Arthur Maynwaring

“ How such a Quality can be serviceable to the Advancement of Wit and Eloquence, I cannot conceive; but there are some Characters in the World, that encroach upon all others, and some Men that for their Interest will say any thing that comes uppermost, either for or against another. The Knowledge of Tongues is certainly very useful; but if a Person knows a great many Ancient and Modern, and can hardly speak intelligibly in his own, He shou’d be no Orator for me. ”

“ Whoever reads the Thirty Fifth Chapter of Longinus will find, that ’tis impossible for a Tory to succeed in Eloquence, and that if they cannot impose so far on Men’s Understandings, as to make Fustian pass for Oratory, their Project of an Academy, will be as Chimerical as if they shou’d flatter us with a Trade and Settlements in the Moon. The Reader will not be displeas’d, to see what the Ancients thought of the Capacity of Men of such Principles in Matters of Eloquence, and let a long Experience among us, prove the right Judgment the Philosopher in Longinus made of them 1500 Years ago. ”

“ Pray who among the many Ministers Her Majesty is so happily serv’d by, does she Honour with that Name, and how comes it that Prime does not go with Precedence? What Law of ours Impowers any body to order our Language to be Inspected, and who is there that wou’d think himself oblig’d to obey him in it? Is there no difference between the Ministers of a Despotick Monarchy, and the Servants of a limited one, who have no Rule but the Law, and are as accountable to it as the vilest of their Flatterers. ”

“ The Doctor may as well set up a Society to find out the Grand Elixir, the Perpetual Motion, the Longitude, and other such Discoveries, as to fix our Language beyond their own Times. The Test of their Successors will vary with the Age, and their Rules grow obsolete as well as their Words. He would make us believe, that the French Academy have not been able to preserve their Language from Decay, and who are the Men in Britain who pretend to greater Genius for Eloquence than the most Polite of the Politest Nation in Europe. ”

“ Thus we see, that in order to bring us to the degree of Perfection with which the Doctor flatters us by means of his new Academy, they must teach us first to think justly, to distinguish false Beauty from true, and glaring from Brightness, to banish those that write by Humour, and receive only such as aim at Solidity in their Writings. ”

“ That Excellent Moralist has not been pleas’d to discover himself, nor to Print his Name, but has set his Mark to his Works, which he has Embellish’d with new Flowers of Rhetorick, that shew what a Genius he has for refining Language, and how happily one may use the Figures of Cursing, Swearing, and Bawdy, which before were entirely exploded. ”

“ For every Age, as well as every Nation, has its different manner of Thinking, of which the Expression and Words will always have a Relish, and be Barbarous or Polite, according as the Times take their Turn. If from the abundance of good Sense which appears lately in every thing we do, The Doctor can demonstrate, that we never were in a better way towards the Perfection of Thought and Language, let him set about his Academy as soon as he pleases. ”

“ The British Academy is shrewdly conceived to cast odium on Swift’s proposal for an Academy by identifying its potential members as a Tory faction and the whole project as merely a scheme to provide Harley with a set of pensioners who would be obliged in gratitude “to revere his Virtue and his Memory.” Whereas in the Reflections Swift is assaulted with hard obvious blows, in The British Academy a more subtle intelligence is evident: the attack is oblique and ironic, and a tone of Addisonian urbanity is fairly well maintained. ”

“ If he had a hand in the Conduct of the Allies, the Remarks, and other such Factious Papers, as is reported, and he never once thought fit to disown, being more Proud of the Honour done him in it, than asham’d of the Falshood and Scandal of those Libels, it is no strange Matter that a Man of such a Conscience should do or write any Thing; Cursing and Swearing being not so bad as the Robberies that Libeller has committed on the good Name of the best and greatest Men of this Age and Nation. ”

“ I wonder a grave, serious Divine, who is so well vers’d in College Learning, should 3 B2 in Compliment to a certain Lady, whose Breeding and Conversation must have given her wonderful Opportunities to refine our Tongue, imagine, that the Two Universities would give up so Essential a Branch of their Privileges to the Ladies, and take from them the Standard of English. ”

“ Nor is it at all strange, that those, who by their Practices and Principles, have for above Fourscore Years been doing their utmost to Enslave us, shou’d always have a Contempt for Wit and Eloquence, which ever have been the Friends of Reason and Liberty. ”

“ Swift’s Letter, ABOUT Refining the English Tongue.
I Should be guilty of the greatest Folly in the World, if I should go about to give a Character of Persons of whom I have no manner of Knowledge. To speak well or ill of ’em wou’d be equally Ridiculous and Dangerous: For it must be all Invention, and I might then abuse a Man both in my Praise and Dispraise. It is thus with me with Respect to the Author of the Letter lately publish’d about our Language, and to his Patron. ”

“ He goes on, but as for us, who were early taught to endure the Yoke of Domination, and have been, as it were, wrapt up in the Customs and Ways of Arbitrary Rule; who in a Word, never tasted that living and Flowing Spring of Eloquence and Liberty; we commonly, instead of Orators, become pompous Flatterers, for which reason, I believe a Man Born in Servitude, may be capable of other Sciencies, but no Slave can ever be an Orator, since when the Mind is depress’d and broken by Slavery, it will never dare to think, or say any thing bold. ”

“ Others there are which require all the Advantages of Language and Invention, and darken every Thing that comes near them. The best of it is, the Contempt with which he treats the English Tongue, is not like to do it any harm, for whatever becomes of any ones History a Hundred Years hence, the Doctor’s will certainly be of much shorter Date, unless his Censurers should preserve the Memory of him, or he thinks fit to own at last some other of his Productions, when ’tis probable Fortune has done her best or her worst for him. ”

“ The French met after they had din’d. The English, they say, dine together, and drink a chearful Glass afterwards; which has great Efficacy in Matters of Wit and Eloquence, as well for those that are to write, as those that are to reward. Wine is therefore call’d Generous, and is as nearly ally’d to Wit, as Wit is to Madness. How much wittier are some Men over the third Bottle than over the first! A strong Reason that the Meeting should be at a Tavern, and not any private House, which the French Academy found very inconvenient ”

“ Indeed, can there be anything that raises the Souls of Great Men more than Liberty; any thing which can more powerfully excite and awaken in us that 8 Sentiment of Nature which provokes us to Emulation, and the glorious desire of seeing our selves advanc’d above others? ”

“ He complains the Refinement of our Language has hitherto been trusted to illiterate Court Fops, Half-witted Poets, and University Boys. He would have 21 a thin Society, if he should exclude all such from his own Academy: And if the Choice be in himself, as he seems to insinuate, I believe the Reformation of our Language would have just as much success as the Reformation of our Manners, which, ’tis said, none have more corrupted than the very Reformers. He gives us his Word, That the Style of some great Ministers very much exceed that of any other Productions. ”

“ Our Author sees no necessity of this Changing our Language. What has been the Fate of all Tongues Ancient and Modern, and for the same Reasons will Eternally be so, he wou’d defend ours from, because the Chinese have Books in their Tongue above 2000 Years Old; And a History of 30000 Years Period with a Succession of Kings, 20000 Years before Adam. It wou’d be a Discovery worthy those Men who have lately been reconciling Contradictions, and building Arguments upon Nonsence, to find out that certain Standard for our Tongue, to which, if it were refin’d, he assures us, it might be fixt for Ever. ”

“ The merriest part of the Project he has been hatching, for an English Academy to bring our Tongue to his pitch of Perfection, is that he has assign’d, that Task to the Tories, whose Wit have so distinguish’d them in all Times. If there had ever been a Man among ’em who had a right Notion of Letters or Language, who had any relish of Politeness, it had been something. ”

“ A Noble Lord, on whom he has written Libels and Encomiums, was the first that thought of such a thing, and some Years since nam’d forty Gentlemen to be Members of an Academy, on a Foundation refining on the French of which Number I am very well satisfy’d, not a Man of his most Illustrious Band wou’d ever have been, and that tho’ he is so generous as to promise the Whigs that they shall come in if they will, he must look ’em out better Company, or his Academy will have the Glory of this great Work to themselves. ”

“ I suggest as a possible answer that he wished the Whigs to dissociate themselves from the project and that he used the tactics expected to achieve this end, in the desire that entire credit for the founding of the Academy should rest with Harley and Harley’s supporters. The partisan approach was therefore shrewdly calculated to provoke opposition and to avoid any leaven of Whiggism in the “institution and patronage” of the Academy. Swift wanted the contemporary prestige, as well as the favorable verdict of posterity, to be unmistakably placed. ”

“ And he arrives at a conclusion which may well have been the result of honest conviction rather than mere party opposition: that it is neither desirable nor possible to fix the language forever. In a sense this was the chief issue, and the one where the authoritarian view as represented by Swift and others was most vulnerable. Is it possible, by the edicts of an academy however eminent its members and respected its authority, to negate or control the principle of change inherent in language? ”

“ And I do here in the Name of all the Whigs, protest against all and every thing done or to be done in it, by him or in his Name; being a Person with whom they will have no manner of Dealings, as he very well knows, or they might now have had him Scribbling for them as well as when that Discourse was written of the Contests and Dissentions of the Nobles and Commons in Athens and Rome, wherein it is said, ’tis agreed, that in all Governments there is an absolute unlimited Power which naturally and originally seems to be plac’d in the People in the whole Body ”

“ Among all the various ways in which we of late have endeavour’d to endear our selves to the French, and make ’em forgive us for beating them so, nothing certainly will oblige ’em more than our affecting to imitate them in our Political Style. Of this Nature is that Novelty the Reverend Author has introduc’d into our Language, where the Term Prime Minister has no more a Place than Will and Pleasure. ”

“ The rest is so valuable, that tho I digress’d in it Ten times more than I do, I would present the Doctor with it, and leave it to his serious Consideration.
The Politician by his Example, no doubt, finding how the People are taken with specious, miraculous Impossibilities, plays the same Game, protests, declares, promises, I know not what things, which he is sure can ne’er be brought about. The People believe, are deluded, and pleased; the Expectation of a future Good, which shall never befal them, draws their Eyes off of a present Evil. ”

“ The want of a Grammar and Dictionary has been long complain’d of; and we cannot expect our Tongue will ever spread abroad, unless Foreigners are put into a more regular Method of learning it. To distribute Rewards to Merit, is the Duty of a good Ministry, and nothing contributes more to the Glory of a Country than Works of Eloquence and Wit; but he has assum’d a Post that will not be allow’d him. He has set himself in the Director’s Chair of an English Academy ”

“ They are generally said to be written by the same Person, and how nearly related that Person is to our Letter Writer, is as well known as that he is a Doctor of Divinity, and hopes to make his Fortune by Preferments in that Church of which he is so bright an Ornament, as appears by what has been already quoted; by which one may perceive, how well qualify’d he is to form Schemes, for the refining of our Tongue, and the Advancement of Religion ”

“ Louis, King of France, by Letters Patents, in the Year 1635, having mention’d the Great Things done for the Glory and Embellishment of France, by his dearly belov’d Cousin the Cardinal Richlieu, His Principal Minister of State, gives that Minister Power and Authority to call himself the Chief, and the Protector of the French 6 Academy: And doubtless the Scheme of this British Academy is form’d with a View no less Glorious; That the Great and Memorable Actions of this Minister; the mighty Things perfom’d for the Allies and the Common Cause; the vast Successes against the Enemy ”

“ Poet, ardent Jacobite convert to Whiggism, member of the Kit Kat Club, member of Parliament, and Auditor of the Imprest, Mainwaring had a brief but full career. It included a part in the Whig Examiner and chief responsibility for the Medley. In the course of his political opposition he appears to have developed a genuine hatred of Swift, to whom he always referred, if Oldmixon’s word can be trusted, as “one of the wickedest Wretches alive.” By May, 1712, when The British Academy was published, he was already ill of the disease which ended in his death a few months later ”