Their early writers are intelligible to none but the learned, whereas a child can understand the language of the Partidas, though a century anterior to the oldest English work. This late improvement is easily explained by their history: they were a conquered people: the languages of the lord and the subject were different; and it was some ages before that of the people was introduced at court, and into the law proceedings, and that not till it had become so amalgamated with the Norman French, as in fact to be no longer Saxon. We, on the contrary, though we lost the greater part of our country, never lost our liberty—nor our mother tongue. What Arabic we have we took from our slaves, not our masters.
I can discover, but not discriminate, provincial intonations, and sometimes provincial accentuation; but the peculiar words, or phrases, or modes of speech which characterize the different parts of the country, a foreigner cannot perceive. The only written dialect is the Scotch. It differs far more from English than Portugueze from Castilian, nearly as much as the Catalan, though the articles and auxiliars are the same. Very many words are radically different, still more so differently pronounced as to retain no distinguishable similarity; and as this difference is not systematic, it is the more difficult to acquire. No Englishman reads Scotch with fluency, unless he has long resided in the country—I have looked into the poems of Burns, which are very famous, and found them almost wholly unintelligible; a new dictionary and new grammar were wanted, and on enquiring for such I found that none were in existence.
The English had no good prose writers till the commencement of the last century, indeed with a very few exceptions till the present reign; but no book now can meet with any success unless it be written in a good style. Their rhymed poetry is less sonorous, less euphonous, less varied, than ours; their blank verse, on the other hand, infinitely more rhythmical than the verso suelto. But their language is incapable of any thing between the two; they have no asonantes, nor would the English ear be delicate enough to feel them. In printing poetry they always begin the line with a capital letter, whether the sentence requires it or not: this, which is the custom with all nations except our own, though at the expense of all propriety, certainly gives a sort of architectural uniformity to the page. No mark of interrogation or admiration is ever prefixed; this they might advantageously borrow from us. A remarkable peculiarity is, that they always write the personal pronoun I with a capital letter. May we not consider this great I as an unintended proof how much an Englishman thinks of his own consequence?
[29] A species of lupin used as food.—Tr.
LETTER LXXIV.
Departure from London.—West Kennet.—Use of the Words Horse and Dog.—Bath.—Ralph Allen.—The Parades.—Beau Nash.—Turnspits.
Sept. 16.
The last day of my abode in London was the most painful of my life. To part from dear friends, even for a transitory absence, is among the evils of life; but to leave them with a certainty of never meeting again, was a grief which I had never till now endured. Sixteen months had I been domesticated with J., as if I had been a brother of the family. When the children, as they went to bed last night, came to kiss me for the last time, I wished I had never seen them, and all night I remained wakeful—not in that state of feverish startlishness which the expectation of an early call occasions, but in melancholy thoughts and unavailing regret, which all the recollections of my own country, and my father's house, could not dissipate. Never shall I remember my friends in England without gratitude and love.
The coach was to start at five. I was ready at four, expecting the porter from the inn. To my surprise, rather than satisfaction, Mrs J. and her husband had risen, and prepared chocolate for me. The preparations for a departure are always mournful: even animals know and dislike them: the dog is uneasy when he sees you packing up, and the cat wanders disturbedly from room to room, aware that some change is preparing, and dreading all change. The smell of cords and matting becomes associated with unsettled and uneasy feelings;—you rise by candle-light;—every thing is unusual, unnatural, enough to depress even joyful hope—and my departure was for ever. Mrs J. said, she trusted we should meet again in a better world, if not in this:—"Heretic as I am," said she, striving to force a smile through her tears, "I am sure you will join in the hope." Excellent woman—it cannot be heresy to believe it.