442 Mr. Pickering on the present state of the English language : 
into our English, as to have become the subject of much animadver- 
sion and regret with the learned of Great Britain, And as we are 
hardly aware of the opinion entertained by them of the extent of these 
corruptions, it may be useful, if it should not be very flattering to our 
pride, to hear their remarks on this subject in their own words. We 
shall find that these corruptions are censured, not by a few con- 
temptible critics, but, so far as the fact is to be ascertained from Eng- 
lish publications, by all the scholars of that country, who take any in- 
terest in American literature. In proof of this, I request the attention 
of the Academy to the following extracts from several of the British. 
Reviews; some of which are the most distinguished of the present 
day, and all of which together may be considered as expressing the 
general opinion of the literary men of Great Britain. That all the re- 
marks are just, to the extent in which they will naturally be under- 
stood, few of our countrymen will be willing to admit. ie 
The British Critic, for February 1810, in a review of A = 
Mr. Bancroft’s Life of Washington, says—“ In the style we observ 
“* with regret mn ratlier than with astonishment, the introduction of several 
‘‘new words, or o/d words in a new sense; a deviation from the 
“rules of the English language, which, if it continues to be practis- 
“ed by good writers in America, will introduce confusion into the 
‘medium of intercourse, and render it a subject of regret that the 
“= —— of that continent should not have an entirely separate language 
‘as well as government of their own. Instances occur at almost €V- 
“ery page ; without pains in selecting, the following may be taken as 
‘“ specimens,” &c. The Reviewers then mention several 
which are all inserted in the Vocabulary annexed to this memoir. — 
_ The same Reviewers (in April 1808) in their account of Chief Jus- 
tice Marshall’s Life of Washington, have the following remarks :-— 
“In the ‘writings of dmericans we have often discovered deviations 
