42 Classic Literature. 



instances. It is true, to possess a language absou 

 lutc\)\fixed, is neither possible nor desirable. New 

 discoveries in science, new refinements in art, and 

 the continual progress made in various departments 

 of human knowledge, call for new words and 

 phrases, and necessarily give rise to many corres- 

 ponding changes, some of which are invaluable 

 improvements in speech. But if left unrestrained, 

 these innovations will be wantonly and injuriously 

 multiplied. Every unfledged sciolist will assume 

 the office of a reformer. Additions and alterations 

 will no longer be made conformably to the analogy 

 of the stock on which they are grafted; and lan- 

 guage will speedily degenerate into a corrupt, ca- 

 pricious, and unintelligible jargon. Against this 

 degeneracy, perhaps, no barrier is more effectual 

 than the study of the ancient classics, and con- 

 tinually referring to them as the best standards of 

 literary taste which mankind possess. The most 

 illustrious models of English style have, un- 

 doubtedly, been produced by those who were in- 

 timately acquainted with those classics. Scarcely 

 an instance can be found of an author who was ig- 

 norant of them, and who, at the same time, at- 

 tained any high degree of excellence as a writer 

 in his own language. And if ever the time should 

 come when the polished tongues of antiquity shall 

 cease to be studied in our seminaries of learning, 

 it requires no spirit of prophecy to predict, that 

 our vernacular language will gradually lose the pu- 

 rity and regularity of its proper idioms; become 

 loaded with anomalies and meretricious ornaments; 

 and no longer exhibit that philosophic uniformity, 

 and systematic beauty, which are so desirable and 

 useful. It is believed that the style of some very 

 popular writers, within the last thirty years, fur- 

 nishes a very instructive comment on the foregoing 

 ideas, and affords abundant evidence of their truth. 



