the writings of a great number, if not the majority of celebrated authors.

SECTION II.

National ufe.

ANOTHER qualification of the term use which deferves our attention, is that it must be national. This I confider in a twofold view, as it ftands opposed both to provincial and to foreign.

In every province there are peculiarities of dialect, which affect not only the pronunciation and the accent, but even the inflection and the combination of words, whereby their idiom is diftinguished both from that of the nation, and from that of every other province. The narrownefs of the circle to which the currency of the words and phrases of such dialects is confined, fufficiently difcriminates them from that which is properly ftyled the language, and which commands a circulation incomparably wider. This is one reason, I imagine, why the term use, on this fubject, is commo..ly accompanied with the epithet general. In the ufe of provincial idioms, there is, it must be acknowledged, a pretty confiderable concurrence both of the middle and of VOL. I. A a

the

the lower ranks. But ftill this ufe is bounded by the province, county, or diftrict, which gives name to the dialect, and beyond which its peculiarities are fometimes unintelligible, and always ridiculous. But the language, properly fo called, is found current, especially in the upper and the middle ranks, over the whole British empire. Thus, though in every province they ridicule the idiom of every other province, they all vaik to the English idiom, and fcruple not to acknowledge its fuperiority over their own.

For example, in fome parts of Wales, (if we may credit Shakespeare *,) the common people fay goot for good; in the South of Scotland they fay gude, and in the North, gueed. Wherever one of thefe pronunciations prevails, you will never hear from a native either of the other two; but the word good is to be heard every where from natives as well as ftrangers; nor do the people ever dream that there is any thing laughable in it, however much they are difpofed to laugh at the county-accents and idioms which they difcern in one another. Nay more, though. the people of diftant provinces do not understand one another, they moftly all understand one who *Fluellen in Henry V.

fpeaks

fpeaks properly. It is a juft and curious obfervation of Dr. Kenrick, that "the cafe of lanτσ guages, or rather speech, being quite contrary to that of science, in the former the ignorant understand the learned, better than the learn"ed do the ignorant; in the latter, it is other* wife *."

HENCE it will perhaps be found true, upon inquiry, notwithstanding its paradoxical appearance, that though it be very uncommon to speak or write pure English, yet, of all the idioms fubfifting amongst us, that to which we give the character of purity, is the commoneft. The faulty idioms do not jar more with true English, than they do with one another; fo that, in order to our being fatisfied of the truth of the apparent paradox, it is requifite only that we remember that thefe idioms are diverse one from another, though they come under the common denomination of impure. Thofe who wander from the road may be incomparably more than those who travel in it; and yet, if it be into a thousand different by paths that they deviate, there may not in any one of these be found fo

Rhet. Gram. Chap. ii, Sect. 4.

A a 2

many

many as thofe whom you will meet upon the king's highway.

WHAT hath been now faid of provincial dialects, may, with very little variation, be applied to profeffional dialects, or the cant which is fometimes obferved to prevail among those of the fame profeffion or way of life. The currency of the latter cannot be fo exactly circumfcribed as that of the former, whose diftinction is purely local; but their use is not on that account either more extenfive or more reputable. Let the following ferve as inftances of this kind. Advice, in the commercial idiom, means information or intelligence; nervous, in open defiance of analogy, doth in the medical cant, as Johnson expreffeth it, denote, having weak nerves; and the word turtle, though pre-occupied time immemorial by a fpecies of doves, is, as we learn from the fame authority, employed by failors and gluttons, to fignify a tortoife".

Ir was remarked, that national might also be opposed to foreign. I imagine it is too evident to need illuftration, that the introduction of ex-. traneous words and idioms, from other languages and foreign nations, cannot be a smaller tranfSce thofe words in the English Dictionary.

greffion

greffion against the established cuftom of the English tongue, than the introduction of words and idioms peculiar to fome precincts of England, or at least somewhere current within the British pale. The only material difference between them is, that the one is more commonly the error of the learned, the other of the vulgar. But if, in this view, the former is entitled to greater indulgence, from the respect paid to learning; in another view, it is entitled to lefs, as it is much more commonly the refult of affectation. Thus two effential qualities of ufage, in regard to language, have been fettled, that it be both reputable and national,

SECTION III.

Prefent use.

BUT there will naturally arife here another queftion, "Is not ufe, even good and national "ufe, in the fame country, different in different

26

periods? And if fo, to the ufage of what pc"riod thall we attach ourfelves, as the proper "rule? If you fay the prefent, as it may reafonably be expected that you will, the difficulty "is not entirely removed. In what extent of fignification must we understand the word

66