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 displays a fine instinct in the use of his mother tongue. It is wonderful to see how this subtle sense led him to the choice of phrases that were to remain always part of the vernacular, his choice, no doubt, improving their chance of remaining so, for there was no more popular book in the sixteenth century than the Morte'd ArthurMorte d'Arthur [sic]." This, indeed, illustrates the conservative influence of literature; but that this influence is exercised only when the book in question is 'popular' is lost sight of, when the use of obsolete words is justified by some Telugu graduates merely on the ground that they are found in some old books.

Let us look for a popular writer of a later age, There is Bunyan, the famous tinker who is immortalized by his books. Macaulay says of his Pilgrim's Progress: "There is no book in our literature on which we would so readily stake the fame of the unpolluted English language … The vocabulary is the vocabulary of the common people. There is not an expression, if we except a few technical terms of theology, which would puzzle the rudest peasant" "Read not Addison, nor Johnson," says Dawson, "read Bunyan who employed direct and true English ……… The man who would speak good English should take for his company the authorised version of the Bible and Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress.