WINDSOR NOT ETON GRAMMAR.
CERTAIN political and grammatical purists have assailed Sir Robert Peel for faulty composition in his letters to the Queen. Their jealous regard to the Queen's English is very praiseworthy and constitutional. It is not to be tolerated that the Premier should utter spurious idioms; and it must be confessed that if Sir Robert Peel were had up in class he must plead guilty to some infractions of syntax : we tan convict him of a superfluous "being." But the censors set one upon looking further, and asking if the rival boy deserves a prize for composition? Let us have up John Russell—the essayist, the dramatic poet., the his- torian. John has grown sadly negligent since he rose to be so high in his class' and really- he deserves that Robert should "take him down." ft is recorded of Bowyer, the ' schoolmaster at Christ's Hospital, that when a big boy ventured to present any very atro- cious composition, the pedagogue made a practice of throwing it out to the school, crying "-Here' boys, is something to amuse 'op." The public will find LordJohn s exercises in composition very amusing. Behold a sample, from his second letter— "Those who have served your Majesty and your Royal predecessor in Cabinet offices during the Administrations of Lord Grey and Lore Melbourne, who were now in political connexion with Lord John Russell, were consulted by him. They agreed on the principles by which they would be guided in framing a measure for e repeal of the Corn-laws. Thus one great difficulty was surmeimted. But as the party which acts with Lord John Russell is in a minority in both Houses of Parlament, it was necessary to ascertain how far they were likely to obtain the tupport of Sir Robert Peel.'
- Here are divers entertaining puzzles. First, who are " who " in the second line? Does the word designate Lord Grey and Lord `Melbourne, or the previous "those who." What tense is to be 'Understood in "were now " ? Whom does the last " they in-
dicate 2—is it the Houses of Parliament, or Lord John's party, which "acts" and "is"; or is it "those who" figure at the begin- ning of the sentence?
But it is the earlier letter which is the most fertile in these gems. The epigrammatic antithesis with which the following passage closes is quite in the smart schoolboy style ; but so much cannot be said for the sentences which lead to it— "But upon maturely weighing the second proposal, namely, that by which duties would, after a suspension, a temporary repeal, be reimposed and again diminished, there appear to bin] to be grave objections to such a measure. The advantage given thereby to the land appears to him more apparent than real; the uncertainty of prices in future years will be aggravated, and the prospect of a complete li.w trade would be still kept in the distance; the prospect alarming the farmer, and the distance irritating the merchants and manufacturers." Here the ancient scholar sets out with "maturely weighing," postponing the nominative of that process to some future opportunity in penning the sentence • but as he goes on, the venerable boy quite forgets his suspended nominative, and it never appears. Who is "weighing"? We ask in vain : the nomina- tive case has become for us the vocative—that is, something only' to he called for, not named. He also facetiously tells us that a certain thing "appeared" to him to be "apparent." This looks very doubtful, whether in grammar or philosophy ; but it can be justified by evidence drawn from natural history. Ghosts often ' appear in order "to be apparent"; for it is in many cases im- possible to guess at any other motives for the appearance than the simple apparency. Also, "after maturely studying" the text of Virgil, the "rani nantes" appear to be "apparent." At least, with deference to Lord John's opinion on the subject, such appears to us to be, apparently, the apparent meaning of the appearance. Lord John talks, with a refined distinction, of an "uncertainty" which " will " and a " prospect " which " would" ; making the prospect subjunctively uncertain and the uncertainty indicatively certain. Some would have made the distinction more superficially apposite by inverting it ; others would not have drawn the dis- tinction at all ; but Lord John, in his lectures to Queen Victoria, manages most artfully "to blend amusement with instruction.'
In the next passage, the historian of the British Constitution mentions some persons who " entirely participate"; which raises a delightful puzzle to know in what lies the entirety, in what the partiality,—whether the participators took all of that in which they took part ; or whether they formed the whole of that in which they were parts ; or whether—but the passage will be an inexhaustible fund of delight to future commentators, it is open to such an infinity of interpretations.
Lord John's letter abounds in appearances : here is one more- " Had the harvest been plentiful and corn cheap, it might have been very ad- visable to have diminished the duties gradually; but the restoration of a duty after suspension has all the appearance of the reenactment of a protective law."
The art with which the writer insinuates the antediluvian na- ture of the condemned proposition, by piling up preterpluperfect upon preterpluperfect, and talking of it in an ultra-preterpluper- fect tense, is very ingenious; - but what strikes us is the irre- sistible logic of the passage. That the restoration of a protective duty looks like the reenactment of a protective law, is incontest- able. It is that incontrovertible conclusion in argument called an identical proposition. Queen Victoria, sic fertur, cannot abide bid English, or bad grammar, even in the humblest of her attendants. Now, though John may not have been "strong enough for the place" of Pre- mier, he might supply one desideratum in the Royal Household : let him be engaged to teach grammar and composition to the foot- men and lady's-maids.
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