words in which it is embodied. So that the thought and the words receive strength and beauty from each other. Of that connection which exists between our thoughts and feelings, and the words we clothe them in, of their mutual relation and reaction, I cannot now speak further, than to say that the more we reflect on our own inner nature, and on the wondrous powers of words, the better we shall feel and understand that relation, perceiving how words seem to dwell midway between the corporeal and incorporeal—a connection between our spiritual and material being. The simple suggestion of this deep significancy of language, and its relation to man's spiritual nature, may perhaps, in some measure, correct, or, at least, startle that error of looking upon this whole subject as a mere matter of rhetoric and grammar, a superficial study of style, and therefore having claim upon the rhetorician rather than on the man-or art rather than on humanity, not reflecting on the divine origin of language; that speech, even more than reason, distinguishes man from the brute; and that the two powers, in their mysterious union, lift him out of barbarism. Whatever it may be, whether the rude and imperfect speech of the savage, articulate words with no help of written language, or whether it be the copious and refined language of civilized nations, there is, all the earth over, the duty of loyalty thoughtful loyalty if possible, to the mother-tongue. The universal duty rests on us, and let us see what special obligations are due to our ENGLISH speech. That speech runs the career of the race that uses it, and the speed and the spread of that career have, perhaps, had more help from the speech than philosophy has dreamed of. Little more than two hundred years ago, Lord Bacon, speaking of his Essays, said, "I do conceive that the Latin volumes of them, being in the universal language, may last as long as books last." He seems to have had no such assurance for his insular English language. Somewhat later, it needed Milton's filial and loyal affection for his mother-tongue to give it a share with the Latin in his prose-writings. A poet, a contemporary and friend of Shakspeare, feelingly lamented the limits of the English language: Oh that the Ocean did not bound our style But that the melody of our sweet isle Might now be heard to Tiber, Arne, and Po, That they may know how far Thames doth outgo Such was the lament of him, the purity and simplicity of whose style won for him the title of the "well-languaged Daniel." In one mood, he speaks of England as "This little point, this scarce-discovered isle, Thrust from the world, with whom our speech unknown Again, however, with truer and more hopeful vision, he exclaims, "Who knows whither we may vent The treasure of our tongue? To what strange shores This gain of our best glory will be sent T'enrich unknowing nations with our stores? What worlds in the yet unformed occident May come refined with th' accents that are ours ?" This was the poet's vision, larger than even the imaginative reason of the philosopher Bacon counted on. This was not three centuries ago, and now the Island-language girdles the earth. Soon after the poet's heart gave forth its hope, English words began to find a home in the West, close begirt, however, with the fierce discords of the Indiantongues: for years and years their home was hemmed in within a narrow strip along the Atlantic, the English and the French languages having a divided sway, when the Bourbon was strong enough to hold the Canadas, and proud enough to adventure that magnificent scheme of colonial dominion which was to stretch from the St. Lawrence to the Ohio and the Mississippi, leaving the Briton his scant foothold between the mountains and the sea. The might of the race broke this circumscription; and, in our own day, we have seen this language of ours span the continent, and now it gives a greeting on the shores of Pacific as well as of the Atlantic. An earnest English author, Landor, does not fear to predict that the time will come when the language will occupy the far South on each sides the Andes, Rio, and Valparaiso, holding rivalry in the purity of the English speech. But, without venturing into the uncertainties of the future, see how our language has an abode far and wide, in the islands of the earth, and how, in India, it nas travelled northward till it has struck the ancient but abandoned path of another European language—one of the great languages of the world's history-the path of conquest along which Alexander carried Greek words into the regions of the Indus. Our language at this day has a larger extent of influence than the Greek, the Latin, or the Arabic ever had, and its dominion is expanding. When we contemplate the spread of the language, we may conceive the vast power which is coupled with it and we should remember that, commensurate with the power is the responsibility, the duty of cultivating and guarding it as a possession and inheritance, and a trust. Reflect, too, upon this, that along with national or individual degradation, there is sure to come corruption of the language-an accompaniment more than a mere consequence of that degradation. The language was vitiated-worse then than ever-when the court of Charles the Second scattered the poison of its licentiousness and ribaldry. The wicked and debased, who are banded together in the fellowship of crime, disown the common language of their fellowmen, and delight in a strange vocabulary of their own; for when they break bond with the moral elements that link them to society, they cast off the language as one of the links. Words which serve the wise and good become to the silly and the sensual a burden, because they are associated with wise and good uses, such as couple our English speech with so much good sense, lofty imaginings, deep philosophy, ministrant in the cause of freedom, of duty, and of truth. Hence it has been well said that "A man should love and venerate his native language as the first of his benefactors, as the awakener and stirrer of all his thoughts, the frame and mould and rule of his spiritual being; as the great bond and medium of intercourse with his fellows; as the mirror in which he sees his own nature, and without which he could not even commune with himself; as the image in which the wisdom of God has chosen to reveal itself to him." And it is a deep feeling of the perpetual power of the associations of our language, which prompts the poet's words "We must be free or die, who speak the tongue That Shakspeare spake." Now how is the language to be guarded and cultivated? By the thoughtful and conscientious use of it by every one who speaks it. It is not by authors alone, but by each man and woman to whom it is the mother-tongue, that the language is to be preserved in its purity and power; by each one in his sphere and according to his opportunities. This is a duty, and the fulfilment of it is of deeper moment than many are aware of. It is not enough thought of, that " accuracy of style is near akin to veracity and truthful habits of mind," and to sincerity and earnestness of character. "Language," observes a great master of it— "Language is part of man's character." You may, I believe, easily prove the truth of this by familiar observation, discovering the physiognomy that is in speech as well as in the face. You will find one man's words are earnest of sincerity, straightforwardness of character fair dealing, genuine and deep feeling, true manliness, true womanliness, symbolized in the words. You will perceive in another man' speech signs of a confused habit of thought, of vagueness and indirect ness of purpose. What before was a beautiful and transparent atmosphere, through which earthly objects could be distinctly seen, or the stars were brightly shining, is turned into murkiness and mist. Again, there are men whose words, volubly uttered and with ample rotundity of sound, come to us like sounds, and nothing more, suggesting the unreality and hollowness of the speaker's character; and sometimes too, to the thoughtful observer, the falsity of character will betray itself in the fashion of the speech. Dr. Arnold, in his Lectures introductory to Modern History (the best guide-book in our language to historical reading generally), has shown how we must judge of an historian's character by his style. "If it is very heavy and cumbrous, it indicates either a dull man or a pompous man, or at least a slow and awkward man; if it be tawdry and full of commonplaces enunciated with great solemnity, the writer is most likely a silly man; if it be highly antithetical and full of unusual expressions, or artificial ways of stating a plain thing, the writer is clearly an affected man. If it be plain and simple, always clear, but never eloquent, the writer may be a very sensibie man, but is too hard and dry to be a very great man. If, on the other hand, it is always eloquent, rich in illustrations, and without the relief of simple and great passages, we must admire the writer's genius in a very high degree, but we may fear that he is too continually excited to have attained to the highest wisdom, for that is necessarily calm. In this manner the mere language of an historian will furnish us with something of a key to his mind, and will tell us, or at least give us cause to presume, in what his main strength lies, and in what he is deficient." The same method of observation, let me add, will not unfrequently furnish us with a key to the characters of other authors beside the historians, and also of men and women who are not authors, but our ordinary companions in life. According to this view of the subject, the first study of style begins not with the words, as the tongue articulates them or the hand writes them, but it begins here, at tlie heart, and works upward and outward from that. The philosophy and art of language come afterward. Supposing the moral qualifications to exist-I mean sincerity, truth fulness, freedom from affectation or vanity, earnestness-then in the next place it is important to associate a certain conscientiousness in the use of speech, so that it shall correspond to something within us. I d D not mean that we are to sacrifice the naturalness of speech to a per petual pedantry; that we should be ambitious of being such rigid purists as to break the liberty and spirit of a living language by the weight of too much authority; that we should fetter the easy grace of colloquial speech with sad formality, as Charles Lamb complains of in the conversation of the Scotch, when he said, "Their affirmations have the sanctity of an oath." But there may be somewhat more of heed in our use of language than we do pay to it, without running into any thing so odious as pedantry; and indeed cultivated conversation not unfrequently turns to these topics of language, and in a casual and familiar way will treat them most agreeably and intelligently, so that we may correct an inaccuracy of diction or of pronunciation, which we might have remained unconscious of, but for an interchange of views in such companionship. In this way we do much for one another by a fellowship of loyalty to the language. 66 66 66 Besides the vice of using words without thoughts or feelings to correspond to them, there is another fault which would be chastened by a little more conscientiousness in our expressions; I mean a propensity very common-somewhat more so, perhaps, to one sex (I will not say which) than the other—to employ words of force disproportionate to the occasion, especially in the expression of feelings either agreeable or the reverse. Something which is simply pleasing is described as delightful' or charming;" or that which is disagreeable or unsightly or discordant, is spoken of as dreadful," terrible," "horrible," or "awful." This, no doubt, is often merely the exaggeration of innocent exuberance of spirits, and the words are received, therefore, with large allowances. It in some measure comes of poverty or carelessness of speech, or both, somewhat in the way that oaths are uttered sometimes (we may charitably believe), not as a purposed profanity, but for lack of words that are strong without the stain of wickedness upon them. But besides being alien from accuracy and a truthful habit of mind, the habitual use of disproportioned language is attended with this disadvantage, our strong words are all wasted before they are wanted; if, for instance, there comes an occasion calling for deep and hearty hatred, and also for an earnest expression of it, our vocabulary is exhausted; our armoury is despoiled by our own extravagance; we have been shooting our arrows in the air, and when we truly need them, our quiver is empty. Let us now look at some of the characteristics of the English language as an instrument of expression for those who recognise the duty f the thoughtful use of it. He will the better understand and use it |