This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
162
Essays

like Milton or Sir Thomas More. In using the mother tongue as a medium of expression, the classical scholar was often beaten by men of little Latin and less Greek. Latinized English was never accepted as a model though a few eccentric scholars affected it. The reading public refused to learn Latin in order to understand English. Deliberate archaisation once took the fancy of some writers but it was soon condemned. These temporary aberrations excepted, the birth right of every man and every woman in a civilized community to communicate with their fellows in the language familiar to all is fully recognised; nay, it is imposed as a duty to do so; the employment of unfamiliar words, be they obsolete or archaic English or Classical or foreign being regarded unworthy of a well—bred person.