d and refined above the last; and
then it will not be difficult to infer, that our plays have received
some part of those advantages.

In the first place, therefore, it will be necessary to state, in
general, what this refinement is, of which we treat; and that, I
think, will not be defined amiss, "An improvement of our Wit, Language
and Conversation; or, an alteration in them for the better."

To begin with Language. That an alteration is lately made in ours, or
since the writers of the last age (in which I comprehend Shakespeare,
Fletcher, and Jonson), is manifest. Any man who reads those excellent
poets, and compares their language with what is now written, will see
it almost in every line; but that this is an improvement of the
language or an alteration for the better, will not so easily be
granted. For many are of a contrary opinion that the English tongue
was then in the height of its perfection; that from Jonson's time to
ours it has been in a continual declination, like that of the Romans
from the age of Virgil to Statius, and so downward to Claudian; of
which, not only Petronius, but Quintilian himself so much complains,
under the person of _Secundus_, in his famous dialogue _De Causis
corruptae Eloquentiae_.

But, to shew that our language is improved, and that those people have
not a just value for the age in which they live, let us consider in
what the refinement of a language principally consists: that is,
"either in rejecting such old words, or phrases, which are ill
sounding, or improper; or in admitting new, which are more proper,
more sounding, and more significant."

The reader will easily take notice, that when I speak of rejecting
improper words and phrases, I mention not such as are antiquated by
custom only and, as I may say, without any fault of theirs. For in
this case the refinement can be but accidental; that is, when the
words and phrases, which are rejected, happen to be improper. Neither
would I be understood, when I speak of impropriety of language, either
wholly to accuse the last age, or to excuse the present, and least of
all myself; for all writers have their imperfections and failings: but
I may safely conclude in the general, that our improprieties are less
frequent, and less gross than theirs. One testimony of this is
undeniable, that we are the first who have observed them; and,
certainly, to observe errors is a great step to the correcting of
them. But, malice and partiality s