can justly make the complaint, and mark whether they occur in elevated passages.
I shall now speak of the peculiarities of my diction, under three heads: 1. old or antiquated words; 2. coarse words expressive of outward actions, but having no moral colour; 3. words of which the sense has degenerated in modern days.
1. Mr Arnold appears to regard what is antiquated as ignoble. I think him, as usual, in fundamental error. In general the nobler words come from ancient style, and in no case can it be said that old words (as such) are ignoble. To introduce such terms as whereat, therefrom, quoth, beholden, steed, erst, anon, anent, into the midst of style which in all other respects is modern and prosaic, would be like to that which we often hear from half-educated people. The want of harmony makes us regard it as low-minded and uncouth. From this cause (as I suspect) has stolen into Mr Arnold's mind the fallacy, that the words themselves are uncouth[1].*
- ↑ I do not see that Mr Arnold has any right to reproach me, because he does not know Spenser's word 'bragly' (which I may have used twice in the Iliad), or Dryden's word 'plump', for a mass. The former is so near in sound to brag and braw, that an Englishman who is once told that it means 'proudly fine', ought thenceforward to find it very intelligible: the latter is a noble modification of the vulgar lump. That he can carp as he does against these words and against bulkin (= young bullock) as unintelligible, is a testimony how little I have imposed of difficulty on my readers. Those who know lambkin cannot
