"This was undoubtedly a state of great simplicity and freedom, such as
admirers of uncultivated nature may affect to applaud. But although
revolutions in civil society seldom produce anything better than a
change of vices, yet surely no wise or good man can lament the
subversion of Saxon polity for that which followed. Their laws were
contemptible for imbecility, their habits odious for intemperance; and
if we can for a moment persuade ourselves that their language has any
charm, that proceeds less, perhaps, from anything harmonious and
expressive in itself, or anything valuable in the information it
conveys, than that it is rare and not of very easy attainment; that it
forms the rugged basis of our own tongue; and, above all, that we hear
it loudly echoed in the dialect of our own vulgar. Indeed, the manners
as well as language of a Lancashire clown often suggest the idea of a
Saxon peasant; and prove, with respect to remote tracts like these,
little affected by foreign admixtures, how strong is the power of
traduction, how faithfully character and propensities may be transmitted
through more than twenty generations.
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