e hides it.

But I am willing to close the book, partly out of veneration to the
author, partly out of weariness to pursue an argument which is so
fruitful in so small a compass. And what correctness, after this, can
be expected from Shakespeare or from Fletcher, who wanted that
learning and care which Jonson had? I will, therefore, spare my own
trouble of enquiring into their faults; who, had they lived now, had
doubtless written more correctly. I suppose it will be enough for me
to affirm, (as I think I safely may) that these, and the like errors,
which I taxed in the most correct of the last age, are such into which
we do not ordinarily fall. I think few of our present writers would
have left behind them such a line as this:

Contain your spirit in more stricter bounds.

But that gross way of two comparatives was then ordinary; and,
therefore, more pardonable in Jonson.

As for the other part of refining, which consists in receiving new
words and phrases, I shall not insist much on it. It is obvious that
we have admitted many, some of which we wanted, and therefore our
language is the richer for them, as it would be by importation of
bullion: Others are rather ornamental than necessary; yet, by their
admission, the language is become more courtly, and our thoughts are
better drest. These are to be found scattered in the writers of our
age, and it is not my business to collect them. They, who have lately
written with most care, have, I believe, taken the rule of Horace for
their guide; that is, not to be too hasty in receiving of words, but
rather stay till custom has made them familiar to us:

_Quern penes arbitrium est, et jus, et norma loquendi._

For I cannot approve of their way of refining, who corrupt our English
idiom by mixing it too much with French: That is a sophistication of
language not an improvement of it; a turning English into French,
rather than a refining of English by French. We meet daily with those
fops, who value themselves on their travelling, and pretend they
cannot express their meaning in English, because they would put off to
us some French phrase of the last edition; without considering, that,
for aught they know, we have a better of our own. But these are not
the men who are to refine us; their talent is to prescribe fashions,
not words: at best, they are only serviceable to a writer, so as
Ennius was to Virgil. He may _aurum ex stercore colligere:_ For it is
hard if, amongst