A language that grew up by being brought down Neglect of the study of English at our public schools "An individual occurring in Shakspeare A fact "stated into prominence' The play of Hamlet with the ghost left out Misquotation of an opponent's words Strange errors in an old edition of the Scriptures "The final 'u' in tenour" and "the final 's' in 113, 192 THE DEAN'S ENGLISH: A CRITICISM. TO THE VERY REV. HENRY ALFORD, D.D., DEAN OF CANTERBURY. REV. SIR, On the publication of your 'Plea for the Queen's 'English' I was surprised to observe inaccuracies in the structure of your sentences, and also more than one grammatical error. In ordinary circum stances I should not have taken notice of such deviations from what is strictly correct in composition; but the subject of your essay being the Queen's English, my attention was naturally drawn to the language you had employed; and as, when I privately wrote to you respecting it, you justified *A Plea for the Queen's English', by the Dean of Canterbury: Good Words', March, 1863. B your use of the expressions to which I had referred, I am desirous of knowing whether such expressions are really allowable in writings, and especially whether they are allowable in an essay which has for its object the exposure and correction of literary inaccuracies. I therefore publish this my second letter to you; and I do so, to draw forth criticism upon the rules involved in this question; that, the light of various opinions being made to converge upon these rules, their value or their worthlessness may thereby be manifested. I make no apology for this course; for when, by your violations of syntax and your defence of those violations, you teach that Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric', Kames's 'Elements of Criticism', and Blair's 'Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres' are no longer to be our guides in the study of the English language, no apology is needed from me for my asking the public whether they confirm the opinion that these hitherto acknowledged authorities should be superseded. To spread this inquiry widely is the more necessary, because, on account of the position which you hold, and the literary reputation which you enjoy, your modes of expression, if suffered to pass unchallenged, will, probably, by and by be quoted in justification of the style of other writers who shall presume to damage by example, if not by precept, the highway of thought over which all desire to travel. By influential example it is that languages are moulded into whatever form they take; therefore, according as example is for good or for evil, so will a language gain in strength, sweetness, precision, and elegance, or will become weak, harsh, unmeaning, and barbarous. Popular writers may make or may mar a language. It is with them, and not with grammarians, that the responsibility rests; for language is what custom makes it; and custom is, has been, and always will be, more influenced by example than by precept. c Dr. Campbell, speaking of the formation of languages, justly says:-"Language is purely a species of fashion, in which, by the general, but "tacit, consent of the people of a particular state or country, certain sounds come to be appropriated "to certain things as their signs, and certain ways "of inflecting and of combining those sounds come " to be established as denoting the relations whick "subsist among the things signified. It is not the "business of grammar, as some critics seem pre * Campbell's 'Philosophy of Rhetoric', vol. i, book 2, chap. 1, posterously to imagine, to give law to the fashions "which regulate our speech. On the contrary, "from its conformity to these, and from that alone; "it derives all its authority and value. For, what "is the grammar of any language? It is no other "than a collection of general observations metho dically digested, and comprising all the modes "previously and independently established, by "which the significations, derivations, and combi"nations of words in that language are ascertained. "It is of no consequence here to what causes originally these modes or fashions owe their existence "-to imitation, to reflection, to affectation, or to caprice; they no sooner are accepted and become "general than they are the laws of the language, “and the grammarian's only business is to note, "collect, and methodise them." "But,' it may be "said, 'if custom, which is so capricious and "unaccountable, is everything in language, of "what significance is either the grammarian or the ""critic?' Of considerable significance notwithstanding; and of most then, when they confine "themselves to their legal departments, and do not usurp an authority that does not belong to them. "The man who, in a country like ours, should compile a succinct, perspicuous, and faithful digest |