I know not whether I have been so careful of the plot and language as
I ought; but, for the latter, I have endeavoured to write English, as
near as I could distinguish it from the tongue of pedants, and that
of affected travellers. Only I am sorry, that (speaking so noble a
language as we do) we have not a more certain measure of it, as they
have in France, where they have an academy erected for that purpose,
and endowed with large privileges by the present king. I wish we might
at length leave to borrow words from other nations, which is now a
wantonness in us, not a necessity; but so long as some affect to speak
them, there will not want others, who will have the boldness to write
them.
But I fear, lest, defending the received words, I shall be accused for
following the new way, I mean, of writing scenes in verse. Though, to
speak properly, it is not so much a new way amongst us, as an old
way new revived; for, many years before Shakspeare's plays, was the
tragedy of Queen Gorboduc, in English verse, written by that famous
Lord Buckhurst, afterwards earl of Dorset, and progenitor to that
excellent person, who (as he inherits his soul and title) I wish may
inherit his good fortune[1]. But, supposing our countrymen had not
received this writing till of late; shall we oppose ourselves to the
most polished and civilised nations of Europe? Shall we, with the same
singularity, oppose the world in this, as most of us do in pronouncing
Latin? Or do we desire that the brand, which Barclay has (I hope
unjustly) laid upon the English, should still continue? _Angli suos
ac sua omnia impense mirantur; caeteras nationes despectui habent_.
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