ial European key of the Grecian
muses, amidst the sweet blandishments it was of Ionian groves that you
arrested the initial elements of such a relaxing modulation. Twenty-five
centuries ago, when Europe and Asia met for brotherly participation in
the noblest, perhaps,[12] of all recorded solemnities, viz., the
inauguration of History in its very earliest and prelusive page, the
coronation (as with propriety we may call it) of the earliest (perhaps
even yet the greatest?) historic artist, what was the language employed
as the instrument of so great a federal act? It was that divine Grecian
language to which, on the model of the old differential compromise in
favour of Themistocles, all rival languages would cordially have
conceded the second honour. If now, which is not impossible, any
occasion should arise for a modern congress of the leading nations that
represent civilisation, not probably in the Isthmus of Corinth, but on
that of Darien, it would be a matter of mere necessity, and so far
hardly implying any expression of homage, that the English language
should take the station formerly accorded to the Grecian. But I come
back to the thesis which I announced, viz., to the twofold _onus_ which
the English language is called upon to sustain:--first, to the
responsibility attached to its _powers_; secondly, to the responsibility
and weight of expectation attached to its destiny. To the questions
growing out of the first, I will presently return. But for the moment, I
will address myself to the nature of that DESTINY, which is often
assigned to the English language: what is it? and how far is it in a
fair way of fulfilling this destiny?

[12] Perhaps, seriously, the most of a _cosmopolitical_ act that has
ever been attempted. Next to it, in point of dignity, I should feel
disposed to class the inauguration of the Crusades.

As early as the middle of the last century, and by people with as little
enthusiasm as David Hume, it had become the subject of plain prudential
speculations, in forecasting the choice of a subject, or of the language
in which it should reasonably be treated, that the area of expectation
for an English writer was prodigiously expanding under the development
of our national grandeur, by whatever names of 'colonial' or 'national'
it might be varied or disguised. The issue of the American War, and the
sudden expansion of the American Union into a mighty nation on a scale
corresponding to that of the fou