quaffed without thought of what science can tell of its components. In treating the powers of the English language in prose and verse, I should like, without vexing it with comment, or criticism, or analysis, but simply sounding it, to show what an instrument it has been in the hands of its great masters. I wish, however, to accomplish something more. At the same time, on an occasion like this, and within the limits of one lecture, it would not be practicable to enter into technical details of either the history or the philology of our language. I propose, therefore, to give a didactic character to this lecture, rather by making it suggestive of the interest which is to be found in the study of the language, by noticing some of its characteristics, and the applications of the philosophy of language which it serves to illustrate. Avoiding technical and recondite points of philology, I aim at treating the subject according to the universality of the interest it has, so as to show how the culture of it comes home to everybody, and how it is in the power of each one of us to awaken it into more action. The history of the language, its origin and progress, the principles of English philology, and the laws of English metre, are subjects of deep interest and demand careful study, and a different kind of attention from what I have any right to ask from you. I propose, therefore, rather to notice and exemplify some of the leading characteristics of the language, so as to awaken into more active and intelligent consciousness our enjoyment of it, so as to form this, among our other habits of reading; to have an eye and a feeling for the fitness of the words, their power, their beauty, their simplicity, and truthfulness; to find ourselves, in reading a wise and good book, often pausing, in silent thankfulness and delight, as we think and feel what glorious apparel the author's wise thought or good feeling hath arrayed itself in-with what majesty or loveliness of speech or song the mind makes music for itself in the words in which it is embodied—so that the thought and the words receive strength and beauty from each other. Of that connection which exists between our thoughts and feelings, and the words we clothe them in, of their mutual relation and reaction, I cannot now speak further, than to say that the more we reflect on our own inner nature, and on the wondrous powers of words, the better we shall feel and understand that relation, perceiv ing how words seem to dwell midway between the corporeal and incorporeal-a connection between our spiritual and material being. The simple suggestion of this deep significancy of language, and its relation to man's spiritual nature, may.perhaps, in some measure, correct, or, at least, startle that error of looking upon this whole subject as a mere matter of rhetoric and grammar, a superficial study of style, and therefore having claim upon the rhetorician rather than on the man-on art rather than on humanity, not reflecting on the divine origin of language; that speech, even more than reason, distinguishes man from the brute; and that the two powers, in their mysterious union, lift him out of barbarism. Whatever it may be, whether the rude and imperfect speech of the savage, articulate words with no help of written language, or whether it be the copious and refined language of civilized nations, there is, all the earth over, the duty of loyalty, thoughtful loyalty if possible, to the mother-tongue. The universal duty rests on us, and let us see what special obligations are due to our ENGLISH speech. That speech runs the career of the race that uses it, and the speed and the spread of that career have, perhaps, had more help from the speech than philosophy has dreamed of. Little more than two hundred years ago, Lord Bacon, speaking of his Essays, said, "I do conceive that the Latin volumes of them, being in the universal language, may last as long as books last." He seems to have had no such assurance for his insular English language. Somewhat later, it needed Milton's filial and loyal affection for his mother-tongue to give it a share with the Latin in his prose-writings.* A poet, a contem *As recently as the middle of the last century, Hume expostulated with Gibbon on his use of the French instead of the English language: "Why," said he to him, "why do you compose in French, and carry fagots to the wood, as Horace says with regard to those Romans who wrote in Greek? I grant that you have a like motive to those Romans, and adopt a language more generally diffused than your own native tongue; but have you not remarked the fate of those two ancient languages in following ages? The Latin, though then less celebrated and confined to more narrow limits, has, in some measure, outlived the Greek, and is now become generally understood by men of letters. Let the French, therefore, triumph in the present diffusion of their tongue. Our solid and increasing establishments in America, where we need less dread the inundation of barbarians, promise a superior stability and duration to the English language."-Burton's Life of Hume, vol. ii. p. 411. H. R. Yet Hume, in the second edition of his "History of the Stuarts," expunged the following passage. Speaking of America, he had said, "The seeds of many a noble state have been sown in climates kept desolate by the wild manners of its ancient inhabitants, and an asylum (is) secured in that solitary world for liberty and science, if ever the spreading of unlimited empire or the inroad of barbarous nations should again extinguish them in this turbulent and restless hemisphere." Id. vol. ii. p. 74. W. B. R. porary and friend of Shakspeare, feelingly la:nented the limits of the English language: "Oh that the Ocean did not bound our style But that the melody of our sweet isle Might now be heard to Tiber, Arne, and Po, That they may know how far Thames doth outgo The music of declined Italy!"* Such was the lament of him, the purity and simplicity of whose style won for him the title of the "well-languaged Daniel." In one mood, he speaks of England as "This little point, this scarce-discovered isle, Thrust from the world, with whom our speech unknown Again, however, with truer and more hopeful vision, he exclaims, "Who knows whither we may vent The treasure of our tongue? To what strange shores This gain of our best glory will be sent T'enrich unknowing nations with our stores? What worlds in the yet unformed occident May come refined with th' accents that are ours?" This This was the poet's vision, larger than even the imagina tive reason of the philosopher Bacon counted on. was not three centuries ago, and now the Island-language girdles the earth. Soon after the poet's heart gave forth its hope, English words began to find a home in the West, close hegirt, however, with the fierce discords of the Indian-tongues: for years and years their home was hemmed in within a narrow strip along the Atlantic, the English and the French languages hav *Dedication of Cleopatra to the Countess of Pembroke. ing a divided sway, when the Bourbon was strong enough to hold the Canadas, and proud enough to adventure that magnificent scheme of colonial dominion which was to stretch from the St. Lawrence to the Ohio and the Mississippi, leaving the Briton his scant foothold between the mountains and the sea. The might of the race broke this circumscription; and, in our own day, we have seen this language of ours span the continent, and now it gives a greeting on the shores of the Pacific as well as of the Atlantic. An earnest English author does not fear to predict that the time will come when the language will occupy the far South on each side the Andes; Rio, and Valparaiso, holding rivalry in the purity of the English speech. But, without venturing into the uncertainties of the future, see how our language has an abode, far and wide, in the islands of the earth, and how, in India, it has travelled northward till it has struck the ancient but abandoned path of another European language-one of the great languages of the world's history -the path of conquest along which Alexander carried Greek words into the regions of the Indus. *In Landor's Imaginary Conversations, written some twenty years ago, William Penn is made to say, "Whenever I see a child before me in America, I fancy I see a fresh opening in the wilderness, and in the opening, a servant of God, appointed to comfort and guide me, ready to sit beside me when my eyes grow dim, and able to sustain me when my feet are weary. Look forward, and behold the children of that child. Few generations are requisite to throw upon their hinges the heavily-barred portals of the vast continent... Who knows but a century or two hence we may look down together on those who are journeying in this newly-traced road toward the cities and marts of California, and who are delayed upon it by meeting the Spaniards driven in troops from Mexico?" H. R. |