The Dial/Volume 15/Number 171/Communications
COMMUNICATIONS.
"PERHAPS AN ERROR."
(To the Editor of The Dial.)
In The Dial for July 1, I examined very briefly certain uses of known to and unknown to. The examination was ancillary to the more important inquiry, Has "F. H." ever erred? Following the same line of research, I now submit, with illustrative quotations, a word or two about but; premising, as in my former letter, that "F. H." has identified himself in the public press as the author of "Modern English."
Dr. Hall, or "F. H.," commenting adversely on Landor's praise of Gray's English, says:
"But is Gray's English, from the ordinary point of view, altogether faultless? Look at . . . his preterites begun, run, and throwed; and his past participles broke, chose, and wrote. Add his . . . 'none but they'; 'nobody but I'; 'I have seen nothing, neither'; 'nor drink out of nothing but'; 'everybody . . . them.' In his Progress of Poesy, furthermore, he violates all idiom by," etc. ("Modern English," pp. 103-4, footnote.)
A careful reading of Dr. Hall's note can leave no doubt, I think, in the mind of anybody that the words and phrases quoted in it were regarded by Dr. Hall as bad English. And no doubt most of them must be so regarded now. But are they all bad?
Pausing first to remark that Gray wrote the English of his time, the grammar of which was very unsettled, I venture to say that "none but they" and "nobody but I" are very good English,—as good English as there is. Of course I don't mean that the prepositional use of but with the objective case is bad English.
". . . although no man was in our parts spoken of but he for his manhood . . ." (Sir Philip Sidney, "Arcadia," Collected Writings, edition of 1598, p. 38.)
"There is none but he,
Whose being I doe feare."
("Macbeth," III., i., First Folio, reduced fac-simile.)
"Not out of confidence that none but wee
Are able to present this Tragedie."
(Chapman,"Bussy D'Ambois," Prologue.)
". . . yet who would keep him company but I?" (Id.)
"An humerous dayes mirth." (Tragedies and Comedies, London, 1873.)
"Then came brave Glorie puffing by
In silks that whistled, who but he?"
(George Herbert, "The Temple" [The Quip], first ed., fac-simile reprint, p. 103.)
". . . and none but they can carry Arms . . ." (James Howell, "Familiar Letters," Sect. I., xxxx., ed. of 1645, p. 80.)
"The most obvious answer, then, to the question, why we yield to the authority of the Church in the questions and developments of faith, is, that some authority there must be if there is a revelation, and other authority there is none but she." (Cardinal Newman, "An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine," London, 1846, pp. 126-7.)
"Under such circumstances, any men but they would have had a strong leaning towards what is called 'Conservatism.'" (Id., "Historical Sketches," London, 1885, Vol. iii., p. 131.)
"And in his hand he shakes the brand
Which none but he can wield."
(Macaulay, "Lays of Ancient Rome," Horatius, xlii.)
". . . since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I."
(Browning, "My Last Duchess.")
Our old young friend Casabianca turns up here. A remark in Wells's Grammar, citing
"The boy stood on the burning deck,
Whence all but him had fled."
is quoted by Goold Brown in "The Grammar of English Grammars" (p. 596, 10th edition, New York, 1880). In the carefully printed Philadelphia edition (seven volumes, 1840) of the works of Mrs. Hemans, the lines read:
"The boy stood on the burning deck
Whence all but he had fled."
Sometimes, of course, the objective case is required whether the construction be regarded as conjunctional or prepositional.
". . . one that hath no other guide but him. . . ." (Sir Philip Sidney, "The Defence of Poesie," Collected Writings, edition of 1598, p. 498.)
The quotations from Cardinal Newman that are given above are especially interesting here, because Dr. Hall has expressed very emphatically his opinion as to the correctness of Newman's writing. In his "Modern English" (p. 292, footnote), he says:
"Dr. Newman, when writing at his best, comes nothing short of Addison, for grace, and, for correctness, is incomparably his superior. . . . Having studied nearly every line of Dr. Newman's voluminous writings, I am surprised to find how little there is in them, as regards words and uses of words, to arrest unfavourable attention."
And at page 329, he writes:
". . . some of the choicest of living English writers employ it [a certain locution] freely. Preëminent among these stands Dr. Newman. . . ."
Some instances where Cardinal Newman's English has arrested the "unfavourable attention" of Dr. Hall are mentioned in his note at page 292, but the use of the nominative case after but is not among them.
New Haven, Conn., July 23, I893.
ENGLISH DRAMA AT THE UNIVERSITIES.
(To the Editor of The Dial.)
To a student of the Elizabethan drama one of the significant facts of the times is the great interest in the drama manifested by the universities and public schools throughout the period. Not only were plays from the classics revived, but original compositions in Latin in great numbers were written and performed before the students, while many of the best productions of the English dramatists of the period were acted with great applause at Oxford and Cambridge. The universities, too, turned out, with or without honors, many of the most accomplished Elizabethan playwrights and poets, and in one way or another took no inconsiderable part in the development of that great drama which is now the pride of English-speaking people.
In these days of Independent Theatres and of university revivals of classic Greek and Latin plays, is it not a little singular that the universities do not go a step farther and attempt the revival of some of the neglected classic plays of English literature, as well as of Greek and Latin literature? Nothing could more strikingly serve both to emphasize and promote the reviving interest in the study of English literature than attempts of this sort. It may be trusted that the ancient Puritanism of our colleges is sufficiently mellowed by time ere this to permit such a vanity, and surely among the many new methods of teaching literature none could be more engaging to the healthy taste of youth than this, and none could serve to connect the study more closely with life. C.
Chicago, July 20, 1893.