3804.] 
Though I fhould think: you had far better wed 
The young in fable, than the old in red. 
There’s one among our doctors may be founds 
alues his face above a thoufand pound ; 
But if you ftand, hel} fomething bate, per- 
haps, 
Provided that you don’t infift on fhapes 5 
Some of our dons, in hopes to make you 
truckle, 
Have for thefe two months laid their wigs in 
buckle. 
If clear-ftarch’d band and clean gioves wont 
prevail, 
(Can the lac’d gown or cap of velvet fail ? 
What though the {quire be awkward yet and 
fimple, 
You'd better take him here than from the 
TEMPLE. . 
The mufic-fpeech, though printed, is 
lit:le known; this {pecimen, therefore,may 
be acceptable to many readers. Nobody 
could probably. be much offended at the 
time, .unlefs the Vice-Chancellor, whom, 
if we underftand the writer’s meaning, he 
calls an old woman: 
Such crofs, ill-natured doings as thefe are, 
even a faint would vex, 
To fee a Vice-Chancellor fo barbarous to one 
of his own fex. 
CLXXIX.—A CONCESSION. 
s¢ Latin, indeed, (fays the true Englifh- 
man) an academical language !—a learned 
language, forfooth!—and, is this the game 
played at your univerfities ?—Do you thus 
jearn to clip the King’s coin ?—Does 
your Alma Mater thus encourage you to 
trick us out of our native lasguage ?” 
This gentleman is entitled to the great- 
eft refpeét from every academie ; and. 
will obtain it from all Britons, who are 
not either knaves or. fools, whether 
they wear a gown, or only a plain un- 
graduated coat; for he is defcended of a 
very ancient family, poffeffed of many un- 
doubted, znaliexable, rights, conneéted with 
his language : and whether they are na- 
tural rights, or fuch as he claims by 
inheritance, (and we are alluding to 
fomething more ancient than nobility,) it’ 
is a pity he fhould be deprived of any 
one. The right ufe of our own language 
may even bea prefervative againft oppref- 
ion, 
_ The Latin is certainly a rich, a noble, 
a claffical, language; and a language, as 
already remarked, which has been the ve- 
hicle of the aris and fciences through Eu- 
rope. Lord Bacon, therefore, calls it, 
though not in the philofophical fenfe, the 
univerfal language. On thefe principles 
Alma Mater is to be juftified in her par- 
tiality to the Latin tongue: and fo far is 
to be vindicated fram the charge of rath 
Cantabrigiana, 
437 
adoption and intemperate fondnefs. But 
with all fober feriou(nefs, and laying afide 
all unwarrantable partialities, we acknow-~ 
ledge that thefe queftions involve a real 
charge, to which ALMA Marer would 
do well to attend, 
Tt is certain, then, that the Latin 
is not the root of the Englifh language ; 
though, by its general acceptance among 
-us, it has been fometimes fuffered to force 
its fhoots into the trunk too violently, fo 
as to weaken the force of our native 
idioms, and to mar the proportion of 
feveral parts of our language. Indeed 
the idiom of the- Greek language ap- 
proaches that of the Englifh nearer than 
the Latin. § Our ancient Englifh Saxon 
language, asevery body knows, (though 
we here borrow the words of an author of 
great authority*,) ts to be accounted the 
Teutonic tongue; and albeit we have, 
in latter ages, mixed it with many bor- 
rowed words, efpecially out of the Latin 
and the French, yet remaineth the Tcuto- 
nic unto this day the ground of our 
{peech 3 for no other offspring hath our 
language originally had than that.’— 
Certain it is, that an academical educa- 
tion leads men too often to fofter another 
opinion, or at lealt practically to adopt it 5 
and a true-born Englifhman has reafon to 
complain. 
A defe&t was mentioned in a former 
number—the want of a profeflorthip for 
Political Economy at Cambridge; and 
here another muft be added, the want ofa 
profefforfhip in the Saxon language — 
Such a profefforfhip might check the uxdue 
ufe of Latin, and be the means of remov- 
ing the charge brought againft young men 
from our public fchools, and gentiemen 
from the univerfties, that though they 
underftand Latin, they are defective in 
the knowledge of their own mother~ 
tongue, their Enolith being often rather 
Latin-Englifh than Saxon-Englith compo- 
fition. Itis not improbable that many in- 
telligent readers have caught-Cantabrigiana 
occahonally tripping with its lame Letin 
leg, where it ought to have proceeded firio 
pede and ereéio vultu, in the true Englith 
fafhion. The Univerfity of Oxford has 
got the ftart of Cambridge here, having 
very wifely initituted, fome years ago, a 
profeflorthip for the Saxon language; and 
a member of St. John’s Colileze, Oxford, 
publifhed @ book, fhewing the readiet 
way of learning the Saxon, which is, to 
apply the Englith immediately under it 
word by word, and the Saxon reads like 
what we call broken Englith. 
* Veritegan, 
But 
