e greatly vitiated, depraved, and
corrupted by the style of our Congressional debates.' And the other, in
courteous response remarked, 'There _is_ such a _thing_ as _an_ English and
_a_ parliamentary _vocabulary_, and I have never heard _a worse_, when
circumstances called it out, on this side [_of_] Billingsgate!'"--_Fowler's
E. Gram._, 8vo. 1850, Pref., p. iv.

Now of these "two leading men," the former was Daniel Webster, who, in a
senatorial speech, in the spring of 1850, made such a remark concerning the
style of oratory used in Congress. But who replied, or what idea the
"courteous response," as here given, can be said to convey, I do not know.
The language seems to me both unintelligible and solecistical; and,
therefore, but a fair sample of the _Incorrigible_. Some intelligent
persons, whom I have asked to interpret it, think, as Webster had accused
our Congress of corrupting the English language, the respondent meant to
accuse the British Parliament of doing the same thing in a greater
degree,--of descending yet lower into the vileness of slang. But this is
hardly a probable conjecture. Webster might be right in acknowledging a
very depraving abuse of the tongue in the two Houses of Congress; but could
it be "courteous," or proper, for the answerer to jump the Atlantic, and
pounce upon the English Lords and Commons, as a set of worse corrupters?

The gentleman begins with saying, "There _is_ such _a thing_"--as if he
meant to describe some _one_ thing; and proceeds with saying, "as _an_
English _and a_ parliamentary vocabulary," in which phrase, by repeating
the article, he speaks of _two "things"--two vocabularies_; then goes on,
"and I have never heard _a worse_!" A worse _what_? Does he mean "_a worse
vocabulary_?" If so, what sense has "_vocabulary_?" And, again, "a worse"
_than_ what? Where and what is this "_thing_" which is so bad that the
leading Senator has "never heard a worse?" Is it some "_vocabulary_" both
"English and parliamentary?" If so, whose? If not, what else is it? Lest
the wisdom of this oraculous "declaration" be lost to the public through
the defects of its syntax,--and lest more than one rhetorical critic seem
hereby "in some danger" of "giving sanction to" _nonsense_,--it may be well
for Professor Fowler, in his next edition, to present some elucidation of
this short but remarkable passage, which he values so highly!

An other example, in several respects still more remarkable,--a shor