[78] See a learned "Dissertation on the influence of opinions on language and of language on opinions, which gained the prize of the Prussian Royal Academy in 1759. By Mr. Michaelis, court councellor to his Britannic Majesty, and director of the Royal Society of Gottingen." [79] The vulgar thus by imitation err, As oft the learn'd by being singular. So much they scorn the croud, that if the throng, By chance go right, they purposely go wrong. POPE. [80] There are many people, and perhaps the most of them in the capital towns, that have learnt a few common place words, such as _forchin_, _nachur_, _virchue_ and half a dozen others, which they repeat on all occasions; but being ignorant of the extent of the practice, they are, in pronouncing most words, as vulgar as ever. [81] It should be remarked that the late President of Pennsylvania, the Governor of New Jersey, and the President of New York college, who are distinguished for erudition and accuracy, have not adopted the English pronunciation. [82] Not between different nations, but in the same nation. The manners and fashions of each nation should arise out of their circumstances, their age, their improvements in commerce and agriculture. [83] Sheridan, as an improver of the language, stands among the first writers of the British nation, and deservedly. His Lectures on Elocution and on Reading, his Treatises on Education, and for the most part his Rhetorical Grammar, are excellent and almost unexceptionable performances. In these, he encountered practice and prejudices, when they were found repugnant to obvious rules of propriety. But in his Dictionary he seems to have left his only defensible ground, _propriety_, in pursuit of that phantom, _fashion_. He deserted his own principles, as the Reviewers observe: and where he has done this, every rational man should desert his _standard_. [84] From this description must be excepted some arts which have for their object, the pleasures of sense and imagination; as music and painting; and sciences which depend on fixed principles, and not on opinion, as mathematics and philosophy. The former flourish in the last stages of national refinement, and the latter are always proceeding towards perfection, by discoveries and experiment. Criticism also flourishes in Great Britain: Men read and judge accurately, when original writers cease to adorn the sciences. Correct writers precede just criticism. [Illustration] DISSERTATION IV. _Of the Formation of Language.--Horne Tooke's theory of the Particles.--Examination of particular Phrases._ [Illustration] FORMATION _of_ LANGUAGE. [Illustration] Having discussed the subject of pronunciation very largely in the two preceding Dissertations, I shall now examin the _use of words in the construction of sentences_.