, remarks: "For an American, the composition is tolerable; but the Major has a good share of those words and phrases which his literary countrymen must, however reluctantly, relinquish, before they will rank with good writers. The standard is fixed, unless it were possible to consign to oblivion the assemblage of those great authors on whose account the Americans themselves are to feel a complacency in their language to the latest ages." Dwight, "whose name was Timothy," has since been published, which has had a more extensive circulation, and been in higher estimation in their own island, than any work on a similar subject by a native author. Five sets of stereotype plates, in different parts of the kingdom, were at the same time throwing them off, at a rapid rate, to meet the public demand. "Nor," says a critic of their own, "is the reputation of the work likely to be ephemeral. It is evidently the production of one of the master-spirits of the Christian church." But let us turn from these foreign critics, to an authority less liable to suspicion. I refer to Doctor Witherspoon, the learned President of Princeton College. He was a scholar and a writer of no mean rank, before he came to America; and was prepared, by his long residence in the United States, to make correct observations on this subject, and would be better qualified to detect departures from the English idiom in American writers and speakers than a native citizen. Let it not be imagined that his remarks were the offspring of prejudice. A man who magnanimously breasted the storm of the revolution, and fearlessly set his name to the Declaration of Independence, is not to be suspected of being the foe of American literature. says: "I shall also admit, though with some hesitation, that gentlemen and scholars in Great Britain speak as much with the vulgar in common chit chat, as persons of the same class do in America; but there is a remarkable difference in their public and solemn discourses. I have heard in this country, in the He The Edinburgh Review for October, 1804, has the following remarks: "If the men of birth and education in that other England, which they are building up in the West, will not diligently study the great authors, who purified and fixed the language of our common forefathers, we must soon loose the only badge that is still worn of our consanguinity." The same reviewers, in their remarks on Marshall's and Ramsay's Life of Washington, observe: In these volumes we have found a great many words and phrases, which English criticism refuses to acknowledge. America has thrown off the yoke of the British nation, but she would do well for some time to take the laws of composition from the Addisons, the Swifts, and the Robertsons of her ancient sovereign. These remarks, however, are not dictated by any paltry feelings of jealousy or pride. We glory in the diffusion of our lan-Senate, at the bar, and from the pulpit, and guage over a new world, where we hope it is yet destined to collect new triumphs; and in if he brilliant perspective of American greatness, we see only pleasing images of associated f prosperity and glory of the land in which we live." see daily in the dissertations from the press, errors in grammar, improprieties and vulgarisms, which hardly any persons of the same class in point of rank and literature would have fallen into in Great Britain." In connexion with this quotation, it ought, however, to be observed, that literature has made signal advances in the United States, since the time of Witherspoon. The writer can hardly forbear to interrupt the course of these quotations, by contrasting the above generous professions with a contemptuous article in this same review, on These remarks, while they should stimulate American authors. The reviewer says: American scholars to the diligent cultivation "They have had one Dwight, whose baptis- of the English language, and to the formation mal name was Timothy, who wrote a book of of a pure and elegant style, should by no poems." A work on Theology, by this same means be suffered to produce despondency.. |