Nec Pelusiacœ curam aspernabere lentis.
"But if the Vetch you sow, or meaner,
Nor shall disdain th' Ægyptian Lentil's Care.
In the Latin there are thirty Syllables in the two Lines, in the English but twenty one. So that the English is almost one third more concise than the Latin; and at the same time Virgil's Sense fully expressed.
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I will conclude this Letter with the Opinion of a Foreigner concerning our Monosyllables: A Person not at all prepossessed in favour of our Language.
"The English Language, besides the most significant Words borrowed from the Latin, Greek, &c. and often shortned, hath a vast Stock of its own, and being for the most part Monosyllables, no Speech is capable of expressing Thought in Sounds so few as the English does: This is easily observed by the Translations of the English into Foreign Languages.
"The Strength and Conciseness that Monosyllables (especially in Verbs) produce, are of wonderful Use in Lyrick Poetry, because they enter into any Foot or Measure of Verses, by different Transpositions; so that I dare venture to assert, there is no Italian or Foreign Song, which English Words will not suit; the Variety of Feet and Metres producing equal Variety of Mode and Movements in Composition. The want of this is what makes the French vocal Musick so confined and uniform; for I cannot recollect above two of their Verbs in use in the infinitive Mood, that are Monosyllables, and not one exact Dactile in all their Polysyllables."
Röner's Preface to his Melopeïa Sacra.
Sept. 13. 1736.