1 daring for a private perfón. Perhaps it may be true, that nothing can entirely justify him in it but success; though, indeed, my perfect indifference, at least with respect to private concerns, whether it fucceed or no, may plead my excufe. Having thus, and I think on very fufficient grounds, rejected as improper and inadequate every methodhitherto proposed, though by fome of our greatest men, for the laudable purposes of fixing and ascertaining our Mother Tongue, it may be thought incumbent on me, to propose another which may supply the deficiencies of others. I have already done it in the Dedication. The corrupters of our tongue in the days of Swift and Steele, were pert lively fops; they were great curtailers of words, and took a pleasure in lopping off their first and last fyllables, as owls bite off the feet of mice, in order to confine and fatten them: But our modern gentry are quite the reverse of the others; they are grave, folemn, formal coxcombs, and have much more of the ass than the ape in their composition; they cannot endure an elision, are mighty fond of long-tailed worm-like words, and as they think our own language does not afford a fufficient stock of them, they import them in in great quantities from the Greek and Latin. Therefore they are the properest objects of ridicule in the world, and though, from their stupidity, pride, or conceit, they may not fmart fo feverely at first, under the lash, as a livelier dunce; yet it must have a greater and more durable effect upon them at last; and whatever fondness they may express in imitation of their Principalforjocularityand burlesque, harmless merriment, easy facetiousness, and flowing hilarity; yet, as they are altogether inca pable of making a retort, and quite unprovided with any means of defence, they must foon be laught out of all their followers and admirers, and left fingle and deftitute by themselves. There are now, and I trust always will be, many perfons of real taste and wit in the nation, and were they to join in a scheme of this fort, and mutually encourage and fupport one another in the prosecution of it, they would find it a much more effectual means than all the Dictionaries and Academies in the world, for preventing our language being infected by any species of corruption, particularly that which seems to threaten it most at present. In a word, whenever a Lexiphanes makes his efcape from his usual nest or den, a school or a college, college, and begins to acquire a reputation, to make a noise in the world, to take upon him, and to treat the rest of mankind as if they were so many boys, or his pupils still trembling under his Ferula, let them instantly fall upon him as the birds fall upon an owl which appears by day-light, and drive him back to his original obfcurity and lurking places; in a word, hunt him down, without mercy, as I have endeavoured to do by this great unlick'd Cub, who came first in my way, and is indeed the most conspicuous of them all. : : ARGU MR. J-n or the English Lexiphanes and the Critick meet. After some compliments past between them, Lexiphanes rehearses his Rhapsody. It contains a rant about Hilarity and a Garret; Oroonoko's adventure with a Soldier; his own journey to Highgate, and adventures there and on the road; his return to London, and lawsuit about his horse; his walk to Chelsea, where he plays at skittles; his being frightened by a calf on his return, which he mistakes for the Cock-lane Ghost; his amours and disappointments at a Bagnio. He is now interrupted by the Critick, who takes him to task for his hard words and affected style, and thinking him mad, applies to a Physician paffing by, who proves to be the British Lucretius. He repeats a great many verses, and the Critick gets rid of him with fome difficulty. Another Doctor comes up, who is the Critick's friend. They talk together upon Lexiphanes's cafe, and other matters concerning taste and writing. They force him to swallow a potion which makes him throw up many of his hard words. The Doctor goes to a consultation, and the Critick instructs Lexiphanes how to avoid his former faults, and write better for the future. A DIALOGUE. CRITICK. J N. FIRST PHYSICIAN SECOND PHYSICIAN, S CRITICK. EE J-N yonder, our English Lexiphanes, marching along with a huge folio under his arm. Some new piece I'll warrant, in the stile of his Ramblers. I shall be well entertained, if he is in a reading humour; a thing he is often fonder of than many of his hearers. Most happily occurred, my very benevolent convivial associate. Behold. A novel exhibition which is purely virginal, and which has never been critically * furveyed by any annual or diurnal retailer of literature, in this so signal † a metropolis. CRITICK, * Rambler, No. 10. critically condemned. † I beg leave to observe here once for all, that I do not intend to confine myself to a close imitation B |