PART III. CHAPTER I. CANONS OF CRITICISM. HAVING explained and illustrated the etymology and syntax of the English language, as fully as the limits, which I have prescribed to myself, will permit, I would now request the reader's attention to some additional observations. The grammar of every language is merely a compilation of those general principles, or rules, agreeably to which that language is spoken. When I say, a compilation of rules, I would not be understood to mean, that the rules are first established, and the language afterwards modelled in conformity to these. The very reverse is the fact: language is antecedent to grammar. Words are framed and combined to express sentiment, before the grammarian can enter on his province. His sole business is, not to dictate forms of speech, or to prescribe law to our modes of expression; but, by observing the modes previously established, by remarking their similarities and dissimilarities, his province is to deduce and explain the general principles, and the particular forms, agreeably to which the speakers of that language express themselves. The philosopher does not determine by what laws the physical and moral world should be governed; but, by the careful observation and accurate comparison of the various phenomena presented to his view, he deduces and ascertains the general principles, by which the system is regulated. The province of the grammarian seems precisely similar. He is a mere digester and compiler, explaining what are the modes of speech, not dictating what they should be. He can neither assign to any word a meaning different from that which custom has annexed to it; nor can he alter a phraseology, to which universal suffrage has given its sanction. Usage is, in this case, law; usage quem penes arbitrium est, et jus et norma loquendi. If it were now the practice to say, "I loves," instead of "I love," the former phraseology would rest on the same firm ground, on which the latter now stands; and "I love," would be as much a violation of the rules of grammar, or, which is the same thing, of established usage, as "I loves" is at present. Regula est, quæ rem, quæ est, breviter enarrat; non ut ex regula jus sumatur, sed ex jure, quod est, regula fiat.— Paul. Leg. 1, de Reg. Jur. Having said thus much to prevent misconception, and to define the proper province of the grammarian, I proceed to observe, that this usage, which gives law to language, in order to establish its authority, or to entitle its suffrage to our assent, must be, in the first place, reputable. The vulgar in this, as in every other country, are, from their want of education, necessarily illiterate. Their native language is known to them no farther, than is requisite for the most common purposes of life. Their ideas are few, and consequently their stock of words poor and scanty. Nay, their poverty, in this respect, is not their only evil. Their narrow competence they abuse and pervert. Some words they misapply, others they corrupt; while many are employed by them, which have no sanction, but provincial or local authority. Hence the language of the vulgar, in one province, is sometimes hardly intelligible in another. Add to this, that debarred by their occupations from study, or generally averse to literary pursuits, they are necessarily strangers to the scientific improvements of a cultivated mind; and are therefore entirely unacquainted with that diction, which concerns the higher attainments of life. Ignorant of any general principles respecting language, to which they may appeal; unable to discriminate between right and wrong; prone therefore to adopt whatever usage casual circumstances may present; it is no wonder, if the language of the vulgar be a mixture of incongruity and error, neither perfectly consistent with itself, nor to themselves universally intelligible. Their usage, therefore, is not the standard, to which we must appeal for decisive authority; Q a usage so discordant and various, that we may justly apply to it the words of a celebrated critic, Bellua multorum es capitum; nam quid sequar, aut quem? The question then is, what is reputable usage? On this subject philologists have been divided. Dr. Campbell appears to me to decide judiciously, when he says, that the usage, to which we must appeal, is not that of the court, or of great men, nor even of authors of profound science, but of those, whose works are esteemed by the public, and who may, therefore, be denominated reputable authors. By referring to their practice, he appeals to a standard less equivocal, than if he had resorted to the authority of good writers; for, as he justly observes, there may be various opinions respecting the merits of authors, when there may be no disagreement concerning the rank which they hold in the estimation of the public; and, because it is the esteem of the public, and not their intrinsic merit, (though these go generally hand in hand,) that raises them to distinction, and stamps a value on their language. Besides, it is to be observed, that consummate knowledge is not always accompanied with a talent for communicating it: hence the sentiment may be confessedly valuable, while the language is regarded as of no authority. This usage must be, in the second place, national. It must not be confined to this or that province; it must not be the usage of this or that district, the peculiarities of which are always ridiculous, and frequently unintelligible beyond its own limits; but it must be the general language of the country, intelligible everywhere, and in no place ridiculous. And, though the variety of dialects may collectively form a greater number of authorities than national usage can boast, taken singly they are much fewer. Those, to use Campbell's apposite similitude, who deviate from the beaten road, may be incomparably more numerous than those who travel in it; yet, into whatever number of by-paths the former may be divided, there may not be found in any one of these tracks so many as travel in the king's highway. In the third place, this usage must be present. Here it may be asked, what is meant by present usage? Is it the usage of the present year, the present age, or the present century? How is it defined, or by what boundary is it limited? In short, how far may we revert in search of decisive authority? may we go back, for example, as far as Chaucer, or must we stop at the age of Addison? In determining this matter, the same learned and judicious critic observes, that regard must be had to the species of composition and the nature of the subject. Poetry is properly allowed a greater latitude than prose; and therefore, a word, which in prose we should reject as a barbarism, may, with strict propriety, be admitted in verse. Here, also, there are limits which must not be passed; and, perhaps, any word, which cannot plead the authority of Milton, or of any contemporary or later poet, may be justly regarded as obsolete. In prose, no word, unless the subject be art or science, should be employed, which has been disused for a period greater than the age of man. This is the judgment of the same critic. Against this answer, indeed, it is possible to raise a thousand cavils; and, perhaps, we shall be reminded of the poet's strictures on the term ancient in his days. One thing, however, is certain, that, though it be difficult to fix a precise limit, where the authority of precedent terminates, and legislative usage commences, or to define with precision the age of man, it must be acknowledged, that there are limits, in respect to usage, which we must not overleap, as there is a certain term, which the life of man cannot surpass. As there is a period, beyond which precedent in language ceases to have authority; so, on the contrary, the usage of the present day is not implicitly to be adopted. Mankind are fond of novelty; and there is a fashion in language, as there a c Est vetus, atque probus, centum qui perficit annos. Quid? qui deperiit minor uno mense, vel anno; Inter quos referendus erit? veteresne poetas, An quos et præsens et postera respuet ætas? Iste quidem veteres inter ponetur honestè, Utor permisso, caudæque pilos ut equinæ Paulatim vello; et demo unum, demo etiam unum; Dum cadat elusus ratione ruentis acervi, Qui redit ad fastos." Horace, Ep. I. Lib. 2. is in dress. Whim, vanity, and affectation, delight in creating new words. Of these, the far greater part soon sink into contempt. They figure for a little, like ephemeral productions, in tales, novels, and fugitive papers; and are shortly consigned to degradation and oblivion. Now, to adopt every new-fangled upstart at its birth, would argue not taste, nor judgment, but childish fondness for singularity and novelty. On the contrary, if any of these should maintain its ground, and receive the sanction of a reputable usage, to reject it, in this case, would be to resist that authority, to which every critic and grammarian must bow with submission. The term mob, for example, was, at its introduction, zealously opposed by Dean Swift. His resistance, however, was ineffectual; and to reject it now would betray prudish affectation, and fruitless perversity. The word inimical, previously to the American war, could, I believe, plead, in its favour, only one authority. In some dictionaries, accordingly it was omitted; and in others stigmatized as a barbarism. It has now obtained a permanent establishment, and is justly admitted by every lexicographer. "In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold ; Be not the first, by whom the new are tried, Pope's Essay on Criticism. In short, in this, as in every other question on this subject, perspicuity should be our guide. If the subject be art or science, or if the composition be intended for literary men, then a greater latitude may be allowed, as the reader is supposed to be master of the language, in all its varieties. But if the subject be accommodated to common capacity, and the composition designed for ordinary readers, the rule now given, not to employ a word, which has been disused for a period greater than the age of man, will be deemed, I conceive, rational and necessary. The usage, then, which gives law to language, and which is generally denominated "good usage," must be reputable, national, and present. It happens, however, that "good usage" is not always uniform in her decisions, and that un |