Or bid the new be English, ages hence, 170 phraseology from the treasures of the chief dead and living languages. France and Germany have given us our principal military terms; the northern languages our naval; Greek our scientific; Latin our language of eloquence and philosophy. England, left to her English undefiled,' would be as naked as her own Picts. The fear of rendering the classics of England obsolete by those additions, is equally visionary. Shakspeare is understood with as familiar delight at this hour as he was two hundred years ago. The terrors which seized the nervous among our purists, at the outpouring of Johnson's powerful vocabulary, have long since passed away: its turbidness has been cleared off in the general current of English literature; and its force has but added to the strength of the stream. The national language instinctively rejects all words unsuited to its genius, and retains only those which can adorn it by their elegance, or invigorate it by their expression. How few words have we borrowed from the dialect of the United States! How few have we suffered to enter our borders, even from the superb and fertile phraseology of the east! The Latin and Greek are still the true fountains that clothe our Saxon barrenness with beauty; the former giving us refinement of phrase, grace, and flexibility; the latter nobleness of sound: both giving unrivalled elegance, from their perpetual union with classical memories, with images of poetic loveliness, and with the most ardent and loftiest triumphs of the human mind. 168 Brave Raleigh spake. Aubrey says, that Raleigh, courtier as he was, spoke in a broad Devonshire dialect: the hero's voice too was effeminate. He partly accounts for James's hostility to him, by the remarkable circumstance, that, on queen Elizabeth's death, Raleigh, contemptuous of the Scots, whom he called 'a needy, beggarly nation,' proposed to exclude James, and set up a commonwealth. The character of the feeble, pedantic, and pusillanimous James must have been well known to the English statesman; and it was not unnatural that the gallant and accomplished men, who had formed the ornament of Elizabeth's court, and done homage to the surpassing greatness of her policy, should have looked with scorn on her degenerate successor. Pour the full tide of eloquence along, 175 Then polish all, with so much life and ease, 181 185 If such the plague and pains to write by rule, Better, say I, be pleased, and play the fool: Call, if you will, bad rhyming a disease, It gives men happiness, or leaves them ease. There lived in primo Georgii, they record, A worthy member, no small fool, a lord; Who, though the house was up, delighted sate, Heard, noted, answer'd, as in full debate; In all but this a man of sober life, Fond of his friend, and civil to his wife; Not quite a madman though a pasty fell; And much too wise to walk into a well. Him, the damn'd doctors and his friends immured; They bled, they cupp'd, they purged; in short, they cured: Whereat the gentleman began to stare: 190 My friends,' he cried, 'pox take you for your care! That from a patriot of distinguish'd note, Have bled and purged me to a simple vote.' 195 Well, on the whole, plain prose must be my fate : Wisdom, curse on it! will come soon or late. dull: 200 There is a time when poets will grow I'll learn to smoothe and harmonise my mind, Soon as I enter at my country door, 205 My mind resumes the thread it dropp'd before; crave, : 210 215 You tell the doctor; when the more you have, 221 218 When golden angels. The angel, a gold coin, given by those who came to be touched by the royal hand for the evil. 222 The whole of this passage alludes to a dedication by Mr., afterwards bishop Kennet, to the duke of Devonshire, to whom he was chaplain. Indeed, could wealth bestow or wit or merit, 220 A grain of courage, or a spark of spirit, The wisest man might blush, I must agree, 230 If there be truth in law, and use can give A property, that's yours on which you live: Delightful Abscourt, if its fields afford Their fruits to you, confesses you its lord: All Worldly's hens, nay, partridge, sold to town; His venison too, a guinea makes your own; He bought at thousands, what with better wit You purchase as you want, and bit by bit. Now, or long since, what difference will be found? You pay a penny, and he paid a pound. 235 241 Heathcote himself, and such large-acred men, Lords of fat E'sham, or of Lincoln-fen, Buy every stick of wood that lends them heat; Buy every pullet they afford to eat; Yet these are wights, who fondly call their own Half that the devil o'erlooks from Lincoln town. The laws of God, as well as of the land, Abhor, a perpetuity should stand: 246 Estates have wings, and hang in fortune's power Loose on the point of every wavering hour, Ready, by force, or of your own accord, 250 By sale, at least by death, to change their lord. Man?' and for ever?' wretch! what wouldst thou have? Heir urges heir, like wave impelling wave. 232 Delightful Abscourt; a farm over-against Hamptoncourt.-Pope. All vast possessions, (just the same the case, 260 And trees, and stones, and farms, and farmer fall. Gold, silver, ivory, vases sculptured high, Paint, marble, gems, and robes of Persian die, There are who have not,--and, thank Heaven, there are, 266 Who, if they have not, think not worth their care. Talk what you will of taste, my friend, you'll find Two of a face, as soon as of a mind. 270 Why, of two brothers, rich and restless one Ploughs, burns, manures, and toils from sun to sun; The other slights, for women, sports, and wines, All Townshend's turnips, and all Grosvenor's mines; Why one like Bu-, with pay and scorn content, Bows and votes on, in court and parliament; 275 273 All Townshend's turnips. Lord Townshend, secretary of state to George I. and II. He was fond of agriculture; and was peculiarly proud of his improvements in turnips. 274 One like Bu-. Bubb Doddington, already mentioned, a contemptible fellow, who had the folly to publish his own contemptibility. |