The nomenclature of a science becomes a part of ordinary speech when that science becomes popular. From the study of mathematics we have derived terms that are now familiar and no longer exclusively technical, such as tangent and radius. With the general diffusion of geological knowledge we have such words as alluvial, strata, and fossil. The last is, in fact, so thoroughly domesticated that it has acquired a secondary, slang sense. Optical science has made us familiar with polarization of light, spectroscopic and prismatic experiments. From chemists we have learned the vital significance of oxygen and the multifarious uses of carbon. And phrenology, though it may be denied the rank of an exact science, has furnished us with many convenient forms of expression which could not now be spared, such as temperaments, and the familiar names of organs corresponding to special mental traits.

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Another, and by far the most active, agency is to be found in the influence of newspapers. For the bulk of mankind the daily press stands in the place of school and library, guiding opinion and forming taste as well as furnishing news. The necessities of a daily issue forbid any very careful elaboration of sentences; still it must be admitted that the principal journals in our chief cities often contain leading articles that are admirable specimens of style; and, in the aggregate, the literary ability of the press greatly exceeds that which is more deliberately expended upon books. But a small part of any journal, however, is either written or very carefully revised by the editor. The bulk of all we read is written by reporters, class created by the needs of our age, -a marvellous class. What the cavalry is to the commanding general, — namely, eyes and ears, that and much more is the corps of reporters to the editor-in-chief. They search for the materials for a "sensation" by an inevitable instinct. They have no fear of Addison or Irving before their eyes. For all occasions they have a stock of euphuistic phrases that would beggar Sir Percie Shafton in the attempt at imitation. Facts are always accomplished, ordinary events are embellished by "words of learned length and thundering sound." To these omnipresent, 1 See The Monastery, by Sir Walter Scott.

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sharp-eyed, mercurial, facile gentlemen we owe the invention of some desirable words, such as "telegram," and a great variety of base coinages which we are shocked at, until we learn to endure, and at length to forget, the crime of their existence. One by one, such words as the scholar knows to be unnecessary, and at variance with wise analogy, creep into reputable company, and finally receive their accolade from some tolerant authority. But the principal mischief done by these vedettes of the newspaper army is in the injury to the general standard of taste by the use of words of superlative significance on ordinary occasions, and so taking all contrasts of color out of our speech. Fire is "the devouring element," and its result "a conflagration." One does not lose a pocket-book, but is "relieved" of it. A chance fight is "a mêlée;” a dance is "a Terpsichorean festival;" a season of smooth and solid snow is “a carnival of sleighing;" a negro is "a XVth amendment ;" an unchaste woman is "a social evil; a forgery or larceny in a bank is "a financial irregularity; "every person successful in politics, and those lifted by accident into fame or infamy, are "interviewed." The corruption does not affect language only; when the gossip about some great financial scoundrel, whose collected crimes, if duly distributed, would send a thousand poor men to prison for life, is "itemized" in a tone of raillery, as though honor and truth were only phrases, and the robbery of widows and orphans by the tricks which law, unfortunately, cannot punish, were a jesting matter, it is not too much to say that the wrong that is done to our noble language is only paralleled by the insidious injury wrought upon public morals.

The current of thought has turned our attention somewhat from the original end in view. Let us return to the subject of style as affected by the two principal sources of our language. It is commonly said that the best writers use the most Saxon words, and the student is often cautioned against the habit of using those of Latin origin. But the more rational advice is to use the words that best express our thoughts. The scholar that knows the precise meaning of words, and their associations in the pages of the best writers, will rarely err in this respect. If he is writing of home affairs and

humble life, his own good sense will teach him to avoid the stately and high-sounding words that should be reserved for occasions of ceremony. Nor will he detract from the significance of a public festival by reporting it in colloquial style. The importance of good judgment and good taste in the choice of words can be seen in the grotesque and profane effect produced by the narration of sacred historical events in the vulgar phrases used by the uneducated. In the drama of Saul, by Voltaire, one of the wittiest productions of this scoffing author, the comic effects in a great measure lie in the audacious translation of the grave scriptural style into the homely vernacular. A contrary effect, and equally amusing, is produced by relating commonplace things in a learned or antiquated style, as Shenstone has done in The Schoolmistress.

In critical writings the use of foreign terms and of words derived from the classic languages is not a blemish, unless the habit is carried to the extreme. Music, for example, has a nomenclature of its own, mainly of Italian origin, and it would be impossible to express a discriminating judgment upon a composition, or upon its performance, without using many Italian and some French terms. It must be admitted, however, that the way these terms are employed by half-educated writers reminds us of the satire in Hudibras :

"A Babylonish dialect

Which learned pedants much affect;

It was a party colored dress

Of patched and pyebald languages;

'Twas English cut on Greek and Latin,

Like fustian heretofore on satin."

Writers upon art, likewise, having a similar necessity, are prone to the over use of technical terms, so that their sentences often read very much like a jargon of intentional nonsense.

Poets are allowed a certain license; but even in poetry there must be a delicate judgment and a wise parsimony as to ornament. The fatal necessities of rhyme and of metre often drive the unskilled into using words wrested from their proper significance, and placed in unfitting company. This must be taken with a large allowance,

however. Genius perceives and shows us new meanings in words, and, by combinations that seem daring and lawless to prosaic minds, gives the sudden flash that we recognize as poetic. But what music is to the deaf, and art to the blind, that is the subtile, intangible, and undefinable quality which we call poetry to minds wanting in the imaginative faculty. In a notice of "The Cathedral," published in a leading review, the writer had gone through the poem guided by the instinct of a dull soul, and having rooted out every poetic blossom, held them up to ridicule as combinations for which there was no precedent, and therefore against the canons of good taste. Such a writer would have in Shakespeare a fine garden to rummage and trample down. Not one of his blooms would be left. One fancies the critic pooh-poohing at the song in Cymbeline. "Hark, the lark at heaven's gate sings." "How can a lark sing at heaven's gate?" he asks. "Springs that lie on chaliced flowers!" "What does he mean? A horse-trough with dandelions around it, perhaps." There is not a page of Shakespeare, nor of any other imaginative poet, that would not furnish such illustrations; and the lesson taught is obvious: that a knowledge of plain good English, though useful and praiseworthy, does not necessarily qualify one to write upon subjects of which he has not a critical knowledge; and that a plodding mind, destitute of an appreciative sympathy that corresponds to the creative power of the poet, should feel himself debarred from sitting in judgment upon works that he cannot comprehend.

From what has been seen of the elements of our language it will be inferred when simple facts are to be mentioned we shall naturally use Saxon words; but any generalization of those facts will require the use of words from the Latin and Greek. Thus run, jump, walk, leap, fly are Saxon, but motion, the generic term, is Latin. So the Latin animal is the general name for horse, cow, ox, and sheep, which are Saxon. In the researches of science, whether in physical or in mental phenomena, we are compelled to the use of Latin and Greek words for the exact definitions on which the certainty of knowledge depends. The ideas conveyed in geometrical

science cannot be clothed in Saxon words. The notions that we receive from such words as intuitive, evolution, correlation, symmetry, objective, imagination, ideality, are inseparable from their written symbols, and there is no evidence that we can think of them in simpler terms. While, therefore, we delight in the unconscious simplicity of Bunyan and De Foe, we gladly give unlimited liberty of expression to the genius of Shakespeare; we enjoy the learning that breathes like antique perfumes in Milton's verse; we willingly follow the long roll of Burke's majestic sentences; we view with keen pleasure the pictured landscapes of Ruskin, and we study with patience the vocabulary which each metaphysician, naturalist, and philosopher has formed as the necessary vehicle of his thought. There is, then, no absolute standard of style, except that of adaptation to the end in view.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND LITERARY SUMMARY.

The selections in the present volume begin with Chaucer. The language and literature of the Anglo-Saxons are virtually foreign to us; the writers before the year 1400 are only interesting to antiquarians, and their works do not come within the scope of a work so - elementary as this. But even Chaucer had not a homogeneous public to address. The middle and lower classes of Saxon descent could not read at all, and would not understand the foreign words which the poet so freely uses. The higher classes had partly learned the language of the common people, and doubtless enjoyed the Canterbury Tales with a keen relish; but to the multitude they must have appeared as affected and unintelligible as a society novel spiced with plentiful French would be to the same class now.

During the period from Chaucer to Spenser many changes took place, although no famous writers flourished. The alliterative style that had so long prevailed was discarded. The old termination of the verb in the imperative mode, eth, was in some way lost. As an instance of its use the reader will please notice this quatrain of the time of sea-compelling Knut (usually spelled Canute), who died in 1035: