Page:The Sources of Standard English.djvu/355

326 work of scholars and gentlemen, who write much in the style of our great authors of 1700, and do not use a greater proportion of Romance words than Chaucer employed in his tale of Melibœus, five hundred years ago. As to some of our weekly papers (I need not give names), a steady perusal of them is in truth a liberal education, most cheaply procured. Without help from such writers this work of mine would never have been undertaken. Their merit as English authors is beyond that of Chaucer, for they cast aside a huge pile of Romance words that he never knew, that they may employ as great a proportion of Teutonic words as he did in his prose. Good English is not confined to London; the names of certain admirable journals, pub&shy;lished in Scotland, Yorkshire, and Lancashire, will occur to many of my readers.

But when we go a little lower down, we alight upon the penny-a-liner. His two best-beloved quotations are coign of vantage and the light fantastic toe. He it was who, having never heard of the works of Wheatley or Cardinal Bona, named a certain party in the English Church ritualists; this was about seven years ago. He may always be known by his love of words fresh from Gaul (thus he always calls his brethren his confrères), and by his fondness for Latin words that came in after Pope's death. He looks upon Sir A. Alison's text, well bestrewn with French phrases, as a far nobler pattern than the works of Mr. Hallam or Bishop Thirlwall. With him dangers do not grow, but they ‘assume propor&shy;tions of considerable magnitude.’ He scorns to abuse or revile his foes, much more to rate or miscall them, so long