The Grammar of English Grammars, page 180 by Gould Brown
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many and very different Sources of our Language may be the cause, why it is so deficient in Regularity and Analogy. Yet we have this advantage to compensate the defect, that what we want in Elegance, we gain in Copiousness, in which last respect few Languages will be found superior to our own."--JAMES HARRIS: Hermes, Book iii, Ch. v, p. 408.
16. _Reign of George I, 1727 back to 1714.--Example written about 1718_.
"There is a certain coldness and indifference in the phrases of our European languages, when they are compared with the Oriental forms of speech: and it happens very luckily, that the Hebrew idioms ran into the English tongue, with a particular grace and beauty. Our language has received innumerable elegancies and improvements from that infusion of Hebraisms, which are derived to it out of the poetical passages in holy writ. They give a force and energy to our expressions, warm and animate our language, and convey our thoughts in more ardent and intense phrases, than any that are to be met with in our tongue."--JOSEPH ADDISON: Evidences, p. 192.
17. _Reign of Queen Anne, 1714 to 1702.--Example written in 1708_.
"Some by old words to Fame have made pretence, Ancients in phrase, mere moderns in their sense; Such labour'd nothings, in so strange a style, Amaze th' unlearn'd, and make the learned smile." "In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold; Alike fantastick, if too new or old: Be not the first by whom the new are try'd, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside." ALEXANDER POPE: Essay on Criticism, l. 324-336.
III. ENGLISH OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
18. _Reign of William III, 1702 to 1689.--Example published in 1700_.
"And when we see a Man of _Milton's_ Wit Chime in with such a Herd, and Help on the Cry against Hirelings! We find How Easie it is for Folly and Knavery to Meet, and that they are Near of Kin, tho they bear Different Aspe