her to surmount the obstacles to
learning which had been put in her path as a girl, and which had
prevented her, then, from acquiring a classical education. Her
_Rudiments_, the first Anglo-Saxon grammar written in English, was
specifically designed to encourage ladies suffering from similar
educational disabilities to find an intellectual pursuit. Her personal
indignation is shown in her sharp answer to Swift's insulting phrase,
and in her retaliatory classification of the Dean among the "light and
fluttering wits."

As a linguistic historian she has no difficulty in exposing Swift's
ignorance, and in establishing her claim that if there is any refining
or ascertaining of the English language to be done, the antiquarian
scholars must be consulted. But it is when she writes as a literary
critic, defending the English language, with its monosyllables and
consonants, as a literary medium, that she is most interesting.

There was nothing new in what Swift had said of the character of the
English language; he was merely echoing criticisms which had been
expressed frequently since the early sixteenth century. The number
of English monosyllables was sometimes complained of, because to
ears trained on the classical languages they sounded harsh, barking,
unfitted for eloquence; sometimes because they were believed to impede
the metrical flow in poetry; sometimes because, being particularly
characteristic of colloquial speech, they were considered low; and
often because they were associated with the languages of the Teutonic
tribes which had escaped the full refining influence of Roman
civilization. Swift followed writers like Nash and Dekker in
emphasizing the first and last of these objections.

There were, of course, stock answers to these stock objections.
Such criticism of one's mother tongue was said to be unpatriotic or
positively disloyal. If it was difficult to maintain that English was
as smooth and euphonious as Italian, it could be maintained that its
monosyllables and consonants gave it a characteristic and masculine
brevity and force. Monosyllables were also very convenient for the
formation of compound words, and, it was argued, should, when properly
managed, be an asset rather than a handicap to the English rhymester.
By the time Swift and Miss Elstob were writing, an increasing number
of antiquarian Germanophils (and also pro-Hanoverians) were prepared
to claim Teutonic descent with pride.

Most of these ar