When we look to it we find that it was but little; though in his hands it passed for much.

"By my troth," said the knight, "thou hast sung well and heartily, and in high praise of thine order." We doubt whether he achieved any similarity to the language of the time; but still, even in the little which he attempted there was something of the picturesque.

But how much more would be done if in very truth the whole language of a story could be thrown with correctness into the form of expression used at the time depicted?
It was this that Thackeray tried in his _Esmond_, and he has done it almost without a flaw.

The time in question is near enough to us, and the literature sufficiently familiar to enable us to judge.

Whether folk swore by their troth in the days of king Richard I.we do not know, but when we read Swift's letters, and Addison's papers, or Defoe's novels we do catch the veritable sounds of Queen Anne's age, and can say for ourselves whether Thackeray has caught them correctly or not.