Part 1 (1/2)
An Apology For The Study of Northern Antiquities.
by Elizabeth Elstob.
INTRODUCTION
The answerers who rushed into print in 1712 against Swift's _Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue_ were so obviously moved by the spirit of faction that, apart from a few debating points and minor corrections, it is difficult to disentangle their legitimate criticisms from their political prejudices. As Professor Landa has written in his introduction to Oldmiron's _Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley_ and Mainwaring's _The British Academy_ (Augustan Reprint Society, 1948): ”It is not as literature that these two answers to Swift are to be judged. They are minor, though interesting, doc.u.ments in political warfare which cut athwart a significant cultural controversy.”
Elizabeth Elstob's _Apology for the Study of Northern Antiquities_ prefixed to her _Rudiments of Grammar for the English-Saxon Tongue_ is an answer of a very different kind. It did not appear until 1715; it exhibits no political bias; it agrees with Swift's denunciation of certain current linguistic habits; and it does not reject the very idea of regulating the language as repugnant to the st.u.r.dy independence of the Briton. Elizabeth Elstob speaks not for a party but for the group of antiquarian scholars, led by Dr. Hickes, who were developing and popularizing the study of the Anglo-Saxon origins of the English language--a study which had really started in the seventeenth century.
What irritated Miss Elstob in the _Proposal_ was not Swift's eulogy or Harley and the Tory ministry, but his scornful reference to antiquarians as ”laborious men of low genius,” his failure to recognize that his manifest ignorance of the origins of the language was any bar to his p.r.o.nouncing on it or legislating for it, and his repet.i.tion of some of the traditional criticisms of the Teutonic elements in the language, in particular the monosyllables and consonants. Her sense of injury was personal as well as academic.
Her brother William and her revered master Dr. Hickes were among the antiquarians whom Swift had casually insulted, and she herself had published an elaborate edition of _An English-Saxon Homily on the Birthday of St. Gregory_ (1709) and was at work on an Anglo-Saxon homilarium. Moreover she had a particular affection for her field of study, because it had enabled her to surmount the obstacles to learning which had been put in her path as a girl, and which had prevented her, then, from acquiring a cla.s.sical education. Her _Rudiments_, the first Anglo-Saxon grammar written in English, was specifically designed to encourage ladies suffering from similar educational disabilities to find an intellectual pursuit. Her personal indignation is shown in her sharp answer to Swift's insulting phrase, and in her retaliatory cla.s.sification of the Dean among the ”light and fluttering wits.”
As a linguistic historian she has no difficulty in exposing Swift's ignorance, and in establis.h.i.+ng her claim that if there is any refining or ascertaining of the English language to be done, the antiquarian scholars must be consulted. But it is when she writes as a literary critic, defending the English language, with its monosyllables and consonants, as a literary medium, that she is most interesting.
There was nothing new in what Swift had said of the character of the English language; he was merely echoing criticisms which had been expressed frequently since the early sixteenth century. The number of English monosyllables was sometimes complained of, because to ears trained on the cla.s.sical languages they sounded harsh, barking, unfitted for eloquence; sometimes because they were believed to impede the metrical flow in poetry; sometimes because, being particularly characteristic of colloquial speech, they were considered low; and often because they were a.s.sociated with the languages of the Teutonic tribes which had escaped the full refining influence of Roman civilization. Swift followed writers like Nash and Dekker in emphasizing the first and last of these objections.
There were, of course, stock answers to these stock objections.
Such criticism of one's mother tongue was said to be unpatriotic or positively disloyal. If it was difficult to maintain that English was as smooth and euphonious as Italian, it could be maintained that its monosyllables and consonants gave it a characteristic and masculine brevity and force. Monosyllables were also very convenient for the formation of compound words, and, it was argued, should, when properly managed, be an a.s.set rather than a handicap to the English rhymester.
By the time Swift and Miss Elstob were writing, an increasing number of antiquarian Germanophils (and also pro-Hanoverians) were prepared to claim Teutonic descent with pride.
Most of these arguments had been bandied backwards and forwards rather inconclusively since the sixteenth century, and Addison in _The Spectator_ No. 135 expresses a typically moderate opinion on the matter: the English language, he says, abounds in monosyllables,
which gives us an opportunity of delivering our thoughts in few sounds. This indeed takes off from the elegance of our tongue, but at the same time expresses our ideas in the readiest manner, and consequently answers the first design of speech better than the mult.i.tude of syllables, which make the words of other languages more tunable and sonorous.
It is likely that neither Swift nor Miss Elstob would have found much to disagree with in that sentence. Swift certainly never proposed any reduction in the number of English monosyllables, and the simplicity of style which he described as ”one of the greatest perfections in any language,” which seemed to him best exemplified in the English Bible, and which he himself practised so brilliantly, has in English a very marked monosyllabic character.
But in his enthusiasm to stamp out the practice of abbreviating, beheading and curtailing polysyllables--a practice which seemed to him a threat to both the elegance and permanence of the language-- he described it as part of a tendency of the English to relapse into their Northern barbarity by multiplying monosyllables and eliding vowels between the rough and frequent consonants of their language.
His ignorance of the historical origins of the language and his rather hackneyed remarks on its character do not invalidate the general scheme of his _Proposal_ or his particular criticisms of current linguistic habits, but they did lay him open to the very penetrating and decisive attack of Elizabeth Elstob.
In her reply to Swift she repeats all the stock defenses of the English monosyllables and consonants, but, by presenting them in combination, and in a manner at once scholarly and forceful, she makes the most convincing case against Swift. Unlike most of her predecessors, Miss Elstob is not on the defensive. She is always ready to give a sharp personal turn to her scholarly refutations--as, for instance, when she demonstrates the usefulness of monosyllables in poetry by ill.u.s.trations from a series of poets beginning with Homer and ending with Swift. There can be little doubt that Swift is decisively worsted in this argument.
It is not known whether Swift ever read Miss Elstob's _Rudiments_, though it is interesting to notice a marked change of emphasis in his references to the Anglo-Saxon language. In the _Proposal_ he had declared with a pretense of knowledge, that Anglo-Saxon was ”excepting some few variations in the orthography... the same in most original words with our present English, as well as with German and other northern dialects.” But in _An Abstract of the History of England_ (probably revised in 1719) he says that the English which came in with the Saxons was ”extremely different from what it is now.” The two statements are not incompatible, but the emphasis is remarkably changed. It is possible that some friend had pointed out to Swift that his earlier statement was too gross a simplification, or alternatively that someone had drawn his attention to Elizabeth Elstob's _Rudiments_.
All writers owe much to the labors of scholars.h.i.+p and are generally ill-advised to scorn or reject them, however uninspired and uninspiring they may seem. Moreover when authors do enter into dispute with ”laborious men of low genius” they frequently meet with more than their match. Miss Elstob's bold and aggressive defense of Northern antiquities was remembered and cited by a later scholar, George Ballard, as a warning to those who underestimated the importance of a sound knowledge of the language. Indeed, he wrote, ”I thought that the bad success Dean Swift had met with in this affair from the incomparably learned and ingenious Mrs. Elstob would have deterred all others from once venturing in this affair.” (John Nichols, _Ill.u.s.trations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century_, 1822, IV, 212.)
Charles Peake University College, London
PREFACE
to the Reverend Dr. _Hickes_.
SIR,
Soon after the Publication of the Homily on St. Gregory, I was engaged by the Importunity of my Friends, to make a Visit to _Canterbury_, as well to enjoy the Conversations of my Friends and Relations there, as for that Benefit which I hoped to receive from Change of Air, and freer Breathing, which is the usual Expectation of those, who are used to a sedentary Life and Confinement in the great City, and which renders such an Excursion now and then excusable. In this Recess, among the many Compliments and kind Expressions, which their favourable Acceptance of my first Attempt in _Saxon_, had obtained for me from the Ladies, I was more particularly gratified, with the new Friends.h.i.+p and Conversation, of a young Lady, whose Ingenuity and Love of Learning, is well known and esteem'd, not only in that Place, but by your self: and which so far indear'd itself to me, by her promise that she wou'd learn the _Saxon Tongue_, and do me the Honour to be my _Scholar_, as to make me think of composing an _English Grammar_ of that Language for her use. That Ladies Fortune hath so disposed of her since that time, and hath placed her at so great distance, as that we have had no Opportunity, of treating farther on this Matter, either by Discourse or Correspondence. However though a Work of a larger Extent, and which hath amply experienced your Encouragement, did for some time make me lay aside this Design, yet I did not wholly reject it. For having re-a.s.sumed this Task, and accomplish'd it in such manner at I was able, I now send it to you, for your Correction, and that Stamp of Authority, it must needs receive from a Person of such perfect and exact Judgement in these Matters, in order to make it current, and worthy of Reception from the Publick. Indeed I might well have spared my self the labour of such an Attempt, after the elaborate Work of your rich and learned _Thesaurus_, and the ingenious Compendium of it by Mr. _Thwaites_; but considering the Pleasure I my self had reaped from the Knowledge I have gained from this Original of our Mother Tongue, and that others of my own s.e.x, might be capable of the same Satisfaction: I resolv'd to give them the Rudiments of that Language in an English Dress.
However not 'till I had communicated to you my Design for your Advice, and had receiv'd your repeated Exhortation, and Encouragement to the Undertaking.
The Method I have used, is neither entirely new, out of a Fondness and Affectation of Novelty: nor exactly the same with what has been in use, in teaching the learned Languages. I have retain'd the old Division of the Parts of Speech, nor have I rejected the other common Terms of _Grammar_; I have only endeavour'd to explain them in such a manner, as to hope they may be competently understood, by those whose Education, hath not allow'd them an Acquaintance with the Grammars of other Languages. There is one Addition to what your self and Mr.
_Thwaites_ have done on this Subject, for which you will, I imagine, readily pardon me: I have given most, if not all the _Grammatical_ Terms in true old _Saxon_, from _aelfrick_'s Translation of _Priscian_, to shew the _polite_ Men of our Age, that the Language of their Forefathers is neither so barren nor barbarous as they affirm, with equal Ignorance and Boldness. Since this is such an Instance of its Copiousness, as is not to be found in any of the polite modern Languages; and the _Latin_ itself is beholden to the _Greek_, not only for the Terms, but even the Names of Arts and Sciences, as is easily discerned in the Words, _Philosophy_, _Grammar_, _Logick_, _Rhetorick_, _Geometry_, _Arithmetick_, &c. These Gentlemens ill Treatment of our Mother Tongue has led me into a Stile not so agreeable to the Mildness of our s.e.x, or the usual manner of my Behaviour, to Persons of your Character; but the Love and Honour of one's Countrey, hath in all Ages been acknowledged such a Virtue, as hath admitted of a Zeal even somewhat extravagant. _Pro Patria mori_, used to be one of the great Boasts of Antiquity; and even the so celebrated Magnanimity of _Cato_, and such others as have been called Patriots, had wanted their Praise, and their Admiration, had they wanted this Plea. The Justness and Propriety of the Language of any Nation, hath been always rightly esteem'd a great Ornament and Test of the good Sense of such a Nation; and consequently to arraign the good Sense or Language of any Nation, is to cast upon it a great Reproach. Even private Men are most jealous, of any Wound, that can be given them in their intellectual Accomplishments, which they are less able to endure, than Poverty itself or any other kind of Disgrace. This hath often occasion'd my Admiration, that those Persons, who talk so much, of the Honour of our Countrey, _of the correcting, improving and ascertaining_ of our Language, shou'd dress it up in a Character so very strange and ridiculous: or to think of improving it to any degree of Honour and Advantage, by divesting it of the Ornaments of Antiquity, or separating it from the _Saxon_ Root, whose Branches were so copious and numerous. But it is very remarkable how Ignorance will make Men bold, and presume to declare that unnecessary, which they will not be at the pains to render useful. Such kind of Teachers are no new thing, the Spirit of Truth itself hath set a mark upon them; _Desiring to be Teachers of the Law, understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm, 1 _Tim._ 1. 7._ It had been well if those wise _Grammarians_ had understood this Character, who have taken upon them to teach our Ladies and young Gentlemen, _The whole System of an English Education_; they had not incurr'd those Self-contradictions of which they are guilty; they had not mention'd your self, and your incomparable Treasury of _Northern Literature_ in so cold and negligent a manner, as betrays too much of an invidious Pedantry: But in those Terms of Veneration and Applause which are your just Tribute, not only from the Learned of your own Countrey, but of most of the other Northern Nations, whether more or less Polite: Who would any of them have glory'd in having you their Native, who have done so much Honour to the Original of almost all the Languages in Europe.