In the first place, therefore, it will be necessary to state, in general, what this refinement is, of which we treat; and that, I think, will not be defined amiss, “An improvement of our Wit, Language and Conversation; or, an alteration in them for the better.”

To begin with Language.  That an alteration is lately made in ours, or since the writers of the last age (in which I comprehend Shakespeare, Fletcher, and Jonson), is manifest.  Any man who reads those excellent poets, and compares their language with what is now written, will see it almost in every line; but that this is an improvement of the language or an alteration for the better, will not so easily be granted.  For many are of a contrary opinion that the English tongue was then in the height of its perfection; that from Jonson’s time to ours it has been in a continual declination, like that of the Romans from the age of Virgil to Statius, and so downward to Claudian; of which, not only Petronius, but Quintilian himself so much complains, under the person of Secundus, in his famous dialogue De Causis corruptae Eloquentiae.

But, to shew that our language is improved, and that those people have not a just value for the age in which they live, let us consider in what the refinement of a language principally consists:  that is, “either in rejecting such old words, or phrases, which are ill sounding, or improper; or in admitting new, which are more proper, more sounding, and more significant.”

The reader will easily take notice, that when I speak of rejecting improper words and phrases, I mention not such as are antiquated by custom only and, as I may say, without any fault of theirs.  For in this case the refinement can be but accidental; that is, when the words and phrases, which are rejected, happen to be improper.  Neither would I be understood, when I speak of impropriety of language, either wholly to accuse the last age, or to excuse the present, and least of all myself; for all writers have their imperfections and failings:  but I may safely conclude in the general, that our improprieties are less frequent, and less gross than theirs.  One testimony of this is undeniable, that we are the first who have observed them; and, certainly, to observe errors is a great step to the correcting of them.  But, malice and partiality set apart, let any man, who understands English, read diligently the works of Shakespeare and Fletcher, and I dare undertake, that he will find in every page either some solecism of speech, or some notorious flaw in sense[1]; and yet these men are reverenced, when we are not forgiven.  That their wit is great, and many times their expressions noble, envy itself cannot deny.

  _—­Neque ego illis detrahere ausim
  Haerentem capiti multa cum laude coronam._