312 Modem Languages. [Chap. XV. 



iTients, If an air of metaphysical abstraction, and 

 antithetic point, be more prevalent among some 

 late popular writers of that country than formerly, 

 it is believed no substantial improvements have 

 been made in the vigour, the polish, the precision^ 



and the chaste ornaments of French stvle. 



■ «/ 



At the commencement of the eighteenth ccn^ 

 tury it is probable that there was no liviiig lan- 

 guage so generally understood, and so correctly 

 spoken, among the learned of ail civilised coun^. 

 tries, as the French. It was then spoken as the 

 niost polite medium of iptercourse at se\ eral of the 

 courts of Europe, and the acquisition of it consir 

 dered as an important part of liberal education. 

 Since that time the knowledge and use of this lan- 

 guage have greatly extended. It has, in fact, al- 

 most become, what the Latin once was, a univer- 

 sal language. Perhaps it may be asserted that a 

 larger portion of mankind, at the present day, 

 understand and speak this language, than were 

 ever before known to be actjuainted with a living 

 tongue *♦ 



* Some remarks on modern improvements in the Spanish lan- 

 guage would naturally follow this section, if the author were suf- 

 ficiently acquainted with the nature and amount of these improve-t 

 pients to make even general remarks on them. It may not be 

 improper, however, to mention that the Roj/al Spanish ^hadcmy of 

 Madrid, founded in 1713, was instituted for the express purpose 

 of cultivating and improving the national language. With this 

 view, after spending many years in the requisite preliminary in- 

 vestigations J after devoting much attention to tlie selection of 

 such words and phrases as were used by the best writers, and not- 

 ing those which xvere either low, corrupt, or obsolete; that learned 

 society published, in 1783, the Diccionario de la Lengua Casfel- 

 lana ; a work which, though defective in ttymological incfuiries^ 

 find in several other respects, is yet by far the best extan^. 



