Tradition knows not what they were; for of their changes she takes no account.
Philosophy tells us, they are resolved into the variable, fleeting breath of the successive generations of those by whom they were spoken; whose kindred fate it was, to pass away unnoticed and nameless, lost in the elements from which they sprung.
3.

Upon the history of the English language, darkness thickens as we tread back the course of time.

The subject of our inquiry becomes, at every step, more difficult and less worthy.

We have now a tract of English literature, both extensive and luminous; and though many modern writers, and no few even of our writers on grammar, are comparatively very deficient in style, it is safe to affirm that the English language in general has never been written or spoken with more propriety and elegance, than it is at the present day.

Modern English we read with facility; and that which was good two centuries ago, though considerably antiquated, is still easily understood.