DRYDEN. 329 



prefer directness and simplicity of style. If he was too 

 often tempted astray by Artifice, his love of Nature betrays 

 itself in many an almost passionate outbreak of angry 

 remorse. Addison tells us that he took particular delight 

 in the reading of our old English ballads. What he valued 

 above all things was Force, though in his haste he is willing 

 to make a shift with its counterfeit, Effect. As usual, he 

 had a good reason to urge for what he did : &quot; I will not 

 excuse, but justify myself for one pretended crime for which 

 I am liable to be charged by false critics, not only in this 

 translation, but in many of my original poems, that I 

 Latinise too much. It is true that when I find an English 

 word significant and sounding, I neither borrow from the 

 Latin or any other language ; but when I want at home I 

 must seek abroad. If sounding words are not of our growth 

 and manufacture, who shall hinder me to import them from 

 a foreign country ? I carry not out the treasure of the 

 nation which is never to return ; but what I bring from 

 Italy I spend in England : here it remains, and here it 

 circulates ; for if the coin be good, it will pass from one 

 hand to another. I trade both with the living and the dead 

 for the enrichment of our native language. We have enough 

 in England to supply our necessity ; but if we will have 

 things of magnificence and splendour, we must get them by 

 commerce. . , . Therefore, if I find a word in a classic 

 author, I propose it to be naturalised by using it myself, 

 and if the public approve of it the bill passes. But every 

 man cannot distinguish betwixt pedantry and poetry ; every 

 man, therefore, is not fit to innovate.&quot;* This is admirably 

 said, and with Dryden s accustomed penetration to the root 

 of the matter. The Latin has given us most of our canorous 

 words, only they must not be confounded with merely 

 sonorous ones, still less with phrases that, instead of 

 supplementing the sense, encumber it. It was of Latinising 

 * A Discourse of Epick Poetry. &quot;If the public approve.&quot; &quot; On ne 

 pent pas admettre dans le developpement des langues aucune revolution 

 artifkielle et sciemment executee ; il n y a pour elles ni conciles, ni 

 assemblies deliberantes ; on ne les reforme pas comme une constitution 

 vicieuse.&quot; KENAN, De 1 Oiigine du Langage, p. 95. 



