...sources of genuine diction. Our language, for almost a century, has, by the concurrence of many causes, been gradually departing from its original Teutonick character, and deviating towards a Gallick structure and phraseology, from which it ought to be our endeavour to recal it, by making our ancient...

...According to Johnson, what has been going wrong with the language since the Elizabethan era is that it has 'been gradually departing from its original Teutonick character, and deviating towards a Gallick structure and phraseology', a malaise from which it can only be rescued by 'making our ancient volumes...

...scheme of the English language," he writes, "is Gothick or Teutonick"; but "Our language . . . has . . . been gradually departing from its original Teutonick character, and deviating towards a Gallick structure and phraseology."154 The French, then, are the invaders, the poisoners of the pure Saxon...

...authorities from the writers before the reftoration, whofe works I regard as the -we/is of Englijh undefiled, as the pure fources of genuine diction. Our language,...phrafeology, from which it ought to be our endeavour to recal it, by making our ancient volumes the ground-work of ftile, admitting among the additions of...

...departing from its original Teutonic character and deviating towards a Gallic structure and phraseology, from which it ought to be our endeavour to recall...it by making our ancient volumes the ground-work of style.' But, despite the remark of one of his biographers, that he had ' an injudicious partiality...