eoo 
LANG 
confequence of a preliminary philofopliical difcuffion ; lie 
falhioned a feel of whig-grammarians. Adelung, by liis 
Grammar, his Dictionary, and his numerous Tracts, has 
fliown the condition and the refources of the German 
language ; but he confuiers ftability as of fo great a value, 
that no abbreviations of fpelling, no regulations of in¬ 
flection, no importations of expreffion, find favour in his 
eye, nor even toleration from his criticifin ; he heads the 
tory- grammarians. The projects of Klopllock, particularly 
his ftrange fcheme of orthography, if realized, would have 
amounted to a total revolution in the language of Ger¬ 
many, and would foon have rendered unintelligible and 
©bfolete the whole extant mafs of literature, to the no 
■fntall advancement of modern reputations. Yet one or 
another of his fuggelted improvements has been adopted 
by molt of the newer writers ; and by a gradual infertion 
much has been done of what he propofed to accomplifh 
at once. 
A great change has taken place in Germany in the lad 
two centuries, with regard to the proportion which works 
■publifhed in the Latin tongue bear to thofe that are writ¬ 
ten in the language of the country. At the beginning of 
the feventeenth century, among feven hundred new pub¬ 
lications, four hundred were compofed in Latin; at the 
commencement of the eighteenth, four hundred and 
twenty out of fix hundred were in that language; and, at 
the opening of the prefent century, the proportion was 
reduced to not quite two hundred out of more than two 
thoufand. This proportion is dill perhaps greater than 
can be found in any other country; and it is rather fur- 
prifing that fuflicient motives fhould yet exid for prefer¬ 
ring on fo many occafions an ancient language to the mo¬ 
ther-tongue. On more minute examination, however, it 
will appear that a great (perhaps the greater) part of thofe 
Latin publications belong to the clafs of compofitions 
which the profeifors at the Univerfities, and the maders 
of endowed fchools, are obliged ex officio to publifh at cer¬ 
tain dated periods, under the title of Programmata ; and 
in which they are by ancient cuftora confined to the ufe 
of the Latin tongue ; or that they are differtations writ¬ 
ten for the purpofe of obtaining univerfity-honours. 
In recommending the dudy of the German, Mr. En- 
for (Independent Man, vol. ii.) obferves, that “languages 
are the means of information, and render a man more 
competent to afiociate with many nations. If the dudent 
be not difpofed to learn German, let him not excufe his 
*egle< 5 t by faying it is unpleafing to his ears ; mod lan¬ 
guages not underdood, are fo; nor by faying, with Bur¬ 
net, that it is difficult to be learnt; this proceeds from 
jdlenefs; nor, as another writer on education, that the 
bed German authors compofe in Latin ; which, as proved 
above, is no longer a faff. The German language is 
much more fpoken in Denmark, Sweden, Ruffia, and Po¬ 
land, than the French. It is cultivated in England; it is 
not unknown in France and Italy ; it is fpoken from Riga 
»o Hamburg, and from Dantzic to Triede, being the po¬ 
pular language of forty millions of people.” Men w'ho 
are enamoured of letters and habituated to literary induf- 
try, whofe future life promifes leifure, and alfo datefmen, 
and thofe who are defigned for the higher walks of com¬ 
merce, diould certainly not remain ignorant of the Ger¬ 
man language. Its copioufnefs conditutes its chief diffi- 
sulty ; but, owing to its affinity to our own tongue, it 
is much more eafily attained by an Englidiman than the 
^French would be without a previous knowledge of Latin. 
The English is fuch a compound of languages diffo- 
Jiant and diffimilar in itrufture, as would appear fitted to 
produce a chaotic jargon ; but, as four contradictory 
fubdances compofe the rich and cordial liquor denomi¬ 
nated punch, fo this Babylonifh mixture of tongues, hap¬ 
pily blended and gradually mellowed, have formed one 
language in many refpeCls fuperior to them all. 
Every nation afpiring at high defcent will be ready to 
claim priority in the formation aad culture of its lan- 
UAGE. 
guage ; and it would perhaps be as difficult to fettle tire- 
demands equitably, and to the fatisfaCfion of all parties, 
as the political claims of the ambitious and contending 
powers at a general diet. Perhaps the fpecimens of the 
Welch and Saxon languages that might be produced in 
favour of our own pretenfions in this idand, are of fuclr 
antiquity as no other country can equal ; for the poems 
of Taliefin, Lyward Hen, Anewrin Gwawdrydd, Myrd- 
din Wyllt, and Avan Veiddig, who all flouridied about 
the year 560, are preferved, though hardly intelligible to 
the mod learned Cambro-Britifli antiquary. (See Evans's 
fpecimens of Welch Poetry.) But the dialed of our Al¬ 
fred, of the ninth century, in his Saxon trandation of 
Boethius and Bede, is more clear and intelligible than the 
vulgar language, equally ancient, of any ether country in 
Europe. For we are acquainted with no other language, 
which, like our own, can mount, in a regular and intelli¬ 
gible feries, from the dialed in prefent ufe to that of the 
ninth century ; that is, from pure Englidi to pure Saxon, 
fuch as was fpoken and written by king Alfred, unmixed 
with Latin, Welfh,. or Norman. And this may be done 
for a period of nine hundred years, by means of the Chro- 
nicon Saxonicum of biffiop Gibfon, the excellent Anglo- 
Saxon Dictionary of the late Rev. Mr. Lye, and fuch a 
chain of fpecimens of our tongue at diderent dages of its 
perfedion as Dr. Johnfon has inferted in the Hidory of 
our Language prefixed to his Didionarv. 
Mr. Ellis (Specimens of the early Englifli Poets) affigns 
the complete formation of our prefent language to the be-- 
ginning of the thirteenth century. He adds, “From this 
time to the reign of Edward III. our infant language was 
enriched, or perhaps overloaded, by a condant accefficn 
of French words. This, indeed, might be expeded'. 
Wealth, when accompanied by freedom, generally gives 
birth to magnificence, but it does not of-neceffity and im¬ 
mediately become the parent of tade and invention. Dur¬ 
ing the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, even our 
kings and nobles were in the habit of expending their 
whole dock of gaiety, as well as theintreafure, on the four 
great fedivals of the year ; and the intervening times of 
leifure were employed-in deviling modes of amufemenfc,. 
and providing a difpofition to beanaifed. The recitation 
of tales of chivalry was necedary to the folemnity of thele 
fedivals; and, as the French mindrels had long fince pre¬ 
occupied the fabulous era of every known hidory; their 
Englidi fucceffors were reduced to the neceffity of tranf- 
lating. In executing this talk, under the.- condraint of 
finding a condant fucceffion of rhymes in a language which - 
was hitherto rude and untraClable, they might often be 
led to borrow the words and phrafes of the original. At 
lead it was their filtered to adopt and give a currency to 
every new term, which had acquired the authority of col¬ 
loquial ufage ; fo that the compofitions of our early wri¬ 
ters are become nearly unintelligible to thofe, who are 
not familiarly acquainted with the Norman vocabulary. 
It is very poffible that our language may not have re- 
ceived much real improvement from this indiferiminate 
adoption of foreign idioms ; but perhaps it was in fome 
meafure indebted to them for its reception at court, where 
it fupplanted the Norman-French, which had exclufively 
prevailed there from the time of the conqued. This al¬ 
teration, which infured to our national literature all the 
advantages that patronage can bellow, feems to have taken 
place in the reign of Edward III. whofe policy led him to 
excite a hatred of France among his fubjeCts, and who 
proferibed the exclufive ufe of French in our laws, and in 
the elements of education. Gower, as we have feen, com¬ 
menced his literary career by afpiring to the character of 
a French poet, and only began his Englidi work in his old 
age, during the reign and by the command of Richard II. 
The fafliionable dialed, therefore, had probably changed 
during the interval; and it may be prefumed, that this 
change alfo procured us the advantage of Chaucer’s ta¬ 
lents, which, from the circumltances of his birth and edu¬ 
cation;, 
