Lost Language Lane

During a trawl of Trove yesterday we came across this article from 1847 which was just too good not to post here. I am constantly upset by the degradation of the English language so when hearing this one read to me by Kristy, I pined for the olden days once more…. well, for a while at least until it just got a little too much to bear! Enjoy a trip down Language Lane. 

CAMDEN. Joining the Nepean below Cobbitty, we accompany it in its course towards Penrith ;- and the first place worthy of particular note which we pass is the simply elegant cottage at Brownlow Hill, which, placed on a natural terrace at the head of a peculiar delta of alluvial land between commanding hills, takes a phantasmagoria-like peep at the passengers along the road.

Here, in a very lovely retirement, sojourns from the fatigues of public life the venerable Mr McLeay, the time honoured epitome of all the charities- the never fulling supporter of societies which had for their object the good of the human race in this quarter of the world – the patron of hospitals and libraries; – the good and kind man,-the father and friend. His head is now white with the snow of many winters, but, like a noble oak, though the foliage be scythed by the breezes of life, the heart remains sound and vigorous-still deriving nourishment from that root of philanthropy which sustained its youth.

Sauntering deviously past Camperdown, Westwood, Vermont, and ‘Shancomore, all fine properties, we emerge suddcnlv with the brawling river, from the mountain rift at Greendale upon the margin of ” Bent’s Basin.” – small lake of about a furlong in diameter, where the stream, of no great volume, compelled for some distance to flounder and foam over rocks congested in cataract disorder, consoles itself in an azure bed of silent slumber so soon as the nature of the ground admits of such sweet revenge. The basin is round and deep, and clear as the soft blue eye of a northern maiden -half its circumference is rocky and woody mountain -the other half grassy slope studded with pretty evergreen shrubs and shady trees and though no dark Corinthian girls were there to dance Romaika to the twanged guitar, we remember to have seen it, in bygone days, before ourselves assumed ” the sear and yellow leaf, like the “sweet waters of Europe ‘ on the Bosphorus, surrounded by groups of beauty, and gaiety and music, keeping, quite as joyously as they, the festival of ” the Golden Spring ‘ in one of those truly English achievements which, divested of all its poetry, was simply a ‘ picnic’, for which this is really a most charming spot.

We have only attained the distance of about ten miles but we are tired, and, therefore, returning by the gardens of Birling, redolent of flowers-rose laurel, eglantine, heliotrope, and sweet scented verbena, through Denbigh, Wivenhoe, and Macquarie Grove we once more reach the village of Camden, resting our selves and the horses which we borrowed on the way at Lakeman’s respectable inn, which is scarcely inferior to Mrs Walker’s, at Parramatta, for quiet comfort, and that is saying a good deal for it.