ury, is redundant ornament, and an affectation of
anglicising Latin words. In this pedantry and use of "aureate terms" the
Scottish versifiers went even beyond their brethren of the south....
When they meant to be eloquent, they tore up words from the Latin, which
never took root in the language, like children making a mock garden with
flowers and branches stuck in the ground, which speedily wither"{43}.

To few indeed is the wisdom and discretion given, certainly it was
given to none of those, to bear themselves in this hazardous enterprise
according to the rules laid down by Dryden; who in the following
admirable passage declares the motives that induced him to seek for
foreign words, and the considerations that guided him in their
selection: "If sounding words are not of our growth and manufacture, who
shall hinder me to import them from a foreign country? I carry not out
the treasure of the nation which is never to return, but what I bring
from Italy I spend in England. Here it remains and here it circulates,
for, if the coin be good, it will pass from one hand to another. I trade
both with the living and the dead, for the enrichment of our native
language. We have enough in England to supply our necessity, but if we
will have things of magnificence and splendour, we must get them by
commerce. Poetry requires adornment, and that is not to be had from our
old Teuton monosyllables; therefore if I find any elegant word in a
classic author, I propose it to be naturalized by using it myself; and
if the public approves of it, the bill passes. But every man cannot
distinguish betwixt pedantry and poetry: every man therefore is not fit
to innovate. Upon the whole matter a poet must first be certain that the
word he would introduce is beautiful in the Latin; and is to consider in
the next place whether it will agree with the English idiom: after this,
he ought to take the opinion of judicious friends, such as are learned
in both languages; and lastly, since no man is infallible, let him use
this licence very sparingly; for if too many foreign words are poured
in upon us, it looks as if they were designed not to assist the natives,
but to conquer them"{44}.

{Sidenote: _Influence of the Reformation_}

But this tendency to latinize our speech was likely to receive, and
actually did receive, a new impulse from the revival of learning, and
the familiar re-acquaintance with the great masterpieces of ancient
literature which wen