he best writings of the last century might become as
obsolete as yours in the like process of time, if we had not in our
Liturgy and our Bible a standard from which it will not be possible
wholly to depart.

_Sir Thomas More_.--Will the Liturgy and the Bible keep the language at
that standard in the colonies, where little or no use is made of the one,
and not much, it may be feared, of the other?

_Montesinos_.--A sort of hybrid speech, a _Lingua Anglica_, more debased,
perhaps, than the _Lingua Franca_ of the Levant, or the Portuguese of
Malabar, is likely enough to grow up among the South Sea Islands; like
the mixture of Spanish with some of the native languages in South
America, or the mingle-mangle which the negroes have made with French and
English, and probably with other European tongues in the colonies of
their respective states. The spirit of mercantile adventure may produce
in this part of the new world a process analogous to what took place
throughout Europe on the breaking up of the Western Empire; and in the
next millennium these derivatives may become so many cultivated tongues,
having each its literature. These will be like varieties in a flower-
garden, which the florist raises from seed; but in the colonies, as in
our orchards, the graft takes with it, and will preserve, the true
characteristics of the stock.

_Sir Thomas More_.--But the same causes of deterioration will be at work
there also.

_Montesinos_.--Not nearly in the same degree, nor to an equal extent. Now
and then a word with the American impress comes over to us which has not
been struck in the mint of analogy. But the Americans are more likely to
be infected by the corruption of our written language than we are to have
it debased by any importations of this kind from them.

_Sir Thomas More_.--There is a more important consideration belonging to
this subject. The cause which you have noticed as the principal one of
this corruption must have a farther and more mischievous effect. For it
is not in the vices of an ambitious style that these ephemeral writers,
who live upon the breath of popular applause, will rest. Great and
lasting reputations, both in ancient and modern times, have been raised
notwithstanding that defect, when the ambition from which it proceeded
was of a worthy kind, and was sustained by great powers and adequate
acquirements. But this ambition, which looks beyond the morrow, has no
place in the writers of a d