III. NEW-COINED AND OBSOLETE WORDS.

Upon this fubject, I fhall take the liberty of quoting a paffage from Dr. Armstrong, but without profeffing to adopt all the opinions which it contains.

"It is the eafieft thing imaginable to coin new words. The most ignorant of the nobility are apt to do it every day, and are laughed at for it. What beft can justify the introducing a new word, is neceffity, where there is not an established one to exprefs your meaning. But, while all the world understands what is meant by the word pleasure, which founds very well too, what occafion can there be for faying voluptly?

"Nothing can deform a language fo much as an inunda-tion of new words and phrafes. It is, indeed, the readiest way to demolish it. If there is any need to illuftrate the barbarous effects which a mixture of new words must produce, only confider how a difcourfe, patched all over with fentences in different languages, would found; or how oddly it would ftrike you in a ferious converfation to hear, from the fame perfon, a mixture of all the various dialects and tones of the feveral counties of the three kingdoms; though it is still the fame language. To make it fenfible to the eye; how greatly would a mixture of Roman, Italic, Greek, and Saxon characters deform a page! A picture imitating the style of different mafters, which is commonly called a Gallery of Painters, can never be pleafing for the fame reafons, want of union and harmony.

"The prefent licentious humour of coining and borrowing words feems to portend no good to the English language; and it is grievous to think with what volupty two or poetararoren couroac* eminent perfonages have opiniatred the inchoation of fuch futile barbarifms..

"In fhort, the liberty of coining words ought to be used with great modefty. Horace, they fay, gave but two, and Virgil only one to the Latin tongue, which was fqueamish enough not to swallow those, even from fuch hands, without fome reluctance.

"Instead of creating a parcel of aukward new words, I imagine it would be an improvement to degrade many of the

* An American word for the number three,

old ones from their peerage. I am but a private man, and without authority; but an abfolute prince, if he was of my opinion, would make it capital ever to say encroach or encroachment, or any thingt hat belongs to encroaching. I would commit inculcate, for all its Latinity, to the care of the paviours; and it should never appear above ground again. If you have the leaft fympathy with the human ear, never fay purport while you breathe; nor betwixt, except you have first repeated between till we are quite tired of it. Methinks ftrongly refembles the broken language of a German in his first attempts to fpeak English. Methought lies under the fame objection, but it founds better.

"It is full time that froward should be turned out of all good company, especially as perverse is ready at hand to fupply its place. Vouchsafe is a very civil gentleman; but as his courtefey is fomewhat old-fashioned, we wish he would deign, or condescend, or be pleased to retire.

"From what rugged road, I wonder, did swerve deviate into the English language?-But this subject matter!-In the name of every thing that is difgufting and deteftable, what is it? Is it one or two ugly words? What is it? Confound me if ever I could guefs! Yet one dares hardly peep into a preface, for fear of being ftared in the face with this nafty subject matter.*"

CHAP. III.

OF PROPRIETY OF STYLE.

ROPRIETY of ftyle ftands oppofed to vulgarifms or low

lefs fignificant of the ideas we mean to convey. An author may be deficient in propriety, either by making choice of fuch words as do not exprefs the idea which he intends, but fome other which only refembles it; or fuch as express that idea, but not fully and completely. He may alfo be deficient in this refpect by making choice of words or phrases, which habit has taught us to regard as mean and vulgar,

* Armstrong's Effays.

All that I propofe in relation to this fubject is, to collect a confiderable number of vulgar phrafes from the writings of different authors.

Thefe and many other particulars might eafily choke the faith of a philofopher, who believed no more than what he could deduce from the principles of nature.

Dryden's Life of Plutarch.

The kings of Syria and Egypt, the kings of Pergamus andMacedon without intermiffion, worried each other for above two hundred years. Burke's Vindication of Natural Society. The memory of him and of them would have stunk together in the noftrils of mankind.

Bolingbroke's Dissertation on Parties. Befides his having attained fuch a mastery in the Greek, Latin, and French languages, he is a very good philofophery and, in general, poffeffes all the branches of erudition, except the mathematics. Spence's Life of Blacklock.. I need fay no more concerning the drift of thefe letters. Aikin's Letters to his Son. Archbishop Tillotfon is too often careless and languid; and is much outdone by bishop Atterbury, in the mufic of his periods. Blair's Rhetoric.

✔ Every year a new flower in his judgment beats all the old ones, though it is much inferior to them both in colour and shape. Mandeville on the Nature of Society. I am wonderfully pleafed when I meet with any paffage in an old Greek or Latin author, that is not blown upon, and which I have never met with in a quotation.

Addison, Spectator. His name muft go down to pofterity with diftinguished honour in the public records of the nation.

Hurd's Life of Warburton.

We enter into their gratitude towards thofe faithful friends who did not defert them in their difficulties: and we heartily go along with their refentment, against thofe perfidious traitors who injured, abandoned, or deceived them.

Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments.

This same grace is fpoken of as the gift of God.

Berkeley's Minute Philosopher.

Alarmed by the ungoverned, and, in him, unprecedented, emotions of Edgar, he had been to Beech Cark.

D'Arblay's Camilla. It was but of a piece, indeed, that a ceremony conducted in defiance of humanity, fhould be founded in contempt of justice. Melmoth's Letter of Fitzosborne.

It so happened that a controverfy was agitated with great vehemence between thofe friends of long continuance, Addifon and Steele. Johnson's Life of Addison It is well if the reader, without rejecting by the lump, endeavour patiently to gather the plain meaning. Kaimes's Elements of Criticism. Rabelais had too much game given him for satire in that age by the customs of courts and of convents, of proceffes and of wars, of fchools and of camps, of romances and legends. Temple on Poetry. One would think there was (were) more fophifts than one had a finger in this volume of letters.

·Bentley on Socrates's Epistles.

I had as lief fay a thing after him as after another.

Lowth's Answer to Warburton

If all thefe were exemplary in the conduct of their lives, things would foon take a new face, and religion receive a mighty encouragement.

Swift on the Advancement of Religion. Nor would he do it to maintain debate, or fhew his wit, but plainly tell me what stuck with him.

Burnet's Life of Rochester. Content, therefore, I am, my lord, that Britain stands in this refpect as he now does. Able enough fhe is at present to shift for herself.

Shaftesbury's Letter concerning Design. Much ado there has been, many words fpent, many disputes have been raised upon this argument. Temple on Poetry.

What is it but a kind of rack that forces men to say what Cowley's Essays.

they have no mind to?

A perfect union of wit and judgment is one of the rarest things in the world. Burke on the Sublime and Beautiful.

This is one among the many reasons, which render biography the most agreeable kind of reading in the world. Roberts, Looker-on.

Another thing to be observed is, that the water of the abyfs being in one veffel; the heat will diffufe itfelf uniformly through it all. And a swinging quantity of heat it must be, that will set such a kettle a boiling.

Arbuthnot's Examin. of Woodward's Account of the Deluge. Perhaps fome of the above expreffions may be rather deemed antiquated than low and vulgar: but to whatever clafs they may be referred, they are fuch as every writer ambitious of elegance ought ftudiously to avoid.

He therefore made rhyming tragedies, till, by the preva lence of manifeft propriety, he feems to have grown afhamed of making them any longer. Johnson's Life of Dryden.

From that time he refolved to make no more translations. Johnson's Life of Pope. It is my defign to comprife in this fhort paper, the fub ftance of thofe numerous differtations the critics have made on the fubject. Pope's Discourse on Pastoral Poetry.

A few reflections on the rife and progrefs of our distemper, and the rife and progrefs of our cure, will help us of courfe to make a true judgment.

Bolingbroke's Dissertation on the Passions: This application of the verb make is aukward, as well as familiar. To make tragedies, to make tranflations, to make differtations, to make judgments, are expreffions which fhould never be admitted into a ferious difcourfe.

A vulgar expreffion, fays Longinus, is fometimes much more fignificant than an elegant one.* This may readily be granted; but however fignificant it may be, no expreffion that has a tendency to create fenfations of difguft, will, by a judicious writer, be thought worthy of admiffion.

The following quotation will ferve to fhow how the most