hakespeare, our own living tongue? I
answer by quoting one of the simplest wisest sayings of Don Quixote
(Gentlemen, you will easily, as time goes on, and we better our
acquaintance, discover my favourite authors):--

The great Homer wrote not in Latin, for he was a Greek; and Virgil
wrote not in Greek, because he was a Latin. In brief, all the
ancient poets wrote in the tongue which they sucked in with their
mother's milk, nor did they go forth to seek for strange ones to
express the greatness of their conceptions: and, this being so, it
should be a reason for the fashion to extend to all nations.

Does the difference, then, perchance lie in ourselves? Will you tell me,
'Oh, painting is a special art, whereas anyone can write prose passably
well'? Can he, indeed?... Can _you,_ sir? Nay, believe me, you are either
an archangel or a very bourgeois gentleman indeed if you admit to having
spoken English prose all your life without knowing it.

Indeed, when we try to speak prose without having practised it the result
is apt to be worse than our own vernacular. How often have I heard some
worthy fellow addressing a public audience!--say a Parliamentary
candidate who believes himself a Liberal Home Ruler, and for the moment
is addressing himself to meet some criticism of the financial proposals
of a Home Rule Bill. His own vernacular would be somewhat as follows:--

Oh, rot! Give the Irish their heads and they'll run straight enough.
Look at the Boers, don't you know. Not half such a decent sort as
the Irish. Look at Irish horses, too. Eh? What?

But this, he is conscious, would hardly suit the occasion. He therefore
amends it thus:--

Mr Chairman--er--as regards the financial proposals of His Majesty's
Government, I am of the deliberate--er--opinion that our national
security--I may say, our Imperial security--our security as--er--a
governing people--lies in trusting the Irish as we did in the--er
--case of the Boers--H'm Mr Gladstone, Mr Chairman--Mr Chairman, Mr
Gladstone----

and so on. You perceive that the style is actually worse than in the
sample quoted before; it has become flabby whereas that other was at any
rate nervous? But now suppose that, having practised it, our candidate
was able to speak like this:--

'But what (says the Financier) is peace to us without money? Your plan
gives us no revenue.' No? But it does--for it secur