progenitors (audacious individuals!) approximated to their reliable auxiliaries, and were ovated with empressement; indoctrinated by a preliminary contretemps, they inaugurated hostilities in that locality, and demonstrated themselves as unintimidated by minatory vaticinations of catastrophe.[1]
These three sentences at once carry the mind to Hengist, to William the Conqueror, and to the Victorian penny-a-liner. Of the three, the first is made up of good Teutonic words that are among our choicest heirlooms; some of them have been in our mouths for thousands of years, ever since we dwelt on the Oxus. The second sentence is made up of French words, many of which, so far back as the Thirteenth Century, had the right of citizenship in England; they are not indeed to be ranked with the Teutonic words already given, yet are often most helpful. The third sentence is made up of Latin words, mostly not brought in until after 1740;[2] wholly unneeded in England, they are at once the laughing-stock of scholars and the idols of penny-a-liners.[3] The first sentence is like a Highland burn; the second is like the Thames at Hampton Court; the third is like London
- ↑ Mr. Soule, of Boston, furnished me with many of the words of Number III., grand rolling words far above my poor brain. Number III. differs from Number I. as Horace's meretrix from matrona, scurra from amicus; his lines on the difference are well known. As to Mr. Soule and his synonyms — haud equidem invideo; miror magis.
- ↑ There are two Greek words and two French words among them; I have shown the Victorian penny-a-liner at his very best.
- ↑ Bishop Hall says in his Satires, I. 6: —
‘Fie on the forged mint that did create
New coin of words never articulate.’
