Page:A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland - Johnson (1775).djvu/280

 of the letters. The and the  are cultivated tongues. The Welsh, two hundred years ago, insulted their neighbours for the instability of their Orthography; while the  merely floated in the breath of the people, and could therefore receive little improvement.

When a language begins to teem with books, it is tending to refinement; as those who undertake to teach others must have undergone some labour in improving themselves, they set a proportionate value on their own thoughts, and wish to enforce them by efficacious expressions; speech becomes embodied and permanent; different modes and phrases are compared, and the best obtains an establishment. By degrees one age improves upon another. Exactness is first obtained, and afterwards elegance. But diction, merely vocal, is always in its childhood. As no man leaves