of a learned Etymologift, against Chaucer, of introducing into our language "integra verborum "plauftra," "whole cartloads of words," however elegant in expreffion, is falfe in foundation. The language of Chaucer's poetry, is that of the court in which he lived; and that it was not, no probable conclufion can be drawn, from any difference of ftyle in his authors, contemporaries. In those who writ under the fame advantages, no fuch difference is obfervable; and those, who were excluded from them, laboured under extreme difadvantages, from the variations of vernacular language, and the diverfity of provincial dialect; which, as they have now in a great measure ceased to exift, may, together with their primary causes, furnish a fubject for curious enquiry.

It appears, from the concurrence of feveral ingenious antiquaries, as well as from the teftimony of Caxton, in one of his prefaces, that the English language was, in his time, diverfified by innumerable provincial peculiarities. He mentions his own choice of the Kentish dialect, and the fuccefs that attended it. The language of Chaucer's poetry is frequently more intelligible to a modern reader, than that of fuch of his fucceffors, as employed themfelves on popu

lar

lar fubjects. Gawin Douglas, a poetical tranflator of Virgil, is now, owing to the ufe of a Northern dialect, though a near contemporary of Spenfer's, almost unintelligible.

After establishing the existence of a fact, the beaten track of tranfition will naturally lead us to a confideration of its caufes. Among the first effects produced by an extenfion of empire, may be reckoned a barbarous peculiarity of language, in the provinces the most remote from the feat of learning and refinement. Livy is faid to have had his Patavinity; and Claudian is accufed of barbarifms, the confequence of his education in a distant province. A difficulty of conveyance, a stagnation of commercial intercourse, will produce the fame effects with too wide an extenfion of empire; and are as an effectual a barrier against a mixture of Idioms and dialect, as, in a more civilized ftate, the utmoft diftance of fituation between the moft remote provinces.

To caufes feemingly fo unconnected with the fituation of language, must we attribute the barbarity of our own, during fo many centuries. And those which contributed to its refinement, may, at

first fight, probably, feem equally foreign to that effect. No nation perhaps contributed less to the revival of literature, than our own; a circumstance which in a great measure secured it from that torrent of pedantry which overwhelmed the rest of Europe. The ignorance of our ancestors kept them unacquainted with the ancients; except through the medium of a French tranflation. The firft labours of the English prefs brought to light the productions of English literature; which, how rude and barbarous foever, were not confined to the intelligence of the fcholar, or the libraries of the learned; but difperfed throughout the nation, and open to the inspection of all, diffeminated a general tafte for literature, and gave a flow, gradual polish to our language-while in every other nation of Europe, the conceits of commentators, and writers of a fimilar ftamp, whofe highest ambition it was to add a Latin termination to a High Dutch name, came into the world, covered with ill-forted fhreds of Cicero and Virgil; like the evil fpirits, which have been faid to animate a caft-off carcafe, previous to their afcenfion to the regions of light.

D

"To GREGORY GRIFFIN, ESQ

• SIR,

I

Have thrown together a few obferva* 'tions on the true purpose and extent of politenefs, a fubject not altogether uninteresting; as it is in the proper or improper application of this, that we are to look for the real elegancies and heightenings of polished life; or the falfe and empty profeffions of hypocrify. And first, it may not be amifs to obferve, that

though it can by no means be deemed in itself a 'fufficient fubftitute for real merit, yet it never * fails to give it a polish wherever it meets with it. By foftening down the more prominent features, and as it were malleating the harder and more unyielding parts of the compofition, it renders the object at once amiable and refpectable. We may call it the Handmaid of Benevolence, bufied at the fame time in adding to the native charms ' of her mistress, and performing farther fuch little offices, as feem not to come immediately ' within her own department. Not contented, however, with this ftation, she has ufurped a 'higher character, and like the shade of departed Sincerity, increafes on us, and fwells on the eye ' with that extraordinary expanfion, which we are 'told the fpiritual nature is capable of.

She addreffes us in borrowed phrase, and with complacent fmiles, and feemingly honeft welcome, beckons us to the hollow embraces of a vifionary impoftor. Nor is fuch an impoftor to be defpifed, as a weak or an impotent enemy. 'Like other counterfeits, she becomes the imme'diate tool of the worldly-minded, who find her a ready inftrument for the execution of their mer

cenary