to involve a solecism. We speak, indeed, of playing a tune, but it is always on the instrument.

Nothing can be more common or less proper than to speak of a river's emptying itself. Dr. Johnson, in his Dictionary, explains the verb to empty, as importing to evacuate, to exhaust. Among his authorities we have this sentence from Arbuthnot. "The Euxine Sea is conveniently situated for trade, by the communication it has with Asia and Europe, and the great navigable rivers that empty themselves into it." Passing the word rivers as a metonymy for their channels, are these ever "evacuated or exhausted?" To say a river falls into the sea, or a ship falls down the river, is entirely proper, as the motion is no other than a fall down a real though gentle declivity.

Under the third sort, which can scarcely be considered as literally conveying any sense, may be ranked a number of vile, but common phrases, sometimes to be found in good authors, like shooting at rovers, having a month's mind, currying favour, dancing attendance, and many others. Of the same kind, also, though not reprehensible in the same degree, is the idiomatical use that is sometimes made of certain verbs, as stand for insist: "He stands upon security;" take for understand, in such phrases as these: "You take me," and "as I take it;" hold for continue, as "he does not hold long in one mind." But of all kinds, the worst is that wherein the words, when construed, are susceptible of no meaning at all. Such an expression as the following, "There were seven ladies ir the company, every one prettier than another," by which it is intended, I suppose, to denote that they were all very pretty. One prettier implies that there is another less pretty, but where every one is prettier, there can be none less, and, consequently, none more pretty. Such trash is the disgrace of any tongue. Ambitiously to display nonsensical phrases of this sort, as some writers have affected to do, under the ridiculous notion of a familiar and easy manner, is not to set off the riches of a language, but to expose its rags. As such idioms, therefore, err alike against purity, simplicity, perspicuity, and elegance, they are entitled to no quarter from the critic. A few of these, in the writings of good authors, I shall have occasion to point out when I come to speak of the solecism and the impropriety.

So much for the canons of verbal criticism, which properly succeed the characters of good use, proposed in the preceding chapter for the detection of the most flagrant errors in the choice, the construction, and the application of words. The first five of these canons are intended to suggest the principles by which our choice ought to be directed in cases wherein use itself is wavering; and the last four to point out those farther improvements which the critical art, without exceeding her legal powers, may assist in producing There

are, indeed, who seem disposed to extend her authority much farther. But we ought always to remember, that as the principal mode of improving a language, which she is empowered to employ, is by condemning and exploding, there is a considerable danger lest she carry her improvements this way too far. Our mother-tongue, by being too much impaired, may be impoverished, and so more injured in copiousness and nerves than all our refinements will ever be able to compensate. For this reason, there ought, in support of every sentence of proscription, to be an evident plea from the principles of perspicuity, elegance, or harmony.

If so, the want of etymology, whatever be the opinion of some grammarians, cannot be reckoned a sufficient ground for the suppression of a significant term which hath come into good use. For my part, I should think it as unreasonable to reject, on this account, the assistance of an expressive word which opportunely offers its service, when perhaps no other could so exactly answer my purpose, as to refuse the needful aid of a proper person because he could give no account of his family or pedigree. Though what is called cant is generally not necessarily, nor always without etymology, it is not this defect, but the baseness of the use which fixeth on it that disgraceful appellation. No absolute monarch hath it more in his power to nobilitate a person of obscure birth, than it is in the power of good use to ennoble words of low or dubious extraction; such, for instance, as have either arisen, nobody knows how, like fig, banter, bigot, fop, flippant, among the rabble, or, like flimsy, sprung from the cant of manufacturers. It is never from an attention to etymology, which would frequently mislead us, but from custom, the only infallible guide in this matter, that the meanings of words in present use must be learned. And, indeed, if the want in question were material, it would equally affect all those words, no inconsiderable part of our language, whose descent is doubtful or unknown. Besides, in no case can the line of derivation be traced backward to infinity. We must always terminate in some words of whose genealogy no account can be given.*

* Dr. Johnson, who, notwithstanding his acknowledged learning pene tration, and ingenuity, appears sometimes, if I may adopt his own expression, "lost in lexicography," hath declared the name punch, which signifies a certain mixed liquor very well known, a cant word, because, being to ap pearance without etymology, it hath probably arisen from some silly conceit among the people. The name sherbet, which signifies another known mixture, he allows to be good, because it is Arabic; though, for aught we know, its origin among the Arabs hath been equally ignoble or uncertain. By this way of reckoning, if the word punch, in the sense wherein we use it, should by any accident be imported into Arabia, and come into use there, it would make good Arabic, though it be bu. cant English; as their sherbet, though in all likelihood but cant Arabic, makes good English. This, I wn, appears to me very capricious.

It ought, at the same time, to be observed, that what hath been said on this topic relates only to such words as bear no distinguishable traces of the baseness of their source; the case is quite different in regard to those terms which may be said to proclaim their vile and despicable origin, and that either by associating disagreeable and unsuitable ideas, as belytimber, thorowstitch, dumbfound; or by betraying some frivolous humour in the formation of them, as transmogrify, bamboozle, topsyturvy, pellmell, helterskelter, hurlyburly. These may all find a place in burlesque, but ought never to show themselves in any serious performance. A person of no birth, as the phrase is, may be raised to the rank of nobility, and, which is more, may become it; but nothing can add dignity to that man, or fit him for the company of gentlemen, who bears indelible marks of the clown in his look, gait, and whole behaviour.

CHAPTER III.

OF GRAMMATICAL PURITY.

It was remarked formerly,* that though the grammatical irt bears much the same relation to the rhetorical which the art of the mason bears to that of the architect, there is one very memorable difference between the two cases. In architecture it is not necessary that he who designs should execute his own plans; he may, therefore, be an excellent artist in this way who has neither skill nor practice in masonry; on the contrary, it is equally incumbent on the orator to design and to execute. He ought, therefore, to be master of the language which he speaks or writes, and to be capable of adding to grammatic purity those higher qualities of elocution which will give grace and energy to his discourse. I propose, then, ia the first place, by way of laying the foundation,† to consider that purity which he hath in common with the grammarian, and then proceed to consider those qualities of speech which are peculiarly oratorical.

It was also observed before, that the art of the logician is universal, the art of the grammarian particular. By consequence, my present subject being language, it is necessary to make choice of some particular tongue, to which the observation to be made will be adapted, and from which the il

* Chap. ii.

"Solum quidem et quasi fundamentum oratoris, vides locutionem emendatam et Latinam."-Cic., De Clar. Orat. The same holds equally of any language which the orator is obliged to use. Book i., chap. iv.

lustrations to be produced will be taken. Let English be that tongue. This is a preference to which it is surely entitled from those who write in it. Pure English, then, implies three things: first, that the words be English; secondly, that their construction, under which, in our tongue, arrangement also is comprehended, be in the English idiom; thirdly, that the words and phrases be employed to express the precise meaning which custom hath affixed to them.

From the definition now given, it will be evident, on reflection, that this is one of those qualities of which, though the want exposes a writer to much censure, the possession hardly entitles him to any praise. The truth is, it is a kind of negative quality, as the name imports, consisting more in an exemption from certain blemishes than in the acquisition of any excellence. It holds the same place among the vir tues of elocution that justice holds among the moral virtues. The more necessary each is, and the more blamable the transgression is, the less merit has the observance. Grace and energy, on the contrary, are like generosity and public spirit. To be deficient in these virtues is not treated as criminal, but to be eminent for the practice of them is accounted meritorious. As, therefore, in what regards the laws of purity, the violation is much more conspicuous than the observance, I am under the disagreeable necessity of taking my illustrations on this article solely from the former.

Purity, it was said, implies three things. Accordingly. in three different ways it may be injured. First, the words used may not be English. This fault hath received from grammarians the denomination of barbarism. Secondly, the construction of the sentence may not be in the English idiom. This hath gotten the name of solecism. Thirdly, the words and phrases may not be employed to express the precise meaning which custom hath affixed to them. This is termed impropriety

*

SECTION I.

THE BARBARISM.

THE reproach of barbarism may be incurred by three differ ent ways: by the use of words entirely obsolete, by the use of words entirely new, or by new formations and composi tions from simple and primitive words in present use.

PART I. By the Use of Obsolete Words.

Obsolete words, though they once were English, are not so now; though they were both proper and expressive in the

* Quintilian hath suggested this distribution.-Instit., lib. i., cap. v. "Deprehendat quæ barbara, quæ impropria, quæ contra legem loquendi composita."

R

days of our forefathers, are become as strange to our ears as many parts of their garb would be to our eyes; and if so, such words have no more title than foreign words to be introduced at present; for though they are not so totally unknown as to occasion obscurity, a fault which I shall consider afterward, their appearance is so unusual, and their form is so antiquated, that, if not perfectly ridiculous, they at least suggest the notion of stiffness and affectation. We ought, therefore, not only to avoid words that are no longer understood by any but critics and antiquaries, such as hight, cleped, uneath, erst, whilom; we must also, when writing in prose and on serious subjects, renounce the aid of those terms which, though not unintelligible, all writers of any name have now ceased to use. Such are behest, fantasy, tribulation, erewhile, whenas, peradventure, selfsame, anon. these offend more or less against the third criterion of good use formerly given, that it be such as obtains at present.

All

Some indulgence, however, on this, as well as on several other articles, as was hinted already, must be given to poets on many accounts, and particularly on account of the peculiar inconveniences to which the laws of versification subject them. Besides, in treating some topics, passages of ancient story for example, there may be found sometimes a suitableness in the introduction of old words. In certain kinds of style, when used sparingly and with judgment, they serve to add the venerable air of antiquity to the narrative. In burlesque, also, they often produce a good effect. But it is admitted on all sides, that this species of writing is not strictly subjected to the laws of purity.

PART II. By the Use of New Words.

Another tribe of barbarisms much more numerous is cor. stituted by new words. Here, indeed, the hazard is more imminent, as the tendency to this extreme is more prevalent. Nay, our language is in greater danger of being overwhelmed by an inundation of foreign words than any other species of destruction. There is, doubtless, some excuse for borrowing the assistance of neighbours, when their assistance is really wanted-that is, when we cannot do our business without it; but there is certainly a meanness in choosing to be indebted to others for what we can easily be supplied with out of our own stock. When words are introduced by any writer from a sort of necessity, in order to avoid tedious and languid circumlocutions, there is reason to believe they will soon be adopted by others convinced of the necessity, and will at length be naturalized by the public. But it is to be wished that the public would ever reject those which are ob

Book ii., chap. i., sect. iii.