Page:The Sources of Standard English.djvu/356

Rh as he can vituperate them. Mr. Justice Keogh in 1872 was accused by many Irish pens of having vituperated the Galway clergy, but never of having sinned with the four other verbs in italics. The Irish are every whit as fond of fine language as the English middle class. When in 1871 all the Roman Catholic Prelates in Ire&shy;land put forth a lengthy demand for education on sound Ultramontane principles, they spoke of the thing that scholars call a ‘hearty welcome’ as an ‘ovation.’ The Irish clergy of the old pattern never learnt stuff such as this at Douai or Salamanca. Maynooth ought to be above borrowing from the Daily Telegraph. If a writer of this kind were to pit himself boldly against Dr. Arnold and once more to set forth the homeward march of the Roman Consuls after the glorious day of the Metaurus, he would most likely say that they met with an ovation in every town on their road, and that they ended with a triumph at Rome. Livy would raise his eyebrows, could he read this version of his heart-stirring tale. I re&shy;member seeing in one of the penny papers an article in 1872 on the Alabama business; the Americans were there said to be uttering minatory expressions; threats being a coarse Teutonic word, far too commonplace for these gentry of the lower press. It is a wonder to me that they have not long ago enriched our tongue with the verbs existimate and autumate, making a dead set at