should 'gladly use' is not his precise form (as Mathew Arnold says) which is no longer a living vehicle of thought and feeling, but a prose which should combine the elements of literary tradition on the one hand with those of contemporary colloquial speech on the other, in that just proportion, and with that subtle blending, which is the secret of great writers in all ages. No writer can express himself adequately in a language which is not his own; the thought and emotions of one age cannot be conveyed in a style which is outworn; and this has come about when the relation between the language of literature and that of every day life is severed."
Let our readers judge, in the light of Prof. Wyld's remarks on the character of literary English, the counter proposal of some of our opponents. If an approximation be necessary, they say, it may as well be brought about by inducing people to speak the literary language as by permitting people to write as they speak; besides, the ancient literary language would thereby be conserved and the spoken dialect purified and ennobled. They contend that all the English men and English women that speak good English do so because they have carefully studied the grammar of the language as well as literaturate and that colloquial English which is spoken at home is as vulgar and
