The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette. — 1866-09-04 (Dorchester, Dorset, England)

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 complaint, 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 supp •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 compositions 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 extraordinary 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 Moreover. the whole is a frightful redundancy. " Deep gratitude "—a very proper phrase, involves "55515faction," 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 gentleman's corns, and should hardly was the term on any more serious occasion. The gentleman who oatadored 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,