further promise the prime minister that two hundred years hence some painful compiler, who had been studying the language of Queen Anne's time, would be able to pick out and transfer into his new history, written in the language of his own time, that Robert, Earl of Oxford, a very wise and excellent man of the former period, had saved his country. The fuller account, however, of that statesman's life, acts, and character, given by contemporary writers like Swift himself, would be dropped because of the antiquated style and manner in which they were delivered.
The appeal was ineffectual. In spite of it no body of competent persons was selected by the prime minister to take charge of the English tongue. The truth is, the Earl of Oxford had soon all he could do to keep his own head on his shoulders, and in consequence naturally left the language to look out for itself. It seems to have been amply able to discharge that duty. The two hundred years specified have very nearly gone by, and none of the dire predictions just mentioned have been fulfilled. No need has been found of resorting to the aid of the painful antiquary to decipher the writings of the time. Every word of Swift's Letter can be understood now as easily as it was on the day it was published.
Swift's opinion, as we have seen, was that the golden age of the language comprehended the reigns of Elizabeth and the first Stuarts. It was not long, however, before the point of view changed. By the middle of the eighteenth century it became the proper thing to believe that English had reached its perfection in the so-called Augustan period, and that from the accession of George II., if not earlier, the speech had entered upon a process of decline. It was daily becoming more corrupt. New words and phrases were creeping in which would have filled Addison and Swift and Steele with indignation, if not horror. To this we have a good deal of unimpeachable contemporary testimony. For instance, in 1751, Lord Orrery brought out a little treatise on the "Life and Writings of Swift." In it he tells us that in his opinion the language had been brought by that author and his contemporaries to the utmost degree of perfection. He contrasted their style, altogether to their advantage, with that of men like Bacon and Milton. Swift, Addison, and Bolingbroke he considered as the triumvirate to whom the tongue owed an elegance and propriety unknown to their forefathers. But at the time he was writing he assures us the language was every day growing worse and more debased. Singularly enough, one of the expressions that, according to him, indicated this degeneracy was a few—a locution which had certainly been in frequent use from the fourteenth century, if indeed it does not go back to the Anglo-Saxon. The lack of grammar in the Lord's Prayer disturbed Orrery mightily, as it had done so many others. In all this he was a fair representative of his time. The views expressed by him were the views which continued to prevail—in some quarters, it would be more appropriate to say, which continued to rage—for the rest of the century. As one of their later exponents we turn to a man who retains with us some little reputation as a small poet, and while he lived was deemed by many to be a great philosopher.
He was a Scotchman, and Scotchmen have always seemed to feel a pained solicitude about the English speech. At least they did so in the eighteenth century, when they were at times disposed to look upon it as a foreign tongue. The name of the man here referred to was James Beattie. He was, as has been said, a poet and a philosopher. In the latter capacity he had recommended himself to the religious by a very virulent attack upon the metaphysical speculations of Hume. This gave him great reputation at the time; for his treatise was written in an agreeable style, and with all that clearness of expression which with many serves as a satisfactory substitute for clearness of ideas. Among other results it brought him the favor of George III., with whom, like Dr. Johnson, he had a personal interview. The meeting between the professorial and the official defender of the faith took place in 1773. As became a loyal subject, Beattie was profoundly impressed with the good sense, knowledge, and acuteness of the monarch. One of the topics touched upon was the English language. In it
