but a careful examination of it will show that the expressions are not superfluous. Addison is speaking of beauty, and says:

"The very first discovery of it strikes the mind with inward joy, and spreads a cheerfulness and delight through all its faculties."-Spect., No. 412. The Law of Plainness, with reference to language and the choice of words, may be stated in this way:

Use ENGLISH-ENGLISH (or "Saxon-English ") words and phrases wherever you can, without injustice either to your meaning or to your feeling, and NOT FRENCH-ENGLISH or LATIN-ENGLISH.

The reason for this rule is evident. Pure English words are those which we have been speaking and hearing all our lives, from our infancy; and they are steeped in all the best and strongest associations of our minds. They are our own mother-tongue, and not a foreign language. The words home, father, mother, hearth, garden, strike us as in themselves pleasant and friendly; but the Latin adjectives which correspond to them-domestic, paternal, maternal, and horticultural-are as destitute of kindly association as the words triangle, rhomboid, segment, or parallelogram.

But there are subjects in which it is absolutely necessary to employ Latinized words, or Norman-French words; for we could not write about the subject without them. In writing about the British constitution, for example, we could not advance a step without the terms chancellor, parliament, peer, member, court, baron, and government, all of which are Norman-French. But in these cases we are obliged to use such terms; and the rule only goes so far as to tell us that we should use French words only where none other will serve our purpose.

The writer who imposed a Latin vocabulary upon English style in the highest and most cramping degree, was Dr. Johnson. Through his influence the use of Latin instead of English words became the mark, in the latter half of the 18th century, of what was then believed to be superior culture; and, even in private letters, ladies and gentlemen bow-wowed to each other in all kinds of “long-tailed words in osity and ation." A lady ends a letter in this way: "Mutual friendships are built on mutual wants; imperfection wants and needs assistance. I am, etc."

We have now come back to a more natural way of expressing ourselves; which is as much as to say, that we speak and write in our own mother-tongue, and not in Latin or in French.

It must not, however, be forgotten that there is not and cannot be a hard and fast line between the two kinds of English, and that there is no final or absolute rule for the employment of the one or of the other. But the tendency of honest and strong feeling, and of sound and vigorous mother-wit, is to use the mother-tongue, and to employ words that the child and the common sailor and the ploughboy can understand—always provided, that is to say, that the subject itself is not beyond the reach of such persons.

It is all the more needful to guard against a highly Latinised style, that there are still many people who cultivate it, and who think (or feel) that it gives additional importance to what they have to say, to put it into the biggest and most high-sounding words they can think of. This style is also, unfortunately, the style used by her Majesty's ministers in the Queen's speeches, and affected also by those Members of Parliament who are addicted to bowwow. A member of a Committee, for example, will ask a witness, "Will you have the goodness to state, for the in

formation of the Committee, what is the ordinary beverage of the industrial population in your locality?" He meant to say: "What do working-men in your part of the country usually drink?" The following vicious examples will give us a stronger feeling against English of this character :

"The animal of the canine species has returned to the rejected substance, and the porcine pachyderm after ablution to volution in lutulent matter." -PUNCH, April 6th, 1872.

A magistrate, in examining a witness, remarked, " And I suppose you had your dinner in the interim ?" "No, your worship," was the reply; "I had it in the kitchen."

To sum up, we may say that it is always our duty to write our mother-tongue, and not Latin or French; and that our greatest writers-those who have the strongest hold of the head and heart of the English nation-have been those who wrote in the homeliest and plainest English. "The use of homely language," says Minto, "is one of the most remarkable features in Defoe's style. It is one of the secrets of the continued popularity of Robinson Crusoe."

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"In one of my early interviews with Mr. Hall," says Dr. Gregory, "I used the word felicity three or four times in rather quick succession. He asked-'Why do you say felicity, sir? Happiness is a better word: more musical, and genuine English, coming from the Saxon.'* Not more musical, I think, sir.' 'Yes, more musical, and so are words derived from the Saxon generally. Listen, sir: My heart is smitten and withered like grass; "there's plaintive music. Listen again, sir: "Under the shadow of Thy wings will I rejoice "—there's cheerful music.' 'Yes, but rejoice is French!' True, but all the rest is Saxon, and rejoice is almost out of tune with the other words. Listen, again: "Thou hast delivered my eyes from tears, and my feet from falling :" all Saxon, sir, except delivered. I could think of the word tear, sir, till I wept. Then again, for another noble specimen, and almost all good old Saxon-English; "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for

*

Happiness is, however, not an English (" Saxon ") word; it is Celtic.

R

CHAPTER VI.

THE LAW OF RHYTHM.

HYTHM may seem a matter of only third-rate importance. But it is not so. Rhythm is intimately associated with the grasp of and power over the subject felt by the mind-with earnestness of feeling, and with character itself. It is also intimately associated with the nature of the English language, which is-so far as the structure of its sentences is concerned-the most musical language in the West of Europe. If, therefore, we are to write good English, we must write rhythmical English.

Rhythm is not to be taught by rule, but only by the careful reading and examination of the best writers. If we read carefully and do our best to feel the life of Jeremy Taylor's sentences, we shall receive our best lesson in English rhythm. But every writer has his own rhythm; and it is one of the objects of practice in English "composition," to teach every pupil to develop this natural and inborn music-his most special and peculiar possession, and to beat it carefully out.

The best practical means of developing our sense of rhythm, is to read a great deal in those authors who have cultivated most this art. Among old writers, the best are perhaps Sir Philip Sidney, Jeremy Taylor, and Sir Thomas Browne; among later writers, De Quincey, Nathaniel Hawthorne,

George Eliot, and Macaulay. Macaulay may seem to many somewhat too "positive" and dogmatical to be really musical in his rhythm; but his sentences have a sturdy English ring about them, in which the young writer will find inspiration and support. But the finest and truest and sweetest English rhythms are to be found in our translation of the Bible.

In accordance with the English character, the rhythm of an English sentence is serious, compact, and even severe. The light flippancy, the short metallic suddenness of the French sentence would be quite out of place in English. There is nothing so disagreeable to a genuine English taste as a long succession of short sentences; it produces much the same effect upon our nerves as the continued barking of a little dog. If, at any time, we have been reading much French of this kind, the best alterative is a short course of Jeremy Taylor or the more serious passages of De Quincey. Even Dr. Johnson's more rotund and imposing march, it is useful to become acquainted with.

The way in which we should apply the feeling for rhythm we may have cultivated in ourselves, may be stated in the following rule :

After the paper is written, we should read it aloud to ourselves or to some one else, and, in the case of each sentence, try whether (a) by altering the order of the words, or (b) by substituting other words and phrases, we cannot give a more pleasant or a more impressive rhythm to the sentence.

As has been pointed out before, the great living corrective of "style" is spoken language-language spoken either in conversation or to an audience. Feeling and passion and