Note 153 — Chapter VIII · HOLLY-BUSH AND WINDMILL HILLS.

‘Goldsmith’s English, when English comes to be the sole tongue wanted to run the wide world round, as it spins by day and night under the sun, will necessarily be more and more resorted to as the best model to be had of plain and simply effective speech. His “Village” and his “Vicar” will be carefully searched into to help counteract the ever-augmenting virus of vulgar dialectical debasement from oversea offshoots, colonial or enfranchised, that is to-day poisoning the living font of Chaucer. Addison will then be less read than even now he is, and Johnson will never be sought for at all out of Boswell. The huge autocrat of yesterday is with the worms to-morrow, and Oliver, “who talked like poor Poll,” will then sit enthroned as preceptor of English to the universe.’—Mr. C. A Ward.