Modern Languages. 1 09 



doubt that the publication was, in a considerable 

 tier" - servient to these purposes. 



But to expect a living language to be absolutely 

 .onarv, is to expect that which borders on the 

 region of i impossibility. Accordingly, since the 

 completion of the great national dictionary just 

 mentioned, the French language has gained large 

 accessions of words and phrases, and has received 

 various kinds of melioration. The work of the 

 Academy has long been superseded by the private 

 and better Dictionary of M. Richelet, which has 

 been honoured with high and general praise. But 

 even this latter is far from embracing the numerous 

 additional words with which learned philologists 

 of that country have endowed their language. 



The large work of M. Court de Gebelin, on 

 language, published a few years ago, contains an 

 extensive and learned investigation of French Ety- 

 mology, which has thrown new light on the struc- 

 ture and genius of that language. Indeed, within 

 the last thirty years of the century under consider- 

 ation, several writers of high reputation, but of 

 whom the author has too little knowledge to speak 

 distinctly, have undertaken, with considerable 

 success, to exhibit the beauties and defects of their 

 native tongue, and to point out the means for its 

 further refinement. 



The list of those writers who contributed, in 

 the course of the last century, to enrich and polish 

 the French language, is too large to be given at 

 length, even if the information requisite for this 

 purpose were possessed . Out of the great number, 

 Fontenelle, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Buffon, 

 deserve to be selected, as standing in the first rank. 

 Since the date of their writings it may be doubted 

 whether the language has gained any real i\ ele- 

 ments. If an air of metaphysical a Infraction, 

 and antithetic point, be more prevalent among 



