Dunbar
Essay II.

On Language, as an Universal Accomplishment

     In tracing the origin of arts and sciences, it is not uncommon
to ascribe to the genius of a few superior minds, what arises
necessarily out of the system of man. The efforts of an individual
are familiar to the eye. The efforts of the species are more remote
from sight, and often too deep for our researches.
     The connexion, therefore, of events with an individual, is a
more popular idea, while it gratifies an admiration and enthusiasm
natural to the human mind. Hence the conduct of historians, who
describe the origin of nations. Hence are celebrated among every
people, the first inventors of arts, the founders of society, and
the institutors of laws and government.
     Such revolutions, however, in the condition of the world, are
more justly reputed the slow result of situations than of regular
design, and have, perhaps, less exercised the talents of superior
genius, than those of mankind at large. Usages there surely are of
mere arbitrary institution; inventions there surely are which
originate with one only, or with a few authors. But other usages
and inventions as necessarily refer themselves to the multitude;
nor ought the casual exertions of the former to be confounded with
the infallible attainments of the species.
     Under this precaution, then, let us introduce the question
concerning language. Is language, it may be asked, derived to us at
first from the happy invention of a few, or to be regarded as an
original accomplishment and investiture of nature, or to be
attributed to some succeeding effort of the human mind.
     The supposed transition of the species from silence to the
free exercise of speech, were a transition indeed astonishing, and
might well seem disproportioned to our intellectual abilities.
Neither history nor philosophy are decisive upon this point; and
religion, with peculiar wisdom, refers the attainment to a divine
original. Suitable to this idea, language may be accounted in part
natural, in part artificial: in one view it is the work of
Providence, in another it is the work of man. And this dispensation
of things is exactly conformable to the whole analogy of the divine
government. With respect to the organs of speech, what is there
peculiar to boast? The same external apparatus is common to us and
to other animals. In both the workmanship is the same. In both are
displayed the same mechanical laws. And in order to confer on them
similar endowments of speech, nothing more seems necessary than the
enlargement of their ideas, without any alteration of anatomical
texture. In like manner, to divest, or to abridge mankind of these
endowments, seems to imply only the degradation of the mental
faculties, without any variation of external form.
     It is not then supposed that the organs of man alone are
capable of forming speech. The voice of some animals is louder, and
the voice of other animals is more melodious than his. Nor is the
human ear alone susceptible of such impressions. Animals are often
conscious of the import, and even recognize the harmony of sound.
thus far there subsists a near equality. Visible signs are likewise
possessed in common; and language, in every species, is the power
of maintaining social intercourse among creatures of the same
order.
     By the same medium man is able to converse, in some sort, with
the brute creation; and there the various tribes with each other.
But besides some general signs constituted to preserve harmony and
correspondence among connected systems, there are others of a more
mysterious kind, destined for the use and accommodation of each
particular class. In this science the sagacity of the philosopher
has hitherto made no discoveries. The mystery of animal
correspondence will, probably, be always hid; and it is often no
more possible to descend into the recesses of their intercourse,
than to open a communication with a higher system.
     In the great scale of life, the intelligence of some beings
soars, perhaps, as high above man, as the objects of his
understanding soar above animal life. Let us then imagine a man in
some other planet, to reside among a people of this exalted
character.
     Instructed in the sounds of their language, as the more docile
animals are instructed to articulate ours, he might articulate too,
but could acquire no more. He might admire the magnificence of
sounds louder or more melodious than he had heard before. But, by
reason of a dissimilarity and disposition of ideas, these sounds
could never conduct him to the sense; and the secrets of such a
people would be as safe in his ears, as ours in the ears of any of
our domestic animals.
     For the same reasons, if one of superior race were to drop
into our world, our language might be, in some respects,
impenetrable even to his understanding, because destitute perhaps
of some perceptions essential to our meaner system.
     Thus each order possesses something peculiar, which is denied
to every other; and it belongs to the Author of the universe alone
to exhaust that immensity of knowledge which he has diffused in
various kind and proportion through the whole circle of being.
     Here is an arrangement of Providence coeval with the birth of
things; and, considering the similarity of organical texture, the
taciturnity of the other animals is a problem to be accounted for,
as well as the loquacity of man.
     Whence comes it that he alone so far extends the original
grant as almost to consider it as his peculiar and exclusive
privilege? Between the lower classes and him there subsists one
important distinction. They are formed stationary; he progressive.
Had the exact measure of his ideas, as of theirs, been at first
assigned, his language must have stood for ever as fixed and
immutable as theirs. But time and mutual intercourse presenting new
ideas, and the scenes of life perpetually varying, the expression
of language must vary in the same proportion; and in order to trace
out its original, we must go back to the ruder ages, and, beginning
with the early dawn, follow the gradual illuminations of the human
mind.
     Man, we observe, is at first possessed of few ideas, and of
fewer desires. Absorbed in the present object of sense, he seldom
indulges any train of reflection on the past; and cares not, by
anxious anticipation, to antedate futurity.
     All his competitions with his fellows are rather exertions of
body than trials of mind. He values himself on the command of the
former, and is dextrous in the performance of its various
functions. too impatient for flow enterprise; too bold and
impetuous for intrigue, he uses the resources of instinct, rather
than the lights of the understanding; is scarce capable of
abstraction, and a stranger to all the combinations and connexions
of systematic thought.
     In this situation of the world there is no need for the
details of language. The feelings of the heart break forth in
visible form: sensations glow in the countenance, and passions
flash in the eye. Nor are these silent movements the only vehicles
of social intercourse.
     Prior to the contexture of language, and the use of arbitrary
sign, there is established a mechanical connexion between the
feelings of the soul and the enunciation of sound. The emotions of
pleasure and pain, hope and fear, commiseration, sorrow, despair,
indignation, contempt, joy, exultation, triumph, assume their
tones; and independently of art, by an inexplicable mechanism of
nature, declare the purposes of man to man. These associations are
neither accidental nor equivocal; not formed by compact, or the
effect of choice, but are parts of an original establishment,
calculated, in the first oeconomy, for all the occasions of social
life. And happy surely, in one respect, was this constitution of
things, when men were not only devoid of the inclination, but
unfurnished with the means of deceit; and sentiment and expression
were thus conjoined, by the indissoluble ties of nature.
     Such accents and exclamations compose the first elements of a
rising language. And in these distant times, when artificial signs
have so far supplanted the natural, interjection is a part of
speech which retains its primeval character, is scarce articulated
in any tongue, and is exempted from arbitrary rule.
     After the introduction of artificial signs, the tone and
cadence of the natural were long retained; but these fell
afterwards into disuse; and it became then the province of art to
recal the accents of nature.
     The perfection of eloquence is allowed to consist in
superadding to sentiment and diction, all the emphasis of voice and
gesture. And enunciation, or action, as it is called, is extolled
by the most approved judges of antiquity as the capital excellence.
     The decisive judgment of Demonsthenes is well known: and the
Roman orator, who records that judgment, expatiates himself in
almost every page, on that comprehensive language, which,
independently of arbitrary appointment, addresses itself to all
nations, and to every understanding. [Vide Cic. de Orat. L. w. et
passim.]
     In a certain period of society, there reigns a natural
elocution, which the greatest masters afterwards are proud to
imitate, and which art can so seldom supply. At first, the talent
of the orator, as of the poet, is an inborn talent. Nor has
Demonstheses, or Tully, or Roscius, or Garrick, in their most
animated and admired performances, reached, perhaps, that vivacity
and force which accompany the rude accents of mankind.
     In the same original connexion of things resides the
expression of music, or the irresistible tendency of the
modulations of sound to stir and agitate the different passions.
[A] Hence the astonishing effect ascribed to music in antient
times, and the empire it still maintains, in a peculiar manner,
over rude and unpolished nations.
     A Writer, [Dr Burney's Gen. Hist. of Music] who exhausts on
his favourite science so much ingenuity and learning, has assigned
indeed other causes for the empire of music among the antients,
besides its intrinsic excellence. [B]
     I oppose not such respectable authority. But though the
science of harmony is progressive; though simultaneous harmony, or
music in parts, is entirely modern, yet the union of sound and
sense is an original union; and the most wonderful effects of that
union are prior to the age of refinement.
     "The recitative in music, according to the observation of an
exquisite judge, [Congreve] is only a more tuneable speaking: it is
a kind of prose in music; its beauty consists in coming nearer
nature, and improving the natural accents of words by more pathetic
and emphatical tones." The scale of music in different countries is
the same; and all the variety of its expression throughout the
earth forms but so many dialects of one universal language as
unalterable as the human passions.
     Such causes then, in the infancy of mankind, operating alone,
or with little aid, seemed to supersede all motives to invention;
while affairs, however, were gradually approaching towards a
different stage.
     Next to the impulses of appetite, and the social passions, the
talent of imitation displays its force. Nor is this talent the gift
of heaven to man alone. He shares it in common with the creatures
below him, some of whom avail themselves of its exertions in the
pursuit of their prey. That even the musical notes of birds are not
altogether innate, but rather acquired by imitation, is a
proposition supported by late observations. Yet, in consequence of
a predilection, not easily explained, similar or kindred notes
appear to be universally characteristic of the same species,
varying only in different regions of the globe, like different
dialects of the same tongue. One species of birds excels in
imitation, and in a variety of note; another in the perfection of
musical organs; and hence, by combining the peculiar excellencies
of different species, an ingenious naturalist has suggested a
method of improving upon the music of the grove. [C]
     Among animals, however, the talent of imitation occurs more
rarely, or is limited to a few performances, and these resorted to
as expedient, rather than as an ultimate end.
     But the performances of man are conspicuous, and various, and
almost without bounds. He is prompted to imitation from a love of
the effect, and, exclusive of all reference to farther end, enters
it into the list of his pleasures. Often this secondary pleasure
exceeds the primary. And there are few, I imagine, who would reject
an entertainment of this sort, on the same principle with Agesilaus
of Sparta. When invited to hear a performer who mimicked the
nightingale to great perfection, the fasticious king replied "I
have heard the nightingale herself." The entertainment might be
unworthy of a king; but it was declined, on a principle that forms
an exception to the general taste. And imitation may be justly
called the first intellectual amusement congenial with our being:
in confirmation of which we might appeal to the first essays of
infancy, to the taste for the imitative arts so predominant in
youth, and to the earliest compositions of antiquity. [D]
     Man alone is capable of imitating every creature, while he is,
if I may say so, himself a creature which no other can pretend to
imitate. In the indulgence then of this talent, he adopts, as it
were, every mode of instinct, and re-echoes every voice in the
forest. Even still life attracts his attention; and the application
of the same talent to every subject, renders him a master in
expression, and ripens his genius while it exercises his mechanical
powers.
     Thus is he occupied in borrowing not only from his own
species, but in transcribing, for his amusement, the appearances of
the natural and of the animal world; in collecting materials,
without knowing their importance, and in laying, with an active,
though undesigned hand, the foundations of all arts and sciences.
     This imitative faculty, which, in the school of Aristotle,
entered into the definition of man, operates so vigorously on the
organs of speech, that, in some cases, sound in general seems to
become an object of imitation, without any particular archetype.
Hence the mechanical trials of children in the easier expressions,
when their organs are incapable of other articulation. And hence
the same sounds run uniformly through all languages, to denote
either parent, to whom the earliest expressions are presumed to be
addressed.
     By such exertions are we rendered capable of indicating, by
intelligible signs, the more striking and familiar objects. But to
give an additional compass to the powers of speech was reserved for
another principle allied to the former, and often undistinguished
in its operation, which may be denominated in analogical faculty.
A faculty which has vast power in binding the associations of
thoughts, and in all the mental arrangements; but with whose
influence on language alone we are at present concerned.
     Hitherto language consisted in the voice of instinct, or was
drawn by imitation from an actual similarity in the nature of
things. Now analogical connexions supply the place of real
resemblance. Now instinct borrows aid from imagination; and it is
the weakness of this principle which imposes the law of silence,
and excludes all possibility of improvement in the animal world.
Here commences the reign of invention, and here perhaps we should
stop, and draw the boundary of art and nature.
     There is not an object that can present itself to the senses,
or to the imagination, which the mind, by its analogical faculty,
cannot assimilate to something antecedently in its possession. By
consequence, a term already appropriated, and in use, will, by no
violent transition, be shaped and adjusted to the new idea. And
thus the division and composition of the primary signs will
constitute relations in sound, correspondent with those relations,
real or imaginary, which subsist among the objects of human
knowledge. Thus the language of the Chinese consists of a few words
only, which, merely by a variation of tone, become the
representatives of all the ideas of that enlightened people.
     This mode of proceeding is so conspicuous in our first
attempts, that it is with reluctance children adopt a word
altogether new, so long as they can assimilate the object to any of
their former acquaintance. And it is wonderful to observe with what
promptitude, facility, and apparent ingenuity, they can draw such
various expression out of their little store. It is accordingly no
illiberal entertainment in presenting strange objects to their
sight, to wait, by way of experiment, for their own conclusions,
and to cause them to distinguish each by names of their own
inventions. [E] This would be, perhaps, no improper exercise in
training their infant faculties; and it seems to have been upon the
same principle that the first of mankind, at the desire and with
the approbation of is Creator, was able to name so readily all the
beasts of the field, and the fowls of heaven.
     Many subsequent innovations in language may be traced up to
the same source; and signs apparently the most arbitrary are either
the result of some more refined connexion, or are separated from
their primitives by a longer chain of analogy.
     By this power the same natural sign, besides its primary,
admits of a secondary, and even of various import; and what
originally denoted an outward object, is, by a certain subtlety of
apprehension, transferred to the qualities of the mind.[F] Thus
language becomes figurative; and, without any extension of the
vocabulary, takes in the compass of our intellectual ideas. It is
this principle likewise which conducts the same sign from the
individual to the species, and by the frequent application of it,
on similar occasions, confers on it a larger and a larger import,
till at last it acquires a general acceptation, without any painful
or laborious effort.
     This process of the mind accounts for the generation of all
the different parts of speech, as might be shewn more particularly
in the rise of that essential constituent of language, which by
reason of its importance is denominated the verb.
     Not only are emotions of different kinds excited by the
objects of sense, but the same kind of emotion is wonderfully
modified, according to the circumstances of its birth. How various,
even in the savage breast, are the modes of love! how various the
emotion of fear!
     Let us then suppose that the lion and the serpent are
considered by the savage as the most hostile and formidable among
animals. A certain species of terror would be excited by the
approach of the one; a different modification of the same emotion
would be excited by the approach of the other.
     Now, in the first stage of language, the natural signs of
these kindred emotions, it is presumed, would be employed to
indicate, and to distinguish the approach of these animals. In the
mean while, let it be supposed that the other inhabitants of the
forest have received their names. In these circumstances it is
abundantly natural for the savage to join the term, indicating the
dread of the lion or serpent, with a proper name, in order to
notify the approach of any other offensive creature. This term, by
an easy extension, will be transferred from offensive to other
creatures; and hence, by a gradual transition, even to inanimate
objects, till it is charged at length with a general affirmation,
and possesses all the power of the verb.[G]
     Such steps as these, we may believe, have led to the more
regular combinations of sound; and, under this aspect of things, we
may conceive language strong indeed, and animated, but probably
remaining long without much compass, or coherence, or order. It
consisted chiefly of detached phrase. And though every sound formed
not a complete sentence, as at the beginning, yet the more
artificial arrangements were unknown. Those connective particles
which intimate the relations of thought were not yet brought into
existence; and the relations themselves were rather insinuated to
the understanding than expressed in form. Nor is this abrupt mode
of expression unsuitable to the circumstances of the simple ages.
Sentiment, as well as its dress, hung then extremely loose; and men
were not accustomed to a chain of reasoning, or to any complex
system of thought. Nor is it less comfortable to the experience of
our early life, the truest perspective, perhaps, in which to
contemplate the rising genius of mankind. In the first dialects of
children, the particles are but little attended to, if not totally
disregarded. They reject the texture of artificial language, even
while they adopt its words, presenting the capital objects in
immediate succession, without the intervention of terms which are
of a more obscure and abstract original. It is the same mode of
proceeding which is so often observable in vehement speakers, who,
in the hurry of declamation, or of passion, have no leisure to
attend to the rules of grammar, or logic. The language of passion
accordingly, which consists of broken periods, has been happily
imitated by the poets, and might be here illustrated, were it
necessary, by examples from the greatest masters, whose prerogative
it is to dispense in favour of nature with the established rules of
art.
     It is also remarkable in all the antient tongues, that the
most important distinctions and relations of objects are indicated
by an inflection of the voice, or a slight variation of the same
sound, without resorting so often to the little engines which
support the modern systems.
     Even this inflexion of voice is not always indispensable; and
in the oriental tongues no inconveniency is perceived from the want
of the genitive case; though there is neither an inflexion, nor any
intervening particle to suggest the relation.
     Let it not then be imagined, that abstract considerations have
entered far into the first formation of speech. Such laborious
effort had been ill suited to the genius and circumstances of the
first inventors; and even the particles themselves, though of more
doubtful origin, have crept into existence, without any severe
application of metaphysical force.
     Those talents alone exercised by every human creature, in
acquiring his first language, have been exercised by the original
institutors. In both cases the love of imitation is often the prime
mover, without any farther design. Taught by parents, children
learn to utter sound, to which afterwards they affix a meaning.
Taught by instinct, men utter sound at the beginning, which the
understanding afterwards renders more significant. In both cases,
the act of the understanding is posterior to a sort of organical
impulse; and in both cases there seems to be less abstraction than
is contended for in the schools of philosophy.
     Is a man, for example, to be reputed ignorant of the force of
particles, because he is incapable to give a metaphysical account
of their origin? And if, without metaphysics, he apprehends these
particles, why not invent them too?
     If we suppose but one of the most obvious relations to be
distinctly marked by any particle, that particle will, as it were
spontaneously, offer itself upon all similar occasions; and from
the law of analogy will be gradually extended in its signification,
until it includes under it a vast variety of relation: for it is
transferred from object to object in the concrete, without any
abstract consideration of its powers.
     It is easier for the mind to perceive resemblance, than to
specify the minute differences of things. Hence the same particles
are used to denote various relations, without our attending to
their specific differences. And hence these terms, in all
languages, are so liable to be confounded, and carry often a sort
of vicarious import, mutually participating of the same powers.
     When the analogy loses itself in refinement, new particles are
devised, and invested with a different office. And were an ordinary
man called upon to define the prepositions, or other little
constituents of any modern tongue, without a certain preparation of
his faculties, the answer with regard to the greater number would
be indefinite, or evasive, or merely negative. This particle, might
he say, differs in its import from that other: that other from a
third. They severally denote relations altogether dissimilar. It is
easier to say what they are not, than what they are.
     Should a more explicit answer be required, he refers to others
more learned than himself, or involves himself in a labyrinth, in
which the primary constructors of language never were involved, and
from which the logician or the philologist can hardly extricate
him. "The particle says a Writer [Dr S. Johnson] in whom these
characters are united, are all nations applied with so great
latitude, that they are not easily reducible under any regular
scheme of application. This difficulty is not less, nor, perhaps,
greater in English than in any other language. I have laboured them
with diligence, I hope with success; such at least as can be
expected in a task,which no man however learned or sagacious has
yet been able to perform." [H]
     He must be born then with a texture of brain as strong as that
of Johnson: he must be a Hercules in metaphysics, who can declare,
in their metaphysical character, the full import of these elements
of speech.
     Yet the relations of its own thoughts the mind clearly
apprehends. The signs of these relations, when once instituted, it
apprehends with equal ease. But these relations, clear as the light
in the presence of particular objects, in their absence are
involved in obscurity.
     The vulgar find little difficulty to apprehend the should
itself in an embodied state; but it is reserved for the philosopher
to apprehend its separate and abstract existence. And as well might
it be contended that this sublime apprehension had, in every age,
entered into the imagination of our forefathers, as that the nicer
relations of thought had exhibited themselves naked to the
understanding, and received names in artificial language, disjoined
from the other members which compose the body of this complex
machine.
     With reason therefore we conclude, that the laws of analogy,
by one gentle and uniform effect, superseding or alleviating the
efforts of abstraction, permit language to advance towards its
perfection free from the embarrassments which seemed to obstruct
its progress.
     In most speculations upon this subject, there reigns a
fundamental error. It consists in referring the rise of ideas and
the invention of language to a different aera, as if a time had
ever been when mankind laboured for utterance, yet sought in vain
to open intellectual treasures, and to be exonerated from the load
of their own conceptions. Under this impression we are apt to
imagine some great projectors in an early age, balancing a regular
plan for the conveyance of sentiment, and the establishment of
general intercourse. In such circumstances, indeed, they must have
revolved in imagination all the subtleties of logic, and entered
far into the science of grammar, before its objects had any
existence. Profound abstraction and generalization must have been
constantly exercised; all the relations of thought canvassed with
care, compared with accuracy, and arranged with propriety and with
order: a design competent, perhaps, to superior beings, but by no
means compatible with the limited capacity of the human mind. Now
these difficulties and incumbrances, in a great measure, disappear,
by contemplating ideas and language as uniformly in close
conjunction; and the changes in the former, and the innovations in
the latter, of the same chronological date.
     A few ideas, in the ruder ages, are subjected to expression
with the same facility, as a greater number in succeeding periods.
And hence speech, in all its different parts, is already formed,
when the vocabulary is exceeding scanty, and there is no variety or
abundance in any one class. Thus a Grammar even of the Lapland
tongue contains all the grammatical parts of speech. [See a
Laplandish Grammar, lately published by Mr Leem, Professor of the
Lapland tongue] Hence too the ease with which a language is
attained in infancy, or early youth, and the difficulty attaining
it in maturer age. When the idea and the sign are contemporary
attainments, and coincided in their first impressions, they take
root together, and serve reciprocally the one to suggest the other.
But where this coincidence is wanting, it becomes more difficult,
if not impossible, for the mind to collect its naked thoughts, and
subject them afterwards in all their variety to the arbitrary
impositions of language.
     A more equal oeconomy, therefore, has been maintained by the
direction of that principle of analogy to which we so often refer;
and the connexion is more easily established, when, from the
simplicity and uniformity of savage life, the same signs return so
often; when the whole compass of the vocabulary is exhausted upon
familiar objects, and almost comprized in the history of a day's
adventures. Thus a vocabulary, consisting of about twenty words, is
said to be sufficient, in all their ordinary transactions, for the
purposes of some savage nations.
     Language then, constructed with such scanty materials,
increases with the experience and discernment of mankind.
"Uncultivated people, says a Writer [Burke, on the Sublime and
Beautiful] of genius and refinement, are but ordinary observers of
things, and not critical in distinguishing them; but, for that
reason, they admire more, and are more affected with what they see,
and therefore express themselves in a warmer and more passionate
manner." On a more exact survey, the mind discriminates its
objects, and breaks the system of analogy by attending to the
minute differences of things. As therefore the analogical faculty
enlarges the sense of words, the discriminating faculty augments
them in number. It breaks speech into smaller divisions, and
bestows a copiousness on language by a more precise arrangement of
the objects. Thus, by the distribution of our ideas, as well as by
the enlargement of the fund, language is constantly enriched; and
its barrenness or fertility among a rising people may be always
estimated by the number of the objects, and the accuracy with which
they are classed.
     At a time when utility was almost regarded as the whole of
beauty, and perspicuity was the sole aim of speech, nothing
superfluous would ever be admitted there. Afterwards the coalition
and interferences of different tribes confounded the simplicity of
the institution, by the admission of foreign, identical, and
supernumerary terms. The love of novelty and variety established
their currency: a species of luxury is indulged in the commerce of
words. Each simple institution sustained a shock from the collision
of contending systems, and out of these jarrings there arose more
copious and mixed establishments.
     By such causes is language diversified by degrees, in its
words, in its texture, and in its idiom. What is at first only a
variety of dialects, produces distinct languages in succeeding
generations. And, after separation from the fountain, the
differences among them become more considerable in proportion to
the length of their course. Thus the English, the French, and
Italian tongues have borrowed their vocabulary from the Greeks and
Romans, while, in their texture, and idiom they are allied to the
Celtic and to the Hebrew, or claim a very distant original.
     But the consideration of these differences would carry us
beyond the limit of the present design, which permits us only to
touch on the gradations of a simple institution, referring to those
faculties of the mind which appear principally concerned in
conducting its successive improvements. In the execution of the
enterprise, the mind, no doubt, has exerted collectively, at all
times, various powers; but these are exerted in unequal proportion;
according to the circumstances of the world; and the order here
assigned appeared to our judgement most consonant to the
probability of things, to the experience of early life, and to the
genius and complexion of the ruder ages.
     By such efforts, or at least by efforts competent to the
abilities of every society of mankind, some rude system is
constructed on the foundations of nature. The superstructure
becomes vast and magnificent, like the conceptions of the human
mind; but that superstructure is the work of ages, and is as
complicated and various, in the different regions of the globe, as
the modes of civil life, as the aspect of nature, and as the genius
of arts and sciences.
     Having therefore considered speech in its lower forms, we
proceed to enquire into those superior marks of refinement and art
which constitute the criterion of a polished tongue.

NOTES.

Note [A], p. 73

     Though the modulations of sound declare in general the
feelings of the heart, music imitates the social passion with the
happiest success. A distinction which intimates the sociability and
generosity of man, and is well illustrated by Dr Smith in the
Theory of Moral Sentiment.

     "When music imitates the modulations of grief, or joy, it
either actually inspires us with those passions, or at least puts
us in the mood which disposes us to conceive them. But when it
imitates the notes of anger, it inspires us with fear. Joy, grief,
love, admiration, devotion, are all of the passions which are
naturally musical. Their natural tones are all soft, clear, and
melodious; and they naturally express themselves in periods which
are distinguished by regular pauses, and which upon that account
are easily adapted to the regular returns of their corresponding
airs of a tune. The voice of anger, on the contrary, and of all the
passions which are akin to it, is harsh and discordant. Its period
too are irregular, sometimes very long, sometimes very short, and
distinguished by no regular pauses. It is with difficulty
therefore, that music can imitate any of those passions, and the
music which does imitate them is not the most agreeable. A whole
entertainment may consist, without any impropriety, in the
imitation of the social and agreeable passions. It would be a
strange entertainment which consisted altogether of the imitations
of hatred and resentment."
          Part I. sect. ii, ch. 3

Note [B]

     Perhaps the simplicity of antient music contributed to its
effect. Perhaps from its union with poetry, it derived its most
alluring charms. Yet these arts may, on some occasions, encumber
each other, and ought, in the opinion of some good judges, to hold
a divided empire. This is a problem in the history of music which
an adept in the science is alone capable to decide, and I am ready
to adopt that opinion and language of Dr Burney, that "music and
poetry, like man and wife, or other associates, are best asunder,
if they cannot agree; and, on many occasions, it were to be wished,
that the partnership were amicably dissolved."
     The danger at present seems to be, that music in preference to
poetry, and instrumental music in preference to vocal, to which it
is so far inferior, should usurp an improper dominion in all the
politer circles. An observation of Mr Gay to Dr Swift, in the year
1723, relative to the fashionable taste of the metropolis, is now
applicable in a much larger extent. "As for the reigning amusements
of the town," says he, "it is entirely music; real fiddles, bass
viols, and hautboys; not poetical harps, lyres and reeds. There is
nobody allowed to say, I sing, but an Eunuch, or an Italian woman.
Every body is grown now as great a judge of music as they were in
your time of poetry; and folks that could not distinguish one tune
from another, now daily dispute about the different styles of
Handel, Bononcini, and Attilio. People have now forgot Homer, and
Virgil, and Caesar, or, at least, they have lost their ranks; for
in London and Westminster, in all polite conversations, Senefino is
daily voted the greatest man that ever lived." The history of the
Vestris, at this day, would serve to finish up the picture. They
have actually attracted, in the fashionable circles, a degree of
admiration and applause, which no orator, in either house of
parliament, can hope to command. But this mode of amusement is not
the object of our criticism; and, without sufficient to observe,
that music is not the only imitative art, which, in the progress of
refinement, ceases to be so significant.
     N'est il pas singulier, says Mons. l'Abbe Reynal, que dans les
premiers ages du monde, & chez les sauvages, la danse soit un art
d'imitation, & qu'elle ait perdu ce caractere dans les pays
polices, ou elle sembe reduite a une certain nombre de pas executes
sans action, sans subjet, sans conduite? Mais il en est es danse
comme des langues: elles deviennent abstraites, ainsi que les idees
dont elles sont composees.
               Tom. vi. p. 27.

Note [C], p. 75.

     I Refer the reader to Experiments and Observations on the
singing of the Birds, by the Hon. Daines Barrington, inserted in
the Philosophical Transactions of the year 1773.
     "These experiments", says Mr Barrington, "may be said to be
useful to all those who happen to be pleased with singing birds.
Because, it is clear, that, by educating a bird under several
sorts, we may often make such a mixture as to improve the notes
which they would have learned in a wild state.
     "It results also from the experiment of the linnet being
educated under the vengolina, that we may introduce the notes of
Asia, Africa, and American into our woods; because, if that linnet
had been set at liberty, the nestlings of the next season would
have adhered to the vengolina song, who would again transmit it to
their descendants."
     The musical notes of birds, if we believe Lucretius, a
naturalist as well as a poet, first suggested to man the elements
of a science in which he afterwards so far excels them. For the
notes of birds, however melodious, are not only destitute of
harmony, but deficient in expression, which in music is the capital
excellence.

Note [D], p. 77

     It is perhaps, not foreign from the subject to observe, that
men of genius, though no poets or painters by profession, so often
discover, in early life, a proneness to the imitative arts, which
yield to more serious occupation in maturer years. Even the masters
themselves, in the decline of life, no longer court the muses with
equal assiduity. It is then the poet, transformed into the
philosopher, abandons his former walk --

               Hinc itaque & versus & caetera Iudicra pono.

     Plato, who looks down on poetry as a dangerous, or as a
frivolous art, had been a favourite with the muses, when he treats
with ingratitude, and had composed dithyrambics in his younger
days.
     The Biography of the English Poets, to which a writer of the
first rank in literature now calls the attention of the Public,
affords a variety of examples of this predilection in early life.
Cowley and Milton, as well as Pope, "lisped in numbers." Cowley had
read all Spenser, while under twelve, had commenced a poet at
thirteen, and an author at fifteen, when his poetical blossoms
appeared. In the Comus of Milton, a juvenile production, we behold
the dawn of an immortal day.
     The author of Gondibert composed a poem on the death of
Shakespeare, at the age of ten.
     Dr Jortin was a poet in youth, and a critic in maturer age.
     Lord Lansdown composed most of his poetical pieces when a
perfect child, the correction of which afforded employment to his
riper years.
     Congreve had made an eminent figure as a dramatic poet before
he had passed his twenty-fifth year. "And, among all the efforts of
early genius," says Dr Johnson, "which literary history records, I
doubt whether any one can be produced that more surpasses the
common limits of nature than the plays of Congreve."
     Voltaire commenced poet at twelve, composed the Henriade while
under twenty-four, and his Brutus, which he regarded "comme sa
tragedie la plus fortement ecrite," at thirty-six.
     The present Imperial Laureat, [Metastasio] an appellation
which his merit alone might almost extort from his contemporaries,
is an astonishing instance of the premature inspiration of the
muses. And not to multiply instances among foreign nations, the
Poems ascribed to Thomas Rowley, a secular priest of Bristol, who
flourished in the fifteenth century, are probably the production of
a youth who died Anno 1770, at the age of eighteen, a prodigy of
genius; and who, in the opinion of no contemptible judge, would
have proved the first of English poets, had he reached the full
manhood of his days. "From his childhood', says Mr Warton, "he was
fond of reading and writing verses, and some of this early
compositions, which he wrote without any design to deceive, have
been judged to be most astonishing productions by the first critic
of the present age."
     Waller indeed is recorded a singular instance of a poet, who
began late the exercise of a poetic talent. "At an age," says Lord
Clarendon, "when other men used to give over writing verses (for he
was near thirty years of age when he first engaged himself in that
exercise, at least that he was known to do so), he surprised the
town with two or three pieces of that kind, as if a tenth muse had
been newly born to cherish drooping poetry."
     But this evidence is not conclusive; nor is the noble
historian perfectly correct in point of fact. For the muse of
Waller had even acquired a name in the twenty-fourth year of his
age. It is reasonable, however, to expect that the more perfect
performances of a great master will be of later date. A correct
judgement is a quality so essential to great execution in the
imitative arts, that, according to the Abbe du Bos, it is about the
age of thirty that the greatest geniuses, whether in poetry or
painting, have produced their masterpieces.
     But to this Dryden and Milton form eminent exceptions.
Dryden's latest performances are the best. His fire, says Pope,
like the sun's, shone clearest towards its setting. Addison adorns
him with similar praise; and he merited the following encomium from
the illustrious patron of his declining age:

          Not all the blasts of time can do you wrong,
          Young spite of age, is spite of weakness strong;
          Time, like Alcides, strikes you to the ground;
          You, like Antaeus, from each fall rebound.

     The example of Milton is still more astonishing. "It was,"
says the historian, "during a state of poverty, disgrace, and old
age, that Milton composed his wonderful Poem, which not only
surpassed all the performances of his contemporaries, but all the
compositions which had flowed from his pen, during the vigour of
his age, and the height of his prosperity. The circumstance is not
the least remarkable of all those which attend that great genius."
                    Hist. of Eng. vol. vii. p. 345.

Note [E], p. 81.

     Omiah, the Otaheitean, circumscribed as a child in the number
of his ideas, though in understanding and in years a man, proceeded
on similar principles in the acquisition of the English tongue.
     The butler he called the king of the bottles, Captain Furneaux
was king of the ship, Lord Sandwich was king of all the ships. The
whole language of his own country exceeds not a thousand words.

Note [F], p. 82.

     Such is the natural order of analogy in the generation of
speech. But the reverse order, where words expressive of ideas
purely intellectual, are transferred to corporeal objects, is
sometimes observable in a cultivated language; instances of which
are produced in Melange de Literature par Mons. d'Alembert.

     "It has been ingeniously observed," says a late Author, "that
the Metaphor took its rise from the poverty of language. Men, not
finding, upon every occasion, words ready made for their ideas,
were compelled to have recourse to words analogous, and transfer
them from their original meaning to the meaning then required. But
though the Metaphor began in poverty, it did not end there. When
the analogy was just (and this often happened), there was something
peculiarly pleasing in what was both new, and yet familiar; so that
the metaphor was then cultivated, not out of necessity, but for
ornament. It is thus that clothes were first assumed to defend us
against the cold, but came afterwards to be worn for distinction
and decoration."
                         Harris's Philological Inquiries, p. 188.

     This Writer, who, in matters of taste and criticism, pays an
implicit deference to the authority of the Peripatetic School, has
commented, in the above passage, on the text of Aristotle, who
extols the metaphor as an effort of genius, not to be taught, and
in which men of ordinary discernment cannot hope to excel. It is,
however, a figure of speech intelligible to all, and which, in the
infancy of language, must have been, in some degree, universal.
     Swift has been represented as a writer of such perfect
simplicity as to reject the metaphor altogether in his
compositions. "This is not true," says his Biographer; "but his few
metaphors seem to be received rather by necessity than choice."

Note [G], p. 84.

     "In elucidating this part of speech, it has been well observed
by Dr Smith, that "impersonal verbs, which express in one word a
complete event, which preserve in the expression that perfect
simplicity and unity which there always are in the object and in
the idea, and which suppose no abstraction or metaphysical division
of the event into its several constituent members of subject and
attribute, would, in all probability, be the species of verbs first
invented."

     But afterwards, in the progress of language, by the division
of every event into its metaphysical elements, impersonal verbs
disappear. In modern tongues, accordingly, they are unknown. Yet
they make a figure in the languages of antiquity, and especially in
the Hebrew, where the radical words, from which all others are
derived, are traced up by grammarians to that original.
          See Considerations concerning the first Formation of
Language, etc.

Note [H], p. 91.

     The ill success of all former grammarians antient and modern,
has not intimidated a writer in the gloom and solitude of a prison,
from undertaking so arduous a task.
     See a letter to John Dunning, Esq; by Mr Horne. In this letter
the conjunctions of the English tongue are traced up to a source
unobserved or unacknowledged by any grammarian. The same analogy is
presumed to be universal; and conjunctions, according to this plan,
no longer rank among the grammatical elements, but are derived in
one uniform manner, in all languages, from the other parts of
speech.