note 4: himself up]

[Footnote 5: that]

[Footnote 6: shaved]

* * * * *

No. 165. Saturday, September 8, 1711. Addison.

'... Si forte necesse est,
Fingere cinctutis non exaudita Cethegis
Continget: dabiturque licentia sumpta pudenter.' [1]

Hor.

I have often wished, that as in our Constitution there are several
Persons whose Business it is to watch over our Laws, our Liberties and
Commerce, certain Men might be set apart as Superintendants of our
Language, to hinder any Words of a Foreign Coin from passing among us;
and in particular to prohibit any _French_ Phrases from becoming Current
in this Kingdom, when those of our own Stamp are altogether as valuable.
The present War has so Adulterated our Tongue with strange Words that it
would be impossible for one of our Great Grandfathers to know what his
Posterity have been doing, were he to read their Exploits in a Modern
News Paper. Our Warriors are very industrious in propagating the
_French_ Language, at the same time that they are so gloriously
successful in beating down their Power. Our Soldiers are Men of strong
Heads for Action, and perform such Feats as they are not able to
express. They want Words in their own Tongue to tell us what it is they
Atchieve, and therefore send us over Accounts of their Performances in a
Jargon of Phrases, which they learn among their Conquered Enemies. They
ought however to be provided with Secretaries, and assisted by our
Foreign Ministers, to tell their Story for them in plain _English_, and
to let us know in our Mother-Tongue what it is our brave Country-Men are
about. The _French_ would indeed be in the right to publish the News of
the present War in _English_ Phrases, and make their Campaigns
unintelligible. Their People might flatter themselves that Things are
not so bad as they really are, were they thus palliated with Foreign
Terms, and thrown into Shades and Obscurity: but the _English_ cannot be
too clear in their Narrative of those Actions, which have raised their
Country to a higher Pitch of Glory than it ever yet arrived at, and
which will be still the more admired the better they are explained.

For my part, by that time a Siege is carried on two or three Days, I am
altogether lost and bewildered in it, and meet with so many inexplicable
Difficulties, that I scarce know what Side has the better