ss of such an action, as Virgil
did, on the like occasion, for his patron, when he was raising up his
country from the desolations of a civil war:

_Hunc saltem everso juvenem succurrere seclo
Ne, superi, prohibete._

I know not whither I am running, in this extacy which is now upon me:
I am almost ready to re-assume the ancient rights of poetry; to point
out, and prophecy the man, who was born for no less an undertaking,
and whom posterity shall bless for its accomplishment. Methinks, I am
already taking fire from such a character, and making room for him,
under a borrowed name, amongst the heroes of an epic poem. Neither
could mine, or some more happy genius, want encouragement under such a
patron:

_Pollio amat nostram, quamvis sit rustica, musam._

But these are considerations afar off, my lord: the former part of the
prophecy must be first accomplished; the quiet of the nation must be
secured; and a mutual trust, betwixt prince and people, be renewed;
and then this great and good man will have leisure for the ornaments
of peace; and make our language as much indebted to his care, as the
French is to the memory of their famous Richelieu[2]. You know, my
lord, how low he laid the foundations of so great a work; that he
began it with a grammar and a dictionary; without which all those
remarks and observations, which have since been made, had been
performed to as little purpose, as it would be to consider the
furniture of the rooms, before the contrivance of the house. Propriety
must first be stated, ere any measures of elegance can be taken.
Neither is one Vaugelas sufficient for such a work[3]. It was the
employment of the whole academy for many years; for the perfect
knowledge of a tongue was never attained by any single person. The
court, the college, and the town, must be joined in it. And as our
English is a composition of the dead and living tongues, there is
required a perfect knowledge, not only of the Greek and Latin, but of
the old German, the French, and the Italian; and, to help all these, a
conversation with those authors of our own, who have written with the
fewest faults in prose and verse. But how barbarously we yet write and
speak, your lordship knows, and I am sufficiently sensible in my own
English. For I am often put to a stand, in considering whether what I
write be the idiom of the tongue, or false grammar, and nonsense
couched beneath that specious name of Anglicism; and have no other