Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/82

74 of warmer countries, who have no need to be at so much cost and care. It is the same thing: with respect to the politer arts among us; and the same defect of heat which gives a fierceness to our natures, may contribute to that roughness of our language, which bears some analogy to the harsh fruit of colder countries. For I do not reckon that we want a genius more than the rest of our neighbours: but your lordship will be of my opinion, that we ought to struggle with these natural disadvantages as much as we can, and be careful whom we employ, whenever we design to correct them, which is a work that has hitherto been assumed by the least qualified hands. So that if the choice had been left to me, I would rather have trusted the refinement of our language, as far as it relates to sound, to the judgment of the women, than of illiterate court fops, half witted poets, and university boys. For it is plain, that women, in their manner of corrupting words, do naturally discard the consonants, as we do the vowels. What I am going to tell your lordship appears very trilling: that more than once, where some of both sexes were in company, I have persuaded two or three of each to take a pen, and write down a number of letters joined together, just as it came into their heads; and upon reading this gibberish, we have found that which the men had wrote, by the frequent encountring of rough consonants, to sound like High Dutch; and the other, by the women, like Italian, abounding in vowels and liquids. Now, though I would by no means give ladies