ous men. Whether, therefore, he be, or be not, imitated, he will himself prove a loser at last, I might add to these, that as borrowing naturally exposeth to the suspicion of poverty, this poverty will much more readily, and more justly too, be imputed to the writer than to the language.

Inventors in the arts, and discoverers in science, have an indisputable title to give names to their own inventions and discoveries. When foreign inventions and discoveries are imported into this island, it is both natural and reasonable that the name should accompany the thing. Nay, in regard even to evils of foreign growth, I should not object to the observance of the same rule. Were any one to insist, that we have not in our language words precisely corresponding to the French galimatias, phebus, verbiage, gasconade, rodomontade, I should not contend with him about it; nor should I perhaps dislike, that the very name served to shew, that these plants are the natives of a ranker soil, and did not originally belong to us. But if the introduction of exotic words were never admitted, except in such cases, or in order to supply an evident want amongst ourselves, we should not at present have one such term where we have fifty. advice of the poet, with regard to both the beforementioned sorts of barbarism, is extremely good.

In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold;
Alike fantastic, if too new or old:

Be not the first by whom the new are try'd,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

PART III.-By the use of good words new-modelled.

The

The third species of barbarism, is that produced by new formations and compositions, from primitives in present use. I acknowledge that, when the English analogy is observed in the derivation or composition, and when the new-coined word is wanted in the language, greater liberty ought to be given on this article than on the former. The reason of the difference will appear from what hath been said already. But still this is a liberty which needs an excuse from necessity, and is in no case pardonable, unless the words be at least not disagreeable to the ear, and be so analogically formed, that a reader, without the help of the context, may easily discover the meaning ".

Pope's essay on Criticism.

P There are some words of recent introduction, which come so much under this description, that it might be accounted too fastidious in the critic, entirely to reject them. Such are continental, sentimental, originality, criminality, capability, to originate, to figure, to adduce, and perhaps a few others.

Now, if the plea of necessity be requisite, what quarter is due to such frivolous innovations as these, incumberment", portic, martyrised, eucharisty', analyse, connexity, stoician, platonician, peripatetician, pythagorician, fictious', majestatic, acception', which were intended solely to express what had always been at least as well expressed, by encumberance, portico, martyr'd, eucharist, analysis, connection, stoic, platonist, peripatetic, pythagorean, fictitious, majestic, acceptation. And if any regard is due to the ear, what shall we say of-I cannot call it the composition, but -the collision of words which are naturally the most unfit for coalescing, like saintauthors, saintprotectrices, archetectcapacity, commentator capacity, authorcharacter, and many others forged in the same taste, to be found in the pages of a late right honourable author"? And lastly, if the analogy of the language must be preserved in composition, to what kind of reception are the following entitled, all fabricated in the same shop, selfend, selfpassion, selfaffections, selfpractice, homedialect, bellysense, and mirrourwriting?

It may, indeed, be urged, that the pronoun self is used in composition with such latitude, that one can scarcely err in forming new words with its assistance. But this is a mistake. New words may be formed by it; but they must be formed analogically. And the analogy of these formations may be understood from observing, that when analysed thus, they ought regularly to exhibit the same meaning. Make one's self, himself, herself, itself, or themselves, as the sense requires, follow the last word in the compound, with the preposition intervening, with which the word, whether noun or participle, is usually construed. If the word be a substantive, the preposition is commonly of, if the passive participle, by, and if the active participle, no preposition is requisite. Thus selflove is the love of one's self. In the same way are resolved selfhate, selfmurder, selfpreservation. We may say of a man that he is selfcondemned, we mean, that he is condemned by himself. A selfconsuming fire, is a fire consuming itself.

Now to apply this observation, what is the meaning of the end of one's self, the passion of one's self, the affections of one's self, and the practice of one's self? And if some meaning may be affixed to any of these expressions, it is easy to perceive that it is not the meaning of the author. Yet I can remember but two compounds that have obtained in English, which are not formed according to the analogy above explained. One is selfwilled, signifying perverse, and

9 Bolingbroke.

Hammond.

r Prior.

Spectator, No. 580.

" Shaftesbury.

now little used; the other is selfexistence, a favourite word of some metaphysicians, which, if it signify any thing more than what is properly and clearly expressed by independency and eternity, signifies I know not what. In new formations, however, the rule ought to be followed, and not the exceptions. But what shall be said of such monsters as selfpractice, bellysense, and mirrourwriting? These, indeed, might have been regarded as flowers of rhetoric in the days of Cromwell, when a jargon of this sort was much in vogue, but are extremely unsuitable to the chaster language of the present age.

Again, under this class may be ranked another modern refinement. I mean the alterations that have been made by some late writers on proper names and some other words of foreign extraction, and on their derivatives, on pretence of bringing them nearer, both in pronunciation and in spelling, to the original names, as they appear in the language from which those words were taken. In order to answer this important purpose, several terms which have maintained their place in our tongue for many centuries, and which are known to every body, must be expelled, that room may be made for a set of uncouth and barbarous sounds, with which our ears are unacquainted, and to some of which it is impossible for us so to adapt our organs, accustomed only to English, as rightly to articulate them.

It hath been the invariable custom of all nations, as far as I know; it was particularly the custom of the Grecians and the Romans, when they introduced a foreign name into their language, to make such alterations on it as would facilitate the pronunciation to their own people, and render it more analogous to the other words of their tongue. There is an evident convenience in this practice; but where the harm of it is, I am not able to discover. No more can I divine what good reason can be alleged for proscribing the name Zoroaster, till of late universally adopted by English authors who had occasion to mention that eastern sage, and the same, except in termination, that is used in Greek and Latin classics. Is Zerdusht, which those people would substitute in its place, a more musical word? Or is it of any consequence to us, that it is nearer the Persian original? Will this sound give us a deeper insight than the other into the character, the philosophy, and the history of the man? On the same principles we are commanded by these refiners to banish Confucius for the sake of Con-fut-cee, and never again, on pain of the charge of gross ignorance, to mention Mahomet, Mahometan, Mahometism, since Mohammed, Mohammedan, Mohammedism, are ready to supply their room. Mussulman must give place to moslem, hegira to hejra, and alcoran to koran. The dervis

too is turned a dervesh, and the bashaw is transformed into a pacha.

But why do our modern reformers stop here? Ought not this reformation, if good for any thing, to be rendered more extensively useful? How much more edifying would holy writ prove to readers of every capacity, if instead of those vulgar corruptions, Jacob and Judah, and Moses and Elijah, we had the satisfaction to find in our Bibles, as some assure us, that the words ought to be pronounced Yagnhakob, and Yehudah, and Moscheh, and Eliyahu? Nay, since it seems to be agreed amongst our oriental scholars, that the Hebrew jod sounds like the English y before a vowel, and that their vau, is the same with the German w, the word Jehovah ought also to be exploded, that we may henceforth speak of the Deity more reverently and intelligibly by the only authentic name Yehowah. A reform of this kind was indeed, for the benefit of the learned, attempted abroad more than two centuries ago, by a kindred genius of those modern English critics, one Pagninus a Dominican friar. In a translation which this man made of the scriptures, into a sort of Monkish gibberish that he called Latin, he hath in order to satisfy the world of the vast importance and utility of his work, instead of Eve, written Chauva, and for Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekielgiven us Jesahiahu, Irmeiahu, Jechezechel-But I know not how it hath happened, that in this he hath had no imitators among men of letters. Probably upon the trial, people have discovered that they were just as much edified by the old names as by the new.

Again, why this reformation should be confined almost entirely to proper names, for my part, I can discover no good reason. Appellatives are doubtless entitled to a share. Critics of this stamp ought, for example, boldly to resolve in spite of inveterate abuses and plebeian prejudices, never, whilst they breathe, either to write or to pronounce the words pope, popery, and popedom, but instead of them, pape, papery, and papedom; since whether we derive these words immediately from the French, the Latin, or the Greek, still it appears that the o is but a base usurper of a place which rightfully belongs to the a. The reason assigned for saying koran and not alcoran, is truly curious. Al, say they, is the Arabic article, and signifies the; consequently, if we should say the alcoran, we should fall into a gross perissology. It is just as if we said the the book. A plain illiterate man would think it sufficient to reply, What though al signifies the in Arabic, it hath no signification in English, and is only here the first syllable of a name which use hath

× Pape.

y Papa.

2 Παππας

appropriated, no matter how, to a particular book. But if ye who are such deep scholars, and wonderful improvers of your mother-tongue, are determined to exclude this harmless syllable from alcoran, act at least consistently, and dismiss it also from alchymy, alcove, alembic, algebra, almanac, and all the other words in the language that are derived in the same way, and from the same source. Indeed, it is not easy to say where ye will stop, for if ye attend to it, ye will find many words of Latin or French origin, which stand equally in need of reformation a.

It is necessary to add, that if the public give way to a humour of this kind, there will be no end of innovating. When some critics first thought of reforming the word bashaw, one would have it bassa, another pacha, and a third pasha; and how many more shapes it may yet be transformed into, it is impossible to say. A late historiographer hath adopted just the half of Sale's reformation of the name Mahomet. He restores the vowels to the places which they formerly held, but admits his alteration of the consonants, never writing either Mahomet or Mohammed, but Mahommed. In regard to such foreign names of persons, offices, eras, and rites, it would be obliging in writers of this stamp, to annex to their works a glossary, for the sake of the unlearned, who cannot divine whether their newfangled terms belong to things formerly unknown, or are no more than the old names of things familiar to them, newly vamped and dressed. Surely, if any thing deserves to be branded with the name of pedantry, it is an ostentation of erudition, to the reproach of learning, by affecting singularity in trifles.

I shall just mention another set of barbarisms, which also comes under this class, and arises from the abbreviation of polysyllables, by lopping off all the syllables except the first,

a Suppose one of these Aristarchs advancing in such ingenious refinements, and thus criticising on the word aversion: "This substantive is by divers authors diversely construed, Some say aversion to a change, others aversion from a change: both, I affirm, from a blind attachment to vernacular idioms, have alike deviated into the most ugly and deformed faults. This judgment, how severe soever, I am able to support by an irrefragable argument. Aversion, according to its etymology, denotes turning from. The first syllable a is, in the original language, a preposition signifying from. It would therefore be absurd to conjoin in the same phrase with it, the preposition to, which hath a contrary signification; and to use from after aversion, would render the expression hideously pleonastic. In defiance therefore of a habitude, which, however ancient and universal, is the offspring of ignorance, we must, if we would speak correctly, either say aversion a change, the first syllable a having the force of the preposition, or, cutting off this prepositive, we must say aversion from a change." If any should think this representation exaggerated, let him compare the reasoning with that which hath been seriously used for mutilating the word alcoran, and he will find it in all respects the same. It is, I acknowledge, of no consequence, whether we say alcoran, or koran; but it is of consequence, that such a silly argument shall not be held a sufficient ground for innova

tion.