A History of English Language

The appeal to authority, 1650-1800 243
learn by inquiry as to settle a matter, to render it certain and free from doubt. Dr. Johnson
defined ascertainment as “a settled rule; an established standard”; and it was in this sense
that Swift used the verb in his Proposal for Correcting, Improving, and Ascertaining the
English Tongue. 5 When reduced to its simplest form the need was for a dictionary that
should record the proper use of words and a grammar that should settle authoritatively the
correct usages in matters of construction. How it was proposed to attain these ends we
shall see shortly.
190. The Problem of “Refining” the Language.
Uncertainty was not the only fault that the eighteenth century found with English. The
lack of a standard to which all might conform was believed to have resulted in many
corruptions that were growing up unchecked. It is the subject of frequent lament that for
some time the language had been steadily going down. Such observations are generally
accompanied by a regretful backward glance at the good old days. Various periods in the
past were supposed to represent the highest perfection of English. It was Dryden’s
opinion that “from Chaucer the purity of the English tongue began,” but he was not so
completely convinced as some others that its course had been always downward. For
Swift the golden age was that of the great Elizabethans. “The period,” he says, “wherein
the English tongue received most improvement, I take to commence with the beginning
of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, and to conclude with the great rebellion in forty-two. From
the civil war to this present time, I am apt to doubt whether the corruptions in our
language have not at least equalled the refinements of it; and these corruptions very few
of the best authors in our age have wholly escaped. During the usurpation, such an
infusion of enthusiastic jargon prevailed in every writing, as was not shaken off in many
years after. To this succeeded the licentiousness which entered with the restoration, and
from infecting our religion and morals fell to corrupt our language.” 6
With this opinion Dr. Johnson agreed. In his Dictionary he says, “I have studiously
endeavoured to collect examples and authorities from the writers before the restoration,
whose works I regard as the wells of English undefiled, as the pure sources of genuine
diction.” It is curious to find writers later in the century, such as Priestley, Sheridan, and
the American Webster, looking back upon the Restoration and the period of Swift himself
as the classical age of the language. It is apparent that much of this talk springs merely
from a sentimental regard for the past and is to be taken no more seriously than the
perennial belief that our children are not what their parents were. Certainly the
5
Cf. §193.
6
Proposal for Correcting, Improving, and Ascertaining the English Tongue.