g some few monosyllables, the whole language ends in them.
Then the pronunciation is so manly, and so sonorous, that their very
speaking has more of music in it than Dutch poetry and song. It has
withal derived, so much copiousness and eloquence from the Greek and
Latin, in the composition of words, and the formation of them, that
if, after all, we must call it barbarous, it is the most beautiful and
most learned of any barbarism in modern tongues; and we may, at least,
as justly praise it, as Pyrrhus did the Roman discipline and martial
order, that it was of barbarians, (for so the Greeks called all other
nations,) but had nothing in it of barbarity. This language has in a
manner been refined and purified from the Gothic ever since the time
of Dante, which is above four hundred years ago; and the French, who
now cast a longing eye to their country, are not less ambitious to
possess their elegance in poetry and music; in both which they labour
at impossibilities. It is true, indeed, they have reformed their
tongue, and brought both their prose and poetry to a standard; the
sweetness, as well as the purity, is much improved, by throwing off
the unnecessary consonants, which made their spelling tedious and
their pronunciation harsh: but, after all, as nothing can be improved
beyond its own _species_, or farther than its original nature will
allow; as an ill voice, though ever so thoroughly instructed in the
rules of music, can never be brought to sing harmoniously, nor many an
honest critic ever arrive to be a good poet; so neither can the
natural harshness of the French, or their perpetual ill accent, be
ever refined into perfect harmony like the Italian. The English has
yet more natural disadvantages than the French; our original Teutonic,
consisting most in monosyllables, and those incumbered with
consonants, cannot possibly be freed from those inconveniencies. The
rest of our words, which are derived from the Latin chiefly, and the
French, with some small sprinklings of Greek, Italian, and Spanish,
are some relief in poetry, and help us to soften our uncouth numbers;
which, together with our English genius, incomparably beyond the
trifling of the French, in all the nobler parts of verse, will justly
give us the pre-eminence. But, on the other hand, the effeminacy of
our pronunciation, (a defect common to us and to the Danes,) and our
scarcity of female rhymes, have left the advantage of musical
composition for songs, t