Page:The Sources of Standard English.djvu/371

342

In this way, Pitt the younger is known to us as ‘the pilot that weathered the storm.’ I have heard, that when Canning wrote the inscription graven on Pitt's monument in the London Guildhall, an Alderman felt much disgust at the grand phrase ‘he died poor,’ and wished to substitute ‘he expired in indigent circum&shy;stances.’ Could the difference between the scholarlike and the vulgar be more happily marked? I have lately seen another kind of alteration earnestly recom&shy;mended — it is short rede, good rede; and it sounds like a loud call to come and do likewise. Mr. Freeman says in 1873, on reprinting his Essays written long before: —

‘In almost every page I have found it easy to put some plain English word, about whose meaning there can be no doubt, instead of those needless French and Latin words which are thought to add dignity to style, but which in truth only add vagueness. I am in no way ashamed to find that I can write purer and clearer English now than I did fourteen or fifteen years back; and I think it well to mention the fact for the encouragement of younger writers. The common tempta&shy;tion of beginners is to write in what they think a more elevated fashion. It needs some years of practice before a man fully takes in the truth that, for real strength and above all for real clearness, there is nothing like the old English speech of our fathers.’

We have before our eyes many tokens that the old ways of our forefathers have still charms for us, though our tongue has been for ages, as it were, steeped in French and Latin. Take the case of children brought to the font by their godfathers; Lamb long ago most