102 Modern Languages. 



The English language is, indeed, capable of 

 much greater improvement, and will, probably, re- 

 ceive more than it has yet attained. Improprieties, 

 and violations of analogy are to be found, in con- 

 siderable number, in the best writers; and many 

 of those words and phrases which modern inno- 

 vators have introduced, a better taste will, no doubt, 

 indignantly dismiss. If more than forty years ago 

 a celebrated writer could complain, with justice, of 

 numerous departures from the purity of English 

 idiom, and deviations toward the " Gallick struc- 

 ture and phraseology/' it is presumed that, since 

 that time, the complaint has become better found- 

 ed. Mr. Hume, and, in a higher degree, Mr. 

 Otbbon, to say nothing of a multitude of less con- 

 spicuous writers, are chargeable with many devi- 

 ations from the purity of our language, and the in- 

 troduction of many phrases by no means consistent 

 with its analogy. Still, however, it must be ad- 

 mitted, that these faults are accompanied with real 

 and numerous improvements; that the style of our 

 jbest authors is not only incomparably superior to 

 that which prevailed antecedently to the time of 

 Addison, but also, in some respects, superior to his 

 best specimens; and that excellences of style have 

 lately become more common and popular than at 

 any former period; insomuch, that we now often 

 find in an occasional pamphlet, or in the pages of 

 a gazette, a perspicuity, energy, and elegance of 

 diction, for which we might have looked in vain 

 among the best models of the seventeenth century, 



Besides the improvements which have taken 

 place in English style, during the last age, the 

 language has undergone several minuter changes, 

 which are not unworthy of being just mentioned. 

 The Orthography of our tongue has received con- 

 siderable modifications. Superfluous letters have 

 been discarded from many words. And, in the 



