LEONARD WELSTED A DISSERTATION CONCERNING THE PERFECTION OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, THE STATE OF POETRY, &c. 1724 ΤΟ His GRACE THE Duke of Newcastle, Lord Chamberlain of his Majesty's MY LORD, WHATEVER, in the ensuing Volume, has been printed before, was receiv'd with a very remarkable Candour and Indulgence by all sorts of Readers; and 'tis this, together with Your GRACE's experienc'd Care for Arts, that has principally encourag'd me to address these Writings to You: No Works of mine should have aspir'd to so great an Honour, if they could not have brought with them some Marks of publick Favour; that Favour, whatever it be, and the Good-Nature of the Town express'd towards them, gives me, I confess, a very sincere Pleasure, while it gives me an Argument for introducing them to the duke of NEWCASTLE; the good Fortune, my Writings have met with, could never have been boasted of, or even mention'd by me, but that it contributes to make their Way to Your GRACE with more Respect and Dignity. The Generality of Writers, and what they pretend is, I question not, very unaffected, have recourse to the Sanction of Great Names, as a Charm against Envy, sometimes without being in any Danger of exciting it, and as a Defence from the Attacks of Criticks, an inhospitable Race of People, that are at perpetual Enmity with Poets, as the Turks with the Maltese. The Poets, my LORD, like those of Malta, have but a small Territory to defend; like them, they possess certain Immunities and Honours, and boast the most illustrious of Mankind among the Knights of their Order; they are, in common with the Heroes of that Island, Adventurers for Fame and Glory, and there is in either Institution, but one Preferment or Place of Profit; the Enemies of the one and the other are equally savage, and tho' not very famous for the Arts and Discipline of War, yet much to be fear'd in regard of their Rage, Noise, and Numbers: It is therefore with good Reason, that the Writers of Verse so earnestly sollicite Succours from those who are best able to afford it them; they have great need to be protected from their Mahometan Adversaries. This, my LORD, is the Case of most of us; but the following Poems do not, at this Time, wholly pretend this Plea for Favour; they have, in the greater Part of them, already pass'd thro' the Trials and Dangers of the poetical Warfare; and now that the Heat of the Day is over, they humbly throw themselves at Your GRACE's Feet, in hopes of finding there an honourable Asylum. Many of them, my LORD, which I must not omit to mention in Justice to my self, were, expressly, written to assert my Zeal for the Protestant Establishment, and to celebrate, what in me lay, those brave Englishmen, that had signalized themselves in its Defence: As such, they have an additional Right to Your GRACE's Care, over and above that which the Muses claim to the Favour of Great Men, and may, with uncommon Propriety, apply for Patronage, to the acknowledg'd Patron of Liberty. I shall say nothing farther at present on the Affair of this particular Work; my own private Interests in Poetry, under the Honour of your GRACE's Protection, are, I doubt not, in a very good way: But when I consider Poets, in their general Cause and Concerns, I own, I cannot affirm, that they prosper exceedingly in this Age, even tho', You, my LORD, the living Ornament of it, have so eminently befriended them; Whether it be, that the inordinate Love of Gain has taken off Men's Attention from this delicate sort of Pleasure, or that other Gratifications, by their Variety and Novelty, have cast a Damp on it for awhile; or that from the reigning Temper of the People, at present, not Poetry it self can be popular, if it be not disaffected, or whatever other Reasons may be assign'd: Notwithstanding this, I flatter my self, there is something in the Situation of publick Affairs at this Time, that gives the Votaries of this Art a Promise of better Days. It is not, unless I mistake, much more than a Century, since England first recover'd out of something like Barbarism, with respect to its State of Letters and Politeness: The great rude Writers of our Nation, in early Times, did indeed promise what the English Genius would one Day be capable of, when the Refinement of our Language, and other Improvements, might afford favourable Opportunities for the exerting of it; and at the Restoration it was, that Poetry and polite Arts began to spring up: In the Reign of William the Third, the Founder of English Liberty, they acquir'd great Strength and Vigour, and have continued to thrive, gradually, down almost to our Times. Thus have they, surrounded with continual Tempests, and through a Series of dangerous and unsettled Times, kept on in a progressive State; How much more will they, in all likelihood, if not greatly check'd, advance in the present Calm, that is spread over publick Affairs? May it not, my LORD, be reasonably hop'd, that the Peace, the Happiness, the universal Quiet and Tranquillity, which Great Britain and all Europe enjoys under the Influence of his Majesty's Councils, will have such happy Consequences for all the Studies of Humanity, as may, in Time, and under just Encouragements, bring them to that Standard or Perfection, which denominates Classical Age? a Every civilized Nation has, I believe, sooner or later, such an Age; how far we may be in it, or what Approaches we have made towards it, I need not go about to ascertain: However, it seems to me plain, that the English Language is not capable of a much greater Perfection, than it has already attain'd: We have traffick'd with every Country for the enriching of it; the Moderns and Antients have both contributed to the giving it Splendor and Magnificence; the fairest Scyons, that could be had from the Gardens of France and Italy, have been grafted on our old Stocks, to refine the Savageness of the Breed; we have laid aside all our harsh antique Words, and retain'd only those of good Sound and Energy; the most beautiful Polish is at length given to our Tongue, and its Teutonic Rust quite worn away: Little or nothing, then, is wanting, in respect of Copiousness and Harmony; some new Acquisitions, 'tis granted, may occasionally be gain'd, and a judicious Writer may find an Opportunity sometimes of throwing a Jewel into our Language, a Word or Expression of more Sweetness or Significancy, than it had before; but all Men have not the Talent of doing this with Judgment, as all do not distinguish between hard and elegant Words, or see how Poetry and Eloquence differ from Pedantry: Nor does any thing, I conceive, require greater Skill or Delicacy, than to improve a Language by introducing foreign Treasures into it; the Words, so introduc'd, ought to be such, as, in a manner, naturalize Themselves; that is, they ought to fall into the Idiom, and suit with the Genius of the Tongue, they are brought into, so luckily, as almost to seem, originally, of its own Growth; otherwise, the Attempt will end in nothing but an uncouth. unnatural Jargon, like the Phrase and Stile of Milton, which is a second Babel, or Confusion of all Languages; a fault, that can never be enough regretted in that immortal Poet, and which if he had wanted, he had perhaps wanted a Superior. Upon the whole, there is a Point of Perfection in general, which when once a Language is arriv'd to, it cannot exceed, tho' it may degenerate from it; and thus it happen'd both to Greece and Rome; they both gain'd this Point of Perfection, and both declin'd from it; the Stile of Plutarch, and the more modern Greek Authors, being as impure and corrupt, in comparison of that of Xenophon and Plato, as is the Stile of Juvenal, Lucan, and others, compared with that of Horace, Catullus, Virgil. The vulgar Opinion therefore is a vulgar Error, viz. that our Language will continue to go on from one Refinement to another, and pass thro' perpetual Variations and Improvements, till in Time the English, we now speak, is become as obsolete and unintelligible as that of Chaucer, and so on, as long as we are |