The Sun.
London, England, 1869-03-02 00:00:00

THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH.

LindleyMurray—outragei in his grave by Mr.
Edward Freeman— Las been summoned back into
the world of letters to utter the following emphatic
pretest throng.% the pages of the thenxuni :
REVIEWS AND REVIEWERS.

Upper Courts Feb. 20

I am glad that for once you Lave given to the
world a real letter from a censor of books, printel
-" word for word and point for point." Tnat letter
frou Mr. Edward A. Freeman is a "caution,;' and
one may be sure that the Calibans of literature
v in feure add to all commui:ca,tions sent to the

public journals the good old postscript, " Please
lick this m aut. into shape." I say nothing of Mr.
Surtees'b subject and Mr. Freeman's temper. These
things are beyond me. I am not learned in the
affairs of Earl Godwin and his sons, and do not see
why gentlemen should throw dirt upon each other
because they differ in opinion about them. lam
only a grammarian, as you may know ; and while
I leave other things alone, I trust you will forgive
my anxiety for the well-being of our English
.speech.
Look at Mr. Freeman's text. The first sentence
in his letter gives the lie direct to a clergyman and
a gentleman ; though it does not openly and man-
fully deny the main charge. The second sen-
tence is a jumble which "no fellow can be ex-
pected to understand." I read, "it is generally
thought a gross breach of etiquette to attribute...
and in doing so" Ali-. Surtees " has attacked the
wrong man." Doing so ? Doing what? The an-
tecedent is "to attribute." The passage may be
taken to mean that the ascription of unsigned arti-
cles in a paper to the writer is a breach of etiquette.
That is an open question. The etiquette is not much
observed ; indeed the signature of an article is only
one of the signs by which a writer is known. Style
is a sign ; and I have hear.' that in the periodical
press almost every article of note can be traced by
acute persons to its actual source. " Mr. Surtees
has been guilty " of knowing what all the world
knows ; and, "as so often happens in so doing, he
has attacked the wrong man." I am pleased to
have that text as it was written. It is a fine
example of bad English. In the first place, what is
meant by " so doing" in this connexion? The use of
the participle here is wrong. To say " Mr. Surtees

has been guilty of this breach of etiquette, and, as
often happens in such cases, he has attacked the
wrong man," would be to write good English but
to display bad manners ; while to say that " Mr.
Surtees has been guilty of this breach of etiquette,
and, as so often happens in so doing, he has attacked
the wrong man," is to write that which is bath
unmannerly and ungrammatical. In the second
place, thii jumble of word; suggests a charge which
Mr. Freeman can hardly mean to make. " Mr.
Surtees has been guilty,...and, as often happens in
so doing, he has attacked the wrong man." The
writer can hardly mean to say that Mr. Surtees is
in the habit of ascribing articles to the wrong man ;
but in fact this is what he says. Now cones the
main point. "No periodical exists in which I have
reviewed Mr: Surtees and Dean Stanley and Pear-
son." Surely this is a paltry kind of evasion. The
point is not whether Mr. Freeman has written dis-
paraging articles ag.iinst Mr. Surtees, Dean Stan-
ley, and Mr. Pearson in one periodical, but whe-
ther he has written them. The escape by accumu-
lation is no escape.

Mr. Freeman appears to nurse some spite against
Mr. Pearson's name. He speaks of Mr. " Pear-
son's Early and Agu.' " He puts Mr.
Pearson into the plural number, as though he were
the Siamese twinF, and. he denies him the kindly
use cf the possessive ease. This latter :dip may be
due to ignorance of grammar, not infirmity of
wind. In fact, lam sure it is so, from evidence
supplied by the following sentences., " That arti-
ele,' says Mr. Freeman," appeared iu the Fortnightly
Reciew, and as, like all other articles in that 11,.!-
view, it hal my name attached to it"--.Do all the
articles in the Fortnightly Review bear Mr. Free-
man's name ? The articles which I have read with
pleasure in that perioiical Lore the names of
Thomas Huxley, John Morley, and John Tyndall.
" My withers were quite unstrung !" cries Mr. Free-
man. What does he fancy his withers are ? D 333
ho think that his fiddle-stringi are his withers?
Shakespeare, I believe, wrote "our withers are
unwrung," which is both good English and good
sense.

Thera are higher beauties yet. in !this brief text
The word it is the weakest word in our English
speech, and the frequent presencJ of this word in
any writing is the sign of a feeble style. Read this
gas:Age : " it had my name attached to it, it is
neither necessary nor possible to make any mystery
about it." What is meant by " Mr. Pearson wrote
a pamphlet, which Mr. Surtees also quotes?" Is it
meant that Mr. Surtees wrote the pamphlet ? If
not, why say so ? Again, Mr. Freeman says, "I
never cursed Mr. Pearson, or reviewed Lim, or said
anything about Mr. Pearson." Even this example
is riot the best. "As neither Mr. Pearson nor Mr.
Surtees quotes the words of this weekly Caliban, I
cannot identify him, save negatively, by saying it
is not 1." Him is not it—it is not I. Here is a
grace beyond the reach of art.

LINDLEY MURRAY.

CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT—(This Day.)

OLD COURT.

Jessie M'Donald was indicted for stealing money and
other property belonging to her master, William Henry
Bridger.
The prisoner was ono of the female servants at the
Green Dragon Hotel, Bisbopsgate-street, and for
considerable time many of the gentlemen stopping
there had complained to the proprietor of
loosing money and other property from their rooms.
A watch was set upon the servants, and ono of the resi-
dents in the hotel, Mr. Pritchard, an inspector of the
London and Provincial Bank, placed some marked money
in his coat pocket prior to putting it in-its usual place. On
going to the coat the next morning the money was gone,
and a detective was then called in and a search made, when
the marked coins were found in the prisoner's box.
The jury found her guilty.
The police officer said that on making further oxamina•

tion he found a gold chain which had been lost 13=0 time
ago by another visitor to the hotel, and a variety of mis-
cellaneous property, all of which had been stolen from
gentlemen in the habit of staying at the hotel.
The Recorder sentenced her to 12 months' imprison-
ment with hard labour. 1
William Robert Stevenson, a youth about 17 years of
age, pleaded guilty to three indictments of forgery, and
also to have been previously convicted of felony.
Mr. Lewis said the prisoner had, on the previous con-
viction in May last, been sentenced to t .ree years in a
reformatory, but that punishment was never carried out.
The Recorder—How is that ? Send for tho Governor.
Mr. Jonas said all he knew of the matter was that the
boy was sent from the Old Bailey to the House of Cor-
rection to undergo a sentence of a
.months' imprisonment
and three year's in a reformatory.
The Recorder—Well, why was that sentence not car-
ried out?

3fr Jonas —I don't know, as a matter of fact, but I be-
believe the chaplain, after the boy had been in jail the
mouth, reported so highly favourable of the prisoner that
the other part of the sentence was not attended to.

The Recorder—By whose order? Have some inquiry
on the subject, as it appears to be quite useless to sentence
prisoners for punishment which is not carried out.
Mr. Jonas—l don't know, my lord, how it was tho.sen-
tence in the first case was not carried out. I was sur-
prised to see him again so soon in Newgato.
The Recorder said it was a very bad case, and he had
no alternative but to sentence the prisoner to seven years
penal servitude.

- -
INTELLIGENCE—This Day.

MARLBOROUGH-STREET.

BOBBERY BY A TRUSTEE OF A FORESTERS' COUBT.—
John Balchin, senior trustee of Court Lord Clive of the
Ancient Order of Foresters, held at Mr. Cheese's tavern,
Oxford-street, charged before Mr. Tyrwhitt with stealing
above £3O, moneys of the society, was spin brought up,
but on the application of Mr. Pain, of Marylebone-road,
ho Was again remanded.