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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
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THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 ITS GRAMMAR, HISTORY, AND 
 LITERATURE 
 
 WITH CHAPTERS ON 
 
 COMPOSITION, VERSIFICATION, PARAPHRASING, 
 AND PUNCTUATION 
 
 J. M. D. MEIKLEJOHN, M.A. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF THE THEORY, HISTORY, AND PRACTICE OF EDUCATION 
 IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS 
 
 THIRTY-THIRD EDITION 
 
 ENLARGED WITH EXERCISE8, ADDITIONAL ANALYSIS, AND EXAMPLES 
 
 OF FALSE OR DOUBTFUL SYNTAX 
 
 [Thoroughly Revised] 
 
 LONDON 
 MEIKLEJOHN AND SON LTD. 
 
 11 PATERNOSTER SQUARE, E.C. 
 1920 
 
 [All Rights Reserved] 
 

PREFACE 
 
 This book, it is hoped, will be found useful in Training 
 Colleges, in Secondary Schools both for boys and girls, to 
 candidates for Local and Matriculations Examinations, and 
 to other classes of students. 
 
 Only the most salient features of the language have been 
 described, and minor details have been left for the teacher 
 to fill in. Even in the text as it stands, the experienced 
 teacher will easily be able to point his pupils towards those 
 portions of the book which should be mastered first, leaving 
 other portions of it (such as the Grammar of Verse, for 
 instance) to be subjects of later study. The utmost clear- 
 ness and simplicity have been the aim of the writer, and he 
 has been obliged to sacrifice many interesting details to this 
 aim. 
 
 The study of English Grammar is becoming every day 
 more and more historical — and necessarily so. There are 
 scores of inflections, usages, constructions, idioms, which can- 
 not be truly or adequately explained without a reference to 
 the past states of the language — to the time when it was a 
 synthetic or inflected language, like German or Latin. 
 
 The Syntax of the language has been set forth in the form 
 of Rules. This was thought to be better for young learners, 
 who require firm and clear dogmatic statements of fact and 
 duty. But the skilful teacher will slowly work up to these 
 rules by the interesting process of induction, and will — when 
 
 462407 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 it is possible — induce his pupil to draw the general con- 
 clusions from the data given, and thus to make rules for 
 himself. Another convenience that will be found by both 
 teacher and pupil in this form of rules will be that they can 
 be compared with the rules of, or general statements about, 
 a foreign language — such as Latin, French, or German. 
 
 It is earnestly hoped that the slight sketches of the History 
 of our Language and of our Literature may not only enable 
 the young student to pass his examinations with success, but 
 may induce him to study the original works for himself. 
 
 The sixty pages of exercises and examination papers will 
 be found useful by both pupil and teacher alike. 
 
 The Index will be of assistance in preparing the parts of 
 each subject, as all the separate paragraphs about the same 
 subject will be found there grouped together. 
 
 I beg to thank very warmly those able Teachers who have 
 been kind enough to give me hints and suggestions towards 
 the improvement of this book ; and I am also glad to note 
 here the fact that Modern Teaching is every day tending 
 more and more towards clearness and simplicity. 
 
 J. M. D. M. 
 
 The present edition contains a number of carefully selected 
 examples of false, doubtful, or genuine syntax, with hints 
 towards their correction or defence. These examples are taken 
 from papers set at the London Matriculation, the College of 
 Preceptors', the Civil Service, and various other public ex- 
 aminations. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART L 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 PACK 
 
 LANGUAGE ....... 1 
 
 ORTHOGRAPHY 
 
 . 
 
 
 . . . 
 
 5 
 
 ETYMOLOGY 
 
 . 
 
 
 • • 
 
 8 
 
 NOUNS 
 
 . 
 
 
 ■ . a 
 
 9 
 
 PRONOUNS 
 
 . 
 
 
 • . ■ 
 
 . 23 
 
 ADJECTIVES 
 
 . 
 
 
 • . • 
 
 . 28 
 
 VERBS 
 
 . 
 
 
 • . ■ 
 
 . 34 
 
 ADVERBS 
 
 . 
 
 
 > • . 
 
 . 57 
 
 PREPOSITIONS 
 
 
 . 
 
 58 
 
 CONJUNCTIONS 
 
 
 • • . 
 
 . 60 
 
 INTERJECTIONS 
 
 
 . 
 
 60 
 
 WORDS AND THEIR FUNCTIONS 
 
 
 . 
 
 , 61 
 
 SYNTAX . 
 
 
 , 
 
 . 64 
 
 NOUN 
 
 
 . 
 
 64 
 
 NOMINATIVE CASE 
 
 
 . 
 
 64 
 
 POSSESSIVE CASE 
 
 
 > . . 
 
 67 
 
 OBJECTIVE CASE 
 
 
 . . 
 
 68 
 
 DATIVE CASE . 
 
 
 > . . 
 
 69 
 
 ADJECTIVE . 
 
 
 
 • . 
 
 71 
 
 PRONOUN . 
 
 
 
 . . i 
 
 74 
 
 VERB 
 
 
 
 . i 
 
 76 
 
 ADVERB 
 
 
 
 . • 
 
 83 
 
 PREPOSITION AND CONJUNCTION . 
 
 83-84 
 
 EXAMPLES OF FALSE, DOUBTFUL, ( 
 
 )R GENUINE SYNTAX 85(a) 
 
 ANALYSIS 
 
 . 86 
 
 SIMPLE SENTENCE . 
 
 
 
 87 
 
 FORMS OF SENTENCES 
 
 
 . . . 
 
 87 
 
 PARTS OF THE SENTENCE 
 
 
 . 
 
 88 
 
 NOMINATIVE OF ADDRESS 
 
 
 
 97 
 
 COMPLEX SENTENCE 
 
 
 • 
 
 103 
 
 CAUTIONS IN THE ANALYSIS OF COMPLEX SENTENCES 
 
 107 
 
 THE MAPPING OUT OF COMPLEX SENTENCES 
 
 109 
 
 COMPOUND SENTENCE .... 
 
 111 
 
 CO-ORDINATE SENTENCES 
 
 . 
 
 112 
 
 PARENTHETICAL SENTENCES 
 
 
 115 
 
 WORD-BUILDING AND DERIVATION 
 
 . 
 
 116 
 
 COMPOUND N 
 
 OUNS 
 
 
 
 • • < 
 
 116 
 
VI 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 word-building and derivation — Continued 
 
 COMPOUND ADJECTIVES 
 
 COMPOUND VERBS . 
 
 COMPOUND ADVERBS 
 
 PREFIXES AND SUFFIXES 
 
 ENGLISH PREFIXES 
 
 LATIN PREFIXES 
 
 GREEK PREFIXES 
 
 ENGLISH SUFFIXES 
 
 LATIN AND FRENCH SUFFIXES 
 
 GREEK SUFFIXES 
 WO RD-BRANCHING 
 
 ENGLISH ROOTS 
 
 LATIN ROOTS 
 
 GREEK ROOTS 
 WORDS DERIVED FROM THE NAMES OF PERSONS 
 WORDS DERIVED FROM THE NAMES OF PLACES 
 WORDS DISGUISED IN FORM 
 WORDS THAT HAVE CHANGED IN MEANING 
 
 PART II. 
 
 COMPOSITION 
 
 PUNCTUATION 
 
 FIGURES OF SPEECH 
 
 PARAPHRASING . 
 
 PROSODY . 
 
 EXERCISES 
 
 EXAMINATION QUESTIONS 
 
 PART III. 
 
 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, AND THE FAMILY TO WHICH IT 
 
 BELONGS 
 THE PERIODS OF ENGLISH 
 HISTORY OF THE VOCABULARY . 
 HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR 
 
 SPECIMENS OF ENGLISH OF DIFFERENT PERIODS 
 MODERN ENGLISH .... 
 LANDMARKS IN THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 TABLES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 349 
 445 
 
 INDEX 
 
 459 
 
PART I. 
 
 THE GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
INTKODUCTIOK 
 
 1. What a Language is. — A Language is a number of con- 
 nected sounds which convey a meaning. These sounds, car- 
 ried to other persons, enable them to know how the speaker 
 is feeling, and what he is thinking. More than ninety per cent 
 of all language used is spoken language ; that which is written 
 forms an extremely small proportion. But, as people grow more 
 and more intelligent, the need of written language becomes more ' 
 and more felt ; and hence all civilised nations have, in course 
 of time, slowly and with great difficulty made for themselves a 
 set of signs, by the aid of which the sounds are, as it were, 
 indicated upon paper. But it is the sounds that are the 
 language, and not the signs. The signs are a more or less 
 artificial, and more or less accurate, mode of representing the 
 language to the eye. Hence the names language, tongue, 
 and speech are of themselves sufficient to show that it is the 
 spoken, and not the -written, language that is the language, — 
 that is the more important of the two, and that indeed gives 
 life and vigour to the other. 
 
 2. The Spoken and the Written Language. — Every civilised 
 
 language had existed for centuries before it was written or 
 
 printed. Before it was written, then, it existed merely as 
 
 a spoken language. Our own tongue existed as a spoken 
 
 language for many centuries before any of it was committed 
 
 to writing. Many languages — such as those in the south of 
 
 Africa — are born, live, and die out without having ever been 
 
 written down at all. The parts of a spoken language are 
 
 called sounds ; the smallest parts of a written language are 
 
 A 
 
4 .GKAMMA?. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 called letters. The science of spoken sounds is called Pho- 
 netics ; the science of written signs is called Alphabetics. 
 
 3. The English Language. — The English language is the 
 language of the English people. The English are a Teutonic 
 people who came to this island from the north-west of Europe 
 in the fifth century, and brought with them the English tongue 
 — but only in its spoken form. The English spoken in 
 the fifth century was a harsh guttural speech, consisting of a 
 few thousand words, and spoken by a few thousand settlers 
 in the east of England. It is now a speech spoken by more 
 than 150 millions of people — spread all over the world; and 
 it probably consists of a hundred thousand words. It was once 
 poor ; it is now one of the richest languages in the world : 
 it was once confined to a few corners of land in the east of 
 England ; it has now spread over Great Britain and Ireland, the 
 whole of North America, the whole of Australasia, and parts of 
 Asia, South America, and Africa. 
 
 4. The Grammar of English. — Every language grows. It 
 changes as a tree changes. Its fibre becomes harder as it grows 
 older ; it loses old words and takes on new — as a tree loses old 
 leaves, and clothes itself in new leaves at the coming of every 
 new spring. But we are not at present going to trace the 
 growth of the English Language; we are going, just now, to 
 look at it as it is. We shall, of course, be obliged to look back 
 now and again, and to compare the past state of the language 
 with its present state ; but this will be necessary only when we 
 cannot otherwise understand the present forms of our tongue. 
 A description or account of the nature, build, constitution, or 
 make of a language is called its Grammar. 
 
 5. The Parts of Grammar. — Grammar considers and exam- 
 ines language from its smallest parts up to its most complex 
 organisation. The smallest part of a written language is a let- 
 ter; the next smallest is a word; and with words we make 
 sentences. There is, then, a Grammar of Letters ; a Grammar 
 of Words ; and a Grammar of Sentences. The Grammar of Let- 
 ters is called Orthography ; the Grammar of Words is called 
 Etymology ; and the Grammar of Sentences is called Syntax. 
 
THE GRAMMAR OF LETTERS. 5 
 
 There is also a Grammar of musically measured Sentences; 
 and this grammar is called Prosody. 
 
 (i) Orthography comes from two Greek words: orihos, right; and 
 graphe, a writing. The word therefore means correct writing. 
 
 (ii) Etymology 1 comes from two Greek words : ettimos, true ; and logos, 
 an account. It therefore means a true account of words. 
 
 (iii) Syntax comes from two Greek words: sun, together, with; and 
 taxis, an order. When a Greek general drew up his men in order of 
 battle, he was said to have them " in syntaxis." The word now means 
 an account of the build of sentences. 
 
 (iv) Prosody comes from two Greek words : pros, to ; and ode, a song. 
 It means the measurement of verse. 
 
 1 The term Etymology is also used to denote the process which traces the origin 
 or derivation of a word. 
 
 THE GRAMMAR OF SOUNDS AND LETTERS, 
 or ORTHOGRAPHY. 
 
 6. The Grammar of Sounds. — There are two kinds of sounds 
 in our language : (i) the open sounds ; and (ii) the stopped 
 sounds. The open sounds are called vowels; the stopped 
 sounds consonants. Vowels can be known by two tests — a 
 negative and a positive. The negative test is that they do not 
 need the aid of other letters to enable them to be sounded ; 
 the positive test is that they are formed by the continuous 
 of the breath. 
 
 (i) Vowel comes from Fr. voyelle ; from Lat. vScalis, sounding. 
 
 (ii) Consonant comes from Lat. con, with ; and sUno, I sound. 
 
 (iii) Two vowel-sounds uttered without a break between them are 
 called a diphthong. Thus oi in boil ; ai in aisle are diphthongs. (The 
 word comes from Greek dls, twice ; and phthonge, a sound.) 
 
 7. The Grammar of Consonants: (1) Mutes. — There are 
 different ways of stopping, checking, or penning-in the con- 
 tinuous flow of sound. The sound may be stopped (i) by the 
 lips — as in ib, ip, and im. Such consonants are called Labials. 
 Or (ii) the sound may be stopped by the teeth — as in id, it, 
 and in. Such consonants are called Dentals. Or (iii) the 
 sound may be stopped in the throat — as in ig, ik, and ing. 
 
6 
 
 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 These consonants are called Gutturals. The above set of sounds 
 are called Mutes, because the sound conies to a full stop. 
 
 (i) Labial comes from Lat. labium, the lip. 
 
 (ii) Dental comes from Lat. dens (dents) a tooth. Hence also dentist. 
 
 (iii) Guttural comes from Lat. guttur, the throat. 
 
 (iv) Palatal comes from Lat. palatum, the palate. 
 
 8. The Grammar of Consonants: (2) Spirants. Some con- 
 sonants have a little breath attached to them, do not stop the 
 sound abruptly, but may be prolonged. These are called 
 breathing letters or spirants. Thus, if we take an ib and 
 breathe through it, we make it an iv — the b becomes a v. If 
 we take an ip and breathe through it, it becomes an if — the p 
 becomes an f. Hence v and f are called spirant labials. The 
 following is a complete 
 
 TABLE OF CONSONANT SOUNDS. 
 
 MUTES. 
 
 SPIRANTS. 
 
 
 Flat 
 (or Soft). 
 
 Sharp 
 (or Hard). 
 
 Nasal. 
 
 Flat 
 (or Soft). 
 
 Sharp 
 (or Hard). 
 
 Trilled. 
 
 Gutturals 
 
 g 
 
 (in gig) 
 
 k 
 
 ng 
 
 
 h 
 
 
 Palatals . 
 
 J 
 
 ch 
 
 (church) 
 
 
 y 
 
 (yea) 
 
 
 ... 
 
 Palatal \ 
 Sibilants J 
 
 
 
 ... 
 
 zh 
 
 (azure) 
 
 sh 
 
 (sure) 
 
 r 
 
 Dental \ 
 Sibilants J 
 
 
 
 
 Z 
 
 (prize) 
 
 S 
 
 1 
 
 Dentals . 
 
 d 
 
 t 
 
 n 
 
 th 
 
 (bathe) 
 
 th 
 
 (bath) 
 
 
 Labials 
 
 b 
 
 P 
 
 m 
 
 V& W 
 
 f &wh 
 
 
 (i) The above table goes from the throat to the lips — from the back to 
 the front of the mouth. 
 
 (ii) b and d are pronounced with less effort than p and t. Hence b and 
 d, etc., are called soft or flat ; and p and t, etc., are called hard or sharp. 
 
THE GRAMMAR OF LETTERS. 7 
 
 9. The Grammar of Letters. — Letters are conventional 
 signs or symbols employed to represent sounds to the eye. 
 They have grown out of pictures, which, being gradually pared 
 down, became mere signs or letters. The steps were these ; 
 picture ; abridged picture ; diagram ; sign or symbol. The 
 sum of all the letters used to write or print a language is called 
 its Alphabet. Down to the fifteenth century, we employed a set 
 of Old English letters, such as a b t — I JJ J, which were the 
 Eoman letters ornamented ; but, from that or about that time, 
 we have used and still use only the plain Roman letters, as 
 a b c — x y z. 
 
 The word alphabet comes from the name of the first two letters in 
 the Greek language : alpha, beta. 
 
 10. An Alphabet. — An alphabet is, as we have seen, a code 
 Af signs or signals. Every code of signs has two laws, neither 
 of which can be broken without destroying the accuracy and 
 trustworthiness of the code. These two laws are : 
 
 (i) One and the same sound must be represented by one and 
 the same letter. 
 
 Hence : No sound should be represented by more than one letter. 
 
 (ii) One letter or set of letters must represent only one and 
 the same sound. 
 
 Hence : No letter should represent more than one sound. 
 
 Or, put in another way : 
 
 (i) One sound must be represented by one distinct symboL 
 (ii) One symbol must be translated to the ear by no more 
 than one sound. 
 
 (i) The first law is broken when we represent the long sound of a in 
 eight different ways, as in — fate, braid, say, great, neigh, prey, gaol, 
 gauge. 
 
 (ii) The second law is broken when we give eight different sounds to 
 the one symbol ough, as in — bough, cough, dough, hiccough (=cup), 
 hough (=hock), tough, through, thorough. 
 
 11. Our Alphabet.— The spoken alphabet of English contains 
 forty-three sounds ; the written alphabet has only twenty-six 
 symbols or letters to represent them. Hence the English al- 
 
8 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 phabet is very deficient. But it is also redundant. For it 
 contains five superfluous letters, c, q, x, iv, and y. The work 
 of the letter c might be done- by either A: or by s ; that of q 
 by & / x is equal to 7cs or gs ; w could be represented by oo ; 
 and much that y does could be done by i. It is in the vowel- 
 sounds that the irregularities of our alphabet are most discern- 
 ible. Thirteen vowel-sounds are represented to the eye in more 
 than one hundred different ways. 
 
 (i) There are twelve ways of printing a short i, as in sit, Cyril, bwsy, 
 women, etc. 
 
 (ii) There are twelve ways of printing a short e, as in set, any, bwry, 
 bread, etc. 
 
 (iii) There are ten ways of printing a long e, as in mete, marine, meet, 
 meat, key, etc. 
 
 (iv) There are thirteen ways of printing a short u, as in bud, love, 
 berth, rough, flood, etc. 
 
 (v) There are eleven ways of printing a long w, as in rude, move, blew, 
 true, etc. 
 
 THE GEAMMAE OF WOEDS, or ETYMOLOGY. 
 
 There are eight kinds of words in our language. These are 
 (i) Names or Nouns, (ii) The words that stand for Nouns are 
 called Pronouns, (iii) Next come the words-that-go-with- 
 Wouns or Adjectives, (iv) Fourthly, come the words-that- 
 say-something-of-Nouns or Verbs, (v) Next, the words that 
 qualify any part of speech except a pronoun are called Adverbs, 
 (vi) The words that-show-relation are called Prepositions ; 
 (vii) those that -join -Words -and -join -Sentences are called 
 Conjunctions, Lastly (viii) come Interjections, which are 
 indeed mere sounds without any organic or vital connection 
 with other words ; and they are hence sometimes called extra- 
 grammatical utterances. Nouns and Adjectives, Verbs and 
 Adverbs, have distinct, individual, and substantive meanings.' 
 Pronouns have no meanings in themselves, but merely refer to 
 nouns, just like a |§§p" in a book. Prepositions and Conjunctions 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF NOUNS. 9 
 
 once had independent meanings, but have not much now : their 
 chief use is to join words to each other. They act the part 
 of nails or of glue in language. Interjections have a kind of 
 meaning ; but they never represent a thought — only a feeling, 
 a feeling of pain or of pleasure, of sorrow or of surprise. 
 
 NOUNS. 
 
 L A Noun is a name, or any word or words used as a 
 name. 
 
 Ball, house, fish, John, Mary, are all names, and are therefore nouns. 
 " To walk in the open air is pleasant in summer evenings." The two 
 words to walk are used as the name of an action ; to walk is therefore 
 a noun. 
 
 The word noun comes from the Latin nomen, a name. From this word we have 
 also nominal, denominate, denomination, etc. 
 
 THE CLASSIFICATION OF NOUNS. 
 
 2. Nouns are of two classes — Proper and Common. 
 
 3. A proper noun is the name of an individual, as an in* 
 dividual, and not as one of a class. 
 
 John, Mary, London, Birmingham, Shakespeare, Milton, are all proper 
 nouns. 
 
 The word proper comes from the Latin proprius, one's own. Hence a 
 proper noun is, in relation to one person, one's own name. From the same word 
 we have appropriate, to make one's own ; expropriate, etc 
 
 (i) Proper nouns are always written with a capital letter at the 
 beginning ; and so also are the words derived from them. Thus we 
 write France, French, Frenchified ; Milton, MUtonic ; Shakespeare, Shake- 
 spearian. 
 
 (ii) Proper nouns, as such, have no meaning. They are merely marks 
 to indicate a special person or place. They had, however, originally a 
 meaning. The persons now called Armstrong, Smith, Greathead, no 
 doubt had ancestors who were strong in the arm, who did the work of 
 smiths, or who had large heads. 
 
 (iii) A proper noun may be used as a common noun, when it is em- 
 ployed not to mark an individual, but to indicate one of a class. Thus 
 we can say, "He is the Milton of his age," meaning by this that he 
 possesses the qualities which all those poets have who are like Milton. 
 
 (iv) We can also speak of " the Howards," " the Smiths," meaning a 
 number of persons who are called Howard or who are called Smith. 
 
10 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 4. A common noun is the name of a person, place, or thing, 
 considered not merely as an individual, but as one of a class. 
 Horse, town, boy, table, are common nouns. 
 
 The word common comes from the Lat. communis, "shared by several"; and 
 we find it also in community, commonalty, etc. 
 
 (i) A common noun is so called because ib belongs in common to all 
 the persons, places, or things in the same class. 
 
 (ii) The name rabbit marks off, or distinguishes, that animal from 
 all other animals ; but it does not distinguish one rabbit from another — 
 it is common to all animals of the class. Hence we may say : a com- 
 mon noun distinguishes from without ; but it does not distinguish within 
 its own bounds. 
 
 (iii) Common nouns have a meaning; proper nouns have not. The 
 latter may have a meaning ; but the meaning is generally not appro, 
 priate. Thus persons called Whitehead and Longshanks may be dark 
 and short. Hence such names are merely signs, and not significant marks. 
 
 5. Common nouns are generally subdivided into— 
 
 (i) Class-names. 
 
 (ii) Collective nouns. 
 
 (iii) Abstract nouns. 
 
 (i) Under class-names are included not only ordinary names, but 
 also the names of materials — as tea, sugar, wheat, water. The names 
 of materials can be used in the plural when different kinds of the 
 material are meant. Thus we say "fine teas," "coarse sugars," when 
 we mean fine hinds of tea, etc. 
 
 (ii) A collective noun is the name of a collection of persons or 
 things, looked upon by the mind as one. Thus we say committee, 
 parliament, crowd; and think of these collections of persons as each 
 one body. 
 
 (iii) An abstract noun is the name of a quality, action, or state, 
 considered in itself, and as abstracted from the thing or person in 
 which it really exists. Thus, we see a number of lazy persons, and 
 think of laziness as a quality in itself, abstracted from the persons. 
 (From Lat. abs, from ; tractus, drawn.) 
 
 (a) The names of arts and sciences are abstract nouns, because they are the 
 names of processes of thought, considered apart and abstracted from the 
 persons who practise them. Thus, music, painting, grammar, chemistry, 
 astronomy, are abstract nouns. 
 
 (iv) Abstract nouns are (a) derived from adjectives, as hardness, 
 dulness, sloth, from hard, dull, and slow; or (6) from verbs, as growth, 
 thought, from grow and think. 
 
THE INFLEXIONS OF NOUNS 11 
 
 (v) Abstract nouns are sometimes used as collective nouns. Thus 
 we say "the nobility and gentry "for "the nobles and gentlemen" 
 of the land. 
 
 (vi) Abstract nouns are classed under common nouns, because they 
 stand for every instance of the action, state, or quality they denote. 
 
 6. The following is a summary of the divisions of nouns : — 
 NOUNS. 
 
 Proper Common. 
 
 Class-Names. Collective Nouns. Abstract Nouns. 
 
 THE INFLEXIONS OF NOUNS. 
 
 7. Nouns can be inflected or changed. They are inflected to 
 indicate Gender, Number, and Case. 
 
 We must not, however, forget that differences of gender, 
 number, or case are not always indicated by inflexion. 
 
 Injlexio is a Latin word which means bending. An inflexion, therefore, is a 
 bending away from the ordinary form of the word. 
 
 Gender. 
 
 8. Gender is, in grammar, the mode of distinguishing sex by 
 the aid of words, prefixes, or suffixes. 
 
 The word gender comes from the Lat. genus, generis (Fr. genre), a 
 kind or sort. We have the same word in generic, general, etc. (The 
 d in gender is no organic or true part of the word ; it has been in- 
 serted as a kind of cushion between the n and the r.) 
 
 (i) Names of males are said to be of the masculine gender, as master, 
 lord, Harry. Lat. mas, a male. 
 
 (ii) Names of females are of the feminine gender, as mistress, lady, 
 Harriet. Lat. femina, a woman. (From the same word we have 
 effeminate, etc.) 
 
 (iii) Names of things without sex are of the neuter gender, as head, 
 tree, London. Lat. neuter, neither. (From the same word we have 
 neutral, neutrality.) 
 
 (iv) Names of animals, the sex of which is not indicated, are said to 
 be of the common gender. Thus, sheep, bird, hawk, parent, servant, are 
 common, because they may be of either gender. 
 
12 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 (v) We may sum up thus : — 
 
 Gender 
 
 ! 
 
 i i i f 
 
 Masculine. Feminine. Neuter. Common. 
 
 {Neither) {Either) 
 
 (vi) If we personify things, passions, powers, or natural forces, we may 
 make them either masculine or feminine. Thus the Sun, Time, the 
 Ocean, Anger, War, a river, are generally made masculine. On the other 
 hand, the Moon, the Earth (" Mother Earth "), Virtue, a ship, Religion, 
 Pity, Peace, are generally spoken of as feminine. 
 
 (vii) Sex is a distinction between animals ; gender a distinction be- 
 tween nouns. In Old English, nouns ending in dom, as freedom, were 
 masculine ; nouns in ness, as goodness, feminine ; and nouns in en, as 
 maiden, chicken, always neuter. But we have lost all these distinctions, 
 and, m modern English, gender always follows sex. 
 
 9. There are three ways of marking gender : — 
 
 (i) By the use of Suffixes. 
 (ii) By Prefixes (or by Composition). 
 
 (iii) By using distinct words for the names of the male and 
 female. 
 
 I. Gender marked by Suffixes. 
 
 A. Purely English or Teutonic Suffixes. 
 
 10. There are now in our language only two purely English 
 suffixes used to mark the feminine gender, and these are used 
 in only two words. The two endings are en and ster, and the 
 two words are vixen and spinster. 
 
 (i) Vixen is the feminine of fox ; and spinster of spinner {spinder or 
 spinther, which, later on, became spider). King Alfred, in his writings, 
 speaks of " the spear-side and the spindle-side of a house " — meaning the 
 men and the women. 
 
 (ii) Ster was used as a feminine suffix very largely in Old English. 
 Thus, webster was a woman-weaver ; baxter (or bagster), a female baker ; 
 hoppester, a woman-dancer ; redester, a woman-reader; huckster, a female 
 hawker (travelling merchant) ; and so on. 
 
 (iii) In Ancient English (Anglo-Saxon) the masculine ending was a, 
 and the feminine e, as in wicca, wicce, witch. Hence we find the names 
 of many Saxon kings ending in a, as Ida, Offa, Penda, etc. 
 
GENDER INDICATED BY SUFFIXES AND PREFIXES. 
 
 13 
 
 B. Latin and French Suffixes. 
 
 11. The chief feminine ending which we have received from 
 the French is ess (Latin, issa). This is also the only feminine 
 suffix with a living force at the present day — the only suffix we 
 could add to any new word that might be adopted by us from 
 a foreign source. 
 
 12. The following are nouns whose f em mines end in ess : — 
 
 Masculine. 
 
 Feminine. 
 
 Masculine. 
 
 Feminine. 
 
 Actor 
 
 Actress. 
 
 Host 
 
 Hostess. 
 
 Baron 
 
 Baroness. 
 
 Lad 
 
 Lass ( = ladess). 
 
 Caterer 
 
 Cateress. l 
 
 Marquis 
 
 Marchioness. 
 
 Count 
 
 Countess. 
 
 Master 
 
 Mistress. 
 
 Duke 
 
 Duchess. 
 
 Mayor 
 
 Mayoress. 
 
 Emperor 
 
 Empress. 
 
 Murderer 
 
 Murderess. 
 
 It will be noticed that, besides adding ess, some of the 
 letters undergo change or are thrown out altogether. 
 
 There are other feminine suffixes of a foreign origin, such a8 
 ine, a, and trix. 
 
 (i) ine is a Greek ending, and is found in heroine. A similar ending in 
 landgravine and margravine, the feminines of landgrave (a Qerman 
 count) and margrave (a lord of the Mark or of marches), is German. 
 
 (ii) a is an Italian or Spanish ending, and is found in donna (the 
 feminine of Don, a gentleman), infanta ( = the child, the heiress to the 
 crown of Spain), sultana, and signora (the feminine of Signor, the 
 Italian for Senior, elder, which we have compressed into Sir). 
 
 (iii) trix is a purely Latin ending, and is found only in those words 
 
 that have come to us directly from Latin ; as testator, testatrix (a person 
 
 who has made a will), executor, executrix (a person who carries out the 
 
 directions of a will). 
 
 1 Obsolete. 
 
 II. Gender indicated by Prefixes (or by Composition). 
 
 13. The distinction between the masculine and the feminine 
 gender is indicated by using such words as man, maid — bull, 
 cow — he, she — cock, hen, as prefixes to the nouns men- 
 tioned. In the oldest English,, carl and cwen ( = queen) were 
 employed to mark gender ; and carl-fugol is = cock-fowl, cwen- 
 f ugol = hen-f owL 
 
14 
 
 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 14. The following are the most important words of this 
 kind : — 
 
 Masculine. 
 Man-servant 
 Man 
 He -goat 
 He-ass 
 Jack-ass 
 
 Feminine. 
 Maid- servant. 
 Woman ( — wife-man) 
 She-goat. 
 She-ass. 
 Jenny-ass. 
 
 Buck-rabbit Doe-rabbit. 
 
 Masculine. 
 Bull-calf 
 Cock-sparrow 
 Wether-lamb 
 Pea-cock 
 Turkey-cock 
 Tom-cat 
 
 Feminine. 
 Cow-calf. 
 Hen-sparrrow. 
 Ewe-lamb. 
 Pea-hen. 
 Turkey-hen. 
 Tib-cat. 
 
 (i) In the time of Shakespeare, he and she were used as nouns. We 
 find such phrases as " The proudest he," " The fairest she," " That not 
 impossible she." 
 
 III. Gender indicated by Different Words. 
 
 15. The use of different words for the masculine and the fem- 
 inine does not really belong to grammatical gender. It may be 
 well, however, to note some of the most important : — 
 
 Masculine. 
 
 Feminine. 
 
 Masculine. Feminine. 
 
 Bachelor 
 
 Spinster. 
 
 Husband Wife. 
 
 Boy 
 
 Girl 
 
 King Queen. 
 
 Brother 
 
 Sister. 
 
 Lord Lady. 
 
 Foal 
 
 Filly. 
 
 Monk Nun. 
 
 Drake 
 
 Duck. 
 
 Nephew Niece. 
 
 Drone 
 
 Bee. 
 
 Ram (or Wether) Ewe. 
 
 Earl 
 
 Countess. 
 
 Sir Madam. 
 
 Father 
 
 Mother. 
 
 Sloven Slut. 
 
 Gander 
 
 Goose. 
 
 Son Daughter 
 
 Hart 
 
 Hind. 
 
 Uncls Aunt. 
 
 Horse 
 
 Mare. 
 
 Wizard Witch. 
 
 (i) Bachelor (lit., a cow-boy), from Low Lat. baccalarius ; from bacca, 
 Low Lat. for vacca, a cow. Hence also vaccination. 
 
 (ii) Girl, from Low German gov, a child, by the addition of the 
 diminutive I. 
 
 (iii) Filly, the dim. of foal. (When a syllable is added, the previous 
 vowel is often modified : as in cat, kitten ; cock, chicken ; cook, kitchen.) 
 
 (iv) Drake, a contraction of ened-rake, from the A.S. ened, a duck. 
 It has been stated that " rake " means " master," but this is quite un- 
 certain. The word duck simply means the bird that ducks or dives. 
 
 (v) Drone, from the droning sound it makes. 
 
 (vi) Earl, from A.S. tori, a warrior. Countess comes from the 
 French word comtesse. 
 
GENDER. 15 
 
 (vii) Father = feeder ; cognate of fat, food, feed, fodder, foster, etc. 
 
 (viii) Goose ; in the oldest A.S. gans ; Gandr-a (the a being the sign 
 of the masc). Hence gander, the d being inserted as a cushion be- 
 tween n and r, as in thunder, gender, etc. 
 
 (ix) Hart = the horned one. 
 
 (x) Mare, the fern, of A.S. mearh, a horse. Hence also marshal, which 
 at first meant horse-servant. 
 
 (xi) Husband, from Icelandic, husbondi, the master of the house. A 
 farmer in Norway is called a bonder. 
 
 (xii) King, a contraction of A.S. cyning, son of the kin or tribe. 
 
 (xiii) Lord, a contraction of A.S. hlaford — from hl£f, a loaf, and 
 weard, a ward or keeper. 
 
 (xiv) Lady, a contraction of A.S. hlaeTdige, a loaf-kneader. 
 
 (xv) The old A.S. words were nefa, nece. 
 
 (xvi) Woman = wife - man. The pronunciation of women (wimmen) 
 comes nearer to the old form of the word. See note on (iii.) 
 
 (xvii) Sir, from Lat. senior, elder. 
 
 (xviii) Madam, from Lat. Mea domina (through the French Ma dame) 
 - my lady. 
 
 (xix) Daughter = milker. Connected with dug. 
 
 (xx) Wizard, from old French guiscart, prudent. Witch has no con- 
 nection with wizard. 
 
 16. All feminine nouns are formed from the masculine, with 
 four exceptions : bridegroom, widower, gander, and drake, 
 which come respectively from bride, widow, goose, and duck. 
 
 (i) Bridegroom was in A.S. brydguma = the bride's man. (Guma is a 
 cognate of the Lat. hom-o, a man — whence humanity.) 
 
 (ii) Widower. The old masc. was widuwa ; the fern, widuwe. It was 
 then forgotten that widuwa was a masculine, and a new masculine had 
 to be formed from widuwe. 
 
 Number 
 
 17. Number is, in nouns, the mode of indicating whether we 
 are speaking of one thing or of more. 
 
 18. The English language, like most modern languages, has 
 two num"ber<s : the singular and the plural- 
 
Plural. 
 
 Singular. 
 
 Plural. 
 
 Boxes. 
 
 Beef 
 
 Beeves. 
 
 Gases. 
 
 Loaf 
 
 Loaves. 
 
 Witches. 
 
 Shelf 
 
 Shelves. 
 
 Heroes. 
 
 Staff 
 
 Staves. 
 
 Ladies. 
 
 Thief 
 
 Thieves. 
 
 16 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 (i) Singular come from the Lat. singuli, one by one ; plural, from 
 the Lat. plures, more (than one). 
 
 (ii) Mr Barnes, the eminent Dorsetshire poet, who wrote an ex- 
 cellent grammar, called " Speech-craft," calls them onely and somely. 
 
 19. There are three chief ways of forming the plural in 
 English :— 
 
 (i) By adding es or s to the singular, 
 (ii) By adding en. 
 (iii) By changing the vowel-sound. 
 
 20. First Mode. — The plural is formed by adding es or s. 
 The ending es is a modern form of the old A.S. plural in as, as 
 stanas, stones. The following are examples : — 
 
 Singular. 
 
 Box 
 
 Gas 
 
 Witch 
 
 Hero 
 
 Lady 
 
 (i) It will be seen that es in heroes does not add a syllable to the sing. 
 
 (ii) Nouns ending in f change the sharp f into a flat v, as in beev es t 
 etc. But we say roofs, cliffs, dwarfs, chiefs, etc. 
 
 (iii) An old singular of lady was ladie ; and this spelling is preserved 
 in the pluraL But there has arisen a rule on this point in modern 
 English, which may be thus stated : — 
 
 i&~ [a) Y, with a vowel before It, is not changed in the plural. 
 Thus we write keys, valleys, chimneys, days, etc. 
 
 (6) Y, with a consonant before It, is changed into ie when s is 
 added for the plural. Thus we write ladies, rubies, and also solilo- 
 quies. 
 
 (iv) Beef is not now used as the word for a single ox. Shakespeare 
 has the phrase " beef-witted " = with no more sense than an ox. 
 
 21. Second Mode. — The plural is formed by adding en or 
 ne. Thus we have oxen, children, brethren, and kine. 
 
 (i) Children is a double plural. The oldest plural was cild-r-u, which 
 became childer. It was forgotten that this was a proper plural, and en 
 was added. Brethren is also a double plural. En was added to the old 
 Northern plural brether — the oldest plural being brothr-u. 
 
 (ii) Kine is also a double plural of cow. The oldest plural was cy, 
 and this still exists in Scotland in the form of kye. Then ne was 
 added. 
 
NUMBER. 
 
 17 
 
 22. Third Mode. — The plural is formed by changing the 
 vowel-sound of the word. The following are examples : — 
 
 Singula*. 
 
 Plural. 
 
 Singular. 
 
 Plural. 
 
 Man 
 
 Men. 
 
 Tooth 
 
 Teeth. 
 
 Foot 
 
 Feet. 
 
 Mouse 
 
 Mice. 
 
 Goose 
 
 Geese. 
 
 Louse 
 
 Lice. 
 
 (i) To understand this, we must observe that when a new syllable is 
 added to a word, the vowel of the preceding syllable is often weakened. 
 Thus we find nation, national ; fox, vixen. Now the oldest plurals of 
 the above words had an additional syllable ; and it is to this that the 
 change in the vowel is due. 
 
 23. There are in English several nouns with two plural 
 
 forms, with different meanings. 
 
 Singular. Plural. 
 
 Brother brothers (by blood) 
 
 Cloth cloths (kinds of cloth) 
 
 Die dies (stamps for coining) 
 
 Fish fishes (looked at separately) 
 
 Genius geniuses (men of talent) 
 
 Index indexes (to books) 
 
 Pea peas (taken separately) 
 
 Penny pennies (taken separately) 
 
 Shot shots (separate discharges) 
 
 The following is a list : — 
 
 Plural. 
 brethren (of a community), 
 clothes (garments), 
 dice (cubes for gaming), 
 fish (taken collectively), 
 genii (powerful spirits), 
 indices (to quantities in algebra), 
 pease (taken collectively), 
 pence (taken collectively), 
 shot (balls, collectively) 
 
 (i) Pea is a false singular. The s belongs to the root ; and we find in 
 Middle English " as big as a pease," and the plurals pesen and peses. 
 
 24. Some nouns have the same form in the plural as in the 
 singular. Such are deer, sh^ep, cod, trout, mackerel, and 
 others. 
 
 (i) Most of these nouns were, in Old English, neuter. 
 
 (ii) A special plural is found in such phrases as : A troop of horse ; 
 a company of foot ; ten sail of the line ; three brace of birds ; six gross of 
 steel pens; ten stone weight, etc. In fact, the names of numbers, 
 weights, measures, etc., are not put into the plural form. Thus we say, 
 ten hundredweight, five score, five fathom, six brace. In Old English we 
 also said forty year, sixty winter; and we still say, a twelvemonth, a fort- 
 night (=;fourteen nights). 
 
 25. There are in English several false plurals — that is, real 
 singulars which look like, and are now used as, plurals. These 
 are alms, riches, and eaves. 
 
18 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 (i) Alms is a compressed form of the A.S. aelmesse (which is from the 
 Greek eleemosune). We find in Acts iii. 3, "an alms." The adjective 
 connected with it is eleemosynary. 
 
 (ii) Riches comes from the French richesse. 
 
 (iii) Eaves is the modern form of the A.S. efese, a margin or edge. 
 
 26. There are in English, several plural forms that are re- 
 garded and treated as singulars. The following is a list : — 
 
 Amends. Odds. Smallpox. 
 
 Gallows. Pains. Thanks. 
 
 News. Shambles. Tidings. 
 
 (i) Smallpox = small pocks. 
 
 27. There are many nouns that, from the nature of the case, 
 can be used only in the pluraL These are the names of 
 things (a) That consist of two or more parts ; or (b) That are 
 taken in the mass. 
 
 (a) The following are examples of the first :, — 
 
 Bellowa. Pincers. Shears. Tweezers. 
 
 Drawers. Pliers. Snuffers. Tongs. 
 
 Fetters. Scissors. Spectacles. Trousers. 
 
 (6) The following are examples of the second : — 
 
 Annals. Dregs. Hustings. Oats. 
 
 Archives. Embers. Lees. Staggers. 
 
 Ashes. Entrails. Measles. Stocks. 
 
 Billiards. Glanders. ' Mumps. Victuals. 
 
 jj®" It must be noticed that several nouns — some of them in the 
 above class — change their meaning entirely when made plural. Thus — 
 
 Singular. 
 
 Plural. 
 
 Singular. 
 
 Plural. 
 
 Beef 
 
 Beeves. 
 
 Iron 
 
 Irons. 
 
 Copper 
 
 Coppers. 
 
 Pain 
 
 Pains. 
 
 Good 
 
 Goods. 
 
 Spectacle 
 
 Spectacles. 
 
 28. The English language has adopted many foreign plurals. 
 These, (a) when fully naturalised, make their plurals in the 
 usual English way ; (b) when not naturalised, or imperfectly, 
 keep their own proper plurals. 
 
 (a) As examples of the first kind, we have — 
 
 Bandits, cherubs, dogmas, indexes, memorandums, focuses, formulas, 
 terminuses, etc. 
 
CASE. 
 
 19 
 
 (b) As 
 
 examples of the second, l 
 
 we find — 
 
 
 (1) Latin 
 
 Singular. 
 Animalculum 
 Datum 
 Formula 
 Genus 
 
 Plural. 
 Animclcula. 
 Data. 
 Formulae. 
 Genera. 
 
 Singular. 
 Radix 
 Series 
 Species 
 Stratum 
 
 PlurJl. 
 Radices. 
 Series. 
 Species. 
 Strata. 
 
 (2) Greek 
 
 Analysis 
 
 Axis 
 
 Miasma 
 
 Analyses. 
 
 Axes. 
 
 Miasmata. 
 
 Ellipsis 
 
 Parenthesis 
 
 Phenomenon 
 
 Ellipses. 
 
 Parentheses. 
 
 Phenomena. 
 
 (3) French 
 
 Monsieur 
 
 Messieurs. 
 
 Madam 
 
 Mesdames. 
 
 (4) Italian 
 
 Bandit 
 Dilettante 
 
 Banditti 
 Dilettanti. 
 
 Libretto 
 Virtuoso 
 
 Libretti. 
 Virtuosi. 
 
 (5) Hebrew 
 
 Cherub 
 
 Cherubim. 
 
 Seraph 
 
 Seraphim. 
 
 (i) The Greek plurals acoustics, ethics, mathematics, optics, politics, etc., 
 were originally adjectives. We now say logic — but logics, which still 
 survives in the Irish Universities — wae the older word. 
 
 29. Compounds attach the sign of the plural to the leading 
 word, especially if that word be a noun. These may be divided 
 into three classes : — 
 
 (a) When the plural sign is added to the Noun, as : sons-in-law t 
 hangers-on, lookers-on, courts-martial, etc. 
 
 (b) When the compound word is treated as one word, as : attorney 
 generals, major-generals, spoonfuls, handfuls, etc. 
 
 (c) When both parts of the compound take the plural sign, as : men- 
 servants, knights-templars, lords-justices, etc. 
 
 Case. 
 
 30. Case is the form given to a noun to show its relation to 
 other words in the sentence. Our language has lost most of 
 these forms; but we still use the word ease to indicate the 
 function, even when the form has been lost. 
 
 (i) The word case is from the Latin 
 casus, and means a falling. The old gram- 
 marians regarded the nominative as the 
 upright case, and all others as fallings 
 from that. Hence the use of the words 
 decline and declension. (Of course the 
 nominative cannot be a real case, because, 
 it is upright and not a falling.) 
 
 B 
 
20 GRAMMAK OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 31. We now employ five cases; Nominative, Possessive, 
 Dative, Objective, and Vocative. 
 
 (i) In Nouns, only one of these is inflected, or has a case-ending — the 
 
 (ii) In Pronouns, the Possessive, Dative, and Objective are inflected. 
 But the inflexion for the Dative and the Objective is the same. Him 
 and them are indeed true Datives : the old inflection for the Objective 
 was nine and hi. 
 
 32. The following are the definitions of these cases : — 
 
 (1) The Nominative Case is the case of the subject. 
 
 (2) The Possessive Case indicates possession, or some sim- 
 ilar relation. 
 
 (3) The Dative Case is the case of the Indirect Object, 
 and also the case governed by certain verbs. 
 
 (4) The Objective Case is the case of the Direct Object. 
 
 (5) The Vocative Case is the case of the person spoken 
 to. It is often called the Nominative of Address. 
 
 (i) Nominative comes from the Lat. nomindre, to name. From the 
 same root we have nominee. 
 
 (ii) Dative comes from the Lat dativus, given to. 
 
 (iii) Vocative comes from bhe Lat. vocativus, spoken to or addressed. 
 
 33. The Nominative Case answers to the question Who ? or 
 What ? It has always a verb that goes with .it, and asserts 
 something about the subject. 
 
 34. The Possessive Case has the ending 's in the singular ; 
 's in the plural, when the plural of the noun ends in n ; and ' 
 only when the plural ends in s. 
 
 [|§p° The possessive case is kept chiefly for nouns that are 
 the names of living beings. We cannot say "the book's 
 page " or " the box's lid," though in poetry we can say " the 
 temple's roof," etc. There are many points that require to be 
 specially noted about the possessive : — 
 
 (i) The apostrophe (from Gr. apo, away, and strophe, a turning) stands 
 in the place of a lost e, the possessive in O.E. having been in many 
 cases es. In the last century the printers always put hop'd, walk'd, 
 etc., for hoped, walked^ etc. The use of the apostrophe is quite modern. 
 
CASE. 21 
 
 (ii) If the singular noun ends in », we often, but not always, write 
 Moses' rod, for conscience' sake, Phoebus' fire ; and yet we say, and ought 
 to say, Jones's books, WUkins's hat, St James's, Chambers's Journal, etc. 
 
 (iii) We find in the Prayer-Book, " For .fesus Christ his sake." This 
 arose from the fact that the old possessive in es was sometimes written 
 Is ; and hence the corruption into his. Then it came to be fancied that 
 '8 was a short form of his. But this is absurd, for two reasons : — 
 
 (a) We cannot say that " the girl's book " is = the girl his book. 
 
 (b) We cannot say that " the men's tools " iB = the men his tools. 
 
 35. How shall we account for the contradictory forms Lord's- 
 day and Lady-day, Thurs-day and Fri-day, Wedn-es-day and 
 Mon-day, and for the curious possessive "Witenagemot P 
 
 Lady-day and Friday are fragments of old possessives. Thus the 
 possessive of lady was in M.E. ladle (cf. Chaucer, C.T. 88, "in his 
 lady grace " = in his lady's favour). So Friday = Frig e-daeg (from 
 A.S. Frige, possessive of Friga, the goddess of lovo). Monday is con- 
 tracted from Monanday, monan being the A.S. poss. of the masc. sb. 
 mona, the moon. The word witenagemot means the meet or meeting 
 of the wltan ( = wise men), the possessive of which was witena. 
 
 36. The Dative Case answers to the question For whom P 
 or To whom? It has no separate form for Nouns ; and in 
 Pronouns, its form is the same as that of the Objective. But 
 it has a very clear and distinct function in modern English. 
 This function is seen in such sentences as — 
 
 (1) He handed the lady a chair. 
 
 (2) Make me a boat ! 
 
 (3) Woe worth the day ! ( = Woe come to the day !) 
 
 (4) Heaven send the Prince a better companion ! 
 
 (5) Heaven send the companion a better Prince ! 
 
 (6) " Sirrah, knock me at this gate, 
 Eap me here, knock me well, and knock me soundly." 
 
 (Shakespeare, "Taming of the Shrew," I. ii. 31.) 
 
 (7) Methought I heard a cry I ( = Meseems.) 
 
 (8) Hand me the salt, if you please. 
 
 Some grammarians prefer to call this the Case of the In- 
 direct Object ; but the term will hardly apply to day in (3), to 
 me in (7), or to you in (8). In all the other sentences, the 
 dative may be changed into an objective with the prep, to or for. 
 
22 GRAMMAK OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 (i) In the sixth sentence, the me's are sometimes called Ethical 
 Datives. 
 
 (ii) In the seventh sentence, methought is = meseems, or it seems to me. 
 There were in O.E. two verbs — thincan, to seem ; and thencan, to think 
 
 (iii) In the eighth sentence the phrase if you please is = if it please 
 you, and the you is a dative. If the you were a nominative, the phrase 
 would mean if you are a pleasing person, or if you please me. 
 
 37. The Objective Case is always governed by an active- 
 transitive verb or a preposition. It answers to the question 
 Whom ? or What ? It is generally placed after the verb. Its 
 form is different from that of the Nominative in pronouns ; 
 but is the same in nouns. 
 
 (i) The direct object is sometimes called the reflexive object when 
 the nominative and the objective refer to the same person — as, " I hurt 
 myself;" " Turn (thou) thee, Lord ! " etc. 
 
 (ii) When the direct object is akin with the verb in meaning, it is 
 sometimes called the cognate object. The cognate object is found in 
 such phrases as : To die the death ; to run a race ; to fight a fight, etc. 
 
 (iii) A second object after such verbs as make, create, appoint, think, 
 believe, etc., is often called the factitive object. For example : The 
 Queen made him a general ; we thought him a good man, etc. The 
 factitive object "makes up" or complements the sense; without it 
 the predication would be incomplete. 
 
 Factitive comes from the Latin facgre, to make. 
 
 38. The difference between the Nominative and the Vocative 
 cases is this : The Nominative case must always have a verb 
 with it ; the Vocative cannot have a verb. This is plain from 
 the sentences : — 
 
 (i) John did that, 
 (ii) Don't do that, John ! 
 
 39. Two nouns that indicate the same person or thing are 
 said to be in apposition ; and two nouns in apposition may be 
 in any case. 
 
 (i) But, though the two nouns are in the same case, only one of 
 them has the sign or inflection of the case. Thus we say, " John the 
 gardener's mother is dead." Now, both John and gardener are in the 
 possessive case; and yet it is only gardener that takes the sign of 
 the possessive. 
 
PRONOUNS. 23 
 
 PRONOUNS. 
 
 1. A Pronoun is a word that is used instead of a noun. 
 We say, " John went away yesterday ; he looked quite happy." 
 In this case the pronoun he stands in the place of John. 
 
 (i) The word pronoun comes from the Latin pro, for ; and nomen, 
 a name. 
 
 (ii) The above definition hardly applies to the pronoun /. If we say 
 I write, the / cannot have John Smith substituted for it. We cannot 
 say John Smith vrrite. I, in fact, is the universal pronoun for the 
 person speaking ; and it cannot be said to stand in place of his mere 
 name. The same remark applies to some extent to thou and you. 
 
 2. The pronouns are among the oldest parts of speech, and 
 have, therefore, been subject to many changes. In spite of 
 these changes, they have kept many of their inflexions ; while 
 our English adjective has parted with all, and our noun with 
 most. 
 
 3. There are four kinds of pronouns : Personal ; Inter-, 
 rogative ; Relative ; and Indefinite. The following is a 
 table, with examples of each : — 
 
 PRONOUNS. 
 
 I 
 
 i ~T~ I i 
 
 Personal Interrogative. Relative. Indefinite. 
 
 I. Who? Who. One. 
 
 PERSONAL PRONOUNS. 
 
 4. There are three Personal Pronouns : The Personal Pro- 
 noun of the First Person ; of the Second Person ; and of the 
 Third Person. 
 
 5. The First Personal Pronoun indicates the person speak- 
 ing; the Second Personal Pronoun, the person spoken to; 
 and the Third, the person spoken of. 
 
 6. The First Personal Pronoun has, of course, no distinc- 
 tion of gender. It is made up of the following forms, which 
 are fragments of different words :- - 
 
24 
 
 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 
 Singular. 
 
 Plural. 
 
 Nominative 
 
 I 
 
 We. 
 
 Possessive 
 
 Mine (or My) 
 
 Our (or Ours). 
 
 Dative 
 
 Me 
 
 Us. 
 
 Objective 
 
 Me 
 
 Us. 
 
 (i) We is not = I + 1 ; because there can be only one / in all the world. 
 We is really = I + he, I + you, or I + they. 
 
 (ii) / can have no vocative as such. If you address yourself, you 
 must say Thou or You. 
 
 (iii) The dative is preserved in such words and phrases as "Me 
 thinks " (" it seems to me," — where the think comes from thincan, to 
 seem, and not from thencan, to think); "Woe is me;" "Me-lists (it 
 pleases me) ; " " If you please," etc. 
 
 7. The Second Personal Pronoun has no distinction of 
 gender. It has the following forms : — 
 
 
 Singular. 
 
 Plural. 
 
 Nominative 
 
 Thou 
 
 You (or Ye). 
 
 Possessive 
 
 Thine (or Thy) 
 
 Your (or Yours). 
 
 Dative 
 
 Thee 
 
 You. 
 
 Objective 
 
 Thee 
 
 You. 
 
 Vocative 
 
 Thou 
 
 You (or Ye). 
 
 (i) Ye was the old nominative plural; you was always dative or 
 objective. " Ye have not chosen me ; but I have chosen you." 
 
 (ii) Thou was, from the 14th to the 17th century, the pronoun of 
 affection, of familiarity, of superiority, and of contempt. This is still 
 the usage in France of tu and toi. Hence the verb tutoyer. 
 
 (iii) My, Thy, Our, Your are used along with nouns; Mine, Thine, 
 Ours, and Yours cannot go with nouns, and they are always used alone. 
 Mine and Thine, however, are used in Poetry and in the English Bible 
 with nouns which begin with a vowel or silent h. 
 
 8. The Third Personal Pronoun requires distinctions of 
 gender, because it is necessary to indicate the sex of the person 
 we are talking of ; and it has them. 
 
 Singular. Plural. 
 
 
 Masculine. 
 
 Feminine. 
 
 Neuter. 
 
 All Genders. 
 
 Nom. 
 
 He 
 
 She 
 
 It 
 
 They. 
 
 Pots. 
 
 His 
 
 Her (or Hers) 
 
 Its 
 
 Their (or Theirs), 
 
 Dat. 
 
 Him 
 
 Her 
 
 It 
 
 Them. 
 
 Obj, 
 
 Him 
 
 Her 
 
 It 
 
 Them. 
 
INTERROGATIVE PRONOUNS. 25 
 
 (i) She is really the feminine of the old demonstrative se, seo, ihaet ; 
 and it has supplanted the old A.S. pronoun heo, which still exists in 
 Lancashire in the form of hoo. 
 
 (ii) The old and proper dative of it is him. The old neuter of he was 
 hit, the t being the inflection for the neuter (still used in Scotland). 
 
 (iii) Him, the dative, came to be also used as the objective. The 
 oldest objective was nine. 
 
 9. The Personal Pronouns are often used as Reflexive 
 Pronouns. Reflexive Pronouns are (i) datives ; or (ii) objec- 
 tives ; or (iii) compounds of self with the personal pronoun. 
 For example : — 
 
 (i) Dative : " I press me none but good householders," said by Fal- 
 staff, in "King Henry IV.," I. iv. 2, 16. 
 
 " I made me no more ado," I. ii. 4, 223. 
 
 " Let every soldier hew him down a bough." — Macbeth, V. iv. 6. 
 
 (ii) Objective : Shakespeare has such phrases as / whipt me ; I disrobed 
 me; I have learned me. In modern English, chiefly in poetry, we have : 
 He sat him down ; Get thee hence I etc. 
 
 (iii) Compounds : / bethought myself ; He wronged himself ; etc. 
 
 • INTERROGATIVE PRONOUNS. 
 
 10. The Interrogative Pronouns are those pronouns which 
 we use in asking questions. They are -who, which, what, and 
 whether. 
 
 (i) The word interrogative comes from the Latin interrogdre, to ask. 
 Hence also interrogation, interrogatory, etc. 
 
 11. Who is both masculine and feminine, and is used only of 
 persons. Its neuter is what. (The t in what, as in that, is 
 the old suffix for the neuter gender.) The possessive is whose ; 
 the objective whom. The following are the forms : — 
 
 Singular and Plural. 
 
 Masculine. Feminine. Neuter. 
 
 Nominative Who Who What. 
 
 PoMessive Whose Whose [Whose.] 
 
 Objective Whom Whom What 
 
26 grammar of the English language,. 
 
 (i) Who-m is really a dative, like hi-m. But we now use it only as an 
 objective. 
 
 (ii) Whose may be used of neuters : but it is almost invariably em- 
 ployed of persons only. 
 
 12. Which — formerly hwilc — is a compound word, made up 
 of hwi, the instr. case of the Old English hwa, who, and 
 lie = like. It therefore really means, Of what sort? It now 
 asks for one out of a number ; as, " Here are several kinds oi 
 fruits : which will you have 1 " ' 
 
 13. Whether is also a compound word, made up "A who + 
 ther ; and it means, Which of the two ? 
 
 (i) The ther in whether is the same as the ther in neither, etc. 
 
 RELATIVE OR CONJUNCTIVE PRONOUNS. 
 
 14. A Relative Pronoun is a pronoun which possesses two 
 functions : (i) it stands for a noun ; and (ii) it joins two sen- 
 tences together. That is to say, it is both a pronoun and a con- 
 junction. For example, we say, " This is the man whose apples 
 we bought." This statement is made up of two sentences : (i) 
 "This is the man;" and (ii) "We bought his apples." The 
 relative pronoun whose joins together the two sentences. 
 
 (i) Relative Pronouns might also be called conjunctive pronouns. 
 
 (ii) Whose, in the above sentence, is called relative, because it relates 
 to the word man. Man is called its antecedent, or goer-before. 
 The word antecedent comes from the Lat. ante, before ; and cedo, I go. 
 
 15. The Relative Pronouns are that; who, which; what. 
 As and but are also employed as relatives. 
 
 (i) Who, which, and what are also combined with so and ever, and 
 form Compound Relatives; such as whoso, whosoever, whatsoever, 
 and whichsoever. 
 
 (ii) That is the oldest of our relative pronouns. It is really the neuter 
 of the old demonstrative adj., se, seo, thaet. It differs from who in two 
 respects : (a) It cannot be used after a preposition. "We cannot say, 
 "This is the man with that I went." (6) It is generally employed to 
 limit, distinguish, and define. Thus we say, " The house that I built is 
 for sale." Here the sentence that I built is an adjective, limiting or de- 
 fining the noun house. Hence it has been called the defining relative. 
 
INDEFINITE PRONOUNS. 27 
 
 Who or which may introduce a new fact about the antecedent ; that 
 only marks it off from other nouns. 
 
 (iii) Who has whose and whom in the possessive and objective — both 
 in the singular and in the plural. 
 
 (iv) Which is not to be regarded as the neuter of who. It is the form 
 used when the antecedent is the name of an animal or thing. After a 
 preposition, it is sometimes replaced by where ; as wherein = in which ; 
 whereto = to which. 
 
 (v) What performs the function of a composite pronoun =that + which. 
 If we examine its function in different sentences, we shall find that it 
 may be equivalent to — 
 
 (a) Two Nominatives ; as in ' This is what he is " ( = the person that). 
 
 (6) Two Objectives ; as in " He has what he asked for " ( = the thing that). 
 
 (c) Nom. and Obj. ; as in " This is what he asked for " ( = the thing that). 
 
 (d) Obj. and Nom. ; as in " I know what he is " ( = the person that). 
 
 (vi) As is the proper relative after the adjectives such and same. As 
 is, however, properly an adverb. " This is the same as I had " is = " This 
 is the same as that which I had." 
 
 (vii) But is the proper relative after a negative j as " There was no 
 man but would have died for her." Here hut = who + not. (This is 
 like the Latin use of quin = qui + ne). 
 
 INDEFINITE PRONOUNS. 
 
 16. An Indefinite Pronoun is a pronoun that does not stand 
 in the place of a noun which is the name for a definite person 
 or thing, but is used vaguely, and without a distinct reference. 
 
 17. The chief Indefinite Pronouns are one, none; any; 
 other ; and some. 
 
 (i) One is the best instance of an indefinite pronoun. It is simply the 
 cardinal one used as a pronoun. In O.E. we used mem ; and we still find 
 one example in the Bible — Zech. xiii. 5 : " Man taught me to keep cattle 
 from my youth." One, as an indefinite pronoun, has two peculiarities. 
 It (a) can be put in the possessive case ; and (6) can take a plural 
 form. Thus we can say : (a) " One can do what one likes with one's own ; " 
 and (6) " I want some big ones." 
 
 (ii) None is the negative of one. " None think the great unhappy 
 but the great." But none is mostly plural. No (the adjective) is a 
 short form of none ; as a is of an ; and my of mine. 
 
 (iii) Any is derived from an, a form of one. It may be used as an 
 adjective also — either with a singular or a plural noun. When used as a 
 pronoun, it is generally pluraL 
 
28 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 (iv) Other is = an ther. The ther is the same as that in either, 
 whether; and it always indicates that one of two is taken into the 
 mind. 
 
 (v) Some is either singular or plural. It is singular in the phrase 
 Some one ; in all other instances, it is a plural pronoun. 
 
 ADJECTIVES. 
 
 1. An Adjective is a word that goes with a noun to describe 
 or point out the thing denoted by the noun — and hence to limit 
 the application of the noun ; or, more simply, — 
 
 Adjectives are noun-marking words. 
 
 (i) Adjectives do not assert explicitly, like verbs. They assert im- 
 plicitly. Hence they are implicit predicates. Thus, if I say, " I met 
 three old men," I make three statements : (1) I met men ; (2) The men 
 were old ; (3) The men were three in number. But these statements 
 are not explicitly made. 
 
 (ii) Adjectives enlarge the content, but limit the extent of the idea 
 expressed by the noun. Thus when we say "white horses," we put a 
 larger content into the idea of horse ; but, as there are fewer white 
 horses than horses, we limit the extent of the notion. 
 
 2. An adjective cannot stand by itself. It must have with 
 it a noun either expressed or understood. In the sentence 
 "The good are happy," persons is understood after good. 
 
 3. Adjectives are of four kinds. They are (i) Adjectives of 
 Quality ; (ii) Adjectives of Quantity ; (iii) Adjectives of 
 Number ; (iv) Demonstrative Adjectives. Or we may say, — 
 Adjectives are divided into 
 
 ADJECTIVES 
 
 I 
 
 _____ ! __ , . 
 
 Qualitative. Quantitative. Numbering. Demonstrative. 
 
 These four answer, respectively, to the questions — 
 (i) Of what sort ? (ii) How much ? (iii) How many ? (iv) Which ? 
 
 4. Qualitative Adjectives denote a quality of the subject or 
 thing named by the noun ; such as blue, white ; happy, sad ; 
 big, little. 
 
 (i) The word qualitative comes from the Lat. qualis=tot what sort, 
 (ii) Most of these adjectives admit of degrees of comparison. 
 
ADJECTIVES. 29 
 
 5. Quantitative Adjectives denote either quantity or in- 
 definite number ; and they can go either (i) with the singular, 
 or (ii) with the plural of nouns, or (iii) with both. The follow- 
 ing is a list : — 
 
 Any. Certain. Few. Much. Some. 
 
 AIL Divers. Little. No. Whole. 
 
 Both. Enough. Many. Several 
 
 (i) We find the phrases : Little need ; little wool ; much pleasure ; more 
 sense; some sleep, etc. 
 
 (ii) We find the phrases: AU men; any persons; both boys; several 
 pounds, etc. 
 
 (iii) We find the phrases: Any man and any men; no man and no 
 men; enough corn and soldiers enough; some boy and some boys, etc. 
 
 6. Numbering or Numeral Adjectives express the number of 
 the things or persons indicated by the noun. They are generally 
 divided into Cardinal Numerals and Ordinal Numerate 
 But Ordinal Numerals are in reality Demonstrative Adjectives. 
 
 (i) Numeral comes from the Lat. numerus, a number. Hence also 
 come numerous, numerical, and number (the 6 serves as a cushion between 
 the m and the r). 
 
 (ii) Cardinal comes from the Lat. cardo, a hinge. 
 
 (iii) Ordinal comes from the Lat. ordo, order. 
 
 7. Demonstrative Adjectives are those which are used to 
 point out the thing expressed by the noun ; and, besides indi 
 eating a person or thing, they also indicate a relation either to 
 the speaker or to something else. 
 
 (i) Demonstrative comes from the Lat demonstro, I point out. From the same 
 root come monster, monstrous, &c 
 
 8. Demonstrative Adjectives are of three kinds : (i) Articles ; 
 (ii) Adjective Pronouns (often so called) j and (iii) the Ordinal 
 Numerals. 
 
 (i) There are two articles (better call them distinguishing adjectives) 
 in our language : a and the. a is a broken-down form of ane, the 
 northern form of one ; and before a vowel or silent h it retains the n. 
 In some phrases a has its old sense of one ; as in " twe of a trade ; " "all 
 of a size," etc. 
 
 " An two men ride on a horse, one must ride behind. " 
 
 Shakespeare (Much Ado about Nothing, III. v. iQ), 
 
30 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 (ii) We must be careful to distinguish the article a from the broken, 
 down preposition a in the phrase "twice a week." This latter a is a 
 fragment of on; and the phrase in O.E. was "tuwa on wucan." Simi- 
 larly, the in " the book " is not the same as the in " the more the merrier." 
 The latter is the old ablative of thaet ; and is = by that. 
 
 (iii) Adjective Pronouns or Pronominal Adjectives are so called be- 
 cause they can be used either as adjectives with the noun, or as 
 pronouns for the noun. They are divided into the following four 
 classes : — 
 
 (a) Demonstrative Adjective Pronouns — This, these ; that, those ; 
 yon, yonder. 
 
 (6) Interrogative Adjective Pronouns — Which ? what ? whether (of 
 the two) ? — as in " whether side ? " (now an archaic use). 
 
 (c) Distributive Adjective Pronouns — Each, every, either, neither. 
 
 (d) Possessive Adjective Pronouns — My, thy, his, her, etc. (These 
 words perform a double function. They are adjectives, because they 
 go with a noun ; and pronouns, because they stand for the noun or 
 name of the person speaking or spoken of.) 
 
 (iv) The Ordinal Numerals are : First, second, third, etc. 
 
 9. Some adjectives are used as nouns, and therefore take a 
 plural form. Thus we have Romans, Christians, superiors, 
 elders, ones, others, nobles, etc. Some take the form of the 
 possessive case, as either's, neither's. 
 
 (i) The plural of one as an adjective is two, three, etc. ; of one as a 
 noun, ones. Thus we can say, " These are poor strawberries, bring me 
 better ones." Other numeral adjectives may be used as nouns. Thus 
 Wordsworth, in one of his shorter poems, has — 
 
 ' ' The sun has long been set ; 
 
 The stars are out by twos and threes ; 
 The little birds are piping yet 
 Among the bushes and trees." 
 
 (ii) Our language is very whimsical in this matter. We can say 
 Romans and Italians ; but we cannot say Frenches and Dutches. Milton 
 has (Paradise Lost, iii. 438) Chineses. 
 
 NUMERALS. 
 
 10. Cardinal Numerals are those which indicate numbers 
 alone. Some of them are originally nouns, as dozen, hun- 
 dred, thousand, and million; but these may also be used as 
 adjectives. 
 
NUMERALS. 31 
 
 (i) One was in A.S. an or ane. The pronunciation wun is from a west- 
 ern dialect. It is still rightly sounded in its compounds atone, alone, 
 lonely. None and no are the negatives of one and o ( = an and a). 
 
 (ii) Two, from A.S. twegen mas. ; twa fern. The form twegen appears 
 in twain and twin, the g having been absorbed. 
 
 (iii) Eleven = en (one) + lif (ten). Twelve = twe (two) + lif (ten). 
 
 (iv) Thirteen = three + ten. The r has shifted its place, as in third. 
 
 (v) Twenty = twen (two) + tig (ten). Tig is a noun, meaning "a set 
 of ten." The guttural was lost, and it became ty. 
 
 (vi) Score, from A.S. sceran, to cut. Accounts of sheep, cattle, etc., 
 were kept by notches on a stick ; and the twentieth notch was made 
 deeper, and was called the cut — the score. 
 
 11. Ordinal Numerals are Adjectives of Relation formed 
 mostly from the Cardinals. They are : First, Second, Third, 
 Fourth, etc. 
 
 (i) First (A.S. fyrst) is the superl. of fore, with vowel change, 
 (ii) Second is not Eng. but Latin. The O.E. for second was other. 
 Second comes (through French) from the Latin, secundus, following— 
 that is, following the first. A following or favourable breeze (" a wind 
 that follows fast") was called by the Romans a "secundus ventus." 
 Secundus comes from Lat. sequor, I follow. Other words from the 
 same root are sequel, consequence, etc. 
 
 (iii) Third, by transposition, from A.S. thridda. A third part was 
 called a thriding (where the r keeps its right place) ; as a fourth part 
 was a fourthing or farthing. Thriding was gradually changed into Riding, 
 one of the three parts into which Yorkshire was divided. 
 
 (iv) In eigh-th, as in eigh-teen, a t has vanished, though still sounded. 
 
 THE INFLEXION OF ADJECTIVES. 
 
 12. The modern English adjective has lost all its old inflexions 
 for gender and case, and retains only two for number. These 
 two are these (the plural of this) and those (the plural of that). 
 
 (i) The older plural was thlse — pronounced these, and then so spelled. 
 In this instance, the spelling, as so seldom happens, has followed the 
 pronunciation. In general in the English language, the spelling and the 
 pronunciation keep quite apart, and have no influence on each other. 
 
 (ii) Those was the oldest plural of this, but in the 14th century it 
 came to be accepted as the plural of that. 
 
32 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 13. Most adjectives are now inflected for purposes of com- 
 parison only. 
 
 14. There are three Degrees of Comparison : the Posi- 
 tive ; the Comparative ; and the Superlative. 
 
 (i) The word degree comes from the French degri, which itself comes 
 from the Latin gradus, a step. From the same root come grade, grad- 
 ual, degrade, etc. 
 
 15. The Positive Degree is the simple form of the adjec- 
 tive. 
 
 16. The Comparative Degree is that form of the adjective 
 which shows that the quality it expresses has been raised one 
 step or degree higher. Thus we say sharp, sharper; cold, 
 colder; brave, braver. The comparative degree brings together 
 only two ideas. Thus we may speak of " the taller of the two," 
 but not " of the three." 
 
 Comparative comes from the Lat. comparo, I bring together. 
 
 17. The Comparative degree is formed in two ways : either 
 (i) by adding er to the positive ; or (ii) if the adjective has more 
 than two syllables, and in the case of most dissyllabic adjectives 
 ending in a consonant, with the help of the adverb more. 
 
 Rules : I. A silent e is dropped ; as brave, braver. 
 
 II. A y after a consonant is changed into i before er, etc. ; as 
 happy, happier. 
 
 III. A final consonant after a short vowel is doubled ; as red, 
 redder; cruel, crueller. 
 
 IV. In choosing between er and more, sound and custom seem to 
 be the safest guides. Thus we should not say selecter, but more select ; 
 but pleasanter is equally as good as more pleasant. Carlylehas beauti- 
 fullest, etc. ; but his is not an example to be followed. 
 
 18. The Superlative Degree is that form of the adjective 
 which shows that the quality it expresses has been raised to the 
 highest degree. The superlative degree requires that three 
 things, or more, be compared. Thus "He is the tallest of the 
 two " would be incorrect. 
 
 Superlative comes from the Lat. superlativus, lifting up above. 
 
ADJECTIVES. 
 
 33 
 
 19. The Superlative degree is formed in two ways : either (i) 
 by adding est to the positive ; or (ii) if the adjective has more 
 than two syllables, and in the case of most adjectives of two 
 syllables ending in a consonant, by using the adverb most. 
 
 (i) Happiest, (ii) Most recent; most beautiful. 
 
 20. Some adjectives, from the very nature of the ideas they 
 express, do not admit of comparison. Such are golden, wooden; 
 left, right; square, triangular; weekly, monthly; eternal, per- 
 petual, etc. 
 
 21. The most frequently used adjectives have irregular 
 comparisons. The following is a list : — 
 
 Pos- 
 
 Com- 
 
 Super- 
 
 Pos- 
 
 Com- 
 
 StrPER- 
 
 itive. 
 
 parative. 
 
 lative. 
 
 itive. 
 
 parative. 
 
 LATIVE. 
 
 Bad 
 
 worse 
 
 worst. 
 
 Late 
 
 later 
 
 latest. 
 
 Evil 
 
 worse 
 
 worst. 
 
 Late 
 
 latter 
 
 last. 
 
 111 
 
 worse 
 
 worst. 
 
 Little 
 
 less 
 
 least. 
 
 Far 
 
 farther 
 
 farthest. 
 
 Many 
 
 more 
 
 most. 
 
 [Forth] 
 
 further 
 
 furthest. 
 
 Much 
 
 more 
 
 most. 
 
 Fore 
 
 former 
 
 foremost. 
 
 Nigh 
 
 nigher 
 
 nighest (next). 
 
 Good 
 
 better 
 
 best. 
 
 Old 
 
 older 
 
 oldest. 
 
 Hind 
 
 hinder 
 
 hindmost. 
 
 Old 
 
 elder 
 
 eldest 
 
 [Rathe] 
 
 rather 
 
 [rathest.] 
 
 (i) Worse and worst come, not from bad, but from the root rears, to 
 twist ( War comes from the same root. ) The s in worse is a part of the 
 root ; and the full comparative is really worser, which was used in the 
 16th century (Shakespeare, " Hamlet," III. iv. 157). Worst = worsest. 
 
 (ii) The th. in farther is intrusive. Farther is formed on a false anal- 
 ogy with further ; as could (from can) is with would (from will). Far- 
 ther is used of progression in space ; further, of progression in reasoning. 
 
 (iii) Former was in A.S. forma ( = first). It is a comparative sense made 
 from an old superlative. 
 
 (iv) Better comes from A.S. bet = good— a, root which was found in 
 betan, to make good, and in the phrase to boot = " to the good." 
 
 (v) Later and latest refer to time ; latter and last to position in 
 space or in a series. Last is as by assimilation from latst ; as best is from 
 betst. 
 
 (vi) Less does not come from the lit in little ; but from A.S. laes-sa, 
 from the base las, weak. Least = laesest. 
 
 (vii) Nighest is contracted into next ; as highest was into hext. Thus 
 gh + s=k + s=x. 
 
34 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 (viii) We say " the oldest man that ever lived, " and " the eldeat of 
 the family." Older and oldest refer to mere number ; elder and eldest 
 to a family or corporate group. 
 
 (ix) Rathe is still found in poetry. Milton has " the rathe primrose, 
 that forsaken dies ; " and Coleridge, " twin buds too rathe to bear the 
 winter's unkind air." The Irish pronunciation rayther is the old Eng- 
 lish pronunciation. 
 
 (x) Hind is used as an adjective in the phrase " the hind wheels." 
 
 22. The following are defective comparatives and superla- 
 tives : — 
 
 Positive. 
 
 Comparative. 
 
 Superlative. 
 
 [Aft] 
 
 after 
 
 
 
 [In] 
 
 inner 
 
 innermost. 
 
 [Out] 
 
 outer (or utter) 
 
 outermost (or uttermost). 
 
 
 
 nether 
 
 nethermost. 
 
 
 
 over 
 
 
 
 [Up] 
 
 upper 
 
 uppermost. 
 
 (i) After, as an adjective, is found in aftermath, afterthought, etc. 
 
 (ii) In is used as an adjective in the word in- side; and as a noun in 
 the phrase " the ins and outs " of a question. 
 
 (iii) In the inns of law, the utter-bar (outer-bar) is opposed to the 
 Inner-bar. 
 
 (iv) The neth in nether is the same as the neath in beneath. 
 
 (v) The ov in over is the ore in above, and is a dialectic form of up. 
 It is still found in such names as Over Leigh in Cheshire, and Over 
 Darwen in Lancashire. 
 
 (vi) Hindmost, uttermost, are not compounds of most, but are 
 double superlatives. There was an old superlative ending ema, which 
 we see in Lat. extremus, supremus, etc. It was forgotten that this was 
 a superlative, and est or ost was added. Thus we had hindema, mid- 
 ema~ These afterwards became hindmost and midmost. 
 
 THE VERB. 
 
 1. The Verb is that "part of speech" by means of which 
 we make an assertion. 
 
 It is the keystone of the arch of speech. 
 
 (i) The word verb comes from the Lat. verbum, a word. It is so 
 called because it is the word in a sentence. If we leave the verb out 
 of a sentence, all the other words become mere nonsense. Thus we <*an 
 
THE VERB. 
 
 35 
 
 say, " I saw him cross the bridge." Leave out taw, and the other words 
 have no meaning whatever. 
 
 (ii) A verb has sometimes been called a telling word, and this is a 
 good and simple definition for young learners. 
 
 THE CLASSIFICATION OF VERBS. 
 
 2. Verbs are divided into two classes — Transitive and 
 Intransitive. 
 
 3. A Transitive Verb denotes an action or feeling which, 
 as it were, passes over from the doer of the action to the 
 object of it. " The boy broke the stick j " " he felled the 
 tree;" "he hates walking." 
 
 In these sentences we are able to think of the action of breaking and 
 felling as passing over to the stick and the tree. 
 
 Transitive comes from the Lat. verb transvre, to pass over. 
 
 The more correct definition is this : — 
 
 A Transitive Verb is a verb that requires an object. 
 
 This definition covers the instances of have, own, possess, inherit, etc., 
 as well as break, strike, fell, etc. 
 
 4. An Intransitive Verb denotes a state, feeling, or action 
 which does not pass over, but which terminates in the doer oi 
 agent. " He sleeps ; " " she walks ; " " the grass grows." 
 
 5. There is, in general, nothing in the look or appearance 
 of the verb which will enable us to tell whether it is transitive 
 or intransitive. A transitive verb may be used intransitively ; 
 an intransitive verb, transitively. In a few verbs we possess 
 a causative form. Thus we have : — 
 
 Intransitive. 
 
 Causative 
 
 Intransitive. 
 
 Causative. 
 
 Bite 1 
 
 Bait. 
 
 Quail 
 
 Quell 
 
 Deem 1 
 
 Doom (verb). 
 
 Quoth 
 
 Bequeathe. 
 
 Drink 1 
 
 Drench. 
 
 Rise 
 
 Raise. 
 
 Fall 
 
 Fell. 
 
 Sit 
 
 Set. 
 
 Lie 
 
 Lay. 
 
 Watch 1 
 
 Wake. 
 
 
 1 These are also used transitively. 
 
 The following exceptional usages should be diligently 
 noted: — 
 
 L Intransitive verbs may be used transitively. Thus — 
 |i) (a) He walked to London. (b) He walked his horse, 
 
 (a) The eagle flew, (6) The boy flew hia kite. 
 
36 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 (ii) When the intransitive verb is compounded with a pre- 
 position either (i) separable, or (ii) inseparable. 
 
 (i) (a) He laughed. (6) He laughed-at me. 
 
 (ii) (a) He came. (o) He overcame the enemy, 
 
 (iii) (a) He spoke. (o) He bespoke a pair of boots. 
 
 Such verbs are sometimes called " Prepositional Verbs." 
 
 II. Transitive verbs may be used intransitively — 
 (i) With the pronoun itself understood : — 
 
 (a) He broke the dish. (6) The sea breaks on the rocks. 
 
 (a) She shut the door. (o) The door shut suddenly, 
 
 (a) They moved the table. (6) The table moved. 
 
 (ii) When the verb describes a fact perceived by the senses : — 
 
 (a) He cut the beef. (6) The beef cuts tough, 
 
 (a) He sold the books. (o) The books sell well, 
 
 (a) She smells the rose. (6) The rose smells sweet. 
 
 The following is a tabular view of the 
 
 KINDS OF VEKBS. 
 
 I I 
 
 INTRANSITIVE. TRANSITIVE. 
 
 I 1 
 
 I 1 I I 
 
 Of State. Of action. Active. Passive. 
 
 (Sleep.) (Bun.) (Wound.) (Be wounded.) 
 
 THE INFLEXIONS OF VERBS. 
 
 6. Verbs are changed or modified for Voice', Mood, Tense, 
 Number, and Person. These changes are expressed, partly by 
 inflexion, and partly by the use of auxiliary verbs. 
 
 (i) A verb is an auxiliary verb (from Lat. auxilium, aid) when its 
 own full and real meaning drops out of sight, and it aids or helps the 
 verb to which it is attached to express its meaning. Thus we say, " He 
 works hard that he may gain the prize ; " and here may has not its old 
 meaning of power, or its present meaning of permission. But — 
 
 (ii) If we say " He may go," here may is not used as an auxiliary t 
 but is a notional verb, with its full mean in* ; and the sentence is = 
 " He has leave to go." 
 
THE VEKii. 37 
 
 Voice. 
 
 7. Voice is that form of the Verb by which we show 
 whether the subject of the statement denotes the doer of the 
 action, or the object of the action, expressed by the verb. 
 
 8. There are two Voices : the Active Voice, and the Passive 
 Voice. 
 
 (i) When a verb is used in the active voice, 
 
 the subject of the sentence stands for 
 the doer of the action. " He killed the mouse." 
 (ii) When a verb is in the passive voice, . 
 
 the subject of the sentence stands for 
 
 the object of the action. " The mouse was killed." 
 
 Or we may say that, in the passive voice 
 the grammatical subject denotes the real 
 object, 
 (iii) There is in English a kind of middle voice. Thus we can say, 
 "He opened the door" (active); "The door was opened" (passive); 
 " The door opened " (middle). In the same way we have, " This wood 
 cuts easily ; " " Honey tastes sweet ; " " The book sold well," etc. 
 
 9. An Intransitive Verb, as it can have no direct object, 
 cannot be used in the passive voice. But, as we have seen, 
 we can make an intransitive into a transitive verb by adding 
 a preposition ; and hence we can say : — 
 
 Active. Passive. 
 
 (a) They laughed at him. (6) He was laughed at by them. 
 
 (a) The general spoke to him. (6) He was spoken to by the general 
 
 10. In changing a verb in the active voice into the passive, 
 we may make either (i) the direct or (ii) the indirect object 
 into the subject of the passive verb. 
 
 Active. Passive. 
 
 1. They offered her a chair. (i) A chair was offered her. 
 
 (ii) She was offered a chair. 
 
 2. They showed him the house. (i) The house was shown him. 
 
 (ii) He was Bhown the house. 
 
 3. I promised the boy a coat. (i) A coat was promised the boy. 
 
 (ii) The boy was promised a coat. 
 
 The object after the passive verb is not the real object of that verb, for 
 a passive verb cannot rightly take an object. It is Itft over, as it were, from the 
 active verb, and is hence sometimes called a Retained or Residuary Object. 
 
38 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 11. The passive voice of a verb is formed by using a pan. 
 of the verb to be and the past participle of the verb. Thus 
 
 we say — 
 
 Active. Passive. Active. ^ Passive. 
 
 I beat. I am beaten. I have beaten. I have been beaten. 
 
 (i) Some intransitive verbs form their perfect tenses by means of the 
 verb to be and their past participle, as " I am come ; " " He is gone." 
 But the meaning here is quite different. There is no mark of anything 
 done to the subject of the verb. 
 
 (ii) Shakespeare has the phrases : is rim ; is arrived ; are marched 
 forth ; is entered into ; is stolen away. 
 
 Mood. 
 
 12. The Mood of a verb is the manner in which the state- 
 ment made by the verb is presented to the mind. Is a 
 statement made directly? Is a command given 1 ? Is a state- 
 ment subjoined to another? All these are different moods or 
 modes. There are four moods : the Indicative ; the Impera- 
 tive ; the Subjunctive ; and the Infinitive. ■* 
 
 (i) Indicative comes from the Lat. indicare, to point out. 
 
 (ii) Imperative comes from the Lat. imperare, to command. Hence 
 also emperor, empress, etc. (through French). 
 
 (iii) Subjunctive comes from Lat. subjunge're, to join on to. 
 
 (iv) Infinitive comes from Lat. infinltus, unlimited ; because the verb 
 in this mood is not limited by person or by number. 
 
 13. The Indicative Mood makes a direct assertion, or puts 
 a question in a direct manner. Thus we say : " John is ill ; " 
 "Is John ill ?" 
 
 14. The Imperative Mood is the mood of command, 
 request, or entreaty. Thus we say : " Go ! " " Give me the 
 book, please ; " "Do come back ! " 
 
 (i) The Imperative Mood is the simple form of the verb without any 
 inflexion. 
 
 (ii) It has in reality only one person — the second. 
 
 15. The Subjunctive Mood is that form of the verb wh^h 
 is used mainly in a sentence subjoined to a principal 
 
THE VERB. 39 
 
 sentence, — and which does not express a fact directly, but 
 only the relation of a fact to the mind of the speaker. 
 Most often it expresses both doubt and futurity. Thus we 
 say : (i) "0 that he were here ! " (ii) " Love not sleep, lest 
 thou come to poverty." (iii) "Whoever he be, he cannot be 
 a good man." 
 
 (i) In the first sentence, the person is not here. 
 
 (ii) In the second, the person spoken to has not come to poverty ; 
 but he may. 
 
 (iii) In the third, we do not know who the person really is. 
 
 (iv) The Subjunctive Mood is rapidly dying out of use in modern 
 English. 
 
 16. The Infinitive Mood is that form of the verb which 
 has no reference to any agent, and is therefore unlimited by 
 perstm, or by number. It is the verb itself, pure and simple. 
 
 (i) The preposition to is not an essential part nor a necessary sign of 
 the infinitive. The oldest sign of it was the ending in an. After may, 
 can, shall, will, must, bid, dare, do, let, make, hear, see, feel, need, the 
 simple infinitive, without to, is still uted. 
 
 (ii) The Infinitive is really a noun, and it may be (a) either in the 
 nominative or (6) in the obj. case. Thus we have : (a) " To err is 
 human ; to forgive, divine ; " and (6) " I wish to go." 
 
 (iii) In 0. E. it was partly declined ; and the dative case ended 
 in anne or enne. Then to was placed before this dative, to indicate 
 purpose. Thus we find, " The sower went out to sow," when, in O.E. 
 to sow was to sawenne. This, which is now called the gerundial infinitive, 
 has become very common in English. Thus we have, "I came to see 
 you ;" " A house to let." "To hear him (= on hearing him) talk, you 
 would think he was worth millions." 
 
 (iv) We must be careful to distinguish between (a) the pure Infinitive 
 and (b) the gerundial Infinitive. Thus we say — 
 
 (a) I want to see him. (6) I went to see him. The latter is the 
 gerundial infinitive — that is, the old dative. 
 
 (c) The gerundial infinitive is attached (1) to a noun ; and (2) to an 
 adjective. Thus we have such phrases as — 
 
 (1) Bread to eat ; water to drink ; a house to sell. 
 
 (2) Wonderful to relate ; quick to take offence ; eager to go. 
 
 17. A Gerund is a noun formed from a verb by the addition 
 of ing. It may be either (i) a subject ; or (ii) an object ; or 
 
40 
 
 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 (iii) it may be governed by a preposition. It has two functions ; 
 that of a noun, and that of a verb — that is, it is itself a noun, 
 and it has the governing power of a verb. 
 
 (i) Reading books is pleasant, (ii) I like reading books, (iii) He 
 got off by crossing the river. In this last sentence, crossing is a noun 
 in relation to by, and a verb in relation to river. 
 
 The chief modern distinction between a gerund and a verbal noun is 
 that the gerund (if of a transitive verb) governs an object ; the verbal 
 noun cannot govern an object under any circumstances, and it is 
 generally preceded by "the" and followed by " of." 
 
 (ii) The Gerund must be carefully distinguished from three other 
 kinds of words : (a) from the verbal noun, which used to end in ung ; 
 (b) from the present participle ; and (c) from the infinitive with to. 
 The following are examples : — 
 
 (a) "Forty and six years was this tem- 
 ple in building." Here building is a 
 verbal noun. 
 
 (b) "Dreaming as he went along, he 
 fell into the brook." Here dreaming is 
 an adjective agreeing with he, and is there- 
 fore a participle. 
 
 (c) "To write is quite easy, when one 
 has a good pen." Here to write is a pres- 
 ent infinitive, and is the nominative to is. 
 (It must not be forgotten that the oldest 
 infinitive had no to, and that it still exists 
 in this pure form in such lines as " Better 
 dwell in the midst of alarms, than reign 
 in this horrible place." 
 
 (a) "He was punished for robbing the 
 orchard." Here robbing is a gerund, be- 
 cause it is a noun and also governs a noun. 
 
 (b) " He was tired of dreaming such 
 dreams." Here dreaming is a gerund, 
 because it is a noun and governs a noun. 
 
 (c) " He comes here to write his letters.' 
 Here to write is the gerundial infinitive ; 
 it is in the dative case ; and the O.E. 
 form was to writanne. Here the to has 
 a distinct function. This is the so- 
 called "infinitive of purpose;" but it is 
 a true gerund. In the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, when the sense of the to was weak- 
 ened, it took a for, — ' ' What went ye out 
 for to see?" 
 
 (iii) The following three words in ing have each a special function :— 
 (a) He is reading about the passing of Arthur (verbal noun). 
 (&) And Arthur, passing thence (participle), rode to the wood. 
 ( c) This is only good for passing the time (gerund). 
 
 18. A Participle is a verbal adjective. There are two par- 
 ticiples : the Present Active and the Perfect Passive. The 
 former (i) has two functions : that of an adjective and that 
 of a verb. The latter (ii) has only the function of an adjective. 
 
 (i) " Hearing the noise, the porter ran to the gate." In this sentence, 
 hearing is an adjective qualifying porter, and a verb governing noise. 
 
 (ii) Defeated and discouraged, the enemy surrendered. 
 
 t& 1. We must be very careful to distinguish between [a) the gerund in 
 ing, and (6) the participle in ing. Thus running in a " running stream " 
 
THE VERB. 41 
 
 is an adjective, and therefore a participle. In the sentence, "he was hurt 
 in running the race," it is a noun, and therefore a gerund. Milton says — 
 
 " And ever, against eating cares, 
 Lap me in soft Lydian airs ! " 
 
 Here eating is an adjective, and means fretting ; and it is therefore a 
 participle. But if it had meant cares about eating, eating would have 
 been a noun, and therefore a gerund. So a fishing-rod is not a rod 
 that fishes ; a frying-pan is not a pan that fries ; a walking-stick is not 
 a stick that walks. The rod is a rod for fishing ; the pan, a pan for 
 frying; the stick, a stick for walking; and therefore fishing, frying, 
 and walking are all gerunds. 
 
 2. The word participle comes from Lat. participare, to partake of. 
 The participle partakes of the nature of the verb. (Hence also par- 
 ticipate.) 
 
 Tense. 
 
 19. Tense is the form which the verb takes to indicate time. 
 There are, in human life, three times : past, present, and 
 future. Hence there are in a verb three chief tenses : Past, 
 Present, and Future. These may be represented on a 
 straight line : — 
 
 TENSES. 
 
 i i 1 
 
 Past. Present. Future. 
 
 I wrote. I write. I shall write. 
 
 (i) The word tense comes to us from the French temps, which is from 
 the Lat. tempus, time. Hence also temporal, temporary, etc. (The modern 
 French word is temps; the old French word was tens.) 
 
 20. The tenses of an English verb give not only the time of 
 an action or event, but also the state or condition of that 
 action or event This state may be complete or incomplete, 
 or neither — that is, it is left indefinite. These states are 
 oftener called perfect, imperfect, and indefinite. The con- 
 dition, then, of an action as expressed by a verb, or the con- 
 dition of the tense of a verb, may be of three kinds. It may 
 be— 
 
 (i) Complete or Perfect, as Written. 
 
 (ii) Incomplete or Imperfect, as Writing, 
 (iii) Indefinite, as Write. 
 
42 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 We now have therefore — 
 
 TENSES. 
 I 
 
 Past. Present. Future. 
 
 I I I 
 
 1 III 111. 
 
 Perfect. Indef. Imperf. Perfect. Indef. Imperf. Perfect. Indef. Imperf. 
 
 Had Wrote. Was Have Write. Am Shall Shall Shall be 
 
 written. writing. written. writing. have write, writing. 
 
 written. 
 
 (i) The only tense in our language that is formed by inflexion is the 
 past indefinite. All the others are formed by the aid of auxiliaries. . 
 (a) The imperfect tenses are formed by be + the imperfect 
 
 participle. 
 (6) The perfect tenses are formed by have + the perfect par- 
 ticiple. 
 
 (ii) Besides had written, have written, and will have written, we can say 
 had been writing, have been writing, and will have been writing. These 
 are sometimes called Past Perfect (or Pluperfect) Continuous, Perfect 
 Continuous, and Future Perfect Continuous. 
 
 (hi) " I do write," " I did write," are called Emphatic forms. 
 
 Number. 
 
 21. Verbs are modified for Number. There are in verbs 
 two numbers : (i) the Singular and (ii) the Plural. 
 
 (i) "We say, " He writes " (with the ending s). 
 
 (ii) We say, " They write " (with no inflectional ending at all). 
 
 Person. 
 
 22. Verbs are modified for Person — that is, the form of the 
 verb is changed to suit (i) the first person, (ii) the second 
 person, or (iii) the third person. 
 
 (i) " I write." (ii) "Thou writest." (iii) " He writes." 
 
 Conjugation. 
 
 23. Conjugation is the name given to the sum-total of all the 
 inflexions and combinations of the parts of a verb. 
 
 The word conjugate comes from the Lat. conjugare, to bind together. 
 
THE VEKB. 43 
 
 24. There are two conjugations in English — the Strong and 
 the Weak. Hence we have : (i) verbs of the Strong Con- 
 jugation, and (ii) verbs of the Weak Conjugation, which 
 are more usually called Strong Verbs and Weak Verbs. 
 These verbs are distinguished from each other by their way 
 of forming their past tenses. 
 
 25. The past tense of any verb determines to which of these 
 classes it belongs ; and that by a twofold test — one positive and 
 one negative. 
 
 26. (i) The positive test for the past of a Strong Verb 
 is that it changes the vowel of the present, (ii) The nega- 
 tive test is that it never adds anything to the present to make 
 its past tense. 
 
 (i) Thus we say write, wrote, and change the vowel, 
 (ii) But in wrote there is nothing added to write. 
 
 27. (i) The positive test for the past tense of a Weak Verb 
 is that d or t is added to the present, (ii) The negative test is 
 that the root-vowel of the present is generally not changed. 
 
 (i) There are some exceptions to this latter statement. Thus tell, 
 told ; buy, bought ; sell, sold, are weak verbs. The change in the vowel 
 does not spring from the same cause as the change in strong verba. 
 Hence — 
 
 (ii) It is as well to keep entirely to the positive test in the case of 
 weak verbs. However " strong " or " irregular " may seem to be the 
 verbs teach, taught ; seek, sought ; say, said, we know that they are 
 weak, because they add a d or a t for the past tense. 
 
 (iii) In many weak verbs there seems to be both a change of vowel 
 and alsp an absence of any addition. Hence they look very like strong 
 verbs. In fact, the long vowel of the present is made short in the past. 
 Thus we find meet, met ; feed, fed. But these verbs are not strong. 
 The old past was mette and fedde ; and all that has happened is that 
 they have lost the old inflexions te and de. It was owing to the addi- 
 tion of another syllable that the original long vowel of the verb was 
 shortened. Compare nation, national, please, pleasure. 
 
 (iv) The past or passive participle of strong verbs had the suffix en 
 and the prefix ge. The suffix has now disappeared from many strong 
 verbs, and the prefix from all. But ge, which in Chaucer's time had 
 been refined into a y (as in yeomen, yronnen), is retained still in that 
 form in the one word yclept. Milton's use of it in star-y -pointing is a 
 mistake. 
 
44 
 
 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 28. The following is an 
 
 ALPHABETICAL LIST OF STRONG VERBS. 
 
 (All strong verbs except those which have a prefix are monosyllabic.) 
 The forms in italics are weak. 
 
 Pres. 
 
 Past. 
 
 Pass. Part. 
 
 Prcs. 
 
 Past. 
 
 Pass. Part. 
 
 Abide 
 
 abode 
 
 abode. 
 
 Fly 
 
 flew 
 
 flown. 
 
 Arise 
 
 arose 
 
 arisen. 
 
 Forbear 
 
 forbore 
 
 forborne. 
 
 Awake 
 
 awoke 
 
 awoke 
 
 Forget 
 
 forgot 
 
 forgotten. 
 
 
 {awaked) {awaked). 
 
 Forsake 
 
 forsook 
 
 forsaken. 
 
 Bear 
 
 bore 
 
 born. 
 
 Freeze 
 
 froze 
 
 frozen. 
 
 (bring forth) 
 
 
 Get 
 
 got 
 
 got, gotten. 
 
 Bear 
 
 bore 
 
 borne. 
 
 Give 
 
 gave 
 
 given. 
 
 (carry) 
 
 
 
 Go 
 
 went 
 
 gone. 
 
 Beat 
 
 beat 
 
 beaten. 
 
 Grind 
 
 ground 
 
 ground. 
 
 Begin 
 
 began 
 
 begun. 
 
 Grow 
 
 grew 
 
 grown. 
 
 Behold 
 
 beheld 
 
 beheld (be- 
 
 Hang 
 
 h.urxg{hanged)h\mg(hanged). 
 
 
 
 holden). 
 
 Hide 
 
 hid 
 
 hidden, hid. 
 
 Bid 
 
 bade, bid 
 
 bidden, bid. 
 
 Hold 
 
 held 
 
 held. 
 
 Bind 
 
 bound 
 
 bound. 
 
 Know 
 
 knew 
 
 known. 
 
 Bite 
 
 bit 
 
 bitten, bit. 
 
 Lie 
 
 lay 
 
 lain. 
 
 Blow 
 
 blew 
 
 blown. 
 
 Ride 
 
 rode 
 
 ridden. 
 
 Break 
 
 broke 
 
 broken. 
 
 Ring 
 
 rang 
 
 rung. 
 
 Burst 
 
 burst 
 
 burst. 
 
 Rise 
 
 rose 
 
 risen. 
 
 Chide 
 
 chid 
 
 chidden, 
 
 Run 
 
 ran 
 
 run. 
 
 
 
 chid. 
 
 See 
 
 saw 
 
 seen. 
 
 Choose 
 
 chose 
 
 chosen. 
 
 Seethe 
 
 sod{seethed) sodden. 
 
 Cleave 
 
 clove 
 
 cloven. 
 
 Shake 
 
 shook 
 
 shaken. 
 
 (split) 
 
 
 
 Shine 
 
 shone 
 
 shone. 
 
 Climb 
 
 clomb 
 
 {climbed). 
 
 Shoot 
 
 shot 
 
 shot. 
 
 Cling 
 
 clung 
 
 clung. 
 
 Shrink 
 
 shrank 
 
 shrunk. 
 
 Come 
 
 came 
 
 come. 
 
 Sing 
 
 sang 
 
 sung. 
 
 Crow 
 
 crew 
 
 crown {obsol.). 
 
 Sink 
 
 sank 
 
 sunk* 
 
 
 {crowed 
 
 {crowed). 
 
 
 
 sunken. 
 
 Dig 
 
 dug 
 
 dug. 
 
 Sit 
 
 sat 
 
 sat. 
 
 Do 
 
 did 
 
 done. 
 
 Slay 
 
 slew 
 
 slain. 
 
 Draw 
 
 drew 
 
 drawn. 
 
 Slide 
 
 slid 
 
 slid. 
 
 Drink 
 
 drank 
 
 drunk, 
 
 Sling 
 
 slung 
 
 slung. 
 
 
 
 drunken. 
 
 Slink 
 
 slunk 
 
 slunk. 
 
 Drive 
 
 drove 
 
 driven. 
 
 Smite 
 
 smote 
 
 smitten. 
 
 Eat 
 
 ate 
 
 eaten. 
 
 Speak 
 
 spoke 
 
 spoken. 
 
 Fall 
 
 fell 
 
 fallen. 
 
 Spin 
 
 spun 
 
 spun. 
 
 Fight 
 
 fought 
 
 fought. 
 
 Spring 
 
 sprang 
 
 sprung. 
 
 Find 
 
 found 
 
 found. 
 
 Stand 
 
 stood 
 
 stood. 
 
 Fling 
 
 flung 
 
 flung. 
 
 Stave 
 
 stove 
 
 staved, stove 
 

 
 THE 
 
 VERB. 
 
 
 41 
 
 Pre*. 
 
 Past. 
 
 Pass. Part. 
 
 Pre*. 
 
 Past. 
 
 Pass. Part. 
 
 Steal 
 
 stole 
 
 stolen. 
 
 Thrive 
 
 throve 
 
 thriven 
 
 Stick 
 
 stuck, 1 
 
 stuck. 
 
 
 {thrived) 
 
 {thrived). 
 
 Sting 
 
 stung 
 
 stung. 
 
 Throw 
 
 threw 
 
 thrown. 
 
 Stink 
 
 stank 
 
 stunk. 
 
 Tread 
 
 trod 
 
 trodden, 
 
 Stride 
 
 strode 
 
 stridden. 
 
 
 
 trod. 
 
 Strike 
 
 struck 
 
 struck. 
 
 Wake 
 
 woke 
 
 {waked). 
 
 String 
 
 strung 
 
 strung. 
 
 
 {waked) 
 
 
 Strive 
 
 strove 
 
 striven. 
 
 Wear 
 
 wore 
 
 worn. 
 
 Swear 
 
 swore 
 
 sworn. 
 
 Weave 
 
 wove 
 
 woven. 
 
 Swim 
 
 swam 
 
 swum. 
 
 Win 
 
 won 
 
 won. 
 
 Swing 
 
 swung 
 
 swung. 
 
 Wind 
 
 wound 
 
 wound. 
 
 Take 
 
 took 
 
 taken. 
 
 Wring 
 
 wrung 
 
 wrung. 
 
 Tear 
 
 tore 
 
 torn. 
 
 Write 
 
 wrote 
 
 written. 
 
 It is well for the young learner to examine the above verbs 
 closely, and to make a classification of them for his own use. 
 The following are a few suggestions towards this task : — 
 
 (i) Collect verbs with vowels a, e, a ; like fall, fell, fallen, 
 (ii) "Verbs with o, e, o ; like throw, threw, thrown, 
 (iii) Verbs with i, a, u ; like begin, began, begun, 
 (iv) Verbs with 1, u, u ; like fling, flung, flung, 
 (v) Verbs with i, ou, ou ; like find, found, found, 
 (vi) Verbs with ea, o, ; like break, broke, broken, 
 (vii) Verbs with i, a, i ; like give, gave, given, 
 (viii) Verbs with a, o or oo, a ; like shake, shook, shaken, 
 (ix) Verbs with i (long), o, 1 (short) ; like drive, drove, driven, 
 (x) Verbs with ee or oo, o, o ; like freeze, froze, frozen ; or choose, 
 chose, chosen. 
 
 29. Weak Verbs are of two kinds: (i) Irregular Weak; 
 and (ii) Regular Weak. The Irregular Weak are such verba 
 as tell, told; buy, bought. The Regular Weak are such 
 verbs as attend, attended ; obey, obeyed. 
 
 (i) The Irregular Weak verbs are, with very few exceptions, mono- 
 syllables, and are almost all of purely English origin. 
 
 (ii) The Regular Weak verbs are generally of Latin or of French origin. 
 Since the language lost the power of changing the root-vowel of a verb, 
 every verb received into our tongue from another language has been 
 placed in the Regular Weak conjugation. 
 
 1 The past tenses of dig and stick were formerly weak ; so were the pas 
 sive participles of hide, rot, show, strew, saw. 
 
46 
 
 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 (iii) The ed or d is not a shortened form of did, as Mas once 
 believed. It simply represents the A.S. -de, one of the past suffixes 
 of Weak Verbs. 
 
 30. Irregular Weak verbs are . themselves divided into two 
 classes : (i) those which keep their ed, d, or t in the past 
 tense; (ii) those which have lost the d or t. Thus we find 
 (i) sleep, slept ; teach, taught. Among (ii) we find feed, fed, 
 which was once fed-de ; set, set, which was once set-te. 
 
 It is of the greatest importance to attend to the following 
 changes : — 
 
 (i) A sharp consonant follows a sharp, and a flat a flat. Thus p in 
 sleep is sharp, and therefore we cannot say sleeped. "We must take the 
 sharp form of d, which is t, and say slept. So also felt, burnt, dreamt, 
 etc. 
 
 (ii) Some verbs shorten their vowel. Thus we have hear, heard ; flee, 
 fled ; sleep, slept, etc. 
 
 (iii) Some verbs have different vowels in the present and past : as 
 tell, told ; buy, bought ; teach, taught ; work, wrought. But it is not 
 the past tense, it is the present that has changed Thus the o in told 
 represents the a in tale, etc. 
 
 (iv) Some have dropped an internal letter. Thus made is=makede; 
 paid=payede; had=hadde. 
 
 (v) Some verbs change the d of the present into a t in the past. Thua 
 we have build, built ; said, tent. 
 
 (vi) A large class have the three parts — present, past, and passive 
 participle — exactly alike. Such are rid, set, etc. 
 
 The following is an 
 
 ALPHABETICAL LIST OF IRREGULAR WEAK VERBS. 
 Class I. 
 
 Pres. 
 
 Past. 
 
 Pass. Part. 
 
 Pres. 
 
 Past. 
 
 Pass. Part 
 
 Bereave 
 
 bereft 
 
 bereft. 
 
 Dwell 
 
 dwelt 
 
 dwelt. 
 
 Beseech 
 
 besought 
 
 besought. 
 
 Feel 
 
 felt 
 
 felt. 
 
 Bring 
 
 brought 
 
 brought. 
 
 Flee 
 
 fled 
 
 fled. 
 
 Burn 
 
 burnt 
 
 burnt. 
 
 Grave 
 
 graved 
 
 graven. 
 
 Buy 
 
 bought 
 
 bought. 
 
 Have 
 
 had 
 
 had. 
 
 Catch 
 
 caught 
 
 caught. 
 
 Hew 
 
 hewed 
 
 hewn. 
 
 Cleave 
 
 cleft 
 
 cleft. 
 
 Keep 
 
 kept 
 
 kept. 
 
 Creep 
 
 crept 
 
 crept. 
 
 Kneel 
 
 knelt 
 
 knelt. 
 
 Deal 
 
 dealt 
 
 dealt. 
 
 Lay 
 
 laid 
 
 laid. 
 
 Dream 
 
 dreamt 
 
 dreamt. 
 
 Lean 
 
 leant 
 
 leant. 
 

 
 THE 
 
 VERB. 
 
 
 4 
 
 Pre*. 
 
 Past. 
 
 Past Part. 
 
 Pres. 
 
 Past. 
 
 Pass. Part. 
 
 Learn 
 
 learnt 
 
 learnt. 
 
 Shear 
 
 sheared 
 
 shorn. 
 
 Leap 
 
 leapt 
 
 leapt. 
 
 Shoe 
 
 shod 
 
 shod. 
 
 Leave 
 
 left 
 
 left. 
 
 Show 
 
 showed 
 
 shown. 
 
 Lose 
 
 lost 
 
 lost. 
 
 Sleep 
 
 slept 
 
 slept. 
 
 Make 
 
 made 
 
 made. 
 
 Sow 
 
 sowed 
 
 sown. 
 
 Mean 
 
 meant 
 
 meant. 
 
 Spell 
 
 spelt 
 
 spelt. 
 
 Pay 
 
 paid 
 
 paid. 
 
 Spill 
 
 spilt 
 
 spilt. 
 
 Pen 
 
 pent 
 
 pent. 
 
 Strew 
 
 strewed 
 
 strewn. 
 
 
 (penned) 
 
 Sweep 
 
 swept 
 
 swept 
 
 Rap (to 
 
 rapt 
 
 rapt. 
 
 Swell 
 
 swelled 
 
 swollen. 
 
 transport) 
 
 
 Teach 
 
 taught 
 
 taught 
 
 Rive 
 
 rived 
 
 riven. 
 
 Tell 
 
 told . 
 
 told. 
 
 Rot 
 
 rotted 
 
 rotten. 1 
 
 Think 
 
 thought 
 
 thought 
 
 Say 
 
 said 
 
 said. 
 
 Tie 
 
 tied 
 
 tight 1 
 
 Saw 
 
 sawed 
 
 sawn. 
 
 "Weep 
 
 wept 
 
 wept. 
 
 Seek 
 
 sought 
 
 sought 
 
 Work 
 
 wrought 
 
 wrought. 1 
 
 Sell 
 Shave 
 
 sold 
 shaved 
 
 sold. 
 shaven. 
 
 
 worked 
 
 worked. 
 
 1 Rotten, tight, and wrought are 
 
 now used 
 
 as adjectives, and not 
 
 passive 
 
 participles ; 
 
 cp. wrought iro 
 
 n, a tight knot, rotten wood. 
 
 
 
 Clas 
 
 s II. 
 
 
 
 Pre*. 
 
 Past. 
 
 Pass. Part. 
 
 Pres. 
 
 Past. 
 
 Pass. Part. 
 
 Bend 
 
 bent 
 
 bent. 
 
 Meet 
 
 met 
 
 met 
 
 Bleed 
 
 bled 
 
 bled. 
 
 Put 
 
 put 
 
 put 
 
 Blend 
 
 blent 
 
 blent. 
 
 Read 
 
 read 
 
 read. 
 
 Breed ' 
 
 bred 
 
 bred. 
 
 Rend 
 
 rent 
 
 rent. 
 
 Build 
 
 built 
 
 built 
 
 Rid 
 
 rid 
 
 rid. 
 
 Cast 
 
 cast 
 
 cast. 
 
 Send 
 
 sent 
 
 sent 
 
 Clothe 
 
 clad 
 
 clad 
 
 Set 
 
 set 
 
 set. 
 
 
 (clothed) (clothed). 
 
 Shed 
 
 shed 
 
 shed. 
 
 Cost 
 
 cost 
 
 cost. 
 
 Shred 
 
 shred 
 
 shred. 
 
 Cut 
 
 cut 
 
 cut 
 
 Shut 
 
 shut 
 
 shut. 
 
 Feed 
 
 fed 
 
 fed. 
 
 Slit 
 
 slit 
 
 slit 
 
 Gild 
 
 got 
 
 gilt (gilded). 
 
 Speed 
 
 sped 
 
 sped. 
 
 
 (gilded) 
 
 
 Spend 
 
 spent 
 
 spent. 
 
 Gird 
 
 girt 
 
 girt 
 
 Spit 
 
 spit, spat 
 
 spit 
 
 Hear 
 
 heard 
 
 heard. 
 
 Split 
 
 split 
 
 split 
 
 Hit 
 
 hit 
 
 hit. 
 
 Spread 
 
 spread 
 
 spread. 
 
 Hurt 
 
 hurt 
 
 hurt. 
 
 Sweat 
 
 sweat 
 
 sweat 
 
 Knit 
 
 knit 
 
 knit. 
 
 Thrust 
 
 thrust 
 
 thrust 
 
 Lead 
 
 led 
 
 led. 
 
 Wend 
 
 wended 
 
 wended. 
 
 Lend 
 
 lent 
 
 lent. 
 
 
 or went 
 
 Let 
 
 let 
 
 let 
 
 Wet 
 
 wet 
 
 wet 
 
 Light 
 
 Ht(Ughted31it(Hghted). 
 
 
 
 
 47 
 
48 
 
 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 31. Before we can learn the full conjugation of a verb, we 
 must acquaint ourselves with all the parts of the auxiliary- 
 verbs — Shall and Will ; Have and Be. 
 
 (i) If be means existence merely (as in the sentence God is), it is 
 called a notional verb ; if it is used in the formation of the passive 
 voice, it is. an auxiliary verb. In the same way, have is a notional 
 verb when it means to possess, as in the sentence, " I have a shilling. " 
 
 32. The following are the parts of the verb Shall : — 
 
 Indicative Mood. 
 
 Singular. 
 
 1. I shall. 
 
 2. Thoushal-t. 
 
 3. He shall 
 
 Singular. 
 
 1. I shoul-d. 
 
 2. Thou shoul-d-Bt 
 
 3. He shoul-rf. 
 
 Present Tense. 
 
 Plural. 
 
 1. We shall. 
 
 2. You shall. 
 
 3. They shall. 
 
 Past Tense. 
 
 Plural. 
 
 1. We shoul-d 
 
 2. You shoul-d 
 
 3. They shoul-d 
 
 Imp. Mood . Inf. Mood . Participles — 
 
 (Should comes from an old dialectic form scholde) 
 
 33. The following are the parts of the verb Will : — 
 
 
 Indicative Mood. 
 
 
 Present Tense. 
 
 Singular. 
 
 
 Plural. 
 
 1. I will 
 
 
 1. We will. 
 
 2. Thou wil-t. 
 
 
 2. You wilL 
 
 3. He will. 
 
 Past Tense, 
 
 3. They will. 
 
 Singular. 
 
 
 Plural. 
 
 1. I woul-e£. 
 
 
 1. We woul-c?. 
 
 2. Thou woul-d-st 
 
 
 2. You woul-d 
 
 3. He woul-d 
 
 
 3. They woul-d 
 
 Imp. Mood 
 
 Inf. Mood 
 
 Participles 
 
 (i) Shall and will are used as Tense-auxiliaries. As a tense-auxiliary, 
 shall is used only in the first person. Thus we say, I shall write ; 
 thou wilt write ; he will write — when we speak merely of future time. 
 
THE VERB. 49 
 
 (ii) Shan't is = shall not. Wont is = wol not, wol being an older form 
 of will. We find wol also in wolde — an old spelling of would. 
 
 (iii) Shall in the 1st person expresses simple futurity ; in the 2d and 
 3d persons, authority. Will in the 1st person expresses determination ; 
 in the 2d and 3d, only futurity. 
 
 34. The following are the parts of the verb Have : — 
 
 Indicative Mood. 
 Present Indefinite Tense. 
 Singular. PluraL 
 
 1. I have. 1. We have. 
 
 2. Thou ha-Bt. 2. You have. 
 
 3. He has. 3. They have. 
 
 r • Present Perfect Tense. 
 
 Singular. Plural. 
 
 1. I have had. 1. We have had. 
 
 2. Thou hast had. 2. You have had. 
 
 3. He has had. 3. They have had. 
 
 (i) Hast = havest. Compare e'en and even, (ii) Had=hadde. 
 
 Past Indefinite Tense. 
 
 Singular. Plural. 
 
 1. I had. 1. We had. 
 
 2. Thou had-st. 2. You had. 
 
 3. He had. 3 They had. 
 
 Past Perfect (or Pluperfect) Tense. 
 Singular. Plural. 
 
 1. I had had. 1. We had had. 
 
 2. Thou hadst had. 2. You had had. 
 
 3. He had had. 3. They had had. 
 
 Future Indefinite Tense. 
 Singular. Plural. 
 
 1. I*hallhave. 1. We shall have. 
 
 2. Thou wilt have. 2. You will have. 
 
 3. He will have. 3. They will have. 
 
 Future Perfect Tense. 
 Singular. Plural. 
 
 1. I shall have had. 1. We shall have had. 
 
 2. Thou wilt have had. 2. You will have had. 
 
 3. He will have had. 3. They will have had. 
 
50 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 Subjunctive Mood. 
 Present Indefinite Tense. 
 Singular. Plural. 
 
 1. I have. 1. We have. 
 
 2. Thou have. 2. You have. 
 
 3. He have. 3. They have. 
 
 Present Perfect Tense. 
 Singular. Plural. 
 
 1. I have had. 1. We have had. 
 
 2. Thou have had. 2. You have had. 
 
 3. He have had. 3. They have had. 
 
 Past Indefinite Tense. 
 
 Same in form as in the Indicative ; but with no inflexion in the 
 second person. 
 
 Past Perfect Tense. 
 
 Same in form as in the Indicative ; but with no inflexion in the 
 second person. 
 
 Past Indefinite Tense. 
 Singular. Plural. 
 
 1. I had. 1. We had. 
 
 2. Thou had. 2. You had. 
 
 3. He had. 3. They had. 
 
 Past Perfect (Pluperfect) Tense. 
 Singular. Plural. 
 
 1. I had had. 1. We had had. 
 
 2. Thou had had. 2. You had had. 
 
 3. He had had. 3. They had had. 
 
 Imperative Mood. — Singular : Have ! Plural : Have ! 
 
 Infinitive Mood. — Present Indefinite : (To) have. Perfect : (To) have had. 
 
 Participles. — Imperfect : Having. Past (or Passive) : Had. 
 
 Compound Perfect (Active) : Having had. 
 
 35. The following are the parts of the verb Be : — 
 Indicative Mood. 
 
 Present Indefinite Tense. 
 Singular. Plural. 
 
 1. I am. 1. We are. 
 
 2. Thou ar-t. 2. You are. 
 
 3. He is. 3. They are. 
 
THE VERB. 51 
 
 Present Perfect Tense. 
 
 Singular. Plural. 
 
 1. I have been. 1. We have been. 
 
 2. Thou hast been. 2. You have been. 
 
 3. He has been. 3. They have been. 
 
 Past Indefinite Tense. 
 
 Singular. Plural. 
 
 1. I was. 1. We were. 
 
 2. Thou wast or wert. 2. You were. 
 
 3. He was. 3. They were. 
 
 Past Perfect (Pluperfect) Tense. 
 
 Singular. Plural. 
 
 1. I had been. 1. We had been. 
 
 2. Thou hadst been. 2. You had been. 
 
 3. He had been. 3. They had been. 
 
 ire Indefinite Tense. 
 I shall be, etc. 
 
 Future Perfect Tense. 
 I shall have been, etc. 
 
 Subjunctive Mood. 
 
 Present Indefinite Tense. 
 
 Singular. 
 
 1. I be. 
 
 2. Thou be. 
 
 3. Hebe. 
 
 Plural. 
 
 1. We be. 
 
 2. You be. 
 
 3. They be. 
 
 Present Perfect Tense. 
 
 Singular. 
 
 1. I have been. 
 
 2. Thou have been. 
 
 3. He have been. 
 
 Plural. 
 
 1. We have been. 
 
 2. You have been. 
 
 3. They have been. 
 
 Past Indefinite Tense. 
 
 Singular. 
 
 1. I were. 
 
 2. Thouwert. 
 
 3. He were. 
 
 Plural. 
 
 1. We were. 
 
 2. You were. 
 
 3. They were. 
 
 Past Perfect (Pluperfect) Tense. 
 
 Singular. 
 
 1. I had been. 
 
 2. Thou had been. 
 §. He had been. 
 
 Plural. 
 
 1. We had been,. 
 
 2. You had been. 
 
 3. They had beei}, 
 
52 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 Past Indefinite (Compound Form). 
 
 Singular. Plural. 
 
 1. I should be. 1. We should be. 
 
 2. Thou should be. 2. You should be. 
 
 3. He should be. 3. They should be. 
 
 Future Perfect (Compound Form). 
 Singular. Plural. 
 
 1. I should have been. 1. We should have been. 
 
 2. Thou should have been 2. You should have been. 
 8. He should have been. 3. They should have been. 
 
 Imperative Mood. — Singular : Be ! Plural : Be ! 
 
 Infinitive Mood. — Present Indefinite : (To) be. Present Perfect : 
 (To) have been. 
 
 Participles. — Present : Being. Past : Been. Compound : Having been. 
 We find the short simple form Be ! in Coleridge's line— 
 
 " Be, rather than be called, a child of God ! " 
 
 (i) It is plain from the above that the verb Be is made up of fragmenta 
 of three different verbs. As when, in a battle, several companies of a 
 regiment have been severely cut up, and the fragments of those that 
 came out safely are afterwards formed into one company, so has it been 
 with the verb be. Hence the verb ought to be printed thus : — 
 Am 
 
 was 
 
 been. 
 
 (ii) Am is a different verb from "was and been. The m in am is the 
 same as the m in me, and marks the first person. The t in art is the 
 same as the th in thou, and marks the second person. Compare wil-t 
 and shal-t. Is has lost the suffix th. The Germans retain this, and say 
 ist. Are is not the O.E. plural, which was sind or sindon. The word 
 are was introduced by the Danes. [The Danish word to this day is er, 
 which we have learned to pronounce ar, as we do the er in clerk and 
 Derby. ] 
 
 (iii) Was is the past tense of the old verb wesan, to be. In some of 
 the dialects of England it appears as war — the German form. 
 
 (iv) Be is a verb without present or past tense. 
 
 (v) {a) Be is a notional or principal verb when it means to exist, as 
 " God is." (6) It is also a principal verb when it is used as a joiner or 
 copula, as in the sentence, " John is a teacher," where the is enables us 
 to connect John and teacher in the mind. In such instances it is called 
 a Copulative Verb or Copula. 
 
THE VERB. 53 
 
 AUXILIARY VERBS. 
 36. Auxiliary Verbs are Verbs which are used to modify 
 the sense of other verbs or to assist them in expressing a 
 meaning, the verbs to which they are attached being termed 
 Principal Verbs. 
 
 43T Every Auxiliary Verb is also capable of being used as a 
 Principal Verb. 
 
 Auxiliary Verbs may be classified as Auxiliaries of Voice, 
 of Tense, of Mood, and of Form. 
 
 (a) Auxiliary of Voice. Be is the only Voice Auxiliary, 
 and it is used to enable us to form the Passive Voice. 
 
 Active Voice. Passive Voice. 
 
 They build a ship. The ship is built. 
 
 He reared a monument. A monument was reared. 
 
 (b) Auxiliaries of Tense. The Tense Auxiliaries, in the 
 order of their importance, are Have, shall, will, and be. 
 
 (i) Have is used to form the Perfect Tenses — (a) Present 
 (b) Past, and (c) Future Perfect. 
 
 (a) He has been, (b) They had gone, (c) She will have returned, 
 (ii) Shall and will are used to form the Future Tense. 
 The boy will go. I shall return. 
 
 GOT In old English there was no separate form for the future tense ; 
 the present tense was made to do duty for the future, an Adverb 
 sometimes assisting the process. This usage still survives in such 
 sentences as: "We return to-morrow," where a future meaning is 
 imparted to the Verb by the Adverb. Shall and will, originally 
 principal verbs only, gradually crept into use as tense-auxiliaries. 
 
 Be is used optionally with Have, to form the Perfect 
 Tenses of Intransitive Verbs of motion, as go, come, rise, fall, 
 arrive, depart, ascend, descend, pass, escape, return, enter. 
 
 He is arrived (Present Perfect). He was gone (Past Perfect). 
 
 (c) Auxiliaries of Mood. The Auxiliaries of the Subjunc- 
 tive Mood are may (in its past tense might), would, and 
 should. 
 
 Examples of the uses of these are given on pages 53(c) and 
 53(d). 
 
 <3T Let, though sometimes regarded as an Auxiliary of tho 
 Imperative Mood (third person), is better taken as a Principal Verb. 
 
53(a) GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 (d) Auxiliaries of Form. Be, do. 
 
 (i) Be is an auxiliary of the Progressive Form of the pre- 
 sent, the past, and the future tenses. 
 
 I am going is the progressive form of I go. 
 
 He was writing ,, ,, ,, He wrote. 
 
 James will be starting ,, ,, „ James will start. 
 
 (ii) Do, as an auxiliary, may be employed to assist in 
 expressing ; 
 
 (a) Emphasis. He does know his work. 
 
 (6) Interrogation. Do you see ? 
 (c) Negation. I do not see it. 
 
 ^p* In the first of these three sentences "does" lends additional 
 force or emphasis to the word know; in the second and third 
 sentences it lends no emphasis, but is simply used to express the 
 more usual and idiomatic of two alternative forms. 
 In sense " Do you see ? " is the exact equivalent of " See you? " 
 and " I do not see it " „ „ ,, " I see it not." 
 
 The alternative forms are quite correct in grammar ; but they are 
 not usual or idiomatic. 
 
 DEFECTIVE VERBS. 
 
 37. Defective Verbs are such as are wanting in one or more 
 of their parts. Most, if not all, of them were at one period 
 complete, but, through modification of their use or from some 
 other cause, part of the verb has fallen into disuse, and thus 
 gradually disappeared. The principal Defective Verbs are — 
 
 Present Tense. 
 
 Past Tense. 
 
 Past Participle. 
 
 Beware 
 
 
 
 
 
 Can 
 
 Could 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Dight 
 
 Forego 2 
 
 
 
 Foregone 
 
 Hight 3 
 
 Hight 
 
 * 
 
 May 
 
 Might 
 
 
 
 Melists 4 
 
 Melisted 
 
 
 
 Meseems 
 
 Meseemed 
 
 
 
 Methinks 
 
 Methought 
 
 
 
 i Could (in O.E. cu-the) is a weak form. The 1 is intrusive, and came in 
 from a false analogy with should and would. 
 
 2 This ought to be spelled forgo. The for in this word is a prefix of 
 negation, as in forget, forgive, etc. 
 
 3 Hight (=is or was called) is the only instance in our language of a pure 
 passive verb. 4 Him listed is also found. 
 

 THE VERB. 
 
 Present Tense. 
 
 Past Tense. 
 
 Must 1 
 
 
 
 Ought 
 
 
 
 
 
 Quoth 
 
 Shall 
 
 Should 
 
 Will 
 
 Would 
 
 WotUw/. to wit) 2 
 
 Wist 
 
 Worth 3 
 
 
 
 53(b) 
 Past Participle, 
 
 Yclept 
 
 ANOMALOUS VERBS. 
 
 38. Anomalous Verbs are such as are made up of two or more 
 quite distinct Verbs. The Anomalous Verbs are Be and Go. 
 
 (i) Be. This verb contains three distinct roots. The Pre- 
 sent Indicative is from the root as ; the Present Subjunctive, 
 Imperative, Infinitive, and Participles are from the root be ; 
 the Past Indicative and Past Subjunctive are from the root 
 wesan (see page 52). 
 
 (ii) Go. This verb contains two distinct roots. The Present 
 
 tense is from the root go ; the Past tense is from the root 
 
 wend, which is still occasionally used both in prose and verse. 
 
 ^g" These verbs cannot be classed as either weak or strong, since 
 
 the ordinary tests do not apply to them. 
 
 REMARKS ON PECULIAR VERBS. 
 
 CAN, MUST. 
 
 39. Can (or its past tense Gould) and Must are always and 
 invariably Principal verbs. They are Principal Verbs because 
 in every instance in which they are used, a distinct and inde- 
 pendent meaning of power, possibility, or obligation attaches to 
 them apart from the Infinitive Verb which follows them. 
 
 I can run=I have the power to run. 
 
 I could see at one time = I had the power to see, etc. 
 
 I could have gone, if I had been present = I had the opportunity, etc. 
 
 He must depart = He M obliged or compelled to depart. 
 
 They differ, however, from ordinary "Verbs in this respect, viz. : 
 that they can take only an Infinitive Verb as object after them ; 
 they are never followed by a Noun or Pronoun as object. 
 
 1 Mu«t was originally the past tense of the old verb motan (=to be able 
 or to be obliged). Mot was=may ; and miut=might, etc. Man or maun takes 
 the place of must in the North of England and in Scotland. 
 
 a This verb has also a present participle witting, which is found in wittingly 
 and unwitting. * In such phrases as " Woe worth the day 1" 
 
53(c) GRAMMAR OF THE ENGIISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 MAY, SHALL, WILL. 
 
 40. (i) May (with its past tense might), shall (with its past 
 tense should), and will (with its past tense would) are some- 
 times Principal and sometimes Auxiliary Verbs. 
 
 (a) May is a Principal Verb when it denotes permission. 
 
 The boys may go out to play ( = are allowed). 
 
 (b) It is an Auxiliary of the Subjunctive Mood when it 
 denotes uncertainty. 
 
 He may succeed, if he takes pains. 
 
 (ii) Might is (a) a Principal Verb when it denotes permis- 
 sion or ability. 
 
 She might have gone, but preferred to remain ( = She had the 
 power to go). 
 
 (b) It is an Auxiliary of the Subjunctive Mood when it 
 denotes uncertainty. 
 
 I thought he might call. 
 
 (iii) Shall is (a) a Principal Verb when it denotes compul- 
 sion (or, occasionally, leave), and when used with the Second 
 and Third Persons. 
 
 You shall depart. Rome shall perish. 
 
 (b) It is an Auxiliary of Tense, and denotes simply futurity ', 
 when used with the First Person. 
 
 1 shall soon go. We shall remain. 
 
 (iv) Should is (a) a Principal Verb when it implies obligation. 
 Children should obey their parents. 
 
 (b) It is an Auxiliary of the Subjunctive Mood when it 
 denotes uncertainty. 
 
 If he should appear (or Should he appear), I will admit him. 
 
 (v) (a) Will is a Principal Verb, denoting volition or deter- 
 mination, when used with the First Person. 
 
 I will remove it. 
 
 <jg" In some of these cases, however, it is to all intents and 
 purposes an auxiliary verb, the idea of volition being absent, and the 
 word indicating nothing beyond mere futurity. The context usually 
 indicates the amount of force attaching to " will." 
 
THE VERB. 53(d) 
 
 (b) It is an Auxiliary of Tense, simply denoting futurity, 
 when used with the Second and Third Persons. 
 You will keep this. They will soon return, 
 (vi) (a) Would is a Principal Verb when it expresses deter- 
 mination. 
 
 He would go in spite of my entreaties, 
 (b) It is an Auxiliary of the Subjunctive Mood when it 
 implies uncertainty. 
 
 If he applied himself more vigorously, he would succeed. 
 ^* Notico hero that both verbs of this complex sentence are in 
 the Subjunctive Mood. "Would" is occasionally used practically 
 as an Auxiliary of Tense indicating a habitual repetition of the action. 
 " His listless length at noontide would he stretch," i e was accustomed 
 to stretch. 
 
 OUGHT. 
 
 41. (vii) Ought is an old preterite (or past tense) of owe. It 
 is now used as a present, and it possesses the exceptional privi- 
 lege of being allowed to violate the sequence of tenses. The 
 past tense of any other verb when followed by an Infinitive 
 has to take the Infinitive in the simple form, thus : 
 
 She wished to leave. 
 Ought, however, takes the Perfect Infinitive : 
 You ought to have gone. 
 The reason of this is that, since ought is now a present form witl 
 no past, we signify the past idea through the medium of the 
 Infinite, instead of by the preceding verb, as is otherwise the 
 universal rule. 
 
 IMPERSONAL VERBS. 
 
 42. Impersonal Verbs are such as have a non-personal sub 
 ject. They may be divided into two classes. 
 
 (a) Old Impersonal Verbs, whose subject is a sentence 
 following the verb, and whose dative (or indirect) object is 
 attracted to the vero. 
 
 Methinks he doth protest too much. 
 Meseems they have gone. 
 Melisteth they will follow. 
 J3T Melists and meseems are obsolete, methinks is obsolescent. 
 
 (b) Verbs following a personal pronoun used in a purely 
 indefinite and impersonal sense. 
 
 It rainSy it snows, etc. 
 In the above sentences, if it stands for anything, it stands for rain, 
 snow, etc. "The rain rains." " The snow snows," etc. 
 
54 
 
 QKAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 43. The following is the full conjugation of a verb : — 
 
 ACTIVE VOICE. 
 Indicative Mood. 
 
 I. Present Indefinite Tense. 
 I strike. 
 
 Present Perfect Tense. 
 I have struck. 
 
 II. Past Indefinite Tense. 
 I struck. 
 
 Past Perfect (or Pluperfect) 
 Tense. 
 I had struck. 
 
 III. Future Indefinite Tense. 
 I shall strike. 
 
 Future Perfect Tense. 
 I shall have struck. 
 
 Present Imperfect Tense. 
 I am striking. 
 
 Present Perfect Continuous. 
 I have been striking. 
 
 Past Imperfect Tense. 
 I was striking. 
 
 Past Perfect (or Pluperfect) 
 Continuous. 
 I had been striking. 
 
 Future Imperfect Tense. 
 I shall be striking. 
 
 Future Perfect Continuous. 
 I shall have been striking. 
 
 Subjunctive Mood. 
 
 I. Present Indefinite Tense. 
 (If) I, thou, he strike. 
 
 Present Perfect Tense. 
 (If) I, thou, he have struck. 
 
 II. Past Indefinite Tense. 
 (If) I, thou, he struck. 
 
 Past Perfect (or Pluperfect) 
 Tense. 
 
 (If) I, thou, he had struck. 
 
 Present Imperfect Tense. 
 
 (If) I, thou, he be striking. 
 
 Present Perfect Continuous. 
 (If) I, thou, he have been striking. 
 
 Past Imperfect Tense. 
 
 (If) I, thou, he were striking. 
 
 Past Perfect (or Pluperfect) 
 Continuous. 
 
 (If) I, thou, he had been striking. 
 
 III. Future Indefinite Tense. 
 
 (If) I, thou, he should strike. 
 Future Perfect Tense. 
 (If) I, thou, he should have struck. 
 
 Future Imperfect Tense. 
 
 (If) I, thou, he should be striking. 
 
 Future Perfect Continuous. 
 (If) I, thou, he should have been 
 striking. 
 
 (The Future Subjunctive, when not preceded by a Conjunction, is some- 
 times called the Conditional Mood. " I should strike him if he were to 
 hurt the child."3 
 
The verb. 55 
 
 Imperative Mood. 
 
 I. Present Tense. 
 Singular 2. Strike (thou) ! Plural. 2. Strike (ye) I 
 
 II. Past Tense. 
 (None.) 
 
 III. Future Tense. 
 2. Thou shalt strike. 2. You shall strike. 
 
 Infinitive Mood. 
 
 1. Present Indefinite, . . (To) strike. 
 
 2. Present Imperfect, . . (To) be striking. 
 
 3. Present Perfect^ . . . (To) have struck. 
 
 4. Present Perfect Continuous, (To) have been striking. 
 
 5. Future Indefinite, . . (To) be about to strike. 
 
 Participles. 
 
 1. Indefinite and Imperfect, . Striking. 
 
 2. Present Perfect, . . . Having struck. 
 
 3. Perfect Continuous, . . Having been striking. 
 
 4. Future, Going or about to strike. 
 
 Gerunds. 
 1. Striking. 2. To strike. 
 
 PASSIVE VOICE. 
 
 Indicative Mood. 
 
 I. Present Indefinite Tense. Present Imperfect Tense. 
 
 I am struck. I am being struck. 
 
 Present Perfect Tense. Present Continuous. 
 
 I have been struck. I am being struck. 
 
 II. Past Indefinite Tense. Past Imperfect Tense. 
 
 I was struck. I was being struck. 
 
 Past Perfect Tense. Past Continuous. 
 
 I had been struck. I was being struck. 
 
 III. Future Indefinite Tense. Future Imperfect Tense. 
 
 I shall be struck. (None. ) 
 
 Future Perfect Tense. Future Continuous. 
 
 I shall have been struck. (None. ) 
 
56 
 
 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 Subjunctive Mood. 
 
 I. Present Indefinite Tense. 
 (If) I, thou, he be struck. 
 
 Present Perfect Tense. 
 
 (If) I, thou, he have been struck. 
 
 II. Past Indefinite Tense. 
 
 (If) I, thou, he were struck. 
 Past Perfect Tense. 
 (If) I had been struck. 
 
 Present Imperfect Tense. 
 (None. ) 
 
 Present Perfect Continuous. 
 
 (None. ) 
 
 Past Imperfect Tense. 
 (If) I, thou, he were being struck. 
 
 Past Perfect Continuous. 
 (None.) 
 
 III. Future Indefinite Tense. 
 
 (If) I, thou, he should be struck. 
 
 Future Perfect Tense. 
 (If) I, thou, he should have been 
 struck. 
 
 (This tense, when used without a preceding conjunction, is sometimes 
 called the Conditional Mood. " I should be struck were I to go there.") 
 
 Future Imperfect Tense. 
 (None. ) 
 
 Future Perfect Continuous. 
 
 (None. ) 
 
 Imperative Mood. 
 I. Present Tense. 
 
 Singular. 2. Be struck ! 
 
 Plural. 2. Be struck 1 
 
 II. Past Tense. 
 
 (None.) 
 
 III. Future Tense. 
 Singular. 
 2. Thou shalt be struck. 
 
 Plural.. 
 2. You shall be struck. 
 
 Infinitive Mood. 
 
 1. Indefinite, 
 
 2. Imperfect, 
 
 3. Present Perfect, 
 
 1. Indefinite, 
 
 2. Imperfect, 
 
 3. Present Perfect, 
 
 4. Future, . 
 
 (To) be struck. 
 
 (None. ) 
 
 (To) have been struck. 
 
 Participles. 
 
 Struck. 
 
 Being struck. 
 
 Having been struck. 
 
 Going or about to be struck. 
 
 Gerunds. 
 (None.) 
 
ADVERBS. 57 
 
 ADVERBS. 
 
 1. An Adverb is a word which qualifies any part of speech 
 except a pronoun. 
 
 (i) He writes badly (badly modifies the verb twites). — The sun is very hot 
 (very qualifies the adjective hot).— She writes very rapidly (very qualifies 
 rapidly, and rapidly qualifies writes). 
 
 (ii) Adverbs modify prepositions as in " He came long be/ore the time" ; 
 or conjunctions as in " He is unhappy, even though he is rich" ; or even 
 nouns, as in "Even Homer sometimes nods." 
 
 THE CLASSIFICATION OF ADVERBS. 
 
 2. Adverbs — so far as their function is concerned — are of 
 two kinds : (i) Simple Adverbs and (ii) Conjunctive Adverbs. 
 (i) A Simple Adverb merely modifies the word it goes with. 
 A Conjunctive Adverb has two functions : (a) it modifies, 
 and (b) joins one sentence with another. Thus, if I say " He 
 came when he was ready," the adverb when not only modifies 
 the verb came, and shows the time of his coming, but it joins 
 together the two sentences " He came" and " he was ready." 
 
 3. Adverbs — so far as their meaning is concerned — are of 
 several kinds. There are Adverbs : (i) of Time, (ii) of Place, 
 (iii) of Number, (iv) of Manner, (v) of Degree, (vi) of 
 
 Assertion, (vii) of Reasoning, (viii) Interrogative. 
 
 (i) Of Time : Now, then ; to-day, to-morrow ; by-and-by, etc. 
 (ii) Of Place : Here, there ; hither, thither ; hence, thence, etc, 
 (iii) Of Number : Once, twice, thrice ; singly, two by two, etc 
 (iv) Of Manner : Well, ill j slowly, quickly ; better, worse, etc. 
 (v) Of Degree : Very, little ; almost, quite ; all, half, etc. 
 (vi) Of Assertion : Nay, yea ; no, aye ; yes, etc. 
 (vii) Of Reasoning: Therefore, wherefore; thus; consequently, 
 (viii) Interrogative: Why? How? Where? When? etc. 
 
 THE COMPARISON OF ADVERBS. 
 
 4. Adverbs, like adjectives, admit of degrees of comparison. 
 Thus we can say, John works hard; Tom works harder; but 
 William works hardest of all. 
 
58 
 
 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 5. The following are examples of 
 
 Irregular Comparison in Adverbs. 
 
 Positive. 
 
 
 Comparative. 
 
 Superlative. 
 
 IU (or Badly) 
 
 worse 
 
 worst. 
 
 Well 
 
 
 better 
 
 best. 
 
 Much 
 
 
 more 
 
 most. 
 
 Little 
 
 
 less 
 
 least. 
 
 Nigh (or 
 
 Near) 
 
 nearer 
 
 next. 
 
 Forth 
 
 
 further 
 
 furthest. 
 
 Far 
 
 
 farther 
 
 farthest. 
 
 Late 
 
 
 later 
 
 last. 
 
 
 
 latter 
 
 latest. 
 
 (Rathe) 
 
 
 rather. 
 
 
 
 (i) Worse comes from A.S. adv. wyrs. Shakespeare has worser. 
 
 (ii) Much is an adverb in the phrase much hettcr. 
 
 (iii) Little is an adverb in the phrase little inclined. 
 
 (iv) Next = nighest ; and so we had also hext= highest. Near is 
 really the comparative of nigh. 
 
 (v) Farrer would be the proper comparative. Chaucer has farre, 
 and this is still found in Yorkshire. The th in farther comes from a 
 false analogy with forth, further, furthest. 
 
 (vi) Late is an adverb in the phrase He arrived late. 
 
 (vii) " Till rathe she rose, half-cheated in the thought." — Tennyson 
 (' Lancelot and Elaine '). 
 
 CONNECTIVES. 
 
 1. There is, in grammar, a class of words which may be 
 called joining words or connectives. They are of two classes : 
 (i) those which join nouns or pronouns to some other word ; 
 and (ii) those which join -words or sentences. The first 
 class are called Prepositions ; the second Conjunctions. 
 
 PKEPOSITIONS. 
 
 2. A Preposition is a word which connects a noun or pro- 
 noun with a verb, an adjective, or another noun or pronoun. 
 (It thus shows the relation between things, or between a thing 
 and an action, etc.) 
 
 (i) He stood on the table. Here on joins a verb and a noun. 
 
CONNECTIVES. 59' 
 
 (ii) Mary is fond of music. Here of joins an adjective and a noun. 
 
 (iii) The man at the door is waiting. Here at joins two nouns. 
 
 The word preposition comes from the Lat. prce, before, and positus, placed. 
 We have similar compounds in composition and deposition. 
 
 3. The noun or pronoun which follows the preposition is in 
 the objective case, and is said to be governed by the prepo- 
 sition. 
 
 (i) But the preposition may come at the end of the sentence. Thus 
 we can say, "This is the house we were looking at." But at still gov- 
 erns which (understood) in the objective. We can also say, " Whom 
 were you talking to ? " 
 
 4. Prepositions are divided into two classes : (i) simple j 
 and (ii) compound. 
 
 (i) The following are simple prepositions : at, by, for, in, of off, on, 
 out, to, with, up. 
 
 (ii) The compound prepositions are formed in several ways : — 
 
 (a) By adding a comparative suffix to an adverb : after, over, under. 
 (6) By prefixing a preposition to an adverb : above, about, before, behind, be- 
 neath, but(= be-out), throughout, within, etc. 
 
 (c) By prefixing a preposition to a noun : aboard, across, around, among, be- 
 side, outside, etc. 
 
 (d) By prefixing an adverb or adverbial particle to a preposition : into, upon, 
 until, etc. 
 
 (iii) The preposition but is to be carefully distinguished from the con- 
 junction but. " All were there but him." Here but is a preposition. 
 " We waited an hour ; but he did not come." Here but is a conjunction. 
 But, the preposition, was in O.E. be-utan, and meant on the outside of 
 and then without : but, the conjunction, is from the same word. The old 
 proverb, "Touch uot the cat but a glove," means "without a glove." 
 
 (iv) Down was adown=ofdown — offthe down or hill. 
 
 (v) Among was = on gemong, in the crowd. 
 
 (vi) There are several compound prepositions made up of separate 
 words : instead of, on account of in spite of etc. 
 
 (vii) Some participles are used as prepositions : notwithstanding, con- 
 cerning, respecting. The prepositions except and save may be regarded 
 as imperatives, or as past participles used absolutely. 
 
 5. The same words are used sometimes as adverbs, and some- 
 times as prepositions. "We distinguish these words by their 
 function. They can also be used as nouns or as adjectives.. 
 
60 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 (i) Thus we find the following words used either as 
 
 Adverbs or as Prepositions. 
 
 (1) Stand up ! (1) The boy ran up the hill. 
 
 (2) Come on ! (2) The book lies on the table. 
 
 (3) Be off! (3) Get off the chair. 
 
 (4) He walked quickly past. (4) He walked past the church. 
 
 (ii) Adverbs are sometimes used as nouns, as in the sentences, " 1 
 have met him before now." " He is dead since then." 
 
 (iii) In the following we find adverbs used as adjectives : " thine 
 often infirmities ;'' " the then king," etc. 
 
 (iv) A phrase sometimes does duty as an adverb, as in " from beyond 
 the sea ; " " from over the mountains," etc. 
 
 CONJUNCTIONS. 
 
 6. A Conjunction joins sentences or "words together. 
 
 (i) The word and, besides joining sentences, possesses the additional 
 power of joining nouns or other words. Thus we say, " John and Jane 
 are a happy pair ; " " Two and three are five." 
 
 7. Conjunctions are of two kinds : (i) Co-ordinative ; and 
 (ii) Subordinative. 
 
 (i) Co-ordinative Conjunctions are those which connect co-ordinate 
 sentences and clauses — that is, sentences neither of which is dependent 
 on the other. The following is a list : And, both, but, either — or, neither 
 — nor, still, yet, nevertheless, whereas, therefore, then, and/or (v. p. 115). 
 
 (ii) Subordinative Conjunctions are those which connect subordinate 
 sentences with the principal sentence to which they are subordinate. 
 The type of a subordinative conjunction is that, which is really the 
 demonstrative pronoun. " I know that he has gone to London " is = 
 1 ' He has gone to London : I know that. " 
 
 (iii) The following is a list of subordinative conjunctions : After, 
 before ; ere, till ; while, since ; lest ; because, as ; for ; if; unless ; 
 though ; whether — or/ than; as if; why ; when ; where, whence; how. 
 
 INTERJECTIONS. 
 
 1. Interjections are wolds which have no meaning in them- 
 selves, but which give sudden expression to an emotion of 
 the mind. They are no real part of language ; they do not 
 enter into the build or organism of a sentence. They have no 
 grammatical relation to any word in a sentence, and are there- 
 
WORDS KNOWN BY THEIR FUNCTIONS. 61 
 
 fore not, strictly speaking, " parts of speech." Thus we say, Oh ! 
 Ah ! Alas ! and so on ; but the sentences we employ would be 
 just as complete — in sense — without them. They are extra- 
 grammatical utterances. 
 
 (i) The word interjection comes from the Lat inter, between, and 
 jactus, thrown. 
 
 (ii) Sometimes words with a meaning are used as interjections. Thus 
 we say, Welcome ! for " You are well come. " Good-bye ! for God be with 
 you I The interjection " Now then ! " consists of two words, each of 
 which has a meaning ; but when employed inter jectionally, the compound 
 meaning is very different from the meaning of either. 
 
 (in) In written and printed language, interjections are followed by the 
 mark (!) of admiration or exclamation. 
 
 WORDS KNOWN BY THEIR FUNCTIONS, 
 AND NOT BY THEIR INFLEXIONS. 
 
 1. The Oldest English. — When our language first came ovei 
 to this island, in the fifth century, our words possessed a large 
 number of inflexions ; and a verb could be known from a noun, 
 and an adjective from either, by the mere look of it. Verbs 
 had one kind of inflexion, nouns another, adjectives a third; 
 and it was almost impossible to confuse them. Thus, in O.E. 
 (or Anglo-Saxon) thundery the verb, was thunrian — with the 
 ending an; but the noun was thunor, without any ending at 
 alL Then, in course of time, for many and various reasons, 
 the English language began to lose its inflexions; and they 
 dropped off very rapidly between the 11th and the 15th cen- 
 turies, till, nowadays, we possess very few indeed. 
 
 2. Freedom given by absence of Inflexions. — In the 16th 
 century, when Shakespeare began to write, there were very 
 few inflexions ; the language began to feel greater liberty, 
 greater ease in its movements ; and a writer would use the same 
 word sometimes as one part of speech, and sometimes as another. 
 Thus Shakespeare himself uses the conjunction but both as a 
 verb and as a noun, and makes one of his characters say, " But 
 
62 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 me no buts ! " He employs the adverb askance as a verb, and 
 says, " From their own misdeeds they askance their eyes." He 
 has the adverb backward with the function of a noun, as in 
 the phrase "The backward and abyss of time." Again, he gives 
 us an adverb doing the work of an adjective, as in the phrases 
 "my often rumination," "a seldom pleasure." In the same 
 way, Shakespeare has the verbs "to glad" and "to mad." Yery 
 often he uses an adjective as a noun; and "a fair" is his phrase 
 for "beauty," — "a pale" for "a paleness." He carries this 
 power of using one " part of speech " for another to the most 
 extraordinary lengths. He uses happy for to make happy; 
 unfair for to deface ; to climate for to live ; to bench for to sit ; 
 to false for to falsify ; to path for to walk; to verse for to speak 
 of in verse ; and many others. Perhaps the most remarkable is 
 where he uses tongue for to talk of, and brain for to think of. In 
 " Cymbeline " he says : — 
 
 " 'Tis still a dream ; or else such stuff as madness 
 Will tongue, and brain not. . . ." 
 
 3. Absence of Inflexions. — At the present time, we have lost 
 almost all the inflexions we once had. We have only one for 
 the cases of the noun ; none at all for ordinary adjectives (ex- 
 cept to mark degrees) ; a few in the pronoun ; and a few in the 
 verb. Hence we can use a word sometimes as one part of 
 speech, and sometimes as another. We can say, " The boys had 
 a good run;" and "The boys run very well." We can say, 
 " The train travelled very fast," where fast is an adverb, modi- 
 fying travelled ; and we can speak of "a fast train." We can 
 use the phrase, "The very man," where very is an adjective 
 marking man ; and also the phrase " A very good man," where 
 very is an adverb modifying the adjective good. 
 
 4. Function. — It follows that, in the present state of our 
 language, when we cannot know to what class a word belongs 
 by its look, we must settle the matter by asking ourselves what 
 is its function. We need not inquire what a word is ; but we 
 must ask what it does. And just as a bar of iron may be used 
 as a lever, or as a crowbar, or as a poker, or as a hammer, or as 
 
WORDS KNOWN BY THEIR FUNCTIONS. 63 
 
 a weapon, so a word may be an adjective, or a noun, or a verb, 
 — just as it is used. 
 
 5. Examples. — When we say, "He gave a shilling for the 
 book," for is a preposition connecting the noun book with the 
 verb gave. But when we say, " Let us assist them, for our case 
 is theirs," the word for joins two sentences together, and is hence 
 a conjunction. In the same way, we can contrast early in the 
 proverb, "The early bird catches the worm," and in the sentence 
 " He rose early." Hard in the sentence " He works hard " is an 
 adverb; in the phrase "A hard stone" it is an adjective. Right 
 is an adverb in the phrase " Eight reverend ; " but an adjective 
 in the sentence " That is not the right road." Back is an adverli 
 in the sentence " He came back yesterday ; " but a noun in the 
 sentence " He fell on his back." Here is an adverb, and where 
 an adverbial conjunction ; but in the line — 
 
 " Thou losest here, a better where to find," 
 
 Shakespeare employs these words as nouns. The y in ninety-nine 
 cases out of a hundred, is an adjective ; but in such phrases aa 
 " The more, the merrier," it is an adverb, modifying merrier and 
 more. Indeed, some words seem to exercise two functions at 
 the same time. Thus Tennyson has — 
 
 " Slow and sure comes up the golden year," — 
 
 where slow and sure may either be adverbs modifying comes } or 
 adjectives marking year ; or both. This is also the case with 
 the participle, which is both an adjective and a verb ; and with 
 the gerund, which is both a verb and a noun. 
 
 6. Function or Form ? — From all this it appears that we are 
 not merely to look at the form of the word, we are not merely 
 to notice and observe; but we must think — we must ask our- 
 selves what the word does, what is its function ? In other 
 words, we must always — when trying to settle the class to which 
 a word belongs — ask ourselves two questions — 
 
 (i) What other word does it go with % and 
 (ii) What does \t do to that word ? 
 
63(a) 
 
 WORDS IN COMMON USE, WITH DIFFERENT 
 FUNCTIONS (OR AS DIFFERENT PARTS OF SPEECH). 
 
 About 1. Adverb— 
 
 (a) (Manner) : He stopped, then turned him about. 
 
 (b) (Degree) : The man was about forty years old. 
 2. Preposition Then swarmed they about him like 
 
 bees. 
 
 After 1. Adjective And in the after ages shall men sing 
 
 thy praise. 
 
 2. Adverb " Be thus when thou art dead, and I 
 
 will kill thee 
 m And love thee after." (Shakespeare.) 
 
 3. Preposition The boy ran after his father. 
 
 4. Conjunction We resumed our walk after the pro- 
 
 cession had passed. 
 
 All 1. Noun " I dare do all that may become a 
 
 man." (Shakespeare.) 
 
 2. Adjective — 
 
 (a) Of Quantity, Definite : 
 
 " And all this throve, until I wedded 
 
 thee." (Tennyson.) 
 
 (b) Of Number, Indefinite : 
 
 " Ah ' when shall all men's good 
 Be each man's rule ? " (Tennyson.) 
 
 3. Adverb "Life piled on life were all too 
 
 little." (Tennyson.) 
 
 Alone 1. Adjective And he alone remains to comfort me. 
 
 2. Adverb " She never feared to enter the church 
 
 alone at night." (Dickens.) 
 
 Another 1. Noun Teach me another's griefs to share. 
 
 2. Adjective " So she, like many another babbler, 
 
 hurt 
 Whom she would soothe." 
 
 (Tennyson.) 
 
WORDS IN COMMON USE, WITH DIFFERENT FUNCTIONS. 63(b) 
 
 Any 1. Adjective— 
 
 (a) Of Quantity : 
 
 We fail to see any truth in his argu- 
 ment. 
 
 (b) Of Number, Indefinite : 
 
 Have you any books for me ? 
 
 2. Pronoun (Indefinite) — 
 
 Any who have finished may go now 
 
 3. Adverb Can you not write any better ? 
 
 As 1. Pronoun (Relative) — 
 
 " Such as sleep o' nights." 
 
 (Shakespeare.) 
 
 2. Adverb She is as good as she is beautiful. 
 
 3. Conjunction (or Conjunctive Adverb) — 
 
 " I am not all so wrong 
 As a bitter jest is dear." (Tennyson.) 
 
 Besides 1. Adverb He taught, and studied besides. 
 
 2. Preposition I have other strings to my bow 
 
 besides this. 
 
 3. Conjunction The king will pardon us ; besides^ we 
 
 have your written promise. 
 
 Both 1. Adjective (Definite Numeral) — 
 
 " He gazed so long 
 That both his eyes were dazzled." 
 
 (Tennyson.) 
 
 2. Pronoun (Indefinite) — 
 
 He carried away both. 
 
 But 1. Noun You always meet me with a but. 
 
 2. Pronoun (Relative, Negative) — 
 
 " There breathes not clansman of thy 
 line 
 But would have given his life for 
 thine." (Scott.) 
 
 3. Verb " But me no buts." (Shakespeare.) 
 
 4. Adverb "'Tis but a little way that I can bring 
 
 you." (Shakespeare.) 
 
 5. Preposition All but Kate had gone out. 
 
 6. Conjunction "Knowledge comes, but wisdom 
 
 lingers." (Tennyson.) 
 
63(c) GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 Either 1. Adjective On either hand the lawns and 
 
 meadow ledges midway down 
 Hang rich in bloom." (Tennyson.) 
 
 2. Conjunction Hither go at once or stay for ever. 
 
 Else 1. Adjective " Him destroyed, all else will follow." 
 
 (Milton.) 
 
 2. Adverb He would else have paid the debt. 
 
 3. Conjunction She has had many visitors, else she 
 
 would have written. 
 
 Enough 1. Noun " Enough is as good as a feast." 
 
 2. Adjective— 
 
 (a) Of Quantity : 
 
 Have you money enough for the 
 journey ? 
 
 (b) Of Number, Indefinite ; 
 
 We have enough books already. 
 
 3. Adverb He is strong enough for this work. 
 
 Even 1. Noun Do you know how to play odd and 
 
 event 
 
 2. Adjective The edges are now even. 
 
 3. Verb It is necessary first to even the sides. 
 
 4. Adverb " And even then he turned." 
 
 Except 1. Verb When making your list, except those 
 
 named herein. 
 
 2. Preposition All were early except my brother and 
 
 me. 
 
 3. Conjunction "I will not let thee go, except thou 
 
 bless me. " 
 
 For 1. Preposition "She gave me for my pains, a world 
 
 of sighs." (Shakespeare.) 
 
 2. Conjunction "Call me early, mother dear, 
 
 For I would see the sun rise. " 
 
 (Tennyson.) 
 
 Half 1. Noun "The half of my goods I give to the 
 
 poor." 
 
 2. Adjective Half measures are worse than useless 
 
 in such cases. 
 
 3. Adverb "So saying, from the pavement he 
 
 half roae." (Tennyson.) 
 
WORDS IN COMMON USE, WITH DIFFERENT FUNCTIONS. 63(d) 
 
 Least 
 
 Less 
 
 Like 
 
 Little 
 
 More 
 
 Most 
 
 1. Noun 
 
 2. Adjective 
 
 3. Adverb 
 
 1. Noun 
 
 2. Adjective 
 
 3. Adverb 
 
 1. Adjective 
 
 2. Adverb 
 
 3. Verb and 
 
 preposition 
 
 4. Noun 
 
 1. Noun 
 
 The least of them would suffice. 
 
 The least child in the room knows so 
 
 much. 
 This is the least praiseworthy. 
 
 Give me less. 
 
 Of two dangers choose the less. 
 " I warrant you love me less than I 
 love thee." (Shakespeare.) 
 
 As like as two peas. 
 
 Like as a father pitieth his children. 
 
 He liked to fight like a lion. 
 
 Much 
 
 " His living like saw never living eye." 
 " To whom little is forgiven, the same 
 loveth little." 
 
 2. Adjective— 
 
 (a) Of Quantity : 
 
 He takes but little heed of suoh idle 
 tales. 
 
 (b) Of Quality : 
 
 " A little thing may harm a wounded 
 man." (Tennyson.) 
 
 3. Adverb " A little more than kin and less than 
 
 kind." (Shakespeare.) 
 
 1. Noun I need more than you. 
 
 2. Adjective — 
 
 (a) Of Quantity : 
 
 Have you no more complaint to 
 make? 
 
 (b) Of Number, Indefinite : 
 
 There were more ants than one could 
 count. 
 
 3. Adverb " Once more unto the breach, dear 
 
 friends." (Shakespeare.) 
 
 1. Noun The youngest boy knew most. 
 
 2. Adjective— 
 
 (a) Of Quantity : 
 
 Most wool is brought to London. 
 
 (b) Of Number, Indefinite : 
 
 Most people would prefer this. 
 
 3. Adverb The Duke spoke most loudly. 
 
 1. Noun We saw much which was worthy of 
 
 praise. 
 
63(e) 
 
 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 2. Adjective (of Quantity)— 
 
 Portia needed much comfort. 
 
 3. Adverb The wise speak less, but think much 
 
 more than the foolish. 
 Neither 1. Adjective Neither book is very expensive. 
 
 2. Conjunction " Neither a borrower nor a lender be." 
 Next 1. Adjective The next moment we lost sight of her. 
 
 Who comes next ? 
 Will you sit next me ? 
 
 Adjective 
 Adverb 
 Preposition 
 No 1. Adjective — 
 
 (a) Of Quantity : 
 
 Such people need no encouragement. 
 
 (b) Of Number, Definite : 
 
 No books can teach like experience. 
 2. Adverb "We no longer believe in St. 
 
 Edmund." (Ruskin.) 
 
 Notwith- 1. Preposition Notwithstanding the justice of your 
 standing plea, I cannot consent. 
 
 2. Conjunction Notwithstanding they had arrived, we 
 left without seeing them. 
 Off 1. Adjective A gentleman got down from the off 
 
 side. 
 
 2. Adverb Othello has carried off my daughter. 
 
 3. Preposition Antonio's argosy was wrecked off 
 
 Tripolis. 
 One 1. Adjective (Numeral, Definite) — 
 
 "All worldly joys go less, to the one 
 j oy of doing kindnesses." (Herbert. ) 
 2. Pronoun (Indefinite)— 
 
 "I fled into the castle like one 
 pursued." 
 Only 1 1. Adjective Thou art my only hope. 
 
 2. Adverb She is only a child. 
 
 3. Conjunction You may go, only return quickly. 
 Other 1. Adjective "Among new men, strange faces, 
 
 Other minds." (Tennyson.) 
 
 2. Pronoun (Demonstrative) — 
 
 " Then that other, left alone, 
 Sighed, and began to gather heart 
 again." (Tennyson.) 
 
 1 N.B. — Perhaps no word is so often misplaced in composition as the word only. The 
 correct rule is to place it as near as practicable (not necessarily to the verb, but) to the 
 word or phrase which it modifies . 
 
WORDS IN COMMON USE, WITH DIFFERENT FUNCTIONS. 63(f) 
 
 Bound 1. Noun " The trivial round, the common task, 
 
 Will furnish all we need to ask." 
 
 2. Adjective He owns a round table. 
 
 3. Verb He rounds his phrases well. 
 
 4. Adverb Round goes the wheel. 
 
 5. Preposition A moat ran round the castle wall. 
 
 Save 1. Verb Save the women and children first. 
 
 2. Preposition " And save his good broadsword, 
 
 He weapons had none." (Scott) 
 
 3. Conjunction Who could do such deeds save God 
 
 were with him ? 
 
 Since 1. Adverb They have not written since. 
 
 2. Preposition She has not been out alone since 
 
 Easter. 
 
 3. Conjunction Further advice is useless since yog 
 
 are already determined what to do. 
 
 So 1. Adverb "So work the honey-bees." 
 
 2* Conjunction My father is away ; so I must stay at 
 home with mother. 
 
 Some 1. Adjective — 
 
 (a) Of Quantity : 
 
 w Whose least distinguished day 
 Shines with seme portion of 
 heavenly lustre." 
 
 (b) Of Number, Indefinite : 
 
 "Some men are born great." 
 2. Adverb There was an earthquake there some 
 
 four years ago. 
 
 Somewhat 1. Noun I know somewhat of the matter. 
 
 2. Adverb You were somewhat late to-day. 
 
 That 1. Adjective (Demonstrative) — 
 
 " My loyalty shall be growing, 
 Till death, that winter, kill it." 
 
 (Shakespeare.) 
 
 2. Pronoun — 
 
 (a) Relative " He that has humanity will tread 
 
 aside." 
 
 (b) Compound " We speak that we do know." 
 
 (c) Demonstrative : 
 
 "That's news indeed." 
 
 3. Conjunction "We eat that we may live." 
 
6 3(g) GKAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 Then 1. Adverb " Then shall man's pride and dulness 
 
 comprehend 
 His actions', passions', being's use 
 and end." 
 2. Conjunction Did he say so ? then it must be true. 
 
 Therefore 1. Adverb " God made him, and therefore let him 
 
 pass for a man." (Shakespeare.) 
 
 2. Conjunction (or Conjunctive Adverb)— 
 
 " Thou hast not left the value of a 
 cord, 
 Therefore thou must hang at the 
 State's charge." (Shakespeare.) 
 
 Well 1. Noun Leave well alone. 
 
 2. Adjective " I am not well." 
 
 3. Adverb "I know how well I have deserved 
 
 the ring." (Shakespeare.) 
 
 4. Interjection Well, peace be with you ! 
 
 What 1. Adjective (Demonstrative) — 
 
 " And both together heard 
 What time the grey-fly winds her 
 sultry horn." (Milton.) 
 
 2. Pronoun— 
 
 (a) Interrogative : " What doest thou here, Elijah ? " 
 
 (b) Composite : " Tell me what you want." 
 
 (c) Indefinite demonstrative : " I'll tell you what." 
 
 3. Adverb What with one thing, and what with 
 
 another, I am almost undone. 
 
 4. Interjection What! not gone yet? 
 
 Wherefore 1. Noun I wished to know the wherefore of his 
 
 action. 
 2. Adverb Wherefore do ye rebel ? 
 
 Whether 1. Pronoun (Interrogative) — 
 
 Whether is easier : to say " Thy sins 
 be forgiven," or to say "Arise 
 and walk"? 
 2. Conjunction "To be resolved whether Brutus so 
 unkindly knocked." 
 
words in common use, with different functions 63(h) 
 
 Which 1. Adjective Did you see which May the boy ran ? 
 2. Pronoun — 
 
 (a) Relative : 
 
 " That which you have touched." 
 
 (b) Interrogative : 
 
 "Which is yours?" 
 Why 1. Noun I don't consider the why and the 
 
 wherefore. 
 
 2. Adverb Why are the days longer in summer 
 
 than in winter ? 
 
 3. Conjunction This is the reason why I spoke. 
 
 4. Interjection " How doth the king ? Why, well !" 
 Wont 1. Noun " It is not his wont to be the hind- 
 most man." (Shakespeare.) 
 
 2. Adjective "Cornel but keep thy wonted state." 
 
 (Milton.) 
 
 3. Verb " Beneath whose shade 
 
 I wont to sit and watch the setting 
 sun." (Southey.) 
 
 4. Participle " As when men, wont to watch 
 
 On duty, sleeping found . . . rouse 
 
 and bestir themselves." (Milton). 
 
 Yet 1. Adverb " Old age hath yet his honour and his 
 
 toil." (Tennyson.) 
 
 2. Conjunction " Yet I thy hest will all perform at 
 fulL" (Tennyson.) 
 
64 
 
 SYNTAX. 
 
 INTKODUCTOEY. 
 
 1. The word Syntax is a Greek word which means arrange- 
 ment. Syntax, in grammar, is that part of it which treats of 
 the relations of words to each other in a sentence. 
 
 2. Syntax is usually divided into two parts, which are called 
 Concord and G-overnment. 
 
 (i) Concord means agreement. The chief concords in grammar are 
 those of the Verb with its Subject ; the Adjective with its Noun ; one 
 Noun with another Noun ; the Pronoun with the Noun it stands for ; 
 the Relative with its Antecedent. 
 
 (ii) Government means the influence that one word has upon another 
 The chief kinds of Government are those of a Transitive Verb and 
 a Noun ; a Preposition and a Noun. 
 
 I.— SYNTAX OF THE NOUK 
 
 1.— THE NOMINATIVE CASE. 
 
 Rule L — The Subject of a sentence is in the Nominative 
 Case. 
 
 Thus we say, I write ; John writes : and both / and John — the sub- 
 jects in these two sentences — are in the nominative case. 
 
 Rule IT. — When one noun is used to explain or describe 
 another, the two nouns are said to be in Apposition ; and they 
 are always in the same case. 
 
SYNTAX OF THE NOUN. 66 
 
 Thus we find in Shakespeare's Henry V., i. 2. 188 : — 
 
 " So work the honey-bees, 
 Creatures that by a rule in Nature teach 
 The art of order to a peopled kingdom." 
 
 Here bees is the nominative to work ; creatures is in apposition with 
 bees, and hence is also in the nominative case. (Of course, two nouns 
 in apposition may be in the objective case, as in the sentence, " We met 
 John the gardener.") 
 
 (i) The words in apposition may be separated from each other, as in 
 Cowper's well-known line about the postman :— 
 
 " He comes, the herald of a noisy world. " 
 
 Rule III. — The verb to be, and other verbs of incomplete pre- 
 dication, take two nominatives — one before and the other after. 
 Thus we find such sentences as — 
 
 (i) General Wolseley is an able soldier, 
 (ii) The long-remembered beggar was his guest. 
 In the first sentence Wolseley and soldier refer to the same person ; 
 beggar and guest refer to the same person ; and all that the verbs is 
 and was do is to connect them. They have no influence whatever upon 
 either word. When is (or are) is so used, it is called the copula. 
 
 t£T If we call the previous kind of apposition noon-apposition, this might be 
 called verb-apposition. 
 
 Rule IV. — The verbs of incomplete predication — become, 
 live, turn-out, prove, remain, seem, look, and others, like the 
 verb to be, take a nominative case after them as well as 
 before them. 
 
 Thus we find : — 
 
 (i) Tom became an architect, 
 (ii) The boy is called John, 
 (iii) He turned out a dull fellow, 
 (iv) She moves a goddess ; and she looks a queen. 
 On examining the verbs in these sentences, it will be seen that they 
 do not and cannot govern the noun that follows them. The noun be- 
 fore and the noun after designate the same person. Hence the second 
 is called the complementary nominative, being necessary to complete 
 the subject. 
 
 The complementary nominative also follows the passive voice of 
 factitive verbs, such as make, create, appoint, and verbs of naming, 
 calling, etc. 
 
 Rule V. — A Noun and an Adjective, or a Noun and a Par- 
 ticiple, or a Noun and an Adjective Phrase, — not syntactically 
 
66 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 connected with any other word in the sentence, — are put in the 
 Nominative Absolute. 
 Thus we have : — 
 
 (i) " She earns a scanty pittance, and at night 
 
 Lies down secure, her heart and pocket light." — Cowpbr. 
 
 (ii) The wind shifting, we sailed slowly. 
 
 (iii) " Next Anger rushed, his eyes on fire. " — Collins. 
 
 (iv) Dinner over, we went up-stairs. 
 
 The word absolutus means freed; and the absolute case has been freed from, 
 and -is independent of, the construction of the sentence. 
 
 Eemarks. — 1. In the oldest English (or Anglo-Saxon), the 
 absolute case was the Dative ; and this we find even as late as 
 Milton (1608-1674), who says— 
 
 " Him destroyed, 
 
 All else will follow." 
 
 2. Caution! In the sentence, "Pompey, having been de- 
 feated, fled to Africa," the phrase having been defeated is at- 
 tributive to Pompey, which is the noun to fled. But, in the 
 sentence, " Pompey having been defeated, his army broke up," 
 Pompey — not being the noun to any verb — is in the nomina- 
 tive absolute. Hence, if a noun is the nominative to a verb, 
 it cannot be in the nominative absolute. 
 
 Eemarks on Exceptions. 
 
 1. The pronoun It is often used as a Preparatory Nomina- 
 tive, or — as it may also be called — a Representative Subject. 
 Thus we say, " It is very hard to climb that hill," where it 
 stands for the true nominative, to-climb-that-hill. 
 
 2. In the same way, the demonstrative adjective that is often 
 used as a Representative Subject. "That (he has gone to 
 Paris) is certain." What is certain 1 That. What is that ? 
 The fact that he has gone to Paris. 
 
 3. Still more oddly, we find both it and that used in one 
 sentence as a kind of Joint-Representative Subject. Thus 
 we have : (i) " It now and then happened that (he lost his 
 temper) ; " and, in Shakespeare's " Othello " — 
 
SYNTAX OF THE NOUN. 67 
 
 (ii) " That (I have ta'en away this old man's daughter) 
 It is most true." 
 
 What is most true ? It. What is it ? That. What is that 1 l 
 That (I have taken away, etc.) Here the verb is has really 
 three subjects, all meaning the same thing. 
 
 1 i3T It must be observed that the demonstrative that has by use gained the 
 force, and exercises the function, of a conjunction joining two sentences. 
 It here joins the two sentences "It is most true," and "I have taken 
 away," etc. 
 
 4. The nominative to a verb in the Imperative Mood is often 
 omitted. Thus Come along ! = Come thou (or ye) along ! 
 
 2.^-THE POSSESSIVE CASE. 
 
 Rule VI. — When one Noun stands in the relation of an 
 attribute to another Noun, the first of these nouns is put in 
 the Possessive Case. 
 
 (i) The Possessive Case originally denoted mere possession, as John's 
 book ; John's gun. But it has gradually gained a wider reference ; and 
 we can say, " The Duke of Portland's funeral," etc. 
 
 (ii) The objective case with of = the possessive ; and we can say, 
 "The might of England," instead of "England's might." 
 
 Rule VII. — When (i) two or more Possessives are in apposi- 
 tion, or (ii) when several nouns connected by and are in the 
 possessive case, the sign of the possessive is affixed to the 
 last only. 
 
 (i) Thus we find : (i) For thy servant David's sake, (ii) Messrs 
 Simpkin & Marshall's house. 
 
 g3T The fact is, that Messrs Simpkin-d;- Marshall, and other such phrases, 
 
 are regarded as one compound phrase. 
 
 (ii) The sentence, "This is a picture of Turner's," = "This is one 
 of Turner's pictures." The of governs, not Turner's, but pictures. 
 Hence "of Turner's" need not be considered a double possessive, 
 though it looks like it. So also may be explained " a friend of mine" 
 ( = "one of the friends of me"), but not "that handsome face of 
 John's" or "that sacred head of thine" (Milton). Here "of John's" 
 and " of thine " are probably double possessives — an idiom which was 
 used as early as Chaucer. Cf. "an old f elawe ofyoures. " {Pard. Tale. ) 
 
68 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 3.— THE OBJECTIVE CASE. 
 
 1. The Objective Case is that case of a noun or pronoun 
 that is " governed by " a transitive verb or by a preposition. 
 
 J86S" It is only the pronoun that has a special form for this case. 
 The English noun formerly had it, but lost it between the years 1066 
 and 1300. 
 
 2. The Objective Case is the case of the Direct Object; 
 the Dative Case is the case of the Indirect Object — and 
 something more. 
 
 (i) The Direct Object answers to the question Whom ? or What ? 
 
 (ii) The Indirect Object answers to the question To whom? To what? 
 or For whom ? For what ? 
 
 3. The object of an active-transitive verb must always be a 
 Noun or the Equivalent of a Noun. 
 
 Eule VIII. — The Direct Object of an Active-Transitive 
 Verb is put in the Objective Case. 
 
 Thus we read : (i) We met the man (Noun), (ii) We met him 
 (Pronoun), (iii) We saw the fighting (Verbal Noun), (iv) I like to 
 work (Infinitive), (v) I heard that he had left (Noun sentence). 
 
 Rule IX. — Factitive Verbs, such as making, appointing, 
 creating, etc., and verbs of naming and calling, take two objects. 
 
 Thus we say : (i) They made him manager, (ii) The Queen 
 appointed him Treasurer. 
 
 tSST The second is called the complementary or factitive object. See 
 Rule XXXIII. 
 
 Rule X. — Some Intransitive Verbs take an objective case 
 after them, if the objective has a similar or cognate meaning 
 to that of the verb itself. 
 
 Thus we find : (i) To die the death, (ii) To sleep a sleep, (iii) To 
 go one's way. To wend one's way. (iv) To run a race, (v) Dreaming 
 dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. 
 JBT Such objects are called cognate objects. 
 
 Rule XI. — The limitations of a Verb by words or phrases 
 expressing space, time, measure, etc., are said to be in the 
 
SYNTAX OF THE NOUN. 69 
 
 objective case ; as (i) he walked three miles ; (ii) he travelled 
 all night ; (iii) the stone weighed three pounds. 
 
 f3" 1. Because these words limit or modify the verbs to which they 
 are attached, they are sometimes called Adverbial Objects. 
 
 2. The following are adverbial phrases of somewhat the same kind : 
 (i) They bound him hand and foot, (ii) They fell upon him tooth and 
 nail, (iii) They turned out the Turks, bag and baggage. Such 
 phrases are rightly called adverbial, because they modify bound, fell, 
 and turned ; and show how he was bound, how they fell upon him, etc. 
 Words used in this way represent various cases in Old English, 
 the genitive, dative, accusative, and ablative. 
 
 Kbmarks on Exceptions. 
 
 1. The same verb may be either Intransitive or Transitive, 
 according to its use. Thus — 
 
 Intransitive. Transitive. 
 
 (i) The soldier ran away. (i) The soldier ran his spear into 
 
 the Arab, 
 (ii) The man works very hard. (ii) The master works his men too 
 
 hard, 
 (iii) We walked up the huL (iii) The groom walked the horse 
 
 up the hill. 
 
 2. An Intransitive verb performs the function of a Transi- 
 tive verb when a preposition is added to it. Thus — 
 
 Intransitive. Transitive. 
 
 (i) The children laughed. (i) The children laughed at the clown, 
 
 (ii) The man spoke. (ii) The man spoke of wild beasts. 
 
 3. The preposition may continue to adhere to such a verb, 
 so that it remains even when the verb has been made passive. 
 
 Thus we can say : (i) He was laughed-at (ii) Whales were spoken-of. 
 (iii) Prosecution was hinted-at. And this is an enormous convenience 
 in the use of the English language. 
 
 4.— THE DATIVE CASE. 
 
 1. The Dative is the case of the Indirect Object. 
 
 Thus we say : He handed her a chair. She gave it me. 
 
70 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 2. The Dative is also to be found with certain impersonal 
 verbs, such as list, seem, please, think (=seem) ; the verb 
 worth; and with the prepositions like and near ("like me," 
 " near the house "). Rule XXXV. 
 
 Thus we have the phrases, meseems ; if you please ( = if it please 
 you) ; methought ( = it seemed to me) ; and, she is like him; he was 
 near us. 
 
 " Woe worth the chase ! woe worth the day 
 That cost thy life, my gallant grey ! " 
 
 — " Lady of the Lake." 
 " When in Salamanca's cave 
 Him listed his magic wand to wave, 
 
 The bells would ring in Notre-Dame." 
 
 — " Lay of the Last Minstrel." 
 
 3. The Dative is sometimes the case of possession or of 
 benefit. 
 
 As in, Woe is me ! Well is thee ! 
 
 . " Fare thee well " ( = fare well for thyself). 
 
 Rule XII. — Verbs of giving, promising, telling, showing, 
 teaching, asking, etc., take two objects; and the indirect 
 object is put in the dative case. 
 
 Thus we say : He gave her a fan. She promised me a book. Tell us 
 a story. Show me the picture-book. 
 
 Rule XIII. — When such verbs are turned into the passive 
 voice, either the Direct or the Indirect Object may be turned 
 into the Subject of the Passive Verb. Thus we can say 
 either — 
 
 Direct Object used as Subject. Indirect Object used as Subject, 
 
 (i) A fan was given her. (i) She was given a fan. 1 
 
 (ii) A book was promised me. (ii) I was promised a book 1 
 
 (iii) A story was told us. (iii) We were told a story. 1 
 
 (iv) The picture- book was shown (iv) I was shown the picture-book. 1 
 me. 
 
 1 This has sometimes been called the Retained Object. The words 
 fan, etc., are in the objective case, not because they are governed by the 
 passive verbs was given, etc., but because they still retain, in a latent 
 form, the influence or government exercised upon them by the active 
 verbs, give, promise, etc. 
 
SYNTAX OF THE ADJECTIVE. 71 
 
 Remarks on Exceptions. 
 
 1. The Dative of the Personal Pronoun was in frequent use 
 in the time of Shakespeare, to add a certain liveliness and in* 
 terest to the statement. 
 
 Thus we find, in several of his plays, such sentences as — 
 (i) " He plucked me ope his doublet." 
 
 (ii) "Villain, I say, knock me at this gate, and rap me well." 
 
 (iii) " Your tanner will last you nine year." 
 Grammarians call this kind of dative the ethical dative. 
 
 2. The Dative was once the Absolute Case. 
 
 " They have stolen away the body, us sleeping." 
 
 Wyclifs Bible. 
 
 II.— SYNTAX OF THE ADJECTIVE. 
 
 1. In our Old English — the English spoken before the coming 
 of the Normans, and for some generations after — every adjec- 
 tive agreed with its noun in gender, number, and case ; and 
 even as late as Chaucer (1340-1400) adjectives had a form for 
 the plural number. Thus in the Prologue to the ' Canterbury 
 Tales,' he writes — 
 
 " And smal€ fowles maken melodie," 
 
 where e is the plural inflexion. 
 
 2. In course of time, partly under the influence of the Nor- 
 mans and the Norman language, all these inflexions dropped 
 off; and there are now only two adjectives in the whole lan- 
 guage that have any inflexions at all (except for comparison), 
 and these inflexions are only for the plural number. The two 
 adjectives that are inflected are the demonstrative adjectives 
 this and that, which make their plurals in these (formerly thise) 
 and those. 
 
 (1) The, which is a broken-down form of that, never changes at alL 
 
 (ii) When an adjective is used as a noun, it may take a plural inflec- 
 tion ; as the blacks, goods, equals, edibles, annuals, monthlies, weeklies, etc. 
 
 3. Most adjectives are inflected for comparison. 
 
 F 
 
72 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 4. Every adjective is either an explicit or an implicit predi- 
 cate. The following are examples : — 
 
 Adjectives used as Explicit Predicates. 
 
 1. The way was long ; the wind was cold. 
 
 2. The minstrel was infirm and old. 
 
 3. The duke is very rich. 
 
 Adjectives used as Implicit Predicates. 
 
 1. We had before us a long way and a cold wind. 
 
 2. The infirm old minstrel went wearily on. 
 
 3. The rich duke is very niggardly. 
 
 5. When an adjective is used as an explicit predicate, it is 
 daid to be used predicatively ; when it is used as an implicit 
 predicate, it is said to be used attributively. 
 
 Adjectives used predicatively. 
 
 1. The cherries are ripe. 
 
 2. The man we met was very old. 
 
 Adjectives used attributively. 
 
 1. Let us pluck only the ripe cherries. 
 
 2. We met an old man. 
 
 Eulb XIV. — An adjective may qualify a noun or pronoun 
 predicatively, not only after the verb be, but after such in- 
 transitive verbs as look, seem, feel, taste, etc. 
 
 Thus we find : (i) She looked angry, (ii) He seemed weary, (iii) He 
 felt better, (iv) It tasted sour, (v) He fell ill. 
 
 Kule XV. — After verbs of making, thinking, considering, 
 etc., an adjective may be used factitively as well as predica- 
 tively. 
 
 Thus we can say, (i) We made all the young ones happy, (ii) All 
 present thought him odd. (iii) We considered him very clever. 
 
 This can be called a complementary use of the adjective (see 
 Rule ix). 
 
 Rule XVI. — An adjective may, especially in poetry, be used 
 as an abstract noun. 
 
 Thus we speak of " the True, the Good, and the Beautiful ; " "the 
 sublime and the ridiculous;" Mrs Browning has the phrase, "from the 
 depths of God's divine ; " and in Shakespeare we find 
 " Say what you can, my false o'erweighs your true." 
 
SYNTAX OF THE ADJECTIVE. 73 
 
 Rule XVII. — An adjective form may be used as an adverb 
 
 in poetry. 
 
 Thus we find in Dr Johnson the line — 
 
 " Slow rises worth, by poverty depressed ; " 
 
 and in Scott — 
 
 " Trip it deft and merrily ; " 
 
 and in Longfellow— 
 
 " The green trees whispered low and mild ; * 
 
 and in Tennyson — 
 
 " And slow and sure comes up the golden year." 
 
 (i) The reason for this is that in O. E. adverbs were formed from adjectives by 
 adding e. Thus brightS was = brightly, and deepe= deeply. But in course of 
 time the e fell off, and an adverb was just like its own adjective. Hence we still 
 have the phrases : " He works hard ; "Run quick I " " Speak louder I " "Run 
 fasti" "Right reverend," etc. 
 
 (ii) Shakespeare very frequently uses adjectives as adverbs, and has such sen- 
 tences as : " Thou didst it excellent 1' '"Tis noble spoken !" and many more. 
 
 Rule XVIII. — A participle is an adjective, and as such 
 agrees with its noun. 
 
 Thus, in Pope — 
 
 " How happy is the blameless vestal's lot, 
 The world forgetting, by the world forgot ! " 
 
 where forgetting, the present active participle, and forgot, the past 
 passive participle, both agree with vestal (" the vestal's lot" being = 
 the lot of the vestal). 
 
 (i) But while a participle is thus an adjective, it also retains one function of a 
 verb— the power to govern. Thus in the sentence, "Respecting ourselves, we 
 shall be respected by the world," the present participle respecting agrees with 
 we, and governs ourselves. 
 
 Rule XIX. — The comparative degree is employed when 
 two things or two sets of things are compared ; the superla- 
 tive when three or more are compared. 
 
 Thus we say " James is taller than I ; but Tom is the tallest of the 
 three." 
 
 (i) Than is a dialectic form of then. "James is taller ; then I (come)." 
 (ii) The superlative is sometimes used to indicate superiority to all others 
 Thus Shakespeare says, " A little ere the mightiest Julius fell ; " and we use such 
 phrases as, "Truest friend and noblest foe. This is sometimes called the 
 " superlative of pre-eminence." 
 
 (iii) Double comparatives and superlatives were mueh used in O E., and 
 Shakespeare was especially fond of them. He gives us such phrases as, "a 
 more larger list of sceptres," "more better,*' "more nearer," "most worst," 
 "most unkindest cut of alL" etc. These cannot be employed now. 
 
74 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 Eulb XX. — The distributive adjectives each, every, either, 
 neither, go with singular nouns only. 
 
 Thus we say : (i) Each boy got an apple, (ii) Every noun is in its 
 place, (iii) Either book will do. (iv) Neither woman went. 
 
 Neither is a dialectic form of nother, which was afterwards com- 
 pressed into nor. It has altered under the influence of either. 
 
 Remarks on Exceptions. 
 
 1. There are some adjectives that cannot be used attribu- 
 tively, but only predicatively. Such are well, ill, ware, 
 aware, afraid, glad, sorry, etc. (But we say " a glad heart," 
 and — in a different sense — " a sorry nag.") 
 
 (i) "We say " He was glad ; " but we cannot say " A glad man." Yet 
 Wordsworth has — 
 
 " GFlad sight whenever new and old 
 Are joined thro' some dear home-born tie." 
 
 We also speak of " glad tidings." 
 
 (ii) We say " He was sorry ; " but if we say " He was a sorry man," 
 we use the word in a quite different sense. The attributive meaning of 
 the word is in this instance quite different from the predicative. 
 
 2. The phrase " the first two " means the first and second 
 in one series ; " the two first " means the first of each of two 
 
 series. 
 
 III.— SYNTAX OF THE PRONOUN. 
 
 Rule XXI. — Pronouns, whether personal or relative, must 
 agree in gender, number, and person with the nouns for 
 which they stand, but not (necessarily) in case. 
 
 Thus we say : " I have lost my umbrella : it was standing in the 
 corner. " 
 
 (i) Here it is neuter, singular, and third person, because umbrella is neuter, 
 singular, and third person. 
 
 (ii) Umbrella is in the objective case governed by have lost; but it is in the 
 nominative, because it is the subject to its own verb was standing. 
 
 Rule XXII. — Pronouns, whether personal or relative, take 
 their case from the sentence in which they stand. 
 
SYNTAX OF THE PRONOUN. 75 
 
 Thus we say : " The sailor whom we met on the beach is ilL" Here 
 sailor is in the nominative, and whom, its pronoun, in the objective. 
 
 (i) Whom ia in the objective, because it is governed by the verb met in its 
 own sentence. "The sailor is ill" is one sentence. "Him (whom=and him) 
 we met " is a second sentence. 
 
 (ii) The relative may be governed by a preposition, as " The man on whom I 
 relied has not disappointed me." 
 
 Rule XXIII. — Who, whom, and whose are used only of 
 rational beings; which of irrational; that may stand for 
 nouns of any kind. 
 
 (i) In poetry, whose may be used for of which. Thus "Wordsworth, in 
 the ' Laodamia,' has — 
 
 " In worlds whose course is equable and pure." 
 
 Rule XXIV. — The possessives mine, thine, ours, yours, and 
 theirs are used when a verb separates the possessive and the 
 qualified noun ; or when the noun is not expressed ; or after " of." 
 
 Thus we say : " This 13 mine. " " Mine is larger than that of yours. " 
 But mine and thine are used for my and thy before a noun in poetry 
 and impassioned prose : ' ' Who knoweth the power of thine anger ? " 
 
 Rule XXV. — After such, same, so much, so great, etc, 
 the relative employed is not who, but as. 
 Thus Milton has— 
 
 " Tears such as angels weep." 
 
 (i) Shakespeare uses as even after that — 
 
 " Th»t kind of fruit as maids call medlars." 
 This usage cannot now be employed. 
 
 N. B. — The main use of the Relative Pronoun is restrictive, that is, to 
 hmit the antecedent. It has also a conjunctive use, to introduce an 
 additional statement : I met a friend, who knew me at once. Who 
 and which are both so used ; but that is never used as a conjunctive. 
 
 Remarks on Exceptions. 
 
 1. The antecedent to the relative may be omitted. 
 Thus we find, in Wordsworth's " Ode to Duty "— 
 
 "There are ^ who ask not if thine eye 
 Be on them." 
 
T6 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 2. The relative itself may be omitted. 
 (i) Thus Shelley has the line — 
 
 " Men must reap the things A they sow. " 
 
 (ii) And such phrases as, " Is this the book A you wanted ? " are very 
 common. 
 
 3. The word but is often used for who + not. It is some- 
 times called the negative-relative. 
 
 Thus Scott has— 
 
 " There breathes not clansman of my line 
 But ( = who not) would have given his life for mine." 
 
 4. The personal pronouns, when in the dative or objective 
 case, are generally without emphasis. 
 
 (i) If we say " Give me your hand," the me is unemphatic. If we say 
 " Give me your hand ! " the me has a stronger emphasis than the give, 
 and means me, and not any other person. 
 
 (ii) Very ludicrous accidents sometimes occur from the misplacing ol 
 the accent. Thus a careless reader once read : " And he said, ' Saddle 
 me the ass;' and they saddled him." Nelson's famous signal, "Eng- 
 land expects every man to do his duty," was once altered in em« 
 phasis with excellent effect. A midshipman on board one of H.M.'a 
 ships was very lazy, and inclined to allow others to do his work; and the 
 question went round the vessel : " Why is Mr So-and-so like England ? ' 
 "Because he expects every man to do his duty." 
 
 IV.— SYNTAX OE THE VERB. 
 1.— CONCORD OF VERBS. 
 
 We cannot say I writes, or He or The man write. We always say / write, 
 He writes, and The man writes. In other words, certain pronouns and 
 nouns require a certain form of a verb to go with them. If the pronoun 
 is of the first person, then the verb will have a certain form ; if it is of the 
 third person, it will have a different form. If the noun or pronoun is sing- 
 ular, the verb will have one form ; if it is plural, it may have another form. 
 In these circumstances, the verb is said to agree with its subject. 
 
 All these facts are usually embodied in a general statement, which may 
 also serve as a rule. 
 
 Bulb XX VI. — A Finite Verb must agree with its subject 
 
SYNTAX OF THE VERB. 77 
 
 in Number and Person. Thus we say : " He calls," " They 
 
 walk." 
 
 (i) The subject answers to the question Who ? or What ? 
 
 (ii) The subject of a finite verb is always in the nominative case. 
 
 Or and nor are conjunctions which do not add the things mentioned 
 to each other, but allow the mind to take them separately — the one 
 excluding the other. We may therefore say : — 
 
 Rule XXVII. — Two or more singular nouns that are subjects, 
 connected by or or nor, require their verb to be in the singular. 
 Thus we say : " Either Tom or John is going." " It was either 
 a roe-deer or a large goat ! " 
 
 On the other hand, when two or more singular nouns are connected 
 by and, they are added to each other ; and, just as one and one make 
 two, so two singular nouns are equal to one plural. We may therefore 
 lay down the following rule : — 
 
 Rule XXYIII. — Two or more singular nouns that are sub- 
 jects, connected by and, require their verb to be in the plural. 
 We say: "Tom and John are going." "There were a roe- 
 deer and a goat in the field." 
 
 Cautions. — (i) The compound conjunction as well as does not require 
 a plural verb, because it allows the mind to take each subject separately. 
 Thus we say, "Justice, as well as mercy, allows it." We can see the 
 truth of this remark by transposing the clauses of the sentence, and 
 saying, "Justice allows it, as well as mercy [allows it]." 
 
 (ii) The preposition with cannot make two singular subjects into one 
 pluraL We must say, "The Mayor, with his attendants, was there." 
 Transposition will show the force of this remark also : " The Mayor was 
 there with his attendants." 
 
 Rule XXIX. — Collective Nouns take a singular verb or 
 a plural verb, as the notion of unity or of plurality is upper- 
 most in the mind of the speaker. Thus we say : " Parliament 
 was dissolved." " The committee are divided in opinion." 
 
 (i) When two or more singular nouns represent one idea, the verb is 
 singular. Thus, in Milton's " Lycidas," we find — 
 
 " Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear 
 Compels me to disturb your season due." 
 
78 GRAMMAR Of THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 And, in Shakespeare's "Tempest" (v. 104), we read — 
 
 " All torment, trouble, wonder, and amazement 
 Inhabits here." 
 
 In this case we may look upon the statement as = " A condition which 
 embraces all torment," etc. 
 
 (ii) When the verb precedes a number of different nominatives, it is 
 often singular. The speaker seems not to have yet made up his mind 
 what nominatives he is going to use. Thus, in the well-known passage 
 in Byron's " Childe Harold " we have — 
 
 " Ah ! then and there was hurrying to and fro, 
 And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress." 
 
 And so Shakespeare, in " Julius Caesar," makes Brutus say, " There is 
 tears for his love, joy for his fortune, honour for his valour, and death 
 for his ambition." And, in the same way, people say, " Where is my 
 hat and stick ? " 
 
 Rule XXX. — The verb to be is often attracted into the same 
 number as the nominative that follows it, instead of agreeing 
 with the nominative that is its true subject. Thus we find : 
 "The wages of sin is death." "To love and to admire has 
 been the joy of his existence." "A high look and a proud 
 heart is sin." 
 
 2.— GOVERNMENT OF VERBS. 
 
 Rule XXXL — A Transitive Verb in the active voice 
 governs its direct object in the objective case. Thus we say : 
 " I like him ; " " they dislike her." 
 
 The following sub-rules are of some importance : — 
 
 (i) The participle, which is an adjective, has the same governing 
 power as the verb of which it is a part — as, " Seeing the rain, I remained 
 at home " — where seeing agrees with I as an adjective, and governs 
 rain as a verb. 
 
 (ii) The gerund, which is a noun, has the same governing power as 
 the verb to which it belongs. Thus we say : " Hating, one's neighbour is 
 forbidden by the Gospel," where hating is a noun, the nominative to 
 is forbidden, and a gerund governing neighbour in the objective. 
 
 Rule XXXIL — Active-transitive Verbs of giving, promis- 
 ing, offering, and suchlike, govern the Direct Object in the 
 
SYNTAX OF THE VERB. 79 
 
 objective case, and the Indirect Object in the dative. " J 
 gave him an apple." "He promises me a book." 
 
 (i) In turning these active verbs into passive, it is the direct object 
 that should be turned into the subject of the passive verb ; and we 
 ought to say, " An apple was given me. " But custom allows of either 
 mode of change ; and we also say, " I was given an apple ; " "I was 
 promised a book." Dr Abbott ealls the objectives apple and book 
 retained objects, because they are retained in the sentence, even 
 although we know that no passive verb can govern an objective case 
 
 Rule XXXIII. — Such verbs as make, create, appoint, 
 think, believe, etc., govern two objects — the one direct, the 
 other complementary. Thus we say : " They made him king ; " 
 "the king appointed him governor ;" "we thought her a 
 clever woman." 
 
 (i) The second of these objectives remains with the passive verfy 
 when the form of the sentence has been changed ; and we say, " He 
 was made king ; " "he was appointed governor. " But the old objec- 
 tives king and governor have now become subjective or complemen- 
 tary nominatives. 
 
 Rule XXXIV. — One verb governs another in the Infinitive. 
 Or, 
 
 The Infinitive Mood of a verb, being a pure noun, may be 
 the object of another verb, if that verb is active-transitive. 
 Thus we say : " I saw him go ; " " we saw the ship sink ; " 
 " I ordered him to write." 
 
 (i) In the first two sentences, him and ship are the subjects of go 
 and sink. But the subject of an infinitive is always in the" objective 
 case. The infinitives go and sink have a double face. They are verbs 
 in relation to their subjects him and go ; they are nouns in relation to 
 the verbs that govern them. 
 
 (ii) In the sentence, " I ordered him to write," him is in the dative 
 case; and the sentence is = "I ordered writing to him." To write is 
 the direct object of ordered. 
 
 (iii) Conclusion from the above : An Infinitive is always a noun, 
 whether it be a subject or an object. It is (a) a subject in the 
 sentence, "To play football is pleasant." It is (6) an object in the 
 sentence, "I like to play football " 
 
 Rule XXXV. — Some Verbs are followed by the Dative 
 
80 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 Case. Thus we have " Methought" "meseems" "Woe worth 
 
 the day!" "Woewme!" " If you please ! " (Rule XI.) 
 
 (i) Worth is the imperative of an old English verb, weorthan, to 
 become. (The German form of this verb is werden.) 
 
 (ii) Shakespeare even construes the verb look with a dative (some- 
 times called the ethic dative or dative of interest). In " Cymbeline,' 
 iii. 5, 32, he has — 
 
 She looks, us like 
 A thing more made of malice, than of duty. 
 
 3.— MOODS OF VERBS. 
 
 1. The Indicative Mood is the mood of direct assertion or statement, 
 and it speaks of actual facts. The Subjunctive Mood is the mood of as- 
 sertion also, but with a modification given to the assertion by the mind 
 through which it passes. If we use the term dbjective as describing what 
 actually exists independently of our minds, and subjective as describing 
 that which exists in the mind of the speaker, — whether ib really exists 
 outside or not, — we can then say that — 
 
 (i) The Indicative Mood is the mood of objective assertion. 
 
 (ii) The Subjunctive Mood is the mood of subjective assertion. 
 
 The Indicative Mood may be compared to a ray of light coming straight 
 through the air; the Subjunctive Mood to the effect produced by the water on 
 the same ray — the water deflects it, makes it form a quite different angle, and 
 hence a stick in the water looks broken or crooked. 
 
 2. The Imperative Mood is the mood of command or of request. 
 
 3. The Infinitive Mood is the substantive mood or noun of the 
 verb. It is always equal to a noun ; it is always either a subject or an 
 object ; and hence it is incapable of making any assertion. 
 
 4. The old form of the Subjunctive Mood has practically fallen into 
 disuse. Few writers, and still fewer speakers, use it. Good writers 
 are even found to say, "If he was here, I should tell him." But a 
 knowledge of the uses of the subjunctive mood is necessary to enable 
 us to understand English prose and verse anterior to the present gener- 
 ation. Even so late as the year 1817, Jane Austen, one of the best 
 prose-writers of last century, used the old subjunctive form in almost 
 every dependent clause. Not only does she use it after if and though, 
 but after such conjunctions as till, until, because, and others. 
 
 JIule XXXVI. — The Subjunctive Mood is used — and 
 must be used — to express doubt, possibility, supposition, 
 consequence (which may or may not happen), or wish, all as 
 moods of the mind of the speaker. 
 
SYNTAX OF THE VERB. 81 
 
 (i) "' Come weal, come woe, by Bruce's side,' 
 
 Replied the chief, ' will Donald bide. ' " (Doubt. ) 
 (ii) " Buy us a little food, that we die not." (Purpose.) 
 
 (iii) " Yet if one heart throb higher at its sway, 
 
 The wizard note has not been touched in vain." (Supposition.) 
 
 (iv) " Get on your night-gown, lest occasion call us 
 And show us to be watchers." (Consequence.) 
 
 (v) " I would my daughter were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her 
 ear ! " (Wish.) 
 
 t3T In all of the above sentences, the clauses with subjunctives do not state facts, 
 but feelings or notions of what may or might be. 
 
 Rule XXXVII. — The Subjunctive Mood, being a subjoined 
 mood, is always dependent on some other clause antecedent 
 in thought, and generally also in expression. The antecedent 
 clause, which contains the condition, is called the conditional 
 clause ; and the clause which contains the consequence of the 
 supposition is called the consequent clause. 
 
 (i) If it were so , it was a grievous fault. 
 Condition. Consequence. 
 
 (ii) If it were done when 'tis done, 
 Condition. 
 
 T hen 'twere well it were done quickl y. 
 Consequence. 
 
 Remarks on Exceptions. 
 
 1. Sometimes the conditional clause is suppressed. Thus we 
 can say, " I would not endure such language " [if it were ad- 
 dressed to me = conditional clause]. 
 
 2. The conjunction is often omitted. Thus, in Shakespeare's 
 play of " Julius Caesar," we find — 
 
 " Were I Brutus, 
 And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony 
 "Would ruffle up your spirits." 
 
 Rule XXXVIII. — The Simple Infinitive — without the sign 
 to — is used with auxiliary verbs, such as may, do, shall, will, 
 etc. ; and with such verbs as let, bid, can, must, see, hear, 
 make, feel, observe, have, know, etc. 
 
82 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 (i) Let darkness keep her raven gloss. 
 
 (ii) Bid the porter come. 
 (iii) I saw him run after a gilded butterfly, 
 (iv) "We heard him cry. 
 
 (v) They made him go, etc., etc. 
 
 It was the Danes who introduced a preposition before the infinitive. 
 Their sign was at, which was largely used with the infinitive in the 
 Northern dialect. 
 
 Rule XXXIX. — The Gerund is both a noun and a verb. 
 As a noun, it is governed by a verb or preposition ; as a 
 verb (if transitive), it governs other nouns or pronouns. 
 
 There are two gerundial forms — (i) one with to ; and (ii) one 
 that ends in ing. 
 
 (i) The first is to be carefully distinguished from the ordinary in- 
 finitive. Now the ordinary infinitive never expresses a purpose; the 
 gerundial form with to almost always does. Thus we find — 
 
 "And fools who came to scoff remained to pray." 
 
 (ii) The gerund is to be distinguished from the present participle in 
 ing, and very carefully from the abstract noun of the same form. The 
 /present participle in ing, as loving, hating, walking, etc., is always an 
 adjective, agreeing with a noun or pronoun. The gerund in ing is 
 always a noun, and may govern an object. " He was very fond of playing 
 cricket." Here playing is a noun in relation to of; and a verb govern- 
 ing cricket in the objective. In the words walking-stick, frying-pan, etc., 
 walking and frying are nouns, and therefore gerunds. If they were ad- 
 jectives and participles, the compounds would mean the stick that walks, 
 the pan that fries. 
 
 (iii) The gerund in ing must also be distinguished from the verba} 
 noun in ing, which is a descendant of the verbal noun in ung. " He 
 went a hunting" (where a=the old an or on) ; "Forty and six years 
 was this temple in building ; " " He was very impatient during the 
 reading of the will." In these sentences hunting, building, and read- 
 ing are all verbal nouns, derived from the old verbal noun in ung, and 
 are called abstract nouns. But if we say, " He is fond of hunting deer; " 
 "He is engaged in building a hotel;" "He likes reading poetry," — then 
 the three words are gerunds, for they act as verbs, and govern the three 
 objectives, deer, hotel, and poetry. 
 
 Rule XL. — The Gerundial Infinitive is frequently con- 
 strued with nouns and adjectives. Thus we say : "A house 
 
SYNTAX OF THE ADVERB — AND PREPOSITION. 83 
 
 to seU or let;" "Wood to burn;" "Deadly to hear, and 
 deadly to tell ; " " Good to eat." 
 
 V.— SYNTAX OF THE ADYERB. 
 
 Rule XLI. — The Adverb ought to be as near as possible to 
 the word it modifies. Thus we ought to say, " He gave me 
 only three shillings," and not " He only gave me three shil- 
 lings," because only modifies three, and not gave. 
 
 This rule applies also to compound adverbs, such as at least, in like 
 manner, at random, in part, etc. 
 
 Rule XLII. — Adverbs not only modify verbs, adjectives, 
 
 and other adverbs, but also prepositions, conjunctions, and 
 
 even nouns. Thus we have the combinations out from, up 
 
 to, down to, etc. 
 
 In the sentence, "He walked up to me," the adverb up does not 
 modify loalked, but the prepositional phrase to me. 
 
 VI.— SYNTAX OF THE PREPOSITION. 
 
 Rule XLIII. — All prepositions in the English language 
 govern nouns and pronouns in the objective case. 
 
 The prepositions save and except are really verbs in the imperative 
 mood. 
 
 Rule XLIY. — Prepositions generally stand before the words 
 they govern ; but they may, with good effect, come after them. 
 Thus we find in Shakespeare — 
 
 " Ten thousand men that fishes gnawed upon." 
 " Why, then, thou knowest what colour jet is of." 
 
 And, in Hooker, with very forcible effect — 
 
 " Shall there be a God to swear by, and none to pray to ? " 
 
 Rule XLY. — Certain verbs, nouns, and adjectives require 
 special prepositions. Thus we cannot say, " This is different 
 to that," because it is bad English to say " This differs to that." 
 The proper preposition in both instances is from. 
 
84 
 
 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 The following is a list of some of these 
 Special prepositions: — 
 
 Absolve from. 
 
 Abhorrence for. 
 
 Accord with. 
 
 Acquit of. 
 
 Affinity between (or for). 
 
 Adapted to (intentionally). 
 
 Adapted for (by nature). 
 
 Agree with (a person). 
 
 Agree to (a proposal). 
 
 Bestow upon. 
 
 Change for (a thing). 
 
 Change with (a person). 
 
 Confer on ( = give to). 
 
 Confer with ( = talk with). 
 
 Confide in ( = trust in). 
 
 Confide to ( = in trust to). 
 
 Conform to. 
 
 In conformity with. 
 
 Comply with. 
 
 Convenient to (a person). 
 
 Convenient for (a purpose). 
 
 Conversant with. 
 
 Correspond with (a person). 
 
 Correspond to (a thing). 
 
 Dependent on (but independent of). 
 
 Derogatory to. 
 
 Differ from (a statement or opinion). 
 
 Differ with (a person). 
 
 Different from. 
 
 Disappointed of (what we cannot 
 
 get). 
 Disappointed in (what we have 
 
 got). 
 Dissent from. 
 Exception from (a rule). 
 Exception to (a statement). 
 Glad of (a possession). 
 Glad at (a piece of news). 
 Involve in. 
 Martyr for (a cause). 
 Martyr to (a disease). 
 Need of or for. 
 Part from (a person). 
 Part with (a thing). 
 Profit by. 
 
 Reconcile to (a person). 
 Reconcile with (a statement). 
 Taste of (food). 
 A taste for (art). 
 Thirst for or after (knowledge). 
 
 VII.— SYNTAX OF THE CONJUNCTION. 
 
 Rule XL VI. — The Conjunction does not interfere with the 
 action of a transitive verb or preposition, nor with the mood or 
 tense of a verb. 
 
 (i) This rule is usually stated thus : " Conjunctions generally connect 
 the same cases of nouns and pronouns, and the same moods and tenses 
 of verbs, as ' We saw him and her,' ' Let either him or me go ! ' " But 
 it is plain that saw governs her as well as him; and that or cannot 
 interfere with the government of let. Such a rule is therefore totally 
 artificial. 
 
 (ii) It is plain that the conjunction and must make two singulars = 
 one plural, as " He and I are of the same age." 
 
 Rule XL VII. — Certain adjectives and conjunctions take 
 
SYNTAX OF THE CONJUNCTION. 85 
 
 after them certain special conjunctions. Thus, such (adj.) 
 requires as, both (adj.), and; so and as require as; though, 
 yet; -whether, or; either, or; neither, nor; nor, nor; or, 
 or. The following are a few examples : — 
 
 (i) " Would I describe a preacher such as Paul ! " 
 
 (ii) " Though deep, yet clear ; though gentle, yet not dull" 
 
 Rule XLVIII. — The subordinating conjunction that may be 
 omitted. Thus we can say, " Are you sure he is here 1 " 
 Shakespeare has, " Yet Brutus says he was ambitious ! " 
 
85(a) 
 
 EXAMPLES OF FALSE, DOUBTFUL, AND GENUINE 
 SYNTAX FOR CORRECTION OR DEFENCE. 
 
 [Not all the examples given below contain false syntax. Some do 
 exemplify sheer blunders ; these should be corrected, and 
 reason for correction should be given. Some contain instances 
 of doubtful usage ; these should either be corrected, or good 
 reasons should be given for accepting them as they stand. Some 
 instances of correct usage occur ; it should be explained how 
 or why these are correct. The last two classes are marked by an 
 asterisk. Very brief hints are given for the explanation of 
 some of the passages. The figures at the end of others refer 
 to the pages of this book.] 
 
 1. Homer, as well as Vergil, were studied on the banks of the Rhine 
 (77). 
 
 2. He was a man of ability and who never spared himself. 
 
 [Analyse this sentence, and the error — a very common one — is 
 obvious. ] 
 
 3. Nothing but serious studies delight him. 
 
 4. Without you agree, nothing can be done. 
 
 [It is doubtful whether "without" can be used as a conjunction 
 in good modern prose. It is not y however, doubtful that 
 "like" {e.g. "like I did") cannot be used as a conjunction.] 
 
 5. He promised much to whomsoever would assist him (64). 
 
 6. Men are put in the plural number, because they mean many. 
 
 [What is the true nominative here ?] 
 
 7. We sorrow not as them that have no hope. 
 
 8. He was vexed at me quitting the house. 
 
 [What part of the verb is "quitting " ? A participle or gerund ?] 
 
 9. She fell a-laughing like one out of their right mind. • 
 
 10. He had then three alternatives before him. 
 
 [What is the derivation of " alternative " ?] 
 
 11. This doctrine was held by one of the greatest minds that has ever 
 existed. 
 
 ["One "of what?] 
 
EXAMPLES OF FALSE, DOUBTFUL, AND GENUINE SYNTAX. 85(b) 
 
 12. Those sort of books are useless (76-7). 
 
 13. In France the peasantry goes barefoot. 
 
 [Which idea is uppermost — that of plurality or singularity ?] 
 *14. The crew were all to pieces. 
 *13. The crew was pulling as one man. 
 *16. Art thou the mau that comest from Egypt? (74). 
 17. They who have the courage always to speak the truth choose for 
 thy friends. 
 
 [How has "they " crept in ?] 
 *18. Not enjoyment and not sorrow is our destined end or way. 
 
 [Are "enjoyment" and "sorrow" thought of separately or 
 together ?] 
 *19. Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear 
 
 Compels me to disturb yfcur season due. 
 *20. He is stronger than me. 
 
 [Milton has "than whom," and cf. Pope, Sat. viii. 275. 
 "And lin'd with Giants mightier than 'em all."] 
 *21. Which of these do you like best ? 
 
 [What would have to be done if " two " followed ' ' these " ?] 
 *22. And many a holy text around she strews, 
 
 That teach the rustic moralist to die. 
 [See query on 13.] 
 
 23. What art thou, speak, that on designs unknown, 
 While others sleep, thus range the camp alone? 
 
 [Cf. Example 16.] 
 
 24. Sense, and not riches, win esteem. 
 
 *25. About an eight days after these sayings. 
 
 [Cf. "a fortnight," " a sennight."] 
 26. I knew it to be he. 
 
 [What case is "it"?] 
 *27. They all slept sound save she who loved them both. 
 [Cf. God and his Son except, 
 
 Created thing naught valued he nor shunned (Milton). 
 And Shakespeare's — "All the conspirators save only he." 
 Is "save" to be considered as a preposition? See p. 65, Rule v.] 
 *28. They are the two first boys in the class. 
 
 [Is there more than one " first " boy ? But cf. Example 222.] 
 *29. Nor want nor cold his course delay. 
 
 [Are "want" and " cold" thought of separately or together?] 
 *30. Nor yew nor cypress spread their gloom. 
 
 31. Hoping to see you soon, believe me, yours, etc. 
 
 [A very common and a very gross error. Supply the subject 
 of "believe."] 
 
 32. Repulsed at all points, the retreat began. 
 
 33. I never have and never will believe it. 
 
85(c) GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 34. The sons of false Antimachus were slain ; 
 
 He who for bribes his faithless counsels sold (64-5). 
 *35. I am averse from him going. 
 
 [Macaulay and Burke both wrote "averse from." How would 
 you justify it? What real error does this sentence 
 contain ?] 
 
 36. Thersites' body is as good as Ajax, when neither are alive. 
 
 [Comment on the word "Ajax." Cf. "as thick as Ajax' 
 sevenfold shield."] 
 
 37. Nor do I know any one with whom I can converse more pleasantly 
 or would prefer as my companion. 
 
 38. Take arms against a sea of troubles (185). 
 
 39. He blew his brains out after bidding his wife good-bye with a 
 gun. 
 
 40. Nobody shall save me ; I will be drowned. 
 
 41. We wish to most heartily congratulate you. 
 
 [No good writer uses the split infinitive, and all who aim to 
 write well should avoid it.] 
 
 42. Sarai her name is changed. 
 
 [For an analogous usage see p. 21.] 
 *43. How happy is the blameless vestal's lot, 
 
 The world forgetting, by the world forgot. 
 [Note the word " vestal's."] 
 *44. When or you or I are made, 
 
 A fable, song, or fleeting shade. 
 [See query in Ex. 29.] 
 45. The French press know little of the actual facts. 
 *46. The name and personality of Gladstone was something sacred. 
 47. Bazaine with all hi^soldiers were captured at Metz. 
 *48. Let us go to Macmillan's, the publisher's. 
 
 [Is this instance to be pronounced wrong in accordance with 
 Rule vii. 67 ? or does it admit of explanation as it stands? 
 Assume the last two words were not there.] 
 *49. All of us went. 
 
 [X.B.— "Six of us went."] 
 *50. Honour, justice, religion itself is dreaded by such a policy. • 
 [Note the emphasis on "religion itself."] 
 51. Much blood and treasure was wasted in this war. 
 
 [Consider the relation of " much " to "blood and treasure."] 
 *52. He was hanged — a well-deserved punishment. 
 
 [Is this passage susceptible of strict analysis?] 
 
 53. His career was cut off in the height of his popularity, having been 
 killed in a duel. 
 
 54. These were the men, whom he thought were far away. 
 
 55. The point was not the hanging of the culprit, but the sparing 
 him (40). 
 
EXAMPLES OF FALSE, DOUBTFUL, AND GENUINE SYNTAX. 85(d) 
 
 56. Did ever man put God to the proof on that promise, and found it 
 broken ? 
 
 57. Homer was not only the maker of a nation, but of a language 
 and of a religion (185). 
 
 *58. You can keep this letter and show it to whoever you like. 
 [Cf. Ex. 5. How does this example differ from it ?] 
 
 59. She is a monument of what a human being in infirm health is 
 capable. 
 
 [What preposition should follow " capable"?] 
 
 60. These circumstances may lead to your ladyship quitting the 
 house. 
 
 61. I was happy to hear that it was his horse, and not himself, who 
 fell in the combat (75). 
 
 62. Everybody was on deck amusing themselves as they could. 
 
 63. We took the wrong path, and certainly the steepest I had ever 
 climbed before. 
 
 [Had he climbed the path in question before ?] 
 
 64. I was never so long in company with a girl in my life — trying to 
 entertain her — and succeed so ill. 
 
 65. Sully bought one of the finest Spanish horses that ever was seen. 
 
 66. It is not fit for such as us to sit with the rulers of the land. 
 
 67. The army, whom its chief had abandoned, pursued their miserable 
 march. 
 
 68. He is a boy of nine years old. 
 
 [How has this solecism arisen ?] 
 
 69. I walk like Charles and not like you do. 
 
 *70. Who spills the foremost foeman's life, 
 
 His party conquers in the strife. 
 [How could you resolve " his party " ?] 
 
 71. He is not the man who he professes to be. 
 
 72. What do you think of me studying Latin? 
 
 [See query on Ex. 8. ] 
 
 73. His is a style strong, vivacious, clean-cut, and which never 
 transgresses the bounds of literary propriety (186, 9). 
 
 74. I differ with you entirely (84). 
 
 *75. There are still a few doubtful points. 
 
 [A feW=some.] 
 *76. Who are you calling for ? Is it me ? 
 
 [Sentences wrong according to exact syntax. How might 
 "who "and " me" be justified?] 
 *77. Whom say ye that I am ? 
 *78. The boys have a dozen tennis balls. 
 79. He told her to try and lay down. 
 
 [A double, and a common, vulgarism.] 
 *80. Twice one is two. 
 *81. Than whom no one is kinder. (Cf. Ex. 20.) 
 
85(e) GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 *82. This day have I begot whom I declare My only Son. 
 *83. I am verily a man who am a Jew. 
 
 [In strict grammatic justice this sentence is indefensible ; 
 what, however, is there to be said for "am" from the point 
 of view of grammatic " equity " ?] 
 84. Too great a variety of studies distract the mind. 
 *85. I am to blame, not you. 
 *86. Whoever the King favours 
 
 The Cardinal will find employment for. 
 [How would the "correct" grammatical construction sound 
 here ?] 
 87. Neither of them are remarkable for foresight. 
 
 *88. It must be confessed that a lampoon or a satire do not carry in 
 them robbery or murder. 
 
 [Pit sense against grammar here, and note the word "them."] 
 89. Whose own example strengthens all his laws, 
 
 And is himself the great sublime he draws. 
 *90. There were no less than five persons concerned. 
 
 [Parse "less " by itself, or "no less than " together.] 
 *91. Neither he nor we are disengaged. 
 92. And since I never dare to write 
 
 As funny as I can. 
 *93. Laying the suspicion on some one, I know not who. 
 *94. Neither he nor I have any doubt of his success. 
 
 95. I am one of those who cannot describe what I do not see. 
 
 96. Nobody ever put so much of themselves into their work. 
 
 97. Such are a few of the many paradoxes one would cite from his 
 writings, and which are now before me. 
 
 98. The Daily Howler enjoys the largest circulation of any news- 
 paper. 
 
 99. A rise in rents and wages always seems to go together. 
 
 [How many "rises" are referred to here?] 
 
 100. The view was maintained by one of the greatest writers that 
 has appeared in this country. 
 
 *101. The administration of so many interests, and of districts so 
 remote, demand no common capacity. 
 [Contrast Ex. 99.] 
 
 102. He having none but them, they having none but he. 
 
 [Constructions are not parallel here. How has the confusion 
 arisen ?] 
 
 103. Breaking a constitution by the very same errors that so many 
 have been broke before. 
 
 104. Thou lovest, but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. 
 
 105. Luckily the monks have recently given away a couple of dogs 
 
EXAMPLES OF FALSE, DOUBTFUL, AND GENUINE SYNTAX. 85(f) 
 
 which were returned to them, or the breed would have been lost 
 (187.12). 
 
 106. Having perceived the weakness of his poems, they now reappear 
 to us under new titles. 
 
 107. Whom they were I really cannot say. 
 
 108. He was shot by a secretary under notice to quit, with whom he 
 was finding fault — very fortunately without effect (187). 
 
 109. It is characteristic of them to appear but to one person, and he 
 the most likely to be deluded (64-5). 
 
 110. I think it may assist the reader by placing them before him in 
 chronological order. 
 
 111. Image after image, phrase after phrase, starts out vivid, harsh, 
 »nd emphatic. 
 
 [Contrast Ex. 50.] 
 *112. Few people learn anything that is worth learning easily. 
 [Depends on correct reading.] 
 
 113. My resolution is to spare no expense in education ; it is a bad 
 calculation, because it is the only advantage over which circumstances 
 "have no control (184, 2 (i.)). 
 
 114. This is the book that I am going to sit down and read. 
 
 115. He preferred to know the worst than to dream the best. 
 
 116. The Moor, seizing a bolster, full of rage and jealousy, smothers 
 her. 
 
 117. Books that we can at a glance carry off what is in them are worse 
 than useless for discipline. 
 
 *118. They drowned the black and white kittens. 
 
 [How many colours of kittens did they drown ?] 
 
 119. The Ministry were unanimously in favour of the bilL 
 
 120. The Ministry was divided as to accepting the bill. 
 
 121. The Duke of Wellington is one of those who never interfere with 
 matters over which he has no control. 
 
 *122. The people is one ; they have all one language. 
 
 123. Being early killed, I sent a party in search of his mangled body. 
 
 124. Thinking of them, my pen tarries as I write. 
 
 125. The further he went, the colder he grew. 
 
 *126. After the most straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee. 
 
 127. The field of turnips was absolutely decimated by the frost; 
 scarce a root was left untouched. 
 
 [What is the derivation of ' ' decimate " ?] 
 
 128. Our mutual friend.' 
 
 [Cf. "Common enmities are said to cement friendship." 
 "What in this case would be the result of substituting 
 "mutual" for "common"? Cf. also " Probably nothing 
 draws us closer to each other than mutual ill-health." 
 Look up the meaning of "mutual. "] 
 
85(g) GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 129. The showers came on continuously. 
 
 [Cf. " The adoption of continuous brakes upon the British rail- 
 ways is becoming general. Let us hope that the result 
 may be by means of the continuous brakes to avoid the 
 continual smash." — Judy, Oct. 1879.] 
 
 130. A phenomena common to a number of diseases (19). 
 
 131. The climate of the Riviera is perhaps the best suited to invalids 
 of any other spot in France. 
 
 *132. The prophets, do they live for ever? 
 
 133. Mr. A. presents his compliments to Mr. B. I have got a hat 
 which is not his ; if he have got a hat which is not yours, no doubt they 
 are the missing one. 
 
 [Apart from solecisms, what do you make of the second have ?] 
 
 134. Mr. Carlyle has taught us that silence is golden in thirty 
 volumes. 
 
 135. The house, now that it is furnished, presents a cosy appearance, 
 and it really is so. 
 
 136. The boy replied that he had met no one, or, if he had, that they 
 had passed him unnoticed. 
 
 137. The child had a scratch on the arm, which the mother could not 
 account for, and took a long time to heal. 
 
 138. Cheops built the largest pyramid in Egypt which bears his name. 
 
 139. We are both agreed that the sentence is wrong (185). 
 
 140. It follows as a consequence that he who runs may read. 
 *141. Being a lawyer, we may suppose that he knows some law. 
 
 142. We did no more than it was our duty to have done. 
 
 [In this case the "doing" should belong to the time of the 
 duty. ] 
 
 143. The statement may be to some extent perfectly true. 
 
 144. A fondness for display is of all other follies the most ridiculous. 
 
 145. I saw the man whom we thought was dead. 
 
 146. We met Mr. Smith, who we thought a very delightful person. 
 
 147. Ask the murderer, he who has steeped his hands in the blood of 
 another. 
 
 148. If fresh milk docs not seem to agree with the child, boil it. 
 
 149. Some one was mentioned — I forget whom. 
 
 150. Scarcely had he spoken than the fairy disappeared. 
 *151. She is prettier, but not so amiable as her sister. 
 
 152. St. Paul's is the greatest of all other London churches. 
 
 153. To him death was not so much as lifting of a latch (40). 
 *154. I was made a present of a book. 
 
 [Turn sentence into active voice. See pp. 78-9, rule xxxii.] 
 *155. Is it me you wish to see ? 
 
 [Cf. c'est moi, est-ce lux? etc.] 
 *156. The wages of sin is death (78). 
 157. A river winds between the old and new plantation. 
 
EXAMPLES OF FALSE, DOUBTFUL, AND GENUINE SYNTAX. 85 (h) 
 
 158. I hold a different opinion to yours (84). 
 
 159. The lowest strata of all was chalk. 
 
 160. The river has overflown its banks. 
 
 161. Fresh air is the best medicine, which, if more widely known, 
 men would be the better of it. 
 
 162. A man may smoke and drink till lie is unable to live without 
 them. 
 
 *163. I '11 go back there — no, never. 
 
 164. They should try and improve themselves, so that they might 
 command better wages. 
 
 165. I have heard that story no less than a dozen times. 
 
 166. There was not a shadow of a whisper heard (185, 3). 
 
 167. He enjoys the universal esteem of all (181, 1). 
 
 168. His father was opposed to him entering the army. 
 
 169. Each of the children have their own peculiar traits. 
 
 170. Go with mean people, and we think the world mean. 
 
 171. Eat it with a spoon like you would custard. 
 
 172. She neither moved, spoke, or wept during all those sad days. 
 
 [See the meaning of the suffix ther, 28, iv.] 
 
 173. No sooner had James ascended the throne, but he began . . . 
 
 174. The life husband and wife lead influence the children. 
 *175. Measles is not commonly a dangerous disease. 
 
 176. He not only found her employed, but pleased and tranquil. 
 
 177. I cannot reconcile your statement to his (84). 
 
 *178. It was the necessity which made me a quarrier, that taught me 
 to be a geologist (26, 15). 
 
 179. The crisis is one of the most singular which have ever 
 occurred (26). 
 
 180. The old gentleman proposed a walk to Vauxhall, a place of 
 which, he said, he had heard much, but had never seen it. 
 
 181. They carry as tribute to Pekin furs and gold-dust, which they 
 collect from the sands of their rivers. 
 
 182. The farmstead was always the white-painted house, of which the 
 small country towns are composed. 
 
 183. Gordon, whose own business not requiring much attention, often 
 left his more immediate concerns. 
 
 *184. He dare not come (39). 
 
 *185. This picture was not mine but my brother's — an artist himself 
 and a great connoisseur. 
 
 [Would you be inclined to apply the strict rules of apposition 
 here ?] 
 *186. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab and wounded the dragon? 
 *187. The whole of the orchard was ruined. 
 
 [Why "whole o/"?] 
 *188. You are no soldier. 
 
 [How would you parse "no" ?] 
 
85(i) GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 *189. The sight of his blood, whom they deemed invulnerable, shook 
 the courage of the soldiers. 
 
 190. Amazed at the alteration in his manner, every sentence that he 
 uttered increased her embarrassment. 
 *191. Nor heaven nor earth have been at peace to-night. 
 *192, The majority of the inhabitants are ready to petition against his 
 return. 
 *193. The stork assembly meets, 
 
 Consulting deep and various ere they take 
 Their arduous voyage thro' the liquid sky. 
 
 194. Depend upon it, he would not like to have his charade slighted 
 much better than his passion. 
 
 195. Directly Louis xvi. came to the throne, Vergennes became a 
 Minister. 
 
 *196. And was not this the Earl ? 'Twas none but he. 
 
 [But is radically and originally a preposition ; it came, in time, 
 to be used as a conjunction.] 
 
 197. The French Celt, he maintained, would never become a colonist 
 in Algeria, and that he did not thrive in Corsica. 
 
 [Is "he maintained" parenthetical or no?] 
 
 198. I had a sensation as though I had been walking through long 
 dark alleys in a subterranean coal-cellar, and that I now through an 
 opening saw the light of day. 
 
 *199. He more than hesitated, he refused. 
 
 [How is "more than" to be parsed? Cf. Byron's "Go! let 
 thy less than woman's hand assume the distaff."] 
 *200. Theirs is the fault, who began the quarrel. 
 
 201. You seldom or ever see a hale or hearty man or woman vending 
 watercresses. 
 
 202. The cabin was superior in comfort and more dignified in appear- 
 ance to the generality of the hovels. 
 
 203. I so greatly prefer hearing you than speak myself. 
 
 204. I have a book printed at Antwerp, and which was once possessed 
 by Adam Smith. 
 
 [This kind of error is sometimes called " the sin of which-craft."] 
 
 205. The greatest variety of forms, with the least meaning in them, 
 were its excellences. 
 
 *206. Sacred and profane wisdom agree in declaring that " pride goeth 
 before a fall. " 
 
 207. I beg you to carefully execute my order. 
 
 [A gross fault of style, though not of grammar.] 
 
 208. Remain single and marry nobody, let him be whom he may. 
 
 209. Every man of the boat's crew save Amyas were down with a 
 raging fever. 
 
 210. No one should marry unless they have the certain means of 
 supporting their children. 
 
EXAMPLES OF FALSE, DOUBTFUL, AND GENUINE SYNTAX 85 (k) 
 
 211. I always delight in overthrowing those kind of schemes and 
 cheating a person of their premeditated contempt. 
 
 *212. In this state Frank found her, she trembling, they loud and 
 insolent. 
 213. He gave away his fortune to the Lord knows who. 
 *214. Nobody had any control over him but her. 
 
 215. If there 's any one embarrassed, it will not be me and it will not 
 be she. 
 
 216. Erected to the memory of John Phillips, accidentally shot as a 
 mark of affection by his brother. 
 
 217. John Keats, the second of four children, like Chaucer and 
 Spenser, was a Londoner. 
 
 218. I am neither an ascetic in theory or practice. 
 
 [From a speech of an ex- Vice-President of the Committee of 
 Council on Education.] 
 
 219. I never remember to have seen so ugly a face. 
 
 ["Never remember " = " always forget."] 
 
 220. His last journey whence he was never destined to return. 
 
 221. Rats and gentlemen catched and waited on and all other jobs 
 performed by Solomon Gundy (Advt.). 
 
 *222. His two eldest sons were there. 
 
 [Could this be put differently ? Cf. Example 28. ] 
 
 223. I believe that when he died the Cardinal spoke at least fifty 
 languages. 
 
 224. The guilelessness of his own heart led him to suspect none in 
 others. 
 
 225. The death is announced of Sir W A , a Nova Scotia 
 
 baronet, whose creation dates from 1694. 
 
 226. Few of his friends except myself knew of him being there. 
 
 227. The sad faces and joyous music formed an incongruous sight. 
 
 228. The bullet fortunately indented a coin in his pocket, thus saving 
 his life. 
 
 229. The moon rose like a silver shield, raining her bright arrows on 
 the sea (190, 4, iii.). 
 
 230. A duty too rigidly insisted on will make it odious. 
 
 231. The trade in seal-skins is large, but I saw none in crossing ; the 
 steamers have frightened them away. 
 
 232. One of the duellists was unhurt, and the other sustained a wound 
 n in the arm of no importance. 
 
 [Which arm was this?] 
 
86 
 
 THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCES. 
 
 1. Words are gregarious, and go in groups. When a group 
 of words makes complete sense, it is called a sentence. A 
 sentence is not a chance collection of words j it is a true 
 organism, with a heart and limbs. When we take the limbs 
 apart from the central core or heart of the sentence, and try to 
 show their relation to that core, and to each other, we are said 
 to analyse the sentence. The process of thus taking a sen- 
 tence to pieces, and naming and accounting for each piece, is 
 called analysis. 
 
 (i) Analysis is a Greek word which means breaking up or taking 
 apart : its opposite is Synthesis, which means making up or putting 
 together. 
 
 (ii) When we examine a sentence, and divide it into its component 
 parts, we are said to analyse the sentence, or to perform an act of 
 analysis. But when we put words or phrases together to make a 
 sentence, we perform an act of composition or of synthesis. 
 
 2. A sentence is a statement made about something, as, 
 The horse gallops. 
 
 (i) The something (horse) is called the Subject, 
 (ii) The statement (gallops) is called the Predicate. 
 
 3. Every sentence consists, and must consist, of at least two 
 parts. These two parts are the thing we speak about and 
 what we say about that thing. 
 
 (i) The Subject is what we speak about. 
 
 (ii) The Predicate is what we say about the subject. 
 
 (i) There is a proverb of Solomon which says: "All things are double one 
 against another." So there are the two necessarily complementary ideas of even 
 and odd; of right and left ; of north and south ; and many more. In language, the 
 two ideas of Subject and Predicate are necessarily coexistent ; neither can exist 
 without the other ; we cannot even think the' one without the other. They are 
 the two poles of thought. 
 
THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCES. 87 
 
 (ii) Sometimes the Subject is not expressed in imperative sentences, as in "Go !" 
 = "Goyou ! " 
 
 (iii) Except in a contracted compound sentence, the Predicate can never be 
 suppressed ; it must always be expressed ; otherwise nothing at all would be said. 
 
 4. There are four kinds of sentences : Simple, Complex, 
 Compound, and Mixed. 
 
 (i) A simple sentence contains only one subject and one predicate, 
 (ii) A complex sentence contains a chief sentence, and one or 
 more sentences that are of subordinate rank to the chief sentence. 
 
 (iii) A compound sentence contains two or more simple sentences 
 of equal rank. 
 
 (iv) A mixed sentence contains two or more chief co-ordinate 
 sentences, and one or more subordinate sentences. 
 
 I.— THE SIMPLE SENTENCE. 
 
 5. A Simple Sentence is a sentence which consists of one 
 subject and one predicate 
 
 (i) A Simple Sentence contains, and can contain, only one finite 
 verb. If we say, "Baby likes to dance," there are two verbs in 
 this simple sentence. But to dance is not a finite verb ; it is an 
 Infini tive ; it is practically a pure noun, and cannot therefore be a 
 predicate. 
 
 (ii) If we say, " John and James ran off," the sentence is = "John 
 ran off "+ "James ran off." It is therefore a compound sentence 
 consisting of two simple sentences, with the predicate of one of them 
 suppressed. Hence it is called a contracted compound sentence- 
 contracted in the predicate. 
 
 In this case the sentence may be treated as Simple, " James 
 and John" forming a Compound Subject to the Predicate 
 "ran off." 
 
 FORMS OF SENTENCES. 
 
 6. Sentences differ in the Form which they take. As re- 
 gards form they may be classified as follows : — 
 
 (i) Assertive — 
 
 (a) Positive : — The night grows cold. 
 
 (b) Negative : — I am not going. 
 
 Not a drum was heard. 
 They caught never a one. 
 
88 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 (ii) Interrogative : — Whom seek ye 1 
 (iii) Exclamatory : — How swiftly the river flows ! 
 In the cases of Interrogative or Exclamatory sentences, in 
 which the usual order of the words is changed for the sake of 
 emphasis or effect, the sentences should be put in assertive 
 straightforward order for the purpose of analysis, thus : — 
 
 Ye seek whom ? 
 
 The river flows how swiftly. 
 
 (iv) Imperative : — Sir, look to your manners. 
 In imperative sentences the subject is usually omitted. In 
 this sentence " Sir " is really a nominative of address, and the 
 real subject " you " is not expressed. 
 
 (v) Optative, expressing a wish or invocation : — 
 
 "God bless us every one ! " 
 " Oh, could I flow like thee ! " 
 
 In Greek there is a special mood of the verb, called the 
 optative, for expressions of this kind, but in English the verb 
 is in the subjunctive. 
 
 Note how the Optative differs from the merely Assertive. Com- 
 pare :— 
 
 God bless us, i.e. May God bless us (Optative) ; and 
 God blesses us (Assertive). 
 
 PARTS OF THE SENTENCE. 
 
 7. The Subject of a sentence is what we speak about. 
 What we speak about we must name. 
 
 If we name a thing, we must use a name or noun. 
 Therefore the subject must always be either — 
 (i) A noun ; or 
 (ii) Some word or words equivalent to a noun. 
 
 8. There are eight kinds of Subjects — 
 
 (i) A Noun, as, England is our home, 
 (ii) A Pronoun, as, It is our fatherland. 
 
THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCES. 89 
 
 (iii) A Verbal Noun, as, The reading of the will 
 
 proceeded, 
 (iv) A Gerund, as, Catching fish is a pleasant pastime, 
 (v) An Infinitive, as, To swim is quite easy 
 (vi) An Adjective, with a noun understood, as, The 
 
 prosperous are sometimes cold-hearted, 
 (vii) A Quotation, as, "Ay, ay, sir!" burst from a 
 
 thousand throats, 
 (viii) A Noun-clause, as, That he was a tyrant is 
 
 generally admitted. 
 
 (a) The verbal noun, as we have seen, originally ended in ting. 
 
 See page 40. 
 
 (b) Catching is a gerund, because it is both a noun (nomin- 
 
 ative to is) and a verb, governing fish in the objective. 
 
 note (i) The Subject is sometimes composite — consisting of two or 
 more words. 
 
 The home, the homeitead, the very fences, all were destroyed. 
 To seize my gun and (to) fire was the work of a moment. 
 To them his heart, his love, his griefs, were given. 
 
 (ii) The Subject sometimes stands in apposition to "it" or 
 "this." Thus in the sentence : — " It is my resolve to succeed," 
 the effective subject is "to succeed." 
 
 Similarly in the sentence :— "This ruined him, his inordinate love of riches," the 
 effective subject is " His inordinate love of riches." Compare also : — " That was their 
 sole reward, the approval of their king. " 
 
 In these cases, "it," "this," and "that" are simply temporary subjects, the real 
 subject coming afterwards out of its natural order. " It," or any word thus used, 
 is called the Provisional Subject-. 
 
 (iii) Sometimes, especiallj' in poetry, an unnecessary or redundant 
 pronoun is put in with the Subject, and may be regarded as forming 
 part of it. 
 
 My btllka, they are furnished with bees. 
 
 Tired Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep, 
 He, like the world, his ready visit pays 
 Where fortune smiles. 
 
 9. The Predicate in a sentence is what we say about the 
 subject. If we say anything, we must use a saying or telling 
 word. Now a telling word is a verb. 
 
 Therefore the Predicate must always be a verb, or 
 some word or words equivalent to a verb. 
 
90 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 10. There are six kinds of Predicate — 
 
 (i) A Verb, as, God is. The stream runs. 
 
 (ii) *' To be " + a noun, as, He is a carpenter, 
 
 (iii) *' To be " + an adjective, as, They are idle, 
 
 (iv) " To be * + an adverb, as, The books are there. 
 
 (v) " To be " + a phrase, as, She is in good health. 
 
 (vi) " To be " + a clause or sentence, as, His cry was, 
 I die for my country. 
 
 note (i) Only Finite or Complete Verbs can form Predicates. When 
 the Verb is incomplete or infinite, as in the case of — 
 
 (a) A Participle, 
 
 (b) An Infinitive, 
 
 it cannot form the Predicate of a sentence except by the addition 
 of other completing words. Thus "loving" or "to love" could 
 never form a predicate, although "loving," when converted into a 
 finite verb by prefixing "was," may form a predicate. 
 
 (ii) The Verb is sometimes modified by an Adverb or Preposition 
 which is closely attached to it, and which for the purpose of analysis 
 may be regarded as part of the Predicate. 
 
 They agreed to (= accepted) my proposal 
 The subject was well thrashed out ( = debated). 
 The pirates stove in (= broke) the cabin-door. 
 
 11. Cautions : — 
 
 (i) There is a large class of verbs known as Copulative 
 Verbs, which being connective rather than notional 
 in their character, require another word or phrase 
 to be associated with them to make the predicate 
 complete. Thus : — ■ 
 
 He appears healthy. 
 
 The apprentice became a merchant 
 
 The girl grew tall. 
 
 The poor creature seems to he dying. 
 
 John stands six feet. 
 
 note. — Some of these verbs are also used transitively, and then take 
 an object like other transitive verbs : — Stand it on the table. 
 
 (ii) The frequently occurring verb " to be " (except in 
 tJie few cases where it means "to exist"), and some 
 
THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCES. 91 
 
 other copulative verbs, as, to seem, to become, 
 etc., can never form predicates by themselves. 
 
 (iii) Beware of associating two dissimilar verbs as predi- 
 cate. Thus in the sentence : " He refused to leave 
 the ship," the predicate is not "refused to leave," 
 but simply " refused." 
 
 12. When the predicate consists of an active -transitive 
 verb, it requires an object after it to make complete sense. 
 This object is called either the object or the completion. As 
 we must name the object, it is plain that it must always, like 
 the subject, be a noun, or some word or words equivalent to a 
 noun. 
 
 13. As there are eight kinds of Subjects, so there are eight 
 kinds of Objects or Completions. These are : — 
 
 (i) A Noun, as, All of us love England, 
 (ii) A Pronoun, as, We saw him in the garden, 
 (iii) A Verbal Noun, as, Wc dread the gathering of 
 
 the clans, 
 (iv) A Gerund, as, The angler prefers taking large fish 
 (v) An Infinitive, as, We hate to be idle. 
 (vi) An Adjective with a noun understood, as, Good 
 
 men love the good. 
 (vii) A Quotation, as, We heard his last "Good-bye, 
 
 Tom ! " 
 (viii) A Noun -clause or sentence, as, I knew what 
 was the matter. 
 
 note (i) The words it, this, and that may form Provisional Objects, 
 just as they form Provisional Subjects : — 
 
 They consider it infamous to desert. 
 This I command, no parley with the foe. 
 That he abhors, the sale of flesh and blood. 
 
 (ii) The Object, like the Subject, may consist of an unlimited 
 number of these parts of speech. 
 
 At noon the outlaw reached his glen, 
 His gathered spoils, his merry men. 
 
 At twelve the poor lad began to learn a trade and (to) help his 
 parents. 
 
92 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 14. Verbs of giving, promising, offering, handing, and 
 many such, take also an indirect object, which is sometimes 
 called the dative object. 
 
 There are several kinds of Indirect Objects : — 
 
 (i) A Noun, We gave the man a shilling. 
 
 (ii) A Pronoun, We offered him sixpence. 
 
 (iii) An Infinitive : — 
 
 after the Direct Object : I saw him (to) run. 
 
 6^" Some authorities prefer to regard such a case as " him run" 
 as a Compound Object, treating as a whole the two or more words 
 forming the object. 
 
 15. The following may be regarded as special kinds of 
 Objects : — 
 
 (i) A Factitive or Complementary Object : — 
 
 They made him President. 
 
 Milton did not hesitate to call Spenser a better teacher than 
 Socrates or Aquinas. 
 
 It should be noted that the words "made" and 
 "call" have a more restricted meaning than 
 when followed by ordinary simple objects. 
 
 Compare: — "They made him President" with "They made a 
 boat," " Milton . . . Aquinas," with "Call them quickly." 
 
 In the latter cases "made" and "call" have a fuller meaning 
 than in the former. 
 
 (ii) A Prepositional Complementary Phrase : — I took 
 him for a sailor. And therefore think him as a 
 serpent's egg. 
 
 note. — Sometimes the complementary object may appear as an 
 Adjective with a Noun understood. 
 
 Exercise made him strong ( =a strong man). 
 They painted the house white ( = a white house). 
 
 (iii) A Cognate Object, in which the Predicate is followed 
 by an Object akin in meaning to the verb itself :— 
 
 Let me die the death of the righteous. 
 He ran his godly race. 
 
THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCES. 93 
 
 (iv) When an active verb with two objects is changed 
 into the passive form, that object which is retained 
 while the other becomes the subject is termed the 
 Retained Object : — 
 
 A shilling was given the man. 
 The door was denied him. 
 
 16. Cautions : — 
 
 (i) Special care is needed in dealing with the Indirect 
 Object There is a tendency on the part of many 
 young students to put down any word or phrase 
 which they cannot easily classify as "Indirect 
 Object." Thus words or phrases which are Exten- 
 sions of the Predicate or Enlargements of the 
 Object are often wrongly classed as Indirect Object. 
 
 Compare : —I heard him read (him read = Compound Object). 
 
 I heard him reading (reading = Enlargement of 
 
 Object). 
 I sent him for the master (for the master = Extension 
 of Pred.). 
 
 (ii) The Indirect object must be carefully distinguished 
 from the Complementary object after verbs of incom- 
 plete predication. One test is that it is often possible 
 to make sense by using the Indirect Object by itself. 
 Thus we can say, " I forgave him (I. O.) his faults," 
 or simply " I forgave him." But in the sentence " the 
 judge set him free," if you omit " him " or " free," you 
 produce nonsense. Verbs of incomplete predication 
 must have both object and complementary object to 
 make sense. Strictly speaking, this complementary 
 object, as it cannot be used by itself, is not a true 
 object. 
 
 17. The Subject or the Object must always be either — 
 
 (i) A Noun : or 
 
 (ii) Some word or words equivalent to a noun. 
 A Noun may have attached to it any number of adjectives 
 or adjectival phrases. An adjective or adjectiva l ph rase that 
 
 H 
 
94 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 goes with a subject or with an object is called, in Analysis, an 
 Enlargement. 
 
 It is so called because it enlarges our knowledge of the subject. 
 Thus, if we say, "The man is tired," we have no knowledge of 
 what kind of man is spoken of ; but if we say, "The poor old man 
 is tired," our notion of the man is enlarged by the addition of the 
 facts that he is both poor and old. 
 
 18. There are seven kinds of Enlargements : — 
 
 (i) An Adjective — one, two, or more — That big old 
 
 red book is sold, 
 (ii) A Noun (or nouns) in apposition, William the 
 
 Conqueror defeated Harold, 
 (iii) A Noun (or pronoun) in the Possessive Case, 
 
 His hat flew of£ 
 (iv) A Prepositional Phrase, The walk in the fields 
 
 was pleasant. 
 
 (v) An Adjectival Phrase, The boy, ignorant of his 
 
 duty, was soon dismissed, 
 (vi) A Participle (a), or Participial Phrase (b) — 
 
 Sobbing and weeping, she was led from the 
 
 room (a). The merchant, having made a fortune, 
 
 gave up business (b). 
 
 (vii) A Gerundial Infinitive — Anxiety to succeed ( = of 
 succeeding) wore him out. Bread to eat ( = for 
 eating) could not be had. anywhere. 
 
 19. It is plain that all these seven kinds of Enlargements 
 may go with the Object as well as with the Subject. 
 
 20. An Enlargement, being a word or phrase that goes 
 with a noun or its equivalent, must always be an adjective 
 or equivalent to an adjective. 
 
 note (i) An Enlargement may itself be enlarged by the same parts 
 of speech as form the primary enlargements. 
 
 (a) The handle of this sword forged by Indians is richly jewelled. 
 
 (b) The Romans crossed a stream fed by a glacier of the Southern Alps. 
 
 The phrases "forged by Indians," and "of the Southern Alps," 
 
THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCES. 95 
 
 are enlargements of "sword" and "glacier" respectively, which 
 are themselves parts of qualifying phrases. 
 
 (ii) A Subject or Object may have an unlimited number of 
 enlargements of various kinds :— 
 
 The poor King, an outcast from his own domain, suffering the pangs 
 of hunger and stung by bitter reproaches, ended his days in misery. 
 
 Here King is enlarged by — 
 
 (a) An Adjective. 
 
 (b) A Noun in Apposition. 
 
 (c) Two Participial phrasea, 
 
 21. The Predicate is always a Verb, standing alone if 
 complete, or accompanied by other words if a verb of in- 
 complete predication. 
 
 The part of the sentence that goes with the verb is either a 
 simple adverb, a compound adverb, or a phrase adverbial 
 in its character. 
 
 22. The adverbs or adverbial phrases that go with the predi- 
 date are called, in Analysis, the Extensions of the Predicate. 
 
 23. There are seven kinds of Extensions : — 
 
 (i) An Adverb, as, The time went slowly. 
 
 (ii) An Adverbial Phrase, as, Mr Smith writes no-w- 
 and then. 
 
 (iii) A Prepositional Phrase, as, Mr Smith spoke with 
 great effect. 
 
 (iv) A Noun Phrase, as, We walked side by side. 
 
 (v) A Participial Phrase, as, The mighty rocks came 
 bounding down. 
 
 (vi) A Gerundial Phrase, as, He did it to insult us 
 
 ( = for insulting us), 
 (vii) 'An Absolute Infinitive Phrase, as, To tell you 
 the truth, I think him very stupid. 
 
 MS" Under (v) may come also the Absolute Participial Phrase, such 
 as, "The clock having struck, we had to go." 
 
 24. Extensions of the prvJicate are classified in the above 
 section from the point of view of grammar ; but they are also 
 frequently classified from the point of view of distinction in 
 thought. 
 
96 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 In this latter way Extensions are classified as extensions of— 
 (i) Time, as, We lived there three years, 
 (ii) Place, (a) Whence, as, We came from York. 
 
 (b) Where, as, He lives over the way. 
 
 (c) Whither, as, Go home ! 
 
 (iii) Manner (a) Manner : He treads firmly. 
 
 (b) Degree : She writes better. 
 
 (c) Accompanying circumstances : They went for- 
 
 ward under a heavy fire, 
 (iv) Agent : James was represented by his minister, 
 (v) Instrument : They ravaged the land with fire and sword, 
 (vi) Magnitude (a) Order : He stood first in his class. 
 
 (b) Number : The field measured ten acres. 
 (vii) Mood (a) Affirmation : He certainly returned. 
 
 (b) Negation ; The enterprise will never succeed. 
 
 £2T Never is here a more emphatic form of not, 
 and therefore comes under the head of Nega- 
 tion rather than of Time. 
 
 (c) Doubt : Perhaps you will meet your friend, 
 (viii) Cause : The clerk was dismissed for idleness. 
 
 (ix) Purpose : They went abroad to better their condition, 
 (x) Condition : Without me ye can do nothing, 
 (xi) Concession : With all thy faults, I love thee still. 
 Here the sense is obviously " Notwithstanding all thy faults," etc. 
 
 25. 
 
 note (i) Just as a Subject or Object may have an unlimited number 
 of Enlargements, so a Predicate may have any number of Exten- 
 sions. 
 
 For three years the widow dwelt quietly in the lonely cottage. Here we have three 
 extensions of time, manner, and place respectively. Care should be taken to keep 
 the various extensions quite distinct in analysing ; the student should letter or 
 number them (a), (b), (c), etc., or (1), (2), (3), etc., and state after each its kind. 
 
 (ii) Where two or more extensions of the same class appear they 
 should be kept distinct. At nightfall, during a heavy snowstorm, 
 they wandered forth. 
 
 Here the two extensions of time should be taken separately. 
 
 26. Cautions : — 
 
 (i) The same word may be used as Object or as an 
 Extension of the Predicate. 
 
THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCES. 97 
 
 Compare :— I care nothing for your threats. (Extension of Degree. ) 
 He gave me nothing. (Object.) 
 
 11 Nothing " in the first sentence simply shows to what extent 
 you are affected by the threats ; M nothing" in the second sentence 
 is obviously the Direct Object of "gave," expressing what he gave. 
 
 Compare: — What did you see? (Object.) 
 
 What recks he of his daily duty ? ( Extension — Degree. ) 
 
 " What" in the first sentence is evidently the Direct Object of the 
 interrogation " did see " ; in the second sentence " what " expresses 
 the extent to which he is affected by considerations of his daily 
 duty. 
 
 Compare with the latter the sentence : — "What with war and 
 what with famine, the nation was almost exterminated." Where 
 the two "whats" are evidently adverbial in their nature, and the 
 phrases they introduce are extensions of the predicate. 
 
 (ii) The same phrase may be an Enlargement (of the 
 Subject or Object) or an Extension of the Predi- 
 cate. 
 
 Compare : — Exercise In the open air is healthy. (Enlargement of 
 Subject.) 
 
 He takes his exercise in the open air. (Extension — Place.) 
 
 In the first sentence the phrase ' ' in the open air " qualifies or 
 limits the word '* exercise," indicating a particular form of exercise ; 
 in the second sentence " in the open air " indicates the place where 
 he takes his exercise, and hence it is an Extension of the Predicate. 
 
 NOMINATIVE OP ADDRESS. 
 
 27. The Nominative of Address may relate to — 
 
 (a) The Subject : Milton ! thou shouldst be living at this 
 
 hour. 
 
 (b) The Object : I welcome you, good Masters. 
 
 (c) An Extension : We shall pull towards you, Sir 
 
 Knight. 
 
 Or it may be detached, The castle keep, my Lord, I hold. 
 
 The Nominative of Address is interjectional in its nature, 
 
 and just as the Interjection is a part of speech standing apart 
 
 from the family formed by the others, so a Nominative of 
 
98 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 Address really forms no part of the logical sentence. Regarded 
 as somewhat appositional, it may be placed with that part of 
 the sentence to which it specially belongs, or the rule may be 
 adopted of placing it in the same column as the Subject, care 
 being taken to indicate that it forms no part of the logical 
 subject. 
 
 28. The following cautions are of importance : — 
 
 (i) The Noun in an absolute clause cannot be the 
 Subject of a simple sentence. "We can say, " The 
 train having started, we returned to the hotel." 
 Here we is the subject. 
 
 The phrase "the train having started" is an adverbial phrase 
 modifying returned, and giving the reason for the returning. 
 
 (ii) A subject may be compound, and may contain an 
 object, as, " To save money is always useful." Here 
 the subject is to save money, and contains the 
 object money — the object of the verb "to save." 
 
 An object may also contain another object, which is not the 
 object of the sentence. Thus we can say, " I like to save money," 
 when the direct object of like is to save, and money is a part only 
 of that direct object. 
 
 (iii) An Absolute Participial Phrase (or Nominative 
 Absolute) is always an Extension of the Predicate, 
 and may express — 
 
 (a) Time : The clock having struck one, we proceeded. 
 
 (b) Cause : Darkness coming on, the wanderers quick- 
 
 ened their pace. 
 
 (c) Circumstances : I crossed the moor, the snow falling 
 
 heavily. 
 
 (iv) Not usually forms an Extension of the Predicate, 
 but it may also form — 
 
 (a) Part of the Subject : Not a drum was heard. (Nega- 
 
 tive Enlargement. ) 
 
 (b) Part of the Object : We carved not a line. (Negative 
 
 Enlargement. ) 
 They heard never a sound. (Negative Enlargement. ) 
 
THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCES. 9d 
 
 t3" As an Extension of the Predicate, not is usually independent of 
 other extensions, as, 
 
 They moved not (Negative Extension) 
 
 ( during the storm (Extension of Time) 
 but sometimes it simply negatives another Extension, and must not 
 be dissociated from it ; as, Not in vain he wore his sandal-shoon. 
 
 (v) There is generally — 
 
 (a) An Extension of Place : There they rested. 
 But it is sometime? — 
 
 (b) An Indefinite Extension (a mere Expletive). 
 There were twenty present. 
 
 The shadowy and vague character of there is shown by the 
 paraphrase " Twenty were present," and also by the fact that in 
 translating the sentence into many languages no equivalent would 
 be put for "there." 
 
 (vi) Distinguish between various uses of the Infinitive. 
 
 (a) Subject : To quarrel is not my wish. 
 
 (b) Part of the Predicate : He might (to) win the shield. 
 
 t3T Those who regard might as being always a 
 Principal Verb would put win as part of the 
 Object. 
 
 (c) Object : They love to wander. 
 
 (d) Extension of the Predicate : She came to learn. 
 
 In this case " to learn " is not an ordinary infinitive, but a ger- 
 undial infinitive or infinitive of purpose, and is equivalent to " for 
 learning. " See p. 40. 
 
 (vii) Care must be taken to distinguish between the 
 
 same word when used as — 
 
 (a) An Adjective, forming part of the Predicate with an 
 Intransitive Copulative Verb — 
 
 The king looks well, 
 This apple tastes sweet, 
 
 or (b) An Adverb, forming an Extension of the Predicate after a 
 Verb— 
 
 The king eats well. 
 
 How tweet the moonlight sleeps npon this bank. 
 
 Students must be very careful to discriminate between these 
 cases. Where the word indicates quality, it is adjectival in nature, 
 and will form part of the Predicate ; where it indicates manner, it is 
 adverbial in nature, and forms an Extension of the Predicate. 
 
100 GRAMMAR Of THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 (viii) In the case of qualifying or limiting phrases 
 (especially participial phrases), it is sometimes diffi- 
 cult to determine whether they are simple Enlarge- 
 ments of the Subject or Extensions of the Predi- 
 cate. 
 
 Returning then the bolt he drew. 
 
 A widow bird sat mourning for her love. 
 
 In the first sentence "returning" is an enlargement of "he" ; in 
 the second sentence mourning does not enlarge " bird," but shows 
 how it sat. It sat mourning, i.e. sadly, sorrowfully. 
 
 The safest plan in cases of this kind is to determine what principal 
 part of the sentence the qualifying or limiting word or phrase is 
 most closely connected with. If it is essentially qualifying in nature, 
 it is probably an Enlargement of the Subject or Object ; if, on the 
 other hand, it expresses some modification of, or condition in respect 
 to, the Predicate, it is an Extension of the Predicate. 
 
 THE MAPPING-OUT OF SIMPLE SENTENCES. 
 
 29. It is of the greatest importance to get the eye to help the 
 mind, and to present to the sight if possible — either on paper 
 or on the black-board — the sentence we have to consider. This 
 is called mapping-out. 
 
 Let us take two simple sentences : — 
 
 (i) " From the mountain-path came a joyous sound of some person 
 
 whistling. " 
 (ii) "In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas, 
 
 Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pre 
 
 Lay in the fruitful valley. " 
 
 30. These may be mapped out, before analysing them, in the 
 following way : — 
 
 joyous 
 (i) A SOUND CAME 
 
 I 
 some person whistling the mounta in path. 
 
 (ii) distant, secluded, still 
 
 little 
 
THE ANALYSIS £>& ESSENCES/* ""'• '*" 101 
 The VILLAGE LAY 
 
 the fruitful valley. 
 Grand-Pre* the Acadian land the shores of the Basin, etc. 
 
 31. Such a mapping-out enables us easily to see, with the 
 bodily as well as with the mind's eye, what is the main purpose 
 of all analysis — to find out which words go with which, and 
 what is the real build of the sentence. Hence, unless we see 
 at a glance the build of the sentence we are going to analyse, 
 we ought, before doing so, to set to work and map it out. 
 
 FORMS OF ANALYSIS. 
 
 32. The sentences may then be analysed in either— 
 
 (a) the Detailed form, 
 or (b) the Tabular form. 
 
 (a) The Detailed form is analogous to that adopted for parsing, 
 and gives us scope for subdividing the sentence to an unlimited 
 extent, and giving the maximum amount of detail. 
 
 (b) The Tabular form does not provide for so much detail, but it 
 has the advantage of great clearness, and, as it greatly facilitates 
 the examination of an exercise, it is the form usually preferred by 
 public examiners. 
 
 33. Detailed Analysis. 
 
 (i) a. A sound 
 
 
 Subject. 
 
 6. joyous 
 
 
 Adjectival Enlargement of Subject. 
 
 c. of some person 
 
 whistling 
 
 Prepositional Phrase, Enlargement 
 of Subject. 
 
 d. came 
 
 
 Predicate. 
 
 e. from the path 
 
 
 Extension of Predicate. Place 
 whence. 
 
 /. mountain 
 
 
 Adjectival Enlargement of c. 
 
 (ii) o. The village 
 
 
 Subject. 
 
 b. little 
 
 
 Adjectival Enlargement of Subject 
 
 c. distant a 
 
 
 
 d. secluded L 
 
 
 Complementary part of the Predicate. 
 
 e. still J 
 
 
 
V S.VIV 
 
 /. ofGrand-Pre 
 
 Prepositional Thrase, Enlargement 
 
 
 of Subject. 
 
 S^-lay 
 
 Predicate. 
 
 h. in the land 
 
 Extension of Predicate. Place 
 
 
 where. 
 
 i. Acadian 
 
 Adjectival Enlargement of h. 
 
 j. on the shores 
 
 Extension of Predicate. Place 
 
 
 where. 
 
 k. of the basin 
 
 Prepositional phrase, enlarging /. 
 
 £. of Minas 
 
 >> »> >» «•• 
 
 m. in the valley 
 
 Extension of Predicate. Place 
 
 
 where. 
 
 n. fruitful 
 
 Adjectival Enlargement of m. 
 
 34. 
 
 Tabular Analysis. 
 
 
 Enlarge- 
 
 
 
 Enlarge- 
 
 Extension 
 
 Subject. 
 
 ment of 
 
 Predicate. 
 
 Object. 
 
 ment of 
 
 of 
 
 
 Subject. 
 
 
 
 Object. 
 
 Predicate. 
 
 A sound 
 
 (a) joyous 
 
 (b) of some 
 person 
 
 whistling 
 
 came 
 
 
 
 from the 
 mountain 
 path {place 
 whence) 
 
 The village 
 
 (a) little 
 
 lay 
 
 
 
 (a) in the 
 
 
 (b)of 
 
 (distant, 
 
 
 
 Acadian 
 
 
 Grand-Pro" 
 
 secluded, 
 still) 
 
 
 
 land 
 
 {place 
 
 where) 
 
 (b) on the 
 shores of 
 the Basin 
 of Minas 
 {place 
 where) 
 
 (c) in the 
 fruitful 
 valley 
 {ptace 
 where) 
 
 II.— THE COMPLEX SENTENCE. 
 
 35. A Complex Sentence is a statement which contains one 
 Principal Sentence, and one or more sentences dependent upon 
 it, which are called Subordinate Sentences. There are three 
 
THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCES.- 103 
 
 kinds — and there can only be three kinds — of subordinate 
 sentences — Adjectival, Noun, and Adverbial. 
 A subordinate sentence is sometimes called a clause. 
 
 36. A Subordinate Sentence that goes with a Noun or 
 
 Pronoun, fulfils the function of an Adjective, is equal to an 
 
 Adjective, and is therefore called an Adjectival Sentence. 
 
 "Darkness, which might be felt, fell upon the city. " Here the 
 sub-sentence, " which-might-be-felt," goes with the noun darkness, 
 belongs to it, and cannot be separated from it ; and this sentence is 
 therefore an adjectival sentence. 
 
 37. A Subordinate Sentence that goes with a Verb fulfils 
 the function of an Adverb, is equal to an Adverb, and is 
 therefore called an Adverbial Sentence. 
 
 " I will go whenever you are ready." Here the sub-sentence, 
 "whenever you are ready," is attached to the verb go, belongs to 
 it, and cannot be separated from it ; and hence this sentence is an 
 adverbial sentence. 
 
 38. A Subordinate Sentence that forms the Subject of a 
 
 Predicate, or the Object, or that is in apposition with a noun, 
 
 fulfils the function of a Noun, and is therefore called a Noun 
 
 Sentence. 
 
 " He told me that his cousin had gone to sea." Here the sub- 
 sentence, " his cousin had gone to sea," is the object of the transi- 
 tive verb told. It fulfils the function of a noun, and is therefore a 
 noun sentence. 
 
 39. An Adjectival Sentence may be attached to — 
 
 (i) The Subject of the Principal Sentence ; or to 
 (ii) The Object of the Principal Sentence ; or to 
 (iii) Any Noun or Pronoun, 
 (i) The book that-I-bought is on the table : to the subject, 
 (ii) I laid the book-I-bought on the table : to the object; 
 (iii) The child fell into the stream that-runs-past the mill : to the 
 noun stream — a noun in an adverbial phrase. 
 
 40. note. — (i) As may in certain cases be regarded as a relative 
 
 introducing an Adjectival Sentence. In such cases 
 
 it is usually a correlative of such or same. 
 
 I never saw such fish as he caught in the Avon, 
 x This is the same bag as you gave me last year. 
 
104 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 (ii) But in certain cases may be taken as a negative rela- 
 tive introducing an Adjectival Sentence. 
 
 (a) There is no man here but loves you. 
 This= " There is no man here "who does not love you." 
 
 (b) " No land but listens to the common call." 
 "But " is equivalent to " which does not." 
 
 41. An Adverbial Sentence may be attached to — 
 
 (i) A Verb ; 
 
 (ii) An Adjective ; or to 
 
 (iii) An Adverb. 
 
 (i) To a Verb. It does not matter in what position the verb is. 
 It may be (a) the Predicate, as in the sentence, "I walk when I 
 can." It may be (b) an Infinitive forming a subject, as, " To get up 
 when one is tired is not pleasant. " It may be (c) a participle, as in 
 the sentence, "Having dined before he came, I started at once." 
 
 (ii) To an Adjective. "His grief was such that all pitied him. " 
 Here the sub-sentence " that all pitied him " modifies the adjective 
 such. 
 
 (iii) To an Adverb. " He was so weak that he could not stand." 
 Here the sub-sentence "that he could not stand" modifies the 
 adverb so, which itself modifies the adjective weak. 
 
 42. Just as there are many classes of Adverbs, so there are 
 many different kinds of Adverbial Sentences. 
 
 (i) Time. I will go, when you return, 
 (ii) Place. Where the bee sucks, there suck I. 
 (iii) Manner. He strode, as though he were in pain, 
 (iv) Degree. I spoke as loudly as I could (speak), 
 (v) Proportion. The sooner you complete your 
 
 task the sooner you can leave, 
 (vi) Condition. If you stand by me, I will oppose 
 
 him. 
 (vii) Concession — Provided this is done, I will consent, 
 (viii) Cause. Avoid him, because he is dishonest, 
 (ix) Effect or Consequence. He worked so hard, 
 
 that he was certain to do well, 
 (x) Purpose. He worked very hard, for he wished 
 to do well. 
 
THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCES 105 
 
 Cautions : — 
 
 (i) In nearly every case the word introducing the ad- 
 verbial sentence, as when, where, if, etc., helps 
 us to recognise it, but occasionally there is no 
 introductory word, and we must judge by the 
 sense alone. 
 
 In the sentence — 
 
 11 Pass that line, and I fire upon you," 
 it is evident that the first clause is Adverbial, and that the real 
 meaning would be accurately expressed by the form ' ' If you pass 
 that line," etc. 
 
 (") 
 
 " Ye meaner fowl, give place, 
 I am all splendour, dignity, and grace." 
 Here the second sentence is Adverbial to the first, and sense 
 demands "for," "because," or "since," as a connecting word. 
 
 (in) Avoid the mistake of calling a sentence Adverbial 
 simply because it begins with an adverb. 
 "First (he) loves to do, then loves the good he does." 
 The second sentence is not adverbial, but co-ordinate with the 
 first. 
 
 43. Adjectival and Adverbial Sentences are easily recognised 
 from the fact that they have no complete meaning in them- 
 selves apart from the Principal Sentence to which they are 
 attached. Of some Principal Sentences — as, e.g., those begin- 
 ning with who, which, etc. — the same thing may be said, but 
 in the vast majority of cases a Principal Sentence is independent 
 in sense and self-contained in meaning. 
 
 Take two of the sentences given above. 
 
 1 ' Which might be felt. " (Adjectival. ) 
 ' ' When I can. " (Adverbial. ) 
 
 Their incompleteness is at once perceived. Their function is 
 to qualify, extend, modify, or limit the master sentence to 
 which they are attached ; they are distinctly subordinative. 
 
 The subordinate character of Noun-sentences is best per- 
 ceived when they are introduced by their ordinary connective 
 "that"; in other cases their true nature maybe recognised 
 from their relationship to the principal sentence. 
 
106 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 44. A Noun Sentence may be — 
 
 (i) The Subject of the Principal Sentence ; or 
 (ii) The Object of the main verb ; or 
 (iii) The Nominative after is ; or 
 (iv) In Apposition with another Noun. 
 
 (i) " That-he-is-better cannot be denied": the subject. Here 
 the true nominative is that. " That cannot be denied." What? 
 " That = he is better." (From usage that in such sentences acquires 
 the function and force of a conjunction. ) 
 
 (ii) "I heard that-he-was-better : " the object. 
 
 (iii) "My motive in going was that-I-might-be-of-use " : nomina- 
 tive after was. 
 
 (iv) "The fact that-he-voted-against-his-party is well known": 
 in apposition with fact. 
 
 Impersonal Construction — 
 
 And methought, while she liberty sang, 
 
 'Twas liberty only to hear. 
 " 'Twas-liberty-only-to-hear " is a Noun sentence, subject to the 
 impersonal verb " methought," and forming with it a principal 
 sentence. 
 
 45. Any number of Subordinate Sentences may be attached 
 to the Principal Sentence. The only limit is that dictated by 
 a regard to clearness, to the balance of clauses, or to good taste. 
 
 The best example of a very long sentence, which consists entirely 
 of one principal sentence and a very large number of adjective 
 sentences, is "The House that Jack built." "This is the house 
 that- Jack-built. " ' • This is the malt that-lay-in-the-house-that- Jack- 
 built," and so on. 
 
 Co-ordinate Subordinate Sentences. Two or more subor- 
 dinate sentences of the same kind may be attached to the 
 same principal sentence. 
 
 Type of the wise, who soar but (who) never roam. 
 If the day be fine and (if) I am free, I will go over the common. 
 John knew that the farmer had cut his corn and (that he had) 
 stacked it. 
 
 In the first sentence we have two Adjectival sentences, subordin- 
 ate to the principal and co-ordinate with one another. In the other 
 sentences we have Adverbial and Noun-sentences of a corresponding 
 character. The words in brackets are understood and should be 
 shown in your analysis. 
 
THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCES. 107 
 
 46. Principal and Subordinate. The same sentence may 
 be subordinate to a principal sentence, and at the same time 
 principal to another sentence. 
 
 The man who hesitates when danger is at hand, is lost. 
 The sentence "who hesitates" is adjectival to the principal 
 sentence, and principal to "when danger is at hand." 
 
 The sentence would not be properly analysed unless its twofold 
 character and relationship were fully shown. 
 
 Compare : — Tell her that wastes her time and me, 
 That now she knows, 
 When I resemble her to thee, 
 How sweet and fair she seems to be. 
 
 47. Connectives : — 
 
 (i) Care must be taken to associate introductory and 
 
 connective words with their proper sentences ; 
 
 otherwise confusion will result and the nature 
 
 of the sentences may be misunderstood. 
 
 Yet he who reigns within himself, and rules 
 Passions, desires, and fears, is more a king. 
 
 The Principal sentence here is " Yet he is more a king." 
 
 Thus, while I ape the measure wild 
 Of tales that charmed me as a child, 
 Rude though they be, still with the chime 
 Return the thoughts of early time. 
 
 "Thus " in the first line introduces the principal sentence " Still 
 . . . time." 
 
 Note the inversion in "Rude though they be," and remember 
 that Inversions are very common in poetry. 
 
 CAUTIONS IN THE ANALYSIS OF COMPLEX 
 SENTENCES. 
 
 48. (i) Find out, first of all, the Principal Sentence. 
 
 (ii) Secondly, if the sentence is complicated or of 
 more than average difficulty, look out the finite 
 verbs ; these are the kernels of the various sen- 
 tences ; remember that each finite verb means 
 a sentence. When you are sure of your verbs 
 you will be able to connect with each its sub- 
 iect, object, and extensiona 
 
108 GRAMMAlt OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 (iii) Thirdly, look for the sentences, if any, that attach 
 themselves to the Subject of the Principal Sen- 
 tence. 
 
 (iv) Fourthly, find those sentences, if any, that belong 
 to the Object of the Principal Sentence, or to 
 any other Noun or Pronoun in it. 
 
 (v) Fifthly, look for the subordinate sentences that 
 are attached to the Predicate of the Principal 
 Sentence. 
 
 When a subordinate sentence is long, quote only the first and last 
 words, and place dots .... between them. 
 
 49. The following Cautions are necessary : — 
 
 (i) A connective may be omitted. 
 
 In Shakespeare's " Measure for Measure," Isabella says — 
 
 "I have a brother is condemned to die." 
 
 Here who is omitted, and " who . . . die " is an adjectival sen» 
 tence qualifying the object brother. 
 
 (ii) Do not be guided by the part of speech that in 
 
 troduces a subordinate sentence. Thus : — 
 
 (a) A pronoun (interrogative) may introduce a noun sentence, as, 
 M I do not know who-he-is " ; or a pronoun (relative) may introduce an 
 adjectival sentence, as, "John, who-was-a-soldier, is now a gardener." 
 
 (b) An adverb may introduce a noun sentence, as, "I don't 
 know where it has gone to;" or an adjectival sentence, as, "The 
 spot where he lies is unknown." In the sentence, "The reason why 
 so few marriages are happy is because young ladies spend their time 
 in making nets, not in making cages " — the subordinate sentence 
 " why . . . happy" is — though introduced by an adverb — in appo- 
 sition to the noun reason, and is therefore a noun sentence. 
 
 (Hi) It is sometimes difficult to decide whether a given 
 
 sentence is Adjectival or Noun. 
 
 Whoever first reaches the fort gains the prize. 
 I will reward whoever first reaches the fort. 
 
 In these sentences some would prefer to regard the subordinate 
 sentence as qualifying "he" or "him," and would class them as 
 adjectival, but, inasmuch as they stand in the one case for subject 
 and in the other for object, it is preferable to take them as noun 
 
 sentences. 
 
 We speak that we do know. 
 
THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCES. 
 
 109 
 
 ITere, instead of taking "that we do know " as a noun sentence, it 
 is better to split up " tha t " (a composite relative) into * that which " 
 and take "which we do know " as an Adjectival sentence. 
 
 THE MAPPING-OUT OF COMPLEX SENTENCES. 
 50. Complex Sentences should be mapped out on the same 
 principles as Simple Sentences. Let us take a sentence from 
 Mr Morris's " Jason " : — 
 
 * ' And in his hand he bare a mighty bow, 
 No man could bend of those that battle now." 
 This sentence may be drawn up after the following plan :•— 
 his hand 
 
 a mighty 
 
 He. 
 
 • 2 I 
 
 bare 
 
 bow 
 
 no man could bend 
 
 those 
 
 battle now. 
 
 (The single line indicates a preposition ; the double line a con 
 junction or conjunctive pronoun. ) 
 
 51. The larger number of subordinate sentences there are, 
 and the farther away they stand from the principal sentence, 
 the larger will be the space that the mapping-out will cover. 
 Let us take this sentence from an old Greek writer : — 
 
 "Thou art about, king! to make war against men who weai 
 leathern trousers, and have all their other garments of leather ; who 
 feed not on what they like, but on what they can get from a soil 
 that is sterile and unkindly ; who do not indulge in wine, but drink 
 water ; who possess no figs, nor anything else that is good to eat. " 
 This would be set out in the following way : — 
 Thou art about . . . against men 
 
 (i) wear . . . trousers 
 (ii) have . . . leather 
 (iii) feed not on that 
 
 1 
 
 I* 
 
 (a) they like 
 I 
 
110 
 
 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 (iv) feed on that 
 
 (b) they can get from a soil 
 
 (b 1 ) is sterile and unkindly 
 (v) do not . . . wine 
 (vi) drink water 
 (vii) possess no figs 
 (viii) possess not anything else 
 
 •M 
 c3 
 ,3 
 
 ■*» 
 
 (c) is good to eat. 
 
 52. Sentences may also be pigeon-holed, or placed in niarked- 
 off spaces or columns, like the following : — 
 
 "Thro' the black Tartar tents he passed, which stood 
 Clustering like bee-hives on the low black strand 
 Of Oxus, where the summer floods o'erflow 
 When the sun melts the snow in high Pamir." 
 
 Sentences. 
 
 A. He passed 
 through the 
 black Tartar 
 tents 
 
 (a) which clus- 
 
 tering like 
 
 (a) Adj. 
 
 bee - hives 
 
 sen- 
 
 stood on the 
 
 tence 
 
 strand of 
 
 to A. 
 
 Oxus, 
 
 
 
 (b)Adj. 
 
 (b) [intheplace] 
 
 sent. 
 
 which the 
 
 to 
 
 floods o'er- 
 
 place 
 
 flow 
 
 under- 
 
 (c) when 
 melts 
 
 Kind of 
 
 Sentence. 
 
 A. Prin. 
 
 sentence. 
 
 stood 
 
 (c) Adv. 
 sent, 
 to o'er- 
 flow 
 
 Subject. 
 
 He 
 
 which 
 
 floods 
 
 thei 
 
 Enlarge- 
 
 cluster- 
 ing 
 
 the sum- 
 mer 
 
 Predi- 
 cate. 
 
 stood 
 
 o'erflow 
 
 melts 
 
 Exten- 
 sion. 
 
 thro' the 
 tents 
 
 on the 
 low 
 black 
 strand 
 
 when in 
 high 
 Pamir 
 
 Object. 
 
 (which) 
 
THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCES. Ill 
 
 $3. There is a kind of Continuous Analysis, which may 
 often — not without henefit — be applied to longer passages, and 
 especially to passages taken from the poets. For example : — 
 
 " Alas ! the meanest herb that scents the gale, 
 The lowliest flower that blossoms in the va?e 
 Even where it dies, at spring's sweet call renews 
 To second life its odours and its hues." 
 
 1. Alas ! an interjection, with no syntactical relation to any word 
 
 in the sentence. 
 
 2. the meanest, attributive or enlargement to 3. 
 
 3. herb, Subject to 4. 
 
 4. renews, Predicate to 3. 
 
 5. odours and hues, Object to 4. 
 
 6. at . . . call, Extension of renews, to 4. 
 
 7. to . . . life, Extension of renews, to 4. 
 
 8. the lowliest, attributive or enlargement to 9. 
 
 9. flower, Subject to 10. 
 10. renews, Predicate to 9. 
 
 $•! 11. odours and hues, Object to 10. 
 
 12. at . . . call, Extension to 10. 
 
 13. to . . . life, Extension to 10. 
 
 (-14. 
 
 C 15. 
 
 1 16. 
 
 ri7. th 
 
 IM 18. bl 
 U9. in 
 
 that, Subject to 15 and connective to 3. 
 scents, Predicate to 14. 
 gale, Object to 15. 
 
 tnat, Subject to 18 and connective to 9. 
 blossoms, Predicate to 17. 
 the vale, Extension to 18. 
 
 {20. even, Adverb modifying 21. 
 21. where it dies, Extension to 18. 
 22. it, Subject of 23. 
 23. dies, Predicate of 22. 
 
 Ill— THE COMPOUND SENTENCE. 
 
 54. A Compound Sentence is one which consists of two 
 or more Simple Sentences packed, for convenience' sake, into 
 one. 
 
 Thus, in the " Lay of the Last Minstrel," Sir Walter Scott writes : — 
 
 M The way was long, the wind was cold, 
 The minstrel was infirm and old." 
 
 He might have put a full stop at long and at cold, for the sense ends 
 
112 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 in these places, and, grammatically, the two lines form three 
 separate and distinct sentences. But because in thought the three 
 are connected, the poet made one compound sentence out of the three 
 simple sentences. 
 
 55. A Compound Sentence may be contracted. 
 
 (i) If we say, "John jumped up and ran off, the sentence is=s 
 "John jumped up "+ "John ran off." It is therefore a compound 
 sentence consisting of two simple sentences, but, for convenience 
 sake, contracted in the subject. 
 
 It may be taken as a Compound Contracted Sentence, and should 
 be analysed as two connected sentences. 
 
 Compare : — And out again I curve and flow 
 To join the brimming river, 
 (ii) In the sentence, " Either a knave or a fool has done this," 
 the sentence is contracted in the predicate for the purpose of avoid- 
 ing the repetition of the verb has done. 
 
 (iii) In "The troops caught, and the King executed the rebels," 
 the sentence is contracted in the object, "the rebels" being the 
 object of both sentences. 
 (iv) Sometimes both Subject and Predicate are omitted, as — 
 " Who grewest not alone in power 
 And knowledge ; but from hour to hour 
 In reverence and in charity. " 
 Here "who grewest " must be inserted after " but." 
 
 (v) Some sentences require modification or addition before they 
 can be satisfactorily analysed. 
 
 1 ■ No land but listens to the common call, 
 And in return receives supply from all." 
 This may be rendered 
 
 There is no land | which listens not to the common call, J 
 And which in return receives not supply from all. " 
 Alterations, however, should never be made unless they are un- 
 avoidable. 
 
 CO-ORDINATE SENTENCES. 
 
 56. The Principal Co-ordinate Sentences of a Compound 
 Sentence are connected in various ways by different classes of 
 Conjunctions. The relationship of a sentence to a co-ordinate 
 one preceding it is either — 
 
 (a) Copulative or continuative. 
 
 (b) Disjunctive. 
 
 (c) Adversative. 
 
 (d) Illative. 
 
THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCES. 113 
 
 57. A Copulative Sentence is so connected with a preceding 
 one that the idea expressed by it agrees with or simply carries 
 further the thought going before. 
 
 Each change of many-coloured life he drew, 
 Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new. 
 The connectives of copulative sentences are : And, also, likewise, 
 
 moreover, further, furthermore ; and correlatives such as : both — 
 
 and ; not merely — but, etc. 
 
 note (i) The sense of the sentences and their relationship to one 
 another must be the chief guide in deciding the nature of the con- 
 nection. In many cases the connecting word in itself is mis- 
 leading. 
 
 We met a man at the gate, who told us the way. 
 Here the function of the sentence "who told," etc., is not to 
 qualify the preceding sentence, but to express an additional fact, 
 which is co-ordinate with the preceding. Who = and he, and is 
 really copulative. 
 
 (ii) He was not at home, which was a great pity. 
 "Which" does not introduce a subordinate qualifying sentence, 
 but is really copulative, introducing a co-ordinate sentence. It is 
 equivalent to " and this." 
 
 (iii) Nor and neither, when they are equivalent to " are not," are 
 copulative. 
 
 The enemy will not fight, nor will they even prepare for battle. 
 They refused to pay, neither did they offer to explain. 
 
 (iv) While and whilst are sometimes only copulative — 
 
 " The greater number laid their foreheads in the dust, whilst a 
 profound silence prevailed over ail." 
 
 The second sentence is noway subordinate to the first ; it is not 
 used to adverbially modify the first in regard to time, but to 
 introduce a sentence of equal rank, the two sentences being 
 co-ordinate. 
 
 (v) Sometimes the connective is entirely omitted, but the logical 
 connection of the sentences shows that the second is co-ordinate with, 
 and stands in copulative connection with, the first. 
 Her court was pure ; her life serene j 
 God gave her peace ; her land reposed. 
 
 58. A Disjunctive Sentence is a sentence which implies 
 exclusion, or presents an alternative to the one before it. 
 
 Neither a borrower nor a lender be. 
 
 The breath of heaven must swell" the sail, 
 
 Or all the toil is lost. 
 
114 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 The connectives of disjunctive sentences are : Either, or : neither 
 nor; and sometimes "else" and "otherwise." 
 
 59. An Adversative Sentence is one which expresses an 
 idea in opposition to or in contrast with that of a pre- 
 ceding one. 
 
 To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given ; 
 But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven. 
 
 The connectives of adversative sentences are : But, however, never- 
 theless, notwithstanding, only, still, yet ; and such correlatives as : 
 on the one hand — on the other hand, now — then. 
 
 note. — Sometimes the connective is not expressed : 
 
 They resent your honesty for an instant ; they will thank you for 
 it always. 
 
 60. An Illative Sentence expresses a reason or inference in 
 reference to one before it. Illative sentences may be — 
 
 (a) Illative Proper : when the idea expressed is a natural inference 
 
 from or implied consequence of what is previously expressed. 
 
 The leaves are falling ; therefore the swallows will soon be gone. 
 
 (b) Causative : when the idea expressed forms the grounds of a 
 
 certain inference expressed in the preceding sentence. 
 
 The swallows will soon be gone ; for the leaves are falling. 
 The connectives are (a) Illative Proper : Therefore, hence, so, con- 
 sequently, etc. 
 (b) Causative : For. 
 
 Caution. — Great care is necessary in distinguishing be- 
 tween an Illative Sentence and an Adverbial Sentence of 
 Consequence. 
 
 Thus in the sentence, The leaves are falling ; therefore the swallows 
 will soon be gone, the second sentence is a fair inference from, but not 
 a necessary consequence of, the first, and is an Illative Sentence. 
 
 "Whereas in the sentence, The leaves are falling ; therefore the trees 
 will soon be bare, the second sentence is a necessary consequence of 
 the first, and is an Adverbial Sentence of Effect or Consequence. 
 
 The student may draw for himself a corresponding distinction be- 
 tween 
 
 The swallows will soon be gone ; for the leaves are falling, 
 
 and 
 The trees will soon be bare : for the leaves are falling. 
 
THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCES. 115 
 
 61. Note. — (i) In some cases an introductory " for " is 
 simply a preposition, and the sentence is neither Illative 
 nor Adverbial. 
 
 For pathless marsh and mountain cell 
 The peasant left his lonely shed. 
 
 (ii) The connection in the following is exceptional : — 
 
 And out again I curve and flow 
 
 To join the brimming river ; 
 For men may come, and men may go, 
 
 But I go on for ever. 
 
 " For men may come " is neither an Illative nor an Adverbial 
 Sentence, but a co-ordinate sentence, copulative to the preceding 
 ones. 
 
 In Illative Sentences the connective is very rarely omitted, but 
 examples are not unknown. 
 
 Milton ! thou shouldst be living at this hour : 
 England hath need of thee ; she is a fen 
 Of stagnant waters. 
 
 The second and third sentences are in illative relationship to the 
 first ; they give the grounds of the first statement, and might fitly 
 begin with for. 
 
 PARENTHETICAL SENTENCES. 
 
 62. Sometimes sentences are interposed in a way that com- 
 plicates the analysis. 
 
 These are the very people who you thought were lost. 
 
 Here ' ' who were lost " is really a noun sentence to its principal 
 "you thought"; but it is an adjectival sentence to the real prin- 
 cipal " These are the very people. " ' ' You thought " is therefore best 
 taken as a parenthetical sentence, having a principal relationship to 
 n who were lost." 
 
 In other cases the relationship of the interposed sentence to the 
 rest of the sentence is less clear. 
 
 Then I stood up — and I was scarcely conscious of my surroundings 
 — and fired my gun. 
 
 The interposed sentence may be regarded as principal and co- 
 ordinate with the other two, but on account of its loose relationship 
 it is better taken as simply " parenthetical." 
 
116 
 
 WORD-BUILDING AND DERIVATION. 
 
 1. The primary element — that which is the shortest form — 
 of a word is called its root. Thus tal (which means number) is 
 the root of the words tale and tell and till (a box for money). 
 
 2. The stem is the root + some modification. Thus love 
 ( = lov + e) is the stem of the root lov. 
 
 3. It is to the stem that all inflexions are added, and thus to 
 love we add d for the past tense. 
 
 4. If to the root we add a suffix, then the word so formed is 
 called a derivative. Thus by adding ling to dar ( = dear), 
 we make darling. 
 
 5. In general, we add English prefixes and English suffixes 
 to English words ; but this is not always the case. Thus we 
 have cottage, where the Latin ending age is added to the Eng- 
 lish word cot; and covetousness, where the English ending 
 ness is added to the Latin word covetous. Such words are 
 called hybrids. 
 
 6. When two words are put together to make one, the one 
 word so made is called a compound. 
 
 7. The adding of prefixes or of suffixes to words, or the 
 making one word out of two, is called word-formation. 
 
 COMPOUND NOUNS. 
 
 8. Compound Nouns are formed by the addition of : — 
 (i) Noun and Noun, as — 
 
 Bandog (= bond-dog). Brimstone (= burn-stone). 
 
 Bridal ( = bride-ale). Bylaw ( = law for a by or town). 
 
COMPOUND ADJECTIVES. 
 
 117 
 
 Daisy ( = day's eye). 
 
 Evensong. 
 
 Garlic (= gar-leek = spear-leek ; 
 
 O.E. gdr, spear). 
 Gospel ( = God's spell = story). 
 Housetop. 
 
 Huzzy ( = housewife). 
 Icicle ( = is-gicel = ice-jag). 
 
 (ii) Noun and Adjective, as — 
 
 Blackbird. Midnight. 
 
 Freeman. Midsummer. 
 
 Lapwing ( = leap-wing). 
 Nightingale ( = night-singer). 
 Orchard ( = ort-yard = wort-yard, i.e., 
 
 herb-garden).' 
 Railway. 
 Tadpole ( = toad-head. Pole = poll, a 
 
 head, as in poll-tax). 
 Wednesday ( = Woden's day). 
 
 Quicksilver. 
 
 Twilight ( = two lights). 
 
 t& Blackfbird has the accent on black, and is one word. A blackfbird need not be a 
 black' bird'. 
 
 (iii) Noun and Verb, as- 
 Bakehouse. 
 Cutpurse. 
 Godsend. 
 
 Grindstone. 
 Pickpocket. 
 Screech-owl 
 
 (iv) Noun and Adverb, as offshoot. 
 
 (v) Noun and Preposition, as afterthought. 
 
 (vi) Verb and Adverb, as — 
 
 Castaway. Drawback. 
 
 Welfare. 
 
 Farewell. 
 
 Spendthrift. 
 
 Wagtail. 
 
 Washtub. 
 
 Outlook. 
 Welcome. 
 
 COMPOUND ADJECTIVES. 
 
 9. There are in the language a great many compound adjec- 
 tives, such as heart-whole, sea-sick, etc.; and these are formed 
 in a large number of different ways. 
 
 Compound adjectives may be formed in the following ways : — 
 
 (i) Noun + Adjective, as purse-proud, wind-swift, way-weary, sea- 
 green, lily-white. 
 
 (ii) Noun + Present Participle, as ear-piercing, death-boding, heart- 
 rending, spirit-stirring, sea-faring, night-walking, home-keeping. 
 
 (iii) Noun + Passive Participle, as moth-eaten, worm-eaten, tempest- 
 tossed, way-laid, forest-born, copper-fastened, moss-clad, sea-girt. 
 
 (iv) Adverb + Present Participle, as far-darting, everlasting, high- 
 Btepping, well-meaning, long-suffering, far-reaching, hard-working. 
 
 (v) Adverb + Passive Participle, as high-born, low-pitched, well-bred, 
 thorough-bred, high-strung, ill-pleased. 
 
118 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 (vi) Noun + Noun + ed, as hare-brained, dog-hearted, beetle- headed, 
 periwig-pated, club-footed, lily-livered, trumpet-tongued, eagle-eyed. 
 
 (vii) Adjective + Noun + ed, as evil-eyed, grey-headed, thin-faced, 
 empty-headed, tender-hearted, thick-lipped, two-legged, three-cornered, 
 four-sided, high-minded, bald-pated. 
 
 (viii) Noun + Noun, as lion-heart, iron-side. 
 
 (ix) Adverb + Noun + ed, as down-hearted, under-handed. 
 
 COMPOUND VERBS. 
 
 10. There are not many compound verbs in the English 
 language. The few that there are are formed thus : — 
 
 (i) Verb and Noun, as — 
 
 Backbite. Hamstring. Hoodwink. 
 
 Browbeat. Henpeck. Kiln -dry. 
 
 (ii) Verb and Adjective, as— 
 
 Dumfound. Fulfil ( = nll full). Whitewash, 
 
 (iii) Verb and Adverb, as — 
 Doff ( = do off). Dout ( = do out). Cross-question. 
 
 Don ( = do on). Dup ( = do up). Outdo. 
 
 THE FORMATION OF ADVERBS. 
 
 11. Adverbs are derived from Nouns, from Adjectives, from 
 Pronouns, and from Prepositions. 
 
 a. Adverbs derived from Nouns are either : (i) Old. Posses- 
 sives, or (ii) Old Datives, or (iii) Compounds of a Noun and 
 a Preposition : — 
 
 (i) Old Possessives : Needs = of need, or of necessity. The Calendrer 
 
 says to John Gilpin about his hat and wig — 
 
 " My head is twice as big as yours, 
 They therefore needs must fit." 
 
 Of the same class are : always, nowadays, betimes. 
 
 (ii) Old Datives. These are seldom and the old-fashioned whilom 
 ( = in old times). 
 
 (iii) Compounds: anon = (in one moment), abed ( = on bed) asleep, 
 aloft, abroad, indeed, of a truth, by turns, perchance, perhaps. 
 
 b. Adverbs derived from Adjectives are either : (i) Old 
 Possessives, or (ii) Old Datives, or (iii) Compounds of an 
 Adjective and a Preposition : — 
 
 (i) Old Possessives: else (ell-es, possessive of cd = other), unawares, 
 once ( = ones), twice, thrice, etc. 
 
PKEFIXES. 
 
 119 
 
 (ii) Old Datives. The old English way of forming an adverb was 
 simply to use the dative case of the adjective — which ended in e. Thus 
 we had deep€, brighte, for deeply and brightly. Then the e dropped 
 away. Hence it is that there are in English several adverbs exactly 
 like adjectives. These are : fast, hard, right (in " Right Reverend "), 
 far, ill, late, early, loud, high. 
 
 (iii) Compounds of an Adjective and a Preposition : on high, in 
 vain, in short, at large, of late, etc. 
 
 c. Adverbs derived from Pronouns come from the pronominal 
 stems : who, the (or this), and he. The following is a table, 
 and it is important to note the beautiful correspondences : — 
 
 Pronominal 
 
 Stems. 
 
 Place 
 In. 
 
 Place 
 To. 
 
 Place 
 From. 
 
 Time 
 In. 
 
 Manner. 
 
 Cause. 
 
 Who 
 
 Where 
 
 Whither 
 
 Whence 
 
 Whe-n 
 
 Ho-W 
 
 Wh-y 
 
 Th-e or th-ia 
 
 The-re 
 
 Thi-ther 
 
 The-nce 
 
 The-n 
 
 Th-us 
 
 Th-e 
 
 He 
 
 He-re 
 
 Hi-ther 
 
 Hence 
 
 
 
 
 (i) How and why are two forms of the same word — the instrumental 
 case of who. How = in what way ? Why = with what reason ? 
 
 (ii) The, in the last column, is the adverbial the (A.S. thy) before a 
 comparative. It is the instrumental or ablative case of that or thaet. 
 " The more, the merrier " =by that more, by that merrier. That is, the 
 measure of the increase in the number is the measure of the increase in 
 the merriment. 
 
 (iii) Thus is the instrumental case of this, and is = in this manner. 
 
 d. Compound Adverbs are formed by adding together — 
 (i) Noun and Noun, as lengthways, endways, 
 (ii) Noun and Adjective, as — 
 
 Always. Head-foremost. Otherwise. 
 
 Breast-high. Meanwhile. Sometimes, 
 
 (iii) Preposition and Noun, as Aboveboard, outside, 
 (iv) Adverb and Preposition, as — 
 
 Hereafter. Therein. Whereupon. 
 
 PREFIXES AND SUFFIXES. 
 
 12. The Prefixes used in our language are of English, French, 
 Latin, and Greek origin. 
 
 (i) French is only a modified Latin. Hence French prefixes fall 
 naturally under Latin prefixes, as the one is only a form of the other. 
 
120 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 13. English Prefixes are divided into Inseparable and 
 Separable. Inseparable Prefixes are those that have no mean- 
 ing by themselves and cannot be used apart from another word. 
 Separable Prefixes may be used and are used as independent 
 words. 
 
 14. The following are the most important 
 
 English Inseparable Prefixes : — 
 
 1. A (a broken-down form of O.E. an = on), as — 
 Abed. Aloft ( = in the lift or sky). A-building. 
 
 Aboard. Away. Athwart ( = on the cross). 
 
 2. Be (an O.E. form of by), which has several functions : — 
 
 (i) To add an intensive force to transitive verbs, as — 
 
 Bedaub. Beseech Besmear. 
 
 Besprinkle. ( = beseek). Besmirch. 
 
 (ii) To turn intransitive verbs into transitive, as — 
 
 Bemoan. Bespeak. Belie 
 
 (iii) To make verbs out of nouns or adjectives, as — 
 
 Befriend. Beguile. Benumb. Betroth. 
 
 Besiege ( = to take a siege or seat beside a town till it surrenders). 
 
 (iv) To combine with nouns, as — 
 
 Behalf. Bequest. Bypath. 
 
 Behest. Byname. Byword. 
 
 (v) To form part of prepositions and adverbs, as before, besides, etc. 
 
 3. For (O.E. for = Lat. per) means thoroughly, and has two func- 
 tions : — 
 
 (i) To add an intensive meaning, as in — 
 
 Forbear. Forget. Forswear. 
 
 Fordone ( = ruined). Forgive. Forlorn ( = utterly lost). 
 
 jJ2T Forswear means to swear out and out, to swear to anything, hence falsely. 
 Compare the Latin perjurare ; hence our perjure. 
 
 (ii) To give a negative meaning, as in forgo (wrongly spelled forego), 
 to go without. 
 
 4. Fore = before ; as forebode, forecast. (Fore is also used separately.) 
 
 5. Gain (O.E. gaegn, back, again), found in gainsay (to speak 
 against) ; gainstand. 
 
PREFIXES. 121 
 
 6. Mis (O.E. mis, wrong ; and connected with the verb to miss), 
 as in — 
 
 Misdeed. Mislead. Mistrust. Mistake. 
 
 Caution. — When mis occurs in French words, it is a shortened form 
 of minus, less ; as in mischief, mischance, miscount, miscreant ( = non- 
 believer). 
 
 7. Th, the base of the third personal pronoun and its cognates, and 
 indicating something spoken of, as in — 
 
 Those. That. Thither. They. 
 
 This. There. Thence. The. 
 
 8. Un=not, as 
 
 Unholy. Undo. Unbind. 
 
 9. Wan (O.E. wan, wanting ; and connected with wane), which is 
 found in — 
 
 Wanton ( = wantowen, Wanhope ( = despair), 
 
 lacking education). Wan trust. 
 
 10. With (a shortened form of O.E. wither — back or against) is 
 found in — 
 
 Withstand. Withdraw. Withhold. 
 
 £3T It exists also in a latent form in the word drawing-room = withdrawing* 
 room. 
 
 15. The following are the most important 
 
 English Separable Prefixes : — 
 
 1. After, which is found in — 
 
 Aftergrowth. Aftermath {from mow). Afternoon. 
 
 2. All (O.E. al, quite), which is found in- 
 
 Almighty. Alone (quite by one's self). Almost. 
 
 3. Forth, found in forthcoming, forward, etc. 
 i. Fro (a shortened form of from), in fro ward. 
 
 5. In appears in modern English in two forms, as :— ■ 
 
 (i) In, in — 
 
 Income. Insight. Instep. 
 
 Inborn. Inbred. Inlay. 
 
 (ii) En or em (which is a Frenchified form), in — 
 
 Endear. Entwine. Embolden. 
 
 Enlighten. Embitter. 
 
122 
 
 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 6. Of or off (which are two spellings of the same word), as- 
 
 Offspring. Offset. 
 
 Offshoot. Offal (that which falls off). 
 
 7. On, as in onset, onslaught, onward. 
 
 8. Out, which takes also the form of ut, as in — 
 
 Outbreak. 
 Outcast. 
 
 Outside. 
 Outpost. 
 
 Utter. 
 Utmost. 
 
 9. Over (the comparative of the ove in above), which combines : — 
 (i) With nouns, as in — 
 
 Overcoat. Overflow. Overhand, 
 
 (ii) With adjectives, as in — 
 
 Over-bold. Over-merry. Over-proud. 
 
 (Shakespeare is very fond of such forms.) 
 (iii) With verbs, as in — 
 
 Overthrow. Overspread. Overhear. 
 
 10. Thorough or through, two forms of the same word, as in — 
 Throughout. Through-train. Thorough -bred. Thoroughfare. 
 
 Shakespeare has ' ' thorough bush, thorough brier, thorough flood, thorough fire. 
 
 11. Twi = two, in twilight, twin, twist, etc. (The form twi is now 
 inseparable. ) 
 
 12. Under, which goes : — 
 (i) With verbs, as in — 
 
 Underlie. Undersell. Undergo, 
 
 (ii) With nouns, as in — 
 
 Underhand. Underground. Undertone 
 
 (iii) With other words, as in — 
 
 Underneath. 
 
 
 Underlying. 
 
 13. Up, which goes: — 
 
 
 
 (i) With verbs, as in — 
 
 
 
 Upbear. 
 
 Upbraid. 
 
 Uphold. 
 
 (ii) With nouns, as in — 
 
 
 
 Upland. 
 
 Upstart. 
 
 Upshot. 
 
 (iii) With other words, as 
 
 in — 
 
 
 Upright. 
 
 
 Upward. 
 
PREFIXES. 1 2 3 
 
 16. There are in use in our language many Latin Prefixes ; 
 and many of them are of great service. Some of them, as 
 circum (about), come to us direct from Latin ; others, like 
 counter (against), have come to us through the medium of 
 French. The following are the most important 
 
 Latin Prefixes : — 
 
 1. A, ab, abs (Fr. a, av), away from, as in — 
 
 Avert. Abjure. Absent. Abstain. 
 
 Avaunt. Advantage (which ought to be avantage). 
 
 2. Ad (Fr. a), to, which in composition becomes ac, af, ag, al, an, ap, 
 ar, as, at, to assimilate with the first consonant of the root. The fol- 
 lowing are examples of each : — 
 
 Adapt. Affect. Accord. Agree. 
 
 Aggression. Allude. Annex. Appeal. 
 
 Arrive. Assimilate. Attain. Attend. 
 
 £3T All these words come straight to us from Latin, except agree, arrive, and 
 attain. The following are also French : Achieve (to bring to a chef or headX 
 amount, acquaint. 
 
 3. Amb, am (ambi, about), as in — 
 
 Ambition. Ambiguous. Amputate. 
 
 4. Ante (Fr. an), before, as in — 
 
 Antedate. Antechamber. Ancestor (= antecessor). 
 
 5. Bis, bi, twice, as in — 
 
 Bisect. Biscuit ( = biscoctus, twice baked). 
 
 6. Circum, circa, around, as in — 
 
 Circumference. Circulate. Circuit. 
 
 7. Cum, with, in French com, which becomes col, con, cor, conn, and 
 co before a vowel, as in — 
 
 Compound. Collect. Content. Correct. 
 
 Counsel. Countenance. Coeval. Cooperate. 
 
 (i) In cost (from constare, to "stand"); couch (from coUoco, I place); cuU 
 (from colligo, I collect); and cousin (from consobrinus, the child of a mother's 
 sister), the prefix has undergone great changes 
 
 (ii) Co, though of Latin origin, can go with purely English words, as in co- 
 worker, co-understanding. These are not desirable compounds. 
 
 8. Contra (Fr. contre), against, which also becomes contro and 
 counter, as in — 
 
 Contradict. Controvert. Counterbalance, 
 
 (i) In counterweigh and counterwork we find it in union with English roots. 
 (Ii) In encounter we find it converted into a root. 
 
124 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 9. De (Ft. de), down, from, about, as in — 
 
 Decline. Describe. Defer (to a person} 
 
 It has also two different functions. It is — 
 (i) negative in destroy, deform, desuetude, etc. 
 (ii) intensive in desolate, desiccate (to dry up), etc. 
 
 10. Dis, di (Fr. des, de), asunder, in two, as in — 
 
 Dissimilar. Disarm. Dismember. 
 
 Differ (s becomes f). Disease. Divorce. 
 
 Defy. Defer ( = delay). Delay. 
 
 (i) Dis is also joined with English roots to make the hybrids disown, dislike, 
 distrust, distaste. 
 
 Ii. Ex, e (Fr. es, e), out of, from, as in — 
 
 Exalt. Exhale. Expatriate (patria, one's country). 
 
 Elect. Evade. Educe. 
 
 (i) ex has a privative sense in ex-emperor, etc. 
 (ii) In amend (emendo), astonish (etonner), the e is disguised, 
 (iii) In sample (short for example), scorch (O. Fr. escorcer), and special (for 
 especial), the e has fallen away. 
 
 12. Extra, beyond, as in — 
 
 Extraneous. Extraordinary. Extravagant, 
 
 (i) In stranger (O. Fr. estranger, from Lat. extraneus) the e has fallen away. 
 
 13. In (Fr. en, em), in, into, which changes into 11, im, lr, as in — 
 
 Invade. Invent (to come upon). Infer. 
 
 Illusion. Improve. Immigrate. 
 
 Imbue. Irrigate. Irradiate. 
 
 Enchant. Endure. Envoy. 
 
 (i) It unites with English roots to make the hybrids embody, embolden, endear, 
 entrust, enlighten, etc. 
 (ii) In ambush (Ital. imboscare, to put one's self in a wood), the in is disguised. 
 
 14. In, not, which becomes il, im, ir, and ig, as in — 
 
 Inconvenient. Illiberal. Impious. Irrelevant. 
 
 Incautious. Illegal. Impolitic. Ignoble. 
 
 (i) The English prefix un sometimes takes its place, and forms hybrids with 
 Latin roots in unable, unapt, uncomfortable. 
 (ii) Shakespeare has unpossible, unproper, and many others. 
 
 15. Inter, Intro (Fr. entre), between, among — as in 
 
 Intercede. Interpose. Interfere. 
 
 Introduce. Entertain. Enterprise. 
 
 16. Male (Fr. mau), ill, as in — 
 
 Malediction, (contracted through French into) 
 Malison (opposed to Benison). Maugre. 
 
PREFIXES. 
 
 125 
 
 17. Mis (Fr. mes, from Latin minus), less, as in — 
 Misadventure. Mischance. Mischief. 
 
 Caution. — Not to be confounded with the English prefix mis in mis- 
 take, mistrust, etc. 
 
 18. Non, not, as in — 
 
 Nonsense. Non-existent. Nonsuit. 
 
 (i) The initial n has dropped off in umpire, formerly numpire = 0. Fr. nonper** 
 Lat. nonpar, not equal. 
 
 (ii) The n has fallen away likewise from norange, napron (connected with nap- 
 kin, napery), etc., by wrongly cleaving to the indefinite article a. 
 
 19. Ob, against, becomes oc, of, op, etc., as in — 
 
 Obtain. Occur. Offend. Oppose. 
 
 20. Pene, almost, as in — 
 
 Peninsula. Penultimate (the last but one). 
 
 21. Per (Fr. par), through, which becomes pel, as in — 
 
 Pellucid. Perform. Perjure. 
 
 Perfect. Permit. Pilgrim. 
 
 (i) Pilgrim comes from peregrinus, a person who wanders per agros, through 
 the fields,— by the medium of Itai pellegrino. 
 (ii) Perhaps is a hybrid. 
 
 22. Post, after, as in— 
 
 Postpone. Postdate. Postscript. 
 
 The post is much disguised in puny, which comes from the French puis ni=* 
 Lat. post natus, born after. A "puisne (puny) judge" is a junior judge, or a 
 judge of a later creation. 
 
 23. Prae, pre (Fr. pre), before, as in— 
 
 Predict. Presume. Pretend. Prevent, 
 
 (i) It is shortened into a pr in prize, prison, comprise (all from prehendo, I seize), 
 (ii) It is disguised in provost (prepositus, one placed over), in preach (from pros 
 dico, I speak before), and provender (from prozbeo, I furnish). 
 
 24. Praeter, beyond, as in — 
 
 Preternatural. Preterite (beyond the present). Pretermit. 
 
 25. Pro (Fr. pour), which becomes pol, por, pur, as in— 
 Pronoun. Proconsul. Procure. Protest. 
 Portray. Portrait. Pursue. Purchase. 
 
 26. Re (Fr. re), back, again, which becomes red, as in — 
 Rebel. Reclaim. . Recover. Refer. 
 Redeem. Redound. Readmit. Recreant. 
 
 (i) It is much disguised in rally ( = re-ally), in ransom (a shortened Fr. form of r* 
 demption), and in runagate ( = renegade, one who has denied — negavit — his faith) 
 (ii) It combines with English roots to form the hybrids relay, reset, recall. 
 K 
 
126 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 27. Retro, backwards — as in retrograde, retrospect. 
 
 (i) It is disguised in rear -guard (O.F. arieregarde), rear, and arrears. 
 
 28. Se (Fr. se), apart, which becomes sed, as in — 
 
 Secede. Seclude. Seduce. Sedition. 
 
 29. Sub (Fr. sous or sou), under, which becomes sue, suf, sud, sum, 
 sup, sur, and sus, as in — 
 
 Subtract. Succour. Suffer. Suggest. 
 
 Summon. Supplant. Surrender. Suspend. 
 
 (i) Sub is disguised in sojourn (from O. Fr. sojorner, from Low Latin subdiurndre), 
 and in sudden (from Latin subitaneus). 
 
 (ii) It combines with English roots to form the hybrids sublet, subworker, sub- 
 kingdom, etc. 
 
 30. Subter, beneath — as in subterfuge. 
 
 31. Super (Fr. sur), above, as in — 
 
 Supernatural. Superpose. Superscription. 
 
 Surface (superficies). Surname. Surtout (over-all). 
 
 (i) It is disguised in sovereign (which Milton more correctly spells sovran), from 
 Low Latin superanus. 
 
 32. Trans (Fr. tres), beyond, which becomes tra, as in — 
 Translate. Transport. Transform. Transitive. 
 Tradition. Traverse. Travel. 
 
 (i) It is disguised in treason (the Fr. form of tradition, from trado (=transdo), 
 I give up), in betray and traitor (from the same Latin root), in trance and entrance 
 (Latin transitu*, a passing beyond), and in trestle (from Latin diminutive transtil- 
 lum, a little cross-beam). 
 
 33. Ultra, beyond, as in — 
 
 Ultra-Liberal. Ultra-Tory. Ultramontane, 
 
 (i) In outrage (O. Fr. oultrage) the ultra is disguised. 
 
 34. Unus, one, which becomes uu and uni, as in — 
 Unanimous. Uniform. Unicorn. 
 
 35. Vice (Fr. vice), in the place of, as in — 
 
 Viceroy. Vicar. Vice-chancellor. Viscount. 
 
 17. Our language possesses also a considerable number of 
 prefixes transferred from the Greek language, many of which 
 are very useful. The following are the most important 
 
 Greek Prefixes : — 
 
 1. An, a {av, a), not, as in — 
 
 Anarchy. Anonymous. Apteryx (the wingless). Atheist. 
 
 2. Amphi (a/mipl), on both sides, as in — 
 
 Amphibious. Amphitheatre. 
 
PREFIXES. 
 
 127 
 
 3. Ana (ayd) } up, again, back, as in — 
 
 Anatomy. Analysis. Anachronism. 
 
 4. Anti (ivri), against or opposite to, as in— 
 
 Antidote. Antipathy. Antipodes. Antarctic. 
 
 5. Apo (dirJ), away from, which also becomes ap, as in — , 
 
 Apostate. Apostle. Apology. Aphelion. 
 
 6. Arch, archl, arche (apxt), chief, as in — 
 
 Archbishop. Archangel. Architect Archetype. 
 
 7. Auto (avr6s) t self, which becomes auth, as in — 
 
 Autocrat Autograph. Autotype. Authentic. 
 
 8. Cata, cat (Kara), down, as in — 
 
 Catalogue. Catapult. Catechism. Cathedral. 
 
 9. Dia (8ia), through, across, as in — 
 
 Diameter. Diagram. Diagonal. 
 
 (i) This prefix is disguised in devil-^from Gr. diabolos, the accuser or slanderer, 
 from Gr. didballein, to slander. 
 
 10. Dis, dl (5is), twice, as in — 
 
 Dissyllable. Diphthong. Diglott. 
 
 11. Dys (8vs), ill, as in — 
 
 Dysentery. Dyspeptic (contrasts with Eupeptic). 
 
 12. Ec, ex (At, ££), out of, as in — 
 
 Eccentric. Ecstasy. Exodus. Exotic. 
 
 13. En (&), in, which becomes el and em, as in — 
 
 Encyclical. Encomium. Ellipse. Emphasis. 
 
 14. Epi, ep {iirl), upon, as in— 
 
 Epitaph. Epiphany. Epoch. Ephemeral. 
 
 15. Eu («3), well, which also becomes ev, as in — 
 
 Euphemism. Eulogy. Evangelist. 
 
 16. Heml (V0» half. ■■ m — 
 
 Hemisphere. Hemistich (half a line in poetry). 
 
 17. Hyper (tnrtp), over and above, as in — 
 
 Hyperborean. Hyperbole. Hypercritical. Hypermetrical. 
 
 18. Hypo, hyp (vtt6), under, as in — 
 
 Hypocrite. Hypotenuse. Hyphen. 
 
 19. Meta, met {^ri), after, changed for, as in — 
 
 Metaphor. Metamorphosis. Metonymy. Method. 
 
 20. Mono, mon [fxSvos), alone, as in — 
 
 Monogram. Monody. Monad. Monk. 
 
128 
 
 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 21. Pan (trau — stem iravr-), all, as in — 
 
 Pantheist. Panacea. Panorama. Pantomime. 
 
 22. Para {rrapd), by the side of, which becomes par, as in — 
 
 Paradox. 
 
 Parallel. 
 
 23. Peri (-Kepi), round, as in- 
 Perimeter. Period. 
 
 24 
 
 Parish. 
 
 Perigee. 
 
 Parody. 
 Periphery. 
 
 Pro {TrpS), before, as in — 
 Prophet. Prologue. Proboscis. Problem. 
 
 25. Pros {irpSs), towards, as in — 
 
 Prosody. Proselyte. 
 
 26. Syn (<rvv), with, which becomes syl, sym, and sy, as in — 
 
 Syntax. Synagogue. Syllable. 
 
 Sympathy. Symbol. System. 
 
 18. The Suffixes employed in the English language are much 
 more numerous than the Prefixes, and much more useful. Like 
 the Prefixes, they come to us from three sources — from Old 
 English (or Anglo-Saxon) ; from Latin (or French) ; and from 
 Greek. 
 
 19. The following are the most important 
 ■ 
 
 English Suffixes to Nouns : — 
 
 1. Ard or art ( = habitual), as in — 
 
 Braggart. Coward. Drunkard. Dullard. 
 
 Laggard. Niggard. Sluggard. Wizard. 
 
 2. Craft (skill), as in — 
 
 Leechcraf t ( = medicine). Priestcraft. "Witchcraft. 
 Woodcraft. Rimecraft (old name for Arithmetic). 
 
 3. D, t or th (all being dentals), as in — 
 
 (i) Blood (from blow, said Blade (from the same). Deed (do). 
 
 of flowers). 
 Flood (flow). 
 
 (ii) Drift (drive). 
 Flight (fly). 
 
 Rift (rive). 
 
 (iii) Aftermath (mow) 
 Death (die). 
 Mirth (merry). 
 
 Seed (sow). 
 
 Drought (dry). 
 Height (high : Milton 
 uses highth). 
 Theft (thieve). 
 
 Berth (bear). 
 Earth (ear = plough) 
 Sloth (slow). 
 
 Thread (throw). 
 
 Draught (draw). 
 Shrift (shrive). 
 
 Weft (weave). 
 
 Dearth (dear). 
 Health (heal). 
 Tilth (till). 
 
SUFFIXES. 129 
 
 4. Dom (O.E. d6m=doom), power, office, from deman, to judge, as 
 in — 
 
 Dukedom. Kingdom. Halidom (= holiness). 
 
 Christendom. Thraldom. Wisdom. 
 
 (i) In O.E. we had 6tsceop<Wm(=bishopdom); and Carlyle has accustomed us 
 to rascaldom and scoundreldom. 
 
 5. En (a diminutive), as in — 
 
 Chicken (cock). Kitten (cat). Maiden, 
 
 (i) The addition of a syllable has a tendency to modify the preceding vowel— as 
 in kitchen (from cook), vixen (from fox), and national (from nation). 
 
 6. Er, which has three functions, to denote — 
 (i) An agent, as in — 
 
 Baker. Dealer. Leader. Writer. 
 
 (ii) An Instrument, as in — 
 
 Finger (from O.E. fangan, to take). Stair (from stigan, to mount) 
 
 (iii) A male agent, as in — 
 
 Fuller (from fuUian, to cleanse). Player. Sower. 
 
 I3T The ending er has become disguised in liar and sailor (not sailer, 
 which is a ship). Under the influence of Norman-French, an i or y 
 creeps in before the r, as in collier (from coal), lawyer, glazier (from 
 glass), etc. 
 
 7. Hood (O.E. h&d), state, rank, person, as in — 
 
 Brotherhood. Childhood. Priesthood. Wifehood, 
 
 (i) In Godhead, this suffix takes the form of head. 
 
 8. Ing (originally = son of) part, as in — 
 
 Farthing {fourth). Riding (thriding—thirding). Tithing (tenth). 
 
 (i) This suffix is found as a patronymic in many proper names, such as Brown- 
 ing, Harding ; and in Kensington, Whittington, etc. 
 
 (ii) Lording (=the son of a lord) and whiting (from white) are also diminutives. 
 
 (iii) This ing is to be carefully distinguished from the ing (=ung) which was 
 the old suffix for verbal nouns, as clothing, learning, etc. 
 
 9. Kin (a diminutive), as in — 
 
 Bodkin. Firkin (from four). Lambkin. Mannikin. 
 
 Found also In proper names, as in Dawkins (= son of little David), Jenkins (= son 
 of little John), Hawkins (son of little Hat), Perkins (=son of little Peter). 
 
 10. Ling= 1 + lng (both diminutives), as in — 
 
 Darling (from dear). Duckling. Gosling (goose). 
 
 Firstling. Hireling. Nestling. 
 
 (i) Every diminutive has a tendency to run into depreciation, as in ground- 
 ling, underling, worldling, etc. 
 
 (ii) In some words, ing has been weakened into y or ie, as in Johnnie, Silly, 
 Betty, etc. 
 
130 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 11. Le or 1, as in — 
 
 Beadle (from beodan, to bid). Bundle (bind). Saddle (seat). 
 Settle (seat). Nail. SaiL 
 
 12. Lock (O.E. lac, gift, sport), which also becomes ledge, as in — 
 
 Knowledge. Wedlock. Feohtldc (battle). 
 
 (i) This is not to he confused with the lock and lick in the names of plants, 
 which in O.E. was Uac, and which we find in hemlock, charlock, and garlick 
 (= spear plant). Lac, sport, reappears in lark, a trick (intrusive r). 
 
 13. Ness forms abstract nouns from adjectives, as in — 
 
 Darkness. Holiness. Weakness. Weariness. 
 
 (i) Witness differs from the above in two respects : (a) it comes from a verb — 
 witan, to know ; and (&) is not always an abstract noun. 
 
 (ii) This English suffix combines very easily with foreign roots, as in acute- 
 ness, commodiousnes8, gracefulness, remoteness, and many others. 
 
 14. Nd (which is the ending of the present participle in O.E.), found 
 in— 
 
 Friend (=the loving one). Fiend (=the hating one). 
 
 Errand. Wind (from a root vd, to blow). 
 
 15. Ock (a diminutive), as in — 
 
 Bullock. Hillock. Ruddock (=redbreast). 
 
 (i) In hawk (=the seizer. from have) this suffix is disguised. 
 (ii) It is also found in proper names, as in — 
 
 Pollock (from Paul). Maddox (from Matthew). Wilcox (from William). 
 
 16. M or om, which forms nouns from verbs, as in — 
 
 Bloom (from blow). Qualm (from quell). 
 
 Gloom (from glow). Seam (from sew). 
 
 Gleam (from glow). Team (from tow). 
 
 (i) This suffix unites with the Norman-French word rial (royal) to form the 
 hybrid realm. 
 
 17. Red (mode, fashion — and also counsel), as in — 
 
 Hatred. Kindred. Sibrede (relationship). 
 
 (i) This ending is also found in proper nouns. Thus we have Mildred— mild, 
 in counsel; Ethelredj=nobte in counsel, called also Unrede, which does not mean 
 unready, but without counsel. 
 
 18. Rlc (O.E. rice, power, dominion) — as in bishopric, 
 (i) In O.E. we had abbotric, hevenricke, and kingric. 
 
 19. Ship (O.E. scipe, shape or form), which is also spelled scape 
 and skip, makes abstract nouns, as in — 
 
 Fellowship. Friendship. Lordship 
 
 Landscape. Workmanship. Worship (=worthship). 
 
 (i) Milton writes landskip for landscape. 
 
SUFFIXES. 131 
 
 20. Stead (O.E. st^de, place), as in— 
 
 Bedstead. Homestead. Hampstead. Berkhamstead. 
 
 21. Sterwas originally the feminine of er,the suffix for a male 
 agent : it has now two functions : — 
 
 (i) It denotes an agent, as in — 
 
 Huckster (hawker). Maltster. Songster. Roadster, 
 (ii) It has an element of depreciation in — 
 
 Gamester. Punster. Oldster. Youngster. 
 
 (ili) We had, in Old English, barter (fern, of baker), webster (weaver), brew- 
 ster y ftthelstre (fiddler), seameatre (sewer), and even belleringestre (for female bell- 
 ringer). Most of these are now used as proper names. 
 
 (iv) Spinster is the feminine of spinner, one form of which was spinder, 
 which then became spider. 
 
 22. Ther, der, or ter denotes the agent or instrument. (Ter and 
 der sometimes form abstract nouns — as in laughter and murder). 
 
 Father. Mother. Sister. Brother. 
 
 Bladder {blow). Rudder {row). Fodder. Lather. 
 
 23. Wright (from work, by metathesis of the r), as in — 
 
 Shipwright. Wainwright (= waggon wright). Wheelwright. 
 
 24. Ward, a keeper, as in — 
 
 Hayward. Steward (= sty -word). Woodward. 
 
 (i) Ward has also the Norman- French form of guard. 
 
 (ii) In steward, the word stlgo or sty meant stall for horses, cows, etc 
 
 20. The following are the most important 
 
 English Suffixes to Adjectives : — 
 
 1. Ed or d, the ending for the passive participle, as in — 
 
 Cold ( — chilled). Long-eared. Lauded. Talented. 
 
 2. En, denoting material, as in — 
 
 Golden. Silvern. Flaxen. Hempen. 
 
 Oaken. Wooden. Silken. Linen (from lin, flax) 
 
 3. En, the old ending for the passive participle, as in — 
 
 Drunken. Forlorn. Molten. Hewn. 
 
 4. Ern, denoting quarter, as in — 
 
 Eastern. Western. Northern. Southern. 
 
 5. Fast (O.E. faest, firm), as in- 
 
 Steadfast. Rootfast. Shamefast (wrongly shamefaced). 
 
 6. Fold (O.E. feald), as in- 
 
 Twofold. Threefold. Manifold, 
 
 (i) Simple, from Lat. simplex, has usurped the place of an/eald - onefold. 
 
132 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 7. Ful = full, as in- 
 
 Hateful. Needful. Sinful Wilful 
 
 8. Ish (O.E. lsc) has three functions ; it denotes : — 
 (i) Partaking in the nature of, as in — 
 
 Boorish. Childish. Churlish. "Waspish, 
 
 (ii) A milder or sub-form of the quality, as in — 
 
 Blackish. Greenish. Whitish. Goodish. 
 
 (iii) A patrial relation as in — 
 
 English. Irish. Scottish. Welsh (= Wylisc). 
 
 9. Le, with a diminutive tendency, as in — 
 
 Little [lyt). Brittle (from break). Fickle {unsteady), 
 
 10. Less (O.E. leas), loose from, as in — 
 
 Fearless. Helpless. Sinless. Toothless. 
 
 11. Like (O.E. lie), softened in ly, as in — 
 
 Childlike. Dovelike. Wifelike. Warlike. 
 
 Godly. Manly. Womanly. Ghastly ( = ghostlike). 
 
 12. Ow (O.E. u and we), as in — 
 
 Narrow. Callow. Fallow. Yellow. 
 
 (i) Fallow is connected with the adjective pale, and yellow with the yol Ijj 
 yolk. 
 
 13. Right, with the sense of direction, as in — 
 
 Forthright. Downright. Upright. 
 
 14. Some (O.E. sum, a form of same, like), as in — 
 
 Buxom (from bugan, Gladsome. Lissom (= lithesome). 
 
 to bend). 
 Irksome. Gamesome. Winsome. 
 
 15. Teen (O.E. tyne) — ten by addition, as in — 
 
 Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. 
 
 (i) In thirteen = three + ten, the r has changed its place hy metathesis, 
 (ii) In fifteen, the hard /has replaced the soft v. 
 
 16. Ty (O.E. tig) = tens by multiplication, as in — 
 
 T wen by ( = twain-ty). Thirty ( = three-ty). Forty. 
 
 17. Ward (O.E. weard, from weorthan, to become), denoting direc- 
 tion, as in — 
 
 Fro ward (from). Toward. Untoward. 
 
 Awkward (from awJc, Forward. Wayward, 
 
 contrary). 
 
 (i) This ending, ward, has no connection with ward, a keeper. It is connected 
 with the verh worth in the line, "Woe worth the chase, woo worth the day I " 
 
SUFFIXES. 133 
 
 18. Wise (O.E. wis, wise), as in- 
 Righteous (properly rightwiac). Weatherwise. 
 
 (i) The English or Teutonic ending wise has got confused with the Lat. ending 
 ous (from osus = full of). 
 
 19. Y (O.E. lg, the guttural of which has vanished) forms adjectives 
 from nouns and verbs, as in — 
 
 Bloody. Crafty. Dusty. Heavy (heave). 
 
 Mighty. Silly (soul). Stony. Weary. 
 
 21. The following are the most important 
 
 English Suffixes for Adverbs : — 
 
 1. Ere, denoting place In, as in 
 
 Here. ' There. Where. 
 
 2. Es or s (the old genitive or possessive), which becomes se and ce, 
 as in — 
 
 Needs. Besides. Sometimes. Unawares. 
 
 Else. Hence. Thence. Once. 
 
 (I) " I must needs go" = of need. 
 
 3. Ly (O.E. lice, the dative of lie), as in- 
 
 Only (=onely). Badly. Willingly. Utterly. 
 
 4. Ling, long, denotes direction, as in — 
 
 Darkling. Grovelling. Headlong. Sidelong. 
 
 (i) Grovelling is not really a present participle ; it is an adverb, and was in 
 O.E. gruflynges. 
 (ii) Headlong and sidelong were in Middle English hedling and sideling. 
 
 5. Meal (O.E. maelum = at times), as in — . 
 
 Piecemeal. Limbmeal. 
 
 (i) Shakespeare, in " Cymbeline," has the line— 
 
 ** O that I had her here, to tear her limbmeal." 
 (ii) Chaucer has stound-meal = hour by hour ; King Alfred has stykkemaelum 
 = stick-meal, or here and there. 
 
 6. Om (an old dative plural), as in — 
 
 Whilom ( = in old times). Seldom (from seld, rare). 
 
 7. Ther, which denotes place to, as in — 
 
 Hither. Thither. Whither. 
 
 8. Ward or wards, which denotes direction, as in — 
 
 Homeward. Homewards. Backwards. Downwards. 
 
 9. Wise (O.E. wis, manner, mode), as in— 
 
 Anywise. Nowise. Otherwise. Likewise. 
 
 " Some people are wise ; and some are otherwise." 
 
134 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 22. The following are the most important 
 
 English Suffixes for Verbs : — 
 
 1. Le or i has two functions : — 
 (i) Frequentative, as in— 
 
 Dabble (dab). Grapple (grab). Waddle (wade). 
 Dribble (drif). Drizzle (from dreosan, to fall). Jostle, 
 (ii) To form verbs of Imitative origin, as in— 
 
 Crackle. Jingle. Hustle. 
 
 Gabble. Mumble. Tinkle. 
 
 2. Er or r adds a frequentative or intensive force to the original 
 verb, as in — 
 
 Batter {beat). Chatter. Glitter (glow). Flutter (flit). 
 
 Glimmer (gleam). Clatter. Sputter (spit). 
 
 Stagger. Stammer. Stutter. Welter. 
 
 Er has also the function of making causative verbs out of adjectives, as linger 
 (long), lower, hinder. 
 
 3. En or n makes causative verbs out of nouns and adjectives, as in — 
 
 Brighten. Fatten. Lighten. Lengthen. 
 
 Broaden. Gladden. Soften. Sweeten. 
 
 4. K has a frequentative force, as in — 
 
 Hark (hear). Stalk (steal). Talk (tell). 
 
 5. S or se has a causative force, as in — 
 
 Cleanse (clean). Curse. Rinse (from hreinn). 
 
 23. The Suffixes of Latin origin are of great importance ; and 
 they have been of great use for several centuries. Many of 
 them — indeed, most of them — have been influenced by passing 
 through French mouths, and hence have undergone consider- 
 able change. The following are the chief 
 
 Latin and French Suffixes for Nouns : — 
 
 1. Age (Lat. aticum), which forms either abstract or collective 
 nouns, as in — 
 
 Beverage. Courage. Carnage. Homage. 
 
 Marriage. Personage. Vassalage. Vintage. 
 
 (i) It unites easily with English roots to form hybrids, as in bondage, mileage, 
 tonnage, 'poundage, tillage, shrinkage. 
 
 2. An, ain, or ane (Lat. anus), connected with, as in — 
 
 Artisan. Pagan. Publican. Roman. 
 
 Chaplain. Captain. Humane. Mundane, 
 
 (i) The suffix is disguised in sovereign (O. Fr. soverain), which has been wrongly 
 supposed to have something to do with reign ; in warden, citizen, dean, etc. 
 Milton always spells sovereign, sovran. 
 
SUFFIXES. 135 
 
 8. Al or el (Lat. fills), possessing the quality of, as in — 
 
 AnimaL Cardinal. CanaL Channel. 
 
 Hospital. HosteL HoteL SpitaL 
 
 (i) Canal and channel are two different forms — doublets- of the same. Bo are 
 cattle and chattels (capitalia) 
 
 (ii) Hospital, spital, hostel, hotel, are four forms of the one Latin word 
 hospitale. (Ostler is a shorter form of hosteller, with a dropped h.) 
 
 4. Ant or ent (Latin antem or entem), denotes an agent, as in — 
 
 Assistant. Servant. Agent. Student. 
 
 5. Ance, ancy, or ence, ency (Lat. antia, entla), form abstract nouns, 
 as in — 
 
 Abundance, Chance. Distance. Brilliancy. 
 
 Diligence. Indulgence. Constancy. Consistency, 
 
 (i) Chance comes from late Lat. cadentia- an accident. Cadence is a doublet 
 
 6. Ary, ry, or er (Lat. arium), a place where a thing is kept, as in — 
 
 Apiary (apis, a bee). Armoury. Granary. Sanctuary. 
 Treasury. Vestry. Larder. Saucer. 
 
 (i) The ending ry unites freely with English words to form hybrids, as in 
 cookery, piggery, robbery. 
 
 (ii) In Jewry, jewellery (ox jewelry), poultry, peasantry, cavalry, the ry has a col- 
 lective meaning. 
 
 7. Ary, ler, eer, or er (Lat. arius), denotes a person engaged in some 
 trade or profession, as in — 
 
 Commissary. Notary. Secretary. Statuary. 
 
 Brigadier. Engineer. Mountaineer. Mariner, 
 
 (i) This ending is disguised in chancellor (cancellarius), vicar, butler (=bottler\ 
 usher (ostiarius, a doorkeeper), premier, etc. 
 
 8. Ate (Lat. atus, past participle ending), becoming in French e or ee, 
 denotes — 
 
 (i) An agent, as in— 
 
 Advocate. Curate. Legate. Renegade, 
 
 (ii) The object of an action, as in— 
 
 Grantee. Legatee. Trustee. Vendee, 
 
 t3T In grandee the passive signification is not retained. 
 
 9. Ce (Lat ciuxn, tlum, or tla) forms abstract nouns, 
 
 Benefice. Prejudice. Sacrifice. 
 
 Vice. Service. Grace. 
 
 10. El, le or 1 (Lat iilus, ellus, etc.), a diminutive, as in— 
 Angle (a little corner). Buckle (from bucca, the cheek). 
 Castle. Chapel LibeL Pommel Title. Seal 
 
 (i) A buckle used to have a cast of the human face. 
 
 (ii) Castle, from Lat castellum, a little fort, from castrum, a fort. 
 
 (iii) Libel, from Lat. libellus, a little book (liber). 
 
 (iv) Pommel, from Lat. pomum, an apple. 
 
 (▼) Seal from Lat. siaillum. 
 
136 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 11. Era (Lat. erna), denoting place, as in — 
 
 Cavern. Cistern. Lantern. Tavern. 
 
 12. Et, ette, and let (Fr. et, ette) all diminutives, as in — 
 
 Bassinette. Buffet. Chaplet. Coronet. 
 
 Goblet. Gibbet. Lancet. Leveret. 
 
 Puppet. Trumpet. Ticket. Turret. 
 
 (i) The let is=l + et, and is found in bracelet, fillet, cutlet, etc. It also unites 
 with English words to form hybrids— as in hamlet, leaflet, ringlet, streamlet, etc. 
 
 (ii) This ending is disguised in ballot (a small ball), chariot (car), parrot 
 (=perroquet), etc. 
 
 13. Ess (late Lat. issa), a female agent, as in — 
 
 Empress. Governess. Marchioness. Sorceress. 
 
 (i) It unites with English words to form the hybrids murderess, sempstress 
 (The last is a double feminine, as seamestre is the old word.) 
 
 14. Ioe, ise, or ess (Lat. tla ; Fr. esse), as in — 
 
 Avarice. Cowardice. Justice. Merchandise. 
 
 Distress. Largess. Noblesse. Riches, 
 
 (i) It is a significant mark of the carelessness with which the English language 
 has always been written, that the very same ending should appear in three 
 spellings in largess, noblesse, riches. 
 (ii) Riches is a false plural : it is an abstract noun, the French form being richesse. 
 
 15. Ice (Lat. lcem ace. of nouns in x), which has also the forms of 
 lse, ace, as in — 
 
 Chalice. Pumica Mortise. Furnace, 
 
 (i) The suffix is much disguised in radish (=the root, from radicem). 
 (ii) It is also disguised in partridge and judge (judicem). 
 
 16. Icle (Lat. iculus, ellus, ulus), which appears also as eel and sel, 
 a diminutive, as in — 
 
 Article (a little joint). Particle. Receptacle. Versicle. 
 Parcel ( varticdla). Morsel (from mordeo, I bite). 
 
 Damsel (dominicella, a little lady). 
 
 (i) The ending is disguised in rule (regula), carbuncle (from carbo, a coal), uncle 
 (avunculus), and vessel (from vas). 
 (ii) Parcel and particle are doublets. 
 
 17. Ine or in (Lat. inus) related to, as in — 
 
 Libertine. Cousin. 
 
 (i) Cousin is a contraction — through French— of the Latin consobrinus, 
 the child of a mother's sister. 
 
 (ii) The ending is disguised in pilgrim, from peregrinus = from per agros, 
 through the fields. 
 
 18. Ion (Lat. i6nem), which appears also as tion, slon, and, from 
 French, as son, som, denotes an action, as in — 
 

 SUFFIXES. 137 
 
 Action. Opinion. Position. Vacation. 
 
 Potion. Poison. Benediction. Benison. 
 
 Redemption. Ransom. Malediction. Malison. 
 
 (i) Potion, poison, and the three other pairs are doublets — the first having 
 come through the door of books straight from the Latin, the second through 
 the mouth and ear, from French. 
 
 (ii) Venison (hunted flesh, from venationem), season (sationem, the sowing 
 time), belong to the above set. 
 
 19. Ment (Lat. mentum) denotes an instrument or an act, as in— 
 
 Document. Instrument. Monument. Ornament. 
 
 (i) It combines easily with English words to make hybrids, as atonement, 
 acknowledgment, bewitchment, fulfilment. 
 
 20. Mony (Lat monium) makes abstract nouns, as — 
 Acrimony. Matrimony. Sanctimony. Testimony. 
 
 21. Oon or on (Fr. on ; ItaL one), an augmentative, as in — 
 Balloon. Cartoon. Bassoon. Saloon. 
 Flagon. Million. Pennon. Medallion. 
 Squadron. Galleon. Trombone. Violone. 
 
 (i) Augmentatives are the opposite of diminutives. Contrast balloon and ballot; 
 gmlleon and galliot (a small galley). 
 
 (ii) A balloon is a large ball ; a cartoon a big carte ; a bassoon a large bass in- 
 strument ; a saloon a large hall (salle); flagon (O. Fr. jlascon), a large flask ; million 
 a big thousand (mille) ; pennon, a large pen or feather ; galleon, a large galley ; trom- 
 bone, a large trump-et ; violone, a double-bass viol. 
 
 22. Ory, (Lat. orlum), which appears also as or, our, and er, and 
 denotes place, as in — 
 
 Auditory. Dormitory. Refectory. Lavatory. 
 
 Mirror. Parlour. Dormer. Manger. 
 
 (i) Mirror is contracted by the French from miratorium; parlour from par- 
 latorium; manger from manducatorium=the eating-place. Dormer is short 
 for dormitory, from dormitorium. 
 
 23. Our (Lat. or ; Fr. eur), forms abstract or collective nouns, as 
 in — 
 
 Ardour. Clamour. Honour. Savour, 
 
 (i) The ending resumes its French form in grandeur. 
 (ii) It forms a hybrid in behaviour. 
 
 24. Or or our (Lat. orem ; Fr. eur) denotes an agent, as in — 
 Actor. Governor. Emperor. Saviour. 
 
 (i) This ending is disguised in interpreter, labourer, preacher, etc. 
 (ii) A large number of nouns which used to end in our or or, took er through 
 the influence of the English suffix er. They were " attracted " into that form. 
 
138 GKAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, 
 
 25. T (Lat. tus— the ending of the past participle) indicates a completed 
 act, as in — 
 
 Act. Fact. Joint. Suit. 
 
 (i) The t in Latin has the same origin and performs the same function as the d 
 in English (as in dead, finished, and other past participles, etc.) 
 
 (ii) The ending is disguised in feat, which is a doublet of fact, in fruit (Lat. 
 fruct-us), comfit (—confect), counterfeit (=contrafact-um). 
 
 26. Ter (Lat. ter) denotes a person, as in — 
 
 Master (contracted from magister). Minister, 
 
 (i) Magister comes from magis, more, which contains the root of magnus, great ; 
 minister from minus, less. 
 
 27. Tery (Lat. terium) denotes condition, as in— 
 
 Mastery. Ministry. 
 
 28. Trix (Lat. trix) denotes a female agent, as in — 
 
 Executrix. Improvisatrix. Testatrix, 
 
 (i) This ending is disguised in empress (Tt. imp4ratrice from Lat. imperatrix) .' 
 and in nurse (Fr. nourrice, Lat. nutrix). 
 
 29. Tude (Lat. tudo), denotes condition, as in— 
 
 Altitude. Beatitude. Fortitude. Multitude, 
 
 (i) In custom, from Lat. consuetudinem, the ending is disguised. 
 
 30. Ty (Lat. tatem ; Fr. to*) makes abstract nouns, as in — 
 
 Bounty. Charity. Cruelty. Poverty. 
 
 Captivity. Frailty. Fealty, Vanity. 
 
 (i) Bounty (bonte), poverty (jpauvreU), frailty, and fealty come, not directly 
 from Latin, hut through French. 
 
 m- 
 
 31. Ure (Lat. ura) denotes an action, or the result of an action, as 
 
 Aperture. Cincture. Measure. Picture. 
 
 32. Y (Lat. ia ; Fr. ie) denotes condition or faculty, as in — 
 
 Company. Family. Fury. Victory, 
 
 (i) This suffix unites easily with English words in er— as bakery, fishery, rob- 
 bery, etc. 
 (ii) It stands for Lat. ium in augury, remedy, study, subsidy, etc. 
 (iii) It represents the Lat. ending atus in attorney, deputy, etc. 
 
 24. The Latin (or French) suffixes employed in our language 
 to make Adjectives are very useful. The following are the 
 chief 
 
 Latin Suffixes for Adjectives. 
 
 1. Aceous (Lat. aceus) = made of, as in — 
 
 Argillaceous (clayey). Farinaceous (floury). 
 
SUFFIXES. 139 
 
 2. Al (Lat. ails) = belonging to, as in — 
 
 Legal. Regal Loyal RoyaL 
 
 (i) Loyal and royal are the same words as legal and regal; but, In passing 
 through French, the hard g has been refined into a y. 
 
 3. An, ane, or aln (Lat. anus and aneus) = connected with, as in — 
 
 Certain. Human (homo). Humane. Pagan {pagus,- a 
 
 district), 
 (i) This ending disguises itself in mizzen (medianus); in scrivener (L.*Lat 
 scribanus) ; and in sexton (contracted from sacristan). 
 
 (ii) In champaign (level), and foreign (foraneus), this ending greatly disguises 
 itself. In strange (extraneus), still more. All have been strongly influenced in 
 their passage through the French. 
 
 4. Ant, ent (Lat. antem, entem, ace. of pres. part.), as in — 
 
 Current (curro, I run). Distant. President. Discordant. 
 
 5. Ar (Lat. aris) which appears also as er = belonging to, as in — 
 
 Regular. Singular. Secular. Scholar. 
 
 (i) Scholar Was originally an adjective form, but we now use scholarly as the 
 adjective. 
 
 6. Ary (Lat. Sxius), which also takes the secondary formations of 
 arlous and arlan = belonging to, as in — 
 
 Contrary. Necessary. Gregarious. Agrarian. 
 
 7. Atic (Lat. itlcus) = belonging to, as in — 
 
 Aquatic. Fanatic (fanum). Lunatic. 
 
 8. Able, lble, ble (Lat. abllis, ebilis, Ibilis) = capable of being, 
 as in — 
 
 Amiable. Culpable. Flexible. Movable. 
 
 (i) Feeble (Lat. flebilis, worthy of being wept over), comes to us through the 
 O. Fr. floible. 
 
 (ii) This suffix unites easily with.English roots to form hybrids, like eatable, 
 drinkable, teachable, gullible. Carlyle has also doable. 
 
 9. Pie, ble (Lat. plex, from plico, I fold) = the English suffix— fold, 
 as in — 
 
 Simple ( = onefold). Double. Triple. Treble. 
 
 10. Esque (Lat. iscus ; Fr. esque) = partaking of, as in — 
 
 Burlesque. Grotesque {grotto). Picturesque. 
 
 (i) This ending is disguised in morris (dance)= Moresco (or Moorish). The 
 O.E. patrial ending isc is disguised in French (= Frencisc), etc. 
 
 11. Ic (Lat. Icus) = belonging to, as in — 
 Gigantic. Metallic. Public (populus). Rustic, 
 
 (i) This ending is disguised in indigo (from Indices) [co\our] = the Indian 
 colour.) 
 
140 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 12. Id (Lat. Idus) = having the quality of, as in — 
 
 Acid. Frigid. Limpid. Morbid. 
 
 13. He, il (Lat. ills), often used as & passive suffix, as in — 
 
 Docile. Fragile. Mobile. Civil 
 
 (i) Fragile, in passing through French, lost the g— which was always hard-~ 
 and became frail. 
 
 (ii) The suffix He is disguised in gentle and subtle. 
 
 (iii) Gentile, gentle, and genteel, are all different forms of the same word. 
 
 (iv) The suffix He has often a depreciatory sense as in puerile, infantile, 
 and servile (cf. ish). 
 
 14. Ine (Lat. Inus) = belonging to, as in — 
 
 Canine. Crystalline. Divine. Saline. 
 
 (i) In marine, the ending, hy passing through French, has acquired a French 
 pronunciation. 
 
 15. Ive (Lat. Ivus) = inclined to, as in — 
 
 Abusive. Active. Fugitive. Plaintive. 
 
 (i) This ending appears also as iff, by passing through French, as in caitiff 
 (= captivus); and in the nouns plaintiff and bailiff. 
 
 (ii) It also disguises itself as a y in hasty, jolly, testy, which in O. Fr. were 
 hastif, jollif, testif(= heady). 
 
 (iii) It unites with the English word talk to form the hybrid talkative. 
 
 16. Lent (Lat. lentus) = full of, as in — 
 
 Corpulent. Fraudulent. Opulent (opes). Violent {vis). 
 
 17. Ory (Lat. 6rius) = full of, as in- 
 
 Amatory. Admonitory. Illusory. 
 
 18. Ose, ous (Lat. 5sus) = full of, as in — 
 
 Bellicose. Grandiose. Verbose. Curious, 
 
 (i) The form in oris has been influenced by the French ending eux. 
 
 19. Ous (Lat. us) = belonging to, as in — 
 
 Anxious. Assiduous. Ingenuous. Omnivorous. 
 
 (i) It unites with English words to form hybrids like ravenous, boisterous 
 (which is a lengthened form of the M. E. boistous, from boist, noise). 
 
 20. Und (Lat. undus) = fuU of, as in- 
 
 Jocund. Moribund. Kotund. 
 
 (i) Rotund has been shortened into round. Second is, through French, from 
 Lat. secundus (from sequor, I follow) — the number that follows the first. Ventus 
 secundus is a favourable wind, or a "wind that follows fast." 
 
 (ii) This ending is slightly modified in vagabond and second. 
 
 21. Ulous (Lat. ulus) = fuU of, as in — 
 
 Querulous (full of complaint). Sedulous, 
 
SUFFIXES. HI 
 
 25. The following are the chief 
 
 Latin Suffixes for Verbs. 
 
 1. Ate (Lat. atum, supine), as in — 
 
 Complicate. Dilate. Relate. Supplicate. 
 
 (i) Assassinate (from the Arabic hashish, a preparation of Indian hemp, whose 
 effects are similar to those of opium) is a hybrid. 
 
 2. Esce (Lat. esco), an inceptive suffix, as in — 
 
 Coalesce (to begin to grow together). Effervesce (to begin to boil up.) 
 
 3. Fy (Lat. flco ; Fr. fie — from Lat. facio)— to make, as in— 
 
 Beautify. Magnify. Signify. 
 
 4. Ish (connected with Lat esco) = to make, as in — 
 
 Admonish. Establish. Finish. Nourish. 
 
 5. Ete, ite, t (Lat itum, etum, turn), with an active function, as in- 
 
 complete. Delete. Expedite. Connect. 
 
 26. The suffixes which the English language has adopted 
 from Greek are not numerous ; but some of them are very usefuL 
 Most of them are employed to make nouns. The following are 
 the chief 
 
 Greek Suffixes. 
 
 1. Y (Gr. ia), makes abstract nouns, as in — 
 
 Melancholy. Monarchy. Necromancy. Philosophy, 
 
 (i) Fancy is a compressed form of phantasy (phantasia = imagination), 
 (ii) In dyspepsia and hydrophobia we get the Greek suffix unchanged. 
 
 2. Ic (Gr. ik6s)= belonging to, as in — 
 
 Aromatic. Barbaric. Frantic. Graphic. 
 
 Arithmetic Schismatic. Logic. Music. 
 
 (f) With the addition of the Latin alls, adjectives are formed from some of 
 these words, as logical, musical, etc. 
 
 (ii) The plural form of 'some adjectives also makes nouns of them, as in politics, 
 ethics, physics. In Ireland we find also logics. 
 
 (iii) Arithmetic, logic, and music are from Greek nouns ending in ikS. 
 
 3. Sis (Gr. <m)=- action, as in— 
 
 Analysis. Emphasis. Genesis. Synthesis, 
 
 (i) In the following words sis has become sy, as hypocrisy, poesy, palsy (short 
 for paralysis). 
 (ii) In the following the is has dropped away altogether— ellipse, phase. 
 L 
 
142 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 4. Ma or m (Gr. /xa), passive suffix, as in — 
 
 Diorama. Dogma. Drama (something done). Schism. 
 
 Baptism. Barbarism. Despotism. Egotism. 
 
 (i) In diadem and system the a has dropped off; in scheme and theme it has 
 been changed into an c. 
 
 (ii) Schism comes from schizo, I cut. The ending in ismos is most frequent. 
 
 (iii) This ending unites freely with Latin words to form hybrids, as in deism, 
 mannerism, purism, provincialism, vulgarism, etc. 
 
 5. St (Gr. o~Trj$) = agent, as in — 
 
 Baptist. Botanist. Iconoclast (image-breaker). 
 
 (i) This suffix has become a very useful one. and is largely employed. It forma 
 numerous hybrids with words of Latin origin, as abolitionist, excursionist, educa- 
 tionist, journalist, protectionist, jurist, socialist, specialist, royalist. 
 
 6. T or te (Gr. tvs) = agent, as in — 
 
 Comet. Planet. Poet. Apostate. 
 
 (i) Comet means a long-haired star; planet, a wanderer; poet, a maker (ii? 
 Northern English poets called themselves " Makkers ) ; an apostate, a person 
 who has fallen away. 
 
 (ii) There is a kindred ending ot, also, meaning agent or denoting a title 
 (Gk. wttj?), as in idiot, patriot, zealot. 
 
 7. Ter or tre (Gr. rpov), denotes an instrument or place, as in — 
 
 Metre. Centre. Theatre. 
 
 8. Isk (Gr. iff/cos), a diminutive, as in— 
 
 Asterisk (a little star). Obelisk (a small spit). 
 
 9. Ize or ise (Gr. i£o>) makes factitive verbs, as in — 
 
 Baptise. Criticise. Judaize. Anglicize 
 
 (i) This ending combines with Latin words to form the hybrid* minindse 
 realise, etc. 
 
1*5 
 
 WORD - BRANCHING. 
 
 When our language was young and uninfluenced by othei 
 
 languages, it had the power of growing words. These words, 
 
 like plants, grew from a root; and 
 
 all the words that grew from the same 
 
 root had a family likeness. Thus 
 
 byrn-an, the old word for to hum, 
 
 gave us brimstone, brown (which is 
 
 the burnt colour), brunt, brand, 
 
 brandy, and brindle. These we 
 
 might represent to ourselves, on the 
 
 blackboard, as growing in this way. 
 
 But, unfortunately, we soon lost this 
 power. From the time when the Nor- 
 mans came into this country in 1066, the language became less 
 and less capable of growing its own words. Instead of produc- 
 ing a new word, we fell into the habit of simply taking an old 
 and ready-made word from French, or from Latin, or from 
 Greek, and giving it a place in the language. Instead of the 
 Old English word fairhood, we imported the French word 
 beauty ; instead of forewit, we adopted the Latin word cau- 
 tion ; instead of licherest, we took the Greek word cemetery. 
 And so it came about that in course of time we lost the power 
 of growing our own new worda The Greek word asterisk 
 has prevented our making the word starkin ; the Greek name 
 astronomy has kept out star-craft ; the Latin word omnibus 
 has stopped our even thinking of folkwain; and the name 
 vocabulary is much more familiar to our ears than word- 
 hoard. Indeed, so strange have some of our own native 
 
144 
 
 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 English words become to us, that sentences composed entirely 
 of English words are hardly intelligible; and, to make them 
 quickly intelligible, we have to translate some of the English 
 words into Greek or into Latin. It is well, however, for us to 
 become acquainted with those pure English words which grew 
 upon our own native roots, and which owe nothing whatever 
 to other languages. Eor they are the purest, the simplest, the 
 most homely and the most genuine part of our language ; and 
 from them we can get a much better idea of what our language 
 once was than we can from its present very mixed condition. 
 The following are the most important 
 
 ENGLISH ROOTS AND BRANCHES (OR DERIVATIONS). 
 
 Ac, an oak— Acton, Uckfield. 
 
 Bac-an, to bake— baker, baxter * (a woman 
 baker), batch. 
 
 Ban-a, a slayer — bane, baneful ; ratsbane, 
 henbane. 
 
 Bead-an, to pray — bedesman ; beadle ; 
 bead (" to bid one's beads " was to say 
 one's prayers ; and these were marked 
 off by small round balls of wood or glass 
 —now called beads — strung upon a 
 string) ; forbid. 
 
 Beat-an, to strike — beat, bat (a short 
 cudgel) i battle ; beetle (a wooden bat 
 for beating clothes with) ; batter (a kind 
 o* pudding). 
 
 Beorg-an, to shelter— burrow, bury (noun 
 in Canterbury — and verb) ; burgh, 
 burgher ; burglar (a house-robber) ; har- 
 bour, Cold Harbour ; 2 harbinger (a per- 
 son sent on in front to procure lodg- 
 ings) ; borrow (to raise money on secur- 
 ity). 
 
 Ber-an, to bear— bear, bier, bairn ; birth, 
 
 berth ; brood, brother, breed, bird ; * 
 burden ; barrow. 
 
 Be't-an, to make good — better, best ; boof 
 (in "to boot "-"to the good"), boot 
 less. 
 
 Bind-an, to bind— band, bond, bondage 
 bundle ; woocfbine ; bindweed. 
 
 Bit-an, to bite — bit ; beetle ; bait ; bitter, 
 
 Bla'w-an, to puff— bladder, blain (chil- 
 blain), blast, blaze (to proclaim), blazon 
 (a proclamation), blare (of a trumpet) ; 
 blister; blot, bloat. 
 
 Blow-an, to blossom— blow (said of flow- 
 ers) ; bloom, blossom ; blood, blade ; 
 blowsy. 
 
 Brec-an, to break — break, breakers ; brake, 
 bracken ; breach, brick ; break -fast ; 
 brook (=the water which breaks up 
 through the ground); brittle (= brickie 
 or breakable); bray (where the hard 
 guttural has been absorbed). 
 
 Breow-an, to brew— brew, brewer; broth, 
 brose; bread (perhaps). 
 
 1 Compare brewster, a woman brewer, spinster, webster, and others. Brewster, Baxter, 
 and Webster are now only used as proper names. 
 
 2 Cold Harbour was the name given to an inn which provided merely shelter without 
 provisions. There are numerous places of this name in England. Many of them stand 
 on the great Roman roads ; and they were chiefly the ruins of Roman villas used by 
 travellers who carried their own bedding and provisions. See Isaac Taylor's ' Words 
 and Places,' p. 256. 
 
 3 Brid or bird was originally the young of any animal 
 
WORD-BRANCHING. 
 
 145 
 
 Bug an, to bend— bow, elbow ; * bough ; 
 bight; buxom (O.B. bocsum, flexible or 
 obedient). The hard g in bvr/an appears 
 as a w in bow, as a gh in bough, as a y 
 in bay, as a k in buxom=buk-som. 
 
 Byrn-an, to burn— burn, brown ; brunt, 
 brimstone ; brand, brandy ; brindled. 
 
 Catt, a cat— catkin; kitten, kitling ; cater- 
 pillar (the hairy cat, from Lat. pilosus, 
 hairy), caterwaul. 
 
 Ceapi-an, to buy— cheap, cheapen; chop 
 (to exchange) ; a chopping sea ; chap, 
 chapman; chaffer; Eastcheap, Cheap- 
 side, Chepstow (=the market stow or 
 place), Chippenham. 2 
 
 Cenn-an, to produce— kin, kind, kindred ; 
 kindly; kindle. 
 
 Ceow-an, to chew — chew ; cheek ; jaw 
 (=chaw); jowl; chaw-bacon; cud (= the 
 chewed). Compare seethe and suds. 
 
 Cleov-an, to split — cleave, cleaver ; cleft ; 
 clover (split grass). 
 
 Clifi-an, to stick to — cleave; clip(for keep- 
 ing papers together) ; claw (by which a 
 bird cleaves to a tree) ; clew (or clue), 
 original meaning " a mass of thread." 
 
 Cnaw-an, to know— ken, know (=ken-ow 
 — ow being a dim.) ; knowledge. 
 
 Cnotta, a knot— knot, knit, net (the k 
 having been dropped for the eye, as well 
 as for the ear). 
 
 Cunn-an, to know or to be able— can, con ; 
 cunning; uncouth. 
 
 Cweth-an, to say— quoth ; bequeath. 
 
 Cwic, alive— quick, quicken ; quickset ; 
 quickWm*; quicksiZrer ; to cut to the 
 quick. 
 
 Dael-an, to divide— deal (verb and noun), 
 dole ; dale, dell (the original sense being 
 clrft, or separated). 
 
 Dem-an, to judge— deem, doom ; demp- 
 ster (the name for a judge in the Isle of 
 Man); doomsday; kingdom. 
 
 Deor, dear— dearth ; darling ; endear. 
 
 D6an, to act— do ; don, doff, dup (=do 
 up or op-en) ; dout ( = do out or put out) ; 
 deed. Compare mow, mead; sow, seed. 
 
 Drag an, to draw — drag, draw, dray 
 
 (three forms of the same word); draft 
 
 (draught) ; drain ; dredge ; draggle ; 
 
 drawl. 
 Drif-an, to push — drive ; drove ; drift, 
 
 adrift. 
 Drige, dry— dry (verb and adj.) ; drought ; 
 
 drugs (originally dried plants). 
 Drinc-an, to soak— drink ; drench (to 
 
 make to drink). Compare sit, set ; fall, 
 
 fell, etc. 
 Drip-an, to drip — drip, drop, droop; 
 
 dribble, driblet. 
 Dug-an, to be good for— do (in " How 
 
 do you do?" and "That will do"); 
 
 doughty. 
 Eac, also — eke (verb and adv.) ; ekename 
 
 (which became a nickname ; the n hav- 
 
 ing dropped from the article and clung 
 
 to the noun). 
 Eage, eye— Egbert (= bright-eyed) ; daisy 
 
 (=day's eye); winaow ( = wind-eye). 
 Eri-an, to plough— ear (the old word foi 
 
 plough) ; earth (= the ploughed). 
 Far-an, to go or travel— far, fare ; welfare, 
 
 fieldfare, thoroughfare ; ferry : ford. 
 Feng- an, to catch— fang, finger, new- 
 fangled (catching eagerly after new 
 
 things). 
 Fe6wer, four— farthing ; firkin ; fourteen ; 
 
 forty. 
 Fledg-an, to flee— fly, flight ; flea; fledged. 
 Fle<5t-an, to float— fleet (noun, verb, and 
 
 adj.) ; float ; ice-floe : afloat ; flotsam s 
 
 (things found floating on the water after 
 
 a wreck). 
 F6d-a, food— feed ; food, fodder, foster ; 
 
 fath-er ; forage (=fodderage), forager ; 
 
 foray (an excursion to get food). 
 Freon, to love— freond = friend (the pres. 
 
 part.) a lover ; Fri-day (the day of Friya, 
 
 the goddess of love) ; friendship, etc. 
 Gal-an, to sing— gale, yell ; nightingale. 4 
 Gang-an, to go — gang, gangway; ago. 
 
 (The words gate and gait do not come 
 
 from this verb, but from get.) 
 Gnag-an, to bite — gnaw (the g has be- 
 
 i Elbow = ell-bow. The ell was the forepart of the arm. 
 
 * The same root is found in the Scotch Kippen and the Danish Copenhagen= Mer- 
 chants' Haven. 
 
 3 " Flotsam and jetsam " mean the floating things and the things thrown over- 
 board from a ship. Jetsam comes from Old Fr. jetter, to throw. (Hence also "jet of 
 water" ; jetty, etc. Jetsam is a hybrid— sam being a Scandinavian suffix. 
 
 « The n in nightingale is no part of the word. It is intrusive and non-organic ; as 
 it also is in passenger, messenger, porringer, etc. 
 
146 
 
 GRAMMAR OP THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 come a w) ; gnat ; nag (to teast.), con- 
 nected with nail. 
 
 Graf -an, to dig or cut— grave, groove, 
 grove (the original sense was a lane cut 
 through trees) ; graft, engraft ; engrave, 
 engraver ; carve (which is another form 
 of the verb grave). 
 
 Grip-an, to seize — grip, gripe ; grasp ; 
 grab ; grope. 
 
 Gyrd-an, to surround— gird, girdle ; gar- 
 den, yard, vineyard, hopyard. 
 
 Hael-an, to heal — hale ; holy, hallow, 
 All - hallows ; health ; hail ; whole, i 
 wholesome ; wassail (=Waes hal !.= Be 
 whole !) 
 
 Hebb-an, to raise— heave, heave-offering ; 
 heavy (=that requires much heaving); 
 heaven. 
 
 Hlaf, bread— loaf ; lord (hlaford = loaf- 
 ward) ; lady (= hlaf-dige, from dig-an, to 
 knead) ; Lammas (= Loaf-mass, Aug. 1 ; 
 a loaf was offered on this day as the 
 offering of the first-fruits). 
 
 Le&c, a leek— house-leek ; garlic ; hem- 
 lock. 
 
 Licg-an, to lie — lie; lay, layer; lair; 
 outlay. 
 
 Loda, a guide— lead (the verb) ; lode-star, 
 lode-stone (also written loadstone). 
 
 Mag-an, to be able— may, main (in "might 
 and main "), might, mighty. 
 
 Mang, a mixture — a-mong ; mongrel ; 
 mingle; cheesemonger. 
 
 Maw-an, to cut — mow ; math, aftermath ; 
 mead, meadow (the places where grass is 
 mowed). 
 
 M6n-a, the moon — month ; moonshine. 
 (This word comes from a very old root, 
 ma, to measure. Our Saxon forefathers 
 measured by moons and by nights, as 
 we see in the words fortnight, se'nnight.) 
 
 Naeddre, a snake — adder. The n has 
 dropped off from the word, and has ad- 
 hered to the article. Compare apron, 
 from naperon (compare with napkin, 
 napery) ; umpuv, from numpire. The 
 opposite example of the n leaving the 
 article and adhering to the noun, is 
 found in newt, from an eft ; nickname 
 from an ekename. 
 
 Nosu, a nose— nose, naze, ness (all three 
 different forms of the same word, and 
 
 found in the Naze, Sheerness, etc.) ; 
 nostril = nose-thirl (from thirlian, to 
 bore a hole), nozzle ; nosegay. 
 
 Penn-an. to shut up or enclose — pen, pin 
 (two forms of the same word) ; pound, 
 pond (two forms of the same word) ; 
 impound. 
 
 Pic, a point— pike, peak (two forms of the 
 same word) ; pickets (stakes driven into 
 the ground to tether horses to); pike, 
 pickerel (the fish) ; peck, pecker. 
 
 Rded-an, to read or guess — rede (advice) ; 
 riddle; Ethelred (= noble in counsel); 
 Unready (=Unrede, without counsel); 
 Mildred (=mild in counsel). 
 
 Reaf, clothing, spoil ; reafi-an, to rob — rob, 
 robber; reave, bereave; reever; robe. 
 
 Ripe, ripe— reap (to gather what is ripe). 
 
 Scad-an, to divide — shed (to part the 
 hair) ; watershed. 
 
 Sceap-an, to form or fashion— shape ; ship 
 (the suffix in friendship, etc.) ; scape 
 (the suffix in landscape, etc.) 
 
 Sce6t-an, to throw — shoot, shot, shut 
 (=to shoot the bolt of the door) ; sheet 
 (that which is thrown over a bed) ; shut- 
 ter, shuttle ; scud. 
 
 Scer-an, to cut — shear, share, sheer, shire, 
 shore (all forms of the same word) ; scar, 
 scare; score (the twentieth notch in 
 the tally, and made larger than the 
 others) ; scarify, sharp ; short, shirt, 
 skirt (three forms of the same word); 
 shred, potsherd (the same word, with 
 the r transposed) ; sheriff ( = scir-gerefa, 
 reeve of the shire) ; scrip, scrap, scrape. 
 The soft form sh belongs to the southern 
 English dialects : the hard forms, sc and 
 sk, to the northern. 
 
 Scuf-an, to push— shove, shovel, shuffle ; 
 scuffle ; sheaf ; scoop. 
 
 Sett-an, to set, or make sit — set, seat ; 
 settle, saddle ; Somerset, Dorset. 
 
 Slag-an, to strike— slay (the hard g has 
 been refined into a y), slaughter ; slog, 
 sledge (in sledge-hammer). 
 
 Slip-an, to slip— slop ; slipper, sleeve (into 
 which the arm is slipped). 
 
 Snic-an, to crawl — sneak, snake, snail 
 (here the hard guttural has been refined 
 away). 
 
 Spell, a story or message— spell (= to give 
 
 1 The w in whole is intrusive and non-organic, as in whoop, and in wun (=one, so 
 pronounced, but not so written). Before the year 1500 whole was always written hole ; 
 and in this form it is seen to be a doublet of hale. Holy is simply hole+y. 
 
WORD-BRANCHING. 
 
 147 
 
 an account of or tell the story of the 
 letters in a word) ; spell-bound ; gospel 
 (= God's spell). 
 
 Stearc, stiff— stark ; strong (a nasalised 
 form of stark) ; string (that which is 
 strongly twisted) ; strength ; strangle. 
 
 Stede, a place — stead, instead, homestead, 
 farm-steading; steady; steadfast; be- 
 stead: Hampstead. 
 
 Stic'i-an, to stick— stick, stitch (two forms 
 of the same word), stake, stock, stock- 
 ade ; stock-dove ; stock-fish (fish dried 
 to keep in stock) ; stock-still. 
 
 Stig-an, to climb — stair; stile; stirrup 
 (= stigrdp, or rope for rising into the 
 saddle) ; sty (in pig-sty). 
 
 Stow, a place— bestow ; stowage, stowa- 
 way ; C%epstow ( = the place where a 
 cheap or market is held); Bristol (the 
 I and w being interchangeable). 
 
 Styr-an, to direct — steer, stern ; steerage. 
 
 Sundri-an, to part — sunder; sundry; 
 asunder. (Compare sever and several.) 
 
 Sweri-an, to declare— swear, answer ( = 
 andswerian, to declare in opposition or 
 in reply to), forswear. 
 
 Taec-an, to show— teach, teacher; token 
 (that which is shown); taught (when 
 the hard c reappears as a gh). 
 
 Tell-an, to count or recount— tell ; tale, 1 
 talk ; toll ; teller. 
 
 Teoh-an (or teon), to draw — tow, tug 
 (two forms of the same word, the hard 
 guttural having been preserved in the 
 one) ; wanton (= without right upbring- 
 ing). Compare wanhope = despair ; 
 wantrust = mistrust. 
 
 Thaec, a roof— thatch ; deck. 
 
 Tred-an, to walk— tread, treadle; trade; 
 tradesman, trade-wind. 
 
 Truwa, good faith— true, truth, troth, be- 
 troth. 
 
 TwA, two— two, twin, twain ; twelve (= 
 two+lif, " remainingover "); twenty ; be- 
 tween ; twig ; twiddle ; twine, twist, etc. 
 
 Waci-an, to be on one's guard— wake, 
 watch (two forms of the same word); 
 awake, wakeful. 
 
 Wad-an, to go — wade ; waddle ; Watling 
 Street (the road of the pilgrims). The 
 Eng. word wade is of the same origin as 
 the Lat. vade in evade, invade, etc. 
 
 Wana, a deficiency— wan, wane; want, 
 wanton ; wanhope (the old word for 
 despair). 
 
 Wef-an, to weave— weave, weaver; web, 
 webster (a woman-weaver) ; cobweb ; 
 woof, weft (v, b, and f, being all labials). 
 
 War, hostility (the French guerre substi- 
 tutes gu for w)— warrior, warfare. 
 
 Weard, a guarding— wary, aware; ward, 
 guard (a Norman-French doublet of 
 ward); warden, guardian (the same). 
 
 Wit-an, to know— wit, to wit ; wise, wis- 
 dom ; wistful ; witness ; Witena-gemote 
 (= the Meeting of the Wise) ; y-wis (the 
 past participle, wrongly written I wis). 
 
 Wraest-an, to wrest — wrest, wrestle ; 
 wrist. 
 
 Wring-an, to force— wring, wrong (that 
 which is wrung out of the right course) 
 
 Wyrc-an, to work — work, wright (the r 
 shifts its place). 
 
 Wyrt, a herb or plant — wort ; orchard (= 
 wort -yard); wart (on the skin); St 
 John's wort, etc. 
 
 LATIN ROOTS. 
 
 Those words with (F.) after them have not come to us directly from Latin ; 
 but, indirectly, through French. 
 
 Acer (acris), sharp; acrid, acrimony, vine- 
 gar (sharp wine, F.), eager (F.) 
 
 JEdeB, a building ; edifice, edify. 
 
 JEqaxm, equal; equality, equator, equi- 
 nox, equity, adequate, iniquity. 
 
 Ager, a field ; agriculture, agrarian, pere- 
 grinate. 
 
 Ago (actum), I do, act; act, agent, agile, 
 
 agitate, cogent. 
 Alo, I nourish ; aliment, alimony. 
 Alter, the other of two ; alternation, sub* 
 
 altera, altercation. 
 Altus, high; altitude, exalt, alto (It.), 
 
 altar. 
 
 1 " And every shepherd tells his tale (= counts his sheep) 
 Under the hawthorn in the dale."— Milton : V Allegro. 
 
148 
 
 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 Ambulo, I walk; amble (F.), perambulate . 
 
 Amo, I love; amity, amorous, amiable 
 (F.), inimical. 
 
 Angulus, a corner ; angle, triangle, quad- 
 rangle. 
 
 Anima, life; animal, animate, animation. 
 
 Animus, mind ; magnanimity, equan- 
 imity, unanimous, animadvert. 
 
 Annus, a year ; annual, perennial, bien- 
 nial, anniversary. 
 
 Aperio (apertum), I open ; aperient, aper- 
 ture, April (the opening month). 
 
 Appello, I call; appellation, appellant; 
 peal (of bells), appeal (F.) 
 
 Aqua, water ; aqueduct, aquatic, aqueous, 
 aquarium. 
 
 Arcus, a bow; arch, arc, arcade (Fr. It.) 
 
 Ardeo, I burn; ardent, ardour, arson 
 (F.) 
 
 Ars (artis), art; artist, artisan (F.), arti- 
 fice, inert. 
 
 Audio, I hear; audience, audible, audi- 
 tory. 
 
 Augeo (auctum), I increase; augment, 
 author, auctioneer. 
 
 Barba, a beard ; barb, barber, barbel (all 
 through F.) 
 
 Bellum, war; rebel, rebellious, bellig- 
 erent, bellicose. 
 
 Bis, twice; biscuit, bissextile, bisect, 
 bicycle. 
 
 Brevis, short; brevity, abbreviate, brief 
 (F.), breviary, abridge (F.) 
 
 Cado (casum). 1 fall ; casual, accident. 
 
 Caedo (csesum), I cut, kill; precise, exci- 
 sion, decide. 
 
 Candeo, I shine; candidus, white; can- 
 did, candidate, candle. 
 
 Cano (can turn), I sing; cant, canticle, 
 chant (F.), incantation. 
 
 Capio (captum), I take; captive, accept, 
 reception (F.), capacity. 
 
 Caput, the head; capital, captain, cape, 
 chapter (F.) 
 
 Caro (carnis), flesh ; carnal, carnival, car- 
 nivorous, carnation. 
 
 Causa, a cause; causative, accuse (F.), 
 excuse (F.) 
 
 Cavus, hollow; cavity, cave, excavate, 
 concave. 
 
 Cedo (cessum), I go, yield; proceed (F.), 
 ancestor (F.), secede. 
 
 Centrum (Gr. Ktvrpov = a point), centre ; 
 centralise, centripetal, eccentric. 
 
 Centum, a hundred ; century, centurion, 
 
 Cerno (cretum), to distinguish; discern, 
 discretion, discreet. 
 
 Cingo (cinctum), I gird; cincture, suc- 
 cinct, precinct. 
 
 Cito, I call or summon; citation, recite 
 (F.), excite (F.), incite (F.) 
 
 Civis, a citizen; city (F.), civic, civil, civ- 
 ilise, civilian. 
 
 Clamo, I shout; claim (F.), clamour, re- 
 claim (F.), proclamation. 
 
 Clarus, dear; clarify, declare ; clarion, 
 claret (F.) 
 
 Claudo (clausum), I shut ; clause, close 
 (F.), exclude, seclusion. 
 
 Clino, I bend; incline, decline, recline. 
 
 Colo (cultum), I till; cultivate, arboricul- 
 ture, agriculture. 
 
 Cor (cordis), the heart ; courage (F.), cor- 
 dial (F.), discord, record. 
 
 Corona, a crown; coronet, coroner, coro- 
 nation, corolla. 
 
 Corpus, the body; corps, corpse (F.), cor- 
 pulent, corporation. 
 
 Credo, I believe; credibility, credence (F.), 
 miscreant (F.), creed, creditor. 
 
 Creo, I create; create, creation, recrea- 
 tion, creature. 
 
 Cresco, 7 grow; increase, decrease (F.); 
 increment. 
 
 Crux (crucis), a cross; crucial, crucifix, 
 cruise (F.) 
 
 Cubo, I lie down; cubit, incubate, recum 
 bent. 
 
 Culpa, a fault; culprit, culpable, excul 
 pate, inculpate. 
 
 Cora, cure; curate, curator, accurate, 
 secure, incurable. 
 
 Curro (cursum), I run; current, recur 
 excursion, cursory, course (F.), occur. 
 
 Decern, ten; decimal, December, deci 
 mate. 
 
 Dens (dentis), a tooth; dentist, dental, 
 indent, trident. 
 
 Deus, God; deity, deify, divine. 
 
 Dico (dictum), I say ; verdict, dictionary, 
 dictation, indictment, ditto (Ital.) 
 
 Dies, a day ; diary, diurnal, meridian. 
 
 Dignus, worthy ; dignity, dignify, in- 
 dignant, deign (F.) 
 
 Do (datum), I give; date, data, dative, 
 dation (a law term). 
 
 Doceo (doctum), 2" teach; docile, doctor, 
 doctrine. 
 
 Dominus, a lord; dominion, dominant; 
 domineer, dame, damsel, madame 
 (allF.) 
 
WORD-BRANCHING. 
 
 149 
 
 Domus, a house; domestic, domicile. 
 
 Dormio, J sleep; dormitory; dormant, 
 dormer-window (both F.) 
 
 Duco (dictum), J lead; induct, educa- 
 tion, duke(F.), produce. 
 
 Duo, two; dual, duel, duplex, double (F.) 
 
 Emo (emptum), J buy ; exemption, re- 
 deem (F.) 
 
 Eo (itum), I go; exit, transit, circuit(F.), 
 ambition, perish (F.) 
 
 Erro, J wander ; err, error, aberration. 
 
 Facies, a/oce; facial, faeet(F.), superficial. 
 
 Facio, (factum), I make; manufacture, 
 factor, faction, fashion (F.), feature 
 (F.), fact, feat (F.) 
 
 Fero (latum), I carry ; infer, suffer, refer- 
 ence, difference ; relative, correlative. 
 
 Fido, ltrust; confide, diffident, infidel (F.) 
 
 Filum, a thread; file, defile, profile, fillet 
 (F.) 
 
 Finis, the end; finish (F.), finite, Infinite, 
 infinitive. 
 
 Firmus, firm; infirm, affirm, confirm. 
 
 Flecto(flexum), Ibend; inflect, inflection, 
 flexible. 
 
 Flos (floris), a flower; floral, flora, flori- 
 culture. 
 
 Fluo (fluxum), I flow ; fluent, fluid, flux, 
 affluent. 
 
 Folium, a leaf; foliage, foil (F.), portfolio, 
 trefoil (F.) 
 
 Forma, a form ; form, formal, reform, 
 conformity. 
 
 FortiB, strong; fortify, fortitude, fortress, 
 force (F.) 
 
 Frango (fractus), I break; fragile (F.), 
 fragmentary, infraction, infringe. 
 
 Frater, a brother; fraternal, fratricide, 
 friar (F.) 
 
 Frons, (frontis), the forehead; front, 
 frontal, frontier, frontispiece. 
 
 Fugiojfiee; fugitive, refugee (F.), subter- 
 fuge. 
 
 Fundo (fusum), I pour; fount, foundry 
 (F.); fusible, diffusion. 
 
 Fundus, thebottom; foundation, profound, 
 founder (all F.) 
 
 (Jena (gentis), a race, people; gentile, 
 genteel, gentle (all F.) ; congenial. 
 
 Goro (gestum), I bear, carry; gesture, 
 suggestion, indigestion. 
 
 Gradus, a step; gradior (gressus), J go; 
 grade, degrade, graduate; progress (F.), 
 gradient. 
 
 Gratia, favour, pi. thanks; gratitude, in- 
 gratiate, gratis 
 
 Gravis, heavy ; grave, gravity, grief (F.), 
 aggrieve (F.) 
 
 Habeo(habitum), J have; habit, able(F.), 
 exhibit, prohibition. 
 
 Hoereo (hsesum), J stick ; adhere, adher- 
 ent, cohesion. 
 
 Homo, a man ; homicide, homage (F.), 
 human, humnnc. 
 
 Ignis, fire; ignite, igneous. 
 
 Impero, Icommand; imperative, imperial ; 
 empire, emperor (both F.) 
 
 Initium, a beginning; initate, initial. 
 
 Insula, an island; isle, insular, peninsula. 
 
 Jacio (jectum), I throw; adjective, pro- 
 ject, injection, object, subject. 
 
 Judex (judicis), a judge; judgment (F.), 
 judicial. 
 
 Jungo(junctum), I join; junction, junc- 
 ture, conjoin (F.), adjunct. 
 
 Jus (juris), right; justice (F.), jury (F.), 
 injury. 
 
 Labor (lapsus), I glide; lapse, relapse, 
 collapse. 
 
 Lapis (lapidis), a stone; lapidary, dilapi- 
 dated. 
 
 Laus(laudis), praise; laud, laudable, laud- 
 ation, allow (F.) 
 
 Lego (lectum), I gather, read ; collect, 
 elector, select; lecture (F.), legend, 
 legible. 
 
 Lego (legatum), I send ; legate, delegate, 
 legacy. 
 
 Levis, light; levity, alleviate; relief, 
 lever, leaven (all F.) 
 
 Lex (legis), a law; legal, legislate, legiti- 
 mate. 
 
 Liber, free; liberal, liberty, libertine. 
 
 Liber, a book; library, librarian. 
 
 Ligo, I bind; ligament, religion, oblige 
 (F.), liable (F.) 
 
 Linquo(lictum), I leave; relinquish, relict, 
 relics (F.) 
 
 Litera, a letter; literal, literary, litera- 
 ture. 
 
 Locus, a place; local, allocate, dislocate, 
 locomotive. 
 
 Loquor (locutus), I speak; loquacious, 
 elocution, co'.loquy. 
 
 Ludo(lusum), I play ; elude, illusion, in- 
 terlude, ludicrous. 
 
 Lumen, light; illuminate, luminous, lum- 
 inary. 
 
 Luna, the moon ; lunar, sublunary, lun 
 acy. 
 
 Luo (lutum), I wash; ablution, dilute, 
 antediluvian. 
 
150 
 
 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 Lux (lucis), light; lucid, elucidate, pel- 
 lucid. 
 
 Magnus, great ; magnitude, magnify, mag- 
 nificent, magnanimous. 
 
 Malus, bad; malady, malice (F.); malaria, 
 malevolent. 
 
 Maneo (mansum), I remain ; manse, man- 
 sion, permanent. 
 
 Manus, the hand; manuscript, manual, 
 manufacture, amanuensis. 
 
 Mare, the sea ; marine, mariner, maritime. 
 
 Mater, a mother; maternal, matricide, 
 matron, matriculate. 
 
 Maturus, ripe; mature, immature, pre- 
 mature. 
 
 Medius, the middle; medium, mediate, 
 immediate, Mediterranean. 
 
 Memini, I remember; mernor, mindful; 
 memory, memoir (F.), commemorate, 
 immemorial. 
 
 Mens (mentis), the mind; mental, de- 
 mented. 
 
 Mergo (mersum), I dip; emerge, immer- 
 sion, emergency. 
 
 Merx (mercis), goods; merchandise (F.), 
 commerce (F.), merchant (F.) 
 
 Miles (milites), a soldier; military, mili- 
 tant, militia. 
 
 Miror, 2" admire; admirable, miracle, 
 mirage (F.) 
 
 Mitto (missum), I send ; commit, missile, 
 mission, remittance. 
 
 Modus, a measure; mood (F.), modify, 
 accommodate. 
 
 Moneo (monitum), I advise; monition, 
 monitor, monument. 
 
 Mons (montis), a mountain; amount (F.), 
 dismount (F.), promontory, ultramon- 
 tane. 
 
 Mors (mortis), death ; mortify, mortal, 
 immortality. 
 
 Moveo (motum), I move ; mobile (F ), 
 promote, motor, motive. 
 
 Multus, many ; multitude, multiple, mul- 
 tiply. 
 
 Munus (muneris), a gift; munificent, re- 
 munerate, municipal. 
 
 Muto, I change ; mutable, transmute. 
 
 Nascor (natus), to be born; nascent, natal, 
 nativity, nature. 
 
 Navis, a ship; navy, naval, navigate, 
 nave (F.) 
 
 Necto (nexum), I tie; connect, connec- 
 tion, annex. 
 
 Nego (negatum), I deny; negative, nega- 
 tion, renegade (Sp.) 
 
 Noceo, / injure ; noxious, innocuous, in- 
 nocent. 
 
 Nomen, a name; nominal, cognomen, no- 
 mination. 
 
 Novus, new; novel, renovate, novelty, 
 innovation. 
 
 Nox (noctis), night; nocturnal, equinoc- 
 tial, equinox. 
 
 Nudus, naked ; nude, denude, denudation. 
 
 Numerus, a number; numeration, in- 
 numerable, enumerate. 
 
 Octo, eight; octave, octagon, October. 
 
 Omnis, all; omnibus, omnipotent, om- 
 niscient. 
 
 Opus (operis), work; operation, co-oper- 
 ate, opera. 
 
 Ordo (ordinis), order; ordinal, ordinary, 
 ordinance. 
 
 Oro, I pray ; oration, orator, peroration. 
 
 Pando (pansum or passum), I spread ; ex- 
 pand, expanse; compass. pace(F.) 
 
 Pareo, I appear; appearance, apparent, 
 apparition. 
 
 Paro (para turn), I prepare; repair (F.), 
 apparatus, comparison (F.) 
 
 Pars (partis), a part ; particle, partition ; 
 partner, parcel (F.) 
 
 Pasco (pastum), J feed; pastor, repae^ 
 pasture. 
 
 Pater, a father; paternal, parricide (F.) 
 patrimony. 
 
 Patior (passus), I suffer ; impatient, pas- 
 sive, passion. 
 
 Pax (pacis), peace ; pacify, pacific. 
 
 Pello (pulsum), I drive; repel, expel, ex- 
 pulsion, impulsive. 
 
 Pendeo (pensum), 1 hang; pendant, de- 
 pend, suspend, suspense, appendix. 
 
 Pes (pedis), the foot ; pedal, impede, ped- 
 estrian, biped. 
 
 Peto (petitum), I seek; petition, petulant, 
 compete, appetite. 
 
 Planus, level ; plan, plane, plain, ex- 
 plain (all F.) 
 
 Plaudo (plausum), I clap the hands; ap- 
 plaud, plausible, explode (F.) 
 
 Pleo (pletum), I fill ; complete, comple- 
 tion, supplement. 
 
 Plico (plicatum), I fold; complicated, pli- 
 able (F.), reply (F.), dismay (F.), simple. 
 
 Poena, punishment ; penal, repent, pen- 
 alty, penitent, penance (all F.) 
 
 Pono (positum), I place; deponent, posi- 
 tion, imposition, post (F.) 
 
 Pons (pontis), a bridge; pontiff, transpon- 
 tine. 
 
WORD-BRANCHING. 
 
 151 
 
 Porto, I carry: export, deportment, re- 
 port, portmanteau (F.) 
 
 Possum, I am able ; potens, able ; pos- 
 sible, potency (F.), impotent. 
 
 Prehendo (prehensum), (Fr. prendre, 
 pris), I take; prehensile, comprehend ; 
 apprise, comprise, apprentice (F.) 
 
 Primus, first; primary, primitive, prim- 
 rose (F.) 
 
 Probo, I try, prove ; probe, probable, im- 
 prove (F.), approve (F.) 
 
 Propriua, one's own; proper, property 
 (F.) ; appropriation. 
 
 Pungo(punctum), I prick; pungent, ex- 
 punge ; punctual, poignant (F.) 
 
 Puto (putatum), J cut, think; compute, 
 count (F.), amputate, reputation. 
 
 Quatuor,/owr; quadra, a square ; quart, 
 quarter, quarry (F.) ; quadrant. 
 
 Radix, a root; radical, eradicate, radish 
 (F.) 
 
 Rapio (raptum), I seize; rapture, rapine 
 (F.), surreptitious. 
 
 Rego (rectum), I rule ; rex (regis), o king ; 
 regal, regulate, regent, rector, interreg- 
 num, royal (F.), realm (N.-Fr. real). 
 
 Rideo (risum), I laugh; ridicule (F.), de- 
 ride, ridiculous (F.), risible. 
 
 Rogo (rogatum), I ask; rogation, interro- 
 gation, derogatory. 
 
 Rota, a wheel; rotary, rotation, rotund 
 — contracted into round (F.) 
 
 Rumpo (ruptum), I break; rupture, erup- 
 tion, disruption. 
 
 Sacer, sacred; sacrament, sacrilege (F.), 
 sacerdotal, sexton (contracted from 
 sacristan). 
 
 Salio (saltum), I leap; sally, assail, sal- 
 mon (all F.); salient. 
 
 Sanctus, holy ; sanctuary, sanctify, saint 
 (F.) 
 
 Scando (scansum), I climb ; acala, a lad- 
 der; scan, scale, descent, ascension. 
 
 Scio, I know; science, scientific, con. 
 science, omniscient. 
 
 Scribo (scriptum), I write; scribe, scrib- 
 ble, scripture, inscription, postscript. 
 
 Seco (sectum), / cut ; bisect, dissect, in- 
 sect, section. 
 
 Sedeo (sessum), I set, sit; sediment, sub- 
 side, see (F.), residence (F.), insidious. 
 
 Sentio, I feel ; sense, sensual, scent (F.); 
 sentiment. 
 
 Septem, seven; septennial, September. 
 
 Sequor (secutus), I follow; sequence (F.), 
 sequel, consequent, prosecute. 
 
 Servio, I serve ; service (F.), servant, ser- 
 geant (F.) 
 
 Signum, a sign; signify, significant, des- 
 ignation, ensign (F.) 
 
 Similis, like; similar, similitude, re- 
 semble (F.) 
 
 Socius, a companion; social, society, as- 
 sociation. 
 
 Solus, alone; solitude, sole, solo (It.) 
 
 Solvo (solutum), I loose; dissolve, resolve, 
 absolute, resolution, 
 
 Specio (spectum), / see ; aspect, spectator, 
 specimen, spectre (F.) 
 
 Spero, I hope; despair (F.), desperate. 
 
 Spiro, I breathe; inspire, aspire, con- 
 spiracy (all F.) 
 
 Statuo, I set up ; »to (statum), I stand ; 
 statue, statute, stature (F.); insti- 
 tute. 
 
 Stringo (strictum), I bind; stringent, 
 constrain (F.), district. 
 
 Struo (structum), Ibuild; structure, con- 
 struct, obstruct, construe. 
 
 Sumo (sumptum), I take; assume, con- 
 sume, assumption. 
 
 Tango (tactum), I touch; tangible, tan- 
 gent, contact, contagious. 
 
 Tego (tectum), I cover; integument, de- 
 tect, tile (F.) ; from Lat. tegula. 
 
 Tempus (temporis), time; temporal, con- 
 temporary, extempore. 
 
 Tendo (tensum), J stretch; contend, ex. 
 tend, attend, tense (F.), tendon. 
 
 Teneo (tentum), I hold; tenant, tenet, 
 tendril, detain (F.), retentive. 
 
 Terminus, an end, boundary ; terminate, 
 term (F.) interminable. 
 
 Terra, the earth; subterranean, terres- 
 trial, Mediterranean. 
 
 Terreo, I frighten; terror, terrify, deter. 
 
 Texo (textum), I weave; textile, text, 
 texture, context. 
 
 Timeo, I fear ; timid, timorous. 
 
 Torqneo (tortum), / twist; torture, tor- 
 ment, contortion, retort. 
 
 Traho (tractum), / draw; traction, sub- 
 tract, contraction, tract. 
 
 Tres (tria), three; trefoil (F.), trident, 
 trinity. 
 
 Tribuo, I give; tribute, tributary, con- 
 tribution. 
 
 Tumeo, I swell; tumulus, a swelling or 
 mound; tumult, tumour, tomb(F.) 
 
 TJnus, one; union, unit, unite, uniform, 
 unique (F.) 
 
 "Orbs, a city; suburb, urbanity, urbane. 
 
152 
 
 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 Valeo, i" am strong; valour, valiant (F.), 
 prevail (F.) 
 
 Vanus, empty ; vanity, vanish, vain 
 (aU F.) 
 
 Veno (vectum), I convey ; vehicle, con- 
 veyance (F.), convex. 
 
 Venio, I come; advent; venture, con- 
 vene, covenant (F.) 
 
 Verbum, a word; verb, adverb, verbose, 
 verbal, proverb. 
 
 Verto (versum), / turn; convert, revert, 
 divert, versatile. 
 
 Verus, true; verity, aver, verdict (all F.) 
 
 Via, a way; deviate, previous, trivial. 
 
 Video (visum), I see; vision, provide, visit 
 (F.), revise (F.) 
 
 Vinco (victum), I conquer; victor, con- 
 vict, victory, convince. 
 
 Vitium, a fault ; vice (F.), vitiate, vicious 
 (F.) 
 
 Vivo (victum), I live ; vivid ; revive, 
 viands, survive (F.) 
 
 Voco (vocatum), / call; vocal, vowel (F.), 
 vocation, revoke (F.), vociferate. 
 
 Volo, I wish ; volition, voluntary, benev- 
 olence. 
 
 Volvo (volutum), / roll ; revolve, involve, 
 evolution, volume. 
 
 Voveo (votum), I vow ; vote, devote, vow 
 (F.) 
 
 Vulgus, the common people ; vulgar, di- 
 vulge, vulgate. 
 
 GREEK ROOTS. 
 
 Agon, a contest; agony, antagonist. 
 
 Alios, another ; allopathy, allegory. 
 
 Angelos, a messenger ; angel, evangelist. 
 
 AnthrSpos, a man ; misanthrope, philan- 
 thropy. 
 
 Archo, / begin, rule; monarch, archaic, 
 archbishop, archdeacon. 
 
 Arithmos, number; arithmetic. 
 
 Aster or astron, a star ; astronomy, astro- 
 logy, asteroid, disaster. 
 
 Atmos, vapour; atmosphere 
 
 Autos, self; autocrat, autograph. 
 
 Ballo, I throw ; symbol, parable. 
 
 Bapto, / dip ; baptise, baptist. 
 
 Baros, weight; barometer, baritone. 
 
 Biblos, a book ; Bible, bibliomania. 
 
 Bios, life; biography, biology, amphi- 
 bious. 
 
 Cheir, the hand; surgeon [older form, 
 chirurgeon]. 
 
 Chole, bile; melancholy, choler. 
 
 Chrio, I anoint ; Christ, chrism. 
 
 Chronos, time; chronology, chronic, chron- 
 icle, chronometer. 
 
 Daktulos, a finger; dactyl, pterodactyl, 
 d&te (the fruit). 
 
 Deka, ten ; decagon, decalogue, decade. 
 
 Demos, the people; democrat, endemic, 
 epidemic. 
 
 Dokeo, I think; doxa and dogma, an 
 opinion; doxology, orthodox, hetero- 
 dox, dogma, dogmatic. 
 
 Drao, / do ; drama, dramatic. 
 
 Dunamis, power ; dynamics, dynamite. 
 
 Eidos, form; kaleidoscope, spheroid. 
 
 Eikon, an image; iconoclast. 
 
 Electron, amber ; electricity, electrotype. 
 
 Ergon, a work; surgecn (= chirurgeon), 
 energy, metallurgy. 
 
 Eu, well ; eucharist, euphony, evangelist. 
 
 Gamos, marriage; bigamy, monogamist, 
 misogamy. 
 
 Ge, the earth; geography, geometry, geo- 
 logy. 
 
 Genos, race, kind; genesis, genealogy, 
 hydrogen, oxygen. 
 
 Grapho, I write ; gramma, a letter ; gra- 
 phic, grammar, telegraph, biography, 
 diagram. 
 
 Haima, blood; haemorrhage, haemorrhoids 
 
 Haireo, I choose; heresy, heretic. 
 
 Hecaton, a hundred; hecatomb, hecto- 
 metre. 
 
 Helios, the sun ; heliograph, heliotype. 
 
 Hemi, half; hemisphere. 
 
 Hieros, sacred ; hierarchy, hieroglyphic. 
 
 Hippos, a horse; hippopotamus, hippo- 
 drome. 
 
 Hodos, a way; method, period, exodus. 
 
 HSmos, the same ; homologue, homo- 
 geneous. 
 
 Hudor, water; hydraulic, hydrophobia, 
 hydrogen. 
 
 Ichthus, a fish; ichthyology. 
 
 Idios, one's own; idiom, idiot, idiosyn- 
 crasy. 
 
 Isos, equal; isochronous, isobaric (of equal 
 weight), isosceles. 
 
 Kalos, beautiful; caligraphy, kaleidoscope. 
 
 Kephale, the head ; hydrocephalus. 
 
WORD-BRANCHING. 
 
 153 
 
 Klino, I bend ; clinical, climax, climate. 
 
 Koamos, order; cosmogony, cosmography, 
 cosmetic. 
 
 Krino, I judge ; critic, criterion, hypo- 
 crite. 
 
 Kuklos, a circle ; cycle, cycloid, cyclone. 
 
 Knon (kun-os), a dog; cynic, cynicism. 
 
 Lego, I say, choose ; eclectic, lexicon. 
 
 Lithos, a stone . lithograph, aerolite. 
 
 Logos, a word, speech; logic, dialogue, 
 geology. 
 
 Luo, I loosen ; dialysis, analysis, paralysis, 
 
 Meter, a mother; metropolis, metropo- 
 litan. 
 
 Metron, a measure: metre, metronome, 
 diameter, thermometer, barometer. 
 
 Mdnos, alone ; monastery, monogram, mo- 
 nosyllable, monopoly, monarch. 
 
 Morphe, shape ; amorphous, dimorphous, 
 metamorphic. 
 
 Naus, a ship ; nautical, nausea. 
 
 Nekros, a dead body; necropolis, necro- 
 mancy. 
 
 N6mos, a law; autonomous, astronomy, 
 Deuteronomy. 
 
 Oikos, a house ; economy, economical. 
 
 Ondma, a name,; anonymous, synony- 
 mous, patronymic. 
 
 Optomai, I see ; optics, synoptical. 
 
 Orthos, right : orthodoxy, orthography. 
 
 Pais (paid-os), a boy; pedagogue [lit o 
 boy-leader]. 
 
 Pan, all : pantheist, panoply, pantomime. 
 
 Pathos, feeling ; pathetic, sympathy. 
 
 Pente, five ; pentagon, pentateuch, Pente- 
 cost. 
 
 Petra, a rock ; petrify, petrel, Peter. 
 
 Phainomai, I appear ; phenomenon, phan- 
 tasy, phantom, fantastic, fancy. 
 
 Phero, J bear ; periphery, phosphorus 
 [=the light-bearer]. 
 
 Phileo, I love; philosophy, Philadelphia, 
 philharmonic 
 
 Phone, a sound; phonic, phonetic, eu- 
 phony, symphony. 
 
 Phoa (phot-os), light ; photometer, photo- 
 graph. 
 
 Phusis, nature; physics, physiology, phy- 
 sician. 
 
 Poieo, I make; poet, poetic, pharmacopoeia. 
 
 Polis, a city; Constantinople, metro- 
 polis. 
 
 Polua, many; polytheist, Polynesia, poly- 
 anthus, polygamy. 
 
 Pous (pod-os), afoot ; antipodes, tripod. 
 
 Protos, first ; prototype, protoplasm. 
 
 Pur, fire; pyrotechnic, pyre. 
 
 Rheo, I flow ; catarrh, rheumatic. 
 
 Skopeo, I set; microscope, telescope, 
 spectroscope, bishop [from episkopos, 
 an overseer}. 
 
 Sophia, wisdom ; sophist, philosophy. 
 
 Stello, I send ; apostle, epistle. 
 
 Stratos, an army ; strategy, strategic. 
 
 Strepho, I turn ; catastrophe, apostrophe 
 
 Techne, an art ; technicaL 
 
 TelS, distant; telegraph, telescope, tele 
 phone, telegram. 
 
 Temno, I cut ; anatomy, lithotomy. 
 
 Tetra, four ; tetrachord, tetrarch. 
 
 Theaomai, I see; theatre, theory. 
 
 Theos, a god ; theist, enthusiast, theology. 
 
 Therme, heat ; thermal, thermometer 
 isotherm. 
 
 Tithemi, I place ; thesis, a placing ; syn- 
 thesis, hypothesis. 
 
 Treis, three; triangle, trigonometry, tri- 
 pod, tridactyl, trichord. 
 
 Trepo, I turn ; trophy, tropic, heliotrope. 
 
 Tupos, the impress of a seal ; type, stereo- 
 type. 
 
 Zoon, an animal ; zoology, zodiac 
 
154 
 
 WORDS DERIVED FROM THE NAMES OP 
 PERSONS, ETC. 
 
 Argosy, from Ragusa, a port in Dalmatia, on the E. Coast of the Gulf 
 
 of Venice. Properly "Ragusy" (a form which was in use in 1577). 
 
 Used by Shakespeare, in the " Merchant of Venice," i. 1. 9, in the 
 
 sense of trading vessel. 
 Assassins, the name of a fanatical Syrian sect of the thirteenth century, 
 
 who, under the influence of a drug prepared from hemp, called has- 
 
 chisch, rushed into battle against the Crusaders, and slaughtered 
 
 many of their foes. 
 Atlas, one of the Titans, or earlier gods, who was so strong that he was said 
 
 to carry the world on his shoulders. 
 August, from Augustus Caesar, the second Emperor of Rome. 
 Bacchanalian, from the festival called Bacchanalia; from Bacchus, the 
 
 Roman god of wine. 
 Boycott (to), from Captain Boycott, a land-agent in the west of Ireland, 
 
 who was * sent to Coventry " by all his neighbours ; they would neither 
 
 speak to him, buy from him, or sell to him — by order of the " Irish 
 
 Land League." 
 Chimera, a totally imaginary and grotesque image or conception ; from 
 
 Chimsera, a monster in the Greek mythology, half goat, half lion. 
 Cicerone, a guide ; from Cicero, the greatest Roman orator and writer of 
 
 speeches that ever lived. (Guides who described antiquities, etc., were 
 
 supposed to be as "fluent as Cicero.") 
 Cravat, from the Croats or Crabati of Croatia, who supplied an army 
 
 corps to Austria, in which long and large neck-ties were worn by the 
 
 soldiers. 
 Dahlia, from Dahl, a Swedish botanist, who introduced the flower into 
 
 Europe. 
 Draconian (code), a very severe code ; from Draco, a severe Athenian legis- 
 lator, who decreed death for every crime, great or small. His laws 
 
 were said to have been " written in blood. " 
 Dunce, from Duns Scotus, a great philosopher (or " schoolman ") of the 
 
 Middle Ages, who died 1308. The followers of Thomas Aquinas 
 
 called " Thomists," looked down upon those of Duns, who were called 
 
 " Sootists," and in course of time " Dunces." 
 
WORDS DERIVED FROM THE NAMES OF PERSONS. 155 
 
 Epicure, a person fond of good living ; from Epicurus, a great Greek phil- 
 osopher. His enemies misrepresented him as teaching that pleasure 
 was the highest or chief est good. 
 
 Euphuistic (style), a style of high-flown refinement ; from Euphues (the 
 well-born man), the title of a book written in the reign of Elizabeth, 
 by John Lyly, which introduced a too ingenious and far-fetched way 
 of speaking and writing in her Court. 
 
 Fauna, the collective name for all the animals of a region or country ; from 
 Faunus, a Roman god of the woods and country. (The Fauni were 
 minor rural deities of Rome, who had the legs, feet, and ears of a goat, 
 and the other parts of the body of a human shape.) 
 
 Flora, the collective name for all the plants and flowers of a region or 
 country ; from Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers. 
 
 Galvanism, from Galvani, an Italian physicist, lecturer on anatomy at 
 Bologna, who discovered, by experiments on frogs, that animals are 
 endowed with a certain kind of electricity. 
 
 Gordian (knot), the knot tied by Gordius a king of Phrygia, who had been 
 originally a peasant. The knot by which he tied the draught-pole 
 of his chariot to the yoke was so intricate, that no one could untie it. 
 A rumour spread that the oracle had stated that the empire of Asia 
 would belong to him who should untie the Gordian knot. Alexander 
 the Great, to encourage his soldiers, tried to untie it ; but, finding 
 that he could not, he cut it through with his sword, and declared that 
 he had thus fulfilled the oracle. 
 
 Guillotine, an instrument for beheading at one stroke, used in France. 
 It was invented during the time of the Revolution by Dr Guillotin. 
 
 Hansom (cab), from the name of its inventor. 
 
 Hector (to), to talk big; from Hector, the bravest of the Trojans, as 
 Achilles was the bravest of the Grecian chiefs. 
 
 Hermetically (sealed), so sealed as to entirely exclude the outer air ; 
 from Hermes, the name of the Greek god who corresponds to the 
 Roman god Mercury. Hermes was fabled to be the inventor of 
 chemistry. 
 
 Jacobin, a revolutionist of the extremest sort ; from the hall of the 
 Jacobin Friars in Paris, where the revolutionists used to meet. 
 Robespierre was for some time their chief. 
 
 Jacobite, a follower of the Stuart family ; from James II. (in Latin 
 Jacobus), who was driven from the English throne in 1688. 
 
 January, from the Roman god Janus, a god with two faces, "looking 
 before and after." 
 
 Jovial, with the happy temperament of a person born under the influence 
 of the star Jupiter or Jove ; a term taken from the old astrology. 
 (Opposed to saturnine, gloomy, because born under the star Saturn.) 
 
 July, from Julius, in honour of Julius Caesar, the great Roman general, 
 
 writer, and statesman — who was born in this month. 
 Lazaretto or Lazar-house. from Lazarus, the beggar at the gate of 
 
156 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 Dives, in Luke xvi. The word is corrupted into lizard in Lizard- 
 point, where a lazar-house once stood, for the reception of sick people 
 from on board ship. 
 
 Lynch-law, from a famous Judge Lynch, of Tennessee, who made Bhort 
 work of his trials, and then of his criminals. 
 
 Macadamise, to make roads of fragments of stones, which afterwards 
 cohere in one mass ; from John Loudon Macadam, the inventor, who, 
 in 1827, received from the Government a reward of £10,000 for his 
 plan. 
 
 March, from Mars, the Roman god of war. 
 
 Martinet, a severe disciplinarian, with an eye for the smallest details ; 
 from General Martinet, a strict commander of the time of Louis XIV. 
 of France. 
 
 Mausoleum, a splendidly built tomb ; from Mausolus, King of Caria in 
 Asia Minor, to whom his widow erected a gorgeous burial-chamber. 
 
 Mentor, an adviser ; from Mentor, the aged counsellor of Telemachus, the 
 son of Ulysses. 
 
 Mercurial, of light, airy, and quick-spirited temperament, as having been 
 born under the planet Mercury (compare Jovial, Saturnine, etc. ) 
 
 Panic, a sudden and unaccountable terror ; from Pan, the god of flocks 
 and shepherds. He was fabled to appear suddenly to travellers. 
 
 Parrot ( = Little Peter, or PeterTcin), from the French Perrot = Pierrot, 
 from Pierre, Peter. Compare Magpie = Margaret Pie; Jackdaw; 
 Robin-redbreast ; Cuddy (from Cuthbert), a donkey, etc. 
 
 Petrel, the name of a sea-bird that skims the tops of the waves in a storm, 
 the diminutive of Peter. It is an allusion to Matthew xiv. 29. These 
 birds are called by sailors " Mother Carey's chickens." 
 
 Phaeton, a kind of carriage ; from Phaethon, a son of Apollo, who received 
 from his father permission to guide the chariot of the Sun for a single 
 day. 
 
 Philippic, a violent political speech directed against a person ; from the 
 orations made by Demosthenes, the great Athenian orator, against 
 Philip of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great. 
 
 Plutonic (rocks), igneous rocks (created by the action of fire) — in oppo- 
 sition to sedimentary rocks, which have been formed by the depositing 
 action of water ; from Pluto, the Roman god of the infernal regions. 
 
 Protean, assuming many shapes ; from Proteus, a sea-deity, who had 
 received the gift of prophecy from Neptune, but who was very 
 difficult to catch, as he could take whatever form he pleased. 
 
 Quixotic, fond of utterly impracticable designs ; from Don Quixote, the 
 hero of the national Spanish romance, by Cervantes. Don Quixote is 
 made to tilt at windmills, proclaim and make war against whole 
 nations by himself, and do many other chivalrous and absurd 
 things. 
 
 Simony, the fault of illegally buying and selling church livings ; from 
 Simon Magus. (See Acts viii. 18.) 
 
WORDS DERIVED FROM THE NAMES OF PERSONS. 157 
 
 Stentorian, very loud and strong ; from Stentor, whom Homer describes 
 as the loudest-voiced man in the Grecian army that was besieging 
 Troy. 
 
 Tantalise, to tease with impossible hopes ; from Tantalus, a king of 
 Lydia in Asia Minor. He offended the gods, and was placed in 
 Hades up to his lips in a pool of water, which, when he attempted to 
 drink it, ran away ; and with bunches of grapes over his head, which, 
 when he tried to grasp them, were blown from his reach by a blast of 
 wind. 
 
 Tawdry, shabby — a term often applied to cheap finery ; from St 
 Ethelreda, which became St Audrey : originally applied to clothes 
 sold at St Audrey's fair. (Compare TooLey from St Olave ; Ted from 
 St Edmund; etc.) 
 
 Volcano and Vulcanite, from the Roman god of fire and smiths, Vulcanus. 
 A volcano was regarded as the chimney of one of his workshops. 
 
158 
 
 WORDS DERIVED PROM THE NAMES OP 
 PLACES. 
 
 Academy, from Academia, the house of Academus, a friend of the great 
 Greek philosopher Plato, who was allowed to teach his followers 
 there. Plato taught either in Academus's garden, or in his own 
 house. 
 
 Artesian (well), from Artois, the name of an old province in the north- 
 west of France, the inhabitants of which were accustomed to pierce 
 the earth for water. 
 
 Bayonet, from Bayonne, in the south of France, on the Bay of Biscay. 
 (Compare Pistol from Pistoia, a town in the north of Italy. ) 
 
 Bedlam, the name for a lunatic asylum — a corruption of the word Beth- 
 lehem (Hospital). 
 
 Cambric, the name of the finest kind of linen ; from Cambray, a tc wn in 
 French Flanders, in the north-west of France. 
 
 Canter, an easy and slow gallop ; from the pace assumed by the Canter- 
 bury Pilgrims, when riding along the green lanes of England to the 
 shrine of Thomas a Becket. 
 
 Carronade, a short cannon ; from Carron, in Stirlingshire, Scotland, 
 where it was first made. 
 
 Cherry ; from Cerasus, a town in Pontus, Asia Minor, where it was much 
 grown. 
 
 Copper and Cypress ; from the island of Cyprus, in the Mediterranean. 
 
 Currants, small dried grapes from Corinth, in Greece, where they are still 
 grown in large quantities. They are shipped at the port of Patras. 
 
 Damson, a contraction of damascene ; from Damascus = the Damascus 
 plum. (Hence also damask.) 
 
 Dollar, a coin — the chief coin used in America ; from German Thaler 
 ( = Daler, or something made in a dale or valley). The first coins of 
 this sort were made in St Joachimsthal in Bohemia, and were called 
 Joachim's thaler. 
 
 Elysian (used with fields or bliss), from Elysium, the place to which the 
 souls of brave Greeks went after death. 
 
 Ermine, the fur worn on judges' robes ; from Armenia, because this fur 
 is "the spoil of the Armenian rat." 
 
WORDS DERIVED FROM THE NAMES OF PLACES. 159 
 
 Florin, a two-shilling piece ; from Florence. Professor Skeat says : 
 " Florins were coined by Edward III. in 1337, and named after the 
 coins of Florence." 
 
 Gasconading, boasting ; from Gascony, a southern province of France, the 
 inhabitants of which were much given to boasting. One Gascon, on 
 being shown the Tuileries— the palace of the Kings of France — re- 
 marked that it reminded him to some extent of his father's stables, 
 which, however, were somewhat larger. 
 
 Gipsy, a corrupt form of the word Egyptian. The Gipsies were supposed 
 to come from Egypt. (The French call them Bohemians.) 
 
 Guinea, a coin value 21s. now quite out of use, except as a name — made 
 of gold brought from the Guinea Coast, in the west of Africa. 
 
 Hock, the generic term for all kinds of Rhine-wine, but properly only the 
 name of that which comes from Hochheim, a celebrated vineyard. 
 
 Indigo, a blue dye, obtained from the leaves of certain plants ; from the 
 Latin adjective Indicus= belonging to India. 
 
 Laconic, short, pithy, and full of sense ; from Laconia, a country in the 
 south of Greece, the capital of which was Sparta or Lacedsemon. 
 The Laconians, and especially the Spartans, were little given to talk- 
 ing, unlike their lively rivals, the Athenians. 
 
 Lilliputian, very small ; from Lilliput, the name of the imaginary country 
 of extremely small men and women, visited by Captain Lemuel 
 Gulliver, the hero of Swift's tale called ' Gulliver's Travels.' 
 
 Lumber, useless things ; from Lombard, the Lombards being famous for 
 money-lending. The earliest kind of banking was pawnbroking ; and 
 pawnbrokers placed their pledges in the " Lombard-room," which, as it 
 gradually came to contain all kinds of rubbish, came also to mean and 
 to be called "lumber-room." In America, timber is called lumber. 
 
 Meander (to), to "wind about and in and out ;" from the Maeander, a 
 very winding river in the plain of Troy, in Phrygia, in the north-west 
 of Asia Minor. 
 
 Magnesia and Magnet, from Magnesia, a town in Thessaly, in the north 
 of Greece. 
 
 Milliner, originally a dealer in wares from Milan, a large city in the north 
 of Italy, in the plain of the Po. 
 
 Muslin, from Mosul, a town in Asiatic Turkey, on the Tigris. 
 
 Palace, from the Latin palatium, a building on Mons Palatlnus, one of 
 the seven hills of Rome. This building became the residence of 
 Nere and other Roman emperorp ; and hence palace came to be the 
 generic term for the house of a king or ruling prince. Palatinu*. 
 itself comes from Pales, a Roman goddess of flocks, and is connected 
 with the Lat. pater, a father or feeder. 
 
 Peach, from Lat. Persicum (malum), the Persian apple, from Persia, 
 The r has been gradually absorbed. 
 
 Pheasant, from the Phasis, a river of Colchis in Asia Minor, at the eastern 
 end of the Black Sea, from which these birds were first- brought. 
 
160 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 Port, a wine from Oporto, in Portugal. (Compare Sherry, which was 
 originally spelt Sherris, from Xeres, in the south of Spain. ) 
 
 Rhubarb, from Rha barbarum, the wild Rha plant. Rha is an old name 
 for the Volga, from the banks of which this plant was imported. 
 
 Solecism, a blunder in the use of words ; from Soli, a town in Cilicia, 
 in Asia Minor, the inhabitants of which used a mixed dialect. 
 
 Spaniel, a sporting-dog remarkable for its sense ; from Spain. The Old 
 French for spaniel was "chien eapagnol ; " the latter word pre- 
 serves the prefix of ift'spania, the Latin name for Spain. 
 
 Stoic, from Stoa Poikil6, the Painted Porch, a porch in Athens, where 
 Zeno, the founder of the Stoic School, taught his disciples. 
 
 Utopian, impossible to realise ; from Utopia ( = Nowhere), the title of a 
 story written by Sir Thomas More, in which he described, under 
 the guise of an imaginary island, the probable state of England, if 
 her laws and customs were reformed. 
 
161 
 
 WORDS DISGUISED IN FORM. 
 
 When a word is imported from a foreign language into our 
 own, there is a natural tendency among the people who use the 
 word to give it a native and homely dress, and so to make it 
 look like English. This is especially the case with proper 
 names. Thus the walk through St James's Park from Bucking- 
 ham Palace to the House of Commons was called Socage Walk 
 (that is, shrubbery walk) ; but, as Socage was a strange word to 
 the Londoner, it became quickly corrupted into Birdcage "Walk, 
 though there is not, and never was, any sign of birdcages in the 
 neighbourhood. Birdcage is a known word, Bocage is not — 
 that is the whole matter. In the same way, our English sailors, 
 when they captured the French ship Bellerophon, spoke of it as 
 the Billy Ruffian ; and our English soldiers in India mentioned 
 Surajah Dowlali, the prince who put the English prisoners into 
 the Black Hole, as Sir Roger Dowler. The same phenomenon 
 is observed also in common names — and not infrequently. The 
 following are some of the most remarkable examples : — 
 
 Alligator, from Spanish el lagarto, the lizard. The article el (from Latin 
 Hie) has clung to the word. Lat. lacerta, a lizard. (The Arabic 
 article al has clung to the noun in alchemy, algebra, almanac, etc.) 
 
 Artichoke (no connection with choke), from ItaL articiocco ; from Arabic 
 al harshaff, an artichoke. 
 
 Atonement, a hybrid — atone being English, and ment a Latin ending. 
 Atone = to bring or come into one. Shakespeare has "Earthly things, 
 made even, atone together." 
 
 Babble, from ba and the frequentative le ; it means "to keep on saying " ba. 
 
 Bank, a form of the word bench, a money-table. 
 
 Belfry (nothing to do with beU), from M. E. berfray ; 0. Fr. berfroit, a 
 watch-tower. 
 
162 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 Brimstone, from burn. The r is an easily moved letter — as in three, third ; 
 
 turn, trundle, etc. 
 Bugle, properly a wild ox. Bugle, in the sense of a musical instrument, 
 
 is really short for bugle-horn. Lat. buculus, a bullock, a diminutive 
 
 of bos. 
 Bustard, from 0. Fr. oustarde, from Lat. avis tarda, the tardy or slow 
 
 bird. 
 Butcher, from 0. Fr. bocher, a man who slaughters he-goats ; from boc, 
 
 the French form of buck. 
 Butler, the servant in charge of the butts or casks of wine. (The whole 
 
 collection of butts was called the buttery ; a little butt is a bottle. ) 
 Buxom, stout, healthy; but in 0. E. obedient. "Children, be buxom to 
 
 your parents." Connected with bow and bough. From A. S. bugan, 
 
 to bend ; which gives also bow, bight, boat, elbow (= el-bock), etc. 
 Carfax, a place where four roads meet. 0. Fr. carrefourgs ; Latin quatuor 
 
 furcas, four forks. 
 Carouse, from German gar aus, quite out. Spoken of emptying a goblet. 
 Caterpillar = hairy-cat, from 0. Fr. chate, a she-cat, and 0. Fr. pelouse, 
 
 hairy, Lat. pilosus. Compare woolly-bear. 
 Causeway (no connection with way), from Fr. chausee ; Lat. calceata via, a 
 
 way strewed with limestone ; from Lat. calx, lime. 
 Clove, through Fr. clou, from Lat. clavus, a nail, from its resemblance to 
 
 a small naiL 
 Constable, from Lat. comes stabuli, count of the stable ; hence Master oi 
 
 the Horse ; and, in the 13th century, commander of the king's army. 
 Coop, a cognate of cup ; from Lat. cupa, a tub. 
 Cope, a later spelling of cape. Cap., cape, and cope are forms of the same 
 
 word. 
 Costermonger, properly costard-monger ; from costard, a large apple. 
 Counterpane (not at all connected with counter or with pane, but with 
 
 quilt and point), a coverlet for a bed. The proper form is contre- 
 
 pointe, from Low Lat. culcita puncta, a punctured quilt. 
 Country-dance used to be explained as a corruption of the French 
 
 contre-danse ; a dance in which each dancer stands contre or contra 
 
 or opposite his partner. But it simply means "a rustic dance." 
 Coward, an animal that drops his tail. 0. Fr. col and ard ; from Lat. 
 
 cauda, a tail. 
 Crayfish, (nothing to do with fish), from 0. Fr. escrevxsse. This is really 
 
 a Frenchified form of the German word Krebs, which is the German 
 
 form of our English word crab. The true division of the word into 
 
 syllables is crayf-ish ; and thus the seeming connection with fish dis- 
 appears. 
 Custard, a misspelling of the M. E. word crustade, a general name for piea 
 
 made with crust. 
 Daisy = day's eye Chaucer says : " The dayes eye or else the eye of 
 
 day ' 
 
WORDS DISGUISED IN FORM. 163 
 
 Dandelion = dent de lion, the lion's tooth ; so named from its jagged 
 
 leaves. 
 Dirge, a funeral song of sorrow. In the Latin service for the dead, one part 
 began with the words (Ps. v. 8) dirige, Dominus meus, in conspectu 
 tuo vitam meam, " Direct my life, O Lord, in thy sight ; " and dirige 
 was contracted into dirge. 
 
 Drawing-room = withdrawing-room, a room to which guests retire after 
 dinner. 
 
 Dropsy (no connection with drop), from 0. Fr. hydroplsie, from Gr. 
 hudor, water. (Compare chirurgeon, which has been shortened into 
 surgeon; example, into sample ; estate into state.) 
 
 Easel, a diminutive of the word ass, through the Dutch ezel ; like the 
 Latin asellus. 
 
 Farthing = fourthing. (Four appears as fir in firkin ; and as for in forty. 
 
 Frontispiece (not connected with piece), that which is seen or placed in 
 front. Lat. specio, I see. 
 
 Gadfly = goad-fly (sting-fly). 
 
 Gospel = God-spell, a narrative about God. 
 
 Grove, originally a lane cut through trees. A doublet of groove, and 
 grave, from A. S. grafan, to dig. 
 
 Haft, that by which we nave or hold a thing. 
 
 Hamper, old form, hanaper ; from Low Latin hanaperium, a large basket 
 for keeping drinking-cups (hanapi) in. 
 
 Handsel, money given into the hand ; from A. S. seUan, to give. 
 
 Hanker, to keep the mind hanging on a thing. Er is a frequentative suffix, 
 as in batter, linger, etc. 
 
 Harbinger, a man who goes before to provide a harbour or lodging-place 
 for an army. The n is intrusive, as in porringer, passenger, and mes- 
 senger. (The ruins of old Roman villas were often used by English 
 travellers as inns. Such places were called " Cold Harbours." There 
 are numerous places of this name in England — commonly occurring 
 on the great Roman roads. ) 
 
 Hatchment, the escutcheon, shield, or eoat-of-arms of a deceased person, 
 displayed in front of his house. A corruption (by the intrusion of h) 
 of atch'ment, the short form of achievement, the old spelling of 
 achievement, which is still the heraldic word for hatchment. 
 
 Hawthorn = hedge-thorn. Haw was in 0. E. haga ; and the hard g 
 became a w ; and also became softened, under French influence, into 
 dg. Haha, older form Hawhaw, is a sunk fence. 
 
 Heaven, that which is heaved up ; heavy, that which requires much 
 heaving. 
 
 Horehound (not connected with hound), a plant with stems covered with 
 white woolly down. The M. E. form is hoar-hune ; and the second 
 syllable means scented. The syllable hoar means white, as in hoar- 
 frost. The final d is excrescent or inorganic— like the d in sound, bound 
 («= ready to go), etc. 
 
164 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 Humble-bee (not connected with the adjective humble), from M. E. 
 hummelen, to keep humming — a frequentative ; the b being in- 
 organic. 
 
 Humble-pie (not connected with the adjective humble), pie made of 
 umbles, the entrails of a deer. 
 
 Husband, (not connected with bind), from Icelandic husbuandi, buandi, 
 being the pres. participle of bua, to dwell ; and hus, house. 
 
 Hussif (connected with house, but not with wife), a case containing needles, 
 thread, etc. From Icelandic, h^si, a case, a cognate of house. The f 
 is intrusive, from a mistaken opinion that the word was a short form 
 of housewife. 
 
 Hussy, a pert girl ; a corruption of housewife. 
 
 Icicle, (the ending cle is not the diminutive) a hanging point of ice. The 
 A. S. form is isgicel, a compound of is, ice, and gicel, a small piece of 
 ice ; so that the word contains a redundant element. (The ic in icicle is 
 entirely different from the ic in art-ic-le and in part-ic-le.) 
 
 Intoxicate, to drug or poison ; from Low Lat. toxicum, poison ; from Gr. 
 toxon, a bow, plural toxa, bow and arrows — arrows for war being fre- 
 quently dipped in poison. 
 
 Island (not connected with isle) = water-land, a misspelling for iland (the 
 spelling that Milton always uses). The s has intruded itself from a 
 confusion with the Lat. insula, which gives isle. 
 
 Jaw, properly chaw, the noun for chew. Cognates are jowl and chaps. 
 
 Jeopardy, hazard, danger. M. E. jupartie, from 0. Fr. jeu parti, a game 
 in which the chances are even, from Low Lat. focus partltus, a divided 
 game. 
 
 Jerusalem artichoke (not at all connected with Jerusalem), a kind of sun- 
 flower. Italian girasole, from Lat. gyrus, a circle, and sol, the sun. 
 (In order to clench the blunder contained in the word Jerusalem, 
 cooks call a soup made of this kind of artichoke "Palestine soup ! ") 
 
 Kickshaws, from Fr. quelquechose, something. There was once a plural 
 — Tcickshawses. 
 
 Kind, the adjective from the noun kin. 
 
 Ledge, a place on which a thing lies. Hence also ledger. 
 
 Line (to line garments) = to put linen inside them. {Linen is really an 
 adjective from the M. E. lin, just like woollen, golden, etc.) 
 
 Liquorice (not connected with liquor), in M. E. licoris ; from Gr. 
 glylcyrrhiza, a sweet root. (For the loss of the initial g, compare 
 Ipswich and Gyppenswich ; enough and genoh; and the loss of ge 
 from all the past participles of our verbs.) 
 
 Mead, meadow = a place mowed. Hence also math, aftermath, and moth 
 ( = the biter or eater). 
 
 Nostrils =nose-thirles, nose-holes. Thirl is a cognate of thrill, drill, 
 through, etc. (For change of position of r, compare turn, trundle; 
 work, wright ; wort, root ; bride, bird, etc. ) 
 
 Nuncheon, a corruption of M. E. none-schenche, or noon-drink. Then 
 
WORDS DISGUISED IN FORM. 165 
 
 this word got mixed up with the provincial English word lunch, 
 
 which means a lump of bread ; and so we have luncheon. 
 Nutmeg, a hybrid compounded of an English and a French word. Meg is a 
 
 corruption of the 0. Fr. musge, from Lat. museum, musk. 
 Orchard = wort-yard, yard or garden for roots or plants. Wort is a 
 
 cognate of wart and root. 
 Ostrich, from Lat. avis struthio. Shakespeare spells it estridge in " Antony 
 
 and Cleopatra," iil 13. 197, "The dove will peck the estridge." (Avis 
 
 is found as a prefix in bustard also. ) 
 Pastime = that which enables one to pass the time. 
 Pea-jacket (not connected with pea), a short thick jacket often worn by 
 
 seamen ; from the Dutch pije, a coarse woollen coat. Thus the 
 
 word jacket is superfluous. In M. E. py was a coat ; and we find it 
 
 in Chaucer combining, with a French adjective, to make the hybrid 
 
 courtepy, a short coat. 
 Peal (of bells), a short form of the word appeal ; a call or summons. 
 
 (Compare penthouse and appentis ; sample and example; scutcheon 
 
 and escutcheon; squire and esquire ; etc.) 
 Penthouse (not connected with house), in reality a doublet of appendage, 
 
 though not coming from it. 0. Fr. appentis, from Lat. appendicium, 
 
 from appendix, something hanging on to. (Pendere, to hang. ) 
 Periwinkle, a kind of evergreen plant ; formed, by the addition of the 
 
 diminutive le, from Lat. pervlnca, from vincire, to bind. 
 Periwinkle, a small mollusc with one valve. A corruption of the A. S. 
 
 pinewincla. 
 Pickaxe (not connected with axe), a tool used in digging. A corruption 
 
 of M. E. pickeys, from 0. Fr. picois ; and connected with peak, pike, 
 
 and pick. 
 Poach = to put in the poke, pocket, or pouch. So poached eggs are eggs 
 
 dressed so as to keep the yoke in a pouch. Cognates are pock, small- 
 pox (= pocks), etc. 
 Porpoise (not connected with the verb poise) ; from Lat. porcum, a pig, 
 
 and piscem, a fish. 
 Posthumous (work), a work that appears after the death of the author ; 
 
 from Lat. postumus, the last. The h is an error ; and the word 
 
 has no connection with the Lat. humus, the ground. 
 Privet, a half -evergreen shrub. A form of primet, a plant carefully cut and 
 
 trimmed ; and hence prim. (For change of m into v (or p), compare 
 
 Molly and Polly ; Matty and Patty, etc. V and p are both labials.) 
 Proxy, a contraction of procuracy, the taking care of a thing for another. 
 
 Lat. pro for, and cura, care. 
 Quick, living. We have the word in quicklime, quicksand, quicksilver; 
 
 and in the phrase "the quick and the dead.'' 
 Quinsy, a bad sore throat, a contraction of 0. Fr. squinancie, formed, by 
 
 the addition of a prefixed and strengthening s, from Gr. kynanche, a 
 dog-throttling. 
 
166 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 Riding, one of the three divisions of Yorkshire. The oldest form is Thrid- 
 ing (from third and ing, part ; as in farthing = fourth part, etc.) The 
 th seems to have dropped from its similarity and nearness to the th 
 in north and the t in east ; as in North-thriding, East-thriding, etc. 
 
 Sexton, a corruption of sacristan, the keeper of the sacred vessels and 
 vestments ; from Lat. sacer, sacred. But the sexton is now only the 
 grave-digger. (In the same way, sacristy was shortened into sextry.\ 
 
 Sheaf, a collection shoved together. Shove gives also shovel; and the 
 frequentatives shuffle and scuffle. 
 
 Soup, a cognate of sop and sup. 
 
 Splice (to join after splitting), a cognate form of split and splinter. 
 
 Squirrel, from . Fr. escurel ; from Low Lat. scuriolus ; from Gr. skta, 
 a shadow, and oura, a tail. Hence the word means " shadow-tail.'' 
 
 Starboard, the steering side of a ship — the right, as one stands looking to 
 the bow. 
 
 Stew, the verb corresponding to stove. (Cf. Scotch stovies = stewed 
 potatoes.) 
 
 Steward, from A. S. stiward, from the full form stigweard ; from stige, a 
 sty, and weard, a keeper. Originally a person who looked after the 
 domestic animals. 
 
 Stirrup, modern form of A. S. stigrap, from stigan, to climb, and rap, a 
 rope. Cognates are sty, stile, stair. 
 
 Straight, an old past participle of stretch. (Strait is a French form of the 
 word strict, from Lat. strictus, tied up.) 
 
 Strong, a nasalised form of stark. Derivatives are strength, strengthen, 
 string, etc. 
 
 Summerset (not connected either with summer or with set), or somersault, a 
 corruption of Fr. soubresault, from Lat. supra, above, and saltum, a 
 leap. (There is a connection between the b and the m — the one 
 sliding into the other when the speaker has a cold.) 
 
 Surgeon (properly a hand-worker), a contraction of chirurgeon; from 
 Gr. cheir, the hand, and ergon, work. 
 
 Tackle, that which takes or grasps, holding the masts of a ship in their 
 places. The le is the same as that in settle (a seat), girdle, etc. 
 
 Tale, from A. S. talu, number. Derivatives are tell and till (box for 
 money), but not talk, which is a Scandinavian word. 
 
 Tansy, a tall plant, with small yellow flowers, used in medicine ; from 
 0. F. athanasie; from Gr. athanasia, immortality. 
 
 Thorough, a doublet of through, and found in thorough-fare, thorough- 
 bred, etc. (The dr, thr, or tr is also found in door, thrill, trill, drill, 
 nostril, etc.) 
 
 Treacle, from M. E. triacle, a remedy; from Lat. theriaca, an antidote 
 against the bite of serpents ; from Gr. therion, a wild beast or 
 poisonous animal. Milton has the phrase "the sovran treacle of 
 sound doctrine." (For the position of the r, compare trundle and 
 turn ; brid and oird ; etc. ) 
 
WORDS DISGUISED IN FORM. 167 
 
 Truffle, an underground edible fungus ; from Italian tartufola ; tar 
 being =*Lat. terrce, of the ground, and tu/0la = tuber, a root. Trifle 
 ia a doublet of truffle. 
 
 Twig a thin branch of a tree. The tw here is the base of two, and is 
 found also in twin, twilight, twice, twine ; and probably also in tweak, 
 twist, twinkle, etc. (Twit is not in this class ; it comes from at- 
 witan, to throw blame on.) 
 
 Verdigris (not connected with grease), the rust of brass or copper. From 
 Lat. viride aeris, the green of brass. (The g is intrusive, and has not 
 yet been accounted for. ) 
 
 Walrus, a kind of large seal ; from Swedish vallross = a whale-horse. 
 The older form of ross is found in Icelandic as hross, which is a doub- 
 let of the A- S. hors. The noise made by the animal somewhat 
 resembles a neigh. 
 
 Wassail, a merry carouse ; from A. S. wes hael = Be well ! Wes is the 
 imperative of wesan to be (still existing in was) ; and hael is connected 
 with hail/ hale (Scand.), whole (Eng.), and health. 
 
 Whole, a misspelling, now never to be corrected, of hole, the adjective 
 connected with hale, heal, health, healthy, etc. The w is probably an 
 intrusion from the S.-W. of England, where they say whoam for home, 
 woat for oat, etc. If we write whole, we ought also to write wholy 
 instead of holy. 
 
168 
 
 WORDS THAT HAVE GREATLY CHANGED 
 
 IN MEANING. 
 
 Abandon, to proclaim openly ; to de- 
 nounce ; then to cast out. (From Low 
 Lat, banduvi, an edict.) The earlier 
 meaning still survives in the phrase, 
 " banns of marriage." 
 
 Admire, to wonder at. 
 
 Allow, to praise (connected with laud). 
 
 Amuse, to cause to muse, to occupy the 
 mind of. " Camillus set upon the Gauls, 
 when they were amused in receiving 
 their gold," says a writer of the sixteenth 
 century. 
 
 Animosity, high spirits; from Lat. ani- 
 moms, brave. 
 
 Artillery (great weapons of war), was used 
 to inciude bows, crossbows, etc., down 
 to the time of Milton See P. L. ii. 715 ; 
 and 1 Sam. xx 40. 
 
 Awkward, going the wrong way. From 
 M. E. awk, contrary. "The awk end" 
 was the wrong end. "With awkward 
 wind " = with contrary wind. 
 
 Babe, doll. Spenser says of a pedlar— 
 " He bore a truss of trifles at his back, 
 As bells, and babes, and glasses in his 
 pack." 
 
 Blackguard, the band of lowest kitehen 
 servants, who had to look after the spits, 
 pots, and pans, etc. 
 
 Bombast (an inflated and pompous style 
 of speaking or writing), cotton-wadding. 
 
 Boor (a rough unmannerly fellow), a tiller 
 of the soil ; from the Dutch louwen, bo 
 
 till. (Compound neighbour.) In South 
 Africa, a farmer is still called a boer. 
 
 Brat (a contemptuous name for a child), 
 a Celtic word meaning rag. Still used 
 as a dialect word meaning a. pinafore- 
 
 Brave, showy, 3plendid. (Cf. Scotch braw.) 
 
 By-and-by, at once. 
 
 Carpet, the covering of tables as well as 
 of floors. 
 
 Carriage (that which carries) meant for- 
 merly that which was carried, or bag- 
 gage. See Acts xxi. 15. 
 
 Cattle, a doublet of chattels, property. 
 Lat. capitalia, heads (of oxen, etc.) 
 Chaucer says, " The avaricious man hath 
 more hope in his catel than in Christ." 
 
 Censure (blame> meant merely opinion; 
 from the Lat censeo, I think. Shake- 
 speare, in Hamlet i. 3. 69, makes Polon- 
 ius say : " Take each man's censure, but 
 reserve thy judgment." 
 
 Charity (almsgiving) meant love; from 
 Lat. earns, dear, through the French. 
 
 Cheat (to deceive for the purpose of gain) 
 meant to seize upon a thing as escheated 
 or forfeited. 
 
 Cheer, face. " Be of good cheer "= " Put 
 a good face upon it." " His cheer fell " 
 = " His countenance fell." 
 
 Churl (an uncourteous or disobliging per- 
 son) meant a countryman. Der. chur- 
 lish. (Shakespeare also uses the word 
 in the sense of a miser.) 
 
WOEDS THAT HAVE GREATLY CHANGED IN MEANING. 169 
 
 Clumsy, stiff with cold. "When thou 
 clomsest with cold," says Langland (14th 
 century) = art benumbed. (Cognates, 
 damp, cramp.) 
 
 Companion, low fellow. Shakespeare has 
 such phrases as " Companions, hence 1" 
 
 Conceit (too high an opinion of one's self) 
 meant simply thought. Chaucer was 
 called "a conceited clerk " = "a learned 
 man full of thoughts." From Lat. con- 
 ceptus, a number of facts brought to- 
 gether into one general conception or 
 idea. Shakespeare has the phrase "pass- 
 ing all conceit " = beyond all thought. 
 
 Count (to number) meant to think (2 
 with 3, &c.) with ; from Lat. computo, 
 I compute or think with. Count is a 
 doublet, through French, of compute. 
 
 Cunning, able or skilled. Like the word 
 craft, it has lost its innocent sense. 
 
 Danger, jurisdiction, legal power over. 
 The Duke of Venice says to the Mer- 
 chant, "You stand within his danger, 
 do you not?" M. V. iv. 1. 180. 
 
 Defy, to pronounce all bonds of faith 
 dissolved. Lat. fides, fartk 
 
 Delicious, too scrupulous or finical. A 
 writer of the seventeenth century says 
 that idleness makes even " the sober- 
 est (most moderate; men delicious." 
 
 Depart, part or divide. The older version 
 of the Prayer-Book has "till death us 
 depart " (now corrupted into do part). 
 
 Disaster, an unfavourable star. A term 
 from the old astrology. 
 
 Disease, discomfort, trouble. Shakespeare 
 has, " She will disease our bitter mirth ; " 
 and Tyndale'8 version of Mark v. 35, is, 
 "Thy daughter is dead: why diseasest 
 thou the Master any further?" 
 
 Duke, leader. Hannibal was called in old 
 English writers, "Duke of Carthage." 
 
 Ebb, shallow. " Cross the stream where 
 it is ebbest," is a Lancashire proverb. 
 (The word is a cognate of even.) 
 
 Essay, an attempt. The old title of such 
 a book was not " Essay on " but " Essay 
 at." From Lat. exagium, a weighing. 
 
 An older form is Assay. Shakespeare has 
 such phrases as "the assay of arms." 
 
 Explode, to drive out by clapping of the 
 hands. The opposite of applaud. Lat. 
 plaudo, I clap my hands. 
 
 Explosion, a hissing a thing off the stage. 
 
 Firmament, that which makes firm or 
 strong. Jeremy Taylor (seventeenth 
 century) says, "Custom is the firma- 
 ment of the law." 
 
 Fond, foolish. The past participle of 
 A. S. fonnen, to act foolishly. 
 
 Frightful, full of fear. (Compare the old 
 meaning of dreadful.) 
 
 Garble, to sift or cleanse. Low Lat. 
 garbellare, to sift corn. 
 
 Garland, a king's crown ; now a wreath of 
 flowers. 
 
 Gazette (Italian), a magpie. Hence the 
 Ital. gazettare, to chatter like a magpie; 
 to write tittle-tattle. (It was also the 
 name of a very small coin, current in 
 Venice, etc.) 
 
 Generous, high-born. Lat. genus, race 
 Compare the phrases " a man of family ; ' 
 " a man of rank." Shakespeare has " the 
 generous citizens" for those of high 
 birth. 
 
 Gossip, sib or related in God ; a godfather 
 or godmother. It now means such per- 
 sonal talk as usually goes on among such 
 persons. (Compare the French commere 
 and commerage.) 
 
 Handsome, clever with the hands. 
 
 Harbinger, a person who prepared a har- 
 bour or lodging. 
 
 Heathen, a person who lives on a heath. 
 (Cf. pagan, person who lives in a pagus, 
 or country district.) 
 
 Hobby, an easy ambling nag. 
 
 Idiot (Gr. ididtes), a private person; a 
 person who kept aloof from public busi- 
 ness. Cf. idiom ; idiosyncrasy ; etc. 
 
 Imp, an engrafted shoot. Chaucer says : 
 " Of feeble trees there comen wretched 
 
 impes." 
 Spenser has " Well worthy impe," 
 
170 
 
 GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 Impertinent, not pertaining to the 
 matter in hand. 
 
 Indifferent, impartial. "God is indiffer- 
 ent to all." 
 
 Insolent, unusual. An old writer praises 
 Raleigh's poetry as "insolent and pas- 
 sionate." 
 
 Kind, born, inborn ; natural ; and then 
 loving. 
 
 Knave, boy. "A knave child "=a male 
 child. Sir John Mandeville speaks of 
 Mahomet as "a poure knave." 
 
 Lace, a snare. Lat. laqrieus, a noose. 
 
 Livery, that which is given or delivered, 
 Fr. livrer; from Lat liber are, to free. 
 It was applied both to food and to 
 clothing. "A horse at livery " still means 
 a horse not merely kept, but also fed. 
 
 Magnificent, doing great things ; large- 
 minded. Bacon says, " Bounty and 
 magnificence are virtues very regal." 
 
 Maker, a poet. 
 
 Manure, to work with the hand ; a doublet 
 of manoeuvre. (Lat. manus, the hand.) 
 
 Mere, utter. Lac. merus, pure. Shakespeare, 
 in "Othello," speaks of "the mere per- 
 dition of the Turkish fleet." "Mere 
 wine " was unmixed wine. 
 
 Metal, a mine. 
 
 Minute, something very small. Lat. min- 
 utus t made small; from minus, less. 
 Cognates, minor ; minish ; diminish; etc. 
 
 Miscreant, an unbeliever. Lat. mis (from 
 minus), and credo, I believe; through 
 O. Fr. mescreant. 
 
 Miser, a wretched person. Lat. miser, mis- 
 erable. 
 Nephew, a grandchild. (Lat. nepos.) 
 
 Nice, too scrupulous or fastidious. Shake- 
 speare, in " K. John," iii. 4. 138, says— 
 " He that stands upon a slippery place, 
 Makes nice of no vile hold to stay him 
 up." 
 
 Niece, a grandchild. Lat. neptis. 
 
 Novelist, an innovator. 
 
 Offal, that which is allowed to fall off. 
 
 Officious, obliging. In modern diplomacy, 
 an official communication is one made 
 in the way of business ; an officious com- 
 munication is a friendly and irregular 
 one. Burke, in the eighteenth century, 
 speaks of the French nobility as " very 
 officious and hospitable." 
 
 Ostler = hosteller. The keeper of a hostel 
 or hotel. (A comic derivation is that it 
 is a contraction of oatsiealer). 
 
 Painful, painstaking. Fuller, in the seven- 
 teenth century, speaks of Joseph as " a 
 painful carpenter." 
 
 Palliate, to throw a cloak over. Lat. pal- 
 lium, a cloak. 
 
 Pencil, a small hair brush. Lat. penecillus x 
 a little tail. 
 
 Peevish, obstinate. 
 
 Perspective, a glass for seeing either near 
 or distant things. 
 
 Pester, to encumber or clog. From Low 
 Lat. ■pastorium, a clog for horses in a 
 pasture. 
 
 Plantation, a colony of men planted. 
 
 Plausible, having obtained applause. 
 "Every one received him plausibly," 
 says a seventeenth-century writer. 
 
 Polite, polished. A seventeenth-century 
 writer has "polite bodies as looking- 
 
 Pomp, a procession. 
 
 Preposterous, putting the last first. Lat. 
 prce, before ; and post, after. 
 
 Prevaricate, to reverse, to shuffle. Lat. 
 prcevaricari, to spread the legs apart 
 in walking. 
 
 Prevent, to go before. Lat. jjtcb, before, 
 and venio, I come. The Prayer-Book has, 
 " Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings." 
 
 Prodigious, ominous. "A prodigious 
 meteor," meant a meteor of bad omen. 
 
 Punctual, attending to small points of 
 detail. Lat. punctum ; Fr. point. 
 
WORDS THAT HIVE GREATLY CHANGED IN MEANING. 171 
 
 Quaint, skilful. Prospero, in the "Tem- 
 pest." calls Ariel * My quaint Ariel I " 
 
 Racy, having the strong and native qual- 
 ities of the race. Cowley says of a poet 
 that he is— 
 " Fraught with brisk racy verses, in 
 
 which we 
 The soil from whence they come, taste, 
 smell, and see." 
 
 Reduce, to lead back. 
 
 Resent, to be fully sensible of. Resent- 
 ment, grateful recognition of. 
 
 Restive, obstinate, inclined to rest or 
 stand still. "To turn rusty" (=resty) 
 is to turn obstinate. 
 
 Retaliate, to give back benefits as well as 
 injuries. 
 
 Room, space, place at table. Luke xiv. 8. 
 
 Rummage, to make room. 
 
 Sad, earnest, dark-coloured (of clothes). 
 
 Sash, a turban. 
 
 Secure, free from care. Ben Jonson says : 
 " Men may securely sin ; but safely, 
 never." 
 
 Sheen, bright, pure. Connected with 
 thine. 
 
 Shrew, a wicked or hurtful person. 
 
 Silly, blessed. 
 
 Sincerity, absence of foreign admixture. 
 
 Soft, sweetly reasonable. 
 
 Spices, kinds — a doublet of species. (A 
 grocer in French is called an epicier.) 
 
 Starve, to die. Chaucer says, "Jesus 
 starved upon the cross." 
 
 Sycophant, "a fig-shower" or informer 
 against a person who smuggled figs. Gr. 
 suhon, a fig ; and phaino, I show. 
 
 Table, a picture. 
 
 Tarpaulin, a sailor ; from the tarred 
 canvas suit he wore. Now shortened 
 into tar. 
 
 Thews, habits, manners. 
 
 Thought, deep sorrow, auxiety. Matthew 
 vi. 25. In "Julius Caesar," ii. 1. 187, we 
 find, " Take thought, and die for Caesar." 
 
 Trivial, very common. Lat. trivia, a 
 place where three roads meet. 
 
 Tuition, guardianship. Lat. Initio, pro- 
 tection. 
 
 Uncouth, unknown. 
 
 Union, oneness ; or a pearl in which size, 
 roundness, smoothness, purity, lustre, 
 were united. See "Hamlet," v. 2.283. 
 A doublet is onion— so called from its 
 shape. 
 
 Unkind, unnatural. 
 
 Urbane, living in a city. Lat. urbs, a 
 city. 
 
 Usury, money paid for the use of a thing. 
 
 Varlet, a serving-man. Low Lat. vassa- 
 lettus, a minor vassal. Varlet and valet 
 are diminutives of vassal. 
 
 Vermin was applied to noxious animals 
 of whatever size. " The crocodile is 
 a dangerous vermin." Lat. vermis, a 
 worm. 
 
 Villain, a farm-servant. Lat. villa, a farm. 
 
 Vivacity, pertinacity in living ; longevity. 
 Fuller speaks of a man as " most remark- 
 able for his vivacity, for he lived 140 
 years." 
 
 Wit, knowledge, mental ability. 
 
 Worm, a serpent. 
 
 Worship, to consider worth, to honour. 
 
 Wretched, wicked. A. S. wrecca, an out- 
 cast. 
 
PAKT II. 
 
 COMPOSITION, PUNCTUATION, PARAPHRASING 
 AND PROSODY 
 
 N 
 
HINTS ON COMPOSITION. 
 
 i. Composition is the art of putting sentences together. 
 
 (i) Any one can make a sentence ; but every one cannot make a sen- 
 tence that is both clear and neat. We all speak and write sentences 
 every day ; but these sentences may be neat or they may be clumsy — 
 they may be pleasant to read, or they may be dull and heavy. 
 
 (ii) Sir Arthur Helps says : " A sentence should be powerful in its 
 substantives, choice and discreet in its adjectives, nicely correct in its 
 verbs ; not a word that could be added, nor one which the most fastid- 
 ious would venture to suppress ; in order, lucid ; in sequence, logical ; 
 in method, perspicuous." 
 
 2. The manner in which we put our sentences together is 
 called style. That style may be good or bad; feeble. or vigorous; 
 clear 'or obscure. The whole purpose of style, and of studying 
 style, is to enable us to present our thoughts to others in a clear, 
 forcible, and yet graceful way. 
 
 "Style is but the order and the movement that we put into our 
 thoughts. If we bind them together closely, compactly, the style be- 
 comes firm, nervous, concise. If they are left to follow each other 
 negligently, the style will be diffuse, slipshod, and insipid." — Buffon. 
 
 3. Good composition is the result of three things : (i) clear 
 thinking ; (ii) reading the best and most vigorous writers ; and 
 (iii) frequent practice in writing, along with careful polishing of 
 what we have written. 
 
 (i) We ought to read diligently in the best poets, historians, and 
 essayists, — to read over and over again what strikes us as finely or nobly 
 or powerfully expressed, — to get by heart the most striking passages in 
 a good author. This kind of study will give us a large stock of appro- 
 priate words and striking phrases ; and we shall never be at a loss for 
 the right words to express our own Bense. 
 
176 COMPOSITION, PUNCTUATION, ETC. 
 
 Ben Jonson says : " For a man to write well, there are required 
 three necessaries : let him read the best authors ; observe the best 
 speakers ; and have much exercise of his own style." 
 
 (ii) " My mother forced me, by steady daily toil, to learn long chapters 
 of the Bible by heart ; as well as to read it every syllable through, aloud, 
 hard names and all, from Genesis to the Apocalypse, about once a-year: 
 and to that discipline, — patient, accurate, and resolute, — I owe, not only 
 a knowledge of the book, but much of my general power of taking pains, 
 and the best part of my taste in literature." — John Buskin. 
 
 (iii) But, though much reading of the best books and a great deal of 
 practice in composition are the only means to attain a good and vigorous 
 style, there are certain directions — both general and special — which may 
 be of use to the young student, when he is beginning. 
 
 GEKEKAL DIKECTIOKS. 
 
 4. We must know the subject fully about which we are going 
 
 to write. 
 
 (i) If we are going to tell a story, we must know all the circumstances •, 
 the train of events that led up to the result ; the relations of the persons 
 in the story to each other ; what they said ; and the outcome of the 
 whole at the close. These considerations guide us to 
 
 Practical Rule I. — Draw up on a piece of paper a short 
 skeleton of what you are going to write about 
 
 (i) Archbishop Whately says : <f The more briefly this is done, so that 
 it does but exhibit clearly the heads of the composition, the better ; be- 
 cause it is important that the whole of it be placed before the eye and 
 mind in a small compass, and be taken in, as it were, at a glance ; and it 
 should be written, therefore, not in sentences, but like a table of contents. 
 Such an outline should not be allowed to fetter the writer, if, in the 
 course of the actual composition, he find any reason for deviating from 
 his original plan, — it should serve merely as a track to mark out a path 
 for him, not as a groove to confine him." 
 
 (ii) Cobbett says : " Sit down to write what you have thought, and 
 not to think what you shall write." 
 
 5. Our sentences must be written in good English. 
 
 Good English is simply the English of the best writers ; and we can 
 only learn what it is by reading the books of these writers. Good writers 
 
GENERAL DIRECTIONS. 177 
 
 of the previous century are such authors as Charles Lamb, Jane 
 Austen, Scott, Coleridge, Landor, Macaulay, Thackeray, Dickens. 
 Matthew Arnold, Froude, Ruskin, and George Eliot. 
 
 6. Our sentences must be written in pure English. 
 
 (i) This rule forbids the use of obsolete or old-fashioned words, 
 such as erst, peradventure, hight, beholden, sojourn, methinks, etc. 
 
 (ii) It forbids also the use of slang expressions, such as awfully, 
 jolly, rot, bosh, bunk, scoot, see with half an eye, etc. 
 
 (iii) It forbids the employment of technical terms, unless these are 
 absolutely necessary to express our meaning ; and this is sure to be the 
 case in a paper treating on a scientific subject. But technical terms in 
 an ordinary piece of writing (unless with brief explanations), are 
 quite out of place. 
 
 (iv) In obedience to this rule, we ought also carefully to avoid the use 
 of foreign words and phrases. Affectation of all kinds is disgusting ; 
 and it both looks and is affected to use such words as confrere, raison 
 d'itre, amour propre, conge', etc. 
 
 (v) This recommendation also includes the Practical Rule : " When 
 an English-English (or ' Saxon ') and a Latin-English word offer them- 
 selves, we had better choose the Saxon." 
 
 (vi) The following is from an article by Leigh Hunt : " In the Bible 
 there are no Latinisms ; and where is the life of our language to be 
 found in Buch perfection as in the translation of the Bible ? We will 
 venture to affirm that no one is master of the English language who is not 
 well read in the Bible, and sensible of its peculiar excellences. It is the 
 pure well of English. The taste which the Bible forms is not a taste 
 for big words, but a taste for the simplest expression or the clearest 
 medium of presenting ideas. Remarkable it is that most of the sublimities 
 in the Bible are conveyed in monosyllables. For example, * Let there be 
 light : and there was light. ' Do these words want any life that Latin 
 could lend them ? . . . The best styles are the freest from Latinisms ; 
 and it may be almost laid down as a rule that a good writer will never 
 have recourse to a Latinism if a Saxon word will equally serve his purpose. 
 We cannot dispense with words of Latin derivation; but there should 
 be the plea of necessity for resorting to them, or we wrong our English." 
 
 (vii) Ab the same time, it must not be forgotten that we very often 
 are compelled by necessity to use Latin words. Even Leigh Hunt, in 
 the above passage, has been obliged to do so while declaiming against it. 
 This is apparent from the number of words printed in italics, all of 
 which are derived from Latin. This is most apparent in the phrase 
 equally serve his purpose, which we could not now translate into " pure " 
 English. 
 
178 
 
 COMPOSITION, PUNCTUATION, ETC. 
 
 7. Our sentences must be written in accurate English. 
 That is, the words used must be appropriate to the sense we 
 wish to convey. Accuracy is the virtue of using "the right 
 word in the right place." 
 
 (i) " The attempt was found to be impracticable." Now, impracticable 
 means impossible of accomplishment. Any one may attempt anything; 
 carrying it out is a different thing. The word used should have been 
 design or plan. 
 
 (ii) "The veracity of the statement was called in question." Veracity 
 is the attribute of a person ; not of a statement. 
 
 (iii) Accurate English can only be attained by the careful study of the 
 different shades of meaning in words ; by the constant comparison of 
 synonyms. Hence we may lay down the 
 
 collection of synonyms, and 
 couple (i) in a dictionary, and 
 
 Practical Rule II. — Make a 
 compare the meanings of each 
 (ii) in a sentence. 
 
 The following are a few, the distinctions between which are 
 very apparent : — 
 
 Abstain 
 
 Forbear. 
 
 Custom 
 
 Habit. 
 
 Active 
 
 Diligent. 
 
 Delay 
 
 Defer. 
 
 Aware 
 
 Conscious. 
 
 Difficulty 
 
 Obstacle. 
 
 Character 
 
 Keputation. 
 
 Strong 
 
 Powerful. 
 
 Circumstance 
 
 Event. 
 
 Think 
 
 Believe. 
 
 8. Our sentences should be perfectly clear. That is, the 
 reader, if he is a person of ordinary common-sense, should not 
 be left for a moment in doubt as to our meaning. 
 
 (i) A Roman writer on style says : " Care should be taken, not that 
 the reader may understand if he will, but that he shall understand 
 whether he will or not." 
 
 (ii) Our sentences should be as clear as " mountain water flowing over 
 a rock." They should "economise the reader's attention." 
 
 (iii) Clearness is gained by being simple, and by being brief. 
 
 (iv) Simplicity teaches us to avoid (a) too learned words, and (b) 
 roundabout ways of mentioning persons and things. 
 
 (a) We ought, for example, to prefer — 
 Abuse to Vituperation. Neighbourhood to Vicinity. 
 
 Begin m Commence. Trustworthy m Reliable. 
 
 Commence h Initiate. Welcome » Reception. 
 
GENERAL DIRECTIONS. 179 
 
 (6) We ought to avoid such stale and hackneyed phrases as the 
 "Swan of Avon" for Shakespeare; the "Bard of Florence" for 
 Dante ; " the Great Lexicographer " for Dr Johnson. 
 
 (v) Brevity enjoins upon us the need of expressing our meaning in as 
 few words as possible. 
 
 Opposed to brevity is verbosity, or wordiness. Pope says — 
 
 " Words are like leaves ; and, where they most abound, 
 Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found." 
 
 (vi) Dr Johnson says : " Tediousness is the most fatal of all faults. * 
 
 9. Our sentences should be written in flowing English, 
 That is, the rhythm of each sentence ought to be pleasant to 
 the ear, if read aloud. This axiom gives rise to two rules : — 
 
 Practical Rule III — Write as you would speak ! 
 
 (i) This, of course, points to an antecedent condition — that you must 
 be a good reader. Good reading aloud is one of the chief conditions of 
 good writing. " Living speech," says a philosophic writer, " is the cor- 
 rective of all style." 
 
 Practical Rule IV. — After we have w ritten our piece of com- 
 position, we should read it aloud either to ourselves or to some 
 one else. 
 
 Thus, and thus only, shall we be able to know whether each sentence 
 
 has an agreeable rhythm. 
 
 Practical Rule V. — " Never write about any matter you do 
 not well understand. If you clearly understand all about your 
 matter, you will never want thoughts ; and thoughts instantly 
 become words." — Cobbett. 
 
 " Seek not for words ; seek only fact and thought, 
 And crowding in will come the words, unsought." — Horace. 
 
 " Know well your subject ; and the words will go 
 To the pen's point, with steady, ceaseless flow." — Pentland. 
 
 10. Our sentences should be compact. 
 
 (i) That is, they ought not to be loose collections of words, but firm, 
 well-knit, nervous organisms. 
 
 (ii) A sentence in which the complete sense is suspended till the close 
 is called a period. Contrasted with it is the loose sentence. 
 
180 COMPOSITION, PUNCTUATION' ETC. 
 
 (a) Loose Sentence. — The Puritans looked down with contempt on 
 the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests. 
 
 (6) Period. — On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, 
 the Puritans looked down with contempt. 
 
 (iii) The following is a fine example of a loose sentence : " Notwith- 
 standing his having gone, in winter, to Moscow, where he found the cold 
 excessive, and which confined him, without intermission, six weeks to 
 his room, we could not induce him to come home." This no more 
 makes a sentence than a few cartloads of bricks thrown loosely upon the 
 ground constitute a house. 
 
 EMPHASIS. 
 
 One object in style is to call the attention of the reader in a 
 forcible and yet agreeable way to the most important parts of 
 our subject — in other words, to give emphasis to what is 
 emphatic, and to make what is striking and important strike the 
 eye and mind of the reader. This purpose may be attained in 
 many different ways; but there are several easy devices that 
 will be found of use to us in our endeavour to give weight and 
 emphasis to what we write. These are : — 
 
 1. The ordinary grammatical order of the words in a sentence 
 may be varied ; and emphatic words may be thrown to the 
 beginning or to the end of the sentence. This is the device 
 of Inversion. 
 
 Thus we have, "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the 
 Lord." " Jesus I know, and Paul I know : but who are ye ? " " Some 
 he imprisoned ; others he put to death." " Go he must ! " " Do it he 
 shall ! " " They could take their rest, for they knew Lord Strafford 
 watched. Him they feared, him they trusted, him they obeyed." " He 
 that tells a lie is not sensible how great a task he undertakes ; for, to 
 maintain one, he must invent twenty more." In the last sentence, the 
 phrase to maintain one gains emphasis by being thrown out of its 
 usual and natural position. But 
 
 Caution 1. — Do not go out of your way to invert. It has a 
 look of affectation. Do not say, for example, " True it is," or 
 "Of Milton it was always said," etc. And do not begin an 
 essay thus : "Of all the vices that disfigure and degrade," etc. 
 
EMPHASIS. I 81 
 
 2. The Omission of Conjunctions gives, force and emphasis. 
 
 Thus Hume writes : " He rushed amidst them with his sword 
 drawn, threw them into confusion, pushed his advantage, and gained a 
 complete victory." We may write : "You say this ; I deny it" 
 
 3. The use of the Imperative Mood gives liveliness and 
 emphasis. 
 
 Thus we find the sentence : " Strip virtue of the awful authority 
 she derives from the general reverence of mankind, and you rob her of 
 half her majesty." Here strip is equal to If you strip ; but is much 
 more forcible. 
 
 4. Emphasis is also gained by employing the Interrogative 
 Form. 
 
 (i) Thus, to say " Who does not hope to live long ? " is much more 
 forcible and lively than "All of us hope to live long." 
 
 (ii) This is a well-known form in all impassioned speech. Thus, in 
 the Bible we find : " Your fathers, where are they ? And the prophets, 
 do they live for ever ? " 
 
 5. The device of Exclamation may also be employed to give 
 emphasis ; but it cannot be frequently used, without danger of 
 falling into affectation 
 
 Thus Shakespeare, instead of making Hamlet say, " Man is a wonder- 
 ful piece of work," etc. — which would be dull and flat— writes, "What 
 a piece of work is man ! " etc. 
 
 6. Emphasis may be gained by the use of the device of 
 Periphrasis. 
 
 (i) Thus, instead of saying "John built this house," or "This house 
 was built by John," we can say : " It was John who built this house ;" 
 " It was no other than John who," etc 
 
 7. Repetition is sometimes a powerful device for producing 
 emphasis ; but, if too frequently employed, it becomes a tire- 
 some mannerism. 
 
 (i) Macaulay is very fond of this device. He says : " Tacitus tells a 
 fine story finely, but he cannot tell a plain story plainly. He stimulates 
 till stimulants lose their power." Again : " He aspired to the highest 
 — above the people, above the authorities, above the laws, above his 
 country." 
 
182 COMPOSITION, PUNCTUATION, ETC. 
 
 (ii) Its effect in poetry is sometimes very fine : — 
 
 " By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed : 
 By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed ; 
 By foreign hands thy humble grave adorned ; 
 By strangers honoured, and by strangers mourned.'* 
 
 8. The device of Suspense adds to the weight and emphasis 
 of a statement; it keeps the attention of the reader on the 
 stretch, because he feels the sense to be incomplete. 
 
 (i) The suspense in the following sentence gives a heightened idea of 
 the difficulty of travelling : " At last, with no small difficulty, and 
 after much fatigue, we came, through deep roads, storms of wind and 
 rain, and bad weather of all kinds, to our journey's end." 
 
 (ii) This device is frequent in poetry. Thus Keats opens his " Hy- 
 perion " in this way : — 
 
 " Deep in the shady sadness of a vale, 
 Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, 
 Far from the fiery noon and eve's one star — 
 Sat grey-haired Saturn, quiet as a stone." 
 
 Here the verb is kept to the last line. 
 
 9. Antithesis always commands attention, and is therefore a 
 powerful mode of emphasising a statement. But antithesis is 
 not always at one's command ; and it must not be strained after. 
 
 Macaulay employs this device with great effect. He has : " The 
 Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but 
 because it gave pleasure to the spectators." Swift was very fond of it. 
 Thus he says : " The two maxims of a great maD at court are, always to 
 keep his countenance, and never to keep his word." Dr Johnson has 
 this sentence : " He was a learned man among lords, and a lord among 
 learned men." " He twice forsook his party ; his principles never." 
 
 10. A very sharp, sudden, and unexpected antithesis is called 
 an Epigram. 
 
 (i) Thus Lord Bacon, speaking of a certain procession in Rome, says that 
 " The statues of Brutus and Cassius were conspicuous by their absence." 
 Macaulay says of the dirt and splendour of the Russian Ambassadors : 
 "They came to the English Court dropping pearls and vermin." 
 
 (ii) The following are additional instances of truths put in a very 
 striking and epigrammatic way: "Verbosity is cured by a large vocab- 
 ulary" (because when you have a large stock of words, you will be 
 able to choose the fittest). " We ought to know something of every- 
 thing, and everything of something." " He was born of poor but dis- 
 honest parents." "When you have nothing to say, say it." "He, 
 
' DISTINCTNESS OF STYLE. 183 
 
 had nothing to do, and he did it" "The better is the enemy of the 
 good." " One secret in education," says Herbert Spencer, " is to know 
 how wisely to lose time." "Make haste slowly." "They did nothing 
 in particular ; and did it very welL" 
 
 (iii) But no one should strain after such a style of writing. Such an 
 attempt would only produce smartness, which is a fatal vice. 
 
 DISTINCTNESS OF STYLE. 
 
 1. One great secret of a good and striking style is the art of 
 Specification. 
 
 Professor Bain gives us an excellent example of a vague and gen- 
 eral, as opposed to a distinct and specific style : — 
 
 (a) Vague. — " In proportion as the manners, customs, and amuse- 
 ments of a nation are cruel and barbarous, the regulation of their 
 penal codes will be severe." 
 
 (6) Specific. — "According as men delight in battles, bull-fights, and 
 combats of gladiators, so will they punish by hanging, burning, 
 and crucifying." 
 
 2. Specification or distinctness of style may be attained in 
 two ways : (i) by the use of concrete terms ; and (ii) by the 
 use of detail. 
 
 3. A concrete or particular term strikes both the feelings 
 and imagination with greater force than an abstract or general 
 term can do. 
 
 (i) Let Us make a few contrasts : — 
 
 Abstract. Concrete. 
 
 Quadruped. Horse. 
 
 Building materials. Bricks and mortar. 
 
 Old age. Grey hairs. 
 
 Warlike weapons. Sword and gun. 
 
 Rich and poor. The palace and the cottage 
 
 A miserable state. Age. ache, and penury. 
 
 " I have neither the necessaries " I have not a crust of bread, 
 
 of life, nor the means of pro- nor a penny to buy one." 
 
 curing them." 
 
 (ii) Campbell says : " The more general the terms are, the picture is 
 the fainter; the more special, the brighter." "They sank like lead in 
 the mighty waters " is more forcible than " they sank like metal." 
 
184 COMPOSITION, PUNCTUATION, ETC. 
 
 4. Details enable the reader to form in his mind a vivid pic- 
 ture of the event narrated or the person described ; and, before 
 beginning to write, we ought always to draw up a list of such 
 details as are both striking and appropriate — such details as 
 tend to throw into stronger relief the chief person or event. 
 
 The following is a good example from the eloquent writer and 
 profound thinker Edmund Burke. He is speaking of the philanthro- 
 pist Howard : — 
 
 " He has visited all Europe to dive into the depths of dungeons ; to plunge 
 into the infections of hospitals ; to survey the mansions of sorrow and pain ; 
 to take the gauge and dimensions of misery, depression, and contempt ; to 
 remember the forgotten, to attend to the neglected, to visit the forsaken, and 
 to compare and collate the distresses of all men in all countries." 
 
 GEKEKAL CAUTIONS. 
 
 1. Avoid the use of threadbare and hackneyed expressions. 
 Leave them to people who are in a hurry, or to penny-a-liners. 
 
 Instead of Write 
 
 At the expiration of four years. At the end, etc. 
 
 Paternal sentiments. The feelings of a father. 
 
 Exceedingly opulent. Very rich. 
 
 Incur the danger. Run the risk. 
 
 Accepted signification. Usual meaning. 
 
 Extreme felicity. Great happiness. 
 
 A sanguinary engagement. A bloody battle. 
 
 In the affirmative. Yes. 
 
 2. Be very careful in the management of pronouns. 
 
 (i) Cobbett says : " Never put an it upon paper without thinking 
 well what you are about. When I see many it's in a page, I always 
 tremble for the writer." See also 2 Kings, xix. 35 : "And when they 
 arose early in the morning, behold they were all dead corpses." 
 
 (ii) Bolingbroke has the sentence : " They were persons of very moder- 
 ate intellects, even before they were impaired by their passions." The 
 last they ought to be these. 
 
 (iii) The sentence, " He said to his patient that if he did nob feel 
 better in half an hour, he thought he had better return," is a clumsy 
 sentence, but clear enough ; because we oan easily see that it is the 
 patient that is to take the advice. 
 
SPECIAL CAUTIONS. 185 
 
 3. Be careful not to us© mixed metaphors. 
 
 (i) The following is a fearful example : " This is the arrow of convic- 
 tion, which, like a nail driven in a sure place, strikes its roots downwards 
 into the earth, and bears fruit upwards." 
 
 (ii) Sir Boyle Roche, an Irish member, began a speech thus : " Mr 
 Speaker, I smell a rat, I see him floating in the air ; but, mark me, 
 I shall yet nip him in the bud." A similar statement is : " Lord Kim- 
 berley said that in taking a very large bite of the Turkish cherry the 
 way had been paved for its partition at no distant day." 
 
 4. Be simple, quiet, manly, frank, and straightforward in 
 your style, as in your conduct. That is : Be yourself ! 
 
 SPECIAL CAUTIONS. 
 
 1. Avoid tautology. 
 
 Alison says : " It was founded mainly on the entire monopoly of 
 the whole trade with the colonies." Here entire and whole are tauto- 
 logical ; for monopoly means entire possession, or possession of the whole. 
 " He appears to enjoy the universal esteem of all men." Here universal 
 is superfluous. 
 
 2. Place the adverb as near the word it modifies as you 
 
 can, 
 
 " He not only found her employed, but also pleased and tranquil" 
 The not only belongs to employed, and should therefore go with it. 
 
 3. Avoid circumlocution 
 
 "Her Majesty, on reaching Perth, partook of . breakfast." This 
 should be simply breakfasted. But the whole sentence should be recast 
 into : " On reaching Perth, the Queen breakfasted in the station." 
 
 4. Take care that your participles are attached to nouns, and 
 that they do not run loose. 
 
 "Alarmed at the news, the boat was launched at once." Here 
 alarmed can, grammatically, agree with boat only. The sentence 
 should be : " The men, alarmed at the news, launched their boat at 
 once. " 
 
 5. Use a present participle as seldom as possible. 
 
 (i) " I have documents proving this " is not so strong as " to prove 
 this." 
 
186 COMPOSITION, TUNCTUATION, ETC. ' 
 
 (ii) "He dwelt a long time on the advantages of swift steamers, thus 
 accounting for the increase," etc. The phrase "thus accounting " is very 
 loose. Every sentence ought to be neat, firm, and compact. 
 
 6. Remember that -who is very often equivalent to and 
 
 he or for he ; while that introduces a merely adjectival clause. 
 
 " I heard it from the doctor, who told the gardener that- works -for- 
 
 the-college." Here who = and he; and that introduces the adjectival 
 
 sentence. 
 
 7. Do not change the Subject of your Sentence. 
 
 (i) Another way of putting this is : " Preserve the unity of the 
 sentence ! " 
 
 (ii) "Archbishop Tillotson died in this year. He was exceedingly 
 beloved both by King William and Queen Mary, who nominated Dr 
 Tenison to succeed him." The last statement about nominating another 
 bishop has no natural connection with what goes before. % 
 
 (iii) " After we came to anchor, they put me on shore, where I was 
 welcomed by all my friends, who received me with the greatest kind- 
 ness." This sentence ought to be broken into two. The first should 
 end with on shore; and the second begin " Here I was met and, etc." 
 
 8. See that who or which refers to its proper antecedent. 
 
 " Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, the daughter of a yeoman, 
 to whom he left his second-best bed." Here the grammatical antece- 
 dent is yeoman; but the historical and sense-antecedent is certainly 
 daughter. 
 
 9. Do not use and which for which. 
 
 (i) " I bought him a very nice book as a present, and which cost me 
 ten shillings." The and is here worse than useless. 
 
 (ii) If another which has preceded, of course and which is right. 
 
 10. Avoid exaggerated or too strong language. 
 
 Unprecedented, most extraordinary, incalculable, boundless, extremely, 
 awfully, scandalous, stupendous, should not be used unless we know that 
 they are both true and appropriate. 
 
 11. Be careful not to mix up dependent with principal 
 sentences. 
 
 "He replied that he wished to help them, and intended to give 
 orders to his servants." Here it is doubtful whether intended is co- 
 ordinate with replied or with wished. If the former is the case* then 
 we ought to say he intended. 
 
PUNCTUATION. 187 
 
 12. Be very careful about the right position of each phrase 
 or clause in your sentence. 
 
 The following are curious examples of dislocations or misplace- 
 ments : " A piano for sale by a lady about to cross the Channel in an 
 oak case with carved ^egs." " I believe that, when he died, Cardinal 
 Mezzofanti spoke at least fifty languages." " He blew out his brains 
 after bidding his wife good-bye with a gun. " " Erected to the memory 
 of John Phillips, accidentally shot, as a mark of affection by his 
 brother." " The Board has resolved to erect a building large enough 
 to accommodate 500 students three storeys high." "Mr Carlyle has 
 taught us that silence is golden in thirty -seven volumes." 
 
 PUNCTUATION. 
 
 1. Certain signs, called points, are used in sentences to mark 
 off their different parts, and to show the relation of each part to 
 the organic whole. 
 
 (i) Putting in the right points is called punctuation, from the Latin 
 punctum, a point. From the same word come punctual and punctuality. 
 
 2. These points are the full stop, the colon, the semicolon, 
 the dash, the comma, and the points of interrogation and 
 admiration. 
 
 3. The full stop (.) or period marks the close of a sentence. 
 
 4. The colon (:) introduces (i) a new statement that may 
 be regarded as an after-thought ; or (ii) it introduces a cata- 
 logue of things ; or (iii) it introduces a formal speech. 
 
 (The word colon is Greek, and means limb or member.) 
 
 (i) " Study to acquire a habit of accurate expression : no study is 
 more important." 
 
 (ii) " Then follow excellent parables about fame : as that she gathereth 
 strength in going ; that she goeth upon the ground, and yet hideth her 
 head in the clouds ; that in the day-time she sitteth in a watch-tower, 
 and flieth most by night." — Bacon. 
 
 (iii) " Mr Wilson rose and said : ' Sir, I am sorry,' etc." 
 
 5. The semicolon is employed when, for reasons of sound or 
 of sense, two or more simple sentences are thrown into one. 
 
 (Semicolon is Latin-Greek, and means half a colon. ) 
 
 (i) " In the youth of a state, arms do flourish : in the middle age of 
 
188 COMPOSITION, PUNCTUATION, ETC. 
 
 a state, learning ; and then both of them together for a time ; in the 
 declining age of a state, mechanical arts and merchandise." — Bacon. 
 
 (ii) Learn from the birds what foods the thickets yield ; 
 Learn from the beasts the physic of the field ; 
 Thy arts of building from the bee receive ; 
 Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave." — Pope. 
 
 6. The dash is used (i) to introduce an amplification or ex- 
 planation ; and (ii) two dashes are often employed in place of 
 the old parenthesis. 
 
 (i) " During the march a storm of rain, thunder, and lightning came 
 on — a storm such as is only seen in tropical countries." 
 
 (ii) " Eibbons, buckles, buttons, pieces of gold-lace — any trifles he had 
 worn — were stored as priceless treasures." 
 
 7. The comma is used to indicate a strong pause, either of 
 sense or of sound. 
 
 (i) It is true that the comma is the weakest of all our stops ; but 
 there are many pauses which we ought to make in reading a sentence 
 aloud that are not nearly strong enough to warrant a comma. 
 
 (ii) It is better to understop rather than to overstop. For example, 
 the last part of the last sentence in the paragraph above might have 
 been printed thus : " there are many pauses, which we ought to make, 
 in reading a sentence aloud, that are not nearly strong enough to war- 
 rant a comma." This is the old-fashioned style ; but such sprinkling of 
 commas is not at all necessary. 
 
 (iii) Two things are all that are required to teach us the use of a 
 comma : (a) observation of the custom of good writers ; and (6) careful 
 consideration of the sense and build of our own sentences. 
 
 (iv) The following are a few special uses of the comma : — 
 
 i 
 (a) It may be used in place of and : — 
 
 " We first endure, then pity, then embrace." 
 
 (6) After an address : "John, come here." 
 
 (c) After certain introductory adverbs, as however, at length, at 
 last, etc. " He came, however, in time to catch the train." 
 
 8. The point of interrogation (?) is placed at the end of a 
 question. 
 
 9. The point of admiration (!) is employed to mark a state- 
 ment which calls for surprise or wonder ; but it is now seldom 
 used. 
 
FIGURES OF SPEECH. 189 
 
 FIGURES OP SPEECH. 
 
 1. The mind naturally tends, especially when in a state of 
 excitement, to the use of what is called figurative language. 
 It is as if we called upon all the things we see or have seen to 
 come forward and help us to express our overmastering emotions. 
 In fact, the external shows of nature are required to express the 
 internal movements of the mind ; the external world provides a 
 language for the internal or mental world. Hence we find all 
 language full of figures of speech. Though we do not notice 
 them at the time, we can hardly open our mouths without using 
 them. As Butler says in his famous poem : — 
 
 " For Hudibras, — he could not ope 
 His mouth, but out there flew a trope." 1 
 
 We speak of a town being stormed; of a clear head ; a hard 
 heart; winged words; glowing eloquence; virgin snow; a torrent 
 of words; the thirsty ground; the angry sea. We speak of 
 God's Word being a light to our feet and a lamp to our path. 
 
 2. This kind of language has been examined, classified, and 
 arranged under heads ; and the chief figures of speech are called 
 Simile, Metaphor, Personification, Allegory, Synecdoche, 
 Metonymy, and Hyperbole. 
 
 3. A Simile is a comparison that is limited to one point. 
 "Jones fought like a lion." Here the single point of likeness 
 between Jones and the lion is the bravery of the fighting of 
 each. 
 
 (Simile comes from the Latin similis, like.) 
 
 (i) " His spear was like the mast of a ship." " His salte* teres striken 
 down like rain," says Chaucer. "Apollo came like the night," says 
 Homer. "His words fell soft, like snow upon the ground," are the 
 words used by Homer in speaking of Ulysses. "It stirs the heart 
 like the sound of a trumpet" said Sir Philip Sidney in speaking of 
 the ballad of "Chevy Chase." Tennyson admirably compares a miller 
 covered with flour to "a working-bee in blossom-dust," 
 
 1 A trope — from Greek trSpos, a turning. A word that has been turned 
 from its ordinary and primary use. From the same root come tropic* 
 and tropical. 
 
190 COMPOSITION, PUNCTUATION, ETC. 
 
 4. A Metaphor is a simile with the words like or as left out. 
 Instead of saying "Roderick Dhu fought like a lion," we use a 
 metaphor, and say " lie was a lion in the fight." 
 
 (Metaphor is a Greek word meaning transference.) 
 
 (i) All language, as we have seen, is full of metaphors. Hence lan- 
 guage has been called "fossil poetry." Thus, even in very ordinary 
 prose, we may say, "the wish is father to the thought ; " "the news 
 was a dagger to his heart;" or we speak of the fire of passion; of a 
 ray of hope ; & flash of wit ; a thought striking us ; and so on. 
 
 (ii) By frequent use, and by forgetfulness, many metaphors have lost 
 their figurative character. Thus we use the words provide (to see 
 beforehand), edify (to build up), express (to squeeze out), detect (to 
 unroof), ruminate (to chew the cud), without the smallest feeling of 
 their metaphorical character. 
 
 (iii) We must never mix our metaphors. It will not do to say : " In 
 a moment the thunderbolt was on them, deluging the country with 
 invaders." " I will now embark upon the feature on which this question 
 mainly hinges." 
 
 (iv) Metaphors and similes may be mixed. Thus Longfellow : — 
 
 Metaohor / ^ ne ^ a ^ * s ^ one » ano - * ne darkness 
 " '" \ Falls from the wings of night, 
 
 q. ., j As a feather is wafted downward 
 
 oimue ' 1 From an eagle in his flight. 
 
 (v) A metaphor is a figure in which the objects compared are treated 
 by the mind as identical for the time being. A simile simply treats 
 them as resembling one another ; and the mind keeps the two carefully 
 apart. 
 
 5. Personification is that figure by which, under the influence 
 of strong feeling, we attribute life and mind to impersonal and 
 inanimate things. 
 
 (i) Thus we speak, in poetic and impassioned language, of pale Fear ; 
 gaunt Famine ; green-eyed Jealousy ; and white-handed Hope. The morn- 
 ing is said to laugh; the winds to whisper; the oaks to sigh ; and the 
 brooks to prattle. 
 
 (ii) Milton, in the ' Paradise Lost,' ix. 780, thus describes the fall of 
 Eve:— 
 
 " So saying, her rash hand in evil hour 
 Forth reaching tr> the fruit, she plucked, she ate ! 
 Earth felt the wound ; and Nature, from her seat, 
 Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe 
 That all was lost." 
 
FIGURES OF SPEECH. 191 
 
 Shelley's ' Cloud ' is one long personification. 
 
 (iii) When the personified object is directly addressed, the figure is 
 called Apostrophe. Thus we have, " Death, where is thy sting ? 
 Grave, where is thy victory ? " 
 
 6. An Allegory is a continuous personification in the form of 
 a story. 
 
 (i) The genus is personification ; the differentia, a story ; and the 
 species is an allegory. 
 
 (ii) Milton's * Death and Sin," in the tenth book of the ' Paradise 
 Lost,' is a short allegory. Spenser's 'Faerie Queene' and Bunyan's 
 * Pilgrim's Progress ' are long allegories. 
 
 (iii) A short allegory is called a Fable. 
 
 7. Synecdoche' is that figure of speech by which a part is 
 put for the whole. Thus we say, in a more striking fashion, 
 bread instead of food; a, cut-throat for a murderer; fifty sail for 
 fifty ships; all hands at work. 
 
 (i) Lear, in the height of his mad rage against his daughters, shouts, 
 "I abjure all roofs I " 
 
 (ii) The name of the material — as a part of the whole production — is 
 sometimes used for the thing made : as cold steel for the sword ; the 
 marble speaks ; the canvas glows. 
 
 8. Metonymy is that figure of speech by which a thing is 
 named, not with its own name, but by some accompaniment 
 Thus we say, the crown for the king; the siwrd for physical 
 force. 
 
 (The word metonymy is a Greek word meaning change of names. ) 
 
 We write the ermine for the bench of judges; the mitre for the 
 
 bishops; red tape for official routine; a long purse for a great deal of 
 
 money ; the bottle for habits of drunkenness. 
 
 9. Hyperbole* or Exaggeration is a figure by which much 
 more is said than is literally true. This is of course the re- 
 sult of very strong emotion. 
 
 (i) Milton says : — 
 
 " So frowned the mighty combatants, that hell 
 Grew darker at their frown." 
 
 (ii) Scott, in ' Kenilworth,' has this passage : " The mind of England's 
 Elizabeth was like one of those ancient Druidical monuments called 
 
192 COMPOSITION, PUNCTUATION, ETC. 
 
 rocking-stones. The finger of Cupid, boy as he is painted, could put 
 her feelings in motion ; but the power of Hercules could not have de- 
 stroyed their equilibrium." 
 
 10. The following is a summary of the chief of the. above 
 statements : — 
 
 1. A Figure of Speech employs a vivid or striking image 
 
 of something without to express a feeling or idea 
 within. 
 
 2. A Simile uses an external image with the word like. 
 
 3. A Metaphor uses the same image without the word like. 
 
 4. A Personification is a metaphor taken from a person or 
 
 living being. 
 
 5. An allegory is a continuous personification. 
 
 PARAPHRASING. 
 
 1. Paraphrasing is a kind of exercise that is not without 
 its uses. These uses are chiefly two : (i) to bind the learner's 
 attention closely to every word and phrase, meaning and shade 
 of meaning; and (ii) to enable the teacher to see whether 
 the learner has accurately and fully understood the passage. 
 But no one can hope to improve on the style of a poem by 
 turning the words and phrases of the poet into other language ; 
 the change made is always — or almost always — a change for the 
 worse. 
 
 2. * Passages from good prose writers are sometimes given out 
 to paraphrase, but most often passages from poetical writers. 
 The reason of this is that poetry is in general much more highly 
 compressed than prose, and hence the meaning is sometimes 
 obscure, for want of a little more expansion. The following 
 lines by Sir Henry Wotton, the Provost of Eton College, are 
 a good example of much thought compressed within a little 
 space : — 
 
PARAPHRASING. 193 
 
 THE HAPPY LIFE. 
 
 1. How happy is he born and taught 
 That serveth not another's will — 
 Whose armour is his honest thought, 
 And simple truth his utmost skill ! 
 
 2. Whose passions not his masters are, 
 Whose soul is still prepared for death— 
 Not tied unto the worldly care 
 
 Of public fame or private breath ! 
 
 3. Who envies none that chance doth raise, 
 Or vice ; who never understood 
 
 How deepest wounds are given by praise ; 
 Nor rules of state, but rules of good ; 
 
 4. Who hath his life from humours freed, 
 Whose conscience is his strong retreat ; 
 Whose state can neither flatterers feed, 
 Nor ruin make accusers great 
 
 5. Who God doth late and early pray 
 More of His grace than gifts to lend j 
 And entertains the harmless day 
 With a well-chosen book or friend : — 
 
 6. This man is freed from servile bands 
 Of hope to rise, or fear to fall — 
 Lord of himself, though not of lands ; 
 And, having nothing, yet hath all. 
 
 3. Let us try now to paraphrase these lines — that is, to de- 
 velop the thought by the aid of more words. But, though we 
 are obliged to use more words, we must do our utmost to find and 
 bo employ the most fitting. "We must not merely throw down 
 a mass of words and phrases, and leave the reader to make his 
 own selection and to grope among them for the meaning. 
 
 1. How happy, by birth as well as by education, is the man who is not 
 obliged to be a slave to the will of another — whose only armour is hia 
 honesty and simple goodness, whose best and utmost skill lies in plain 
 straightforwardness. 
 
 2. How happy is the man who is not the slave of his own passions, 
 whose soul is always prepared for death, who is not tied to the world 
 or the world's opinion by anxiety about his public reputation or the 
 tattle of individuals. 
 
194 COMPOSITION, PUNCTUATION, ETC. 
 
 3. Happy, too, because he envies no man who has been raised to rank 
 by accident or by vicious means ; because he never understood the sneer 
 that stabs while it seems to praise ; because he cares nothing for rules 
 of expediency or of policy, but thinks only of what is good and right. 
 
 4. Who has freed himself from obedience to humours and to whims, 
 whose conscience is his sure stronghold ; whose rank is not exalted 
 enough to draw flatterers, or to tempt accusers to build their own 
 greatness upon his fall. 
 
 5. Who, night and morning, asks God for grace, and not for gifts ; 
 and spends his day in the study of a good book or conversation with 
 a thoughtful friend. 
 
 6. This man is freed from the slavery of hope and fear — the hope of 
 rising, the fear of falling — lord, not of lands, but of himself ; and though 
 without wealth or possessions, yet having all that the heart of man need 
 desire. 
 
 THE GRAMMAR OF VERSE, OR PROSODY. 
 
 1. Verse is the form of poetry • and Prosody is the part of 
 Grammar which deals with the laws and nature of verse. 
 
 (i) Verse comes from the Latin versa, turned. Oratio versa was 
 " turned speech " — that is, when the line came to an end, the reader or 
 writer or printer had to begin a new line. It is opposed to oratio 
 prorsa, which means " straight-on speech " — whence our word prose. A 
 line in prose may be of any length ; a line in verse must be of the length 
 which the poet gives to it. 
 
 (ii) It is of importance for us to become acquainted with the laws of 
 verse. First, because it enables us to enjoy poetry more. Secondly, it 
 enables us to read poetry better — and to avoid putting an emphasis on 
 a syllable, merely because it is accented. Thirdly, it shows us how to 
 write verse ; and the writing of verse is very good practice in composition 
 — as it compels us to choose the right phrase, and makes us draw upon 
 our store of words to substitute and to improve here or there. 
 
 2. Verse differs from prose in two things : (i) in the regular 
 recurrence of accents; and (ii) in the proportion of un 
 accented to accented syllables. 
 
 (i) Thus, in the line 
 
 In an'swer noughf could An'gus speak', 
 the accent occurs regularly in every Becond syllable. 
 
THE GRAMMAR OF VERSE, OR PROSODY. 195 
 
 (ii) But, in the line 
 
 Mer'rily, mer'rily, shall' we live now', 
 
 the accent not only comes first, but there are two unaccented syllables 
 for every one that is accented (except in the last foot). 
 
 3. Every English word of more than one syllable has an 
 accent on one of its syllables. 
 
 (i) Begin', commend', attack' have the accent on the last syllable, 
 (ii) JIap'py, la'dy, welcome have the accent on the first syllable. 
 
 4. English verse is made up of lines ; each line of verse con- 
 tains a fixed number of accents; each accent has a fixed 
 number of unaccented syllables attached to it. 
 
 (i) Let us take these lines from ' Marmion ' (canto v.) • — 
 
 Who loves' | not more' | the night' | of June 7 
 Than dull' | Decern' | ber's gloom' | of noon' ? 
 
 Each line here contains four accents ; the accented syllable comes last ; 
 each accented syllable has one unaccented attached to it. 
 
 (ii) Now let us compare these lines from T. Hood's " Bridge of Sighs " : 
 
 Touch' her not | scom'fully, 
 Think' of her | mourn'fully. 
 
 Each line here contains two accents ; the accented syllable comes first ; 
 and each accented syllable has two unaccented syllables attached to it. 
 
 5. One accented syllable + one or two unaccented, taken 
 together, is called a foot. A foot is the unit of metre. 
 
 Let x stand for an unaccented, and a for an accented syllable. 
 
 6. One accented preceded by one unaccented syllable is 
 called an Iambus. Its formula is xa. — One accented syllable 
 followed by one unaccented is called a Trochee. Its formula 
 is ax. 
 
 (i) The following are iambuses : Perhaps' ; condemn' ; compel' ; with- 
 out' ; career'. 
 
 (ii) The following are trochees : Gen' tie ; rWer; la'dy ; ra'ven ; twmlble. 
 
 (iii) The following verse is made up of four iambuses — that is, it is 
 iambic verse : — 
 
 Twere long', | and need' | less, here' | to tell' 
 How to my hand these papers felL 
 
196 COMPOSITION, PUNCTUATION, ETC. 
 
 (iv) The following verse is made up of four trochees — that is, it is 
 trochaic : — 
 
 In' his | cham'ber, | weak' and | dy'ing 
 Was the Norman baron lying. 
 
 (v) lam' | bics march' | from short' | to long 7 . 
 
 (vi) Tro'chee | trips' from [ long' to | short' — | . 
 
 7. One accented syllable preceded by two unaccented is 
 called an Anapaest. Its formula is xxa. — One accented syl- 
 lable followed by two unaccented is called a Dactyl. Its 
 formula is axx. 
 
 (i) The following are anapaests : Serenade' ; disappear' ; comprehend' ; 
 intercede'. 
 
 (ii) The following are dactyls : Hap'pily; mer'rily; sim'Uar ; bil'lowy, 
 
 (Hi) The following lines are in anapaestic verse : — 
 
 I am mon' | arch of all' 1 1 survey', 
 My right there is none to dispute. 
 
 (iv) With a leap' | and a bound' | the swift an' | apaests throng' | . 
 
 (v) The following are in dactylic verse : — 
 
 Can'non to | righf of them | 
 Can'non to | left' of them |. 
 
 (a) The word dactyl comes from the Greek dahtiilos, a finger. 
 For a finger has one long and two short joints. 
 
 (b) The word anapaest comes from two Greek words : paio, 
 strike, and ana, back ; because it is the reverse of a dactyl. 
 
 8. The Anapaest belongs to the same kind or system of verse 
 as the Iambus ; because the accented syllable in each comes last. 
 — The Dactyl belongs to the same kind or system of verse as 
 the Trochee ; because the accented syllable in each comes first. 
 
 (i) Hence anapaests and iambuses may be mixed (as in "My right' | 
 there is none' | to dispute' | "); and so may dactyls and trochees (as in 
 " Hark' to the | sum'mons | "). 
 
 (ii) But we very seldom see a trochee introduced into an iambic line ; 
 or an iambus into a trochaic — except in the first foot. 
 
 9. An accented syllable with one unaccented syllable on each 
 side of it is called an Amphibrach. Its formula is xax. 
 
 The word amphibrach comes from two Greek words : amphi, on both 
 Bides ; and brachus, short. (Compare amphibious.) 
 
THE GRAMMAR OF VERSE, OR PROSODY. 197 
 
 (i) The following are amphibrachs : Despairing ; aVmight'y; tremend- 
 ous; deceitful. 
 
 (ii) The following is an amphibrachic line : — 
 
 There came' to | the beach' a | poor ex'ile | of E'rin |. 
 
 10. A verse made up of iambuses is called Iambic Verse; 
 of trochees, Trochaic ; of anapaests, Anapaestic ; and of dactyls, 
 Dactylic. 
 
 11. A verse of three feet is called Trimeter; of four feet, 
 Tetrameter ; of five feet, Pentameter ; and of six feet, Hex- 
 ameter. 
 
 (i) "We find the prefixes of these words in Triangle ; Tetrarch (a ruler 
 over a fourth part) ; Pentateuch (the Jive books of Moses) ; and Hexagon 
 (a figure with six corners or angles). 
 
 12. By much the most usual kind of verse in English is 
 Iambic Verse. 
 
 (i) Iambic Tetrameter (4xa) is the metre of most of Scott's poems ; 
 of Coventry Patmore's "Angel in the House"; of Gay's Fables, and 
 many other poems of the eighteenth century. 
 
 (ii) Iambic Pentameter (5xa) is the most common line in English 
 verse. There are probably more than a thousand iambic pentameter 
 lines for one that there exists of any other kind. Iambic Pentameter is 
 the verse of Chaucer, of Shakespeare, of Milton, of Dryden, of Pope, and 
 of almost all our greater English poets. 
 
 13. Rhymed Iambic Pentameter is called Heroic Verse ; un- 
 rhymed, it is called Blank Verse. 
 
 (i) Any unrhymed verse may be called blank — such as the verse em- 
 ployed by Longfellow in his "Hiawatha" — but the term is usually 
 restricted to the unrhymed iambic pentameter. 
 
 (ii) Blank verse is the noblest of. all verse. It seems the easiest to 
 write ; it is the most difficult. It is the verse of Shakespeare and Milton, 
 and of most of our great dramatists. 
 
 14. Iambic Trimeter consists of three iambuses; and its 
 formula is 3xa. 
 
 The king 7 | was on' | his throne'; | 
 His sa' | traps thronged' | the hall'; | 
 A thou' | sand bright' | lamps shone' | 
 On thaf | high fes' | tival'. | 
 
 There is very little of this kind of verse in English. . 
 
198 COMPOSITION, PUNCTUATION, ETC. 
 
 15. Iambic Tetrameter consists of four iambuses; and its 
 formula is 4xa. 
 
 The fire,' | with well' | dried logs' | supplied,' | 
 "Went roar 7 | ing up' | the chim' | ney wide'; | 
 The huge' | hall-ta' | ble's oak' | en face' | 
 Scrubbed till' | it shone,' | the day' | to grace/ | 
 
 There is a good deal of this verse in English ; and most of it 
 is by Scott. 
 
 16. Iambic Tetrameter with Iambic Trimeter in alternate 
 lines — the second and fourth rhyming — is called Ballad Metre. 
 When used, as it often is, in hymns, it is called Service Metre. 
 
 They set him high upon a cart; = 4xa 
 
 The hangman rode below; = 3xa 
 They drew his hands behind his back, = 4xa 
 
 And bared his noble brow. = 3xa 
 
 This is the metre of Macaulay's 'Lays of Ancient Eome/ of 
 Scott's 'Lay of the Last Minstrel,' and many other poems. 
 Scott mixes frequently, but at quite irregular intervals, the 
 iambic trimeter with the iambic tetrameter ; and this he called 
 the "light-horse gallop of verse." 
 
 Front, flank, and rear, the squadrons sweep = 4xa 
 To break the Scottish circle deep, = 4xa 
 
 That fought' | around' | their king.' = 3 xa 
 
 17. Iambic Pentameter consists of five iambuses; and its 
 formula is 5xa. 
 
 (i) The following is rhymed iambic pentameter : — 
 
 True wit' | is na' | ture to' | ad van' | tage dressed,' | = 5xa 
 
 What oft' | was thought,' | but ne'er' | so well' | expressed/ | = 5xa 
 
 (ii) The following is unrhymed iambic pentameter : — 
 
 You all' | doknow' | this man' | tie ; V | remera' | ber=5xa 
 The first' | time ev' j er Cass' | ar puf | it on'.|=5xa. 
 
 The first extract is from Pope's "Essay on Criticism"; the 
 second from Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar." 
 
 18. Iambic Hexameter consists of six iambuses; and its 
 formula is 6xa, 
 
THE GRAMMAK OF VERSE, OR PROSODY. 199 
 
 (i) The following is from Drayton's " Polyolbion " : — 
 
 Upon the Midlands now the industrious muse doth fall, | =6xa 
 That shire which we the heart of England well may call. | = 6xa 
 
 The objection to this kind of verse is its intolerable monotony. 
 It pretends to be hexameter ; but it is indeed simply two tri- 
 meter verses printed in one long line. The monotony comes 
 from the fact that the pause is always in the middle of the line. 
 There is very little of this kind of verse in English. The line 
 of 6xa is also called an Alexandrine, and is used to close the 
 long stanza employed by Spenser. 
 
 19. Trochaic Tetrameter consists of four trochees ; and its 
 formula is 4 ax. 
 
 (i) The following is rhymed trochaic tetrameter : — 
 
 When the heathen trumpet's clang- 1= 4 ax 
 Round beleaguered Chester rang, -|=4ax 
 Veiled nun and friar gray- | = 4ax 
 Marched from Bangor's fair abbaye - |=4ax 
 
 It will be noticed that each line has a syllable wanting to 
 make up the four complete feet. But the missing syllable is 
 only an unaccented syllable; and the line contains four ac- 
 cents. (The above extract is from "The Monks of Bangor's 
 March," by Scott.) 
 
 (ii) The following is unrhymed trochaic tetrameter : — 
 
 Then the | little | Hia | watha | =4 ax 
 Learned of | ev'ry | bird the | language, |=4ax 
 Learned their | names and | all their | secrets, | = 4ax 
 How they | built their | nests in | summer, | = 4ax 
 Where they | hid them | selves in | winter, | = 4ax 
 Talked with | them when | e'er he | met them, | = 4ax 
 Called them | "Hia | watha's | Chickens." | = 4ax 
 
 It will be observed that, in the above lines from Longfellow's 
 " Hiawatha," each trochee is complete ; and this is the case 
 throughout the whole of this poem. " Hiawatha " is the only 
 long poem in the language that is written in unrhymed trochees. 
 
 20. Trochaic Octometer consists of eight trochees; and its 
 formula is 8 ax. 
 
 (i) The chief example of it that we have is Tennyson's poem of 
 "Locksley Hall":- 
 
200 COMPOSITION, PUNCTUATION, ETC. 
 
 Com'rades, | leave' roe | here' a | lit' tie, | while' as | yet' 'tis | early | morn'-|=8ax 
 Leave' me | here', and, | when' you|wanf me, | sound' up|on' the|bu'gle|horn'-| = 8ax 
 
 (ii) There is a syllable wanting in each line of "Locksley Hall" ; but 
 it is only an unaccented syllable. Each line consists of eight accents. 
 
 21. Anapaestic Tetrameter consists of four anapaests; and 
 its formula is 4xxa. 
 
 (i) There is very little anapaestic verse in English ; and what little 
 there exists is written in tetrameter. 
 
 (ii) The following lines, from " Macgregors' Gathering," by Scott, is 
 in anapsestic verse : — 
 
 The moon's' | on the lake', | and the mist's' | on the brae', | = 4xxa 
 And the clan' | has a name' | that is name' | less by day'. | =4xxa 
 
 (iii) It will be observed that the first line begins with an iambus. 
 This is admissible ; because an iambus and an anapaest, both having the 
 accented syllable last, belong to the same system. 
 
 22. Dactylic Dimeter consists of two dactyls J and its formula 
 is 2axx. 
 
 (i) A well - known example is Tennyson's " Charge of the Light 
 Brigade." 
 
 Can'non to | right' of them, | 2axx 
 Can'non to | left' of them, | 2axx 
 Can'non be | hind' them, - | 2axx 
 
 Vol'leyed and | thun'dered. - | 2a xx 
 
 (ii) It will be observed that the last two lines want a syllable to make 
 up the two dactyls. Such a line is said to be = 2axx- (minus). 
 
 (iii) Or we may say that the last foot is a trochee ; for a trochee and 
 a dactyl can go together in one line, both belonging to the same system 
 — both having their accented syllable first. 
 
 23. Dactylic Tetrameter consists of four dactyls ; and its for- 
 mula is 4axx. 
 
 (i) Bishop Heber's hymn is one of the best examples : — 
 
 Bright'est and | best' of the | sons' of the | morn'ing. 
 (ii) The last foot here again is a trochee, 
 (iii) There is very little of this kind of verse in English poetry. 
 
 24 Amphibrachic Tetrameter consists of four amphibrachs ; 
 and its formula is 4xax. 
 
THE GRAMMAR OF VERSE, OR PROSODY. 201 
 
 (i) Campbell's well-known poem is a good example : — 
 There came' to | the beach' a | poor ex'ile | of Krin. 
 (ii) There are very few examples in English of this kind of verse. 
 
 25. The following lines by Coleridge give both examples and 
 descriptions of the most important metres explained in the pre- 
 ceding paragraphs. It must be observed that Coleridge uses the 
 term long for accented; and short for unaccented syllables: — 
 
 Tro'chee | trips' from | long' to | short' — | 
 
 From long to long in solemi, sort, 
 
 Slow spon | dee 1 stalks || strong* foot, yet | ill' able 
 
 E'ver to | come' up with | dac'tyl tri | syl'lable | . 
 
 lam' | bics march' | from sho'rt | to long' | ; 
 
 With a leap' | and a bound' | the swift an' | apaests throng' | ; 
 
 One syl'la | ble long' with | one short' at | each side — | 
 
 Amphi'brach | ys hastes' with | a stately | stride. 
 
 26. A verse with a syllable ovei and above the number of 
 
 feet of which it consists is called Hypermetrical. 
 
 (i) Thus, Coleridge has, in his " Ancient Mariner " — 
 Day af | ter day, | day af | ter day, | 
 
 We stuck : | nor breath | nor mo j tion, (hyper) 
 As id | le as | a paint | ed ship | 
 
 Upon | a paint | ed o | cean. (hyper) 
 
 Here the syllables tion and cean are over from the iambic trimetei 
 verse, and the line is therefore said to be hypermetrical. 
 
 27. A verse with a syllable wanting to the number of feet 
 of which it consists is said to be defective. 
 
 (i) Thus, in Scott's " Monks of Bangor "— 
 
 Slaughtered | down' by | heath' en | blade'- | 4ax- 
 Ban'gor's | peace' ful | monks' are | laid'. - ) 4ax- 
 
 we find a syllable wanting to each line. But that syllable is an un- 
 accented one ; and the verse consists of four trochees minus one syllable, 
 or 4ax-. 
 
 (ii) Caution ! — Some persons confuse the defective with the hyper- 
 metrical line. Thus, in the verses — 
 
 Shall' I | wasf ing | in' de | spair', - | 
 Die' be | cause a | wom'an's | fair' ? - | 
 
 the syllable spair is not hypermetrical An unaccented syllable is 
 wanting to it ; and the lines are 4 ax defective or minus. 
 
 1 A spondee consists of two long or accented syllables. It is a foot not 
 employed in English ; but it exists in the two words amen and farewell. 
 
202 COMPOSITION, PUNCTUATION, ETC, 
 
 KHYME. 
 
 28. Rhyme has been denned by Milton as the "jingling 
 sound of like endings." It may also be defined as a corre- 
 spondence in sound at the ends of lines in poetry. 
 
 (i) Rhyme is properly spelled rime. The word originally meant num- 
 ber ; and the Old English word for arithmetic was rime-craft. It 
 received its present set of letters from a confusion with the Greek word 
 rhythm, which means a flowing. 
 
 (ii) Professor Skeat says " it is one of the worst-spelt words in the 
 language." "It is," he says, "impossible to find an instance of the 
 spelling rhyme before 1550." Shakespeare generally wrote rime. 
 
 29. No rhyme can be good unless it satisfies four conditions. 
 These are : — 
 
 1. The rhyming syllable must be accented. Thus ring' 
 
 rhymes with singly but not with think'ing. 
 
 2. The vowel sound must be the same — to the ear, that is ; 
 
 though not necessarily to the eye. Thus lose and close 
 are not good rhymes. 
 
 3. The final consonant must be the same. [Mix and tricks 
 
 are good rhymes ; because x = ks.) 
 
 4. The preceding consonant must be different. 
 
 Beat and feet ; jump and pump are good rhymes. 
 
 30. The English language is very poor in rhymes, when 
 compared with Italian or German. Accordingly, half-rhymes 
 are admissible, and are frequently employed. 
 
 The following rhymes may be used : — 
 
 Sun. Love. Allow. Ever, Taste. 
 
 Gone. Move. Bestow. River. Past. 
 
THE CiESURA, 203 
 
 THE CESURA, 
 
 31. The rhythm or musical flow of verse depends on the 
 varied succession of phrases of different lengths. But, most of 
 all, it is upon the Caesura, and the position of the Caesura, 
 that musical flow depends. 
 
 The word caesura is a Latin word, and means a cutting. 
 
 32. The Caesura in a line is the rest or halt or break or 
 pause for the voice in reading aloud. It is found in short as 
 well as in long lines. 
 
 (i) The following is an example from the short lines of ' Marmion ' 
 
 (vi. 332) :— 
 
 1J More pleased that || in a barbarous age 
 2J He gave rude Scotland || Virgil's page, 
 
 1 Than that || beneath his rule he held 
 
 2 The bishopric || of fair Dunkeld. 
 
 It will be seen from this that Sir Walter Scott takes care to vary the 
 position of the caesura in each line — sometimes having it after 14 feet, 
 sometimes after 2 ; and so on. 
 
 (ii) The following is an example from the long lines of the " Lycidas " 
 of Milton : — 
 
 2 Now, Lycidas, || the shepherds weep no more ; 
 1 Henceforth || thou art the genius of the shore 
 8 In thy large recompense, |j and shalt be good 
 2J To all that wander || in that perilous flood. 
 
 Milton, too, is careful to vary the position of his caesura ; and most of 
 the music and much of the beauty of his blank verse depend upon the 
 fact that the caesura appears now at the beginning, now at the middle, 
 now at the end of his lines ; and never in the same place in two con- 
 secutive verses. 
 
 (iii) Of all the great writers of English verse, Pope is the one who 
 places the caesura worst — worst, because it is almost always in the 
 same place. Let us take an example from his "Rape of the Lock" 
 (canto L) : — 
 
 2 The busy sylphs || surround their darling care, 
 
 2 These set the head, | and these divide the hair ; 
 
 2 Some fold the sleeve, fl whilst others plait the gown ; 
 
 2 And Betty's praised | for labours not her own. 
 
 And so he goes on for thousands upon thousands of verses. The symbol 
 of Pope's caesura is a straight line ; the symbol of Milton's is " the line 
 of beauty " — a line of perpetually varying and harmonious curves. 
 
204 COMPOSITION, PUNCTUATION; ETC. 
 
 THE STANZA. 
 33. A Stanza is a group of rhymed lines. 
 
 The word comes from an old Italian word, stantia, an abode. 
 
 34 Two rhymed lines are called a couplet ; and this may be 
 looked upon as the shortest kind of stanza 
 
 (i) The most usual couplet in English consists of two rhymed iambic 
 pentameter lines. This is called the " heroic couplet." 
 
 35. A stanza of three rhymed lines is called a triplet. 
 
 (i) A very good example is to be found in Tennyson's poem of " The 
 Two Voices," which consists entirely of triplets : — 
 
 " Whatever crazy sorrow saith, 
 No life that breathes with human breath 
 Has ever truly longed for death." 
 
 36. A stanza of four rhymed lines — of which the first (some- 
 times) rhymes with the third, and the second (always) with 
 the fourth — is called a quatrain. 
 
 (i) The ordinary ballad metre consists of quatrains — that is, four 
 lines, two of iambic tetrameter, and two of iambic trimeter. 
 
 (ii) A quatrain of iambic pentameters is called Elegiac Verse. The 
 best known example is Gray's " Elegy in a Country Churchyard." 
 
 37. A stanza of six lines is called a sextant. 
 
 (i) There are many kinds. One is used in Hood's " Dream of Eugene 
 Aram," which is written in 4xa and 3xa ; the second, fourth, and sixth 
 lines rhyming. 
 
 (ii) Another in Whittier's " Barclay of Ury," which has the first and 
 second lines, the third and sixth, the fourth and fifth, rhyming with 
 each other. 
 
 (iii) Another in Lowell's "Yussouf," which has the first and third 
 lines, the second and fourth, and the fifth and sixth rhyming. 
 
 38. A stanza of eight lines is called an octave, or ottava 
 rima. 
 
 (Pronounced ottahva reema.) 
 
 39. A stanza of nine lines is called the Spenserian stanza, 
 because Edmund Spenser employed it in his " Faerie Queene." 
 
THE STANZA. 205 
 
 (i) The first eight lines of this stanza are in 5xa; the last line, in 6xa. 
 (ii) The rhymes run thus : abab ; bcbcc. 
 
 40. A short poem of fourteen iambic pentameter lines — with 
 the rhymes arranged in a peculiar way — is called a sonnet. 
 
 (i) This is a form which has been imported into England from Italy, 
 where it was cultivated by many poets — the greatest among these being 
 Dante and Petrarch, both of them poets of the thirteenth century. 
 The best English sonnet-writers are Milton, Wordsworth, and Mrs 
 Browning. 
 
 (ii) The sonnet consists of two parts — an octave (of eight lines), and 
 a sestette (of six). The rhymes in the octave are often varied, being 
 sometimes abba, acca: those in the sestette are sometimes a be, abc, 
 or ababec. 
 
 (iii) Shakespeare's " Sonnets " are not formed on the Italian model, 
 and can hardly be called sonnets at all. They are really short poems of 
 three quatrains, ending in each case with a rhymed couplet. 
 
 (iv) The following is Wordsworth's sonnet on " The Sonnet " :— 
 
 'Scorn not the Sonnet; critic, you have frowned a 
 
 Mindless of its just honours : with this key b 
 
 Shakspeare unlocked his heart ; the melody b 
 
 Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound ; a 
 
 A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound; a 
 
 With it Camoens soothed an exile's grief; c 
 
 The sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf c 
 
 SAmid the cypress with which Dante crowned a 
 
 tis visionary hrow ; a glow-worm lamp d 
 
 It cheered mild Spenser, called from fairyland e 
 
 ' To struggle through dark ways ; and when a damp d 
 
 Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand e 
 
 I The thing became a trumpet, whence he blew / 
 
 ^Soul-animating strains— alas, too few ! : ' / 
 
EXEECISES. 
 
 EXERCISE I. (The Alphabet, p. 5). 
 
 1. Show the difference between a vowel and a consonant ; say 
 which are the vowels in the following words : young, wonder, worth, 
 hypercritical, abstemious, yell, iota ; and name the diphthongs, if 
 any, in continuous, idea, shoeing, join; oasis, rea-on, porous, variety, 
 spontaneity. 
 
 2. How are consonants classified ? Select the dentals and gutturals 
 from the following words : dog, gate, gentle, truth, thank, hog, 
 gymnastic, pneumatic, drink, conquered; and select the palatals and 
 labials from the following words : Job, Benjamin, archiepiscopate, 
 bdellium, method, psalm, yacht. 
 
 3. Distinguish between mutes and spirants ; and show which are 
 the dental and which the palatal spirants in scissors, rush, shawl, 
 zealously, laziness, azimuth, zephyr, harass. 
 
 4. Change as many as you can of the following into corresponding 
 sharp sounds : bad, dove, dig, bag, bathe, gad, beg, Jude, dug, Jove, 
 gab, jug ; and reduce the following sharp sounds to flat : pack, buck, 
 cat, set, trick, chick, pet. 
 
 5. What are the characteristics of a true alphabet? Prove our 
 alphabet faulty ; and say which are the redundant letters. 
 
 EXERCISE II. (Nouns, p. 9). 
 
 1. How are nouns classified ? Define abstract nouns; and classify 
 the nouns in the following : — 
 
 (a) "Come forth into the light of things, 
 
 Let nature be your teacher." — Wordsworth. 
 
 (6) " Welcome, learn'd Cicero ! whose blessed tongue and wit 
 Preserves Rome's greatness yet." — Cowley. 
 
 (c) " All in the Downs the fleet lay moor'd." — Dibdin. 
 
 (d) " Poictiers and Cressy tell, 
 
 When most their pride did swell." — Drayton. 
 
 (e) Parliament was prorogued. The troop returned to barracks. 
 The jury disagreed. 
 
 2. Make abstract nouns of true, noble, young, king, patient, man, 
 lord, intrude, rogue, slave, poor, domain, catechise, exemplify. 
 
 207 
 
208 EXERCISES. 
 
 EXERCISE III. (Nouns, p, 9). 
 
 Classify the nouns in the following :— 
 
 (a) " Young Henry met the foe with pride ; 
 
 Jane followed, fought ! ah, hapless story ! 
 In man's attire, by Henry's side, 
 
 She died for love, and he for glory." — T. Dibdin. 
 
 (b) " Though I fly to Istamboul, 
 
 Athens holds my heart and soul." — Byron. 
 
 (c) " The time I've lost in wooing, 
 
 In watching and pursuing 
 
 The light that lies 
 
 In woman's eyes, 
 Has been my heart's undoing." — T. Moore. 
 
 (d) "Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, 
 
 Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray." — Gray. 
 
 EXERCISE IV. (Gender, p. 11). 
 
 1 . Define gender ; and give the different ways in which gender is 
 marked. 
 
 2. Give the gender of Londoner, chief, sehor, actor, debtor, sailor, 
 kitten, sheep, charity, knave, moon, ant, spouse, bee, laundress. 
 
 3. Give the masculine of spinster, doe, slut, ewe, bride, baxter, lass, 
 czarina, vixen ; and the feminine of widower, patron, drake, marquis, 
 gander, friar, sire, benefactor, executor, nephew, earl. 
 
 EXERCISE V. (Number, p. 15). 
 
 1. Define number ; and give the chief ways of forming plurals. 
 
 2. Supply the plurals of child, chief, doth, calf, horse, Dutchman, 
 German, trout, fly, solo, monkey, index, boot, foot, House of Parliament, 
 mouse, lily, turkey, gas, box, genius, canto, penny, crisis, Miss Foote, 
 lady -help, relief, dye, buoy, spoonful. 
 
 3. Write the singulars of kine, sheep, radii, series, data, dice, 
 analyses, cherubim ; and distinguish between pease and peas, brothers 
 and brethren, dies and dice, geniuses and genii. 
 
 4. Justify the use of each of the following : memorandums, indices, 
 bandits, funguses, seraphs ; and state the number of each of the nouns 
 in the following : — 
 
 (a) "The audience were too mucn interested." — Scott. 
 
 (b) " The garrison only bestow a few bolts on it." — Id. 
 
 (c) "The House of Lords were so much influenced." — Hume. 
 
 (d) "All his tribe are blind." — Bunyan. 
 
EXERCISES. 209 
 
 EXERCISE VI. (Number, p. 15). 
 
 State the kind and number of each of the nouns in the 
 following : — 
 
 (a) " He sees that this great round-about, 
 The world with all its motley rout, — 
 Church, army, physic, law, 
 Its customs and its businesses, 
 Is no concern at all of his." — Cowper. 
 
 (b) "The rose is fairest when 'tis budding new, 
 
 And hope is brightest when it dawns from fears." — Scott. 
 
 (c) "A look of kind Truth, a word of Goodwill, 
 Are the magical helps on Life's road ; 
 With a mountain to travel they shorten the hill, 
 With a burden they lighten the load." 
 
 — Eliza Cook. 
 
 EXERCISE VII. (Revision). 
 
 1. Give the kind and gender of the nouns in the 
 following : — 
 
 (a) " A baby was sleeping, its mother was weeping, 
 
 For her husband was far on the wild raging sea." — S. Lover. 
 
 (b) " Perhaps that very hand, now pinion'd flat, 
 
 Has hob-a-nobu'd with Pharaoh, glass to glass ; 
 Or dropp'd a halfpenny in Homer's hat, 
 
 Or dofFd thine own to let Queen Dido pass, 
 Or held, by Solomon's own invitation, 
 A torch at the great Temple's dedication." — Horace Smith. 
 
 2. Give the kind and number of the nouns in the 
 following : — 
 
 (a) " Britannia needs no bulwark, 
 
 No towers along the steep." — Campbell. 
 
 (b) " He spoke of the grass, and flowers, and trees, 
 
 Of the singing birds, and the humming bees, 
 
 Then talked of the haying, and wonder'd whether 
 
 The cloud in the west would bring foul weather." — J. O. Whittier. 
 
 EXERCISE VIII. (Case, p. 19). 
 
 1. Define case ; say for which cases nouns are inflected, and what 
 determines the nominative case. 
 
 2. Define nominative absolute, giving an example ; and show the 
 two ways of denoting the possessive case. 
 
 3. Define cognate object, and say why dative objects are so oalled. 
 Give examples to illustrate your answer. 
 
 4. Give the meaning oifactitivt as applied to the objective case; 
 and say what is meant by an adverbial object. 
 
210 EXERCISES. 
 
 EXERCISE IX. (Case, p. 19). 
 
 Select the nouns in the nominative case in the following :— ■ 
 
 1. The bloom falls in May. 
 
 2. The ostriches' heads were not to be seen. 
 
 3. " The kine," said he, " I'll quickly feed." 
 
 4. The kine were fed. 
 
 5. The captain falling ill, the boatswain took charge. 
 
 6. A wandering minstrel am I. 
 
 7. Here lies the body of a noble man. 
 
 8. Richard, they say, was cruel. 
 
 9. The bell ringing, the children assembled. 
 
 10. Richard, William's son, was killed in the New Forest. 
 
 1 1. A number of sheep, losing their way, fell over the precipice. 
 
 12. Rattle his bones over the stones. 
 
 13. The guide falling ill, the travellers had to rely on his dog. 
 
 14. Ah ! Charlie, my son, you cheer your old mother ! 
 
 EXERCISE X. (Case, p. 19). 
 
 Write out the nouns in the objective case in each of the 
 following sentences : — 
 
 1. Britannia rules the waves. 
 
 2. I beg your pardon. 
 
 3. To-night no moon I see. 
 
 4. How many birds did they catch? 
 
 5. The king conferred with the general. 
 
 6. The children laughed at the squirrel. 
 
 7. Let me die the death of the righteous. 
 
 8. The crooked oak I '11 fell to-day, 
 
 9. A liar who can trust ? 
 
 10. We know a tree by its fruit. 
 
 1 1. He told a good tale. 
 
 12. The boy sneered at the idea. 
 
 13. Richard slew his godfather, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, 
 the kingmaker. 
 
 EXERCISE XI. (Case, p. 19). 
 
 Write the following in the ordinary possessive form : — 
 
 1. The bark of a dog. 
 
 2. The twitter of the swallows. 
 
 3. The books of John. 
 
 4. The spades of the workmen. 
 
 5. The studies of James. 
 
 6. The scissors of Miss Cissy Moses. 
 
 7. The lute of Orpheus. 
 
 8. The sword of Achilles. 
 
 9. The subscriptions of the ladies. 
 
 10. The death of the Marquis of Londonderry. 
 
EXERCISES. 211 
 
 11. The cries of the babies. 
 
 12. The marriage of Richard, Earl of Cambridge. 
 
 13. The innocence of the lilies. 
 
 14. The head of a sheep. 
 
 15. The tails of sheep. 
 
 16. The jubilee of Victoria, Queen of England. 
 
 17. The sake of my conscience. 
 
 EXERCISE XII. (Case, p. 19). 
 
 Give particulars of the cases of each of the nouns in the 
 following : — 
 
 1. Toll for the brave. 
 
 2. Flaxen was his hair. 
 
 3. Ho, gunners ! fire a loud salute. 
 
 4. Give the man a draught from the spring. 
 
 5. The parson told the sexton, and the sexton toll'd the bell, 
 
 6. Boys, you deserve to have a holiday given you. 
 
 7. It is very like a whale. 
 
 8. In this place ran Cassius* dagger through. 
 
 9. He paid him the debt for conscience' sake. 
 
 10. The king's baker dreamed a dream. 
 
 1 1. The lady lent the boy "Robinson Crusoe." 
 
 12. Bid yonr wife be judge. 
 
 13. The Count of Anjou became leader. 
 
 14. Joan seemed a holy woman. 
 
 15. Charles appointed Buckingham commander. 
 
 16. Let the actors play the play. 
 
 17. John walked two hours and travelled seven miles. 
 
 18. How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough. 
 
 19. I have a sixpence, but no pennies. 
 
 20. Benjamin, Joseph's own brother, Jacob's youngest son, was 
 kept a prisoner. 
 
 EXERCISE XIII. (Case, p. 19). 
 
 State fully the cases of the nouns in the following ; — 
 
 1. The sergeant choosing the tallest, the other recruits dispersed. 
 
 2. Old Kaspar's work was done. 
 
 3. William, sing a song. 
 
 4. She made the poor girl a dress. 
 
 5. She knitted all day. 
 
 6. The tide floated the vessel. 
 
 7. The boy swam his little boat. 
 
 8. Let the king be your leader. 
 
 9. A small hole will sink a ship. 
 
 10. Let bygones be bygones. 
 
 11. It rains, it hails, it blows, it snows, 
 Methinks I 'm wet thro' all mv clothes. 
 
212 EXERCISES. 
 
 EXERCISE XIV. (Nouns). 
 
 Parse fully all the nouns occurring in the following :—* 
 
 (a) " Underneath this sable hearse 
 Lies the subject of all verse, 
 Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother." — Ben Jonson. 
 
 (6) "His house was known to all the vagrant train ; 
 
 He chid their wand'rings, but relieved their pain." — Goldsmith. 
 
 (c) u Yet shall poor Tom find pleasant weather, 
 When He, who all commands, 
 Shall give, to call life's crew together, 
 The word to pipe all hands." — G. Dibdin. 
 
 EXERCISE XV. (Pronouns, p. 23). 
 
 1. Define a pronoun ; give its derivation ; and say what you 
 understand by a personal pronoun. 
 
 2. What are the only pronouns that can be used in the vocative 
 case ; and which person alone takes distinction of gender? 
 
 3. Define an interrogative pronoun ; and distinguish between who 
 and what, ye and you, thy and thine, and trie and myself. 
 
 4. Explain the ch in which, the m in whom, the ther in whether, and 
 the t in it. 
 
 5. Define a distributive pronoun ; and say when reflexive pronouns 
 are used. 
 
 EXERCISE XVI. (Pronouns, p. 23). 
 
 Give the kind, gender, number, person, and case of each 
 of the pronouns below : — 
 
 (a) " I am monarch of all I survey, 
 
 My right there is none to dispute." — Cowper. 
 
 (b) " You yourself are much condemn'd." — Shakespeare. 
 
 (c) "Who would fill a coward's grave ?" — Burns. 
 
 (d) " You wrong'd yourself to write in such a case." — Shakespeare. 
 
 (e) " Each had his place appointed, each his course." — Milton. 
 
 (/) "Of them He chose twelve, whom also He named apostles." 
 
 —Bible. 
 
 {g) "He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, 
 And all are slaves besides." — Cowper. 
 
EXERCISES. 213 
 
 EXERCISE XVII. (Pronouns, p. 23). 
 
 Write in two columns the relatives and antecedents in the 
 following : — 
 
 (a) " To know 
 That which before us lies in daily life, 
 Is the prime wisdom." — Milton. 
 
 (b) M Who steals my purse steals trash." — Shakespeare. 
 
 (c) " He prayeth best, who loveth best 
 
 All things, both great and small." — Coleridge. 
 
 (d) " Freedom has a thousand charms to show, 
 
 That slaves, howe'er contented, never know." — Cowper. 
 
 («) M Vain, very vain, my weary search to find 
 
 That bliss which only centres in the mind." — Goldsmith. 
 
 (/) " Be strong, live happy, and love ; but first of all, 
 Him whom to love is to obey." — Milton. 
 
 EXERCISE XVIII. (Pronouns, p. 23). 
 
 Parse fully the relatives and their antecedents in the 
 following : — 
 
 (a) " Whoever lov'd, that lov'd not at first sight ? " — Shakenpeare. 
 
 (b) "There were none of the Grograms but could sing a song, or 
 of the Marjorams but could tell a story." — Goldsmith. 
 
 (c) "Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." — Bible. 
 
 (d) "Let such teach others, who themselves excel." — Pope. 
 
 EXERCISE XIX. (Revision). 
 Parse fully the nouns and pronouns in the following : — 
 
 (a) "The place that she hath chosen out, 
 
 Herself in to repose, 
 Had they come down, the gods no doubt 
 The very same had chose." — Drayton. 
 
 (b) "So, Willy, let you and me be wipers 
 
 Of scores out with all men, especially pipers : 
 
 And, whether they pipe us free from rats or from mice, 
 
 If we've promised them aught, let us keep our promise." 
 
 — Browning. 
 
 EXERCISE XX. (Adjectives, p. 28). 
 
 1. Define an adjective ; and show, with examples, the twofold 
 function of an adjective. 
 
 2. Name the kinds of adjectives ; and give the derivation of each 
 name. 
 
214 EXERCISES. 
 
 3. Say in what ways quantitative adjectives may be used ; and how 
 numeral adjectives may be classified. 
 
 4. What adjectives are inflected for number ; and what for com- 
 parison ? 
 
 5. State how the comparative is formed ; and distinguish between 
 further and farther, older and elder, later and latter. 
 
 6. Write the ordinals of one, two, three, four, forty, eight, twenty, 
 hundred, five, twelve. 
 
 EXERCISE XXI. (Adjectives, p. 28). 
 
 Classify the adjectives in the following : — 
 
 1. "In the body politic, as in the natural body, morbid languor 
 succeeds morbid excitement." — Macaiday. 
 
 2. "So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs." — Milton. 
 
 3. " His ain coat on his back is." — Old Song. 
 
 4. "He was a ready orator, an elegant poet, a skilful gardener, 
 an excellent cook, and a most contemptible sovereign." — Gibbon, 
 
 5. " Tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep." — Young. 
 
 6. " You gave good words the other day of a bay courser I rode." 
 — Shakespeare. 
 
 7. " The poor man that loveth Christ is richer than the richest 
 man." — Bunyan. 
 
 8. " Sole Eve, associate sole, to me beyond compare above all 
 living creatures dear." — Milton. 
 
 9. "Fox beat half the lawyers in the House at their own weapons." 
 — Macaulay. 
 
 EXERCISE XXII. (Adjectives, p. 28). 
 
 Parse fully all the adjectives in the following : — 
 
 1. "The better part of valour is discretion ; in the which better 
 part I have saved my life." — Shakespeare. 
 
 2. " Act well your part ; there all the honour lies." — Pope. 
 
 3. "The greater the new power they create, the greater seems 
 their revenge against the old." — Bulwer. 
 
 4. " It was a very low fire indeed for such a bitter night." — Dickens. 
 
 5. " Some three or four of you go, give him courteous conduct to 
 this place." — Shakespeare. 
 
 6. " Many a carol, old and saintly, sang the minstrels." — Longfellow. 
 
 7. " The morning comes cold for a July one." — Carlyle. 
 
 8. " I '11 fill another pipe." — Sterne. 
 
 EXERCISE XXIII. (Adjectives, p. 28). 
 
 1. Compare the following adjectives where they admit of it : stout, 
 thin, marvellous, calm, shy, ladylike, gentlemanly, wet, honourable, dead, 
 near, full, prim, lovely, clayey, happy, sad, solar. 
 
 2. Write the positive of next, more, inner, last, least, first, inmost, 
 better ; and the superlative of evil, late, much, ill, good. 
 
EXERCISES. 215 
 
 EXERCISE XXLV. (Adjectives, p. 28). 
 
 Parse fully the adjectives in the following : — 
 
 1. " That sun that warms you here shall shine on me." — Shakespeare. 
 
 2. "Can the false-hearted boy have chosen such a tool as yonder 
 fellow ? " — Dickens. 
 
 3. "Look here, upon this picture, and on this; the counterfeit 
 presentment of two brothers." — Shakespeare. 
 
 4. " My father lived at Blenheim then, yon little stream hard by." 
 — Southey. 
 
 5. " The oracles are dumb ; 
 No voice or hideous hum 
 Runs thro' the arched roof in words deceiving." — Milton. 
 
 EXERCISE XXV. (Revision). 
 
 Parse the nouns and adjectives in the following : — 
 
 (a) " Lord ! Thou dost love Jerusalem, 
 Once she was all Thy own : 
 Her love Thy fairest heritage, 
 
 Her power Thy glory's throne." — Moore. 
 
 (6) "As proper men as ever trod upon neat's leather have gone 
 upon my handiwork." — Shakespeare. 
 
 EXERCISE XXVI (Revision). 
 
 Parse the pronouns and adjectives in the following : — 
 
 (a) " 0, Sir, to wilful men, 
 
 The injuries that they themselves procure 
 Must be their schoolmasters." — Shakespeare. 
 
 (b) "True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, 
 
 As those move easiest who have learned to dance." — Pope. 
 
 (c) "Who said that I had given thee up? 
 
 Who said that thou wert sold?" — Mrs. Norton. 
 
 EXERCISE XXVII. (The Verb, p. 34). 
 
 1. Define a verb and a transitive verb ; and name the ways in 
 which an intransitive verb may become transitive. 
 
 2. What is an auxiliary, and why are auxiliaries necessary ? Illus- 
 trate your answer by examples. 
 
 3. Say what you understand by voice ; what are the only verbs 
 that can be in the passive voice ; and how the passive voice is 
 formed. 
 
216 EXERCISES. 
 
 EXERCISE XXVIII. (Classification of Verbs, p. 35). 
 
 Classify the verbs in the following into transitive and in- 
 transitive : — 
 
 (a) " I think, articulate, I laugh and weep, 
 
 And exercise all the functions of a man ; 
 How then should I and any man that lives 
 Be strangers to each other ? " — Cowper. 
 
 (6) " A thing of beauty is a joy for ever ; 
 Its loveliness increases ; it will never 
 Pass into nothingness." — Keats. 
 
 (c) " He prayeth best, who loveth best 
 
 All things, both great and small ; 
 For the dear God who loveth us, 
 
 He made and loveth all." — Coleridge. 
 
 EXERCISE XXIX. (Classification of Verbs, p. 35). 
 
 Arrange the following verbs as prepositional or causative : — 
 
 1. The magistrate swore in the constables. 
 
 2. The goodness of the soil soon raised a crop. 
 
 3. I have spoken to a man who once baited a hook and drew in 
 a pike. 
 
 4. The gardener will fell the tree, and lay out the borders. 
 
 5. The pirates having jeered at the threats, sank the ship. 
 
 6. Some of the children will fly kites, others swim boats. 
 
 7. Tom will run his pony up and down. 
 
 8. They glory in little faults, wink at great ones, and cough down 
 the remonstrances of the wise men. 
 
 EXERCISE XXX. (Voices of Verbs, p. 39). 
 
 Rewrite the eight sentences in the foregoing exercise in 
 the passive voice. 
 
 EXERCISE XXXI. (Tenses of Verbs, p. 41). 
 
 Give particulars of the tense of each of the verbs in the 
 following : — 
 
 (a) M The king is come to marshal us, all in his armour drest." 
 
 — Macaulay. 
 
 (b) " I would not have believed it unless I had happened to have 
 been there." — Dickens. 
 
 (c) "I am, I will, I shall be happy." — Lytton. 
 
 (d) You are fighting a shadow. 
 
 («) I shall have had enough of this. 
 
EXERCISES. 217 
 
 (f) Why came ye hither ? 
 
 (g) Knew ye not what they had lost? 
 
 (h) We know not, neither do we care. 
 
 (»') A man who had lost his way, stopped till a boy came saunter- 
 ing along. 
 
 {k) "Am I in the right road for London? " said the man. 
 
 (/) " Yes," was the reply ; " but you will not get there till you 
 have walked twelve miles." 
 
 (m) M I have bee* walking three hours already, and I shall have 
 been travelling a whole day ere I reach my journey's end." 
 
 EXERCISE XXXII. (Moods of Verbs, p. 38). 
 State the* mood of each of the verbs in the following, and 
 distinguish between the different sorts of infinitives. 
 
 (a) " I dare do all that may become a man : 
 
 Who dares do more is none." — Shakespeare. 
 
 (b) "Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway, 
 
 And fools who came to scoff remained to pray." — Goldsmith, 
 
 (c) " Well, sit we down, 
 
 And let us hear Bernardo speak of this." — Shakespeare. 
 
 (d) "I watched the little circles die." — Tenvyson. 
 
 (e) " I am ashamed to observe you hesitate." — Scott. 
 
 (/) " Come unto these yellow sands, 
 And then take hands ; 
 Curtsied when you have, and kissed, 
 (The wild waves hist) 
 Foot it featly here and there." — Shakespeare. 
 
 EXERCISE XXXIII. (Auxiliary Verbs, p. 48). 
 
 Select the auxiliaries from the following sentences, and 
 show the force of each : — 
 
 (a) "I did send to you for gold." — Shakespeare. 
 
 (b) "The lark has sung his carol in the sky, 
 
 The bees have humm'd their noontide lullaby." — Rogers. 
 
 (c) " He was — whatever thou hast been, 
 
 He is — what thou shalt be." — Montgomery. 
 
 {d) I shall be drowned if none will save me ! 
 
 (e) Will he not come again ? 
 
 (/) We have been thinking over the matter. 
 
 {g) He could have been there had he wished to have been seen by 
 his old friends. 
 
218 EXERCISES. 
 
 EXERCISE XXXIV. (Strong and Weak Verbs, p. 43). 
 
 Arrange the verbs in Exercises XXXII. and XXXIII. as 
 strong or weak. 
 
 EXERCISE XXXV. (Verb "To be," p. 50). 
 
 1. Say of what verbs the verb be is made up, and give the four 
 ways in which this verb is used. 
 
 2. State the use of be in each of the following instances :— ■ 
 
 (a) " Whatever is, is right." — Pope. 
 
 (b) Thou art the man. 
 
 (c) I shall be there. 
 
 (d) They are to resign. 
 
 (e) David was a bold man. 
 
 (/) The men will be chosen by lot. • 
 
 (;/) He is gone to his grave. 
 
 (h) "Be off .'"cried the old man to the boys who were teasing 
 him. 
 
 EXERCISE XXXVI. (Mood and Tense Auxiliaries, p. 53). 
 
 1. Name the mood auxiliaries and the tense auxiliaries, and give 
 the limitation of each. 
 
 2. Why are can and may called defective verbs ? 
 
 3. In what tense is the verb must never used ? What was the 
 original meaning of the word, and what is its present idea? 
 
 EXERCISE XXXVII. (Adverbs, p. 57). 
 
 1. Define an adverb ; and say in what two ways adverbs may be 
 classified, illustrating your answer by examples. 
 
 2. Give the classification of adverbs according to their meaning, 
 and show the twofold function of a conjunctive adverb. 
 
 EXERCISE XXXVIII. (Adverbs, p. 57). 
 
 Arrange as simple or conjunctive the adverbs in the 
 following : — 
 
 1. Come where the moonbeams linger. 
 
 2. Where are you going? 
 
 3. Where the bee sucks, there suck I. 
 
 4. Come in. 
 
 5. Look out ! Here comes the beadle, so let us run. 
 
 6. Who's there? 
 
 7. I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grows. 
 
 8. Then out spake bold Horatius. 
 
 9. I love my love because my love loves me. 
 
 10. Verily here are sweetly scented herbs, therefore will we set ua 
 down awhile till our friends leisurely return. 
 
EXERCISES. 219 
 
 EXERCISE XXXIX. (Adverbs, p. 57). 
 Classify the adverbs in the following : — 
 
 (a) "Once again we'll sleep secure." — Shakespeare. 
 
 (6) " My father lived at Blenheim then, 
 
 Yon little stream hard by." — Southey. 
 
 (c) " Thus have I yielded into your hand 
 
 The circle of my glory." — Shakespeare, 
 
 (d) " Now the great winds shoreward blow, 
 
 Now the salt tides seaward flow." — M. Arnold, 
 
 («) " We no longer believe in St. Edmund." — Carlylc 
 (/) " What so moves thee all at once ? " — Coleridge, 
 (g) " Vex not thou the poet's mind." — Tennyson. 
 
 EXERCISE XL. (Adverbs, p. 57). 
 Parse the adverbs in the following : — 
 
 (a) " The solemn peaks but to the stars are known, — 
 
 But to the stars, and the cold lunar beams." — M. Arnold. 
 
 (b) " My life is spann'd already." — Shakespeare. 
 
 (c) " You always put things so pleasantly." — Bulwer. 
 
 (d) " Not all the pearls Queen Mary wears, 
 
 Nor Margaret's still more precious tears, 
 Shall buy his life a day."— Scott. 
 
 (e) " Why holds thine eye that melancholy rheum ? " 
 
 — Shakespeare. 
 (/) A very inquisitive child once saucily asked of an exceedingly 
 needy-looking man, " Where do you most generally dine ? " Immedi- 
 ately the all but actually starving man replied somewhat sadly, though 
 quite smartly withal, "Near anything I may get to eat." 
 
 EXERCISE XLI. (Revision). 
 
 Parse fully the nouns, verbs, and adverbs in the follow- 
 ing:— 
 
 (a) "Go out, children, from the mine and from the city, 
 Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do : 
 Pluck your handfuls of the meadow cowslips pretty, 
 Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through." 
 
 — Mrs, Browning. 
 
 (6) "None of us yet know, for none of us have yet been taught in 
 early > outh, what fairy palaces we uiay build of beautiful thought — 
 proof against all adversity." — Rtukin. 
 
220 EXERCISES. 
 
 EXERCISE XLII. (Prepositions, p. 58). 
 
 Select the prepositions in the following, and say what they 
 connect and govern : — 
 
 1. In the corner of the box near the bench behind the door, is the 
 picture of a man without a coat to his back. 
 
 2. Notwithstanding he had returned with wood, they sent for some 
 more. 
 
 3. The lady in violet is in mourning. 
 
 4. Respecting the scholars, all but Charles read through the chapter 
 concerning Galileo. 
 
 5. Whom are you writing to ? 
 
 6. Come in, Puss, to your kittens. 
 
 7. That is the book I spoke about. 
 
 EXERCISE XLIII. (Prepositions, p. 58). 
 
 1. Define a preposition ; and say what words are affected by pre* 
 positions. 
 
 2. Give a list of simple prepositions ; and show the composition of 
 the following prepositions : but, beside, after, until, aboard, beneath, 
 among, beyond. 
 
 EXERCISE XLIV. (Conjunctions, p. 60). 
 
 1. Define a conjunction, and distinguish between co-ordinate and 
 subordinate conjunctions. 
 
 2. Classify the conjunctions in the following : — 
 
 (a) " My hair is grey, but not with years, 
 Nor grew it white 
 In a single night." — Byron. 
 
 (6) "Neither a borrower nor a lender be." — Shakespeare. 
 
 (c) "Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen." — Milton. 
 
 (d) " Man never is, but always to be blest." — Pope. 
 
 (e) " Must I then leave you ? " — Shakespeare. 
 
 (/) " Wealth may seek us, but wisdom must be sought." — Young. 
 
 (g) " I saw Mark Antony offer him a crown ; yet it was not a 
 crown neither." — Shakespeare. 
 
 EXERCISE XLV. (Syntax, p. 64). 
 
 1. Define syntax ; and state into what two parts it may be 
 divided. 
 
 2. State the principal concords existing in the English language; 
 and name the chief instances of government. 
 
EXERCISES. 221 
 
 EXERCISE XLVI. (Syntax of Noun, p. 64). 
 
 Give full particulars of all nominatives in the following 
 quotations: — 
 
 (a) " So work the honey bees, 
 
 Creatures that by a rule in nature teach 
 
 The art of order to a peopled kingdom." — Shakespeare. 
 
 (6) " A white wall is the paper of a fool." — G. Herbert. 
 
 (c) "I that speak to thee am he." — Bible. 
 
 (d) " Thus now alone he conqueror remains." — Spenser. 
 
 (c) " Ho ! gallant nobles of the League, look that your arms be 
 bright." — Macaulay. 
 
 EXERCISE XLVII. (Syntax of Noun, p. 67). 
 
 Explain the possessives in the following : — 
 
 (a) " She sent the deathless passion in her eyes 
 
 Thro' him, aud made him hers, and laid her mind 
 On him, and he believed in her belief." — Tennyson. 
 
 (6) " Then shall man's pride and dulness comprehend 
 
 His actions', passions', being's use and end." — Pope. 
 
 (c) " Anything that money would buy had been his son's." — 
 
 Thackeray. 
 
 (d) " Though dark be my way, since He is my guide, 
 
 'Tis mine to obey, 'tis His to provide." — J. Newton. 
 
 EXERCISE XLVIII. (Syntax of Noun, p. 68). 
 Give full particulars of all the objectives in the following : — 
 
 (a) "There were some that ran, and some that leapt 
 
 Like troutlets in a pool." — Hood. 
 
 (b) " He has two essential parts of a courtier, pride and ignorance." 
 
 — Ben Jonson. 
 
 (c) " Clearing the fence, he cried ' Halloo ! ' " 
 
 {d) " They made him captain, and he gave them orders to sail the 
 boat six leagues south of the point." 
 
 EXERCISE XLIX. (Syntax of Adjective, p. 71). 
 
 Classify the adjectives in the following in accordance with 
 the two ways in which they are used : — 
 
 (a) " When I was dry with rage and extreme toil, 
 Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword, 
 Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dress'd." — Shakespeare. 
 Q 
 
222 EXERCISES. 
 
 (6) "Still more majestic shalt thou rise, 
 
 More dreadful from each foreign stroke ; 
 As the loud blast that tears the skies 
 
 Serves but to root thy native oak." — Thomson. 
 
 (c) " They considered themselves fortunate in making the children 
 happy, and in rendering the despairing hopeful." 
 
 EXERCISE L. (Syntax of Adjective, p. 71). 
 
 1. In what way is a participle an adjective ; and what function of 
 a verb does it retain ? 
 
 2. Say all that is necessary of the adjectives below : — 
 
 (a) " Each horseman drew his battle blade, 
 
 And furious every charger neighed." — Campbell. 
 
 {b) " He made me mad 
 
 To see him shine so brisk and smell so sweet, 
 
 And talk so like a waiting- gentle woman." — Shakespeare. 
 
 (c) " Sweet Isle ! within thy rock-girt shore is seen 
 
 Nature in her sublimest dress arrayed. " — E. Foskett. 
 
 (d) " Into the valley of death 
 
 Rode the six hundred." — Tennyson. 
 
 (e) " A form more fair, a face more sweet, 
 
 Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet." — J. O. Whittier. 
 
 EXERCISE LI. (Syntax of Pronoun, p. 74). 
 
 Show the agreement of the pronouns with the nouns they 
 represent in the following : — 
 
 (a) " On she came with a cloud of canvas, 
 
 Right against the wind that blew." — Coleridge. 
 
 (b) " Who said that I had given thee up ? 
 
 Who said that thou wert sold V — Mrs. Norton. 
 
 (c) " She lov'd me for the dangers I had pass'd, 
 
 And I lov'd her that she did pity them." — Shakespeare, 
 
 (d) " The eye — it cannot choose but see ; 
 
 We cannot bid the ear be still ; 
 Our bodies feel, where'er they be, 
 
 Against, or with our will." — Wordsworth. 
 
 EXERCISE LII. (Syntax of Pronoun, p. 74). 
 
 Show the concords of the antecedents and relatives in the 
 following : — 
 
 (a) " Now glory to the Lord of Hosts, from whom all glories are." 
 
 — Macaulay. 
 
EXERCISES. 223 
 
 (6) "This sword a dagger had, his page, 
 
 That was but little for his age." — Butler. 
 
 (c) " My banks they are furnished with bees, 
 
 Whos« murmur invites one to sleep." — Shenstone. 
 
 (d) " Then palaces shall rise ; the joyful son 
 
 Shall finish what his short-lived sire begun." — Pope. 
 
 EXERCISE LIII. (Syntax of Verb, p. 76). 
 
 Show the concord of each verb in the following with its 
 subject, and quote the rule in each case : — 
 
 (a) " I sing the birth was born to-night, 
 
 The author both of life and light." — Ben Jonson. 
 
 (6) " Blow, blow, thou winter wind, 
 Thou art not so unkind 
 
 As man's ingratitude. " — Shakespeare. 
 
 (c) " Can storied urn or animated bust 
 
 Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath ?" — Gray. 
 
 (d) " Our company were now arrived within a mile of Highgate." 
 
 — Fielding. 
 
 (e) " Neither a borrower nor a lender be." — Shakespeare. 
 
 EXERCISE LIV. (Syntax of Verb, p. 78). 
 
 Arrange m two columns the governing verbs and their 
 objects in the following: — 
 
 (a) " He gave to misery all he had, a tear." — Gray. 
 {b) " They made me queen of the May." — Tennyson. 
 
 (c) "Thou hast a tongue, come, let us hear its tune." 
 
 — Horace Smith. 
 
 (d) " Past all dishonour, 
 
 Death has left on her 
 
 Only the beautiful."— T. Hood. 
 
 (e) " Methinks we must have known some former state." 
 
 — L. E. Landon. 
 
 (/) "To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, 
 
 And read their history in a nation's eyes, 
 Their lot forbade "—Gray. 
 
224 EXERCISES. 
 
 EXERCISE LV. (Syntax of Verb, p. 80). 
 
 Give the mood of each verb in the following, adding any 
 explanatory remark you think necessary : — 
 
 (a) " Had I a heart for falsehood framed, 
 
 I ne'er could injure you." — Sheridan. 
 
 (b) " The good of ancient times let others state ; 
 
 I think it lucky I was born so late." — Sydney Smith, 
 
 (c) " Oh, then, while hums the earliest bee, 
 
 Where verdure fires the plain, 
 Walk thou with me, and stoop to see 
 The glories of the lane ! " — Eb. Elliott. 
 
 (d) " They make obeisance and retire in haste, 
 
 Too soon to seek again the watery waste : 
 
 Yet they repine not — so that Conrad guides, 
 
 And who dare question aught when he decides ? " — Byron. 
 
 EXERCISE LVI. (Syntax of Verb, p. 81). 
 
 Distinguish between gerundial and simple infinitives in the 
 
 following : — 
 
 (a) "To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, 
 To throw a perfume on the violet, 
 To smooth the ice, or add another hue 
 Unto the rainbow, or with taper light 
 To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, 
 Is wasteful and ridiculous excess." — Shakespeare. 
 
 (6) " To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold, 
 
 Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold : 
 For this the tragic muse first trod the stage, 
 Commanding tears to stream through every age." — Pope. 
 
 (c) "To err is human, to forgive divine." — Pope. 
 
 (d) "Man never is, but always to be blest." — Pope. 
 
 (e) " Better dwell in the midst of alarms." — Cowper. 
 
 EXERCISE LVII. (Syntax of Adverb, Preposition, and 
 Conjunction, p. 83). 
 
 Give the rules of syntax relating to adverbs, prepositions, 
 and conjunctions; and use the adverbs, prepositions, and 
 conjunctions in the following to illustrate your answer : — 
 
 (a) "A second man I honour, and still more highly ; him who is 
 seen toiling for the spiritually indispensable ; not daily bread, but 
 the bread of life." — Carlyle. 
 
EXERCISES. 225 
 
 (6) "This only grant me, that my means may lie 
 
 Too low for envy, for contempt too high." — Cowley. 
 
 (c) "A man that looks on glass, 
 On it may stay his eye ; 
 Or, if he pleaseth, through it pass, 
 
 And then the heavens espy." — O. Herbert. 
 
 ANALYSIS. 
 
 EXERCISE r. ^Analysis— A Sentence, p. 86). 
 
 1. Define a sentence ; and say of what two parts it must consist. 
 
 2. Of what may the subject of a sentence consist ? Give examples. 
 
 3. Define a predicate ; and state what is necessary for the com- 
 pletion of some predicates. 
 
 EXERCISE II. (Analysis— The Subject, p. 88). 
 
 Arrange in columns the subjects in the following, and 
 of what each consists : — 
 
 (a) The potato is wholesome. 
 
 (0) Eat it 
 
 (c) " Hush I " said the mother. 
 
 (d) " Hurrah ! " rang from the ranks. 
 («) The lazy take most pains. 
 
 (/) Thinking leads to action. 
 
 (g) To learn meagrely means to beg eagerly. 
 
 (h) Who loves not liberty ? 
 
 (t) Amassing wealth oft ruins health. 
 
 (k) " Bravo ! " shouted the audience. 
 
 (1) Laughing is contagious. 
 
 EXERCISE III. (Analysis— The Predicate, p. 89). 
 
 Select the predicates in the following, and say of what 
 each consists : — 
 
 (a) A cheery old soul lives here, 
 (o) It rains. 
 
 (c) A live dog is better than a dead lion. 
 
 (d) I am not the king. 
 
226 EXERCISES. 
 
 (e) The idle procrastinate. 
 
 (/) The dead alone are happy. 
 
 (g) We are all here. 
 
 (h) Charity beareth all things. 
 
 (i) Heroes die once. 
 
 (k) No one loves a coward. 
 
 EXERCISE IV. (Analysis— The Object, p. 91). 
 
 Select the objects in the following, and say of what each 
 consists : — 
 
 (a) We loved him dearly. 
 
 (b) The preacher cries " Prepare ! " 
 
 (c) Ruskin adored the beautiful. 
 
 (d) Cats love to lie basking. 
 
 (e) Each man plucked a rose. 
 (/) Who does not love singing ? 
 
 (g) Friends dislike saying good-bye ! 
 
 (h) Him they found in great distress. 
 
 (i) He destroyed all. 
 
 (k) She left none behind. 
 
 (I) One sailor saved the other. 
 
 (m) One good turn deserves another 
 
 EXERCISE V. (Analysis— The Object, p. 92). 
 
 Select the objects in the following, distinguishing between 
 direct and indirect : — 
 
 (a) Give the knave a groat. 
 
 (b) Thrice he offered him the crown. 
 
 (c) He handed his daughter down-stairs. 
 
 (d) They handed the visitors programmes. 
 
 (e) The weather promises the anglers fine sport. 
 
 (f) The boatswain taught the midshipman swimming. 
 
 (g) Grant us a holiday. 
 
 (h) The fox paid the crow great attention. 
 
 (i) Thomas posted his uncle a letter. 
 
 (k) The sailor-boys often bring their friends curiosities. 
 
 {I) Play the children a tune. 
 
EXERCISES. 
 
 227 
 
 FORMS FOR THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCES 
 SCHEME I. 
 
 Subject 
 
 Predicate. 
 
 i 
 Object 
 
 The sun 
 
 shines. 
 
 
 The soldiers 
 
 were brave. 
 
 
 A good son 
 
 obeys 
 
 his parents. 
 
 Ripe corn-fields 
 
 always rejoice 
 
 the farmer's heart. 
 
 The chDd 
 
 appears ill. 
 
 
 SCHEME II. 
 
 Subject. 
 
 Enlargement 
 
 Predicate. 
 
 Extension. 
 
 Object. 
 
 Enlargement. 
 
 Thompson 
 
 the carpenter 
 
 mended 
 
 very soon 
 
 the gate 
 
 broken. 
 
 The company 
 
 of huntsmen 
 
 had taken 
 
 early next 
 morning 
 
 departure 
 
 their. 
 
 The princes 
 
 of Europe 
 
 have found 
 
 recently 
 
 a plan 
 
 better. 
 
 Parmenio 
 
 the Grecian 
 
 had done 
 
 once 
 
 something 
 
 pleasing to 
 the multi- 
 tude. 
 
 SCHEME III. 
 
 1. Maud Muller 
 
 2. on a summer's day, 
 
 3. Raked 
 
 4. the ineadow 
 
 5. sweet with hay. 
 
 1. But 
 
 2. knowledge 
 
 3. to their eyes 
 
 4. her ample 
 
 5. page, 
 
 6. Rich with the spoils of time 
 
 7. did unroll 
 
 8. ne'er. 
 
 Subject. 
 
 Extension of predicate (3). 
 
 Predicate. 
 
 Object. 
 
 Enlargement of object (4). 
 
 (connective word). 
 
 Subject. 
 
 Extension of predicate (7). 
 
 Enlargement of object (5). 
 
 Object. 
 
 Enlargement of object (5). 
 
 Predicate. 
 
 ExUnMon of predicate (7). 
 
228 
 
 EXERCISES, 
 
 SCHEME IV. 
 
 Analyse : — 
 
 M Those who are conversant with books well know how often they 
 mislead us, when we have not a living monitor at hand to assist us in 
 comparing theory with practice. " — Junius. 
 
 D, 
 
 1. 
 
 Those 
 
 
 Subject (6). 
 
 2. 
 
 who 
 
 
 Subject (3). 
 
 3. 
 
 are conversant with 
 
 Predicate ( = understand). 
 
 4. 
 
 books 
 
 
 Object (3). 
 
 5. 
 
 well 
 
 
 Extension of manner (6). 
 
 6. 
 
 know 
 
 
 Predicate. 
 
 7. 
 
 how often 
 
 
 Extension of time (9). 
 
 8. 
 
 they 
 
 
 Subject (9). 
 
 9. 
 
 mislead 
 
 
 Predicate. 
 
 10. 
 
 us, 
 
 
 Object (9). 
 
 11. 
 
 when 
 
 
 (Conjunction), 
 
 12. 
 
 we 
 
 
 Subject (13). 
 
 13. 
 
 have 
 
 
 Predicate. 
 
 14. 
 
 not 
 
 
 Extension of negation (13), 
 
 15. 
 
 a living 
 
 
 Enlargement (16). 
 
 16. 
 
 monitor 
 
 
 Object (13). 
 
 17. 
 
 at hand 
 
 
 Extension of place (13). 
 
 18. 
 
 to assist us in 
 theory with 
 
 comparing 
 practice. 
 
 Enlargement (16). 
 
 A. Principal sentence. 
 
 B. Adjective sentence to (A) (1). 
 G. Noun sentence to (A) (6). 
 
 D. Adverbial sentence to (C) (9). 
 
EXERCISES. 
 
 229 
 
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230 EXERCISES. 
 
 EXERCISE VI. (Analysis— Revision). 
 
 Analyse the following according to Scheme I. : — 
 
 (a) Cowards fear themselves. 
 
 (0) Swimming teaches self-reliance. 
 
 (c) To labour is to pray. 
 
 (d) " Beware," said the sentry. 
 (' ) The bells are chiming. 
 
 (/) Stop. 
 
 {g) Plumbers stop the leaks. 
 
 (h) The field yields the farmer a fortune. 
 
 (i) Here we are. 
 
 (k) The child brought the invalid a garland. 
 
 (1) Phoebus loves gilding the corn-fields. 
 
 EXERCISE VII. (Analysis— Enlargements, p. 94). 
 
 Of what may enlargements consist 1 Point out the enlarge- 
 ments in the following, and say of what kind each is : — 
 
 (") A good little girl sat under a tree. 
 
 ( /) A desire to excel actuates Smith, the foreman. 
 
 (c) A ramble on a summer evening restores the drooping spirit. 
 
 (d) Feeling sorry, he gave the poor old fellow a hearty meal. 
 
 (e) William, the captain of the school, knowing the game, taught 
 
 the new scholars the rules. 
 (/) Remembering your duty, visit the sick. 
 
 EXERCISE VIII. (Analysis— Extensions, p. 95). 
 
 Select the extensions in the following, and say of what each 
 consists : — 
 
 (a) Sweetly sing soft songs to me. 
 
 (b) In a whisper she gave them the order. 
 
 (c) Inch by inch the spider travelled. 
 
 (d) I come to bury Caesar. 
 
 (e) Listen patiently to hear the nightingale. 
 {/) The tide came creeping up the beach. 
 {g) The old man walks with two sticks. 
 
EXERCISES. 231 
 
 EXERCISE IX. (Analysis— Revision). 
 
 Analyse the following sentences according to Scheme II. : — 
 
 (a) " I will make thee beds of roses." — C. Marlowe. 
 
 (b) "Then came the Autumn all in yellow clad." — Spenser. 
 
 (c) M Give me ray scallop-shell of quiet, 
 
 My staff of faith to -walk upon." — Raleigh. 
 
 (d) "Thus clad and fortified, Sir Knight 
 
 From peaceful home set forth to fight." — Butler. 
 
 EXERCISE X. (Analysis— Revision). 
 
 Analyse the following sentences according to Scheme II. : — 
 
 (a) "Dear Thomas, didst thou ever pop 
 
 Thy head into a tinman's shop ? " — M. Prior. 
 
 (b) M One morning a Peri at the gate 
 
 Of Eden stood, disconsolate." — T. Moore. 
 
 (c) " The spirits of your fathers 
 
 Shall start from every wave." — Campbell. 
 
 (d) " The castled crag of Drachenfels 
 
 Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine." — Byron. 
 
 EXERCISE XI. (Analysis— Revision). 
 
 Analyse the following sentences according to Scheme 
 III. :— 
 
 (a) " Sometime we '11 angle in the brook, 
 
 The freckled trout to take." — M. Drayton. 
 
 (b) " The shepherd swains shall dance and sing 
 
 For thy delight each May morning." — C. Marlowe 
 
 (c) ".Thy gentle flows of guiltless joys, 
 
 On fools and villains ne'er descend." — Johnson. 
 
 EXERCISE XIT. (Analysis— Revision). 
 
 Analyse the following sentences according to Scheme 
 III. :— 
 
 (a) " Through the trembling ayre 
 Sweet-breathing Zephyrus did softly play." — Spenser. 
 
 (b) " Close by the regal chair 
 
 Fell Thirst and Famine scowl 
 
 A baleful smile upon their baffled guest." — Gray. 
 
232 EXERCISES. 
 
 (c) " The Sundays of man's life, 
 
 Threaded together on time's string, 
 
 Make bracelets to adorn the wife 
 
 Of the eternal glorious king." — George Herbert. 
 
 (d) " With beating heart to the task he went." — Scott. 
 
 EXERCISE XIII. (Analysis— Revision). 
 
 Expand the adjectives in the following into phrases 
 
 {a) A merciful man considers his beast. 
 
 (b) The mistress scolded the lazy servant. 
 
 (c) A ragged man went down the lane. 
 
 (d) The plague carried off the young ones t 
 
 (e) Numerous birds were found dead. 
 (/) Sailors dislike a dead calm. 
 
 EXERCISE XIV. (Analysis— Revision). 
 
 Expand the adverbs in the following into phrases : — 
 
 (a) Green seldom tries the eye. 
 
 (b) The soldiers rested there. 
 
 (c) The man answered the charge easily. 
 
 (d) 111 weeds grow apace. 
 («) Dead dogs never bark. 
 
 (/) Come quickly. 
 
 EXERCISE XV. (Analysis— Complex Sentence, p. 102). 
 
 1. Define a complex sentence ; and state in what three ways 
 subordinate sentences can occur. 
 
 2. Say what is meant by a subordinate sentence, and show how 
 subordinate sentences can be co-ordinate. 
 
 3. Make the following simple sentences complex by expanding the 
 adjective into an adjectival sentence : — 
 
 (a) Empty vessels make the most noise, 
 (o) The kitchen clock keeps time. 
 
 (c) Small strokes fell great oaks. 
 
 (d) A hard hand often owns a soft heart. 
 
 (e) The relentless reaper destroyed the lovely bloom. 
 (/) A modest violet grew in a shady bed. 
 
EXERCISES. 233 
 
 EXERCISE XVL (Analysis— Complex Sentence, p. 104). 
 
 Make subordinate sentences by the expansion of the adverbs 
 in the following : — 
 
 (a) He writes legibly. 
 
 (6) The king behaved shamefully. 
 
 (c) The rich deride the poor very seldom. 
 
 {d) Men often think themselves immortal. 
 
 («) Demosthenes gradually became free of speech. 
 
 (/) Stephenson overcame difficulties bravely. 
 
 EXERCISE XVII. (Analysis— Complex Sentence, p. 106). 
 
 Change the subjects or objects in the following into 
 sentences : — 
 
 (a) To love one's child is natural. 
 
 (6) Carelessness brings its punishment. 
 
 (c) Being deserving should precede success. 
 
 {d) Reigning in peace is more glorious than dying in war. 
 
 (e) Borrowing means sorrowing. 
 
 (/) Lending is not always befriending. 
 
 EXERCISE XVIII. (Analysis— Compound Sentence, p. 111). 
 
 1. Define a compound sentence ; and say how co-ordinate sentences 
 are sometimes contracted ? 
 
 2. Analyse the following compound sentences according to Scheme 
 II.:— 
 
 (a) " Of conversation sing an ample theme, 
 
 And drink the tea of Heliconian stream." — Chatterton. 
 
 (b) " Come forth into the light of things, 
 
 Let Nature be your teacher." — Wordsworth. 
 
 EXERCISE XIX. (Analysis— Compound Sentence, p. 111). 
 
 Analyse the following compound sentences according to 
 Scheme II. : — 
 
 (a) "He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes, 
 
 He kissed their drooping leaves." — Longfellow. 
 
 (6) " On piety, humanity is built; 
 
 And, on humanity, much happiness." — Young. 
 
 (c) "On the green bank I sat and listened long." — Dryden. 
 
 (d) "0, young Lochinvar is come out of the west, 
 
 Through all the wide Border his steed was the best, 
 And, save his good broadsword, he weapons had none ; 
 He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone." — Scott. 
 
234 EXERCISES. 
 
 EXERCISE XX. (Analysis— Revision). 
 Analyse the following sentences according to Scheme IV. : — 
 
 (a) "The harp that once through Tara's halls 
 
 The soul of music shed, 
 Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls 
 As if that soul were fled." — Moore. 
 
 (b) "The autumn winds rushing 
 
 Waft the leaves that are searest, 
 But our flower was ia flushing 
 
 When blighting was nearest." — Scott. 
 
 (c) "Her beads while she numbered, the baby still slumbered, 
 
 And smiled in her face, while she bended her knee, 
 
 1 Oh ! blessed be that warning, my child, thy sleep adorning, 
 
 For I know that the angels are whispering with thee." 
 
 — S. Lover. 
 
 EXERCISE XXI. (Analysis— Revision). 
 Analyse the following sentences according to Scheme V. : — 
 
 (a) "Ah ! yet, e'er I descend into the grave, 
 
 May I a small house and large garden have ! 
 And a few friends, and many books, both true, 
 Both wise, and both delightful too ! " — Cowley. 
 
 (b) " Ring ye the bells, ye young men of the town, 
 
 And leave your wonted labours for this day : 
 This day is holy ; do you write it down, 
 
 That ye for ever it remember may." — Drayton. 
 
 (c) "This above all — to thine own self be true ; 
 
 And it must follow, as the night the day, 
 
 Thou canst not then be false to any man." — Shakespeare. 
 
 EXERCISE XXII. (Analysis— Revision). 
 Analyse, as in the preceding : — 
 
 (a) " Take physic, pomp ; 
 Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel ; 
 That thou may'st shake the superflux to them, 
 And show the heavens more just." — Shakespeare. 
 
 (b) " That man is freed from servile bands, 
 
 Of hope to rise, or fear to fall ; 
 Lord of himself, though not of lands, 
 
 And having nothing, yet hath all." — Wotton. 
 
 (c) " The seas are quiet w hen the winds give o'er ; 
 ., So calm are we when passions are no more ; 
 
 For then we know how vain it was to boast 
 
 Of feeling things too certain to be lost." — Waller. 
 
EXERCISES. 235 
 
 EXERCISE XXIII. (Analysis— Revision). 
 
 Analyse, as before : — 
 
 (a) "Let me tell the adventurous stranger, 
 In our calmness lies our danger ; 
 Like a river's silent running, 
 Stillness shows our depth and cunning." — Durfey. 
 
 (b) M Preseutly my soul grew stronger ; hesitating then no longer, 
 1 Sir,' said I, ' or madam, truly your forgiveness I implore ; 
 But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, 
 And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, 
 That I scarce was sure I heard you.'" — Poe. 
 
 WOKD-BUILDING 
 
 EXERCISE I. (Word-building, p. 116), 
 
 1. State exactly what is meant by a root ; and distinguish between 
 root and stem. 
 
 2. What are prefixes and suffixest Give a general rule for their use. 
 
 3. Define a hybrid, and explain compound as applied to words. 
 Illustrate your answer by examples. 
 
 4. Say of each of the syllables of the following words whether it is 
 a prefix, a suffix, a root, a derivative, or an inflexion : un-law-ful, 
 male-child-ren, dis-lik-ing, short-sight-ed, ink-stand, roan- serv -ant. 
 
 EXERCISE II. (Word-building— Compounds, p. 116). 
 
 Show that the following words are compounds of two nouns : — 
 Monday, wheatfield, rainbow, homestead, keystone, Ladyday, 
 Michaelmas, costermonger, steamship, sheriff, viceroy, and drake. 
 
 EXERCISE III. (Word-building— Compounds, p. 117). 
 
 Of what Part of Speech is each of the words of the following com- 
 pounds ? — 
 
 Whetstone, outlay, shepherd, soft-soap, nightmare, backbone t scape- 
 grace, lady, wheatear, fieldfare, upstart, and steward. 
 
 EXERCISE IV. (Word-building— Compounds, p. 117). 
 
 In the following compound adjectives say to what Class of Word 
 each part belongs : — 
 
 Sky blue, stiff necked, Lord- Mayor-like, overreaching, stonecold, stark- 
 mid, weather-beaten, threadbare, wardrobe, hairsplitting, icebound, awe- 
 stricken, footsore. 
 
236 EXERCISES. 
 
 EXERCISE V. (Word-building— Compounds, p. 118). 
 
 What other Parts of Speech have been used to make up the 
 following compound verbs ? — 
 
 Outface, handcuff, clearstarch, outnumber, whitewash, ingather, 
 outbid. 
 
 EXERCISE VI. (Word-building— Compounds, p. 118). 
 
 Comment on each of the following adverbs : — 
 Needs, aboard, afloat, well, thither, how, withal, albeit, seldom, rather, 
 whilst, whence. 
 
 EXERCISE VII. (Word-building— English Prefixes, p. 119). 
 
 Show the force of each of the prefixes in the following words : — 
 Unloose, unthankful, forehead, bewail, withdrew, misrepresent, begrime, 
 wanhope, gainsay, behoof, forlorn, benighted, atone. 
 
 EXERCISE VIII. (Word-building— English Prefixes, p. 120). 
 
 Justify the use of the prefixes in the following by the meaning of 
 each word : — 
 
 Engrave, offcast, overdone, inmost, overland, underpay, outcome^ 
 thorovghfare, embalm, overstep, welfare. 
 
 EXERCISE IX. (Word-building— Latin Prefixes, p. 120). 
 
 Name the prefixes in the following, showing, where necessary, the 
 assimilation : — 
 
 Allure, acclaim, abstract, absolve, assume, affront, aspire, attract, 
 arrest, aggravate, address, pardon. 
 
 EXERCISE X. (Word-building— Latin Prefixes, p. 123). 
 
 Show the force of the prefixes in — biped, ambient, circumnavigate, 
 anticipate, coeval, desuetude, cispontine, transit, countenance, country- 
 dance, corrode, desiccate, emigrate, extramural. 
 
 EXERCISE XI. (Word-building— Latin Prefixes, p. 123). 
 
 Account for the variations from the original prefix in each of the 
 following : — 
 
 Differ, irregular, impending, illiberal, ignoble, embrace, occur, sedition. 
 
EXERCISES. 237 
 
 EXERCISE XII. (Word-building— Latin Prefixes, p. 123). 
 
 Show the value of the prefixes in the following : — 
 
 Interlude, nonpareil .malefactor, international, intramural, penumbra, 
 
 remit, occasion, permeate, oblige, post-obit, predicate, retrovert, preterite, 
 
 secure, prevent. 
 
 EXERCISE XIII. (Word-building— Latin Prefixes, p. 123). 
 
 Explain the prefixes, noting the cases of assimilation : — 
 Vicar, suffer, surfeit, viscount, traduce, trespass, succeed, unified, sub- 
 trahend, segregate, succumb, ultramarine, superhuman, suffix, surface. 
 
 EXERCISE XIV. (Word-building— Prefixes, p. 123). 
 
 Give instances of in becoming il, ir, im, ig ; and of ob becoming oc, 
 of, o, op. State a general rule for such changes. 
 
 EXERCISE XV. (Word-building— Greek Prefixes, p. 126). 
 
 Select the prefixes, and justify the use of each : — 
 
 Epidemic, endemic, autonomy, eclectic, dyspepsia, archiepiscopal, 
 
 diatonic, cataclysm, apostasy, antipathy, anagram, catastrophe, eccentric, 
 
 perimeter. 
 
 EXERCISE XVI. (Word-building— Greek Prefixes, p. 126). 
 
 Show the value of the prefixes in — monologue, Pantheon, syllable, 
 metathesis, periosteum, hyposulphite, programme, hyperbole, hemiplegia, 
 euphony, synthesis, Polynesia, monarchy. 
 
 EXERCISE XVII. (Word-building— English Suffixes, p. 128). 
 
 Give the root and the suffix in each of the following : — 
 Fodder, trickster, thrift, baxter, penmanship, hammock, loveliness, 
 straddle, sapling, chippings, sisterhood, carter, starling, collier, sawyer. 
 
 EXERCISE XVIII. (Word-building— English Suffixes, p. 128). 
 
 Explain fully the suffixes in the following : — 
 
 Mi/ten, earldom, stealth, breadth, handicraft, rimecmft, drunkard, 
 laddie, hardship, haft, spindle, shuttle, brazier, whiting, hilt, handle. 
 
 EXERCISE XIX. (Word-building— English Suffixes, p. 128). 
 
 Show the effect of the suffix, by giving the meanings of the follow- 
 ing words : — 
 
 Frolicsome, knotty, drowned, clayey, woollen, leeward, awkward, 
 scornful, shamefaced, saintlike, knavish, friendly, Spanish, bootless, 
 swettish, scuttled, glad, left. 
 
 R 
 
238 EXERCISES. 
 
 EXERCISE XX. (Word-building— English Suffixes, p. 128). 
 
 In the following adverbs show the force of the suffixes, noting 
 hybrids in passing : — ' 
 
 Always, straightway, candidly, duly, once, mysteriously, nowise, 
 sulkily, stealthily, sidelong, seldom, peculiarly. 
 
 EXERCISE XXI. (Word-building— English Suffixes, p. 128). 
 
 Show the effect of the suffix in each of the following verbs : — 
 Stalk, snivel, falter, strengthen, Jlush, twitter, dribble, trundle, gush, 
 glister, blush, draggle. 
 
 EXERCISE XXII. (Word-building— Latin and French Suffixes, p. 134). 
 
 In the following nouns show the value of each suffix : — 
 Actor, testament, brigandage, librarian, consonant, guttural, resident, 
 radiance, patrimony, tension, lapidary, graduate, conduct, presbytery. 
 
 EXERCISE XXIII. (Word-building— Revision). 
 
 Explain each of the component parts of the following hybrids : — 
 Colour, frailty, bigamy, atonement, oddment, bondage, starvation, 
 foreigner, bilingualism, unjustly, grandfather, martyrdom, ungrateful, 
 handkerchief, unconceitedly, falsehood, demigod, witticism, unacted, art- 
 ful, Cockneyism, Bowdlerise, blackguardism, cerecloth, druggist, surname. 
 
 EXERCISE XXIV. (Word-building— Revision). 
 
 What are the following pairs of words called ? Potion and poison ; 
 cadence and chance. Give the corresponding word to each of the 
 following : benison, chattels, malediction, channel, hotel, redemption ; 
 and give the meanings of the suffixes. 
 
 EXERCISE XXV. (Word-building— Revision). 
 
 Give the meaning of each of the suffixes in the following ad- 
 jectives : — 
 
 Arabesque, ratable, torrid, mundane, sequent, peninsular, riparian, 
 aromatic, ductile, pedantic, submissive, feminine, virulent, jocose, vale- 
 dictory, moribund, umbrageous. 
 
 EXERCISE XXVI. (Word-building— Revision). 
 
 Arrange the following words and their doublets in two columns, 
 distinguishing the French from the Latin ; and explain the suffixes 
 in the words and the doublets you supply: — Loyal, regal, fragile, 
 caitiff, second, particle, sample, species. 
 
EXERCISES. 239 
 
 EXERCISE XXVII. (Word-building— Revision). 
 
 In the following verbs explain the suffixes : — 
 
 Amplify, expedite, estimate, coalesce, deify, publish, pacify, alienate, 
 embellish, permeate, extinguish. 
 
 EXERCISE XXVIII. (Word-building— Revision). 
 
 Show the force of the suffixes in the following, distinguishing 
 between the Greek and hybrid words : — 
 
 Axiomatic, theorist, philanthropy, witticism, theorist, nepotism, paral- 
 ysis, deism, pessimist, panorama, minimise. 
 
 EXERCISE XXIX. (Word-building— English Roots, p. 144). 
 
 Show the derivation of the following, carefully noting hybrids : — 
 Broth, bough, gnaw, father, bier, brick, know, batch, beetle, kitten, 
 
 quickset, beadle, chilblain, net, jetsam, nickname, borrow, blush, kind, 
 
 mead, bakery, club, bugle, draught, window, eyelet. 
 
 EXERCISE XXX. (Word-building— English Roots, p. 144). 
 
 Derive the following words : — 
 
 Nightingale, orchard, wright, wrong, grove, whole, trade, stock, taught, 
 twig, till, garlic, lady, lodestar, wake, might, nozzle, stile, scoop, waddle, 
 lair, pickerel, scuttle, slog, weft, wanton, reap, scrape, sleeve. 
 
 EXERCISE XXXI. (Word-building— Latin Roots, p. 147). 
 
 Select from the following Latin words those coming through the 
 French, and give their derivation : — 
 
 Inert, claret, ditto, arcade, precinct, indent, peal, ancestor, December, 
 courage, city, meridian, cordial, clause, deign, donor, April, excuse, 
 occur, course, damsel, domineer, chapter, alto. 
 
 EXERCISE XXXII. (Word-building— Latin Roots, p. 147). 
 
 From the following select those words coming direct from the 
 Latin, and give their derivation : — 
 
 Exculpate, alimony, reception, altercation, deception, chant, agile, 
 miscreant, agrarian, excuse, equinox, brief, cruise, bissextile, corpse, 
 clamour, eagir, auction. 
 
 EXERCISE XXXIII. (Word-building— Latin Roots, p. 147). 
 
 From the following list select the words coming indirectly from the 
 Latin, and give their derivation : — 
 
 Fount, domiciliary, colloquy, mirage, friar, relict, infringe, liable, 
 force, religion, affluent, leaven, flexible, renegade, collapse, dismount, 
 feat, profile, conjoint, annex, exhibit, facet, grateful, memoir. 
 
240 EXERCISES. 
 
 EXERCISE XXXIV. (Word-building— Latin Roots, p. 147). 
 
 Select the words of direct Latin origin : — 
 
 Dormitory, fusible, duhe, profound, ludicrous, genteel, manse, redeem, 
 gesture, absolute, aberration, -progress, scent, probity, poignant, repair, 
 quarry, vow, tense, terrible, urbane, insidious, sexton, sacrilege, 
 plausible. 
 
 EXERCISE XXXV. (Word-building— Greek Roots, p. 152). 
 
 Give the derivation of each of the following words : — 
 Date, cosmetic, surgeon, nausea, dogma, economy, dynamite, catarrh, 
 hematite, idiot, melancholy, hieroglyphic. 
 
 EXERCISE XXXVI. (Word-building -Greek Roots, p. 152). 
 
 Give two roots for each of the following words: — 
 Hypocrite, aerolite, demagogue, onomatopoetic, lithotomy, tetrarch, 
 kaleidoscope, hydrophobia, heliotrope, catastrophe, evangelist. 
 
 EXERCISE XXXVII. (Word-building— Words derived from 
 Names of Persons, p. 154). 
 
 State the origin of the following words : — 
 
 Lizard Point, panic, tantalise, petrel, chimera, cravat, cicerone^ 
 martinet, dunce, euphuistic, saturnine, hermetically. 
 
 EXERCISE XXXVIII. (Word-building— Words derived from 
 Names of Places, p. 158). 
 
 Trace the following words to their origin : — 
 
 Peach, cherry, damson, rhubarb, pheasant, dollar, florin, guinea, 
 solecism, pistol, laconic, Utopian, lumber. 
 
 EXERCISE XXXIX. (Word-building— Disguised Words, p. 161). 
 
 Show the origin of the following words : — 
 
 Babble, intoxicate, gadfly, be/fry, liquorice, bustard, luncheon, easel, 
 buttery, custard, sheaf, carouse, stirrup, causeway, treacle, crayfish, 
 verdigris. 
 
 EXERCISE XL. (Word-building— Words Changed in 
 Meaning, p. 168). 
 
 Compare the original with the modern meaning of the following 
 words : — 
 
 Sycophant, allow, restive, gazette, amuse, handsome, awkward, knave, 
 blackguard, mere, brat, painful, censure, cunning, preposterous, silly, 
 vivacity. 
 
ROCERCTSKS 241 
 
 PLAN FOR PARSING. 
 When parsing a word observe the following rules : — 
 
 (i) Use no abbreviation that is vague ; avoid the possibility of being 
 misunderstood. 
 
 (ii) When any other word is quoted, underline it, or use marks of 
 quotation. 
 
 (iii) Use the following terms, when applicable, and in the order as 
 arranged : 
 
 NOUNS. — KIND. Proper; Common; Collective; Abstract. 
 
 GENDER. Masculine; Feminine; Common; Neuter. 
 
 NUMBER. Singular; Plural. 
 
 PERSON. First; Second; Third. 
 
 CASE. Nominative, subject of the verb ; in appo- 
 sition with ; of address (Vocative) ; 
 
 absolute ; after copulative verb . 
 
 Possessive, limiting the noun . 
 
 Objective, governed directly by the transitive, 
 factitive, causative, prepositional, or cognate 
 
 verb, or the participle ; or indirectly 
 
 by the verb or participle (Dative) ; or 
 
 adverbial object ; or governed by the pre- 
 position ; or by the governing Adjec- 
 tive ; or in apposition with . 
 
 PRONOUNS.— KIND. Personal; Relative, agreeing with its 
 antecedent in gender, person, and number; 
 Interrogative ; Indefinite ; Reciprocal ; 
 Emphatic; Reflexive; 
 
 GENDER, \ 
 
 NUMBER, ( 
 
 PERSON, f **■"■■■ 
 
 CASE. 
 
242 EXERCISES. 
 
 ADJECTIVES. — KIND. Qualitative, positive, comparative, 01 
 
 superlative degree, going with the noun ; 
 
 Quantitative, indefinite or definite, nu- 
 meral, cardinal, or ordinal, or distributive, 
 
 limiting the noun ; Demonstrative, 
 
 pointing out the noun — — . 
 
 VERBS. — CLASS. Transitive (active or passive Voice); 
 Intransitive ; 
 Auxiliary, of voice, mood, tense, or emphasis 
 
 CONJUGATION. Strong or Weak. 
 
 MOOD. Indicative, assertive or interrogative ; 
 
 Imperative; Subjunctive; Infinitive (nomina 
 tive, objective, or gerundial). 
 
 TENSE. Present; Past; Future. Perfect (complete), 
 imperfect (incomplete), indefinite, continuous 
 (progressive). 
 
 PERSON 
 NUMBER. 
 
 1 > Agreeing with the subject 
 
 (PARTICIPLE) (Active, qualifying the noun or pronoun 
 
 , and governing the noun or pronoun 
 
 ; or Passive). 
 
 ADVERBS.— Of TIME, PLACE, MANNER, ASSERTION, or REA- 
 SONING, modifying the verb ; of DEGREE 
 
 modifying the adverb or adjective . 
 
 DEGREE of comparison (Pos. ; Comp. ; Sua.) 
 
 PREPOSITIONS— SIMPLE or COMPOUND, governing the nou* 
 or pronoun . 
 
 CONJUNCTIONS.— CO-ORDINATE. 
 
 SUBORDINATE. 
 
EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 243 
 
 QUESTIONS SET AT THE ANNUAL GOVEKN- 
 MENT EXAMINATION OF PUPIL-TEACHERS. 
 
 CANDIDATES. 
 
 SET A. 
 
 ( You are advised not to spend more than one hour and a quarter over- 
 this subject.) 
 
 Answer three only of the following four questions. Full marks are higher for 
 Questions 1 and 2 than for any other question. 
 
 English Grammar. 
 
 1. Analyse the following passage : — 
 
 "The cry they heard, its meaning knew, 
 Could plain their distant comrades view." 
 
 2. Parse the words in italics in the above passage. 
 
 3. What part of speech is each of the following words, and what 
 is the force of the suffix ? — spinster, darkness, foolish, active, danger- 
 ous, magnify. 
 
 4. Explain the following passages : — 
 
 (a) " Oh for one hour of Wallace wight 
 
 Or well-skill'd Bruce, to rule the fight." 
 
 (b) " And now I watch my armour here, 
 
 By law of arms, till midnight 's near." 
 
 (c) " Up drawbridge, grooms ! — what, Warder, ho ! 
 
 Let the portcullis fall." 
 
 Composition. 
 
 Describe the Battle of Flodtlen as told in Marmion. 
 
 SET B— {Marmion). 
 
 {You are advised not to spend more than one hour over this subject.) 
 
 Answer Question 1 and two other questions. Full marks are higher for Questions 2 
 and 3 than for Questions 4 and 5. 
 
 1. Give the substance of Wilton's story, or, 
 
 Describe the scene when Marmion was leaving Tantallon 
 Castle. 
 
 2. Analyse the following passage : — 
 
 " With that, straight up the hill there rode 
 Two horsemen drenched with gore, 
 And in their arms a helpless load t 
 A wounded knight they bore." 
 
244 EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 
 
 3. Parse the words in italics in the above passage. 
 
 4. Give the meaning and use of the suffix in each of the following 
 words : — Ukeivise, visitor, maiden, landscape, brightest, wisdom. 
 
 5. Explain : — 
 
 (a) " More pleased that in a barbarous age 
 
 He gave rude Scotland Virgil's page." 
 
 (b) "Won by my proofs, his falchion bright 
 
 This eve anew shall dub me knight." 
 
 FIRST YEAE PUPIL-TEACHERS. 
 
 SET A. 
 
 ( You are advised not to spend more than one hour and a quarter over 
 this subject.) 
 
 Answer three only of the following four questions. Full marks are higher for 
 Questions 1 and 2 than for any other question. 
 
 English Grammar. 
 
 1. Write, in your own words, the full substance of the following 
 lines : — 
 
 "Thus every good his native wilds impart 
 Imprints the patriot passion on his heart : 
 And ev'n those hills, that round his mansion rise, 
 Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies. 
 Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms, 
 And dear that hill that lifts him to the storms ; 
 And as a child, when scaring sounds molest, 
 Clings close and closer to the mother's breast, 
 So the loud torrent and the whirlwind's roar 
 But bind him to his native mountains more." 
 
 2. Analyse the last four lines, and parse every word in the last line. 
 
 3. Explain : — 
 
 " Those domes where Caesars once bore sway." 
 
 "The canvas glowed, beyond e'en nature warm, 
 The pregnant quarry teemed with human form." 
 
 "While the pent ocean, rising o'er the pile, 
 Sees an amphibious world beneath him smile." 
 
 4. Take the following pairs of words of similar meaning and 
 say which are of native origin and which are derived from a 
 foreign language, giving the language where you can : — begin, 
 commence : benediction, blessing : forefather, ancestor : feminine, 
 womanly : realm, kingdom: horseman, cavalier. 
 
 Composition. 
 
 Give a short account of Goldsmith's life, character, friendships, 
 and works. 
 
EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 245 
 
 SET B— (Goldsmith's Traveller). 
 
 ( You are advised not to spend more than one hour over this subject.) 
 
 Answer Question 1 or Question 2 (not both) and two other questions. Full marks 
 are higher for Question 3 than for Questions 4 and 5. 
 
 1. Give, in your own words, the character of the Dutch people as 
 described by Goldsmith. 
 
 2. Write, in your own words, the full substance of the following 
 lines : — 
 
 M To men of other minds my fancy flies, 
 Embosomed in the deep where Holland lies. 
 Methinks her patient sons before me stand, 
 Where the broad ocean leans against the land, 
 And, sedulous to stop the coming tide, 
 Lift the tall rampire's artificial pride. 
 Onward, methinks, and diligently slow, 
 The firm connected bulwark seems to grow ; 
 Spreads its long arms amidst the watery roar, 
 Scoops out an empire, and usurjs the shore." 
 
 3. Analyse the first four lines of this passage, and parse the words 
 in italics. 
 
 4. Explain : — 
 
 (a) " Those transitory flowers alike undone 
 
 By proud contempt or favour's fostering sun." 
 
 (6) " That like the circle bounding earth and skies 
 Allures from far, and, as we follow, flies." 
 
 (c) " Where lawns extend that scorn Arcadian pride, 
 And brighter streams than famed Hydaspes glide." 
 
 5. Give the etymology and meaning of vernal, grandeur, sympathetic, 
 depopulation, felicity. 
 
 SECOND YEAR PUPIL-TEACHERS. 
 SET A. 
 
 ( You are advised not to spend more than one hour and a quarter over 
 this subject. ) 
 
 Answer three only of the following four questions. Full marks are higher for 
 Questions 1 and 2 than for any other question. 
 
 English Grammar. 
 
 1. Write, in your own words, the full substance of the following 
 passage : — 
 
 " That you do love me, I am nothing jealous ; 
 What you would work me to, I have some aim ; 
 How I have thought of this, and of these times, 
 I shall recount hereafter : for this present, 
 I would not, so with love I might entreat you, 
 Be any farther mov'd. What you have said, 
 
246 EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 
 
 I will consider ; what you have to say, 
 
 I will with patience hear, and find a time 
 
 Both meet to hear, aud answer, such high things. 
 
 Till then, my noble friend, chew upon this : 
 
 Brutus had rather be a villager, 
 
 Than to repute himself a son of Rome 
 
 Under these hard conditions, as this time 
 
 Is like to lay upon us." 
 
 2. Analyse the lines in the above passage, from the beginning down 
 to " hereafter," and parse all the words in the first lim. 
 
 3. Give the etymology and meaning of chivalry, taptive, particle, 
 incorporate, enfranchisement, extenuated, fantasy , slanderous. 
 
 4. Re-write in more correct form the following sentences, giving 
 reasons for any alterations you make : — 
 
 (a) We will do like they did. 
 
 (b) Neither of the three were present. 
 
 (c) This is the best of the two. 
 
 (d) We wish to very cordially congratulate you. 
 
 Composition. 
 Compare the characters of Brutus and Cassius [Julius Ccesar). 
 
 SET B— {Julius Ccesar). 
 
 (You are advised not to spend more than one hour over this subject.) 
 
 Answer Question 1 or Question 2 (not both) and two other questions. Full marks 
 are higher for Question 3 than for Questions 4 and 5. 
 
 1. Give a brief account of Antony\ oration over Caesar's body, 
 and account for its effect upon the people. 
 
 2. Write, in your own words, tie full substance of the following 
 passage : — 
 
 " Cassius. Ye gods, it doth amaze me 
 
 A man of such a feeble temper should 
 So get the start of the majestic world, 
 And bear the palm alone. 
 
 Brutus. Another general shout ! 
 
 I do believe that these applauses are 
 
 For some new honours that are heaped on Caesar- 
 
 Cassius. Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world 
 Like a Colossus, and we petty men 
 Walk under his huge legs and peep about 
 To find ourselves dishonourable graves. 
 Men at some time are masters of their fates : 
 The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, 
 But in ourselves that we are underlings." 
 
EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 247 
 
 3. Analyse the last tbree lines, and parse the words in italics. 
 
 4. Give the etymology and meaning of alchemy, choleric, proscrip- 
 tion, exorcist, cynic 
 
 5. Correct the following expressions and give your reasons: — 
 
 (a) Friends am I with you all. 
 
 (b) He is stronger than me. 
 
 (c) The heat was simply phenomenal. 
 
 (d) I differ with you. 
 
 SCHOLARSHIP EXAMINATION. 
 SET A. 
 
 ( Two hours and a half allowed for this paper.) 
 
 All Candidates must answer Question 1, to which the highest marks are assigned, 
 and may select five, and^ue only, of the rest. 
 
 If you answer more than six questions, only the six answers coming first on your 
 paper will be revised. 
 
 No abbreviation of less than three letters is to be used in Parsing or Analysis. 
 
 English Language and Literature. 
 
 1. Analyse the following passage, and parse the words in italics : — 
 
 " The fairest action of our human life 
 
 Is scorning to revenge an injury ; 
 For who forgives without & further strife 
 
 His adversary's heart to him doth tie ; 
 And 'tis a firmer conquest truly said 
 
 To win the heart than overthrow the head." 
 
 2. Show the force of the Latin prefixes de-, re-, con-, pro-, ob~ t 
 e(ex-), ab~ by reference to English words derived from the compounds 
 oijacio, jactum (I throw ; in composition, -jicio, -jectum). 
 
 3. Write the following passage in blank verse : — 
 
 "O Proserpina I for the flowers now, that, frighted, thou let'st 
 fall from Dis's waggon ! daffodils, that come before the swallow dares, 
 and take the winds of March with beauty ; violets dim, but sweeter 
 than the lids of Juno's eyes, or Cytherea's breath ; pale primroses, 
 that die unmarried ere they can behold bright Phoebus in his strength, 
 a malady most incident to maidens ; bold oxlips, and the crown- 
 imperial ; lilies of all kinds, the flower de luce being one." 
 
 4. How would you vary the questions in English for Standard II. 
 so as to avoid monotony? 
 
 5. Explain, by reference to the etymology, the metaphor involved 
 in the following words '.-—reducible, precise, conviction (=firm belief), 
 benediction, conference. 
 
 6. Sketch briefly the plot of any play of Shakespeare's not 
 directly connected with English history, or that of one of Scott's 
 novels. 
 
248 EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 
 
 7. "An adjective is a word which describes or points out a noun." 
 Discuss this definition, and, if you think it bad, say wl at you would 
 substitute for it, and why. 
 
 8. What new words have been added to the language as a result 
 of (1) the colonisation of North America; (2) our intercourse with 
 India and the East ? 
 
 9. Parse fully the words in italic type below :— 
 
 (a) Her eyes were red with weeping. 
 
 (b) He was running at full speed. 
 
 (c) While waiting for the train, I caught a cold. 
 
 (d) On turning round, I ran against him. 
 
 (e) Only by selling his horse could he get the money he 
 
 wanted. 
 
 SET B. 
 
 (Two hours and a half allowed for this paper.) 
 
 All Candidates must answer Questions 1 or 2, not both, to which the highest marks 
 are assigned, and may select Jive, and ./we only, of the rest. 
 
 If you answer more than six questions, only the six answers coming first on your 
 paper will be revised. 
 
 No abbreviation of less than three letters is to be used in Parsing or Analysis. 
 
 1. Analyse from the words "There is a tide" to "miseries" in 
 the passage below, and parse the words in italics : — 
 
 " Our legions are brim-full ; our cause is ripe : 
 The enemy increaseth every day. 
 We, at the height, are ready to decline. 
 There is a tide in the affairs of men 
 Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune : 
 Omitted, all the voyage of their life 
 Is bound in shallows and in miseries. 
 On such a full sea are we now afloat ; 
 And we must take the current when it serves, 
 Or lose our ventures." 
 
 2. Analyse the last four lines of the following passage, and parse 
 fully the words in italics : — 
 
 " Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate, 
 All but the page prescribed their present state, 
 From brutes what men, from men what angels know ; 
 Or who could suffer being here below ? 
 The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, 
 Had he thy reason would he skip and play ? 
 Pleased to the last he crops the flowery food, 
 And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood." 
 
 3. Define (1) an adjective; (2) an adverb. 
 
 Explain the use of the words "briir-full," "ripe," "afloat" in the 
 passage contained in Question 1. 
 
EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 249 
 
 4. Make a list of all the Latin and English prefixes and suffixes 
 in the two passages given in Questions 1 and 2, and explain their 
 effect. 
 
 5. What parts of the principal verb are used together with an 
 auxiliary in forming the compound tenses ? 
 
 Explain the use of the infinitive mood for this purpose. 
 
 6. In what two ways are sentences connected by conjunctions? 
 Give some rule for the use of the conditional mood in subordinate 
 
 sentences. Illustrate your answer by examples. 
 
 7. "But little do Men perceive what Solitude is, and how far 
 it extendeth : for a Crowd is not Company, and Faces are but a 
 gallery of pictures, and Talk is but a tinkling cymbal where there is 
 no Love." — Bacon. 
 
 Write briefly in your own words the meaning of this passage. 
 
 What difference in expression from the current literature of the 
 present day do you notice ? 
 
 What quotation does the passage contain, and whence was it 
 taken ? 
 
 8. The English language contains many words akin to German 
 words, and a considerable number derived from Latin words. 
 
 Explain this statement (noting especially the words in italics), and 
 give a few illustrations taken from the passages you have learned to 
 recite or the works you have been directed to read. 
 
 9. Mention some of the works written by four of the following, 
 and say in what century they lived: — Addison, Bacon, Bunyan, 
 Cowper, Johnson, Milton, Pope, Scott. 
 
 SET C. 
 
 (Two and a half hours allowed for this paper.) 
 
 All Candidates must answer Question 1 or 2, not both, to which the highest marks 
 are assigned, and may select Jive, and five only, of the rest. 
 
 If you answer more than six questions, only the six answers coming first on your 
 paper will be revised. 
 
 No abbreviation of less than three letters is to be used in Parsing or Analysis. 
 
 1. Analyse the passage from " Mortals " to the end of the following 
 passage. Parse the words in italics : — 
 
 M But now my task is smoothly done, 
 I can fly, or I can run 
 Swiftly to the green earth's end, 
 Where the bowed welkin slow doth bend, 
 And from thence can soar as soon 
 To the corners of the moon. 
 Mortals that would follow me, 
 Love Virtue ; she alone is free. 
 She can teach ye how to climb 
 Higher than the sphery chime ; 
 Or if virtue feeble were, 
 Heaven itself would stoop to her." 
 
250 EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 
 
 2. Analyse the first four lines of the following passage, and parse 
 the words in italics : — 
 
 " This was the noblest Roman of them all : 
 All the conspirators, save only he, 
 Did that they did in envy of great Csesar ; 
 He, only, in a general honest thought 
 And common good to all, made one of them. 
 His life was gentle ; and the elements 
 So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up, 
 And say to all the World, ' this was a man ! ' " 
 
 3. Define a relative pronoun. What is the rule for (a) its number, 
 (b) its easel Illustrate by examples from the preceding passages. 
 Can you give any rule for the use of "that" instead of "who" or 
 " which " ? 
 
 4 Write sentences showing the use of each of the following words 
 as (1) an adverb; (2) a preposition ; (3) a conjunction, viz.: — after, 
 before, since. 
 
 5. Explain the force of the termination -ing in the following sen- 
 tences : — 
 
 He is building a new house. 
 The new house is a-building. 
 He is tired of building houses. 
 
 How do you parse the word building in each case ? 
 
 6. Give the meaning and the origin of the following prefixes and 
 suffixes : — 
 
 (a) Prefixes : 
 
 (6) Suffixes: 
 
 a " in away, aware, ago ; 
 1 for " in forsake, forlorn, forgive ; 
 1 un " in uncouth, unto, undo. 
 
 : ment " in parchment, parliament ; 
 "some " in handsome, wholesome ; 
 " ster " in spinster, maltster. 
 
 7. Distinguish between a compound and a complex sentence. 
 What are the appropriate connecting particles of the component 
 members of each kind of sentence ? 
 
 Illustrate your answer by references to either of the passages in 
 Question 1 or 2. 
 
 8. "Revenge is a kind of wild justice which the more men's nature 
 runs to, the more ought law to weed it out. For as for the first 
 wrong, it doth but offend the law, but the revenge of that wrong 
 putteth the law out of office. Certainly in taking revenge a man is 
 but even with his enemy, but in passing it by he is superior, for it is 
 a prince's part to pardon." — Bacon. 
 
 Write briefly in your own words the meaning of this passage, and 
 explain any expressions which appear to you to be obsolete. What 
 ellipsis follows "superior " ? 
 
EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 251 
 
 9. (a) Mention four of the most celebrated authors of the eighteenth 
 century, and give an account of any one among their works ; 
 
 or 
 
 (6) Name the authors of the passages contained in Questions 1 and 
 2, and give a short life of one of them. 
 
 SET D. 
 
 (Two and a half hours allowed for thte paper.) 
 
 All Candidates must answer Question 1, and may answer six questions in all, but 
 not more than three may be taken from either section. 
 
 If you answer more than six questions, only the six answers coming first on your 
 paper will be revised. 
 
 No abbreviation of less than three letters is to be used in Parsing or Analysis. 
 
 Section I. — Language. 
 
 1. Analyse one of the following passages, and parse the words in 
 italics in the passage analysed : — 
 
 (a) "... All this tract that fronts the falling sun 
 
 A noble Peer of mickle trust and power 
 
 Has in his charge, with tempered awe to guide 
 
 An old and haughty nation, proud in arms." — Comus. 
 
 (b) " Who noble ends by noble means obtains, 
 
 Or failing, smiles in exile or in chains, 
 Like good Aurelius let him reign, or bleed 
 Like Socrates, that man is great indeed." 
 
 — Essay on Man, IV. 
 
 (c) " Would I hadfalfn upon those happier days 
 
 That poets celebrate : those golden times 
 
 And those Arcadian scenes that Maro sings, 
 
 And Sidney, warbler of poetic prose." — The Task. 
 
 2. Explain, as to a class, sentence by sentence, the meaning of 
 one of the above passages, and comment on any words and allusions 
 that call for notice. 
 
 3. In what metre is each of the above passages written ? If they 
 are not alike, point out the difference. Illustrate your answer by 
 writing a line from each, showing its division into feet. 
 
 4. Distinguish, giving examples, between Indicative and Subjunc- 
 tive mood, Gerund and Participle, Complex and Compound sentence, 
 Simile and Metaphor. 
 
 5. At what periods have Latin words been introduced into 
 English, either directly or indirectly ? Give a few examples under 
 each head. 
 
 6. Certain nouns, adjectives, and verbs require special preposi- 
 tions, which in some cases vary according to sense and context. 
 
252 EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 
 
 What prepositions are used with the following ? Give short sen- 
 tences to illustrate their use : — 
 
 Nouns. Adjectives. Verbs. 
 
 Accord. Adapted. Agree. 
 
 Affinity. Convenient. Confer. 
 
 Exception. Different. Confide. 
 
 Taste. Glad. Differ. 
 
 Section II. — Literature. 
 
 7. Under what circumstances, and when, was Comus written? 
 Give a short summary of the end of the poem from the invocation of 
 Sabrina onwards. 
 
 8. Write brief notes on the following passages : — 
 (a) " The gray-hooded Even, 
 
 Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed." 
 
 (6) " Scylla wept, 
 
 And chid her barking waves into attention, 
 And fell Charybdis murmured soft applause." 
 
 (c) " Oh foolishness of men ! that lend their ears 
 
 To those budge doctors of the Stoic fur, 
 
 And fetch their precepts from the Cynic tub ! " 
 
 (d) " Where the bowed welkin slow doth bend." 
 
 9. Explain shortly the following passages : — 
 
 (a) " What can eDnoble sots, or slaves, or cowards? 
 Alas ! not all the blood of all the Howards. " 
 
 (6) " Think how Bacon shined, 
 
 The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind." 
 
 (c) " From dirt and seaweed as proud Venice rose." 
 
 10. Give in plain prose the meaning of the following passage : — 
 
 " 111 fares the traveller now, and he that stalks 
 In ponderous boots beside his reeking team : 
 The wain goes heavily, impeded sore 
 By congregated loads adhering close 
 To the clogged wheels, and in its sluggish pace 
 Noiseless appears a moving hill of snow. 
 The toiling steeds expand the nostril wide, 
 While every breath, by respiration strong 
 Forced downward, is consolidated soon 
 Upon their jutting chests." 
 
 11. Give briefly the substance of Cowper's contrast between town 
 and country life, or his account of the winter evening occupations at 
 Olney. 
 
 12. Name Pope's chief works. When and with what object was 
 the Essay on Man written ? Explain the lines : — 
 
 " Come, then, my Friend ! my Genius ! come along ; 
 Oh master of the poet and the song ! " 
 
EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 253 
 
 COMPOSITION SUBJECTS. 
 
 SETA. 
 
 Write a letter, or an essay, on one of the following subjects : — 
 
 (a) Singing birds. 
 
 (b) Fairy tales. 
 
 (<•) Best ways of spending holidays. 
 
 (d) Advantages of the study and knowledge of geography. 
 
 SET B. 
 
 Write a tetter, or an essay, on one of the following subjects : — 
 (a) Your favourite flowers, and the way to cultivate them. 
 (6) The moral lessons of the microscope and the telescope. 
 
 (c) The advantages and disadvantages of town life as compared 
 
 with life in the country. 
 
 (d) Examinations. 
 
 SET C. 
 
 (a) Write a letter descriptive of the town or village in which you 
 
 live, or of any famous building in or near it ; or, 
 
 (b) Write a short essay on one of these topics : — 
 (i) Truthfulness, in act and word. 
 
 (ii) Poetry, 
 (iii) The King rules over an Empire on which the sun never sets. 
 
 SET D. 
 
 Write a short essay on one of these topics *— 
 (i) A ship on fire, 
 (ii) Closer union with our colonies, 
 (iii) A walk round a garden. 
 
 SET E. 
 
 Write a short essay on one of these topics : — 
 (a) Good manners. 
 
 (6) The importance of the telegraph and telephone from a 
 commercial point of view. 
 
 (c) The advantages of a school library for the children. (Name 
 
 a dozen good books which should be found in every 
 such library. ) 
 
 S 
 
254 EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 
 
 SET F. 
 
 Write a short essay on one of these subjects : — 
 
 (a) Any memorable place, city, castle, or battlefield which you 
 
 have visited. 
 (6) The use of pictures in teaching. 
 (c) Colonisation. 
 
 SET G. 
 
 Write a short essay on one of these subjects :— 
 
 (a) Some uses of the electric telegraph. 
 
 (b) A court of justice. 
 
 (c) Emigration. 
 
 SET H. 
 
 Write a short essay on one of these subjects :— 
 
 (a) The influence of war on a nation ; or, 
 
 (b) Fruit trees ; or, 
 
 (c) The census. 
 
 SET I. 
 
 Write a short essay on : — 
 A general election ; or, 
 
 Give in substance the contents of any interesting book which 
 you have recently read. 
 
 SET J. 
 
 Write a short essay on one of these subjects :— 
 
 (a) Holidays, and the way to use them. 
 
 (b) Parliament. 
 
 (c) Tragedy and comedy. 
 
 SET K. 
 
 Do one of the following, either 
 
 (a) Write a short essay on the value of the Study of History ; or, 
 
 (b) Write a short essay on "Play" ; or, 
 
 (c) Write out briefly the plot of one of Shakespeare's comedies. 
 
 SET L. 
 
 Write a short essay on one of the following subjects : — 
 
 (a) " Words are like leaves ; and when they most abound 
 
 Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found." 
 (6) Your favourite pursuit. 
 
 {c) Christmas day on board an English ship in the Polar 
 Regions. 
 
EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 255 
 
 SET M. 
 
 Write a short essay on one of the following subjects :— 
 
 (a) " Hope springs eternal in the human breast ; 
 
 Man never is, but always to be blest. " 
 
 (b) The Japanese. 
 
 (c) How may the spirit of patriotism be promoted in elementary 
 
 schools ? 
 
 SET N. 
 
 Write a short essay on one of the following subjects : — 
 
 (a) How far is it true hat history is the biography of great 
 
 men? 
 (6) Strikes, 
 (c) Dress as an evidence of character. 
 
 SET 0. 
 
 Write a short composition on one of the following : — 
 (a) A short life of some great naval or military hero. 
 (6) " The darkest day, 
 
 Wait till to-morrow, will have passed away." 
 (c) Give an account of the life and works of the author of the 
 passage you have learned to recite. 
 
 SET P. 
 
 Write a short composition on one of the following : — 
 
 (a) The pleasures of gardening. 
 
 (b) The life of the teacher : its difficulties and its ideals. 
 
 (c) The ground of justification for each of the contending 
 
 parties in tho European War of 1914. 
 
 SET Q. 
 
 Write a short composition on one of the following subjects : — 
 
 (a) A comparison of town and country life (which you would 
 
 prefer, and why). 
 (6) A winter landscape, 
 (c) "Great offices will have (t.e. need) great talents." — Cowper. 
 
256 EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 
 
 LONDON MATRICULATION QUESTIONS. 
 
 SET A. 
 (Not more than ten questions are to be attempted.) 
 
 1. Draw a table showing the position of English in the Germanic 
 family of languages. 
 
 2. What is meant by the distinction between " learned * and 
 " popular " borrowed words ? Under what circumstances have Latin 
 words at various times been borrowed in English? Refer in your 
 answer to the above distinction. 
 
 3. Show, if possible with a table, what vowel-sounds are used in 
 ordinary spoken English. 
 
 4. Classify nouns according to their meaning, and illustrate the 
 passage of nouns from one class to another. 
 
 5. Write down (i) six illustrations of Grimm's Law ; (ii) six 
 apparent exceptions to it, commenting upon the latter. 
 
 6. Give the force of the suffixes which occur in the following 
 words, commeuting upon any anomaly in the form or meaning of 
 each : — witness, childhood, girdle, lawyer, gosling, rookery. 
 
 7. Give a short account of the comparison of adjectives in 
 English. 
 
 8. Show, accurately, how the following cognate words are dis- 
 tinguished, and also bow they are connected, in meaning : — corps, 
 corpse ; gage, wage ; diamond, adamant ; cage, cave ; dish, desk, disc, 
 dais ; priest, presbyter. 
 
 9. Enumerate the pronominal and adverbial forms derived from 
 the stem of here, and show, generally, how each comes to have its 
 present meaning. 
 
 10. Point out any defects in the grammar or style of the 
 following : — 
 
 (a) Homer was not only the maker of a nation, but of a 
 
 language. 
 (6) He is better versed in theology than any living man. 
 
 (c) Shakespeare frequently has passages in a strain quite false, 
 
 and which are entirely unworthy of him. 
 
 (d) Nothing can hinder this treatise from being one of the 
 
 most considerable books which has appeared for the last 
 half -century. 
 («) A statute, inflicting the punishment of death, may be, and 
 ought to be, repealed, if it be in any degree expedient. 
 
 11. Analyse the following: — "So eager was the queen that her 
 story should be believed, that nothing so much pleased her as an 
 indication that credit was attached to it." 
 
 12. Give two examples each of (i) strong verbs which have become 
 weak ; (ii) weak verbs which have become strong j (iii) strong par- 
 
EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 257 
 
 ticiples which have been assimilated to the preterite ; (iv) strong 
 preterites which have been assimilated to the participle. 
 
 13. Explain and illustrate the laws or principles involved in the 
 formation of the following words : — causeway, book-learned, hindmost, 
 thirteen, piecemeal, darkling. 
 
 14. Show, summarily, in what various ways adverbs have been 
 formed in English. 
 
 15. Give a summary view of the various ways in which the 
 vocabulary of a language may be enlarged, with illustrations from 
 English. 
 
 SETB. 
 
 (Not more than ten questions are to be attempted.) 
 
 I. Classify the Teutonic and Romance words in the following 
 passage ; comment on your classification, and write brief notes on 
 the history of any Jive words : — 
 
 m The cowardly wretches followed the weary travellers demanding 
 alms. Their menaces revealed their true character, and there was 
 soon no alternative but to hand them the few remaining possessions ; 
 the foot-sore pilgrims were not allowed to keep even their meagre 
 victuals for the day. At all events, starvation would end the 
 miseries of their toilsome life." 
 
 2 Explain, carefully, what is meant by the following terms: — 
 (i) Anglo-Saxon ; (ii) Anglo-French ; (iii) Hybrids ; (iv) Alliteration ; 
 (v) Rhythm; (vi) Metaphor. 
 
 3. Give a biief account of the process of inflexional levelling in 
 English. 
 
 4. Enumerate, with instances, the various ways of indicating 
 gender in English. Write a careful note on the word "songstress." 
 
 5. Trace the history of the third personal pronoun, singular and 
 plural. 
 
 6. Differentiate the following, both as regards usage and origin : — 
 further, farther; later, latter; older, elder; outer, utter; foremost, 
 first. 
 
 7. Define : — (i) Infinitive ; (ii) Gerund ; (iii) Participle ; (iv) 
 Mood; (v) Voice; (vi) Auxiliary Verbs; (vii) Strong-weak Verbs. 
 
 8. Account clearly for the present and past tense forms of the 
 chief auxiliary verbs. Explain the modern use of " shall " and 
 " w'dl" 
 
 9. Classify the weak verbs, and explain the following forms: — 
 taught, sold, sought, fed, felt, 
 
 10. Annotate the following statement : — " Words originally other 
 parts of speech arc sometimes used as conjunctions." 
 
 II. What are "Synonyms"? Account for their origin. Give 
 some examples, and discriminate their use. 
 
 12. Explain the force and origin of the following suffixes :— ship, 
 en, ly, ness, y. Give instance*. 
 
258 v EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 
 
 13. Analyse t — 
 
 " So please your majesty, I -would I could 
 Quit all offences with as clear excuse 
 As well as I am doubtless I can purge 
 Myself of many I am charged withal." 
 
 14. In what important respects does the diction of poetry differ 
 from that of prose? Add brief illustrative sentences. 
 
 15. What is meant by Blank Verse? Write down and discuss any 
 ten lines. 
 
 SET C. 
 (Not more than ten questions are to be attempted.) 
 
 1. Enumerate the principal Indo-European languages, and indicate, 
 by description or diagram, how English is related to Italian, Sanskrit, 
 Dutch, Erse. 
 
 2. At what periods have Latin words been largely borrowed ? 
 Give six examples from living English of words so borrowed at each 
 period, and show what class of the vocabulary was at each period 
 chiefly affected by such borrowing. 
 
 3. Illustrate the borrowing of words either from Celtic or from 
 Scandinavian sources into English. 
 
 4. Give a short account of existing case-forms in English, and also 
 of some which no longer survive as cases. 
 
 5. Explain the italicised letters in the following words: — advan- 
 tage, scent, de&t, frontispiece, cou^d, ancient. 
 
 6. What peculiarities, of form or meaning, in the expression of 
 relations of number, are illustrated by the following ? — score, triple, 
 hundred, first, second, million. 
 
 7. Distinguish, with illustrations, as many as you can of the 
 different senses of one. 
 
 8. Trace the origin of who, which, and that as relative pronouns, 
 and define their usage in modern English. 
 
 9. Distinguish the origin of the suffix y in the following words : — 
 jury, body, jolly, army, wordy, jelly. 
 
 10. Explain carefully what is meant by the past-present or strong- 
 weak verbs, giving the reason for each name. 
 
 11. Analyse the -ing forms in the following sentences : — 
 
 The house is building. 
 
 He is making his mark. 
 
 He is tired of writing letters. 
 
 12. Explain the structure and meaning of the following : — each, 
 every, any, about, either, or. 
 
 13. In what different ways are adverbs formed in English? 
 
 14. Illustrate the different senses of with, by, at, of, for. Which 
 of them are also conjunctions ? Which adverbs ? 
 
EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 259 
 
 15. Illustrate the ways in which literary and educated English has 
 been recently reinforced by the introduction of words from dialects, 
 technical terminology, and slang. 
 
 SET D. 
 
 {Not more than ten questions are to be attempted.) 
 
 1. Show briefly that the English language is of Teutonic origin, 
 and also that during the last thousand years it has been influenced 
 by certain other Teutonic languages. 
 
 2. How has it happened that we have Dorrowed so largely from 
 foreign languages instead of building words for ourselves ? What 
 home-spun terms might we have had for " astronomy," "arithmetic,'" 
 " autumn," " agriculture," " library " ? 
 
 3. Mention some of our earliest borrowings from the Latin, and 
 prove by a few examples that we have gone on incessantly borrowing 
 from it 
 
 4. Illustrate the influence of Norman-French on our spelling and 
 our pronunciation. Write down some words that we owe to other 
 Romance languages. 
 
 5. Make a list of some twenty additions made to our vocabulary 
 during the twentieth century, and point out the movements, or 
 fashions, or tendencies that have made them necessary. 
 
 6. What traces are there in our present grammar of more than 
 one declension of nouns ? Discuss the apostrophe in such forms as 
 "stone's," "church's," "St. James'." 
 
 7. Indicate some distinction or distinctions between the uses of the 
 relatives who and that. What other word has sometimes a relatival 
 force ? Give examples of the omission of the relative. 
 
 8. Mention some verbs now of the weak conjugation that once 
 were of the strong, and vice versd. Mention also some verbs of 
 mixed conjugation ; show that tell is not so. About how many 
 strong verbs are there extant ? 
 
 9. Mention some verbs that have no change of form in the preterite 
 and in the past participle ; also some that are defective ; also some 
 that are irregular. 
 
 10. Give some account of the etymology of adverbs. Comment on 
 the forms rather, piecemeal, too, very, farther. 
 
 11. Explain the a in aboard, amend, ado, arise, adown, along, alas, 
 apace, aware, avert. 
 
 12. Derive these words : — lone, street, king, church, engine, month, 
 University, degree, college, matriculation. 
 
 13. Distinguish, giving examples, the senses and usages of elder 
 and older, of continuous and continual, rustic and rural, sensibility and 
 sensitiveness, temporal and temporary. Are there such things as 
 "synonyms" ? 
 
260 EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 
 
 14. Describe any English dialect with which you are acquainted, 
 and state what you know of its origin. 
 
 15. Criticise and revise the following sentences: — 
 
 (a) Few of his friends, except myself, know of his being in 
 
 the kingdom. 
 
 (b) The guinea places were better filled than the half- 
 
 guinea, and not a jot better. 
 
 (c) The captain took the good things which the gods 
 
 provided with thankful good humour. 
 
 (d) To aim at public and private good are so far from being 
 
 inconsistent that they mutually promote each other. 
 
 (e) Your Englishman is just as serious in his sports as in 
 
 any act of his life. 
 (/) He regretted that the pupil-teacher did not prevent the 
 boys from writing so fast, as he noticed that is done 
 in the absence of such immediate supervision as the 
 master, otherwise engaged, would have prevented. 
 
 SET E. 
 
 {Not more than ten questions are to be attempted.) 
 
 X.. Give a summary account of the various sources of English 
 speech, so far as vocabulary is concerned, and explain carefully why, 
 in spite of the various elements, the language is grouped with the 
 Teutonic branch of Indo-European. 
 
 2. Explain carefully the following terms : — (i) Anglo-Saxon ; (ii) 
 Anglo-French ; (iii) synonym ; (iv) homophone ; (v) inflexion ; (vi) 
 case; (vii) prosody; (viii) syntax ; (ix) metaphor ; (x) simile. 
 
 How do " synonyms " arise, and how may they be differentiated ? 
 Give instances. 
 
 3. (i) Quote ten lines of blank verse ; (ii) underline all the words 
 borrowed, directly or indirectly, from Latin ; (iii) write brief etymo- 
 logical notes on each of the underlined words ; and (iv) on any six 
 other words in the passage quoted. 
 
 4. Tabulate the vowel-sounds now used in educated English (using 
 symbols if possible), and add illustrative words. 
 
 5. Classify the chief of the various suffixes which appear in English. 
 Give illustrative instances. 
 
 6. Give an account of the various ways of forming number in 
 modern English ; comment on the obsolete processes, and account for 
 the use of s as the ordinary plural inflexion. 
 
 7. Write down (i) two comparatives which have no corresponding 
 positive forms ; (ii) three positives which have no corresponding 
 comparatives ; (iii) one instance of a comparative used as a positive ; 
 and (iv) one instance of a double superlative. Explain carefully each 
 instance. 
 
EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 261 
 
 8. Sketch the history of the Relative Pronouns ; differentiate their 
 use in m >dern English, adding illustrative sentences. 
 
 9. Write historical notes on the following forms : — (i) she ; (ii) its; 
 (iii) their; (iv) hers; (v) him; (vi) why; (vii) you; (viii) there; 
 (ix) not. 
 
 10. Group, according to any scheme you may prefer, the strong 
 verb forms existing in modern English. Annotate your instances, 
 where necessary. Discuss the following : — 
 
 " Sweetly we sang, 
 and he sung too, 
 but our sweet song 
 we soon did rue." 
 
 11. Explain carefully the various tenses which a verb should be 
 capable of expressing. In what respects is English deficient ? 
 
 12. Distinguish the uses of the ending -ing. Add brief historical 
 notes. 
 
 1 3. In what ways may the different parts of speech be put together 
 by composition ? Give one instance in each class. 
 
 14. Discuss eight words called into existence by recent discoveries 
 or inventions. 
 
 15. Analyse the following : — 
 
 tl I am alone the villain of the earth, 
 And feel I am so most. O Antony, 
 Thou mine of bounty, how wouldst thou have paid 
 My better service, when my turpitude 
 Thou dost so crown with gold ! " 
 
 SET F. 
 
 (Do not attempt to answer more than seven of the first ten 
 questions, or more than three of the last five. Great im- 
 portance will be attached to clearness and accuracy of expres- 
 sion and style.) 
 
 1. Prove from the present state of its vocabulary and grammar 
 that the English language is of Teutonic origin. 
 
 2. Mention words we have borrowed from the Hebrew, the 
 Chinese, the Modern German, the Arabic, the Portuguese, and the 
 Russian languages ; and explain how we came to borrow them. 
 
 3. In what ways do we now supply ourselves with new words 
 when they are wanted ? Give instances. 
 
 4. Classify consonants according to the organ chiefly used in 
 sounding them. In what other ways may they be classified ? Explain 
 the pronunciation of the italicised letters in the words cupboard, 
 legs, adjourn, houses, stooped. 
 
 5. Write down five noun forms that though originally plural are 
 now used as singulars, and five that were originally singulars but 
 are now used as plurals, and five that are double plurals. 
 
262 EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 
 
 6. Mention ten adjectives that are used as nouns and even have 
 the plural flexion. 
 
 7. Attempt some classification of strong verbs. What is noticeable 
 about the flexions of rot, melt, lead, hang, clothe, sow ? 
 
 8. Give five instances of adverbs used predicatively, and five of 
 prepositions used verbally. 
 
 9. Discuss the words but and so, and make examples of their 
 various uses. 
 
 10. Derive these words : — sheriff, city, omnibus, street, colony, 
 sovereign, Wales, bishop, king, England. 
 
 11. What seem to you the characteristics of a well -written piece of 
 composition ? 
 
 12. Criticise the following sentences : — 
 
 (a) Neither he nor his brother were trained for the ministry. 
 
 (b) A convent, a lunatic asylum, a husband — either will do. 
 
 (c) He would neither apologise or withdraw. 
 
 (d) Unfortunately, both he and she seemed to have lost their 
 
 (e) On attempting to extract the ball, the patient began 
 
 rapidly to sink. 
 (/) Jrle won't do more than he can help. 
 
 13. Sketch clearly the plot or plots of any of Shakespeare's plays. 
 
 Or, 
 Give a brief abstract of any one of the Waverley Novels. 
 
 14. Quote any poem or part of a poem not less than twelve lines 
 in length, and describe the metre in which it is written. 
 
 15. What do you know of the life and work of any three of the 
 following writers : — Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, Gray, Wordsworth. 
 
 Give the approximate dates of each. 
 
 Or, 
 Give an account of any one poet and any one prose writer of the 
 Victorian era. 
 
 SET G. 
 
 N.B. — Candidates must not break up their answers into scattered 
 pieces. Great importance will be attached to clearness and accuracy 
 of expression and style. 
 
 I. — Language. 
 
 (Not more than seven of these ten questions are to be attempted. ) 
 
 1. Explain carefully what is meant by the term "grammar." 
 Give the chief divisions of "grammar," with definitions and 
 examples. 
 
 2. Comment on the following statements : — 
 
 (a) " To reform Modern English spelling would be to destroy the 
 life-history of many of our words." 
 
 (6) " The spelling of Modern English is little better than a chaos." 
 
EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 263 
 
 3. At what periods, and under what conditions, have Latin 
 words been introduced into English directly or indirectly? Give 
 examples. 
 
 4. Derive and explain : — Matriculate, parliament, isle, alderman, 
 mayor, cricket ; and mention some derivatives from and some cognates 
 with these words. 
 
 5. What is meant by " relative pronouns " ? Differentiate the 
 uses of the relative pronouns in Modern English, giving instances of 
 each. 
 
 6. Write notes on the following words : — worse, nearer, but, it, 
 songstress, riches, alms, ye, first, Wednesday. 
 
 7. Classify adverbs, according to their origin and formation, with 
 instances. 
 
 8. How are (i) infinitives, and (ii) participles distinguished from 
 the other parts of verbs? Write down and discuss six sentences 
 illustrating various uses of (i) the Infinitive and (ii) the Present 
 Participle. 
 
 9. What is meant by " defective verbs " ? Discuss the conjugation 
 of any three. 
 
 10. "To make a revolution every day is the nature of the sun, 
 because of that necessary course which God hath ordained it, from 
 which it cannot swerve but by a faculty from that voice which first 
 did give it motion." 
 
 (i) Analyse this sentence ; (ii) underline the words of Latin origin. 
 
 II. — Literature and Composition. 
 (Not more than three of these questions are to be attempted.) 
 
 1. Explain carefully what you consider the chief differences between 
 Poetry and Prose. 
 
 2. What is meant by "blank verse," "sonnet," "lyric," "rhyme," 
 "alliteration"? Write down any ten lines of "blank verse," 
 explaining the scansion ; or quote any sonnet, explaining the 
 structure, and telling what you know of its authorship. 
 
 3. What do you know of any two of the following writers : — 
 Chaucer, Spenser, Scott, Lamb, Tennyson. 
 
 4. Give a brief account of any two of the following works : — 
 "Midsummer Night's Dream," " Paradise Lost," "Ivanhoe," "Idylls 
 of the King," "Treasure Island." 
 
 5. Say in what works are to be found the following persons, and 
 briefly describe their characters : — Mr. Burchell, Mercutio, Bailie 
 Nicol Jarvie, Mr. Greatheart, Mr. Micawber, Friday. 
 
 SET H. 
 
 N.B. — Candidates must not brea* up their answers into scattered 
 pieces. The answers to Group I. must be kept distinct from those to 
 Group II. Great importance will be attached to clearness and 
 accuracy of expression and style. 
 
264 EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 
 
 I. — Language. 
 (Not more than seven of these ten questions are to be attempted.) 
 
 1. Give some account of the coming of the English Language into 
 this country. In what respect was it different then from what it is 
 now? 
 
 2. How has Latin come to influence our vocabulary so largely 
 Show that it has influenced it indirectly as well as directly. Could 
 we have got on without it ? 
 
 3. Mention other languages from which we have borrowed words, 
 giving instances, and saying whether you think such borrowings were 
 necessary. f 
 
 4. How many sounds has the letter a in English? Quote ex- 
 amples. Point out that in some cases educated people differ as to the 
 pronunciation. 
 
 5. What are our commonest noun suffixes, and what force have 
 they ? Distinguish those of Teutonic from those of Romanic origin. 
 
 6. What is meant by the grammatical term " accidence " ? Explain 
 also the terms "case," "tense," "mood," "participle," "accent." 
 
 7. Mention some of the verbs that are called " anomalous," and 
 show why they are called so. To which conjugation belong work, 
 catch, hang, buy. do, strew? 
 
 8. Classify verbs according to their syntactical use as distinguished 
 from their flexional form. What do you understand by a verb " of 
 incomplete predication "? Mention some verbs that are used so, and 
 also as "of complete predication." 
 
 9. Write short sentences to show the various meanings of the 
 prepositions with, to, by. 
 
 10. How would you express the difference between conjunctions 
 and prepositions? Show that some conjunctions were originally 
 prepositions and that some still are so. 
 
 II. — Composition and Literature. 
 
 {Not more than three of these five questions are to be attempted.) 
 
 11. Define the term "metaphor." How does a metaphor differ 
 from a " simile " ? Why is it a fault in style to mix metaphors ? 
 
 12. Write to A. Teacher, Esq., a short letter in the third person 
 apologising, on the ground of ill-health, for your absence from lecture, 
 hoping to be quite regular in your attendance for the future, and 
 asking for information as to the work done during your absence, and 
 the work to be done next time. 
 
 13. State briefly the theme and name the author of each of the 
 following poems: — The Inchcape Rock, Lycidas, The Deserted 
 Village, Tithonus, Herv«^ Riel, The Lady of the Lake. 
 
 14. Who are our chief living historians, and what have they 
 written or are they writing ? Give some account of any one work by 
 any one of them. 
 
 15. Describe in ten octosyllabic couplets a sunrise or a sunset. 
 
EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 265 
 
 SET I. 
 
 N.B. — Candidates must not break up their answers into scattered 
 pieces. The answers to Group L must be kept distinct from those 
 to Group II. Great importance will be attached to clearness and 
 accuracy of expression and style. 
 
 I. — Language. 
 (Not more than seven of these ten questions are to be attempted.) 
 
 1. Define exactly the position of English in the Germanic family 
 of languages. 
 
 2. State what is meant by Grimm's and Venter's Laws. Give 
 examples. 
 
 3. Explain and illustrate what is meant by the terms analytic and 
 synthetic as applied to languages. 
 
 4. What is understood by phonetic spelling ? Can modern English 
 spelling be considered phonetic ? 
 
 5. Discuss the following forms : — songstress, brethren, alive, elder, 
 Lady-day, children, vixen, inmost, hearer, mtthinks. 
 
 6. Distinguish between the use of the gerund, the present participle, 
 and the verbal noun in -ing. 
 
 7. How does the relative that differ in use from who, which 1 
 When can the relative be omitted in modern English ? 
 
 8. Explain exactly the use of the various tenses of the active voice 
 in English (both the simple tenses and those formed with the auxiliaries 
 have and be). Is it correct to say, "Spain has founded a mighty 
 colonial empire " ? 
 
 9. Define an adverb, and state how adverbs may be classed. Give 
 the rules regulating the position of the adverb. 
 
 10. Analyse : — 
 
 11 But where the path we walked began 
 To slant the fifth autumnal slope, 
 As we descended following Hope, 
 There sat the Shadow feared of man." 
 
 II.— Composition and Literature. 
 (Not more than three of these five questions are to be attempted.) 
 
 11. Define the terms allegory, antithesis, epigram, euphemism, 
 caesura, and assonance. 
 
 12. Give a very brief account of the life and works of two of the 
 following authors : — Shakespeare, Dryden, Pope, Goldsmith, Shelley. 
 
 13.. Say in what works six of the following persons aie to be found, 
 and sketch briefly their characters :— Jacques, Sir Anthony Absolute, 
 Mark Tapley, Polonius, Mr. Greatheart, Dandie Dinmont, Friday, 
 Dr. Primrose. 
 
 14. Give some account of any single poem by Wordsworth, Sir 
 Walter Scott, or Tennyson. 
 
 15. Write a short description of any place or building of historical 
 interest with which you are familiar. 
 
266 EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 
 
 TEACHERS' CERTIFICATE EXAMINATION.— FIRST 
 YEAR PAPERS (Men and Women). 
 
 SET A. 
 
 {Three hours allowed for this paper.) 
 
 Answer Question 1, and Jive others, of which two at least must be from those on 
 Milton's "Tractate." 
 
 If more than six questions are attempted, only the six answers coming first on the 
 paper will be revised. 
 
 English Language and Literature. 
 
 1. Analyse the following passage, and parse the words italicised: — 
 " Thus, Mr. Hartlib, you have a general view in writing, as your 
 
 desire was, of that which at several times I had discourst with you 
 concerning the best and noblest way of education j not beginning as 
 some have done from the cradle, which yet might be worth many 
 considerations, if brevity had not been my scope, many other circum- 
 stances also I could have mention'd, but this to such as have the 
 worth in them to make trial, for light and direction may be enough." 
 
 2. Write a short analysis of one of Gray's Odes, showing the 
 sequence and appropriateness of the thoughts expressed. 
 
 3. Write, in plain prose, the meaning of one of the following 
 extracts, adding a brief explanation of the allusions : — 
 
 (a) " Girt with many a baron bold 
 
 Sublime their starry fronts they rear ; 
 
 And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old 
 In bearded majesty, appear. 
 In the midst a form divine ! 
 Her eye proclaims her of the Briton Line : 
 Her lion-port, her awe-commanding face 
 Attemper'd sweet to virgin-grace." 
 
 (6) "Nor second He, that rode sublime 
 Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy 
 The secrets of the Abyss to spy : 
 
 He pass'd the flaming bounds of Space and Time : 
 The living Throne, the sapphire-blaze 
 Where angels tremble while they gaze, 
 He saw ; but blasted with excess of light, 
 Closed his eyes in endless night." 
 
 4. What is the meaning of "Ode," "Pindaric Ode," and "Elegy"? 
 Show that these names are properly given to such of Gray's poems 
 as are so called. Mention, if you can, examples of each kind from 
 other poets. 
 
 5. State why, in your opinion, Gray's ' ' Elegy written in a 
 Country Churchyard " should (or should not) be considered one of 
 the masterpieces of English lyrical poetry. 
 
EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 267 
 
 8. Explain the allusions in the following passages : — 
 
 (a) "Their scaly armour's Tyrian hue." 
 
 (b) "Till the sad Nine in Greece's evil hour 
 
 Left their Parnassus for the Latian plains. n 
 
 (c) " No dolphin came, no Nereid stirred." 
 
 (d) " And spare the meek usurper's holy head." 
 
 (e) "The Attic warbler pours her throat." 
 
 7. Explain the epithets in the following passages quoted from 
 the "Elegy" and discuss their suitability : — 
 
 Now fades the glimmering landscape from the sight. 
 
 And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds. 
 
 The inevitable hour. 
 
 Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault. 
 
 This pleasing anxious being. 
 
 The pangs of conscious truth. 
 
 The genial current of the soul. 
 
 8. What, in Milton's view, is the "end of learning"? Compare 
 with views advanced by other writers on Education. 
 
 9. By what means did Milton propose to avoid the reproach of 
 "learning mere words," and to secure the "universal insight into 
 things"? 
 
 10. What suggestions for the conduct of elementary schools can 
 be drawn from Milton's "Tractate," and what actual practices are 
 supported by Milton's authority? 
 
 1 1. Explain the following :— 
 
 (a) Many modern Janua's and Didactics. 
 
 (b) That aot of reason which in Ethicks is called Proairesis. 
 
 (c) The Institution of Physick. 
 
 (d) All our time from Lilly to the commencing, as they term 
 
 it, Master of Art. 
 
 (e) Their Academics and Lycaeum. 
 
 (/) Their empty and unrecrutible colonels. 
 (g) Pure trifling at Grammar and Sophistry. 
 
 Composition Subjects. 
 
 (One hour allowed.) 
 
 Write in plain prose a short essay on one of the following 
 subjects : — 
 
 (a) " Knowledge is proud that he has learn'd so much ; 
 
 Wisdom is humble that he knows no more." — Cowper. 
 
 (b) "Honest labour bears a lovely face." — Dekker. 
 
 (c) The pleasures of botanising. 
 
268 EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 
 
 SET B. 
 
 (Three hours allowed for this paper.) 
 
 Answer Question 1, and five others, of which two must be from the remaining 
 questions in Section I. and three from Section II. 
 
 Full marks are higher for Question 1 than for any other. 
 
 If more than six questions are attempted, only the six answers coming first on the 
 paper will be revised. 
 
 Section I. 
 
 1. Analyse the following passage, and parse the words italicised: — 
 " The ideas of goblins and sprites have really no more to do with 
 
 darkness than light ; yet let but a foolish maid inculcate these often 
 on the mind of a child, and raise them there together, possibly he 
 shall never be able to separate them again so long as he lives ; but 
 darkness shall ever afterwards bring with it those frightful ideas, 
 and they shall be so joined that he can no more bear the one than 
 the other." 
 
 2. Illustrate the various uses of the infinitive form of the verb 
 in English. 
 
 3. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of a tabular form 
 for analysis of sentences. 
 
 4. Note some changes in idiom and the meaning of words used 
 which have occurred since the Authorised Version of the Bible was 
 issued. 
 
 5. What has been the influence of false analogy in the formation 
 of words ? Illustrate from the history of the English language. 
 
 6. Give examples of "doublets" in English, i.e. words which 
 may be traced to the same original but have now different forms. 
 Explain how they came into existence. 
 
 Section II (The Spectator and Tennyson.) 
 
 7. Write brief explanatory notes on the following: — 
 
 (a) " Orestes, in his madness, looked as if he saw something." 
 
 (b) "The good knight told me my good friend, his chaplain, 
 
 was very well . . . and that the Sunday before he had 
 made a most incomparable sermon out of Dr. Barrow." 
 
 (c) "He looked upon Prince Eugenio (for so the knight always 
 
 called him) to be a greater man than Scanderbeg." 
 
 {d) " I could wish our Royal Society would compile a body of 
 natural history, the best that could be gathered together 
 from books and observations. M 
 
 (e) "I must not omit that Sir Roger is a justice of the quorum ; 
 that he fills the chair at a quarter session with great 
 abilities." 
 
 8. Sketch the characters of Will Wimble and the chaplain ; or, 
 write a short summary of the " Scene in a Stage Coach." 
 
EXAMINATION QUESTIONS 268(a) 
 
 9. " Addison shows in Sir Roger the solid and peculiar English 
 character. ... A hundred traits depict the times." Expand and 
 illustrate this criticism. 
 
 10. Illustrate, from the "Selections," Tennyson's precise observa- 
 tion of nature. 
 
 11. Write notes upon the following passages : — 
 
 (a) " Heaven heads the count of crimes 
 
 With that wild oath." 
 
 (b) "Or mythic Uther's deeply- wounded son." 
 
 (c) "The shrilly whinnyings of the team of Hell." 
 
 (d) " Again their ravening eagle rose 
 In anger, wheeled on Europe-shadowing wings, 
 And barking for the thrones of kings." 
 
 (e) " Like Herod, when the shout was in his ears, 
 
 Struck thro' with pangs of Hell." 
 
 (/) "The Abominable, that uninvited came 
 Into the fair Peleian banquet-hall, 
 
 And cast the golden fruit upon the board." 
 
 12. How far were Tennyson's religious ideas characteristic of his 
 age and country ? 
 
 SET C. 
 
 (Three hours allowed for this paper.) 
 
 Answer Question 1 and five others, of which two must be taken from the remaining 
 questions in Section I. and three from Section II. Full marks are higher for 
 Question 1 than for any other. If more than six questions are attempted, only the 
 tix answers coming first on your paper will be revised. 
 
 Section I. 
 
 1. Analyse the following passage, and parse the words in italics : — 
 " He was proud, when I praised ; he was submissive, when I 
 
 reproved him; but he did never love me, and what he now mistakes 
 for justice and kindness for me, is but the pleasant sensation which 
 all persons feel at revisiting the scenes of their boyish hopes and 
 fears ; and the seeing on equal terms the man they were accustomed to 
 look up to with reverence." 
 
 2. During what periods were French words introduced into our 
 language? Give examples of the words introduced at the different 
 periods. 
 
 3. Write a short summary of Grimm's Law. 
 
 4. Give instances of words of Keltic and Scandinavian origin which 
 are still in use. 
 
 5. Illustrate the imperfections of the English alphabet. 
 
 Sbction II. 
 
 6. What conclusions about his political views would you draw from 
 Wordsworth's poems ? 
 
268(b) EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 
 
 7. Account for and illustrate the simplicity of Wordsworth's 
 delineation of Nature ; or 
 
 Describe with illustrations from his poems, Wordsworth's views 
 of the relation between man and nature. 
 
 8. Give examples of the humour and pathos of the "Essays of 
 Elia." 
 
 9. State and discuss Lamb's views on "Modern Gallantry." 
 
 10. Compare Lamb's "New Schoolmaster" with the teacher of 
 to-day. 
 
 11. Annotate these passages : — 
 
 (a) " Great is thy name in the rubric, thou venerable Archflamen 
 of Hymen." 
 
 (6) "Lear, thrown from his palace, must divest him of his 
 garments, till he answer ' mere nature.' " 
 
 (c) " His Minerva is born in panoply." 
 
 (d) " The Carthusian is bound to his brethren by this agreeing 
 
 spirit of incommunicativeness." 
 
 (e) "Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year." 
 
 (/) "Upon the side 
 
 Of Hellespont (such faith was entertained) 
 
 A knot of spiry trees for ages grew 
 
 From out the tomb of him for whom she died." 
 
 (g) " What Horace gloried to behold, 
 
 What Maro loved, shall we unfold ? 
 Can naughty Time be just ? " 
 
 (h) "They dreamt of a perishable home 
 Who thus could build." 
 
 SET D. 
 
 (Three hours allowed for this paper.) 
 
 Answer Question 1, and two other questions in Section I., and two questions 
 from each of the other Sections. 
 
 Section I. — English Language. 
 
 1. Analyse one of the following passages, and parse the words ic 
 italics in it : — 
 
 (a) " I do not, brother, 
 
 Infer as if I thought my sister's state 
 Secure without all doubt or controversy ; 
 Yet, where an equal poise of hope and fear 
 Does arbitrate the event, my nature is 
 That I incline to hope rather than fear 
 And gladly banish squint suspicion." 
 
EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 268(c) 
 
 (6) " We had not gone far, when Sir Roger, popping out his head, 
 called the coachman down from the box, and upon his 
 presenting himself at the window asked him if he smoked ; 
 as I was considering what this would end in, he bid him 
 stop by the way at any good tobacconist's, and take in a 
 roll of their best Virginia." 
 
 2. Write brief notes, giving illustrations, on the different uses of 
 the words both, only, like, what. 
 
 3. How are degrees of comparison formed ? Give six instances of 
 irregular comparison and account for the so-called irregularities. 
 
 4. To what group of languages does English belong, and to what 
 other language is it most nearly related ? 
 
 5. During what periods and by what influences were Latin words 
 introduced into English ? Give examples. 
 
 Section II. — Comus and Lycidas. 
 
 6. What were the two objects with which Lycidas was written! 
 What reference to current events does the poem contain? Why 
 does Milton speak of himself in it as a shepherd ? 
 
 7. What was the occasion of the writing of Comus? Describe the 
 last scene. 
 
 8. State what you consider the chief characteristics of Milton's 
 style, comparing it with that of any other English poet with whom you 
 are familiar. What is the metre chiefly used in these two poems ? 
 Illustrate your answer from the lines in the next question. 
 
 9. Comment shortly on the following passages, : — 
 
 (a) " Sisters of the sacred well 
 
 That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring." 
 
 (b) " For neither were ye playing on the steep 
 
 Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie, 
 Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high." 
 
 (c) " Yet some there be that by due steps aspire 
 
 To lay their just hands on the golden key 
 That opes the palace of eternity. " 
 
 (d) " The grey hooded even, 
 Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed, 
 
 Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain." 
 
 Section III. — Selections from Addison. 
 
 10. When, and for how long, did the Spectator appear ? To what 
 other periodicals did Addison contribute, and who was his chief 
 associate ? 
 
 11. Describe either : — 
 
 (a) Sir Roger de Coverley ; or 
 
 (b) Will Wimble ; or 
 
 (c) Tom Folio. 
 
268(d) EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 
 
 12. When we cease to study Addison as a statesman or a critic, 
 as a theologian or a moralist, what of him remains ? 
 
 13. Give a short analysis of the essay entitled "The Vision of 
 Public Credit." Explain the political or other references in the two 
 " Dances of Apparitions." 
 
 SET E. 
 
 {Three hours allowed for this paper.) 
 
 Answer Question 1, and two other questions from Section I., and two questions from 
 each of the other Sections. 
 
 If more than seven questions as prescribed are attempted, only the prescribed 
 number of answers in each Section coming first on your paper will be revised. 
 
 Section I.— English Language. 
 
 1. Analyse the words in brackets and parse the words in italics in 
 one of the following passages : — 
 
 (a) (" On superior powers 
 
 Were we to press, inferior might on ours ; 
 
 Or in the full creation leave a void 
 
 Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroyed.) 
 
 From nature's chain whatever link you strike, 
 
 Tenth, o» ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike." 
 
 (o) {** Many politicians of our own time are in the habit of 
 laying it down as a self-evident proposition, that no 
 people ought to be free till they are fit to use their free- 
 dom.) The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, 
 who resolved not to go into the water till he had learnt 
 to swim." 
 
 2. As what parts of speech can these words be used :^but, only, 
 what ? Give examples. 
 
 3. Account for the following double forms : — regal, royal ; garner, 
 granary ; fidelity, fealty ; pursue, persecute ; benediction, benison. 
 
 4.*** The troops were far from exhausted. " 
 
 " The troops were far from being exhausted." 
 
 What is the precise meaning of the above statements? Parse the 
 words in italics in each case. 
 
 5. How far is it true to say that English is not an inflected 
 language ? What traces are there of its having formerly been more 
 inflected ? 
 
 Section II. — Pope, Essay on Man, 1 and 2. 
 
 1. Thoroughly explain, with reference to the context in which they 
 occur, the following passages : — 
 
EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 268(e) 
 
 (a) " Reason the bias turns to good from ill, 
 
 And Nero reigns a Titus, if he will. " 
 
 (b) " Say what the use, were finer optics given, 
 
 To inspect a mite, not comprehend the heaven ? 
 Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er, 
 To smart and agonise at every pore?" 
 
 (c) " With too much knowledge for the sceptic side, 
 
 With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride." 
 
 (d) " If plagues or earthquakes break not heaven's design, 
 
 Why then a Borgia or a Catiline ? " 
 
 2. Give, in plain prose, the meaning of the following passage : — 
 
 " Lo, the poor Indian ! whose untutor'd mind 
 Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind ; 
 His soul proud science never taught to stray 
 Far as the solar walk, or milky way ; 
 Yet simple nature to his hope has given, 
 Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heav'n ; 
 Some safer world in depth of woods embrac'd, 
 Some happier island in the wat'ry waste, 
 Where slaves once more their native land behold, 
 No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold. 
 To be, conteuts his natural desire, 
 He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire ; 
 But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, 
 His faithful dog shall bear him company." 
 
 3. Enunciate briefly the main thesis of the Essay on Man. From 
 whom did Pope derive his philosophy ? 
 
 4. What, according to Pope, are the two great principles in 
 human nature ? Which is the stronger, and why ? 
 
 Section III. — Macaulay's Essay on Milton, and Johnson's 
 Life of Milton. 
 
 1. Give the chief points of Macaulay's comparison of Milton and 
 Dante. 
 
 2. Give the substance of Johnson's criticism on Lyculas. How 
 far do you think it just? 
 
 3. " We .think that as civilisation advances, poetry almost neces- 
 sarily declines. n How does Macaulay argue in favour of this proposi- 
 tion ? Why do you think Milton himself said "he had been born 
 an age too late " ? 
 
 4. Point out how Johnson's political and religious opinions in- 
 fluenced his estimate of Milton. 
 
268(f) EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 
 
 TEACHEES' CERTIFICATE EXAMINATION— SECOND 
 YEAR PAPERS (Men and Women). 
 
 SET A. 
 
 {Three hours allowed for this Paper.) 
 
 Candidates must not answer more than six questions. 
 
 If more than the prescribed number of questions are attempted, only that number 
 of answers coming first on the paper will be revised. 
 
 English Language and Literature. 
 
 1. Analyse the following lines, and parse fully the words itali- 
 cised : — 
 
 u Aumerle, thou weep'st, my tender-hearted cousin ! 
 We '11 make foul weather with despised tears ; 
 Our sighs and they shall lodge the summer corn, 
 And make a dearth in this revolting land. 
 Or shall we play the wantons with our woes, 
 And make some pretty match with shedding tears ? 
 As thus, to drop them still upon one place, 
 Till they have fretted us a pair of graves 
 "Within the earth ; and, therein laid — There lies 
 Two kinsmen digged their graves with weeping eyes ! " 
 
 2. Illustrate from the play of Richard II. tbe manner in which 
 Shakespeare treated his authorities in composing his dramas. 
 
 3. Comment upon the language of the following lines : — 
 (a) "Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle." 
 
 (&) " Tell me ... if he appeal the Duke on ancient malice." 
 
 (c) " Such neighbour nearness to our sacred blood 
 Should nothing privilege him, nor partialise 
 The unstooping firmness of my upright soul." 
 
 (d) "I did confess it, and exactly begg'd 
 
 Your grace's pardon, and I hope I had it." 
 
 (e) " Norfolk, throw down, we bid ; there is no boot." 
 
 (/) " We cannot atone you." 
 
 (g) " Reproach and dissolution hangeth over him." 
 
 (h) M And yet my letters-patents gave me leave." 
 
 4. Explain : — 
 
 (a) " If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights, 
 Call in the letters-patents that he hath 
 By his attorneys-general to sue 
 His livery, and deny bis offer'd homage, 
 You pluck a thousand dangers on your head. " 
 
EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 268(g) 
 
 (6) " Whilst you have fed upon my signories, 
 
 Dispark'd my parka and felled my forest-woods, 
 From my own windows torn my household coat, 
 Razed out my impress, leaving me no sign, 
 Save men's opinions and my living blood, 
 To show the v orld I am a gentleman." 
 
 (c) " good ! convey ? conveyers are you all, 
 
 That rise thus nimbly by a true king's falL" 
 
 (d) u Our scene is altered from a serious thing, 
 
 And now changed to ' The Beggar and the King.' " 
 
 (e) "These signs forerun the death or fall of kings." 
 (/) " The caterpillars of the commonwealth." 
 
 5. Analyse the character of Bolingbroke, or of the Duke of York, 
 as depicted by Shakespeare. 
 
 6. Discuss Shakespeare's use of the supernatural in The Tempest 
 and Macbeth. 
 
 7. Trace in outline the development of Macbeth's character, or 
 discuss the date of the composition of The Tempest. 
 
 8. Write in plain prose the meaning of one of the following extracts 
 from Gray, adding a brief explanation of the allusions : — 
 
 (a) "Girt with many a baron bold 
 
 Sublime their starry fronts they rear ; 
 
 And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old 
 In bearded majesty, appear. 
 In the midst a form divine ! 
 Her eye proclaims her of the Briton line : 
 Her lion-port, her awe-commanding face 
 Attemper'd sweet to virgin-grace." 
 
 (6) " Now second He, that rode sublime 
 
 Upon the seraph- wings of Ecstasy 
 The secrets of the Abyss to spy : 
 
 He pass'd the naming bounds of Space and Time : 
 The living Throne, the sapphire blaze 
 Where angels tremble while they gaze, 
 He saw ; but blasted with excess of light, 
 Closed his eyes in endless night." 
 
 9. A critic of some renown says of Gray and the poets of his time : 
 11 They were nearly all . . . lovers of abstraction and allegory, who, 
 to attain greatness, willingly mounted on stilts." How far, in your 
 opinion, is this criticism true of Gray ? 
 
 10. Explain the allusions in the following passages. Say whether 
 in your opinion Gray has passed the limits within which allusion is 
 legitimately confined : — 
 
 (a) "Their scaly armour's Tyrian hue." 
 (6) " Till the sad Nine in Greece's evil hour 
 
 Left their Parnassus for the Latian plains." 
 
 (c) " No dolphin came, no Nereid stirred." 
 
 (d) " And spare the meek usurper's holy head." 
 
 (e) '* The Attic warbler pours her throat." 
 
268(h) EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 
 
 Composition Subjects. 
 
 (One hour allowed.) 
 
 Write in plain prose a short essay on one of the following 
 subjects : — : 
 
 (a) " What should they know of England who only England 
 know ? " — Kipling. 
 
 (b) The spread of the English language. 
 
 (c) " Take a straw and throw it up into the air ; you may see by 
 that which way the wind is." — Selden. 
 
 SET B. 
 
 (Three hours allowed for this paper.) 
 
 Candidates must not answer more than six questions, which must include 
 Questions 1, 6, and at least one question from the last four. 
 
 If more than the prescribed number of questions are attempted, only that number 
 of answers coming first on your paper will be revised. 
 
 1. Analyse the following passage, and parse the words in italics : — 
 
 " Macd. What 's the disease he means ? 
 Male. 'Tis called the evil : 
 
 A most miraculous work in this good king ; 
 Which often, since my here-remain in England, 
 I have seen him do. How he solicits Heaven, 
 Himself best knows : but strangely-visited people, 
 All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye, 
 The mere despair of surgery, he cures, 
 Hanging a golden stamp about their necks, 
 Put on with holy prayers : and 'tis spoken, 
 To the succeeding royalty he leaves 
 The healing benediction." 
 
 2. What reasons are there for the theory that the play of Macbeth, 
 as we have it, is not all of Shakespeare's composition ? 
 
 3. Analyse the character of Lady Macbeth, and bring out the con- 
 trast between it and the character of her husband. 
 
 4. Explain the following three passages in the light of the different 
 theories concerning the nature of the witches in Macbeth : — 
 
 (a) "First Witch. Where hast thou been, sister ? 
 Second Witch. Killing swine." 
 
 (6) " All hail, Macbeth ! that shalt be king hereafter." 
 
 (c) " Hecate. 0, well done ! I commend your pains ; 
 And every one shall share i' the gains." 
 
 5. Give the full meaning of three of the following passages, bring- 
 ing out the force of the metaphor. Say also by whom and when the 
 words were uttered : — 
 
EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 268(i) 
 
 (o) "Two truths are told, 
 
 As happy prologues to the swelling act 
 Of the imperial theme." 
 
 (b) "If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well 
 
 It were done quickly ; if the assassination 
 Could trammel up the consequence, and catch, 
 With his surcease, success." 
 
 (c) " From this instant 
 There 's nothing serious in mortality : 
 
 All is but toys : renown and grace is dead ; 
 The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees 
 Is left this vault to brag of." 
 
 (d) "Then comes my fit again; I had else been perfect, 
 
 Whole as the marble, founded as the rock, 
 
 As broad and general as the casing air ; 
 
 But now I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confined, bound in 
 
 To saucy doubts and fears." 
 
 6. Set out briefly the various threads in the plot of the Merchant 
 of Venice, and show how they are connected. 
 
 7. What is a simile ? Give examples of similes from " The Coming 
 of Arthur" and "The Passing of Arthur," and carefully analyse one 
 of them, criticising its appropriateness. 
 
 8. Explain the allusions in the following passages : — 
 
 (a) " The sunset bound of Lyonnesse — 
 
 A land of old upheaven from the abyss 
 By fire, to sink into the abyss again." 
 
 (&) " King Arthur's sword, Excalibur, 
 
 Wrought by the lonely maiden of the lake. 
 Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deep 
 Upon the hidden bases of the hills." 
 
 (c) " The island-valley of Avilion." 
 
 (d) " Whereat the two, 
 For each had warded either in the fight, 
 Sware on the field of death a deathless love." 
 
 («) " The swallow and the swift are near akin, 
 But thou art closer to this noble prince, 
 Being his own dear sister." 
 
 (/) " And there I saw Mage Merlin, whose vast wit 
 And hundred winters are but as the hands 
 Of loyal vassals toiling for their liege. " 
 
 (g) " He laugh'd as is his wont, and answer'd me 
 In riddling triplets of old time, and said." 
 
 (h) " There at the banquet those great lords from Rome, 
 The slowly-fading mistress of the world, 
 Strode in, and claim'd their tribute as of yore." 
 
268(j) EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 
 
 9. "'0 King !' she cried, ' and I will tell thee true : 
 
 He found me first, when j r et a little maid : 
 
 Beaten I had been for a little fault 
 
 Whereof I was not guilty ; and out I ran 
 
 And flung myself down on a bank of heath, 
 
 And hated this fair world and all therein, 
 
 And wept, and wish'd that I were dead ; and he — 
 
 I know not whether of himself he came, 
 
 Or brought by Merlin, who, they say, can walk 
 
 Unseen at pleasure — he was at my side, 
 
 And spake sweet words, and comforted my heart, 
 
 And dried my tears, being a child with me. 
 
 And many a time he came, and evermore 
 
 As I grew greater, grew with me ; and sad 
 
 At times he seem'd, and sad with him was I. ' " 
 
 Explain by reference to these lines the metre of Tennyson's epic 
 poems. Comment on any variety of rhythm which is introduced; 
 compare with the blank verse of Macbeth. 
 
 10. How far is "sense at war with soul" the subject of the two 
 poems of Tennyson you have studied ? 
 
 SET C. 
 
 (Three hours allowed for this paper.) 
 
 Candidates must not answer more than six questions, which must include two 
 questions from each Section. If more than the prescribed number of questions 
 are attempted, only that number of answers coming first on your paper will be 
 revised. 
 
 Section I. — Hamlet. 
 
 1. Show the relation between the various clauses in the following 
 passage, and parse the italicised words : — 
 
 " Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, 
 But not cxpress'd in fancy ; rich, not gaudy ; 
 For tho apparel oft proclaims the man, 
 And they in France of the best rank and station 
 Are most Select and generous, chief in that. 
 Neither a borrower nor a lender be ; 
 For loan oft loses both itself and friend, 
 And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. 
 This above all : to thine own self be true, 
 And it must follow, as the night the day, 
 Thou canst not then be false to any man." 
 
 2. Discuss the question of Hamlet's sanity. 
 
 3. Sketch the character of Polonius. 
 
 4. Write full notes upon two of the following extracts : — 
 
 (a) " Her obsequies have been as far enlarged 
 
 As we have warranty ; her death was doubtful ; 
 
EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 268(k) 
 
 And, but that great command o'ersways the order, 
 She should in ground unsanetified have lodged 
 Till the last trumpet ; for charitable prayers, 
 Shards, flints and pebbles should be thrown on her * 
 Yet here she is allowed her virgin crants, 
 Her maiden strewments and the bringing home 
 Of bell and burial." 
 
 (b) " That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat, 
 
 Of habits devil, is angel yet in this, 
 
 That to the use of actions fair and good 
 
 He likewise gives a frock or livery, 
 
 That aptly is put on. 
 
 For use almost can change the stamp of nature, 
 
 And either master the devil or throw him out 
 
 With wondrous potency." 
 
 (c) " In the corrupted currents of this world 
 
 Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice, 
 And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself 
 Buys out the law : but 'tis not so above ; 
 There is no shuffling, there the action lies 
 In his true nature ; and we ourselves compell'd, 
 Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, 
 To give in evidence." 
 
 Section II. — Arnold's Wordsworth. 
 
 5. In what poetical qualities was Wordsworth specially eminent? 
 Illustrate your answer by quotation. 
 
 6. What ideas does Wordsworth express regarding (a) childhood, 
 (b) freedom, (c) duty, and (d) religion? 
 
 7. Explain the allusions in the following passages : — 
 
 (a) " To the wide church door, 
 
 Charged with these offerings which thy fathers bore 
 
 For decoration in the Papal time, 
 
 The innocent procession softly moves : — 
 
 The spirit of Laud is pleased in heaven's pure clime, 
 
 And Hooker's voice the spectacle approves." 
 
 (6) " Left single, in bold parley, ye, of yore, 
 
 Did from the Norman win a gallant wreath ; 
 Confirmed the charters that were yours before ; — 
 No parleying now." 
 
 (c) M Thou knowest, the Delphic oracle foretold 
 
 That the first Greek who touched the Trojan strand 
 Should die. " 
 
 (d) " Such was blind 
 Maeonides of ample mind ; 
 
 Such Milton, to the fountain head 
 Of glory, by Urania led ! " 
 
268(1) EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 
 
 (e) "Toussaint, the most unhappy man of men !" 
 
 (/) " Be true 
 
 Ye winds of ocean, and the midland sea, 
 Wafting your charge to soft Parthenope." 
 
 Section III. — Midsummer Night's Dream. 
 
 8. Account for the title, A Midsummer Night's Dream. 
 
 9. The fairy mythology of Shakespeare has been described as an 
 attempt to blend " the Elves of the village with the Fays of 
 romance." Comment on this statement. 
 
 10. Give the cast of " The most lamentable comedy of Pyramus and 
 Thisbe." How were the difficulties of scenery overcome ? 
 
 SET D. 
 
 ( Three hours allowed for this paper.) 
 
 Candidates must not answer more than six questions, which must include one from 
 each Section. 
 
 If more than six questions are attempted, only the six answers coming first on your 
 paper will be revised. 
 
 Section I. — King Lear. 
 
 1. (a) Divide the following passages into clauses, and show their 
 relationship to each other. 
 
 (b) Give a detailed analysis of "Those happy smilets — diamondp 
 dropped. " 
 
 (c) Parse the words in italics. 
 
 " Patience and sorrow strove 
 Who should express her goodliest. You have seen 
 Sunshine and rain at once : her smiles and tears 
 Were like a better way. Those happy smilets 
 That played on her ripe lip, seemed not to know 
 What quests were in her eyes ; which parted them 
 As pearls from diamonds dropped. In brief 
 Sorrow would be a rarity most beloved 
 If all could so become it." 
 
 2. Trace the development of Lear's madness, showing what stages 
 in it are indicated by the following utterances : — 
 
 " Hysterica passio, down, thou climbing sorrow ! " 
 " Oh, that way madness lies ; let me shun that." 
 M What, have his daughters brought him to this pass ? " 
 " Off, off you lendings ! Come, unbutton here." 
 
 " As I am a man, I think this lady 
 To be my child Cordelia." 
 
 3. Explain the following : — 
 
 (a) "Is it but this, a tardiness in nature, 
 
 Which often leaves the history un spoke 
 That it intends to do?" 
 
EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 268(in) 
 
 (6) " Let the great gods, 
 
 That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads, 
 Find out their enemies now." 
 
 (c) " Thou simular man of virtue." 
 
 (d) " The fishermen that walk upon the beach 
 
 Appear like mice." 
 
 (e) " The wheel is come full circle." 
 
 4. Paraphrase the following passage fully in simple prose : — 
 
 ** There is division, 
 Although as yet the face of it be covered 
 With mutual cunning, 'twixt Albany and Cornwall, 
 Who have — as who have not, that their great stars 
 Throned and set on high ? Servants, who seem no less, 
 Which are to France the spies and speculations 
 Intelligent of our state ; what hath been seen, 
 Either in snuffs and packings of the dukes, 
 Or the hard rein which both of them have borne 
 Against the old kind King ; or something deeper, 
 Whereof perchance these are but furnishings ; 
 But true it is, from France there comes a power 
 Into this scattered Kingdom ; who already, 
 Wise in our negligence have secret feet 
 In some of our best ports, and are at point 
 To show their open banner." 
 
 Suction II. — Selections from Addison. 
 
 5. Analyse the following passage, and parse the words in italics : — 
 "There are some opinions in which a man should stand neuter t 
 
 without engaging his assent to one side or the other. Such a hovering 
 faith as this, which refuses to setth upon any determination, is abso- 
 lutely necessary in a mind that is careful to avoid errors and pre- 
 possession. When the arguments press equally on both sides in 
 matters that are indifferent to us, the safest method is to give up 
 ourselves to neither." 
 
 6. What does Addison himself state to be " the great aim of these 
 my speculations" ? Consider this in relation to the tendencies of the 
 age in which he lived. 
 
 7. What persons, or class of persons, are depicted under the name 
 of Tom Folio, the Political Upholsterer, the Trunkmaker at the Play, 
 Will Honeycourt? Give a brief summary of Addison's description 
 of one of them. 
 
 8. Give a short sketch of any one of the Essays which you 
 remember. 
 
 Section III. — As You Like It. 
 
 9. To what period of Shakespeare's literary career does As You 
 Like It belong? Give reasons for your answer. From where did 
 Shakespeare obtain the story t 
 
268(n) EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 
 
 10. Describe either the last scene of As You Like It, or the scene 
 in which Orlando appears before the Duke and his Lords in the 
 Forest. 
 
 11. Sketch the character of Jacques, referring to passages of the 
 play in support of your statements. 
 
 12. Compare Rosalind with any other of Shakespeare's heroines. 
 
 SET E. 
 
 (Three hours allowed for this paper.) 
 
 Candidates must not answer more than six questions, which must include one from 
 each Section. 
 
 If more than six questions are attempted, only the six answers coming first on 
 your paper will be revised. 
 
 Section I. — King Henry VIII. 
 
 1. Explain, as to a class, any difficulties of expression in three only 
 of the four following extracts, briefly noting the context in which 
 they occur : — 
 
 (a) " I have been begging sixteen years in court, 
 Am yet a courtier beggarly, nor could 
 Come pat betwixt too early and too late 
 For any suit of pounds. " 
 
 (6) " If he know 
 
 That I am free of your report, he knows 
 I am not of your wrong." 
 
 (c) "The question did at first so stagger me, 
 
 Bearing a state of mighty moment in 't 
 And consequence of dread, that I committed 
 The daring'st counsel which I had to doubt." 
 
 (d) "You have scarce time 
 To steal from spiritual leisure a brief span 
 To keep your earthly audit ; sure, in that 
 I deem you an ill husband, and am glad 
 To have you therein my companion." 
 
 2. Explain the following passages : — 
 
 (a) " To-day the French 
 
 All clinquant, all in gold, like heathen gods 
 Shone down the English ; and, to-morrow, they 
 Made Britain India. " 
 
 (b) "Out of mere ambition you have caused 
 
 Your holy hat to be stamped on the king's coin." 
 
 (c) "But as when 
 
 The bird of wonder dies, the maiden Phoenix, 
 
 Her ashes new create another heir, 
 
 As great in admiration as herself ; 
 
 So shall she leave her blessedness to one." 
 
 3. Briefly describe, as presented in this play, the character of 
 Wolsey, or of King Henry vni. 
 
EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 268(o) 
 
 Section II. — Paradise Lost, Books I. and n. 
 
 1. Explain, with reference to the context in which they occur, 
 with brief notes on any point which seems to you to require it, the 
 following passages : — 
 
 (a) " All is not lost — the unconquerable will 
 And study of revenge, immortal hate 
 And courage never to submit or yield : 
 And what is else not to be overcome." 
 
 (6) " Our torments also, may in length of time 
 Become our elements, these piercing fires 
 As soft as now severe, our temper changed 
 Into their temper, which must needs remove 
 The sensible of pain." 
 
 (c) " Direct my course : 
 
 Directed, no mean recompense it brings 
 To your behoof, if I that region lost, 
 All usurpation thence expelled, reduce 
 To her original darkness and your sway." 
 
 2. Explain the following passages : — 
 
 (a) " When with fierce winds Orion armed 
 
 Hath vexed the Red Sea Coast, whose waves o'erthrew 
 Busiris and his Memphian chivalry." 
 
 (b) " A leper once he lost and gained a king." 
 
 (c) " Or whom Biserta sent from Afric' shore 
 
 When Charlemain with all his peerage fell 
 By Fontarabbia." 
 
 (d) "Medusa, with Gorgonian terror guards 
 
 The ford, and of itself the water flies 
 In taste of living weight, as once it fled 
 The lip of Tantalus." 
 
 3. Compare the character of any one of the Spirits, as described in 
 Book i., with his speech given in Book n. 
 
 Section III. — The Tempest, and Leigh Hunt's Essays. 
 
 1. To what period of Shakespeare's life is The Tempest assigned, 
 and on what grounds ? Mention any historical allusions in the play. 
 
 2. What other plays belong to the same period ? State the charac- 
 teristics of the tone and feeling of these plays, as shown in The 
 Tempest. 
 
 3. Describe tht character of Prospero or Caliban. 
 
 4. Give a short account of Leigh Hunt's life. Who were his chief 
 literary friends and contemporaries ? 
 
 5. Give a sketch of the essay on M The Realities of the Imagination," 
 or on " Dreams." 
 
 6. What characteristic features of Leigh Hunt's work can be illus- 
 trated from the paper on u Tea-Drinking," or " Breakfast in Summer," 
 or " Shakespeare's Birthday " ? 
 
PART IIL 
 THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
271 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 1. Tongue, Speech, Language. — We speak of the "English 
 tongue" or of the "French language"; and we say of two 
 nations that they "do not understand each other's speech." 
 The existence of these three words — speech, tongue, language 
 — proves to us that a language is something spoken, — that it is 
 a number of sounds; and that the writing or printing of it 
 upon paper is a quite secondary matter. Language, rightly 
 considered, then, is an organised set of sounds. These 
 sounds convey a meaning from the mind of the speaker to 
 the mind of the hearer, and thus serve to connect man with 
 man 
 
 2. Written Language. — It took many hundreds of years— 
 perhaps thousands — before human beings were able to invent a 
 mode of writing upon paper — that is, of representing sounds 
 by signs. These signs are called letters ; and the whole set of 
 them goes by the name of the Alphabet — from the two first 
 letters of the Greek alphabet, which are called alpha, beta. 
 There are languages that have never been put upon paper at 
 all, such as many of the African languages, many in the South 
 Sea Islands, and other parts of the globe. But in all cases, 
 every language that we know anything about — English, Latin, 
 French, German — existed for hundreds of years before any one 
 thought of writing it down on paper. 
 
 3. A Language Grows. — A language is an organism or 
 organic existence. Now every organism lives; and, if it 
 lives, it grows ; and, if it grows, it also dies. Our language 
 grows ; it is growing still ; and it has been growing for many 
 
272 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 hundreds of years. As it grows it loses something, and it gains 
 something else ; it alters its appearance ; changes take place in 
 this part of it and in that part, — until at length its appearance 
 in age is something almost entirely different from what it was 
 in its early youth. If we had the photograph of a man of 
 forty, and the photograph of the same person when he was a 
 child of one, we should find, on comparing them, that it was 
 almost impossible to point to the smallest trace of likeness in 
 the features of the two photographs. And yet the two pictures 
 represent the same person. And so it is with the English 
 language. The oldest English, which is usually called Anglo- 
 Saxon, is as different from our modern English as if they were 
 two distinct languages ; and yet they are not two languages, but 
 really and fundamentally one and the same. Modern English 
 differs from the oldest English as a giant oak does from a small 
 oak sapling, or a broad stalwart man of forty does from a feeble 
 infant of a few months old. 
 
 4. The English Language. — The English language is the 
 speech spoken by the Anglo-Saxon race in England, in most- 
 parts of Scotland, in the larger part of Ireland, in the United 
 States, in Canada, in Australia and New Zealand, in South 
 Africa, and in many other parts of the world. In the middle 
 of the fifth century it was spoken by a few thousand men who 
 had lately landed in England from the Continent : it is now 
 spoken by about one hundred and fifty millions of people. In 
 the course of the next sixty years, it will probably be the speech 
 of three hundred millions. 
 
 5. English on the Continent. — In the middle of the fifth 
 century it was spoken in the north-west corner of Europe — 
 between the mouths of the Ehine, the Weser, and the Elbe j 
 and in Schleswig there is a small district which is called Angeln 
 to this day. But it was not then called English ; it was more 
 probably called Teutish, or Teutsch, or Deutsch — all words 
 connected with a generic word which covers many families and 
 languages — Teutonic. It was a rough guttural speech of one 
 or two thousand words; and it was brought over to this country 
 by the Jutes, Angles, and Saxons in the year 449. These 
 
INTRODUCTION. 273 
 
 men left their home on the Continent to find l^ere farms to till 
 and houses to live in ; and they drove the inhabitants of the 
 island — the Britons — ever farther and farther west, until they 
 at length left them in peace in the more mountainous parts of 
 the island — in the southern and western corners, in Cornwall 
 and in Wales. 
 
 6. The British Language. — What language did the Teutonic 
 conquerors, who wrested the lands from the poor Britons, find 
 spoken in this island when they first set foot on it? Not a 
 Teutonic speech at all. They found a language not one word of 
 which they could understand. The island itself was then called 
 Britain; and the tongue spoken in it belonged to the Keltic 
 group of languages. Languages belonging to the Keltic group 
 are still spoken in Wales, in Brittany (in France), in the High- 
 lands of Scotland, in the west of Ireland, and in the Isle of 
 Man. A few words — very few — from the speech of the Britons, 
 have come into our own English language ; and what these are 
 we shall see by-and-by. 
 
 7. The Family to which English belongs.— Our English 
 tongue belongs to the Aryan or Indo-European Family of 
 languages. That is to say, the main part or substance of it can 
 be traced back to the race which inhabited the high table-lands 
 that lie to the back of the western end of the great range of the 
 Himalaya, or "Abode of Snow." This Aryan race grew and 
 increased, and spread to the south and west ; and from it have 
 sprung languages which are now spoken in India, in Persia, in 
 Greece and Italy, in France and Germany, in Scandinavia, and 
 in Russia. From this Aryan family we are sprung ; out of the 
 oldest Aryan speech our own language has grown. 
 
 8. The Group to which English belongs. — The Indo- 
 European family of languages consists of several groups. One 
 of these is called the Teutonic Group, because it is spoken by 
 the Teuts (or the Teutonic race), who are found in Germany, 
 in England and Scotland, in Holland, in parts of Belgium, in 
 Denmark, in Norway and Sweden, in Iceland, and the Faroe 
 Islands. The Teutonic group consists of three branches — 
 High German, Low German, and Scandinavian. High 
 
274 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 German is the name given to the kind of German spoken in 
 Upper Germany — that is, in the table-land which lies south of 
 the river Main, and which rises gradually till it runs into the 
 Alps. New High German is the German of books — the 
 literary language — the German that is taught and learned in 
 schools. Low German is the name given to the German 
 dialects spoken in the lowlands — in the German part of the 
 Great Plain of Europe, and round the mouths of those German 
 rivers that flow into the Baltic and the North Sea. Scan- 
 dinavian is the name given to the languages spoken in 
 Denmark and in the great Scandinavian Peninsula. Of these 
 three languages, Danish and Norwegian are practically the same 
 — their literary or book-language is one ; while Swedish is very 
 different. Icelandic is the oldest and purest form of Scandina- 
 vian. The following is a table of the 
 
 GROUP OF TEUTONIC LANGUAGES. 
 
 TEUTONIC. 
 I 
 
 Low German. High German. Scandinavian. 
 
 I I I I III I I I I 
 
 Dutch. Flemish. Frisian. English. Old. Middle. New. Icelandic. Dansk Ferroic. Rvensk 
 
 (or Norsk). (Swedish}. 
 
 It will be observed, on looking at the above table, that High 
 German is subdivided according to time, but that the other 
 groups are subdivided according to space. 
 
 9. English a Low-German Speech. — Our English tongue is 
 the lowest of all Low-German dialects. Low German is the 
 German spoken in the lowlands of Germany. As we descend 
 the rivers, we come to the lowest level of all — the level of the 
 sea. Our English speech, once a mere dialect, came down to 
 that, crossed the German Ocean, and settled in Britain, to which 
 it gave in time the name of Angla-land or England. The Low 
 German spoken in the Netherlands is called Dutch ; the Low 
 German spoken in Eriesland — a prosperous province of Holland 
 — is called Frisian; and the Low German spoken in Great 
 Britain is called English. These three languages are extremely 
 like one another; but the Continental language that is likest 
 
INTRODUCTION. 275 
 
 the English is the Dutch or Hollandish dialect called Frisian. 
 We even possess a couplet, every word of which is both Eng- 
 lish and Frisian. It runs thus — 
 
 Good butter and good cheese 
 
 Is good English and good Fries. 
 
 10. Dutch and Welsh — a Contrast. — When the Teuton con- 
 querors came to this country, they called the Britons foreigners, 
 just as the Greeks called all other peoples besides themselves 
 barbarians. By this they did not at first mean that they were 
 uncivilised, but only that they were not Greeks. Now, the 
 Teutonic or Saxon or English name for foreigners was Wealhas, 
 a word afterwards contracted into Welsh. To this day the 
 modern Teuts or Teutons (or Germans, as we call them) call 
 all Frenchmen and Italians Welshmen; and, when a German 
 peasant crosses the border into France, he says : " I am going 
 into Welshland." 
 
 11. The Spread of English over Britain. — The Jutes, who 
 came from Juteland or Jylland — now called Jutland — settled in 
 Kent and in the Isle of Wight. The Saxons settled in the 
 south and western parts of England, and gave their names to 
 those kingdoms — now counties — whose names came to end in 
 sex. There was the kingdom of the East Saxons, or Essex ; 
 the kingdom of the West Saxons, or Wessex ; the kingdom of 
 the Middle Saxons, or Middlesex; and the kingdom of the 
 South Saxons, or Sussex. The Angles settled chiefly on the 
 east coast. The kingdom of East Anglia was divided into the 
 regions of the North Fofic and the South Folk, words which 
 are still perpetuated in the names Norfolk and Suffolk. These 
 three sets of Teutons all spoke different dialects of the same 
 Teutonic speech; and these dialects, with their differences, 
 peculiarities, and odd habits, took root in English soil, and 
 lived an independent life, apart from each other, uninfluenced 
 by ea^h other, for several hundreds of years. But, in the slow 
 course of time, they joined together to make up our beautiful 
 English language — a language which, however, still bears in 
 itself the traces of dialectic forms, and is in no respect of one 
 kind or of one fibre all through. 
 
276 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 THE PERI0D8 OF ENGLISH. 
 
 1. Dead and Living Languages. — A language is said to be 
 dead when it is no longer spoken. Such a language we know 
 only in books. Thus, Latin is a dead language, because no 
 nation anywhere now speaks it. A dead language can undergo 
 no change ; it remains, and must remain, as we find it written 
 in books. But a living language is always changing, just like 
 a tree or the human body. The human body has its periods or 
 stages. There is the period of infancy, the period of boyhood, 
 the period of manhood, and the period of old age. In the same 
 way, a language has its periods. 
 
 2. No Sudden Changes — a Caution. — We divide the Eng- 
 lish language into periods, and then mark, with some approach 
 to accuracy, certain distinct changes in the habits of our lan- 
 guage, in the inflexions of its words, in the kind of words it 
 preferred, or in the way it liked to put its words together. But 
 we must be carefully on our guard against fancying that, at any 
 given time or in any given year, the English people threw aside 
 one set of habits as regards language, and adopted another set. 
 It is not so, nor can it be so. The changes in language are as 
 gentle, gradual, and imperceptible as the changes in the growth 
 of a tree or in the skin of the human body. We renew our 
 skin slowly and gradually ; but we are never conscious of the 
 process, nor can we say at any given time that we have got a 
 completely new skin. 
 
THE PERIODS OF ENGLISH. 277 
 
 3. The Periods of English. — Bearing this caution in mind, 
 we can go on to look at the chief periods in our English lan- 
 guage. These are five in number ; and they are as follows : — 
 
 L Ancient English or Anglo-Saxon, . 449-1100 
 
 II. Early English, .... 1100-1250 
 
 III. Middle English, . .. . . 1250-1485 
 
 IV. Tudor English, 1485-1603 
 
 V. Modern English, . . . 1603-19— 
 
 These periods merge very slowly, or are shaded off, so to speak, 
 into each other in the most gradual way. If we take the Eng- 
 lish of 1250 and compare it with that of 900, we shall find a 
 great difference ; but if we compare it with the English of 1100 
 the difference is not so marked. The difference between the 
 English of the nineteenth and the English of the fourteenth 
 century is very great, but the difference between the English of 
 the fourteenth and that of the thirteenth century is very small. 
 
 4. Ancient EngHsh or Anglo-Saxon, 450-1100. — This form of 
 English differed from modern English in having a much largei 
 number of inflexions. The noun had five cases, and there were 
 several declensions, just as in Latin ; adjectives were declined, 
 and had three genders ; some pronouns had a dual as well as a 
 plural number ; and the verb had a much larger number of inflex- 
 ions than it has now. The vocabulary of the language con- 
 tained very few foreign elements. The poetry of the language 
 employed head-rhyme or alliteration, and not end-rhyme, as we 
 do now. The works of the poet Caedmon and the great prose- 
 writer King Alfred belong to this Anglo-Saxon period. 
 
 5. Early English, 1100-1250. — The coming of the Normans in 
 1066 made many changes in the land, many changes in the 
 Church and in the State, and it also introduced many changes 
 into the language. The inflexions of our speech began to drop 
 off, because they were used less and less ; and though we never 
 adopted new inflexions from French or from any other language, 
 new French words began to creep in. In some parts of the 
 country English had ceased to be written in books; the lan- 
 guage existed as a spoken language only ; and hence accuracy 
 in the use of words and the inflexions of words could not be 
 
278 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 ensured. Two notable books — written, not printed, for there 
 was no printing in this island till the year 1474 — belong to this 
 period. These are the Ormulum, by Orm or Ormin, and the 
 Brut, by a monk called Layamon or Laweman. The latter 
 tells the story of Brutus, who was believed to have been the son 
 of iEneas of Troy ; to have escaped after the downfall of that 
 city; to have sailed through the Mediterranean, ever farthei 
 and farther to the west ; to have landed in Britain, settled 
 here, and given the country its name. 
 
 6. Middle English, 1250-1485.— Most of the inflexions of 
 nouns and adjectives have in this period — between the middle 
 of the thirteenth and the end of the fifteenth century — com- 
 pletely disappeared. The inflexions of verbs are also greatly 
 reduced in number. The strong 1 mode of inflexion has ceased 
 to be employed for verbs that are new-comers, and the weak 
 mode has been adopted in its place. During the earlier part of 
 this period, even country-people tried to speak French, and 
 in this and other modes many French words found their 
 way into English. A writer of the fourteenth century, John 
 de Trevisa, says that country-people "fondeth [that is, try] 
 •with great bysynes for to speke Freynsch for to be more y-told 
 of." The country-people did not succeed very well, as the 
 ordinary proverb shows : " Jack would be a gentleman if he 
 could speak French." Boys at school were expected to turn 
 their Latin into French, and in the courts of law French 
 only was allowed to be spoken. But in 1362 Edward III. 
 gave his assent to an Act of Parliament allowing English to 
 be used instead of Norman-French. " The yer of oure Lord," 
 says John de Trevisa, "a thousond thre hondred foure score 
 and fyve of the secunde Kyng Bichard after the conquest, in al 
 the gramer scoles of Engelond children leveth Freynsch, and 
 construeth and lerneth an Englysch." To the first half of this 
 period belong a Metrical Chronicle, attributed to Robert of 
 Gloucester; Langtoft's Metrical Chronicle, translated by 
 Robert de Brunne ; the Agenbite of Inwit, by Dan Michel 
 of Xorthgate in Kent ; and a few others. But to the second 
 i Se* p. 43. 
 
THE PERIODS OF ENGLISH. 279 
 
 half belong the rich and varied productions of Geoffrey Chaucer, 
 our first great poet and always one of our greatest writers ; the 
 alliterative poems of William Langley or Langlande; the 
 more learned poems of John G-ower; and the translation of 
 the Bible and theological works of the reformer John "Wyclif. 
 
 7. Tudor English, 1485-1603. — Before the end of the sixteenth 
 century almost all our inflexions had disappeared. The great 
 dramatist Ben Jonson (1574-1637) laments the loss of the plural 
 ending en for verbs, because wenten and hopen were much more 
 musical and more useful in verse than went or hope; but its 
 recovery was already past praying for. This period is remark- 
 able for the introduction of an enormous number of Latin 
 words, and this was due to the new interest taken in the litera- 
 ture of the Eomans — an interest produced by what is called the 
 Revival of Letters. But the most striking, as it is also the 
 most important fact relating to this period, is the appearance of 
 a group of dramatic writers, the greatest the world has ever 
 seen. Chief among these was William Shakespeare. Of 
 pure poetry perhaps the greatest writer was Edmund Spenser. 
 The greatest prose-writer was Richard Hooker, and the pithiest 
 Francis Bacon. 
 
 8. Modern English, 1603-19—. — The grammar of the language 
 was fixed before this period, most of the accidence having en- 
 tirely vanished. The vocabulary of the language, however, has 
 gone on increasing, and is still increasing ; for the English 
 language, like* the English people, is always ready to offer 
 hospitality to all peaceful foreigners — words or human beings — 
 that will land and settle within her coasts. And the tendency 
 at the present time is not only to give a hearty welcome to new- 
 comers from other lands, but to call back old words and old 
 phrases that had been allowed to drop out of existence. Tenny- 
 son was one oi the chief agents in this happy restoratioa 
 
280 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 rHE HISTORY OF THE VOCABULARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 1. The English Nation. — The English people have for many 
 centuries been the greatest travellers in the world. An English- 
 man — Drake — was among the first to sail round the globe j and 
 the English have colonised more foreign lands in every part 
 of the world than any other people that ever existed. The 
 English in this way have been influenced by the world with- 
 out. But they have also been subjected to manifold influences 
 from within — they have been exposed to greater political 
 changes, and profounder though quieter political revolutions, 
 than any other nation. In 1066 they were conquered by the 
 Norman - French ; and for several centuries they had French 
 kings. Seeing and talking with many different peoples, they 
 learned to adopt foreign words with ease, and *to give them a 
 home among the native-born words of the language. Trade is 
 always a kindly and useful influence j and the trade of Great 
 Britain has for many centuries been larger than that of any 
 other nation. It has spread into every part of the world; it 
 gives and receives from all tribes and nations, from every 
 speech and tongue. 
 
 2. The English Element in English. — When the English 
 came to this island in the fifth century, the number of words in 
 the language they spoke was probably not over two thousand. 
 Now, however, we possess a vocabulary of perhaps more than 
 one hundred thousand words. And so eager and willing 
 
VOCABULARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 281 
 
 have we been to welcome foreign words, that it may be said 
 with truth that : The majority of words in the English 
 Tongue are not English. In fact, if we take the Latin 
 language by itself, there are in our language more Latin words 
 than English. But the grammar is distinctly English, and not 
 Latin at alL 
 
 3. The Spoken Language and the Written Language — 
 a Caution. — We must not forget what has been said about a 
 language, — that it is not a printed thing — not a set of black 
 marks upon paper, but that it is in truest truth a tongue or a 
 speech. Hence we must be careful to distinguish between the 
 spoken language and the written or printed language ; be- 
 tween the language of the ear and the language of the eye; 
 between the language of the mouth and the language of the 
 dictionary ; between the moving vocabulary of the market and 
 the street, and the fixed vocabulary that has been catalogued 
 and imprisoned in our dictionaries. If we can only keep this in 
 view, we shall find that, though there are more Latin words in 
 our vocabulary than English, the English words we possess are 
 used in speaking a hundred times, or even a thousand times, 
 oftener than the Latin words. It is the genuine English words 
 that have life and movement ; it is they that fly about in houses, 
 in streets, and in markets ; it is they that express with greatest 
 force our truest and most usual sentiments — our inmost thoughts 
 and our deepest feelings. Latin words are found often enough 
 in books ; but, when an English man or woman is deeply moved, 
 he speaks pure English and nothing else. Words are the 
 coin of human intercourse; and it is the native coin of pure 
 English with the native stamp that is in daily circulation. 
 
 4. A Diagram of English. — If we were to try to represent to 
 the eye the proportions of the different elements in our vocab- 
 ulary, as it is found in the dictionary, the diagram would take 
 something like the following form :— 
 
282 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 DIAGRAM OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 English Words. 
 
 Latin Words 
 (including Norman-French, which are also Latin). 
 
 Greek Words. 
 
 Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Hebrew, Arabic, Hindustani, 
 Persian, Malay, American, etc. etc. 
 
 5. The Foreign Elements in our English Vocabulary. — 
 
 The different peoples and the different circumstances with 
 which we have come in contact, have had many results — one 
 among others, that of presenting us with contributions to our 
 vocabulary. We found Kelts here j and hence we have a 
 number of Keltic words in our vocabulary. The Romans held 
 this island for several hundred years ; and when they had to 
 go in the year 410, they left behind them a few Latin words, 
 which we have inherited. In the seventh century, Augustine 
 and his missionary monks from Eome brought over to us a 
 larger number of Latin words ; and the Church which they 
 founded introduced ever more and more words from Rome. 
 The Danes began to come over to this island in the eighth 
 century ; we had for some time a Danish dynasty seated on the 
 throne of England : and hence we possess many Danish words. 
 The Norman-French invasion in the eleventh century brought 
 us many hundreds of Latin words ; for French is in reality a 
 branch of the Latin tongue. The Revival of Learning in the 
 sixteenth century gave us several thousands of Latin words. 
 And wherever our sailors and merchants have gone, they have 
 brought back with them foreign words as well as foreign things 
 — Arabic words from Arabia and Africa, Hindustani words from 
 India, Persian words from Persia, Chinese words from China, 
 and even Malay words from the peninsula of Malacca. Let us 
 look a little more closely at these foreign elements. 
 
 6. The Keltic Element in English. — This element is of 
 
VOCABULARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 283 
 
 three kinds : (i) Those words which we received direct from 
 the ancient Britons whom we found in the island j (ii) those 
 which the Norman-French brought with them from Gaul ; (iii) 
 those which have lately come into the language from the High- 
 lands of Scotland, or from Ireland, or from the writings of Sir 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 7. The First Keltic Element. — This first contribution con- 
 tains the following words : Bannock, clout, crock, taper, 
 darn, di-udge, mug, posset; dun (brown); glen, hassock, knob, 
 mattock, pool. It is worthy of note that the first eight in 
 the list are the names of domestic — some even of kitchen — 
 things and utensils. It may, perhaps, be permitted us to 
 conjecture that in many cases the Saxon invader married 
 a British wife, who spoke her own language, taught her 
 children to speak their mother tongue, and whose words 
 took firm root in the kitchen of the new English house- 
 hold. The names of most rivers, mountains, lakes, and hills 
 are, of course, Keltic ; for these names would not be likely to 
 be changed by the English new-comers. There are two names for 
 rivers which are found — in one form or another — in every part 
 of Great Britain. These are the names Avon and Ex. The 
 word Avon means simply water. We can conceive the children 
 on a farm near a river speaking of it simply as " the water " ; 
 and hence we find fourteen Avons in this island. Ex also 
 means water; and there are perhaps more than twenty streams 
 in Great Britain with this name. The word appears as Ex in 
 Exeter (the older and fuller form being Exanceaster — the camp 
 on the Exe) ; as Ax in Axminster ; as Ox in Oxford ; as Ux 
 in "Oxbridge ; and as Ouse in Yorkshire and other eastern 
 counties. In Wales and Scotland, the hidden k changes its 
 place and comes at the end. Thus in Wales we find Usk ; and 
 in Scotland, Esk. There are at least eight Esks in the kingdom 
 of Scotland alone. The commonest Keltic name for a mountain 
 is Pen or Ben (in Wales it is Pen; in Scotland the flatter 
 form Ben is used). We find this word in England also under 
 the form of Pennine ; and, in Italy, as Apennine. 
 
 8. The Second Keltic Element. — The Normans came from 
 
284 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 Scandinavia early in the tenth century, and wrested the valley 
 of the Seine out of the hands of Charles the Simple, the then 
 king of the French. The language spoken by the people of 
 France was a broken-down form of spoken Latin, which is now 
 called French; but in this language they had retained many 
 Gaulish words out of the old Gaulish language. Such are the 
 words : Bag, bargain, barter ; barrel, basin, basket, Imdget ; 
 bonnet, garter, ribbon; car, caul ; mutton, gown ; mitten, motley; 
 rogue; varlet, vassal ; truant. The above words were brought 
 over to Britain by the Normans; and they gradually took an 
 acknowledged place among the words of our own language, and 
 have held that place ever since. 
 
 9. The Third Keltic Element. — This consists of compara- 
 tively few words — such as clan ; claymore (a sword) ; philabeg 
 (a kind of kilt), ptarmigan, brogue (a kind of shoe), plaid; 
 pibroch (bagpipe war-music), slogan (a war-cry) ; and whisky, 
 Ireland has given us shamrock, gag, log, clog, and brogue — in 
 the sense of a mode of speech. 
 
 10. The Scandinavian Element in English. — Towards the 
 end of the eighth century — in the year 787 — the Teutons of 
 the North, called Northmen, Normans, or Norsemen — but more 
 commonly known as Danes — made their appearance on the 
 eastern coast of Great Britain, and attacked the peaceful towns 
 and quiet settlements of the English. These attacks became so 
 frequent, and their occurrence was so much dreaded, that a 
 prayer was inserted against them in a Litany of the time — 
 " From the incursions of the Northmen, good Lord, deliver us ! " 
 In spite of the resistance of the English, the Danes had, before 
 the end of the ninth century, succeeded in obtaining a perma- 
 nent footing in England ; and, in the eleventh century, a Danish 
 dynasty sat upon the English throne from the year 1016 to 1042. 
 From the time of King Alfred, the Danes of the Danelagh 
 were a settled part of the population of England ; and hence 
 we find, especially on the east coast, a large number of Danish 
 names still in use. 
 
 11. Character of the Scandinavian Element. — The North- 
 men, as we have said, were Teutons ; and they spoke a dialect 
 
VOCABULARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 285 
 
 of the great Teutonic (or German) language. The sounds of 
 the Danish dialect — or language, as it must now be called — are 
 harder than those of the German. We find a k instead of a 
 ch ; a p preferred to an £ The same is the case in Scotland, 
 where the hard form kirk is preferred to the softer church. 
 Where the Germans say Dorf — our English word Thorpe, a 
 village — the Danes say Drup. 
 
 I?* Scandinavian Words (i). — The words contributed to our 
 language by the Scandinavians are of two kinds : (i) Names of 
 places ; and (ii) ordinary words, (i) The most striking instance 
 of a Danish place-name is the noun by, a town. Mr Isaac 
 Taylor * tells us that there are in the east of England more 
 than six hundred names of towns ending in by. Almost all of 
 these are found in the Danelagh, within the limits of the great 
 highway made by the Romans to the north-west, and well-known 
 as Watling Street We find, for example, Whitby, or the 
 town on the white cliffs; Grimsby, or the town of Grim, a 
 great sea-rover, who obtained for his countrymen the right that 
 all ships from the Baltic should come into the port of Grimsby 
 free of duty; Tenby, that is Daneby; by-law, a law for a 
 special town; and a vast number of others. The following 
 Danish words also exist in our times — either as separate and 
 individual words, or in composition — beck, a stream ; fell, a 
 hill or table-land ; firth or fiord, an arm of the sea — the same 
 as the Danish fiord ; force, a waterfall ; garth, a yard or en- 
 closure; holm, an island in a river; kirk, a church; oe, an 
 island ; thorpe, a village ; thwaite, a forest clearing ; and vik 
 or wick, a station for ships, or a creek. 
 
 13. Scandinavian Words (ii). — The most useful and the 
 most frequently employed word that we have received from the 
 Danes is the word are. The pure English word for this is 
 beoth or sindon. The Danes gave us also the habit of using 
 to before an infinitive. Their word for to was at ; and at still 
 survives and is in use in Lincolnshire. We find also the fol- 
 lowing Danish words in our language : blunt, bole (of a tree), 
 bound (on a journey — properly boun), busk (to dress), cake, 
 
 1 Words and Places, p. 158. 
 X 
 
286 HISTOEY OF HIE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 call, clog, clumsy, curl, cut, dairy, daze, dirt, droop, fellow, 
 flit, fro, froward, hustings, ill, irk, kid, kindle, loft, odd, 
 plough, root, scold, sky, tarn (a small mountain lake), weak, 
 and ugly. It is in Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire, Lin- 
 coln, Norfolk, and even in the western counties of Cum- 
 berland and Lancashire, that we find the largest admixture of 
 Scandinavian words. 
 
 14. Influence of the Scandinavian Element. — The intro- 
 duction of the Danes and the Danish language into England 
 had the result, in the east, of unsettling the inflexions of our 
 language, and thus of preparing the way for their complete dis- 
 appearance. The declensions of nouns became unsettled; 
 nouns that used to make their plural in a or in u took the 
 more striking plural suffix as that belonged to a quite differ- 
 ent declension. The same things happened to adjectives, 
 verbs, and other parts of language. The causes of this are not 
 far to seek. Spoken language can never be so accurate as writ- 
 ten language j the mass of the English and Danes never cared 
 or could care much for grammar ; and both parties to a conver- 
 sation would of course hold firmly to the root of the word, 
 which was intelligible to both of them, and let the inflexions 
 slide, or take care of themselves. The more the English and 
 Danes mixed with each other, the oftener they met at church, 
 at games, and in the market-place, the more rapidly would this 
 process of stripping go on, — the smaller care would both peoples 
 take of the grammatical inflexions which they had brought with 
 them into this country. 
 
 15. The Latin Element in English. — So far as the number of 
 words — the vocabulary — of the language is concerned, the Latin 
 contribution is by far the most important element in our lan- 
 guage. Latin was the language of the Romans ; and the Romans 
 at one time were masters of the whole known world. No won- 
 der, then, that they influenced so many peoples, and that their 
 language found its way — east and west, and south and north — 
 into almost all the countries of Europe. There are, as we have 
 seen, more Latin than English words in our own language ; and 
 it is therefore necessary to make ourselves acquainted with the 
 
VOCABULARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 287 
 
 character and the uses of the Latin element — an element so 
 important — in English. 1 Not only have the Eomans made 
 contributions of large numbers of words to the English language, 
 but they have added to it a quite new quality, and given to its 
 genius new powers of expression. So true is this, that we may 
 say — without any sense of unfairness, or any feeling of exaggera- 
 tion — that, until the Latin element was thoroughly mixed, united 
 with, and transfused into the original English, the writings of 
 Shakespeare were impossible, the poetry of the sixteenth and 
 seventeenth centuries could not have come into existence. This 
 is true of Shakespeare ; and it is still more true of Milton. His 
 most powerful poetical thoughts are written in lines, the most 
 telling words in which are almost always Latin. This may be 
 illustrated by the following lines from " Lycidas " : — 
 
 " It was that fatal and perfidious bark, 
 Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark, 
 That sunk so low that sacred head of thine ! " 
 
 16. The Latin Contributions and their Dates. — The first 
 contribution of Latin words was made by the Eomans — not, 
 however, to the English, but to the Britons. The Romans 
 held this island from a.d. 43 to a.d. 410. They left behind 
 them — when they were obliged to go — a small contribution of 
 a very few words, but all of them important. The second 
 contribution — to a large extent ecclesiastical — was made by 
 Augustine and his missionary monks from Rome, and their visit 
 took place in the year 597. The third contribution was made 
 through the medium of the Norman-Erench, who seized and 
 subdued this island in the year 1068 and following years. The 
 fourth contribution came to us by the aid of the Revival of 
 Learning — rather a process than an event, the dates of which 
 are vague, but which may be said to have taken place in the 
 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Latin left for us 
 by the Romans is called Latin of the First Period; that 
 brought over by the missionaries from Rome, Latin of the 
 
 1 In the last half of this sentence, all the essential words— necessary, ac- 
 quainted, character, uses, element, important, are Latin (except character, 
 which is Greek). 
 
288 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 Second Period ; that given us by the Norman-French, Latin 
 of the Third Period ; and that which came to us from the 
 Revival of Learning, Latin of the Fourth Period. The first 
 consists of a few names handed down to us through the Britons ; 
 the second, of a number of words — mostly relating to ecclesias- 
 tical affairs — brought into the spoken language by the monks ; 
 the third, of a large vocabulary, that came to us by mouth and 
 ear ; and the fourth, of a very large treasure of words, which we 
 received by means of books and the eye. Let us now look 
 more closely and carefully at them, each in its turn. 
 
 17. Latin of the First Period. — (i) The Eomans held Bri- 
 tain for nearly four hundred years; and they succeeded in 
 teaching the wealthier classes among the Southern Britons to 
 speak Latin. They also built towns in the island, made splen- 
 did roads, formed camps at important points, framed good laws, 
 and administered the affairs of the island with considerable 
 justice and uprightness. But, never having come directly into 
 contact with the Angles or Saxons themselves, they could not 
 in any way influence their language by oral communication — - 
 by speaking to them. What they left behind them was only 
 a few words, most of which became merely the prefixes or the 
 suffixes of the names of places. These words were Castra, 
 a camp; Strata (via), a paved road; Colonia, a settlement 
 (generally of soldiers); Fossa, a trench; Portus, a harbour; 
 and Vallum, a rampart. 
 
 18. Latin of the First Period (ii). — (a) The treatment of 
 the Latin word castra in this island has been both singular and 
 significant. It has existed in this country for nearly nineteen 
 hundred years ; and it has always taken the colouring of the 
 locality into whose soil it struck root. In the north and 
 east of England it is sounded hard, and takes the form of 
 caster, as in Lancaster, Doncaster, Tadeaster, and others. 
 In the midland counties, it takes the softer form of cester, 
 as in Leicester, Towcester ; and in the extreme west and 
 south, it takes the still softer form of Chester, as in Chester, 
 Manchester, "Winchester, and others. It is worthy of notice 
 that there are in Scotland no words ending in caster. Though 
 
VOCABULARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 289 
 
 the Romans had camps in Scotland, they do not seem to have 
 been so important as to become the centres of towns., (b) The 
 word strata has also taken different forms in different parts of 
 England. While castra is nearly always a suffix, strata 
 shows itself constantly as a prefix. When the Romans came to 
 this island, the country was impassable by man. There were 
 no roads worthy of the name, — what paths there were being 
 merely foot-paths or bridle-tracks. One of the first things the 
 Romans did was to drive a strongly built military road from 
 Richborough, near Dover, to the river Dee, on which they 
 formed a standing camp (Castra stativa) which to this day 
 bears the name of Chester. This great road became the high- 
 way of all travellers from north to south, — was known as 
 " The Street," and was called by the Saxons Watling Street. 
 But tins word street also became a much-used prefix, and took 
 the different forms of strat, strad, stret, and streat. All 
 towns with such names are to be found on this or some other 
 great Roman road. Thus we have Stratford-on-Avon, Strat- 
 ton, Stradbroke, Stretton, Stretford (near Manchester), and 
 Streatham (near London). — Over the other words we need not 
 dwell so long. Colonia we find in Colne, Lincoln, and others; 
 fossa in Fossway, Posbrooke, and Fosbridge ; portus, in 
 Portsmouth and Bridport; and vallum in the words wall, 
 bailey, and bailiff. The Normans called the two courts in 
 front of their castles the inner and outer baileys ; and the officer 
 in charge of them was called the bailiff. 
 
 19. Latin Element of the Second Period (i). — The story of 
 Pope Gregory and the Roman mission to England is widely 
 known. Gregory, when a young man, was crossing the Roman 
 forum one morning, and, when passing the side where the 
 slave-mart was held, observed, as he walked, some beautiful 
 boys, with fair hair, blue eyes, and clear bright complexion. 
 He asked a bystander of what nation the boys were. The 
 answer was, that they were Angles. "No, not Angles," he 
 replied ; " they are angels." On learning further that they 
 were heathens, he registered a silent vow that he would, if 
 Providence gave him an opportunity, deliver them from the 
 
290 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 darkness of heathendom, and bring them and their relatives into 
 the light and liberty of the Gospel. Time passed by ; and in 
 the long course of time Gregory became Pope. In his unlooked- 
 for greatness, he did not forget his vow. In the year 597 he 
 sent over to Kent a missionary, called Augustine, along with 
 forty monks. They were well received by the King of Kent, 
 allowed to settle in Canterbury, and to build a small cathedral 
 there. 
 
 20. Latin Element of the Second Period (ii). — This mission, 
 the churches that grew out of it, the Christian customs that in 
 time took root in the country, and the trade that followed in its 
 track, brought into the language a number of Latin words, most 
 of them the names of church offices, services, and observances. 
 Thus we find, in our oldest English, the words, postol from 
 apostolus, a person sent; biscop, from episcopus, an overseer; 
 cale, from calix, a cup ; clerc, from clericus, an ordained 
 member of the church ; munee, from mon&chus, a solitary 
 person or monk ; preost, from presbyter, an elder ; aelmesse, 
 from eleemosune, alms ; predician, from prcedicare, to preach ; 
 regol, from regula, a rule. {Apostle, bishop, clerk, monk, priest, 
 and alms come to us really from Greek words — but through 
 the Latin tongue.) 
 
 21. Latin Element of the Second Period (iii). — The intro- 
 duction of the Roman form ,of Christianity brought with it 
 increased communication with Rome and with the Continent 
 generally ; widened the experience of Englishmen ; gave a 
 stimulus to commerce ; and introduced into this island new 
 things and products, and along with the things and products 
 new names. To this period belongs the introduction of the 
 words : Butter, cheese ; cedar, fig, pear, peach ; lettuce, 
 lily ; pepper, pease ; camel, lion, elephant ; oyster, trout ; 
 pound, ounce ; candle, table ; marble ; mint. 
 
 22. Latin of the Third Period (i). — The Latin element of 
 the Third Period is in reality the French that was brought 
 over to this island by the Normans in 1066, and is generally 
 called Norman-French. It differed from the French of Paris 
 both in spelling and in pronunciation. For example, Norman- 
 
VOCABULARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 291 
 
 French wrote people for peuple; leal for loyal; real for 
 royal; realm for royaume; and so on. But both of these 
 dialects (and every dialect of French) are simply forms of Latin 
 — not of the Latin written and printed in books, but of the 
 Latin spoken in the camp, the fields, the streets, the village, and 
 the cottage. The Romans conquered Gaul, where a Keltic 
 tongue was spoken ; and the Gauls gradually adopted Latin as 
 their mother tongue, and — with the exception of the Bretons 
 of Brittany — left off their Keltic speech almost entirely. In 
 adopting the Latin tongue, they had — as in similar cases — taken 
 firm hold of the root of the word, but changed the pronunciation 
 of it, and had, at the same time, compressed very much or entirely 
 dropped many of the Latin inflexions. The French people, an 
 intermixture of Gauls and other tribes (some of them, like the 
 Franks, German), ceased, in fact, to speak their own language, 
 and learned the Latin tongue. The Norsemen, led by Duke 
 Rolf or Rollo or Rou, marched south in large numbers ; and, 
 in the year 912, wrested from King Charles the Simple the fail 
 valley of the Seine, settled in it, and gave to it the name of 
 Normandy. These Norsemen, now Normans, were Teutons, and 
 spoke a Teutonic dialect ; but, when they settled in France, 
 they learned in course of time to speak French. The kind of 
 French they spoke is called Norman-French, and it was this 
 kind of French that they brought over with them in 1066. 
 But Norman-French had made its appearance in England before 
 the famous year of '66 ; for Edward the Confessor, who suc- 
 ceeded to the English throne in 1042, had been educated at the 
 Norman Court ; and he not only spoke the language himself, but 
 insisted on its being spoken by the nobles who lived with him 
 in his Court. 
 
 23. Latin of the Third Period (ii). Chief Dates. — The Nor- 
 mans, having utterly beaten down the resistance of the English, 
 seized the land and all the political power of this country, and 
 filled all kinds of offices — both spiritual and temporal — with 
 their Norman brethren. Norman-French became the language of 
 the Court and the nobility, the language of Parliament and the 
 law courts, of the universities and the schools, of the Church 
 
292 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 and of literature. The English people held fast to their own 
 tongue ; but they picked up many French words in the markets 
 and other places "where men most do congregate." But 
 French, being the language of the upper and ruling classes, was 
 here and there learned by the English or Saxon country-people 
 who had the ambition to be in the fashion, and were eager " to 
 speke Frensch, for to be more y-told of," — to be more highly 
 considered than their neighbours. It took about three hundred 
 years for French words and phrases to soak thoroughly into 
 English; and it was not until England was saturated with 
 French words and French rhythms that the great poet Chaucer 
 appeared to produce poetic narratives that were read with 
 delight both by Norman baron and by Saxon yeoman. In the 
 course of these three hundred years this intermixture of French 
 with English had been slowly and silently going on. Let us 
 look at a few of the chief land-marks in the long process. In 
 1042 Edward the Confessor introduces Norman-French into his 
 Court. In 1066 Duke William introduces Norman-Fiench into 
 the whole country, and even into parts of Scotland. The oldest 
 English, or Anglo-Saxon, ceases to be written, anywhere in the 
 island, in public documents, in the year 1154. In 1204 we 
 lost Normandy, a loss that had the effect of bringing the Eng- 
 lish and the Normans closer together. Eobert of Gloucester 
 writes his chronicle in 1272, and uses a large number of French 
 words. But, as early as the reign of Henry the Third, in the 
 year 1258, the reformed and reforming Government of the day 
 issued a proclamation in English, as well as in French and Latin. 
 In 1303, Eobert of Brunn introduces a large number of French 
 words. The French wars in Edward the Third's reign brought 
 about a still closer union of the Norman and the Saxon elements 
 of the nation. But, about the middle of the fourteenth century 
 a reaction set in, and it seemed as if the genius of the English 
 language refused to take in any more French words. The 
 English silent stubbornness seemed to have prevailed, and 
 Englishmen had made up their minds to be English in speech, 
 as they were English to the backbone in everything else. 
 Norman-French had, in fact, become provincial, and was spoken 
 
VOCABULARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 293 
 
 only here and there. Before the great Plague — commonly 
 spoken of as "The Black Death"— of 1349, both high and 
 low seemed to be alike bent on learning French, but the reaction 
 may be said to date from this year. The culminating point of 
 this reaction may perhaps be seen in an Act of Parliament passed 
 in 1362 by Edward III., by which both French and Latin 
 had to give place to English in our courts of law. The poems 
 of Chaucer are the literary result — "the bright consummate 
 flower " of the union of two great powers — the brilliance of the 
 French language on the one hand and the homely truth and 
 steadfastness of English on the other. Chaucer was born c. 
 1340, and died in 1400; so that we may say that he and his 
 poems — though not the causes — are the signs and symbols of 
 the great influence that French obtained and held over our 
 mother tongue. But although we accepted so many words from 
 our Norman-French visitors and immigrants, we accepted from 
 them no habit of speech whatever. We accepted from them no 
 phrase or idiom : the build and nature of the English language 
 remained the same — unaffected by foreign manners or by foreign 
 habits. It is true that Chaucer has the ridiculous phrase, " I 
 n'ara but dead" ( = no better than, i.e. almost, dead) — where 
 ne-but is nearly an exact parallel of the French ne-que. But, 
 though our tongue has always been and is impervious to 
 foreign idiom, it is probably owing to the great influx of French 
 words which took place chiefly in the thirteenth century that many 
 people have acquired a habit of using a long French or Latin 
 word when an English word would do quite as well — or, indeed, 
 a great deal better. Thus some people are found to call a good 
 house, a desirable mansion; and, instead of the quiet old English 
 proverb, " Buy once, buy twice," we have the roundabout Latin- 
 isms, "A single commission will ensure a repetition of orders." 
 An American writer, speaking of the foreign ambassadors who 
 had been attacked by Japanese soldiers in Yeddo, says that 
 " they concluded to occupy a location more salubrious." This is 
 only a foreign language, instead of the simple and homely Eng- 
 lish : " They made up their minds to settle in a healthier spot." 
 
294 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 24. Latin of the Third Period (iii). Norman Words (a). — 
 The Norman-French words were of several different kinds. 
 There were words connected with war, with feudalism, and 
 with the chase. There were new law terms, and words con- 
 nected with the State, and the new institutions introduced by 
 the Normans. There were new words brought in by the Nor- 
 man churchmen. New titles unknown to the English were 
 also introduced. A better kind of cooking, a higher and less 
 homely style of living, was brought into this country by the 
 Normans \ and, along with these, new and unheard-of words. 
 
 25. Norman Words (b). — The following are some of the 
 Norman - French terms connected with war : Arms, armour ; 
 assault, battle; captain, chivalry; joust, lance; standard, 
 trumpet ; mail, vizor. The English word for armour was 
 harness ; but the Normans degraded that word into the armour 
 of a horse. Battle comes from the Fr. battre, to beat : the 
 corresponding English word is fight. Captain comes from 
 the Latin caput, a head. Mail comes from the Latin macula, 
 the mesh of a net ; and the first coats of mail were made of rings 
 or a kind of metal network. Vizor comes from the Fr. viser, 
 to look. It was the barred part of the helmet which a man 
 could see through. 
 
 26. Norman Words (c). — Feudalism may be described as the 
 holding of land on condition of giving or providing service in 
 war. Thus a knight held land of his baron, under promise to 
 serve him so many days ; a baron of his king, on condition 
 that he brought so many men into the field for such and such 
 a time at the call of his Overlord. William the Conqueror 
 made the feudal system universal in every part of England, 
 and compelled every English baron to swear homage to him- 
 self personally. Words relating to feudalism are, among 
 others : Homage, fealty ; esquire, vassal ; herald, scutch- 
 eon, and others. Homage is the declaration oi obedience for 
 life of one man to another — that the inferior is the man (Fr 
 homme ; L. homo) of the superior. Fealty is the Norman-French 
 form of the word fidelity. An esquire is a scutiger (L.), or 
 shield-bearer; for he carried the shield of the knight, when 
 
VOCABULARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 295 
 
 they were travelling and no fighting was going on. A vassal 
 was a " little young man," — in Low-Latin vassallus, a diminu- 
 tive of vassus, from the Keltic word gwds, a man. (The form 
 vassaletus is also found, which gives us our varlet and valet.) 
 Scutcheon comes from the Lat. scutum, a shield. Then scut- 
 cheon or escutcheon came to mean coat-of-arms — or the marks 
 and signs on his shield by which the name and family of a man 
 were known, when he himself was covered from head to foot in 
 iron mail. 
 
 27. Norman Words (d). — The terms connected with the 
 chase are : Brace, couple ; chase, course ; covert, copse, 
 forest; leveret, mews; quarry, venison. A few remarks 
 about some of these may be interesting. Brace comes from 
 the Old French brace, an arm (Mod. French bras); from the 
 Latin brachium. The root-idea seems to be that which encloses 
 or holds up. Thus bracing air is that which strings up the 
 nerves and muscles; and a brace of birds was two birds tied 
 together with a string. — The word forest contains in itself 
 a good deal of unwritten Norman history. It comes from the 
 Latin adverb foras, out of doors. Hence, in Italy, a stranger or 
 foreigner is still called a forestiere. A forest in Norman-French 
 was not necessarily a breadth of land covered with trees ; it 
 was simply land out of the jurisdiction of the common law. 
 Hence, when William the Conqueror created the New Forest, 
 he merely took the land out of the rule and charge of the com- 
 mon law, and put it under his own regal power and personal 
 care. In land of this kind — much of which was kept for hunt- 
 ing in — trees were afterwards planted, partly to shelter large 
 game, and partly to employ ground otherwise useless in growing 
 timber. — Mews is a very odd word. It comes from the Latin 
 verb mutare, to change. When the falcons employed in hunting 
 were changing their feathers, or moulting (the word moult is the 
 same as mews in a different dress), the French shut them in 
 a cage, which they called mue — from mutare. Then the stables 
 for horses were put in the same place; and hence a row of 
 stables has come to be called a mews. — Quarry is quite as 
 strange. The word quarry, which means a mine of stones, 
 
296 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 comes from the Latin quadrdre, to make square. But the 
 hunting term quarry is of a quite different origin. That comes 
 from the Latin corium (the hide), which the Old French altered 
 into curee. When a wild beast was run down and killed, the 
 heart and entrails, wrapped up in the hide, were thrown to the 
 dogs as their share of the hunt. — The word venison comes to 
 us, through French, from the Lat. vendri, to hunt ; and hence it 
 means hunted flesh. The same word gives us venery — the term 
 that was used in the fourteenth century, by Chaucer among 
 others, for hunting. 
 
 28. Norman Words (e). — The Normans introduced into Eng- 
 land their own system of law, their own law officers ; and hence, 
 into the English language, came Norman-French law terms. 
 The following are a few : Assize, attorney ; chancellor, court; 
 judge, justice; plaintiff, sue; summons, trespass. A few 
 remarks about some of these may be useful. The chancellor 
 (cancellarius) was the legal authority who sat behind lattice- 
 work, which was called in Latin cancelli. This word means, 
 primarily, little crabs; and it is a diminutive from cancer, a 
 crab. It was so called because the lattice-work looked like 
 crabs' claws crossed. Our word cancel comes from the same 
 root : it means to make cross lines through anything we wish 
 deleted. — Court comes from the Latin cors or cohors, a sheep- 
 pen. It afterwards came to mean an enclosure, and also a 
 body of Eoman soldiers. — The proper English word for & judge 
 is deemster or demster (which appears as the proper name 
 Dempster); and this is still the name for a judge in the Isle 
 of Man. The French word comes from the Latin words, dico, 
 I point out, and jus, right. The word jus is seen in the 
 other French term which we have received from the Normans 
 — justice. — Sue comes from the Old Fr. suir, which appears in 
 Modern Fr. as suivre. It is derived from the Lat. word sequor, 
 I follow (which gives our sequel) ; and we have compounds of it 
 in ensue, issue, and pursue. — The tres in trespass is a French 
 form of the Latin trans, beyond or across. Trespass, therefore, 
 means to cross the bounds of right. 
 
 29. Norman Words (/). — Some of the church terms intro- 
 
VOCABULARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 297 
 
 duced by the Norman-French are : Altar, Bible ; baptism, 
 ceremony ; friar ; tonsure ; penance, relic. — The Normans 
 gave us the words title and dignity themselves, and also 
 the following titles : Duke, marquis ; count, viscount ; 
 peer; mayor, and others. A duke is a leader ; from the 
 Latin dux (=duc-s). A marquis is a lord who has to ride 
 the marches or borders between one county, or between one 
 country, and another. A marquis was also called a Lord- 
 Marcher. The word count never took root in this island^ 
 because its place was already occupied by the Danish name 
 earl ; but we preserve it in the names countess and viscount 
 — the latter of which means a person in the place of (L. vice) 
 a count. Peer comes from the Latin par, an equal. The 
 House of Peers is the House of Lords — that is, of those who 
 are, at least when in the House, equal in rank and equal in 
 power of voting. It is a fundamental doctrine in English 
 law that every man " is to be tried by his peers" — It is worthy 
 of note that, in general, the French names for different kinds 
 of food designated the cooked meats; while the names for 
 the living animals that furnish them are English. Thus 
 we have beef and ox ; mutton and sheep ; veal and calf ; pork 
 and pig. There is a remarkable passage in Sir Walter Scott's 
 ' Ivanhoe,' which illustrates this fact with great force and pic- 
 turesqueness : — 
 
 " * Gurth, I advise thee to call off Fangs, and leave the herd to 
 their destiny, which, whether they meet with bands of travelling 
 soldiers, or of outlaws, or of wandering pilgrims, can be little 
 else than to be converted into Normans before morning, to thy 
 no small ease and comfort. ' 
 
 " 'The swine turned Normans to my comfort ! ' quoth Gurth; 
 ' expound that to me, Wamba, for my brain is too dull, and my 
 mind too vexed, to read riddles/ 
 
 " * Why, how call you those grunting brutes running about on 
 their four legs 1 ' demanded Wamba. 
 
 " ' Swine, fool, swine,' said the herd ; ■ every fool knows 
 that.' 
 
 " 'And swine is good Saxon,' said the jester; 'but how call 
 
298 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 you the sow when she is flayed, and drawn, and quartered, and 
 hung up by the heels, like a traitor 1 ' 
 
 " ' Pork,' answered the swine-herd. 
 
 "'lam very glad every fool knows that too,' said Wamba ; 
 ' and pork, I think, is good Norman-French : and so when the 
 brute lives, and is in the charge of a Saxon slave, she goes by 
 her Saxon name ; but becomes a Norman, and is called pork, 
 when she is carried to the castle-hall to feast among the nobles ; 
 what dost thou think of this, friend Gurth, ha ? ' 
 
 " ' It is but too true doctrine, friend Wamba, however it got 
 into thy fool's pate.' 
 
 " l Nay, I can tell you more,' said Wamba, in the same tone ; 
 1 there is old Alderman Ox continues to hold his Saxon epithet, 
 while he is under the charge of serfs and bondsmen such as 
 thou, but becomes Beef, a fiery French gallant, when he arrives 
 before the worshipful jaws that are destined to consume him. 
 Myhneer Calf, too, becomes Monsieur de Veau in the like man- 
 ner ; he is Saxon when he requires tendance, and takes a Nor- 
 man name when he becomes matter of enjoyment.' " 
 
 30. General Character of the Norman-French Contributions. 
 — The Norman-French contributions to our language gave us 
 a number of general names or class-names ; while the names 
 for individual things are, in general, of purely English origin. 
 The words animal and beast, for example, are French (or 
 Latin) ; but the words fox, hound, whale, snake, wasp, and 
 fly are purely English. — The words family, relation, parent, 
 ancestor, are French ; but the names father, mother, son, 
 daughter, gossip, are English. — The words title and dignity 
 are French; but the words king and queen, lord and lady, 
 knight and sheriff, are English. — Perhaps the most remarkable 
 instance of this is to be found in the abstract terms employed 
 for the offices and functions of State. Of these, the English 
 language possesses only one — the word kingdom. Norman- 
 French, on the other hand, has given us the words realm, court, 
 state, constitution, people, treaty, audience, navy, army, 
 and others — amounting in all to nearly forty. When, how- 
 ever, we come to terms denoting labour and work — such as agri- 
 
VOCABULARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 299 
 
 culture and seafaring, we find the proportions entirely reversed. 
 The English language, in such cases, contributes almost every- 
 thing ; the French nearly nothing. In agriculture, while plough, 
 rake, harrow, and very many others are English words, not a 
 single term for an agricultural process or implement has been 
 given us by the warlike Norman -French. — While the words 
 ship and boat; hull and fleet; oar and sail, are all English, 
 the Normans have presented us with only the single word 
 prow. It is as if all the Norman conqueror had to do was to 
 take his stand at the prow, gazing upon the land he was going 
 to seize, while the Low-German sailors worked for him at oar and 
 sail. — Again, while the names of the various parts of the body 
 — eye, nose, cheek, tongue, hand, foot, and more than eighty 
 others — are all English, we have received only about ten similar 
 words from the French — such as spirit and corpse ; perspira- 
 tion ; face and stature. Speaking broadly, we may say that all 
 words that express general notions, or generalisations, are 
 French or Latin ; while words that express specific actions or 
 concrete existences are pure English. Mr Spalding observes — 
 " We use a foreign term naturalised when we speak of ' colour ' 
 universally ; but we fall back on our home stores if we have to 
 tell what the colour is, calling it ' red ' or ' yellow,' ' white ' or 
 * black,' ' green ' or ' brown.' We are Romans when we speak 
 in a general way of ' moving ' ; but we are Teutons if we ■ leap ' 
 or ' spring,' if we * slip,' ' slide,' or * fall,' if we ' walk,' * run,' 
 f swim,' or ' ride,' if we ' creep ' or ' crawl ' or ' fly.' " 
 
 31. Gains to English from Norman-French. — The gains from 
 the Norman-French contribution are large, and are also of very 
 great importance. Mr Lowell says, that the Norman element 
 came in as quickening leaven to the rather heavy and lumpy 
 Saxon dough. It stirred the whole mass, gave new life to 
 the language, a much higher and wider scope to the thoughts, 
 much greater power and copiousness to the expression of our 
 thoughts, and a finer and brighter rhythm to our English 
 sentences. " To Chaucer," he says, in ' My Study Windows,' 
 " French must have been almost as truly a mother tongue as 
 English. In him we see the first result of the Norman yeast 
 
300 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 upon the home-baked Saxon loaf. The flour had been honest, 
 the paste well kneaded, but the inspiring leaven was wanting 
 till the Norman brought it over. Chaucer works still in the 
 solid material of his race, but with what airy lightness has he 
 not infused it 1 Without ceasing to be English, he has escaped 
 from being insular." Let us look at some of these gains a little 
 more in detail. 
 
 32. Norman -French Synonyms. — We must not consider a 
 synonym as a word that means exactly the same thing as the 
 word of which it is a synonym j because then there would be 
 neither room nor use for such a word in the language. A 
 synonym is a word of the same meaning as another, but with 
 a slightly different shade of meaning, — or it is used under 
 different circumstances and in a different connection, or it puts 
 the same idea under a new angle. Begin and commence, will 
 and testament, are exact equivalents — are complete synonyms, 
 but there are very few more of this kind in our language. The 
 moment the genius of a language gets hold of two words of the 
 same meaning, it sets them to do different kinds of work, — to 
 express different parts or shades of that meaning. Thus limb 
 and member, luck and fortune, have the same meaning ; 
 but we cannot speak of a limb of the Royal Society, or of 
 the luck of the Rothschilds, who made their fortune by hard 
 work and steady attention to business. We have, by the aid of 
 the Norman-French contributions, flower as well as bloom; 
 branch and bough ; purchase and buy ; amiable and 
 friendly ; cordial and hearty ; country and land ; gentle 
 and mild ; desire and wish ; labour and work ; miserable and 
 wretched. These pairs of words enable poets and other writers 
 to use the right word in the right place. And we, preferring 
 our Saxon or good old English words to any French or Latin 
 importations, prefer to speak of a hearty welcome instead 
 of a cordial reception ; of a loving wife instead of an ami- 
 able consort ; of a wretched man instead of a miserable 
 individual. 
 
 33. Bilingualism. — How did these Norman -French words 
 find their way into the language % What was the road by which 
 
VOCABULARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 301 
 
 they came 1 What was the process that enabled them to find a 
 place in and to strike deep root into our English soil 1 Did the 
 learned men — the monks and the clergy — make a selection of 
 words, write them in their books, and teach them to the English 
 people 1 Nothing of the sort. The process was a much ruder 
 one — but at the same time one much more practical, more effec- 
 tual, and more lasting in its results. The two peoples — the 
 Normans and the English — found that they had to live together. 
 They met at church, in the market-place, in the drilling field, at 
 the archery butts, in the courtyards of castles ; and, on the 
 battle-fields of France, the Saxon bowman showed that he could 
 fight as well, as bravely, and even to better purpose than his lord 
 — the Norman baron. At all these places, under all these cir- 
 cumstances, the Norman and the Englishman were obliged to 
 speak with each other. Now arose a striking phenomenon. 
 Every man, as Professor Earle puts it, turned himself as it were 
 into a walking phrase-book or dictionary. When a Norman had 
 to use a French word, he tried to put the English word for it 
 alongside of the French word ; when an Englishman used an 
 English word, he joined with it the French equivalent. Then 
 the language soon began to swarm with " yokes of words " ; oui 
 words went in couples ; and the habit then begun has continued 
 down even to the present day. And thus it is that we possess 
 such couples as -will and testament ; act and deed ; use and 
 -wont ; aid and abet. Chaucer's poems are full of these pairs. 
 He joins together hunting and venery (though both words 
 mean exactly the same thing) ; nature and kind ; cheere and 
 face ; pray and beseech ; mirth and jollity. Later on, the 
 Prayer-Book, which was written in the years 1540 to 1559, 
 keeps up the habit : and we find the pairs acknowledge and 
 confess ; assemble and meet together ; dissemble and 
 cloak ; humble and lowly. To the more English part of the 
 congregation the simple Saxon words would come home with 
 kindly association ; to others, the words confess, assemble, dis- 
 semble, and humble would speak with greater force and clearness. 
 — Such is the phenomenon called by Professor Earle bilingual- 
 ism "It is, in fact," he says, "a putting of colloquial for- 
 
302 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 mulse to do the duty of a French-English and English-French 
 vocabulary." Even Hooker, who wrote at the end of the six- 
 teenth century, seems to have been obliged to use these pairs ; 
 and we find in his writings the couples " cecity and blindness," 
 "nocive and hurtful," "sense and meaning." 
 
 34. Losses of English from the Incoming of Norman-French. 
 — (i) Before the coming of the Normans, the English language 
 was in the habit of forming compounds with ease and effect. 
 Eut, after the introduction of the Norman-French language, that 
 power seems gradually to have disappeared ; and ready-made 
 French or Latin words usurped the place of the home-grown 
 English compound. *Thus despair pushed out wanhope ; 
 suspicion dethroned wantrust ; bidding - sale was expelled 
 by auction ; learning-knight by disciple ; rime-craft by the 
 Greek word arithmetic ; gold-hoard by treasure ; book-hoard 
 by library ; earth - tilth by agriculture ; wonstead by 
 residence; and so with a large number of others. — Many 
 English words, moreover, had their meanings depreciated and 
 almost degraded; and the words themselves lost their ancient 
 rank and dignity. Thus the Norman conquerors put their 
 foot — literally and metaphorically — on the Saxon chair, 1 which 
 thus became a stool, or a footstool. Thatch, which is a 
 doublet of the word deck, was the name for any kind of roof ; 
 but the coming of the Norman-French lowered it to indicate a 
 roof of straw. "Whine was used for the weeping or crying of 
 human beings ; but it is now restricted to the cry of a dog. 
 Hide was the generic term for the skin of any animal ; it is 
 now limited in modern English to the skin of a beast. — The 
 most damaging result upon our language was that it entirely 
 stopped the growth of English words. We could, for 
 example, make out of the word burn — the derivatives brunt, 
 brand, brandy, brown, brimstone, and others ; but this 
 power died out with the coming in of the Norman -French 
 language. After that, instead of growing our own words, we 
 
 1 Chair is the Norman-French form of the French chaise. The Germans 
 still call a chair a stuhl; and among the English, stool was the universal name 
 till the twelfth century. 
 
VOCABULARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 303 
 
 adopted them ready-made. — Professor Craik compares the 
 English and Latin languages to two banks; and says that, 
 when the Normans came over, the account at the English bank 
 was closed, arid we drew only upon the Latin bank. But the 
 case is worse than this. English lost its power of growth and 
 expansion from the centre ; from this time, it could only add 
 to its bulk by borrowing and conveying from without — by the 
 external accretion of foreign words. 
 
 35. Losses of English from the Incoming of Norman-French. 
 — (ii) The arrestment of growth in the purely English part of 
 our language, owing to the irruption of Norman-Erench, and 
 also to the ease with which we could take a ready-made word 
 from Latin or from Greek, killed off an old power which we 
 once possessed, and which was not without its own use and 
 expressiveness. This was the power of making compound 
 words. The Greeks in ancient times had, and the Germans 
 in modern times have, this power in a high degree. Thus a 
 Greek comic poet has a word of fourteen syllables, which may 
 be thus translated — 
 
 " Meanly-rising-early-and-hurrying-to-the-tribunal-to-clenounce-another- 
 for-an-infraction-of-the-law-concerning-the-exportation-of-figs." 1 
 
 And the Germans have a compound like " the-all-to-nothing- 
 crushing philosopher." The Germans also say iron-path for rail- 
 way, handshoe for glove, and finger-hat for thimble. We also 
 possessed this power at one time, and employed it both in 
 proper and in common names. Thus we had and have the 
 names Brakespear, Shakestaff, Shakespear, Golightly, Dolittle, 
 Standfast ; and the common nouns want-wit, find-fault, mumble- 
 news (for tale-bearer), pinch-penny (for miser), slugabed. In 
 older times we had three-foot-stool, three-man-beetle 2 ; stone- 
 cold, heaven-h'ight, honey-sweet, snail-slow, nut-brown, lily-livered 
 (for cowardly) ; brand-fire-neio ; earth-icandering, wind-dried, 
 thunder-blasted, death-doomed, and many others. But such 
 words as forbears or fore-elders have been pushed out by ances- 
 
 1 In two words, a Jig shower or sycophant. 
 
 2 A club for beating clothes, that could be handled only by three men. 
 
304 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH .LANGUAGE. 
 
 tors ; forewit by caution or prudence ; and inwit by conscience. 
 Mr. Barnes, the Dorsetshire poet, much wanted to see these and 
 similar compounds restored, and thought that we might well 
 return to the old clear well-springs of "English undefiled," 
 and make our own compounds out of our own words. He 
 even carried his desires into the region of English grammar, 
 and, for degrees of comparison, proposed the phrase pitches of 
 suchness. Thus, instead of the Latin word omnibus, he would 
 have folk-wain; for the Greek botany, he would substitute 
 wort-lore; for auction, he would give us bode-sale ; globule he 
 would replace with ballkin ; the Greek word horizon must give 
 way to the pure English sky-edge; and, instead of quadrangle, 
 he would have us all write and say four-winkle. 
 
 36. Losses of English from the Incoming of Norman- 
 French. — (iii) When once a way was made for the entrance of 
 French words into our English language, the immigrations were 
 rapid and numerous. Hence there were many changes both 
 in the grammar and in the vocabulary of English from the 
 year 1100, the year in which we may suppose those English- 
 men who were living at the date of the battle of Hastings had 
 died out. These changes were more or less rapid, according 
 to circumstances. But perhaps the most rapid and remarkable 
 change took place in the lifetime of William Caxton, the great 
 printer, who was born about 1420. In his preface to his transla- 
 tion of the ' iEneid ' of Virgil, which he published in 1490, when 
 he was seventy years of age, he says that he cannot understand old 
 books that were written when he was a boy — that "the olde 
 Englysshe is more lyke to dutche than englysshe," and that " our 
 langage now vsed varyeth ferre from that whiche was vsed and 
 spoken when I was borne. For we Englysshemen ben borne 
 ynder the domynacyon of the mone [moon], which is neuer 
 stedfaste, but euer wauerynge, wexynge one season, and waneth 
 and dycreaseth another season." This as regards time. — But 
 he has the same complaint to make as regards place. " Comyn 
 englysshe that is spoken in one shyre varyeth from another." 
 And he tells an odd story in illustration of this fact. He tells 
 about certain merchants who were in a ship " in Tamyse " (on the 
 
VOCABULARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 305 
 
 Thames), who were bound for Zealand, but were wind-stayed at 
 the Foreland, and took it into their heads to go on shore there. 
 One of the merchants, whose name was Sheffelde, a mercer, 
 entered a house, "and axed for mete, and specyally he axyd 
 after eggys." But the " goode-wyf " replied that she " coudo 
 speke no frenshe." The merchant, who was a steady English- 
 man, lost his temper, " for he also coude speke no frenshe, but 
 wolde have hadde eggys ; and she understode hym not." Fortu- 
 nately, a friend happened to join him in the house, and he acted 
 as interpreter. The friend said that "he wolde have eyren; 
 then the goode wyf sayde that she understod hym wel." And 
 then the simple-minded but much-perplexed Caxton goes on to 
 say : " Loo ! what sholde a man in thyse dayes now wry te, egge's 
 or eyren 1 " Such were the difficulties that beset printers and 
 writers in the close of the fifteenth century. 
 
 37. Latin of the Fourth Period. — (i) This contribution differs 
 very essentially in character from the last. The Norman-French 
 contribution was a gift from a people to a people — from living 
 beings to living beings ; this new contribution was rather a con- 
 veyance of words from books to books, and it never influenced 
 — in any great degree — the spoken language of the English 
 people. The ear and the mouth carried the Norman-French 
 words into our language; the eye, the pen, and the printing- 
 press were the instruments that brought in the Latin words of 
 the Fourth Period. The Norman-French words that came in 
 took and kept their place in the spoken language of the masses 
 of the people j the Latin words that we received in the sixteenth 
 and seventeenth centuries kept their place in the written or 
 printed language of books, of scholars, and of literary men 
 These new Latin words came in with the Revival of Learning, 
 which is also called the Renascence. 
 
 The Turks attacked and took Constantinople in the year 
 1453; and the great Greek and Latin scholars who lived in 
 that city hurriedly packed up their priceless manuscripts and 
 books, and fled to all parts of Italy, Germany, France, and even 
 into England. The loss of the East became the gain of the 
 West. These scholars became teachers ; they taught the Greek 
 
306 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 and Roman classics to eager and earnest learners ; and thus a 
 new impulse was given to the study of the great masterpieces of 
 human thought and literary style. And so it came to pass in 
 course of time that every one who wished to become an edu- 
 cated man studied the literature of Greece and Rome. Even 
 women took to the study. Lady Jane Grey was a good Greek 
 and Latin scholar; and. so was Queen Elizabeth. From this 
 time began an enormous importation of Latin words into our 
 language. Being imported by the eye and the pen, they suffered 
 little or nc change ; the spirit of the people did not influence 
 them in the least — neither the organs of speech nor the ear 
 affected either the pronunciation or the spelling of them. If we 
 look down the columns of any English dictionary, we shall find 
 these later Latin words in hundreds. Opinionem became 
 opinion; /actionem, faction; orationem, oration; pungentem 
 passed over in the form of pungent (though we had 'poignant 
 already from the Erench) ; pauperem came in as pauper ; and 
 separatum became separate. 
 
 38. Latin of the Fourth Period. — (ii) This went on to 
 such an extent in the sixteenth and the beginning of the 
 seventeenth century, that one writer says of those who spoke 
 and wrote this Latinised English, " If some of their mothers 
 were alive, they were not able to tell what they say." And 
 Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) remarks: "If elegancy 
 ( = the use of Latin words) still proceedeth, and English 
 pens maintain that stream we have of late observed to flow 
 from many, we shall, within a few years, be fain to learn Latin 
 to understand English, and a work will prove of equal facility 
 in either." Mr Alexander Gill, an eminent schoolmaster, and 
 the then head-master of St Paul's School, where, among his 
 other pupils, he taught John Milton, wrote a book in 1619 on 
 the English language ; and, among other remarks, he says : " 
 harsh lips ! I now hear all around me such words as common, 
 vices, envy, malice ; even virtue, study, justice, pity, mercy, com- 
 passion, profit, commodity, colour, grace, favour, acceptance. 
 But whither, I pray, in all the world, have you banished those 
 words which our forefathers used for these new-fangled ones? 
 
VOCABULARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 307 
 
 Are our words to be executed like our citizens ? " And he calls 
 this fashion of using Latin words " the new mange in our speak- 
 ing and writing." But the fashion went on growing ; and even 
 uneducated people thought it a clever thing to use a Latin 
 instead of a good English word. Samuel Rowlands, a writer in 
 the seventeenth century, ridicules this affectation in a few lines 
 of verse. He pretends that he was out walking on the highroad, 
 and met a countryman who wanted to know what o'clock it was, 
 and whether he was on the right way to the town or village he 
 was making for The writer saw at once that he was a simple 
 bumpkin ; and, when he heard that he had lost his way, he 
 turned up his nose at the poor fellow, and ordered him to be off 
 at once. Here are the lines : — 
 
 " As on the way I itinerated, 
 A rural person I obviated, 
 Interrogating time's transitation, 
 And of the passage demonstration. 
 My apprehension did ingenious scan 
 That he was merely a simplician ; 
 So, when I saw he was extravagant, 
 Unto the Obscure vulgar consonant, 
 I bade him vanish most promiscuously, 
 And not contaminate my company." 
 
 39. Latin of the Fourth Period. — (iii) What happened in the 
 case of the Norman-French contribution, happened also in this. 
 The language became saturated with these new Latin words, 
 until it became satiated, then, as it were, disgusted, and would 
 take no more. Hundreds of 
 
 " Long- tailed words in osity and ation" 
 
 crowded into the English language; but many of them were 
 doomed to speedy expulsion. Thus words like discerptibilif//, 
 supervacaneoutmesH, septentrionality, ludihundness (love of sport), 
 came in in crowds. The verb intenerate tried to turn out soften ; 
 and deturpate to take the place of defile. But good writers, like 
 Bacon and Raleigh, took care to avoid the use of such terms, 
 and to employ only those Latin words which gave them the 
 power to indicate a new idea — a new meaning or a new shade 
 
308 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 of meaning. And when we come to the eighteenth century, we 
 find that a writer like Addison would have shuddered at the 
 very mention of such " inkhorn terms." 
 
 40. Eye-Latin and Ear-Latin. — (i) One slight influence pro- 
 duced by this spread of devotion to classical Latin — to the Latin 
 of Cicero and Livy, of Horace and Virgil — was to alter the 
 spelling of French words. We had already received — through 
 the ear — the French words assaute, aventure, defaut, dette, vitaille, 
 and others. But when our scholars became accustomed to the 
 book-form of these words in Latin books, they gradually altered 
 them — for the eye and ear — into assault, adventure, default, 
 debt, and victuals. They went further. A large number of 
 Latin words that already existed in the language in their 
 Norman-French form (for we must not forget that French is 
 Latin "with the ends bitten off" — changed by being spoken 
 peculiarly and heard imperfectly) were reintroduced in their 
 original Latin form. Thus we had caitiff from the Normans; 
 but we reintroduced it in the shape of captive, which comes 
 almost unaltered from the Latin captivum. Feat we had from 
 the Normans; but the Latin factum, which provided the word, 
 presented us with a second form of it in the word fact. Such 
 words might be called Ear-Latin and Eye-Latin ; Mouth- 
 Latin and Book-Latin ; Spoken Latin and Written Latin ; 
 or Latin at second-hand and Latin at first-hand. 
 
 41. Eye-Latin and Ear-Latin. — (ii) This coming in of the 
 same word by two different doors — by the Eye and by the Ear — 
 has given rise to the phenomenon of Doublets. The following 
 is a list of Latin Doublets ; and it wiU be noticed that Latin * 
 stands for Latin at first-hand — from books ; and Latin 2 for 
 Latin at second-hand — through the Norman-French. 
 
 Latin Doublets or Duplicates 
 
 
 Latin. Latin *. 
 
 Latin 2 . 
 
 Antecessorem Antecessor 
 
 Ancestor. 
 
 Benedictionem Benediction 
 
 Benison. 
 
 Cadentia (Low Lat. noun) Cadence 
 
 Chance. 
 
 Captivum Captive 
 
 Caitiff. 
 
VOCABULARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 309 
 
 Conceptionem 
 
 Conception 
 
 Conceit. 
 
 Consuetudinem 
 
 Consuetude 
 
 f Custom. 
 I Costume. 
 
 Cophinum 
 
 Coffin 
 
 Coffer. 
 
 Corpus (a body) 
 
 Corpse 
 
 Corps. 
 
 Debitum (something owed) 
 
 Debit 
 
 Debt 
 
 Defectum (something wanting) 
 
 Defect 
 
 Defeat. 
 
 Dilatare 
 
 Dilate 
 
 Delay. 
 
 Exemplum 
 
 Example 
 
 Sample. 
 
 Fabrfca (a workshop) 
 
 Fabric 
 
 Forge. 
 
 Factionem 
 
 Faction 
 
 Fashion. 
 
 Factum 
 
 Fact 
 
 Feat. 
 
 Fidelitatem 
 
 Fidelity 
 
 Fealty. 
 
 Fragilem 
 
 Fragile 
 
 Frail. 
 
 Gentilis (belonging to a gens or 
 
 Gentile 
 
 Gentle. 
 
 family) 
 
 
 
 Historia 
 
 History 
 
 Story. 
 
 H 08 pi tale 
 
 Hospital 
 
 Hotel. 
 
 Lectionem 
 
 Lection 
 
 Lesson. 
 
 Legalem 
 
 Legal 
 
 Loyal. 
 
 Magister 
 
 Master 
 
 Mr. 
 
 Majorem (greater) 
 
 Major 
 
 Mayor. 
 
 Maledictionem 
 
 Malediction 
 
 Malison. 
 
 Moneta 
 
 Mint 
 
 Money. 
 
 Nutrimentum 
 
 Nutriment 
 
 Nourishment. 
 
 Orationem 
 
 Oration 
 
 Orison (a prayer). 
 
 Paganum (a dweller in a pagus 
 
 Pagan 
 
 Payne (a proper 
 
 or country district) 
 
 
 name). 
 
 Particulam (a little part) 
 
 Particle 
 
 Parcel. 
 
 Pauperem 
 
 Pauper 
 
 Poor. 
 
 Penitentiam 
 
 Penitence 
 
 Penance. 
 
 Persecutum 
 
 Persecute 
 
 Pursue. 
 
 Potionem (a draught) 
 
 Potion 
 
 Poison. 
 
 Pungentem 
 
 Pungent 
 
 Poignant. 
 
 Quietum 
 
 Quiet 
 
 Coy. 
 
 Radius 
 
 Radius 
 
 Ray. 
 
 Regalem 
 
 Regal 
 
 Royal. 
 
 Respectum 
 
 Respect 
 
 Respite. 
 
 Securum 
 
 Secure 
 
 Sure. 
 
 Seniorem 
 
 Senior 
 
 Sir. 
 
 Separatum 
 
 Separate 
 
 Sever. 
 
 Species 
 
 Species 
 
 Spice. 
 
 Statum 
 
 State 
 
 Estate. 
 
 Tractum 
 
 Tract 
 
 Trait. 
 
 Traditionem 
 
 Tradition 
 
 Treason. 
 
 Zelosum 
 
 Zealous 
 
 Jealous. 
 
310 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 42. Remarks on the above Table. — The word benison, a 
 blessing, may be contrasted with its opposite, malison, a cursa 
 — Cadence is the falling of sounds ; chance the befalling of 
 events. — A caitiff was at first a captive — then a person who 
 made no proper defence, but allowed himself to be taken captive. 
 — A corps is a body of troops. — The word sample is found, in 
 older English, in the form of ensample. — A feat of arms is a 
 deed or fact of arms, par excellence. — To understand how fragile 
 became frail, we must pronounce the g hard, and notice how 
 the hard guttural falls easily away — as in our own native words 
 nail and hail, which formerly contained a hard g. — A major is 
 a greater' captain ; a mayor is a greater magistrate. — A magister 
 means a bigger man — as opposed to a minister (from minus), a 
 smaller man. — Moneta was the name given to a stamped coin 5 
 because these coins were first struck in the temple of Juno 
 Moneta, Juno the Adviser or the Warner. (From the same 
 root — mon — come monition, admonition; monitor; admonish.) 
 — Shakespeare uses the word orison freely for prayer, as in the 
 address of Hamlet to Ophelia, where he says, " Nymph, in thy 
 orisons, be all my sins remembered ! " — Poor comes to us from 
 an Old French word poure ; the newer French is pauvre. — To 
 understand the vanishing of the g sound in poignant, we must 
 remember that the Eomans sounded it always hard. — Sever we 
 get through separate, because p and v are both labials, and 
 therefore easily interchangeable. — Treason — with its s instead 
 of ti — may be compared with benison, malison, orison, poison, 
 and reason. 
 
 43. Conclusions from the above Table. — If we examine the 
 table on page 309 with care, we shall come to several undeniable 
 conclusions. (i) First, the words which come to us direct 
 from Latin are found more in books than in everyday speech, 
 (ii) Secondly, they are longer. The reason is that the words 
 that have come through French have been worn down by the 
 careless pronunciation of many generations — by that desire for 
 ease in the pronouncing of words which characterises all 
 languages, and have at last been compelled to take that form 
 which was least difficult to pronounce, (iii) Thirdly, the two 
 
VOCABULARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 311 
 
 sets of words have, in each case, either (a) very different 
 meanings, or (b) different shades of meaning. There is no like- 
 ness of meaning in cadence and chance, except the common 
 meaning oifall which belongs to the root from which they both 
 spring. And the different shades of meaning between history 
 and story, between regal and royal, between persecute and 
 pursue, are also quite plainly marked, and are of the greatest 
 use in composition. 
 
 44. Latin Triplets. — Still more remarkable is the fact that 
 there are in our language words that have made three appear- 
 ances — one through Latin, one through Norman-French, and 
 one through ordinary French. These seem to live quietly side 
 by side in the language ; and no one asks by what claim they 
 are here. They are useful : that is enough. These triplets are — 
 regal, royal, and real ; legal, loyal, and leal ; fidelity, faith- 
 fulness, 1 and fealty. The adjective real we no longer possess 
 in the sense of royal, but Chaucer uses it ; and it still exists 
 in the noun real-m. Leal is most used in Scotland, where it 
 has a settled abode in the well-known phrase " the land o' the 
 leal." 
 
 45. Greek Doublets. — The same double introduction, which 
 we noticed in the case of Latin words, takes place in regard to 
 Greek words. It seems to have been forgotten that our English 
 forms of them had been already given us by St Augustine and 
 the Church, and a newer form of each was reintroduced. The 
 following are a few examples : — 
 
 Greek. 
 
 Older Form. 
 
 Later Form. 
 
 Adamanta 2 (the untameable) 
 
 Diamond 
 
 Adamant. 
 
 Balsa tnon 
 
 Balm 
 
 Balsam. 
 
 Blasphemein (to speak ill of) 
 
 Blame 
 
 Blaspheme. 
 
 Cheirourgon 2 (a worker with 
 
 Chirurgeon 
 
 Surgeon. 
 
 the hand) 
 
 
 
 1 The word faith is a true French word with an English ending— the end- 
 ing th. Hence it is a hybrid. The old French word was fei — from the Latin 
 Jidem ; and the ending th was added to make it look more like truth, wtaU\ 
 health, and other purely English words. 
 
 9 The accusative or objective case is given in all these words. 
 
312 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 Dacttilon (a finger) 
 
 Date (the 
 
 fruit) 
 
 Dactyl. 
 
 Phantasia 
 
 Fancy 
 
 
 Phantasy. 
 
 Phantasma (an appearance) 
 
 Phantom 
 
 
 Phantasm. 
 
 Presbuteron (an elder) 
 
 Priest 
 
 
 Presbyter. 
 
 Paralysis 
 
 Palsy 
 
 
 Paralysis. 
 
 Scandalon 
 
 Slander 
 
 
 Scandal. 
 
 It may be remarked of the word fancy, that, in Shakespeare's 
 time, it meant love or imagination — ■ 
 
 " Tell me, where is fancy bred, 
 Or in the heart, or in the head ? " 
 
 It is now restricted to mean a lighter and less serious kind of 
 imagination. Thus we say that Milton's 'Paradise Lost' is 
 a work of imagination ; but that Moore's ' Lalla Rookh ' is a 
 product of the poet's fancy. 
 
 46. Characteristics of the Two Elements of English. — If 
 we keep our attention fixed on the two chief elements in our 
 language — the English element and the Latin element — the 
 Teutonic and the Romance — we shall find some striking qualities 
 manifest themselves. We have already said that whole sentences 
 can be made containing only English words, while it is impossible 
 to do this with Latin or other foreign words. Let us take two 
 passages — one from a daily newspaper, and the other from 
 Shakespeare : — 
 
 (i) " We find the functions of such an official defined in the Act. He 
 is to be a legally qualified medical practitioner of skill and experience, to 
 inspect and report periodically on the sanitary condition of town or dis- 
 trict ; to ascertain the existence of diseases, more especially epidemics 
 increasing the rates of mortality, and to point out the existence of any 
 nuisances or other local causes, which are likely to originate and maintain 
 such diseases, and injuriously affect the health of the inhabitants of such 
 town or district ; to take cognisance of the existence of any contagious 
 disease, and to point out the most efficacious means for the ventilation of 
 chapels, schools, registered lodging-houses, and other public buildings." 
 
 In this passage, all the words in italics are either Latin or 
 Greek. But, if the purely English words were left out, the 
 sentence would fall into ruins — would become a mere rubbish- 
 heap of words. It is the small particles that give lrfe and 
 
VOCABULARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 313 
 
 motion to each sentence. They are the joints and hinges on 
 which the whole sentence moves. — Let us now look at a passage 
 from Shakespeare. It is from the speech of Macbeth, after he 
 has made up his mind to murder Duncan : — 
 
 (ii) " Go bid tuy mistress, when my drink is ready, 
 She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed ! — 
 Is this a dagger which I see before me, 
 The handle toward my hand ? Come ! let me clutch thee ! 
 — I have thee not ; and yet I see thee still." 
 
 In this passage there is only one Latin (or French) word — the 
 word mistress. If Shakespeare had used the word lady, the 
 passage would have been entirely English. — The passage from 
 the newspaper deals with large generalisations ; that from 
 Shakespeare with individual acts and feelings — with things 
 that come home " to the business and bosom " of man as man. 
 Every master of the English language understands well the art 
 of mingling the two elements — so as to obtain a fine effect; and 
 none better than writers like Shakespeare, Milton, Gray, and 
 Tennyson. Shakespeare makes Antony say of Cleopatra : — 
 
 " Age cannot wither her ; nor custom stale 
 Her infinite variety." 
 
 Here the French (or Latin) words custom and variety form a 
 vivid contrast to the English verb stale, throw up its meaning 
 and colour, and give it greater prominence. — Milton makes Eve 
 
 say:— 
 
 " I thither went 
 With inexperienc'd thought, and laid me down 
 On the green bank, to look into the clear 
 Smooth lake, that to me seem'd another sky." 
 
 Here the words inexperienced and clear give variety to the same- 
 ness of the English words. — Gray, in the Elegy, has this verse: — 
 
 " The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, 
 
 The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, 
 The cock's shrill clarion or the echoing horn, 
 
 No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed." 
 
314 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 Here incense, clarion, and echoing give a vivid colouring to the 
 plainer hues of the homely English phrases. — Tennyson, in the 
 Lotos-Eaters, vi., writes : — 
 
 " Dear is the memory of our wedded lives, 
 And dear the last embraces of our wives 
 And their warm tears : but all hath suffered change ; 
 For surely now our household hearths are cold : 
 Our sons inherit us : our looks are strange : 
 And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy." 
 
 Most powerful is the introduction of the French words suffered 
 change, inherit, strange, and trouole joy ; for they give with 
 painful force the contrast of the present state of desolation with 
 the homely rest and happiness of the old abode, the love of the 
 loving wives, the faithfulness of the stalwart sons. 
 
 47. English and other Doublets. — We have already seen 
 how, by the presentation of the same word at two different 
 doors — the door of Latin and the door of French — we are in 
 possession of a considerable number of doublets. But this 
 phenomenon is not limited to Latin and French — is not solely 
 due to the contributions we receive from these languages. We 
 find it also within English itself; and causes of the most 
 different description bring about the same results. For various 
 reasons, the English language is very rich in doublets. It 
 possesses nearly five hundred pairs of such words. The language 
 is all the richer for having them, as it is thereby enabled to 
 give fuller and clearer expression to the different shades and 
 delicate varieties of meaning in the mind. 
 
 48. The sources of doublets are various. But five different 
 causes seem chiefly to have operated in producing them. They 
 are due to differences of pronunciation ; to differences in spel- 
 ling ; to contractions for convenience in daily speech ; to 
 differences in dialects ; and to the fact that many of them come 
 from different languages. Let us look at a few examples of 
 each. At bottom, however, all these differences will be found 
 to resolve themselves into differences of pronunciation. They 
 are either differences in the pronunciation of the same word by 
 
VOCABULARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 315 
 
 different tribes, or by men in different counties, who speak 
 different dialects ; or by men of different nations. 
 
 49. Differences in Pronunciation. — From this source we 
 have parson and person (the parson being the person or repre- 
 sentative of the Church) ; sop and soup ; task and tax (the sk 
 has here become ks) ; thread and thrid ; ticket and etiquette ; 
 sauce and souse (to steep in brine) ; squall and squeal. 
 
 50. Differences in Spelling. — To and too are the same word 
 — one being used as a preposition, the other as an adverb ; of 
 and off, from and fro, are only different spellings, which repre- 
 sent different functions or uses of the same word ; onion and 
 union are the same word. An union l comes from the Latin 
 unus, one, and it meant a large single pearl — a unique jewel ; 
 the word was then applied to the plant, the head of which is of 
 a pearl-shape. 
 
 51. Contractions. — Contraction has been a pretty fruitful source 
 of doublets in English. A long word has a syllable or two cut off ; 
 or two or three are compressed into one. Thus example has 
 become sample ; alone appears also as lone ; amend has been 
 shortened into mend ; defend has been cut down into fend (as 
 in fender); manoeuvre has been contracted into manure (both 
 meaning originally to work ivith the hand) ; madam becomes 'm 
 in yes *m 2 ; and presbyter has been squeezed down into priest. 3 
 Other examples of contraction are : capital and cattle ; chirur- 
 geon (a worker with the hand) and surgeon; cholera and 
 choler (from cholos, the Greek word for bile) \ disport and 
 sport ; estate and state ; esquire and squire ; Egyptian and 
 
 1 In Hamlet v. 2. 283, Shakespeare makes the King say — 
 
 " The King shall drink to Hamlet's better breath ; 
 And in the cup an union shall he throw." 
 
 2 Professor Max Muller gives this as the most remarkable instance of 
 cutting down. The Latin mea domina became in French madame; in 
 English ma'am; and, in the language of servants, 'm. 
 
 3 Milton says, in one of his sonnets— 
 
 " New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large." 
 
 From the etymological point of view, the truth is just the other way 
 about. Priest is old Presbyter writ small. 
 
316 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 gipsy; emmet and ant; gammon and game; grandfather 
 and gaffer; grandmother and gammer; iota (the Greek 
 letter i) and jot; maximum and maxim; mobile and mob; 
 mosquito and musket ; papa and pope ; periwig and wig ; 
 poesy and posy; procurator and proctor; shallop and 
 sloop; unity and unit. It is quite evident that the above 
 pairs of words, although in reality one, have very different 
 meanings and uses. 
 
 52. Difference of English Dialects. — Another source of 
 doublets is to be found in the dialects of the English language. 
 Almost every county in England has its own dialect ; but three 
 main dialects stand out with great prominence in our older 
 literature, and these are the Northern, the Midland, and the 
 Southern. The grammar of these dialects 1 was different ; their 
 pronunciation of words was different — and this has given rise to 
 a splitting of one word into two. In the North, we find a hard 
 c, as in the caste?' of Lancaster ; in the Midlands, a soft c, as 
 in Leicester ; in the South, a ch, as in Winchester. We shall 
 find similar differences of hardness and softness in ordinary 
 words. Thus we find kirk and church ; canker and cancer ; 
 canal and channel ; deck and thatch ; drill and thrill ; fan 
 and van (in a winnowing-machine) ; fitch and vetch ; hale and 
 whole ; mash and mess ; naught, nought, and not ; pike, 
 peak, and beak ; poke and pouch ; quid (a piece of tobacco for 
 chewing) and cud (which means the thing chewed) ; reave 
 and rob; ridge and rig; scabby and shabby; scar and 
 share ; screech and shriek ; shirt and skirt ; shuffle and 
 scuffle ; spray and sprig ; wain and waggon — and other pairs. 
 All of these are but different modes of pronouncing the same 
 word in different parts of England; but the genius of the 
 language has taken advantage of these different ways of pro- 
 nouncing to make different words out of them, and to give 
 them different functions, meanings, and uses. 
 
 i See p. 320, 
 
317 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR OF ENGLISH. 
 
 1. The Oldest English Synthetic.— The oldest English, or 
 Anglo-Saxon, that was brought over here in the fifth century, 
 was a language that showed the relations of words to each other 
 by adding different endings to words, or by synthesis. These 
 endings are called inflexions. Latin and Greek are highly 
 inflected languages; French and German have many more 
 inflexions than modern English; and ancient English (or 
 Anglo-Saxon) also possessed a large number of inflexions. 
 
 2. Modern English Analytic. — When, instead of inflexions, 
 a language employs small particles — such as prepositions, auxil- 
 iary verbs, and suchlike words — to express the relations of 
 words to each other, such a language is called analytic or non- 
 inflexional. When we say, as we used to say in the oldest 
 English, " God is ealra cyninga cyning," we speak a synthetic 
 language. But when we say, " God is king of all kings," then 
 we employ an analytic or uninflected language. 
 
 3. Short View of the History of English Grammar. — From 
 the time when the English language came over to this island, it 
 has grown steadily in the number of its words. On the other 
 hand, it has lost just as steadily in the number of its inflexions. 
 Put in a broad and somewhat rough fashion, it may be said 
 that— 
 
 (i) Up to about 1100— one generation after the Battle of Senlac 
 
 —the English language was a Synthetic Language. 
 
 Z 
 
318 HISTOKY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 (ii) From the year 1100 or thereabouts, English has heen losing Its 
 Inflexions, and gradually becoming more and more an Analytic 
 Language. 
 
 4. Causes of this Change. — Even before the coming of the 
 Danes and the Normans, the English people had shown a 
 tendency to get rid of some of their inflexions. A similar 
 tendency can be observed at the present time among the 
 Germans of the Ehine Province, who often drop an n at the end 
 of a word, and show in other respects a carelessness about gram- 
 mar. But, when a foreign people comes among natives, such a 
 tendency is naturally encouraged, and often greatly increased. 
 The natives discover that these inflexions are not so very 
 important, if only they can get their meaning rightly conveyed 
 to the foreigners. Both parties, accordingly, come to see that 
 the root of the word is the most important element j they stick 
 to that, and they come to neglect the mere inflexions. More- 
 over, the accent in English words always struck the root ; and 
 hence this part of the word always fell on the ear with the 
 greater force, and carried the greater weight. When the Danes 
 — who spoke a cognate language — began to settle in England, 
 the tendency to drop inflexions increased ; but when the Nor- 
 mans — who spoke an entirely different language — came, the 
 tendency increased enormously, and the inflexions of Anglo- 
 Saxon began to " fall as the leaves fall " in the dry wind of a 
 frosty October. Let us try to trace some of these changes and 
 losses. 
 
 5. Grammar of the First Period, 450-1100.— The English of 
 this period is called the Oldest English or Anglo-Saxon. The 
 gender of nouns was arbitrary, or — it may be — poetical ; it did 
 not, as in modern English it does, follow the sex. Thus nama, 
 a name, was masculine ; tunge, a tongue, feminine ; and eage, 
 an eye, neuter. Like nama, the proper names of men ended in 
 a ; and we find such names as Ida, Offa, Penda, as the names of 
 kings. Nouns at this period had four cases, with inflexions for 
 each ; now we possess but one inflexion — that for the possessive. 
 — Even the definite article was inflected. — The infinitive of verbs 
 ended in an; and the sign to — which we received from the 
 
HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR OF ENGLISH. 319 
 
 Danes — was not in use, except for the dative of the infinitive. 
 This dative infinitive is still preserved in such phrases as "a 
 house to let ; " " bread to eat ; " " water to drink." — The present 
 participle ended in ende (in the North ande). This participle in 
 time dropped its own proper termination, and accepted ing from 
 the verbal noun, to which (under the modern name of gerund) it 
 communicated some of its own syntactical peculiarities. — The 
 plural of the present indicative ended in ath for all three 
 persons. In the perfect tense, the plural ending was on. — There 
 was no future tense ; the work of the future was done by 
 the present tense. Fragments of this usage still survive in 
 the language, as when we say, "He goes up to town next 
 week." — Prepositions governed various cases ; and not always 
 the objective (or accusative), as they do now. 
 
 6. Grammar of the Second Period, 1100-1250. — The English 
 of this period is called Early English. Even before the coming 
 of the Normans, the inflexions of our language had — as we have 
 seen — begun to drop off, and it was slowly on the way to becom- 
 ing an analytic language. The same changes — the same simpli- 
 fication of grammar, has taken place in nearly every Low 
 German language. But the coming of the Normans hastened 
 these changes, for it made the inflexional endings of words of 
 much less practical importance to the English themselves. — Great 
 changes took place in the pronunciation also. The hard c or k 
 was softened into ch ; and the hard guttural g was refined into 
 a y or even into a silent w. — A remarkable addition was made 
 to the language. The Oldest English or Anglo-Saxon had no 
 indefinite article. They said ofer stdn for on a rock. But, as 
 the French have made the article un out of the Latin unus, so 
 the English pared down the northern ane (= one) into the 
 article an or a. The Anglo-Saxon definite article was se, seo, 
 ]?aet ; and in the grammar of this Second Period it became ]?e, 
 }?eo, ]>e. — The French plural in es took the place of the English 
 plural in en. But housen and shoon existed 1 for many centuries 
 after the Norman coming; and Mr. Barnes, the Dorsetshire 
 poet, always deplored the ugly sound of nests and fists, and wanted 
 to be able to say and to write nesten and fisten. — The dative 
 plural, which ended in um, becomes an e or an en. The um, 
 
 1 Both forms still exist in dialect. 
 
320 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 however, still exists in the form of om In seldom ( = at few 
 times) and whilom ( = in old times). — The gender of nouns falls 
 into confusion, and begins to show a tendency to follow the sex. 
 — Adjectives show a tendency to drop several of their inflexions, 
 and to become as serviceable and accommodating as they are 
 now — when they are the same with all numbers, genders, and 
 cases. — The an of the infinitive becomes en, and sometimes 
 even the n is dropped. — Shall and will begin to be used as 
 tense-auxiliaries for the future tense. 
 
 7. Grammar of the Third Period, 1250-1350.— The English of 
 this period is often called Middle English. — The definite article 
 still preserves a few inflexions. — Nouns that were once masculine 
 or feminine become neuter, for the sake of convenience. — The 
 possessive in es becomes general. — Adjectives make their plural 
 in e. — The infinitive now takes to before it — except after a few 
 verbs, like bid, see, hear, etc. — The present participle in inge 
 makes its appearance about the year 1300. 
 
 8. Grammar of the Fourth Period, 1350-1485. — This may be 
 called Later Middle English. An old writer of the fourteenth 
 century points out that, in his time — and before it — the English 
 language was " a-deled a thre," divided into three j that is, that 
 there were three main dialects, the Northern, the Midland, 
 and the Southern. There were many differences in the grammar 
 of these dialects ; but the chief of these differences is found in 
 the plural of the present indicative of the verb. This part of 
 the verb formed its plurals in the following manner : — 
 
 Northern. Midland. Southern. 
 
 We hopes We hopen We hopeth. 
 
 You hopes You hopen You hopeth. 
 
 They hopes They hopen They hopeth. 1 
 
 In time the Midland dialect conquered : and the East Midland 
 form of it became predominant all over England. As early as 
 the beginning of the thirteenth century, this dialect had thrown 
 off most of the old inflexions, and had become almost as flexion- 
 
 1 This plural we still find in the famous Winchester motto, "Manners 
 maketh man." 
 
HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR OF ENGLISH. 321 
 
 less as the English of the present day. Let us note a few of 
 the more prominent changes. — The first personal pronoun Ic or 
 Ich loses the guttural, and becomes L — The pronouns him, 
 them, and whom, which are true datives, are used either as 
 datives or as objectives. — The imperative plural ends in eth. 
 "Riseth up," Chaucer makes one of his characters say, "and 
 stondeth by me ! " — The useful and almost ubiquitous letter e 
 comes in as a substitute for a, u, and even an. Thus nama 
 becomes name, sunu (son) becomes sune, and withutan changes 
 into withute. — The dative of adjectives is used as an adverb. 
 Thus we find softe, brighte employed like our softly, brightly. 
 — The n in the infinitive has fallen away ; but the e is sounded 
 as a separate syllable. Thus we find breke, smite for breken 
 and smiten. 
 
 9. General View. — In the time of King Alfred, the West- 
 Saxon speech — the Wessex dialect — took precedence of the rest, 
 and became the literary dialect of England. But it had not, and 
 could not have, any influence on the spoken language of other 
 parts of England, for the simple reason that very few persons 
 were able to travel, and it took days — and even weeks — for a 
 man to go from Devonshire to Yorkshire. In course of time 
 the Midland dialect — that spoken between the Humber and 
 the Thames — became the predominant dialect of England; 
 and the East Midland variety of this dialect became the 
 parent of modern standard English. This predominance was 
 probably due to the fact that it, soonest of all, got rid of its 
 inflexions, and became most easy, pleasant, and convenient to 
 use. And this disuse of inflexions was itself probably due to 
 the early Danish settlements in the east, to the larger number 
 of Normans in that part of England, to the larger number of 
 thriving towns, and to the greater and more active communi- 
 cation between the eastern seaports and the Continent. The 
 inflexions were first confused, then weakened, then forgotten, 
 finally lost. The result was an extreme simplification, which 
 still benefits all learners of the English language. Instead of 
 spending a great deal of time on the learning of a large number 
 of inflexions, which are to them arbitrary and meaningless, 
 
322 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 foreigners have only to fix their attention on the words and 
 phrases themselves, that is, on the very pith and marrow of the 
 language — indeed, on the language itself. Hence the great 
 German grammarian Grimm, and others, predict that English 
 will spread itseif all over the world, and become the universal 
 language of the future. In addition to this almost complete 
 sweeping away of all inflexions, — which made Dr Johnson say, 
 " Sir, the English language has no grammar at all," — there were 
 other remarkable and useful results which accrued from the 
 coming in of the Xorman-Erench and other foreign elements. 
 
 10. Monosyllables. — The stripping off of the inflexions of 
 our language cut a large number of words down to the root." 
 Hundreds, if not thousands, of our verbs were dissyllables, but, 
 by the gradual loss of the ending en (which was in Anglo-Saxon 
 an), they became monosyllables. Thus bindan, drincan, find- 
 an, became bind, drink, find ; and this happened with hosts 
 of other verbs. Again, the expulsion of the guttural, which 
 the Normans never could or would take to, had the effect of 
 compressing many words of two syllables into one. Thus 
 hagol, twaegen, and faegen, became hail, twain, and fain. — 
 In these and other ways it has come to pass that the present 
 English is to a very large extent of a monosyllabic character. So 
 much is this the case, that whole books have been written for 
 children in monosyllables. It must be confessed that the mono- 
 syllabic style is often dull, but it is always serious and homely. 
 We can find in our translation of the Bible whole verses that 
 are made up of words of only one syllable. Many of the most 
 powerful passages in Shakespeare, too, are written in monosylla- 
 bles. The same may be said of hundreds of our proverbs — such 
 as, " Cats hide their claws " ; " Fair words please fools " ; " He 
 that has most time has none to lose." Great poets, like Tenny- 
 son and Matthew Arnold, understand well the fine effect to be 
 produced from the mingling of short and long words — of the 
 homely English with the more ornate Eomance language. In 
 the following verse from Matthew Arnold the words are all 
 monosyllables, with the exception of tired and contention (which 
 is Latin) : — 
 
HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR OF ENGLISH. 323 
 
 " Let the long contention cease ; 
 Geese are swans, and swans are geese ; 
 Let them have it how they will, 
 Thou art tired. Best be still ! " 
 
 Tn Tennyson's " Lord of Burleigh," when the sorrowful hus- 
 band comes to look upon his dead wife, the verse runs almost 
 entirely in monosyllables : — 
 
 " And he came to look upon her, 
 And he looked at her, and said : 
 1 Bring the dress, and put it on her, 
 That she wore when she was wed.' " 
 
 An American writer has well indicated the force of the Eng- 
 lish monosyllable in the following sonnet : — 
 
 " Think not that strength lies in the big, round word, 
 
 Or that the brief and plain must needs be weak. 
 To whom can this be true who once has heard 
 
 The cry for help, the tongue that all men speak, 
 When want, or fear, or woe, is in the throat, 
 
 So that each word gasped out is like a shriek 
 Pressed from the sore heart, or a strange, wild note 
 
 Sung by some fay or fiend ! There is a strength, 
 Which dies if stretched too far, or spun too fine, 
 
 Which has more height than breadth, more depth than length : 
 Let but this force of thought and speech be mine, 
 
 And he that will may take the sleek fat phrase, 
 Which glows but burns not, though it beam and shine ; 
 
 Light, but no heat, — a flash, but not a blaze." 
 
 It will be observed that this sonnet consists entirely of mono- 
 syllables, and yet that the style of it shows considerable power 
 and vigour. The words printed in italics are all derived from 
 Latin, with the exception of the word phrase, which is Greek. 
 
 11. Change in the Order of Words. — The syntax — or order 
 of words — of the oldest English was very different from that of 
 Norman-Erench. The syntax of an Old English sentence was 
 clumsy and involved ; it kept the attention long on the strain ; 
 it was rumbling, rambling, and unpleasant to the ear. It kept 
 the attention on the strain, because the verb in a subordinate 
 clause was held back, and not revealed till we had come to the 
 
324 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 end of the clause. Thus the Anglo-Saxon wrote (though in 
 different form and spelling) — 
 
 " When Darius saw, that he overcome be would." 
 
 The newer English, under French influence, wrote — 
 
 " When Darius saw that he was going to be overcome.'' 
 
 This change has made an English sentence lighter and more 
 easy to understand, for the reader or hearer is not kept waiting 
 for the verb ; but each word comes just when it is expected, 
 and therefore in its " natural " place. The Old English sentence 
 — which is very like the German sentence of the present day — 
 has been compared to a heavy cart without springs, while the 
 newer English sentence is like a modern well-hung English car- 
 riage. Norman-French, then, gave us a brighter, lighter, freer 
 rhythm, and therefore a sentence more easy to understand and 
 to employ, more supple, and better adapted to everyday use. 
 
 12. The Expulsion of Gutturals. — (i) Not only did the Nor- 
 mans help us to an easier and pleasanter kind of sentence, they 
 aided us in getting rid of the numerous throat-sounds that in- 
 fested our language. It is a remarkable fact that there is not 
 now in the French language a single guttural. There is not an h 
 in the whole language. The French write an h in several of 
 their words, but they never sound it. Its use is merely to serve 
 as a fence between two vowels — to keep two vowels separate, as 
 in la haine, hatred. No doubt the Normans could utter throat- 
 sounds well enough When they dwelt in Scandinavia ; but, after 
 they had lived in France for several generations, they acquired 
 a great dislike to all such sounds. No doubt, too, many, from 
 long disuse, were unable to give utterance to a guttural. This 
 dislike they communicated to the English ; and hence, in the 
 present day, there are many people — especially in the south of 
 England — who cannot sound a guttural at all. The muscles in the 
 throat that help to produce these sounds have become atrophied 
 — have lost their power for want of practice. The purely Eng- 
 lish part of the population, for many centuries after the Norman 
 invasion, could sound gutturals quite easily — just as the Scotch 
 
HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR OF ENGLISH. 325 
 
 and the Germans do now ; but it gradually became the fashion 
 in England to leave them out. 
 
 13. The Expulsion of Gutturals. — (ii) In some cases the 
 guttural disappeared entirely ; in others, it was changed into or 
 represented by other sounds. The ge at the beginning of the 
 passive (or past) participles of many verbs disappeared entirely. 
 Thus gebroht, geboht, geworht, became brought, bought, and 
 wrought. The g at the beginning of many words also dropped 
 off. Thus G-yppenswich became Ipswich; gif became if; 
 genoh, enough. — The guttural at the end of words — hard g 
 or c — a l S o disappeared. Thus halig became holy; eordhlic, 
 earthly; gastlic, ghastly or ghostly. The same is the case in 
 dough, through, plough, etc. — the guttural appearing to the 
 eye but not to the ear. — Again, the guttural was changed into 
 quite different sounds — into labials, into sibilants, into other 
 sounds also. The following are a few examples : — 
 
 (a) The guttural has been softened, through Norman-French 
 influence, into a sibilant. Thus rigg, egg, and brigg have 
 become ridge, edge, and bridge. 
 
 (b) The guttural has become a labial — f — as in cough, 
 enough, trough, laugh, draught, etc. 
 
 (c) The guttural has become an additional syllable, and is 
 represented by a vowel-sound. Thus sorg and mearh have 
 become sorrow and marrow. 
 
 (d) In some words it has disappeared both to eye and ear. 
 Thus maked has become made. 
 
 14. The Story of the GH. — How is it, then, that we have in so 
 many words the two strongest gutturals in the language — g and 
 h — not only separately, in so many of our words, but combined 1 
 The story is an odd one. Our Old English or Saxon scribes 
 wrote — not light, might, and night, but liht, miht, and niht 
 When, however, they found that the Norman-French gentlemen 
 would not sound the h, and say — as is still said in Scotland 
 — licht, &c, they redoubled the guttural, strengthened the h 
 with a hard g, and again presented the dose to the Norman. 
 But, if the Norman could not sound the h alone, still less could 
 he sound the double guttural ; and he very coolly let both alone 
 
326 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 — ignored both. The Saxon scribe doubled the signs for his 
 guttural, just as a fanner might put up a strong wooden fence in 
 front of a hedge ; but the Norman cleared both with perfect 
 ease and indifference. And so it came to pass that we have the 
 symbol gh in more than seventy of our words, and that in most of 
 these we do not sound it at all. The gh remains in our language, 
 like a moss-grown boulder, brought down into the fertile valley 
 in a glacial period, when gutturals were both spoken and written, 
 and men believed in the truthfulness of letters — but now passed 
 by in silence and noticed by no one. 
 
 15. The Letters that represent Gutturals. — The English 
 guttural has been quite Protean in the written or printed forms 
 it takes. It appears as an i, as a y, as a w, as a eh, as a dge, 
 as a j, and — in its more native forms — as a g, a k, or a 
 gh. The following words give all these forms : hail, day, fowl, 
 teach, edge, ajar, drag, truck, and trough. Now hail was 
 hagol, day was daeg, fowl was fugol, teach was taecan, edge was 
 egg, ajar was achar. In seek, beseech, sought — which are 
 all different forms of the same word — we see the guttural appear- 
 ing in three different forms — as a hard k, as a soft ch, as an un- 
 noticed gh. In think and thought, drink and draught, sly 
 and sleight, dry and drought, slay and slaughter, it takes 
 two different forms. In dig, ditch, and dike — which are all 
 the same word in different shapes — it again takes three forms. 
 In fly, flew, and flight, it appears as a y, a w, and a gh. But, 
 indeed, the manners of a guttural, its ways of appearing and 
 disappearing, are almost beyond counting. 
 
 16. Grammatical Result of the Loss of Inflexions. — When 
 we look at a Latin or French or German word, we know whether 
 it is a verb or a noun or a preposition by its mere appearance 
 — by its face or by its dress, so to speak. But the loss of 
 inflexions which has taken place in the English language has 
 resulted in depriving us of this advantage — if advantage it is. 
 Instead of looking at the face of a word in English, we are 
 obliged to think of its function, — that is, of what it does. We 
 have, for example, a large number of words that are both nouns 
 and verbs — we may use them as the one or as the other ; and. 
 
HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR OF ENGLISH. 327 
 
 till we have used them, we cannot tell whether they are the 
 one or the other. Thus, when we speak of " a cut on the fin- 
 ger," cut is a noun, because it is a name ; but when we say, 
 "Harry cut his finger," then cut is a verb, because it tells 
 something about Harry. Words like bud, cane, cut, comb, 
 cap, dust, fall, fish, heap, mind, name, pen, plaster, punt, 
 run, rush, stone, and many others, can be used either as nouns 
 or as verbs. Again, fast, quick, and hard may be used either 
 as adverbs or as adjectives ; and back may be employed as an 
 adverb, as a noun, and even as an adjective. Shakespeare is 
 very daring in the use of this licence. He makes one of his char- 
 acters say, " But me no buts ! " In this sentence, the first but is 
 a verb in the imperative mood ; the second is a noun in the 
 objective case. Shakespeare uses also such verbs as to glad, to 
 mad, such phrases as a seldom pleasure, and the fairest she. Dr 
 Abbott says, " In Elizabethan English, almost any part of speech 
 can be used as any other part of speech. An adverb can be used 
 as a verb, ' they askance their eyes ' ; as a noun, ' the backward 
 and abysm of time'; or as an adjective, 'a seldom pleasure.' 
 Any noun, adjective, or neuter verb can be used as an active 
 verb. You can 'happy' your friend, 'malice' or 'fool' your 
 enemy, or 'fall' an axe upon his neck." Even in modern Eng- 
 lish, almost any noun can be used as a verb. Thus we can say, 
 "to paper a room"; "to water the horses"; "to black-ball a 
 candidate " ; to " iron a shirt " or " a prisoner " ; " to toe the line." 
 On the other hand, verbs may be used as nouns ; for we can 
 speak of a work, of a beautiful print, of a long walk, and so on. 
 
828 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SPECIMENS OF ENGLISH OF DIFFERENT PERIODS. 
 
 1. Vocabulary and Grammar. — The oldest English or Anglo- 
 Saxon differs from modern English both in vocabulary and in 
 grammar — in the words it uses and in the inflexions it employs. 
 The difference is often startling. And yet. if we look closely 
 at the words and their dress, we shall most often find that the 
 words which look so strange are the very words with which we 
 are most familiar — words that we are in the habit of using every 
 day ; and that it is their dress alone that is strange and anti- 
 quated. The effect is the same as if we were to dress a modern 
 man in the clothes worn a thousand years ago : the chances are 
 that we should not be able to recognise even our dearest friend. 
 
 2. A Specimen from Anglo-Saxon. — Let us take as an 
 example a verse from the Anglo-Saxon version of one of the 
 Gospels. The well-known verse, Luke ii. 40, runs thus in our 
 oldest English version : — 
 
 S6J)lice daet cild weox, and waes gestrangod, wisdomes full ; and Godes 
 gyfu waes on him. 
 
 Now this looks like an extract from a foreign language j but it 
 is not : it is our own veritable mother-tongue. Every word is 
 pure ordinary English; it is the dress — the spelling and the 
 inflexions — that is quaint and old-fashioned. This will be 
 plain from a literal translation : — 
 
 Soothly that child waxed, and was strengthened, wisdoms full ( = full of 
 wisdom) ; and God's gift was on him. 
 
SPECIMENS OF ENGLISH OF DIFFEEENT PERIODS. 329 
 
 3. A Comparison. — This will become plainer if we compare 
 the English of the Gospels as it was written in different periods 
 of our language. The alteration in the meanings of words, the 
 changes in the application of them, the variation in the use of 
 phrases, the falling away of the inflexions — all these things 
 become plain to the eye and to the mind as soon as we thought- 
 fully compare the different versions. The following are extracts 
 from the Anglo-Saxon version (995), the version of Wycliffe 
 (1380) and of Tyndale (1526), of the passage in Luke ii. 
 44, 45:— 
 
 Anglo-Saxon. 
 
 Wendon daet he on 
 heora gefere waere, d£ 
 comon hig anes daeges 
 faer, and hine sdhton be- 
 tweox his niagas and his 
 cudan. 
 
 Da hig hyne ne f undon, 
 hig gewendon to Hierusa- 
 lem, hine secende. 
 
 Wycliffe. 
 
 Forsothe thei ges- 
 singe him to be in the 
 felowschipe, camen 
 the wey of 6, day, and 
 80u3ten him among 
 his cosyns and know- 
 en. 
 
 And thei not fynd- 
 inge, wenten ajen to 
 Jerusalem, sekynge 
 him. 
 
 Tyndale. 
 
 For they supposed he 
 had bene in the company, 
 they cam a days iorney, 
 and sought hym amonge 
 their kynsfolke and ac- 
 quayntaunce. 
 
 And founde hym not 
 they went backe agayne 
 to Hierusalem, and sought 
 hym. 
 
 The literal translation of the Anglo-Saxon version is as 
 follows : — 
 
 (They) weened that he on their companionship were ( = was), when came 
 they one day's faring, and him sought betwixt his relations and his couth 
 (folk = acquaintances). 
 
 When they him not found, they turned to Jerusalem, him seeking. 
 
 4. The Lord's Prayer. — The same plan of comparison may 
 be applied to the different versions of the Lord's Prayer that 
 have come down to us ; and it will be seen from this compari- 
 son that the greatest changes have taken place in the grammar, 
 and especially in that part of the grammar which contains the 
 inflexions. 
 
330 
 
 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 THE LORD'S PRAYER. 
 
 1130. 
 
 Reign of Stephen. 
 
 Fader ure, ]>e 
 art on heofone. 
 
 Sy gebletsod 
 name Jrin, 
 
 Cume Jrin rike. 
 
 Si Jrin wil swa 
 swa on heofone 
 and on eorJ>an. 
 
 Breod ure deg- 
 wamlich geof us 
 to daeg. 
 
 And forgeof us 
 ageltes ura swa 
 swa we forgeofen 
 agiltendum ur- 
 um. 
 
 And ne led us 
 on costunge. 
 
 Ac alys us f ram 
 yfele. Swa beo 
 hit. 
 
 1250. 
 
 Reign 
 of Henry III. 
 
 Fadir ur, that 
 es in hevene, 
 
 Halud thi nam 
 to nevene ; 
 
 Thou do as thi 
 rich rike ; 
 
 Thi will on erd 
 be wrought, eek 
 as it is wrought 
 in heven ay. 
 
 Ur ilk day 
 brede give us to 
 day. 
 
 Forgive thou 
 all us dettes urs, 
 als we forgive till 
 ur detturs. 
 
 And ledde us 
 in na fandung. 
 
 But sculd us 
 fra ivel thing. 
 Amen. 
 
 1380. 
 
 Wycliffe's 
 Version. 
 
 Our Fadir, that 
 art in hevenys, 
 
 Halewid be thi 
 name ; 
 
 Thi kingdom 
 come to ; 
 
 Be thi wil done 
 in erthe, as in 
 hevene. 
 
 Give to us this 
 day oure breed 
 ovir othir sub- 
 staunce, 
 
 And forgive to 
 us our dettis, as 
 we forgiven to 
 oure dettouris. 
 
 And lede us 
 not into tempta- 
 cioun; 
 
 But delyvere 
 us from yvel. 
 Amen. 
 
 1526. 
 
 Tyndale's 
 Version. 
 
 Our Father 
 which art in 
 I heaven ; 
 
 Hal owed be 
 thy name ; 
 
 Let thy king- 
 dom come ; 
 
 Thy will be ful- 
 filled as well in 
 earth as it is in 
 heven. 
 
 Geve us this 
 day ur dayly 
 bred, 
 
 And forgeve us 
 oure dettes as we 
 forgeve ur det- 
 ters. 
 
 And leade us 
 not into tempta- 
 tion, 
 
 But delyver us 
 from evyll. For 
 thyne is the kyng- 
 dom, and the 
 power, and the 
 glorye, for ever. 
 Amen. 
 
 It will be observed that Wycliffe's version contains five Eo- 
 mance terms — substaunce, dettis, dettouris, temptacioun, and 
 delyvere. 
 
 5. Oldest English and Early English. — The following is a 
 short passage from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, under date 
 1137: first, in the Anglo-Saxon form; second, in Early Eng- 
 lish, or — as it has sometimes been called — Broken Saxon; 
 
SPECIMENS OF ENGLISH OF DIFFERENT PERIODS. 331 
 
 third, in modern English. The breaking-down of the gram- 
 mar becomes still more strikingly evident from this close 
 juxtaposition. 
 
 (i) Hi swencton pa" wreccan menn 
 
 (ii) Hi swencten the wrecce men 
 
 (iii) They swinked (harassed) the wretched men 
 
 (i) paes landes mid castel-weorcum. 
 (ii) Of-the-land mid castel-weorces. 
 (iii) Of the land with castle-works. 
 
 (i) Da pa" castelas waeron gemacod, 
 (ii) Tha the castles waren maked, 
 (iii) When the castles were made, 
 
 (i) pa" fyldon hi hi mid yfelum mannum. 
 (ii) tha" fylden hi hi mid yvele men. 
 
 (iii) then filled they them with evil men. 
 
 6. Comparisons of Words and Inflexions. — Let us take a 
 few of the most prominent words in our language, and observe 
 the changes that have fallen upon them since they made their 
 appearance in our island in the fifth century. These changes 
 will be best seen by displaying them in columns : — 
 
 Anglo-Saxon. 
 
 Early English. 
 
 Middle English. 
 
 Modern Enolish. 
 
 heom. 
 
 to heom. 
 
 to hem. 
 
 to them. 
 
 8eo. 
 
 bed. 
 
 ho, scho. 
 
 she. 
 
 8weo8trum. 
 
 to the swestres. 
 
 to the swistren. 
 
 to the sisters. 
 
 geboren. 
 
 gebore. 
 
 ibore". 
 
 born. 
 
 lufigende. 
 
 lufigend. 
 
 lovand. 
 
 loving. 
 
 weoxon. 
 
 woxen. 
 
 wexide. 
 
 waxed. 
 
 7. Conclusions from the above Comparisons. — We can now 
 draw several conclusions from the comparisons we have made 
 of the passages given from different periods of the language. 
 These conclusions relate chiefly to verbs and nouns j and they 
 
332 
 
 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 may become useful as a key to enable us to judge to what 
 period in the history of our language a passage presented to us 
 must belong. If we find such and such marks, the language is 
 Anglo-Saxon ; if other marks, it is Early English ; and so on. 
 
 I.-MARKS OF ANGLO- 
 SAXON. 
 
 Verbs. 
 
 Infinitive in an. 
 
 Pres. part, in ende. 
 
 Past part, with ge. 
 
 3d plural pres. in ath. 
 
 3d plural past in on. 
 
 Plural of imperatives 
 
 in ath. 
 
 Nouns. 
 Plurals in an, as, or a. 
 Dative plural in urn. 
 
 II.— MARKS OF EARLY 
 ENGLISH (1100-1250). 
 
 Verbs. 
 Infin. in en or e. 
 Pres. part, in Ind. 
 ge of past part, turned 
 
 into i or y. 
 3d plural in en. 
 
 Nouns. 
 Plural in es. 
 Dative plural in es. 
 
 III.— MARKS OF MID- 
 DLE ENGLISH (1250-1485). 
 
 Verbs. 
 Infin. with to (the en 
 was dropped about 
 1400). 
 Pres. part, in inge. 
 3d plural in en. 
 Imperative in eth. 
 Plurals in es (separate 
 syllable). 
 
 Nouns. 
 Possessives in es (sepa- 
 rate syllable). 
 
 8. The English of the Thirteenth Century. — In this century 
 there was a great breaking-down and stripping-off of inflexions. 
 This is seen in the Ormulum of Orm, a canon of the Order of 
 St Augustine, whose English is nearly as flexionless as that of 
 Chaucer, although about a century and a half before him. Orm 
 has also the peculiarity of always doubling a consonant after a 
 short vowel. Thus, in his introduction, he says : — 
 
 " piss boc iss nemmnedd Orrmidum 
 Forr J>i J^att Orrm itt wrohhte." 
 
 That is, "This book is named Ormulum, for the (reason) that 
 Orm wrought it." The absence of inflexions is probably due 
 to the fact that the book is written in the East-Midland dialect. 
 But, in a song called "The Story of Genesis and Exodus," 
 written about 1250, 
 Thus we read : — 
 
 we find a greater number of inflexions. 
 
 Hunger wex in lond Chanaan ; 
 And his x sunes Jacob for-San 
 
SPECIMENS OF ENGLISH OF DIFFERENT PERIODS. 333 
 
 Sente in to Egypt to bringen coren ; 
 He bilefe at horn oe was gungest boren." 
 
 That is, "Hunger waxed (increased) in the land of Canaan*, 
 and Jacob for that (reason) sent his ten sons into Egypt to 
 bring corn: he remained at home that was youngest born." 
 
 9. The English of the Fourteenth Century. — The four 
 greatest writers of the fourteenth century are — in verse, 
 Chaucer and Langlande; and in prose, Mandeville and 
 WyclifTe. The inflexions continue to drop off; and, in 
 Chaucer at least, a larger number of French words appear. 
 Chaucer also writes in an elaborate verse -measure that forms 
 a striking contrast to the homely rhythms of Langlande. Thus, 
 in the "Man of Lawes Tale," we have the verse : — 
 
 " queenes, lyvynge in prosperity, 
 Duchesses, and ladyes everichone, 
 Haveth som routhe on hir adversite*e ; 
 An emperoures doughter stant all one ; 
 She hath no wight to whom to make hir mone. 
 blood roial ! that stondest in this drede 
 Fer ben thy frendes at thy grete nede ! " 
 
 Here, with the exception of the imperative in Haveth som 
 routhe (= have some pity), stant, and ben ( = are), the grammar 
 of Chaucer is very near the grammar of to-day. How different 
 this is from the simple English of Langlande ! He is speaking 
 of the great storm of wind that blew on January 15, 1362 : — 
 
 " Piries and Plomtres weore passchet to l>e grounde, 
 In ensaumple to Men }>at we scholde do ]>e bettre, 
 Beches and brode okes weore blowen to \>e eorJ>e." 
 
 Here it is the spelling of Langlande's English that differs most 
 from modern English, and not the grammar. — Much the same 
 may be said of the style of Wycliffe (1324-1384) and of Mande- 
 ville (1300-1372). In Wycliffe's version of the Gospel of Mark, 
 v. 26, he speaks of a woman " that hadde suffride many thingis 
 of ful many lechis (doctors), and spendid alle hir thingis ; and 
 no -thing profitide." Sir John Mandeville's English keeps 
 many old inflexions and spellings; but is, in other respects, 
 
 modern enough. Speaking of Mahomet, he says : " And ^ee 
 
 2 A 
 
334 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 schulle understands that Maehamete was born in Arabye, that 
 was first a pore knave that kept cameles, that wenten with 
 marchantes for marchandise." Knave for boy, and icenten for 
 went are the two chief differences — the one in the use of words, 
 the other in grammar— that distinguish this piece of Mande- 
 ville's English from our modern speech. 
 
 10. The English of the Sixteenth Century. — This, which is 
 also called Tudor-English, differs as regards grammar hardly at 
 all from the English of the nineteenth century. This becomes 
 plain from a passage from one of Latimer's sermons (1490-1555), 
 " a book which gives a faithful picture of the manners, thoughts, 
 and events of the period." "My father," he writes, "was a 
 yeoman, and had no lands of his own, only he had a farm of 
 three or four pound a year at the uttermost, and hereupon he 
 tilled so much as kept half a dozen men. He had walk for a 
 hundred sheep ; and my mother milked thirty kine." In this 
 passage, it is only the old-fashionedness, homeliness, and quaint- 
 ness of the English — not its grammar — that makes us feel that 
 it was not written in our own times. When Ridley, the fellow- 
 martyr of Latimer, stood at the stake, he said, " I commit our 
 cause to Almighty God, which shall indifferently judge all." 
 Here he used indifferently in the sense of impartially — that is, 
 in the sense of making no difference between parties ; and this 
 is one among a very large number of instances of Latin words, 
 when they had not been long in our language, still retaining the 
 older Latin meaning. 
 
 11. The English of the Bible (i). — The version of the Bible 
 which we at present use was made in 1611; and we might 
 therefore suppose that it is written in seventeenth-century Eng- 
 lish. But this is not the case. The translators were com- 
 manded by James I. to " follow the Bishops' Bible " ; and the 
 Bishops' Bible was itself founded on the " Great Bible," which 
 was published in 1539. But the Great Bible is itself only a 
 revision of Tyndale's, part of which appeared as early as 1526. 
 When we are reading the Bible, therefore, we are reading Eng- 
 lish of the sixteenth century, and, to a large extent, of the early 
 part of that century. It is true that successive generations of 
 
SPECIMENS OF ENGLISH OF DIFFERENT PERIODS. 335 
 
 printers have, of their own accord, altered the spelling, and 
 even, to a slight extent, modified the grammar. Thus we have 
 fetched for the older fet, more for moe, sown for sowen, brittle foi 
 brickie (which gives the connection with break), jaws for chaws, 
 sixth for sixty and sc on. But we still find 6iich participles as 
 shined and understanded ; and such phrases as "they can skill 
 to hew timber " (1 Kings v. 6), " abjects " for abject persons, 
 " three days agone * fur ago, the " captivated Hebrews " for 
 "the captive Hebrews," and others. 
 
 12. The English of the Bible (ii). — We have, again, old 
 words retained, or used in the older meaning. Thus we find, 
 in Psalm v. 6, the phrase " them that speak leasing," which 
 reminds us of King Alfred's expression about "leasum spellum" 
 (lying stories). Trow and ween are often found; the "cham- 
 paign over against Gilgal" (Deut. xi. 30) means the plain; and a 
 publican in the New Testament is a tax-gatherer, who sent to 
 the Roman Treasury or Publicum the taxes he had collected 
 from the Jews. An " ill-favoured person " is an ill-looking per- 
 son; and "bravery" (Isa. iii. 18) is used in the sense of finery 
 in dress. — Some of the oldest grammar, too, remains, as in 
 Esther viii. 8, " Write ye, as it liketh you," where the you is a 
 dative. Again, in Ezek. xxx. 2, we find "Howl ye, Woe 
 worth the day ! " where the imperative worth governs day in the 
 dative case. This idiom is still found in modern verse, as in 
 the well-known lines in the first canto of the "Lady of the 
 Lake":— 
 
 " Woe worth the chase, woe worth the day 
 That cost thy life, my gallant grey ! " 
 
336 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 MODERN ENGLISH. 
 
 1. Grammar Fixed. — From the date of 1485 — that is, from 
 the beginning of the reign of Henry VIL — the changes in the 
 grammar or constitution of our language are so extremely small, 
 that they are hardly noticeable. Any Englishman of ordinary 
 education can read a book belonging to the latter part of the 
 fifteenth or to the sixteenth century without difficulty. Since 
 that time the grammar of our language has hardly changed at 
 all, though we have altered and enlarged our vocabulary, and 
 have adopted thousands of new words. The introduction of 
 Printing, the Kevival of Learning, the Translation of the Bible, 
 the growth and spread of the power to read and write — these 
 and other influences tended to fix the language and to keep it 
 as it is to-day. It is true that we have dropped a few old- 
 fashioned endings, like the n or en in silvern and golden; 
 but, so far as form or grammar is concerned, the English of the 
 sixteenth and the English of the twentieth centuries are sub- 
 stantially the same. 
 
 2. New Words. — But, while the grammar of English has 
 remained the same, the vocabulary of English has been grow- 
 ing, and growing rapidly, not merely with each century, but 
 with each generation. The discovery of the 'New World in 
 1492 gave an impetus to maritime enterprise in England, which 
 it never lost, brought us into connection with the Spaniards, 
 and hence contributed to our language several Spanish words. 
 In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Italian literature 
 
MODERN ENGLISH. 
 
 337 
 
 was largely read ; Wyatt and Surrey show its influence in their 
 poems ; and Italian words began to come in in considerable 
 numbers. Commerce, too, has done much for us in this way; 
 and along with the article imported, we have in general intro- 
 duced also the name it bore in its own native country. In later 
 times, Science has been making rapid strides — has been bring- 
 ing to light new discoveries and new inventions almost every 
 week ; and along with these new discoveries, the language has 
 been enriched with new names and new terms. Let us look a 
 little more closely at the character of these foreign contributions 
 to the vocabulary of our tongue. 
 
 3. Spanish Words. — The words we have received from the 
 Spanish language are not numerous, but they are important. 
 In addition to the ill-fated word armada, we have the Spam 
 ish for Mr, which is Don (from Lat. dominus, a lord), with ita 
 feminine Duenna. They gave us also alligator, which is oui 
 English way of writing el lagarto, the lizard. They also pre 
 sented us with a large number of words that end in o — such as 
 buffalo, cargo, desperado, guano, indigo, mosquito, mulatto, 
 negro, potato, tornado, and others. The following is a toler- 
 ably full list :— 
 
 Alligator. 
 
 Cork. 
 
 Galleon (a ship). Mulatto. 
 
 Armada. 
 
 Creole. 
 
 Grandee. 
 
 Negro. 
 
 Barricade. 
 
 Desperado. 
 
 Grenade. 
 
 Octoroon. 
 
 Battledore. 
 
 Don. 
 
 Guerilla. 
 
 Quadroon. 
 
 Bravado. 
 
 Duenna. 
 
 Indigo. 
 
 Renegade. 
 
 Buffalo. 
 
 Eldorado. 
 
 Jennet. 
 
 Savannah. 
 
 Cargo. 
 
 Embargo. 
 
 Matador. 
 
 Sherry ( = Xeres). 
 
 Cigar. 
 
 Filibuster. 
 
 Merino. 
 
 Tornado. 
 
 Cochineal. 
 
 Flotilla. 
 
 Mosquito. 
 
 Vanilla. 
 
 4. Italian Words. — Italian literature has been read and 
 cultivated in England since the time of Chaucer — since the 
 fourteenth century ; and the arts and artists of Italy have for 
 many centuries exerted a great deal of influence on those of 
 England. Hence it is that we owe to the Italian language a 
 large number of words. These relate to poetry, such as canto, 
 sonnet, stanza ; to music, as pianoforte, opera, oratorio, 
 soprano, alto, contralto ; to architecture and sculpture, as 
 
338 
 
 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 portico, piazza, cupola, torso; and to painting, as studio, 
 fresco (an open-air painting), and others. The following is a 
 list of many words in common use :— 
 
 Alarm. 
 
 Charlatan. 
 
 Incognito. 
 
 Proviso. 
 
 Alert. 
 
 Citadel. 
 
 Influenza. 
 
 Quarto. 
 
 Alto. 
 
 Colonnade. 
 
 Lagoon. 
 
 Regatta. 
 
 Arcade. 
 
 Concert. 
 
 Lava. 
 
 Ruffian. 
 
 Balcony. 
 
 Contralto. 
 
 Lazaretto. 
 
 Serenade. 
 
 Balustrade. 
 
 Conversazione. 
 
 Macaroni. 
 
 Sonnet. 
 
 Bandit. 
 
 Cornice. 
 
 Madonna. 
 
 Soprano. 
 
 Bankrupt. 
 
 Corridor. 
 
 Madrigal. 
 
 Stanza. 
 
 Bravo. 
 
 Cupola. 
 
 Malaria. 
 
 Stiletto. 
 
 Brigade. 
 
 Curvet. 
 
 Manifesto. 
 
 Stucco. 
 
 Brigand. 
 
 Dilettante. 
 
 Motto. 
 
 Studio. 
 
 Broccoli. 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 Moustache. 
 
 Tenor. 
 
 Burlesque. 
 
 Doge. 
 
 Niche. 
 
 Terra -cotta. 
 
 Bust. 
 
 Domino. 
 
 Opera. 
 
 Tirade. 
 
 Cameo. 
 
 Extravaganza. 
 
 Oratorio. 
 
 Torso. 
 
 Canteen. 
 
 Fiasco. 
 
 Palette. 
 
 Trombone. 
 
 Canto. 
 
 Folio. 
 
 Pantaloon. 
 
 Umbrella. 
 
 Caprice. 
 
 Fresco. 
 
 Parapet. 
 
 Vermilion. 
 
 Caricature. 
 
 Gazette. 
 
 Pedant. 
 
 Vertu. 
 
 Carnival. 
 
 Gondola. 
 
 Pianoforte. 
 
 Virtuoso. 
 
 Cartoon. 
 
 Granite. 
 
 Piazza. 
 
 Vista. 
 
 Cascade. 
 
 Grotto. 
 
 Pistol. 
 
 Volcano. 
 
 Cavalcade. 
 
 Guitar. 
 
 Portico. 
 
 Zany. 
 
 5. Dutch Words. — We have had for many centuries com- 
 mercial dealings with the Dutch ; and as they, like ourselves, 
 are a great seafaring people, they have given us a number 
 of words relating to the management ot ships. In the four- 
 teenth cfentury, the southern part of the German Ocean was 
 the most frequented sea in the world; and the chances of 
 plunder were so great that ships of war had to keep cruising 
 up and down to protect the trading vessels that sailed between 
 England and the Low Countries. The following are the words 
 which we owe to the Netherlands : — 
 
 Ballast. Luff. Sloop. Trigger. 
 
 Boom. Reef. Smack. Wear (said of a 
 
 Boor. Schiedam (gin). Smuggle. ship). 
 
 Burgomaster. Skates. Stiver. Yacht 
 
 Hoy. Skipper. TaffraiL YawL 
 
MODERN ENGLISH. 
 
 339 
 
 6. French Words. — Besides the large additions to our 
 language made by the Norman-French, we have from time to 
 time imported direct from France a number of French words, 
 without change in the spelling, and with little change in the 
 pronunciation The French have been for centuries the most 
 polished nation in Europe; from France the changing fashions 
 in dress spread over all the countries of the Continent ; French 
 literature has been much read in England since the time of 
 Charles II. ; and for a long time all diplomatic correspondence 
 between foreign countries and England was carried on in French. 
 Words relating to manners and customs are common, such as 
 soiree, etiquette, seance, elite ; and we have also the names of 
 things which were invented in France, such as mitrailleuse, 
 carte-de-visite, coup d'etat, and others. Some of these words 
 are, in spelling, exactly like English \ and advantage of this has 
 been taken in a well-known epigram : — 
 
 The French have taste in all they do, 
 
 Which we are quite without ; 
 For Nature, which to them gave gout, 1 
 
 To us gave only gout. 
 
 The following is a list of French words which have been 
 imported in comparatively recent times : — 
 
 Aide-de-camp. 
 
 Carte-de-visite. 
 
 Etiquette. 
 
 Personnel. 
 
 Belle. 
 
 Coup-d'e*tat. 
 
 Facade. 
 
 Precis. 
 
 Bivouac. 
 
 Debris. 
 
 Gout. 
 
 Programme. 
 
 Blonde. 
 
 DeT>ut 
 
 Naive. 
 
 Protege". 
 
 Bouquet. 
 
 De'jeuner. 
 
 Naivete*. 
 
 Recherche". 
 
 Brochure. 
 
 Depot. 
 
 Nonchalance. 
 
 Stance. 
 
 Brunette. 
 
 Eclat. 
 
 Outre*. 
 
 Soiree. 
 
 Brusque. 
 
 Ennui. 
 
 Penchant. 
 
 Trousseau. 
 
 The Scotch have always had a closer connection with the French 
 nation than England ; and hence we find in the Scottish dialect 
 of English a number of French words that are not used in South 
 Britain at all. A leg of mutton is called in Scotland a gigot ; 
 the dish on which it is laid is an ashet (from assiette) ; a cup 
 for tea or for wine is a tassie (from tasse) ; the gate of a town is 
 
 1 OoUt (goo) from Latin gustus, taste 
 
3±u 
 
 HISTOKY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 called the port ; and a stubborn person is dour (Fr. dur, from 
 Lat. durus) ; while a gentle and amiable person is douce (Fr. 
 douce, Lat. dulcis). 
 
 7. German Words. — It must not be forgotten that English is 
 a Low-German dialect, while the German of books is New High- 
 German. We have never borrowed directly from High-German, 
 because we have never needed to borrow. Those modern Ger- 
 man words that have come into our language in recent times are 
 chiefly the names of minerals, with a few striking exceptions, 
 such as loafer, which came to us from the German immigrants 
 to the United States, and plunder, which seems to have been 
 brought from Germany by English soldiers who had served under 
 Gustavus Adolphus. The following are the German words 
 which we have received in recent times : — 
 
 Cobalt. 
 
 Landgrave. 
 
 Meerschaum. 
 
 Poodle. 
 
 Felspar. 
 
 Loafer. 
 
 Nickel. 
 
 Quartz. 
 
 Hornblende. 
 
 Margrave. 
 
 Plunder. 
 
 Zinc. 
 
 8. Hebrew Words. — These, with very few exceptions, have 
 come to us from the translation of the Bible, which is now in 
 use in our homes and churches. Abbot and abbey come from 
 the Hebrew word abba, father ; and such words as cabal and 
 Talmud, though not found in the Old Testament, have been 
 contributed by Jewish literature. The following is a tolerably 
 complete list : — 
 
 Abbey. 
 
 Cinnamon. 
 
 Leviathan. 
 
 Sabbath. 
 
 Abbot. 
 
 Hallelujah. 
 
 Manna. 
 
 Sadducees. 
 
 Amen. 
 
 Hosannah. 
 
 PaschaL 
 
 Satan. 
 
 Behemoth. 
 
 Jehovah. 
 
 Pharisee. 
 
 Seraph. 
 
 Cabal. 
 
 Jubilee. 
 
 Pharisaical. 
 
 Shibboleth. 
 
 Cherub. 
 
 Gehenna. 
 
 Rabbi. 
 
 Talmud. 
 
 9. Other Foreign Words.— The English have always been 
 the greatest travellers in the world; and our sailors always 
 the most daring, intelligent, and enterprising. There is hardly 
 a port or a country in the world into which an English ship has 
 not penetrated ; and our commerce has now been maintained for 
 centuries with every people on the face of the globe. We 
 exchange goods with almost every nation and tribe under the 
 
MODERN ENGLISH. 
 
 341 
 
 sun. When we import articles or produce from abroad, we in 
 general import the native name along with the thing. Hence 
 it is that we have guano, maize, and tomato from the two 
 Americas; coffee, cotton, and tamarind from Arabia; tea, 
 congou, and nankeen from China ; calico, chintz, and rupee 
 from Hindostan ; bamboo, gamboge, and sago from the Malay 
 Peninsula ; lemon, musk, and orange from Persia ; boomerang 
 and kangaroo from Australia; chibouk, ottoman, and tulip 
 from Turkey. The following are lists of these foreign words ; 
 and they are worth examining with the greatest minuteness : — 
 
 
 African Dialects. 
 
 
 Baobab. 
 
 Gnu. 
 
 Karoo. 
 
 Quagga. 
 
 Canary. 
 
 Gorilla. 
 
 Kraal. 
 
 Zebra. 
 
 Chimpanzee. 
 
 Guinea. 
 
 Oasis. 
 
 
 
 American Tongues. 
 
 
 Alpaca. 
 
 Condor. 
 
 Maize. 
 
 PiACoon. 
 
 Buccaneer. 
 
 Guano. 
 
 Manioc. 
 
 Skunk. 
 
 Cacique. 
 
 Hammock. 
 
 Moccasin. 
 
 Squaw. 
 
 Cannibal. 
 
 Jaguar. 
 
 Mustang. 
 
 Tapioca. 
 
 Canoe. 
 
 Jalap. 
 
 Opossum. 
 
 Tobacco. 
 
 Caoutchouc. 
 
 Jerked (beef). 
 
 Pampas. 
 
 Tomahawk. 
 
 Cayman. 
 
 Llama. 
 
 Pemmican. 
 
 Tomato. 
 
 Chocolate. 
 
 Mahogany. 
 
 Potato. 
 
 Wigwam. 
 
 
 Arabic 
 
 
 (The word al means the. 
 
 Thus dXcohcl— the 
 
 spirit.) 
 
 Admiral (Milton 
 
 Azure. 
 
 Harem. 
 
 Salaam. 
 
 writes am- 
 
 Caliph. 
 
 Hookah 
 
 Senna. 
 
 vtiral. 
 
 Carat. 
 
 Koran (or Al- 
 
 Sherbet. 
 
 Alcohol. 
 
 Chemistry. 
 
 coran). 
 
 Shrub (the 
 
 Alcove. 
 
 Cipher 
 
 Lute. 
 
 drink). 
 
 Alembic. 
 
 Civet 
 
 Magazine. 
 
 Simoom. 
 
 Algebra. 
 
 Coffee. 
 
 Mattress. 
 
 Sirocco. 
 
 Alkali.- 
 
 Cotton. 
 
 Minaret. 
 
 Sofa. 
 
 Amber. 
 
 Crimson. 
 
 Mohair. 
 
 Sultan. 
 
 Arrack. 
 
 Dragoman. 
 
 Monsoon. 
 
 Syrup. 
 
 Arsenal. 
 
 Elixir. 
 
 Mosque. 
 
 Talisman. 
 
 Artichoke. 
 
 Emir. 
 
 Mufti. 
 
 Tamarind. 
 
 Assassin. 
 
 Fakir. 
 
 Nabob. 
 
 Tariff. 
 
 Assegai 
 
 Felucca. 
 
 Nadir. 
 
 Vizier. 
 
 Attar. 
 
 Gazelle. 
 
 Naphtha. 
 
 Zenith. 
 
 Azimuth. 
 
 Giraffe. 
 
 Saffron. 
 
 Zero. 
 
342 
 
 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 
 Chinese. 
 
 
 Bohea. 
 
 Hyson. Nankeen. 
 
 Souchong. 
 
 China. 
 
 Joss. Pekoe. 
 
 Tea. 
 
 Congou. 
 
 Junk. Silk. 
 Hindu. 
 
 Typhoon. 
 
 Avatar. 
 
 Cowrie. Pagoda. 
 
 Ryot. 
 
 Banyan. 
 
 Durbar. Palanquin. 
 
 Sepoy. 
 
 Brahmin. 
 
 Jungle.- Pariah. 
 
 Shampoo. 
 
 Bungalow. 
 
 Lac (of rupees). Punch. 
 
 Sugar, 
 
 Calico. 
 
 Loot. Pundit. 
 
 Suttee. 
 
 Chintz. 
 
 Mulligatawny. Rajah. 
 
 Thug. 
 
 Coolie. 
 
 Musk, Rupee. 
 Hungarian 
 
 Toddy. 
 
 Hussar. 
 
 Sabre. Shako. 
 Malay. 
 
 Tokay. 
 
 Amuck. 
 
 Cassowary. Gong. 
 
 Orang-outang. 
 
 Bamboo. 
 
 Cockatoo. Gutta-percha. 
 
 Rattan. 
 
 Bantam. 
 
 Dugong. Mandarin. 
 
 Sago. 
 
 Caddy. 
 
 Gamboge. Mango. 
 Persian. 
 
 Upas. 
 
 Awning. 
 
 Dervish. Jasmine. 
 
 Pasha. 
 
 Bazaar. 
 
 Divan. Lac (a gum). 
 
 Rook. 
 
 Bashaw. 
 
 Firman. Lemon. 
 
 Saraband. 
 
 Caravan. 
 
 Hazard. Lilac. 
 
 Sash. 
 
 Check. 
 
 Horde. Lime (the fruit). 
 
 Scimitar. 
 
 Checkmate. 
 
 Houri. Musk. 
 
 Shawl. 
 
 Chess. 
 
 Jar. Orange. 
 
 Taffeta. 
 
 Curry. 
 
 JackaL Paradise. 
 Polynesian Dialects. 
 
 Turban. 
 
 Boomerang. 
 
 Kangaroo. Taboo. 
 Portuguese. 
 
 Tattoo. 
 
 Albatross. 
 
 Cocoa-nut. Lasso. 
 
 Molasses. 
 
 Caste. 
 
 Commodore. Marmalade. 
 
 Palaver. 
 
 Cobra. 
 
 Fetish. Moidore. 
 
 Russian. 
 
 Port ( = Oporto) 
 
 Czar. 
 
 Knout. Rouble. 
 
 Ukase. 
 
 Drosky. 
 
 Morse. Steppe. 
 
 Tartar. 
 Khan. 
 
 Turkish. 
 
 Verst. 
 
 Bey. 
 
 Chouse. Kiosk. 
 
 Tulip. 
 
 Caftan. 
 
 Dey. Odalisque. 
 
 Yashmak. 
 
 Chibouk. 
 
 Janissary. Ottoman. 
 
 Yataghan. 
 
MODERN ENGLISH. 343 
 
 10. Scientific Terms. — A very large number of discoveries 
 in science have been made in this century ; and a large number 
 of inventions have introduced these discoveries to the people, 
 and made them useful in daily life. Thus we have telegraph 
 and telegram ; photograph ; telephone and even ph otophone. 
 The word dynamite is also modern ; and the unhappy employ- 
 ment of it has made it too widely known. Then passing 
 fashions have given us such words as athlete and aesthete. In 
 general, it may be said that, when we wish to give a name to a 
 new thing — a new discovery, invention, or fashion — we have 
 recourse not to our own stores of English, but to the vocabu- 
 laries of the Latin and Greek languages. 
 
344 
 
 LANDMARKS IN THE HISTORY OF THE 
 ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 A.D. 
 
 1. The Beowulf, an old English epic, " written on the mainland " 450 
 
 2. Christianity introduced by St Augustine (and with it many 
 
 Latin and a few Greek words) .... 596 
 
 3. Caedmon — ' Paraphrase of the Scriptures,' — first English poem 670 
 
 4. Baeda — " The Venerable Bede M — translated into English part 
 
 of St John's Gospel 735 
 
 5. King Alfred translated several Latin works into English, 
 
 among others, Bede's 'Ecclesiastical History of the Eng- 
 lish Nation'. ..... (849) 901 
 
 6. Aelfric, called Grammaticus, turned into English most of the 
 
 historical books of the Old Testament . floruit 1006 
 
 7. The Norman Conquest, which introduced Norman French 
 
 words ....... 1066 
 
 8. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, said to have been begun by King 
 
 Alfred, and brought to a close in .... 1154 
 
 9. Orm or Orrmin's Ormulum, a poem written in "the East Mid- 
 
 land dialect, about . . . . . . 1200 
 
 10. Normandy lost under King John. Norman -English now have 
 
 their only home in England, and use our English speech 
 more and more ...... 1204 
 
 11. Layamon translates the ' Brut ' from the French of Robert 
 
 Wace. This is the first English book (written in Southern 
 English) after the stoppage of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle . 1205 
 
 12. The Ancren Riwle ("Rules for Anchorites") written in the 
 
 Dorsetshire dialect. "It is the forerunner of a wondrous 
 change in our speech." " It swarms with French words " 1220 
 
 13. First Royal Proclamation in English, issued by Henry III. . 1258 
 
 14. Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle (swarms with foreign terms) 1300 
 
LANDMARKS IN HISTORY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 345 
 
 15. Robert Manning, " Robert of Brunn," compiles the ' Handlyng 
 
 Synne.' "It contains a most copious proportion of French 
 words" ...... 1303 
 
 16. Ayenbite of Inwit ( = " Remorse of Conscience ") . . 1340 
 
 17. The Great Plague. After this it becomes less and less the 
 
 fashion to speak French ..... 1349 
 
 18. Sir John Mandeville, first writer of the newer English Prose — 
 
 in his ' Travels,' which contained a large admixture of French 
 words. " His English is the speech spoken at Court in the 
 latter days of King Edward III." .... 1372 
 
 19. English becomes the language of the Law Courts . . 1362 
 
 20. Wickliffe's Bible 1380 
 
 21. Geoffrey Chancer, the first great English poet, author of the 
 
 ' Canterbury Tales ' ; born about 1340, died . . 1400 
 
 22. William Caxton, the first English printer, brings out (in the 
 
 Low Countries) the first English book ever printed, the 
 'Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye,'— "not written with 
 pen and 4 nk, as other books are, to the end that every man 
 may have them at once" ..... 1474 
 
 23. First English Book printed in England (by Caxton), "The 
 
 Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers " . . .1477 
 
 24. Lord Berners' translation of Froissart's Chronicle . .1523 
 
 25. William Tyndale, by his translation of the Bible "fixed our 
 
 tongue once for all. " " His New 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 " 1525-31 
 
 26. Edmund Spenser publishes his ' Faerie Queene.' " Now began 
 
 the golden age of England's literature ; and this age was to 
 
 last for about fourscore years " . . . .1590 
 
 27. Our English Bible, based chiefly on Tyndale's translation. 
 
 "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" ....... 1611 
 
 28. William Shakespeare carried the use of the English language 
 
 to the greatest height of which it was capable. He employed 
 15,000 words. " The last act of ' Othello ' is a rare specimen of 
 Shakespeare's diction : of every five nouns, verbs, and adverbs, 
 four are Teutonic "... (Born 1564) 1616 
 
 29. John Milton, "the most learned of English poets," publishes 
 
 his ' Paradise Lost,' — " a poem in which Latin words are intro- 
 duced with great skill "..... 1667 
 
346 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 30. The Prayer-Book revised and issued in its final form, " Are 
 
 was substituted for be in forty-three places. This was a 
 great victory of the North over the South " . .1661 
 
 31. John Bunyan writes his ' Pilgrim's Progress ' — a book full of 
 
 pithy English idiom. " The common folk had the wit at 
 once to see the worth of Bunyan's masterpiece, and the 
 learned long afterwards followed in the wake of the common ■ 
 folk '..... (Born 1628) 1678 
 
 32. Sir Thomas Browne, the author of ' Urn-Burial ' and other works 
 
 written in a highly Latinised diction, such as the ' Religio 
 Medici,' written ...... 1642 
 
 33. Dr Samuel Johnson was the chief supporter of the use of 
 
 "long-tailed words in osity and ation," such as his novel 
 called ' Rasselas,' published . . . .1759 
 
 34. Tennyson, Poet-Laureate, a writer of the best English — "a 
 
 countryman of Robert Manning's, and a careful student of 
 old Malory, did much for the revival of pure English 
 among us" . . . . . . 1809-1892 
 
PAKT IV. 
 
 OUTLTISTE OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH 
 LITERATURE 
 
349 
 
 CHAPTEK I. 
 
 OUR OLDEST ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 1. Literature. — The history of English Literature is, in its 
 external aspect, an account of the best books in prose and in 
 verse that have been written by English men and English 
 women; and this account begins with a poem brought over 
 from the Continent by our countrymen in the fifth century, and 
 comes down to the time in which we live. It covers, therefore, 
 a period of over fourteen hundred years. 
 
 2. The Distribution of Literature. — We must not suppose 
 that literature has always existed in the form of printed books. 
 Literature is a living thing — a living outcome of the living 
 mind; and there are many ways in which it has been dis- 
 tributed to other human beings. The oldest way is, of course, 
 by one person repeating a poem or other literary composition 
 he has made to another; and thus literature is stored away, 
 not upon book - shelves, but in the memory of living men. 
 Homer's poems are said to have been preserved in this way 
 to the Greeks for five hundred years. Father chanted them 
 to son ; the sons to their sons ; and so on from generation to 
 generation. The next way of distributing literature is by the 
 aid of signs called letters made upon leaves, flattened reeds, 
 parchment, or the inner bark of trees. The next is by the 
 help of writing upon paper. The last is by the aid of type 
 upon paper. This has existed in England for more than four 
 hundred years — since the year 1477 ; and thus it is that our 
 libraries contain many hundreds of thousands of valuable books. 
 
 2b 
 
350 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 For the same reason is it, most probably, that as our power of 
 retaining the substance and multiplying the copies of books has 
 grown stronger, our living memories have grown weaker. This 
 defect can be remedied only by education — that is, by training 
 the memories of the young. While we possess so many printed 
 books, it must not be forgotten that many valuable works exist 
 still in manuscript — written either upon paper or on parchment. 
 3. Verse, the earliest form of Literature. — It is a remarkable 
 fact that the earliest kind of composition in all languages is in 
 the form of Verse. The oldest books, too, are those which are 
 written in verse. Thus Homer's poems are the oldest literary 
 work of Greece ; the Sagas are the oldest productions of Scan- 
 dinavian literature ; and the Beowulf is the oldest piece of 
 literature produced by the Anglo-Saxon race. It is also from 
 the strong creative power and the lively inventions of poets 
 that we are even now supplied with new thoughts and new 
 language — that the most vivid words and phrases come into the 
 language ; just as it is the ranges of high mountains that send 
 down to the plains the ever fresh soil that gives to them their 
 unending fertility. And thus it happens that our present Eng- 
 lish speech is full of words and phrases that have found their 
 way into the most ordinary conversation from the writings of our 
 great poets — and especially from the writings of our greatest 
 poet, Shakespeare. The fact that the life of prose depends 
 for its supplies on the creative minds of poets has been well 
 expressed by an American writer : — 
 
 " I looked upon a plain of green, 
 
 Which some one called the Land of Prose, 
 Where many living things were seen 
 In movement or repose. 
 
 I looked upon a stately hill 
 
 That well was named the Mount of Song, 
 
 Where golden shadows dwelt at will, 
 The woods and streams among. 
 
 But most this fact my wonder bred 
 (Though known by all the nobly wise), 
 
 It was the mountain stream that fed 
 That fair green plain's amenities." 
 
OUR OLDEST ENGLISH LITERATURE. 351 
 
 4. Our oldest English Poetry. — The verse written by our 
 old English writers was very different in form from the verse 
 as it appears in the writings of Tennyson, or Browning, or 
 Matthew Arnold. The old English or Anglo-Saxon writers 
 used a kind of rhyme called head -rhyme or alliteration; 
 while, from the fourteenth century downwards, our poets have 
 always employed end-rhyme in their verses. 
 
 "Zightly down Zeaping he Zoosened his helmet." 
 
 Such was the rough old English form. At least three words 
 in each long line were alliterative — two in the first half, and 
 one in the second. Metaphorical phrases were common, such 
 as war-adder for arrow, war-shirts for armour, ichale's-path or 
 swan-road for the sea, wave-horse for a ship, tree-wHglit for 
 carpenter. Different statements of the same fact, different 
 phrases for the same thing — what are called parallelisms in 
 Hebrew poetry — as in the line — 
 
 "Then saw they the sea head-lands — the windy walls," 
 
 were also in common use among our oldest English poets. 
 
 5. Beowulf. — The Beowulf is the oldest poem in the 
 English language. It is our " old English epic " ; and, like 
 much of our ancient verse, it is a war poem. The author of 
 it is unknown. It was probably composed in the fifth century 
 — not in England, but on the Continent — and brought over to 
 this island — not on paper or on parchment — but in the mem- 
 ories of the old Jutish or Saxon vikings or warriors. It was 
 not written down at all, even in England, till the end of the 
 ninth century, and then, probably, by a monk of Northum- 
 bria. It tells among other things the story of how Beowulf 
 sailed from Sweden to the help of Hrothgar, a king in Jut- 
 land, whose life was made miserable by a monster — half man, 
 half fiend — named Grendel. For about twelve years this mon- 
 ster had been in the habit of creeping up to the banqueting- 
 hall of King Hrothgar, seizing upon his thanes, carrying them 
 off, and devouring them. Beowulf attacks and overcomes the 
 dragon, which is mortally wounded, and flees away to die. The 
 
352 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 poem belongs both to the German and to the English literature; 
 for it is written in a Continental English, which is somewhat 
 different from the English of our own island. But its literary 
 shape is, as has been said, due to a Christian writer of North- 
 umbria ; and therefore its written or printed form — as it exists 
 at present — is not German, but English. Parts of this poem 
 were often chanted at the feasts of warriors, where all sang in 
 turn as they sat after dinner over their cups of mead round the 
 massive oaken table. The poem consists of 3184 lines, the 
 rhymes of which are solely alliterative. 
 
 6. The First Native English Poem. — The Beowulf came to 
 us from the Continent ; the first native English poem was pro- 
 duced in Yorkshire. On the dark wind-swept cliff which rises 
 above the little land-locked harbour of "Whitby, stand the ruins 
 of an ancient and once famous abbey. The head of this re- 
 ligious house was the Abbess Hild or Hilda : and there was a 
 secular priest in it, — a very shy retiring man, who looked after 
 the cattle of the monks, and whose name was Caedmon. To 
 this man came the gift of song, but somewhat late in life. 
 And it came in this wise. One night, after a feast, singing 
 began, and each of those seated at the table was to sing in his 
 turn. Caedmon was very nervous — felt he could not sing. 
 Fear overcame his heart, and he stole quietly away from the 
 table before the turn could come to him. He crept off to 
 the cowshed, lay down on the straw and fell asleep. He 
 dreamed a dream; and, in his dream, there came to him a 
 voice : " Caedmon, sing me a song ! " But Caedmon answered : 
 "I cannot sing; it was for this cause that I had to leave 
 the feast." " But you must and shall sing ! " " What must I 
 sing, then 1 " he replied. " Sing the beginning of created 
 things ! " said the vision ; and forthwith Caedmon sang some 
 lines in his sleep, about God and the creation of the world. 
 When he awoke, he remembered some of the lines that had 
 come to him in sleep f and, being brought before Hilda, he 
 recited them to her. The Abbess thought that this wonderful 
 gift, which had come to him so suddenly, must have come from 
 God, received him into the monastery, made him a monk, and 
 
OUR OLDEST ENGLISH LITERATURE. 353 
 
 had him taught sacred history. " All this Caedmon, by re- 
 membering, and, like a clean animal, ruminating, .turned into 
 sweetest verse." His poetical works consist of a metrical para- 
 phrase of the Old and the New Testament. It was written 
 about the year 670 ; and he died in 680. It was read and 
 re-read in manuscript for many centuries, but it was not printed 
 in a book until the year 1655. 
 
 7. The War-Poetry of England. — There were many poems 
 about battles, written both in Northumbria and in the south 
 of England ; but it was only in the south that these war-songs 
 were committed to writing ; and of these written songs there are 
 only two that survive up to the present day. These are the 
 Song of Brunanburg, and the Song of the Fight at Maldon. 
 The first belongs to the date 938; the second to 991. The 
 Song of Brunanburg was inscribed in the Saxon Chronicle — 
 a current narrative of events, written chiefly by monks, from the 
 ninth century to the end of the reign of Stephen. The song 
 tells the story of the fight of King Athelstan with Anlaf the 
 Dane. It tells how five young kings and seven earls of 
 Anlaf s host fell on the field of battle, and lay there " quieted 
 by swords," while their fellow-Northmen fled, and left their 
 friends and comrades to "the screamers of war — the black raven, 
 the eagle, the greedy battle-hawk, and the grey wolf in the 
 wood." The Song of the Fight at Maldon tells us of the 
 heroic deeds and death of Byrhtnoth, an ealdorman of North- 
 umbria, in battle against the Danes at Maldon, in Essex. 
 The speeches of the chiefs are given ; the single combats between 
 heroes described ; and, as in Homer, the names and genealogies 
 of the foremost men are brought into the verse. 
 
 8. The First English Prose.— The first writer of English 
 prose was Baeda, or, as he is generally called, the Venerable 
 Bede. He was born in the year 672 at Monkwearmouth, a 
 small town at the mouth of the river Wear, and was, like 
 Caedmon, a native of the kingdom of Northumbria. He 
 spent most of his life at the famous monastery of Jarrow-on* 
 Tyne. He spent his life in writing. His works, which were 
 written in Latin, rose to the number of forty-five ; his chief 
 
354 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 work being an Ecclesiastical History. But though Latin 
 was the tongue in which he wrote his books, he wrote one book 
 in English ; and he may therefore be fairly considered the first 
 writer of English prose. This book was a Translation of the 
 G-ospel of St John — a work which he laboured at until tho 
 very moment of his death. His disciple Cuthbert tells the 
 story of his last hours. " Write quickly ! " said Baeda to his 
 scribe, for he felt that his end could not be far off. When the 
 last day came, all his scholars stood around his bed. " There 
 is still one chapter wanting, Master," said the scribe ; " it is 
 hard for thee to think and to speak." " It must be done," said 
 Baeda; " take thy pen and write quickly." So through the long 
 day they wrote — scribe succeeding scribe ; and when the shades 
 of evening were coming on, the young writer looked up from 
 his task and said, " There is yet one sentence to write, dear 
 Master." " Write it quickly ! " Presently the writer, looking 
 up with joy, said, " It is finished ! " " Thou sayest truth," 
 replied the weary old man; "it is finished: all is finished." 
 Quietly he sank back upon his pillow, and, with a psalm of 
 praise upon his lips, gently yielded up to God his latest breath. 
 It is a great pity that this translation — the first piece of 
 prose in our language — is utterly lost. No MS. of it is at 
 present known to be in existence. 
 
 9. The Father of English Prose. — For several centuries, up 
 to the year 866, the valleys and shores of Northumbria were 
 the homes of learning and literature. But a change was not 
 long in coming. Horde after horde of Danes swept down upon 
 the coasts, ravaged the monasteries, burnt the books — after 
 stripping the beautiful bindings of the gold, silver, and precious 
 stones which decorated them — killed or drove away the monks, 
 and made life, property, and thought insecure all along that once 
 peaceful and industrious coast. Literature, then, was forced 
 to desert the monasteries of Northumbria, and to seek for a 
 home in the south — in Wessex, the kingdom over which Alfred 
 the Great reigned for more than thirty years. The capital of 
 Wessex was Winchester ; and an able writer says : "As 
 
OUR OLDEST ENGLISH LITERATURE. 355 
 
 Whitby is the cradle of English poetry, so is Winchester of 
 English prose." King Alfred founded colleges, invited to 
 England men of learning from abroad, and presided over a 
 school for the sons of his nobles in his own Court. He himself 
 wrote many books, or rather, he translated the most famous 
 Latin books of his time into English. He translated into the 
 English of Wessex, for example, the * Ecclesiastical History' 
 of Baeda; the 'History of Orosius,' into which he inserted 
 geographical chapters of his own; and the 'Consolations of 
 Philosophy,' by the famous Eoman writer, Boethius. In these 
 books he gave to his people, in their own tongue, the best 
 existing works on history, geography, and philosophy. 
 
 10. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. — The greatest prose-work 
 of the oldest English, or purely Saxon, literature, is a work — 
 not by one person, but by several authors. It is the historical 
 work which is known as The Saxon Chronicle. It seems to 
 have been begun about the middle of the ninth century j and 
 it was continued, with breaks now and then, down to 1154 — 
 the year of the death of Stephen and the accession of Henry IL 
 It was written by a series of successive writers, all of whom 
 were monks ; but Alfred himself is said to have contributed to 
 it a narrative of his own wars with the Danes. The Chronicle 
 is found in seven separate forms, each named after the monas- 
 tery in which it was written. It was the newspaper, the 
 annals, and the history of the nation. " It is the first history 
 of any Teutonic people in their own language ; it is the earliest 
 and most venerable monument of English pvose." This Chron- 
 icle possesses for us a twofold value. It is a valuable store- 
 house of historical facts ; and it is also a storehouse of speci- 
 mens of the different states of the English language — as regards 
 both words and grammar — from the eighth down to the 
 twelfth century. 
 
 11. Layamon's Brut. — Layamon was a native of Worcester- 
 shire, and a priest of Emley on the Severn. He translated, 
 about the year 1205, a poem called Brut, from the French of 
 a monkish writer named Master Wace. Wace's work itself is 
 
356 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 little more than a translation of parts of a famous " Chronicle 
 or History of the Britons," written in Latin by Geoffrey of 
 Monmouth, who was Bishop of St Asaph in 1152. But 
 Geoffrey himself professed only to have translated from a chron- 
 icle in the British or Celtic tongue, called the " Chronicle of the 
 Kings of Britain," which was found in Brittany — long the home 
 of most of the stories, traditions, and fables about the old Brit- 
 ish Kings and their great deeds. Layamon's poem called the 
 " Brut " is a metrical chronicle of Britain from the landing of 
 Brutus to the death of King Cadwallader, about the end of the 
 seventh century. Brutus was supposed to be a great-grandson 
 of iEneas, who sailed west and west till he came to Great 
 Britain, where he settled with his followers. — This metrical 
 chronicle is written in the dialect of the West of England ; and 
 it shows everywhere a breaking down of the grammatical forms 
 of the oldest English, as we find it in the Anglo-Saxon Chron- 
 icle. In fact, between the landing of the Normans and the 
 fourteenth century, two things may be noted : first, that during 
 this time — that is, for three centuries — the inflections of the 
 oldest English are gradually and surely stripped off; and, sec- 
 ondly, that there is little or no original English literature given 
 to the country, but that by far the greater part consists chiefly 
 of translations from French or from Latin. 
 
 12. Orm's Ormulum. — Less than half a century after Lay- 
 amon's Brut appeared a poem called the Ormulum, by a monk 
 of the name of Orm or Ormin. It was probably written 
 about the year 1200. Orm was a monk of the order of St 
 Augustine, and his book consists of a series of religious poems. 
 It is the oldest, purest, and most valuable specimen of thirteenth- 
 century English, and it is also remarkable for its peculiar 
 spelling. It is written in the purest English, and not five 
 French words are to be found in the whole poem of twenty 
 thousand short lines. Orm, in his spelling, doubles every con- 
 sonant that has a short vowel before it ; and he writes pann for 
 pan, but pan for pane. The following is a specimen of his 
 poem : — 
 
OUR OLDEST ENGLISH LITERATURE. 357 
 
 Ice hafe wennd inntill Ennglissh I have wended (turned) into English 
 
 Goddspelless hallghe lare, Gospel's holy lore, 
 
 Affterr thatt little witt tatt me After the little wit that me 
 
 Min Drihhtin hafethth lenedd. My Lord hath lent. 
 
 Other famous writers of English between this time and the 
 appearance of Chaucer were Robert of Gloucester and Robert 
 of Brunne, both of whom wrote Chronicles of England in 
 verse. 
 
355 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 1. The opening of tlje fourteenth century saw the death of 
 the great and able king, Edward I., the "Hammer of the 
 Scots," the " Keeper of his word." The century itself — a most 
 eventful period — witnessed the feeble and disastrous reign of 
 Edward II. ; the long and prosperous rule — for fifty years — of 
 Edward III. ; the troubled times of Eichard II., who exhibited 
 almost a repetition of the faults of Edward II. ; and the 
 appearance of a new and powerful dynasty — the House of 
 Lancaster — in the person of the able and ambitious Henry IY. 
 This century saw also many striking events, and many still 
 more striking changes. It beheld the welding of the Saxon and 
 the Norman elements into one — chiefly through the Erench 
 wars ; the final triumph of the English language over Erench 
 in 1362; the frequent coming of the Black Death; the vic- 
 tories of Crecy and Poitiers; it learned the universal use 
 of the mariner's compass; it witnessed two kings — of France 
 and of Scotland — prisoners in London; great changes in the 
 condition of labourers; the invention of gunpowder in 1340; 
 the rise of English commerce under Edward III. ; and every- 
 where in England the rising up of new powers and new ideas. 
 
 2. The first prose-writer in this century is Sir John Mande- 
 ville (who has been called the " Father of English Prose"). 
 King Alfred has also been called by this name; but as the 
 English written by Alfred was very different from that written 
 
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 359 
 
 by Mandeville, — the latter containing a large admixture of 
 French and of Latin words, both writers are deserving of the 
 epithet. The most influential prose-writer was John Wyclif, 
 who was, in fact, the first English Reformer of the Church. 
 In poetry, two writers stand opposite each other in striking 
 contrast — Geoffrey Chaucer and William Langlande, the first 
 writing in courtly "King's English" in end-rhyme, and with 
 the fullest inspirations from the literatures of France and Italy, 
 the latter writing in head-rhyme, and — though using more 
 French words than Chaucer — with a style that was always 
 homely, plain, and pedestrian. John Gower, in Kent, and 
 John Barbour, in Scotland, are also noteworthy poets in this 
 century. The English language reached a high state of polish, 
 power, and freedom in this period; and the sweetness and 
 music of Chaucer's verse are still unsurpassed by modern poets. 
 The sentences of the prose-writers of this century are long, 
 clumsy, and somewhat helpless ; but the sweet homely English 
 rhythm exists in many of them, and was continued, through 
 Wyclif's version, down into our translation of the Bible in 
 1611. 
 
 3. Sir John Mandeville is claimed as "the first prose- writer in 
 formed English." Nothing really is known about the man, and all 
 we can say of him is that he is the ostensible author of a book of 
 travels bearing his name. It is only certain that the author of 
 this book (whoever he was) died in 1372, and was buried at 
 Liege under the name of John Mandeville, but this, it is more 
 than likely, is a fictitious name. The book is a kind of 
 guide-book to the Holy Land ; but the writer himself went much 
 further east — reached Cathay or China, in fact. He introduced a 
 large number of French words into our speech, such as cause, con- 
 trary, discover, quantity, and many hundred others. His works were 
 much admired, read, and copied; indeed, hundreds of manuscript 
 copies of his book were made. There are nineteen still in the Brit- 
 ish Museum. The book was not printed till the year 1499 — that is, 
 twenty- two years after printing was introduced into this country. 
 Many of the Old English inflexions still survive in his style. Thus 
 he says : " Machamete was born in Arabye, that was a pore knave 
 (boy) that kepte cameles that wenten with marchantes for mar- 
 chandise." 
 
360 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 4. John "Wyclif (his name is spelled in about forty different 
 ways) — 1324-1384 — was born at Hips well, near Kichmond, in York- 
 shire, in the year 1324, and died at the vicarage of Lutterworth, in 
 Leicestershire, in 1384. His fame rests on two bases — his efforts as 
 a reformer of the abuses of the Church, and his complete translation 
 of the Bible. This work was finished in 1383, just one year before 
 his death. But the translation was not done by himself alone ; the 
 larger part of the Old Testament version seems to have been made 
 by Nicholas de Hereford. Though often copied in manuscript, it 
 Was not printed for several centuries. Wyclif s New Testament was 
 printed in 1731, and the Old Testament not until the year 1850. 
 But the words and the style of his translation, which was read and 
 re-read by hundreds of thoughtful men, were of real and permanent 
 service in fixing the language in the form in which we now find it. 
 
 5. John Gower (1325-1408) was a country gentleman of Kent. 
 As Mandeville wrote his travels in three languages, so did Gower hia 
 poems. Almost all educated persons in the fourteenth century could 
 read and write with tolerable and with almost equal ease, English, 
 French, and Latin. His three poems are the Speculum Meditantis 
 (" The Mirror of the Thoughtful Man "), in French ; the Vox 
 Clamantis (" Voice of One Crying "), in Latin ; and Confessio 
 Amantis (" The Lover's Confession "), in English. No manuscript 
 of the first work is known to exist. He was buried in St Saviour's, 
 South wark, where his effigy is still to be seen — his head resting on 
 his three works. Chaucer called him " the moral Gower " ; and his 
 books are very dull, heavy, and difficult to read. 
 
 6. William Langlande (1332-1400), a poet who used the old 
 English head-rhyme, as Chaucer used the foreign end-rhyme, was 
 born at Cleobury-Mortimer in Shropshire, in the year 1332. The 
 date of his death is doubtful. His poem is called the Vision of 
 Piers the Plowman ; and it is the last long poem in our literature 
 that was written in Old English alliterative rhyme. From this 
 period, if rhyme is employed at all, it is the end-rhyme, which we 
 borrowed from the French and Italians. The poem has an appen- 
 dix called Do-well, Do-bet, Do-best — the three stages in the 
 growth of a Christian. Langlande's writings remained in manuscript 
 until the reign of Edward VI. ; they were printed then, and went 
 through three editions in one year. The English used in the 
 Vision is the Midland dialect — much the same as that used by 
 Chaucer ; only, oddly enough, Langlande admits into his English a 
 
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 361 
 
 larger amount of French words than Chaucer. The poem is a dis- 
 tinct landmark in the history of our speech. The following is a 
 specimen of the lines. There are three alliterative words in each 
 line, with a pause near the middle — 
 
 " A voice Zoud in that light • to .Lucifer cried, 
 * Princes of this palace ' j?rest 1 undo the gates, 
 For here cometh with crown * the king of all glory ! ' " 
 
 7. Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400), the "father of English 
 poetry," and the greatest narrative poet of this country, was born 
 in London in or about the year 1340. He lived in the reigns of 
 Edward III., Richard II., and one year in the reign of Henry IV. 
 His father was a vintner. The name Chaucer is a Norman name, 
 and is found on the roll of Battle Abbey. He is said to have 
 studied both at Oxford and Cambridge ; served as page in the 
 household of Prince Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the third son of 
 Edward III.; served also in the army, and was taken prisoner 
 in one of the French campaigns. In 1367, he was appointed gen- 
 tleman-in-waiting (valettus) to Edward III., who sent him on 
 several embassies. In 1366 he married a lady of the Queen's 
 chamber; and by this marriage he became connected with John 
 of Gaunt, who afterwards married a sister of this lady. While 
 on an embassy to Italy, he is reported to have met the great poet 
 Petrarch, who told him the story of the Patient Griselda. In 1382, 
 he was made Comptroller of Customs in the great port of London — 
 an office which he held till the year 1386. In that year he was 
 elected knight of the shire — that is, member of Parliament for the 
 county of Kent. In 138.9, he was appointed Clerk of the King's 
 Works at Westminster and Windsor. From 1381 to 1389 was pro- 
 bably the best and most productive period of his life ; for it was in 
 this period that he wrote the House of Fame, the Legend of 
 Good Women, and the best of the Canterbury Tales. From 
 1390 to 1400 was spent in writing the other Canterbury Tales, 
 ballads, and some moral poems. He died at Westminster in the 
 year 1400, and was the first writer who was buried in the Poets' 
 Corner of the Abbey. We see from his life — and it was fortunate 
 for his poetry — that Chaucer had the most varied experience as 
 student, courtier, soldier, ambassador, official, and member of Parlia- 
 ment ; and was able to mix freely and on equal terms with all sorts 
 and conditions of men, from the king to the poorest hind in the 
 fields. He was a stout man, with a small bright face, soft eyes, 
 
 1 Quickly. 
 
364 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 1. The fifteenth century, a remarkable period in many ways, 
 saw three royal dynasties established in England— the Houses 
 of Lancaster, York, and Tudor. Five successful French cam- 
 paigns of Henry V., and the battle of Agincourt j and, on the 
 other side, the loss of all our large possessions in France, with 
 the exception of Calais, under the rule of the weak Henry VI, 
 were among the chief events of the fifteenth century. The 
 Wars of the Roses did not contribute anything to the prosperity 
 of the century, nor could so unsettled and quarrelsome a time 
 encourage the cultivation of literature. For this among other 
 reasons, we find no great compositions in prose or verse ; but a 
 considerable activity in the making and distribution of ballads. 
 The best of these are Sir Patrick Spens, Edom o' Gordon, 
 The Nut-Brown Mayde, and some of those written about 
 Robin Hood and his exploits. The ballad was everywhere 
 popular ; and minstrels sang them in every city and village 
 through the length and breadth of England. The famous bal- 
 lad of Chevy Chase is generally placed after the year 1460, 
 though it did not take its present form till the seventeenth 
 century. It tells the story of the Battle of Otterburn, which 
 was fought in 1388. This century was also witness to the 
 short struggle of Richard III., followed by the rise of the 
 House of Tudor. And, in 1498, just at its close, the won- 
 derful apparition of a new world— of The New World— 
 
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 365 
 
 rose on the horizon of the English mind, for England then first 
 heard of the discovery of America. But, as regards thinking 
 and writing, the fifteenth century is the most barren in our 
 literature. It is the' most barren in the production of original 
 literature ; but, on the other hand, it is, compared with all the 
 centuries that preceded it, the most fertile in the dissemination 
 and distribution of the literature that already existed. Eor 
 England saw, in the memorable year of 1477, the establishment 
 of the first printing-press in the Almonry at Westminster, by 
 "William Caxton. The first book printed by him in this country 
 was called 'The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers.' When 
 Edward IV. and his friends visited Caxton's house and looked at 
 his printing-press, they spoke of it as a pretty toy; they could not 
 foresee that it was destined to be a more powerful engine of good 
 government and the spread of thought and education than the 
 Crown, Parliaments, and courts of law all put together. The 
 two greatest names in literature in the fifteenth century are 
 those of James I. (of Scotland) and "William Caxton himself. 
 Two followers of Chaucer, Occleve and Lydgate are also gen- 
 erally mentioned. Put shortly, one might say that the chief 
 poetical productions of this century were its Tballads ; and the 
 chief prose productions, translations from Latin or from foreign 
 works. 
 
 • 
 
 2. James I. of Scotland (1394-1437), though a Scotchman, owed 
 his education to England. He was born in 1394. "Whilst on his 
 way to France when a boy of eleven, he was captured, in time of 
 peace, by the order of Henry IV., and kept prisoner in England for 
 about eighteen years. It was no great misfortune, for he received 
 from Henry the best education that England could then give in 
 language, literature, music, and all knightly accomplishments. He 
 married Lady Jane Beaufort, the grand-daughter of John of Gaunt, 
 the friend and patron of Chaucer. His best and longest poem is 
 The Kings Quair (that is, Book), a poem which was inspired by 
 the subject of it, Lady Jane Beaufort herself. The poem is written 
 in a stanza of seven lines (called Rime Royal); and the style is 
 a close copy of the style of Chaucer. After reigning thirteen years 
 in Scotland, King James was murdered at Perth, in the year 1437. 
 A Norman by blood, he is the beet poet of the fifteenth century, 
 
 r « V 
 
366 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 3. William Caxton (1422-1491) is the name of greatest import- 
 ance and significance in the history of our literature in the fifteenth 
 century. He was born in Kent in the year 1422. He was not merely 
 a printer, he was also a literary man ; and, when he devoted himself 
 to printing, he took to it as an art, and not as a mere mechanical 
 device. Caxton in early life was a mercer in the city of London ; 
 and in the course of his business, which was a thriving one, he had 
 to make frequent journeys to the Low Countries Here he saw the 
 printing-press for the first time, with the new separate types, 
 was enchanted with it, and fired by the wonderful future it opened. 
 It had been introduced into Holland about the year 1450. Caxton's 
 press was set up in the Almonry at Westminster, at the sign of the 
 Red Pole. It produced about eighty separate books, nearly all of 
 them in English, some of them written by Caxton himself. One of 
 the most important of them was Sir Thomas Malory's History of 
 King Arthur, the storehouse from which Tennyson drew the 
 stories which form the groundwork of his Idylls of the King. 
 
36? 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 1. The Wars of the Roses ended in 1485, with the victory of 
 Bosworth Field. A new dynasty — the House of Tudor — sat 
 upon the throne of England ; and with it a new reign of peace 
 and order existed in the country, for the power of the king was 
 paramount, and the power of the nobles had been gradually 
 destroyed in the numerous battles of the fifteenth century. 
 Like the fifteenth, this century also is famous for its ballads, the 
 authors of which are not known, but which seem to have been 
 composed "by the people for the people." They were sung 
 everywhere, at fairs and feasts, in town and country, at going to 
 and coming home from work ; and many of them were set to 
 popular dance-tunes. 
 
 "When Tom came home from labour, 
 And Cis from milking rose, 
 Merrily went the tabor, 
 
 And merrily went their toes." 
 
 The ballads of King Lear and The Babes in the "Wood are 
 perhaps to be referred to this period. 
 
 2. The first half of the sixteenth century saw the beginning 
 of a new era in poetry ; and the last half saw the full meridian 
 splendour of this new era. The beginning of this era was 
 marked by the appearance of Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542), 
 and of the Earl of Surrey (1517-1547). These two eminent 
 
368 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 writers have been called the "twin-stars of the dawn," the 
 "founders of English lyrical poetry"; and it is worthy of 
 especial note, that it is to Wyatt that we owe the introduction 
 of the Sonnet into our literature, and to Surrey that is due the 
 introduction of Blank Verse. The most important prose- 
 writers of the first half of the century were Sir Thomas More, 
 the great lawyer and statesman, and William Tyndale, who 
 translated the New Testament into English. In the latter half 
 of the century, the great poets are Spenser and Shakespeare ; 
 the great prose-writers, Richard Hooker and Francis Bacon. 
 
 3. Sir Thomas More's (1478-1535) chief work in English is the 
 Life and Reign of Edward V. It is written in a plain, strong, 
 nervous English style. Hallam calls it " the first example of good 
 English — pure and perspicuous, well chosen, without vulgarisms, and 
 without pedantry." His Utopia (a description of the country of 
 Nowhere) was written in Latin. 
 
 4. William Tyndale (1484-1536)— a man of the greatest signifi- 
 cance, both in the history of religion, and in the history of our lan- 
 guage and literature — was a native of Gloucestershire, and was 
 educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford. His opinions on religion and 
 the rule of the Catholic Church, compelled him to leave England, 
 and drove him to the Continent in the year 1524. He lived in 
 Hamburg for some time. With the German and Swiss reformers 
 he held that the Bible should be in the hands of every grown-up 
 person, and not in the exclusive keeping of the Church. He ac- 
 cordingly set to work to translate the Scriptures into his native 
 tongue. Two editions of his version of the New Testament were 
 printed in 1525-34. He next translated the five books of Moses, and 
 the book of Jonah. In 1535 he was, after many escapes and ad- 
 ventures, finally tracked and hunted down by an emissary of the 
 Pope's faction, and thrown into prison at the castle of Vilvoorde, 
 near Brussels. In 1536 he was brought to Antwerp, tried, con- 
 demned, led to the stake, strangled, and burned. 
 
 5. The Work of William Tyndale. — Tyndale's translation 
 has, since the time of its appearance, formed the basis of all the 
 after versions of the Bible. It is written in the purest and simplest 
 English ; and very few of the words used in his translation have 
 grown obsolete in our modern speech. Tyndale's work is indeed, 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 369 
 
 one of the most striking landmarks in the history of our language. 
 Mr Marsh says of it : " Tyndale's translation of the New Testament 
 is the most important philological monument of the first half of the 
 sixteenth century, — perhaps I should say, of the whole period be- 
 tween Chaucer and Shakespeare. . . . The best features of the 
 translation of 1611 are derived from the version of Tyndale."' It may 
 be said without exaggeration that, in the United Kingdom, America, 
 and the colonies, about one hundred millions of people now speak 
 the English of Tyndale's Bible; nor is there any book that has 
 exerted so great an influence on English rhythm, English style, the 
 selection of words, and the build of sentences in our English 
 prose. 
 
 6. Edmund Spenser (1552-1599), " The Poet's Poet," and one of 
 the greatest poetical writers of his own or of any age, was born at 
 East Smithfield, near the Tower of London, in the year 1552, about, 
 nine years before the birth of Bacon, and in the reign of Edward VI. 
 He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School in London, and at 
 Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. In 1579, we find him settled in his 
 native city, where his best friend was the gallant Sir Philip Sidney, 
 who introduced him to his uncle, the Earl of Leicester, then at the 
 height of his power and influence with Queen Elizabeth. In the 
 same year was published his first poetical work, The Shepheard's 
 Calendar — a set of twelve pastoral poems. In 1580, he went to 
 Ireland as Secretary to Lord Grey de Wilton, the Viceroy of that 
 country. For some years he resided at Kilcolman Castle, in county 
 Cork, on an estate which had been granted him out of the forfeited 
 lands of the Earl of Desmond. Sir Walter Raleigh had obtained a 
 similar but larger grant, and was Spenser's near neighbour. In 1590 
 Spenser brought out the first three books of The Faerie Queene. 
 The second three books of his great poem appeared in 1596. To- 
 wards the end of 1598, a rebellion broke out in Ireland; it spread 
 into Munster ; Spenser's house was attacked and set on fire ; in the 
 fighting and confusion his only son perished ; and Spenser escaped 
 with the greatest difficulty. In deep distress of body and mind, he 
 made his way to London, where he died — at an inn in King Street, 
 Westminster, at the age of forty-six, in the beginning of the year 
 1599. He was buried in the Abbey, not c ar from the grave of 
 Chaucer. 
 
 7. Spenser's Style. — His greatest work is The Faerie Queene ; 
 but that in which he shows the most striking command of language 
 is his Hymn of Heavenly Love. The Faerie Queene is written 
 in a nine-lined stanza, which has since been called the Spenserian 
 
368 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 writers have been called the "twin-stars of the dawn," the 
 "founders of English lyrical poetry"; and it is worthy of 
 especial note, that it is to Wyatt that we owe the introduction 
 of the Sonnet into our literature, and to Surrey that is due the 
 introduction of Blank Verse. The most important prose- 
 writers of the first half of the century were Sir Thomas More, 
 the great lawyer and statesman, and William Tyndale, who 
 translated the New Testament into English. In the latter half 
 of the century, the great poets are Spenser and Shakespeare ; 
 the great prose-writers, Richard Hooker and Francis Bacon. 
 
 3. Sir Thomas More's (1478-1535) ihief work in English is the 
 Life and Reign of Edward V. It is written in a plain, strong, 
 nervous English style. Hallam calls it " the first example of good 
 English — pure and perspicuous, well chosen, without vulgarisms, and 
 without pedantry." His Utopia (a description of the country of 
 Nowhere) was written in Latin. 
 
 4. William Tyndale (1484-1536)— a man of the greatest signifi- 
 cance, both in the history of religion, and in the history of our lan- 
 guage and literature — was a native of Gloucestershire, and was 
 educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford. His opinions on religion and 
 the rule of the Catholic Church, compelled him to leave England, 
 and drove him to the Continent in the year 1524. He lived in 
 Hamburg for some time. With the German and Swiss reformers 
 he held that the Bible should be in the hands of every grown-up 
 person, and not in the exclusive keeping of the Church. He ac- 
 cordingly set to work to translate the Scriptures into his native 
 tongue. Two editions of his version of the New Testament were 
 printed in 1525-34. He next translated the five books of Moses, and 
 the book of Jonah. In 1535 he was, after many escapes and ad- 
 ventures, finally tracked and hunted down by an emissary of the 
 Pope's faction, and thrown into prison at the castle of Vilvoorde, 
 near Brussels. In 1536 he was brought to Antwerp, tried, con- 
 demned, led to the stake, strangled, and burned. 
 
 5. The Work of William Tyndale. — Tyndale's translation 
 has, since the time of its appearance, formed the basis of all the 
 after versions of the Bible. It is written in the purest and simplest 
 English; and very few of the words used in his translation have 
 grown obsolete in our modern speech. Tyndale's work is indeed, 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 369 
 
 one of the most striking landmarks in the history of our language. 
 Mr Marsh says of it : " Tyndale's translation of the New Testament 
 is the most important philological monument of the first half of the 
 sixteenth century, — perhaps I should say, of the whole period be- 
 tween Chaucer and Shakespeare. . . . The best features of the 
 translation of 1611 are derived from the version of Tyndale."' It may 
 be said without exaggeration that, in the United Kingdom, America, 
 and the colonies, about one hundred millions of people now speak 
 the English of Tyndale's Bible; nor is there any book that has 
 exerted so great an influence on English rhythm, English style, the 
 selection of words, and the build of sentences in our English 
 prose. 
 
 6. Edmund Spenser (1552-1599), " The Poet's Poet," and one of 
 the greatest poetical writers of his own or of any age, was born at 
 East Smithfield, near the Tower of London, in the year 1552, about, 
 nine years before the birth of Bacon, and in the reign of Edward VI. 
 He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School in London, and at 
 Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. In 1579, we find him settled in his 
 native city, where his best friend was the gallant Sir Philip Sidney, 
 who introduced him to his uncle, the Earl of Leicester, then at the 
 height of his power and influence with Queen Elizabeth. In the 
 same year was published his first poetical work, The Shepheard's 
 Calendar — a set of twelve pastoral poems. In 1580, he went to 
 Ireland as Secretary to Lord Grey de Wilton, the Viceroy of that 
 country. For some years he resided at Kilcolman Castle, in county 
 Cork, on an estate which had been granted him out of the forfeited 
 lands of the Earl of Desmond. Sir Walter Raleigh had obtained a 
 similar but larger grant, and was Spenser's near neighbour. In 1590 
 Spenser brought out the first three books of The Faerie Queene. 
 The second three books of his great poem appeared in 1596. To- 
 wards the end of 1598, a rebellion broke out in Ireland ; it spread 
 into Minister ; Spenser's house was attacked and set on fire ; in the 
 fighting and confusion his only son perished ; and Spenser escaped 
 with the greatest difficulty. In deep distress of body and mind, he 
 made his way to London, where he died — at an inn in King Street, 
 Westminster, at the age of forty-six, in the beginning of the year 
 1599. He was buried in the Abbey, not *ar from the grave of 
 Chaucer. 
 
 7. Spenser's Style. — His greatest work is The Faerie Queene ; 
 but that in which he shows the most striking command of language 
 is his Hymn of Heavenly Love. The Faerie Queene is written 
 in a nine-lined stanza, which has since been called the Spenserian 
 
370 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Stanza. The first eight lines are of the usual length of five iambic 
 feet; the last line contains six feet, and is therefore an Alexandrine. 
 Each stanza contains only three rhymes, which are disposed in this 
 order: ababbcbc c. — The music of the stanza is long-drawn out, 
 beautiful, involved, and even luxuriant. — The story of the poem is 
 an allegory, like the ' Pilgrim's Progress ' ; and in it Spenser under- 
 took, he says, " to represent all the moral virtues, assigning to every 
 virtue a knight to be the patron and defender of the same." L Only 
 six books were completed ; and these relate the adventures of the 
 knights who stand for Holiness, Temperance, Chastity, Friendship, 
 Justice, and Courtesy. The Faerie Queene herself is called 
 Gloriana, who represents Glory in his "general intention," and 
 Queen Elizabeth in his " particular intention." 
 
 8. Character of the Faerie Queene. — This poem is the greatest 
 of the sixteenth century. Spenser has not only been the delight of 
 nearly ten generations ; he was the study of Shakespeare, the poet- 
 ical master of Cowley and of Milton, and, in some sense, of Dryden 
 and Pope. Keats, when a boy, was never tired of reading him. 
 "There is something," says Pope, "in Spenser that pleases one as 
 strongly in old age as it did in one's youth." Professor Craik says : 
 " Without calling Spenser the greatest of all poets, we may still say 
 that his poetry is the most poetical of all poetry." The outburst of 
 national feeling after the defeat of the Armada in 1588; the new 
 lands opened up by our adventurous Devonshire sailors ; the strong 
 and lively loyalty of the nation to the queen ; the great statesmen 
 and writers of the period; the high daring shown by England 
 against Spain — all these animated and inspired the glowing genius 
 of Spenser. His rhythm is singularly sweet and beautiful. Hazlitt 
 says : " His versification is at once the most smooth and the most 
 sounding in the language. It is a labyrinth of sweet sounds." 
 Nothing can exceed the wealth of Spenser's phrasing and expression ; 
 there seems to be no limit to its flow. He is very fond of the Old- 
 English practice of alliteration or head-rhyme — " hunting the letter," 
 as it was called. Thus he has — 
 
 " In woods, in waves, in wars, she wont to dwell. 
 Gay without good is good heart's greatest loathing." 
 
 9. William Shakespeare (1564-1816), the greatest dramatist 
 that England ever produced, was born at Stratford-on-Avon, in 
 Warwickshire, on the 23d of April — St George's Day — of the year 
 1564. His father, John Shakespeare, was a wool dealer and grower. 
 
 l This use of the phrase "the same" is antiquated English. 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTITRY. 371 
 
 William was educated at the grammar-school of the town, where he 
 learned " small Latin and less Greek " ; and this slender stock was 
 his only scholastic outfit for life. At the early age of eighteen he 
 married Anne Hathaway, a yeoman's daughter. In 1586, at the age 
 of twenty-two, he quitted his native town, and went to London. 
 
 10. Shakespeare's Life and Character. — He was employed in 
 some menial capacity at the Blackfriars Theatre, but gradually rose to 
 be actor and also adapter of plays. He was connected with the 
 theatre for about five-and-twenty years; and so diligent and so 
 successful was he, that he was able to purchase shares both in his 
 own theatre and in the Globe. As an actor, he was only second- 
 rate : the two parts he is known to have played are those of the 
 Ghost in Hamlet, and Adam in As You Like It. In 1597, at 
 the early age of thirty-three, he was able to purchase New Place, in 
 Stratford, and to rebuild the house. In 1611, at the age of forty- 
 seven, he retired (making occasional visits to London, however) 
 to New Place, where he died in the year 1616. His old father and 
 mother spent the last years of their lives with him, and died under 
 his roof. Shakespeare had three children — two girls and a boy. 
 The boy, Hamnet, died at the age of twelve. Shakespeare himself 
 was beloved by every one who knew him ; and " gentle Shake- 
 speare "«was the phrase most often upon the lips of his friends. A 
 placid face, with a sweet, mild expression; a high, broad, noble, 
 " two - storey " forehead; bright eyes; a most speaking mouth — ■ 
 though it seldom opened ; an open, frank manner, a kindly, hand- 
 some look, — such seems to have been the external character of the 
 man Shakespeare. 
 
 11. Shakespeare's Works. — He has written thirty-seven plays 
 and many poems. The best of his rhymed poems are his Sonnets, in 
 which he chronicles many of the various moods of his mind. The 
 plays consist of tragedies, historical plays, and comedies. The 
 greatest of his tragedies are probably Hamlet and King Lear ; 
 the best of his historical plays, Richard III. and Julius Caesar ; 
 and his finest comedies, Midsummer Night's Dream and As 
 You Like It. He wrote in the reign of Elizabeth as well as 
 in that of James ; but his greatest works belong to the latter 
 period. 
 
 12. Shakespeare's Style. — Every one knows that Shakespeare 
 is great ; but how is the young learner to discover the best way 
 of forming an adequate idea of his greatness? In the first place, 
 Shakespeare has very many sides ; and, in the second place, he is 
 great on every one of them. Coleridge says : " In all points, from 
 the most important to the most minute, the judgment of Shakespeare 
 
372 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 is commensurate with his genius — nay, his genius reveals itself in 
 his judgment, as in its most exalted form." He has been called 
 " mellifluous Shakespeare ; " " honey-tongued Shakespeare ; " " silver- 
 tongued Shakespeare ; " " the thousand-souled Shakespeare ; " " the 
 myriad-minded ; " and by many other epithets. He seems to have 
 been master of all human experience ; to have known the human 
 heart in all its phases ; to have been acquainted with all sorts and 
 conditions of men — high and low, rich and poor ; and to have studied 
 the history of past ages, and of other countries. He also shows a 
 greater and more highly skilled mastery over language than any 
 other writer that ever lived. The vocabulary employed by Shake- 
 speare amounts in number of words to twenty-one thousand. The 
 vocabulary of Milton numbers only seven thousand words. But it 
 is not sufficient to say that Shakespeare's power of thought, of feel- 
 ing, and of expression required three times the number of words 
 to express itself ; we must also say that Shakespeare's power of ex- 
 pression shows infinitely greater skill, subtlety, and cunning than 
 is to be found in the works of Milton. Shakespeare had also a mar- 
 vellous power of making new phrases, most of which have become 
 part and parcel of our language. Such phrases as every inch a king ; 
 witch the world ; the time is out of joint, and hundreds .more, show 
 that modern Englishmen not only speak Shakespeare, but think 
 Shakespeare. His knowledge of human nature has enabled him to 
 throw into English literature a larger number of genuine " char- 
 acters " that will always live in the thoughts of men, than any other 
 author that ever wrote. And he has not drawn his characters from 
 England alone and from his own time — but from Greece and Rome, 
 from other countries, too, and also from all ages. He has written in 
 a greater variety of styles than any other writer. "Shakespeare," 
 says Professor Craik, "has invented twenty styles." The know- 
 ledge, too, that he shows on every kind of human endeavour is as 
 accurate as it is varied. Lawyers say that he was a great lawyer ; 
 theologians, that he was an able divine, and unequalled in his know- 
 ledge of the Bible ; printers, that he must have been a printer ; and 
 seamen, that he knew every branch of the sailor's craft. 
 
 13. Shakespeare's contemporaries. — But we are not to suppose 
 that Shakespeare stood alone in the end of the sixteenth and the begin- 
 ning of the seventeenth century as a great poet ; and that everything 
 else was flat and low around him. This never is and never can be 
 the case. Great genius is the possession, not of one man, but of 
 several in a great age ; and we do not find a great writer standing 
 alone and unsupported, just as we do not find a high mountain rising 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTUBY. 373 
 
 from a low plain. The largest group of the highest mountains in the 
 world, the Himalayas, rise from the highest table-land in the world ; 
 and peaks nearly as high as the highest — Mount Everest — are seen 
 cleaving the blue sky in the neighbourhood of Mount Everest itself. 
 And so we find Shakespeare surrounded by dramatists in some re- 
 spects nearly as great as himself ; for the same great forces welling 
 up within the heart of England that made him created also the 
 others. Marlowe, the teacher of Shakespeare, Peele, and Greene, 
 preceded him ; Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger 
 and Ford, Webster, Chapman, and many others, were his con- 
 temporaries, lived with him, talked with him ; and no doubt each of 
 these men influenced the work of the others. But the works of these 
 men belong chiefly to the seventeenth century. We must not, how- 
 ever, forget that the reign of Queen Elizabeth — called in literature 
 the Elizabethan Period — was the greatest that England ever saw, 
 — greatest in poetry and in prose, greatest in thought and in action, 
 and perhaps also greatest in external events. 
 
 14. Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), the first great English 
 dramatist, was born at Canterbury in the year 1564, two months 
 before the birth of Shakespeare himself. He studied at Corpus 
 Christi College, Cambridge, and took the degree of Master of Arts 
 in 1587. After leaving the university, he came up to London and 
 wrote for the stage. He seems to have led a wild and reckless life, 
 and was stabbed in a tavern brawl on the 1st of June 1593. " As he 
 may be said to have invented and made the verse of the drama, so 
 he created the English drama." His chief plays are Dr Faustus 
 and Edward the Second. His style is one of the greatest vigour 
 and power : it is often coarse, but it is always strong. Ben Jonson 
 spoke of " Marlowe's mighty line" ; and Lord Jeffrey says of him: 
 " In felicity of thought and strength of expression, he is second only 
 to Shakespeare himself." 
 
 15. Ben Jonson (1574-1637), the greatest dramatist of England 
 after Shakespeare, was born in Westminster in the year 1574, just 
 nine years after Shakespeare's birth. He received his education at 
 Westminster School. It is said that, after leaving school, he was 
 obliged to assist his stepfather as a bricklayer ; that he did not like 
 the work ; and that he ran off to the Low Countries, and there en- 
 listed as a soldier. On his return to London, he began to write for 
 
374 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, 
 
 the stage. Jonson was a friend and companion of Shakespeare's ; 
 and at the Mermaid, in Fleet Street, they had, in presence of men 
 like Raleigh, Marlowe, Greene, Peele, and other distinguished 
 Englishmen, many " wit - combats " together. Jonson's greatest 
 plays are Volpone or the Fox, and the Alchemist — both 
 comedies. In 1616 he was created Poet - Laureate. For many 
 years he was in receipt of a pension from James I. and from Charles 
 I. ; but so careless and profuse were his habits, that he died in 
 poverty in the year 1637. He was buried in an upright position in 
 Westminster Abbey ; and the stone over his grave still bears the 
 inscription, " rare Ben Jonson ! " He has been called a " robust, 
 surly, and observing dramatist." 
 
 16. Richard Hooker (1553-1600), one of the greatest of Eliza- 
 bethan prose-writers, was born at Heavitree, a village near the city 
 of Exeter, in the year 1553. By the kind aid of Jewel, Bishop of 
 Salisbury, he was sent to Oxford, where he distinguished himself 
 as a hard-working student, and especially for his knowledge of 
 Hebrew. In 1581 he entered the Church. In the same year he 
 made an imprudent marriage with an ignorant, coarse, vulgar, and 
 domineering woman. He was appointed Master of the Temple in 
 1585 ; but, by his own request, he was removed from that office, 
 and chose the quieter living of Boscombe, near Salisbury. Here 
 he wrote the first four books of his famous work, The Laws 
 of Ecclesiastical Polity, which were published in the year 1594. 
 In 1595 he was translated to the living of Bishopsborne, near Can- 
 terbury. His death took place in the year 1600. The complete 
 work, which consisted of eight books, was not published till 1662. 
 
 17. Hooker's Style. — His writings are said to "mark an era in 
 English prose." His sentences are generally very long, very elab- 
 orate, but full of " an extraordinary musical richness of language." 
 The order is often more like that of a Latin than of an English 
 sentence ; and he is fond of Latin inversions. Thus he writes : 
 " That which by wisdom he saw to be requisite for that people, was 
 by as great wisdom compassed." The following sentences give us a 
 good example of his sweet and musical rhythm. " Of law there can 
 be no less acknowledged, than that her seat is the bosom of God, her 
 voice the harmony of the world. All things in heaven and earth do 
 her homage ; the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as 
 not exempted from her power : both angels and men, and creatures 
 of what condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, 
 yet all, with uniform consent, admiring her as the mother of their 
 peace and joy." 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 375 
 
 18. Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586), a noble knight, a states- 
 man, and one of the best prose-writers of the Elizabethan age, was 
 born at Penshurst, in Kent, in the year 1554. He was educated at 
 Shrewsbury School, and then at Christ Church, Oxford. At the 
 age of seventeen he went abroad for three years' travel on the Con- 
 tinent ; and, while in Paris, witnessed, from the windows of the 
 English Embassy, the horrible Massacre of St Bartholomew in the 
 year 1572. At the early age of twenty-two he was sent as am- 
 bassador to the Emperor of Germany ; and while on that embassy, 
 he met William of Orange — "William the Silent" — who pronounced 
 him one of the ripest statesmen in Europe. This was said of a young 
 man " who seems to have been the type of what was noblest in the 
 youth of England during times that could produce a statesman." 
 In 1580 he wrote the Arcadia, a romance, and dedicated it to his 
 sister, the Countess of Pembroke. The year after, he produced his 
 Apologie for Poetrie. His policy as a statesman was to side with 
 Protestant rulers, and to break the power of the strongest Catholic 
 kingdom on the Continent — the power of Spain. In 1585 the 
 Queen sent him to the Netherlands as governor of the important 
 fortress of Flushing. He was mortally wounded in a skirmish at 
 Zutphen ; and as he was being carried off the field, handed to a 
 private the cup of cold water that had been brought to quench his 
 raging thirst. He died of his wounds on the 17th of October 1586. 
 One of his friends wrote of him : — 
 
 " Death, courage, honour, make thy soul to live ! — 
 Thy soul in heaven, thy name in tongues of men ! " 
 
 10. Sidney's Poetry. — In addition to the Arcadia and the 
 Apologie for Poetrie, Sidney wrote a number of beautiful poems. 
 The best of these are a series of sonnets called Astrophel and 
 Stella, of which his latest critic says : " As a series of sonnets, the 
 Astrophel and Stella poems are second only to Shakespeare's ; as 
 a series of love -poems, they are perhaps unsurpassed." Spenser 
 wrote an elegy upon Sidney himself, under the title of Astrophel. 
 Sidney's prose is among the best of the sixteenth century. " He reads 
 more modern than any other author of that century." He does not 
 use " ink-horn terms," or cram his sentences with Latin or French or 
 Italian words ; but both his words and his idioms are of pure English. 
 He is fond of using personifications. Such phrases as, " About the 
 time that the candles began to inherit the sun's r 'fice ; " " Seeing the 
 day begin to disclose her comfortable beauties," are not uncommon. 
 The rhythm of his sentences is always melodious, and each of them 
 has a very pleasant close. 
 
376 
 
 CHAPTEE Y. 
 
 THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 1. The First Half. — Under the wise and able rule of Queen 
 Elizabeth, this country had enjoyed a long term of peace. The 
 Spanish Armada had been defeated in 1588; the Spanish power 
 had gradually waned before the growing might of England ; and 
 it could be said with perfect truth, in the words of Shake- 
 speare : — 
 
 "In her days every man doth eat in safety 
 Under his own vine what he plants, and sing 
 The merry songs of peace to all his neighbours." 
 
 The country was at peace ; and every peaceful art and pursuit 
 prospered. As one sign of the great prosperity and outstretch- 
 ing enterprise of commerce, we should note the foundation of 
 the East India Company on the last day of the year 1600. The 
 reign of James I. (1603-1625) was also peaceful; and the 
 country made steady progress in industries, in commerce, and in 
 the arts and sciences. The two greatest prose-writers of the 
 first half of the seventeenth century were Baleigh and Bacon ; 
 the two greatest poets were Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. 
 
 2. Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618). — "Walter Baleigh, soldier, 
 statesman, colonise,., historian, and poet, was born in Devonshire, in 
 the year 1552. He was sent to Oriel College, Oxford ; but he left at 
 the early age of seventeen to fight on the side of the Protestants in 
 France. From that time his life is one long series of schemes, plots, 
 
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 377 
 
 adventures, and misfortunes — culminating in his execution at West- 
 minster in the year 1618. He spent "the evening of a tempestuous 
 life " in the Tower, where he lay for thirteen years ; and during this 
 imprisonment he wrote his greatest work, the History of the 
 World, which was never finished. His life and adventures he- 
 long to the sixteenth ; his works to the seventeenth century. 
 Raleigh was probably the most dazzling figure of his time ; and is 
 "in a singular degree the representative of the vigorous versatility 
 of the Elizabethan period." Spenser, whose neighbour he was for 
 some time in Ireland, thought highly of his poetry, calls him " the 
 summer's nightingale," and says of him — 
 
 11 Yet semuling 1 my song, he took in hand 
 My pipe, before that aemnled of many, 
 And played thereon (for well that skill he conn'd), 
 Himself as skilful in that art as any." 
 
 Raleigh is the author of the celebrated verses, " Go, soul, the body's 
 guest ; " " Give me my scallop-shell of quiet ; " and of the lines which 
 were written and left in his Bible on the night before he was 
 beheaded : — 
 
 " Even such is time, that takes in trust 
 
 Our youth, our joys, our all we have, 
 
 And pays us but with age and dust ; 
 
 Who, in the dark and silent grave, 
 
 When we have wandered all our ways, 
 
 Shuts up the story of our days : 
 
 But from this earth, this grave, this dust, 
 
 The Lord shall raise me up, I trust ! " 
 
 Raleigh's prose has been described as " some of the most flowing 
 and modern-looking prose of the period;" and there can be no 
 doubt that, if he had given himself entirely to literature, he would 
 have been one of the greatest poets and prose-writers of his time. 
 His style is calm, noble, and melodious. The following is the last 
 sentence of the History of the World : — 
 
 "0 eloquent, just, and mighty Death ! whom none could advise, thou hast 
 persuaded ; what none hath dared, thou hast done ; and whom all the world 
 hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised ; thou hast 
 drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and am- 
 bition of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words Hicjacet" 
 
 3. Francis Bacon (1561-1626), one of the greatest of English 
 thinkers, and one of our best prose-writers, was born at York House, 
 
 1 Emulating. 
 
378 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 in the Strand, London, in the year 1561. He was a grave and 
 precocious child; and Queen Elizabeth, who knew him and liked 
 him, used to pat him and call him her " young Lord Keeper " — his 
 father being Lord Keeper of the Seals in her reign. At the early 
 age of twelve he was sent to Trinity College, Cambridge, and re- 
 mained there for three years. In 1582 he was called to the bar; 
 in 1593 he was M.P. for Middlesex. But his greatest rise in fortune 
 did not take place till the reign of James I. ; when, in the year 1618, 
 he had risen to be Lord High Chancellor of England. The title 
 which he took on this occasion — for the Lord High Chancellor is 
 chairman of the House of Lords — was Baron Verulam; and a 
 few years after he was created Viscount St Albans. His elo- 
 quence was famous in England ; and Ben Jonson said of him : " The 
 fear of every man that heard him was lest he should make an end." 
 In the year 1621 he was accused of taking bribes, and of giving un- 
 just decisions as a judge. He had not really been unconscientious, 
 but he had been careless ; was obliged to plead guilty ; and he was 
 sentenced to pay a fine of £40,000, and to be imprisoned in the 
 Tower during the king's pleasure. The fine was remitted; Bacon 
 was set free in two days ; a pension was allowed him ; but he never 
 afterwards held office of any kind. Ha died on Easter-day of the 
 year 1626, of a chill which he caught while experimenting on the 
 preservative properties of snow. 
 
 4. His chief prose- works in English — for he wrote many in Latin — 
 are the. Essays, and the Advancement of Learning. His Essays 
 make one of the wisest books ever written ; and a great number of 
 English thinkers owe to them the best of what they have had to say. 
 They are written in a clear, forcible, pithy, and picturesque style, 
 with short sentences, and a good many illustrations, drawn from his- 
 tory, politics, and science. It is true that the style is sometimes 
 stiff, and even rigid ; but the stiffness is the stiffness of a richly 
 embroidered cloth, into which threads of gold and silver have been 
 worked. Bacon kept what he called a Promus or Commonplace- 
 Book; and in this he' entered striking thoughts, sentences, and 
 phrases that he met with in the course of his reading, or that oc- 
 curred to him during the day. He calls these sentences " salt-pits, 
 that you may extract salt out of, and sprinkle as you will." The 
 following are a few examples: — 
 
 "That that is Forced is not Forcible." 
 " No Man loveth his Fetters though they be of Gold. " 
 " Clear and Round Dealing is the Honour of Man's Nature." 
 " The Arch-flatterer, with whom all the petty Flatterers have intelligence, is 
 a Man's Self." 
 
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 379 
 
 " If Things be not tossed upon the Arguments of Counsell, they will be tossed 
 upon the Waves of Fortune. " 
 
 The following are a few striking sentences from his Essays : — 
 
 H Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set." 
 
 M A man's nature runs either to herbs or weeds ; therefore, let him season- 
 ably water the one, and destroy the other. " 
 
 " A crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk 
 but a tinkling cymbal, when there is no love." 
 
 No man could say wiser things in pithier words ; and we may 
 well say of his thoughts, in the words of Tennyson, that they are — 
 
 "Jewels, five words long, 
 That on the stretched forefinger of all time 
 Sparkle for ever." 
 
 5. William Shakespeare (1564-1616) has been already treated 
 of in the chapter on the sixteenth century. But it may be noted 
 here that his first two periods — as they are called — fall within the 
 sixteenth, and his last two periods within the seventeenth century. 
 His first period lies between 1591 and 1596; and to it are ascribed 
 his early poems, his play of Richard II., and some other histor- 
 ical plays. His second period, which stretches from 1596 to 1601 
 holds the Sonnets, thev Merchant of Venice, thcMerry Wives of 
 Windsor, and a few historical dramas. But his third and fourth 
 periods were richer in production, and in greater productions. The 
 third period, which belongs to the years 1601 to 1608, produced the 
 play of Julius Caesar, the great tragedies of Hamlet, Othello, 
 Lear, Macbeth, and some others. To the fourth period, which 
 lies between 1608 and 1613, belong the calmer and wiser dramas, 
 —Winter's Tale, .The Tempest, and Henry VIII. Three 
 years after — in 1616 — he died. 
 
 6. The Second Half.— The second half of the great and 
 unique seventeenth century was of a character very different 
 indeed from that of the first half. The Englishmen born into 
 it had to face a new world ! New thoughts in religion, new 
 forces in politics, new powers in social matters had been slowly, 
 steadily, and irresistibly rising into supremacy ever since the 
 Scottish King James came to take his seat upon the throne of 
 England in 1603. These new forces had, in fact, become so 
 
,380 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 strong that they led a king to the scaffold, and handed over the 
 government of England to a section of Republicans. Charles 
 I. was executed in 1649; and, though his son came back 
 to the throne in 1660, the face, the manners, the thoughts of 
 England and of Englishmen had undergone a complete internal 
 and external change. The Puritan party was everywhere the 
 ruling party; and its views and convictions, in religion, in 
 politics, and in literature, held unquestioned sway in almost 
 every part of England. In the Puritan party, the strongest 
 section was formed by the Independents — the " root and branch 
 men " — as they were called ; and the greatest man among the 
 Independents was Oliver Cromwell, in whose government John 
 Milton was Foreign Secretary. Milton was certainly by far 
 the greatest and most powerful writer, both in prose and in 
 verse, on the side of the Puritan party. The ablest verse-writer 
 on the Royalist or Court side was Samuel Butler, the unrivalled 
 satirist — the Hogarth of language, — the author of Hudibras. 
 The greatest prose-writer on the Royalist and Church side was 
 Jeremy Taylor, Bishop of Down, in Ireland, and the author 
 of Holy Living, Holy Dying, and many other works written 
 with a wonderful eloquence. The greatest philosophical writer 
 was Thomas Hobbes, the author of the Leviathan. The most 
 powerful writer for the people was John Bunyan, the immortal 
 author of The Pilgrim's Progress. When, however, we come 
 to the reigns of Charles II. and James IT, and the new influences 
 which their rule and presence imparted, we find the greatest poet 
 to be John Dryden, and the most important prose-writer, John 
 Locke. 
 
 7. The Poetry of the Second Half. — The poetry of the second 
 half of the seventeenth century was not an outgrowth or lineal 
 descendant of the poetry of the first half. No trace of the 
 strong Elizabethan poetical emotion remained ; no writer of this 
 half-century can claim kinship with the great authors of the 
 Elizabethan period. The three most remarkable poets in the 
 latter half of this century are John Milton, Samuel Butler, 
 and John Dryden. But Milton's culture was derived chiefly 
 from the great Greek and Latin writers ; and his poems show 
 
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 381 
 
 few or no signs of belonging to any age or generation in particu- 
 lar of English literature. Butler's poem, the Hudibras, is the 
 only one of its kind ; and if its author owes anything to other 
 writers, it is to France and not to England that we must look 
 for its sources. Dryden, again, shows no sign of being related 
 to Shakespeare or the dramatic writers of the early part of the 
 century ; he is separated from them by a great gulf ; he owes 
 most, when he owes anything, to the French school of poetry. 
 
 8. John Milton (1608-1674), the second greatest name in Eng- 
 lish poetry, and the greatest of all our epic poets, was born in Bread 
 Street, Cheapside, London, in the year 1608— five years after the ac- 
 cession of James 1. to the throne, and eight years before the death of 
 Shakespeare. He was educated at St Paul's School, and then at 
 Christ's College, Cambridge. He was so handsome — with a delicate 
 complexion, clear blue eyes, and light-brown hair flowing down his 
 shoulders — that he was known as the " Lady of Christ's." He was 
 destined for the Church ; but, being early seized with a strong desire 
 to compose a great poetical work which should bring honour to his 
 country and to the English tongue, he gave up all idea of becoming 
 a clergyman. Filled with his secret purpose, he retired to Horton, 
 in Buckinghamshire, where his father had bought a small country 
 seat. Between the years 1632 and 1638 he studied all the best 
 Greek and Latin authors, mathematics, and science; and he also 
 wrote L'Allegro and II Penseroso, Comus, Lycidas, and some 
 shorter poems. These were preludes, or exercises, towards the great 
 poetical work which it was the mission of his life to produce. In 
 1638-39 he took" a journey to the Continent. Most of his time 
 was spent in Italy ; and, when in Florence, he paid a visit to Galileo 
 in prison. It had been his intention to go on to Greece ; but the 
 troubled state of politics at home brought him back sooner than he 
 wished. The next ten years of his life were engaged in teaching 
 and in writing his prose works. His ideas on teaching are to be 
 found in his"- Tractate on Education. The most eloquent of his 
 prose-works is his Areopagitica, a Speech for the Liberty of 
 Unlicensed Printing (1644) — a plea for the freedom of the press, 
 for relieving all writings from the criticism of censors. In 1649 — 
 the year of the execution of Charles I. — Milton was appointed Latin 
 or Foreign Secretary to the Government of Oliver Cromwell ; and 
 for the next ten years his time was taken up with official work, 
 and with writing prose-volumes in defence of the action of the 
 
 2D 
 
382 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 Republic. In 1660 the Restoration took place; and Milton was at 
 length free, in his fifty-third year, to carry out his long-cherished 
 scheme of writing a great Epic poem. He chose the subject of the 
 fall and the restoration of man. Paradise Lost was completed in 
 1665 ; but, owing to the Plague and the Fire of London, it was not 
 published till the year 1667. Milton's young Quaker friend, Ellwood, 
 said to him one day : " Thou hast said much of Paradise Lost, what 
 hast thou to say of Paradise Found ? " Paradise Regained was 
 the result — a work which was written in 1666, and appeared, along 
 with Samson Agonistes, in the year 1671. Milton died in the 
 year 1674 — about the middle of the reign of Charles II. He had 
 been three times married. 
 
 9. L' Allegro (or "The Cheerful Man") is a companion poem to 
 II Penseroso (or " The Meditative Man " ). The poems present two 
 contrasted views of the life of the student. They are written in an 
 irregular kind of octosyllabic verse. The Comus — mostly in blank 
 verse — is a lyrical drama ; and Milton's work was accompanied by 
 a musical composition by the then famous musician Henry Lawes. 
 Lycidas— a poem in irregular rhymed verse — is a threnody on the 
 death of Milton's young friend, Edward King, who was drowned 
 in sailing from Chester to Dublin. This poem has been called " the 
 touchstone of taste ; " the man who cannot admire it has no feeling 
 for true poetry. The Paradise Lost is the story of how Satan waa 
 allowed to plot against the happiness of man ; and how Adam and 
 Eve fell through his designs. The style is the noblest in the English 
 language ; the music of the rhythm is lofty, involved, sustained, and 
 sublime. " In reading ' Paradise Lost,' " says Mr Lowell, " one has a 
 feeling of spaciousness such as no other poet gives." Paradise 
 Regained is, in fact, the story of the Temptation, and of Christ's 
 triumph over the wiles of Satan. Wordsworth says: "'Paradise 
 Regained' is most perfect in execution of any written by Milton;" 
 and Coleridge remarks that "it is in its kind the most perfect 
 poem extant, though its kind may be inferior in interest." Samson 
 Agonistes (" Samson in Struggle" ) is a drama, in highly irregular 
 unrhymed verse, in which the poet sets forth his own unhappy fate — 
 
 "Eyeless, in Gaza, at the mill with slaves." 
 
 It is, indeed, an autobiographical poem — it is the story of the last 
 years of the poet's life. 
 
 10. Samuel Butler (1612-1680), the wittiest of English poets, was 
 born at Strensham, in Worcestershire, in the year 1612, four years 
 
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 383 
 
 after the birth of Milton, and four years before the death of Shake-, 
 speare. He was educated at the grammar-school of Worcester, and 
 afterwards at Cambridge — but only for a short time. At the Resto- 
 ration he was made secretary to the Earl of Carbery, who was then 
 President of the Principality of Wales, and steward of Ludlow Castle. 
 The first part of his long poem called Hudibras appeared in 1663, 
 the second part in 1664 ; the third in 1678. Two years after, Butler 
 died in the greatest poverty in London. He was buried in St Paul's, 
 Covent Garden ; but a monument was erected to him in Westminster 
 Abbey. Upon this fact Wesley wrote the following epigram : — 
 
 " While Butler, needy wretch, was yet alive, 
 No generous patron would a dinner give ; 
 See him, when starved to death, and turned to dust, 
 Presented with a monumental bust. 
 The poet's fate is here in emblem shown, — 
 He asked for bread, and he received a stone." 
 
 11. The Hudibras is a burlesque poem, — a long lampoon, a 
 laboured caricature, — in mockery of the weaker side of the great 
 Puritan party. It is an imaginary account of the adventures of a 
 Puritan knight and his squire in the Civil Wars. It is choke-full of 
 all kinds of learning, of the most pungent remarks — a very hoard of 
 sentences and saws, " of vigorous locutions and picturesque phrases, 
 of strong, sound sense, and robust English." It has been more 
 quoted from than almost any book in our language. Charles II. 
 was never tired of reading it and quoting from it — 
 
 " He never ate, nor drank, nor slept, 
 But Hudibras still near him kept" — 
 
 says Butler himself. 
 
 The following are some of his best known lines : — 
 
 " And, like a lobster boil'd, the morn 
 From black to red began to turn." 
 
 " For loyalty is still the same, 
 Whether it win or lose the game: 
 True as the dial to the sun, 
 Altho' it be not shin'd upon." 
 
 " He that complies against his will, 
 Is of his own opinion still." 
 
 12. John Dryden (1631-1700), the greatest of eur poets in the 
 second rank, was born at Aldwincle, in Northamptonshire, in the 
 
384 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 year 1631. He was descended from Puritan ancestors on both 
 sides of his house. He was educated at Westminster School, and 
 at Trinity College, Cambridge. London became his settled abode in 
 the year 1657. At the Restoration, in 1660, he became an ardent 
 Royalist ; and, in the year 1663, he married the daughter of a Royalist 
 nobleman, the Earl of Berkshire. It was not a happy marriage ; the 
 lady, on the one hand, had a violent temper, and, on the other, did 
 not care a straw for the literary pursuits of her husband. In 1666 he 
 wrote his first long poem, the Annus Mirabilis (" The Wonderful 
 Year "), in which he paints the war with Holland, and the Fire of 
 London ; and from this date his life is " one long literary labour." 
 In 1670, he received the double appointment of Historiographer- 
 Royal and Poet-Laureate. Up to the year 1681, his work lay chiefly 
 in writing plays for the theatre ; and these plays were written in 
 rhymed verse, in imitation of the French plays ; for, from the date 
 of the Restoration, French influence was paramount both in literature 
 and in fashion. But in this year he published the first part of 
 Absalom and Ach.itoph.el — one of the most powerful satires in the 
 language. In the year 1683 he was appointed Collector of Customs 
 in the port of London — a post which Chaucer had held before him. 
 (It is worthy of note that Dryden a translated " the Tales of Chaucer 
 into modern English.) At the accession of James II., in 1685, Dryden 
 became a Roman Catholic ; most certainly neither for gain nor out 
 of gratitude, but from conviction. In 1687, appeared his poem of 
 The Hind and the Panther, in which he defends his new creed. 
 He had, a few years before, brought out another poem called Religio 
 Laici (" A Layman's Faith "), which was a defence of the Church of 
 England and of her position in religion. In The Hind and the 
 Panther, the Hind represents the Roman Catholic Church, " a milk- 
 white hind, unspotted and unchanged," the Panther the Church of 
 England; and the two beasts reply to each other in all the argu- 
 ments used by controversialists on these two sides. When the 
 Revolution of 1688 took place, and James II. had to flee the king- 
 dom, Dryden lost both his offices and the pension he had from 
 the Crown. Nothing daunted, he set to work once more. Again 
 he wrote for the stage ; but the last years of his life were spent 
 chiefly in translation. He translated passages from Homer, Ovid, 
 and from some Italian writers; but his most important work was 
 the translation of the whole of Virgil's* iEneid. To the last he 
 retained his fire and vigour, action and rush of verse ; and some of 
 his greatest lyric poems belong to his later years. His ode called 
 Alexander's Feast was written at the age of sixty-six ; and it was 
 written at one sitting. At the age of sixty-nine he was meditating a 
 
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 385 
 
 translation of the whole of Homer — both the Iliad and the Odyssey. 
 He died at his house in London, on May -day of 1 700, and was buried 
 with great pomp and splendour in Poets' Corner in Westminster 
 Abbey. 
 
 13. His best satire is the Absalom and Achitophel; his best 
 specimen of reasoning in verse is The Hind and the Panther. 
 His best ode is hi3 Ode to the Memory of Mrs Anne Killigrew. 
 Dryden's style is distinguished by its power, sweep, vigour, and 
 " long majestic march." No one has handled the heroic couplet — 
 and it was this form of verse that he chiefly used — with more vigour 
 than Dryden ; Pope was more correct, more sparkling, more finished, 
 but he had not Dryden's magnificent march or sweeping impulsiveness. 
 " The fire and spirit of the ' Annus Mirabilis,' " says a recent critic, 
 " are nothing short of amazing, when the difficulties which beset the 
 author are remembered. The glorious dash of the performance is 
 his own." His prose, though full of faults, is also very vigorous. 
 It has " something of the lightning zigzag vigour and splendour of 
 his verse." He always writes clear, homely, and pure English, — full 
 of force and point. 
 
 Many of his most pithy lines are often quoted : — 
 
 "Men are but children of a larger growth." 
 
 " Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow ; 
 He that would search for pearls must dive below." 
 
 "The greatest argument for love is love." 
 
 "The secret pleasure of the generous act, 
 Is the great mind's great bribe." 
 
 The great American critic and poet, Mr Lowell, compares him to 
 " an ostrich, to be classed with flying things, and capable, what with 
 leap and flap together, of leaving the earth for a longer or a shorter 
 space, but loving the open plain, where wing and foot help each 
 other to something that is both flight and run at once." 
 
 14. Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667), the greatest master of ornate 
 and musical English prose in his own day, was born at Cambridge in 
 the year 1613— just three years before Shakespeare died. His father 
 was a barber. After attending the free grammar-school of Cam- 
 bridge, he proceeded to the University. He took holy orders and 
 removed to London. When he was lecturing one day at St Paul's, 
 Archbishop Laud was so taken by his "youthful beauty, pleasant 
 air," fresh eloquence, and exuberant style, that he had him created 
 
386 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 a Fellow of All Souls' College, Oxford. When the Civil War broke 
 out, he was taken prisoner by the Parliamentary forces ; and, in- 
 deed, suffered imprisonment more than once. After the Restoration, 
 he was presented with a bishopric in Ireland, where he died in 
 1667. 
 
 15. Perhaps his best works are his Holy Living and Holy Dying. 
 His style is rich, even to luxury, full of the most imaginative illus- 
 trations, and often overloaded with ornament. He has been called 
 " the Shakespeare of English prose," " the Spenser of divinity," 
 and by other appellations. The latter title is a very happy descrip- 
 tion ; for he has the same wealth of style, phrase, and description 
 that Spenser has, and the same boundless delight in setting forth his 
 thoughts in a thousand different ways. The following is a specimen 
 of his writing. He is speaking of a shipwreck : — 
 
 "These are the thoughts of mortals, this is the end and sum of all their 
 designs. A dark night and an ill guide, a boisterous sea and a br©ken cable, 
 a h*d rock and a rough wind, dash in pieces the fortune of a whole family ; 
 and they that shall weep loudest for the accident are not yet entered into the 
 storm, and yet have suffered shipwreck." 
 
 His writings contain many pithy statements. The following are 
 a few of them: — 
 
 " No man is poor that does not think himself so." 
 
 " He that spends his time in sport and calls it recreation, is like him whose 
 garment is all made of fringe, and his meat nothing but sauce. 
 
 " A good man is as much in awe of himself as of a whole assembly." 
 
 16. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), a great philosopher, was born 
 at Malmesbury in the year 1588. He is hence called "the philo- 
 sopher of Malmesbury." He lived during the reigns of four Eng- 
 lish sovereigns — Elizabeth, James I., Charles I., and Charles II.; 
 and he was twenty -eight years of age when Shakespeare died. 
 He is in many respects the type of the hard-working, long-lived, 
 persistent Englishman. He was for many years tutor in the Devon- 
 shire family — to the first Earl of Devonshire, and to the third Earl of 
 Devonshire — and lived for several years at the family seat of Chats- 
 worth. In his youth he was acquainted with Bacon and Ben Jonson ; 
 in his middle age he knew Galileo in Italy ; and as he lived to the 
 age of ninety -two, he might have conversed with John Locke or 
 with Daniel Defoe. His greatest work is the Leviathan ; or, The 
 Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth. His style 
 is clear, manly, and vigorous. He tried to write poetry too. At 
 
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 387 
 
 the advanced age of eighty-five, he wrote a translation of the whole 
 of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey into rhymed English verse, using 
 the same quatrain and the same measure that Dryden employed 
 in his 'Annus Mirabilis.' Two lines are still remembered of this 
 translation : speaking of a child and his mother, he says — 
 
 u And like a star upon her bosom lay 
 His beautiful and shining golden head." 
 
 17. John Bdnyan (1828-1688), one of the most popular of our 
 prose -writers, was born at Elstow, in Bedfordshire, in the year 
 1628 — just three years before the birth of Dryden. He served, 
 when a young man, with the Parliamentary forces, and was present 
 at the siege of Leicester. At the Restoration, he was apprehended 
 for preaching, in disobedience to the Conventicle Act, "was had 
 home to prison, and there lay complete twelve years." Here he 
 supported himself and his family by making tagged laces and other 
 small-wares ; and here, too, he wrote the immortal Pilgrim's Pro- 
 gress. After his release, he became pastor of the Baptist congre- 
 gation at Bedford. He had a great power of bringing persons who 
 had quarrelled together again ; and he was so popular among those 
 who knew him, that he was generally spoken of as " Bishop Bunyan." 
 On a journey, undertaken to reconcile an estranged father and a rebel- 
 lious son, he caught a severe cold, and died of fever in London, in the 
 year 1 668. Every one has read, or will read, the Pilgrim's Progress ; 
 and it may be said, without exaggeration, that to him who has not 
 read the book, a large part of English life and history is dumb and 
 unintelligible. Bunyan has been called the " Spenser of the people," 
 and " the greatest master of allegory that ever lived." His power 
 of imagination is something wonderful; and his simple, homely, 
 and vigorous style makes everything so real, that we seem to be 
 reading a narrative of everyday events and conversations. His 
 vocabulary is not, as Macaulay said, " the vocabulary of the common 
 people;" rather should we say that his English is the English of 
 the Bible and of the best religious writers. His style is, almost 
 everywhere, simple, homely, earnest, and vernacular — without being 
 vulgar. Bunyan's books have, along with Shakespeare and Tyndale's 
 works, been among the chief supports of an idiomatic, nervous, and 
 simple English. 
 
 18. John Locke (1832-1704), a great English philosopher, waa 
 born at Wrington, near Bristol, in the year 1632. He was educated 
 
388 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 at Oxford ; but he took little interest in the Greek and Latin classics, 
 his chief studies lying in medicine and the physical sciences. He 
 became attached to the famous Lord Shaftesbury, under wKom he 
 filled several public offices — among others, that of Commissioner of 
 Trade. When Shaftesbury was obliged to flee to Holland, Locke 
 followed him, and spent several years in exile in that country. All 
 his life a very delicate man, he yet, by dint of great care and thought- 
 fulness, contrived to live to the age of seventy-two. His two most 
 famous works are Some Thoughts concerning Education, and 
 the celebrated Essay on the Human Understanding. The 
 latter, which is his great work, occupied his time and thoughts for 
 eighteen years. In both these books, Locke exhibits the very genius 
 of common-sense. The purpose of education is, in his opinion, not 
 to make learned men, but to maintain "a sound mind in a sound 
 body ; " and he begins the education of the future man even from 
 his cradle. In his philosophical writings, he is always simple ; but, 
 as he is loose and vacillating in his use of terms, this simplicity is 
 often purchased at the expense of exactness and self-consistency. 
 
389 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 THE FIRST HALF OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 1. The Age of Prose. — The eighteenth century was an age 
 of prose in two senses. In the first place, it was a prosaic age ; 
 and, in the second place, better prose than poetry was pro- 
 duced by its writers. One remarkable fact may also be noted 
 about the chief prose-writers of this century — and that is, that 
 they were, most of them, not merely able writers, not merely 
 distinguished literary men, but also men of affairs — men well 
 versed in the world and in matters of the highest practical 
 moment, while some were also statesmen holding high office. 
 Thus, in the first half of the century, we find Addison, Swift, 
 and Defoe either holding office or influencing and guiding 
 those who held office ; while, in the latter half, we have men 
 like Burke, Hume, and Gibbon, of whom the same, or nearly 
 the same, can be said. The poets, on the contrary, of this 
 eighteenth century, are all of them — with the very slightest 
 exceptions — men who devoted most of their lives to poetry, 
 and had little or nothing to do with practical matters. It 
 may also be noted here that the character of the eighteenth 
 century becomes more and more prosaic as it goes on — less and 
 less under the influence of the spirit of poetry, until, about the 
 close, a great reaction makes itself felt in the persons of Cowper, 
 Chatterton, and Burns, of Crabbe and Wordsworth. 
 
 2. The First Half.— The great prose-writers of the first half 
 of the eighteenth century are Addison and Steele, Swift and 
 
390 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Defoe. All of these men had some more or less close con- 
 nection with the rise of journalism in England ; and one of 
 them, Defoe, was indeed the founder of the modern newspaper. 
 By far the most powerful intellect of these four was Swift. 
 The greatest poets of the first half of the eighteenth century 
 were Pope, Thomson, Collins, and Gray. Pope towers above 
 all of them by a head and shoulders, because he was much 
 more fertile than any, and because he worked so hard and so 
 untiringly at the labour of the file — at the task of polishing and 
 improving his verses. But the vein of poetry in the three 
 others — and more especially in Collins — was much more pure 
 and genuine than it was in Pope at any time of his life — at any 
 period of his writing. Let us look at each of these writers a 
 little more closely. 
 
 3. Daniel Defoe (1661-1731), one of the most fertile writers 
 that England ever saw, and one who has been the delight of 
 many generations of readers, was born in the city of London in the 
 year 1661. He was educated to be a Dissenting minister ; but he 
 turned from that profession to the pursuit of trade. He attempted 
 several trades, — was a hosier, a hatter, a printer ; and he is said also 
 to have been a brick and tile maker. In 1692 he failed in business ; 
 but, in no long time after, he paid every one of his creditors to the 
 uttermost farthing. Through all his labours and misfortunes he was 
 always a hard and careful reader, — an omnivorous reader, too, for 
 he was in the habit of reading almost every book that came in his 
 way. He made his first reputation by writing political pamphlets. 
 One of his pamphlets brought him into high favour with King 
 William ; another had the effect of placing him in the pillory and 
 lodging him in prison. But while in Newgate, he did not idle away 
 his time or "languish" ; he set to work, wrote hard, and started a 
 newspaper, The Review, — the earliest genuine newspaper Eng- 
 land had seen up to his time. This paper he brought out two or 
 three times a- week ; and every word of it he wrote himself. He 
 continued to carry it on single-handed for eight years. In 1706, 
 he was made a member of the Commission for bringing about the 
 union between England and Scotland ; and his great knowledge of 
 commerce and commercial affairs were of singular value to this Com- 
 mission. In 1715 he had a dangerous illness, brought on by political 
 excitement ; and, on his recovery, he gave up most of his political 
 
FIRST HALF OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 391 
 
 writing, and took to the composition of stories and romances. 
 Although now a man of fifty-four, he wrote with the vigour and 
 ease of a young man of thirty. His greatest imaginative work 
 was written in 1719 — when he was nearly sixty — The Life and 
 Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of 
 York, Mariner, . . . written by Himself. Within six years 
 he had produced twelve works of a similar kind. He is said to have 
 written in all two hundred and fifty books in the course of his 
 lifetime. He died in 1731. 
 
 4. His best known — and it is also his greatest — work is Robinson 
 Crusoe ; and this book, which every one has read, may be compared 
 with l Gulliver's Travels,' for the purpose of observing how imag- 
 inative effects are produced by different means and in different ways. 
 Another vigorous work of imagination by Defoe is the Journal of 
 the Plague, which appeared in 1722. There are three chief things to 
 be noted regarding Defoe and his writings. These are : first, that Defoe 
 possessed an unparalleled knowledge — a knowledge wider than even 
 Shakespeare's — of the circumstances and details of human life among 
 all sorts, ranks, and conditions of men ; secondly, that he gains his 
 wonderful realistic effects by the freest and most copious use of 
 this detailed knowledge in his works of imagination ; and thirdly, 
 that he possessed a vocabulary of the most wonderful wealth. His 
 style is strong, homely, and vigorous, but the sentences are long, 
 loose, clumsy, and sometimes ungrammatical. Like Sir Walter 
 Scott, he was too eager to produce large and broad effects to take 
 time to balance his clauses or to polish his sentences. Like Sir 
 Walter Scott, again, he possesses in the highest degree the art of 
 particularising. 
 
 5. Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), the greatest prose-writer, in 
 his own kind, of the eighteenth century, and the opposite in most 
 respects — especially in style — of Addison, was born in Dublin 
 in the year 1667. Though born in Ireland, he was of purely 
 English descent — his father belonging to a Yorkshire family, and 
 his mother being a Leicestershire lady. His father died before he 
 was born ; and he was educated by the kindness of an uncle. 
 After being at a private school at Kilkenny, he was sent to Trinity 
 College, Dublin, where he was plucked for his degree at his first 
 examination, and, on a second trial, only obtained his B.A. "by 
 special favour." He next came to England, and for eleven years 
 acted as private secretary to Sir William Temple, a retired states- 
 man and ambassador, who lived at Moor Park, near Richmond-on- 
 
392 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Thames. In 1692 he paid a visit to Oxford, and there obtained the 
 degree of M.A. In 1700 he went to Ireland with Lord Berkeley as 
 his chaplain, and while in that country was presented with several 
 livings. He at first attached himself to the Whig party, but stung 
 by this party's neglect of his labours and merits, he joined the 
 Tories, who raised him to the Deanery of St Patrick's Cathedral in 
 Dublin. But, though nominally resident in Dublin, he spent a large 
 part of his time in London. Here he knew and met everybody 
 who was worth knowing, and for some time he was the most im- 
 posing figure, and wielded the greatest influence in all the best 
 social, political, and literary circles of the capital. In 1714, on the 
 death of Queen Anne, Swift's hopes of further advancement died 
 out ; and he returned to his Deanery, settled in Dublin, and " com- 
 menced Irishman for life." A man of strong passions, he usually 
 spent his birthday in reading that chapter of the Book of Job which 
 contains the verse, " Let the day perish in which I was born." He 
 died insane in 1745, and left his fortune to found a lunatic asylum 
 in Dublin. One day, when taking a walk with a friend, he saw a 
 blasted elm, and, pointing to it, he said : " I shall be like that tree, 
 and die first at the top." For the last three years of his life he never 
 spoke one word. 
 
 6. Swift has written verse ; but it is his prose- works that give 
 him his high and unrivalled place in English literature. His most 
 powerful work, published in 1704, is the Tale of a Tub — a satire 
 on the disputes between the Eoman Catholic, Anglican, and Presby- 
 terian Churches. His best known prose-work is the Gulliver's 
 Travels, which appeared in 1726. This work is also a satire; but 
 it is a satire on men and women, — on humanity. " The power of 
 Swift's prose," it has been said by an able critic, " was the terror of 
 his own, and remains the wonder of after times." His style is strong, 
 simple, straightforward ; he uses the plainest words and the homeliest 
 English, and every blow tells. Swift's style — as every genuine style 
 does — reflects the author's character. He was an ardent lover and a 
 good hater. Sir Walter Scott describes him as " tall, strong, and 
 well made, dark in complexion, but with bright blue eyes (Pope said 
 they were " as azure as the heavens "), black and bushy eyebrows, 
 aquiline nose, and features which expressed the stern, haughty, and 
 dauntless turn of his mind." He grew savage under the slightest 
 contradiction ; and dukes and great lords were obliged to pay court 
 to him. His prose was as trenchant and powerful as were his man- 
 ners : it has been compared to " cold steel." His own definition 
 of a good style is " proper words in proper places." 
 
FIRST HALF OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 393 
 
 7. Joseph Addison (1672-1719), the most elegant prose-writer — 
 as Pope was the mose polished verse-writer — of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, was born at Milston, in Wiltshire, in the year 1672. He was 
 educated at Charterhouse School, in Lond'n, where one of his friends 
 and companions was the celebrated Dick Steele — afterwards Sir 
 Kichard Steele. He then went to Oxford, where he made a name for 
 himself by his beautiful compositions in Latin verse. In 1695 he 
 addressed a poem to King William ; and this poem brought him into 
 notice with the Government of the day. Not long after, he received 
 a pension of £300 a-year, to enable him to travel ; and he spent some 
 time in France and Italy. The chief result of this tour was a poem 
 entitled A Letter from Italy to Lord Halifax. In 1704, when 
 Lord Godolphin was in search of a poet who should celebrate in an 
 adequate style the striking victory of Blenheim, Addison was intro- 
 duced to him by Lord Halifax. His poem called The Campaign 
 was the result ; and one simile in it took and held the attention 
 of all English readers, and of " the town." A violent storm had 
 passed over England ; and Addison compared the calm genius of 
 Marlborough, who was as cool and serene amid shot and shell as in 
 a drawing-room or at the dinner- table, to the Angel of the Storm. 
 The lines are these : — 
 
 "So when an Angel by divine command 
 With rising tempests shakes a guilty land, 
 Such as of late o'er pale Britannia passed, 
 Calm and serene he drives the furious blast; 
 And, pleased the Almighty's orders to perform, 
 Rides in the whirlwind, and -directs the storm." 
 
 For this poem Addison was rewarded with the post of Commissioner 
 of Appeals. He rose, successively, to be Under Secretary of State ; 
 Secretary for Ireland ; and, finally, Secretary of State for England — 
 an office which would correspond to that of our present Home 
 Secretary. He married the Countess of Warwick, to whose son he 
 had been tutor ; but it was not a happy marriage. Pope says of him 
 in regard to it, that — 
 
 "He married discord in a noble wife." 
 
 He died at Holland House, Kensington, London, in the year 1719, at 
 the age of forty-seven. 
 
 8. But it is not at all as a poet, but as a prose-writer, that Addison 
 is famous in the history of literature. While he was in Ireland, 
 his friend Steele started The Tatler, in 1709 ; and Addison sent 
 numerous contributions to this little paper. In 1711, Steele began 
 a still more famous paper, which he called The Spectator ; and 
 
394 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Addison's writings in this morning journal made its reputation. His 
 contributions are distinguishable by being signed with some one of the 
 letters of the name Clio — the Muse of History. A third paper, The 
 Guardian, appeared a few years after ; and Addison's contributions 
 to it are designated by a hand Ǥr) at the foot of each. In addition 
 to his numerous prose-writings, Addison brought out the tragedy of 
 Cato in 1713. It was very successful ; but it is now neither read 
 nor acted. Some of his hymns, however, are beautiful, and are well 
 known. Such are the hymn beginning, "The spacious firmament 
 on high ; " and his version of the 23d Psalm, " The Lord my pasture 
 shall prepare." 
 
 9. Addison's prose style is inimitable, easy, graceful, full of humour 
 — full of good humour, delicate, with a sweet and kindly rhythm, 
 and always musical to the ear. He is the most graceful of social 
 satirists ; and his genial creation of the character of Sir Roger de 
 Coverley will live for ever. While his work in verse is never 
 more than second-rate, his writings in prose are always first-rate. 
 Dr Johnson said of his prose : " Whoever wishes to attain an English 
 style — familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, 
 — must give his days and nights to the study of Addison." Lord 
 Lytton also remarks : " His style has that nameless urbanity in 
 which we recognise the perfection of manner ; courteous, but not 
 courtier-like ; so dignified, yet so kindly ; so easy, yet high-bred. 
 It is the most perfect form of English." His style, however, must 
 be acknowledged to want force — to be easy rather than vigorous ; 
 and it has not the splendid march of Jeremy Taylor, or the noble 
 power of Savage Landor. 
 
 10. Richard Steele (1672-1729), commonly called " Dick Steele," 
 the friend and colleague of Addison, was born in Dublin, but of 
 English parents, in the year 1672. The two friends were educated 
 at Charterhouse and at Oxford together ; and they remained friends, 
 with some slight breaks and breezes, to the close of life. Steele 
 was a writer of plays, essays, and pamphlets — for one of which he 
 was expelled from the House of Commons ; but his chief fame was 
 earned in connection with the Society Journals, which he founded. 
 He started many — such as Town-Talk, The Tea-Table, Chit- 
 chat ; but only the Tatler and the Spectator rose to success and 
 to fame. The strongest quality in his writings is his pathos : the 
 source of tears is always at his command ; and, although himself 
 of a gay and even rollicking temperament, he seems to have pre- 
 ferred this vein. The literary skill of Addison — his happy art in 
 
FIRST HALF OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 395 
 
 the choosing of words — did not fall to the lot of Steele ; but he 
 is more hearty and more human in his description of character. He 
 died in 1729, ten years after the departure of his friend Addison. 
 
 11. Alexander Pope (1688-1744), the greatest poet of the 
 eighteenth century, was born in Lombard Street, London, in the 
 year of the Revolution, 1688. His father was a wholesale linendraper, 
 who, having amassed a fortune, retired to Binfield, on the borders of 
 Windsor Forest. In the heart of this beautiful country young Pope's 
 youth was spent. On the death of his father, Pope left Windsor 
 and took up his residence at Twickenham, on the banks of the 
 Thames, where he remained till his death in 1744. His parents 
 being Roman Catholics, it was impossible for young Pope to go either 
 to a public school or to one of the universities ; and hence he was 
 educated privately. At the early age of eight, he met with a trans- 
 lation of Homer in verse ; and this volume became his companion 
 night and day. At the age of ten, he turned some of the events 
 described in Homer into a play. The poems of Spenser, the poets' 
 poet, were his next favourites ; but the writer who made the deepest 
 and most lasting impression upon his mind was Dry den. Little 
 Pope began to write verse very early. He says of himself — 
 
 " As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, 
 I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came." 
 
 His Ode to Solitude was written at the age of twelve ; his Pas- 
 torals when he was fifteen. His Essay on Criticism, which was 
 composed in his twentieth year, though not published till 1711, 
 established his reputation as a writer of neat, clear, sparkling, and 
 elegant verse. The Rape of the Lock raised his reputation still 
 higher. Macaulay pronounced it his best poem. De Quincey 
 declared it to be "the most exquisite monument of playful fancy 
 that universal literature offers." Another critic has called it the 
 "perfection of the mock -heroic." Pope's most successful poem— if 
 we measure it by the fame and the money it brought him — was his 
 translation of the Iliad of Homer. A great scholar said of this 
 translation that it was " a very pretty poem, but not Homer." The 
 fact is that Pope did not translate directly from the Greek, but from 
 a French or a Latin version which he kept beside him. Whatever 
 its faults, and however great its deficiency as a representation of the 
 powerful and deep simplicity of the original Greek, no one can deny 
 the charm and finish of its versification, or the rapidity, facility, and 
 melody of the flow of the verse. These qualities make this work 
 unique in English poetry. 
 
396 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 12. After finishing the Iliad, Pope undertook a translation of the 
 Odyssey of Homer. This was not so successful ; nor was it so well 
 done. In fact, Pope translated only half of it himself ; the other 
 half was written by two scholars called Broome and Fenton. His 
 next great poem was the Dunciad, — a satire upon those petty writers, 
 carping critics, and hired defamers who had tried to write down the 
 reputation of Pope's Homeric work. "The composition of the 
 * Dunciad ' revealed to Pope where his true strength lay, in blending 
 personalities with moral reflections." 
 
 13. Pope's greatest works were written between 1730 and 1740 ; 
 and they consist of the Moral Essays, the Essay on Man, and the 
 Epistles and Satires. These poems are full of the finest thoughts, 
 expressed in the most perfect form. Mr Ruskin quotes the 
 
 couplet — 
 
 " Never elated, while one man's oppressed ; 
 Never dejected, whilst another's blessed," — 
 
 as " the most complete, concise, and lofty expression of moral temper 
 existing in English words." The poem of Pope which shows his best 
 and most striking qualities in their most characteristic form, is 
 probably the Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot or Prologue to the 
 Satires. In this poem occur the celebrated lines about Addison — ■ 
 which make a perfect portrait, although it is far from being a true 
 likeness. 
 
 His pithy lines and couplets have obtained a permanent place in 
 literature. Thus we have : — 
 
 " True wit is nature to advantage dressed, 
 What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed." 
 
 " Good-nature and good-sense must ever join. 
 To err is human, to forgive divine." 
 
 " All seems infected that the infected spy, 
 As all looks yellow to the jaundic'd eye." 
 
 " Fear not the anger of the wise to raise ; 
 Those best can bear reproof who merit praise." 
 
 The greatest conciseness is visible in his epigrams and in his com- 
 pliments : — 
 
 " A vile encomium doubly ridicules : 
 There's nothing blackens like the ink of fools." 
 
 " And not a vanity is given in vain." 
 
 " Would ye be blest ? despise low joys, low gains, 
 Disdain whatever Cornbury disdains, 
 Be virtuous, and be happy for your pains." 
 
FIRST HALF OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 397 
 
 14. Pope is the foremost literary figure of his age and century ; 
 and he is also the head of a school. He brought to perfection a style 
 of writing verse which was followed by hundreds of clever writers. 
 Cowper says of him : — 
 
 " But Pope — his musical finesse was such, 
 So nice his ear, so delicate his touch, — 
 Made poetry a mere mechanic art, 
 And every warbler has his tune by heart." 
 
 Pope was not the poet of nature or of humanity ; he was the poet of 
 " the town," and of the Court. He was greatly influenced by the 
 neatness and polish of French verse ; and, from his boyhood, his 
 great ambition was to be " a correct poet." He worked and worked, 
 polished and polished, until each idea had received at his hands 
 its very neatest and most epigrammatic expression. In the art of 
 condensed, compact, pointed, and yet harmonious and flowing verse, 
 Pope has no equal. But, as a vehicle for poetry — for the love and 
 sympathy with nature and man which every true poet must feel, 
 Pope's verse is artificial ; and its style of expression has now died 
 out. It was one of the chief missions of Wordsworth to drive the 
 Popian second-hand vocabulary out of existence. 
 
 15. James Thomson (1700-1748), the poet of The Seasons, was 
 born at Ednam in Roxburghshire, Scotland, in the year 1700. He 
 was educated at the grammar-school of Jedburgh, and then at the 
 University of Edinburgh. It was intended that he should enter the 
 ministry of the Church of Scotland ; but, before his college course 
 was finished, he had given up this idea : poetry proved for him too 
 strong a magnet. While yet a young man, he had written his poem 
 of "Winter; and, with that in his pocket, he resolved to try his 
 fortune in London. While walking about the streets, looking at the 
 shops, and gazing at the new wonders of the vast metropolis, his 
 pocket was picked of his pocket-handkerchief and his letters of 
 introduction ; and he found himself alone in London — thrown 
 entirely on his own resources. A publisher was, however, in time 
 found for Winter ; and the poem slowly rose into appreciation and 
 popularity. This was in 1726. Next year, Summer; two years 
 after, Spring appeared ; while Autumn, in 1730, completed the 
 Seasons. The Castle of Indolence — a poem in the Spenserian 
 stanza — appeared in 1748. In the same year he was appointed 
 Surveyor-General of the Leeward Islands, though he never visited 
 the scene of his duty, but had his work done by deputy. He died 
 at Kew in the year 1748. 
 
398 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 16. Thomson's place as a poet is high in the second rank. His 
 Seasons have always been popular ; and, when Coleridge found a 
 well-thumbed and thickly dog's-eared copy lying on the window-sill 
 of a country inn, he exclaimed " This is true fame ! " His Castle 
 of Indolence is, however, a finer piece of poetical work than any 
 of his other writings. The first canto is the best. But the Seasons 
 have been much more widely read ; and a modern critic says : " No 
 poet has given the special pleasure which poetry is capable of giving 
 to so large a number of persons in so large a measure as Thomson." 
 Thomson is very unequal in his style. Sometimes he rises to a great 
 height of inspired expression ; at other times he sinks to a dull dead 
 level of pedestrian prose. His power of describing scenery is often 
 very remarkable. Professor Craik says : " There is no other poet 
 who surrounds us with so much of the truth of nature ; " and he 
 calls the Castle of Indolence " one of the gems of the language." 
 
 17. Thomas Gray (1716-1771), the greatest elegiac poet of the 
 century, was born in London in 1716. His father was a "money- 
 scrivener," as it was called ; in other words, he was a stock- 
 broker. His mother's brother was an assistant - master at Eton ; 
 and at Eton, under the care of this uncle, Gray was brought 
 up. One of his schoolfellows was the famous Horace Wal- 
 pole. After leaving school, Gray proceeded to Cambridge ; but, 
 instead of reading mathematics, he studied classical literature, 
 history, and modern languages, and never took his degree. After 
 some years spent at Cambridge, he entered himself of the Inner 
 Temple ; but he never gave much time to the study of law. His 
 father died in 1741; and Gray, soon after, gave up the law and 
 went to live entirely at Cambridge. The first published of his 
 poems was the Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College. 
 The Elegy written in a Country Churchyard was handed about 
 in manuscript before its publication in 1751 ; and it made his 
 reputation at once. In 1755 the Progress of Poesy was published ; 
 and the ode entitled The Bard was begun. In 1768 he was ap- 
 pointed Professor of Modern History at Cambridge ; but, though he 
 studied hard, he never lectured. He died at Cambridge, at the age 
 of fifty-four, in the year 1771. Gray was never married. He was 
 said by those who knew him to be the most learned man of his time 
 in Europe. Literature, history, and several sciences — all were thor- 
 oughly known to him. He had read everything in the world that 
 was best worth reading ; while his knowledge of botany, zoology, 
 and entomology was both wide and exact. 
 
FIRST HALF OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 399 
 
 18. Gray's Elegy took him seven years to write ; it contains thirty- 
 two stanzas ; and Mr Palgrave says " they are perhaps the noblest 
 stanzas in the language." General Wolfe, when sailing down to 
 attack Quebec, recited the Elegy to his officers, and declared, " Now, 
 gentlemen, I would rather be the author of that poem than take 
 Quebec." Lord Byron called the Elegy " the corner-stone of Gray's 
 poetry." Gray ranks with Milton as the most finished workman in 
 English verse ; and certainly he spared no pains. Gray said himself 
 that " the style he aimed at was extreme conciseness of expression, 
 yet pure, perspicuous, and musical ; " and this style, at which he 
 aimed, he succeeded fully in achieving. One of the finest stanzas 
 in the whole Elegy is the last, which the writer omitted in all the 
 later editions : — 
 
 " There scattered oft, the earliest of the year, 
 
 By hands unseen, are showers of violets found ; 
 The red-breast loves to build and warble there, 
 And little footsteps lightly print the ground." 
 
 19. William Collins (1721-1759), one of the truest lyrical poets 
 of the century, was born at Chichester on Christmas-day, 1721. 
 He was educated at Winchester School; afterwards at Queen's, 
 and also at Magdalen College, Oxford. Before he left school he 
 had written a set of poems called Persian Eclogues. He left 
 the university with a reputation for ability and for indolence ; 
 went to London " with many projects in his head and little money 
 in his pocket;" and there found a kind and fast friend in Dr 
 Johnson. His Odes appeared in 1747. The volume fell still- 
 born from the press : not a single copy was sold ; no one bought, 
 read, or noticed it. In a fit of furious despair, the unhappy author 
 called in the whole edition and burnt every copy with his own 
 hands. And yet it was, with the single exception of the songs of 
 Burns, the truest poetry that had appeared in the whole of the 
 eighteenth century. A great critic says : " In the little book there 
 was hardly a single false note : there was, above all things, a purity 
 of music, a clarity of style, to which I know of no parallel in 
 English verse from the death of Andrew Marvell to the birth of 
 William Blake." Soon after this great disappointment he went to 
 live at Richmond, where he formed a friendship with Thomson 
 and other poets. In 1749 he wrote the Ode on the Death of 
 Thomson, beginning — 
 
 "In yonder grave a Druid lies" — 
 one of the finest of his poems. Not long after, he was attacked by a 
 
400 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 disease of the brain, from which he suffered, at intervals, during the 
 remainder of his short life. He died at Chichester in 1759, at the 
 age of thirty-eight. 
 
 20. Collins's best poem is the Ode to Evening ; his most elab- 
 orate, the Ode on the Passions ; and his best known, the Ode 
 beginning — 
 
 " How sleep the brave, who sink to rest 
 By all their country's wishes blessed ! " 
 
 His latest and best critic says of his poems : " His range of 
 flight was perhaps the narrowest, but assuredly the highest, of 
 his generation. He could not be taught singing like a finch, but 
 he struck straight upward for the sun like a lark. . . . The direct 
 sincerity and purity of their positive and straightforward inspiration 
 will always keep his poems fresh and sweet in the senses of all men. 
 He was a solitary song-bird among many more or less excellent 
 pipers and pianists. He could put more spirit of colour into a single 
 stroke, more breath of music into a single note, than could all the 
 rest of his generation into all the labours of their lives." 
 
401 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE SECOND HALF OP THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 1. Prose - Writers. — The four greatest prose-writers of the 
 latter half of the eighteenth century are Johnson, Goldsmith, 
 Burke, and Gibbon. Dr Johnson was the most prominent 
 literary figure in London at this period ; and filled in his own 
 time much the same position in literary circles as Carlyle held 
 later on. He wrote on many subjects — but chiefly on literature 
 and morals; and hence he was called "The Great Moralist." 
 Goldsmith stands out clearly as the writer of the most pleasant 
 and easy prose ; his pen was ready for any subject ; and it has 
 been said of him with perfect truth, that he touched nothing 
 that he did not adorn. Burke was the most eloquent writer 
 of his time, and by far the greatest political thinker that 
 England has ever produced. He is known by an essay he 
 wrote when a very young man — on " The Sublime and Beauti- 
 ful " ; but it is to his speeches and political writings that we 
 must look for his noblest thoughts and most eloquent language. 
 Gibbon is one of the greatest historians and most powerful 
 writers the world has ever seen. 
 
 2. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the great essayist and lexico- 
 grapher, was born at Lichfield in the year 1709. His father was a 
 bookseller ; and it was in his father's shop that Johnson acquired 
 his habit of omnivorous reading, or rather devouring of books. The 
 mistress of the dame's school, to which he first went, declared him 
 
402 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 to be the best scholar she ever had. After a few years at the free 
 grammar-school of Lichfield, and one year at Stourbridge, he went 
 to Pembroke College, Oxford, at the age of nineteen. Here he did 
 not confine himself to the studies of the place, but indulged in a 
 wide range of miscellaneous reading. He was too poor to take a 
 degree, and accordingly left Oxford without graduating. After 
 acting for some time as a bookseller's hack, he married a Mrs Porter 
 of Birmingham — a widow with £800. With this money he opened a 
 boarding-school, or " academy " as he called it ; but he had never more 
 than three scholars — the most famous of whom was the celebrated 
 player, David Garrick. In 1737 he went up to London, and for 
 the next quarter of a century struggled for a living by the aid of 
 his pen. During the first ten years of his London life he wrote 
 chiefly for the ' Gentleman's Magazine.' In 1738 his London — 
 a poem in heroic metre — appeared. In 1747 he began his famous 
 Dictionary; it was completed in 1755; and the University of 
 Oxford conferred on him the honorary degree of M.A. In 1749 he 
 wrote another poem — also in heroic metre — the ' Vanity of Human 
 Wishes.' In 1750 he had begun the periodical that raised his fame 
 to its full height — a periodical to which he gave the name of The 
 Rambler. It appeared twice a- week ; and Dr Johnson wrote 
 every article in it for two years. In 1759 he published the short 
 novel called Rasselas : it was written to defray the expenses of his 
 mother's funeral ; and he wrote it " in the evenings of a week." 
 The year 1762 saw him with a pension from the Government of 
 £300 a-year ; and henceforth he was free from heavy hack-work and 
 literary drudgery, and could give himself up to the largest enjoy- 
 ment of that for which he cared most — social conversation. He was 
 the best talker of his time ; and he knew everybody worth knowing 
 — Burke, Goldsmith, Gibbon, the great painter Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
 and many other able men. In 1764 he founded the " Literary Club," 
 which still exists and meets in London. Oddly enough, although a 
 prolific writer, it is to another person — to Mr James Boswell, who 
 first met him in 1763 — that he owes his greatest and most lasting 
 fame. A much larger number of persons read Boswell's Life of 
 Johnson — one of the most entertaining books in all literature — 
 than Johnson's own works. Between the years 1779 and 1781 
 appeared his last and ablest work, The Lives of the Poets, which 
 were written as prefaces to a collective edition of the English Poets, 
 published by several London booksellers. He died in 1784. 
 
 3. Johnson's earlier style was full of Latin words ; his later style 
 is more purely English than most of the journalistic writing of the 
 present day. His Rambler is full of " long-tailed words in osity and 
 
SECOND HALF OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 403 
 
 ation;" but his ' Lives of the Poets ' is written in manly, vigorous, and 
 idiomatic English. In verse, he occupies a place between Pope and 
 Goldsmith, and is one of the masters in the "didactic school" of 
 English poetry. His rhythm and periods are swelling and sonorous ; 
 and here and there he equals Pope in the terseness and condensation 
 of his language. The following is a fair specimen : — 
 
 " Of all the griefs that harass the distressed, 
 Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest ; 
 Fate never wounds more deep the generous heart, 
 Than when a blockhead's insult points the dart." 
 
 4. Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774), poet, essayist, historian, and 
 dramatist, was born at Pallas, in the county of Longford, Ireland, in 
 the year 1728. His father was an Irish clergyman, careless, good- 
 hearted, and the original of the famous Dr Primrose, in The Vicar 
 of Wakefield. He was also the original of the " village preacher * 
 in The Deserted Village. 
 
 " A man he was to all the country dear, 
 And passing rich with forty pounds a-year." 
 
 Oliver was educated at Trinity College, Dublin ; but he left it 
 with no fixed aim. He thought of law, and set off for London, but 
 spent all his money in Dublin. He thought of medicine, and resided 
 two years in Edinburgh. He started for Leyden, in Holland, to 
 continue what he called his medical studies ; but he had a thirst to 
 see the world — and so, with a guinea in his pocket, one shirt, and a 
 flute, he set out on his travels through the continent of Europe. At 
 length, on the 1st of February 1756, he landed at Dover, after an 
 absence of two years, without a farthing in his pocket. London 
 reached, he tried many ways of making a living, as assistant to an 
 apothecary, physician, reader for the press, usher in a school, writer 
 in journals. His first work was 'An Inquiry into the State of 
 Polite Learning in Europe,' in 1759 ; but it appeared without his 
 name. From that date he wrote books of all kinds, poems, and 
 plays. He died in his chambers in Brick Court, Temple, London, in 
 1774. 
 
 5. Goldsmith's best poems are The Traveller and The Deserted 
 Village, — both written in the Popian couplet. His best play is 
 She Stoops to Conquer. His best prose work is The Vicar of 
 Wakefield, "the first genuine novel of domestic life." He also 
 wrote histories of England, of Rome, of Animated Nature. All 
 this was done as professional, nay, almost as hack work ; but 
 
404 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 always in a very pleasant, lively, and readable style. Ease, grace, 
 charm, naturalness, pleasant rhythm, purity of diction — these were 
 the chief characteristics of his writings. " Almost to all things could 
 he turn his hand " — poem, essay, play, story, history, natural science. 
 Even when satirical, he was good-natured ; and his Retaliation is 
 the friendliest and pleasantest of satires. In his poetry, his words 
 seem artless, but are indeed delicately chosen with that consummate 
 art which conceals and effaces itself: where he seems most simple 
 and easy, there he has taken most pains and given most labour. 
 
 6. Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was born at Dublin in the year 
 1729. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin; and in 1747 
 was entered of the Middle Temple, with the purpose of reading 
 for the Bar. In 1765 he was so fortunate as to enter Parliament 
 as member for Wendover, in Buckinghamshire ; and he sat in 
 the House of Commons for nearly thirty years. While in Par- 
 liament, he worked hard to obtain justice for the colonists of 
 North America, and to avert the separation of them from the 
 mother country; and also to secure good government for India. 
 At the close of his life, it was his intention to take his seat in the 
 House of Peers as Earl Beaconsfield— the title afterwards assumed by 
 Mr Disraeli; but the death of his son, and only child — for whom 
 the honour was really meant and wished — quite broke his heart, 
 and he never carried out his purpose. He died at Beaconsfield in 
 the year 1797. The lines of Goldsmith on Burke, in his poem of 
 " Retaliation," are well known : — 
 
 " Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such 
 We scarcely can praise it or blame it too much ; 
 Who, born for the universe, narrowed his mind, 
 And to party gave up what was meant for mankind ; 
 Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining, 
 And thought of convincing while they thought of dining." 
 
 7. Burke's most famous writings are Thoughts on the Cause of 
 the present Discontents, published in 1773 ; Reflections on the 
 French Revolution (1790) ; and the Letters on a Regicide 
 Peace (1797). His " Thoughts " is perhaps the best of his works in 
 point of style ; his " Reflections," are full of passages of the highest 
 and most noble eloquence. Burke has been described by a great critic 
 as " the supreme writer of the century ; " and Macaulay says, that 
 " in richness of imagination, he is superior to every orator ancient 
 and modern." In the power of expressing thought in the strongest, 
 fullest, and most vivid manner, he must be classed with Shakespeare 
 
SECOND HALF OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 405 
 
 and Bacon — and with these writers when at their best. He indulges 
 in repetitions ; but the repetitions are never monotonous ; they serve 
 to place the subject in every possible point of view, and to enable us 
 to see all sides of it. He possessed an enormous vocabulary, and had 
 the fullest power over it ; " never was a man under whose hands 
 language was more plastic and ductile." He is very fond of met- 
 aphor, and is described by an able critic as " the greatest master of 
 metaphor that the world has ever seen." 
 
 8. Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), the second great prose-writer 
 of the second half of the eighteenth century, was born at Putney, 
 London, in 1737. His father was a wealthy landowner. Young 
 Gibbon was a very sickly child — the only survivor of a delicate 
 family of seven ; he was left to pass his time as he pleased, and 
 for the most part to educate himself. But he had the run of 
 several good libraries ; and he was an eager and never satiated reader. 
 He was sent to Oxford at the early age of fifteen ; and so full was his 
 knowledge in some directions, and so defective in others, that he 
 went there, he tells us himself, "with a stock of knowledge that 
 might have puzzled a doctor, and a degree of ignorance of which a 
 schoolboy would have been ashamed." He was very fond of dis- 
 putation while at Oxford; and the Dons of the University were 
 astonished to see the pathetic " thin little figure, with a large head, 
 disputing and arguing with the greatest ability." In the course 
 of his reading, he lighted on some French and English books that 
 convinced him for the time of the truth of the Roman Catholic 
 faith ; he openly professed his change of belief ; and this obliged 
 him to leave the University. His father sent him to Lausanne, 
 and placed him under the care of a Swiss clergyman there, whose 
 arguments were at length successful in bringing him back to a 
 belief in Protestantism. On his return to England in 1758, he 
 lived in his father's house in Hampshire ; read largely, as usual ; 
 but also joined the Hampshire militia as captain of a company, and 
 the exercises and manoeuvres of his regiment gave him an insight 
 into military matters which was afterwards useful to him when 
 he came to write history. He published his first work in 1761. It 
 was an essay on the study of literature, and was written in French. 
 In 1770 his father died ; he came into a fortune, entered Parliament, 
 where he sat for eight years, but never spoke ; and, in 1776, he 
 began his history of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Em- 
 pire. This, by far the greatest of his works, was not completed till 
 1787, and was published in 1788, on his fifty-first birthday. His 
 
406 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 account of the completion of the work — it was finished at Lausanne, 
 where he had lived for six years — is full of beauty : " It was on the 
 day, or rather night, of June 27, 1787, between the hours of eleven 
 and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page in a summer- 
 house in my garden. After laying down my pen, I took several 
 turns in a covered walk of acacias, which commands a prospect of 
 the country, the lake, and the mountains. The air was temperate, 
 the sky was serene. The silver orb of the moon was reflected from 
 the waters, and all nature was silent. I will not describe the first 
 emotion of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and perhaps the 
 establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and 
 a sober melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had 
 taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and 
 that, whatever might be the future fate of my history, the life of 
 the historian must be short and precarious." Gibbon died in 1794, 
 about one year before the birth of another great historian, Grote, the 
 author of the ' History of Greece.' 
 
 9. Gibbon's book is one of the great historical works of the world. 
 It covers a space of about thirteen centuries, from the reign of 
 Trajan (98), to the fall of the Eastern Empire in 1453 ; and the 
 amount of reading and study required to write it, must have been 
 almost beyond the power of our conceiving. The skill in arranging 
 and disposing the enormous mass of matter in his history is also 
 unparalleled. His style is said by a critic to be " copious, splendid, 
 elegantly rounded, distinguished by supreme artificial skill." It is 
 remarkable for the proportion of Latin words employed. While 
 some parts of our translation of the Bible contain as much as 96 
 per cent of pure English words, Gibbon has only 58 per cent : the 
 rest, or 42 per cent, are words of Latin origin. In fact, of all our 
 great English writers, Gibbon stands lowest in his use of pure English 
 words ; and the two writers who come nearest him in this respect 
 are Johnson and Swift. The great Greek scholar, Professor Porson, 
 said of Gibbon's style, that " there could not be a better exercise for 
 a schoolboy than to turn a page of it into English." 
 
 10. Poets. — The chief poets of the latter half of the eighteenth 
 century belong to a new world, and show very little trace in 
 their writings of eighteenth-century culture, ideas, or prejudices. 
 Most of the best poets who were born in this half of the eight- 
 eenth century and began to write in it — such as Crabbe and 
 Wordsworth — are true denizens, in the character of their minds 
 and feelings, of the nineteenth. The greatest poets of the 
 
SECOND HALF OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 407 
 
 period are Cowper, Crabbe, and Burns ; and along with these 
 may be mentioned as little inferior, Chatterton and Blake, 
 two of the most original poets that have appeared in any 
 literature. 
 
 11. William Cowper (1731-1800), one of the truest, purest, and 
 sweetest of English poets, was born at Great Berkhampstead, in 
 Hertfordshire, in 1731. His father, Dr Cowper, who was a nephew 
 of Lord Chancellor Cowper, was rector of the parish, and chaplain 
 to George II. Young Cowper was educated at Westminster School ; 
 and "the great proconsul of India," Warren Hastings, was one 
 of his schoolfellows. After leaving Westminster, he was entered 
 of the Middle Temple, and was also articled to a solicitor. At the 
 age of thirty-one he was appointed one of the Clerks to the House of 
 Lords ; but he was so terribly nervous and timid, that he threw up the 
 appointment. He was next appointed Clerk of the Journals — a post 
 which even the shyest man might hold ; but, when he found that he 
 would have to appear at the bar of the House of Lords, he went home 
 and attempted to commit suicide. When at school, he had been ter- 
 ribly and persistently bullied ; and, about this time, his mind had 
 been somewhat affected by a disappointment in love. The form of 
 his insanity was melancholia ; and he had several long and severe 
 attacks of the same disease in the after-course of his life. He had to 
 be placed in the keeping of a physician; and it was only after fifteen 
 months' seclusion that he was able to face the world. Giving up all 
 idea of professional or of public Hfe, he went to live at Huntingdon 
 with the Unwins ; and, after the death of Mr Unwin, he removed 
 with Mrs Unwin to Olney, in Buckinghamshire. Here, in 1773, 
 another attack of melancholia came upon him. In 1779, Cowper 
 joined with Mr Newton, the curate of the parish, in publishing the 
 Olney Hymns, of which he wrote sixty-eight. But it was not till 
 he was past fifty years of age that he betook himself seriously to the 
 writing of poetry. His first volume, which contained Table-Talk, 
 Conversation, Retirement, and other poems in heroic metre, ap- 
 peared in 1782. His second volume, which included The Task and 
 John Gilpin, was published in 1785. His translation of the Iliad 
 and Odyssey of Homer — a translation into blank verse, which he 
 wrote at the regular rate of forty lines a-day — was published in 1791. 
 Mrs Unwin now had a shock of paralysis ; Cowper himself was again 
 seized with mental illness; and from 1791 till his death in 1800, 
 his condition was one of extreme misery, depression, and despair. 
 He thought himself an outcast from the mercy of God. " I seem to 
 
408 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 myself/' lie wrote to a friend, " to be scrambling always in the dark, 
 among rocks and precipices, without a guide, but with an enemy ever 
 at my heels, prepared to push me headlong." The cloud never lifted ; 
 gloom and dejection enshrouded all his later years ; a pension of 
 £300 a-year from George III. brought him no pleasure ; and he died 
 insane, at East Dereham, in Norfolk, in the year 1800. In the poem 
 of The Castaway he compares himself to a drowning sailor : — 
 
 '* No voice divine the storm allayed, 
 
 No light propitious shone, 
 When, far from all effectual aid, 
 
 We perished — each alone — 
 But I beneath a rougher sea, 
 And whelmed in blacker gulfs than he." 
 
 12. His greatest work is The Task; and the best poem in it is 
 probably " The Winter Evening." His best-known poem is John 
 Gilpin, which, like " The Task," he wrote at the request of his 
 friend, Lady Austen. His most powerful poem is The Castaway. 
 He always writes in clear, crisp, pleasant, and manly English. He 
 himself says, in a letter to a friend : " Perspicuity is always more 
 than half the battle. . . A meaning that does not stare you in the 
 face is as bad as no meaning ; " and this direction he himself always 
 carried out. Cowper's poems mark a new era in poetry ; his style 
 is new, and his ideas are new. He is no follower of Pope ; Southey 
 compared Pope and Cowper as " formal gardens in comparison 
 with woodland scenery." He is always original, always true — 
 true to his own feeling, and true to the object he is describing. 
 " My descriptions," he writes of " The Task," " are all from nature ; 
 not one of them second-handed. My delineations of the heart are 
 from my own experience." Everywhere in his poems we find a 
 genuine love of nature ; humour and pathos in his description of 
 persons; and a purity and honesty of style that have never been 
 surpassed. Many of his well-put lines have passed into our common 
 stock of everyday quotations. Such are — 
 
 " God made the country, and man made the town." 
 
 " Variety's the very spice of life 
 That gives it all its flavour." 
 
 " The heart 
 May give a useful lesson to the head, 
 And Learning wiser grow without his books." 
 
 " Beware of desperate steps. The darkest day, 
 Live till to-morrow, will have passed away." 
 
SECOND HALF OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 409 
 
 13. George Crabbe (1754-1832), the poet of the poor, was born 
 at Aldborough, in Suffolk, on Christmas Eve of the year 1754. He 
 stands thus midway between Goldsmith and Wordsworth — mid- 
 way between the old and the new school of poetry. His father 
 was salt-master — or collector of salt duties — at the little seaport. 
 After being taught a little at several schools, it was agreed that 
 George should be made a surgeon. He was accordingly apprenticed ; 
 but he was fonder of writing verses than of attending cases. His 
 memory for poetry was astonishing ; he had begun to write verses 
 at the age of fourteen ; and he filled the drawers of the surgery with 
 his poetical attempts. After a time he set up for himself in practice 
 at Aldborough ; but most of his patients were poor people and pool 
 relations, who paid him neither for his physic nor his advice. In 
 1779 he resolved "to go to London and venture all." Accordingly, 
 he took a berth on board of a sailing-packet, carrying with him a 
 little money and a number of manuscript poems. But nothing suc- 
 ceeded with him ; he was reduced to his last eightpence. In this 
 strait, he wrote to the great statesman, Edmund Burke ; and, while 
 the answer was coming, he walked all night up and down West- 
 minster Bridge. Burke took him in to his own house and found 
 a publisher for his poems. 
 
 14. In 1781 The Library appeared ; and in the same year 
 Crabbe entered the Church. In 1783 he published The Village— 
 a poem which Dr Johnson revised for him. This work won for him 
 an established reputation ; but, for twenty-four years after, Crabbe 
 gave himself up entirely to the care of his parish, and published 
 only one poem — The Newspaper. In 1807 appeared The Parish 
 Register; in 1810, The Borough; in 1812, Tales in Verse; 
 and, in 1819, his last poetical work, Tales of the Hall. From this 
 time, till his death in 1832 — thirteen years after — he produced no other 
 poem. Personally, he was one of the noblest and kindest of men ; 
 he was known as " the gentleman with the sour name and the sweet 
 countenance ; " and he spent most of his income on the wants of others. 
 
 15. Crabbe's poetical work forms a prominent landmark in 
 English literature. His style is the style of the eighteenth century 
 — with a strong admixture of his own ; his way of thinking, and the 
 objects he selects for description, belong to the nineteenth. While 
 Pope depicted " the town," politics, and abstract moralities, Crabbe 
 describes the country and the country poor, social matters, real life — 
 the lowest and poorest life, and more especially, the intense misery 
 of the village population of his time in the eastern counties — 
 
 "the wild amphibious race 
 With sullen woe displayed in every foce." 
 
410 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 He does not paint the lot of the poor with the rose-coloured tints 
 used by Goldsmith ; he boldly denies the existence of such a village 
 as Auburn ; he groups such places with Eden, and says — 
 
 "Auburn and Eden can be found no more;" 
 
 he shows the gloomy, hard, despairing side of English country life. 
 He has been called a " Pope in worsted stockings," and " the Hogarth 
 of song." Byron describes him as 
 
 "Nature's sternest painter, yet the best." 
 
 Now and then his style is flat, and even coarse ; but there is every- 
 where a genuine power of strong and bold painting. He is also 
 an excellent master of easy dialogue. 
 
 All of his poems are written in the Popian couplet of two ten- 
 syllabled lines. 
 
 16. Robert Burns (1759-1796), the greatest poet of Scotland, was 
 born in Ayrshire, two miles from the town of Ayr, in 1759. The 
 only education he received from his father was the schooling of a 
 few months ; but the family were fond of reading, and Robert was 
 the most enthusiastic reader of them all. Every spare moment he 
 could find — and they were not many — he gave to reading ; he sat at 
 meals " with a book in one hand and a spoon in the other ; " and in 
 this way he read most of the great English poets and prose-writers. 
 This was an excellent education — one a great deal better than most 
 people receive ; and some of our greatest men have had no better. 
 But, up to the age of sixteen, he had to toil on his father's farm from 
 early morning till late at night. In the intervals of his work he con- 
 trived, by dint of thrift and industry, to learn French, mathematics, 
 and a little Latin. On the death of his father, he took a small farm, 
 but did not succeed. He was on the point of embarking for Jamaica, 
 where a post had been found for him, when the news of the success- 
 ful sale of a small volume of his poems reached him ; and he at once 
 changed his mind, and gave up all idea of emigrating. His friends 
 obtained for him a post as exciseman, in which his duty was to 
 gauge the quantity and quality of ardent spirits — a post full of 
 dangers to a man of his excitable and emotional temperament. He 
 went a great deal into what was called society, formed the acquaint- 
 ance of many boon companions, acquired habits of intemperance that 
 he could not shake off, and died at Dumfries in 1796, in his thirty- 
 seventh year. 
 
 17. His best poems are lyrical, and he is himself one of the fore- 
 
SECOND HALF OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 411 
 
 most lyrical poets in the world. His songs have probably been more 
 sung, and in more parts of the globe, than the songs of any other 
 writer that ever lived. They are of every kind — songs of love, war, 
 mirth, sorrow, labour, and social gatherings. Professor Craik says : 
 " One characteristic that belongs to whatever Burns has written is 
 that, of its kind and in its own way, it is a perfect production. His 
 poetry is, throughout, real emotion melodiously uttered, instinct with 
 passion, but not less so with power of thought, — full of light as well 
 as of fire." Most of his poems are written in the North-English, or 
 Lowland - Scottish, dialect. The most elevated of his poems is 
 The Vision, in which he relates how the Scottish Muse found him 
 at the plough, and crowned him with a wreath of holly. One of 
 his longest, as well as finest poems, is The Cottar's Saturday 
 Night, which is written in the Spenserian stanza. Perhaps his 
 most pathetic poem is that entitled To Mary in Heaven. It is 
 of a singular eloquence, elevation, and sweetness. The first verse 
 runs thus — 
 
 " Thou lingering star, with lessening ray, 
 
 That lov'st to greet the early morn, 
 Again thou usher'st in the day 
 
 My Mary from ray soul was torn. 
 Mary ! dear departed shade ! 
 
 Where is thy place of blissful rest ? 
 See'st thou thy lover lowly laid? 
 
 Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?" 
 
 He is, as his latest critic says, " the poet of homely human nature ; " 
 and his genius shows the beautiful elements in this homeliness ; and 
 that what is homely need not therefore be dull and prosaic. 
 
 18. Thomas Chatterton and William Blake are two minor 
 poets, of whom little is known and less said, but whose work is of 
 the most poetical and genuine kind. — Chatterton was born at Bristol 
 in the year 1752. He was the son of a schoolmaster, who died before 
 he was born. He was educated at Colston's Blue-Coat School in 
 Bristol ; and, while at school, read his way steadily through every 
 book in three circulating libraries. He began to write verses at the 
 age of fifteen, and in two years had produced a large number of poems 
 —some of them of the highest value. In 1770, he came up to Lon- 
 don, with something under five pounds in his pocket, and his mind 
 made up to try his fortune as a literary man, resolved, though he 
 was only a boy of seventeen, to live by literature or to die. Accord- 
 ingly, he set to work and wrote every kind of production — poems 
 
412 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 essays, stories, political articles, songs for public singers ; and all the 
 time he was half starving. A loaf of bread lasted him a week ; and it 
 was " bought stale to make it last longer." He had made a friend of 
 the Lord Mayor, Beckford ; but before he had time to hold out a hand 
 to the struggling boy, Beckford died. The struggle became harder 
 and harder — more and more hopeless ; his neighbours offered a little 
 help — a small coin or a meal — he rejected all ; and at length, on the 
 evening of the 24th August 1770, he went up to his garret, locked 
 himself in, tore up all his manuscripts, took poison, and died. He 
 was only seventeen. 
 
 19. Wordsworth and Coleridge spoke with awe of his genius; 
 Keats dedicated one of his poems to his memory ; and Coleridge 
 copied some of his rhythms. One of his best poems is the Min- 
 strel's Roundelay — 
 
 " sing unto my roundelay, 
 
 drop the briny tear with me, 
 
 Dance no more on holy-day, 
 
 Like a running river be. 
 
 My love is dead, 
 
 Gone to his death -bed 
 
 All under the willow-tree. 
 
 i 
 
 " Black his hair as the winter night, 
 White his skin as the summer snow ; 
 Red his face as the morning light, 
 Cold he lies in the grave below. 
 My love is dead, 
 Gone to his death-bed 
 All under the willow-tree." 
 
 20. William Blake (1757-1827), one of the most original poets 
 that ever lived, was born in London in the year 1757. He was 
 brought up as an engraver ; worked steadily at his business, and 
 did a great deal of beautiful work in that capacity. He in fact 
 illustrated his own poems — each page being set in a fantastic design 
 of his own invention, which he himself engraved. He was also 
 his own printer and publisher. The first volume of his poems was 
 published in 1783 ; the Songs of Innocence, probably his best, 
 appeared in 1789. He died in Fountain Court, Strand, London, 
 in the year 1827. 
 
 21. A recent critic says of Blake : " His detachment from the 
 ordinary currents of practical thought left to his mind an unspoiled 
 and delightful simplicity which has perhaps never been matched in 
 English poetry." Simplicity — the perfect simplicity of a child — 
 
SECOND HALF OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 413 
 
 beautiful simplicity — simple and childlike beauty, — such is the chief 
 note of the poetry of Blake. " Where he is successful, his work has 
 the fresh perfume and perfect grace of a flower." The most remark- 
 able point about Blake is that, while living in an age when the poetry 
 of Pope — and that alone — was everywhere paramount, his poems 
 show not the smallest trace of Pope's influence, but are absolutely 
 original. His work, in fact, seems to be the first bright streak of the 
 golden dawn that heralded the approach of the full and splendid 
 daylight of the poetry of Wordsworth and Coleridge, of Shelley and 
 Byron. His best-known poems are those from the ' Songs of Inno- 
 cence ' — such as Piping down the valleys wild ; The Lamb ; The 
 Tiger, and others. Perhaps the most remarkable element in Blake's 
 poetry is the sweetness and naturalness of the rhythm. It seems 
 careless, but it is always beautiful ; it grows, it is not made ; it 
 is like a wild field-flower thrown up by Nature in a pleasant green 
 field. Such are the rhythms in the poem entitled Night : — 
 
 " The sun descending in the west, 
 The evening star does shine ; 
 The birds are silent in their nest, 
 And I must seek for mine. 
 The moon, like a flower 
 In heaven's high bower, 
 With silent delight 
 Sits and smiles on the night. 
 
 " Farewell, green fields and happy grove, 
 Where flocks have ta'en delight ; 
 Where lambs have nibbled, silent move 
 The feet of angels bright: 
 Unseen they pour blessing, 
 And joy without ceasing, 
 On each bud and blossom, 
 On each sleeping bosom." 
 
 2f 
 
414 
 
 CHAPTEK VIII. 
 
 THE FIRST HALF OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 1. New Ideas. — The end of the eighteenth and the beginning 
 of the nineteenth century are alike remarkable for the new 
 powers, new ideas, and new life thrown into society. The 
 coming up of a high flood-tide of new forces seems to coincide 
 with the beginning of the French Ee volution in 1789, when 
 the overthrow of the Bastille marked the downfall of the old 
 ways of thinking and acting, and announced to the world of 
 Europe and America that the old regime — the ancient mode 
 of governing — was over. Wordsworth, then a lad of nineteen, 
 was excited by the event almost beyond the bounds of self- 
 control. He says in his "Excursion" — 
 
 " Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive. 
 But to be young was very Heaven ! " 
 
 It was, indeed, the dawn of a new day for the peoples of 
 Europe. The ideas of freedom and equality — of respect for 
 man as man — were thrown into popular form by France ; they 
 became living powers in Europe; and in England they ani- 
 mated and inspired the best minds of the time — Burns, Cole- 
 ridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, and Byron. Along with this high 
 tide of hope and emotion, there was such an outburst of talent 
 and genius in every kind of human endeavour in England, as 
 was never seen before except in the Elizabethan period. Great 
 events produced great powers ; and great powers in their turn 
 
FIRST HALF OF NINETEENTH CENTURY. 415 
 
 brought about great events. The war with America, the long 
 struggle with Napoleon, the new political ideas, great victories 
 by sea and land, — all these were to be found in the beginning 
 of the nineteenth century. The English race produced great 
 men in numbers — almost, it might be said, in groups. We had 
 great leaders, like Nelson and "Wellington; brilliant generals, 
 like Sir Charles Napier and Sir John Moore ; great statesmen, 
 like Fox and Pitt, like Washington and Franklin; great en- 
 gineers, like Stephenson and Brunei ; and great poets, like 
 Wordsworth and Byron. And as regards literature, an able 
 critic remarks : " We have recovered in this century the Eliza- 
 bethan magic and passion, a more than Elizabethan sense of 
 the beauty and complexity of nature, the Elizabethan music of 
 language." 
 
 2. Great Poets. — The greatest poets of the first half of the 
 nineteenth century may be best arranged in groups. There 
 were Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey — commonly, but 
 unnecessarily, described as the Lake Poets. In their poetic 
 thought and expression they had little in common; and the 
 fact that two of them lived most of their lives in the Lake 
 country, is not a sufficient justification for the use of the term. 
 There were Scott and Campbell — both of them Scotchmen. 
 There were Byron and Shelley — both Englishmen, both brought 
 up at the great public schools and the universities, but both car- 
 ried away by the influence of the new revolutionary ideas. 
 Lastly, there were Moore, an Irishman, and young Keats, the 
 splendid promise of whose youth went out in an early death. 
 Let us learn a little more about each, and in the order of the 
 dates of their birth. 
 
 3. William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was born at Cocker- 
 mouth, a town in Cumberland, which stands at the confluence of 
 the Cocker and the Derwent. His father, John Wordsworth, was 
 law agent to Sir James Lowther, who afterwards became Earl of 
 Lonsdale. William was a boy of a stiff, moody, and violent temper ; 
 and as his mother died when he was a very little boy, and his father 
 when he was fourteen, he grew up wnh very little care from his 
 
416 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 parents and guardians. He was sent to school at Hawkshead, in the 
 Vale of Esthwaite, in Lancashire ; and, at the age of seventeen, pro- 
 ceeded to St John's College, Cambridge. After taking his degree of 
 B.A. in 1791, he resided for a year in France. He took sides with 
 one of the parties in the Eeign of Terror, and left the country only 
 in time to save his head. He was designed by his uncles for the 
 Church ; but a friend, Raisley Calvert, dying, left him .£900 ; and he 
 now resolved to live a plain and frugal life, to join no profession, but 
 to give himself wholly up to the writing of poetry. In 1798, he 
 published, along with his friend, S. T. Coleridge, the Lyrical 
 Ballads. The only work of Coleridge's in this volume was the 
 "Ancient Mariner." In 1802 he married Mary Hutchinson, of 
 whom he speaks in the well-known lines — 
 
 Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair, 
 Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair ; 
 But all things else about her drawn 
 From May-time and the cheerful dawn.' 
 
 He obtained the post of Distributor of Stamps for the county of 
 Westmoreland; and, after the death of Southey, he was created 
 Poet-Laureate by the Queen. — He settled with his wife in the 
 Lake country ; and, in 1813, took up his abode at Rydal Mount, 
 where he lived till his death in 1850. He died on the 23d of April 
 — the death-day of Shakespeare. 
 
 4. His longest works are the Excursion and the Prelude — both 
 being parts of a longer and greater work which he intended to write 
 on the growth of his own mind. His best poems are his shorter 
 pieces, such as the poems on Lucy, The Cuckoo, the Ode to Duty, 
 the Intimations of Immortality, and several of his Sonnets. He 
 says of his own poetry that his purpose in writing it was " to console 
 the afflicted; to add sunshine to daylight by making the happy 
 happier; to teach the young and the gracious of every age to 
 see, to think, and feel, and therefore to become more actively and 
 securely virtuous." His poetical work is the noble landmark of a 
 great transition — both in thought and in style. He drew aside 
 poetry from questions and interests of mere society and the town 
 to the scenes of Nature and the deepest feelings of man as man. 
 In style, he refused to employ the old artificial vocabulary which 
 Pope and his followers revelled in ; he used the simplest words he 
 could find ; and, when he hits the mark in his simplest form of ex- 
 pression, his style is as forcible as it is true. He says of his own 
 verse — 
 
FIRST HALF OF NINETEENTH CENTURY. 417 
 
 44 The moving accident is not my trade, 
 To freeze the blood I have no ready arts ; 
 Tis my delight, alone, in summer shade, 
 To pipe a simple song for thinking hearts." 
 
 If one were asked what four lines of his poetry best convey the feel- 
 ing of the whole, the reply must be that these are to be found in his 
 " Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle," — lines written about " the 
 good Lord Clifford." 
 
 44 Love had he found in huts where poor men lie, 
 His daily teachers had been woods and rills, — 
 The silence that is in the starry sky, 
 The sleep that is among the lonely hills." 
 
 5. Walter Scott (1771-1832), poet and novelist, the son of 
 a Scotch attorney (called in Edinburgh a W.S. or Writer to H.M.'s 
 Signet), was born there in the year 1771. He was educated at the 
 High School, and then at the College — now called the University 
 — of Edinburgh. In 1792 he was called to the Scottish Bar, or 
 became an "advocate." During his boyhood, he had had several 
 illnesses, one of which left him lame for life. Through those long 
 periods of sickness and of convalescence, he read Percy's ' Reliques 
 of Ancient Poetry/ and almost all the romances, old plays, and epic 
 poems that have been published in the English language. This 
 gave his mind and imagination a set which they never lost all 
 through life. 
 
 6. His first publications were translations of German poems. In 
 the year 1805, however, an original poem, the Lay of the Last 
 Minstrel, appeared ; and Scott became at one bound the foremost 
 poet of the day. Marmion, the Lady of the Lake, and other 
 poems, followed with great rapidity. But, in 1814, Scott took it 
 into his head that his poetical vein was worked out ; the star of 
 Byron was rising upon the literary horizon ; and he now gave him- 
 self up to novel-writing. His first novel, Waverley, appeared 
 anonymously in 1814. Guy Mannering, Old Mortality, Rob 
 Roy, and others, quickly followed; and, though the secret of the 
 authorship was well kept both by printer and publisher, Walter 
 Scott was generally believed to be the writer of these works, and he 
 was frequently spoken of as " the Great Unknown." He was made 
 a baronet by George IV. in 1820* 
 
 7. His expenses in building Abbotsford, and his desire to acquire 
 land, induced him to go into partnership with Ballantyne, his printer, 
 and with Constable, his publisher. Both firms failed in the dark 
 
418 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 year of 1826 ; and Scott found himself unexpectedly liable for the 
 large sum of .£147,000. Such a load of debt would have utterly 
 crushed most men ; but Scott stood clear and undaunted in front of 
 it. " Gentlemen," he said to his creditors, " time and I against any 
 two. Let me take this good ally into my company, and I believe 
 I shall be able to pay you every farthing." He left his beautiful 
 country house at Abbotsford ; he gave up all his country pleasures ; 
 he surrendered all his property to his creditors ; he took a small house 
 in Edinburgh ; and, in the short space of five years, he had paid off 
 .£130,000. But the task was too terrible ; the pace had been too hard ; 
 and he was struck down by paralysis. But even this disaster did not 
 daunt him. Again he went to work, and again he had a paralytic 
 stroke. At last, however, he was obliged to give up ; the Govern- 
 ment of the day placed a royal frigate at his disposal ; he went to 
 Italy ; but his health had utterly broken down, he felt he could get 
 no good from the air of the south, and he turned his face towards 
 home to die. He breathed his last breath at Abbotsford, in sight of 
 his beloved Tweed, with his family around him, on the 21st of Sep- 
 tember 1832. 
 
 8. His poetry is the poetry of action. In imaginative power he 
 ranks below no other poet, except Homer and Shakespeare. He 
 delighted in war, in its movement, its pageantry, and its events: 
 and, though lame, he was quartermaster of a volunteer corps of 
 cavalry. On one occasion he rode to muster one hundred miles in 
 twenty-four hours, composing verses by the way. Much of " Marmion " 
 was composed on horseback. " I had many a grand gallop," he says, 
 " when I was thinking of ' Marmion.' " His two chief powers in verse 
 are his narrative and his pictorial power. His boyhood was passed 
 in the Borderland of Scotland — " a district in which every field has 
 its battle and every rivulet its song ; " and he was at home in every 
 part of the Highlands and the Lowlands, the Islands and the Borders, 
 of his native country. But, both in his novels and his poems, he was 
 a painter of action rather than of character. 
 
 9. His prose works are now much more read than his poems ; but 
 both are full of life, power, literary skill, knowledge of men and 
 women, and strong sympathy with all past ages. He wrote so fast 
 that his sentences are often loose and ungrammatical ; but they are 
 never unidiomatic or stiff. The rush of a strong and large life goes 
 through them, and carries the reader along, forgetful of all minor 
 blemishes. His best novels are Old Mortality and Kenilworth ; 
 his greatest romance is Ivanhoe. 
 
 10. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), a true poet, and 
 
FIRST HALF OF NINETEENTH CENTURY. 4)9 
 
 a writer of noble prose, was born at Ottery St Mary, in Devonshire, 
 in 1772. His father, who was vicar of the parish, and master 
 of the grammar - school, died when the boy was only nine years 
 of age. He was educated at Christ's Hospital, in London, where 
 his most famous schoolfellow was Charles Lamb ; and from there 
 he went to Jesus College, Cambridge. In 1793 he had fallen into 
 debt at College ; and, in despair, left Cambridge, and enlisted 
 in the 15th Light Dragoons, under the name of Silas Tomkins 
 Comberbatch. He was quickly discovered, and his discharge soon 
 obtained. While on a visit to his friend Robert Southey, at 
 Bristol, the plan of emigrating to the banks of the Susquehanna, in 
 Pennsylvania, was entered on ; but, when all the friends and fellow- 
 emigrants were ready to start, it was discovered that no one of them 
 had any money. — Coleridge finally became a literary man and jour- 
 nalist. His real power, however, lay in poetry ; but by poetry he 
 could not make a living. His first volume of poems was published 
 at Bristol, in the year 1796 ; but it was not till 1798 that the Rime 
 of the Ancient Mariner appeared in the i Lyrical Ballads.' His 
 next greatest poem, Chris tabel, though written in 1797, was not 
 published till the year 1816. His other be3t poems are Love; 
 Dejection — an Ode; and some of his shorter pieces. His best 
 poetry was written about the close of the century : " Coleridge," 
 said Wordsworth, "was in blossom from 1796 to 1800." — As a critic 
 and prose- writer, he is one of the greatest men of his time. His best 
 works in prose are The Friend and the Aids to Reflection. He 
 died at Highgate, near London, in the year 1834. 
 
 11. His style, both in prose and in verse, marks the beginning of 
 the modern era. His prose style is noble, elaborate, eloquent, and 
 full of subtle and involved thought ; his style in verse is always 
 musical, and abounds in rhythms of the most startling and novel — 
 yet always genuine — kind. Christabel is the poem that is most 
 full of these fine musical rhythms. 
 
 12. Robert Southey (1774-1843), poet, reviewer, historian, 
 but, above all, man of letters, — the friend of Coleridge and 
 Wordsworth, — was born at Bristol in 1774. He was educated at 
 Westminster School and at Balliol College, Oxford. After his mar- 
 riage with Miss Edith Fricker— a sister of Sara, the wife of Cole- 
 ridge — he settled at Greta Hall, near Keswick, in 1803 ; and resided 
 there until his death in 1843. In 1813 he was created Poet- 
 Laureate by George III. — He was the most indefatigable of writers. 
 He wrote poetry before breakfast; history between breakfast and 
 
420 HISTORY CF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 dinner ; reviews between dinner and supper ; and, even when taking 
 a constitutional, he had always a book in his hand, and walked along 
 the road reading. He began to write and to publish at the age of 
 nineteen ; he never ceased writing till the year 1837, when his brain 
 softened from the effects of perpetual labour. 
 
 13. Southey wrote a great deal of verse, but much more prose. 
 His prose works amount to more than one hundred volumes ; but his 
 poetry, such as it is, will probably live longer than his prose. His 
 best-known poems are Joan of Arc, written when he was nineteen ; 
 Thalaba trie Destroyer, a poem in irregular and unrhymed verse ; 
 The Curse of Kehama, in verse rhymed, but irregular ; and 
 Roderick, the last of the Goths, written in blank verse. He 
 will, however, always be best remembered by his shorter pieces, 
 such as The Holly Tree, Stanzas written in My Library, and 
 others. — His most famous prose work is the Life of Nelson. His 
 prose style is always firm, clear, compact, and sensible. 
 
 14. Thomas Campbell (1777-1844), a noble poet and brilliant 
 reviewer, was born in Glasgow in the year 1777. He was educated 
 at the High School and the University of Glasgow. At the 
 age of twenty-two, he published his Pleasures of Hope, which at 
 once gave him a place high among the poets of the day. In 1803 
 he removed to London, and followed literature as his profession ; 
 and, in 1805. he received a pension of .£200 a - year from the 
 Government, which enabled him to devote the whole of his time to 
 his favourite study of poetry. His best long poem is the Gertrude 
 of Wyoming, a tale written in the Spenserian stanza, which 
 he handles with great ease and power. But he is best known, 
 and will be longest remembered, for his short lyrics — which 
 glow with passionate and fiery eloquence — such as The Battle of 
 the Baltic, Ye Mariners of England, Hohenlinden, and 
 others. He was twice Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow. 
 He died at Boulogne in 1844, and was buried in Poets' Corner, 
 Westminster Abbey. 
 
 15. Thomas Moore (1779-1852), poet, biographer, and historian 
 — but most of all poet — was born in Dublin in the year 1779. 
 He began to print verses at the age of thirteen, and may be said, 
 like Pope, to have "lisped in numbers, for the numbers came." 
 He came to London in 1799, and was quickly received into 
 fashionable society. In 1803 he was made Admiralty Registrar 
 
FIRST HALF OF NINETEENTH CENTURY. 421 
 
 at Bermuda ; but he soon gave up the post, leaving a deputy 
 in his place, who, some years after, embezzled the Government 
 funds, and brought financial ruin upon Moore. The poet's friends 
 offered to help him out of his money difficulties ; but he most 
 honourably declined all such help, and, like Sir W. Scott, re- 
 solved to clear off all claims against him by the aid of his pen alone. 
 For the next twenty years of his life he laboured incessantly; and 
 volumes of poetry, history, and biography came steadily from his 
 pen. His best poems are his Irish. Melodies, some fifteen or six- 
 teen of which are perfect and imperishable ; and it is as a writer 
 of songs that Moore will live in the literature of this country. 
 He boasted, and with truth, that it was he who awakened for this 
 century the long-silent harp of his native land — 
 
 " Dear Harp of my Country ! in darkness I found thee, 
 The cold chain of silence had hung o'er thee long, 
 When proudly, my own Island Harp, I unbound thee, 
 And gave all thy chords to light, freedom, and song." 
 
 His best long poem is LaUa Rookh. — His prose works are little 
 read nowadays. The chief among them are his Life of Sheridan, 
 and his Life of Lord Byron. — He died at Sloperton, in Wiltshire, 
 in 1852, two years after the death of Wordsworth. 
 
 16. George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824), a great English 
 poet, was born in London in the year 1788. He was the only child 
 of a reckless and unprincipled father and a passionate mother. He 
 was educated at Harrow School, and afterwards at Trinity College, 
 Cambridge. His first volume — Hours of Idleness — was published 
 in 1807, before he was nineteen. A critique of this juvenile work 
 which appeared in the ' Edinburgh Review ' stung him to passion ; 
 and he produced a very vigorous poetical reply in English Bards 
 and Scotch Reviewers. After the publication of this book, Byron 
 travelled in Germany, Spain, Greece, and Turkey for two years ; 
 and the first two cantos of the poem entitled Childe Harold's 
 Pilgrimage were the outcome of these travels. This poem at once 
 placed him at the head of English poets ; "he woke one morning," 
 he said, " and found himself famous." He was married in the year 
 1815, but left his wife in the following year ; left his native 
 country also, never to return. First of all he settled at Geneva, 
 where he made the acquaintance of the poet Shelley, and where he 
 wrote, among other poems, the third canto of Childe Harold and 
 the Prisoner of Chillon. In 1817 he removed to Venice, where he 
 
422 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 composed the fourth canto of Childe Harold and the Lament of 
 Tasso ; his next resting-place was Ravenna, where he wrote several 
 plays. Pisa saw him next ; and at this place he spent a great deal 
 of his time in close intimacy with Shelley. In 1821 the Greek 
 nation rose in revolt against the cruelties and oppression of the 
 Turkish rule ; and Byron's sympathies were strongly enlisted on the 
 side of the Greeks. He helped the struggling little country with 
 contributions of money; and, in 1823, sailed from Genoa to take a 
 personal share in the war of liberation. He died, however, of fever, 
 at Missolonghi, on the 19th of April 1824, at the age of thirty-six. 
 
 17. His best-known work is Childe Harold, which is written in 
 the Spenserian stanza. His plays, the best of which are Manfred 
 and Sardanapalus, are written in blank verse. — His style is re- 
 markable for its strength and elasticity, for its immensely powerful 
 sweep, tireless energy, and brilliant illustrations. 
 
 18. Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822),— who has, like Spen- 
 ser, been called " the poet's poet," — was born at Field Place, near 
 Horsham, in Sussex, in the year 1792. He was educated at Eton, 
 and then at University College, Oxford. A shy, diffident, retiring 
 boy, with sweet, gentle looks and manners — like those of a girl — 
 but with a spirit of the greatest fearlessness and the noblest in- 
 dependence, he took little share in the sports and pursuits of his 
 schoolfellows. Obliged to leave Oxford, in consequence of having 
 written a tract of which the authorities did not approve, he married 
 at the very early age of nineteen. The young lady whom he 
 married died in 1816 ; and he soon after married Mary, daughter 
 of William Godwin, the eminent author of ' Political Justice.' In 
 1818 he left England for Italy, — like his friend, Lord Byron, for 
 ever. It was at Naples, Leghorn, and Pisa that he chiefly resided. 
 In 1822 he bought a little boat — "a perfect plaything for the sum- 
 mer," he calls it ; and he used often to make short voyages in it, and 
 wrote many of his poems on these occasions. When Leigh Hunt 
 was lying ill at Leghorn, Shelley and his friend Williams resolved 
 on a coasting trip to that city. They reached Leghorn in safety ; 
 but, on the return journey, the boat sank in a sudden squall. 
 Captain Eoberts was watching the vessel with his glass from the 
 top of the Leghorn lighthouse, as it crossed the Bay of Spezzia : a 
 black cloud arose; a storm came down; the vessels sailing with 
 Shelley's boat were wrapped in darkness ; the cloud passed ; the 
 sun shone out, and all was clear again ; the larger vessels rode on ; 
 but Shelley's boat had disappeared. The poet's body was cast on 
 
FIRST HALF OF NINETEENTH CENTURY. 423 
 
 shore, but the quarantine laws of Italy required that everything 
 thrown up on the coast should be burned : no representations could 
 alter the law ; and Shelley's ashes were placed in a box and buried 
 in the Protestant cemetery at Rome. 
 
 19. Shelley's best long poem is the Adonais, an elegy on the death 
 of John Keats. It is written in the Spenserian stanza. But this 
 true poet will be best remembered by his short lyrical poems, such 
 as The Cloud, Ode to a Skylark, Ode to the West Wind, 
 Stanzas written in Dejection, and others. — Shelley has been 
 called " the poet's poet," because his style is so thoroughly transfused 
 by pure imagination. He has also been called " the master-singer 
 of our modern race and age ; for his thoughts, his words, and his 
 deeds all sang together." He is probably the greatest lyric poet of 
 this century. 
 
 20. John Keats (1795-1821), one of our truest poets, was 
 born in Moorfields, London, in the year 1795. He was educated 
 at a private school at Enfield. His desire for the pleasures of 
 the intellect and the imagination showed itself very early at school ; 
 and he spent many a half-holiday in writing translations from 
 the Roman and the French poets. On leaving school, he was 
 apprenticed to a surgeon at Edmonton — the scene of one of John 
 Gilpin's adventures ; but, in 1817, he gave up the practice of surgery, 
 devoted himself entirely to poetry, and brought out his first volume. 
 In 1818 appeared his Endymion. The * Quarterly Review ' handled 
 it without mercy. Keats's health gave way ; the seeds of consump- 
 tion were in his frame ; and he was ordered to Italy in 1820, as the 
 last chance of saving his life. But it was too late. The air of Italy 
 could not Testore him. He settled at Rome with his friend Severn ; 
 but, in spite of all the care, thought, devotion, and watching of his 
 friend, he died in 1821, at the age of twenty-five. He was buried 
 in the Protestant cemetery at Rome ; and the inscription on his 
 tomb, composed by himself, is, " Here lies one whose name was writ 
 in water." 
 
 21. His greatest poem is Hyperion, written, in blank verse, on 
 the overthrow of the " early gods " of Greece. But he will most 
 probably be best remembered by his marvellous odes, such as the 
 Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on a Grecian Urn, To Autumn, 
 and others. His style is clear, sensuous, and beautiful ; and he has 
 added to our literature lines that will always live. Such are the 
 following : — 
 
 " A thing of beauty is a joy for ever." 
 
424 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 " Silent, upon a peak in Darien." 
 
 " Then felt I like some watcher of the skies 
 When a new planet swims into his ken." 
 
 " Perhaps the self-same song that found a path 
 Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, 
 She stood in tears amid the alien corn." 
 
 22. Prose-Writers. — We have now to consider the greatest 
 prose-writers of the first half of the nineteenth century. First 
 comes "Walter Scott, one of the greatest novelists that ever 
 lived, and who won the name of " The Wizard of the North " 
 from the marvellous power he possessed of enchaining the 
 attention and fascinating the minds of his readers. Two other 
 great writers of prose were Charles Lamb and 'Walter Savage 
 Landor, each in styles essentially different. Jane Austen, 
 a young English lady, has become a classic in prose, because her 
 work is true and perfect within its own sphere. De Quincey 
 is perhaps the writer of the most ornate and elaborate English 
 prose of this period. Thomas Carlyle, a great Scotsman, with 
 a style of overwhelming power, but of occasional grotesqueness, 
 like a great prophet and teacher of the nation, compelled states- 
 men and philanthropists to think, while he also gained for him- 
 self a high place in the rank of historians. Macaulay, also of 
 Scottish descent, was one of the greatest essayists and ablest 
 writers on history that Great Britain has produced. A short 
 survey of each of these great men may be useful. Scott has 
 been already treated of. 
 
 23. Charles Lamb (1775 - 1834), a perfect English essayist, 
 was born in the Inner Temple, in London, in the year 1775. 
 His father was clerk to a barrister of that Inn of Court. Charles 
 was educated at Christ's Hospital, where his most famous school- 
 fellow was S. T. Coleridge. Brought up in the very heart of 
 London, he had always a strong feeling for the greatness of the 
 metropolis of the world. " I often shed tears," he said, " in the 
 motley Strand, for fulness of joy at so much life." He was, indeed, 
 a thorough Cockney and lover of London, as were also Chaucer, 
 
FIRST HALF OF NINETEENTH CENTURY. 425 
 
 Spenser, Milton, and Lamb's friend Leigh Hunt. Entering the India 
 House as a clerk in the year 1792, he remained there thirty-three 
 years ; and it was one of his odd sayings that, if any one wanted to 
 see his " works," he would find them on the shelves of the India 
 House. — He is greatest as a writer of prose ; and his prose is, in 
 its way, unequalled for sweetness, grace, humour, and quaint terms, 
 among the writings of this century. His best prose work is the 
 Essays of Elia, which show on every page the most whimsical and 
 humorous subtleties, a quick play of intellect, and a deep sympathy 
 with the sorrows and the joys of men. Very little verse came from 
 his pen. " Charles Lamb's nosegay of verse," says Professor Dowden, 
 "may be held by the small hand of a maiden, and there is not in it 
 one flaunting flower." Perhaps the best of his poems are the short 
 pieces entitled Hester and The Old Familiar Faces. — He retired 
 from the India House, on a pension, in 1825, and died at Edmonton, 
 near London, in 1834. His character was as sweet and refined as his 
 style ; Wordsworth spoke of him as " Lamb the frolic and the 
 gentle ; " and these and other fine qualities endeared him to a large 
 circle of friends. 
 
 24. Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864), the greatest prose- 
 writer in his own style of the nineteenth century, was born at 
 Ipsley Court, in Warwickshire, on the 30th of January 1775 — the 
 anniversary of the execution of Charles I. He was educated at 
 Rugby School and at Oxford ; but his fierce and insubordinate 
 temper — which remained with him, and injured him all his life — 
 procured his expulsion from both of these places. As heir to a 
 large estate, he resolved to give himself up entirely to literature ; 
 and he accordingly declined to adopt any profession. Living an 
 almost purely intellectual life, he wrote a great deal of prose 
 and some poetry ; and his first volume of poems appeared before the 
 close of the eighteenth century. His life, which began in the reign 
 of George III., stretched through the reigns of George IV. and 
 William IV., into the twenty-seventh year of Queen Victoria; and, 
 in the course of this long life, he had manifold experiences, many 
 loves and hates, friendships and acquaintanceships, with persons of 
 every sort and rank. He joined the Spanish army to fight Napo- 
 leon, and presented the Spanish Government with large sums of 
 money. He spent about thirty years of his life in Florence, where 
 he wrote many of his works. He died at Florence in the year 1864. 
 His greatest prose work is the Imaginary Conversations ; his best 
 poem is Count Julian ; and the character of Count Julian has been 
 
426 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 ranked by De Quincey with the Satan of Milton. Some of his 
 smaller poetic pieces are perfect ; and there is one, Rose Aylmer, 
 written about a dear young friend, that Lamb was never tired of 
 repeating : — 
 
 " Ah ! what avails the sceptred race ! 
 Ah ! what the form divine ! 
 What every virtue, every grace ! 
 Rose Aylmer, all were thine ! 
 
 " Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes 
 Shall weep, hut never Bee ! 
 A night of memories and sighs 
 I consecrate to thee." 
 
 25. Jane Austen (1775-1817), the most delicate and faithful 
 painter of English social life, was born at Steventon, in Hamp- 
 shire, in 1775 — in the same year as Landor and Lamb. She wrote 
 a small number of novels, most of which are almost perfect in 
 their minute and true painting of character. Sir Walter Scott, 
 Macaulay, and other great writers, are among her fervent admirers. 
 Scott says of her writing : " The big bow-wow strain I can do myself, 
 like any now going ; but the exquisite touch which renders ordinary 
 commonplace things and characters interesting, from the truth of the 
 description and the sentiment, is denied to me." She works out her 
 characters by making them reveal themselves in their talk, and by 
 an infinite series of minute touches. Her two best novels are Emma 
 and Pride and Prejudice. The interest of them depends on the 
 truth of the painting ; and many thoughtful persons read through 
 the whole of her novels every year. 
 
 26. Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859), one of our most brilliant 
 essayists, was born at Greenheys, Manchester, in the year 1785. 
 He was educated at the Manchester grammar - school and at 
 Worcester College, Oxford. While at Oxford he took little share 
 in the regular studies of his college, but read enormous numbers 
 of Greek, Latin, and English books, as his taste or whim sug- 
 gested. He knew no one ; he hardly knew his own tutor. " For 
 the first two years of my residence in Oxford," he says, "I com- 
 pute that I did not utter one hundred words." After leaving 
 Oxford, he lived for about twenty years in the Lake country ; and 
 there he became acquainted with Wordsworth, Hartley Coleridge 
 (the son of S. T. Coleridge), and John Wilson (afterwards known as 
 
FIRST HALF OF NINETEENTH CENTURY. 427 
 
 Professor Wilson, and also as the " Christopher North " of ' Black- 
 wood's Magazine '). Suffering from repeated attacks of neuralgia, he 
 gradually formed the habit of taking laudanum ; and by the time he 
 had reached the age of thirty, he drank about 8000 drops a-day. 
 This unfortunate habit injured his powers of work and weakened his 
 will. In spite of it, however, he wrote many hundreds of essays and 
 articles in reviews and magazines. In the latter part of his life, he 
 lived either near or in Edinburgh, and was always employed in dream- 
 ing (the opium increased his power both of dreaming and of mus- 
 ing), or in studying or writing. He died in Edinburgh in the year 
 1859. — Many of his essays were written under the signature of "The 
 English Opium-Eater." Probably his best works are The Confes- 
 sions of an Opium-Eater and The Vision of Sudden Death. 
 The chief characteristics of his style are majestic rhythm and elabo- 
 rate eloquence. Some of his sentences are almost as long and as sus- 
 tained as those of Jeremy Taylor ; while, in many passages of 
 reasoning that glows and brightens with strong passion and emotion, 
 he is not inferior to Burke. He possessed an enormous vocabulary 
 — in wealth of words and phrases he surpasses both Macaulay and 
 Carlyle ; and he makes a very large — perhaps even an excessive— use 
 of Latin words. He is also very fond of using metaphors, personifi- 
 cations, and other figures of speech. It may be said without exaggera- 
 tion that, next to Carlyle's, De Quincey's style is the most stimulating 
 and inspiriting that a youfig reader can find among modern writers. 
 
 27. Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), a great thinker, essayist, 
 and historian, was born at Ecclefechan, in Dumfriesshire, in the 
 year 1795. He was educated at the burgh school of Annan, 
 and afterwards at the University of Edinburgh. Classics and the 
 higher mathematics were his favourite studies ; and he was more 
 especially fond of astronomy. He was a teacher for some years after 
 leaving the University. For a few years after this he was engaged 
 in minor literary work ; and translating from the German occupied a 
 good deal of his time. In 1826 he married Jane Welsh, a woman 
 of abilities only inferior to his own. His first original work was 
 Sartor Resartus ("The Tailor Repatched"), which appeared in 
 1834, and excited a great deal of attention — a book which has proved 
 to many the electric spark which first woke into life their powers of 
 thought and reflection. From 1837 to 1840 he gave courses of lec- 
 tures in London ; and these lectures were listened to by the best and 
 most thoughtful of the London people. The most striking series 
 afterwards appeared in the form of a book, under the title of Heroes 
 
428 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 and Hero-Worship. Perhaps his most remarkable book — a book 
 that is unique in all English literature — is The French Revolu- 
 tion, which appeared in 1837. In the year 1845, his Cromwell's 
 Letters and Speeches were published, and drew after them a large 
 number of eager readers. In 1865 he completed the hardest piece of 
 work he had ever undertaken, his History of Frederick IL, com- 
 monly called the Great. This work is so highly regarded in 
 Germany as a truthful and painstaking history that officers in the 
 Prussian army are obliged to study it, as containing the best account 
 of the great battles of the Continent, the fields on which they were 
 fought, and the strategy that went to win them. One of the crown- 
 ing external honours of Carlyle's life was his appointment as Lord 
 Rector of the University of Edinburgh in 1866 ; but at the very time 
 that he was delivering his famous and remarkable Installation Ad- 
 dress, his wife lay dying in London. This stroke brought terrible 
 sorrow on the old man ; he never ceased to mourn for his loss, and to 
 recall the virtues and the beauties of character in his dead wife ; 
 " the light of his life," he said, " was quite gone out ; " and he wrote 
 very little after her death. He himself died in London on the 5th 
 of February 1881. 
 
 28. Carlyle's Style. — Carlyle was an author by profession, a 
 teacher of and prophet to his countrymen by his mission, and a 
 student of history by the deep interest he took in the life of man. 
 He was always more or less severe in hiwjudgments — he has been 
 called " The Censor of the Age," — because of the high ideal which 
 he set up for his own conduct and the conduct of others. — He shows 
 in his historic writings a splendour of imagery and a power of dra- 
 matic grouping second only to Shakespeare's. In command of words 
 he is second to no modern English writer. His style has been highly 
 praised and also energetically blamed. It is rugged, gnarled, dis- 
 jointed, full of irregular force— shot across by sudden lurid lights of 
 imagination — full of the most striking and indeed astonishing 
 epithets, and inspired by a certain grim Titanic force. His sen- 
 tences are often clumsily built. He himself said of them : " Perhaps 
 not more than nine-tenths stand straight on their legs ; the remainder 
 are in quite angular attitudes ; a few even sprawl out helplessly on 
 all sides, quite broken-backed and dismembered." There is no 
 modern writer who possesses so large a profusion of figurative lan- 
 guage. His works are also full of the pithiest and most memorable 
 sayings, such as the following : — 
 
 " Genius is an immense capacity for taking pains." 
 
 " Do the duty which lies nearest thee ! Thy second duty will already have 
 become clearer." 
 
FIRST HALF OF NINETEENTH CENTURY. 429 
 
 " History is a mighty drama, enacted upon the theatre of time, with suns 
 for lamps, and eternity for a background. " 
 
 "All true work is sacred. In all true work, were it but true hand-labour, 
 there is something of divineness. Labour, wide as the earth, has its summit in 
 heaven." 
 
 'Remember now and always that Life is no idle dream, but a solemn 
 reality based upon Eternity, and encompassed by Eternity. Find out your 
 task: stand to it: the night cornet^ when no man can work." 
 
 29. Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859), the most popu- 
 lar of modern historians, — an essayist, poet, statesman, and orator, 
 — was born at Kothley Temple, in Leicestershire, in the year 1800. 
 His father was one of the greatest advocates for the abolition of 
 slavery ; and received, after his death, the honour of a monument in 
 Westminster Abbey. Young Macaulay was educated privately, and 
 then at Trinity College, Cambridge. He studied classics with great 
 diligence and success, but detested mathematics — a dislike the conse- 
 quences of which he afterwards deeply regretted. In 1824 he was 
 elected Fellow of his college. His first literary work was done for 
 Knight's 'Quarterly Magazine'; but the earliest piece of writing 
 that brought him into notice was his famous essay on Milton, 
 written for the * Edinburgh Review ' in 1825. Several years of his 
 life were spent in India, as Member of the Supreme Council ; and, on 
 his return, he entered Parliament, where he sat as M.P. for Edin- 
 burgh. Several offices were filled by him, among others that of 
 Paymaster-General of the Forces, with a seat in the Cabinet of Lord 
 John Russell. In 1842 appeared his Lays of Ancient Rome, 
 poems which have found a very large number of readers. His 
 greatest work is his History of England from the Accession 
 of James II. To enable himself to write this history he read 
 hundreds of books, Acts of Parliament, thousands of pamphlets, 
 tracts, broadsheets, ballads, and other flying fragments of literature ; 
 and he never seems to have forgotten anything he ever read. In 
 1849 he was elected Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow ; and 
 in 1857 was raised to the peerage with the title of Baron Macaulay 
 of Rothley — the first literary man who was ever called to the House 
 of Lords. He died at Holly Lodge, Kensington, in the year 1859. 
 
 30. Macaulay's Style. — One of the most remarkable qualities in 
 his style is the copiousness of expression, and the remarkable power 
 of putting the same statement in a large number of different ways. 
 This enormous command of expression corresponded with the extra- 
 ordinary power of his memory. At the age of eight he could repeat 
 
 2 Q 
 
430 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 the whole of Scott's poem of " Marmion." He was fond, at this early- 
 age, of big words and learned English ; and once, when he was asked 
 by a lady if his toothache was better, he replied, " Madam, the agony 
 is abated ! " He knew the whole of Homer and of Milton by heart ; 
 and it was said with perfect truth that, if Milton's poetical works 
 could have been lost, Macaulay would have restored every line with 
 complete exactness. Sydney Smith said of him : " There are no 
 limits to his knowledge, on small subjects as on great ; he is like a 
 book in breeches." His style has been called " abrupt, pointed, and 
 oratorical." He is fond of the arts of surprise — of antithesis — and of 
 epigram. Sentences like these are of frequent occurrence : — 
 
 "Cranmer could vindicate himself from the charge of being a heretic only 
 by arguments which made him out to be a murderer. " 
 
 " The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but 
 because it gave pleasure to the spectators. " 
 
 Besides these elements of epigram and antithesis, there is a vast 
 wealth of illustration, brought from the stores of a memory which 
 never seemed to forget anything. He studied every sentence with 
 the greatest care and minuteness, and would often rewrite para- 
 graphs and even whole chapters, until he was satisfied with the 
 variety and clearness of the expression. " He could not rest," it 
 was said, " until the punctuation was correct to a comma , until 
 every paragraph concluded with a telling sentence, and every sen- 
 tence flowed like clear running water." But, above all things, he 
 strove to make his style perfectly lucid and immediately intelligible. 
 He is fond of countless details ; but he so masters and marshals these 
 details that each only serves to throw more light upon the main 
 statement. His prose may be described as pictorial prose. The 
 character of his mind was, like Burke's, combative and oratorical ; 
 and he writes with the greatest vigour and animation when he is 
 attacking a policy or an opinion. 
 
431 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE SECOND HALF OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 1. Science. — The second half of the nineteenth century is 
 distinguished by the enormous advance made in science, and in 
 the application of science to the industries and occupations of 
 the people. Chemistry and electrical science more especially 
 made enormous strides. Within* the century's last twenty years, 
 chemistry remade itself into a new science ; and electricity took 
 a very large part of the labour of mankind upon itself. It 
 carries our messages round the world — under the deepest seas, 
 over the highest mountains, to every continent, and to every 
 great city ; it lights up our streets and public halls ; it drives 
 our engines and propels our trains. But the powers of imagina- 
 tion, the great literary powers of poetry, and of eloquent prose, 
 — especially in the domain of fiction, — did not decrease because 
 science increased. They have rather shown stronger develop- 
 ments. We must, at the same time, remember that a great deal 
 of the literary work published by the most important writers who 
 were still living in the latter half of this century, was written in 
 the former half. Thus, Longfellow was a man of forty-three, 
 and Tennyson was forty-one, in the year 1850 ; and both had by 
 that time done a great deal of their best work. The same is 
 true of the prose-writers, Thackeray, Dickens, and Ruskin. 
 
 2. Poets and Prose-Writers.— The six greatest poets of the 
 latter half of this century are Longfellow, a distinguished 
 American poet, Tennyson, Mrs. Browning, Robert Brown- 
 
432 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 ing, William Morris, and Matthew Arnold. Of these, Mrs. 
 Browning was first to go in 1861, and all are now dead, William 
 Morris, the last, surviving till 1896. — The four greatest writers 
 of prose are Thackeray, Dickens, George Eliot, and Ruskin. 
 Of these, too, not one is left alive. 
 
 3. Henry "Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882), the most 
 popular of American poets, and as popular in Great Britain as he 
 is in the United States, was born at Portland, Maine, in the year 
 1807. He was educated at Bowdoin College, and took his degree 
 there in the year 1825. His profession was to have been the law, 
 but, from the first, the whole bent of his talents and character was 
 literary. At the extraordinary age of eighteen the professorship of 
 modern languages in his own college was offered to him ; it was 
 eagerly accepted, and in order to qualify himself for his duties, he 
 spent the next four years in Germany, France, Spain, and Italy. 
 His first important prose work was Outre-Mer, or a Pilgrimage 
 beyond the Sea. In 1837 he was offered *he Chair of Modern 
 Languages and Literature in Harvard University, and he again paid 
 a visit to Europe — this time giving his thoughts and study chiefly to 
 Germany, Denmark, and Scandinavia. In 1839 he published the 
 prose romance called Hyperion. But it was not as a prose-writer 
 that Longfellow gained the secure place he has in the hearts of the 
 English-speaking peoples ; it was as a poet. His first volume of 
 poems was called Voices of the Night, and appeared in 1841 ; 
 Evangeline was published in 1848; and Hiawatha, on which his 
 poetical reputation is perhaps most firmly based, in 1855. Many 
 other volumes of poetry — both original and translations — have also 
 come from his pen ; but these are the best. The University of Ox- 
 ford created him Doctor of Civil Law in 1869. He died at Harvard 
 in the year 1882. A man of singularly mild and gentle character, of 
 sweet and charming manners, his own lines may be applied to him 
 with perfect appropriateness — 
 
 " His gracious presence upon earth 
 "Was as a fire upon a hearth; 
 As pleasant songs, at morning sung, 
 The words that dropped from his sweet tongue 
 Strengthened our hearts, or — heard at night- 
 Made all our slumbers soft and light." 
 
 4. Longfellow's Style. — In one of his prose works, Longfellow 
 himself says, " In character, in manners, in style, in all things, the 
 
 Y 
 
SECOND HALF OF NINETEENTH CENTURY. 433 
 
 supreme excellence is simplicity." This simplicity he steadily aimed 
 at, and in almost all his writings reached ; and the result is the 
 sweet lucidity which is manifest in his best poems. His verse has 
 been characterised as "simple, musical, sincere, sympathetic, clear 
 as crystal, and pure as snow." He has written in a great variety 
 of measures — in more, perhaps, than have been employed by 
 Tennyson himself. His "Evangeline" is written in a kind of 
 dactylic hexameter, which does not always scan, but which is almost 
 always musical and impressive — 
 
 " Fair was she and young, when in hope began the long journey ; 
 Faded was she and old, when in disappointment it ended." 
 
 The " Hiawatha," again, is written in a trochaic measure — each verse 
 containing four trochees — 
 
 " ' Farewell ! ' said he, " Minnehaha, 
 Farewell, my laughing water ! 
 All my heart is buried with you, 
 All' my | thou'ghts go | on'ward | wi'th you ! ' " 
 
 He is always careful and painstaking with his rhythm and with the 
 cadence of his verse. It may be said with truth that Longfellow 
 has taught more people to love poetry than any other English writer, 
 however great. 
 
 5. Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), who continued writing 
 beautiful poetry lor close on seventy year**, was born at Somersby, 
 in Lincolnshire in the year 1809. He was the youngest of three 
 brothers, all of whom were poets. He was educated at Cambridge, 
 and some of his poems have shown, in a striking light, the forgotten 
 beauty of the fens and flats of Cambridge and Lincolnshire. In 1829 
 he obtained the Chancellor's medal for a poem on " Timbuctoo." In 
 1830 he published his first volume, with the title of Poems chiefly 
 Lyrical — a volume which contained, among other beautiful verses, 
 the " Recollections of the Arabian Nights " and " The Dying Swan." 
 In 1832 he issued another volume, called simply Poems ; and this 
 contained the exquisite poems entitled " The Miller's Daughter" and 
 " The Lotos-Eaters." The Princess, a poem as remarkable for its 
 striking thoughts as for its perfection of language, appeared in 1847. 
 The In Memoriam, a long series of short poems in memory of his 
 dear friend, Arthur Henry Hallam, the son of Hallam the historian, 
 was published in the year 1850. When Wordsworth died in 1850, 
 Tennyson was appointed to the office of Poet- Laureate. This office, 
 from the time when Dryden was forced to resign it in 1689, to the 
 
434 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 time when Southey accepted it in 1813, had always been held by third 
 or fourth rate writers ; now once more it was held by the man who 
 had done the largest amount of the best poetical work. The Idylls 
 of the King appeared in 1859. This series of poems — perhaps his 
 greatest — contains the stories of "Arthur and the Knights of the 
 Round Table." Many other volumes of poems were presented by him 
 to the world. In his old age he turned to the writing of ballads 
 and dramas. His ballad of The Revenge is one of the noblest 
 and most vigorous poems that England has ever seen. The dramas 
 of Harold, Queen Mary, and Becket, are perhaps his best ; and 
 the last was written when the poet had reached the age of seventy- 
 four. In the year 1882 he was created Baron Tennyson, and called 
 to the House of Peers. He died at Aid worth, Haslemere, in 1892. 
 
 6. Tennyson's Style. — Tennyson was to two generations of 
 Englishmen the national poet and teacher of poetry. He tried 
 many new measures ; he ventured on many new rhythms ; and 
 he succeeded in them all. He is at home equally in the slowest, 
 most tranquil, and most meditative of rhythms, and in the rapidest 
 and most impulsive. Let us look at the following lines as an 
 example of the first. The poem is written on a woman who is 
 dying of a lingering disease — 
 
 " Fair is her cottage in its place, 
 
 Where yon broad water sweetly slowly glides : 
 It sees itself from thatch to base 
 Dream in the sliding tides. 
 
 " And fairer she : but, ah ! how soon to die ! 
 Her quiet dream of life this hour may cease : 
 Her peaceidl being slowly passes by 
 To some more perfect peace." 
 
 The very next poem, " The Sailor Boy," in the same volume, is — 
 though written in exactly the same measure — driven on with the 
 most rapid march and vigorous rhythm — 
 
 " He rose at dawn and, fired with hope, 
 Shot o'er the seething harbour-bar, 
 And reached the ship and caught the rope 
 And whistled to the morning-star." 
 
 And this is a striking and prominent characteristic of all Tennyson's 
 poetry. Everywhere the sound is made to be " an echo to the sense " ; 
 the style is in perfect keeping with the matter. In the " Lotos- 
 Eaters," we have the sense of complete indolence and deep repose 
 in— 
 
SECOND HALF OF NINETEENTH CENTURY. 435 
 
 " A land of streams ! Some, like a downward smoke, 
 Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go." 
 
 In the " Boadicea," we have the rush and the shock of battle, the 
 closing of legions, the hurtle of arms and the clash of armed men — 
 
 " Phantom sound of blows descending, moan of an enemy massacred, 
 Phantom wail of women and children, multitudinous agonies." 
 
 Many of Tennyson's sweetest and most pathetic lines have gone right 
 into the heart of the nation, such 
 
 M But oh for the touch of a vanished hand, 
 And the sound of a voice that is still ! " 
 
 All his language is highly polished, ornate, rich — sometimes Spen- 
 serian in luxuriant imagery and sweet music, sometimes even Homeric 
 in massiveness and severe simplicity. Thus, in the " Morte d' Arthur," 
 he speaks of the knight walking to the lake as — 
 
 " Clothed with his breath, and looking as he walked, 
 Larger than human on the frozen hills." 
 
 Many of his pithy lines have taken root in the memory of the Eng- 
 lish people, such as these — 
 
 " 'Tis better to have loved and lost, 
 Than never to have loved at all." 
 
 " For words, like Nature, half reveal, 
 And half conceal, the soul within." 
 
 " Kind hearts are more than coronets, 
 And simple faith than Norman blood." 
 
 7. Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, afterwards Mrs Browning, the 
 greatest poetess of this century, was born in London in the year 
 1806. She wrote verses "at the age of eight — and earlier," she 
 says ; and her first volume of poems was published when she was 
 seventeen. When still a girl, she broke a blood-vessel upon the 
 lungs, was ordered to a warmer climate than that of London ; and 
 her brother, whom she loved very dearly, took her down to Tor- 
 quay. There a terrible tragedy was enacted before her eyes. One 
 day the weather and the water looked very tempting ; her brother 
 took a sailing-boat for a short cruise in Torbay ; the boat went down 
 in front of the house, and in view of his sister ; the body was never 
 recovered. This sad event completely destroyed her already weak 
 health ; she returned to London, and spent several years in a dark- 
 ened room. Here she " read almost every book worth reading in 
 
436 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 almost every language, and gave herself heart and soul to that 
 poetry of which she seemed born to be the priestess." This way of 
 life lasted for many years ; and, in the course of it, she published sev- 
 eral volumes of noble verse. In 1846 she married Robert Browning, 
 also a great poet. In 1856 she brought out Aurora Leigh, her 
 longest, and probably also her greatest, poem. Mr Ruskin called 
 it " the greatest poem which the century has produced in any lan- 
 guage ; " but this is going too far. — Mrs Browning will probably be 
 longest remembered by her incomparable sonnets and by her lyrics, 
 which are full of pathos and passion. Perhaps her two finest poems 
 in this kind are the Cry of the Children and Cowper's Grave. 
 All her poems show an enormous power of eloquent, penetrating, and 
 picturesque language ; and many of them are melodious with a rich 
 and wonderful music. She died in 1861. 
 
 8. Robert Browning, the most daring and original poet of the 
 century, was born in Camberwell in the year 1812, and died at Venice 
 in 1889. He was privately educated. In 1835 he published his 
 poem Paracelsus, which many wondered at, but few read. It was 
 the story of a man who had lost his way in the mazes of thought 
 about life, — about its why and wherefore, — about this world and the 
 next, — about himself and his relations to God and his fellow-men. 
 Robert Browning produced many plays, but they are more fit 
 for reading in the study than for acting on the stage. His greatest 
 work is The Ring and the Book ; and it is most probably by this 
 that his name will live in future ages. Of his minor poems, the best 
 known and most popular is The Pied Piper of Hamelin — a poem 
 which is a great favourite with all young people, from the pictur- 
 esqueness and vigour of the verse. The most deeply pathetic of his 
 minor poems is Evelyn Hope : — 
 
 " So, hush, — I will give you this leaf to keep — 
 See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand, 
 There ! that is our secret ! go to sleep ; 
 
 You will wake, and remember, and understand." 
 
 9. Browning's Style. — Browning's language is almost always 
 very hard to understand ; but the meaning, when we have got at 
 it, is well worth all the trouble that may have been taken to reach 
 it. His poems are more full of thought and more rich in experience 
 than those of any other English writer except Shakspeare. The 
 thoughts and emotions which throng his mind at the same moment 
 so crowd upon and jostle each other, become so inextricably inter- 
 mingled, that it is very often extremely difficult for us to make out 
 
SECOND HALF OF NINETEENTH CENTURY. 437 
 
 any meaning at all. Then many of his thoughts are so subtle and so 
 profound that they cannot easily be drawn up from the depths in 
 which they lie. No man can write with greater directness, greater 
 lyric vigour, fire, and impulse, than Browning when he chooses — 
 write more clearly and forcibly about such subjects as love and war ; 
 but it is very seldom that he does choose. The infinite complexity 
 of human life and its manifold experiences have seized and im- 
 prisoned his imagination ; and it is not often that he speaks in a 
 clear, free voice. 
 
 10. Matthew Arnold, one of the finest poets and noblest stylists of 
 the age, was born at Laleham, near Staines, in the year 1822, and died 
 in 1883. He was the eldest son of the great Dr Arnold, the famous 
 Head-master of Rugby. He was educated at Winchester and Rugby, 
 from which latter school he proceeded to Balliol College, Oxford. 
 The Newdigate prize for English verse was won by him in 1843 — 
 the subject of his poem being Cromwell. His first volume of 
 poems was published in 1849. In the year 1851 he was appointed 
 one of H.M. Inspectors of Schools ; and he held that oflice up to the 
 year 1885. In 1857 he was elected Professor of Poetry in the Uni- 
 versity of Oxford. In 1868 appeared a new volume with the simple 
 title of New Poems; and, after that, Arnold produced a large 
 number of books, mostly in prose. He is no less famous as a 
 critic than as a poet ; and his prose is singularly beautiful and 
 musical. 
 
 11. Arnold's Style. — The chief qualities of his verse are clear- 
 ness, simplicity, strong directness, noble and musical rhythm, and a 
 certain intense calm. His lines on Morality give a good idea of his 
 style : — 
 
 " We cannot kindle when we will 
 The fire that in the heart resides: 
 The spirit bloweth and is still 
 In mystery our soul abides: 
 
 But tasks in hours of insight willed 
 Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled. 
 
 " With aching hands and bleeding feet 
 We dig and heap, lay stone on stone ; 
 We bear the burden and the heat 
 Of the long day, and wish 'twere done. 
 
 Not till the hours of light return, 
 
 All we have built do we discern." 
 
 His finest poem in blank verse is his Sohrab and Rustum — a tale 
 
438 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 of the Tartar wastes. One of his noblest poems, called Rugby 
 Chapel, describes the strong and elevated character of his father, 
 the Head-master of Rugby. — His prose is remarkable for its lucidity, 
 its pleasant and almost conversational rhythm, and its perfection of 
 language. 
 
 12. William Morris, a great narrative poet, was born near London 
 in the year 1834. He was educated at Marlborough and at Exeter 
 College, Oxford. In 1858 appeared his first volume of poems. In 
 1863 he began a business for the production of artistic wall-paper, 
 stained glass, and furniture ; he had a shop for the sale of these 
 works of art in Oxford Street, London ; and he devoted most of his 
 time to drawing and designing for artistic manufacturers. His 
 poem, The Life and Deatu of Jason, appeared in 1867 ; and his 
 magnificent series of narrative poems — The Earthly Paradise — 
 was published in the years from 1868 and 1870. 'The Earthly 
 Paradise ' consists of twenty-four tales in verse, set in a framework 
 much like that of Chaucer's ' Canterbury Tales.' The poetic power 
 in these tales is second only to that of Chaucer ; and Morris con- 
 stantly acknowledged himself to be a pupil of Chaucer's — 
 
 "Thou, my Master still, 
 "Whatever feet have climbed Parnassus' hill." 
 
 Mr Morris also translated the iEneid of Virgil, and several works 
 from the Icelandic. He died in the year 1896. 
 
 13. Morris's Style. — Clearness, strength, music, picturesqueness, 
 and easy flow, are the chief characteristics of Morris's style. Of the 
 month of April he says : — 
 
 " fair midspring, besung so oft and oft, 
 How can I praise thy loveliness enow? 
 Thy sun that burns not, and thy breezes soft 
 That o'er the blossoms of the orchard blow, 
 The thousand things that 'neath the young leaves grow 
 The hopes and chances of the growing year, 
 Winter forgotten long, and summer near." 
 
 His pictorial power — the power of bringing a person or a scene fully 
 and adequately before one's eyes by the aid of words alone — is as 
 great as that of Chaucer. The following is his picture of Edward 
 III. in middle age : — 
 
 " Broad-browed he was, hook-nosed, with wide grey eyes 
 No longer eager for the coming prize, 
 
SECOND HALF OF NINETEENTH CENTURY. 439 
 
 But keen and steadfast : many an ageing line, 
 
 Half-hidden by his sweeping beard and tine, 
 
 Ploughed his thin cheeks ; his hair was more than grey, 
 
 And like to one he seemed whose better day 
 
 Is over to himself, though foolish fame 
 
 Shouts louder year by year his empty name. 
 
 Unarmed he was, nor clad upon that morn 
 
 Much like a king: an ivory hunting-horn 
 
 Was slung about him, rich with gems and gold, 
 
 And a great white ger-falcon did he hold 
 
 Upon his fist ; before his feet there sat 
 
 A scrivener making notes of this and that 
 
 As the King bade him, and behind his chair 
 
 His captains stood in armour rich and fair." 
 
 Morris's stores of language are as rich as Spenser's ; and he has much 
 the same copious and musical flow of poetic words and phrases. 
 
 14. William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863), one of the 
 most original of English novelists, was born at Calcutta in the year 
 1811. The son of a gentleman high in the civil service of the East 
 India Company, he was sent to England to be educated, and was 
 some years at Charterhouse School, where one of his schoolfellows 
 was Alfred Tennyson. He then went on to the University of Cam- 
 bridge, which he left without taking a degree. Painting was the 
 profession that he at first chose ; and he studied art both in France 
 and Germany. At the age of twenty-nine, however, he discovered 
 that he was on a false tack, gave up painting, and took to literary 
 work as his true field. He contributed many pleasant articles to 
 * Eraser's Magazine,' under the name of Michael Angelo Titmarsh ; 
 and one of his most beautiful and most pathetic stories, The Great 
 Hoggarty Diamond, was also written under this name. He did 
 not, however, take his true place as an English novelist of the first 
 rank until the year 1847, when he published his first serial novel, 
 Vanity Fair. Readers now began everywhere to class him with 
 Charles Dickens, and even above him. His most beautiful work is 
 perhaps The Newcomes ; but the work which exhibits most fully 
 the wonderful power of his art and his intimate knowledge of the 
 spirit and the details of our older English life is The History of 
 Henry Esmond — a work written in the style and language of the 
 days of Queen Anne, and as beautiful as anything ever done by 
 Addison himself. He died in the year 1863. 
 
 15. Charles Dickens (1812-1870), the most popular writer of 
 
440 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 this century, was born at Landport, Portsmouth, in the year 1812. 
 His delicate constitution debarred him from mixing in boyish sports, 
 and very early made him a great reader. There was a little garret 
 in his father's house where a small collection of books was kept ; 
 and, hidden away in this room, young Charles devoured such books 
 as the ' Vicar of Wakefield,' ' Robinson Crusoe/ and many other 
 famous English books. This was in Chatham. The family next 
 removed to London, where the father was thrown into prison for 
 debt. The little boy, weakly and sensitive, was now sent to work 
 in a blacking manufactory at six shillings a- week, his duty being to 
 cover the blacking-pots with paper. " No words can express," he 
 says, " the secret agony of my soul, as I compared these my everyday 
 associates with those of my happier childhood, and felt my early hopes 
 of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man crushed in my 
 breast. . . . The misery it was to my young heart to believe that, 
 day by day, what I had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and 
 raised my fancy and my emulation up by, was passing away from 
 me, never to be brought back any more, cannot be written." When 
 his father's affairs took a turn for the better, he was sent to school ; 
 but it was to a school where "the boys trained white mice much 
 better than the master trained the boys." In fact, his true educa- 
 tion consisted in his eager perusal of a large number of miscellaneous 
 books. When he came to think of what he should do in the world, 
 the profession of reporter took his fancy ; and, by the time he was 
 nineteen, he had made himself the quickest and most accurate — that 
 is, the best reporter in the Gallery of the House of Commons. His 
 first work, Sketches by Boz, was published in 1836. In 1837 ap- 
 peared the Pickwick Papers ; and this work at once lifted Dickens 
 into the foremost rank as a popular writer of fiction. From this time 
 he was almost constantly engaged in writing novels. His Oliver 
 Twist and David Copperfield contain reminiscences of his own 
 life ; and perhaps the latter is his most powerful work. " Like 
 many fond parents," he wrote, "I have in my heart of hearts a 
 favourite child ; and his name is David Copperfield." He lived with 
 all the strength of his heart and soul in the creations of his imagina- 
 tion and fancy while he was writing about them; he says himself, 
 " No one can ever believe this narrative, in the reading, more than I 
 believed it in the writing ; " and each novel, as he wrote it, made 
 him older and leaner. Great knowledge of the lives of the poor, and 
 great sympathy with them, were among his most striking gifts ; and 
 Sir Arthur Helps goes so far as to say, " I doubt much whether there 
 has ever been a writer of fiction who took such a real and living 
 
SECOND HALF OF NINETEENTH CENTURY. 441 
 
 interest in the world about him." He died in the year 1870, and 
 was buried in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 16. Dickens's Style.— His style is easy, flowing, vigorous, pictur- 
 esque, and humorous ; his power of language is very great ; and, 
 when he is writing under the influence of strong passion, it rises 
 into a pure and noble eloquence. The scenery — the external cir- 
 cumstances of his characters, are steeped in the same colours as the 
 characters themselves ; everything he touches seems to be filled with 
 life and to speak — to look happy or sorrowful, — to reflect the feelings 
 of the persons. His comic and humorous powers are very great ; 
 but his tragic power is also enormous — his power of depicting the 
 fiercest passions that tear the human breast, — avarice, hate, fear, 
 revenge, remorse. The great American statesman, Daniel "Webster, 
 said that Dickens had done more to better the condition of the 
 English poor than all the statesmen Great Britain had ever sent into 
 the English ParUainent. 
 
 17. John Ruskin (1819-1900), a master of musical English prose, 
 art-critic, and thinker, was born in London in the year 1819. In 
 his father's house he was accustomed " to no other prospect than 
 that of the brick walls over the way ; he had no brothers, nor 
 sisters, nor companions." To his London birth he ascribed the 
 great charm that the beauties of nature had for him from his boy- 
 hood : he felt the contrast between town and country, and saw 
 what no country-bred child could have seen in sights that were 
 usual to him from his infancy. He was educated at Christ Church, 
 Oxford, and gained the Newdigate prize for poetry in 1839. He 
 at first devoted himself to painting ; but his true and strongest 
 genius lay in the direction of literature. In 1843 appeared the 
 first volume of his Modern Painters, which is perhaps his great- 
 est work ; and the four other volumes were published between 
 that date and the year 1860. In this work he discusses the qualities 
 and the merits of the greatest painters of the English, the Italian, 
 and other schools. In 1851 he produced a charming fairy tale, 
 'The King of the Golden River, or the Black Brothers.' He ha3 
 written on architecture also, on political economy, and on many 
 other social subjects. He was the founder of a society called " The 
 St. George's Guild," the purpose of which was to spread abroad sound 
 notions of what true life and true art are, and especially to make 
 the life of the poor more endurable and better worth living. He 
 died at Brantwood, near Coniston Lake, in 1900. 
 
 18. Buskin's Style. —A glowing eloquence, a splendid and full- 
 
442 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 flowing music, wealth of phrase, aptness of epithet, opulence of 
 ideas — all these qualities characterise the prose style of RuskiD. 
 His similes are daring, but always true. Speaking of the countless 
 statues that fill the innumerable niches of the cathedral of Milan, he 
 says that " it is as though a flight of angels had alighted there and 
 been struck to marble." His writings are full of the wisest sayings 
 put into the most musical and beautiful language. Here are a 
 few : — 
 
 " Every act, every impulse, of virtue and vice, affects in any creature, face, 
 voice, nervous power, and vigour and harmony of invention, at once. Perse- 
 verance in Tightness of human conduct renders, after a certain number of gen- 
 erations, human art possible ; every sin clouds it, be it ever so little a one ; and 
 persistent vicious living and following of pleasure render, after a certain number 
 of generations, all art impossible." 
 
 " In mortals, there is a care for trifles, which proceeds from love and con- 
 science, and is most holy ; and a care for trifles, which comes of idleness and 
 frivolity, and is most base. And so, also, there is a gravity proceeding from 
 dulness and mere incapability of enjoyment, which is most base. " 
 
 , His power of painting in words is incomparably greater than that of 
 any other English author : he almost infuses colour into his words 
 and phrases, so full are they of pictorial power. It would be impos- 
 sible to give any adequate idea of this power here ; but a few lines 
 may suffice for the present : — 
 
 " The noonday sun came slanting down the rocky slopes of La Riccia, and 
 its masses of enlarged and tall foliage, whose autumnal tints were mixed with 
 the wet verdure of a thousand evergreens, were penetrated with it as with rain. 
 I cannot call it colour ; it was conflagration. Purple, and crimson, and scarlet, 
 like the curtains of God's tabernacle, the rejoicing trees sank into the valley in 
 showers of light, every separate leaf quivered with buoyant and burning life ; 
 each, as it turned to reflect or to transmit the sunbeam, first a torch and then 
 an emerald." 
 
 19. George Eliot (the literary name for Marian Evans, 1819- 
 1880), one of our greatest writers, was born in Warwickshire in the 
 year 1819. She was well and carefully educated ; and her own 
 serious and studious character made her a careful thinker and a 
 most diligent reader. For some time the famous Herbert Spencer 
 was her tutor ; and under his care her mind developed with surpris- 
 ing rapidity. She taught herself German, French, Italian — studied 
 the best works in the literature of these languages ; and she was also 
 fairly mistress of Greek and Latin. Besides all these, she was an 
 accomplished musician. — She was for some time assistant-editor of 
 the ' Westminster Keview.' The first of her works which called the 
 
SECOND HALF OF NINETEENTH CENTURY. 443 
 
 attention of the public to her astonishing skiU and power as a 
 novelist was her Scenes of Clerical Life. Her most popular 
 novel, Adam Bede, appeared in 1859; Romola in 1863; and 
 Middlemarch in 1872. She has also written a good deal of poetry, 
 among other volumes that entitled The Legend of Jubal, and 
 other Poems. One of her best poems is The Spanish Gypsy. 
 She died in the year 1880. 
 
 20. George Eliot's Style. — Her style is everywhere pure and 
 strong, of the best and most vigorous English, not only broad in its 
 power, but often intense in its description of character and situation, 
 and always singularly adequate to the thought. Probably no novelist 
 knew the English character — especially in the Midlands — so well 
 as she, or could analyse it with so much subtlety and truth. She 
 is entirely mistress of the country dialects. In humour, pathos, 
 knowledge of character, power of putting a portrait firmly upon the 
 canvas, no writer surpasses her, and few come near her. Her power 
 is sometimes almost Shakespearian. Like Shakespeare, she gives us 
 a large number of wise sayings, expressed in the pithiest language. 
 The following are a few : — 
 
 " It is never too late to be what you might have been. " 
 " It is easy finding reasons why other people should be patient." 
 " Genius, at first, is little more than a great capacity for receiving discipline." 
 "Things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, half owing 
 to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in un visited tombs." 
 
 " Nature never makes men who are at once energetically sympathetic and 
 minutely calculating." 
 
 " To the far woods he wandered, listening, 
 And heard the birds their little stories sing 
 In notes whose rise and fall seem melted speech — 
 Melted with tears, smiles, glances— that can reach 
 More quickly through our frame's deep-winding night, 
 And without thought raise thought's best fruit, delight." 
 
TABLES OF ENGLISH LITEKATUEE. 
 
 Writers. 
 
 (Author unknown.) 
 
 CAEDMON. 
 A secular monk of 
 Whitby. 
 Died about 680. 
 
 BAEDA. 
 
 672-735. 
 
 "The Venerable 
 Bede," a monk of Jar- 
 row-on-Tyne. 
 
 ALFRED THE 
 GREAT. 
 
 849-901. 
 
 King ; translator ; 
 prose-writer. 
 
 Compiled by monks 
 in various monaster - 
 
 ASSER. 
 Bishop of Sher- 
 borne. Died 909 (?) 
 
 (Author unknown.) 
 
 LAYAMON. 
 
 /. X200. 
 A priest of Ernley- 
 on-Severn. 
 
 Works. 
 
 v Beowulf (brought over by 
 Saxons and Angles from the 
 Continent). 
 
 Poems on the Creation and 
 other subjects taken from 
 the Old and the New Testa- 
 ment. 
 
 An Ecclesiastical History in 
 Latin. A translation of St 
 John's Gospel into English 
 (lost). 
 
 Translated into the English 
 of Wessex, Bede's Ecclesi- 
 astical History and other 
 Latin works. Is said to 
 have begun the Anglo- 
 Saxon Chronicle. 
 
 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 875- 
 1154. 
 
 Life of King Alfred. 
 
 A poem entitled The Grave. 
 
 The Brut (1205), a poem on 
 Brutus, the supposed first 
 settler in Britain. 
 
 S 
 
 Contemporary 
 Events. 
 
 Edwin (of Deira), 
 King of the 
 Angles, baptis- 
 ed 627. 
 
 First landing of 
 the Danes, 787. 
 
 The University 
 of Oxford is 
 said to have 
 been founded 
 in this reign. 
 
 John ascended 
 the throne in 
 1199. 
 
 Cen- 
 turies. 
 
 500 
 
 600 
 
 700 
 
 800 
 
 900 
 
 1000 
 
 1100 
 
446 
 
 TABLES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Writers. 
 
 ORM OR ORMIN. 
 /. 1200 (?) 
 
 A canon of the Order 
 of St. Augustine. 
 
 ROBERT OF 
 GLOUCESTER. 
 
 fl. 1 260-1300. 
 
 ROBERT OF 
 BRUNNE. 
 fl. 1288-1338. 
 
 (Robert Manning of 
 Bourne in Lines.) 
 
 SIR JOHN 
 MANDEV1LLE. 
 d. 1372. 
 
 Fictitious name ; 
 perhaps one John 
 Burgoyne. 
 
 JOHN BARBOUR. 
 
 1316-1395. 
 
 Archdeacon of 
 Aberdeen. 
 
 JOHN WYCLIF. 
 1324-1384. 
 
 Vicar of Lutter- 
 worth, in Leicester- 
 shire. 
 
 JOHN GOWER. 
 1325-1408. 
 A country gentle- 
 man of Kent ; prob- 
 ably also a lawyer. 
 
 WILLIAM 
 LANGLANDE. 
 1332-1400. 
 
 Born in Shropshire. 
 
 Works. 
 
 The Ormulum, a set of re- 
 ligious services in metre. 
 
 Chronicle of England in 
 rhyme • 
 
 Chronicle of England in 
 rhyme ; Handlyng Sinne 
 
 The Voyaige and Travaile. 
 
 Travels to Jerusalem, India, 
 and other countries, written 
 in Latin. French, and Eng- 
 lish. The first writer " in 
 formed English." 
 
 The Bruce (1375), a poem 
 written in the Northern Eng- 
 lish or " Scottish " dialect. 
 
 Translation of the Bihle from 
 the Latin version ; and many 
 tracts and pamphlets on 
 Church reform. 
 
 Vox Clamantis, Confessio 
 Amantis, Speculum Medi- 
 tantis (1393); and poems 
 in French and Latin. 
 
 Vision concerning Piers the 
 Plowman — three editions 
 (1362-92). 
 
 Contemporary 
 Events. 
 
 Magna Charta, 
 1215. 
 
 Henry III. as- 
 cends the 
 throne, 1216. 
 
 University of 
 Cambridge 
 founded, 1231. 
 
 Edward I. as- 
 cends the 
 throne. 1272. 
 
 Conquest 
 Wales, 1284. 
 
 of 
 
 Edward II. as- 
 c e n d s the 
 throne, 1307. 
 
 Battle of Ban- 
 nockburn, 1314. 
 
 Edward III. 
 ascends the 
 throne, 1327. 
 
 Hundred Years' 
 War begins, 
 
 1338. 
 
 Battle of Crecy, 
 1346. 
 
 Cen- 
 turies. 
 
 The Black 
 Death " 
 
 1349. 
 1361. 
 
 Battle of Poitiers, 
 1356. 
 
 First law-plead- 
 ings in English, 
 1362. 
 
TABLES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 447 
 
 Writers. 
 
 Works. 
 
 Contemporary 
 Events. 
 
 Cen- 
 turies. 
 
 GEOFFREY 
 CHAUCER 
 1340-1400. 
 
 Poet; courtier; 
 soldier ; diplomatist ; 
 Comptroller of the 
 Customs : Clerk of the 
 King's Works ; M.P. 
 
 JAMES I. OF 
 SCOTLAND. 
 
 I394-I437- 
 
 Prisoner in Eng- 
 land, and educated 
 there, in 1405-24. 
 
 WILLIAM 
 CAXTON. 
 1422-1491. 
 
 Mercer ; printer ; 
 translator; prose- 
 writer. 
 
 •The Canterbury Tales (1384- 
 98), of which the best is the 
 Knightes Tale. Dryden 
 called him "a perpetual 
 fountain of good sense. " 
 
 The King's Quair (=Book), 
 a poem in the style of Chau- 
 cer. 
 
 The Dictes and Sayings of 
 the Philosophers (1477) 
 the first book printed in 
 England ; Lives of the 
 Fathers, "finished on the 
 last day of his life;" and 
 many other works. 
 
 WILLIAM 
 DUNBAR. 
 
 I465(?)-I53<>(?) 
 
 Franciscan or Grey 
 
 Friar ; Secretary to 
 
 a Scotch embassy to 
 
 France. 
 
 GAWAIN 
 DOUGLAS. 
 1474-1522. 
 
 Bishop of Dunkeld, 
 in Perthshire. 
 
 WILLIAM 
 TYNDALE. 
 1484-1536. 
 
 Student of theology; 
 translator. Burnt at 
 Antwerp for heresy. 
 
 The Golden Terge ; the 
 Dance of the Seven Deadly 
 Sins ; and other poems. 
 He has been called "the 
 Chaucer of Scotland." 
 
 Palace of Honour ; transla- 
 tion of Virgil's JEneid— 
 the first translation of any 
 Latin author into verse. 
 Douglas wrote in Northern 
 English. 
 
 New Testament translated 
 (1525-34); the Five Books 
 of Moses translated (1530). 
 This translation is the basis 
 of the Authorised Version. 
 
 Richard II. as- 
 cends the 
 throne, 1377. 
 
 Wat Tyler's insur- 
 rection, 1381. 
 
 Henry IV. as- 
 cends the 
 throne, 1399. 
 
 Henry V. as- 
 cends the 
 throne, 1415. 
 
 Battle of Agin- 
 court, 1415. 
 
 Henry VI. as- 
 cends the 
 throne, 1422. 
 
 Invention of 
 Printing, 1438- 
 45. 
 
 Jack Cade's in- 
 surrection, 1450. 
 
 End of the Hun- 
 dred Years' War, 
 1453. 
 
 Wars of the 
 Roses, 1455-86. 
 
 Edward IV. as- 
 cends the 
 throne, 1461. 
 
 Edward V. king, 
 1483. 
 
 1400 
 
 1450 
 
448 
 
 TABLES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Writers. 
 
 SIR THOMAS 
 MORE. 
 
 1478-1535- 
 
 Lord High Chancel- 
 lor ; writer on social 
 topics ; historian. 
 
 SIR DAVID 
 LYNDESAY. 
 1490-1555. 
 
 Tutor of Prince 
 James of Scotland 
 (James V.) ; ' ' Lord 
 Lyon King-at-Arms ; " 
 poet. 
 
 ROGER ASCHAM. 
 1515-1568. 
 
 Lecturer on Greek 
 at Cambridge ; tutor 
 to Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 JOHN FOXE. 
 1516-1587. 
 
 An English clergy- 
 man. Corrector for 
 the press at Basle ; 
 Prebendary of Salis- 
 bury Cathedral; 
 prose-writer. 
 
 EDMUND 
 SPENSER 
 
 1552-1599. 
 
 Secretary to Viceroy 
 of Ireland; political 
 writer; poet. 
 
 SIR WALTER 
 RALEIGH. 
 1552-1618. 
 
 Courtier ; states- 
 man ; sailor ; colon- 
 iser; historian. 
 
 RICHARD 
 HOOKER. 
 
 I553-i600. 
 
 English clergyman ; 
 Master of the Temple ; 
 Rector of Boscombe, 
 in the diocese of Salis- 
 bury. 
 
 Works. 
 
 History of King Edward V., 
 and of his brother, and of 
 Eichard HI. (1513) ; .Utopia 
 (="The Land of No- 
 where "), written in Latin ; 
 and other prose works. 
 
 Lyndesay's Dream(1528); The 
 Complaint (1529^ ; A Satire 
 of the Three Estates (1535) 
 —a " morality-play. * 
 
 Toxophilns (1544), a treatise 
 on shooting with the bow ; 
 The Scholemastre (1570). 
 " Ascham is plain and strong 
 in his style, but without 
 grace or warmth." 
 
 The Book of Martyrs (1563), 
 an account of the chief Pro- 
 testant martyrs. 
 
 Shepheard's Calendar (1579) ; 
 Faerie Queene, in six books 
 (1590-96). 
 
 History of the World (1614), 
 written during the author's 
 imprisonment in the Tower 
 of London. 
 
 Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity 
 (1594). This book is an elo- 
 quent defence of the Church 
 of England. The writer, 
 from his excellent judgment, 
 is generally called "the 
 judicious Hooker." 
 
 Contemporary 
 Events. 
 
 Richard III. as- 
 cends the 
 throne, 1483. 
 
 Battle of Bos- 
 worth, 1485. 
 
 Henry VII. as- 
 cends the 
 throne, 1485. 
 
 Greek began to 
 be taught in 
 England about 
 1497. 
 
 Henry VIII. as- 
 cends the 
 throne, 1509. 
 
 Battle of Flod- 
 den, 1513. 
 
 "Wolsey Cardinal 
 and Lord High 
 Chancellor, 
 1515. 
 
 Sir Thomas More 
 first layman 
 who was Lord 
 High Chancel- 
 lor, 1529. 
 
 Reformation in 
 England begins 
 about 1534. 
 
 Edward VI. 
 cends the 
 throne, 1547. 
 
 Mary Tudor 
 ascends the 
 throne, 1553. 
 
 Cranmer burnt, 
 1556. 
 
 Elizabeth as- 
 cends the 
 throne. 1558. 
 
 1550 
 
TABLES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 449 
 
 Writers. 
 
 SIR PHILIP 
 SIDNEY. 
 I554-IS86. 
 
 Courtier ; general ; 
 romance-writer. 
 
 FRANCIS BACON. 
 1561-1626. 
 
 Viscount St Al- 
 bans ; Lord High 
 Chancellor of Eng- 
 land; lawyer; philo- 
 sopher; essayist. 
 
 WILLIAM 
 SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 1 564-1616. 
 
 Actor ; owner of 
 
 theatre; play-writer; 
 
 poet Born and died 
 
 at Stratford-on-Avon. 
 
 BEN JONSON. 
 
 1574-1637. 
 
 Dramatist ; poet 
 prose-writer. 
 
 WILLIAM 
 
 DRUMMOND ("of 
 
 Hawthorndkn"). 
 
 1585-1649. 
 
 Scottish poet ; 
 
 friend of Ben Jonson. 
 
 THOMAS HOBBES. 
 1588-1679. 
 
 Philosopher; prose- 
 
 writer ; 
 Homer. 
 
 translator of 
 
 Works. 
 
 Arcadia, a romance (1580). 
 Defence of Poesie, pub- 
 lished after his death (in 
 1595). Sonnets. 
 
 Essays (1597); Advancement 
 of Learning (1605);. Novum 
 Organ um (1620) ; and other 
 works on methods of inquiry 
 into nature. 
 
 Thirty - seven plays. His 
 greatest tragedies are Ham- 
 let, Lear, and Othello. His 
 best comedies are Midsum- 
 mer Night's Dream, H The 
 Merchant of Venice, and- As 
 You Like It. His best his- 
 torical plays are Julius 
 Ccesar and ,Richard III. 
 Many minor poems— chiefly 
 sonnets. He wrote no prose. 
 
 Tragedies and comedies. Best 
 plays : Volpone or the Fox; 
 Every Man in his Humour. 
 
 Sonnets and poems. 
 
 The Leviathan (1651), a 
 work on politics and moral 
 philosophy. 
 
 contemporart 
 Events. 
 
 Hawkins begins 
 slave trade in 
 1562. 
 
 Rizzio murdered, 
 1566. 
 
 Marlowe, Dek- 
 ker, Chapman, 
 Beaumont and 
 Fletcher, Ford, 
 Webster, Ben 
 Jonson, and 
 other drama- 
 tists, were con- 
 temporaries of 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 Drake sails round 
 the world, 1577. 
 
 Execution of 
 Mary Queen of 
 Scots, 1587. 
 
 Raleigh in Vir- 
 ginia, 1584. 
 
 Babington's Plot, 
 1586. 
 
 Spanish Armada, 
 
 Battle of Ivry, 
 1590. 
 
 De- 
 cades. 
 
 1560 
 
 1570 
 
 1580 
 
 1590 
 
450 
 
 TABLES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 • Writers. 
 
 SIR THOMAS 
 BROWNE. 
 1605-1682. 
 
 Physician at Nor- 
 wich. 
 
 JOHN MILTON. 
 1608- 1674. 
 
 Student ; political 
 writer ; poet ; For- 
 eign (or " Latin ") 
 Secretary to Crom- 
 well. Became blind 
 from over-work in 
 1654. 
 
 SAMUEL BUTLER. 
 1612-1680. 
 
 Literary man ; 
 secretary to the Earl 
 of Carbery. 
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR. 
 1613-1667. 
 
 English clergyman ; 
 Bishop of Down and 
 Connor in Ireland. 
 
 JOHN BUNYAN. 
 1628-1688. 
 
 Tinker and travel- 
 ling pseacher. 
 
 JOHN DRYDEN. 
 1631-1700. 
 
 Poet - Laureate 
 and Historiographer- 
 Royal ; playwright ; 
 poet; prose- writer. 
 
 Works. 
 
 Religio Medici ( = " The Re- 
 ligion of a Physician"); 
 Urn - Burial ; and other 
 prose works. 
 
 Minor Poems ; Paradise 
 Lost; Paradise Regained; 
 Samson Agonistes. Many 
 prose works, the best being 
 Areopagitica, a speech for 
 the Liberty of Unlicensed 
 Printing. 
 
 Hndibras, a mock - heroic 
 poem, written to ridicule 
 the Puritan and Parliament- 
 arian party. 
 
 ,Holy Living and Holy Dy- 
 ing (1649) ; and a number 
 of other religious books. 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress 
 (1678); the Holy War; and 
 other religious works. 
 
 Annus Mirabilis ( = "The 
 Wonderful Year," 1665-66, 
 on the Plague and the Fire 
 of London) ; Absalom and 
 Achitophel (1681), a poem 
 on political parties ; Hind 
 and Panther (1687), a re- 
 ligious poem. He also 
 wrote many plays, some 
 odes, and a translation of 
 Virgil's JEneid. His prose 
 consists chiefly of prefaces 
 and introductions to his 
 poems. 
 
 Contemporary 
 
 Events. 
 
 Australia dis- 
 covered, 1601. 
 
 James I. as- 
 cends the 
 throne in 1603. 
 
 Hampton Court 
 Conference for 
 translation of 
 Bible, 1604-11. 
 
 Gunpowder Plot, 
 1605. 
 
 Execution of 
 Raleigh, 1618. 
 
 De- 
 cades. 
 
 1600 
 
 1610 
 
 Charles I. as- 
 cends the 
 throne in 1625. 
 
 Petition of Right, 
 1628. 
 
 No Parliament 
 from 1629-40. 
 
 Scottish National 
 Covenant, 1638. 
 
 Long Parliament, 
 1640-53. 
 
 Marston Moor, 
 1644. 
 
 Execution ofl 
 Charles I., 1649. 1 
 
 1620 
 
 1630 
 
 1640 
 
TABLES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 451 
 
 Writers. 
 
 JOHN LOCKE. 
 1632-1704. 
 
 Diplomatist; Secre- 
 tary to the Board of 
 Trade ; philosopher ; 
 prose- writer. 
 
 DANIEL DEFOE. 
 1661-1731. 
 
 Literary man : 
 pamphleteer; journal- 
 ist; member of Com- 
 mission on Union 
 with Scotland. 
 
 JONATHAN 
 SWLFT. 
 
 1667-174S 
 
 English clergyman ; 
 literary man ; satir- 
 ist; prose-writer ; 
 poet; Dean of St Pat- 
 rick's, in Dublin. 
 
 SIR RICHARD 
 STEELE. 
 1672*1729. 
 
 Soldier; literary 
 man : courtier ; jour- 
 nalist ; M.P. 
 
 JOSEPH ADDISON. 
 
 1672-1719. 
 
 Essayist ; poet ; Sec- 
 retary of State for the 
 Home Department. 
 
 ALEXANDER 
 POPE. 
 1688-1744. 
 Poet 
 
 Works. 
 
 Essay concerning; the Hu- 
 man Understanding (1690) ; 
 Thoughts on Edncation ; 
 and other prose works. 
 
 The True-horn Englishman 
 (1701) ; 'Robinson Crusoe 
 (1719) ; Journal of the 
 Plague (1722) ; and more 
 than a hundred books in 
 all. 
 
 Battle of the Books: Tale of 
 a Tub (1704), an allegory on 
 the Churches of Rome, Eng- 
 land, and Scotland ;' Gulli- 
 ver's Travels (1726) ; a 
 few poems ; and a number 
 of very vigorous political 
 pamphlets. 
 
 Steele founded the 'Tatler,' 
 'Spectator,' 'Guardian,' and 
 other small journals. He 
 also wrote some plays. 
 
 Essays in the 'Tatler,' 
 'Spectator,' and 'Guardian.' 
 Cato, a Tragedy (1713). 
 Several Poems and Hymns. 
 
 Essay on Criticism (1711); 
 
 / Rape of the Lock (1714) ; 
 
 v Translation of Homer's 
 Iliad and Odyssey, finished 
 in 1726; Dunciad (1729); 
 Essay on Han (1739). A 
 few prose Essays, and a 
 volume of Letters. 
 
 Contemporary 
 Events. 
 
 The Common- 
 wealth, 1649-60. 
 
 Cromwell Lord 
 Protector, 1653- 
 58. 
 
 Restoration, 1600. 
 
 First standing 
 army, 1661. 
 
 First newspaper 
 in England, 
 1663. 
 
 The Revolution, 
 1688-9. 
 
 Death of Anne 
 and Accession 
 of George I., 
 1714. 
 
 Charles II., pen- 
 sioned by Louis 
 XIV. of France, 
 1674. 
 
 Marlborough's 
 Campaigns, 
 1702-11. 
 
 De- 
 cades. 
 
 1650 
 
 1660 
 
 James II. as- 
 cends the 
 throne in 1685. 
 
 Revolution of 
 1688. 
 
 William III. and 
 Mary II. ascend 
 the throne, 1689. 
 
 Battle of the 
 Boyne, 1690. 
 
 1670 
 
 1680 
 
 1690 
 
452 
 
 TABLES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Writers. 
 
 JAMES THOMSON. 
 1700-1748. 
 
 Poet. 
 
 HENRY FIELDING. 
 
 I707-I754. 
 
 Police - magistrate ; 
 journalist; novelist. 
 
 DR SAMUEL 
 JOHNSON. 
 1709-1784. 
 
 Schoolmaster ; lit- 
 erary man; essayist; 
 poet; dictionary- 
 maker. 
 
 DAVID HUME. 
 
 1711-1776. 
 
 Librarian ; Secret- 
 ary to the French Em- 
 bassy ; philosopher ; 
 literary man. 
 
 THOMAS GRAY. 
 
 1716-1771. 
 
 Student; poet; let- 
 ter-writer ; Professor 
 of Modern History in 
 the University of 
 Cambridge. 
 
 TOBIAS GEORGE 
 SMOLLETT. 
 1721-1771. 
 
 Doctor; pamphlet- 
 eer ; literary hack ; 
 novelist. 
 
 OLIVER 
 GOLDSMITH. 
 1728-1774. 
 
 Literary man; play- 
 writer ; poet. 
 
 Works. 
 
 The Seasons ; a poem in blank 
 verse (1730) : The Castle of 
 Indolence ; a mock - heroic 
 poem in the Spenserian stan- 
 za (1748). 
 
 Joseph Andrews (1742); 
 Amelia (1751). He was 
 "the first great English 
 novelist." 
 
 London (1738) ; The Vanity 
 of Human Wishes (1749) ; 
 Dictionary of the English 
 Language (1755); Rasse- 
 las (1759); Lives of the 
 Poets (1781). He also 
 wrote The Idler, The Ram- 
 bler, and a play called Irene. 
 
 History of England (1754- 
 1761) ; and a number of 
 philosophical Essays. His 
 prose is singularly clear, 
 easy, and pleasant. 
 
 Odes; Elegy Written in a 
 Country Churchyard (1751) 
 — one of the most perfect 
 poems in our language. He 
 was a great stylist, and an 
 extremely careful workman. 
 
 Roderick Random (1748) ; 
 
 v Humphrey Clinker (1771). 
 He also continued Hume's 
 History of England. He 
 published also some Plays 
 and Poems. 
 
 The Traveller (1764); The 
 . Vicar of Wakefield (1766) ; 
 The Deserted Village (1770); 
 She Stoops to Conquer— a 
 ' Play (1773) ; and a large 
 number of books, pam- 
 phlets, and compilations. 
 
 Contemporary De- 
 Events, cades. 
 
 Censorship of the 
 Press abolished, 
 1695. 
 
 Queen Anne 
 ascends the 
 throne in 1702. 
 
 The Jacobite Re- 
 bellion of 1745. 
 
 Union of Eng- 
 land and Scot- 
 land, 1707. 
 
 George I. ascends 
 the throne in 
 1714. 
 
 Rebellion in Scot- 
 land in 1715. 
 
 Rise of Method- 
 ism, Seven 
 Years' War, 
 1756-63. 
 
 George II. as- 
 cends the 
 throne, 1727. 
 
 1700 
 
 1710 
 
 1720 
 
TABLES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 453 
 
 Writers. 
 
 ADAM SMITH. 
 1723-1790. 
 
 Professor in the 
 University of Glasgow. 
 
 EDMUND BURKE. 
 1729-1797. 
 M.P. ; statesman ; 
 " the first man in the 
 House of Commons ; " 
 orator ; writer on po- 
 litical philosophy. 
 
 WILLIAM 
 COWPER. 
 1731-1800. 
 
 Commissioner in 
 Bankruptcy; Clerk of 
 the Journals of the 
 House of Lords; poet. 
 
 EDWARD GIBBON. 
 
 1737-1794- 
 Historian ; M.P. 
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 
 1759-1796. 
 
 Farm- labourer; 
 ploughman ; farmer ; 
 excise-officer ; lyrical 
 poet. 
 
 WOHKS. 
 
 Contemporary 
 Events. 
 
 Theory of Moral Sentiments Carron Iron 
 
 (1759); Inquiry into the 
 Nature and Causes of the 
 Wealth of Nations (1776). 
 He was the founder of the 
 science of political economy. 
 
 Essay on the Sublime and 
 Beautiful (1757) W Reflec- 
 tions on the Revolution of 
 France (1790) ; Letters on 
 a Regicide Peace (1797) ; 
 and many other works. 
 "The greatest philosopher 
 in practice the world ever 
 saw. " 
 
 Table Talk (1782) ; John Gil- 
 pin (1785) ; A Translation 
 of Homer (1791) ; and many 
 other Poems. His Letters, 
 like Gray's, are among the 
 best in the language. 
 
 Decline and Fall of the 
 Roman Empire (1776-87). 
 "Heavily laden style and 
 monotonous balance of 
 every sentence." 
 
 Poems and Songs (1786-96). 
 His prose consists chiefly of 
 Letters. " His pictures of 
 social life, of quaint humour, 
 come up to nature ; and 
 they cannot go beyond it." 
 
 Works, Stir- 
 ling, estab- 
 lished, 1758. 
 Mule-jenny for 
 cotton -spin- 
 ning, 1779. 
 
 Outbreak of 
 French Revolu- 
 tion, 1789. 
 
 First Census, 
 1801. 
 
 Reports of Par- 
 liamentary De- 
 bates allowed, 
 1771. Penal 
 law of 1699 
 against Catho- 
 lics repealed, 
 1778. 
 
 James Watt's 
 steam - engine, 
 1759. 
 
 Vaccination by 
 Jenner, 1799. 
 
 De- 
 cades 
 
 1730 
 
 1740 
 
 1750 
 
454 
 
 TABLES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Writers. 
 
 WILLIAM 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 1770-1850. 
 
 Distributor of 
 Stamps for the coun- 
 ty of Westmoreland ; 
 poet ; poet-laureate. 
 
 SIR WALTER 
 SCOTT. 
 1771-1832. 
 
 Clerk to the Court 
 of Session in Edin- 
 burgh; Scottish bar- 
 rister ; poet ; novelist. 
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR 
 COLERIDGE. 
 
 1772-1834. 
 
 Private soldier; 
 journalist ; literary 
 man ; philosopher ; 
 poet. 
 
 ROBERT 
 SOUTHEY. 
 1774-1843. 
 
 Literary man; 
 Quarterly Reviewer ; 
 historian ; poet - lau- 
 reate. 
 
 CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 1775-1834. 
 
 Clerk in the East 
 India House; poet; 
 prose-writer. 
 
 WALTER SAVAGE 
 LANDOR. 
 
 1775-1864. 
 Poet; prose-writer. 
 
 Works. 
 
 Lyrical Ballads (with Cole- 
 ridge, 1798) ; The Excursion 
 (1814) ; Yarrow Revisited 
 (1835), and many other 
 poems. The Prelude was 
 published after his death. 
 "3is prose, which is very 
 good, consists chiafly of 
 Prefaces and Introductions. 
 
 Lay of the Last Minstrel 
 (1805) ; Marmion (1808) ; 
 Lady of the Lake (1810) ; 
 Waverley— the first of the 
 " Waverley Novels " — was 
 published in 1814. The 
 1 • Homer of Scotland. " H is 
 prose is bright and fluent, 
 but very inaccurate. 
 
 The Ancient Mariner (1798) ; 
 Christabel (1816); -The 
 Friend — a Collection of Es- 
 says (1812) ;, Aids to Reflec- 
 tion (1825).' His prose is 
 \ery full both of thought 
 and emotion. 
 
 Joan of Arc (1796) ; Thalaba 
 the Destroyer (1801) ; The 
 Curse of Kehama (1810) ; A 
 History of Brazil; The 
 Doctor — a Collection of Es- 
 says jyLife of Nelson. He 
 wrote more than a hundred 
 volumes. He was "the most 
 ambitious and the most vol- 
 uminous author of his age." 
 
 Poems (1797); 'Tales from 
 Shakespeare (1806) ; . The 
 Essays of Elia (1823-1833). 
 One of the finest writers of 
 prose in the English lan- 
 guage. 
 
 Gebir (1798) ; Count Julian 
 (1812) ; Imaginary Conver- 
 sations (1824-1846); Dry 
 Sticks Faggoted (1858). He 
 wrote books for more than 
 sixty years. His style is 
 full of vigour and sustained 
 
 Contemporary 
 Events. 
 
 George III. as- 
 cends the 
 throne in 1760. 
 
 Napoleon and 
 Wellington 
 born, 1769. 
 
 Warren Hastings 
 in India, 1772- 
 85. 
 
 American De- 
 claration of 
 Independence, 
 1776. 
 
 Alliance of 
 France and 
 America, 1778. 
 
 De- 
 cades. 
 
 1760 
 
 1770 
 
TABLES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 455 
 
 
 Writers. 
 
 THOMAS 
 CAMPBELL. 
 
 1777-1844. 
 
 Poet ; literary man 
 editor. 
 
 HENRY HALLAM. 
 
 I777-I859. 
 
 Historian. 
 
 THOMAS MOORE. 
 1779-1852. 
 
 Poet; prose-writer. 
 
 THOMAS 
 DE QUINCEY. 
 
 1785-1859. 
 
 Essayist. 
 
 LORD BYRON 
 (George Gordon). 
 1788-1824. 
 
 Peer ; poet ; volun- 
 teer to Greece. 
 
 Works. 
 
 The Pleasures of Hope (1799); 
 Poems (1803); Gertrude of 
 Wyoming, Battle of the 
 Baltic, Hohenlinden, etc. 
 (1809). He also wrote some 
 Historical Works. 
 
 View of Europe during the 
 Middle Ages (1818) ; Con- 
 stitutional History of Eng- 
 land (1827); Introduction 
 to the Literature of Europe 
 (1839). 
 
 Odes and Epistles (1806); 
 
 , LaUa Rookh (1817); His- 
 tory of Ireland (1 827) ; Life 
 of Byron (1830) ; Irish 
 Melodies (1834) ; and many 
 prose works. 
 
 /Confessions of an English 
 Opium-Eater (1821). He 
 wrote also on many subjects 
 — philosophy, poetry, clas- 
 sics, history, politics. His 
 writings fill twenty volumes. 
 He was one of the finest 
 prose-writers of the 19th 
 century. 
 
 Hours of Idleness (1807) ; 
 English Bards and Scotch 
 Reviewers (1809) ; <Jhilde 
 Harold's Pilgrimage (1812- 
 1818) ; Hebrew Melodies 
 (1815) : and many Plays. 
 His prose, which is full of 
 vigour and animal spirits, is 
 to be found chiefly in his 
 Letters. 
 
 CON TEMPORARY 
 EVKNT8. 
 
 Encyclopaedia 
 Br itannica 
 founded in 1778. 
 
 Liverpool and 
 Manchester 
 Railway, 1830. 
 
 United Irish- 
 men's Rebel- 
 lion. French 
 land in Ireland. 
 1798. 
 
 Db- 
 
 CADKS. 
 
 The Times pub- 
 lished, 1785. 
 Gas first used 
 in London 
 
 streets, 1807. 
 
 1780 
 
 Greek War of 
 Independence 
 against the 
 Turks, 1822-9. 
 
456 
 
 TABLES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Writers. 
 
 PERCY BYSSHE 
 SHELLEY. 
 
 Poet. 
 
 Z792-I822. 
 
 JOHN KEATS. 
 1795-1821. 
 
 Poet. 
 
 THOMAS 
 CARLYLE. 
 1795-1881. 
 
 Literary man; 
 poet; translator; 
 essayist ; reviewer ; 
 political writer; his- 
 torian. 
 
 LORD 
 MACAULAY 
 (Thomas Babinqton). 
 1800-1859. 
 
 Barrister; Edin- 
 burgh Reviewer; 
 M.P. ; Member of the 
 Supreme Council of 
 India; Cabinet Minis- 
 ter; poet; essayist; 
 historian; peer. 
 
 Works. 
 
 Queen Mab (1810) ;' Prome- 
 theus Unbound— a Tragedy 
 (1819) ; Ode to the Skylark, 
 The Cloud (1820) ; Adonais 
 (1821), and many other 
 poems ; and several 
 works. 
 
 Poems (1817); Endymion 
 (1818) ; . Hyperion (1820). 
 " Had Keats lived to the 
 ordinary age of man, he 
 would have been one of the 
 greatest of all poets." 
 
 German Romances— a set of 
 Translations (1827) ;. Sartor 
 Resartus — " The Tailor 
 Repatched" (1834); 'The 
 French Revolution (1837) ; 
 Heroes and Hero-Worship 
 (1840) ; Past and Present 
 (1843); Cromwell's Letters 
 and Speeches (1845) ; Life 
 of Frederick the Great 
 (1858-65). "With the gift 
 of song, Carlyle would have 
 been the greatest of epic 
 poets since Homer." 
 
 Milton (in the 'Edinburgh 
 Review,' 1825) ; Lays of 
 Ancient Rome (1842) ; His 
 tory of England— unfinished 
 (1849-59). "His pictorial 
 faculty is amazing." 
 
 Contemporary 
 
 Events. 
 
 Cape of Good 
 Hope taken, 
 1795. 
 
 Bonaparte 
 Italy, 1796. 
 
 Battle of the 
 Nile, 1798. 
 
 Union of Great 
 Britain and Ire- 
 land, 1801. 
 
 Trafalgar and 
 Nelson, 1805. 
 
 Peninsular War, 
 1808-14. 
 
 Napoleon's Inva- 
 sion of Russia ; 
 Moscow burnt, 
 1812. 
 
 War with United 
 States, 1812-14. 
 
 Battle of Water- 
 loo, 1815. 
 
 George IV. as- 
 cends the 
 throne, 1820. 
 
 Gas first manu- 
 factured, 1792. 
 
 Catholic Eman- 
 cipation, 1829. 
 
 German Empire 
 re-established, 
 1871. 
 
 William IV. as- 
 cends the 
 throne, 1830. 
 
 The Reform Bill, 
 1832. 
 
 Total Abolition 
 of Slavery, 
 1834. 
 
TABLES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 457 
 
 
 Writers. 
 
 LORD LYTTON 
 (Edwabd Bulwkr). 
 1803-1873. 
 
 Novelist; poet; 
 dramatist; M.P. ; 
 Cabinet Minister; 
 peer. 
 
 JOHN STUART 
 MILL. 
 1806-1873. 
 
 Clerk in the East 
 India House ; philos- 
 opher; political 
 writer; M.P. ; Lord 
 Rector of the Univer- 
 sity of St Andrews. 
 
 HENRY W. 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 1807-1882. 
 
 Professor of Mod- 
 ern Languages and 
 Literature in Harvard 
 University, U.S.; 
 poet; prose-writer. 
 
 LORD 
 TENNYSON 
 (Alfred Tennyson). 
 1809-1892. 
 
 Poet ; poet - laure- 
 ate; peer. 
 
 ELIZABETH B. 
 BARRETT 
 
 (afterwards 
 Mrs Browning). 
 1806-1861. 
 Poet ; prose- writer ; 
 translator. 
 
 Works. 
 
 Israael and Other Poems 
 (1825); Eugene Aram 
 (1832) )/L&st Days of Pom- 
 peii (1834); The Caztons 
 (1849); My Novel (1853); 
 Poems (1865). 
 
 System of Logic (1843) ; Prin- 
 ciples of Political Economy 
 (1848) ; Essay on Liberty 
 (1859) ; .Autobiography 
 (1873). "For judicial calm- 
 ness, elevation of tone, and 
 freedom from personality, 
 Mill is unrivalled among the 
 writers of his time. " 
 
 Outre -Mer— a Story (1835); 
 Hyperion -a Story (1839); 
 Voices of the Night (1841) ; 
 
 1 Evangeline (1848) ; Hia- 
 watha (1855) ; ^Aftermath 
 (1873). "His tact in the 
 use of language is probably 
 the chief cause of his suc- 
 
 Poems (1830) ;\In Memoriam 
 
 Contemporary 
 Events. 
 
 Queen Victoria 
 ascends the 
 throne, 1837. 
 
 Irish Famine, 
 1845. 
 
 Repeal of the 
 Corn Laws, 
 1846. 
 
 Revolution in 
 Paris, 1851. 
 
 Death of Welling- 
 ton, 1852. 
 
 Napoleon III. 
 Emperor of the 
 French, 1852. 
 
 De- 
 cades. 
 
 1840 
 
 Russian 
 1854-56. 
 
 War, 
 
 Franco -Austrian 
 
 (1850) ; Maud (1855) >, Idylls ' ™' 
 
 of the King (1859-85) ; Queen 
 
 Mary — a Drama (1875); 
 
 Becket— a Drama (1884) ; 
 
 The Foresters -a Drama Emancipation of 
 
 /iqoo\ Itussian serfs 
 
 VW4). 18(J1 
 
 Prometheus Bound — trans- 
 lated from the Greek of 
 iEschylus (1833); Poems 
 (1844); .Aurora Leigh 
 (1856) ; and Essays con- 
 tributed to various maga- 
 zines. 
 
 Austro - Prussian 
 "8even Weeks' 
 War," 1866. 
 
 Suez Canal fin- 
 ished, 1869. 
 
 1850 
 
 1860 
 
458 
 
 TABLES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Writers. 
 
 WILLIAM 
 
 MAKEPEACE 
 
 THACKERAY. 
 
 1811-1863. 
 
 Novelist; writer in 
 • Punch ' ; artist. 
 
 CHARLES 
 DICKENS. 
 
 1812-1870. 
 
 Novelist. 
 
 ROBERT 
 BROWNING. 
 
 1812-1889. 
 Poet 
 
 JOHN RUSKIN. 
 1819-1900. 
 
 Art-critic ; essay- 
 ist; teacher; literary 
 man. 
 
 GEORGE ELIOT. 
 1819-1880. 
 
 Novelist; poet; 
 essayist. 
 
 ALGERNON 
 
 CHARLES 
 
 SWINBURNE. 
 
 1837-1912. 
 
 Lyric poet ; drama- 
 tist ; prose-writer. 
 
 Works. 
 
 The Paris Sketch -Book 
 (1840) ; Vanity Fair (1847) ; 
 Esmond (1862); The New- 
 comes (1865) ; The Vir- 
 ginians (1857). The great- 
 est novelist and one of the 
 most perfect stylists of the 
 19th cent. "The classical 
 English humorist and sat- 
 irist of the reign of Qneen 
 Victoria." 
 
 Sketches by Boz (1836) ; The 
 Pickwick Papers (1837); 
 Oliver Twist (1838) ^Nicho- 
 las Nickleby (1838); and 
 many other novels and 
 work s ^Great Expectations 
 (1860). The most popular 
 writer that ever lived. 
 
 Pauline (1832); Paracelsus 
 (1835) ; Poems (1865) jvThe 
 Ring and the Book (1869) ; 
 and many other volumes of 
 poetry. 
 
 Modern Painters (1843-60) ; 
 The Stones of Venice (1851- 
 53) ; The Queen of the Air 
 ^1869); An Autobiography 
 
 (1885) ; and very many other 
 works. "He has a deep, 
 serious, and almost fanatical 
 reverence for art." 
 
 Scenes of Clerical Life (1858) 
 vAdam Bede (1859); and 
 many other novels down to 
 Daniel Deronda (1876) ; 
 Spanish Gypsy (1868) ; Le- 
 gend of Jubal (1874). 
 
 Atalanta in Calydon (1864) ; 
 Poems and Ballads (three 
 series— 1864, 78, and '87), 
 and many other poems. 
 "The greatest metrical in- 
 ventor in English litera- 
 ture." "His music is like 
 no other man's." 
 
 Contemporary 
 
 Events. 
 
 Franco - Prussian 
 War, 1870-71. 
 
 Third French Re- 
 puolic, 1870. 
 
 William I. of 
 Prussia made 
 Emperor of the 
 Germans at Ver- 
 sailles, 1871. 
 
 Rome the new 
 capital of Italy, 
 1871. 
 
 Russo . Turkish 
 War, 1877-78. 
 
 Berlin Congress 
 and Treaty, 
 1878. 
 
 Leo XIII. made 
 Pope in 1878. 
 
 Assassination of 
 Alexander II., 
 1881. 
 
 Arahi Pasha's Re- 
 bellion, 1882-83. 
 
 War in the Sou- 
 dan. 1884. 
 
 Murder of Gor- 
 don. 1885. 
 
 New Reform Bill, 
 
 1885. 
 
 "War in S. Africa, 
 1899. 
 
 Death of Queen 
 Victoria, 1901. 
 
INDEX 
 
459 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Absolute, nominative, 66. 
 Adjectives, 28. 
 
 comparison of, 32. 
 defective, 34. 
 irregular, 33. 
 compound, formation of, 117. 
 demonstrative, 29. 
 inflection of, 31. 
 numeral, 29. 
 qualitative, 28. 
 quantitative, 29. 
 suffixes to, English, 131. 
 
 Latin and French, 138. 
 syntax of, 71. 
 Adjective pronouns (so-called), 29, 30. 
 Adverbs, 57. 
 
 classification of, 57. 
 comparison of, 57. 
 irregular, 58. 
 formation of, 118. 
 syntax of, 83. 
 Alphabet, what it is, 7. 
 
 conditions of a perfect, 7. 
 the English, very defective, 7, 8. 
 Analysis of sentences, 86-115. 
 complex sentence, 102. 
 (cautions), 107. 
 mapping-out of, 109. 
 compound sentence, 111. 
 " continuous" method of, 111. 
 " pigeon-hole " method of, 110. 
 simple sentence, 87. 
 (cautions), 93. 
 mapping-out of, 100. 
 Anomalous verbs, 53. 
 Antecedent, 26. 
 Apposition, 22. 
 Articles (so-called), 29. 
 Auxiliary verbs, 48, 53. 
 
 2 J 
 
 Be, conjugation of, 50. 
 Branching of words, 143-153. 
 
 Cardinal numerals, 30. 
 Case, 19. 
 
 dative, 21. 
 
 different cases, with their uses, 20. 
 
 nominative, 20. 
 
 objective, 22. 
 
 possessive, 20. 
 
 vocative, 20, 22. 
 Cognate object, 22. 
 Comparison of adjectives, 82. 
 defective, 34. 
 irregular, 33. 
 of adverbs, 57. 
 irregular, 58. 
 Compound adjectives, formation of, 117. 
 
 adverbs, formation of, 119. 
 
 nouns, formation of, 116. 
 
 verbs, formation of, 118. 
 Concord, rules of, 76. 
 Conjugation of verbs, 42. 
 
 specimen of full, 54. 
 Conjunctions, 60. 
 
 syntax of, 84. 
 Conjunctive (or relative) pronouns, 26. 
 Connectives, 58. 
 Consonant, 5. 
 
 sounds, table of, 6. 
 
 Dative case, 21. 
 
 syntax of, 69. 
 Demonstrative adjectives, 29. 
 Dentals, 5, 6. 
 
 Derivation, word-building and, 116-171. 
 Derivations from English roots, 144. 
 
 from Greek roots, 152. 
 
 from Latin roots, 1*7. 
 
460 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Derivations from names of persons, etc., 
 154. 
 from names of places, 158. 
 of words disguised in form, 161. 
 of words greatly changed in meaning, 
 168. 
 Diphthongs, 5. 
 
 English inseparable prefixes, 120. 
 roots and branches, 144. 
 separable prefixes, 121. 
 suffixes to adjectives, 131. 
 to adverbs, 133. 
 to nouns, 128. 
 to verbs, 134. 
 English language, grammar of, 4. 
 origin and development of, 4. 
 Etymology, 5, 8-63. 
 Extension of predicate, 95. 
 
 Factitive object, 22. 
 
 French derivations, etc., included under 
 
 Latin. 
 Functions, words known by their, 61. 
 
 Gender, 11. 
 
 indicated by different words, 14. 
 
 indicated by prefixes, 13. 
 
 indicated by suffixes, 12. 
 
 Latin and French suffixes of, 13. 
 Gerund, 39. 
 
 Gerundial infinitive, 82. 
 Government of verbs, 78. 
 Grammar, 4. 
 
 of letters, 7. 
 
 of sounds, 5. 
 
 of words, 8-63. 
 
 parts of, 4. 
 Greek prefixes, 126. 
 
 roots, 152. 
 
 suffixes, 141. 
 Gutturals, 5, 6. 
 
 Have, conjugation of, 49. 
 
 Inflexion of adjectives, 31. 
 
 of nouns, 11. 
 
 of pronouns, 24, 25. 
 
 of verbs, 36. 
 Inseparable prefixes, English, 120. 
 Interjections, 60. 
 Diterrogative pronouns, 25. 
 Intransitive verbs, 35. 
 Irregular weak verbs, 46. 
 
 Kinds of words, 8. 
 
 known by functions, 61. 
 
 Labials, 5, 6. 
 Language, what it is, 3. 
 
 spoken and written, 3. 
 Latin prefixes, 123. 
 
 roots, 147. 
 
 suffixes to adjectives, 138. 
 to nouns, 134. 
 to verbs, 141. 
 Letters, grammar of, 7. 
 
 redundant, 8. 
 
 Moods, 38. 
 
 syntax of, 80. 
 Mutes, 5, 6. 
 
 Nominative case, 20. 
 
 absolute, 66 
 
 of address, 97. 
 
 syntax of, 64. 
 Nouns, 9. 
 
 abstract, la 
 
 classification of, 9. 
 
 class-names, 10. 
 
 collective, 10. 
 
 common, 10. 
 
 compound, formation of, 116. 
 
 English suffixes to, 128. 
 
 inflexions of, 11. 
 
 Latin and French suffixes to, 134 
 
 proper, 9. 
 
 syntax of, 64-71. 
 Number of nouns, 15. 
 
 of verbs, 42. 
 Numeral adjectives, 29. 
 Numerals, 30. 
 
 Object, cognate, 22. 
 
 factitive, 22. 
 
 reflexive, 22. 
 Objective case, 22. 
 
 syntax of, 68. 
 Ordinal numerals, 31. 
 Orthography, 5. 
 
 Palatals, 6. 
 
 Participle, 40. 
 
 Passive voice, 37. 
 
 Person of verbs, 42. 
 
 Persons, words derived from names of, 
 
 154. 
 Places, words derived from names of, 
 
 158. 
 Plurals, false, 17. 
 
 foreign, 18. 
 
 modes of forming, 19. 
 
 of compound words, 19. 
 
 treated as singulars,' 18. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 461 
 
 Plurals, words used only in their, 18. 
 
 words with two, 17. 
 Possessive case, 20. 
 
 syntax of, 67. 
 Predicate of sentence, 89. 
 Prefixes, 103. 
 
 English inseparable, 120. 
 
 English separable, 121. 
 
 Greek, 126. 
 
 Latin, 123. 
 
 to indicate gender, 13. 
 Prepositions, 58. 
 
 list of special, 84. 
 
 syntax of, 83. 
 Pronouns, 23. 
 
 indefinite, 27. 
 
 inflexions of, 24, 25. 
 
 interrogative, 25. 
 
 personal, 23. 
 
 reflexive, 25. 
 
 relative (or conjunctive), 26. 
 
 syntax of, 74. 
 
 Qualitative adjectives, 28. 
 Quantitative adjectives, 29. 
 
 Reflexive pronouns, 25. 
 
 Relative (or conjunctive) pronouns, 26. 
 
 Roots and branches, 143-153. 
 
 English, 144. 
 
 Greek, 152. 
 
 Latin, 147. 
 
 Sentences, analysis of, 86-115. 
 contracted, 87. 
 complex, 102. 
 compound, 111. 
 simple, 87. 
 Separable prefixes, English, 121. 
 Shall, conjugation of, 48. 
 Sounds, grammar of, 5. 
 Spirants, 6. 
 
 Strike, conjugation of, 54. 
 Strong and weak verbs, 43. 
 Strong verbs, list of, 44. 
 Subject, what it may consist of, 88. 
 Sufiixes, 128. 
 
 English, to adjectives, 131. 
 to adverbs, 133. 
 to nouns, 128. 
 to verbs, 134. 
 Greek, 141. 
 
 Latin, to adjectives, 138. 
 to indicate gender, 13. 
 to nouns, 134. 
 to verbs, 141. 
 to indicate gender, 12. 
 Superlative degree, 32. 
 
 Syntax, 5, 64-85. 
 
 of the adjective, 71. 
 of the adverb, 83. 
 of the conjunction, 84. 
 of the dative, 69. 
 of the nominative, 64. 
 of the noun, 64 
 of the objective, 68. 
 of the possessive, 67. 
 of the preposition, 83. 
 of the pronoun, 74. 
 of the verb, 76. 
 
 Syntax, examples of false or doubtful (85a) 
 
 Tense, 41. 
 
 Transitive and intransitive verba. 
 
 Verbs, 34. 
 
 auxiliary, 36, 48. 
 classification of, 85. 
 compound, formation of, 118. 
 concord of, 76. 
 conjugation of, 42. 
 
 specimen of full, 54. 
 defective, 53. 
 government of, 78. 
 inflexions of, 36. 
 moods of, 38, 80. 
 notional, 48. 
 number of, 42. 
 person of, 42. 
 strong and weak, 43. 
 strong, list of, 44. 
 sufiixes to, English, 134. 
 
 Latin, 141. 
 syntax of, 76. 
 tense of, 41. 
 voice of, 37. 
 weak and strong, 43. 
 weak, list of irregular, 46. 
 
 two kinds of, 45. 
 Vocative case, 20, 22. 
 Voice, active, 37. 
 
 passive, 37. 
 Vowel, 5. 
 
 Weak and strong verbs, 43. 
 Weak verbs* irregular, 46. 
 
 two kinds of, 45. 
 Will, conjugation of, 48. 
 Word-branching, 143-153. 
 
 from English roots, 144. 
 
 from Greek roots, 152. 
 
 from Latin roots, 147. 
 Word-building and derivation, 116-171. 
 Words, grammar of (Etymology), 8-63. 
 
 kinds of, 8. 
 
 known by their functions, 61. 
 
462 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Abstract versus concrete, 183. 
 
 Accents in verse, 194, 195. 
 
 Accurate English, 178. 
 
 Admiration, point of, 188. 
 
 Adverb, position of the, 185. 
 
 Alexandrine, 199. 
 
 Allegory, 191. 
 
 Amphibrach, 196. 
 
 Amphibrachic tetrameter, 200. 
 
 Anapaest, 196. 
 
 Anapaestic tetrameter, 200. 
 
 And which, 186. 
 
 Antecedent and Relative, to be clearly 
 
 connected, 186. 
 Antithesis, 182. 
 
 Ballad metre, 198. 
 Blank verse, 197. 
 Brevity, 179. 
 
 Caesura, 203. 
 
 Circumlocution, 185. 
 
 Clearness, 178. 
 
 Coleridge's examples and descriptions of 
 
 different metres, 201. 
 Colon, 187. 
 Comma, 188. 
 Compactness, 179. 
 Composition, hints on, 175. 
 
 cautions, general, 184. 
 special, 185. 
 
 directions, general, 176. 
 Concrete versus abstract, 183. 
 Conjunctions, omission of, 181. 
 Couplet, 204. 
 
 Dactyl, 196. 
 Dactylic dimeter, 200. 
 
 tetrameter, 200. 
 Dash, 188. 
 Defective lines, 201. 
 Dependent, and principal sentences, not 
 
 to be mixed up, 186. 
 Detail, 184. 
 Dimeter, dactylic, 200. 
 Distinctness of style, 183. 
 
 Elegiac verse, 204. 
 Emphasis, 180. 
 English, accurate, 178. 
 
 flowing, 179. 
 
 good, 176. 
 
 pure, 177. 
 
 Epigram, 182. 
 Exaggerated language, 186. 
 Exaggeration (hyperbole), 191. 
 Exclamation, mark of, 181. 
 
 Figures of speech, 189. 
 Flowing English, 179. 
 Foot (in verse), 195. 
 Full stop, 187. 
 
 Good English, 176. 
 
 Hackneyed phrases, 184. 
 
 Half -rhymes, 202. 
 
 " Happy Life, The,"— paraphrased, 193. 
 
 Heroic couplet, 204. 
 
 verse, 197. 
 Hexameter, 127. 
 
 iambic, 198. 
 Hyperbole (exaggeration), 191 
 Hypermetrical lines, 201. 
 
 Iambic hexameter, 198. 
 pentameter, 197, 198. 
 tetrameter, 197, 198. 
 trimeter, 197. 
 
 Iambus, 195. 
 
 Imperative mood, the use of, in composi- 
 tion, 181. 
 
 Interrogation, point of, 188. 
 
 Interrogative form (for emphasis), 181. 
 
 Inversion, 180. 
 
 Loose sentence, 164, 180. 
 
 Metaphor, 190. 
 
 Metonymy, 191. 
 
 Metres, examples and descriptions of the 
 
 different, by Coleridge, 201. 
 Misplaced phrases, 187. 
 Mixed metaphors, 185. 
 
 Octave (ottava rima), 204. 
 
 (in the sonnet), 205. 
 Octometer, trochaic, 199. 
 
 Paraphrase of " The Happy Life,' 
 Paraphrasing, 192. 
 Parenthesis, 188. 
 Participles, management of, 185. 
 
 present, 185. 
 Pentameter, 197, 198. 
 Period (full stop), 187. 
 
 193. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 463 
 
 Period (sentence), 179, 180. 
 
 Periphrasis, 181. 
 
 Personification, 190. 
 
 Principal and dependent sentences, not 
 
 to be mixed up, 186. 
 Pronouns, management of, 184. 
 Prosody (grammar of verse), 194-201. 
 Punctuation, 187. 
 Pure English, 177. 
 
 Quatrain, 204. 
 
 Relative and antecedent, to be clearly 
 
 connected, 186. 
 Repetition, 181, 182. 
 Rhyme, 200. 
 Rhythm, to be cultivated by reading 
 
 aloud, 179. 
 
 Semicolon, 187. 
 
 Service metre, 198. 
 
 Sestette, 205. 
 
 Sextant, 204. 
 
 Simile, 189. 
 
 Simplicity, 178. 
 
 Skeleton of theme to be written, 176. 
 
 Sonnet, 205. 
 
 Specification, 183. 
 
 Spenserian stanza, 204. 
 
 Spondee, 201. 
 
 Stanza, 204. 
 
 Subject of sentence, not to be changed, 
 
 186. 
 Suspense, 182. 
 Synecdoche, 191. 
 Synonyms, 178. 
 
 Tautology, 185. 
 Tetrameter, 197. 
 
 amphibrachic, 200. 
 
 anapaestic, 200. 
 
 dactylic, 200. 
 
 iambic, 197, 198. 
 
 trochaic, 199. 
 That and who distinguished, 186. 
 Trimeter, 197. 
 Triplet, 204. 
 
 tetrameter, 204. 
 Trochaic octometer, 199. 
 Trochee, 195. 
 
 Unrhymed (blank) verse, 197. 
 
 Vague sentence, contrasted with specific, 
 
 183. 
 Verbosity, 179. 
 
 Verse, different from Prose in two things, 
 194. 
 grammar of (Prosody), 194-201. 
 
 Which and and which, 186. 
 Who and that distinguished, 186. 
 
 PART III. 
 
 African words in English, 341. 
 American words in English, 341. 
 Analytic English (= modern), 317. 
 Ancient English, 277. 
 
 synthetic, 317. 
 Anglo-Saxon, specimen from, 328. 
 
 contrasted with English of Wyclif 
 and Tyndale, 329. 
 Arabic words in English, 341. 
 Aryan family of languages, 273. 
 
 Bible, English of the, 334. 
 Bilingualism, 300. 
 
 Changes of language, never sudden, 276. 
 Chinese words in English, 342. 
 
 i Dead and living languages, 276. 
 Dialects of English, 316. 
 Doublets, English and other, 314-316. 
 
 Greek, 311. 
 
 Latin, 308-311. 
 Dutch and Welsh contrasted, 275. 
 
 words in English, 388. 
 
 English, 272. 
 
 a Low-German tongue, 274. 
 
 diagram of, 281. 
 
 dialects of, 816. 
 
 early and oldest, compared, 330. 
 
 elements of, characteristics of the 
 
 two, 312-314. 
 English element in, 280. 
 
464 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 English, foreign elements in, 282. 
 grammar of, its history, 317-327. 
 its spread over Britain, 275. 
 modern, 336-343. 
 nation, 2 SO. 
 of the Bible, 334. 
 of the thirteenth century, 332. 
 of the fourteenth century, 333. 
 of the sixteenth century, 334. 
 on the Continent, 272. 
 periods of, 276-279. 
 
 marks which distinguish, 332. 
 syntax of, changed, 323. 
 the family to which it belongs, 273. 
 the group to which it belongs, 273, 
 
 274. 
 vocabulary of, 280-316. 
 
 Foreign elements in English, 282. 
 French (new) words in English, 339. 
 (Norman), see Norman-French. 
 
 German words in English, 340. 
 Grammar of English, 317-327. 
 
 comparatively fixed (since 1485), 336. 
 
 First Period, 318. 
 
 general view of its history, 321. 
 
 Second Period, 319. 
 
 short view of its history, 317-321. 
 
 Third Period, 320. 
 
 Fourth Period, 320. 
 Greek doublets, 311. 
 Gutturals, expulsion of, 324-326. 
 
 Hebrew words in English, 340. 
 Hindu words in English, 342. 
 History of English, landmarks in, 344. 
 Hungarian words in English, 342. 
 
 Indo-European family, 273. 
 Inflexions in different periods, compared, 
 331. 
 
 loss of, 317, 318. 
 
 grammatical result of loss, 326. 
 Italian words in English, 337. 
 
 Keltic element in English, 282-284. 
 
 Landmarks in the history of English, 
 
 344. 
 Language, 271. 
 
 changes of 276. 
 
 growth of, 271. 
 
 living and dead, 276. 
 
 spoken and written, 281. 
 
 written, 271. 
 Latin contributions and their dates, 287. 
 
 Latin doublets, 308-311. 
 
 element in English, 286-311. 
 of the eye and ear, 308. 
 of the First Period, 288. 
 Second Period, 289, 290. 
 Third Period, 290-305. 
 Fourth Period, 305-308. 
 triplets, 311. 
 Lord's Prayer, in four versions, 329, 
 
 Malay words in English, 342. 
 Middle English, 278. 
 Modern English, 279, 336-343. 
 
 analytic, 317. 
 Monosyllables, 322. 
 
 New words in English, 336-843. 
 Norman-French, 290. 
 
 bilingualism caused by, 300. 
 
 contributions, general character of, 
 298. 
 
 dates of, 291-293. 
 
 element in English, 290-305. 
 
 gains to English from, 299-302. 
 
 losses to English from, 303-305. 
 
 synonyms, 300. 
 
 words, 294-298. 
 
 Oldest and early English compared, 330. 
 Order of words in English, changed, 323. 
 
 Periods of English, 276-279. 
 Ancient, 277. 
 Early, 277. 
 Middle, 278. 
 Tudor, 279. 
 Modern, 279. 
 grammar of the different, 317-327. 
 marks indicating different, 332. 
 specimens of different, 328-335. 
 Persian words in English, 342. 
 Polynesian words in English, 342. 
 Portuguese words in English, 342. 
 
 Renascence (Revival of Learning), 305 
 Russian words in English, 342. 
 
 Scandinavian element in English, 284- 
 
 286. 
 Scientific terms in English, 343. 
 Spanish words in English, 337. 
 Specimens of English of different periods, 
 
 328-335. 
 Spoken and written language, 281. 
 Syntax of English, change in, 323. 
 Synthetic English (= ancient), 317. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 465 
 
 Tartar words in English, 342. 
 Teutonic group, 273. 
 Tndor English, 279. 
 T nrkish words in English, 342. 
 Ty ndale's English, compared with Anglo- 
 Saxon and Wyclif, 329. 
 
 Vocabulary of the English language, 280- 
 816. 
 
 Welsh and Dutch contrasted, 275. 
 Words and inflexions in different periods, 
 compared, 331. 
 new, in English, 336-343. 
 Written language, 271. 
 
 and spoken, 281. 
 Wyclif s English, compared with Tyn- 
 dale's and Anglo-Saxon, 329. 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 Addison, Joseph, 893. 
 Alfred, 354. 
 
 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 354 
 Arnold, Matthew, 437. 
 Austen, Jane, 426. 
 
 Bacon, Francis, 377. 
 
 Bseda (Venerable Bede), 353. 
 
 Barbour, John, 363. 
 
 Btovrulf, 351. 
 
 Blake, William, 412. 
 
 Browning, Robert, 436. 
 
 Browning, Mrs., 435. 
 
 Brunanburg, Song of, 353. 
 
 Brunne, Robert of, 357. 
 
 Brut, 355. 
 
 Bunyan, John, 887. 
 
 Burke, Edmund, 404 
 
 Burns, Robert, 410. 
 
 Butler, Samuel, 382. 
 
 Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 421. 
 
 Csedmon, 352. 
 Campbell, Thomas, 420. 
 Carlyle, Thomas, 427. 
 Caxton, William, 366. 
 Chatterton, Thomas, 411. 
 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 361. 
 
 followers of, 865. 
 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 418. 
 Collins, William, 399. 
 Cowper, William, 407. 
 Crabbe, George, 409. 
 
 Defoe, Daniel, 390. 
 De Quincey, Thomas, 426. 
 Dickens, Charles, 489. 
 Dryden, John, 883. 
 
 Eliot, George, 442. 
 
 Gibbon, Edward, 405. 
 Gloucester, Robert of, 357. 
 Goldsmith, Oliver, 403. 
 Gower, John, 360. 
 Gray, Thomas, 398. 
 
 Hobbes, Thomas, 386. 
 Hooker, Richard, 374. 
 
 James I. (of Scotland), 365. 
 Johnson, Samuel, 401. 
 Jonson, Ben, 873. 
 
 Keats, John, 423. 
 
 Lamb, Charles, 424. 
 
 Landor, Walter Savage, 425. 
 
 Langlande, William, 360. 
 
 Layamon, 355. 
 
 Locke, John, 887. 
 
 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 432. 
 
 Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 429. 
 Maldon, Song of the Fight at, 353. 
 Mandeville, Sir John, 359. 
 Marlowe, Christopher, 378. 
 Milton, John, 381. 
 Moore, Thomas, 420. 
 More, Sir Thomas, 368. 
 Morris, William, 438. 
 
 Orm's Ormulum, 856. 
 
 Pope, Alexander, 895, 897. 
 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 376. 
 Ruskin, John, 441. 
 
466 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 417. 
 Shakespeare, William, 370, 379. 
 
 contemporaries of, 372. 
 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 422. 
 Sidney, Sir Philip, 375. 
 Southey, Robert, 419. 
 J- penser, Edmund, 369. 
 Steele, Richard, 394. 
 Surrey, Earl of, 367. 
 Swift, Jonathan, 391. 
 
 Taylor, Jeremy, 385. 
 Tennyson, Alfred, 438. 
 Thackeray, William Makepeace, 439. 
 Thomson, James, 397, 398. 
 Tyndale, William, 368. 
 
 Wordsworth, William, 415. 
 Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 367. 
 Wyclif, John, 360. 
 
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 at the Edinb ^h University Press 
 
^B 364/9 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 

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