Patrick Henry thought to win theYavor of the back-
woodsmen of Virginia by imitating their colloquial

*"The beginning of Style," says Aristotle, "is correctness in diction"

« But compare : " Did you ever hear of Boatswain Smith ? He is a preacher
to sailors in London ; himself a sailor, and a man of g^eat eloquence and
strange, quaint power. While he does not stud his discourses itnth sea-phrases,
neither does he avoid them, and when he introduces them he does so with g^r eat
effect. Sailors have contempt for a landlubber's preaching:. But Boatswain
Smith takes them on a true tack."— W. B. Hodgson, in a letter, an. 1843.
54 STYLE.
dialect . . . But his hearers, backwoodsmen though
they were, knew better than that ; and they knew that a
statesman of the Old Dominion ought to speak good
English. They were his severest critics.*'* Besides,
correct language has a beauty of its own, and in many
cases lends a charm to work not otherwise noteworthy.
On the other hand, even a slip in grammar b a blot ;
while errors that are plainly ** constitutional** — that
spring from a fundamental ignorance — ^are fatal to the
writer. * * It is not so much a merit to know English as
it is a shame not to know it; and I look upon this
knowledge as essential for an Englishman, and not
merely for a fine speaker.*** Hence, at whatever
expense of time and labor, the student of Rhetoric must
perfect himself in Grammar ; just as the student of Art
must give himself without reserve to Anatomy and other
studies of Outiine.
1 Austin Phelps, EmgHsh Style tH Public Disamrse^ pp. 17, 18.
