of language, while they also deplore its misuse.  But, whatever may be its inherent defects, or its culpable abuses, it is still to be honoured as almost the only medium for the communication of thought and the diffusion of knowledge.  Bishop Butler remarks, in his Analogy of Religion, (a most valuable work, though defective in style,) “So likewise the imperfections attending the only method by which nature enables and directs us to communicate our thoughts to each other, are innumerable.  Language is, in its very nature, inadequate, ambiguous, liable to infinite abuse, even from negligence; and so liable to it from design, that every man can deceive and betray by it.”—­Part ii, Chap. 3.  Lord Kames, too, seconds this complaint, at least in part:  “Lamentable is the imperfection of language, almost in every particular that falls not under external sense.  I am talking of a matter exceedingly clear in the perception, and yet I find no small difficulty to express it clearly in words.”—­Elements of Criticism, Vol. i, p. 86.  “All writers,” says Sheridan, “seem to be under the influence of one common delusion, that by the help of words alone, they can communicate all that passes in their minds.”—­Lectures on Elocution, p. xi.

23.  Addison also, in apologizing for Milton’s frequent use of old words and foreign idioms, says, “I may further add, that Milton’s sentiments and ideas were so wonderfully sublime, that it would have been impossible for him to have represented them in their full strength and beauty, without having recourse to these foreign assistances. Our language sunk under him, and was unequal to that greatness of soul which furnished him with such glorious conceptions.”—­Spectator, No. 297.  This, however, Dr. Johnson seems to regard as a mere compliment to genius; for of Milton he says, “The truth is, that both in prose and verse, he had formed his style by a perverse and pedantick principle.”  But the grandeur of his thoughts is not denied by the critic; nor is his language censured without qualification.  “Whatever be the faults of his diction, he cannot want the praise of copiousness and variety:  he was master of his language in its full extent; and has selected the melodious words with such diligence, that from his book alone the Art of English Poetry might be learned.”—­ Johnson’s Life of Milton:  Lives, p. 92. 24.  As words abstractly considered are empty and vain, being in their nature mere signs, or tokens, which derive all their value from the ideas and feelings which they suggest; it is evident that he who would either speak or write well, must be furnished with something more than a knowledge of sounds and letters.  Words fitly spoken are indeed both precious and beautiful—­“like apples of gold in pictures of silver.”  But it is not for him whose soul is dark, whose designs are selfish, whose affections are dead, or whose thoughts are vain, to say with the son of Amram, “My doctrine shall