"Then came the jolly summer, being dight
In a thin silken cassock coloured greene,
That was unlyned all, to be more light;
And on his head a girland well beseene
He wore, from which as he had chauffed been
The sweat did drop; and in his hand he bore
A bow and shaftes; as he in forrest greene
Had hunted late the libbard or the bore
And now would bathe his limbs with labor heated sore."
The habits and tastes of Ben Jonson and of Milton were largely influenced by their classical studies. The best authors of ancient Greece and Rome filled their memories, and it was only natural that their writings should betray at every turn the sources from which they had been fed. Yet a multitude of passages might be cited from these poets in which the genuine ring of the early English rhymers only is heard. Thus Ben Jonson, in a favorite piece of advice to a reckless youth, says:
"Nor would I you should melt away yourself
In flashing bravery; lest, while you affect
To make a blaze of gentry to the world,
A little puff of scorn extinguish it,
And you be left like an unsavoury snuff
Whose property is only to offend."
The last line has more than one word of Latin origin; but in Milton's Mask of Comus we find long passages entirely free from the foreign element. Thus, Sabrina sings:
"By the rushy-fringed bank
Where grows the willow and the osier dank,
My sliding chariot stays,
Thick set with agat, and the azure sheen
Of turkis blue and em'rald green,
That in the channel strays;
Whilst from off the waters fleet
Thus I set my printless feet
O'er the cowslip's velvet head
That bends not as I tread."
Now it must not be supposed that in calling attention to the Saxon character of English as opposed to, or distinct from, its Latin and Norman aspects, we are advocating any exclusive system. We rejoice in our language being a compound; and as some of the most exquisite perfumes are produced by distilling a variety of different flowers and leaves, so languages formed by the mixture of several races, and influenced by numerous changes and chances in the history of the people who speak them, are often, in their way, as vigorous and beautiful as any of more simple origin. This is especially the case with that tongue which, being our own, is dearer to us than all besides. But because it consists, and must ever consist, of various elements, there is no reason why we should be indifferent to the relative proportions in which these elements are mixed together; nor is it by any means superfluous to inquire whether the tendency of a compound language may not, at any particular period, be toward corruption and decay, and, at another time, toward health, consistency, majesty, melody, and strength.
We have assumed that Saxon is the basis of English, and that of late years there has been among English writers a tendency to reascend the stream to its source, to freshen and invigorate their diction by the use of native, as distinct from foreign words. We have mentioned Chatterton as being, perhaps unconsciously, a leader in this movement; and we would add that Burns also fostered the reviving taste for pure English; for, though he wrote in the Scottish dialect, that dialect had, and has still, a thousand points of contact with our language in the days of its youth. Though its peculiarities were of Gaelic rather than Saxon origin, yet they resembled old English in this, that they were marked by short words and many consonants. Hence Robert Burns's verse revolts instinctively from the many liquid syllables of the South, and is wild and ragged as the crags and glens which were his favorite haunts. So far as it influenced our literature, it recalled it from the smoother and less vigorous course of Latinized or Johnsonian English to the sharper, simpler, and clearer notes of less artificial times.
"Your critic-folk may cock their nose
And say, How can you e'er propose,
You who ken hardly verse frae prose,
To mak a sang?
But, by your leaves, my learned foes,
Ye're may be wrang."