vines have employed it, where it is most pernicious, and abfolutely intolerable, even in religion itself. Rutherford's Put in his word, that neither might offend, Homer has been blamed, not without reafon, for degrading his Gods into mortals; but Dryden has degraded them into blackguards. He concludes the book in a ftrain of buffoonery as grofs as any thing in Hudibras : Drunken at last, and drowfy, they depart Each to his houfe, adorn'd with labour'd art The paffage literally rendered is no more than this. "Now, when the fhining light of the fun was gone "down, the other gods being inclined to flumber, de"parted to their feveral homes, to where Vulcan, the "lame deity, renowned for ingenious contrivance, had "built for each a palace. And Olympian Jove, the "thunderer, went to the bed where, when fweet fleep "came upon him, he was accustomed to repofe. Thi ther afcending, he refigned himself to reft; and near "him Juno, diftinguished by the golden throne."-It is faid, that Dryden once intended to tranflate the whole Iliad. Taking this first book for a fpecimen, I am glad, both on Homer's account and on his own, that he did not. It is tainted throughout with a dafh of burlefque, (owing not only to his choice of words, but also to his paraphrafes and additions), and with fo much of the profane cant of his age, that if we were to judge of the poet by the tranflator, we fhould imagine the Iliad to have been partly defigned for a fatire upon the clergy. VOL. II. 3 F Virgil Rutherford's Letters, well known in North Britain, are notorious in this way; not fo much for the rudeness of the style in general, for that might be pardoned in a Scotch writer who lived one hundred and twenty years ago, as for the allufions and figures, which are inexcufeably grofs and groveling. A reader who is unacquainted with the character of Rutherford might imagine, that thofe letters must have been written with a view to ridicule every thing that is facred. And though there is reason to believe the author had no bad meaning, one cannot without horror fee religion profaned by a phrafeology which one would fooner expect Virgil, in his ninth Eclogue, puts these words in the mouth of an unfortunate thepherd. O Lycida, vivi pervenimus, advena noftri, It is ftrange that Dryden did not perceive the beautiful fimplicity of thefe lines. If he had, he would not have written the following ridiculous tranflation. O Lycidas, at laft The time is come I never thought to fee, from 1 from a profligate clown in an alehouse, than from a clergyman. Such performances are very detrimental to true piety; they pervert the ignorant, and encourage the profaneness of the fcoffer. Nor let it be faid, that they make religious truth intelligible to the vulgar: rather fay, that they tend to make it appear contemptible. Indeed a preacher, who affects a display of metaphyfical learning, or interlards his compofition with terms of art or fcience, or with uncommon words derived from the Greek and Latin, must be little understood by unlettered hearers: but that is a fault which every preacher who has the instruction of his people at heart, and is master of his language and fubject, will carefully and easily avoid. For between plainnefs and meannefs of expreffion there is a very wide difference. Plain words are univerfally understood, and may be used in every argument, and are especially requifite in all writings addreffed to the people. Mean language has no ftandard, is different in different places, and is applicable to burlefque arguments only. Gulliver's Travels, or the Drapers Letters, are intelligible in every part of England; but the dialects of Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Somersetshire, are hardly understood beyond the limits of these provinces. A fermon in Broad Scotch would now feem ridiculous to a Scotch peafant, and withal be lefs intelligible than one of Swift's or Atterbury's. 3 F 2 Few Few things in language have a more debafing influence than provincial barbarisms; because we feldom hear them, except from illiterate people, and on familiar occafions *. Hence, upon the principles here laid down, it might be prefumed a priori, that to thofe who thoroughly understand them, they would be apt to appear ludicrous; especially when either the fubject, or the condition of the speaker, gave ground to expect a more polite ftyle. And this is fo much the cafe, that in North Britain it is no uncommon thing to fee a man obtain a character for jocularity, merely by fpeaking the vulgar broad Scotch. To write in that tongue, and yet * There is an obvious difference between dialect and pronunciation. A man may be both learned and wellbred, and yet never get the better of his national accent. This may make his fpeech ungraceful, but will not render it ridiculous. It becomes ridiculous only when it is debafed by thofe vulgarities that convey a mean idea of the fpeaker. Every Scotchman of taste is ambitious to avoid the folecifms of his native dialect. And this by care and ftudy he may do, and be able, even in familiar difcourfe, to command fuch a phrafeology as, if committed to writing, would be allowed to be pure English. He may too fo far diveft himself of his national accent as to be perfectly intelligible, whereever the English language is understood. But the niceties of English pronunciation he cannot acquire, without an early and long refidence among English people who fpeak well. It is however to be hoped, that in the next century this will not be fo difficult. From the attention that has of late been paid to the ftudy of the English tongue, the Scots have greatly improved both their pronunciation and their ftyle within thefe laft thirty years. 1 write seriously, is now impoffible; fuch is the effect of mean expreffions applied to an ::important fubject: fo that if a Scotch merchant, or man of business, were to write to his countryman in his native dialect, the other would conclude that he was in jeft. Not that this language is naturally more ridiculous than others. While spoken and written at the court of Scotland, and by the most polite perfons in the kingdom, it had all the dignity that any other tongue, equally fcanty and uncultivated, could poffefs; and was a dialect of English, as the Dutch is of German, or the Portuguese of Spanish; that is, it was a language derived from and like another, but fubject to its own laws, and regulated by the practice of those who writ and spoke it. But, for more than half a century past, it has, even by the Scots themselves, been confidered as the dialect of the vulgar; the learned and polite having, for the most part, adopted the English in its ftead;-a preference juftly due to the fuperior genius of that noble language, and the natural effect of the prefent civil conftitution of Great Britain. And now, in Scotland, there is no fuch thing as a standard of the native tongue; nothing paffes for good language, but what is believed to be English; every county thinks its own speech preferable to its neighbour's, without entertaining any partiality for that of the chief town: and the populace of Edinburgh speak a |