before was to annihilate and abolish their native Language hee did not onely command them to learne the Latine and to pleade therein to make those Hymnes which they sung in their sacrifices in that language but forbad them likewise to treate of any matters with the Emperors by meanes of any interpreter saying it was a thing misbeseeming Roman greatnesse to be spoken to by a subjects Language Yet neither these nor the succeeding Emperours could utterly abolish the Gaules Language And notwithstanding all these violent courses some Colledges which the Bards had erected in divers cities namely at Treves Autun Besanson Tolous Marseilles and Lyons stood many yeares after But as soone as they had shaken off the Roman yoake and the French Monarchie was reestablished they began againe to take some care of their native Language and Poetrie began to be in repute amongst them so farre that even Kings and Princes ordinarily addicted themselves thereunto Chilperick the grand child of Clovis the Grand would ad unto the French Alphabet some Greeke letters which he thought we should want in our Orthographie enjoyning all Schoole-masters within his Kingdome to make use of them in writing of French Charlemaine writ in verse the most memorable acts of his ancestors and himselfe composed a French Grammer Philip the renowned and diverse others of our Kings and Princes did also beautifie our native Language But the Latin had taken such deepe root that it alwaies prevailed and hindered our Language from comming to its full perfection Lewis the Eleventh was the first that effectually employed his power and authority in the restauration and reestablishment of our native Language For having reunited divers Provinces to the Crown to make the Language also conformable he caused divers dispatches which untill that time had been framed in corrupt Latine to be afterwards written in French And by this meanes this great King gave againe some lustre and subsistence to our Language so that to him we may attribute the glory of having him in some sort the Founder of it seeing that by this his ordinance it began by little and little to be regulated and come againe to some perfection untill the raigne of Francis who seconding his predecessors Royall intentions commanded all pleadings to be in the Vulgar tongue and judgements to be given therein which had before been done in Latin This great Prince also caused manie ancient Authours to be translated into French and granted severall priviledges and prerogative to Historians Poets and Orators of his time Our Language went on increasing under Henry the second Charles the ninth Henry the third and Henry the Great For in their dayes a rose many rare and sublime understandings who pricked forward by a noble emulation and desire of beautifying the French tongue invented many new words and writ severall admirable workes the chiefe whereof were Amiet Ronsard Baif Du Bellay Iodellus and divers others who having written all much about one time might be said to have brought our Language to a most high point of perfection But doe what these great Princes could they hardly freed it from its Parbarismes it was so confused and intermingled with corrupt Latine and diverse other tongues His Majesty hath found out the true and hitherto concealed way to regulate it in all its parts and reduce it to a perfect accomplishment by the good advice known wisedome of your Eminency in founding the French Academie and filling it with men of eminent and refined learning the choise wits of the Kingdome who discreetly omit and cut off unprofitable and superfluous words wisely adding whatsoever is wanting in our Language for the happy expressing of our thoughts banishing all those Gothick termes which were crept in amongst us by the communion we had with those Northerne nations preserving and establishing in their roome such as wee had borrowed from politer and more civilized people so that our speech is daily beautified our Authors write more without fault our Lawyers grow more eloquent expressing themselves in rhetoricall and fluent phrases our Provinces are purged of their severall Dialects which hindered their commerce being hardly able to understand one another without interprerers Give me leave to tell your Eminency that for the perfecting of this great work nothing was so necessary as the setling of an Academie in this Kingdome in which both the native and forraigne gentry might learne Sciences in our mother tongue This being an infallible meanes to reforme the Language even in the remotest Provinces and reduce the whole nation to an uniformity of speech and Dialect to make our Language famous in strange countries causing all the subjects of this Kingdome to observe the rules and precepts of the Academy For Sir we reade in Histories that there be foure principall waies to bring languages to a full perfection amplifie and immortalize them The first is by Armes when the conquerer binds the vanquished to speake his Language either by planting colonies in it or by causing all publick acts and Dispatces to be set downe and framed in that speech which they intend to bring in The greatest marke of Soveraintie is to force conquered nations to alter their Idiom and the last King of the antient Hetrurians yeilded to all conditions which the victorious Romans would impose upon him but onely to that of admitting the Latine tongue within his dominions This was the meanes by which the Romans made a great part of the world speake Latine the Goths and Arabians introduced their language within the bounds of the Roman Empire and whereby the Turkes have so far extended their speech And this way is reserved for your Eminency to advance by making our armies victorious and enlarging the bounds of our Monarchie The second meanes is translation of writers whereby we change and transform into our own Language the rare inventions and rich conceipts of other Nations making them speak such an idiom as they never understood For which cause Ptolomie King of Egypt filled up that famous Librarie with seven hundred thousand Manuscripts the greatest part wherof were translated out of other Tongues into Greek and bought at so high a rate the version of the Septuagint By meanes of translation also did Aristotle write those exquisite Politicks whereof some fragments onely remain to us having the severall sorts of Governments of all Nations of the World brought unto him in writing Alexander having sent Ambassadors every where on purpose to extract the best out of each Countries Lawes to have a perpect Politie framed thereby which should be inviolably observed within all his Dominions The Romans following this great Monarch's example sent some of the sufficientest men of their Common-wealth into Greece to translate the best of the Grecian Lawes out of which extracts they fram'd their Law of the twelve Tables called Lex duodecim tabularum which was afterward the spring and foundation of all the Roman Lawes And at their returne from Athens their ordinary employment was to translate
Ancient times preferred Popular and Nationall Languages before any obsolet and strange tongues Secondly we do not deny but Nationall and Mother tongues are subject to mixture and corruption many learned men have observed it and there are too many examples to prove it But we deny that an obsolet Language can better preserve the Doctrine and Learning of our forefathers then a National For the Languages doe not cause Sciences to live they are but the shadowes and figures thereof but it is the Science which makes the Language to live and though it have equall dominion over them all she hath it farre more absolute over the Nation then over them which are out of date For proofe whereof if our Ancestors who have written so many treaties concerning the firmnesse of Sciences and inconstancie of Languages had thought it fitting to study in obsolet Languages they might have done it as well as wee seeing the Egyptian tongue was in the time of the Grecians and the Greek under the Arabians was not mentioned nor found but onely in Books But these great men knew too well that they could not bring in so pernicious and ridiculous a custome without encompassing Sciences with thousands of difficulties and frustrating many men who could not learn strange Languages of the hope of attaining to the Knowledge of them Wherefore rejecting all other Languages as unprofitable waies and extravagant meanes they most judiciously brought thâ—ir youth directly to the Knowledge of Sciences by the abbreviate way of their mother tongue But fully to satisfie the objection of those who say that popular and naturall Languages are too variable to deserve the honor of being interpreters of Sciences and expositers of mens best thoughts We affirm that they are more constant and lesse subject to change then the obsolet For though they seem be to exempted and free from alteration and incapable of increase or diminution because they are not subject to the mutable will of men but are continually taught by the same rules yet ought we not to attribute unto them a perpetuall lastingnesse seeing that the power of a Conqueror that hates learning may on a suddain annihilate those languages as the Turk hath done in all his Dominions And all things rightly considered no Monarch can exempt those remainders of antient Languages which wee have from the jurisdiction of time nor protect them against some inevitable chances the least of which may absolutely destroy them The first Language which had so many prerogatives above others gives us a faire example of this truch the first inhabiters of the World had imprinted it not upon paper as we do now but upon most solid and hard columnes that they might make it live for ever and transmit the memory thereof to posterity Yet for all that it vanished away by little and little and that faire monument hath been so little regarded that there remaines not now any signe thereof We may likewise alleage to this purpose that the Jewish Language was wholly extinguished during the Captivity It was the Organ whereby the will of God was set downe and the antient Law was written in it Esdras and the Doctors had preserved the understanding of it yet at last they let it perish judging it more convenient to translate the sacred History in the mother tongue then to bind the people to the re-establishment and the learned to the preservation of a Language newly lost Finally the Roman Annals make faith that the antient Roman Language of which the Priests onely had preserved the knowledge hath been subject to the like overthrow the Libraries were full of it the Sibylles verses the Hymnes and Canticles were written in it the Roman Senate had professed and declared it self to be the preserver of it and yet all this could not keep it from a totall ruine Moreover although the nationall languages be subject to the innovation of some words yet experience sheweth us that those which have had any extent or merit either by being polished by politick Nations who knew how to bring them to perfection at home by the means of Sciences and abroad by way of armes in defending themselves have not been so subject to perish and will outlast many ages before they be quite abolished Witness the Greek which remained entire for above two thousand yeares and would have lasted longer if the Turkish domination had not cut off the course of so many years which it might yet have lived It is certain that the Romans strove with all their might to abolish the language of the Gaules whom they had subdued yet their design could not fully come to pass and we have to this day some of it in this Kingdom which hath no communion nor part with the Latin which evidently shewes that it was never there nor the vulgar and mother tongue never suppressed Whereby we may inferre that popular Languages which are so hardly suppressed may be continued farre better and easilier then those forgotten ones which can not be preserved without much difficultie and that they are more proper to serve for instruments to Sciences Nationall Languages likewise decay by degrees and are abolished by succession oftimes But those obsolete ones which have no more being but onely in Libraries and subsist onely by art may perish and comesist nought in an instant And if the Romans who were so carefull in universalising their language had found none to oppose them but onely Obsolet tongues and books they would have abolished the memory of them in an instant and would not have found so much opposition in bringing in the Latin tongue into all the Provinces which were subject to their Empire Moreover have we not great cause to to doubt whether the Latin tongue which hath been extinguished these six or seven hundred years and hath lasted to our times onely by the meanes of Colledges and universities will last so long as the Greek the Gaule and many other Those who come in after ages will know the Success thereof better than wee As for the present to come to understand why popular and nationall Languages are more lasting and fitting to teach Sciences in then the obsolet we ought to observe that in every Language there are two sorts of words Some are familiar and vulgar which serve for common discourse the other proper peculâ—ar and effectuall onely for Traâ—es and arts The first depend upon the people which hath power to alter the names of such things as it hath use of to entertain society the latter are within the Philosophers jurisdiction who have power to give names to all things especially to Arts and Sciences The first are subject to change and do not last alwaies partly because they signifie nothing but singular contingent and casuall objects partly because they are subject to the fancies of a light and inconstant multitude but that alteration that is so small that there wilscarce be a hundred of those common words altered in a hundred years It is not
themselves Outward speech being a thing necessary onely to impart our thoughts to others and not to speak to our selves who understand our own thoughts without expressing them outwardly They should therefore to finde out the effect of so rare a curiositie have put a great number of children rather then one or two together Whereupon wee must observe that if Nature seem to have done man great prejudice and much hindred the communication of Nations by giving them absolute power to make so many Languages She hath also given him power and meanes to obviate that inconvenience making him politick where by he might find that to make up most perfect Societies and Common-wealths happy he should carefully suppresse all particular Languages to bring in generall and common speeches amongst all Nations Now this great variety proceeds from two Originall causes Namely the indifferency and infinitenesse of words They are indifferent because Naturally they signifie nothing and are equally proper to signifie any thing They are almost infinite because there results an infinite number not onely of words but also of Languages out of the conjunction and copulation of letters and syllables whereof one alone may signifie all things one after another even as well as one onely thing may receive all manner of names successively according as men shall be willing to apply them unto it The number of letters which are dayly used is not yet well known nor regulated Men seeme to have been very carelesse in not ordering a matter of such importance for if they had well examined the nature of the Alphabet they might have had it a great deal more full and copious But howsoever as it is we have twentie or two and twentie letters which are now in use And is it not a thing worthy to be admired to see so many Languages built upon so small a foundation and by the copulation and transposition of so few letters so great a number of words made to which men unawares accustoming themselves have framed so many particular Languages From whence wee must necessarily conclude that all of them proceeding from one beginning they are essentially equall and cannot any way differ but onely in the quantity of termes whereof they are composed Wherefore all men have equall Power and Right to give names to such things as yet have none especially Philosophers to whom it belongs to invent names to represent things rightly and set them in a due course they have full power to set downe termes for Sciences and Arts to make themselves intell gible and communicate their learning to others Wee may likewise in imitation of the Greekes and Romans borrow of our neighbour Languages some termes which may be wanting in our own for although for a time they passe for strangers yet after some few years they are naturalized and conform themselves so well to the tone of the Nation that there is no difference to be found in them The Romans did not alwaies strive to translate into â—atin all Greek words as Rhetorick Musick Arithmetick Geometrie Astrologie Philosophie Chirurgerie and most of the names of Sciences and Arts of Figures of Herbes of Diseases and many other things They have been content to adopt them and admit them into their community Knowing that all words both Greek and other are of common right and belong to all Nations equally who desire to make use of them and that all â—anguages lend borrow words to and from each other continually For though it be not manifestly known that the Greekes borrowed the termes of Sciences from other Nations yet it is credible that they brought them with them out of Egypt where they went to study and that the Egyptians likewise borrowed them from some other more ancient Nation which might invent them when they first invented Philosophie And if this dependencie be odious to free our selves from it wee need but alter the Etymologie imitating learned Varro therein who being ashamed that so many Latin words should descend from the Greek for the honour of his Nation derived them from other severall Languages of Italie When one doth not indeed understand the signification of a strange word he may have recourse to the Originall but when it is once come into custome it is no more needfull the meanest artist knowing the signification thereof as well as the greatest Doctor As for example the common people do not know that the words Chirurgerie Apoplexie and Prophesie are Greek words and yet they understand as well what they meane as he that hath studied the Greek Grammer twenty yeares Finally Pilots have found out termes enough for Sea affaires Architects for Architecture and so have all other Artists for their severall Arts. And is it not a shame that Philosophers have not in so many ages found a way in France to invent necessarie words for our French Philosophie It is certaine that when Gunnes Printing and other new Arts were first invented the Authors thereof had no proper termes for them and yet now we have abundance And when King Francis the first commanded all to plead in the Mother tongue the people which belonged to the Courts of Justice were at first astonished at it and some did even despaire of going forward in their profession Yet we see how in a short time they have found out as many termes as ever the Greeke or Roman law had and would to God they had not invented so many Likewise about a bundred yeares since all Poetrie lay as it were dead in French and especially Comick Poems were so barren and dull that none did scarce dare to shew themselves upon the Stage Yet by little and little they have been so adorned and beautified especially now of late daies they have thorow your Eminencies beneficence so increased in Elegancie and Politenesse that the Theaters Eccho with acclamations and applauses If our Language were now as barren and imperfect as heretofore it hath beene I must confesse our enterprise would at first be somewhat hard and difficult But it is now enriched and hath abundancie of words to explaine our thoughts They now can reade publick Lectures of Philosophie and Mathematicks in the mother tongue and Divines can unfold the deepe mysteries of Divinity therein and make them intelligible even to the plainest and dullest understandings But against all these reasons they will peradventure alleadge that those who study Philosophy in French never came to be absolute Philosophers But that is not through the defect of the Language or of Philosophy it self but rather through want of method Those who learne it in Latin privately profit not a whit more The reason is because that those masters which teach privately in chambers endeavour nothing but onely to please and content their auditors reading lectures full of cavills and ostentation no way tending to solid instruction This schooling is but a kind of pastime even as in Comedies where the Actor seeks onely to tickle the itching eares of the hearers to draw