ground, whence he could never come to us again. She was a very beautiful woman, of a noble spirit, and there was a dignity in her grief amidst all the wildness of her transport which, methought, struck me with an instinct of sorrow, which, before I was sensible of what it was to grieve, seized my very soul, and has made pity the weakness of my heart ever since. The mind in infancy is, methinks, like the body in embryo, and receives impressions so forcible that they are as hard to be removed by reason as any mark with which a child is born is to be taken away by any future application. Hence it is that good-nature in me is no merit; but having been so frequently overwhelmed with her tears before I knew the cause of any affliction, or could draw defences from my own judg ment, I imbibed commiseration, remorse, and an unmanly gentleness of mind, which has since ensnared me into ten thousand calamities, and from whence I can reap no advantage, except it be that in such a humour as I am now in, I can the better indulge myself in the softness of humanity, and enjoy that sweet anxiety which arises from the memory of past afflictions.

We that are very old are better able to remember things which befell us in our distant youth than the passages of later days. For this reason it is that the companions of my strong and vigorous years present themselves more immediately to me in this office of sorrow. Untimely or unhappy deaths are what we are most apt to lament, so little are we able to make it indifferent when a thing happens, though we know it must happen. Thus we groan under life, and bewail those who are relieved from it. Every object that returns to our imagination raises different passions according to the circumstance of their departure. Who can have lived in an army, and in a serious hour reflect upon the many gay and agreeable men that might long have flourished in the arts of peace, and not join with the imprecations of the fatherless and widow on the tyrant to whose ambition they fell sacrifices? But gallant men, who are cut off by the sword, move rather our veneration than our pity, and

we gather relief enough from their own contempt of death, to make it no evil, which was approached with so much cheerfulness, and attended with so much honour. But when we turn our thoughts from the great parts of life on such occasions, and instead of lamenting those who stood ready to give death to those from whom they had the fortune to receive it; I say, when we let our thoughts wander from such noble objects, and consider the havoc which is made among the tender and the innocent, pity enters with an unmixed softness, and possesses all our souls at once.

Here (were there words to express such sentiments with proper tenderness) I should record the beauty, innocence, and untimely death of the first object my eyes ever beheld with love. The beauteous virgin! How ignorantly did she charm, how carelessly excel! O, Death! thou hast right to the bold, to the ambitious, to the high, and to the haughty; but why this cruelty to the humble, to the meek, to the undiscerning, to the thoughtless? Nor age, nor business, nor distress can erase the dear image from my imagination. In the same week, I saw her dressed for a ball, and in a shroud. How ill did the habit of Death become the pretty trifler! I still behold the smiling earth - A large train of disasters were coming on to my memory, when my servant knocked at my closet-door, and interrupted me with a letter, attended with a hamper of wine, of the same sort with that which is to be put to sale on Thursday next at Garraway's Coffee-house. Upon the receipt of it I sent for three of my friends. We are so intimate that we can be company in whatever state of mind we meet, and can entertain each other without expecting always to rejoice. The wine we found to be generous and warming, but with such a heat as moved us rather to be cheerful than frolicsome. It revived the spirits without firing the blood. We commended it till two of the clock this morning, and having to-day met a little before dinner, we found that, though we drank two bottles a man, we had much more reason to recollect than forget what had passed the night before. [STEELE]

FALSE REFINEMENTS IN STYLE

No. 230. September 28, 1710

From my own Apartment, Sept. 27

following letter has laid before me many great and est evils in the world of letters which I had overlooked; ey open to me a very busy scene, and it will require no care and application to amend errors which are become versal. The affectation of politeness is exposed in this with a great deal of wit and discernment; so that whatdiscourses I may fall into hereafter upon the subjects riter treats of, I shall at present lay the matter before world without the least alteration from the words of my spondent.

TO ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, Esq.

ere are some abuses among us of great consequence, the reformation ich is properly your province; though, as far as I have been convern your papers, you have not yet considered them. These are the rable ignorance that for some years hath reigned among our English s, the great depravity of our taste, and the continual corruption of our I say nothing here of those who handle particular sciences, divinity, physic, and the like; I mean the traders in history and politics, and elles lettres, together with those by whom books are not translated, but e common expressions are) done out of French, Latin, or other language, nade English. I cannot but observe to you that till of late years a Grub t book was always bound in sheepskin, with suitable print and paper, price never above a shilling, and taken off wholly by common tradesor country pedlars; but now they appear in all sizes and shapes, and I places. They are handed about from lapfuls in every coffee-house to ons of quality; are shown in Westminster Hall and the Court of Rets. You may see them gilt, and in royal paper of five or six hundred es, and rated accordingly. I would engage to furnish you with a catae of English books, published within the compass of seven years past, ch at the first hand would cost you a hundred pounds, wherein you shall be able to find ten lines together of common grammar or common sense. These two evils, ignorance and want of taste, have produced a third; I in the continual corruption of our English tongue, which, without some

timely remedy, will suffer more by the false refinements of twenty years past than it hath been improved in the foregoing hundred. And this is what I design chiefly to enlarge upon, leaving the former evils to your animadversion.

But instead of giving you a list of the late refinements crept into our language, I here send you the copy of a letter I received some time ago from a most accomplished person in this way of writing; upon which I shall make some remarks. It is in these terms:

Sir,

"I couldn't get the things you sent for all about town — I thôt to ha' come down myself, and then I'd h' brot' um; but I ha' nt don't, and I believe I can't d't, that's pozz. Tom begins to gi 'mself airs, because he's going with the plenipo's — 'T is said the French King will bamboozl'us agen, which causes many speculations. The Jacks and others of that kidney are very uppish, and alert upon't, as you may see by their phizz's Will Hazzard has got the hipps, having lost to the tune of five hundr'd pound, thô he understands play very well, nobody better. He has promis't me upon rep, to leave off play; but you know 't is a weakness he's too apt to give into, thô he has as much wit as any man, nobody more. He has lain incog ever since The mobb 's very quiet with us now I believe you thôt I banter'd you in my last, like a country put — I shan't leave town this month," etc.

This letter is in every point an admirable pattern of the present polite way of writing, nor is it of less authority for being an epistle: you may gather every flower in it, with a thousand more of equal sweetness, from the books, pamphlets, and single papers offered us every day in the coffeehouses: and these are the beauties introduced to supply the want of wit, sense, humour, and learning, which formerly were looked upon as qualifications for a writer. If a man of wit, who died forty years ago, were to rise from the grave on purpose, how would he be able to read this letter? And after he had got through that difficulty, how would he be able to understand it? The first thing that strikes your eye, is the breaks at the end of almost every sentence, of which I know not the use, only that it is a refinement, and very frequently practised. Then you will observe the abbreviations and elisions, by which consonants of most obdurate sound are joined together, without one softening vowel to intervene; and all this only to make one syllable of two, directly contrary to the example of the Greeks and Romans, altogether of the Gothic strain, and a natural tendency towards relapsing into barbarity, which delights in monosyllables, and uniting of mute consonants, as it is observable in all the Northern languages. And this is still more visible in the next refinement, which consists in pronouncing the first syllable in a word that has many, and dismissing the rest; such as phizz, hipps, mobb, pozz, rep, and many more, when we are already overloaded

nosyllables, which are the disgrace of our language. Thus we cram able, and cut off the rest, as the owl fattened her mice after she had heir legs to prevent them from running away; and if ours be the ason for maiming our words, it will certainly answer the end, for I no other nation will desire to borrow them. Some words are hitherto ly split, and therefore only in their way to perfection, as incog and : but in a short time 'tis to be hoped they will be further docked to plen. This reflection has made me of late years very impatient for , which I believe would save the lives of many brave words, as well . The war has introduced abundance of polysyllables, which will be able to live many more campaigns: speculations, operations, preries, ambassadors, palisadoes, communication, circumvallation, ons: as numerous as they are, if they attack us too frequently in our houses, we shall certainly put them to flight, and cut off the rear. e third refinement observable in the letter I send you consists in the of certain words, invented by some pretty fellows, such as banter, ozle, country put, and kidney, as it is there applied; some of which w struggling for the vogue, and others are in possession of it. I have my utmost for some years past to stop the progress of mobb and ~, but have been plainly borne down by numbers, and betrayed by who promised to assist me.

the last place, you are to take notice of certain choice phrases scattered gh the letter, some of them tolerable enough, until they were worn to y servile imitators. You might easily find them, though they were not ifferent print, and therefore I need not disturb them.

ese are the false refinements in our style which you ought to correct: by argument and fair means; but if these fail, I think you are to make f your authority as Censor, and by an annual Index Expurgatorius nge all words and phrases that are offensive to good sense, and condemn barbarous mutilations of vowels and syllables. In this last point the pretence is, that they spell as they speak: a noble standard for lane! To depend upon the caprice of every coxcomb who, because words he clothing of our thoughts, cuts them out and shapes them as he pleases, changes them oftener than his dress! I believe all reasonable people d be content that such refiners were more sparing in their words, and al in their syllables: and upon this head I should be glad you would ow some advice upon several young readers in our churches, who, coming rom the university full fraught with admiration of our town politeness, needs correct the style of their prayer-books. In reading the Absoon, they are very careful to say pardons and absolves; and in the prayer the royal family, it must be endue'um, enrich'um, prosper'um, and g'um. Then in their sermons they use all the modern terms of art: n, banter, mobb, bubble, bully, cutting, shuffling, and palming; all