STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685 .

391

society, the language of diplomacy. At several courts princes C | I 1 | P-

and nobles spoke it more accurately and politely than their--

mother tongue. In our island there was less of this servilitythan on the Continent. Neither our good nor our bad qualitieswere those of imitators. Yet even here homage was paid,awkwardly indeed and sullenly, to the literary supremacy ofour neighbours. The melodious Tuskan, so familiar to thegallants and ladies of the court of Elizabeth, sank into con-tempt. A gentleman who quoted Horace or Terence wasconsidered in good company as a pompous pedant. But togarnish his conversation with scraps of French was the bestproof which ho could give of his parts and attainments.*

New canons of criticism, new models of style came intofashion. The quaint ingenuity which had deformed the versesof Donne, and bad been a blemish on those of Cowley, dis-appeared from our poetry. Our prose became less majestic,less artfully involved, less variously musical than that of anearlier age, but more lucid, more easy, and better fitted forcontroversy and narrative. In' these changes it is impossiblenot to recognise the influence of French precept and ofFrench example. Great masters of our language, in theirmost dignified compositions, affected to use French words,when English words, quite as expressive and melodious,were at hand:** and from France was imported the tragedyin rhyme, an exotic which, in our soil, drooped, and speedilydied.

* Butler, in a satire of (treat asperity, says,

“For, though to smaller wonis of GreekAnd Latin he the rhetoriqueOf pedants rounled, and vainglorious,

To smaller French is meritorious."

*• The most offensive instance which I remember is in a poem onthe coronation of Charles the Second by Dryden, who certainly couldnot plead poverty as an excuse for borrowing words from any foreignlongue: —

14 Hither in summer evenings you repairTo taste the fraicheur of the cooler air."