ON
Dr. Swift’s Letter,
ABOUT
Refining the English Tongue.
I Should be guilty of the greatest Folly in the World, if I should go about to give a Character of Persons of whom I have no manner of Knowledge. To speak well or ill of ’em wou’d be equally Ridiculous and Dangerous: For it must be all Invention, and I might then abuse a Man both in my Praise and Dispraise. It is thus with me with Respect to the Author of the Letter lately publish’d about our Language, and to his Patron. I know neither of them, and if I say a Word more than themselves, or the World have said of them, I must have recourse to Fiction, which I cannot think of without abhorrence, where Reputation is concern’d.
That good old Church Martyr the Earl of Strafford was of Opinion, Common Fame was enough to hang a Man, as in the Case of the Duke of Buckingham, when he was impeach’d by the Commons for Male Practices in his Ministry; and there were no better Grounds for accusing him, than that every Body said so. I am quite of another Mind, and let the World say what they will of any one, I am for condemning no body but whom the Law Condemns, and therefore in these Reflections I shall not consider so much how to please the Spleen of one Party, as how to expose the Arrogance of another, who would lord it over us in every Thing, and not only force their Principles upon us, but their Language, wherein they endeavour to ape their good Friends the French, who for these three or fourscore Years have been attempting to make their Tongue as Imperious as their Power.
This most Ingenious Writer has so great a Value for his own Judgment in Matters of Stile, that he has put his Name to his Letter, and a Name greater than his own, as if he meant to Bully us into his Methods for pinning down our Language and making it as Criminal to admit Foreign Words as Foreign Trades, tho’ our Tongue may be enrich’d by the one, as much as our Traffick by the other. Page 28. He would have it corrected, enlarg’d and ascertain’d and who must do it? He tells you with great Modesty and Discernment in the 27th Page, The Choice of Hands should be left to him, and he would then assign it over to the Women, because they are softer mouth’d, and are more for Liquids than the Men, as he try’d himself in a very notable Experiment. I wonder a grave, serious Divine, who is so well vers’d in College Learning, should in Compliment to a certain Lady, whose Breeding and Conversation must have given her wonderful Opportunities to refine our Tongue, imagine, that the Two Universities would give up so Essential a Branch of their Privileges to the Ladies, and take from them the Standard of English. This puts me in mind of Fontenelle’s way of Learning a Language, which he recommends to be by having an Intrigue with some Fair Foreigner; and beginning with the Verb I Love, You Love, &c. It is well enough from Him, a Papist, or Layman, but for a Protestant Divine to erect an Academy of Women to improve our Stile, is very extraordinary and gallant, and little agrees with the cruel Quotation of the Author of the Tale of a Tub, p. 163.
Cunnus Teterrimi Belli
Causa
That Excellent Moralist has not been pleas’d to discover himself, nor to Print his Name, but has set his Mark to his Works, which he has Embellish’d with new Flowers of Rhetorick, that shew what a Genius he has for refining Language, and how happily one may use the Figures of Cursing, Swearing, and Bawdy, which before were entirely exploded. Tho’ we cannot well suppose the Writer of that Merry Tale is any way related to the Author of the Letter, yet out of my great Zeal to promote his Project of polishing Us, I must refer to some shining Passages in that incomparable Treatise, and let the World judge if any Man can be more fit to Preside in a Society for refining the English Tongue.