$B blE SEt, ft: r^: Ji''';i|,, -s^'-' l-»fWj*'?FZ« " r^^'l'^^'^ ,^"^ v. & ^4- ^^f^'^^^^ ^^r ■\^z^- WMm ^\mtt^ii^ of ^iilifopia, :^^i0, M (t/^/ JVo. Division ^ ^ Shelf :....DJ. Received ty^'t^ M.. "uV ' VV ^:^^^ V. ' / '\j ^I'^v J'f% ilv^-t' ■ 11, -r" fWWWW^^^^ THE SOUECES OF STANDAED ENGLISH T. L. KINGTON OLIPHANT, M.A. OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD MACMILLAN AND CO. 1873 All rights reserved LONDON : PRINTED IIY srOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEM'-STllKIiT SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET PKEFACE, Tins BOOK does not pretend to be a history of the English tongue ; I attempt nothing more than to trace tlie way in which one special dialect took the lead in our island ; I also try to point out the earliest instances of corruptions in our speech. Hence atten- tion must be given to the JN'orth rather than to the South ; we must think more of the first appearance of the New in the Northumbrian Versions of the Bible, than of the last traces of the Old in the Ay en- bite of Inwyt and works still more modern. We must look to York rather than to Canterbury. I may mention that, until I began to study Engiisli with thoroughness, I had no idea how much of our Standard speech is due to Northern shires ; how much influence the Norsemen have had in our land ;* ^ When weighing the corruptions of the Old English, we shall find that two-thirds of these are due to the shires held by the ^Norsemen ; the remaining one-third is due to the Lower Severn and to the shires lying south of the Thames. viii Preface. how many of our idioms, seemingly modern, date from long before the Norman Conquest; and how many himdreds of our Eomance words were used so far back as the Thirteenth Century. With the help of our old writers, I mark the ad- vance of our tongue ; much as the changes in English Architecture for four hundred and fifty years may be traced by the man who visits in succession the Cathe- drals of Durham, Lincoln, Exeter, and Winchester ; or as the improvements in the English Constitution may be traced, from the woods of Germany to the Convention Parliament in 1689, by the documents printed in the small work of Professor Stubbs. It is always well to begin from the beginning ; I have therefore started from a point, that would have astonished the most keen-sighted of philologers seventy 3^ears ago. Mighty indeed were the results wrought by the great discovery as to the true use of Sanscrit.^ Of these results the best idea may be formed by any one who compares the writings of Grarnett with those of Home Tooke. The two men were for many years contemporary ; yet, tl^anks to the great discovery, the philological knowledge of ^ "We have lately naturalized the German A\-ord umlaut, thus marking the nation ^\-hich has most claim on Philologers. A less peaceful age than our own naturalized lolimder, which came from tho same land. Preface. ix Garnett is as far above that of Home Tooke as Ste- phenson's engine outstrips Pharaoh's chariot. It is a loss to mankind that Garnett has left so little behind him. He seems to have been the nearest approach England ever jnade to bringing forth a Mezzofanti, and he combined in himself qualities not often found in the same man. When liis toilsome industry is amassing facts, he plods like a German ; when his playful wit is unmasking quackery, he flashes like a Frenchman. He it was who first called attention to- the var^dng dialects of England and who first en- deavoured to classify them. This work has since his death been most ably achieved by Dr. Morris. To this gentleman I am under the greatest obliga- tions, since he has looked over my proof-sheets as far as page 240 ; and many a correction do I owe to him. I have sometimes dared to differ from him, not with- out fear and trembling. As to what he has done for English Philology, I may perhaps be looked upon as a prejudiced witness ; I therefore prefer to quote from Mr. Murray's ' Dialect of the Southern Counties of Scotland,' p. 40, published in 1873 (Transactions of the Philological Society) : ' Very recent is our knowledge of any facts connected with the distribu- tion and distinguishing characteristics of the dialects of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries- X Preface, of research whicli was all but a te.vva incognita when taken np by Mr. Eichard JMorris. His classification of the Early English dialects into Southern, Midland, and Northern, with the careful discrimination of their grammatical forms, has introduced order and precision into the study.' It is not too much to say that the man who shall hencefortli undertake any work upon the English tongue, without having always before him the gram- matical works of Dr. Morris and Dr. March, must be the greatest of fools. I have followed Dr. March in my first Chapter, and have also consulted Bopp, Guest, Bosworth, Wedgwood, ]Marsh, Latham, Earle, and Max Mllller. Thanks to the labours of the Early English Text Society, a writer of 1873 lias great advantages over a writer of 1863. The English Homilies of the Twelfth Century, edited by Dr. Morris, are in themselves a mine of wealth to the Philologer. One of my best aids has been Dr. Strat- mann's Dictionary of the Old English Language. This includes all words used between 1120 and 1440; the last Volume of the work did not reach me until April, 1873. Many new words and idioms in Orrmin, Layamon, and the Ancren Eiwle were overlooked by me when I first went over those books, until after- wards the Dictionary forced the words upon my notice. Preface. xi Without its help I could not have drawn up the lists of the new terms that cropped up between 1300 and 1500.1 I must apologize to those of my readers, who are unlearned, for the Latin in my text ; the truth is, that there are so many shades of meaning in our words, that I cannot thoroughly explain myself with- out falling back upon the foreign tongue. When specifying English words, I have almost wholly con- fined myself to terms in use in 1873 ; of these, about fifteen hundred, I think, occur in my pages. In a work like this, ranging over the monuments of twelve hundred years, mistakes will be made ; I have no doubt that I have sometimes assigned to a new word a date later than its real first appearance in England. It is but fair to warn those who love to call a spade ' an horticultural implement,' that tliey will not relish my Sixth Chapter.^ * One of the charms of Philology is, that new facts bearing upon it are always forthcoming, if a man will but keep his eyes and ears open. I for one have picked up much from gamekeepers and sextons in many a shire. In the Orton-Ticliborne trial (the one for perjury), a Hamp- shire witness called the stump of a tree ' the more.^ This word may be seen in the Dorsetshire poem of 1240, which is quotedjn my work. The more occurs in the trial as reported by the Daily Papers of Sep- tember 4, 1873. ^ Like a trusty sentinel, I sound an alarm against the enemy's approach down to the very last moment. September, 1873, has been remarkable for the opening of the new Town Hall at Bradford, for xii Preface, The printers have been good enough to let me write rmw in the English, and not in the Greek, way. But I may mention that they have in general struck out in favour of s ; thus they have printed civilise, instead of the civilize I wrote. Had they made alterations in a Teutonic word, I should at once have sprung to the rescue. I give this as an instance of the shifting that may be remarked in the history of the English tongue : some change or other is always at work. Caxton and his sons have ruled our spelling for the last four hundred years ; in the instance referred to above, they may justify their alteration by Wickliffe's verb evangelise. I rejoice to see that England is waking up at last to the importance of studying her own tongue in all its stages ; and I hope that this small book, my first attempt in Philology, may help forward the good cause. the English Pilgrimage to St. Marie Alacoque, and for the abandon- ment of France by the Germans. Our pcnny-a-liners called the Town Hall a gr'andiose building; asked what was the rationale of pilgrimages ; and described the men of freed Verdun as ingurgitate ing spirituous stimulus. What will a penny paper of 1973 be like ?; Chaelton House, Wimbledon : October 14, 1873. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. ENGLISn IX ITS EARLIEST SHAPE. 450. 600. The Aryan Clan on the Oxus Their way of life Words common to Sanscrit and Englis Aryan Suffixes kept by lis . The origin of icard and like . Aryan Comparatives and Superlatives The Aryan Verb — Strong Perfects The Participle, Strong and AVeak Aryan Irregular Verbs Our forms akin to Latin and Greek Our forms akin to Lithuanian The Three divisions of Teutons . Inflections of their Substantive and V Teutonic Endings of Nouns . Weak Perfects — Inroads on the Celts The Teutons attack the Latins The Beowulf, an English Epic The English seize Britain They are Christianized Old English Substantives Old English Adjectives PAGE 1 2 3,4 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15/ 16 17 1 18 19 20 21 22 XIV Contents. Old English Pronouns . Old English Verbs Letters east out or put in . Exchange of letters Prepositions still used in the old way The use of man — English Negation The Verb— The Article The Verb do prefixed to other Verbs Adverbial Idioms Corruption of words — Loss of Accents Alliterative Poetry It still keeps its hold on us . PAGE . 23 . 24 . 25 . 26 . 27 . 28 . 29 . 30 . 31 . 22 . 33 . 34 CHAPTER IL THE OLD ENGLISH, 080-1120. THE MIDDLE ENGLISH, 1120-1300. Northumbrian English C80. Cadmon's Eunes on the Euthwell Cross 737. Another piece of Cadmon's . 800. The Northern Psalter .... Its peculiarities ..... 876. The Norse Settlement in England Its abiding influence .... 900. The Rushworth Gospels Southern and Northern English contrasted 924. King Edward's Conquests . 941. The Eive Danish Burghs . 954. Eadred becomes the One King of England The Danish influence on New English 970. The Lindisfarne Gospels Southern and Northern English contrasted Norse corruptions .... 1066. The Erench Conquest .... 1090. The Legend of St. Edmund . 35 36 37 38 39 40««'' 41 42 43 44 45 46 471/ 48 49 50 v^ 51 52 Contents. XV 1120. 1120. 1160. 1160. 1160. Corruptions in the Saxon Chronicle Slow change from Old to New Interest attached to Peterborough 1120. Its Forged Charters The letters h and g replaced The Dative replaces the Accusative Ereak-up of Case-endings . New use of Prepositions Clipping of Infinitives and Participles The Northern, Midland, and Southern Shibboleths New Teutonic words crop up Scandinavian words come in Specimen of East Midland Dialect Specimen of Southern Dialect A later Version of ^Ifric's Ilomilies . O and ch replace « and c New Eelatives — The letter % Lines on the Grave .... The Peterborough Chronicle Southern corruptions appear X, qi(^ and gh are found Specimen of East Midland Dialect Specimen of Southern Dialect Early Pimes — The Sound au J^ and w replace/ and ^ SJi replaces so Change in Nouns and Verbs Change in Meaning of Words 1 170. The Moral Ode— The Worcester Manuscript Ou replaces o — The new hesiden . The Hatton Gospels .... 1180. The Essex Homilies — The form ie Clipping of Words — New phrases The Masculine and Neuter Article confused New Norse words .... 1200. King Alfred's Proverbs Orrmin ...... I'AGE . 53 . &4r . 55 . 5S . 57 , 58 . 59 . 60 . 61 ' . 62 . 63 s/ . 64: V Go, 6Q . 67 . 6» . 69 . 70 . 71 . 72' . 73 . 74 75, 76^ 77, 78- . 79 . 80- . 81 . SU . 83 . 84: . 85 87 89 99' 91 XVI Contents. Ill's Norse origin His probable abode His many corruptions His new Pronouns His Norse words, kept by us His Prepositional compounds He uses that for tliillc . Theirs, what man, thyself . Forthwith, right, or, alone, same He replaces (Bhy a Change in the meaning of words The Norse auxiliary onun Strong Verbs corrupted into Weak Hid, sicJcen, shown Mid and niman die out 1200. Specimen of East Midland Dialect 1205. Specimen of AVestern Dialect Layamon's Brut He is the last to use (b The Corrupt Participle in inr/ His Norse Words The Legend of St. Margaret The letters ea — The ending /z^^^ 3 220. The Hali Mcidenhad The Ancren Riwle V The use of one for man TheNewEelative V The Superlative replaced by most New Norse words New Low German words Salopian Avorks 1230. The Bestiary y Ou replaces ?f ; one The Genesis and Exodus Drag, dray, draw — The i and oo Clipping of words in East Anglia Whilum, scldu.m, mustc, these Contents, xvii A.D. PAGB New Norse words ' .131/' 1230. Specimen of East Midland Dialect . 132 1230. Specimen of Southern Dialect . 13 4, 135 1240. The Lincolnshire Creed Interchange of / and ^ ; . . 136 137 1240. Specimen of East Midland Dialect . 13 8, 139 1240. 1250. Specimen of South Western Dialect The Owl and the Nightingale . Mercian Religious pieces . 140 141 142 1250. Specimen of East Midland Dialect 14 3, 144 1250. Specimen of Northern Dialect . 145 The Yorkshire Psalter . 146 Gh replaces A . . . . 147 Brake, feet, gives 148 The New Relatives— TAose 149 New Substantives 150 Through hap, gainsay . 151 New Norse words . 152 v/ New Version of Layamon's Brut . 153 The Jesus Manuscript . 154 1270. Huntingdon (?) Poem . 155 1270. Specimen of East Midland Dialect . 156 1270. Specimen of Southern Dialect The Proverbs of Hending . The Sir Tristrem The new sense of bond New Norse words . 157 . 158 . 159 . 160 1280. The Harrowing of Hell . The curious dialogue The Strong Perfect corrupted The Havelok .... Northern and Southern forms meet You used for tho-u .... The mangling of drake ; lark . New Norse words .... Loss of old Prepositions . . 162 . 163 , 164 165 166 167 168 169*^ 170 1280. Specimen of East Midland Dialect . 17 1, 172 XVlll Contents, A.D. 1280. 1290. 1300. 1300. Specimen of Southern Dialect . The King Horn .... Kentish Sermons Kobert of Gloucester's Chronicle His Life of Becket His Life of St. Brandan The Komance of Alexander The New English, where compounded Few new Teutonic idioms since this date PAGE 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 > CHAPTER III. THE RISE OP THE NEW ENGLISH. A.D. 1303. Robert of Brunne in Lincolnshire 1303. His Work, The Handlyng Synne His dialect, partly Southern Partly Western, partly Northern Wenty secondy right , fulh down Kind, mind, truth, huch s/ Adder, one after an Adjective Wholly, lost, to be blamed Sack, toy, cannot New words — St. Audre Yon, what time, the which Somebody, once, inasmuch Would God, Lord, side by side He asks pardon for his diction His tale of Bishop Robert His account of Charity Taken from St. Paul . His advice about Mass His tale of the Norfolk Bondeman His account of himself Specimens of Dialects — North Lincolnshire 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 19'^ 198 199 200 201 202 Contents. XIX PAGB Yorkshire — Durham . .203 Lancashire 204 Salop — Herefordshire 205 Gloucestershire — Irish Pale 206 Somersetshire 207 Oxfordshire— Kent 208 Middlesex .209 Bedfordshire 210 Tables — Words akin to Dutch and German . .211 Scandinavian words of the Fourteenth Century . . 212 v^ Celtic words — Dutch words 213 Scandinavian words of the Fifteenth Century . . 214 / CHAPTER IV. THE INROAD OF FRENCH WORDS INTO ENGLAND. 1066. 1160. 1220. 1250. 1290. 1300. Harm done in the Thirteenth Century English Poetic words die out French alone is in favour . How French words first came in Forty of them in use very early Proper names spelt in French The Ancren Eiwle abounds in French The foreign sound oi Words of Religion — The foreign y Table of French words akin to English English words drop in the Thirteenth Century This fact explained . The Franciscans in England Their daily work They bring in French words The * Luve Ron ' of a friar Poem by one of the Old School The Kentish Sermons Treatise on Science . Coarse English Words cast aside 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 284 XX Contents. French used by Architects . French used by Ladies "Warlike Eomances Englished . Our French words for soldiering French employed by lawyers The number of new French words These take English endings French words used by the lowest 1303. French brought in by Eobert of Brunne Jolly ^ 'party, divers, nice Touch, trail, single, afraid . Certain, passing, bondage . English roots take French endings The decay of Teutonic words arrested Corruption of the Franciscan Order . 1360. Eobert's words need explanation Gradual loss of Old English Words . Table of Words, Obsolete and Eomance PAGB 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248v/ 249 250 251 252 CHAPTER Y. THE NEW ENGLISH. A.D. 1303—1873. English differs from other Literatures Each shire had its own speech . Norse influence in England 1303. The East Midland advances Southwards Contrast between it and the London speech Edward I. neglected English The New Standard English spreads 1349. Edward III. favours it New Forms of old words . Poem on the Carpenter's Tools 1356. Mandeville's writings Nassington at Cambridge . 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 Contents, XXI A.D. PAGB 13S0. Wicklifife's version of the^Bible . 265 Young one, wast, shipwreck, haply . 266 His Latin idioms bad .... . 267 Purvey and Hereford . 268 New forms used at this time . 269 1400. Creed and Prayers . 270 1408. Forms of Matrimony . 271 1450. Lollard Tract on Scriptural translation . 272 The Speech of the Court .... . 273 1390. Chaucer's new forms .... . 274 Belike, bi and hi, scarcely, menes . 275 1432. Letters written by knights— Warwick . 276 Suffolk's letter to his son . . 277 1447. East Anglian Letters — Shillingford . . 278 1450. Pecock's Repressor . 279 The Word unless — Good Prose . . 280 1460. Yorkshire letters of the time . 281 1426. Audlay in Salop . 282 1454. York's children at Ludlow . 283 1471. Caxton prints the First English Book . 284 He restores the hard g . . . . . 285 1481. His Renard the Fox .... . 286 1482. He alters Trevisa's words .... . 287 1523. Lord Berners — Tyndale .... . 288 1525. Corruptions in his Testament . 289 Once, father, coulde, righteous . . 290 Abroad, waves, sad, roll .... . 291 Tyndale's sound Teutonic style . . 292 1542. His version disliked by G-ardiner . . 293 His wrangles with More .... . 294 1528. His critical power — Roy's rimes . 295 1636. Plumpton's letter home .... . 296 English Poetry becomes more Teutonic . 297 1524. Abbot Malvern's verses .... . 298 Theology, the Classics, Travels . . 299 1550. Cranmer's Prayer Book .... . 300 Latin and Teutonic in our Bible . 301 xxu Co7itents. A.D. 1583. 1611. 1550. 1590. 1640. 1650. 1750. 1810. 1820. 1830. 1870. 1873. Fulke's scorn of the Douay Bible Influence of our Version .... Komanism adverse to our Literature . The Eeformation unites England and Scotland The Bible a bond for the Angel cyn . Wilson's criticism — Shakespere . Spenser — Our Golden Age . . The form its — Loss of Old Forms Strafford's Thorough — Milton . His Lycidas — Bunyan .... The Change in English Prose Johnson's Corruptions .... The Study of Sanscrit .... Scott, Byron, Coleridge .... Scott's Komances — The Ballad revived Cobbett — Monk's Life of Bentley Speeches of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright Mr. Tennyson, Mr. Morris .... Table of Dates bearing on English Literature CHAPTER YI. GOOD AND BAD ENGLISH IN 18T3. Scholars and the Middle Class . The Latter love Foreign phrases How a man writes to The Times Latin is too often a pitfall The Penny-a-liner of our day . Blunder of Irish Prelates . Correspondents of Journals Editors should put down bad English Americans misspell honour Fine writing in America To interview .... English abuse of the letter h Bad style of English preachers . Contents, XXlll English not taught at schools Grood influence of the Classics . Punch a good English critic We borrow from all sides . We send our own staple abroad Bad English of a Queen's Speech Watchwords of English History- Simplicity recommended by Mr. Ereeman We have improved on our fathers Three ways of writing English Teutonic, Komance, and Penny-a-lining Parable of a maiden's dress Sometimes neat, sometimes outrageous Chaucer's advice to fine writers PAGE 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 CHAPTER VII. 680. -737. 800-900. 970. 1090. 1220. .1356. 1450. 1550. 1668. 1776. 1872. TWELVE HUNDRED YEARS OF ENGLISH. Lines on the Ruthwell Cross .... 349 Lines by Cadmon . . . . . .350 Northumbrian Psalter — Rushworth Gospels . .351 Lindisfarne Gospels 352 St. Edmund's Legend 353, 354 The Ancren Riwle .... 355, 356, 357 Sir John Mandeville . . . . . 358, 359 Bishop Pecock .360 Lever 361,362 Cowley 363,364 Gibbon 365, 366 Morris 367,368 Advice as to Studying English . . . .369 Antiquam exquirite Matrem ..... 370 I Erratum. ' Page 262, lines 5, 6, 7, dele The form graciouser . . . ending in oics. THE SOUECES OF STANDAED ENGLISH. CHAPTER I. ENGLISH IN ITS EARLIEST SHAPE.* There are many places, scattered over tlie world, that are hallowed ground in the eyes of Englishmen ; but the most sacred of all would be the spot (could we only know it) where our forefathers dwelt in common with the ancestors of the Hindoos, Persians, Greeks, Latins, Slavonians, and Celts — a spot not far from the Oxus. By the unmistakable witness of language we can frame for ourselves a pedigree more truthful than any heraldic tree boasted by Veres or Montmorencies, by Guzmans or Colonnas. Thanks to the same evidence, we can gain some insight into the daily life of the great Aryan clan, whence spring all the above-named nations. The word 'Arya^ seems to come from a time-honoured term for ploughing, traces of which term are found in * Gibbon begins his famous Chapter on Mohammed by confessing his ignorance of Arabic ; even so, I must acknowledge that all my Sanscrit comes from Garnett, Bopp, Max Miiller, and Dr. Morris. B 2 The Sources of Standard English. the Latin arare and the Engh'sh ear. Some have thought that Iran in the East and Erin in the West alike take their names from the old Aryans, the * ploughing * folk, men more civilised than the roving Tartar hordes around them. These tillers of the ground * knew the arts of plough- ing, of making roads, of building ships, of weaving and sewing, of erecting houses ; they had counted at least as far as one hundred. They had domesticated the most important animals, the cow, the horse, the sheep, the dog ; they were acquainted with the most useful metals, and armed with hatchets, whether for peaceful or warlike purposes. They had recognised the bonds of blood and the laws of marriage ; they followed their leaders and kings ; and the distinction between right and wrong was fixed by customs and laws.'^ As to their God, traces of him are found in the Sanscrit Dyaus, in the Latin Dies-piter, in the Greek Zeus, in the English Tiw ; from this last comes our Tuesday. More- over, the Aryans had a settled framework of grammar : theirs was that Mother Speech, whence most of the men dwelling between the Shannon and the Ganges inherit the words used in daily life.^ The Sanscrit and the English are two out of the many channels that have brought the water from the old Aryan well-head down to our days. The Sanscrit lan- guage, having been set down in writing two thousand years before the earliest English, shows us far more of the great Mother Speech than our own tongue does. I * Max Miiller, Science of Language, I. 273. * The Turks and Magyars are the chief exceptions to the rule. English in its Earliest Shape. now print a hundred and thirty words or so, the oldest used by us, which vary but slightly in their Eastern and Western shapes. How the one-syllable roots first arose, no man can say. Sanscrit. English {Old and Ne^o). Sanscrit. English {Oldand Neio) na ne, no dhruva (cer- true ana an, on tain) upa up mridu (soft) mild upari abhi over bhurja birch by nabhi navel apa of nakha naegel, nail para fax nava new puras for ukshan (bull) ox param fram, from go cii, cow antar under avi (ovis) ewe adhi at musha mus, mouse ud fit, out hansa (goose) gander nu- nu, now udra water sa, sa, tat se, seo, faet swadu sweet (the, that) sweda sweat te they rudhira red sama (like) same anta end ubha ba, both yuga laghu, laghis- yoke kas^ hwa, who light, lightest kutra hwider,whitheT tha tatra thither Diva-madhyam Day-middle, katara hwaetSer, whe- noon ther rajya rich antara (onther) other vidja wit mahistha mgest, most manas mind dvau twa, two gharma warmth tri pri, three naman nama, name sastha sixth lobha (desire) love saptan seven agra (field) acre navan nine hval (to move) hweol, wheel trajodasan thirteen sadas seat yuvan young pathin path * K in Sanscrit becomes H in a Teutonic tongue. b2 The Sources of Standard English, Sanscrit. English {OldandNeiv). Sanscrit. English {GldandNew) bhraj bright satya sooth, true pitri father veda I wot mata mother sid-ami I sit bhratri brother sa-sad-a I sat svasar sister sad-ay a- mi I seat sunu sunu, son bhar-ami I bear duhitri daughter vaks-ami I wax ganas kin mar-aya-mi I murder dvara door bhanj break bhru brow hri rue naktam by night we weave div day man mean ghrishti (pig) griskin smi (laugh) smile yridhnu (eager) greedy grabh (take) grab Dhadra (good) better lih lick vant (blowing) wind ga go vidhava widow dha do nasa nose ad eat tripada three-footed plu flow tanu thin par ferry dhuma (smoke) dim sta stand manu man stri strew malana (grind- miln, mill snu (flow) snivel ing) dar tear kalamas haulm (stubble) bhu be kalya hale asti is kala (time) hwile, a while bhid (split) bite dbvan din dharsh dare janaka (father) cyning, king trish thirst jani (mother) cwen, queen lu loose dru tree bandh bind hrid heart dam tame staras stars gna know )attra (wing) ' fas (to cough) feather vanksh wish has, hoarse vrit (turn) worth^ danta (tonth) tooth siv sew2 * As in our phrase, ' woe worth the day/ "^ It will be remarked that Grrimm's Law is sometimes broken. Thus day and^a^A begin with the same letter both in Sanscrit and English in its Earliest Shape. 5 Unhappily, we Englisli liave been busy, for the last four thousand years, clipping and paring down our inflec- tions, until very few of them are left to us. Of all Europeans, we have been the greatest sinners in this way. Well said the sage of old, that words are like regiments : they are apt to lose a few stragglers on a long march. Still, we can trace a few inflections, that are common to us and to our kinsmen who compiled the Vedas. In Substantives, we have the Genitive Singular and the Nominative Plural left.^ Sanscrit. Old English. New English, Nom. Sing, Asva-s (horse) Wulf Wolf Gen. Sing. Asva-sja Wulfes Wolfs No7n, Flur. Asva-sas Wulias Wolvea I give a few Suffixes, common to Sanscrit and English forms of the same root : — Ma ; as from the root gna, know, we get the Sanscrit ndman and the English nama^ name. JK/a ; as from the root ag, go, we get the Sanscrit agra and the English acre. English. I wish that some competent scholar would give us a list of all those of our Teutonic words that are clearly akin to Sanscrit. Antiquam exquirite — sororem. The English bishop and the French eveque, two very modern forms of the same word, are much wider apart from each other than the hoary words in the long list given above. Olive's sailors would have stared, had they been told that the first syllable of the Ganges was to be found in the gangway of their ships, and that kinsmen, long separated, were being re-united. * English, in respect of the Nominative Plural, comes nearer to the Mother Speech than German does. 6 The Sources of Standard English. Nu ; as from the root su^ bear, we get the Sanscrit Bunus and the English sunu^ son. Der ; as from the root pa, feed, we get the Sanscrit pi' tar and the 'English fee- der, father. U ; as the Sanscrit madhu (honey) is the EngHsh meodu (mead). Hence our scddu (shadow), seonu (sinew). Our word silvern must once have been pronounced as silfre-na, having the suffix na in common with the Sanscrit pJiali-na. We may wonder why vixen is the feminine of fox, carline of carle. Turning to our Sanscrit and Latin cousins, we find that their words for queen are rdj-ni and reg-ina, coming from the root rdj. Still, in these last, the n is possessive ; the vowel at the end is the mark of the feminine. What is the meaning of ward in such a word as heaven-ward ? I answer, to turn is vrit in Sanscrit, vertere in Latin. There is no ending that seems to us more thoroughly Teutonic than the lilce in such words as worhmanlike.. But this is seen under a slightly differing shape in the Sanscrit ta-drJcsa, in the Greek te-lik-os, and the Latin ta-lis. These words answer to our old ]>ylic, which survives as thicJc or thuch in the mouths of Somersetshire peasants. So in Old English we find swy-lic, corrupted by us first into swylc, and then into such. Our privative un is seen in Sanscrit, as an-anta-s, un-end'ing. The Sanscrit has, Jed, hat appears in Latin as quis, qucB, quid, and in English as hwd, hwd, hwcet (who, what). English in its Earliest Shape. 7 The Numerals, up to a hundred, are much the same in Sanscrit, Greek, Latin, and English. In the Comparison of our Adjectives, we have much in common with Sanscrit. There was a Comparative suffix yari5, a Superlative Jaiis- fa. Sanscrit, English. Theme Mah {great) Mic-el, miich Compar. mah-i-jas ma-r-a, more Superl. mah-istha m^-st, most So sivddu (sweet) becomes swddiydnSj swddisthas, (sweeter, sweetest). The old Comparatives were formed in ra, tara, Su- perlatives in ma, tama. We have, as relics of the Comparative, other, whether, after ; also, over, under. Of the old Superlatives we have but one left : Positive, Comparative. Superlative. foreweard fyrra for-ma But this forma we have degraded into a Comparative, and now call it former. It is, in truth, akin to the Sanscrit '^ra-tha-ma and the Latin jpri-mus. Long before the Norman Conquest, we corrupted our old Aryan Superlatives in ma into mest, thinking that they must have some connection with mcBst, most. Thus we find both utema and utmest, utmost. Our word aftermost, if written at full length, would be af-ta-ra-ma-jaus-ta, a heaping up of signs to express Comparison. In our Pronouns, we had a Dual as well as a Singular and Plural ; it lasted down to the reign of Edward I. In our Adverbs, we find traces of the Sanscrit s, 8 The Sources of Standard English. with whicli tlie old Genitive was formed. Hence comes such a form as ' he must needs go/ which carries us back, far beyond the age of written English, to the Sanscrit adverb formed from the Genitive. Even in the earliest English, the Genitive of ned was nede^ and nothing more. In later times we say, ' of a truth, of course,' &c., which are imitations of the old Adverbial Genitive, We have not many inflections left in the English Verb. The old form in 7»^, once common to English, Sanscrit, and other dialects, has long dropped ; our word am (in Sanscrit asmi) is now its only representative. It is thought that the old Present ran as shown in the following specimen : Root nam, take ; a word retained by us till a.d. 1500.^ 1. nama-mi 2. nama-si 3. nama-ti 4. nama-inasi 5. nama-tasi 6. nama-nti 1st Per, ma, me. 2nd Per. ta, thou. 3rc/ Per. ta, thts^ he. 1st Per. ma + ta, /+ thou. 2nd Per, ta + ta, thou + thou. Srd Per, an + ta, he + he. The Perfect of this verb must have been na-nam-ma, in its second syllable lengthening the first vowel of the Present ; in other words, forming what is called in English a Strong verb. 8id-dmi in Sanscrit has sa- sdd-a for its Perfect, words of which we have clipped forms in I sit and I sat. I hight (once hcehdt), from ha- tan, and I did (once dide), are the only English Perfects that have kept any trace of their reduplication, and the * Hence comes * to numb.' English in its Emdiest Shape. 9 former is our one relic of the Passive voice. The Imperative in Sanscrit was, in the Singular, nama^ in the Plural, namata^ answering to the Old English nim and nimath. The Infinitive was nam-anaj-a (the Greek oiem-enai), which we had pared down into nim-an more than a thousand years ago. The Active Par- ticiple was nama-nt, which runs through most of the daughters of the Aryan Tongue, and which kept its ground in the Scotch Lowlands until of late years, as * ridand ' instead of our corrupt word ' ridiny.^ The San- scrit and English alike have both Strong and Weak Passive Participles ; the former ending in na^ the latter in ta, as stir-na'S, strew-n} Sanscrit, yuh-tas Greek, zeuk-tos Latin, junc-tus English, yoJc-ed (in Lowland Scotch, yoh-it). Those who choose to write I ivas stopt instead of stopped, may justify their spelling by a reference to the first three forms given above. But this form, though admissible in the Passive Participle, is clearly wrong in the Active Perfect, I stopped, as we shall see further on.^ In the Aryan Speech there were a few Verbs which had lost their Presents, and which used their old Per- fects as Presents, forming for themselves new weak ' Few Sanscrit verbs have this form, so common in English. ^ Archdeacon Hare always s'pelt preached ^s preacht. Still, it is the English tk, not t, that answers to the Sanscrit t. I o The Sources of Standard English. Perfects. I give a specimen of one of these old Perfects, found both in Sanscrit and English. Sanscrit Old English. New English. ved-a wat I wot vet-tha was-t Thou wottest ved-a wat He wots vid-ma wit-o-n We wot vid-a wit-o-n Ye wot vid-u8 wit-o-n They wot It is easy to see that, thousands of years before Christ's birth, our forefathers must have used a Present tense, like wit or vid. Our verbs may^ can, shall, will, rmist, dare (most of which we use, with their new Perfects, as auxiliary verbs), have been formed like wot, and are Irregulars. Our verb to he is most irregular, since it comes from three roots, as, hhu, and vas. One of the points, in which English goes nearer than Sanscrit to the Mother Speech, is the first letter of the Third Person Plural of this verb. We still say are, the old ar-anti or as-anti ; in Sanscrit this word appears only as s-anti. The Germans have no form of our am, the Sanscrit asmi. The old word, which in Sanscrit is da-dhd-mi, with its Perfect, da-dhau, was brought to the Northumbrian shores by our Pagan forefathers in the shape of ge-do-m, di'de. Hence our irregular do, did, the latter of which plays a great part in building Weak Teutonic verbs. Our verb ga, which is now go, is found in Sanscrit as gi-gd-mi, with its Perfect derived from another verb ; we now say went, instead of the old eode, which Spenser English in its Earliest Shape, 1 1 used ; this came from eo. The Lowland Scotch have a corrupt Perfect, gaed^ which has been long in use. Some of the compounds of our English verbs carry us far back. Thus, to explain the meaning of the first syllable in such words as forlorn, fordone, we must look to the Sanscrit jpard. The Aryan settlement on the banks of the Oxus was in the end broken up. First, the Celt marched towards the setting sun, to hold the Western lands of Europe, and to root out the old Turanian owners of the ground ; of these last, the Basques and Lapps alone remain in being. Hundreds of years later the English, with other tribes (they had not yet learnt to count up to a thousand), followed in the Celt's wake, leaving behind them those of their kinsmen who were after- wards to conquer India and Persia, to compile the Vedas, and to leave their handwriting on the rock of Behistun.^ Some streams flowed to the West of the great water- shed, others to the East. Many tokens show that the English must have long lived in common with the forefathers of Homer and Naevius. The ending of the Greek word ;paid-ion is the counterpart of that of the English maid- en ; ]jaid-ish-os of cild'isc, childish.^ Latin is still nearer akin to us, and sometimes hardly a letter is changed ; as when we com- pare alias and else. Dom-unculus appears in Old English as hus-incle. The Latin fer and the Old English hcere, in truth the same word, are attached to substantives, * The old Persian word ydre is the English 7/ear. 2 Sophocles' high-sounding -rrooXodafxpeTif would be our to foal- tame, if we chose to compound a word closely akin to Greek. 1 2 The Sources of Standard English. which are thus changed into adjectives. Yig-il and wac-ol (wakeful) are but different forms of one word. The Latin calvus, gilvus, and malva are our callotu, yel- low, and mallow : and the likeness was still more striking before we corrupted the old ending u into ow. Aiei and cevum are the Gothic div, the English aye and ever. Latin and English alike slipped the letter n into the middle of a verb before g, as frango or frag^ and gang or gag. The Latin Future tense cannot be ex- plained by Latin words ; but, on turning to English, we at once see that doma-ho is nothing but our tame-he ; that is, I he to tame, or I shall tame. So likewise with ara-ho, or I ear he.^ EngUsh sometimes shows itself more primitive than Latin ; thus, our knot has never lost its first letter, while gnodus was shortened into nodus thousands of years ago. But all the Teutonic tribes have traces left of their nearness of kin to the Slavonians and Lithuanians, who seem to have been the last of the Aryan stock from whom we Teutons separated. We have seen that, when living in Asia, we were unable to count up to a thousand. The Sanscrit for this numeral is sakasra, the Latin mille. The Slavonians made it tusantja, the Lithuanians tuhstanti, and with this the whole Teutonic kindred closely agrees. Further, it seems strange at first sight that we have not framed those two of our numerals that follow ten in some such shape as dn-tyne and twd-tyne, since we go on to preo-tyne, thirteen. The ^ The verb ear is happily preserved in Shakespeare, and in the English Bible. It is one of the first words that ought to be revived by our best writers, who should remember their Ar-yan blood. English in its Earliest Shape, 13 explanation is, that the Lithuanian liha answers to the Teutonic tihan^ ten', the ha at the end of the former word changes to fa ; just as the Sanscrit Jcatvar changes to the Gothic fidv or (our four), and the Latin each to our fall. If lifan then take the place of the common Teutonic tiJian, dn-lifan and twd-lifan (eleven and twelve) are easily framed. These Eastern kinsmen of ours had also, like ourselves and unlike the rest of the Aryan stock, both a Definite and an Indefinite form of the Adjective. But the time came when our fathers left off hunting the auroch in the forests to the East of the Vistula, bade farewell to their Lithuanian cousins (one of the most interesting of all the branches of the Aryan tree), and marched Westward, as the Celts had done long before. Up to this time, we may fairly guess, we had kept our verbs in mi. It cannot be known when the great Teutonic race was split up into High Germans, Low Germans, and Scandinavians. Hard is it to explain why each of them stuck to peculiar old forms ; why the High Germans should have kept the Present Plural of their Verb (a point in which Old English fails woefully), almost as it is in Sanscrit and Latin ; why the Low Germans (this term includes the Goths and English) should in general have clung closer to the old inflec- tions than their brethren did, and have refused to corrupt the letter t into s ;^ why the Scandinavians should have retained to this day a Passive Voice. I can here do ^ Compare the Sanscrit sweda, English sweat, High Grerman schweiss. English is at once seen to be far more primitive than German. 14 The Sources of Standard English. no less than give a substantive and a verb, to show how our brethren (I may now at last drop the word cousins) formed their inflections. The Substantive 1 Wolf. Old English. Gothic. Old High German. Old Norse. SINGULAB. Nom, wulf vulfs wulf ulfr Gm. wulfes vulfis wulfes ulfs Bat. wulfe vulfa wulfa ulfi Ace. wulf vulf PLURAL. wulf ulf Nom, wulfas vulfos wulfa ulfar Gen. wulfa vulfe wulfo ulfa Dat wulfum vulfam wulfum ulfum Ace. wulfas vulfans wulfa ulfa Present Tense of the Verb niman, to take ; whence comes our numb. Id English. Gothic. Old High German. Old Norse. Ic nime nima nimu nem ])u nimest nimis nimis nemr he nimet5 nimij) nimit nemr we nima^ nimam nemames nemum ge nimaS nimif nemat nemi"5 hi nima^ nimand nemant nema All these Teutonic tribes must have easily understood each other, about the time of Christ's birth; since, hundreds of years after that event, they were using the above-cited inflections. They had by this time wan- dered far from the old Aryan framework of speech. Thus, to take one instance — the Dative Plural in um ; the Sanscrit Nominative sunus formed its Dative Plural English in its Earliest Shape, 1 5 in sunu-hhjas (compare the Latin ped-ibus),^ our English word hy entering into the third syllable. Snnuhhjas was in time pared down in Teutonic mouths to sunuh, and this again to sunum. This last corruption of the dative kept its ground in our island until Becket's time. The tendency of old, when we dwelt on the Oxus, and long afterwards, was to pack different words into one ; our custom, ever since the days of Henry I., has been to untie the words so packed together ; thus sunuhhjas has been turned into hy sons} We have two of these old Datives still left, hvnl'V/m, whilom, and seld- um, seldom. We keep to this day many prefixes to verbs (a, he, for, fore, gain, mis, un, with), and many endings of substan- tives and adjectives, common to us and to our brethren on the mainland ; seen in such English words as leech- craft, man-hind, hing-dom, maiden-head, lued-lock, glee- man, piece-meal, ridd-ell, hind-red, hishop-rich, friend-ship, dar-ling, sing-er, spiii-ster, wam-ing, good-ness, stead-fast, mani-fold, East-em, staying (stony), aw-ful, god-less, win- some, gold-en, right-wis (righteous). Others, older still, I have given before. Many old Teutonic endings have unhappily dropped out of our speech, and have been replaced by meaner ware. The Teutons, after turning their backs on the rest of ' Pedibus is but the Latin form of the Sanscrit padhhyas. 2 I hope I have been plainer than Miss Cornelia Bliraber, who told her small pupil that Analysis is * the resolution of an object, whether of the senses or of the intellect, into its first elements — as opposed to Synthesis, you observe. Now you know what Analysis is, Dombey.' It is remarked that Dombey didn't seem to be absolutely blinded by the light thus let in upon his intellect. 1 6 The Sources of Standard English. their Aryan kin, compounded for themselves a new Perfect of the verb, known as the Weak form. The older Strong Perfect is formed by changing the vowel of the Present, as I sit., I sai^ common to English and Sanscrit. But the new Perfect of the Teutons is formed by adding di-de (in Sanscrit, da-dlidu) to the stem. Thus, sealfde, I salve, becomes in the Perfect, sealfo-de, the de being contracted from dide. When we say, I loved., it is like saying, I love did. This comes out much plainer in our Gothic sister.^ Another peculiarity of the Teutons was the use of the dark Runes, still found engraven on stone, both in our island and on the mainland : these were in later times proscribed by Christianity as the handmaids of witch- craft. The Celts were roughly driven out of their old abodes, on the banks of the Upper Danube and elsewhere, by the intruding Teutons. The former were far the more civilised of the two races : they have left in their word hall an abiding trace of their settlement in Bavaria, and of their management of salt works. The simple word leather is thought by good judges to have been borrowed from the Celts by their Eastern neighbours.^ Others suffered besides the Celts. A hundred years before Christ's birth, the Teutons forced their way into Italy, but were overthrown by her rugged champion Marius. Bather later, they matched themselves against ^ The Latins set Prepositions before dhd and dadhdu, and thus formed abdo, ahdidi ; condo, condidi ; jperdo, perdidi. This last is nothing but the English Ifor-do (ruin), If or -did. 2 Garnett's Essays, pp. 150, 1G7. English in its Earliest Shape. 17 Ceesar in Gaul, and felt the heavy hand of Drusus. The two races, the Latin and the Teutonic (neither of them dreamed that they were both sprung from a com- mon Mother), were now brought fairly face to face. Our forefathers, let us hope, bore their share in the great fight, when the German hero smote Varus and his legions ; we English should think less of Caractacus and Boadicea, more of Arminius and Velleda. Hitherto we have puzzled out our history from the words used by ourselves and our kin, without help from annalists; now at length the clouds roll away, and Tacitus shows us the Angli, sheltered by their forests and rivers, the men who worshipped Mother Earth, in her own sea-girt island, not far from the Elbe. Little did the great his- torian guess of the future that lay before the barba- rians, whom he held up to his worthless countrymen with so skilfal a pen. Some of these Teutonic tribes were to take the place of Rome and become the lords of her Empire, to bear her Eagle and boast her titles ; others of them, later in the world's history, were to rule more millions of subjects than Rome could ever claim, and were to found new empires on shores to her unknown. She had indeed done great things in law and litera- ture ; but her Senate might well have learned a lesson of public spirit from the assemblies held by these barba- rians, assemblies to which we can trace a likeness in the later councils held in Wessex, Friesland, Uri, Norway. Rome's most renowned poets were to be outdone by Teuton Makers, men who would soar aloft upon bolder wing into the Unseen and the Unknown, and who would C 1 8 The Sources of Standard English. paint the passions of mankind in more lifelike hues than any Latin writer ever essayed.^ But among the many good qualities of ourselves and our kinsmen, tender care for conquered foes has seldom been reckoned ; Western Celt and Eastern Slavonian know this full well. Hard times were at hand ; the old worn-out Empire of Rome was to receive fresh life-blood from the healthy Teutons. In the Fifth Century, our brethren overran Spain, Gaul, and Italy ; becoming lords of the soil, and overlaying with their own words the old Latin dialects spoken in those provinces. To this time belongs the Beowulf, which is to us English (may I not say, to all Teutons ?) what the Iliad was to the Greeks. The old Epic, written on the mainland, sets before us the doughty deeds of an Englishman, before his tribe had come to Britain. There is an unmistak- able Pagan ring about the poem ; and a Christian tran- scriber, hundreds of years afterwards, has sought to soften down this spirit, which runs through the recital of the feats of Ecgtheow's bairn. In the same age as the Beowulf were written the Battle of Finsborough and the Traveller's Song. In the latter, Attila, Hermanric, and the wealthy Ca3sar are all mentioned. Pity it is that we have not these lays in their oldest form, in the English spoken not long after the first great Teutonic writer had * Most Englishmen will agree with Garnett, who writes, ' We have a great regard for the Dutch, a still greater for the Germans, and an absolute enthusiasm for all the sons of Odin, whether Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, or Icelanders.' English in its Earliest Shape. 19 given the Scriptures to his Gothic countrymen in their own tongue.^ The island of Britain was now no longer to be left in the hands of degenerate Celts ; happier than Crete or Sicily, it was to become the cradle where a great people might be compounded of more than one blood. Bede, writing many years later, tells us how the Jutes settled themselves in Kent and Wight ; how the Saxons fastened upon Essex, Sussex, and Wessex ; how the Angles, coming from Anglen (the true Old England), founded the three mighty kingdoms of East Anglia, Mercia, and Northumbria, holding the whole of the coast between StirHng and Ipswich. It is with this last tribe that I am mainly concerned in this work. Fearful must have been the woes undergone by the Celts at the hands of the ruthless English heathen, men of blood and iron with a vengeance. So thoroughly was the work of extermination done, that but few Celtic words have been admitted to the right of English citizenship. The few that we have seem to show that the Celtic women were kept as slayes, while their husbands, the old owners of the land, were slaughtered in heaps. Gamett gives a list of nearly two hundred of these words, many of which belong to household manage- ment ; and others, such as spree, ham, whop, halderdash, &c., can scarcely be reckoned classical English.^ ^ I do not quote in my Appendix any specimen of English before 680, as we cannot be sure that we have any such English exactly as it was written. * Philological Essays, p. 161. Some Celtic words, like gallop c2 20 The Sources of Standard English. Old Britain was by degrees swept away, after much hard fighting ; and the history of New England at length begins. Christianity, overspreading the land in the Seventh Century, did much to lighten the woes of the down- trodden Celts : a wonderful difierence there was between the Christian conquest of Somerset and the Pagan conquest of Sussex. The new creed brought in its train scores of Latin words, such as candle^ altar, churchf &c., which have been employed by us ever since the Kentish King's baptism. At this point I halt, finding no better opportunity for setting forth the grammar employed by our forefathers, traces of which, mangled as it is by the wear and tear of centuries, may still be found. NOUNS. DIVISION I. CLASS L SINGULAR. Masc. Nom. Steorra Gen. Steorran Dat. Steorran Ace. Steorran Fern. Tunge Tungan Tungan Tunoran -^ PLURAL. . ' I Steorran Tungan Gen. Steorrena Tungena Dat Steorrum Tunofum Neut Edge Eagan Eagan Eage Eagan Eagena Easrum and travail, were brought back to England by our Norman con- querors. Bother, a favourite oath of the ladies in our time, comes to us from the Irish ; it means mente affligere. — G-arnett, p. 161. English 172 its Earliest Shape. 21 CLASS IL SINGULAR. Nom. Sawel Gm. Sawle ^f' j Sawle Ace. J PLURAL. Nom. Sawla Gen. Sawla, sawlena Bat. Sawlum Ace. Sawla CLASS III. SINGULAR. Nom. Duru Gen. Dure Bat. Dure ^cc. Dura PLURAL. No7n, Dura Gen. Dura (durena) Bat. Durum Ace. Dura BIVISION IL CLASS I. SINGULAR. Ace. J G^ew. Horses Bat. Horse PLURAL. Nom. 1 TT . • Hors Ace. J Gen. Horsa Bat. Horsum CLASS IL SINGULAR. (rew. Scipes Bat. Scipe PLURAL. Nom, \ cj . Ace. }S"P'^ Gen. Scipa Bat. Scipum BIVISION III. CLASS I. SINGULAR. . Dael Ace. J 6^e??. Daeles i)aj5. Dsele PLURAL. Gen. Daela Do^. Daelum 22 The Sources of Standard English. CLASS ir. • Sunu SINGULAR. Nom. Ace. Gen, Suna Dat. Suna •Suna PLURAL. Nom. "I ^ Ace. J ' Gen, Suna Dat. Sunum We have still a few Plurals left, formed by vowel- change from the Singular, These are feet, teeth, mice, lice, geese, men. Three substantives, deer, sheep, sivine, are the same in both numbers. Oxen is our one Plural in en that has come down from very early times. ADJECTIVES. DEFINITE DECLENSION. SINGULAR. Masc. Fern. Nent. Nom. Goda Gode Gode Gen. Godan Godan Godan Dat. Godan Godan Godan Ace. Godan Godan Gode PLURAL. Nom Ace. •| Godan Gen, Godena Dat, Godum INDEFINITE DECLENSION. SINGULAR. Masc. Fem, Neut, Nom. God God God Gen. Godes God re Godes Dat, Godum Godre Godum Ace. Godne Gode God English in its Earliest Shape. 23 PLURAL. Masc. and Fem, Netit. Nom. ' Ace, ; Gode G6d(u) Gen. Godra Godra Bat. Godum Godum DEMONSTRATIVES. SINGULAR. PLURAL. Mase. Fem. Neut Nom. Gen. se seo psdre faet faes Aec. }J'^ Bat. fam psere jjam Gen. J)ara Ace. pone fa feet Bat. ])ain Ahl. n n SINGULAR. fy PLURAL. Masc. Fem. JVew?;. Nom. Gen. fes Jnses feos fisse ]>is fises -f^-lfas Ace. i J Bat. jnsum f>isse fisum 6^e/2. fissa Ace. Jjisne fas ])is Bat. fisum Gen. Bat. Ace. PRONOUNS. SINGULAR. iVom. Ic ]m mm fin fe iVbm. Gen. Bat Aec. ;} DUAL. wit uncer unc incer Nom. Gen, Bat. 1 we ure ge . eower 24 The Sources of Standard English. SINGULAK. PLUKAL. Masc, Fern, Neut. Nom, he heo hit iVbm. 1 , . Ace, J Gen, his hire his Bat, him hire him Gen, hira Ace. hine hi hit Bat, him . Masc, and Fern, Neut. Nom, hwa hwset Gen, hwses hwaes Bat, hwam hwam Ace. hwone hwset Ahl, hwy hwy THE STRONG VERB. (Infinitive, healdan,) INDICATIVE. Present. Sing, Plur, healde healdaS hylst healdat5 hylt healda"S Perfect. Sing. Flur, heold heoldon heolde heoldon heold heoldon SUBJUNCTIVE. Present. Sing, healde Flur, healdon Perfect. heolde heoldon Gerund. To healdanne IMPERATIVE. Sing. Flur. heald healdaS Present Participle. healdende Past Participle. gehealden Eitglish in its Earliest Shape. 25 THE V/EAK VERB. (Infinitive, hijlan.) INDICATIVE. Pkesent. Perpect. Siiig. Plur. Sing, Plur. lufige lufia^ lufode lufodon lufast lufiaS lufodest lufodon lufaS lufiaS lufode lufodon SUBJUNCTIVE. Present. Perfect. Sing, lufige lufode Plur. lufion lufodon IMPERATIVE. Sing, lufa Plur. lufia« Gerund. Present Participle. Past Particpile. To lufigenne | lufigende | gelufod There are two marked tendencies in English, shared by some of the other Teutonic dialects, which should be observed. The first is, a liking to cast out the letter n, if it comes before th^ s, or/. We have seen how the Sanscrit antara is heard in our mouths as other ; much in the same way tonth,finf, gons, became t6^,fif, gos, lengthen- ing the vowel before n. The second of our peculiarities is, a habit of putting d or t after n, I, r, or s, usually to round off the end of a 26 The Sources of Standard English. word, tbongh it sometimes is inserted in the middle of a word. Thus tlie French tijran becomes tyrant^ the Gaelic Donuil becomes Donald ; the old English hetweox is now hetwixt ; thou falles (akin to the Greek and Latin form) is corrupted into fallest ; but the true old form of this last still lingers in Scotland. Those who talk about a gowncl or of being drownded may plead that they are only carrying further a corruption that began long before the Norman Conquest, and that has since that event turned tliunor into thunder^ and dwine into divindle. Many in our day call a ivasjJ a waiJse, and axe leave instead of asking it. Both forms alike are good old English ; we also find side by side fisc and fix, heorht and hryJitj grces and gcers, irnan and rinnan, for jpiscis, clarus, gramen, and currere. When men say, * they don't care a curse' (the last word is commonly some- thing still stronger), they little think that they are employing the old English cerse, best known to us as cress, English, unlike German, has now a strong objection to the hard g, especially in the middle of a word ; the g is softened into y ; regen early became ren (rain). A table of the Old English Prepositions is a mournful sight. Too many of them have been dropped altogether ; and some have been replaced by cumbrous French com- pounds, such as on account of, according to, in addition to, because of, in spite of, on condition that, around, during, except. Our sailors have kept alive hmftan (abaft), as a Pre- position, though ceft (aft) is with them only an adverb. English 171 its Earliest Shape. 2^ Butan and hinnan (in Latin, extra et intra) still linger in the Scotch Lowlands ; as in the old Perth ballad of Cromwell's time : — When Oliver's men Cam but and ben. A7ie7it, which of old was on-efn, is preserved in the same district ; and this most useful word seems to be coming into use among our best writers once more. But gelang (the Latin joer) is now used only by the poor ; as in * it is all along of you.' We sometimes hear the old onforan as afore ^ and ongean sounded as again, not the corrupt against. To is still used in America in one of its old senses, where we degenerate English should use at ; we find in the Beowulf secean to Heorote, seek at Heorote. The old Northumbrian til is employed in the North, where we say to. I now give a few instances, where we still use Prepo- sitions in the true Old English sense, though very sparingly. To do one's duty hy a man ; to receive oi his hands; for all his prayers, i.e. in spite of-, to go a hunting, which of old was written, gdn on Immtunge ; eaten of worms {hy is very seldom used before the Con- quest in this sense of agency) ; we have Abraham to our father ; made after his likeness ; to get them under arms. Our best writers should never let these old phrases die out ; we have already lost enough and too much of the good old English. Sum man used to stand either for quidam or for aliquis ; we can now only use it in the latter sense. The Indefinite Article may be seen in Matt. xxi. 28, an 28 The Sources of Standard English, man hcefde twegen stmd ; but one of the most marked tendencies of the oldest English is to leave out this Article, especially in poems, such as Cadmon's lay or the Beowulf. Hence our many pithy phrases like, ^ Faint heart never won fair lady.^ In this we go much further than the Gothic or High German. Man is used indefinitely, where the Greeks would say tis ; as gif mon wif of sled (March's Grammar, p. 181). The numeral an was the parent of our one (if one slay). Some have wrongly derived the latter from the French on. Readers of David Copperfield will remember the col- legian, who uses the phrase ' a nian* for I; as, ' a man is always hungiy here,' ' a man might make himself very comfortable.' Some think that yea is a more archaic form than yes ; but gese and ged are alike found in our oldest writers. There was also once a nese. As to negation, when a man says, ' I didn't never say nothing to nobody,' this is a good old idiom, that lasted down to the Reformation. Much harm has been done to our speech by attempts to ape French and Latin idioms. We are now told that an English sentence ought never to end with a Preposition. This rule is not sanc- tioned by our forefathers' usage. When Cadmon was on his death-bed, and wished for the Eucharist, he said, ' BeraS me hwaefere husel to.' ^ In the Verb we keep many old idioms with but little change, such as, ic eom secende, I am seeking ; he gce^ rdedan, he is going to read ; ic to drincenne hcehhe, I have * Thorpe's Analeda Anglo- Saxonica, p. 58. English in its Earliest Shape. 29 to drink ; wceron to farenne, they were to go ; ic hcehhe mete to etanne, I have to eat ; synd fo')'^farene, they are gone. The Future was expressed by shall and will, and also by the Present ; we still say, * another word, and I ^0.' Ic mot, ])u mosf expressed permission, and was very seldom used in our sense of must, expressing need. ^ Our fathers translated the Latin deheo by sceal ; we have lost this old sense of that verb, except in a phrase like ' he should do it.' In the Imperative mood, utan was used where we say let, as utan to-brecan, let us break ; this old form lingered on to 1250. We see an attempt to supply the want of a Middle voice in such phrases as lie he]wlite Jdne, * he bethought him,* and the later, * I fear me.' 1 give a few forms, which we should not expect, found in English writers before the Conquest. These I have taken from March's Anglo-Saxon Grammar, published in 1870. The Article, as in Homer, sometimes stands for the Pronoun ; seo for heo ; as, seo lufath hine.^ Hence comes our she. The Preposition of is used to express material instead of the old Genitive. Thus we find not only scennum sctran goldes, but also redf of Iwerum.^ Compare Virgil's templum de marmore po7iam. This of and this de have been the parents of a wide- spread ofispring in modern * March (p. 195) gives a few instances of the latter sense. 2 Ibid. pp. 140, 177. He quotes from Mark xii. 3, swungon thone and forleton hine. •^ Ibid. p. 154. So an of]>esum, one of these. This Partitive use of the word of is very old. 30 The Sources of Standard English. languages ; but our Old English Genitive is happily still alive, though it is used more in speaking than in writing. The Preposition to is used sometimes (not often) with an Infinitive, as well as with a Gerund. Thus, in Beowulf, 316, moe? is r\iQ to feran^ it is time for me to fare.^ Cut to pieces seems modern, but we find in the Old English Bible ceorfon to stlccon} With has two meanings, seemingly contradictory, in Latin, cum and contra. We say, to walk ivitli a friend^ and to fight with a foe. It was used in both senses long before the Conquest. In Old English, hivcet sometimes stood for the Latin aliqidcl. Hence comes our, ' I tell you what.' ^ In later times it would be easy to compound somewhat. Indefinite agency was expressed of old much as. now ; ])07ine hig wyria^ eoiv, when they revile you."* The strange Dative reflexive has always been used ; as, Pilatus hym sylf dwrdt.^ The Irish rightly say meself, not myself; this is the old Dative me sylf, brought to Erin by Strongbow's men-at-arms. We have seen how useful the verb do has always been in framing our English speech. A phrase like he doth withstand (not he loithstands) seems modern ; but it is found in King Alfred's writings. Do not thou turn was expressed of old as ne do ]?^2, ]^CBt pH oncyrre.^ Christ said to the woman taken in adultery, ' 1)6 gd, and ne synga ^u nmfre md^ (John viii. II). Our curious idiom of Participles, he ceased command- » March, p. 168. ^ j^id. ^ Morris, Eiiglish Accidence, p. 137. * March, p. 174. * Ibid. p. 175. « Ibid. p. 186. English in its Earliest Shape. 31 m^, they dreaded asking, is found in Old English, as geendude heheodende, 07idredon dcsigende. He hcefde hine geivorlitne, * he had him wrought,' common enough with us, is not often found in Greek or Latin. ^ Bu is used just as we employ hotli in phrases like hoth he and Ir We have lost certain other old forms for ex- pressing this. The Latin non solum appears in Old English as 7id ]>cet an. We now omit the word in the middle. Our same was never used except adverbially ; thus, sam hit sy sumer sam winter, the same in summer and winter.^ Beasts have natures swd same swd men.'* The Latin idem was expressed, not by same, but by ylc ; this lingers in Scotland, as in the phrase, Bedgauntlet of that Ilk. Same (idem) began to come into vogue only about the year 1200. We still employ though at the end of a sentence, in the sense of the Latin tamen, and now in the sense of quoniam ; just as our forefathers did. We have had a sad loss in for ])am, the Latin quia, which we began to replace in 1300 by an ugly French compound. I give from King Alfred a sentence which contains two peculiar English idioms : ' El^pendes hyd loyle drin- can wcetan gelice and spinge dM, Elephant's hide will soak water like a sponge doth.^^ The well-known Latin phrase, quo plus ... eo plus, becomes in English hi6 Ipy heardra, ]>e sun^or hedtab, it becomes the harder, the stronger they beat.^ This ^ March, p. 201. 2 i^id. p. 202. 8 Ibid. p. 203. * Ibid. p. 204. " Ibid. p. 208. « Ibid. 32 TJie Sources of Standard English. is, in our day, the one sole case in which tlie is not a Definite Article. The expletive \odr was used to begin a sentence, as, \oer was an cyning. This resembles nothing in German or Latin. The English of old employed Imvmt (quid) as an In- terjection. This is the first word of the Beowulf, where it answers to our Ho. The old usage may be traced down to our times, though it was thought to be some- what overdone by King George the Third. ^ Our speech is now but a wreck of what it once was ; for instance, of the many verbs which bore the prefix cet, only one is left, retaining that preposition sadly mangled ; this is oetwitan, our twit. Other verbs have become oddly corrupted, and the corruptions have, as it were, run into each other. Thus we have but one verb, own, to represent both the old aJinian (possidere), and the old unnan (concedere). Thus also we have but settle, to stand for both setlan and salitlian.^ An old verb had often two forms slightly differing ; we still translate /i^^ere by both j^t/ and /Zee, following the ' In the EoUiad, the King meets Major Scott, and thus expresses himself: — Methinks I hear, In accents clear, Great Brunswick's voice still vibrate on my ear. • What, what, what ! Scott, Scott, Scott ! Hot, hot, hot ! What, what, what ! ' 2 As in the phrase, ' to settle a quarrel.' So, in French, louer has to represent both laudare and locare. English in its Earliest Shape, 33 oldest usage. It is a pity tliat we have lost our accents ; we can now no longer distinguish between metdn (me- tiri) and metan (occurrere). We have often doubled our vowels to mark a difference ; thus god (bonus) has become good^ that it may not be confounded with our word for Deus : it is the same with toll and tool, cock and cooh, and many others.^ We have sometimes thought that we could improve on our forefathers' speech by yoking two of their synonyms together ; when we say sledgehammer, it is like a Latinist writing malleus twice over. Now and then a good old word is sadly degraded-, thus dyderian (decipere) now exists only in the slang verb diddle.^ Further on I shall give examples of words, that are seven hundred years old, set down as mere slang in our day. There was one favourite art of our forefathers, which we have not yet altogether lost, prone though we have * We have not often kept the sound of the old vowel at the end of the word so faithfully as in smithy, the. former smi^e. 2 The Dorsetshire peasantry, as Mr. Barnes tells us, pronounce in the Old English way words that in polite "speech have biit one sound ; thus they say hedle for sanus, and hail for grando. We have had a sad loss in dropping the twofold sound, and odd mistakes some- times arise. I remember at school, nearly thirty years ago, that our class was given Scott's lines : 'Hail to thy cold and clouded beam,' &c., which we were to turn into Latin longs and shorts. I still recall the disgust of the master {vir plagosus) on reading one blockhead's attempt: it began with grando/ Thanks to our slovenly fore- fathers, English is now the punster's Paradise; Hood knew this well. 34 ^he Sources of Standard English. been to copy Frencli rimes. This art was Alliterative poetry, as seen in Cadmon's lines on the Deluge ; — For mid Fearme Fsere ne moston Wseg liSendum Waetres brogan Haeste Hrinon ac hie Halig god Ferede and nerede. Fiftena stod Deop ofer Dunum S9e Drence flod.^ Conybeare traces this love of Alliteration in English poets down to 1550, and Earle traces it on farther to 1830. Byron's noble line on the Brunswicker's death at Quatre Bras is well known. I can bear witness, from my own schoolboy recollections, to the popularity of this old metre in 1849.^ This it is that has kept alive phrases like ' weal and woe,' ' born and bred,' * sooth to say,' 'fair or foul,' 'kith and kin,' 'bed and board,' * make or mar,' ' might and main.'^ * Conybeare' s Anglo-Saxon Poetry, xxxiii. 2 We were fond of an old ballad, beginning with — * All round the rugged rocks The ragged rascal ran.' ' It has sometimes substituted a Eomance for a Teutonic word ; thus we now say ' safe and sound,' not * hale and sound,' our fore- fathers' phrase. 35 CHAPTER II. THE OLD ENGLISH, 680-1120. THE MIDDLE ENGLISH, 1120-1300. The examples given in the last few pages have been mostly taken from Wessex writers ; but Cadmon's name reminds us that in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries there was no Teutonic land that could match Northum- bria in learning or civilisation. Thither had come earnest missionaries from Italy and Ireland. There Christianity had taken fast root, and had bred such men as Cadmon and Bede. Charlemagne himself, the fore- most of all Teutons, was glad to welcome to his Court Alcuin, who came from beyond the Humber. It was the dialect of Northumbria, settled as that land was by Angles, that first sprang into notice, and was so much in favour, that even the West Saxons on the Thames called their speech English, This English of the North, or Northumbrian, has bequeathed to us but few monuments, owing to the havock wrought by the Danes in the Northern libraries. We have, however, enough of it left to see that in some points it kept far closer to the old Aryan Mother Speech than the classical writers of Wessex did ; thus, it boasts d2 36 The Sources of Standard English, the remnants of four verbs in mi — am, heom (sum)^ gesGom (video), gedom (facio). In other points it fore- shadows the language to be spoken in Queen Victoria's day more clearly than these same writers of Wessex did. In tracing the history of Standard English, it is mainly on Northumbria that we must keep our eyes. About the year 680, a stone cross was set up at Ruth- well, not far from Dumfries ; and the Runes graven upon it enshrine an English poem written by no mean hand. Cadmon, the great Northumbrian bard, had compiled a noble lay on the Crucifixion, a lay which may still be read at full length in its Southern English dress of the Tenth Century. Forty lines or so of the earlier poem of the Seventh Century were engraven upon the Ruthwell Cross ; these I give in my Appendix, as the lay is the earliest English that we possess just as it was written.^ It has old forms of English nowhere else found ; and it clearly appeals to the feelings of a war- like race, hardly yet out of the bonds of heathenism ; the old tales of Balder are applied to Christ, who is here called ' the young hero.' Mr. Kemble in 1840 translated the Ruthwell Runes, which up to that time had never unlocked their secret ; not long afterwards, he had the delight of seeing them in their later Southern dress, on their being published from an old English skinbook at Yercelli. He found ^ ' Cadmon moe fausej^o ' (not Ccsdmon) is the inscription lately discovered on the cross ; and this confirms a guess made long ago by Mr. Haigh. Mr. Stephens assigns the noble fragment of the Judith to the great bard of the North. The Old and Middle English, 37 that lie had only three letters of his translation to cor- rect. Seldom has there been such a hit and such a confirmation of a hit.^ These Ruthwell Runes are in close agreement with the dying words of Bede, the few English Hues em- bedded in the Latin text.^ The letter U is here found, which did not appear in Southern English until many centuries later. The word ungcet^ the Dual Accusative, betokens the hoariest antiquity. The Infinitive ends, not in the Southern an, but in a, like the old Norse and Friesic. The speech of the men who conquered Northumbria in ^the Sixth Century must have been influenced by their Danish neighbours of the mainland. I give a few words from the Ruthwell Cross, compared with King Alfred's Southern English : — Southern, Mtdhwell, Heofenas . Heafunaes Stigan Stiga ^ Gewundod Giwundaed Eal AP On gealgan On galgu The next specimen, given by me in my Appendix, is about sixty years later than the Ruthwell Runes. It is another fragment of Cadmon's, which was modernised two hundred years after his time by King Alfred. The * Archcsologia for 1843, page 31. ^ See the Eunes in my Appendix, Chapter VII. ^ We follow the North, which is more primitive than the South, in pronouncing this word. But in Dorset they still sound the e before a, as in yacre, yale, yarm^ and others. See Mr. Barnes' poems. 38 The Sources of Standard English. text from wliicli I quote is referred by Wanlej, a good judge, to the year a.d. 737. I set down liere those words which are nearer to the language spoken in our days than Alfred's version is. Southern. Northern. Modern, Feeder Fadur Father Swa Sue So Gesc^op Scop Shaped Bearnum Barnum Bairns pa Tha The Weard Uard Ward The word ' til' (to), unknown in Southern speech, is found in this old manuscript, and is translated ' to ' by Alfred. The modern Th here first appears for the good old character that our unwisdom has allowed to drop. The whole of the manuscript is in Northern Enghsh, such as it was spoken before the Danes overran the North.i The next earliest Northumbrian monument that we have is a Psalter, which Garnett dates about the year A.D. 800. It is thought to have been translated in one of the shires just south of the Humber.^ This Psalter, like the former specimen, employs a instead of the Southern ea, even as we ourselves do. There are many other respects in which the Psalter differs from Southern English of the Ninth Century; the chief is that the first Person Singular of the verb ends, like the Latin, in o or ^^ : as sitto, I sit ; ondredu^ I * Bosworth, Origin of the Germanic Languages, pp. 56-60. 2 Rushworth Gospels, iv. (Surtees Society), FrolegoTnena^ cix.. The Old and Middle English. 39 fear. The second Person ends in s, not si ; as neosas, thon visitest. It is, therefore, less corrupt than King Alfred's form. The Lowland Scotch to this day say, thou hnoius. The prefix ge in Past Participles is often dropped, as hledsad, blessed, instead of gehletsod. Old Anglian was nearer than any other Low German speech to Danish, and ge is nob found in the Danish Participle. We also remark the Norse eartm for sumus, estis, sunt; this in Southern speech is nearly always syndon} I give a few words from this Psalter, to show that our modern English in many things follows the Northern rather than the Southern form.^ hern English. Northern Eizglish. Mode7'n. Ben Boen Boon (prayer) B^c Boec Books Celan Coelan Cool Deman Doeman Doom' Hr^Se RoeS* Rough Leoht Leht Light Fram From From Wasron Werun Were Nawiht Nowihte Nought' Feldas Feldes Fields Twa Tu Two * We find, however, aran in Kentish charters (Kemble, i. 234), and the form ic biddo in the oldest charters of Kent and Worcester- shire. 2 See an extract from the Fsalter in my Appendix. ^ We still have both the Northern and Southern forms of this word. * Here the old h at the beginning of a word is cast out ; a process often repeated. 40 The Sources of Standard English. Southern Englislu Northern English, Modern. Dest Gedoest Doest Eage Ege Eye Tyn Ten Ten GeoguS luguSe Youth The Northern men of the year 800 said, * doema strong and longmod,' where the Southerners would have put ' dema Strang and langmod.* We find no used just as the Scotch now use it, ' gif ic no fore-settu,' where na would have been used in the South. One of the most remarkable things in this Psalter is the first appearance of our tliem, used as a Pronoun, not as an Article. See Psalm cxlv. 6: ^AllSain^tem sind.' This is found but seldom; the settlers soon to come from Denmark would recognise it as a form akin to their own.^ Much about the time that the IsTorthumbrian Psalter was compiled, the Norsemen began to harry unhappy England. The feuds of near kinsmen are always the bitterest ; and this we found true in the Ninth Century. Soon the object of the heathen became settlement in the land, and not plunder. The whole of England would have fallen under their yoke, had not a hero come forth from the Somersetshire marshes. In A.D. 876, we read in the Saxon Chronicle that the Danish king, 'NorShymbra land gedselde, and * I will point out an odd mistake of the Translator's. He found the Low Latin substantive singularis (whence the French sanglier and the Italian cinghiale) in Psalm Ixxix. 14. This he took for an adjective, and translated syndrig, making great nonsense. The Old and Middle English. 41 liergende weron and heora tiligende wsDron.' ^ In the next year, the outlandish host ' gefor on Myrcena land, and hit gedaeldon sum.' In 880, *for se here on East- sengle and geset fat land and gedaelde/ Here we find many English shires, once thriving and civilised, par- celled out within four years among the Norsemen. The Angles were now under the yoke of those who four hundred years earlier had been their neighbours on the mainland. Essex seems to have been the only Saxon shire that Alfred had to yield to the foreigner. Now it was that the Orms, Grims, Spils, Osgods, and Thors, who have left such abiding traces of themselves in Eastern Mercia and Northumbria, settled among us. They gave their own names of Whitby and Derby to older English towns, and changed the name of Roman Eboracum from Eoforwic to lorvik or York. The endings &?/, thwaite, ness, drop, liaugh, and garth, are the sure tokens of the great Danish settlement in England ; fifteen hundred of such names are still to be found in our North Eastern shires. The six counties to the North of Mercia have among them 246 places that end in hy ; Lincolnshire, the great Norse stronghold, has 212 ; Leicestershire has 66 ; Northamptonshire 26 ; Norfolk and Notts have rather fewer. The Danes were even strong enough to force their preposition amell (inter) upon Northumberland, where ' At the head of the Yarrow is a mountain, called of old by the Celtic name Ben Yair. To this the Romans prefixed their Mont, and the Danes long afterwards added their word Law. The hill is now called Mountbenjerlaw ; in it kill comes three times over. — Garnett's Essays, p. 70. 42 The Sources of Standard English, it still lingers. Our verbs hask and 'busk are Middle verbs, compounded of the Icelandic baka and hua with the ending sik (self).^ York and Lincoln were the great seats of Norse influence, as we see by the numbers of I^Torse money- coiners who are known to have there plied their trade. English freedom was in the end the gainer by the fresh blood that now flowed in. When Doomsday book was compiled, no shire could vie with that of Lincoln in the thousands of its freeholders ; East Anglia was not far behind.^ Danish surnames like Anderson, Paterson, and, greater than all, Nelson, show the good blood that our Northern and Eastern shires can boast. Thor's day was in the end to replace Thunresday. An- other Norse God, he of the sea, bearing the name of Egir, still rushes up English rivers like the Trent and the With am, the water rising many feet : the eagre is a word well known in Lincolnshire. The Norse felagi is a com- pound from fee and lay^ a man who puts down his money, like the member of a club. This became in England /eZaje, /eZar(;e, /eZZow. So early as 1525 it had become a term of scorn ; but the fellows of our Colleges will always keep alive the more honourable meaning of the word. The next specimen in my Appendix is the book called the Rushworth Gospels, the English ver- sion of which Wanley dates at the year a.d. 900, or thereabouts; one of the translators was a priest at Harewood, in Yorkshire. I give a few words to show * Dr. Morris was the first to point this out. 2 Worsaae, The Danes and Northmen, pp. 71, 119, 170. The Old and Middle English, 43 how much nearer it is to our speech than the West Saxon is : — Southern, Northern. Modern. Se, seo The, thio The Ic, Heo Ih, Sio I, She peah Hi Hyra Eower Theh Da Dara Ewer Though They Their Your Feawa Feawe Few Dreora gewittnesse Eom Dreo gewitnesse Am Witness of three Am Eart Arth Art For Foerde * Fared Drincan Drinca, drince To drink Sealde Salde Sold Gescy Stanas Scoas Stanes Shoes Stones Eac Ek Eke Fynd ^Imessan Fiondas -^Imisse Fiends Alms Blawe Blau Blow Fet ByreS Slep Sceap To cumenne eart Foedef BereJ? Slepte Seep Cwome scalt Feedeth Beareth Slept Sheep Shalt come Ealle gearwe Cuppa All iara « Copp All yare (ready) Cup ^ Here we have a Strong Verb turned into a Weak form, a cor- ruption which has been going on ever since. Thus cr(?pe, used by Tyndale, after his time became crept. ^ We see the hard g already softened into ^, both here, and in the earlier Psalter. 44 1^^^ Sources of Standard English. Southern, Northern, Modern, pridda Dirda Third Dom Doom Doom Geoc loc Yoke 06 J?one seofo^an OS to faem siofund Unto the seventh In the last example we see the Norse n making its way into the Old English numeral. There are other remarkable changes. In Matthew ii. 4 we find heom employed for hig, jnst as we say in talking, ' I ashed 'em.' The Norse Active Participle is often nsed instead of the Old English, as gangande for gangende: and this lin- gered on in Scotland to a very late date. The Norse- men, in this instance, brought English speech nearer to Sanscrit than it was before. The Infinitive, as will be seen in the above table, has already been clipped. The Southern geworden became in Yorkshire avmr^ ; where in England the old prefix ge lingers in our days, it commonly takes the form of a. The cases of Sub- stantives and Adjectives, so carefully handled in the South, are now confused in the North ; the Dative Plural in um often vanishes altogether. The letter h is sometimes put in or dropped, the most hideous of all our corruptions ; Ic and ch are found instead of c. Sio (our she) for heo and ih for ic are most remarkable ; in the latter form we go nearer to the Sanscrit aham than to the Latin ego. Few of England's children have done her better service than Alfred's son and daughter, whose deeds are written in the Saxon Chronicle. King Edward's reign was one steady war against the Danish lords of The Old and Middle English, 45 Mercia and East Anglia ; tlie strife raged all along the line between London and Chester, the King's men throwing up works to guard the shires they were win- ning back foot by foot. Essex seems to have been mastered in 913, Staffordshire and Warwickshire within the next few years. In 915, the Danish rulers of Bed- ford and Northampton gave their allegiance to the great King of Wessex ; Derby and Leicester fell before his sister. The Norsemen struggled hard against Edward's iron bit ; but the whole of East Anglia and Cambridge yielded to him in 921. By the end of the following year, he was master of Stamford and Nottingham ; Lin- colnshire seems to have been the last of his conquests. In 924, all the English, Danes, and Celts in our island chose Edward, the champion of Christianity against heathenism, for their Father and Lord. England, as we see, was speedily becoming something more than a geographical name. Alfred had been King of the South ; Alfred's son had won the Midland ; Alfred's grandsons were now to bring the North under their yoke. The Danes drove the many quarrelsome English kingdoms into unity in sheer self- defence ; much as in our own time the Austrians helped Italy to become one nation. The Saxon Chronicle in 941 names the Eive Danish Burghs which overawed Mercia, and which have had so great an influence on the tongue now spuken by us. Burga fife And Snotingaham Ligoraceaster Swylce Stanford eac. And Lincolne And Deoraby. 46 The Sources of Standard English. Long had these been in Danisli thraldom ; they were now, as the old English ballad of the day says, loosed by Edward's son. Northumberland, under her Danish kings, was still holding out against the Southern Over- lord. At length, in 954, the last of these kings dropped out of history ; and Eadred, the son of Edward and the grandson of Alfred, became the one King of all Eng- land, swaying the land from the Frith of Forth to the English Channel.^ Wessex, it is easy to see, was to our island much what Piedmont long afterwards became to Italy, and Brandenburg to Germany. It is not wonderful then that in the Tenth Century the literature of Wessex was looked upon as the best of models, and took the place of the Northumbrian literature of Bede's time. Grood English prose-writers must have formed themselves upon King Alfred ; English * shapers ' or ' makers ' must have imitated the lofty lay, which tells how Alfred's grandsons smote Celt and Norseman alike on the great day of Brunanburgh. The Court of Winches- ter must in those days have been to England, what Paris has nearly always been to France : no such pat- tern of elegance could elsewhere have been found. For all that, were I to be given my choice as to what buried specimen of English writing should be brought to light, I should ask for a sample of the Rutland peasantry's common talk, about the year that Eadred was calling himself Kaiser of all Britain.^ Such a * Eadred was like King Victor Emmanuel, who has no under- kings below him ; Eadred's father was like Kaiser William. 2 Kemble's Charters^ ii. 304. Tlte Old and Middle English. 47 sample would be as precious as the bad Latin, the parent of the New Italian, which may be read on the walls of Pompeii. By Eadred's time, two or three generations of Norsemen and Angles must have been mingled together ; the uncouth dialect, woefully shorn of inflections, spoken in the markets of Leicester and Stamford, would be found to foreshadow the corruptions of the Peterborough Chronicle after 1120. The country, falling within a radius of twenty miles drawn from the centre of Rutland, would be acknow- ledged, I think, as the cradle of the New English that we now speak. To go further afield ; all the land enclosed within a line drawn round from the Humber through Doncaster, Derby, Ashby, Rugby, Northampton, Bed- ford, and Ipswich (this may be called the Mercian Dane- lagh) helped mightily in forming the new literature : within this boundary were the Five Burghs, and the other Danish strongholds already named. Just outside this boundary were Southern Yorkshire and Northern Essex, which have also had their influence upon our tongue. Alfred's grandsons, on their way home to Winchester from their Northern fields, would have been much astonished, could it have been foretold to them that the Five Burghs, so lately held by the heathen, were to have the shaping of England's future speech. This New English, hundreds of years later, was to be handled by men, who would throw into the far back- ground even such masterpieces of the Old English as the Beowulf and the Judith. Some writers, I see, upbraid the French conquerors of England for bereaving us of our old inflections ; it 48 The Sources of Standard English. would be more to the purpose to inveigli against the great Norse settlement two hundred years before Wil- liam's landing. What happened in Northumbria and Eastern Mercia will always take place when two kindred tribes are thrown together. An intermingling either of Irish with Welsh, or of French with Spaniards, or of Poles with Bohemians, would break up the old inflec- tions and grammar of each nation, if there were no acknowledged standard of national speech whereby the tide of corruptions might be stemmed. When such an intermingling takes place, the endings of the verb and the substantive are not always caught, and therefore speedily drop out of the mouths of the peasantry. In our own day this process may be seen going on in the United States. Thousands of Germans settle there, mingle with English-speakers, and thus corrupt their native Grerman. They keep their own words indeed, but they clip the heads and tails of these words, as the Dano-Anglians did many hundred years ago. About the year 970, another work was compiled in Northern English, the Lindisfarne Gospels.^ I give a specimen of words, taken from these, side by side with the corresponding West Saxon. A great many of the corruptions of the Old English, already found in the Psalter and Rushworth Gospels, are here repeated. Two or three of the forms, given in the second column, are not peculiar to tbe North. Sotithern English, Northern English, Modern English. Gemang Himong Among Na mara Noht mara Not more See a specimen of these in my Appendix, Chapter VII. The Old and Middle English. 49 Soiithei'n English. Northern English. Modern English. Cildru Cildes Children Steorra Sterra Star Burgwaru Burofuaras Burghers Breost Brest Breast Axode Ascade Asked Hi Da They Sunu Sona Son Synd Arun Are Eow luh You Endlufon ^llefno Eleven Leofath Hlifes Lives (vivit) Bohton Bochton Bought Begeondan Bihionda Beyond Betweonan Bituieu Between Claen-heortan Claene of hearte Glean of heart Eorthan sealt Eorthes salt Earth's salt Swa hwylc swa Sua hua Whoso Ge gehyrdon Horde ge Heard ye Gewefen Gewoefen Woven Ic secge eow Ic cueSo iub to Quoth I to you Hwitne gedon Huit geuirce To make white Ge biddaS Gie bidde Ye bid Magon g(5 Maga gie May ye Eorf, ])£er rust is J EorS, huer rust is Earth, where rust ii Beforan Before Before Geat^ G«t Gate Treow Tre Tree Feeder willan Faderes willo Father's will Getimbrode Getimberde Timbered (built) Lis Liges Lies (jacet) * A Gloucestershire drill-sergeant will to this day tell his yeo- manry to * dra swurds, and come round like a gee-ut,' when they wheel. Our classic modern Enghsh comes from shires far to the East of Grloucester. E 50 The Sources of Standard English. mtJiern English. NoHhern English. Modern English. Swa liwseder Sua huider Whitherso Heofenan scyp Heofnes scipp Heaven's ship Ea]?elicre Eat5ur Easier Bohtor Dohter Daughter SlgepS Slepea Sleeps Wyrhta Wercmonn Workman Swurd* Siiord Sword G«S GaaS Goeth Brige Dryia Dry Wolde ofslean Walde ofslae Would slay Leogeras T.egeras Liars Hund Hundra^ Hundred Ma's twegra o^^e MuS tuoe oS(^e Sr ea Mouth of two or freora three Drittig Drittih Thirty On l^ysum In ^isum In these Heonon Hen a Hence Driwa Driga Thrice The ^N'orsemen, breathing fire and slaughter, have for ever branded, as we see, their mark upon England's tongue. Northern English had become very corrupt since the year 800 ; as I before said, the intermingling of two kindred tribes, like the Angles and Norsemen, must tend to shear away the endings of substantives and verbs. The third Persons, both Singular and Plural, of the Pre- sent tense now often end in s instead of th, as he onsceces : we follow the North in daily life, but we listen to the Southern form when we go to Church. The '5 of the Imperative also becomes s, as wyrcas instead of wijrca^ ; * See note on p. 49, The Old and Middle EngiislL 5 I the Scotch still say, gies me, instead of give me. New idioms crop up, which would have astonished Alfred or -^Ifric : we find full of fisciim for jjle^iiis piscmm. The Old English Plural of nouns in an is now changed, and liearta replaces Jieartan ; sad havock is made in all the other cases. The Genitive Singular and Nominative Plural in es swallow up the other forms. Thus we came back to the old Aryan pattern, in all but a few plurals like oxen} Such new-fangled Genitives Singular as sterres, hrijdgumes, lieartes, tunges, fadores, and such Nominative Plurals as stearras, hurgas, and culfras, are now found. There is a tendency to confound Definite with Indefinite Adjectives. The Dative Plural in mn is some- times dropped. In short, we see the foreshadowing of the New English forms. The South, where the Norsemen could never gain a foothold, held fast to the old speech ; and many forms of King Alfred's time, now rather cor- rupted, linger on to this day in Dorset and Somerset ; though these shires are not so rich in old ivords as Lothian is. The North, overrun by the Danes, was losing its inflections not long after King Alfred's death. Even in the South, Norse words were taking root, some are found in Canute's day ; and William I., addressing his Londoners in their own tongue, says that he will not allow ' ))get 83nig man eow aenig icrang beode.' This ivrang (malum) comes from the Scandinavian rangr (obliquus); it drove out the Old English woh. I shall consider elsewhere the eflPect of the Norman ' There is a wrong notion abroad that the German Plural in ens is more venerable than the English Plural in es. e2 52 The Sources of Stajidard Eiiglish. Conquest upon England's speech. I give in my Ap- pendix a specimen of tlie East Anglian dialect, much akin to the Northumbrian, written not long after the battle of Hastings.^ In the Legend of St. Edmund, the holy man of SuflPolk, we see the forms fe, ^e, and tlie^ all replacing the old se ; the cases of the substantive and the endings of the verb are clipped ; the prefix ge is seldom found, and iset stands for the old Participle geset. As to the Infinitive, the old dcelfan becomes dodlfe ; the Dative lieom replaces the old Accusative li% as liecmi wat gelnva, each knows them. The adjective does not agree in case with the substantive ; as mid cepele ^eawum. An lieora is turned into an man of Mm ; a corruption that soon spread over the South. The pre- position is uncoupled from the verb in our bad modern fashion ; as slog on of ])cet hcefod, smote oflP the head.^ Rather later, this preposition of when used as an adverb, was to have a form of its own. The first letter is pared away from Maford; the Anglian alle replaces the Southern ealle. Eode is making way for wende (ivit) ; and we find such forms as child, nefre, healed, fologede, instead of did, ncefre, hcelod, fyligde. Hal (sanus) gets the new meaning of integer at p. 88 : from it comes both our hale and our whole. But other parts of England besides Sufiblk were cor- rupting the old speech. In the years set down in the dif- ferent Chronicles, after the Norman Conquest, we see new ^ Mr. Thorpe, in his Analeeta Anglo- Saxonica, looks upon the Legend, which he prints, as an East Anglian work. 2 This uncoupling sometimes adds to our stores of expression; to tlirow over is different from to overthrow. The Old and Middle English. 5 3 forms ; as in the account of Stamford Bridge fight, in 1066, \ch com an o])er (here the an has no business), * then came another ; ' cefre fe o^er man, * every other man' (year 1087). Moreover, we begin to light on expressions such as siime of ]>am cnihtan (year 1083) ; toscyfton to his mannon (year 1085) ; yrfenuma of eallon (year 1091). Wifman (muHer) is cut down to wimman in 1087 ; the process of casting out a consonant (com- ing in the middle of a word) went on for two hun- dred years and more. The Latin amavisse had become amdsse centuries earlier. We see that wi6utan, which of old meant no more than extra, has gained the new sense of si7ie in 1087, as we now mostly use it. The great William, we hear, would have won Ireland wv6utan celcon wcepnon} Still, the monks did their best to write classic English, down to about the year 1120. England has been happy, beyond her Teutonic sisters, in the many and various stores of her oldest litera ture that have floated down the stream of Time. Poems scriptural and profane, epics, war- songs, riddles, trans- lations of the Bible, homilies, prayers, treatises on science and grammar, codes of law, wills, charters, chro- nicles set down year by year, tales, and dialogues — all these (would that we took more interest in them !) are our rich inheritance. In spite of the havock wrought ' This of old would have been hutan. Our hut still expresses nisi, prceter, qttin,sed, veriim ; in Scotland, I believe, it may still stand for extra and sine. Our fathers must have thought that too gi'eat a load was thrown upon one word. 54 The Sources of Standai^d English. at the Reformation, no land in Europe can show such monuments of national speech for the 400 years after A.D. 680 as England boasts. And nowhere else can we so clearly mark the national speech slowly swinging round from the Old to the N'ew. Take the opposite case of Italy. In 1]90 we find Falcandus holding in scorn the everyday speech of his countrymen, and compiling a work in the Old Italian (that is, Latin), such as would have been easily read by Caesar or Cicero. Falcandus trod in the path that had been followed by all good Italian writers for 1200 years ; but two or three years after his book had been written, we find his countryman, Ciullo d'Alcamo, all of a sudden putting forth the first known poem in the New Italian, a poem that would now be readily understood by an unlettered soldier like Garibaldi. In Italy, there is a sudden spring from the Old to the New, at least in written literature ; but in England the change is most slow. I have already traced the corrup- tion shown in the Northumbrian writings. In the Peterborough Chronicle of 1120, we see an evident effort to keep as near as may be to the old Winchester standard of English. Some of the inflections indeed are gone, but the writer puts eall for the all that came into his everyday speech, and looks back for his pattern to King Alfred's writings. In 1303, we find a poem, written by a man born within fifteen miles of Peterborough : the diction of this Midland bard differs hardly at all from what we speak under Queen Victoria, Nothing in philology can be more interesting than these 180 years, answering roughly to the lives of our first The Old and Middle English. 5 5 Angevin King, of his son, grandson, and great-grand- son. The plan I follow is this. I shall first give specimens of prose and poetry written within the Mercian Dane- lagh and East Anglia, where our classic New English was born. To each specimen I shall add a contrast, being some poem or treatise, written outside the aforesaid district, either in the South, the West, or the North. The samples from within the Danelagh, and from its Essex and Yorkshire border, will be seen boldly to foreshadow what is to come ; the samples from shires lying to the South and West of the Danelagh will show tokens of a fond lingering love for what is byegone. In the Midland district I have named, there was the same mingling of Angles and Danes that we find in the shires where the Northumbrian Gospels were translated. THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT. (About 1120.) Of all cities, none has better earned the homage of the English patriot, the English scholar, and the English architect, than Peterborough. Her Abbot was brought home, sick unto death, from the field of Hastings ; her monks were among the first English- men who came under the Conqueror's frown. Her Minster suffered more from Hereward and his Norse friends than from her new French Abbot, Turold. At Peterborough our history was compiled, not in Latin but in English ; the English that had grown up from 56 The Sources of Standard English. the union of many generations of Danes and Angles, dwelling not far from Rutland. Without the Peter- borough Chronicle, we should be groping in the dark for many years, in striving to understand the history of our tongue. This Chronicle bears the mark of many hands. It is likely that various passages in it were copied from older chronicles, or were set down by old men many years after the events recorded had taken place. A fire, whereby the old Abbey and town of Peterborough were burnt to the ground in 1116, marks a date both in English Architecture and in English Philology. After that year arose the noble choir, which has happily escaped the doom of Glastonbury and Walsingham. After that year, monks were sent out to copy the English chronicles of other Abbeys, and thus to replace the old Peterborough annals, which must have been burnt in the fire.^ The copyists thus handed down to us a mass of good English prose, a great contrast to the forged charters, drawn up in the Midland speech of 1120, which were newly inserted in the Chronicle. It is with these last that my business lies, as also with the local annals of Peterborough, taken down from the mouths of old men who could remember the doughty deeds of Hereward and his gang fifty years earlier, when men of Danish blood in the East and North were still hoping to shake ofi* William's yoke. * I here follow Mr. Earle in his account of the Saxon Chronicles. The cock and bull tales in the forged Charters of the Abbey are most amusing to any one who knows the true history of England in the Seventh Century. The Old and Middle English. 57 I now sliow how the Old English had changed in the Danelagh before the year 1131, at which date the first Peterborough compilers seem to have laid aside their pens. This reign of King Henry I. is the most interest- ing of all reigns to a student of English. As to letter changes, the old li sometimes becomes c/i, as hiircli for hiirli ; this prevailed over the Eastern side of England, from London to York ; though gli came to be more used than ch. We see that the diphthong, which our fathers loved, was to drop ; for efre (semper) sometimes replaces cefre. These two changes appeared long before in the Lindisfarne Gospels. The Old English Article, se, seo, \cBt^ becomes hopelessly confused in its cases and genders ; we are not far from the adoption of ihe^ to do duty for them all. Our old S was often laid aside for ili^ the latter being better known to the Normans. There is a tendency to get rid of the letter g in every part of a word ; thus we find l)di^ becomes dsei (day) Geatweard „ iatftward (porter)^ paegnas Ealmihtig Sarig A gen ^nig keie (key)^ Saeines (thanes) selmihti sari an (proprius) ani ' G sometimes changed to y, and then centuries later, in Standard English, changed back to g again ; as we see in this word gate, still called by the Scotch ydt. '^ Here the Northern k begins to replace the Old Southern c. 58 The Sources of Standard Eiiglish. Legdon becomes leidon Ssegde )? eeide Lseg ?> laei Mseg j> nisei Geornden J? iornden (yearned) 'F in the middle of a word was often replaced by v ; thus n^e geafon becomes ive gaveoi, and lufe becomes luve ; this change was still more marked in the South. The Old English lieord and liim (in Latin, eorimb and eis) now change into here and hem. This last we still use in phrases like, give it \erii ivell ; and this Dative Plural drove out the old Accusative M, In the same way the Dative Singular hiin at this time drove out the Ac- cusative hine ; the latter is now only found in the mouths of peasants, as ' hit un hard.'' Squire Western, who was above a peasant (at least in rank), loved this old phrase. The Article seo replaces the Old En- glish heo (in Latin, ed) ; and the accusative of heo, which of old was hi^ is now seen as hire in the account of the year 1127. E diver becomes iure (your). The relative Neuter pronoun ])cp.t is now no longer confined to the Neuter Singular antecedent, but follows Plurals, just as we use it ; thus, in the forged Charter of the year 656, we find, ealle ])a ping f. ic ivat. It soon came to follow Masculines and Peminines, much as we employ it now. The nominative Who did not come in as a Relative till the next Century. Many short English words now approached their modern form ; what we found long ago in the Northumbrian Gospels is now repeated at Peterborough. The Old and Middle English. 59 Old English. Dreo JEWQ Twiwa Feower Feawa O^er Swa hwa swa Hund Nan SeofoSa pauon pisne Eetweox Onmang For))i Sona Peterborough Chronic ^e. '6re senes (once) twiges (twice) fower (four) feuna (^few) an of re (another) hwa swa (whoso) hundred nun seouepende (seventh) thenen (thence) this Betwix Amang faerfore son (soon) In Nouns the Dative Plural in %m has long vanished ; there is a general break-up of ease-endings ; and the Nominative Plural in as (now es) is swallowing up all the other Declensions. The Definite and Indefinite forms of Adjectives were jumbled together, and the agreement of their cases with those of Substantives was no long^er heeded. Seolfer becomes siluer Suna ?> sunes (sons) Naman yi nam (name) Hlaford 1 }f lauerd (lord) Leoht ff liht Heafod yy heafed (head) Munecan V muneces (monks) Hus )7 huses (houses) ^ The h before another consonant now begins to drop, in the approved Anglian fashion. 6o The Sources of Standard English. A ^ood English writer of the Eleventh Century would have been shocked at the corrupt replacing of the old Genitive by such a phrase as this, in the account of the great Peterborough fire in 1116 : * hcernde eall ])a mceste drel of ])a tuna; ' ' ic am loitnesse of ]>as Gewrite.^ Hence- forward, of was used most freely, at least in the Dane- lagh. Prepositions were disjoined from the verbs ; in the forged Charter of 963 we find he clraf ut instead of the old he ufdrdf. These changes we saw earlier in St. Edmund's Legend. We find al used instead of the old Genitive ealra ; the latter form still lingers in Shak- spere, as alderliefest. The helpful word man shrinks into me ; as in the phrase of the year 1124, him me hit hercefode, ' one bereaved him of it,' or as we say now, ' he was bereaved of it.' This idiom lasted for 160 years more in the Danelagh, and much longer in the South. We see for to employed in a new sense in the year 1127, like the kindred French pour ; se hijng hit dide for to hauene sibhe, the king did it to have peace. Hence the well-known question, ' what went ye out for to see ? ' We suppress the /or in modern speech. The old celc now becomes ilea, and still lingers in Scotland ; in the South we say, each. The phrase, ne beloef ]>cer noht an (there remained not one), in the account of the year 1181, shows how noht was by de- grees replacing the ancient ne. The old sivithre now gives way to right (dextera), just as the still older teso (in Gothic, taihswo) long before made room for sivithre. In the year 1124, heftning appears ; and some old monk, who aimed at correctness, has put the u, the proper letter to be used, above the i in the manuscript. The Old and Middle English. 6i The Verb, as written at Peterborough in Henry the First's day, is wonderfully changed from what it was in the Confessor's time. Old English, Peterborough. Lutige Lufe (love) Lufode luuede (loved) Sceolde scolde (should) Eom Am Be6 be (sit) Beo^ be {sunt) Wses was Geraeden geredd (read) Hyded hidde (hidden) YrnS renneth (currit) Ge-coren cosen (chosen) Bleowon blewen (blew) Heald held Meahte mihte Habban hafen (have) Gesewon gesene (seen) Beam baernde (burnt) The Infinitive now drops the n, as in the Northumbrian Gospels. In Pope Agatho's forged charter of 671^, we find ' ic vnlle segge,^ I will say : this should have been seggan. The ge, prefixed to the Past Participle, now drops altogether in the Danelagh ; the Norsemen, having nothing of the kind, forced their maimed Participle upon us. The ge, slightly altered, is found to this day in shires where the Norsemen never settled. Thus, in Dorset and Somerset they say, ' I have a-heard,' the old gehyrde. One Past Participle, gehaten, still lingered on in the Midland for fourscore years after the paring down of all its brethren. No Teutonic country was fonder of this ge in old times than Southern England. 62 TJic Sources of Standaid English. The ge in nouns is also dropped. Scir-gerefa turns into scirreve, which is not far from slierriff. But we now come to the great change of all in Verbs, the Shibboleth which is the sure mark of a Midland dialect, and which we should be using at this moment, had the printing-press only come to England thirty years earlier than it did. The Old English Present Plural of verbs ended in aS, as we hyra6, ge hyra'6, lit Jiyra'6. It has been thought that, after the common English fashion, an n has been here cast out, which used to follow the a. But the peasants in some of our shires may have kept the older form hyran'6 ; as we find the peasants on the Rhine using three different forms of the Present Plural ; to wit, Uehent, Uehet, and liehen} Bearing this parallel case in mind, we can under- stand how the Present Plural of the Mercian Danelagh came to end in en and not in aS. The Peterborough Chronicle, in Henry the First's reign, uses liggen^ havev, for the Plural of the Present of Verbs ; we even find lin for liggen. This is the Midland form. The Southern form would be Uggeth, hahhetli ; a slight alteration of the Old English. The Northern form, spoken beyond the Humber, would be ligges, haves, as we saw in the Northumbrian Gospels. Another Shibboleth of English dialects is the Active Participle. In the North this ended in a^icle, the Norse form. In the Midland it became ende, the Old English form, though in Lincoln- shire and East Anglia this was often supplanted by the Danish ancle. In the South, it ended in incle, as we shall soon see. To take an example, we stand singing. ' Garnett's Essays, p. 142. The Old and Middle English. 63 Nortlu — We standes singande. Midland. — We standen singende. South. — We standeth sin gin de. This Midland form of the Present Plural is still alive in Lancashire. The Southern form is kept in the famous Winchester motto, * Manners maketh Man.' Much shocked would an English scholar, sixty years earlier, have been at such a sentence as this, the last but one of the Chronicle for the year 1127 : ne cunno tve iett noJit seggon, we can say nought yet. It is curious to mark the slow corruption of the old tongue : on ])yssum geare, on pis gcer, pis gear. Many words, common to us and to our brethren on the mainland, live on in the mouths of the common folk for hundreds of years ere they can win their way into books. Thus Mr. Tennyson puts into the mouth of his Lincolnshire farmer the word huzzard-cloch for a certain insect. No such word as clock can be found in the Anglo-Saxon dictionaries, though it is tacked on by our peasantry to many other substantives, to stand for various insects. But, on turning to an Old German gloss of wondrous age, we find * cimleich, scarab83us.' ^ We shall meet many other English words, akin to the Dutch and High German, which were not set down in writing until the Twelfth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Centuries, when these words replaced others that are found in the Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Some of the strangers are also used by Norse writers ; it is thus often hard to tell whether a Teutonic word came to England with Hengist in the Fifth Century or with ^ See Garnett's Essays, p. 68. 64 TJie Sources of Standard English. Hubba in the Ninth Century. Perhaps the safest dis- tinction is to draw a line through Ipswich, Northamp- ton, and Shrewsbury : in the case of strange Teutonic words that crop up to the North of this line, we should lean to Scandinavia ; in the opposite case, to Friesland. Thus, in the account of the year 1118, we find wyrre, our war ; this reminds us of the Old Dutch werren ; in Latin, militare. In 1124, the new form hcerlic, our barley, replaces the old here, which still lingers in Scotland. Cnawlece (acknowledge) is seen for the first time in a forgery inserted in the account of the year 963. As might be expected, Scandinavian words, long used by the Dano-Anglian peasantry, were creeping into written English prose. The Norse bathe (ambo) drove out the Old English ba and butu. In the forged charter inserted in the annals of 656, we read of the hamlet Grastecros ; the last syllable of this comes from the Norse kross, and it was this word, not the French croix, that supplanted our Old English rod (rood) . In 1128, we find the phrase, ' )mrh his micele wiles ;' this new word, which is still in our mouths, comes from the Scandinavian vaela (deci- pere). In 1131, we see ' ])a waes tenn ploges ; ' the sub- stantive is from the Scandinavian i^logr ; English is the only Teutonic tongue that of old lacked this synonym for aratrum. The Scandinavian fra replaces the Old English fra^n ; and we still say, * to and fro.' Where an older writer wo aid have written ' on ^e nor^ half,' the Peter- borough Chronicler for 1131 changes on into o ; from this new form, which soon spread into the South, we get our alofi, aright, and such like. We may still w^rite either ashore or on shore. The Old a7id Middle English, 65 EAST MIDLAND DIALECT OF 1120. Extracts from a forged Peterborough Charter (in- serted in the year 656) : Da seonde se kyning eeffcer })one abbode fet he seues- Then sent the king after the ahhot that he speedily telice scolde to him cumon. and he swa dyde. Da cwaed should come so did quoth se kyning to fan abbode. La leof Ssexulf. ic haue geseond Lo, loved I have sent sefber |?e for mine sanle f urfe. and ic hit wile f e wael thee soul's need it will well secgon for hwi. Min bro^or Peada and min leoue freond say why brother loved friend Oswi ongunnen an mynstre Criste to loue and Sancte began minster to Christ's glory Petre. Oc min brof er is faren of fisse line, swa swa Crist But gone from life as wolde. Oc ic wile pe gebidden. la leoue freond. fat hii pray to they wirce aeuostlice on fere werce. and ic f e wile finden may work diligently the f asrto gold and siluer. land and ahte. and al fet f sBrto goods behofeS. Da feorde se abbot ham. and ongan to wircene. behoves went home began Swa he spedde swa him Crist huSe. swa fet in fauna So as granted few geare wees fat mynstre gare. Da fa kyning heorda f aet years ready. When heard gesecgon. fa weerd se swi^e glaed. heot seonden geond said was he right glad he bade through al hi feode aefter alle his faegne. sefter aercebiscop. and his people thanes aefter biscopes. and aefter his eorles. and aefter alle fa those 66 The Sources of Standard English. fe Gode lunedon. fat hi scoldon to him cumene. and that come seotte fa dasi hwonne man scolde fat mynstre gehalegon. set day when hallow And ic bidde ealle fa fa asfter me cumen. beon hi mine all those that he they siines. beon hi mine breSre. ouf er kyningas fa aBfter me or kings cumen. fat ure gyfe mote standen. swa swa hi willen OUT gift may beon delnimende on fa ece li£ and swa swa hi wilen partakers in the eternal setbeorstan f et ece wite. Swa hwa swa ure gife ouf er escape punishment. Whosoever ofre godene manne gjfe wansiaS. wansie him seo of other good Tuen lessens the heofenhce iateward on heofenrice. And swa hwa swa heavenly gate-ward heaven-kingdom hit ecet5. ece him seo heofenhce iateward on heofenrice. increases Das sindon fa witnes fe f£er wseron. and fa fat gewriten These are wrote mid here fingre on Cristes mele. and ietten mid here with their cross agreed tunge. . . . Des writ waes gewriton eefter ure. Drihtnes acennednesse PCLXIIII. fes kyningas Lord^s birth Wulhferes seouef ende gear, fes sercebiscopes Deusdedit seventh IX gear. Leidon fa Godes curs, and eabe halgane curs. They laid then saints' and al cristene folces. f e ani f ing undyde fat f asr wses gedon. swa beo hit seiS alle. Amen. dmie so he it say The Old and Middle English, 67 THE CONTKAST TO THE EAST MIDLAND. (About A.D. 1120.) Ure hlaford almihtij God wile and us hot pat we hine lufie. and of him smaje and spece. naht him to mede ac hus to freme and to fultume. for him sei^e alle hiscefte. . . . Gif non man ne foht of Gode. non ne spece of him. Gif non of him ne spece. non hine ne lufede. Gif non hine ne lufede. non to him ne come, ne delende. nere of his eadinesse. nof his merhSe. Hit is wel swete of him to specene. fenche jie aelc word of him swete. al swa an huni tiar felle upe jiure hierte. Heo is hefone liht and eort5e brihtnesse. loftes leom. and all hiscefte jimston. anglene blisse. and mancenne hiht and hope, richtwisen strenhcfe. and niedfuUe frouer.^ Page 219. Seraphim hirninde ot5er anhelend. God let hi habben ajen cMre, to cMesen, „ 221. Forgang fu ones treowes westm. „ 235. He cweS a wunder worder. „ 223. pa weran ho^e deadlice. „ 225. Ic wille halden J?e and ti wif. Ic wille settan mi wed (covenant). „ 233. He us for^teh alse is cyldren. Feder, of warn we sielfe habbeS. „ 235. Barn of hire ogen innoS. Gif ic fader ham. Wer laSieres mSche. „ 239. Wic jeie, wic dredness wurS. Birne alse longe as ic lefie. ' Old English Homilies, edited by Dr. Morris (Early English Text Society), p. 217. These go to p. 245. The passage I give above is an original one of the transcriber's, written long after MUric's time. f2 6S The Sources of Standard English, This Soutlieni Englisli, as anyone may see, is far more arcliaic than the Enghsh of Peterborough. After the year 1000, ^Ifric wrote many homilies in the Enghsh of his day, and these were popular in our land long after his death. A clean sweep, it is true, was made of a Latin sentence of his, wherein he upholds the old Teutonic idea of the Eucharist, and overturns the new- fangled Transubstantiation, a doctrine of which Lanfranc, seventy years later, was the great champion in Eng- land.^ But otherwise -^Ifric's teaching was thought sound, and his homilies were more than once turned into the corrupt English of succeeding centuries. We have one of these versions, drawn up about the time of the forged Peterborough charters ; this is headed by the extract given above. The East Midland, with its stern contractions, is like the Attic of Thucydides ; the Southern English, with its love of vowels and dislike of the clipping process, resembles the Ionic of Herodotus. The work we have now in hand, being written far to the South of the Mercian Danelagh, holds fairly well by the Old English forms ; thus, instead of the Peter- borough "Se, we find the older se, 5^, \at ; and we some- times meet with the old Dative Plural in um^ though the old Genitive is often replaced by the form with o/, and the endings of Verbs are often clipped. A guess may be given as to the place where these Homilies were adapted to the common speech. Forms like fer (ignis) and gelt (scelus) point to some shire near Kent. The combination ie^ used by King Alfred, is here found, ' See Faber's Difficulties of Bomanism (Third Edition, p. 260) as to erasures made in JElfric's text by theologians of a later age. The Old and Middle English. 69 and does not appear later except in Kent and Essex. The letter in this work begins to supplant the old a, though not often. This corruption is found in full vigour a hundred years later both in Suffolk and Dorset. Some town lying nearly half-way between the two shires, may have given birth to the new form. We now find mor^ Imig, non, ogen (own), and haligost, for the old mar, lang, nan, dgen, and hdlig gdst. Moreover, as we learn from the Conqueror's English charter to London, the great city was the abode of a large French- speaking population. From these men (Becket's father was one of them), it seems likely that their English fellow- subjects learned to turn the hard c into the soft cli ; ceSsan and rice into chiesen and riche. Long before this time, the French castel had become chastel} The changes of the a and the c, most sparingly found as yet, are the two main corruptions that our Standard English has borrowed from the South. Yet the old sounds are apt to linger in proper names ; as in Aldgate and Peakirk — a village not far from Rutland. The letter li is now often found wrongly used, or is dropped at the beginning of words. We find the true Southern shibboleth, the Active Participle ending in inde, as hirnind instead of the old himende. Fourscore years later, this was to be still further corrupted. In page 235, we find 'pes wer isent. This of old would have been wdkron gesended. The old English an is now pared down into a, and is sometimes also seen as one ; so nan ])ing become na Iping. What was bathe at Peterborough is found in the Homi- * The French escole (schola) appears in these Homilies (p. 243) as 70 The Sources of Standard English, lies as iDotlie^ the Gotliic hayotTis and tlie Sanscrit uhliau. Danish, influence was making itself felt on the Thames. The form ahec (aback, in Gothic ibukai) is seen, like the Midland o 'pe half ; in Ipe is shortened into i ^e, Ealswa is cut down into alse and then into as, the most rapid of all our changes ; thus we have formed two new words, also and as, out of one old word. Mm and f m are shortened into mi and ti. We now find the first use of our New English Rela- tive Pronoun. Hwd and hwylc were never so employed of yore ; the former answered to the Latin quis, not to qui; but our tongue was now subject to French influence. As yet, the Genitive and Dative alone of hwa, not the Nominative, are used to express the Relative. Teon^e and sef entire are found instead of teo^a and hundseofontig. Swylc, hwylc, and mycel now become swice, wice, and moche ; further changes are to come forty years later. Gildru turns into cyldren, for the South of England, un- like the North, always loved the Plural in en, of which the Germans are so fond. ^ge becomes a'^eie, not far from our modern awe ; the g is softened into y or i, especially at the beginning of Past Participles. The new letter 5 now appears to replace the old hard g ; it lasted for nearly 350 years. Thanks to it, we wrote citeien, the old French word, as cite-^en in 1340, and in 1380 pronounced it citisen. Thus the Scottish Daly ell and Machenyie have become Dalziel and Mackenzie} The former he hafa'^ gewesen is now seen as he ha^ ihi (he hath been), a wondrous change ; hcefde becomes had, ^ About 1340, cnoTcei^ was written for Jcnocks. Seethe Laneashir^ .Pl^JBcimen, given in Chapter III^ The Old and Middle English, J i and we wceren is shortened into we wer. Agen, cefre, ]^ds, neah, genoh, yfel, hydel, are replaced by a'^enes, efer, "pes, nieh, innoh, euyl, hedele (against, ever, these, nigh, enough, evil, beadle). Fc/r is now found for the first time, answering to the Latin envm ; and hread (panis) replaces the old lilaf. This reign of Henry the First is indeed an age of change, both in the Midland and in the South. Old English words were becoming strange to English ears. Thus the adapter of the Homilies in this reign has to add the word laga to explain ce, the Latin lex (p. 227). A verb sometimes gets a new sense; thus the old dgan^ which of old meant nothing more than possidere, comes now to stand for dehere ; he is ofer us and ah to hienne (ought to be), p. 233 ; there is also pu ahst (debes). Burch is found instead of hurh, as we saw it at Peterborough ; and ch often replaces the old h, as richtwis^ michti, naclite (nihil) ; in the word "^eworhcte we see a mixture of both the forms. We now find a budding corruption that is for ages the sure mark of a Southern dialect ; namely, the turning of the old i or y into u. Thus swi'pen here becomes swujoen (p. 239),^ and the old mycele is sometimes seen as mucele. This particular change has not greatly afiected our Standard English, except that we use the Southern much and such instead of the old mycel and swylc. We once see the tv thrown out of swa, for we read sa ful (p. 233). Hatrede is found for the first time as well as hate, A few lines on The Grave, printed by Mr. Thorpe in his Analecta Anglo- Saxonica (p. 142), seem to belong to * This old word only survives among cricketers, who make good swipes. 72 The Sources of Standard English. this time. In this piece we find for the first time in English the word lah or lage (humilis) : * Hit biS unheh and lah ; t5e hele- wages beo^ lage^ The Scandinavian and Frisian have words akin to this. Fourscore years later, we find the verb to la-^ienn (to lower) ; and almost two hundred years further on, we light on hi loogh (below). We thus in Chaucer's time compounded a new preposition out of an adjective. THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT. (About 1160.) We now skip thirty years, and once more return to the neighbourhood of Rutland. The Peterborough Chronicle seems to have been laid aside for many years after 1131. England was at this time groaning under some of the worst sorrows she has ever known ; we have come to the nineteen winters when Stephen was King. As soon as these evil days were over, and Eng- land had begun her happy course (this has lasted, with but few checks, for more than seven hundred years*), the Peterborough monks went on with their Chro^ nicle. Their language was becoming more and more corrupt ; but the picture they set before us of King Stephen's days is a marvel of power, and shows the sterling stuff that a Monastic writer often had in him. The English, which we are now to weigh, dates from about the year 1160. More Norse forms crop up ; we find cyrceicerd (kirkyard) formed on the Norse pattern, instead of the Old English cirictune. When King Stephen lays hold of Earl Randolph, he is said to ^ Even our few civil wars have commonly in the end furthered the good estate of the realm. The Old and Middle English. 73 act through ^wicci rede.' This is the first appear- ance in our island of the common word wicked, a word which Mr. Wedgwood derives from Lapland or Esthonia. There is a change in the meaning of words ; thus wder of old meant cantus, but it now gets the new sense of sciens ; as in the account of the year 1140, ' he wart it war,* he became aware of it. By this time many of the Southern corruptions had made their way to Rutland and its neighbourhood : thus was beginning to replace a; mor and ou.ne are used instead of mar and an. We see here ceie, agenes, alsuic, alse, for, onoJi, a, just as we saw them in the Homilies ; and ahte stands for dehuit, following the Southern fashion. What was hwa swa thirty years earlier is now wua sua, not far from our whoso. JEall is dropped alto- gether, in favour of the Anglian all. A form, of old found but seldom, now appears instead of celc, to this word ever is prefixed, and muric (every) is the result. In this way our fathers afterwards compounded whoever, whatsoever, and other strange fonns. Ic makes way for J, the old Anglian ih, found in the Northum- brian Gospels ; seo changes into sees, but we have to wait more than a hundred years for our well-known she ; hit becomes it. The Southern ' heo hefde ihi ' is seen in the Midland as scce hadde hen. The particle ne of old was always attached to the verb to express negation ; but this ne is now replaced by noht, our not ; in the account of 1132, we read, was it noht lang. This form was unknown at London for nearly two hundred years afterwards : Peterborough, it is plain, has had more in- fluence upon our speech than London. The Acglian til 74 1^^^ Sotcrces of Standard English. (usque), a word never found in tlie South, replaces the Old English ot5, which soon vanished altogether. The ending of the Infinitive had already been pared down from an into en and e ; it now lost even this ; for we find in the account of the year 1135, sculde cumm (should come), durste sei (durst say) ; this sculde was once sceolde} Other corruptions of the Verb are seen in hi namm for M ndmen ; there is also he sjpac, he let, he mint ; what is now the Scottish form gcede (ivit) is found for the first time instead of the old eode. Lcede (duxit) now becomes Iced, our led. Nefan becomes Tieues ; the Irish peasantry still keep this old form *nevvies,' rejecting our French-born word * nephews.' Cyse, niwe, treSw^, ^uman, nearo, become in 1160 ccese (cheese), neuue (new), treuthe, ])umhes, nareu (narrow). On sleep becomes an slep, not far from onr asleep. We find both nan treuthe and na iustise, the old and the new form for nullus. Prepositions are not often prefixed to the Verb, but are separated from it. ; we find such forms as candles to ceten hi, he let him ut, he sculde cumm ut. Wile is used no longer exclusively as a noun, but like the Latin dum ; an early instance of a conjunction being thus formed. Our modern qu is found instead of the Old English cw, as quarterne ; c is giving way to h, for we find smoke and snaJce. Moreover, we see in the account of the year 1138 the first beginning of a new combination of letters, most common now in our speech ; gh supplants g, as sloghen (they slew) ; we saw something similar in the Homilies. * But the Infinitive in en lasted in the South down to the Keforma- tion. Surrey writes, * I dare well sayen! The Old and Middle English, 75 This change soon prevailed all through the East Mid- land, from Essex to Yorkshire. Burch, not the Old English hurh, is the name given to Peterborough by its Chroniclers. The verbs can and cutJie are most freely employed ; of old, may and might would have been used. Forms like thereafter and therein come pretty often, and altogceder is seen for the first time. King Stephen, we are told in the account of the year 1137, had treasure, but * scatered sotlice ; ' that is, * dispersed it like a fool.' This new word scatter is akin to the Dutch schetteren, which has the same meaning. ^ EAST MIDLAND DIALECT OF 1160. Extract from the Peterborough Chronicle for the year 1137. pa the suikes undergaeton fat he milde man was and When traitors understood soffce and god and na iustise ne dide. pa diden hi alle good no then they wunder. Hi hadden him manred maked and athes homage made oaths suoren. ac hi nan treuthe ne heolden. alle hi wseron for- but held sworen. and here treothes forloren. for aeuric rice man forfeited every mighty his castles makede and agaenes him heolden and fylden against fe land ful of castles. Hi suencten suy^e fa uurecce oppressed sore wretched men of f e land mid castelweorces. pa f e castles uuaren castle-works were maked. fa fylden hi mid deoules and yvele men. pa devils 76 The Sources of Standard English. namen lii fa men fe lii wenden fat ani god hefden. bathe took they thought -property had be nihtes and be deeies. carlmen and wimmen. and diden men put heom in prisun effcer gold and sylver. and pined beom them for tortured untellendlice pining, for ne uuaeren naeure nan martyrs unspeakable torture no swa pined alse hi waeron. Me henged up bi the fet and as they smoked heom mid ful smoke, me henged bi the thumbes. foul other bi the hefed. and hengen bryniges on her fet. Me or head hung burning things dide cnotted strenges abnton here haeved. and nnrythen head twisted to fat it gsede to f e hsBrnes. Hi diden heom in quar- went brains prison terne. far nadres and snakes and pades wasron inne. and where adders toads drapen heom swa. Sume hi diden in erncet hus. fat is killed Some house in an ceste fat was scort and nareu and undep. and dide chest short shallow scserpe stanes f erinne. and f rengde f e man f aerinne. fat sharp stones crushed him braBcon alia f e limes. In mani of f e castles waeron broke lof and grim fat waeron rachenfceges. fat twa other thre neck-bonds or men hadden onoh to baeron onne. pat was sua maced. enough one fat is faestned to an beom. and diden an scaerp iren abuton fa mannes frote and his hals. fat he ne myhte no wider- wee^ in any wardes ne sitten ne lien ne slepen. oc baeron al fat iren. direction lie but The Old a7id Middle English. yj Mani J)useii lii drapen mid hungeer. I ne canne i ne thousands mai tellen alle pe wundes. ne alle fe pines J>at hi diden wrecce men on f is land, and fat lastede J?a XIX. wintra wile Stephne was king, and sevre it was nuerse and worse uuerse. ... 1154. — On fis gsor waerd fe king Steph. ded. and be- was byried ]?er his wif and his sune waeron bebyried set Fauresfeld. fast minstre hi makeden. pa fe king was ded. ^a was pe eorl beionde sas. and ne dnrste nan man don ofer bute god. for f e micel eie of him. awe The year 1135. Micel fing sculde cumm. j^uric man sone raevede. . Wua sua bare his byrthen. . THE CONTKAST TO THE EAST MIDLAND. (About 1160.) 1 Ure feder fet in heouene is, f et is al so'S ful iwis. weo moten to ])eos weordes iseon. pet to liue and to saule gode beon. pet weo beon swa his sunes iborene. pet he beo feder and we him icorene. pet we don alle his ibeden. and his wille for to reden. Loke weo us wiS him misdon purh beelzebubes swikedom 1 Old English Homilies^ First Series (Early English Text Society), p. 56. yS The Sources of Standard English, lie haueS to us mucliel niS. alle pa deies of ure si^. abuten us lie is for to blench en. Mid alle bis mihte be wule us swencben. Gif we leorniS godes lare. penne ofJ)uncbeS bit bim sare. Bute we bileuen ure ufele iwune. Ne kepe^ be nobt ]?et we beon sune. Gif we clepieS bine feder J?enne. al fet is us to Intel wunne. balde we godes lage. fet we babbe'6 of bis sage. Page 75. Ic ileue in god fe fede(r) almihti. scup- pende and weldende of heouene and of orSe and of alle iscefte. and ich ileue on f e lielende crist. his enlepi surie. ure lauerd. lie is ihaten helende for lie moncun helede of fan deflicbe atter. fet fe aide deouel blou on adam and on eue and on al heore ofsprinke. swa f et heore fif-falde mihte horn wes al binumen. pet is hore lust, hore loking. hore Hawing, hore smelling, heore feling wes al iattret. Page 53. Is afered leste peo eorSe hire trukie. „ 63. For pe saule of him is forloren. „ 73. Bch mon habbe mot. „ „ Heo sculen heore hileue cunnen . . „ 83. De sunne scJiine^ per purh . . „ „ Ho nimeS al swuch. „ 127. Muchele mare luue he scawede us. „ 129. Heo weren ijpult ut of paradise.^ „ 141. Der stod a richt halue and a luft. * Hence our * put bim out.' The Old and Middle English, 79 Page 145. Tech&6 us bi JiwicTie weie. „ 179. Were we ... . swa vuele licauMe, „ 129. Him f ulite hicumelic J?et we . . . weren alesede. The poem, part of which I have set oat above, is the earliest long specimen of an English riming metre that is still popular.^ Having been compiled somewhere about 1160, the work stands about half way between the Beo- wulf and the last work of Mr. Tennyson. The French riming lays, of which our Norman and Angevin rulers were so fond, must have been the model followed by the English bard, whoever he was. In the same volume are many Homilies, which give us a good idea of the English spoken in the South at this time. The follow- ing are the main points of difference between them and the Homilies of Henry the First's time. A new combination of letters, au (well known in Gothic), is seen for the first time in English ; as hlauwen, nautf hicauhte. * The English rimes, written before the Norman Conquest, must have been nothing but an exercise of ingenuity : — Flah mah flite-S, Flan man hwiteJS, Burg sorg bite^. Bald aid "Swite^, Wrsec-fsec wri'Sa'S. This is a long poem, printed by Conybeare, Anglo-Saxon Poetry, p. xxiii. Mr. Morris, in his Second Series of Homilies, contends that the Moral Ode there printed is a transcript of some long English riming poem of the year 1000, or thereabouts. If so, the transcriber must have taken great liberties, in writing words like bikeihte and serveden (pp. 239 and 230), Second Series. If the original ever turns up, it will be the first of long-lined riming poems in English. 8o The Sources of Standard English, Oil is beginning to change into ou^ as nout and inou for nolit and inoh. replaces a mncli oftener than before ; lore, strong, and nohwer are examples ; we find both naping and no]>mg (pp. 165 and 181), both na mon and no tunge. The diphthong ce was losing ground; thus see becomes sea, and oeg^er becomes ei^er ; but the combination ei has never been popular, at least in Teutonic words. We sometimes find t; substituted for /at the beginning of a word, as vette for fette (page 81). It is the influ- ence of the South Western shires that makes us write vixen and vat instead of the old fixen and feet ; it is a wonder that we do not also write vox. G is commonly turned into y, but sometimes into w ; thus folegede turns into folewed and laga into law ; this is as yet most rare. France was now dictating much of our pronunciation, and many of the vowels must in this age have been sounded in the same way on either side of the Channel. Ch replaces c in countless instances. C err an (verti) now becomes cherre; we still say 'on the jar,^^ or ajar. We also find cMrche, leche, dicJie, teacJie, hisecJie (beseech). The verb seche, which was elsewhere seJce, shows whence comes our search; the derivation from chercher, given even in our latest dictionaries, must be wrong, for changer does not become sange in English. Still, the intruding r in search must be due to the French verb. Moreover we see, in * Pickwick will keep this alive for ever. Mr. Justice Stareleigh can have been no student of Anglo-Saxon. The Old and Middle English. 8i page 83, the two forms seine and scMne (shine), the last being a new sound now creeping into English. So popular did it become, that we forced French verbs in ir to take the sound, as cherish and flourish. But th-e French cahus has become cahhage, just as Perusia became Perugia. The corrupt forms of 1120, swice, wice, and moche^ now become swulc, swuche, and sulcJie (such) ; Tmlche, and hwiche ; muche and muchel. The old gylthe- comes gult in the South ; our guilt is a combination of the two. We see a new form in hwilke time se eure (which time so ever) . ^Ic (quisque) takes its modern shape of elche and eche ; and an is fastened on to it, though as yet very seldom. Thus, at page 91, we read * heo it delden elchun ; ' that is, to each one. Latost (ultimus) is cut down ta leste at page 143 ; and ])y Ices ]>e is shortened into leste, which we still keep. If and neor replace the old gif and neah; the first is the Scandinavian ef. Saule of him is put for his soul, simply to eke out a rime ; and the of is sometimes used as an adverb, with a new spelling, as at page 29, ' ^if fin hefet were offe.' The word ]>urhut (throughout) now appears. O^erlicor now becomes o'^er-weis (page 31) ; at page 165 we see evrema (evermore) ; at page 139 the cevric (quisque) of Peterborough is found in its new shape, efri: the East Midland corruptions were already beginning to find their way to the South. What was before written on lif (in vita) is now seen as alive (page 161) ; yet our dictionary-makers, even to this day, will have it that alive is an adjective. We see such new forms as under- ling and fowertene niht (fortnight). When we find the word knave child applied to the infant Saviour at page G S2 TJie Sources of Standard English. *77, we get some idea of the degradation undergone by the word hnave since the Twelfth century. Bicumelic now first appears for decorus, shortened by us into comehj ; hicuman is used for both decere and fieri (pages 45 and 47). Lot also gets a wholly new meaning ; at page 31 we read of a^fridde lot' (tertia ^ars). Geleafa now takes its modem form hileue, belief; just as gelitlian was to become to belittle} Sees, geong, hetsf, sorJi, deaw, Ipeau, gescy, leg ere, and Sunnandceg^ now become heste, yung, best, soreiue, deu, Ipewe, sceos (shoes), lilij^are (liar), and Stmnedei (Sunday). The old hwilJce had not yet come to stand for the Neuter Helative, for we find ' jeten f urh hwam ' (gates through which), page 153. We see a new use of liwat in the sentence (page 145), ' we beoS in wawe, Jiwat for ure eldere werkes, Jiwat for ure ajene gultes.' We still keep this idiom, but we should now employ with instead of for. At page 53, we see in two lines both the new alsefeire alse and the old swa sone se. At page 33 we find a form, well known to English witnesses, 'swa one Jielpe Drihten.^ Our forefathers used to express the Latin sinister by wynstre, something that was wanting in full strength. In these Homilies we find imjnstre changed into luft (left), to which we still cling. There is a kindred word to this in Holland. As to Verbs ; the Participle iturned becomes iturnd at page 157, with the clipped pronunciation we still use, ex- cept at church. We sometimes find the Midland heon instead of the Southern heotli. At page 21, we scoldenis used for we sculen, and the corruption still holds its * Even so the Sanscrit gigdmi is the same word as the Greel^ The Old and Middle English. 83 ground. Another form for dehemus, we agon, now be- comes ^ye achten (we ought), page 167. The old geworht is turned into iwrat (wrought). In page 173, we find hi walked eure. This is our modern sense of the old verb wealcan, which before meant nothing but to roll. The old sceadan (separare) now gets the sense offundere (page 157) ; the former meaning still lingers in watershed. Stoelwyr^ used to mean ' worth stealing ; ' at page 25 it gets its new sense, validus : perhaps it was confounded with sta'Selferh^. The verb scedwian loses its old meaning spectare, and gets its new sense monstrare, though we still call spectaculum a show. We know that the word afford has puzzled our antiquarians ; we find it employed in these Homilies, page 37 : 'do fine elmesse of pon J>et ]>u maht ifor^ien.* Bishop Pecock uses avorthi in this sense three hundred years later. The old gefot'^ian only meant ' to further or help.' Here, at least, we need not seek for help from France.^ The substantive cachepol may be seen, in page 97, applied to St. Matthew's old trade. The verb catch is found for the first time with its Past Participle cauhte ; this Mr. Wedgwood derives from the Picard cacher, meaning the same as chasser. There is hardly another instance of an English Verb, coming from the French, not ending with ed in the Past Participle.^ To ^ut or pult, another dark word, is also met with ; there is a Danish jputten, but some point us to the French houter, and to Celtic roots. It was long before put meant ponere as well as trudere. * This was first pointed out by Dr. Morris in the AthencBum. 2 Can cacher have got confounded with tte Old English gelcsccan^ gdmht^ meaning the same ? c 2 84 The Sources of Standard English. The Norse sidl (discretion) is first found at page 61 ; and the Norse tast (torqnere) at page 47. At page 131 may be found our verb thrust, coming from the Norse ]frysta : ' he to-fruste fa stelene gate.' At page 43, we see our smother (there called smarter), which is nearer related to the Low German of the mainland than to the Old English smorian. Siker, akin to securtts, now first appears. We may often find an old pedigree for a word that is now reckoned slangy. We are told at page 15 that we ought to restrain the evil done by thieves ; the verb used is tci'68tewen, afterwards repeated in the Legend of St. Margaret. Hence comes the phrase, ' stow that nonsense;' this may be found in Scott and Dickens.^ Our verb liclc, as used in polite society, can boast of the best of Teutonic pedigrees ; as commonly used by schoolboys, it is but a corruption of the Welsh llachiaw (ferire). From this last may also come our flog, even as Lloyd and Floyd are due to one and the same source. We may compare the Moral Ode of the date of these Homilies with its transcript a few years later. In this latter, W is much oftener employed for the old g ory in the middle of a word ; as drawen, owen. Thanks to the corruption found in this last verb, we have two distinct forms for deheo : 1 owe money, and I ought to pay. The en- croachment of w upon g OT y may be remarked in another Southern work of about the same date, the Poem on the Soul and Body, printed from a Worcester manuscript by Sir Thomas Phillipps. In pages 2 and 6 of this work, we ^ In Hard TzTties comes the phrase, * Kidderminster, stow that ; ' i.e. ' be quiet.' The Old and Middle English, 85 see fugelas turned into fuweles (fowls), sugu into suwa (sow), and elhoga into elbowe. An attempt is e^enmade to change our word days into dawes, a corruption that lasted long in the South. The old ]>urh (per) now be- comes ]>uruh, pointing to our later thorough and through. In page 7 of this work, we find a Weak Verb turned into a Strong one, which seldom happens in English ; peo hellen rungen^ where the last word should be ringoden. The old eahte BJidfeower now become eihte and four. We find hoJceSj so, dayes^ 'pih, eij^e, hei, chiken, neih,^ heihnesse, instead of the older bee, swa, dagas, peoh, edge, heg, cicen, neah, hedhnes. We were beginning to couple together the Southern c and the Northern h, as in crock and '^icke. Another budding change may be seen in sjpindel, which is turned into spindle. The new form ou was beginning to replace the older 0, for souhte and inouh are found instead of sohte and genoh : the letter u is not yet changed into ou. Some new phrases appear, such as alto huge, the all being often prefixed, as it was later in our although, albeit, ^c. The new Preposition besiden, formed from side, is now first found ; ^ also wome (vae mihi), which was long afterwards lengthened into woe is me. Cantwaraburh is now changed into Cantoreburi ; and thus the French way of spelling (did they ever yet spell a Teutonic word right ?) influenced us. Baeda becomes Beda ; and we see the Old and the New in the short sentence, '-^Ifric abbod fe we Alquin hotef.' ^ We thus have nigh as well as the near (near) seen at page 81, both alike coming from the old neah. The combination ei was never much liked for our Teutonic words. 2 Wickliife wrote ' hisydis the desert,' for what was 400 years earlier ^wi^ Sset westen.' 86 The Sources of Standard English. It is hopeless, after seven hundred years of wrong spelling, to talk now of King Mlfred. Ortgeard is softened into orchard. Bd-deor (capreolus) is changed into roa-deor, and shows ns the steps by which the old a became the new o ; we still write broad and goad, a com- promise between the North and the Sonth. The sound in English can be expressed by about ten different combinations of letters ; the student of our tongue must here long for the simplicity of the Italian. About this time, the reign of Henry II., the Old Southern English Gospels of King Ethelred's time were fitted for more modern use. These, known in their new form as the Hatton Gospels, are now accessible to all ; St. Matthew's Gospel was published in 1858.* The main corruption, wrought by two hundred years or less, is the change of c into ch^ as mycel into mychel and (eIc into elch. The endings are clipped as usual ; thus sunu be- comes sime. These Gospels were the last version of Scripture, so far as is known, put forth in England until Wickliffe's day ; free paraphrases and riming transla- tions of the Psalms might indeed be compiled ; but the next Century, with its Albigensian wars and its Later an Councils, frowned upon literal versions of the Bible in any vulgar tongue. Even the stout Teutons of Eng- land had in this to give way to Homan behests. We are still two hundred years from the Lollard outbreak. We must now for the third time cast an eye upon the Homilies, which throw such a flood of light upon Twelfth Century English. ^ Those to which I now refer ^ Anglo-Saxon and Northumbrian Versions of St. Matthew's Gos- pel, by Hardwick. 2 Old English Homilies, Second Series (Early English Text The Old a7id Middle English. "^j date from about 1180, and seem to have been written in Essex, according to evidence brought forward by Dr. Morris ; for some of their forms are akin to the Dane- lagh, others to the South. They have pecuHarities, found also in Kent ; such as the change of i into e, manken for mankin, sennen for sinnen; also, the com- bination of ie to express the sound of e, as in lief, hitwien, gier, ])ief, fiend, friend ; lie (page 229) for the older leo'^en; glie for gleo ; fiehle (page 191) for what we call feeble. This combination is found in King Alfred's translation of Pope Gregory's Pastoral Care, and after 1120 was preserved nowhere else but in Kent and in the shire where the present Homilies were written. Another combination of vowels, common enough in Gothic but hitherto almost unknown in England, is that of ai} We find in these HomiHes the new forms maiden, nail, slaine, nai : here the i represents an older g ; the ancient diphthong ce, beloved of old, was soon to vanish from England. There is here also a combination of consonants much used in the Eastern half of England, that of gh replacing the old h ; we now find ])oghte and aghte (debuit) ; this was as yet strange to the shires South of Thames. Another mark of the North and of the Eastern coast, the use of sal instead of shall, is also found. The hard g sound was henceforth peculiar to East Anglia and Northern Essex ; we here find folegen, hurg, gure (vester), heger (emptor), ^ier (annus) ; also Society), published by Dr. Morris. These did not come out before the end of May, 1873. I delayed publishing my own book until their appearance. 1 It is found, but most seldom, in the last part of the Peterborough Chronicle, as in mat and lai ; the i representing the old g. 88 The Sources of Standard English. the corrupt gede (ivit). The new sound sh instead of sc, seldom found hitherto, is now established in the South ; as shown in hisshup, shipe, shufe (our shove), shrifte, fishes. The w, which replaced g in so many words, is creeping up from the South ; we see owen, hruw, huw, for agen, hreg, and hoga. Such forms occur as sined (peccavit), gres (gramen), eke (etiBim),fewe, sort, hre^ren, reu (poenitet). In this last word we now trans- pose the vowels. We here see the old Frigedceg, geogu'6, genemned, jpyndan, cneowian, ceaca, gedriged, draf, hrcec, leger, turned into Fridai, "^ieu^, nemmed, joen, cnewl, cheke, dride, drof, hrac, hire (lair). The prefix to the Past Participle often disappears, a sure token of Norse influence ; as is also the aren (sunt) and he^en (hinc), found in these Homilies. At page 25, we get a bit of Old Enghsh philology : God is called Father, we are there told, for two things ; ' on his for f o J?e he . . . feide (joined) pe lemes to ure licame . . . o6er is pat he fet (feeds) alle fing.' The fact that a new French sound ch often replaced the old hard English sound c, has enriched our tongue with two sets of words ; thus we have the two distinct verbs, wake and watch, both spring- ing from the old wcecan. But in 1180 their use was most unsettled ; at page 161 we hear that the Devil wecche^ (awaketh) evil. There are many new expressions in these Homilies ; such as anon,^ welnehg (wellnigh), /or ]>e nones (instead of for fan cenes, page 87), roper (in the sense ofpotius, not citius, page 213), a Godes name, alse ]>eih (quasi) ; mast mannen (maxima pars hominum) ; shewe em, page 57. At * The old on an only meant contimwusly. The Old and Middle Eftglish, 89 page 175 we hear of two brethren, '^^at on is Saint Peter and yat d6er Seint Andreu :* this is a great change from the se an . , . se d^er used of the two men who strove for the Papacy in 1129, as recorded in the Peter- borough Chronicle of that year. In Scotch law papers the tan and the tother may be remarked down to very modern times ; ^ the confusion between letters is like that seen in the nonce. The MascuHne and Neuter of the Article were no longer to be distinguished ; at least, in Danish shires. The 0, which has so often replaced the old a, has added to our stock of synonyms for imus\ we now employ one and an in distinct ways, but this had not been settled in 1180 : at page 125 we read of ' 0^1 old man,' and two lines lower down of ' an holie child.' Many English words were now getting new meanings. Among the works of darkness mentioned at page 18 are * chest and chew^ translated by Dr. Morris ' contention and ^aw^ a new sense of the old ceowan^ our chew.'^ There is a famous Mediaeval phrase in page 113 ; Christ, it is there said, ' herede helle ; ' the Harrowing of Hell plays a leading part in our old literature from first to last. We know our phrase, * to take to his bed ; ' we read in page 29, ' f u takest to huse,' that is, 'thou keepest at home.' At page 39, we hear of ' a man f e was of his wit ; ' hence comes our, ' off his feed.' At page 201 we see a broad line drawn between nappmg * So LQ the poem on the Chameleon : — ' Sirs,' cried the umpire, ' cease your pother ; The creature's neither one nor tother.' * Sir Charles Napier, when finding comfort, as he said, in 'jawing away ' at the powers that were, little suspected the good authority he had for his verb. 90 The Sources of Standard English, and sleeping. At page 151, wlache^ the old wlcec, is the adjective applied to snow melted by the sun; this is seen in our luke-warm. The old tilian (colere) remains to this day as till ; but it had another sense lab or are : this last is expressed in page 155 by changing tilian into tulien. England was losing many of her old words ; but she made the most of those that were left to her by giving double meanings to certain terms. We find new forms like ' to crohe ' or ' make crooked,' page 61 ; and sivoldren, our swelter, page 7 ; snevi and snuve (sniff and snuff, pages 37 and 191). Trustliche (trustfully) appears, akin to the Frisian trdst. There are many Norse words, which we have followed, rather than the kindred old English forms. Heve, heave from hefia Holsum, ivholesome >• heilsamr Mece, meek )? miukr Redie, ready >» rede Rote, root ij r6te Shurte, shirt fi skyrta Shrike, shriek V skrika Share, sheer ^ jj skasrr Smoc, smock jj smokkr Tiding, tidings V tiSindi Toten, spectare ^ ff titte (Danish) There are here also a few words common to England and Holland, such as twist, wimjple, and shiver (findere). To scorn is here seen for the first time ; some have derived it from the French escomir, to deprive of horns. But it is used a few years later by Orrmin, the last of all men * This is nearer to the Norse than to the Old English scir. 2 Hence comes our tout, well known to sporting men. The Old and Middle English. gi to nse a Frencli word : secern (stercus) is the more likely parent of the word. The old wcer (cantus) now becomes ivarre (page 193), our warij. We have a collection of King Alfred's saws, dating from about the year 1200. ' It seems, like the Homilies just discussed, to have been compiled somewhere in the lN"orth of Essex ; for we find the thorough East Anglian forms, such as gimg^ sal, wu, arren (young, shall, how, are), and also Norse words, such as plough. On the other hand, we find the Active Participle ending in both the Midland end and the Southern ind, and the prefix i or y in constant use in all parts of the Verb ; the Southern o moreover has driven out the older a, as no ]>mg for na ]>ing, swo for swa. But there is a further change in the sound and spelling of vowels. BSc is turned into hooc, and god into goed. The old sound of was being replaced by u in many parts of England ; about this time Orrmin far away was writing hule (taurus) and funnt instead of holi and font. Moreover, in the poem before us, u is replaced by oo; wood is written for the old wude (silva). The combination ai was in fall force ; before it the Old English diphthong m was to vanish. We here find again, fair, maist (potes). This last word is a corruption of Ipu meaht. Ne leve ]>tc is now turned into leve ]>u nout (ne crede). Wela be- comes weVS ; hwilis Ipat stands for the Latin dum. For so\e (forsooth) is seen for the first time. A new adjec- tive is formed from lang ; the poet mentions at the end of his piece ]?e lonhe mon, the lanky man. It is said of * Anglo-Saxon Dialogiies, by J. Kemble (JElfric Society), Part. III. p. 226. A revised edition has been published by Dr. Morris in his Old English Miscellany. 92 The Sources of Standard English, a saucy fellow, that 'he wole grennen, cocken, and chiden ; ' here we have the first hint as to our adjective cocky. The whole poem is most Teutonic ; but at the end of the two last stanzas, the bard, perhaps wishing to show off, brings in a few French words most need- lessly : — Ac nim fe to J?e a stable mon fat word and dede bisette con, and multeplien heure god, a sug fere fe his help in mod. Hie ne sige nout bi fan, fat moni ne ben gentile man ; furu f is lore and genteleri he amendit huge companie.^ This is the first instance of our word gentleman. We find for the first time the Frisian Inasie^ and also dote (dolt), akin to a Dutch term ; besides a few Scandinavian words. Huge, from the Norse ugga, to frighten. Scold, from the Swedish skalla. We have also added to our well-known word ban the Norse sense maledicere, as seen in this poem. About the year 1200, the Old English Charters of Bury St. Edmunds were turned into the current speech of the shire, and these fill many pages of Kemble's Codex Diplomaticus. THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT. (About 1200.) I now come to that writer who, more clearly than any other, sets before us the growth of the New English, the great work of the Twelfth Century. The monk * The h is sadly misused in this piece, as we see. The Old and Middle English. 93 Omnin wrote a metrical parapkrase of the Gospels, with comments of his own, somewhere about the year 1200 ; at least, he and Layamon employ the same pro- portion of Teutonic words that are now obsolete, and Layamon is known to have written after 1204. Orr- min, if he were the good fellow that I take him to have been (I judge from his writings), was a man well worthy to have lived in the days that gave us the Great Charter. He is the last of our English Makers who can be said to have drunk from the undefiled Teutonic well ; no later writers ever use so many Prepositional com- pounds, and on this account we ought perhaps to fix upon an earlier year than 1200 for his date. In the course of his lengthy poem, he uses only four or five French words ; his few Latin words are Church phrases known in our land long before the Norman Conquest.^ On the other hand, he has scores of Scandinavian words, the result of the Norse settlement in our Eastern shires 300 years before his day. His book is the most thoroughly Danish poem ever written in England, that has come down to us ; many of the words now in our mouths are found for the first time in his pages. Had some of our late Lexicographers pored over him more, they would have stumbled into fewer pitfalls.^ It is most important to fix the shire in which Orrmin wrote, since no man did more to simplify our English grammar, and to sweep away all nicety as to genders ^ When we find so thorough a Teuton using words like ginn and scorn, we should pause before we derive these from France. * Mr. White has given us a capital edition of Orrmin's poem, the OrmtUum. Dr. Stratmann has made good use of it. 94 The Sources of Sta7tdard English. and cases. From his use of the 6h instead of c, he cannot well be established to the North of the Humber. From his employment of tlieir^ them (though indeed he some- times uses Iner^ hem^ as well), he cannot fairly be brought further South than Lincoln. Had he lived in Lincolnshire, he would have used sal and suld instead of shall and should, and perhaps too, the participle in and, instead of ende. A line drawn between Doncaster and Derby seems to be the Western boundary of the old Danish settlement in Mercia, for few hamlets ending in hij are found to the West of this line, and a writer so Scan- dinavian as Orrmin must have lived to the East of it. On the whole, the North of the county of Notts seems as likely a spot as any for his abode. ^ There are many links between him and the Peterborough Chronicler who wrote forty years earlier. The word gehaten or '^ehatenn is almost the only Past Participle which they leave undipped of its prefix. They both use the two great Midland shibboleths, the Present Plural in en and the Active Participle in ende. They have the same ob- jection to any ending but es for the Genitive Singular and the Nominative Plural, following in this the old Northumbrian Gospels. They do not inflect the Article, and are thus far ahead of the Kentish writer in 1340. Orrmin uses that as a Demonstrative and not as a Neuter Article ; he knows nothing of the old thilk, used in Somersetshire to this day. He has no trace of the Genitive Plural in ene, which lingered on in the ^ Mr. Grarnett wishes to settle ^him within fifty miles of North- ampton, and therefore would not object to Nottingham. I should like to place him thirty miles still further North. The Old and Middle English. 95 South for two hundred and fifty years after his time ; he makes no distinction between Definite and Indefinite Adjectives, and their Plurals do not end in es. Writing, as he does, not far from the spot where the Northum- brian Psalter is thought to have been translated, he has a strong dislike to compound vowels. He often writes Jresf, califs cnew, darr, depy ledd, fihhtenn, frend, lernenn, instead of the old hreost, cealf, ciieow, dear, deop, Iced, feohtan, freond, leornigan. In the pronunciation of these words, as in many other things, we have followed him. By this time, the new sound ch had made its way from the South up to the Trent ; we find henncliey Iceche, macche, spceche, instead of the old bene, Idece, maca, sjpcece.^ Orrmin was the second English writer, so far as is known, who pretty regularly used sh instead of the former sc ; he wrote shcefess, shcepe, shcewenn, shall, and shame : this change began in the South, and the older form had not altogether gone out in the North, for he uses both bishop and bishop. Nowhere more clearly than in the Ormulum can we see the struggle between the Old and the New. He continues the custom of soften- ing g into y ; eage with him is e^he, not far from our eye ; geong becomes '^ung. We have happily not followed him in softening the g in words like give, get, and gate ; or in corrupting deor (in Latin, fercB) into deoress, deers. He was the first to place 5 at the end of a word, after a vowel; as fejj (they). He gave us lay instead of the Peterborough lai. Orrmin, being a true Northemer, * Our tongue is much enriched by having different forms of the same word ; such as dike, ditch, shriek, screech, drink, drench, egg, edge, &c., owing to this intrusive ch. 96 The Sources of Standard English. dislikes the old fasLion of setting a at the beginning of a verb : lie will not write arise or awake. The Northern men, who settled our speech, clipped everything that they conld. In his Pronouns, he shows that he is a near neighbour to Northumbria. He uses I and ice ; pejj, f e^jre, J^ejjm ; but sometimes replaces the two last by Jieore^ hemm. It was two hundred and sixty years before their and them came into Standard English ; they are true Scandinavian forms. Unlike the Peterborough Chronicler, Orrmin sticks to the Old English heo (in Latin, ea), which he writes 3/^0. This is another reason for settling him as far to the West in the Danelagh as we can ; his ^ho still survives in Lancashire as hoo, as we know from Mrs. Graskell's works. It would be endless to point out all Orrmin's Scandi- navian leanings. In our word for the Latin stella, he prefers the Danish stierne to the Old English steorra, writing it sterrne. He even uses og, the Danish word for * e^ ' in a phrase like a^j occ a^j. He employs the Norse ending le'^'^c as well as the English 7iess in his substan- tives, as modi'^le'^-^c, modi'piesse. In tende, his word for decimus, he follows the Danish tiende rather than the Old EngHsh ted, track Smikerr, beautiful prife, thrive Upphald, an upholding Wand, rod Wansian Vanta Wantenn, carere FySer Wvrse Vaengr Vaerre Weng, loing Werre, waur in Scotch Geol 161 Yol, Yule Orrmin' s work proves that England had not yet lost the power of compounding words with Prepositions and such words as even^ full, orr, un, and wan. This gives wonderful strength and pith to his verse. We de- generate writers of later days use few compounds but those with out, over, under, and fore ; and in this respect England falls woefully short of India, Greece, and Ger- many. Orrmin, like the Peterborough Chronicler, separates the Verb and the Preposition ; he says, * to standenn inn ' (instare), ' he strac inn,'' from the old strican, to pass.^ Inn is by him often pared down to i, as in the Southern Homilies ; Shakespere has ' digged i the dark.' The letter n often vanishes before a dental, as in the case of tontli, tooth. The old hufan now becomes abufenn (above) ; hiforan changes to hiforr (ante). * Every one remembers Cowper's * Sir Smug.' The old Danish word has been sadly degraded- 2 Sir Roger de Coverley at the theatre ' struck in,' hearing some people talk near him. Addison would have been puzzled to give the derivation of this verb. The Old a?id Middle English. 99 The Scotch /ar&?/e (praeter) here appears as/orrJ?Z?i; so forthward became forward. Orrmin often writes uppo for ujpon. This is one of the Derbyshire peculiarities, which have lately been brought home to all lovers of good EngHsh by the authoress of Adam Bede. The old icppe preceded the more modern uppan. Most striking is the number of Orrmin's words begin- ning with the privative U7t. We have lost many of them, and have thus sadly weakened our diction ; but our best writers are awaking to a sense of our loss, and such words as unwisdom are coming in once more. The privative or, as orrap, is still found in the Ormu- lum, but did not last much longer. The old hwcet litles, which lingered on elsewhere, is here changed into sammivhatt, which we have kept : there is a change in the consonants, if we compare the old hucet with the new ivhat ;i we also find sum operr and summwhcer. Orrmin employs that for the Latin {lie, a sense unknown before the Conquest ; while London stuck to the old thilJc for two hundred and fifty years longer. Vol. I. p. 227. Whase itt iss fatt lufeff griff, ]>att mann shall findenn Jesu Crist. For the Plural of this patt he employs pa (fifty years later this pa was to become pas). » If we had kept the h in its proper place, at the beginning of the word, we should have full in our view the hnk between hwcBt and the Latin cwid (quid). The interchange between h and c has not yet died out in our island. I have heard Scotch peasants talk of a cwirlwind instead of a hwirlwind. H 2 100 TJie Sources of Standard English, II. p. 153, alle \a fatt waterr swalh. In Vol. I. p. 85, we see our common form theirs for tlie first time. ' Till e^jl^err ])e^'^rGss herrte.' Forms like ours and yo^irs were to come later. This Norse form took long to reach the South. The old celc (quisque), as in the South, was now taking an after it ; hence comes the Lowland Scotch form ilka, as in I. p. 15. And oiF illc an off alle fa Oomm an god fiocc off prestess (each one of all those). We find also sioillc an, such a one. Orrmin is the first English writer to put wliat before a substantive without regard to gender, as ' what man ? ' * ivhat woman ? ' The old hwilc was losing its former meaning in England. In Vol. I. p. 42, there is a new form, ' ]m cwennkesst i ]n sellf modijnesse,' This of old would have been ]>e silf ; self now began to be thought a noun, something like jperson. Nan (nemo) takes a Plural sense, much as if a barbarous Latin word like nemines were to be formed. At Vol. II. page 92 we see, ' i nane depe sinness.' A is used as an Interjection, much like our ah. Alls iff (in Latin, quasi) replaces the Old English swilc ; we find also alls itt wcere, as it were. Our vrithal is now seen. The Old aweg is now awei% (away). The Old a (semper) is now ajj. The curious word hidene (in Dutch, hy that) is found The Old and Middle English. loi for the first time ; it remained in use for 300 years. It liere means *at once.' For]>wip]> also appears for the first time, but is used only once by Orrmin; the old forr]>rihht is commonly employed by him. Hallflingess, a word still in Scotch use, appears in Orrmin instead of the old healfunga. The Old English Interjection eala now becomes la, our lo ! Orr (in Latin aut) appears once or twice for the first time, replacing the old off e. Orrmin was the first to use rihht instead of swi]>e (the Latin valcle), though he does not do it often ; thus, in I. page 217, he talks of leading a life rihht wel wi])]> Godess hell/pe. We still keep the old adverb, though the foreign very has almost driven it out. The word an, when used in the sense of solus, takes all before it (hence comes our alone). We are told that man cannot Bi brsed all ane libbenn. — II. p. 40. the new forms although, albeit, &c., were soon to follow. Orrmin uses, as we do, both awihht and ohht (aught and ought). The Old English word for the Latin idem was ylc, still kept in Scotland ; as Redgauntlet of that Ilk. Instead of this, Orminn, but only once, uses same ; He mihhte makenn cwike menu f eer off J7a same staness. — I. page 345, 102 The Sources of Standard English, This root same is good Sanscrit and Gothic ; the N'orse sams means ejusdem generis. Nothing in English is more curious than that this Scandinavian word should have driven out the older ylc. Allderrman here still means a Prince, as in Old English times ; Orrmin even uses it for Ahhot. He talks also of Eorless, earls, ranking them not much lower than kings. Lie was the Old English word for corpus, though it is now found only in Lichfield and lych-gate. Bodig usually meant the trunk or chest; but Orrmin uses lodi-^ far oftener than lie, in our sense of the word. In one line he forms a new substantive out of the two, speaking of hodi^lich. He uses chilldre for the Plural of child, and the former still lingers in Lancashire as childer. Our corrupt Plural children came from the South, as also did brethren and Ivine. The word drugo^ is now turned into druhh\e. The word flail, akin to the flegil of the mainland, now first appears in English. The old gcershopjpan now becomes gresshoppe, grass- hoppers. The old crcet (currus) now becomes harrte. The diphthong ce had long been giving way, and it was doubtful whether a or e was to replace it. Orr- min' s na'^'^l instead of noegel has been followed by us rather than the neil of the South. We now find for the first time such compounds as overhing, overlord ; words happily revived in our own day. Our fathers had a rooted objection to beginning their The Old and Middle English, 103 words with the letter 'p ; few such are found in Orrmin, and nearly all of them, are Church Latin phrases. He uses wa'^yi instead of the old wcegen^ and we still employ both ivain and waggon ; both alike are found in English writers before the Norman Conquest. Weddlac (wedlock) now appears, where of old wiflciG would have been used. The former word, before Orr- min's time, meant no more than the Latin 'pig^ius. The Old English woruld stood for soeculum^ and nothing more ; but it now begins to stand for orhis} In Orrmin's werrJceda^h, the new form of weorc-dceg^ we see the first germ of Shakespere's ' this work-a-day world.' Orrmin sometimes casts a letter out of the middle of a word ; thus he has both the old wurr]>slii])e and the new wurrshipe, worship. The word daffte still keeps its old sense, liumilis ; it has been degraded, like silly (beatus). Adjectives were losing the guttural, with which they formerly ended. We find in Orrmin both er^lic and FollJisumm (compliant) has not yet the degrading sense of our fulsome ; indeed, the latter is said to be connected with foul. Fresh now replaces the older fersc. The word fus, * eager,' is here found in its true old sense. This is now degraded, like many another good word. The worthy Nicodemus, as Orrmin says, was ^ This word is still rightly pronounced as a dissyllable in Scot- land ; so in Lady Nairne's Mitherless Lammie :- — * But it wad gae witless the warald to see.' 104 ^^^^ Sources of Standard English. fus to lernenn ; in our days, a tiresome old woman is fussy, Nacod now becomes nakedd (nudus). Orrmin uses sheejpish in a sense far removed from ours ; lie applies the adjective (T. p. 230) to a man who meehly follows Christ's pattern. We find ]mrr]iutlike, thoroughly, for the first time. TJngelic is now cut down to unnlic (unlike). We see cefeZ^j, our easily, instead of the older ea^elice. For the Latin sunt, we find arm, as well as heon and sinndenn. The first of these was hardly ever used in the South or West of England; it comes from the Angles, as we saw in the Northumbrian Gospels. Hi wceron now sometimes, as in the Southern Homilies, becomes f ejj wa^re ; but a more wonderful change is ])U wcere turned into ]>u wass, the Norse war (eras) ; ic sceal becomes I shall. We see the last of the Old English si (in Latin, sit) ; it survives, somewhat clipped, in our yes, i.e. ge si. Bed is in the Ormulum cut down to be, and 1)6071 (esse) to hen. Orrmin uses the old ic raot, ])u most, and also a new Scandinavian auxiliary verb, which is employed even now from Caithness to Derby- shire. ^ Such a phrase as I mun do this is first found in his work ; the mun is the Scandinavian muna, but mune in the Ormulum implies futurity more than necessity. Orrmin uses assken (rogare) instead of the Southern acsian, and we have followed him ; the Irish still use axe, since the first English colonists came from Bristol and the South. * Four years ago I heard an old Derbyshire gamekeeper use the verb in question. . The Old and Middle English, 105 We find both hikoechedd and hikaJiht for caitght. This new word, which we saw first in the South, must have spread fast in England. Another new word is found in the lines : — fatt . . . feod fatt Jacob wass hilenge. — I. page 75 (belonging to Jacob). This word is akin to the Dutch verb helangen (attingere). Orrmin, like the Peterborough Chronicler of 1120, uses the Passive Participle clwsenn for the old gecSren, He replaces the old cneowian by cnelenn (kneel), which came first in the Essex Homilies. He sometimes turns a Strong verb into a Weak one, a process begun long before Jiis time. He uses hcefedd (elatum) as well as hofenn ; he has sleppte (dormivit) where it ought to be slep; wejppten (fleverunt) instead of weopon; trededd (depressus) instead of treden. One of the peculiar shibboleths, brought hither by the Danes, is the word gar (facere), a word still in the mouths of Scotchmen. Orrmin uses the compounds forrgarrt and oferrgarrL The verb gar is found neither in High nor in Low German. The Norse gow is used by him for ohservare. Hence comes our a-gog, the Icelandic a gcegiurrij on the watch. As might be expected, Orrmin follows the Northern hafan rather than the Southern habhan (habere). We find a near approach to our modem corruption hast in his line — Himm haffst tu slajenn witerrlij. — I. page 154. io6 The Sources of Standard English. He^lenn is now first used for ' to salute.' The Old English geJiyded is now contracted into hidd; hidden is one of the few Weak Participles that we have turned into Strong ones. Hutenn (vituperare), to hoot, which first appears in Orrmin's work, is a puzzle to lexicographers, and may come either from the Welsh or the Norse. The old onlihtan becomes lihhtenn in Orrmin's hands ; but we have returned to enlighten. England cleaves to her own old word leap, Scotland to the Norse laupa (loup) : they are both found in the Ormulum. The Old English sceclode now takes its modem form secnedd, sickened; conversely, we shall see later the French train become trail, Scorcnedd (scorched) appears for the first time in English ; Wedgwood quotes the Low Dutch schroggen, which has the same meaning. Orrmin uses both the Strong and the Weak form for the Past Participle of show ; he has both shcewenn and shcBwedd. We now prefer the former, though the latter is the true form ; just as we mistakenly vn^ite strewn for strewed. But in the matter of Strong and Weak verbs, we usually err on the other side. We derive our modern notion of the word shift (in Latin, mutare) from the Scandinavian, and not from the Old English.^ In the latter, the word means ' to dis- tribute,' and nothing more. We see the two senses in Orrmin's work (L 13), when he speaks ot Zachariah's service in the Temple. * Our word shift (chemise) means a change of linen. The Old and Middle English. 107 The old meaning of stintan was * to be weary ; ' it now has the meaning of ' to leave off.' See II. page 92. We now first find the verb stir with an intransitive sense. Tcecan, ic tcehte (docere, docni), become in Orrmin's mouth tcechenn, ic tahJite, not far from our own way of pronouncing it, and feccan becomes fecchenn. The old geivorhf is now seen as wroliM, not far from our wrought. We cannot help envying Orrmin his power of making long Teutonic compounds. He has no need to write the Latin immortality, when he has ready to hand such a word as unndce])shildi;^nesse, implying even more than the Latin. But this power was now unhappily on the wane in England. We have had a great loss in the Old English words mid (cum) and niman (capere).^ These are, with little change, good Sanscrit ; and the Germans have been too wise to part with them. Orrmin but seldom employs them, and they must have been now dying out in the North. He is fonder of the two words which have driven them out, i.e. with and take. Had the banks of Thames been the birthplace of our Standard English, we should have kept all four words alike. In giving a specimen of Orrmin' s verse, I have been careful to take the subject from scenes in Courtly life, where, after his time, numbers of French words must unavoidably have been used by any poet, however much a lover of homespun English. Orrmin's peculiar way of doubling consonants will be remarked. He clings * The last survives in numb, and in Corporal Npn, io8 The Sources of Standard English, fast to the Infinitive in enn^ which had been dropped at Peterborough. If we wish to relish his metre, every syllable must be pronounced ; thus, Serode takes an accent on all three vowels alike. THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT OE 1200. ORMULUM, I.— Page 280. Herode king majj swife * wel J?e lafe ^ gast bitacnenn ; forr all hiss werrc and all hiss will wass ifell gast full cweme,'' and onn himm sellfenn wass inoh * his ajhenn ^ sinne sene ; for well biforenn fatt he swallt ^ wass himm f>att wa ^ bigimnenn ])att he shall drejhenn ^ aj^ occ ajj inn belle wi})f> pe deofell j forr he warrf * seoc, and he bigann to rotenn bufenn ^ eor[>e, and tohh ^ he toe wi]?}> mete swa fatt nan ne mihhte himm fillenn, and swa he stannc f att iwhillc ™ mann was himm full laj? to nehh jhenn ; ° and all himm wasrenn fet and feos ° tobollenn p and toblawenn. fa laechess ]mtt himm comenn to and himm ne mihhtenn hselenn he sloh, and se^jde fatt tejj *i himm ne kepptenn ' nohht to berrjhenn. and he toe iwhillc hsefedd * mann off all hiss kineriche,* and let hemm stekenn " inn an hus, and haldenn swife fasste, and badd tatt mann hemm shoUde slaen, son summ ^ he shoUde de^enn. • right b loathsome « pleasing to ^ enow e own f died 6 woe *» suffer • became ^ above » yet ^ every ^ approach « thighs p swollen q they «■ heeded nob to protect him • head t kingdom « had them shut ^ as soon as The Old a7id Middle Englisk 109 he fohhte f att mann munnde ^ "beon off hiss dsej? swife bli])e, and wisste f att mann munnde fa * for hemra full sare wepenn, and woUde swa f att all fe folic fatt time shollde wepenn, Jjatt mann himm shollde findenn daed ]?ohh itt forr himm ne wsere. T would « then Page 283. And affterr fatt ta wass he dsed In all hiss miccle sinne. ace faer wass mikell oferrgarrt * and modijnesse ^ shaewedd abutenn patt stinnkennde lie" paer itt wass brohht till eorfe 5 forr all }?e bsere '^ wass bile^;j;d wi]?}) bsetenn gold and sillierr, and all itt wass e^jwhj^r ^ bisett wi])J? deorewurrpe ^ staness, and all patt wsede « patt tser wass uppo fe baere fundenn, all wass itt off J^e bettste pall Jmtt anij mann ma;?;^ ajhenn,** and all itt wass wundenn wi])]? gold and sett wij?]7 deore stancss, and all he wass wurrflike shridd ' alls ilf he wsere o life, and onn hiss haefedd waerenn twa gildene cruness sette, and himm wass sett inn hiss rihht hannd an dere kinejerrde ^ ; and swa mann barr fatt fule ^ lie till paer he bedenn haffde.™ and hise cnihhtess alle imaen ° forth jedenn ^ wiff f^ baore, * haughti- ness * pride « body d bier • everywhere ' precious 8 apparel h own » honourably clothed ^ sceptre I foul ™ had bidden o together « went I lo The Sources of Sta7idard English, wi)))> heore waepenn alle bun,p • p ready swa summ itt birrf ,*! wij?)) like. q it befits and ec ]?8er jedenn wifj) fe lie full wel fif hunndredd fewwess,' «• servants to strawwenn gode gresess ® paer, » herbs fatt stunnkenn swif e swete, biforenn f att stinnkennde lie faer menn itt berenn sholldenn. and tuss pej^ alle brohhtenn bimm wiff mikell modijnesse till f ser fser ' be j^e^jm haft'de se^d t ^here fat te^5 bimm brinngenn sholldenn. swillc" mann wass patt H erode king n such fatt let te cbilldre cwellenn, for fatt be wollde cwellenn Crist amang bemm, jifF be mibbte. THE CONTEAST TO THE EAST MIDLAND. (About A.D. 1205.) (KINa LEAR'S ANGER AT CORDELIA'S SPEECH.) pe king Leir iwerSe swa blac, swilcb bit a blae clot5 weoren. iwserS bis bude and bis beowe, for be was sufe ibsermed, mid ]78ere wr£e'5(5e be wes isweved, fat be feol iswowen ; late f eo be up fusde, fat mceiden wes afeared, fa bit alles up brae, bit wes vuel fat be spae : Hserne Cordoille, icb f e telle wille mine wille ; of mine dobtren f u were me durest, nu f u eeert me aire Ise^es : The Old and Middle English, 1 1 1 ne scalt ]?u naever halden dale of mine lande ; ah mine dohtren ich wille delen mine riche. and f u scalt worsen warchen, and wonien in wansiSe, for navere ich ne wende fat f u me woldes fus scanden, farfore f u scalt beon daed ic wene : fiij ut of min eseh-sene, fine sustren sculen habben mi kinelond, and fis me is iqueme ; fe due of Cornwaile seal habbe Gornoille, and f e Scottene king Regan fat scone ; and ic hem jeve all fa winne f e ich aem waldinge over. and al f e aide king dude swa he hafvede idemed.^ The above lines are taken from Lajamon's Brut, compiled, as it would seem, in Worcestershire about the year 1205. The proportion of Teutonic words, now obsolete, to the whole is the same as in the Ormulum. The poet has both Jidt and hot for calidus ; but the words lond, hoiid, are written instead of land, hand, just as we find in the oldest Worcester charters printed by Kerable, Codex Dip. I. page 100. And this is also done by our kinsmen in Friesland. We sometimes find in Layamon feo for the Old English hi ; a token that he did not live to the South of ' Sir F. Madden's Layamon, i. 130. Layamon has added much of his own to the original in this story of King Lear ; and the addi- tions have been copied by later writers, Shakespere among them. 1 1 2 The Sources of Standard English, the Thames. He prefers the old sc to the new sound sA, writing scawimi, not shawian. The ch was not fully established in his Western shire, so far from London. We see swilc, sucliy and other varieties for talis. He, like Orrmin, sometimes gives us the old and the new sound of c (that is, k) in the same word ; thus, the old cycene now becomes Tcuchene, our kitchen} He was the last Englishman who held fast to the old national diph- thong OB, which was after his time, and indeed earlier, replaced by many combinations of vowels that still puzzle foreigners. What Orrmin would have called o lande, Layamon calls a londe. He has for denique a new phrase, at ]>an laste, I. page 160. We have already seen in the Homilies our contraction from the old latost. We keep both the forms, latest and last. The old endlufon (undecim) is turned into (jellevene. Layamon turns ne (the Latin nee) into no ; we must wait 140 years for nor. He has the two phrases ]>ene dcei longe and alle longe niht ; whence come our all day long, &c. He first used the Indefinite Article after many, as mony enne thing (many a thing). The word Kors (equi) is now changed to horses. — II. page 556. In Yerbs, Layamon turns some Strong ones into Weak. He says (I. 57), his scijpen runden, where we more correctly say, his shi;ps ran. But the great corruption which England owes to him is the changed ^ The old cicen is turned into chicken in the Worcester manu- script, quoted at page 85. The Old and Middle English. 1 1 3 state of the Present Participle Active. It of old termi- nated in ende : this in the South became inde about the year IJOO; and now, in 1204, it turns into inge; being douKtless confounded with the verbal nouns that of old ended in U7ig. We find herninge, frainmge^ singinge, and ivaldinge, Participles all used by Layamon. A hundred years later still, this corruption was unhappily adopted by the man who shaped our modern speech. The English word for volaverunt used to be flugon, but Layamon changes this into fluwen, our flew. This likeness to flowan (fluere) is rather confusing, to say nothing offleon (fugere). The Perfect of ])yden (premere) was once ])idde, but it now became ])vdde ; hence our thud. The old gyrdan (cingere) now gets a new sense (caedere), 'he gurde Suard on pat haefd ' (I. page 68) ; we still talk of girding at a man. Plilit had hitherto meant periculum ; it now takes the meaning of conditio, which we keep. Swogan had meant sonare-, it now got the sense of swoon. — I. page 130. At I. page 275 we see for the first time the word agaste (terruit), whence comes our aghast. For the origin of this word we must go so far back as the Gothic tosgeisjan. Our ghostly and glmstly come from sources that have been long separate. Instead of the Old English word for insula, Layamon employs ceite (ait), a word well known to all Etonians. It is the Danish ey with the Definite Article tacked on to the end in the usual way, ey-it, eyt, as Mr. Dasent tells us. Layamon has mcercoden in the sense of videre ; of I 114 '^^^^ Sources of Sta^idard English. old, it had been used for ostendere : tliis is just the converse of what has happened in the case of the old scedwian. The word ])ecm had hitherto been applied to the mind only ; it is now used of the body ; though this new sense did not become common in England until three hundred years later. We still talk of theivs and siyiews ; Spencer used the word in its old sense. Layamon forms an adjective from the Old English hende, in Latin jprojpe. He says, in Vol. I. page 206 : ' An o'Ser stret he makede swi^e hendi/ But he usually employs this adjective in the sense of courteous^ and in this sense it was used for hundreds of years. 1 give a list of many Norse words used by Layamon, which must have made their way to the Severn from the North and East ; we shall find many more in Dorsetshire a few years later. Club, from the Icelandic hhihha Draht (haustus), from the Icelandic drattr Hap (fortune), from the Icelandic happ, good luck ^ Hit, from the Icelandic hitta Hustinge (house court), from the Norse hus and thing Kaken (rush), from the Swedish rnka, to riot about ^ Riven, from the Icelandic r?/« (rumpere) Semen (beseem), from the Norse sama^ to fit To-dascte (dash out), from the Danish daske, to slap Layamon has the word nook (angulus) which may ^ Hence hapjpen^ ^cLppy, came into England and supplanted older words. 2 Hence the Rake's Progress. The Old and Middle English, 1 1 S come from hndegan (floctere). The poet, speaking of a mere, says, ' Feower nohed he is' (II. page 500). There are some other common words, which he is the first English writer to use. Thus he has taken gy't^s (catenae) from the Welsh gevyn ; and cutte (secare) from the Welsh cwtt, a little piece : this has almost driven out the Old English carve. He employs sturte (started), akin to the Old Dutch storten ; and has a new verb talk, springing from tale. Bal (our hall), draf, picchen (pangere), and rif (largus) are akin to the Dutch or German words hal, draf, jpichen, rif. BucJcen is found both in Dutch and in Layamon's work ; twenty years after his time it appears as roch (agitare). He has also Jialede (duxit), the Frisian halia ; as often happens in English, the word hale remains, and by its side the corruption haul, which cropped up ninety years after this time. Layamon says, ' iveo^eleden his fluhtes,' his flights became weak (I. page 122) : the verb has a High German brother, and from this may come our verb wohhle. About the year 1200, the Legend of St. Margaret seems to have been compiled.^ It has forms akin to the Worcester manuscript printed by Sir Thomas Phillipps, and in other particulars it resembles a well-known Dor- setshire work. But it touches the East Midland in its forms heo7i and aren (sunt) ; and its Participles end sometimes in ende, sometimes in iiide. The Past Parti- ciple islein (page II) resembles what we find in the Peterborough Chronicle. On the whole, Oxford seems * Early English Text Society, i2 1 1 6 The Sources of Standard English, to be as likely a spot as any, if we seek to fix upon some city for the authorship of the Legend. Layamon was fond of the Old English diphthong 66, but in the present work this is often altered to ea, as in the words reach, dean, heal, mean, least. We even find neafre for nwiquam. It is to the South Western shires that we owe the preservation of ea, a favourite combina- tion of our forefathers : the word flea has never changed its spelling. We see in this Legend botli the old siva and the new so ; tee]) replaces tep ; roa comes once more. The wimman of the Midland makes way for wummon ; we follow the former sound in the Plural and the latter sound in the Singular ; a curious instance of the widely difierent sources of our Standard English. Fearful (pavidus) is seen for the first time ; we grew fond o^ ful as an adjectival ending, and for it we displaced many older terminations. Lagu, cwcep, wasc become lake, quo^, and weosch. Such new phrases crop up as hwa so eaver (page 20) and steorcnaket (page 5). Cleane is used for omnino in page 15 ; cleane overcumen,2Ln idiom kept in our Version of the Bible. Our phrase ' it is all one to me,' is seen in its earliest shape at page 5, al one is an. In this piece, smartly seems to bear a sense half-way between quickly and jpainfully. Orrmin's ga'^hen is now found in a new compound, lungeinliclie (ungainly). At page 16 we see another Norse word, drupest (most droop- ing), from the Icelandic drupa. Drivel appears, which is akin to the Dutch drevel (servus). There are a few other new verbs : stutten, akin to a High German word, shows the origin of our stutter, while shudder is akin to a Dutch word. The word scMllinde (sonans) at page 19, akin to The Old and Middle English. 117 both the High German and Icelandic, tells whence comes our shrill — one of the many English words into which r has found its way. The verb seem has here a sense un- known to Orrmin and Layamon, that of videri. At page 9 we read, *his tee^ semden of swart irn.' On reading at page 13 * f u fikest ' (tu fallis), we may per- haps derive from this verb our fib, even as geleaf turns to belief. Toggen (trahere) is seen, more akin in form to the Dutch tocken than to the Old English teogan. We have three corruptions of this verb, with three widely different meanings — to tiig^ to toy^ and to tow. From the Legend of St. Catherine, compiled not much later, we get ihe word clatter, found also in Dutch. In another piece, the Hali Meidenhad,^ which dates from about the year 1220, we find one or two Norse words, such as cake and gealde (from geldr, that is, sterilis) ; there is also crujpel (cripple), akin to the Dutch. The Old English ceowan has the sense of jaw, as in the Homilies of 1180. The maiden is told, in page 31, that the husband * chit te and cheowe^ f e.' A little lower down, she is further threatened ; for he ' beateS pe and busted fe ; ' this last verb is the Icelandic beijsta, our baste (ferire). Hence also the French baston or baton. The tiding of the Essex Homilies now becomes tiding. Our scream is found for the first time, and seems to be a confusion between the Old English hream and the Welsh ysgarm, each meaning the same. The old word grceg has had a curious lot : the North and East of England kept the first letter of the diphthong, the South ^ Early English Text Society. 1 1 8 The Sources of Standard English. and West held to the last letter, as we see in the Hali Meidenhad. We may still write either graij or greij : the case is most exceptional. We now come to that piece which, more than any- thing else written outside the Danelagh, has influenced our Standard English. About 1220, the Ancren Ri- wle was written in the Dorsetshire dialect; it became most popular, and copies of it are extant in other dia- lects. Of these the Salopian variation is the most remarkable.^ The language is near of kin to that em- ployed in the Legend of St. Margaret ; but the Southern has by this time made further inroads upon the old a. Whoso replaces the word written at Peterborough wua sua ; and we find our No, for the first time, in direct denial. The combination ea is most frequent ; thus Icene (macer) becomes leane. We find new phrases cropping up, common enough in our mouths now ; such as et enes (at once), ase ofte ase, ase muche ase, enes a wiJce ette leste (once a week at the least, page 344), yung ase he tvas, hu se ever it heo ischeaped, sumetime (page 92, but sumchere is the favourite form for this), al heo (albeit, page 420), hwerse ever, amidde ])e vorhefde, hivorenhond (beforehand). There is a new phrase, never pe later, which was near replacing our nevertheless, since Tyndale sometimes used the former. Both alike occur in the Ancren Riwle. The old gewhcer (ubique) gets the usual prefix ever added to it ; and everihwar (page 200), which we now wrongly spell as every where, is the result. ' It is most curious to compare the Salopian version (BeliquicB Antiques, ii. 4) with the Dorsetshire version (Camden Society). The Old a?id Middle English. 1 1 9 This is one of the few words in which we still sound a corruption of the old ge, so beloved of our fathers.^ The phrase offeor (procul) was later to be written afar ; the old of is seldom found in New English under this form a. We see the first use of a phrase that often replaces the old Preposition for. At page 260 are the words ' ine stude of in, his cradel herbarued him ; ' the cradle supplied the lack of an inJi. The new prepo- sition besides had not made its way everywhere, for in page 258 wo see wi^uten employed for prceter ; ' wunden, al wi^uten eddren capitalen.' In the Ancren Riwle one is employed in a new way, standing for maTi. In page 370 we read, 'fe one ]?et was best ilered of Cristes deciples.' This cannot be translated by the Latin alter, as in the passage of the Peterborough Chronicle referred to at page 89 of the present work. Another new sense of 07ie is found in page 252, ' ter 07i get5 him one in one sliddrie w#te ' (where a man goeth alone by himself in a slippery way).'^ This looks at first sight very like a translation of the French on ; sum man would have been used by earlier English writers. However, further on we shall see that the attempt to imitate the kindred unus is the most probable source of our idiomatic o^ie, standing by itself. After the break-up of our old grammar, it had not as * This was pointed out by Dr. Morris some time ago in Notes and Queries, 2 This Reflexive Dative, standing for solus^ is still used in Scot- land. * Oh ! wha wi\\ dry the dreeping tear She sheds her laiie, she sheds her lane ? * — Lady Nairne's Foems, p. 211. 1 20 The Sotirces of Standard English. yet been settled how we were to translate the Latin Neuter Relative quod. We saw ' jetes bi warn ' in the Homilies ; in the Ancren Riwle, page 382, we see ' sum fing mid Tiivat he muhte derven.' This last is the English form of quod : but we were not to use it. We were to follow the form employed in page 354 : * feawes, bi ]iiv2ic7ie me climbeS to pe blisse.' Yet this hwuclie is almost always in the present work used in its true old sense (now unhappily lost) of qualis, its kindred word. The new translation of quod was to take root in York- shire, as well as in Dorset, thirty years later. The old that was, of course, in full employment as a Relative* In page 110, we see how the old onefiie came to be changed ; in the Salopian copy it is found as onevent, in the Dorset copy as onont, not far from our anent. In the same page, we see how the old Preposition %eond (per) was dropping out of use ; it was still employed in Dbrset, but was replaced in one shire by over, in another by in. When we find onlich, it does not convey our sense of the word ; it as yet means nothing but solitary. What was called leste (solutus) in Dorset, was lowse and lousse in other shires, not far from our loose : this may be seen at page 228. The Southern influence, which changes / into V and g into w, may be seen in page 290, where we hear that the Devil ' fike^ mid dogge vawenunge (flatters with doglike fawning) : this last word was of old foegnung. The comparative of late had hitherto only conveyed the sense of serior ; but we now find it mean posterior ; in page 158, there is mention of the * vorme half and pe latere.* We have since 1220 distinguished the two meanings of the word by doubling the t in later^ when it The Old and Middle English. 1 2 1 is to mesin posterior. In page 176, we find a wholly new idiom, whicli must have come from France, standing for the old Superlative ; * ]>e meste dredful secnesse of alle.' This new form for the Superlative was hardly ever used in the Thirteenth Century, but became veiy common in the Fourteenth. The word sona (mox) has new offspring, sonre and sonest. Orrmin's la has become lo. In page 28ft, we see a mistake repeated long afterwards by Lord Macaulay in his Lays ; what should be written inns (certe) is written as if it were a verb, I wis. We find mongle^, emjpti, volewen, lauJiioe^ (ridet), lone (commodatum), owust (debes), sawe (dictum), instead of the old menge^, cemtig, folgian, hlahe^^ Icen, dhst, sagu. The untowen, found here for untrained, was after- wards to become wanton, the un and the wan meaning the same. There are words altogether new : such as hachhiter, chaffer, overtake, overturn, withdraw, ivithhold. We now see the last of the old Wodnes del ; in the Legend of St. Katherine, of the same date, this becomes Wednes- dai. Our Bmher days appear for the first time in the guise of umhridei ; this and umquhile are the sole sur- vivors in English of the many words formed from our lost preposition unibe, the Greek amjphi. The word halpenes (page 96) shows a step in the formation of our halfpence. At page 344 drive gets an intransitive sense ; I go dri- vinde upe fole fouhtes-' At page 426, we see our common expression, * f et fur (ignis) go ut.' At page 46 comes gluffen (to blunder), from the Icelandic glo;p (incuria) ; hence perhaps * to club a regiment.' Sorh (dolor) had taken the shape of seoruwe in Dorset, but it remained sorhe in Salop (see page 64). The old rcecende becomes 122 The Sources of Standard E7iglish, ringinde (page 140), whence our ranging } In page 128, we are told that a false nun ' chefleS of idel ; ' hence have arisen to chatter and to chaff, Torple (cadere) seems to be formed from top (caput). The ending ful is freely used for adjectives, as dredful and pinful ; other endings are driven out by it. The old eallunga is now replaced by utterly ; and hoilg is turned into hag ; beggar is now first found. In page 398, we see an instance of the revived use of the entreating do, before an Imperative ; the writer asks for a reason, adding, ' do seie hwui.' In page 54 may be found the first use of our indefinite it, prefixed to was ; * a meiden hit was . . . code ut vor to biholden.' A pithy phrase was once applied to our two last Stuart Kings : it was said of Charles that ' he could if he would ; ' of James, that * he would if he could.' On looking to the Ancren Riwle, p. 338, we read,* he ne mei hwon he wule, )?e nolde hwule f et he muhte.' This seems to have been a byword well known in 1220. The East Midland dialect was pushing its conquests into the South, for many l!^orse words are found for the first time in this work ; as. Chough Kofa, Icelandic Crop, carper e Kroppa, Icelandic Dog Doggr, Icelandic Dusk Dulsk, Danish Groom Gromr, Icelandic Mased, delirtcs JMasa, Old Norse, 1 confusedly Muwlen, grotv mouldy Mygla, Icelandic to chatter ^ So in the Latin, jungo is formed from ^'ugo, and lingo from lico. The Old and Middle English. 123 Shy Scowl Sky gg, Swedish Skule, Danish Skull Skal, Danish Scraggy Skulk Sluggish Smoulder Skrekka, Norse Skjol, Norse Sloeki, Norse Smul, Danish, dust Windohe, window Vindauga, Icelandic Many an Old English word has been driven out by these Scandinavian strangers. Moreover, I add a list of many words, which Southern England had in common with our Dutch and Low German kinsmen. England seems now to have rid herself of her old prejudice against beginning words with the letter jp. Bounce, punch Bonzen Puff Poffen Brink Brink Pick Picken, to use a Cackle Kakelen sharp tool Cleppe, clapper Costnede, cost Curl Klappe Kosten Korre Pack Scrape Snatch Pack Schrapen Snacken Giggle Hag Hurl Giggen Hacke Horrelen Spat, macula Squint Toot Spat Squinte Toeten, blow a Pig« Pot Bigge Pot Tattle horn Tatelu We find also in this work harlot, a vagabond, from the Welsh herlawd, a youth ; the word is used by Chaucer without any bad sense. From the same Celtic source come cudgel and griddle, now first seen in English. Peoddare, a pedlar, is also found for the first time ; * This, as now, might express a poltroon. ^ In Salop, the old Scandinavian gris (the Sanscrit ghrishti) is used instead oi pig ; hence ouv griskin: some curious English rimes in the Lanercost Chronicle turn on the former word. 1 24 The Sources of Standard English. Forby derives it from jped^ which in N"orfolk is a covered pannier.^ There are many words in the Ancren E/iwle, which, as Wedgwood thinks, are formed from the sound; such as gewgaw, chatter, flash ; scratch arose in Salop ; the window of that shire was called ]>url in the South. 2 The adjective in Shakespere's ' little cwifer fellow ' is found in the Ancren Biwle ; it seems to come from the old cof, impiger. Dr. Morris has added to his Twelfth Century Homi- lies (First Series) some other works, which seem to date from about 1220. The word carp (loqui) is seen for the first time. Another new word is dingle, applied to a recess of the sea ; it is akin to a German word, as also is schimme^ or schimere^ (fulget), at page 257. * This proves that we ought not to write pedler, but jpedlar ; the word is sometimes given as a puzzle in spelling. 2 In Salop, forms which were used in Lothian and Yorkshire seem to have clashed with forms employed in Grloucestershire and Dorset ; something resembling the Ormulum was the upshot. In each succeeding century Salop comes to the front. * The Wohunge of ure Lauerd' seems to have been written here about 1210 (Morris' Old English Homilies, First Series, p. 269). In 1340, or so, the Bomance of William of Palerne was compiled here. In 1420, John Audlay wrote his poems in the same dialect (Percy Society, No. 47). In 1580, Churchyard had not dropped all his old Salopian forms. Baxter, who came from Salop, appeared about 1650 as one of the first heralds of the change that was then passing over Standard English prose, and that was substituting Dryden's style for that of Milton. Soon after 1700, Jbarquhar, in his Becruiting Officer, gives us much of the Salopian brogue. This intermingling of Northern and Southern forms in Salop produced something not unlike Standard English. The Old and Middle English. 1 2 5 THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT. (About A.D. 1230.) I now bring forward a poem that may perhaps oome from Cambridge — the Bestiary — that is printed in Dr. Morris's Old English Miscellany (Early English Text Society). This is very nearly the same in its dialect as the Genesis and Exodus (Early English Text Society), a poem which Dr. Morris refers to Suffolk ; but the former piece seems to have been written nearer to Peterborough, since it uses who^ where the latter poem has qulio. The common marks of the East Midland dialect are found in both : the Present Participle ends in ande in the one case, in both ande and ende in the other ; the Plural of the Present Tense ends in en^ or is dropped altogether, as have instead of "haven ; the Prefix to the Past Participle comes most seldom. The North era pre- positions fra and til are found. The Bestiary bears a resemblance to the Proverbs of Alfred ; it is a work such as might well have been compiled at Cambridge ; being a translation made much about the time that King Henry the Third was beginning to play the part of Rehoboam in England, having got rid of his wise counsellors. Here we find^ the Old English sinden (sunt) for ' Now we have for the first time a new English metre, with the alternate lines riming : — ' His mu'5 is get wel unku'S bidden bone to Gode, wi^ pater noster and crede ; and tus his mu^ rigten, fare he nor'S, er fare he sut5, tilen him so 'Se sowles fode, leren he sal his nede; ^urg grace ofFure drigtin. 126 The Sotirces of Standard English, almost the last time ; on the other hand, what Orrmin wrote all ane (solus) has now become olon ; we also see ones, the Latin semel. The Southern o had long driven out the old Northern a in these Eastern shires. We find Orrmin' s substitution of o for on always recurring here, as live. But what he calls trace (fregit) is seen in the present poem as hrolie ; our version of the Scriptures has adopted the former, our common speech the latter. We also find ut turned into out ; we saw something of the kind in the Proverbs of Alfred. The turtle's mate is called in the Bestiary * hire olde luve : ' this of yore would have been written leof. We have unhappily in modern English but one word for the old leof and lufe^ the per- son and the thing. Fugelas is pared down to fules (fowls). We find here for the first time horlic (burly) applied to elephants ; it is akin to the High German purlih. The word diver (clever) is applied to the Devil. Mr. Wedgwood says it comes from claw ; hence it in this passage has the sense of nimhle-fi^igered, much as rapidus comes from rapio. The adjective fine, the Ice- landic fi7in, is seen here for the first time. The word snute (snout), used of the elephant, is akin to a German word. The Old English ceafi is now found in the shape of cliauel (in the account of the whale) : it is not far from our joivl. The expression ' fisses to him (the whale) dragen^ shows that the verb has now got the new sense of verdre, as we say, ' to draw nigh.' We have seen on used for aliguis ; it now comes to mean quidam, and is used without any substantive, as in The Old and Middle English, 127 the Ancren E/iwle. We read of tlie elephant entrapped ; * Sanne cumeS Ser on gangande.' This of old would have been snim, ylj) ; in the present poem, the words timo unus currit had to be Englished. One of the most startling changes is that of the Second Person Singular of the Perfect of the Strong verb. What in Old English was ]>u hehte^ is turned at page 6 into tu Mgtest (pollicitus es). Thus one more of the links between Sanscrit and English was to be broken. In an East Anglian Creed of this time (ReliquisB Anti- qu88, i. 234), we find ure onelic lovercf, written where Orrmin would have used the old aiilepi-^ (unicus) for the second word. Thus a new form drove out an older one. In the Genesis and Exodus the first thing that strikes us is the poet's sturdy cleaving to the Old English gut- turals g and Tc. So, in the Bestiary, we find gevenlihe, the last appearance of the old uncorrupted prefix. It is East Anglia that has kept these hard letters alive. But for these shires, whose spelling Caxton happily followed, we should be writing to yive (donare), to yet (adipisci), ayain (iterum), and yate (porta). We have unluckily followed Orrmin's corruption in yield, yelp, yearn, and young. These East Anglians talked of a dyhe (fossa), when all Southern England spoke of a ditch. Orrmin's driihhpe is now turned into drugte (drought), which we have followed. The most remarkable change is deigen (mori) instead of deye. But even into Suffolk the South- ern vj was forcing its way. We find owen as well as ogen (proprius), and folwen as well as folgen (seqni). 128 The Sources of Standard English, Owing to the changes of letters in different shires, we sometimes have two words where our forefathers had but one, each word with its own shade of mean- ing. ' To drag a man out ' is different from the phrase ' to draio a man out : ' the hard North is here opposed to the softer South West. Moreover, we may speak of a dray horse. Our Standard English is much the richer from having sprung up in shires widely apart. We have also followed Suffolk in our word for the Latin oscular i. A glance at Stratmann's dictionary will show that in the South East of England this was written Jcesse, in the South West it was cusse, but in East Anglia and further to the North it was kiss. The same may be remarked as to Mn, hill, listen, ridge, and many other words. The Old English o was now getting the modern sound of u, as in the Proverbs of Alfred ; we find hooc, mood, and wulde, instead of hoc, mod, and wolde} What Orrmin called ]fatt an and ]fatt o]>er is seen in the Genesis and Exodus in a new guise. Two hkenesses ... he Gaf hire ^e j^cm.— Page 77. Dis on wulde don ^e to'Ser wrong. — Page 78. We see other new forms of old words in cude (potui), eilond (insula), Jier (ignis), frigt, hoi (sanus), loth, quuen ^ Rather further to the North, as we shall see, the old o was turned into ou. A foreigner may well despair of pronouncing English vowels, when he finds that the words ru7ie, wound, and mood are all sounded in the same way. This comes from Standard English being the product of many different shires. The Old and Middle English, 129 (not. cwen), smot^ oliTce (similiter), tohen, ^ref, may, le- man, lielde, pride, strif, ^ralles, wro^, often, eldest, rei7i- howe. There are other points in which these East Angh'an poems of 1230 clearly foreshadow our Standard English. Wiht (pondus) becomes wigte, and teoge^a is now tig^e (tithe). The d is sometimes slipped into the middle of a word after n ; we find Idndred and Sunder. The ^ or ^ is also added to the end of a word : \wyria71 becomes ^lucrt (thwart) ; stalu (furtam) appears as staVSe, our stealth. MaJced (factus) is shortened into made ; and when we find such a form as lordeJied (dominion), we see that Orrmin's laferrdinngess will soon become lordings. The clipping and paring process is going on apace. Nn is once seen as nou, and tim as town. Orrmin had freely used ne in the old way, prefixing it as a negative to am, will, liahhe, with all their tenses and persons ; but in the Suffolk poem nothing of the kind is found, except the one verb nill (nolo), and this we have not yet wholly lost. Golden (aureus) is cut down in page 54 of the Genesis and Exodus; we find ^gol prenes and ringes,' and in page 95 we see ' a gold pot.^ The Perfects clad, had, SiJid fed also meet us. When we see such a verb as semelen instead of the former samnian, we can under- stand how easily the French word assemble must have made its way in England. Some of Orrmin's Korse words are here repeated ; but his sh is often changed to s, as sal instead of shall, and this is still found in Scotland. What was scce (ilia) at Peterborough, seventy years earlier, is now found as sge, sche, and once as she. Hi (illi) is only 130 The Sources of Standard English. once replaced by 6e^. Orrmin's new forms, such as above, aj^ (semper), or, again appear. "We have in the two poems before us other new forms creeping in, such as, to Godeward, moreover, everilc on, hitime (betimes). Wliilum and seldum are still found with the old Dative Plural ending; moste becomes the modern muste. The Old English ])ds (in Latin hi) is now seen as ])ese, just as we have it ; in the Homilies of 1120, it was only ])es. Uver was often employed in compounding new words, such as quatsoever ; ful was becoming a favourite end- ing for Adjectives, such as dredful, as we saw in the South. H, a fatal letter in English mouths, had been sadly misused in the South a hundred years earlier ; the Suffolk poet often makes slips in handhng it : he has ard for liard, and hold for old. One token of the Midland, East and West, is the verb niraan used for the Latin ire ; it is found in this poem. Some new formations from old words are now seen ; the useful word hearing or carriage first appears in page 62. For bi gure hering men mai it sen. A new verb, which we still keep, is seen in page 41. Isaac was mourning for his mother ; but Eliezer , E'&^ede his sorge, brogt him a wif. This new formation from ea^e (facilis) may have been confounded with the French aaisier. Long before Chau- cer it was decided that in this verb we should use the French s and not the Old English S. The Old and Middle English. 131 The old Perfect of jieon (fugere) was fleali ; we find V our new form in p. 96. Amaleckes folc fledde for agte of dead. In page 12, we read that Adam and Eve were * don ut of Paradise' (ejecti sunt). This must be the phrase which suggested our modern phrase for cheating. The verb do has undergone some degradation. There are many Scandinavian words found here. Busk, hush Buskr, Icelandic Dream, soinnium ^ Draumr, Icelandic Glint Glanta, Swedish Levin, lightening Lygne, Norse Muck Mykr, Icelandic Ransack Ransaka, Norse Rapen, to hurry, rap out Rapa, Norse Rospen, rasp Raspa, Swedish Skie ^ Sky, cloud, Norse Tidy Tidig, Swedish Tine, lose Tma, Norse Ugly Vggsij frighten, Norse We find the word irJc for the first time ; it is akin to the German erJcen (fastidire). Of manna he hen forhirked to eten. — Page 104. We see in page 35, * hem gan t5at water laJcen ' (the water began to fail them). This new word for deesse is akin to the Dutch laecJce (defect). In page 26, we * The Old English dream only meant sonus or gaudium, and is so used in the Bestiary. 2 This as yet only means in English a cloudy and this sense of the word lasted till Chaucer's time. Til skyia in Norse means ' up in the sky.' Twenty years after the present poem's date sky stood for aer in Yorkshire. 12 132 The Sources of Standard English, find mention of tol and takel and orf. The second of these substantives comes from the Welsh tadau^ ac- coutrements. In page 91 we read ' Gon woren VII. score ger.' This is the first use of score for twenty. It comes from the old habit of shearing or scoring notches on wood up to twenty. Our word shi]p comes from the Welsh ysgip (a quick snatch) ; hence locusts are called shipperes, page 88. In page 93, is the line — ^Undrincled in 'Sat salte spot.' The last word (locus) here makes its first appearance. Wedgwood derives it from spatter, and calls it the mark upon which something has been splashed. This spot and the French place have between them driven out the Old English stede, which only survives in a prepositional shape. In this poem the old French word fey is seen as our modem fei^ (faith) ; the oath par ma fey was well known in England. We also see the French espier become spy ; in the Danelagh, French words as well as English were clipped. It is owing to the South- ern shires that we say estahlisJi as well as stahlish. THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT. (About A.D. 1230.) ACCOUNT OF THE FLOOD.^ Do * wex a flod "Sis werlde wid-hin « Then and ouer-flowged men & deres ^ kin b animals ' Genesis and Exodus, p. 16 (Early English Text Society). The Old and Middle English, 133 wiSuten * Noe and hise Sre sunen, Sem, Cam, laphet, if we rigt munen,** and here ® foure wifes woren hem wiS ', "Sise viii hadden in ^e arche griS/ Dat arche i^as a feteles ^ good, set and limed agen '6e flood ; t$re hundred elne was it long, nailed and sperd,** Sig and strong, and 1*' elne wid, and xxx*' heg ' j "Sor buten Noe long swing he dreg ^ j ( an hundred winter, everilc del,^ welken or ™ it was ended wel ; of alle der Se on werlde wunen,^ and foueles, weren ^erinne cumen bi seven and seven, or bi two & two, Almigtin God him bad it so, and mete quorbi ° Sei migten liven, "Sor quilea jie * woren on water driven, sexe hundred ger Noe was hold ** Quan he dede '' him in Se arche-wold. Two 'Susant ger, sex hundred mo, and sex and fifti forS to "So," weren of werldes elde numen * "San " Noe was in to Se arche cumen. He ^ wateres springe here strengSe undede, and reyne gette^ dun on everilk stede fowerti dais and fowerti nigt, so wex water vdS magti migt. so wunderlike it wex and get "Sat fiftene elne it overflet, over ilk dune," and over ilc hil, Shurge Grodes migt and Godes wil ; and oSer fowerti "Sore-to, dais and nigtes stod et so ; "So was ilc fleis * on werlde slagen, 60 gunnen ^ ^e wateres hem wiS-dragen. <5 except * consider fi their ' peace 8 vessel ^ closed » high ^ bore toll » bit " passed ere ° dwell " whereby p they a old ' put • beside those * taken " when » each y poured ' began 1 34 The Sources of Standard English, De sevend moned was in cumen, and sevene and xx" dais numen, in Armenie 'Sat arche stod, ^o was wiS-dragen Sat ilc ^ flod. Do "Se tende moned came in, so wurS dragen Se watres win ** ; dunes wexen, "Se flod wiS-drog, It adde lasted long anog.® Fowerti dais after "Sis, arches windoge undon it is, "Se raven ut-fleg,' hu so it gan ben, ne ' cam he nogt to 'Se arche agen. t5e duve fond ^ no clene stede, and wente agen and wel it dede ; "Se sevendai eft ut it tog,* and brogt a grene olives bog ; ^ seve nigt si's en ^ everilc on he is let ut flegen,™ crepen, and gon, wi'Suten ° ilc sevend clene der tSe he sacrede on an aucter.** Sex hundred ger and on dan olde Noe sag p ut of 6e arche-wolde ; "Se first moned and te first dai, he sag erSe drie & te water awai; get he was wis and nogt to rad ; ^ gede ' he nogt ut, til God him bad. 1 force ' enough * flew out K nor *» found ' went ^ bough 1 afterwards ™ to fly ° except o altar p looked « quick ' went THE CONTEAST TO THE EAST MIDLAND. (About A.D. 1230.) Ar ne kuthe ich sorghe non, Nu ich mot manen nun mon, Karful wel sore ich syche : Geltles ihc tholye muchele schame ; Help God for thin swete name, Kyng of hevene-riche. The Old and Middle English, 135 Jesu Crist, sod God, sod man, Loverd, thu rew upon me, Of prisun thar ich in am Bring me ut and makj^e fre. Ich and mine feren sume, God wot ich ne lyghe noct, For othre habbet misnome, Ben in thys prisun ibroct. Almicti, that wel licth. Of bale is hale and bote, Hevene king, of this woning Ut us bringe mote. Foryhef hem, the wykke men, God, yhef it is thi wille, For wos gelt we bed ipelt In thos prisun hille. Ne hope non to his live. Her ne mai he belive, Heghe thegh he stighe, Ded him felled to grunde. Nu had man wele and blisce, Kathe he shal tharof misse, Worldes wele mid y wise Ne lasted buten on stunde. Maiden, that bare the heven king, Bisech thin sone, that swete thing. That he habbe of hus rewsing. And bring us of this woning For his muchele misse ; He bring hus ut of this wo. And hus tache werchen swo. In those live go wu sit go, That we moten ey and o •Habben the eche blisce. 136 The Sources of Standard English. The above poem is taken from tlie Liber de Antiquis Legibus (' Reliquiaa Antiquee,' I. 274), in the possession of the Corporation of London ; the manuscript has mu- sical notes attached to it. The proportion of obsolete English is mucb the same as in the Genesis and Exodus. The poem of page 134 seems therefore to represent the London speech of the year 1230, or so. What was g in Suffolk becomes c here, as in the Twelfth Century Homilies ; it is hroct^ not Ijrogt ; gelt replaces gilt. The h is sometimes misused, even as Londoners of our day misuse ifc. The gh sometimes replaces the old h, as we saw in the Essex Homilies : this change was now over- spreading the greater part of the Eastern side of Eng- land between London and York. THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT. (About A.D. 1240.) The piece that comes next, a version of the Athanasian Creed, was most likely written in the Northernmost part of Lincolnshire, perhaps not far from Hull ; it bas corruptions of English that are not often found before Manning wrote in that county sixty years later, such as * ne fre 7io two' (nee tres nee duo).^ We see the Northern forms in great abundance ; thus whilk is used for the Relative, as in Dorset ; als, til, sal, ])air, &c., come often : the third Person Singular of the Present tense ends in es, not in eth. But the Southern was making great inroads on the Northern a, as we saw in * No for nee is found in Layamon. The Old and Middle E7iglish. 1 37 East Anglia ; in this piece we find 50, non^ no mo^ ivhos, poiu (tamen), who so; in short, the whole poem fore- shadows Manning's riming Chronicle. The writer who Englished this Creed has little love for outlandish words ; sauf, sengellic, and jpersones are the only three specimens of French here found: he commonly calls persones by the obsolete name Jiodes. The deep theolo- gical terms of the Creed could still be expressed in sound English ; though the writer's mikel does not wholly convey the sense of our incomprehensible. We see our hi fore-said for the first time. Bot (sed) and with (cum) are preferred to their other English syn- onyms, as in Orrmin's writings. Unlike that poet, our present author will seldom use ne for the Latin non ; he prefers noht, as in the East Anglian pieces : but he once has nil {nolunt). We see the Participle lastend, which Orrmin would have used. This Creed, short though it be, shows us two great changes that were taking root in our spelling ; h was being turned, as in Essex, into gh, and u into ou} One or two instances of these changes may be seen in the East Midland poems of 1230 ; but the alteration is now well marked. We see right, noght, and thurght instead of the old riht, 7ioht, and tkurh. These words must have been pronounced with a strong guttural sound, which may still be heard in the Scotch Low- lands ; there right is sounded much like the German recht. Thoh is in this Creed written fo/, and this shows us how cough and rough came to.be pronounced ' In the piece referred to at p. 85, we saw the first instance of being changed into ou. 138 The Sources of Standard English. as they are now.* The letters h and /are akin to each other; the Sanscrit Jcatvar is the Gothic /c^vor (four), and the Lithuanian dwy-liJca is our twd-lifa (twelve). With us, Livorno becomes Leghorn ; and in Aberdeen- shire Icwa (the Latin quis) is pronounced fa. No change seems to have been made in the sound, when dun and ur were written as doun and our in the Creed before us. The English word for domus is to this day pronounced in Northumberland as lioose. This, in parts of Yorkshire, is corrupted into ha-oose ; if this last be pronounced rapidly, it gives house, as it is sounded by good speakers of English in our day.^ It is hard to know why us should be spelt now as it was a thousand years ago, and yet why ur should be turned into (ncr. EAST MIDLAND. (A.D. 1240.) Who fat fen wil berihed * be, • saved So of fe frinnes '* leva he, *> Trinitj And nede at hele *^ pat last ai sal c salvation Dat f>e fleshede ^ ai with al ^ incarnation Of cure louerd Jhu Crist forfi • « therefore Dat he trowe it trewli. ^ The pronunciation of a word like Loughborough is the despair of foreigners. Why should cough be sounded differently from plough ? ' I have a cow in my box/ said a Frenchman, meaning a cough in his chest. Bunyan, who came from the East Midland, pronounced daughter as dafter ; so we see by his rimes, quoted by Mr. Earle {Philology of the English Tongue\ p. 127. 2 It is pronounced in South Lancashire in a way quod Uteris dicere non est, but something like heawse (Garnett's Essays, p. 77). Coude (our could), wound, and bound have three different sounds in modern English. The Old and Middle English. 139 Den ever is trauth ^ right ' t)en^ Dat we leve with alle oure miht Dat oure louerd Jhu Crist in blis Godes sone and man lie his, Gode of kinde of fadir kinned ^ werld bifom, g begotten Man of kinde of moder into werld bom, Fulli God, fulli man liyand Of schilful ^ saule and mannes flesshe beand, •» reasonable Even to the Fadir furght godhede, Lesse T^enJFader furght manhede, Dat f5f he be God and man, Noght two f rwaef er * is, bot Crist an, * still On, noht furght wendinge ^ of Godhed in flesshe, ^ changing Bot furght takynge of manhede in godnesshe. On al, noht be menginge of stayelness,* 1 substance Bot J>urht onhede of hode ™ fat is, m person Dat foled " for oure hele, doun went til helle, «> suffered De fred dai ros fro dede so felle, Upstegh ° til heven, sittes on right hand ^ent up Of God Fadir (^lleinightand, And yhit for to come is he To deme pe quik and dede fat be, Ate whos come alle men pat are Sal rise with faire bodies fare. And yelde sal f ai, nil f ai ne wil, Of fair awen p dedes il, p own And fat wel haf doun fat dai Sal go to lif fat lastes ai. And ivel haf doun sal wende In fire lastend withouten ende. Dis is f e trauht fat heli ^ isse, q ^oiy "^hilk bot ! ilkon with miht hisse r unless Trewlic and fastlic trowe he, Saufe ne mai he never be.^ * Hickes has mangled some of the words in this piece, which I leave as he printed it. It is in his Thesaurus^ i. 233. 140 The Sources of Standard English, THE CONTKAST TO THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT. (About A.D. 1240.) THE OWL AND NIGHTINGALE.— Line 993. Yut J)u aisheist wi ich ne fare In to other londe and singe thare. No ! what sholde ich among horn do, War never blisse ne com to ? That lond nis god, ne hit nis este, Ac wildernisse hit is and wesfce, Knarres and eludes hoventinge, Snou and hajel horn is genge \ That lond is grislich and un-vele, The men both wilde and unisele ; Hi nabbeth nother grith ne sibbe ; Hi ne reccheth hu hi libbe, Hi eteth fihs an liehs un-sode, Suich wulves hit hadde to-brode ; Hi drinketh mile, and wei thar-to, Hi nute elles wat hi do j Hi nabbeth noth win ne bor, Ac libbeth al so wilde dor ; Hi goth bi-tijt mid ru^e velle, Rijt svich hi comen ut of helle ; The^ eni god man to hom come, (So wiles dude sum from Rome) For hom to lere gode thewes. An for to leten hore unthewes. He mijte bet sitte stille, Vor al his wile he sholde spille j He mijte bet teche ane bore To weje bothe sheld and spere, Than me that wilde folc i-bringe, That hi me segge wolde i-here singe. The Old and Middle English. 141 These lines are taken from a most cliarming Dorset- sliire poem, which seems to have been no translation from the French. It was published by the Percy So- ciety, No/ 39. Most of the forms found in the Ancren Riwle are here repeated. We see from the present work how warmly King Alfred's name had been taken to England's heart. The proverbs attributed to him come again and again, 340 years after his death. "We find also other saws, such as ' Dahet habbe that like best, That fuleth his owe nest.' ^ We often say ' the other day,' when referring to past time. At page 4 we read ' That other jer a faukun bredde.' At page 50 occurs ^ Wanne ich iseo the tohte ilete.' * The taught (tensus) let out ; ' this is formed from the old teolihian (trahere). In line 507 we read : ' Wane thi lust is ago.'^ We find in the poem the old agon as well as the Southern ago^ the corrupt form of the Participle kept by us in long ago? In Southern works, one man is often found as man, and this corruption lingered in Devon- shire for 200 years longer. ^ The French imprecation dahet shows whence comes our * dash it ! ' - We keep the older form in woe begone ; the verb here is a cor- rupt Participle from hegangan (circumdare). 142 The Sources of Standard English. Many changes take place in words. Thus, hoik (cavus), TicBlfter, morgen, nihtegale, now become holeuh, halter, more^eiing (morning), and nv^tingale. The word sjprenge (trap) is now first found, coming from the verb spring. There are a few Scandinavian words, such as amiss, cukeweald (cuckold), cogge (of a wheel), fait (falter), and slireiv ; the last comes from sTcraa (sloping). There are many words cropping up, akin to the Dutch and Grerman, like clack, clench, clute (gleba), cremjp (con- trahere), ha^ch (parere), luring (torvo vultu), mesh^ isliked (whence our sleek), stump, twinge, wippen; the last in its intransitive sense. ^ In page 27, we see the first use of a well-known adjective. ' Mon deth mid strengthe and mid witte ; That other thing nis non his Jltte.' That is, ' it is no match for man.' This is akin to the Dutch vitten (convenire). THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT. (About A.D. 1250.) I now give the Lord's Prayer, Hail Mary, and Belief, from a manuscript written in the middle of the Thir- teenth Century, and printed in the Reliquiae Antiquse, I. 22. This must have been used in the Northern part of Mercia, perhaps in Orrmin's shire, for the a is not yet replaced by o, as in East Anglia. We also find such Northern forms as til, until, fra, als, alwandand. * As we say, ' he whipped into his desk.' I The Old and Middle English, 143 But we have liere the great Midland shibboleth, the Present Plural of the Verb ending in en. This is some- times altogether dropped. The Third Person Singular of the Present now ends in 5, which is most unlike the Genesis and Exodus. Omnis is translated by Jievirilh ; this, to the North of the Humber, would have been ilk an. Are is used for the Latin sunt The Past Parti- ciple has no prefix. The letter h is sometimes set at the beginning of words most uncouthlj. Acennede (genitus) is now turned into begotten. Heli stands for the old halig, as in the Athanasian Creed given at page 138. We light upon the full forms mankind and king- dom for the first time. Nottingham wduld be as likely a town as any for the following rimes. We may ima- gine the great Bishop Robert turning aside from his wrangles with the Roman Court and from the studies that made the name of Lincolniensis known throughout Christendom, and hearing his Mercian flock repeat these same lines. THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT. (About A.D. 1250.) [I b]idde huve with milde stevene 'prayer raise voice til ure fader J?e king of hevene, to in ]?e mununge of Cristis pine, remembrance for ]?e laverd of J?is bus, and al lele hine, faithful hinds for alle cristinfolk that is in gode lif, ^ that God schilde ham to dai fro sinne and fro siche ; ■ for alle tho men that are in sinne bunden, those 144 ^-^^^ Sources of Standard English. that Jhesu Crist liani leyse, for is hali wndes ; loose wounds for quike and for deade and al mankinde ; and J)at ws here God don in hevene mot far it finde j mayjplace in heaven , and for alle J?at on herfe ns fedin and fostre ; earth saie we nu alle l?e hali pater noster. Ure fadir fat hart in hevene, halged be fi name with giftis sevene, samin cume fi kingdom, likewise fi wille in herfe als in hevene be don, nre bred pat lastes ai gyve it hus fis hilke dai, same and ure misdedis ])u forgyve hus, als we forgyve )?am fat misdon hus, and leod us intol na fandinge, temptation hot frels us fra alle ivele f inge. Amen. Heil Marie, ful of grace, f e lavird with f e in hevirilk place, every blisced be fu mang alle wimmein, and blisced be f e blosme of f i wambe. Amen. Maidin and moder fat bar f e hevene king, wer us fro wre wyfer- wines at ure bending ; defend enemies eiiding blisced be f e pappis fat Godis sone sauk, sucked fat bargh ure kinde fat f e nedre bysuak. 'protected race serpent tricked The Old and Middle English. 145 Moder of milte and maidin Mari, mercy help us at ure bending, for \\ merci. fat suete Jhesu fat born was of fe, J)u give us in is godbed bim to se. Jbesu for pi moder luve and for fin bali wndis, f u leise us of f e sinnes fat we are inne bunde. ' Hi true in God, fader hal-micbttende, fat makede heven and berdef e, and in eThesu Krist, is anelepi sone, hure laverd, fat was bigotin of f e bali gast, and born of tbe mainden Marie, pinid under Punce Pilate, festened to tbe rode, ded and dulvun, licbt in til belle, f e f ride dai up ras fra dede to live, stegb intil bevenne, sitis on is fadir ricbt band, fadir alwaldand, be fen sal cume to deme f e quike an f e dede. Hy troue by f eli gast, and bely kirke, f e samninge of halgbes, forgifnes of sinnes, uprisigen of fleyes, and life witb-butin bend. Amen.' ^ THE CONTRAST TO THE EAST MIDLAND. (A.D. 1250.) PSALM VIII. Laverd, oure Laverd, hou selkouth is Name fine in alle land f is. For upe-boven es f i mykelbede Over bevens fat ere brade ; I ' We find the old genitive still uncorrupted, as hevene Icing, fadir hand. We still say hell firSy Lady day. It is most strange that such words as fanding^ ategh, and samninge should ever have dropped out of our speech, since they must have been in the mouths of all Englishmen who knew the simplest truths of religion. L 146 The SotLvces of Standard English. Of mouth of childer and soukand Made fou lof in ilka land, For \\ faes ; fat fou for-do •JJe fai, fe wreker him unto. For I sal se fine hevenes hegh, And werkes of fine fingres slegh ; ^ •pe mone and sternes mani ma, •^at f ou grounded to be swa. * What is man, fat fou mines of him ? Or sone of man, for fou sekes him ? •Jjou liteled him a litel wight Lesse fra fine aungeles bright ; With blisse and mensk fou crouned him yet, And over werkes of f i hend him set. pou under-laide alle f inges Under his fete fat ought forth-bringes, Neete and schepe bathe for to welde, In-over and beestes of f e felde, Fogheles of heven and fissches of se, pat forth-gone stihes of f e se. Laverd, our Laverd, hou selkouth is Name fine in alle land f is. The above Psalm is a specimen of the Northumbrian Psalter (Surtees Society), a translation which, from its large proportion of obsolete words, must have been com- piled about 1250, though it has come down to us only in a transcript made sixty years later. This is the earliest well-marked specimen of the Northern Dialect, spoken at York, Durham, and Edinburgh alike ; it was now making its way to Ayr and Aberdeen, and driving out the old Celtic dialects before it. This was the speech * Sly (sapiens) has here a most exalted sense ; it has been sadly degraded. * Nasty sly girl ! ' says one of Mr. TroUope's matrons, speaking of her son's enchantress. The Old and Middle English, 147 which long held its own in the Palaces and Law-courts of Scotland, the speech which was embodied in Acts of Parliament down to Queen Anne's time, and which has been handled by world-renowned Makers : may it never die out ! It will be found that our classic English owes much to Yorkshire ; some of its forms did not make their way to London until 1520. How different would our speech have been, if York had replaced London as our capital ! This Psalter, most likely compiled in Southern York- shire,^ is nearly akin in its spelling to the Lincolnshire Creed in page 139. It has gh for the old h ; we find heghest, lagh, sight, fight, neghhur, negh. It substi- tutes the same gh for ^ or c ; as in sigh, slaghter, sagh. Sometimes the former g gets the sound of y, as in hie (emere) ; it is thus that we still pronounce the old hycgan, though we spell it with a, u in the Southern way. The English word for arcus is written both hough and how. In Psalm cxxxi. hreg is turned into hrow ; and the consonant is thrown out altogether in slaer (occisor) in Vol. I. page 11 ; as also in slaine.^ This last we saw in Essex in 1180. Heg (foenum) becomes hai, much as it remains. The u and are often turned into ou, as in the Lincolnshire Creed; we find wound, down-right, and thought. In Vol. II. page 43, super jprincipes is translated, by our princes ; hence our contraction o'er. The English for 'per is here seen as thrugh, the sound * The Midland Present Plural ending in en is sometimes found, as wirken (laborant). Ninety years later, Higden said that this Yorkshire speech was so harsh and rough that it could be hardly understood in the South. 2 It is well known how the Scotch love vowels and get rid of con- sonants ; with them all wool becomes a oo. l2 148 The Sources of Standard English. of wliicli we keep. The Northern Poet sometimes leans to the vowel 0; we find swore, spolcen, rore, and swolyhe (devorare). What was once gebundne his (vinctos suos) now becomes liis honden (Yol. I. p. 221) ; new words were soon to be formed from this Participle. There are other forms still preserved in our Version of the Bible, such as hralce, spaJce, and gat. The Plural of foot is now written feet instead of fet ; we also find heest and neet. Lmige is translated by far in Vol. I. p. 59, and this has prevailed over the Southern /erre. We of course find the Active Participle in and, the old Norse form ; sal is used for shall ; thai, thair, thaim occur, something like the forms in the Ormulum. We see the correct 'pou mines, where we should say pou mindest ; a two- fold corruption. The third Person Singular of the Pre- sent ends in s, as gives, does, has ; we follow this Northern usage in week-day life, but on Sunday we have recourse in Church to the old Southern forms, giveth, doeth, &c. A remarkable Norse form is seen in Vol. I. page 301 ; pou is (tu es) ; ^ pou has, which is also found, is not yet grown into thnu hast. The old ending of the Imperative Plural is sometimes clipped, though not often ; as under- stande for intelligite. The Northern form of the Present Plural in es appears, as hates, oderunt ; and Shakspere sometimes follows this form. Many new phrases crop up for the first time ; such as for evermare, fra fer (a longe), al at anes, in mides of, * This lingers in Scotland, as in the Jacobite ballad : — * Cogie, an the King come, I'se be fou and thou's be toom.' This Norse is answers alike to sum^ es, and est. The Old and Middle English. 149 fouT'Skore, There are new Relative forms which took a long time to find their way to the South, as nane was wlia Toned ; nane es wMlJce saufe mas ; ylie whilk standes (qui statis), fest, God, pat wTiilke ]>ou wroght. In the Twelfth Century, these Relatives had only been used in oblique cases ; the Nominative lolio was not used commonly in the South till the E/cformation. Another wholly new form is found in this Psalter. We have seen that Orrmin, first of all our writers, used \at, the old Neuter article, to translate ille ; and its plural fa, to translate illi. This pd is still to be found in Scotland (Scott talks of iliae loons') ; it held its ground in Southern England as \o down to 1530. The old Dative of this, fam, is still in use among our lower orders ; as, ' look at them lads.' But in Yorkshire, about 1250, fas, our tJiose, a confusion with the old Plural of ]ies (hie), began to be used for fa.' Vol. I. page 243 : ' Superbia eorum qui te oderunt,' is translated jpride of fas f a^ f e hates ; and many such instances could be given. The writer has elsewhere f ese, as in the Essex HomiHes, to translate the Latin hi. In this Psalter we see the beginning of the corruptions embodied in the phrase those who speaJc ; a phrase which often with us replaces the rightful they that speaJc, the Old English fa f e. The whilhe set down a little earlier, an- swering to the Latin qui, gives us the earliest glimpse of the well-known idiom in the first clause of our English Paternoster.^ * Hampole, ninety years later, has- the same corruption, f «s for f A. * Addison, in his HuTnble Petition of ' Who' and ' Which,'' makes these Eelatives complain of the Jack Sprat That, their supplanter. 150 The Sources of Standard English. We now first find the letter d in the middle of words like wreccJiedness and wickedness. What used to be m- lihton (inluxerunt) is now ligMned, with a strange n. Has (raucus) becomes Jiaast; hence the Scotch sub- stantive hoast. We of the South have put an r into the old adjective, and call it hoarse. Olera herharum (Vol. I. page 111) is translated wortes of grenes ; hence our name for certain vegetables. Hors (equi) is corrupted into horses^ as in Layamon's poem. In Vol. I. 245, we find ]mi \at horses stegh tip. This word has had a fate exactly the reverse of has (raucus), for we too often call equus * a hoss.' We find some new substantives, such as understand- i7ig, foundling^ yles (insulse) ; ^ there is also hand-maijden. English delights in making two nouns into a new com- pound.^ Molestus is translated by a new word, hackande (Vol. I. page 105) ; hence perhaps our ' hacking cough.' We see an effort made after a new idiom in Vol. I. page 265. ^ Non erat qui sepeliret ' is there translated was it nane ]>at walde hiri. But this it could never drive out the old there. In Vol. I. page 61, * exaruit velut testa ' is translated He is wrong : That is the true Old English Relative, representing ]>e ; the others are Thirteenth Century upstarts. It is curious that Yorkshire had far more influence than Kent upon the language of the capital in 1520. If we wish to be correct, we should translate ' qui amant ' by they that love : those who love can date no higher than 1250. * Vol. i. p. 323. The Psalter being a most Teutonic work, we may hope that our isle is not derived from the French. The Old High German has isila. 2 ^Yp must allow that country-house is far better than the French maison de cam'pagne. The Old aftd Middle English. 1 5 r by dried als a pot might he, Tlie two last words are a roundabout expression for wcere. The verbs delve, cleave, swejpe, and wepe take Weak perfects. This process has unluckily always been going on in England. • In Vol. I. page 267, a new meaning is given to the verb spill ; what of old was hlod> is agoten (effusus), now becomes hlode es spilte. One of the puzzles in our lan- guage is, how ever could the Old English geotan be sup- planted by the Celtic pour : this took place about 1500. The former word survives in the Lincoln goijts or canals. It is curious to mark the various compounds of ivil, employed at different times to translate voluntarie. This about the year 800 was wilsum-lice (Vol. I. page 171) ; about 1250 it was wilU', in a rather later copy of this^ Psalter it was wilfulU : we should now say willingly. A new phrase crops up, used to translate forsitan ; this (Vol. II. page 115) is thurgh hap : it is the fore- runner of our mongrel perhaps. We now see the first employment of our word gain^ say, the only one of all the old compounds of again that is left to us. In Vol. I. page 269 we read, ' thou set us in gaine-sagh,^ that is, in contradictionem. This is a true Northern form ; a Southerner would have written ayeU' sawe. The English tongue was still able to turn a substan- tive into a verb. * Qui dominatur ' (Vol. I. page 203) is translated by * fat laverdes.' ^ ^ In Shakespere's time, substantives and adjectives could h$ turned into verbs with ease. Dr. Johnson turns a preposition into a verb : ' I downed him with this.' 152 The Sources of Standard English, We see the sense of shunt given for the first time to scunian. Expulsi sunt (Vol. I. page 291) is translated ere out-scJwuned. There are many Scandinavian words now found for the first time ; as, Dreg, from the Icelandic dregg (sediment). Gnaist (gnash), from the Norse gnista, Hauk, from the Icelandic haukr} Lurk, from the Norse lurke, Molbery, from the Swedish mulhaer. Slaghter, from the Norse sldti'. Scalp, from the Norse skal (a shell). Snub, from the Norse snubba (cut short). Besides these, we find for the first time our clmid (nubes) ; in Vol. I. 43, we read in \e Moudes of f e slcewe ; 'in nubibus aeris.' Shy has therefore at last got its modern meaning. We see snere, akin to the Dutch snarren, to grumble ; stuhle (stipula) related to the Dutch stoppel. In Vol. II. page 53, conquassare is translated in three different manuscripts by squat, sqitacche, swacche (our squash), all akin to the Dutch quassen, A few French words appear, such as fruitefuU, aile, rlchesses ; the last being the usual translation of divitice, and thus the Plural form of our word is accounted for. The older jpais is sometimes turned into jpeas (pax). The word ire is used to translate the Latin ira ; our kindred word yrre cannot have died out at this time : the Poet would think the Latin form more dignified than * Our word for accijpiter clearly comes from the Norse, and not from the Old English heafoc. So we have preferred the Norse form sldtr to the Old English slcBge. A glance at Stratmann's Dictionary 'will show, that the South held to the Old English forms long after the Norse forms, now used by us, had appeared in the North. The Old and Middle English, 153 the Old English. So we may hope that our ire is from an English and not from a Latin source. The word majestas (Vol. I. page 233) is turned into an ingenious compound, masteliede. What was in the year 800 a-^eastrade sind (obscurati sunt) is now seen as er sestrede (Vol. I. page 241). This is a good example of the gradual change in the sounds of letters ; thus ea6e became easy. The translator of the Psalter was used to write the French word city ; he, therefore, sometimes writes cestrede as well as sestrede. Here we have the soft sound of c coming in ; before this time it was always sounded hard, except in a French word. In Vol. I. page 243, we see, ' when time tane haf I ; ' the first instance of taken being cut down to tane — a sure mark of the North. About the year 1250, Layamon's poem was turned into the English of the day ; many old words of 1200 are dropped, being no longer understood ; and some new French words are found. The old henan (hinc), already corrupted into henne, now becomes Jiennes, our he7ice ; and hetwyx becomes hitwixte. In this poem we first find our leg (crus) ; it comes from the Old Norse leggr, a stem ; and sleJipe (our sleight) comes from the Icelandic sloeg^, Gloke (chlamys) is a Celtic word. We owe a great deal to the men who, between 1240 and 1440, drew up the many manuscript collections of English poems that still exist, taken from various sources by each compiler. The writer who copied many lays 154 ^^^ Sources of Standard English, into what is now called The Jesus Manuscript, ranged over at least one hundred and forty years. In one piece of his, professing to give a list of the EngHsh Bishopricks, there is no mention of Ely ; hence the original must have been set down soon after the year 1100. In another piece in the same collection, mention is made of Saint Edmund, the Archbishop ; this fixes the date of the poem as not much earlier than the year 1250. Most of these pieces, printed in An Old English Miscellany (Early English Text Society), seem to me to have been compiled at various dates between 1220 and 1250 ; for the proportion of obsolete English in them varies much. The Southern Dialect is well marked. What in Essex had been called 'patt an, is now changed into its present shape. pe on is J>at ich schal heonne. — Page 101. At page 164, the old gearwa is cut down to gere, our gear. The Virgin says, in page 100, ' ieh am Godes wenclw ' (ancilla). The word was henceforth only used of women ; Orrmin had called Isaac ' a wennchell.' We see in page 76, a Celtic word brought into English, a word which Shakspere was to make immortal. It is said that greedy monks shall be ' bitauht fe puke ; ' that is, given over to the Fiend. The Welsh ^wcca and hwg mean 'an hobgoblin;' hence come our hughears and bogies.^ At page 43, we see ' he wes more hold,' not holder. This was put in for the sake of rime. * Good Bishop Bedell, in a letter to Usher, brands an oppressor named Cooke : ' he is the most crjed out upon. Insomuch as he hath found from the Irish the nickname of Pouc' — Page 105 of Bedell's Life, printed in 1685. The Old and Middle English. ^ 155 In Verbs, we find uie^ the old Imperative form, used for almost the last time. In page 47 Pilate, speaking of Christ, says, ' letef hyne beo/ We should now say, ' let him alone.' A new word for tremere now appears in English, in page 176 : For ich schal bemen in fur And chiverin in ise. There has been so much wrangling as to whether our Indefinite wie comes from the French on or from the Old English an used for man^ that I once more return to the word, which has been seen already in the Ancren Riwle and the Bestiary. At page 40 we read : * On me seal bitraye fat nu is ure yvere.' This on, which before the Thii'teenth Century never stood alone, is a translation of the kindred Latin word in the well-known passage of the Vulgate, ' imus ves- trum me traditurus est.' Latin, as well as French, had great influence upon the changes in English. Fifty years later, the mi was to be used indefinitely like the Old English man, THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT. (About A.D. 1270.) The following specimen must have been written much about the time that King Henry III. ended his worth- lees life, if we may judge by internal evidence. It was transcribed by a Herefordshire man about forty years later. Of the sixty nouns, verbs, and adverbs contained 156 Tke Sources of Standard English. in it, one alone, fray, is Frencli ; and of the other fifty- nine, only three or four have dropped out of our speech. In the poems of 1280 we shall find a larger proportion of French than in this elegant lay, which may be set down to 1270. The writer seems to have dwelt at Huntingdon, or somewhere near, that town being almost equidistant from London and the three other places mentioned in the fifth stanza. The prefix to the Past Participle is not wholly dropped ; and this is perhaps a token that the lay was written on the Southern Border of the Mercian Danelagh. The third Person Singular of the Present Tense ends in es, and not in the Southern eth. The Plural of the same Tense ends in the Midland en. We find ourselves speedily drawing near the time, when English verse was written that might readily be under- stood six hundred years after it was composed. THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT. (A.D. 1270.) When the nyhtegale singes, the wodes waxen grene, Lef ant gras ant blosme springes in Averyl, y wene, Ant love is to myn herte gon with one * spere so » a kene, Nyht ant day my blod hit drynkes, myn herte deth me tene.^ ^ harm Ich have loved al this ^er, that y may love na more, Ich have siked moni syk,*' lemmon, for thin ore ; "^ \ m^rcy Me nis love never the ner, ant that me reweth sore, Suete lemmon, thench on me, ich have loved the i^ore.' * 1°^^ The Old and Middle English, 157 Suete lemmon, y preye the of love one speche, Whil y lyve in world so "wy^de other nulle y^ seche; ^ i ^iw not With thy love, my suete leof, mi blis thou mihtes eche,« " "" increase A suete cos of thy mouth mihte be my leche. Suete lemmon, y preje the of a love bene ; ^ ^ boon Yef thou me lovest, ase men says, lemmon, as y wene, Ant ^ef hit thi wille be, thou loke that hit be sene. So muchel y thenke upon the, that al y waxe grene. Bituene Lyncolne ant Lyndeseye, Norhamptoun ant Lounde, Ne wot y non so fayr a may as y go fore y-bounde; Suete lemmon, y preje the thou lovie me a stounde,' ' while Y wole mone my song on wham that hit ys on y- long.^ THE CONTKAST TO THE EAST MIDLAND. (A.D. 1264.) Richard of Alemaigne, whil that he wes kyng, He spende al is tresour opon swyvyng ; Haveth he nout of Walingford o ferlyng ; Let him habbe, ase he brew, bale to dryng, Maugre Wyndesore. Be the luef, be the loht, sire Edward, Thou shalt ride sporeles thy lyard Al the ryhte way to Dovere ward ; ' VefTcy Society, vol. iv. p. 92. This is a transcript made by a Herefordshire man, who must have altered and into ant, nill into ntUle, Ms into cos, &c. 158 The Sources of Standard English, Shalt thou never more breke foreward, Ant that reweth sore ; Edward, thou dudest ase a shreward, Forsoke thyn ernes lore. These stanzas are from the famous ballad on the battle of Lewes, in 1264, and come from the same Here- fordshire manuscript : they smack strongly of the South. We have here the first instance of our corrupt Imperative, Itet him Tidbhe, instead of the old hcebhe he (habeat).^ We also find the word host (our hoast) for the first time ; this is Celtic. In another Southern poem of this date, the Proverbs of Hending, we see that ue replaced e or eo ; as hue for &e, hue for heo. I give some of the homely bywords of the time, when Englishmen were drawing their swords npon each other at Lewes and Evesham.^ God biginning make]? god endyng. Wyt ant wysdom is god warysoun. Betere is eyesor fen al blynd. Wei fyft pat wel fly]?. Sottes bolt is sone shote. Tel ])ou never ]>y fo ])at ])y fot ake]?. Betere is appel y-jeve ]?en y-ete. * But we still sometimes use the older form : * Come weal, come woe, we'll gather and go.' * Be Thine the glory, and be mine the shame.' How much more pith is there in these phrases, than in the cumbrous compound with let, as in the Lewes Ballad ! This I have taken from the Camden Society's Edition of the Political Songs of England, p. 69. 2 The Proverbs of Hending may be found in Kemble's Anglo- Saxon Dialogues (JElfric Society), No. 14, p. 270. The Old and Middle English. 159 Gredy is fe godles. When fe coppe is follest, fenne ber hire feyrest. Under boske (bush) shal men weder abide. When fe bale is best, fenne is fe bote nest. highest remedy nighest Brend child fur dredef. Fer from eje, fer from herte. Of unboht hude men kervej? brod f ong. hide Dere is boht fe hony fat is licked of fe f orne. Ofte rap rewef. Ever out come]? evel sponne web. Hope of long lyf gylef mony god wyf. The well-known phrase ' all and some ' is first found in this Manuscript. The old sum is here equivalent to one. Meanwhile, beyond the Humber, the French Romance of Sir Tristrem was being translated. The proportion of obsolete English words is rather greater than in the Havelok, and the former poem may therefore be dated about 1270. We unluckily have it only in a Southern transcript made sixty years later. The rimes give some clue to the true old readings ; and when we see such a phrase as ich a side, we may be sure that the old Northern bard wrote ilka side. We find such new forms as/er and wide, and furthermore} ^ P. 169 of Scott's edition, in the year 1811. I give a stanza or two from p. 149. Strokes of michel might, Thai delten hem bituene ; That thurch hir brinies bright, Her brother blode was s.ene; i6o The Sources of Standard English. We now find for the first time ije (vos) used instead of thou. French influence must liave been at work here. ^ Fader, no wretthe the nought, Ful welcome er ye J — Page 41. Some new substantives are found. In page 25 a castle is called a hold. In page 32 the old honda (co- lonus) is turned into hushondman.^ The poet elsewhere has a new sense for hond, which of old meant nothing more than a tiller of the ground : it now gets the sense of servus, as at page 184: ' Tho folwed bond and fre/ Tristrem faught as a knight, And Urgan al in tene Yaf him a strok unlight ; His scheld he clef bituene Atuo. Tristrem, withouten wene, Nas never are so wo. Eft Urgan smot with main, And of that strok he miste ; Tristrem smot ogayn, And thurch his body he threste ; Urgan lepe nnfain, Over the bregge he deste: Tristrem hath Urgan slain. That al the cuntre wist With wille. The king tho Tristrem kist, And Wales tho yeld him tille. * Husbonde of old meant only paterfamilias. The confusion of the derivative of bua with the derivative of bindan sometimes puzzles the modern reader. The Old and Middle English. 1 6 1 It is strange that this change should be for the first time found in the Norse part of England. We shall soon see a new word with a French ending formed from this hond. Already, in the Northern Psalter, hunclea (vinctus) had been changed into honden. To dash (intransitive) may be found in the lines- quoted at page 160 of my work. In Layamon the word was transitive. Ich aught (debeo), a word which was always under- going change, is first found at page 44. A new sense of the word smart, used in the Northern Psalter, is seen in page 171 : ' The levedi lough ful smare,^ That is, ' quickly, briskly.' ^toiericans well know what they mean by * a smart man.' In page 17, we find the use of the phrase 'fair and free,' so common in English ballads down to the latest times : ' Thai fair folk and thi fre.' ^ Some Scandinavian words appear ; such as hiisk (parare), from the Norse hua sig, to betake himself; stilt, from the Swedish sUjlta, a support. To hohhie, which is here found, is akin to a Dutch word meaning: ' to jog up and down.' The Northern men seem to have clipped the prefixes of French words as well as of their own. We find the beginning vowel gone in the verbs scajje and stoMe. * It even comes in Billi/ Taylor, 'to a maiden fair and free.' M 1 62 The Sources of Standard English, Gorona now first stands for the top of tlie head, as in page 51 : ' Crounes thai gun crake/ THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT. (About A.D. 1280.) King Edward was now fastening his yoke upon Wales. The first Mercian poem of this time that I shall notice is the piece called The Harrowing of Hell, the earliest specimen of anything like an English dramatic work. It may have been written at Northampton or Bedford. The text has been settled (why did no Englishman take it in hand, and go the right way to work ?) by Dr. Mall of Breslaa. With true German insight into philology, he has compared three different English transcripts : a Warwickshire (?) one of 1290 ; a Herefordshire one of 1313 ; and a Northern one of 1330.^ Again we see the Midland tokens ; the Pre- sent Plural in en, the almost invariable disuse of the prefix to the Past Participle, the substitution of noht for ne, have I for hahhe icli. The author wrote hin and man, not the Southern hun and mon, since the words are made to rime with Mm and Abraham. The old a is sometimes, but not always, replaced by o ; the poet's rimes prove him to have written strong, not Strang ; he had both ygan and ygon, riming respectively with Sathan and martirdom. The plural form honden, 1 The Latin donee is rendered in the Herefordshire manuscript by \)atf a relic of the old Southern English form ; in the other two manuscripts it is the Danish til \>at. The Old and Middle English, 163 found in all the three manuscripts, and the absence of are (sunt), point to the Southern border of the Dane- lagh ; at the same time, the Northern wi\ (cum) has driven out the Southern mid, Tliei (illi) sometimes replaces hi-, both Ich and I are found. The Midland form ^rist (sitis) has been altered by all the three tran- scribers ; the two Southern ones use '^urst, something like our sound of the word : Dr. Mall, by the help of the rime, has here restored the true reading. Gh had replaced c, for michel, not mikel, is found in the Northern manuscript. The dialogue is most curious ; Satan swears, par ma fei, like the soundest of Christians ; and our Lord uses a metaphor taken from a game of hazard. The comic business, as in the Antigone of Sophocles, falls to a warder. The oath God wot comes once more ; and also the Danish word gate (via), which never made its way into the South. ^ A sad corruption, which fir t appeared in the Besti- ary, is now once more seen : it is one of the few things that has escaped Dr. Mall's eye. The second person of * I give a specimen from page 33 of Dr. Mall's work. Abraham Louerd, Crist, ich it am, pat >ou calledest Abraham ; pou me seidest, l>at of me Shulde a god child boren be, pat ous shulde bringe of pine, Me and wi> me alle mine, pou art J>e child, >ou art >e man, pat wes boren of Abraham ; Do nou hat ]>ou bihete me, Bring me to hevene up wi)? J?e. The New English, as we see, is all but formed. M 2 164 The Sources of Standard English. the Perfect of the Strong verb is brought down to the level of the more modern Weak verb. In hne 11 ^ we see in the transcript of 1290, Sunne n^foundest fou never non. In line 189, the transcriber of 1313 writes, Do noil fat f ou hyhihtest me. It was many years before this corruption could take root ; it is seldom found in Wickliffe, who tries to avoid translating declisti by either the old gave or the new gavest, and commonly writes didest give. In the transcript of 1290, lording is seen instead of loverding, and this is found in Kent and Lincolnshire much about the same time. In the lines of page 28, I shal go fro man to man And reve Ipe of mani v.n — the last two words give us the same phrase found in the Yorkshire poems already quoted. At page 32, we find a line thus written in the tran- script of 1290, * we J)i comaundement forleten ;' in the transcript of 1313, this is 'we fin heste dude forleten.' If this latter represent the original of 1280 best, it is the first instance of a revived auxiliary verb, of which I shall give instances in the next Chapter. Much ink has lately been spent upon Byron's expres- sion, 'there let him lay' (jaceat). The bard might have appealed to the transcript of 1313 : Sathanas, y bynde pe, her shalt ])oii lai/ fat come domesdai. — Page 30. The Old and Middle English. 165 But the greatest Midland work of 1280 is tlie Lay of Havelok, edited by Mr. Skeat for tlie Early English Text Society. This is one of the many poems translated from the French about this time, when King Edward the First was welding his French-speaking nobles and his English yeomen into one redoubtable body, ready for any undertaking either at home or abroad. The poem, which belongs to the Mercian Danelagh, has come down to us in the hand of a Southern writer, transcribed within a few years of its compilation. This renowned Lincolnshire tale was most likely given to the world not far from that part of England where Orrmin wrote eighty years earlier : it is certainly of near kin to an- other Lincolnshire poem, compiled in 1303. Mr. Gar- nett, in page 75 of his essays, has suggested Derbyshire or Leicestershire as the birth-place of the author : Dr. Morris is in favour of a more Southern shire. We find the common East Midland marks: the Present Plural ending in en ; the Past Participle oftenest without a pre- fix ; are for the Latin sunt ; niman for the Latin ire ; and the oath Goddot, which is said to be of Danish birth. But there is also a dash of the Northern dialect ; the second person singular of the Present tense, and the lecond person plural of the Imperative, both end in es ow and then ; a fashion that lingers in Scotland to this day. The Norse Active Participle in ande is also found, and Norse phrases like tlmsgate, hethen, gar, Orrmin' s munnde has now become mone, which is almost the Scotch maun, as in line 840. ^ I wene that we deye (die) mone J Orrmin' s ^ho (the old heo) is now changed into she 1 66 The Sotirces of Standard English. and slio ; his ihey and ilieir are sometimes seen, bat have been often altered by the Southern transcriber into M and Jiir. The Southern tliilk (ille) is not found once in the whole poem. We now for the last time see the Old English Dual (this we must have brought from the Oxus) in the line 1882 : ' Gripeth ef er unker a god tre/ Grif each of you two a good tree. This was of old written incer. Strange tricks are played with the letter li. The letter d is dropped after liquids, for we find here shel^ Jiel, hiliel ; and the Danes to this day have the same pronunciation. We may remark the Westward march, up from East Anglia, of the letter o, replacing the older a : swoj has become so, and is made to rime with Domino ; on the other hand, wa (dolor) still rimes with sir a., our straw. But such words as ilc, sivilk, mihel, hwilgate, prove that our modern corruptions of these words had not as yet made their way to the Humber ; the Havelok shows us our Standard English almost formed, but something is still wanting. There are Northern forms, which could never have been used in the South in Edwardian days ; such as sternes, intil, tmte, coujoe, loupe, carle. The Plurals of Substantives end in es, not en ; and to this there are hardly any exceptions. The old seofojm (septimus) now first becomes seve7i]w, owing the intrusive 7i to Norse influence ; many others of our Ordinals are formed in the same way.^ ' We saw it as seoice\>ende at Peterborough in 1120. The Old and Middle English. 1 6j Other Englisli words, common in our mouths, are found in their new form in the Havelok for the first time, such as yonder^ thorutlilike : overthwart has been pared down to athwart since that age. The French use vous, when addressing the Almighty. This took root in England ; and we find of you, a word unmusical in Quaker's ear, employed for the Latin tutis : ^ For the holi milce of yoii Tnercy Have merci of me, louerd, nou ! ' — Line 1361. lord I give the earliest instance of a well-known vulgarism : * Hwan Godard herde ]>at J?er frette.' — 2404. In substantives, we find the Plural shon (our shoon), one of the few corrupt Plurals in n that we keep, and which will never die out, thanks to a famous old ballad in Hamlet. What Orrmin called laf (panis) is now seen as lof: we have not changed the sound of this word in the last six hundred years. The Old Enghsh civile is now seen as quisle (our bequest) . We see two lines in page 55 which explain why the Irish to this day sound the r so strongly : 'And he haves on foru his arum (arm), perof is ful mikel haimm (harm).' So the Irish sound the English horen (natus) in the true old way. We see the Old English word for a well- known bird, in line 1241 : 'Ne fe hende, ne fe drake.'' 1 68 The Sources of Standard English. The former substantive, akin to the Latin anas^ anatis^ was still to last two hundred years, before it was sup- planted by the word duck. As to drake, this poem first shows us that the word had lost its old form end-rake, that is, anat-rex. There is hardly a word in English that has been so corrupted ; one letter, d, alone remains now to show the old root, and this letter is prefixed to a word akin to the rajah of Hindostan. In line 968, we find a new phrase : ' And bouthe him clofes, al span-neive.^ Span, the old spon, means a cJiip. In line 27, we see an idiom well known to ballad- makers, when it becomes something like an indeterminate pronoun : this first appeared in the Ancren Riwle. It was a kmg bi are dawes That in his time were gode lawes, &c. In line 1815, a man slaughtered is said to be stan-ded. The word smerte (painful) keeps its old English sense, though we saw other meanings of the word farther to the North. The verb leyke (ludere) is sounded in this poem, just as the Northern shires still pronounce it ; we of the South call it lark, following the Old English Idcan} To fare of old meant only to journey : we see in the line 2411 a derivative from another old yevh, ferian : * Hwou Robert with here loYerd ferde^ (^git). * One of the earliest instances I remember of the modern use of this good old word, which is thought to be slangy, occurs in Miss Eden's Letters from India, about 1839. She calls one of the Hindoo gode, ' a kind of larking Apollo.' The Old and Middle English. 169 To pn'cZ; is used in the sense that Macaulay loved, and that Croker blamed : ^ An erl, ]?at he saw priken fore, Ful noblelike upon a stede/ — Line 2639. As might be expected, there are many Norse words in the Havelok. I give those which England has kept, together with one or two to be found in Lowland Scotch. Beyte (bait), from the Icelandic heita (incitare). Big, from the Icelandic holga (tumere). Bleak, from the Icelandic hleikr (pallidus). Blink, from the Danish hlinke, Boulder (a rock), from the Icelandic hallalSr. Coupe, as in horse-couper^ from the Icelandic kmtpa (emere). Crus (Scotch erouse), from the Swedish krus (excitable). Ding, from the Icelandic dengia, to hammer. Dirt, from the Icelandic drit (excrementa). Goul (to yowl, ululare), from the Icelandic gaula. Grime, fr-om the Norse grima (a spot). Hemp, fr'om the Icelandic hmnpr, not from the Old English hanep. Put ^ (to throw), from the Icelandic j9o^^a. Sprawl, fr'om the Danish sprceUe, Stack, fr'om the Danish stak. Teyte (tight, active), from the Norse teitr (lively). Besides these Scandinavian words, we find in the Have- lok other words now for the first time employed. Such are lad (puer), from the Welsh llawd ; ^ stroute, our strut (contendere), a High German word; hoy (puer), akin to the Suabian huah ; to hutt, akin to the Dutch hotten; hut ^ Hence comes the phrase, putting the stone, first found in this poem. ^ Lodes^ the Welsh female ot this word, has become our lass. I/O The Sources of Standard English, (a hout at wrestling), whicli Mr. Wedgwood derives from hugan (flectere), and hougJit, a word applied to the coils of a rope, and so to the turns of things that sncceed each other. File, akin to the Dutch vuil, means a worth- less person ; we may still often hear a man called ' a cunning old file.' In 2499 of the Havelok, we read, * Here him rore, fat fule Jlle.^ foul We see the origin of the word deuce in the line — ^ Deus ! lemman, hwat may ]na be ? ' Stone appears clipped of the vowel that once began it ; and Justice is used for a man in office, as well as for a virtue. It is curious to see in this Lay two forms of the same word that has come to England by different channels ; we have gete (custodire) from the Icelandic gceta ; and also wayte, which means the same, coming from the French guaiter, a corruption of the wahten brought into Gaul by her German conquerors. Sad havock must have been wrought with English prepositional compounds in the eighty years that separated the Havelok from the Ormulum. In compound words, umbe, the Greek am^M^ comes only three times throughout the long poem before us ; for only five times ; with only once ; of not at all. The English tongue had been losing some of its best appliances. The preposition to, answering to the German zer and the Latin dis, is still often found in composition, and did not altogether drop until the days of James I. The Old and Middle English, 171 THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT. (About A.D. 1280).^ THE HAYELOK.— Page 38. On f e nith, als Goldeborw lay, Sory and sorwful was she ay, For she wende she were biswike,* pat sh[e w]ere yeven unkyndelike.^ O nith saw she per-inne a lith, A swipe '^ fayr, a swife bryth, Al so brith, al so shir,^ So it were a blase of fir. She lokede no(r)f, and ek south. And saw it comen ut of his mouth, pat lay bi hire in J>e bed : No ferlike ® fou she were adred. pouthe she, * wat may this bimene ? He beth^ heyman yet, als y wene, He beth heyman^ er he be ded.' On hise shuldre, of gold red She saw a swipe noble croiz, Of an angel she herde a voyz, * Goldeborw, lat pi sorwe be. For Havelok, ])at havep spuset pe, He [is] kinges sone, and kinges eyr, pat bikenneth** pat croiz so fayr. It bikenneth more, pat he shal Denemark haven, and Englond al. He shal ben king strong and stark Of Engelond and Denemark.^ pat shal pa wit pin eyne sen,^ And po shalt quen and levedi ben.' a tricked b unnatu- rally c very ** clear 'will be « nobleman * In this poem nith stands for nighty and other words in the same way. - This way of pronouncing all the three vowels alike of the word Engelond had not died out in Shakespere's time. 172 The Sources of Staiidard English, panne she havede herd the stevene ^ Of fe angel uth of hevene, She was so fele sifes ^ blithe, pat she ne mi the hire joie my the.™ But Havelok sone anon she kiste, And he slep and nouth ne wiste. Hwan fat aungel havede seyd, Of his slep anon he brayd," And seide, * lemman, slepes |)0u ? A selkuth ° drem dremede me nou. Herkne nou hwat me haveth met,P Me fouthe y was in Denemark set, But on on J?e moste^ hil pat evere yete kam i til. It was so hey, J^at y wel mouthe Al fe werd"" se, als me fouthe. Als i sat upon fat lowe,' I bigan Denemark for to awe, pe borwes* and f e castles stronge ; And mine armes weren so longe, That i fadmede, al at ones, Denemark, with mine longe bones. And f anne " y wolde mine armes drawe Til me, and hom for to have, Al that evere in Denemark liveden On mine armes faste clyveden.* And fe stronge castles alle On knes bigunnen for to falle, Pe keyes fellen at mine fet. Anofer drem dremede me ek, pat ich ileyy over fe salte se Til Engeland, and al with me pat evere was in Denemark lyves,^ But* bondemen, and here wives. And fat ich kom til Engelond, Al closede it intil mine bond. And, Goldeborw, y gaf [it] fe. Deus ! lemman, hwat may f is be ? ' • many times ™ moderate o wondrous P I dreamt ^ greatest ■ world »hiU ■ boroughs when y flew * alive * except The Old and Middle English. 1 73 Sho answerede and seyde sone : ' Jhesu Crist, fat made mone, pine dremes turne to joye ; pat wite^ J)w that sittes in trone. ^' ^^ecree Ne non strong king, ne caysere, So J?ou shalt be, fo[r] fou shalt bere In Engelond corune yet ; Denemark shal knele to |?i fet. Alle f e castles fat aren )>er-inne, Shal-tow, lemman, ful wel winne.' THE CONTKAST TO THE EAST MIDLAND. (About A.D. 1280.) Whan Jhesu CristVas don on rode And ])olede def for ure gode, He clepede to hym seint Johan, pat was his oje qenes man, And his ojene moder also, Ne clepede he hym feren no mo. And sede, ^ wif, lo her ))i child pat on j>e rode is ispild : Nu ihc am honged on pis tre Wel sore ihc wot hit rewep pfe. Mine fet and honden of blod . . . Bifute gult ihc folie ]?is ded. Mine men f>at ajte me to love, For whan ihc com from hevene abave, Me have]? idon ])is ilke schame. Ihc nave no gult, hi buj? to blame. To mi fader ihc bidde mi bone, pat he forgive hit hem wel sone.' Marie stod and sore weop, pe teres feolle to hire fet. No wunder nas f ej heo wepe sore. Of soreje ne mijte heo wite no more, 174 ^^^ Sources of Standard E7tglish. Whenne he fat of hire nam blod and fless, Also his suete wille was, Heng inayled on fe treo. ' Alas, my sone,' seide heo, ' Hu may ihc live, hu may fis beo ? ' The above is taken from the Assumption of the Virgin, printed by the Early English Text Society, along with the King Horn and another poem, all written about 1280 or rather later. In them we find that the Active Par- ticiple in inge^ first used by Layamon, has almost driven out the older inde. The King Horn was written in some part of England (Oxfordshire ?), upon which the East Midland dialect had begun to act, grafting its Plural form of the Present tense upon the older form in eih. Here hwanon (unde) is replaced by whannes, our whence. In page 8 there is a curious instance of the Old English idiom, wliich piles up negatives upon each other : this survives in the mouths of the common folk. ' Heo ne mi^te . . , speke . . . no^t in ]?e halle, ne nowhar in non ofere stede. We now light on scrip (pera), which comes from the Norse sJcreppa, and pore (spectare), akin to the Swedish jpala} There are also three words akin to the Dutch or German, cli7ilv, flutter, and guess. Chivalrous ideas were now being widely spread under the sway of the great Edward, and we find that a verb has been formed from the substantive JcnigJit. *• For to kni^ti child horn.'— Line 480. | Tala i en hok is to 'j^re on a book, — Wedgwood. The Old and Middle English, ly^ The verb ' to squire ' came a hundred years later, in Chaucer's time. There are some Kentish Sermons printed at page 26 of An Old English 'Miscellany (Early English Text Society). These seem to have been translated from the French about 1290 : it was in Kent and Essex, as we can plainly see, that the old forms of King Alfred's day made their last stand against Northern changes. Forms like liesed (amisit), niede (necessitas), show us how a word such as helefe got turned into belief, the corrupt form which we still keep. Never did any tongue employ so many variations of vowels as the English, to represent the sound e: here is one more puzzle for the foreigner.^ Our word glare, first found here, is akin to the Low German. We light on goodman (paterfamilias) at page 32. An idiomatic repetition, well known to our lower orders, now appears : as at page 31, ' a sik man seyde. Lord, lord,' * ha seide,^ &c. The svnche (talis) is some- times shortened into the siche, still often heard. Robert of Gloucester wrote his Chronicle about 1300, or not much earlier, since he speaks of St. Louis as canonised. He shows us a few new idioms, especially as regards the word an, our wie.^ pe more ]mt a man con, ]>e more worj? he ys. — I. papfe 364. pe castel of Gary held one Wyllam Lovel. — II. page 448. Ac me ne mijte vor no ping in ]?e toune finde on. — II. p. 556. * This comes of our tongue being compounded in different shires ; the form ie came from the South East, the form ea from the South West, the form e, and also ee, from the North. * I Quote from Hearne's edition. 176 The Sources of Standard English. Heo maden certeyne covenaunt ]?at heo were al at on. I. page 113. The first phrase in Italics answers to quisque, the second to quiclam, the third to tmus. From the fourth, often repeated in this piece, comes ' to set them at one again,' and onr word atonement. The Old English gleoiv had been hitherto seen as gletu, gleu, and glie; it now approached its more long-lived form in gle. Makes (socii) is now seen as mates, II. 536. Formerly sceojpjpa had stood for a treasury ; it was now degraded in meaning, and became our sTiojp : it occurs in E-obert's account of the riot at Oxford (he may have been an eye-witness), not long before the battle of Lewes. ^ It was a bowyer's shop that suffered ; and this word is spelt howiar : lawyer, collier, and such like forms were to follow.^ The adjective had (mains) is now first found ; it has much puzzled the brains of antiquaries, for there seems to be no kindred word nearer to it than the Persian hud. Different explanations have also been given of Robert's new word, halledness (baldness). ; Mr. Dasent (Jest and Earnest, II. 70) talks of the God Baldr, who had a glorious whiteness of face. Our poet uses the ISTorse word towie for otiuAn ; and this lasted down to the Fifteenth Century, when it was con- fused with time. We still say, ' I have time ' ( vacat mihi) ; the Scotch toom (vacuus) is well known. John Balliol was nicknamed Toom-tahard, which well hits ofi' his gaudy emptiness ; Robert talks of ' 5,000 poundes of sterlinges : ' this last word we owe to Germany. * This I take from Dr. Stratmann. 2 The ending in ier is French ; yet there must have been some Old English word like bog-er ; the trade was so common. There may here be a confusion between the two endings. The Old and Middle English. 177 When Richard I. came home from his German prison (II. page 490), * he pleyede nywe king at ome.' This new idiom seems French ; we now put a tlie after the verb. The poet is fond of nsing hody for person, as 'mani god bodi, that ne com ' (II. page 546). We are told, in the famous ballad on Lewes fight, that the King's brother ' saisede the mulne for a castel.' Thirty- five years later, the Gloucestershire bard tells us that the aforesaid Prince 'was in a windmulle inome.' The old n at the end of the word, clipped in England, is still kept by the Scotch Lowlanders. Robert wrote, besides his Chronicle, a great number of Lives of Saints. Of these, that of Becket has been published by the Percy Society, Vol. XIX. At page 92, we see a new adverb compounded from an adjective, ' to do the sentence al ahrod.* We still keep this counterpart to the Latin late in ' to noise abroad ; ' but the Norse abroad (foris) is of much later introduction. There are such new phrases as forasmoche as (page 28) ; ]>u mi'^t as tvel heo stille (page 49) ; the kinges men were at liim (page 63) ; hi dude here best (did their best), page 3. The old berewe now becomes bar ewe, our barroiv. A new adjective is found ; Becket' s mother, wander- ing about London unable to speak English, is called ' a mopisch best ' (page 5). This is akin to the Dutch mop- pen, to sulk. Buttoch reminds us of the Dutch bo^it ; and stout, which is pure Dutch, now first appears in England. We have seen in Sir Tristrem that bond came to mean servus ; we find, at page 27 of the Becket, the word bonde man, with the same meaning. In other shires, such as near Rutland, bonde man still bore the old sense N I y8 The Sources of Standard English, of colonus and nothing more. In the former case, the word came from the English hindan ; in the latter, from the Norse hua. At page 126, we see both the old form Tywesdai and the new form Tuesdai. Two foreign words were pro nounced in 1300 just as we wrongly pronounce them now: St&oene (Stephanus),page 124, and yused (solebam), page 23.^ We find simple opposed to gentle (page 124), as in Scott's writings. Another of these Saint's Lives is the Voyage of St. Brandan (Percy Society, Vol. XIV.). In this we first see her and tJiar, at page 26 ; the preposition hi is used by sailors in a new sense, for we read at page 28, 'hi seje an yle al hi southe.^ A line in page 30 is remarkable ; speaking of an otter, * Mid his forthere fet he broujte 2^ fur-ire and a ston.' We did not use the word forefeet in 1300 ; fire-iron is an old compound. An idiom, already known, is seen at page 3 ; we are there told that if men had not sinned, ' herinne hi Jiadde "^ut iljyed* (vixissent). We now see a new word which was to degrade the Old English smirh. At page 4, we read, ' bi the suete sniyl of 50U.' This word has kinsmen both in Norway and Germany. Much about the year 1300, the great Romance of ' One of our peculiarities now is, that we may say used for solebam, but may not say use for soleo. The latter remained in our mouths down to 1611, when it began to drop. The Old and Middle English. 1 79 Alexander was Englished ; perhaps in Warwickshire. ^ Here we find als fer as, aloud, and aside for the first time ; the noun side had a hundred years earlier been used to compound beside. At page 192, we see the origin of our 'to ride the high horse ;' Alexander says of his friends, * Y wolde sette heom on hyghe hors.' There are such new words and forms as bestir, drawbridge, fotman, notemugge (nutmeg), brother-in-lawe, overthrow, jpecoclc, upper, Jcuin (kine), beiuray, anhungred. Hnceg an hecomes neigh ; the old geolo (flavus) is seen as yelow (page 191) ; and the old adjective cyse now takes the form of chis, our choice, as in the line, ' The lady is of lemon chis.' — Page 137. The old ruh (hispidus) and hlihan are turned into rowgh (page 253), and laugh (page 296). Schill at length becomes shrill. There are many words, akin to terms found in Ger- man dialects, now cropping up ; such as cower, curl, to dab, to duck, girl,^ mane, pin, to plump, poll, scoff, scour, scrub, shingle, stamp, top (turbo) ; also hedlinge (prae- ceps). A few Scandinavian words are found, such as fling, ragged, tumble. The Celtic words, seen here in greater numbers than usual, may betoken that the Alexander was compiled not very far from the Welsh March ; these words are bicker, wail, hog, and gun. This last is most likely some engine for darting Greek fire ; the siege of * Weber's Metrical Romances, vol. i. It has uew words in com- mon with the Gloucester poems, such as bicker. 2 For this Dr. Stratmann refers to the Low German gbr ; this was in time to prevail over maiden and damsel alike. n2 1 80 The Sources of Standard English. Macedoyne, supposed by the poet to be a city, is thus described in page 135 : The kyng sygh, of that cite, That they no niyghte duyr^ : They dasscheth heom in at the gate, And doth hit schutte in hast. The tayl they kyt of hundrodis fy ve, To wedde heo lette heore lyve. Theo othre into the wallis stygh, And the kynges men with gonnes sleygh.^ As to French words, honny is seen for the first time in page 161, where honie londis are promised. The word defycjlie, riming with spie (page 288), shows that the guttural' was not sounded in Southern Mercia in IBOO ; dereworth is now making way for precious, when jewels are mentioned. In the line at page 316, * theo wayte gan a pipe blawe ; ' the French substantive shows how the u-atchman was to become a musician. The above specimens will give some idea of the sources whence mainly comes our Standard English. A line drawn between Chelmsford and York will tra- verse the shires, where the new form of England's speech was for the most part compounded by the old Angles and the later ISTorse comers. Almost half- way between these two towns lived the man, whose writings are of such first-rate importance that they are worthy of having a Chapter to themselves.^ ALfter his * Contrast these obsolete-looking lines with those given at page 163 of my work ; the latter are the product of the Danelagh. 2 The Mercian Danelagh has claims upon architects as well as upon philologers. A great treat awaits the traveller who shall go The Old and Middle English. 1 8 1 time there came in but few new Teutonic changes in spelling and idiom, such as those that had been constantly sliding into our written speech between 1120 and 1300. from Northampton to Peterborough and Stamford, and so to Hull, turning now and then to the right and left. Most of the noble churches he will see, in his journey of 120 miles, date from the time between 1250 and 1350. 1 82 The Sources of Standard English. CHAPTER HI. THE RISE OF THE NEW ENGLISH. (A.D. 1303.) We have seen the corruption of speech in the Mercian Danelagh and East Anglia ; a corruption more strikingly marked there than in other parts of England, with the exception of Yorkshire and Essex, where the same inter- mixture of N'orse blood was bringing about like results. We shall now weigh the work of a Lincolnshire man who saw the light at Bourne within a few miles of Rut- land, the writer of a poem begun in the year that Ed- ward I. was bringing under his yoke the whole of Scot- land, outside of Stirling Castle. It was in 1303 that Robert of Brunne (known also as Robert Manning) began to compile the Handlyng Synne, the work which, more clearly than any former one, foreshadowed the road that English literature was to tread from that time for- ward.^ Like many other lays of King Edward I.'s time, the new piece was a translation from a French poem; the Manuel des Peches had been written about thirty years earlier by William of Waddington.^ The English poem ' This work, with its French original, has been edited for the Eoxburgh Club by Mr. Furnivall. '^ The date of Waddington's poem is pretty well fixed by a passage The Rise of the Neiv English, 183 differs from all the others that had gone before it in its diction ; for it contains a most scanty proportion of those Teutonic words that were soon to drop ont of speech, and a most copious proportion of French words. Indeed there are so many foreign words, that we should set the writer fifty years later than his true date, had he not himself written it down. In this book we catch our first glimpse of many a word and idiom, that were afterwards to live for ever in the English Bible ana Prayer Book, works still in the womb of Time. Indeed, the new Teu- tonic idioms that took root in our speech after this age were few in number, a mere drop in the bucket, if we com- pare them with the idioms imported between 1120 and 1300. This shows what we owe to Robert Manning ; even as the highest praise of our Revolution of 1688 is, that it was our last. The Handlyng Synne is indeed a land- mark worthy of the carefullest study. I shall give long extracts from it, and I shall further add specimens of the English spoken in many other shires between 1 300 and 1340. We are lucky in having so many English manuscripts, drawn up at this particular time : the con- trasts are strongly marked. Thus it will be easy to see that the Lincolnshire bard may be called the patriarch of the ISTew English, much as Cadmon was of the Old English six hundred years earlier. We shall also gain some idea of the influence that the Rutland neighbour- hood has had upon our classic tongue. This was re- marked by Fuller in his time ; and in our day Latham in page 248 (Roxburgh Club edition of the Handlyng Synne). He writes a tale in French, and his translator says that the sad affair referred to happened ' in the time of good Edward, Sir Henry's son.* 1 84 The Sources of Stmidard English, fells' us that ' tlie labouring men of Huntingdon and Northampton speak what is usually called hetter English, because their vernacular dialect is most akin to that of the standard writers.' He pitches upon the country between St. Neots and Stamford as the true centre of literary English.^ Dr. Guest has put in a word for Leicestershire. Our classic speech did not arise in Lon- don or Oxford ; even as it was not in the Papal Court at B/ome, or in the King's Palace at Naples, or in the learned University of Bologna, that the classic Italian sprang up with sudden and marvellous growth. The Handlyng Synne shows how the different tides of speech, flowing from Southern, Western, and Northern shires alike, met in the neighbourhood of R/Utland, and all helped to shape the New English. Robert of Brunne had his own mother-tongue to start with, the Dano- Anglian dialect corrupted by five generations since our first glimpse of it in 1120. He has their peculiar use of niman for the Latin ire^ and other marks of the East Midland. We have seen a specimen of the North Lincolnshire speech of 1240 ; this, as Robert was to do later, had substituted no for ne (the Latin nee?) ? From the South this speech had borrowed the change of a into and c into ch (hence Robert's moche,^ eche, luhyche, swycli) , ofsc into sh, g into w, and into ou. Erom the West ^ I visited Stamford in 1872, and found that the letter h was sadly misused in her streets. 2 This change is also seen in Layamon and in the Herefordshire manuscript of 1313; whence Mr. Wright has taken much for his Political Songs (Camden Society). ^ His moche was used by good writers down to Elizabeth's time. The Rise of the New English, 185 came one of the worst of all our corruptions, Layamon's Active Participle in in^ instead of the older form : Robert leans to this evil change, but still he often uses the old East Midland Participle in and. With the North Robert has much in common : we can see by his rimes that he wrote the Norse \e\en (page 81) and mijkel (page 258), instead of the Southern \en and mocliyl^ which have been foisted into his verse by the Southerner who transcribed the poem sixty years later. The following are some of the forms Robert uses, which are found, many of them for the first time, in the Northern Psalter : childer, fos, ylJca, tane, ire, gatte, hauJc, slaghefer, liandmayden, lighten, wrecched, ahye, sle, as sone as, many one, dounright, he seys, thou sweres, shy (coelum). He, like the translator of the Psalter, delights in the form gh ; not only does he write sygh, lagheter, doghe, nyghe,neghh our, hni also hneugh and nagheer (our hnew and nowhere) . This seems to show that in Southern Lincolnshire, in 1303, the gh had not always a guttural sound. He also sometimes clips the ending of the Imperative Plural ;^ but turns the Yorkshire tJwu has into thou hast. In common with another Northern work, the Sir Tristrem, Robert uses the new form ye for the Latin tu ; also the new senses given in that work to the old words sinart and croun. To the hond (servus) of the aforesaid poem he fastens a French ending, and thus compounds a new substantive, bondage, where- with he translates the French vileynage : this is a most astounding innovation, the source of much bad English. Our tongue might well seem stricken with barrenness, ^ This is as great a change as if the Latin intelligite were to be written inU " 1 86 The Sources of Standard English, if English endings were no longer in request. He holds fast to the Norse of his forefathers when writing words like 2/oZe, hirk^ til, werre (pejus). For the Latin idem he has both same and ycJie. We can gather from his poem that England was soon to replace "^ede (ivit) by went, o])er by second ; that she was soon to lose her switlie (valde), and to substitute for it right and full : ve'ry is of rather later growth. ^ Almost every one of the Teutonic changes in idiom, distinguishing the New English from the Old, the speech of Queen Victoria from the speech of Hengist, is to be found in Manning's work. We have had few Teutonic changes since his day, a fact which marks the influence he has had upon our tongue.^ He it was who sometimes substituted w for u, as down for doun. In his writings we see clearly enough what was marked by Sir Philip Sidney almost three hundred years later : ' English is void of those cumbersome differences of cases, genders, moods, and tenses, which I think was a piece of the Tower of Babylon's curse, that a man should be put to schoole to learne his mother tongue ; but for the uttering sweetly and properly the conceit of the minde, which is the ende of speech, that it hath equally with any other tongue in the world.' ^ The Elizabethan knight ought to have been well pleased with the clippings and parings of the Edwardian monk. In the Handlyng Synne are the following Scandina- vian words : ^ The idea of swithe is kept in Pepy's ' mighty merry,' and the common phrase, ' you be main heavy.' '^ Sifice, nor, its, unless^ below, until, are our main Teutonic changes since Manning's time. ; * Quoted by Marsh, Lectures on the English Language, p. 88. The Rise of the New E7iglish, 187 . Ekename (nickname), from the Swedisli bknamn, Nygun (niggard), from the Norse nyggija, to scrape. Squyler (scullion), from the Norse skola, to wash. Some words, which we have in common with other Teutons, are found for the first time ; as planJc and stumble ; also midwife, which has been explained by Junius.^ There are a few remarkable changes in the meanings of English words. Kind hsid hitherto meant natural, but in page 167 we read, To serve hym (God) fat ys to us so kynde. The two senses were alike used for nearly 400 years, as we see in Milton's works. In page 161 we read, * he is to hym mynde,' that is, inclined : mind was getting a new sense, used by us when we say, ' I have a mind to go ; * * ye that mind to come.' Truth had hitherto stood for fides, but it now comes to mean Veritas, and in the end has all but driven out the good old sooth. To this day our true will translate either fidus or verus. Hyt ys no troupe, but fals belevyng. — Page 13, Forswere ^ow nevere for worldys gode. For je wyte weyl, and have hyt herde, pat troupe ys more pan alle J?e worlde. — Page 88. Eton Bucks is the name that used to be given to the lads bred at King Henry the Sixth's renowned College. In the Handlyng Synne (page 102), we see how the Old English hucca (hircus) came to mean a dandy, * He explains it as a woman who comes for mede. 1 88 The Sources of Standard English. And of fese herdede huckys also, Wy]:) hem self fey moche mysdo, pat leve Crystyn mennys acyse, And haunte alle f e newe gyse ; per whylys fey hade fat gyse on hande Was nevere grace yn fys lande. These are Robert's own rimes ; for Waddington, writing earlier, had. not thought it needful to glance at the beard movement, though he bore hard on the ladies and their dress. The Old English nceddre (serpens) now loses its first letter, as it also did in the Alexander. Ukename, on the other hand, has since gained the letter n. And addres bete hym by fe fete. — Page 160. In this poem, both the Northern Jcy and the Southern Iceyn stand for the Latin vaccce, Heafian gets the new sense of snatcJimg : Kefte f e saule unto helle. — Page 154. We have seen how in the South one came to stand for aliquis and quidam. It was brought into Lincolnshire, and is now used in a new sense, thereby avoiding the repetition of a substantive that has gone before ; She ledde hym to a moche felde, So grete one nevere he behelde. — Page 104.^ London thieves speak of their booty as siuag. The word of old meant nothing but a hag ; the connexion between the two ideas is plain : pere was a wycche, and made a bagge, A bely of lefyr, a grete swagye, — Page 17. * In this century, many adjectives were to have one fastened on to them ; we still hear, * he is a bad un,' &c. Dr. Morris thinks that this one represents an old inflection ne. He quotes from the Ayenbite ane littlene (a Httle un). The Rise of the New English. 189 So schoolboys talk of tagging their mates' goods. We now find the first mention of * ready money : ' And ten mark oi pens redy. — Page 198. A well-known religious phrase is found in the following lines : •^ys erymyte lenede hym on a walle, Aude hadde hys hedys. — Page 378. We have seen that lidl or liol came to mean integer before 1100 ; we now find our well-known adverb com- pounded from it. Something had to be invented to replace the lost eallunga, ' Ta confessiun deit estre entere ' is tranlated Alle lioly owef f y shryfte be doun. — Page 367. The old leosan (amittere) had had loren for its Past Participle and ]m lure for the second Person Singular of the Perfect ; we now light on a wonderful change : Here wurschyp ys lost for evermore. — Page 94. And brynge f>e a;^en to hys grace pat ]?ou lostest. — Page 373. We still keep the true Old English Gerundial form in the phrase, ' this house to let.' It was corrupted in Lincoln- shire by the year 1308, and Tyndale unhappily followed this corruption in his account of St. Paul's rebuke to St. Peter. Robert of Brunne says — pey hep to be hlamede eft parfore. — Page 50. The verb liave was now gaining its sense of ' to drag : ' She had hym up, wy]; here to go. — Page 104. ( I go The Sources of Standard English, "We have still tlie phrase (rather slangy) to sack a sum of money. We first find this in the Handlyng Synne. pe whyles fe executours seWkej Of fe soule pey ne rekke. — Page 195. This phrase seems not to have been understood in the South ; for the Southern transcriber writes over seldze the words /^/Z \q hag. The old teogan (trahere) is pared down, and from it a new substantive is formed, to express dalliance : And make]? nat a mys f e toye. — Page 246. Orrmin's laffdi^ (domina) had been Ci .fc down in many English shires to its present form, shortly before 1300. Itobert of Brunne throws the accent on the last syllable, as is so often done in English ballads : For to be holde pe feyryst lady. — Page 103. Can and coude, as in the Peterborough Chronicle, are used very freely, where of old may and might would have been employed. Our cannot now first appears as one word : pat ^yf je kunnat, lernef how. — Page 298. The coupe (potuit) of the Havelok now becomes coude, as in East Anglia ; the verb has since changed for the worse, owing to a false analogy. We see do and did, as in page 193 of my work, employed as auxiliaries. There are some instances of this idiom before the Norman Con- quest, but the fashion had long been dropped until shortly before the year 1300.^ Robert of Gloucester has it. * In Somersetshire, they say ' he do be/ instead of * he is.' Mr. Earle {Philology, page 492) gives instances of this idiom from the old Komance of Eger and Grime, The Rise of the New English, 191 I give many of the new words and phrases, well worn as they now seem, which crop up for the first time, or for all but the first time, in the Handlyng Synne : To wake a corpse. To waste stores. To ley a waiour (wager). The Saturday was doun (finished). Besides these, we find for the first time other words, most of them common enough now ; such as, to hetrotli, to bestead, to hap, hurhle (bubble), ly^tmng, welfare, for- sayde, shameful, boastful, ruefully, a sory joresent, a trew- man, umwhile (the Scottish umquhile), Lddman (dux) is turned into lodesman; a word something like our loadstar. We now light upon a well-known by- word, * The nere fe cherche, pe fyrfer fro Gode.'— Page 286. St. ^thelthryth, the Patroness of Ely, is shortened into St. Audre, in page 325 The poet had doubtless knelt at her shrine, on his way from Lincolnshire to Cambridge. Of all our English clippings and parings, none is more startling than the contraction of this Saint's name. Botolphston was later to be cut down to Boston. Robert gives original tales of events that happened in Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, and Kesteven in his own time ; though he is too discreet to set down the names of the misdoers. I print in italics the remarkable phrases first found in this poem. The stock of true English words had every year been getting scantier, and new resources seemed now to be called for. The poet was not 192 The Sources of Standard English. particular as to drawing on Frencli or English ; tlius, lequel is translated literally. The yn as moclie is re- markable as a sister form to the Gloucestershire foras- much ; many such forms were to crop up in the Four- teenth Century and to remain in use till about the Re- storation. When new phrases come into a language, it is in adverbial forms and in conjunctions that they are mostly found ; thus only and rather are in the Thirteenth Century used, not merely as adjectives, but in a new sense. The Handlyng Synne should be compared with another poem due to the same shire, and written five hundred and sixty years later ; I mean Mr. Tennyson's ^Northern Farmer. Some of the old forms are there repeated, especially the a which stands first in the fol- lowing rimes : He ys wurf y to be shent, For a ^ doj) ajens fys comaundment. — Page 84. Yole, ys yone'^ fy page ? — Page 184. A gode man and a ry^t stedefast^. — Page 74. A man yn flesshe as^ he dyde se. — -Page 391. Be]) wakyng .... What tyme fat ^oure lorde wyl kalle.- — Page 137. Crystendom .... purghe ]?e whych we are savede alle. — Page 294. ' The he had become ha and then a ; this is one of the new forms that we have rejected ; Mrs. Quickly used it. '^ This is the Gothic jains, the G-reek keinos. When I was at Hastings in March, 1873, I heard a maid (she had been told to look at a man carefully) reply, 'What ! yonl ' I asked where she came from ; the answer was, from Lincolnshire. 3 This stands for quern ; it was an idiom that Kobert was unable to establish. TJte Rise of the New English, 193 Ko ^ haf made ]?y chylde so blody ? — Page 24. For ho so haunts)? comunly, &c. — Page 42. pou mayst be wrofe sum body to chastyse. — Page 120. pat of fe lewes seye sum owi. — Page 294. He shulde be cumbrede sumwore. — ^Page 301. One of ^ys dayys sbul je deye. — Page 105. Sum tyme was mies ^ a lew. — Page 241. And sette at nop; fat he hadde told. — Page 242. Nat only for soules ys he herde, But also for, «fec. — Page 324. Oftyn tyme a foule fojt, &c. — Page 388. Of gentyl men, (?yr are hut fo. — Page 270. Men sey, and have seyde hei-e before. — Page 102. For yn as mocJie fat she dou]? men synne, Yn so moche shal she have plyghte ynne. — Page 110. For to reyse f e devyl yn dede. — Page 12. As zveyl as for soules yn purgatorye. — Page 330. parfore he fat ys ones baptysede, Ones for ever ys. — Page 300. To helpe chyldryn yn many kas Men wete never what nede one has.* — Page 297. The dede mevede hys hede to and fro. — Page 74. Yn every sykenes aske hyt al toeys. — Page 348. Men askede hym why he f edyr jede, Syn * he was an holy man yn dede. — Page 246. A party hyt halpe f er em to. — Page 322. pe f ornes prykkede, the netles dyde byte. — Page 234. Alle fat we do jangle, f e fende do^e wryte. — Page 287. Y dar weyl seye fou hym dyffamest. — Page 361. > Here we find something like our modern pronunciation of who. 2 This stands for olim, not semel. At first sight it would seem that this comes from the French on ; but it is a corrupt form of the Old English an. It is a pity that our Lincolnshire bard did not keep alive the indefinite man ; in this we have had a sad loss. * This is a wonderful shortening of the old si^an. 194 ^^^^ Sources of Standard English. Yyf he ys aho^ite to tempte ])e. — Page 374. Yn alle sloghenesse he here^ ])e hel. — Page 135. Y hrast on lagheter pere y stode. — Page 288. Yyf ))ou be come of hyghe blode. — Page 97. Wiilde ^ Gode ^at many swyche wommen wore ! — Page 331. Lorde ! ^ what shal swych men seye ? — Page 137. Yn Londun toune fyl swyche a chek. — Page 86. He sette hym by hym, syde he syde. — Page 244. pe body, whyl hyt on bere lys, A day or two ys holde yn prys. — Page 195. pank hym nofer yn wele no ivo. — Page 160. pou mayst pan sykerly go ]>y 2oeye. — Page 346. Comyf alle home, and havyp doun,^ — Page 31. Hyghely shal he go alone To the devyl, body and bone.^ — Page 169. Ne slepte onely a lepy ivynke. — Page 283. Ande Jumna was wonte wyj? here to wone. — Page 330. Every man shulde have a fore fojt. — Page 334. And gnoghe hyt ynwarde al to pecys. — Page 114. Fro wyhkede to wers y do hem falle. — Page 392. And to J?e ded was as trew as steyl — Page 75. pat gadren pens^ un to an hepe. — Page 190. Yyf fey come not^ also furghe foghte. — Page 15. pey myghte no more be broghte a sondre. — Page 277. pat tyme hyt happede for to be. — Page 199. For some when ]?ey yn age are come, — Page 54. Y trowe God shewede fys merveyle. — Page 82. To c^ a man to def J?arfore. — Page 189. ' This wulde (our would) replaced the old wolde, as in East Anglia. 2 The original story has Beu ! the French invocation. We have stuck to Lord ever since, as an Interjection ; Pepys was fond of it. ^ Hence the ' ha done, do ! ' common among our lower orders. ■* Moore, in one of his best squibs, talks of Wellington in Spain, and proposes to * ship off the Ministry, body and bones, to him.' * This would of old have been peningas. " This would have been nokt or nout earlier. Our author writes 9iat or not for nan, and noghte for nihil. Here once more we get t\70 different forms from one old word. TJie Rise of the New English. 195 It must be clear to all, that since Orrmin no English- man lias shown the change in onr tongue so strikingly as Robert of Brunne. Many of our writers had fastened an English ending to a foreign root, such as martiT' dom ; but no Englishman before 1303 had fastened a French ending to an English root, as bandage ; and none had employed a Erench Active participle instead of an English preposition, as * passing all things.' R-obert commonly writes y instead of i, a fashion which lasted for two hundred years, and then happily dropped. He seems to be conscious that he was an innovator, for in page 267 he asks forgiveness * For foule Englysshe and feble ryme, Seyde cute of resun many tyme.' In his seventy lines on Confirmation, at page 304, he employs French words for at least one-third of his nouns, verbs, and adverbs ; the same proportion that was afterwards to be used in the Collects of the English Prayer Book, as also by Addison, and by most good writers of our own day.^ JSTo more nonsense, it is to be hoped, will now be talked about Chaucer, who not long ago was looked upon as the first Englishman who employed French words to a great extent. In my specimens taken from Robert's work, I have chosen parts that are wholly his own and no transla- tion from the French. I give first a tale of the great Bishop of Lincoln, who died but a few years before our poet's birth ; I then give St. Paul's description of * Matthew Paris would have called Robert of Brunne ' immutator mirabilis.' o 2 196 The Sources of Standard English. Charity, a well-known passage, which may be compared with our Version of the Bible put forth three hundred years after the Handlyng Synne. Next comes a peep into English life in Edwardian days ; next, a tale of a Norfolk hondeman or farmer ; last of all comes the bard's account of himself and the date of his rimes. Had the Handlyng Synne been a German work, marking an era in the national literature, it would long ago have been given to the world in a cheap form. But we live in England, not in Germany. I could not have gained a sight of the poem, of which a few copies have been printed for the Boxburgh Club, had I not happened to live within reach of the British Museum.^ Page 150. Y shall ^ow telle as y have herde Of fe byssbope Seynt Roberde, Hys toname * ys Grostest * surname Of Lynkolne, so seyj? fe gest.*' »> story He lovede moche to here J?e harpe ; For mannys wyt hyt makyj) sharpe ; Next hys chaumbre, besyde hys stody, Hys harpers chaumbre was fast ferby. Many tymes be ny^tys and dayys, He had solace of notes and layys. One askede hym onys,** resun why * c once He hadde delyte yn mynstralsy : ' The Early English Text Society has printed a vast quantity of Fifteenth Century English, tales about Arthur, and what not ; but they have not given us the Medytaciuns on the Soper of our Lorde, which is said to be another work of Eobert of Brunne's. Its phi- lological value must be very great ; it may contain forms which as yet have not been found in any writer before Mandeville. The Rise of the New English, 197 He answerede hym ou ]?ys manere, Why he helde fe harper so dere : * pe vertu of pe harpe, furghe skylle and ryjt, Wyl destroye fe fendes myjt, And to J)e croys by gode skylle Ys ]?e harpe lykenede weyle.*^ ^ well Ano]?er poynt cumforteJ> me, pat God haf sent unto a tre So moche joye to here wy]? eere ; Moche fan more joye ys fere Wy)> Grod hym selfe fere he wonys,® « dwells pe harpe f erof me ofte mones/ — f remiads Of fe joye and of f e blys Where Gode hym self wonys and ys. pare for, gode men, je shul lere,^ « learn Whan ^e any glemen here, To wurschep Gode at joure powere, As Davyde seyf yn fe sautere, Yn harpe, yn thabour, and symphan gle, Wurschepe Gode, yn troumpes and sautre, Yn cordys, an organes, and bellys ryngyng, Y'^n al f ese, wurschepe je hevene kyng.' Page 222. Se now what seynt Poule seys Yn a pystyl, f e same weys, — * poghe y speke as weyl wyj> tung As any man or aungel haj^ song, And y lyve nat wyf chary te. No f yng avaylef hyt to me. For y do fan ryjt * as f e bras, a just And as fe tympan, J^at bete^ was; b beaten pe bras to of er jyvef grete sown. And bet hym self up and down. And f oghe y speke al yn prephecye. And have f e kunnyng of every maystrye,^ « knowledge 198 The Sources of Standard English. ^ teach e unless. dwell And wyj) gode beleve myghte seye pe liylles to turne yn to ]?e valeye, Ijyf hyt ne be wyf charyte wroghte, Elles, he seyf ]mt y am noghte. pogh y jyve alle my wurldes gode Unto pore mennys fode, And jyve my body for to brenne Opunly ofer men to kenne,'* But jyf ^ )mr be chary te wyf alle, My mede parfore shal be ful smalle.' L6ke now how many godenesse per are WyJ? oute charyte noghte but bare. Wylt f»ou know fy self, and se liyf ]>ou wone ^ in charyte ? ' Charyte suffref boJ?e gode and yl, And charyte ys of reuful wyl, Charyte haj? noun envye, And charyte wyl no felunnye ; Charyte ys nat irus, And charyte ys nat coveytous ; Charyte wyl no bostful preysyng ; He wyl noghte but ryjtwys ]?yng ; Charyte love]:* no fantome, No f ynges fat evyl may of come ; He ha]? no joye of wykkednes, But lovej? alle f>at sothefast ^ es ; Alle godenes he up berej> ; Alle he sufFre]?, and noun he derej?,** Gode hope he hap yn ryghtewys pyng, And alle he susteynep to ]?e endyng 5 Charyte ne faylep noghte, Ne no pyng pat wyp hym ys wroghte. When alle prephecyes are alle gone, And alle tunges are leyde echone, And alle craftys fordo ^ shul be, pan lastep stedfast charyte.' ^ In these twenty-two lines there are thirteen French words, net « truthful *> harms • ruined The Rise of the Nezu English. 199 pus seyf seynt Poule, and moche more, Yn pystyl of hys lore. Page 227. As y have tolde of rere* sopers, pe same falle}> of erly dyners ; Dyners are oute of skyl and resun On J7e Sunday, or hye messe be doun.^ poghe J?ou have haste, here ^yt a messe, Al holy,^ and no lesse, And nat symple a sakare,*' For hyt ys nat ynow for J)e, But ^ hyt be for lordys powere Or pylgrymage fat haj? no pere. Are ]?ou oghte ete, fys ys my rede, Take holy watyr and holy brede ; For, yn aventure kas, hyt may fe save, Dyf housel ® ne shryfte ]7ou mayst have. Alle oJ)er tymes ys glotonye But hyt be grete enchesun ^ why. On of er hyghe dayys, xyf fat ou may, poghe fat hyt be nat Sunday, Here f y messe or f ou dyne, Dyf f ou do nat, ellys ys hit pyne ; « Lordes fat have preste at wyl. Me f enkef fey trespas ful yl pat any day ete, are fey here messe. But jyf *^ hyt be furghe harder dystresse. pe men fat are of holy cherche, pey wete weyl how fey shul werche j But swych ^ y telle hardy ly, pat swych a preste douf glotonye '^ completely « the conse- cration part ■ those Of gentyl men, f yr are but fo.* * « few Page 3. To alle Crystyn men undir sunne, And to gode men of Brunne, And special! alle bi name pe felaushepe of Symprynghame, Koberd of Brunne gretef jow In al godenesse fat may to prow.* * advantage Of Brymwake yn Kestevene, Syxe myle besyde Sympryngham evene Y dwellede yn f e pryorye Fyftene ^ere yn companye. ^ Here we see the word fut get the meaning of ponere ; before this, it was trudere, - In one copy of the Harrowing of Hdl^ Christ calls Satan * lording.' 202 The Sou7xes of Standm'd English. Dane Felyp was mayster fat tyme pat y began ];ys Englyssh ryme. pe yeres of grace fyl ^ ]?an to be i A fousynd and f re hiindrede and fre. In fat tyme turnede y pys On Englys&be tunge out of Frankys, Of a boke as y fonde ynne ; Men clepyn fe boke ^ Handlyng Synne.' NOETH LINCOLNSHIRE. (A.D. 1338.) Now of kyng Robin salle I ^it speke more, & bis brofer Tomlyn, Thomas als it wore, & of Sir Alisandere, fat me rewes sore, pat bof e com in skandere, for dedes f ei did fore. Of arte he had f e maistrfe, he mad a corven kyng In Cantebrige to f e clergie, or his brof er were kyng. Sif en was never non of arte so fat sped, Ne bifore bot on, fat in Cantebrigge red. Robert mad his fest, for he was fore fat tyme, & he sauh alle f e gest, fat wrote & mad f is ryme. Sir Alisander was hie dene of Glascow, & his brof er Thomas jed spiand ay bi throw. Where our Inglis men ware not in clerke habite, & non wild he spare, bot destroied also tite. porgh f e kyng Robyn f ei ^ede f e Inglis to spie, Here now of f er fyn fam com for fat folie.^ * Hearne's Langtofls Chronicle, ii. 336. The lines were written by Manning, some thirty years after his Handlyng Synne, at a time when he lived further to the North. The Northern dialect is most apparent. "We here read of his getting a glimpse of the Bruce family at Cambridge, about the year 1300 or earlier. The Rise of the New English, 203 YOEKSHIKE. (About A.D. 1340.) HAMPOLE. Dan waxes his hert hard and hevy, And his heved feble and dysy ; Dan waxes his gast seke and sare, And his face ronncles, ay mare and mare ; His mynde es short when he oght thynkes, His neae ofte droppes, his hand stynkes, His sight wax dym, fat he has, His bax waxes croked ; stoupand he gas ; Fyngers and taes, fote and hande, Alle his touches er tremblande. His werkes for-worthes that he bygynnes ; His hare moutes, his eghen rynnes ; His eres waxes deef, and hard to here, His tung fayles, his speche is noght clere; His mouthe slavers, his tethe rotes, His wyttes fayles, and he ofte dotes ; He is lyghtly wrath, and waxes fraward, Bot to turne hym fra wrethe it es hard.^ DUKHAM. (About A.D. 1^0.) METRICAL HOMILIES. A tal of this fest haf I herd, Hougat it of a widou ferd. That lufd our Lefdi sa welle, That scho gert mac hir a chapele ; And ilke day deuotely. Herd scho messe of our Lefdye. Fel auntour that hir prest was gan His erand, and messe haved scho nan, ^ Morris, Specimens of Early English, p. 172. This poem should be compared with the Northern Psalter, at page 145 of my work. 204 The Sources of Standard English, And com this Candelmesse feste. And scho wald haf als wif honeste Hir messe, and for scho moht get nan, Scho was a fnl sorful womman. In hir chapele scho mad prayer, And fel on slep bifor the aiiter, And als scho lay on slep, hir thoht That scho in til a kyrc was broht, And saw com gret compaynye Of fair maiden es wit a lefedye, And al thai sette on raw ful rathe, And aid men and yong bathe. ^ LANCASHIEE. (About A.D. 1340.) SIR GAWAYNE. *■ Where schulde I wale J?e,' quoth Gauan, ^ where is fy place ? 1 wot never where fou wonyes, by hym fat me wro^t, Ne I know not J?e, knyjt, f y cort, ne f i name. Bot teche me truly ferto, & telle me ho we fou hattes, & I schal ware all my wyt to wynne me feder, & fat I swere f e for sofe, & by my seker trawep.* ^ -JJat is innogh in nwe-jer, hit nedes no more/ Quoth fe gome in f e grene to Gawan fe hende, * Gif I J?e telle triwly, quen I pe tape have, & J)ou me smofely hat^ smyten, smartly I pe teche Of my hous, & my home, & myn owen nome, •pen may fou frayst my fare, and forwarder holde, & if I spende no speche, penne spede^ pou ]?e better. For f ou may leng in fy londe, & layt no fyrre, bot slokes ; Ta now fy grymme tole to fe, & let se how fou cnokej.' ' Gladly, syr, for sof e,' Quoth Gawan ; his ax he strokes.^ » Small, Metrical Homilies^ p. 160. 2 Morris, S'peGimens^ p. 233. In Alliterative verse obsolete words always abound. The Rise of the New English, 205 SALOP. (About A.D. 1340.) WILLIAM AND THE WERWOLF. Hit tidde after on a time, as tellus oure bokes, As ]ns bold barn his bestes blyfeliche keped, pe riche emperour of Rome rod out for to hunte, In fat faire forest feifeiy for to telle ; Wif) alle his menskful meyn^, pat moche was & nobul ; pan fel it hap, fat fei founde ful sone a grete bor, & huntyng wij> hound & horn harde alle sewede ; pe emperour entred in a wey evene to attele, To have bruttenet fat bore, & f e abaie sef fen. But missely marked he is way & so manly he rides, pat alle his wies were went, ne wist he never whider ; So ferforth fram his men, fef ly for to telle, pat of horn ne of hound ne mijt he here sowne, & boute eny living lud lefte was he one.^ HEREFORDSHIEE. (About A.D. 1300.) pilke that nullef ajeyn hem stonde IchuUe he habben hem in honde. He is papejai in pyn that beteth me my bale, To trewe tortle in a tour, y telle the mi tale, He is thrustle thry ven in thro that singeth in sale, The wilde laveroc ant wolc ant the wodewale. He is faucoun in friht dernest in dale. Ant with everuch a gome gladest in gale. From Weye he is wisist into Wyrhale, Hire nome is in a note of the nyhtegale. In a note is hire nome, nempneth hit non, Whose ryht redeth roune to Johon.^ * Morris, S'pecimens of Early English^ p. 243. 2 Percy Society, Vol. IV. 26. See the Preface to this volume, 2o6 The Sources of Standard English. GLOUCESTERSHIEE. (About A.D. 1300.) pus come, lo ! Engelond into Normannes honde. And fe Normans ne coufe speke fo bote her owe specbe, And speke French as dude atom, and here chyldren dude also teche. So f>at heymen of fys lond, fat of her blod come, HoldeJ) alle J)ulke speche, f>at hii of hem nome. Vor bote a man coupe French, me tol]> of hym wel lute. Ac lowe men holdej? to Englyss, and to her kunde speche ^ute. Ich wene fer ne be man in world countreyes none, pat ne holdef to her kunde speche, bote Engelond one. Ac wel me wot vorto conne bothe wel yt ys, Vor fe more fat a man con, f>e more worp he ys.^ THE ENGLISH PALE IN IRELAND. (About A.D. 1310.) Jhesu, king of heven fre, Ever i-blessid mot thou be ! Loverd, I besech the, to me thou tak hede. From dedlich sinne thou jem me, while I libbe on lede ; The maid fre, that here the so swetlich under wede. Do us to se the Trinity, al we habbeth nede. where the writer of this poem is proved to be a Herefordshire man. He here mentions the Wye. He in this piece stands for he (ilia). The two detached lines at the beginning come from the version of the Harrowing of Hell, in the same manuscript. * Hearne's Bobert of Gloiccester, I. 364. The Rise of the New English, 207 This sang wrojt a frere, Jhesu Crist be is socure ! Loverd, bring him to the toure ! frere Michel Kyldare ; Schild him fram helle boure, Whan he sal hen fare ! Levedi, flur of al honur, cast awei is care ; Fram the schoure of pinis sure thou sild him her and thare ! Amen.^ SOMERSETSHIRE (?) (About A.D. 1300.) Wharfore ich and Annas To-fonge Jhesus of Judas, vor thrytty panes to paye. We were wel faste to helle y-wronge, Vor hym that for jou was y-stonge, in rode a Godefridaye. Man, at fuUo^t, as chabbe yrad, Thy saule ys Godes hous y-mad, and tar ys wassche al.clene. Ac after fuUou^t thoruj fulthe of synne, Sone is mad wel hory wythinne, alday hit is y-sene.'* * Beliquia Antiques, II. 193. From the Southern dialect of this piece, we might readily gather, even if history did not help us, that the early English settlers in Ireland came, not from Chester, but from Bristol and from ports near Bristol. The Wexford dialect is said to be very like that of Somerset and Dorset. * Do., p. 242. The chabhe (ich habbe) reminds us of Edgars dialect in Lear, and of the Somersetshire ballads in Percy s Beliques. The word bad (malus) occurs in this piece, which made its first appearance in Bobert of Gloiwester : it is also found in the Handlyng Synne. 2o8 The Sources of Standard English. OXFORDSHIRE. (About A.D. 1340.) That is fro old Hensislade ofre the cliff into stony londy wey ; fro the wey into the long lowe ; fro the lowe into the Port-strete ; fro the strete into Charewell ; so aftir strem til it shutt eft into Hensislade — De BoUes, Couele, et Hedyndon. Thare beth hide londeymere into Couelee. Fro Charwell brigge andlong the streme on that rithe. . . . This privilege was idith in Hedington .... myn owne mynster in Oxenford. There seint Frideswide .... alle that fredome that any fre mynstre frelubest .... mid sake and mid socna, mid tol and mid teme .... and in felde and alle other thinge and ryth that y . . . . belyveth and byd us for quike and dede and .... alle other bennyfeyt.^ KENT. (A.D. 1340.) Aye fe vondigges of \q dyeule zay fis fet voljef. * Zuete Jesu |?iii holy blod J? et fou sseddest ane J?e rod vor me and vor mankende : Ich bidde ]?e hit by my sseld avoreye f e wycked vend al to mi lyves ende. zuo by hit.' pis boc is Dan Michelis of Northgate y-write an Englis of his ogene hand, J?et hatte : Ayenbite of inwyt. And * Kemble, Codex. Bipl., III. 329. This charter is a late forgery, and seems much damaged. The proper names in it will be recog- nised by Oxford men. The Rise of the Nezu English, 209 is of f e boc-liouse of saynt Anstines of Canterberi, mid f e lettres : C : C : Holy arclianle Michael. M. C. C. Saynt Gabriel and Eaphael. Ye brenge me to ])0 castel. per alle zaulen vare]) wel. Lhord Jbesu almi^ti kyng. fet madest and lokest alle ]?yng. Me fet am ]n makyng. to pine blisse me fou bryng. Amen, Blind and dyaf and alsuo domb. Of zeventy yer al vol rond. J^Te ssolle by draje to J?e grond. Vor peny vor Mark ne vor pond.^ MIDDLESEX. (A.D. 1307.) Of Syr Edward oure der worth kyng, Iche mette of him anothere faire metyug. Me thought he rood upon an asse, And that ich take God to witnesse ; Ywonden he was in a mantell gray, Toward Rome he nom his way, Upon his hevede sate a gray hure, It semed him wel a mesure. Into a chapel I cum of ure lefdy, Jhe Crist her leve son stod by, On rod he was an loveliche mon, Als thilk that on rode was don. He unneled his honden two. Whoso wil speke myd me Adam the marchal In Stretforde Bowe he is yknown and over al. * Ayenhite of Inwyt (Early English Text Society), page 1. Her© we must read 5 for z, sh for ss, and/ for v. P 210 The Soicrces of Standard English, Iclie ne schewe nou^t tliis for to have mede^ Bot for God almijtties drede.^ BEDFOKDSHIRE (?). (About A.D. 1340.) Godys sone pat was so fre, Into ]ns world he cam, And let hym naylyn upon a tre, Al for ])e love of man ; His fay re blod ])at was so fre. Out of his body it ran, A dwelful sy^te it was to se ; His body heng blak and wan^ Wi]? an and an I. His coroune was mad of ])orn And prikkede into his panne, Bothe by hinde and a-forn ; To a piler y-bowndyn Jhesu was swi]?e sore, And suffrede many a wownde pat scharp and betere wore. He hadde us evere in mynde, In al his harde fro we, And we ben so unkynde, We nelyn hym nat yknowe, Wi]? an and an I.^ ' Warton, History of English Poetry, II. 2. This London dialect was to be somewhat altered before the time of Mandeville and Chaucer. The thilJc (ille) held its ground in this city for 140 years longer. Compare this piece with the older London poem at page 134of my work. 2 Legends of the Holy Eood (Early English Text Society, p. 150). This piece seems to me to be the link between Manning's Handlyng Synne and Mandeville' s Travels sixty years later. It has forms akin to both, and seems to have been compiled half-way between Hutland and Middlesex. The Rise of the Nezv English. 211 We see wliat wild anarchy of speecli was raging throughout the length and breadth of England in the first half of the Fourteenth Century ; and this anarchy had lasted more than two hundred years. But at the same time we plainly see that the dialect of the shires nearest to Rutland was the dialect to which our own classic speech of 1873 is most akin, and that Robert of Brunne in 1303 was leading the way to something new. In a later chapter we shall weigh the causes that led to the triumph of Robert's dialect, though this triumph was not thoroughly achieved until a hundred and sixty years after he began his great work. Strange it is that Dante should have been compiling his Inferno, which settled the course of Italian literature for ever, in the self-same years that Robert of Brunne was compiling the earliest pattern of well-formed New English. Had King Henry VIII. known what we owe to this bard, the Lincolnshire men would not have been rated in 1536 as follows : ' How presumptuous are ye, the rude commons of one shire, and that one of the most brute and beastly of the whole realm, and of least experience ! ' TABLE I. Words, akin to the Dutch and German, first found in England in the Fourteenth Century. Bark (cortex) ' Botch Cog (scapha) Blear Broker Collier Blister Bum (bombizare) Coot (mergus) Blubber Clew Cough Blunder Cnop, knob Crouch p2 212 The Soitrces of Standard English. Damp Marl Slobber Drone (the verb) Mumble Slender Duck Mop Slight Fester Moss Sluttish Flap Moult Snort Flecked Mud Spout Flitter Notch Stale Flush Pamper Patch Stem (sistere) Freight Stew (vivarium) Gossamer Peer Struggle Grasp Plot Tallow Grunt] Poke Tawny- Gulp Polecat Tattered Handsome Pond Tickle Hinge Puddle Tinkle Howl Eabble Tittle Humble-bee^ Rack Totter Hurry Pash Tramp Hush- Rat Trample Husk : Rumble Troll Hut Rush Tub Jog Satchel Twitter Lane Scoop Waist Lash Scum Wattle Lisp Shock (quatere) Waver Loadstar Shock (acervus) Whirl Loiter Shore (fulcire) Wimble Loll Seer Wrap LuU Sidelong Scandinavian Words, first found in England in the Fourteenth Century. Blab Bole (truncus) Bow (cortina prorse) Boot Bracken Bra^ Bustle Calf (sura) Crash Cucking-stool Cuff (manica) Chime Clumsy- Dairy Dapple Dowdy Down (pluma) Dump The Rise of the Nezv English, 213 Fell (mons) Flake Flat Froth Gall (vulnus) Gasp Gill (fauces) Glimmer Glum Ilaberdaslier Happy- Leap year Looby Lubber Lug (trahere) Mistake Odd Pebble Pikestaff Rate (vituperare) Reef Rugged Shout Skirt Slant Spar Squeal Stagger Sway (flectere) Tarn Throb Tike Trill Trip Windlass ^ Wrangle Celtic words, first found in English in the Fourteenth Century. Basket Drudge Bodkin Gown • Boisterous Kick Cobbler Peck (a measure) Crag Pom- Daub Rail (a fence) TABLE IL Rub Spigot Spike Strumpet Tinker Whin2 Words, akin to the Dutch and German, first found in England in the Fifteenth Century. Block Blow (plaga) Brick Bud Bulwark Clammy Cork Croon Chap (scindere) > The old word was windassy and I is inserted ; r is the favourite insertion in English. 2 Of course, it is hopeless to attempt to give the French words first used in England in this century ; they would fill many pages. 214 The Sources of Standard English. Daw Mellow Fledge Mole Flue Nag Gag Nightmare Glower Nip Halloo No'ddle Jagged Parch Ledge Pickle Lint Pip Locker Plump Lump Prank Lush (laxus) Prawn Mash Pretty Measles Prop Quill Rabbit Rattle Shallow Shrug Sink (latrina) Sod Spawn Starch Streamer Stripe Tan Scandinavian words, first found in England in the Fifteenth Century. Bulk Butt (meta) Dapper Fleet (volitare) Fry (semen) Harsh Hassock Luck OfFal Peg Prong Queasy Ram (premere) Roach Rump Scant Smatter Spud Steep (infundere) "Wheeze Wicker 215 CHAPTER TV. THE INROAD OF FRENCH WORDS INTO ENGLAND. The nearer we approach 1303, the more numerous "become the French words, upon which the right of En- glish citizenship was being bestowed. In the Thirteenth Century the greatest change that ever revolutionised our tongue was made. A baleful Century it was, when we look to English philology ; though a right noble Century, in its bearing on English politics and English architecture. The last word suggests a comparison : if we may liken our language to a fine stone building, we shall find that in that wondrous age a seventh part of the good old masonry was thrown down, as if by an earthquake, and was withdrawn from mortal ken. The breach was by slow degrees made good with bricks, meaner ware borrowed from France ; and since those times, the work of destruction and reparation has gone on, though to a lesser extent than before. We may put up with the building as it now stands, but we cannot help sighing when we think of what we have lost. Of old, no country was more thoroughly national than England : of all Teutonic lands she alone set down her annals, year after year, in her own tongue ; and this went on for three Centuries after Alfred began to reign. But 2i6 The SoiLTces of Standard English. the grim year 1066, the weightiest year that England has seen for the last twelve centuries, has left its mark deeply graven both on our history and on our speech. Every time almost that we open our lips or write a sentence, we bear witness to the mighty change wrought in Eng- land by the Norman Conqueror. Celt, Saxon, Angle, and Dane ahke had to bow their heads beneath a grind- ing foreign yoke. It is in English poetry that we can trace the earliest change. Poetry always clings fast to old words, long after they have been dropped by prose ; and this was the case in England before the Conquest. If we take a piece of Old English prose, say the tales translated by Alfred, or ^Ifric's Homilies, or a chapter of the Bible, we shall find that we keep to this day three out of four of all the nouns, adverbs, and verbs em- ployed by the old writer ; but of the nouns, adverbs, and verbs used in any English poem, from the Beowulf to the song on Edward the Confessor's death, about half have dropped for ever. From Harold's death to John's grant of the Charter, English prose did not let many old words slip. But it was far otherwise with Eng- land's old poetic diction, which must have been arti- ficially kept up. Of all the weighty words ^ used in the Song on the Confessor's death, as nearly as possible half have dropped out of our speech. In the poems written a hundred years after the Conquest, say the rimes on * Substantives, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs, I call * weighty words ;' they may alter, while the other parts of speech hardly change at all. I cannot see the use of coiinting, as Marsh does, every of and the and Am, in order to find out the proportion of home-born English in different authors. Inroad of FrcncJi Words into England. 217 the Lord's Prayer published by Dr. Morris, the propor- tion of words of weight, now obsolete, is one- fifth of the whole, much as it is in English prose of that same date.^ In the poem of 1066, nearly fifty out of a hundred of these words are clean gone ; in the poem of 1170, only twenty out of a hundred of these words cannot now be understood. I think it may be laid down, that of all the poetic words employed by English Makers, nearly one-third passed away within a hundred years of the Battle of Hastings. Henry of Huntingdon makes laughable mistakes, when he tries to turn into Latin the old English lay on Brunan- burgh fight, though its words must have been in the mouths of poets only fourscore years before his time. Enghsh poetry could not thrive without patrons ; and these, the Abbots and Aldermen who thronged the Win- chester Court of old, had been swept away to make room for men who cared only for the speech of Rouen and Paris. The old Standard of English died out : if chronicles were written at Peterborough, or homilies still further to the South, they were compiled in corrupt English, at which Bede or Alfred would have stared. As to English poetry, its history for one hundred years is all but a blank. Old legends of England's history, it is true, such as those that bear on Arthur or Havelok, were dressed up in verse ; but the verse was French, for thus alone could the minstrel hope that his toil would be rewarded. In 1066, England's King was praised in good ringing English lines, that may have been shouted ^ Morris, Early English Homilies, First Series, I. 66 (Early English Text Society). I gave a specimen at page 77. 2i8 The SoiLj'ces of Standard English, by boisterous wassailers around the camp fires on tbe eve of Hastings ; sixty years later, England's Queen was taught natural history in French verse, and was complimented therein as being ' mult bele femme, Aliz numee.' ^ About a hundred years after the battle of Hastings, an English writer gave the names of the wise English teachers of old, Bede, Cuthbert, Aidan, Dunstan, and others ; he then complained how woefully times were changed — new lords, new lore : [Nu is] f eo leore forleten. and ])et folc is forloren. nu beo]? ofre leoden. peo l8e[ref ] ure folc. and feole of ])en lor]>eines losiaef. and ]>at folc for]? mid.^ The speech of the upper and lower classes in Eng- land, for two hundred years after 1066, was almost as distinct as the Arve and the Rhone are when they first meet. We see, however, that a few French words very early found their way into English. A shrewd observer long ago told us how ox^ slieejj, and swine came to be called heef^ muttmi, and _2:>orZ;, when smoking on the board. Treading in his steps, I venture to guess how our blufi* forefathers began their studies in the French tongue. We may imagine a cavalcade of the new aristocracy of England, ladies and knights, men who perhaps fought at Hastings in their youth ; these alight from their steeds at the door of one of the churches, 1 Wright, Popular Treatises on Science, p. 74. 2 Page 5 of the Worcester manuscript, referred to at page 84 of this work. Inroad of French Words into England, 219 that have lately arisen througliout the land in a style unknown to Earl Godwine. The riders are accosted by a crowd of beggars and bedesmen, who put forth all their little stock of French : ' Lady Countess, clad in ermine and saheline, look from jour palfrey. Be large of your treasure to the poor and feeble ; of your cJiarity bestow your riches on us rather than on jogelours. We will put up our orisons for you, after the manere and custom of our religion. For Christ's passion, ease our poverty in some measure-, that is the best penance, as your chaplain in his sermon says. By all the Confessors, Patriarchs, and Virgins, show us mercy.'* Another speech would run thus : ' Worthy Baron, you have honour at Co^irt ; speak for my son in priso7i. Let him have justice] he is no robber or lecher. The sergeants took him in the marhet; these catchpoles have wrought him sore miseise. So may Christ accord you ^9eace at the day of livreison ! ' Not one of these forty French words were in English use before the battle of Hastings ; but we find every one of them set down in writing with- in a century after that date, so common had they then become in English mouths.^ Those of the needy, who knew but little French, must have learnt at least how to bawl for justice, charity, mercy, on seeing their betters. The first letter of the word justice shows that a new French sound was taking root in England. The words Emperice and mercy, used in these times, brought in new hissing sounds ; the s in English came already quite often enough. ^ They may be found in the Saxon Chronicle and in the First Series of Homilies (Early English Text Society). 220 The Sources of Standai^d English. In tlie Ilomilies of 1160 we trace a new change. ^Foreign proper names had hitherto unbendingly main- tained their Latin form in England. They were now being corrupted, owing to French influence ; at pages 47 and 49 we find mention of Jeremie and Seint Gregori. At page -9 we see both the old form foh of ludeus and the new form ]>e Gnuls (Jews). Maria and Jacohiis now become Marie and Jame. French words were being brought in most needlessly ; thus we read at page 51, ' crabbe is an manere (kind) of fissce.' In the Essex Homilies, the French is seen elbowing out the Latin from proper names. Andreas and MaUheus become A7idrett and MatJieu : this eit we English could never frame our mouths to pronounce aright. What was of old written leo is turned into leun (lion) ; celmesse into ahnes ; marma into marhelstone (page 145). We find pa^/, mend, hlame, and vjait : these four are perhaps the French verbs that novf come oftenest into our common use. Beciple replaces the old learning Imiglit. An intruding letter is seen in z, (inazere is found at page 163). This z did not become common in England for nearly three hundred years. ^ Layamon v/rote his long poem the Brut about 1205 ; but, though this was mainly a translation from the French, he seldom employs a French word, and hardly ever without good reason. Orrmin is still more of an Englishman in his scorn for outlandish words. About this time, the days of King John, one-fifth of the weighty words in a passage are such as have become obsolete in our day. Under John's grandson, this pro-' ^ See the Paston Letters TGairdner), L 510. Inroad of French Words into England. 221 portion was to be woefully altered. The only thing that could have kept up a purely Teutonic speech in England would have been some version of the Bible, a standard of the best English of the year 1200. But this was not to be ; Pope Innocent III. and his Prelates had no mind to furnish laym-cn with weapons that might be so easily turned against the Church. We have missed much ; had Orrmin given us a good version of the Scriptures, our tongue would have had all the flexibility of the New English, and would have kept the power of compound- ing words out of its ovai stores, the power that be- longed to the Old English. The Ancren Hiwle, written about 1220, is the fore- runner of a wondrous change in our speech. The proportion of Old English words, now obsolete, is therein much the same as it is in the writings of Orrmin and Layamon. But the new work swarms with French words, brought in most needlessly. What could we want with such terms as ctmUmteleinent, Betdeset (God knows), helamij miser icorde, and cogitacmn ? The author is even barbarous enough to give us the French sulement, where we should now write only, I set .down a short sample, underlining the foreign words. * Heo weren itented, and ]>uruh ]>e tentaciuns ipreoved to treowe cliamjpiuns, and so mid rihte ofserveden kempene crwie.^ ^ Many a word, embodied in the English Bible and Prayer Book three hundred years later, is now found for the first time in our tongue. These words were accented in the * Page 236 of the Camden Society's edition. I have not under- lined proved, as that foreign word was in use before the Norman Conquest. 222 The Sot trees of Standard English. French way, on the last French syllable ; the nsage held its ground for four hundred years. ^ Indeed, it still rules us when we pronounce urbane and divine. A new vowel sound now first made itself heard in England ; we find in the Ancren Riwle words like joie^ noise, and despoil. This French invader was in 23rocess of time to drive the old English pronunciation of home-born words out of polite society ; our lower classes indeed may sound hyle (pustuls,) as our forefathers did, but our upper classes must call it hoil.^ A well-known French name is seen as ' "Willam ' (p. 340), and it is still often pronounced * Willum.' We find alas for the first time : this is said to be a compound of the English eala and the French helas ; alack was to come later. The author of the Ancren Riwle foreshadows the inroad that French was to make even into the English Paternoster ; in page 26 he translates, ' dimitte nobis debita nostra,' by ' forjif us ure dettes, al so ase we vor- jiveS to ure dettitrs.^ He uses the word mesire, where we should say Si}- ; Salimbene, who was bom in Italy about the time that the Ancren Riwle was compiled, tells us that the Pope was always addressed by the Romans as, ' Tu, Messer ; ' and that the Emperor Fre- derick II. received the same title from his Southern Italians. When we find the word cruelte, we see at once that England has often preserved French words in a more uncorrupt shape than France herself has done.^ ^ One of these words, accented in the French way, is preserved in the old rimes, ' Mistress Mary, quite contrary^ 2 Schoolboys may call irritare ' to ryle ;' the grave Lord Keeper Guildford and his brother Eoger North pronounced it roil. ^ We have kept the good old French empress ; the French lost the word and had to go straight to the Latin for imjperatrice. Inroad of French Words into England. 223 We must turn to page 316, if we would know the source of * to make a fool of myself; ' we there find, * icli liabbe ibeon fol of me sulven ' (concerning myself). In page 46 we find mention of * a large creoiz ; ' this shows that the adjective was getting the meaning of magnus as well as of jprodigns. The French creoiz was not to drive out the Danish Icross ; though the English rood was unhappily to vanish almost entirely. Many technical words of religion come in, such as silence and wardein ; at page 42 we see the stages in the derivation of a well- known word, antipli07ia, antemp7ie, antefne ; anthevi was to come later. At page 192 may be found the phrase gentile luummen} We light upon sjpitel (hospital) and mester, afterwards corrupted into mystery, a confusion with the Greek w^ord. At page 202 we see the source of ' he is but a ;poor creature ; ' for the term cowardice is there said to embrace the jjoure iJiecnied, The old French garser (page 258) supplied us with the word g arses, that is, g-ashes. The old English caser (Coesar) was. altered into Icaiser, a word lately brought to life again in our land by Mr. Carlyle. The letters ea had taken such fast root in the West, that even French words had to suit themselves to this peculiarly English combination ; in page 58 we find our well-known least. We light upon the source of our Jevjry, as JudaGa is sometimes translated in our Bible, when we read at page 394 that God * leide himsulf vor us ine Giwerie.' The first letter, a sound borrowed from France, shows us how we came to soften the old hrig into bridge. At page 44 we * This phrase, Thla (Ice- Dare(5 . . Dard landic) . Mesler Ea]) . . . . Else Nefe. . . Neveu Feorme . . . Ferme Flatr (Ice- Feorren . . Forain landic) . Plat Frakele . . . Fraile Priss (Ice- Fylan . . . Defouler landic) . Pris Geard . . Gardin Ric . . . Riche Gote . . . Gouttiere Rypere . . . Robeor Wise . . Guise Solian . . Soillier Gesamnian. . Assembler Spendan . Despender This has only a transitive sense. Inroad of French Words into England. 225 Old English Frencli Old English French Sta(5ol . . . Estable Weardan . . Guardei* StriSi . . . Estrif Westan . . . Guaster Teld. . . . Tent Wyrre . . . Guerre Tralitnian . . Trailer If it be true, as some tell us, that the mingling of the Teutonic and the Romance in our tongue make * a happy marriage,' we see in the author of the Ancren Riwle the man who first gave out the banns. ^ He was, it would seem, a Bishop, well-grounded in all the lore that Paris or E/Ome could teach ; and he strikes us as rather too fond of airing his French and Latin before the good ladies, on whose behalf he was writing. For sixty years or so no Englishman was bold enough to imitate the Prelate's style, at least, in a book. Those who weigh English authors of this age will find that, if we divide the Thirteenth Century into three equal parts, the first division will take in writers who have eight or ten obso- lete English words out of fifty ; the writers of the middle division have from five to seven obsolete English words out of fifty ; and the writers of the last division have only three or four obsolete English words out of fifty.^ * The verb strive most likely comes from some overlooked striihav^ as Theodore becomes Feodor in Eussian. The Perfect in the Ancren B'lwle is strof^ and a French word in English always takes a Weak Perfect. 2 Cloth of gold, do not despise, Though thou be matched with cloth of friese. Cloth of friese, be not too bold. Though thou be matched with cloth of gold. It is not, I need hardly say, the words used by us in common with the Frisians, that I should call ' cloth of friese.' 3 The fifty words to be reckoned should be only substantives, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs. 226 The Sources of Standard English, Our store of homespun terms was being more and more narrowed. Compare Layamon's Brut witli Robert of Gloucester's poem ; we are at once astounded at the loss in 1300 of crowds of English words, though both writers were translating the same Erench lines. It is much the same in the language of religion, as we see by comparing the Ancren Riwle with the Kentish sermons of 1290, published by Dr. Morris. ^ Now comes the question , what was the cause of the havock wrought in our store of good old English at this particular time ? One-seventh of the Teutonic words used here in 1200 seems to have altogether dropped out of written composition by the year 1290 : about this fact there can be no dispute. In the lifetime of Henry III., far more harm was done to our speech than in the six hundred years that have followed his death. I shall now try to answer the ques- tion just asked ; I write with some diffidence, since I believe that I am the first to bring forward the forth- coming explanation. I draw my bow ; it is for others to say if I hit the mark. Few of us have an idea of the wonderful change brought about in Latin Christendom by the teaching of St. Francis. Two Minorite friars of his Century, the one living in Italy, the other in England, give us a fair notion of the work done by the new Brotherhood, when it first began to run its race. Thomas of Eccle- ston and Salimbene^ throw a stronger light upon its * An Old English Miscellany (Early English Text Society), p. 26. 2 The work of the Englishman is in Monumenta Franciscana, published by the Master of the Rolls ; that of the Italian is in Monumenta ad Frovlncias Farmensem et Flacentinam 'pertinentia, tc be found in the British Museum. Liroad of F7'ench Words into England. 227 budding life tlian do all the documents published by the learned Wadding in his Annals of the Minorites. Italy may claim the Founder ; but England may boast that she carried out his work, at least for fourscore years after his death, better than any other land in Christendom. She gave him his worthiest disciples ; the great English Franciscans, Alexander de Hales, Adam de Marisco, Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus, and Occam, were unequalled by any of their brethren abroad, with the two exceptions of Buenaventura and LuUi. Some of these men sought the mainland, while others taught in their school at Oxford : under the new guidance the rising University shot up with giant's growth, and speedily outdid her old rival on the Seine. The great Robert himself (he was not as yet known as Lincolniensis) lectured before the brethren at Oxford. English friars, being patterns of hoHness, were held in the highest esteem abroad ; when reading Salimbene's work, we meet them in all kinds of unlikely places throughout Italy and France : they crowded over the sea to hear their great countryman Hales at Paris, or to take a leading part in the Chapters held at Rome and Assisi. The gift of wisdom, we are told, overflowed in the English province. It was a many-sided Brotherhood, being always in con- tact with the learned, with the wealthy, and with the needy alike. The English Friar was equally at home in the school, in the bower, in the hovel. He could speak more than one tongue, thanks to the training bestowed upon him. We may imagine his every-day life: he spends his morning in drawing up a Latin letter to be q2 228 The Sources of Standard English. sent to tlie General Minister at Oxford or Paris, and he writes mucTi as Adam de Marisco did. The friar of this age has no need to fear the tongue of scandal ; so in the afternoon he visits the Lady of the Castle, whose dearest wish is that she may atone for the little weaknesses of life by laying her bones in the nearest Franciscan Church, mean and lowly though it be in these early days. He tells her the last news of Queen Eleanor's Court, points a moral with one of the new Lays of Marie, and lifts up his voice against the sad freaks played by fashion in ladies' dress. Their talk is of course in French ; but the friar, having studied at Paris, remarks to himself that his fair friend's speech sounds somewhat provincial ; and more than a hundred years later we are to hear of the school of Stratford atte Bowe. In the evening, he goes to the neighbouring hamlet, and holds forth on the green to a throng of horny-handed churls, stalwart swinkers and toilers, men who earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brows. They greedily listen when addressed in the uncouth English of their shire, English barely understood fifty miles off. Such burning words they never hear from their parish-priest, one of the old school. The friar's sermon is full of pro- verbs, tales, and historical examples, all tending to the improvement of morals.^ A new link, as we see, was thus forged to bind all classes together in godly fellowship ; nothing like this * This last sentence I take from Salimbene, who describes the new style of preaching practised by the friars his brethren. Italy and England must have been much alike in the Thirteenth Century in this respect. Inroad of FrenclL Words into England. 229 Franciscan movement had been known in onr island for six hundred years. The Old was being replaced by the New ; a preacher would suit his tales to his listeners : they cared not to hear about hinds or hus- bandmen, but about their betters.^ He would therefore talk about ladies, knights, or statesmen ; and when dis- coursing about these, he must haye been almost driven to interlard his English with a few French words, such as were constantly employed by his friends of the higher class. As a man of learning, he would begin to look down upon the phrases of his childhood as somewhat coarse, and his lowly hearers rather liked a term now and then that was a little above their understanding : what is called * fine language ' has unhappily always had charms for most Englishmen. It would be relished by burghers even more than by peasants. The preacher may sometimes have translated for his flock's behoof, talking of ' gritli or pa? 5, roodi or croiz^ steven or voiz, lof or praise, siviheldom or tricherie, stead or 2>lace,^ ^ As * Our humbler classes now prefer the fictitious adventures of some wicked Marquis to all the sayings and doings of Mrs. Gamp or Mrs. Poyser. = I take the following sketch from Middlemarch, III. 156 (pub- lished in 1872):— *Mr. Trumbull, the auctioneer . . . was an amateur of superior phrases, and never used poor language without immediately correct- ing himself. " Anybody may ask," says he, " anybody may interro- gate. Any one may give their remarks an interrogative turn." He calls IvanJwe •' a very superior publication, it commences well." Things never began with Mr. Trumbull; they always commenced, both in private life and on his handbills, " I hope some one will tell me — I hope some individual will apprise me of the fact." ' Many of our early Franciscans must have been akin to Mr. Trumbull. Our modern penny-a-liners would say that the worthy 230 TJie Sources of Standard English. years went on, and as men more and more aped their betters, the French words would drive out the Old En- glish words ; and the latter class would linger only in the mouths of upland folk, where a keen antiquary may find some of them still. So mighty was the spell at work, that in the Fourteenth Century French words found their way into even the Lord's Prayer and the Belief ; the last strongholds, it might be thought, of pure En- glish. It was one of the signs of the times that the old hoda made way for the new ^rechur ; ^ grayer and ^praise both come from France. But the influence of the friars upon our speech was not altogether for evil. St. Francis, it is well known, was one of the first fathers of the New Italian ; a friar of his Order, Thomas of Hales, wrote what seems to me the best poem of two hundred lines produced in English before Chaucer.^ This ' Luve ron,' addressed to a nun about 1250, shows a hearty earnestness, a flowing dic- tion, and a wonderful command of rime ; it has not a score of lines (these bear too hard on wedlock) that might not have been written by a pious Protestant. Hardly any French words are found here, but the names of a string of jewels. English poets had hitherto made but little use of the Virgin Mary as a theme. But her worship was one of the great badges of the Fran- auctioneer was a master of English, and a better guide to follow than Bunj^'in or Defoe. * How often does the word ^redicai (prsedicaTi) occur in the journal of the Franciscan, who afterwards became Sixtus V. ! 2 Old English Miscellany, p. 93 (Early English Text Society). Dr. Morris tliinks that the friar wrote in Latin, which was afterwards Englished. hiroad of F7'ench Words into England. 231 ciscan Order ; and from 1220 onward she inspired many an English. Maker. However wrong it might be theo- logicallj, the new devotion was the most poetical of all rites ; the dullest monk is kindled with unwonted fire, when he sets forth the glories of the Maiden Mother. To her Chaucer and Dunbar have offered some of their most glowing verse. The first token of the change in English is the ever- waxing distaste for words compounded with prepositions. After 1220, these compounds become more and more scarce, though we have kept to this day some verbs which have /ore, out^ over, and tender prefixed ; those beginning with to (the German zer) lived on for a long time before waning away. We have a second copy of Layamon's Brut, written, it is thought, soon after 1250. Scores of old words set down fifty years earlier in the first copy of 1205 had become strange in the ears of Englishmen ; these words are now dropped altogether. Some French words, unknown to Layamon, are found in this second copy. We have an opportunity of comparing the old and the new school of English teachers, as they stood in the Middle of this Century. We find one poem, written shortly before 1250, about the time that Archbishop Edmund was canonized : this must have been composed by a churchman of the good old St. Albans' pattern, a preacher of righteousness after Brother Matthew's own heart. The rimer casts no wistful glance abroad, but appeals to English saints and none others ; he strikes hard at Home in a way that would have shocked good Franciscans. He is an exception to the common 232 TJie Sources of Standard English. rule ; for the proportion of English words, now obsolete, in his lines is as great as in those of Orrmin.^ Most different is another poem, written in a manuscript not later than 1250. The Maker may well have been a Fran- ciscan ; he pours out his wrath on priests' wives and on parsons ; he handles the sins of Jankin and Malkin in most homely wise. He has some French words that he need not have employed, such as sire and dame instead of father and mother ; his proportion of obsolete English is far less than that which we see in the lines of his brother-poet. 2 I suspect that the Ancren Riwle (it still exists in many copies) must have been a model most popular among the friars, who perhaps did much to bring into vogue the French words with which it swarms. About the year 1290, we find Churchmen becoming more andj more French in their speech. Hundreds of good Old English words were now lost for ever, and the terms that replaced them, having been for years in the mouths of men, were at length being set down in manuscripts. The Life of a Saint (many such are extant, written at this time) was called a Vie, In that version of the Harrowing of Hell which dates from the aforesaid year, the transcriber has gone out of his way to bring in the words delay, ccmimandment (this comes twice over), and serve : all these are crowded into five lines.^ Still more remarkable are the few and short Kentish sermons, translated from the French about the same time, 1290."^ IsTever were the Old and the New 1 Old English Miscellany, p. 89. " Do., p. 186. « Page 36 of Dr. Mall's edition. * Old Er,glish Miscellany, p. 26 (Early English Text Society). Im'oad of Frciuh Words into England. 233 brought face to face -witliin narrower compass. We see the old Article with its three genders, se^ si, ])et (in San- scrit sa, sd, tat), still lingering on in Kent, though these forms had been dropped everywhere else. On the other hand, we find about seventy French words, many of which, as verray, clefenden, signefiance, orgeihis, commencement, were not needed at all. When reading the short sentence^ * this is si signefiance of the miracle,' our thoughts are at one time borne back to the abode of our earliest fore- fathers on the Oxus ; at another time we see the fine language of the Victorian penny-a-liner most clearly foreshadowed. After 1290, we hardly ever find a passage in which the English words, now obsolete, are more than one- seventeenth of the whole ;^ the only exception is in the case of some AlHterative poem. This fact gives us some idea of the havock wrought in the Thirteenth Century. But the friars of old did not confine themselves to preaching ; all the lore of the day was lodged in their hands. Roger Bacon's life sets before us the bold way in w^hich some of them pried into the secrets of Nature. One of the means by which they drew to themselves the love of the common folk was the practice of leechcraij ; in the friars the leper found his only friends. The best scientific English treatise of the time of Edward the First is ' the Pit of Hell,' printed by Mr. Wright : this also deals with the shaping of the human frame.^ There are in it about 400 long lines, containing forty French * That is, leaving out of the calculation all but the ' weighty words.' ^ Popular Treatises of Science^ p. 132. 234 ^-^^^ Soicrces of Standard English, words : among tlieni are air and round. It is strange to contrast tlie language of this with the obsolete English of a treatise on Astronomy, put forth three hundred years before, and printed in the same book of Mr. Wright's. To these early forefathers of our leechcraft we owe a further change in our tongue. There are many English words for sundry parts and functions of the human frame, words which no well-bred man can use ; custom has ruled that we must employ Latin synonyms. The first example I remember of this delicacy (it ought not to be called mawkishness) is in Robert of Gloucester, writing about 1300. When describing the tortures in- flicted by King John on his subjects in 1216, and the death of the Earl Marshal on an Irish field in 1234, the old rimer uses Latin terms instead of certain En- glish words that would jar upon our taste. ^ But a leech who flourished eighty years after Robert's time is far more plain-spoken, when describing his cures, made at Newark and London.^ Indeed, he is as little mealy-mouthed as Orrmin himself. It was not, however, ^ On this head there is a great diiFerence between Germany and England. Teutonic words that no well-bred Englishman could use before a woman may be printed by grave German historians. See Von Eaumer's account of the siege of Viterbo in 1243, Geschichte der Hohenstaufen. Of course I know that this does not prove Germans to be one whit more indelicate than Englishmen ; custom is everything. ^ John Arderne's Account of himself, EcliquicB AntiqucB, I. 191. Charles II. was the best bred Englishman of his time, yet he writes to his sister: — 'Poor O'Nial died this afternoon of an ulcer in his ^uts.' — Curry's Civil Wars ifi Ireland, I. 308. So swiftly does fashion change ! Inroad of French Words into England. 235 tintil very late times that ijers;piration replaced in polite speech the English word akin to the Sanscrit sweda, or that helly was thought to be coarser than stomach. Architecture was another craft in which the clergy took the lead ; Alan de Walsingham by no means stood alone. ^ English words were well enough^ when a cot or a farm-house was in hand ; but for the building of a Castle or a Cathedral, scores of French technical words had to be called in : at Canterbury, William the En- glishman doubtless employed much the same diction as his predecessor, William of Sens. Indeed, the new style of building, brought from France more than a hun- dred years before the time of these worthies, must have unfolded many a new term of art to King Edward's masons at Westminster. In our own day, the great revival of Architecture has led to a wonderful enlarge- ment of diction among the common folk ; every work- ing mason now has in his mouth scores of words for the meaning of which learned men forty years ago would have searched in dictionaries. The Preacher in his religious or secular character was not the only importer of French words. We must now consider three other agents who helped forward the great change — the Lady, the Knight, and the Lawyer. Paris and Houen were the oracles of the fair sex. These cities supplied articles of dress, wherewith the ladies decked themselves so gaily as to draw down the * Thfc clergy were also great engineers in war, as we read in the accounts of the Crusades against the Albigenses and Eccelin da Bomano. The renowned Chillingworth wanted to play the same part at the siege of Gloucester in 1643. 236 The SoiLixes of Standard Eiiglish, wrath, of tlie pulpit. One preacher of 1160 goes so far as to call smart clothing ' the Devil's mousetrap ;' yellow raiment and hlancliet (a way of whitening the skin) seem to have been reckoned the most dangerous of snares to womankind, and therefore also to mankind.^ In the Essex Homilies an onslaught is made upon the Priest's wife and her dress ; we hear of ' hire chemise smal and hwit, hire mentel grene, hire nap of mazere.' ^ The Ancren Riwle does not dwell on this topic of dress so much as might have been expected ; only a few French articles are there mentioned. A little later, the high-bred dames are thus assailed : peos prude levedies pat luvyep drywories And brekej? spusynge, For heore lecherye, Nullef here sermonye Of none gode J^inge.^ In the days of Edward I., we find scores of French words, bearing on ladies' way of life, employed by our writers. Many were the articles of luxury that came from abroad ; commerce was binding the nations of Christendom together. The English cliajpman and monger now withdrew into low life, making way for the more gentlemanly foreigner, the marchand. Half of our trades bear French names ; simple hues like Q-ed and blue do well enough for the common folk, but our higher classes must have a greater range of choice ; hence come the foreign scarlet, vermilion, orange, and others. ' Homilies, First Series, p. 53. ^ Homilies, Second Series, p. 163. ' Old English Miscellany, p. 77. Inroad of Fre7ich Words into England. 237 The Kniglit had three great pleasures — war, hunt- ing, and cookery. He at first lived much apart from the mass of Englishmen ; but the mighty struggle of the Thirteenth Century knit fast together the speakers of French and of English, the high and the low. One of the first tokens of this union is the Ballad on Lewes fight ; it may have been written by some Lon- doner, who uses a few French words, such as might have been picked up in the great Earl Simon's tent. Six years earlier, the Reformed Government had thought it worth while to publish King Henry's adhesion to the new system, in English, as well as in French and Latin. In the reign of Henry's son, the work of amalgamation went on at full speed. From this time dates the revival of the glories of England's host, which has seldom since allowed thirty years to pass without some doughty deed of arms, achieved beyond our borders ; for there were but few quarrels at home henceforward. Now it was that a number of warlike French romances were Englished, such as the Tristrem, the Havelok, the Horn, and, above all, the renowned Alexa.nder.^ Legends about King Arthur were most popular ; the Round Table became a household word ; and the adjective round grew to be so common, that it was in the end turned into a preposition, as we find in the Alexander. The word adventure, brought from * Many French words must have been brought in, simply for the sake of the rimes, literally translated; thus in the Floriz and Blaunchejiur of about 1290 : — * |>anne sede \>q burgeis >at was wel hende and curtais.' 238 The Sources of Standard English, France, was as well known in England as in Germany.^ Our 'per aventure^ having been built into the English Bible centuries later, is likely to last. Old Teutonic words made way for the outlandish terms glory, renoivn, arm7j, Jiost, champion. England was becoming, under her great Edward, . the most united of all Christian kingdoms ; the yeomen who tamed Wales and strove hard to conquer Scotland looked with respect upon the high-born circle standing next to the King. What was more, the respect was returned by the nobles : we have seen the tale of the Norfolk farmer at page 200 ; and this, I suspect, could hardly have happened out of England. France has always been the country that has given us our words for soldiering — from the word castel, brought over in 1048, to the word mitrailleuse, brought over in 1870. Englishmen of old could do little in war but sway the weighty axe or form the shield-wall under the eye of such Kings as Ironside or Grodwine's son ; it was France that taught us how to ply the mangonel and trebuchet.^ Many hunting terms, borrowed from the same land, may ^ Our word adventurer seems to be sinking in the mire. A lady told me the other day that she thought it unkind in Sir Walter Scott to call Prince Charles Edward ' the young Adventurer.' Thus, what but sixty years ago described a daring knight, now conveys to some minds the idea of a scheming knave. It is a bad sign for a nation, when words that were once noble are saddled with a base meaning. Further on, I shall call attention to the Italian jpoenitentia and mrtus. 2 The Editor of Sir John Burgoyne's Life, in 1873, complains of the poverty of the English military vocabulary, when he talks of a coup de main and an attaque hrusqiiee, Vol. II. 346. Even so late as 1642, we were forced to call in French and German engineers, at the outbreak of the Civil Wars. hiroad of French Words into England, 239 be found in tlie Sir Tristrem. Several of the French words nsed in cookery may be read in the Lay of Havelok, who himself served for some time as a swiller of dishes : we here find ']^asiees^ ivastels^ veneys^iii, and many other terms of the craft ; our common roast, hoil, fry, hroil, toast, grease, hraimi, larder bear witness as to which race it was that had the control of the kitchen. We have spoken of the Lady and the Knight; we now come to the Lawyer.^ The whole of the Govern- ment was long in the hands of the French-speaking class. Henry II., the great organiser of English law, was a thorough Frenchman, who lived in our island as little as he could ; the tribunals were in his time re- formed ; and the law-terms, with which Blackstone abounds {i^eine forte et dure, for instance), are the be- quest of this age. The Roman law Jiad been studied at Oxford even before Henry began to reign. The Legend of St. Thomas, drawn up about 1300, swarms with French words when the Constitutions of Clarendon are described ; and a charter of King Athelstane's, turned into the English spoken about 1250, shows how many of our own old law terms had by that time been supplanted by foreign ware.^ Our barristers still keep the old^rench pronunciation of their technical word record ; the oyez of our courts is well known. * Those who administered the law were either churchmen or knights. 2 Kemble, Cod. Dijo., v. 235. We here find grantyc, confirmye, and custumes. We are therefore not surprised to learn, that fe^ or none in 1745 could explain the old English law terms in the Baron of Bradwardine's charter of 1140, ' saca et soca, et thol et theam, et infangthief et outfangthief, sive hand-habend, sive bak-barand.' 240 The Sources of Standard English. The Cliroiiicle of Robert of Gloucester, compiled about 1300, abounds in tlie words of law and government borrowed from France, words that still keep their hold upon us. The Sir Tristrem, translated in the iNorth about thirty years earlier than Robert's work, is most interesting as giving us more than 200 French terms of war, hunting, law, leechcraft, religion, and lady's dress. The mischief was now done ; we must not be hard on Colonel Hamley, or on Blackstone, or on the com- pilers of the Anglican Prayer Book, or on the describer of a fashionable wedding in the Morning Post, or on the chronicler of the Lord Mayor's feast, or on the Edi- tors of the Lancet and the Builder, for dealing in shoals of foreign terms ; nearly six hundred years ago it was settled that the technical diction of their respective crafts must to a great extent be couched in French or Latin. ^ There were about 150 Romance words in our tongue before 1066, being mostly the names of Church furniture, foreign plants, and strange animals. About 100 more Romance words got the right of English citizenship before the year 1200. Lastly, 800 other Romance words had become common with our writers hj the year 1300 ; and before these came in, many hundreds of good old English words had been put out of the way. Fearful was the havock done in the Thirteenth Century ; sore is our loss : but those of us ^ It was once my lot to treat of a code of law ; I find, on looking over my book, that at least one half of my substantives, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs dealing with this subject, are of Latin birth ; so impossible is it for the most earnest Teuton to shake off the trammels laid on England in the Thirteenth Century. Inroad of French Words into England. 241 wlio love a Teutonic diction should blame, not Chaucer or Wickliffe, but the Franciscans of an earlier age ; the J, if I guess aright, were the men who wrought the great change in our store of words. The time of King Henry the Third's death is the moment when our w^ritten speech was barrenest ; a crowd of English words had already been dropped, and few French words had as yet been used by any writer of prose or poetry, except by the author of the Ancren Riwle ; hitherto the out- landish words had come as single spies, henceforward they were to come in battalions. I have already touched upon the French expressions that came in about 1300, and are now so common in our mouths ; such as ' he iised to go.' These strangers, long before the Norman Conquest;, had been forced to take an English ending before they could be naturalized. In the Twelfth Century, some of them took English prefixes as well ; we find not only a word like maisterlinges, but also hispused. In Layamon's poem of 1205, we see our adverbial ending tacked on to a French word, as liardiliclie. In the Ancren Riwle, a few years later, we find French adjectives taking the English signs of comparison, as larger and tendrust. In the last decade of the Thirteenth Century, French words were coming in amain. The Alexander (published by Weber), and Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle, both of which belong to this date, swarm with foreign terms, the bricks that were to replace our lost stone. It was now not only nouns, verbs, and adverbs that came hither from France; we see, in^Robert's Chronicle (page 54), save used to express ;prceter : ' save lym and lyf.' He 242 The Sottrces of Standard English. also sliows us tlie first germ of onr new word hecaAise, In page 24, lie tells iis tliat tlie Humber was so called, */(W' ]?6 cas ])Sbt Homber . . . f er ynne adreynt was.' He has also tbat most curious compound pece-mele. A new idiom is found in tbe Life of Becket, at page 40 : 'he V{pe the foynte tvas to beo icast.' A still greater change is seen in the Alexander ; the French word round, which had not taken root in England much before 1300, was used as a Preposition : ' This is round the mydell erd.' — Page 29. In the Life of Becket this word takes an English prefix, and becomes around. A great change was coming over England about the year 1300, from the Severn to the Wash ; the old Teutonic sources of diction had been sadly dried up and could no longer supply all her wants; Germany was to have a happier lot, at least in speech. Nothing can more clearly set forth the inroad of the French than the following sentence, which is made up of words in the every- day use of the lowest among us : ^ Of course I immediately just walked quite round the second of the walls, because perhaps it might have been very weak.' We should find it hard to change these foreign words in italics for Teutonic equivalents, without laying ourselves open to the charge of obsolete diction. England, too careless of her own wealth, has had to draw upon France even for prepositions and conjunc- tions. After reading such a sentence as the one above, we are less astonished to find words like /ace, voice^ dress, flower, river, uncle, cousin, ^ass, touch, ^ray, try, glean, Inroad of French Words into England. 243 which have put to flight the commonest of Teutonic words. Strange it is that these French terms should have won their way into our hovels as well as into our manor houses. 1 give a few instances of Manning's use of French words ; his lines on Confirmation show plainly how much foreign ware we owe to the clergy. He sticks pretty close to the French poem he was translating, as in page 107, line cotejperecG is Englished by a Jcotepercede ; and this gives us some idea of the number of new words that must have been brought in by translators. We see the terms verry (verus), oure (hora), pray ere, anoijnt, age, renoun, morsel, tryfyl, savyoure, straitly, in vein (frustra), hewte, usurer, valeu, a fair, affynyte, sample, trespas, spyryt, revyle, moreyne (ipesiis),^estelens,ve7iiau7ice, hutch, tremle. It may be laid down, that in his diction this writer of 1303 has more in common with us of 1873 than he had with any English poet of 1250. A few other changes must be more specially pointed out. Hitherto Englishmen had talked of cristendom, but Robert (page 346) speaks of crystyanyte. He has dropped the old word syf ernes, and translates the kindred French sohrete by sdberte, our sobriety. He has both verement and verryly : the first in its foreign adverbial ending points to mind, the second in its English adverbial ending points to lie (body). In page 149 charyte stands for alms, coming from the French line, la charite luy enveia. In the same page, nycete stands for folly. ^ * This French word has had a most curious history in England. Nice stood for foolish down to about 1580 ; then it came to mean e2 244 ^^^^ Sources of Standard English. In page 56, ]ol]j stands for rioto^cs, as is seen by tlie context : Yyf a man be of jolt/ lyfe. This Frencb jolif is said to come from tbe Yule of the conquerors of Normandy. In page 75, we see the word partij get its modern sense : pys aperyng-, yn my avys, Avaylede to bofe partys. In page 228, there is a piling up of French and En- glish synonyms : On 7nani/ maner dyvers vnjse. In page 273, en le qeor is turned into yn ]>e^ cliaunsel. In page 276, we find our county court, when he trans- lates the French : Seculer plai, cum est cunte. Lay coicrte, or elles counte. In page 100, escharmr is translated by scorn, the word used by Orrmin a hundred years earlier. precise; and a hundred years ago it got the meaning of ^^e^^my. Mrs. Thrale, in Miss Burne'ifs Diary, is the earliest instance I can recollect of any one using nice in the last-named sense, in free every- day talk. The young lady of our time who is helped through her hoop at croquet by some deft curate, thinks to herself, ' nice creature !' These are the very words that Chaucer, in his Second "NurCs Tale, puts into the mouth of St. Cecilia, when that most out- spoken of maidens wishes to call the Roman governor * a silly brute.* iV^ce is now applied to a sermon, to a jam tart, to a young man ; in short, to everything. The lower classes talk of ' nice weather.' "We have become mere slovens in diction ; the penny-a-liners now write about * a splendid shout.' Inroad of French Words into England. 245 In page 323, we see the beginning of wliat was to become a well-known English oath : 'Ye/ he seyde, ^ graunte mercy. ^ In page 95, we see a sense that has been long given in England to the French word touch, ' to speak of: ' Y touchede of pys yche lake. In page 109, we see how liquid consonants run into each other : What sey je, men, of ladyys pryde, pat gone trayhjny over syde ? This in the French is trainant. Thus Bononia became Bologna, and Lucera was sometimes written N"ucera. In page 229, single is opposed to unmarried ; similes horn is translated by sengle hiave. In page 4, we see how in the Danelagh French words as well as English underwent clipping. The French enticer loses its first syllable ; and our lower orders still use this maimed verb : pe fende and oure fleshe tysyn us perto. We saw how seventy years earlier es^pier became s^py in Suffolk. In page 9, a French impersonal Verb appears, ' to repent him.' In page 72, we see the unhappy French word, which has driven out the true English afeard, at least from polite speech. Fu taut affraie is there turned into he zvcts a frayde. In this poem we also see the French 246 The Sottrces of Standard English, ^eyne driving out the English j:)me. At page 325, we light on the old coverde (convaluit) ; and at page 222, we see the new French form, recovere. But Robert writes ' to oieiu,^ not ' to renew, ^ In page 30, les tempestes cesserent is translated by tem'pest secede ; we have long confounded the sound of c with that of s. In page 358, we see that our g had been softened in sound, for Robert writes the word onageste (majestas). In this way hrig got the sound of hridge. In page 7, Robert translates the deahle, the supposed idol of the Saracens, by inauTuette and termagaunt : both of these are as yet masculine in gender ; Layamon had used them earlier. In page 77, we see terme eshc, certein, nome, turned into a certeyn day of terme. But this certain was not used as an equivalent for guidam until Chaucer's time. Our bard finds it needful to give long explanations in English rime of the strange words mattoh, sacrilege, and miner (pages 31, 266, 331). I have kept the greatest changes of all to the last ; in page 321 we find a French Participle doing duty for a Preposition, Pas&y7ig alle pyng hyt haf> powere. And in page 180, My body y take fe here to selle To sum man as yn bondage. This londage is the first of many words in which a French ending was tacked on to an English root. So barren had our tongue become by the end of this un- Inroad of French Words into England. 247 liicky Thirteentli Century, that Tve had to import from abroad even our terminations, if we wanted to frame new Enghsh nouns and adjectives. We were in process of time to make strange compounds Hke godd-ess^ fw- hear-ance, odd-ity, nigg-ard, wpheav-al, starv-ation, trust-eey fulfil-ment, latcli-et, luharf-mger, Jdng-let, fisJi-ery, tnc-ism, love-ahle, luhims-ical, talJc-ative, slumhr-ous} What a falHng off is here ! what a lame ending for a Teutonic root ! Desinit in piscem mulier formosa superne. We were also to forget the good Old English ad- jectival isc or isli^ and to use foreign endings for proper names like J.Z^er-me, Gael-ic, Syri-ac, Chin-ese^WyJceham' ist, Wesley-an, Irving-ite^ Dant-esque? Cromwell in his despatches talks of the Lincoln-eers. By-and-by French prefixes drove out their English brethren, even when the root of the word was Enghsh ; we are now doomed to write emholden and enlighten^ and to replace the old ednkdan by reneio. Mistrust has been almost wholly driven out by distrust. We have happily two or three Teutonic endings still in use, when we coin new adjectives and nouns ; one of these is ness. It had English rivals in full vigour at the end of the Fourteenth * Bomyer, in Eobert of Gloucester, may descend from some over- looked English hog-er, though ier is a French ending ; there may be a confusion between the two endings. The worst compound I ever met with was moh-ocracy. I half fear to point it out, lest the peuny-a-liners should seize upon it as a precious jewel. What a difference does the Irish ending een make when added to squire ! * In this last word the old Teutonic ending iso has gone from Germany to Italy, then to France, and at last to England. 248 The Sources of Standard English. Century, but they have now dropped out of use ; what our penny-a-liners now call inebriety might in 1380 be Englished not only by Chaucer's dronlcenesse, but by Wickliffe's drunhenliede, by Mire's dronlcelec, and by Gower's drunluesliejpe} Our lately-coined jpiglieadedness and longimidedness show that there is life in the good old ness yet. Such new substantives as JBumhledom and rascaldom prove that dom is not yet dead ; and such new adjectives as ijecldsli and ruhhisliy show a lingering love for the Old English adjectival endings. More than one Englishman might when a child have given ear to the first Franciscan sermons ever heard in Lincolnshire, and might at fourscore and upwards have listened to the earliest part of the Handlyng Synne. Such a man (a true Na^vius), on contrasting the number of Romance terms common in 1300 with the hundreds of good old Teutonic words of his childhood, words that the rising generation understood not, might well mourn that in his old age England's tongue had become strange to Englishmen. 2 But about this time, 1300, the Genius of our language, as it seems, awoke from sleep, clutched his remaining hoards with tighter grip, and thought that we had lost too many old words already. Their rate of disappearance between 1220 and 1290 had been * Other roots, witli all these four endings, may be found in StraU mannas Dictionary. 2 As to the speech of religion, compare the Creed at page 138, with the description of Charity at page 198 ; yet there are but sixty years between them. In later times, Caxton says that he found an amazing difference between the words of his childhood and those of his old age : Hobbes and Cibber must have remarked the same, as to turns of expression. Inroad of French Words into England, 249 most rapid, as may be seen by tlie Table at the end of tbis Chapter; some hundreds of those left were un- happily doomed to die out before 1520, but the process of their extinction was not speedy, as the same Table will show. After 1300, the Franciscans began to for- sake their first love ; one of the earliest tokens of the change was the rearing in 1306 of their stately new London Convent, which took many years to build, and where hundreds of the highest in the land were buried. It arose in marked contrast to the lowly churches that had been good enough for the old friars, the first dis- ciples of St. Francis. Their great lights vanished from Oxford; the most renowned name she boasts in the Fourteenth Century is that of their sternest foe. About 1320 they were attacked in English rimes, a thing un- heard of in the Thirteenth Century. We now learn that a friar Menour will turn away from the needy to grasp at the rich man's gifts; the brethren will fight over a wealthy friend's body, but will not stir out of the cloister at a poor man's death ; they ' wolde preche more for a busshel of whete, Than for to bringe a soule from helle out of the hete.' ^ These rimes were written about the date of WicklifPe's birth. The Franciscans had by this time done their work in England, though they were to drag on a slug- gish life in our shires for two hundred years longer. Curious it is, that the time of their fiery activity coin- * Folitical Songs (Camden Society), p. 331. Churchmen, lawyers, physicians, knights, and shopkeepers are all assailed in this piece. 250 The Sources of Standard English. cides exactly with tlie time of England's greatest loss in a philologer's eyes.^ E/obert of Brunne began Ms Handlyng Synne, as he tells us, in 1303 ; he must have taken some years to complete it. We possess it, not as he wrote it, but in a Southern transcript of 1360 or thereabouts ; even in this short interval many old terms had been dropped, and some of the bard's Norse words could never have been understood on the Thames. The transcriber writes more modern equivalents above those terms of Robert's, which seemed strange in 1360. I give a few speci- mens, to show the change that went on all through the Fourteenth Century : Bobert of Robert of Brunne, His Transcriber, Brunne, His Transcriber, in iy03. about 1360. in 1303. about 1360. Gros .... Dred yerne . . . desyre wlatys . * . lo]?e]? reus . . . boste wede (insanus) made qued . . . shrewe wry^tes . . . carponters ay whore . . ever more were .... kepe wur]? J?e . . . most mote (curia) . plete weyve . . forsake ferly .... wndyr gate . . • wey cele .... godly lofe . . . harme byrde (decet) . moste he nam . . he jede estre .... toune he nam . . . he toke yrk .... slow stounde . . . tyme mayn. . . . strenk]? rape . . . haste harnes . . . brayn kenne . teche grate .... wepte tarne . . . . wenche whyle . . . tyme bale . . . sorow ^ Happy had it been for Spain if her begging friars, about the year 1470, had been as sluggish and tolerant as their English brethren. Inroad of French Words into England, 251 Bobert of Eobert of Brunne, His Ti-canscriber, Brunne, His Transcriber, in 1303. about 13G0. in 1303. about 1360. yn lowe • • fyi'e rous . . . proud wordys lay]) . ► . . foule aghte. . . . gode fyn . . . ende hals swyer J , . nek ]?armys . . guttys nione . . . warne cuntek . . debate warryng . . cursing hote . . . vowe mysse . . fayle ferde . . . sede wonde . spare ra]je . . . sone dere . . . harme flytes . . . . chyde]> teyl . . . scorn e y-dyt. . . . stoppyd tyne . . . , lese syde . . . long pele . . . . perche awe . . . . drede myrke . . . derke dryglie . . suft're seynorye . . lordshyp wlate . steyn Some of Robert's words, that needed explanation in 1360, are as well known to us in 1873 as those wliere- witli his transcriber corrected what seemed obsolete. Words will sometimes fall out of written speech, and crop up again long afterwards. Language is full of these odd tricks.^ It is mournful to trace the gradual loss of old words. This cannot be better done than by comparing three English versions of the Eleven Pains of Hell : one of these seems to belong to the year 1250, another to 1340, another to 1420.^ Each successive loss was of course made good by fresh shoals of French words. Steady indeed was the flow of these into English prose and poetry all through the Fourteenth Century, as may * Multa renascentur quse Jam cecidere, cadentque Quse jam sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus. 2 Old English Miscellany (Early English Text Society), pp. 147, 210,223. 252 The Sources of Sta7idard E7iglish, be seen by the following Table. I take from each author a passage (in his usual style) containing fifty substantives, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs ; and this is the proportion in which the words are employed : Old English Poetry, before 1066 Old English Prose, before 1066 . Orrmin and Layamon, about 1200 Ancren Riwle, about 1220 . Genesis and Exodus, Bestiary, about 1230 Owl and Nightingale, about 1240 Northern Psalter, about 1250 . Proverbs of Hending, about 1260 Love song (page 156), about 1270 Havelok, Harrowing Hell, about 1280 Robert of Gloucester, about 1300 Robert Manning, in 1303 . Shoreham, about 1320 Auchinleck Romances^ about 1330 Hampole, about 1340 . Minot, about 1350 Langland, in 1362 . Chaucer (Pardoner's Tale), in 1390 Pecock in 1450 .... Tyndale, in 1530 Addison, in 1710 Macaulay, in 1850 Gibbon (sometimes) . Morris (sometimes) ^ . English Words that are now Obsolete 25 Romance Words 12 — 10 — 9 — 8 — 7 — 6 — 5 4 1 4 2 3 4 2 6 3 3 3 4 3 5 3 6 2 7 2 8 1 10 , — 12 — 17 25 — 44 — 3 * I give specimens of the two last in my Seventh Chapter. They seem to be -writing in two languages that have little in common. 253 CHAPTER V. THE NEW ENGLISH. (1303-1873.) None of the great European literatures, as Hallam has said, was of such slow growth as the English ; the reason is not far to seek. The French, Spanish, Pro- ven9al, Italian, Norse, and German literatures were fostered by high-born patrons. Foremost stand the great Hohenstaufens, Emperors of the Romans, ever August ; then come Kings of England, of Norway, of Sicily, of Castile ; Dukes of Austria, Landgraves of Thuringia, Counts of Champagne ; together with a host of knights from Suabia, Tuscany, Provence, and Aragon. A far other lot fell to the English Muse ; for almost three hundred years after 1066, she basked not in the smiles of King or Earl ; her chosen home was far away from Court, in the cloister and the parsonage ; her utterance was by the mouths of lowly priests, monks, and friars. Too long was she content to translate from the lordly French ; in that language her own old legends, such as those of Havelok and Horn, had been enshrined for more than a hundred years. It was in French, not in English, that Stephen of Canterbury had preached 254 '^^^ Sottrccs of Standard English. and Robert of Lincoln liad rimed, good liome-born patriots though they might be. In our island there was no acknowledged Standard of national speech ; ever since 1120, each shire had spoken that which was right in its own eyes. We have seen how widely the Northern, the Midland, and the Southern dialects differed from each other ; and this was remarked by Giraldus Cam- brensis almost seven hundred years ago.^ But not long after that keen-eyed Welshman's death, it might be seen that some great change was at hand. Of course, any dialect that was to hold the position once enjoyed by the Winchester speech, would have to win its way into London, Oxford, and Cambridge — towns that, after the year 1000, had become the heart and the eyes of England. Of these three, Cambridge lay within the bounds of the Bast Midland speech ; her clerks, drawn to her from all quarters of the land, may have helped to spread abroad her dialect, such as we (it may be) see it in the Bestiary of 1230. To Cam- bridge came young Robert Manning, as he says himself.^ That University, thronged as it must have been with lads from the North, West, and South, may have had her influence on his great work of 1303. Had the most renowned of all Lincoln's Bishops been a writer of English, I should have given him a great share of credit for the Southern conquest achieved a hundred years after his death by the speech of his flock. But we must go much further back than his time, when * He says that Devonshire best preserved King Alfred's speech. - He there saw the future King Kobert I. of Scotland, and his brother. Seepage 202 of this book. The New English, 255 essaying to account for the origin of our Standard English. The Danish settlers of 870 gave fresh life- blood to our race ; their pith and manliness have had, I suspect, a far greater share in furthering England's greatness than is commonly acknowledged. Much do we owe to the Scandinavian cross in our breed. They could not, it is true, keep their Kings upon the English throne ; but their Norse words by slow degrees made their way into every corner of the land : we have seen how under King John many of the terms, employed by this pushing and enterprising race, took root in distant counties like Worcestershire and Dorset, where there never was a Danish settlement. Often has a Danish word become confused with an Old English word, as in the case of the verbs hQita and heatan : often has a Danish word altogether driven out an Old English word, closely akin to Sanscrit. Thus the Scandinavian draumr (som- nium), corrupted into dream in Suffolk, has altogether made an end of the older siveven ; and the former word has moreover become confounded with the English dream, which of old meant nothing but sonitus or cantus : the sense of these Latin words has long vanished from dream as we now employ it. It may often be remarked that one form of a great speech drives another form before it. Thus, in our own day, the High German is always encroaching on its [N'orthem neighbour the Low German; and the Low German, in its turn, is always encroaching upon its Northern neighbour the Scandinavian. Something of the like kind might have been seen in England six hun- dred years ago ; but with us the Dane- Anglian speech 256 The Sources of Standard English, of the Midland was working down Southwards towards London and Oxford all through the Thirteenth Century. Its influence may be seen so early as the Essex Homilies of 1180 ; many years later we find a still clearer token of the change. In some hundred Plural substantives that had been used by Layamon soon after 1200, the Southern ending in en was replaced by the Midland ending in es^ when Layamon's work came to be written out afresh after 1250. East Midland Avorks became popular in the South, as may be seen by the transcript of the Havelok and the Harrowing of Hell. In the Horn, a Southern work, we find the Present Plural en of the Midland verb replacing the older Plural in etli. In the Alexander (perhaps a Warwickshire work) the Midland I, slie, they, and leon encroach upon the true Southern ich, Jieo, Id, and heoth. Even in Kent we find mark'^ of change : in the sermons of 1290 the contracted forms lord and made are seen instead of loiterd and malced. Already mid (cum) was making way for the l^^vthern with. This was the state of things when the Handlyng Synne was given to England soon after 1308 ; it was believed, though wrongly, to be the translation of a work of Bishop Ro- bert's, and it seems to have become the great pattern ; from it many a friar and parson all over England must have borrowed the weapons wherewith the Seven Deadly Sins (these play a great part in English song) might be assailed. Another work of Robert Manning's is entitled Medytacyuns of the Soper of our Lorde, a translation from Buenaventura, the well-known oracle of Franciscans abroad. 1 The popularity of these works of the Lincoln- * Why has not this work been printed long ago ? The New English. 257 shire bard must have spread the inflnence of the East Midland further and farther. We know not when it made a thorough conquest of Oxford, the great strong- hold of the Franciscans ; but its triumph over the London speech was most slow, and was not wholly achieved until a hundred and sixty years after Manning's first work was begun. That poet, as may be seen by the Table at the end of the foregoing chapter, heralded the changes in English, alike by his large proportion of French words and by his small proportion of those Teutonic words that were sooner or later to drop. The following examples will show how the best En- glish of our day follows the East Midland, and eschews the Southern speech that prevailed in London about the year 1300. A is what Manning would have written ; B is what was spoken at London in Manning's time. A. But she and thai are fyled with synnes, and so I have sayd to that lady eche day ; answer, men, is hyt nat so ? B. Ac heo and hi beoth ifuled mid sunnen, and so ichabbe iseid to thilke levedy uche day ; answereth, men, nis it nought so? The last sentence is compiled mainly from the works of Davie, of whom I gave a specimen at page 209. It is interesting to see what the tongue of London was thirty years before her first great poet came into the world. It may seem strange that England's new Standard speech should have sprung up, not in Edward the First's Court, but in cloisters on the ISTen and the Welland. We must bear in mind that the Enghsh Muse, as in the tale S 258 TJie Sources of Standard English, of the ^Norfolk bondman, always leaned towards tlie common folk ; it was tlie French Muse that was the aristocratic lady.^ As to Edward, he was in the main a truly national King, and what we owe to him is known far and wide ; but one thing was wanting to his glory — he never made English the language of his Court, sore worried though he was by Parisian wiles. Our tongue had to plod on for about forty years after his death, before it could win Royal favour. The nobles still clave to the French : the struggle for mastery between the Romance and the Teutonic lasted for about a hundred and twenty years in all. In 1258 a proclamation in English was put forth, the first Royal acknowledgment of the speech of the lowly ; about 1380 the BMck Prince, lately dead, was mourned in French poems compiled by Englishmen ; and these elegies seem to be almost the last effort of the tongue which had been the fashion at Court for three centuries, and in which Langtoft had sung the deeds of Edward the First. Robert of Gloucester could say in 1300 that England was the only country that held not to her own speech, her ' high men ' being foreigners.^ This reproach was taken away fifty years later. By that time it was becoming clearer and clearer that a New Standard of English had arisen, of which Robert Manning was the patriarch ; much as Cadmon had been the great light of the Northern Anglian that had fallen * The poet of 1220 {Old English Miscellany, p. 77) goes over all the classes of society, and pronounces that the honde (colonns) has the best chance of escaping the grip of ' Satanas the olde.' 2 Eobert might have found the same phsenomenon in parts of Hungary. I have quoted his words at page 206. The Nezv English. 259 before tlie Danes, and as Alfred had been tbe great light of the Western Saxon that had fallen before the Frenchmen. Throughout the Fourteenth Century the speech of the shires near Rutland was spreading in all directions ; it at length took possession of Oxford and London, and more or less influenced such men as Wick- liffe and Chaucer. Gower, when a youth, had written in Latin and French ; when old, he wrote in English little difiering from that of Manning. This dialect more- over made its way into the !N'orth : let any one compare the York Mysteries of 1350 with the version of them made forty years later, and he will see the influence of the Midland tongue.^ The Western shires bordering on North Wales had long employed a medley of Southern and Northern forms ; these were now settling down into something very like Manning's speech, as may be seen in the romance of William and the Werwolf. ^ Kent, Gloucestershire, and Lancashire were not so ready to welcome the dialect compounded in or near Rutland ; their resistance seems to have lasted throughout the Fourteenth Century ; and Langland, who wrote Piers Ploughman's Vision after the year 1362, holds to the speech of his own Western shire. He was the greatest genius that had as yet employed English, though he was soon to be outdone, perhaps in his own lifetime. Chaucer has given us a most spirited sketch of the ^ G-arnetfs Essays, p. 192 ; swylke, alane, and sail are changed into suche, allone, and shalle; and other words in the same way. p is here corrupted into y ; yat stands for \>at. Many still write y^ for tlie. 2 See Page 205. s2 26o The Sources of Standard English. Yorkshire speech as it was in his day.^ The Northern English had become the Court language at Edinburgh. The Southern dialect, the most unlucky of all our va- rieties, gave way before her Mercian sister : Dane con- quered Saxon. After Trevisa wrote in 1387, no purely Southern English work, of any length, was produced for almost five hundred years.^ Shakespere, in his Lear, tries his hand upon the Somersetshire tongue ; and it also figures in one of the best of the Reformation bal- lads to be found in Bishop Percy's collection. But Mr. Barnes in our own day was the first to teach England how much pith and sweetness still lingered in the long- neglected homely tongue of Dorset ; it seems more akin to Middle Enghsh than to New English.^ A few improvements, not as yet brought from the North, were still wanting ; but now at last our land had a Standard tongue of her own, welcome alike in the Palace and in the cottage. King Edward the Third, not long after Cressy, lent his countenance to the mother-tongue of his trusty billmen and bowmen. He in 1849 had his shield and surcoat embroidered with his own motto, on this wise : ^ Hay, Lay, the wythe swan, By Godes soule, I am thy man.' * The Southerner, on entering Leeds, still reads the old Northern names of Kirkgate and Briggate on two great thoroughfares. May the Leeds magistrates have more wit than those of Edinburgh, whom Scott upbraids for affectation in substituting the modern Sqiiare for the ancient Close I 2 Audlay, the blind Salopian of 1420, has a mixture of Southern and Midland forms. 3 We there see the true old Wessex sound of ea. Tlie New English. 261 His doublet bore another Englisli device : * it is as it is/^ Trevisa says that before the great Plague of 1349 high and low alike were bent on learning Frencb. ; it was a common custom : * but sitb it is somedele cbaunged.' In 1362 English was made the language of the Law- courts ; and this English was neither that of Hampole to the North of the Humber, nor that of Herebert to the South of the Thames. Our old freedom and our old speech had been alike laid in the dust by the great blow of 1066 : the former had arisen once more in 1215 and had been thriving amain ever since ; the latter was now at last enjoying her own again. After this glance at Kingly patronage, something almost unknown hitherto, we must now throw a glance backward, and mark the changes since the Handlyng Synne had been given to the world. Many writers, both in prose and in rime, had been at work in the first half of the Fourteenth Century : of their pieces I have ah'oady given some specimens. Forme-fader, ganed, Jiijrwe, ilic, iseowed, ileaned, laiverce, of]mrst, seli, ismepet, s^innere, tcejjpet, pridde were now turned into forefader, ydned (yawned), liareiv,'^ alicJie, isewed (the participle of the Latin 5^tere),^Ze?^<:Z,^ larhe, atlmrst,siU,ism6])ed (smoothed), sjpiyre (spider), tippet, pirde. There are new words and forms such as awkward, hacward, tall, tmtil, ded as a dore- nail, a hkvey (bye- way). The most startling are turn up Siva doune (upside down) in Hampole, and slie-heast much * "VVarton gives the Wardrobe Account, in Latin, with Edward's directions for his devices. — History of English Foetry^ II. 32. (Edition of 1840.) - It must have been confounded with the Norse harfr, ^ Chaucer turned this into ilent, our lent. 262 The Sources of Standard English about the same time.^ Layamon's no (nee) becomes war, in the Salopian poem quoted at page 205 ; tliis is sbortened from nofher, Heule, having long been a sub- stantive, now becomes a verb, and we see ine mene time. The form graciouser, in the Ayenbite, is one of the last attempts to force the English sign of comparison on a French adjective ending in ous. The old dysig (stultus) gets our modern sense of dizzy ; and Langland's Mil (occidere) replaces the old cwell, which now has only the meaning of o^primere, A curious poem, the Debate of the Carpenter's Tools (Hazlitt's Collection, I. 88), is the compilation that best represents Manning's style ; it seems to have been written about 1340, and must belong to the Rutland neighbour- hood : it certainly has a dash of the Northern speech. I give a few lines as alink between Manning andMandeville. Bot lythe to me a lylelle space, I schall ^ow telle all the case, How that they wyrke fore ther gode, I wylle not lye, be the rode. When thei have wroglit an oure ore two, Anone to the ale thei wylle go, And drinke ther, whyle thei may dre : Thou to me, and / to the. And seys the ax schall pay fore this, Therefore the cope ons I wylle kys 5 And when thei comme to werke ageyne, The belte to hys mayster wylle seyne : ' Mayster, wyrke no oute off resone. The dey is vary longe of seson.^ * It is found under the form of ho-heste%, in the Lancashire poem quoted at page 204. 2 In this last line, we have the first use of our foreign very (valde), The New English, 263 We now hail tlie first writer of !N'ew English prose. I give in my Appendix a specimen of Sir John Mande- ville : it is strange to think that lie is separated by only a score of years or so from the compiler of the Ayenbite of Inwit.^ The travelled knight was born at St. Albans, and went abroad in 1322. We may look upon his En- glish as the speech spoken at Court in the latter days of King Edward III. ; high and low alike now prided themselves upon being Englishmen, and held in scorn all men of outlandish birth. The earlier and brighter days of King Harold seemed to have come back again ; Hastings had been avenged at Cressy, and our islanders found none to match them in fight, whether the field might lie in France, in Spain, or in Italy. King Edward was happy in his knights, and happy also in the men whom he could employ in civil business, men like Wick- liflfe and Chaucer. Mandeville's language is far more influenced by the Midland forms than that of Davie had been fifty years earlier ; in the new writer we find sc/te, J, tliei^ theirs, have, are, and hen, forms strange to the Thames, at least in 1300 ; the Southern ending of the Third Person Plural of the Present tense is almost wholly dropped, being replaced by the Midland ending in en ; even this is sometimes clipped, as also is the en of the Infinitive, and the Prefix of the Past Participle. A hundred years would have to pass before these hoary old which appears next in Yorkshire letters of 1450 ; it was a long time making its way to London, though Chaucer uses it as an adjectiye. In the above poem we meet the expression ' reule the roste.' * I have given a specimen of this at page 208. 264 ^he Sources of Standard English, relics could be wholly swept away from Standard English. The corruption first seen in 1220, whereby Tnost dreadful replaced the old Superlative, is sown broadcast over Man- deville's works. He has the new form, liousliold. The Northern same (idem), so sparingly employed of yore even in. the North, is now found instead of illc, ash instead of axe^ ren (currere) instead of urn^ chough instead of c/ioj, mordrere instead of mur^erere. Ay ens now takes a ^ at the end, in the true EngHsh style, and becomes ayeiist (contra). The old forms dwerghes, ferrom, thilhe, overthwart, are still kept. There are barely more than fifty obsolete English words in the whole of Man- deville's book, though it extends over 316 printed pages. It was wonderfully popular in England, as is witnessed by the number of copies that remain, tran- scribed within a few years of the worthy knight's death. ^ Few laymen had written in English, so far as can be known, since King Alfred's time. We now find a University lending its sanction to the speech of the common folk. In 1384, WilHam of Nassington laid a translation into English rimes before the learned men of Cambridge. The Chancellor and the whole of the University spent four days over the work ; on the fifth day they pronounced it to be free from heresy and to be grounded on the best authority. Had any errors been found in it, the book would have been burnt at once.^ For the last thirty years there had been a great stirring up of the English mind; * See Halli-well's edition of it, published in 1866. 2 Thornton Bomatices (Camden Society), p. xx. Tlie New English. 265 many works on religion had been put forth both in the North and the West.^ Having spoken of Cambridge, I next turn to Oxford, Tvhich had been lately roused by the preaching of Wick- liffe ; she was now glowing with a fiery heat unknown to her since the days of the earlier Franciscans. The ques- tions at this time in debate had the healthiest effect upon the English tongue, though they might jar upon Roman interests. Wickliffe, during his long residence in the South, seems to have unlearned the old dialect he must have spoken when a bairn on the banks of the Tees. His first childish lessons in Scripture were most likely drawn from the legends of the Cursor Mundi.^ He was now bestowing a far greater blessing upon his countrymen, and was stamping his impress upon England's religious dialect, framed long before in the Ancren Riwle and the Handlyng Synne. In reading Wickliffe's version of the Bible, of which so many scores of manuscripts have been happily snatched from Roman fires, we are struck by various peculiarities of speech in which he differs from Mandeville and Chaucer. In these we have followed him. The greatest is the Dano-Anglian custom of clipping the prefix to the Past Participle, £Lsfotmden instead of yfoun- den. He sometimes, although most seldom, clips the ending of the Plural of the Imperative, as in Herod's request to the wise men : ^ Whan yee han founden, telle ayein to me.' ^ The Editors of Wickliffe' s Bible give specimens of many of these treatises. 2 This most popular work (about 1290) exists both in Northern and other forms of English. 266 The Soicjxes of Standard English. If he has now and then the Northern tlieire (illorum), he employs tliilke (iste), and has both ilh and same ; whicJie, ecJie, suclie, and my die, all occur in his writings. He still uses the old simi man for quidam, but this was soon to drop, and to be replaced by a certain man. He has one peculiarity that may. be still found in Yorkshire ; the Old English hutan (nisi) is not enough for him, but he turns it into 710 hut. In Mark xvi. 5, he has a '^ong oon, instead of the old Accusative dnne geongne; the oon (one) seems to stand for luiglit ; the phrase is common enough with us. He corrupts Orrmin's ])u wass into tlioio wast (Mark xiv. Q^I) ; the old form was kept by Eoy 150 years later. He also corrupts a Strong Perfect now and then, as, ' tliou hetoJdst ' (Mat. xxv. 20) . He speaks of ' thi almes,^ not ' tJiine alms ' (Mat. vi. 4). We see our well- known yea, yea; nay, nay (the Gothic ya and ne), Wickliffe has both the old windewe and the new winewe, our winnow. He has sliiphreche, which had not yet become sliipwrecJc, a strange corruption. We find also dehrelce (Mark i. 26), one of the first instances of a French preposition being prefixed to an English root ; reneiv and disliJce were to come long afterwards. A rem- nant of the older speech lingers in his 7iyle ye drede (fear not) ; we still say willy, nilly. Hys efen-]>eoivas was in 1380 turned into Ms even servauntis ; but this most useful prefix, answering to the Latin con, was soon to drop. To express forsitan, he uses by liap and 7ia;p;pily (our ha^ly). The Old 'English reafiong is with him ra- veyn (our ravening). The great English Reformer clave far too closely to the idioms of the Latin Yulgate, whence he was trans- The New English. 267 lating ; lie therefore produced English by no means equal to that of the year 1000. Thns he will not say, that * it thundered/ as the English writer of the Tenth Cen- tury wrote ; but puts, ' the cumpany seide thundir to be maad.' One of his most un-Teutonic idioms is, 'he seith, I a vois of the crying in desert.' Again, Wickliffe writes, ' Jhesu convertid, and seynge hem suwynge him.' Tyndale handles this far better : ' Jesus turned about, and sawe them folowe.' We now liappily keep sue to the law courts ; and we may also rejoice that the earlier Reformer's diction was improved upon in other respects a hundred and fifty years later ; we have thus been saved from such phrases as, ' I am sent to evangelise to thee thes thingis;'^ 'to ^^yve the science of helthe to his peple ; ' ' if I schal be enhaunsid (lifted up) fro the erthe ; ' ' it jperteynede to him of nedy men ; ' ' Jhesus envyraunyde (went about) al Galilee ; ' ' Fadir, clarifie thi name ; ' 'he hath endurid (hardened) the herte ; ' ' my volatilis (fatlings) ben slayn ; ' 'he that hath a sjpousesse (bride).' On the other hand, we have pre- ferred Wickliffe to Tyndale in sundry passages. Wickliffe. Tyi^dale. Sone of perdicioun. That lost chylde. It is good us to be here. Here is good beinge for us. Entre thou in to the joye of Go in into thy master's joy e. thi lord. I shiilde have resceyved with Shulde I have receaved with usuris. vauntage. Thou saverist nat tho thingis, Thou perceavest nott godly ' «S:c. thynges. * This first brought in the Greek ending ize, of which we have become so fond. What a mongrel word is ^roctorize/ 268 The Sources of Standard English. Purvey, after referring to Bede and Alfred as trans- lators of the Bible ' into Saxon, that was English, either comonn langage of this lond,' writes thus : ' Frenshe men, Beemers, and Britons han the bible, and othere bokis of devocioun and of exposicioun, translatid in here modir langage ; whi shulden not English men have the same in here modir langage, I can not wite, no but for falsenesse and necgligence of clerkis, either for oure puple is not worthi to have so greet grace and jifte of God, in peyne of here olde synnes. God for his merci amende thefee evele causis, and make our puple to have and kunne and kepe truli holi writ, to liif and deth ! ' ^ Purvey and his friends stand out prominently among the writers, who settled England's religious dialect; few of the words used in the Wickliffite version have become obsolete within the last ^yq hundred years. The holy torch was to be handed on to a still greater scholar in 1525 ; for all that, Wickliffe is remarkable as the one Englishman who in the last eleven hundred years has been able to mould Christian thought on the Continent; Cranmer and Wesley have had small in- fluence but on English-speaking men. Wickliffe had much help from Purvey and Hereford. The latter of these, who translated much of the Old Testament, strove hard to uphold the Southern dialect, and among other things wroto daunster, syngster^ after the Old English way. But the other two translators leant to the JSTew Standard, the East Midland, which was making steady inroads on the Southern speech. They write dauTiseresse, dweller esse ^ &c., following Robert ^ WicJcUffite Versions (Forshall and Madden), p. 59. The New English, 269 of Brunne, wlio first led the way to French endings fastened to English roots. They also write ing for the Active Participle, where Hereford w^rites the old ende ; they do not follow him in employing the Southern Imperative Plural. In the Apology for the Lollards (Camden Society) there is a strong dash of the North- ern dialect. If Wickliffe were the writer, he must have here gone back to the speecli of his childhood far more than ip. his Scriptural translations. In this Apo- logy there are 94 obsolete English words. The last half of the Fourteenth Century employed many of the phrases that live for ever in the English Bible and Prayer Book. We find such expressions as albeit, surely, passing rich, during, on tJm condition that, considering this, as to this, with one accord, to that ende that, touching these things, enter in, under colour of, that is interpreted, if so he that, oft time, according as, in regard of, upon a time, ensaumple, rehuhe, she-wolf outrely (utterly), go a legging, wJiereas, because. The Lord's Prayer took its shape much as we have it now, Wickliffe employing in its latter part the French words dettours, temptacioun, delyvere, I pass on to the Belief, that other stronghold of wholesome English ; and I give a few other forms of this age, now embodied in our Prayer Book. I take the following from a Primer of the year 1400.^ We see that the speech of Eeligion was being moulded into the shape which has come down to us in the Anglican Prayer Book ; little remained to 1 Blunfs Key to the Prayer BooJc, Edition of 1868, page 4. The first piece seems to be East Anglian. 2/0 Tlie Sources of Standard English. ■ he done in the way of change. The Creed maybe compared with the one of 1250, printed in page 145 of my work : * I bileve in god, fadir almygti, makere of hevene and of erthe : and in iesu crist the sone of him, oure lord, oon alone : which is conceyyed of the hooli gost ; born of marie maiden : snffride passioun nndir pounce pilat : crucified, deed, and biried : he went doun to hellis : the thridde day he roos agen fro deede : he steig to hevenes : he sittith on the right syde of god the fadir almygti : thenns he is to come for to deme the quyke and deede. I beleve in the hooH goost : feith of hooli chirche : communynge of seyntis : forgy veness of synnes : agenrisyng of fleish, and everlastynge lyf. So be it.' Preie we. For the pees. * God of whom ben hooli desiris, rigt councels and iust werkis : gyve to thi servantis pees that the world may not geve, that in our hertis govun to thi com- mandementis, and the drede of enemys putt awei, oure tymes be pesible thurgh thi defendyng. Bi oure lord iesu crist, thi sone, that with thee lyveth and regneth in the unitie of the hooli goost god, bi all worldis of worldis. So be it.' ' God, that taughtist the hertis of thi feithful ser- vantis bi the lightnynge of the hooli goost : graunte us to savore rightful thingis in the same goost, and to be ioiful evermore of his counfort. Bi crist our lorde. So be it.' ' Almyghti god, everlastynge, that aloone doost many wondres, schewe the spirit of heelful grace upon bisschopes thi servantis, and upon alle the congregacion The New English. 27 1 betake to liem : and gheete in the dewe of tlii blessynge that thei plese evermore to the in tronthe. Bi crist cure lord. So be it.' Holy Matrimony. (From a Manual of 1408.) ' Lo breyren and sustren her we beon comyn to gedre in ye worsschip of god and his holy seintes in ye face of holy chirche to joynen to gedre yuse tweyne bodies yat heynforward yei be on body in ye beleve and in ye lawe of god for te deserven everlastynge lyf wat so yei han don here byfore. Wherfore i charge you on holy chirche byhalf all yat here bes yat gif eni mon or womman knowen eny obstacle prevei or apert why yat yey lawefully mowe nogt come to gedre in ye sacra- ment of holy churche sey ye now or never more.'^ (From another Manual, rather older, of the Fourteenth Century.) ' Also I charge you both, and eyther be your selfe, as ye wyll answer before God at the day of dome, that yf there be any thynge done pryvely or openly, betwene your selfe : or that ye knowe any lawfull lett3rng why that ye may not be wedded togyther at thys time : say it no we, or we do any more to this mater.' '^. — Wylt thou have this man to thy husbande, and to be buxum to him, serve him and kepe him in * Here we see the Southern sustren, the Midland heon, and the Northern hes. 2^2 The Sources of Standard English, sykenes and in heltlie : And in, all other degrese be unto hym as a wjfe should be to Hir busbande, and all other to forsake for hym : and holde thee only to hym to thy lyves end ? Bespondeat mulier Jioc moclo : I wyll. ' I JSf. take the N. to my weddyd husbonde to have and to holde fro thys day for bether, for wurs, for richer, for porer, in sykenesse and in helthe, to be honour and buxum in bed and at bort : tyll deth us departe yf holy chyrche wol it ordeyne : and ther to I plycht the my trouth. ' With this rynge I wedde the, and with this gold and silver I honoure the, and with this gyft I honoure the. In nomine Patris : et Filii : et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.' The middle of the Fourteenth Century was the time when English, as it were, made a fresh start, and was prized by high and low alike. I take what follows from an old Lollard work, put forth about 1450 and printed eighty years later, when the term Lollard was being swallowed up by the term Luilieran : ' Sir William Thorisby archebishop of Yorke ^ did do draw a treatyse in englishe by a worshipfull clercke whose name was Gatryke, in the which e were conteyned the articles of beleve, the seven dedly synnes, the seven workes of mercy, the X commaundmentes. And sent them in small pagines to the commyn people to learne it and to knowe it, of which yet many a copye be in england. . . . Also it is knowen to many men in ye tyme of King Richerd ye II. yat into a parlement was put a bible ^ This Prelate, in 1361, began the choir of York Minster. The New English, 27^3 {bilV) bj tlie assent of II archbisshops and of the clergy to adnuUe tbe bible tbat tyme translated into Englisbe with other Englishe bookes of the exposicion off the gospells ; whiche when it was harde and seyn of lordes and of the comones, the duke of Lancaster Jhon an- swered thereto ryght sharpely, sayenge this sentence: We will not be refuse of all other nacions ; for sythen they have Goddes law whiche is the lawe of cure belefe in there owne langage, we will have oures in EngHshe whosoever say naye. And this he affermyd with a great othe. Also Thomas Arundell Archebishoppe of Canter- bury sayde in a sermon at Westmester at the buryenge of Queue Anne, that it was more joye of here than of any woman that ever he knewe. For she an alien borne hadde in englishe all the IIII gospels with the doctours upon them. And he said that she had sent them to him to examen and he saide that they were good and trewe.' ^ Here we see that English had kept its ground in the Palace ; an intrusion which would have seemed strange, I suspect, to Edward the Second, the grandfather of stout Duke John. ISTot long after the Duke's death, an inscription in English was graven upon the brass set up in Higham Ferrars church to the memory of Archbishop Chicheley's brother. We have seen what was the language of the Church in the days of Richard II. ; we now turn to the speech of the Court. England had the honour of giving birth to one of the two great poets of the Middle Ages, of the ^ Arber's Eeprint of Hede me and he nott wrothe, page 176. In page 157 will be found a Pifteenth Century pun: the endowing of the clergy should be called ' all amiss,' rather than ' almes.' T '2/4 ^-^^ Sources of Standard English. two briglit stars that enlighten the darksome gap of fourteen hundred years between Juvenal and Ariosto. Dante had been at work upon the loftiest part of his Divina Commedia at the precise time that Manning was compiling his Handlyng Synne, the first thoroughly- formed pattern of the New English ; the great Italian was now to be followed by a JSTorthern admirer, of a somewhat lower order of genius indeed, but still a bard who ranks very high among poets of the second class. Chaucer was born at London, a city that boasts a more tuneful brood than any single spot in the world ; for this early bard was to have for his fellow-townsmen Spenser, Milton, Pope, and Byron. Never has English life been painted in more glowing hues than by Chaucer ; his lines will be more long-lived than the frescoes of Orcagna, which are dropping off the Pisan cloister ; though poet and painter belong to the same date. Chaucer has many new forms ; such as gossih (as well as godsih), Jiarwed instead of the old heregede, arowe (sagitta) instead of arwe. He led the fashion of doubling the vowel o, for he has both the old stol and the new stool. He turns the old toh into to2ig7i, ahem into acorn. Indeed there are whole sentences in his writings, espe- cially in the Parson's prose sermon, that need but the change of a few letters to be good modern English, spelling and all. He follows Manning's way of writing syn, or rather sm, for quoniam. In one of the earliest sentences of the Parson's attack on Pride, we find the words, * those bountees .... that he hath not ; ' but this corruption as yet comes very seldom. We see many new phrases like, what ails Mm ? now The New English. 275 a daijes^ heliJce, as Jieljpe me God, ten of fe cloTcke, no malice at all, hi and hi ; and Chaucer uses the phrases, to hring about, to drive a hargain, platly ayenst him. Bondman in the Parson's sermon is taken in the Gloucester sense, not in that of Rutland ; and this bad sense it has kept ever since. We see caterwaw and newe f angel ; also award, which seems to come from the Icelandic agvarda (allot). ^ JBacZcZer stands for j5e/or. As to the many French words employed by Chaucer, he often yokes them with their English brethren, using them in the same breath ; thus he talks of seuretee or sikernesse, rohhe and reve.^ He has also scarcely and menes (instrumenta). In the Squieres Tale, about line 180, we see the first instance of a well-known vulgarism : ' There may no man it drive : And cause tvhy, for they con not the craft.' Our lower orders have refused to part with Chaucer's marMs, though our upper class can only talk of a mar^ quis or mar guess. That nobleman's lady is called by Chaucer a marMsesse. The adjective able had been used in England before he was born. He has sextein (sexton) and raffle, and talks of a fair of tonges. He sometimes leans to the Latin rather than the French, writing egu^l as well as egality, perfection as well as jpairfit. Chaucer's speech is much the same as Mandeville's, and very unlike it is to what must have been the Lon- don dialect a hundred years before their time. Gower ^ Garnetfs Essays, p. 32. 2 I remember in Somerset a yoke of oxen called Good Lv^ck and Fortune. t2 276 The Sources of Standard English, resembles his brother bard, except that he clips the prefix to the Passive Participle, and tries to keep alive the Active Participle in and ; Chaucer unluckily stuck to the corrupt ending in ing, first seen in Layamon. Ljd- gate and Occleve followed in the steps of the great Londoner; their loving reverence for him atones for much dulness in their song. Even King James I. of Scotland sometimes dropped his Northern speech, and clave to Chaucer as a pattern; though the aforesaid speech was the Court language to the North of the Tweed, and so remained down to the days of the later Stuarts. Toward the end of the Fourteenth Century, a son of Edward III. made what we may call his dying confession in English ; and early in the next age our tongue was employed instead of French by Princes, by Cardinals, and by the future hero of Agincourt. Ellis' Letters on English History show us best how the language was being by degrees pared down ; its most obsolete form is to be found in the despatches of the Royal officers who were fighting against Glendower. It is curious to mark the diBTer- ence of the speech of Northern knights, such as Assheton and Waterton, from that of a Somersetshire man like Luttrell. The State papers, drawn up by the men of the Irish Pale, prove that Dublin was now taking London for her pattern in these Agincourt days ; Friar Michael of Kildare's sjpeech was a thing of the past. If we wish to know what weis the best, or rather the most fashionable, English spoken in 1432, we must glance at a petition given in by Beauchamp Earl of Warwick The New English. 277 to the good Duke Humphrey and many of our BisHops.* The Earl, having the charge of the boy King Henry VI., craved full powers as to whipping the future founder of Eton College ; the child's growing years were causing him 'more and more to grucche with chastising, and to lothe it.' The petition shows us that the endings of verbs had been much clipped, that the Southern fhiTke had, in some measure, made way for tliat (ille), that Wickliffe's siiche (talis) had come to be preferred to Chaucer's swiche^ and that the Northern their and tlieiTn were encroaching on the Southern her and hem. It was still thought the right thing to say, like Manning, yeve and ayeins, though Caxton was afterwards to bring us back to the true old spelling. The phrase ' speech at part ' shows us whence comes our * apart,^ and ' owe ' (debent) makes us aware that ;some resistance was made to our corrupt ' ought.* The Plural Adjectives in the phrase, ' causes necessaries and resonables,' are a token of lingering French influence, which acted upon Warwick, an old soldier of the great French war. One half of the nouns, verbs, and adverbs in this State paper are of French birth ; indeed, there could not well be a greater proportion of B/omance terms in a Queen's speech compiled by the Gladstone cabinet. The unhappy Suffolk, one of the Council to whom the petition is addressed, was himself the writer of a noble letter of advice ; this, being drawn up not long before his death for his son's behoof, is far more Teutonic than Warwick's petition. ^ Still homelier are the letters * Gairdner's edition of the Paston Letters (in 1872), page 31. 2 Do., page 121. 278 The Sources of Standard English, coming from Norfolk manor-houses ; here we find the East Anglian am (snnt) and the qu replacing liw^ as qiihat for liwat, gwan for Inoen, much as in the Genesis and Exodus of the same shires, compiled two hundred years before. Manning's way of writing Jio for who is repeated. A paper of the date 1419 shows that almost all inflections had been pared away.^ Soon afterwards we find the French z employed for the old English s at the end of words. In a letter of 1440 we see Mande- ville's corruption of ayenst repeated.'^ We also find the new phrases tJiat 7)ieene tyme and he the meene of, in 1424 ; the last phrase was one generation later to become he menys of.^ Many a corruption, now used by us, had its rise in shires far to the North of London ; in the great city, writers who aimed at dignity of style preserved the old inflections that were on the wane elsewhere. Shillingford, Mayor of Exeter, shows us the lingering remnant of Southern speech in a letter of his ' y-written yn Alle Sawlyn day."* He reports from London, whither he had gone on a lawsuit, the * Alagge ! alagge ! ' (alack) uttered by Archbishop Kemp the Chancellor in 1447, one of the first instances of that exclamation, which may come from the old eala of our fathers. We are rather amazed to find that the Northern tham (illos) had already taken root in Devonshire by the side of the old ham and huth (sunt).'* Capgrave and Lydgate, both East Anglians, were reckoned two of the great lights of the first half of this ' Gairdner's edition of the Paston Letters (in 1872), page 7. 2 Do., p. 40. 8 Do., pp. 15, 17, 493. * Shillingford' 6 Letters (Camden Society), pp. 17, 18. The New English. 279 Century. A far greater master of English was Bishop Pecock, the best of our prose writers in this age, a man who was in theology a compound of Bellarmine and Hooker, and who therefore drew down upon himself the wrath of the Anglican Church.^ Pecock is the last good writer in whom we see the old Southern form iliilk for isiQ. By 1450 the speech of the Mercian Danelagh had all but made a thorough conquest of London ; the prefix to the Past Participle was nearly gone ; and the endings of Verbs were not to last many years. Chaucer's example, though he was held to be the best of all patterns of language, had been unable to preserve the few traces of Southern speech that lingered in his day. The old '^ede, (ivit) had made way for went ; Capgrave's eldfceder for graunt fadir. We find both schulde and schttde, the last showing the rise of our present pronunciation ofshoidd. The helpful for is no longer used to compound verbs, as to fordo. We see both esilier and esier, the old and the new form of the Comparative in the Adverb. England hence- forward became so slovenly as to express the Comparative of both the Adjective and the Adverb by one and the same word. The Bishop is most fond of tacking on a French ending to an English root, like the hondage of 1303 ; we find in his work se-ahle, Icnowe-ahle, Jiere-able, do-ahle, dout-ahle; also craftiose? The English un is preferred to the Latin in in uncongndtS, unmoveahle, and ^ PecocJc's Bepressor, whence I quote, was published by the !M aster of the Eolls. I give a long passage from it in my Appendix. 2 "When we want a new adjective, we almost always compound with this foreign able. Dr. Johnson spoke of an unclubhahle man ; we speak of a thing as uncomeatable, when it is inaccessible. 28o The Sources of Standard English. other words. As to terms wMcli were to be built into the English Bible fourscore years later, we find Jeitny, ensaum'plGy sutil, enquire^ according to ; these had been in use much earlier. The great change we owe to Pecock is a new phrase that took off a part of the heavy load thrown upon hut. The source of our unless is now seen. In the Kepressor (page 51), he speaks of the Lollards, 'whiche wolen not allowe eny govemaunce to be the lawe and service of God, Masse than it be grondid in Holi Scrip- ture.' It was hundreds of years before this word could be used freely ; in our New Testament it comes but once : ' unless ye have believed in vain.' Pecock uses his new phrase four times in his Repressor. Another word, common in our mouths, is seen for the first time in a Lancastrian ballad of 1458 : * acros the mast he hyethe travers.' This is not found once in our Bible. ^ At this time Enghsh prose rose high above English poetry; and herein the Fifteenth Century stands alone.^ That one short passage of Mallory's, pro- nouncing Sir Lancelot's elegy, outweighs many pages of later poets, such as Barclay, Skelton, and Hawes. Civil war is commonly thought to forebode evil to literature ; England for forty years after Duke Hum- phrey's death was harassed by risings of the Commons, or was divided between the Red and the White Roses, as many a bloody field bore witness. Yet this is the * Arch(Bologia, XXIX. 326. 2 England was, as a general rule, very different from France ; the prose of Moli^re and Voltaire is far above their poetry, and no rim- ing Frenchman has come near Bossuet or Pascal. The New English. 281 precise time when English prose was handled with wonderful skill. Theology, chivalry, law, and homely life found the best of representatives in Pecock, Mallory, Fortescue, and Caxton. This was the time when our inflections were almost all driven out ; there is a great difference between the Bishop's writings and those of the Printer thirty years later. At this latter date, few inflections remained. Pity it was that the printing press did not come to England a few years earlier ; we might then have kept the old Plural ending of the Verb in en} Ben Jonson long afterwards bemoaned this heavy loss. About the time that the Red Rose was withering, the Northern words iheir and tliem drove out the Southern lier and hem. King Henry VI. uses the former in a pro- clamation, put forth at York a fortnight before Towton field. There are other words, common in our mouths, which we owe to Yorkshire. Robert of Brunne had written syn instead of the old si^^an ; but in a Knares- borough petition of 1441, we find a formation from this syriy the new synnes or since ; this we have kept. We also see *my verray good maister' in a letter of 1462 : this very (valde) was not well established in Standard English until sixty years later, when it un- happily almost wholly drove out right? The ending of verbs are clipped in these Yorkshire letters, and ' If we must subdivide New English prose, the decisive periods seem to be 1470, when many inflections were dropped by Caxton ; 1650, when Cowley and Baxter began to write ; 1740, when Johnson was becoming known ; 1800, when Cobbett was making his mark. 2 Chaucer talks of * a verray parfit gentil knight,' but here the verray is an adjective. 282 The Sources of Standard English, corruption soon spread Southward. In a letter of 1464, the old IsTorthern Plural of the Present Tense in s is seen ; and Robert of Brunne's Jiolij (integre) is changed into whoUe, a wretched corruption which we are still doomed to write. ^ In the same letter, we see far (procul) replacing the old ferre, as it did in the Korthern Psalter. I give the Knaresborough wedding formula of 1450 : * Here I take the ... to my wedded wife to hold and to have, att bed and att bord, for farer or lather, for better for warse, in sicknesse and in hele, to dede us depart, and thereto I plight the my trouth.'^ Salop, like Yorkshire, has had some influence upon Standard English. In 1426, an old blind monk, known as ' Syr Ion Audlay,' was compiling his poems, striking at Lollards and worthless priests alike. ^ Ho lived on the border land between the l!Torthern and tbe Southern varieties of English speech, as we could tell from a few lines in page 65 : And vii aves to our lady, Fore sche is the wel of al pet^, That heo wyl fore me pray. The Salopian shows us that the old lewd (indoctus) was getting its bad modern meaning, when at page 3 he brands the wicked lives of the clergy of his time. He ^ I have ventured on writing rime instead of rhyme-, but I must leave to bolder men to write hole instead of whole^ coud instead of could. 2 Flumpton Letters (Camden Society), LIV., LXXVII. 1, 11, 233. ^ Percy Society, No. 47. The Sir, applied to a priest, lasted two hundred years, down to Sir Hugh Evans. The New English, 283 pronounced one (unus) mucli as we do : in page 35 we read : *^thai serven won Lord.' This won was to be brought into the Enghsh Bible, a hundred years later, by another Western man. What Chaucer called a jpersone, Audlay calls a parsnn ; he also tries to Latinize the old siker (securus), writing it seciir. We must glance at Audlay's shire thirty years after he wrote ; in this interval, the Southern speech seems to have been losing ground. There is hardly a spot, throughout England, so closely linked both to our his- tory and to our literature, as that Salopian stronghold, Ludlow Castle. Here it was that Richard Duke of York (he held also Sandal in Yorkshire) brought up his children ; from hence in 1454 was written the joint letter of the future King Edward TV. and of the boy Rutland, who was soon to fall at Wakefield.^ This letter is most unlike in its forms (geve replaces "^eve) to the language Bishop Pecock would have used at Paul's Cross before his London hearers ; it shows us the clipped English that must have been learnt in childhood by Eling Edward and his sister, the future wife of Charles the Bold. When the Sun of York was making glorious summer in England, more Northern forms came in ; the conqueror's diction may be studied in some of the Paston Letters.^ Now it was, if ever, that Kings brought * All inflections are here clipped, much as they are in 1873. The letter is in Grairdner's Paston Letters, I. cxi. 2 Do., I. 298, (here the word adoo (negotium) conies ; 325, Ixxvii. The rightful g is here beginning to replace the usurping ?/. 284 The Sources of Standard English, influence to bear upon England's tongue.^ After 1460, the clipped inflections of Ludlow and Sandal must have become familiar in the ears of the ladies and knights that begirt Edward lY. and the Kingmaker at the Court of London. But it was abroad, more than at home, that change was at work. Caxton, a Kentish man, whose grandfather must have been born about the time that the Ayenbite of Inwit was compiled, lived Ipng in London ; and then about 1440 betook himself to the Low Coun- tries, where he printed the first English book in 1471. We might have expected, from his birth and breeding, that he would have held fast to the old Southern forms and inflections, at least as much as Bishop Pecock did. But Caxton had come under another influence. In 1468 he had begun translating into English the Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye ; and in the same year King Edward's sister was given to Charles the Bold. The new Duchess took an interest in the work of her coun- tryman, who had sickened of his task after writing five or six quires. In 1470, ' she commanded me,' says Caxton, * to shew the said ^yq or six quires to her said grace. And when she had seen them, anon she found defaute in mine English, which she commanded me to amend.' She bade him (he had a yearly fee from her) go on with his book ; and this work, the first ever printed in our tongue, came out in 1471. It was ' not * Mr. Earle tells us (PMo/09'y of the English Tongue, p. 97) that * a French family settled in England and edited the English lan- guage ;' he means the Plantagenets. I suspect that the Queen's English owes more to a Lincolnshire monk, on whom I have bestowed some pains, than to all our Kings put together who have reigned since the year 901. The New E7iglish, 285 written with pen and ink, as other books are, to the end that every man may have them at once.' Wherein did the Duchess and the Printer differ in their views of English ? In this, that the one came of a Northern house, while the other had been bom and bred in the South.^ Owing to the new influence, in Caxton's first work we see the loss of the old Southern inflections of the Verb ; and we find Orrmin's ilieirj them, and that (iste) well established, instead of the Southern her, hem, and thilk, beloved of Pecock. Plural Adjectives no longer end in s ; for we read ' strange hahitacions ' in the first page of the Recuyell. The word yle (insula) in the same page is spelt without the intruding s. Manning's way of writing y instead of i is often found ; but this we have happily refused to AdIIow. The old form that oon . . . that othir (in Latin, alter . . . alter) comes once more. In the Game of the Chess, published in 1474, we find ner for the Latin neque, an odd mixture of the Southern ne with the North Western corruption nor. The hard g is seen once more, as in agayn, driving out the usurper y. When we weigh the works of Caxton, who wrote under the eye of the Yorkist Princess, we should bear in mind the English written by her father in 1452.2 The Midland speech was now carrying all before it. The Acts of Parliament passed under the last Plantagenet King were printed by the old servant of the House of York. * See Knight's Life of Caxton. The Becuyell^ and some of Caxton's later works, are exposed to view in a case at the British Museum. 2 See York's long State Paper in Gairdner's Paston Letters^ Ixxvii. He used the Northern Genitive bother (amborum), a very late instance. — Archaologia, XXIX. 132, 286 The Sources of Standard English, Caxton's press was of great use in fixing our speech. The English spoken at London, brought thither from the Mercian Danelagh, was now estabhshed as the Standard ; Puttenham, in a well-known passage written a hundred years later, will have nothing to say to any speech but that of London and the neighbouring shires. Strange it is that Caxton, a Kentishman, should have been the writer who sealed the triumph of Midland English as our Standard for the future. One of his best works is Renard the Fox (Percy Society), which he translated from the Dutch ; traces of the sister tongue we see in words Hke moed, saache, lupaerd, unglieluck, which must be due to Dutch handicraftsmen. Caxton says, * I have folowed as nyghe as I can my copie, which was in dutche, and translated into this rude and symple Englyssh; ' the date of the work is 1481. There are here many old Teutonic words, now obsolete, which we could ill afford to lose, and which Tyndale unhappily did not employ in his great work, though they must have been household words in his childhood. Such are eme^ overal, lief, hleeve, wyte^ elenge, syhhe, to dere^ to bote, and others.^ Caxton's great claim upon us is, that in many words he gave us back the old g, which for the foregoing three hundred years had been softened into y in words like gate, get, again ; he even writes galp instead of yelp. It was now settled that we were to employ peyne and not pine. We find hrydge and Jiedche, the spelling showing how they * It is wonderful that the Norse thrive and the French flourish between them drove out the Old English theon ; for the expletive *so mote I the!' asted down to 1500, and is found in many a ballad. The Neiv English, 287 were pronounced in the late Plantagenet days; 'bury follows tlie Southern, gyliy the Northern form ; there are lierTce, hearlce, and harhene, all three ; there are both lawhe and laugh. When we see horugh, we think of a horotcgh of men, but it means only a hurrow of conies ; our spelling was not yet thoroughly settled. Theft is expressed by roving ; we have since given a new meaning to the word. The bear is called both Bruyn and Brownyng. We find the interjection ho, and also our common pronuncia- tion of me lorde. The z is employed to spell wezel, which had of old been wesel; pufis used where we sb,j jpooh. Caxton had many words and phrases which Tyndale was afterwards to make immortal ; such are, skrahhing, ravy7i, Jcyen, adoo, good luck, to you-ward, oftymes, in lyke vn/se, chyde with, hewraye, take hede, al he it that, if so be that, how be it. As to Romance words, we find rere- ward, concubyne, tarye, stuff, straytly, sauf that, secrete chamber, dwellyng place, according to, sjporte, abhor, mock, refrayne himself. There is also the portentous com- pound, disworshijpped. Still the home-born mis held its own against the outlandish dis ; two hundred years later Bunyan writes mistrust and not distrust. In 1482, Caxton brought out an old chronicle written by Trevisa a century earlier ; the great printer says, * I somewhat chaunged the rude and old Englyssh, that is to wete, certayn wordes which in these days be neither usyd ne understanden.' We thus see that the Verbs clejpe, fonge, won, welk, steihe, wilne, and behote had become obsolete ; buxom, nesche, lesue, and bede now sounded strange in London ears ; swipe had to be turned into right, and sjorankelep into sjperclyth. The letter 5 288 The Sources of Standard English (standing for y) is clean gone, and \ is hardly ever nsed for fh^ this f, which had been often employed in the Recuyell, is a sad loss.^ England was slowly forgetting her old words; and the bad habit would have been carried further, but for Caxton's press and for a great religious change that happened forty years after this time. Lord Berners' translation of Froissart may be looked on as a new landmark in our tongue. Those who filled up the gap between Caxton and the learned noble- man, men like Hawes, Skelton, and Barclay, have few worshippers now but antiquaries. The Englished Froissart, given to the world in 1523, heads a long roll of noble works, that have followed each other, it may be said, without a break for three hundred and fifty years. Since 1523, there is not an instance of twenty years passing over England, without the appearance of some book, which she has taken to her heart and will not willingly let die, No literature in the world has ever been blessed with so continuous a spell of glory. Two of her great men, whose works are inscribed on the aforesaid roll, would by most foreign critics be reckoned among the five foremost intellects of the world ; a large proportion forsooth to be claimed by one nation. One of the earliest English works that followed Lord Bemers' Froissart was the New Testament, published at Worms in 1525, by William Tyndale of Gloucestershire. * Higden's Volychronicon (Master of the Rolls), page 63. The her and hem^ rejected by Caxton, still kept their ground in 1482, as we see in the 'Revelation of the Monk of Eveshmn^ printed by De Machlinia ; it is one of Arber's reprints. The New English. 289 WicklifFe liacl made his translation from the Vulgate, and his work is sadly marred by Latin idioms most strange to English ears ; Tyndale, being a ripe Greek and Hebrew scholar, went right to the fountain-head.^ His ]^ew Testament has become the Standard of our tongue ; the first ten verses of the Fourth Gospel are a good sample of his manly Teutonic pith. It is amusing to think how differently one of our penny-a-liners would handle the passage ; he would deem that so lofty a subject could be fairly expressed in none but the finest Romance words to be found in Johnson or Gibbon.^ Most happily, our authorized version of the Scriptures was built upon the translation which Tyndale had almost completed before his martyrdom. When we read our Bibles, we are in truth taken back far beyond the days of Bacon and Andrewes to the time of Wolsey and More. Tyndale, a man well known alike at Oxford, Cam- bridge, and London, may be said to have fixed our tongue once for all ; a few words were now changing for the worse. He it was who brought in the corrupt Yorkshire iliosG (isti) instead of the old tlia or tlio^ .though the latter also may be found now and then in his Testament. He thus established a vicious form, which had been used almost three hundred years earlier in the ' Mr. Demaus has lately written his life. Tyndale in prison WTote a letter, still extant, beseeching his Flemish gaolers to let him have his Hebrew books — the ruling passion strong in death. Of all our great writers, he is the one about whom most mistakes have been made by later enquirers. 2 A scribe in the Daily Telegraphy July 14, 1873, speaks thus, in a leader on the Duke of Edinburgh : * He ranks next in geniture to the heir of our throne.' Hocfonte derivata clades^ &c, U 2 go The Sources of Standard English, I^ortlierii Psalter.^ He speaks of timjse and tliryse, but has unluckily the corrupt once instead of ones. Fadir and modir now become father and mother. We see almost the moment of their change, when we find in Tyndale's New Testament the three forms Mdder, hyd- ther, and hetherto ; we also find gadther. Against and amongst appear with their last consonant, which they were never to lose. We have both the old coude (potui) and also the corruption into conlde from a false analogy ; there is the good old Teutonic righteives and also the new Latinized righteous : pity it was that Tyndale had no share in Leland's knowledge of Old English. The upstart kill comes as often as slay. Pecock's ^ott silf is coiTupted into youre selves^ as if self was a substantive. The symle (semper) of 1000, and the ever of 1380, now become all ivayes. We find some old forms almost for the last time, as, do on hym a garment, anhongred, hedling, Wiethe, he leiigh (risit). There are some forms which seem to be relics of the writer's native Grioucestershire : honde^ (manus), aiune (proprius), axe (rogare), moo- are (plus), laiuears (juris periti), visicion (medicus). Tyndale sometimes goes much nearer to the Old English of the year 1000 than Wicklifie does ; thus geve replaces yeve-, he has one loofe instead of o loof ; feaive, notfeive; hrydegrome, not spouse; lende, not ^V^'^ horwynge ; lett the deed hury, not suffre that deede men hurie ; in the middes, not in the middil. Tyndale brought in some ^ See p. 145 of the present work. - This is the form taken by the word in old Worcester charters drawn oip seven hundred years before Tyndale wrote. The New English. 291 words liitlierto unused in Scriptural translations ; such as, at all, nor, lyJce tvyse, ado, God forhid : tliis last re- places Wickliffe's 'fer he it J Whole (sanus) takes the hideous interloping letter that begins the word ; the Salojoian ^vo■il is used for mms. The word abroad had been used earlier in a sense like the Latin l^te : since 1525 we bave used it to express also the Latin /or?>. This last meaning comes, not from tlio Old English hrad, but from the !N"orse hraut, a way.^ We see a few new terms ; thus, the word already was beginning to come in, and was employed twice in the Gospels. Wickliffe's ivaives (fluctus) are now turned into waves. The adjective sa,d had hitherto meant nothing more than gravis ; it now began to take its new meaning, trlstis. What was called nnrofe in the year 1000, and sorivful in 1380, is here called sadde; but this new sense comes only twice in the Four Gospels. Wickliffc had trans- lated volvere by tvaleiu (wallow) ; but Tyndale uses this English verb in an intransitive sense only ; he writes roll for volvere. The verb icerian (induere) had been of old a Weak verb, and made its Perfect iverode ; but Tyndale turns this into a Strong Perfect, a change most seldom found in English. In his translation of St. Luke viii. 27, we read that the man which had a devil ^ivare noo clothes.* We still say ivore and worn. He gave us a few words hardly ever used before his time, such as immediatly (he has also the old anon, to which he should have stuck), exceedingly, and streyght ivaye. He stands almost at the end of the old school of writers, ^ Dasent, Jest and Earnest, ii. 63. u2 292 Tlie Sources of Standard English, before the Latin forms had come in like a flood, as they were to do all through this Century. He therefore leans to the old way, when writing hajytim, advoutry, crystenj soudeour (miles), pa7fit,mi2:)ossyhle. Iconld wish that he had kept to the English, instead of the French pattern,, in such words as afrayed and defyle. He made a sad mistake in not writing 'Peter was to blame ^ in a well-known passage. He was too fond of simllihide, conclusion, seniours; and we have to regret that by 1525 such words as certain, Jierhes,^ loins, i)hysician had sup- planted good old English equivalents. About forty Strong verbs, which we still keep, had by this time been turned into Weak verbs ; since then, liol^pen has been corrupted into heljped, though the former occurs in a well-known passage. Tyndale, though hunted out of his own land, was always a sound and wise patriot ; his political tracts are as well worth studying as his religious books. He up- lifted his voice against the folly of England's meddling in foreign wars, at the time when Zwingli was giving the like wholesome rede to the Switzers. Tyndale' s works fill two goodly volumes, yet these contain onl}^ about twelve Teutonic words that have become obsolete since his time ; a strong proof of the influence his trans- lation of the Bible has had upon England, in keeping her steady to her old speech. As to the proportion of Latin words in his writings, of his nouns, verbs, and adverbs, three out of four are Teutonic, and in this pure ' This is pronounced yarhs in America, as we see in Cooper ; and Tyndale -wTote it yerhcs. The NeiiJ English. 293 style lie is rivalled by liis great enemy, the Chancellor.^ Never were two English writers better matched in fight than More and Tyndale ; loud was the wrangling over the Reformer's rendering of the Greek Scriptural words charisy ecclesia, ijreshyteros, metanoia. All Greek scholars must see what an advantage Tyndale had over Wickliffe. when we read an absurd version of Wickliffe's in the parable of the son, who at first refused to work in his father's vineyard, but afterwards 'stirid by penaunce' went.2 r^i^Q jxiQTi that loved not the Reformation had a rooted mistrust of Tyndale's Bible. Long after the Martyr's death, Bishop Gardiner in 1542 brought for- ward a list of 102 Latin words (so he called them), which ought to be retained in any English version ' for the majesty of the matter in them contained.' Among these majestic words were olacausta (sic), simulacricm, 2oams, iieccator, zizania, Jiostla, and others of the like kind.^ It was a happy thing that the Bishop was * King Alfred and Tyndale are alike in this, that tlirce-fourths of their 'weighty words ' are Teutonic, such as can be now understood ; but as to the other fourth, xilfred's Teutonic has been replaced by the French and Latin that T^'ndalo was driven to use, owing to tho heedlessness of the Thirteenth Century. -. - A corrupt religion will corrupt its technical terms. One of the most curious instances of the degradation of a word is St. Jerome's jpcBiiitentia, an act of the mind, which he uses of God Himself; this word in Italy {i)e7iitenza) now means no more than some bodily act of atonement for sin. This is as great a drop as when we find virtus and virtu expressing widely different things ; the one suits Camillus, tho other Cellini. Coverdale, who translated the New Testament ten years after Tyndale had done it, sometimes turns metanoia into 'penance, one of the many faults of his version. Words, like coins, get worn away by the wear and tear of ages. ^ Anderson's Annals of the Etiglish Bible, ii. 151. 294 ^-^^^ Sources of Standard English. forbidden to meddle in the business ; and this Protestants and philologers alike must thankfully acknowledge. But the old liousel^ which in the English mind was linked with the Roman idea of the Eucharist, was cast aside when the Reformation triumphed.^ In the wordy strife between Tyndale and More, the two best English writers of their day, we trace farther changes in English. The Chancellor often employs the old form sitli (quoniam), and we also find the corrupt since ; the two lingered on side by side into the next Century. Are (sunt) sometimes replaces he, in spite of the Reformer having been bred in Gloucestershire. He is perhaps the first Englishman who used the word jpo;pisli. He speaks of a fiock ' cjoinrj to 'pot^ and gives us ho-peej) and ' ImJcer-mitlcer,^ w^hich has been but little changed. He applies naugld/j, a new word, to a j)riest. The ever-waxing influence of classical learning vv^as ere long to substitute vlchmls for the old vitaille, the sound of which we still partly keep : this influence may be traced in Tyndale's use of words like delectable and crudel'dy in the w^orks he printed just before his death ; these forms he would not have used when he fled from England a dozen years earlier. ^ He kept his eye upon each suc- ceeding edition of Erasmus' Greek Testament, and thus made his own English version more perfect. I now ^ Tyndale went wrong in using worship to translate many widely different Greek words. "We have now almost lost the true sense of that good old verb. I have heard men find fault with that clause of the Marriage Service, * with my body I thee worship ;' of old, this verb meant nothing more but ' to honour.' - jVIr. Marsh has pointed out More's rebuke to Tyndale for using yea and nay improperly. The Nczu English. 295 quote a passage from liis Obedience of a Cliristian Man, put forth in 1527 ; this will show the. scholarship of Ille Dei vates sacer, Esdras ille Britannus, Fid a man us sacri lidaque mens codicis.^ ' Saint Jerom translated the hible into his mother tongue : why may not we also ? They will say it cannot be translated into our tongue, it is so rude. It is not so rude as they are false liars. For the Greek tongue agreeth more with the English than with the Latin. And the properties of the Hebrew tongue agreeth^ a thousand times more with the English than with the Latin. The manner of speaking is both one ; so that in a thousand places thou needest not but to translate it into the English, word for word ; when thou must seek a compass in the Latin, and yet shall have much work to translate it well-favouredly, so that it have the same grace and sweetness, sense and pure understanding with it in the Latin, and as it hath in the Hebrew. A thousand parts better may it be translated into the English, than into the Latin.' The Reformer lived to English most of the Bible ; the little he left undone at his death in 153G was finished by his friend Rogers, Queen Mary's first victim. This was the Bible set up in every English parish church by Henry YIIL, though he had long plotted against the Translator's life. I must glance at another of Tyndale's helpers. William Roy, a runav/ay Franciscan, was employed by Tyndale in 1525 to compare the texts of the New Testament and to write. The two men had not much in common. * So called by Johnston, Professor at St. Andrews in 1593. Anderson's Annals of the English Bible, ii. 48G. I wish th?it the Parker Society had published T^'ndale's works in his own spelling. '^ Here we have the old Southern form of the Plural of the Verb ; it is not often found after Tyndale's day. 296 The Sources of Standard English, * When tliat was ended,' says Tyndale, ' I toke my leve and bode him farewel for oure two lives and, as men saye, a daye longer.' Eoy went to Strasburg, and there in 1528 printed his biting rimes against the English clergy.^ I give an extract from page 71. Alas, mate, all to geder is synne, And wretchednes most miserable. What ! a man of religion Is reputed a dedde person To worldly conversacion. Here we see that Keligion still keeps its old sense of monlcery ; but Tyndale was bringing a new sense of the word into vogue among Englishmen. ^ Eoy talks of ' ivlioly S. Eraunces ' (sanctus). We have been mercifully spared this corruption of the old English ; tvholhj (integre) is bad enough, with its useless first letter. He has both Christen and Christian, the old and the new form. His defoyle (page 113) shows how the French defoider became our defile. He still uses ryches as a noun singular ; and he has per hajns (forsitan). The translations of the Bible, put forth by Tyndale and Eoy, slipiDcd into many an out-of-the-way corner of England. Young Eobert Plumpton, who was at the Temple about 1536, sends ' the Newe Testament, which is the trewe Gospell of God,' to his mother in her Yorkshire home. He says that he wishes not to bring her into any heresies. ' Wherefore, I will never write nothing to yon, nor saye nothinge to you, concerninge ^ See Arber's Eeprint of Bede mc and he nott wrothe. ^ Pecock assigns more than one meaning to Beligion in his Be- 2)ressor. TJie Nciv English. 297 tlie Scriptures, but will dye in the quarrell.' ^ I give this sentence, as it is one of the last occasions that we find a gentleman of good blood, and eke learned in the law, piling up negatives after the true Old English fashion ; a habit that now prevails only amoDg the lower orders. Tyndale had looked askant upon this idiom, of which Caxton was not ashamed. Our tongue was in this respect to leave the old path and to fol- low the Latin ; the land was now athirst for classic learning. The time, when England broke away from the Italian yoke, falls in precisely with the time, when the diction of her bards was greatly changed for the better. Lang- land, true genius though he might be, was wrong in employing so vast a number of French words in his work ; the Passus Decimus-Quartus of his Vision has one French word for two English, counting the nouns, verbs, and adverbs alone. Chaucer penning a hymn to the Virgin is most different from Chaucer laughing over the pranks of naughty lads at the Universities ; in the former case he heaps up his French words to a wondrous extent. The same tendency may be seen in Lydgate, Hawes, Dunbar, and their brethren ; the worst sinners in this respect being monks and writers of Church legends. To prove my point, I give a stanza from a poem composed by the Abbot of Gloucester in 1524; we may almost call it the last dying strains, somewhat prosaic in truth, of the Old Creed : — V Vlumyton Correspondence, p. 233 (Camden Society). 298 The Sources of Standard Englisli. XX T. Where is and shall be eternall Joy, incomparable inyrth without heaviness, Love with Charity and grace Celestial!, Lasting- interminable, lacking no goodness. In that Citty virtue shall never cease, And felicity no Soule shall misse, Magnifying the name of the Kinge of Blisse. XXTI. This compendious Extract compiled was new^, A thousand yeere 5 hundred fower and twenty From the birthe of our Saviour Christ Jesue, By the lleverend Father of worthy memory, Willm Malverne, Abbot of this Monastery, Whome God preserve in long life and prosperity, And after death him graunt Eternall Felicity.^ But about the time that Tyndale was giving the En- glish Bible to his countrymen in their own tongue^ and that Cromwell was hammering the monks, a new soul seems to have been breathed into English poetry. Surrey and Wyat stand at the head of the new school, and show themselves Teutons of the right breed ; they clearly had no silly love for lumbering Latinized stuff. The true path, pointed out by them, was soon to be followed in this Sixteenth Century by Bucldmrst, Gascoigne, Sidney, and by two men greater still. Even Southwell, who died in the Pope's behalf, cleaves fast to the new Teu- tonic diction of his brother bards. The Beformation ^ Iloarne's Bobert of Gloucester, ii.584. The old spelling has been partly changed. The Nezu English. 299 has been called an uprising of Teutonism against Latin- ism ; nowhere does this come out clearer than in En- glish Poetry. But this Sixteenth Century had a widely different effect on our Prose. Latin was the gTcat link between our own Reformers and those of other lands ; and the temptation was strong to bring into vogue Latin terms for the new ideas in religion that were taking root in our island. Theology was the great subject of the age ; and King Henry VII L remarked to his Parliament in 15-i5 : ' I am very sorry to know and hear how un- reverently that most precious jewel, the Word of God, is disputed, rimed, sung, and jangled in every ale house and tavern, contrary to the true meaning and doctrine of the same.' Besides this intense thirst after religious discussion, our fathers later on in the Century saw for the first time the authors of Greece and Home clad in an English dress ; and the sailors who bore the English flag- round the world were always printing wondrous tales of their wanderings. Plymouth, as well as Oxford, was making her influence felt. Our land, therefore, owned at the end of the Sixteenth Century thousands of new words, which would have seemed strange to Plawes and Boy ; a fair store of words was being made ready for Shakespere, whose genius would not bear cramping. The people, for whom he was to write, had a strong taste for theology, for the classics, and for sea roving ; each of these tastes brought in shoals of new words. We had long had Latin words in their corrupt French form, such as halm^ feat, frail, sure ; we now began to write the original Latin of these forms, balsam, fact, fragile, 300 The Sources of Standm^d English. secure ; keeping all the words, original and corrupt, alike. English was becoming most copious. It is to the ripe and mellow wisdom of Cranmer that we owe the English Prayer Book almost as it now stands. It is his best monument ; he had no vulgar wish to sweep away what was old, unless the sacrifice were called for by the cause of Truth. We have seen that some of the Book's formularies date from Wickliffe's day ; others, sach as the Bidding prayer, betoken a wish to yoke together the Teutonic and the Romance in pairs, like aclinowledcje and confess, Jittmhle and lowly, goodness and mercy, assemble and oneet, joray and beseech.^ Even so the Law talks of yielding and i^aying. In the Collects, the proportion of French to English is much the same as in Chaucer's prose earlier, and as Addison was to write , later. Lord Macaulay long ago contrasted our English prayers, compiled when our language was full of sap and vigour, with the older Latin forms translated by Cranmer, the work of an age of third-rate Latinity. Yet the Archbishop's work was held cheap by some of his flock. ■ The stalwart peasantry of our Western shires, the men who rose against his system, called this new Prayer Book nothing but ' a Christmas game.' It is well known how great an influence Luther and Calvin have had ujDon their respective tongues ; in like manner, one effect of the Reformation was to keep Eng- land steady to her old speech. As we have always had the voices of Tyndale and Cranmer ringing in our ears ^ Compare the prayers of Cranmer's compilation with those now and then put forth by authority in our own time. The art of com- piling prayers seems to be lost. The Nezv EnglisJi. 301 week after week for the last three Centuries, we have lost but few words since the time of these worthies ; the most remarkable of our losses are holled, daysman, to ear, silverlinrj^ and meteyard, found in parts of Scripture not much read. Hearne, writing 170 years later, mourned over the substitution of modern words for rede (con* silium) and hehiglit (promisit), both used by Sternhold in his version of the Psalms, made in the days of Ed- ward yi. ' Strange alterations,' says the Antiquary, ' all for the worse.' On the other hand, we could have gladly spared out of the Bible such needless foreign words as affinity, artificer, cliam'paign, clioler,^ concupiscence, im- mutahle, intelligence, onagjiifical, mollify, prognosticate, se- condarily, similitude, terrestrial, though they happily come but seldom. 2 They stand in striking contrast to words like thaiih-ivorthy, stiff-neclced, ringstrahed, loving -Idndness, yolce-felloiv, undersetters, luaterflood, luell-spring, good-man, slaugliter-iueajpon. We even find the old sith (quoniam), and steads (loca). The Old English (/ri??. (laqueus) was a word still common enough to be used in the Version ot 1611, but already the Norse gin (first used in the Or- mulum) was encroaching on it ; and the French engyne conveyed a kindred meaning. Shamefastness was printed in the right way ; and this our writers and printers ot 1 We English abound in terms for this passion. Wrath and ire came over with Hengist ; the Danes brought anger ; the French gave us rage and furi/ ; the Latin supplied indignation ; the Greek choler, "We further conferred this sense on passion. - Habergeon and hrigancline are relics of Sixteenth Century war- fare. By the bye, what would the old bowmen, who decided so many fields between Hastings and Pinkie, have said to our monstrous word toxophilite? 302 The SotDxes of Standaj'd English. 1873 ouglit to restore forthwith. The Engh'sh privative un comes often where we now use the Latin in. We find such old words as anon^ clia'pinan^ halt, hiajJ, let, list, neesing, trow, tvarcl, wax, wot, still struggling for life. . What fine old idioms we have preserved to us in ivell is thee, ivoe is me, ivoe worth the day, the gate opened of his oivii accord, the more ^lart of them,^ do yoii to wit, to have an evil ivill at Zioii, I loas sharpen, whether (uter) of the two, set them at one again ! The phrase ivoidd God I which we owe to Manning in 1303, is a thoroughly English idiom, and is not sanctioned by the Hebrew.^ The Douay Bible has had a lot widely different from that of Tyndale's Version ; already in 1583 Fulke was railing against the foreign work and its authors ; he branded 'affected novelties of terms, such as neither English nor Christian ears ever heard in the English tongue — scandal, ]jreimce, neoiohyte, de])ositum, gratis, j?arasceve, paraclete, exinanite, repropitiate, and a hundred such like ink horn terms.'^ Fulke further on protests against azym.es, schisms, relators : ' these and such other be wonders of words that wise men can give no good reason why they should be used.' Why not talk of (jazophilace Siud the encmnes? Fulke's book, reprinted by the Parker Society, should be in the hands of all philologers ; it is to be w^ished that he could come to life ' This sense of wore (major) lingers in our 'more's the pity.' - I have been guided here Ly Eastwood and Wright. May the Eevisors of 1873 hold fast to the Teutonic element in our Version, whatever else they do ! •'' Fancy such words as exinanite and reprojpitiate being read out in our parish churches ! Dt meliora ^iis erroremque hostihus ilium ! The New English. 303 and be clothed witli fall power over the English press in our own day. Many a penny-a-lining quack would he yoke to the cart's tail. It is well known that those who revised the English Bible in 1611 were bidden to keep as near as they could to the old versions, such as Tyndale's : this behest is one of the few good things that we owe to our Northern Solomon, the great inventor of hingcraft. The diction of the Bible seemed most archaic in the mouths of the Puritans in 1642, as their foes tell us ; this could hardly have been the case had the version been a work of Bacon's time. The Book's influence upon all English- speakmg men has been most astounding ; the Koran alone can boast an equal share of reverence, spread far and wide. Of the English Bible's 6,000 words, only 250 are not in common use now ; and almost all of these last are readily understood.^ Every good English writer has drawn freely upon the great Version: we know the skill with which Lord Macaulay and others interweave its homely, pithy diction with their prose. Even men who have left the English Church acknowledge that Rome herself cannot conjure away the old spell laid npon their minds by Tyn dale's Bible. This book it is that affords the first lessons lisped by the English child at its mother's knee ; this book it is that jDrompts the last words faltered by the English grey-beard on his death-bed. In this book we have found our strongest breakwater against the tides of silly novelties, ever * I take from Marsh my statistics as to the words of the Bible. The French have no need to go so far back as the Constable Bourbon's time for the standard of their tongue. 304 TJie Sources of Standai'd English. threatening to swamp our speecli. Tyndale stands in a far nearer relation to ns than Dante stands to the Italians. Among the East Midlanders who helped on the Re- formation were Cranmer, Latimer, and Foxe ; Hall and Bunyan were to come later.^ English literature is so closely intertwined with English history and English religion that we are driven to ask, what would have been the future of our tongue, had the Reformation, the great event of this Sixteenth Century, been trampled down in our island ? Our national character is nearer akin to that of Spain than to that of France ; I fear, therefore, that had Rome won the day in England, our religion would have smacked more of Philip II. than of Cardinal Richelieu, more of grim bloody Ultramontanism than of the other and milder form of Romanism. We know how Cervantes felt himself shackled by the awful, overbearing Inquisition : English writers would have fared no better, but w^ould have dragged on their lives in everlasting fear of spies, gaolers, racks, and stakes. Could Shakespere have breathed in such an air ? Hardly so. Could Milton ? Most assuredly not. Our mother tongue, thought unworthy to become the handmaid of religion, would have sunk {exinanitecT) into a Romance jargon, with few Teutonic words in it but pronouns, conjunctions, and such like. Many Orders of the Roman Church have brought their influence to bear upon our speech. In the Seventh Century, the Benedictines gave us our first batch of Latin ware, the technical words employed loj Western * Drjden came from the same district. The New English. 305 Christianity.^ In the Thirteenth Century, the Francis- cans, as I think, wrought great havock among our old words, and brought into vogue hundreds of French terms. In the Sixteenth Century, the Jesuits and their friends strove hard to set up a religious machinery of their own among us ; happy was it for England that she turned away from their merchandise, so hated of old Fulke. These luckless followers of the Pope, as time wore on, found their English style as much disliked as their politics or their creed ; glad were they in the days of James II. when so great a master as Dryden came to their help in controversy.^ Such evil words as ^proha- hilism and infallihiUst were never to become common in English mouths. The Reformation, among its other blessings, bound together those old foes England and Scotland by ties undreamt of in the days of Wolsey ; it wrought a further change in the North country's speech. Tyndale's great work was smuggled from abroad into Scotland, as well as into England. A Scotch heretic on his trial in 1539, referred to his Testament, which he kept ready at hand ; the accuser shouted, ' Behold, Sirs, he has the book of heresy in his sleeve, that makes all the din and play in our Kirk ! ' ^ Tyndale, as I before showed, wrought for the good of England in more ways than one. John ^ There are but two or three Latin -words in our tongue, brought hither before Augustine's time. " ' Hout, Monkbarns, dinna set your -wit against a bairn !' says Edie Ochiltree. This sentence might be applied to StiUingfleet, when we consider the men pitted against him. Dryden says that it was the great Anglican divines who taught him how to write English. ^ Anderson's Annals of the English Bible, ii. 501. 3o6 The Sources of Standard English, Knox was soundly rated by the otlier side for Anglicizing, not only in religion and politics, but also in his speech. Soon after 1600, Aytoun and Drummond wrote in the London dialect ; Scotland, as she would have said her- self, had to ' dree her weird/ The false Southron was fast getting the upper hand by a new kind of warfare ; the Lowland peasantry, among whom schools began to thrive, read the truths of religion enshrined in a dialect that would have jarred on the ears of John Bellenden or Gawain Douglas. To this day the Scotch minister in his sermons keeps as near as he can to the speech of Westminster and Oxford ; though his flock, when in the field or at the hearth, cleave fast to their good old Northern tongue.^ Thus the ISfew Standard English, convoyed by the Reformation, made its way to the far N'orth, and also into the Protestant settlements in Ireland ; it soon after- wards crossed the Atlantic in the Pilgrim Fathers' ship. Tyndale's great work, beloved by all forms alike of English Protestantism, will for ever be a bond of fellow- ship between the seventy millions of the Angel cyn, whether they live on the Thames, the Potomac, the Kuruman, or the Murrumbidgee. Our tongue is like the Turk, who will bear no brothers near his throne ; Irish and Welsh are dying out, as Cornish did long ago. The great prose writers of the Sixteenth Century did much for the cause of sound English. Cheke, though writing some years after Tyndale's death, had a hanker- ing after Fifteenth Century words, and strove to keep * In like manner, Luther's speech is used in the pulpit among th© Low Germans of the Baltic. The New English. 307 alive againrising and againhirth. His pupil Ascham made liead against the foreign rubbish, which. ' did make all thinges darke and hard.' Wilson in 1550 branded the * strange ynkehorne terms ' of his day. One part of his criticism may be most earnestly recom- mended to the fine writers of our own time. ' Some soke so farre for outlandishe Englishe, that thei for- gette altogether their mothers' language .... He that commeth lately out of France, will talke Fronche-En- glish, and never blush at the matter. The unlearned or foolishe phantasticall that smelles but of learnyng will so Latin their toungues that the simple camiot but wonder at their talke and thinke surely thei speake by some revelacion. I know them that thinke Rhetoriquo to stand whoUie upon darke woordes, and he that can catcho an ynke home terme by the taile, hym thei €oumpt to be a fine Englishman and a good Rheto- rician. '^ In spite of all these drawbacks, Mulcaster wrote thus in 1583 : ' The English tung cannot prove fairer than it is at this day.'^ He was a rash soothsayer, and little knew what was to be the literary history of the next thirty years. 1 have dwelt much on Manning, Chaucer, and Caxton ; but it was three Englishmen, writing within ninety years after 1525, who had the honour of settling the form of our speech for ever. I have spoken of Tyndale and Cran- mer; Shakespere, the employer of no fewer than 15,000 English words, was yet to come. It would be hopeless ^ The Art of Bhetorique^ written by Wilson, about 1550. Can ha have had a prophetic glimpse of the Daily Telegraph of 1873 ? 2 Marsh, Lectures on the English Language^ p. 51. x2 308 The Sources of Standard English, indeed for me to add aught to the praises so lavishly- heaped upon the mighty Enchanter by all good judges both at home and abroad ; be it enough to say that the lowest English clown who, wedged tight among his fellows in some barn, listens breathless to Lear's out- bursts or to lago's whispers, is sharing in a feast such as never fell to the lot of either Pericles or Augustus, of Leo the Tenth or Louis the Fourteenth.^ In the last twelve years of Elizabeth's life, London had privileges far beyond any favours ever bestowed on Athens, Rome, Florence, Paris, or Weimar ; the great Queen might have gathered together in one room Spenser, Shakespere, Bacon, and Hooker ; to say nothing of her other guests, the statesmen who outwitted Rome, the seamen who singed the proud Spaniard's beard, the knights who fought so manfully for the good cause in Munster, in Normandy, and in Flanders. Nowhere does the spirit of that high-reaching age breathe stronger than in Spenser's verse ; how widely apart stands his Protestant earnestness both from the loose godlessness of Ariosto, and from the burning Roman zeal of Tasso, that herald of the coming Papal reaction ! A shout of triumph burst forth from England when the Faery Queen was given to her in 1590; our island had at last a great poet, such as she had not beheld for two centuries. Now began the golden age of her literature ; and this age was to last for about fourscore years. Many a child that clapped its tiny hands over the earliest news of the ^ The last Act of Oi^M/o is a rare specimen of Shakespore's diction ; of every five nouns, yerbs, and adverbs, fouraro Teutonic. Of course he is far more Teutonic in comedy than in tragedy. The New English, 309 Armada's wreck, and that saw Shakespere act in his own plays, must have lived long enough to read the greatest of all Milton's works. The boyhood of such a child would witness a new corruption in English; the change of the old Neuter Genitive of lie from Ms into its. This last comes not once in our Bible ; but Shakespere sometimes has the unlucky new-fangled word. These corruptions com- monly begin with children, and are then passed up to women, and at length to men ; in this way many of our Strong verbs have become Weak : in this very year 1873 I see a tendency in writers (who should know better) to change the participles sown and mourn into solved and motved. Holpen has been replaced by heliJed^ though the true form occurs in one of the offcenest-read parts of the Bible. But some old forms were hard of dying. In that first-rate little book on Ireland, printed by Sir John Davies in 1612, a book that may be called ' Irish History in a nutshell,' we find the Old English Genitive Plural of horse in the term mansmeate and liorsemeat^ two exactions that come under those evil words coigne and livery (page 174).^ In the same book we find sithence, I think for the last time. Two other Old English forms were now to drop out of men's speech ; the old Genitive aire (omnium), used by Shakespere in the compound alderliefest ; and the prefix to, our form of the Latin dis and the German zer. We read that a stone * all to-brake Abimelech's scull;' and this Scriptural expression, oddly mangled by the printers, has puzzled many a man, woman, -and child for the last two hundred years. The Version of * "VVe still keep old Genitives Singular in hell fire. Lady day. 310 The Soti7xes of Standard English, 1611 did mncli to fix our spelling ; since tiiat time little change has been made, except that we have got rid of the e tacked on to many a word in former days : this e was seldom pronounced after Spenser's time. A new set of words had cropped up about the time he began to write ; we had turned the noun cross into a verb. The only de- rivative of this in the Bible is crossivay, which comes but once. 'Aloof appears about the same time, a word due to the Norsemen. An uglier phrase was now coming on the stage ; I mean, what is now the national oath of England. It is found twice or thrice in Shakespere, but had become common thirty years after his death. Our tongue sometimes spins out of her own resources in a wonderful way : would that she did this oftener ! The preposition ]nirh had long before given birth to the adjective thorough and the adverb thoroughly ; a bold bad man was now to make immortal a noun substantive, borrowed from the adjective. Whatever philologers may say, the true Englishman will, in this case at least, be drawn to Langton's Charter, French word though it be, rather than to Strafford's TJwrough, in spite of the new noun's Teutonic birth. So closely intertwined are English philology, politics, and religion, that it is hardly possible to keep them asunder. A subject of Strafford's in Ireland, Bishop Bedell, who came from East Anglia, was one of the last that wrote the good old sith for qiw- Qiiam, about the year 1630. Among Strafford's stoutest foes stood the man, who was long afterwards to measure himself with Dante, and to match the Protestant Muse against the noblest crqation of Roman Catholicism. Often has the resem- The NeziJ English, 311 blance between the Ghibelline and tbe E-oundhead been pointed out ; each, as it must be allowed, is seen at his best in the murkiness of Hell rather than in brighter climes.^ The learning of Milton, the deepest-read of all great poets, is well known ; and critics have admired the skill with which he brings Latin words nnder his yoke in his Paradise Lost. For all that, were I to be asked for a short passage upon which to stake the fair fame of the English Muse, St. Peter's speech in Lycidas would be the specimen that I should choose. In that best of all patterns of Teutonic strength and pith, Milton throws away foreign gear and goes back to the middle of the Fourteenth Century ; the proportion of Eomance words in the passage is not greater than that employed by Minot, the bard who sang the feats of England at Cressy and Poitiers. ^ In Milton's time flourished Sir Thomas Browne, whose mantle long afterwards fell on Dr. Johnson, and who has therefore much to answer for as regards the corruption of English prose. It is strange to contrast Sir Thomas with another writer of his day, a tinker, who has written far better English than the learned knight, and who shows us our mother tongue in its homeliest guise, while giving us the loveliest of all Allegories. The common folk had the wit at once to see the worth of Bunyan's masterpiece, and the learned * It is curious that coarse and mean passages may be found in such sublime writers as ^schylus, Dante, and Milton, those kindred souls. 2 In the Faradise Lost, the proportion of Eomance to Teutonic is just double what it is in the Allegro, 312 The Sources of Standard English, long afterwards followed in the wake of the common folk. Butler was now composing the riming couplets that are oftenest in our mouths. Our prose about this time was undergoing a great change ; the stately march of Milton and Clarendon was no longer to be copied ; En- glish conjunctions and forms compounded since 1300 were to undergo the pruning knife. For instance, we were no longer to write a certain man for quidam ; a Qiian, as in the oldest times, was quite enough. Cowley and Baxter about 1650 were the heralds of a new style, that was soon to be brought to further perfection by Dryden and Temple. About that year, 1650, our spelling was settled much as it is now.^ In 1661 our Prayer Book was revised ; are was substituted for he in forty-three places. This was a great victory of the North over the South.^ The earlier half of the Eighteenth Century was far more admirable in its English than the latter half. Defoe, Addison, Swift, and Pope are names worthy of all honour ; and I could wish that no Latinized terms had been brought in since their day ; at least, without good reason given. Compare Ockley, the lion's pro- vider, with Gibbon. Poetry was thriving ; and in his E>ape of the Lock, Pope beat the French on their own ground ; the English Muse, forty- four years after bring- ing forth the Paradise Lost, showed that she could carve * The most uncouth English spelling ever known was in the letters of the time of Henry VIII. Eather later, the spelling of Topcliife, the Elizabethan persecutor of Eoman Catholics, is something astounding. 2 Ea^rle, Philology of the English Tongue, p. 478. The New English. 313 a face out of a cherry stone as wel l as hevv a Colossus out of the rock. Dryden and Pope surpassed all mankind in the majestic art of reasoning in rime, and in the skill with which they wielded the keenest of weapons. One of the best passages in our literature is, where these two great poets are nicely weighed in the scales against each other by a kindred spirit.^ Johnson has said, ' Whoever wishes to attain an En- glish style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.' Would that the adviser had prac- tised whatjie preached ! He was misled by Sir Thomas Browne, and he corrupted our tongue by bringing in out- landish stuff which would have moved the scorn of Swift, and from which our best writers have only of late shaken themselves free.^ Johnson was in his lifetime revered by a tasteless generation as the greatest of all masters of English ; his disciples, more especially Gibbon, have still further Latinized our tongue. The Dictator, however, seems in his old age to have felt a lurking consciousness that he had gone too far ; his last works show a far purer taste than those he wrote at forty. He now no more ' depeditated obtunding anfractuosities ; ' he was no longer the deep-mouthed Boeotian — Tliebes did his green, unknowing youth engage ; He chooses Athens in his riper age. ^ Of course, I use nicely neither in the sense of 1303, nor in that of 1873. 2 Tendimus in Latium is a bad watchword for England, whether in religion, in architecture, or in philology. 314 1^^^^ Sources of Standm^d English, His good sound Teutonic talk has often been con- trasted with the vicious Latinisms that he penned. How forcible are his compounds, ' an uncluhhable man/ * wretched ttnideaed girls ! ' and his verb, ' I doimied him with this ! ' While on the subject of Johnson, one cannot help regretting that neither he nor his friends ever knew of the kinsmanship between the tongues of Southern Asia and Europe. Had the great discovery been made thirty years earlier than it was, he and Burke would have found a safer topic for debate than the Rock- ingham ministry. How heartily would those lordly minds have welcomed the wondrous revelation, that almost all mankind, dwelling between the Ganges and the Shannon, were linked together by the most binding of ties ! How warmly would the sages haye glowed with wrath or with love, far more warmly than ever before, when talking of Omichund and I^uncomar, of the Corsican patriot and the Laird of Coil ! From how many blunders in philology would shrewd Parson Home have been kept ! No such banquet had ever been set before the wise, since the Greeks, four hundred years earlier, unfolded their lore first to the Italians, and then to the rougher Trans- alpines. It was not in vain that the new lords of Hin- dostan induced the Brahmins to throw open what had been of yore so carefully kept under lock and key. But the main credit of the new feast must be given to others ; if the English brought home the game, it was the Ger- mans who cooked it. About the time that the aforesaid discovery was made, the English Muse was once more soaring on high. Her happiest efforts have mostly been made at the moment TJic New English, 3 1 5 when English knights have been winning their spurs abroad ; and this remark is as true of Wellington's time as of the days of the Black Prince or Raleigh. iN'ine or ten English writers, who are likely to live for ever, wer^ at work soon after 1800. Scott rose aloft above his brethren; but he was dethroned in his own lifetime (never had such a thing been known in our literature) by a greater bard than himself. Byron had the good taste to tread in the path followed by his Northern rival ;. both of them in their diction set the simplicity of the early part of the Fourteenth Century above all the gewgaws of certain later ages. Now it was that such words as losel and leecli aw^oke after a lo ng sleep. Bishop Percy, though Dr. Johnson laughed, had already led the English back to old wells, streams purer than any known to Pope. Burns had written in his own dialect verses that were prized by the high and the low alike. Coleridge's great ballad betokened that the public taste was veering round ; he also turned the eyes of England to the vast intellectual wealth that was now being poured into the lap of Germany. All the different nations of Europe had come to know each other better. Voltaire had many years earlier told his countrymen that an old Warwickshire barbarian had lived, whose works contained grains of gold overlaid with much rubbish ; something might have been made of the man, had he lived at Paris at the right time and formed himself upon Racine, or better still, upon Monsierur Arouet. Somewhat later, Schiller and Manzoni alike felt the English spell. Ireland as well as her sister came under the new 3i6 The Souixes of Standard English, influence. Moore, when arranging his Celtic gems in a new setting, worked in the best Teutonic style. In our 'Own day, Mr. Aubrey de Yere, in his Legends of St. Pa- trick, has shown an equally pure taste. Thanks to the poetry of Burns and to the prose of Scott, the fine gentle- , men of London and Oxford began to see what pith and \ harmony were lurking in the good old English of the \N"orth : would that every one of our shires likewise had its laureate !^ But Scott's romances, the wholesomest of all food for the mind, have borne fruit ; we have in our own day seen many attempts, like those of Mr. Barnes in Dorset, to bring the various dialects of England (they are more akin to Middle English than to New English) before the reading public. How many good old words, dropped by our literature since 1500, might be recovered from these sources ! If our English Makers set them- selves earnestly to the task (they have already made a beginning), there is good hope that our grandchildren may freely use scores of Chaucer's words that we our- selves are driven to call obsolete. Lockhart, Macaulay, Davis, and Browning have done yeoman's service, in reviving the old English ballad. Prose has followed in Poetry's wake. No good au- thors of our time, writing on a subject that is not highly scientific, would dream of abusino; Iano^uaG:e as Gibbon * Dr. M'Crie, in an early page of his attack on Scott's Old, Mortality, says of Guy Manncring ; * We are persuaded not one word in three is understood by the generality of (English) readers.' The Quarterly Beview, vol. xv. p. 139, was so astoundingly ignorant as to call that novel, *a dark dialect of Anglified Erse.' Surely there must be a great difference between readers in 1815 and in 1873. Tlie Neiu EnglisJi. 317 did, when lie cleverly in many passages elbowed out al- most all Teutonic words, except such as liis^ to^ of^ and the like. Cobbett roused us from foreign pedantry ; ^ and if we do not always reach Tyndale's bountiful pro- portion of Teutonic words in his political tracts, we at / least do not fall below the proportion employed by Addison.^ In proof of this, let any one contrast the diction of our modern English writers on Charles V. with the Latinized style wherein Dr. Robertson revels when handling the same subject. That fine passage, in which Mr. Froude sets before us the Armada leaving the Spanish shore, would have been altogether beyond Hume a hundred years ago. Mr. Carlyle has had many dis- ciples, whose awkward efforts to conjure with his wand are most laughable ; but one good result at least has followed — the stem rugged Teutonism of the teacher is copied by those who ape him. * It is amusing to look back upon what was thought sound English criticism barely forty years ago. In a sharp attack on Dr. Monk's Life of Bentley, the Edin- burgh E/e viewer of July, 1830, lifts up his voice against such vulgar forms as hereby, ivherein, Jiereujpon, caught npy his holt was shot, fling aivay his credit, a hatch of fragments, it lay a hleecling. I know not whether Dr. Monk could have explained the a in the last phrase; but it seems pretty certain that he was one of the pioneers who brought us back to a homelier style of English.^ Most men in our time would allow, that a * See my Tables at page 255. 2 I grieve to say that he is guilty of * on the tains ;' a vulgarism more suited to a schoolgirl than to a scholar. 3 1 8 The Sources of Standard English, writer of prose may go so far back as Tyndale, a writer of poetry so far back as Chancer, in employing old words ; this rule would have jarred upon the mawkish Reviewer's feelings. I once saw it laid down in an old- fashioned book of good manners, that it was vulgar to say, ' I would as lieve do it/ For all that, let each of our English writers, who has a well-grounded hope that he will be read a hundred years hence, set himself heart and soul to revive at least one long-neglected English word. It may be readily allowed that an imitation of the French Academy on our shores would never come to any good ; still a combination of our crack writers to effect much-needed reforms in spelling and word- building would lend fresh lustre to Queen Victoria's reign. More ought to be done by men who have some idea of the Old English grammar, than was done by Gibbon and Robertson. The change from Latinism back to Teutonism may be seen in speaking as v/ ell as in writing. Whatever we may think of Mr. Gladstone's Irish University Bill in 1873, none ca^n gainsay that the last few sentences of (his great speech, uttered the moment before his defeat, Iwere a masterpiece of wholesome English. But of all our Parliament men, none in our day has employed a racier diction than Mr. Bright. He has clearly bor- rowed much from the great Sixteenth Century; he sometimes seems to be kindled with the fire of one of those Hebrew prophets, whom Tyndale and his friends loved to translate into the soundest of English. Pitt the elder, as we hear, knew nothing well but the Faery •Queen ; Pitt the younger took for his pattern the great TJie N CIV English, 319 speeclies in the First Book of Paradise Lost : Mr. Bright has gone still further back in search of a model. There is nothing pleasanter in our literature than the fond reverence with which each man, who is worth aught, looks back to the great spirits that went before. Mr. Tennyson, a countryman of Robert Manning's and a careful student of old Mallory, has done much for the revival of pure English among us; not the least happy of his efforts has been the death-bed musings of his Northern Farmer. Further strides in the right direction have been made by Mr. Morris.^ The Earthly Paradise, more than any poem of late years that I know, takes us back to 1290 or thereabouts, and shows us how copious, in skilful hands, an almost purely Teutonic diction may be. It is hopeless to attempt the recovery of the English swept away in the Thirteenth Century ; but Mr. Morris, in many places, cuts down his proportion of French words to the scale which Chaucer's grandfather would have used, had that worthy, when young, essayed to make his mark in literature. It may be said of Mr. Morris as of Spenser, ' he hath labored to restore as to their rightful heritage such good and naturall English words as have been long time but of use, and almost cleane disherited.' So swiftly are we speeding along the right path, that ere many years we may even come to take a hearty general interest in our old title-deeds that ' Our modern poets may take for their watchword the sentence wherein Dante {Be vulgari Eloquio) praises the Italian poets who went before him : * The illustrious heroes, Frederick Caesar and his noble son Manfred, followed after elegance and scorned what was mean.* 320 The Sottrces of Sta7idard English, still lie imprinted. We may see tlie subscribers to the Early English Text Society reckoned, not by hundreds, but by thousands.^ Our German and Scandinavian kins- folk will then no longer twit us with our carelessness of the hoard so dearly prized abroad; like them, we shall purge our language of needless foreign frippery, and shall reverence the good Teutonic masonry where- with our forefathers built. TABLE OF DATES BEAEING ON ENGLISH LITERATURE. Fifth Century . Sixth Century . Seventh Century Eighth Century . Ninth Century . Tenth Century . Eleventh Century Twelfth Century The Saxon settlement in South Britain. The establishment of the Anghan kingdom in North Britain. The earliest written specimen of Northern English. The earliest written specimen of Southern EngHsh, The great Danish settlement in the North and East of England. The Court of the Southern English Kings becomes the central point for all the land. The French Conquest. Loss of the Old English Court at Winches- ter, and of Old English poetic words. Break-up of the Old English gram- mar; a variety of dialects pre- vail for two centuries, with no fixed standard. ' The Secretary of the Society is G. Joachim, Esq., St. Andrew House, Change Alley, London. I wish they would print more works written before 1400, and fewer works written after that year. The New Eiiclish. 321 Thirteentli Century Fourteenth Century Fifteenth Century . Sixteenth Century . Seventeenth Century Eighteenth Century Nineteenth Centurv . Loss of thousands of Old English words, which are slowly re- placed by French words. The New English, or Dano- Anglian, which had long been forming, gains possession of Lon- don and Oxford, and is spoken at Court. The Printing-press fixes the lan- guage, which had lost nearly all its inflections. The Reformation brings Standard English home to all men, and imports many Latin words. The Golden age of English Litera- ture. It began, indeed, ten years before this Century. A Latinized style prevails. Ileaction from Latinism to Teuton- ism, at least in our good writers. Long may it last ! 322 TJie Sources of Standard English. CHAPTEH VI. GOOD AND BAD ENGLISH IN 1873. "We read that in our renowned government of 1757, framed by the greatest of all English War ministers and by the greatest of all English Ducal jobbers, everything that was bright and stainless passed through the one channel, everything that was foul and noisome poured through the other ; the Ministry was based upon all the high and all the low parts of our nature. Something of the like kind may be remarked in 1873, as to the men who keep the English printing press at work. Some of these are scholars, or men of strong mother wit, who in prose and poetry employ a sound Teutonic style. Others are men representing the middle class, writers who, for want of education, often use in a wrong sense the long Latinized words wherein the true penny-a-liner revels. The first class are day by day straining the foul matter from our language, and are leading us back to old springs too long unsought ; perhaps they may yet keep alive our perishing Subjunctive mood. The other class are day by day pouring more sewage into the well of what can no longer be called ' English undefiled.' Erom the one quarter comes all that is lofty and noble Good and Bad English /;/ 1873. 323 in tlie literature of the day ; from tlie other all that is mean and tawdry. Our middle class (we beheld something of this kind in the Thirteenth Century) has an amazing love of cumbrous Latin words, which have not long been in vogue. This is seen in their early life. Winchester and Eton may call themselves colleges^ Harrow and Rugby may call themselves schools; but the place, where the offspring of our shopkeepers are taught bad French and worse Latin, is an educational estahlisliment or a ^ jpolitG seminary. The books used in our National schools show a lofty disdain for homespun English. As the pupils grow older, they do not care to read about a fair lady, but they are at once drawn to a female loossessincj considerable ^yersonal attractions. A hraivl is a word good enough for a ■ scuffle between peasants ; but when one half-tipsy alderman mauls another, the brawl be- comes a fracas. An emeute is a far genteeler word than a riot. A farmer, when he grows rich, prides himself on being an eminent agricultwist. The corruption is now spreading downward to the lower class ; they are be- ginning to think that an operative is something nobler than a worhnan.^ We may call King David a singer ; but a triller of Italian trills must be known as a vocalist. Our fathers talked of healing waters ; our new guide-books scorn even the term medicinal ; therapeutic is the word beloved by all professors of the high polite style. Pope's well-known divine is being outdone ; our ears are now become so polite, that sins must be called by new names, at which Wickliffe and Tyndale would have stared. I ^ May I not ask with Theocritus, ris 5t- -n-Sdos twv iKTod^v ipydra kujpi ; Y 2 324 The Sources of Standard English. see that a hospital has lately been founded, not for drunJcards, but for inehriates, a new-coined substantive of which Bunyan's Mr. Smooth-tongue might have been proud. Shade of Cobbett ! we are now forbidden to call a spade a spade ; our speech, like Bottom the weaver, is indeed translated. Let us watch an Englishman of the average type setting to work upon a letter to the Times.* The worthy fellow, when at his own fireside, seldom in his talk goes beyond plain simple words and short sen- tences, such as Mr. Trollope puts into the mouths of his heroes. But our friend would feel himself for ever shamed in the eyes of his neighbours, were he to rush into print in this homely guise. He therefore picks out from his dictionary the most high-sounding words he can find, and he works them up into long-winded sen- tences, wholly forgetting that it is not every man who can bend the bow of Hooker or Clarendon. The upshot is commonly an odd jumble, with much haziness about 2uJio, ivMcJi, and their antecedents. The writer should look askant at words that come from the Latin ; they are too often traps for the unwary.^ The Lady of the * Here is a gem, which occurs in a letter to the Times of May 5, 1873. The writer sets up to be a critic ®f the English drama ; the blind leads the blind. ' Such representations are artistically as much beneath contempt as morally suggestive of compassion for the per- formers, not to speak of some indignation that educated and responsible people should sanction such exhibitions.' He also talks, of ' partaking an intellectual pleasure.' Yet the writer of this is most likely no fool in private life. 2 I have seen a begging letter containing the words, * I have become so deaf that I cannot articulate what people say to me.' I once heard a showman say of a baboon : * The form of his claws enables Good and Bad English In 1873. 325 even trencli and the bristling mound is indeed a high and mighty Queen, when seated on her own throne ; she has dictated the verse of Catullus and the prose of Tacitus ; her laws, given to the world by the mouths of heathen Emperors and Christian Popes, have had won- drous weight with mankind. But no rash or vulgar hand should drag her into English common life ; her help, in eking out our store of words, should be sought by none but ripe scholars, and even then most sparingly.^ I once heard a country doctor say, * Let me ^ercute your chest.' ^ This too common love of Latinized taw- driness is fostered by the cheap press; the penny-a- liner is the outcome of the middle class. As I shall bestow some notice upon these individuals^ to use the word dearest to their hearts, I think it as well first to say what I mean by the scornful term. The leading articles in our daily papers of the highest rank are the liim to climb trees with the greatest felicity.' I know people who talk of diseases being insidiiotis, confusing the adjective with assiduous. * In my younger days, the term reduplication used to be confined to the Greek grammar ; but I see that one of the cheap papers has begun to employ this word for the action known hitherto to Enghsh- men as repetition. A httle learning is indeed a dangerous thing. - Mr. Charles Butler had called the Bull, by which Pius V. deposed Elizabeth, illatidable. He was twitted by a hot Protestant for applying so mild an epithet to so hateful an act. The Koman Catholic answered that he had had in his mind Virgil's Busiris ; he quoted, in support of his phrase, Aulas Gellius, Heyne, and Milton. Had be but used in the first place some plain English adjective to express his meaning, much angry ink would have been left unshed. See his Vindication against Mr. Townsend's Accusa- tionSj pp. 112-114. Mr. Hazard, the American, published in 1873 a very good book on San Domingo ; but he will not hear of settling in a country; locating, according to him, is the right word to use. 326 The Soti7xes of Standard English. work of scholars and gentlemen, wlio write niucli in the style of onr great authors of 1700, and do not use a greater proportion of E-omance words than Chaucer employed in his tale of Meliboeus, five hundred years ago. As to some of our weekly papers (I need not give names), a steady perusal of them is in truth a liberal education, most cheaply procured. Without help from such writers this work of mine would never have been undertaken. Their merit as English authors is beyond that of Chaucer, for they cast aside a huge pile of Romance words that he never knew, that they may employ as great a proportion of Teutonic words as he (iiid in his prose. Good Enghsh is not confined to London ; the names of certain admirable journals, pub- lished in Scotland, Yorkshire, and Lancashire, will occur to many of my readers. But when we go a little lower down, we alight upon the penny-a-liner. His two best-beloved quotations are Goign of vantage and tlie Ugld fantastic toe. He it was who, having never heard of the works of Wheatley or Cardinal Bona, named a certain party in the English Church ritualists ; this was about seven years ago. He may always be known by his love of words fresh from Gaul (thus he always calls his brethren his confreres)^ and by his fondness for Latin words that came in after Pope's death. He looks upon Sir A. Alison's text, well bestrewn with French phrases, as a far nobler pattern than the works of Mr. Hallam or Bishop Thirlwall. With him dangers do not grow, but they ' assume propor- tions of considerable magnitude.' He scorns to ahuse or rmZe his foes, much more to rate or miscall them, so long Good and Bad English in 1873. 327 as lie can mtujperate them.^ Mr. Justice Keogh in 1872 was accused by many Irish pens of having vituperated the Gal way clergy, but never of having sinned with the four other verbs in italics. The Irish are every whit as fond of fine language as the English middle class. When in 1871 all the Roman Catholic Prelates in Ire- land put forth a lengthy demand for education on sound Ultramontane principles, they spoke of the thing that scholars call a 'hearty welcome' as an 'ovation.' The Irish clergy of the old pattern never learnt stufi* such as this at Douai or Salamanca. Maynooth ought to be above borrowing from the Daily Telegraph.^ If a writer of this kind were to pit himself boldly against Dr. Arnold and once more to set forth the homeward march of the Roman Consuls after the glorious day of the Metaurus, he would most likely say that they met with an ovation in every town on their road, and that they ended with a triumph at Rome. Livy would raise his eyebrows, could he read this version of his heart-stirring tale. I re- member seeing in one of the penny papers an article in 1872 on the Alabama business ; the Americans were there said to be uttering minatory expressions ; threats being a coarse Teutonic word, far too commonplace for these gentry of the lower press. It is a wonder to me that they have not long ago enriched our tongue with the verbs existimate and autumate, making a dead set at * George III. and Dr. Johnson, in their famous intervie\r, spoke of the vituperative habit as * calling names.' Prisca gens mortalmm ! - Let them not touch the unclean thing, remembering that the anagram on the name of their deadly foe, Titus Gates, was Testis OvaU 328 The Sources of Standard English. tlie vulgar tliinh and deem. The pressmen have already outrun the auctioneer mentioned at page 229 Jof this work ; having now waxed bolder, they will not hegin or even commence \ they inaugurate and initiate, Sbnd they will soon i^icejpt. The state of France after 1871 has lately given them two glorious new words, rejuvenescence and recuperation. In a letter on prison discipline, printed in the Times of September 5, 1872, we find the wondrous word ]3enology ; the writer compounds Latin with Greek, and knows not how to spell the Latin he has com- pounded. What would become of our unhappy tongue, had we not the Bible and Prayer Book to keep us fairly steady in the good old paths ? Our forefathers thought our mansion weather-tight, but these lovers of the new- fangled are ever panting to exchange stone and brick for stucco.^ When the Irish Protestants were revising their Prayer Book, not many months ago, one luckless wight, a lover of what they call ' ornate phraseology,' was not ashamed to propose an alteration of our grand old Teutonic name for the Third Person of the Trinity. It is needless to say what a reception this piece of un- wisdom met with from a scholar like Archbishop Trench. No vulgar hands should be laid on the Ark. We all owe much to the Correspondents of the daily journals. Many of them write sound English ; but the penny-a-liner may now and then be found in their ranks. His Babylonish speech bewrayeth him; he mawkishly enough calls an Emperor * a certain exalted Personage ; ' a favourite at Court becomes in the scribbler's mouth ' a 'persona grata."* After all, it is rather hard to grudge ^ that they would learn * deductum ducere carmen ." Good and Bad EiiglisJt /;/ 1 873. 329 him his chance of showing off that he learnt Latin in youth. One of this breed, in the last years of the French Empire, "was never tired of telling us in a queer Anglo- Gallic jargon what he ate and drank at Paris, and what Dukes and Marquesses he slapped on the back. Such stuff could not have been served up, day after day, if it had not hit the taste of the English middle class, a taste thoroughly corrupt. A writer of this kind must have readers like-minded with himself. Let me borrow his beloved jargon for one moment, and wound his amour 'pro^re by asking what is his raison cVetre ? The penny-a- liner's help is often sought by an Editor, who knows what good English is, yet employs these worthless tools. Surely the Editors of our first-class journals should look upon themselves as the high-priests of a right worshipful Goddess, and should let nothing foul or unclean draw nigh her altars. Cannot these lower journeymen of the Press be put through a purification, such as an ex- amination in Defoe, Swift, or some sound English writer, that a good style may be formed before the novice is allowed to write for the journal ? If the great authors named were set up as models for young writers, we should never hear of fire as * the devouring element,' of the spot where something happens as ' the locale,^ or of a man in his cups as ' involved in circumstances of inebriation.' ^ It would be barbarous indeed to ask the writers to learn a new tongue ; but we only beg them to go back to what they learned from their mothers and their nurses. * This last gem I saw myself in a Penny Paper of October, 1872. Iicec ego non agitem ? 330 The Sources of Standard English. A sliarp-eyed gamekeeper nails up rows of dead vermin on a barn door. Even so our Editoi's ouglit once a month or so to head their columns with a list of new-fangled words, the use of which shonld be forbidden to every writer for their journals ; to be sure, the vermin unhappily are not yet dead. In this list would come, I hope, many words already gibbeted in this chapter, together withpos^- ^randial, solidarity^ egoism^ collaborator ^ acerbity^ dubiety, donate.^ Some of these words, I believe, came to us from America. Our kinsmen there have made noble contributions to our common stock of literature ; the works of Irving, Motley, Marsh, Bryant, Longfellow, are prized on both sides of the Atlantic alike. Dr. March by his Comparative Grammar of the Anglo-Saxon lan- guage, a work to which I owe so much, has shown us that in some things American scholarship aims at rival- ling German thoroughness. But Englishmen cannot help being astonished at one thing in his book : he writes labor, honor, &c., instead of following the good old English spelling. Here is one of the few instances in which the pupil, strong in his right, may make bold to correct the master. Our English honour, the French honure or honneur, takes us back eight hundred years to the bloody day, big with our island's doom, when the French knights were charging up the slope at Senlac again and again, when striving to break the stubborn En- glish shield- wall. The word honure, which had already ^ Every writer, -who prints his travels, calls his book ' Personal Adventures.' Lord Plunkett, when asked the meaning of this, sup- posed that there was the same difference between what was Keal and what was Personal in travels, as in the law of property. Good and Bad English in \%Ti. 331 thriven in Gaul for eleven linndred years, must have been often in the conquerors' mouths all tlirough those long weary hours ; it was one of the first French words that we afterwards admitted to English citizenship ; and it should abide with us in the shape that it has always hitherto worn. If we change it into honor, we pare down its history, and we lower it to the level of the many Latin words that came in at the Reformation : from the Bastard of Falaise to the Enghsh Josiah is a great drop. Let us in this, as in everything else, hold to the good old way ; and let our kinsmen, like ourselves, turn with dislike from changes, utterly needless, that spoil a word's pedigree. To maul an old term, whether English or French, is to imitate the clerical boors who wrought such havock at Durham and Canterbury within the last Century. America and England alike are too much given to slang and to clipping old words. ITothing in the speech of the former country, so far as I know, can match our ' awfully nice,' or our ' what say P ' but one comfort is, that slang takes hundreds of years before it can creep into Standard Enghsh. Moh and sham were slang inji 1680, and smack strongly of that year's peculiarities ;|l on the other hand, humhug, though as old as Bonnell Thornton, can as yet be employed by no grave au- thor. Addison had before protested against curtailing words, as in the case of incog, ; what would he have said to our exam. ? Fine writing has set its dingy mark upon America as well as England ; I think it was President Pierce who, in his opening address at the Capitol, twenty years ago, spoke of slavery as 332 The Sotnxcs of Standard English. ' involuntary servitude.' New habits stand in need of new words ; one verb, tbat has come to us within the last four years from the American mint, is ' to interview.' Nothing can better express the spirit of our age, ever craving to hear something new ; the verb calls up before us a queer .pair : on the one side stands the great man, not at all sorry at the bottom of his heart that the rest of mankind are to learn what a fine fellow he is ; on the other side fussily hovers the pressman, a Boswell who sticks at nothing in the way of questioning, but who outdoes his Scotch model in being wholly unshackled by any weak feeling of veneration. This Nineteenth Cen- tury of ours is a grand age of inventions. Thus we know to our cost what a Sensation Novel means ; yet Mr. Edgeworth, writing in 1808, lets us see that the word sensation in his day was wholly confined to France (Memoirs, p. 192). Now and then innovators make a lucky hit. ' Why so much wee^ ? ' (fletus) asked Artemus Ward ; he little knew that he was reviving the Old English word ivop} It is well known that phrases, called Americanisms, are often relics of a remote age. Thus, where an Englishman resolves to do a thing, an American concludes to do it. Yet, in an account of the battle of St. Albans (written in 1455), we read that the King and Lords ' kept resydens, concludyng to holde the ' Philology crops up in strange places ; I once heard a clown in a circus propound the question, * If you may say 1 freeze, I froze ^ why not also ^^y I sneeze, I snozeT Yet he most likely never heard of Strong and Weak Verbs, or as the vile English Grammars of old used to call them. Irregular and Eegular Verbs. "We may remem- ber that Wamba the son of "Witless plays the philologer in the opening scene of Ivanhoe. Good and Bad English in 1873. 333 parlement.' ^ The fact that America speaks of the Fall and not of the Autumn, ought in a Philologer's eyes to atone for a multitude of her sins of the tongue. As I have made a few strictures upon American vagaries, I ought, in common fairness, to acknowledge that no American fault comes up to the revolting habit, spread over too many English shires, of dropping or wrongly inserting the letter lu Those whom we call ' self-made men ' are much given to this hideous bar- barism ; their hopes of Parliamentaiy renown are too often nipped in the bud by the speaker's unlucky ten- dency to ' throw himself upon the 'Ouse.' An untaught peasant will often speak better English than a man worth half a million. Many a needy scholar might turn an honest penny by offering himself as an instmctor of the vulgar rich in the pronunciation of the fatal letter.2 Our public schools are often railed against as teaching but little; still it is something that° they enforce the right use of the li upon any lad who has a mind to lead a quiet life among his mates. Few things will the English youth find in after-life more pro- fitable than the right use of the aforesaid letter.^ The ^ Taston Letters (Gairdner's edition), i. 331. '' I make a present of this hint to those whom it may concern • I took It from Thackeray, who introduces a Frenchman, the instructor of Mr. Jeames m the art of garnishing his English talk uith French phrases. « The following story sets in a strong light the great difference between the speech of the well-bred and of the untaught in England A servant, who had dropped into a large fortune, asked his master how he was to pass muster in future as a gentleman. The answer was, ' Dress in black and hold your tongue.' 334 ^^^^ Soiuxes of Standard EnglisJu abuse of it jars upon tlie ear of any well-bred man far more than tlie broadest Scotcli or Irisli brogue can do. These dialects, as I have shown, often preserve good old English forms that have long been lost to London and Oxford.i There are two things which are supposed to bring fresh ideas before the minds of the middle class — the newspaper on week days, and the sermon on Sundays. We have seen the part played by the former ; I now turn to the latter. Many complaints have lately been made on the scarcity of good preachers ; one cause of these complaints I take to be, the diction of the usual run of sermons. The lectern and the reading desk speak to the folk, Sunday after Sunday, in the best of English ; that is, in old Teutonic words, with a dash of French terms mostly naturalized in the Thirteenth Century. The pulpit, on the other hand, too often deals in an odd jargon of Romance, worked up into long-winded sentences, which shoot high above the heads of the listeners. ^ Swift complained bitterly of this a hundred and fifty years ago ; and the evil is rife as ever now. Is it any wonder then that the poor become lost to the Church, or that they go to the meeting-house, where they can hear the way to Heaven set forth in English, a little uncouth it may be, ^ A Scotch farmer's wife once said to me, finding me rather slow in following her talk when she spoke at all fast, ' I beg your pardon, Sir, for my bad English.' I answered, ' It is I that speak the bad English ; it is you that speak the true old English.' It is delightful to hear the peasantry talk of sacJcless (innocens), and he coft (emit). * How charming, in Memorials of a Quiet Life, is the account of the scholarlike Augustus Hare's style of preaching to his Wiltshire shepherds ! He had a soul above the Eomance hodgepodge. i Good and Bad English in \%T^. 335 but still well uiiderstood of the common folk ? A preaclier has been known to translate, ' we cannot always stand upright,' into * we cannot always maintain an erect posi- tion.'^ Who can make anything out of the rubbish that follows, ' a system thus hypothetically elaborated is after all but an inexplicable concatenation of hyperbolical in- congruity ? ' 2 This reads like Dr. Johnson run mad ; no wonder that Dissent has become rife in the land. If we wish to know the cause of the bad style employed in preaching by too many of the Anglican clergy, we must ask how they have been taught at our Schools and Uni- versities. Much heed is there bestowed on Latin and Greek, but none on English.^ What a change might be wrought in our pulpits if lads at public schools were given some knowledge of our great writers from Chaucer and Wickliffe downwards, instead of wasting so much time on Latin verses, that do no good in after life to three-fourths of the students ! A lad of average wit only needs sound English models to be set before him, and he will teach himself much. What good service might ^ Barnes, Early England, p. 106. Such a preacher would miss the point of that wittiest of all proverbs, ' An empty sack cannot stand upright.' 2 Mr. Cox, who treats us to this stuff {Becollections of Oxford, p. 223), says, ' such' sentences, delivered in a regular cadence, formed too often our Sunday fare, in days happily gone by.' ^ I for some years of my life always thought that our English long was derived from the Latin longus. Every grammar and dic- tionary, used in schools, should have a short sketch of Comparativo Philology prefixed. I know that T was fourteen, before the great truths of that science were set before me by Bishop Abraham's little book, used in the Lower Fifth form at Eton. In those days what we now call Aryan was termed Indo-G-ermanic. 336 The Soiuxcs of Standard English. Oxford do if slie were to establish yet another School, which would enforce a thorough knowledge of English, and would, moreover, teach her bantlings a new use of the Latin and Greek already learnt ! The works of March, Morris, Max Miiller, and others would soon become Oxford text-books in one of the most charming of all branches of learning. Surely every good son of the Church will be of my mind, that the knowledge of English is a point well worth commending to those who are to fill our pulpits. Our clergy, if well grounded in their own tongue, would preach in a style less like Blair's and more likeBunyan's. Others may call for sweetness and light ; I am all for clearness and pith.^ But we are getting into the right path at last. Articles have lately appeared in the Times, calling for more attention to the study of English at our Grammar Schools. While we are on the subject of schools, it may be pointed out that Greek has done much in the last three centuries to keep before us the fact, that English will lend itself readily to high-sounding compounds. Old Chap- man long ago set us on the right tack ; Milton followed ; and our boys at school talk glibly of ivide-siuaying Aga- memnon and swift-footed Achilles ; thus the power of compounding has never altogether left us. Would that we could also fasten any one of our prepositions to our verbs at will ! I believe it is mainly owing to the study * There is an old Oxford story, that a preacher of the mawkish school, holding forth before the University, spoke of a well-known beast as ' an animal which decency forbids me to name.' The beast turned out to be the one nearest of kin to the preacher himself; Balaam's reprover, to wit. Good and Bad English m 1873. 337 of Latin, that /orsoo^^ and wont have been kept alive, by schoolboys construing scilicet and soleo in the time- honoured way. It is pleasant to find one bough of the great Aryan tree lending healthy sap to another offshoot.^ Some of the best English verse of our time may be read in the pages of Punch, whenever great English- men die. Moreover, that shrewd wight is always ready to nail up vermin on the bam door ; as lately in the case of the word elasticity, employed by three Bishops. Upon this he remarked (June 7, 1873) : * An up- start expression foisted into the Text would be like a patch of new cloth, and that shoddy, sewn into an old garment of honest EngHsh make. That web is of a woof too precious to be pieced with stuff of no more worth than a penny a line.' But sound English criticism too often calls forth a growl of annoyance from vulgar vanity. If any one in our day sets himself to breast the muddy tide of fine writing, an outcry is at once raised that he is panting to drive away from England all words that are not thoroughly Teutonic. The answer is : no man that knows the history of the English tongue, can ever be guilty of such unwisdom. Our heedless forefathers in the Thirteenth Century allowed thousands of our good old words to shp ; our language must be copious, at any cost ; we therefore by slow degrees made good the loss ^ One of the good deeds of our boys is that they have kept alive the old substantive let (a hindrance) used in the game of fives. In a letter of Horace Walpole's,written about 1737 from the Christopher at Eton, we see some of the venerable slang of that College ; the words are still fresh as ever. Hr. Kinglake, in his account of Colonel Yea at the Alma, has almost made roo^c classical ; none who have played football in the Eton way can forget this verb. Z '33^ Tlic Sources of Standard English, with tliousands of French terms. Like the Lycian, whom Zeus bereft of wit, we took brass for gold. Thanks to this process, Chaucer had most hkely as great a wealth of words at his beck as Orrmin had, two hun- dred years earlier. But, though we long ago repaired with brick the gaps made in our ruined old stone hall, it does not follow that we should daub stucco over the brick and the stone alike. What a scholar mourns, is .that our daws prank themselves in peacocks' feathers : .that our lower press and our clergy revel in E-omance words, brought in most needlessly after Swift and Addi- son were in their graves. What, for instance, do we want with the word exacerbate instead of the old embitter? The former is one of the penny-a-liner's choicest jewels. Is not the sentence, ivorhmen want more 2^ccy, at least as expressive as the tawdry qperatwes desiderate ad- ditioiial remuneration ? At the same time, no man of sense can object to foreign words coming into English of late years, if they unmistakeably fill up a gap. Our hard-working fathers had no need of the word ennui ; our wealth, ever waxing, has brought the state of mind ; so France has given us the name for it. The importer, who first bestowed upon us the French ^re5%e, is worthy of all honour, for this word supplied a real want. Our ships sail over all seas ; English is the chosen language of commerce ; we borrow, and rightly so, from the utter- most shores of the earth ; from the Australians we took Imngaroo ; and the great Burke uses tahoo, which came to him from Otaheite.^ What our ladies, priests, sol- * Eurke (tlie friend of Hare, not the friend of Fox) has given us a new word for supiyress. Another famous Gralway house has given Good and Bad English in 1873. 339 diers, lawyers, doctors, huntsmen, arcliitects, and cooks owe to France, lias been fairly acknowledged. Italy has given us the words ever in the mouths of our painters, sculptors, and musicians. The Portuguese traders, three hundred years ago, helped us to many terms well knovni to our merchants. Glermany, the parent of long-winded sentences, has sent us very few words ; and these remind us of the Thirty Years' War, when Enghsh and Scotch soldiers were fighting on the right side.^ To make amends for all this borrowing, England supplies foreigners (too long enslaved) with her o^ti staple — namely, the diction of free political life.^ In this she has had many hundred years' start of almost every nation but the Hungarians ; she has, it is true, no home-born w^ord for coii'p d'etat ; but she may w^ell take pride in being the mother of Parliaments, even as old Rome was the source of civil law.^ us a name for irregular justice executed upon thieves and murderers. ^ The word plunder is due to this war. The Indian Mutiny gave us loot, and the American Civil War created the bummer^ called of old marauder. - I take the following from D'Azeglio's Letters to his wife, page 244 (published in 1871): 'Abbiamo avuto qui Cobden, il famoso deir Anti-Corn-Laws-League. Ho dovuto far I'inglese piu:o sangue, piu cho si potesse, coi speeches e i toast, che sono stati i seguenti : " a S.M. Carlo Alberto — alia Queen Victoria— a. Cobden." ' The great patriot, as we see, makes rather a hash of his English'. We also supply foreigners with sportsmanlike terms ; le groom anglais est jpour le chevalfrangais. * Coup d'etat reminds me of one effect of Napoleonism. The greatest of French Eeviews says in an article on Manzoni (July 15, 1873) : * quantite de termes, qui n'etaient permis qu'aux halles, out passe dans le langage de la cour.' Paris is here meant, z2 340 The Sources of Standard English, But it is sad to see one of the most majestic of our political forms debased into a well-spring of bad En- glish. Few sights are more suggestive than that of a British Sovereign enthroned and addressing the Lords Spiritual and Temporal with the Commons ; while the men of 1215 look down from their niches aloft upon their good work. The pageant, one after Burke's own heart, takes us back six hundred years to the days when was laid the ground- plan of our Constitution, much as it still stands ; the speech deals with facts upon which hangs the welfare of two hundred millions of men. But the old and pithy style of address, such as Charles I. and Speaker Lenthall employed, is now thought out of place ; the Sovereign harangues the lieges in a speech that has become a byword for bad English. We have taken into our heads the odd notion, that long sentences stuffed with Latinized words are more majestic than our forefathers' simplicity of speech ; the bad grammar, often put into the Sovereign's mouth, smacks of high treason. The evil example spreads downwards ; it is no wonder that official reports are not seldom a cumbrous mass of idle wordiness.^ A wholesome awe of long sentences would wonderfully improve the Official style, and would save the country many reams of good paper. As it is^ too often from the Government scribbler's toil ' Nonentity, with circumambieiit wings, An everlastin": Phoenix doth arise.' ^ In the BaUy Tdegrajph, July 18, 1873, will be found a letter from an Official representing the Lord Chamberlain ; while rebuking a Manager for bringing the Shah on the stage, he sa far forgets Good and Bad English in 1873. 341 Mr. Marsh has long ago pointed out that our best- loved bywords, and those parts of the Bible most on our lips in every-day life, are almost purely Teutonic. I go a step further and would remark, that the same holds good, as regards the great watchwords of English history ; such as ' Short rede, good rede, slay ye the Bishop ; ' ' when Adam dalf and Eve span, who was then the gentleman ? ' ' bastard slips shall not thrive ; ' ' this man hath got the sow by the right ear ; ' * turn or burn ; ' ' the word Calais will be found graven on my heart after death ; ' ' stone dead hath no fellow ; ' * put your trust in God, but keep your powder dry ; ' ' change kings, and we will fight you again ; ' ^ we'll sink or swim to- gether ; ' ' the French run, then I die happy ; ' * a Church without a Gospel, a King above the Law ; ' * the wooden walls of Old England ; ' ' what will they say in England if we get beaten ? ' ' the schoolmaster is abroad in the land ; ' * the Queen has done it all ; ' ' the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill ; ' * blood is thicker than water ; ' ' rest and be thankful ; ' ' are they not j-our own flesh and blood ? ' ^ himself as to talk of ' altering the make-up.* But he at once pulls himself up, after this slip, and goes on to speak of * making modi- fications of the personality of the principal character.' ' Lord Thurlow in 1789 knew very well what he was about, when he couched in good Saxon his famous adjuration, which he meant to he a household word in the mouths of English squires and parsons. The pithy comments of Pitt, Burke, and "Wilkes on Thurlow's blasphemy are well known. The Irish leaders in 1 873 are wise in talking of * Home Eule,' rather than of ' Domestic Legislation ; ' though the former bears an unlucky resemblance to ' Eome Eule.* Mr. Tadpole and Mr. Taper knew the value of a good cry. 342 The Sources of Standard English. In this way, Pitt the younger is known to us as * the pilot that weathered the storm.' I have heard, that when Canning wrote the inscription graven on Pitt's monument in the London Guildhall, an Alderman felt much disgust at the grand phrase ' he died poor,' and wished to substitute ' he expired in indigent circum- stances.' Could the difference between the scholarlike and the vulgar be more happily marked ? I have lately seen another kind of alteration earnestly recom- mended — it is short rede, good rede ; and it sounds like a loud call to come and do likewise. Mr. Freeman says in 1873, on reprinting his Essays written long before: — ' In almost every page I have found it easy to put some plain English word, about whose meaning there can be no doubt, instead of those needless French and Latin words which are thought to add dignity to style, but which in truth only add va.gueness. I am in no way ashamed to find that I can write purer and clearer English now than I did fourteen or fifteen years back ; and I think it well to mention the fact for the encouragement of younger writers. The common tempta- tion of beginners is to write in what they think a more elevated fashion. It needs some years of practice before a man fully takes in the truth that, for real strength and above all for real clearness, there is nothing like the old English speech of our fathers.' ^ We have before our eyes many tokens that the old ways of our forefathers have still charms for us, though our tongue has been for ages, as it were, steeped' in French and Latin. Take the case of children brought to the font by their godfathers ; Lamb long ago most > Mr. Freeman's Essays, Second Series, Preface. I lighted upoa this passage long after I had written the rest of this chapter. Good a7id Bad English in 1873. 343 wittily handled a long list of fine girlisli names, and avowed at the end, * ' These all, than Saxon Edith, please me less/ One of the signs of the times is, the marked fondness for the name Ethel ; we cannot say whether the heroine of Mr. Thackeray or the heroine of Miss Yonge is the pattern most present to the parental mind. I know of a child christened Erideswide, though her parents have nothing to do with Christchurch, Oxford. This is one of the straws that sliows which way the wind is blowing. With all our shortcomings, we may fairly make the Homeric boast that in some things we are far better than our fathers. A hundred years ago Hume and Wyatt were making a ruthless onslaught upon the England of the Thirteenth Century : the one mauled her greatest men ; the other (irreparable is the loss) mauled her fairest churches. We live in better times ; we see clearly enough the misdeeds of Hume and Wyatt : ought not our eyes to be equally open to the sins of Johnson and Gibbon ? Eor these last writers, the store that had served their betters was not enough ; disliking the words in vogue at the beginning of their Century, they gave us a most unbecoming proportion of tawdry Latinisms, which are to this day the joy of penny-a-liners. But already improve* ment is abroad in the land ; Cobbett first taught us a better way ; we have begun to see that the Eighteenth Century (at least in its latter half) was as wrong in its diction as in its History or its Architecture. We are scraping the stucco ofi* the old stone and brick, as the Germans and Danes have done. Ere long, it is to be 344 ^^^^ Sources of Stmidard English. hoped, fclie most polysyllabic of British scribblers will find out that for him Defoe and Fielding are better models than Johnson or Gibbon. The great truth will dawn upon him, that few men can write forty words unbroken by a semicolon, without making slips in gram- mar. He will think twice before he uses Latin words, such as ovation, in a sense that makes scholars writhe. He will never discard a Teutonic word without good reason ; and if he cannot find one of these fit for his purpose, he will prefer a French or Latin word, natural- ized before 1740, to any later comer. Fox had some show of right on his side, when he refused to embody in his History any word not to be found in Dryden ; though the great Whig might surely have borne with phrases used by Swift and Bolingbroke. I now give three sentences, which will bring three difierent forms of what is called English into the most glaring contrast ; each contains more than twenty nouns and verbs. I. Stung by the foe's twitting, our forefathers (bold wights ! ) drew nigh their trusty friends, and were heartily welcomed; taught by a former mishap, they began the fight on that spot, and showed themselves unafirighted by threatening forebodings of woe. II. Provoked by the enemy's abuse, our ancestors (brave creatures!) approached their faithful allies, and were nobly received ; instructed by a previous misfor- tune, they commenced the battle in that place, and proved themselves undismayed by menacing predictions of misery. III. Exacerbated by the antagonist's vituperation, our Good and Bad EnglisJi in 1873. 345 progenitors (audacious individuals !) approximated to their reliable auxiliaries, and were ovated with empresse- ment ; indoctrinated by a preliminary contretemps, they inaugurated hostilities in that locality, and demonstrated themselves as unintimidated by minatory vaticinations of catastrophe.^ These three sentences at once carry the mind to Hengist, to William the Conqueror, and to the Victorian penny-a-liner. Of the three, the first is made up of good Teutonic words that are among our choicest heirlooms ; some of them have been in our mouths for thousands of years, ever since we dwelt on the Oxus. The second sentence is made up of French words, many of which, so far back as the Thirteenth Century, had the right of citizenship in England ; they are not indeed to be ranked with the Teutonic w^ords already given, yet are often most helpful. The third sentence is made up of Latin words, mostly not brought in until after 1740 ; ^ wholly unneeded in England, they are at once the laughing- stock of scholars and the idols of penny-a-liners.^ The first sentence is like a Highland burn ; the second is like the Thames at Hampton Court ; the third is like London * Mr. Soulo, of Boston, furnished me with many of the words of Number III., grand rolling words far above my poor brain. Number III. differs from Number I. as Horace's meretrix from matrona, scurra from amicus ; his lines on the difference are well known. As to Mr. Soule and his synonyms — hand equidem invidco ; miror magis. ^ There are two Greek words and two French words among them ; I have shown the Victorian penny-a-liner at his very best. ^ Bishop Hall says in his Satires, I. 6 : — * Fie on the forged mint that did create New coin of words never articulate.* 346 The Sources of Standard English, sewage.^ Or, to borrow another iMustration, the first sentence is like Scott's Jeanie Deans ; the second is like the average young lady of our day ; the third is like Pielding's loathsome Bellaston woman. Something has been said earlier of the merits of stone, brick, and stucco.^ 1 will end with a parable : — A maiden of Eastern birth came over the sea, and by sheer force installed herself in a Welshman's house. Her roughness was much abated after her baptism : some say the priest who christened her was an Italian, others will have it that he was an Irishman. Her garments were afterwards somewhat rumpled and torn in a struggle with a Danish rover, her own kinsman, who long worried her sorely. A French knight proved a still shrewder foe ; he became lord of her house, settled himself in her parlour, and thrust her down into the scullery. There she abode many days, taking little thought for her dress, though she had once given the greatest heed to it. A begging friar now came in, who was listened to by knight and maiden ahke ; he persuaded the latter to throw away certain articles of her homespun raiment, brought by her from the East, and to replace these (a work of time) by an imitation of part of the knight's fine French apparel. What was worse, she became too proud to spin new garments, as she wanted them, out of her home materials. All this was wrong ; her weeds now became parti-coloured, unlike those of her kinsmen on the main- land. Not long after this great change in her attire, * A London journal or two, that might well stand for the Cloaca Maxima, will readily occur to my readers. 2 I have spoken of gold and brass ; but I know of no combination of metals vile enough to be likened to Number III. Good and Bad English in 1 873. 347 she found herself once more mistress in all lier rooms, equally at home in parlour and in scullery. She again and again took the law of the Frenchman, thus handsomely requiting him for his burglary ; and as to the govern- ment of her own household, she laid down rules that have since been copied far and wide. But she herself followed foreign fashions in dress still further as she grew older, especially about the time that she turned Protestant. Soon after changing her creed, she is thought to have looked her very best. We must take her as we find her ; it is hopeless to expect her to wear those articles that she long ago flung away at the friar's behest ; but all lovers of good taste will be sorry, if she hide the goodly old homespun weeds that still remain to her, under a heap of new-fangled Italian gewgaws. She is sometimes to be met with abroad, dight in comely apparel ; plain in her neatness, she seems fondest of the attire she brought with her from over the sea, though she shrinks not from wearing a fair proportion of the French gear which she cannot now do without, thanks to her unwisdom when she lived in the scullery. Arrayed on this wise, she can hold her own, so skilful judges say, against all comers; she need not fear the rivalry of the proudest ladies ever bred in Greece or Italy. But sometimes the silly wench seems to be given over to the Foul Fiend of bad taste ; she comes out in whimsical garments that she never knew until the other day ; she decks herself in outlandish ware of all the colours of the rainbow, hues that she has not the wit to combine ; ^ heartily ashamed of her own home, * The word ijenology^ to wit. 34^ The Sources of Standard English. slie takes it into her head to ape foreign fashions, like the vulgarest of the pretenders upon whom Thackeray loved to bring down his whip. In these fits, she re- sembles nothing so much as some purse-proud upstart's wife, blest with more wealth than brains, who thinks that she can take rank among Duchesses and Countesses by putting on her back the gaudiest refuse of a milliner's shop. Let us hope that these odd fits may soon become things of the past; and that the fair lady, whom each true knight is bound to champion against besetting clowns, may hold up before English scholars, preachers, and pressmen alike that brightest of all her jewels, sim- plicity. Your termes, your coloures, and your figures, Kepe hem in store, til so be ye endite Hie stile, as whan that men to kinges write. Speketh so plain at this time, I you pray, That we may understonden what ye say.^ Chaucer, tlie ClerJces Frologue, 349 CHAPTER YIl. TWELVE HUNDEED YEAES OP ENGLISH. I. Runes on the Ruthwell Cross, of about the tear 080.^ (On-) geredae hinsB God almeyottig ]?a he walde on galgu gi-stiga modig fore (ale) men t • • • • (ahof) ic riicnsB cimingc heafunifis hlafard lia3lda ic (n)i darstse bismseraedu ungcet men ba 8etgad(r)e ic (wses) mif blodae bistemid Krist wae* on rodi bwef rae per fusse fearran kwomu aejjfilae ti lanum ic paet al bi(b)eal(d) s(are) ic wses mi(f) sorgu(m) gi(d)r3e(fe)d Girded him God almighty when he would on gallows mount proud for all men I heaved the rich king heaven's lord heel (over) I durst not men mocked us both to- gether. I was with blood besmeared Christ was on rood but there hurriedly From afar they came the Prince to aid I beheld all that sore I was with sorrows harrowed Stephens, Bunic MonwnentSj I. 405. 3 so The Sources of Stajidard English, mi]? strelum giwundoBd alegdun liia3 lima3 limwos- rignte gistoddun Mm (set) h(is l)i- ca3s (h)eaf(du)in with arrows wounded they laid him down limb- weary they stood at his corpse's head II. Manuscript oe the year 737, containing lines by Cadmon.^ Nu scylun liergan hefaen ricaes uard metudfes msecti end his mod gidanc uerc uuldur fadur sue he uundra gihuaes eci drictin or astelidie He serist scop elda barnum heben til hrofe haleg scepen tha middun geard mon cynnses uard eci dryctin •sefter tiadte firum foldu frea allmecti":. Now must we praise heaven kingdom's Warden the Creator's might and his mind's thought glorious Father of men as he of each wonder eternal Lord formed the beginning He erst shaped for earth's bairns heaven as a roof holy Shaper then mid-earth mankind's Warden eternal Lord afterwards produced for men the earth Lord Almighty. ^ Bosworth, Origin of the Germanic Languages,-^, 57. Twelve Httndred Years of English, 351 III. The Eighth Psalm, prom the Northumbrian Psalter, Compiled about the Year 800.^ Drylit', dryht' iir, liu wundurlic is noma Sin in aire eorSan, f6r-(5on up-aliefen is micelnis Sin ofer heofenas, of muSe cilda and milc-deondra Su ge-fremedes lof. fore feondum Sinum, S86t "Su to-weorpe feond and ge- scildend. for-'Son ic ge-sie lieofenas were fingra Sinra, monan and steorran Sa Su ge-steaSulades. hwet is mon Sset ge-myndig Su sie his, o6Se sunu monnes for-Son Su neosas hine ? Su ge-wonedes hine hwoene laessan from englum, mid wuldre and mid are Su ge-begades hine, and ge-settes hine ofer were honda Sinra : all (5u under-deodes under fotum his, seep and oxan all ec ^on and netenii feldes, fiiglas heofenes and fiscas saes, Sa geond-gaS stige saes Dryht,' dryht' ur, hu wundurlic is noma Sin in aire eorSan. IV. The Eushworth Gospels, a.d. 900. St. Matthew, Chap. ii. 1. ^a so]>lice akenned waes Haelend ludeana in dagum Erodes f aes kyninges, henu tungul-krseftgu eastan quo- mon in Hierosolimam, 2. cwef ende, hwasr is sepe akenned is kining Indeana ? we gesegon soflice steorra his in east-dsele and cuomon to gebiddenne to him. 3. ]?8Bt ])a ' This Psalm may be compared with the version made four hun- dred and fifty years later, at p. 145 of my work. Both may be found in the Pirt^^er (Surtees Society), 352 The Sources of Standard English, geherde, soflice Herodes king wa3S gedroefed in mode and ealle Hierosolima mid hine. 4 ealle aldur- sacerdos, bokeras j^aes folkes, ahsade lieom liwaer Krist woere akenned. 5. liiaQ fa cwaedon, in Bethlem Iiideana, swa soflice awriten ]?urh witgu, cw£efende. 6 na3nigj)inga loBS-sest eart aldurmonnum luda, of ]?e so];lice ^^\ latteuw sefe raeccet Israhasl. 7. Herodes demunga acasgde tungul-kraBffcgum and geome geliornade 89fc fa tid ])8es geteawde him steorra. 8. sondende lieom to Bethlem cwtef, gaej? ahsiaS georne bi fem cnsDhte fanne ge gemoete]? hine soecgaS eft, feet ic swilce cymende gebidde to him. 9. fa hie fa .... ^aes kyninges word eodun f onan, henu f e steorra f e hia3 osr gesaBgon east-da3le fore-eade hia3 off let he cumende bnfan Saer so cneht .... 10. hie gesesende soflice steorran gefegon gefea miccle swife. 11. ingangende foet hus gemoettun f one cneht mid . . . forf fallende gebedun to him . . . ontynden heora gold-hord brohtun lac recils murra. 12. andsuari onfengon slepe, hig6 ne cerdun . . . furh wege gewendun to heora londe. The Lindtsfarne Gospels, a.d. 970. PARABLE OF THE TEN VIIIGINS.— St. Matthew xxv. 1, Donne gelic biS ric heofna tewm hehstaldun^ ^a onfengon leht-fato heora ge- eodun ongegen Sa3m brydguma and ^ser bryde. 2. fifo uutetlice of Sosm weron idlo and fifo hogofoBste. 3. ah fifo idlo gefengon leht-fato ne genomnn oele miS him. 4. hogofseste Twelve Htmdred Years of English. 353 nutetlice onfengon oele in fetelsum hiora miS leht-fatum. 5. snigo uutetlice dyde ^ brydgum geslepedon alle and geslepdon. 6. middum uutetlice naeht lydeng geworden W8BS: heonu brydguma cwom, g89S ongsen him. 7. ^a arioson alle helistalde Sa ilco, and gehrindon lelit-fato hiora. 8. idlo uutetlice ^aam snotrum cuoedon : seles us of ole iuerre, forSon leht-fato usr88 gedrysned bi^on. 9. geonduordon hogo cuoeSendo : eatSe maeg ne noh is us and iuh, gaas gewelgad to Saem bibycendum and bygetS iuh. 10. miSSy uutetlice geeodon to bycganne, cuom t5e brydguma and t5a "Se .... weron innfoerdon miS him to brydloppum and getyned wses ^e dura. 11. hlsetmesto c women and ^a ©"Sro hehstaldo cueSendo : drihten, drihten, untyn us. 12. soS he onduearde cueS : soSlice ic cuoeSo iuh, nat ic iuih. 13. wseccas forSon, for^on nuuto gie ^one da9ge ne fone tid. VI. (About A.D. 1090.) THE FINDING OF ST. EDMUND'S HEAD.' Hw83t fa, Se flot-here ferde ]>a eft to scipe, and What then fleet-armament fared then again ship behyddon faet heafod pass halgan Eadmundes on fam hid the head holy Siccum bremlum, past hit biburiged ne wurde. pa thick brambles buried shoidd 'not be. ^ Thorpe's Analecta, p. 87. He thinks that this is East Anglian. Here we see the Anglian diphthong (s at the end of words, just as on the Kiithwell Cross, four hundred years earlier. A A 354 ^^^^ Sources of Standard English. seftor fyrste, syS^an heo ifarene w^ron, com feet lond- a time after they gone * folc to, J?e ])ser to lafe fa wses, f aer lieorfe lafordes lid ^cA 2^^iirh Godes willnnge, to biwaerigenne paet heafod, wiS pa oSre deor, guard against beasts ofer daeg and niht. Heo eoden t5a saecende, and day cleopigende, swa swa hit iwnnelic is paet 'Sa pe on wude calling customary those that gap oft : ' Hwaer eart pu nu gerefa ? ' And him and- go governor swyrde paet heafod : ' Her, her, her.' And swa ilome so often clypode andswarigende, ot5t5et heo alle bicomen, purh until came pa clypunge, him to. pa laeg pe graegae wnlf pe bewiste gray guarded paet heafod, ant mid his twam fotum haefde paet heafod two feet Twelve Hundred Years of English. 355 biclypped, gredig and hungrig, and for Gode ne dyrste J;8es li8Bfdes onburigen, ac lieold hit wi5 deor. Da taste hut held wurdon heo ofwundroden J^ees wulfes hordrsedene, and hecaTue amazed at guardianship \2dt halige lieafod ham feroden mid lieom, J^ankende hoTne carried fam Almihtigan aire his wnndrse. Ac J?e wnlf fologede for all forS mid fam heafde, oSSet heo on tune comen, swylce town as if he tome wsere, and wende seft sy^San to Tvnde ongean. tame again Da lond-leodan fa sySt5an laegdan faet heafod to fam land-folk halige bodige, and burigdon, swa swa heo lihtlucost easiest mihten on swylce raedinge, and cyrce araerdon onnppon such haste a kirk reared him.^ VII. (A.D. 1220.) ANCREN RIWLE (Camden Society), 388. == A lefdi was pet was mid hire voan biset al abnten, lady foes and hire lend al destrued, and heo al poure, wiSinnen she poor ^ I give here only one specimen of English between this date (1090) and 1350, since so many pieces, written in that interval, are to be found in my book. 2 This is the only passage, of all the specimens in this Chapter, that was not written in the Anglian country, or that did not feel the Anglian influence. French words begin to come in, AA 2 3 S6 The Soitrces of Standard English. one eorSene castle. On militi kinges luve was ]?anh bi- an earthen A however tumd upon hire, so unimete swut5e ])et he vor wouh- houndless very wooing lecchunge sende hire his sonden, on efter ot5er, and ofte messengers, one somed monie : and sende hire beanbelet boSe veole and at once jewels many feire, and sukurs of livened, and help of his heie hird to siqiplies victuals army holden hire castel. Heo nnderveng al ase on unrec- receivecl careless heleas fing ])et was so herd iheorted ]?et hire luve ne hard-hearted mihte he never beon pe neorre. Hwat wult tu more ? nearer He com himsulf a last, and scheawede hire his feire at neb, ase l?e fet was of alle men veirest to biholden, and face one spec swuSe sweteliche and so murie wordes pet heo syakc pleasant they muhten ]?e deade arearen vrom deaSe to live. And onight wrouhte veole wundres, and dude veole meistries bivo- did great works ren hire eihsihSe, and scheawede hire his mihten : tolde hire of his kinedome, and bead for to makien hire cwene offered of al fet he ouhte. Al ])is ne help nout. Nes ]>is owned helped nought Was not this wunderlich hoker ? Vor heo nes never wurSe vorte disdain to beon his schelchine. Auh so, f uruh his debonerte, luve scullion But hefde overkumen hine ]?et he seide on ende, ' Dame, fu had him at last Twelve Hundred Years of English, 357 ^rt iweorred, and ])ine von beo6 so stronge ])et tu ne assailed foes meilit nonesweis, wiSuten sukurs af me, etfleon hore 171 no way escape their honden, ]?et heo ne don ])e to scheomefule deaS. Ich they ijhulle vor fe luve of ])e nimen ])is filit upon me, and shall take aredden pe of ham fet sclieclieS fine dea^. Ich wot rid them f anh for so6e f et ich schal bitweonen ham undervongen must deat5es wunde, and ich hit wulle heorteliche vorto ofgon win fine heorte. Nu, f eonne, biseche ich ]?e, vor ]>e luve fet theii ich kuSe fe, pet tu luvie me, hure and hure, efter ])en show at least ilke dead dea^e, hwon ]>u noldes lives, pes king same since wouldst not in my life dude al })us, aredde hire of alle hire von, and was him- sulf to wundre ituked, and isleien on ende. puruh injured slain miracle pauh he arcs from dea^e to live. Nere peos Would not h« ilke lefdi of vuele kunnes kunde, gif heo over alle ping evil 7iature sprung ne luve him her efter ? pes king is Jesu Crist, Godes sune, pet al o pisse wise wowude ure soule, pet pe deoflen heveden biset. And wooed our devils he, ase noble woware, efter monie messagers, and feole many god deden, com vorto preoven his luve, and scheawede prove puruh knihtschipe pet he was luve-wurde, ase weren worthy 3 S S The Sottrces of Standard English, sumewhule knihtes iwnned for to donne. He dude him soTmtiTnes wont do ^Icoced ine tumement, and hefde vor his leofmonnes luve his lady's schelde ine vihte, ase kene kniht, on everiche half side i-purled. pis scheld pet wreih his Godhed was his leove fierced covered dear licome )>et was ispred o rode, brod ase scheld buven in body above his i-streiht earmes, and neruh bineoSen, ase f e on vot, stretched narrow onefoot effcer fet me wene'S, sete upon pe oSer vote. . . . Efter according to siqypodtion kene knihtes deaSe me hongeS heie ine chirche his onen hang schelde on his mnnegunge. Al so is fis scheld, fet is, re77iembrance fet crucifix iset ine chirche, ine swuche stnde pet me hit siich place sonest iseo, vorto penchen perbi o Jesu Cristas kniht- may see schipe pet he dude o rode. VIII. (a.d. 1356.^ SIR JOHN MANDEYILLE. For als moche as it is longe tyme passed, that ther was no generalle passage ne vyage over the see ; and many men desiren for to here speke of the holy lend, and han therof gret solace and comfort; I John Maundevylle, Knyght, alle be it I be not worthi, that * Morris, Specimens of Early English, page 198. Twelve Hundred Years of English. 359 was bom in Englond, in the town of Seynt Albones, passede the see, in the yeer of our Lord Jhesu Crist Mcccxxii., in the day of Seynt Michelle ; and hidre to have ben longe tyme over the see, and have seyn and gon thorghe manye dyverse londes, and many provynces and kingdomes and iles ; and have passed thorghoutTurkye, Tartarye, Per eye, Snrrye, Arabye, Egypt the highe and the lowe, Ermonye the litylle and the grete; thorgh Lybye, Caldee, and a gret partie of Ethiope; thorgh Amazoyne, Inde the lasse and the more, a gret partie ; and thorgh out many othere iles, that ben abouten Inde ; where dwellen many dyverse folkes, and of dyverse maneres and lawes, and of dyverse schappes of men. Of whiche londes and iles I schalle speke more pleynly hereaftre. And I schal devise jou sum partie of thingea that there ben, whan time schalle ben, aftre it may best come to my mynde ; and specyally for hem, that wylle and are in purpos for to visite the holy citee of Jerusalem, and the holy places that are thereaboute. And I schalle telle the weye, that thei schalle holden thidre. For I have often tymes passed and ryden the way, with gode companye of many lordes : God be thonked. And ^ee schulle undirstonde, that I have put this boke out of Latyn into Erensch, and translated it a^en out of Erensche into Englyssch, that every man of my nacioun may undirstonde it. But lordes and knyghtes and othere noble and worthi men, that conne Latyn but lityle, and han ben be^onde the see, knowen and undirstonden, jif I seye trouthe or no, and jif I erre in devisynge, for forjetynge, or elles ; 360 TJie Sources of Standard English. that thei mowe redresse it and amende it. For thinges passed out of longe tynie from a mannes mynde or from Lis syglit, turnen sone into forjetynge ; because that mynde of man ne may not ben comprehended ne with- holden, for the freeltie of mankynde. IX. Bishop Pecock, Repressor of over much Blamikg of THE Clergy, Vol. I. 86. (About A.D. 1450.) EVILS OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT IN RELIGION. Certis in this wise and in this now seid manor and bi this now seid cause bifille the rewful and wepeable de- struccioun of the worthi citee and universite of Prage, and of the hoole rewme of Beeme, as y have had ther of enformacioun ynouj. And now, aftir the destruccioun of the rewme, the peple ben glad for to resorte and turne ajen into the catholik and general faith and loore of the chirche, and in her^ pouerte bildith up ajen what was brent and throwun doun, and noon of her holdingis ^ can thrive. But for that Crist in his prophecying muste needis be trewe, that ech kingdom devidid in hem silf schal be destruyed, therefore to hem^ bifille the now seid wrecchid myschaunce. God for his merci and pitee kepe Ynglond, that he come not into lijk daunce. But forto turne here fro ajen unto our Bible men, y preie %q seie je to me, whanne among you is rise a strijf in holdingis and opiniouns (bi cause that ech of * their. ^ their tenets. ^ them. Twelve Hundred Years of English. 361 you trustith to his owne studie in tlie Bible aloon, and wole have alle treuthis of mennys moral conversacioun there groundid), what iuge mai therto be assiyned in erthe, save resoun and the bifore seid doom^ of resoun? For thonj men schulden be ingis, ^it so mnste thei be bi uce of the seid resonn and doom of resoun ; and if this be trewe, who schulde thanne better or so weel use, demene, and execute this resoun and the seid doom, as schulde tho men whiche han spende so miche labour aboute thilk craft ? And these ben tho now bifore seid clerkis. And therefore, je Bible men, bi this here now seid whiche je muste needis graunte, for experience which je han of the disturblaunce in Beeme, and also of the disturblaunce and dyverse feelingis had among jou silf now in Ynglond, so that summe of 50U ben clepid Doc- toui-mongers^ and summe ben clepid Opinimm-holders, and summe ben Neutralise that of so presumptuose a cisme abhominacioun to othere men and schame to 50U it is to heere ; rebuke now 50U silf, for as miche as je wolden not bifore this tyme allowe, that resoun and his doom schulde have such and so greet interesse in the lawe of God and in expownyng of Holi Scripture, as y have seid and proved hem to have. X. (A.D. 1550.) LEVER'S SERM0NS.== As for example of ryche men, loke at the merchauntes of London, and ye shall se, when as by their honest voca- * judgement. » Arber's Bejprint, page 29. 362 The Soicrccs of Standard English. cion, and trade of marchandise God hath endowed them with great abundaunce of ryches, then can they not be content with the prosperous welth of that vocacion to satisfye theym selves, and to helpe other, but their riches muste abrode in the countrey to bie fermes out of the handes of worshypfall gentlemen, honeste yeomen, and pore laborynge husbandes. Yea no we also to bye per- sonages, and benefices, where as they do not onelye bye landes and goodes, but also lyves and soules of men, from God and the comen wealth, unto the Devyll and theim selves. A myschevouse marte of merchandrie is this, and yet now^e so comenly used, that therby shepe- heardes be turned to theves, dogges into wolves, and the poore flocke of Christ, redemed wyth his precious bloud, moste miserably e pylled and spoyled, yea cruelly devoured. Be thou marchaunt of the citye, or be thou gentleman in the contrey, be thou lawer, be you cour- tear, or what maner of man soever thou be, that can not, yea yf thou be master doctor of divinitie, that wyl not do thy duety, it is not lawfuU for the to have personage, benefice, or any suche hvyng, excepte thou do fede the flocke spiritually wyth Goddes worde, and bodelye wyth honeste hospitalitye. I wyll touch diverse kyndes of ryche men and rulers, that ye maye se what harme some of theim do wyth theyr ryches and authoritye. And especiallye I wyll begynne wyth theym that be best learned, for they seme belyke to do moste good wyth ryches and authoritie unto theim committed. If I therefore beynge a yonge simple scholer myghte be so bolde, I wolde aske an auncient, wyse, and well learned doctor of divinitie, whych cometh not at hys benefice, Twelve Hundred Years of English, 363 whether he were bounde to fede hys flocke in teachynge of Goddes worde, and kepyng hospitalitie or no ? He wolde answere and saye : Syr, my curate supplieth my roume in teachynge, and my farmer in kepynge of house. Yea but master doctor by your leave, both these more for your vauntage then for the paryshe conforte : and there- fore the mo suche servauntes that ye kepe there, the more harme is it for your paryshe, and the more synne and shame for you. Ye may thynke that I am sumwhat saucy e to laye synne and shame to a doctor of divinitie in thys solemne audience, for some of theim use to excuse the matter, and saye : Those whych I leave in myne absence do farre better .than I shoulde do, yf I taryed there my selfe. XI. COWLEY. (Works, printed by Sprat in 1668.0 How this love came to be produced in me so early, is a hard question : I believe I can tell the particular little chance that filled my head first with such Chimes of Verse, as have never since left ringing there. For I remember when I began to read, and to take some plea- sure in it, there was wont to lie in my Mother's Parlour (I know not by what accident, for she her self never in her life read any Book but of Devotion), but there was wont to lie Spencers Works: this I happened to fall upon, and was infinitely delighted with the stories of the 1 Page 144, near the end of the Volume. .364 The Sources of Standard English, Knights, and Giants, and Monsters, and brave Houses, which I found every where there : (Though my under- standing had Httle to do with all this) and by degrees with the tinckling of the Bhyme and Dance of the l!Tumbers, so that I think I had read him all over before I was twelve years old, and was thus made a Poet as irremediably as a Child is made an Eunuch. With these affections of mind, and my heart wholly set upon Letters, I went to the University ; But was soon torn from thence by that violent Publick storm which would suffer nothing to stand where it did, but rooted up every Plant, even from the Princely Cedars to Me, the Hyssop. Yet I had as good fortune as could have befallen me in such a Tempest ; for I was cast by it into the Family of one of the best Persons, and into the Court of one of the best Princesses of the World. Now though I was here engaged in wayes most contrary to the Original •design of my life, that is, into much company, and no small business, and into a daily sight of Greatness, both JMihtant and Triumphant (for that was the state then of the English and French Courts), yet all this was so far from altering my Opinion, that it onely added the con- firmation of Reason to that which was before but Natural Inclination. I saw plainly all the Paint of that kind of Life, the nearer I came to it ; and that Beauty which I did net fall in Love with, when, for ought I knew, it was reall, was not like to bewitch, or intice me, when I saw that it was Adulterate. I met with several •great Persons, whom I liked very well, but could not perceive that any part of their Greatness was to be Hked or desired, no more then I would be glad, or content to Tzuclve Hundred Years of EnglisJu 365 be in a storm, tliougli I saw many ships whicli rid safely and bravely in it : A storm would not agree with my stomach, if it did with my Courage. Though I was in a crowd of as good company as could be found any where, though I was in business of great and honourable trust, though I eate at the best Table, and enjoyed the best conveniences for present subsistance that ought to be desired by a man of my condition in banishment and publick distresses ; yet I could not abstain from renewing my old School-boys Wish in a Copy of Verses to the same effect. XII. GIBBON. (a.d. 1776.) THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. CHAPTER I. In the second century of the Christian -^ra, the empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized portion of mankind. The frontiers of that extensive monarchy were guarded by ancient renown and disciplined valour. The gentle, but powerful, influence of laws and manners had gradually cemented the union of the provinces. Their peaceful inhabitants enjoyed and abused the advantages of wealth and luxury. The image of a free constitution was pre- served with decent reverence : the Roman senate ap- peared to possess the sovereign authority, and devolved 366 The Sources of Standard English. on the emperors all the executive powers of govern- ment. CHAPTER II. It was once proposed to discriminate the slaves by a peculiar habit ; but it was justly apprehended that there might be some danger in acquainting them with their own numbers. Without interpreting, in their utmost strictness, the liberal appellations of legions and myriads, we may venture to pronounce that the proportion of slaves, who were valued as property, was more consi- derable than that of servants, who can be computed only as an expense. The youths of a promising genius were instructed in the arts and sciences, and their price was ■ascertained by the degree of their skill and talents. Almost every profession, either liberal or mechanical, might be found in the household of an opulent senator. The ministers of pomp and sensuality were multiplied beyond the conception of modem luxury. It was more for the interest of the merchant or manufacturer to purchase, than to hire his workmen ; and in the country, slaves were employed as the cheapest and most laborious instruments of agriculture. To confirm the general •observation, and to display the multitude of slaves, we might allege a variety of particular instances. It was discovered, on a very melancholy occasion, that four hundred slaves were maintained in a single palace of Home. Twelve Hundred Years of English. 367 MOERIS. (A.D. 1872.) LOVE IS ENOUGH. O^friend, I have seen lier no more, and her mourning Is alone and unhelped — yet to-night or to-morrow Somewhat nigher will I be to her love and her longing. Lo, to thee, friend, alone of all folk on the earth These things have I told : for a true man I deem thee Beyond all men call true ; yea, a wise man moreover And hardy and helpful ; and I know thy heart surely That thou holdest the world nought without me thy fosterling. Oome, leave all awhile ! it may be, as time weareth, With new life in our hands we shall wend us back hither. Page 47. One beckoneth her back hitherward — even Death — And who was that, Beloved, but even I ? Yet though her feet and sunlight are drawn nigh The cold grass where he lieth like the dead, To ease your hearts a little of their dread I will abide her coming, and in speech He knoweth, somewhat of his welfare teach. • •••••• Hearken, Pharamond, why earnest thou hither ? I came seeking Death ; I have found him belike. In what land of the world art thou lying, O Pharamond ? In a land^'twixt two worlds ; nor long shall I dwell there. • •••••• Who am I, Pharamond, that stand here beside thee ? The Death I have sought — thou art welcome ; I greet thee. 368 The Sources of Standard English. Sucli a name have I had, but another name have I. Art thou God, then, that helps not until the last season ? Yea, God am I surely ; yet another name have I. Methinks as I hearken, thy voice I should wot of. I called thee, and thou cam'st from thy glory and kingship. I was King Pharamond, and love overcame me. Pharamond, thou say's t it. — I am Love and thy master. Sooth did'st thou say when thou call'dst thyself Death. Though thou diest, yet thy love and thy deeds shall I quicken. Be thou God, be thou Death, yet I love thee and dread not. Pharamond, while thou livedst, what thing wert thou loving ? A dream and a lie — and my death — and I love it. Pharamond, do my bidding, as thy wont was aforetime. What wilt thou have of me, for I wend away swiftly ? Open thine eyes, and behold where thou liest ! It is little — the old dream, the old lie is about me. Why faintest thou, Pharamond ? Is love then unworthy ? Then hath God made no world now, nor shall make here- after. Twelve Hundred Years of English. 369 Wouldst thou live if thou mightst in this fair world, O Pharamond ? Yea, if she and truth were ; nay, if she and truth were not, long shalt thou live ; thou art here in the body. Where nought but thy spirit I brought in days bygone. Ah, thou hearkenest ! — And where then of old hast thou heard it ? O mock me not, Death ; or, Life, hold me no longer ; For that sweet strain I hear that I heard once a-dreaming ; Is it death coming nigher, or life coming back that brings it? Or rather my dream come again as aforetime ? Look up, O Pharamond ! canst thou see aught about thee?— Page 76. It is a shame for any Englishman to look coldly upon his mother tongue, and I hope that this Book may help forward the study of English in all its stages. Let the beginner first buy the Gothic and Anglo-Saxon Gospels, with Wicklifie's and Tyndale's versions ; these, printed in four columns side by side, make a moderate volume, and are published by J. Smith, Soho Square, Lon- don. Let him next get Thorpe's Analecta Anglo- Saxonica (a glossary is attached), published by Arch, Comhill; the extracts given here range from the year 890 to 1205. Then let him go on to Dr. Morris' Specimens of Early English, which will take him from 1230 to 1400 ; Mr. Skeat's Specimens will bring him down to 1579 : these last two books come from the Clarendon Press and are sold by Macmillan & Co. The great English works, from 1579 to 1873, maybe supposed to be already well known to all B B 370 The Sources of Standard English, men of any education. The thorougli-going English student must always keep his eye fixed upon Dr. March's Anglo-Saxon Grammar (Sampson Low, Son, and Mars- ton), and upon Dr. Morris' Historical Outlines of English Accidence (Macmillan and Co.). He will, it is to be hoped, forthwith become a subscriber to the Early English Text Society. May many an Englishman begin his studies in his own tongue, mindful of Virgil's line : * Antiquam exquirite Matrem.' INDEX. [English words and letters are here inserted in their most modem shape ; thus which must be looked out, in order to find hwylc. In pursuance of this plan, I set down that a replaces cp, not that ae changes to a.] A the Prefix, 15 ; it is clipped, , 96 — Replaces cb, 38, 43, 50, 57, 61, 73, 74, 88, 102 — Replaces an in the Infinitive, 37,43 — Replaces an in Nonns, 51 — Replaces an as the Article, 67, 69, 73 — Replaces e, 80, 148, 177, 274, 282, 283 — Replaces m, 37, 38, 43, 52, 54, 60, 73, 95 — Replaces ge, 44, 61 — Replaces i, 261 — Replaces o, 64, 70 — Replaces o/, 119, 261 — Replaces on, 27, 59, 64, 74, 88, 269, 317 — Replaces y, 261 — used as an Interjection, 100 — standing iovhe, 192 — set before an adjective, 192 A day or two, 194 Abaft, 26 Aberdeenshire, 138, 146 Able, the Romance Suffix, 247, 275, 279 ADV About to (standing for the Fu- ture), 194 Above, 98, 130 Abraham, Bishop, 335 Abroad {late), 77, 291 Abroad {foris), 291 Ac, the Suffix, 247 Accents, 32, 221, 222 Accord, with one, 269 According as, 269 According to, 26, 280, 287 Acknowledge, 64, 300 Acorn, 274 Acre, 3, 5 Across, 280 Adam Bede, the Authoress of, 99. See Middlemarch Adder, 188 Addison, 98, 149, 195, 252, 300, 312, 313, 317, 331, 338 Adi'ectival endings, 11, 12, 103, i30, 248 Adjectives, 7, 13, 22, 51, 59, 95, 277 — no longer agree in Number with Substantives, 52, 285 Ado, 283, 287, 291 Adventure, 237 B B 2 372 Index. ADV AN Adventurer, 238 Adverbial Genitive, 8 Adverbs, 7, 101, 192, 241 Advoutry, 292 My replacing ea, 57, 61 — it disappears, 87, 91, 102, 112 — the Anglian diphthong, 353 jElfrie, 51, 67, 68, 85, 216 Afar, 119 Affinity, 243, 301 Afford, 83 Afore, 27, 194 Afraid, 245, 292 Aft, 26 After, 7, 27 Aftermost, 7 Again, 27, 91, 151, 285, 286 — in composition, 307 Against, 71, 73, 264, 278, 290 Agatho, Pope, 61 Age, the Romance Suffix, 246 Aghast, 113 Agincourt, 276 Ago, 141 Agog, 105 Ai, the combination, 87 — replaces ds\ 99, 149, 274, 289 Thou, 23 Though (2f«w^«), 31, 43, 137 Thought, 87, 147 Thousand, 12 Thrale, Mrs., 244 Threat, 129 Three, 3, 50, 59 Thrice, 50, 290 Thrive, 98, 286 Through, 85, 310 — the r transposed, 147 Throughout, 81 Thrust, 84 Thucydides, 68 Thud, 113, 261 Thumb, 74 Thunder, has n inserted, 26, 129 Thurlow, Lord, 341 Thwart, 129 Thy, 67, 70, 266 Thyself, 100 Tidings, 90, 117 Tidy, 131 Tight, 169 Till, the Northumbrian, 27, 38, 73, 125, 136, 142, 162, 186 Till, to, 90 Time, 176 Times, The, 324, 328, 336 Tine, to, 131, 251 Tippet, 261 Tithes, 96, 129 Titus Gates, 327 To, before Infinitive, 30, 189 — used for at^ 27 — used for /or, 27 — replaces the Dative, 53 404 Index, TO To, the Teutonic Prefix, 170, 231, 309 To-break, 309 To and fro, 193 To the end that, 269 Toil, 90 Token, 129 Tome (vacuus), 176 Tongue, 20, 51 Toot, to, 123 Tooth, teeth, 4, 22, 25, 98, 116 Top, 179 Topcliffe, 312 Topple, 122 Touch, 242, 245 Touching this, 269 Tough, 274 Tout, to, 90 Tow, 117 Toy, 117, 190 Toxophilite, 301 Trades, English, 236 Trail, 245 Transubstantiation, 68 Travail, 20 Traveller's Song, the, 18 Tread, 105 Tree, 4, 49 Trench, Archbishop, 328 Trent, the, 42, 95 Trevisa, 260, 261,287 Tristrem, Sir, the, 159-162, 177, 185, 237, 239, 240 Trollope, Mr., 146, 324 Trow, I, 194 True, 3, 187 True as steel, 194 Trumbull, Mr., 229 Trust, 90 Truth, 74, 187 Tuesday, 2, 178 Tug, li7 Tumble, 179 Turk, the, 2, 306 UNW I Twelve, 12, 13, 138 ! Twice, 59, 290 Twinge, 142 I Twist, 90 I Twit, how formed, 32 i Two, 3, 39, 50 Tyndale, 43, 189, 252, 267,286, 288-298, 300, 302-307, 317, 318, 323, 369 Tyrant, 26 U, the Aryan Suffix, 6, 12 — the old ending of the Northumbrian Present of the Verb, 38 — replaces co, 74, 82 0, 91, 128, 130 w, 43, 49, 50, 73, 74 i in the South, 71, 81, 147 Ue, foreo, 158, 191 — ioT yw, 178 Ugly, 131 Um, Dative Plural in, 14, 15, 44, 51, 59, 68 Umbe, 121, 170 Umquhile, 121, 191 Un, the Teutonic Prefix, 6, 15, 98, 99, 279, 292, 302 — for hine, 24, 58 Uncer, the Dual, 23 Unclubbable, 279, 314 Under, 3, 7, 27, 98, 231 Underling, 81 Understanding, the, 150 Ung, Verbal Nouns in, 60, 113 Ungainly, 97, 116 Ungcet, very old, 37, 349 Unidea-ed, 314 United States, 48. See America Unlike, 104 Unless, 186, 280 Until, 186, 261 Unwisdom, 99 Index^ 405 UP Up, 3 Upholding, 98 Upon, 99 Upon the point to be, 242 Upper, 179 Upside down, 261 Us, 23, 138 Use {soleo\ 178, 241 Usury, 267 Utan, ute, 29, 155 Utmost, 7 Utterly, 122, 269 V replaces /", 58, 59, 71, 80, 120, 209, 290 w, 291 — cast out in the middle of a word, 164, 256 Vat, 80 Vedas, the, 5, 11 Verbs. 8ee Strong, Weak, Ir- regular — how formed, 8, 14 — idioms of, 28, 29 — changes in, 61, 62, 68, 74, 81, 82, 112 — formed from Nouns, 151, 174, 175 Vercelli, 36 Vere, Mr. Aubrey de, 316 Verily, 243 Very, 101, 186, 233, 242, 243, 262, 281 Victoria, Queen, 36, 54, 186, 233, 318, 345 Victuals, 294 Virgil, 29, 370 Virgin, The, 230, 297 Virtus, 238, 293 Vixen, 6, 80 Volatilis, 267 Voltaire, 280, 315 Von Raumer, 234 WAS Vowels, changed in Strong Verbs, 8, 16 — doubling of, 33, 148 — at the end of a word, 33, 310 — pronounced in the French way, 80 — strange pronunciation of, 128, 138, 171, 175 W replaces g, 60, 59, 80, 84, , 85, 88, 117, 120, 121, 127, 184, 274 A, 82, 121 u, 186 — added to 0, 179 — cast out in the middle of a word, 261 — prefixed, 282, 283, 291, 296 Wadding, 227 Waddington, 182, 188 Waggon, 103 Wail, 179 Wain, 103 Wait, 170, 180, 220 Wake, 88, 191 Walk, 83 Wallow, 291 Walpole, 337 Wamba, 332 Wan, the Prefix, 121 — replaces un^ 121 Wand, 98 Wanley, 38, 42 Want, 98 Wanton, 121 War, 64, 225 Ward, the Suffix, 6, 261, 287 Ware, 73, 91 Warton, 261 Warwick, 45, 162, 179, 256, 315 Warwick, Earl of, 276, 277 Was, 61; {eras) 104; becomes wast, 266 4o6 Index, WAS WIL Wasp, 26 Waste, 191, 225 Watch, 88 Water, 3 Watershed, 83 Waur, 98, 186 Waves, 291 Wax, 4, 302 . Weak Verbs, how formed, 10, 16, 25 — replace Strong Verbs, 43, 105, 112, 151, 164,266, 292, 309 Weal and woe, 34, 194 Wealth, 91 Wear, 291 Weasel, 287 Weave, 4, 49 Wedgwood, Mr., 73, 83, 106, 124, 126, 132, 170 Wedlock, 103 Wednesday, 121 Weep, 105, 151 Weight, 129 Welfare, 191 Well nigh, 88 Wellington, 194, 315 Wench, 154 AVelsh,the, 48, 84, 106, 115, 117, 123, 132, 154, 162, 169, 179, 254,306,346. fe Celtic, Celts Went, 10, 52, 186, 279 Were, 67, 69, 71, 104 Wesley, 268 Wessex, 17, 19, 35, 36, 43, 45, 46, 48, 259, 260 West of England, 104, 112, 118, 184, 223, 259 Westminster, 235, 273 Wexford, 207 What, 6, 24, 120 — stands for quis, 100 — stands for aliquid, 30, 99 — used as an Interjection, 32 — stands for et^ 82 What time, 192 Whatsoever, 73, 130 Whence, 174 Where, for there, 49 Whereas, 269 Wheresoever, 118 Whether {uter), 3, 7, 302 Which, 67, 70, 79, 81, 82, 100, 120, 136, 149, 166, 184, 266, Which so ever, 81 Which, the, 192 While, 4, 74 Whilom, 15 Whilst, 91 Whip, 142 Whirlwind, 99, 212 White, Mr., 93 Whither, 3 Whitherso, 50 Who {ho), 3, 6, 24, 58, 125, 137, 138, 149, 193, 278 Whole, 52, 189, 291 Wholesome, 90 Wholly, 189, 282, 296 Whom, 24, 82, 120 Whoso, 49, 59, 118, 137, 193 Whosoever, 116 Wicked, 73, 96 Wickedness, 150 Wickliffe, 85, 86, 164, 241, 248, 249, 259, 263, 265-269, 277, 289, 290, 291, 293, 323, 335, 369 Wiles, 64, 96 Will, the Auxiliary Verb, 10, 29 William the Conqueror, 48, 51, 53, 56, 224, 345. See Con- queror William, the Englishman, 235 William, the name, 222 William of Palerne and the Werwolf, 124, 205, 259 Willingly, 151 Wilson 307 Index. 407 WIM Wimple, 90 Winchester, 46, 47, 54, 63, 217, 254, 320, 323 Windlass, 213 Windmill, 177 Window, 123, 124, 134 Wing, 98 Wink, a, 194 Winnow, 266 Wis, the Suffix, 15 Wit, 3, 10 With, its senses, 30, 82, 107, 137, 163, 256 — the Prefix, 15, 170 Withal, 100 Witham, the, 42 Withdraw, 121 Withhold, 121 Without, 53, 119 Wobble, 115 Woebegone, 141 Woe me, 85, 302 Woe worth the day, 302 Wohung of our Lord, 124 Wolf, 5, 14 Wolsey, 289, 305 Woman, 53, 116 W^ont {solere), 194, 337 Wood, 91 Worcester, 39. 84, 111, 112, 115, 218, 255, 290 Work a day, 103 Workman, 50 World, 103 Worse, 98 Worship, 103, 294 Worth, the Verb, 4, 250 Wot, 4, 10 Would, 128 Would God, 194, 302 Wound, 128, 138, 147 Wretched, wretchedness, 150, 185 Wright, Mr., 184, 233, 234 YUL Wrong, 51, 96 Wroth, 129 Wrought, 71, 83, 107 Wyat, 298 Wyatt, 343 Wynstre (left), 82 Y replaces q, 26, 43, 57, 70, , 80, 82, 85, 95, 117, 129, 179,261, 277 — , used as a Prefix, 91 — , written for i, 195, 285 — , written for thy 259 Yare, 43 Yarrow, the, 41 Yawn, 261 Ye, 23 ; first used for tliou, 160, 185 Yea, 28, 266, 294 Year, 11, 87 Yellow, 12, 179 Yes, 28, 104 Yield, 127 Yoke, 3, 9, 44 Yon, 192 Yonder, 167 Yonge, Miss, 343 York, the Duke of, 283, 285 York, change of its name, 41 ; see also 42, 44, 47, 55, 57, 75, 97, 120, 124, 131, 136, 138, 145-153, 164, 180, 182, 185, 203, 259, 260, 263, 266, 272, 281, 283, 289, 296 You, 23, 49 ; instead of thou, 167 Young, 3, 91, 127 ; young one, 266 Your, 23, 43, 58, 87 Yours, 100 Yourselves, 290 Youth, 40, 88 Yowl, 169 Yule, 98, 186, 244 408 Index, G, a new character in English, replacing g, 70, 82, 88, 95, 100, 103, 287 — written for the sound 5, 70 — first set at the end of a word, 95 Xj^oxA {through)^ is dropped, 120 ZWI nho {heo\ 96 Z stands for 5, 209, 220, 278, 287 Zeus, 2, 338 Zwingli, 292 LONDON : PRINTED BY SPOTTISAVOODE AND CO., NEW-STUEET SQUAKJE AND PABHAaiENT STREET / 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DIPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewals only: Tel. No. 642-3405 Renewals may be made 4 days prior to date due. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. recall alter- m^ iiAue 1^^'%^^^^ LD21A-50m-2,'71 (P2001sl0)476 — A-32 General Library University of California Berkeley ~i~T^kinn >i>^-.. J fe, /, ^^cMmsi^mMms^mMKMmpm'i Si^i UNIV^R^L^l^i^pF ^lyl^pRNIA WBRARY '1^1 ^J ^^w-^^-' r"/; m/j \^ .t;^^- \.v Wj: \.,\ijj,^^- .V^*;, ■smi " V ^' ^^^Hp^4^ m^ '^CMi3^S^ i ^^^^HL ' ^ sS 1 ji^. »#4'^