So long a time has elapsed since I sent you the commencement of my remarks upon the peculiar language spoken by Mrs Coleridge (which I have denominated the Lingo-grande)

that I fear you may supposed I have altogether neglected the subject. Yet such a subject, as you must perceive, requires a great deal of patient observation, as well as of attentive consideration; & were I to flustercumhurry over it, as if it were a matter which could be undercumstood in a jiffump, (that is to say, in a mōmper), this would be to do what I have undertaken shabroonily, & you might shartainly have reason to think me faffling & indiscruckt. Upon my vurtz I have not dumdawdled with it like a dangleampeter, which, being explained in the same lingo, is an undecider; or an improvidentipur, too idle to explore the hurtch mine which he has had the fortune to discover. No, I must be a stupossum indeed to act thus, as well as a slouwdowdelcum, or slowdonothinger; & these are appellations which she has never bestowed upon me; tho perhaps the uncommon richness & even exuberance of her language has never <not> been more strikingly displayed <in any thing>, than in the variety of names with which I have been favoured in it has enabled her to shower upon my devoted person.

Did I ever shew you a curious book published in 1785 with this title, Letters of Literature, by Robert Heron, Esq^re?

The copy of in my possession (I beg pardon of the collectors, – penes me

is the phrase) belonged to Henry Kirke White, & was given me by his brother, as having his autograph upon the title page. Pinkerton was the author; & the name which he assumed at random, happening to belong to an unlucky writer who began his career shortly afterwards the real Robert Heron

found himself in bad odour, thro the prejudice which these very conceited & extravagant letters had excited. But it is a very odd book, as well as a most impudent one, & the most curious thing in it is a plan for improving the English language, by altering its structure. For this purpose it was seriously proposed by the said Pinkerton that the most learned men in the three kingdoms should incorporate themselves in an Academy, publish a grammar & dictionary of the improved English, & use it themselves both in writing & discourse, thus asserting what he called their proper power over the mob, till the revolution in our speech (for it was nothing less) should be compleatly effected. The leading principles of his scheme were to get rid of all sounds which were unpleasing to his ear, to throw away the consonant at the end of a certain class of words, add his favourite vowel O to it in others, & form the plural of all nouns in a. As a specimen he has translated Thea Visiona of Mirza, from the Spectator,

into his own improved language. Buy the book if ever it falls in your way, for it is a treasure

I mention it now, because I have compared the Pinkertonian Lingo with the Lingo-Grande; & it is surprizing how far below Mrs Coleridge, Pinkerton must be placed in this department of genius. For example, snuffers he would call thea snuffera; with us they are snuffumpers. Candles he would ask for by the name of thea candela; our inventress calls them candeels-candowls-candoals. He would call the bells, thea bella, our bell is the bellabbity when we are told to twyke it. A gig with him would be a giggo; here it is gidge, euphoniea gratiâ;

& in like manner bag, which he would make baggo, is softened into badje. Then how poor are his doggo & foggo when compared with our dogroggarum & fogogrum or fogrogrum! He would say spasmea for spasms, in our Lingo they are spaddelcoms. Lumbago he would leave unchanged because it terminates in the vowel which he so greatly affects; but here the word is ennobled into lumbaggarum whenever the inventress feels a pange resembling it. Puddles he would call puddela; with us they are pulkers & pillpulkers; & if it be a great, broad, sprawly, disagreeable pillpulker, then it is denominated a pulker-peeler. What would Pinkerton make of thimble which could equal thimblumb, & thimbōlion? And what of that lower region, the seat of frequent aches, which could at once be so euphonious & delicate as belteerian? Here perhaps she would exclaim for forshammanum, if she knew that I were writing that word; but how unjust should I be to her merits, were I to omit it!

To get drunk is to tipsificumpus. Her exclamations of xxx disappointment & fatigue may bear comparison with the most imitative of the Greek interjections. Οιμοι

& οτοττοτοι

surely are not more expressive that ōhdōurmōu, & ōhdīddledōwlōo. I would not depreciate the Greek words, each is certainly a good mouthfull & throatfull of lamentation. Yet these xxxxx which I have brought in comparison with them from the Lingo Grande, appear to me to express <excell> them in length & breadth of dejection in the plerophory of uncomfortabuttelness which they denote

Among other observables it ought to be noticed that she has peculiar names for her domestic implements. One of her scissors is called pex, another is peckrex, a third is bluestring. Her work bag is pinkrinkit. Her umbrella numpernell, or brevitatis causâ,

numper. I hardly need observe that there is a resemblance here to the custom which prevailed in the days of chivalry, of giving swords as well as horses each its proper name. Thus Arthur had his Escalibor, Charlemagne his Joyeuse, Roland his Durlindana, & my Cid the Campeador his Colada & Tizona.

I must observe also that some very singular, & to me unaccountable notions in natural history, are sometimes <frequently> implied in her discourse, which when she is questioned concerning them, she avows, & maintains with great confidence <& pertinacity.> She insists upon it that stone & wood are the same thing: that all dogs whether male or female, are of the masculine gender; & all cats femalexxx, & to prove this last extraordinary, & as I may call it preposterous assertion, she tells me that I never call my son Puss, tho I do call one of my daughters so, chusing to overlook the manner in which the little girl came to be so called, as being christened Katharine, from whence by easy & natural steps we get to Puss.

But what is yet more singular, all things which she does not exactly like are toads. So general indeed is the use of this word, xxxxxx for that xxxxx xxxxxxxx dislike, that it one might almost suppose it were derived from the Spanish todo, which signifies all & every thing; were it not that she spells it as you see it here spelt, and explains it to mean that poor, calumniated, persecuted, squat, squab animal, who is the frogs first cousin.

But it is time that this long letter should be brought to a close. I will conclude it therefore when I have <with> offering to your consideration xxxx a thoughts which have <has> occurred to me while writing it. There is an hypothesis concerning the origin of language, which (to use an Americanism) has been advocated by some Hebricians, & some Welsh antiquaries. It is that the primal language was not revealed to our first parents;

but was “the result of a natural aptitude in the organs of speech to utter certain definite articulations, according to the impulse of mans internal emotions”.

A certain number of imitations & significant radicals were thus produced, & the rest xxx xxx being matter of combination & caprice was of course infinitely variable. Attempts have been made to show that the principle may at this time be clearly traced in the Welsh & Hebrew roots. For some singular illustrations of this theory I refer you to M^r Davies’s Celtic Researches,

a book in other respects well worth reading, being full of Kimbric learning. I have heard that the notion has been pursued much farther by an ingenious, fanciful & patient German:

he supposed that the letters of the Hebrew alphabet are of divine appointment, & carry with them the proof of their superhuman origin each being so shaped as to represent the exact form which the tongue & the larynx organs of speech assume in making the sound denoted by it. He is said to have spent a great many years in pronouncing these letters with his back to the light, a looking glass before him, & his mouth open, & a pencil in his hand to catch the likeness, & finally succeeded in producing a series of xxxxx anatomical drawings to support his hypothesis.

Something correlative (not to the Germans notion, but to the theory maintained by my brethren of the Cymmrodorion) I remember to have heard more than twenty years ago, when dining, moi quatrieme,

in company with M. Peltier.

He was expatiating to Mr Coleridge & myself, for our edification, upon the peculiar excellences of French poetry, & of the French language as adapted for poetry. And he instanced both in these three words from Racine, Roi des Rois,

words he said, which no person could pronounce properly, or hear properly pronounced, without being sensible in himself of an expansion <& elevation> of mind corresponding to the expansion of organs both of hearing & speech, sympathetic with the sound, & xxxx <xxxxxx to> xxxxxxxx <with the> meaning of the words, & the sublimity of the sentiment.

Now that great part of the vocabulary of the Lingo Grande is formed as these xxxxxxx philosophers suppose the primal roots to have been, appears certain: the words evidently proceeding not from premeditation, but from impulse, & an impatience of speech, which will not allow the utterance to wait till the common & conventional term can be recollected. Perhaps I might call it a peculiar intuition a genius, a gifted nature which rejects the conventional term as inadequate to its expressions <conceptions>, & seeking words that burn for thoughts that breathe, brings up from the depths of its own being, the natural & true vocable. There are several cases upon record of persons who under the influence of delirium, or some other derangement of the head, have spoken languages which they had learnt in childhood, but thro the disuse of many years, had utterly forgotten, till the obliterated impressions in the sensorium were thus mysteriously restored. I do not mean to reason upon these cases as analogous, which indeed they are not, unless I took up the opinion of preexistence,

which in this sense, assuredly I do not think tenable. What I would ask goes farther. Is it not possible that Mrs Coleridge, when uttering under an irresistible impulse she utters these umpremeditated words, may unconsciously, but actually be speaking the primal language itself? And if so, what a service shall I have rendered to all future etymologists, such as General Vallancey,

Jacob Byrant

& Walter Whiter,

by these my humble & patient labours in collecting & preserving its precious fragments! Who knows but that <some> of these identical vocables may be discovered in the Egyptian monuments, when D^r Young

shall have succeeded (as I trust he will) in decyphering them? Or in the books of Adam himself, which D^r Stanier Clarke, upon the testimony of the learned Kissaeus, believes to be at this day in existence; tho unhappily, neither he, nor Kissaeus could tell exactly where they were to be found!