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Show Language and Custom Custom is the most certain mistress of language, as the public stamp makes the current money. But we must not be too frequent with the mint, every day coming, cor fetch words from the extreme and utmost ages; since the chief virtue of a style Is perspicuity, and nothing so vicious in it as to need an interpreter. Words borrowed of antiquity do lend a kln.1 of majesty to style, and are not without with-out their delight sometimes; for they have the authority of years, and out of their intermission do win themselves them-selves a kind of gracelike newness. I in T the eldest ff the present, and newest of the pa"st language, Is the best. For ,vhat was the ancient language, lan-guage, which some men o dote upon, hut the ancient custom? Ben Jonson. in "The Dignity of Speech." |