(I should observe that these remarks were couched in suchintolerably antiquated terms, that I have had infinite difficulty inrendering them into modern phraseology.)"I cry your mercy," said I, "for mistaking your age; but itmatters little: almost all the writers of your time have likewisepassed into forgetfulness; and De Worde's publications are mereliterary rarities among book-collectors. The purity and stability oflanguage, too, on which you found your claims to perpetuity, have beenthe fallacious dependence of authors of every age, even back to thetimes of the worthy Robert of Gloucester, who wrote his history inrhymes of mongrel Saxon.* Even now many talk of Spenser's 'well ofpure English undefiled,' as if the language ever sprang from a well orfountain-head, and was not rather a mere confluence of varioustongues, perpetually subject to changes and intermixtures. It isthis which has made English literature so extremely mutable, and thereputation built upon it so fleeting. Unless thought can becommitted to something more permanent and unchangeable than such amedium, even thought must share the fate of every thing else, and fallinto decay. This should serve as a check upon the vanity andexultation of the most popular writer. He finds the language inwhich he has embarked his fame gradually altering, and subject tothe dilapidations of time and the caprice of fashion. He looks backand beholds the early authors of his country, once the favorites oftheir day, supplanted by modern writers. A few short ages have coveredthem with obscurity, and their merits can only be relished by thequaint taste of the bookworm. And such, he anticipates, will be thefate of his own work, which, however it may be admired in its day, andheld up as a model of purity, will in the course of years growantiquated and obsolete; until it shall become almost asunintelligible in its native land as an Egyptian obelisk, or one ofthose Runic inscriptions said to exist in the deserts of Tartary. Ideclare," added I, with some emotion, "when I contemplate a modernlibrary, filled with new works, in all the bravery of rich gilding andbinding, I feel disposed to sit down and weep; like the good Xerxes,when he surveyed his army, pranked out in all the splendor of militaryarray, and reflected that in one hundred years not one of them wouldbe in existence!"* Holinshed, in his Chronicle, observes, "afterwards, also, bydiligent travell of Geffry Chaucer and of John Gowre, in the time ofRichard the Second, and after them of John Scogan and John Lydgate,monke of Berrie, our said toong was brought to an excellent passe,notwithstanding that it never came unto the type of perfection untilthe time of Queen Elizabeth, wherein John Jewell, Bishop of Sarum,John Fox, and sundrie learned and excellent writers, have fullyaccomplished the ornature of the same, to their great praise andimmortal commendation.""Ah," said the little quarto, with a heavy sigh, "I see how it is;these modern scribblers have superseded all the good old authors. Isuppose nothing is read now-a-days but Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia,Sackville's stately plays, and Mirror for Magistrates, or thefine-spun euphuisms of the 'unparalleled John Lyly.'""There you are again mistaken," said I; "the writers whom yousuppose in vogue, because they happened to be so when you were last incirculation, have long since had their day. Sir Philip Sydney'sArcadia, the immortality of which was so fondly predicted by hisadmirers,* and which, in truth, is full of noble thoughts, delicateimages, and graceful turns of language, is now scarcely evermentioned. Sackville has strutted into obscurity; and even Lyly,though his writings were once the delight of a court, and apparentlyperpetuated by a proverb, is now scarcely known even by name. Awhole crowd of authors who wrote and wrangled at the time, havelikewise gone down, with all their writings and their controversies.
Wave after wave of succeeding literature has rolled over them, untilthey are buried so deep, that it is only now and then that someindustrious diver after fragments of antiquity brings up a specimenfor the gratification of the curious.
* Live ever sweete booke; the ****** image of his gentle witt, andthe golden-pillar of his noble courage; and ever notify unto the worldthat thy writer was the secretary of eloquence, the breath of themuses, the honey-bee of the daintyest flowers of witt and arte, thepith of morale and intellectual virtues, the arme of Bellona in thefield, the tonge of Suada in the chamber, the sprite of Practise inesse, and the paragon of excellency in print.- Harvey Pierce'sSupererogation.
"For my part," I continued, "I consider this mutability of languagea wise precaution of Providence for the benefit of the world at large,and of authors in particular. To reason from analogy, we daily beholdthe varied and beautiful tribes of vegetables springing up,flourishing, adorning the fields for a short time, and then fadinginto dust, to make way for their successors. Were not this the case,the fecundity of nature would be a grievance instead of a blessing.
The earth would groan with rank and excessive vegetation, and itssurface become a tangled wilderness. In like manner the works ofgenius and learning decline, and make way for subsequent productions.
Language gradually varies, and with it fade away the writings ofauthors who have flourished their allotted time; otherwise, thecreative powers of genius would overstock the world, and the mindwould be completely bewildered in the endless mazes of literature.
Formerly there were some restraints on this excessive multiplication.