The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1866-09-04 00:00:00

Corrroponbtnrc.

THE NEW FORM OF PRAYER.

Tu the Echters.

Our language hu reason to complain. It is
spoken a.id written in high quarters in • loam, slip.
shod, and almost disreputable manner. It is out at
elbows and down at heel., and allowed to go about
altogether unwatched-for and untidy. Posterity,
always supposing that posterity can care fur such
very smell things, will ask, with some curiosity—
Who wrote Speeches for the Queen. and Prayers for
the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the year of grace
P 566? Now, before we proceed to criticise there
remarkable compositions, let us clear ourselves from
the faintest suspicion of disloyalty, by avowing our
belief, that, whoever did write the Queen's Speech,
her Majesty herself did not. And, indeed, had she
done so, there would have been no ground for com-
plaint, fur the Queen can do no wrong ; and as our
mother tongue is emphatically ' the Queen's
English, " she may, of coons, do what she likes
with her own. We proceed, however, on the sup-
p •sition that she did not ; and we feel free to
ointnre or commend, as we may find occasion.
Furthermore, we beg distinctly to acquit both the
Premier and the Primate. The Earl of Derby is •
splendid scholar, and a man of original genius. His
eloquence is grand and noble, and flows on in •
stream of mingled sweetness and dignity. We do
not, of course, make any claim like this for the Arch.
bishop; but he too is known to be • good scholar;
and it would be very painful to the clergy of this
country were the words in which the late Lord
Macaulay described the words of • well-known
wetaster of his time, to be applied to their respected
Primate—" That those who read his Graft's compo-
sitions must take such grammar as they can get, and
be thankful" That a revised edition of the Prayer
against the Cattle.pluue should come out with its
faults in style and blunders in syntax alike unaltered,
can only be attributed to the circumstance that the
various and arduous duties of his Groom have really
left him no time to attend to the matter at all, and
we therefore as freely exonerate him as we do the
Right Hon. Premier.
But the Queen's speech contains some most extra-
ordinary ma-applications of words, and of those we
will only mention two—one a redundancy, the other
• catachresia. Her Majesty is made to say, that she
observed "with satisfaztion, and with deep grati•
toil, to Almighty God," the decrease of the cattle
plague. Surely, they who contrived so singular a
sentence as this can hardly have been aware of the
meaning of the words they were using. Satisfaction!
That her Majesty is graciously pleased to be witislied
with the dispensations of God's Providence I More-
over. the whole is a frightful redundancy. " Deep
gratitude "—a very proper phrase, involves "55515-
faction," and a great deal more, and there was no
necessity for so unfit • phrase in the speech.
Again : Her Majesty is said "to regret" the via.
tation of the cholera to the shores of this country.
We "regret" a hasty word, the breaking of • china
vase, the unintentional treading on an old gentle-
man's corns, and should hardly was the term on any
more serious occasion. The gentleman who oat-
adored the murder and mutilation of Mrs. Brown by
Greenacre as "an ill-natured action," and who saw
in the wholesale infanticides of Charlotte Winaor •
manifest imperfection in Christian principle, might
perhaps "regret" the visitation of the cholera; but
we apprehend that her Majesty laments or deplores
',lawful a calamity.
But we shall say no more. The whole Speech is
beneath criticism; and we instance these ex presstons,
ant an much on account of their inelegance as of their
evident impropriety.
The Arctibishim's Prayers bear tokens of having
been revised by the writer of her Majority's Speech ;
they are both awkward and involved, and in Gat
put which refers to the cattle-plague, we still pray
that God would look down on "Thy servants whom
Th" hsit visited with • grievous murrain smoog
our herds and Hocks." We still pray that God would
preserve that provision "which Thou Wit greeted
for our susteaance."
"tie misimis non curet lei," that is to say, yoti
seep break the rules
confined
grammar with impunity ; but
these vulgar fractions should certainly be fined to
the Reformers of Hyde Park and orators of that un•
eheekled order. —I remain, sir, your obedient errant,
CRITICUS.