After which, laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through. But in oratory the greatest art is to hide art, Artis est celare artem.

But this must be the work of time, we must lay hold on all opportunities, and let slip no occasion; else we shall be forced to weave Penelope's web, unravel in the night what we spun in the day. And therefore I have observed, that Time is painted with a lock before, and bald behind, signifying thereby, that we must take time (as we say) by the forelock, for when it is once past, there is no recalling it.

The mind of man is at first (if you will pardon the expression) like a tabula rasa, or like wax, which, while it is soft, is capable of any impression, till time has hardened it. And at length death, that grim tyrant, stops us in the midst of our career. The greatest conquerors have at last been conquered by death, which spares none, from the sceptre, to the spade: Mors omnibus communis.

All rivers go to the sea, but none return from it. Xerxes wept when he beheld his army, to consider that in less than a hundred years, they would be all dead. Anacreon was choked with a grapestone; and violent joy kills as well as violent grief. There is nothing in this world constant, but inconstancy; yet Plato thought, that if virtue would appear to the world in her own native dress, all men would be enamoured with her. But now, since interest governs the world, and men neglect the golden mean, Jupiter himself, if he came to the earth, would be despised, unless it were, as he did to Danaë, in a golden shower: for men now-a-days worship the rising sun, and not the setting:

Donec eris felix multos numerabis amicos,

Thus have I, in obedience to your commands, ventured to expose myself to censure, in this critical age. Whether I have done right to my subject, must be left to the judgment of my learned reader: however I cannot but hope, that my attempting of it, may be encouragement for some able pen, to perform it with more success.

A PROPOSAL

FOR CORRECTING, IMPROVING, AND

ASCERTAINING,

THE

ENGLISH TONGUE,*

IN

A LETTER TO THE MOST HONOURABLE ROBERT EARL

OF OXFORD AND MORTIMER, LORD HIGH TREA-
SURER OF GREAT BRITAIN.

FIRST PRINTED IN MAY, 1712.

6

This Essay, which led to no consequences, is the only trace of the literary labours of the celebrated Society of brothers, so often mentioned in the Journal to Stella. Johnson, than whom none could judge more accurately of the value of the Proposal, has recorded his sentiments in the following words: "Early in the next year he published a Proposal for correcting, improving, and ascertaining the English Tongue,' in a letter to the Earl of Oxford; written without much knowledge of the general nature of language, and without any accurate enquiry into the history of other tongues. The certainty and stability which, contrary to all experience, Swift thinks attainable, he proposes to secure by instituting an academy; the decrees of which every man would have been willing, and many would have been proud to disobey, and which, being renewed by successive elections, would in a short time have differed from itself.'

Various answers were published upon the appearance of this Letter.

"I have been six hours to-day morning writing nineteen pages of a letter to lord treasurer, about forming a society, or academy, to correct and fix the English language. It will not be above five or six more. I will send it him to-morrow; and will print it, if he desires me." Journal to Stella, Feb. 21, 1711-12.

"I finished the rest of my letter to lord treasurer to-day, and sent it to him." Ibid. Feb. 22.

"Lord treasurer has lent the long letter I writ him to Prior; and I can't get Prior to return it. I want to have it printed; and to make up this academy for the improvement of our language." Ibid. March 11.

My letter to the lord treasurer about the English tongue is now printing; and I suffer my name to be put at the end of it, which I never did before in my life." Ibid. May 10, 1712.

"Have you seen my letter to the lord treasurer? There are two answers come out to it already, though it is no politicks, but a harmless proposal about the improvement of the English tongue. I believe, if I writ an essay upon a straw, some fool would answer it." Ibid. May 31.

"You never told me, how my letter to lord treasurer passes in Ireland." Ibid. July 1.

"What care I, whether my letter to lord treasurer be com mended there or not? Why does not somebody among you answer it, as three or four have done here?" Ibid. July 17.