Chap. XIII. ] Cla-^sic LiftraUirc, 525 



these innovations will be wantonly and injuriously 

 muUipliccl. Every uniledgcci sciolist will assume 

 the ortice of a rctl)rnicr. 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 ancieht classics, and con- 

 tinually referring to them as the best standards of 

 literary taste which mankind possess* Tlic 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 

 ignorant 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 

 purity and regularity of its proper idioms ; become 

 loaded with anomalies and meretricious ornaments; 

 and no longer exhibit that philosoi)hic 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 iur- 

 uishes a very ii^structive comment on the foregoing 

 ideas, and affords abundant evidence of their truth, 

 y But this subject may with propiiety be cunsi- 

 • ckred as a matter of still more serious concern. To 

 discourage the study of ancient languages is to 

 discourage one important mean-^ of supporting and 

 Vol. n. (i 



