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Ctanimn flwss Series 
 
 THE PHILOLOGY 
 
 UF THE / 
 
 V 
 
 ZCtiMti 
 
 7-f 
 
 ENGLISH TONGUE 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN EARLE, M.A. 
 
 RECTOR OF SWANSWICK 
 
 Formerly Fellow and Tutor of Oriel College, and sometime Professor of 
 A7iglo-Saxo7i in the University of Oxford 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 REVISED AND ENLARGED. 
 
 A 
 
 
 tt) 
 
 §%tu\ 
 
 AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 
 
 M DCCC LXXIII 
 
 [ All rights reserved ] 
 
SonDon 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 6,0771 
 
 PUBLISHERS TO THE UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 <Bxioxt> 
 
1 
 
 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 Philology may be described as a science of language 
 based upon the comparison of languages. It is the aim of 
 Philology to order the study of language upon principles 
 indicated by language itself, so that each part and function 
 shall have its true and natural place assigned to it, according 
 to the order, relation, and proportion dictated by the nature 
 of language. What the nature of language is, can be ascer- 
 tained only by a wide comparison of languages taken at 
 various stages of development. Such a work is to be per- 
 formed, not by any one man, but by the co-operation of 
 many : and many have now been co-operating for three 
 quarters of a century past, and sending in from every land 
 their contributions towards it. 
 
 In this newly gotten knowledge of human language there 
 is matter for educational use. The relations of language to 
 culture are so intimate that what betters our knowledge of 
 the one should improve the process of the other. It is an 
 open question, in what way the lessons of language may best 
 be converted to the purpose of education, but there is one 
 fault which might at least be somewhat mended : — our know- 
 ledge of language has been too broken and divided: we 
 have most of us known one language best vernacularly, and 
 another best grammatically. Something would be gained 
 if our cultivation of language could be rather more centred 
 upon the mother tongue, so that our vernacular and our 
 
IV PREFACE 
 
 philological acquirements might more effectually support one 
 another. The lessons of philology would be taught more 
 thoroughly, as well as more conveniently, if the materials for 
 the instruction were supplied by the mother tongue. The 
 effect of philological study is to quicken the perception of 
 analogy between languages; and this advantage would be 
 more immediate in its returns if our philology were more 
 based on the mother tongue. Nothing would put the learner 
 so readily or so implicitly in possession of all the essence 
 of philological gains ; nothing would be of such good prac- 
 tical avail whenever the knowledge of one language was 
 needed to bear upon the acquisition of another. Were the 
 English language studied philologically, the faculty of ac- 
 quiring other languages would be more generally an English 
 faculty. 
 
 There are two chief ways of entering upon a scientific 
 study. One is by the way of Principles, and the other is by 
 the way of Elements. If the learner approaches Philology 
 by the way of principles, it is necessary that the principles 
 should be familiarised to him by the aid of examples and 
 illustrations drawn from various languages. Each of the 
 methods excels in its own peculiar way ; and the excellence 
 of this method is, that the subject is presented with the 
 greatest fullness and totality of effect — as a mountain is 
 most imposing to the view on its most precipitous side. 
 But it has this great drawback, — that the learner can ill 
 judge of the examples ; he must take them on authority ; 
 and so far forth as the instruction is based on facts which 
 are not within the cognisance of the learner, the teaching 
 is unscientific. 
 
 The other method is by the examination of a single lan- 
 guage; and here the course of treatment follows the order 
 of natural growth, introducing the principles in an occasional 
 
TO THE FIRST EDITION. V 
 
 and incidental manner, just as they happen to be called for 
 in the course of the investigation. If the object-language be 
 the learner's own vernacular, this course will be something 
 like climbing a mountain by the side where the slope is 
 easiest. When this path is chosen, the complete and com- 
 pact view of principles as a whole will be deferred until such 
 time as the learner shall have reached them severally by 
 means of facts which lie within his own experience. It is 
 upon this, which may be called the Elementary method, that 
 the present manual has been constructed ; the aim of which 
 has been to find a path through most familiar ground up to 
 philological principles. 
 
 It was assumed at starting that the English language would 
 furnish examples of all that is most typical in human speech, 
 and it has been the reward of the labourer in this instance 
 that his anticipation of the fecundity of his material has been 
 most abundantly and even unexpectedly verified. 
 
 The excellent verbal Index is the work of H. N. Harvey,Esq., 
 of the Ordnance Survey Office, Southampton; and while it 
 is the most valuable addition that this handbook could have 
 received, it is by me still more highly esteemed as a new 
 token of an old friendship. 
 
 Whatley Rectory, 
 July, 1871. 
 
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 In this Edition I have freely altered wherever I thought 
 I could improve; but this has not occasioned a single 
 change in matter of principle, or in the general plan of 
 arrangement. Notwithstanding many variations of detail, 
 this Edition is essentially one with the First. 
 
 The most considerable additions are in the Phonology of 
 the First and Second Chapters, and in the Particle-Compo- 
 sition of the Eleventh. 
 
 The division into paragraphs has made it necessary to 
 reconstruct the Index anew, and for this work I am again 
 indebted to the same unwearied friend as before. 
 
 SWANSWICK, 
 
 April 21, 1873. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 § 
 
 I. 
 
 § 
 
 2. 
 
 § 
 
 3- 
 
 § 
 
 4- 
 
 § 
 
 5- 
 
 § 
 
 6. 
 
 Second Period 
 
 Historic Sketch of the Rise and Formation of the English 
 Language ........ 
 
 External Relations .... 
 Domestic Relations .... 
 Influence of the Church on the Language 
 Characteristics of Anglo-Saxon . 
 Effects of the Norman Conquest 
 Literature of the Transition. First Period 
 
 § 7. Triumph of French 
 
 § 8. Literature of the Transition 
 
 § 9. King's English .... 
 
 § 10. Bilingualism of King's English . 
 
 § II. Conclusion ..... 
 
 Chapter I. On the English Alphabet . 
 
 Chapter II. Spelling and Pronunciation . 
 
 § Appendix on Spelling-Reform 
 
 Chapter III. Of Interjections .... 
 
 § 1. Natural Interjections . 
 § 2. Historical Interjections 
 
 Of the Parts of Speech 
 
 Of Presentive and Symbolic Words, and of In 
 flections 
 
 The Verbal Group 
 
 Chapter IV 
 Chapter V. 
 
 Chapter VI. 
 
 1. Strong Verbs 
 
 2. Mixed Verbs 
 
 3. Weak Verbs 
 
 4- 
 
 Verb-Making 
 
 2 
 18 
 
 24 
 32 
 41 
 
 45 
 
 54 
 
 59 
 69 
 
 85 
 92 
 
 101 
 
 144 
 179 
 
 i87 
 190 
 197 
 
 205 
 
 220 
 
 253 
 
 259 
 
 278 
 
 286 
 290 
 
Vlll 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 2. 
 
 3- 
 
 Chapter VIII. 
 
 Chapter IX. 
 
 Chapter VII. The Noun Group 
 
 I. Of the Substantive 
 Of the Adjective . 
 Of the Adverb 
 
 (i) The Flat Adverb 
 t (2) The Flexional Adverb 
 
 (3) The Phrasal Adverb 
 § The Numerals . 
 
 The Pronoun Group 
 
 1. Substantival Pronouns . 
 
 2. Adjectival Pronouns 
 
 3. Adverbial Pronouns 
 
 The Link-Word Group 
 
 1. Of Prepositions 
 
 2. Of Conjunctions 
 
 Of Syntax 
 
 1. Flat or Collocative Syntax 
 
 2. Syntax of Flexion 
 
 3. Syntax by Symbolic Words 
 
 Of Compounds .... 
 
 1. Compounds of the First Order 
 
 2. Compounds of the Second Order 
 
 3. Compounds of the Third Order 
 
 Chapter XII. Of Prosody, or the Musical Element in Speech 
 
 1. Of Sound as an Illustrative Agency 
 
 2. Of Sound as a Formative Agency . 
 
 3. Of Sound as an Instinctive Object of 
 
 Attraction 
 
 § Conclusion 
 
 Index of Letters and Words .... 
 
 Index of Names and Subjects .... 
 
 Chapter X. 
 
 Chapter XL 
 
 page 
 
 295 
 296 
 
 357 
 398 
 400 
 
 404 
 
 4i3 
 421 
 
 428 
 
 431 
 448 
 461 
 
 479 
 
 479 
 490 
 
 506 
 
 507 
 522 
 
 537 
 
 555 
 558 
 569 
 573 
 
 576 
 
 579 
 59 6 
 
 603 
 626 
 
 633 
 
 674 
 
\^ ! 
 
 
 HISTORIC SKETCH 
 
 OF THE RISE AND FORMATION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 1. The Philology of a language includes all that is meant 
 by its Grammar, and yet it is at the same time a distinct 
 study. This difference hinges upon the point of view from 
 which the language is contemplated. In grammar the view 
 is confined to the particular language, while in philology the 
 language is considered in regard to its external relations. 
 In grammar we seek rules for the regulation of domestic 
 usage : in philology we seek principles to explain the 
 habits of speech. Further, the rules of grammar are justified 
 by reference to the logical sense : the laws of philology have 
 to be established by external comparison and induction. 
 Thus grammar is a local and internal study of language : 
 philology is outward and (in its tendency) universal. 
 
 This outward look of philology takes two principal di- 
 rections. In the first place it will lead us to enquire into 
 the earlier habits of the particular language, that we 
 may be able to trace by what process of development it 
 
 b 
 
2 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 reached its present condition. This is the historical aspect 
 of philology. In the second place, it will lead us to bring 
 all this historical knowledge to the comparison of our 
 language with other languages, in order that we may be 
 able to discover principles of development and structure, 
 and base the framework of our particular language as far 
 as possible upon lines which are common to many languages, 
 with the further aim of seeking that which is universal and 
 essential to all. 
 
 This will explain the plan of the present treatise. It 
 begins with a short historic sketch of the origin of the 
 English language, and then proceeds to the delineation of 
 its parts in their mutual bearings and proportions. Every- 
 where the sense of relation and comparison underlies the 
 treatment, and passing notices of other languages are inter- 
 spersed here and there, to keep the reader from forgetfulness 
 of this essential condition. For whereas there are various 
 ways of viewing the difference between grammar and phi- 
 lology, there is none more full-front to the business than 
 this — that while grammar attends to the proprieties of a 
 language with an interest limited to the compass of its 
 literature, philology considers it in the widest possible re- 
 lations of comparison or contrast with other languages, its 
 paramount aim being the elucidation of language as a 
 branch of the science of humanity. 
 
 § 1. External Relations. 
 
 2. The English is one of the languages of the great Indo- 
 European (or Aryan) family, the members of which have 
 been traced across the double continent of Asia and Europe 
 through the Sanskrit, Persian, Greek, Latin, Slavonic, Gothic, 
 and Keltic languages. In order to illustrate the right of our 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 3 
 
 English language to a place in this series, it will suffice to 
 exhibit a few proofs of definite relationship between our 
 language on the one hand, and the classical languages of 
 Greece and Italy on the other. The readiest illustration of 
 this is to be found in the Transition of Consonants. When the 
 same words appear under altered forms in different members 
 of the same family of languages, the diversity of form is 
 found to have a regular method and analogy. Such an 
 analogy has been established between the varying consonants 
 which hold analogous positions in cognate languages, and 
 their variation has been reduced to rule by the German 
 philologer Jacob Grimm. He has founded the law of Con- 
 sonantal Transition, or consonantal equivalents. 
 
 A few easy examples will put the reader in possession of 
 the nature of this law. When a Welshman speaks English 
 in Shakespeare he often substitutes p for b, as Fluellen in 
 Henry V, v. 1 : ' Pragging knave, Pistoll, which you 
 and yourself and all the world know to be no petter than a 
 fellow, looke you now, of no merits : hee is come to me, and 
 prings me pread and sault yesterday, looke you, and bid me 
 eate my leeke,' &c. The Welsh parson, Sir Hugh Evans, in 
 Merry Wives, puts t for d : 'It were a goot motion' — ' The 
 tevil and his tarn' — and ' worts' for words, as : 
 
 ' Evans. Pauca verba ; (Sir John) good worts. 
 Falstaffe. Good worts ? good cabidge.' 
 
 Likewise f for v : 'It is that ferry person for all the orld'; 
 and 'fidelicet' for 'videlicet' — 'I most fehemently desire 
 you,' &c. 
 
 3. This familiar illustration has lost none of its force since 
 the time of Shakspeare. A recent traveller in North Wales 
 saw a railway truck at Conway on which some Welsh porter 
 had chalked ' Chester goots.' This variation at which we 
 
 b 2 
 
4 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 smile as a provincial peculiarity, offers the best clue to a 
 universal law of phonetic transition. It is not confined to 
 one country or to one family of languages. 
 
 The Semitic family, which is the great contrast to the 
 Indo-European, follows the same path in the phonetic varia- 
 tions of its dialects. 
 
 Between the Hebrew and Chaldee there is a well-marked 
 interchange of z and d ; while a third dialect, the Phoe- 
 nician, seems to have put a t for z (ts). The Hebrew 
 pronoun for this is zeh ; but in Chaldee it becomes 
 daa and den and di : the Hebrew word for male is zakar ; 
 but in Chaldee it appears as dekar: the Hebrew verb to 
 sacrifice is zavach ; but in Chaldee it is devach : the 
 Hebrew verb for being timid is zachal ; but in Chaldee it 
 is dechal. If we compare Hebrew with the third dialect 
 we get t for z. The Hebrew word for rock is zoor or tsoor, 
 after which a famous Phoenician citv seated on a rock was 
 called Zor, as it is always called in the Old Testament ; but 
 this word sounded in Greek ears from Phoenician mouths 
 ♦ so as to cause them to write it TCpos, Tyrus, whence we have 
 the name Tyre. It is to this sort of play upon the gamut 
 or scale of consonants, a play which is kept up between 
 kindred dialects, that Grimm, when he had reduced it to a 
 law, gave the name of Lautverschiebung, or Consonantal 
 Transition, reciprocity of consonants. 
 
 As, on the one hand, we find this reciprocity where 
 we find cognate dialects ; so, on the other, if we can 
 establish the fact that there is or has been such a con- 
 sonantal reciprocity between two languages, we have ob- 
 tained the strongest proof of their relationship. There are 
 traces of this kind between the English on the one hand 
 and the Classical languages on the other. 
 
 4. We suppose the reader is familiar with the twofold 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 division of the mute consonants into lip, tooth, and throat 
 consonants in the one direction, and into thin, middle, and 
 aspirate consonants in the other direction. If not, he should 
 learn this little table by heart, before he proceeds a step 
 further. Learn it by rote, both ways, both horizontally and 
 vertically. 
 
 Lip 
 
 (Labial). 
 
 Thin p 
 
 Medial b 
 Aspirate f 
 
 Tooth 
 
 (Dental). 
 
 t 
 d 
 |> = : S = th 
 
 Throat 
 
 (Guttural). 
 
 c = k 
 
 g 
 
 h (Saxon). 
 
 Tenues 
 
 Medials 
 
 Aspirates 
 
 By means of this classification of the mutes we are 
 able to shew traces of a law of transition having existed 
 between English and the Classical languages. We find 
 instances of words, for example, which begin with a thin 
 consonant in Greek or Latin or both, and the same word 
 is found in English or its cognate dialects beginning with 
 an aspirate. Thus, if the Latin or Greek word begins with 
 p the English word begins with f. Examples : nvp and 
 fire : npo, nparos, primus, compared with the Saxon words 
 fruma, /rem ; with the modern preposition from, which is 
 of the same root and original sense with for, fore, forth : 
 ttwXos, pullus, with foal, filly : pellis with fell : nv$, pugnus, 
 with fist : ivaTj]p, pater, with father : nevre with five, German 
 fiinf\ ttovs, pes, with foot : pecus with feoh : pasco with feed ': 
 piscis with fish : nXeKco with flax. 
 
 5. If the Classical word begins with an aspirate, the 
 English word begins with a medial : for example, the Greek 
 <I> or Latin f is found responsive to the English B. Thus, 
 (pr)y6s,fagzis, and beech ; (pvo>,fui, and be ; (pparpla,f rater, and 
 brother ; cpepa>, fero, and bear. The Greek e by the same 
 
6 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 rule responds to the English d ; as in 6r)p and deer ; Qvydrrjp 
 and daughter', 6vpa and door. 
 
 If the Greek or Latin has the medial, the English should 
 have the thin : that is to say, a Classic A or d should corre- 
 spond to our English t. So it does in h&Kpv, and tear : 8vo, 
 duo, and two : 8e<a, decern, and ten : 8epa>, domus, and timbran, 
 the Saxon verb for building : hevbpov, Spt)?, and tree : dingua, 
 archaic Latin for lingua, and tongue. These, and all such 
 illustrations, may be summarised for convenience sake in the 
 following mnemonic formula : — 
 
 T A M 
 
 where the Roman letters of the Latin word tam placed over 
 the Gothic letters of the German word Qlmt are intended to 
 bracket together the initial letters of Thins, Medials, and 
 Aspirates, so as to represent the order of transition. 
 
 In the use of this scheme, we will suppose the student to 
 be enquiring after the Greek and Latin analogues to the 
 English word kind. This word begins with a Tenuis or 
 thin consonant, and thus directs us to the letter t in the 
 Gothic word Amt. Over this t we find in the Latin word 
 an m, and by this we are taught that the Medial of k, 
 which is g (see Table, 4), will be the corresponding initial 
 in Greek and Latin. Thus we are directed to yev and 
 gigno as the analogues of kin and kind. The same process 
 will lead from knee to yow and genu, from ken and know to 
 
 yiVCCHTK(D. 
 
 6. These examples will satisfy the reader that here we 
 have traces of a regular law, and that our language is of one 
 and the same strain with the Greek and Latin — that is to 
 say, it is one of the Indo-European family. 
 
 A succession of small divergences which run upon stated 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. J 
 
 lines of variation — lines having a determinate relation to one 
 another, and constituting an orbit in which the transitional 
 movement revolves : — this is a phenomenon worthy of our 
 contemplation. It is the simplest example of a fact which 
 in other shapes will meet us again, namely, that the beauty 
 of philology springs out of that variety over unity which 
 makes all nature beautiful, and all study of nature profoundly 
 attractive. 
 
 • It will be easy to discover a great number of examples 
 which lie outside the above analogy. One important 
 cause of unconformability is the introduction of foreign 
 words. This applies to all Gothic words beginning with p, 
 which are foreigners and not subject to this law. There is 
 also a certain amount of accidental disturbance. Casualties 
 happen to words as to all mortal products : and in the course 
 of time their forms get defaced. The German language 
 offers many examples of this. If I want to understand the 
 consonantal analogies which existed between English and 
 German, I should prefer as a general rule to go to the oldest 
 form of German, because a conventional orthography, among 
 other causes, has in German led to a disfigurement of many 
 of the forms. The tendency of words to get disguised, is 
 therefore one reason why these analogies do not hold more 
 completely than they do. In process of time new principles 
 of word-forming are admitted, new words and new forms 
 overgrow and supersede the old; even the old words con- 
 form more or less to the new fashions, and become changed 
 in their appearance, so that the traces of old kindred are 
 obliterated. 
 
 7. But if such a relation as that which is condensed in the 
 above mnemonic is clearly established as existing between 
 the Classical languages on the one hand, and the Gothic on 
 the other, much more distinctly and largely may it be 
 
8 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 shewn that a like relation exists internally between the two 
 main subdivisions of the Gothic family. These two parts 
 are the High Dutch and the Low Dutch. The Modern or 
 New High Dutch is what we now call ' German/ the great 
 literary language of Central Europe, inaugurated by Luther 
 in his translation of the Bible. Behind this great modern 
 speech we have two receding stages of its earlier forms, 
 the Middle High Dutch or the language of the Epic of 
 the Nibelungen, and the Old High Dutch or the language 
 of the Scripture paraphrasts Otfrid and Notker. The 
 Alt-Hoch-Deutsch goes back to the tenth century; the 
 Mittel-Hoch-Deutsch goes back to the thirteenth; and 
 the Neu-Hoch-Deutsch dates from the Reformation of the 
 sixteenth century. This is the High Dutch division of 
 the Gothic languages. 
 
 Round about these, in a broken curve, are found the 
 representatives of the Low Dutch family. Their earliest 
 literary traces go back to the fourth century, and appear in 
 the villages of Dacia, in lands which slope to the Danube ; 
 where the country is by foreigners called Wallachia. It is 
 from this region that we have the Mceso-Gothic Gospels 
 and other relics of the planting of Christianity. But 
 the greatest body of the Low Dutch is to the north and 
 west of Germany. Along the shores of the Baltic, and 
 far inland, where High Dutch is established in the edu- 
 cated ranks, the mass of the folk speak Low Dutch, 
 which locally passes by the name of Platt-Deutsch. The 
 kingdom of the Netherlands, where it is a truly national 
 speech, the speech of all ranks of the community — the 
 kingdom of Belgium, where, under the name of Flemish, 
 it is striving for recognition, and has gained a place 
 in literature through the pen of Hendrik Conscience — 
 the old district of the Hanseatic cities, the Lower Elbe, 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 9 
 
 Hamburgh, Liibeck, Bremen, — all this is Nieder-Deutsch, 
 Low Dutch. 
 
 8. To this family belongs the English language in respect 
 of that which is the oldest and most material part of it. 
 It has received so many additions from other sources, and 
 has worked them up with so much individuality of effect, 
 as to have in fact produced a new language, and a language 
 which, from external circumstances, seems likely to become 
 the parent of a new strain of languages. But all the out- 
 growth and exuberance of the English language clusters 
 round a Low Dutch centre. 
 
 It would be a departure from the general way of philo- 
 logers to include under the term of Low Dutch the languages 
 of Scandinavia. The latter have very strong individualising 
 features of their own, such as the post-positive article, and 
 a form for the passive verb. The post-positive article is 
 highly curious. In Modern Danish or Swedish the inde- 
 finite article a or an is represented by en for masculine and 
 feminine, and et for neuter. Thus en skov signifies a ivood 
 (shaw) and et tree signifies a tree. But if you want to say 
 the wood, the tree, you suffix the selfsame articles to 
 the nouns, and then they have the effect of the definite 
 article : skoven, the wood ; trccet, the tree ; Jutetrczet, the 
 Christmas tree. 
 
 9. The possession of a form for the passive is hardly less 
 remarkable, when we consider that the Gothic languages in 
 general make the passive, as we do in English, by the aid 
 of the verb to be. Active to love, passive to be loved. But 
 the Scandinavian dialects just add an s to the active, and 
 that makes it passive. This s is a relic of an old reflexive 
 pronoun, so that it is most like the French habit of getting 
 a sort of a passive by prefixing the reflexive pronoun se. 
 Thus in French marier is to marry (active), of parents who 
 
10 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 marry their children ; but if you have to express to many 
 in the sense of to get married or to be married, you say se 
 marier. Examples of the Danish passive form : — 
 
 Active. Passive. 
 
 At give, to give At gives, to be given 
 
 At elske, to love At elskes, to be loved 
 
 At finde, to find At findes, to be found 
 
 At faae, to get At faaes, to be gotten 
 
 At drive, to drive At drives, to be driven 
 
 There is only one other language of this great family that 
 has preserved any traces of a passive verb, and that is the 
 Mceso-Gothic. Here the form was more elaborate than in 
 the Scandinavian dialects, but was already far gone towards 
 dissolution at the date of the extant writings. Between the 
 Icelandic, or, to speak more generally, the Northern (Nor- 
 rsena) speech on the one side, and the Mceso-Gothic on the 
 other, we may figure to ourselves the base of the position of 
 the Low Dutch half of the Gothic family. 
 
 10. A large proportion of the consonantal variations 
 between the High Dutch on the one hand, and the Low 
 Dutch on the other, may be symbolised by writing the Ger- 
 man word famt over the English word tame, thus — 
 
 fa m t 
 
 t a me 
 
 In this mnemonic, the final e of tame is there merely to 
 make an English word of it, in order to indicate that the 
 symbols t, a, m, in this place, are doing duty for the English 
 group, that is, the Low Dutch group, in the comparison; 
 while the letters fa, m, t, which form a German word, 
 represent the High Dutch side of the comparison. The 
 combination of fa is useful as a reminder that in High 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 II 
 
 Dutch a sibilant, that is f or 5, is very often the sub- 
 stitute for an aspirate. 
 
 Here follow two columns of Low Dutch in comparison 
 
 with one of High Dutch. 
 
 N.H.D. 
 
 or German. 
 
 3ef>tt 
 3iel 
 
 3temeit 
 Simmer 
 
 3uubm 
 3tcf)en 
 3cug 
 3uttvje 
 
 3at)tt 
 3n>ei 
 
 3a()re 
 3eic()ctt 
 3crren 
 3eigen 
 
 m 
 
 
 
 T 
 
 English. 
 
 
 M<ESO-GOTHIC, 
 
 
 Taihun 
 
 Ten 
 
 ,2k 
 
 Til 
 
 Till 
 
 
 Timan 
 
 beTeem 
 
 
 Timr 
 
 Timber 
 
 
 Tindan 
 
 Tinder 
 
 
 Tiuhan 
 
 Teon (A.S.) 
 
 
 Taui 
 
 Toy 
 
 
 Tuggo 
 
 Tongue 
 
 <A 
 
 Tunthus 
 
 Tooth 
 
 teJi 
 
 Tvai 
 
 Two 
 
 M 
 
 Tagr 
 
 Tear 
 
 
 Taikns 
 
 Token 
 
 
 Tairan 
 
 Tear 
 
 
 Teilian 
 
 Taecan (A.S.) 
 
 
 2K 
 
 
 A 
 
 
 
 2)rei 
 
 Threis 
 
 Three 
 
 
 ©0$ 
 
 Thata 
 
 That 
 
 
 $>a 
 
 Thu 
 
 Thou 
 
 Tu. 
 
 £>id& 
 
 Thuk 
 
 Thee 
 
 /t 
 
 JDcnfen 
 
 Thagkjan 
 
 Think 
 
 
 £>ccfy 
 
 Thuh 
 
 Though 
 
 
 £uft>en 
 
 Thulan 
 
 Thole 
 
 
 3>en 
 
 Thaim 
 
 Them 
 
 
 Surety 
 
 Thairh 
 
 Through 
 
 
 Suvft 
 
 Thaurstei 
 
 Thirst 
 
 
 JDatra 
 
 Than 
 
 Then 
 
 
 Sknf 
 
 Thagks 
 
 Thank 
 
 
 Surfeit 
 
 Thaurban 
 
 pearfan (A. 
 
 S.) 
 
12 
 
 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 
 $ 
 
 
 
 IV! 
 
 
 N.H.D. 
 
 or German. 
 
 M(ESO-GOTHIC. 
 
 English. 
 
 £ag 
 
 Dags 
 
 Day 
 
 XeiC 
 
 Dails 
 
 Deal 
 
 Sat 
 
 Dal 
 
 Dale 
 
 £aub 
 
 Daubs 
 
 Deaf 
 
 £od)ter 
 
 Dauhtar 
 
 Daughter 
 
 £aufen 
 
 Daupjan 
 
 Dip 
 
 £or 
 
 Daur 
 
 Door 
 
 'lob 
 
 Dauthus 
 
 Death 
 
 %at 
 
 Deds 
 
 Deed 
 
 Srageu 
 
 Dragen 
 
 Drag 
 
 £reiBm 
 
 Dreiban 
 
 Drive 
 
 Xrinfcn 
 
 Drigkjan 
 
 Drink 
 
 Setg 
 
 Daigs 
 
 Dough 
 
 11. By the above lists it is made plain that the Mceso- 
 Gothic sides with the English or Low Dutch, as against the 
 German or High Dutch. A few examples to the same effect 
 are here added from the Old High Dutch, as contrasted 
 with the English, Anglo-Saxon, Dutch, and Scandinavian 
 equivalents : — 
 
 .H.D. 
 
 English, &c. 
 
 Zuo 
 
 To 
 
 Zagal 
 
 Tail 
 
 Zahar 
 
 Tear 
 
 Zala 
 
 Tale 
 
 Zeljan 
 
 Tell 
 
 Zand 
 
 Tooth 
 
 Zehan 
 
 Ten 
 
 Zeichan 
 
 Token 
 
 Zelt 
 
 Tent 
 
 Zam 
 
 Tame 
 
 Zerjan 
 
 Tear 
 
 Ziagal 
 
 Tile 
 
 O. H. D. 
 
 English, &c. 
 
 Zies-tag 
 
 Tuesday 
 
 Ziht 
 
 Tiht (A. S.) 
 
 Zil 
 
 Till 
 
 Zimbar 
 
 Timber 
 
 Zit 
 
 Tide 
 
 Ziuhan 
 
 Teon (A. S.) 
 
 Zugil 
 
 Tackle 
 
 Zol 
 
 Toll 
 
 Zomi 
 
 Tom (Dan. & Swed.) 
 Tomr (Isl.) 
 
 Zorn 
 
 Torn (A. S.) 
 Toorn (Dutch.) 
 
 In like manner the Old High Dutch Zota, tuft, corresponds 
 to our Tot in local names, as Tothill, or TuthilL 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 13 
 
 The Old High German zpum is in Dutch toom, in 
 Swedish toem, in Danish toemme, in Icelandic /aum, in 
 Anglo-Saxon /yme, and in English team. 
 
 12. The examples thus far are all based on initial letters : 
 it will be well to shew like analogies in the middle and end 
 of words. The comparison shall be confined to English and 
 German, as being that which will be most generally useful 
 
 and convenient. The mnemonic \ ^ ™ m > continues to 
 
 mark the path of the Lautverschiebung between High and 
 Low Dutch. 
 
 
 <Sa 
 
 
 
 3B 
 
 
 £ 
 
 
 T 
 
 i 
 
 k 
 
 
 A 
 
 
 Me 
 
 A , 
 
 ( 
 
 eg 
 
 it t 
 
 (Srbe 
 
 earth 
 
 Sett 
 
 bed 
 
 bag 
 
 that 
 
 
 cetbe 
 
 both 
 
 SBtoi 
 
 bread 
 
 toaS 
 
 what ^ 
 
 Stcb 
 
 leoS (A.S.) 
 
 ©tut 
 
 blood 
 
 2ocS 
 
 lot 
 
 
 Jpetbc 
 
 heath 
 
 gut 
 
 good 
 
 fttfS 
 
 sweet 
 
 
 SBibbcr 
 
 wether 
 
 Slant 
 
 hide 
 
 ftaf* 
 
 fat 
 
 
 8au& 
 
 leaf 
 
 lout 
 
 loud 
 
 ftttfS 
 
 foot /uf 
 
 Scbcn 
 
 life 
 
 leit 
 
 lead 
 
 gvefg 
 
 great 
 
 
 (Strcben 
 
 strife 
 
 2»ut 
 
 mood 
 
 £af$ 
 
 hate 
 
 
 Stebe 
 
 love 
 
 Drt 
 
 ord (A.S.) 
 
 Ijeifg 
 
 hot 
 
 
 £abtd?t 
 
 havoc 
 
 better 
 
 rider 
 
 iauf 
 
 leap 
 
 
 
 
 (Seite 
 
 side 
 
 £auf 
 
 heap 
 
 
 
 
 ©crt 
 
 word 
 
 koeifs 
 
 white 
 
 
 
 
 ttltt 
 
 wood 
 
 <2d)lruf3 sweat 
 
 
 
 
 @<fe 
 
 edge 
 
 Staffer 
 
 water 
 
 
 
 
 Stc^pet stubble 
 
 effen 
 
 eat 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 trifle n 
 
 nettle 
 
 wit 
 
 v-td. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Wlal^ 
 
 malt 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 aRfitlj 
 
 mint 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 9£ut$ 
 
 wort 
 heart 
 
 CjrtT&A 
 
 
 
 
 Sletj 
 
 net 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^itje 
 
 heat 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 These illustrations of the reciprocity of consonants are not 
 
1 4 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 co-extensive with the whole scheme as devised by Grimm, 
 but they contain the more obvious and conspicuous parts of 
 it. What has been said will shew the nature of the Law, 
 and a little reflection will make it clear that these analogies 
 carry with them an evidence of original identity. 
 
 13. This evidence would be far less perfect than it is, but 
 for the material which has been supplied by means of 
 Christianity. To this cause we trace the preservation of 
 the oldest literary records of our family of languages. In 
 the fourth century Scripture was translated into Mceso- 
 Gothic: in the seventh century Anglo-Saxon began to be 
 cultivated by means of Christianity, and during five centuries 
 were produced those writings which have partly survived. In 
 the eleventh and twelfth centuries the spread of Christianity 
 northwards caused the Norsk Sagas to be committed to 
 writing. Literary culture has been transplanted from the old 
 into the midst of the young and rising peoples of the world, 
 and hence it has come to pass that among the nations which 
 have sprung into existence since Christianity, a better record 
 of their primitive language has been preserved. Hence 
 the striking fact that we can trace the written history of 
 our English language within this island for the space of 
 twelve hundred years. Christianity was the cause of its 
 early cultivation ; and this has made it possible for us to 
 follow back the traces of our language into a far higher 
 relative antiquity than that in which the languages of Greece 
 and Rome first begin to emerge into historic view. 
 
 14. This has been very generally the case with the Chris- 
 tian nations of the world. Their literature begins with their 
 conversion ; and but for that event it would have been long 
 delayed. The rude tribes of the distant islands have now, 
 by means of the missionaries, the best books of the world 
 translated into their own tongues ; and this at a stage 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 15 
 
 of existence in which they could not produce a written 
 record. How carefully the Mceso-Gothic language was con- 
 sidered and prepared for the expression of Scripture, 
 becomes manifest to the philological student, when he 
 examines those precious relics of the fourth century which 
 bear the name of Ulphilas. Here we often meet the very 
 words with which we are so familiar in our English Bible, 
 but linked together by a flexional structure that finds no 
 parallel short of Sanskrit. This is the oldest book we 
 can go back to, as written in a language like our own. 
 It has therefore a national interest for us ; but apart from 
 this, it has a nobility and grandeur all its own, as it is 
 one of the finest specimens of ancient language. It is 
 by this, and this alone, that we are able to realise to how 
 high a pitch of inflection the speech of our own race was 
 once carried. Inflections which in German, or even in 
 Anglo-Saxon, are but fragmentarily preserved, like relics of 
 an expiring fashion, are there seen standing forth in all their 
 archaic rigidity and polysyllabicity. 
 
 15. In the subjoined Lord's Prayer the English is a little 
 distorted in order to act as a guide to the Gothic words : — 
 
 THE LORD'S PRAYER. 
 
 From the Mceso-Gothic Version of Ulphilas ; made about a.d. 365. 
 
 Aivaggelyo thairh Matthaiu. 
 
 Gospel through Matthew. 
 
 Atta tmsar thu in himinam 
 
 Father our thott in heaven 
 
 Veihnai namo thein 
 
 Be-hallowed name thine 
 
 Kvimai thiudinassus theins 
 Coyne kingdom thine 
 
l6 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 Vairthai vilja theins, sve in himina yah ana airthai 
 Be-done will thine as in heaven yea on earth 
 
 Hlaif unsarana thana sinteinan gif uns himma daga 
 Loaf our the continuous give us this day. 
 
 Yah aflet uns thatei skulans siyaima 
 Yea off-let us that-which ow'mg we-be 
 
 Svasve yah veis afletam thaim skulam unsaraim 
 So-as yea we off let those debtors of ours 
 
 Yah ni briggais uns in fraistubnyai 
 Yea not bring us in temptation 
 
 Ak lausei uns af thamma ubilin 
 But loose us of the evil 
 
 Unte theina ist thiudangardi 
 For thine is kingdom 
 
 Yah mahts Yah vulthus 
 Yea might Yea glory 
 
 In aivins. Amen. 
 In eternity. Amen. 
 
 16. The Low Dutch family of languages falls into two 
 natural divisions, the Southern or Teutonic Platt-Deutsch, 
 and the Northern or Scandinavian. It was at the point of 
 junction between these halves — at the neck of the Danish 
 peninsula, along the banks of the Elbe, and along the south- 
 west coasts of the Baltic — that our continental progenitors 
 lived and spoke. A question has been raised, whether we 
 are to be classed with the northern or the southern division 
 of this great family. 
 
 A great deal may be said, and in fact has been said, to 
 prove that we are Scandinavians, and to draw us over 
 the middle border ; but it generally resolves itself into a 
 number of points of similarity rather than into an essential 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 1 7 
 
 and ancient similitude. Words and names are compared as 
 if it were forgotten how largely we have borrowed from the 
 Danes in historic times. Our word back may be called as 
 evidence. The corresponding word is bak in Icelandic, and 
 bag in Danish ; but in German it has been long disused, and 
 its place occupied by Sftucfen. The other word had in 
 the High Dutch at an early date acquired that special 
 sense which gave to the old French language the word bacon, 
 now so familiar in England. The general word for dorsum 
 has long been bak in the northern branch of the Gothic 
 family, and Sftiicfen in the southern or Teutonic half. We 
 retain both of these words ; back and ridge are equally terms 
 of general import with us. 
 
 17. The Saxons were a border people, and spoke a Low 
 Dutch strongly impregnated with Scandinavian associations. 
 But the more we go back into the elder forms on either side, 
 the more does it seem to come out clear, that our mother 
 tongue is, in fundamentals, to be identified with the Platt- 
 Deuisch, the dialect of the Hanseatic cities, the dialect which 
 has been erected into a national language in that which we 
 call the Dutch, as spoken in the kingdom of the Netherlands. 
 The people of Bremen call their dialect Nieder Sdchisch, i. e. 
 Lowland Saxon ; and the genuine original ' Saxony ' of 
 European history was in this part, namely, the middle and 
 lower Met of the Elbe. The name of ' Saxon' has always 
 adhered to our nation, though we have seemed almost as 
 if we had been willing to divest ourselves of it. We have 
 called our country England, and our language English : yet 
 our neighbours west and north, the Welsh and the Gael, have 
 still called us Saxons, and our language Saxonish. It has 
 become the literary habit of recent times to use the term 
 ' Saxon' as a distinction for the early period of our history 
 and language and literature, and to reserve the term 
 
 c 
 
l8 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 1 English' for the later period. There is some degree of 
 literary impropriety in this, because the Saxons called their 
 own language Uftglisc. On this ground some critics insist 
 that we should let the word English stand for the whole 
 extent of our insular history, which they would divide into 
 Old English, Middle English, and New English. But on 
 the whole, the terms already in use seem bolder, and more 
 distinct. They enable us to distinguish between Saxon and 
 Anglian ; and they also comprise the united nation under 
 the compound term Anglo-Saxon. As expressive of the 
 dominant power, it is not very irregular to call the whole 
 nation briefly Saxon. 
 
 § 2. Domestic relations. 
 
 18. We have no contemporary account of the Saxon colo- 
 nisation. The story which Baeda gives us in the eighth 
 century, is, that there were people from three tribes, Angles, 
 Saxons, and Jutes. The latter were said to be still distin- 
 guishable in Kent and the Isle of Wight ; but, except in this 
 statement, we have lost all trace of the Jutes. The Angles 
 and Saxons long stood apart and distinct from one another ; 
 they had each a corner of their own. The Anglians oc- 
 cupied the north and east of England, and the Saxons the 
 south and west. The line of Watling Street, running from 
 London to Chester, may be taken as the boundary line 
 between these races, whom we shall sometimes combine, 
 according to prevalent usage, under the joint name of Anglo- 
 Saxons, or under the dominant name of Saxons. 
 
 When the Anglo-Saxons began to make themselves masters 
 of this island, they found here a population which is known 
 in history as the British race. This people spoke the language 
 which is now represented by the Welsh. It was an ancient 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 1 9 
 
 Keltic dialect somewhat tinctured with Latin. The Britons 
 had been in subjection to Roman dominion for a space of 
 between three and four centuries. This would naturally have 
 left a trace upon their language. And hence we find that 
 of the words which the Saxons learnt from the Britons, some 
 are undoubted Latin, others are doubtful whether they should 
 be called Latin or Keltic. Of the first class are those ele- 
 ments of local nomenclature, -Chester, from castrum, a 
 fortified place — Saxon form, ceasier : street, from strata, i. e. 
 ' via strata' = a causeway — Saxon form, street: port, a word 
 derived from the Latin porta, a gate, signified in Saxon times 
 just ' a town, a market-town.' This is the sense of it in 
 such a compound as Newport Pagnell. Wall, Saxon weall, 
 is through the same filtered process a descendant of the 
 Latin vallum, a rampart : mil, from the Latin ' milia pas- 
 suum,' a thousand paces, has lived through all the ages to 
 our day, and we are the only people of Western Europe 
 who still make use of this Roman measure of distance. The 
 French keep to their league (lieue), the measure which they 
 had in use before the Romans troubled them, the old Keltic 
 leuga. In Saxon poetry we find the old highways called by 
 the suggestive name of milpdtas, the mile-paths. Carcern, a 
 prison, is the Latin career, with the Saxon word em, a build- 
 ing, mingled into the last syllable : tigol, a tile, is the Roman 
 tegula. At this time, too, we must have received the names 
 of many plants and fruits, as pyrige, the pear, Latin pyrus. 
 
 19. Many of the words which pertain to the personal and 
 social comforts of life, were in this manner learnt at second- 
 hand from Roman culture : as disc, a dish, from his handing 
 of which a royal officer all through the Saxon period bore 
 the title of disc-J>egn, dish-thane. 
 
 When we consider that there was much originally in com- 
 mon between the Latin and the Keltic, and, even again, 
 
 c 2 
 
20 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 between these two and the Gothic languages, it is no matter 
 of surprise that after so long a period we should find it 
 difficult to sift out with absolute distinctness the words which 
 we owe to the British influence. The most certain are 
 those names of rivers and mountains, and some elements in 
 the names of ancient towns, which have been handed on 
 from Keltic times to ours. Thus the river-name Avon is 
 unquestionably British, and it is the common word for river 
 in Wales to this day. So again with regard to that large 
 class of river-names which are merely variations of the one 
 name Isca — Usk, Ux, Wis- in Wisbech, The Wash, Axe, Exe, 
 Esk in the Lothians, Ouse, by academic corruption Isis, 
 and by municipal corruption Ox- in Oxford. All these 
 are but many forms of one Keltic word, uisg, water ; which 
 is found in usquebagh, the Irish for eau-de-vie, and in the 
 word whiskey. There are however, on our map, a great 
 many names of rivers and cities and mountains, of which, 
 though so precise an account cannot be rendered, it is 
 generally concluded that they are British — because they run 
 back historically into the time when British was prevalent 
 — because they are not Saxon — because, in short, they 
 cannot otherwise be accounted for. Such are, Thames, 
 Tamar, Frome, Derwent, Trent, Tweed, Severn, and the 
 bulk of our river-names. In like manner of the oldest town- 
 names, and some names of districts. 
 
 20. The first syllable in JFz>zchester appears, through 
 the Latin form of Venta, to have been the same as the 
 Welsh gwent, a plain or open country. The first syllable 
 in Manchester- is probably the old Keltic man, place ; just 
 as it probably is in the archaic name for Bath, Ake-man- 
 chester. York is so called from the Keltic river-name Eure; 
 from an elder form of which came the old Latin form of the 
 city-name Ebur-acum. But often where the sense cannot 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 21 
 
 be so plainly traced, we acquiesce in the opinion that names 
 are British, because their place in history seems to require 
 it. Such are, for instance, Kent, London, Gloucester. 
 
 We will add a few words that have a fair Keltic reputation, 
 basket, bran, breeches, clout, crag, crock, down, den, manor, 
 paddock, want, wicket. The word moor, for wild or waste land, 
 I imagine to be Keltic, but naturalised by the Saxons on the 
 continent before the immigration. 
 
 It is very probable that a few Keltic words are still living 
 on among us in the popular names of wild plants. The 
 cockle of our corn-fields has been with great reason attributed 
 to the Britons. The Saxon form is coccel, but the word is 
 not found in the kindred dialects. This is the more re- 
 markable, because most of the tree and plant names are 
 common to us with the German, Dutch, Danish, &c. The 
 words alder, apple, ash, aspen, beam, bean, beech, bere, birch, 
 bloom, blossom, bramble, clover ; corn, elm, flax, grass, holt, 
 leek, lime, moss, nightshade, oak, radish, reed, root, rye, shaw, 
 thistle, thorn, tree, ivaybread, weed, wheat, wood, wormwood, 
 wort, yarrow, yew, — are more or less common to the cognate 
 languages. This is not the case with cockle, and therefore it 
 may perhaps be British. Another plant -name, which is pro- 
 bably British, is willow. This may well be traced to the 
 Welsh helig as its nearer relative, without interfering with the 
 more distant claims of saugh, salloiv, salix. Whin also, 
 and furze, have perhaps a right here. With strong proba- 
 bility also may we add to this botanical list the terms 
 husk, haw, and more particularly cod, a word that merits 
 a special remark. In Anglo-Saxon times it meant a bag, 
 a purse or wallet. 1 Thence it was applied to the seed- 
 bags of plants, as pease-cod. This seems to be the Welsh 
 
 1 See a spirited passage in the Saxon Chronicle of Peterborough, a.d. 1 131, 
 and my note there. 
 
22 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 cwd. The puff-ball is in Welsh cwd-y-mwg, bag of smoke. 
 Owen Pughe quotes this Welsh adage : — ' Egor dy gwd 
 pan gaech borchell': i.e. 'Open thy bag when canst get 
 a pig ! ' — an expression which for picturesqueness must be 
 allowed the palm over our English proverb ' Never say no to 
 a good offer.' What establishes the British origin of this 
 word is the large connection it has in Welsh, and its appear- 
 ance also in Brittany. Thus in Welsh there is the diminutive 
 form cydyn, a little pouch, and the verb cuddio, to hide, with 
 many allied words ; in Breton there is kod, pocket. 
 
 The compound cock-boat is probably a bilingual compound, 
 of which the first part is the Welsh cwch, a boat, a word 
 which has several derivatives in Welsh. 
 
 The word clock, which signifies bell in German (©focf'e) 
 and in French (cloche), is undoubtedly Keltic. A bell in 
 Welsh is clock, in Gaelic clag, and in Manx dag. But this 
 word did not come into our language (probably) till the 
 twelfth century. 
 
 Bard is unquestionably British, and so is glen, and like- 
 wise flannel ; but then these made their entry later, and do 
 not belong to the present subject, which is the immediate 
 influence of the British on the Saxon. 
 
 21. We can never expect to know with anything like pre- 
 cision what were the relations of the British and Saxon 
 languages to each other and to the Latin language, until each 
 has been studied comparatively to a degree of exactness 
 beyond anything which has yet been attempted. All the 
 Gothic dialects must be taken into comparison on the one 
 hand, and all the Keltic dialects on the other. The interesting 
 question for us is — How far the British population at large 
 was Romanised ? Some think that habits of speaking 
 Latin were almost universal, and they appeal to the rude 
 inscribed stones of the earlier centuries which are found in 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 23 
 
 Wales, and which are in a Latin base enough to be attri- 
 buted to illiterate stonemasons. On this view, which re- 
 ceives support also from the number of Latin words in 
 Welsh, the arrival of the Saxons prevented this island from 
 being the home of a Romanesque people like the French 
 or Spanish. 
 
 22. The British language as now spoken in Wales is 
 called, by those who speak it, Cymraeg; but the Anglo- 
 Saxons called it Wylsc, and the people who spoke it they 
 called Walas, which we have modernised into Wales and 
 Welsh. So the Germans of the continent called the Italians 
 and their language $8e(fcr\ At various points on the 
 frontiers of our race, we find them affixing this name on the 
 conterminous Romance-speaking people. This is the most 
 probable account of the names Wallachia, the Walloons 
 in Belgium, and the Canton Wallis in Switzerland. On 
 this principle we called the Romanised Britons, and the 
 Germans called the Italians, by the same name — Welsh. In 
 Acts x. 1, where we read 'Cornelius, a centurion of the band 
 called the Italian band/ Luther's version has ' Cornelius, ein 
 Hauptmann von der Schaar, die da heisst die Welsche.' The 
 French, who were such unwelcome visitors and settlers in this 
 country in the reign of Edward the Confessor, are called by 
 the contemporary annalist ' }?a welisce men.' When Edward 
 himself came from the life of an exile in France, he was said 
 by the chronicler to have come ' hider to land of weallande.' 
 It is the same word which forms the last syllable in Corn- 
 wall, for the Kelts who dwelt there were by the Saxons 
 named the Walas of Kernyw. 
 
 The word was weal or wealh, feminine wylen ; and it is an 
 illustration of the servile condition to which the old inhabitants 
 were reduced, that the words wealh and wylen were used to 
 signify male and female slave. 
 
 
24 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 § 3. Influence of the Church on the Language. 
 
 23. About the year a.d. 6oo, Christianity began to be 
 received by the Saxons. The Jutish kingdom of Kent was 
 the first that received the Gospel, and the Church was 
 supreme in Kent before Northumbria began to be converted. 
 Yet the Anglian kingdom of Northumbria gained afterwards 
 the leading position as a Christian nation in Saxondom ; and 
 being distinguished for learning and literature as well as for 
 zeal, this people exerted a permanent influence on the 
 national language. Intimately connected with this is the 
 political supremacy which the northern kingdom enjoyed 
 in this island for a hundred years. It is evident that there 
 was great and substantial progress in religion, civilisation, and 
 learning ; of which fact the permanent memorial is the name 
 and works of Baeda, who died in 735, after having seen the 
 decline of the greatness of his people. 
 
 While Canterbury was the metropolis of Christianity, the 
 kino-dom of Northumbria was its most powerful seat. It 
 was the securing of this national Church in the Roman 
 interest that effectually put a stop to the progress of the 
 Scotian discipline in this island. The power which this 
 nation wielded, and the admiration she excited in her 
 neighbours, caused them to emulate her example, to read 
 her books, to form their language after hers, and to call 
 it englisc. The Angles first produced a cultivated book- 
 speech, and they had the natural reward of inventors and 
 pioneers, that of setting a name to their product. Of 
 all the losses which are deplored by the investigator of 
 the English language, perhaps there is none greater than 
 this, that the whole Anglian vernacular literature should 
 have perished in the ravages of the Danes upon the North- 
 humbrian monasteries. Of the existence of such a native 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 25 
 
 literature there is no room for doubt. Baeda tells us of such ; 
 and he himself was occupied on a translation when he died. 
 Thus the obscure name of Angle emerged into celebrity, and 
 being accepted first for the generic name of the Saxon 
 language, passed next to the land, and afterwards to the 
 inhabitants of the land. And now, as in the early time, 
 though it does not designate the British Empire, yet it does 
 designate the language which is the common vehicle of 
 thought throughout that Empire. 
 
 24. The extant works of Baeda are all in Latin, but they 
 afford occasional glimpses of information about the spoken 
 Englisc of his day. As for example, in the Epistle to 
 Ecgbcrht, he advises that prelate to make all his flock learn 
 by heart the Creed and the Lord's Prayer. In Latin, if they 
 understand it, by all means, says he, — but in their own tongue 
 if they do not know Latin. Which, he adds, is not only the 
 case with laity, but with clerks likewise and monks. And 
 markedly insisting on his theme, as if even then the battle of 
 the vernacular had to be fought, he goes on to give his reasons 
 why he had often given copies of translations to folk that 
 were no scholars, and many of them priests too. 
 
 One of his most interesting chapters is that in which he 
 gives the traditional story of the vernacular poet Coedmon, 
 who by divine inspiration was gifted with the power of song, 
 for the express purpose of rendering the Scripture narratives 
 into popular verse. The extant poems of the Creation and 
 Fall and Redemption, which are preserved in archaic Saxon 
 verse, are attributed to this Caedmon ; and it is possible that 
 they may be his work, having undergone in the process 
 of copying a partial modernisation. We gather from the 
 account in Baeda, that the practice of making ballads was in 
 a high state of activity, and also that vernacular poetry was 
 used as a vehicle of popular instruction in the seventh 
 
26 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 century in Northumbria. And it is interesting to reflect that 
 in all our island there is no district which to this day has an 
 equal reputation for lyric poetry, whether we think of the 
 medieval ballads, or of Burns, or of the Minstrelsy of the 
 Scottish Border. 
 
 25. It was in the monastery of Whitby, under the famous 
 government of the abbess Hilda, that the first sacred poet of 
 our race devoted his life to the vocation to which he had been 
 mysteriously called. If something of the legendary hangs 
 over his personal history, this only shews how strongly his 
 poetry had stirred the imagination of his people. A nation 
 that could believe their poet to be divinely called, was the 
 nation to produce poets, and to elevate the genius of their 
 language. Such was the Anglian kingdom of Northumbria, 
 and here it was that our language first received high cul- 
 tivation. 
 
 It is remarkable that, while the peoples of the southern 
 and western and south-eastern parts of the kingdom con- 
 tinually called themselves Saxons (whence such local names 
 as Wessex, Essex, Sussex, Middlesex), yet they never appear 
 in any of their extant literature to call their language Seaxisc, 
 but always englisc 1 . The explanation of this must be sought, 
 as I have already indicated, in that early leadership which 
 was enjoyed by the kingdom of Northumbria in the 
 seventh and eighth centuries. The office of bretwalda, 
 a kind of elective chieftainship of all Britain, was held 
 by several Northumbrian kings in succession. How high 
 this title must have sounded in the ears of cotemporaries 
 may be imagined from the fact that it is after the same 
 model as their name for the Almighty. The latter was 
 
 1 Yet we find the Latin equivalent of Seaxisc, as in Asser's Life of Alfred, 
 where the vernacular is called Saxonica lingua. Asser however was a Welsh- 
 man. In Cod. Dipl. 241, 'in commune silfa q' nos saxonice in gemennisse 
 dicimus.' Also 833, 867. 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 2 J 
 
 alwalda, the All-wielding. So Bretwalda was the wielder 
 of Britain, or the Emperor of all the States in Britain. 
 
 26. The culture of Northumbria overlived the term of its 
 political supremacy. For a century and a half the northern part 
 of the island was distinguished by the growth of a native 
 Christian literature, and of Christian art. Two names are 
 prominently associated with this Northumbrian school, and 
 they also mark the extremities of the brightest part of its dura- 
 tion. The first is Benedict Biscop, an Anglian by birth, who 
 made five visits to Rome, and founded the monastery of 
 Wearmouth in 672. The other was Alcuin, by whose aid 
 Charlemagne laid the foundations of learning in his vast 
 dominions. Alcuin died in 805. 
 
 Scripture translations, sacred hymns, and books of devo- 
 tion were the most active instruments of this development. 
 Alongside of these were retained the old heroic songs 
 and epics of national story; sometimes in the ancient 
 form, sometimes in revised and modernised versions. We 
 may reasonably suppose that the Beowulf then received 
 those last touches which are still visible to the reader as 
 masking or softening the latent heathendom of that poem. 
 They also had their domestic annals, written in the Anglian 
 dialect of Northumbria. All this vernacular literature 
 perished under the ravages of the Danes in the ninth cen- 
 tury : but not until the torch of learning had been kindled 
 in some of the southern parts, enough to secure its revival 
 at a favourable opportunity. That opportunity offered itself 
 under the reign of Alfred, who cleared his part of the 
 country of the Danish scourge, and was the first to renew 
 the arts of peace. With the mention of Alfred's name, we 
 enter upon a comparatively modern era of the language, and 
 quit the obscurity of the pre-Danish period. Wessex, or 
 the country of the West Saxons, becomes the arena of our 
 
2 8 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 narrative henceforth, and the Anglian does not claim 
 notice again until the fifteenth century, when that dialect 
 had shaped itself into a new and distinct national language 
 for the kingdom of Scotland. The poet in whose works 
 the Scottish language first displays its definite form, is 
 Dunbar, a great admirer of Chaucer. From the fifteenth to 
 the eighteenth centuries there was a thriving national litera- 
 ture in the Anglian dialect, of which the specimens best known 
 on the south of the Tweed are the works of Allan Ramsay 
 and Robert Burns, and the dialogues in ' brad Scots,' which so 
 charmingly diversify the novels of Sir Walter Scott. It is 
 odd that this language, which is in fact genuine Anglian, 
 should have received the Keltic name of ' Scotch ' from the 
 Scotian dynasty which mounted the Anglian throne, and that 
 in taking a modern name from its northern neighbours it 
 should have furnished a geographical parallel to the adoption 
 of the name of ' English ' by the West Saxons. 
 
 27. Wessex had not been entirely destitute of men of 
 learning during the period in which the focus of civilisation 
 was in Northumbria. Aldhelm is the first name of eminence 
 in southern literature. He died in a.d. 709. He translated 
 the Psalms of David into his native tongue, and composed 
 popular hymns to drive out the old pagan songs. But 
 though we can point to Aldhelm, and one or two other 
 names of cultivated men in Wessex, they are exceptions 
 to the general rudeness and uncultured state of that kingdom 
 before Alfred's time. Wessex had been distinguished for its 
 military rather than for its literary successes. Learning had 
 resided northward. But in the ninth century a great revolu- 
 tion occurred. Northumbria and Mercia fell into the hands 
 of the heathen Danes, and culture was obliterated in those 
 parts which had hitherto been most enlightened. It was 
 Alfred's first care, after he had won the security of his 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 29 
 
 kingdom, to restore learning. We have it in his own words, 
 that at his accession very few priests to the south of the 
 Humber could understand their Latin service, or trans- 
 late a letter from Latin into Englisc ; ' and/ he adds, ' I ween 
 there were not many beyond Humber either' — pointing to 
 the heathen darkness in which the north was now shrouded. 
 This famous passage has such a freshness about it, and is 
 altogether so remarkable, that I quote it in the original, with 
 Mr. Henry Sweet's translation. It is from a circular preface, 
 at the head of Alfred's Version of Gregory's Pastoral Care, 
 addressed to the several bishops: — 
 
 Deos boc sceal to wiogora ceastre. this BOOK IS FOB WORCESTER. 
 
 iElfredkyning hate'5 gretan WaerferS King Alfred bids greet bishop 
 
 biscep his wordum luflice and freond- Warrfertb with bis words lovingly and 
 
 lice ; and Se cyfian hate fist me com with friendship ; and I let it be known 
 
 swioe oft on gemynd, hwelce wiotan to thee that it has very often come into 
 
 iu wseron giond Angelcynn, segfter ge my mind, what wise men there for- 
 
 godcundra hada ge woruldcundra ; and merly were throughout England, both 
 
 hu gesaeliglica tida c?a wseron giond of sacred and secular orders 1 ; and 
 
 Angelcynn ; and hu cSa kyningas "o*e how happy times there were then 
 
 Sone onwald hrefdon tfses folces on throughout England; and bow the 
 
 Sam dagum Gode and his aerend- kings who bad power over the nation 
 
 wrccum hersumedon; and hie rvg^cr in those day<; obeyed God and hi- 
 
 ge hiora sibbe ge hiora siodo ge hiora ministers; and they preserved peace, 
 
 onweald innanbordes gehioldon, and morality, and order at borne, and at 
 
 eac lit hiora etfcl gerymdon ; and hu the same time enlarged their territory 
 
 him "5a speow aegfter ge mid wige ge abroad ; and how they prospered both 
 
 mid wisdome ; and eac o*a godcundan with war and with wisdom ; and also 
 
 hadas hu giorne hie vvaeron segtfer the sacred orders ' how zealous they 
 
 ge ymb lare ge ymb liornunga, ge were both in teaching and learning. 
 
 ymb ealle fta Siowotdomas Se hie and in all the services they owed to 
 
 Gode scoldon ; and hu man utan- God; and how foreigners came to 
 
 bordes wisdom and lare hieder on this land in search of wisdom and 
 
 lond sohte, and hu we hie nu sceoldon instruction, and how we should now 
 
 ute begietan gif we hie habban sceol- have to get them from abroad if we 
 
 don. Swae claene hio waes o'Sfeallenu were to have them. So general was 
 
 1 I do not suppose that the translator intended this word in its ecclesiastical 
 sense exclusively, but rather in the general sense of ' estates or conditions of 
 men.' Just below ' orders ' had its common ecclesiastical sense. This is a 
 useful example to shew that where a word is repeated in an original text, we 
 cannot always securely translate it by a parallel repetition. 
 
30 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 on Angelcynne Saet swiSe feawa its decay in England that there ivere 
 
 waeron behionan Hunibre Se hiora very few on this side of the Humber 
 
 ffeninga cuffen understondan on who could understand their rituals in 
 
 Englisc, o^Se furSum an aerendgewrit English, or translate a letter from 
 
 of Laedene on Englisc areccean ; and Latin into English ; and I believe 
 
 ic wene <5aet noht monige begiondan that there were not many beyoiid the 
 
 Humbre naeren. Swae feawa hiora Humber. There were so few of them 
 
 waeron Saet ic furSum anne anlepne that I cannot remember a single one 
 
 ne maeg geSencean besuSan Temese south of the Thames when I came to 
 
 '5a Sa ic to rice feng. Gode ael- the throne. Thanhs be to God Al- 
 
 mihtegum sie ftonc Saet we nu aenigne mighty that we have any teachers 
 
 on stal habba'5 lareowa. among us now. 
 
 Alfred's endeavours were successful and fruitful : he in- 
 augurated an era for his country. 
 
 28. With him, that is to say, in the last quarter of the 
 ninth century, Saxon literature starts up almost full-grown. 
 It seems as if it grew up suddenly, and reached perfection 
 at a bound without preparation or antecedents. It has been 
 too much the habit to suppose that this phenomenon is 
 sufficiently accounted for by the introduction of scholars 
 from other countries who helped to translate the most 
 esteemed books into Saxon. So the reign of Alfred is apt 
 to get paralleled with those rude tribes among whom our 
 missionaries introduce a translated literature at the same 
 time with the arts of reading and writing. It has not been 
 sufficiently considered that such translations are dependent 
 on the previous exercise of the native tongue, and that 
 foreign help can only bring up a wild language to eloquence 
 by very slow degrees. There is a very vague idea among us 
 that our language was then in its infancy, and that its com- 
 pass was as narrow as the few necessary ideas of savage life. 
 A modern Italian turning over a Latin book might think it 
 looked very barbarous; and perhaps even some moderate 
 scholars have never appreciated to how great a power the 
 Latin tongue had attained long before the Augustan era. 
 Great languages are not built in a day. The fact is that 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 31 
 
 Wessex inherited a cultivated language from the north, and 
 that when they called their translations Englisc and not 
 Seaxisc, they acknowledged that debt. The cultivated 
 Anglian dialect became the literary medium of hitherto 
 uncultured Wessex ; just as the dialect of the Latian cities 
 set the form of the imperial language of Rome, and was 
 called Latin; and the dialect of Castile was the foundation 
 of the literary Spanish. 
 
 29. Of this Englisc language as it was used in Scripture 
 versions and Church services, the Lord's Prayer forms the 
 readiest illustration. 
 
 THE LORD'S PRAYER. 
 
 From Alfred's Version of the Gospels. 
 Matt. vi. 
 
 Faeder ure, \>u \>e eart on heofenum 
 Father our, thou that art in heaven 
 
 Si bin nama gehalgod 
 Be thy name hallowed 
 
 To becume thin rice 
 Come thy kingdom 
 
 Geweor];e bin willa on eorban, swa-swa on heofenum 
 Be-done thy will on earth, so-as in heaven 
 
 Urne daeghwamlican hlaf syle us to daeg 
 Our daily loaf give us to day 
 
 And forgyf us ure gyltas, swa-swa we forgifab urum gyltendum 
 And j or give us our debts, *o-as we forgive our debtors 
 
 And ne gelcsde bu us on costnunge, ac alys us of yfle 
 And not lead thou us into temptation, but loose us of evil 
 
 Soblice. 
 
 Soothly (or, Amen). 
 
32 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 The period of West-Saxon leadership extends from Alfred 
 to the Conquest, about a.d. 880 to a.d. 1066. These figures 
 represent also the interval at which Saxon literature was 
 strongest ; but its duration exceeds these limits at either end. 
 We have poetry, laws, and annals before 880, and we have 
 large and important continuations of Saxon Chronicles 
 after 1066. Perhaps the most natural date to adopt as 
 the term of Saxon literature would be a.d. 1154, the year 
 of King Stephen's death, the last year that is chronicled 
 in Saxon. 
 
 § 4. Characteristics of Anglo-Saxon. 
 
 30. The Saxon differed from modern English most con- 
 spicuously in being what is called an inflected language. An 
 inflected language is one that joins words together, and 
 makes them into sentences, not by means of a set of small 
 secondary and auxiliary words, but by means of changes 
 made in the main words themselves. If we look at a page 
 of modern English, we see not only nouns, verbs, adjectives, 
 adverbs, these words of primary necessity, but also a 
 sprinkling of little interpreters among the greater words; 
 and the relations of the great words to one another are 
 expressed by the little ones that fill the spaces between them. 
 Such are the pronouns, articles, prepositions, and conjunc- 
 tions. In more general terms it may be said that the essence 
 of an inflected language is, to express by modifications of 
 form that which an uninflected language expresses by 
 arrangement of words. So that in the inflected language 
 more is expressed by single words than in the non- 
 inflected. Take as an example these words of the Preacher, 
 and see how differently they are constructed in English and 
 in Latin : — 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 33 
 
 Eccles. iii. 
 
 Tempus nascendi, et tempus mo- A time to be born, and a time to 
 riendi ; tempus plantandi, et tempus die ; a time to plant, and a time to 
 evellendi quod plantatum est. pluck up that which is planted. 
 
 Tempus occidendi, et tempus sa- A time to kill, and a time to heal ; 
 
 nandi ; tempus destruendi, et tempus a time to break down, and a time to 
 sedificandi. build up. 
 
 Tempus flendi, et tempus ridendi ; A time to weep, and a time to 
 
 tempus plangendi, et tempus saltandi. laugh; a time to mourn, and a time 
 
 to dance. 
 
 Tempus spargendi lapides, et tern- A time to cast away stones, and 
 
 pus colligendi. a time to gather stones together. 
 
 There are no words in the Latin answering to these little 
 words which are italicised in the English version — a, the, to, 
 of, be — yet the very ^ense of the passage depends upon them 
 in English, often to such a degree that if one of these were 
 to be changed, the sense would be completely overturned. 
 The Latin has no words corresponding to these little words, 
 but it has an equivalent of another kind. The terminations 
 of the Latin words undergo changes which are expressive 
 of all these modifications of sense ; and these changes of the 
 forms of words are called Inflections. 
 
 31. The following piece may serve to illustrate the Saxon 
 inflections : — 
 
 Upahafen?/w ezgian on f»a hcah- 117/2? uplifted eyes to the height 
 
 nysse and abenedz/m eirmum ongan and with outstretched arms she be- 
 
 gebiddcw mid pvera welera styrung- gan to pray with stirrings o/the lips 
 
 vm on stilnesse. in stillness. 
 
 Here we observe in the first place, that terminations in 
 the elder speech are replaced by prepositions in the younger. 
 ' Upahafenw/rc eagw-w ' is ' with uplifted eyes/ and abeneda/?/ 
 earmz/w' is ' wit/i outstretched arms'; and the infinitive 
 termination of the verb ' gebiddtfw ' is in English represented 
 by the preposition to. 
 
 We observe however in the second place, that there are 
 
 D 
 
34 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 prepositions among the inflections. The phrases 'on }>a 
 heahnysa?,' ' mid . . . styringum,' ' on stilnes^,' are at once 
 phrasal and inflectional. This indicates a new growth in the 
 language : the inflections are no longer what once they were, 
 self-sufficient. Prepositions are brought to their aid, and very 
 soon the whole weight of the function falls on the preposition. 
 The inflection then lives on as a familiar heirloom in the 
 language, an ancient fashion, ornamental rather than neces- 
 sary. At the first great shake which such a language gets, 
 after it is well furnished with prepositions, there will most 
 likely be a great shedding of inflections. And so it hap- 
 pened to our language after the shock of the Conquest, as 
 will be told in its place. 
 
 We should not pass on without observing, that this condi- 
 tion of a language, in which it is provided with a double 
 mechanism for the purposes of syntax, is one eminently 
 favourable to expression, being precisely that of the ancient 
 Greek and of the modern German. The old flexions serve 
 to convey feeling, sentiment, association, all that is aesthetic 
 in literature ; the prepositions and other intermediaries seek 
 to satisfy the demands of the intellect for clear and definite 
 and unambiguous statement. The excellence of Saxon as a 
 field of study is greatly enhanced by the circumstance that 
 two eras live on side by side in that language : the one in the 
 old poetry, which is almost entirely nexional; the other 
 mixed of flexion and phrase, in the prose and later poetry. 
 Sharon Turner has some sentences on this head, which, 
 though not exact, are worth quoting : — 
 
 'Another prevailing feature of the Anglo-Saxon poetry 
 was the omission of the little particles of speech, those 
 abbreviations of language which are the invention [?] of man 
 in the more cultivated ages of society, and which contribute 
 to express our meaning more discriminatingly, and to make 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. $$ 
 
 it more clearly understood. The prose and poetry of Alfred's 
 translation of Boethius will enable us to illustrate this remark. 
 Where the prose says, Thu the on tham ecan setle ricsast, 
 Thou who on the eternal seat reignest ; the poetry of the 
 same passage has Thu on heahsetle ecan ricsast, Thou on 
 high-seat-eternal reignest : omitting the explaining and con- 
 necting particles, the and tham Thus, the phrase 
 
 in Alfred's prose " So doth the moon with his pale light, 
 that the bright stars he obscures in the heavens," is put by 
 him in his poetry thus : — 
 
 With pale light 
 Bright stars 
 Moon lesseneth.' 
 
 History of the Anglo-Saxons, bk. xii. c. i. 
 
 32. But it is not in the scheme of its grammar alone 
 that human speech is subject to change : this liability 
 extends to the vocabulary also. There is a constant 
 movement in human language, though that movement is 
 neither uniform in all languages, nor is it evenly dis- 
 tributed in its action within the limits of any one given 
 language. It might almost be imagined as if there were 
 a pivot somewhere in the motion, and as if the elemental 
 parts were more or less moveable in proportion as they 
 lay farther from, or nearer to that pole or pivot of revolution. 
 Accordingly, we see words like man, word, thing, can, 
 smith, heap, on, with, an, which seem like permanent fix- 
 tures through the ages, and at first sight we might think that 
 they had suffered no change within the horizon of our obser- 
 vation. They are found in our oldest extant writings spelt 
 just as we now spell them, and for this very reason it is 
 the more necessary to call attention to the change that 
 has really passed over them. 
 
 There are others, on the contrary, which have long been 
 obsolete and forgotten, for which new words have been long 
 ago substituted. Sometimes a whole series of substitutions 
 
 D 2 
 
3 6 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 successively superseding each other have occupied the place 
 of an old Saxon word. The Saxon wilodlice was in the 
 middle ages represented by verily, and in modern times by 
 certainly. The verb gehyrsumian passed away, and instead 
 of it we find the expression to be buxom, and this yielded to 
 the modern verb to obey. One might construct a table of 
 words which have succeeded one another in the successive 
 eras of our language, the new sometimes superseding the 
 old, and sometimes, even oftener, living along peaceably 
 by their side : — 
 
 \ 
 
 Gothic. 
 
 wonder 
 
 rewth 
 
 hap 
 
 look 
 
 kind 
 
 beginning 
 
 ingoing 
 
 outgoing 
 
 mouth 
 
 yield 
 
 Romanesque. 
 
 marvel 
 
 pity 
 
 chance 
 
 mien 
 
 sort 
 
 commencing 
 
 entrance 
 
 issue 
 
 embouchure 
 
 grant 
 
 Classic. 
 
 admiration 
 
 compassion 
 
 accident 
 
 expression 
 
 species 
 
 incipient 
 
 adit, ingress 
 
 exit, egress 
 
 sestuary 
 
 concede 
 
 The words which have thus succeeded one another do not 
 always cover equal areas: the elder word is usually the 
 more comprehensive, and the later words are apt to be more 
 specific, as in the following instances : — 
 
 had, A. S. 
 
 order 
 
 estate 
 
 , class 
 
 section 
 
 J condition 
 
 * position 
 
 denomination 
 ■ interest 
 
 33. In all such instances the change is conspicuous, 
 and requires little comment; but in the former set it 
 requires some attention to seize the alteration which has 
 taken place. Man spells in old Saxon as in modern 
 English, but yet it has altered in grammatical habit, in 
 application, and in convertible use. In grammatical habit 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 37 
 
 it has altered ; for in Saxon it had a genitive marines, 
 a dative men, an (archaic) accusative mannan, a plural 
 men, a genitive plural manna, and a dative plural mannum. 
 Of these it has lost the whole, except the formation of the 
 simple plural. In application it has altered; for in Saxon 
 times man was equally applicable to womankind as to man- 
 kind, whereas now it is limited to one sex. In convertible 
 use it has suffered greatly; for the Saxon speech enjoyed 
 the possession of this word as a pronoun, just as the Ger- 
 mans do to this day. In German mail fagt = man says, 
 which we do not use, and is equivalent to our expression 
 they say or it is said. In German they distinguish between 
 the substantive and the pronoun by giving the former a 
 double n at the close, in addition to the distinction of the 
 initial capital, which in German belongs to all substantives : 
 thus, substantive Sftailtl, pronoun man. In Saxon (towards 
 the close of the period) the distinction of the n is sometimes 
 seen, with a preference of the vowel a for the substantive, 
 and for the pronoun. The following is from a brief 
 summary of Christian duties, written probably in the second 
 half of the eleventh century : — 
 
 /Erest mon sceal God lufian . . . First, we must love God . . . we 
 
 Ne sceal mon mann slean . . . ac must not slay man . . . but every 
 
 zelcne mann mon sceal a weorbian. man we must aye respect : and no 
 
 and ne sceal nan mann don oftrum man should do to another that he 
 
 baet he nelle b»t him mon do. would not to himself were done. 
 
 Our language is at present singularly embarrassed for 
 want of this most useful pronoun. At one time we have to 
 put a we, at another time a you, at another time a they, at 
 other times one or somebody : and it often happens that none 
 of these three will serve, and we must have recourse to the 
 passive verb, as in the close of the quotation. There are 
 probably few English speakers or writers who have not 
 felt the awkwardness resulting from our loss of this most 
 
38 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 regrettable old pronoun. No other of the great languages 
 labours under a like inability. So far about the word 
 man, which is an example of the slowest-moving of words, 
 which has not altered in its spelling, and which is yet seen 
 to have undergone alterations of another kind. The other 
 instances shall be more lightly touched on. 
 
 34. Thing. This word had to itself a large symbolic 
 function which is now partitioned : ' On mang Jrisum 
 jnngum/ among these things ; ' Ic seah sellic |>ing singan 
 on recede/ I saw a strange thing singing on the hall. But 
 in Saxon it covered a greater variety of ground than it does 
 now : ' Me wear£ Grendles \>'mg undyrne or$/ the matter 
 of Grendel was made known to me ; ' Beadohilde ne wses 
 hyre bro^ra dea% on sefan swa sar, swa hyre sylfre ping/ 
 her brothers' death was not so sore on Beadohild's heart 
 as was her own concern ; ' For his J>ingum/ on his account. 
 
 35. Smith. This word is now applied only to handicrafts- 
 men in metals. But in early literature it had its metaphorical 
 applications. Not only do we read of the armourer by the 
 name of wgepna smi¥, the weapon-smith ; but we have the 
 promoter of laughter called hleahtor-smr£, laughter-smith ; 
 we have the teacher called lar-smr£, lore-smith ; we have 
 the warrior called wig-smi^, war- smith. 
 
 36. Heap is now only applied to inert matter, but in 
 Saxon to a crowd of men : as, ' ]>egna heap/ an assembly of 
 thanes; ' Hengestes heap/ Hengest's troop. (Beowulf, 1091.) 
 
 Can. This verb was used in Saxon in a manner very 
 like its present employment. But when we examine into 
 it, we find the sense attached to it was not, as now, that of 
 possibility, but of knowledge and skill. When a boy in his 
 French exercises comes to the sentence 'Can you swim?' 
 he is directed to render it into French by ' Savez vous 
 nager ? ' that is ' Know you to swim ? ' The very same idea 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 39 
 
 is (philologically) at the bottom of ' Can you swim?' for in 
 Saxon cunnan is to know : ' Ic can,' I know ; ' ]>u canst/ 
 thou knowest. It had, moreover, a use in Saxon which 
 it has now lost, but which it has retained in German, 
 where fennen, to know, is the proper word for speaking of 
 acquaintance with persons. So in Saxon : ; Canst j>u J>one 
 preost ]>e is gehaten Eadsige?' knowest thou the priest 
 that is called Eadsige ? 
 
 87. On, the preposition, exists in Saxon, but its area of 
 incidence has shifted. We often find that an Anglo-Saxon 
 «»n cannot be rendered by the same preposition in modern 
 English, e.g. ' ]?one ]>e he geseah on (>3ere cyrcan,* whom 
 he saw in the church ; ' Landfer>' se ofersaewisca hit gesette 
 on Leden,' Landferth from over the sea put it into Latin ; 
 1 Swa swa we on bocum redafc,' as we read in book.-; ' Sum 
 mann on Winceastre,' a man at Winchesti r. in certain cases 
 where of is now used, as,, ' bishop of Wind r,' ' abbot of 
 Abingdon,' we find on in the Saxon formula: 'biscop on 
 W'im :eastre,' ' abbot on Abbandune.' There are, however, in- 
 stances in which this preposition needs not to be others 
 rendered in modern English, e.g. ' I de him }>a ham ha] on 
 his fotum, se |>e aer was geboren on baere to cyrcan :' he 
 went off then home whole on his feet, he who before was 
 borne on bier to church. 
 
 One of the least changed is the preposition ro. This will 
 mostly stand in an English translation out of Saxon : 'And 
 se halga him cwa }> to, ponne }>u cymst to Winceastre,' and 
 the saint said to him, when thou comest to Winchester; ' Se 
 mann wearS J>a gebroht to his bedde,' the man was then 
 brought to his bed. 
 
 38. With in S ixon meant against, and we have still a 
 relic of that sense in our compound verb withstand, which 
 means to stand against, to oppose. We have all but lost 
 
40 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 the old preposition which stood where the ordinary with 
 now stands. It was mid, and it still keeps its old place in 
 the German mtt. We have not utterly lost the last vestiges 
 of it, for it does reappear now and then in poetry in a sort 
 of disguise, as if it were not its own old self, but a maimed 
 form of a compound of itself, amid; and so it gets printed 
 like this — 'mid. 
 
 An is a word in Saxon and also in modern English, and 
 it is the same identical word in the two languages. But in 
 the former it represents the first numeral, which we now call 
 won and write one ; in the latter it is the indefinite article. 
 
 In these specimens it is seen that words which in their 
 visible form remain unaltered, may yet have become greatly 
 changed in regard to their place and office in the language. 
 
 39. Such were some of the features of the Saxon speech, 
 as well as we can illustrate them by a reference to modern 
 English. Speaking relatively to the times, it was not a rude 
 language, but probably the most disciplined of all the ver- 
 naculars of western Europe, and certainly the most cultivated 
 of all the dialects of the Gothic barbarians. Its grammar 
 was regulated, its orthography mature and almost fixed. 
 It was capable, not of poetry alone, but of eloquent prose 
 also, and it was equal to the task of translating the. Latin 
 authors, which were the literary models of the day. The 
 extant Anglo-Saxon books are but as a few scattered splinters 
 of the old Anglo-Saxon literature. Even if we had no other 
 proof of the fact, the capability to which the language had 
 arrived would alone be sufficient to assure us that it must 
 have been diligently and largely cultivated. To this pitch 
 of development it had reached, first by inheriting the relics 
 of the Romano-British civilisation, and afterwards by four 
 centuries and a half of Christian culture under the presiding 
 influence of Latin as the language of religion and of 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 4 1 
 
 higher education. Latin happily did not then what it has 
 since done in many lands ; it did not operate to exclude 
 the native tongue and to cast it into the shade, but to the 
 beneficient end of regulating, fostering, and developing it. 
 
 § 5. Effects of the Norman Conquest. 
 
 40. Such was the state of our language when its insular 
 security was disturbed by the Norman invasion. Great and 
 speedy was the effect of the Conquest in ruining the 
 ancient grammar, which rested almost entirely on literary 
 culture. The leading men in the state having no interest 
 in the vernacular, its cultivation fell immediately into neglect. 
 The chief of the Saxon clergy deposed or removed, who 
 should now keep up that supply of religious Saxon literature, 
 of the copiousness of which we may judge even in our day 
 by the considerable remains that have outlived hostility and 
 neglect? Now that the Saxon landowners were dispossessed, 
 who should patronise the Saxon bard, and welcome the man 
 of song in the halls of mirth? 
 
 The shock of the Conquest gave a deathblow to Saxon 
 literature There is but one of the Chroniclers that g< 
 on to any length after the Conquest : and one of them stops 
 short exactly at a.d. 1060. as if that sad year had bereft his 
 task of all further interest. We have Saxon poetry up to 
 that date or very near to it, but we have none for som<- 
 generations after it. The English language continued to be 
 spoken by the masses who could speak no other ; and here 
 and there a secluded student continued to write in it. But 
 its honours and emoluments were gone, and a gloomy period 
 of depression lay before the Saxon language as before the 
 Saxon people. It is not too much to say that the Norman 
 Conquest entailed the dissolution of the old cultivated Ian- 
 
42 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 guage of the Saxons, the literary Englisc. The inflection- 
 system could not live through this trying period. Jus: as 
 we accumulate superfluities about us in prosperity, but in 
 adversity we get rid of them as encumbrances, and we like 
 to travel light when we have only our own legs to carry us — 
 just so it happened to the Englisc language. For now all 
 these sounding terminations that made so handsome a 
 figure in Saxon courts — the -an, the -um, the -era and the 
 -ena, the -igenne and -igexdum, — all these, superfluous 
 as bells on idle horses, were laid aside when the nation 
 had lost its old political life and its pride of nationality, 
 and had received leaders and teachers who spoke a foreign 
 tongue. 
 
 41. Nor was this the only effect of the introduction 
 of a new language into the country. A vast change was 
 made in the vocabulary. The Normans had learnt by 
 their sojourn in France to speak French, and this foreign 
 language they brought with them to England. Some- 
 times this language is spoken of as the Norman or 
 Norman-French. In a well-known volume of lectures on 
 the Study of Words, by the present Archbishop of Dublin, 
 the relations between this intrusive ' Norman ' and the native 
 speech are given with much felicity of illustration. I have 
 the pleasure of inserting the following passage here with the 
 permission of the author : — 
 
 ' We might almost reconstruct our history, so far as it 
 turns upon the Norman Conquest, by an analysis of our 
 present language, a mustering of its words in groups, and 
 a close observation of the nature and character of those 
 which the two races have severally contributed to it. Thus 
 we should confidently conclude that the Norman was the 
 ruling race, from the noticeable fact that all the words of 
 dignity, state, honour, and pre-eminence, with one remark- 
 able exception (to be adduced presently), descend to us 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 43 
 
 from them — sovereign, sceptre, throne, reatm, royalty, homage, 
 prince, duke, count, {earl indeed is Scandinavian, though he 
 must borrow his countess from the Norman,) chancellor, 
 treasurer, palace, castle, hall, dame, and a multitude more. 
 At the same time the one remarkable exception of king 
 would make us, even did we know nothing of the actual 
 facts, suspect that the chieftain of this ruling race came in 
 not upon a new title, not as overthrowing a former dynasty, 
 but claiming to be in the rightful line of its succession ; that 
 the true continuity of the nation had not, in fact any more 
 than in word, been entirely broken, but survived, in due time 
 to assert itself anew. 
 
 ' And yet, while the statelier superstructure ofthelangua 
 almost all articles of luxury, all having to do with the cha 
 with chivalry, with personal adornment, is Norman through- 
 out; with the broad basis of the language, and therefore 
 of the life, it is otherwise The great features of nature. 
 sun, moon, and stars, earth, water, and fire, all the prime 
 social relation^, lather, mother, husband, wife, son, daughter, 
 — these are Saxon. Palaa and castle may have reached us 
 from the Norman, but to the Saxon we owe far dearer 
 names, lie house, the roof, the home, the hearth. His " 1 oard" 
 too, and often probably it was no more, has a more hos- 
 pitable sound than the " table" ofhis lord. I lis sturdy arn 
 turn the soil; he is the ' r, the hind, the churl) or if his 
 Norman master has a nana- for him, it is one which on his 
 lips becomes more and more a title of opprobrium and con- 
 tempt, the " villain." The instruments used in cultivating 
 the earth, the Jlail. the plough, the sickle, the spade, are ex- 
 pressed in his language; SO too the main products of the 
 earth, as wheat, rye, cats, bere\ and no less the names of 
 domestic animals. Concerning these last it is curious to 
 observe that the names of almost all animals, so long as they 
 are alive, an- thus Saxon, but when dressed and prepared 
 for food become Norman — a fact indeed which we might 
 haw expected beforehand; for the Saxon hind had the 
 charge and labour of tending and feeding them, but only 
 that they might appear on the table of his Norman lord. 
 Thus ox, steer, cow, are Saxon, but beef Norman; calf is 
 Saxon, but veal Norman ; sheep is Saxon, but mutton Norman ; 
 
44 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 so it is severally with swine and pork, deer and venison, 
 fowl and pullet. 
 
 ' Putting all this together, with much more of the same 
 kind, which has only been indicated here, we should certainly 
 gather, that while there are manifest tokens preserved in our 
 language of the Saxon having been for a season an inferior 
 and even an oppressed race, the stable elements of Anglo- 
 Saxon life, however overlaid for a while, had still made good 
 their claim to be the solid groundwork of the after nation 
 as of the after language ; and to the justice of this conclusion 
 all other historic records, and the present social condition of 
 England, consent in bearing witness.' — Study of Words, 12th 
 ed., 1867, pp. 98-100. 
 
 42. This duplicate system of words in English was the 
 result of a long period during which the country was in a 
 bilingual condition. The language of the consumer was one, 
 and that of the producer another. In the market the seller 
 and the buyer must have spoken different languages, both 
 languages being familiar in sound to either party : just as on 
 the frontier of the English and Welsh in the present day large 
 numbers of people have a practical acquaintance with both 
 languages, while they can talk in one only. This it is which 
 has brought down upon the Welsh the unjust imputation of 
 saying Dim Saeso?ieg out of churlishness. They may under- 
 stand the enquiry, and yet they may not possess English 
 enough to make answer with. A similar frontier between 
 English and French must have existed in the Norman period 
 in every town and almost in every village of England. This 
 lasted down to the middle of the fourteenth century, when the 
 new mixed language broke forth and took the lead. During 
 three centuries, the native language was cast into the shade by 
 the foreign speech of the conquerors. All that time French 
 was getting more and more widely known and spoken ; and 
 it never covered so wide an area in this island as it did at the 
 moment when the native speech upreared her head again 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 45 
 
 to assert a permanent supremacy. As the waters of a river 
 are often shallowest there where they cover the widest area, 
 so the French language had then the feeblest hold in this 
 country, when it was most widely cultivated and most 
 generally affected. 
 
 § 6. The Literature of the Transition. First Period. 
 
 43. The Saxon had never ceased to be the speech of the 
 body of the people. The Conquest could not alter this fact. 
 What the Conquest did was to destroy the cultivated Englisc, 
 which depended for its propagation upon literature and 
 literary men. This once extinct, there was no central or 
 standard language. The French language in some respects 
 supplied the place of a standard language, as the medium of 
 intercourse between persons in the best ranks of societ\ . 
 The native speech, bereft of its central standard, fell abroad 
 again. It fell back into that divided condition, in which 
 eaeh speaker and each writer is guided by the dialect of 
 his own locality, undisciplined by any central standard of 
 propriety. Our Language became dialectic. And hence it 
 comes to pass that of the authors whose books are preserved 
 from the year a.d. i 100 to 1350, no two of them are uniform 
 in dialect ; eaeh speaks a tongue of its own. We can divide 
 this large tract of time into two parts, corresponding vaguel) 
 to the culmination and decline of the French fashion. It 
 must be understood here, and wherever figures are given 
 to distinguish periods in the history of language, that it is 
 intended for the convenience of writer and reader, for dis- 
 tinctness of arrangement, and as an aid to the memory, 
 rather than as a rigid limit. For in such things the two 
 bordering forms so shade off and blend into one another, 
 that they are not to be rigidly outlined any more than the 
 primary colours in the rainbow. 
 
46 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 44. For convenience sake, we may divide the ' transition ' 
 into two parts, and add a third era for the infancy of the 
 national language : — 
 
 Transition. 
 Broken Saxon (Latin documentary period) from 1 100 to 1 250 
 Early English (French documentary period) . 1250 to 1350 
 First national English ..... 1350101550 
 
 Of the first division of this period, the grand landmarks 
 are the two poems of Layamon's Brut, and the Ormulum ; 
 the Brut representing the dialect of the south and west, and 
 the Ormulum that of the east and north. 
 
 The Brut of Layamon, a work which embodies in a poetic 
 form the legends of British history, and which exceeds 30,000 
 lines, was edited, with an English translation, by Sir Frederic 
 Madden, in 1847. Besides discussions on the language and 
 the date, which is assigned to 1205, the leading passages 
 for beauty or importance are indicated in a way which gives 
 the reader an immediate command of the contents of this 
 voluminous work. Such a poem as this was not the work 
 of any one year, or even of a few years. It must be re- 
 garded as the life-long hobby of Layamon the priest, who 
 lived at Areley Kings, on the west bank of the Severn, oppo- 
 site Stourport, and who there served the church, being the 
 chaplain and inmate of ' the good knight ' of the parish. His 
 language runs back and claims a near relationship to that of 
 the close of the latest Saxon Chronicle : and this connection 
 rests not on local but rather on literary affinity. 
 
 45. For it is easier to describe Layamon by his literary 
 than by his local affinities. He is the last writer who retains 
 an echo of the literary Englisc. Though he wrote for 
 popular use, yet the scholar is apparent; he had conned 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 47 
 
 the old native literature enough to give a tinge to his diction, 
 and to preserve a little of the ancient grammar. In so far as 
 his dialect is local, it is the native tongue of Wessex which 
 the imported Anglian had so long overlaid. Among the 
 more observable features of his language are the following : — 
 Infinitives in /, ie, or y\ the use of v for/"; the use of u for 
 i or j- in such words as dude, did: hudde, hid; hulle> hill; 
 puf/e, pit. What adds greatly to the philological interest of 
 the Brut is this, that a later text is extant, a text which 
 bears the evident stamp of Northern English. It has been 
 printed parallel with the elder text. One of the most 
 salient characters of the northern dialect was its avoidai 
 of the old sc initial, which had become sh. The northern 
 dialect in such cases wrote simply s. The northern form for 
 ?hall was sail, as indeed it continues to be to the present 
 day. So among the tribes of [sraelat the time of the fudg 
 it was a peculiarity of the tongue of the Ephraimites that 
 they could not frame to pronounce sh, but said Sibboleth 
 Instead of Shibboleth. This is so definite a feature of the 
 northern dialect that it is worth while to collect soinr of the 
 examples in which it makes the contrast of the two ti \ts: — 
 
 Fibst Text. 
 
 'Mi Text. 
 
 Scaft, shaft 
 
 
 Scarpe, sharp 
 
 
 Sei <V, sheath 
 
 S l ]>e 
 
 Seal, scalt, scullen, sculletf, shall 
 
 Sal, salt, sollcn, sollej* 
 
 Sceldes. shields 
 
 Scldcs 
 
 Sceort, short 
 
 Sort 
 
 Scut en, they shot 
 
 Sotcn 
 
 Sceren, scar ; shear, shore 
 
 Seren, sar 
 
 See in, shone 
 
 Son 
 
 Scip, ship 
 
 Sip 
 
 Scame, shame 
 
 Same 
 
 Sculderen, shoulders 
 
 Soldre 
 
 Scunede, shunned 
 
 Sonede 
 
 The wall of Severus, which was made against the Picts, is 
 
4» 
 
 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 called in the elder text scid-wall, that is, wall of separa- 
 tion, <8>cfyeibe=3Baft ; and in the later or northern text it is 
 sid-wal. 
 
 46. The first specimen is from the younger or northern 
 text. 
 
 ORIGIN OF BILLINGSGATE. 
 
 Line 6046. 
 
 Nou ich be habbe i-sed hou hit his 
 
 agon, 
 of Kairliun in Glommorgan. 
 Go we ?et to Belyn, 
 to ban blisfolle kyinge. 
 bo he hadde imaked ]>es borh, 
 and hit cleopede Kair-Uske : 
 bo be borh was strong and hende ; 
 bo gan he banne wende, 
 riht to Londene, 
 bo borh he swibe louede. 
 He bi-gan ber ane tur ; 
 be strengeste of alle b an tune '• 
 and mid mochele ginne, 
 a jet bar hunder makede. 
 po me hit cleeopde 
 Belynesjat. 
 
 Nou and euere more, 
 be name stondib bare. 
 Leuede Belyn )>e king, 
 in allere blisse : 
 and alle his leode 
 lofde hine swibe. 
 
 In his dajes was so mochel mete, 
 bat hit was onimete. 
 
 Now have I said to thee hoiu it 
 
 happened, 
 touching Caerleon in Glamorgan. 
 Go we back again to Belyn, 
 to that blissful king. 
 When he had made the burgh 
 and called it Caer-Usk : 
 When the burgh was strong and trim , 
 then gan he wend thence 
 right to London, 
 the burgh he greatly loved. 
 He began there a tower 
 the strongest of all the town; 
 and with much art 
 a gate there-under made. 
 Then men called it 
 ' Billingsgate.' 
 Now and evermore, 
 the fiame standeth there. 
 Lived Belyti the king 
 in all bliss : 
 and all his people 
 loved him greatly. 
 In his days was there so much meat, 
 that it was without measure. 
 
 47. In the second specimen, which is from the elder text, 
 th has been substituted for b and \ to accommodate the un- 
 practised reader. 
 
 THE PASSING OF ARTHUR. 
 Line 285S2. 
 
 Tha nas ther na mare, 
 
 i than fehte to laue, 
 
 of twa hundred thusend mermen, 
 
 Then was there no more 
 in that fight left alive, 
 out of 200,000 men, 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 49 
 
 tha ther leien to-hawen ; 
 buten Arthur the king one, 
 and of his cnihtes tweien. 
 Arthur wes forwunded 
 wunderliche swithe. 
 Ther to him com a cnaue, 
 the wes of his cunne ; 
 he wes Cadores sune, 
 the eorles of Comwaile. 
 Constantin hehte the cnaue ; 
 he wes than kinge deore. 
 Arthur him lokede on, 
 ther he lai on folden, 
 and thas word seide, 
 mid sorhfulle heorte. 
 Constantin thu art wilcume, 
 thu weore Cadores sune : 
 ich the bitache here, 
 mine kineriche : 
 and wite mine Bruttes, 
 a to thines lifes : 
 and hald heom alle tha la^cn, 
 tha habbeoth istonden a mine da-,cn 
 and alle tha lajen godc. 
 tha bi Vtheres dasen stode. 
 And ich wullc uaren to Aualun, 
 to uairest aire maidene ; 
 to Argante there quene, 
 aluen swithe sceone : 
 and heo seal mine wundm, 
 maiden alle isunde, 
 al hal mc maiden, 
 mid liahwene drenchen. 
 And seothe ich cumin wulle, 
 to mine kineriche : 
 and wunicn mid Brutten, 
 mid muchclere wunnc. 
 JEt'ne than wordeo, 
 ther com of sc weiuU n. 
 that wes an sceort bat lithen, 
 sceouen mid vthen : 
 and twa winimcn therinne, 
 wunderliche idihte : 
 and heo nomen Arthur anan, 
 and aneouste hine uereden, 
 and softe hine adun leiden, 
 and forth gunnen hine lithen. 
 
 Tha wes hit iwurthen, 
 that Merlin seide whilen ; 
 
 that there lay cut to pieces ; 
 but Arthur the King only 
 and two of bis knights. 
 Arthur was wounded 
 dangerously much. 
 There to him came a ' knave ' 
 who was of his kin ; 
 be was son of Cador, 
 the earl of Cornwall. 
 Constantin bight the ' knave " ; 
 to the king be was dear. 
 Arthur looked upon him. 
 where he lay on the ground., 
 and the^e words sa 
 with sorrowful heart. 
 Constantine thou art welcot:: 
 thou wert Cador s son : 
 I here convey to thee, 
 viy kingdom : 
 
 and guide thou my Britons 
 aye to thy life's cost: 
 and secure d.iem all the la; 
 that have stoiid in my d. 
 and all the la good, 
 
 that hy Uther food, 
 
 I J will fir i to Aval on, 
 
 to the fairest of all maidens; 
 
 to Argante the qu 
 
 elf exceeding sheen : 
 
 and she shall my wounds, 
 
 make all sound, 
 
 all whole me make, 
 
 with healing drinks. 
 
 A td ^i'h re/urn I will, 
 
 to my kingdom : 
 
 and dwell u>itb Britons, 
 
 with mickle joy. 
 
 1 i tn with the>e words, 
 there came from sea-ward wending. 
 that was a short boat sailing, 
 moving with the waves : 
 and tico women therein, 
 of marvellous aspect: 
 and they took Arthur anon, 
 and straightway bore bim off. 
 and softly down him laid, 
 and forth with bim to sea they gan 
 to move axvay. 
 
 Then teas it accomplished, 
 what Merlin said whilome ; 
 
50 
 
 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 that weore unimete care, 
 of Arthures forth-fare. 
 Bruttes ilcueth jete, 
 that he beo on Hue, 
 and wunnie in Aualun 
 mid fairest aire aluen : 
 and lokieth euere Bruttes 3ete, 
 whan Arthur cume lithen. 
 
 that there should be much curious care, 
 when Arthur out of life should fare. r 
 
 Britons yet believe, 
 (hat he be alive, 
 and dwelling in Avalon, 
 vAth the fairest of all elves : 
 still look the Britons for the day, 
 of Arthur's coming o'er the sea. 
 
 48. A third specimen shall be taken from near the close 
 of this voluminous work, where the elder text only is 
 preserved. 
 
 A BRITISH VIEW OF ATHELSTAN'S REIGN. 
 Line 31 981. 
 
 pa tiden comen sone, 
 
 to Cadwaftlader kinge 
 
 into Brutaine, 
 
 ber bar he wunede 
 
 mid Alaine kinge, 
 
 be wes of his cunne. 
 
 Me dude him to understonde 
 
 of al J)isse londe ; 
 
 hu Aftelstan her com li'Sen, 
 
 ut of Sex-londen ; 
 
 and hu he al Angle-lond, 
 
 sette on his agere hond ; 
 
 and hu he sette nioting, 
 
 & hu he sette husting; 
 
 and hu he sette sciren, 
 
 and makede friS of deoren ; 
 
 & hu he sette halimot, 
 
 & hu he sette hundred ; 
 
 and ]>z nomen of ban tunen, 
 
 on Sexisce runen : 
 
 and Sexis he gan kennen, 
 
 ba nomen of ban monnen : 
 
 and al me him talde, 
 
 ba tiden of bisse londe. 
 
 Wa wes Cadwaladere, 
 
 bat he wes on Hue. 
 
 The tidings came soon 
 
 to Cadwalader king 
 
 into Britanny, 
 
 where he woned 
 
 with Alan the king, 
 
 who was of his kin. 
 
 Men did him to understand 
 
 all aborit this land; 
 
 bow Atheist an had here embarked, 
 
 coming out of Saxon parts; 
 
 and how he all England 
 
 set on his own hand; 
 
 and how he set mote-ting, 
 
 and how he set bus-ting; 
 
 and how he set shires, 
 
 and made law for game ; 
 
 and hew he set halimot, 
 
 and how he set hundred ; 
 
 and the names of the ' touns ' 
 
 in Saxon runes ! 
 
 and i?i Saxish gan he ken, 
 
 the names of [British"] men : 
 
 and so they told him all the tale, 
 
 the tidings of this land! 
 
 Wo was Cadwalader, 
 
 that he was in life ! 
 
 49. The Ormulum maybe proximately dated at a.d. 12 15. 
 This is a versified narrative of the Gospels, addressed by 
 Ormin or (curtly) Orm to his brother Walter, and after his 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 5 1 
 
 own name called by the author ' Ormulum ' ; by which desig- 
 nation it is commonly known. 
 
 Ice J)att tiss Ennglish hafe sett I that this English have set 
 Ennglisshe men to lare, English men to lore, 
 
 Ice wass j)aer-J;aer I cristnedd wass / xuas there-where I christened was 
 Orrmin bi name nemmedd. Ormin by name named. 
 
 • • • • • • • 
 
 )?iss boc iss nemmnedd Orrmulum This book is named Ormulum 
 Forr}n batt Orrm itt wroghte. For-this that Orm it wrought. 
 
 This book was first edited by Dr. White, in 1852. 
 As the Brut represents the western type of English, so 
 this does the eastern. 1 In this poem we find for the first 
 time the word ' English ' in the mature form. Layamon 
 has the forms englisc i englis, unglis, anglisce ; but Orm 
 has emigliss, and still more frequently the fully developed 
 form ennglissh, 
 
 50. The excess of consonants with which this name is 
 written is a constant feature of the Ormulum. The author 
 was one of Nature's philologers, and a spelling-reformer. He 
 carefully puts the double consonant after the short vowel. 
 Had his orthography been generally adopted, we should have 
 had in English not only the mm and >m with which German 
 is studded, but many other double consonants which we do 
 not now possess. How great a study Orm had made of this 
 subject we are not left to gather from observation of his 
 spelling, for he has emphatically pointed out the importance 
 of it in the opening of his work. 
 
 HOW TO SPELL. 
 
 And whase wilenn shall biss boc And whoso shall determine to cofy 
 
 efft oberr site writenn this booh, I beg him to write it 
 
 himm bidde ice )>at he't write rihht accurately as the book directeth; and 
 
 swa summ biss boc him taechebb that he look well that be write a 
 
 1 A History of English Rhythms, by Edwin Guest, Esq., M. A. (1838), 
 vol. ii. pp. 209, 409. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 
 
 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 and tatt he loke well ]>att he letter twice wherever in this booh it is 
 
 an bocstaff write twiggess so written. Let him look carefully 
 
 eggwhser ))8er itt uppo Jiiss boc that he write it so, for else he can- 
 
 iss writen o ])att wise. not write it correctly in English — of 
 
 loke well ])att he't write swa, that he may be assured ! 
 
 for he ne magg nohht elless 
 on Ennglissh writenn rihht te word, 
 batt wite he well to so)>e. 
 
 51. The double consonant in such a situation is common 
 enough, and the only peculiarity here is in making a rule of 
 it. But there is another point of orthography which is 
 peculiar to this author. When words beginning with b 
 follow words ending in d or f, he generally (with but a 
 few, and those definite exceptions) alters the initial b to /. 
 Where (for example) he has the three words \att and 
 \att and \e succeeding one another continuously, he writes, 
 not \ait \att ]>e, but \att tatt te. One important exception to 
 this rule is where the word ending with the d or / is severed 
 from the word beginning with b by a metrical pause ; in that 
 case the change does not take place, as — 
 
 1 agg affter \>e Goddspell stannt and aye after the Gospel standeth 
 
 patt tatt de Goddspell menepj). that which the Gospel meaneth. 
 
 Here the stannt does not change the initial of the next word, 
 because of the metrical division that separates them. Other 
 examples of these peculiarities may be seen in the following 
 extract. 
 
 CHARACTER OF A GOOD MONK. 
 
 Forr himm birr)? beon full clene mann, 
 
 and all wip])utenn ahhte, 
 Buttan batt mann himm findenn shall 
 
 unnorne mete and waede. 
 And taer iss all batt eorJ)lig ping 
 
 patt minnstremann birrp aghenn 
 Wibjmtenn cnif and shae]?e and camb 
 
 and nedle, giff he't geornebK 
 And all hiss shall mann findenn himm 
 
 and wel himm birrb itt gemenn ; 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 For birr]> himm noww))err don baeroff, 
 
 ne gifenn itt ne sellenn. 
 And himm birrb aefre standenn inn 
 
 to lofenn Godd and wurrj)en, 
 And agg himm birrj> beon fressh baerto 
 
 bi daggess and by nihhtess ; 
 And tat iss harrd and Strang and tor 
 
 and hefig lif to ledenn, 
 And forbi binp wel clawwstremann 
 
 onnfangenn mikell mede, 
 Att hiss Dnhhtin Allwaeldennd Godd, 
 
 forr whamm he mikell swinnkebb- 
 And all hiss herrte and all hiss lusst 
 
 birrb agg beon towanrd heoffne, 
 And himm birrb geornenn agg batt an 
 
 hiss Drihhtin wel to cwemenn, 
 W\]>\> daggsang and wi}>b uhhtennsang 
 
 wibb mcssess and wi};}> beness, &c. 
 
 Translation. 
 
 For be ought to be a very pure man 
 
 and altogether without property, 
 Except that he shall be found in 
 
 simple meat and clothes. 
 And that is all the earthly thing 
 that tninster-man shoidil OSOTI, 
 Except a knife and sheath and comh 
 
 and needle, if he want it. 
 And all this shall they find for him 
 
 and his duty is to take care of it. 
 For he may neither do with it, 
 
 neither give it nor sell. 
 And be must ever stand in (vigorously) 
 
 to praise and worship God, 
 And aye must be be fresh thereto 
 
 by daytime ami hy nights ; 
 And that's a bard and stiff and rough 
 
 and heavy life to lead, 
 And therefore well may cloister' d man 
 
 receive a tnickle meed 
 At the hand of his Lord Allwielding God, 
 
 for whom he mickle slaveth. 
 And all his heart and bis desire 
 ought aye be toward heaven. 
 And be should yearn for that alone, 
 
 his Master well to serve, 
 With day-time chant and chant at prime, 
 with masses and with prayers, &c. 
 
 53 
 
54 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 The poems of Layamon and Ormin may be regarded as 
 appertaining to the old Saxon literature. Layamon and 
 Ormin both cling to the old in different ways : Layamon in 
 his poetic form, Ormin in his grammar. Both also bear 
 traces, in different ways, of the earlier processes of that great 
 change which the French was working in the English lan- 
 guage. The long story of the Brut is told in lines which 
 affect the ancient style ; but the style is chaotic, and abounds 
 in accidental decorations, like a thing constructed out of 
 ruins. In the Ormulum the regularity is perfect, but it is the 
 regularity of the new style of versification, learnt from foreign 
 teachers. The iambic measure sits admirably on the ancient 
 diction : for Ormin, new as he is in his metre, is old in his 
 grammar and vocabulary. The works differ as the men 
 differed : the one, a secular priest, has the country taste 
 for an irregular poetry with alliteration and every other re- 
 verberatory charm; the other, a true monk, carries his 
 regularity into everything — arrangement, metre, orthography. 
 He looks like a sturdy Saxon, but with the education of a 
 monastery that has already been ruled by a succession of 
 French abbots. 
 
 From these two authors, as from some half-severed pro- 
 montory, we look across the water studded with islands, to 
 where the continent of the modern English language rears 
 its abrupt front in the writings of Chaucer. 
 
 § 7. The triumph of French. 
 
 52. In the two great works which have occupied us during 
 the preceding pages, the Englisc has made its latest stand 
 against the growing ascendancy of the French. These 
 books stand on ground of their own as contrasted with 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 55 
 
 the writings of the next period. We now approach the 
 time when for a century and a half French held a recog- 
 nised position as the language of education, of society, of 
 business, and of administration. Long before 1250 we get 
 traces of the documentary use of French, and long after 1350 
 it»was continued. Trevisa says it was a new thing in 1385 
 for children to construe into English in the grammar schools, 
 where they had been used to do their construing into French. 
 If we ask what manner of French it was, we must point to 
 that now spoken by the peasants of Normandy, and perhaps 
 still more to the French dialect which has been preserved in 
 the Channel Islands. A bold trace of this use of French 
 as the language of public business in this country still sur- 
 vives in the formula LE ROI LE VEULT or LA Kl.IXK 
 LE VEULT, by which the royal assent to bills is announce d 
 in Parliament. In the utterance of this puissant sentence it 
 is considered correct to groll the k after the manner of the 
 peasants of Normandy. 
 
 One particular class of words shall be noticed in this 
 place as the result of the French rule in England. This is a 
 group of words which will serve to depict the times that 
 stamped them on our speech. They are the utterance of 
 the violent and selfish passions. 
 
 53. Almost all the sinister ami ill-favoured words which 
 were in the English language at the time of Shakspeare, owed 
 their origin to this unhappy era. The malignant passions 
 were let loose, as if without control of reason or of religion ; 
 men hotly pursued after the objects of their ambition, covet- 
 ousness, or other passions, till they grew insensible to every 
 feeling of tenderness and humanity ; they regarded one 
 another in no other light but as obstructives or auxiliaries 
 in their own path. What wonder that such a state of society 
 furnished little or nothing for expressing the delicate emotions, 
 
$6 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 while it supplied the nascent English with such a mass of 
 opprobrious epithets as to have lasted, with few occasional 
 additions, till the present day. Of these words a few may be 
 cited by way of example. And first I will instance the word 
 juggler. This word has two senses. It is, first, a person 
 who makes a livelihood by amusing tricks. Secondly, it Ms 
 the moral sense of an impostor or deceiver. The latter is 
 the prevalent modern use. Both these senses date from the 
 French period of our history. 
 
 To jape is to jest coarsely; a japer is a low buffoon ; 
 japery is buffoonery ; and jape-worthy is ignominiously 
 ridiculous. 
 
 To jangle is to prate or babble ; a jangler is a man-prater, 
 and a jangleress is a woman-prater. 
 
 ' Bote Iapers and Ianglers. Iudasses children.' 
 
 Piers Plowman's Vision, 35. 
 
 54. Raven is plunder; raveners are plunderers; and al- 
 though this family of words is extinct, with the single exception 
 of ravenous as applied to a beast of prey, yet they are still 
 generally known from the Authorised Version, and they must 
 have been current English in 161 1. 
 
 Ribald and ribaldry are of the progeny of this prolific 
 period. Ribald was almost a class-name in the feudal 
 system. One of the ways, and almost the only way, in which 
 a man of low birth who had no inclination to the religious 
 life of the monastery could rise into some sort of importance 
 and consideration, was by entering the service of a powerful 
 baron. He lived in coarse abundance at the castle of his 
 patron, and was ready to perform any service of whatever 
 nature. He was a rollicking sort of a bravo or swash- 
 buckler. He w r as his patron's parasite, bull-dog and tool. 
 Such was the ribald, and it is not to be wondered at that 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 57 
 
 the word rapidly became a synonym for everything ruffianly 
 and brutal ; and having passed into an epithet, went to swell 
 the already overgrown list of vituperations. 
 
 Such are a few of the words with which our lansniaGre was 
 
 o o 
 
 endowed, in its first rude contact with the French lan^uaore. 
 Though we find nearer our own times, namely, in the reign 
 of Charles the Second, some accordance of tone with the 
 early feudal period, yet neither in that nor in any other age 
 was there produced such a strain of injurious words, cal- 
 culated for nothing else but to enable a man to fling 
 indignities at his fellow. 
 
 The same period is stigmatised by another bad character- 
 istic, and that is, the facility with which it disparaged good 
 and respectable words. 
 
 55. Villan was simply a class-name, by which a humble 
 order of men was designated; ceorl was a Saxon name 
 of like import : both of these became disparaged at the 
 time we speak of into the injurious sense of villain and 
 churl. 
 
 The adjective imarinatif was then in use, but it had not 
 the worthy sense of imaginative, richly endowed with ideas — 
 it meant simply suspicious. 
 
 The furious and violent life of that period had every need 
 of relief and relaxation. This was found in the abandon- 
 ment of revelry and in the counter-stimulant of the gaming- 
 table. The very word /<rv//T, with its cognates to revel % 
 revelling, revellers, are productions of this period. The rage 
 for gambling which distinguished the habits of our Norman- 
 French rulers is aptly commemorated in the fact that up to 
 the present day the English terms for games of chance are 
 of French extraction. Dice were seen in every hall, and 
 wc-re then called by the same name as now. Cards, though 
 a later invention, namely, of the thirteenth or beginning 
 
58 SKETCH OF THE RISE . 
 
 of the fourteenth century, are still appropriately designated 
 by a French name. 
 
 56. The fashion of counting by ace, deuce, trey, quart, cink, 
 siz, &c, is French— not modern French, but of the feudal 
 age. We find it in Chaucer, precisely as at present : — 
 
 ' Seven is my chance, and thin is cink and treye.' 
 
 Canterbury Tales, 12,587. 
 
 Chance itself is one of those gaming terms, and so is 
 hazard, which was the prominent word in the phraseology 
 of gambling, and accordingly very odious to the moralist 
 of that day. In the list of vices hasardery comes in next 
 to gluttony, as being that which beset men next after the 
 temptations of the table. 
 
 ' And now that I have spoken of glotonie, 
 Now wol I you defenden hasardrie. 
 Hasard is veray moder of lesinges, 
 And of deceite, and cursed forsweringes. 
 It is repreve, and contrary of honour, 
 For to ben hold a common hasardour.' 
 
 Canterbury Tales, 12,522. 
 
 It is a comfort to observe that even a word may outlive a 
 bad reputation. The word hazard, though still a gambling 
 term in the last century, has now little association with 
 disorderly excitement and the thirst for sudden wealth ; it 
 suggests to our minds some laudable adventure, or elevates 
 the thought to some of those exalted aims for which men 
 have hazarded their lives. Another word may be cited, 
 which belonged originally to the same ill-conditioned strain, 
 but which time has purified and converted into a picturesque 
 word, no longer a disgrace but an ornament to the language. 
 This \s jeopardy, at first a mere excited and interjectional cry, 
 Jeu perdu I game lost ! or else, jeu parti I drawn game ! — 
 but now a wholesome rhetorical word. 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 59 
 
 It would hardly be fair however to omit mention of the 
 fact that other classes of words were also gained at this 
 period. Some theological and moral terms of the first 
 necessity, such as charity \ faith, grace, mercy, peace, belong 
 here ; and so also a variety of commercial, legal, heraldic, 
 and political words, as advocate, alliance, arrearage, chattels, 
 custom, demise, devise, domain, fief , fealty, homage, liege, loyally, 
 manor, meynie, moiety, personalty, pursuit, pursuivant, really, 
 rent, seisin, Serjeant, sovereign, treaty, trover, vouc/isafe. 
 
 § 8. Literature of the Transition. Second Period. 
 
 57. In this period, which may be rudely defined by the 
 dates 1 250-1350, we see strong efforts after a native literature; 
 but as yet they have no centre of their own — they hang 
 aloof as it were, and hover provincially around the privileged 
 and authoritative languages of French and Latin. They 
 have not among themselves a common or even a leading form 
 of speech. This period has been abundantly illustrated by 
 the labours of the Early English Text Society. 
 
 The first example of the new group is the beautiful poem 
 of Genesis and Exodus. Here the word shall is thus declined : 
 sing, sal, salt; pi. sulen. Also srud for the Saxon scrud, 
 modern shroud; and suuen as a participle of the verb which 
 we now write shove. This speaks for its Anglian character. 
 The date is about a.d. 1250. As a specimen of the language, 
 we may quote the selling of Joseph : — 
 
 5e chapmen skiuden here fare, The chapmen hastened their departure, 
 
 in to Egipte ledden Sat ware ; into Egypt led the ware ; 
 
 \\i,N Putifar <Se kinges stiward, with Potiphar the king's steward, 
 
 he niaden swio'e bigetel forward ; they made very profitable bargain ; 
 
 so michel fe o'or is hem told ; so much money there is them told ; 
 
 he hauen him bogt, he hauen sold. these have bought bim, and those 
 
 have sold. 
 
 The form he represents the Saxon hi, and is equivalent to 
 
\ 
 
 60 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 our modern pronoun they. The -n form of the present 
 tense in hauen is a token of midland locality. 
 
 Worth quoting also is the butler's narrative of his dream 
 to Joseph in the prison : — 
 
 Me drempte ic stod at a win-tre, / dreamt I stood at a vine-tree 
 
 'Sat adde waxen buges ftre. that had waxen boughs three. 
 
 Orest it blomede and si&en bar Erst it bloomed and then it bare 
 
 0e beries ripe, wurft ic war : the berries ripe, as I was ware : 
 
 'Se kinges kuppe ic hadde on hond, the king's cup I had in hand, 
 
 Se beries Sor-inne me Shugte ic the berries therein me-thought I 
 
 wrong, wrung, 
 
 and bar it drinken to Pharaon, And bare it to drink to Pharaoh 
 
 me drempte, als ic was wune to don. (/ dreamed) as I was wont to do. 
 
 At the end of his version of Genesis, the poet speaks of 
 himself and of his work : — 
 
 God schilde hise sowle fro helle bale God shield bis soul from hell-bale 
 Se made it Sus on Engel tale ! that made it thus in English tale ! 
 
 58. The most facetious of the productions of this period 
 is the poem entitled The Owl and the Nightingale. Its 
 locality is established by internal evidence, as having been 
 written at or near Portesham in Dorsetshire. It is a singular 
 combination of archaic English with ripe wit and mature 
 versification. The forms of words and even the turns of 
 expression recall Mr. Barnes's Poems in the Dorset Dialect. 
 A prominent feature is the frequent use of v where we 
 write _/, as vo for foe ; vlize flies ; vairer fairer ; vram from ; 
 vor .for; but so for-vorp for 'so far forth'; ware-vore 
 wherefore. The old sc becomes sch, as schalln, schule, 
 Scholde, schonde, scha??ie, schake¥>, schende, schuniet shunneth, 
 scharp. 
 
 The subject is a bitter altercation between the Owl and 
 the Nightingale, such as might naturally be supposed to 
 arise out of the neighbourhood of two creatures not only 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 6 1 
 
 unlike in their tastes and habits, but unequally endowed 
 with gifts and accomplishments. The following picture 
 of the Owl's attitude as she listens to the Nightingale's 
 song, will afford some taste of the humour as well as of the 
 diction : — 
 
 pos word a;af J>e nijtingale, These words returned the nightingale, 
 
 And after bare longe tale, And after that there long tale, 
 
 He songe so lude and so scharpe, He sang so loud and so sharp, 
 
 Ri3t so me grulde schille harpe. As if one frilled a shilly harp. 
 
 pes hule luste pider-ward, This owl she listened thitherward. 
 
 And hold hire e3en fiber- ward, And held her eyen otberward ; 
 
 And sat to-suolle and i-bo^e, And sat all swollen and out-blown 
 
 Also ho hadde on frogge i-suobe. As if she bad swallowed a frog. 
 
 This poem is one of the most genuine and original idylls of 
 any age or of any language, and the Englishman who wants an 
 inducement to master the dialects of the thirteenth centurw 
 may assure himself of a pleasure when he is able to appreciate 
 this exquisite pastoral. Its date may be somewhere about 
 a.d. 1280. 
 
 59. The student of English will observe with particular 
 interest the series of translations from the French romances 
 which began in the thirteenth century. This was a courtlv 
 literature, which was originally written in the courtly speech; 
 and the copious translation of this literature is the first sign 
 of a reaction at court in favour of the native language. Of 
 these we will first mention The Lay of Havelok the Dane, 
 which is in a midland dialect, but almost as free from 
 strong provincial marks as it is from French words. It 
 uses the sh, as will be seen from the following quotation, 
 in which it is related how Grimsby was founded by 
 Grim : — 
 
 In Hunibcr Grim bigan to lende, 
 In Lindeseye, rith at the north ende, 
 Ther sat is ship up on the sond, 
 But Grim it drou up to the lond. 
 
62 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 And there he made a lite cote, 
 To him and to hise flote. 
 Bigan he there for to erthe 1 
 A litel hus to maken of erthe. 
 And for that Grim that place aute, 2 
 The stede of Grim the name laute, 3 
 So that Grimesbi calleth alle 
 That ther-offe speken alle, 
 And so shulen men callen it ay, 
 Bituene this and domesday. 
 
 As this poem is associated with Lincolnshire, we might 
 expect to find many Danish words in it. But the number of 
 those that can be clearly distinguished as such, is small. It 
 can hardly be doubted that the Danish population which 
 occupied so much of the Anglian districts must have con- 
 siderably modified our language. Their influence would 
 probably have been greater, but for the cruel harrying of the 
 North by William the Conqueror. The affinity of the Danish 
 with the Anglian would make it easy for the languages to 
 blend, and the same cause renders it difficult for us to dis- 
 tinguish the Danish contributions. Of words that are of 
 great mark in the language, a probable Danish word is hap, 
 from which we have formed happy, happily, haphazard, 
 happiness. It is deeply bedded in the Icelandic language ; 
 only there is this untoward fact, that it seems equally 
 rooted in the Welsh. 
 
 60. In the Romance of King Alexander, another trans- 
 lation from the French, we begin to hear a sound as 
 of the coming English language. Most of the transition 
 pieces are widely distinct from the diction of Gower 
 and Chaucer, but this has the air of a preparation for those 
 writers. This romance sometimes resembles not distantly 
 the Romaunt of the Rose. The feature which most claims 
 attention is the working in of French words with the English. 
 
 1 to dwell. 2 owned. 3 took. 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 63 
 
 This poem was the general favourite before the Romaunt 
 of the Rose superseded it. The French romance of Alex- 
 ander was composed about the year 1200. It consists 
 of 20,000 long twelve-syllable lines, a measure which thence- 
 forward became famous in literature, and took the name of 
 ' Alexandrine,' after this romance. The English version was 
 made late in the thirteenth centurv, in a lax tetrameter. 
 It was not till Spenser that the Alexandrine metre obtained 
 an acknowledged place in English poetry. 
 
 Unlike the poem of Havelok, a great proportion of the 
 French words of the original are embodied in this English 
 version. The two languages do not yet appear blended 
 together, but only mixed bilingually. The following lines 
 will illustrate this crude mixture of French with English : — 
 
 *o' 
 
 1. That us tcllcth the maistres saunz fade. 
 
 2. Hy ne ben no more verreyment. 
 
 3. And to have horses auenaunt, 
 To hem italworth and asptraunt, 
 
 4. Toppe and rugge, and croupe and cors 
 Is semblabel to an h<>r>. 
 
 61. Now we come to an important ami original work. In 
 the rhyming Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester we have ,1 
 fine specimen of west-country English, which touches the 
 dialect of The Owl and Nightingale at man)' points : — the 
 infinitives ending in -1 or -\\ or -1'e, as to const Hi to counsel ; 
 he woldt su$teini t he would sustain ; ' he ne let no$t clupie 
 al is folc,' he let not call all his folk; 'due William uorbed 
 alle his to robb\\ duke William forbad all his men to rob ; 
 hoseli, to housel ; ' bis noble due Willam him let crounyldng,' 
 this noble duke William made them crown him king. 
 
 In many cases this dialect differs strongly from the Dorset, 
 as exhibited in the Owl and Nightingale, The latter has the 
 
64 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 initial h very constant in such words as Ich habbe I have ; 
 pu havest thou hast; ho hadde she had; whereas in 
 Robert of Gloucester it is adde. He writes is for his, ire 
 for hire her, om for home. The Dorset, on the other hand, 
 retains the h in hit it ; writes the owl down as a ' hule,' and 
 a 'houle'; never fails in sh, but rather strengthens it by the 
 spelling sch, as scharpe, schild, schal, schame; whereas the 
 Gloucester dialect eludes the h in such instances, and 
 writes ss, as ssolde should ; ssipes ships ; ssriue shrive ; ssire 
 shire; bissopes bishops; and even Engliss English; Freiiss 
 French. 
 
 62. The following line offers a good illustration both of 
 this feature, and also of the metre of this Chronicle, which is 
 not very equable or regular, but of which the ideal seems to 
 be the fourteen-syllable ballad-metre : — 
 
 ' Hou longe ssolle hor lu])er heued above hor ssoldren be ? ' 
 
 How long-a shall their hated heads 
 Above their shoulders be ? 
 
 Perhaps this ss may have been a difference of orthography 
 rather than of pronunciation. Which is made probable by 
 the substitution of the ss for ch where we must suppose a 
 French pronunciation of the ch, which is about the same as 
 our sh sound. Thus, in the long piece presently to be 
 quoted, we have Michaelmas written Missehnasse. 
 
 The Com?nencement of Robert of Gloucester' 's Chronicle, 
 as pri filed by Hearne. Date about 1300. 
 
 Engelond ys a wel god loud, ich wene of eche lond best, 
 Yset in the ende of the world, as al in the West. 
 The see goth hym al a boute, he stont as an yle. 
 Here fon heo durre the lasse doute, but hit be thorw gyle 
 Of folc of the selue lond, as me hath yseye wyle. 
 From South to North he is long eighte hondred myle ; 
 And foure hondred myle brod from Est to West to wende, 
 Amydde tho lond as yt be, and noght as by the on ende. 
 
 • 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 65 
 
 Plente me may in Engelond of all gods yse, 
 
 Bute folc yt forgulte other yeres the worse be. 
 
 For Engelond ys ful ynow of fruyt and of tren, 
 
 Of wodes and of parkes, that joye yt ys to sen ; 
 
 Of foules and of bestes, of wylde and tame al so ; 
 
 Of salt fysch and eche fresch, and fayre ryueres ther to ; 
 
 Of welles swete and colde ynow, of lesen and of mede ; 
 
 Of seluer or and of gold, of tyn and of lede ; 
 
 Of stel, of yrn, and of bras ; of god corn gret won ; 
 
 Of whytc and of wolle god, betcre ne may be non. 
 
 England is a very good land, 1 ween of every land (the) best ; set in the 
 end of the world, as in the utter west. The sea goetb it all about ; it 
 standeth as an isle. Their foes they need the less fear, except it be through 
 guile of folk of the same land, as men have seen sotnetimes. From south 
 to north it is eight hundred mile long; and Jour hundred mile broad to wend 
 from east to ivest, that is, amid the land, and not as by (be one end. 
 Plenty of all goods men may in England see, unless the people are in fault 
 or the years are bad. For England is full enough of fruit and of trees: 
 of woods and of parks, tl it joy it i> to see ; of fowls and of bea$t$, of wild 
 and tame also ; of salt fish and eke fresh, and fair rivers (hereto ; of wells 
 sweet and cold enow, of pastures and of meads; of silver ore and of gold, 
 of tin and of lead ; of steel, of iron, and of brass ; of good corn great store; 
 of wheat and of good wool, better may be none. 
 
 63. The most famous and oftest quoted piece of Robert 
 of Gloucester is that wherein he sums up the consequences 
 of the Battle of Hastings. It contains the clearest and best 
 
 statement of the bilingual state of the population in his own 
 time, that is, before a.d. 1300. 
 
 Bituenc Missclmasse and Sein Luc, a Scin C.ilixtes day, 
 
 As vel in ]>ulke jere in a S.iUnl.iv, 
 
 In )»c jcr of gr.ice, as it vol also, 
 
 A bousend and sixe ~\ sixti, bis bataile was ido. 
 
 Due Willam was bo old nvnc ~\ )>ritti jer, 
 
 ") on ~\ )>rhti jei he was of Nonnandic due er. 
 
 po ])is bataile was ydo, due Willam let bringe 
 
 Vaire his folc, that was aslawe, an erbe horu allc hinge. 
 
 Alle |>at wolde hue he jef, pat is ton aoerbe bro}te. 
 
 H.iraldes moder uor hire sone wcl jerne him biso3te 
 
 Bi messagers, ~\ largeliche him bed of ire j'inge, 
 
 To granti hire hire sones bodi aner) e vor to bringe. 
 
 Willam hit sende hire vaire inou, wiboute eny bing hare uore : 
 
 So bat it was boru hire wib gret honour ybore 
 
 To he hous of Waltham, ") ibro;t anerbe here, 
 
 In |>e holi rode chirche, bat he let him-sulf rere, 
 
 An hous of religion, of canons ywis. 
 
 F 
 
66 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 Hit was her vaire an er]>e ibro3t, as it jut is. 
 
 Willam bis noble due, Jx> he adde ido al ])\s, 
 
 pen wey he nom to Londone, he "J alle his, 
 
 As king and prince of londe, wib nobleye ynou. 
 
 Ajen him wip uair procession bat folc of toune drou, 
 
 *j vnderueng him vaire inou, as king of bis lond. 
 
 pus com lo Engelond, in to Normandies hond. 
 
 *j be Normans ne coube speke \>o, bote hor owe speche, 
 
 "j speke French as hii dude at om •} hor children dude also teche. 
 
 So bat heiemen of bis lond, bat of hor blod come, 
 
 Holdeb alle bulke speche that hii of horn nome. 
 
 Vor bote a man conne Frenss, me telb- of him lute, 
 
 Ac lowe men holdeb to Engliss ~\ to hor owe speche jute. 
 
 Ich wene \>er ne beb in al be world contreyes none, 
 
 pat ne holdeb to hor owe speche bote Englond one. 
 
 Ac wel me wot uor to conne bope well it is, 
 
 Vor be more bat a man can, the more wurbe he is. 
 
 It will hardly be necessary to translate the whole of this 
 passage for the reader. We will modernise a specimen to 
 serve as a guide to the rest. The last ten lines shall be 
 selected as recording the linguistic condition of the country. 
 
 And the Normans could not then speak any speech but their own; and 
 they spoke French as they did at home, and had their children taught the 
 same. So that the high men of this land, that came of their blood, all retain 
 the same speech which they brought from their home. For unless a ?nan know 
 French, people regard him little : but the low men hold to English, and to 
 their own speech still. I ween there be no countries in all the world that 
 do ?iot hold to their own speech, except Englajid only. But undoubtedly it 
 is well to know both ; for the more a man knows, the more worth be is. 
 
 64. These examples will perhaps suffice to give an idea 
 of the dissevered and dialectic condition of the native language 
 from the twelfth to the fourteenth century. During this long 
 interval the reigning language was French, and this fashion, 
 like all fashions, went on spreading and embracing a wider 
 area, and ever growing thinner as it spread, till in the 
 thirteenth and fourteenth centuries it was become an acknow- 
 ledged subject of derision. Already, before 1200, the famous 
 Abbot Sampson, of Bury St. Edmunds, was thought to have 
 said a good and memorable thing when he gave as his 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 6j 
 
 reason for preferring one man to a farm rather than another, 
 that his man could not speak French. The French which 
 was spoken in this country had acquired an insular character; 
 it was full of Anglicisms and English words, and in fact must 
 often have been little more than deformed English. Even 
 well-educated persons, such as Chaucer's gentle and lady- 
 like Prioress, spoke a French which, as the poet informs us, 
 was utterly unlike 'French of Pari-. What then must haw 
 been the French of the homely upland fellows Trevisa tells 
 of: — 'and oplondysch men wol lykne hamsylf to gentil men, 
 and fondej; with great bysynes for to speke Freynsch, for to 
 be more ytold of ? 
 
 65. In Piers Plowman we have the dykers and delvers. 
 with their bits of French, doing a wry bad day's work, but 
 eminently polite to the ladies of the family : — 
 
 ■ Dykers and Delrers that don here werk i lie. 
 And drivetfa forth the bo . with " Den irons iaue, dam Emme." 
 
 Piers Plowman's Prologur, to,}. 
 
 Perhaps it is a song they sing, as the latest editor,Mr. Skeat, 
 takes it. This will serve equally well or even better to illus- 
 trate the complete diffusion of the French language among 
 all ranks ; and we might imagine that now for the second 
 time in history it was on a turn of the balance whether Britain 
 should produce nationality of the Romanesque or of the 
 Gothic type. But in the meantime the native tongue was 
 growing more and more in use and respect, and at length, in 
 the middle of the fourteenth century, we reach the end of its 
 suppression and obscurity. Trevisa fixes on the great plague 
 of 1349 as an epoch afLer which a change was observable in 
 regard to the popular rage for speaking French. He says: 
 ' This was moche used tofore the grete deth, but sith it is 
 somdele chaunged.' But the most important date is 1362, 
 
 f 2 
 
68 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 when the English language was re-installed in its natural 
 rights, and was established as the language of the Courts of 
 Law. 
 
 66. In the review of specimens of English which have 
 passed before us, we are struck with their diversity and the 
 absence of any signs of convergency to a common type. 
 The only feature which they agree in with a sort of growing 
 consent, is in the dropping of the old inflections and the 
 severance of connection with the old Anglo-Saxon accidence. 
 Among the most tenacious of these inflections was the genitive 
 plural of substantives in -ena (Anglo-Saxon), and of adjectives 
 in -ra. This -ena drooped into the more languid -ene ; and 
 the -ra appeared as -er or -r, as in their, aller, alder liefest. 
 
 Throughout the whole of this period there is such a ten- 
 tency to variety and dialectic subdivision, that it has been 
 found hard to say how many dialects there were in the 
 country. Higden, writing in the fourteenth century, said 
 there were three, the Northern, the Southern, and the Mid- 
 land. This division is substantial and useful, and we may 
 find the tokens of these in three well-marked forms of the 
 present tense indicative. The -n of the Midland dialect may 
 be seen at 57. This form is restricted and comparatively 
 obscure. The -eth is Southern, the -es Northern (86). The 
 -eth was universal in Saxon literature, the -es is universal now. 
 The turning-point is seen in Shakspeare, who uses them 
 both according to convenience, though the -es is usual with 
 him, except in the case of hath and doth. The triumph of 
 the Northern dialect in this particular has contributed much 
 to English sibilation. 
 
 We have said enough of dialects. The task of this 
 manual is rather to point the way to each branch of the 
 subject, than to offer an exhaustive treatment of any. The 
 dialects may be dismissed with the remark, that they offer 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 69 
 
 peculiar advantages for philological discipline. In the first 
 place, they are an entertaining study. There is a charm 
 about them which makes itself generally felt, and which often 
 turns even the indifferent into an observer; — besides the 
 additional recommendation, that they are to be sought chiefly 
 in the pleasantest places of the land. And secondly, their 
 fragmentary condition, which to the grammatical view dis- 
 credits them, is so far from being a drawback, that it is a 
 circumstance highly favourable to the formation of a philo- 
 logical habit of mind. It is the organic completeness of a 
 language that recommends it for grammatical study, but the 
 philological interest is totally different In every language, 
 however perfect, philology - a mass of relics, which can 
 be mentally completed and satisfactorily understood only by 
 reference to other languages. It is not easy at first to see 
 the most perfect languages in this light; nor is it by any 
 means desirable that the student should do so, until after the 
 time that by grammatical study he has comprehended some- 
 what of their perfections. But when we regard our homely 
 dialects, the dilapidation is patent, and the most wholesome 
 thought is of reconstruction by sounder specimens; and in 
 this thought lies the germ of the philological idea. 
 
 § 9. The Kings English, 
 
 67. We have a phenomenon to account for. In the midst 
 of this Babel of dialects there suddenly appeared a standard 
 English language. It appeared at once in full vigour, and was 
 acknowledged on all hands without dispute. The study of 
 the previous age does not make us acquainted with a general 
 process of convergency towards this result, but rather in- 
 dicates that each locality was getting confirmed in its own 
 peculiar habits of speech, and that the divergence was 
 
70 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 growing wider. Now there appeared a mature form of 
 English which was generally received. 
 
 The two writers of the fourteenth century who most 
 powerfully display this language are Chaucer and Gower. 
 Piers Plowman is in a dialect ; Wiclif s Bible Version is in 
 a dialect : but Chaucer and Gower write in a speech which 
 is thenceforward recognised as The English Language, 
 and which before their time is hardly found. This seems to 
 admit of but one explanation. It must have been simply the 
 language that had formed itself in the court about the per- 
 son of the monarch. Chaucer and Gower differ from the 
 other chief writers of their time in this particular, which they 
 have in common between themselves, that they were both 
 conversant with court life, and moved in the highest regions 
 of English society. They wrote in fact King's English. 
 This advantage, joined to the excellence of the works them- 
 selves, procured for these two writers, but more especially for 
 Chaucer, the preference over all that had written in English. 
 
 68. An admiring foreigner (I think it was M. Montalem- 
 bert), among other compliments to the virtues of this nation, 
 observed, as a proof of our loyalty and our attachment to 
 the monarchy, that we even call our roads ' the Queen's 
 Highways/ and our language ' the Queen's English' ! No 
 Englishman would wish to dim the beauty of the sentiment 
 here attributed to us, nor need we think it is disparaged 
 though a matter-of-fact origin can be assigned to each of 
 these expressions. Of the term ' King's Highway' the 
 origin is historically known. When there were many juris- 
 dictions in this country, which were practically independent 
 of the crown, the tracts in which jurisdiction might be un- 
 certain, such as the border-lands of the shires and the high- 
 ways, appertained to the royal jurisdiction. That is to say, a 
 crime committed on the highway was as if committed in the 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 7 1 
 
 King's own personal domain, and fell to his courts to judge. 
 The highways were emphatically under the King's Peace, and 
 hence they came to be (for a very solid and substantial 
 reason, at a time when travellers sorely needed to have their 
 security guaranteed) spoken of as the 'King's Highways.' 
 Of the origin of the term ' King's English' we have not any 
 direct testimony of this kind ; but it seems that it may be 
 constructively shewn, at least as a probability, that it was ori- 
 ginally the term to designate the style of the royal or govern- 
 mental proclamations, charters, and other legal writings, bv 
 contrast with the various dialects of the provinces. 
 
 As a little collateral illustration and confirmation of 
 this view, it may not be amiss to observe that the style of 
 penmanship in which such documents were then written has 
 always been known as 'Court Hand.' 
 
 69. From about the middle of the thirteenth century, it 
 had become usual to employ French in the most select docu- 
 ments, instead of Latin, which had been the documentary 
 language from the time of the Conquest, Hallam tells us, 
 on the authority of Mr. Stevenson, that ' all letters, even of 
 a private nature, weir written in Latin till the beginning of 
 the reign of Edward I (soon after 12 70), when a sudden 
 change brought in the use of French.' Hut neither of these 
 strange languages were suitable for edicts and proclamations 
 addressed to the body of the people, and we may suppose 
 that the vernacular was generally employed for this purpose, 
 although few examples have survived. The earliest extant 
 piece of this class is of the reign of Henry III, at the mo- 
 ment of the triumph of the barons, and Mr. Blaauw interprets 
 the employment of the English language at this crisis as 
 proving ' the anxiety of the barons to explain their conduct 
 to the people at large, by the use of the best medium of 
 information.' 
 
72 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 Proclamation of Henry III, sent to the several Counties 
 of England, October 18, 1258. 1 
 
 *H Henr', bun Godes fultume, King on Engleneloande, Lhoauerd on Yrloand, 
 Duk on Norm' on Aquitain' and eorl on Aniow, send igretinge to alie hise 
 holde, ilaerde and ilaewede on Huntendon' schir'. 
 
 paet witen ?e wel alle fset we willen and unnen baet. baet vre rsedesmen 
 alle ober ]>e moare dael of heom, baet beob ichosen bur3 us and bun beet 
 loandes folk on vre kuneriche. habbeb idon and schulle don. in be worbnesse 
 of Gode and on vre treowbe, for be freme of be loande bun be besi3te of 
 ban toforen iseide redesmen. beo stedefaest and ilestinde in alle binge abuten 
 aende. 
 
 And we hoaten alle vre treowe, in be treowbe baet heo vs 03en. baet heo 
 stedefaestliche healden and swerien to healden and to werien be isetnesses baet 
 beon imakede and beon to makien, bun b an to foren iseide raedesmen ober 
 bun be moare dsel of heom, alswo alse hit is biforen iseid. 
 
 And baet aehc ober helpe baet for to done, bi ban ilche obe a3enes alle men. 
 Ri'3t for to done and to foangen. And noan ne nime of loande ne of e3te. 
 wherbun bis besigte mu3e beon ilet ober iwersed on onie wise. And sif oni 
 ober onie cumen her on3enes, we willen and hoaten baet alle vre treowe heom 
 healden deadliche ifoan. 
 
 And for baet we willen baet bis beo stedefaest and lestinde. we senden 3ew 
 bis writ open, iseined wib vre seel, to halden a manges 3ew ine hord. Wit- 
 nesse vs seluen aet Lunden', bane e3tetenbe day. on be monbe of Octobr' in 
 be two and fowerti3be 3eare of vre cruninge. 
 
 And bis wes idon aetforen vre isworene redesmen, Bonefac' Archebischop 
 on Kant'bur'. Walt' of Cantelow. Bischop on Wirechestr'. Sim' of Muntfort. 
 Eorl on Leirchestr'. Ric' of Clar' eorl on Glowchestr' and on Hurtford. 
 Rog' Bigod. eorl on Northfolk and marescal on Engleneloand'. Perres of. 
 Sauveye. Will' of ffort. eorl on Aubem'. Joh' of Plesseiz eorl on Ware- 
 wik. Joh' Geffrees sune. Perres of Muntefort. Ric' of Grey. Rog' of 
 Mortemer. James of Aldithel and aetforen obren ino3e. 
 
 IF And al on bo ilche worden is isend in to aeurihce obre shcire ouer al 
 J»aere kuneriche on Engleneloande. And ek in tel Irelonde. 
 
 Here we remark that in 1258 the letter b (called ' Thorn') 
 was still in common use. There is one solitary instance of 
 the Roman th in the above document, and that is in a family 
 name ; by which we may suppose that the ih was already 
 
 1 From Facsimiles of National Manuscripts, photozincographed by Col. Sir 
 H. James, at the Ordnance Survey Office. 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 73 
 
 recognised as more fashionable. The following is the modern 
 English of this unique proclamation. 
 
 H Henry, through God's help, King in England, Lord in Ireland, Duke in 
 Normandy, in Aqnitain, and Earl in Anjou, sends greeting to all his subjects, 
 learned and lay, in Huntingdonshire. 
 
 This know ye well all, that we will and grant that that which our counsel- 
 lors all or the more part of them, that he chosen through us and through the 
 land's folk in our Ungdom. have done and ihall do, in the reverence of God 
 and in loyalty to us, for the good of the land, through the care of these 
 aforesaid counsellors, be stedfast and lasting in all things without end. 
 
 And we enjoin all our lie^e--, in the allegiance that they us owe, that they 
 stedfastly hold, and swear to hold and maintain the ordinances that be 
 made and shall be made through the aforesaid counsellors, or through the 
 more part of them, in manner as it is before s 
 
 And that each help the other so to do, by the same oath, against all men : 
 Right for to do and to accept. And none is to take land or money, wr- 
 through this provision may be let or damaged in any wise. And if any 
 person or pei-sons come here-against, we will and enjoin that all our lieges 
 them hold deadly foes. 
 
 And, for that we will that this he stedfast and lasting, we send you tl 
 Writ of en, signed with our seal, to hold amongst you in hoaril Wit- 
 
 ness ourselves at London, the eighteenth day in the- month of October, in the 
 (Wo and fortieth year of our crowning. 
 
 And this was done in the presence of OUT SW m counsellors, Boniface, Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury; Walter of Cantelow, Bishop of Worcester; Simon of 
 Montfort, earl of Leicester; R- hard of CI rl of Gloucester and Hert- 
 
 ford; Roger Bigod, earl of Norfolk and Marshal of England : Piers of 
 Savoy; William of For/, <arl of Albemarle ; j- i"i of I'ltsseiz, earl of 
 Warwick; John Gejf'cr^ n ; Pier of Mon fort ; Richard of Grey ; Roger 
 of Mortimer ; James of Aldifbcl, — and in the presence of many Others. 
 
 ^1 And all in the like words is sent in to every other shire over all the king- 
 t/om of England : and also into Ireland. 
 
 70. This is not a specimen of ' King's English/ nor of 
 any type of English that ever had a living existence. It is to 
 English something like what the Hindustani of one of our 
 
 D O 
 
 Indian interpreters might be to the spoken language of the 
 natives — good enough to be understood of the people, and 
 clumsy enough to betray the hand of the stranger. It is a 
 piece of official English of the day, composed by the clerk to 
 whom it appertained, off notes or an original draft, which (in 
 
74 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 either case) were couched in French. The strength of the 
 composition consists in set and established phrases, which 
 had long been in use for like purposes, and which betray 
 themselves by their flavour of anachronism here. Such 
 are, fultwne, willen and unnen, isetnesses, on in places where 
 it was no longer usual, and other less palpable anachron- 
 isms, among which we should probably reckon the use of the 
 word /lord. 
 
 That this proceeds from the pen of one whose sphere was 
 more or less outside the people, appears from the over- 
 charged rudeness and broadness of many of the forms, 
 running on the verge of caricature. Such are, loande, Lhoa- 
 uerd, moare, hoaten,foangen, ceurihce, share, tel. 
 
 The proportion of French words is so small, compared to 
 the literary habits of the date, that it is plain they have 
 been studiously excluded, even with a needless excess of 
 scruple ; for a vast number of French words must before 
 now have become quite popular. Besides iseined and 
 cruninge the translator might perhaps have safely ventured 
 on the word purveance (providence, provision, care,) which 
 is what he had under his eye or in his mind when he in two 
 places employed the uncouth native word besigte — a word 
 which probably is nowhere else found. This is not a speci- 
 men of any living and growing dialect of English. It is 
 a piece of desk and dictionary work. It is a crude and 
 laboured translation from a French copy. 
 
 71. This is not indeed ' King's English,' but it may well 
 stand as a monument of the necessity which produced 
 ' King's English.' It marks the attempt to find among the 
 strife of languages and the Babel of dialects a central and 
 popular medium of communication. The need was at length 
 supplied by the example and usage of the court. If we look 
 forward for a moment to the end of this period when a 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 75 
 
 standard language was established, we may see what manner 
 of English was in use in the royal family at that time. The 
 following letter from Henry Prince of Wales (afterwards 
 Henry V) to his father, is one of those pieces which enable 
 us to trace the progress of the English language at its centre, 
 and the exactness of the copy may be relied on, as it is one 
 of the pieces given in the photozincographed National 
 Manuscripts of the Ordnance Survey. 
 
 Henry Prince of Wales to his father Henry IV, 
 
 A.I). I4O2. 
 
 My soverain lord and fader, I Recomande me to yowr good and gracieux 
 lordship, as humbly as I can, desiring to beere as g od tydingges ol yow and 
 yowr hye estat, as ever i\' 1 liege man of h;s soverain lord. And, Sir, I trust 
 to God that ye shal have now a companie comyng with my brother of 
 Bedford that ye shal like wel, in good feith, as hit is do me wite. Nevcr- 
 thelatter my brothers mainy [company] have I seyn, which is right a tal 
 inevny. And so sthal ye se of thaym that be of your other Optaines 
 leding, of which I seiule vow al the names 111 a roll !!.<■ l>erer ot this. 
 
 Also so, Sir, blcssid be God of the good and gracieux tydingges that ye have 
 liked to send me word of be [by] Herfi rd ) our messager, which were the 
 gladdist that ever I inv-,t lure, next your uel Tare, be my trouth : and Sir 
 with Goddes grace I shal sende al thisc ladi( omandid me, in a! 
 
 hast beseching yow of yowr lordship that I my-,t wite how that ye wolde 
 that my cosine of York shuld retile lur, whether she shuld be barbid 
 or not, as 1 have wreten to vow mv soverain lord afore this tyme. And, 
 Sir, as touching TiptOt, he shal be deli\ered in al i I ther lakkith 
 
 no thing but shipping which with Goddes grace shal be SO Ordeined lor that 
 he shal not tarv. Also Sir, blessid be God, yowr grel ship the Grace Dieu 
 is even as rcdy, and is the fain ll that ever man saugh. I trowe in good 
 
 feith; and this same day th' Kile ofDevenshix my cosin maad his moustre 
 
 [muster] in her, and al others have her [their] moustre the same tyme that 
 shal go to be see. And S r 1 trowe \e have on [one] COmyng toward you 
 as glad as any man can he, as far as he shewith, tliat is the King of Scotts ; 
 for he thanketh God that he shal mowe shewe be esq th' entente of 
 
 his goodwill be the sutlraine of vour good lordship. Mv soverain lord more 
 can I not write to yowr hvnesse at this time; but J;' ever I beseehe yow ot 
 your good and gracieux lordship as, be mv trouth, my witting willingly I shal 
 never deserve the contrary, that woot God, to whom I pray to send yow al 
 J>' yowr hert desireth to his plaisance. Writeo in yowr tovn of Hampton, 
 the xiiij 1 ' 1 day of May. — Yowr trewe and humble liegeman and sone, H. G. 
 
 72. Between these two pieces, namely, that of a.d. 1258 
 
( 
 
 76 ■ SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 and that of a.d. 1402, a period of 140 years bad elapsed; 
 but even this period, which represents four generations of 
 men, would not suffice to allow for the transition of the one 
 into the other in the way of lineal descent. In fact they are 
 not on the same track. The one is a fossilised sample of 
 confused provincialisms, the other a living and breathing 
 utterance of 'King's English/ The following piece has 
 something of the Court English about it, but perhaps it is 
 not in a very good state of preservation. It is taken from 
 Warton's History of English Poetry (ed. Price). 
 
 Selections from an Elegy on the Death of King Edward 1, 
 
 ivho died a.d. 1307. 
 
 Alle that beob of huerte trewe 
 
 A stounde herkneb to my song, 
 Of Duel that Deb ha]) diht vs newe, 
 
 That makeb me syke ant sorewe among 
 Of a knyht that wes so strong 
 
 Of wham God hab done ys wille ; 
 Me buncke> that DeJ> hab don vs wron g» 
 
 That he so sone shal ligge stille. 
 
 11. 
 
 Al Englond ahte forte knowe 
 
 Of wham that song is that y synge, 
 Of Edward kyng that lib so lowe, 
 
 Yent al this world is nome con springe : 
 Trewest mon of alle ])inge, 
 
 Ant in werre war ant wys ; 
 For him we ahte oure honden wrynge, 
 
 Of Christendome he ber the pris. 
 
 Nou is Edward of Carnaruan 
 King of Engelond al aplyht ; 
 
 God lete him tier be worse man 
 Than is fader, ne lasse of myht, 
 
 To holden is pore men to ryht, 
 And vnderstonde good consail ; 
 
 Al Engelond forte wisse ant diht; 
 
 Of gode knyhtes darh him nout fail. 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. J J 
 
 XI. 
 
 Tha mi tonge were mad of stel 
 
 Ant min herte ygote of bras 
 The godnesse myht y neuer telle 
 
 That with King Edward was. 
 
 Translation. 
 
 All ye that be true of heart, hearken ye a while to my song, of grief that 
 death hath lately done us, which make/h me sigh and sorrow as I sing ; 
 of a knight who was so strong: of whom God hath done His will. Metbinks 
 that Death has done us wrong, that he so soon must lie still. 
 
 All England ought for to know of whom the song is tha' I sing — of 
 Edward the king that lieth so low, over all this world his name did spring ; 
 truest man in all business, and in war cautious and wise ; for him we ought 
 to wring our hands ; he bore the palm of Christendom. 
 
 Now is Edward of Caernarvon king of England assuredly. God grant 
 he be never a worse man than his father, nor less in might, to support bis 
 poor men to {obtain their) rights, and to understand good counsel ; for to 
 guide and direct all England : of good knights shall not him fail. 
 
 Though my tongue ivere made of steel, and my heart cast in brass, I should 
 never be able to tell the goodness that was about King Edward. 
 
 73. But it is in the writings of Chaucer and Grower that 
 we have for the first time the full display of King's English. 
 These two names have been coupled together all through 
 the whole course of English literature. Skelton, the poet 
 laureate of Henry VII, joins the two names together. So 
 does our literary king, James I. So have all writers who 
 have had occasion to speak of the fourteenth century, down 
 to the present day. Indeed, Chaucer himself may be almost 
 said to have associated Gower's name permanently with his 
 own literary and poetical fame, in the terms with which he 
 addressed his Trqylus and Crcscidc to Gower and Strode, 
 and asked their revision of his book : — 
 
 4 O moral Gower, this boke I directe 
 To the, and to the philosophical Strode, 
 To vouchen sauf, ther ncde is, to correcte, 
 Of youre benignites and zeles good.' 
 
7 8 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 Thus these two names have grown together, and their con- 
 nection is soldered by habit and tradition. One is apt to 
 imagine, previous to a study of their works, that they were 
 a par nobile frairum, brothers and equals in poetry and 
 genius, and that they had contributed equally, or nearly 
 so, towards the making of English literature. But this 
 is very far from being the case. That which united them 
 at first, and which continues to be the sole ground of 
 coupling their names together, is just this, — that they wrote 
 in the same general strain and in the same language. By 
 this is meant, first, that they were both versed in the 
 learning then most prized, and both delivered what they 
 had to say in the terms then most admired ; and secondly, 
 that both wrote the English of the court. If affinity of 
 genius had been the basis of classification, the author of 
 Piers Plowman had more right to rank with Chaucer than 
 the prosaic Gower. But Chaucer and Gower are united 
 inasmuch as they both wrote the particular form of English 
 which was henceforward to be established as the standard 
 form of the national language, and their books were among 
 the leading English classics of the best society down to the 
 opening of a new era under Elizabeth. 
 
 74. And now the question naturally rises, What was this 
 new language ? what was it that distinguished the King's 
 English from the various forms of provincial English of 
 which examples have been given in the group of writers 
 noticed above, or from Piers Plowman and other provincial 
 contemporaries of Chaucer ? In answer to this it may be 
 said, that it is no more possible to convey the idea of a 
 language by description than of a piece of music. The 
 writings must be looked into by all who desire to realise 
 the distinctions here to be pointed out. The right course 
 for the student is to master a particular piece, and Chaucer's 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 79 
 
 Prologue to the Canterbury Tales is the piece which unites 
 a greater variety of interest in proportion to its extent, than 
 any other production of the fourteenth century. 
 
 The leading characteristics of the King's English— the 
 characteristics by which it is distinguished from the pro- 
 vincial dialects — are only to be understood by a considera- 
 tion of the vast amount of French which it had absorbed. 
 It is a familiar sound to hear Chaucer called the well of 
 English umL filed. But this expression never had any other 
 meaning than that Chaucer's language was free from those 
 foreign ' materials which got into the English of some cen- 
 turies later. Compare Chaucer with the provincial English 
 writers of his own day, and he will be found highly Frenchified 
 in comparison with them. Words which are so thoroughly 
 naturalised that they now pass muster as ' English undefili d, 
 will often turn out to be French of the twelfth and thirteenth 
 centuries Who would suspect such a word as blemish of 
 being French? and yet it is so. It is from the "1,1 French 
 adjective dlestne, which meant sallow, wan. discoloured; and 
 iis old verb dlesmir, which meant as much as the modern 
 French verbs tocher and salir, to spot and to soil. Thenthi 
 is the very Saxon-looking word with its :<• initial, to Wartsh, 
 meaning to recover from sickness. Sometimes it assumes 
 the form warsh, and then it looks still more indigenous; 
 as when it is said that the first sight of his lady in the 
 morning cured him of his sorrow: — 
 
 * That when I saugh her first a morwe 
 I was warshed of al my sorwe.' 
 
 The Dethe of Blanche, 1 104. 
 
 Richardson, in his Dictionary, has provided this word with 
 a Saxon derivation, by connecting it with being tvare or 
 wary, and so taking care of oneself. But it is simply the 
 
8o SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 French verb guerir. These are only two of a whole class 
 of French verbs which have put on the termination -ish ; 
 such as to banish, embellish, flourish, nourish, pimish, burnish, 
 furnish, perish, finish, from the French verbs, nourrir, 
 fleurir, embellir, bannir, punir, finir, pe'rir, fournir, burnir 
 (now brunir). They were made subject to the usages of 
 English grammar, as if they had been true natives. Thus 
 we find in Chaucer's Legende of Goode Women the verb 
 banish with the Saxon verbal prefix^-, as — 
 
 ' And Brutus hath by hire chaste bloode yswore, 
 That Tarquyn shuld ybanyshed be therefore.' 
 
 French words in Chaucer and Gower will sometimes 
 assume a form which is literatim identical with some common 
 English word. For instance, the French verb burnir just 
 cited appears in both these poets in the strangely English 
 and absolutely misleading form of burned ; — 
 
 ' . . . wrought al of burned Steele.' 
 
 Knight's Tale, 2185 ; ed. Tyrw. 
 
 ' An harnois as for a lustie knight 
 Which burned was. as silver bright.' 
 
 Gower, Con/essio Atnantis. 
 
 The difference of look between the French initial gu 
 and the English initial zv often masks a French word. 
 Thus ward and warden are from the French verb guarder 
 and the French noun guardien. In Chaucer the French 
 word gateau (a cake), anciently gastel, takes the form of 
 wastel. 
 
 75. A large number of Romanesque words are thoroughly 
 imbedded into our speech. The following is an imperfect 
 list of French and Latin words found in the writings of 
 Chaucer : — 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 8l 
 
 abominable 
 
 carriage 
 
 cope 
 
 accept 
 
 carry 
 
 cordial 
 
 accident 
 
 case 
 
 coronation 
 
 accord 
 
 castle 
 
 correct 
 
 acquaint 
 
 cattle 
 
 counsel 
 
 add 
 
 cause 
 
 countenance 
 
 advance 
 
 cease 
 
 counterfeit 
 
 advantage 
 
 certain 
 
 country 
 
 advocate 
 
 certes 
 
 courage 
 
 adventure 
 
 celestial 
 
 course 
 
 adverse 
 
 chamber 
 
 court 
 
 affection 
 
 champion 
 
 conrtesj 
 
 air 
 
 chance 
 
 courteous 
 
 alas 
 
 change 
 
 covenant 
 
 ally 
 
 charity 
 
 cover 
 
 amend 
 
 charm 
 
 covcrchict 
 
 amiable 
 
 chaste 
 
 creator 
 
 appear 
 
 chci r 
 
 creature 
 
 appetite 
 
 chief 
 
 credence 
 
 array 
 
 chivalry 
 
 crime 
 
 art 
 
 chivalrous 
 
 crown 
 
 ascendant 
 
 circuit 
 
 cruel 
 
 assay 
 
 circumstance 
 
 cure 
 
 assemble 
 
 city 
 
 custom 
 
 assent 
 
 clear 
 
 daintii 
 
 assize 
 
 cloister 
 
 damn 
 
 audience 
 
 comfort 
 
 dance 
 
 auditor 
 
 commend 
 
 dan 
 
 authentic 
 
 commission 
 
 debate 
 
 avauot 
 
 union 
 
 debonair 
 
 azure 
 
 company 
 
 do 
 
 balance 
 
 compass 
 
 defence 
 
 banish 
 
 compassion 
 
 
 baptise 
 
 complain 
 
 del 
 
 battle 
 
 complexion 
 
 demand 
 
 beast 
 
 aclude 
 
 depart 
 
 beauty 
 
 conclusion 
 
 describe 
 
 benign 
 
 condition 
 
 descriptj 
 
 benignity 
 
 confound 
 
 desert 
 
 besiege 
 
 confusion 
 
 deserve 
 
 bible 
 
 conjoin 
 
 desire- 
 
 blame 
 
 conquest 
 
 despise 
 
 blanch 
 
 conscience 
 
 destiny 
 
 blanc-mange 
 
 conserve 
 
 destruction 
 
 boast 
 
 consider 
 
 determinate 
 
 boil 
 
 contagion 
 
 devise 
 
 bounty 
 
 conn nt 
 
 devotion 
 
 caitiff 
 
 contrary 
 
 devour 
 
 cape 
 
 convert 
 
 diet 
 
 carpenter 
 
 cook 
 
 G 
 
 difference 
 
82 
 
 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 digestible 
 
 figure 
 
 jeopardy 
 
 diligence 
 
 firmament 
 
 jewel 
 
 diligent 
 
 flower 
 
 jocund 
 
 discover 
 
 folly 
 
 join 
 
 discreet 
 
 fool 
 
 jolly 
 
 discretion 
 
 force 
 
 journey 
 
 disdain 
 
 forest 
 
 joy 
 
 dislodge 
 
 form 
 
 judge 
 
 dispite 
 
 fortune 
 
 justice 
 
 disport 
 
 fraternity 
 
 language 
 
 distress 
 
 fruit 
 
 large 
 
 divers 
 
 g a y 
 
 largess 
 
 divinity 
 
 general 
 
 legend 
 
 division 
 
 gentle 
 
 letter 
 
 doctor 
 
 geometry 
 
 lily 
 
 double 
 
 glorious 
 
 lineage 
 
 doubt 
 
 gluttony 
 
 luxury 
 
 dress 
 
 govern 
 
 madam 
 
 ease 
 
 governance 
 
 magic 
 
 easy 
 
 grace 
 
 magnanimitv 
 
 easily 
 
 grant 
 
 magnificence 
 
 effect 
 
 grieve 
 
 malady 
 
 element 
 
 guide 
 
 malice 
 
 emprise 
 
 guile 
 
 manner 
 
 enchantment 
 
 gullet 
 
 mansion 
 
 endite 
 
 harbour 
 
 mantle 
 
 endure 
 
 harness 
 
 marriage 
 
 engender 
 
 haste 
 
 martyr 
 
 ensample 
 
 haunt 
 
 mass 
 
 envenom 
 
 honest 
 
 master 
 
 envy 
 
 honesty 
 
 matter 
 
 errant 
 
 honour 
 
 measure 
 
 escape 
 
 horrible 
 
 measureable 
 
 eschew 
 
 host 
 
 meat 
 
 estate 
 
 hour 
 
 mediation 
 
 eternal 
 
 humble 
 
 melody 
 
 excellence 
 
 humour 
 
 memory 
 
 exchange 
 
 idol 
 
 mercenary 
 
 excuse 
 
 image 
 
 merchant 
 
 expound 
 
 incense 
 
 mercy 
 
 face 
 
 incline 
 
 merit 
 
 faculty 
 
 increase 
 
 message 
 
 fail 
 
 infernal 
 
 minister 
 
 faith 
 
 innocence 
 
 miracle 
 
 false 
 
 instrument 
 
 mirror 
 
 fame 
 
 intellect 
 
 mischief 
 
 feast 
 
 intent 
 
 mistress 
 
 felicity 
 
 ivory 
 
 moist 
 
 feiony 
 
 jailor 
 
 monster 
 
 fierce 
 
 jangle 
 
 moral 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 83 
 
 mortal 
 
 physician 
 
 receive 
 
 name 
 
 piteous 
 
 recommend 
 
 natural 
 
 pity 
 
 record 
 
 nature 
 
 place 
 
 refuse 
 
 nicety 
 
 plain 
 
 region 
 
 noble 
 
 planet 
 
 rehearse 
 
 note 
 
 pleasance 
 
 release 
 
 notify 
 
 pleasant 
 
 remedy 
 
 nourishing 
 
 please 
 
 remission 
 
 nurse 
 
 plenteous 
 
 renown 
 
 obstacle 
 
 poignant 
 
 rent 
 
 obstinate 
 
 point 
 
 repent 
 
 office 
 
 pomp 
 
 repentance 
 
 officer 
 
 poor 
 
 report 
 
 opinion 
 
 pope 
 
 request 
 
 oppress 
 
 port 
 
 require 
 
 oppression 
 
 possible 
 
 respite 
 
 ordain 
 
 pouch 
 
 restore 
 
 ordei 
 
 pound 
 
 reverence 
 
 ordinance 
 
 pourtraiture 
 
 robe 
 
 organ 
 
 pourtray 
 
 rose 
 
 original 
 
 powder 
 
 rote 
 
 orison 
 
 practiser 
 
 route 
 
 ostler 
 
 pray 
 
 n>vally 
 
 pace 
 
 prayer 
 
 rude 
 
 pain 
 
 preach 
 
 > icririce 
 
 paint 
 
 preface 
 
 saint 
 
 pair 
 
 prefect 
 
 salvation 
 
 pale 
 
 presence 
 
 sanguine 
 
 pa dement 
 
 pride 
 
 pience 
 
 parochial 
 
 prince 
 
 ^auce 
 
 party 
 
 princess 
 
 save 
 
 pass 
 
 principal 
 
 savour 
 
 passion 
 
 prison 
 
 school 
 
 patent 
 
 privily 
 
 scholar 
 
 patient 
 
 prize 
 
 science 
 
 patron 
 
 proceed 
 
 season 
 
 pi .ice 
 
 process 
 
 second 
 
 penance 
 
 proffer 
 
 secure 
 
 people 
 
 promise 
 
 sentence 
 
 peradventurc 
 
 prove 
 
 sergeant 
 
 perfect 
 
 purchase 
 
 servant 
 
 perpetually 
 
 pure 
 
 serve 
 
 persevere 
 
 purge 
 
 service 
 
 perseverance 
 
 quaint 
 
 st. won 
 
 person 
 
 quantity 
 
 siege 
 
 perverse 
 
 question 
 
 sign 
 
 pestilence 
 
 quit 
 
 similitude 
 
 philosopher 
 
 ransom 
 
 simple 
 
 philosophy 
 
 reason 
 
 G 2 
 
 sir 
 
H 
 
 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 sire 
 
 study 
 
 travail 
 
 skirmish 
 
 substance 
 
 treason 
 
 sober 
 
 subtilly 
 
 tributary 
 
 sojourn 
 
 suffer 
 
 turn 
 
 solace 
 
 suffice 
 
 tyranny 
 
 solemn 
 
 superfluity 
 
 tyrant 
 
 sort 
 
 supper 
 
 usage 
 
 sounding 
 
 table 
 
 vain 
 
 space 
 
 talent 
 
 vanish 
 
 special 
 
 taste 
 
 vary 
 
 spend 
 
 tavern 
 
 very 
 
 spicery 
 
 tempest 
 
 vice 
 
 spouse 
 
 tent 
 
 victory 
 
 squire 
 
 term 
 
 victual 
 
 stable, adj. 
 
 theatre 
 
 villany 
 
 stately 
 
 tormentor 
 
 virgin 
 
 statute 
 
 tower 
 
 virtue 
 
 story 
 
 traitress 
 
 virtuous 
 
 strait 
 
 translation 
 
 visit 
 
 76. These words are still in our language ; and beyond 
 these there are many French words in Chaucer which have 
 since been disused, or so much altered as to be of question- 
 able identification. But the general permanence of Chaucer's 
 French words may reasonably be esteemed a proof that 
 he is in no sense the author of this particular combination 
 of the two languages ; that he adopted and did not invent 
 the mixture. 
 
 The proportion of French was very much more con- 
 siderable than is generally admitted. Sometimes we meet 
 with lines which are almost wholly French: — 
 
 ' Was verray felicitee parfite! Prol. 340. 
 
 ' He was a verray perjit practisour.' Prol. 424. 
 
 ' He was a verray parjit gentil knight.' Prol. 72. 
 
 * And sikerly she was of great desport, 
 And ful plesaunt and amyable of port; 
 And peyned hire to countrefete chiere 
 Of Court, and been estatlich of matiere ; 
 And to been holden digue of reuerence.' Prol. 137. 
 
 ' Infortunat ascendent tortuous.* The Man of L awes Tale, 302. 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 85 
 
 § 10. The Bilingualism of King's English. 
 
 77. But we have proofs of more intimate association with 
 the French language than this amounts to. The dualism of 
 our elder phraseology has already been mentioned. It is 
 a very expressive feature in regard to the early relations of 
 English with French. Words run much in couples, the one 
 being English and the other French; and it is plain that 
 the habit was caused by the bilingual state of the population. 
 It is a very curious object of contemplation, and we will 
 collect a few of them here : — 
 
 act and deed. 
 
 aid and abet. 
 
 baile and borowe. 
 
 head and chief. 
 
 uncouthe and strange. Chaucer's Drettie, vol. vi. p. 57; ed. Bell. 
 
 nature and kind. Ibid. p. 55. 
 
 disese and wo. Ibid. p. 10.'. 
 
 mirth and jollity. 
 
 meres and bounds. 
 
 huntynge and venerye. Canterbury Tales, z^o*. 
 
 steedes and palfreys. Ibid. 2495. 
 
 prest and boun. T. Occleve, in Skett'l Specimens, p. 20. 
 
 And it had already grown into a habit of phrase, for 
 we find it sometimes where both words are of one national 
 source, as 
 
 chiere and face. Canterbury Tales, 2586. 
 
 It is not an unfrequent thing in Chaucer for a line to 
 contain a single fact bilingually repeated : — 
 
 'He was a wel good wriht a carpentere.' Prol. 614. 
 ' By forward and by composicioun.' Id. S50. 
 
86 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 78. Sometimes this feature might escape notice from the 
 alteration that has taken place in the meaning of words. 
 In the following quotation from the Prologue, there are two 
 of these diglottisms in a single line : — 
 
 'A knyght ther was and that a worthy man, 
 That fro the tyme ])at he first bigan 
 To ryden out, he loued chiualrye, 
 Trouthe and honour, fredom and curteisye.' 
 
 The last line contains four nouns to express two ideas. 
 ' Trouthe ' is ' honour/ and ' fredom ' is ' curteisye.' The 
 formula, ' I plight thee my troth,' is equal to saying, ' I pledge 
 thee my honour,' only the former is a more solemn way of 
 saying it — the word troth having been reserved for more 
 impressive use. The word freedom employed in the sense 
 of gentlemanlike manners, politeness, as the equivalent of 
 courtesy, is to be found by a study of our early poetry. 
 
 These examples may suffice to shew that this prevalent 
 coupling of words, one English with one French, is not to 
 be explained as a rhetorical exuberance. It sprung first out 
 of the mutual necessity felt by two races of people and two . 
 classes of society to make themselves intelligible the one 
 to the other. It is, in fact, a putting of colloquial formula? 
 to do the duty of a French-English and an English-French 
 vocabulary. 
 
 79. At length this ripens into a figure and form of 
 eloquence. Force is given to a statement by saying it 
 in the two languages, provided it can be done gracefully and 
 melodiously. Thus Spenser has occasion to represent that 
 Cambello, though taken by surprise, is nevertheless quite 
 ready to fight, and this important virtue of readiness he 
 makes duly conspicuous by saying it in English and in 
 French. The word prest is the modern French pret : — 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 87 
 
 ' He lightly lept out of his place of rest, 
 And rushing forth into the empty field, 
 Against Cambello fiercely him addrest : 
 Who, him affronting soone, to fight was readie prest.' 
 
 The Faery Queene, iv. 3. 22. 
 
 The two languages became yokefellows in a still more 
 intimate manner. From combination it is but a step to 
 composition. Compounds of the most close and permanent 
 kind were formed bilingually. Some of them exist in the 
 present English. Such a compound is butt-end, where the 
 first part is bout the French word for end. In besiege we 
 have a Saxon preposition, which meant l around,' linked 
 to a French verb singer, to sit; and the compound means 
 k to sit around' a place. The old word which this hybrid 
 supplanted vra.s besittan, from which we still retain the verb 
 to beset. So in like manner the genuine Saxon bewray 
 was superseded by the hybrid betray. A somewhat different 
 
 e is that of the word gen th 'man, where a French com- 
 pound geniilhomme is half translated and the word has 
 been permanently fixed in a bilingual condition, 
 
 80. But there is a combination of a yet more intimate 
 kind between the two languages. Sometimes an English 
 word was retained in the language as the mere representa- 
 tive of some French word. It was divorced from its 
 old sense, and made to take a sense from some French 
 word of contiguous idea. A good example offers in the 
 
 Prologue : — 
 
 4 And thogh l>;it he weere worthy he was wys, 
 And of his poort as ineke as is a nuyde: 
 Ne neuere yet no vilcynye ne sayde 
 In al his lyf vnto n<» mauere wight : 
 He was a verray perfit gentil knyght.' 
 
 The first line means that although the knight was valiant, 
 yet was he modest, gentle, well-disciplined, sober-minded, 
 .is the lines following explain. The word wys or wise here 
 
88 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 does duty for the French sage, of which it is enough to say 
 that French mothers at the present day, when they tell a 
 child to be good, say Sot's sage. It would be a bald 
 rendering of this maternal admonition if it were verbally 
 Englished Be wise. Equally far is the use of the word wise 
 in that passage of Chaucer both from the old Saxon -sense 
 and our modern use. We now use the word just as our 
 early ancestors did, before it had received the French 
 colouring which has since faded out. 
 
 61. In this way of representation much in our language is 
 French in spirit though the words are derivatively Saxon. 
 The relative pronouns are a strong example. We have 
 now two relative pronouns, namely, thai and which. The 
 Saxon had only that, and there was no other use of which 
 but as an interrogative. At this period, in imitation of the 
 French que and lequel, the interrogative which assumed the 
 function of a relative, and in Chaucer we often meet with 
 these two in combination, thus — 
 
 'Nought trowe I the triumphe of Julius, 
 Of which that Lucau maketh swich a bost, 
 Was roialler ne more curious 
 Than was thassemblee of this blisful host.' 
 
 The Man of Laives Tale, 400. 
 
 And in like manner the relative uses of ivho, what, when, 
 zvhere, whence, why, are all of them thinly-disguised imitations 
 of the French. In Chaucer ther is the usual relative, instead 
 of where as we should now write: — 
 
 1 This constable was no thing lord of this place 
 Of which I speke, ther he Custance fond, 
 But kepte it strongly, many wintres space, 
 Vnder Alia, kyng of Northumberlond.' . 
 
 The Man of Lawes Tale, 576. 
 
 82. As a result of this redistribution of form and sense, it 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 89 
 
 happened that words and phrases were produced of which 
 it is impossible to say definitely that they are either French 
 or English. No ingenuity has as yet been able to uncoil 
 the fabric of certain expressions which at this epoch make 
 their appearance. For example, ' He gave five shillings 
 to boot ' — what is the origin of this familiar and thoroughly 
 English expression to boot} We know of a ' boot' or ' bote ' 
 which is native English from the Saxon verb betan, to 
 mend or better a thing. The fishermen of Yarmouth have 
 sometimes astonished the learned and curious who haw 
 conversed with them, by talking of beating their nets (so it 
 sounds) when they mean mending them. In Saxon times 
 bot was the legal an 1 most current word for amends of any 
 kind. It passed into ecclesiastical diction in the term d.kd- 
 bot, deed-bettering, a word that was replaced in the four- 
 teenth century by the term penance. Then bote was used 
 later for material to mend with, It was for centuries, and 
 perhaps still is in some parts, a set phrase in leases of land, 
 that though the tenant might not fell timber, yet he might 
 have wood to mend his plough and make his fire, /•/ 
 bote and fire-bote. It might appear as if little more need be 
 urged for the purpose of shewing that this is also the word 
 in the expression 'to boot.' And yet, when we come to ex- 
 amine authorities, there is great reason to hesitate- before 
 excluding the French language from a share in the pro- 
 duction of this expression. There are two contemporary 
 verbs, bouter and boutre, with meanings not widely diverse 
 from each other, in the sense of putting to, push, sup- 
 port, prop. Hence we have abut and buttress. The old 
 grammarian Palsgrave seems to imply this French deri- 
 vation when he says : ' To boote in corsyng [horse- 
 dealing], or chaUnging one thyng for another, gyue money 
 or some other thynge above the thyng. What wyll you 
 
90 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 boote bytwene my horse and yours ? Mettre ou bouter 
 davantaige V 
 
 83. Some words, whose form is perfectly English to look 
 at, are nothing but French words in a Saxon mask. The 
 word business has not, as far as I know, been suspected, yet 
 I offer it without hesitation as an example. The adjective busy 
 existed in Saxon, and although the -ness derivative from it 
 is not found, yet it would seem so agreeable to rule and 
 analogy as to pass without challenge. We say good-ness, 
 zuicked-ness, wily- 7iess, worthy - ness ; why not busy - ness ? 
 And yet the word appears to be nothing but the French 
 besogne or, as it was in early times written in the plural, be- 
 soingnes. Compare the modern French, Faites voire besogne, 
 1 Do your duty.' It is possible that the word busy may have 
 had that sort of share in the production of the great English 
 word business which may be called the ushering of the word. 
 When natives seize upon the words of strangers and adopt 
 them, their selection is decided in most cases by some 
 affinity of sense and sound with a word of their own. A 
 very superficial connection will suffice for this, or else we 
 could not admit busy even to this inferior share in the pro- 
 duction of the word business. For 'a man of business' 
 means, and has always meant, something very different from 
 a man who is busy. Let us hear an independent and 
 competent witness on the signification of this, which is now 
 one of the most characteristic words of our nation : — 
 
 ' The dictionary definition of Business shows how large 
 a part of practical life arranges itself under this head. It is 
 '■'Employment; an affair; serious engagement; something 
 to be transacted; something required to be done." Every 
 human being has duties to be performed, and therefore has 
 
 1 Quoted after Mr. Albert Way in Promptorium Parvulorum, p. 45. 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 9 1 
 
 need of cultivating the capacity of doing them ; whether the 
 sphere is the management of a household, the conduct of a 
 trade or profession, or the government of a nation. Atten- 
 tion, application, accuracy, method, punctuality, and dis- 
 patch, are the principal qualities required for the efficient 
 conduct of business of any sort.' — Samuel Smiles, Self-Hdp, 
 chap. viii. 
 
 So that the use of this word to the present day corre- 
 sponds truly to that -of the French word besogrn, in which 
 it seems to have originated. 
 
 84. We will close this section with a notice of certain 
 traits which our English poetic diction has inherited from 
 the bilingual period. There is what may be called the 
 ambidextral adjective; where two adjectives are given to 
 one substantive, one being placed before and the other 
 after. At first the prepositive adjective was Saxon and the 
 postpositive one Romanesque; but this was soon forgotten, 
 while the ambidextral habit was retained. Thus Chaucer: — 
 
 'I say the woful day fatal is conic' 
 
 Tic Mm of Laues Tale, 261. 
 
 In the following short quotation from Wordsworth we have 
 two examples : — 
 
 •Days of sweet leisure, taxed with patient thought 
 Abstruse, nor wanting punctual service hi 
 
 The Prelude, init. 
 
 In one of the best-known pieces of the Christian Year we 
 find— 
 
 ' By some soft touch invisible.' Morning. 
 
 A more general effect is the enlarged choice of words. 
 A great number of common ideas being now expressed in 
 duplicate, we have often adopted the one for every-day use, 
 and reserved the other for the poetic diction. Thus we 
 
92 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 have taken colour as the common word, and promoted the 
 Saxon hue to a more select position. 
 
 1 God, by His bow, vouchsafes to write 
 This truth in Heaven above ; 
 As every lovely hue is Light, 
 So every grace is Love.' 
 
 John Keble, Christian Year, QuinquaGjesima. 
 
 And from the same source the rhetoric of our prose is 
 enriched by variation : — 
 
 'We colour our ocular vision with the hues of the imagination.' — John 
 Henry Newman, Essays, Reformation of the Eleventh Century, p. 252. 
 
 §11. Conclusion. 
 
 85. The French language has not only left indelible 
 traces on the English, but has imparted to it some of its 
 leading characteristics. Almost every chapter of the present 
 work will contribute its part towards the evidence of this 
 fact ; and the few observations which are collected in this 
 part are mostly of such matters as do not appear to claim 
 notice elsewhere. 
 
 It must be admitted, that there are many English words 
 of which the derivation cannot be clearly specified, owing 
 to the intimate blending of the French and English lan- 
 guages at the time when such words were stamped with 
 their present form and signification. This blending has, 
 moreover, penetrated deeper than to the causing of a little 
 etymological perplexity. It has modified the vocalisation 
 and even softened the obstinacy of the consonants. 
 
 The focus of this blending was the court. The court 
 was the centre which was the point of meeting for the 
 two nationalities, even while it hardly knew of any literature 
 but the French. The court was also the seminary that 
 produced our first national poet. This added greatly to 
 the natural advantages which a court possesses for making 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 93 
 
 its fashion of speech pass current through the nation. Sup- 
 posing — and the supposition is not an unreasonable one — 
 that in the struggles of the thirteenth century a great poet 
 had risen among the popular and country party, the com- 
 plexion of the English language would in all likelihood have 
 been far different from what it now is. Such a poet, whether 
 he were or were not of courtly breeding, would naturally 
 have selected the phraseology of the country and have 
 avoided that of the court. And be it remembered, the 
 language of the country was at that time quite as fit for 
 a poet's use, as was that of the court. It is not at all 
 necessary that the form of a nations language should 
 be dictated from the highest places of the land. The 
 Tuscan form of modern Italian was decided by the poetry 
 of Dante, at a time when Florence and Tuscany lay in 
 comparative obscurity; and when more apparent influence 
 was exercised by Venice, or Naples, or Sicily. But in our 
 country it did so happen that the first author whose works 
 gained universal and national acceptance was a courtier. 
 This is a thine to be well attended to in the history of 
 the English languag For its whole nature is a monu- 
 ment of the great historical fact that a French court had 
 been planted in an English land. Tin- landsfolk tried to 
 learn some French, and the court had need to know some 
 English; and the language that was at length developed 
 expresses the tenacity of either side and the compromise 
 of the two. This unconscious unstudied compromise 
 gradually worked itself out at the royal court ; and the result 
 was that form of speech which became generally recognised 
 and respected as the King's English. 
 
 86. In the northern part of the island another centre was 
 established at the royal court of Scotland. Here we may 
 mark the centralising effect of a seat of government upon 
 
94 SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 a national language. The original dialect of the south of 
 Scotland was the same with that of the northern counties 
 of England, at least as far south as the Trent. This was 
 the great ' Anglian ' region. The student of language may 
 still observe great traces of affinity between the idioms to 
 the north and those on the south of the Scottish border. 
 Peculiar words, such as bairn, bonny, are among the more 
 superficial points of similarity. But we will select one that 
 is more deeply bedded in the thought of the language. 
 There is in Yorkshire, and perhaps over the north of 
 England generally, a use of the conjunction while which 
 is very different from that of Queen's English. In our 
 southron speech while is equivalent to during, but in the 
 northern dialects it means until. A Yorkshireman will tell 
 his boy, ' You stay here while I return.' At Maltby there 
 lived, some years ago, a retired druggist, highly respected at 
 the time, and well remembered since. The boys' Sunday 
 school was confided to his management; and he had a 
 way of appealing to them when they were disorderly which 
 is still quoted by those who often heard it: 'Now, boys, 
 I can't do nothing while you are quiet.' 
 
 If we look into the early Scottish literature we find that 
 this use of while is the established one. Thus Dunbar : — 
 
 ' Be divers wayis and operatiouns 
 Men maks in court their solistatiouns. 
 Sum be service and diligence ; 
 Sum be continual residence; 
 On substance sum men dois abyde, 
 Quhill fortoun do for them provide.' 
 
 That is, ' Some men live on their own means while, i.e. until, 
 fortune provides for them.' The same poet has ' quhill 
 domisday' for 'until doomsday.' 
 
 The following examples are from Buchanan's version of 
 the famous letters of Queen Mary, reprinted by Hugh 
 Campbell, 1824 : — 
 
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 95 
 
 ' You left somebody this day in sadness, that will never be merry while 
 he see you again.' 
 
 ' I wrought this day while it was two hours upon this bracelet ' (i. e. till 
 it was two o'clock). 
 
 ' He prayed me to remain with him while another morning.' 
 
 •Which was the occasion that while dinner time I held purpose to nobody' 
 (i. e. that until dinner time I conversed with nobody). 
 
 In Shakspeare, where we find almost everything, we also 
 discover this usage. In one instance it is in the mouth of 
 a Scotchman : — 
 
 'While then, God be with you.' Macbeth, iii. I. 43. 
 
 Pope corrected this reading, and changed the while to fill. 
 In another instance the speaker is a lady of Illvria : — 
 
 ' He shall conceale it. 
 Whiles you are willing it shall come to note.' 
 
 Twel/e Night, iv. 3. 29. 
 
 87. The dialects of our northern counties were anciently 
 united in one and the same Anglian state-language with 
 that which we now call Scottish. The severance which 
 has since taken place, has been due to the division of that 
 which was once an integral territory, consequent upon the 
 establishment of a northern and a southern court in this 
 island. The old uniformity and identity has been broken up, 
 and the political border has long since become, in great 
 measure, a linguistic border also. On the other side of that 
 border is a rustic dialect and a national literature which may 
 picture to our eyes and ears, with some approach to proba- 
 bility, what our English language might by this time have 
 been, if it had been preserved equally free from Romanesque 
 influence. In our own southern land, the growth and ex- 
 pansion of the King's English has so preyed upon the vitals 
 of the Saxon dialects which constitute in fact the mould 
 and the soil out of which the King's English has grown 
 robust, that nothing but a few poor relics are left to them 
 
96 . SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 of their own, and it is no longer possible to institute a 
 comparison between them and the national speech. When, 
 in a season of unusual heat, the potato crop has ripened in 
 the middle of the summer, and produced a second generation 
 of tubers, the new potatoes and the old cling to the same 
 haulm, but those of later growth have left the earlier crop 
 effete and worthless. Even so it is with the dialects — all 
 their goodness is gone into the King's English, and little 
 remains but their venerable forms. Such power and 
 beauty as they still possess they cannot get credit for carent 
 quia vate sacro, because they want a poet to present them 
 at their full advantage. Where, in some remoter county, 
 a poet has appeared to adorn his local dialect, we find our- 
 selves surprised at the effect produced out of materials that 
 we might else have deemed contemptible. A splendid 
 example of this is furnished by the poems of Mr. Barnes in 
 the Dorset dialect. Unless a southern fondness misleads us, 
 he has affiliated to our language a second Doric, and won a 
 more than alliterative right to be quoted along with Burns. 
 
 88. The great characteristic which distinguishes all the 
 dialects from King's English is this — That they are com- 
 paratively unaltered by French influence. In Scottish 
 and provincial glossaries there is too great a readiness 
 to trace words back to French sources. When a great 
 provincial word like the adjective bonny or bonnie is referred 
 to the French adjective for good, masculine bon, feminine 
 bonne, an example is seen of over-proneness to French 
 derivations. This word is in popular use from the Fens 
 to the Highlands, and widely spread over the central parts 
 of the island. It occurs in Shakspeare, and is familiarly 
 known in the old ballads and romances 1 . 
 
 1 For an excellent list of illustrations of the use of this word, see Mr. 
 Atkinson's Glossary of the Cleveland Dialect, v. Bonny. 
 
OF THE EyGLISH LANGUAGE. 97 
 
 It seems never to have borne the sense of good. If it 
 had, that sense, or something like it, would have lingered 
 somewhere. But its sense is one and the same everywhere, 
 north and south. It is that of being joyous, smart, gay, 
 fair to look upon, equally in the person and in the attire. 
 Uniformity of sense over a wide area is evidence that the 
 word must have borne the present sense at the time of its 
 distribution over that area. This sort of argument is not 
 applicable to a modern national expression ; but to an old 
 provincial one it is. The reason of this difference is ob- 
 vious. Where there is a central literature, there is a constant 
 provision for the maintenance of uniformity, even though 
 words are changing their sense. But if a word is used by 
 dispersed groups of people, and that word undergoes chan 
 of sense, such change will not be uniform ; for there is no 
 standard of conformity. The uniformity then which holds 
 in the use of bonnie is, to say the least, a strong ground 
 of presumption that the sense is a well-preserved sense and, 
 so to say, the original sense of that Word. It i^ title we have 
 no surviving instance of a Saxon bonig, but it may be reason- 
 ably surmised that the word was already in Saxon times 
 spread just as it is now, only in the form of bonig. We have 
 the substantive which would naturally form such an adjective. 
 Not the gay attire of a damsel of romance, but something 
 which by analogy may be compared, is called in Saxon 
 bone, to be pronounced as two syllables. The rings and 
 chains and barbaric trappings which adorned the figure- 
 heads of the ships of the eleventh century are called in one 
 of the Saxon chronicles bone ; and this is translated by 
 Florence of Worcester with the Latin ornafura, ornament, 
 decoration. Leofric, the first Bishop of Exeter, gave to 
 his cathedral many ornamented objects, and they are all 
 described in his memorandum, which is extant, as gebonede 
 
 H 
 
9^ SKETCH OF THE RISE 
 
 or y-bormie-d. Roods, books, shrines, candlesticks, and other 
 objects, are described as geboned, which seems here to imply 
 fine ornamented decoration, probably goldsmith's and silver- 
 smith's work. Here, then, is a sufficient root for the deriva- 
 tion of our bonm'e, and one which will far better satisfy the 
 requirements of the case. If we look into the cognate lan- 
 guages out of England, we find in Platt-Deutsch the verb 
 bonen for the rubbing and polishing up of cabinet furniture. 
 The Danish verb bone means the same thins:. So does the 
 Swedish verb bona. So the German 6<>l)neit is used by 
 Goethe in his Hermann und Dorothea : — 
 
 lint fc fi^cnt nmga&en bie fDtci ten gtangeni geMmren 
 (Runt en frauncn SHfdj : cr itant attf mdd)tigen gruffen. 
 
 'And so sitting, the three surrounded the bright polished 
 round brown table : it stood on mighty feet/ 
 
 89. But it is not bv wresting a few native words from the 
 French category that we are to succeed in establishing the 
 comparative ' purity' of the Scottish-Anglian and of our 
 provincial dialects, as compared with the Queen's English. 
 The real characterising distinction of the latter is not that 
 it took in more French words, or even that it blended French 
 and English features together till thev were undistin<ruish- 
 able in many words : but. that the sound, the rhythm, the 
 modulation, the music of the lansruas-e was one entirely new. 
 Every Englishman knows that it is comparatively easy to 
 understand the dialects in print, but often quite impossible 
 in conversation. The main cause of this is the unfamiliar 
 rhythm. The English language is one which has from Ions: 
 mixture with the French obtained, not indeed the French 
 intonation, but a new one of its own : and herein will pro- 
 bably be found to lie the essential characteristic which sets 
 our English apart from its old relatives as a new and 
 distinct variety of the old Gothic stock, and one from 
 
 
?: ~ - -VA 71. 
 
 - 
 
 which the world may see a new family of languages ulti- 
 mately engendered. To this result a long train of conditions 
 contributed ; and we are able in some measure to trace the 
 causes from the time when the Roman colonisation infected 
 die Ke*.:i: speech of the island, and prepared the mould into 
 which the Saxon immigration was to be received- But all 
 other causes recede into insignificance, compared with the 
 long rule of French-speaking mas: md- 
 
 want to describe the transition from t: - an state-langu s 
 of the eleventh century to the Cou _'ish of : ur- 
 
 teenth, and to reduce the d' on to its simples: terr 
 
 : just to this : — That a French fan. 
 land, and edited i 
 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 OX THE ENGLISH ALPHABET. 
 
 90. Alphabetic writing appears to have been an out- 
 growth of that picture-writing which is still in use among 
 savages ; and of which there is a poetical description in 
 the Song of Hiawatha, Canto xiv. At first the writing 
 was altogether pictorial — that is to say. the thing pictm 
 was the thing meant, either simply or symbolically. When 
 Charles Dickens was at Harrisburgh (Pennsylvania) in 1842. 
 he saw a number of treaties which had been made with the 
 Indians, and their signatures were rough drawings of the 
 creatures or weapons they were emblematically calle 1 
 after. This picture-writing is commonly spoken of 
 hieroglyphic. 
 
 Next, the thing pictured stood for the sound of its name. 
 wherever that sound was required, whether to speak of that 
 very thing or of some other thing with like-sounding name. 
 This is the state of Chinese writing. It is as if (to adopt 
 Mr. Tylor's illustration) a drawing of a pear were made to 
 do duty for the words pare, fair, and fair, with signs to 
 guide the reader which sense he was to attach to the sound. 
 This tends towards the formation of a syllabarium, which is 
 a set of phonetic characters, not of vowels and consonants 
 but of syllables : and this is the completion of the second or 
 syllabic stage of writi: 
 
102 ON THE ENGLISH ALPHABET. 
 
 The third stage is where each figure represents only a 
 consonant or a vowel, which we call the alphabetic system. 
 Some national methods of writing have failed to arrive at 
 this, and have remained stationary midway. Others, as the 
 ancient Egyptian, having gone through all the stages, retain 
 something of each and present a mixture of all, not having 
 become purely alphabetic. 
 
 91. That improvement and simplification which resulted 
 in the Alphabet was effected chiefly by the transference 
 of the system of writing from one race to another. In the 
 hands of a strange race it would undergo a new test of 
 applicability, and many old hieroglyphic relics would be 
 purged away. Thus the Chinese writing has led to 
 syllabaries among the Japanese, and to an alphabet among 
 the Coreans ; and Ewald says that the art of writing which 
 the Israelites certainly practised when they left Egypt, 
 was a genuine product of the reciprocal action of Egyptian 
 and Semitic culture. It seems to be almost determined by 
 science that Egypt was the birthplace of the Semitic art of 
 writing, which is only the archaic form of the European; 
 and in perfect accordance therewith, legend points to 
 Phoenicia as the quarter from which the alphabet passed 
 into Greece. 
 
 Purely alphabetic as modern European writing is, there 
 are still some visible traces of its pictorial origin. The first 
 four Roman numerals, I, II, III, IIII, for instance, are 
 pictorial of that which is alphabetically expressed by the 
 words one, two, three, and four. We may imagine that they 
 represent so many fingers, or sticks, or notches, or strokes. 
 It has been also supposed that the numeral V may have 
 originated in a rude drawing of the open hand with the thumb 
 stretched out and the fingers close together. Again, when 
 we read in our almanacs ' O before clock 4 min.' and 
 
RUNIC AND ROMAN. 103 
 
 ' j) rises at 8 h. 35 min.' we have before us a mixture of the 
 pictorial and the alphabetical, the most elementary and the 
 most consummate method of writing. 
 
 92. Our nation, in common with the other nations of 
 western Europe, has adopted the Roman alphabet. This 
 change began in the latter end of the sixth century, but it 
 was not completed at a single step. 
 
 This alphabet was introduced into our island from two 
 opposite quarters, from the north-west by the Irish mis- 
 sionaries, and from the south-east by the Roman mission- 
 aries. It is to be remembered that when our Saxon 
 ancestors were pagans and barbarians, Christian life and 
 culture had already taken so deep a hold of Ireland that she 
 sent forth missions to instruct and convert her neighbours. 
 Their books were written With the Roman alphabet, which 
 thev must have possessed from an early date, and to which 
 they had already imparted a distinct Hibernian physiognomy. 
 Of the two denominations of missionaries whicji thus from 
 opposite quarters entered our island, one gained the ecclesi- 
 astical pre-eminence; but the other, for a long time, fur- 
 nished the schoolmasters. 
 
 Hence it was that an insular calligraphy was retained 
 for centuries, the Anglo-Saxon writing being formed after 
 the Irish and not after the Roman model. 
 
 93. But another style of alphabetic writing had been in 
 use among our Saxon ancestors from time immemorial — 
 one that was not quickly to be superseded by clerkly pen- 
 manship, whether Irish or Roman. This was the Ruxic, a 
 system of writing which had existed among the Gothic 
 nations from an unknown antiquity 1 . 
 
 1 Some however think that the Runic Alphabet was rudely imitated from 
 Greek or Latin coins. See Vigfusson, Icelandic Dictionary, p. xv. He 
 considers, for instance, that the p is the Latin d, with its stem prolonged 
 both ways. 
 
104 ON THE ENGLISH ALPHABET. 
 
 The name Runic was so called from the term which was 
 used by our barbarian ancestors to designate the mystery of 
 alphabetic writing. This was Run sing., Rune pi., and also 
 Run-stafas, Rune-staves, or, as we should now speak, 
 Runic characters. This word Run signified mystery or 
 secret ; and a verb of this root was in use down to a com- 
 paratively recent date in English literature, as an equivalent 
 for the verb to whisper. In a ' Moral Ode ' of the thirteenth 
 century it is said of the Omniscient, 
 
 ' Elche rune he ihur^ & he wot alle dede.' 
 Each whisper he hears, and he knows all deeds. 
 
 In Chaucer's Friars Tale (7132) the Sompnour is described 
 as drawing near to his travelling companion, 
 
 ' Ful prively, and rouned in his ere ' ; 
 
 i. e. quite confidentially, and whispered in his ear. It was 
 also muchmsed in the mediaeval ballads for the chattering 
 and chirping of birds, as being unintelligible and mysterious, 
 except to a few who were wiser than their neighbours ; 
 as — 
 
 ' Lenten ys come with love to toune, 
 With blosmen and with briddes roune.' 
 
 94. It was used also of any kind of discourse ; but mostly 
 of private or privileged communication in council or con- 
 ference : 
 
 ' The steward on knees him sat adown, 
 With the emperor for to rown.' 
 Richard Coer de Lion, 2 142 ; in Weber's Metrical Romances. 
 
 These uses of the term are very ancient; in the Mceso- 
 Gothic Gospels we find runa neniun, they took counsel, 
 Matt, xxvii. 1. and other instances. 
 
 This rown became rownd and round, on the principle of 
 
RUNES. IOj 
 
 N attracting a d to follow it; see below, 138. As in The 
 Faery Queene, iii. 10. 30 : — 
 
 1 But Trompart, that his Maistres humor knew, 
 In lofty looks to hide an humble minde, 
 Was inly tickled with that golden vew, 
 And in his eare him rownded close behinde.' 
 
 In the following passage from Shakespeare, The Winter's 
 Tale, i. 2. 217, the editor Hanmer proposed as a correction, 
 ' whisp'ring round': — 
 
 'They're here with me already; whisp'ring, rounding.' 
 
 Thus the word Run had a progeny something like that of 
 the Latin word litter ce; whence 'letter,' 'letters' for learning, 
 erudition ; also ' literature,' ' literary.' 
 
 95. The Runes were a short alphabet of sixteen letters 
 only. They were differently shapen from the Roman cha- 
 racters, being almost free from curved or wavy lines, and 
 a mere composition of right lines at various inclinations and 
 elevations relatively to each other. 
 
 This rigidity would naturally have resulted from the fact 
 that they were used chiefly in the way of incision on hard 
 materials such as wood, bone, stone, and metal. Indeed the 
 word write (German einrinen) seems properly to belong to 
 this runic sort of inscription, as it is aptly worded in the 
 Exeter Sonp--I>ook : 
 
 *e> 
 
 Rod sccal mon secgan, Rede is thing for man to say, 
 
 Rune writan. Rune to write. 
 
 Codex Exoniensis, p. 342, ed. Thorpe 
 
 It is not easy to present a pure and original Runic alpha- 
 bet because of the early influence of the Roman alphabet 
 upon it. There was also a certain tendency to mix up 
 signs for. whole words with signs for letter-sounds, so that 
 a doubt is thrown over the nature of some of the cha- 
 racters. 
 
106 ON THE ENGLISH ALPHABET. 
 
 The extant Runic literature is mostly carved on stone, 
 arrows, axes, knife-handles, swords and sword hilts, clasps, 
 spear-heads, pigs of metal, amulets, rings, bracelets, brooches, 
 combs, horns, bracteates, coffins, bells, fonts, clog-almanacks 
 — and very little in books. The elder specimens have been 
 collected and illustrated by Professor George Stephens, of 
 Copenhagen. Runic inscriptions are chiefly found in the 
 northern and western extremes of Europe, the parts which 
 were never visited by Roman armies, or where (as in this 
 country) great immigrations took place after the Romans 
 had retired. There are Scandinavian Runes, and English 
 Runes, and German Runes. These have some differences 
 between them, but they agree in the main features. It is 
 by comparing these together, and eliminating their differ- 
 ences, that we determine which were the original sixteen 
 characters. 
 
 96. They appear to have been the following : — 
 
 P ^ \> v r < 
 
 F U TH O R K 
 
 H i I f> M 
 
 H N I AorM S 
 
 T B L MY 
 
 Others were perhaps added later, as — 
 
 h m * K * l> r 
 
 C E G P O W A 
 
 This distinction of the Runes into elder and younger 
 has been called into question. Professor Stephens with 
 great force maintains that the oldest Runic alphabet was 
 most various and multiplex. 
 
THE p AND THE D. 107 
 
 When our Saxon ancestors adopted the use of the Latin 
 alphabet, they still retained even in book literature two of 
 the Runes, because there were no Roman characters corre- 
 sponding to them. One was the old Thorn, }>, for which the 
 Latin mode of expression was by the use of two letters TLI, 
 and the other was the more local p, called Wen, which was 
 superseded by a double U or V after the Conquest. 
 
 97. The J> had a more prolonged career. This, and a 
 modified Roman letter, namely D $, divided the th sound 
 between them; and all through the Saxon period they 
 were used either without any distinction at all or with 
 very ill-observed discrimination, until they were both ulti- 
 mately banished by the general adoption of the TH. 
 This change was not completely established until the 
 very close of the fifteenth century. And even then there 
 was one case of the use of the Rune ]> which was not 
 abolished. The words the and that continued to be written 
 pe andyW or//. This habit lasted on long after its original 
 meaning was forgotten. The p got confused with the 
 character y at a time when the jr was closed a-top, and then 
 people wrote 'ye' for the and ' vat' or ' y*' for that. This 
 has lasted down close to our own times: and it may be 
 doubted whether the practice has entirely ceased even now. 
 
 Ben Jonson, in The 'English Grammar, considered that by 
 the loss of the Saxon letters \ and fc we had fallen into 
 what he called ' the greatest difficulty of our alphabet and 
 true writing,' inasmuch as we had lost the means of 
 distinguishing the two sounds of ///, as in this, that, them, 
 thine, from the sound of the same character in thing* 
 thick, thread, thrive. The same regret has been expressed 
 l)y Rask. 
 
 As a means of distinguishing these two sounds, the letters 
 \ and $ might have been highly serviceable ; but that they 
 
I08 ON THE ENGLISH ALPHABET. 
 
 were ever used with this discrimination in Saxon literature 
 there is little if any evidence to prove. 
 
 The older Saxon scholars, namely, Spelman, Somner, 
 Hickes, and Lye, held that *> represented the sound in thin, 
 and \ that in thine. Rask, in his Saxon Grammar, main- 
 tained the contrary ; and he was followed by Jacob Grimm. 
 Rask's argument is well worth the attention of the student, 
 for whatever the validity of the conclusion, it is a good 
 sample of phonetic reasoning. It is very little based on the 
 direct evidence of Saxon documents, and almost entirely 
 upon comparison with the Icelandic and Old (i. e. conti- 
 nental) Saxon. Mr. H. Sweet maintains that originally 
 they both denoted the same sound, namely that of dh, as in 
 thine. 1 
 
 88. When, in the sixth century, the Latin alphabet began 
 to obtain the ascendancy over the native Runes, the latter 
 did not at once fall into disuse. Runes are found on grave- 
 stones, church crosses, fibulae, &c, down at least to the 
 eleventh century. The Isle of Man is famous for its Runic 
 stones, especially the church of Kirk Braddan. These are 
 Scandinavian, and are due to the Norwegian settlements of 
 the tenth century. For lapidary inscriptions, clog almanacs, 
 and other familiar uses, it is difficult to say how long they 
 may have lingered in remote localities. In such lurking- 
 places a new kind of importance and of mystery came to be 
 attached to them. They were held in a sort of traditional 
 respect which at length grew into a superstition. They 
 were the heathen way of writing, while the Latin alphabet 
 was a symbol of Christianity. The Danish pirates used Runes 
 at the time when they harried the Christian nations. There 
 is a marble lion in Venice, on which is a Runic inscription, 
 
 1 King Alfred's Wesi-Saxo?i Version of Gregory's Pastoral Care, 
 Appendix I. 
 
VARIETY OF FORMS. IO9 
 
 which commemorates a visit of one of the northern sea- 
 rovers at Athens (where the lion then was) in the tenth 
 century. After a time the Runes came to be regarded as 
 positive tokens of heathendom, and as being fit only for 
 sorcery and magic. 
 
 99. In the eleventh century our alphabet was changed; 
 the old Saxon forms (which were in fact Hibernian) bein^ 
 superseded by the French form of the Roman writing. 
 During the succeeding centuries this new character assumed 
 a variety of guises, but there was one particular form which 
 acquired predominance north of the Alps, the form which is 
 known to us as ' Black Letter,' and which was hardly less 
 rectilinear than the old Runes themselves. This form was 
 maintained in Germany down to our times, but now ii 
 seems to be yielding to that character which has become 
 general throughout modern Europe. This character, in its 
 two forms of ' Roman' and ' Italic' is of Italian growth, and 
 took its final shape in the fifteenth century, in association 
 with the invention of printing and the revival of letters. 
 The following table exhibits the ( lnef forms under which 
 the Roman alphabet has at different times been used in th 
 islands : — 
 
 Irish. 
 
 Saxon, 
 
 Mediaeval. 
 
 Roman. 
 
 Italic. 
 
 7i <\ 
 
 K 
 
 <t 
 
 a 
 
 a 
 
 A 
 
 ;i 
 
 A a 
 
 1) b 
 
 B 
 
 b 
 
 u 
 
 b 
 
 B 
 
 b 
 
 B b 
 
 C c 
 
 E 
 
 c 
 
 
 
 c 
 
 C 
 
 c 
 
 C c 
 
 6 6 
 
 D 
 
 b 
 
 D 
 
 t) 
 
 D 
 
 d 
 
 1) d 
 
 e e 
 
 e 
 
 e 
 
 1£ 
 
 c 
 
 E 
 
 e 
 
 E e 
 
 T v 
 
 3 3 
 
 1) h 
 
 1 1 
 
 F 
 
 1 
 
 F 
 
 5 
 h 
 
 1 
 
 
 t 
 
 3 
 1) 
 t 
 
 F 
 
 G 
 
 H 
 
 I 
 
 J 
 
 f 
 
 g 
 h 
 
 i 
 J 
 
 F f 
 
 9 
 H h 
 
 1 i 
 
 J 3 
 
HO ON THE ENGLISH ALPHABET. 
 
 Iri 
 
 SH. 
 
 Sax 
 
 ON. 
 
 Medieval. 
 
 Roman. 
 
 Italic. 
 
 
 
 K 
 
 k 
 
 Iv 
 
 fe 
 
 K 
 
 k 
 
 K 
 
 k 
 
 I 
 
 1 
 
 L 
 
 1 
 
 21 
 
 i 
 
 L 
 
 1 
 
 L 
 
 I 
 
 <H 
 
 in 
 
 GO 
 
 m 
 
 J& 
 
 m 
 
 M 
 
 in 
 
 M 
 
 m 
 
 M 
 
 n 
 
 N 
 
 n 
 
 N 
 
 n 
 
 N 
 
 n 
 
 E 
 
 n 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 e 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 P 
 
 P 
 
 P 
 
 P 
 
 W 
 
 P 
 
 P 
 
 P 
 
 P 
 
 V 
 
 
 
 
 
 <& 
 
 a 
 
 Q 
 
 q 
 
 Q 
 
 9 
 
 n 
 
 l l 
 
 R 
 
 P 
 
 & 
 
 r 
 
 R 
 
 r 
 
 R 
 
 r 
 
 r 
 
 T 
 
 8 
 
 r 
 
 & 
 
 ^ 
 
 S 
 
 s 
 
 S 
 
 s 
 
 c 
 
 c 
 
 T 
 
 t 
 
 ^ 
 
 t 
 
 T 
 
 t 
 
 ' T 
 
 t 
 
 u 
 
 u 
 
 U 
 
 u 
 
 w 
 
 u 
 
 U 
 V 
 
 u 
 
 V 
 
 U 
 V 
 
 u 
 
 V 
 
 
 
 P 
 
 p 
 
 m 
 
 to 
 
 W 
 
 w 
 
 w 
 
 w 
 
 
 
 X 
 
 X 
 
 X 
 
 X 
 
 X 
 
 X 
 
 X 
 
 X 
 
 
 
 Y 
 
 y 
 
 g 
 
 2 
 
 Y 
 
 y 
 
 Y 
 
 y 
 
 
 
 Z 
 
 z 
 
 % 
 
 1 
 
 Z 
 
 z 
 
 Z 
 
 z 
 
 
 
 P 
 
 > 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 D 
 
 $ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 100. We now pass from the forms of the Roman alphabet 
 to note some of the local peculiarities of its use among 
 ourselves. And first, of our vowels, and the remarkable 
 names by which we are wont to designate them. Our 
 names of the vowels are singularly at variance with the con- 
 tinental names for the same characters. Of the five vowels 
 a e i o u, there is but one, viz. o, of which the name is 
 at all like that it bears in France or Germany. But it is in 
 the names of A and / and U that our insular tendencies 
 have wrought their most pronounced effect. The first we call 
 by an unwriteable name, and which we cannot more nearly 
 describe than by saying, that it is the sound which drops 
 out of the half-open mouth, with the lowest degree of effort 
 at utterance. It is an obscurely diphthongal sound, and if we 
 
THE VOWEL NAMES. Ill 
 
 must spell it, it is this — Ae. The character / we call Eyt 
 or Igh ; the U we call Yew. 
 
 101. The extreme oddity of our sound of U comes out 
 under a used-up or languid utterance, as when a dilettante is 
 heard to excuse himself from purchasing pictures which are 
 offered to him at a great bargain, on the plea that ' they do 
 ac-cyew-myew-layte [accumulate] so !' In France this letter 
 has the narrow sound which is unknown in English, but 
 which it has in Welsh, and which seems ever ready to 
 degenerate into Y: in Germany it has the broad sound 
 of oo. 
 
 102. That / was called F.\ in Shakspeare's time, seems 
 indicated by that line in Midsummer Nights Dream, iii. 2. 
 188:— 
 
 'Fair Helena ; who more engilds the night. 
 Then all yon fierie ocs and eies of light.' 
 
 Wh^re it seems plain that the stars are called O's and I's. 
 
 If this passage left it doubtful whether die letter / were 
 sounded in Shakspeare's time as it is now, there is a passa^v 
 in Romeo and Juliet, iii, 2. which removes the doubt: — 
 
 ' Hath Romeo Maine himselfeV say thou but I, 
 And that bare vowell 1 shall poysoi) more 
 Than the death-darting eve of Cockatrice: 
 I am not I, if there be such an I : 
 Or those t >t, that makes thee answere I. 
 
 If he be slainc say I ; or if not, no: 
 Briefe sounds determine of my weale or wo.' 
 
 Here it is plain that the affirmative which we now write ay, 
 and the noun eye, and the pronoun /, and the vowel /, are 
 regarded as having all the self-same sound. 
 
 103. With reference to these stranire insular names of 
 our vowels, there is an observation to be made, which has, 
 I think, been overlooked. The names of the five vowels are, 
 Ae, Ec, Igh, Oh, Few; but these names, which are distinctly 
 our own, and among the peculiarities of our language, do not 
 
TI2 ON THE ENGLISH ALPHABET. 
 
 in the case of any single vowel express the prevalent sound of 
 that vowel in practical use. 
 
 The chief sound of our A is that which it has in at, 
 bat, cat, dagger, fat, gander, hat, land, man, nap, pan, 
 rat, sat, vat, wag. It has another very distinct sound, 
 especially before the letter L, namely the sound of aw : 
 as, all, ball, call, fall, gall, hall, malt, pall, tall, talk, wall, 
 walk, want, water. But the sound which is expressed in the 
 name Ae is a dull diphthongal sound, which A never bears in 
 any word except when to the a an e is appended, not im- 
 mediately indeed, but after an intervening consonant : as, ate, 
 bate, cate, date, fate, gape, hate, jape, late, make, nape, pane, rate, 
 state, tale, vale, wane. This final e must be considered as 
 embodied with its a, just as in the German sound d which 
 is only a brief way of writing ae. It is difficult to sup- 
 pose that the name of our first vowel has been dictated by 
 the sound which it bears in the last-mentioned list of instances. 
 There is no apparent reason why that class of instances 
 should have drawn to itself any such special attention, to the 
 neglect of the instances which more truly exemplify the power 
 of the vowel. But there is one particular instance of the use 
 of A which is sufficiently frequent and conspicuous to have 
 determined the naming of the letter. I can only suppose that 
 the name which the letter bears has been adopted from the 
 ordinary way in which the indefinite article a is pronounced. 
 
 104. The vowel E, when single, does not represent the 
 sound Ee which its name indicates. When it is doubled, it 
 always has this sound, as in beer, creed, deer, feet,, greet, heed, 
 jeer, keep, leer, meed, need, peep, queer, reed, seed, teem, weep. 
 But the single e only does so when it is supported by another 
 e after an intervening consonant. Examples: here, cere, here, 
 intercede, intervene, mere, scene. 
 
 We are therefore driven to look for some familiar and 
 
E AND I. II3 
 
 oft-recurring words which have the e exceptionally pro- 
 nounced as Ee. And such we find in the personal pro- 
 nouns. The words he, she, vie, we, have all the e long, and 
 if they were spelt according to their sound, they would 
 appear as hee, shee, mee, wee. In proof of this may be cited 
 the case of the pronoun thee, which is written with its vowel 
 double, though it has no innate right in this respect over the 
 pronoun me. In the solitary instance of thee, it was a matter 
 of convenience to write the double vowel, that the word might 
 be distinguished at si^ht from the definite article the. It is 
 by reference then to the function of the letter e in the per- 
 sonal pronouns, that we explain the name of Ee by which 
 that vowel is incorrectly designated. 
 
 It is interesting to remember that in Devonshire (unless 
 the schoolmaster has driven the fashion out) the letter E is 
 called eh, like hay without the h, or like the French e ouvert 
 somewhat continued. This may be derived from the period 
 of French tuition ; or it may be that Devonshire preserves 
 the old Saxon dialect of Wessex in this particular as it does 
 in so many others ; or thirdly, the Saxon and the French had 
 one sound and one name for E; and this seems the most 
 probable account of the matter. 
 
 105. It may be left to the reader to observe by a col- 
 lection of instances, like bit, dip. jit, hit. nip, sit, wit, that 
 the name which we have given to the vowel / does by no 
 means give a just report of the general sound of that letter 
 in our orthography. In what syllables is that eye sound 
 represented by 1? Only in two kinds. The first is where it 
 is supported by an ^-subscript, as bite, kite, mine, pipe, 
 wine ; the other case is where it has an old guttural after 
 it, as high, night, might, light. In short, the name of Igh 
 does not represent truly the general use of this vowel. To 
 account for its having acquired so inappropriate a name, w r e 
 
 1 
 
114 ON THE ENGLISH ALPHABET, 
 
 must again seek for a familiar and frequent word in which 
 the vowel does bear this sound. We find it in the personal 
 pronoun I, which we might have written as Igh with equal 
 propriety, and on the same principles as have determined the 
 orthography of right, might, sight. The Saxon form was Ic ; 
 the German form is 3$, the Dutch Ik, the Danish /eg, and 
 the Swedishy^. So that in fact the name we have bestowed 
 on / is not the due of that vowel in its simplicity, but only of 
 that vowel after it has absorbed and assimilated an ancient 
 guttural. 
 
 106. The offers less to remark on than the other vowels. 
 It has been the most stable member of our vowel-system, and 
 that in which we are most in harmony with our neighbours. 
 
 107. Of the U y it is very obscure what has led to its name. 
 The pronunciation of the u as yew can hardly be of East- 
 Anglian growth, though natives of that province sometimes 
 bring in the sound unexpectedly. When they utter the 
 words rule, truth, Jerusalem, with energy, they have been 
 observed to convert them into ryule, tryewth, Jeryewsalem. 
 I have seen it somewhere suggested that possibly this 
 peculiar vowel-sound has risen out of a distorted effort to 
 imitate the inimitable French U. There is perhaps some 
 measure of truth in this idea. A very peculiar u exists in 
 Devonshire, one which is near the French, and one which 
 would seem to have been inherited from British pro- 
 nunciation, if we may judge from its proximity to the Welsh 
 U. Now this Devonshire u is not at zMyew, but it has been 
 often so reported of, and tourists tell how in that strange land 
 they heard the natives say byewts, myewn, for boots, moon. 
 I do not believe they ever heard any such thing, and I take 
 their evidence to be good only to shew that there is some 
 point of contact between the French u and the yew sound 5 
 at least on the ear. Thus the idea that our yew grew out of 
 
THE SOUND OF U. II^ 
 
 the French u is plausible. But I do not think it to be 
 correctly stated in this form, and for the following reason : — 
 the sound recurs in many independent and external places. 
 The Dutch nieuw indicates by its orthography the same 
 sound as our new. The Danish lys, light, is pronounced 
 lyews, and in Swedish it is phonetically so written, namely 
 /jus. The tree which in English is calledjrzf was in Saxon 
 written iw, from which we gather that the pronunciation is 
 unaltered. These instances seem to shew that the sound 
 we are treating of was an anciently inherited one, and if 
 French influence had anything to do with putting it on our 
 u, it only caused the extension of a sound already domestic 
 and familiar. 
 
 Not without an apparent connection is our pronunciation 
 of the noun ewe, to which in sound we prefix a r. 
 
 To so great a length have I pursued this subject of the 
 naming of our vowels, because it is in fact a most excep- 
 tional and insular phenomenon. As a criterion of the whole 
 case we might refer to the designations of the five vowels in 
 French or German, and the reasonableness of those designa- 
 tions. If this were done, the result would be something as 
 follows. The French and Germans have named the vowel-. 
 but the English have nick-named them. When a man is 
 called a king or a servant, he is characterised by what may 
 properly be called a name. But if we call him Longshanks 
 or Peach-blossom, we nick-name him. And this is analo- 
 gous to what we have done with the vowels. We have Lriven 
 them names which are expressive, not of their general func- 
 tions, but of some prominent anomaly or adventitious oddity 
 in their accidental associations. 
 
 108. The tendency of observations like the above, arising 
 out of the arbitrary naming of our vowels, is to create in 
 the mind an impulse such as that which is attributed to 
 
 1 2 
 
Il6 ON THE ENGLISH ALPHABET. 
 
 the etymologists of a past age, to reject the vowels alto- 
 gether as if they were hopelessly beyond the reach of 
 scientific method. Each vowel sign has such a variety of 
 sounds in English, and each sound has such a variety of 
 vowel signs, and these so cross each other's track, that any- 
 thing like disentanglement and orderly arrangement might 
 well be despaired of, if there were no help to be found 
 beyond the limits of the single language. But much of that 
 which is arbitrary or accidental may be eliminated by the 
 process of comparing two dialects together, and then a third 
 with the results of the first comparison, and so on ; sifting 
 each time the net product to a clearer expression ; till we at 
 length reach the conclusion that a phonology or science of 
 vocal sounds is possible. It is found that there are three 
 principal sounds, which are those of ' a/ ' i,' ' u ' — that is to 
 say, not according to the value of these signs in the English 
 naming, Ae, Igh, Yew, but according to the value which 
 they most commonly represent in European languages, 
 and which we may spell thus, ah, ee, oo. It is the sound 
 of ' a ' in father, of ' i ' in dig, and of ' u ' in full. It will 
 be convenient to distinguish these signs by quotation 
 marks, when we use them for the true and principal 
 sounds. That these are the cardinal vowels, can be shewn 
 in two ways. 
 
 109. Either we may observe the organs of speech, or we 
 may examine those languages in which the vowel system is 
 most robust and symmetrical. There is one dialect of our 
 family which is distinguished for such a vocalism, and that 
 is the Moeso-Gothic. In this dialect, all the vocalic and 
 diphthongal sounds are so regularly derivable from these three, 
 that we are compelled to regard the 'a/ 'i' and 'u' as 
 fundamental, at least for that particular language. Other 
 languages are found to contribute, some more some less, to 
 
THE SAXON 'A. 3 117 
 
 the general adoption of this trio of vowel-sounds as the 
 basis of phonology. 
 
 The observation of the organs of speech leads to a like 
 result. If we regard the mouth from the throat to the lips 
 as a musical and variable tube, we may easily observe that 
 the ' i ' is produced at the innermost extremity of that tube, 
 and the ' u ' at its outermost elongation ; while the ' a ' is 
 produced in the centre with the most open and arched and 
 resonant position of the entire organ. Of this central vowel, 
 Mr. Hullah says : — ' On one vowel only is the timbre of the 
 human voice to be heard in its highest perfection — the vowel 
 a pronounced as in the English word " father 1 ." And again : 
 — 'Recent physiological researches have justified the choice 
 of aa not merely as the vowel on which the voice is heard 
 to the greatest advantage, but also as that on which, with a 
 view to its improvement, it should be most exercised.' 
 
 110. There is no doubt that the a in Saxon writing re] 
 sented this 'a' sound, sometimes short as in van } sometimes 
 long as in father. The distinction between the originallv 
 short and long is matter rather of Saxon than of English 
 phonology, and we shall only notice it when it invites atten- 
 tion incidentally. This ' a' had already in Saxon times lost 
 much of the ground it once occupied, especially the short 
 1 a.' And many examples which then existed are now lost. 
 
 The single instance of -as, the plural form of an in- 
 creasing group of substantives, presents a great amount 
 of loss in regard to this principal vowel-sound. The ' a ' 
 is lost in every one of those instances ; and words which 
 were written dagas t aulas, fixas, pathas, smithas, stands, are 
 now written with a toneless e as in fishes, or a merely 
 orthographic e as in stones-, or else, and this is the 
 
 1 The Cultivation of the Speaking Voice, Clarendon Press Series, ch. vii. 
 
Il8 ON THE ENGLISH ALPHABET. 
 
 commonest result, it has left no trace behind, as in smiths, 
 days, ends, paths. But then it is in flexional terminations 
 that the vowels degenerate most rapidly, and we must not 
 hastily conclude that the i a ' is becoming a stranger to our 
 language, as some phonologists seem almost to do, when 
 they speak of this chief vocal sound as ' the Italian A.' I 
 am informed by a practised phonologist that the ancient 
 name of this vowel, by which it is called aa or ah, is still 
 traditional in some parts of the West, though I cannot say 
 that I have verified the fact. 
 
 111. Words in which the Saxon 'a is fully retained: — 
 addle; adesa, adze) an era, anchor) and) anfilt, anvil; ask) 
 assa, ass) awul, awl) sir, alder; apul, apple; blac, black; bra?id 
 (fire-); candel, candle; cat) crabbe, crab ; fann, fan (van- 
 nus) ; gader, gather ; gang-waeg, gang-way ; ganra, gander ; 
 garleac, garlic ; galga, gallow ; halgian, hallow ) hand) lamb; 
 land ) malwe, mallow ; man ; panne, pan ; plant ; ramm, 
 ram; sadol, saddle ; sand; span (subst.); sta?id ; swale we, swal- 
 low; tan; wann, wan (colour). 
 
 Words in which the character is preserved but the sound 
 altered to ae : — apa, ape; cara, care) cran, crane) cafer, 
 chafer ; capun, capo?i ; cradel, cradle; faran, fare ; hara, hare ; 
 nihtscada, nightshade ; raca, rake ; sala, sale ; scamu, shame ; 
 spada, spade ; sam, same ; tarn, tame ; wacian, wake. 
 
 Words in which it has become o: — camb, comb) cte/S, 
 cloth) fald,yW</; gast, ghost ; halig, holy ; lang, long ; ma]m, 
 moth ) rap, rope ; sang, song ) Strang, strong ) tacen, token ; 
 tange, tongs. 
 
 Words in which it has become o with subscript e: — 
 ban, bone ; dran, drone ) ham, home ; lar, lore ) mara, more ; 
 rah, roe ; rap, rope ; sar, sore ) sla, sloe ; stan, stone ; spaca, 
 spoke (of a wheel). The Saxon ma became at first mo; later 
 nice, in accordance with fashion. In Henry VIII, ii. 3. 97, 
 
CHANGES OF SAXON ( A? II9 
 
 the first and second folios have mo, the third and fourth 
 moe. 
 
 Words in which the Saxon a has become oa : — ac, oak ; 
 &6, oath', ar, oar ; bat, boat) brad, broad; gad, goad; gat, 
 goat; har, ter; hlaf, A?tf/"; lad, /#£</; lam, loam; rad, roa^; 
 wad, z#0<z</. It may be safely asserted that the original 'a' 
 in all these cases was long; but that the Saxon long 'a' did 
 not always produce English oa, ban, bom ; Stan, stone, and 
 other instances, will readily shew. 
 
 In one instance this oa has drawn in a cockney r, namely, 
 has, hoarse. In Devonshire the true analogy is preserved, 
 and this word is pronounced hoase. 
 
 112. As we have now seen that the Saxon a has broken 
 and dissipated itself into a variety of modifications, so now on 
 the other hand we must see what compensation there has 
 been that this chief vowel should not perish out of the 
 language. We shall find that many words which in Saxon 
 had not ' a,' but some weaker and softer vowel, have now by 
 some means acquired it. Change from cc to a: — a'cern, acorn, 
 (according to a rare pronunciation) ; ajfter, after ; 8BSC, ash ; 
 aelmesse, alms; aex, axe; l>x-^, bath ; draeg-net, drag-ml ; 
 fet, fat or vat; fader, father ; fae}>m, fathom; faest, fast ; 
 g\xs, glass; gaers, grass; gnaet, gnat; haefde, had ; hlcedder, 
 ladder; kvtta. lattice; moeddre, madder; m;v>l, wast; nvdic, 
 radish ; rx'fier, rafter ; ta?ppere, /<7/\r/ ( r. 
 
 Other words with ce have acquired the character but 
 not the sound of t a i central: — Decern, acorn (according to 
 the common pronunciation) ; baeccre, baker ; bl&d, blade ; 
 haesel, hazel; hwael, whale; smael, small; waiter, water; 
 woesp, z(V7.y/>. 
 
 There are many instances in which ea became ' a or a : as, 
 beag, badge; cz&i, chaff ; {q&Xu, fallow; i\e2.x,flax; geatta, gall ; 
 geard,j'j;7/; heall, //a//; heard, ^<z/t/; hearp, harp; pearruc, 
 
120 ON THE ENGLISH ALPHABET. 
 
 ark; sealt, salt; sceaft, shaft; scearp, sharp; steal, stall; 
 weal, wall; wearp, warp. This was for the most part a 
 reversion to the older form. 
 
 Miscellaneous examples of the present use of ' a ' where 
 the Saxon had some inferior vowel are — breml, bramble; 
 steorra, star ; steort, start, as in red-start and Start Point. 
 
 113. In the transition period the Saxon character ce 
 was dropped, and a was often written in its place. Some- 
 times this gives an appearance of the recovery of ' a,' which 
 is not real ; because under the guise of a it is the Saxon ce 
 that is heard. Thus the Mceso-Gothic akr is the archaic 
 Saxon acer, the classic Saxon cecer, and the English acre'. 
 but the pronunciation of the two latter is substantially 
 identical. There is, however, a considerable number of 
 cases of the undoubted recovery in English of an ' a ' that 
 in classic Saxon had fallen into an inferior sound. The 
 following are instances of words which had possessed this 
 sound, in the earlier Saxon period, had lost it in the classic 
 stage, and recovered it again in the transition to modern 
 English : — 
 
 Saxon i. Saxon 2. English. 
 
 after aefter after 
 
 Alfred Alfred Alfred 
 
 at set at 
 
 ba5 baeS bath 
 
 crat crset cart 
 
 pa<5 pse"S path 
 
 was wses was 
 
 114. The same may be shewn of some other weakenings of 
 ' a,' which occurred in the literary Saxon period, and were 
 corrected in English : — 
 
 Saxon i. Saxon 2. English. 
 
 aldorman ealdorman alderman 
 
 arcebiscop ercebiscop archbishop 
 
 half healf half 
 
 ward weard ward 
 
VO WEL-PR ON UNCI A TION. 121 
 
 We do not reckon al, eal (all) as belonging to this list, be- 
 cause the sound of the English vowel here is not ' a,' but the 
 diphthong an. 
 
 As far then as regards the possession of this chief of 
 vowel-sounds, there was a great redistribution, and while 
 some words lost it, others acquired or recovered the c a' 
 vowel. If from the Saxon words we proceed to consider 
 those of French and Latin origin, we soon perceive that the 
 Romanesque contact was favourable to the restoration of this 
 vowel to something like a proportionate place among the 
 vowel-sounds. It is not necessary here to transcribe ex- 
 amples : the student can easily acquaint himself with them 
 by the help of the Hst at 75. 
 
 115. When we attribute to any word the possession of a true 
 1 a/ we mean that if the word be adequately pronounced, that 
 sound is heard. In average conversation or reading this 
 vowel is too often slurred or squeezed up between the con- 
 sonants. Indeed, it is a great fault in our utterance that out- 
 vowels are so skipped, till our whole speech seems to the 
 foreign ear what Welsh looks to the foreign eye — a mass of 
 consonants. Our language might be improved, if it wen 
 made an aim in education that boys should not only articu- 
 late the consonants, but also give due expression to the 
 vowels. If men have not time to say their words any more 
 fully than is absolutely necessary for the transaction of 
 business, we may at least hope that boys have : and as the 
 importance of musical instruction is now appreciated, the 
 moment seems favourable for winning attention to the culture 
 of our vowel-pronunciation. 
 
 116. I advance the statement with some diffidence, and I 
 commend it to further observation ; but it seems to me that the 
 vowels are not always most satisfactorily uttered by those who 
 have had the benefit of a careful education. When I seek a 
 
122 ON THE ENGLISH ALPHABET. 
 
 standard of pronunciation for any particular vowel, it seems 
 to present itself to me in some specimen of rustic diction. 
 This is the case as regards the 'I.' While there are 
 many words in cultured English that have the true 'i,' 
 there are not many that strike the ear as models of that 
 incisive sound. But if it ever happened to any reader to 
 be standing by when two boys ran a race in Devonshire, 
 he may have heard their several favourers encouraging them 
 to 'rinn' in so clear a note than the vowel might thence- 
 forward live in his ear as a sample of the true 'i.' ' Rinn 
 Jack ! rinn, Joe ! rinn, rinn, rinn ! ' 
 
 117. Words in which Saxon T is fully retained : — biddan, 
 bid', cicen, chicken) cin, chin; disc, dish; fill; fine, finch; finger; 
 fifta, fifth ; fiftig, fifty; flint ; gift ; begin ; grist ; hit, it ; hricg, 
 ridge; hring, ring; king; lifer, liver ; litel, little ; micg, midge ; 
 mid ; midl, middle ; mist; ribb, rib ; sicol, sickle; scip, ship ; 
 srS, silk; smith; spin; spit; stirap, stirrup; swift; jnstl, thistle; 
 thing ; wincian, wink ; wind ; winter. 
 
 Words in which the character is retained but with the 
 sound altered to igh or eye : — blind; bridle; briht, bright; cild, 
 child; dicere, diker ; fif, five; grind; hid, hide (skin) ; hind 
 (cerva); hrind, rind; ive, ivy ; lif, life; liht, light; lim, lime; 
 miht, might; mil, mile; min, mine; niht, night; riht, right; 
 ridan, ride; scir, shire; scric, shrike; serin, shrine; swin, 
 swine; Jnn, thine ; wif, wife ; wiht, wight; wild; wis, wise 
 (adj.) ; wise (subst.) ; win, wine. 
 
 In isgicel, icicle, the first i is altered, the second has re- 
 mained true. 
 
 The Saxon * i' has sometimes turned to ee or ie; as, flis, 
 fleece ; slife, sleeve ; scir, sheer ; sife, sieve. 
 
 The instances in which we have acquired ' i ' in the stead 
 of some less characteristic vocalism are few: — seolc, silk; 
 weoce, wick of candle ; spreot, sprit (bowsprit) ; meolc, milk. 
 
THE SAXON ' U: 1 23 
 
 118. The ' U ' is best pronounced in the rustic speech of 
 the north of England. The northerners are weak in the ' i,' 
 which is apt to run into a u, as hull for hill : and in the ' a ' 
 a l so — man i s apt to sound in North Britain as man or mun. 
 But their ' u ' is often perfect ; and when I travel northward, 
 I consider myself to be then among people of the northern 
 tongue, when I hear the frequent exhortation ' Cum, cum !' 
 uttered with such a genuine ' u ' that he who has once heard 
 and heeded it, will require no further evidence as to what was 
 the ancient pronunciation of the verb cuman. 
 
 This letter now represents the long ' u ' sound in very few 
 words: bull, bush, full, pull, push, puss. The word ////has 
 this vocalism in some mouths, and the word punish had 
 rather than has; for we may regard the pronunciation 
 ' poonish ' as now obsolete. 
 
 119. The following words have preserved the Saxon u 
 short: — bucca, duck; butan, but) dust ; fuller ; furh, furrow ; 
 hunt] hundred) hunter; iung, young ; nut; must (in brewing); 
 nunne, nun; sunder; sunne, sun; sumor, immmer; tunne, fun; 
 turf; tusk ; jmma, thumb, under, up : and the following have 
 the u long — cuF, couth ; ]>urh, through. 
 
 In the following it has changed to ou, or ow: — clut, clout; 
 cusloppe, cowslip; cu, cow; grundeswelge, gt undsel; hu, 
 how; bund, hound; hus, house \ husel, housel; lus, louse ; 
 mus, mouse; rnufc, mouth; pund, pound; scrud, shroud \ tun, 
 town; }>usend, thousand; vie, owl; at, out. 
 
 Sometimes the Saxon ' // ' became 0, but the elder sound 
 is still heard in many of the instances: — hunig, honey; 
 munuc, monk; sum, some; sunu, son; tunge, tongue; wulf, wolf 
 wurm, worm ; wur£, worth. It has been questioned what is 
 the relation of this to the ' u ' ; but I am disposed to think 
 that these have the true ■ // ' sound though short ; and 
 certainly a better example of the ' // ' long can hardly be 
 
124 0N THE ENGLISH ALPHABET. 
 
 produced than our present utterance of wudu, wood; 
 wul, ivool. 
 
 The elongation of this vowel has in a few instances pro- 
 duced a disyllabic word out of an old monosyllable ; as, 
 bur, bower; scur, shower; to which we might add, if pro- 
 nunciation only were considered, sur, sour. 
 
 Of the instances in which we have acquired a win place 
 of some other vowel, the most noticeable is where it has taken 
 the place of an old ' i ' : — irnan, run ; rise, rush (juncus). 
 
 120. When in philology we call these three the elementary 
 vowels, we do not imply that they are the ' original ' vowels, 
 or that languages which exhibit these three with the purest 
 and best defined expression, are therefore in the most 
 primitive condition. In like manner, when we bestow the 
 name of ' primary ' upon the three prismatic colours, the 
 priority thus attributed is one of thought, and derived from 
 analysis, not a matter of the order of time. And when we 
 find a language like the Gothic exhibiting a regular vowel- 
 system markedly based on the three primary vowels, we only 
 conclude that the national consciousness must have been for 
 a long time awake to this element of pronunciation. 
 
 The vowels which claim our attention after * a ' and ' i ' 
 and ' u ', are o and e. The natural relation of these in- 
 ferior vowels to the Three, may be rudely figured as in the 
 subjoined diagram : 
 
 Throat I e A O U Lips. 
 
 Of the O it has already been incidentally shewn that it 
 may have grown out of the A or out of the U,>and that it 
 therefore is intermediate to these two. 
 
 121. The E is the most frequent of all the letters of the 
 English alphabet. This is well known to printers, and also 
 to decipherers of cryptograph. It occasions the weak point 
 
THE OFFICES OF E. 125 
 
 of ftny simple cypher. If a person attempts concealment by 
 merely substituting some fixed letter or figure in place of 
 each letter of his words, the decipherer will at once detect 
 every e in the performance : first by their numerical pre- 
 ponderance, and then by their position. As o between ' a ' 
 and ' u', so e has its seat between 'a' and ' i ': and it is easy 
 to point to instances in which it has been produced by the 
 enfeeblement of one or other of these elementary vowels. 
 Of the derival of e from a we have an instance in the 
 words England, English ; the people from whom these names 
 are derived being written down in the Saxon Chronicles as 
 Angel cynn. The relation of E to i is sufficiently indicated 
 by the pronunciation of England, in virtue of which it has 
 an i in some of its foreign translations, as in the Italian 
 Inghilterra. But the use of K that tends more than any 
 to the overwhelming preponderance of this character in our 
 books, is the ^-subscript. ( >f this B n<> particular origin can 
 be assigned ; it may be the relic of any one of the vowels. 
 
 E has many varieties of sound : it has the sound of a, as 
 in there] it has the sound of '/,' as in England, English; 
 when doubled it has the sound of long '/',' as in seen ; lastly, 
 as e subscript, it has no sound of its own at all. This sinj 
 line contains three of these uses, and at the same time it 
 shews with what a frequency this character is capable of 
 
 appearing. 
 
 'Seen here and there ami everywhere.' 
 
 H. W. Longfellow, Tales of a WaysuU Inn. 
 
 122. But it is time to rescue ourselves from the petty minutiae 
 of a subject whose details are divided and subdivided and 
 crossdivided so perplexingly. Turn we a moment from 
 these chiplets to view the machine that flings them out : 
 and perhaps the contemplation of it may lead us to some 
 observations of a more substantial and prehensible kind. 
 
a. 
 'a, 
 
 T3 
 
 126 ON THE ENGLISH ALPHABET. 
 
 'The vocal mechanism/ says Professor Willis 1 , 'may be 
 considered as consisting of lungs or bellows, capable of 
 transmitting, by means of the connecting: wind- 
 cavity pipe ' a current of air through an apparatus con- 
 Lar nx ta ^ ne ^ in the upper part of the windpipe, which 
 is termed the larynx. This apparatus is capable 
 of producing various musical (and other) sounds, 
 which are heard after passing through a variable 
 cavity consisting of the pharynx (the cavity 
 Lungs behind the tongue), mouth, and nose.' If the 
 Bellows whole of this arrangement is required for the 
 vocal mechanism, it is only the outer part of it 
 which we shall regard as the instrument of speech, namely, 
 the larynx and the variable cavity. Of these two, the larynx 
 is to the variable cavity or oral tube what the vibrating 
 mouthpiece which generates the note is to the variable tube 
 of some wind-instruments. Our power of observation is 
 practically confined to the oral tube in regard to which it 
 has been already said that the three chief vowels are pro- 
 duced at its three most distant points, that is to say, at the 
 two extremities and in the middle. We will proceed to con- 
 sider how these and other prominent vowel-sounds may be 
 brought into effective action by means of contrast. 
 
 Of the Ablaut. 
 
 123. At some distant time, before the historical era of the 
 Gothic languages, the primitive community became aware 
 that they might enlarge the range of their speech, if they 
 only spaced their vowels well; and they prosecuted this 
 sentiment until they actually multiplied three-fold, or even 
 
 1 Quoted in The Cultivation of the Speaking Voice, by John Hullah. 
 Clarendon Press Series, 1 870. 
 
OF THE ABLAUT. 1 27 
 
 four-fold, the expressive powers of their inherited vocabu- 
 lary. The German name of Ablaut has become so estab- 
 lished, and it is so widely used, that it seems better to 
 adopt it with an explanation than to seek a vernacular 
 substitute for it. Glossarially, it would be represented 
 by Off-Sound ; and the name imports a certain offing or dis- 
 tancing of vowel-sounds, whereby simple words have been 
 provided with a ready change of form, and have thus 
 been promptly qualified to express a contrast of significa- 
 tion. Relics of this method of variation are strewn about 
 our vocabulary. There is the verb to bind, and the sub- 
 stantive band, and another substantive bond. Or compare 
 the verb to shear with the substantive share and the adjectiw 
 sheer, and another substantive shire, and yet another short . — 
 and we see what a variety of service one consonantal frame- 
 work may perform, with the aid of a well-defined vowel- 
 differentiation. 
 
 124. But it was in the verbal conjugation that the Ablaut 
 found its peculiar home, and there it took formal and metho- 
 dical possession. In that position it became the chief 
 means of expressing the distinction of Time, superseding 
 almost entirely the previous habit of denoting the Past by 
 Reduplication. The clearest examples of this systematic 
 vowel-change that the English language affords are to be 
 found in the old verbs, and in those especially which have 
 their chief time-distinctions based upon the vocalic series 
 z', a, it ; as the following : — 
 
 drink 
 
 drank 
 
 drunk 
 
 begin 
 shrink 
 
 began 
 shrank 
 
 begun 
 shrunk 
 
 sink 
 
 sank 
 
 sunk 
 
 sing 
 slink 
 
 sang 
 slank 
 
 sung 
 slunk 
 
 spin 
 
 span 
 
 spun 
 
 spring 
 
 sprang 
 
 sprung 
 
128 ON THE ENGLISH ALPHABET. 
 
 125. In these examples the regularity of the Ablaut is 
 manifest, even in the literary language. If we take account 
 of the inroads that time and neglect have made on this 
 ancient structure, we may often supply the slight restoration 
 that is required to bring many other verbs into this table. 
 Thus, if we remember that the verb to run is originally rin, 
 we have at once the series, rin, ran, run. After this pattern 
 we may sometimes reconstruct old verbs that have had their 
 conjugation modernised. When we read in Chaucer of the 
 feelings of the woman who was ready to burst till she had 
 told her secret, how that 
 
 ' Hir thoughte it swal so soore aboute hir herte' 
 
 Wif of Bath's Tale, 967, 
 
 we may surmise not only that our preterite swelled is a 
 modernism, but also that the spelling of swell was formerly 
 swil; and then if we compare the Mceso- Gothic we actually 
 find sw il, swal, swul, to have been the Ablaut of that verb. 
 
 Analogies are often caught beautifully by children. I have 
 heard dag as the preterite of dig. Also the original preterite 
 of the verb to sting I heard from the mouth of a little 
 maid of four years old, who said to her father, in rich tones 
 of genial enquiry which writing cannot render : ' If a bee 
 stang you, dad, would you cry ? ' 
 
 Enough has now been said to indicate that the Ablaut 
 is a vowel-differentiation of words, and that its character 
 depends upon that distinctness of the vowels from which it 
 obtains its value, and force, and title. Thev need not al- 
 ways be quite so chromatically distinct as a, i, u. A humble 
 instance of Ablaut may be quoted which took place in the 
 seventeenth century, when the word then was differentiated 
 into the two forms then and than. The term Ablaut com- 
 prehends all such instances of differentiation. 
 
VO WEL-CHANGES. 1 29 
 
 Of the Umlaut. 
 
 126. The Umlaut, on the contrary, is not so much a 
 vowel change, as a vowel modification. In order to see 
 what it is that induces this modification, we may revert 
 to the parallel between the organs of speech and a wind 
 instrument. In an elaborate instrument, with keys and 
 other adjustments, if all the parts are not in smart work- 
 ing order, there will be a danger lest each note should 
 modify its successor. The keys have been touched 
 for a given note, and unless they promptly recover their 
 normal position, something will be heard of the first note 
 at the time when the second is delivered. So it is in 
 language: a letter or a syllable is apt to carry on its 
 influence to the letter or syllable that succeeds. In the 
 neighbourhood of Bath, the childish form of the name of 
 that city is I3ab. Here we see the second consonant has 
 been overpowered by the first. In die Finnish and Samoye- 
 dian languages, this principle has developed into a remark- 
 able vowel-harmony, according to which the vowel of the 
 stem of a word determines the vowel of the affix. Thus 
 hoba, skin, makes its ablative hobahad\ warnge, crow, makes 
 it warngehed] ano, boat, makes the same case anohod', habi, 
 servant, makes habihid ; and paeidju t lump, makes the 
 ablative paeidjuhud x . In all these instances we see the vowel 
 of the affix harmonised to the nearest in the stem : and we 
 recognise the development of a natural tendency into a 
 law. 
 
 Among ourselves this tendency is checked, where it is 
 noticed at all; but for the most part it is simply neglected. 
 In the schools, children are allowed to utter such thick-lipped 
 
 1 M. Alexander Castreii, Grammctik der Samojedischen Spracken, St, 
 Petersburg. 1854; p. 25. 
 
 K 
 
I30 ON THE ENGLISH ALPHABET. 
 
 vocalisms as Mosos, Dublun, rtg/i/eousmiss; and it passes for 
 articulate reading if only the consonants are expressed. 
 
 127. The Umlaut of the Indo-European languages is a 
 phenomenon of a different order. Here the vowel of the 
 after-member of the word influences that which has gone 
 before, so that a present vowel is influenced by one yet 
 unspoken. 
 
 It seems as if we ought to take into our philological con- 
 sideration the fact that the human organ of speech, while it is 
 an instrument, is not a mere instrument; inasmuch as it con- 
 tains bound up in the same constitution with itself the per- 
 former also. It would seem as if the consciousness which 
 the moral agent has of the task before it, influenced a present 
 utterance by the presentiment of that which is to follow. The 
 Umlaut is a modification that has risen in our stock, of lan- 
 guages within the historical period. There is no trace of it 
 in the Mceso-Gothic, but it appears in the Old High Dutch 
 and Anglo-Saxon. Yet the Mceso-Gothic supplies the con- 
 ditions out of which it has grown. 
 
 If we look at Mark i. 16 we see the word nati, where our 
 English Testament has net. Here the i of the termination has 
 drawn the a towards it, and has harmonised it into e. The 
 action of the Umlaut continued visibly to alter the shapes of 
 words during the whole Saxon period. Thus the same word 
 would appear with an ' a/ or an <z in the stem, according as it 
 had a full or a thin vowel in the termination. For example, 
 the word day was dag in the nominative (pointing to an earlier 
 dagi), dceges and dcege in the genitive and dative singular ; but 
 in the plural it made nom. dagas, gen. daga, dat. dagum. So 
 likewise stcef, a letter, plur. stafas ; hwcel, a whale, plur. hwalas', 
 pce'S, a path, plur. pa^as. Our modern pronunciation of the 
 word day retains the trace of this Umlaut, which the or- 
 thography obscures ; for it exactly corresponds to dcei, the 
 
OF THE CONSONANTS. 131 
 
 orthography which succeeded to dceg. And. to take an 
 example from adjectives, the word small bears no trace, either 
 in its spoken or in its written form, of having formerly been 
 subject to Umlaut ; but such was the case. It appears as 
 smcEl, smcelre, smcclra, smtxlne ; a thin vowel being, or having 
 been, though here unwritten, in every one of these cases next 
 after the /. Again, it appears as smalu, sma/um, smala, smalan, 
 and it was by the preponderance of these that our modern 
 form was determined. 
 
 128. The Conquest gave the death-blow to the Umlaut 
 among us, and even the traces of it were largely obliterated. 
 Nowhere is any structural signification attached now to an 
 Umlaut form, except in those few plurals which, like feet, 
 geese, men, mice, are found by inward alteration of the vowel. 
 The Germans have retained this plural function much more 
 largely than we have, and also another of far greater scope 
 and utility; for they have converted this modification into 
 a means of differentiating the indicative from the subjunctive 
 mood, thus — Kit to, habebat; Kit to, haberet 
 
 The Consonants. 
 
 129. The consonants will be most conveniently arranged 
 in the order according to which they recede more and mor< 
 from the nature of the vowels. We begin with the half 
 
 vowels, W and Y. 
 
 Before the Conquest the character W was little used. 
 Where the Anglo-Saxon printed books have it, the manu- 
 scripts have the old Rune \\ But after the Conquest, 
 when a great many Romance words beginning with V were 
 coming into the English, and a distinction had to be made 
 between this sound and that of the old p, it was effected by a 
 double v. But it must carefully be observed that the novelty 
 
 K 2 
 
1 2,2 ON THE ENGLISH ALPHABET. 
 
 as regards the w was only in the character and not in the 
 sound. The sound of w had long been in the language, 
 having been embodied with it when the Wessex speech first 
 assumed shape as a distinct Saxon dialect. It is now one of 
 the chief characteristics of our language among the other 
 members of its family ; and it must be attributed to the min- 
 gling of the Saxons with the British Kelts in the fifth and 
 sixth centuries. As an initial it is emphatically a product of the 
 West, and would hardly have existed had our language been 
 educated in the Eastern Counties. The sound of the w may 
 be described as a consonantism resulting from the collision 
 of ' u ' with another vocalic sound. Say oo first, and then say 
 ee : if you keep an interval between, the vocalic nature of 
 each is preserved, but if you pass quickly from the utterance 
 of oo to that of ee, you engender the consonantal sound w, 
 and produce the word we. Any vowel coming into collision 
 with ' u ' will engender the w. It is said in Grammars that w 
 (like y) is a consonant when it is initial, either of a word or 
 syllable; and a vowel elsewhere. According to this rule 
 (which fairly states the case) we find that w is a vowel now, 
 where once it was a consonant. Take the word few, in 
 which w has only a vocalic sound ; this word was once a dis- 
 syllable feawa, and then the second syllable wa gave the w 
 a consonantal value. 
 
 130. Y is a Greek letter adopted by the Romans, and 
 used in Saxon writing for the thin u (like French u or 
 German it) apt to be confused with i. The French call it 
 the Greek I, ' I grec.' 
 
 Y appears only as a vowel all through the Saxon literature, 
 and it was after the Conquest that the consonantal function was 
 added to the vocalic. The y stepped into the place of an ancient 
 G-initial, which was in a state of decay. This is the history of 
 y in such words as ye, yes, yet, year, yard, yare, yearn, yelp, 
 
Y AND 5. I33 
 
 yield, from the older forms ge, gese, git, gear, geard, gearo, 
 georn, gilpan, gield. In the earlier stages of this transition, 
 there appeared for two centuries or more (the twelfth to the 
 fourteenth) a separate form of letter, neither g nor^, which 
 was written thus 3, and was ultimately dropped. It was a 
 pity we lost this letter, as the result has been a heterogeneous 
 combination of functions under the letter Y which it is diffi- 
 cult for a learner to disentangle. Had we retained the con- 
 sonant 3 we might have avoided the unnatural combination 
 of vowel and consonant functions in a single letter. 
 
 In old Scots it slid into the form of z, as in the following, 
 where year is written zeir : — 
 
 • In witness quhairot we haif subscrivit thise presents with our hands at 
 Westminster the 10th day of December, the zeir of God 15^8 Zeirs. 
 
 James, Regent, &c, &c.' 
 
 Sojv/was written zit, as in Buchanan's Refection'. — 
 
 ' Quhilk wryting being without dait, and thocht sum wordis thairin seme 
 to the contrarie, zit is upon credibill groundis supposit to have bene maid 
 and written be hir befoir the deith of hir husband.' 
 
 Its present value is half vowel and half consonant. Like 
 the w, it is a consonant in the beginning of a word or syllable 
 and a vowel elsewhere. This gives the y a peculiar position 
 in English which it does not hold in other languages. Our 
 consonantal sound of y is represented in German and Danish 
 and Swedish by j. In the English young the Y sounds 
 exactly as the j sounds in German [uttg, or in the Danish 
 pronoun of the first person Jeg t Swedish Jag. 
 
 131. The bringing out of this consonantal y is a feature 
 of the modern language. If it existed in Saxon times, 
 it was not expressed in writing, except in so far as we can 
 suppose the g to have expressed it, as in lufige, I love, and 
 in the words above quoted. It is in the West that this y 
 displays itself most conspicuously. In Barnes's poems we 
 
134 ON THE ENGLISH ALPHABET. 
 
 meet with yable, able ; yachen, aching ; yacre, acre ; yakker, 
 acorn ; yale, ale ; yards, herbs ; yarm, arm ; yarn, earn ; 
 yarnesl, earnest; yean, Saxon eacnian; yeaze, ease. 
 On Sunday evenings, arm in arm ; — 
 
 ' O' Zunday evemens, yarm in yarm : — ' 
 
 and first they'd go to see their lots of pot-herbs in the 
 garden plots ; 
 
 ' An' vust tha'd goo to zee ther lots 
 O' pot-yarbs in the ghiarden plots.' 
 
 The value of y has been further complicated by means of 
 the fashion which prevailed in the fifteenth century of substi- 
 tuting it often for /. Already in the fourteenth century, in 
 an A B C Poem, we find the letter y thus introduced : 
 
 ' Y for I in wryt is set.' 
 
 A reaction followed and corrected this in some measure; 
 but still too many cases remained in which the y had become 
 fixed in places where an i should have been. A conspicuous 
 example is the word rhyme, which is from the Saxon rim, 
 number, and which Dr. Guest always spells rhime in his 
 History of English Rhythms. Possibly the y was put for z'in 
 rhyme from confusion with the Greek pvOfios, as we cer- 
 tainly do owe many of our y's to the Greek v, such as 
 tyrant, zephyr, hydraulic, hyssop, hypocrisy, hypothesis. 
 
 The consonantal value of y is not to be traced wholly to 
 the decay of the initial g as if that were its origin. This 
 does not account for the initial sound of y in the pronuncia- 
 tion of ewe, or in the unwritten name of the vowel u. The 
 ancient initial g would not account for that tendency to the 
 development of a consonantal y, which may be seen below, 
 141. The Saxon iw, which had no initial g, Old High 
 Dutch iwa, German (Et&e, has becomejr^ze' in English. 
 
 132. The next in order are the Spirants, H, S, Z, and 
 partially C. 
 
H, S, Z, C. 135 
 
 H, in the ancient language, was a guttural. This letter has 
 undergone more changes of value since its introduction into 
 our language than any other letter. It is now a mere dumb 
 historical object in many cases, and where it has any sound 
 it is merely the sign of aspiration. It is almost classed with 
 the vowels, as in the familiar rule which tells us to say an 
 before a word beginning with a vowel or a silent h. It once 
 had in English the force of the German ch, or even of the 
 Welsh ch. 
 
 This ancient guttural is heard now only in those portio: 
 of the Anglian provinces which are in the southern counties 
 of Scotland, and the northern counties of England. There 
 you may still heal licht and ntcht, for light and night, pro- 
 nounced in audible gutturals. In the Anglo-Saxon th 
 were written with the simple 11 thus, lihi and m'hf, but pro- 
 nounced gutturally. As we now regard c and k as inter- 
 changeable in certain cases, e.g. Calendar or Kalendar, so 
 in the early time stood c and h to each other. There w< 
 a certain number of words in which the Anglian c (of the 
 time of Baeda) was represented by a Saxon 11. The word 
 beret, bright, is of frequent occurr< in the Eccl< ical 
 History of the Angles. It occurs in proper names, as Ben 
 Berctfrid, Berctgils, Bercthun, Berctred, Berctuald, Cudberct, 
 Hereberct, Huaetberct The same was also freely used in 
 Saxon names, but in them the Anglian c became 11, briht or 
 A "/7//: Brihthelm, Brihtno)>, Brihtric, Brihtwold, Brihtwulf, 
 Ecgbriht, Cu>briht. This h retained its guttural force down 
 to the middle of the fourteenth century, as may be shewn 
 from the orthography of that period. For example, sixt 
 thou for seest thou, or rather sehest thou, in Piers Plowman 
 i. 5, is evidence that his siht, sight, was gutturally pro- 
 nounced. 
 
 As the 11 began to be more feebly uttered, and it was no 
 
136 ON THE ENGLISH ALPHABET. 
 
 longer regarded as a sure guttural sign, it had to be rein- 
 forced by putting a c before it, as in the above licht and 
 necht; or by a g, as in though, Saxon fieah) daughter, Saxon 
 dohter. But the gh had little power to arrest the tendency of 
 the language to divest itself of its gutturals, and gh in its 
 turn has grown to be a dumb monument of bygone pro- 
 nunciation. 
 
 133. S is a letter of many affinities. It is apt to change 
 with h the aspirate, as we know by comparison of the Greek 
 he, hus, hex, hepta, with the Latin se, sus, sex, septem. The 
 affinity of h and s comes out boldly in the comparison of 
 Irish with Welsh, thus : — 
 
 Irish. Welsh. 
 
 sen, old 
 
 hen 
 
 sior, long 
 
 hir 
 
 salaun, salt 
 
 halen 
 
 samh, stimmer 
 
 haf 
 
 It interchanges with T, as between German and English : 
 SSaffer, water; roeifi, white; tjetfi, hot. This is included in 
 the Lautverschiebung, 12. 
 
 Very little change has taken place in the use of s since 
 Saxon times ; and in the vast majority of instances its posi- 
 tion in English and German are alike, and indeed in all the 
 Gothic family of languages. One remarkable exception to 
 this uniformity of the area of s, is its use in Mceso-Gothic in 
 many words where the other dialects have r. 
 
 Mceso-Gothic. 
 
 English. 
 
 Germa 
 
 mais 
 
 more 
 
 $?efc 
 
 basi 
 
 berry 
 
 S3eeve 
 
 hausjan 
 
 hear 
 
 ^Qcven 
 
 dius 
 
 deer 
 
 £fi icr 
 
 134. Z is a letter of late introduction. During the Saxon 
 time it appears in Bible translations in names like Zacheus, 
 
L, M, N, R. 137 
 
 Zacharias; and otherwise only in one or two stray instances, 
 e. g. Caziez, for the French town-name Chezy, as in the 
 following description of the path of the Northmen in 
 France : — 
 
 <S8;. Her for se here up burh $a brycge set Paris, and ba up andlang 
 Sigene o<5 Mseterne. and ba up on Maeterne o3 Caziei.' 
 
 887. This year went the horde up through the bridge at Paris, and then 
 up along the Seine to the Marne, and then up the Marne to Chezy.' 
 
 We find s put for z as late as the fifteenth century : 
 e. g. Sepherus for Zephyr us* 
 
 Nor is this letter anything more than a foreigner among 
 us now. There will be found very few genuine English 
 words with a z in them. 
 
 For the use of c as a spirant or sibilant, sec 139. 
 
 135. The next in order are the Liquids L, M, N, R. 
 These letters hold a similar position in all the great lan- 
 guages, though subject to occasional peculiarities of utterance, 
 such as the 'l mouille/ or the nasal H and x of the French, 
 with which we have little to do. They have undergone little 
 or no variation in passing from the Saxon into the English 
 language, except that r has doubtless lost something of its 
 earlier resonance. 
 
 Of these liquids, l and r group together, as being more 
 vocalic than the other two. These have a softening effect 
 upon vowels, as may be seen by reference to the vowel-lists 
 above, e. g. 114; while M and x on the other hand have a 
 conservative effect. With respect to the Mutes, M has a great 
 attraction for b, and x for d or t. 
 
 136. There remain the Mutes; and these are they which 
 were spoken of at the outset in relation to the law of 
 Lautverschiebung. They are subdivided into the Labials' 
 Dentals, and Gutturals. The Labials are P, B, F, V. 
 
 P is a letter that was not much used in Saxon as an initial 
 
138 ON THE ENGLISH ALPHABET. 
 
 letter of words. In Kemble's Glossary to the Beowulf, he 
 has given only three words under the letter p ; and in Bou- 
 terwek's Glossary to Ccedmon there are only two, both of which 
 are comprised in the former three. Thus two glossaries of 
 our two oldest national poems exhibit only three words be- 
 ginning with p. One of the three is now extinct, but the other 
 two are quite familiar to us ; they are path and play. These 
 were, in the eighth century, exceptional words in English, 
 from the fact that they began with p. And to this day it 
 may still be asserted that almost all the English words be- 
 ginning with p are of foreign extraction. 
 
 137. B is a great companion of m, as climb, lamb, Umber. 
 In a number of instances it has been brought into the word 
 by the m, as limb from lim; number from the Latin 
 numerus. 
 
 F has sometimes become v in English : as aefen, even ; lifer, 
 liver \ lufu, love. And indeed the Saxon f seems to have 
 represented the v-sound rather than that now attached to it. 
 This is also the use of this character in Welsh. 
 
 V as a distinct consonant came in after the Conquest, 
 with such French words as uirtue, uisage, uaine, ueray, 
 uenerie. The character v as distinct from the vowel u was 
 not established until the seventeenth century. 
 
 138. The Dentals are T, D, TH. 
 
 T has an affinity to n and this is why a sermon is apt to 
 be called a sermon/. It is also sometimes drawn in by s. 
 In Acts xxvii. 40, we read ' hoised up the main-sail,' where 
 we should now say and write 'hoisted,' not for any etymo- 
 logical reason, but from a purely phonetic cause. 
 
 D has a like affinity for n, and is often brought into a 
 word by the n as a sort of shadow. In the words impound, 
 expound, from the Latin impono and expono, the d is a pure 
 English addition : so likewise in sound from French son, 
 
T, D, TH. 139 
 
 Latin sonus. Provincial phonetics go still further, and call a 
 gown gownd. See above, 94. 
 
 D has also a disposition to slip in between l and k. 
 Thus the Saxon ealra, gen. plur. of eat, all, became first 
 aller and then alder, as in ' Mine alder-liefest Sovereign,' 
 2 Henry VI, i. 1 . 
 
 TH has been touched on above, 97, in connection with the 
 Rune p ; but its more modern relations have to be con- 
 sidered here. It has two sounds : one which nearly ap- 
 proaches the lisp, as in thin ; the other, which is more vocal, 
 as in thine. The latter is sometimes represented by dh. 
 Both are pre-eminently English, although the dh is heard in 
 Danish at the end of some words where d is written, as in 
 brod bread, ved with, pronounced brodk y vedh. There are 
 but three European languages, besides our own, that have 
 a well recognised TH-sound, the Welsh, the Spanish, and 
 the Greek. The latter has both the sounds ; the Spanish 
 gives the lisp ///-sound to c before t or /; the Welsh has 
 the vocal sound in the stro form, written as dd. Neither 
 
 of the sounds is heard in German, though /// is written, as 
 m ilncr, S3)al. In French also it is written, but not heard: 
 as /he] pronounced tay. The 111 with its twofold value is 
 one of the most characteristic letters of our langu nd 
 
 more than any other the Shibboleth of foreigners. 
 
 139. The Gutturals are C, K, G, CH, J, H, Q, X. 
 
 The Tenues are C and K. Here we must begin bv 
 putting aside the sibilant use of c. The earliest instance of it 
 is in the Saxon Chronicle of Peterborough, anno 11 28, where 
 milce appears for the Saxon mtltse, through the influence of 
 the French merci. This, which we may call the French c, is 
 used before the vowels 1 and B as, city, centre. How far there 
 was even in Saxon times a distinct sound of c in those in- 
 stances which have become ch and tch in English, is one of 
 
140 ON THE ENGLISH ALPHABET. 
 
 the obscure questions of Saxon phonology. In other cases it 
 had the k sound, which it still has before a, 0, u, as in call, 
 cob, cut. 
 
 K is not properly a Latin, but a Greek letter. In Roman 
 writing it had a very undefined position as a superfluous 
 character, a mere duplicate-variety of c. This was also its 
 position through the whole period of Anglo-Saxon literature; 
 it was a mere fancy to write k, and it meant nothing dif- 
 ferent from the c. But very soon after the Conquest, 
 the greater frequency of k is observable ; and it went on 
 increasing just in proportion as the value of c became 
 equivocal through its Frenchified employment with the sound 
 of s. Already in the twelfth century, k is found to have 
 a place and function of its own to the entire exclusion of c, 
 namely, before the vowels e and 1, the cases in which c had 
 gone off into the s-sound. Thus the old words cene, cempa, 
 warrior, Cent, cepan, cyn, cyng, were in the twelfth century 
 written constantly as kene, keen, kempa, champion, Kent, 
 keep, kin, king. But when it had to be doubled, it was by 
 prefixing c, and not by a repetition of k, that the doubling 
 was effected. Thus, acknowledge, which is only a compound 
 of the particle a with knowledge, the c expressing the reverber- 
 ation of the K-sound. So also in lack, crack, Jack, and the 
 old-fashioned spellings of politick, cesthetick, ck may be taken 
 as equivalent to kk. 
 
 140. In the G we must suppose that a distinction already 
 existed in Saxon utterance between the g which in English 
 became y, as ge, ye ; gear, year ; geard, yard; gearo, yare ; 
 git, yet; grseg, gray; dag, day; or which disappeared, as 
 lunge, / love ; and those cases in which it stood before 
 a, 0, u, or a consonant, as grim, great, green, God, good, gold, 
 gang. This is the true medial of the guttural series. In 
 some instances there has been a vacillation between g and y : 
 
c, k, g, ch, y. 141 
 
 thus the Saxon gifan is in Chaucer yeve, but we have long 
 ago recovered the g, and write give. In the case of gate, 
 Saxon geat, there is a form yate of provincial celebrity. 
 
 Such changes were a source of copiousness to the lan- 
 guage, which often retained the old form in some special use 
 while adopting the new generally. Thus grceg became gray 
 for general purposes, but as designating a grasshopper it 
 became grig. 
 
 CH represents a sound which we find in the Swedish k 
 when it is followed by a soft vowel : thus the initial k of 
 Swedish Kyrka has the sound of ch in our church. This is 
 a strong argument for supposing that this peculiar sound 
 may be older than the Conquest, although there was no 
 distinct way of writing it. 
 
 141. J is the consonant that has grown out of the vowel I. 
 Now the process of making 1 into a consonant would seem 
 to result most naturally in the product of the Y-sound. And 
 this was the native English tendency, as may appear by such 
 an instance as the following : — 
 
 ' When the lorn damsel, with a frantic screech, 
 Cries, "Help Wind Heaven !" '—Oliver Wendell Holmes. 
 
 This is native to English in common with German, 
 Danish, and Swedish, in which languages j means the same 
 as our y; thus jule i above, 8, is pronounced as our yuh. 
 That we had this tendency is further exemplified by the 
 case of yav, 131. 
 
 But we had not developed any extensive consonantal use 
 of 1 when one was imported from France, along with such 
 words as iangler, iealous, test, jewel, ioin, iolly, iourne) . 
 iousl, toy, fudge, Iuly, lustice. The sound of this French 
 J is a palato-guttural, like that of g in gist. It is in its 
 whole character a French product, although at certain points 
 it admits of comparison with other Romanesque languages. 
 
142 ON THE ENGLISH ALPHABET. 
 
 Thus we may compare its sound with the sound in certain 
 analogous positions in Italian : — 
 
 French. 
 
 Italian. 
 
 Latin. 
 
 Jean 
 
 Giovanni 
 
 Ioannes 
 
 majeur 
 
 maggior 
 
 maior 
 
 ♦ 
 
 But when we consider the whole case, namely, the char- 
 acter, the sound, the range of application, we find that the 
 French j is distinctly French, and has been adopted in Eng- 
 land, and thus our language is estranged in this respect from 
 German and our other national relatives. A reflex effect of 
 this our consonantal j has been that we have lent it to 
 the Latin language in our printed books, and in our pro- 
 nunciation. Such words as maior, prior, iuvare, iam, iuncus, 
 km'us, ei'us, we have printed and pronounced major, pejor, 
 juvare, jam, juncus, hnjus, ejus. We have been wrong in 
 attributing a sibilant guttural j to the Latin language. The 
 best Latin scholars are now correcting this. In Professor 
 Conington's Vergil I do not see a j. As a sample of his 
 text I quote the two opening lines of the most famous 
 of Eclogues : — 
 
 ' Sicelides Musae, paulo maiora canamus ! 
 Non omnes arbusta iuvant, humilesque myricae.' 
 
 As a character distinct from i, this letter dates from the 
 seventeenth century. 
 
 142. H has already been spoken of above as a spirant. 
 But it must have mention here as a guttural, being in fact the 
 old aspirate of the guttural series, from which it has declined 
 in utterance, so as to be now but a mere breathing. Yet it 
 represents the guttural-aspirate in many English words for 
 the purposes of comparative philology. Thus Latin cam's is 
 English hound, according to Grimm's Law. 
 
 Q is a Latin letter, which was not recognised in English 
 till the close of the twelfth or the beginning of the thirteenth 
 
H, Q_, X. 143 
 
 century. Previous to this the Anglo-Saxon writers had 
 done very well without it ; having expressed the sound of 
 qu by the letters cw ; as cwalm, qualm, pestilence, death ; 
 cwceZ, quoth ; cwen, queen ; civic, quick. At first the qu was 
 only admitted in writing Latin or French words, while cw kept 
 its place in native words. Among the earliest Latin or French 
 words beginning with qu which were adopted in English are 
 quart, quarter, quarter?ie, prison, quarrel, quarry, quire, quit 
 from quietus, quiet. This is the position which q holds at 
 this day in the Dutch language ; it is used for spelling 
 certain Latin words, while kw is used for the same sound in 
 the words of native origin. In English, on the contrary, the 
 qu very soon prevailed even in the home-born words ; and 
 before the close of the thirteenth century we find quake, 
 qualm, queen, quell, quick, besides some other less common 
 words. 
 
 X has two powers : one its original value, h; and the other 
 gs, a development common to English and French, It 
 sounds as gs when the syllable following the x is open and 
 accented, as exhaust, exalt, exotic; in other cases it has the 
 original value of ks. This distinction is, however, ques- 
 tioned ; and the decision of it is all the more difficult, as 
 we may not trust the report of our own organs in delicate 
 points of pronunciation. Our utterance is warped the mo- 
 ment we set ourselves to observe and examine it. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION. 
 
 145. The spelling of our language has admitted a suc- 
 cession of changes from the earliest times to the present day. 
 We now call our orthography fixed : but perhaps the next 
 generation will detect some changes that have taken place in 
 our time. Orthography is always in the rear of pronun- 
 ciation, and this distance is continually increasing. As a 
 language grows old, it more and more tends towards being 
 governed by precedent. We spell words as we have been 
 taught to spell them. The more literature is addressed to the 
 eye, the mQre that organ is humoured, and the ear is less and 
 less considered. A settled orthography is a habit of spelling 
 which rarely admits of modification, and tends towards a 
 state of absolute immutability. 
 
 When a language has become literary, its orthography has 
 already begun to be fixed. The varieties of spelling which 
 have taken place from the fourteenth century until now, may 
 appear considerable to those who have only glanced at old 
 books; but in reality they are very limited. A few slight 
 variations, often repeated, will make a great difference in the 
 legibility of a page, to the eye that is unaccustomed to such 
 variations. It might be thought that the idea of orthography 
 was a modern affair, and that the spelling of our early writers 
 was chaotic and unstudied. But this would be a great 
 mistake. 
 
ORTHOGRAPHY OF CHAUCER. 1 45 
 
 146. The poet of the Ormulum (12 15) earnestly begs that 
 in future copies of his work, respect may be had to his or- 
 thography. The passage has been quoted and translated 
 above, 50. 
 
 Chaucer also, in the closing stanzas of his Troihis an 
 Creseide, begs that no one will ' miswrite ' his little book, by 
 which he means that no one should deviate from his ortho- 
 graphy. 
 
 * Go, little booke, go my little tragedie 
 
 • ••■••• 
 
 And for there- is so great diversite 
 
 In English, and ill writing of our tong. 
 
 So pray I to God, that none miswrite thee, 
 
 Ne the mis-metre, for defaut of tong : 
 
 And redd wherso thou be or eles song, 
 
 That thou be understond,' &c. 
 
 It was not for want of interest in orthography that so gr 
 
 diversity continued to exist, but it was from the obstacles 
 which natural]}- delayed a common understanding on such a 
 point. A standard was. however, set up in the fifteenth 
 century, or at furthest in the sixteenth, by the masters of the 
 Printing-press. It was the Press that determined our ortho- 
 graphy. This may easily be discerned by the fact that 
 whereas private letters continue for a long time to exhibit all 
 the old diversity of spelling, the Bible of 161 1, and the First 
 Folio of Shakspeare (162;,) are substantially in the ortho- 
 graphy which is now prevalent and established 
 
 147. If any one will be at the trouble to compare the fol- 
 lowing verses from the Bible of 161 1 with our present Bible, 
 he will see that the variation is not so great as at first sight 
 appears. 
 
 Diners opinions of bint among the people. The Pharisees, ore angry that 
 their officers looke him not. if chide with Nicodemus for tiding his fart. 
 
 37 In the last day, that great day of the feast, Iesus stood, and cried, say- 
 ing, If any man thirst, let him come vnto me, and drinke. 
 
I46 SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION. 
 
 38 He that beleeueth on me, as the Scripture hath saide, out of his belly 
 shall flow riuers of liuing water. 
 
 39 (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that beleeue on him should 
 receiue. For the holy Ghost was not yet giuen, because that Iesus was not 
 
 vet glorified.) . 
 
 40 If Many of the people therefore, when they heard this saying, saide, 
 
 Of a trueth this is the Prophet. 
 
 41 Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out 
 
 of Galilee? 
 
 42 Hath not the Scripture saide, that Christ commeth of the seede ot 
 Dauid, and out of the towne of Bethlehem, where Dauid was ? 
 
 43 So there was a diuision among the people because of him. 
 
 44 And some of them would haue taken him, but no man layed hands 
 
 on him. . 
 
 45 *d Then came the officers to the chiefe Priests and Phanses, and they 
 
 said vnto them, Why haue ye not brought him ? 
 
 46 The officers answered, Neuer man spake like this man. 
 
 47 Then answered them the Pharisees, Are ye also decerned ? 
 4S Haue any of the rulers, or of the Pharises beleeued on him ? 
 
 49 But this people who knoweth not the Law, are cursed. 
 
 50 Nicodemus saith vnto them, (He that came to Iesus by night, being 
 
 one of them.) 
 
 51 Doth our Law iudge any man before it heare him, & know what he 
 
 doth? • 
 
 52 They answered, and said vnto him, Art thou also of Galilee? Search, 
 and looke : for out of Galilee ariseth no Prophet. 
 
 53 And euery man went vnto his owne house. 
 
 148. A large part of the strange effect which this specimen 
 has to the modern eye is due to something which is distinct 
 from spelling — namely, to a change of form in certain cha- 
 racters. The modern distinction of j the consonant from 1 
 the vowel was not yet known. The v was not practically 
 distinguished from the u. Instead of judge we see iudge; 
 and instead of deceived it is decerned. These may come under 
 the notion of orthography, but they cannot be called diversi- 
 ties of spelling. To these have to be added a few instances 
 of e final, which have since been disused. Also a few more 
 capital letters. Such are the chief elements to which the 
 strange aspect is due. The only real differences in this 
 piece from our present use, are beleeue, layed (for laid), 
 commeth) trueth. 
 
SAXON WORDS. 147 
 
 Let us glance at a few of the changes which have produced 
 the present settlement. For this purpose we must look back 
 to the last great disturbance, that is to say, to the Conquest 
 and its sequel. At that time there had been a fixed ortho- 
 graphy for a hundred years ; hardly less fixed than ours now 
 is, after four centuries of printing. We must remember that 
 the Press is a sort of dictator in orthography. If we were to 
 judge of present English orthography by a collection of 
 manuscripts of the day, it would be a different thing from 
 judging of it by printed books. For a manuscript literature, 
 that of the last hundred years of the Saxon period is singu- 
 larly orthographical. 
 
 149. The clashing of dialects in the transition period, and 
 the French influence, combined to raise up a new sort of 
 spelling in the place of the old. Even the Saxon words 
 could not escape the new influence. A very large proportion 
 of the words beginning with c were now spelt cither with k 
 or with ch. 
 
 Examples of a Saxon c turned into k : — 
 
 Caeg, key Cnawan, knoiv 
 
 Cene, keen Cnedan, knead 
 
 Ceol, keel Cneow, knee 
 
 Cent, Kent Cniht, knight 
 
 Cepan, keep Cyft, kylb 
 
 Cnapa, knave Cyn, kin 
 
 Examples of Saxon words beginning with c, which in 
 modern English have taken ch instead of c : — 
 
 Ceafu, chaff Cidan, chide 
 
 Ceaster, Chester Cinne, chin 
 
 Ceorl, churl Circe, cburcb 
 
 Ceosan, choose Cyle, chill 
 
 Cild, child Cypman, chapman 
 
 In the close of words also ch has taken the place of 
 the Saxon c (or sometimes cc) as in church (cyrice), speech 
 (spaec), reach (raecan), teach (taecan), and sometimes it has 
 taken the form tch as in latch (lseccan), thatch (J>£ec), match 
 
 l 2 
 
148 SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION. 
 
 (gemxcca), watch (wac), wretch (wreccea). This -tch ex- 
 tended at one time beyond its present bounds; thus in 
 Spenser's Faery Quee7ie, i. 2. 21, we read ritch for 'rich/ 
 The quaint old Scottish grammarian, Alexander Hume, 
 who was ' Scolemaester of Bath' in 1592, speaks contemp- 
 tuously of this ch and tch development of our pronunciation, 
 calling it 'an Italian chirt.' 
 
 ' With c we spil the aspiration, turning it into an Italian chirt ; as, 
 
 charite, cherrie, of quhilk hereafter This consonant, evin quher in 
 
 the original it hes the awne sound, we turn it into the chirt we spak of, 
 quhilk indeed can be symbolized with none, neither greek nor latin letteres ; 
 as from cano, chant ; from canon, chanon 1 ; from castus, chast ; &c.' 
 Of the Orthographie of the Britan Tongue, by Alexander Hume (Early 
 English Text Society, 1865), PP- 13. 1 4- 
 
 150. It is a point of much interest and of some uncer- 
 tainty, how the ch is to be accounted for in this class of 
 examples. Was the change only in the spelling, and had 
 these words been pronounced with the ch sound even while 
 they were written with the c ? That this was not the case uni- 
 versally the Scotch form Kirk is a sufficient evidence. But may 
 it have been so partially — may the chirt have been in the 
 southern and western pronunciation ? Something of this sort 
 may be seen at present in Scandinavia. The Swedish and 
 Danish languages have initial k in common in a large number 
 of words. The Danish k has no chirt anywhere ; but the 
 Swedish k is pronounced as ch when it is followed by certain 
 vowels. The Danish word for church is kirke; the Swedish 
 word is kyrka. In the former case the K-initial is pronounced 
 as in Scotland ; in the latter it sounds like the first consonant 
 in the English church. A like division of pronunciation may 
 possibly have existed in this island before the Conquest. Or 
 the chirt may have been still more partial than this ; it may 
 
 This indicates a former pronunciation of canon more like the French 
 chanoine. 
 
ENGLISH SIBILANCY. 1 49 
 
 have had but an obscure and disowned existence (like the sh 
 sound as a substitute for the ch in Germany) ; and the French 
 influence may have fostered it by a natural affinity, and given 
 it a permanent place in the English language. 
 
 151. Analogous to the use of / before the ch (anciently c) 
 is the putting a d before an ancient g. Thus we have the 
 forms hedge, A. S. hege ; wedge, A. S. wecg ; ridge, A. S. rig. 
 The more classical Anglo-Saxon form is hrjrg, but this is 
 not the form which would tend to produce ridge. On the 
 contrary, it has produced the modern form rick, a synonym 
 for a stack of corn or hay. 
 
 In the word knoivledge the same mode of orthography is 
 applied by a false analogy; and oblidge has been recalled to 
 simplicity by reference to its original, the French obli^ir. 
 
 152. Saxon words beginning in sc arc in modern English 
 spelt sh : e. g. — 
 
 Scadu, shade Sceap, sheep 
 
 Sceaf, sheaf irp, sharp 
 
 Steaft, shaft 1. shell 
 
 Sceal, shall Sceort, short 
 
 Sccamu, shame . Sceo, shoe 
 
 Sceanca, shank Scild, shield 
 
 In some words, however, the Saxon sc is preserved, as 
 scale (of a balance), scar, score, scot, scrub, and scypen, cattle- 
 shed. In some cases it is now written sk as in skin, skittle, 
 skulk. In one instance at least it is written sch \\ here nothing 
 but the simply sc is heard, as school. 
 
 The English is more sibilant than the Anglo-Saxon was, 
 and the change of sc to sh has contributed to this effect. The 
 sibilancy of our language is a European proverb. Undoubt- 
 edly our whole stock is sibilant, and the Mceso-Gothic itself 
 most of all. The Saxon was one of the least sibilant 
 of the family, as the lists above (10 and 12) sufficiently 
 indicate. Our modern sibilancy has been due entirely to 
 
150 SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION. 
 
 French contact. Besides our native sibilants, which had been 
 reduced below average proportions, we accepted all those of 
 the French, which were many. That language is eminently 
 sibilant now to the eye, though not to the ear. It is by the 
 silence of their final s that our old neighbour is in a position 
 to smile at the susurration of the English language. Apart 
 from the French influence, we were less sibilant than either 
 the French or the German. 
 
 153. One of the earliest changes was the quiescence of the 
 old guttural-aspirate h. This produced more than one set of 
 modifications in spelling. 
 
 The habit of writing wh instead of the old hw was one of 
 these. It seems that the decaying sound of the guttural gave 
 the ay-sound more prominence to the ear, and that accordingly 
 the w was put before the h in writing. This alteration had 
 the more effect on the appearance of the language, because 
 many of the words so spelt are among the commonest and 
 most frequently recurring. The following are some of the 
 more conspicuous examples : — 
 
 Hwa, who Hwylc, -which 
 
 Hwaes, whose Hweol, wheel 
 
 Hwsel, whale Hwi, why 
 
 Hwser, where Hwil, while 
 
 Hwaet, what Hwisperung, whispering 
 
 Hwset-stan, whetstone Hwistlere, whistler 
 
 Hwaete, wheat Hwit, white 
 
 The modern result is this, that the syllable which was pro- 
 nounced from the throat (guttural), is now pronounced 
 mainly on the lips (aspirate-labial). The Scotch retained the 
 guttural much longer ; and the traces of it are still audible in 
 Scotland. And they wrote as well as pronounced gutturally : 
 thus, quha, quhilk, quhat. Alexander Hume thus recounts 
 a dispute he had with some Southrons on the point : — 
 
QUIESCENCE OF GUTTURALS. 151 
 
 ' To clere this point, and alsoe to reform an errour bred in the south, and 
 now usurped be our ignorant printeres, I wil tel quhat befel my self quhen 
 I was in the south with a special gud frende of myne. Ther rease, upon sum 
 accident, quhither qubo, qitben, qubat, etc., should be symbolised with q otw, 
 a hoat disputation betuene him and me. After manie conflictes (for we oft 
 encountered), we met be chance, in the citie of Baeth, with a Doctour ot 
 divinitie of both our acquentance. He invited us to denner. At table my 
 antagonist, to bring the question on foot amangs his awn condisciples, began 
 that I was becum an heretick, and the doctour spering how, ansuered that 
 I denyed qubo to be spelled with a w, but with qu. 
 
 Be quhat reason ? quod the doctour. Here, I beginning to lay my 
 grundes of labial, dental, and guttural soundes and symboles, he snapped 
 me on this hand and he on that, that the doctour had mikle a doe to win 
 me roome for a syllogisme. Then (said I) a labial letter can not symbolic 
 a guttural syllab. But w is a labial letter, qubo a guttural sound. And 
 therfoer w can not symboliz qubo, nor noe syllab of that nature. Here the 
 doctour staying them again (for al barked at ones), the proposition, said he, 
 I understand ; the assumption is Scottish, and the conclusion false. Quherat 
 al laughed, as if I had bene dryven from all replye, and 1 fretted to see 
 a frivolouse jest goe for a solid ansuer.' Of the Ortbograpbie, &c, p. 18. 
 
 154. To the same cause must be attributed the motive for 
 changing the spelling of /////, miht, niht, siht, &C, to light, 
 might, night, sight. 
 
 Probably the g was prefixed to the h in order to insist on 
 the h being uttered as a guttural. If so, it has failed. The 
 guttural writing remains as a historical monument, but the 
 sound is no longer heard except in Scotland and the conter- 
 minous parts of England. 
 
 After it became quiescent, it was apt to be employed care- 
 lessly or arbitrarily. For example, Spenser wrote the adjec- 
 tive white in the following unrecognisable manner, whight, 
 
 ' His Belphoebc was clad 
 All in a silken camus lilly whight.' 
 
 Faery Qiteene, ii. 3. 26. 
 
 In Ralegh's letters we repeatedly find Wright write ; so 
 also spright was written instead of sprite ; and although it is 
 now obsolete, yet its derivative sprightly is still in use. 
 Spighi for spite, in Spenser, quoted below (158), may seem 
 to have more right to the guttural, as it is from despectare. 
 
152 SPELLING AND PR0NUNCI4TI0N. 
 
 155. The case of ugh must be noticed apart. Some- 
 times it sounds like simple u or w ; as in plough, through, 
 daughter, slaughter. In other cases it sounds like/; as cough 
 enough, rough, laughter. In though it is quiescent. The 
 same variety occurs in local and family names. In some 
 parts of England the name Waugh is pronounced as Waw, 
 and in others as Waff. 
 
 It is a mistake to say as is usually said 1 , that these are 
 various uses oigh. There is no variety in the use of this 
 digraph, for it is uniformly silent 2 . In the above instances, it 
 is the u which is variously treated, being rendered as a vowel 
 in some cases, and as a consonant equivalent to / in others. 
 In like manner the u in lieutenant is rendered as/, and we say 
 ' leftenant.' This treatment of the u has had a wider range 
 than now. Indeed it would seem that there is hardly any of 
 these ugh words, that has not had the/ sound at some time 
 or in some locality. The ' Northern Farmer ' says thru/ for 
 through) and in Mrs. Trimmer's Robins, chap, vi., though 
 receives a like treatment ; for Joe the gardener says, ' No, 
 Miss Harriet; but I have something to tell you that will 
 please you as much as thdf\ had 3 .' 
 
 The following quotation from Surrey seems to indicate 
 that taught in his time might be pronounced as ' toft ' : — 
 
 ' Farewell ! thou hast me taught, 
 To think me not the first 
 That love hath set aloft, 
 And casten in the dust.' 
 
 At Ilkley, near Leeds, slaughter may be heard pronounced 
 
 1 And as it stood in my first edition. I am indebted for the true explan- 
 ation to Mr. Danby P. Fry. 
 
 2 I exclude the gh in ghost, gherkin, as being different in origin. 
 
 3 This will not be found in all editions, because such rude things are 
 deemed objectionable by modern educationists; and Mrs. Trimmer is ex- 
 purgated. 
 
FRENCH WORDS. 1 53 
 
 like laughier ; and John Bunyan could pronounce daughter as 
 'dafter':— 
 
 ' Despondency, good man, is coming after, 
 An so is also Much-afraid, his daughter.' 
 
 There is one word of this orthography whose pronunci- 
 ation is not yet uniformly established (in the public reading 
 of Scripture), and that is the word draught. The colloquial 
 pronunciation is now ' draft,' but in Dryden we find the other 
 sound : — 
 
 ' Better to hunt the fields for health unbought, 
 Than Tee the doctor for a nauseous draught.' 
 
 156. If we now leave the Saxon and notice the French 
 words that entered largely into our language in the twelfth 
 and thirteenth centuries, there is this general observation to 
 be made concerning them : — They were at first pronounced 
 as French words; and although the original pronunciation 
 was soon impaired, yet a trace of their native sound followed • 
 them for a long time, just as happens in like cases in our 
 own day. The French accentuation would remain after 
 every other tinge of their origin had faded out. In course of 
 time they were so completely familiarised that their origin 
 was lost sight of, and then they insensibly slid into an English 
 pronunciation. The spelling would sometimes follow all 
 these changes, but in other cases the habit of writing was too 
 strongly fixed. 
 
 Thus the French word honneur has appeared in English 
 as honure (Layamon), and then as honour in Chaucer, and in 
 both cases accented after the French manner on the last 
 syllable. But now that the accent has moved forward to the 
 first syllable, there is a tendency to spell accordingly. 
 
 The adjective honourable is anglicised in the titular use of 
 the word, when it is written Honorable ; and there are some 
 authors who now omit the u in the substantive and adjective 
 
154 SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION. 
 
 alike, and upon all occasions. The American writers are 
 conspicuous for their disposition to reject these traces of 
 .early French influence. 
 
 157. In reading early English poets, if we wish to catch the ' 
 music as well as the sense, we must bear in mind the differ- 
 ence of pronunciation. That difference is not in all cases 
 easy to seize and define, but the case of words from the 
 French is exceedingly clear. 
 
 The tendency of that nation is the reverse of ours in the 
 matter of accentuation. They throw the accent often on the 
 close of a word ; we always try to get it as near the beginning 
 as possible. There is a large body of French words in 
 our language which have at length yielded to the influences 
 by which they are surrounded, and have come to be pro- 
 nounced as English-born words. The same words were 
 for centuries accented in the French manner, and these are 
 especially the ones we ought to be familiar with, if we would 
 wish not to stumble at the rhythm of our early poets. 
 
 Chaucer has 
 
 aventure 
 
 for our 
 
 adventure 
 
 contree 
 
 ») 
 
 country 
 
 corage 
 
 »» 
 
 courage 
 
 fortune 
 
 >> 
 
 fortune 
 
 laboiire 
 
 >5 
 
 labour 
 
 langage 
 
 ?» 
 
 language 
 
 mariage 
 
 )» 
 
 marriage 
 
 nature 
 
 >» 
 
 nature 
 
 reson 
 
 >» 
 
 reason. 
 
 vertiie 
 
 5» 
 
 virtue 
 
 viage 
 
 5> 
 
 voyage 
 
 visage 
 
 J> 
 
 visage 
 
 Long after Chaucer did this French influence continue to 
 be felt in our language. Even so late as Milton considerable 
 traces of it are found in his rhythms. For example, he accents 
 aspect on the last syllable, as in Paradise Lost, vi. 450 : — 
 
 ' His words here ended, but his meek aspect 
 Silent yet spake, and breath'd immortal love.' 
 
FRENCH ACCENTUATION. 1 55 
 
 The word contest is accentuated by Milton as contest. 
 Paradise Lost, iv. 872 : — 
 
 ' Not likely to part hence without contest.' 
 
 Again, in the last line of the Ninth Book : — 
 
 ' And of their vain contest appeared no end.' 
 
 158. The case of the word contrary is interesting, especially 
 as we are told in Walker's Pronouncing Dictionary \ that ' the 
 accent of this word is invariably placed on the first syllable 
 by all correct speakers, and as constantly removed to the 
 second by the illiterate and vulgar.' These are rather hard 
 terms to apply to the really time-honoured and classical 
 pronunciation of contrary; but yet Walker doubtless ex- 
 pressed the current judgment of the polite society of his and 
 of our day. 
 
 We find it in Shakspeare, Romeo and Juliet, i. 5 : — 
 
 ' You must contrary me, marry tis tune. 
 
 And Spenser, Faery Queene, ii. 2. 24, where I will quote the 
 whole stave for the sake of its beauty : — 
 
 ' As a tall ship tossed in troublous seas 
 (Whom raging windes, threatning to make the pray 
 Of the rough rockes, doe divcrsly disease) 
 Meetes two contrarie billowes by the way, 
 That her on either side doe sore assay, 
 And boast to swallow her in greedy grave ; 
 Shee, scorning both their spights, does make wide way, 
 And, with her brest breaking the fomy wave, 
 Does ride on both their backs, and faire herself doth save.' 
 
 And Milton in Samson Agonistcs, 972 : — 
 
 ' Fame, if not double-fac'd, is double-mouth'd, 
 And with contrary blast proclaims most deeds.' 
 
 159. Although the disposition of our language is to throw 
 the accent back, yet we are far from having divested our- 
 
156 SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION. 
 
 selves of words accented on the last syllable. There are 
 a certain number of cases in which this constitutes a useful 
 distinction, when the same word acts two parts. Such is the 
 case of humane and hianan; of augiist and the month of 
 August, which is in fact the selfsame word. Sometimes the 
 accent marks the distinction between the verb and the noun : 
 thus we say to rebel, to record; but a rebel, a record. When 
 the lawyers speak of a record (substantively), they merely 
 preserve the original French pronunciation, and thereby 
 remind us that the distinction last indicated is a pure English 
 invention. We have many borrowed words to which we 
 have given a domestic character by setting them to a music 
 of our own. 
 
 But independently of this set of words, in which the accent 
 on the last syllable is of manifest utility, there are others 
 naturally accented in the same manner, in which there seems 
 to be no disposition to introduce a change. Examples : — 
 polite, urbane, jocose, divine, complete. 
 
 To these Romance examples may be added some of pure 
 Saxon, e. g. all the disyllabic compounds beginning with 
 be-\— become, before, beget, behead, below, bequeathe, bequest, be- 
 think, beware, beyond. The emphasis, which naturally rests 
 on the last, has never been transferred by fashion to the 
 first. And that is because the subsidiariness of the be- has 
 never been lost sight of. The English disyllables (from 
 every source) which are now accented on the last syllable 
 amount to the number of 1635, as I know from a manu- 
 script list of them which I have, in the handwriting of a 
 friend. 
 
 160. In the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, 
 it was a trick and fashion of the times to lengthen words by 
 the addition of an e, and also to double the consonants. 
 These are the characteristic features of the spelling with 
 
ORTHOGRAPHY OF SPENSER. I57 
 
 which we are familiar in Spenser, who is edited in the ortho- 
 graphy of his time. In the following passage the word wones, 
 dwells, is written wonnes : — 
 
 ' For now the best and noblest Knight alive 
 Prince Arthur is, that wonnes in Faerie lond.' 
 
 Faery Queene, ii. 3. 18. 
 
 In the same way he writes besprincldcd, himself, thankhsst, 
 blincked, doggc, lincked, home, chare, ecchoed, againe. 
 
 ' At last they heard a home that shrilled cleare 
 Throughout the wood that ecchoed againe.' lb. 20. 
 
 A great number of these final es have been abolished, 
 others have been utilised, as observed in 163; but these 
 fashions mostly leave their traces in hereditary relics. 
 Such is the e at the end of therefore, which has no use as 
 expressive of sound, and which exerts a delusive effect on 
 the sense, making the word look as if it were a compound 
 of fore, like before, instead of with/*;-, which is the fact ; and 
 for this reason some American books now print therefor, 193. 
 
 161. So with reference to the doubling of the k by ck. 
 Many of these remained to a late date ; and there are some 
 few archaisms of this sort which have only just been disused. 
 Such are poetick, ascetick, politick, catholick, instead of poetic, 
 ascetic, politic, catholic. This was the constant orthography 
 of Dr. Johnson. 'The next year (1713), in which Cato 
 came upon the stage, was the grand climacterick of Addison's 
 reputation.' When such exuberances are dismissed, it is 
 quite usual to make an exception in favour of Proper names. 
 There are very good and practical reasons why these should 
 affect a spelling somewhat removed from the common habits 
 of the language, and accordingly we find that almost every 
 discarded fashion of spelling lives on somewhere in Proper 
 names. The orthography of Frederick has not been re- 
 
1 58 SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION. 
 
 formed, and the ck holds its ground advantageously against 
 the timidly advancing fashion of writing Frederic. 
 
 162. To the same period belongs the practice of writing 
 double / at the end of such words as celestially mortall, 
 
 faithfully eter?iall, counsell, naturally unequall, wakefull, cruell : 
 also in such words as lilly, 154. 
 
 It is a relic of this fashion that we still continue to write 
 till, all, full, instead of til, al,ful, which were the forms of 
 these words in Saxon. 
 
 Spenser has an inclination to c for j and y for i, thus dace 
 desyre {Faery Queene, ii. 3. 23) for base desire. 
 
 The vacillation between c and s terminated discriminative!}' 
 in a few instances. Thus we have prophesy the verb and 
 prophecy the noun, to practise and a practice. Less estab- 
 lished, but often observed, is the differentiation of license the 
 verb from licence the substantive, as — 
 
 ' Licence they mean when they cry Liberty.' 
 
 John Milton, Sonnet xii. 11 ; ed. Tonson, 1 725. 
 
 163. In the case of the ^-subscript, that which had origin- 
 ally been nothing more than a trick or fashion of the times, 
 came to have a definite signification assigned to it. In the 
 fifteenth century it was a mere Frenchism, a fashion and 
 nothing more. But in the sixteenth century it came to be 
 regarded as a grammatical sign that the proper vowel of the 
 syllable was long 1 . Against this orthographical idiom the 
 Scotch grammarian, Alexander Hume, who dedicated his 
 book to King James I, stoutly protested : — 
 
 ' We use alsoe, almost at the end of everie word, to wryte an idle e. This 
 sum defend not to be idle, because it affectes the voual before the consonant, 
 the sound quherof many tymes alteres the signification ; as, bop is altero 
 
 1 To indicate the subservient use of this letter, I have (for want of a 
 better expression) borrowed from a somewhat analogous thing in Greek 
 grammar the term e-s?ibscript. 
 
THE E-SUBSCRIPT. 1 59 
 
 tantvm pede saltare ; bopeis sperare : fir, abies ; fyre, ignis: a. fin, p'mnz;fine, 
 probatus: bid, jubere; bide, manere : with many moe. It is true that the 
 sound of the voual befoer the consonant many tymes doth change the sig- 
 nification ; but it is as untrue that the voual e behind the consonant doth 
 change the sound of the voual before it. A voual devyded from a voual 
 be a consonant can be noe possible means return thorough the consonant 
 into the former voual. Consonantes betuene vouales are lyke partitions walles 
 betuen roomes. Nothing can change the sound of a voual but an other 
 voual coalescing with it into one sound. . . . To illustrat this be the 
 same exemples, saltare is to bop ; sperare is to boep : abiesis fir ; ignis fyr ; 
 or, if you wil, fier : jubere is bid; manere byd or bied.' — 0/ the Ortbo- 
 grapbie, &c, p. 21. 
 
 164. The fifteenth century is the period in which we 
 adopted the French combination gu to express nothing more 
 than the G-sound before e or i. Chaucer has guerdon, which 
 is a French word ; but he did not apply this spelling to words 
 of English origin, such as, guess, guest, guild, guilt. These 
 in Chaucer are written without the u. 
 
 Mr. Toulmin Smith spells gild throughout his book 
 entitled English Gilds. In language we have an abnormal 
 French spelling, which lost its footing with them, but estab- 
 lished itself with us. Here the u has acquired a consonantal 
 value as a consequence of the orthography. In Chaucer it 
 is langage, but in the Promptorium (1440) we read ' Langage 
 or langwage.' 170. 
 
 165. In the sixteenth century there appeared a fashion of 
 writing certain words with initial sc- which before had simple 
 s-. It was merely a way of writing the words, and was 
 without any significance as to the sound. Hence the forms 
 scent, scite, sciluation : and Saxon s&e became scythe. It 
 probably sprang from the analogy of such Latin forms as 
 scene, science, sceptre. These cases are to be distinguished 
 from those of 152. 
 
 Scent is from the Latin sen/ire, French sentir, and is 
 written sent in Spenser, Faery Queene, i. 1. 53. 
 
 Scite seems to be returning to its natural orthography of 
 
l6o SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION. 
 
 site, as being derived from the Latin situs ; and we once 
 more write it as did Spenser and Ben Jonson. But there 
 are still persons of authority who adhere to the seven- 
 teenth-century practice — the practice of Fuller, Burnet, and 
 Drayton. 
 
 166. In the sixteenth century there was a great disposition 
 to prefix a w before certain words beginning with an h or 
 with an r. This seems to have been due to association. 
 There existed of old in the language a group of words 
 beginning with wh and wr ; such as, whale, wharf, what, 
 wheat, wheel, when, where, ivhich, who, whither, wrath, wreak, 
 wrestle, wretch, w right, wrist, write, wrong, — all familiar 
 words, and some of them words of the first necessity. The 
 contagion of these examples spread to words beginning 
 with h or r simple, and the movement was perhaps aided 
 in some measure by the desire to reassert the languishing 
 gutturalism of h and (we may add) of r. 
 
 This was the means of engendering some strange forms 
 of orthography, which either became speedily extinct or 
 maintained an obscure existence. For example, whot is 
 found instead of hot, as red-whot, Faery Queene, iv. 5. 44; 
 whome, instead of home ; wrote instead of root. In Shak- 
 speare, Troylus and Cressida, iii. 3. 23, wrest most probably 
 belongs here, being an Elizabethan form of rest. In Sir W. 
 Ralegh's Letters we find wrediness, readiness. The form 
 wrapt, as quoted in 199, belongs here. Modern writers 
 seem to have decided for rapt : this is the only form in Ten- 
 nyson, who has wrapt only in such phrases as ' wrapt in a 
 cloak.' This is an instance in which it may be doubted 
 whether the word does not lose a certain poetic haze by 
 being so rigidly etymologised. In Dean Milman's History of 
 the fews, ed. 1868, it stands, 'Elijah had been wrapt to 
 heaven in a car of fire/ 
 
INITIAL W. l6l 
 
 167. By this process was formed the vexed word wretch- 
 lessness in the seventeenth Article. To understand this word, 
 we have only to look at it when divested of its initial w, as 
 retchlessness ; and then, according to principles already de- 
 fined, to remember that an ancient Saxon c at the end of 
 a syllable commonly developed into tch ; and in this way we 
 get back to the verb to reck, Anglo-Saxon recan, to care for. 
 So that retch-less-ness is equivalent to care-nought-state of 
 mind, that is to say, it is much the same thing as ' despera- 
 tion.' The prefixed w has in this instance proved fatal to 
 the word. The tch form of this root has fallen out of use. 
 Most probably the prefixing of this W has extinguished it. 
 For it had the effect of creating a confusion between this 
 word and wretch, a word totally distinct, and this is one of 
 the greatest causes of words dying out, when they clash 
 with others and promote confusion. We retain the verb 
 to reck, and also reckless and recklessness , which means the 
 same as wretchlessness. 
 
 The Bible-translator, Myles Coverdale 1 spelt raught (the 
 preterite of reach, and equivalent of our reached)*vtiih a w. 
 Speaking of Adam stretching forth his hand to pick the for- 
 bidden fruit, he says, ' he wrought life and died the death.' 
 That is to say, he raught, or snatched at, life. 
 
 But besides these obscure forms, one at least sprang up 
 under the same influence, which has retained a place in 
 standard English. The form whole stood for hole or hale, 
 which sense it bears in the English New Testament, 
 though it has since run off from the sense of hale, 
 sound (integer), into that of complete (totus). In this case, 
 the language has been accidentally enriched. A new word 
 has been introduced, and one which has made for itself a 
 
 1 IVri/ings of Myles Coverdale, Parker Society, The Old Fai:h, p. 17. 
 
 M 
 
1 62 SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION. 
 
 place of the first importance in the language. For the ex- 
 pression the whole has obtained pronominal value in English. 
 
 168. This prevalence of the initial w is perhaps in some 
 measure to be traced to an influence from the western 
 counties. At any rate, it is there that we still observe an 
 excess of the same tendency. One of the most remarkable 
 instances of this change (remarkable because it was made in 
 the pronunciation only and not in the writing of the word) 
 is that of the numeral one. It used to be pronounced as 
 written, very like the preposition on, a sound naturally de- 
 rived from its original form in the Saxon numeral an. But 
 it has now long been pronounced as wun or won (in Devon- 
 shire wonn), and this change may with probability be placed 
 at the close of the sixteenth century. It was apparently a 
 west-country habit which got into standard English. In 
 Somersetshire may be heard ' the wonn en the wother ' for 
 ' the one and the other.' In the eastern parts of England, 
 and especially in London, it is well-known vernacular to 
 say un, commonly written 'tin, as if a w had been elided ; 
 e. g. ' a gopd 'un.' In Loves Labour's Lost, iv. 2. 80, it is 
 plainly pronounced on or oon. 
 
 One of the features of the Dorset dialect, as exhibited in 
 the poems of the Rev. William Barnes, is the broad use of 
 this initial w, both in the first numeral and in other words, 
 such as woak for oak, wold for old, woats for oats. 
 
 'John Bloom he wer a jolly soul, 
 
 A grinder o' the best o' meal, 
 Bezide a river that did roll, 
 
 Vrom week to week, to push his wheel. 
 His flour were all a-meiide o' wheat, 
 An' fit vor bread that vo'k mid eat; 
 Vor he would starve avore he'd cheat. 
 " Tis pure," woone woman cried ; 
 " Ay, sure," woone mwore replied ; 
 " You'll vind it nice. Buy woonce, buy twice." 
 Cried worthy Bloom the miller.' 
 
WEST-COUNTRY W-INITIAL. 1 63 
 
 The same worthy miller sitting in his oaken chair is 
 described as 
 
 ' A-zitten in his cheair o' woak.* 
 
 In Tyndale's New Testament, Matt, xviii. 16, it seems as 
 if won in the edition of 1526 had slipped in by oversight, 
 for it is usually spelt oon in that book; but in 1534 it has 
 become one. Here is a case in which the stray exception is 
 the most genuine product. 
 
 169. But while we point to the western counties as the 
 possible source of this feature, we must not overlook the 
 fact that in Yorkshire, and generally throughout the North, 
 one is pronounced worm, and oats arc called wuis, as distinctly 
 as in Gloucestershire and the West of England Whatever 
 regions we may trace it to, we must regard this w with 
 particular interest as being a creation of the English speech- 
 genius. To the Danish it is ungenial ; they have dropped 
 it in words where it is of ancient standing, ami where we 
 have it in common with the Germans, as in weekyWOol, wolf, 
 Woden, word, which ili<- Danes call uge, uld, ulf\ Odin, <>rd. 
 
 The Germans do in fact write the w in these words, 2Bod)f, 
 SZBofte, SBulf. But they do not properly >lure with us our w, 
 for they pronounce it as our v; at Least it is so pronounced 
 in the literary German. If, however, we listen to the voice 
 of the people, we perceive great variation in Germany. In 
 the southern parts they seem to approach very nearly to the 
 sound of our w ; and, according to Paulus Diaconus, the 
 Lombards exaggerated this sound, for he says that they 
 pronounced Wodan as Gwodan. Even in France we oc- 
 casionally catch a complete w-sound, as in aiguille, oui, 
 Edouard, Longwy. But with all this, it may still be safely 
 said that they all leave us in the sole possession of our w, 
 which is accordingly a distinct property and special birth- 
 right of the English language. 
 
 m 2 
 
164 SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION. 
 
 170. The influence of association (166) explains many 
 other peculiarities of our spelling. It was on this prin- 
 ciple that the word could acquired its l. This word has no 
 natural right to the l at all, being of the same root as can, 
 and the second syllable in uncouth, viz. from the verb which 
 in Saxon was written cunnan. In would and should the l is 
 hereditary ; but could acquired the l by mere force of asso- 
 ciation with them. And it seems probable that the silence 
 of the l in all three of these words may be due to the 
 example of could. The coud sound still kept its place after 
 it was written could, and at length drew would and should 
 over to the like pronunciation. In the poet Surrey and his 
 contemporaries we find would and even could rhymed to 
 mould; and thus we perceive that could might easily have 
 acquired a pronunciation answering to its new spelling. 
 The word fault used to be pronounced without the sound 
 of l, but here orthography has proved stronger than tra- 
 dition. In the Deserted Village it rhymes to aught'. — 
 
 * Yet he was kind, or if severe in aught, 
 The love he bore to learning was in fault.' 
 
 This is another instance in which we have dropped a 
 French pronunciation for one of our own making, and 
 in the making of which we have been led by the spelling. 
 164. 
 
 171. Between spelling and pronunciation there is a mutual 
 attraction, insomuch that when spelling no longer follows 
 the pronunciation, but is hardened into orthography, the pro- 
 nunciation begins to move towards the spelling. A familiar 
 illustration of this may be found in the words Derby, clerk, 
 in which the er sounds as ar, but which many persons, 
 especially of that class which is beginning to claim educated 
 rank, now pronounce literally. The pronunciation itself was 
 
FRENCH INFLUENCES. 165 
 
 a good Parisian fashion in the fifteenth century. Villon, 
 the French poet of that period, affords in his rhymes some 
 illustrations of this. He rhymes Robert, haubert, with pluspart, 
 pouparl ; bar re with ter re; appert with part} 
 
 But it must have been much older than the time of Villon. 
 In Chaucer, Prologue 391. we are not to suppose that 
 Dertemouthe is to be pronounced as it was by the boy who 
 in one of our great schools was the cause of hilarity to his 
 class-fellows by calling that seaport Dirty-mouth. The whole 
 word is a trisyllable in Chaucer ; but the first syllable re- 
 presents the same sound as Dart now does. The popular 
 sarmon, sermon, is found in Chaucer. Sarvant and sarvice 
 occur in Ralegh's letters. We pronounce ar in Serjeant. 
 Both forms are preserved in the case of person and parson : 
 in Love's Labour 's Lost, iv. 2.78, the old editions are divided 
 on this word. In Ralegh we find parson in the sense of 
 ' person.' Merchant was originally a mere variety of spelling 
 for mar chant, as it is spelt in Chaucer, according to its 
 French extraction, but the pronunciation has now adapted 
 itself to the prevalent value of er. 
 
 172. There are other familiar instances in which we may 
 trace the influence of orthography upon pronunciation. The 
 generation which is now in the stage beyond middle life, 
 are some of them able to remember when it was the correct 
 thing to say Lunnon. At that time young people practised 
 to say it, and studied to fortify themselves against the vul- 
 garism of saying London, according to the literal pronun- 
 ciation. At the same time Sir John was pronounced with 
 the accent on Sir, in such a manner that it was liable to be 
 mistaken for surgeon. This accentuation of ' Sir John ' may 
 be traced further back, however, even to Shakespeare, unless 
 
 1 LE tares completes de Francois Villon, ed. Jannet, p. xxiii. 
 
1 66 SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION. 
 
 our ears deceive us. 2 He?iry VI, ii. 3. 13 : 
 
 ' Live in your country here in banishment, 
 With Sir John Stanley in the Isle of Man.' 
 
 Also, 4. 77, 
 
 ' And Sir John Stanley is appointed now 
 To take her with him to the Isle of Man.' 
 
 Compare Milton, Sonnet xi : 
 
 ' Thy age, like ours, O soul of Sir John Cheek, 
 Hated not learning worse than toad or asp, 
 When thou taught'st Cambridge and King Edward Greek.' 
 
 173. The same generation said poonish {or punish (a relic of 
 the French u mpu?iir); and when they spoke of a joint of mutton 
 they called it jinte or jeynt. In some cases it approximated 
 to the sound jweynte, and this was heard in the more retired 
 parts among country gentlemen. This is in fact the missing 
 link between the ei or eye sound and the French diphthong 
 oi or oie — in imitation of which the peculiarity originated. 
 The French words lot and joie are sounded as I'wa and/zm. 
 When the French pronunciation had degenerated so far in 
 such words as join, joint, that the was taken no account of, 
 and they were uttered as jine, jinte, a reaction set in, and re- 
 course was had to the native English fashion of pronouncing 
 the diphthong oi. Hence our present join, joint, do not always 
 rhyme where they ought to rhyme and once did rhyme. 
 
 That beautiful verse in the 10 6th Psalm (New Version) 
 is hardly producible in refined congregations, by reason of 
 this change in its closing rhyme : — 
 
 ' O may I worthy prove to see 
 Thy saints in full prosperity ! 
 That 1 the joyful choir may join. 
 And count thy people's triumph mine!' 
 
 174. The fashion has not yet quite passed away of pro- 
 nouncing Ro??ie as the word room is pronounced. This is 
 an ancient pronunciation, as is well known from puns in 
 
VENERABLE FASHIONS. 1 67 . 
 
 Shakspeare. No doubt it is the phantom of an old French 
 pronunciation, and it bears about the same relation to the 
 French utterance of Rome (pron. Rom) that boon does to the 
 French km. But it is remarkable that in Shakspeare's day 
 the modern pronunciation (like roam) was already heard and 
 recognised, and the two pronunciations have gone on side 
 by side till now , and it has taken so long a time to establish 
 the mastery of the latter. The fact probably is, that the 
 room pronunciation has been kept alive in the aristocratic 
 region, which is almost above the level of orthographic 
 influences ; while the rest of the world has been saying the 
 name according to the value of the letters. Room is said to 
 have been the habitual pronunciation of the late Lord Lans- 
 downe; not to instance living persons. The Shakspearean 
 evidence is from the following passages. King John, iii. i : 
 
 « Con. O lawfull let it be 
 
 That I have roome with Rome to curse a while.' 
 
 So also in Julius Casar, i. 2. But in 1 Henry VI, iii. 1 : 
 
 ' Winch. Rome shall rcmedie this. 
 Warto. Roame thither then.' 
 
 The street in which Charles Dickens went to school at 
 Chatham bears its evidence here : 
 
 • 
 
 'Then followed the preparatory day-school, a school for girls and boys, 
 to which he went with his sisier Fanny, and which was in a place called 
 Rome (pronounced Room) lane.' — John Forster, Life of Charles Dick c n>. 
 ch. i. 1816-21 (1872). 
 
 175. There still exist among us a few personages who 
 culminated under George IV, and who adhere to the now- 
 antiquated fashion of their palmy days. With them it used 
 to be, and still is, a point of distinction to maintain certain 
 traditional pronunciations: gold as gould or gu-uld; yellow 
 2&y allow \ lilac as hyloc; china as cheyney \ oblige as obb< 
 after the French obligor. 
 
 To this group of waning and venerable sounds, which 
 
1 68 SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION. 
 
 were talismans of good breeding in their day, may be added 
 the pronunciation of the plural verb are like the word air : 
 but not without observing that, in this instance, it is the 
 modern pronunciation that runs counter to orthography. 
 The following quotation from Wordsworth, Thoughts near 
 the Residence of Burns, exhibits it in rhyme with prayer, 
 bear, share : — 
 
 'But why to him confine the prayer, 
 When kindred thoughts and yearnings bear 
 On the frail heart the purest share 
 
 With all that live? 
 The best of what we do and are, 
 
 Just God, forgive !' 
 
 176. Rarer are the instances in which the number of 
 syllables has been effected by change of pronunciation. A 
 celebrated example is the plural ' aches/ which is thus com- 
 mented upon in Curiosities of Literature, hy Isaac Disraeli: — 
 
 'Aches.— Swift's own edition of "The City Shower " has "old a-ches 
 throb." Aches is two syllables, but modern printers, who had lost the right 
 pronunciation, have aches as one syllable, and then, to complete the metre, 
 have foisted in " aches will throb." Thus what the poet and the linguist 
 wish to preserve is altered, and finally lost. 
 
 A good example occurs in Hudibras, iii. 2. 407, where persons are 
 mentioned who 
 
 " Can by their pangs and aches find 
 All turns and changes of the wind." 
 
 The rhythm here demands the dissyllable a-ches. as used by the older 
 writers, Shakespeare particularly, who, in his Tempest, makes Prospero 
 threaten Caliban 
 
 " If thou neglect'st, or dost unwillingly 
 What I command, I'll rack thee with old cramps; 
 Fill all thy bones with aches ; make thee roar 
 That beasts shall tremble at the din."' 
 
 Some recent Diphthongs. 
 
 177. We will devote the remainder of this chapter to the 
 new English diphthongs : they are among the more con- 
 spicuous instances of that revolution in orthography which 
 
RECENT DIPHTHONGS. 169 
 
 has caused Saxon literature to look so uncouth and strange 
 in its own native country. 
 
 AU. It resulted from our peculiar ae sound of a as de- 
 scribed in the last chapter, that the English a was found 
 unequal to represent the French a, and accordingly we see 
 au put for it in many words, as chaunl, the old spelling for 
 chant; aunt for ante) haunt from ' hanter ' ; laund, a frequent 
 word in our early poetry, also written laivnd, from the 
 French 'lande,' and which is still preserved in the lawns 
 of our gardens. Blauncht ; haunch ; paunch, French ' panse ' ; 
 launch, French ' lancer.' Also for Saxon a, as hlahhan, laugh. 
 
 And this representation of the 'a' by the English au. 
 from Chaucer to Spenser, is an acknowledgment of the early 
 incapacity of the English a to express that full ' a' sound. 
 
 178. OU. There was no such diphthong as this in Saxon, 
 though it is common in what are now called 'Saxon ' words. It 
 was one of the French transformations. The Saxon u was 
 changed for French ou, as in iung,young\ pruh, trough) ful 
 became/?'///; buian keeps its // in but, and changes it in about. 
 Thus the Saxon nehgebur became neighbour in conformity to 
 such terminations as honour, favour, which represented a 
 French -cur and a Latin -or. In recent times there is a ten- 
 dency to the spelling honor, labor, neighbor ; at least in 
 America. 
 
 This ou is sometimes present in sound when absent from 
 the spelling. If we compare the words move, prove, with such 
 words as love, dove, 'shove, we become aware that the 
 former, though they have laid aside their French spelling 
 from mouvoir, prouver, yet have retained their French sound 
 notwithstanding. 
 
 179. 01. This is no Saxon diphthong, but Saxon words 
 readily admitted it. It came from the French oui or cui, or even 
 - //. The Saxon sol borrowed from the French souil a new 
 
170 SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION. 
 
 vocalisation, and hence the English soil. The French feuil 
 a leaf, has given us foil in several technical uses ; and from 
 fouler, to tread down, we have the verb to foil. The Saxon 
 iilian lives on in the verb to till the ground; while its 
 French vocalisation has resulted in toil. 
 
 EO. This combination often meets the eye on the Saxon 
 page, but it is rare m English, and the few cases in 
 which it appears have no connection with the Saxon. Ben 
 Jonson said, ' it is found but in three words in our tongue, 
 
 yeoman, people, jeopardy ; which were truer written yeman, 
 
 peple, jepardy! 
 
 180. EE. This is not properly a diphthong, but a long 
 vowel ; it is the long ' i '. But it is convenient to speak of 
 it here, with a view to introduce the present tendency of 
 other sounds to merge into this one. English spelling has 
 been produced by such a variety of heterogeneous causes 
 that its inconsistencies are not to be wondered at. Grimm 
 has remarked on the want of regularity in our vowel usage : 
 for we use a double e in thee, and a single one in me, 
 whereas the vowel-sound is alike in the pronunciation. 
 The probable cause was the aim at distinction between the 
 pronoun thee and the definite article the — words which 
 down to the end of the fifteenth century were written alike, 
 and often check the reader. The eye has its claims as well 
 at the ear, when so much is written and read; and this 
 accounts for many cases of dissimilar spelling of similar 
 sounds, as be the verb and bee the insect. 
 
 181. EA. This combination is particularly interesting, and 
 we select it for expansion. It has no connection with 
 the Saxon diphthong of the same form. It is not found 
 in Chaucer. Where we write ea he wrote e : beste, 
 beast) bred, bread; clene, clean; ded, dead; deth, death; 
 dere, dear; grete, great; herte, heart; mel, meal; pes, 
 
EA. 171 
 
 peace ; pies, please ; redy, ready] sprede, spread) tere, tear; 
 whete, wheat. The change from e to ea may be thus accounted 
 for. Chaucer's e was the French e-ouvert, which sounded 
 as eh, not far from the vocalism of day, hay, nay. But in the 
 English mouth this e became less open and more shrill con- 
 tinually, till at last it merged in ' i ' which is its present lot. 
 The a was then added to it in such syllables as adhered to 
 the former sound ; and thus I suppose ea was at first a 
 reinforcement of e-ouvert, just as gh was a reinforcement 
 of the old gutturality of //. At first ea sounded as ay ; but 
 after a while it found the old tendency too strong for it, and 
 it drifted away in that very direction from which the addition 
 of a vainly sought to decoy it. Ami imw most of the ea 
 syllables are pronounced as ee. An illustration of this may 
 be gathered from the history of the word U .. 
 
 182. We have all heard some village dame talk of her 
 dish o' tay\ but the men of our generation are surprised 
 when they first learn that this pronunciation is classical 
 English, and is enshrined in the verses of Alexander Pope. 
 The following rhymes are from the Rafh of the Lock. 
 
 ' Soft yielding minds to Water glide away, 
 And sip, with Nymphs, their elemental Tea.' Canto i. 
 
 4 Here thon, great Anna ! whom three realms obey, 
 Dost sometimes counsel take — and sometimes Tea.' Canto iii. 
 
 That this was the general pronunciation of good com- 
 pany down to the close of the last century there is no 
 doubt. The following quotation will carry us to 1775, the 
 date of a poem entitled Bath and It's Environs t in three 
 cantos, p. 25. 
 
 ' Muse o'er some book, or trifle o'er the tea, 
 Or with soft musick charm dull care away.' 
 
 This old pronunciation was borrowed with the word from 
 
1 72 SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION. 
 
 the French, who still call the Chinese beverage lay, and 
 write it the. And when tea was introduced into England by 
 the name of lay, it seemed natural to represent that sound 
 by the letters tea. 
 
 183. Although there are a great many words in English 
 which hold the diphthong ea, as beat, dear, death, eat, fear, 
 gear, head, learn, mean, neat, pear, read, seat, teat, wean, —yet 
 the cases of ea ending an English word are very few. Ben 
 Jonson, in his day, having produced four of them, viz. flea, 
 plea, sea, yea, added, 'and you have at one view all our words 
 of this termination.' He forgot the word lea, or perhaps 
 regarded it as a bad spelling for ley or lay. This makes five. 
 A sixth, pea, has come into existence since. It is a mere 
 creature of grammar, a singular begotten of the young 
 plural pease. In the sixteenth century pease was singular, and 
 peason or peasen was plural, as we see in the following 
 passages from Surrey : — 
 
 ' All men might well dispraise 
 My wit and enterprise, 
 If I esteemed a pease 
 Above a pearl in price.' 
 
 ' Tickle treasure, abhorred of reason, 
 Dangerous to deal with, vain, of none avail; 
 Costly in keeping, past not worth two peason ; 
 Slipper in sliding, as is an eeles tail.' 
 
 To these there has been added a seventh, viz. tea. 
 
 At the time when the orthography of tea was determined, 
 it is certain that most instances of ea final sounded as ay, 
 and probable that all did. In a number of words with ea 
 internal, the pronunciation differed. But even in these cases 
 there is room to suspect that the ay sound was once general, 
 if not universal. We still give it the ay sound in measure 
 pleasure, treasure ; where ea, though in the midst of a word, 
 is at the close of a syllable. And there are cases in which 
 
TEA. 173 
 
 it is still so sounded in the middle of a syllable, as great 
 and break. 
 
 In Surrey we find heat rhyme to great, and no doubt it 
 was a true rhyme. Surrey pronounced heat as the majority 
 of our countrymen, at least in the west country, still do, viz. 
 as hayt. The same poet rhymes ease to assays : — 
 
 ' The peasant, and the post, that serves at all assays ; 
 The ship-boy, and the galley-slave, have time to take their ease;' — 
 
 where it is plain that ease still kept to the French sound of 
 aise. Then, further, the same poet has in a sonnet the 
 following run of rhyming words : — 
 
 which renders it tolerably plain, that please was pronounced 
 as the French plaise, as it still is pronounced by the majority 
 of English people. 
 
 184. This throws light upon a passage in Shakspeare, 
 1 Henry IV, ii. 3, where Falstaff says 'if Reasons were as 
 plentie as Black-berries, I would giue no man a R n vpon 
 compulsion, I.' It seems that a pun underlies this; the 
 association of reasons with blackberries springing out of the 
 fact that reasons sounded like raisins. In the analogous 
 word season, we have EA substituted for the older ay ; for, 
 in the fifteenth century, Lydgate wrote this word saysoun and 
 saysonne. When we look at the word treason, and consider 
 its relation to the French trahison, who can suppose that the 
 pronunciation treeson is anything but a modernism ? 
 
 These investigations suggest many questions as to the 
 alterations that our pronunciation may have undergone. 
 For instance, did Abraham Cowley pronounce cheat as we 
 
174 SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION. 
 
 often hear it in our own day, viz. as chayl? He has the 
 following rhyme : — 
 
 ' If e'er ambition did my fancy cheat 
 With any wish so mean as to be great.' 
 
 And how did Milton sound the rhymes of this couplet in the 
 
 L? Allegro ? — 
 
 * With stories told of many a feat, 
 How fairy Mab the junkets eat.' 
 
 Must we not suppose that eat being in the preterite, and 
 equivalent to ale, had a sound unlike our present pronuncia- 
 tion of feat. This, with the derivation of the latter from the 
 French/a?'/, suggests the sounds fayt and ayl. 
 
 In The Stage-Players Complaint (1641), we find nay spelt 
 nea : ' Nea you know this well enough, but onely you love 
 to be inquisitive.' 
 
 In further illustration we may quote from Michael Dray- 
 ton's Polyolbion, xixth song (1662) : — 
 
 ' Foure such Immeasur'd Pooles, Phylosophers agree, 
 Ith foure parts of the world undoubtedly to bee ; 
 From which they haue supposd, Nature the winds doth raise, 
 And from them to proceed the flowing of the Seas.' 
 
 185. Dr. Watts (1709) rhymes sea to away. Sir Roundell 
 Palmer's Book of Praise, clxi : — 
 
 ' But timorous mortals start and shrink 
 To cross this narrow sea, 
 And linger shivering on the brink, 
 And fear to launch away." 
 
 In Cowper, Alexander Selkirk, we find sea rhyme to sur- 
 vey, and Goldsmith, in The Haunch of Venison, puts this 
 into the mouth of an under-bred fine-spoken fellow : — 
 
 'An under-bred fine-spoken fellow was he, 
 And he smil'd as he look'd on the venison and me. 
 " What have we got here ? — Why this is good eating ! 
 Your own, I suppose — or is it in waiting?"' 
 
EA AND AY. 1 75 
 
 When, in 1765, Josiah Wedgwood, having received his 
 first order from Queen Charlotte, wrote to get some help 
 from a relative in London, he described the list of tea-things 
 which were ordered, and he spelt the word tray thus, ' trea ' 
 — for so only can we understand it — ' Tea-pot & stand. 
 spoon-trea.' The orthography may be either his own or 
 that of Miss Chetwynd, from whom the instructions came. 
 
 Family names offer some examples to the same effect. 
 A friend informs me that he had once a relative, who in 
 writing was Mr. Lea, but he pronounced his name ' Lay ' : 
 and I am courteously permitted to use for illustration the 
 name of Mr. Rea, of Newcastle, the well-known organist, 
 whose family tradition renders the name as ' Raw' The 
 little river in Shropshire, which is written Rea, is called Ray. 
 
 186. If it has been made plain that ea sounded ay, it will 
 be a step to the clearing of another anomaly. It has been 
 asked why we spell conceive with et\ and yet spell beliei 
 reprieve with ie\ The difficulty lies in this fact — that the 
 pronunciation of these dissimilar diphthongs is now the 
 same. And the answer lies in this — that the pronunciation 
 was formerly different. Those words which we now write 
 with ei — to wit, (lectin, pefceive, conceive^ receive— were all 
 pronounced with a -cayve sound, as they still are in many 
 localities. The readiest proof of this is in the facts, (1) that 
 you will not find them rhymed with words of the w type, 
 and (2) that you will continually find them spelt with <</. 
 as deceave, perceave, conceave, receave. (3) But however these 
 wonds are spelt in the early prints, they are constantly 
 distinguished in some way or other, as decieued, beleened. 
 
 Above, 147. 
 
 Another illustration of the old power of ea may be gathered 
 from a source which has not received due attention : I mean 
 the pronunciation of English in Ireland. It is well known 
 
176 SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION. 
 
 that there resayve is the sound for receive, pays for pease, 
 say for sea, aisy for easy, baste for beast. These, and many 
 other so-called Irishisms, are faithful monuments of the pro- 
 nunciation of our fathers, at the time when English was 
 planted in Ireland. 
 
 All these words have now gone into the ^-sound which is 
 represented by ie in believe, and there is no doubt that this 
 sound is a very encroaching one. There have long been two 
 pronunciations of great, namely greet and grayt ; though 
 the latter is still dominant, and is likely to remain so. It is 
 in bookish words that the progress of the <?^-sound will 
 be most rapid, because the teacher will there be less ob- 
 structed by usage, and teachers love general rules. Therefore 
 ea once ee shall be always ee. A child learning to read, and 
 coming to the word inveigle shall be told to call it inveegle, 
 though the best usage at present is to say invaygle. Sir 
 Thomas Browne spelt it with ea : 
 
 ' These Opinions I never maintained with pertinacy, or endeavoured to 
 enveagle any mans belief unto mine.' — Religio Medici, fol. 1686 ; p. 4. 
 
 Among the words which still vacillate between the two 
 sounds of ea, is the word break: 
 
 'Still feel the breeze down Ettrick break 
 Although it chill my withered cheek' Scott. 
 
 ' Ah, his eyelids slowly break 
 Their hot seals, and let him wake!' Matthew Arnold. 
 
 That the latter is the pronunciation at the present time 
 there can be no doubt: and yet the former is heard from 
 so many persons who are able to read and write, that it may 
 perhaps establish itself in the end. 
 
 Thus we see that ea has in most instances changed its 
 sound from that of ay to that of ee. How are we to render 
 any account of so apparently capricious a movement, except 
 
EA AND AY. 1 77 
 
 by saying that a sentiment has taken possession of the public 
 mind to the effect that ay is a rude braying sound, while ee 
 is a refined and sweetly bleating one. Or, shall we suppose 
 that this is only a reprisal and natural compensation for the 
 area lost by this sound when it was ejected from its ancient 
 lot, and the ' i ' was invaded by the sound of Igh ? Leaving 
 such enquiries to the younger student, I will add two striking 
 examples of the encroachment of this popular favourite, this 
 ee sound. The first is the well-known instance of Beau- 
 champ, which is pronounced Beecham. The second is more 
 remarkable. 
 
 All along I have assumed that the value of ay is constant, 
 and capable of bemg referred to as a standard, as the 
 unshaken representative of that sound which ca had and 
 has lost. But there is at least one remarkable exception to 
 this assumed security of ay. For the last forty years or so 
 there has been a prevailing tendency to pronounce quay 
 kee ; and Torquay is most numerously called Torquee. 
 Mr. Pengelly tells me that he considers this as the esta- 
 blished pronunciation in the place itself, and it is his own 
 habit to say Torquee, though he still pronounces quay in the 
 ancient style as kay. How has this habit grown ? It seems 
 to prove that our pronunciation is not set by the best 
 examples ; for nearly all those whom I should have thought 
 most worthy of being imitated have from the earliest time 
 in my memory said kay and Tor-kay. 
 
 187. In summing up the case of Spelling and Pronun- 
 ciation, we may well make use of the example of tea. 
 When this woul was first spelt, the letters came at the call 
 of the sound : the spelling followed the pronunciation. Since 
 that time, the letters having changed their value, the sound 
 of the word has shared the vicissitude of its letters : the 
 pronunciation has followed the spelling. It is manifest that 
 
378 SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION. 
 
 these movements have one and .the same aim, namely, to 
 make the spelling phonetically symbolise the pronunciation. 
 There are two great obstacles to such a consummation: 
 
 (1) The letters of the alphabet are too few to represent all 
 the variety of simple sounds in the English language; 
 
 (2) and even what they might do is not done, because of the 
 restraining hand of traditional association. The consequence 
 is, that when we use the word 'orthography,' we do not 
 mean a mode of spelling which is true to the pronunciation, 
 but one which is conventionally correct. The spirit of 
 Orthography is embodied in this dictum of Samuel John- 
 son : 'It is more important that the law should be known 
 than that it should be right.' 
 
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER II. 
 On Spelling-reform. 
 
 188. Alphabetic writing is essentially phonetic. It was the 
 result of a sifting process which was conducted with little 
 conscious design, by which all the other suggestions of 
 picture-writing were gradually eliminated, and each figure 
 was brought to represent one of the simple sounds ob- 
 tained by the analysis of articulate speech. The historical 
 development of Letters tells us what their essence and 
 function is — viz. The expression of the Sound of words. 
 Spelling is the counterpart of pronunciation. But there is 
 a law at work to dissever this natural affinity. Pronunciation 
 is ever insensibly on the move, while spelling grows more 
 and more station? ry. The agitation for spelling-reform 
 which appears in cultivated nations from time to time, aims 
 at restoring the harmony between these two. 
 
 Among the Romans — a people eminently endowed with 
 the philological sense — there were some attempts of this 
 kind, one of which is of historical notoriety. The emperor 
 Claudius was a phonetic reformer, and he wrote a book 
 on the subject while in the obscurity of his earlv life. Three 
 letters as a first instalment of reform he forced into use when 
 he was emperor, but they were neglected after his time and 
 forgotten. Yet two of the three have been quietly resumed 
 by a late posterity. These represented I and U consonants 
 as distinct from the cognate vowels. In the seventeenth cen- 
 tury the European press determined this by the forms J and 
 V. Claudius was not however the first to direct attention to 
 the inadequacy of the Roman alphabet. Verrius Flaccus had 
 made a memorable proposal with regard to the letter M. At 
 the end of Latin words it was indistinctly heard, and therefore 
 he proposed to cut the letter in two, and write only half of 
 it in such positions— thus, N. 
 
 189. During the last three centuries many proposals for 
 spelling-reform have been made in this country and in 
 America. Among the reformers we find distinguished names. 1 
 
 1 The following is a dated list of constructors of phonetic alphabets in 
 connection with the English language. Sir John Choke, M 540. John Hart, 
 
 N 2 
 
l8o SPELLING-REFORM. 
 
 A strictly phonetic spelling-reform requires that we should 
 have a separate character for every separate sound, and 
 that no character should ever stand for any but its own 
 particular sound. One such system has acquired the consis- 
 tency which a working experience alone can give. Mr. 
 Pitman's phonetic alphabet has been tested by thirty years of 
 practical work, in printing books large and small, as well as 
 in the continuous appearance of the Phonetic Journal, which 
 is now in its thirty-first year. In this system the Roman 
 alphabet is adopted as far as it goes, and new forms are 
 added for the digraphs which, like //i, s/i, represent simple 
 sounds. Although the place of publication is Bath, the 
 movement first took a practical shape in Birmingham, where 
 in 1843 Mr. Thomas Wright Hill originated a Phonetic Fund 
 to meet the necessary sacrifices of such an experiment. Mr. 
 Hill was the founder of Hazlewood school at Birmingham, 
 and he had been an earnest advocate of spelling-reform during 
 a long life. He was the father of Matthew Davenport Hill, 
 Q.C., and of Sir Rowland Hill, and of three other dis- 
 tinguished sons. With that energy of practical reform for 
 which all his sons have been conspicuous, and one has 
 become famous, he travelled at an advanced age, with Mr. 
 Isaac Pitman, from Tottenham to Birmingham to be present 
 at the Phonetic Festival of 1843. At the seventh Phonetic 
 Festival, held in Birmingham in 1849, this venerable man, 
 then in his eighty-seventh year, made a long speech in favour 
 of phonetic printing. After the meeting of 1843, Mr. Ellis 
 began to give his valuable help to Mr. Pitman in the for- 
 mation of the new characters, and from that year to the 
 present the system has been in operation. The alphabet 
 
 1569: 'An Orthographie conteyning the due order and reason howe to 
 write or painte thimage of manne's voice, moste like to the life or nature.' 
 Bishop Wilkins, 1668. Benjamin Franklin, 1768. Dr. Thornton, Philadel- 
 phia, 1793. James Ewing, Trenton, New Jersey, 1798. William Pelham, 
 Boston, U.S. 1808. (' Rasselas' was printed in it.) Thomas Embree, Phila- 
 delphia, 1813. Joseph G. Chambers, Philadelphia, 1817. Abner Kneeland, 
 Philadelphia, 1825. M. H. Barton, Harvard, U.S. 1831. N. Nash, Phila- 
 delphia, 1836. Rev. W. Beardsley, St. Louis, 1841. Lieut. Richard 
 Doughs, Baltimore, 1 843. Benjamin A. Antrim, Philadelphia, 1843. 
 Andrew Comstock, Philadelphia, 1846. John S. Pulsifer, Orswigsburg, Penn- 
 sylvania, 1848. John P. Hart, New Haven, U.S. 1 848. Alexander Melville 
 Bell, London, 186=;. 
 
THE PHONETIC METHOD. 
 
 181 
 
 which has thus been produced consists of thirty-eight 
 characters, which are arranged below according to Mr. 
 Pitman's distribution. The quotations which are given in illus- 
 tration are taken from the Phonetic Journal, 1862 and 1864. 
 
 THE PHONETIC ALPHABET. 
 
 VOWELS. 
 
 Guttural. 
 
 A a as in am, fast, far 
 alms, father 
 
 R b 
 
 E e 
 
 8 8 
 
 I i 
 
 I i 
 
 ell, head, any 
 ale, air, bear 
 
 ill, pity, filial 
 
 ee\, cat, mere 
 
 Labial. 
 
 O o as in on, not, nor 
 O © ,, all. late, ought 
 
 up, son, journal 
 ope, coat, po?/r 
 
 full, foot, CO //Id 
 aV fond. to«r 
 
 "8" * 
 & o- 
 
 U u 
 UT ui 
 
 DIPHTHONGS. 
 
 tE i as in by, kind, n /'//// 
 11 i| ,, sew, due, Knit 
 OU ou ,, now, pound 
 01 oi ,, boy. voice 
 
 FOREIGN SOUNDS. 
 
 (E cd as in jritnc (French) 
 
 IJ n „ d« ( French) 
 
 3 3 J w „ dil (French) 
 
 II 1 1 „ VM (French) 
 
 X x „ ieh (German) 
 
 *5? \\ „ Bie,9 (German) 
 
 P 
 
 B 
 
 T t 
 D d 
 
 G <5 
 
 J J 
 
 K k 
 
 F f 
 
 V y 
 
 B t 
 
 ;i d 
 
 s 8 
 
 Z z 
 
 >: J 
 
 M m 
 
 N n 
 
 U r) 
 
 L 1 
 
 B r 
 
 AY w 
 
 H h 
 
 CONSONANTS. 
 
 Mutes. 
 
 as in rope, joost 
 ,, ro6e, ooast 
 
 ,, fa/o. /ip 
 ,, fade, dip 
 
 „ etch, r//ump 
 „ edge, jump 
 
 ,, \eek-, cane 
 ,, leaone, gain 
 
 Continuants. 
 
 as in sa /«'■.. /at 
 ,, Bave, rat 
 
 ,, wrealA, lAigh 
 ., w rea/Ae, thy 
 
 ,, hie*, real 
 ,, hie, zeal 
 
 viri.UlS, .<f//C 
 
 ,, vieion, pleasure 
 
 Nasals. 
 
 as in seem, ntet 
 Been, nei 
 .. ring, long 
 
 Liquids, 
 as in i\\ll, fight 
 
 ,, mo/'e, right 
 
 Coalescents. 
 
 as in wet, quit 
 ,. yet, #oung 
 
 Aspirate. 
 as in he, hone 
 
i8a 
 
 SPELLING-REFORM. 
 
 190. SPECIMEN OF PHONETIC PEINTING. 
 
 " Wi kanot tel az yet whot 
 laqgwej iz. It me bi a pro-- 
 d^kj'on ov netqr, a wsrk ov 
 hqman art, or a Divjn gift. 
 B^t tu wliotever sf.ir it belonz, 
 it wud s.im tu stand "sns^r- 
 past — ne 3nikwald in it— bj 
 eniiin els. 
 
 " tie sjens ov langwej iz a 
 s^ens ov veri modern det. Wi 
 kanot tres its liniej msc, be- 
 yond de beginir) ov our sen- 
 tqri, and it iz skersli resivd az 
 yet on a rutin ov ikwoliti bj 
 de elder branqez ov lernin. 
 Its veri nem iz stil ^nsetelcl, 
 and de vsri^s tjtelz dat hav 
 bin given tu it in In gland. 
 Frans, and Jermani, ar so 
 veg and vsriii) dat ds hav 
 led tu de most konfqzd jdiaz 
 am-sn de p-sblik at larj az tu 
 de r.'ial objekts ov dis nq si- 
 ens. Wi hir it spoken ov az 
 Komparativ Filolqji, Sjentifik 
 Etimoloji, Fonoloji, and Glos- 
 oloji. In Frans it haz resivd 
 de konvinient, bst s-smwhot 
 barbarss nem ov Lerjgistik. 
 fE myself prefer de simpel desig- 
 nejon ovde Sjens ovLarjgwej, 
 dec in diz clez ov h.\- 
 -soundin tjtelz, dis plen nem 
 wil hardli mit wid jeneral 
 akseptans." — Males Mulerz 
 LeTcti[rz on de Sl.ens ov Larj- 
 gw£j, (Ferst SirizJ 1861. 
 
 " !3E flil konvinst ov de trml 
 and r.izonabelnes ov de prin- 
 sipelz on whig de Fonetik 
 Reform rests, .... and 
 do- Mr Pitman me not liv 
 
 " We cannot tell as yet what 
 language is. It may be a pro- 
 duction of nature, a work of 
 human art, or a Divine gift. 
 But to whatever sphere it belongs, 
 it would seem to stand unsur- 
 passed — nay unequalled in it — by 
 anything else. 
 
 " The science of language is a 
 science of very modern date. We 
 cannot trace its lineage much be- 
 yond the beginning of our cen- 
 tury, and it is scarcely received as 
 yet on a footing of equality by 
 the elder branches of learning. 
 Its very name is still unsettled, 
 and the various titles that have 
 been given to it in England, 
 France, and Germany, are , so 
 vague and varying that they have 
 led to the most confused ideas 
 among the public at large as to 
 the real objects of this new sci- 
 ence. We hear it spoken of as 
 Comparative Philology, Scientific 
 Etymology, Phonology, and Glos- 
 sology. In France it has received 
 the convenient, but somewhat 
 barbarous name of Linguistique. 
 I myself prefer the simple desig- 
 nation of the Science of Language, 
 though in these days of high- 
 -sounding titles, this plain name 
 will hardly meet with general 
 acceptance." — Max Midler s 
 Lectures on the Science of Lan- 
 guage, (First Series,) 1861. 
 
 " I feel convinced of the truth 
 and reasonableness of the prin- 
 ciples on which the Phonetic 
 Reform rests, .... and 
 though Mr Pitman may not live 
 
THE PHONETIC METHOD. 
 
 I8 3 
 
 tu s.i de rez^lts ov liiz perse- 
 v.irin and disinterested ekzer- 
 Jonz, it rekw^rz ner prerfetik 
 pouer to persiv dat whot at 
 prezent iz pui-puid b[ de 
 mcni, wil mek its we in de 
 end, ■snles met bj arguments 
 stronger dan doz hidertu lev- 
 eld at de F-onetik Si(z. Wsn 
 argqment whicj mjt bi s^p- 
 ozd tu \yz wid de student ov 
 langwej, nemli. de obskiirejon 
 ov de etimolojikal str^ktiir ov 
 w>rdz, I kanot konsider veri 
 formidabel. <Je prcrn^n-icjon 
 ov lanirwcjez qenjez akordiij 
 tu fikst loz, de speliij iz 
 c;enjd in de mcrst arbitrari 
 mancr, ><y dat if our spelnj 
 folad de prernsnaiefon 01 
 w-srdz, it wud in rjaliti bi a 
 greter help tu de kritikal stu- 
 dent ov langwej (fan <fe prezenl 
 3nserten and snsjentifik mod 
 ovrjtin." — MaksMuL r'z /.< /- 
 Iqrz on de Sjens ov Laygwej, 
 (Sekond SirizJ 1863. 
 
 to see the results of his perse- 
 vering and disinterested exer- 
 tions, it requires no prophetic 
 power to perceive that what at 
 present is pooh-poohed by th j 
 many, will make its way in the 
 end. unless met by arguments 
 stronger than those hitherto lev- 
 elled at the Foneiic Xuz. One 
 argument which might be sup- 
 posed to weigh with the student of 
 language, namely, the obscuration 
 of the etymological structure of 
 words, I cannot consider very 
 formidable. The pronunciation 
 of languages changes according 
 to fixed laws, the spelling is 
 changed in the most arbitrary 
 manner, so that if our spelling 
 followed the pronunciation of 
 words, it would in reality be a 
 greater help to the critical stu- 
 denl of language than the present 
 uncertain and unscientific mode 
 of writing." — Max MiilU r*» Lec- 
 tures on tAt Sciena of Language, 
 v jhJ St ru 8, J 1 St ':i. 
 
 To offer an estimate of the merits of this phonetic alphabet 
 would be out of place here. It puts forward a claim to super- 
 sede that now in use by right of superior ami universal fit- 
 ness. This claim seems likely to be tested by a variety of 
 practical experiments j for example, it has been used for 
 printing three of the Gospels, Genesis, the Psalms, and the 
 Acts in the Mikmak language, that of the natives of 
 New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, under the direction of the 
 Bible Society. The friends and promoters of this alphabet 
 say that it is soon caught by savages abroad and by children 
 at home ; and that for the education of our own people it 
 provides the quickest and best means of learning to read 
 the ordinary print. All this will have to be established by a 
 slow probation ; and the supporters of the system seem 
 resolved to sustain the trial. Meanwhile, I will point out an 
 
1 84 
 
 SPELLING-REFORM. 
 
 advantage which this phonetic alphabet offers to the young 
 philologer. He would find it a profitable exercise to master 
 this alphabet and transliterate passages of English into it. 
 The gain would be that he would thereby acquire conscious- 
 ness of the elementary sounds which go to make up English 
 words. If the want of this acquirement is not much felt by 
 English philologers, it is because they are unaware how great 
 a defect it is and how seriously it impedes their researches. 
 
 191. But there are schemes before the public which aim at 
 a less radical change, and advocate only a certain measure 
 of reformation. They do not aspire to ideal perfection 
 in the phonetic sense, and yet they have a standard of 
 their own, which may be described as consistent spelling. 
 The distinction in itself is just, and it may be exemplified in 
 the French language. Of the three languages we may say 
 that the German is (comparatively speaking) phonetic, and 
 the French consistent ; while the English is neither the one 
 nor the other. 
 
 The reformers of whom we are about to speak content 
 themselves with the endeavour to bring English spelling 
 nearer to a state of consistency with itself. Such is the 
 purpose of the system projected by Mr. Edward Jones, and 
 recently discussed at a meeting in Liverpool. He would 
 correct our orthography by using the present letters of 
 the alphabet more consistently, without adding new letters 
 or combinations; and by reverting, in certain cases, to the 
 simpler spelling of standard old authors. This proposal 
 is advocated on the ground of the small amount of change 
 which it would necessitate. 
 
 192. The following are said to be all the words beginning 
 with A that would have to be changed : — 
 
 aback 
 
 abak 
 
 accoutre 
 
 accooter 
 
 abbey 
 
 abby 
 
 ache 
 
 ake 
 
 abeyance 
 
 abayance 
 
 achieve 
 
 acheev 
 
 ablative 
 
 ablativ 
 
 achromatic 
 
 acromatic 
 
 aboard 
 
 abord 
 
 acquiesce 
 
 acquiess 
 
 above 
 
 abuv 
 
 acre 
 
 aker 
 
 abroad 
 
 abraud 
 
 active 
 
 activ 
 
 absolve 
 
 absolv 
 
 adjourn 
 
 adjurn 
 
 abstemious 
 
 abstemius 
 
 admeasure 
 
 admesure 
 
 abusive 
 
 abusiv 
 
 adolescent 
 
 adolessent 
 
 abyss 
 
 abbs 
 
 adventurous 
 
 adventurus 
 
CONSISTENT METHODS. 
 
 1 8.5 
 
 sedile 
 
 edile 
 
 aphorism 
 
 aforism 
 
 affright 
 
 afrite 
 
 apiece 
 
 apeece 
 
 affront 
 
 aft runt 
 
 apologue 
 
 apolog 
 
 afloat 
 
 aflote 
 
 appall 
 
 apaul 
 
 aggrieve 
 
 agreev 
 
 appeal 
 
 apeel 
 
 aghast 
 
 agast 
 
 appear 
 
 apeer 
 
 agone 
 
 agon 
 
 appease 
 
 apees 
 
 ahead 
 
 ahed 
 
 approach 
 
 aproche 
 
 airbuilt 
 
 airbilt 
 
 approve 
 
 aproov 
 
 airtight 
 
 airtite 
 
 arabesque 
 
 arabesk 
 
 alchemy 
 
 alkemy 
 
 archaeology 
 
 arkeology 
 
 alight 
 
 alite 
 
 archangel 
 
 arcangel 
 
 all 
 
 aul 
 
 architect 
 
 arkitect 
 
 alphabet 
 
 alfabet 
 
 arduous 
 
 arduus 
 
 altar 
 
 aultar 
 
 are 
 
 ar 
 
 always 
 
 aulways 
 
 arouse 
 
 arous 
 
 ambitious 
 
 ambitius 
 
 asphalt 
 
 asfalt 
 
 amphibious 
 
 amfibius 
 
 atmosphere 
 
 atmosfere 
 
 anchor 
 
 ancor 
 
 auspicious 
 
 auspicius 
 
 anneal 
 
 aneel 
 
 autograph 
 
 autograf 
 
 answer 
 
 anser 
 
 autumn 
 
 autum 
 
 anxious 
 
 anxius 
 
 
 
 Upon this system, which Mr. Jones calls the ' Analogic,' 
 and which is particularly recommended lor its educational 
 usefulness, Mr. Ellis has commented vigorously. He sees 
 no gain or beauty in it, and he denies its consistency. 
 The memory is not relieved of its grievance, and the whole 
 plan is aimless. In like terms he would speak of all at- 
 tempts to alter our orthography partially. If a change is 
 to be made at all, it must be by a restoration of the old 
 phonetic principle which reigned paramount till it perished 
 in the Wars of the Roses. — Phonetic Journal, July 2, 1870. 
 
 193. The third and last scheme to be mentioned is one 
 that takes a larger view, and endeavours to conciliate opposite 
 interests. Mr. Danby P. Fry has proposed a plan for the 
 improvement of English orthography, which is to avoid all 
 breach of continuity whether as regards the forms and powers 
 of the characters, or as respects the etymology. The only 
 case in which he confers a new power on a character, or 
 modifies its form, is in the letter v. He would have a v 
 vowel, to represent the vowel in full, bull, and to be dis- 
 tinguished by a slight peculiarity of form. With this addition 
 the twenty- six simple letters would become twenty-seven. 
 
1 86 SPELLING-REFORM. 
 
 For the rest he proceeds on the principle of codifying the actual 
 practice, and he would therefore recognise the consonantal 
 digraphs ch, gh, kh, ph, rh, sh, th, wh, ng, as alphabetic 
 characters, adding to them dh and zh. He would write 
 the and that as ' dhe ' and ' dhat ' : and azure he would write 
 'azhure.' After the same manner the vocalic digraphs 
 ee, at, aa, au, oa, oo, oi, ou, would be counted as primary 
 letters, and thus complete an alphabet of forty-six charac- 
 ters. The e final would be discarded in all instances in 
 which it is really idle, having no effect on the preceding 
 vowel; and freez, gauz, would take the place of freeze, 
 gauze (160). In this scheme the idea seems to be that a 
 consistent orthography ought to be discovered without the 
 sacrifice of tradition and historical association. It would 
 be — ' not uniform spelling, but consistent spelling ; so dhat 
 dhat half ov dhe language which iz spelt etymologically 
 may be spelt consistently on dhe etymological principle, 
 while dhe odher half ov dhe language which iz spelt phoneti- 
 cally may be spelt consistently on dhe phonetic principle/ 
 
 The phonetic principle is to be admitted when it does not 
 conflict with the etymological. For instance, the s would be 
 rejected from island (properly Hand), but retained in isle, to 
 which it rightly belongs. For Mr. Fry proposes, as a means 
 of reconciling tradition with current pronunciation, that silent 
 letters should be preserved whenever required by etymology, 
 but otherwise omitted. 
 
 194. More plans are proposed than we have enumerated 
 or have space to enumerate. It is plain where so many 
 schemes are broached, that the need of some change is 
 very widely felt, but there seems to be little agreement as 
 to the direction reform should take. 
 
 But whenever a distinct path is chosen, it will at once 
 lay open to our view a new and as yet unnoticed difficulty. 
 When we enter on the path of spelling-reform, we pass from 
 that on which we are tolerably agreed, namely, conven- 
 tional orthography, to raise a new structure on a foundation 
 of unascertained ' stability. The moment you resolve to 
 spell the sound, you bring into the foreground what before 
 lay almost unobserved — the great diversity of opinion which 
 exists as to the correct sound of many words. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 OF INTERJECTIONS. 
 
 195. The term Interjection signifies something that is 
 1 pitched in among ' things of which it does not naturally 
 form a constituent part. The name has been given to it by 
 grammarians, in order to express its relation to grammatical 
 structures. It is found in them, but it forms no part of 
 them. 
 
 The interjection may be defined as a form of speech 
 which is articulate and symbolic but not grammatical. It is 
 only to be called grammatical in that widest sense of the 
 word, in which all that is written, including accents, stops, 
 and quotation marks, would be comprised within the notion 
 of grammar. When we speak of grammar as the handmaid 
 of logic, then the interjection must stand aside. 
 
 Emotion is quick, and leaves no time for logical thought : 
 if it use grammatical phrases they must be ready made and 
 familiar to the lips ; there is not time to select what is 
 appropriate or consecutive. Hence the limited variety of 
 interjections, anil the wide and almost unlimited use of 
 individual forms. 
 
 An interjection implies a meaning which it would require 
 a whole grammatical sentence to expound, and it may be 
 regarded as the rudiment of such a sentence. Hut it is 
 a confusion of thought to rank it among the parts of speech. 
 It is not in any sense a part; it is a whole (though an 
 
I 88 OF INTERJECTIONS. 
 
 indistinct) expression of feeling or of thought. An inter- 
 jection bears to its context the same sort of relation as 
 a pictorial illustra'.'o does. 
 
 We rightly call an adjective or an adverb a Part of Speech, 
 because these have no meaning by themselves without the 
 aid of nouns and verbs, and because their very designation 
 implies the existence of nouns and verbs. But an interjec- 
 tion is intelligible without any grammatical adjunct ; and 
 such completeness as it is capable of is attained without 
 collateral assistance. 
 
 196. Ancient grammarians ranked the interjections as 
 adverbs, but the moderns have made them a separate class. 
 If it were a question to which of the parts of speech the 
 interjection is most cognate, it must be answered to the 
 verb. For if we take any simple interjection, such as, for 
 example, the cry ' Oh ! Oh ! ' in the House of Commons, 
 and assign to it a predicative value, it can only be done by 
 a verb, either in the imperative or in the indicative first per- 
 son. Either you must say it is equivalent to ' Don't say 
 such things,' or else to ' I doubt,' ' I wonder,' ' I demur,' 
 '1 dispute,' 'I deny,' 'I protest': by one or more of 
 these or such verbs must ' Oh, Oh ! ' be explained ; and thus 
 it seems to present itself as a rudimentary verb. But this 
 again rises, not out of any singular affection that it bears to 
 the verb in its formal character, but out of the general fact 
 that the verb is the central representative and focus and 
 full expansion of that predicative force, which unequally 
 pervades all language, but which in the interjection is 
 wrapped round and enfolded with an involucre of emotion. 
 
 It may stand either insulated in the sentence, or by virtue 
 of this obscure verbal character, it may be connected with it 
 by a preposition, as — 
 
 1 Oh for a humbler heart and prouder song ! ' 
 
OF INTERJECTIONS. 1 89 
 
 This is the nearest approach which it makes to structural 
 relations with the sentence, and this sort of relation it can 
 have with a noun or pronoun, as — 
 
 ' They gaped upon me with their mouths, and said : Fie on thee, fie on 
 thee, we saw it with our eyes.' Pialm xxxvi. 21. 
 
 From that same germ of verbal activity it joins readily 
 with the conjunction. Operating with the conjunction, it 
 rounds off and renders natural an abrupt beginning, and 
 forms as it were the bridge between the spoken and the 
 unspoken : — 
 
 1 Oh if in after life we could but gather 
 The very refuse of our youthful hours!' Charles Lloyd. 
 
 Because of the variety of possible meanings in the inter- 
 jection, writing is less able to represent interjections than to 
 express grammatical language. Even in the latter, writing 
 is but an imperfect medium, because it fails to convey the 
 accompaniments, such as the look, the tone, the gesture. 
 This defect is more evident in the case of interjections, 
 where the written word is but a very small part of the 
 expression; and the manner, the pitch of tone, the gesture, 
 is nearly everything. 
 
 197. Hence also it comes to pass that the interjection is 
 of all that is printed the most difficult thing to read well 
 aloud ; for not only does it require a rare command of 
 modulation, but the reader has moreover to be perfectly 
 acquainted with the situation and temperament of the person 
 using the interjection. Shakspeare's interjections cannot be 
 rendered with any truth, except by one who has mastered 
 the whole play. 
 
 In the accompaniments lies the rhetoric of the interjec- 
 tion, which is used with astonishing ^effect by children and 
 
I9O OF INTERJECTIONS. 
 
 savages. For it is to these that the interjection more es- 
 pecially belongs ; and in proportion to the march of culture 
 is the decline of interjectional speech. 
 
 But though the use of interjections is very much reduced 
 by civilisation, and though there are whole fields of litera- 
 ture from which they are utterly banished, as History, 
 Mathematics, Physical Science, — yet they have a sphere in 
 which they are retained, and in this, the literature of the 
 emotions, their importance will always be considerable. It 
 should moreover be added, that while most of the natural 
 accompaniments of interjectional speech, such as gestures, 
 grimaces, and gesticulations, are restrained by civilisation, 
 there yet remains one, which alone is able to render justice 
 to the interjection, and which culture tends to improve and 
 develope, and that is, modulation. It is this which makes 
 it still worth a poet's while to throw meaning into his 
 interjections. 
 
 Moreover, though it is true on the whole that interjectional 
 communications are restrained by civilisation ; yet it is also 
 to be noted on the other hand, that there are certain inter- 
 jections which are the fruits of culture, and only find a place 
 in the higher and more mature forms of human speech. 
 Hence an important division, which will make this chapter 
 fall into the two heads of (1) interjections of nature, or primi- 
 tive interjections; and (2) artificial or historical interjections. 
 The distinction between these sorts will be generally this, — 
 that the latter have a philological derivation, and the former 
 have not. 
 
 § 1. The Natural Inter jectio7is. 
 
 198. O ; oh ! This is well known as one of the earliest 
 articulations of infants, to express surprise or delight. Later 
 
PRIMARY INTERJECTIONS. 191 
 
 in life it comes to indicate also fear, aspiration, appeal, and 
 an indefinite variety of emotions. It would almost seem that 
 in proportion as the spontaneous modulation of the voice 
 comes to perfection, in the same degree the range of this 
 most generic of all interjections becomes enlarged, and that 
 according to the tone in which oh is uttered, it may be 
 understood to mean almost any one of the emotions of 
 which humanity is capable. 
 
 This interjection owes its great predominance to the 
 influence of the Latin language, in which it was very fre- 
 quently used. And there is one particular use of it which 
 more especially bears a Latin stamp. That is the of the 
 vocative case, as when in prayers we say, Lord ; Thou to 
 7, ht>m all creaiuri s bow. 
 
 We should distinguish between the sign of the vocative 
 and the emotional interjection, writing for the former, and 
 oh for the latter, as — 
 
 ' Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed 
 Within thy beams, O Sun ! ' 
 
 Blanco White; in Abp. Trench's Household Poetry, eclvii. 
 
 1 But she is in her grave, — and oh 
 
 The difference to me ! ' Wordsworth. 
 
 This distinction of spelling should by all means be kept 
 up, as it is based upon good ground. There is a difference 
 between ' O sir ! ' ' O king ! ' and ' Oh ! sir/ « Oh ! Lord,' 
 both in sense and pronunciation. 
 
 As to the sense, the O prefixed merely imparts to the 
 title a vocative effect; while the Oh conveys some par- 
 ticular sentiment, as of appeal, entreaty, expostulation, or 
 some other. 
 
 And as to sound, the is enclitic ; that is to say, it 
 has no accent of its own, but is pronounced with the word 
 to which it is attached, as if it were its unaccented first 
 
192 OF INTERJECTIONS. 
 
 syllable. The term Enclitic signifies ' reclining on/ and so 
 the interjection in ' O Lord ' reclines on the support 
 afforded to it by the accentual elevation of the word ' Lord.' 
 So that ' O Lord ' is pronounced like such a disyllable as 
 alight, alike, away ; in which words the metrical stroke could 
 never fall on the first syllable. Ok ! on the contrary, is one 
 of the fullest of monosyllables, and it would be hard to place 
 it in a verse except with the stress upon it. The example 
 from Wordsworth illustrates this. 
 
 Precedence has been given to this interjection because it 
 is the commonest of the simple or natural interjections, — not 
 that it is one of the longest standing in the language. 
 
 Our oldest interjections are la and zva, and each of these 
 merits a separate notice. 
 
 199. La is that interjection which in modern English is 
 spelt lo. It was used in Saxon times, both as an emotional 
 cry, and also as a sign of the respectful vocative. The most 
 reverential style in addressing a superior was La leof, an 
 expression not easy to render in modern English, but which 
 is something like O my liege, ox my lord, or sir. 
 
 In modern times it has taken the form of lo in literature, 
 and it has been supposed to have something to do with the 
 verb to look. In this sense it has been used in the New 
 Testament to render the Greek Idov that is, Behold ! But the 
 interjection la was quite independent of another Saxon 
 exclamation, viz. loc, which may with more probability be 
 associated with locian, to look. 
 
 The fact seems to be that the modern lo represents both 
 the Saxon interjections la and loc, and that this is one among 
 many instances where two Saxon words have been merged 
 into a single English one. 
 
 ' Lo, how they feignen chalk for cheese.' 
 
 Gower, Confessio Amantis, vol. i. p. 17, ed. Pauli. 
 
PRIMARY INTERJECTIONS. 1 93 
 
 The la of Saxon times has none of the indicatory or 
 pointing force which lo now has, and which fits it to go so 
 naturally with an adverb of locality, as ' Lo here/ or ' Lo 
 there ' ; or 
 
 ( Lo ! where the stripling, wrapt in wonder, roves.' 
 
 Beattie, Minstrel, Bk. i. 
 
 While lo became the literary form of the word, la has still 
 continued to exist more obscurely, at least down to a recent 
 date, even if it be not still in use. La may be regarded as a 
 sort of feminine to lo. In novels of the close of last century 
 and the beginning of this, we see la occurring for the most 
 part as a trivial exclamation by the female characters. 
 
 In Miss Edgeworth's tale of The Good French Governess, 
 a silly affected boarding-school miss says la repeatedly : — 
 
 '"La!" said Miss Fanshaw, "we had no such book as this at Suxberry 
 House." 
 
 Miss Fanshaw, to shew how well she could walk, crossed the room, and 
 took up one of the books. 
 
 "Alison upon Taste — that's a pretty book, I daresay; but la! what's 
 this, Miss Isabella? A Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments — dear me! 
 that must be a curious performance — by a smith ! a common smith ! " ' 
 
 In The Election: a Comedy, by Joanna Baillie (1798), 
 Act ii. Sc. 1, Charlotte thus soliloquises : — 
 
 ' Charlotte. La, how I should like to be a queen, and stand in my robes, 
 and have all the people introduced to me ! ' 
 
 And when Charles compares her cheeks to the ' pretty 
 delicate damask rose,' she exclaims, ' La, now you are 
 flattering me.' 
 
 And to shew that this trivial little interjection is traceable 
 back to early times, and that it is one with the old Saxon la, 
 we may cite the authority of Shakspeare in the mid interval, 
 who, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, puts this exclamation 
 
 
 
194 OF INTERJECTIONS. 
 
 into the mouths of Master Slender first, and of Mistress 
 Quickly afterwards. 
 
 ' Slen. Mistris Anne : your selfe shall goe first. 
 
 Anne Not I sir, pray you keepe on. 
 
 Slen. Trudy, I will not goe first : truely la ; I will not doe you that 
 wrong. 
 
 Anne. I pray you Sir. 
 
 Slen. lie rather be vnmannerly, then troublesome ; you doe your selfe 
 wrong indeede-la.' (Act i. Sc. I.) 
 
 Here the interjection seems to retain somewhat of its old 
 ceremonial significance : but when, in the ensuing scene, 
 Mistress Quickly says, ' This is all indeede-la : but ile nere 
 put my finger in the fire, and neede not,' there is nothing in 
 it but the merest expletive. 
 
 200. Wa has a history much like that of la. It has 
 changed its form in modern English to wo. ' Wo/ in the 
 New Testament, as Rev. viii. 13, stands for the Greek inter- 
 jection oval and the Latin vce. In the same way it is used 
 in many passages in which the interjectional character is 
 distinct. This word must be distinguished from woe, which 
 is a substantive. For instance, in the phrase ' weal and woe/ 
 And in such scriptures as Prov. xxiii. 29 : ' Who hath woe ? 
 who hath sorrow?' 
 
 The fact is, that there were two distinct old words, namely, 
 the interjection wa and the substantive wok (genitive woges), 
 which means depravity, wickedness, misery. Often as these 
 have been blended, it would be convenient to observe the 
 distinction, which is still practically valid, by a several ortho- 
 graphy, writing the interjection wo, and the substantive woe. 
 
 This interjection was compounded with the previous one 
 into the form wala or walawa — an exclamation which is 
 frequent in Chaucer, and which, before it disappeared, was 
 modified into the feebler form of wellaway. A degenerate 
 variety of this form was well-a-day. Pathetic cries have a 
 
PRIMARY INTERJECTIONS. 395 
 
 certain disposition to implicate the present time, as in woe 
 worth the day ! 
 
 201. There was yet another compound interjection made 
 with ta by prefixing the interjection ea. Hence the Saxon 
 compound eala. This occurs often in the Saxon Gospels 
 as a mere sign of the vocative ; for example, ' Eala )>u wif 
 mycel ys bin geleafa,' O woman, great is thy faith, Matt. xv. 28 ; 
 ' Eala fseder Abraham, gemiltsa me,' Father Abraham, pity 
 me, Luke xvi. 24. 
 
 This eala may be regarded as the stock on which the 
 French h/las was grafted, and from the conjunction with 
 which sprung the modern a/as, which appears in English 
 of the thirteenth century, as in Robert of Gloucester ', 4198, 
 ' Alas ! alas ! \>on wrecche mon, wuch mysaventure haj> }>e 
 ybrogt in to bys stede,' Alas ! alas ! thou wretched man, 
 what misadventure hath brought thee into this place ? And 
 in Chaucer it is a frequent interjection. In a pathetic 
 passage of the Knight's Talc it is used repeatedly. 
 
 ' Alias the wo, alias the pcynes stronge, 
 That I for yow haue suffred, and so longe ; 
 Alias the deeth, alias myn Kmclye, 
 Alias departynge of our compaignye, 
 
 Alias myn hertes qucenc, alias my wvf, 
 Myn hertes lady, endere of my lyf.' 
 
 Alack seems to be the more genuine representation of 
 eala, which, escaping the influence of hc'Ias, drew after it 
 (or preserved rather ?) the final guttural so congenial to the 
 interjection. Thus the modern alack suggests an old form 
 ealaJi. This interjection has rather a trivial use in the south 
 of England, and we do not find it used with a dignity equal 
 to that of alas, until by Sir Walter Scott the language of 
 Scotland was brought into one literature with our own. 
 Jeanie Deans cries out before the tribunal at the most 
 painful crisis of the trial : 'Alack a-day! she never told me/ 
 
 o 2 
 
ig6 OF INTERJECTIONS. 
 
 Still, the word is on the whole associated mainly with trivial 
 occasions, and in this connection of ideas it has engendered 
 the adjective lackadaysical, to characterise a person who flies 
 into ecstasies too readily. 
 
 202. Pooh seems connected with the French exclama- 
 tion of physical disgust : Ponah, quelle infection ! But our 
 pooh expresses an analogous moral sentiment : ' Pooh ! 
 pooh ! it 's all stuff and nonsense/ 
 
 Psha expresses contempt. ' Doubt is always crying psha 
 and sneering.' — Thackeray, Humourists, p. 69. 
 
 Heigh ho. Some interjections have so vague, so filmy a 
 meaning, that it would take a great many words to interpret 
 what their meaning is. They seem as well fitted to be the 
 echo of one thought or feeling as another ; or even to be no 
 more than a mere melodious continuance of the rhythm : — 
 
 ' How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho ! 
 How pleasant it is to have money.' 
 
 Arthur H. Clough. 
 
 This will suffice to exhibit the nature of the first class of 
 interjections; — those which stand nearest to nature and 
 farthest from art ; those which owe least to conventionality 
 and most to genuine emotion ; those which are least capable 
 of orthographic expression and most dependent upon oral 
 modulation. It is to this class of interjections that the 
 following quotation applies. 
 
 ' It has long and reasonably been considered that the place in history of 
 these expressions is a very primitive one. Thus De Brosses describes them 
 as necessary and natural words, common to all mankind, and produced by the 
 combination of man's conformation with the interior affections of his mind.' — 
 Edward B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, ch. v. 
 
 And this writer has produced a large collection of evidence 
 tending to the probability that the affirmative answers aye, I 
 (102), yea, yes, are of this primitive class of words, although 
 
SECONDARY INTERJECTIONS. 1 97 
 
 their forms may have been modified by admixture of gram- 
 matical material. 
 
 § 2. Historical Interjections. 
 
 203. The interjections which we have been considering 
 thus far, may be called the spontaneous or primitive inter- 
 jections, and they are such as have no basis in grammatical 
 forms. 
 
 But we now pass on to the other group, which may be 
 called the artificial or secondary interjections ; a group 
 which, though extra-grammatical no less than the former, 
 in the sense that they do not enter into the grammatical 
 construction, are yet founded upon grammatical words.* 
 Verbs, nouns, participles, adjectives, have at times lost their 
 grammatical character, and have lapsed into the state of 
 interjections. 
 
 Our first example shall be borrowed from the manners 
 and customs of the British parliament. That scene may 
 fairly be regarded as presenting to our view the most mature 
 and full-grown exhibition of the powers of human speech, 
 and it is there that one of the most famous of interjections 
 first originated, and is in constant employment. The cry 
 of ' Hear, hear,' originally an imperative verb, is now nothing 
 more nor less than a great historical interjection. The 
 following is the history of the exelamation, as described by 
 Lord Macaulay, History of England^ ch. xi. (1689). 
 
 4 The King therefore, on the fifth day after he had been proclaimed, went 
 with royal state to the House of Lords, and took his seat on the throne. 
 The Commons were called in ; and he, with many gracious expressions, re- 
 minded his hearers of the perilous situation of the country, and exhorted 
 them to take such steps as might prevent unnecessary delay in the trans- 
 action of public business. His "speech was received by the gentlemen who 
 crowded the bar with the deep hum by which our ancestors were wont to 
 indicate approbation, and which was often heard in places more sacred than 
 
I98 OF INTERJECTIONS. 
 
 the Chamber of the Peers. As soon as he had retired, a Bill, declaring the 
 Convention a Parliament, was laid on the table of the Lords, and rapidly 
 passed by them. In the Commons the debates were warm. The House 
 resolved itself into a Committee ; and so great was the excitement, that, when 
 the authority of the Speaker was withdrawn, it was hardly possible to pre- 
 serve order. Sharp personalities were exchanged. The phrase "hear him," 
 a phrase which had originally been used only to silence irregular noises, and 
 to remind members of the duty of attending to the discussion, had, during 
 some years, been gradually becoming what it now is ; that is to say, a cry 
 indicative, according to the tone, of admiration, acquiescence, indignation, or 
 derision.' 
 
 The historian could not have chosen more suitable words 
 had it been his intention to describe the transition of a 
 grammatical part of speech into the condition of an inter- 
 jectional symbol, whose signification depends on the tone in 
 which it is uttered. The fact is, that when a large assembly 
 is animated with a common sentiment which demands in- 
 stantaneous utterance, it can find that utterance only through 
 interjections. A crowd of grown men is here in the same 
 condition as the infant, and must speak in those forms to 
 which expression is imparted only by a variety of tone. 
 
 Nothing is too neutral or too colourless to make an inter- 
 jection of, especially among a demonstrative people. In 
 Italian altro is simply other, and yet it has acquired an 
 interjectional power of variable signification. 
 
 ' " Have you ever thought of looking to me to do any kind of work ? " 
 John Baptist answered with that peculiar back-handed shake of the right 
 forefinger, which is the most expressive negative in the Italian language. 
 
 "No ! You knew from the first moment when you saw me here, that 
 I was a gentleman ? " 
 
 "Altro ! " returned John Baptist, closing his eyes and giving his head a 
 most vehement toss. The word being, according to its Genoese emphasis, 
 a confirmation, a contradiction, an assertion, a denial, a taunt, a compliment, 
 a joke, and fifty other things, became in the present instance, with a signifi- 
 cance beyond all power of written expression, our familiar English " I believe 
 you ! " ' — Charles Dickens, Little Borrit, Bk. I. ch. i. 
 
 204. The Liturgy, when it was in Latin, was a prolific 
 source for the minting of popular interjections. Where ver- 
 
SECONDARY INTERJECTIONS. 1 99 
 
 nacular words are changed into interjections, some plain 
 reason for their selection may generally be found in the 
 grammatical sense of such words. But where a Latin 
 word of religion came to be popular as an exclamation, it 
 was as likely to be the sound as the sense that gave it 
 currency. In the fourteenth century, benedicite had this 
 sort of career; and it does not appear how it could have 
 been other than a senseless exclamation from the first. It 
 often occurs in Chaucer ; and with that variety of misspelling 
 which a degenerate word is naturally liable to, we find it 
 written benedtctiee, be?iedis(e. 
 
 The charm of this word, and its availability as an inter- 
 jection, was no doubt largely due to its being in a dead 
 language. So Mr. Mitford tells us that the Japanese have 
 an interjection which was originally a conglomerate of certain 
 sacred words which they do not precisely understand ; and 
 that this compound interjection serves by tonal variation 
 for all manner* of occasions : — Nammiyo ! nammi) o ! self- 
 depreciatory ; or grateful and reverential; or expressive of 
 conviction ; or mournful and with much head-shaking ; or 
 meekly and entreatingly ; or with triumphant exultation 1 . 
 
 Ejaculations which once were earnest, may sink into trite 
 and trivial expletives. The cursory conversational way in 
 which Man Dieu is used in France by all classes of persons, 
 without distinction of age, sex, education or condition, as- 
 tonishes English people, not because the like is unheard in 
 England, but because among us it is restricted both as to the 
 persons who use it, and also as to the times and occasions of 
 its utterance. There is no person whatever in England who 
 uses such an exclamation when he is upon his good behaviour. 
 
 1 Tales of Old Japan, by A. B. Mitford, vol. ii. p. 128. Macmillan, 
 1871. 
 
200 OF INTERJECTIONS. 
 
 On the other hand, we have had this interjectional habit in 
 certain graver uses, and have not yet quite discarded it. In 
 Coverdale's Translation, 1535, we read ' Wolde God that I 
 had a cotage some where farre from folke/ which was cor- 
 rected in the Bible of 161 1 to this — 'Oh that I had in the 
 wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men.' Jer. ix. 2. 
 But even the latter version retained traces of this exclamatory 
 habit which will probably be removed in our day. See 208. 
 205. Not only is it true that interjections are formed out 
 of grammatical words, but also it is further true that cer- 
 tain grammatical words may stand as interjections in an 
 occasional way, without permanently changing their nature. 
 This chiefly applies to some of the more conventional col- 
 loquialisms. Perhaps there is not a purer or more con- 
 densed interjection in English literature, than that indeed 
 in Othello, Act iii. Sc. 3. It contains in it the gist of the 
 chief action of the play, and it implies all that the plot 
 developes. It ought to be spoken with an intonation 
 worthy of the diabolic scheme of Iago's conduct. There is 
 no thought of the grammatical structure of the compound, 
 consisting of the preposition ' in ; and the substantive ' deed/ 
 which is equivalent to act, fact, or reality. All this vanishes 
 and is lost in the mere iambic disyllable which is employed 
 as a vehicle for the feigned tones of surprise. 
 
 ' Iago. I did not thinke he had bin acquainted with hir. 
 
 Oth. O yes, and went betweene vs very oft. 
 
 Iago. Indeed ! 
 
 Oth. Indeed ? I indeed. Discern'st thou ought in that ? Is he 
 not honest? 
 
 Iago. Honest, my lord ? 
 
 Oth. Honest? I, honest!' 
 
 Thus strong passion may so scorch up, as it were, 
 the organism of a word, that it ceases to have any of 
 that grammatical quality which the calm light of the 
 
SECONDARY INTERJECTIONS. 201 
 
 mind appreciates ; and it becomes, for the nonce, an 
 interjection. 
 
 206. And not only passion, but ignorance may do the 
 like. With uneducated persons, their customary words and 
 phrases grow to be very like interjections, especially those 
 phrases which are peculiar to and traditional in the 
 vocation they follow. When a porter at a railway- station 
 cries by'r leave, he may understand the analysis of the 
 words he uses ; and then he is speaking logically and 
 grammatically, though elliptically. If he does not under- 
 stand the construction of the phrase he uses, and if he is 
 quite ignorant how much is implied and left unsaid, he 
 merely uses a conventional cry as an interjection. A cry 
 of this sort, uttered as a conglomerate whole, where the 
 mind makes no analysis, is, as far as the speaker is con- 
 cerned, an interjection. We cannot doubt that this is the 
 ( ase in those instances where we hear it uttered as follows: 
 ' By'r leave, if you please !' It is plain in this instance thai 
 the speaker understands the latter clause, but does not 
 understand the former — for, if he did. he would feel tin- 
 latter to be superfluous. 
 
 207. Fudge. Isaac Disraeli, in his Curiosities of Litera- 
 ture., vol. iii., quotes a pamphlet of the date 1700, to shew 
 that this interjection has sprung from a man's name. 
 
 ' There was, sir, in our time, one Captain Fudge, commander of a mer- 
 chantman, who, upon his return from a voyage, how ill-fraught soever his 
 ship was, always brought home his owners a good cargo of lies ; so much 
 that now aboard ship, the sailors when they hear a great lie told, cry out 
 " You fudge it." ' 
 
 He has added a circumstance which is of great use for the 
 illustration of this section : — ' that recently at the bar, in 
 a court of law, its precise meaning perplexed plaintiff and 
 defendant, and their counsel.' It is of the very nature of an 
 interjection, that it eludes the meshes of a definition. 
 
202 OF INTERJECTIONS. 
 
 It was Goldsmith who first gave this interjection a literary 
 currency. Mr. Forster, speaking of The Vicar of Wakefield, 
 recognises the elasticity of the interjectional function : 
 
 'There never was a book in which indulgence and charity made virtue 
 look so lustrous. Nobody is strait-laced ; if we except Miss Carolina Wil- 
 helmina Amelia Skeggs, whose pretensions are summed up in Burchell's 
 noble monosyllable. • 
 
 " Virtue, my dear Lady Blarney, virtue is worth any price ; but where is 
 that to be found ? " 
 
 "Fudge."' 
 
 208. Hail. Here we have the case of an adjective which 
 has become an interjection. It is a very old salutation, 
 being found not only in Anglo-Saxon, but also in Old High 
 Dutch. In the early examples it always appears gram- 
 matically as an adjective of health joined with the verb ' to 
 be' in the imperative. In the Saxon Version of the Gospels, 
 Luke i. 28. ' Hal wses %u/ Hale be thou ! and in the plural, 
 Matt, xxviii. 9, ' Hale wese ge,' Hale be ye ! 
 
 All hail. This also was at first purely adjectival, as in 
 the following from Layamon, which is quoted and translated 
 above, 47 : — 
 
 'al hal me makien 
 mid halewei3e drenchen.' 
 
 By the sixteenth century this ' all hail ! ' had become a 
 worshipful salutation, and having lost all construction, was 
 completely interjectionalised. 
 
 'Did they not sometime cry All hayle to me?' 
 
 Shakspeare, Richard II, iv. I . 
 
 . The pronunciation is iambic ; the All being enclitic, and 
 the stress on hayle, as if the whole were a disyllabic We 
 sometimes hear it otherwise uttered in Matthew xxviii. 9, 
 as if All meant omnes, navres ; instead of being merely ad- 
 verbial, omninOj 7rdvT<os. It does not indeed in that place 
 
SECONDARY INTERJECTIONS. 203 
 
 represent any separate word at all, the original being simply 
 Xalpere. In the Vulgate it is Avete ; and this is rendered by 
 Wiclif Heil y. Tyndal was the first who introduced this All 
 hayle into the English version. The Geneva translators 
 substituted for it God saueyou. 204. 
 
 209. A remarkable example of a phrase which has passed 
 into the interjectional state is Hallelujah, or in its Greek 
 aspect Alleluia; meaning, Praise ye the Lord. This is a 
 world-wide interjection of religious fervour; and it may 
 safely be said of those who use it, that not one in a thousand 
 understands it grammatically, or misunderstands it inter- 
 jectionally. 
 
 210. But the example which holds the most conspicuous 
 historical position, is the great congregational interjection of 
 faith, the universal response of the Christian Church as well 
 as of the Hebrew Synagogue, Amen. This word, at first 
 in Hebrew a verbal adjective, and thence an affirmative 
 adverb, signifying verily, truly, yea, was used in the early 
 times of the Jewish Church (Dent, xxvii. 15; Ps. xli. 14, 
 lxxii. 19, lxxxix. 53) for the people's response: 'and let the 
 people say Amen.' It was continued from the first in the 
 Christian community, as we know from 1 Cor. xiv. 16, and is 
 still in use in every body of Christians. For the most part 
 it has been preserved in its original Hebrew form of Amen; 
 but the French Protestants have substituted for it a transla- 
 tion in the vulgar tongue, and they do not respond with 
 Amen, but with Aiiisi-soif-il, So be it 1 . They have by this 
 change limited this ancient interjection to one of its several 
 functions. For in this modern form it is only adapted to be 
 a response to prayer, or the expression of some desire. 
 
 There are other sorts of assent and affirmation for which 
 
 1 I am informed that the Freemasons have a time-honoured rendering of 
 their own : So mote it be ! 
 
204 OF INTERJECTIONS. 
 
 Amen is serviceable, besides that single one of desire or 
 aspiration. In mediaeval wills it was put at the head of 
 the document In the name of God AMEN. This was a 
 protestation of earnestness on the part of the testator, 
 and a claim on all whom it might concern to respect his 
 dispositions. 
 
 In Jeremiah xxviii. 6 we find one Amen delivered by the 
 prophet with the wishful meaning only, while there is an 
 ominous reserve of assent. 
 
 In the Commination Service, the Amens to the denuncia- 
 tions are not expressions of desire that evil may overtake the 
 wicked, but the solemn acknowledgment of a liability to 
 which they are subject ; as the preliminary instruction sets 
 forth the intent wherefore ' ye should answer to every sen- 
 tence, Amen! In this place A?nen cannot be rendered by 
 So be it ; and the attempt to substitute any grammatical 
 phrase in place of it must rob it of some of its symbolic 
 power. This is the case with all interjections, and it is of 
 the essence of an interjection that it should be so. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OF THE PARTS OF SPEECH. 
 
 211. Philology seeks to penetrate into the Nature of 
 language : Grammar is concerned only with its literary 
 Habits. 
 
 Grammatical analysis is the dissection of speech as the 
 instrument of literature. The student may help himself to 
 remember this by observing that Grammatice (ypaftfumKri) is 
 derived from the Greek word for literature, ypapfiara. 
 
 The chief result of grammar, and the exponent of gram- 
 matical analysis, is the doctrine of the Tarts of Speech. All 
 the words which combine to make up structural language 
 are classified in this systematic division. But the philologer 
 should observe that the quality of words, whereby they are 
 so distinguished and divided into Parts of Spee< h, is a habit, 
 and not anything innate or grounded in the nature of the 
 words. We shall endeavour to make this plain. 
 
 Grammar analyses language in order to ascertain the 
 conditions on which the faculty of expression is dependent, 
 and also to gain more control over that faculty. This 
 object limits the range of grammatical enquiry. The gram- 
 marian makes a certain number of groups to which he can 
 refer any word, and then he forms rules in which he legis- 
 lates class-wise for the words so grouped. 
 
 We must here assume that the ordinary grammatical 
 knowledge is already in the possession of the reader. To 
 
206 OF THE PARTS OF SPEECH. 
 
 be able to designate each word as such or such a part of 
 speech, and to practise the rules for combining parts of 
 speech together, is the ordinary task of grammar. The 
 determination of the part of speech is the barrier beyond 
 which grammar does not (generally speaking) pursue the 
 analysis. Although what is called Parsing, or assigning 
 words to their parts, is a juvenile exercise, yet it is neverthe- 
 less the surest test of a person's having learnt that which 
 grammar has to teach; especially if he can do it in the 
 English sentence. For it is easier to do in Latin. A boy 
 may be quite ignorant of the meaning of a Latin sentence, 
 and of each word in it ; and yet he may be able to answer 
 that navabat, for example, is a verb in the active voice, im- 
 perfect tense, indicative mood. He knows this from having 
 learnt the forms of the Latin verb, and he knows the ending 
 -abat for the verbal form of that voice, tense, and mood. 
 Such knowledge is but formal and mechanical. If, however, 
 in parsing English, he meets the verb loved > he cannot 
 venture to pronounce what part of the verb it is by a mere 
 look at the form. It may be the indicative, or the subjunc- 
 tive, or it may be the participle. Which it is he can only 
 tell by understanding the phrase in which it stands. 
 
 212. Throughout the Latin language the words are to a 
 very great extent grammatically ticketed. In the English 
 language the same thing exists, but in a very slight degree. 
 In Latin, the part of speech is most readily determined by 
 regard to the form, and it is only occasionally that attention 
 to the structure becomes necessary. Parsing in Latin is 
 therefore mainly an exercise in what is called the Accidence, 
 that is, the grammatical inflections of words. In English, on 
 the contrary, there is so little to be gathered by looking at 
 the mere form, that the exercise of parsing trains the mind 
 to a habit of judging each word's value by reference to its 
 
OF THE PARTS OF SPEECH. 20 7 
 
 yoke-fellows in the sentence. A single example will make 
 this plain. It would be a foolish question to ask, without 
 reference to a context, What part of speech is love ? because 
 it may stand either for a verb or for a noun. But if you ask 
 in Latin, What part of speech is amart or caritas ? the 
 question can be answered as well without a context as with. 
 Each word has in fact a bit of context attached to it, for an 
 inflection is simply a fragment of context, and a nominative 
 is as much an inflection as a genitive. This is the cause why 
 it is easier to catch the elements of grammatical ideas through 
 the medium of a highly inflected language like Latin. On 
 the other hand, those ideas can best be perfected through 
 the medium of a language with few inflections, like English. 
 For in studying grammar through the English language, we 
 purge our minds of the wooden notion that it is an inherent 
 quality in a word to be of this or that part of speech. 
 
 213. To be a noun, or a verb, or an adjective, is a function 
 which the word discharges in such and such a context, and 
 not a character innate in the word or inseparable from it. 
 Thus the word save is a verb, whether infinitive to save, or 
 indicative / save, or imperative save me : but it is the self- 
 same word when it stands as a preposition, ' forty stripes 
 save one.' 
 
 The force of these observations is not lessened by the 
 fact that there are many words in English that discharge but 
 one function, and are of one part of speech only. In such 
 cases the Habit of the word has become fixed, it has lost the 
 plastic state which is the original and natural condition of 
 every word, and it has contracted a rigid and invariable 
 character. The bulk of Latin words are in this state, simply 
 because they are not pure words at all, but fragments of 
 a phrase. Each Latin word has its function as noun or 
 verb or adverb ticketed upon it. But in English the words 
 
208 OF THE PARTS OF SPEECH. 
 
 of fixed habit are comparatively few. In a general way it 
 may be said that the pronouns are so in all languages. Yet 
 even this group, of all groups the most habit-bound, is not 
 without its occasional assertions of natural freedom. The 
 prepositions are many of them in the fixed state, but the 
 researches of the philologer tend to set many of them in 
 a freer light. We must not therefore regard the parts of 
 speech as if they were like the parts of a dissected map, 
 where each piece is unfit to stand in any place but one. 
 Each part of speech is what it is, either by virtue of the 
 place it now occupies in the present sentence ; or else, by 
 virtue of an old habit which contracted its use to certain 
 special positions. The inflected word carries both position 
 and habit about with it, in that very inflection by which 
 its function is limited because its grammatical relations are 
 determined. 
 
 214. Before we proceed to the examples which will illus- 
 trate these remarks, we must make a clearance of one thing 
 which else might cause confusion. There is a sense in 
 which every word in the world is a noun. When we speak 
 of the word have, or the word marry, these words are re- 
 garded as objects of sense, and are mere nouns. Just in 
 the same way in the expression 'the letter A/ this alpha- 
 betic symbol becomes a noun. In this aspect each item in 
 the whole catalogue of letters and words in a dictionary is 
 presented to our minds as a noun. And beyond the pages 
 of the dictionary, there are situations in the course of con- 
 versation and of literature in which this is the case. Thus, 
 in Shakspeare, King John, i. i, 'Have is have;' and in 
 Longfellow's 
 
 ' Mother, what does marry mean ? ' 
 
 In these cases the word is (as one may say) taken up 
 
OBJECTIVE CITATION. 2C0, 
 
 between the finger and thumb, and looked at, and made 
 an object of. It is no longer, as words commonly are, a 
 symbol of some object or idea in the mind's meaning, i. e. 
 subjective ; it enters for the moment into an objective posi- 
 tion of its own. There are many instances of this. 
 
 Must is a verb. But when we hear the popular saying, 
 ' Oh ! you must, must you ? Must is made for the Queen' — 
 here must is a noun. 
 
 This ' objective ' citation of words being cleared away, 
 it remains now to consider how words may change their 
 subjective condition, that is to say, their relation to the 
 thinking mind, and vary their characters as parts of speech 
 accordingly. 
 
 215. And first, the verb may become a substantive, as — 
 
 ' To err is human, to forgive divine.' 
 
 1 To live in hearts we leave behind, 
 Is not to die.' 
 
 Thomas Campbell, Hallowed Ground. 
 
 The word handicap is an old Saxon noun meaning a com- 
 promise or bargain, and in this character, I suppose, it 
 figures in the technical language of horse-racing. It is odd 
 that this notorious expression has never been included in 
 our dictionaries. I have searched Richardson, Webster, 1 and 
 Latham, in vain. This sporting substantive signifies the 
 extra weight which horses carry as a compensation for any 
 advantage they may have in respect of age. It frequently 
 stands for a verb, as in the following from a contemporary 
 journal. 
 
 1 I had, however, not looked into the latest edition within my reach, 
 which is that of Drs. Goodrich and Porter, for there the word is, and is 
 very adequately treated ; bearing its testimony to the faithful labours of the 
 editors. 
 
210 OF THE PARTS OF SPEECH. 
 
 ' The legitimate objects of the Trades' Unions are overlaid by elaborate 
 attempts to handicap ability and industry, and to exclude competition.' 
 
 216. Further examples of the functional interchange be- 
 tween substantive and verb : — . 
 
 ' With all good grace to grace a gentleman.' 
 
 The Two Gentlemen of Verona, ii. 4. 
 
 ' Psalm us no psalms.' 
 
 Charles Kingsley, The Saint's Tragedy, v. 3. 
 
 1 In 181 1 the Swedes, though not yet actually at war with England, were 
 making active preparations for defence by sea and land, " in case," says 
 Parry, " we should be inclined to Copenhagen them." ' — Memoirs of Sir 
 W. E. Parry, by his Son, ch. ii. 
 
 ' I'll prose it here, I'll verse it there, 
 And picturesque it everywhere/ 
 
 William Combe, Doctor Syntax in search of the Picturesque, Canto i. 
 
 Passing to more familiar and trivial instances, such as are 
 (be it remembered) the best examples of the unfettered and 
 natural action of a language, we hear such expressions as 
 ' to cable a message ; ' and again, ' If such a thing happens, 
 wire me.' 
 
 I do not say that these expressions have become an ac- 
 knowledged part of the language. If we confined our atten- 
 tion solely to that which is mature and established, we should 
 act like a botanist who never studied buds, or a physiologist 
 who neglected those phenomena which are peculiar to young 
 things. Young sprigs of language have a levity and skittish- 
 ness which render them unworthy of literature and grammar, 
 but which make an exhibition of the highest value for the 
 purposes of philology. There are many movements that 
 are natural and that are among the best guides to the student 
 of nature, which are discontinued with staid age. It is a 
 main character of philology as contrasted with grammar that 
 
FUNCTIONS TRANSFERABLE. 211 
 
 it is unconfined by literary canons, and that the whole realm 
 of speech is within its province. 
 
 217. To such an extent does the language exert this 
 faculty of verbifying a substantive, that even where there 
 is already by the ancient development of the language 
 a verb and a noun of the same stem, it will sometimes drop 
 the established verb, and make a new verb by preference out 
 of the noun. Thus we have the verb to graff, and the noun 
 graft. But we have dropped the proper verb graff and have 
 made a new verb out of the substantive. Everybody now 
 talks of grafting, and says to graft, and we never hear of to 
 graff except in church. 
 
 The pronoun can be used as a verb, thus — 
 
 1 Taunt him with the license of Inke : if thou thou'st him some thrice, it 
 shall not be amisse.' — Twel/e Night, iii. 2, 42. 
 
 The substantive becomes an adjective. This is so com- 
 mon in our language that examples are offered not so much 
 to establish the fact as to identify and verify it. Main is 
 a well-known old Saxon substantive, which appears in its 
 original character in such an expression as 'might and 
 main ; ' but it becomes an adjective in ' main force, 1 or in 
 
 this : — 
 
 • And on their heads 
 Main promontories flung.' 
 
 John Milton, Paradise Lost, vi. 654. 
 
 We have an example of a different kind in the word cheap. 
 This originally was a substantive, meaning market, and the 
 expression ' good cheap ' meant to say that a person had 
 made a good marketing, just as the French bon march/ (from 
 which it was in fact derived) still does. While it went with 
 an adjective harnessed to it, it was manifestly regarded as 
 a substantive. But since we no more speak of ' good cheap'.; 
 since we have changed it to ' very cheap ' ; and since the 
 
 p 2 
 
212 OF THE PARTS OF SPEECH. 
 
 word has taken the degrees of cheaper and cheapest, — its 
 adjectival character is established beyond question. 
 
 218. The adjective becomes a substantive. In such ex- 
 pressions as ' the young and the old/ ' the good and the bad/ 
 4 the rich and the poor/ ' the high and the low/ ' the strong 
 and the weak/ we have' adjectives used substantively. The 
 adjective employed substantively sometimes takes the plural 
 form ; and then it is impossible to deny it the quality of a 
 substantive ; for the adjective has no plural form in English 
 Grammar. Therefore the words irrationals and comestibles in 
 the following quotations, though adjectives by form and 
 extraction, must be called grammatical substantives, not only 
 on account of their substantival use, but also by reason of 
 their grammatical form. 
 
 ' Irrationals all sorrow are beneath.' 
 
 Edward Young, Night Thoughts, v. 538. 
 
 ' What thousands of homes there are in which the upholstery is excellent, 
 the comestibles costly, and the grand piano unexceptionable, both for cabinet 
 work and tone, in which not a readable book is to be found in secular 
 literature.' — Intellectual Observer, October, 1866. 
 
 So the adjective worthy has become a substantive when 
 we speak of a ivorthy and the worthies. Other grammatical 
 structures, besides plurality, may demonstrate that an adjective 
 must be acknowledged for a substantive. We call contem- 
 porary an adjective in the connection contemporary with] 
 but it is a noun when we say a contemporary of. The word 
 good considered by itself would be called an adjective, but it 
 is an acknowledged substantive, not only in the plural form 
 goods, but also in such a construction as ' the good of the 
 land of Egypt/ Genesis xlv. 18. 
 
 And specially must the whilom adjective be called a 
 substantive when it is suited with an adjective of its own. 
 
SUBSTANTIVE TURNED ADVERB. 21 3 
 
 The adjectives ancient, preventive, must be parsed as sub- 
 stantives in the following quotations : — 
 
 1 Still, however, I must remain a professed ancient on that head.' — Gold- 
 smith, Dedication of the Deserted Village. 
 
 ' Those sanitary measures which experience has shown to be the best 
 preventive.' — Queen's Speech, 1867. 
 
 219. The same changeableness of grammatical character 
 may be seen in the adverb. The commonest form of the 
 adverb, namely -ly, was made out of an adjective, which was 
 made out of a substantive ; as will be fully explained below 
 in the section on the Adverb. A substantive may suddenly 
 by a vigorous stroke of art be transformed into an adverb, as 
 forest in the following passage : — 
 
 ' 'Twas a lay 
 More subtle-cadenced, more forest wild 
 Than Dryope's lone lulling of her child.' 
 
 John Keats, Endymion. 
 
 In the following line the word ///appears first as an adverb 
 and secondly as a substantive : — 
 
 ' 111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey.' 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village. 
 
 The same word may appear as an adverb or as a conjunc- 
 tion. The word but sustains these two characters in one line, — 
 
 ' His yeares but young, but his experience old.' 
 
 The Two Gentlemen of Verona, ii. 4. 
 
 Sometimes the employment of one and the same word in 
 a diversity of grammatical powers leads to a modification of 
 the form of the word. The old preposition ¥urh has come 
 to be employed as an adjective, in ' a thorough draught/ or, 
 as in the following quotation : — 
 
 ' These two critics, Bentley and Lachmann, were thorough masters of 
 their craft.' — Dr. Lightfoot, Galatians, Preface. 
 
214 0F THE PARTS 0F SPEECH. 
 
 It has been a modem consequence of this adjectival use 
 of thorough, that a different form has been established for the 
 preposition, viz. through. But this variety of form does not 
 interfere with the justice of the statement that here we have 
 had the same word in two grammatical characters. 
 
 220. How easily the offices of preposition and conjunction 
 o-lide into each other may be seen from one or two examples. 
 In the Scotch motto, ' Touch not the cat but the glove,' but 
 is the old preposition signifying without. This is the cha- 
 racter and signification which it had in early times, and from 
 which the better known uses of but are derivative. If, how- 
 ever, we expand this sentence a little without alteration to its 
 sensed and write it thus — ' Touch not the cat but first put on 
 the glove,' we perceive that but is no longer a preposition — 
 it has become a conjunction. In the sentence, ' I saw nobody 
 else but him,' but is a preposition: if, however, it be ex- 
 pressed thus, ' I saw nobody else, but I saw him,' but is a 
 conjunction. 
 
 In the following quotation we have/tfr in the two charac- 
 ters of conjunction and preposition : — 
 
 •For for these things every friend will depart.' — Ecclus. xxii. 22. 
 
 In the sentence, 'I will attend to no one before you, 5 
 before is a preposition. But if the same thing be thus 
 worded, ' I will attend to no one before I have attended 
 to you,' before is a conjunction. 
 
 In the sentence, ' He behaved like a scoundrel,' like is a 
 preposition. But if we say it in provincial English, thus, 
 ' He behaved like a scoundrel would,' like is a conjunction. 
 
 221. While was once a noun, signifying time. Indeed it 
 is so still, as a long while. But it is better known as a 
 conjunction : thus — 
 
CONJUNCTION FROM RELATIVE PRONOUN. 215 
 
 ' It is very well established that one man may steal a horse while another 
 may not so much as look over the hedge.' 
 
 A s is generally called a conjunction, but in the combina- 
 tion such as it is rather a relative pronoun than a conjunc- 
 tion j and it bears distinctly its old character of a relative 
 pronoun in the following quotation : — 
 
 ' As far as I can see, 'tis them as is done wrong to as is so sorry and 
 penitent and all that, and them as wrongs is as comrerble as ever they can 
 stick.' — Lettice Lisle, ch. xxvii. 
 
 In quoting a passage of this sort, I am liable I know to 
 be challenged as if I had produced an arbitrary or unau- 
 thoritative illustration. But for me it is authority enough 
 to know that this way of speaking is used by millions of 
 speakers. And the present is a case in which the dialect 
 supplies a link which the central language has lost. Herein 
 lies the difference between a grammatical and a philological 
 illustration, that the former requires literary authority, the 
 latter only existence, as its warrant. I grant that if in any 
 writing of my own I adopted this use of as, I might be 
 justly confronted with the demand for my ' authority.' If I 
 declined the challenge, and continued to use the expression, 
 it would amount to a trial of strength on my part whether 
 I had the power to get this provincialism accepted, or at 
 least permitted. Occasionally a strange expression is ad- 
 mitted, but the privilege of ushering it belongs chiefly to 
 those lawful lords of literature, the poets. I am under the 
 ordinary rules of grammar in my composition, but not in 
 my illustrations. Why, indeed, the best facts of language 
 often lie beyond these formal props that fence the park of 
 literature ! Therefore I trust that the benevolent reader will 
 not cavil about authority, but gratefully acknowledge the 
 
2l6 OF THE PARTS OF SPEECH. 
 
 help which the dialects supply towards a completer view of 
 our language. 
 
 We will conclude this list of interchangeable functions by 
 the remark that the interjection shares in this faculty of 
 transformation. It may become a verb, as when we say 
 ' to pooh-pooh a question ;' or a noun, as — 
 
 ' Many herns passed between them, now the uncle looking on the nephew, 
 now the nephew on the uncle.' — Sir Charles Grandison, Letter xvi. 
 
 Or, as in the following from Cowper : — 
 
 * Where thou art gone, 
 Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown/ 
 
 222. The difference of function which one and the same 
 word may perform, often furnishes the ground of a playful 
 turn of expression, something like a pun. But it is distinct 
 from a pun, is more subtle, and is allowed to constitute the 
 point of an epigram, as in that of Mrs. Jane Brereton on 
 Beau Nash's full-length picture being placed between the 
 busts of Newton and Pope : — 
 
 'This picture placed these busts between, 
 Gives satire its full strength ; 
 Wisdom and wit are little seen, 
 But folly at full length.' 
 
 This is a play on two functions of the word little, which 
 must here be thought of as adjective and adverb at once, 
 i. e. (in Latin) as equal at once to exigui, small, and to parum, 
 seldom. For want of attention to this, the line has been 
 erroneously edited thus : — 
 
 'Wisdom and wit are seldom seen.' 
 
 If any one wishes for more illustrations of this fact, that 
 the grammatical character of a word is only a habit — one 
 
ONLY A HABIT. 21 7 
 
 actual habit out of many possible ones — he should consider 
 some of the following references to Shakspeare. 
 
 Winters Tale, i. I. 28, vast (substantive). 
 
 
 
 2. 
 
 50, 
 
 verily. 
 
 
 ii. 
 
 3- 
 
 63. 
 
 band. 
 
 Richard II, 
 
 ii. 
 
 3- 
 
 86, 
 
 uncle me no uncle 
 
 
 v. 
 
 3- 
 
 139' 
 
 dogge. 
 
 1 Henry IV, 
 
 i. 
 
 3- 
 
 76, 
 
 so. 
 
 3 Henry IV, 
 
 i. 
 
 3- 
 
 37, 
 
 indeed (verb). 
 
 
 iv. 
 
 1. 
 
 7h 
 
 there (nounized). 
 
 Henry V, 
 
 iv. 
 
 3- 
 
 63- 
 
 gentle (verb). 
 
 
 
 5- 
 
 17, 
 
 friend (verb). 
 
 223. These examples all point to the one conclusion that 
 the quality of speech-part-ship (if the expression may be for 
 once admitted), is not a fixed and absolute one, but subject 
 to and dependent upon the relations of each word to the 
 other words with which it is forming a sentence. If we have 
 recourse, for example's sake, to those languages which haw 
 preserved their grammar in the most primitive and rudi- 
 mentary condition, we find that each word has retained its 
 natural faculty for discharging all the functions of the parts 
 of speech. 
 
 In Chinese there is no formal distinction between a noun, 
 a verb, an adjective, an adverb, a preposition, The same 
 root, according to its position in a sentence, may be employed 
 to convey the meaning of great, greatness, greatly, and to be 
 great. Everything in fact depends in Chinese on the proper 
 collocation of words in a sentence. Between this state of 
 things and the development of the modern languages, there 
 has intervened the flectional state of speech, of which the 
 grammatical character is as nearly as possible the direct 
 opposite to that which has been stated concerning the 
 
21 8 OF THE PARTS OF SPEECH. 
 
 Chinese. In the flectional state of language, each word 
 carries about with it a formal mark of distinction, by which 
 the habitual vocation of that word is known. Thus in Greek 
 the word rrovos, even standing alone, bears the aspect of being 
 a noun in the nominative case ; but the English word labour, 
 standing alone, is no more a noun than it is a verb, and no 
 more a verb than it is a noun. The flectional languages are 
 not all equally flectional; this character has its degrees. 
 The Greek is not so rigidly flectional as the Latin. But both 
 of them are far more so than any of the languages of modern 
 Europe. Of the great languages, that which has most shaken 
 off inflections is the English, and next to the English, the 
 French. We have but a very few inflections remaining in 
 our language. This increases the freedom with which the 
 language may be handled. We are recovering some of that 
 long-lost and infantine elasticity which was the property of 
 primitive speech. 
 
 224. But while the modern languages, and English espe- 
 cially, are casting off that cocoon of inflections which the 
 habits of thousands of years had gradually swathed about 
 them, there is no possibility of their getting back to a 
 Chinese state of verbal homogeneousness. Such a state is 
 incompatible with a high condition of development. A 
 language of which no part has any fixed character must 
 rank low among languages, just as among animals those 
 which have no distinction of flesh, bone, sinew, or hair. Or, 
 as in communities of men, division of labour, distinct voca- 
 tions, and all the concomitant rigidity of individual habit, is 
 necessary to advanced civilisation. 
 
 There is no appearance of a tendency to fall back into 
 a primitive state of language. The freedom which modern 
 languages are asserting for themselves as against the re- 
 straints of flexion, may be carried out to its extremest issues, 
 
A GREATER DISTINCTION. 219 
 
 and no appearance would ever arise of a tendency back- 
 wards to a state of pulpy homogeneousness. For there is 
 a movement from which there is no going back, a slow but 
 incessant movement, which gradually creates a distinction 
 among words greater and more deeply seated than that of 
 the parts of speech. This is a movement in which all lan- 
 guages partake more or less, according to the vigour of 
 intellectual life with which they are animated. This is a 
 movement which rears barriers of distinction between one 
 and another class of words as immoveable as the sea-wall 
 which the sea itself has sometimes built to sever the pasture 
 from the bed of the ocean. The explanation of this move- 
 ment must occupy another chapter. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 OF PRESENTIVE AND SYMBOLIC WORDS 
 AND OF INFLECTIONS. 
 
 225. Philology makes more use of the signification of 
 words than grammar does. For grammar deals only with 
 the literary forms, functions, and habits of words ; philology 
 deals with the very words themselves. Grammar regards 
 words as the instruments of literature : philology regards 
 them as the exponents of mind. Philology has to do with 
 language in its fullest sense, as being that whole compound 
 thing which is made up of voice and meaning, sound and 
 signification, written form and associated idea. 
 
 It ^appertains to philology to omit none of the phenomena 
 of language, but to give them all their due consideration. 
 Hence it comes to pass that the outward and the inward, the 
 form and the signification, will come by turns under review. 
 And though the inward or mental side of language will 
 occupy less of our space than its correlative, yet each 
 reference to it will be more in the nature of a reference to 
 principle, and will score its results deeper on our whole 
 method of proceeding. 
 
 As we advance, the subject grows upon our hands. We 
 cannot treat of our native language in a philological manner 
 without getting down to some fundamental principles. In 
 the present work we began like a botanist with the flower ; 
 but the progress of the enquiry leads in due time through 
 
OF PRESENT1VE AND SYMBOLIC WORDS, fyc. 221 
 
 the whole economy of the plant, and will at length bring us 
 to its root. While we dwelt over the historical circum- 
 stances in the midst of which our language expanded to the 
 light, w r hile we noted the source from which it was supplied 
 with alphabetic characters, while we surveyed its spelling and 
 pronunciation, and its homely interjections, we were acting 
 like a botanist examining successive florets of the multi- 
 tudinous head of some grassy inflorescence. But now we 
 move down the stalk which bears many such florets, and we 
 have to admit principles which embrace the systems of many 
 languages. At this point we enter upon the very heart of the 
 subject ; and the growing importance of the matter makes 
 me fear lest I should fail in the exposition of it. All things 
 cannot be rendered equally easy for the student, and I must 
 here ask him to lend me the vigour of his attention while 
 I try to expound that upon which will hinge much of the 
 meaning of chapters to come. 
 
 226. There is a distinction in the signification of words 
 which calls for primary attention in philology. I would ask 
 the reader to contemplate such words as spade, heron, hand* 
 saw, flag-staff, barn-door ; and then to turn his mind to such 
 as the following, a, an, by, but, else, even, for, from, he, how, I, 
 it, if, in, not, never, on, over, since, the, therefore, they, under, 
 who, where, yet, you. It will be at once felt that there is 
 a gulf between these two sorts of words, and that there 
 must be a natural distinction between them. 
 
 The one set presents objects to the mind, the other does 
 not. Some of them, such as the pronouns, continue to 
 reflect an object once presented, as fohn he. But there is 
 a difference in nature between the word fohn and the word 
 he. If I say at Jerusalem .... there, the word Jerusalem 
 belongs to the one class, and the words at, there, belong 
 to the other. 
 
222 OF PRESENTIVE AND SYMBOLIC WORDS 
 
 227. We will call these two classes of words by the 
 names of Presentive and Symbolic. 
 
 The Presentive are those which present an object to the 
 memory or to the imagination ; or, in brief, which present 
 any conception to the mind. For the things presented need 
 not be objects of sense, as in the first list of examples. 
 The words justice, patience, clemency, fairy, elf, spirit, abstrac- 
 tion, generalization, classification, are as presentive as any 
 words can be. The only point of difference between these 
 and those is one that does not belong to philology. It is 
 the difference of minds. There are people to whom some 
 of the latter words would have no meaning, and therefore 
 would not be presentive. But every word is supposed by 
 the philologer to carry its requisite condition of mind 
 with it. 
 
 The Symbolic words are those which by themselves pre- 
 sent no meaning to any mind, and which depend for their 
 intelligibility on a relation to some presentive word or words. 
 We enter not at present into the question how they became 
 so dependent ; we take our stand on the fact. Whether they 
 can be shown to be mere altered specimens of the pre- 
 sentive class, or whether there is room to imagine in any 
 case that they have had a source of their own, independent 
 of the presentives, — the difference exists, and is most pal- 
 pable. And the more we attend to it, the more shall we 
 find that broad results are attainable from the study of this 
 distinction. 
 
 228. What, for example, is the joke in such a question as 
 that which has afforded a moment's amusement to many 
 generations of youth, Who dragged whom round what and 
 where ? except this, that symbols which stand equally for any 
 person, any thing, or any place, are rendered ludicrous by 
 being employed as if they presented to the mind some par- 
 
AND OF INFLECTIONS. 22$ 
 
 ticular person, some particular thing, or some particular 
 place. The question is rather unsubstantial, simply because 
 the words are symbolic where they should be presentive. It 
 is not utterly unsubstantial, because the verb dragged round 
 is presentive. Put a more symbolic verb in its stead and you 
 have a perfectly unsubstantial question : Who did what, and 
 where did he do it ? 
 
 And here it may be desirable to attempt some under- 
 standing of the nature of this difference between presentive- 
 ness and symbolism. The danger of confusion lies chiefly 
 in the fact that all language is symbolical. As the chief 
 characteristic of human language in regard to its external 
 form is this, that it should be articulate ; so, in regard 
 to its signification, the chief characteristic is that it should 
 be symbolical. If a man barks like a dog or crows like 
 a cock, or whistles, these utterances do not constitute lan- 
 guage in any sense useful for our present purpose, even 
 though they might carry a real signification, and might 
 in conceivable situations be necessary as means of com- 
 munication between man and man. They might upon 
 occasion serve the purpose of language ; but they would 
 not be language. But when the bark of the dog is re- 
 presented in articulate syllables, as bow-iuow, there is an 
 important step made towards the attainment of complete 
 language. ' Bow-wow,' says the dog ; and this bow-wow, in 
 the human mouth may pass for speech, but it is not yet a 
 true specimen of the relation in which mature speech stands 
 to meaning. When however we advance another step, and 
 call the dog a bow-wow, here we have language. A childish 
 specimen, it is true ; but still a real specimen of language. 
 And the character which determines it is Symbolism. An 
 understanding is established between minds that this arti- 
 culate imitation of a dog's bark shall stand in human inter- 
 
224 OF PRESENTIVE AND SYMBOLIC WORDS, 
 
 course as the sign or symbol of a dog. And there is such 
 a movement in language that, although at first bow-wow 
 signified a bark, and so was a mere sound-word, yet it 
 would be likely to move on a step and mean something 
 else, as it actually has come to be used symbolically for a 
 dog. Thus language is radically symbolical. 
 
 This fundamental truth is however overlaid and concealed 
 from view by a mental habit which we call Association. We 
 became acquainted with objects and ideas at the same time 
 that we learnt how to name them, and the names have become 
 so intimately identified with the things, that it is only by 
 force of reflection we can verify their symbolic nature. This 
 associative faculty is limited to words which express objects 
 and ideas. When words express neither objects nor ideas 
 they cannot be so associated ; and their symbolic character 
 is then patent, because it is their only character; insomuch 
 that if it be fairly lo*oked at, it must be immediately recog- 
 nised. The difference then between the Presentive and the 
 Symbolic words, is based, not upon the absence of sym- 
 bolism in the former, but upon the absence of the presentive 
 faculty in the latter, which leaves their unmixed symbolic 
 character open to view. 
 
 When therefore we call a particular set of words Sym- 
 bolic, we mean that they display in a clear and conspicuous 
 manner that symbolism which is a characteristic of all 
 human language. And they display it in such a manner 
 as to bear a great testimony to the fact that the symbolic 
 tendency is infused into human language with its earliest 
 germ. As a natural consequence of this innate tendency, 
 there is developed in language a graduated series of 
 elevations from the sensible and material to the ethereal 
 and subtle. 
 
 Such is the best explanation I can offer of this great 
 
AND OF INFLECTIONS. 225 
 
 distinction. Whatever be the value of the explanation, we 
 must observe that it affects in no way either the fact of the 
 distinction or the fact of its importance. These are to be 
 established not by theory, but by evidence and exemplifi- 
 cation : and to these we now proceed. 
 
 Analogous movements may be traced in examples beyond 
 the pale of language. When barbers' poles were first erected, 
 they were pictorial and presentive, for they indicated by 
 white bands of paint the linen bandages which were used in 
 blood-letting, an operation practised by the old surgeon- 
 barbers. In our time we only know (speaking of the 
 popular mind) that the pole indicates a barber's shop, but 
 why or how is unknown. And this is symbolism. 
 
 The twelve signs of the zodiac are expressed by two sets 
 of figures, the one presentive of a ram, a bull, a crab, &c, 
 the other set only symbolical of the same, with a traceable 
 relationship between the symbols and the pictures. 
 
 229. A highly appropriate illustration may be gathered 
 from the letters of the Alphabet. The letter a once was a 
 picture, and it represented a bull's head, according to some, 
 or an eagle according to others. The ancient name of the 
 letter, Aleph, in Hebrew (whence Alpha in Greek) signifies a 
 bull. Now it has long ago ceased to picture either this animal 
 or the other, and we are in the habit of calling it a Symbol 
 of the vowel-sound with which the name of each animal 
 began. 
 
 The consonant B was once a picture of a house, and that 
 is the meaning of its Hebrew name Beth, whence the Greek 
 name Beta. In like manner d is an old picture of a door, 
 which is the sense of its name Daleth in Hebrew, whence the 
 Greek name Delta. These two consonants (like the vowel 
 above) have long ago lost all but an archaeological connec- 
 tion with the objects they once pictured, and they are now 
 
 Q 
 
226 OF PRESENTIVE AND SYMBOLIC WORDS, 
 
 the mere symbols of the consonantal sounds which were 
 initial to the names of the represented objects. And so 
 through the whole Alphabet. It began in presentation 
 and*has reached a state of symbolism. 
 
 230. Writing is in fact the symbolism of the picture-story. 
 Here we perceive that there has been a complete change of 
 nature. The pictorial character with which the first artist 
 invested the figure has gradually and undesignedly evaporated 
 from that figure, and has left a mere vague phantom of a 
 character in its place, a thing which is the representative of 
 nothing. And if we set the gain against the loss of such 
 a transition, we find that the symbol has gained enormously 
 in range, to make up for what it has lost in local or pic- 
 torial force. While it was presentive it was tied to a single 
 object : since it became a symbol, it is ubiquitous in its 
 function. 
 
 But it is to be observed further — and the observation is of 
 wider application — that the symbol which remains after the 
 evaporation of the pictorial element of the hieroglyphic or 
 picture-writing is the true correspondent to the intention with 
 which the first effort was made at representing speech by the 
 graphic art. Whatever there was in the picture which was 
 germane to the intention has lived, while the alien parts have 
 gradually died away, leaving behind the purely symbolic or 
 alphabetical writing. 
 
 These observations will apply also in some degree to our 
 two systems of numeration, the Roman and the Arabic. 
 The numerals I and II and III and IIII are presentive of 
 the ideas of one and two and three and four, as truly as the 
 holding up of so many fingers would represent those numbers. 
 The numeral V is practically a mere symbol, though it began 
 in presentation, if it be true that it is derived from the hand, 
 the thumb forming the one side, and the four fingers the 
 
AND OF INFLECTIONS, 227 
 
 other. The figures i and 2 and 3 and 4 are and always 
 were pure symbols. It is worthy of observation, that the 
 whole system of Decimal Arithmetic hinges upon these 
 symbolic figures, or has acquired immense addition to its 
 range of capabilities by the use of these figures. So in like 
 manner will it be found by and bye, that the modern de- 
 velopment of languages has hinged mainly upon symbolic 
 words, and that their instrumentalitv has been the chief 
 means of what progress has been made in the capabilities of 
 expression. 
 
 231. The same general tendency which makes symbols 
 take the place of pictures, makes or has made symbolic 
 words take the place of presentives in a great number of 
 instances. This tendency has led to the formation out of 
 the large mass of presentive verbs of a select number of 
 symbolic verbs, which are the light and active intermediaries, 
 and the general servants of the presentive verbs. Thus the 
 verbs partake of both characters, the presentive and the 
 symbolic. But as regards the rest of the parts of speech, 
 they fall into two natural halves under the influence of this 
 distinction. The substantives, adjectives, and adverbs are 
 presentive words; the pronouns, prepositions, and con- 
 junctions are symbolic words. 
 
 But as the grammatical classification has become rigid in 
 some of its parts, it must not be allowed to govern the 
 natural divisions which we are here seeking to establish. 
 There is much of what is arbitrary in the denomination 
 assigned by grammarians to many a word. Dictionaries 
 and grammars are not quite at one on this head. Some 
 will think perhaps that my symbolic words are found to 
 invade the domain of noun, adjective, and adverb ; while 
 they fail to cover and fully occupy what I have assigned to 
 them — namely, the pronoun, conjunction, and preposition. 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 OF PRESENTIVE AND SYMBOLIC WORDS 
 
 Therefore the grammatical scheme should not be trusted 
 to as a frame for the new division. The student must seize 
 the distinction itself; and the illustration of it by reference 
 to the grammatical scale is only offered as a temporary 
 assistance. 
 
 As in the chapter Of the Parts of Speech we saw that 
 the same word assumes a diversity of characters, so here 
 also the same word will be at one time presentive and at 
 another time symbolic. And there is perhaps no more 
 effective display of the distinction now before us than that 
 which shews itself within the limits of the history of single 
 words. Let us therefore take a few examples of the tran- 
 sition of a word from a presentive to a symbolic use. 
 
 232. Thing. This is a very good example, on account of 
 its unmixed simpleness. For it is almost purely symbolic, 
 and devoid of presentive power. It is still more. It is of 
 universal application in its symbolic power. There is not 
 a subject of speech which may not be indicated by the word 
 thing. This will be acknowledged upon consideration of 
 such a passage as the following : — 
 
 ' By these ways, as by the testimony of the creature, we come to find an 
 eternal and independent Being, upon which all things else depend, and by 
 which all things else are governed.' — John Pearson, An Exposition of the 
 Creed, Art. I. 
 
 It is plain that we cannot name a creature, whether 
 visible or invisible, whether an object of sense or of thought, 
 which may not be indicated by the word thing. It is 
 therefore of universal application in its symbolical power. 1 
 
 But if we ask, on the other hand, What idea does this 
 word present ? we answer, None ! There is no creature, 
 
 1 The few instances in which thing (with a faint rhetorical emphasis) is 
 opposed to person, are to be regarded as stranded relics on the path of the 
 transition which the bulk of the word has passed through. 
 
AND OF INFLECTIONS. 229 
 
 no subject of speech or of thought, which can claim the 
 word thing as its presenter. There was a time when the 
 word was presentive like any ordinary noun, but that time 
 is now far behind us. The most recent example I am able 
 to quote is of the fourteenth century. 
 
 In Chaucer's Prologue it occurs twice presentively : — 
 
 ' He wolde the see were kept for any thvng 
 Bitwixen Myddelburgh and Orewelle.' (1. 278.) 
 
 ' Ther to he koude endite and make a thyng.' (1. 327.) 
 
 233. The fullness of tone which the rhythm requires for 
 the word thyng in both these places, is by itself almost 
 enough to indicate that they are not to be taken as when we 
 say ' I would not do it for anything,' or • Here 's a thing will 
 do.' In these trivial instances the word is vague and svm- 
 bolical, but it would hardly have beseemed such a poet as 
 Chaucer to bring the stroke of his measure down upon such 
 gossamer. The Merchant desired that the sea should be 
 protected for the sake of commerce at any price, condition, 
 or cost— on any terms ; for such is the old sense of the 
 word thing. The old verb to thing, Saxon |>ingian, meant to 
 make terms, to compromise, pacisci. So also in German the 
 word £iru"j had a like use, as may be seen through its com- 
 pounds. The verb fcbiltgen is to stipulate, bargain ; and 
 ©ebingurtg is condition, terms of agreement, contract. 
 
 In Denmark and Norway the word still retains its pre- 
 sentiveness, and signifies a judicial or deliberative assembly. 
 In Denmark the places where the judges hold session are 
 called Ting. In Norway the Parliament is called Stor Ting, 
 that is, Great Thing. In Iceland the assembling place is 
 called Thing-valla, and the hill in the Isle of Man from 
 which the laws are proclaimed is called Tynwald. The 
 
230 OF PRESENTIVE AND SYMBOLIC WORDS, 
 
 same word in the same sense is contained in the Danish 
 word hustings as Longfellow indicates by his manner of 
 printing it: — 
 
 « Olaf the King, one summer morn, 
 Blew a blast on his bugle-horn, 
 Sending his signal through the land of Drontheim. 
 
 And to the Hus-Ting held at Mere 
 
 Gathered the farmers far and near, 
 
 With their war weapons ready to con ront him.' 
 
 The Saga of King Olaf. 
 
 In Molbech's Danish Dictionary there is a list of com- 
 pounds with Ting, in its presentive value of adjudicating or 
 adjusting conflicting interests. 
 
 In such a sense it is said by Chaucer that his Sergeaunt of 
 Lawe could endite and make a thyng, meaning, he could 
 make a contract, was a good conveyancer. 
 
 234. How wide is the separation between such a use of 
 the word and that more familiar one which meets us so often 
 in this manner, ' The liberal deviseth liberal things, and by 
 liberal things shall he stand ' — in which ' liberal things ' is 
 equivalent to ' liberality/ or at any rate the difference between 
 the general and the abstract is so fine that, if preserved at 
 all, it requires a high metaphysical discernment to define it. 
 
 A question may be raised here — What part of speech is 
 this symbolic /king? Grammar, which looks only to its 
 literary action, will say it is a noun, and that however much 
 it may have changed in sense, it cannot cease to be a noun. 
 Yet it will often be found to act the part and fill the place 
 of pronouns in the classic tongues. The Latin neuter pro- 
 nouns hcec, ea, ista, their Greek analogues ravra, eicelva, 
 Toiavra, Too-avTa, can hardly be rendered in English in any 
 other way than by the expressions these things, those things, 
 such things, so great things. If in all cases we must gram- 
 
AND OF INFLECTIONS. 
 
 231 
 
 matically insist that thing is a noun, then what part of speech 
 are something, nothing, anything, everything ■? -It may be a 
 question at what stage of symbolism a noun passes over to 
 the ranks of the pronoun, but it appears plain that there is a 
 point at which this transition must be admitted, and that the 
 whole question turns upon the degree of symbolism that is 
 requisite. If the word thing has not quite attained that de- 
 gree, it must be allowed that it approaches very near to it. 
 
 It would not have been worth while to dwell so Ions: on 
 these aspects, if they had not been typical. But that they 
 are so we may assure ourselves, both by observation of the 
 same tendency in other languages, and also in other 
 words of our own language. In Latin res and causa have 
 moved on a like path, and have generated run and chose 
 in French. In German the word lino, has had the same 
 history, except that its field has been narrowed by the 
 rival word 8victn% a word of forensic origin, like causa and 
 thing, anJ familiar to us through the old Saxon legal 
 jargon, ' sac and soc.' In Hebrew dabhar had a like 
 career : as a presentive it meant ' word/ as a symbolic it sig- 
 nified ' thing.' A variety of words in English have partially 
 moved in the same direction, and have attained a symbolic 
 use in certain connections. Let the student consider the 
 following substantives, and probably he will be able to fit 
 most of them to phrases in which they figure symbolically : — 
 account, affair, behalf, business, circumstance, concern, deal, 
 matter, part, question, regard, respect, wise. 
 
 235. Will, would ; shall, should. The word shall 
 offers a good example of the movement from presentiveness 
 to symbolism. When it flourished as a presentive word, it 
 signified to owe. Of this ancient state of the word a me- 
 morial exists in the German adjective fcfyulbig, indebted. 
 From this state it passed by slow and unperceived move- 
 
232 OF PRESENTIVE AND SYMBOLIC WORDS. 
 
 ments to that sense which is now most familiar to us, in 
 which it is a verbal auxiliary, charging the verb with a sense 
 fluctuating between the future tense and the imperative 
 
 mood. 
 
 How greatly the word will is felt to have lost presentive 
 power in the last three centuries may be judged from the fol- 
 lowing. In Matthew xv. 32, where our Bible has ' I will 
 not send them away fasting/ it is proposed by Dean Alford 
 as a correction to render ' I am not willing to/ Again, in 
 Matthew xx. 14, 'I will give unto this last even as unto 
 thee/ the same critic finds it desirable to substitute ' It is my 
 will to give.' It should be noticed that in neither of these 
 criticisms is there any question of Greek involved. It is 
 simply an act of fetching up the expression of our Bible 
 to the level of modern English ; and it furnishes the best 
 evidence that a change has come over the word will. 
 
 236. Both will and shall are seen in their presentive 
 power in the familiar proposal to carry a basket, or 
 to do any other little handy service, / will if I shall 1 ; 
 that is, I am willing if you will command me ; I will if 
 
 so required. 
 
 There are intermediate uses of shall which belong neither 
 to the presentive state when it signified ' owe/ nor to the sym- 
 bolic state in which it is a mere imponderable auxiliary. 
 In the following quotation it has a sense which lies between 
 these two extremes. 
 
 ' If the Reformers saw not how or where to draw the fine and floating 
 and long-obscured line between religion and superstition, who shall dare to 
 arraign them?' — Henry Hart Milman, The A?inals of St. Paul's p. 231. 
 
 What has been said about shall applies equally to its 
 
 3 I have since discovered that this is not generally understood : but at 
 least every native of Devon should be familiar with it. 
 
AND OF INFLECTIONS. 233 
 
 preterite should. Its common symbolic use is illustrated in 
 the following quotation : — 
 
 'Labourers indeed were still striving with employers about the rate of 
 wages — as they have striven to this very day, and will continue to strive to 
 the world's end, unless some master mind should discover the true principle 
 for its settlement.' — William Longman, Edward III, vol. ii. ch. iii. 
 
 Let the reader fully comprehend the nature of this should, 
 that he may be prepared to appreciate the contrast of the 
 examples which follow. I found the first near my own 
 home. I was ' borneing' out some allotment ground, and 
 Farmer Webb having driven a corner ' borne' into the 
 ground very effectively, exclaimed, * There, that one '11 stand 
 for twenty years, if he should ! ' To a person who knows 
 only the English of literature, the condition would seem 
 futile — if he should. It would seem to mean that the 
 1 borne' would stand if it happened to stand. But this was 
 not our neighbour's meaning. The person who should so 
 misunderstand him, would do so for want of knowing that 
 the word should has still something extant of its old pre- 
 sentive power. In this instance it would have to be trans- 
 lated into Latin, not thus — si fork ita evcncrit; but thus — 
 si debueril, si fuerit opus: if it ought ; if it be required to 
 stand so long; or, in the brief colloquial, if required. 
 
 237. Connected with this thread of usage, and equally de- 
 rived from the radical sense of ' owe,' is another power of 
 shall and should, which is of a very subtle nature. It is one 
 of the native traits of our mother tongue of which we 
 have been deprived by the French influence. German 
 scholars well know that foil has a peculiar use to express 
 something which the speaker does not assert but only 
 reports, (h* foil eg getyan Mvn, literally, 'he shall have 
 done it,' signifies, ' he is said to have done it.' In Saxon 
 this use was well known. Thus in the Peterborough 
 
234 0F PRESENTIVE AND SYMBOLIC WORDS, 
 
 Chronicle, a.d. 1048 (p. 178), we read: ' for ]>an Eustatius 
 hsefde gecydd )>am cynge |?et hit sceolde beon mare gylt 
 Jjgere burhwara ]>onne his' — ' forasmuch as Eustace had told 
 the king that it was (forsooth !) more the townsfolk's 
 fault than his.' Twice in the same Chronicle it is recorded 
 that a spring of blood had issued from the earth in Berk- 
 shire, namely, under the years 1098 and 1200. In both 
 places it is added, ' swa swa manige saedan ]>e hit geseon 
 sceoldan' — ' as many said who professed to have seen it, or 
 were believed to have seen it.' But now this usage is only 
 provincial. It is very common in Devonshire, and indeed 
 in all the west. ' I'm told such a one should say.' 
 
 238. How ancient it is, we may form an estimate by 
 observing that it exists not only in German but in Danish 
 also. In Holberg's Erasmus Montanus, the pedantic student is 
 at home for vacation, and complaining that there is no one in 
 the town who has learning enough to be a fit associate for 
 himself. At this point he says, according to an anonymous 
 translator, who is substantially correct : ' The clerk and the 
 schoolmaster, it is reported, have studied ; but I know not to 
 what extent.' The original Danish is, ' Degnen og Skole- 
 mesteren skal have studeret, men jeg reed ikke hvorvidt det 
 straekker sis:' — literallv, ' the clerk and the schoolmaster shall 
 have studied.' These illustrations are so many traces of the 
 course which this ancient verb has described in its passage 
 from the presentive to the symbolic state. And, taken as 
 a whole, they form so beautifully varied a series of phases, 
 that had they been found in a classical language they would 
 have been much admired. 
 
 The different powers of would are illustrated in the follow- 
 ing quotation, where the first would has absolutely nothing 
 remaining of that original idea of the action of Will, which 
 is still present though unobtruded in the second would. 
 
AND OF INFLECTIONS. 235 
 
 ' It would be a charity if people would sometimes in their Litanies pray 
 for the very healthy, very prosperous, very light-hearted, very much be- 
 praised.' — John Keble, Life, p. 459. 
 
 239. Before we leave these auxiliaries we must notice a 
 curious phenomenon, as Dean Alford has called it 1 , one 
 which has arrested attention thousands of times, but which is 
 not therefore worn out as an illustration, nor is it at all the 
 less effective for being trite. I speak of the very old and 
 familiar fact that large numbers of our English-speaking 
 fellow-subjects cannot seize the distinction between shall, 
 should, and will, would. Here is a distinction which is un- 
 erringly observed by the most rustic people in the purely 
 English counties, while the most carefully educated per- 
 sons who have grown up on Keltic soil cannot seize it! 
 Mr. Fergusson has a perfect command of the English lan- 
 guage, and yet this Kelticism occurs again and again in his 
 writings. 
 
 1 As far as it goes, this is a distinct assertion that the place was used for 
 burial, otherwise from the context we would gather that the Romans slain 
 bv Hengist were buried in the cemetery.' — Rude Stone Monuments, ch. iii. 
 
 240. May, Might. Like will, would, shall, should, this 
 word in its auxiliary character is not presentive but symbolic. 
 But we get it in its presentive function in our early poetry, 
 as in the following from Chevelere Assignc, 1. 134, — 
 
 ' I myjte not drowne hem for dole ' 
 
 the meaning of which is, I was not able to drown them for 
 compassion. Here my^tc, which is the same as might, is 
 presentive, and means ' potui,' ' I was able.' 
 
 This word originally meant, not ability by admission or 
 permission (as now) but by power and right, as in the 
 
 1 Queen's English, § 208. 
 
236 OF PRESENTIVE AND SYMBOLIC WORDS. 
 
 substantive might and the adjective mighty. We no longer 
 use the verb so. But it makes a characteristic feature of 
 the fourteenth-century poetry : — 
 
 ' There was a king that mochel might 
 Which Nabugodonosor hight.' 
 
 Confessio Amantis, Bk. i. vol. i. p. 131C, ed. Pauli. 
 
 This would be in Latin, ' Rex quidam era! qui multum 
 valebat, cui nomen Nabugodonosoro.' 
 
 Some traces of its presentive use linger about may. We 
 use it in its old sense of ' to be able ' in certain positions, as 
 ' It may be avoided.' But, curious to note, we change the 
 verb in the negative proposition, and say, ' No, it cannot.' 
 
 ' Power cannot change them, but love may.' 
 
 John Keble, Christian Year, Sunday after Christmas. 
 
 241. Some. As in Mrs Barbauld's apostrophe to Life: — 
 
 1 Say not good night, but in some brighter clime, 
 Bid me good morning.' 
 
 More. This is now generally known to us as a symbolic 
 word, a mere sign of the comparative degree. But it is pre- 
 sentive in Acts xix. 32, 'The more part knew not where- 
 fore they were come together;' and in that sentence of 
 Bacon's — ' discretion in speech is more than eloquence.' 
 
 Now. In this word we may illustrate the aerial perspec- 
 tive which exists in symbolism. At first it appeared as an 
 adverb of time, signifying ' at the present time.' Even in this 
 character it is a symbolic word, but it is one that lies very 
 near the presentive frontier. It is capable of light emphasis, 
 as in c Now is the accepted time !' Then it moves off another 
 stage, as, ' Now faith is the confidence of things hoped for, 
 the evidence of things not seen.' Here the now is incapable 
 
AND OF INFLECTIONS. 2$J 
 
 of accent ; one hardly imagines the rhetorical emergency 
 which would impose an emphasis on this now. Thus we see 
 there is in symbolism a near and a far distance. And this 
 second now, the more rarefied and symbolic of the two, is 
 gradually undermining the position of the other. The careful 
 writer will often have found it necessary to strike out a noiu 
 which he had with the weightier meaning set at the head of 
 a sentence, because of its liability to be accepted by the 
 reader for the toneless now. 
 
 242. Do. This word is presentive in such a sentence as 
 the following : — 
 
 ' My object is to do what I can to undo this great wrong.' — Edward A. 
 Freeman, History of the Norman Conquest, vol. iii. init. 
 
 It is however in full activity, both as a near and also as 
 a far-off symbolic word. 
 
 ' Diddest not thou accuse women of inconstancie ? Diddest not thou 
 accompt them easie to be won ? Diddest not thou condeinne them of 
 weakenes?' — John Lyly, Euphues, 1579, P- 59' ed - Arber - 
 
 I have often heard an old friend quote the following, 
 which he witnessed at an agricultural entertainment. The 
 speaker was proposing the chairman's health, and after much 
 eulogy, he apostrophized the gentleman thus : — ' What I 
 mean to say, Sir, is this : that if more people was to do as 
 you do, there wouldn't be so many do as they do do ! ' In 
 the final ' do do ' it is clear we have the verb in two different 
 powers, the first being highly symbolic, and the second 
 almost presentive. Again, in the familiar salutation, ' How 
 d'ye do?' we have the same verb in two powers. Here 
 moreover the usual mode of writing it conveys the important 
 lesson, that the more symbolic a word is, the more it loses 
 tone and becomes subject to elision. It might seem as if 
 this observation were contradicted by the previous example, 
 
2 38 OF PRESENTIVE AND SYMBOLIC WORDS, 
 
 in which it is plain to the ear of every reader that of the two 
 words in ' do do,' the former, that is to say, the more sym- 
 bolic, is the more emphatic. But this is caused by the anti- 
 thesis between that word and the ' was to do ' preceding. In 
 short, it is a disturbance of the intrinsic relative weight by 
 rhetorical influence. 
 
 In this gradation of symbolism, we see what provision is 
 made for the lighter touches of expression, the vague tints, the 
 vanishing points. Towards a deep and distant background 
 the full-fraught picture of copious language carries our eye, 
 while the foreground is almost palpable in its reality. 
 
 243. As a further illustration of this distinction it may be 
 observed that a little more or less of the symbolic element 
 has a great effect in stamping the character of diction. By 
 a little excess of it we get the sententious or ' would-be wise' 
 mannerism. By a diminution of it we get an air of prompt- 
 ness and decision, which may produce (according to circum- 
 stances) an appearance of the business-like, or the military, 
 or the off-hand. This is one of those observations which 
 may best be justified by an appeal to caricatures of acknow- 
 ledged merit. In the Pickwick Papers, the conversation 
 of Mr. Weller the elder, a man of maxims and proverbs 
 and store of experience, is marked by an occasional ex- 
 cess of the symbolic element. While 'you're a considering 
 of it ' he will proceed to suggest ' as how/ &c. On the 
 other hand, the off-hand impudence of the adventurer Mr. 
 Jingle, is represented by the artist mainly through this par- 
 ticular feature, which characterizes his conversation through- 
 out, namely, that it has the smallest possible quantity of 
 symbolic words. 
 
 244. To make it still more distinct what the symbolic 
 character is, I add a paragraph in which the symbolic 
 element is distinguished by italics. 
 
AND OF INFLECTIONS. 239 
 
 ' There is a popular saying in the Brandenburg district, where Bismarck's 
 family has been so many centuries at home, which attributes to the Bismarcks, 
 as the characteristic saying of the house, the phrase, " Noch lange nicht 
 genug " — " Not near enough yet" and which expresses, we suppose, the 
 popular conception of their tenacity of purpose. — that they were not tired out 
 of any plan they had formed by a reiterated failure or a pertinacious opposi- 
 tion which would have disheartened most of their compeers. There is a some- 
 what extravagant illustration of this characteristic in Bismarck's wild, youth- 
 ful days, if his biographer may be trusted. When studying law at Berlin he 
 had been more than once disappointed by a bootmaker who did not send home 
 his boots when they were promised. Accordingly when this next happened, a 
 servant of the young jurist appeared at the bootmaker's at six in the morning 
 with the simple question. "Are Herr Bismarck's boots ready?" When he 
 was told they were not, he departed, but at ten minutes past six another ser- 
 vant appeared with the sa?ne inquirv. and so at precise intervals of ten minutes 
 it went on all day, till by the evening the boots were finished and sent home.' 
 
 Doubt may sometimes arise concerning a particular word, 
 when its signification lies on the confines of presentation and 
 symbolism. In the above passage, I have let the word home 
 stands once presentively, and twice I have marked it as 
 symbolic. 
 
 We must not regard these two main divisions of words 
 as having the rigidity of a logical classification. Even 
 the presentive are more or less presentive ; while the sym- 
 bolic have an infinitely graduated scale of variation. Yet 
 there is no uncertainty resting over the basis of the dis- 
 tinction here pointed out between presentive and symbolic. 
 
 In English prose the number of symbolic words is gene- 
 rally about sixty per cent, of the whole number employed, 
 leaving forty per cent, for the presentives. A passage with 
 many proper names and titles in it may, however, bring the 
 presentives up to, or even cause them to surpass, the number 
 of the symbolics ; but the average in ordinary prose is what 
 we have stated. 
 
 ' Mr. Ward says very truly that " the men and women 0/ Pope's satires and 
 epistles, his Atticus and Atossa, and Sappho and Sporus, are real types, 
 whether they be more or less faithful portraits 0/ Addison and the old Duchess, 
 o/Lady Mary and Lord Hervey. His Dunces are the Dunces of all times : 
 his orator Henley the mob orator, and his awful Aristarch the don, of all 
 
240 OF PRESENTIVE AND SYMBOLIC WORDS. 
 
 epochs ; though there may have been some merit in Theobald, some use even 
 in Henley, and though in Bentley there was undoubted greatness. But in 
 Pope's hands individuals become types, and his creative power in this respect 
 surpasses that of the Roman satirists, and leaves Dryden himself behind." 
 
 Out of 1 15 words, we here find the unusually large number of 
 fifty-three presentives, and the small proportion of sixty-two 
 symbolics. But if we compare this with the previous para- 
 graph, we observe that whereas the presentives are a new 
 set of words, the symbolics are to a large extent identical 
 in the two pieces. The symbolic words hold a large space 
 in context, yet they are but few in the whole vocabulary of 
 the language. 
 
 245. It would be a very interesting investigation to 
 examine whether the chief modern languages have any con- 
 siderable diversity as to the bulk and composition of their 
 symbolic element. For here it is that we must seek the 
 matured results of aggregate national thought, in the case of 
 the modern languages. The symbolic is the modern ele- 
 ment — is, we might go so far as to say, the element which 
 alone will give a basis for a philological distinction between 
 ancient and modern languages. 
 
 Not that any ancient languages are known which are 
 absolutely destitute of this element. There is but one that I 
 know, and that for the most part a rather unwritten language, 
 in which the symbolic has not yet been started. That is the 
 language of infancy. Whoever has observed the shifts made 
 by prattling children to express their meaning without the 
 help of pronouns, will need no further explanation of the' 
 statement that infantine speech is unsymbolic. But I can- 
 not refrain from establishing this important position by the 
 independent testimony of such a philosopher as the late 
 Professor Ferrier. 1 
 
 1 Lectures on Greek Philosophy and other Philosophical Remains of 
 James Frederick Ferrier. Edited by Sir Alexander Grant, p. 252. 
 
AND OF INFLECTIONS. 241 
 
 ' In discussing the question, When does consciousness come into manifesta- 
 tion ? we found that man is not born conscious ; and that therefore con- 
 sciousness is not a given or ready-made fact of humanity. In looking for 
 some sign of its manifestation, we found that it has come into operation 
 whenever the human being has pronounced the word " I," knowing what 
 this expression means. This word is a highly curious one, and quite an 
 anomaly, inasmuch as its true meaning is utterly incommunicable by one 
 being to another, endow the latter with as high a degree of intelligence as 
 you please. Its origin cannot be explained by imitation or association. Its 
 meaning cannot be taught by any conceivable process ; but must be origi- 
 nated absolutely by the being using it. This is not the case with any other 
 form of speech. For instance, if it be asked What is a table ? a person may 
 point to one and say, " that is a table." But if it be asked, What does " I " 
 mean? and if the same person were to point to himself and say "this is 
 /," this would convey quite a wrong meaning, unless the inquirer, before 
 putting the question, had originated within himself the notion " I," for it 
 would lead him to call the other person " I." ' 
 
 246. It is quite certain that ' I ' has its own special pecu- 
 liarity, which may be said to distinguish it from every other 
 form of speech. As a token of the dawn of consciousness 
 in a child, the use of this word may claim a special atten- 
 tion. But in the main it is to be observed that the quality in 
 this word which excited the professor's admiration, is a 
 quality not peculiar to the pronoun ' I,' but of many other 
 pronouns, if not of all pronouns as such. As a general rule, 
 it is probably with the pronoun ' I ' that the child first seizes 
 the use of the symbolic element in speech. It is not, how- 
 ever, always so. In an instance which has been lately before 
 me, a well-observed instance, supported moreover by con- 
 clusions from other less accurately noted cases, the pronoun 
 1 1 ' has been maturely acquired and in full use while the pro- 
 noun ' you ' was yet in the tentative stage. 
 
 The difference so well demonstrated by Professor Ferrier, 
 as separating the nature of the word ' I ' from that of the 
 word ' table,' is the difference which splits the whole voca- 
 bulary into the two divisions of the presentive and the sym- 
 bolic. A child does not understand any of the symbolic 
 words at all. Where it uses them, it is by unconscious 
 
 R 
 
242 OF PRESENTIVE AND SYMBOLIC WORDS, 
 
 imitation. This happens particularly in the case of the 
 prepositions, which are to the opening intelligence not 
 separate words at all, but mechanical appendages to the 
 presentives which they understand. 
 
 Observation will, moreover, shew us that when children 
 have fully mastered all the symbolics of the first distance, 
 they will stumble at those which are more remote. Only 
 yesterday I stepped into a cab with a boy of seven years old, 
 who is of an inquiring turn of mind. The number 20 was 
 on the vehicle, and he asked me whether that signified that 
 the price of it was £20 ? I said a few words in explanation, 
 and as I knew that he had been exercised in thought about 
 money values, I added, 'You could not build a cab for 
 £20.' He replied: 'No, /could not; could you?' The 
 surprising turn thus given to the conversation will enable 
 the reader to estimate the interval which separates you the 
 personal from you the impersonal pronoun, and thus open 
 up to view a further symbolic distance. 
 
 247. We sometimes talk of the speech of animals. It is 
 hardly possible to deny them all share in this faculty. 
 They certainly communicate their emotions by the voice. 
 And this voice is not without discrimination. The cry of 
 the barn-door fowl at the sight of a fox or of a hawk is such 
 as would tell an experienced person what was going on. The 
 various accents of the Newfoundland dog, where he has a 
 real understanding with his master, or of the collie among 
 the sheep on the northern fells, are manifestations wonderfully 
 like inceptive speech ; and that everybody feels this to be so 
 is evidenced from the common meed of praise bestowed on 
 a sagacious dog, that he all but talks. 
 
 Whether the cries of animals are humble specimens of 
 speech, or whether they are altogether different in kind, is 
 however a question which we have not to solve. The sub- 
 
AND OF INFLECTIONS. 
 
 243 
 
 ject has only been introduced in order that it might afford 
 us another point of view from which to contemplate the im- 
 portant distinction between presentive and symbolic speech. 
 If we estimate at its very highest the claims that can be 
 made for the language of the beasts, it will always be limited 
 by the line which severs these two kinds of expression. We 
 can imagine an orator on behalf of the animals maintaining 
 that their cries might represent to other animals not only 
 emotions but also objects of the outer sense or even objects 
 reflected in the memory. We should not think a man quite 
 unreasonable if he imagined that a certain whinny of a horse 
 indicated to another horse as much as the word ' stable.' 
 But we should think him talking at random, if he pretended 
 to be able to imagine that a horse's language possessed 
 either a pronoun or a preposition. 
 
 248. Here then we consider ourselves to touch upon that 
 in human speech which bears the highest and most distinctive 
 impress of the action of the human mind. Here we find 
 the beauty, the blossom, the glory, the aurfole of language. 
 Here we seem to have found a means of measuring: the 
 relative progress manifested in different philological eras. 
 
 Among ancient languages, that one is most richly furnished 
 with this element which in every other respect also bears off 
 the palm of excellence. Dr. Arnold was not likely to have 
 written the following passage unless he had been sensible 
 of a high intellectual delight. 
 
 ' There is an actual pleasure in contemplating so perfect a management 
 of so perfect an instrument as is exhibited in Plato's language, even if the 
 matter were as worthless as the words of Italian music ; whereas the sense 
 is only less admirable in many places than the language.' Life, i. 387. 
 
 The admiration which is accorded on all hands to the 
 Greek language is due to the exquisite perfection of its 
 symbolic element. It is not that \6yos or pfjfxa or cpavfj have 
 
 r 2 
 
244 0F PREVENTIVE AND SYMBOLIC WORDS, 
 
 any intrinsic superiority over ratio or verbum or vox) that 
 avr)p or ap0[)(O7ros is preferable to vir or ^00/0 : nor is it even 
 that the music, sweet as it may have been, reaches so effec- 
 tually to the ear of the modern scholar as to carry him 
 captive and cause him to forget the more audible march of 
 Ausonian rhythms. No ; it all lies in the coyness of those 
 little words whose meaning is as strikingly telling as it is 
 impalpably subtle. It is those airy nothings which scholars 
 having been chasing all these centuries ever since the revival 
 of letters, every now and then fancying they had seized 
 them, till they were roused from their sweet delusion by the 
 laughter of their fellow-idlers. The exact distinction between 
 \x.r\ and ou, the precise meaning of av and apa and drj must 
 forsooth be denned and settled ; and it is very possible that 
 we have not yet seen the last of these futile lucubrations. 
 These things will be settled when the truant schoolboy has 
 bound the rainbow to a tree. 
 
 249. There are still scholars who seek to render a firm 
 reason for the Greek article in every place in which it occurs. 
 But can they do so for their own language ? Can they say, 
 for example, what is the value of the definite article which 
 occurs three times in the following distich ? 
 
 ' And to watch as the little bird watches 
 When the falcon is in the air.' 
 
 Where is the man who can handle language so skilfully 
 as to describe and define the value of these articles? He 
 may say they are equivalent to so and so in Greek or 
 in French, but he cannot render an account of what 
 that value is. And yet this word was once a demon- 
 strative pronoun, and it is time and use that has filed it 
 down to this airy tenuity and delicate fineness. The sense 
 would be affected by the absence of these little words, and 
 
AND OF INFLECTIONS. 245 
 
 yet it cannot be said that they are necessary to the sense. 
 They seem to be at once nothing and something. The 
 gold is beaten out to an infinitesimal thinness. Indeed, it is 
 with language as with glory in Shakspeare's description: 
 
 ' Glory is like a circle in the water, 
 Which never ceaseth to enlarge it selfe, 
 Till by broad spreading it disperse to naught.' 
 
 I Henry VI, i. 2. 133. 
 
 250. It is painful to think how much good enthusiasm 
 has been wasted upon learning definitions which were not 
 only unreal, but absolutely misleading as to the nature of the 
 thing studied. So far from its being possible to define by 
 rule the value of the Greek particles, it is barely possible to 
 characterize them by a vague general principle. They were 
 the product of usage, and usage is a compound made up of 
 many converging tendencies, and that which was multitu- 
 dinous in its sources continues to be heterogeneous in its 
 composition. As usage produced it, so use alone can teach 
 it. This is why the skilled examiner will proceed to test a 
 knowledge of Greek by selecting a passage not with many 
 hard words in it, but with this symbolic element delicately 
 exhibited. Hard and rare words are useful as a test whether 
 the books have been got up, but an examination in these 
 furnishes no check on cramming. Whereas, it is a part of the 
 distinct character and peculiar iridescent beauty of the sym- 
 bolic element that it cannot be acquired by sudden methods : 
 it can only be learnt by a process of gradual habituation, 
 which is study in the true sense of the word, and whole- 
 some exercise for the mind. You cannot tack on me- 
 chanically a given English word to a given Greek word 
 in the symbolic element, as you do in the presentive. 
 Symbolic words require different terms of rendering in dif- 
 ferent connections. They have a relative diversifiability of 
 
246 OF PRESENTIVE AND SYMBOLIC WORDS, 
 
 states and powers and functions, like living things. This 
 is in each language the pith, the marrow, the true mother 
 tongue. This is the element which is nearest of kin to 
 thought ; and the efficiency of a writer or speaker depends 
 largely on his power over it : because, the moment he 
 passes beyond hards facts and palpable conceptions, there 
 is nothing but the symbolic element that can serve him 
 just to hit off the vague idea in his mind. 
 
 251. The following passage shews it well in Greek, and 
 it is a passage borrowed from an Examination Paper. The 
 symbolics are printed in thick type. 
 
 'Evw piv ovv €(tt€ pev at anovdal rjo-av o<5ttot€ inavofXT]v fjpas pev 
 olfCTttpav, fiaoiXta 8e teal tovs ovv avrco fiafcapifav, dtaOedofievos cuitwv 
 oo"T)v U€V x^'P av Ka * °^ av *X 0UV > " s *>* tiupOova rd imrrfiua, o<rovs Se 
 Qepanovras, ocra Se KTr,vq, xpvcrbv 8e, io6?,Ta Se. Td 8' av tG>v arpaTicoTciv 
 otroTe iv9vixo''p.i]v on tuv pev aya6u>v TravTa>v ov-Sevos T|piv peTeu). el pr| 
 TTpiai/AcOa, otov 8' ccvqaSpiiOa, tfhciv on b\iyovs exovras, dXXcos 8c itcos 
 iropifcaOai to. iniTr.deia r\ oovovfxevovs opKOVS t]8t] Ka.Tzx ovras "npds' To/Or' 
 ovv koyi&fxevos evioTe tcIs (Tirovdas p&XXov i<po(3ovfXT]v r\ vvv tov 7roXe- 
 fxov. 'En-el pev-roi. etceivca eXvaav Tas CTTOvhcis \e\va9ai pol Sokh kcu. 
 ■fj 4k€lvo3V vfipis kclI t| -qpeTepa vrroipia. — Xenophon, Anabasis, iii. 
 
 The symbolics in Latin are strikingly different from those 
 in Greek. They differ as the flowers of the florist differ 
 from those of nature. It is manifest to the eye that the 
 symbolics in Greek have grown spontaneously, while their 
 Latin analogues have a got-up and cultivated look. The 
 modifying words especially, those which are sometimes 
 roughly comprised under the term particles, look very much 
 like scholastic products. A long period of Greek education 
 preceded the Augustan age of the Latin language, and the 
 symbolic part could not help getting an educated develop- 
 ment, when the youth of successive generations had been 
 daily translating their bits of Greek into the vernacular 
 Latin. 
 
 252. Although the symbolics in Latin are very effective 
 
AND OF INFLECTIONS. 247 
 
 when understood, yet it must be allowed that they are very 
 hard to understand. This is one reason why a real Latin 
 scholar, one who can command this title among scholars, is 
 such a very rare personage. The symbolical element, which 
 is to the mode of thought the essential element in every 
 phrase in which it is present, did not grow of itself un- 
 consciously and in the open air as in Greece, but it was the 
 product of artificial elaboration and studied adaptation. And 
 it still sits on the Latin like a ceremonious garment. The 
 old native Latin, whose vitality and functionality was all but 
 purely flectional, springs out of its Greek disguise every now 
 and then, and shows what it can do with its own natural 
 armour. Look at the muscular collectedness of such a 
 sentence as beati mundo corde, and compare it in respect 
 of the total absence of symbolics, either with the Greek 
 MaKupioi ol KaBapoi 77/ <ap8ta, or with the English B/fssu/ are 
 the pure in heart. 
 
 There spoke out the native and pre-classic Latin, a truly 
 ancient language, and one in comparison with which we 
 must call the Greek truly modern. For that rich and free 
 outflow of the symbolic which marks the Greek, is the 
 badge and characteristic of modernism in langu On the 
 
 other hand, that independence of symbolics, and that power 
 of action by complete inflectional machinery, which marks 
 the Latin, is the true characteristic and best perfection of 
 the ancient or pre-symbolic era. Not that our monuments 
 reach back absolutely to a period when the symbolic ele- 
 ment had yet to begin. Already in the Sanskrit, the 
 symbolic verb is, than which nothing can be more purely 
 symbolic, is in as full maturity as it is in our modern lan- 
 guages. The latter have made more use of it, but the oldest 
 languages of the Aryan race were already in possession of it. 
 We learn from Professor Max Miiller that the Sanskrit root 
 
248 OF PRESENTIVE AND SYMBOLIC WORDS, 
 
 is as, ' which, in all the Aryan languages, has supplied the 
 material for the auxiliary verb. Now, even in Sanskrit, it is 
 true, this root as is completely divested of its material 
 character ; it means to be, and nothing else. But there is in 
 Sanskrit a derivative of the root as, namely asu, and in this 
 asu, which means the vital breath, the original meaning of 
 the root as has been preserved, as, in order to give rise to 
 such a noun as asu, must have meant to breathe, then to live, 
 then to exist, and it must have passed through all these 
 stages before it could have been used as the abstract auxil- 
 iary verb which we find not only in Sanskrit but in all Aryan 
 languages.' 1 
 
 253. Although we cannot pursue our research so far up 
 into antiquity as to arrive at a station where inflections exist 
 without symbolic words, yet we have sufficient ground for 
 treating flexion as an ancient, and symbolism as a modern 
 phenomenon. One reason is, that in the foremost languages 
 of the world, flexion is waning while symbolism is waxing. 
 Another consideration is this, that after the growth of the 
 symbolic element, the motive for flexion would no longer 
 exist. 
 
 We have every reason to anticipate in the future of the 
 world's history, that symbolic will continue to develope, and 
 that flexion will cease to grow. A widening divergence 
 separates them at their hither end. But if we could take 
 a look into that far distant antiquity in which they had their 
 rise, we might perhaps find their fountains near each other 
 if not absolutely identified in one well-head. I imagine 
 that inflections are simply words which, having made some 
 progress towards symbolism, and having lost accordingly 
 in specific gravity, have been attracted by, and at length 
 
 1 Lectures, ii. p. 349. 
 
AND OF INFLECTIONS. 249 
 
 absorbed into, the denser substance of presentive words. 
 This would account for the great start which flexion had 
 over symbolic ; and yet we should understand how a marked 
 and prominent symbolic word like is, charged with a sin- 
 gular amount of vitality, should have found the opportunity 
 to make and keep a place for itself even as early as our 
 highest attainable antiquity. 
 
 Symphytum. 
 
 254. The distinction between presentive and symbolic 
 words is, I hope, tolerably clear to the reader. And also 
 this — that presentive words have a tendency to become 
 symbolic. And also this — that the process which changes 
 them from presentive to symbolic is accompanied (unless 
 other forces interfere) by a relative lightening of the vocal 
 energy in a properly modulated discourse. Moreover, the 
 symbolic words are marked by a clinging adherent ten- 
 dency to attach themselves to other words ; and as this 
 tendency will often force itself on our attention, we will, 
 for brevity sake, call it symphylism. When the process of 
 symphytism is matured, we have either (1) Particle-com- 
 position or (2) Flexion. 
 
 (1) We have Particle-composition when the old negative ne 
 coalesces with its verb ; thus — nelt for //< wilt ; navestu for ne 
 havest />u, thou hast not ; nam for ?ic am, am not ; Teh nam 
 of-drad, I am not alarmed. In the fourteenth century nat is 
 usual for ne wat, knows not ; and we find the ordinary re- 
 mark ' you cannot tell ' or ' one does not know/ expressed in 
 this condensed manner, me not; where me is the indefinite 
 pronoun, being a relic of man, and not is for ne wot. 
 
 Or, when the particle a coalesces with a noun ; as — 
 
 'Awinter warm, asumere cold.' Owl and Nightingale. 
 
250 OF PRESENTIVE AND SYMBOLIC WORDS, 
 
 Or with an adjective, as, abroad, along, around. 
 
 (2) We have Flexion when a change of this kind gives any 
 word a grammatical flexibility, a faculty of changing its 
 relative office, a parsing value. Our language furnishes in- 
 stances in which this was partly accomplished, and afterwards 
 undone : and with a few examples of this, which may be called 
 ' arrested flexion/ we will close the chapter. 
 
 In the early period of our literature we see symbolics 
 growing on to their presentives and forming one word with 
 them. In the case of the pronouns with the verbs this was 
 very conspicuous in early English, as it was also in early 
 German. The first personal pronoun I, which was anciently 
 Ic, is found coalescing both before and after its verb. In 
 the latter case the c is generally developed into en. In the 
 Canterbury Tales, 14362 — 
 
 1 Let be, quod he ; it schal not be, so theech ! ' 
 
 Here theech is the coalition of thee ic, equivalent to the more 
 frequent phrase, so mote I thee ; that is to say, ' So may I 
 prosper' (A.S. ]?eon, to flourish, prosper). 
 
 In the Owl and Nightingale (a.d. 1250) we find wenestu for 
 wenest pu, weenest thou ; wultu, wilt thou ; shalin, shalt thou ; 
 etestu, eatest thou. In Bamford's Dialect of South Lancashire, 
 there is cudto, couldst thou ? cudtono, couldst thou not ? 
 
 255. And not only does the pronoun adhere to its verb 
 when it stands as subject to the verb. In the following west- 
 country sentence the object-pronoun adheres : ' Telln, what 
 a payth out, I '11 payn agan' — ' Tell him, what he pays out, I 
 will pay him again/ Here the n represents the old accusative 
 pronoun hine, which has been absorbed into the verb. 
 
 Two symbolics would run together like two drops of 
 water on a pane of glass. The verb shall is often found 
 making one word with be down as late as the seventeenth 
 century. Thus, Isaiah xl. 4 : — 
 
AND OF INFLECTIONS. 25 1 
 
 ' Euery valley shalbe exalted, and euery mountaine and hill shalbe 
 made low.' 
 
 In King Lear, iv. 6, where Edgar assumes the character 
 of a rustic^ he says chill for / ivill, and ckud for / would. 
 Here we have to understand that the first pronoun was 
 pronounced as Ich, so that chill is just as natural a coalition 
 of ich will as nill is of ne will. In the following lines cham 
 is for ' ich am/ I am. 
 
 ' Chill tell thee what, good vellowe, 
 Before the vriers went hence, 
 A bushell of the best wheate 
 Was zold vor vourteen pence. 
 
 Cham zure they were not voolishe 
 
 That made the masse, che trowe : 
 Why, man, 'tis all in Latine, 
 
 And vools no Latine knowe.' 
 
 Percy's Reliques, ii. pp. 324, 325. 
 
 These agglutinate forms, including such as ichave, hast 
 wiltUy doslu, slepestow, scchcstu, wenesfu, are found in great 
 numbers. In St. Juliana, a prose biography of the thirteenth 
 century, we get the curious form nabich for ' ne habbe ich,' 
 I have not. 
 
 These examples arc enough to prove that there is 
 a disposition in the symbolics to coalesce with their 
 presentives, or with one another. So decided is the ten- 
 dency, that had there not been some great counteract- 
 ing force, it must have completely altered the appear- 
 ance and character of the language. This counteracting 
 force is nothing more than the natural influence of 
 literary habits when they are widely diffused. From this 
 cause has arisen a modern reaction in favour of the preser- 
 vation of all words that are known to have once had a sepa- 
 rate individuality. This reaction has put a stop to these 
 coalitions, and in some cases dissolved them where they had 
 seemed to be established. In the early prints of Shakspeare 
 
252 OF PRESENTIVE AND SYMBOLIC WORDS, 
 
 the conversational abbreviation for / will is written Ik, but 
 modern usage requires that the separate existence of each 
 word should be kept up, and accordingly we write it Vlh 
 The same movement, overshooting its aim, has, at least in 
 one instance, 'restored' a word to a present position which 
 it never held in the past. The substitution of his for the 
 possessive 's, as in ' John his book/ and other well-known 
 instances, was done by way of re-establishing the original 
 explicitness of the language. It furnishes us with a strong 
 illustration of the existence of that counter-force which 
 restrains the tendency to a symphytic coalition. 
 
 257. In fact the growth of symbolic words and the growth 
 of inflections are naturally antagonistic to, and almost 
 mutually exclusive of, each other. They are both made of 
 the same material. They are the results of opposite states 
 of the aggregate mind. If the attention of the community 
 is fully awake to its language and takes an interest in it, no 
 word can lose its independence. If language is used unre- 
 flectingly, the lighter words will get absorbed by those of 
 greater weight, and then they pass into the dependent con- 
 dition of inflections attached to the main words. Thus even 
 Greek, our brightest ancient example of symbolism, pro- 
 duced conglomerations in its obscure and neglected period, 
 as Stamboid, the modern name of Constantinople, which is a 
 conglomerate of is ttjv ttoXiv. So also Stanchio or Slanko, a 
 conglomerate of is rrjv Ka>, is the modern name for the 
 island anciently known as Cos or Coos. For the passage 
 of a word into the symphytic condition, a certain neglect 
 and obscurity is necessary ; while the requisite condition for 
 the formation of a rich assortment of symbolics is a general 
 and sustained habit of attention to the national language. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE VERBAL GROUP. 
 
 258. The verb is distinguished from all other forms of 
 speech by very marked characteristics and a very peculiar 
 organization. It has surrounded itself with an assortment 
 of subordinate means of expression, such as are found in 
 attendance on no other part of speech. The power of 
 combining with itself the ideas of person, time, and all the 
 various contingencies which we comprise under the term 
 'mood/ is a power possessed by die verb alone. It makes 
 no difference whether these accessory ideas are added to 
 the verb by means of inflections or of symbolic words. The 
 important fact is this, — that under the one form or the other, 
 the verb has such means of expression at its service in every 
 highly organized language. 
 
 The cause wherefore the verb is thus richly attended with 
 its satellites becomes very plain when we consider what 
 a verb is. A verb is a word whereby the chief action of 
 the mind finds expression. The chief action of the mind 
 is judgment ; that is to say, the assertion or the denial of 
 a proposition. This is explicitly done by means of the 
 verb. Out of this function of the verb, and the exigencies 
 of that function, have arisen the peculiar honours and pre- 
 rogatives of the verb. This part of speech has, by a natural 
 
254 THE VERBAL GROUP. 
 
 operation, drawn around it those aids which were necessary 
 to it for the discharge of its function as the exponent of the 
 mental act of judgment. 
 
 259. It will be well to distinguish the essence of the verb 
 from that which is but a result of its essential character. 
 The power of expressing Time by those variations which we 
 call Tense (after an old form of the French word for time), 
 has attracted notice as the most salient feature about the 
 verb. Aristotle denned a verb as a word that included the 
 expression of time. The established German word for a 
 verb is 3^it=trort, that is to say, Time-word. Others have 
 thought that the power of expressing Action is the real 
 and true characteristic of the verb. Ewald, in his Hebrew 
 Grammar, calls the verb accordingly XfyaUxuoxt, that is to 
 say, Deed-word. But in these expressions the essential is 
 obscured by that which is more conspicuous. Madvig, in 
 his Latin Grammar, seems to put it in the right light. He 
 designates the verb as Udsagnsord, that is Outsayings- 
 word; because it ' udsiger om en Person eller Ting en 
 Tilstand eller en Virksomhed,' outsays, pronounces, asserts, 
 delivers, about a person or thing a condition or an action. 
 // is the instrument by which the mind expresses its judgments, 
 or (in modern parlance) makes its deliverances. 
 
 260. To know a verb from a noun is perhaps the most 
 elementary step in the elements of grammar. Assuming 
 that the reader has thoroughly mastered this distinction, 
 which is very real and necessary to be known, we proceed to 
 a statement which may at first sight appear to contradict it. 
 The verb and the noun spring from one root. It often 
 happens that distinctions which are very real and useful for 
 a certain purpose and in a certain view, are found to dis- 
 appear or to lose their importance on a wider or deeper 
 investigation. Grammatical distinctions will often vanish in 
 
WHAT A VERB IS. 255 
 
 philology. Philologically speaking, the presentive verb is 
 only a noun raised to a verbal power. As a ready illustra- 
 tion of this, we may easily form an alphabetical list of words 
 which are nouns if they have a or an, and verbs if they have 
 to prefixed : — ape, bat, cap, dart, eye, fight, garden, house, ink, 
 knight, land, mark, number, order, pair, question, range, sail, 
 lime, usher, vaunt, icing, yell. 
 
 As soon as you put to any one of these the sign of a noun 
 or of a verb, a great difference ensues — a difference hardly 
 less than that between the gunpowder to which you have 
 put the match and that over which you have snapped the 
 pouch's mouth. Little by little, external marks of distinction 
 gather around that word which the mind has promoted to 
 the foremost rank. Pronunciation first, and orthography at 
 a slower distance, seek gradually to give a form to that 
 which a flash of thought has instantaneously created. Pro- 
 nunciation takes advantage of its few opportunities, while 
 orthography contends with its many obstacl . We have a 
 distinction in pronunciation between a house and to hot 
 between a /resent and /'' present, a record and to record. 
 between a use and to n But these distinctions of sound 
 
 are as yet unwritten. It is only known to us through po< 
 rhythm that the substantive of to manure was once called 
 nut n urc. — 
 
 1 The smoking manure and o'erspreads it all.' 
 
 William Cowper, The Garden. 
 
 In other cases orthography has added its mark of dis- 
 tinction also. We distinguish both by sound and writing an 
 advice from to advise, a gap from to gape, and a prophecy from 
 to prophesy. So also life and live, strife and strive, breath 
 and breathe. 
 
 This is perhaps as much as need here be said to account 
 for the wide separation now existing between nouns and 
 
2 $6 THE VERBAL GROUP. 
 
 verbs, though they were originally one. The difference of 
 condition that now severs them as by a gulf is the accumu- 
 lated result of the age-long continuation of that process 
 whose beginnings are here indicated. 
 
 We have spoken of the verb as a transformed noun, be- 
 cause this is the most frequent occurrence. But any word, 
 whether pronoun, or interjection, or whatever it may be, can 
 be raised to this power. The mere act of predication, which 
 is the most central and dominant of all the acts in which 
 language is exercised, is sufficient to transform any word 
 whatever and constitute it a verb. 
 
 261. By reason of its central position, and by its constant 
 and unsuspended action, the verb has a greater tenacity of 
 form than any other part of speech. Hence it is that the 
 most remarkable antiquities of the English language are to 
 be found in the verb. It is in the verb that we find the 
 Saxon forms best preserved, and that we find the most con- 
 spicuous proofs of the relationship of our language to the 
 German and Dutch and Danish and Icelandic. In fact, it 
 would be hardly too much to say, that a description of the 
 elder verbs of any of the Gothic languages would, with slight 
 alterations, pass for a description of the elder verbs of any 
 one of the others. 
 
 The verbs which we shall notice first, and which are 
 known as the Strong verbs, have preserved tense-forms which 
 are among the boldest features of the English language, 
 which are among its most striking features of similitude with 
 other Gothic tongues, and which at the same time are among 
 the most peculiar characteristics of the Gothic family in its 
 comparison with other families of speech. This coincidence 
 of internal harmony with external contrast, knits together 
 the Gothic family in a compact and separate unity, and 
 seems to indicate that it must have remained undivided and 
 
PERSON FORMS. 25/ 
 
 undispersed for a long period after its separation from the 
 other members of the Indo-European stock. 
 
 262. When we proceed to consider the person-forms, 
 this fidelity no longer holds. The English has gone further 
 than any of its cognates in dropping the personal inflections. 
 The German says Ich glaube, du glaubest, er glaubt ; wir 
 glauben, ihr glaubet, sie glanben. The Englishman says, / 
 believe, thou believest, he believes ; zve believe, you believe, they 
 believe. And as thou believest is but rarely used, much more 
 rarely than du glaubesl, and perhaps more rarely even than 
 ihr glaubet, we have only the -s of the third singular he be- 
 lieves as the one personal inflection left in ordinary use 
 among us. 
 
 Particularly is it to be observed that we have lost the x of 
 the plural present, which is preserved in the German form 
 gliwbex. We know from the Latin sunt, affiant, monent, 
 regunt, audiuut, and from other sources, that NT was anciently 
 a very wide-spread termination for the plural verb. This is 
 boldly displayed in the Mceso-Gothic verb, as may be seen 
 in the following example of the present indicative of the 
 verb for 'to believe,' galaubjax : — 
 
 
 1st. 
 
 2nd. 
 
 ;,rd. 
 
 Singular 
 
 galaubja 
 
 galaubeis 
 
 galaubaith 
 
 Plural 
 
 galaubj.un 
 
 galaubeith 
 
 galaubjand 
 
 263. Here we have nd in the third person plural. In the 
 Old High German it was as in Latin NT. The Germans 
 have dropped the dental t and have kept the liquid n. We 
 dropped the n, or rather we merged it in a thicker vowel 
 before, and a thicker consonant after. The plural termina- 
 tion -a^ of the Saxon present indicative is the analogue of 
 the Gothic termination -a?id. In the same manner an n has 
 been absorbed in the English words tooth, goose, mouth, five, soft, 
 
 s 
 
258 THE VERBAL GROUP. 
 
 which are in German Qaf)n, ©an6, $hmb, fimf, fonft : also 
 in sooth, which is in Danish sand. The following is the 
 present indicative of the Saxon verb gelyfan, to believe : — 
 
 
 1st. 
 
 2nd. 
 
 3rd. 
 
 Singular 
 Plural 
 
 gelyfe 
 gelyfaft 
 
 gelyfest 
 gelyfaS 
 
 gelyfS 
 gelyfaS 
 
 The written language never had an n in the third person 
 plural of the present indicative, not even in the oldest stage 
 of Saxon literature. For the past tense we retained it, and 
 also for the subjunctive mood in all tenses. The con- 
 sequence is, that in our early literature verbs abound with n 
 in the third person plural, but never in the present tense. 
 Thus Mark xvi. 13, and hig him ne gelyfdon, ' neither believed 
 they them.' In Exodus iv. 5 we have the plural of the 
 present subjunctive,/^/ hig gelyfon, ' that they may believe.' 
 In the former of these passages Wyclif has, And thei goynge 
 toolden to othere, ?iethir thei bileuyden to hem. 
 
 264. It is one of the marks of Chaucer's severance from 
 the old mother tongue that he uses the N-form of the plural 
 even for the present indicative. It had been preserved in the 
 midland district, and was now for the first time seen in cul- 
 tivated English. It is characteristic of the beginnings of an 
 era, that forms hitherto neglected have a new chance of 
 recognition. 
 
 ' And smale foweles maken melodye; 
 That slepen al the nyght with open lye, 
 So priketh hem nature in hir corages — 
 Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrymages.' 
 
 The same thing may be seen in the quotation from 
 Gower, above, 199. This was retained as one of the 
 recognised archaisms available only for poetic diction, and 
 it long continued in the heroic or mock-heroic style, as we 
 see in the following, from the eighteenth century. 
 
TENSE FORMS. 259 
 
 * In every village mark'd with little spire, 
 Embower'd in trees, and hardly known to fame, 
 There dwells, in lowly shed and mean attire, 
 A matron old, whom we Schoolmistress name, 
 Who boasts unruly brats with birch to tame ; 
 They grieven sore, in piteous durance pent, 
 Aw'd by the power of this relentless dame, 
 And oft times, on vagaries idly bent, 
 For unkempt hair, or task unconn'd, are sorely shent.' 
 
 William Shenstone (171 4-1 763), The Schoolmistress. 
 
 265. In the ordinary paths of the language, however, the 
 personal inflections were reduced nearly to their present 
 simplicity before the Elizabethan era. 
 
 The tenacity of which we spoke displays itself most con- 
 spicuously in the tense-forms ; that is to say, the forms 
 used for expressing varieties of time. 
 
 The boldest feature which is found among the verbs of 
 our family, is the formation of the preterite by an internal 
 vowel-change, without any external addition. This character 
 supplies a basis for the division of the verbs into three 
 classes, — the Strong, the Mixed, and the Weak. 
 
 I. Strong Verbs. 
 
 266. The Strong are of the highest antiquity, are limited 
 in number, are gradually but very slowly passing away, as 
 one by one at long intervals they drop out of use and are 
 not recruited by fresh members. They are characterised by 
 the internal formation of the preterite, and by the formation 
 of the participle in n. This latter feature has however been 
 less constant than the preterite. The following list com- 
 prises most of them. Only those forms which are given in 
 the ordinary type are in full use. Those in black letter 
 flourished in mediaeval times; those in thick type are chiefly 
 of the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries; and those in 
 
 s 2 
 
260 
 
 THE VERBAL GROUP. 
 
 italics are curt and negligent forms, many of which 
 belong to the eighteenth century. The few which are in 
 small capitals are Saxon forms. Those in spaced type 
 are from a collateral language or dialect. 
 
 267. Only the simple verbs are given, and not their com- 
 pounds. The list contains come, hold, get; but not become, 
 behold, beget) bid but not forbid \ give but not forgive, &c. 
 On the other hand, those compounds whose simples no 
 longer exist in the language, are here given, as abide, begin, 
 forsake. 
 
 PRETERITE. 
 
 abode 
 beuk * 
 bore, bare 
 beat 
 began 
 
 BEALH 
 
 PRESENT. 
 
 abide 
 
 bake 
 
 bear 
 
 beat 
 
 begin 
 
 BELGAN 
 
 BEON 
 
 bid 
 
 bind 
 
 bite 
 
 blow 
 
 bow 
 
 break 
 
 burst 
 
 carve 
 
 cast 
 
 chide 
 
 choose 
 
 cleave 
 
 climb 
 
 cling 
 
 come 
 
 creep 
 
 crow 
 
 delve 
 
 dig 
 
 bade, bid 
 bound 
 "bote *, bit 
 blew 
 
 BEAU 
 
 broke, brake 
 
 brast 
 
 cart* 
 
 CO ost * 
 
 chid, chode * 
 
 chose 
 
 clove, clave 
 
 clomb 
 
 clung 
 
 came 
 
 crope *, 
 
 crew 
 
 tialfc 
 dug 
 
 crap 
 
 * 
 
 PARTICIPLE. 
 
 [a]bidden * 
 
 baken 
 
 borne and born 
 
 beaten, beat 
 
 begun 
 
 bolgen, bowln. * 
 
 been 
 
 bidden, bid 
 
 bounden, bound 
 
 bitten, bit 
 
 blown • 
 
 bowne * 
 
 broken 
 
 bursten, burst 
 
 CORFEN 
 
 casten * 
 chidden, chid 
 chosen 
 cloven 
 
 • • • 
 
 clung 
 
 comen *, come 
 
 cropm* cruppen 
 
 • • • 
 
 dolven 
 dug 
 
I. STRONG VERBS. 
 
 26l 
 
 PRESENT. 
 
 draw 
 
 drink 
 
 drive 
 
 eat 
 
 fall 
 
 fight 
 
 find 
 
 fling 
 
 fly 
 
 forsake 
 
 freeze 
 
 get 
 
 give 
 
 glide 
 
 gnaw 
 
 g° 
 
 GRAFE 
 
 grind 
 
 grow 
 
 heave 
 
 help 
 
 hew 
 
 h i n g * 
 
 hold 
 
 lade 
 
 Irsc 
 
 lie 
 
 melt 
 
 plat 
 
 ride 
 
 ring 
 
 rise 
 
 run 
 
 see 
 
 seethe 
 
 shake 
 
 shape 
 
 shave 
 
 PRETERITE. 
 
 PARTICIPLE. 
 
 drew 
 
 drawn 
 
 drank, drunk 
 
 drunken *, drunk 
 
 drove 
 
 driven 
 
 ate 
 
 eaten 
 
 fell 
 
 fallen, fell * 
 
 fought 
 
 fought, foughten * 
 
 found 
 
 found 
 
 flung 
 
 flung 
 
 flew 
 
 • flown 
 
 forsook 
 
 forsaken 
 
 froze 
 
 frozen 
 
 gat, got 
 
 gotten, got 
 
 gave 
 
 given 
 
 glotJ *, glode 
 
 . 
 
 gnew * 
 
 gnawn * 
 
 . . . 
 
 gone 
 
 GROF 
 
 graven * 
 
 ground 
 
 ground 
 
 grew 
 
 grown 
 
 hove 
 
 • • • 
 
 holp 
 
 holpen, bolp * 
 
 HEOW 
 
 hewn 
 
 hang, hung 
 
 hung 
 
 held 
 
 holden * 
 
 • • • 
 
 laden, loden * 
 
 • • • 
 
 lorn 
 
 lay 
 
 lain, lien * 
 
 . 
 
 molten 
 
 plet * 
 
 • • • 
 
 rode, rid * 
 
 ridden, rid 
 
 rang, rung 
 
 rung 
 
 rose 
 
 risen, rose * 
 
 ran 
 
 run 
 
 saw, see * 
 
 seen 
 
 sod 
 
 sodden 
 
 shook 
 
 shaken, shook * 
 
 shope 
 
 shapen 
 
 • * • 
 
 shaven 
 
l6z 
 
 THE VERBAL GROUP. 
 
 PRESENT. 
 
 shear 
 
 shew 
 
 shine 
 
 shoot 
 
 shove 
 
 shrink 
 
 sing 
 
 singe 
 
 sink 
 
 sit 
 
 slay 
 
 slide 
 
 sling 
 
 slink 
 
 slit 
 
 smite 
 
 speak 
 
 spin 
 
 spring 
 
 steal 
 
 stick 
 
 sting 
 
 stink 
 
 * STRICAN 
 
 stride 
 
 strike 
 
 string 
 
 strive 
 
 swear 
 
 swell 
 
 swim 
 
 swing 
 
 take 
 
 tear 
 
 thrive 
 
 throw 
 
 tread 
 
 wake 
 
 PRETERITE. 
 
 PARTICIPLE. 
 
 shore 
 
 shorn 
 
 * • • 
 
 shewn 
 
 shone 
 
 shone 
 
 shot 
 
 shotten * 
 
 shof * 
 
 • . • 
 
 shrank, shrunk 
 
 shrunken, shrunk 
 
 sang, sung 
 
 sung 
 
 • • • 
 
 sung * 
 
 sank 
 
 sunken, sunk 
 
 sate, sat 
 
 sittm 
 
 slew 
 
 slain 
 
 glotJ, slid 
 
 slidden, slid 
 
 slang *, slung 
 
 slung 
 
 slunk 
 
 slunk 
 
 slat, slit 
 
 slit 
 
 smote 
 
 smitten 
 
 spake, spoke 
 
 spoken, spoke * 
 
 span 
 
 spun 
 
 sprang 
 
 sprung 
 
 stole 
 
 stolen 
 
 stuck 
 
 stuck 
 
 stung 
 
 stung 
 
 stank and stunk 
 
 stunk 
 
 STRAC 
 
 stricken or striken* 
 
 strode 
 
 stridden 
 
 struck 
 
 stricken 
 
 strung 
 
 strung 
 
 strove 
 
 striven 
 
 swore, sware 
 
 sworn 
 
 sfoal 
 
 swollen 
 
 swam 
 
 swum 
 
 swung 
 
 swung 
 
 took 
 
 taken, took * 
 
 tore, tare 
 
 torn 
 
 throve 
 
 thriven 
 
 threw 
 
 thrown 
 
 trod 
 
 trodden, trod 
 
 woke 
 
 • ■ • 
 

 STRONG VERBS — 
 
 ■REMARKS. 1 
 
 PRESENT. 
 
 
 PRETERITE. 
 
 
 PARTICIPLE. 
 
 wash 
 
 
 wush (Scots) 
 
 
 washen 
 
 wax 
 
 
 foci 
 
 
 waxen * 
 
 wear 
 
 
 wore 
 
 
 worn 
 
 weave 
 
 
 wove 
 
 
 woven 
 
 WESAN 
 
 
 was 
 
 
 [Germ, gewesen] 
 
 WEOR^AN, 
 
 worthe 
 
 WEARb 
 
 
 GEWORDEN, fojfjrtfj ' 
 
 win 
 
 
 won 
 
 
 won 
 
 wind 
 
 
 wound 
 
 
 wound 
 
 wreak 
 
 
 W&SC 
 
 
 ywroken * 
 
 wring 
 
 
 wrung 
 
 
 wrung 
 
 write 
 
 
 wrote, wrat *, 
 
 writ 
 
 written, writ, wrot 
 
 263 
 
 268. Remarks on the Forms signed with an Asterisk. 
 
 [a]bidden. We find the simple form in Eger and Grime, 
 line 555 :— 
 
 ' He might full well haue bidden att home.' 
 
 beuk. Gentle Shepherd, act ii. sc. i. 
 
 bowln. A relic of a forcible word in Saxon poetry, gebol- 
 gen, swollen, generally with anger. It is found in Surrey's 
 Translation of the Second Book 0/ the Aeneid, and there it 
 simply means physically swollen : — 
 
 ' Distained with bloody dust, whose feet were bowln 
 With the strait cords wherewith they haled him.' 
 
 bote. Eger and Grime, 992. 
 
 bOWH.6. ' And now he is bowne to turn home againe.' 
 
 Eger and Grime, 948. 
 
 Here also must be put the expression ' Homeward bound ' 
 — though there is a great claim for the Icelandic buinn. 
 
 Carf. 'And carf biforn his fader at the table.' 
 
 Chaucer, Prologue, 100. 
 
 chode. Genesis xxxi. 36 ; Numbers xx. 3. 
 
 COO St. 'Maggie coost her head fu' high, 
 
 Looked asklent and unco skeigh, 
 Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh.' 
 
 Robert Burns, Duncan Gray. 
 
264 THE VERBAL GROUP. 
 
 casten. As in the quotation from Surrey, above, 155. 
 comen. Spenser, Faery Queene, iv. 1. 15, overcommen. 
 
 * And if thou be comen to fight with that knight.' 
 
 Eger and Grime, S87. 
 
 trope, croptn. Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, 4257, 11918. 
 cr*ap. Gentle Shepherd, act v. sc. i. 
 drunken. Luke xvii. 8. 
 fell, participle. 
 
 ' Which thou hast perpendicularly fell.' King Lear, iv. 6. 54. 
 
 fOUghtGn. ' On the foughten field 
 
 Michael and his Angels prevalent 
 Encamping.' Paradise Lost, vi. 410. 
 
 270. Crloti. Poem of Genesis and Exodus, 76. Shelley has 
 
 ' glode.' 
 gnew. In Tyndale we fund gnew as the preterite of gnaw. 
 
 ' Whereupon for very pain and tediousness he lay down to sleep, for to 
 put the commandment, which so gnew and fretted his conscience, out 
 of mind ; as the nature of all wicked is. when they have sinned a good, 
 to seek all means with riot, revel, and pastime, to drive the remembrance 
 of sin out of their thoughts ; or, as Adam did, to cover their nakedness 
 with aprons of pope-holy works. Prologue to the Prophet Jo?ias (Parker 
 Society, p. 456). 
 
 gnawn. Shakspeare : ' begnawn with the bots,' Taming of 
 the Shrew, iii. 2. The Saxon form was gnagen. 
 
 graven. Psalm vii. 1 6, elder version, ' He hath graven and 
 digged up a pit.' And often ' graven image ' in the Bible 
 of 1611. 
 
 holp, participle. Shakspeare, Richard II, v. 5. 62. 
 
 hing. This form occurs in one of the narratives of Dean 
 Ramsay, who puts it into the mouth of a Scotch judge 
 of the last generation. It is quite common in Scotland 
 to this day. 
 
 This verb made an early transit to the weak form, and 
 was conjugated thus — hang, hanged, hanged. Properly 
 speaking, this was a new and quite different verb, and 
 should have had the transitival use, while the strong 
 
REMARKS ON CERTAIN STRONG FORMS. 265 
 
 king, hang, hung, kept the neuter function. There are 
 extant traces of the observance of this principle. Thus, 
 nobody says that his hat hanged on a peg. But as nothing 
 can restrain the caprice of speech, this early broke rule, 
 and the young weak form hanged, stood for the neuter 
 sense. Example : — 
 
 4 But could not finde what they might do to him : for all the people 
 hanged vpon him when they heard him.' — Luke xix. 4S. Geneva, 
 
 J 557- 
 
 271. holden. Psalm lxiii. 9, elder version : and eleven 
 times in the authorized version of the Bible. 
 
 loden. Sir Philip Sidney, An Apologie for Poctrie, 15S1 ; 
 ed. Edward Arber, p. 19. 
 
 lien. ' Though ye have lien among the pots, &c.,' Ps. lxviii. 
 13, elder version. Shakspeare, King /"hn, iv. 1. 50, 
 where the first three folios spell it fyen. 
 
 plet. «I took delyte 
 
 To pou the rashes green, wi roots sae white ; 
 O' which, as weel as my young fancy cou'd, 
 For thee I plet the flow'ry belt and snood.' 
 
 Allan Ramsay, Gentle Shepherd, act ii. 5c. 4. 
 
 rid. 'I remember two young fellows who rid in the same squadron of a 
 troop of horse.' Spectator, Aug. 24, I 71 1. 
 
 This form is in present use in Somersetshire and Glouces- 
 tershire : 
 
 ' He walked all the way there, Sir : but he rid home again.' (Swans- 
 wick.) 
 
 rose, participle. 
 
 ' And I was ta'en for him, and he for me ; 
 And thereupon these errors are arose.' 
 
 Comedy of Errors, v. 1. 386. 
 
 272. sod. Genesis xxv. 29. 
 
 see. This preterite is well known as a provincialism. It 
 does not indeed represent the Saxon seah so justly as the 
 Queen's English saw ; but it usefully exemplifies a pre- 
 valent tendency, which has been touched upon at 180 3 
 
266 THE VERBAL GROUP. 
 
 181, 186. In Shakspeare's time it was heard high up in 
 the world : Lord Sandys says of the newly fashionable 
 folk— 
 
 ' L. San, They have all new legs, and lame ones ; one would take it* 
 That neuer see 'em pace before, ' Henry VIII, i. 3. 12. 
 
 shook. The preterite form was much adopted for the par- 
 ticiple from the seventeenth to the early part of the 
 present century. Thus Milton, Paradise Lost, vi. 219 i— 
 
 ' All Heaven 
 Resounded, and had Earth been then, all Earth 
 Had to her Center shook.' 
 
 And Edmund Burke, while at Dublin College, writing to an 
 old schoolfellow, says, — 
 
 * You ask me if I read? I deferred answering this question, till I 
 could say I did ; which I can almost do, for this day I have shook off 
 idleness and begun to buckle to.' (March, 1746-7.) 
 
 And Samuel Taylor Coleridge : — 
 
 ' For oh ! big gall-drops, shook from Folly's wing, 
 Have blackened the fair promise of my spring.' 
 
 shotten. ' In that nooke-shotten He of Albion.' 
 
 Shakspeare, Henry V, iii. 5. 1 4. 
 
 Compare cup-shotten, Cotgrave, s. v. Yvre. Probably also 
 Falstaff's ' shotten herring ' belongs here. 
 
 shof. In a Romance of the date 1450 or later we have 
 shof as a preterite, where we now use shoved'. — 
 
 ' And he shof theron so sore that he bar hym from his horse to the 
 grounde.' — Merlyn, p. 265. 
 
 sung, participle of singe. Gentle Shepherd, act ii. sc. 1. 
 
 slang. 1 Samuel xvii. 49. 
 
 spoke, participle. In Shakspeare, King John, iv. 1. 51 ; 
 King Richard II, i. 1. 77. 
 
 stricken. This old participle, meaning i gone,' ' advanced/ 
 
TRANSITION. 
 
 267 
 
 is now quite extinct. We read it in Luke i, 7, ' well stricken 
 in years ; ' and we retain it in the compound poverty- 
 stricken, which means ' far gone in poverty/ extremely 
 poor. In Sidney's Arcadia (ed. 1599), p. 5, we read, 'He 
 being already well striken in years.' 
 
 237. took. See what has been said under shook. 
 
 ' Too divine to be mistook.' — Milton, Arcades. 
 
 waxen. Jeremiah v. 27, 28 : — 
 
 ' They are become great and waxen rich. They are waxen fat, they 
 shine.' 
 
 foortj). Mediaeval participle. See below, 283. 
 
 ywroken. Spenser, C0U71 Clouts come home againe, 921 : — 
 
 • Through judgement of the gods to been ywroken.' 
 
 This verb was anciently conjugated zvrece, wrac, wrecen ; 
 but it has lost the strong preterite, and adopted the more 
 prevalent form in -ed. Thus Smollett : — 
 
 ' I wreaked my resentment upon the innocent cause of my disgraces.' 
 
 wrat. This preterite form occurs in Ralegh's correspond- 
 ence under date May 29, 1586 : 
 
 ' And the sider which I wrat to you for.' — Letter xv, ed. Edwards. 
 
 wrote, participle. 
 
 ' I have wrote to you three or four times.' — Spectator, No. 344 (171 2). 
 
 Strong Verbs which have adopted the Weak Form. 
 
 274. Notwithstanding the tenacity of which we have 
 spoken above, there is a manifest tendency in these strong 
 verbs to merge themselves gradually into the more numerous 
 class of the weak verbs. Instances of this transition : — 
 
 PRESENT. 
 
 PRETERITE. 
 
 PARTICIPLE. 
 
 
 acwele 
 
 acwael 
 
 acwolen 
 
 quell 
 
 bace 
 
 boc 
 
 bacen 
 
 bake 
 
 beorge 
 
 bearh 
 
 borgen 
 
 borrow 
 
268 
 
 THE VERBAL GROUP. 
 
 RECENT. 
 
 PRETERITE. 
 
 PARTICIPLE. 
 
 
 brede 
 
 braed 
 
 broden 
 
 braid 
 
 bruce 
 
 breac 
 
 brocen 
 
 brook 
 
 buge 
 
 beah 
 
 bogen 
 
 bow 
 
 byrne 
 
 barn 
 
 burnen 
 
 burn 
 
 ceowe 
 
 ceaw 
 
 gecowen 
 
 chew 
 
 climbe 
 
 clomm 
 
 clumben 
 
 climb 
 
 crawe 
 
 creow 
 
 crawen 
 
 crow 
 
 creope 
 
 creap 
 
 cropen 
 
 creep 
 
 delfe 
 
 dealf 
 
 dolfen 
 
 delve 
 
 dufe 
 
 deaf 
 
 dofen 
 
 dive 
 
 fealde 
 
 feold 
 
 fealden 
 
 fold 
 
 fleote 
 
 fleat 
 
 floten 
 
 float 
 
 frete 
 
 fraet 
 
 freten 
 
 fret 
 
 geote 
 
 geat 
 
 goten 
 
 yote ( = pour) 
 
 glide 
 
 glad 
 
 gliden 
 
 glide 
 
 grafe 
 
 grof 
 
 grafen 
 
 grave 
 
 heawe 
 
 heow 
 
 heawen 
 
 hew 
 
 hele 
 
 hsel 
 
 holen 
 
 heal 
 
 hleape 
 
 hleop 
 
 hleapen 
 
 leap 
 
 hreowe 
 
 hreaw 
 
 hrowen 
 
 rue 
 
 leoge 
 
 leah 
 
 logen 
 
 lie (as a liar) 
 
 luce 
 
 leac 
 
 locen 
 
 lock 
 
 mete 
 
 maet 
 
 meten 
 
 mete or measure 
 
 murne 
 
 mearn 
 
 morn en 
 
 mourn 
 
 reoce 
 
 reac 
 
 rocen 
 
 reek 
 
 rowe 
 
 reow 
 
 rowen 
 
 row 
 
 scufe 
 
 sceaf 
 
 scofen 
 
 shove 
 
 scyppe 
 
 scop 
 
 sceapen 
 
 shape 
 
 slape 
 
 slep 
 
 slapen 
 
 sleep 
 
 smeoce 
 
 smeac 
 
 smocen 
 
 smoke 
 
 spurne 
 
 spearn 
 
 spornen 
 
 spurn 
 
 steorfe 
 
 stserf 
 
 storfen 
 
 starve 
 
 swelge 
 
 swealh 
 
 swolgen 
 
 swallow 
 
 teoge 
 
 teah 
 
 togen 
 
 tow 
 
 persce 
 
 psersc 
 
 porscen 
 
 thresh 
 
 pringe 
 
 prang 
 
 gebrungen 
 
 throng 
 
 wade 
 
 wod 
 
 waeden 
 
 wade 
 
 wealde 
 
 weold 
 
 gewealden 
 
 wield 
 
STRGXG BECOME WEAK. 269 
 
 275. This list does not include the strong verbs that have 
 altogether died out since Saxon times. It only contains 
 those ancient strong verbs which still exist in the lantniasre 
 under weak forms. The list is of practical utility for 
 reference in reading Chaucer or the Elizabethan writ 
 Many a strong form, now unfamiliar to us, lingers in their 
 pages. The verb mete, to measure, is one that we do not 
 often use at all, for the whole root is, as Webster sa 
 obsolescent. In our Bible it has the weak conjugation, as — 
 
 • A nation meted out and troden downe.' — haiab xvi'i. 2. 
 
 .0 hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand? ar.d meted 
 out heauen with the spanne, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a 
 measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hilles in a ba. . 
 — I aiab xl. 12. 
 
 But in Chapman's Iliad, iii. 327, we find the strong preterite 
 of this verb : — 
 
 ' Then Hector, Priam's martial son, stepp'd forth, and met the ground.' 
 
 In some cases slight relics of the old strong conjugation 
 are still preserved, though the verb itself has gone off into 
 the weak or mixed form. Thus the verb to lose is now 
 declined, lose, lost, lost. But in Saxon it was leose, las. 
 loren : and from this ancient conjugation we have retai:. 
 the participle as an adjective, I .*. Participial!;- 
 
 may be seen as late as Milton, Paradise Lost, x. 921: — 
 
 ' My only strength and stay : forlorn of thee. 
 Whither shall I betake me, where su': 
 
 276. Sometimes old forms long discontinued crop up 
 again. It would appear that diie, dove, is recognised on 
 yonder side of the Atlantic, for it figures not only in the 
 poetry of Longfellow, but also in American prose : — 
 
 ' I know not why, but the whole herd [of walruses^ seemed sudder. 
 take alarm, and all dove down with a tremendous splash almost at the same 
 instant.' Dr. Hayes, Open Polar Sea, ch. xxx 
 
270 THE VERBAL GROUP. 
 
 To set against this gradual defection of strong verbs 
 towards the prevalent form, we rarely find even a slight 
 example of movement in the opposite direction. New verbs 
 are hardly ever added to the ranks of the strong ; whatever 
 verb is invented or borrowed is naturally conjugated after 
 the prevalent pattern. There are a few exceptions to this 
 rule, all the more marked on account of their rarity; such 
 as the Scottish formula of verdict Not proven. Here we 
 have a French verb which has taken the form of a strong 
 Gothic participle. 
 
 Another of this sort is the preterite pled of the French 
 verb to plead, said by Dr. Trench to be one of the many 
 so-called Americanisms that really are old English, as this 
 form appears in Spenser 1 . Not long ago it appeared in an 
 English periodical : — 
 
 ' The well-known story of the presbyter deposed from his office for 
 forging the Acts of Paul and Thecla, although he pled that he had done 
 so from the love of Paul.' — Contemporary Review, April 1869, p. 602. 
 
 The Substantive Verb. 
 
 277. But the member of this class which above all others 
 demands our attention is the substantive verb to be : or 
 rather, the fragments of two or three ancient verbs which 
 join to fill the place of the substantive verb. The 'sub- 
 stantive verb ' is so called, not from any connection with the 
 part of speech called a substantive ; but for a distinct reason. 
 It is the verb which expresses least of all verbs ; for it ex- 
 presses nothing but to have existence. Every other verb 
 implies existence besides that particular thing which it asserts : 
 as if I say / think, I imply that I am in existence, or else 
 I could neither think nor do anything else. The verb 
 substantive, then, is the verb which, unlike all other verbs, 
 
 1 English Past and Present, Seventh Edition, 1870 ; p. 204. 
 
THE SUBSTANTIVE VERB. 27 1 
 
 confines itself to the assertion of existence, which in all other 
 verbs is contained by implication. The Greek word for 
 existence or being was olo-ia, and this was done into Latin 
 by the word substantia, and by this avenue did the verb 
 which predicates nothing but existence come to be named 
 the substantive verb. 
 
 278. It seems so natural and easy to say that a thing is 
 or was or has been, that we might almost incline to fancy the 
 substantive verb to be the oldest and most primitive of verbs. 
 But there is more reason for thinking contrariwise, that it 
 was a mature and comparatively late product of the human 
 mind. The French word e'te for been is not an old word : 
 we know its history. It is derived from stare, the Latin 
 word for standing, as is witnessed by stato, the Italian par- 
 ticiple of the substantive verb. There are other cases in 
 which the substantive verb is of no very obscure origin. 
 We seem to be able to trace our word be, for example, by 
 the help of the Latin//// and the Greek 0uw, to the concrete 
 sense of growing. It has even been thought, and not at all 
 unreasonably, that the stock of our be may be no other than 
 that familiar word for building and dwelling which in Scot- 
 land is to big, in Icelandic is biia, and which appears in the 
 second member of so many of our Danish town-names in 
 the form of by, as Rugby } Whitby. In Icelandic ' biia biii 
 sinu,' is to ' big ane's ain bigging,' i. e. to have one's own 
 homestead 1 . The history of our preterite was seems to 
 point in a like direction. Traces seem to be preserved in 
 the Mceso-Gothic wisan, to abide, sojourn ; compared with 
 the form wizon, to live. In these cases, the concrete sense 
 of growing or standing or building or dwelling, has been as 
 it were washed or worn out of the verb, and nothing left 
 but the pale underlying texture of being. 
 
 1 Icelandic-English Dictionary, Cleasby and Vigfusson, v. Biia. 
 
272 THE VERBAL GROUP. 
 
 279. I one day expressed to an intimate friend my regret 
 that the collectors of vocabularies among savage tribes did 
 not tell us something about the verb ' to be,' and especially 
 I instanced the admirable word-collections of Mr. Wallace. 
 To this conversation I owe the pleasure of being able to 
 quote Mr. Wallace's own observations on this subject in his 
 reply to my friend's query. He says : — 
 
 ' As to such words as " to be," it is impossible to get them in any savage 
 language till you know how to converse in it, or have some intelligent inter- 
 preter who can do so. In most of the languages such extremely general 
 words do not exist, and the attempt to get them through an ordinary inter- 
 preter would inevitably lead to error. . . . Even in such a comparatively 
 high language as the Malay, it is difficult to express " to be " in any of our 
 senses, as the words used would express a number of other things as well, 
 and only serve for " to be" by a roundabout process.' 
 
 From Western Australia, where the natives are forming an 
 intermediate speech for communication with our people, and 
 are converting morsels of English to their daily use, we 
 have the following apposite illustrations : — ' The words get 
 down have been chosen as a synonym for the verb ' to be/ 
 and the first question of a friendly native would be Mamman 
 all right get down ? meaning ' Is father quite well ? ' for, 
 strange to say, Mamman is the native word for father, 
 whilst N-angan or Oongan stands for mother.' And a little 
 further on, after mentioning the native fondness for grease, 
 which they prefer to soap as an abstergent : — ■' A neighbour 
 of ours told me of two natives who presented themselves at 
 her 'door to beg for grease, and who accounted for the 
 dried-up condition of their legs, to which they ruefully 
 pointed, by saying " in jail no grease get down ; ' : the poor 
 fellows having just been liberated from prison, where the 
 authorities had failed to recognise unguents as a substitute 
 for soap V 
 
 1 An Australian Parsonage ; or, the Settler and the Savage in Western 
 Australia. By Mrs. Edward Millett. Loudon: Edward Stanford, 1872. 
 
THE SYMBOL VERB. 2/3 
 
 280. The great master of Oriental philology, Ewald, 
 seems to think that the Hebrew substantive verb iYTl was 
 developed from an ancient root meaning ' to make, prepare.' 
 
 In Sanskrit, as the substantive verb, has been developed 
 from a root signifying to breathe, and it seems probable that 
 this was the original sense of the Greek ?<m, the Latin est, 
 the German ift, and our is. Here we catch a glimpse of 
 the antiquity of our modern languages, and also of the pro- 
 cess by which the most familiar instruments of speech have 
 been prepared for their present use. 
 
 As the presentive noun fades or ripens into the symbol 
 pronoun ; as the pronoun passes into the still more subtle 
 conjunction, — so also do verbs graduate from particular to 
 general use, from such a particular sense as stand or grow 
 or dwell or breathe, to the large and general sense of being. 
 Nor does the trans-animation stop here. 
 
 The Symbol Verb. 
 
 281. It is not when this verb expresses simple existence 
 that it has reached its highest state of refinement. 'When 
 Coleridge said 'God has all the power that is/ he made this 
 verb a predicate of existence. In this case the verb to be 
 has still a concrete function, and is a presentive word : but 
 in its state of highest abstraction it is equally in place in 
 every proposition whatever, and is the purest of symbols. 
 We can express 'John runs' by 'John is running'; and 
 every proposition is capable of being rendered into this 
 form. The verb substantive here exhibits the highest pos- 
 sible form of verbal abstraction, and has become a pure 
 symbol. It is the mere instrument of predication, and con- 
 veys by itself no idea whatever. It is the most symbolic of 
 all the symbolic verbs, and it is symbolised to the utmost 
 that is possible. For it expresses only that which every verb 
 
 T 
 
274 THE VERBAL GROUP. 
 
 must express in order to be a verb, viz. the mental act of 
 judgment. 
 
 Forms of the Substantive- and Symbol- Verb. 
 
 Indicative present am, art, is : are. 
 
 „ past was, wast, was : were. 
 
 Infinitive, imperative, and 
 
 subjunctive present 
 Subjunctive past 
 Participle present 
 „ past 
 
 282. The substantive verb has been more tenacious of its 
 personal forms than our other verbs, and the remarks in the 
 beginning of this chapter about the disuse of the personal 
 forms are less applicable here. Until the fifteenth or six- 
 teenth centuries there was a larger variety of these forms, 
 among which may be specified the N-forms of the third 
 person plural, am and weren. 
 
 The following is from one of the versified precepts of 
 good manners which are so frequent in the literature of the 
 fifteenth century. 
 
 ' Thus God )>at is begynnere & former of aile thyng, 
 In nomber 5 , weyght, & mesure alle )>is world wrought he ; 
 And mesure he taughte us in alle his wise werkis, 
 Ensample by the extremitees J>at vicious arn euer.' 
 
 That is to say, Extremes are always wrong. 
 
 This is, however, a matter of small importance in com- 
 parison with another remark which must here be made. 
 The symbol-verb is not ail of one root, it is a verbal con- 
 jugation made up of several roots. For, not to speak of 
 am, art, and are, it is plain that we have at least the frag- 
 ments of two verbs, whose infinitives in Saxon were beon 
 and wes an. The former lives in our infinitive to be. In 
 
THE VERB ' WORTH.' 275 
 
 German the latter is retained as a neuter noun bci3 SBefert, a 
 word much used for being, existence, substance, essence. It 
 is for the German language, not indeed a substantive-verb, 
 but a ' substantive-noun,' or noun expressive of existence. 
 Also they have from the same source cjeivcfen, the participle 
 of their symbol-verb. 
 
 283. From the Strong verbs there sprang yet another 
 substantive-verb which is now rarely used, and only in 
 poetry. It is the verb worth, to be or become. It belongs 
 to the older form of our language, rather than to modern 
 English. In Saxon it was thus conjugated : weor^an, 
 wear£, geworden. The whole verb is still in full force 
 in German: rrjetfrert, u\itt>, geroorbftt. But with us it was 
 already archaic in Chaucer's time, and it is rarely found in 
 his writings. The participial form occurs in his Troilus and 
 Creseide, where he is saying of love between the sexes, that 
 without it 
 
 'No lifts wiht is worth or may endure.' 
 
 i.e. No living thing has come into being (tft geroorbcn) or can 
 escape extermination. 
 
 In this place it is the participle. But the form in which 
 it is most generally known is the imperative or subjunctive- 
 imperative : as, Wo worth this day ; that is, 'Wo be to this 
 day;' as Ezckicl xxx. 2, and in The Lady of the Lake, — 
 
 ' Woe worth the chase, woe worth the day, 
 That cost thy life, my gallant grey.' 
 
 We find the infinitive worthe in the Tale of Gamelyn : 
 
 4 Cursed mot he worthe bothe fleisch and blood, • 
 That ever do priour or abbot ony good ! ' 
 
 In the following quotation from Pierce the Plonghmans 
 Crede, 744, we have the infinitive twice, and once with the 
 ancient termination : — 
 
 t 2 
 
2j6 THE VERBAL GROUP. 
 
 ' Now mot ich soutere his sone ' setten to schole 
 And ich a beggers brol * on be booke lerne, 
 And worb to a writere ' & wi]> a lorde dwell, 
 Ober falsly to a frere ' be fend for to seruen ! 
 So of bat beggers brol ■ a bychop schal worben, — ' 
 
 Translation. — Now each cobbler may set his son to school, and every 
 beggars brat may learn on the book and become a writer and dwell with 
 a lord; or iniquitously become a friar, the fiend to serve ! So of that 
 beggar's brat, a bishop shall be made, &°c. 
 
 In Shakspeare we find this verb played off against the sub- 
 stantive worth : ' Her worth worth yours ; ' that is, in Latin, 
 ' Ejus meritum fiat vestrum V Measure/or Measure, v. i. 495. 
 
 284. Regarded as a product of human speech, the 
 symbol-verb is very remarkable. The production of this 
 particular word is to the verb-system what the leader is 
 to a tree. Cut it off, and the tree will try to produce 
 another leader. If we could imagine the whole elaborate 
 system of verbs to be utterly abolished from memory 
 and consigned to blank oblivion, insomuch that there re- 
 mained no materials for speech but nouns, pronouns, 
 and the rest, the verb would yet grow again, as surely as a 
 tree when it is cut down (unless it die.) will sprout again. 
 The verb would form itself again, and it would repeat its 
 ancient career, and the topmost product of that career 
 would be as before, the symbol-verb to be. Proof enough 
 of this will be seen in the fact that many roots have in our 
 stock of languages made a run for this position ; and in the 
 further fact that languages whose development has been 
 wide of ours, as the Hebrew, have culminated in the self- 
 same result — the substantive-verb and out of it the symbol- 
 verb. In the third section of the Syntax we shall have to 
 consider this symbol-verb in regard to the effects which it 
 has wrought in the structure of language. 
 
 1 In the edition of Messrs. Clark and Wright, vol. i. p. 387, may be seen 
 the conjectures which this passage has provoked. 
 
ORIGIN OF STRONG FORMS. 277 
 
 So much for the strong verbs and the symbol-verbs which 
 they have produced. 
 
 285. We cannot close this section without a few words of 
 comment. The venerable sire of Gothic philology, Jacob 
 Grimm, has said of the strong preterites that they constitute 
 one of the chief beauties of our family of languages, ' eine 
 Haupt-schonheit unsrer Sprachen.' In this sentiment all 
 philologers seem agreed. 
 
 The question naturally arises, How did so very singular 
 a contrivance come into existence ? The question is put 
 here, not so much for the certainty of the answer that can 
 be given, as for the purpose of directing the student to 
 enquiries which will supply a definite aim to his* more 
 extended investigations. It was surmised by Grimm that 
 the origin of this internal and vocalic change is to be 
 sought in reduplication. He particularly instances the 
 preterite high/, which in the ordinary Saxon form was het 
 but which appears also in the nobler form of hcht, as on the 
 Alfred Jewel : jclfred mec heht gewyrcean, Alfred me 
 ordered make. When to this is added that in Mceso-Gothic 
 the same preterite appears as haihait, it looks as if a re- 
 duplication of the root had by vocalic compensation sim- 
 plified itself into the form he/. The German ging, preterite 
 of the verb go, has again a form which might easily 
 have been produced by a reduplication of the root. But 
 next to heht, there is no example so striking as that of the 
 verb to do, which is strong by its participle done, and yet in 
 its preterite has the appearance of a weak form. It is re- 
 deemed from the appearance of inconsistency by supposing 
 dyde, the Saxon form of did, to be a reduplication of the 
 root do, and so of a piece with the strong preterites, only 
 less altered. That reduplication would have been resorted 
 to in the growth of verbs, as a figure of intensity for the 
 
278 THE VERBAL GROUP. 
 
 expression of past time and acts really done, seems almost 
 as natural as that the same means should have been used 
 to give plurality to nouns. Moreover we have examples in 
 other languages, and we know as a matter of fact that 
 reduplication has been resorted to as a means of expressing 
 past time, in the development both of the Latin and of the 
 Greek verb. Latin instances are didia, poposci, tetigi, pepuli. 
 In Greek the most conspicuous instrument for the expres- 
 sion of past time is reduplication : rervpa, rkrv\x\i.ai ; 7re7roLT)Ka, 
 ire7roLT]fxai ; 7reVpava, ireirpay^ai ; TereXeita, rereXecr^ai. 
 
 286. But while this may explain genetically (as the 
 Germans say) the origin of our strong preterites, it is by no 
 means' sufficient as an account of the state in which they 
 actually appear in the older languages of the Gothic family. 
 The earliest extant forms are not reduplicative, but they 
 shew scattered and impaired examples of reduplication, 
 as it were the relics of an old formation ; and yet these 
 same conjugations are far too highly disciplined for us to 
 be able to regard them as the mere ruin of some antiquated 
 system. Reduplication may indeed have been the principle 
 in an earlier stage, but we ask what was the principle in this 
 particular stage, in which we observe so much* order and 
 regularity. And the answer to this seems to be that the 
 Ablaut succeeded to Reduplication, and supplied a new and 
 vigorous principle of reconstruction. See 124. 
 
 II. Mixed Verbs. 
 
 287. The second class of verbs are those which may con- 
 veniently be called Mixed, because they unite in themselves 
 the characters of the first and third classes. 
 
 Some critics would deny them the distinction of being 
 a class at all. They insist that there are but two principles 
 
77. MIXED VERBS. 
 
 279 
 
 at work in the verb-flexions; namely, internal change and 
 external addition. And this is the fact. But then, the 
 variety of relations in which two systems are ranged may 
 easily give rise to a third series of conditions. When the 
 sun peers through the foliage of an aged oak, it produces 
 on the ground those oval spots of dubious light which the 
 poet has called a mottled shade. Each oval has its own 
 outline, and its own particular degree of luminousness ; but 
 where two of them overlap each other a third condition of 
 light is induced. Such an overlapping is this sample of 
 mixed verbs, a compromise between the strong and the weak. 
 288. In the formation of the preterite, they suffer both 
 internal vowel-change, and also external addition. They 
 form the participle in t or d. Such are the following : — 
 
 PRESENT. 
 
 PRETERITE. 
 
 PARTICIPLE. 
 
 bring 
 
 brought 
 
 brought 
 
 buy 
 
 bought 
 
 bought 
 
 catch 
 
 caught 
 
 caught 
 
 creep 
 
 crept 
 
 crept 
 
 deal 
 
 delt 1 
 
 delt 1 
 
 feel 
 
 felt 
 
 felt 
 
 fetch 
 
 fot 
 
 fought * 
 
 flee 
 
 fled 
 
 fled 
 
 hear 
 
 herd 1 
 
 herd 
 
 keep 
 
 kept 
 
 kept 
 
 kneel 
 
 knelt 
 
 knelt 
 
 lean 
 
 lent 
 
 lent 
 
 leap 
 
 lept 
 
 lept 
 
 leave 
 
 left 
 
 left 
 
 lose 
 
 lost 
 
 lost 
 
 mean 
 
 ment l 
 
 ment 1 
 
 meet 
 
 met 
 
 met 
 
 1 In a few instances, such as dealt, heard, meant, the ordinary spelling has 
 been departed from in order to exhibit to the eve as well as to the ear that 
 there is a change in the internal vowel. 
 
28o 
 
 THE VERBAL GROUP. 
 
 PRESENT. 
 
 PRETERITE. 
 
 PARTICIPLE. 
 
 owe 
 
 ought* 
 
 • • • 
 
 pitch 
 
 pight 
 
 • • * 
 
 reach 
 
 raugh.t 
 
 raught 
 
 [reave] 
 
 reft 
 
 reft 
 
 seek 
 
 sought 
 
 sought 
 
 O 
 
 sell 
 
 sold 
 
 Sold 
 
 shoe 
 
 shod 
 
 shod 
 
 shriek 
 
 shrtght 
 
 • • • 
 
 stfre 
 
 Strrhte = sighed 
 
 . . . 
 
 sleep 
 
 slept 
 
 slept 
 
 Spct, spit 
 
 Spat, spate • 
 
 Spgtt 
 
 stand 
 
 stood 
 
 stood * 
 
 sweep 
 
 swept 
 
 swept 
 
 teach 
 
 taught 
 
 taught 
 
 tell 
 
 told 
 
 told 
 
 think 
 
 thought 
 
 thought 
 
 weep 
 
 wept 
 
 wept 
 
 wot 
 
 wist* 
 
 frtst* 
 
 work 
 
 wrought 
 
 wrought 
 
 Remarks on the Forms signed with an Asterisk. 
 
 289. Fought. It occurs in Congreve's Way of the World, 
 iv. 4, where Sir Wilfull Witwoud says to Millamant — 
 
 ' I made bold to see, to come and know if that how you were disposed 
 to fetch a walk this evening, if so be that I might not be troublesome, I 
 would have fought a walk with you.' — Ed. Tonson, 1 710. 
 
 Ought is historically the preterite of owe. But it is now a 
 preterite only in form : it is a present in its ordinary usage 
 as an auxiliary. The present owe has not accompanied the 
 preterite in its transition to this moral and semi-symbolic 
 use. When the old preterite had deserted the service of the 
 verb owe in its original sense, that verb supplied itself with 
 a new preterite of the modern type, owed. The distinction 
 between ought, the old preterite, and owed, the new pre- 
 terite, is now quite established, and no confusion happens. 
 But the reader of our old poets should observe that ought 
 does duty for both these senses. Here we have it in 
 
2 
 
 REMARKS ON CERTAIN MIXED FORMS. 28 1 
 
 Spenser, in a place where the modern usage would require 
 
 owed: — 
 
 ' Now were they liegmen to this Ladie free, 
 And her knights service ought, to hold of her in fee.' 
 
 The Faery Queene, iii. 1. 44. 
 
 90. Stood. That passing of strong verbs over into the 
 ranks of the weak, which was the subject of remark in 
 the last section, is often due to mere gregariousness, or 
 the common human proneness to follow with the greatest 
 numbers. But here we may quote an instance in which 
 a like change belongs rather to an active than to a passive 
 movement. In the sixteenth century there sprang up the 
 form ' understanded/ and this form associated itself in a 
 marked manner with the contention of the time to have a 
 Bible and Liturgy ' understanded of the people.' Thus 
 a weak form was temporarily substituted for a mixed 
 form, not by way of negligence, but by the emphasis 
 of intellectual self-assertion. 
 
 Wist is sometimes referred to a present / wis. But it is a 
 fair question whether there is or ever was such a verb 
 as / wis. It is in fact almost a metaphysical problem. 
 It is something like the question whether pas and point 
 in French are negative particles or only adverbs. Whether 
 there ever was such a verb as ' I wis ' is such a problem in 
 English philology. Certainly Spenser believed there was, 
 and in the century before him it was believed. It grew 
 out of a change in the aspect of an old adverb gewis 
 (German geftifj to this day) which became a stock word 
 for the close of lines in the form runs, ywis, I ivis, I 
 wiss; and then the preterite wist helped out the gram- 
 matical conception that it was a verb. 
 
 2i£ttSt the participle is more rare : it occurs in the phrase 
 ' had I wist', for which see below, chap. xi. sect. iii. 
 
 291. These verbs are a still less numerous class than the 
 former ; and they do not admit of addition to their numbers 
 any more than the strong verbs. They would seem to have 
 been mostly the growth of a limited period; that, namely, 
 
282 THE VERBAL GROUP. 
 
 wherein the transition of habit was taking place from the 
 strong to the weak methods of conjugation. 
 
 But, insignificant as this class is in point of numbers, it 
 contains within it a small batch of verbs of very high im- 
 portance. It contains all those verbs which are commonly 
 known as Auxiliaries. And these are little less than the 
 whole remainder of symbolic verbs, after the two already 
 mentioned in the previous section, which may be called the 
 primary symbol verbs, namely, be and worth. The very fact 
 of so well-marked a group of words being contained within 
 this division of Mixed Verbs, is some justification of the 
 division. The help-verbs are seen to be an ancient group 
 from the fact that they hold (for the most part) the same 
 place in the German and other branches of our family as 
 they do in our English language. 
 
 can 
 
 could 
 
 dare 
 
 durst 
 
 mav 
 
 might 
 
 mote 
 
 moste, must 
 
 shall 
 
 should 
 
 will 
 
 would 
 
 These verbs, it will be seen, are destitute of partici- 
 ples; and this is merely because they have dropped off 
 through disuse. In like manner, and from the same cause, 
 few of them have infinitives. Indeed, none of them have 
 infinitives of symbolic use. As symbolics, it has been their 
 function to serve the participles and infinitives of other verbs, 
 and to have none of their own. 
 
 292. We can indeed say 'to will* and 'to dare'; but in 
 neither instance would the sense or the tone of the word be 
 the same as when we say, ' it will rain/ or ' I dare say/ So 
 completely has the sense of dare-ing evaporated from the 
 latter auxiliary, that ' I dare say ' is a different thing from 
 
A UXIL1ARIES. 283 
 
 1 1 dare to say.' The latter might be negatived by ' I dare 
 not to say ' ; but ' I dare not say ' would not be the just 
 negative of ' I dare say/ In that expression, the verb 
 'dare' has lost its own colour, and it is infused into 'say. 3 
 And therefore the two often merge by symphytism into one 
 word, as in the following, from a newspaper report of a 
 public speech : — 
 
 * I daresay you have heard of the sportsman who taught himself to shoot 
 steadily by loading for a whole season with blank cartridge only.' 
 
 These verbs are all called bv the common title of aux- 
 iliaries ; yet there is a gradation of quality in them, which is 
 to be measured by their relative retention of presentive 
 power. 
 
 293. Will has still a good deal. Will thou have, &c. ? 
 I Willi 
 
 This verb in its presentive sense retains a pair of old 
 flexional forms which are never found in the symbolic sense. 
 These are wiliest, willeth. ' God willeth Samuel to yield 
 unto the importunity of the people ' (1 Sam. viii, Contents); 
 ' It is not of him that willeth ' (Rom. ix. 16). 
 
 ' Wiliest be asked, and thou shalt answer then.' 
 
 Frederic W. H. Myers, St. Paul. 
 
 This verb has also an infinitive as, ' to will and to do ' ; 
 and in this respect differs from the more highly symbolic 
 shall, of which an infinitive was never heard in our lan- 
 guage. We see in the verb will the graduated movement 
 from the presentive to the symbolic state. 
 
 And not unfrequently this gradation is played upon, as in 
 the following dialogue : — 
 
 ' Cres. Doe you thinke I will ? 
 Troy. No, but something may be done that we wil not.' 
 
 Shakspeare, Troylus and Cressida, iv. 4. 91. 
 
284 THE VERBAL GROUP. 
 
 294. May has long been without an infinitive, but there 
 was one as late as the sixteenth century, in the form mowe. 
 An example may be seen above, 71 ; and in the Secret In- 
 structions from Henry VII respecting the young Queen of 
 Naples : — 
 
 ' And to knowe the specialties of the title and value therof in every behalf 
 as nere as they shall mowe.' — National Manuscripts, Part I, 20 Hen. VII. 
 
 Can originally meant 'to know/ and in this presentive 
 sense we meet with an infinitive which appears as konne in 
 the fourteenth, and as to con in the fifteenth century. 
 
 ' Thanne seyde Melibe, I shal nat konne answere vn to so manye reasons 
 as ye putten to me & shewen.' — Chaucer, Tale of Melibeus. 
 
 ' To mine well-beloved son, I greet you well, and advise you to think once 
 of the day of your father's counsel to learn the law, for he said many times 
 that whosoever should dwell at Paston, should have need to con [i.e. know 
 how to] defend himself.' — Paston Letters, Letter x. (a.d. 1444-5). 
 
 The French equivalent for this con would be savoir, and 
 in fact the English auxiliary can, could, is largely an imitation 
 of that French verb. 
 
 295. Some auxiliaries have become obsolete. Such is 
 mote the present, of which must is the preterite. It lingered 
 till recent times as a formula of wishing well or ill, and 
 indeed an extant example has been given above, at 210, 
 note. Its place has now been taken by may. 
 
 In a ballad on the Battle of Flodden Field, a.d. 1513, 
 this benison is bestowed on the Earl of Surrey : — 
 
 ' In the myddyll warde was the Erie of Surre} r , 
 Ever more blessyd mote thowe be ; 
 The ffadyr of witte, well call him we may ; 
 The debite [deputy] most trusty of Englond was he.' 
 
 296. Gan is quite extinct : it was used as now we use did, 
 and was probably extinguished by the preference for the 
 latter. This auxiliary must not be too closely associated 
 with the more familiar word began. The latter is a* com- 
 
HELP-VERBS. 285 
 
 pound of gan, but the sense of commencing is the property 
 of the compound rather than of the root. 
 
 ' Of a wryght I wylle you telle 
 That some tyme in thys land gan dwelle.' 
 
 The Wryght 's Chaste Wife (ad. 1 460). 
 
 297. Let in early times signified the causation of some 
 action. Thus it is said of William the Conqueror by the 
 vernacular historian that he ' let speer out ' all the property 
 of the country so narrowly that there was never a rood of 
 land or a cow or a pig that was not entered in his book — 
 ' swa swy¥e nearwelice he hit lett ut aspyrian 1 .' This ' let' is 
 a very different thing from the light symbol now in use, as 
 when one says to a friend, ' Will you let your servant bring 
 my horse?' To this levity of symbolism it had already 
 arrived in the Elizabethan era : — 
 
 'Let Gryll be Gryll, and have his hoggish niinde; 
 But let us hence depart whilest wether serves and winde. 
 
 The Faery Queetie, Bk. ii. end. 
 
 298. There are two verbs of a character so peculiar that 
 they are for distinction sake reserved to a place at the end 
 of this section of mixed verbs. The first is the verb which, 
 though common to German and the other dialects, is yet 
 in one sense peculiar to English, namely as an auxiliary. 
 Speaking generally, we share our auxiliaries with the rest of 
 the Gothic family, but there is one all our own. It is do, 
 did, done. The peculiarity of its form has been touched on 
 at the close of the former section. 
 
 This symbolic verb has already been treated above, 242 : 
 here it only remains to observe its twofold character (1) as 
 an auxiliary, in which use it has no participle, and (2) as a 
 general substitute or representative verb, in which it is com- 
 plete in all parts. In both characters it has acquired its 
 
 1 Two Saxon Chronicles Parallel, p. 218. 
 
286 THE VERBAL GROUP. 
 
 peculiar place in our language through imitation of the 
 French faire. 
 
 299. The other is the verb get, got, got, which is a more 
 peculiarly English auxiliary, and is singular in this respect, 
 that its participle has an auxiliary function ; and further, it 
 is remarkable for that which it expresses, as it gives to the 
 English language a Middle Voice, or a power of verbal ex- 
 pression which is neither active nor passive. Thus we say 
 to get acquitted, beaten, confused, dressed, elected, frightened, 
 killed, married, offended, qualified, respected, shaved, washed. 
 This is an instance of a mixed verb that has detached itself 
 from the ranks of the strong verbs, where we must continue to 
 retain in its due place the elder conjugation — get, gat, gotten. 
 
 300. The power of expression which our language 
 possesses by means of the auxiliaries has sometimes been 
 undervalued. The great proportion of attention which men 
 of learning have devoted to the inflected languages, has pre- 
 vented our own verbal system from receiving the appreci- 
 ation which is due to it. The following quotation from 
 Southey may not unfitly close this section. 
 
 ' I had spoken as it were abstractedly, and the look which accompanied 
 the words was rather cogitative than regardant. The Bhow Begum laid 
 down her snuff-box and replied, entering into the feeling as well as echoing 
 the words, " It ought to be written in a book, — certainly it ought." 
 
 ' They may talk as they will of the dead languages. Our auxiliary verbs 
 give us a power which the ancients, which all their varieties of mood and 
 inflections of tense, never could attain. " It must be written in a book," 
 said I, encouraged by her manner. The mood was the same, the tense was 
 the same ; but the gradation of meaning was marked in a way which a 
 Greek or Latin grammarian might have envied as well as admired.' — The 
 Doctor, ch. vii. A. I. 
 
 III. Weak Verbs. 
 
 301. The third class of verbs are those which form both 
 their preterite and their participle by the addition of -ed, as 
 / hope, I hoped, I have hoped. In some verbs it takes the 
 
III. WEAK VERBS. 
 
 287 
 
 form of changing d into t, as send, sent ; wend, went ; bend, 
 dent. We must consider this NT as a commutation for ndade, 
 or, as it was sometimes written, nde ; modern -nded. The pre- 
 terite of the Saxon sendan was not sendade but sende. This 
 condensed formation takes place not only with verbs in -nd 
 but also with those in -ld and -rd. 
 
 Other modes of condensation are used, as made, short for 
 maked, Saxon macode. 
 
 These succinct forms of the weak verb must not lead to 
 a confusion with either of the foregoing classes. Most of 
 them are contained in the following list : — 
 
 PRESENT. 
 
 PRETERITE. 
 
 PARTICIPLE. 
 
 bend 
 
 bent f 
 
 bent 
 
 bleed 
 
 bled 
 
 bled 
 
 breed 
 
 bred 
 
 bred 
 
 build 
 
 built t 
 
 built 
 
 clothe 
 
 cladf 
 
 clad 
 
 feed 
 
 fed 
 
 fed 
 
 gild 
 
 giltf 
 
 gilt 
 
 gird 
 
 girt t 
 
 girt 
 
 have 
 
 had 
 
 had 
 
 lay 
 
 laid 
 
 laid 
 
 lead 
 
 latl,* led 
 
 glatJ,* led 
 
 learn 
 
 learnt f 
 
 learnt t 
 
 lend 
 
 lent 
 
 lent 
 
 light 
 
 lit . 
 
 lit 
 
 make 
 
 made 
 
 made 
 
 pen 
 
 pent 
 
 pent 
 
 read 
 
 ■ * a 
 
 rei* 
 
 rend 
 
 rent 
 
 rent 
 
 send 
 
 sent 
 
 sent 
 
 speed 
 
 sped 
 
 sped 
 
 spend 
 
 spent 
 
 spent 
 
 spill 
 
 spilt 
 
 spilt 
 
 wend 
 
 went i" 
 
 went* 
 
 Those which are 
 
 marked with a 
 
 dagger have als 
 
 form in -ed. 
 
 
 
288 
 
 THE VERBAL GROUP. 
 
 Remarks on the Forms signed with an Asterisk. 
 
 302. lat). Spenser, Faery Queene, iv. 8. 2. 
 
 glat). Chaucer, Prologue, 532. 
 
 ret). Spenser, Faery Queene, iv. 8. 29. 
 
 went. This participle is provincial, and very widely spread — I 
 know not how wide. I should say that 'to have gone' is 
 literary English, and that the popular form almost everywhere 
 is ' to have went.' Certainly it is so in the west. Those 
 who still travel by the highways will know the sound of this, 
 — ' You should have went on the other side of the road.' 
 
 303. Of the usual form of the weak verb it will not be 
 necessary to give many examples. They are all of the 
 following pattern, and the list is alphabetic, to intimate the 
 indefiniteness of their extent. 
 
 PRESENT. 
 
 PRETERITE and PARTICIPLE. 
 
 allow 
 
 allowed 
 
 believe 
 
 believed 
 
 change 
 
 changed 
 
 defend 
 
 defended 
 
 educate 
 
 educated 
 
 figure 
 
 figured 
 
 germinate 
 
 germinated 
 
 happen 
 
 happened 
 
 injure 
 
 injured 
 
 joke 
 
 joked 
 
 kindle 
 
 kindled 
 
 laugh 
 
 laughed 
 
 mention 
 
 mentioned 
 
 oil 
 
 oiled 
 
 present 
 
 presented 
 
 question 
 
 questioned 
 
 revere 
 
 revered 
 
 succeed 
 
 succeeded 
 
 tarnish 
 
 tarnished 
 
 utter 
 
 uttered 
 
 vacillate 
 
 vacillated 
 
 wonder 
 
 wondered 
 
 yield 
 
 yielded 
 
REACTION. 289 
 
 304. To this third class belongs the bulk of English verbs. 
 It is regarded as the youngest form of verbal inflection, from 
 the relation in which we find it standing towards the two 
 classes previously described. It is the only verbal inflection 
 which can be properly said to be in a living and active state, 
 because it applies to new words ; whereas the others cannot 
 make new verbs after their own pattern. There is a constant 
 tendency of the strong and mixed verbs to fall into the 
 forms of the weak, but no corresponding movement in the 
 reverse direction. 
 
 There is, however, what may at first sight look like it — 
 there is a recoil movement. Writers of the last century 
 went further in the translation of strong verbs into weak 
 forms than the sense of the nation has approved, and conse- 
 quently there are in the literature of the eighteenth century 
 many weak forms like the following, where we should now 
 use the strong or mixed form : — 
 
 shaked. 
 
 ' The very point I shaked my head at.' — Richard Steele, Spectator, 
 March c, 1711. 
 
 meaned. 
 
 ' The sovereign meaned Charles, Duke of Somerset.' ' The patriots 
 meaned to make the king odious.' — Horace Walpole, Royal and Noble 
 A utbors. 
 
 crceped. 
 
 1 Perhaps some secret animosities, naturally to be expected in that situation, 
 had creeped in among the great men, and had enabled the king to recover 
 his authority.' — Hume, History 0/ England, ch. xvii. 
 
 305. While we consider this to be the most recent of our 
 verbal inflections, it is of high antiquity nevertheless. It is 
 common to all the dialects of our family, and in the oldest 
 monuments it is already established. But whatever tokens 
 of antiquity it may boast, the single fact that it has produced 
 
 u 
 
29O THE VERBAL GROUP. 
 
 no symbolic verb seems to place it far in the rear of the 
 two previous classes. 
 
 The d of the weak conjugation has been explained as a 
 relic of the verb do, did) as if hoped were a condensation of 
 hope-did \ After what has been said at the close of each of 
 the previous sections, it would seem as if this verb do, did, 
 were about to claim a great place as the bridge which unites 
 the three sorts of conjugation. Should this theory be con- 
 firmed, the thread of continuity which unites our verbal 
 system, is discovered. And even if it should prove un- 
 tenable, it will not have been without its use, as temporarily 
 representing the kind of link which philology teaches us to 
 look for between the various formations of which language 
 is composed. 
 
 IV. Verb-making. 
 
 It has been shewn at 216 that the English language can 
 turn a noun or any other word into a verb, and use it as a 
 verb, without any alteration to the form of the word, such 
 as would be caused by the addition of a verbal formative. 
 This does not hinder, however, but that there always have 
 been verbal formatives in the language, and that the number 
 and variety of these is from time to time increased. By 
 Verbal Formative is meant any addition to a word, whether 
 prefix or suffix, which stamps that word as a verb independ- 
 ently of a context. 
 
 Such is the suffix -en, by means of which, from the sub- 
 stantives height, haste, length, strength, are formed the verbs 
 heighten, hasten, tengthen, strengthen. From the adjectives 
 bright, deep, fast, quick, short, wide, tight, are formed the 
 
 1 Science of Language, by Max Mnller, M.A., 1861, p. 219. 
 
VERB-MAKING. 20,1 
 
 verbs brighten, deepen, fasten, quicken, shorten, widen, tighten. 
 Other examples of this formation are — broaden (Tennyson), 
 christen, frighten, glisten, harden, lighten, madden, sicken, 
 slacken. This verbal formative n is of Saxon antiquity ; but 
 it is quite separate and distinct from the Saxon infinitive 
 form -an. 
 
 306. Such again is the prefix be-, by means of which, 
 from the substantives head, friend, tide, are formed the verbs 
 behead, befriend, betide. This formative is still in operation, 
 but is less active than it formerly was. It enters into sixty- 
 six different verbs in Shakspeare, as appears in Mrs. Cowden 
 Clarke's Complete Concordance. They are the following : — 
 bechance, become, befal, befit, befriend, beget, begin, be gnaw, be- 
 grime, beguile, behave, behead, behold, behove, behowl, belie, 
 believe, belong, belove ('more beloving than beloved' Ant. and 
 Chop. i. 2), bemad, bemete, bemoan, bemock, bemoil, bepaint, 
 bequeath, berattle, bereave, berhyme, beseech, beseek, beseem, beset, 
 beshrew, besiege, beslubber, besmear, besmirch, besort, besot, be- 
 speak, bespice, beslain, bestead, beslill, bestir, bestow, bestraught, 
 besireiv, bestride, betake, In teem, In think, be thump, betide, betoken, 
 beloss, betray, betrim, betroth, bewail) beweep, bewet, bewitch, 
 bewray. 
 
 307. Such again is the prefix ////-, by means of which 
 other words are made beside verbs, as the substantives and 
 adjectives unfa liever, unjust, unmeet, Sec. ; yet it is also a verbal 
 formative because it transforms other words into verbs which 
 even without a context cannot be regarded as being any- 
 thing else than verbs. Examples : — unfrock, untie, unlink, 
 unlock. 
 
 308. The above examples of verbal formatives are all 
 genuine natives : the next two are after French models. 
 
 The prefix en- is not only adopted with the French verbs 
 in which it is embodied, as encroach, enhance ; but it also has 
 
 u 2 
 
292 THE VERBAL GROUP. 
 
 been used by us to make new verbs, and still is so used, as 
 in the following line : — 
 
 ' Encharnelled in their fatness, men that smile, — ' 
 
 Frederick W. H. Myers, St. John the Baptist. 
 
 The suffix -fy is taken from those French words which end 
 in -fier, after Latin verbs ending in -facere. Examples : — 
 beatify, beautify, codify, deify, dignify, dulcify, edify, electrify, 
 horrify, modify, mollify, mortify, nullify \ qualify, ratify, satisfy, 
 scarify, stultify, unify. 
 
 dulcify. 
 
 ' He never condescended to anything like direct flattery ; but he felicitously 
 hit upon the topic which he knew would tickle the amotir propre of those 
 whom he wished to dulcify.' — Lord Campbell, Life of Lord Lyndhurst, 1869. 
 
 309. The verbal formative -ate is from the Latin par- 
 ticiple passive of the first conjugation : as aestimatus, valued. 
 Examples '.-^abdicate, captivate, decimate, eradicate, estimate, 
 exculpate, expostulate, indicate, invalidate, liquidate, mitigate, 
 nominate, operate, postulate, venerate. 
 
 310. The above formatives are of great standing in the 
 language ; but that which we have now to mention, the 
 formative -ize, is comparatively modern. It occurs in 
 Shakspeare, as tyrannize in King fohn, v. 7. 47; partialize, 
 in King Richard II, i. 1. 120; monarchize, Id. iii. 2. 165, 
 but was not in general use until the time of the living gene- 
 ration. This is a formative which we have identified with 
 the Greek verbs in -ifci* Examples : — advertize, anathe- 
 matize, a?iato??iize, cauterize, christianize, deodorize, evangelize, 
 fraternize, getieralize, macadamize, monopolize, patronize, phi- 
 losophize, soliloquize, subsidize, symbolize, sympathize, systematize, 
 utilize. 
 
 These verbs have been multiplied indefinitely in our day, 
 partly in consequence of their utility for scientific expression, 
 and partly from the fact that about twenty years ago it 
 
-IZE OR -ISE. 293 
 
 became a toy of University-men to make verbs in -ize about 
 all manner of things. A walk for the sake of bodily exercise 
 having been called a ' constitutional,' the verb constitution- 
 alize was soon formed thereupon. It was then caught up in 
 country homes, and young ladies who helped the parson in 
 any way were said to parochialize. A. H. Clough, when 
 engaged on his edition of Plutarch's Lives in English, used 
 to report progress to his correspondents by saying that he 
 devoted so much of his time to Plutarchizing. 
 
 311. Many of these verbs are now more commonly 
 written with -ise than with -ize. That is to say, we are met 
 here again, as in so many other passages of our language, 
 with that quiet unnoticed French influence. Here it will 
 probably prove stronger than Greek, and recover that tenure 
 which the Greek sentiment has long had in quiet possession. 
 
 This form may be regarded as Greek, in compliance with 
 the view that has been established and consciously acted 
 upon for a long time past. But though it has now acquired 
 a right to be called a Greek form, it does not follow that the 
 first suggestion of it was due to the Greek language. Para- 
 doxical as it may sound, it is nevertheless true, that words 
 have the singular power of effecting a change of ancestry. 
 As regards the present case, reason will be given in the next 
 chapter for supposing that this ' Greek form ' had at its first 
 beginning a French origin. 
 
 312. The English verbs present so great a variety of age 
 and featuring, that they may as a whole be compared to a 
 venerable pile of buildings, which have grown by successive 
 additions through a series of centuries. One spirit animates 
 the whole, and gives it a unity of thought in the midst of the 
 most striking diversities. The later additions are crude and 
 harsh as compared with the more ancient — a fact which is 
 partly due to the mellowing effect of age, and partly also 
 
294 THE VERBAL GROUP, 
 
 to the admission of strange models. In our speech, as well 
 as in our architecture, we are now sated with the classic 
 element, and we are turning our eyes back with curiosity 
 and interest to what was in use before the revival of letters, 
 and before the renaissance of classic art. 
 
 Except that the verbs require not their hundreds, but 
 their thousands of years, to be told off when we take count of 
 their development, we might offer this as a fitting similitude. 
 They are indeed variously featured, and bearing the cha- 
 racters of widely differing ages, and they are united only in 
 a oneness of purpose ; and by reason of these characters I 
 have used the collective expression which is at the head of 
 this chapter, and designated them as The Verbal Group. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE NOUN-GROUP. 
 
 313. We are now come to the backbone of our subject. 
 The relation of the verb to the noun may be figured not 
 unaptly by calling the verb the headpiece, and the noun 
 the backbone. 
 
 When we say the noun, we mean a group of words which 
 comprise no less than the whole essential presentives of the 
 language. In grammars they are ordinarily divided into 
 three groups, the substantive, the adjective, and the adverb. 
 We call these the presentives, and they will be found pre- 
 cisely co-extensive with that term. It is true that mam 
 verbs are presentive, and this may seem a difficulty. More 
 verbs are presentive than are not. But it is no part of the 
 quality of a verb to be presentive ; if it is presentive, that 
 circumstance is a mere accident of its material condition. 
 On the other hand all the words which we shall include in 
 the noun-group are essentially presentive, and they constitute 
 the store of presentive words of the language. 
 
 When verbs are presentive, they are so precisely in pro- 
 portion to the amount of nounal stuff that is mixed up in 
 their constitution. For we must regard the verbs — always 
 excepting the symbolic verbs, that is, verbs which in whole 
 or in part have shed their old nounal coat — simply as nouns 
 raised to an official position in the mechanism of the sen- 
 tence, and qualified for their office by receiving a predicative 
 power. 
 
2g6 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 314. As the verb is most retentive of antiquity, and as it 
 therefore offers the best point of comparison with other 
 languages of the same Gothic stock, so, on the side of 
 the noun we may say that it exhibits best the stratifica- 
 tion of the language. By which is meant, that the traces of 
 the successive influences which have passed over the national 
 mind have left on the noun a continuous series of deposits, 
 and that it is here we can most plainly read off the history 
 and experiences of the individual language. The verb will 
 tell us more of comparative philology ; but the noun will tell 
 more of the particular philology of the English language. 
 
 Under the title then of the Noun-Group three parts of 
 speech are included — the Substantive, the Adjective, and the 
 Adverb. For all these are in fact nouns under different 
 aspects. 
 
 This chapter will consist of three sections corresponding 
 to these three parts of speech. 
 
 I. Of the Substantive. 
 
 315. The chief forms are derived from the Saxon, the 
 French, the Latin, and the Greek languages. The Saxon 
 forms are generally to be found extant in one or more of 
 the cognate dialects, such as the Icelandic, the Dutch, the 
 German, the Danish, the Swedish ; but substantives will not 
 be found to unite the languages in one consent so often as 
 the strong verbs. 
 
 Saxon Forms. 
 
 The oldest group consists of short words, mostly found in 
 the cognate dialects, which have no distinguishable suffix or 
 formative attached to them, or whose formative is now 
 
THREEFOLD DIVISION. 
 
 297 
 
 obscured by deformation. The bulk of this class is mono- 
 syllabic, not so much by origin as by condensation. Thus 
 lord was in Saxon hlaf-ord, and soul was sawul. Some- 
 times both long and short forms are preserved, as wagon 
 and wain. 
 
 Examples : — ash, awe, badge, bear, bed, bee, bier, bliss, boat, 
 borough, bread, breast, bride, buck, calf, chin, cloth, corn, cow, 
 craft, day, deal, deed, deer, doom, door, down (on a peach), 
 drink, drone, ear, earth, east, edge, elm, eye, fat (vessel), field, 
 fish, flesh, flood, fly, foe, fold, foot, frog, frost, furze, ghost, 
 goat, God, goose, glass, gnat, ground, guest, hand, harp, head, 
 heap, heart, herd, hill, hood, hoof, horse, hound, house, ice, ivy, 
 keel, knave, knee, k/r'ghl. knot, lamb, land, laugh, leaf, Lent, life, 
 lord, lore, louse, love, lust, man, mark, meed, mist, mood, moon, 
 mouse, mouth, neat (cattle), need, nest, net, north, nose, oak, oath, 
 ox, path, pith, rake, ram, rest, rick, rind ring, roof, rope, salve, 
 sap, scar, sea, seal (phoca), seed, shame, share, sheaf, shears, 
 sheep, shield, ship, shire, shoe, sin, skin, skull, smith, son, song, 
 sough, soul, south, speed, staff, stall, star, steer, stone, stock, 
 stow, stream, sun, swine, sword, thief, thing, tide, tongue, tooth, 
 town, tree, wain, way, wear, well, west, wether, whale, wheel, 
 whelp, while, wife, will, wind, wold, wolf, womb, wood, -word, 
 
 zvorld, worm, yard, rear, yoke. 
 
 These we may regard as Simple words, that is to say, 
 words in which we cannot see more than one element 
 unless we mount higher than the biet of the present treatise. 
 From these we pass on to others in which we begin to 
 recognise formative traces, that is, something of terminations 
 as distinct from the body of the words. 
 
 316. The first group consists of those in which the 
 termination is a mere letter or syllable of which we can give 
 no further account ; but only notice the obscure appearance 
 of a formative value. 
 
298 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 Forms in -l : — awl, bubble, bushel, churl, cradle, earl, evil, 
 fowl, girdle, kirtle, nail, sail segel, settle a bench, sickle, 
 skittle, snaffle, snail snegel, soul, shovel, spittle, thimble, tile. 
 
 Forms in -m : — arm, barm, beam, bosom, fathom, helm, 
 qualm, seam. 
 
 Forms in -n: — beacon, brain braegen, burden, chicken, 
 heaven, maiden, *main A. S. msegen, strength, rain, raven, 
 steven Chaucer, thane A.S. begen, token, wagon, weapon, 
 welkin A.S. wolcen. 
 
 Forms in r : — acre A. S. aecer, brother, cock-chafer, daugh- 
 ter, father, feather, finger, leather, liver, mother, sister, stair 
 stseger, summer, tear, thunder, timber, water, winter, wonder. 
 
 317. Forms in t : — bight, blight, fight, gift, height, light, 
 might, right, sight, thought, wight, yeast. 
 
 bight. 
 
 ' Cross-examination resumed. — " I got the bight of the handkerchief 
 behind the boy's head, and laid hold of the two corners of it. All this time 
 prisoner was trying, as well as I, to get the boy in. I was lying down and 
 so was prisoner, reaching across the water." ' 
 
 Forms in th : — breadth, growth, length, lewth Devon, ruth, 
 spilth Shakspeare, stealth, strength, troth, truth, width. 
 
 Here also belongs math in Tennyson's ' after-math,' from 
 the verb to mow. 
 
 Faith is one of these, which was formed upon the French 
 foi, anglicised/^. These two words went on for a long 
 time together, with a tolerably clear distinction of sense. 
 Fey meant religious belief, creed, as in the exclamation By 
 my fey ! while faith signified the moral virtue of loyalty 
 or fidelity : and this signification it still bears in the phrase 
 in good faith. 
 
 318. In -ing ; as king A. S. cyning, shilling, and the 
 Saxon execrative nithing: and also those which in Saxon 
 end in -ung, as blessing bletsung. 
 
SUBSTANTIVES — SAXON FORMS. 299 
 
 twinkling. 
 ' In a moment, in the twykelynge of an y3e.' — Wiclif, I Cor. xv. 52. 
 
 This -ing was the formative of the Saxon patronymic, as 
 1 JElfred /Ebelwulfing', Alfred the son of JSthelwulf; '^Ebel- 
 wulf waes Ecgbryhting/ yEthelwulf was son of Ecgbryht. 
 
 The old Saxon title jE^eling, for the Crown Prince, was 
 thus formed, as it were the son of the JE^el or Estate. About 
 the year 1300, Robert of Gloucester considered this word 
 as needing an explanation : — 
 
 ' Ac pe gode tryw men of be lond wolde abbe ymade kyng 
 pe kunde eyr, pe 3onge chyld, Edgar Apelyng. 
 Wo so were next kyng by kunde, me clupep hym Athelyng. 
 Fervor me clupedr hym so, vor by kunde he was next kyng.' 
 
 Ed. Hearne, i. 354. 
 
 Translation. — But the good true men of the land would have made king 
 the natural heir, the young Chyld, Edgar Atheling. Wboso were next kin* 
 by birthright, men call him Atheling : therefore men called him so, for by 
 birth he was next king. 
 
 In some of these instances we see -ing added to words 
 ending in l ; and as. this repeatedly happened, there arose 
 from the habitual association of this termination with that 
 letter a new and distinct formative in -ling, as darling, 
 firstling, gosling, hireling, nestlings stripling, starveling, 
 tinder ling. 
 
 comlyng. 
 
 '\/"ii 
 
 ' Hyt semep a gret wondur houj Englysch |>at ys be burp-tonge of 
 Englyschemen -j here oune longage ~j tonge ys so dyvers of soon in bis 
 ylond, -) the longage of Normandy ys comlyng of ai/oper lond. ~\ hap on 
 manere soon among al men pat spekcb hyt ary3t in Engelonde.' — John 
 Trevisa, Higdens Polychronicon, a.d. 1 387. 
 
 weakling, 
 
 o 
 
 ' His baptisme was hastned tn prevent his death, all looking on him as a 
 weakling, which would post to the grave.' — Thomas Fuller, Franciscus 
 Junius in 'Abel Redivivus,' 165 1. 
 
 Even this secondary formative is of high antiquity, and its 
 
300 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 standing in our language is only imperfectly indicated by 
 the observation that it is in German as in English far more 
 frequent than its primary in -ing. The word silverling, in 
 Isaiah vii. 23, is after Luther's (Stfljerling. 
 
 319. In -ere, bcecere, baker ; and boceras, for the Scribes 
 in the Gospels, literally bookers. From this source we have 
 also ale-conner, binder, dealer, ditcher, fiddler, fisher, fowler, 
 grinder, harper, hater, listener, miller, -monger, runner, skipper, 
 walker, Webber. 
 
 The above terminations are of very high antiquity, and we 
 can give no account of them as separate and independent 
 words. It is otherwise with those of the next group, -ness, 
 -dom, -hood, -lock, -rick, -red, -ship. We know the meaning 
 which each of them had in its separate state. 
 
 320. -ness is the only exception, if indeed it is one. There 
 is a well-known word of this form which means a projec- 
 tion, promontory, point of termination, headland. Thus in 
 Beowulf 444, the forelands at sea are called sce-ncessas, or 
 sea-nesses; and many a headland on our coast has still 
 Ness attached to it, or some variety of that word: e.g. 
 Denge Ness, Caithness, Foulness, Furness, The Naze, Nash 
 Point. 
 
 It is hardly possible to imagine a bolder figure, or one 
 more apt to convey the idea of abstraction, than that which 
 presents the concrete as elongated to a tapering point. And 
 I apprehend that some such a conception is evidenced 
 by the wide acceptance of this termination. Its mechanical 
 origin indeed seems to have been analogous to that of -ling. 
 In the Mceso-Gothic Lord's Prayer (15) we see thiudin-assus , 
 and here the formative is assus. The frequency of a similar 
 contact with n seems first to have made ness a formative ; 
 but its attraction proved so powerful that it everywhere 
 superseded the pure form. Such a diversion intimates that 
 
SUBSTANTIVES — SAXON FORMS. 30 1 
 
 the new form approved itself to the mind of the speakers, 
 and brought more satisfaction than the old. Grimm bewails 
 this seduction of the speech-genius from the true path ; but 
 he admits that the error, as he calls it, pervades the earliest 
 Old High German remains. The avidity of this acceptance 
 I explain by reference to Ness a headland. That particular 
 explanation may or may not be the real one ; but these 
 transitions do not take place without some such mental 
 connivance, though the mind be little conscious of its part. 
 This formative is unknown in the Scandinavian lan- 
 
 guages. 
 
 Examples : — carelessness, consciousness, darkness, goodness, 
 heaviness, indebtedness, meanness, peaceableness, readiness, sup- 
 pleness, usefulness, weariness, wilderness, witness. 
 
 Illustrations : — 
 
 highmindedness, dejeetedness, contentedness. 
 
 ' He that cannot abound without pride and highmindedness, will not 
 
 want without too much dejectedness Frame a sufficiency out of 
 
 contentedness.' — Richard Sibbe>, Soul's Conflict, ch. x. 
 
 coniposedness. 
 ' Spiritual composedness and sabbath of spirit.'— Id. 
 
 everlastingness. 
 
 1 But felt through all this fleshly dre-. 
 Bright shoots of everlastingness.' 
 
 Henry Vaughan (162 1 — 1695"), The Retreat. 
 
 darknesses. 
 
 ' Glorious in His darknesses.' — Jeremy Taylor, Life of Christ, vol. ii. 
 p. 59 ; Heber's ed. 
 
 carelessness. 
 
 * The sole explanation of incongruities in Shakespeare is to be found, I 
 believe, in that sublime carelessness which is characteristic of the genius of 
 this wonderful man.' — Sir Henry Holland, Recollections of Past Life, ch. ix. 
 
 321. There has been a period since the seventeenth 
 
302 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 century in which this formative has been less in vogue, 
 whilst the Latin ration has prevailed; but the emulation 
 between rival forms is often smoothed into co-operation, in 
 a language that loves the breadth of duplicate expression. 
 Thus we see -ness and -ation yoked amicably together, as — 
 
 ' More studious of unity and concord than of innovations and new-fangle- 
 ness.' — Common Prayer, Of Ceremonies. 
 
 There is however a certain power of humour which is 
 peculiar to -ness : — 
 
 ' What an unusual share of somethingtiess in his whole appearance ! ' — 
 Oliver Goldsmith, Citizen of the World, Letter xiv. 
 
 Of late years -ness has been much revived, and has supplied 
 some new words, as indebtedness. Indeed the form has 
 become a modern favourite, and many a new turn of speech 
 has been made with it. In the bold novelty of some of 
 them we may almost trace a spirit of rebellion against con- 
 ventionality. 
 
 inwardness. 
 
 ' Nor Nature fails my walks to bless 
 With all her golden inwardness.' James Russell Lowell. 
 
 hopefulness, belieffulness. 
 
 ' And there is a hopefulness and a belieffulness, so to say. on your side, 
 which is a great compensation.' — A. H. Clough to R. W. Emerson, 1853. 
 
 viissionariness. 
 
 ' It is, I think, alarming — peculiarly at this time, when the female ink- 
 bottles are perpetually impressing upon us woman's particular worth and 
 general missionariness — to see that the dress of women is daily more and 
 more unfitting them for any mission or usefulness at all.' — Florence Night- 
 ingale, Notes on Nursing. ; 
 
 naturalness, 
 
 4 The unaffected country naturalness of the lad.' — Doctor Johns, by I. K. 
 Marvel, 1866. 
 
 northness. 
 
 Long lines of cackling geese were sailing far overhead, winging their way 
 to some more remote point of northness.' — Dr. Hayes, Open Polar Sea, 
 ch. xxxv. 
 
SUBSTANTIVES — SAXON FORMS. 303 
 
 322. As a consequence of its revived popularity, it is now 
 frequently substituted for French or Latin terminations of 
 like significance, and this even in words of Romanesque 
 material. A lady asked me why the author wrote effemi- 
 nateness and not effeminacy in the following passage. 
 
 ' 1812, June 17th. At four o'clock dined in the Hall with De Quincey, 
 who was very civil to me, and cordially invited me to visit his cottage in 
 Cumberland. Like myself, he is an enthusiast for Wordsworth. His person 
 is small, his complexion fair, and his air and manner are those of a sickly 
 and enfeebled man. From this circumstance his sensibility, which I have 
 no doubt is genuine, is in danger of being mistaken for effeminateness.' — 
 Henry Crabb Robinson, Diary, vol. i. p. 391. 
 
 Indeed -cy and -ness are good equivalents, and hence 
 they are often seen coupled or opposed, as decency and 
 cleanliness. 
 
 1 Decency must have been difficult in such a place, and cleanliness im- 
 possible.' — James Anthony Fronde, History of England, August, I 567. 
 
 323. The collective or abstract -dom is found in all the 
 dialects except the Moeso-Gothic. It seems to have origin- 
 ally meant distinction, dignity, grandeur, and so to have been 
 chosen to express the great win >le of anything. As a separate 
 word it became doom, meaning authority and judgment. 
 
 Examples : — Christendom, heathendom, kingdom, martyrdom, 
 serfdom, thraldom, wisdom. Altered form : — halidam and 
 halidame. 
 
 The Germans make a variety of words with this formative, 
 as 'XMftlntm, bishopdom ; OieicMtnun, richdom. 
 
 This form has recovered a new activity of late years, and 
 it is now highly prolific. We meet with such new forms as 
 beadledom, Saxondom, scoundrehtom, rascaldom. 
 
 Saxondom. 
 
 ' How much more two nations, which, as I said, are but one nation ; knit 
 in a thousand ways by nature and practical intercourse : indivisible brother 
 elements of the same great Saxondom, to which in all honorable ways be 
 long life 1 ' — Thomas Carlyle, in Forster's Life of Dickens, ch. xx. 
 
304 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 rascaldom. 
 
 ' I doubt very much indeed whether the honesty of the country has been 
 improved by the substitution so generally of mental education for industrial ; 
 and the " three R's," if no industrial training has gone along with them, are 
 apt, as Miss Nightingale observes, to produce a fourth R — of rascaldom.' 
 — J. A. Froude, at St. Andrew's, March, 1869. 
 
 The value of the formative has much altered in the case 
 of Christendom. This word is now used to signify the 
 geographical area which is peopled by Christians; but in 
 the early use it meant just what we now mean by Chris- 
 tianity, the profession and condition of Christianity. 
 
 It is early days to find the modern sense in Chaucer — 
 
 'And ther to hadde he ryden no man ferre, 
 As wel in cristendom as hethenesse,' Prologue, 49 ; 
 
 and rather belated to find the elder sense in Shakspeare. 
 In the graphic dialogue about the new fashions fresh from 
 France, the lord chamberlain says — 
 
 • Their cloathes are after such a Pagan cut too 't, 
 That sure th'haue worne out christendome.' 
 
 Henry VIII, i. 3. 15. 
 
 324. Nouns in -red are, and always were, but few. The 
 formative answers to the German rati) in ^eiratt), marriage, 
 originally meaning design, but in the formative having only 
 the sense of condition. It seems to be the same as the 
 final syllable in the proper names JElfred, Eadred, JEpelred. 
 Of this formation I can only produce two words that are 
 still in current use, unless we may place hundred here. 
 
 Examples : — kindred, hatred. 
 
 In the fourteenth century we meet with 
 
 gossipred. 
 
 1 But the enmity between the " English by blood " and " English by birth" 
 still went on, and the former married with the Irish, adopted their language, 
 laws, and dress, and became bound to them also by " gossipred " and 
 " fosterage." ' — W. Longman, Edward the Third, vol. ii. p. 15. 
 
SUBSTANTIVES — SAXON FORMS. 305 
 
 The words of this formation seem to be specially adapted 
 for the expression of human relationships, whether natural, 
 moral, or social. This is the case with the three already 
 instanced, as well as with others belonging to the Saxon 
 stage of the language. We must not omit the word neigh- 
 bourhood, which is one of these terms of social relation- 
 ship, and which was originally ' neighbourraf,' as we find it 
 far into the transition period. 
 
 ' Mon sulfte his elmesse benne he heo gefeff swulche monne tfe he for 
 scome wernen ne mei for ne3eburredde.' — Old E?iglisb Homilies, p. 1^7. 
 
 1 Man sells bis alms when be give/b it to such a man as he for very shame 
 cannot warn off [ = decline giving to~\ by reason of the ties of neighbour- 
 hood.' 
 
 325. -lock, -ledge. These are very few now, and were 
 not numerous in Saxon, where the termination was in the 
 form -lac: as brydlac, marriage; giftlac, battle; reafiac, 
 spoil; scinlac, sorcery. The word lac here is an old word 
 for play, and still exists locally in lake-fellow for play-fellow. 
 To lake is common in Cumberland and Westmoreland in 
 the sense of ' to play.' It is not generally known, I be- 
 lieve, — it certainly was not known to me until I learnt it by 
 a friendly annotation on this sheet, — that when tourists to 
 the Lakes are called lakers, the natives imply the double 
 meaning of Lake-admirers and idlers l . 
 
 Examples : — wedlock ; and in an altered form, knowledge. 
 
 Guihlac was not only a word for battle, but was also a 
 man's name, to wit, of the Hermit of Croyland. Also 
 warlock may be regarded as one of this class, at least by 
 assimilation. It is probably a modification of the Saxon 
 weerdoga, which Grein eloquently translates vcrilalis infi- 
 
 1 This is disallowed by one of my obliging correspondents, but well 
 attested by another: and as both are authorities, I conclude that such a usage 
 has been a partial one. 
 
306 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 tiator, and which was applicable to almost any sort of 
 intelligent being" that was perfidious, and under a ban, and 
 beyond the pale of humanity. 
 
 326. -hood was an independent substantive in Saxon 
 literature, in the form of had. This word signified office, 
 degree, faculty, quality. Thus, while the power and jurisdic- 
 tion of a bishop was called ' biscopdom ' and ' biscopric/ the 
 sacred function which is bestowed in consecration was called 
 biscophdd. The verb for ordaining or consecrating was one 
 which signified the bestowal of had, viz. ' hadian.' 
 
 Examples : — boyhood, brotherhood, childhood, hardihood, like- 
 lihood, maidenhood, ?nanhood, sisterhood, widowhood. 
 
 An altered form is -head, as in Godhead, an alteration 
 which makes it difficult for many to see that it is the ana- 
 logue of manhood, and as if God-hood. In Chaucer it takes 
 the form of -hode or -hede; as chapmanhode {Man of Lawes 
 Tale, stanza 2); goodelyhede {Blaunche 829). In Spenser it 
 is hed or -hedd, as in his description of a comet : — 
 
 dreryhedd. 
 
 'All as a blazing starre doth farre outcast 
 His hearie beames, and flaming lockes dispredd, 
 At sight whereof the people stand aghast ; 
 But the sage wisard telles, as he has redd, 
 That it importunes death and dolefull dreryhedd.' 
 
 The Faery Queene, iii. I. 16. 
 
 bountihed. 
 
 ' She seemed a woman of great bountihed.' 
 
 Id. iii. I. 41. 
 
 The word livelihood merits notice by itself. It has been 
 assimilated to this class by the influence of such forms as 
 likelihood. The original Saxon word was lif-ladu (vitae 
 cursus), the course or leading of life. In the thirteenth 
 and fourteenth centuries it was written liflode, and was the 
 
SUBSTANTIVES — SAXON FORMS. 307 
 
 commonest word for ' living ' in the sense of means of life, 
 where we should now use the (unhistorical) form livelihood. 
 
 This formative is represented in German by -tyeit, as ccr/t, 
 genuine ; Gcf^tkit, genuineness. 
 
 327. -ship is from the old verb scapan, to shape; and 
 indeed it is the mere addition of the general idea of shape 
 on to the noun of which it becomes the formative abstract. 
 It corresponds to the German -fchnt, as ©cfcfl, companion ; 
 ©efettfdjaft, society. 
 
 Examples : — factorship, fellowship, friendship, lordship, 
 ladyship, otvnership, proctorship, trusteeship, workmanship, 
 worship ( = worth-ship). 
 
 Illustrations : — 
 
 ' The proctorship and ihe doctorship.' — Clarendon, History, i. § 189. 
 
 ' Trusteeship has been converted into ownership.' — Edward Hawkins, D.D., 
 Our Debts to Ccesar and to God, 1868. 
 
 The Dutch form is -schap, as in Landsehap, Germ VanN 
 fd)aft — a word which we have borrowed from the Dutch 
 artists, and which we retain in the form of landscape. 
 
 328. The form -ric is an old word for rule, sway, 
 dominion, jurisdiction. We have but one word left with this 
 formative, viz. bishopric. There used to be others, as cyncric, 
 like the German ^oniareid\ which we now call ' kingdom.' 
 They would not regard the last syllable in this word as a 
 formative, but as an independent substantive SReid), and they 
 would regard .HiMiia,reicr as a compound. We cannot so 
 regard bishopric, simply because we have lost ric as a dis- 
 tinct substantive ; but when the word bishopric was first 
 made, it was made as a compound. 
 
 The same is true of all this group of substantives in 
 -dom, -had, -red, -ship, that they were originally started 
 as compounds ; but the latter syllable having lost its inde- 
 
 x 2 
 
308 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 pendent hold on the speech, it has come to be regarded as 
 a mere formative attached to the body of the word by 
 flexional symphytism. 
 
 At the end of the Saxon list it seems most natural to 
 mention a few words which make their appearance for the 
 first time with the modern English language, and of which 
 the origin is obscure. Such are boy, girl, pig, dog. Chaucer 
 has — 
 
 boy. 
 
 'A slier boy was non in Engelonde.' 
 
 Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, 6904. 
 
 FrencJi Forms. 
 
 329. The next forms were those which we obtained 
 from the French in the period when our language was in 
 a state of pupillage. Some of our French substantives are 
 hard to classify, because their formatives are obliterated ; as 
 page, from the Latin pagina; grace from gratia; aunt, Old 
 French a?ite, from amita. 
 
 Not unfrequently the French nouns which came into 
 English had been previously borrowed from the Franks, or 
 some other race of Gothic stock. Thus guardia?i which 
 occurs in every chief language of Europe, is from an Old 
 High Dutch word, and corresponds to the last syllable in 
 the Saxon name Edward. In our form warden, we cast off 
 the French guise of the first syllable, but retained the Roman- 
 esque termination, Latin -ianus, French -ien. The French 
 garden is radically one with the English yard; the French 
 range with the English rank : and so in many other in- 
 stances. 
 
 330. We will begin the list with a form which is in- 
 teresting, although it has but a feeble hold on the modern 
 
SUBSTANTIVES — FRENCH FORMS. 309 
 
 language and never was much more than a legal techni- 
 cality. 
 
 -er is a French infinitive become substantive. We are 
 familiar with the French infinitive in such a law phrase as 
 ' oyer and terminer ' ; but the following are become sub- 
 stantives — attainder, demurrer, disclaimer, rejoinder, remainder, 
 user, waiver. 
 
 user. 
 
 ' Several of the commons proposed to be enclosed are in the neighbourhood 
 of large towns, and one of them, embracing the Lizard Point and Kynance 
 Cove in Cornwall, comprising scenery of unusual beauty. The practical 
 effect of the enclosures would be to prevent that public user of the commons 
 which has hitherto existed, without making anything like an adequate 
 reservation in lieu of it. — August 9, 1870. 
 
 waiver. 
 
 'Therefore the British Commissioners regarded them as waived. They 
 
 recorded the waiver, and informed the Government of it at the time 
 
 And because the American Commissioners did not formally present them 
 a second time, he concluded that they were waived, and he telegraphed 
 to his Government of the waiver.' — The Standard, June 6, i s 7-- 
 
 331. Among the most thoroughly domesticated of the 
 French forms are those 
 
 In -ry or -ery (French -erie, as in Jacqu ndarnurii) ; 
 
 e.g. cavalry, chapelry, deanery, fishery, imagery, Jewry, mock' 
 ery, piggery, poetry, pottery^ poultry, rookery, sorcery, spici 
 swannery, trumpery (French tromperie), witchery. 
 
 mockeries. 
 
 • I think we are not wholly brain, 
 Magnetic mockeries.' — In Memoriam, cxi.\. 
 
 Shrubbery is from the old homely word scrub in the sense 
 which it bears in ' Wormwood Scrubs,' and in the following 
 quotation : 
 
 ' It [the barony of Farney] was then a wild and almost unenclosed plain, 
 and consisted chiefly of coarse pasturage interspersed with low alder scrub.' 
 — W. Steuart Trench, Realities, of Irish Life, p. 66. 
 
 From this French form the Germans have borrowed their 
 
310 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 =eret, as Suttjlerct, jurisprudence. Poetria was a mediaeval 
 Latin word which has long ago disappeared from French; 
 and poetry is now distinctively an English word. As early 
 as 1611, poeterie is given in Cotgrave's French Dictionary 
 as ' an old word.' 
 
 Another distinctive word, of our own stamping, is fairy. 
 This was originally the collective noun from the French fe'e, 
 as those little folk are still called across the Channel, but we 
 gradually passed from such expressions as I a fid of faerie and 
 queene of faerie, to make fairies the modern substitute for 
 the native title of elves. 
 
 332. In -son, -shion, or -som, after the French from 
 the Latin nouns in -tio, -Horn's. The termination -son repre- 
 sents the Latin accusative case. Thus the French raison 
 answers to the Latin rationem. 
 
 Examples : — advowson, advocationem; arson ; benison, bene- 
 dictionem ; co?nparison, comparationem ; fashion, factionem ; 
 garrison, Fr. garnison; lesson, lectionem ; malison, maledic- 
 tionem ; orison, orationem ; poison, potionem ; ransom, ren- 
 ditionem ; reason ; season, sationem ; treason, traditionem ; 
 venison, venationem. 
 
 The form -sion must also be placed here, after the French 
 from the Latin -sionem ; as mansion, passion, pension. 
 
 Foison is an interesting word of this class. It is now out 
 of use, but it occurs in Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakspeare. 
 It signified abundance, copiousness ; and represented fusi- 
 onem the accusative of fiisio, which was used in a sense 
 something like our modern Latin word 'profusion.' The 
 modern Italian has the substantive fnsib?ie. It is a very 
 frequent word in Froissart, as grand' foison de gent, a great 
 multitude of people. The following passage, from a fif- 
 teenth-century description of the hospitality of a Vavasour, 
 exemplifies the use of this word. 
 
SUBSTANTIVES — FRENCH FORMS. 311 
 
 ' " Sirs," seide the yonge man, " ye be welcome, and ledde hem in to the 
 middill of the Court, and thei a-light of theire horse, and ther were I-nowe 1 
 that ledde hem to stable, and yaf hem hey and otes, ffor the place was well 
 stuffed ; and a squyer hem ledde in to a feire halle be the grounde hem for 
 to vn-arme, and the Vavasour and his wif, and his foure sones that he hadde, 
 and his tweyne doughtres dide a-rise, and light vp torches and other lightes 
 ther-ynne, and sette water to the tier, and waisshed theire visages and theire 
 handes, and after hem dried on feire toweiles and white, and than brought 
 eche of hem a mantell, and the Vauasour made cover the tables, and sette 
 on brede and wyn grete foyson, and venyson and salt flessh grete plente ; 
 and the knyghtes sat down and ete and dranke as thei that ther-to haue 
 great nede,' &c. — Merlin, Early English Text Society, p. 517. 
 
 333. In -ment. From the Latin -men/urn, as f rumen /ion, 
 j amentum. In the early time this form figured much more 
 largely in French than in English. For example, we have 
 not and never had in English the two Latin words now 
 quoted. But the French have boihfroment andjument. We 
 may add, that words of this termination were most numerous 
 with us during the period when the French inlluence was 
 most dominant, and that since that period many of them 
 have grown obsolete. 
 
 Examples: — advancement, amendment, battlement, cement, 
 chastisement, commandment, detriment, element, enchantment, 
 firmament, habiliment, instrument, judgment, moment, ornament, 
 parlement, pavement, payment, regiment, sacrament, savement, 
 sentiment, tenement, testament, torment, tournament, vestment. 
 
 Illustrations : — 
 
 settlement = taste, flavour. 
 
 ' And other Trees there ben also, that bcren Wyn of noble sentement.' — 
 Maundevile, p. 189. 
 
 1 I-nowe = enough. The word is just so pronounced to this day in Devon- 
 shire ; not however with the eye-sound of I. This prefix represents the 
 Saxon ge in genoh. The odd tendency to make the ge into a capital I is 
 not without its importance. By the fidelity of the Early English Text 
 Society to these little matters, their publications have a greater philological 
 value. For the kind of importance that may attach to this capital I, see the 
 case of 'I wis ' above, at 290. 
 
312 
 
 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 firmament, compassement. 
 
 1 For the partie of the Firmament schewethe in o contree, that schewethe 
 not in another contree. And men may well preven by experience and sotyle 
 compassement of Wytt that . . . men myghte go be schippe alle aboute 
 the world.' — Maundevile, p. 180. 
 
 In the following quotation, intendimenl means ' knowledge/ 
 from the French entendre, to understand. 
 
 * Into the woods thenceforth in haste shee went, 
 To seeke for herbes that mote him remedy; 
 For shee of herbes had great intendiment.' 
 
 The Faery Qtieene, iii. 5. 32. 
 
 A great word of the present day is improvement. 
 
 ' It is true that much was done for the place from outside. Much of 
 what is called sanitary improvement was accomplished and is still effective. 
 But sanitary improvements do not save souls.' — Harry Jones, Life in the 
 World, 1865. 
 
 A word which is still more prominent in our times, and 
 which may be called one of the words of the period, is 
 development. This is a modernism with us, and its use cannot 
 be traced back much more than a century, while its celebrity 
 is still more recent. It is a French word, and is of con- 
 siderable antiquity in that language. The following from 
 Randle Cotgrave (161 1) is illustrative: — 
 
 ' Desvelope : m. ee : f. Vnwrapped, vnfoidden ; opened, vndone ; displaied, 
 spread abroad; also, cleered. 
 
 Desvelopement : m. An vntvrapping, vnfoidding ; vndoing, opening; 
 manifesting, displaying, spreading open. 
 
 Desveloper. To vnwrap, vnfould; vndoe, open, shew forth, display, 
 spread abroad ; rid, vnpester, cleere.' 
 
 encroachment. 
 
 ' One of the most noticeable facts in literature is the gradual encroach- 
 ment of prose upon poetry — a change which has been going on from the 
 first, and of which evidently we do not yet see the end.' — John Conington, 
 The Academical Study of Latin. 
 
 In some modern words it seems to be rather an English 
 han a French form; thus we have made the French 
 
SUBSTANTIVES— FRENCH FORMS. 313 
 
 embarras into the English embarrassment. The revived 
 interest in older formatives which marks our time, has 
 brought this also into fresh notice, and has caused its word- 
 painting power of picturesqueness to be appreciated. In a 
 recent story, the heroine has a ' face full of dimplements.' 
 
 334. In -et. A French diminutive form. Examples : — 
 cygnet, facet, floweret, hatchet, islet, junket, latchet, pocket, rivulet, 
 signet, ticket, trumpet, turret. 
 
 Lynchet is a local word of Saxon origin which has taken 
 this French facing. In the neighbourhood of Winchester 
 and elsewhere along the chalk hills, it signifies bank, terrace; 
 and it has been applied to those ledges which have the 
 appearance of raided beaches. It is the old Saxon word 
 hlinc, frequently used in Saxon charters for a boundary 
 embankment, artificial or natural. So it gets attached to 
 frontier wastes, as in the case of the Links of St. Andrews. 
 Malvern Link. In Cooper's Provincialisms of Sussex, a 
 link is defined to be ' A green or wooded bank always 
 on the side of a hill between two pieces of cultivated land.' 
 In Jenning's Glossary of the West of England, linch is de- 
 lined as ' A ledge ; a rectangular projection,' and here we 
 have the form which was frenchified into lynchet. 
 
 And -ette. Examples: — etiquette, marionette, mignonette, 
 /a/ctle, rosette. 
 
 We have adopted etiquette a second time. Our first re- 
 ception of it has degenerated into ticket, which comes under 
 the form last mentioned. 
 
 And -let Examples: — armlet, bracelet, branchlet, kinglet, 
 ringlet \ trout let. 
 
 branchlet. 
 
 ' I have found it necessary to make a distinction between branches and 
 branchlets, understanding by the latter term the lateral shoots which are 
 produced in the same season as those from which they spring.' — John Lindley, 
 A Monograph of Roses (1820), p. xxi. 
 
$14 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 islet, ringlet. 
 
 ' Nor for yon river islet wild 
 Beneath the willow spray, 
 Where, like the ringlets of a child, 
 Thou weav'st thy circle gay; — ' 
 John Keble, Christian Year, Tuesday in Easter Week. 
 
 335. In -age ; as average, baggage, boiidage, carriage, 
 cottage, damage, espionage, language, lineage, marriage, message, 
 passage, poundage, tonnage, vicarage, village, voyage. 
 
 These words had for the most part an abstract meaning 
 in their origin, and they have often grown more concrete by 
 use. The word cottage, as commonly understood, is con- 
 crete, but there was an older and more abstract use, accord- 
 ing to which it signified an inferior kind of tenure, a use 
 in which it may be classed with such words as burgage, 
 soccage. The following is from a manuscript of the seven- 
 teenth century. 
 
 ' The definition of an Esquire and the severall sortes of them according to the 
 
 Custome and Vsage of E?igla?id. 
 
 An Esquire called in latine Armiger, Scutifer, et homo ad arma is he that 
 in times past was Costrell to a Knight, the bearer of his sheild and helme, a 
 faithfull companion and associate to him in the Warrs, serving on horsebacke, 
 whereof euery knight had twoe at the least attendance upon him, in respect 
 of the fee, For they held their land of the Knight by Cottage as the Knight 
 held his of the King by Knight service.' — Ashmole MS. 837, art. viii. 
 fol. 162. 
 
 A beautiful use of the word personage, in the sense of 
 personal appearance, occurs in The Faery Queene, iii. 2. 26: — 
 
 ' The Damzell wel did vew his Personage.' 
 
 Carriage now signifies a vehicle for carrying; but in the 
 Bible of 161 1 it occurs eight times as the collective for 
 things carried, impedimenta. In Numbers iv. 24 it is a mar- 
 ginal reading for ' burdens,' which is in the text. In Acts xxi. 
 15, 'We tooke vp our cariages,' is rendered by Cranmer 
 
SUBSTANTIVES — FRENCH FORMS. 7> 1 5 
 
 (1539) 'we toke vp oure burthenes,' and in the Geneva 
 version (1557) ' we trussed up our fardeles.' 
 
 Verbiage signifies a superfluity of words, or the excess of 
 words over meaning in a discourse, or more generally, 
 words without point. I asked a friend whether his speech 
 had been fairly reported : ' Well/ said he, ' they have given 
 the verbiage of what I said pretty faithfully.' 
 
 336. Next to -age we naturally come to the form -ager, 
 as in the French passager, messager, which has been altered 
 in English to the form -enger, as passenger, messenger. Above, 
 71, we find messager in an English letter of the year 1402. 
 With these must be classed the words in -ingtr, as harbinger^ 
 porringer, potlingcr wharfinger. Wallinger is the name of a 
 class of labourers in the salt-works at Nantwich, and it may 
 perhaps be connected with Saxon weallan to boil. Muring 
 
 is the title of the officers who are charged with the repairs of 
 the walls at Chester, and it may be seen on a tablet over an 
 archway near the Water Tower 1 . 
 
 In the fourteenth century there was a public officer known 
 as the King's auineger, who was a sort of inspector of the 
 measuring of all cloths offered for sale, and his title was 
 derived from the French aulne i an ell ; au/nage, measuring 
 with the ell-measure 2 . 
 
 337. This seems to be the proper place for a word whose 
 origin has been variously explained. A very great mediaeval 
 word was danger, both in French and English. The reader 
 of our early literature should not too readily assume that he 
 has understood any passage in which this word occurs. At 
 present the word is hardly to be distinguished from hazard, 
 
 1 For these local particulars in correction of my first edition, I am 
 indebted to Miss Jackson, a lady from whom there is reason to except a 
 work of original research on the dialects of Shropshire. 
 
 2 Life and Times of Edward III, by William Longman, vol. i. p. 340 ; 
 from 25 Edw. Ill, Stat. 3. 
 
316 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 peril, risk, liability, exposure. A modern reader might 
 almost assume that ' Les dangers des bois ' s could mean 
 nothing else than ' The perils of the woods.' But it is thus 
 defined by Cotgrave (1611): — ' The amerciaments, and con- 
 fiscations adiudged vnto the King by the officers of woods, and 
 forrests' 
 
 In the early poems of gallantry, which were the staple of 
 belles lettres in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and 
 of which the ripest example is the Romaunt of the Rose, the 
 term Danger is used constantly for the name of one of the 
 allegorical personages. This name represents that person 
 who, whether as father or husband or lover, has some superior 
 right or title in the heroine of the moment. It resulted from 
 the fundamental idea of these pieces, that such a person must 
 be made odious, and accordingly he appears as a churl, a 
 skulk, a spy, &c. Thus, in the Romaunt of the Rose, when 
 the prospects of the rose-hunter are most flattering, we read, 
 line 3015 : — 
 
 ' But than a chorle, foul him betide, 
 Beside the roses gan him hide, 
 To keepe the roses of that rosere, 
 Of whom the name was daungere : 
 This chorle was hid there in the greves, 
 Covered with grasse and with leves, 
 To spie and take whom that he fond 
 Unto that roser put an hond.' 
 
 It seems that the word must be derived from Do?ninus, which 
 is represented by Dan-, as in ' Dan Chaucer/ and accord- 
 ingly it fitly expressed seigneurial rights, as in the definition 
 of Cotgrave : and hence too its aptness in the phraseology 
 of escheats and forfeitures ; as where Mr. Froude quotes an 
 entry in the Records, — 
 
 'That on the I2th of July, 1568, the Earl of Desmond — acknov/ledging 
 himself in danger to her Highness for the forfeiture of £20,000 by his 
 securities — relinquished into her Majesty's hands all his lands, tenements, 
 houses, castles, signeries, all he stood possessed of, to receive back what her 
 Majesty would please to allow him, &c. — History of England, vol. x. p. 487. 
 
S UBS TA NT I VES — FRENCH FOR MS. 
 
 317 
 
 Chaucer used the adjective as equivalent to haughty or 
 supercilious : — 
 
 ' I wol yow telle a litel thing in prose, 
 That oughte like yow, as I suppose, 
 Or elles certes ye be to daungerous.' 
 
 Prologe to Melibeus. 
 
 In The Merchant of Venice t iv. 1, 'You stand within his 
 danger, do you not ?' is equivalent to ' You are in his power, 
 are you not?' and it is by the introduction of this word 
 -danger that the key-note is struck of that piece which is 
 to follow, on the quality of mercy. Power and .Mercy are 
 natural correlatives. This moral truth is worked into the 
 habits of our phraseology ; for it is much the same thing 
 with us now to say that one is in another's power, or to say 
 that he is at his mercy. The latter way of speaking v. 
 indeed first invented as a euphemism upon the former, but 
 it has become equally harsh, perhaps rather the harsher of 
 the two. One example this among thousands, that what- 
 ever may be the temporary complicity o{ la- • in dis- 
 simulation, no trick of words will ever compel it permanently 
 to act as a cloak of hypocrisy. It has a way of recovering 
 its honesty by the process of an open confession. We may 
 indeed regret the degradation of noble expn ssions; but this 
 effect, which is at first sight so disagreeable, is found to be 
 the condition of preserving language from moral corruption. 
 
 This group has so marked a character that it seemed to 
 deserve a place by itself, although it belongs in strictness to 
 the next class in virtue of its final termination. 
 
 338. In -er, -ier. from the French -er and -ier. Of this 
 suffix -ier, it is said by M. Auguste Brachet, in his Gra?n- 
 maire His tori que } p. 276 1 , that it is 'perhaps the most 
 
 1 At p. TS4 of Mr. Kitchin's Translation, in the Clarendon Press Series, 
 1869. 
 
31 8 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 productive ' of all the French nounal forms. For in the first 
 place, it is the constant form for expressing a man's trade. 
 The Saxon -ere had a like value, but it was swallowed up in 
 the greater volume of this French form. 
 
 Examples : — butcher, Fletcher, gardener, grocer, vintner. Al- 
 ready in the Prologue we have four of them in two lines :— 
 
 ' An Haberdasshere and a Carpenter, 
 A Webbe, a Dyere, and a Tapycer.' 
 
 Here the only term which is not in -er, is, oddly enough 
 a curt' form of the Saxon webbere, weaver. 
 
 In Bristol there is (or was) a street called Tucker Street, 
 in which stood the Hall of the Weavers' Guild, till it was 
 destroyed in making a new road to the railway station. This 
 street is called in mediaeval deeds Vicus Fullonum, and the 
 present name is to the same effect. For the word Tucker 
 (anciently Toukere) is equivalent to clothier. In German the 
 common word for cloth is £ucfy. 
 
 339. Sometimes -er represents the French -eur. Thus 
 doer, with its Saxon base, has no Saxon antecedent as to 
 its formative, but answers to the French faiteur. 
 
 escaper. 
 
 1 And Iehu said, If it be your minds, then let no escaper goe.' — 2 Kings 
 ix. 15, margin. 
 
 The word comer took the place of a Saxon cuma, and though 
 its range was much narrowed by our adoption of the French 
 stranger, yet it never quite died out. It occurs once in the 
 Bible of 161 1, twice in the plays of Shakspeare, and once 
 in the poetical works of Milton. 
 
 ' Christians in general, therefore, would oppose to such a creed as that of 
 the Pall Mall Gazette, not the pretence of conclusions which they can 
 demonstrate against all comers, but strong and deep convictions continually 
 assailed and sometimes agitated by insoluble difficulties.' — J. Llewelyn Da vies, 
 The Gospel and Modern Life, p. xiii. 
 
SUBSTANTIVES — FRENCH FORMS. 319 
 
 In some instances our nouns in -er, -ier, represent the 
 French -iere, as river, riviere ; barrier, barriere. 
 
 340. Another form, -eer, is of more limited use, as 
 auctioneer, buccaneer, charioteer, mountaineer, muleteer, pam- 
 phleteer, pioneer, privateer. 
 
 This form is sometimes used half-playfully : 
 
 fellow-circuiteer. 
 
 ' The enormous gains of my old fellow-circuiteer, Charles Austin, who is 
 said to have made 40,000 guineas by pleading before Parliament in one 
 session.' — Henry Crabb Robinson, Diary, 1 818. 
 
 The terminations of words are peculiarly liable to decay, 
 especially in their vocalism (110) ; and this displays itself 
 with great effect after a period of transition, so that one new 
 form shall represent several elder ones, or two or three modern 
 forms shall confusedly represent twice as many old ones. 
 Thus the -er, -ier, -eer of modern English represents Saxon 
 -ere and -a, French -er, -ier, -eur, and -iere. 
 
 341. In -ee. This termination is from the French passive 
 participle. 
 
 Examples : — devotee, feoffee, guarantee, mortgagee, nominee, 
 
 payee, referee, refugee, trustee. 
 
 Illustration : — 
 
 referee. 
 
 ' In this clamour of antagonistic opinions, history is obviously the sole 
 upright impartial referee.' — J. B. Lightfoot, Philippiatis, 1868. 
 
 The original passive character of the form still shines out 
 in most of the examples ; and often there is an active sub- 
 stantive as a counterpart. Thus grantor, grantee; lessor, 
 lessee ; mortgagor, mortgagee. 
 
 Under this form come such names as Pharisee, Sadducee, 
 Manichee (for which Manichean is now more general), and 
 Yankee. 
 
 342. In -ard, -art. Examples : — bastard, braggart, buzzard, 
 
320 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 bustard, coward, dastard, dotard (Spenser, Faery Queene, iii. 
 9. 8), drunkard, dultard, haggard (a sort of hawk), laggard, 
 mallard, niggard, pollard, sluggard, standard, tankard ( = a 
 little tank, French etang, Latin s/agnum), wizard. 
 
 Here should be mentioned also two national designations, 
 Spaniard, Savoyard. 
 
 placard. 
 
 ' Good Lord, how cross and opposite is man's conceit to God's, and how 
 contrary our thoughts unto His ! For even ad oppositum to this position 
 of His, we see for the most part that even they that are the goers forth seem 
 to persuade themselves that then they may do what they list ; that at that 
 time any sin is lawful, that war is rather a placard than an inhibition to 
 sin.' — Lancelot Andrewes, Sermon on Deut. xxiii. 9. 
 
 343. In -ine, -in, after the French from the Latin -inus, -ma. 
 Examples : — basin, cousin, florin, libertine, matins, rapine, 
 
 resin, routine, ruin, vermin. 
 
 Altered forms: — canteen (cantina = cellar), curtain, don 
 (dominus), garden (jardin), paten, venom (venin). 
 
 344. In -tire, Latin -ura, as mensura. 
 
 Examples : — capture, caricature, censure, culture, embrasure, 
 expenditure, failure, fissure, furniture, garniture, imposture, 
 manure, measure, miniature, mixture, nature, nomenclature, nur- 
 ture, overture, pasture, picture, posture, pourtraiture, pressure, 
 primogeniture, procedure, rapture, seizure, signature, stature, 
 suture, torture, verdure. 
 
 Assimilated are leisure, treasure, from the French loisir, 
 tresor. 
 
 Illustration : — 
 
 closure. 
 
 ' And for his warlike feates renowmed is, 
 From where the day out of the sea doth spring, 
 Untill the closure of the Evening.' 
 
 The Faery Queene, iii. 3. 27. 
 
 345. In -ise or -ice : after two or three various Latin 
 terminations, but typically from -ilia. 
 
SUBSTANTIVES — FRENCH FORMS. 32 1 
 
 Examples : — covetise Spenser, cowardice, fool-hardisc 
 
 Spenser, justice, malice, merchandise, nigardise Spenser, 
 
 Faery Queene, iv. 8. 15, notice, queintise Chaucer, riotise 
 
 Spenser. 
 
 gentrise, covetise. 
 
 1 Wonder it ys sire emperoar that noble gentrise 
 That is so noble and eke y fuld with so fyl couetyse.' 
 
 Robert of Gloucester, p. 46. 
 
 Franchise was a great word in the French period, and it 
 had a wide range of significations. Among other things it 
 meant privilege, exemption, and also good manners, good 
 breeding, which latter occurs among the numerous render- 
 ings of this word in Randle Cotgrave's Bictionarie of the 
 French and English Tongves, 1 6 1 1 . 
 
 franchise. 
 
 ' We mote, he sayde, be hardy and stalworthe and wyse, 
 3ef we wole habbe oure lyf, and hold our franchise.' 
 
 Robert of Br untie, p. 155. 
 
 ' Consideryng the best on every syde. 
 That fro his lust yet were him level abyde, 
 Than doon so high a churlisch wrecchednesse 
 Agayns fraunchis of alio gentilesce.' 
 
 Chaucer, The Frankeleynes Tale, 1. 1182S; ed. Tyrwhitt. 
 
 To this class belonged the French word peniice or pentise, 
 of which the last syllable had been already before Shak- 
 speare's time anglicised into ' house,' making a sort of 
 compound, pent-house. 
 
 We must admit into this set such words as prejudice, 
 service, and we cannot make the Latin termination -itium 
 a ground of distinction in English philology, where words 
 are assimilated in form. On the confluence of formatives 
 see 339. 
 
 346. In the sixteenth century these words were often 
 written with a z. No variety of sense or even of sound 
 
 Y 
 
322 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 appears to have been connected with this orthography. It 
 was mere fashion. As y was a fashionable substitute for i, 
 and as it was modish to elongate words by a final e, so also 
 with the z as a substitute for s. Queen Elizabeth wrote her 
 name with a z, and that alone was an influential example. 
 In some cases the fashion disappeared and left no traces 
 behind it, in other cases it was the origin of the received 
 orthography. Thus wizard became the recognised form 
 instead of wisard, which was the spelling of Spenser, as 
 may be seen above 326. 
 
 In The Faery Queene we see this fashion well displayed. 
 There are such forms as bruze, uze (iii. 5. 33), ivize, disguize, 
 exercize, guize (iii. 6. 23), Paradize (iii. 6. 29), enterprize, 
 emprize, arize, devize (vi. 1.5). So that there is nothing to 
 marvel at if we find covetise ( - covetousness) spelt covetize 
 (iii. 4. 7), and the substantive which we now write practice, 
 written practize : — ■ 
 
 ' Ne ought ye want but skil, which practize small 
 Wil bring, and shortly make you a mayd Martiall.' (iii. 3. 53.) 
 
 347. But there is a much more important observation to 
 be made concerning this French substantive form. It seems 
 that we must acknowledge it to have introduced one of the 
 most extensive modern innovations. It was apparently the 
 employment of this substantive as a verb that gave us 
 our first verbs in -ize, and so ushered the Greek -ifcw. An 
 unfamiliar example of one of these substantives verbally 
 employed may be quoted from the correspondence of Throg- 
 morton and Cecil in 1567 : — 
 
 ' They would not merchandise for the bear's skin before they had caught 
 the bear.' — Quoted by J. A. Froude, History of England, vol. ix. p. 163. 
 
 Indeed, there are instances in which the substantive of 
 this form is no longer known, while the verb is in familiar 
 use. Such is the verb to chastise (pronounced as if spelt 
 
SUB ST A NTI VES —FRENCH FOR MS. 
 
 3 2 3 
 
 with z), which appears in its substantive character, equivalent 
 to chastity, in Turbervile, Poem to his Loue (about 1530) : 
 
 ' And sooth it is she liude 
 in wiuely bond so well. 
 As she from Collatinus wife 
 of chastice bore the bell.' 
 
 I imagine the case is the same with the verbs to jeopardise, 
 and to advertise. Both of these I would identifv with this 
 substantive form, though I am not prepared with an example 
 of either in its substantive character. But there is perhaps 
 evidence enough in Shakspeare's pronunciation that the 
 verb to advertise was not formed from the Greek -ize. In 
 all cases does this verb in Shakspeare sound as adv/rtice } 
 and never as now ddvertize: — 
 
 * Aduertysing, and holy to your businesse.' 
 
 Measure for Measure, v. I. 3S1. 
 
 * Please it your Grace to be aduertised.' 
 
 2 Henry VI, iv. g. 22. 
 
 ' For by my Scouts, I was aduertised.' 
 
 3 Henry VI, ii. 1. 116. 
 
 • 1 haue aduertis'd him by secret meanes. 1 
 
 3 Henry VI, it. 5. 9. 
 
 • We are aduertis'd by our louing friends.' 
 
 3 Henry VI, v. 3. 18. 
 
 ' As I by friends am well aduertised.' 
 
 Richard III, iv. 4. 501. 
 
 ' Wherein he might the King his Lord aduertise.' 
 
 Henry VIII, ii. 4. 178. 
 
 In one instance the First Folio has it with a z, but it 
 makes no difference : 
 
 4 I was aducrtiz'd, their Great generall slept.' 
 
 Troylus and Cressida, ii. 3. 211. 
 
 We have still several substantives of the -ice type, as 
 cowardice, justice, malice, notice) but I cannot call to mind 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 more than one verb in which this primitive form is retained, 
 and that is the verb to notice. 
 
 348. In -esse, and by anglicism -ess. Either from the 
 Latin -issa, as abbatissa, or from -itia, like the last. M. 
 Brachet derives it from -itia : so that it would be little more 
 than a collateral form to the last. And the French language 
 presents us with justice and justesse, co-existent in differing 
 shades of sense. 
 
 Examples '.—finesse (an acknowledged English word, in- 
 cluded in Poynder's School Dictionary), largess, prowess. 
 
 Riches belongs here by its extraction, as it is only an 
 altered form of richesse. In grammatical conception it has 
 passed from a singular to a plural without a singular. This 
 was one of the effects of centuries of Latin schooling. The 
 word richesse having been constantly used to render opes or 
 divitice, which are plural forms, and being itself so nearly 
 like an English plural, has thus come to be so conceived of, 
 and written accordingly. 
 
 Burgess has taken this shape, but it is from the French 
 bourgeois, and that from the Latin burgensis. 
 
 The form -esse, as derived from -issa, has its chief im- 
 portance as expressive of the feminine gender. Examples of 
 this will be found at the close of the section. 
 
 349. In the French reign must be included also the forms 
 in -ity and -ty. 
 
 In -ity, from the Latin -Has ; as quality, vanity. The 
 English termination is after the French -ite\ with the last 
 syllable accented, because it represents the two syllables of 
 the Latin accusative -tatem. 
 
 Examples -.—antiquity, benignity, civility, dexterity, equality, 
 fidelity, gratuity, humanity, integrity, joviality, legibility, ma- 
 jority, nativity, obscurity, posterity, quality, rapidity, sincerity, 
 timidity, urbanity, velocity. 
 
SUBSTANTIVES — FRENCH FORMS. $2j 
 
 Illustration : — 
 
 civility, equity, humanity, morality, security. 
 
 ' The morality of our earthly life, is a morality which is in direct subser- 
 vience to our earthly accommodation ; and seeing that equity, and humanity, 
 and civility, are in such visible and immediate connection with all the secu- 
 rity and all the enjoyment which they spread around them, it is not to be 
 wondered at, that they should throw over the character of him by whom 
 they are exhibited, the lustre of a grateful and a superior estimation.' — 
 Thomas Chalmers, Sermon V. (1819). 
 
 350. and -ty, a curt form of the same, intimately asso- 
 ciated with the legal and political ideas of that early stage 
 of our national life when French was the language of ad- 
 ministration. 
 
 Examples : — admiralty, casually, certainty, fealty, loyalty ', 
 mayoralty, nicely, novelty, personalty, really, royally, shrievalty, 
 soverain/y, spiritualty, surety, temporally. 
 
 chiefety, souverain 
 
 ' I could wish that in this discourse and in the whole body of your booke 
 wheresoever mention is made of to Kvpiov, you should give yt the same 
 name. You ternie yt sometymes chiefety of dominion sometymes souverain- 
 etv, sometimes imperial! power. 1 thinke theys wordes ^souverainety of 
 dominion or souveraine dominion) are the fittest to be alwayes used, and 
 plainest to be understood. If you be of this mynd, you may alter those 
 places before, and make them all alike.' — George Cranmer, MS. Notes on 
 Hooker's Sixth Book. Hooker's Works, ed. Keble, vol. iii. p. 1 1 4. 
 
 Mayoralty has taken as much as -ally for its suffix, and so 
 grouped itself witli admiralty, royalty, spiritualty, temporally. 
 
 From the comparison of these two forms we may observe 
 by how slight a variation in form great distinctions are 
 sometimes expressed. Whereas personally signifies personal 
 property, chattels, personality signifies the possession of 
 conscious life : whereas realty signifies real property, as land 
 or houses, reality signifies the objective existence of things. 
 The one is after an earlier, the other after a more modern 
 French form. In some instances we see words changing 
 
326 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 from one form to another as a mere fashion, and without any 
 adequate distinction. Thus specialty seems to be endangered 
 by the tendency to imitate the French specialite'. 
 
 851. As to the origin of all the forms in the above list, 
 it clearly cannot belong to English philology to do much 
 more than indicate the source from which we received 
 them. Their derival into French from Latin has therefore 
 been only slightly touched upon. The reader who wishes 
 to know more on this head should consult the Historical 
 Grammar of the French Tongue, by Auguste Brachet, an 
 admirable manual, which has been rendered accessible to 
 the English student by Mr. Kitchin's Translation. This 
 book supplies all the information which is needed for tracing 
 the forms intelligently from the Latin through the French, 
 to the threshold of their entrance into the English lan- 
 guage. 
 
 This would seem to be the place to glance at some other 
 substantives which we have acquired from Romanesque 
 languages, or through a Romanesque channel. 
 
 There are a certain number of nouns which have come 
 to us through the French, from the southern Romance 
 languages. Such are those words 
 
 352. In -ade, -ad, which represent the termination -atus 
 
 of the Latin participle — ballad, balustrade, barricade, brigade, 
 
 cannonade, cascade, cavalcade, comrade, crusade, esplanade, 
 
 fusitlade, lemonade, marmalade, masquerade, palisade, parade, 
 
 promenade, salad, serenade, stockade, tirade. 
 
 Illustration : — 
 
 fusillade. 
 
 ' Everybody acquainted with country life must be aware of the commotion 
 created in some of our villages by the first fall of snow, especially if it 
 happens on a Sunday. Old and young turn out, leaving the parson to edify 
 women and empty pews, and high up on the hills and down in the valleys 
 such a fusillade ensues on the day of rest as could hardly be justified by any 
 event short of the landing of the French invaders upon our shores.' 
 
SUBSTANTIVES — SPANISH, ITALIAN, ARABIC. $2"/ 
 
 These remind us of a few Spanish analogues in -ada and 
 -ado, as Armada, bravado. 
 
 353. Round by the Spanish peninsula have also come 
 to us those English (or rather European) nouns which are 
 derived from Arabic, as alchemy, alcohol, alcove, algebra, 
 almanac, ammiral (Milton, Paradise Lost, i. 294), cipher, 
 elixir, magazine, nadir, zenith. 
 
 To these we must add a word, once celebrated, though 
 now obsolete, algorithm, or more familiarly, augrim. Also 
 sometimes, algorism, after the French algorismc. This 
 Arabic word was the universal term in the fourteenth and 
 fifteenth centuries to denote the science of calculation by 
 nine figures and zero, which was gradually superseding the 
 abacus or ball-frame, with its counters. 
 
 4 1 shall reken it syxe times by aulgorisrne, or >ou can caste it ones by 
 counters.' — John Palsgrave, French Grammar, [530 1 . 
 
 Nor must we overlook the Italian words that are gradually 
 winning their way into the list of English substantives. 
 They are almost all in a direct or indirect sense derived 
 from the artistic terminology of Italian poetry, or music, or 
 painting, or architecture. Such are cam/ anile, canto, cantata, 
 cupola, dilettante, extravaganza, finale, Jrrtc, fresco, opera, 
 oratorio, orchestra, piano, sonata, stanza, stiletto, studio, trom- 
 bone, virtuoso, violoncello. 
 
 Some of these have obtained more general use, as finale ; 
 and extravaganza has found a popular application : — 
 
 1 The admitted exaggerations in Pickwick are incident to its club's ex- 
 travaganza of adventure.' — John Forster, Life of Dickens, ch. viii. 
 
 354. The effect of the French pre-occupation of our 
 language was not limited to the period of its reign. It also 
 
 1 Mr. Albert Way's note in Promptorium Parvulorum, p. 18. 
 
328 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 imparted a tinge to the subsequent period of classic in- 
 fluence. The Latin words that were next admitted into 
 English, became subject to those French forms which were 
 already familiar among us ; and so much so, that it is rather 
 arbitrary work to pretend to draw the line of division. 
 
 Latin Forms. 
 
 355. In -ance and -ancy, from the Latin -antia ; as cir- 
 cumstance, constancy, substance. The words acquaintance, 
 cognisance, obeisance, and many others of this form, are rather 
 French than Latin. 
 
 Illustration : — 
 
 cognisance. 
 
 ' The honourable member ought himself to be aware that in this house 
 we have no cognisance of wh:it passes in debate in the other house.' — 
 House of Commons, July 21, 1869. 
 
 356. In -ence and -ency, from the Latin -entia. 
 Examples : — affluence, beneficence, benevolence, circumference, 
 
 competence, confidence, conscience, consequence, continence, dif- 
 ference, diffidence, eminence, evidence, exigence, experience, im- 
 potence, influence, licence, magnificence, niuttificence, ftegligence, 
 opulence, preference, reticence, science, sequence. 
 
 Illustration : — 
 
 pubescence. 
 
 ' Pubescence on the branches, peduncles, or tube of the calyx is the only 
 invariable character I have discovered in Roses. Distinctions drawn from it 
 I have every reason to consider absolute.' — John Lindley, A Monograph of 
 Roses (1820), p. xxiii. 
 
 Here again we meet with that confluence of forms, of 
 which we have already spoken above ; and we are obliged to 
 admit into this set some formatives which are of a different 
 origin, being either from Latin nouns in -ensio, or from 
 
SUBSTANTIVES — LATIN FORMS. 329 
 
 Latin participles in -ensus, but they have been assimilated to 
 this group. Such are defence, expence (obsolete), offence, 
 pretence. With these may be mentioned a few which have 
 not succumbed to this assimilation, as i?ice?ise, sense, suspense, 
 and one which has recovered its original classical consonant, 
 namely expense. Our spelling in this, as in many other in- 
 stances, is a tradition from the French fashion of the fifteenth 
 or sixteenth century. Cotgrave, in 161 1, recognises offence, 
 but gives the palm to offense, which has continued to the 
 present day as the correct orthography in French. Our 
 language is slower to admit this classic reform, though good 
 writers have observed it, as for instance Augustus W. Hare. 
 
 The -ency form is peculiarly English. Clemency is in 
 French clemence. 
 
 These two forms arc liable to clash in their plurals. It is 
 questioned which is right, excellences or excellencies. Each 
 is right in its place ; the former is generally used in the sense 
 of abstract quality, the latter for titles of distinction. In our 
 old writers excellency is frequently found in the sense which 
 excellence now bears, and they have never got quite disen- 
 tangled. 
 
 357. In -osity ; as animosity, curiosity, impetuosity, pomp- 
 osity t scrupulosity. 
 
 The forms in ~ity and -ly have been ranked under French 
 
 products, but -osity grew out of Latin studies. Its boisterous 
 
 youth was in the seventeenth century, when several examples 
 
 were launched into currencv, and soon stranded. Such were 
 
 fabulosity, mulier osity, populosity, speciosity. 
 
 ' So great a glory as all the speciosities of the world could not equalize.' — 
 Henry More, On Godliness, iv. 12. § 4. 
 
 358. In -ion, -tion, -ation, -ition, from the Latin, -io, 
 -alio, -ilio, genitive -ionis ; as accusation, action, compassion, 
 
330 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 contrition, coronation, description, emulation, humiliation, in- 
 vestigation, region, relation, reputation, situation, satisfaction, 
 transaction. 
 
 salutation. 
 
 ' We behold men, to whom are awarded, by the universal voice, all the 
 honours of a proud and unsullied excellence — and their walk in the world 
 is dignified by the reverence of many salutations — and as we hear of their 
 truth and their uprightness, and their princely liberalities,' &c. — Thomas 
 Chalmers, Sermon V. (1819). 
 
 This abstract form is capable of a thundering eloquence, 
 under conditions fitted to exhibit its full effects. When a 
 new ship of war of the most advanced and formidable class 
 of turret- ships was lately announced by the name of ' The 
 Devastation,' it might well be said that the new cast of name 
 was an apt exponent of the weight of metal by which the 
 terrors of marine warfare have recently been enhanced. 
 
 This is a form upon which new words have been made 
 with great facility, as witness the off-hand words savation, 
 starvation. 
 
 ' When Mr. H. Dundas used the word starvation in the House of Com- 
 mons, it was received with a roar of derision as a north-country barbarism.' 
 — J. B. Heard, The Tripartite Nature of Mem, p. 83, note. 
 
 A gardener once desiring to have his work admired — 
 he had been moving some of the raspberries, to make the 
 rows more regular — 'There, sir,' cried he, 'that's what I 
 call row-tation now ! ' From this facility it has naturally 
 followed that many have grown obsolete. Jeremy Taylor 
 uses luxation to signify the disturbing, disjointing, discon- 
 certing, shocking of the understanding : — 
 
 ' An honest error is better than a hypocritical profession of truth, or a 
 violent luxation of the understanding.' — Liberty of Prophesyitig, ix. 2. 
 
 It is a phenomenon which may as well be remarked 
 generally and once for all, that in the prime of their vigour 
 
SUBSTANTIVES — LATIN FORMS. 33 1 
 
 forms often overpass the area which they are permanently to 
 occupy. Under each form we might collect a number of 
 words that have perished, not from age and decay, but just 
 because they were started rather in obedience to a strong 
 formative impulse of the moment, than from any occasion the 
 language had for their services. 
 
 Dr. Trench, in his pamphlet On some Deficiencies in our 
 English Dictionaries (1857), has made a collection of such 
 words, from which we have just now derived our obsolete 
 examples under -osi/j', and are fain to draw from the same 
 good source also under -a/ion as, coaxakon, conculcation, 
 dehonestalion, delinilion, excarnificalion, quadripartilion, sub- 
 sannation. 
 
 359. In -our; as ardour , fervour \ honour ^ valour. 
 
 In this class of words, derived at secondhand from the 
 Latin in -or, as fervor, ardor, the u is a trace of the French 
 medium. This distortion has moreover communicated it- 
 self even where there was previously nothing either of 
 French or of Latin, as in the purely Saxon compound 
 neighbour from neh, nigh, and gebHr t dweller. 
 
 A partial disposition has manifested itself to drop this 
 French u. Especially is this observable in American litera- 
 ture. I3ut the general rule holds good through this whole 
 series of nouns from the Latin, that what we call ' anglicising ' 
 them, is the reducing of them to a set of forms which we 
 borrowed originally from French. And thus it is true that 
 the French influence still accompanies us, even through the 
 course of our latinising epoch. 
 
 Latin scholarship was, however, continually nibbling away 
 at these monuments of the French reign. The forms of 
 many of our Romanesque nouns were too permanently 
 fixed to be shaken ; but wherever the classical scholar could 
 make an English word more like Latin, he was fain to do it. 
 
$$2 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 The French form parlement was drawn nearer to its Latin 
 form of parliamentum ; and a word of old standing, like 
 Cristen, as old in our speech as the national conversion, 
 was re-latinised into Christian. Instances of this kind 
 render the obstinacy of this French form the more ob- 
 servable. 
 
 360. In -al. This form, which is derived from the Latin 
 adjectival formative -alls, -ale, has attached itself not only to 
 words radically Latin, as acquittal, dismissal, disposal, nuptials, 
 proposal, recital, refusal, rental, revival, but also to others 
 which are either French, as avowal, rehearsal, or purely 
 English, as uprootal (Dr. Lightfoot, Paul and Seneca), and 
 the familiar geological term upheaval. 
 
 Illustrations : — 
 
 testimonial. 
 
 ' And thus it is, that there is a morality of this world, which stands in 
 direct opposition to the humbling representations of the Gospel ; which can- 
 not comprehend what it means by the utter worthlessness and depravity of 
 our nature ; which passionately repels this statement, and that too on its own 
 consciousness of attainments superior so those of the sordid and the pro- 
 fligate and the dishonourable ; and is fortified in its resistance to the truth 
 as it is in Jesus, by the flattering testimonials which it gathers to its re- 
 spectability and its worth from the various quarters of human society.' — 
 Thomas Chalmers, Sermon V. (1819). 
 
 approval, refusal. 
 
 ' I well remember his [O'Connell's] smile as he nodded good-humouredly 
 to us as we passed him; and I must say it was one of approval rather than 
 otherwise at our refusal to do him homage.' — W. Steuart Trench, Realities, 
 of Irish Life, p. 39. 
 
 A word which does not belong here, but which has 
 assumed the guise of this set, is bridal, from the Saxon 
 bryd, bride, and ealo, ale ; so that it really meant the 
 ale or festivity of the bride. One or two other compounds 
 on this model, such as church-ale, scot-ale, have become 
 obsolete. 
 
SUBSTANTIVES — LATIN FORMS. 333 
 
 Another word, which has an equally deceptive appearance 
 of being formed with the Latin -at is burial. This is a pure 
 Saxon word from its first letter to its last. The Saxon form 
 is byrigeh, a form which is of the singular number, though it 
 ends with s. The plural was byrigelsas. 
 
 361. In -ate, from the Latin -a/us, participle or sub- 
 stantive. 
 
 Examples : — consulate, episcopate, estimate, opiate, magnate, 
 S 1 •ndicate, tribunate. 
 
 362. In -tude, from the Latin substantives in -ludo, -tudinis. 
 
 Examples : — altitude, beatitude, certitude, disquietude, forti- 
 tude, gratitude, latitude, longitude, magnitude, multitude, solici- 
 tude, solitude, tur/>itude, ricissilud, . 
 
 turpitude. 
 
 ' There is ever with you, lying folded in the recesses of your bosom, and 
 pervading the whole system both of your desires and of your doings, that 
 which gives to sin all its turpitude, and all its moral hideousness in the sight 
 of God. There is a rooted preference of the creature to the Creator. — 
 Thomas Chalmers, Sermon III. (1819). 
 
 dis'/uiiud . 
 
 ' Look around this congregation. We are all more or less the children of 
 sorrow. There is not one of us who has not within him some known or 
 secret cause of disquietude.' — Charles Bradley, Clapbam Sermons, 1831 ; 
 Sermon VII. 
 
 solicitude. 
 
 ' The excellent breed of sheep, which early became the subject of legis- 
 lative solicitude, furnished them with an important staple.' — William H. 
 Prescott, Ferdinand and habella, vol. i. p. 29 (ed. 1 838). 
 
 363. The substantives in -ite must be reckoned among 
 the Latin ones, as we received the form through the Latin ; 
 but it is Greek by origin. 
 
 It was of European celebrity in the middle ages as a 
 class word, especially for sects and opinions. The fol- 
 lowers of the early heresies were often thus designated, as 
 
334 the noun GROUP. 
 
 Monothelites, Marcioniies, Monophysites. Yet the odium 
 which now attaches to this form cannot have been felt in the 
 sixteenth century, or our Bible would not shew it so generally 
 as it does, not only in such cases as Canaanite, Perizzite, 
 H w ilc, and Jebusite, but also in Levite, Gadite, Manassite, 
 and Bethlehemite. 
 
 Already, however, at the close of the seventeenth century, 
 we find the ecclesiastical historian Jeremy Collier, using the 
 term Wicliffists, as if with purpose to avoid writing Wiclifite, 
 which was the usual form. And thus in our own time the 
 alumni of Winchester are justly sensitive about being called 
 Wykehamites instead of Wykehamists. 
 
 The fact is, that with our sensitiveness about religious 
 differences, this form has become almost odious ; and we 
 scruple to quote instances of its application out of respect 
 for names that may be embodied. Suffice it for illustration 
 to put down such as Joanna- Southcotites and Mormonites. 
 
 Still, there are terms of speech in which it may come in 
 harmlessly or even pleasantly: — 
 
 ' Whilst the trial was going on, and the issue still uncertain, I met Cole- 
 ridge, who said, " Well, Robinson, you are a Queenite, I hope?" — " Indeed 
 I am not." — "How is that possible?" — "I am only an anti-Kingite." — 
 " That's just what I mean.'" — H. C. Robinson, Diary, 1820. 
 
 Greek Forms. ' 
 
 364. Coming now to Greek formations, the most con- 
 spicuous are the following : — 
 
 Nouns in -y from Greek words in -ia and -ecce; as academy, 
 agony, irony, tyranny. 
 
 irony (etpoiveia). 
 
 ' There was no mockery in Miss Austen's irony. However heartily we 
 laugh at her pictures of human imbecility, we are never tempted to think 
 that contempt or disgust for human nature suggested the satire.' 
 
SUBSTANTIVES — GREEK FORMS. $3$ 
 
 synonymy (vwaiwiua). 
 
 'As the synonymy is one of the most difficult and perhaps important parts 
 of the subject, it has of course received particular attention. But I have 
 rarely been very anxious about the synonyms of botanists of an earlier date 
 than the time of Linnaeus, on account of the extreme uncertainty of the pre- 
 cise plants which they intended.' — John Lindley, A Monograph of Roses, 
 1820; p. ix. 
 
 threnod) • (Oprjvcpdia ) . 
 
 ' We crave not a memorial stone 
 For those who fell at Marathon : 
 Their fame with every breeze is blent, 
 The mountains are their monument, 
 And the low plaining of the sea 
 Their everlasting threnody.' 
 
 The Three Fountains (1869), p. 100. 
 
 365. In -ism, from the Greek -107*0? ; as atheism, cate- 
 chism, euphemism, idolism Milton, materialism, modernism, 
 polytheism, propagandism, schism, ventriloquism, 
 
 Scotticism, Protestantism, Catholicism, Presbyti riauism. 
 
 * For our part, we should say that the special habit or peculiarity which 
 distinguishes the intellectual manifestations of Scotchmen — that, in short, 
 in which the Scotticism of Scotchmen most intimately ts — is the habit 
 
 of emphasis. All Scotchmen are emphatic, li a Scotchman is a fool, he 
 gives such emphasis to the nonsense he utters, as to be infinitely more 
 insufferable than a fool of any other country ; if a Scotchman is a man of 
 genius, he gives such emphasis to the good things he has to communicate, 
 that they have a supremely good chance of being at once or very soon 
 attended to. This habit of emphasis, we believe, is exactly that perfervidum 
 ingenium Scotorum which used to be remarked some centuries ago, wherever 
 Scotchmen were known. But emphasis is perhaps a better word than 
 fervour. Many Scotchmen are fervid too, but not all ; but all, absolutely 
 all, are emphatic. No one will call Joseph Hume a fervid man. but he is 
 certainly emphatic. And so with David Hume, or Reid, or Adam 
 Smith, or any of those colder-natured Scotchmen of whom we have spoken ; 
 fervour cannot be predicated of them, but they had plenty of emphasis. In 
 men like Burns, or Chalmers, or Irving, on the other hand, there was both 
 emphasis and fervour ; so also with Carlyle ; and so, under a still more 
 curious combination, with Sir William Hamilton. And as we distinguish 
 emphasis from fervour, so would we distinguish it from perseverance. 
 Scotchmen are said to be persevering, but the saying is not universally 
 true ; Scotchmen are or are not morally persevering, but all Scotchmen are 
 
33 6 
 
 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 intellectually emphatic. Emphasis, we repeat, intellectual emphasis, the 
 habit of laying stress on certain things rather than co-ordinating all, in 
 this consists what is essential in the Scotticism of Scotchmen. And, as 
 this observation is empirically verified by the very manner in which Scotch- 
 men enunciate their words in ordinary talk, so it might be deduced scientifi- 
 cally from what we have already said regarding the nature and effects of the 
 feeling of nationality. The habit of thinking emphatically is a necessary 
 result of thinking much in the presence of, and in resistance to, a negative ; 
 it is the habit of a people that has been accustomed to act on the defensive, 
 rather than of a people peacefully evolved and accustomed to act positively ; 
 it is the habit of Protestantism rather than of Catholicism, of Presbyterian- 
 ism rather than of Episcopacy, of Dissent rather than of Conformity.' — 
 David Masson, Essays (1856) ; ' Scottish Influence in British Literatuse.' 
 
 dogmatism, rationalism. 
 
 ' All Dogmatic Theology' is not Dogmatism, nor the use of all Reason. 
 Rationalism, any more than all drinking is drunkenness.' — H. L. Mansel, 
 Bampton Lectures, Pref. to Fourth Edition. 
 
 Stoicism. 
 
 ' Stoicism was in fact the earliest offspring of the union between the re- 
 ligious consciousness of the East and the intellectual culture of the West.' — 
 Professor Lightfoot, St. Paul and Se?ieca. 
 
 ventriloquism. 
 
 ' Coleridge praised " Wallenstein," but censured Schiller for a sort of ven- 
 triloquism in poetry. By-the-by, a happy term to express that common 
 fault of throwing the sentiments and feelings of the writer into the bodies 
 of other persons, the characters of the poem.' — Henry Crabb Robinson, 
 Diary, &c, vol. i. p. 396. 
 
 criticism, idealism, realism. 
 
 ' In calling imitation and design the two constituents of art, and in defining 
 realism as the preponderance of imitation and idealism of design in a work 
 of art, the writer adopts a good enough working analysis, if not a final or 
 very penetrating one. In conclusion, contending that the grandest power of 
 design is much more closely dependent on perfect power of imitation, and 
 therefore that idealism is much more closely allied to realism, than is com- 
 monly supposed, Mr. Poynter is led to a passage of detailed criticism on 
 Michelangelo, which is the most telling part of his paper. — The Academy, 
 June 15, 1871. 
 
 scepticism. 
 
 * Scepticism, to be worth anything, should be the thoroughly trained habit 
 of looking deeply into all sides of the question, and not merely at the out- 
 side of one or two.' — Sir Edward Strachey, Spectator, Dec. 30, 1871. 
 
SUBSTANTIVES — GREEK FORMS. 33? 
 
 How readily new words are builded on this model may 
 be seen from the following : — 
 
 ' The three schools of geological speculation which I have termed Catas- 
 trophism, Uniformitarianim, and Evolutionism, are commonly supposed to 
 be antagonistic to one another.' — Address of the President of the Geological 
 Society, 1869. 
 
 The form witticism seems to imply that -cism has been 
 accepted as the formative, perhaps after the pattern of Catho- 
 licism, ostracism, Stoicism. 
 
 These nouns are in fact now formed just as readily as 
 the verbs in -ize, from which the noun-formative -ism is an 
 outgrowth. 
 
 366. And so is -ist ; as atheist, casuist, chemist, dogmatist, 
 fist, idoiist Milton, mesmerist, methodist, ministerialist, 
 
 novelist, publicist, ritualist, Wykehamist. 
 
 publicist. 
 
 ' The same evening I had an introduction to one who, in any place but 
 Weimar, would have held the first rank, and who in his person and bearing 
 impressed every one with the feeling that he belonged to the highest class 
 of men. This was Herder. The interview was. if possible, more insig- 
 nificant than that with Goethe — partly, perhaps, on account of my being 
 introduced at the tame time with a distinguished publicist, to use the 
 (i iinan term, the eminent political writer and statesman, Friedrich Gentz, 
 the translator of Burke on the French Revolution.' 11. C. Robinson. Diary, 
 1801. 
 
 atheist, pantheist, poly the ist. 
 
 ' The whole world seems to give- the lie to the great truth of the being of 
 
 \\ ; and of that great truth my whole being is full : so that were it not 
 
 for the voice speaking so clearly in my conscience and my heart, I should be 
 
 an atheist, pantheist, or polythcist when 1 looked into the world.' — J. H. 
 
 Newman, Apologia. 
 
 367. But fond as we appear to be of the Greek verbs in 
 -ize and the Greek nouns in -ism, -ist, we have drawn very 
 little from a Greek form that lies close beside these. There 
 are Greek verbs in -aze, and corresponding noun-forms in 
 -asm, -ast, which have been almost neglected by us. We 
 have a few English nouns 
 
338 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 In -asm, as chasm, enthusiasm, pleonasm, protoplasm, sar- 
 casm, spasm. 
 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 ' Wahabeeism was the last wave of Mahomedan enthusiasm.' — C. E. 
 Trevelyan, Times, Nov. 14, 1871. 
 
 And also -ast, as enthusiast, periphrasi, protoplast. 
 
 ' Upon such considerations, to me it appears to be most reasonable, that 
 the circumference of our protoplast's senses should be the same with that of 
 nature's ac'.ivity: unless we will derogate from his perfections, and so reflect 
 a disparagement on him that made us.' — Joseph Glanvil, The Vanity of 
 Dogmatizing, 1 66 1 . 
 
 368. In -ics, a plural collective after the Greek -«d, in 
 which the last letter being the sign of plurality has been 
 translated into the English -s. 
 
 Examples: — acoustics, calisthenics, ethics, gymnastics, ma- 
 thematics, mechanics, metaphysics, mnemonics, optics, poetics, 
 polemics, politics. 
 
 Under this set an observation may be made which has been 
 for some time due — namely, that the traces of French influence 
 are now become sparse and rare. Here we have judged for 
 ourselves what to borrow from the Greek, and how to reduce 
 it to English form. In the instances before us both Latin 
 and French express the idea unlike ourselves. In French 
 the plural politiques means politicians. Yet there is an elder 
 group of these in which we have retained the French singular 
 without alteration, as arithmetic, logic, ?nagic, music, rhetoric. 
 
 Among our Greek specimens, as under the other groups, 
 there are some which cannot be classified, because of the de- 
 trition of the formative part, and which yet call for mention 
 in a catalogue of English substantives. One such is the 
 important word method, which has played a part in our 
 language. 
 
 ' I would advise you as much as possible to throw your business into a 
 certain method, by which means you will learn to improve every precious 
 
SUBSTANTIVES — UNALTERED CLASSICAL WORDS. 339 
 
 moment, and find an unspeakable facility in the performance of your 
 respective duties.' — Letter from his Mother to Samuel Wesley at West- 
 minster (1709). 
 
 369. A considerable number of Latin and Greek words 
 have been adopted in their original and unaltered forms. 
 Such are, abacus, acumen, cegis, album, alumnus, animus, 
 antithesis, apex, apparatus, arcana, area, arena, asthma, basis, 
 bathos, census, chaos, character, circus, compendium, cosmos, 
 crisis, criterion, deficit, eiicomium, epitome, equilibrium, eulo- 
 gium, formula, fungus, gravamen, horizon, hypothesis, index, 
 interest, iieni , maximum, medium, memento, memorandum, 
 minimum, minutiaz, modicum, momentum, oasis, odium, onus, 
 paralysis, parenthesis, pathos, phenomenon, prospectus, radius, 
 regimen, requiem, residuum, sanatorium, squalor ', status, stigma, 
 stimulus, tedium, terminus, ultimatum, vortex. 
 
 Jane Austen censured one of her nieces for writing about 
 a ' vortex of dissipation/ the expression was so intolerably 
 hackneyed. 
 
 One of the most familiar and most frequently used of 
 this set is epitome, as — 
 
 ' Paul's walk is the land's epitome, or you may call it the lesser isle of 
 Great Britain. It is more than this, the whole world's map. which you may 
 here discern in its perfectest motion, jostling and turning.' — John Earle, 
 Miorocosmography, ed. Bliss, 181 1 ; p. 116. 
 
 or, as in Dryden's character of VilKers : — 
 
 4 A man so various that he seemed to be 
 Not one, but all mankind's epitome : 
 Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, 
 Was everything by starts, and nothing long ; 
 But, in the course of one revolving moon, 
 Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon.' 
 
 Absalom and Achitophel. 
 interest. 
 
 * He hates our sacred Nation ; and he railes 
 Even there where Merchants most doe congregate, 
 On me, my bargaines, and my well-worne thrift, 
 Which he cals interrest : Cursed be my trybe 
 If 1 forgive him.' Merchant 0/ Venice, i. I. 
 
 Z 2 
 
340 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 character, medium. 
 
 ' Character is moral order seen through the medium of an individual 
 nature.' — Emerson. 
 
 ' Madame de Stael said, and the general remark is true, " The English 
 mind is in the middle between the German and the French, and is a me- 
 dium of communication between them." ' — H. C. Robinson, Diary, vol. i. 
 
 P- 1/5- 
 
 370. In conclusion, we will notice a group of nouns of a 
 peculiarly national stamp. They are easy and familiar ex- 
 pressions formed by a curtailment of longer words, and are 
 mostly monosyllabic. It is generally but not always the first 
 part that has been retained. Thus for speculation we hear 
 spec, for omnibus bus, for cabriolet cab, for incognito incog, 
 and stress for distress. The curt expression of tick for credit 
 is as old as the seventeenth century, and is corrupted from 
 ticket, as a tradesman's bill was formerly called. John 
 Oldham (1683) has — 
 
 'Reduced to want, he in due time felt sick, 
 Was fain to die, and be interred on tick.' 
 
 Compo for composition appears to be known to the world 
 of artists, to judge by the following passage : — 
 
 ' Now, gilding on a picture-frame is not only justifiable by way of orna- 
 ment, but is much to be recommended as a foil or neutral ground for en- 
 hancing the value of colour ; but it ought to be laid directly on the wood, 
 without any intervening composition ; and if any ornament in relief is 
 attempted, it should be carved in the solid material. The effect of oak- 
 grain seen through leaf-gold is exceedingly good, and the sense of texture 
 thus produced is infinitely more interesting than the smooth monotony of 
 gilt "compo."' — Charles L. Eastlake, Hints on Household Taste (1869) 
 ch. vii. 
 
 If it appear below the dignity of philology to notice such 
 half-recognised slang, let it be remembered that this science 
 is quite as much concerned with first efforts, of however 
 uncouth an aspect, as it is with those mature forms which 
 enjoy the most complete literary sanction. The words 
 
SUBSTANTIVES — CURT FORMS. 
 
 341 
 
 which one generation calls slang, are not unfrequently the 
 sober and decorous terms of that which succeeds. The 
 term bus has made for itself a very tolerable position, 
 and cab is absolutely established. The curt form of gent 
 as a less ceremonious substitute for the full expression 
 of ' gentleman,' had once made considerable way, but its 
 career was blighted in a court of justice. It is about 
 twenty years ago that two young men, being brought before 
 a London magistrate, described themselves as ' gents.' The 
 magistrate said that he considered that a designation little 
 better than ' blackguard.' The abbreviate form has never 
 been able to recover that shock. 
 
 A more respectable example of a curt form is the title 
 Miss, which, though nothing but the first syllable of 
 Mistress, has won its way to an honoured position. 
 
 371. Already in 171 1. Mr. Spectator, in an interesting 
 paper for the study of the English language, No. 135, com- 
 mented upon the tendency of these curt forms to get them- 
 selves established. 
 
 ' It is perhaps this humour of speaking no more than we needs must, which 
 has so miserably curtailed some of our words, that in familiar writings and 
 conversations they often lose all but their first syllables, as " mob. rep. pos. 
 incog" and the like ; and as all ridiculous words make their first entry into 
 a language by familiar phrases, I dare not answer for these, that they will 
 not in time be looked upon as part of our tongue. 1 
 
 In fact, these words have a crude and fragmentary look 
 only while they are recent. Give time enough, and the 
 abruptness disappears. Who now thinks of mole (talpa) as 
 a curt form of moldiwarp the mouldcaster? Who finds it 
 vulgar to say Consols, though this is but a curt way of saving 
 Consolidated Annuities ? A peal of bells is even an elegant 
 expression, although it is curtailed from appeal. Story is 
 a pretty word, though curt for history. The short form has 
 always borne a comparatively familiar sense, as it does to 
 
342 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 the present day. It is only used twice in the text of our 
 Bible, and then to represent midrash, that is, commentary 
 upon history rather than history. But into the contents of 
 the chapters, which are couched in homelier speech, we find 
 it more readily admitted. Thus in Deuteronomy : — 
 
 ' Chap. I. Moses speech in the end of the fortieth yeere, briefly rehearsing 
 the story, &c.' 
 
 4 Chap. II. The story is continued, &c.' 
 
 ' Chap. III. The story of the conquest of Og king of Bashan. 
 
 372. Curtailments which are now obsolete, are in some 
 cases preserved to us in compound words. Thus the word 
 cobweb seems to indicate that the attercop (old word for 
 spider) was curtly called a cop or cob. 
 
 We have been very easy in our admission of long classic 
 words ; nay, we have exhibited a large appetite for them. 
 But there still lingers the Saxon taste for the monosyllable, 
 and it often breaks out in the writer of fine taste, when for 
 a moment he feels unawed by critical observers. A clear 
 example of this occurs in a letter of Keble's, wherein he has 
 adopted the highly expressive word splotch. 
 
 ' We have two girls and little Edward with us, and a great splotch 
 of sunshine they make in the house.' — Life of Keble, p. 394. 
 
 This word has its habitat in Oxfordshire, where school- 
 children may be heard to use it in speaking of a blot on 
 their copybooks. 
 
 There has been in our time a visible reaction against the 
 tyranny of long words, in favour of the despised monosyllable. 
 We have not indeed arrived at the decision 
 
 ' To banish from the nation, 
 All long-tail'd words in osity and ation.' 
 
 John Hookham Frere, Whistlecraft (1817). 
 
 But ostentation and pride of invention is now seen almost 
 as often in short or Saxon-like words as it is in the long- 
 
SUBSTANTIVES — FAMILIAR NAMES. 343 
 
 robed words of classic sweep. Perhaps it may be the case 
 that the Americans are leading the way in this. Certain it 
 is that words of this character do win their way into English 
 literature from across the Atlantic. The following introduc- 
 tion of a new word is in point. 
 
 ' Boston is the htib of the world. So say those who, not being Massa- 
 chusetts men themselves, are disposed to impute extravagant pretensions to 
 the good old Puritan city. The hub, in the language of America, is the 
 nave, or centre-piece of the wheel, from which the spokes radiate, and oa 
 which the wheel turns. As the Americans make with their hickory wood 
 the best wheels in the world, they have some right to give to one of the 
 pieces a name of their own. But, however. Boston need not quarrel with 
 the saying. Nations, like individuals, are generally governed by ideas, and 
 no people to such a degree as the Americans : and the ideas which have 
 governed them hitherto have been supplied from New England. But Mas- 
 sachusetts has been the wheel within New England, and Boston the wheel 
 within Massachusetts. It has therefore been the first source and foundation 
 of the ideas that have moved and made America ; and is, in a high and 
 honourable sense, the bub of the New World.' — F. Barham Zincke, Last 
 Winter in the United States (1S6S), p. 279. 
 
 373. Familiar abbreviations of Christian names belong 
 here. They are commonly made, with alteration or without, 
 from the first syllable 1 . Will, Tom, [['(//(from Waller, accord- 
 ing to its old faded-French pronunciation Wattr) i Sam, &c. 
 
 These are specially liable to alteration from the caprices 
 of the little folk among whom they are most current, and 
 to this cause (mixed with the imperfection of the childish 
 organs of speech and the fondness which elder brothers and 
 sisters have for propagating the original speeches of the little 
 ones) must be assigned such forms as Bob for Rob, Bill for 
 Will, Dick for Rich. Mr. Charles Dickens signed his writings 
 
 1 The Germans, having a diminutival form -d)m, which attaches to the 
 end of a word, are naturally led to preserve the final syllable in their familiar 
 abbreviations of Christian names, as Gvrtrljcn, ILottcrjrn, tTrittldjcn, from 
 Margarethe, Charlotte, Gertrude. In other cases, apart from this cause, it is 
 the latter part that survives, as STritt for Catharina. But no general rule 
 can be affirmed : Jjrtb is the universal ' Kosename' for Friedrich, and JDirti 
 for Dietrich. 
 
344 THE N OUN GROUP. 
 
 ' Boz ' after a facetious pronunciation of Moses, which was 
 current in his family. In the case of names beginning with 
 a vowel, the curt form takes a consonant, as Ned, Noll, Nell, 
 for Edward, Oliver, and Ellen. 
 
 While we are upon these familiar appellations, we may 
 as well complete the list by noticing some which do not 
 spring from the causes here under consideration. Harry 
 for Henry is a rough English imitation of the sound of the 
 French Henri ; Jack is the French Jacques, which has 
 attached itself somehow to the English John. 
 
 374. A survey of English nouns would indeed be deficient 
 which should omit that curt, stunt, slang element to which 
 we as a nation are so remarkably prone, and in regard to 
 which we stand in such contrast with our adoptive sister. 
 The French language shrinks from such things as it were 
 from an indecorum. Our public-school and university life 
 is a great wellhead of new and irresponsible words. Gra- 
 dually they find their way into literature. For example : — 
 
 chaff. 
 
 ' He wishes to confound the whole school of those who think that a faith 
 is to be tested by the inward experience of life. And so he sets himself to 
 overwhelm Mr. Hughes with ridicule, rioting in that kind of banter vulgarly 
 described as " chaff," and bringing up against him the stock difficulties which 
 can always be cast in the way of belief.' — J. Llewelyn Davies, The Gospel 
 and Modem Life, p. xviii. 
 
 375. And as such words in shoals proceed from the 
 gathering-places of young Saxons, so also a kindred work is 
 being achieved by that young Saxon world which lives 
 beyond the western main. It almost seems as if they, or 
 a certain school among them, were bent on raising a stan- 
 dard of rebellion, and were resolved to dispute that superiority 
 which the classic tongues have so long exercised over our 
 barbarian language. Nothing in American literature bears 
 
YANKEE DICTION. 345 
 
 such a stamp of originality and determination as those 
 writings in which reverence for antiquity is utterly cast aside, 
 and their old obedience to the King's English is thrown to 
 the winds. The genial and suasive satire of the Biglow 
 Papers on the one hand, and the mocking horse-laugh of 
 Ha is Breitmann on the other, are at one in their contemptu- 
 ous rejection of the old senatorial dignity of literary language. 
 It is in both cases an audacious renunciation of the long 
 captivity in which our speech and literature have been held 
 under classic sway, and it seems to us at first sight as little 
 less than an open declaration of the prior claims of famili- 
 arity and barbarism. But it cannot be denied that Mr. 
 Lowell has practically demonstrated the power of mind over 
 matter, the power of resolution over restraint, the superiority 
 of thought in literature over every conventional limit that 
 can be imposed upon the forms of expression. It is an 
 assertion of the natural freedom of dialect and language and 
 diction. Who, with any feeling for humour, can refuse to 
 condone the literary audacity of the following ? Nay, who 
 can refuse to it a certain degree of admiration ? 
 
 'I've noticed thet each half-baked scheme's abettors 
 Arc iu the babbit <>' prodiicin' letters. 
 Writ by all sorts o' never-heerd-on fellers, 
 Vout as oridgenal ez the wind in bellers ; 
 I've noticed tu, it's the quack med'eines gits 
 (An' needs) the grettest heap o' stifiykits.' 
 
 Or who with any love of nature can let the dialect blind him 
 to the burst of real poetry that there is in this description of 
 the New England spring, ' that gives one leap from April 
 into June ' ? — 
 
 ' Then all comes crowdin' in : afore you think, 
 The oak- buds mist the side-hill woods with pink, 
 The cat-bird in the laylock bush is loud, 
 The orchards turn to heaps o' rosy cloud, 
 
346 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 In ellum-shrouds the flashin' hangbird clings, 
 
 An' for the summer vy'ge his hammock slings, 
 
 All down the loose-walled lanes, in archin' bowers 
 
 The barb'ry droops its strings o' golden flowers .... 
 
 'Nuff sed, June's bridesman, poet o' the year, 
 
 Gladness on wings, the bobolink is here ; 
 
 Half hid in tip-top apple blooms he swings 
 
 Or climbs against the breeze with quivering wings, 
 
 Or givin' way to 't in a mock despair 
 
 Runs down, a brook o' laughter, thru the air.' 
 
 Mr. Lowell's dialect is the true Yankee, the speech of the 
 Northern farmer. It is difficult to believe that Mr. Leland's 
 poetry represents any existing form of speech, but it is 
 described as Pennsylvanian German 1 . 
 
 376. Returning to our own side of the Atlantic, we may 
 observe that in a gradual and unobserved manner we are 
 continuallv admitting words which once were disowned and 
 disallowed. 
 
 Two remarkable examples are clever and fun 2 , words now 
 in perfect credit ; of which Johnson could call the former ' a 
 low word ' and the latter ' a low cant word.' 
 
 The general motive of the employment of such words is to 
 escape conventionality; that is, to escape the triteness and 
 dryness of that which is current and hackneyed, and this be- 
 cause the speaker longs to mingle with his words something 
 of character or of humour or of good-fellowship — in a word 
 something personal or emotional. Now it is plain, without 
 reasoning, that to call each thing by the name that everybody 
 calls it, without any little twist or twirl, is apt to seem com- 
 monplace and vapid. Kindly feelings desire a little play- 
 fulness in conversation ; the sterner sentiments have also 
 their claim for an utterance to fit them, — and both of these 
 
 1 Mr. Ellis calls it ' Pennsylvania German,' and he has illustrated this 
 dialect in his work On Early English Pronunciation, Part iii. p. 655. 
 "■ Dr. Trench, English Past and Present, seventh ed. p. 206. 
 
DIMINUTIVES. 347 
 
 are at times rebellious against conventionality. Consequently 
 there has been found in most languages a faculty of 
 shaping certain words to the temper of the speaker, or, so 
 to speak, of giving them a moral colouring. Emotional 
 substantives have been commonly called Diminutives, because 
 the sentiments which have been most active in this work 
 have been those of affectionate partiality on the one hand, 
 or of contempt on the other; and therefore the idea of ' little ' 
 has been much felt in this strain of words. In some lan- 
 guages, such as the Italian, the term Diminutive appeared too 
 narrow, and the grammarians made another class by the name 
 of Augmentatives. But in this way of proceeding it would 
 be necessary to invent more names, for varieties may be 
 found as numerous as the shades of human feeling; and 
 therefore it seems better to acquiesce in the common desig- 
 nation, however inadequate, only remembering what it really 
 signifies. The Diminutives are emotional substantives, ex- 
 pressive of liking or aversion, of admiration or contempt, and 
 accordingly conveying a good or a bad sense, a magnifying 
 or diminishing effect. By the Italian -actio we may see how 
 hard these variations are to classify. 
 
 « Masaccio was born about the beginning of the century, in Valdarno, 
 between Florence and Arezzo, and died as early as 1443, as was suspected, 
 by poison. This distinguished artist merits particular attention, as having 
 been the first who gave a decided impulse to the new direction of Art. 
 Of the particulars of his lite nothing more is known than that (as Vasari 
 informs us) he was originally named Tommaso, or Maso. and that the re- 
 proachful "accio" was added from his total neglect of all the external 
 relations of life, in his exclusive devotion to Art.' — The Schools of Painting 
 in Italy, translated from the German of Kugler, by a Lady ; ed. Eastlake, 
 Book iv. ch. 1. 
 
 377. There has been good material in the Gothic languages 
 for a development of this kind, but it has not been matured 
 in our family as in the Romance languages, and especially in 
 Italian. The Gothic dialects in which the diminutives are most 
 
348 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 striking are the Scottish and the Alemannian, that is, the High 
 Dutch of the German cantons of Switzerland. The great 
 lanffua^e in which it has been best cultivated is the German, 
 where an excellent use is made of -cfyert (374) and -kin, as 
 3Jiabd)cn, ft'raulein. In the Swiss dialects -teitt, or rather -It, 
 is so general as to be merely conventional ; the -djen exists 
 in English and Scotch in a few expiring embers. These are 
 in the form of -kin, as bodkin, gherkin, lambkin, mannikin, 
 pipkin, but the diminutival sense is mostly effete. An in- 
 stance of the employment of this form in the service of 
 contempt, was when Pope conceived his sooterkins — 
 
 ' Fruits of dull heat and sooterkins of wit.' 
 
 The Dunciad, Book i. 
 
 Or -kie, -kinie, as in the following quotation : — 
 
 ' A form of expression which has been a great favourite in Scotland, in 
 my recollection, has much gone out of practice — I mean the frequent use 
 of diminutives, generally adopted either as terms of endearment or of con- 
 tempt. Thus, it was very common to speak of a person whom you meant 
 rather to undervalue, as a mannie, a bodie, a bit bodie, or a wee bit mannie. 
 The bailie in Rob Roy, when he intended to represent his party as persons 
 of no importance, used the expression " "We are bits o' Glasgow bodies." In 
 a popular child's song, we have the endearing expression, ' ; My wee bit 
 laddie." We have known the series of diminutives, as applied to the 
 canine race, very rich in diminution. There is — I. A dog; 2. A doggie; 
 3. A bit doggie; 4. A wee bit doggie; and even 5. A wee bit doggikie. 
 A correspondent has supplied me with a diminutive, which is of a more 
 extravagant degree of attenuation than any I ever met with. It is this — 
 
 " A peerie wee bit o' a manikinie." It is recorded in the family that 
 
 Mrs. Mure, on receiving from David Hume on his deathbed, the copy of 
 his History, which is still in the library of Caldwell, thanked him very 
 warmly, and added, in her native dialect, which she and the historian spoke 
 in threat purity, " O David, that 's a book ye may weel be proud o', but 
 before ye dee ye should burn a' your wee bukies." ' — E. B. Ramsay, 
 Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character, ch. v. 
 
 The diminutives at present most active in English are the 
 French forms -et, -ette, -let. 
 
 To the examples given above, 336, may here be added 
 gable!, gibbet, giblet, gimlet, lancet, tablet. 
 
S UBSTANTIVES — INFLECTION. 349 
 
 gablet. 
 
 ' Rising against the screen . . . stood an old monument of carved wood, 
 <>nce brilliantly painted ... It lifted its gablet, carved to look like a 
 canopy, till its apex was on a level with the book-board on the front of the 
 organ-loft ; ' George MacDonald, Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood, ch. ii. 
 
 We also use the Scotch diminutival -ie, often written -y, 
 but with us it hardly exists beyond the region of childish 
 talk, as auntie, Georgy, Johnny. 
 
 The Saxon -ling, as in duckling, gosling, seems reviving : 
 in ' Ginx's Baby,' a small book that has had a great run, we 
 find cfiangeling, /bundling, nurseling, sirangeling, suckling, 
 youngling. 
 
 It is (probably) as a compensation for our poverty in 
 1 motional expressions that we turn with such avidity to slang 
 and dialectic substantives. 
 
 As regards the influence rf the emotions on the forms of 
 words, the Italian and the English stand at opposite poles : 
 
 ' A far nicnte life promotes the graces ; 
 
 They pass from dreamy bliss to wakeful glee, 
 And in their bearing, and their speech, one traces 
 
 A breadth of ind depth of cour 
 
 That are not found in more inclement places ; 
 
 Their clime and tongue are much in harmony : 
 The cockney met in Middle?ex or Surrey, 
 
 Is often cold, and always in a hurry.' 
 
 Frederick Locker, London Lyrics, ' The Invitation to Rome' 
 
 Inflect ion of Substantives. 
 
 378. Flexion is used to express the Number, the Case and 
 the Gender of substantives. The Saxon substantive had a full 
 assortment of flexion — three cases in the singular, and as 
 many in the plural. 
 
 
 SINGULAR. 
 
 
 PLURAL. 
 
 
 Nom. 
 Ace. 
 
 \- smio", 
 
 smith 
 
 smioas, 
 
 smiths 
 
 Gen. 
 
 smiles 
 
 of a smith 
 
 smio'a, 
 
 of smiths 
 
 Dat. 
 
 smid'e 
 
 to a smith 
 
 smiftum, 
 
 to smiths 
 
350 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 The Saxon adjective was of still more varied flexibility, at 
 least in the singular number, where each gender had its own 
 set of inflections. Of all this there remains but little. The 
 modern adjective has no inflection whatever ; and that of the 
 substantive is reduced to the letter s for the expression of 
 the genitive singular, and the same letter for the formation 
 of the plural. 
 
 This old plural s is one of the points by which our near- 
 ness to the Mceso-Gothic is indicated. In that dialect the 
 s plural has a very much larger incidence than in Anglo- 
 Saxon. In fact it applies to all the masculine and feminine 
 substantives of the dialect. In the Old- and Middle-High 
 German it is untraceable. In the Scandinavian dialects it is 
 represented by r. In the Old-Saxon alone (besides the 
 Mceso-Gothic) do we find the plural s : there it holds much 
 the same sort of place as in Anglo-Saxon. The range of 
 this plural was very limited in Saxon : out of the nine declen- 
 sions made by Rask, it occupies only one. 
 
 This form is indebted to French influence for its place in 
 English. There was in Saxon a group of masculine nouns 
 which made its plural in -as. Thus : — 
 
 SINGULAR. 
 
 
 PLURAL. 
 
 ende, 
 
 end 
 
 endas 
 
 daeg, 
 
 day 
 
 dagas 
 
 cyning, 
 
 Tiing 
 
 cyningas 
 
 weg, 
 
 way 
 
 wegas 
 
 stsef, 
 
 letter 
 
 stafas 
 
 379. But the really dominant pluralform in Saxon times 
 was that in -an, which later was written -en and -yn. Out of 
 Rask's nine declensions three formed their plurals thus, one 
 for each gender. Of these we only retain some relics, as 
 oxen, eyne, which latter is still occasionally used in poetry. In 
 Chaucer's time it was spelt eyen, which comes nearer to the 
 Saxon eagan. Thus, in the description of the Monk — 
 
S UBSTA NTIVES — PL URALITY. 
 
 35 
 
 1 His eyen stepe and rollyng in his hed.' 
 
 In the Northern dialect it appeared as ene, in modern 
 
 Scotch written een. 
 
 ' Grete ene and gray, with a grym loke.' 
 
 Troy Booh, 3821. 
 
 380. We have indeed other plurals in -en ; but they are 
 younger than Saxon times. They are a memorial of the fact 
 that this form was dominant throughout the country during 
 the transition period ; and they indicate that, had it not been 
 for a stronger external influence, the plural -en would have 
 become as general in modern English as it is in modern 
 German. Such is the form shoon, shoes, still extant in 
 spoken Scotch ; also within the horizon of our English 
 reading, if not of our speaking or writing. 
 
 ' We will not leaue one Lord, one Gentleman : 
 Spare none, but such as go in clouted slioocn.' 
 
 2 Henry VI, iw 2. 178. 
 
 Such are brethren, children, housen (Gloucestershire and 
 Suffolk), hosen. The latter word is in our Bible, Daniel iii. 
 21. Spenser has /one, meaning foes, Faery Queene, iii. 3. 33. 
 
 Mr. Barnes's Poems in the Dorset Dialect supply others, as 
 cheesen,fnrzen. 
 
 Of these, brethren and children, are cumulate plurals. 
 They have added the -en plural-form on to an eld( r 
 plural ; for brether and childer were plurals of brother and 
 child. The form sisteryn was common enough in the fifteenth 
 century, as ' bretheryn and sisteryn.' The form sistren is 
 said to be in full use in America, in the phraseology of the 
 meeting-house, as the counterpart of brethren. Another kind 
 of cumulation sometimes takes place. The modern s gets 
 added to its old rival n. In the passage just quoted from 
 2 Henry VI, the First and Second Folios have shooen, the 
 Third has shoon, and the Fourth has shoons ! With this may 
 
$$2 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 be classed the Norfolk boy-expression for birds' nests, which 
 is buds' nesens. 
 
 It was by the French influence, leading the van of educa- 
 tion for three centuries, that the plural in s, which held so 
 small a place in Saxon grammar, became the universal law 
 of English grammar. 
 
 381. Other pluralforms deserve a word of notice. The 
 plurals feet, geese, men, teeth, made by internal vowel-change 
 from foot, goose, man, tooth ; the forms lice, mice, mere frenchi- 
 fied orthographies of the Saxon plurals lys from singular lus, 
 and mys from singular mus, — are relics of an ancient class 
 never numerous within recorded knowledge, but which has 
 been reduced by the domination of the prevalent forms. So 
 boc had for its plural bee, but now it is books. In the transition 
 period the plural of goat appears as gayte and geet, but now it 
 is goats. Here also we get cumulate examples. The plural of 
 cu, cow, was once cy, a form which survives in the Scotch 
 kye; but it has received the superadded n, and has become 
 kinc. The Scottish breeks is a cumulate example, the modern 
 s being imposed upon the old strong plural ; for in Saxon it 
 was singular broc, plural brec. On the other hand, chicken, 
 which has been taken for a plural in n, is really a singular ; 
 and chickens its simple plural. Accordingly chick is a young 
 and deductive singular, derived from the imaginary plural 
 chicken ; much as pea was deduced from pease, 183. 
 
 382. There was a group of neuters, forming one of 
 Rask's declensions, which in the plural nominative and accu- 
 sative was flexionless. Such were leaf %ing, wif word, and 
 many others, of which the plural was the same as the singu- 
 lar ; not as now, leaves, things, wives, words. The feature 
 has survived in two words, which are still of one form for 
 singular and plural, viz. sheep and deer. To these might 
 be added swine, only that it seems now to be accepted as a 
 
SUBSTANTIVES — GENDER. 353 
 
 plural form, while sow and the upstart pig fill the office of the 
 singular. 
 
 Those words which we have adopted from Latin or Greek 
 in the singular nominative unaltered, have usually been 
 pluralised according to Greek and Latin grammar. Thus 
 the plural of phenomenon is phenomena, of oasis oases, of 
 terminus termini, of fungus fungi. But occasionally we see 
 the plurals in English form, as when Dr. Badham entitles his 
 book, not Edible Fungi, but Esculent Funguses, and uses this 
 plural all through it. as 
 
 ' No country is perhaps richer in esculent Funguses than our own ; we 
 have upwards of thirty species abounding in our woods.' — (p. xiii.) 
 
 Some few substantives which we have made out of Latin 
 words unaltered, are not nouns in that language, and have 
 no Latin plurality. These we have pluralised with English s, 
 as iie?ns, interests. 
 
 1 Benevolent subscribers too seldom examine the items of a report.' — 
 Ginx's Baby, ix. 
 
 Gender of Substantives. 
 
 383. The ancient and native form of the noun feminine 
 was in -en, as God, Deus ; gydtn, dea : wealh, servus ; wylen 
 serva, ancilla : Wg< ;/, minister ; fiynen, ministra. 
 
 But this form has been supplanted and so nearly extin- 
 guished that it is difficult to find an extant specimen to serve 
 for an illustration. Beyond sporting circles, not one person 
 in a thousand is aware that vixen is the feminine oifox. In 
 general speech it is only known as a stigma for the character 
 of a shrewish woman. Yet this is the history of vixen ; and it 
 is a very well preserved form, having enjoyed the shelter of a 
 technical position. Not only is there the -en termination, but 
 also the thinning of the masculine vowel, as in the Saxon 
 examples above. So also in German *yutf)3, ^iicfyftnn. 
 
 a a 
 
354 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 An example which maintained itself long after the extinc- 
 tion of its congeners was my?ichyn, the feminine of monk, 
 Saxon munuc. At the time of the suppression of the re- 
 ligious houses Dr. London wrote as follows from Godstow 
 to Lord Crumwell, April r7, 1535 : — 
 
 ' And if the kings grace's pleasur be, notwithstanding her (the lady 
 abbess's) desyer for suche considerations as movith hys grace for the reforma- 
 tion of suche abuses, to tak the howse by surrendyr, then I besek yo r lorde- 
 shipp to admytt me an humble sutar for my lady and herre sisters, and the 
 late Abbasse, and suche as haue covent sealts for lyvings in that howse, that 
 they may be favorably orderyd, specially my lady wich lately payd herre 
 fyrst fruyts and was indaungeryd therfor unto herre frynds. Many of the 
 mynchyns be also agyd, and as I perceyve few of the other haue any frynds, 
 wherefor I besek yo r lordeschipp to be gude lord unto them.' 
 
 384. That which has superseded the Saxon feminine is 
 the French termination -ess, as countess, duchess, empress, 
 giantess, goddess, governess, laundress, marchioness, princess, 
 sempstress, songstress. 
 
 Governess is not invariably applicable as the feminine of 
 governor. There are considerations which override grammar, 
 as our practice of common prayer witnesses. Yet I remember 
 to have heard ' Queen and Governess' in church. Grammar 
 has brought this class of cases under another rule which 
 she has made, namely this, that the masculine gender is 
 more worthy than the feminine. And on this ground it 
 would have been quite admissible, majestatis causa, to 
 have had ' founder' in the following passage where foundress 
 appears. 
 
 •The central plains of Australia, the untrodden jungles of Borneo, or the 
 still vacant spaces in our maps of Africa, alone now on the globe's surface 
 represent districts as unknown and mysterious as the north-east angle of 
 Ireland in the reign of the great foundress of the modern British Empire.' — 
 J. A. Froude, Reign of Elizabeth ; History, vol. x. p. 554. 
 
 Of this feminine form many examples now obsolete are 
 found in books : — architectress, buildress, captainess, daunceress, 
 
SUBSTANTIVES — GENDER. $$$ 
 
 Jla/teress, infrudress, hiightess, ?ieighbouress, ped/eress, sove- 
 raintess, t/iralless, vetigeress, waileress 1 . 
 
 In Doncaster the feminine of Alderman is A /dress or 
 A Id r esse 2 . 
 
 We can say lioness and tigress, but not clephantess nor 
 cameless. 
 
 ' The Lion did teare in pieces enough for his whelpes, and strangled for his 
 Lionesses.' — Nahum ii. 12. 
 
 In fact the application of this form has been so narrowed, 
 that we cannot properly be said to have a feminine formative 
 at all. A limited number of privileged formatives there are, 
 but not a free feminine formative. We cannot make new 
 feminines for every emergency, as the Germans can with 
 their -inn. However to be accounted for, it is a great 
 disadvantage. 
 
 As an illustration that we cannot make a feminine sub- 
 stantive to meet a new occasion, I instance the following. 
 There is a place in the Psalms where our word 'preachers' 
 is in the original a feminine form. Dr. Marsh, in a collection 
 of notes from Scripture concerning the ministry of women, 
 brings in this passage, but he can only array his Hebrew fact 
 in an English dress by an ungainly compound : — 
 
 • Psalm Ixviii. II reads in the original thus: — " The Lord g.ive the word, 
 great was the company of women-publishers." ' Memoir of the Rev. William 
 Marsh, D.D., by his Daughter (1S67), p. 398. 
 
 385. Examples like semps/ress, songs tress y remind us that 
 there was a Saxon feminine termination es/re, whereof a 
 trace is still visible in those words between the root and 
 
 1 An extensive list may be seen in Dr/ Trench's English Past and 
 Present, seventh ed. (1870), p. 11 3. 
 
 - Jackson's History of Doncaster Church, folio 1855, plate ix. : where we 
 see next to the pew of the Mayor and Aldermen one that is marked as 
 ' Aldresses' Pew.' The expression occurs in other parts of the same work. 
 
 a a 2 
 
3$6 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 the termination. This feminine is still extant in spinner, 
 spinster. 
 
 But we cannot recognise the termination -ster as being, or 
 as having been at some time past, a feminine formative in 
 every instance. Not only does the present use of such old 
 words as Baxter, huckster, maltster, songster, Webster, not to 
 urge the more recent oldster, youngster, roadster, make it 
 hard to prove them all feminines, but even if we push our 
 enquiries further back, we nowhere find the group clearly 
 defined as such, except in modern Dutch. There was in 
 Anglo-Saxon bcecere and bcecistre, and yet Pharaoh's baker in 
 Genesis xl. is bcecistre. Grimm has conjectured that these 
 nouns in -estre are all that is left of an older pair of declen- 
 sions, whereof one was masculine in -estra, the other feminine 
 in -estre. A fine historical example is 
 
 deemster. 
 
 ' The isle [of Man] is divided into " sheddings" (German Scheidungeti, 
 boundaries or separations). The judges are called " deemsters," that is, 
 doomsters, or pronouncers of judgment. The title of the king is " our 
 doughtful 1 Lord." The place of proclaiming the law is the " Tinwald.'" — 
 H. C. Robinson, Diary, 1833. 
 
 Concluding Observation. 
 
 386. If from this point we cast a look back over the 
 verbs and substantives, we perceive a certain quietude in the 
 former, and a corresponding energy in the latter. In making 
 this remark I am naturally taking as my standard of com- 
 parison those languages with which the philological student 
 is most likely to be equipped. The remark will hold good, 
 as against the Latin language, still more so as against the 
 Greek, and most of all *as against the Hebrew. In all of 
 these languages, but especially in the latter, the mental 
 
 1 I.e. doughty, iudjtig. 
 
SUBSTANTIVES — CONCLUSION. 357 
 
 activity of the nation is gathered up and concentrated in 
 the verb. This is displayed by the immense superiority of 
 the verb over the substantive in its attractive power of sym- 
 phytism, and its expressive stores of variability. Time has 
 been when this was partially true of our ancestral verb in 
 the Gothic family. But it is no more so. It certainly is 
 not so in our own insular branch. During the modern 
 period, which dates from the fourteenth century, in which 
 we have the movements of the language historically before 
 us, it is equally remarkable on the one hand how little our 
 verb has done to extend its compass, and on the other hand 
 how much the substantive has done to increase its varia- 
 bility. The quotations of this section are a sufficient proof 
 that some of the strongest lineaments of character in the 
 English language are now and have long been finding their 
 chosen seat of expression in our substantives. But while 
 this remark is made here at the close of the substanth 
 and with a particular application to them, I would add that 
 it applies in a general way to the whole nounal group, and 
 that its structural significance will become apparent in the 
 third division of the chapter on Syntax. 
 
 II. Of the Adjective. 
 
 387. The adjective, or word fit for attachment, is a word 
 which presupposes a substantive, and is for this reason 
 essentially relative and secondary. This inward nature of 
 adjectives is beautifully expressed in Greek and Latin by 
 the outward conformation of their physical aspect. Whereas 
 the bulk of the Latin substantives are in -us or -a or -u?n, 
 and the bulk of the Greek substantives are in -os or -77 
 or -ov, their adjectives are, for the most part, not in some 
 
$$8 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 one, but in all the three forms, as becomes those whose 
 business it is to agree with their consorts in gender, number, 
 and case. They are furnished with a threefold power of 
 modification, in consideration of their dependent, relative 
 and secondary nature. Such is the adjective as against the 
 substantive. Both are presentive words ; but the substan- 
 tive is the primary, and the adjective is the secondary pre- 
 sentive word. 
 
 But what is the adjective as against the verb ? It is plain 
 that both of them are, as towards the substantive, secondary 
 words. There is no verb without a subject ; and that sub- 
 ject is a substantive. The verb and adjective alike have 
 their very nature based upon the pre-supposition of the 
 substantive. Therefore the verb and the adjective are both 
 secondary words. They differ only in the force and energy 
 of their action. In the beginning of the last section verbs 
 were compared to flame, while substantives were only in- 
 flammable stuff. We may fitly continue this metaphor, and 
 say that adjectives are glowing embers. They not only 
 give warmth, and tell of a flame that has been, but they 
 also retain the power of future activity. If I say 'good 
 man,' it is not asserted, but it is presented to thought that 
 the man ' is good.' If I say ' live dog,' it is contemplated as 
 predicable, though not predicated, that the dog ' lives.' Thus 
 the adjective is nothing more nor less than a dormant verb 
 — a verb in a state of quiescence. And by way of endea- 
 vouring to indicate the position which they both hold in the 
 general economy of language, we will designate them as 
 Secondary Presentives. 
 
 388. We begin our catalogue of English adjectives with 
 a sample of those whose history belongs to an elder stage 
 — those which were already ancient at the opening of the 
 present era of our language. Such are : — bare, bright, dear, 
 
ADJECTIVES — SAXON. 359 
 
 fair, free, fresh, full, good, gray, great, green, hale, hard, high, 
 late, lief, light, like, long, mild, much, neiv, nigh, old, quick, 
 rathe, red, rich, ripe, rough, sharp, short, sick, small, sooth, 
 stark, strong, swart, sweet, sivift, true, white, worth, yare, 
 young. 
 
 One of these has been a chief heir-loom from Saxon 
 times, and has made a figure in all stages of the national 
 story. I suppose that no other Saxon adjective is compar- 
 able for the length and variety of its career to the -word fr& . 
 Originally meaning lordly, noble, gentle (78), it has with each 
 change of the national aim so changed its usage as still 
 to take a prominent place. In the growth of the municipal 
 bodies the privileged members were designated free-men ; in 
 the constitutional struggles it managed to represent the idea 
 of liberty; and in these latter days, when social equality 
 is the universal pretension, il signifies the manners thereon 
 attendant in the modern coupling, 'fret- and easy/ 
 
 The earliest sense may be seen as late as Shakspeare : — 
 
 'Aia. I thanke thee, Hector: 
 Thou art too gentle, and too free a man.' 
 
 Troylus and Cressitta, iv. 5. 139. 
 
 Words of obscure origin, which emerged in the transition 
 period, seem to claim place here: such a word was the 
 adjective dad. 
 
 The Saxon formatives are those in -/, -w, -n, -r, and -sh; 
 those in -y, -ing, -c<l, -ly, -some, -ward, -full, -less. 
 
 389. In -1, -el, or -le : — brittle, evil, fickle, idle, little, mickle, 
 middle, nimble, stickle ( = steep, still used about Dartmoor, and 
 entering into the word stickleback, and the local name Stickle- 
 path, near Oakhampton), tickle. 
 
 A fine local example of brittle, in the form of brute!, 
 occurs in a legend carved on an oak cloth-bat in the col- 
 lection of the Rev. G. W. Braikenridge, at Clevedon. It 
 
360 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 may have been a wedding-gift, and it is a remarkably in- 
 teresting object, the more so as it is dated. The inscrip- 
 tion is : — ■ 
 
 ROS. DAVESON. 1664. IF . YOV . LOVE . ME . LEND . ME . NOT 
 VNTO . A . SLLET . FOR . I . VERY . BRVTEL . WOOD. 
 
 To these should be added brindle; for although we have 
 cast it into other forms, as brinded (Milton), or the more 
 common brindled, yet the pure word still lives in New 
 England, where they talk of a ' brindle yearling,' or, as I 
 believe it is spoken, ' brindle yerlin.' 
 
 The fact is, we are no longer conscious that this termi- 
 nation makes an adjective : it is no longer in productive 
 operation. This is the reason why brindle has been con- 
 verted into brindled, because all men know that the termi- 
 nation -ed signifies the possession of a quality, but they 
 do not know that -le has this signification. In the same 
 manner we now say new-fangled, but the original word is 
 new fangil or new f angel, as in the Babees Book, p. 9, 
 where the letter n is exemplified by the following line of 
 N-initials : — 
 
 ' To Noyous, ne to Nyce, ne to Newfangill.' 
 
 (Not to be) too pressing, nor too fastidious, nor too eager 
 for novelty. 
 
 tide, tickle (above, 183). 
 
 ' So tide be the termes of mortall state.' 
 
 The Faery Queene, iii. 4. 28. 
 
 ' The Earl of Murray standing in so tickle terms in Scotland.' — Earl of 
 Pembroke, 1569; quoted by J. A. Froude, History of England, ix. 427. 
 
 As brindle has been altered into brindled, so tickle into 
 ticklish. 
 
ADJECTIVES — SAXON. 36 1 
 
 390. In -m. These have never been numerous within 
 historical times. In Saxon there was earm = poor, and rum = 
 wide, the former of which is extinct, and the latter altered to 
 roomy. The only extant adjectives that I can quote in this 
 class are grim, warm. 
 
 There is a fine old poetic word brim, with much the same 
 variety of meaning as the modern brave : — 
 
 1 She was brim as any bear.' 
 
 Prim is obscure : Richardson says it is short for primitive . 
 I would rather believe it to be a northern form of brim. 
 
 391. In -n, or -en. Here we are much richer : elmen, 
 even, fain, golden, heathen, lumpen, leaden, limn, oaten, olden, 
 open, stern, threaden, Hnnen, treen (Spenser, Faery Quecne, 
 i. 2. 39), wooden, woollen. Milton has coral-paven and azum. 
 
 This class of adjectives cannot be separated by any de- 
 cisive line from the participial forms, such as drunken. 
 
 shrunken. 
 
 oaten. 
 
 'Nought tooke I with me but mine oaten quill.' 
 
 Colin Clouts Come Home Againe, I 94. 
 
 wooden. 
 'Wooden wals.' The Faery Queene, i. 2. 42. 
 
 elmen. 
 
 « When the elmen tree leaf is as big as a tarding. 
 It's time to sow kidney beans in the garding ; 
 When the elmen tree leaf is as big as a penny, 
 You must sow your beans if you mean to have eny,' 
 
 Popular Rhyme. 
 
 hempen. 
 
 ' Slow are the steeds that through Germania's roads 
 With hempen rein the slumbering post-boy goads.' 
 
 Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin, The Rovers, 1798. 
 
362 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 Tennyson has cedarn. 
 
 ' Right to the carven cedarn doors.' 
 
 Recollections of the Arabian Nights. 
 
 This formative has been partially supplanted by the Latin 
 -tan. Thus our ancestors before the revival of letters never 
 said Christian but Christen : ' A Christen man.' 
 
 Of local names this form is found in Furzen Leaze, between 
 Cirencester and Kemble. We may notice also this forma- 
 tive in the geological designation of the ' Wealden beds.' 
 
 There has been a good deal of discussion as to whether 
 we should write Whitsun Day or Whit Sunday. On the 
 one side there is the testimony of Whit Monday and W T hit 
 Tuesday pointing in the one direction, and on the other 
 hand that of WhitsunTide and Whitsun Week pointing in 
 the opposite direction. As I understand it, the two things 
 come to one, the Whitsun being now adjectival, only pre- 
 serving the u by traditional fidelity : Whitsun Tide I con- 
 sider as equal to Whitsen Tide. 
 
 392. In -r or -er. Examples : — clever, slipper (the elder 
 form for the modern slippery), wicker. Slipper is still the 
 common word in Devonshire, where they say, ' It's very 
 slipper along the roads to-day.' A good illustration is 
 afforded by the following line from Surrey, the Elizabethan 
 poet : — 
 
 ' Slipper in sliding as is an eeles tail.' 
 
 According to Dr. Johnson, clever was a cant or slang 
 word in his time. 
 
 393. In -sh, or by disguise -ch, representing the Anglo- 
 Saxon adjective in -isc. 
 
 Examples: — apish, boorish, churlish, foolish, outlandish, 
 peevish, thievish, uppish, waspish. 
 
 This form has held a foremost position, and more than 
 
ADJECTIVES — SAXON. 363 
 
 any other it may be called the old national adjective, but 
 now less honourably employed than once it was. It is the 
 form of the adjective 'English' itself, and generally of our 
 adjectives by which we designate nationalities: — Welsh, Irish, 
 Scottish, French, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Spanish, Turkish, 
 Flemish, Polish. In a few cases, however, we have admitted 
 the Latin -anus, as Roman, Italian, Russian, German. Here 
 the Germans, truer to old habit, still say dioniiut. Statiemfd), 
 $uf(i(ct\ 2)eutfd). The antiquity of this form is sufficiently 
 demonstrated by the fact that it is the prevalent 'gentile' 
 adjective with all the nations of our family. The Germans 
 call themselves Ten tut, the Danes Dansk, the Norwegians 
 Norsk, the Swedes Svensk, and the Icelanders Islendsk. 
 Besides the recognised nations there is many an obscure 
 community that asserts its gentility by setting up an -is// 
 of its own. A friend, fresh from travel, writes that when 
 he arrived at the Tyrolese valley which is called ©t&ben 
 l[\-\{, he asked whether they spoke Stalteitifd) or jDeutfd) 
 there? He was answered that they spoke ©r5bnttifd}. And 
 as an illustration how green and vigorous the form is in 
 German to this day, we may observe it combining with 
 -•>me of the most modern classical innovations, and making 
 adjectives like Btfto^orifd), motayl^nut. mettyobtfo), where we 
 employ a French termination, and say metaphorical, meta- 
 physical, methodical. Mr. Heard would make a form 'soulish* 
 to render the yjrvx^s of the New Testament, and to stand 
 for a contrast to spiritual, like feelifd) in German. He thinks 
 it would take root as selfish has done : — 
 
 • ' Thus selfish, now so thoroughly naturalised in English, was a thorough 
 barharism two centuries ago. . . Selfish was used by the Scotch covenanters 
 tor self-seeking, as contrasted with seeking God.' — The Tripartite Nature 
 of Man, p. 83, note. 
 
 In England the successive tides of foreign influence drove 
 
364 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 back this and many other forms. The Latin -an was another 
 ready substitute for -ish. Miles Coverdale, 1535, in Daniel i. 4, 
 has ' and to lerne for to speake Caldeish' — a form that will 
 be sought in vain in our present Bible. 
 
 elvisch = elf-like, uncanny, shy. 
 
 ' He semeth elvisch by his countenaunce, 
 For unto no wight doth he daliaunce.' 
 
 Prologe to Sire Thopas. 
 
 churlish. 
 
 ' Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansions tread, 
 And force a churlish soil for scanty bread.' 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith, The Traveller. 
 
 This termination is also put to adjectives, with a diluting 
 effect, as longish, sweetish, ticklish. See 88. 
 
 394. In -y or -ey, representing the Saxon adjective in 
 g, as cemtig, empty. 
 
 Examples : — bloody, burly, corny, Chaucer, Milton, dainty, 
 Spectator, 354, dirty, doughty, dusty, fatty, flighty, fusty, filthy, 
 flowery, foody, gouty, haughty, heady, hearty, inky, jaunty, leafy, 
 Mark xi. Contents, lusty, mealy, mighty, milky, misty, moody, 
 murky, musty, nasty, noisy, oily, plashy, pretty, ready, reedy, 
 rusty, saucy, silky, silly, speedy, -steady, sturdy, sulky, trusty, 
 weedy. 
 
 The word silly has the appearance of belonging to another 
 group, namely, those in -ly; but the Saxon scsl-ig and the 
 transition form seely were the precursors of the form silly, 
 which appears as early as Spenser : — 
 
 ' She wist not, silly Mayd, what she did aile.' 
 
 The Faery Queene, iii. 2. 2. 
 
 There has been a certain amount of assimilation from 
 French forms, as hardy, which is the French hardi. Espe- 
 
A DJECTIVES — SA XON. 365 
 
 daily has this adjectival form been confused with the French 
 in -if, Latin -ivus, as tardy from French tardif; jolly from 
 the Old French jolif. In the case of caitiff, however, we have 
 preserved this French/" very emphatically. 
 
 Chaucer uses jolif \ but in Spenser it is jolly : — 
 
 ' The first of them by name Gardant6 hight, 
 A jolly person and of comely vew.' 
 
 The Faery Queene, iii. I. 45. 
 
 Reversely also we find genuine members of this class 
 written as if they belonged to French adjectives in -if. 
 Thus we find in the texts of Chaucer the native word guilty 
 written gilt if and gultyf 
 
 This formative is still in the highest state of activity. 
 There is more freedom, for example, about making new 
 adjectives in -y than in -is/i. 
 
 Illustrations : — 
 
 corny. 
 
 ' Now have I dronk a draught of corny ale.' 
 
 Canterbury Tales. 1387 1. 
 
 foody : 
 
 ' Who brought them to the sable fleet from Ida's foody leas.' 
 
 Chapman, Iliad, xi. 104. 
 
 plashy. 
 
 1 All but yon widow'd, solitary thing, 
 That feebly bends beside the plashy spring.' 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village, 
 bloomy, hnvny, shadotvy. 
 
 ' Winding among the lawny islands fair, 
 Whose bloomy forests starred the shadowy deep.' 
 
 Shelley, Revolt of Islam, Canto i. 51. 
 
$66 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 butlony. 
 
 ' That buttouy boy sprang up and down from the box.' — Thackeray, 
 Vanity Fair. 
 
 plastery, rubbishy. 
 
 ' St. Peter's disappoints me ; the stone of which it is made is a poor 
 plastery material ; and indeed Rome in general might be called a rubbishy 
 place.' — Arthur H. Clough. 
 
 Pretty is from the same French word as proud, although 
 its sense is not identical with proudie. That famous old 
 French word prud, which forms part of the well-known 
 prud' homines , was one of the earliest of the French words 
 that made themselves quite at home among us. Already 
 in one of the later Saxon Chronicles prut is substituted for 
 the native word ranc, as a fine word (I suppose) for a vulgar 
 one. When prut was first naturalised it meant grand, 
 splendid, proud, magnificent, insolent. From this prut, by 
 our Saxon grammatical procedure, we made an abstract 
 noun, prit or pritte, which signified grandeur, splendour, 
 pride, magnificence, insolence. The following lines are 
 from a metrical life of St. Chad : — 
 
 ' Al a vote he wende aboute * ne kepte he nan pritte ; 
 Riche man bei he were imad ' he told ber of litte.' 
 
 All afoot he went about, be kept no dignity; 
 
 Rich man though he was made, small count thereof made he. 
 
 This form is sometimes found in modern names of places, 
 as Bushy Park. 
 
 395. In -ing, as 
 
 wilding. 
 
 ' O wilding rose, whom fancy thus endears, 
 I bid your blossoms in my bonnet wave.' 
 
 Sir Walter 'Scott, Lady of the Lake, Canto iv. init. 
 
 ' And like a crag was gay with wilding flowers.' 
 
 Alfred Tennyson, Enid, p. 17. 
 
ADJECTIVES — SAXON. 367 
 
 396. In -ed -.—gifted, ill-conditioned, landed, learned, leisured, 
 monied, talented, wicked, wretched. 
 
 weaponed. 
 
 ' & hee had beene weaponed as well as I, 
 he had beene worth both thee & mee.' 
 
 Eger and Grime, 1039. 
 
 As we can draw no decisive line between participles in 
 -en and adjectives in the same termination, so neither can 
 we distinctly sever between adjectives and participles in -ed. 
 There are many which everybody would call adjectives, and 
 many which everybody would agree to call participles. The 
 distinction turns upon this, — whether they can or cannot 
 be derived from a verb. This is, in fact, a participial ad- 
 jective which has never passed through the regular verbal 
 process to that position ; and therefore such words often 
 appear of abrupt introduction, and are provocative of opposi- 
 tion. This has been the case with the word 
 
 talented. 
 
 'Talented, first used by Lady Morgan, is another Instance of a word 
 adopted in spite of the purists, and within our memory.' — J. B. Heard, The 
 Tripartite Nature of Man, p. 83, note. 
 
 John Sterling, writing to Mr. Carlvle in 1835, criticised 
 his use of the word talented, which he called ' a mere news- 
 paper and hustings word, invented, I believe, by O'Connell.' 
 — Life of foh n Stirling, Part II. cli. ii. 
 
 leisured. 
 
 'Was it true that the legislative Chambers which were paid performed 
 their duties more laboriously and conscientiously than the British House of 
 Commons? It was admitted in other countries that that House stood at the 
 head of the representative assemblies of the world. ^Cheers.) What other 
 assembly was there that attempted to transact such an amount of business ? 
 (Hear.) What assembly was there whose members sacrificed more of 
 
368 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 personal convenience and of health in the discharge of its duties ? (Hear.) 
 The condition of this country was peculiar. There was a vast leisured class 
 to which there was nothing parallel on the face of the earth.' — House of 
 Commons, April 5, 1870. 
 
 397. Next comes a form which we mention only to 
 deplore. This is the old Saxon adjectival form -eht or -iht, 
 as slaniht, stony. Thus, in Cod. Dipl. 620, 'ondlong broces 
 on ¥one stanihtan ford/ — along the brook to the stony ford. 
 This form is preserved in German, as fterojcr/t, hilly ; borrucrjt, 
 thorny; ecfrcfit, angular; grafter;:, grassy; fremicfyt, stony; and 
 it makes one of the dainties of German poetry. 
 
 Unb $an befd)u|t bie fxtbertoef(id)tert £ectben 
 
 And Pan protects the flocks with silvery fleeces. 
 
 Wieland, Die Grazien, Bk. I. 
 
 Unb fltofen ju jM;ten ins locfidjte %aax. 
 
 And roses to wreathe in his goldilock hair. Id. Bk. VI. 
 
 398. In -ly for -like. In Saxon this formative was -lie, 
 which was at the same time a noun, meaning body, as it still is 
 in German, £eicr;. The transition from the substantival sense 
 of body to the symbolic expression of the idea of similarity, 
 provokes a comparison with a transition in the Hebrew, from 
 the word for bone and body, which is DS#, to the pronominal 
 sense of very or same. 
 
 Examples : — childly Tennyson, cleanly, godly, goodly, likely, 
 sleelly, unmannerly, rascally. 
 
 ugly. 
 
 ' What follye is thys, 
 
 to kepe wyth daunger, 
 A greate mastyfe dogge 
 
 and a foule ouglye beare ? 
 And to thys onelye ende, 
 
 to se them two fyght, 
 Wyth terrible tearynge, 
 
 A full ouglye syght.' 
 
 Robert Crowley, Epigrams (1550), ' Of Bearbaytynge.' 
 
ADJECTIVES — SAXON. 369 
 
 steelly. 
 
 ' Steel through opposing plates the magnet draws, 
 And steelly atoms culls from dust and straws.' — Crabbe. 
 
 This form has been checked in its expansion as an 
 adjective by its general employment for adverbial purposes. 
 Often it happens when we come across it in our elder 
 literature adjectively used, we need a moment's reflection 
 to put us in the train of thought for understanding it. In 
 the following passage from Chaucer's Boethius, the adjective 
 wepely, in the sense of pathetic, would give most readers a 
 check. The passage is here printed with its marginal sum- 
 mary, as a sample of the work of the Early English Text 
 Society : — 
 
 ' Blisful is |>;it man bat mav seen the clere Welle of good. ' Happy is he that 
 
 blisful is he bat may vnbynde hym fro be bonde of heu\ J^XaVthat 
 
 ii i'ii t- if 
 
 erbe. % be noete of trace [OrpheMsl bat somtvmc hadde fi 
 
 V V ' L t J r rhra 
 
 ry 3 t greet lorowe for the dee}> of 1 ys wijf. aftii pat he 
 
 11 ''"' l " s '' " ( ™ 
 
 hadde Oiaked by hvs wcpely snngcs pe wodes mcueable to 
 
 Hi'-, mourn- 
 
 rennen. and hadde ymaked pe ryaeres to rtonden still.-. 
 
 1 1 1 1 ? 1 1 • • 1 n i • rollinjj I 
 
 ami maked pe hertys and hyndes t» loignen dredles i.ir • 
 sii'cs to cruel lyouws to hcrkene his songe.' (p. ic6.) 
 
 In the adjective likely we have the curiou> phenomenon of 
 the altered form of a word coming to act as a formative to a 
 better preserved form of itself; the first and last syllables of 
 the word being originally the same word, lie. 
 
 399. In -some : — adventuresome t darksome, gladsome, hand- 
 some, irksome, quarrelsome, trot holesome, winsome. 
 
 This is the German sfam, as UmoMin. It looks in spelling 
 as if this termination belonged to our pronoun some, but it is 
 really connected with a different pronoun, namely sa??ic. 
 
 eb 
 
3 7° THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 adventuresome. 
 
 • And now at once, adventuresome, I send 
 My herald thought into a wilderness.' 
 
 John Keats, Endymion. 
 
 darksome. 
 
 * Darksome nicht comes down.' Robert Burns. 
 
 The word buxom belongs here. This might not be 
 apparent at first sight. It does not look like one of the 
 adjectives in -some ; but it is so, being the analogue of the 
 German fiiegfom, ready to bow or comply. 
 
 ' Great Neptune stoode amazed at their sight, 
 Whiles on his broad rownd backe they softly slid, 
 And eke him selfe mournd at their mournful plight, 
 Yet wist not what their wailing meant; yet did, 
 For great compassion of their sorow, bid 
 His mighty waters to them buxome bee.' 
 
 The Faery Queetie, iii. 4. 32. 
 
 400. In -ward, as downward, f row ard, homeward, inward, 
 leeward, outward, toward, untoward, upward, wayward, wool- 
 ward. 
 
 There was also an old adjective lateward, as we learn from 
 the following entry in Randle Cotgrave : ' Arrerailles. Late- 
 ward seed.' — Dictionarie of the French and English Tongves, 
 1611. 
 
 toward, untoward. 
 
 ' Which when his Palmer saw, he gan to feare 
 His toward perill and untoward blame, 
 Which by that new rencounter he should neare ; 
 For death sate on the point of that enchanted speare.' 
 
 The Faery Queene, iii. 1.9. 
 
 wayward. 
 
 * Our wayward intellect, the more we learn 
 Of nature, overlooks her author more.' 
 
 William Cowper, The Task, Bk. iii. 
 
ADJECTIVES— SAXON. 37 1 
 
 leeward. 
 
 ' The vain distress-gun, from a leeward shore, 
 Repeated — heard, and heard no more.' 
 
 William Wordsworth, On the Power of Sound. 
 
 In this vocable ward we have to notice some very ap- 
 preciable relics of an ancient verbal habit. It represents the 
 Saxon verb weor¥an, to become. Not that it is derived 
 therefrom, but is rather a branchlet of the same stock at an 
 earlier stage. It has, even down to our own time, retained 
 traces of an old verbal power, so that it seems now and then 
 to be equivalent not merely to the Latin preposition versus^ 
 but also to have the verb verU re in it, or at least the participle 
 versus, -a, -urn. In Chaucer's Prologue^ 396, it is said of the 
 hardy shipman : — 
 
 1 fful manye a draujt of weyn haddc he i-drawe 
 ftirom Burdens ward, whil thai the chapman sli 
 
 That is to say, he had drawn many a draught of wine out 
 of the sleeping chapman's casks, while on the v< yage from 
 Bordeaux. So that ward is equivalent to voyaging, or com- 
 ing, or being on the voyage. 
 
 Something of the same verbality will be perceived in the 
 homeward of the following quotations : — 
 
 ' But when now the lords and dames 
 And people, from the high door streaming, brake 
 Disorderly, as homeward each, the Queen, 
 Who mark'd Sir Lancelot where he moved apart, 
 Drew near, and,' &c. Alfred Tennyson, Elaine, ad finem. 
 
 'No loving step, to meet him homeward, flew;' — 
 
 The Neiv Timon, a Romance of London (1846). 
 
 401. We might go on to enumerate the adjectives in 
 -full and -less, as fruitful, thankful, fruitless, thankless; 
 but here we are already edging the border that separates 
 
 b b 2 
 
372 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 our present subject from the adjectival compounds. We 
 therefore close the Saxon division with a mention of those 
 adjectives which are formed by reduplication. Such are 
 shilly-shally, ship-shape, wishy-washy. 
 
 ' A weak, wishy-washy man, who had hardly any mind of his own.' — 
 Anthony Trollope, The Last Chronicle of Bar set, ch. vii. 
 
 Of the French adjectives a few are formless., as blank, 
 brave, frank. 
 
 402. Coming now to the French forms, the first that 
 claims our notice is the greatly used -able, -ible. 
 
 Some of our commonest adjectives are of this type. 
 
 Examples:— acceptable, accessible, accountable, agreeable, 
 appreciable, approachable, available, audible, comfortable, con- 
 temptible, desirable, estimable, forcible, irrepressible, justifiable, 
 lamentable, manageable, marketable, notable, noticeable, peace- 
 able, practicable, preferable, procurable, profitable, questionable, 
 reasonable, remarkable, reputable, respectable, responsible, season- 
 able, tolerable, valuable, vulnerable. 
 
 This form has much expanded in the last two centuries. 
 Many of the adjectives of this type which are most familiar to 
 us do not occur in Shakspeare. He has neither approachable, 
 nor unapproachable, nor available, nor respectable. Although 
 he has accept, acceptance, accepted, he has not acceptable. Nor 
 has he accountable, although he has account, accountant, and 
 accounted. He has responsive but not responsible. And 
 although he has value, valued, valuing, and valueless, yet he 
 has not valuable. When we consider the great copiousness 
 of Shakspeare's diction, and his unlimited command of 
 the English of his day, it seems almost equivalent to saying 
 that these terms, so familiar now, had not then been coined. 
 We seem here to have a strong mark of the progress of our 
 language in a point which might easily escape observation. 
 
ADJECTIVES — FRENCH. 373 
 
 A remarkable change has passed over the value of this 
 termination in modern times. It was formerly active or 
 neuter in its signification ; whereas it now inclines very 
 decidedly to a passive sense. Thus, the old word colour- 
 able was not employed for that which is capable of being 
 coloured, according to the prevalent modern use of the 
 termination, but for that which seeks to colour the aspect 
 of anything. 
 
 colourable. 
 
 1 The wisard could no longer beare her bord, 
 Rut, bursting forth in laughter, to her saw! : 
 " Glaucc, what necdes this colourable word 
 To cloke the cause that hath it selfe beurayd ? " ' 
 
 The Faery Queene, iii. 3. 19. 
 
 'November 3, 1869. Vice-Chancellor Malins had before him to-day tin- 
 case of Bradburv v. Becton. in which Mr. Jessel, as counsel for Messrs. Brad- 
 bury and Evans, the proprietors of Punch, had asked for an injunction to 
 restrain the defendant from publishing a penny weekly publication ca 
 Punch and Judy, on the ground that it was a colourable imitation of Pun 
 The Vice-Chancellor refused the application on the ground that nobod) oi 
 ordinary intelligence could be misled into confounding Punch with Punch 
 aid Judy.' 
 
 A good instance of the same kind is ptrsuasidlt, the alter- 
 native rendering of enticing in 1 Cor. ii. 4 : where, in-trad of 
 persuasible l we should now say persuasive ; and this Dean 
 Alford has adopted in his Revised Version. 
 
 Paley, in his Evidences, has used the word answerable in an 
 active sense, as conveying the notion of being under obliga- 
 tion to make answer ; whereas we now use the negative 
 unanswerable in a passive sense, of an argument that cannot 
 be answered. These are Paley's words : — 
 
 • But to make Christianity answerable, with its life, for the circumstantial 
 
 truth of each separate passage of the Old Testament, the genuineness of 
 
 very book, the information, fidelity, and judgment, of every writer in it, is 
 
 t» bring, I will not say great, but unnecessary difficulties into the whole 
 
 system.' 
 
374 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 But perhaps there is no word in which it is more necessary 
 to watch the shades of this transition, than in the word com- 
 fortable, supposed in our day to convey a peculiarly English 
 idea. That was hardly its idea in the seventeenth century : — 
 
 ' Fancy will the better be kept within its due bounds, if we consider the 
 principal use thereof. Sense and imagination is properly to judge what is 
 comfortable or uncomfortable, what is pleasing or displeasing to the outward 
 man, not what is morally or spiritually good or ill ; and thus far by the laws 
 of nature and civility we are bound to give fancy contentment both in our- 
 selves and others, as not to speak or do anything uncomely, which may 
 occasion a loathing or distaste in our converse with men ; and it is a matter 
 of conscience to make our lives as comfortable as may be. As we are 
 bound to love, so we are bound to use all helps that may make us lovely, 
 and endear us into the good affections of others. As we are bound to give 
 no offence to the conscience of another, so to no power or faculty either of 
 the outward or inward man of another. Some are taken off in their affec- 
 tion by a fancy whereof they can give but little reason ; and some are more 
 careless in giving offence in this kind than stands with that Christian circum- 
 spection and mutual respect which we owe one to another.' — Richard Sibbes, 
 SouVs Conflict, ch. xiii. 
 
 Other instances to the same effect are : — 
 
 personable. 
 
 'A thousand thoughts she fashiond in her mind, 
 And in her feigning fancie did pourtray 
 Him such as fittest she for love could find, 
 Wise, warlike, personable, courteous, and kind.' 
 
 The Faery Queene, iii. 4. 5. 
 
 conscionable = conscientious. 
 
 ' Not in a furious zeal for or against trivial circumstances, but in a con- 
 scionable practising the substantial parts of religion.' — Isaac Barrow, The 
 Pleasantness of Religion. 
 
 This word is no longer used, but its negative unconscionable 
 is still current. The passive use of our day is such as we 
 see in the following : — 
 
 unsmotherable. 
 
 ' To the unsmotherable delight of all the porters and bystanders.' — Pick- 
 wick Papers, ch. xxviii. 
 
A DJECTI VES — FRENCH. 375 
 
 In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries this formative was 
 sometimes pronounced in English as it still is in French, 
 with the accent on the penultimate. We now say implacable, 
 but Spenser sounded it implacable : — 
 
 • ' I bume, I burne, I burne, then lowde he sayde, 
 O how I burne with implacable fyre ! ' 
 
 The Faery Queene, ii. 6. 44. 
 
 403. -ard is a form of which it is difficult to say whether 
 its habit is more that of a substantive or of an adjective. 
 
 • 
 
 lubbarcL 
 
 1 Or if the garden with its many cares 
 (All well repaid) demand him, he attends 
 The welcome call, conscious how much the hand 
 Of lubbard Labour needs his watchful eye.' 
 
 William Cowper, The Garden. 
 
 404. In -al, French -al and -el, Latin -alts. 
 
 Examples : — accidental, carnal, diurnal, eternal) formal, 
 habitual, influential, inquisitorial, intellectual, intelligential 
 
 Milton, intentional, martial, nuptial, parental, partial, sensual, 
 suicidal. 
 
 parental. 
 
 4 That, under cover of the Phoenician name, we can trace the channels 
 through which the old parental East poured into the fertile soil of the 
 Greek mind the seeds of civilisation.' — William Ewart Gladstone, Jwentus 
 Mundi, p. 129. 
 
 seasonal, 
 
 ' We know with what meaning the lily of the field looked up into his eye ; 
 and if the robe of beauty on the earth was to him no dead product of the 
 seasonal machine, but' &c. — James Martineau, The Three Stages. 
 
 residual. 
 
 ' But the planetary orbits turned out to be not quite circular after all ; and 
 grand as was the service Copernicus rendered to science, Kepler and Newton 
 h..d to come after him. What if the orbit of Darwinism should be a little 
 
3/6 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 too circular ? What if species should offer residual phenomena, here and 
 there, not explicable by .natural selection?' — T. H. Huxley, Lay Sermons. 
 
 natural, developmental. 
 
 ' Dr. Carpenter did not agree with him that natural selection was a vera 
 causa. The true cause lay in those developmental forms which gave origin 
 to advances of type and varieties of form. Natural selection by producing 
 the survival of the fittest did nothing but limit and direct the operation of 
 this cause.' — The Guar dian, August 28, 1872. 
 
 Many substantives have been produced from this adjectival 
 form. Thus, cardinal bishop has become Cardinal, general 
 captain has become General, cathedral church has become 
 Cathedral, and Confessional is better known as a substantive 
 than as an adjective. 
 
 In like manner capital is now better known as a sub- 
 stantive. For a capital city we say a Capital ; for capital 
 letters we say Capitals; and the chapiters in architecture 
 are also called Capitals. So that there is a freshness, as of 
 novelty almost, about the adjectival use: — 
 
 ' The old traditions which invested parents with the right to govern their 
 children, and made Obedience the capital virtue of childhood, have begun to 
 disappear.' — R. W. Dale, The Ten Commandments (1872), p. 7. 
 
 405. In -ic, after the French -ique. 
 
 Examples : — angelic, apostolic, aquatic, artistic, bombastic, 
 domestic, fantastic, gigantic, heroic, lethargic, majestic, ?iar colic, 
 pedantic, rustic, specific, sulphuric, terrific, volcanic. 
 
 These were from the Latin -icus, and this, probably, was 
 from the Greek -1*09; but in tracing the philology of our 
 own tongue, we are not so much concerned with the remote 
 as with the immediate source. And although the question 
 of French or Latin is at times a little embroiled, there can be 
 no doubt that it was under French auspices and tutorship 
 that we first acquired this formative. This point is set 
 beyond doubt by the fact that we have another French 
 
ADJECTI VES — FRENCH. 377 
 
 formative of which this forms the basis. A more dubious 
 point it oftentimes is to decide whether we ought to refer 
 a given adjective to this French class, or to the Greek class 
 in -ic, which will be noticed below. Where the stock of the 
 word is un-Greek, we should class it here. But the reverse 
 does not hold. A few purely Greek words belong here 
 rather than below, as apostolic. In this case, history tells 
 us that the word is older than the Greek inundation. In 
 other cases, such as fantastic, although the word is Greek 
 throughout, yet the spelling with f instead of ph seems to 
 vindicate it for the French reign. 
 
 Here too must be ranged those national and character- 
 istical designations, Arabic, Bardic, Gaelic, Gallic, Gothic, 
 Icelandic, Ptolemaic, Quixotic, Runic, Sardonic. 
 
 406. In -ical, after the French. 
 
 This formative is based upon -ic. In the two languages, 
 French and English, the cause of this cumulative form was 
 probably the same. The adjectives in French -tque and 
 English -ic ran with unusual celerity into substantival signifi- 
 cations, as domestique, domestic; physique, physic; logique, 
 logic. Hence there was a further demand for an adjectival 
 form which should be unequivocal. This seems to be the 
 account of that strain of adjectives in -ical, which is one 
 of the notes of the literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth 
 century, and which has been largely discarded in recent 
 times. Matthew Parker dreaded the ' Germanical natures ' 
 of those who would fain have Zwinglianised the Church 
 of England 1 . 
 
 domestical. 
 
 'Dogs and such like domestical creatures.' — Richard Sibbcs. Soul's Con- 
 flict, ch. x. 
 
 1 W. F. Hook, Archbishops, New Series, vol. iv. ch. 7. 
 
378 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 Such discarded forms have an air of obsolete old-fashioned- 
 ness about them, and it almost excites a surprise to find that 
 after all we have been rather arbitrary in our discontinuance 
 of some, while we have continued to use others whose case 
 is nowise different. We familiarly use archcelogical, logical, 
 mathematical, mechanical, methodical, oecumenical, rhetorical, 
 surgical, symmetrical, tropical, whimsical. 
 
 407. In -esque. Examples : — Barbaresque, gigantesque, 
 grotesque, picturesque. 
 
 ' We only bow to a universal law, and recognise in the fondness of 
 man for the barbaresque and the gigantesque the same instincts that make 
 him appreciate the picturesque effects of nature and its grander displays.' — 
 A Leading Article, Nov. 9, 186S. 
 
 grotesque. 
 
 ' Withered, grotesque, immeasurably old.' 
 
 William Wordsworth, Fkh-women, 1820. 
 
 New adjectives of this type are made every day. A. H, 
 Clough indulged the fancy of thus adjectiving Lord Macaulay 
 (in private correspondence) : — 
 
 ' I have only detected one error myself, but it is a very Macaulayesque 
 one. He speaks of " the oaks of Magdalen": they are elms. There was 
 no occasion to say anything but trees, but the temptation to say something 
 particular was too strong.' 
 
 Moreover, we sometimes see Daniesque, an imitation of the 
 Italian, in which the adjective Dantesco and also its adverb 
 Dantescamente are quite established. In fact, this French 
 -esque came from the Italian -esco, and this again from the 
 Gothic -isc, which has become in German sifdj. The Old 
 High Dutch diutisc, which in modern German is £>eutf$, is 
 in Italian Tedesco. So that this French -esque is radically the 
 same as our Saxon -isc and English -ish, only having per- 
 formed a tour through two Romanesque languages, it has 
 come round to us with a peculiar complexion of its own, — 
 
ADJECTIVES — ROMANESQUE. 379 
 
 an excellent specimen of the way in which the resources of 
 language are enriched by mere variation. 
 
 408. While we are touching Italian we may notice (paren- 
 thetically) an adjectival form which looks Italian, though we 
 probably adopted it at first from the Spaniards. This is the 
 form -ese, in certain national designations, as Bengalese, 
 Cingalese, Chinese, Genoese, Maltese, Portuguese, Tyrolese. 
 Mr. Carlyle enjoys the singular distinction of having his 
 English style characterised after this adjectival form, and 
 called Carlvlese. 
 
 This orthography is rather Italian than Spanish. An 
 Englishman is in Spanish called Ingles, but in Italian 
 Inglese. At the time when our maritime expeditions and 
 our politics brought us most into contact with Spaniards, 
 our literary habits were more influenced by the Italian lan- 
 guage than by the Spanish : and hence it is quite probable 
 that this form may have been learnt of Spaniards and yet 
 dressed in an Italian orthography. 
 
 409. Before we have quite done with our French adjec- 
 tives, we ought to notice one which has filled a largo space- 
 in the history of our language. This is the adjective quaint. 
 It was already a great word in the transition period; it was 
 an established word of old standing when Chaucer wrote, 
 and it still retains some vitality. A word so often met with 
 in ages so widely distant, and bearing such a variety of sig- 
 nification, merits a paragraph to itself. 
 
 There have been at all periods of history certain prominent 
 and favourite words — words of the day. By way of ready 
 illustration, we might mention fine and elegant as favourite 
 words of last century ; and nice and interesting as words that 
 are repeated with great frequency in our own day. Such 
 a favourite word was quaint in the twelfth, thirteenth, and 
 fourteenth centuries. In the old French it was written coint, 
 
380 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 choint, and Diez {y.conto) derives it from the Latin 'cognitus.' 
 Ducange derived it from 'comptus,' neat, trim, orderly, hand- 
 some. No doubt the derivation of Diez is the one which 
 rightly accounts for the physical composition of the word, 
 just as acquaint is the mediaeval Latin ' adcognitare.' But 
 in this latter case there is a correspondence of meaning 
 which we miss in the identification of quaint with cognitus. 
 It almost seems as if the word had derived its bodv from 
 the one source and its mind from the other \ 
 
 At the time of the rise of King's English in the fourteenth 
 century, quaint was a great social word describing an in- 
 definite compass of merit and approbation. Whatever things 
 were agreeable, elegant, clever, neat, trim, gracious, pretty, 
 amiable, taking, affable, proper, spruce, handsome, happy, 
 knowing, dodgy, cunning, artful, gentle, prudent, wise, dis- 
 creet (and all this is but a rough translation of Roquefort's 
 equivalents for coint), were included under this compre- 
 hensive word. 
 
 In Chaucer, the spear of Achilles, which can both heal 
 and hurt, is called a ' quaint spear ' : — 
 
 ' And fell in speech of Telephus the king 
 And of Achilles for his queinte spere, 
 For he coude with it both hele and dere.' 
 
 Canterbury Tales, 1 0553. 
 
 Shakspeare has c quaint Ariel/ Tempest, i. 2 ; and another 
 good instance of this earlier use in Much Ado about Nothing, 
 iii. 4. 20 : ' But for a fine, quaint, graceful and excellent fashion, 
 yours is worth ten on't/ 
 
 By the time we come to Spenser it has acquired a new 
 
 1 It has been said that no word can have two derivations. But I think 
 there are cases in which a word may be traced up to more sources than one. 
 I commend the subject to the observation of the student. Compare 82, 83, 
 340. 
 
ADJECTIVES — 'QUAINT.' 38 1 
 
 sense, very naturally evolved from the possession of all the 
 most esteemed social accomplishments ; it has come to 
 mean fastidious. Florimell, when she has taken refuge in 
 the hut of the witch, is fain to accept her rude hospitalities : 
 
 ' And gan recomfort her in her rude wyse, 
 With womanish compassion of her plaint, 
 Wiping the teares from her suffused eyes, 
 And bidding her sit downe, to rest her faint 
 And wearie limbes awhile. She, nothing quaint 
 Nor 'sdeigufull of so homely fashion, 
 Sith brought she was now to so hard constraint. 
 Sat downe upon the dusty ground anon : 
 As glad of that small rest as bird of tempest gon.' 
 
 The Faery Queene, iii. 7. 10. 
 
 Another stage in our national history, and we come to the 
 period at which the word has stuck fast ever since, and there 
 rooted itself. We may almost say that the word quaint now 
 signifies ' after the fashion of the seventeenth century' or 
 something to that effect. It means something that is pretty 
 after some bygone standard of prettyness ; and if we trace 
 back the time we shall find it in the seventeenth century. 
 As the memory of man is in legal doctrine localised to the 
 reign of Richard the Second, as 'Old English' is (or was, 
 before there was an Early English Text Society, and before 
 Mr. Freeman had arisen to assign a new meaning to the 
 word English) particularly identified with the language of 
 the fifteenth century; so quaintness of diction has acquired 
 for itself a permanent place in the literature of the seven- 
 teenth. 
 
 ' In many respects Fuller may be considered the very type and exemplar 
 of that large diss of religious writers of the seventeenth century to which we 
 emphatically apply the term "quaint." That word has long ceased to mean 
 what it once meant. By derivation, and by original usage, it first signified 
 "scrupulously elegant, refined, exact, accurate," beyond the reach ot common 
 art. In time it came to be a] plied to whatever was designed to indicate 
 these characteristics — though excogitated with so elaborate a subtlety as to 
 trespass on ease and nature. In a word, it was applied to what was ingenious 
 
382 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 and fantastic, rather than tasteful or beautiful. It is now wholly used in this 
 acceptation ; and always implies some violation of the taste, some deviation 
 from what the " natural" requires under the given circumstances. 
 Now the age in which Fuller lived was the golden age of " quaintness " of 
 all kinds — in gardening, in architecture, in costume, in manners, in religion, 
 in literature. As men improved external nature with a perverse expenditure 
 of money and ingenuity — made her yews and cypresses grow into peacocks 
 and statues, tortured and clipped her luxuriance into monotonous uniformity, 
 turned her graceful curves and spirals into straight lines and parallelograms, 
 compelled things incongruous to blend in artificial union, and then measured 
 the merits of the work, not by the absurdity of the design, but by the diffi- 
 culty of the execution, — so in literature, the curiously and elaborately un- 
 natural was too often the sole object. . . . The constitution of Fuller's 
 mind had such an affinity with the peculiarities of the day, that what was 
 "quaint" in others seems to have been his natural element — the sort of 
 attire in which his active and eccentric genius loved to clothe itself.' — 
 Edinburgh Review, January 1 84 2 : Thomas Fuller. 
 
 410. Here we may bring our French list to an end, but 
 not without the observation, which has been already made 
 above under the substantive, that the line of division between 
 our French and Latin groups is much blurred. The general 
 case is this : We took the form itself from the French ; but the 
 great bulk of the words that now constitute the group, have 
 been derived to us from the Latin. But it should be added 
 that many words seem now most easily to be traceable to 
 the Latin, which we originally borrowed from the French. 
 For in the great latinising tyranny, many words were purged 
 from the tinge of their French original, and reclaimed to 
 a Latin standard. The delitable of Chaucer and Piers 
 Plowman had become delectable long before John Bunyan 
 wrote of the Delectable Mountains. 
 
 When the learned of the nation were steeped in Latin, 
 vast quantities of French words in our language had a new 
 surface of Latin put upon them. And the Latin invasion 
 did not stop here; some old Saxon "forms were modified 
 in a Latin sense. 
 
 411. The form in -eous, -ous, with which our Latin 
 list begins, is one that seems to thread together the Saxon 
 
A DJECTI VES — LA TIN. 383 
 
 -wis, and the French -ois or -eux, and the Latin -ius or 
 
 -osus, in one continuity of development. We can hardly 
 
 disconnect the modern righteous from the Saxon rihtwis, 
 
 any more than we can courteous from French cortois, or 
 
 gracious from gracieux, which is the spelling of the word in 
 
 English of the year 1402, as may be seen above, 71. 
 
 Examples: — boisterous, covetous, dexterous, disastrous, 
 
 erroneous, glorious, gracious, jealous, luxurious, meritorious, 
 
 multitudinous Shakspeare, necessitous, noxious, obstreperous. 
 
 outrageous, pious, poisonous, riotous, serious, specious, timorous, 
 
 zealous. 
 
 joyous, courteous, gracious, spacious. 
 
 * Long were it to describe the goodly frame, 
 And stately port of Castle Joyeous, 
 (For so that Castle hight by commun name) 
 Where they were entertaynd with courteous 
 And comely glee of many gratious 
 Faire Ladies, and of many a gentle knight, 
 Who, through a Chamber long and spacious, 
 Eftsoones them brought unto their Ladies sight, 
 That of them cleeped was the Lady of Delight.' 
 
 The Faery Queene, iii. 1. 31. 
 
 stercoraceous. 
 
 4 The stable yields a stercoraceous heap.' 
 
 William Cowper, The Garden. 
 
 obstreperous. 
 
 ' Nor is it a mean praise of rural life 
 And solitude, that they do favour most 
 Most frequently call forth, and best sustain, 
 These pure sensations ; that can penetrate 
 The obstreperous city ; on the barren seas 
 Are not unfelt.' William Wordsworth, The Excursion, Bk. IV. 
 
 melodious, spacious. 
 
 ' Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath 
 Preluded those melodious bursts, that fill 
 The spacious times of great Elizabeth 
 With sounds that echo still.' 
 
 Alfred Tennyson, Dream of Fair Women. 
 
3 
 
 84 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 luxurious. 
 
 ' A free nation ought not to provoke war ; but it ought not to be too 
 luxurious and ease-loving to fight, if the occasion should arise.' — Llewellyn 
 Davies, The Gospel and Modern Life, p. 45. 
 
 erroneous. 
 
 ' Mr. said the right, hon. gentleman who had just sat down had made 
 
 statements which, from his experience, he would show to be entirely false. 
 ' The Speaker — The hon. member means to say erroneous. (A laugh.) 
 4 Mr. begged to apologise for using a word which was not Parlia- 
 mentary. He had been but a short time in the House, and was therefore 
 not well versed in Parliamentary terms (a laugh), but if there was any Par- 
 liamentary term stronger than the word " erroneous," he would beg leave to 
 use it with reference to some of the statements of the right hon. gentleman.' 
 — House of Commons, June 17, 1870. 
 
 Bumptious was a slang adjective which appeared between 
 1830 and 1840 at Oxford and Cambridge. It is now some- 
 times seen in literature : 
 
 ' "Look at that comical sparrow," she said. "Look how he cocks his 
 head first on one side and then on the other. Does he want us to see him ? 
 Is he bumptious, or what ? " ' — George Macdonald, The Seaboard Parish, 
 ch. xi. 
 
 412. -ose. The next place seems due to another form of 
 the Latin termination -osus. It is as markedly modern as 
 the previous one is distinguished for its old standing in the 
 language. It has an Italian tinge. 
 
 Examples : — bellicose, globose Milton, gloriose, grandiose, 
 operose, otiose, varicose. 
 
 otiose. 
 
 ' We lay out of the case such stories of supernatural events as require on 
 the part of the hearer nothing more than an otiose assent ; stories upon 
 which nothing depends, in which no interest is involved, nothing is to be 
 done or changed in consequence of believing them.' — Paley's Evidences. 
 
 operose. 
 
 ' I heard Dr. Chalmers preach. It was a splendid discourse against the 
 Judaical observance of the Sabbath, which he termed " an exped ; ent for 
 
A DJECTI VES — LA TIN. 385 
 
 pacifying the jealousies of a God of vengeance," — reprobating the operose 
 drudgery of such Sabbaths. Many years afterwards, I mentioned this to 
 Irving, who was then the colleague of Chalmers ; and he told me that the 
 Deacons waited on the Doctor to remonstrate with him on the occasion of 
 this sermon.' — H. C. Robinson, Diary, 1 82 1. 
 
 413. In -ive, Latin -ivus. 
 
 Examples : — active, aggregative, appreciative, associative, 
 authoritative, comparative, conclusive, creative, distinctive, elect- 
 ive, exclusive, forgetive, Shakspeare, 2 Henry IV, iv. 3 ; 
 imaginative, inventive, legislative, passive, pensive, positive, re- 
 flective, reparative, repulsive, responsive, retentive, sensitive, specu- 
 lative, suggestive, superlative. 
 
 cresci: 
 
 'Grew like the Summer Grasse, fastest by Night, 
 Ynseene yet cressiue in his facultie.' 
 
 Shakspeare, Henry V,'\. :. 
 
 responsive. 
 
 ' The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung.' 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village. 
 
 speculative. 
 
 ' High on her speculative tower 
 Stood Science waiting for the hour.' 
 
 William Wordsworth, The Eclipse of the Sun, 1S20. 
 
 aggregative, associative, creative, motive. 
 
 ' Fancy is aggregative and associative — Imagination is creative, motive.' — 
 John Brown, M.D., Horce Subseciva:. 
 
 conclusive. 
 
 ' The admissions of an advocate are the most conclusive evidence.' — 
 Bishop of St. Davids (Dr. Thirlwall), Charge, 1S63. 
 
 reparative. 
 
 ' The art of nursing, as now practised, seems to be expressly constituted 
 to unmake what God had made disease to be, viz. a reparative process.' — 
 Florence Nightingale, Notes on Nursing. 
 
 C C 
 
386 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 distinctive. 
 
 ' There was something so very distinctive in him, traits and tones to make 
 an impression to be remembered all one's life.' — John Keble, Memoir, p. 452. 
 
 This form has been fruitful in substantives, as detective, 
 executive, motive, palliative, representative. 
 
 ' Home Tooke having obtained a seat in the House of Commons as 
 representative of the famous borough of Old Sarum.' — H. C. Robinson, 
 Diary, 1 801. 
 
 414. In -ine, Latin -inns, -ineus. 
 
 Examples : — canine, divine, feminine, internecine, marine, 
 masculine, sanguine. 
 
 Our pronunciation of marine is decidedly French, and thus 
 we are again reminded that our Latin list is not purely and 
 exclusively of direct Latin derival, but only prevalently so. 
 
 This form has produced some gentile adjectives; as, 
 Florentine, Latin, Philistine. 
 
 415. In -ary, Latin -arius. 
 
 Examples : — contemporary, missionary, secondary, sanitary, 
 stationary, tertiary, visionary. 
 
 petitionary. 
 
 1 Ros. Nay, I pre' thee now, with most petitionary vehemence, tell me 
 who it is.' — As You hike It, iii. 2. 
 
 ' Claspt hands and that petitionary grace 
 Of sweet seventeen subdued me ere she spoke.' 
 
 Alfred Tennyson, The Brook. 
 This form occurs frequently in its substantival aspect : 
 
 signatary. 
 
 * All the Powers, signataries of the Treaty of 1856.' — Queen's Speech, 
 1867. 
 
 contemporary. 
 
 4 Seneca was strictly a contemporary of St. Paul.' — Professor Lightfoot, 
 St. Paul a?id Seneca. 
 
A DJEC TI VES — LA TIN. 387 
 
 416. In -atory, Latin -aiorius. 
 
 Examples : — commendatory, criminatory, derogatory, excul- 
 patory, expiatory, migratory, nugatory, obligatory, preparatory, 
 propitiatory, respiratory, supplicatory. 
 
 criminatory . 
 ' And was taken with strongly criminatory papers in his possession.' 
 
 417. In -ant and -ent, from the Latin participial termina- 
 tions -ans, -aniis; -ens, -enlis. 
 
 Examples \ — blatant, constant, elegant, expedient, insolent, 
 
 insolvent, Jubilant, petulant, solvent. 
 
 Many of these forms are used substantively, as expedient, 
 insolvent; and, in one of its senses, 
 
 solvent. 
 
 ' And I say that the Resurrection is a fact ; attested by various and con- 
 verging evidence; defying the action of the critical solvents which unbelief 
 applies to it ; and, let me add, reigning in the thought of every thinking 
 Christian, as a vast evidential power.' — H. P. Liddon, at St. Paul's, Easter 
 Day, 1869. 
 
 Several of these are rather French than Latin, as the 
 
 heraldic rampant. 
 
 petulant. 
 
 ' The boys, when the periodical vacation drew near, growing petulant at 
 the approach of liberty.' — Samuel Johnson, Life 0/ Addison. 
 
 The word elegant merits a special notice. It is now little 
 used : almost the only new combination it has entered into 
 in our day is in the dialect of the apothecary, who speaks of 
 an ' elegant preparation.' 
 
 In the last century, and in the early part of this century, 
 we had Elegant Extracts, and besides these, we had elegant 
 in a variety of honoured positions. Scott spoke of Goethe 
 as 'the elegant author of The Sorrows of Werther.' In 
 the first sentence of Bishop Lowth's address To the 
 
 c c 2 
 
3 88 
 
 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 King, which is prefixed to his Isaiah, this word comes in, 
 
 thus : — 
 
 ' SIRE, 
 An attempt to set in a just light the writings of the most sublime and 
 elegant of the Prophets of the Old Testament,' &c. 
 
 George Home (afterwards Bishop of Norwich), towards 
 the close of last century published some sermons, and half 
 apologising in his Preface said : — 
 
 'This form of publication is generally supposed less advantageous at 
 present than any other. But it may be questioned whether the supposition 
 does justice to the age, when we consider only the respect which has so 
 recently been paid to the sermons of the learned and elegant Dr. Blair.' 
 
 418. The form -lent, from the Latin -lenlus, must be 
 distinguished from the foregoing. 
 
 Examples : —corpulent, esculent, feculent, flatulent, fraudulent, 
 opulent, somnolent, succulent, truculent, violent, virulent. 
 
 Some adjectives in -ent, with an l of the root, have a false 
 semblance of belonging here, as be?ievolenl, equivalent, indolent, 
 insolent, prevalent, malevolent. Here we seem almost over the 
 border of English philology, but in dealing with such a bor- 
 rowing language as ours, it is not always easy to draw the 
 
 boundary line. 
 
 esculent. 
 
 1 The Chinese present a striking contrast with ourselves in the care which 
 
 they bestow on their esculent vegetation A more general knowledge 
 
 of the properties and capabilities of esculent plants would be an important 
 branch of popular education.'— C. D. Badham, The Esculent Funguses of 
 England, ed. F. Currey, p. xvi. 
 
 419. -an, -ian, Latin -anus,-ia?ius; as African, American, 
 diocesan, Hibernian, Indian, Persian, Polynesian, Puritan, 
 Roman, Russian. 
 
 This form acquired its importance in the first century of 
 the Roman Empire. The soldiers who attached themselves 
 to Julius Caesar in the civil wars were called fuliani, and 
 
ADJECTIVES — GREEK. 389 
 
 this grew to be the established formula for the expression 
 of a body of supporters or followers. The friends of Otho 
 were called Oihoniani, those of Vitellius were Yilelliani; and 
 in the same general period it was that ' the disciples were 
 called Christians first at Antioch.' 
 
 Robinsonian. 
 
 'William Wordsworth to H. C. Robinson. 
 
 \2!h March, 1 82 1. 
 
 My dear Friend. — You were very good in writing to me so long a letter, 
 and kind in your own Robinsonian way.' — H. C. Robinson, Diary. 
 
 420. We will now proceed to the Greek forms. 
 
 In -ic, from the Greek -ikos. 
 
 Examples : — academic, acoustic, (esthetic, analytic, arctic, 
 antarctic, apathetic, apologetic, archaic, aromatic, athletic, 
 atomic, authentic, barbaric Milton, cathartic, di ; , diatonic. 
 ethic, gastric, graphic, telegraphic, theoretic. 
 
 These are roughly distinguishable from those in -ic after 
 the French -ique, by being entirely of Greek material. That 
 class is more mixed. There is perhaps no form that more 
 distinctly represents the influx of Greek, and its general 
 adoption into scientific terminology. A large part of these 
 adjectives are shared by us with all the great languages of 
 
 western Europe 
 
 authentic. 
 
 'Methinks I see him — how his eye-balls rolled, 
 Beneath his ample brow, in darkness paired, — 
 But each instinct with spirit : and the frame 
 Of the whole countenance alive with thought, 
 Fancy, and understanding ; while the voice 
 Discoursed of natural or moral truth 
 With eloquence, and such authentic power, 
 That, in his presence; humbler knowledge stood 
 Abashed, and tender pity overawed.' 
 
 William Wordsworth, The Excursion, Bk. VII. 
 
 and -astic, -istic, -ustic, from the Greek -otlkj). 
 
39° THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 Examples : — a?itagoftistic, caustic, characteristic, drastic, 
 enthusiastic, patristic, pleonastic. 
 
 Comparison of Adjectives. 
 
 421. Some slight traces remain of that ancient Indo- 
 European -ma superlative, which we see in Greek and 
 Latin, as altissimus, e/35o/ioy, infimus, primus, optimus, ultimus. 
 
 It is a remarkable point of agreement between Mceso- 
 Gothic and Anglo-Saxon, that these two, almost to the 
 exclusion of the other dialects, have preserved this ancient 
 form. Some specimens of it linger on in English, partially 
 masked under a modern guise, as if it had something to 
 do with more and most. 
 
 MCESO-GOTHIC. 
 
 Anglo-Saxon. 
 
 English. 
 
 fruma 
 
 forma 
 
 foremost. 
 
 hinduma 
 
 hindema 
 
 hindermost 
 
 innuma 
 
 innema 
 
 innermost 
 
 
 u tern a 
 
 uttermost 
 
 
 medema 
 
 midmost 
 
 
 niSema 
 
 nethermost, 
 
 This eldest fashion of comparison carries a certain im- 
 pressiveness with it ; as when Mr. Mill says, 
 
 ' . . . that on the inmost nature of the thinking principle, as well as on the 
 inmost nature of matter, we are, and with our present faculties must always 
 remain, entirely in the dark.' 
 
 422. The system of comparison which is common to the 
 whole Gothic family is that in -er and -est. 
 
 We English have moved on to a third method, namely 
 by prefixing the adverbs more and most : a method which is 
 also used in Swedish and Danish. 
 
 This has gained immensely in modern times upon the 
 elder forms, insomuch that the comparison by -er and -est 
 is rarely used now for words of more than two syllables, 
 
COMPARISON OF ADJECTIVES. 39 1 
 
 and not always for these. In early writers we meet with 
 such long forms as ancienter, eloquenter, honour 'ablest, but 
 in our day such forms are used only for a certain rhetorical 
 effect that they carry with them, or for a sort of humour 
 which they seem to convey. 
 
 cunningesl. 
 
 ' Does human nature possess any free, volitional, or truly anthropo- 
 morphic element, or is it only the cunningest of all Nature's clocks?' — 
 Professor Huxley, Lay Sermons, viii. 
 
 In an anonymous story-book which purports to represent 
 life in East London, the flectional comparison of long words 
 is a stock feature of the characterisation. A churlish dealer 
 in waste paper, who is something of a reader, talks as 
 follows : — 
 
 wonderfuUest. 
 
 1 1 like travels, too, a bit, and now and then I get hold of an interesting 
 Life, but mostly they're about people that nobody ever knew anything 
 about till they were dead, and then somebody makes 'em out to be the 
 wonderfuUest people that ever lived.' — Efisoile* in an Obscure Life, vol. ii. 
 ch. viii. 
 
 The effect is still more peculiar when a participle is so 
 treated : 
 
 siartlcJer. 
 
 ' And yet, if you '11 believe me, I once found a fairy story in a blue-book. 
 If I'd found a fairy in it I couldn't have been startleder.' — Id. ibid. 
 
 Logical function of the Adjective; with a remarkable 
 
 consequence. 
 
 423. Having said so much on adjectival forms, let us now 
 consider the logical quality of the adjective, and the practical 
 effect of that logical quality upon our habitual conversation. 
 
39 2 . THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 An adjective is plainly of the nature of a predicate, as plainly 
 as a substantive is of the nature of a subject. Now, to 
 select a predicate for a subject is an act of judgment. It is 
 manifest that judgment is more exercised in the utterance of 
 adjectives than in that of substantives. I say horse from mere 
 memory of my mother-tongue, and we hardly dignify it as 
 an act of judgment if a man uses that word in the right 
 place, and shews that he knows a horse when he sees it. 
 But to say good horse, bad horse, sound horse, young horse, is 
 an affair of judgment. A child knows when he sees a 
 garden, and we do not call it an act of judgment (except in 
 technical logic) to exclaim There 's a garden. But to use 
 garden adjectively, as when a person comes across a flower, 
 and says it is a garden flower, this is an act of judgment 
 which it takes a botanist to exercise safely. This being so, 
 a speaker runs a greater chance of making a mistake, or of 
 coming into collision with the judgments of others, in the use 
 of adjectives. Partly from the rarity of good and confident 
 judgment, and partly it may also be from the modesty which 
 social intercourse requires, we perceive this effect, that there 
 is a shyness about the utterance of adjectives. Of original 
 adjectives, I mean such as can at all carry the air of being 
 the speaker's own. And hence it has come about, that 
 there is in each period or generation, one or more chartered 
 social adjectives which may be used freely and safely. Such 
 adjectives enjoy a sort of empire for the time in which they 
 are current. Their meaning is more or less vague, and it is 
 this quality that suits them for their office. But while it would 
 be hard to define what such an adjective meant, it is never- 
 theless perfectly well understood. Obvious examples of this 
 sort of privileged adjective are the merry of the ballads, and 
 the fair and pretty of the Elizabethan period. In Mrs. 
 Cowden Clarke's Concordance to Shakspeare, there are about 
 
CONVENTIONALITY IN ADJECTIVES. 393 
 
 seven hundred examples of fair, without counting its deriva- 
 tives and compounds. Perhaps this perpetual recurrence of 
 the word made a butt at it all the more amusing : — 
 
 ' King. All haile sweet Madame, and faire time of day. 
 Q11. Faire in all Haile is fowle, as I conceiue. 
 King. Construe my speeches better, if you may.' 
 
 Loues Labour's lost, v. 2. 340. 
 
 ' Pan. Faire be to you my Lord, and to all this faire company : faire 
 desires in all faire measure fairely guide them, especially to you faire Queene, 
 faire thoughts be your faire pillow. 
 
 Helen. Deere Lord, you are full of faire words. 
 
 Pan. You speake your faire pleasure sweete Queene : faire Prince, here is 
 good broken Musicke.' — Troylus and Cressida. iii. 1. 46. 
 
 This word had something of this character from a very 
 early 'date ; it flourished both as adjective faeger and adverb 
 faegere in Saxon literature ; it gained a new activity in the 
 twelfth century, and it occurs in the last line of the latest 
 Saxon Chronicle (1154) in the form of the present day: and 
 under the forms uair, vair, and adverb :v//v, is the most 
 prevalent of qualifying words in Robert of Gloucester. 
 
 Another such was in the last century the adjective fine i 
 and in a minor degree the adjective t A;; r <////. Of the latter 
 we have had some illustrations above. Its companion is 
 worthy of the like honour : — 
 
 fitii . 
 
 ' The truly philosophical language of my worthy and learned friend 
 Mr. Harris, the author of Hirmes, a work that will be read and admired 
 as long as there is any taste for philosophy and fine writing in Britain.' — 
 Lord Monboddo, Origin and Progress of Language, init. 
 
 424. But none of these ever reached a greater, if so 
 great, a vogue as the chartered adjective of our own and 
 our fathers' generation, namely, the adjective nice. 
 
 Should an essayist endeavour by description to convey the 
 
394 THE N OUN GROUP. 
 
 signification of this word in those peculiar social uses so 
 familiar to all, he would find that he had undertaken a 
 difficult task. It implies more or less the possession of 
 those qualities which enjoy the approbation of society under 
 its present code. 
 
 The word dates from the great French period, and at first 
 meant ' foolish, absurd, ridiculous' ; then in course of time 
 it came to signify 'whimsical, fantastic, wanton, adroit' ; and 
 thence it slid into the meaning of ' subtle, delicate, sensitive,' 
 which landed it on the threshold of its modern social appli- 
 cation. Of this we have already a foretaste in Milton : — 
 
 4 A nice and subtle happiness I see 
 Thou to thyself proposest in the choice 
 Of thy associates.' Paradise Lost, viii. 399. 
 
 A more special use is the following, and not the vague 
 social use, yet bordering closely upon it. This sense, in 
 which it is nearly equivalent to ' fastidious,' has now but 
 little currency, being crowded out by the social use. 
 
 ' But never was a Fight manag'd so hardily, and in such a surprizing 
 Manner, as that which follow'd between Friday and the Bear, which gave us 
 all (though at first we were surpriz'd and afraid for him) the greatest Diver- 
 sion imaginable : As the Bear is a heavy, clumsy Creature, and does not 
 gallop as the Wolf does, who is swift, and light ; so he has two particular 
 Qualities, which generally are the Rule of his Actions ; First, as to Men, 
 who are not his proper Prey ; I say, not his proper Prey ; because tho' I 
 cannot say what excessive Hunger might do, which was now their Case, the 
 Ground being all cover'd with Snow ; but as to Men he does not usually 
 attempt them, unless they first attack him ; On the contrary, if you meet 
 him in the Woods, if you don't meddle with him, he won't meddle with you; 
 but then you must take Care to be very civil to him, and give him the Road: 
 for he is a very nice Gentleman, he won't go a Step out of his Way for a 
 Prince,' &c. — Robinson Crusoe. Edited after the Original Editions by 
 J. W. Clark, p. 298. 
 
 As far back as 1823, a young lady objected to Sydney 
 Smith : ' Oh, don't call me nice, Mr. Sydney ; people only 
 say that when they can say nothing else.' This expostula- 
 
OFFICE-BEARING ADJECTIVES. 395 
 
 tion drew forth his Definition of a Nice Person, which may 
 be seen in the Memoir of his Life, and which will serve 
 to complete the case of this important little office-bearing 
 adjective. 
 
 Morphology of the Adjective. 
 
 425. Let us close this section with some observations on 
 the morphology of the adjective, or in other words, on the 
 divers ways it has of dressing itself up to act its part on 
 the stage of language. By ' adjective ' here is meant the 
 pure mental conception, as opposed to the form. There 
 are three ways in which the adjectival idea clothes itself and 
 finds expression, which it may be convenient to call the 
 three adjections. 
 
 i. The first, which may be called the Flat 1 , is by colloca- 
 tion. Thus, brick and stone are substantives ; but mere posi- 
 tion before another substantive turns them into adjectives, as, 
 brick house, stone wall ; and the latter, when condensed into a 
 compound substantive, stone-wall, may again by collocation 
 make a new adjective, as 'Stone-wall Jackson.' 
 
 Thus we speak of garden Jlavers and hedge flowers : — 
 
 4 Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled, 
 And still where many a garden flower grows wild.' 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith, Deserted Village. 
 
 In some instances we see that a substantive, through long 
 standing in such a position, has acquired the adjectival habit 
 exclusively. Thus milch, in the expressions 'milch cow,' 
 
 1 I have been asked, Why ' Flat ' ? To this I can only answer by another 
 question : — Why do you say « a flat refusal ' ? or, ' a flat contradiction ' ? or, 
 4 No, I won't, that 's flat ' ? What does the word mean in the following quota- 
 tion ? — ' He turned neither better nor worse then flat Atheist,' Thomas 
 Fuller, Life and Death of Francisan Junius in 'Abel Redivivus,' 165 1. 
 
39^ THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 ' milch goat,' though now an adjective, yet is nothing but a 
 phonetic variety of the substantive milk, just as church and 
 kirk are varieties of the same word. In the German lan- 
 guage the current substantive for milk has the form of our 
 present adjective, viz. fWildj. Let our particular example of 
 this adjection be elm tree. 
 
 2. The second, which may be called the Flexional, is by 
 modification of form, either (a) in the way of flexion, as heaven's 
 gale, or (5) through an adjectival formative, as elmen tree. The 
 latter, being the most prevalent of all modes of adjection, 
 has occupied to itself the whole name of Adjective. 
 
 3. The third way, which may be called the Phrasal, is by 
 means of a symbol-word, and most prominently by the pre- 
 position of, as gate of heaven. 
 
 In the compound knighthood the word knight affords an 
 instance of the adjective by collocation. We may express 
 the same idea in this form, knight 's rank, or thus, knightly 
 rank, and this is the second adjection. 
 
 The third adjection is when we say ra?ik or quality of 
 knight. This form of adjective we have learnt from the 
 French; and although we use it less than our neighbours, 
 yet we are well acquainted with such expressions as men of 
 property, men of learning, persons of strong opinions, the girl of 
 the period, the men of this generation, arms of precision, days 
 of yore. 
 
 426. This triple adjection pervades the language, and is 
 an element of its flexibility. Thus we may tabulate to 
 almost anv extent : 
 
 I. 
 
 2. 
 
 3- 
 
 gold 
 
 golden 
 
 of gold 
 
 silver 
 
 silvern 
 
 of silver 
 
 steel 
 
 steelly (399) 
 
 of steel 
 
 timber 
 
 timbern 
 
 of timber 
 
 velvet 
 
 velvety 
 
 of velvet 
 
 wood 
 
 wooden 
 
 of wood 
 
MORPHOLOGY OF THE ADJECTIVE. 397 
 
 The following line displays the first and third : — 
 
 ' The velvet scabbard held a sword of steel.' 
 
 H. W. Longfellow, King Robert of Sicily. 
 
 427. This analysis would not be quite idle if it were only 
 for an observation which it enables us to make on the rela- 
 tive adjectional habits of the three languages. 
 
 1. The flat adjection is peculiarly English. There is 
 indeed a rare and fitful use of it in French, but in German 
 it is quite gone, having passed into the sphere of the com- 
 pounds. 
 
 2. The adjection 2 (a), unknown in French, is common 
 to English and German. The 2 (b) is the technical adjective, 
 and all this section has been occupied with it, and it is 
 common to the three as to all mature languages. But the 
 German, being destitute of the First Adjection, and little 
 disposed to avail itself of the Third, uses this Flexional one 
 to an extent which sometimes creates surprise. Thus Jacob 
 Grimm's Grammar is with perfect propriety called ' die 
 Grimmsche grammatik,' and his works are spoken of as 
 ' die Grimmschen werl. 
 
 3. The Third Adjection is imitated a little in German 
 and a good deal in English, but in neither to such a deg] 
 as to obscure the fact that it was French by origin, or 
 to interfere with its national character as a prominent dis- 
 tinction of the French in common with the Romanesque 
 languages. 
 
 Such are the three ways in which we manage the ex- 
 pression of the adjectival idea, or, as we may conveniently 
 style it, the three methods of adjection. 
 
 This threefold variety of adjectival expression has a philo- 
 logical importance which will more clearly be seen in the 
 next section, where it will be made the basis of the arrange- 
 ment. 
 
398 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 III. Of the Adverb. 
 
 428. In Adverbs our attention shall be given to one 
 leading character. It is that which has been already traced 
 in the adjectives at the end of the last section. The adverbs 
 rise stage above stage in a threefold gradation. They are 
 either Flat, Flexional, or Phrasal ; and this division gives 
 the plan of the present section. 
 
 If a substantive becomes an adverb by position we call it 
 a Flat Adverb, as forest wild in 219. Or if an adjective is 
 so transformed, as 
 
 extreme. 
 
 ' All the former Editions being extream Faulty.' — Preface to Telettiacbus ; 
 translated by Littlebury and Boyer, nth ed. ; 1721. 
 
 these are flat adverbs. If we say extremely faulty we use 
 a flexional adverb : and the same thing may be expressed 
 by a phrasal adverb, thus, faulty in the extreme. 
 
 But before proceeding to catalogue, it will be desirable to 
 apprehend clearly what an adverb is, in the most pure and 
 simple acceptation of the term. The adverb is the tertiary 
 or third presentive word. It has been shewn above that the 
 substantive is the primary, that the adjective and verb are 
 co-ordinated as the secondary, and we now complete this 
 trilogy of presentives by the addition of the adverb, which is 
 the third and last of presentive words. Whatever material 
 idea is imported into any sentence must be conveyed 
 through one of these three orders of words. All the rest 
 is mechanism. 
 
 We assign to the adverb the third place, although we 
 know that it does not stand in that order in every sentence. 
 We do so because this is its true and natural order ; for it is 
 
OF THE ADVERB. 399 
 
 in this order alone that the mind can make use of it as 
 an adverb. Whether the adverb stand first, as in very fine 
 child, or in the third place as in John rides well, either way 
 it is equally third in mental order. As fine is dependent on 
 child for its adjectival character, so very is dependent on the 
 two for its adverbial character. There is a good meaning 
 in very if I say ' a very child,' but it is no longer an adverbial 
 meaning. 
 
 429. As a further illustration of the tertiary character of 
 the adverb, it may be noticed that it attaches only to adjec- 
 tives and verbs, that is to the two secondary words. The 
 adverb is further removed from the base of language, it 
 is higher above the foundation by which language is based 
 in physical nature ; in other words, mind is more deeply 
 engaged in its production than it is either in the case of 
 the substantive or of the adjective. Accordingly the adverbs 
 cannot be disposed of in a catalogue such as we haw made 
 of substantives and adjectives. The power of making adverbs 
 is too unlimited for us to catalogue them as things moulded 
 and made. The adverb is to be looked at rather as a faculty 
 than as a product, as a potential rather than as a material 
 thing. 
 
 Of all presentive words, the adverb has most sympathy 
 with the verb. Indeed, this quality is already intimated in 
 the Latin name of Adverb. It is the peculiar companion of 
 the verb, as the adjective is of the substantive. It continues 
 or intensifies the mental action raised by the verb, or couched 
 in the adjective. And here having reached as it were the 
 third and topmost storey of our edifice, we leave behind us 
 the care for raw material, and think more and more of the 
 arts and graces of architectural composition. We have done 
 with the forest and the quarry, and we are absorbed in the 
 contemplation of the effect. We may yet incidentally notice 
 
400 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 that an adverbial form has come from Saxon or other na- 
 tional source; but our main attention will be required by 
 a division as truly inward to the adverbs themselves, as that 
 which formed the plan of the chapter on verbs. And 
 this internal division is the more worthy of consideration, as 
 it is not limited to the adverbs alone, but is correlated to the 
 general economy and progress of language. 
 
 i. Of the Flat Adverb. 
 
 430. The Flat Adverb is simply a substantive or an adjec- 
 tive placed in an adverbial position. The same word which, 
 if it qualified a noun, would be called an adjective, being set 
 to qualify an adjective or a verb is called an adverb. The 
 use of the unaltered adjective as an adverb has a peculiar 
 effect, which I know not how to describe better than by the 
 epithet Flat. This effect is not equally appreciable in all 
 instances of the thing ; but it may perhaps be recognised in 
 such an expression as wonder great, which was common in 
 the fourteenth century, or in the following : 
 
 villainous. 
 
 'With foreheads villainous low.' 
 
 W. Shakspeare, Tempest, iv. I. 247. 
 
 The uneasy young traveller in an American car, who (as 
 Mr. Zincke relates) exclaimed ' Mother, fix me good,' gave 
 us there an excellent example of this original adverb of 
 nature. 
 
 Although this adverbial use of good is not admitted in 
 literary English, the analogous use of gut is polite German. 
 Indeed, the flat adverb is much more extensively used in 
 German than in English, as fcfyretfcen <5k langfam, write 
 
A D VER BS — FLA T. 40 1 
 
 slowly. We do also hear in English write slow, but it is 
 rather rustic. In Jeremiah xlix. 8 there is a striking ex- 
 ample : ' Flee ye, turne backe, dwell deepe, O inhabitants 
 of Dedan,' where the flat adverb deep is an imitation from 
 Luther : S'ttefyet, rcenbet eucf> tint serfriecfcet emt tier", ibr SBurger 
 \\\ 2)ebatt. 
 
 431. Our English examples of this most primitive form of 
 adverb will mostly be found in the colloquial and familiar 
 specimens of language. In such homely phraseology as 
 walk fast, walk slow ; speak loud, speak low ; tell vie true ; 
 or again in this, yes, sure — we have examples of the flat 
 adverb. They are frequent in our early classics, but the 
 modern grammar-book does not allow them. Instead of 
 just and right, as in the following passage from Shakspeare, 
 we should now be directed to say ' exactly' or ' precisely' : 
 
 4 At this fusty stufte 
 The large Achilles (on his prest-bed lolling) 
 From his deepe Chest, laughes out a lowd applause, 
 Cries excellent, 'tis Agamemnon iust. 
 Now play me Nestor ; hum, and stroke thy Beard 
 As he, being drest to some Oration : 
 That's done, as neere as the extreamest ends 
 Of paralels ; as like, as Vulcan and his wife, 
 Yet god Achilles still cries excellent, 
 'Tis Nestor right.' Troylus and Cressida, i. 3. 161. 
 
 sure. 
 
 ' And the work sure was very grateful to all men of devotion.' — Clarendon, 
 History, i. § 198. 
 
 clean. 
 
 4 Suffre yet a litle whyle, & y e vngodly shal be clene gone : thou shalt 
 loke after his place, & he shal be awaye.' — Psalm xxxvii. 10. Miles 
 Coverdale, 1535. 
 
 In the following, brisk is a flat adverb : — 
 
 ' He cherups brisk his ear-erecting steed.' 
 
 William Cowper, The Task, Book III. 
 
 D d 
 
402 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 strong. 
 
 4 Yet these each other's power so strong contest, 
 That either seems destructive of the rest.' 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith, The Traveller. 
 
 In the following, warm is a flat adverb : — 
 
 ' Or when the deep green-mantl'd earth 
 Warm cherish'd ev'ry flow'ret's birth, 
 And joy and music pouring forth 
 
 In ev'ry grove, 
 I saw thee eye the gen'ral mirth 
 
 With boundless love.' 
 
 Robert Burns, The Vision. 
 
 extraordinary. 
 
 ' We had an extraordinary good run with the Tiverton hounds yesterday.' 
 — Land and Water, January 15. 1870. 
 
 pretty. 
 
 ' I don't mean to hurt you, you poor little thing, 
 And pussy-cat is not behind me ; 
 So hop about pretty, and put down your wing, 
 And pick up the crumbs, and don't mind me.' 
 
 Nursery Rhyme. 
 
 quick. 
 
 ' With eager spring the troutlets rise 
 To seize the fair delusive prize ; 
 And quick the little victims pay 
 The penalty of being gay.' 
 
 E. W. L. Davies, Dartmoor Days, p. 8t. 
 
 slow, best. 
 
 ' While the bell is cooling slow 
 May the workman rest : 
 Each, as birds through bushes go, 
 Do what likes him best.' 
 
 H. D. Skrine, Schiller s Song of the Bell. 
 
 Of our short and homely adverbs there are some few 
 which did not always belong to this group, but have lapsed 
 
A D VER BS — FLA T. 403 
 
 into it from the flexional group. Such are ill, still, which in 
 Saxon are oblique cases, 2 lie, stille (disyllabic). 
 
 To this group belongs a word, provincial indeed, but 
 prevailing through the eastern half of the island from 
 Norfolk to Northumberland, namely the adverb geyn, Ger- 
 man gegett, meaning 'near, handy, convenient.' Its use 
 appears in the following dialogue taken from life : — 
 
 i " Where's the baby's bib, Lavina ? " 
 "On the chair, m'm." 
 " I don't see it anywhere here." 
 4i Well'm ; I'm sure I laid it geyn!" ' 
 
 432. As a general remark on this section we would say 
 that perhaps there is no part of the language that more 
 plainly forces on us the need of looking beyond the pale of 
 literature and precise grammar, if we are to comprehend 
 the Philology of the English Tongue. Within grammatical 
 liberty we could muster but a very poor account of the 
 flat adverb, and so the whole German adverb would seem 
 to be without a parallel in English. 
 
 The flat adverb is in fact rustic and poetic, and both for 
 the same reason, namely, because it is archaic. Out of 
 poetry it is for the most part an archaism, but it must not 
 therefore be set down as a rare, or exceptional, or ca- 
 pricious mode of expression. If judgment went by numbers, 
 this would in fact be entitled to the name of the English 
 Adverb. To the bulk of the community the adverb in -ty 
 is bookish, and is almost as unused as if it were French. 
 The flat adverb is all but universal with the illiterate. But 
 among literary persons it is hardly used (a few phrases 
 excepted), unless with a humorous intention. This will be 
 made plain by an instance of the use of the flat adverb 
 in correspondence. Charles Lamb, writing to H. C. Robin- 
 son, says: — 
 
 d d 2 
 
4°4 
 
 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 ' Farewell ! till we can all meet comfortable.' — H. C. Robinson, Diary, 
 1827. 
 
 433. This flat and simple adverb suffices for primitive 
 needs, but it soon fails to satisfy the demands of a progres- 
 sive civilisation. For an example of the kind of need that 
 would arise for something more highly organised, we may 
 resort to that frequent unriddler of philological problems, the 
 Hebrew language. In Exodus xvi. 5 we read, ' It shall be 
 twice as much as they gather dayly.' Instead of dayly the 
 Hebrew has day day, that is, a flat adverb day repeated in 
 order to produce the effect of our daily or day by day. This 
 affords us a glimpse of the sort of ancient contrivance which 
 was the substitute of flexion before flexion existed, and out 
 of which flexion took its rise. 
 
 But for a purely English bridge to the next division we 
 may produce one of the frequent instances in which a flat 
 adverb is coupled with a flexional one, and of which it so 
 happens that the example at this moment before us is 
 Mr. Froude's assertion that Queen Mary's letters 'were 
 examined long and minutely by each and every of the lords 
 who were present.' (Vol. ix. p. 347.) The following line 
 wins some of its effect from this adverbial variation : — 
 
 ' Who sings so loudly and who sings so long.' 
 
 Alexander Pope, The Duticiad, Bk. III. 
 
 2. Of the Flexional Adverb. 
 
 434. When the flexional system of language had become 
 established, and the nouns were declined Nominative, Geni- 
 tive, Dative, Ablative — a new and effectual way of applying a 
 noun adverbially was by adding it to the sentence in its geni- 
 tive or ablative or instrumental case. This was the general 
 way of making adverbs in Greek and Latin, and also in 
 Saxon. Of these we have little left to show. 
 
ADVERBS — FLEXIONAL. 405 
 
 Genitival adverbs are now antiquated, and a certain ob- 
 scurity rests even on those which remain in use. We will 
 begin with one that savours strongly of antiquity, and which 
 will hardly be found after Chaucer, viz. his thonkes, in the 
 sense of willingly, or with his consent : 
 
 'Ful sothis seyde, that love ne lordschipe 
 Wol not his thonkes, have no felaschipe.' 
 
 The Knightes Tale, 768. 
 
 We have in familiar and homely use the genitives mornings 
 and evenings, but we have nothing to match the German 
 mittagg. 
 
 435. Other instances of the genitival formation are east- 
 wards, eftsoones Spenser, Faery Queene, iii. 11. 38, eg. 
 linges = edgewise, Chevelere Assigne, 305, homewards, needs, 
 northwards, southwards, upwards, westwards. 
 
 >l<ids. 
 
 1 Sen bou hast ierned b\ |><- sentence of phto bat nedes the wordes moten 
 ben conceyued to \>o binges of whiche ]»oi speken.' — Roetbua (Early English 
 Text Society), p. 106. 
 
 Translation. — Since thou hast learned by the sentence of Plato that the 
 words must needs be conceived (fittingly) to the things of which they speak. 
 
 wards. 
 
 One's general impression of a mountain is that it should have something 
 of a pyramidal form. The differentia of a mountain is, I suppose, that the 
 curves of its outline should be concave upwards, whereas those of a hill are 
 convex. 
 
 Of the flexional adverbs formed from case-endings, this is 
 the one which retains most vitality, but it is little more than 
 semi-animate. What vitality it has, tends not towards assimi- 
 lation of fresh material, but towards symbolism. Many pre- 
 sentive instances have died out. There was an old genitival 
 adverb days, for which we must now says ' by day or ' in 
 
406 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 the day time.' In Gothic, yesterday is such an adverb, 
 
 gistradagis, Matthew vi. 30. In Shakspeare, Troylus and 
 
 Cressida, iv. 5. 12, ' 'tis but early dayes/ the old genitive 
 
 appears with something of the effect of the present purpose. 
 
 436. Here I would range the adverbs in -ing or 
 
 -ling, as 
 
 groveling = x a ^C e - 
 
 ' Like as the sacred Oxe that carelesse stands, 
 With gilden homes and flowry girlonds crownd, 
 Proud of his dying honor and deare bandes, 
 Whiles th' altars fume with frankincense arownd, 
 All suddeinly, with mortall stroke astownd, 
 Doth groveling fall, and with his streaming gore 
 Distaines the pillours and the holy grownd, 
 And the faire flowres that decked him afore : 
 So fell proud Marinall upon the pretious shore.' 
 
 The Faery Queene, iii. 4. 17. 
 
 flatlin 
 
 <r 
 
 ' But it is worthy of memory, to see how the women of that Towne did 
 ply themselues with their weapons, making a great Massacre upon our men, 
 and murthered 500 of them in such speedie and furious sort as is wonderfull : 
 wee needed not to haue feared their men at all, had not the women bin our 
 greatest ouerthrow, at which time I my self was maister Gunner of the 
 Admirals Gaily, yet chained greeuously, and beaten naked with a Turkish 
 sword flatling, for not shooting where they would haue me, and where I could 
 not shoote.' — Webbe his tratiailes, 1590 (Arber's Facsimile Reprint). 
 
 darkling. 
 
 ' Then feed on Thoughts, that voluntary move 
 Harmonious numbers ; as the wakeful Bird 
 Sings darkling, and in shadiest Covert hid 
 Tunes her Nocturnal note.' 
 
 John Milton, Paradise Lost, iii. 39. 
 
 437. The Dative formation is well preserved in the old- 
 fashioned adverb whilom or whilome : — 
 
 ' It fortuned, (as fayre it then befell) 
 Behynd his backe, unweeting where he stood, 
 Of auncient time there was a springing Well, 
 From which fast trickled forth a silver flood, 
 Full of great vertues, and for med'cine good : 
 
ADVERBS — FLEXIONAL. 407 
 
 Whylome, before that cursed Dragon got 
 That happy land, and all with innocent blood 
 Defyld those sacred waves, it rightly hot ' 
 The Well of Life ; ne vet his vertues had forgot.' 
 
 The Faery Queene, i. TI. 29. 
 
 The dative and ablative plural of nouns in Saxon was in 
 -um, as hwile, while, time ; hwilum, at whiles, at times. This 
 is the form which we retain in whilom, whilome. As this can 
 only be illustrated from the elder form of our speech, we will 
 quote one of the proverbs of our Saxon ancestors : ' Wea 
 bi¥ wundrum clibbor,' that is, Woe is wonderfully clinging. 
 Here the idea of wonderfully is expressed by the oblique 
 plural of the noun wonder, and wundrum signifies literally 
 with ivonders. 
 
 To this place we must assign also often and seldom, as if 
 oft-um and seld-um. The former is somewhat obscure ; but 
 of the latter there is less doubt. The simple seld is very 
 ancient, and does not appear in the Saxon remains, yet it 
 crops up curiously enough in Chaucer and Shakspeare. 
 
 ' Selde is the Friday all the weke ylike.' 
 
 Canterbury Tales, [54 1. 
 
 i.e. Rarely is the Friday like the rest of the week. 
 
 1 Aia. If 1 might in entreaties finde succe 
 As seld I haut' the chance ;' — 
 
 Troylus and Cressida, iv. 5. 150. 
 
 Historically the adverbs in -meal are datives, though they 
 have now lost their flexion. In Saxon they end in -/nudum, 
 as sticcemcBlum i ' stitchmeal/ or stitch by stitch, meaning 
 piece-meal ; German 3tucf, piece. 
 
 Chaucer has stoundemele, meaning ' from hour to hour,' or 
 ' from one moment to another ;' German @tunbe, hour. 
 
 1 = hight, i.e. was named. 
 
4C(S THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 ' The life of love is full contrarie, 
 Which stoundemele can oft vane.' 
 
 Romaunt of the Rose, 2304. 
 
 ' And hardily, this wind that more and more 
 Thus stoundemele encreaseth in my face.' 
 
 Troilus and Creseide, Bk. V. 674. 
 
 flochnel. 
 
 ' Only that point his peple bare so sore, 
 That flockmel on a day to him they went.' 
 
 The Clerkes Tale, init. 
 
 limb-meal. 
 
 ' Tear her limb-meal.' — Cymbeline, ii. 4. 
 
 piecemeal. 
 
 ' And, when I would have smitten them, heard a voice, 
 " Doubt not, go forward ; if. thou doubt, the beasts 
 Will tear thee piecemeal." ' The Holy Grail. 
 
 438. An instance of accusative formation is in that which 
 has the greatest adverbial vogue, namely the termination -ly ; 
 as, I gave him sixpence willingly. In present English this 
 termination is identical in form with the adjectival -ly, but in 
 Saxon the forms differed, the adjectival being -lie and the 
 adverbial -lice ; by a difference which signalised the adverbs 
 all through the language. This -e was the sign of an old 
 accusative neuter, as in Latin we have the adverb multum. 
 
 When we consider how much has been absorbed in 
 this adverbial termination, we can understand why the last 
 syllable of the adverb in -ly was pronounced so full and long 
 down to the sixteenth century; as the following shews: — 
 
 ' Ye ought to be ashamed, 
 Against me to be gramed; 
 And can tell no cause why, 
 But that I wryte trulye.' 
 
 Skelton, Colyn Clout. 
 
ADVERBS — FLEXIONAL. 409 
 
 And so when this adverbial -ly was superadded to the 
 adjectival, the latter shrank into tonelessness, as comelely in 
 Blannche, 848. 
 
 439. This adverbial form has become so exceedingly 
 prevalent above all others, as almost to eclipse them and 
 cause them to be forgotten : while, moreover, the great 
 dominance of this form as an adverb has cast a sort of 
 shadow over the adjective of the same form. Sometimes 
 the two functions come into an uncomfortable collision 
 with one another; as, 'Their ungodly deeds which they 
 have ungodly committed,' where the first ungodly is an ad- 
 jective and the second an adverb. 
 
 Occasionally indeed this blending may carry something of 
 that dignity which is peculiar to archaism, as in the fol- 
 lowing use of 
 
 kingly. 
 
 ' We can distinguish easily enough between the morality of David's for- 
 bearance, on two occasions, to take the life of Saul, and of his command 
 to Solomon to punish Shimei, whom he had rashly perhaps but kingly 
 forgiven.' — James Augustus Hessey, Boyle Lectures, Second Scries, Lecture ii. 
 
 but as a general rule it is better to keep these two functions 
 well apart, and not to say, for instance, of the father of 
 Goethe, that he was ' passionately orderly." 
 
 440. What was said in the last section about social adjec- 
 tives, applies also to adverbs, though in a more superficial way. 
 Adverbs do not root themselves so firmly as adjectives do. 
 In the last generation a marked social adverb was vastly: 
 thus, in Mansfield Park, when Edward was resolute that 
 ' Fanny must have a horse/ we read : — 
 
 ' Mrs. Norn's could not help thinking that some steady old thing might be 
 found among the numbers belonging to the Park, that would do vastly well.' 
 
 At the present moment it may be said that awfully is the 
 adverb regnant. ' How do?' 'Awfully jolly, thanks.' 
 
410 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 441. Verily is an adverb in which a French base has 
 received a Saxon formative. This adverb is a memorial of 
 the bi-lingual period of our language. It has not undergone 
 the usual process of formation through an adjective. There 
 has never been an adjective verily; but the termination 
 -ly, as the English sign of adverbiality, has supplanted the 
 French adverbial termination -ment. Verily is our substitute 
 for the French vraiment, Italian veramente, Latin, or rather 
 Roman, vera me?ite. It is curious to observe that the Roman- 
 esque languages should have taken the word for c mind ' as 
 the material out of which they have moulded a formula for 
 the adverbial idea ; while the Saxon equivalent has grown out 
 of the word for ' body ;' lie being ' body,' German &eicfy. 
 
 chiefly. 
 
 ' Only a sweet and virtuous soul, 
 
 Like seasoned timber, never gives ; 
 But though the whole world turn to coal. 
 
 Then chiefly lives.' George Herbert. 
 
 442. Before we pass from this, one of the most dominant 
 forms of our language, we may glance for a moment at the 
 feeling and moral effects with which it is associated. As the 
 substantive is the most necessary of words, so the adverb is 
 naturally the most decorative and distinguishing. And as 
 it is easiest to err in that part of your fabric which is least 
 necessary, so a writer's skill or his incapacity comes out 
 more in his adverbs than in his substantives or adjectives. 
 It is no small matter in composition to make your adverbs 
 appear as if they belonged to the statement, and not as mere 
 arbitrary appendages. Hardly anything in speech gives 
 greater satisfaction than when the right adverb is put in 
 the right place. 
 
 ' Dickens, describing the conversation of two men at a funeral as they 
 discuss the fate or prospects of various neighbours, past and present, says, 
 
A D VERBS — FLEX ION A L. 4 1 1 
 
 with one of his happiest touches, that they spoke as if they themselves were 
 " notoriously immortal." ' 
 
 How happy is this ' notoriously' ! how delicately does it 
 expose that inveterate paradox of self-delusion whereby men 
 tacitly assume for themselves an exception from the opera- 
 tion of general laws ! How widely does this differ from the 
 common tendency to be profuse in adverbs, which is a mani- 
 festation of the impotent desire to be effective at little cost. 
 The following is not a strong example, but it will indicate 
 what is meant : — 
 
 ' Most heartily do I recommend Mr. Beecher's sermons .... they 
 are instructively and popularly philosophical, without being distractingly 
 metaphysical,' — The Pulpit Analyst. 
 
 443. As in art the further an artist goes in embellishment 
 the more he risks a miscarriage in effect, so it is in language. 
 It is only the master's hand that can safely venture to lay on 
 the adverbs thick. And yet their full capability only then 
 comes out when they are employed with something like pro- 
 digality. When there is a well-ballasted paragraph, solid in 
 matter and earnest in manner, then. like the full sail of a 
 well-found ship, the adverbs may be crowded with glad 
 effect. In the following passage how free from adverbs is 
 the body of the paragraph ; and when we come to where 
 they are lavishly displayed at the end, we feel that the 
 demonstration is justified. If we quoted only the termina- 
 tion of this passage, the adverbs would lose their raison 
 d'etre. 
 
 1 I believe the first test of a truly great man is his humility. I do not 
 mean by humility, doubt of his own power, or hesitation in speaking his 
 opinions; but a right understanding of the relation between what he can do 
 and say, and the rest of the world's sayings and doings. All great men not 
 only know their business, but usually know that they know it; and are not 
 only right in their main opinions, but they usually know that they are right 
 in them ; only, they do not think much of themselves on that account. 
 Arnolfo knows he can build a good dome at Florence ; Albert Durer writes 
 calmly to one who had found fault with his work, ' : It cannot be better 
 
412 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 done; " Sir Isaac Newton knows that he has worked out a problem or two 
 that would have puzzled anybody else ; — only they do not expect their 
 fellow-men therefore to fall down and worship them ; they have a curious 
 under-sense of powerlessness, feeling that the greatness is not in them, but 
 through them ; that they could not do or be anything else than God made 
 them. And they see something divine and God-made in every other man 
 they meet, and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful.' 1 
 
 The author of Friends in Council, describing, and at the 
 same time illustrating, what a weighty sentence should be, 
 though he says nothing about the distribution of the adverbs, 
 has nevertheless determined that point in the most effectual 
 manner : — ■ 
 
 ' Sir Arthur. Pray lay down the lines for us, Ellesmere. . . . Pray tell 
 us what a weighty sentence should be. 
 
 Ellesmere. It should be powerful in its substantives, choice and discreet 
 in its adjectives, nicely correct in its verbs : not a word that cculd be added, 
 nor one which the most fastidious would venture to suppress : in order lucid, 
 in sequence logical, in method perspicuous ; and yet with a pleasant and in- 
 viting intricacy which disappears as you advance in the sentence : the lan- 
 guage, throughout, not quaint, not obsolete, not common, and not new : its 
 several clauses justly proportioned and carefully balanced, so that it moves 
 like a well-disciplined army organised for conquest : the rhythm, not that of 
 music, but of a higher and more fantastic melodiousness, submitting to no 
 rule, incapable of being taught : the substance and the form alike disclosing 
 a happy union of the soul of the author to the subject of his thought, having, 
 therefore, individuality without personal predominance : and withal there 
 must be a sense of felicity about it, declaring it to be the product of a happy 
 moment, so that you feel it will not happen again to that man who writes 
 the sentence, or to any other of the sons of men, to say the like thing so 
 choicely, tersely, mellifluously, and completely.' — Realmah, ch. vii. 
 
 444. Unless thus used, with skill and discretion, the cumu- 
 lation of the formal adverb is apt to generate fulsomeness. 
 Ordinarily it will not bear a very heavy charge ; and when the 
 weightiest demonstrations of this kind have to be made, it is 
 found by experience that the requisite display of adverbiality 
 is accomplished with another sort of instrument. 
 
 As a bridge from this section to the next, the words from 
 
 1 Divers friends have enquired after the author of this quotation, and 
 I have been obliged to declare myself as ignorant as my correspondents. I 
 shall be thankful to any one who will supply me with the reference. 
 
ADVERBS — PHRASAL. 413 
 
 2 Cor. ix. 7, ' not grudgingly or of necessity/ will do very 
 well. Or the following line from The Man of Lawes Tale, 
 where, be it said in passing, the first word consists of four 
 syllables : — 
 
 ' Solempnely with euery circumstance.' 
 
 Instances of this kind are very frequent, in which an adverb 
 of the formal kind is coupled with one of the phrasal, to the 
 consideration of which we now proceed. 
 
 3. Of the Phrasal Adverb. 
 
 445. The Phrasal Adverb is already considerably deve- 
 loped, and it is still in course of development ; but it 
 attracts the less attention because the thing is going on 
 under our eyes. As the general progress of our language 
 involves the decay of flexion and the substitution of sym- 
 bolic words in its place, so this alteration befalls particular 
 groups of words more or less, in proportion to the degree of 
 their elevation and consequent exposure. The substantive, 
 which is the primary preventive, and which lies at the base 
 of the rest, is naturally least affected ; while the adverb, which 
 is the tertiary or topmost presentive, is the most exposed 
 to the innovations of symbolism. 
 
 This expansion of the language seems to call for a cor- 
 responding enlargement in the sense of such a term as 
 ' adverb/ If willingly is an adverb in the sentence ' I gave 
 him sixpence willingly,' then what am I to call the phrase 
 1 with a good will,' if I thus express myself, ' I gave him 
 sixpence with a good will ' ? In its relation to the mind 
 this phrase occupies precisely the same place as that word ; 
 and if a different name must be given on account of form 
 only, our terminology will need indefinite enlargement while 
 it represents only superficial distinctions. I would rather 
 
4H THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 call them both adverbs, distinguishing them as Flexional 
 and Phrasal. Often we see that we are obliged to translate 
 a flexional Greek adverb by a phrasal English one ; thus — 
 7rai8u)6ev, Mark ix. 21, of a child', dXydcos, John vii. 40, of a 
 truth; b\xo6v\xa§6v, Acts ii. 1, with one accord; d7^ep<.cr7rao-rcos•, 
 1 Cor. vii. 35, without distraction ; d8La\el.7rTa>?, 1 Thess. v. 17, 
 without ceasing. 
 
 446. Genitival forms of the adverb having ceased to 
 grow in the language, their place is supplied by the forma- 
 tion of phrasal adverbs with the symbol of; as, of a truth, 
 of necessity, of old. 
 
 of old. 
 
 'And all be vernal rapture as of old.' 
 
 Christian Year, Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity. 
 
 As in the modern action of the language prepositions have 
 generally taken the place of oblique cases, so the symbol of 
 has taken the place of the genitival flexion. Instead of 
 evenings and mornings (435) we may say 
 
 of an evening, of a morning. 
 
 1 All indeed have not time for much reading ; but every one who wishes it, 
 may at least manage to read a verse or two, when he comes home of an 
 evening, and of a morning before going to work.' — Augustus William Hare, 
 Sermons to a Country Congregation, ' Use the Bible.' 
 
 447. In like manner by supplies the place of the old 
 instrumental case -u?n. The adverbs in -meal were, as above 
 stated, old datives, and hence they long continued, and some 
 few still continue to stand alone, without the aid of a prepo- 
 sition. But in the following quotation the preposition com- 
 pensates for the obsolete termination. 
 
 In the Book of Curtesye, of the fifteenth century, the 
 'childe' is advised to read the writings of Gower and 
 Chaucer and Occleve, and above all those of the immortal 
 Lydgate ; for eloquence has been exhausted by these ; and 
 
ADVERBS — PHRASAL. 415 
 
 it remains for their followers to get it only by imitation and 
 extracting — by cantelmele, by scraps, extracts, quotations : — 
 
 1 There can no man ther fames now disteyne : 
 Thanbawmede toung and aureate sentence, 
 Men gette hit nowe by cantelmele, and gleyne 
 Here and there with besy diligence, 
 And fayne wold riche the crafte of eloquence : 
 But be the glaynes is hit often sene, 
 In whois feldis they glayned and have bene.' 
 
 Oriel MS., E. E. T. S., Extra Series, iii. 
 
 448. When we consider the greater range of prepositions 
 as compared with case-endings, we see that this phrasal 
 stage of the adverb constitutes a great addition to the facul- 
 ties of the language, especially as the more rudimentary 
 forms are largely retained in use along with the more 
 explicit. So numerous are the adverbial phrases in use that 
 we cannot attempt a full list of them ; the following ex- 
 amples will remind the student of a vast number that are 
 unmentioncd : — at best, at intervals, at large, at teas/, at length, 
 at most, at random, at worst ; in earnest, in fact, in good faith, 
 in jest, in truth, in rain. 
 
 at prtSi nt. 
 
 ' But at present we may accept these simple laws without going further 
 back.' — Alfred Russel Wallace, Creadon by Law. 
 
 at tast. 
 
 ' So that one may scratch a thought half a dozen times, and get nothing 
 at last but a faint sputter.' — James Russell Lowell, Fireside Travels, 1864. 
 p. 163. 
 
 in Jest. 
 
 ' We will not touch upon him ev'n in jest.' 
 
 Alfred Tennyson, Enid. 
 
 with confidence, with consternation, with disorder. 
 
 ' After a skirmish in the narrow passage, occasioned by the footman's 
 opening the door of the dismal dining-room with confidence, finding some 
 one there with consternation, and backing on the visitor with disorder, the 
 visitor was shut up, pending his announcement, in a close back parlour.' — 
 Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit, ch. x. 
 
416 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 In presence (French en presence), in existence. 
 
 ' The only antagonist in presence . . . came to be treated as the only 
 antagonist in existence.' 
 
 The phrasal adverb in fact has of late been some- 
 times modified to in effect, after the French en effei. 
 
 without effort and without thought. 
 
 ' When I contemplate natural knowledge squandering such gifts among 
 men, the only appropriate comparison I can find for her is, to liken her 
 to such a peasant woman as one sees in the Alps, striding ever upward, 
 heavily burdened, and with mind only bent on her home ; but yet, without 
 effort and without thought, knitting for her children.' — T. H. Huxley, 
 Lay Sermons. 
 
 Phrasal Adverbs combine cumulatively with the elder 
 forms, and often with a forcible result. With the flexional, 
 as ' in an instant suddenly.' With the flat, as 
 
 sudden in a minute. 
 
 ' Let no man think that sudden in a minute 
 All is accomplished and the work is done ; — 
 Though with thine earliest dawn thou shouldst begin it, 
 Scarce were it ended in thy setting sun.' 
 
 Frederick W. H. Myers, St. Paul. 
 
 449. A phrasal adverb which has coalesced into one 
 vocable, is that which is formed with the tz-prefix, as abed, 
 afar, afield, afoot, agog, along, aloud, apiece, aright, awork. In 
 our earlier printed literature, and down to the close of the 
 sixteenth century, this adverb is printed in two vocables, as 
 a good (270) : — 
 
 a right. 
 
 ' They turne them selues, but not a right, & are become as a broken 
 bo we.' — Miles Coverdale, Hosea vii. 16. 
 
 I derive this a not exclusively, but for the most part, from 
 the French preposition a ; thus afoot represents a pied. 
 
A D VERBS — PHRA SAL. 4 1 7 
 
 450. Another form of the phrasal adverb is where a noun 
 is repeated with a preposition between, as day by day, bridge 
 by bridge, from hour to hour, wave after wave. 
 
 1 And then the two 
 Dropt to the cove, and watched the great sea fall, 
 Wave after wave, each mightier than the last, — ' 
 
 Alfred Tennyson, The Coming of Arthur, 
 
 ' Not to be crost, save that some ancient king 
 Had built a way, where, link'd with many a bridge, 
 A thousand piers ran into the great Sea, 
 And Galahad fled along them bridge by bridge.' 
 
 Id. Holy Grail. 
 
 451. Room enough must be given to the term 'adverb' to 
 let it take in all that appertains to the description of the con- 
 dition and circumstances attendant upon the verbal predie.i 
 tion of the sentence. If I say, ' I gave him sixpence with a 
 good will,' and if the phrase 'with a good will ' is admitted to 
 a place among adverbs, then there is no reason to exclude 
 any circumstantial adjunct, such as, with a gran purse, or 
 without any purse to hop it in. If any one objects to this as 
 too vague a relaxation of our terminology, I would propose 
 that for such extended phraseological adverbs we adopt the 
 title of Adverbiation. Such a term would furnish an appro- 
 priate description for the relative position of a very im- 
 portant element in modern diction. At the close of the 
 following quotation we see a couple of phrases linked to- 
 gether, which would come under this designation : — ■ 
 
 ' I had a very gracious reception from the Queen and the Prince Consort, 
 and a large party of distinguished visitors. The affability and grace of these 
 exalted personages made a deep impression on me. It might be copied by 
 some of our grocers and muffin-bakers to their great improvement, and to 
 the comfort of others surrounding them.' — The Public Life of W. F. Wallett, 
 the Queen's Jester, 1870. 
 
 452. If the study of grammar is ever to grapple with the 
 facts of language, one of two things must take place : either 
 
 e e 
 
41 8 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 we must make a great addition to the terminology, or we 
 must invest the present terms with a more comprehensive 
 meaning. If the ancient terms of grammar were the result of 
 mature and philosophical thought, and if they at all reflected 
 those mental phases which must necessarily underlie all 
 highly organized speech, then they will naturally and without 
 suffering any violence bear continual extension, so as still to 
 cover the phenomena of language under the greatly altered 
 conditions of its modern development. A multiplication of 
 terms is not in itself a desirable thing in any method ; and 
 least of ail in one that holds a prominent place in educa- 
 tional studies. 
 
 One of the best tests of the soundness of a system hinges 
 on this — Whether it will explain new facts without providing 
 itself with new definitions and new categories. The multi- 
 plication of names and classes and groups is for the most 
 part not an explanation at all, but only an evasion of the 
 difficulty which has to be explained. We have, then, ex- 
 plained a new phenomenon, when we have shewn that it 
 naturally belongs to or branches out of some part of the old 
 and familiar doctrine. As therefore it is the condemnation 
 of any system that it should be frequently resorting to new 
 devices, so it is the greatest recommendation when it appears 
 to be ever stretching out the hand of welcome to admit and 
 assign a niche to each newly observed phenomenon. 
 
 These remarks are suggested by the stage at which we are 
 now arrived, in our delineation of the phrasal adverb. For 
 here we perceive that an opportunity offers itself to explain 
 philologically one of the most peculiar of the phenomena of 
 the English language. That which we call the English in- 
 finitive verb, such as to live, io die, is quite a modern thing, 
 and is characteristic of English as opposed to Saxon. The 
 question, in presence of such a new phenomenon, is naturally 
 
ADVERBS— PHRASAL. 419 
 
 raised, — Whence this form of the infinitive verb ? We did 
 not borrow it, for it is not French nor Latin; we did not 
 inherit it, for it is not Saxon. How did it rise, and what 
 gave occasion to it ? 
 
 453. This question is one that enters into the very in- 
 terior growth of language, and one that will supply the 
 student of English with an aim for his observations in 
 perusing our earlier literature. I have indeed my own 
 answer ready ; but I wish it distinctly to be understood that 
 it is to the question rather than to the answer that I direct 
 attention, and that in propounding this and other problems 
 for his solution, I consider myself to be rendering him the 
 best philological service in my power. 
 
 NLy answer is, that it first existed as a phrasal adverb ; thai 
 it was a method of attaching one verb to another in an 
 adverbial manner, and that in process of time it detached 
 itself and assumed an independent position. As the fruit ol 
 the pine-apple is not the termination of a branch, forasmuch 
 as the plant continues to push itself forward through the fruit 
 and beyond it, so it is with language. The sentence is the 
 mature product of language, but not a terminal or final one, 
 since, out of the extremity of sentences there shoot forth 
 germs for the propagation of new sentences and the projec- 
 tion of new forms of speech. 
 
 In the Saxon Chronicle of Peterborough, anno 1085, we 
 read : ' Hit is sceame to tellanne, ac hit ne thuhte him nan 
 sceame to donne ' — ' It is a shame to tell, but it seemed not 
 to him any shame to do.' The Saxon infinitives of the verbs 
 do and tell were don and tellan ; but here these infinitives are 
 treated as if they were substantives, and put in the oblique 
 case with the preposition to, by means of which these verbs 
 are attached abverbially to their respective sentences, which 
 are complete sentences already without these adjuncts. We 
 
 e e 2 
 
420 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 must not confuse this case with the modern construction ' to 
 speak of it is shameful,' where the verb is now detached and 
 formed into the modern infinitive, and put as the subject of 
 the sentence. These verbs to tellanne and to do?ine I call 
 phrasal adverbs ; even as in the modern sentence, ' He has 
 three shillings a week to live on/ I call to live on a phrasal 
 adverb. 
 
 454, In modern English this adverbial use is eclipsed to 
 our eyes by the far greater frequency of the substantival or 
 infinitive use ; but still it is not hard to find instances of the 
 former, and there are two in the close of the following para- 
 graph. Mr. Sargent, pleading for colonies and emigration, 
 says : — 
 
 ' We are told also that those who go are the best, the backbone of the 
 nation ; that the resolute and enterprising go abroad, leaving the timid and 
 apathetic at home. This is not the whole truth. ... In one sense 
 these are our best men : they are the best to go, not the best to stay.' — 
 Essays by Members of the Birmingham Speculative Club, p. 26. 
 
 to do. 
 
 ' How convenient does it prove to be a rational animal, that knows how 
 to find or invent a plausible pretext for whatever it has an inclination to do !' 
 — Benjamin Franklin, Life. 
 
 455. As in French the phrase a /aire, occurring often in 
 such connection as quelque chose a faire, beaucoup a faire, 
 something to do, a great deal to do, became at length one 
 vocable, and that a substantive, affaire, English affair, so like- 
 wise in provincial English did to-do become a substantive, as 
 in the Devonshire exclamation, ' Here 's a pretty to-do ! ' In 
 place of this to-do the King's English accepted a composition, 
 part French, part English, and hence the substantive ado. 
 
 If it be admitted that affair and ado are now separate sub- 
 stantives formed from an adverbial phrase, the strangeness 
 of supposing a like origin for our formal English infinitive 
 is much lessened. 
 
THE NUMERALS. 421 
 
 The above explanation may be confirmed or corrected 
 by the young philologer ; only he should consider in what 
 way the infinitives may appear to have been formed in other 
 languages. It might be worth while to trace the origin of 
 the Danish infinitive, which like ours is phrasal ; he should 
 also cast a glance at the flexional infinitives of the Greek 
 and Latin, and see what sort of an account has been 
 rendered of these by the Sanskrit scholars. 
 
 By way of reflection upon this trilogy of Adverbs, be it 
 observed, that the subtleness of their utility lies not merely 
 in having the choice of three forms for the fitness of every 
 occasion, though that is a great consideration ; but still more 
 in the cumulative power of adverbial expression which they 
 render possible. We have already seen (433 foil.) that the 
 repetition of one cast of adverb is liable to defeat its end, 
 and accordingly when adverbs press for admission more than 
 one at a time, it is of great consequence to provide them 
 each with a several garb. In Micah vii. 3 we read ' That 
 they may doe euil with both hands earnestly;' but if we look 
 at the French Bible (Rochelle, 1616), we find, 'Pour faire 
 mal a deux mains a bon escient,' with adverbial monotony ; 
 whereas the English wins a certain force by varying the 
 form of expression. 
 
 The Numerals. 
 
 456. The numerals make a little noun-group by them- 
 selves, and are (like the chief noun-group) distinguished by 
 the threefold character of substantive, adjective, and adverb. 
 
 The distinction between substantive and adjective is not 
 quite so sharp here as in other presentive words. It is 
 however plain that the Cardinals when used arithmetically 
 are substantives, as in two and /wo make four. 
 
422 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 The Cardinal has also this aspect when any person or 
 thing is designated as number one, number two, &c., the 
 word ' number ' being in the nature of a mere prefix, as is felt 
 when we look at the oblique-cased Latin word which the 
 French use in this connection. 
 
 ' " En Angleterre," said a cynical Dutch diplomatist, " numero deux va 
 chez numero un. pour s'en glorifier aupres de numero trois." ' — Laurence 
 Oiiphant, Piccadilly, Part v. 
 
 Moreover, when the numeral takes a plural form, it must 
 be regarded as a substantive, e. g. 
 
 ' There are hundreds of genuine letters of Mary Queen of Scots still 
 extant/ — John Hosack, Mary Queen of Scots and her Accusers, p. 198. 
 
 There is in some languages an abstract substantive which 
 is formed upon Cardinals, and it has a peculiar utility in ex- 
 pressing the more conventional quantities or Round numbers. 
 Thus in French there is huitaine, a quantity of eight, which 
 is only used in talking of the hutt jours, ' eight days' of the 
 week. So they have their dixaine, douzaine, qumzahie, vingt- 
 aine, tre?ilahie, quarantaine, ci7iquantaine, soixantaine, centai?te. 
 Of all this we have nothing. Only we have borrowed their 
 word for ' a tale of twelve/ and have anglicised it into 
 dozen. Then we have a native substitute for vi?igfaine, not 
 originally a numeral at all, but a word that practically fills 
 the place of one. This is the word score, an elongate form 
 of scar, meaning a notch on the rind of a stick or some such 
 ledger. Our special use of this word seems to indicate that in 
 the rude reckoning of our ancestors a larger notch was made 
 at every twenty. The following is from The Mystery of 
 Edivin Drood, within a little of its abrupt termination : — 
 
 ' " I like," says Mr. Datchery, " the old tavern way of keeping scores. 
 Illegible, except to the scorer . . . Hum ; ha ! A very small score this ; a 
 poor score !" 
 
 He sighs over the contemplation of its poverty, takes a bit of chalk from 
 
THE NUMERALS. 423 
 
 one of the cupboard-shelves, and pauses with it in his hand, uncertain what 
 addition to make to the account. 
 
 " I think a moderate stroke," he concludes, ' ; is all I am justified in scoring 
 up ; " so, suits the action to the word, closes the cupboard, and goes to bed.' 
 
 457. When used numerically, as two stars, three graces, 
 four seas, jive senses, then the numerals are assimilated to 
 
 adjectives. 
 
 But while we trace in the functions of the numeral a 
 broad and general resemblance to the distinctions which 
 mark the nounal group, we should just notice that there is 
 not in thought the same adjectival character in the numeral 
 as there is in the nounal group. If I say bright stars, 
 fabled graces, uncertain seas, receptive senses, these adjec- 
 tives have the same relation to their substantives, whether 
 those substantives be taken in the plural or in the singular. 
 Whereas the numerals two, three, four, Jive, belong to their 
 substantives only conjointly and not severally. It may 
 have been a dim sense of this difference that caused the 
 vacillation which has appeared in language about the ad- 
 jectival declension of numerals. In Saxon the first tin 
 numerals were declined. Thus, ]>reora is genitive of ]>reo\ 
 ' pis is Jnera breora hida land geinxre.' ' This is the land- 
 meer of the three hides.' (a.d. 074.) 
 
 458. This group is exceedingly retentive of antiquity. 
 Not only is there a radical identity in the numerals through- 
 out the Gothic family, but these again are identical with the 
 numerals of other families of languages. This indicates a 
 very high antiquity. We may illustrate this fact by com- 
 parative tables. First, we will compare the different forms 
 assumed by the numerals in some of the chief branches of 
 our own Gothic family, and then we will pass beyond that 
 limit and take into our comparison some of the most illus- 
 trious languages of the Indo-European stock. 
 
_«5 
 
 «3 
 • «-> 
 
 JS jo ^* 
 
 
 
 w 
 O 
 
 > U U > 
 
 1 • £ C*«il-|4l -8-11 
 
 v} Q ^^'-c^uiiflrtcjiD+ji <w^ a» £ <£\G £ .a. u= ,c JE: ,g ,2 ,2 £ 
 W 
 
 '5 
 
 
 
 uo 
 
 £ S "o j_ t- Ji 
 
 s £ ^ c 3 s ■a!S>!&.b .fa -fa t, g 
 
 ^ & C.E.i « S *-* -> ^ t +j ^ 3 ti .„ h ',"; -p +J -~ T5 
 
 >-y ^3 — * 71 P ^ - lj 3 rt ^" H f -u-< ^-> !— -J-J -4-J v>— i t " +-* M rr* -a-j *■* 
 
 < J a ^5 
 
 Q « qj +j *_, w<c en 5?vce c v z! o;^'^-c?x:-m'^ l^« ^ -5^5 S ^ 
 
 iV 
 
 Q-< ^ «i r h !! «i T , , h^ r> (i 1 i-h n 1 ri V_r;~ 
 
 
 w c ^^o>.^a^ .SP-2 Si^^So^^^n^^^^S 3 a fe ^ ° 
 
 
 Mi 
 
 a 
 
 <% .*? .2? ^ bo 5 
 
 6j0 
 
 
 ►j rt l n r? _c: Sri-, C T3 QJ . £ cu a3 •-• E^ .Xr JZ3 ? e n ". ^ S «* <u ^ 
 
 v. 
 
 5 c^ T3 t3 2 
 
 Jl m p.i„ 2 a ^ c 5 
 
 •^ rt .5, SB-^ a .E^ ^j a ^ . -g c 
 .-fe ^aa S^feisf •li-fY^i^gl .1-21 
 
 o 
 
THE NUMERALS. 
 
 425 
 
 459. In consequence of the luxuriant declension of the 
 numerals in Sanskrit, I have followed the authority of Bopp's 
 Grammar for the ' theme ' in each case, that is to say, the 
 part of the word which is present or implied in each of the 
 various forms under which it appears in literature. 
 
 Sanskrit. 
 
 Greek. 
 
 Latin. Lithuanian. 
 
 Welsh. 
 
 eka 
 
 hen 
 
 un 
 
 wien 
 
 un 
 
 dva 
 
 du 
 
 du 
 
 du 
 
 dau 
 
 tri 
 
 tri 
 
 tri 
 
 tri 
 
 tri 
 
 chatur 
 
 tessar 
 
 quatuor 
 
 kcttur 
 
 pedwar 
 
 panchan 
 
 pente 
 
 quinquc 
 
 penki 
 
 pump 
 
 shash 
 
 hex 
 
 sex 
 
 szeszi 
 
 chwech 
 
 saptan 
 
 hepta 
 
 septem 
 
 septyni 
 
 saith 
 
 ashtan 
 
 okto 
 
 octo 
 
 asztuni 
 
 wyth 
 
 navan 
 
 ennea 
 
 novem 
 
 dewyni 
 
 naw 
 
 dasan 
 
 deka 
 
 decern 
 
 deszimt 
 
 * 8 
 
 ckadasan 
 
 hendeka 
 
 undecini 
 
 . . . . 
 
 unarddeg 
 
 dvadasan 
 
 dodeka 
 
 duoderim 
 
 .... 
 
 deuarddeg 
 
 trayodasan 
 
 triskaideka 
 
 tredecim 
 
 .... 
 
 triarddeg 
 
 chaturdasan 
 
 tessareskaideka 
 
 quatuordccim 
 
 .... 
 
 pcdwararddeg 
 
 unavinsati 
 
 .... 
 
 undevinginti 
 
 .... 
 
 pedwararbymtheg 
 
 vinsati 
 
 eikosi 
 
 viginti 
 
 du idesziml 
 
 i ugain 
 
 trinsat 
 
 triakonta 
 
 triginta 
 
 .... 
 
 deg ar ugain 
 
 chatvarinsat 
 
 tesserakonta 
 
 quadraginta 
 
 .... 
 
 deugain 
 
 panchasat 
 
 pentekonta 
 
 quinquaginta 
 
 .... 
 
 deg a deugain 
 
 shashti 
 
 hexakonta 
 
 sexagiota 
 
 .... 
 
 trigain 
 
 saptati 
 
 hebdomOkonta 
 
 septuagmta 
 
 .... 
 
 deg a thrigain 
 
 asiti 
 
 ogdoekonta 
 
 octoginta 
 
 .... 
 
 pedwarugain 
 
 navati 
 
 eneuekonta 
 
 Donaginta 
 
 .... 
 
 deg a phedwarugain 
 
 satam 
 
 hekaton 
 
 centum 
 
 szimtas 
 
 cant 
 
 460. It is in the Ordinal numbers that the numeral more 
 particularly assumes the adjectival character. We retain all 
 the Ordinals in their Saxon form except two, namely, first 
 and second. First rose into its place from the dialects ; but 
 second was borrowed from the French — a solitary instance 
 among the Numerals, properly so called. The Saxon word 
 
426 THE NOUN GROUP. 
 
 in its place was other, a word which has now a pronominal 
 value only. It had this pronominal value in ancient times, 
 in the Old High German andar and in the Moeso-Gothic 
 anthar. This collateral use it doubtless was which caused 
 our adoption in this single case of a French Ordinal. The 
 Germans also have discarded anber from the numeral function 
 probably for the same reason; and they have made a new 
 Ordinal for that place after the prevalent type, ber jtcette. 
 
 461. Adverbial numerals are such as once, twice, thrice, 
 four times, &c, where it is to be observed that the difference 
 of adverbial form between the first three numerals and their 
 successors is of a piece with the fact that these three were 
 and others were not, or at least not in an equal degree, 
 declinable in Saxon. It is generally found in languages 
 that the earlier numerals are the more liable to flexion. 
 The adverbs once, twice, thrice, are in fact genitival forms 
 under a frenchified orthography. In the Ormulum they are 
 spelt thus, an ess, tiviyss, thriyss. But even when divested of 
 their French garb, they do not prove to be old Saxon forms. 
 In Saxon times the genitive was not used for this purpose : 
 there was indeed an adverbial anes (genitive of an, one) but 
 it meant ' at one,' ' of one accord.' For once, twice, thrice, the 
 Saxon was cene, tuwa, thriwa. But although our forms are 
 not ancient, their distinctness from the rest of their series is 
 founded upon an ancient distinction. For in the corre- 
 sponding Saxon series there was a like transition ; the next 
 terms were feower srSon, fif srSon, &c. 
 
 .In fact these three numeral adverbs differ from those which 
 follow, because the three Saxon adverbs in their place stood 
 apart in like manner from their successors. But their 
 genitival form is due to the fact that the above-mentioned 
 pronominal dues has had the power to stamp its likeness not 
 only on the first of this series, but also on the second and the 
 
THE NUMERALS. 427 
 
 third. This may well be seen from the fact that German 
 and Dutch preserve the analogue of once, German etrtft, Dutch 
 eens; but these languages have nothing to match twice, 
 thrice. Further, be it noted, that once the numeral is a piece 
 of English as opposed to Saxon, while the true representative 
 of the old pronominal dues survives in the phrase once on a 
 lime, which is altogether of older lineage than the numeral 
 once. The truth of this distinction may be further verified by 
 any one who observes how justly the German cine, einft and 
 Dutch eens answer to our once on a time and to the Saxon 
 dnes, at one, of one accord; whereas they do but partially 
 and somewhat improperly the work of eirtmal, which is the 
 proper German expression for once the numeral, or of 
 eenmaal, eene rcis, the analogues in Dutch. 
 
 The numerals have been inserted in diis place as a sort 
 of appendix to the nounal group, because of their manifest 
 affinity to that group. At the same time, enough has been 
 said to indicate that they have a several character of their 
 own, and that it would be unphilological to let them be 
 absorbed into any class of words whatever. 
 
 That this is the proper place lor the numerals we con- 
 clude not only from their assimilation to the nounal group 
 on the one hand, but also from certain traces of affinity which 
 they bear to the pronouns on the other. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE PRONOUN GROUP. 
 
 462. We now cross the greatest chasm in language — the 
 chasm which separates the presentives from the symbolics. 
 So profoundly has this separation been felt by philologers, 
 that some would even regard these two spheres of speech as 
 radically and originally distinct from each other. The con- 
 sideration of this theory would lead us beyond the track of 
 the present treatise. It is only noticed here as a testimony 
 to the greatness of the distinction between Nouns and 
 Pronouns. 
 
 How far they were originally distinct and independent of 
 each other, is a question for minute etymological investiga- 
 tion, and cannot be settled either one way or the other by 
 the measure of current distinctions. It is plain that the 
 most widely severed functions may be discharged by words 
 which have been radically identical. 
 
 Professor Miiller has in his Lectures (Second Series, 1864) 
 given an excellent illustration of the way in which the one 
 class of words may be transplanted into the place of the 
 other. ' The pronoun of the first person in Cochin-Chinese 
 is not a pronoun, but means " servant." / love is expressed 
 in that civil language bv servant loves! If the word servant 
 in this case is not a pronoun, it is at least in a fair way of 
 
SYMBOLIC, AND 429 
 
 becoming so. Already in English ' your humble servant,' 
 when used playfully as a substitute for /, is a pronoun ; as 
 much so as your Honour, your Lordship, your Grace, your 
 Highness, your Majesty. That all these have passed, or at 
 least are passing, into the region of the symbolic, there can 
 be little doubt. And these recent instances of the trans- 
 ference enable us to conceive how all pronouns may possibly 
 have been generated from nouns. 
 
 463. The wide difference between nouns and pronouns is 
 equally certain, whatever may become of any etymological 
 theory, inasmuch as it is a difference which depends not 
 upon origin, but upon function. It is not our earliest im- 
 pression when we first consider a butterfly, that it is a 
 transformed caterpiller; and when we have discovered their 
 identity of origin, we have in no wise removed their dif- 
 ference of function. Although we know that the caterpiller 
 and the butterfly are the same individual, this does not a 
 whit alter the fact that they are two widely different things, 
 and in very different conditions of existence. Should it ever 
 become capable of proof that all the pronouns had sprung 
 from presentive roots, this would not invalidate the state- 
 ment, that in passing from nouns to pronouns we traverse a 
 wide gulf, and one which can hardly be overrated as the 
 great central valley dividing the two main formations of 
 which language is composed (230). 
 
 These two great hemispheres of language, which we 
 designate as the Presentive and the Symbolic, which Bopp 
 calls the Verbal and the Pronominal, may with equal propriety 
 and greater brevity be simply called Nouns and Pronouns, 
 for in fact every other part of speech branches out of these 
 two. Of all the parts of speech hitherto noticed, it is the 
 general quality (putting aside a few marked exceptions, such 
 as the symbol verb to be and the auxiliaries) that they are 
 
43° THE PRONOUN GROUP. 
 
 presentive. Of all the parts of speech which remain to be 
 noticed it is the general quality that they are (not presentive 
 but) symbolic. 
 
 464. And yet we are not come to a dead level of symbol- 
 ism. There are gradations of this character. The first pro- 
 nouns that we shall consider, are a class which combine with 
 their symbolism a certain qualified sort of presentive power. 
 How completely the personal pronouns are entitled to the 
 character of symbolic, we have already shewn (246). But 
 here we have to add, that besides the symbolic character, 
 the pronoun / (for instance) has also a sort of reflected 
 or borrowed presentiveness, which we will call a sub- 
 presentive power. Though this pronoun has absolutely no 
 signification by itself, yet when once the substantive has 
 been given like a keynote, then from that time the pronoun 
 continues to have, by a kind of delegacy, the presentive 
 power which has been deputed to it by that substantive. 
 We may see the same thing, if we consider the third per- 
 sonal pronoun 
 
 him. 
 
 ' It has been my rare good fortune to have seen a large proportion of the 
 greatest minds of our age, in the fields of poetry and speculative philosophy, 
 such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, Schiller, Tieck ; but none that I have ever 
 known come near him.' — H. C. Robinson, Diary, 1 831. 
 
 If we read this sentence, and ask ' Who is him ? ' we 
 acknowledge the two qualities which constitute the sub- 
 stantive-pronoun : for we imply that the word does indicate 
 somebody, and that it does not say who the person indi- 
 cated is. 
 
 he. 
 
 4 He was a delightful man to walk with, and especially in a mountainous 
 country. He was physically strong, had excellent spirits, and was joyous 
 and boyish in his intercourse with his children and pupils.'— H. C. Robinson 
 Diary, 1842. 
 
ALSO SUB-PRESENTIVE. 43 1 
 
 This sub-presentive character belongs to the personal 
 pronouns, as if by some right of contiguity to the great 
 presentive body of words which we leave behind us. As 
 we proceed with the catalogue of the pronouns, it will 
 become less and less perceptible, until at length, when the 
 pronoun passes into the conjunction, it entirely fades from 
 the view, and leaves only the pure symbolic essence of 
 speech, whose meaning is so slight as to be imponderable, 
 and whose value for the highest purposes of language is so 
 great as to be almost inestimable. 
 
 The pronouns are, as their name signifies, words which are 
 the vicegerents of nouns. Accordingly, they vary in habit 
 and function just in the same manner as nouns vary, and fall 
 naturally into a similar division. This division is therefore 
 into the same three groups as before, viz. I. Substantival, 
 II. Adjectival, III. Adverbial. 
 
 I. Substantival Pronouns. 
 
 465. These are the pronouns of which, if the reader asked 
 himself what presentive word they symbolise, he must make 
 answer by a substantive. Among these the first in every 
 sense are 
 
 The Personal Pronouns. 
 
 How ancient these are will best be seen by a comparative 
 table. Most of them will be found to be radically the same 
 in all the languages of the Gothic stock. 
 
 The statement would apply much more widely; but we 
 must be on our guard against wandering when we are 
 entering such a ' forest primeval ' as that of the pronominal 
 
432 
 
 THE PRONOUN GROUP. 
 
 group 
 
 Hear Professor Max Miiller on the antiquity of 
 aham, which is the Sanskrit form of /. 
 
 ' It belongs to the earliest formations of Aryan speech, and we need not 
 wonder that even in Sanskrit the materials out of which this pronoun was 
 framed should have disappeared.' 
 
 and again, 
 
 ' The Sanskrit aham, a word carried down by the stream of language from 
 such distant ages, that even the Vedas, as compared with them, are but as it 
 were of yesterday.' — Lectures, Second Series, p. 348. 
 
 466. Pronouns of the First Person. 
 
 GOTHIC. 
 
 Singular. 
 
 Norn, ik 
 Gen. meina 
 Dat. mis 
 Ace. mik 
 
 Dual. 
 
 Norn 
 Gen. 
 Dat. 1 
 Ace 
 
 Plural. 
 
 Nom. weis 
 
 Gen. unsara 
 
 Dat. ) 
 
 f unsis 
 Ace. J 
 
 wit 
 unkara (?) 
 
 c unkis 
 
 ICELANDIC. 
 
 ek 
 min 
 mer 
 mik 
 
 wit 
 okkar 
 
 okkr 
 
 wer 
 war 
 
 oss 
 
 ANGLO-SAXON. 
 
 ic 
 
 min 
 
 me I 
 
 (mec) me -* 
 
 wit 
 uncer 
 
 unc 
 
 we 
 (user) ure 
 
 us 
 
 ENGLISH. 
 
 me 
 
 we 
 
 us 
 
 The point to be noticed here is the paucity of English 
 forms, when these are compared with the elder languages. 
 Practically the difference is made up by the use of words 
 like of to, which have many other uses besides their applica- 
 tion in this place. So that this is a case of simplification, of 
 economy of form, in the modern as contrasted with the elder 
 
 languages. 
 
I. SUBSTANTIVAL. — PERSONAL. 433 
 
 The contrast which the above table exhibits between the 
 English on the one hand, and the ancestral dialects on the 
 other, is very striking. It shows how far we have moved 
 from their condition in regard to an element of language 
 which is justly esteemed among the most constant. This 
 will appear more plainly if we now proceed to compare the 
 same member in French and Italian. 
 
 Singular. 
 Nom. 
 
 FRENCH. 
 
 Je 
 
 ITALIAN. 
 
 Io 
 
 ENGLISH 
 
 I 
 
 Gen. 
 
 de moi 
 
 di me 
 
 of me 
 
 Dat. 
 
 a moi 
 
 a me 
 
 to me 
 
 Ace. 
 
 me 
 
 me 
 
 me 
 
 Plural. 
 
 
 
 
 Nom. 
 
 nous 
 
 noi 
 
 we 
 
 Gen. 
 
 de nous 
 
 di noi 
 
 of us 
 
 Dat. 
 
 ;\ nous 
 
 a noi 
 
 to us 
 
 Ace. 
 
 nous 
 
 noi 
 
 us 
 
 It is plain that our language has retained its native material 
 throughout this pronoun, but that the shaping of that ma- 
 terial is almost entirely copied from the Romance languages. 
 It will not be necessary to take up space with displaying the 
 same fact throughout the pronouns of the second and third 
 person, as it is obvious to any one who has acquired the 
 elements of the Gothic and Romance languages, that the 
 example applies to those cases, and to a great many others 
 which we leave to the young philologer to explore for 
 himself. 
 
 467. The Pronoun of the Second Person. 
 
 MfESO-GOTHIC. 
 
 ICELANDIC. 
 
 ANGLO-SAXON. 
 
 ENGLISH 
 
 Singular. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Nom. 
 
 thu 
 
 thu 
 
 thu 
 
 thou 
 
 Gen. 
 
 theina 
 
 thin 
 
 thin 
 
 . 
 
 Dat. 
 Ace. 
 
 thus 
 thuk 
 
 ther 
 thik 
 
 the \ 
 (thee) the S 
 
 thee 
 
 Ff 
 
434 
 
 THE PRONOUN GROUP. 
 
 MCESO-GOTHIC. 
 
 ICELANDIC. 
 
 ANGLO-SAXON. 
 
 ENGLISH. 
 
 Dual. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Nom. 
 
 jut (?) 
 
 (it) thit 
 
 git 
 
 
 Gen. 
 
 inkwara 
 
 ykkar 
 
 incer 
 
 • * 
 
 Dat. 
 
 inkwis 
 
 ykkr 
 
 inc 
 
 • » 
 
 Ace. 
 
 inkwis 
 
 ykkr 
 
 (incit) inc 
 
 
 Plural. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Nom. 
 
 jus 
 
 (er) ther 
 
 g e 
 
 (ye) you 
 
 Gen. 
 
 izwara 
 
 ythar 
 
 eower 
 
 
 Dat. 
 
 izwis 
 
 ythr 
 
 eow | 
 
 
 Ace. 
 
 izwis 
 
 ythr 
 
 (eowic) eow / 
 
 you 
 
 The observations which have been made upon the pre- 
 vious group apply again. The paucity of the modern forms 
 is even more remarkable here, because three out of the four 
 are restricted in use, and you alone remains in the ordinary 
 practice of the language. Here again, as in the case of the 
 first pronoun, the blanks of the' English column are sup- 
 plied by a method of expression which we have learned 
 from the French. 
 
 468. The Pronoun of the Third Person. 
 
 The pronoun of the third person is of three genders, and 
 this distinguishes it not only from all other pronouns, but 
 from all the rest of the language. For this, and the few relics 
 of feminine substantives noticed in 383, 384, are all the 
 Gender that remains in the English language. These 
 remnants of the ancient accidence are so pared down, 
 that they rather indicate the two sexes and non-personality 
 than that traditional and inherited mysterious thing which 
 is called grammatical Gender. Almost the only instances 
 of masculine and feminine that the grammarians can muster 
 (beyond sex) are these, ' The sun he is setting,' and ' The 
 ship she sails well/ 
 
 This pronoun was in Saxon declined as follows : — 
 
I. SUBSTANTIVAL. — PERSONAL. 435 
 
 MASC. FEM. NEUT. 
 
 Singiilar. 
 
 
 
 
 Norn. 
 
 he* 
 
 heo 
 
 hit* 
 
 Gen. 
 
 hisf 
 
 hire" 
 
 his 
 
 Dat. 
 
 himf 
 
 hire + 
 
 him 
 
 Ace. 
 
 hine 
 
 hi 
 
 hit* 
 
 Plural (of all genders). 
 
 N. and A. hie (hi, hig, heo) 
 
 Gen. hiera (heora, hira) 
 
 Dat. him (heom) 
 
 If we go through this old declension word by word, 
 seeking in each case the modern equivalent, we find that 
 only three of its members are still perfectly living. They 
 are those which are marked with an asterisk. I call a given 
 word living, not when the mere form is extant, but when 
 that forms retains its old animating function. In such a 
 comparison we need nut notice the changes of shape, 
 when a word is known to be the same. Thus the difference 
 of spelling between hire and her is insignificant. But the 
 difference of function must be rigorously weighed, or we 
 shall let the most important distinctions slip unvalued 
 through our fingers. For this reason I have excluded the 
 genitive case singular, feminine, and neuter, as being now 
 dead to us. The neuter his no longer exists exeept in old 
 literature. It has entirely disappeared, and does not even 
 remain in the discharge of any partial or local function. 
 Instances of its use are abundant in Shakspeare (414) 
 and our Bible : — 
 
 * They came vnto the yron gate that leadeth vnto the citie, which opened 
 to them of his owne accord.' — Acts xii. 10. 
 
 Equally extinct is him, the dative neuter. The his of the 
 genitive masculine is superseded by of him except in em- 
 phatic positions. The his and her with which we are most 
 
 f f 2 
 
436 THE PRONOUN GROUP. 
 
 familiar are no longer genitive cases of a substantival pro- 
 noun; they have long ago become adjectival words, and 
 they are called Possessives. I have marked those words with 
 a dagger in the declension, which have a partial continuity 
 with the present English. As to the two dative forms, which 
 are marked as partially surviving in our modern speech, 
 their thread of identical vitality is very attenuated. Not once 
 in a thousand times when him or her appear as substantive- 
 pronouns, are they to be identified with this dative. We have 
 it in such a rare instance as this : — 
 
 'So they sadled him the asse.' — I Kings xiii. 13. 
 
 And this is not modern English : we should now say ' they 
 saddled for him.' The sort of instance in which the dative 
 him or her is still in familiar use, is such as this : ' I gave 
 him or her sixpence.' 
 
 Here, as in other cases, the influence of the little words of 
 and to have come in, through imitation of the French, to give 
 quite a new character to our declension of the pronoun. 
 
 469. The Reflexive Pronoun. 
 
 There was an old Reflexive Pronoun which in Mceso-Gothic 
 was sik and sis ; in Icelandic sik and ser ; and which was 
 radically identical with the Latin se, sibi. This pronoun 
 remains in full activity in German in the form ftd) ; and yet 
 it is almost entirely lost on the Low Dutch side of the Gothic 
 family. There is no relic of it in Anglo-Saxon 1 , nor has it 
 ever cropped up at any later stage of our language, as it has, 
 rather remarkably, in the modern Dutch zich. 
 
 We supply the place of it by self selves ; as, myself thyself 
 
 1 Although this reflex Personal pronoun is not found at any stage of our 
 insular branch, yet its Possessive sin, equivalent to the Latin sutis, is found 
 in the early Saxon poetry. 
 
I. SUBSTANTIVAL REFLEXIVE. 437 
 
 himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves. This 
 has the advantage of being equally applicable to all varieties 
 of person, whereas flcf> is of the third person only. 
 
 3eflt$ fa!) Sfcatijattael $U fid) femtnen— Luther s Version. 
 'Jesus saw Nathaneel comming to him.' — John i. 47. 
 
 Here we have to call attention to the fact that the accusa- 
 tive pronoun of all the persons performed for a long period 
 the double office of a direct and of a reflex pronoun. We 
 have now lost this faculty : and we can no longer say, ■ Ye 
 clothe you,' as in Haggai i. 6, but ' you clothe yourselves.' 
 
 ' And Elisha said vnto him, Take bowe and arrowes. And he tooke vnto 
 him bowe and arrowes.' — 2 Kings xiii. 15. 
 
 If we compare the Dutch version we shall find a distinction 
 where our version has unto him in different senses : — 
 
 ' Pmde Elisa seyde tot hem : Neemt eenen boge ende pijlen : ende hy nam 
 tot sich eenen boge ende pijlen.' 
 
 In the followinor verses we have them reflexively : — 
 
 « And the children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right 
 against the Lord their God, and they built them high places in all their 
 cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city. 
 
 ' And they set them vp images and groues in euery high hill, and vnder 
 euery greene tree.' — 2 Kings xvii. y, 10. 
 
 Later in the same chapter we find themselves : — 
 
 ' So they feared the Lord, and made vnto themselues of the lowest of 
 them priests of the high places, which sacrificed for them in the houses of 
 the high places.' — ver. 32. 
 
 Thus, in the sermon preached at the funeral of Bishop 
 Andrewes, we read — 
 
 ' The unjust judge righted the importunate widow but out of compassion 
 to relieve him.' — Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology, Andrewes, v. 274. 
 
 The last word corresponds, not to the Latin eum, but to 
 
438 THE PRONOUN GROUP. 
 
 se, and the modern rendering of the passage would be 
 ' The unjust judge righted the importunate widow only out 
 of compassion to (relieve) himself.' 
 
 This manner of expressing the reflex pronoun is now 
 only poetical : — 
 
 ' Mark ye how close she veils her round.' 
 
 Christian Year, Fourth Sunday in Lent. 
 
 470. We will close the subject of the personal pronouns 
 with a brief conspectus of these pronouns as they appear 
 before verbs in some of the most important sister-Ian- 
 
 guages : — 
 
 Singular 
 
 
 
 
 
 Plural. 
 
 
 1st. 
 
 2nd. 
 
 M. 
 
 3rd. 
 
 F. 
 
 N. 
 
 1st. 
 
 2nd. 
 
 
 3rd. 
 
 M. F. N. 
 
 M. G. 
 
 ik 
 
 thu 
 
 is 
 
 si 
 
 ita 
 
 weis 
 
 jus 
 
 
 eis ijos ija 
 
 Fee!. 
 
 ek 
 
 thu 
 
 hann 
 
 hon 
 
 that 
 
 wer 
 
 ther 
 
 
 their thaer thau 
 
 Dan. 
 
 jeg 
 
 du 
 
 han 
 
 hun 
 
 det 
 
 vi 
 
 I 
 
 
 de 
 
 Sax. 
 
 ic 
 
 thu 
 
 he 
 
 heo 
 
 hit 
 
 we 
 
 g e 
 
 
 hi 
 
 Engl. 
 
 I 
 
 thou 
 
 he 
 
 she 
 
 it 
 
 we 
 
 (ye); 
 
 you 
 
 they 
 
 Germ. 
 
 Ich 
 
 du 
 
 er 
 
 sie 
 
 es 
 
 wir 
 
 ihr 
 
 
 sie 
 
 Putch 
 
 ik 
 
 . . 
 
 hy 
 
 zij 
 
 het 
 
 wij 
 
 gy 
 
 
 . z y 
 
 The pronoun of the second person singular is lost in 
 Dutch; — it is reserved for intimacy and devotion in Ger- 
 man ; — in English it is used onlv towards God. The 
 Germans share this dignified use of the pronoun with us, 
 as a result of religious conditions which have affected both 
 
 languages alike. The two great Bible-translating nations 
 
 have naturally, in their veneration for the words of Scripture, 
 made this Hebrew idiom their own. It is only to be won- 
 dered at how the Dutch should have done otherwise. 
 
 The natural tendency of the western civilization, apart 
 from other influences, would be to shrink from such a use 
 of thou. The French have been led by this feeling, and in 
 all addresses to God they use vous. It is not, therefore, 
 
I. SUBSTANTIVAL. — PERSONAL. 439 
 
 from any radical difference, but only from the effect of cir- 
 cumstances, that the western languages are divided in this 
 particular. A sensitiveness as to the social use of the second 
 pronoun is common to all the nations of the West, but it 
 exhibits itself in unequal degrees. We are influenced by it 
 less than any of the other great languages. We have indeed 
 dropped Ihou, but we remain tolerably satisfied with you, 
 except when we wish to shew reverence. At such times we 
 are sensible of a void in our speech, unless the personage 
 has a title, asyour Lordship. Here it is that the pronominal 
 use of Monsieur and Madame in the French language is felt 
 to be so admirable a contrivance. The substitution of a 
 third-person formula obviates the awkwardness of the second. 
 Most of the great languages have done this. The German 
 has done it in the directest manner by simply putting fie, 
 they, for ibr, you. Not more direct, but much drier, is the 
 (now I imagine rather obsolete) Danish fashion of calling a 
 man to his face kan, he, as a polite substitute for the second 
 person. It is common in Holberg's plays. In Italian an 
 abstract feminine substantive takes the plac* of the pronoun 
 of the second person. But the most ceremonious of all in 
 this matter is the great language of chivalry. The philologer 
 who goes no deeper into Spanish, must at least acquaint 
 himself with the formula which it substitutes for the second 
 person. To say vos, that is you t is with them a great fami- 
 liarity, or even an insult. At least, in the short form of os. 
 Something like this exists in Devonshire, where 'I tell ee 
 what ' (ee being disrespectfully short for yee) is often heard 
 when altercation is growing dangerous. This is just the 
 v> os digo of the following vivacious interview. 
 
 • The archbishop had remained, while the ambassador was speaking, 
 dumb with anger and amazement. At last, finding his voice, and starting 
 from his seat in tury, he exclaimed : 
 
44° THE PRONOUN GROUP. 
 
 " Sirrah 1 ! I tell you that, but for certain respects, I would so chastise 
 you for these words that you have spoken, that I would make you an 
 example to all your kind. I would chastise you, I say ; I would make you 
 know to whom you speak in such shameless fashion." 
 
 "Sirrah!" replied Smith, in a fury too, and proud of his command of 
 the language which enabled him to retort the insult, " Sirrah ! I tell you 
 that I care neither for you nor your threats." 
 
 " Quitad os ! Be off with you!" shouted Quiroga, foaming with rage; 
 " leave the room! away! I say." 
 
 " If you call me Sirrah," said Smith, "I will call you Sirrah.'"— J. A. 
 Froude, Reign of Elizabeth, v. 66. 
 
 Returning to our table, we call attention to an interesting 
 question, namely, What are the affinities of the English she ? 
 It would seem easiest to identify it with the Mceso-Gothic 
 si, the German sie, and the Dutch zij; only then it is so 
 strange that there should be no trace of it all through the 
 Saxon period. The alternative is to suppose that the 
 feminine demonstrative seo (487) has been removed to this 
 place. 
 
 The Ancient Demonstrative Pro?ioun. 
 
 471. Here we notice only the ancient Demonstrative so, 
 leaving the modern that and this until we come to the 
 adjectival section. The Saxon form was swa, with a rarer 
 poetic form se ; and already in the earliest Saxon literature 
 it had lost its independence. Then, as now, it occurred only 
 in composite expressions, as swa htva swa, whoso ; swa 
 hwcEt swa, whatso. These are, however, sufficient to deter- 
 mine its ancient habit, and to indicate from what original 
 all the varieties of so and its composite such have had their 
 derival. 
 
 1 * " Yo os digo." Sirrah is too mild a word ; but we have no full equiva- 
 lent. " Os " is used by a king to subjects, by a father to children, more 
 rarely by a master to a servant. It is a mark of infinite distance between 
 a superior and inferior. " Dog" would perhaps come nearest to the arch- 
 bishop's meaning in the present connexion.' — Mr. Fronde's note. 
 
I. SUBSTANTIVAL. — RELATIVES. 441 
 
 In the words whoso, whatso, the so is manifestly subor- 
 dinated, and has lost its accent. This was the result of 
 the elevation of who, what, with the depression of so. 
 Anciently so was the leading member, what was indefinite 
 and enclitic. 
 
 The Interrogative and Relative Pronouns. 
 
 472. Who, what, with their inflections, of which we retain 
 only two in their place l , namely, whose and whom, are now 
 both interrogative and relative. But in Saxon they were 
 only interrogative, and not relative. Their change of cha- 
 racter took place in the great French period, and was a 
 direct consequence of French example. For that language, 
 in common with all the Romance languages, uses the same 
 sets of pronouns as interrogatives and as relatives. 
 
 There are two main sources of Relative Pronouns, namely 
 the Demonstratives and the Interrogatives. In the Gothic 
 family the Relatives spring from the former group, in the 
 Romanesque family from the latter. 
 
 The Saxon Relatives accordingly were from the Demon- 
 stratives, and we still use that as a Relative. It exists as a 
 variant either for who or which, our French-trained Relatives. 
 Thus we can say ' he, they who ' or ' he, they that' : also 
 • the thing that ' as well as ' the thing which.' Where we 
 now say that . . . -which, the Saxon was that . . . that (]>3et . . . 
 |>aet). We have an intereresting relic of this demonstrative- 
 relative in our ablative the . . . the as, ' the more the 
 merrier.' 
 
 1 Why, where, when, whence, are indeed inflections of who, what, and 
 they are retained in the language; but they are moved to another place, 
 namely, the company of the adverbs. 
 
442 THE PRONOUN GROUP. 
 
 ' Advice, like snow, the softer it falls the longer it dwells upon and the 
 deeper it sinks into the mind.' — S. T. Coleridge. 
 
 The change to the Interrogative-Relative is more than 
 superficial ; it amounts to a transposition of internal rela- 
 tions in the fabric of our language. This and other organic 
 changes into which we have been led by French example, 
 must certainly be unperceived by those who go on affirming 
 that the influence of French upon English has been only 
 superficial. 
 
 473. Whom is now used only personally. But there is no 
 historical reason for this, beyond modern usage. Time was 
 when it was used of things as much as what, and examples 
 occur in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The following 
 is of the date 1484 : — 
 
 ' Item. I bequethe to the auter of saint John the Baptist and saynt 
 Nicholas the which is myne owen chapell in the parish chirche of New- 
 londe in the Forest of Dene in whome my body shalbe buried In primis 
 a crosse of silver,' &c. — The Will of Dame Jane Lady Barre, in Mr. 
 Ellacombe's Memoir of Bitton, p. 47. 
 
 Lest it should be supposed that such a use can only be 
 produced from obscure writings, I may mention the Faery 
 Queene, in a passage which is quoted above, 158, where 
 whom refers to a ship. 
 
 Whose has long been used of persons only, but there is 
 now a disposition, notably among our historians, to restore 
 its pristine right of referring to things also : — 
 
 1 The church of Canterbury, as designed and carried out by him, was not 
 one of those vast piles whose building was necessarily spread over several 
 generations. His whole work was done in the space of seven years, a space 
 whose shortness amazed his own generation.' — Edward A. Freeman, Norman 
 Conquest, vol. iv. p. 361. 
 
 ' Hincmar, in his reply, which is worded with the utmost respect, reminds 
 the Pope of the forms of procedure with regard to appeals to Rome, as 
 prescribed by the Council of Sardica, upon whose decrees the practice 
 mainly rested.' — W. Henley Jervis, The Galilean Church, vol. i. p. 33. 
 
I. SUBSTANTIVAL. — RELATIVES. 443 
 
 474. Before quitting this set, it may be interesting to 
 observe that what in Anglo-Saxon had a peculiar function 
 as a leading interjection, a usage which is familiar to those 
 who know the dialect of the Lake district. The minstrel 
 often began his lay with Hwtet I 
 
 The noblest of Anglo-Saxon poems, the Beowulf, begins 
 with this exclamation : 
 
 ' Hwset we Gar Dena on geardaguni 
 jT'eod cyninga prim ge frunon 
 Hu }>a ae'Selingas ellen fremedon.' 
 
 What ho ! the tales of year-day try 
 
 The martial mustering* of mighty Gar-Dane kings, 
 
 And famous feats of arms performed by (Zthelings. 
 
 Interrogation, appeal, expostulation, admiration, lie very 
 near to one another m the structure of the human mind, and 
 hence we see in mam Languages an approach to this habit. 
 In Latin there is the rhetorical use of quid/ in French of 
 quoil and if we would sec a situation in which several of 
 those meanings blend inseparably, we may refer to Proverbs 
 xxxi. 2, where the version of iCi 1 is rigidly literal, while that 
 °f *535 ^ homely and unconstrained according to wont. 
 
 Miles Coverdale. 161 1. 
 
 'My soune, thou sonne of my 'What, my Sonne! and what, the 
 
 body: O my deare beloued sonne.' sonne of my wombe! and what, the 
 
 s>mne of my vowes ! 
 
 There is a what of more modern appearance, equivalent 
 to ' that which,' embodying both antecedent and relative, 
 specially called into action in the opening of sentences where 
 the French would use ' Ce que.' This what is an example of 
 the condensing power of the English speech-genius. 
 
 • What we call a simple Fact is in great part the product of our judgment, 
 and therefore often of our fancy, working upon very fragmentary data. 
 What we do in observing a fact is to fill in an outline of which only a point 
 
444 THE PRONOUN GROUP. 
 
 here and there has been actually assigned, an outline therefore which may be 
 no more obligatory than the shapes of the constellations on a celestial globe.' 
 — J. Venn, Huhean Lectures for 1S69, p. 13. 
 
 The Indefinite Pronouns. 
 
 475. We have yet a set of pronouns to mention before 
 closing this section; namely, the Indefinite. The chief of 
 these was in the Saxon period a symbolised man, like 
 the indefinite pronoun in German (33). It should also 
 be noticed that the French on is only a form of homme, 
 in which the spelling has varied with the sublimation of 
 the meaning. This indefinite man, or, as it was oftener 
 written, mon, we lost at an early date, in the great shaking 
 that followed the Conquest ; but it is so natural a word for a 
 pronoun to grow out of, that we do, from time to time, fall 
 as if unconsciously into this use. In the following quota- 
 tion from Mark viii. 4, a 7iian is a manifest pronoun; the 
 Greek is 8wt)o-eTai ns. To show the pedigree of the expres- 
 sion in this place, three versions are put side by side : — 
 
 Wiclif, 1389. Tyndale, 1526. The Bible of 1611. 
 
 ' Wherof a man schal ' From whence myght ' From whence can a 
 
 mowe fille hem with a man suffyse them with man satisfie these men 
 
 looues here in wildir- breed here in the wyl- with bread here in the 
 
 nesse ? ' denies ?' wildernes ?' 
 
 476. This is, however, but a feeble example of the pro- 
 nominal use of the word man, a use which it has been our 
 singular fortune to lose after having possessed it in its 
 fulness. In place of it, we resort to a variety of shifts for 
 what may justly be entitled a pronoun of pronouns, that 
 is to say, a pronoun which is neither / nor we nor you 
 nor they, but which may stand for either or all of these or 
 any vague commixture of two or three of them. Sometimes 
 we say 'you' not meaning, nor being taken to mean you 
 
I. SUBSTANTIVAL. — INDEFINITES. 445 
 
 at all, but to express a corporate personality which quite 
 eludes personal application. 
 
 ' It is always pleasant to be forced to do what you wish to do, but 
 what, until pressed, you dare not attempt.' — Dean Hook, Archbishops, 
 vol. iii. ch. 4. 
 
 This you is often convenient to the poet as a neutral 
 medium of address, applicable either to one particular per- 
 son, or to all the world : — 
 
 ' Yet this, perchance, you'll not dispute, — 
 That true Wit has in Truth its root, 
 Surprise its flower, Delight its fruit. 
 Or haply, this may be more clear, 
 The pirouette of an Idea ; 
 Which, just as you conclude your grasp. 
 Slips laughing from your empty cl 
 Presenting in strange combination 
 Some ludicrous association; 
 Which you repel with indignation, 
 But cannot rind its confutation: — 
 I know no other image tit 
 To tell you what I mean by Wit.' 
 
 W. M. A. in The Spectator, July 2, 1S70. 
 
 Sometimes, again, it is we, and at other times it is they 
 which represents this much-desired but long-lost or not- 
 yet-invented ' representative ' pronoun. We render the 
 French on dit by they say. 
 
 477. Besides the resort to pronouns of a particular per- 
 son in order to achieve the effect of a pronoun impersonal, 
 we have also some substantives which have been pronomin- 
 alised to this effect, as person, people, body, folk. 
 
 peoph. 
 
 ' Bothwell was not with her at Seton. As to her shooting at the butts 
 when there, this story, like most of the rest, is mere gossip. People do not 
 shoot at the butts in a Scotch February.' — Quarterly Review, vol. 128, 
 p. 511. 
 
 'People are always cowards when they are doing wrong.' — M. Manley, 
 When I was a Boy (William Macintosh), p. 24. 
 
446 THE PRONOUN GROUP. 
 
 body. 
 
 ' The foolish body hath said in his heart, There is no God.' — Psalm liii. I. 
 elder version. 
 
 And from this we get the composite pronouns somebody, 
 nobody, everybody, and a-body, as little John Stirling, when 
 he saw the new-born calf — 
 
 'Wull't eat a-body ? '—Thomas Carlyle, Life, ch. ii. 
 
 In like manner, but less fixed in habit, some people, and also 
 some folk, as in the well known refrain 
 
 ' Some folk do, some folk do ! ' 
 
 478. One. The first numeral has an intimate natural 
 affinity with the pronominal principle, and this is widelv 
 acknowledged in the languages by pronominal uses which 
 are very well known. Some of our pronominal uses of one 
 are easily paralleled in other languages, the one and the other 
 = l'un et l'autre ; one another = Tun l'autre. But there is an 
 English use which is far from common, even if it is not 
 absolutely unique ; namely, when it is employed as a veiled 
 Ego, thus : ' One may be excused for doubting whether such 
 a policy as this can have its root in a desire for the public 
 welfare ; ' or, ' One never knows what this sort of thing 
 may lead to.' It would be impossible to put in these places 
 l'un or ein or unus or eh. 
 
 The one of which we speak is quite distinct from those 
 cases in which it is little removed from the numeral, as 
 * One thinks this, and one thinks that.' In this case one is 
 fully toned, but not so in the case referred to, as when a 
 person who is pressed to buy stands on the defensive with, 
 1 One can't buy everything, you know ; ' here the one is 
 lightly passed over with that sensitiveness which accom- 
 panies egotism. 
 
I. SUBSTANTIVAL. INDEFINITES. 447 
 
 There are instances in which one language catches up 
 a confused idea from another, and a mere sound which has 
 been heard will suggest a term totally different in idea from 
 the meaning of that sound. And it is just possible that the 
 French on has had some such undefined effect in this 
 member of our language, guiding us through the associa- 
 tion of sound to our peculiar use of the first numeral. 
 
 This pronoun appears in concord or under government 
 in a manner which it would be hard to parallel in other 
 languages : — 
 
 ' As nations ignorant of God contrive 
 A wooden one.' William Cowper, The Timepiece. 
 
 ' And unto one her note is gay. 
 
 For now her little ones have ranged ; 
 And unto one her note is changed, 
 Because her brood is stolen away. In Memnram. xxi. 
 
 'The strictly logical deduction from the premises is not always found in 
 jraetice the true one.' — Sir J. T. Coleridge, Keble, p. 388. 
 
 479. A variety of other pronouns belong to this set, 
 which we have only space just to hint at. Such are thing, 
 somethings everything, nothing; wight, whit, deal. 
 
 None is the negative of one. Originally adjectival, ami 
 used before consonants and vowels alike, it was shortened to 
 no before consonants, and none continued in use only before 
 vowels : as, ' There is none end of the store and glory/ 
 Nahum ii. 9 ; ' There was none other boat there/ John 
 vi. 22. This is now obsolete, and the form none is only 
 used substantially, as ' I have none.' 
 
 Ought or aught, from Saxon awiht, a composite of 
 ivight or whit. It is now little used. 
 
 ' He asked him, if hee saw ought.' — Mark viii. 23. 
 
 ' And when ye stand, praying, forgiuc, if ye haue ought against any.' — 
 Mark xi. 25. 
 
448 THE PRONOUN GROUP. 
 
 We have thus reached the natural termination of this 
 section. Having started from the pronouns which were 
 most nearly associated with substantival ideas, we have 
 reached those whose characteristic it is (as their name 
 conveys) to be indefinite, to shun fixed associations, and 
 thus to be ever ready for a latitude of application as wide 
 as the widest imaginable sweep of the mental horizon. 
 
 II. Adjectival Pronouns. 
 
 480. This section will run parallel to the former, so far as 
 such an arrangement is practicable without unnatural dislo- 
 cations. The more subtle quality of pronouns, as compared 
 with nouns, is the cause of a more ready transition from the 
 substantival to the adjectival function, and reversely. 
 
 481. The Possessive Pronouns. 
 
 These were a genitival shoot from the personal pronouns 
 which became, some more some less, adjectival : those which 
 became most so were the possessives of the first and second 
 persons. 
 
 These have, in the earlier stage of the language, had a 
 complete adjectival development, and full means of concord 
 with substantives ; and this began to be the case in some 
 measure even with his, of which we meet with a plural hise 
 (disyllabic), as in the following broken Saxon from the year 
 1 1 23, in the Peterborough Chronicle : — 
 
 ' Da sone baer aefter sende se kyng hise write ofer eall Engla lande. and 
 bed hise biscopes and hise abbates and hise ];eignes ealle pet hi scolden cumen 
 to his gewitene mot on Candel messe deig to Gleaw ceastre him togeanes. 
 
 Then soon thereafter sent the king his writs over all England, and bade 
 his bishops and his abbots and his thanes all, that they should come to bis 
 Witenagemot on Candelmas day at Gloucester to meet him. 
 
II. ADJECTIVAL. — POSSESSIVES. 449 
 
 All the possessives were originally genitives of the per- 
 sonal pronouns, of which some reached greater perfection in 
 adjectival form than others. 
 
 Min the genitive of Ic has become mine and my. 
 piN „ pu (thou) thine and thy. 
 
 L t RE „ WE „ OUR. 
 
 Eower „ ge (ye) your. 
 
 We have now entirely lost that use of min or mine which 
 made it equivalent to of me, but the Germans retain this 
 archaic member in gcbcnfc nicin, think of me. 
 
 482. Besides the four adjectival pronouns thus generated 
 from the first and second pronouns, there are four more that 
 have sprung from the third person, namely, his, In r, ihcir, 
 and its. The last of these is a comparative modernism in 
 the language. 
 
 Out of these again there branches a group of forms, 
 delicately but essentially distinct. Intimately related to the 
 adjectival possessives, they cannot be separated in our 
 description, though their function is substantival. Even 
 amongst the preventive nouns we find substantives be- 
 coming adjectives and adjectives substantives : and there- 
 fore we need not wonder if in the more subtle region of 
 the pronoun this should happen still more intricately. We 
 have chosen the functional as our principle of arrangement, 
 but we must not carry it out so rigidly as to sever intimate 
 affinities. 
 
 483. mine, thine. These forms were originally adjec- 
 tival, but they have gradually become substantival ; while the 
 reduced my, thy, occupy the old domain. When the N 
 was first dropped, it was because the following word began 
 with a consonant, and then the difference between mine, 
 ///me, and my, thy, was like that between an and a, none 
 
45° THE PRONOUN GROUP. 
 
 and no. In Chaucer's verse we find the N-form unremoved 
 before consonants, as — 
 
 ' Myn purchas is the effect of al myn rente.' 
 
 Canterbury Tales, 7033. 
 
 But in his prose he was more familiar, and we find my, thy, 
 before consonants in the opening sentences of the Treatise 
 on the Astrolabe : — 
 
 * Litell Lowys my sone, I haue perceiued well by certeyne euidences thine 
 abilite to lerne sciencez touchinge noumbres & proporciouns ; & as wel 
 considere I thy bisi preyere in special to lerne the tretis of the astrelabie. 
 • . 
 
 But considere wel, that I ne vsurpe nat to haue fownde this werk of my 
 labour or of myn engin. I nam but a lewd compilatour of the labour of olde 
 Astrologiens, and haue hit translated in myn englissh only for thi doctrine : 
 and with this swerd shal I slen envie.' — ed. W. W. Skeat, pp. 1, 2. 
 
 And so it continues in the Bible of 1611 : — 
 
 ' Thou didst ride vpon thine horses, and thy charets of saluation.' — 
 Habakkuk iii. 8. 
 
 484. Ours, yours, hers, theirs. In these cases the 
 substantival possessive is made by the cumulative addition 
 of the s genitival to its previously genitival termination. 
 For this s the rustic speech-sense substitutes its old rival n ; 
 and hence the uniform series of substantival possessives, 
 mine, thine, hisn, hern, ourn, yonrn, theirn, current among a 
 large mass of the purest English folk. 
 
 His. This is the only one of the possessives that has 
 no variation of form for the substantival function — at least, 
 not in the literary language. 
 
 • I would rather abide by my own blunders than by his.' — Jane Austen. 
 Mansfield Park, ch. vi. 
 
 485. Its. This form is now never used substantially, 
 but I imagine that its first appearance in the language was 
 
II. ADJECTIVAL. — DEMONSTRATIVES. 451 
 
 in the train of hers, ours, yours, theirs ; and it bears such a 
 character at its earliest appearance. 
 
 ' Each following day 
 Became the next dayes master, till the last 
 Made former Wonders, it's.' — Henry VIII, i. I. 16. 
 
 This obsolete use seems to have preceded the adjectival use 
 of its, and indeed to have been the introducer of the latter \ 
 
 It seems as if children in Shakspeare's time used it for 
 the adjectival possessive ; for in the following passage 
 Constance mimics childish prattle : — 
 
 4 Queen. Come to thy grandame, child. 
 Cons. Doe childe, goe to yt grandame childe, 
 Giue grandame kingdome, and it grandame will 
 Giue yt a plum a cherry, and a figge, 
 There's a good grandame.' — King John, ii. 1. 159. 
 
 The Demonstrative Pronouns, and the Definite Artiele. 
 
 486. Such is a composite word, made up of so and like. 
 The Saxon form was swile, from swa and tie. In the 
 German form fold) the original elements are very traceable : 
 in Danish it is stig, and in Scottish sic. It is curious how 
 words rediscover the elements of their composition after 
 they have become obscure, by a tendency to svmphvtise 
 again once more with the word which they have already 
 absorbed. Thus we get such-tike ; and still more usual in 
 Scotland is sie-tike. This such is a highly pronominal word. 
 
 ' In such matters a little evidence goes a long way.' — Arch&ological 
 Journal, No. 104, p. 33 1. 
 
 1 This distinct recognition of the substantival as against the adjectival in 
 possessive pronouns, is something (as I apprehend) peculiar to modern lan- 
 guages. The distinction is bolder in French than in English, and still 
 more so in German. In French it is mon, ton, son, notre, voire, leur, as 
 against le mien, le lien, le sien, le notre, le votre, le leur. In German 
 there is a duplicate apparatus for the substantival. As against metn, betrt, 
 
 &c, there is, first, mcinev, beiner, &c, and second, ber, bic, bae meinige, 
 beinige, feintge, eurigc, ihvige. 
 
 g g 2 
 
452 
 
 THE PRONOUN GROUP. 
 
 The pronominal character of such is here apparent from 
 the fact that the reader must refer to the page quoted in 
 order to recover the presentive idea towards which it pointed 
 in this passage. 
 
 This adjective reverts, like other adjectives, to substantival 
 
 habits, and it sometimes fills the place which has been left 
 
 vacant by the ancient substantive-pronoun so described in 
 
 the former section. In its substantive and adjective function 
 
 alike, it is often the antecedent to a relative pronoun, and 
 
 there has been a good deal of fastidiousness about this 
 
 relative pronoun, as to which is the right one to come after 
 
 such. We have now decided (it seems) that such can have 
 
 no relative after it but as. And as a proof of the sort of 
 
 affection that words bear to kindred, it may be noticed that 
 
 as is a composite word made up of all and so. However, 
 
 our literature abounds with instances of other relatives after 
 
 such. 
 
 such who. 
 
 ' It is very natural for such who are treated ill and upbraided falsely, 
 to find out an intimate friend that will hear their complaints,' &c. — Addison 
 (1711), Spectator, No. 170. 
 
 such which. 
 
 ' Of such characters which combined the species best, I selected the most 
 remarkable.' — John Lindley, A Monograph of Roses, 1820, p. xx. 
 
 487. The demonstrative pronouns this and that were thus 
 declined in Saxon : — 
 
 
 
 Neut. 
 
 Masc. 
 
 Fern. 
 
 Neut. 
 
 Masc. Fern. 
 
 1 
 
 'Nom. 
 
 thaet 
 
 se 
 
 
 seo 
 
 this 
 
 thes theos 
 
 
 Ace. 
 
 thaet 
 
 thone 
 
 tha 
 
 this 
 
 thisne thas 
 
 Singular. < 
 
 Abl. 
 
 *■ 
 
 
 / 
 
 thaere 
 
 v 
 
 1 
 
 
 thy 
 
 
 
 V 
 
 thise thisse 
 
 
 Dat. 
 
 
 tham 
 
 
 thaere 
 
 
 thisum thisse 
 
 
 ^Gen. 
 
 
 thaes 
 
 
 thaere 
 1 
 
 
 thises thisse 
 
 1 j 
 
 
 "Nom. 
 Ace. 
 
 } 
 
 
 tha 
 
 
 
 v ■ 
 
 thas 
 
 Plural. < 
 
 Abl. 
 
 Dat. 
 
 , Gen. 
 
 } 
 
 
 tham 
 thara 
 
 
 thissum 
 thissa 
 
II. ADJECTIVAL. — DEMONSTRATIVES. 453 
 
 488. Of these two words, the former was in Saxon the 
 more prominent by far, and we should in reference to that 
 stage of the language not say ' this and that,' but rather 
 'that and this.' 
 
 It was that, se, seo, which supplied the definite article, and 
 therefore it was current in some one or other of its cases in 
 almost every phrase that was spoken or written. This will 
 make it easier to understand how it should have come about 
 that thd, the plural of this demonstrative, took the place of 
 hi as personal pronoun of the third person plural (they). And, 
 to pursue this transition to its consequences; a place was 
 now vacant, the demonstrative required a plural of its own. 
 Here we have a beautiful example of the innate resource 
 of language, which often is most admirable in this, that a 
 new want is supplied out of a mere nothing. The sister 
 demonstrative this had a plural which was grammatically 
 written thus, and with this full a it was pronounced so as 
 to be very like our those, which is indeed its modern form. 
 But people whose education had been neglected were apt 
 to make a plural in their own way by just adding on a little 
 vague e to the singular this, so they (the ungrammatical 
 people) made a plural ihis-e. After a certain period of con- 
 fusion, during which both demonstratives admitted a great 
 variety of shapes, they at last settled down to this, that the 
 word those, which was the original old plural of this, should 
 pass over to the other side and be the plural of that, while 
 th's should make its plural these according to the later 
 popular invention. 
 
 489. What was at the root of all this stir appears to 
 have been the newly-felt insufficiency of the distinction 
 between the singular he and the plural hi. And perhaps 
 it should be added, the want of distinction between the sin- 
 gular dative him and the plural dative, also written him, 
 
454 THE PRONOUN GROUP. 
 
 though sometimes heom. In the following passage, Mark 
 vi. 48-50, we find him three times, and in every case it 
 corresponds to the modern them : — 
 
 ' And he geseah hig on rewette swincende ; him waes wifterweard wind : 
 and on niht ymbe ha feorSan waeccan, he com to him ofer ba sae gangende, 
 and wolde hig forbugan. 
 
 pa hig hine gesawon ofer ba sae gangende, hig wendon bset hit unfade 
 gast ware, and hig clypedon : 
 
 hig ealle hine gesawon and wurdon gedrefede. And sona he spraec to 
 him, and cwaro' : Gelyfa'5 ; ic hit eom ; nelle ge eow ondraedan.' 
 
 So that, as the English language emerged from its French 
 incubus, it gradually substituted they, their", them, in the place 
 of the elder hi, heora, him. This change was not quite estab- 
 lished till far on in the fifteenth century. In Chaucer we 
 have still the elder forms, hi, hir, hem, in free use, or at least 
 the two latter. For the nominative he generally puts they : — 
 
 ' Vp on the wardeyn bisily they crye, 
 To yeue hem leue but a litel stounde, 
 To go to Mille and seen hir corn ygrounde : 
 And hardily they derste leye hir nekke, 
 The Millere shold noght stelen hem half a pekke 
 Of corn by sleighte, ne by force hem reue : 
 And atte laste the wardeyn yaf hem leue.' 
 
 The Reves Tale, 4006. 
 
 It may not be amiss to add that when in provincial Eng- 
 lish we meet with 'em in place of them, it must be regarded 
 as an elided form not of them, but of hem. 
 
 490. These two pronouns have held a great place in our 
 language. We can hardly omit to notice what may be called 
 their rhetorical use. This has a rhetorical use expressive of 
 contempt. It was by means of this pronoun that Home 
 Tooke expressed his contempt for the philology of Harris's 
 Hermes : — 
 
 ' There will be no end of such fantastical writers as this Mr. Harris, who 
 takes fustian for philosophy.' — Diversions of Parley', Part II. ch. vi. 
 
II. ADJECTIVAL. — DEFINITE ARTICLE. 455 
 
 That, on the other hand, is a great symbol of admira- 
 tion : — 
 
 ' The face of justice is like the face of the god Janus. It is like the face 
 of those lions, the work of Landseer, which keep watch and ward around the 
 record of our country's greatness. She presents one tranquil and majestic 
 countenance towards every point of the compass and every quarter of the 
 globe. That rare, that noble, that imperial virtue has this above all other 
 qualities, that she is no respecter of persons, and she will not take ad- 
 vantage of a favourable moment to oppress the wealthy for the sake of 
 flattering the poor, any more than she will condescend to oppress the poor 
 for the sake o( pampering the luxuries of the rich.' — House of Commons, 
 March II, 1870. 
 
 Both of these uses are to be paralleled in Greek and 
 Latin, as the student of those languages should ascertain 
 for himself, if he is not already familiar with the feature. 
 
 491. But a more peculiar interest attaches to this pro- 
 noun from the circumstance that out of it has been carved 
 the definite article. The word the is simply an abbreviation 
 of t/icct, on which the French le has probably exercised some 
 influence in the way of shaping its form. 
 
 And not unfrequently we experience in the course of 
 reading, especially in poetry, a certain force in the definite 
 article, which we could not better convey in words than by 
 saying it reminds us of its parentage, and calls the demon- 
 strative to mind. It is one of those fugitive sensations that 
 will not always come when they are called for ; but perhaps 
 the reader may catch what is meant if the following line from 
 the Christian Tear is offered in illustration : — 
 
 ' The Man seems following still the funeral of the Boy.' 
 
 The same thing may however be shown in a manner 
 more agreeable to science. We find cases in which the 
 same text is variously rendered according as the inter- 
 preters have seen a demonstrative or a definite article in the 
 original : — 
 
456 THE PRONOUN GROUP. 
 
 Ezekiel ix. 19. 
 1535. 1611. 
 
 ' That stony herte wil I take out ' I wil take the stonie herte out 
 of youre body, & geue ) r ou a fleshy of their flesh, and will giue them an 
 herte.' heart of flesh.' 
 
 492. But there is a case, and that rather a frequent one, in 
 which the is not a definite article at all, but either a demon- 
 strative or a relative. It is the ablative case thy of the Saxon 
 declension above given, and answers to the Latin quo. . . eo 
 before comparatives, just as that that in Saxon was equivalent 
 to the Latin id quod. 
 
 ' The more luxury increases, the more urgent seems the necessity for 
 thus securing a luxurious provision.' — John Boyd-Kinnear, Woman s Work, 
 
 P- 353- 
 
 Interrogative and Relative. 
 
 493. The adjectival form of this group is which, Saxon 
 hwitc, composed of hwi an old ablative or instrumental case 
 of hwa, hwat, our modern ivho, what; and the formative lie, 
 modern like. Thus ivhich originally meant who- or zvhat-like? 
 
 The adjectival which had at one time a substantival the 
 ivhich, after the example of the French lequel, laquelle \ — 
 
 ' I will not ouerthrow this citie, ' Ie ne subvertirai point la ville de 
 for the which thou hast spoken.' — laquelle tu as parle.' — La saincte 
 Genesis xix. 21. Bible, Rochelle, 1616. 
 
 So in the following beautiful stanza : — 
 
 D 
 
 4 Where making joyous feast theire daies they spent 
 In perfect love, devoide of hatefull strife, 
 Allide with bands of mutuall couplement ; 
 For Triamond had Canacee to wife, 
 With whom he ledd a long and happie life ; 
 And Cambel tooke Cambina to his fere, 
 The which as life were to eache other liefe. 
 So all alike did love, and loved were, 
 That since their dayes such lovers were not found elsewhere.' 
 
 The Faery Quee?ie, iv. 3. 52. 
 
II. ADJECTIVAL. — INTERROGATIVE, ETC. 457 
 
 It belongs, however, to the nature of imitations that a 
 large proportion of them are short-lived. They differ from 
 the native growth as cuttings differ from seedlings. Only 
 a reduced number gets well and permanently rooted. We 
 proceed to notice an instance of this. 
 
 The relative which, as a personal relative, is no longer 
 used, and it is a well-known peculiarity of the English of our 
 Bible, that it is so common there. Instances of this use are 
 indeed numerous beyond the pages of that version. The 
 following is from a brass in Hutton Church, near Weston- 
 super-Mare : — 
 
 ' Pray for y" soules of Thomas Payne Squier & Elizabeth hyis wiffe which 
 departed y e xv th day of August y" yere of o r lord god m.ccccc.xxviii.' 
 
 In the following passage Pope 'put Whom as a correction 
 
 in the place of Which : — 
 
 •Welcome sir Diomcd, here is the Lady 
 Which for Aiitenor we ddiuer you.' 
 
 Shakspcare, Troylus and Cressida, iv. 4. 109. 
 
 Another French-trained faculty was once enjoyed by 
 which, but is now obsoh-tc. This was the admirative or 
 exclamative power, like the French quel, quelle! In the fol- 
 lowing instances we should now put what instead of which : — 
 
 ' And which eyen my lady had, 
 Debonaire, good, glad, and sad.' 
 
 Geoffrey Chaucer, Blaunche, S59. 
 
 'But which a visage had she thereto.' Id. 895. 
 
 Indefinite Pronouns. 
 
 494. Same. This word is not found (as a pronoun) in 
 Anglo-Saxon literature, and the question arises whence it 
 
45 8 THE PRONOUN GROUP. 
 
 came to be so familiar in English. Jacob Grimm thinks 
 it was acquired through the Norsk language, in which samr 
 is a prevalent pronoun. The Saxon word in its place was 
 ilk, which is so well known to us through Scottish literature. 
 As however there are traces of its having existed at an earlier 
 stage of Saxon, it is possible that it had never died out, but 
 that, having been superseded by ilk in the written language, 
 it had fallen into temporary obscurity. Many genuinely 
 native elements are found in modern English which are 
 unknown in Saxon literature, and it is only reasonable to 
 conclude that the vocabulary of the Saxon literature imper- 
 fectly represented the word-store of the nation. 
 
 495. Own. Saxon agen, German eigen. 
 
 None, no. None is from ne and one, Saxon nan. The 
 history of the shortened form of no is just the same as that 
 of my, thy : at first it was a concession to the initial con- 
 sonant of the following word, thus in the Bible of 1611, 
 ' there was none other boat there,' and ' no man knoweth 
 whence.' At this stage the relation of none, no, was like 
 that of an, a ; but the former pair did not rest in that con- 
 dition as the latter did. The form no has now occupied all 
 situations where it is adjectival; and none is kept for the 
 substantival function : as, ' Have you no other ? ' 'I have 
 none.' 
 
 Sundry is an adjectival pronoun founded upon an old 
 Saxon adverb sundor, which we still retain in the compound 
 asunder. 
 
 496. Each is from the Saxon celc, having lost its /, just 
 as which and such have. This celc was equivalent to our 
 present every, so that the word for ' everybody ' was celcman, 
 and for ' everything ' it was alcpiiig. The spelling each is 
 a modernism ; in Chaucer it is ech and eche. This is quite 
 a distinct word from the ilk mentioned above. 
 
II. ADJECTIVAL. — INDEFINITES. 459 
 
 Every grew out of the habit of strengthening celc by 
 prefixing txfre, whence arose the composite pronoun (Euer-celc 
 or euer-elc, which means ever-each, and which occurs under 
 a variety of orthographic forms in Layamon. It had become 
 everych by Chaucer's time, and then it had attracted to itself 
 another pronoun, namely one, and so we get the oft-recurring 
 mediaeval form everychon. To go no further than the Pro- 
 logue, 1. 31 :— 
 
 • So hadde I spoken with hem euerichoon 
 That I was of hir felaweshipe anoon.' Hengwrt MS. 
 
 ' Idols and abhominacions of y° house off Israel payHted euerychone 
 rounde aboute the wall.' — Miles Coverdale's Bible. 1535, Ezecbie! riii. 10. 
 
 497. Very has retained so much of it> old presentive 
 
 character, that it has brought over with it all the decrees 
 of comparison, and we have in the ranks of the pronouns 
 7WT, verier, veriest. 
 
 1 The very presence of a true-hearted friend yields often ease to our 
 grief.' — Richard Sibbes, Soul's Conflict, 14. 
 
 ' In the very centre or focus of the great curve of volcanoes is placed the 
 large island of Borneo.'- Allied Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, 
 ch. i. 
 
 A choice illustration may be had from a Letter written 
 in 1666 by the wife of the English ambassador at Constan- 
 tinople to her daughter Poll in England, which Poll has 
 been adopted by a rich relative, ami is inclining to vanity' : — 
 
 'Whereas if it were not a piece of pride to hive y* name of keeping 
 y 1 maide, she y l waits on v 1 good grandmother mi lor as formerly 
 
 you know she hath done, all y'' business you have for a maide, unless as you 
 grow old r you grow a veryei Foole, which God forbid ! ' 
 
 Certain is an adjective which has been presentive not 
 long ago, but it is now completely pronominalis'd : — 
 
 1 Of this vain Poll, the great grand-daughter was Jane Austen, and it is in 
 the Memoir of the latter, by the Rev. J. E. Austen-Leigh (IJentley, 1870), 
 that this admirable letter has been published. 
 
460 THE PRONOUN GROUP. 
 
 'At Clondilever, a farmer was returning from his usual attendance at 
 the Roman Catholic Chapel on Sunday, when he was stopped by five men 
 with revolvers, who warned him that if he interfered any further with a 
 certain person as to possession of a certain field,' &c. — April 30, 1870. 
 
 498. Our last adjectival pronouns shall be one and its 
 derivative only. 
 
 ' The only prime minister mentioned in history whom his contemporaries 
 reverenced as a saint.' — William Robertson, Charles V, Bk. I. a.d. 1 51 7. 
 
 One has already been largely spoken of in the former 
 section, where it was seen to occupy an important place. 
 But its substantival function is after all less important in the 
 development of our language than its adjectival habit; be- 
 cause out of this has grown that member which is the most 
 distinctive perhaps that can be fixed upon as the mark of a 
 modern language. The definite article is found in some of 
 
 o o 
 
 the ancient languages, as in Hebrew and Greek, but none 
 of them had produced an indefinite article. The general 
 remark has already been made in an earlier chapter, that it 
 is in the symbolic element we must seek the distinctive 
 character of the modern as opposed to the ancient lan- 
 guages. And we may appeal to the indefinite article as 
 the most recent and most expressive feature of this modern 
 characteristic. In the Greek of the New Testament there 
 are certain indications (known to scholars) of something 
 like an indefinite article. 
 
 In its adjectival use this pronoun is generally set in 
 antithesis to another; as, — 
 
 ' Yf one Sathan cast out another.' — Matt. xii. tr. Coverdale, 1535. 
 
 Out of this has been produced the indefinite article. It 
 has not sprung directly from the numeral one, but from that 
 word after it has passed through the refining discipline of 
 a symbolic usage. 
 
 The old spelling of the numeral was an ; and this ancient 
 
77. ADJECTIVAL. — INDEFINITES. 46 1 
 
 form is preserved in the article an or a. This gives us occa- 
 sion to remark that old forms are often preserved in the 
 more elevated functions, while the original and inferior 
 function has admitted changes. 
 
 499. Having thus indicated the sources of our two articles, 
 let us observe that they still carry about them the traces of 
 their extraction. The magnifying quality of the demonstra- 
 tive that has been noticed above. Its descendant the definite 
 article retains something of this ancestral quality. We all 
 know how the ceremonious The adds grandeur to a name, 
 and how all titles of office and honour are jealously retentive 
 of this prefix. 
 
 On the other hand, the indefinite article, which is descended 
 from the littlest of the numerals, exercises a diminishing effect, 
 as in the following : — 
 
 'This little life-boat of an earth, with its noisy crew of a mankind, and all 
 their troubled history, will one day have vanished.' — Thomas Carlyle, Essays; 
 Death of Goethe. 
 
 These minute vocables are the real ' winged words ' of 
 human speech; or, to speak with more exactness, they are 
 the wings of other words, by means of which smoothness 
 and agility is imparted to their motion. It is in the articles 
 that the symbolic element of language reaches one of its most 
 advanced points of development; and it is not by means of 
 these alone, but by means of that whole system of words of 
 which these are eminent types, that the modern languages 
 when compared with the ancient are found to excel in alacrity 
 and sprightliness. 
 
 III. Adverbial Pronouns. 
 
 500. This chapter of pronouns keeps up on the whole 
 a parallel course to the chapter on nouns. Like that, it is 
 divided into three main sections, Substantives, Adjectives, 
 
4^2 THE PRONOUN GROUP. 
 
 Adverbs. Moreover, as in that chapter the third section 
 assumed a trifid form, so also here do we find ourselves 
 compelled by the nature of the subject to divide this final 
 section into three paragraphs. In this symbolic as well as 
 in that presentive region, the adverbs assume the three forms 
 of Flat, Flexional, and Phrasal. 
 
 i. Of the Flat Pronoun- Adverbs. 
 
 The higher we mount in the structure of language the 
 more delicate a matter it will be to make sharp distinctions. 
 The presentive adverbs pass off by such fine and impercep- 
 tible shadings into a symbolic state, that the boundary line 
 must needs be exposed to uncertainty. 
 
 The examples which follow may therefore be considered 
 as a continuation of the corresponding group in the sec- 
 tion of nounal adverbs, and differing from them only in the 
 degree of sublimation. 
 
 501. Up. This is clearly a presentive word so long as 
 the original idea of elevation is preserved. But it passes off 
 into a more refined use, a more purely mental service, and 
 then we call it no longer a noun but a pronoun. 
 
 The instance of breaking-up is an interesting one. It is 
 one of those in which the flat adverb has attached itself 
 very closely to the verb, and has with the verb attained a 
 peculiar appropriation of meaning. This expression now 
 is apt to suggest the holidays of a school-boy, but in the 
 sixteenth century it was the proper expression for burglary: — 
 
 • If a thiefe bee found breaking vp.' — Exodus xxii. 2. 
 
 • Suffered his house to be broken vp.' — Matthew xxiv. 43. 
 
 'If he beget a sonne that is a breaker vp of a house.' — Ezekiel xv'ui. 10 
 (margin). 
 
 Mr. Froude quotes a letter of the reign of Queen Elizabeth 
 in which a burglary is confessed in these terms : — 
 
III. ADVERBIAL. — FLAT. 463 
 
 ' With other companions who were in straits as well as myself, I was 
 forced to give the onset and break up a house in Warwickshire, not far 
 from Wakefield.' — History, vol. xi. p. 28. 
 
 An old ship is sold ' to be broken up," and akin to this we 
 find the substantive a break-up : — 
 
 ' The death of a king in those days came near to a break-up of all civil 
 society.' — E. A. Freeman, Norman Conquest, ch. xxi. 
 
 There is a rich variety of expressions in which up figures 
 in the character which belongs here; e.g. to be ' knocked up/ 
 'done up/ 'patched up/ to be 'up to a thing,' 'up with a 
 person/ ' keeping it up late.' 
 
 The verb to come up is equivalent to coming into notice, or 
 even into being; and in the following quotation it transla 
 
 eyevero : — 
 
 ' As for wisedome what she is, and how she came up, I will tell you.' — 
 Wisdom of Solomon, vi. 22. 
 
 At length it becomes a mere symbol of emphasis. In 
 Rom. vi. 13, 'yield yourselves unto God/ it is proposed 
 by Bishop Ellicott to restore a certain lost emphasis by the 
 correction, 'yield yourselves up to God.' 
 
 Still. In the next examples the reader may notice that 
 'still run* and 'still to move' would be pure stultifications if 
 the word still were taken in its original and presentive signi- 
 fication of motionless stillness. This affords a sort of measure 
 of the great change that has passed over the word. 
 
 ' Having past from my hand under a broken and ihiperfect copy, by fre- 
 quent transcription it still run (sic) forward into corruption.' — Thomas 
 Browne, Religio Medici, Preface. 
 
 ' They are left enough to live on, but not enough to enable them still 
 to move in the society in which !hey have been brought up.' — John BoyJ- 
 Kinnear, Woman's Work, p. 353. 
 
 502. The word ratlin- may serve as an illustration of the 
 grounds on which we assign these words to the pronominal 
 
464 THE PRONOUN GROUP. 
 
 category. In an interesting letter from Sir Hugh Luttrell, 
 in the year 1420, we have this word in its presentive sense. 
 He is in Fiance, and he is displeased that certain orders 
 of his have not been carried out, and he hints that if his 
 commands are not fulfilled, he is alive, and ' schalle come 
 home, and that rather than some men wolde/ that is to say, 
 he shall be at home earlier than would be agreeable to some 
 people. Rather is the comparative of an obsolete adjective 
 rathe, which signified ' early.' It is found once in Milton, 
 Lycidas, 142 : — 
 
 ' Bring the rathe Primrose that forsaken dies, 
 The tufted Crow-toe, and pale Gessamine.' 
 
 Now compare the way in which we habitually employ this 
 word, and a plainer example could hardly be found of the 
 distinction between the nature of the noun and that of the 
 pronoun. The word is so common that we can hardly read 
 a paragraph in any daily or weekly article without coming 
 across it, and probably more than once. 
 
 ' He fails to be truly pathetic because we do not see the agony wrung out 
 of a strong man by the inevitable wrongs and sorrows of the world, but the 
 easy yielding of a nature that likes a little gentle weeping. Mr. Pickwick, 
 with his love of mankind stimulated with a little milk-punch, is not the most 
 elevated type of philanthropy, though it is one which is unfortunately preva- 
 lent at the present day. In these respects Mr. Dickens's influence tended 
 rather towards a softening of the moral fibre than towards strengthening it.' 
 — July 16, 1870. 
 
 Too is an Ablaut-variety of the preposition to : 
 
 ' Spake I not too truly, O my knights ? 
 Was I too dark a prophet when I said 
 To those who went upon the Holy Quest, 
 That most of them would follow wandering fires. 
 Lost in the quagmire?' Alfred Tennyson, The Holy Grail. 
 
 503. That famous pronominal factor so, which has already 
 been spoken of in both the previous sections, must come in 
 here likewise : — 
 
III. ADVERBIAL. — FLAT. 465 
 
 'And he was competent whose purse was so.' 
 
 William Cowper, The Time-Piece. 
 
 'A declaration so bold and haughty silenced them and astonished their 
 associates.' 
 
 The presentive idea to which this so points back may 
 be found by reference to Robertson's Charles the Fifth, 
 Bk. I. anno 15 16, and the abruptness of the clause as it 
 stands gives a measure of the pronominal nature of the 
 
 adverb so. 
 
 furiln r, 
 
 ' Or dwells within our hidden soul 
 
 S me germ of high prophetic power. 
 That further can the page unveil. 
 And c pen up the future hour.' 
 G. J. Cornish, Come to the Woods, and Other Poems, lxxiii. 
 
 jump. 
 
 ' In goodness, therefore, there is a latitude or extent, whereby it cometh 
 to pass that even of good actions some are bitter than other some; whereas 
 otherwise one man could not excel another, but all should be either abso- 
 lutely good, as hitting jump that indivisible point or centre wherein goodness 
 consisteth ; or else missing it they should be excluded out of the number of 
 well-doers.' — Richard Hoik-r, Of the Laze-, &C, I. viii. 8. 
 
 • And bring him iumpe, when he may Cassia finde.' 
 
 Othello, ii. 3. 369. 
 
 For this adverb we find just substituted, as in the following 
 quotation from the First Folio, where the old Quartos have 
 
 jump : — 
 
 • Mar. Thus twice before, and iust at this dead houre. 
 With Martial! stalke, hath he gone by our Watch.' 
 
 Hamlet, i. I. 65. 
 
 just. 
 
 ' How much of enjoyment life shows us, just one hair's breadth beyond 
 ir power to grasp.' — IVje Bramleigbs, ch. xxxi. 
 
 solid. 
 
 « " You don't mean that ! " "I do, solid ! " ' (Leicestershire.) 
 
 H h 
 
466 THE PRONOUN GROUP. 
 
 how. 
 
 * How dull sermons are, compared with the brilliant compositions which 
 may be read in the newspapers ! ' — J. Llewellyn Davies, The Gospel and 
 Modern Life (1869), p. 218. 
 
 some, much. 
 
 ' Suppose a man 's here for twelve months. Do you mean to say he never 
 comes out at that little iron door. — He may walk some, perhaps : — not 
 much.' — Charles Dickens, in Foster's Life, ch. xxi. 
 
 It is not necessary to the Flat Adverb that it should consist 
 of a single word, though it generally does so. Such adverbs 
 as that time, no thynge, the right way, the wrong way, the zvhile 
 must be placed here. 
 
 that time, no thynge. 
 
 ' Ireland pat tyme was bygged no bynge 
 Wyb hous ne toun, ne man wonynge.' 
 
 R. Brunne's Chronicle (Lambeth MS.). 
 
 Translation. — Ireland at that time was not-at-all huilt with house nor 
 town, nor man resident. 
 
 the right way, the wrong way. 
 
 ' The right thing believed the right way must inevitably produce the 
 perfect life. Either, then, the civilised world believes the wrong thing, or it 
 believes the right thing the wrong way.' — Laurence Oliphant, Piccadilly 
 (1870), p. 274. 
 
 Here we must, at least provisionally, and without specu- 
 lating on their origin, put the adverbs of affirmation, yea 
 zndyes, Saxon ge and gese. 
 
 The following is from Dr. Bosworth's Parallel Gospels, 
 Matthew v. 37 : — 
 
 Gothic, 360. Wycliffe, 1389. Tyndale, 1526. 1611. 
 
 ' Siyaith than ' But be 3oure ' But your com- • But let your 
 waurd izwar, Ya, word 3ea, jea ; municacion shalbe communication bee 
 ya ; Ne, ne.' Nay, nay.' Ye, ye ; Nay, nay.' Yea, yea ; Nay, 
 
 nay.' 
 Matthew xi. 9. 
 
 'Yai, qiba izvis.' ' 3e, I seie to ' Ye, I saye vnto « Yea. I say vnto 
 3ou.' you.' you.' 
 
III. ADVERBIAL. — FLAT. 467 
 
 504. Next we come upon a member which is inconsider- 
 able in its bulk, unimposing in its appearance, and which is 
 inconspicuous by the very continuousness of its presence ; 
 but yet one which covers with its influence half the realm of 
 language, which involves one of the most curious of problems, 
 and which raises one of the most important questions in the 
 whole domain of philological speculation: I mean the ap- 
 paratus of Negation. It may be out of our reach to attain 
 to the primitive history of the negative particle ; but if we 
 are to judge of its source by the track upon which it is 
 found, if origin is to be judged of by kindred, if the unknown 
 is to be surmised by that which is known, it is in this portion 
 of the fabric of speech — namely in the flat pronoun-adverbs 
 — that we must assign its birthplace to the negative par- 
 ticle. 
 
 The negative particle in our language is simply the con- 
 sonant x. In Saxon it existed as a word ne, but we have 
 lost that word, and it is now to us a letter only, which enters 
 into many words, as into no, not, nought, none, never. In 
 French, however, this particle is still extant as a separate 
 word ; as ' Je ne vois pas.' 
 
 505. The following parallel quotations exhibit this par- 
 ticle both in its simple state, and also in combinations, some 
 familiar, some strange to us : — 
 
 Anglo-Saxon, 995. Wycliffe, 1389. 
 
 ' Ne geseah ns£fre u;tn man God, ' No man euere sy3 God, no but 
 
 buton se ;tn-cenneda sunu hit cy'Cde, the oon bigetun sone, that is in the 
 
 se is on his faeder bearme. And N.et bosum of the fadir, he hath told out. 
 
 is Johannes gewitnes, tfa 5a Judeas And this is the witnessing of John, 
 
 sendon hyra sacerdas and hyra dia- whanne lewis senten fro Jerusalem 
 
 conas fram Jerusalem to him, '5xt h( prestis and dekenvs to hym, that 
 
 sECSodon hyne and o'us cwaedon, Hwst thei schulden axe him, Who art thou ? 
 
 ear 1 Sri? And he cy<5de, and ne And he knowlechide, and denyede 
 
 wi<5s<5c, and "o'us cwrtb, Ne eom ic not, and he knowlechide, For I am 
 
 nj£ Crist. And hig ;Ccsodon hine and not Crist. And thei axiden him, 
 
 cms cwa5don, Eart Cii Elias ? And What therfore ? art thou Elye? 
 
 H h 2 
 
468 THE PRONOUN GROUP. 
 
 he cwceb Ne eom ic hit. Da cws*dt>n And he seide, I am not. Art thou 
 hi, Eart Sii witega ? . And he and- a prophete ? And he answeride, 
 wyrde and cwceb, Nic.' Nay.' 
 
 St. John i. 18-21, Bosworth's Gospels. 
 
 506. In Anglo-Saxon the particle ne was used not only 
 for the simple negative, as in the above quotation, but 
 likewise as our nor: and both of these uses continued to 
 the fourteenth century. Thus, in the Vision of Piers the 
 Plowman, Prologue 174: — 
 
 ' Alle bis route of ratones • to bis reson thei assented. 
 Ac bo b e belle was yboujt ■ and on be beije hanged, 
 pere ne was ratoun in alle b e route * for alle be rewme of Fraunce, 
 pat dorst haue ybounden be belle ■ aboute \>e cattis nekke, 
 Ne hangen it aboute be cattes hals ■ al Engelonde to wynne.' 
 
 The second use ( = nor) survived the other : it occurs 
 repeatedly in Spenser and other writers of the sixteenth 
 century. In the following quotation we see by comparison 
 with the Saxon that Wiclif retains this ne but not the other. 
 
 St. Matthew vi. 20. 
 
 ' Gold-hordiab eow soblice gold- ' But tresoure jee to jou tresouris 
 
 hordas on heofenan, Sser naSor dm in heuene, wher neither rust ne 
 
 ne mobpe hit ne fornimb, and ftar moujthe distruyeth, and wher theues 
 
 beofas hit ne delfaS, ne ne forstelab.' deluen not out, ne stelen.' 
 
 507. In Chaucer we find the ne in both senses. The fol- 
 lowing examples are all from the Prologue. 
 
 ne = not. 
 
 ' He neuere yit no vilonye ne saide.' (1. 70.) 
 'That no drop ne fell upon hir breste.' (1. 131.) 
 'So that the wolf ne made it not miscarie.' (1. 513.) 
 
 ne = nor. 
 
 4 Ne wete hir fyngres in hir sauce depe.' (1. 129.) 
 ' Ne that a monk whan he is recheles.' (1. 179.) 
 
///. ADVERBIAL. — FLAT. 469 
 
 ' Ne was so worldly for to haue office.' (1. 292.) 
 ' Ne of his speche dangerous ne digne.' (1. 517.) 
 4 Ne maked him a spiced conscience.' (1. 526.) 
 
 tie in both senses. 
 
 ' But he ne lefte nought for rayn ne thondre.' (1. 492.) 
 
 When ne as a simple negative had been superseded by 
 not, it still continued in the sense of nor, and thus we find it 
 in Spenser : — 
 
 • Then mounted he upon his Steede againe, 
 And with the Lady backward sought to wend. 
 That path he kept which beaten was most plaine, 
 Ne ever would to any byway bend, 
 But still did follow one unto the end, 
 The which at last out of the wood them brought. 
 So forward on his way (with God to frend) 
 He passed forth, and new adventure sought : 
 Long way he travelled before he heard of ought.' 
 
 The Faery Queene, i. I. 28 
 
 508. Jacob Grimm would distinguish the former m from 
 the latter, writing the simple negative as n< , and the equiva 
 lent of 'nor' as ne. This he educes from comparison of 
 the collateral forms, such as nth in Gothic for ' nor.' It is 
 some confirmation of Grimm's view, that the ne to which he 
 gives the long vowel, outlived the other, and that it took so 
 much longer time to become merged in newer forms. This 
 is in itself an argument for the probability of its having been 
 a weightier syllable. 
 
 509. Another form of this negative was the prefix ««-, 
 which has lived through the Saxon and English period 
 without much change. It has always been a peculiarly 
 expressive formula, and often strikingly poetical. 
 
 1 Fol le w.rs ba gyt 
 Cr.rs ungrenc, garsecg )>eahte.' Caedmon, 116. 
 
 The Jield tvas yet-whiles 
 With grass not green ; ocean covered all. 
 
470 THE PRONOUN GROUP. 
 
 Indeed, it is a very great factor in Anglo-Saxon. It stands 
 in places where we have lost and might gladly recover its use, 
 and where at present we have no better substitute than the 
 unnatural device of prefixing a Latin non. 
 
 In the Laws of hie, we have the distinction between land- 
 owners and non-landowners expressed by landdgende and 
 unland dgende. 
 
 In Chaucer and in the Ballads we meet with ' unset 
 Steven ' for chance-meeting, meeting without appointment. 
 
 Gawin Douglas, in The Palace of Honour, written in 1501, 
 ranks Dunbar among the illustrious poets, and adds that he 
 is yet undead'. ' Dunbar yit undeid.' 
 
 unborrowed. 
 ' With orient hues, unborrowed of the sun.' — Gray. 
 
 unchurch. 
 
 1 Our position . . . does not force us to " unchurch " (as it is termed) either 
 of the other great sections of Christendom ; as they do mutually one another 
 and us." — John Keble, Life, p„ 425. 
 
 510. This N-particle is not limited to the Gothic family. 
 It appears in Latin ne, non, and in- the negative prefix so 
 well known in our borrowed Latin words, as indelible, in- 
 tolerable, invincible, inextinguishable. In Greek it appears 
 in the prefix an-, as in our borrowed Greek words, anodyne, 
 which cancels pain ; anonymous, which is unnamed. 
 
 There is something strange and fascinating about this 
 faculty of negation in language. It has been often asserted 
 that there is nothing in speech of which the idea is not 
 borrowed from the outer world. But where in the outer 
 world is there such a thing as a negative? Where is the 
 natural phenomenon that would suggest to the human mind 
 the idea of negation? There are, it is true, many appearances 
 that may supply types of negation to those who are in search 
 
III. ADVERBIAL. — FLAT. 47 j 
 
 of them. They who are in possession of the idea of nega- 
 tion may fancy they see it in nature, in such antitheses as 
 light and shade, day and night, joy and sorrow. But they 
 only see a reflection of their own thought. There is no 
 negative in nature. All nature is one continued series of 
 aflirmatives ; and if this term seem too rigid, it is onlv 
 because the very term ' affirmation ' is a relative one, and 
 implies negation : in other words, the expression is improper 
 only because of the lack of such a foil in nature as negation 
 supplies in the world of mind. Negation is a product of 
 mind. The first crude hint of it is seen in the mysterious 
 analogies of instinct. A horse that has put his head into his 
 manger and found nothing there but chaff, gives a toss and 
 a snort that are strongly suggestive of negation. This is 
 a case of expectation baulked. 
 
 The negative in speech seems to be of this kind. Man is 
 essentially a creature of special pursuits and limited aims. 
 Everything in the world but that which he is at the time in 
 
 rch of is a Nay to him. Call it the smallness and narrow- 
 ness of his sphere, or call it the divine, the creative, the 
 purposeful, which out of the vast realm of nature carves for 
 itself a route, a course, a direction — it is to this intentness of 
 man that every obstacle, or even every neutral and indifferent 
 thing, becomes contrasted with his 'momentary bent, and 
 awakens the sense of a Negative in his mind. 
 
 511. The last great feature that rose in our path was the 
 indefinite article. Nothing could be easier to understand 
 how it came and what it was derived from ; indeed, it seems 
 the most obvious and natural thing in the world. One 
 might almost imagine it to be unavoidable. And yet it is 
 a rare possession, and a peculiar feature of modern lan- 
 guages. On the other hand, the negative is exceedingly 
 mysterious in its nature and sources, and yet it seems to be 
 
472 THE PRONOUN GROUP. 
 
 common to all human speech, and to be as familiar at the 
 earliest stage of primitive barbarism, as in the most cultured 
 languages of the civilised world. I have never heard of a 
 language that had no negative. But I have heard of native 
 dialects in Australia, in which the negatives have been 
 selected as the features of distinction, and have set the 
 names by which the races named themselves, and were 
 known to others 1 . Just as the two main dialects of the 
 Old French language were distinguished by their several 
 affirmatives, and were called the Langne d'oil and Langue 
 <Toc. 
 
 512. Negation then being a sentient product, a subjective 
 thing at its very root, we ask with curiosity out of what 
 materials its formula was first made. Of this I have no 
 opinion whatever to offer. But of the probable history of 
 the N-formula I will boldly give my own notion, not so much 
 from confidence in its certainty, as for the incidental illus- 
 tration which will thus be called out. My conjecture is, that 
 our N-particle is the relic of some such a word as one, or ati, 
 or a?iy, three words which, as the student knows, are radically 
 identical. I conceive that of the primitive formula of nega- 
 tion we know nothing, or only know that it has perished. 
 
 1 'The aboriginal tribes on the western slopes of the Australian Cordillera, 
 from the south of Queensland to Victoria, speak a language quite distinct 
 from that of the neighbouring tribes to the east and west, whose people 
 rarely understand it. 
 
 ' This language and these tribes, are called by themselves, and by the 
 coast and inland natives, Werrageries, from their negative Werri. The 
 other great family or chain of tribes to the west of them again, occupying 
 the vast western lands of Australia, are designated (I have been told) in their 
 turn by their peculiar negative.' 
 
 By the kind intervention of a friend, I have this very pertinent note from 
 the pen of Mr. George Macleay, of Pendhill Court, many years resident in 
 New South Wales. 
 
 The same friend also reminds me that the natives of the Pacific Islands 
 universally designate Frenchmen as We-Wees. 
 
III. ADVERBIAL. — FLAT. 473 
 
 Like the primitive oak, it has passed away ; but it has left 
 others instinct with its organism. Men are markedly em- 
 phatic in denial, and hence such formulas as not one, not any, 
 not at all, not a bit, not a scrap, not in the least. See how 
 any echoes back, and that with an emphasis, the antecedent 
 negative : — 
 
 ' We come back to Sir Roundell Palmer's suggestion, and repeat the 
 inquiry whether a majority is never to be allowed any rights or privileges ? ' 
 March 26, 1870. 
 
 Hence too, in French, the pas and point, which back up the 
 negation, also rien and aueun and jamais, and other indif- 
 ferent words which by long contact with the negative, like 
 steel from the company of the loadstone, have got so instinct 
 with the selfsame force that they often figure as negati 
 sole. Thus, pas encore, point du tout', while the other tin 
 are so well known as negatives, that when they stand alone 
 they are hardly ever anything eh Yet none of these 
 words possess by right of extraction the slightest negative 
 signification. 
 
 513. The fact seems to be that the \\<>rd which is added 
 for the sake of emphasis, becomes a more enduring element 
 than its principal, and comes to bear the stress of the function, 
 by the mere virtue of its emphasis. As in French we see 
 but one or two extant relics of negation without the subjoined 
 adverb, and as the subjoined adverb has in many instances 
 grown into a recognised negative in its own right, so there 
 is every reason to apprehend that but for the conservative 
 influences of literature, the ne would have been by this time 
 very much nearer to vanishing from the languages than it 
 actually is. And, had this happened, it would have been only 
 a repetition of that process in which I conceive ne to have 
 formerly borne the converse part of the action. Ne is 
 probably the -relic of some adverbial pronoun, which at first 
 
474 
 
 THE PRONOUN GROUP. 
 
 served a long apprenticeship under some still more ancient 
 and now quite forgotten negative, of whose function it long 
 bore the stress and emphasis, until at length it became the 
 sole substitute. 
 
 514. The Welsh dim, which means ' no,' ' none,' is well 
 known in the familiar answer dim Sacsofieg, which means 'no 
 Saxon,' or, ' I don't speak English.' Now this word dim 
 is merely the word for thing. Pob means ' every,' and pob 
 ddim is the Welsh for ' everything.' Thus, in modern Greek, 
 the negative bev is the relic of ovSev, ' not one ' : the not has 
 perished, and the one is now the negative. 
 
 As a further illustration it may be added that it is common 
 for rustic arithmeticians to call the tenth cipher, the Zero or 
 Nought, by the name of Ought, thus retaining only that part 
 of the word which is purely affirmative by extraction. 
 
 Nought is an abbreviation for nan-wuht, 'no-whit'; and 
 the verbal negative not is but a more rapid form of nought. 
 
 The answer No ! is a short form of none, Saxon nan, and 
 is plainly a Flat Adverb. 
 
 2. Of the Flexional Pronoun- Adverbs. 
 
 515. Under this head come such old familiar forms as 
 here, there, where, when, then, hence, whence, why, hither, 
 whither, which are ancient flexional forms that sprang from 
 pronouns of the substantival and adjectival classes. The 
 tracing of some of these to their origin is a matter of ob- 
 scure antiquity : others are clear ; but the enquiry belongs 
 rather to Saxon than English philology. 
 
 If we search back into the growth of these, we shall find 
 that they are old cases, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative. 
 For instance, why is an old ablative ; and so also is the, when 
 we say ' so much the better,' like the Latin • eo. This is 
 
III. ADVERBIAL. — FLEXIONAL. 475 
 
 among the demonstratives what why is among the relatives, 
 
 and its old form is thi or thy. 
 
 But these cases are now obscure, and the only inflection 
 
 that is still active in this section is the genitive ; as, alzvays, 
 
 else (A. S. elles), hereabouts, inwards, once, othergates Shak- 
 
 speare, Twelfe Night, v. i, outwards, since, thereabouts, towards, 
 
 whereabouts, 
 
 anis = once. 
 
 'Consider it warily, read aftiner than anis, 
 Well at ane blink sly poetry not tane is.' 
 
 Gawin Douglas. 
 
 sonderlypes = severally. 
 
 ' Were he neuere of so hey parage, 
 "Wold he, ne wolde, hat scholde he do, 
 Oper pe dep schold he go to. 
 pus sonderlypes he dide pern swere, 
 Tyl Argayl schulde hey faip here.' 
 
 R. Brunne's Chronicle (Lambeth MS.) 3876. 
 Early English Text Society. 
 
 516. Space will not permit us to unravel the history of 
 each of these words, and we must pass lightly on to a group 
 of composite pronoun -adverbs forming a link of tran- 
 sition between these adverbs and those of the third section : 
 — hereabout, hereabouts, hereafter, hereat, herebefore, hereby, 
 herein, hereinbefore, hereinio, hereof hereon, hereout, hereto, 
 heretofore, hereunder, hereunto, hereupon, herewith, herewithal: 
 thereabout, thereabouts, thereafter, thereafterward (Coleridge's 
 Glossary), thereagainst (Id.), thereat; thereby, therefore, there- 
 from, therehence (H. Coleridge), therein, thereinto, thereof, 
 thereon, thereout, thereover (H. Coleridge), therethrough (Id.), 
 thereto, thereunto, thereupon, therewith, therewithal, thereivithout 
 (H. Coleridge) ; whereabout, whereabouts, whereas, whereat, 
 whereby, ivherever, wherefore, tvherein, tvhereinto, whereof 
 whereon, whereso, wheresoever, wherethrough (Wisdom xix. 8), 
 whereto, whereunio, whereupon, whereivith, wherewithal. 
 
4/ 6 THE PRONOUN GROUP. 
 
 These Composites might be presented in the form of a 
 declension : — 
 
 Norn, that or it 
 
 Gen. thereof 
 
 Dat. thereto or therefor(e) 
 
 Ace. that or it 
 
 Abl. therefrom 
 
 Instr. thereby. 
 
 These adverbs, so far as they are now used, are more 
 highly symbolical than they once were. Thereof is used 
 interchangeably with of it in i Kings vii. 27. In the fol- 
 lowing stave of the twelfth century we have thereby in the 
 physical sense of by that place : — 
 
 * Merie sungen fte muneches binnen Eh/, 
 Da Cnut ching rew Serby : 
 RoweS cnites near 3e lant, 
 And here we '5es muneches sang.' 
 
 Merry sang the monks in Ely, 
 As king Canute rotved thereby: 
 Row, ye boys, nigher the land, 
 And hear tae these monks' sons. 
 
 3. Of the Phrasal Pronoun- Adverbs. 
 
 517. As the flexional character becomes obscure, and the 
 flexional signification is forgotten, symbolic words are called 
 in to supplement the enfeebled adverb. Thus whence gets 
 the larger formulayhw* whence, as Genesis iii. 23 : 
 
 Miles Cover dale, 1535. 161 1. 
 
 ' The Lorde God put him out of ' Therefore the Lord God sent 
 the garden of Eden, to tyll y e earth, him foorth from the garden of Eden, 
 whence he was taken.' to till the ground, from whence he 
 
 was taken.' 
 
 To this section belong all such adverbial phrases as these : 
 at all, at once, after all, of course, of a certainty, in a way, in 
 a fashion, in a manner, in a sort of way, in some sort, after 
 a sort. 
 
III. ADVERBIAL. — PHRASAL. 477 
 
 518. Some of these naturally develope with peculiar 
 luxuriance after negative verbs and as a complement to 
 the negation: — 
 
 ' Whereas in deede it toucheth not monkerie, nor maketh anything at all 
 for any such matter.' — Hugh Latimer, The Ploughers, 1549. 
 
 not at all. 
 
 ' Not at all considering the power of God, but puffed vp with his ten 
 thousand footmen, and his thousand horsemen, and his fourescore elephants.' 
 — 1 Maccabees xi. 4. 
 
 Some of the phrasal adverbs have assumed the form of 
 single words, by that symphytism which naturally attaches 
 these light elements to each other. Hence the forms withal, 
 however, ivhenever, howsoever, whensoever, whatever, neverthe- 
 less, notwithstanding. 
 
 contrariwise. 
 
 ' Not rendring euill for euill, or railing for railing : but contrarywise 
 blessing.' — 1 Peter iii. 9. 
 
 Upside-down is an adverb that has been altered by a false 
 light from up-so-down, or, as Wiclif has it, up-se-down, wherein 
 so is the old relative, and the expression is equivalent to up- 
 what-down. 
 
 ' He is traitour to God & turneb be chirche upsedown.' — John Wiclif, 
 Three Treatises, ed. J. H. Todd, Dublin, 185 1, p. 29. 
 
 ' Thus es this worlde torned up-so-downe.' 
 
 Hampole, MS. Bowes — after Halliwell, v. Upsodoun. 
 
 at leastwise. 
 
 'And every effect doth after a sort contain, at leastwise resemble, the 
 cause from which it proceedeth.' — Richard Hooker, Of the Laws, &c. I. v. 2 ; 
 also id. II. iv. 3. 
 
 at no hand. 
 
 ' And in what sort did these assemble ? In the trust of ther own know- 
 ledge, or of their sharpenesse of wit, or deepenesse of iudgment, as it were in 
 an arme of flesh ? At no hand. They trusted in him that hath the key of 
 Dauid, opening and no man shutting ; they prayed to the Lord.' — The 
 Translators to the Reader, 161 1. 
 
47 8 THE PRONOUN GROUP. 
 
 •which way, that way. 
 
 ' Marke which way sits the Wether-cocke, 
 And that way blows the wind.' 
 
 Ballad Society, vol. i. p. 344. 
 
 519. The progress of modern languages, turning as it 
 does in great measure upon the development of the sym- 
 bolic element, naturally sets towards the production of 
 grouped expressions, and this displays itself with particular 
 activity in the adverbial parts of language, whether they 
 be presentively or symbolically adverbial, that is to say, 
 whether the nounal or the pronounal character is preva- 
 lent. For the tendency of novelty is to show itself promi- 
 nently in the adverbs of either category, just on the same 
 principle as the extremities of a tree are the first to display 
 the newest movements of growth. The adverbs are the tips 
 or extremities of all that is material in speech. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE LINK-WORD GROUP. 
 
 520. I borrow the title of this chapter from Mr. Thring's 
 Grammar, though I somewhat vary the scope of the term 
 ' Link- word ' by comprising within it both prepositions and 
 conjunctions. I know not of any happier term to comprise 
 that vague and flitting host of words which, starting forth 
 from time to time out of the formal ranks of the previous 
 parts of speech to act as the intermediaries of words and 
 sentences, are commonly called Prepositions and Conjunc- 
 tions. 
 
 These two parts of speech have a certain fundamental 
 identity, combined with a bold divergence in which they 
 appear as perfectly distinct from one another. Their dis- 
 tinction is based on the definition that prepositions are used 
 to attach nouns to the sentence, and conjunctions are used 
 to attach sentences or introduce them. 
 
 The neutral ground on which they meet, and where no 
 such discrimination is possible, is in the generic link-words 
 and, or, also, for, bid, than. 
 
 I. Of Prepositions. 
 
 521. The preposition may be defined as a word that 
 expresses the relation of a noun to its governing word. A 
 few examples must suffice for the illustration of a class of 
 
4^0 THE LINK-WORD GROUP. 
 
 words so familiarly known and so various in their shades of 
 signification. The examples will be mostly of the less com- 
 mon uses, as we shall consider the common uses to be 
 present to the mind of the reader; the object being to 
 suggest the almost endless variety of shades of which pre- 
 positions are susceptible. First, the prepositions of the 
 simpler and mostly elder sort. 
 
 after. 
 
 ' Full semyly aftir hir mete she raughte.' 
 
 Prologtie, 136. 
 
 ' The vintners were made to pay licence duties after a much higher scale 
 than that which had obtained under Ralegh.' — Edward Edwards, Ralegh 
 (1868), ii. p. 23. 
 
 by. 
 
 ' But say by me as I by thee, 
 I fancie none but thee alone.' 
 
 Ballad Society, vol. i. p. 244. 
 
 ' I think he will consider it a right thing by Mrs. Grant as well as by 
 Fanny.' — Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, ch. v. 
 
 Where we should now say ' as regards Mrs. Grant,' or ' as 
 far as Fanny is concerned.' 
 
 522. By having originally meant about, acquired in certain 
 localities a power of indicating the knowledge of something 
 bad about any person, insomuch that ' I know nowt by him ' 
 is provincially used for ' I know no harm of him/ And it is 
 according to this idiom that in our version St. Paul wit- 
 nesses of himself, ' I know nothing by myself, yet am I not 
 hereby justified ' : and the expression occurs more than 
 once in the curious book from which the following is 
 quoted : — 
 
 ' Then I was committed to a darke dungeon flfteene dayes, which time 
 they secretly made enquiry where I had lyen before, what my wordes and 
 behauiour had beene while I was there, but they could find nothing by me.' — 
 Webbe his trauailes, 1590. 
 
/. PREPOSITIONS. 481 
 
 but. 
 ' But (on this day) let sea-men feare no wracke.' 
 
 Shakspeare, King John, hi. 1. 92. 
 
 where the parentheses have the unusual signification of 
 throwing the enclosed words into a composite lump to make 
 a noun under the government of the preposition outside. It 
 is equivalent to ' except on-this-day.' 
 
 But still exists as a preposition in the connection 
 
 nothing but — 
 
 ' No two objects of interest could be more absolutely dissimilar in kind 
 than the two neighbouring islands, Staffa and Iona : — Iona dear to Chris- 
 tendom for more than a thousand years; — Staffa known to the scientific and 
 the curious only since the close of the last century. Nothing but an 
 accident of geography could unite their names.' — The Duke of Argyll, 
 Iona, init. 
 
 for. 
 
 • Ye shal be slayne in all the coastes of Israel, I wil be avenged of you 
 to leine you for to knowe, that I am the Lorde.' — Ezechiel, xi. 10 (1535). 
 
 like. 
 
 ' Out of that great past he brought some of the sterner stuff of which the 
 martyrs were made, and introduced it like iron into the blood of modern 
 religious feeling.' — J. C. Shairp, Johi Keble, 1866. 
 
 523. Of is the most frequent preposition in the English 
 language. Probably it occurs as often as all the other pre- 
 positions put together. It is a characteristic feature of the 
 stage of the language which we call by distinction English, 
 as opposed to Saxon. And this character, like so many 
 characters really distinctive of the modern language, is 
 French. Nine times out of ten that of is used in English it- 
 represents the French de. It is the French preposition in a 
 Saxon mask. The word of is Saxon, if by ' word' we under- 
 stand the two letters and/*, or the sound they make when 
 pronounced together. But if we mean the function which 
 
 1 i 
 
482 THE LINK- WORD GROUP. 
 
 that little word discharges in the economy of the language, 
 then the ' word ' is French at least nine times out of ten. 
 
 Where the Saxon of was used, we should now mostly 
 employ another preposition, as 
 
 ' Alys us of yfle.' 
 Deliver us from evil. 
 
 The following from the Saxon Chronicle, a.d. 894, shows 
 one place where we should retain it, and one where we 
 should change it : — 
 
 ' Ne com se here oftor eall ute of ' The host came not all out of 
 
 {jaem setum bonne tuwwa. obre sijie the encampment oftener than twice : 
 
 ba hie 2erest to londe comon. aer once when they first to land came, 
 
 sio herd gesamnod waere. o|>re sibe ere the " fierd " was assembled : once 
 
 ba hie of bsem setum faran wol- when they would depart from the 
 
 don.' encampment.' 
 
 Thus the Saxon of has to be sought with some care by 
 him who would find it in modern English. Those of the 
 current type, such as are illustrated in the following quota- 
 tion, are French : — 
 
 ' Thus it has come to pass that women have, by change to times of settled 
 peace, and by the reformation of religion, lost something of dignity, of use- 
 fulness, and of resources.' — John Boyd-Kinnear, Woman's Work, p. 352. 
 
 Numerous as are the places in which this preposition now 
 occurs, it is less rife than it was. In the fifteenth and six- 
 teenth centuries the language teemed with it. It recurred 
 and recurred to satiety. This Frenchism is now much 
 abated. I will add a few examples in which we should no 
 longer use it. 
 
 'o 
 
 'Paul after his shipwreck is kindly entertained of the barbarians.' — Acts 
 xxviii. (Contents.) 
 
 ' I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am appre- 
 hended of Christ Iesus.' — Phil. iii. 12. 
 
 This of as the instrument of passivity has given place 
 to by. 
 
I. PREPOSITIONS. 483 
 
 * How shall I feast him ? What bestow of him.' 
 
 Twelfth Night, iii. 4. 2. 
 
 ' What time the Shepheard, blowing of his nailes.' 
 
 3 Henry VI, ii. 5. 3. 
 
 ' Doe me the favour to dilate at full, 
 What haue befalne of them and thee till now.' 
 
 Comedy of Errors, i. 1. 124. 
 
 In the Fourth Folio this last of is at length omitted. 
 
 524. Off is now little used prepositionally ; it is mostly 
 reserved for such adverbial uses, as be off, take off, wash off, 
 write off, they who are far off, &c. But this is a modern 
 distinction, and it exhibits one of the devices of language for 
 increasing its copia verbornm. Any mere variety of spelling 
 may acquire distinct functions to the enrichment of speech. 
 
 In Miles Coverdale's Bible (1535) there is no distinction 
 between of and off: as may be seen by the following from 
 the thirteenth chapter of the prophet Zachary : — 
 
 ' In that tyme shall the house off Dauid and the citesyns off Ierusalem 
 haue an open well, to wash of synne and vnclennesse. And then (sayeth the 
 Lorde off hoostes) I will destroye the names of Idols out off the londe.' 
 
 On and its compound upon. 
 
 ' . . . and layde him on the Altar vpon the wood.' — Genesis xxii. 9. 
 
 upon. 
 
 'There were slaine of them, vpon a three thousand men.' — 1 Maccabees 
 iv. 15. 
 
 ' And if any will judge this way more painfull, because that all things 
 must be read upon the book, whereas before by the reason of so often repe- 
 tition they could say many things by heart: if those men will weigh their 
 labour, with the profit and knowledge which daily they shall obtain by 
 reading upon the book, they will not refuse the pain, in consideration of 
 the great profit that shall ensue thereof.'— Old Common Prayer Book, The 
 Preface. 
 
 over. 
 
 ' In a series of Acts passed over the veto of the President, Congress pro- 
 vided for the assemblage in each Southern State of a constituent Convention, 
 
 i i 2 
 
484 THE LINK- WORD GROUP. 
 
 to be elected by universal suffrage, subject to the disfranchisement of all 
 persons who had taken an active part in the civil or military services of the 
 Confederacy.' 
 
 525. Till is from an ancient substantive til, still flourish- 
 ing in German in its rightful form as jiel, and meaning goal, 
 mark, aim, butt. Thus in some Saxon versified proverbs, 
 
 1 Til sceal on eSle 
 domes wyrcean.' 
 
 Mark shall on patrimony 
 doom-ivards ivork. 
 
 Two Saxon Chronicles Parallel, p. xxxv. 
 
 i.e. a borne or landmark shall be admissible as evidence. 
 For its prepositional use, see the quotation from R. Brunne 
 in 515. 
 
 This preposition is now appropriated to Time : we say till 
 then, till to-morrow ; but not till there, &c. Earlier it was 
 used of Place, as in Shakspeare's Passionate Pilgrim :— 
 
 'She, poor bird, as all forlorn, 
 Lean'd her breast up till a thorn, 
 And there gan the dolefull'st ditty, 
 That to hear it was great pity.' 
 
 This preposition enjoys a provincial function which is 
 unknown in literature: 
 
 'Well, Hester, do you feel tired now that there are two sets of 
 lodgers in the house ? " 
 
 " Yes, Sir, till night I do." (Clevedon, Somersetshire.) 
 
 to ( = comparable to). 
 
 ' A sweet thing is love, 
 
 It rules both heart and mind; 
 There is no comfort in the world 
 To women that are kind.' 
 
 Ballad Society, vol. i. p. 320. 
 
 The preposition with had a value in the fourteenth century 
 which is unknown in Saxon and which did not permanently 
 
I. PREPOSITIONS'. 485 
 
 root itself in English. It was used like the by of passivity, 
 as — 
 
 ' Who saved Daniel in the horrible cave, 
 Ther every wight, save he, master or knave, 
 Was with the leon frette, or he asterte ? ' 
 
 The Man of Lawes Tale, 4895, ed. Tyrwhitt. 
 
 i. e. was devoured by the lion before he could stir. The 
 isolation of this use at a particular point in our literature 
 leads to the supposition that it may have been Danish, 
 especially as this is the use of Danish ved to this day. It is 
 the preposition used in title-pages before the author's name, 
 as :— ' Bjowulfs Drape. Et Gothisk Helte-Digt af Angel- 
 Saxisk paa Danske Riim ved Nic. Fred. Sev. Grundtvig, 
 Praest. Kjobenhavn, 1820 V 
 
 526. The prepositions are more elevated in the scale of 
 symbolism than the pronouns. They are quite removed from 
 all appearance of direct relation with the material and the 
 sensible. They constitute a mental product of the most 
 exquisite sort. They are more cognate to mind ; they have 
 caught more of that freedom which is the heritage of mind ; 
 they are more amenable to mental variations, and more ready 
 to lend themselves to new turns of thought, than pronouns 
 can possibly be. To see this it is necessary to stand outside 
 the language ; for these things have become so mingled with 
 the very circulation of our blood, that we cannot easily put 
 ourselves in a position to observe them. Those who have 
 mastered, or in any effective manner even studied Greek, 
 will recognise what is meant. To see it in our own speech 
 requires more practised habits of observation. But here I 
 can avail myself of testimony. Wordsworth had the art of 
 bringing into play the subtle powers of English prepositions, 
 
 1 Beowulf's Death. A Gothic Hero-Poem from Anglo-Saxon, in Danish 
 Rime, by N. F. S. Gruntvig, Priest. Copenhagen, 1820. 
 
486 THE LINK-WORD GROUP. 
 
 and this feature of his poetry has not escaped the notice of 
 Principal Shairp. ' Here, in passing. I may note the strange 
 power there is in his simple prepositions. The star is on 
 the mountain-top ; the silence is in the starry sky ; the sleep 
 is among the hills ; the gentleness of heaven is on the sea.' 
 Studies in Poetry and Philosophy, p. 74. 
 
 Wordsworth dedicated his Memorials of a Tour in Italy to 
 his fellow-traveller, Henry Crabb Robinson. The opening 
 lines are : — 
 
 ' Companion ! by whose buoyant spirit cheered, 
 In whose experience trusting day by day.' 
 
 It was originally written ' To whose experience.' Mr. Robin- 
 son suggested that ' In ' would be better than ' To,' and the 
 poet, after offering reasons for a thing which can hardly be 
 argued upon, ended by yielding his own superior sense to 
 the criticism of his friend. (Diary, 1837.) 
 
 527. A second series of prepositions are those in which 
 flexion is traceable; for example, the genitival form, as 
 against, besides, sithence ; or comparison, as near, next. 
 
 besides ( = without, or contrary to). 
 
 ' Besides all men's expectation.' — Richard Hooker, Of the Laws, &c. 
 Preface, ii. 6. 
 
 sithe7ice. 
 
 ' We require you to find out but one church upon the face of the whole 
 earth, that hath been ordered by your discipline, or hath not been ordered 
 by ours, that is to say, by episcopal regiment, sithence the time that the 
 blessed Apostles were here conversant.' — Richard Hooker, Of the Laws, &c. 
 Preface, iv. 1. 
 
 near (comparative of nigh). 
 
 ' The fruitage fair to sight, like that which grew 
 Near that bituminous lake where Sodom flam'd.' 
 
 Paradise Lost, x. 562. 
 
 next (superlative). 
 
 ' Happy the man whom this bright Court approves, 
 His sov'reign favours, and his country loves, 
 Happy next him, who to these shades retires.' 
 
 Alexander Pope, Windsor Forest, 235. 
 
1. PREPOSITIONS. 487 
 
 528. Perhaps we ought to range in this series such a 
 preposition as save, which having come to us through the 
 French sauf, from the Latin salvo, is still, at least to the 
 perceptions of the scholar, redolent of the ablative absolute. 
 
 save. 
 
 ' In one of the public areas of the town of Como stands a statue with no 
 inscription on its pedestal, save that of a single name, volt a.' — John Tyn- 
 dall, Faraday as a Discoverer. 
 
 Another instance of an old participle and a young pre- 
 position is except. 
 
 ' . . . with all her unrivalled powers of mendacity, she very rarely succeeded 
 in deceiving any one except her friends.' — John Hosack, Mary Queen of 
 Scots, p. 35. 
 
 529. A third series of prepositions are the phrasal pre- 
 positions, consisting of more than one word. In the de- 
 velopment of this sort of preposition, we have been expedited 
 by French tuition. A constant and almost necessary ele- 
 ment in their formation is the preposition of. They are the 
 analogues of such French prepositions as aupres de, autour 
 
 de, au lieu de ; as 
 
 in lieu of. 
 
 ' A burnt stick and a barn door served Wilkie in lieu of pencil and 
 canvas. 1 — Samuel Smiles, Self Help, ch. iv. 
 
 aboard of. 
 
 ' Every officer and man aboard of her entertained unbounded confidence 
 in her qualities.' — Oct. n, 1870. 
 
 long of; along of. 
 
 ' All long of this vile Traitor Somerset.' 
 
 I Henry VI, iv. 3. 33. 
 ' Long all of Somerset, and his delay.' Ibid. 46. 
 
 A ruder form of this preposition was long on or along on, 
 still heard in country places. Chaucer has 
 
 ' I can not tell whereon it was along, 
 But wel I wot gret stryf is us among.' 
 
 The Canones Yemannes Tale, 16398; ed. Tyrwhitt. 
 
488 THE LINK-WORD GROUP. 
 
 out of. 
 ' ... it cannot be that a Prophet perish out of Hierusalem.' — Luke xiii. 33. 
 
 in spight of; in spite of. 
 
 ' As on a Mountaine top the Cedar shewes, 
 That keepes his leaues in spight of any storme.' 
 
 2 Henry VI, v. I. 206. 
 
 in despight of 
 
 ' And in despight of Pharao fell, 
 He brought from thence his Israel.' 
 
 John Milton, Psalm cxxxvi. 
 
 Antecedent to this was the genitival formula ' in my de- 
 spite/ Titus Andronicus, i. 2 ; 'in your despite/ Cymbeline, 
 i. 7 ; 'in thy despite/ 1 Henry VI, iv. 7 ; ' in Love's despite/ 
 John Keble, Matrimony. 
 
 for . . . sake (with genitive between). 
 
 ■ Now for the comfortless troubles' sake of the needy.' — Psalm xii. 5 
 (elder version). 
 
 ' But if any man say vnto you, This is offered in sacrifice vnto idoles, eate 
 not for his sake that shewed it, and for conscience sake.' — I Cor. x. 28. 
 
 ' For Sabrine bright her only sake.' 
 
 Ballad Society, vol. i. p. 386. 
 
 530. This is the formula throughout the English Bible, 
 and throughout Shakspeare with three exceptions, according 
 to Mrs. Cowden Clarke. In the above examples, troubles', 
 his, conscience are in the genitive case. The s genitival is 
 not added to conscience, because it ends with a sibilant sound, 
 and where there are two sibilants already, a third could 
 hardly be articulated. The .r of the genitive case is, how- 
 ever, often absent where this reason cannot be assigned. 
 Thus : — 
 
 ' For his oath sake.' — Twelfth Night, iii. 4. 
 'For fashion sake.' — As You Like It, iii. 2. 
 1 For sport sake.' — I Henry IV, ii. 1. 
 
7. PREPOSITIONS. 489 
 
 'For their credit sake.' — I Henry IV, ii. 1. 
 
 'For safety sake.' — Id. v. 1. 
 
 ' But for your health and your digestion sake.' 
 
 Trolhis and Cressida, ii. 3. 
 
 Instead of this genitive the present use of the language 
 substitutes an of- form, which occurs in Shakspeare three 
 times : — 
 
 for the sake of. 
 
 ' And for the sake of them thou sorrow est for.' 
 
 Comedy of Errors, i. I. 122. 
 
 ' If for the sake of Merit thou wilt hear mee.' 
 
 Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 7. 54. 
 
 ' A little Daughter, for the sake of it 
 Be manly, and take comfort.' Pericles, iii. I. 21. 
 
 531. This class of prepositions is useful as letting us see 
 how the older prepositions came into their place, and (to 
 speak generally) how the symbolic element sustains itself 
 and preserves itself from the natural decay of inanition. 
 Here is a presentive word enclosed between two prepositions, 
 as if it had been swallowed by them, and were gradually 
 undergoing the process of assimilation. By and bye the 
 substantive becomes obsolete elsewhere, and lives on here 
 as a preposition, with a purely symbolic power. 
 
 Thus in despite of becomes first despite of—' despite of all 
 controversy,' Measure for Measure, i. 2 ; ' despite of death,' 
 Richard II, i. 1 ; and then in a further stage despite stands 
 alone — ' despite his nice fence,' Much Ado, v. 1 ; ' despite 
 thy victor sword,' Lear v. 3 ; and in these latter cases the 
 old substantive despite is as purely a preposition as the French 
 malgre'. And it may be added that despite as a substantive 
 is as good as obsolete, except in poetry, but the prepositional 
 use is well established. 
 
490 THE LINK-WORD GROUP. 
 
 II. Of Conjunctions. 
 
 532. Of all the parts of speech the conjunction comes 
 last in the order of nature. The office of the conjunction is 
 to join sentences together, and therefore it presupposes the 
 completion of the simple sentence ; and as a consequence 
 it would seem to imply the pre-existence of the other parts 
 of speech, and to be the terminal product of them all. It is 
 essentially a symbolic word, but this does not hinder it from 
 comprising within its vocabulary a great deal of half-assimi- 
 lated presentive matter. This is a point to which we shall 
 return in the course of the section. 
 
 The necessity for conjunctions (other than and, or, also) 
 does not arise until language has advanced to the formation 
 of compound sentences. Hence the conjunctions are as a 
 whole a comparatively modern formation. Almost all the 
 conjunctions are recent enough for us to know of what they 
 were made. And indeed they may conveniently be divided 
 according to the parts of speech out of which they have been 
 formed. 
 
 533. Of the derival of a conjunction from a preposition 
 we have a ready instance in the old familiar but, at first a 
 preposition, compounded of by and out; in Saxon butan, 
 from be and utan. 
 
 Others of the same character are 
 
 for. 
 
 ' For thou, for thou didst view, 
 That death of deaths, companion true.' 
 
 till 
 
 'The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it 
 been early, had been kind : but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and 
 cannot enjoy it ; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it ; till I am known, 
 and do not want it.' — Samuel Johnson, to Lord Chesterfield. 
 
II. CONJUNCTIONS. 49 1 
 
 ' As there are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not 
 know till he takes up the pen to write, so the heart is a secret even to 
 him (or her) who has it in his own breast.' — W. M. Thackeray, Esmond, 
 Bk. II, ch. i. 
 
 until. 
 
 ' Shakspeare was quite out of fashion until Steele brought him back into 
 the mode/ — W. M. Thackeray, Esmond, Bk. II. ch. x. 
 
 ' No character is natural until it has been proved to be so.' — W. S. 
 Macleay, quoted by Professor Rolleston, Forms of Animal Life, p. xxi. 
 
 534. Then there are conjunctions formed by the sym- 
 phytism of a preposition with a noun, as in the Shakspearian 
 belike, which is pure English, or peradventure, which is pure 
 French, or perhaps, which is half French and half Danish. 
 
 In Chaucer, Knight's Tale, 2488, we find the full phrase 
 out of which has been made the compressed form 
 
 because. 
 
 ' But by the cause that they sholde ryse ' Bot be pe cause bat pei sholde rise 
 Eerly for to seen the grete fight Erly for to 'seen be grete fighte 
 
 Vn to hir reste wenten they at night.' Vnto her reste went pei att nighte.' 
 
 Ellesmere MS. Lansdowne MS. 
 
 In Caxton it appears as by cause : — 
 
 ' Wherfore by cause thys sayd book is ful of holsom wysedom and re- 
 quysyte vnto euery astate and degree, I haue purposed to enprynte it.' — 
 The Game of the Chesse, a.d. 1474 (Preface). 
 
 This because has very largely divested itself of the old 
 preposition, and is provincially used in the short form of 
 cause. I happen to be able to give an authentic instance. 
 In Ipplepen church there is an inscribed floor-stone, to the 
 memory of two infants, who died in 1683 : — 
 
 ' Mourn not for vs dear Relatiues Caus We 
 So earely left this Vale of Misery. 
 Blesst Infants soonest to their port arriue, 
 The aged longer with the stormes do striue.' 
 
 A conjunction formed from the reference of a preposition 
 to a foregoing adverb, is — 
 
49 2 THE LINK-WORD GROUP. 
 
 too . . . to. 
 
 ' 1 have seen too much of success in life to take off my hat and huzza 
 to it as it passes in its gilt coach.'— W. M. Thackeray, Esmond, Bk. I. 
 p. 30. 
 
 535. But the great source of conjunctions is the Pronoun. 
 Here the ancient relative pronoun so is one of the most fre- 
 quent factors, not only in its own form but likewise in also ; 
 and in as, which is shortened from an elder form of ' also,' 
 namely ealswa, i.e. 'entirely, altogether so/ 'quite in that 
 manner.' 
 
 In the following line of Chaucer, Prologue 92, we see the 
 second as already mature, while the first is still in the 
 course of formation. We see al and so in various stages of 
 approximation until their final coalition in the form of as. 
 
 ' He was al so fresche as is pe moneb of Mai.' 
 
 Lansdowne MS. 
 
 ' He was also fressh as ys Jie moneth of May.' 
 
 Petworth MS. 
 
 ' He was als freissch as is ]>e monjv of May.' 
 
 Corpus MS. 
 
 ' He was as frosch as is the monyth of May.' 
 
 Cambridge MS. 
 
 as ... as and as. 
 
 * The only kind of faith which is inseparable from life is a divine convic- 
 tion of truth imparted to the intellect through the heart, and which becomes 
 as absolute to the internal conscience as one's existence, and as incapable of 
 proof.' — Laurence Oliphant, Piccadilly, p. 275. 
 
 536. So and as, severally considered, are adverbial pro- 
 nouns; and it is by their inherent capacity of standing to 
 each other as antecedent and relative, that they together 
 constitute a conjunction. 
 
II. CONJUNCTIONS. 493 
 
 so . . . as. 
 
 ' With a depth so great as to make it a day's march from the rear to the 
 van, and a front so narrow as to consist of one gun and one horseman.' — 
 A. W. Kinglake, Invasion of the Crimea, vol. iii. ch. ix. 
 
 as ... so and so. 
 
 ' As great men flatter themselves, so they are flattered by others, and so 
 robbed of the true judgment of themselves.' — R. Sibbes, SouVs Conflict, 
 ch. xiv. 
 
 The use of as for a conjunction-sole is now disallowed, 
 and is in fact one of our standard vulgarisms. It is seen in 
 the familiar saw, 'Handsome is as handsome does/ Yet 
 this use occurs in the Spectator, No. 508 — in the course of 
 a correspondent's letter it is true, but the correspondent is 
 a young lady, and writes like one : — 
 
 ' Is it sufferable, that the Fop of whom I complain should say, as he would 
 rather have such-a-one without a Groat, than me with the Indies?' 
 
 so . . . that. 
 
 ' Rich young men become so valuable a prize, that selection is renounced.' 
 — John Boyd-Kinnear, Woman's Work, p. 353. 
 
 then = than. 
 
 ' A wise man will make better use of an idle pamphlet, then a fool will do 
 of sacred Scripture.' — John Milton, Areopagitica. 
 
 537. Where, equivalent to whereas. 
 
 1 Where in former times the only remedy for misgovernment real or sup- 
 posed was a change of dynasty, the evil is now corrected at no greater cost 
 than that of a ministerial crisis. Where in former times serious evils were 
 endured because the remedy was worse than the disease, trivial incon- 
 veniences now excite universal complaints and meet with speedy remedy. 
 Where formerly ministers clung to office with the tenacity of despair, and 
 rival statesmen persecuted each other to the death, the defeated premier now 
 retires with the reasonable prospect of securing by care and skill a trium- 
 phant return ; and both he and his successors mutually entertain no other 
 feelings than those to which an honourable rivalry may give rise. Where 
 formerly every subsidy was the occasion of the bitterest contention, and was 
 given at last grudgingly and with mistrust, the House of Commons has 
 
494 THE LINK -WORD GROUP. 
 
 never since the Revolution refused to the Crown the maintenance of a single 
 soldier or reduced the salary of a single clerk.' — W. E. Hearn, The Govern- 
 ment of England, 1S67, p. 1 26. 
 
 Whether. The pronominal use of this interesting word 
 is now antiquated, and it is used only as a conjunc- 
 tion : — 
 
 ' Whether they wil heare, or whether they will forbeare.' — Ezekiel ii. 5. 
 •Whether it were I or they.' — I Cor. xv. 11. 
 
 538. To this same pronominal group belongs a conjunc- 
 tion, not so common as it once was, but one that has a fine 
 old English ring with it, albeit a translation from the French. 
 We mean the how before narratives, or the summary of a 
 narrative, as in the heading of chapters. It comes from the 
 age of chivalry ; almost every chapter in Froissart begins 
 with ' Comment.' It is still redolent of romance, and 
 sometimes it has a sort of archness about it, preparing 
 the reader for something strange, to surprise him by some- 
 thing droll : — 
 
 ' Clearly there was no telling such an one 
 How, when their monarch tried who loved him more 
 Than he loved them, and found they loved, as he, 
 Each man, himself, and held, no otherwise, 
 That, of all evils in the world, the worst 
 Was — being forced to die, whate'er death gain : 
 How all this selfishness in him and them 
 Caused certain sorrows which they sang about, — 
 I think that Herakles, who held his life 
 Out on his hand, for any man to take — 
 I think his laugh had marred their threnody.' 
 
 Robert Browning, Balaustion, second ed. 1872, p. 66. 
 
 539. Of all the elements that go to make conjunctions, 
 none come near the pronouns in importance. Often where 
 other parts of speech get a footing in this office, it has been 
 by pronominal ushering. Thus, in the case of directly \ 
 quoted below (541), it is clear that this word originally came 
 
II. CONJUNCTIONS. 495 
 
 in as an adverb to a pronominal conjunction : it was at first 
 ' directly as ' or ' directly that/ 
 
 Of the conjunctions which are of pronominal extraction 
 the so and the as are our Saxon inheritance, whereas the 
 conjunctional use of ivho, whose, whom, which, what, whence, 
 are French imitations. In the Latin language, and in 
 those which spring from it, the relative pronoun is the chief 
 conjunction. In French, for example, qui and que play 
 a part which thei r equivalents in English do not come 
 near. Indeed, the degree in which these relatives act as 
 conjunctions is almost the touchstone of a romanised style. 
 In Latin we everywhere see such sentence-links as the 
 following: qui, quce, quod, qua? quum ita sint, quo facto, 
 quibus peractis, quod si, quare, quum. 
 
 For a French instance, I quote the following example 
 from Pere Lacordaire, with the anonymous translation : — 
 
 ' Vous ne fonderez done pas une doctrine, eussiez-vous devant vous mille 
 ans multiplies par mille ans. Que si vous sortez des principes de l'incre- 
 dulite, a l'instant meme vous retombez en Jesus-Christ, le seul maitre 
 possible de quiconque reconnait une autorite.' — Quarantutne Conference. 
 
 'You would not then found a doctrine, even if you had a thousand years 
 multiplied by another thousand before you. If you quit the principles of 
 unbelief, at that very moment you fall back upon Jesus Christ, the only 
 possible master for whosoever acknowledges an authority.' 
 
 Although this translation is almost in the extreme of 
 verbal fidelity, yet the Que is passed over in silence. And 
 rightly so. 
 
 540. We turned who and which from interrogatives into 
 relatives under French influence, as already shewn (472), 
 and then it followed that these words took a place also as 
 conjunctions, just as the French qui and que do. More- 
 over, we accepted also the symbol-cases of these words as 
 conjunctions, namely, of whom, to whom, in which, and we 
 said, ' There is the man to whom I sent you,' ' This is the 
 
49 6 THE LINK-WORD GROUP. 
 
 thing of which I spoke ' ; instead of ' The man I sent you 
 to,' ' The thing I spoke of.' This Romanesque form of 
 speech was well established among us in the seventeenth 
 century, and it still retains its place, though there has been 
 a reaction, which Addison has the credit of. 
 
 It often happens that when foreign idioms are admitted 
 into a language, they make awkward combinations with the 
 native material, especially in unskilled hands. So this rela- 
 tive conjunction is always getting into trouble. It is alleged 
 that even the correspondents of first-class newspapers will 
 write and who, and which, and where, inappropriately. Of 
 course there is a position in which such an expression is 
 unimpeachable. If two clauses, each of them beginning with 
 which, have to be combined by and, the second clause will 
 naturally begin with and which. But this will not justify 
 examples like the following : — 
 
 ' In the afternoon the Flower Show will be held in the gardens of 
 Worcester College, a?id at which the band of the Coldstreams will assist ; 
 .... At night Miss Neilson the well-known actress, and who has 
 obtained in a very short time a considerable reputation as a reader, will give 
 a dramatic reading from the Ingoldsby Legends, Tennyson, &c, in the 
 Clarendon-rooms, and where one may expect a crowded audience.' 
 
 541. Conjunctions from nounal adverbs : — 
 
 er, or, ere (Saxon csr). 
 
 ' Forsaketh sinne or sinne you forsake.' 
 
 Canterbury Tales, 12,220. 
 
 * There are two kinds of biographies, and of each kind we have seen 
 examples in our own time. One is as a golden chalice, held up by some wise 
 hand, to gather the earthly memory ere it is spilt on the ground. The other 
 is as a millstone, hung by partial yet ill-judging friend, round the hero's 
 neck to plunge him as deep as possible in oblivion.' — J. C. Shairp, John 
 Keble, p. 69. 
 
 Sometimes two forms of the same word were combined, as 
 
II. CONJUNCTIONS. 497 
 
 or ere. 
 
 ' Two long dayes journey (Lords) or ere we meete.' 
 
 Shakspeare, King John, iv. 3. 20. 
 
 At length this strengthening word was supposed to be 
 ever : — 
 
 ' And the Lyons had the mastery of them, and brake all their bones in 
 pieces or euer they came at the bottome of the den.' — Daniel vi. 24. 
 
 nevertheless. 
 
 ' I cannot fully answer this or that objection, nevertheless I will persevere 
 in believing.' — J. Llewellyn Davies, The Gospel and Modern Life, p. xiv. 
 
 directly. 
 
 ' On the contrary, is it not the case that everybody and every section are 
 telling us continually that the religious difficulty, directly you come to 
 practice, becomes insignificant, and that it is a difficulty made rather for 
 Parliament and for debate than one which would be raised within the 
 schools?' — House of Commons, June 25, 1870. 
 
 542. Conjunctions from noun adjectives : — 
 
 least, modern lest. 
 
 1 Lastly, followers are not to be liked, least while a man maketh his 
 traine longer, he maketh his winges shorter.' — Bacon s Essays, ed. W. Aldis 
 Wright, p. 275. 
 
 no more than. 
 
 This is now little more than an illustrative way of saying 
 not at all. But it once had its literal and quantitative sig- 
 nification : — 
 
 ' So hote he loved that by nightertale 
 He slep no more then doth the nightingale.' 
 
 Chaucer's Prologue, 98. 
 
 The idea here is not that he watched all night, but that he 
 was a short sleeper. 
 
 k k 
 
498 THE LINK-WORD GROUP. 
 
 543. Conjunctions formed from substantives. Of these, 
 one has been noticed above (535). Another is case, as in 
 the following : — 
 
 ' The world 's a hive, 
 From whence thou canst derive 
 No good, but what thy soul's vexation brings : 
 But case thou meet 
 Some petty petty sweet, 
 Each drop is guarded with a thousand stings.' 
 
 Quarles's Emblems, Bk. I. No. 3. 
 
 And while, the old substantive for ' time.' 
 
 ' But, while his province is the reasoning part, 
 Has still a veil of midnight on his heart.' 
 
 William Cowper. 
 
 Substantives embodied between pronominal factors, as — 
 
 what time as. 
 
 ' Thou caliedst upon me in troubles, and I delivered thee : and heard thee 
 what time as the storm fell upon thee.' — Psalm lxxxi. 7, elder version. 
 
 Sith is an old substantive for ' journey/ ' road/ ' turn ' : 
 it is used as a conjunction in Ezechiel xxxv. 6, and not again 
 in the text of our Bible : — 
 
 ' Being iustified by faith, wee haue peace with God, and ioy in our hope, 
 that sith we were reconciled by his blood, when wee were enemies, wee 
 shall much more be saued being reconciled.' — Romaiis v. Contents. 
 
 It occurs five times in the First Book of Hooker, Of the 
 Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, as appears by the Glossary to 
 Mr. Church's l edition. 
 
 544. Conjunctions formed from verbs, or containing 
 verbs in their composition. The first place here is claimed 
 
 1 Dean of St. Paul's. 
 
II. CONJUNCTIONS. 499 
 
 by the old familiar if, Saxon gif, imperative of the verb 
 gifan, to give \ 
 
 ' Ac gif ic haefde swilcne anweald, swilce se aelmihtega God hsefb ; ftonne 
 ne lete ic no Sa yfelan derian "Sam godum swa swibe swa hi nu dob.' — King 
 Alfred's Boethins, ed. Cardale, p. 304. 
 
 But if I had such power as the Almighty God hath; then would not I let 
 the evil hart the good so much as they now do. 
 
 So also yet, Saxon gel, gyt, is reasonably identified with 
 the verb to get. 
 
 'You may paint with a very big brush, and yet not be a great painter.' — 
 Thomas Carlyle, Frederick the Great, Bk. I. ch. i. 
 
 Home Tooke says that an in such expressions as ' An it 
 please your honour/ is the imperative of the Saxon verb 
 unnan, to grant. For my own part I would as lief think it 
 merely a special habit of the common and, and we know it 
 was often written so. 
 
 ' And my will is that xii pore men and they may be gete have xii gownes,' 
 &c. — The Will of Dame Jane Lady Barre, 1484, in A Memoir of the Manor 
 of Bitton, by the Rev. H. T. Ellacombe, formerly Vicar of Bitton. 
 
 hoivbeit, fiotwithstanding. 
 
 ' Howbeit (as evermore the simpler sort are, even when they see no ap- 
 parent cause, jealous notwithstanding over the secret intents and purposes of 
 wiser men) this proposition of his did somewhat trouble them.' — Richard 
 Hooker, Of the Laius, &c, Preface, ch. ii. 
 
 1 Here is no denial of the lineal relationship of our if with Moaso-Gothic 
 ibai, yabai; only the assertion of a more recent derivative attachment. 
 Those who will not allow any word more than one derivation, must confine 
 our if to the line of ibai, yabai. The chief masters in microscopic etymology 
 tell us that at the root of these again there is a Sanskrit relative pronoun ya, 
 traceable through conjunctions found in Lithuanian and Lettish and Finnish 
 and Lappish, and that to this ya has been added a second part ba, probably 
 of the Sanskrit root bhu, i. e. English be. According to the best authorities 
 in this kind of research our if is a compound, in which two distinct roots are 
 now represented by two letters forming a monosyllable. All this may really 
 be true, and yet Saxon gif may have been assigned in Saxon minds to gifan, 
 and may have gained a new vitality by having thus rooted itself in a new 
 soil. 
 
 K k 2 
 
500 THE LINK-WORD GROUP. 
 
 545. Here we must notice the conjunctional use of the 
 participle being, common enough in the seventeenth century, 
 but now obsolete. It is notoriously frequent in Pearson On 
 the Creed, as : — 
 
 ' Now being the Creed comprehendeth the principles of our religion,' — 
 
 ' For, being every natural cause actually applied doth necessarily produce 
 its own natural effect,' — 
 
 ' — and being we have placed the formality of the object of all belief in 
 credibility,' — 
 
 ' Being then I have described the true nature and notion of Belief,' — 
 
 Preface, and Article I. 
 
 seeing* 
 
 'And one morn it chanced 
 He found her in among the garden yews, 
 And said, " Delay no longer, speak your wish, 
 Seeing I must go to-day." ' Idylls of the King. 
 
 according. 
 ' Their abominations were according as they loved.' — Hosea ix. 10. 
 
 talk of. 
 
 ' Talk of the privileges of the Peerage, of Members' exemption from the 
 Eighth Commandment, of the separate jurisdiction secured on the Continent 
 to soldiers, — what are they all put together to a privilege like this?' 
 
 depe7id upon it. 
 
 ' Depend upon it, a good deal is lost by not looking round the corner.' — 
 Mrs. Prosser, Quality Fogg's Lost Ledger. 
 
 When a sentence is opened with No doubt, this seems to 
 claim a place among these verbal conjunctions, being a 
 condensed expression for ' There is no doubt that.' It has, 
 however, a less emphatic burden than would be conveyed by 
 the latter formula : — 
 
 ' No doubt a determined effort would be made by many of those who are 
 now engaged in these occupations, to prevent the admission of females to 
 them, and to keep up the monopoly of sex.' — Frederic Hill, Crime : its 
 Amount, Ca?ises, and Remedies, 1853 ; p. 86. 
 
II. CONJUNCTIONS. 501 
 
 546. Here it may be objected — Do you call these words 
 symbolic ? What does ' presentive ' mean, if such words as 
 see, talk, depend, doubt, are not presentive ? In what sense can 
 these belong to a group which is called essentially symbolic ? 
 
 This very contradiction troubled the author of Hermes, 
 a famous book on universal grammar, which was published 
 in 1 75 1. He had pitched upon the distinction of presentive 
 and symbolic as the fundamental and essential distinction 
 of his universal grammar. He did not, indeed, use the terms; 
 but he spoke of words as ( 1 ) significant by themselves, or 
 significant absolutely, and (2) significant by association, 
 or significant relatively. When he treats of conjunctions, 
 he regards them as belonging to the second class, and yet 
 he cannot shut his eyes to certain refractory instances. The 
 embarrassment of James Harris on this occasion became 
 the sport of Home Tooke, who published his Diversions of 
 Purley in 1786. In his saucy manner he sums up the 
 doctrine of the Hermes as follows : — 
 
 ' Thus is the conjunction explained by Mr. Harris : 
 
 A sound significant devoid of signification, 
 Having at the same time a kind of obscure signification ; 
 And yet having neither signification nor no signification, 
 Shewing the attributes both of signification and no signification; 
 And linking signification and no signification together.' 
 
 Diversions of Purley, Part I. ch. vii. 
 
 This is a caricature, and we only avail ourselves of its 
 exaggerated features, in order to raise up before us in bolder 
 relief the difficulty which we are here confronting. 
 
 547. The solution seems to be this : — That the essential 
 nature of a conjunction (or of any other organic member of 
 speech) discovers itself, not in the recent examples of the 
 class, but in those which have by long use been purged of 
 accidental elements. This will be clearer by an illustration 
 drawn from familiar experience. 
 
502 THE LINK-WORD GROUP. 
 
 It is well known that many words in common use are 
 masked, that they do not express plainly the sense which 
 they are notwithstanding intended to convey. We do not 
 always call a spade a spade. "We have recourse in certain 
 well-known cases to forms of expression as distant from the 
 thing meant as is in any way consistent with the intention of 
 being understood. In such cases it will have struck every 
 philological observer that it becomes necessary from time to 
 time to replace these makeshifts with others of new device. 
 In fact, words used to convey a veiled meaning are found to 
 wear out very rapidly. The real thought pierces through; 
 they soon stand declared for what they are, and not for 
 what they half feign to be. Words gradually drop the non- 
 essential, and display the pure essence of their nature. And 
 the real nature of a word is to be found in the thought which 
 is at the bottom of its motive. As then we know full well 
 how this nature pierces through all disguise, casts off all 
 drapery and pretext and colour, and in the course of time 
 stands forth as the name of that thing which was to be 
 ignored even while it was indicated, — even so it is in the 
 case now before us. 
 
 548. There are reasons why the speaker is not satisfied 
 with the old conjunctions, and he brings forward words with 
 more body and colour to reinforce the old conjunctions or 
 to stand as conjunctions alone. If these words continue for 
 any length of time to be used as conjunctions, the presentive 
 matter which now lends them colour will evaporate, and 
 they will become purely symbolic. Of this we may be sure 
 from the experience of the elder examples. Even in such a 
 conjunction as because, where the presentive matter is still 
 very plain, it has, generally speaking, no existence to the 
 mind of the speaker. 
 
 It is not indeed a singular quality in the conjunction, that 
 
II. CONJUNCTIONS. 503 
 
 being itself essentially symbolic, it should receive accessions 
 from the presentive groups. This is seen also in the pro- 
 noun and in the preposition, and it is only as a matter of 
 degree that the conjunction is remarkable in this respect. 
 As far as observation reaches, the symbolic element is every- 
 where sustained by new accessions from the presentive, and 
 it is worthy of note that the extreme symbolic word, the con- 
 junction, which is chiefly supplied from groups of words 
 previously symbolic, seems to be the one which most eagerly 
 welcomes presentive material, as if desirous to recruit itself 
 after its too great attenuation through successive stages of 
 symbolic refinement. 
 
 549. The employment of conjunctions has greatly dimin- 
 ished from what it once was, as the reader may readily 
 ascertain if he will only look into the prose of three cen- 
 turies back. The writings of Hooker, for example, bristle 
 with conjunctions \ many of which we have now learned 
 to dispense with. The conjunction being a comparatively 
 late development, and being moreover a thing of literature 
 to a greater extent than any other part of speech, was 
 petted by writers and scholars into a fantastic luxuriance. 
 It connected itself intimately with that technical logic which 
 was the favourite study of the middle ages. Logic formed 
 the base of the higher region of learning, and was the ac- 
 quirement that popularly stamped a man as one of the 
 learned, and hence it came that men prided themselves on 
 their where/ores and there/ores, and all the rest of that appa- 
 ratus which lent to their discourse the prestige of a formu- 
 lated piece of ratiocination. 
 
 But this is now much abated, and the connection of 
 sentences is to a large extent left to the intelligence of the 
 
 1 As above, 544 : ' howbeit . . . ever, when . . . notwithstanding.' 
 
5 04 THE LINK- WORD GROUP. 
 
 reader. Two or three very undemonstrative conjunctions, 
 such as if, but, for, that, will suffice for all the conjunctional 
 appliances of page after page in a well - reasoned book. 
 Often the word and is enough, where more than mere 
 concatenation is intended, and this colourless link- word 
 seems invested with a meaning which recalls to mind what 
 the a?id of the Hebrew is able to do in the subtle depart- 
 ment of the conjunction. Indeed, we may say that we are 
 coming back in regard to our conjunctions to a simplicity 
 such as that from which the Hebrew language never de- 
 parted. The Book of Proverbs abounds in examples of the 
 versatility of the Hebrew and. Our but, as a conjunction, 
 covers the ground of two German conjunctions, (onfcem and 
 after. If we look at Proverbs x. there is a but in the middle 
 of nearly every verse, equivalent to fottbem. These are all 
 expressed in Hebrew by and. If we look at i. 25, 33; 
 ii. 22; iv. 18, we see but in the weightier sense of a6er, and 
 here again the same simple and in the Hebrew. 
 
 550. In the close of the following quotation, the and is 
 equivalent to ' and yet ' or ' and at the same time/ 
 
 ' In Mecklenburg, Pommern, Pommerellen, are still to be seen physiogno- 
 mies of a Wendish or Vandalic type (more of cheek than there ought to 
 be, and less of brow ; otherwise good enough physiognomies of their 
 kind) : but the general mass, tempered with such admixtures, is of the 
 Platt-Deutsch, Saxon, or even Anglish character we are familiar with here 
 at home. A patient stout people ; meaning considerable things, and very 
 incapable of speaking what it means.' — Thomas Carlyle, Frederick the 
 Great, Bk. II. ch. iv. 
 
 In conversation we omit the relative conjunction very 
 usually ; and poetry often does the same with great gain of 
 ease and simplicity : 
 
 ' For I am he am born to tame you, Kate.' 
 
 Tattling of the Shrew, ii. i. 
 
 ' Where is it mothers learn their love ? ' John Keble. 
 
II. CONJUNCTIONS. 505 
 
 551. When the bulkier conjunctions are used in the 
 present day, or when ordinary conjunctions are accumulated, 
 an effect is produced as of documentary solemnity. Thus 
 Now therefore {Acts xxiii. 15), Now whereas (Richard 
 Hooker, Of the Laws, v. 76. 5), notwithstanding however, &c. 
 
 This closes the analysis of the Parts of Speech, and pre- 
 pares the way for the structural analysis. Hitherto the 
 elements of speech have been classified ; it remains to treat 
 of their grouping. The task falls into the same two parts, 
 whenever an elaborate plan has to be analysed with a view 
 to production or reproduction. I witnessed the arrival of a 
 pavement at the spot where it was to be laid down, and as it 
 was unloaded I saw that it was packed in sorts and sizes, 
 like with like. But as the work proceeded, the men took a 
 piece from this lot and a piece from that lot, and shewed 
 them out on the ground near their work, so as to compose 
 partial groups in the order of the design. To some such a 
 grouped analysis do we now proceed. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 OF SYNTAX. 
 
 552. Syntax is a Greek word, signifying the order or 
 array of words in a sentence. But the term signifies some- 
 thing beyond its etymological contents. It signifies that 
 nexus between words which constitutes them Sense ; a web 
 of delicate functional relations, apprehended not by the eye 
 but by the mind. 
 
 Syntax will accordingly mean the presentation of the 
 sentence in its constituent parts, and the enquiry by what 
 contrivances these parts are made to produce a continuous 
 and consistent signification. We shall find that there are 
 three kinds of instrumentality which are the most active in 
 the production of this effect. 
 
 553. The first of these is collocation, or the relative posi- 
 tion of words. So far as this agency is exerted, the parts 
 of a sentence tell their function by the mere order of their 
 arrangement. This sort of syntax we call Flat. 
 
 The second is where the functions of the members of the 
 sentence are shewn by modifications in the forms of words. 
 This is the Flexional Syntax. 
 
 The third is where the same relations are expressed by 
 symbolic words. This is the Phrasal Syntax. 
 
I. FLAT. 507 
 
 The analytical action of syntax resolves the sentence not 
 into words, but into parts of speech. The knowledge of 
 words as parts of speech is the sum total of the doctrine 
 of syntax. And for this reason many of the details which 
 are ordinarily comprised under the head of syntax have 
 already been disposed of in the foregoing chapters on the 
 Parts of Speech. Accordingly, we have in the present 
 chapter only to attend to the salient points, and such as are 
 of the most essential value in the mechanism of the sentence; 
 and these are comprised in the above division, which will 
 therefore constitute the plan of this Chapter. 
 
 I. Of Flat or Collocative Syntax. 
 
 554. How important an element mere position is in the 
 structure of the English sentence, may readily be seen by 
 the contrast which appears if we consider how unimportant, 
 or at least secondary, the same element is in Latin. If we 
 have to say that men seek victual, the words by which this 
 would be expressed in Latin are so unaffected by the order 
 of their arrangement that it is impossible to dislocate the 
 sentence. It is good in any order : — 
 
 Homines quaerunt victum. 
 Quaerunt victum homines. 
 Victum homines quaerunt. 
 Homines victum quaerunt. 
 Quaerunt homines victum. 
 Victum quaerunt homines. 
 
 All these variations are possible, because each word has its 
 inflection, and that inflection determines the relative office of 
 each word and its contribution towards the meaning of the 
 
50 8 OF SYNTAX. 
 
 whole. But in English the sense depends upon the arrange- 
 ment, and therefore the order of the English sentence cannot 
 be much altered without detriment to the sense : — 
 
 Men seek victual. 
 Cats like fish. 
 Boys love play. 
 Fools hate knowledge. 
 Horses draw carts. 
 Diamonds flash light. 
 
 All these examples present us with one, and that the 
 simplest, scheme of a sentence : and in them we see that 
 the sense requires the arrangement of the words in the 
 given order of collocation. 
 
 555. Each of these three words is capable of amplifi- 
 cation. In the first place the subject may be amplified by 
 an adjective; thus, — 
 
 Hungry men seek victual. 
 Wise men desire truth. 
 Healthy boys love play. 
 
 This adjective has its proper collocation. We have no 
 choice whether we will say hungry men or men hungry. 
 The latter is inadmissible, unless it were for some special 
 exigency, such as might rise in poetry ; and then the 
 collocation would so far affect the impression communi- 
 cated, that after all it could not be called a mere alterna- 
 tive, whether we should say hungry men or men hungry. 
 
 The next thing is the placing of the article. The article 
 stands immediately before the adjective : — 
 
 The hungry man seeks victual. 
 The healthy boy loves play. 
 A wise man desires truth. 
 
I. FLAT. 509 
 
 This amplification brings out to view an important conse- 
 quence of the order last observed. As we put our adjective 
 before our substantive, it results that when the article is put 
 before both, it is severed from the substantive to which it 
 primarily appertains. 
 
 The French, who can put the adjective either before or 
 after its noun, have by this means the opportunity of keep- 
 ing the article and noun together in most cases where it is 
 desirable. This is a trifle, so long as it is confined to the 
 difference between the wise man, a good man, and Vhomme 
 sage, un homme don. But then the adjective being capable of 
 amplification in its turn, the gap between the article and its 
 noun may be considerably widened. An adverb may be put 
 to the adjective, and then it becomes the tndy wise man, a 
 really good man. Or, as in the following : — 
 
 ' The inadequacy of our means to meet the spiritual wants of the annually 
 increasing population of this colony.'— Letter of the Bhhop of Adelaide, 1859. 
 
 550. The severance between the article and its noun had 
 not extended beyond such examples as these 1 , until within 
 the recent period which may be designated as the German 
 era. Our increased acquaintance with German literature has 
 caused an enlargement in this member of our syntax. We 
 not unfrequently find a second adverb, or an adverbial 
 phrase, or a negative, included in the interval between the 
 article or pronoun and the noun ; thus, — 
 
 ' In that not more populous than popular thoroughfare.' — Charles Dickens, 
 Pickwick Papers, ch. xii. 
 
 'And is it indeed true that they are so plied with the gun and the net 
 and the lime that the utter extinction of their species in these islands may 
 be looked upon as a by no means remote eventuality?' 
 
 1 In Spanish this structure was already ridiculed as strange and romantic 
 by Cervantes (1549-1617): — 'el jamas como se debe alabado caballero 
 D. Quijote' — 'The never-enough-to-be-praised Don Quixote.' — Ch. i. ; 
 translation by Charles Jarvis. 
 
510 OF SYNTAX. 
 
 ' There he puts down the varied and important matter he is about to say, 
 according to a large plan and tolerably strictly carried out arrangement.' — 
 Translation from German. 
 
 This is now sometimes used by highly qualified English 
 writers. 
 
 1 1 have now travelled through nearly every Department in France, and I 
 do not remember ever meeting with a dirty bed : this, I fear, cannot be said 
 of our happily in all other respects cleaner island.' — Mr. Weld, Vacation 
 in Brittany, 1866. 
 
 'Douglas, in the Nenia, p. 10, is so far as I know the first who called 
 attention to this passage of our great poet [Hamlet v. 1], as illustrating the 
 very commonly to be observed presence of " shards, flints, and pebbles," in 
 graves, into which it is difficult to think they could have got by accident.' — 
 George Roileston, M.D. On Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon Sepulture. 
 
 557. This expansibility of the noun applies equally to the 
 subject and to the object ; that is to say, it may take' place 
 either before or after the verb, or even both. It does not 
 often happen that the two wings of the sentence are expanded 
 in the same manner, because the uniformity would not be 
 pleasing. But the same order rules on the one side as on 
 the other; and variety is sought only to avoid monotony. 
 If we were speaking of the sense of liberty which is nourished 
 in a people by the habit of discussing and correcting the laws 
 which bind them, we might say, — 
 
 Deliberation implies consent. 
 
 Continuous deliberation implies continuous consent. 
 
 A continuous deliberation implies a continuous consent. 
 
 A continuous deliberation on the law implies a continuous consent to the 
 law. 
 
 A continuous deliberation on the law by the subject, implies a continuous 
 assent to the law on the part of the subject. 
 
 A continuous deliberation on the law by the subject through the medium 
 of representation, implies a continuous assent to the law on the part of the 
 subject in his own proper person. 
 
I. FLAT. 513 
 
 A practically continuous deliberation . . , implies an absolutely continuous 
 assent, &c. 
 
 When the accumulation between the article (or pronoun) 
 and the substantive becomes overcharged, the sentence re- 
 covers its equilibrium by turning the qualifying phrase over 
 to the other side. Instead of ' a practically continuous de- 
 liberation' we may say 'a deliberation which is practically 
 continuous' ; and if we alter ' a tolerably strictly carried out 
 arrangement ' to ' an arrangement which is tolerably strictly 
 carried out ' we relieve the phrase of some part of its tur- 
 gidity. 
 
 558. And indeed we seem to trace a recurrent inversion 
 in the ordering of words in the Sentence. 
 
 The movement is so gradual, that to the national appre- 
 hension, and for all purposes of grammar, the collocative 
 habit is fixed. It is only if we look across great tracts of 
 time that we perceive the inversion. If we translate the 
 Latin verb ibo in the order of its elementary parts, it is, 
 go will I: but now all the great western languages say it 
 in this order, / ivill go. 
 
 The general habit of the old Indo-European languages 
 was to place the symbolic words after their presentives, and 
 it was out of this habit that terminal flexion grew so widely 
 prevalent. The modern languages put the pronouns and 
 prepositions before their verbs and nouns, and thus act as a 
 counterpoise to the ancient terminations. 
 
 The Mceso-Gothic remains are not generally available as 
 independent evidence of ancient collocation, because they so 
 largely obey the order of the Greek original. For this reason 
 I do not quote runa nemun (94) and many such, which else 
 would be to the point. But there is at least one case of 
 independent Gothic structure. When a single Greek word 
 is resolved in translation into two or three words, we then 
 
5*2 OF SYNTAX. 
 
 see the native order of arrangement so far as these two or 
 three words are concerned, because it cannot be guided by 
 the Greek. In Matt. xi. 5, Ka8apl£ovTai is rendered ' hrainyai 
 wairthand,' i.e. 'clean become': and in verse 19, ediKatcoGrj 
 is thus given — 'uswaurhta gadomida warth,' i.e. 'righteous 
 judged is.' These are the exact reverse of the modern order, 
 ' become clean,' and ' is judged righteous.' 
 
 559. A like conclusion may be drawn from Particle-com- 
 position. We find particles which once were prefixes now 
 used as separable suffixes; thus Gower, in the Fifth Book 
 of the Confessio Amanfz's, says that the king ordered a table 
 to be set up and spread before his bed, only instead of ' set 
 up,' as we should now speak, he has it ' upset' : 
 
 ' Ther scholde be to-fore his bed, 
 A bord upset and faire spred :' — 
 
 In Acts xxvii. 16, 'We had much work to come by the 
 boat,' the verb to come by means to compass or get possession 
 of; and it is only an inverse reconstruction of the old verb 
 to become ( = by come), if we remember its first sense of 
 come about and so arrive at. 
 
 The adverb by is identical in origin with the prefix be-, and 
 both at first meant about, around. But this signification 
 being lost sight of, we find that round comes naturally in as 
 its reinforcer, and is ranged on the other side of the principal 
 as a counter-satellite to the particle be: — 
 
 ' Ham. Being thus be-netted round with villanies.' 
 
 William Shakspeare, Hamlet, v. 2. 29. 
 
 560. One of the most telling examples is the English 
 Negative. Its place is now after the verb, as / was not, 
 I will not. In early times it was before the verb, as the 
 coalesced forms nas and mil sufficiently prove. 
 
 And this case of the Negative is only a particular instance 
 
I. FLAT. 513 
 
 of a rule which applies on a large scale to the station of 
 adverbs in attendance on verbs. In the whole tribe of verbal 
 prefixes we see the relics of a time when the adverb stood 
 before the verb. In the living English language the adverb 
 has taken the opposite stand. We retain comparatively few 
 of the elder sort from our old mother tongue, such as 
 
 Left. Right. 
 
 alight get off 
 
 upheave heave up 
 
 but we have borrowed them abundantly from Latin and 
 French; and we may array the foreign borrowings against 
 the genuine English. 
 
 ascend go up 
 
 depart go away 
 
 descend come down 
 
 pervade pass through. 
 
 561. The three languages are variously affected towards this 
 movement. The French have the Left structure altogether, 
 and this is the chief source of that curiously bookish savour 
 which French conversation has upon an English palate that 
 has for a long time been deprived of the pleasure of it. The 
 Germans use both Left and Right according to some obscure 
 and rigidly grammatical rules, which bring more trouble 
 to the learner than profit to the diction. The English retain 
 both with the happiest effect as to copiousness and the 
 increased power of suiting speech to time, place, person, and 
 occasion; to be homely or dignified, playful or stately, as 
 may happen to be required. 
 
 Perhaps enough has been said to indicate traces of a law 
 which the student may further exemplify for himself 1 . Of the 
 
 1 The Japanese language offers an admirable illustration. The native 
 grammarians distinguish their nouns, verbs, adjectives, numerals and pro- 
 nouns very carefully from their particles, which they call Teniwoha. This 
 
 l1 
 
514 OF SYNTAX. 
 
 operative cause of this alternation, we shall have something 
 to say in the last chapter. For the present we will only add 
 that this double movement seems to deserve a name, such as 
 Heteroblastesis or Yon-strif l . 
 
 562. The movement is slow, and each age enjoys its own 
 habits of collocation, with all the security of an immutable 
 thino:. Without this condition, an inversion of order could 
 not be the great resource that it now is for conveying variety of 
 signification. If the order of pronoun and verb in ' you are ' 
 were not firm, the mere change of order to ' are you ' would 
 not convey all the transition from assertion to interrogation. 
 On this single variation there hinges in our family a series 
 of syntactic consequences. Close to interrogation is con- 
 tingency and hypothesis; and consequently we make a 
 Conditional Mood by this mere inversion of order. Thus 
 ' Were the whole realm of nature mine,' is equivalent to ' if it 
 were mine/ More rarely in prose, as : ' And what will you 
 do should you find them out ? ' — Mrs. Trimmer, The History 
 of the Robins^ ch. iv. In English prose we commonly use 
 conjunctions for this purpose, and we keep the inversion for 
 poetry : that is to say, our prose is after the French ' Si tout 
 le monde etait a moi/ while our poetry retains the Gothic 
 
 grammatical term is composed of four of the commonest of those particles, 
 namely, te, ni, wo, and ha. Under this class come the article and the 
 preposition, besides verbal and adjectival terminations. It is a standing rule 
 of syntax, in this as in all the languages of the Altaic family, that every 
 defming word precedes the word defined. ' Thus the adjective precedes the 
 noun, the adverb the verb, the genitive the word which governs it, the 
 objective case the verb, and the word governed by a preposition the 
 preposition.' On the other hand, the Teniwoha which are the signs of 
 Mood and Tense, and sometimes of Person, Number and Case, are suffixed 
 to the words they modify; presenting us with a dual system of Collocation 
 analogous to the instances cited above. — A Grammar of the Japanese 
 Written Language; luith a Short Chrestomaihy. By G. W. Aston, M.A. 
 
 1 In the west country the liveliest expression for growth, whether o{ man 
 or beast or plant, is the verb to strive, which in this use provokes comparison 
 with the German tvcibeit. 
 
I. FLAT. 515 
 
 faculty of collocative structure. In German and Danish this 
 inversion is one of the commonest means of expressing 
 modality even in prose, as in the following from Ludwig 
 Holbero: : — 
 
 ' Men vil du giore, hvad jeg beder dig, skal du nyde gode Dage.' — Den 
 pa?itsatte Bondedreng, Act i. Scene 3. 
 
 ' But if thou will do, what I bid thee, thou shalt taste good days.' — The 
 Prentice Pawned, i. 3. 
 
 563. So well established is the general order of collocation, 
 that marked divergences arrest the attention, and have, by 
 reason of their exceptional character, a force which may be 
 converted into a useful rhetorical effect ; thus — 
 
 beauties the most opposite. 
 
 ' Having been successively subject to all these influences, our language has 
 become as it were a sort of centre to which beauties the most opposite con- 
 verge.' — H. T. W. Wood, The Reciprocal Influence of French and English 
 Literature in the Eighteenth Century, 1870. 
 
 It occasionally happens that the surprise of an unusual 
 order becomes the evidence to our minds that there is such a 
 thing as a usual order of collocation. In the following sen- 
 tence the putting of the comparative clause before the verb 
 is an illustration of this : — 
 
 ' And this it is that I think I have seen, and that I wish, if I can be so 
 happy, to shew to those who need it more than myself, and who better than 
 myself may profit by it.' — The Mystery of Pain. 
 
 When in the Idylls we read of the ' Table Round,' we ex- 
 perience a sort of pleasure from the strangeness of the collo- 
 cation by which the adjective is put after its substantive : 
 starting from the principle that the reverse is the true 
 English order of collocation. This is proper to poetry and 
 high style; and it is one of the traces which early French 
 culture has left on our literature : — 
 
 l 1 2 
 
516 OF SYNTAX. 
 
 ' Seed rovall.' — 2 Kings xi. I. 
 
 ' Devastation universal.' — Isaac Taylor, Natural History of Enthusiasm. 
 
 1 A spring perennial rising in the heart.' 
 
 Edward Young, Night Thoughts, viii. 958. 
 
 564. Our habits of collocation are very firmly established, 
 so much so, that the Part of Speech is chiefly determined 
 by the position of the word. This is only the reverse state- 
 ment of that which has been already exemplified above 
 (554), where it has been shewn that each Part of Speech 
 has its own proper situation. A crucial test of the im- 
 portance of this habit may be found if we can get a word 
 which has in the course of our history changed its speech- 
 part-ship. Such a word we have in only, which was mostly 
 an adjective in our elder literature, and is now mostly an 
 adverb. In the following line of Spenser, 
 
 ' But th' only shade and semblant of a knight.' 
 
 The Faery Queene, iii. 2. 38, 
 
 only is an adjective equivalent to mere ; as ' the mere shade.' 
 If we preserve the order we must change the word : but if we 
 will keep the word we must change the order, and say, ' only 
 the shade/ 
 
 In such cases the unaccustomed reader is checked by 
 meeting what seems a familiar word in a strange position. 
 
 ' Thou art only the most Highest oyer all the earth.' — Psalm lxxxiii. 18, 
 elder version. 
 
 In the manuscript Prayer Book of 1661 we read: ' In the 
 time of the plague . . . when none of the neighbours can be 
 gotten to communicate with the sick, . . . the Minister may 
 only communicate with him.' The Fourth Report (1870) of 
 the Commissioners on Public Worship contains the pro- 
 
I. FLAT. 517 
 
 posed amendment : ' the Minister alone may communicate 
 with him.' In this instance we have a change both of the 
 word and of the position; and the double change carries 
 withal a new meaning. 
 
 Collocation changes the grammatical character of the 
 symbol of, which is an adverb if we say, according to English 
 idiom, 'that which I spoke to you of (Genesis xxviii. 15); 
 but a preposition if we use the French construction, ' that of 
 which I spoke to you.' 
 
 565. But the palmary example of the great import of col- 
 location in our language is that of the transformation of a 
 substantive into an adjective by position alone. Instances 
 abound of the alternate use of the same word as substantive 
 and adjective ; thus, horse chestnut, chestnut horse ; School 
 Board, Board School. There is hardly anything more charac- 
 teristic of our language than this particular faculty. 
 
 cottage dames. 
 
 ' What sages would have died to learn, 
 Now taught by cottage dames.' 
 
 Christian Fear, ' Catechism.' 
 
 noontide solace, summer grass, mother earth. 
 
 ' Like a shadow thrown 
 Softly and lightly from a passing cloud, 
 Death fell upon him, while reclined he lay 
 For noontide solace on the summer grass, 
 The warm lap of his mother earth : ' — 
 
 William Wordsworth, The Excursion, Bk. VII. 
 
 stone weapons, stone implements, stone age. 
 
 5 Stone weapons of many kinds were still in use during the age of bronze, 
 and even during that of iron, so that the mere presence of a few stone 
 implements is not in itself sufficient evidence that any given " find " belongs 
 to the stone age.' — Sir John Lubbock, Pre-Historic Times, second ed. 1869 ; 
 
 P-3- 
 
5*8 OF SYNTAX. 
 
 vine disease, cattle disease, potato disease. 
 
 ' In Hungary there has been no vine disease, no cattle disease, and no 
 potato disease.' 
 
 Permanent characters are stamped on words from the 
 accident of their having; survived in a particular colloca- 
 tion. The combination ' weird sisters ' in Macbeth being the 
 parent of all extant usage of weird, it has resulted that this 
 word is known only as an adjective to the modern language, 
 although in Saxon it was known only as a substantive, 
 namely ivyrd, fate. 
 
 566. This constructive juxtaposition of two nouns stands 
 in an intimate relation with that great body of English com- 
 pounds which will be treated of in the first section of the 
 next chapter. But nearly related as these two features are, 
 they must be carefully distinguished from one another, as 
 their very tendency to blend makes it the more necessary to 
 keep them well apart. Just as the lowest stage of organised 
 existence is that in which we are met by the difficulty of dis- 
 tinguishing between animal and vegetable life, so here, in 
 the most elementary region of syntax, we are hardly able to 
 keep the organism of the phrase distinct from that of the 
 word. When grass green could make its negative grass 
 ungreen (509) it was not yet a compound as now it is. 
 In many modern instances there is fair room for doubt 
 whether two words are in the compound or the construct 
 state. Perhaps some of the following may be so regarded : 
 race horse, horse race ; field path, path field ; herb garde?:, 
 garde?i herb. These may be written either with or without 
 the hyphen, that is to say, either as compound words or as 
 words in construction. In such cases it is not to be sup- 
 posed that principle is wanting, but that through the fine- 
 ness of the difference our discernment is at fault in the 
 application of the principle. 
 
I. FLAT. 519 
 
 The following from a first-class print is a clear instance 
 of a misplaced hyphen ; it ought to be written thus — 
 
 marriage settlements. 
 
 'The Married Women's Property Act, 1870, was intended to prevent the 
 personal properly of a woman, her wages and earnings, being at the absolute 
 mercy and control of her husband's creditors. It was supposed that it would 
 be an especial protection to that poorer class of women whose property 
 before marriage was too small to be worth the expense and life-long trouble 
 of marriage-settlements.' 
 
 567. Before the development of flexion and symbolism, 
 there was a dearth of means for expressing those modifica- 
 tions which are now effected by adverbs and adverbial phrases. 
 In the collocational stage of syntax, the chief means resorted 
 to for this end was repetition. Early languages bear about 
 them traces of this contrivance. The Hebrew is remark- 
 able for this. The following little specimen may serve as 
 an indication. In Mark vi. 39, 40, there occurs a Hebraism 
 in the Greek text which is not rendered, and indeed hardly 
 could be rendered, in English. The Hebrew (we will call 
 it) says ' companies companies,' and ' ranks ranks.' The 
 English says ' by companies ' and ' in ranks.' Here we 
 have a certain idea expressed in the one by a syntax of 
 collocation, for repetition is a form of collocation ; and in 
 the other by a syntax of symbolism, namely, by the inter- 
 vention of prepositions. Here then we have the most 
 ancient form of expressing this idea, contrasted with the 
 most modern. Between these two lies the fiexional way 
 of saying the same thing. The true Greek idiom or the 
 Latin gives it to us flexionally in the forms elXrjftov and 
 catcrvatim, which we cannot match by any extant expression 
 in English. 
 
 568. It seldom happens that means which have once been 
 largely used, even though they should be superseded by 
 
5 2 ° OF S FN TAX. 
 
 newer contrivances, are entirely abolished. We still have 
 recourse to mere repetition for heightening an effect ; as— 
 
 'A lesson too too hard for living clay.' 
 
 The Faery Queene, iii. 4. 26. 
 
 'Oh that this too too solid flesh would melt!' 
 
 Hamlet, i. 2. 
 
 'Here we go up up up; and here we go doivn down down, is a rule 
 of universal application, expressing the average, the balance, which pre- 
 vails in human affairs.'— Frederic Eden, The Nile without a Dragoman 
 1871 ; ch. xii. 
 
 569. We will close this section with the flat infinitive, or 
 infinitive expressed by position alone. The most peculiarly 
 English use is that of the infinitive after the verb do, as 
 I do think, I did expect. 
 
 But the construction is precisely similar in such cases as 
 the following: — 
 
 I will hope. 
 
 I shall go. 
 
 You cannot think. 
 
 You may try. 
 
 You might get. 
 
 They would have. 
 
 They should not have. 
 
 They shall smart. 
 
 In all these the final word is an infinitive by position, 
 In Saxon it would have been expressed by a flexional 
 infinitive. Our present flat infinitive cannot therefore be 
 derived from Saxon, but must be regarded as an example 
 in language of a tendency to reversion from the more 
 
I. FLAT. 521 
 
 advanced and developed to the more primitive and arche- 
 typal forms of speech. 
 
 570. The positional stage of syntax is most highly displayed 
 in the Chinese language. This is in itself a confirmation 
 of the claim which Chinese literature makes to an exceed- 
 ingly high antiquity. Speaking generally, it may be said 
 that the whole of Chinese grammar depends upon position. 
 Chinese words change their grammatical character as sub- 
 stantives, adjective? verbs, according to their relative posi- 
 tions in the collocation of the sentence (223). M. Julien 
 has published a Chinese syntax with a title in which this 
 principle is conspicuously displayed 1 . From a notice of 
 this work in the Academy the following illustration is bor- 
 rowed : — 
 
 • For instance, the character tch'i, " to govern," if placed before a sub- 
 stantive remains a verb, as tcVi koiie, " to govern a kingdom ; " if the order 
 of these two characters is reversed, they signify "the kingdom is governed;" 
 and if the character tch'i be placed after chi, " a magistrate," it becomes a 
 substantive, and the two words are then to be translated " the administration 
 of the magistrates." ' 
 
 Very remarkable is the plasticity of signification which 
 such a grammatical system demands. I imagine that the 
 best European illustration of the Chinese language is to be 
 found in our flat syntax, and the second best in the German 
 compounds. 
 
 It must not be supposed that the Chinese language stands 
 alone in the possession of such a syntax : what it does stand 
 alone in, is in the development of a great literature through 
 means so rudimentary. The whole outer field of so-called 
 
 1 Syntaxe Nouvelle de la Langue Chinoise, fondee sur la Position des 
 Mots, suivie de deux Traites sur les Particules, et les principaux Termes de 
 Grammaire, d'une Table des Idiotismes, de Fables, de Legendes et d'Apo- 
 logues traduits mot a mot. Par M. Stanislas Julien. Paris : Librairie de 
 Maisonneuve. London: Triibner and Co., 1 869. 
 
522 OF SYNTAX. 
 
 Allophylian languages, those namely which lie outside the 
 Aryan and Semitic families, appear to be of this character. 
 Mr. Farrar, in his Families of Speech, p. 160, divides these 
 into — (i) Isolating, i.e. monosyllabic and unsyntactical ; (2) 
 Agglutinating; (3) Polysynthetic : — and all these varieties 
 are but so many different stages and conditions of the posi- 
 tional. This is therefore to be regarded as the basement 
 storey of all syntax, and it is largely discoverable in the 
 English language. 
 
 II. Syntax of Flexion. 
 
 571. Flexion is any modification of a word whereby its 
 relation to the sentence is indicated. The power which 
 flexion has in this respect is very variable, in some languages 
 great, in others small ; in the classical stage of the Latin 
 language it was so great as almost to eclipse and suspend 
 the importance of collocation. This has been indicated at 
 the opening of the previous section. 
 
 The English language is at the opposite extreme : the 
 syntactic import of flexion is with us very low, and as 
 compared with the import of collocation, it may be said 
 almost to count for nothing. 
 
 The syntax of the English language is therefore at its 
 weakest in this division. We can only collect a few re- 
 maining features, which have lived through the collision of 
 the transition period, and have up to the present time defied 
 the innovations of the symbolic movement. We will con- 
 sider these relics in order, taking first those of the normal, 
 and afterwards those of the verbal flexion. 
 
 572. We have retained the genitive singular of nouns, 
 as ' Simon's wife's mother,' Luke iv. 38. This possessival 
 
II. FLEX ION AL. 523 
 
 termination detached itself, and passed into a pronoun- 
 flexion by a sort of degeneracy, as in 'John his book.' 
 An original document of the year 1525, by the Prior of 
 Bath, in the possession of Edward Howse, Esq., begins 
 thus : ' To all true Cristen people to whome this present 
 wrytyng Indentour shall come William Hollowaye by Gode 
 is suffer nee Pfiour,' &c. And again in the same : ' As they 
 haue doone in tyme paste whan the saide pastures were in 
 the lorde is handes, Soo that thereby the lorde is owne 
 werkes elles where and woode carriage be nott nestoppede 
 att any tyme.' 
 
 This supplies the intermediate step between -es and his ; 
 and the following quotation supplies an example of the sort 
 of occasion on which this separable flexion would be felt as 
 a convenience : — 
 
 his. 
 
 1 The Cathedrall Churche of Christe in Oxford of Kinge Henry theight 
 his fowndac'on.' — Assignment by John Haryngton to William Blanchard of 
 Catterne, 1594. 
 
 573. Some genitival phrases we have lost altogether, as 
 fer dayes, equivalent in the fifteenth century to far on in the 
 day; and early days, early in the day, which though not 
 extinct, seems now to be regarded as a plural. 
 
 fer dayes. 
 
 ' Ther was a ladi that duelled fast hi the chirche, that toke euery day 
 so longe tyme to make her redv that it made wery and angri the person 
 of the chirche and the parisshenes to abide after her. And she happed 
 to abide so longe on a sonday that it was fer dayes. and euery man said to 
 other. •' This day we trow shall not this lady be kerned and arraied." ' — 
 La Tour Landry, ed. T. Wright, ch. xxxi. 
 
 early days. 
 
 ''Tis but early dayes.' — W. Shakspeare, Troilus and Cfstsida, iv. 512. 
 
5^4 OF SYNTAX. 
 
 To this group belongs the formula nowadays, written in 
 the fifteenth century ?ioiv a dayes. 
 
 Our adverbial genitive is but a relic, and so it has been 
 during the whole of the present period (435). Indeed 
 it has never been so strong with us as in German. Perhaps 
 we could not find anywhere in our literature so bold an ex- 
 ample of this kind as Luther's ftracfS £auf3 in Acts xvi. n, 
 where we have 'with a straight course.' 
 
 574. Of pronominal flexion there is but little remaining 
 which really serves any purpose of syntax. The accusa- 
 tives me, him, her, whom, and the genitive whose, are the 
 chief. In such cases as of me, to him, from them, it is true 
 that me, him, them, are inflections; but then the relation 
 which they once served to express is now expressed by the 
 preposition. Mine may be regarded as a flexion by an 
 archaeological effort of mind, for it is an old genitive of 
 me. But in its ordinary use there is no call to think of this, 
 for it appears as an adjectival pronoun. When it is so used 
 as to shew a trace of its old genitival extraction, then it 
 is accompanied with a preposition, and so comes under the 
 next division, as ' That boy of mine.' 
 
 We have, however, dative pronouns without the preposi- 
 tion, as in give me, tell him, and in our elder literature more 
 
 frequently : — 
 
 me. 
 
 • That my hand may be restored mee againe.' — I Kings xiii. 6. 
 
 In the following quotation him in the second part is equiva- 
 lent to the unto him that went before : — 
 
 ' Lend not vnto him that is mightier then ray selfe ; for if thou Iendest 
 him, count it but lost.' — Ecclesiasticus viii. 12. 
 
 In the next quotation we should now say to him : — 
 ' And sent him them to Jezreel.' — 2 Kings x. 7. 
 
//. FLEXIONAL. 525 
 
 Not even a poet in our day could write her for to her in such 
 a structure as this : — 
 
 ' His lovely words her seemd due recompence.' 
 
 The Faery Qneene, i. 3. 30. 
 
 Me thinks is now written as one word. It consists of me in 
 the dative case, and thinks, an old impersonal equivalent to 
 the Latin videtur, radically connected no doubt with our verb 
 'I think/ 'he thinks/ but quite distinct from it. The 
 distinction is kept up in German between benft the verb 
 of thought, and bint ft of seeming, which is that now 
 before us. 
 
 575. A noted instance of pronominal flexion which we 
 have borrowed from the French, and which has become 
 thoroughly English, though it has long lain under the dis- 
 approval of the powers of Latin scholarship, is the use of 
 the objective case in the expressions it is me, it is him. 
 Latin syntax has almost taught us to think that it is I is 
 the only correct formula 1 . This latter is however a thing 
 of no definite lineage ; it is a hybrid between French idiom, 
 which says cest mot, and Latin scholasticism, which dic- 
 tates that the substantive verb must have the same case 
 after it as before it. Before this conflict of French against 
 supposed Latin, there was a native idiom which ran very 
 close to the real idiom both of Latin and of Greek in 
 regard to this formula. Our pure mother tongue had it 
 thus : / am it, thou art it, he is it, or // am I, &c. And 
 the Germans retain with fidelity the family style, with their 
 Set; Bin eg, <£r ift eg. Let us compare the sister-dialects in 
 John ix. 9 : — 
 
 1 For a lively statement of the case, see Dean Alford, in Queens 
 Efiglish. 
 
526 OF SYNTAX. 
 
 Anglo-Saxon, 995. Luther, i-,^- 
 
 Sume cwsedon, He hyt is ; sume (Stltdje fpmcfyett : (Si* tft e8. 
 
 cwsedon, Nese, ac is him gelic. He (Stttcfye after : (Sr ift U)1U afynlid). 
 cwseJ; soplice, Ic hit eom. (§x felftji after fprad) : 3d) Mu e$. 
 
 If to the above we add the s of most nouns plural and 
 the en of a very few ; also the s of the pronouns his, hers, its, 
 ours, yours, theirs; and further, the -er and -est of adjectival 
 comparison, — we have exhausted the relics of nounal and 
 pronounal flexion which survive in the English language. 
 
 576. Cut the verb is the great stronghold of flexion. 
 More than any other part of speech it attracts and attaches 
 inflections to itself in times when flexion is growing : and on 
 the other hand, when flexion is on the wane, the verb is the 
 most retentive of its relics, and the most reluctant to part 
 with them. There is no language of Western Europe in 
 which the verb has parted with its flexion more than in 
 English. The Gothic languages are the most advanced 
 in this respect, and especially the Danish, Swedish, and 
 English. 
 
 The verbal inflections, which are still used to express 
 person, tense, or mood, are as follows : — 
 
 (See) seest, sees, seeth, saw, sawtst, seen, seeing. 
 (Look) lookest, looks, looketh, looked, lookedst, looking. 
 
 Half of these are antiquated, and all that are in habitual use 
 are, — 
 
 sees, saw, seen, seeing, 
 looks, looked, looking. 
 
 577. A feature worthy of contemplation is that whereby 
 the flexion which expresses past time is employed also for 
 contingency or uncertainty. It appears as if the link of 
 
//. FLEXIONAL. q27 
 
 sympathy between the two things thus rendered by a self- 
 same formula were remoteness from the speaker's pos- 
 session. 
 
 Looking at the word attempted by itself we should as- 
 sociate it with the idea of past time, but in the following 
 sentence it expresses contingency and not time, or if it 
 regards time at all, the time is future. 
 
 ' His power would break and shiver like glass, if he attempted it.' 
 
 In the following quotations this twofold power is well 
 seen in the form 
 
 had. 
 
 ' I say not that she ne had kunnyng 
 What harme was, or els she 
 Had coulde no good, so thinketh me, 
 And trewly, for to speke of trouth, 
 But she had had, it had be routh.' 
 
 Chaucer, Tie Booke of the Datchesse, 996. 
 
 ' He had catched a great cold, had he had no other clothes to wear than 
 the skin of a bear not yet killed.' — Thomas Fuller. 
 
 Hence it comes that the apodosis to had is often would be, 
 or would have. 
 
 ' If this man had not twelve thousand a-year, he would be a very stupid 
 fellow.' — Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, ch. iv. 
 
 ' And some among you held, that if the King 
 Had seen the sight, he would have sworn the vow.' 
 
 Alfred Tennyson, The Holy Grail. 
 
 578. In the single case of the verb to be, however, there 
 are distinct forms for the subjunctive tenses. Be was 
 originally indicative, as it still is in Devonshire, and in our 
 Bible: 'They be blind leaders of the blind.'— Matt. xv. 14. 
 But inasmuch as the present had another form is, are, a 
 division of labour took place, whereby be was reserved for 
 
528 OF SYNTAX. 
 
 the subjunctive and conditional present. In the revision 
 of the Common Prayer Book in t6ii, are was substituted 
 for be in forty-three places, and the indicative be was left 
 standing in one place only, namely this — 'Which be they?' 1 
 The subjunctive thus recently acquired is now antiquated ; 
 and not even in a sermon of the present day should we 
 meet with the like of this of Isaac Barrow's : — 
 
 ' Be we never so urgently set, or closely intent upon any work (be we 
 feeding, be we travelling, be we trading, be we studying), nothing yet can 
 forbid, but that we may together wedge in a thought concerning God's 
 goodness, and bolt forth a word of Praise for it.' — The Duty of Prayer. 
 
 On the same principle was and were took distinct offices : — 
 
 were, 
 
 ' I am not able to unfold, how this cautelous enterprise of licencing can 
 be exempted from the number of vain and impossible attempts. And he 
 who were pleasantly dispos'd, could not well avoid to liken it to the exploit 
 of that gallant man who thought to pound up the crows by shutting his 
 Park-gate.' — John Milton, Areopagitica. 
 
 4 If every action which is good or evill in man at ripe years were to be 
 under pittance, and prescription, and compulsion, what were vertue but a 
 name, what praise could be then due to well-doing, what grammercy to be 
 sober, just, or continent ? ' — Id. 
 
 579. This were is not so freely employed now as it once 
 was, and if it goes out, it will be a beauty lost. But however 
 it may be with colloquy and familiar prose, it can hardly 
 be spared from poetry and the style of dignity: — 
 
 ' But to live by law, 
 Acting the law we live by without fear; 
 And, because right is right, to follow right, 
 Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.' 
 
 Alfred Tennyson, CEnone. 
 
 1 From the beautiful photozincographic facsimile done at the Ordnance 
 Survey Office in Southampton. 
 
II. FLEXIONAL. 529 
 
 Should these subjunctives be and were fall into complete 
 desuetude, they will leave behind some fossil traces of their 
 existence in the conjunction howbeit, and in the phrasal ad- 
 verb as it tv ere. 
 
 In the case of ordinary verbs, the subjunctive is dis- 
 tinguished from the indicative merely by the denudation of 
 flexion ; but this distinction now lives in poetry only : — 
 
 ' and age to age, 
 Though a'l else pass and fail, delivereth 
 At least the great tradition of their God.' 
 
 Frederic W. H. Myers. St. John the Baptist. 
 
 580. We will close this section as we closed the previous 
 
 one, with the infinitive. The old grammatical infinitive in -en 
 
 lingered in our language as late as the Elizabethan period. 
 
 Thus Surrey : — 
 
 say en. 
 
 1 Give place, ye lovers, here before 
 That spent your boasts and brags in vain; 
 My lady's beauty passeth more 
 The best of yours, I dare well sayen, 
 Than doth the sun the candle light, 
 Or brightest day the darkest night.' 
 
 We lost the infinitive in -en, but we unconsciously retained 
 the same thing in a slightly disguised form, namely with the 
 ending -ing. 
 
 In the fifteenth century we find an intermediate and 
 variable termination, -yng and -yn. The Promptorium Par- 
 vulorum has it throughout in the form -yn. The following 
 from Caxton exhibits both : — 
 
 makyng and reducyn. 
 
 • Besechyng al them that this litel werke shal see / here / or rede to haue 
 me for excused for the rude & symple makyng and reducyn in to our 
 englisshe.' — The Game of the Chesse, a.d. I474 ; Preface. 
 
 580 a. The tendency to turn -an or -en into -ing shews 
 
 m m 
 
53° OF SYNTAX. 
 
 itself elsewhere: thus, Abbandun has become Abingdon-, and 
 we are all pretty familiar with such forms as capling, chicking 
 [Little Dorrit, 184), childring, garding, lunching. When 
 the mincl has lost its hold on the meaning of a given form, 
 the organs of speech are apt to slide into any contiguous 
 form that has more present currency or is more vital with 
 present meaning. The -an or -en of the infinitive became 
 -ing because it was surrounded with nouns and participles in 
 -ing which differed from the infinitive by a difference too 
 fine to be held-to in the transition and Early English periods, 
 with their neglect of the vernacular. Hence it has become 
 traditional to explain this form always either as a substantive 
 or as a present participle. But there is a large class of 
 instances to which these explanations will not apply. In such 
 a sentence as the following, ' Europeans are no match for 
 Orientals at evading a question,' evading is clearly a verb 
 governing its substantive ; and yet it is not a participle, for 
 it has nothing adjectival about it. By an infinitive I under- 
 stand a verb in a substantival aspect ; by a participle, a verb 
 in an adjectival aspect. In the saying of Rowland Hill to 
 his co-pastor Theophilus Jones, ' Never mind breaking 
 grammar if/ &c, the word breaking is clearly a verb, and 
 can be no otherwise grammatically designated than as an 
 infinitive. The nature of the participle is seen in the 
 following : — 
 
 ' All is hazard that we have, 
 Here is nothing bideing ; 
 Daves of pleasure are like streams 
 Through faire Medows gliding.' 
 
 Ballad Society, vol. i. p. 350. 
 
 580 b. The analysis of a sentence is, however, a subjective 
 act, as we have already observed ; and if any insist on mentally 
 supplying the formula requisite to establish the participial 
 character of every verb in -ing, I know of no argument 
 
II. FLEXION A L. 53 1 
 
 potent enough to restrain them. But there is a large number 
 of instances in which I think that whether the case be his- 
 torically or grammatically tested, it must be pronounced an 
 infinitive. As this is a point of some importance, I have 
 collected rather a copious list of examples of the infinitive 
 in -ing. 
 
 Historically there is no case clearer than that in which it 
 follows verbs of coming or going ; as — _ 
 
 'ffor yonder I see her come rydinge.' 
 
 Percy Ballads, ed. Furnivall, vol. i. p. 160. 
 
 'This Lady when shee came thus ryding,' — Id. p. 161. 
 
 Sometimes the grammatical position is further illustrated 
 by the help of the French- # before these infinitives : — 
 
 ' Oh how shall the dumb go a courting ? ' Bloomfield. 
 
 580 c. Perhaps the plainest instances (to the modern 
 grammatical sense) are those in which the word has a verbal 
 government, and yet cannot be accounted a participle, as — 
 
 dropping, drawing. 
 
 ' Defend me, therefore, common sense, say I, 
 From reveries so airy, from the toil 
 Of dropping buckets into empty wells, 
 And growing old in drawing nothing up.' 
 
 William Cowper, The Garden. 
 
 %> 
 
 finding 
 
 ' And I can see that Mrs. Grant is anxious for her not finding Mansfield 
 dull as winter comes on.' — Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, vol. ii. ch. 3. 
 
 giving, acquiring. 
 
 ' I am convinced a man might sit down as systematically and as suc- 
 cessfully to the study of wit, as he might to the study of the mathematics ; 
 and I would answer' for it, that, by giving up only six hours a day to being 
 witty, he should come on prodigiously before midsummer, so that his 
 
 m m 2 
 
532 OF SYNTAX. 
 
 friends should hardly know him again. For what is there to hinder the 
 mind from gradually acquiring a habit of attending to the lighter relations 
 of ideas in which wit consists'? Punning grows upon everybody, and pun- 
 ning is the wit of words.' — Sydney Smith. Wit and Humour. 
 
 simplifying. 
 
 ' I feel it a surprise, every time I see Parry : there seems to be a power 
 ot simplifying whatever comes near him, an atmosphere in which trifles 
 die a natural death." — Memoirs of Sir W. E. Parry. 
 
 believing in. 
 
 o 
 
 '' Babes are not expected to prove their relationship before believing in 
 their mothers.' — Laurence Oliphant, Piccadilly (1S70), p. 275. • 
 
 organizing, gathering, obtaining, distributing, detecting. 
 
 * Organizing charitable relief over areas conterminous with those of the 
 Poor Law, and gathering together all the representative forces we can for 
 common action, seems to us the best method of obtaining the two impor- 
 tant aims of distributing judicious charity and detecting imposition.' — 
 Alsager Hay Hill, Times, October 22, 1869. 
 
 mar r 1 vng, aba ndt >// ing. 
 
 ' Their choice lies. then, only between marrying money, or abandoning 
 all their connexions, habits, and amusements.' — John Boyd - Kinnear, 
 Woman's Work, 353. 
 
 creating. 
 
 ' It does not seem sate in regard to this to rely on the ordinary rule of 
 demand creating supply.' — Sir J. T. Coleridge, Keble, p. 3S1. 
 
 predicting, conspiring. 
 
 • Some people will never distinguish between predicting an eclipse and 
 conspiring to bring it about.' 
 
 leaving, 
 
 1 Csesar spent his winters at Lucca without leaving his province.' — E. A. 
 Freeman, Essays, vii. p. 166. 
 
 580 d. A very good illustration of our point is furnished 
 by sentences of the varying type, thus : — ' It is quite possible 
 for you to carry your point, without gaining your end/ 
 
//. flexiOj :l. $53 
 
 Here the infinitive-regnant with to stands counte: th 
 
 \ :. :: :::.'.:.:. ir.f.r .:::■ : — 
 
 V7 ;•:-■;-. : ] ' ' '. ' '..'. '. '. t0U5t 1 
 
 When there are a gpeat r:.an}- i: 
 it is here as elsewht 
 the meat ing monot c — 
 
 • - • i - • • ■ : 
 
 -_':_'. '.-.-. r.:;-t '.:" -.:•'. t:y :• :r. ~e:/i ~-i-ft:t aiid ansel&b use •. :" them; ::. 
 simplicity and nobleness of spirit inert-. 
 fathers become easy anc 
 
 t:.i~. zz.'.'.'.> '-'.'. -ri:t 's.: : :.:".:.:: ::. :t.:.r abk tc see the riches :* the 
 
 -. ;; : .:.:::i- : .: l\ : : •. *. : t: '. .: ;. rir;- _:■;:. ::. t::. : .1 ; r." g abk to adlE : : 
 and forego.' — f . Serwor. 
 
 5 S e . A c i • e that k 
 
 ir.'i ':.:::.'";:■ "-;.-:. ::.ty ■.-:.:;: ::.".'. :.::.'..-:.■: ::.:.:..:: • es. active 
 
 :._:.:-.: — 
 
 7':.-: ;--•:": \--.-.\ ': ~.~~y.-~\\ ;:' i r^-i.l;. 7. •; _*; . -. \.r~. 17 ::r:l :•::; 
 v;:tr:.:-ti. — 7V. 77:. t. I:/i ;. _.-- 
 
 Ir. :r.t :.:::: :.;i^ :: -■■'„' i.i : :-: i'.^-vs.bk :c substi ate :: 
 have beard ' for * having heard — 
 
 -ecoiect having heard the raobfe lord the mem:'. - 
 in this House one of the best 
 
 i ■ ; : . : : t .:-.'. r.'.r.t: .'. ::: ;r: :: :.l.": ~ ::' 1mml7 '.-. :.;--..-.•.- v to the 
 irr.r.v ■■'-"• ■_:. v.-;...;]: i" I".' s:.r:.i:. ." r'r.t tr«.v* ;-• \: \-- •■ . ■■-,:-.: ::. 
 :':.z :iri 7.:: : ■ :.--"--.'• ~--. ::. r: e\: --*.:::. ' '.: t spirit : :' lbs aocdenl 
 Roman, Goes Romanics sum? — John Br 7 
 
 ... the close of the following quotation it 
 the same, and be equally correct, if 
 die place of /? Ar : — 
 
 * 1 did not show alQ roy dissatisfa: taon " "-nrever. Gdt 
 
 estranged ns; and it is not requsme: i it may I 
 
 .... . — . 
 
 . : \- .--.c :':• v.;.: _• :: ;- 7..r — 7t:ri~ 1-7:1 :•: i. : .-1 . .:.. :."' -^ ■ 
 
534 OF SYNTAX. 
 
 In the early days of the infinitive with to it was sometimes 
 pushed (like a new toy) beyond the sphere since allotted to 
 it, and we find it in places where the present language would 
 render it by the infinitive in -i?ig. Spenser has 
 
 ' For not to have been dipt in Lethe lake 
 Could save the son of Thetis from to die'; 
 
 which in modern English would be expressed thus : — ' His 
 having-been-dipped in Lethe could not save Achilles from 
 dying.' 
 
 580 f. The expression in the following line is certainly 
 condensed, and the grammar by no means explicit, but I 
 should be curious to know by what process of thought the 
 word writing could be accepted in any other character than 
 that of an infinitive : — 
 
 ' Nature's chief master-piece is writing well.' 
 
 Alexander Pope, Essay on Criticism, 725. 
 
 The expression ' about doing anything ' is not generally 
 approved by grammarians, yet it is met with in authors 
 of repute : — 
 
 ' Mrs. Wilson smiled, and, addressing herself to Mrs. Benson, said, Now, 
 madam, we will, if you please, return to the house; for I fancy by this time 
 dinner is nearly ready, and my husband and sons are about coming home.' — 
 Mrs. Trimmer, Fabulous Histories, ch. xx. 
 
 ' He was about retracing his steps, when he was suddenly transfixed to 
 the spot by a sudden appearance.' — Charles Dickens, Pickwick Papers, 
 ch. x.\iii. 
 
 The aversion which there is to this particular expression 
 might perhaps be modified if the verb in -ing were acknow- 
 ledged to be an infinitive. I apprehend that the ground of 
 
IL FLEXION AL. 5$$ 
 
 the objection to all such terms of expression as 'before 
 coming,' 'since leaving,' is that under the participial hypo- 
 thesis of ' coming ' the logical sentiment is dissatisfied. 
 
 580 g. The German scholar will hardly require to have 
 the reality of this old infinitive urged upon him, if he marks 
 how often the German infinitive can only be rendered by 
 the English verb in -ing. 
 
 Luthzr. l6ll. 
 
 ?lltcb IjaUll ftC mid) Utcfyt ge; ' And they neither found me in the 
 
 fltnben tut Jcnipcl mtt jcmanb Temple disputing with any man, 
 
 vebett, obet Ctnert ?tufntt)V tttadjetl neither raising vp the people,'— 
 
 tm ©Clf— Actsxxlv. 12. 
 
 There are some English constructions in which this infini- 
 tive stands out in as unequivocal a character as a German 
 or a Latin infinitive could do. Such is the case with attempt- 
 ing in the following extract : — 
 
 ' I am not sure that it is of very much use attempting to define exactly 
 what is meant by Honouring parents.'— R. W. Dale, The Ten Command- 
 ments, p. I 25. 
 
 The really dubious cases are those which arise from the 
 natural contiguity of the infinitive to the noun-substantive. 
 In fact these two blend so closely as to defy all attempts 
 at a line of demarcation 1 . I will therefore only say, that 
 in such instances as the following I think the meaning is 
 better apprehended by regarding them as verb-substantives, 
 that is to say, infinitives. 
 
 versing. 
 
 ' I once more smell the dew and rain, 
 
 And relish versing.' George Herbert. 
 
 1 One could not even convince a determined adversary on the ground of 
 their governing a case, if he were quick enough to remember that in Plautus 
 the Latin substantive in -io governs an accusative case just like a verb. 
 
$$6 OF SYNTAX. 
 
 flying. 
 
 'Johnny watched the swallows trying 
 Which was cleverest at flying.' 
 
 prelaling, labouring, lording. 
 
 ' Amend therfore, and ye that be prelates loke well to your office, for 
 right prelatynge is busye labourynge and not lordyng.' — Hugh Latimer, 
 The Ploughers, 1 549. 
 
 580 h. While we are on this flexional infinitive, I must 
 call attention to one of the finest of our provincialisms. It is 
 ■when this infinitive is used as something between active and 
 passive, as if it were a neutral voice, like the so-called 
 middle voice in Greek. In all classes of society in York- 
 shire it may be heard ; as, ' Do you want the tea making/ 
 ' I want my coat brushing,' ' Father wants the door shut- 
 ting,' &C. 1 
 
 We may well contend for the infinitival character of this 
 -ing, if only to rescue from the wreck of our old flexional 
 system some time-honoured relic. The English language 
 
 1 In the prospectus of a projected almanack which was circulated in 
 November, 1S69, and which was dated from Darwen, Lancashire, it is said 
 that ' The miscellaneous matter on the other pages of the almanack treats 
 of topics which the clergy are likely to want prominently placing before 
 their parishioners.' Not very unlike this is the expression in the Offertory 
 rubric ' While these sentences are in reading.' In modern English we 
 should make it passive, and say ' While these sentences are being read.' 
 Indeed we may regret the loss of this Yorkshire form, for we lack a middle 
 verb — a verb neither active nor passive. The French have managed it in 
 their reflex verbs, as se marier, and the Italians thus, maritarsi ; which goes 
 into English either by an active or passive. ' Je veux me marier' may either 
 be turned ' I will marry' or ' I intend to be married.' The nearest approach to 
 a distinct provision for a middle verb is that which has already been touched 
 on above, 299 — ' I mean to get married.' The French reflex verb was 
 partly copied, but it never reached the same effect. In many cases it is 
 inapplicable; we cannot say, ' Marry one's self: and though we can render 
 se sauver, ' save oneself,' yet no one would venture to use this middle form in 
 1 Cor. i. 18, toTs acu^ofxivois, as in the French of Carrieres, 'pour ceux qui 
 se sauvent.' 
 
III. PHRASAL. 5 37 
 
 has divested itself of flexion to a most remarkable degree. 
 But we must not suppose that when a language puts off the 
 garb of flexion it becomes with her as if she had never put 
 it on. 
 
 A language that had not passed through the flexional 
 stage could never have produced such a line as this : — 
 
 ' Whom us the more to spite his Maker rais'd.' 
 
 John Milton, Paradise Lost, ix. 177. 
 
 If it was difficult to accomplish the task of the first section 
 of this chapter, and delineate in a complete manner a syntax 
 of collocation, that difficulty was due to the influence of 
 flexion. Flexion itself may pass away, but its consequences 
 remain. 
 
 In a denexionised language like ours, though almost all 
 the flexions have themselves disappeared, they have not 
 carried away with them those modifications of arrangement 
 and collocation of which they first furnished the occasion. 
 
 III. Of Syntax by Symbolic Words. 
 
 581. The most convenient plan £or this section will be the 
 division into the svmbolism of the verb and the symbolism 
 of the noun. 
 
 This division will not only be found to rest upon a sound 
 philological basis, but it will also prove convenient from a 
 historical point of view. For that explicitness of syntax 
 which we have acquired by the development of symbolism, 
 is drawn partly from the Gothic and partly from the Roman 
 source. It may be said, speaking in general terms, that the 
 explicit verb has come to us from the Saxon, and the explicit 
 noun from the French. 
 
53$ OF SYNTAX. 
 
 The Explicit Verb. 
 
 The most signal example of a symbolic word is the 
 symbol-verb ' to be.' From the moment that this verb had 
 acquired its symbolic value, we may say that the reign of 
 flexion was doomed. Not that it is the universal solvent 
 of flexion, but it has been the chief means of undermining it 
 in its own favourite stronghold, the verb. We are told by 
 Sanskrit scholars that this symbol is found in the oldest 
 Sanskrit monuments, and that none of the Aryan languages 
 are without it. But if we compare its functions now in the 
 great languages of Europe with those which it had in Greek 
 and Latin, we shall find that the agency of this verb to be 
 has greatly enlarged its sphere.. Take for example the 
 passive verb, which had a complete flexional apparatus in 
 Greek as faXovftai. with its parts, and in Latin as amor with 
 its parts — all these flexions have disappeared, and in place 
 of each one of them has stepped in a function of this sym- 
 bolic verb. 
 
 Amor, I am loved. 
 
 Amabar, I was loved. 
 
 Amabor, I shall be loved. 
 
 Amarer, I should be loved, &c. 
 
 This substitution of symbol-verbs for inflections is found 
 equally in French and German : — Je suis aime ; 3d; 6m 
 (jeUefct. But in English we have our own peculiar little 
 openings for enlarging this ever-growing power of be. 
 Such idiomatic terms as ' I am to go,' ' She is to do it,' 
 ' Such a thing is to be,' ' I'm to be queen of the May,' 
 are thoroughly English. On the other hand, ' Where have 
 you been ? I have been to seek for you,' is French — ' Ou 
 avez vous ete? J'ai ete vous chercher.' 
 
 582. The great power of this symbol verb for revolution- 
 
III. PHRASAL. 539 
 
 izing flexional languages has lain a long time dormant. The 
 Hebrew is an eminently flexional language, especially in 
 regard to its system of verbs. Now the svmbol-verb is 
 there found in full development, but in very limited action. 
 The following statement will give some idea of the case. 
 In the English version of the little Book of Jonah, I count 
 forty-two occurrences of the verb ' to be,' but when I refer 
 to the original, I find that only six of these are represented 
 by the verb 'to be' in Hebrew. And as one of the cases 
 is not symbolic but substantive, we have the still wider 
 ratio of five to fortv-one. 
 
 It is this extension of the field of the symbol-verb which 
 has occasioned that stagnation of verbal development and 
 the corresponding enlargement of the nounal ranks which 
 has been noticed above (386). 
 
 583. When a new movement of this sort rises in language, 
 it commonly pushes itself forward till it awakens resistance. 
 So we see this symbol-verb ramifying with luxuriant varia- 
 tions, such as ' is being/ ' was being,' ' have to be,' ' had 
 better be/ 
 
 * Eric was a high-spirited son of a jarl of Jadar in Norway, who, opposing 
 the encroachments of the king upon his feudal rights, in common with his 
 class, was forced to flee the country. Escaping with his son, he established 
 himself in Iceland, which was then being peopled by such refugees from 
 tyranny and wrong ; and a society was being formed which, for love ot 
 liberty and the actual possession of republican freedom, has never been 
 excelled.' — Isaac J. Hayes, M.D., Greenland, ch. iv. 
 
 were being. 
 
 ' He saw, too, that in the name of liberty a hundred artificial and impos- 
 sible laws — laws not only limiting individual freedom, but binding nature 
 herself, if nature could be bound, and annihilating every wholesome influence 
 in order to form one Frankenstein-monster of a state — were being seriously 
 considered.' — Mrs. Oliphant, Montalembert,vo\. ii. p. 142. 
 
 have to be. 
 
 ' Many things have to be remembered before we can reason with safety on 
 this intricate subject.' — The Times, February 14, 1873. 
 
54° OF SYNTAX. 
 
 had better be. 
 
 ' A history of religious or political convictions conducted on this system 
 had better be entitled A history of prejudices.' — J. Venn, Hulsean Lectures 
 for 1869, p. 32. 
 
 From an early friend of Dr. Newman's I learnt that he 
 had long ago expressed a strong dislike to this cumulate 
 formula. I desired to be more particularly informed, and 
 Dr. Newman wrote as follows to his friend: 'It surprises 
 me that my antipathy to " is being " existed so long ago. 
 It is as keen and bitter now as ever it was, though I don't 
 pretend to be able to defend it.' After giving certain reasons 
 (which are omitted, because this is a point in which reasons 
 are secondary and a good judgment when we can get 
 one is primary), he continues : * Now I know nothing 
 of the history of the language, and cannot tell whether all 
 this will stand, but this I do know, that, rationally or ir- 
 rationally, I have an undying, never-dying hatred to "is 
 being," whatever arguments are brought in its favour. At 
 the same time I fully grant that it is so convenient in the 
 present state of the language, that I will not pledge myself 
 I have never been guilty of using it 1 .' 
 
 584. The topmost pinnacle of symbolic phraseology is at- 
 tained when the symbol-verb joins with the symbol-adverb 
 to produce a predication of great compass with propor- 
 tionately vague and often untranslateable import ; as to be 
 off, about, tip to him, with which may be joined other hardly 
 less symbolic phrases, as to take to, to come by, to go in for, 
 and the imperatives come on, go to. 
 
 ' I had no intention of going in for — that is the phrase now — going in for 
 the romantic' — George MacDonald, Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood, 
 ch. vii. 
 
 1 Every one sees that these hearty words were not measured for print, and 
 I am the more obliged to Dr. Newman for allowing this use of his un- 
 designed evidence. 
 
III. PHRASAL. 541 
 
 And by such means we attain to a subtle and impalpable 
 diction, such as is possible only in languages that have had 
 many centuries of culture. And in proportion as the sense 
 of such symbolic phrases is no longer hereditary or etymo- 
 logical, but the masterful work of the aggregate mind, we 
 return to an interjectional pliability of signification, by which 
 we perceive that we have come round full circle and are 
 approaching the point from which we set out. Thus come on 
 is no longer a cal 1 to approach, but simply a note of en- 
 couragement, as in Exodus i. 10, where both Luther and 
 De Wette express it by the interjection rcoljlart ; and Miles 
 Coverdale has ' Vp/ 
 
 585. Keeping a sort of company with the verb to be, there 
 is found in all the great languages a verb which signifies to 
 come to be, to get to be. This is in Greek yiW&n, in Latin 
 fieri, in French devenir, and in German reerbert — symbol- 
 verbs of great mark each in its own language. In our 
 native tongue the old word was weor^an, the analogue of 
 the German rcevben, but we gradually lost it ; and now we 
 retain only a relic of it in the imperative or subjunctive 
 worth, as in the expression, ' Woe worth the day.' Instead 
 of this weor^San we have qualified a new word for its place, a 
 compound of the verb come, namely become. In early times 
 the sense of coming was dominant in this word. In the 
 Saxon Gospels, Luke ii. 38, ' theos thaere tide becumende ' 
 answers to our ' she coming-in that instant.' 
 
 Even as late as Shakspeare this sense was still vigorous ; 
 as — 
 
 4 Riu. But Madam, where is Warwicke then become? 
 Gray. I am inform'd that he comes towards London. 1 
 
 3 Henry VI, iv. 4. 25. 
 
 In our days where and become will not construe together, 
 because the latter has lost all signification of locality. Either 
 
542 OF SYNTAX. 
 
 we should ask ' Where is Warwick o:one to ? ' or * What is 
 become of Warwick?' In short, the word has been tho- 
 roughly symbolised, and so qualified to take the place of 
 our lost verb weor^San. And here again, as in so many 
 other places, we have followed the French. It is the French 
 devenir that we give expression to (nay, that we mimic) in 
 our modern verb become. 
 
 This is however a matter of only superficial importance so 
 far as syntax is concerned. What does it matter whether a 
 certain function is discharged by weor^an or by devenir ? it 
 is functions and not roots that structural philology attends 
 to. In so far as we construe our become differently from 
 the construction of the old weortan, so far is the change 
 structural, and no further. Broadly speaking, the analogues 
 of this become have a general resemblance of construction 
 in all the great languages, so that the fact of our having 
 changed our word under French tuition is a matter of small 
 structural consideration. 
 
 586. Now we come to a symbol- verb of a peculiarly 
 insular character, namely, the auxiliary do. 
 
 And in touching this verb, let us first dispose of that use 
 which is common to us with French, and even, though less 
 markedly, with other languages. I mean that use in which 
 it figures as a representative or vicegerent for any antecedent 
 verb : — 
 
 ' A wise man will make better use of an idle pamphlet, then a fool will do 
 of sacred Scripture.' — John Milton, Areopagitica. 
 
 The auxiliary use is different. It sprang from the French 
 
 /aire, as m fair e fair e, 'to cause a thing to be done/ And, 
 
 at first, even in English, its action was just the same as 
 
 is that of the auxiliary faire to this day in French. Thus 
 
 'dede translate' meant not the same as our 'did translate/ 
 
III. PHRASAL. 543 
 
 but ' caused to be translated.' At length it became a sym- 
 bolic expression of tense, both in affirmative and negative 
 sentences. This is its peculiarly English function. The 
 following quotations exhibit these two uses in combination : — 
 
 ' I delybered in myself to translate it in to our maternal tonge/ And whan 
 I so had achyeued [achieved] the sayd translacion / I dyde doo set in enprynte 
 a certeyn nombre of theym / Which anone were depesshed and solde.' — 
 William Caxton, The Game of the Chesse, a.d. 1474; Preface. 
 
 ' My lord Abbot of Westmynster did do shewe to me late certayn euydences 
 wryton in old Englisshe. for to reduce it into Englisshe now vsid,' &c. — 
 William Caxton, Mneidos, Prologue (Blaydes' Life ofCaxton, vol. i. p. 66). 
 
 But now it has dropped half its function, for it is not used 
 with the affirmative verb unless something more than the 
 ordinary force of assertion is required. The affirmative and 
 negative verb therefore are thus declined: — 
 
 Affirmative. Negative. 
 
 I wish. I do not wish. 
 
 I wished. I did not wish. 
 
 Go. Do not go. 
 
 If I go. If I do not go. 
 
 If I went. If I did not go. 
 
 Thus we see the affirmative side is clear of this auxiliary. 
 Apart from emphasis, it is confined to the negative pro- 
 position, and to interrogations : — 
 
 Where did you go? 
 What do you think? 
 
 But the earlier usage still holds in provincial dialects, as 
 in the following from the Dorset poems : — 
 
 ' Where wide and slow 
 The stream did flow, 
 And flags did grow and lightly flee, 
 Below the grey-leaved withy tree ; 
 Whilst clack clack clack from hour to hour 
 Did go the mill by cloty Stour.' 
 
544 OF SYNTAX. 
 
 How thoroughly this is a word of the modern language, 
 and how recently it ascertained its own final place and func- 
 tion, may be seen from the following quotation, wherein 
 Spenser, a contemporary of Shakspeare, yokes did with a 
 verb in the preterite : — 
 
 ' Astond he stood, and up his heare did hove.' 
 
 The Faery Qveene, i. 2. 31. 
 
 At present this auxiliary is not used to form tenses of the 
 verb to be, but we find it so used in the Ballads and 
 Romances. Thus in Eger and Grime : — 
 
 4 Gryme sayd, " how fair haue wee to that citye 
 whereas that Ladyes dwelling doth bee?"' Line 758. 
 
 '"why Sir," said shee, "but is it yee 
 that in such great perill here did bee?'" Line 78S. 
 
 ' It was a heauenly Melodye 
 for a Knight that did a louer bee.' Line 926. 
 
 587. The verb do is thus an auxiliary which peculiarly be- 
 longs to English, though at its start it was a French-borrowed 
 plume. But the great bulk of the auxiliaries of our language 
 are of home origin and development, and they will be found 
 to correspond to the verbal modes of expression which are 
 used in German and the other dialects of the Gothic stock. 
 I speak of such auxiliaries as shall, will, may, can, let, might, 
 could, would, should. An example or two will suffice to 
 indicate how greatly we are in a state of contrast with the 
 Romanesque tongues on this feature. 
 
 Spanish. Italian. French. 
 
 amare 
 
 amerd 
 
 aimerai 
 
 I shall or will love. 
 
 amariamos 
 
 ameremmo 
 
 aimerions 
 
 we should or would love. 
 
 amemos 
 
 amiamo 
 
 aimons 
 
 let us love. 
 
III. PHRASAL. 545 
 
 588. There is yet another feature in the symbolism sur- 
 rounding the verb, in which the English use is in accordance 
 with the Gothic languages, and at variance with the Roman- 
 esque. This is in regard to those adverbs which in the 
 Romanesque languages have the habit of prefixing them- 
 selves inseparably to their verbs. The equivalents of these 
 are not always, but for the most part, separate or at least 
 separable in English and German and the Gothic languages 
 generally. This will be readily understood by the help of a 
 few examples of this contrast between French and English. 
 They are taken from Randle Cotgrave, 1 6 1 1 : — 
 
 Abboyer, to barke or bay at. 
 Decourir, to run down. 
 Deprier, to pray instantly. 
 Descrier, to cry down. 
 Entrecouper, to cut between. 
 Parservir, to serve thoroughly. 
 Proteler, to shift off. 
 Pourvoir, to provide for. 
 Rebouillir, to boil once more. 
 Rebouler, to bowle againe. 
 
 One verbal structure which existed in Saxon, and was 
 reinforced in the French period, has not rooted itself per- 
 manently, and that is the Reflexive. We find endeavour our- 
 selves in the Common Prayer Book, but on the whole it may 
 be said that the examples of this sort are now antiquarian 
 curiosities. 
 
 Another verbal structure, which came to us through 
 both sources, and which we inherited in all its fullness, 
 
 n n 
 
546 OF SYNTAX. 
 
 has also fallen into disuse, and that is the Impersonal 
 verb : — 
 
 me semed. 
 
 '. . . there was an excellent doctour of dyuynyte in the royame of fraunce 
 of the ordre of thospytal of Saynt Johns of Jherusalem vvhiche entended the 
 same, and hath made a book of the chesse moralysed . whiche at suche tyme 
 as I was resident at brudgys [Bruges] in the counte of Flaundres cam in to 
 my handes / whiche whan I had redde and ouerseen/me semed ful neces- 
 sayre for to be had in englissbe.' — William Caxton, The Game of the Chesse, 
 a.d. 1474 ; Preface. 
 
 liketh you. 
 
 '. ..for this liketh you, O yee children of Israel.' — Amos iv. 5 (1611). 
 
 The Explicit Noun. 
 
 589. If we turn now from the symbolism that surrounds 
 the verb, to that which is attendant upon the noun, we shall 
 see that the latter is most prominently drawn from the articles 
 and the prepositions. These are the symbolic satellites of 
 the noun. And there is perceivable a certain co-operation 
 with one another in their action. When two substantives 
 are united by a genitival relation, as ' servus servorum/ 
 ' haeleba hleo,' ' man-kind,' and you substitute an of for the 
 genitival flexion or genitival relation of the one noun, you 
 find yourself often obliged to give the other noun an article ; 
 thus, ' a servant of servants/ ' heroes' shelter' avoiding both 
 preposition and article,— or using them both, ' the shelter 
 of heroes,' ' the family of man.' If we compare the Versions 
 °f J 535 an d of 161 1 in Daniel i. 2, the elder has 'and there 
 brought them into his gods treasury ; ' but the younger has 
 it ' into the treasure-house of his god.' The change of 
 structure from flexional to symbolic has thus brought in 
 two symbols to attend on the noun — namely, the preposition 
 and the article. 
 
///. PHRASAL. 547 
 
 590. There are in English two great formulas for the 
 construction of substantival phrases, and there is perhaps 
 no more convenient, as there certainly cannot be a more 
 national medium of exhibiting these, than through the long 
 and short titles of our Acts of Parliament. 
 
 According to one of these formulas, the words and 
 phrases which constitute a substantival whole, are con- 
 catenated by means of symbols thus : — 
 
 ' An Act further to amend the Laws relating to the Representation of 
 the People in England and Wales/ 
 
 ' An Act for the Abolition of Compulsory Church Rates.' 
 
 * An Act to make further Amendments in the Laws for the Relief of the 
 Poor in England and Wales.' 
 
 ' An Act for the Amendment of the Act of Uniformity.' 
 
 The other formula merely collocates the chief nounal 
 words in juxtaposition, and that in a reversed order; as — 
 
 ' The Representation of the People Act.' 
 
 ' The Compulsory Church Rate Abolition Act.' 
 
 ' The Poor Law Amendment Act.' 
 
 ' The Act of Uniformity Amendment Act.' 
 
 And so for all complex notions we have a short familiar 
 way of naming them, as well as a stately formula of designa- 
 tion 1 . 
 
 Our speech has acquired this faculty and range of varia- 
 tion by its historical combination of the two great linguistic 
 elements of Western civilization, the Roman and the Gothic. 
 The long style of structure is that which we have learned 
 
 1 See I Cor. iii. 9 ; and compare the Contents. 
 N n 2 
 
54^ OF SYNTAX. 
 
 from the French : the short and reversed style is our own 
 native Saxon. 
 
 Between these two formulas, so widely divergent, there lies 
 the whole region of Flexion, and the prepositions of the longer 
 formula have come in as substitutes for case-endings. 
 
 As there is a triple variety in our syntax, so it is an 
 hereditary and congenial usage to speak and write with 
 that variation which the nature and growth of our speech has 
 put within our power. And this variation has moreover its 
 utility, as when in antithesis it removes the contrast from the 
 ear, and leaves it only to the mind, thus purging the language 
 of a certain sensual importunity ; as may be seen by the fol- 
 lowing example, wherein the italics are happily placed for 
 our purpose : — 
 
 ' God grant when men are at their it/its end, they may be at the beginning 
 of their faith, valiantly to hold out in the Truth.' — Thomas Fuller, Abel 
 Redevivus; The Epistle to the Reader, 1651. 
 
 591. The substitution of the preposition instead of the case 
 of the noun, has been extended also to the pronoun. Hence 
 a variety of pronounal phrases, such as few of us, one of 
 you, all of them ; and cumulative phrases also, as of my own, 
 of yours, of theirs, from thence. 
 
 of itself 
 
 1 Warsaw is not of itself a strong fortress, but it closes the railway and 
 defends the passage of the Vistula.' 
 
 And the conjunctions which are formed from the pronouns 
 soon catch this phrasal habit. 
 
 out of which to. 
 
 ' But those wise and good men whose object it had been all along to save 
 what they could of the wreck, out of which to construct another ark,' &c. — 
 Blunt, History of the Reformation, ch. ix. 
 
III. PHRASAL. 549 
 
 This has been felt to be a Frenchism or a classicism, 
 and the English humour has never thoroughly liked it. At 
 best it is but book-English. It is one of the most salient of 
 the features of Addison's style that he asserted the native 
 idiom in this particular, as: 'This is the thing which I 
 spoke to you of.' This English reluctance to welcome ' of 
 which/ 'to which,' 'from which,' as conjunctions, is to be 
 noted as the point where our instincts lead us to resist the 
 further progress of the French element. At this point there 
 is, however, much vacillation and uncertainty : the English 
 ear not being quite satisfied with either construction. The 
 following is from one of Addison's papers in the Spectator, 
 No. 449 : — 
 
 'This Morning I received from him the following Letter, which, after 
 having rectified some little orthographical Mistakes, 1 shall make a Present 
 of to the Publick.' 
 
 The contact of the symbols of to is not pleasing. 
 
 592. One of the prepositions has acquired for itself a 
 very remarkable function, in attendance not on a noun, 
 but on a verb ; and yet it is a noun also ; it is at the point 
 of union between noun and verb, that is to say, the infinitive. 
 Here the preposition to has made for itself a permanent 
 place, just as at has in Danish, and a (Latin ad) in Wal- 
 lachian. 
 
 Danish. 
 
 English. 
 
 Wallachian 
 
 at bsere 
 
 to bear 
 
 a purta 
 
 at skrive 
 
 to write 
 
 a scrie 
 
 Thus we perceive that the prepositional form of the in- 
 finitive is not peculiar to English, as against other Gothic 
 tongues ; nor yet to the Gothic, as opposed to the Romance 
 family of languages; but that it springs up indifferently 
 
$$0 OF SYNTAX. 
 
 under various conditions, and therefore must be referred to 
 some general tendency. What that tendency is I have already 
 surmised in the chapter on the adverbs (453). 
 
 593. We have now reached the final stage of development 
 of speech in its effort to overtake the several meanings of 
 the mind and invest them each with an appropriate distinct- 
 ness of form. It is as if we had followed with our eye the 
 branchings of a growing tree till we came to the tips of last 
 year's spray. Of the year's new growth in tender wood, 
 only a small part will permanently endure. This infinitude 
 of little shoots will forthwith enter into a competition, which 
 will increase in severity with every season, and nature's 
 pruning will lop out year by year the weakest, until at 
 length a very few will have established for themselves a 
 post of permanence. 
 
 The sprays of language are these phrasal forms which 
 are produced by the combination of symbolic words. They 
 are constantly springing up in particular classes of society, 
 in particular localities or crafts or schools ; and in the 
 same sphere they mostly pass their existence until they are 
 ousted by some phrase of newer device. Now and then it 
 happens that one escapes beyond the limits of its class and be- 
 comes more generally known, but even then, in most cases it 
 is only to enjoy a short career, and be soon forgotten. An 
 instance of this occurred in the recent expression to make it 
 out) which originated about thirty years ago in the aristocratic 
 region, got enlarged so far as to be current among the whole 
 of the educated classes, and then passed quietly into oblivion. 
 A distinguished Queen's Counsel told me how he found 
 himself one day seated at a dinner table where the company 
 was mostly of higher rank than he had been used to, and 
 that by way of opening conversation with the lady next him, 
 he asked her the question of the hour, Whether she had 
 
III. PHRASAL. 
 
 55* 
 
 been to the Royal Academy ? She had not ; she had not 
 been able to make it out. ' Make it out ' ! thought my friend 
 to himself, ' What can that mean ? This is one of their aris- 
 tocratic phrases that they understand among themselves/ 
 In the course of time it became more public, and was heard 
 on all sides, and it meant the same as to make time for a 
 thing. But it had no chance of permanence, because there 
 was already a well-established phrase, ' to make it out' in the 
 sense of clearing up a difficulty or uncertainty. 
 
 Let us take an example from the other end of the com- 
 munity. In Somersetshire the ordinary phrase ' to have to 
 do a thing' is in frequent and varied use. The negative 
 1 not to have to do ' is common as a euphemism for saying 
 that the thing is prohibited. The parson came suddenly 
 upon some rustic children who were swinging where they 
 had no right to be, and as he drove them off, one boy 
 made himself the spokesman : ' Please, sir, we did n know as 
 we had n had to swing here ! ' 
 
 Concluding Remarks on Syntax. 
 
 594. There are two chief controlling influences in the 
 formation of the sentence, namely Logic and Rhythm. Of 
 rhythm we shall have to speak in the chapter on Prosody : 
 logic associates itself with Syntax. 
 
 Logic as a mental faculty is not originative and creative ; 
 it is only regulative and continuative. A stock of thought is 
 presupposed, and the part of logic is to arrange this in an 
 intelligent order. For the purposes of philology we may 
 define logic as an intellectual consistency in syntax, a regu- 
 larity of language which guides thought smoothly and agree- 
 ably. 
 
 The meaning may often be clear enough though the 
 
552 OF SYNTAX. 
 
 language may be so inconsequent that we should pronounce 
 it nonsense. In a certain Improvement Act of the session 
 of 1872, the interpretation clause lays it down as a rule 
 ' that the term " new building"- means any building pulled or 
 burnt down to or within ten feet from the surface of the 
 adjoining ground.' The meaning is plain enough, that no 
 building shall be accounted as new, of which more than ten 
 feet was old. But it is illogical, it creates a jumble and 
 discord of thought, across which the mind has to get at the 
 sense. 
 
 Sometimes in language, as in music, such a discord may 
 be entertaining : — 
 
 4 Some girls were asked by one of our inspectors of schools, whether they 
 knew what was the meaning of the word scandal. One little girl stepped 
 vigorously forward, and throwing her hand up in that semaphore fashion by 
 which children indicate the possession of knowledge, attracted the notice of 
 the inspector. He desired her to answer the question, upon which she 
 uttered these memorable words : " Nobody does nothing, and everybody 
 goes on telling of it everywhere." .... Listen to it again. " Nobody 
 does nothing (regard the force of that double negative) and everybody goes 
 on (note the continuity of slander) telling of it everywhere.'" — Good Words, 
 August 1872 ; ' A Conversation of Certain Friends in Council.' 
 
 595. We have shewn abundant readiness to do justice to 
 the claims of the logical sense. Our dismissal of the elder 
 negative, and our rule that two negatives are equal to an 
 affirmative, are an instance in which logical sense rather 
 than speech-instinct has had the sway. In the latter part of 
 last century we had reached a sort of culminating point in 
 the matter of logical syntax, and since that time there 
 has been a relaxation and some little disposition to admit 
 structures that are expressive or pleasing, though they 
 cannot quite give a logical account of themselves. No- 
 thing is plainer, for example, than this, that two or more 
 subjects united by ' and ' form plurality, and should logi- 
 
III. PHRASAL. S53 
 
 cally have a plural verb; and therefore the following is 
 logically right : — ■ 
 
 ' Mr. Jenkins's house was about a mile from Mr. Benson's : it was 
 delightfully situated ; there were a beautiful lawn and canal before it, and 
 a charming garden behind;' Mrs. Trimmer, Fabulous Histories, ch. x. 
 
 No one hardly would write so now-a-days : it offends from 
 excess of logic. 
 
 Here is another instance in which the logic is too rigid : — 
 
 ' A very small number of similar reminiscences of my own is also added.' 
 — Sir George Henry Rose, Marchmont Papers ; Preface. 
 
 596. Nouns of multitude enjoy the privilege of construing 
 either as singulars or as plurals: but if within the same 
 sentence they take both constructions, there arises the sense 
 of illogicality : — 
 
 ' Samaria for their shines, is captiuated.' — 2 Kings xvii.; Contents. 
 
 The logical quality of speech is contingent on a variety of 
 attendant circumstances. What has been logical once is not 
 logical always. 
 
 In Exodus iv. Contents, we read, ' The people beleeueth 
 them,' where we should now say ' The people believe them.' 
 There is here a double adjustment, first as concerns the 
 grammatical number of this collective noun, and secondly 
 as to that of the termination -eth, which was once a 
 plural termination. Not however to analyse all this, it 
 suffices for the present to observe that while the two forms 
 of this sentence above given have been equally logical each 
 in its day, the latter only seems logical now. 
 
 By universal assent the French is reputed the most logical 
 of all languages. This is not due to any special sensitive- 
 ness which the nation has displayed upon this subject : on 
 the contrary, they have followed the natural speech-instinct 
 
554 0F SYNTAX. 
 
 with greater simplicity than we have, as is witnessed by the 
 different conduct of the two nations in the matter of the 
 double negative. Nor is there any language which is fuller 
 of idioms defying logical analysis. But the meaning is 
 transparent, and the mind follows the language not only 
 without impediment, but also with the enjoyment of a per- 
 ceptible concord between the structure and the sense. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 OF COMPOUNDS. 
 
 597. In a general way of speaking, compounds are merely 
 morsels of syntax which from being often together have 
 become adherent, and have grown into something between 
 phrases and words. A mature language makes fresh com- 
 pounds after the pattern established; but the origin of the 
 pattern is to be sought in the habits, often the earlier habits, 
 of the syntactical structure. 
 
 Accordingly some of our compounds do and others do 
 not represent the present order of syntax. Since income 
 was formed, we have changed the syntax of the verb, and we 
 say come in ; but the modern compound break-water is in 
 harmony with present syntax. 
 
 Compounds vary extremely as regards laxity or compact- 
 ness of fabric. When first made they are very lax, and 
 hardly to be distinguished as compounds from words in 
 syntax. Such loose compounds are daily made by little more 
 than the trick of inserting hyphens. In the Comhill Maga- 
 zine a writer upon rhetoric designates a certain style of dic- 
 tion as the allnde-to-an-individnal style. In those languages 
 
55& OF COMPOUNDS 
 
 which have a ready faculty for compound-making, this 
 sort of off-hand compound has always been one of the 
 recognised means of being funny. Passing over this sort, 
 which are hardly to be ranged as compounds at all, we have 
 such loose examples as forget-me-not, and such compact 
 examples as mankind, nostril, boatswain, which through long 
 use are so well knit as to be more like simple words than 
 compounds. The compound state, properly so called, is an 
 intermediate condition between the phrase and the word ; 
 a transition which the phrase passes through in order to 
 become gradually condensed into a simple word. We are 
 of old familiar with the grammatical idea that phrases are 
 made out of words, but here we recognise that the reverse of 
 this is also true, and that words are made out of phrases. 
 
 598. The distinctive condition which marks that a com- 
 pound has been formed, is the change of accent. The differ- 
 ence between ' black bird ' and ' blackbird ' is one of accent. 
 Or, when it is stated of a horse that he is 'two years old,' each 
 of these words has its own several tone ; but make a trisyl- 
 lable of it, and say a ' two-year-old,' and the sound is greatly 
 altered. The second and third words lean enclitically upon 
 the first, while the first has gathered up all the smartness of 
 tone into itself, and goes off almost like the snap of a trigger. 
 The written sign which is used to signify that a compound 
 is intended, is the hyphen ; which may therefore be regarded 
 as being indirectly a note of accent. 
 
 This is the reason why the hyphen is so much more used 
 in poetry than in prose. The poet is attending to his ca- 
 dences, and therefore he appreciates the accentual value of 
 the hyphen. Our prose (on the other hand) is sprinkled 
 with compounds which are written as if they were in con- 
 struction. There is no need to search for examples, they 
 offer themselves on the page of the moment. On the page 
 
IN GENERAL. 557 
 
 that happens to be under my eye, I find two compounds, 
 both without hyphens : — 
 
 coast-line. 
 
 ' Indeed these old coal layers call to mind our peat bogs. We find a 
 layer of peat nearly everywhere on our coast line between high and low 
 water mark.' 
 
 I think most people would read coal layers and peat bogs as 
 compounds also ; but on these there might be a difference 
 of opinion. The same may be said of millstone grit in the 
 next quotation ; but there can be no doubt as to 
 
 coal-producing. 
 
 'You know that if you heat a poker it expands; the heat making it 
 longer. The earth is in the same state as a hot poker, and parts of it 
 expand or contract as the heat within it ebbs and flows. I have here a 
 section of the coal measures of Lancashire. Upon a thick base of mill- 
 stone grit, of which most of our hills are composed, you have the coal pro- 
 ducing rocks, which, instead of being horizontal as they were originally, 
 have been tilted up.' — W. Boyd Dawkins, On Coal. 
 
 599. An incident which attends upon the act of com- 
 pounding is this, — that the old grammatical habit of the final 
 member is subjected to the grammatical idea of the new 
 compound. Any part of speech will assume in compounding 
 the substantive character, and will pluralise as such. Thus 
 forget-me-not, plural forget-me-nots. I remember a quaker 
 lady, who, with the grave and gentle dignity that formed part 
 of her beautiful character, disapproved of chimney-ornaments, 
 on the ground that they were need-nots. Moreover, a plural 
 form, on entering into composition, takes a new character 
 as a singular, and withal a new power of receiving a new 
 plurality. Thus, singular sixpence, plural sixpences. 
 
 Inasmuch then as compounds are in their nature and 
 origin nothing but fragments of structure in a state of 
 cohesion, it follows that they will most naturally be classi- 
 
55 8 COMPOUNDS 
 
 fied according to the divisions of syntax. Although a 
 precise classification may hardly be practicable, owing to 
 the vast play of fancy, and the consequent inter-crossing 
 of the kinds of compounds, yet we shall experience in 
 following such a division some of that practical convenience 
 which attends a method that is substantially true to nature. 
 The relation between the members of a compound is ex- 
 pressed in one of three ways; either (i) by their relative 
 position, as in the difference between pathfield, racehorse, 
 and feldpath, horserace; or (2) by an inflection of one of 
 the parts, as in subtle-cadenced; or (3) by the intervention 
 of a symbolic word, as in man-of-war, bread-and-cheese. 
 The first and third are the methods in greatest vogue ; the 
 second is rather literary. Often it may be observed that 
 the first and third are alternatives ; thus in the north they 
 say bread/oaf but in the south loaf-of-bread. 
 
 We will speak of these three as Compounds of the First 
 Order, Compounds of the Second Order, and Compounds 
 of the Third Order. 
 
 I. Compounds of the First Order. 
 
 600. The most prevalent means by which compounds are 
 made is by mere juxtaposition. This is the case in many im- 
 portant languages besides English. In Hebrew, for example, 
 Beer signifies a well, and Sheba signifies an oath; and when 
 these two are put together, we have the name Beersheba, which 
 means the well of the oath. In the true English analogue the 
 positions of the parts would be reversed, and it would stand 
 as Oath-well. In Welsh the order is the same as in Hebrew, 
 and the reverse of the English order. Thus Llan is church, 
 and Fair is an altered form of Mair, that is Mary, and the 
 
OF THE FIRST ORDER. 559 
 
 Welsh express Mary-church in the reverse order, Llanfair. 
 In all these instances the compound follows the order usual 
 in the syntactical construction of each language. 
 
 Our English order of juxtaposition is the most widely 
 adopted, and it may be regarded as the most natural. The 
 famous collection of ancient Sanskrit hymns is called the 
 Rig- Veda, and this title answers part for part to our ' Hymn 
 book/ 
 
 The general principle of the compounds of the first order 
 is this, — that two words are united, with the understanding 
 that the first is adjectival or adverbial to the second;, in 
 other words, the second is principal and the first modifica- 
 tory. The simplest examples are those which are made 
 of an adjective and a substantive, as blackbird. 
 
 601. But by far the most characteristic are those which 
 are made of two substantives, the first acting as an adjective. 
 Such are the following : — 
 
 air-balloon nut-cracker 
 
 boat-swain oak-apple 
 
 cart-horse prize-ox 
 
 dog-kennel quern-stone 
 
 edge-tool rick-yard 
 
 fish-wife ship-mate 
 
 gift-horse time-piece 
 
 hand-loom upas-tree 
 
 ink-horn vine-yard 
 
 king-cup water-hole (Australia) 
 
 lamp-oil yoke-fellow 
 main-spring 
 
 This form of compound is homely, idiomatic, and fami- 
 liar ; and it is put aside for the compound of the third 
 order when dignity is aimed at. But there is a cycle in 
 these things, and now we see this compound recovering 
 
560 COMPOUNDS 
 
 some of its lost ground. In the following quotation, in- 
 stead of 'music of the spheres,' we have sphere-music. 
 
 ' In any point of Space, in any section of Time, let there be a living Man ; 
 and there is an Infinitude above him and beneath him, and an Eternity 
 encompasses him on this hand and on that ; and tones of Sphere-music, and 
 tidings from loftier worlds, will flit round him, if he can but listen, and visit 
 him with holy influences, even in the thickest press of trivialities, or the din 
 of busiest life.' — Thomas Carlyle, State of German Literature, ad fin. 
 
 602. This is the sort of compound for which the German 
 language is proverbial 1 . The flat syntax has disappeared 
 from that language, and it has gone to swell the numbers of 
 their flat compounds. Examples are such as *§anb*fc3^u^ 
 (hand-shoe), glove ; ^ingcr4;ut (finger-hat), thimble ; (£rb= 
 riutDe (earth-knowledge), geography ; (styradjsle^ve, speech- 
 lore. 
 
 There is so 1 close an affinity between the German and 
 English compounds of the first order, that the one will 
 occasionally supply a comment on the other. 
 
 Hafidyivork affords an example of this. As we find it 
 printed, it has the appearance of our adjective handy com- 
 bined with a substantive work. But the German «£cmbnjerf 
 suggests a truer etymology. It consists, in fact, of two 
 substantives, namely hand and geweorc, or (medievally) 
 ywork; so that it would be more correctly written thus 
 hand-ywork. But if this looks too archaic, it should be 
 spelt handiwork. The Saxon original is found in Deutero- 
 nomy iv. 28 : — 
 
 ' And ge beowiab fremdum godum, And ye (shall) serve foreign gods, 
 
 manna hand geweorc, treowene and men's handiwork, tree-en and stonen, 
 
 staenene, ba ne geseob, ne ne gehirab, that see not, nor hear ; and they eat 
 
 ne hig ne etab, ne hig ne drincab.' not, and drink not. 
 
 1 The following is from a newspaper: — ' German Word Building. — The 
 German name for a tram car is " Pferdstrasseneisenbahnwagen." It looks 
 formidable, but so would the English equivalent if written in one word, in 
 the German style, thus : — " Horseroadrailwaycarriage." ' 
 
OF THE FIRST ORDER. 
 
 ;6i 
 
 603. Other Saxon compounds there are of the same 
 mould, but none that have so nearly preserved their original 
 form as handiwork has. One of these was handgewrit, 
 which has been turned into handwriting. There is no 
 hyphen in Saxon manuscripts, but words that have an 
 accentual attraction were often written somewhat nearer to 
 one another 1 . Some words were thus divided in two. 
 which have coalesced since. 
 
 A.D. 495. 
 
 (J?) aldor men 
 
 aldermen 
 
 5I4- 
 
 West Seaxe 
 
 West-Saxons 
 
 633. 
 
 biscep setl 
 
 bishop-seat = See 
 
 660. 
 
 biscep dom 
 
 bishopric 
 
 676. 
 
 Cent lond 
 
 Kent-land 
 
 704. 
 
 munuc had 
 
 monk-hood 
 
 738. 
 
 Eofor wic 
 
 York 
 
 755- 
 
 god sunu 
 
 godson 
 
 773- 
 
 setl gong 
 
 setting (of sun) 
 
 832. 
 
 Sceap ige 
 
 Sheppey 
 
 833. 
 
 wael stow 
 
 battle-ground 
 
 851. 
 
 healf hund 
 
 half-hundred 
 
 853. 
 
 biscep sunu 
 
 god-son 
 
 
 monigmon 
 
 many-a-man 
 
 855- 
 
 ham weard 
 
 homeward 
 
 866. 
 
 winter setl 
 
 winter-quarters 
 
 871. 
 
 wael sliht 
 
 battle-slaughter 
 
 878. 
 
 mor faesten 
 
 moor- fastness 
 
 882. 
 
 scip hlaestas 
 
 ship-loads 
 
 
 folc gefeoht 
 
 folk-fight 
 
 891. 
 
 boc laeden 
 
 book-Latin 
 
 894. 
 
 here hyS 
 
 army-stuff 
 
 896. 
 
 stal wyrS 
 
 staiworth 
 
 933- 
 
 land here 
 
 land-army 
 
 
 scip here 
 
 ship-army 
 
 937- 
 
 beah gifa 
 
 badge-giver. 
 
 1 In the text of my Saxon Chronicles this is represented by a half- 
 distance, where the originals justify it. 
 
 
 
^62 COMPOUNDS 
 
 604. The following have an adjective (or participle) in 
 the second place, and the same relation holds good between 
 the parts ; for the first part, whatever its habit as a part of 
 speech, is still the specific of the two : — 
 
 blood-thirsty heart-whole 
 
 fancy-free (Shakspeare) life-long 
 
 full-blown rathe-ripe 
 
 foot-sore thunder-struck 
 
 heart-sick weather-wise 
 heart-weary 
 
 spectacle-bestrid. 
 
 ' Misled by custom, strain celestial themes 
 Through the pressed nostril, spectacle-bestrid.' 
 
 William Cowper, The Timepiece. 
 
 This is expressed by an accentual elevation, w r hereby the 
 specific word is raised into a sharp prominence, while the 
 generic word is let down to a low tone. There are some excep- 
 tions, as in the word mankind', but the general rule is that 
 the accent strikes the first or specific part of the compound. 
 This is not the place to speak of accents, any further than 
 just to notice that the accent indicates where is the stress of 
 thought. This will be found to explain the occasional ex- 
 ception. 
 
 605. Out of composition has grown, and by insensible 
 modifications developed itself, that phenomenon so interesting 
 to the philologer, and so frequent in his discourse, namely, 
 Flexion. The origin of flexion appertains to this eldest 
 group of compounds; but for the action and behaviour of 
 flexion when once established, we may go to the second 
 or middle order of compounds ; and indeed, we may speak 
 more generally, and say : — Flexion occupies the middle zone 
 of the whole sphere of human language as it is historically 
 knozvn to us. 
 
OF THE FIRST ORDER. 563 
 
 A slight indication of the process is all that can be at- 
 tempted in this place. 
 
 The chief attention being usually fixed on the fore-part 
 of the compound, the after-part is left free to undergo 
 alteration. This has been attended with remarkable con- 
 sequences, in certain instances, where the termination was 
 already of a widely generic character. The slighting of the 
 tone and the generalisation of the sense, go on together 
 and favour one ano f her. At length the termination reaches 
 a symbolic value, and we obtain those forms in which the 
 after-part is merely an abstract or collective sign to the fore- 
 part; as childhood, friendship, happiness, kingdom, kindred, 
 warfare, wedlock. 
 
 Other cases there are in which the second part passes into 
 a sort of adjectival or adverbial termination; as graceful, 
 careless, froward, contrariwise. 
 
 So far we can still regard these as a sort of compounds. 
 But the symbolising process goes on, and with it the waning 
 of the form of the second part, until we are landed in 
 flexion : thus from good-like we at length get goodly. 
 
 A very large majority of the words of a mature language, 
 if we could analyse them correctly, would be found to dis- 
 solve into phrases. So that we may reverse the ordinary 
 grammatical view whereby words are regarded as the material 
 of sentences; and we should be philologically justified in 
 this seeming paradox : — The Sentence is the raw material of 
 the Word. 
 
 Of Particle- Composition. 
 
 606. The class of Compounds to which this name is 
 given belongs to the First Order, and they are the relics of 
 a symphytism between verbs and their prepositive adverbs. 
 
 002 
 
564 COMPOUNDS 
 
 Where the relation is other than adverbial, it is not a case 
 of Particle-Composition : as in forehead, where the first 
 part is adjectival; or in afternoon, because, contraband, post- 
 obit, where it is a preposition. 
 
 606 a. First, the Saxon group, once large, now much re- 
 duced in numbers. 
 
 after- : — aftermath, afterward. 
 
 and-, an-, as answer (A.S. andsware), andiron; corrupted 
 hand-, as handloom (A.S. andloma), handicap, handiron. 
 
 be-, by- : — become, behalf behest, behoof, belief, belong ; by- 
 word, by -lane, by-path, by -slander, by-way, by-work. 
 
 for-, fore- -.—forbid, forget, forgive, forego, forlorn, fore- 
 right, foreshorten, forward. 
 
 fore-right. 
 
 ' If well thou hast begun, go on fore-right.' 
 
 Robert Herrick. 
 
 gain- : — gainsay. Compare gain-giving in Hamlet v. 
 2. 202. 
 
 ge-. A participial and generalising prefix, which once 
 was rife in our language, and which still flourishes with 
 a fine effect in German. With us it has dwindled into a 
 poetical curiosity, and it has taken the form of y- or other 
 forms still less recognisable. 
 
 ychaind. 
 
 Y r et first to those ychain'd in sleep, 
 
 The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep.' 
 
 John Milton, On the Morning of Christ's Nativity, xvi. 
 
 yclept. 
 
 ' But come thou Goddess fair and free, 
 In Heaven ycleap'd Euphrosyne.' Id. U Allegro. 
 
OF THE FIRST ORDER. 565 
 
 ypointing. 
 
 ' What needs my Shakespear for his honour'd Bones, 
 The labour of an age in piled Stones, 
 Or that his hallow'd reliques should be hid, 
 Under a Star-ypointing Pyramid ? ' 
 
 John Milton, On Shakespear, 1630. 
 
 in- : — income, inland, inmate, insight, instep, inward. 
 mis-. A Gothic prefix of wide area, found in a large 
 number of Saxon compounds; now greatly reduced, but 
 with a few compensations: — miscarry, misgiving, mis/ike, 
 mismanagement, mistake. Carried by the Franks into Gaul, 
 it lives in modern French, and by that road we have re- 
 ceived misadventure, mischief, misnomer, and the imperfectly, 
 naturalised mesalliance. 
 
 Of-, off- : — offal, offset, offshoot, off scouring, offspring. 
 
 out- : — outdo, outgoing, outlaw, output (' a great output of 
 coal'), outrun, outset, outshine, outstrip, outivork, outward. 
 
 over-: — overbearing, overcoat, overcome, overdrive, overlook, 
 overmuch, over thwart, overturn, overwork. 
 
 thorough- : — thoroughfare, thoroughgoing. 
 
 to-: — toward, to-brake, Judges ix. 53. In Saxon there was 
 a good list of these. 
 
 un- : — unlawful, unlikely, unwilling. This is one of the few 
 Saxon prefixes that have entered freely into composition 
 with Roman words, as unhesitating, unjust, unmitigated, un- 
 scrupulous . 
 
 under- : — undergo, underhand, understand, undertake. 
 
 up- : — upland, uplong, upon, upright, upset, upward. 
 
 well- : — well-beloved, welcome, well-wisher. 
 
 with-: — withdraw, withhold, withstand. 
 
 606 b. In the French list the most important is that which 
 comes first in alphabetical order.. The particle a as a prefix 
 may in some cases be an altered of, as in adown, which may 
 
$66 COMPOUNDS 
 
 be explained from the Saxon of dune ; or an altered on, as 
 
 about from Saxon onbutan, asleep from Saxon on slaepe. But 
 
 in the bulk this prefix is to be identified with the French 
 
 preposition a, Latin ad: and even in the alterations from 
 
 the Saxon, this French preposition has been influential 1 : 
 
 abed, afar, afield, afoot, ajar, akin, along, aloud, aright, astir , 
 
 athwart, away. 
 
 amain. 
 
 ' And with his troupes doth march amaine to London.' 
 
 3 Henry VI, iv. 8. 4. 
 
 In early times the a was often written as a separate preposi- 
 tion, to the confusion of modern annotators : — 
 
 a right. 
 
 ' There-fore he was a prikasoure a right.' 
 
 Chaucer, Prologue, 189; Lansdowne MS, 
 
 a laughter. 
 
 ' And therewithal a laughter out he brast.' 
 
 The Court of Love, ad finem. 
 
 a forlorn. 
 
 ' And forc'd to Hue in Scotland a Forlorne.' 
 
 Shakspeare, 3 Henry VI, iii. 3. 26, 
 
 In this passage we are furnished with the correction ' all 
 forlorn.' Other instances are a high, Richard III, iv. 4. 86 
 (where Pope ' on high ') ; a bed, Henry V, iv. 3, 64. This 
 is a favourite strain of words in the seafaring life, as aback, 
 abaft, aboard, afloat, aground, ahead, aloft, alongside, aloof, 
 ashore, astern. 
 
 1 Mr. Dasent, Jest and Earnest, vol. ii. would refer this a- to the Icelandic 
 a ; and in some instances, as in the case of alone, it is not easy to resist the 
 force of his argument. 
 
OF THE FIRST ORDER. 567 
 
 alow, aloft. 
 
 ' Stunsails alow and aloft ! said he, 
 . As soon as the foe he saw.' 
 
 John Harrison, Three Ballads. 
 
 counter- (against) : — counteract, counterfeit, countermart . 
 Altered form — country-dance, French contre-danse. 
 
 en- and em- : — embalm, enact, encamp, endeavour, en- 
 franchise, engender, enjoy, enlighten, enlist, enquire, ensample, 
 ensue, enthrall, entice, entire. 
 
 pur- (French pour) : — purchase, purlieu, purloin, purport, 
 pursue, pursuivant, purtenance, purvey. 
 
 606 e. The Latin composites of this class have largely dis- 
 placed the Saxon ones, and absorbed those of French de rival. 
 An F attached to a word signifies that it is an example of this. 
 In some instances the particles have been so thoroughly 
 domesticated, that they have formed new home-made com- 
 binations. 
 
 a-, ab-, or abs- (from) : — avert, abrogate, abs-tain. 
 
 ad- (to) : — adapt, adequate, adherent, admit, advert. 
 
 ante- and anti- (before) : — antecedeiit, antechapel, ante- 
 diluvian, ante-room, anticipate. 
 
 circum- (around) : — circumference, circumlocution, circum- 
 navigate, circumspect, circumstance (F). 
 
 con- and co- (with) : — consonant, coeval, company (F), con- 
 temporary. 
 
 contra- and contro- (against) : — cofilradicl, controversy. 
 
 de- (from) : — deject, descend, despair (F). Home-made 
 deodorize. 
 
 dis- has the notion of undoing, scattering hither and 
 thither ; sometimes of mere separation or subtraction : — dis- 
 advantage (F), discount (F), discredit, disdain (F), dissent, 
 
568 COMPOUNDS 
 
 disturb. This prefix has sometimes displaced the Saxon 
 mis-, as in dislike for mislike. Spenser reduces this dis- 
 to s- by an Italian imitation, and hence such forms as 
 sdeigned {Faery Queene, iii. 1. 40, 55), spight. 
 
 e- or ex- (from, out of) : — eject, elude, expect. Prefixed to 
 titles it designates persons who have recently quitted office, 
 as Ex- Chancellor, Ex-Mayor. 
 
 in- or im- (in) : — inject, inoculate, insert, inspect, intrude ; 
 imbue, impoverish, improve. 
 
 ob- or op- (against, facing you) : — object, obloquy, oppose, 
 obstacle, obverse. 
 
 per- (through) : — perceive (F), perquisite, permanent. 
 
 post- (after) : — postpone, postscript. 
 
 prse-, only in its French form pre- (before, beforehand, 
 forward) : — precede, predestinate, prefer, prejudice, premature. 
 
 pro- (forward, for) : — promontory, pronounce, proportion, 
 protest. 
 
 re- and red- begins in the idea of reverse or reciprocal 
 action, but it has acquired a signification so vague that 
 explanation is hopeless, and the shades of its meaning are 
 now so familiar to us that it speaks for itself. And indeed 
 it has so completely established itself in English, as to have 
 extinguished almost every other means of expressing the 
 same notion. It is a fine example of the versatility of 
 these highly symbolised ingredients and of the hold which 
 they may get on the aggregate mind : — rebel, rebut (F), 
 receive (F), reedify, refer, regard (F), red-integrate, reject, 
 rejoinder (F), relate, remark (F), renoivn (F), repent (F). 
 request (F), resemble (F), return (F), reunion (F), revisit, 
 revenge (F). review (F), revolve, redimdant, reivard (F). 
 Home-made react, reagent, recall, re-elect, re-invest. 
 
 sub- (under) : — subaqueous, subdivide, subject, subordinate. 
 Home-made, subcommittee, subivay. 
 
OF THE SECOND ORDER. 569 
 
 606 d. The Greek examples are largely concerned with 
 literary and scientific terminology, and are for the most part 
 common to the European languages. 
 
 anti- (opposite) -.—anticlinal (Geology), antidote, antipathy, 
 antipodes, antithesis, antitype. 
 
 apo- (from), apocalypse, apocrypha, apogee (Astronomy), 
 apology, apostrophe. 
 
 en- (in) : — enthusiasm, enlhymeme (Logic), entomology. 
 
 epi- (in addition to) -.—epicycle (Astronomy), epidemic, epi- 
 dermis (Anatomy), epigram, epilogue, epitaph, epitome. 
 
 para- (beside, against) -.—paradox, paraphrase, parasite, 
 parasol. 
 
 peri- (around):— periphery , periphrasis, perigee (Astronomy), 
 perihelion (Astronomy). 
 
 pro- (before) : — programme (F), prolegomena, prologue, pro- 
 phesy. 
 
 syn- and sym- (with) : — synclinal (Geology), sympathy, 
 syntax, and by assimilation of n to /, syllogism. 
 
 II. Compounds of the Second Order. 
 
 607. Here we make two groups. The first of compounds 
 containing traces of flexion, as beadsman, craftsman, daysman, 
 draftsman, guardsman, headsman, helmsman, herdsman, lands- 
 man, marksman, pointsman, seedsman, spokesman, sportsman, 
 tradesman. In Saxon this was syntactic, as, ' se scyres man 
 Leofric/ the shires man Leofric, Cod. Dipl. 929. 
 
 The second group consists of those in which the con- 
 nection of the parts of the compound is indicated by flexion. 
 Many compounds have flexion without belonging to this 
 group, as far-seeing. It is when the inflection is applied 
 in such a manner as to belong only to the combination 
 
57 ° COMPOUNDS 
 
 and not to either part by itself, that we have a compound 
 which is distinctly flexional. In the above example, seeing 
 is equally an inflected word whether it be in or out of the 
 compound, and the -ing has no more special relation to the 
 compound than the -fid has in the compound all-poiverful . 
 But if we take long-legged, this is a flexional compound. It 
 is not a combination of long and legged, but rather of long 
 and leg or legs, which are clamped together into one for- 
 mation by the participial inflection. 
 
 Such are the following, of which the less common are 
 marked with the initials of Milton or Tennyson : — 
 
 arrow-wounded (T) meek-eyed (M) 
 
 broad-shouldered neat-handed (M) 
 
 cross-barred (M) open-hearted 
 
 deep-throated (M) pure-eyed (M) 
 
 eagle-eyed (M) royal-towered (M) 
 
 far-fetched self-involved (T) 
 
 golden-shafted (T) thick-leaved (T) 
 
 high-toned vermeil-tinctured (M) 
 
 icy-pearled (M) white-handed (M) 
 
 large-moulded (T) yellow-ringleted (T). 
 
 608. This class of compounds is seen in its highest per- 
 fection in the Greek language, and the authors who have used 
 this form of speech with the greatest effect and in the most 
 opposite ways are iEschylus and Aristophanes. What was 
 a trumpet to the former was employed as a bauble by the 
 latter. Our modern poets are great performers upon this 
 instrument. Keats handled it very effectively. In his 
 Endymion we read of ' yellow-girted bees ' ; also 
 
 subtle ' -cadence d. 
 
 ' Twas a lay 
 More subtle-cadenced, more forest wild. 
 Than Dryope's lone lulling of her child.' 
 
OF THE SECOND ORDER. 57 1 
 
 lidless-eyed 
 
 ' Whereat, methought, the lidless-eyed train 
 Of planets all were in the blue again.' 
 
 Also Mr. Robert Browning may well be quoted to illus- 
 trate this fondness: — 
 
 billowy -bosomed. 
 
 1 Hush ! if you saw some western cloud 
 All billowy-bosomed, overbowed 
 By many benedictions.' 
 
 fawn-skin-dappled. 
 
 ' That fawn-skiu-dappled hair of hers.' 
 
 Others by the same poet are honey-coloured, fruit-shaped, 
 fairy-cupped, elf -needled. 
 
 609. In such instances the inflection reacts on the whole 
 compound with a consolidating force. Several words may 
 thus be strung together. When the last member of a linked 
 composite has an inflection, it seems to run back pervadingly 
 through the others, stringing the whole together with a thread 
 of coherence. We do not use this power so much as the 
 Germans do. W 7 here we read ' O thou of little faith,' in 
 Matthew xiv. 31, Luther has O bit jfteittgl&lifctger. Richard 
 Rothe said of his student life at Heidelberg, that it was ein 
 Vocttfct)=rcIu3to6=irtf(cnctn-ift[td)eg 3bi)ll. 
 
 In the following quotation, though it is not so printed, 
 yet the word old is part of the compound and partner in the 
 services of the termination : 
 
 old friend-ish-ness. 
 
 '■ The author having settled within himself the most direct mode of securing 
 the ear of his readers, throws himself upon their favour with an air or trust- 
 fulness and old friend-ish-ness, which cannot fail to secure him welcome and 
 audience.' — Quarterly Review, vol. exxviii. p. 545. 
 
57 2 COMPOUNDS 
 
 Here also seem to belong those instances in which the 
 last member is a present participle, governing the former 
 members of the compound : 
 
 ' As a tool-and-weapon-using being, man stands alone.' — E. T. Stevens, 
 Flint Chips, Preface. 
 
 610. The Compounds of the First and Second Orders are 
 for the most part the offspring of an early and inexplicit 
 Syntax. They are the natural instruments for saying a 
 great deal in brief compass, and with all the entailed con- 
 sequences of inexplicitness. Among these consequences 
 may be reckoned advantages as well as disadvantages. It is 
 sometimes a disadvantage that the meaning is clouded, but 
 then this turns to advantage in certain aspects, as when 
 illusion is sought by the poet. Thus, 
 
 ' sea-path sunset-paved ;' 
 
 Aubrey de Vere, Lege?ids of Saint Patrick, 1872 ; p. 48. 
 
 As an example of the uncertainty attending on com- 
 pounds we may cite the famous Greek compound in 
 Luke vi. 1, which literally rendered in English is 'second- 
 first'. Our version gives it ' second sabbath after the 
 first' — but this is only one of the possible solutions, and 
 one that has not been universally preferred. 
 
 The logical faculty loves an explicit syntax, but the 
 imagination has an affection for compounds, and especially 
 for those of the first and second order. That logical 
 language, the French, is stronger in syntax than in com- 
 pounds, as it is also more excellent in prose than in 
 poetry. 
 
OF THE THIRD ORDER. 573 
 
 III. Compounds of the Third Order. 
 
 611. Here belong all those compounds which are formed 
 by an accentual union of phrases wherein the syntactical 
 connection is entirely or mainly symbolic. There was a 
 mediaeval English expression for vain regret, which was 
 made up of the words ' had I wist/ that is to say, ' Oh, if 
 I had only known what the consequence would be.' It was 
 variously written, and the variations depend on the degree 
 of accentual intensification : — 
 
 hadde-y-wiste. 
 
 ' And kepe ];e well from hadde-y-wiste.' 
 Babees Book, p. 15, ed. Furnivall, Early English Text Society. 
 
 hady-wyst. 
 
 ' When dede is doun hit ys to lat ; 
 be ware of hady-wyst.' 
 
 The chief symbol which threads together these com- 
 pounds is the preposition ' of,' as coat-of-arms, will-d-ihe- 
 tvisp, cat-d -nine-tails, man-of-war, light- d -love, ticket-of-leave. 
 
 The distinction between compounds and constructs is a 
 delicate one, so much so that two persons of like birth and 
 education may be found to differ upon it. When however 
 we see the of abraded to d , or when we hear it in speech, 
 as we often hear man-d -war , then there is no doubt of the 
 compound state of that expression. 
 
 612. This class of compounds is essentially French, and 
 it is from our neighbours that we have caught the art of 
 making them. Thus, we say after them : — 
 
 mot-d'ordre word-of-command 
 
 point-d'honneur point-of honour. 
 
574 COMPOUNDS 
 
 But the instances in which we make use of it are far 
 less numerous than those in which we keep to our natural 
 compound, that of the first order. It is only necessary 
 to offer a few examples by which it will appear how very 
 far we are from overtaking the French in the use of their 
 compound : — 
 
 chef-d'oeuvre master-piece 
 
 maison-de-campagne country-house 
 
 chemin-de-fer rail-road 
 
 bonnet-de-nuit night-cap 
 
 tete-de-pavot poppy-head 
 
 culottes-de-peluche plush-breeches 
 
 Bureau-de-Poste Post-Office. 
 
 And if we are slow to adopt their compounds with de, 
 still less do we concern ourselves to imitate those which 
 they so readily make with other prepositions ; as — 
 
 arc-en-ciel rain-bow 
 
 verre a vin wine-glass 
 
 manche a balai broom-stick 
 
 So strong is our preference for our own old hereditary 
 compound, that even where we substantially adopt a French 
 compound, we alter it to the world-old form, as in the case 
 of coup-de-Bourse, which in the following newspaper-cutting 
 is turned into 
 
 Exchange-stroke. 
 
 ' Secretary Boutwell was in New York almost on the eve of the outbreak. 
 He was aware, as indeed the whole city was, that a conspiracy was brewing 
 — that what we might call an "Exchange stroke" was contemplated.' 
 
 The Americans outstrip us in converting these French 
 compounds of the Third Order into English compounds of 
 

 OF THE THIRD ORDER. ^^ 
 
 the First Order. Thus we say point of view, after the French 
 point de vne ; but in American literature we meet with 
 
 view-point. 
 
 ' The inmates of the Eureka House, from a social view -point, were not 
 ■attractive.' — Bret Harte, A Lonely Ride. 
 
 613. The transition from the construct to the compound 
 state is a slight and delicate thing, but it takes time to accom- 
 plish. The symbolic syntax has produced few as yet ; the 
 flexional syntax has produced far more, for the compounds 
 of the second order have been greatly fostered by the study 
 of Greek. But the great shoal of English compounds is 
 derived from the eldest form of syntax, and they have their 
 roots in a time immeasurably old. They claim kindred with 
 Red- Indian compounds like Tso-mec-cos-tee and Tso-me-cos- 
 te-won-dee and Pah-puk-keena and Pah-Puk-Keewis and 
 other such, of which the ready and popular repertory is the 
 Song of Hiawatha. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 OF PROSODY, OR THE MUSICAL ELEMENT IN 
 
 SPEECH. 
 
 'There is, in souls, a sympathy with sounds;' — 
 
 William Cowper, The Task, vi. r. 
 
 614. The first of these chapters was on the Alphabet, out 
 of which, by a multiplicity of combinations, a conventional 
 garb has been devised for the visible representation of lan- 
 guage. By the artifice of literature, speech is presented to 
 the eye as an object of sight. Partly in consequence of 
 the pains which we are at to acquire literary culture ; partly 
 also, perhaps, in consequence of the greater permanency of 
 the visual impressions upon the mind, — certain it is, that the 
 cultivated modern is apt to think of language rather as a 
 written than as a spoken thing. And this, although he still 
 makes far greater use of it by the oral than by the literary 
 process. It is, however, quite plain that writing is but an 
 external and necessarily imperfect vesture, while the true 
 and natural and real form of language is that which is made 
 of sound, and addressed to the ear. 
 
NOBLE SOUND. 577 
 
 Human speech consists of two essential elements, and 
 these are Voice and Meaning. I say ' meaning ' rather than 
 ' thought,' because it seems a more comprehensive term, in- 
 cluding the whole sphere of cognisance, from its innermost 
 and least explored centre to its outermost frontiers in 
 physical sensation. 
 
 Voice will, moreover, be found to consist of two parts, 
 by a distinction worthy to be observed. For, in the first 
 place, there is the voice which is the necessary vehicle of 
 the meaning ; and, in the second place, there is the voice 
 which forms a harmonious accompaniment to the meaning. 
 It is the former of these which is represented in literature ; 
 for the latter, literature is almost silent. Here the mechan- 
 ical arts of writing and printing can do but little. 
 
 ' One may put her words down, and remember them, but how describe 
 her sweet tones, sweeter than musick ? ' — W. M. Thackeray, Esmond, 
 Bk. ii. ch. xv. 
 
 615. Here then we must distinguish between the neces- 
 sary and the noble sound, between Articulation and Modu- 
 lation. 
 
 Poetry, which is the highest form of literature, makes 
 great efforts to express, or at least to intimate to the mind, 
 this finest part of the voicing of language. All the peculiar 
 characteristics of poetry, such as verse, metre, rhyme, al- 
 literation, assonance, are directed towards this end. 
 
 In prose this is more faintly and remotely indicated by 
 such means as punctuation and italics and parentheses. 
 Yet the distinction here drawn applies to prose as well as 
 to poetry. It is perfectly well known, and generally recog- 
 nised. It lies at the base of the demand for ' good reading.' 
 A man may articulate every word, pronounce faultlessly, 
 read fluently, and observe the punctuation, and yet be far 
 from a good reader. So much of voice as is the vehicle 
 
 p p 
 
$7% OF PROSODY. 
 
 of sense is given, but the harmony is wanting, and there is 
 no pleasure in listening to him. It is felt that, besides 
 the sound which conveys the sense of the words, there is 
 a further and a different kind of sound due as an illus- 
 trative accompaniment, and it is the rendering of this 
 which crowns the performance of the good reader, as it 
 is the perception of this which constitutes the appreciative 
 listener. 
 
 Or again. Consider the sound of a passionless Oh as 
 it might be uttered by a schoolboy in a compulsory reading 
 lesson, and then consider the infinite shades of meaning of 
 which this interjection is capable under the emotional vibra- 
 tions of the voice, and we must acknowledge that the dis- 
 tinction between these two elements of vocal sound is of 
 a character likely to be attended with philological con- 
 sequences. 
 
 Of sound as the necessary vehicle of speech, and as the 
 passive .material of those phenomena which our science is 
 concerned to investigate, we have already treated in the 
 first and second chapters. But of sound as bearing an ac- 
 cordant, concentive, illustrative part, as being an outer 
 harmony and counter-tenor to the strains of the inner 
 meaning; of sound as an illustrative, a formative, and 
 almost a creative power in the region of language, we 
 must endeavour to render some account in this concluding 
 chapter. 
 
 The distinction here urged is akin to that which is me- 
 chanically effected by the musical instrument maker. A 
 musical note on an instrument is a noble sound, from 
 which another sort of sound, namely that which we call 
 noise, has been eliminated. All mechanical collision pro- 
 duces sound, and that natural sound is ordinarily of a 
 complex kind, being' in fact a noise with which a musical 
 
SOUND AS AN ILLUSTRATIVE AGENCY. 579 
 
 note is confusedly blended. It is the work of art to 
 contrive mechanical means whereby these two things may 
 be parted, so that the musical notes which give pleasure may 
 be placed at the command of men. What the musical 
 instrument maker does physically, we may do mentally. 
 We may separate in our minds between the mere brute 
 sound necessary to speech, and that musical tone which 
 more or less blends with it according to the temper and 
 quality of the voice and its companion mind. The latter 
 is a sovereign agency in the illustration and formation and 
 development of language, and this is the Sound of which the 
 present chapter treats. 
 
 I. Of Sound as an Illustrative Agency. 
 
 616. The modulatory accompaniment of speech is not 
 unworthy of comparison with music, although it is far more 
 restricted in the range of its elevations and depressions. If 
 its ups and downs are altogether on a smaller scale, if its 
 motions are more subdued and less brilliant, yet, on the other 
 hand, it has an advantage in the extent of its province. 
 Music is the exponent of emotion only; it cannot be said 
 to have any share in the expression or illustration of 
 thought intellectual. Now speech-tones are in force over 
 the whole area of human cognisance and feeling; they are 
 coincident with the whole extent of meaning. They are 
 expressly the illustration of Meaning. 
 
 As music is made of two elements, time and tune, so also 
 is the modulation of speech. Time is expressed in quantity; 
 and tune, or rather tone (which is the rudiment of tune), 
 is embodied in accent. Our grammatical systems now take 
 
 p p 2 
 
<")8o OF PROSODY. 
 
 >> 
 
 little heed of quantity, except as a poetical regulator in 
 classical literature. The poetry of the classics was measured 
 by quantity ; that of the moderns is measured by accent. 
 The period at which quantity was consciously and studiously 
 observed as an element of ordinary speech must have been 
 very remote. Perhaps we may even venture speculatively 
 to regard quantity as the speech-note of that primitive period 
 before the rise of flexion, when language was (as it still is 
 in some respectable nations) syllabic or agglutinative. We 
 know from a thousand experiences how conservative poetry 
 is, and we may reasonably imagine that the quantitive 
 measure of Greek poetry had descended with a continuous 
 stream of song from high antiquity. With the decay 
 of the Roman empire it ceased to be a regulative prin- 
 ciple even in poetry, and from that time accent has been 
 foremost, as it had previously been in the background. 
 We must not suppose the principle of quantity to be ex- 
 tinct ; but it is no longer formulated ; it is absorbed 
 into that general swelling and flowing movement of lan- 
 guage which is known under the somewhat vague name 
 of rhythm. 
 
 617. Leaving quantity then, we proceed to consider the 
 illustrative value of accent. 
 
 In the first place, accent appears as the ally and colleague 
 of sense in the structure of words. In the first order of 
 compounds we have to do with words like the following : 
 — ash-house, bake-house, brew-house, tvood-house. In these 
 words the accent is on the predicate. That is to say, the 
 stress of sound falls on that member of the word which 
 bears the burden of the meaning. That which is asserted 
 in those words is not house, but ash, bake, brezv, wood. 
 House is the subject or thing spoken of, and that which is 
 asserted concerning it is contained in the word prefixed. 
 
SOUND AS AN ILLUSTRATIVE AGENCY. 58 1 
 
 And this word or syllable is signalised, as with a flag, by 
 having the accent upon it. 
 
 There is a difference between good man and goodman. 
 The difference in the sense ought to be rendered by a dis- 
 tinction in the sound. Good man is a spondee : good- 
 man is a trochee. The latter means a man, not who is 
 good (adjective), but a man who is master of the good (sub- 
 stantive), i. e. of the household or property. Randle 
 Cotgrave- (1611), under the word ' Maistre,' says, towards 
 the close of his definition — 
 
 'Also, a title of honour (such as it is) belonging to all artificers, and 
 tradesmen ; whence Maistre Pierre, Maistre Jehan, &c. ; which we giue not 
 so generally but qualifie the meaner sort of them (especially in countrey 
 townes) with the title of Goodman (too good for many).' 
 
 This illustration is useful for the English reader towards 
 the understanding of Matthew xx. 11 — 
 
 4 And when they had received it, they murmured against the goodman 
 of the house ; ' 
 
 which in the Geneva Bible of 1560 is thus rendered : — 
 
 • And when they had received it, they murmured against the master of 
 the house.' 
 
 It is not always that we hear this word properly pro- 
 nounced in church; and our Bibles, from 161 1 down nearly 
 to our own time, appear to have printed it in two words. 
 But in the modern prints of the last thirty years this has 
 been set right, and it may be hoped that the true vocal 
 rendering will also be restored by and by. 
 
 The fact is, the early printers did not attend to these 
 minutiae. As a rule they left such matters to the intelli- 
 gence of the reader. In the First Folio of Shakspeare, Love's 
 
$$2 OF PROSODY. 
 
 Labour s Lost, i. 1. 289, it is printed, 'He lay my head to any 
 good man's hat/ where, plainly, the meaning is ' goodman's 
 hat/ as suggested in the Cambridge edition. And it is 
 astonishing to find that such a critic as Capell should have 
 proposed to correct as follows : — ' I'll lay my head to any 
 man's good hat/ prosaically deeming that for the purpose 
 of the wager the goodness of the hat was of more import- 
 ance than that of its wearer. 
 
 Just in the same manner chapman has the accent on the 
 first syllable. The meaning of this word is a man engaged 
 in chaffare, or merchandise. It is of the same family of 
 words as Cheapside, which means market-side. It occurs in 
 another form in Chippenham, Chipping Norton, Chipping 
 Ongar, and Copenhagen. It is still the standard word in 
 German for a merchant, Jifrmfmann. But when the French 
 word had occupied the foremost place in English, the 
 native word chapman fell into homelier use. This may 
 be seen in the following quotation, which exhibits also the 
 accentuation of the word on its first or determining: 
 syllable : — 
 
 • Beauty is bought by iudgement of the eye, 
 Not uttred by base sale of chapmens tongues.' 
 
 Loves Labours Lost, ii. 1. 15. 
 
 618. Considering the relation of thought which exists be- 
 tween the two parts of a compound, it is plain that there is 
 a harmony between the thought and the sound, when the 
 first or specific part of the compound is distinguished in the 
 accentuation. We have hitherto noticed only the instance 
 of a compound consisting of two monosyllabic words, as 
 goodman, blackbird. But where the first element of the 
 compound has more than one syllable, there we find a 
 secondary accent rests upon the after, or generic part; or, 
 
SOUND AS AN ILLUSTRATIVE AGENCY. 583 
 
 if it cannot be said to have an accent, it recovers its full 
 tone, as water --course. 
 
 Sometimes we fall in with a triple compound, with its 
 three storeys or stages of accentuation forming a little 
 cascade of gradations, as Spenser's holy-water-sprinckle in 
 the following lines : — 
 
 ' She always smyld, and in her hand did hold 
 An holy-water-sprinckle, dipt in deowe, 
 With which she sprinckled favours manifold.' 
 
 The habit of putting the specific or predicative part of 
 a compound first, and the habit which leads us to throw our 
 accents back on the former part of a long word, are plainly 
 to be regarded as an example of harmonious action between 
 the intelligence and the sentiency of the mind. 
 
 619. Even when the reasons arising from the structure of 
 a word are no longer present, there is a tendency to pursue 
 the track which habit has created, and to throw the accent 
 back. Many a word of French origin has thrown its accent 
 back according to this English principle of accentuation. 
 
 The French word revenue is a monument of this action. 
 Two pronunciations of this word are recognised, namely 
 reve'nae in the French manner, and revenue in the English 
 manner. The latter is now almost universal, but the former is 
 not extinct. In the following quotation from Shakspeare we 
 may trace both of these pronunciations, for while the word 
 is spelt as if for the French pronunciation, the metre requires 
 the English accentuation. 
 
 ' Towards our assistance, we do seize to us 
 The plate, coine, reuennewes, and moueables, 
 Whereof our Uncle Gaunt did stand possest.' 
 
 Richard II, ii. I. 161. 
 
 Many a word has had its accent moved a syllable further 
 back within the period of the last generation. The protest 
 
5^4 OF PROSODY. 
 
 of the poet Rogers has often been quoted, — ' Contemplate' 
 said he, ' is bad enough, but balcony makes me sick.' Now- 
 a-days contemplate is the usual pronunciation. It was already 
 so accented by Wordsworth. 
 
 ' The good and evil are our own : and we 
 Are that which we would contemplate from far.' 
 
 The Excursion, Bk. V. 
 
 The elder pronunciation is indeed still used in poetry, as 
 
 ' When I contemplate all alone.' hi Memoriam, lxxxii. 
 'Contemplating her own unworthiness.' Enid (18 59), p. 29. 
 
 The pronunciation of balcony, which seemed such an 
 abomination to Rogers, is now the only pronunciation that 
 is extant. The modern reader of John Gilpin, if he reads 
 with his ear as well as his eye, is absolutely taken aback 
 when he comes upon balcony in the following verse : — 
 
 ' At Edmonton, his loving wife 
 From the balcony spied 
 Her tender husband, wondering much 
 To see how he did ride.' 
 
 620. We often find the Americans outrunning us in our 
 national tendencies. There are many instances in which 
 they have thrown the accent back one syllable further than 
 is usual in the old country. When we speak of St. Augus- 
 tine, we put the accent on the second syllable, and we have 
 no idea of any other pronunciation. But in the following 
 verse by Longfellow we have the name accented on the first 
 syllable. 
 
 ' Saint Augustine ! well hast thou said, 
 That of our vices we can frame 
 A ladder, if we will but tread 
 
 Beneath our feet each deed of shame ! ' 
 
SOUND AS AN ILLUSTRATIVE AGENCY. 585 
 
 In the same way they say ally, invalid, pdrtisa?i, not for 
 the ancient weapon ' pertuisan/ but for the more familiar 
 word; and I am informed by Mr. Fraser 1 that they also 
 pronounce resources in a manner that would suggest the 
 union of the French spelling of the word ressources, with the 
 English trisyllabic pronunciation. Most people in New 
 England say vagary instead of vagary 2 . 
 
 621. Hitherto we have been chiefly concerned with that 
 interpretative power of sound which we call accent. We 
 must now distinguish between accent and emphasis. 
 
 Accent is that elevation of the voice which distinguishes 
 one part of a word from another, as in the compound 
 exemplified above. 
 
 Emphasis is the distinction made between one word and 
 another by the note or tone of its utterance. 
 
 This may happen in two ways, either grammatically or 
 rhetorically. The grammatical emphasis rests upon such 
 points as the following. There are certain words which are 
 naturally unaccented, and in a general way it may be said 
 that the symbolic words are so. It is the province of 
 grammar to teach us what words are symbolic and what 
 presentive. Grammar teaches, for instance, when the word 
 one is a numeral, and when it is an indefinite pronoun. In 
 the former case it is uttered with as full a note as any 
 other monosyllable ; but in the latter case it is toneless 
 and enclitic. It can hardly be a 2:ood line wherein this 
 word, standing as an indefinite pronoun, receives the ictus 
 of the metre, as in the following : — • 
 
 ' Where one might fancy that the angels rest.' 
 
 1 Not yet Bishop of Manchester when these pages were written. 
 
 2 North American Review, October 1 871. 
 
3 
 
 86 OF PROSODY. 
 
 He would be an ingenious man who should devise a 
 sentence in which this word ought to bear the accent. 
 A writer in the Christian Remembrancer for January 1866, 
 undertook to shew that almost any word may be placed 
 as to be the bearer of emphasis. In proof of this an 
 hexameter was given with a and the emphasized : 
 
 'A man might have come in, but the man certainly never.' 
 
 This is a rhetorical emphasis, and such an emphasis can 
 be contrived for most words. You can emphasize any 
 word to which you can oppose a true antithesis. To the 
 word one you can oppose in some instances the word two, 
 or any other number. Thus one may be emphasized, as — 
 
 ' I asked for one, you gave me two.' 
 
 In other cases the word none would be a natural antithesis 
 to one. But when we use the word one in the sense of 
 the French pronoun ' on,' it is incapable of antithesis, and 
 therefore it cannot carry emphasis. These being gram- 
 matical distinctions, we call the emphasis which is based 
 upon them the grammatical emphasis. 
 
 622. To give another example. It belongs to grammar 
 to direct the attention towards the antecedent referred to bv 
 any pronoun; and according as that antecedent is under- 
 stood the pronoun will or will not carry emphasis. 
 
 In Psalm vii. 14 the word him admits of two render- 
 ings according to the antecedent which it is supposed to 
 represent : — 
 
 '13 If a man will not turn, he will whet his sword : he hath bent 
 his bow and made it ready. 
 
 14 He hath prepared for him the instruments of death : he ordaineth 
 his arrows against the persecutors.' 
 
 We sometimes hear it read as if it were a reflexive pro- 
 
SOUND AS AN ILLUSTRATIVE AGENCY. 
 
 noun, such as would be represented in Latin by sibt, in 
 which case it is toneless. But if the reference be, as it is 
 generally understood, to 'the man who will not turn, 7 
 spoken of in the preceding verse, then the reader ought to 
 express this by an emphatic utterance of the word him, 
 such as shall make it apparent that it is equivalent to for 
 that man. This is again an emphasis which is used to 
 mark a grammatical distinction. But when words gram- 
 matically identical are exposed to variations of emphasis, 
 this is due to the exigencies of the argument, and we call 
 such emphasis rhetorical. 
 
 The natural tone of symbolic words is low, / came, I 
 saw, I conquered. No one would emphasize the pronouns 
 here. The same may be observed of the pronouns in the 
 following quotation: — 
 
 * I went by, and lo, he was gone ; I sought him, but his place could no 
 where be found.' — Psalm xxxvii. 37. 
 
 But words of this rank may receive the rhetorical em- 
 phasis. The reply of Sir Robert Peel to Cobbett makes a 
 good illustration : — 
 
 ' Why does the hon. Member attack me ? 7" have done nothing to merit 
 his assaults. I never lent him a thousand pounds.' 
 
 Here the pronouns are emphasized, because there is an 
 allusion to Mr. Burdett, who had lent Cobbett a thousand 
 pounds, and had been rewarded with scurrility. 
 
 623. Emphasis, then, is a distinct thing from accent. 
 The latter is an elevation of a syllable above the rest of the 
 word ; the former is the elevation of a word over the rest 
 of a phrase. But it should be noticed that, while there is 
 this difference of relation between emphasis and accent, 
 there is, on the other hand, an identity of incidence. The 
 
588 OF PROSODY. 
 
 emphasis rests on the selfsame point as does the accent. We 
 say indeed that the emphasis is on such and such a word, 
 because by it one word is distinguished above all other 
 words in the phrase. But the precise place of the em- 
 phasis is there where the accent is, in all words that have 
 an accent ; that is to say, in all words that have more than 
 one syllable. In the case of a polysyllable, which has more 
 than one accented syllable, the emphasis falls on the syl- 
 lable that has the higher tone. An accented word is empha- 
 sized by the intensification of its chief accent. 
 
 In Acts xvii. 28, 'for we are also his offspring,' there is 
 no doubt that the emphatic word is ' offspring.' The Greek 
 tells us so explicitly by prefixing to this word a particle, 
 which is in our version ill rendered by 'also/ A reader 
 who enters into the spirit of the reasoning in this place will 
 very markedly distinguish the word ' offspring.' And he 
 will do so by sharpening the acuteness of that accent which 
 already raises the first syllable above the second. 
 
 There is a well-known line in the opening of the Satires 
 of Juvenal, which the greatest of translators has thus ren- 
 dered, and thus emphasized by capitals : — 
 
 'Hear, always hear; nor once the debt repay?' 
 
 In the disyllable here emphasized the emphasis rests on 
 that syllable which had the accent while the word was in 
 its private capacity. In fact, emphasis is a sort of public 
 accent, which is incident to a word in regard of its external 
 and social relations. 
 
 624. Where a polysyllable, like elementary, has two accents, 
 the emphasis heightens the tone of that which is already 
 the higher. In a sentence like this, ' I was not speaking of 
 grammar schools, but of elementary schools,' the rhetorical 
 
SOUND AS AN ILLUSTRATIVE AGENCY. 589 
 
 emphasis falling on elementary will heighten the tone of the 
 third syllable. 
 
 In all this there is no change of quantity, no lengthening 
 of the syllable so affected by accent and emphasis together. 
 It is true, we often hear such a syllable very sensibly length- 
 ened, as thus : ' I beg leave once more to repeat, that I was 
 speaking only of ele-ma-entary schools.' The syllable is 
 isolated and elongated very markedly, but then this is some- 
 thing more than emphasis, it is stress. 
 
 625. In living languages accent and emphasis are un- 
 written. The so-called French accents have but secondarily to 
 do with the accentuation of the language, and belong primarily 
 to its etymology and orthography. In Greek, as transmitted 
 to us, the accents are written, but they were an invention of 
 the grammarians of Alexandria. In the Hebrew Bible, not 
 only are the accents written, but likewise the emphasis; 
 these signs are, however, no part of the original text, but 
 a scholastic notation of later times. 
 
 Written accents are very useful as historical guides to a 
 pronunciation that might be lost without them. But for the 
 present and living exercise of a living language they are 
 undesirable. All writing tends to become traditional, and 
 characters once established are apt to survive their significa- 
 tion. Had our language been accentuated in the early 
 printed books, we should have had in them a treasure of 
 information indeed, but it would have been misleading in 
 modern times, and probably it would have cramped the 
 natural development of the language. For example, we 
 now say whdiso and whoso, but in early times it was whatso 
 and whoso. This change is in natural and harmonious 
 keeping with the changes that have taken place in the re- 
 lative values and functions of the words entering into 
 these compounds, as already explained above, 471. Here, 
 
590 OF PROSODY. 
 
 therefore, we see the accent still true to its office as an 
 interpreter and illustrator. An instance of the old emphasis 
 on so occurs in The Faery Queene, iii. 2. 7 : — 
 
 ' By sea, by land, where so they may be mett.' 
 
 626. But, while we make no attempt to write accent, we 
 may be said to attempt some partial and indirect tokens of 
 emphasis by means of our system of punctuation. It is, how- 
 ever, in our old Saxon literature that we find emphasis in the 
 most remarkable manner signalised. The alliteration of the 
 Saxon poetry not only gratified the ear with a resonance 
 like that of modern rhyme, but it also had the rhetorical 
 advantage of touching the emphatic words ; falling as it did 
 on the natural summits of the construction, and tinging them 
 with the brilliance of a musical reverberation. 
 
 Alliteration did not necessarily act on the initial letter of 
 the word; where the first syllable was naturally low-toned, 
 the alliteration played on the initial letter of the second 
 syllable : and this rule is ancient. We see an example of it 
 
 in the following line of Wordsworth : — 
 
 % 
 
 ' Avaunt this vile abuse of pictured page ! ' 
 
 The most convenient illustration we can offer of the 
 Saxon alliteration will perhaps be obtained by selecting 
 from the Song of the Fight of Maldon some of the staves 
 which have retained their alliteration in Mr. Freeman's ver- 
 sion, in Old English History for Children. 
 
 * wigan wigheardne, A warman hard in war ; 
 
 se waes haten Wulfstan. he hight Wult'stan. 
 
 Wodon ]>a wael-wulfas, Waded then the slaughter-wolves, 
 
 for wsetere ne murnon. for water they mourned not. 
 
 bogan wseron bysige, Bows were busy, 
 
 bord ord onfeng. boards the point received. 
 
SOUND AS AN ILLUSTRATIVE AGENCY. 59 1 
 
 Wiga wintrum geong, Warrior of winters young, 
 
 wordum maelde. with words spake. 
 
 hale to hame, Hale to home, 
 
 o5Se on here cringan. or in the host cringe. 
 
 mod sceal be mare, Mood shall the more be, 
 
 be ure maegen lytlaoY as our main lessens.' 
 
 627. Had we continued to be isolated from the Roman- 
 esque influence, like the people of Iceland, we might have 
 developed this form of poetry into something of the lux- 
 uriance and precision which it has attained in Icelandic 
 literature, as may be seen in the preface to Mr. Magnusson's 
 Lilja, 1870. 
 
 Since we have adopted the French principles of poetry, 
 alliteration has retired into the background. As late as the 
 fourteenth century we find it pretty equally matched as a 
 rival with the iambic couplet in rhyme ; but within that 
 century the victory of the latter was assured. By Shak- 
 speare's time alliteration was spoken of contemptuously, 
 as if it had reached the stage of senility. The pedantic 
 Holofernes says he will ' affect the letter/ that is to say 
 compose verses with alliteration. 
 
 ' Hoi. I will something affect the letter, for it argues facilitie.' 
 
 Loves Labours Lost, iv. 2. 
 
 628. But however much it had come to be despised, it 
 has notwithstanding managed to retain a certain position in 
 our poetry. 'Alliteration's artful aid' is still found to be a 
 real auxiliary to the poet, which, sparingly and unobtrusively 
 used, has often an artistic effect, though its agency may be 
 unnoticed. Shakspeare himself provides us with some very 
 pretty samples of alliteration. 
 
 ' If what in rest you haue, in right you hold.' 
 
 King John, iv. 2. 55- 
 
592 OF PROSODY. 
 
 ' Fear'd by their breed, and famous for their birth.' 
 
 King Richard II, ii. I. 52. 
 
 One of the boldest poets in its use is Spenser, as — 
 
 ' Much daunted with that dint her sense was daz'd.' 
 ' Add faith unto your force, and be not faint.' 
 
 ' Sober he seemde, and very sagely sad.' 
 
 The Faery Queene, i. T. iS, 19, 29. 
 
 In Blew Cap for Me, a ballad of the time of James I, is this 
 good alliterative line : — 
 
 ' A haughty high German of Hamborough towne.' 
 
 In Milton alliteration is frequent: — 
 
 ' Yet held it more humane, more heavenly, first 
 By winning words to conquer willing hearts.' 
 
 Paradise Regained, i. 221. 
 
 ' A table richly spread in regal mode.' Id. ii. 339. 
 
 ' Weepe no more, wofull shepherds, weepe no more.* 
 
 Lycidas. 
 
 It may be found in every poet : 
 
 ' The French came foremost, battailous and bold.' 
 
 Fairfax, Tasso, i. 37. 
 
 ' Talk with such toss and saunter with such swing.' 
 
 Crabbe, Parish Register, Part II. 
 
 ' The ploughman homeward plods his weary way.' 
 
 Gray, Elegy. 
 
 'Now, tho' my lamp was lighted late, there's One will let me in;' — 
 
 Alfred Tennyson, The May Queen. 
 
 A very good example, and one which, from the coin- 
 
SOUND AS AN ILLUSTRATIVE AGENCY. 593 
 
 cidence of the emphasis with the alliteration, recalls the 
 ancient models, is this from Cowper's Garden : — 
 
 ' He settles next upon the sloping mount, 
 Whose sharp declivity shoots off secure 
 From the dash'd pane the deluge as it falls.' 
 
 The Christian Year affords some very graceful examples. 
 On Palm Sunday we read — 
 
 ' Ye whose hearts are beating high 
 With the pulse of Poesy. 
 
 • • * • 
 
 By whose strength ye sweep the string. 
 
 • • • • 
 
 That thine angels' harps may ne'er 
 Fail to find fit echoing here.' 
 
 628 a. The ancient taste for alliteration has produced some 
 permanent effects on the stock phraseology of the language. 
 It is doubtless the old poetic sound that has guaranteed 
 against the ravages of time such conventional couplings as 
 these : — 
 
 ' Cark and care.' 
 
 ' Rhyme and reason.' 
 
 'Watch and ward.' 490. 
 
 ' Weal and woe.' 
 
 ' Weald and wold.' Longfellow, Olaf, xv. 
 
 'Wise and wary.' Chaucer, Prologue, 1. 312. 
 
 ' Wit and wisdom.' 
 
 The old word sooth survives in the compounds forsooth 
 and soothsayer, but not in its simple form, except in the 
 alliterative phrase sooth to say. In Saxon times the legal 
 phraseology was sometimes yoked together by alliteration, 
 as in those famous formula? which outlived their significance, 
 sac a?id soc, toil and team. 
 
 Q q 
 
5^4 of prosody. 
 
 More recently we see it in heraldic mottoes, as at Win- 
 chester in Manners makylh man ; and at Mells in Time trieth 
 troth. 
 
 A little attention might discover more instances, showing 
 how dear to humanity is the very jingle of his speech, and 
 how he loves, even in his riper age, to keep up a sort of 
 phantom of that harmony which in his infancy blended 
 sound and sense in one undistinguishable chime. 
 
 629. The various kinds of by-play in poetry, such as allite- 
 ration, rhyme, and assonance, seem all to harmonise with the 
 accentuation. While alliteration belongs naturally to a lan- 
 guage which tends to throw its accent as far back as possible 
 towards the beginning of the word, rhyme and assonance 
 suit those which lean rather towards a terminal accentuation. 
 Hence alliteration is the domestic artifice of the Gothic 
 poetry, as rhyme and assonance are of the Romanesque. 
 Rhyme has indeed won its way, not only in England, but 
 in nearly all the other seats of Gothic dialects; still it is 
 in the Romance literatures that we must observe it, if we 
 would see it in the full swing which is possible only in its 
 native element. 
 
 630. Let us conclude this section with an observation of 
 a rhetorical kind in regard to the illustrative energies of 
 sound. 
 
 A rich and various modulation is the correlative of a 
 richly variable collocation in matter of syntax. One illus- 
 tration of this may be gathered from the fact that all lan- 
 guages use greater freedom of collocation in poetry than in 
 prose ; that is to say, in the more highly modulated literature 
 the freedom of displacement is greater. Anything like the 
 following would be simply impossible in English prose : — 
 
 ' Who meanes no guile be guiled soonest shall.' 
 
 The Faery Quee?ie, iii. I. 54. 
 
SOUND AS AN ILLUSTRATIVE AGENCY. 595 
 
 Another manifest illustration of the same lies in the fact 
 that it is in the most musical languages we meet with the 
 extremest liberty of collocation. How strangely variable was 
 the collocation of the classical languages is pretty well 
 known to all of us, whose education consisted largely in 
 ' construing Greek and Latin/ that is to say, in bringing 
 together from the most distant parts of the sentence the 
 words that belonged to one another functionally. If we 
 have in English less of such violent and apparently arbitrary 
 displacements, it should be remembered that we also have 
 less of musical animation to render justice withal to the 
 signification of such displacements. And further, if the 
 modern languages generally have less variation of arrange- 
 ment than the ancient classics had, it is supposed that 
 even the most musical of the modern languages are less 
 musical than were the Greek and Latin. But in this 
 sovereign quality of music, a language is not doomed 
 to be stationary. There is a progress in this no less 
 than in syntax. And as an argument that musical pro- 
 gress has been made in English, we have only to reflect 
 how modern is the public sense of modulation, and the 
 general demand that is made for ' good reading/ All things 
 are double over against one another ; and the demand for 
 well-modulated reading is one indication that the power 
 and range of modulation is progressing. And with this 
 modulatory progress there is certainly a collocatory pro- 
 gress afoot. The proofs are not perhaps very con- 
 spicuous, but they are visible to those who look for them, 
 demonstrating that a greater elasticity and freedom of dis- 
 placement (so to speak) are being acquired by the English 
 language. 
 
 631. The following quotation affords an example of the 
 point and force that may be gained by displacement : — 
 
 Q q 2 
 
596 OF PROSODI'. 
 
 by us. 
 
 ' The sphere of our belief is much more extensive than the sphere of our 
 knowledge ; and therefore, when I deny that the infinite can by us be 
 known, I am far from denying that by us it is, must, and ought to be, 
 believed.' — Sir William Hamilton. 
 
 In public speaking such a displacement would seem 
 stilted, and it would have a bad effect unless it were borne 
 out by a thoroughly appropriate modulation. 
 
 The illustrative utterance of the English language is 
 worthy of attention in the interest of national culture ; 
 for if all who have something profitable to say were skilful 
 modulators of their mother tongue, they would find more 
 docility in the ranks of the popular audience. ' The 
 famous Bishop of Cloyne seems to have been fully con- 
 vinced of this, when among his other queries, he put the 
 following one : Q. Whether half the learning of these 
 kingdoms be not lost, for want of having a proper delivery 
 taught in our schools and colleges? 1 ' 
 
 II. Of Sound as a Formative Agency. 
 
 632. We now proceed to consider sound as a power which 
 affects the forms of words. The attention must be directed 
 to the accentuation and its consequences. 
 
 1. The simplest instance is where the accent has a con- 
 servative effect upon the accented syllable, while the unac- 
 cented syllable gradually shrinks or decays. Thus, in the 
 word goodwt/e the accented syllable was preserved in its 
 entirety, while the second syllable shrank up into such little- 
 ness as we are familiar with in the form of goody. This is 
 
 1 Thomas Sheridan, Lectures on the Art of Reading, third ed. London 
 [787; p. 117. 
 
SOUND AS A FORMATIVE AGENCY. ^97 
 
 2l plain example of a transformation conditioned by the 
 incidence of sound. 
 
 In American literature the word grandsire has assumed the 
 form oi grandsir from the same cause. The accented syllable 
 remains complete, while the unaccented dwindles. The fol- 
 lowing quotation will be sufficient to establish the fact : — 
 
 'Viewing their townsman in this aspect, the people revoked the courteous 
 doctorate with which they had hitherto decorated him, and now knew 
 him most familiarly as Grandsir Dolliver. ... All the younger portion 
 of the inhabitants unconsciously ascribed a sort of aged immortality to 
 Grandsir Dolliver's infirm and reverend presence.' — Nathaniel Hawthorne. 
 
 The way in which the accent has wrought in determining 
 the transformation of words from Latin into French, has 
 been briefly and effectively shewn by M. Auguste Brachet, 
 in his Historical Granunar of the Fre?ich Tongue. The 
 unaccented parts have often lost their distinct syllabifica- 
 tion, while the syllable accented in Latin has almost be- 
 come the whole word in French. Thus — 
 
 Latin. 
 
 
 French, 
 
 angelus 
 
 
 ange 
 
 computum 
 
 
 compte 
 
 debitum 
 
 
 dette 
 
 dfcima 
 
 
 dime 
 
 porticus 
 
 
 porche 
 
 
 Mr. 
 
 Kitchin's Translation, p. 33 sqq. 
 
 This is but a small part of the case as there expounded, 
 and the student should by all means go to the book itself, 
 and master this portion, for this is of the marrow of phi- 
 lology. 
 
 A good example is afforded by the modern Greek nega- 
 tive. The negative in modern Greek is SeV, and this is an 
 abbreviation from the classical ov8iv. A person who looked 
 at oidev might be inclined to say that the essential power 
 of that negative is stored up in the first syllable, while the 
 
59& OF PROSODY. 
 
 second is a mere expletive or appendage. From this point 
 of view it would be inconceivable how the first part should 
 perish and the second remain. But if we consider that the 
 first is the elder part, and that the second was added for the 
 sake of emphasis, it is plain that the second part would carry 
 the accent, as indeed the traditional notation represents it. 
 
 This effect of the accent must be particularly attended to, 
 as presenting, perhaps, the best of all keys for explaining 
 the transformations which take place in language. Were 
 we to disregard the influence of the laws of sound, and 
 imagine that the sense only was to be taken into considera- 
 tion, we should often be at a loss to understand why the 
 most sense-bearing syllables have decayed, while the less 
 significant ones have retained their integrity. The national 
 and characteristic Scottish word unco is an instance. It is 
 composed of un and couth, the ancient participle of the 
 verb cumian, ' to know/ So that uncouth meant ' unknown/' 
 ' unheard-of,' and consequently ' strange/ In England the 
 word has retained its original form, because the accent is 
 on the second syllable ; but in Scotland, the accent having 
 been placed on the first, and the word having been mostly 
 used in such a position as to intensify the accent by em- 
 phasis, the second syllable has coiled up into its present 
 condition. 
 
 2. So far we have been considering the formative effect 
 of accent in its simplest instances, — those namely where the 
 accented syllable retains its integrity, while the unaccented 
 seems to wither, as it were, by neglect. We now proceed 
 to a somewhat more complicated phenomenon. The accent 
 does not always prove so conservative in its operation. It 
 is like wind to fire ; a moderate current of air will keep 
 the fire steadily burning, but if the air be applied in excess, 
 it will destroy the flame which before it preserved. So with 
 
SOUND AS A FORMATIVE AGENCY. 599 
 
 the accent ; if it be highly intensified it will not conserve, but 
 rather work an alteration in the syllable to which it is applied, 
 
 A familiar instance of the effect of an accent in altering 
 the form of a syllable may be seen in the word woman. 
 This word is compounded of wife and man, and the change 
 which has taken place in the first syllable exhibits the altering 
 effect of an intense accent 1 . 
 
 The same thing may be observed in the word gospel. 
 This word is composed of good and spel\ but the first 
 syllable has been reduced to its present proportion by 
 ' correption/ if we may revive the very happy Latin term 
 by which a shortened syllable was said to be seized or 
 snatched. 
 
 Other familiar instances are gossip, shepherd, and the pro- 
 nunciation of vineyard. In all these we see the accented 
 syllable has suffered alteration through its accentuation. 
 
 When we seek the cause why accent should have operated 
 in manners so opposite, we shall probably find that the 
 diversity of result is due to a difference of situation in the 
 usual employment of a given word. A word, for instance, 
 whose lot it was to be often emphasized would naturally be 
 the more liable to correption of its accented syllable. 
 
 3. As we have seen that each of the syllables of a di- 
 syllabic word may be in different manners affected by the 
 accent, so we may next observe that both of these changes 
 may sometimes be found in one and the same word. 
 
 The word housewife is often pronounced huz'if and this 
 pronunciation is the traditional one. The full pronunciation 
 of all the letters in housewife is not produced by the natural 
 action of the mother tongue, but by literary education. 
 
 1 This is not the whole account of woman, because it does not explain 
 the o; perhaps the plural would have made a better example for this place 
 in its pronounced form tvimmen. 
 
600 OF PROSODY. 
 
 Regarding huz'if, then, as the natural and spontaneous 
 utterance of housewife, we see that both syllables have 
 suffered alteration. The attenuated condition of the second 
 syllable is accounted for by the absence of the accent ; while 
 the first syllable has suffered from an opposite cause, namely, 
 the intensification produced by the accent. And when, 
 through the beat of metre, the accent becomes emphasis, 
 we find the first syllable spelt with correption, even in litera- 
 ture : — 
 
 ' Beauty is Nature's brag, and must be shown 
 In Courts, at Feasts, and high Solemnities, 
 Where most may wonder at the workmanship; 
 It is for homely features to keep home, 
 They had their name thence ; coarse complexions 
 And cheeks of sorry grain will serve to ply 
 The sampler, and to teize the huswives wooll.' 
 
 John Milton, Comus, 751 (ed. Tonson, 1725). 
 
 The name of Shakspeare, it is well known, appears with 
 many variations of orthography. The most curious perhaps 
 of all its forms is that of Skaxper 1 , which exhibits both of 
 the phenomena now under consideration. In Shaxper we 
 see that each of the two syllables is shrunken, but from 
 opposite causes. The first syllable is compressed by the 
 intensifying power of the accent, while the second syllable 
 is impaired by reason of the languor of a toneless position. 
 
 633. These changes, which thus result from accentuation, 
 sometimes run into curious phonetic distortions. Standish is 
 the name of a place in Gloucestershire, but it is better known 
 as a man's name in the poetry of Longfellow. This word is 
 an altered form of Sfonehouse, or rather of that word in its 
 ancient shape of Stanhus. Here the accented syllable has 
 drawn a d on to it, and the languid syllable an h. The 
 former is but an instance of a well-known phonetic affinity 
 
 1 This form is found with the date of 1579. Shakespeareana Getiealogica, 
 compiled by George Russell French. 1869. 
 
SOUND AS A FORMATIVE AGENCY. 6oi 
 
 which in various languages has so often produced the com- 
 bination nd. But that the hus should have lapsed into ish is 
 something more particularly English, and belongs to the 
 same class of tendencies by which that sound has often 
 risen anions: us both out of Saxon and out of French 
 materials. (74.) 
 
 A great number of transformations which are a stock 
 item of astonishment with us, are only to be accounted for 
 by the consideration of accentual conditions. Such are 
 Ciceier for Cirencester ; Yenton for Erdington ; Ransoin for 
 Rampisham (Dorset) ; Posset for Portishead, &c. So Clat- 
 fordtun has become Claverton ; Cunacaleah is Conkwell, &c. 
 The scene of the following question is laid in the time of 
 Queen Anne : — 
 
 Candish, Chumley. 
 
 ' Why should we say goold and write gold, and call china chayny, and 
 Cavendish Candish, and Cholmondeley Chumley?' — W. M. Thackeray, 
 Esmond, Bk. III. ch. iii. 
 
 Here may be noticed such a familiar formula as Good bye, 
 which has come out of ' God be with ye.' 
 
 634. This springs from that excess of clustering words 
 together in pronunciation which may be observed in English 
 country places. I often find it hard to understand the name 
 of a rustic child, because the child utters Christian and sur- 
 name together as one word. One little girl I well remember 
 how she puzzled me by repeatedly telling me she was called 
 'Anook/ I had to make further enquiries before I learnt 
 that this represented Ann Hook. The following instance 
 is not the less to our purpose because it is borrowed from 
 fiction : — 
 
 ' However, Miss Max had adopted Jameskennet (she always said the 
 name as one word), and he had been a great comfort to them all.' — 
 L. Knatchbull-Hugessen, The Affirmative (Macmillan's Magazine, May, 
 1870). 
 
602 OF PROSODY. 
 
 The word hobgoblin owes its form to this habit. It means 
 the goblin called Rob, just as the household elf was called 
 Robin Goodfellow. 
 
 It is to accent that we must attribute the rise of flexion, 
 in the great bulk of the phenomena included under that 
 name. Flexion is the result of the adhesion of low-toned 
 words to those which are higher toned, to words rendered 
 eminent and attractive by a superiority of accent. Thus, if 
 the word ibo resolves itself into three words answering to 
 the three letters of which the word is now composed, and 
 if these three words stood once free of each other in 
 this order — go will i, it was because of the accentual pre- 
 eminence of go that the other two words first of all began 
 to lean encliticallv on it, and at length were absorbed into 
 unity with it. 
 
 635. And as the action of sound is a matter of great 
 consequence in the shaping of words, so also we may detect 
 a like power working to effect transpositions in phraseology. 
 Why do people often say ' bred and born ' instead of ' born 
 and bred/ except that they like the sound of it better? 
 There is in most newspapers a quarter which is thus headed: 
 — Births, Marriages, and Deaths. But in conversation it 
 is hardly ever quoted in this form. The established col- 
 loquial form of the phrase is this : — Births, Deaths and 
 Marriages. Now it is plain that the latter does violence 
 to the natural order of things, to which the printed formula 
 adheres. Whence then has this inconsequence arisen? 
 Solely, as it seems, from the fact that the less reasonable 
 order offers the more agreeable cadence to the ear. 
 
 But we are already entering into the province of the next 
 section. 
 
SOUND AS AN OBJECT OF ATTRACTION. 603 
 
 III. Of Sound as an Instinctive Object of 
 
 Attraction. 
 
 636. Our path leads us more and more away from the 
 conscious action of man in the development of speech, to 
 mark how the sentient and instinctive tendencies of his nature 
 claim their part in the great result. There is observable 
 a certain drawing towards a fitness of sound ; that is to say, 
 the speaker of every stage and grade strives after such an 
 expression as shall erect his language into a sort of music 
 to his own ear. And this is reached when harmony is 
 established between the meaning and the sound ; that is 
 to say, when the sound strikes the ear as a fit accompani- 
 ment to the thought. It is a first necessity in language, that 
 it should gratify the ear of the speaker. 
 
 As the savage and the civilised man have different stan- 
 dards of music, so have they different standards of what is 
 harmonious in their speech. Civilised nations are converging 
 towards an agreement on both these heads; but they will 
 sooner be at one on the matter of music than they will on 
 the modulation of speech. Of these two, music is the 
 simpler, and the more amenable to scientific treatment. 
 In the very elements of the melody of language, namely 
 the tones which are proper to the several vowels, there is 
 an hereditary difference which, though of the most delicate 
 and subtle kind, yet produces by combination wide diver- 
 gencies in the modulation of speech. Each separate nation 
 has apparently a pitch of its own. 
 
 637. The following paragraph, which is borrowed from the 
 Academy (December 1870), gives the results of some minute 
 investigations which have recently been made in the vowel- 
 gamut of the North German dialect : — 
 
604 OF PROSODY. 
 
 ' The Nature of Vowel-Sounds. — A discovery announced in the Comptes 
 rendus for the 25th of last April, by Rudolf Koenig, the well-known maker 
 of acoustical apparatus, seems likely to have an important bearing on some 
 points of philology. It is known that Helmholtz has shown that the dis- 
 tinctive character of the vowel-sounds is due to fixed tones characteristic of 
 each, and that he has investigated the pitch of the tones proper to the dif- 
 ferent vowels, by examining the resonance of the cavity of the mouth, when 
 adjusted for whispering them, by means of vibrating tuning-forks held near 
 the opening of the lips. In this way he arrived at the following results : — 
 
 Vowel U O A E I 
 
 Characteristic tone . . f Wo b"\) b in b d iY 
 
 Koenig, on repeating Helmholtz's experiments with more complete ap- 
 paratus, has entirely confirmed his general result, but has arrived at slightly 
 different conclusions as to the characteristic tones of the vowels U and I, 
 which he finds are respectively lower and higher octaves of the tones of the 
 intermediate vowels. For the North German pronunciation (to which 
 Helmholtz's results also refer) the vowels are accordingly characterised as 
 follows : — 
 
 Vowel U 
 
 Characteristic to?ie . . 6 b 
 Simple vibrations per ) 
 
 second {approximate) ) ^ 
 
 As Koenig points out, it is more than probable that the physiological reason 
 of the occurrence of nearly the same five vowels in different languages, is to 
 be sought for in the simplicity of these ratios, just as the simplicity of the 
 ratios of the musical intervals explains the adoption of the same intervals by 
 most nations.' 
 
 638. In consonants the great difference of national 
 standards is manifest. The Gothic ear enjoys a precipitous 
 consonantism, while the Roman family prefers a smooth 
 and gentle one. And as a natural consequence of this dif- 
 ference, we, when we were most Gothic, could endure an 
 abruptness of consonants which now that we have been 
 Frenchified in our tastes, is displeasing to our national ear. 
 
 Thus, we now count it vulgar to say ax, and yet this 
 sound was quite acceptable to the most cultivated Saxon. 
 We have transposed the consonants, and instead of ks we 
 say sk; instead of ax we say ask; and we prefer tusks to 
 the Saxon tuxas. In like manner, we now say grass, cress, 
 
 
 
 A 
 
 E 
 
 1 
 
 6 ! b 
 
 W\> 
 
 6 ii: b 
 
 b iY b 
 
 JOO 
 
 1S00 
 
 3600 
 
 7200 
 
SOUND AS AN OBJECT OF ATTRACTION. 605 
 
 where the old forms were gcers, cars. (Reversely, however, 
 we say bird, third, cart, in preference to the old forms 
 brid, thridde, crest.) There is observable at different eras in 
 the language of a nation a certain revolution of taste in 
 regard to sounds; and this exhibits itself in modifications 
 of the vowel-system, and in conversions or transpositions of 
 old-established consonantisms. It is not possible (apparently) 
 to reduce such cases to any other principle than this, — that 
 it has pleased the national ear it should be so. 
 
 639. This national taste is inherited so early, and rooted 
 so deep in the individual, that it becomes part of his nature, 
 and forms the starting-point of all his judgments as to what is 
 fitting or unfitting in the harmony of sound with sense. The 
 association between his words and his thoughts is so in- 
 timate, that to his ear the words seem to give out a sound 
 like the sound of the thing signified; and, further, that 
 his words seem like the thing signified even where it is an 
 abstract idea or some other creation of the mind. So that it 
 becomes a difficult matter to say how far certain words are 
 really like certain natural sounds ; or whether it is only an 
 inveterate mental association that makes us think so. That is 
 the first difficulty about the onomatopoetic theory of the origin 
 of language. That theory appeals to a sense which we have of 
 likeness between many of our words and the natural sounds 
 of the things signified. Sir John Lubbock has given lists of 
 words of which, in his opinion, there can be no doubt that 
 the origin is onomatopoetic. That is to say, they were 
 coined at a blow in imitation of audible sounds, or they can 
 at least be traced back to such a coinage. Now the fact is, 
 that many of them are resoluble into earlier forms, which 
 had meanings widely distinct from the present meanings; 
 and the onomatopoetic appearances are the results of that 
 instinctive attention to fitness of sound, which is one of the 
 
606 OF PROSODY. 
 
 habitual accompaniments of linguistic development. An 
 example will make it clearer : Sir John Lubbock says, — 
 
 ' From pr, or prut, indicating contempt or self-conceit, comes proud, 
 pride, &c. 
 
 From fie, we have fiend, foe, feud, foul, Latin putris, Fr. puer, filth, 
 fulsome, fear. In addition I will only remark that, 
 
 From that of smacking the lips we get yXvtcvs, dulcis, lick, like.' 
 
 On the Origin of Civilization, p. 282. 
 
 We shall all as Englishmen be ready to acknowledge that 
 proud and pride do sound like the things signified. But how 
 are we to reconcile the supposed onomatopoetic origin of 
 these words with the fact that they have an earlier history 1 , 
 which leads us far enough out of the track of the idea here 
 assigned to pr. 
 
 640. It is not too much to say that all the above examples 
 rest upon the ground of a superficial appearance, and that 
 their onomatopoetic origin will not bear inspection. The 
 word like is here derived from the sound of smacking the 
 lips. It is in fact the Old Saxon word for 'body/ lie, which 
 in German is to this day £eidr pronounced almost exactly as 
 our like. Great as the distance may seem between body and 
 the liking of taste, it is measured at two strides. There is 
 but one middle term between these wide extremes. From 
 substance to similitude the transition is frequent and familiar ; 
 and so lie, ' body/ easily produced the adjective like. That 
 likeness breeds liking is proverbial. 
 
 One of the words which has been thought to favour the 
 onomatopoetic theory is squirrel. If this word had been 
 destitute of a pedigree, and had been dashed off at a moment 
 of happy invention, then its evidence might have been in- 
 
 1 They are traced either to Old French prude, moral, decorous ; or to the 
 Latin prudem, providus, prudent, provident. — Diez, Lexicon Linguarum 
 Romanarum. 
 
SOUND AS AN OBJECT OF ATTRACTION. 6o"J 
 
 voked in that direction. But when we perceive that it has a 
 long Greek derivation, and that the idea upon which the 
 word was moulded was that of umbrella-tail, we can only 
 marvel at the sonorous fitness of the word to express the 
 manners of the funny little creature, after all traces of the 
 signification of the word had been forgotten ; and we must 
 allow that somewhere in the speech-making genius there 
 lives a faculty which concerns itself to seek the means of 
 harmony between sound and sense. 
 
 641. It would indeed be too much to say that the basis of 
 this harmony is not in any absolute relations between things 
 and ideas on the one hand, and sounds on the other. But this 
 may be said, — that while such absolute relations have been 
 often maintained with a certain show of reason, there has 
 not as yet been any proof such as science can take cog- 
 nisance of. It seems rather as if each race had its own 
 fundamental notions of harmony, and as if the consonance 
 of words were continually striving to adapt itself to these 
 with a sort of unconscious accommodation. Well as squirrel 
 seems to us to harmonise with its object, we cannot doubt 
 that in the judgment of a Red Indian it would sound very 
 inappropriate, and that he would consider Adjidaumo as 
 much more to the point. 
 
 ' Boys shall call you Adjidaumo, 
 Tail in air the boys shall call you.' 
 
 H. W. Longfellow, Song of Hiawatha. 
 
 Language is beyond all doubt imitative. The Hindus 
 have a drum they call tom-tom, and this word is surely imita- 
 tive. So much we may venture to assume without any know- 
 ledge of their speech. But whether the word originated in 
 imitation is a very different question, and one which demands 
 for its answer a close examination of the Hindu and perhaps 
 other languages besides. Words may be imitative without 
 
608 OF PROSODY. 
 
 having originated in an act of imitation. A connection has 
 too hastily been assumed between imitation and initiation. 
 On the fifth bell in Dunkerton Church, Somersetshire, besides 
 the record, 'Thomas Bilbee cast all wee, 1732/ are found 
 the lines : — ■ 
 
 ' Harke how the chiriping Treable sound so clear, 
 While rowelling Tom com tombeling in the reare.' 
 
 This is manifestly imitative ; the sequence ' torn com tombe- 
 ling' is worthy to be set beside the Indian tom-tom. Yet 
 this imitation has nothing to do with the origin of these 
 words, whereof the first is Hebrew, the second Gothic, and 
 the third French. 
 
 642. Our present interest in the onomatopoetic theory is 
 rather incidental. It bears by its very existence a valuable testi- 
 mony to that principle which we are just now concerned to 
 establish. It proves that several men of cultivated faculties 
 do perceive throughout language such a harmony of the 
 sound of words with their sense, that they not only would 
 rest satisfied with an account of the origin of language which 
 referred all to external sound, but that it appears to them the 
 most rational explanation. Those who reject the onomato- 
 poetic theory need not discredit the phenomenon on which 
 it relies. They may admit that there is, running through a 
 great part of human speech, a remarkable chime of sound 
 with sense, and yet doubt whether language was founded 
 upon imitation The phenomenon itself may have been as 
 primitive as it is persistent, for the strongest examples are 
 among the latest efforts of the genius of speech. Ac- 
 companying language at every stage, it comes out most 
 avowedly in its maturest forms. That the motion of poetry 
 should keep pace with the thought is an axiom : if the 
 subject is toilsome, then 
 
 'The line too labours, and the verse runs slow.' 
 
SOUND AS AN OBJECT OF ATTRACTION. 609 
 
 And as with the whole, so with the subordinate members. 
 At every stage in the development of every word, there are 
 a great number of possible variations, or alternative modes 
 of utterance ; and before a word settles down into an 
 established position, it must have been (unconsciously) re- 
 cognised as the best for that particular purpose of all those 
 that were in the field of choice ; and among the qualifica- 
 tions and conditions of the competition, the satisfaction of 
 the ear has never been absent, though it may have been 
 little noticed. 
 
 When we speak of the satisfaction of the ear, we of course 
 mean a mental gratification ; namely, that which arises from 
 a sense of harmony between voice and meaning. There is 
 a pleasure in this, and as there is a pleasure in it, so there is 
 naturally a preference for it, and, other things being equal, 
 the utterance which gives this pleasure will survive one that 
 gives it not. 
 
 643. Taking it then as certain, that there is in speech a 
 striving after this expressiveness of sound, we must next ob- 
 serve the varying ways it has of displaying itself in the suc- 
 cessive stages of the development of human speech. It does 
 not always occupy the same ground. The English language 
 has passed that stage in which words are palpably modified to 
 meet the requirements of the ear. And accordingly, those who 
 make lists of words in support of the onomatopoetic theory, 
 will be found to lean greatly to old-fashioned and homely 
 and colloquial words, in short to such words as figure but 
 little in the forefront of modern English literature. They 
 are the offspring of a period when the chime of the word was 
 more aimed at than it now is. And we may in some ancient 
 literatures find this so-called onomatopoeia in greater vigour 
 than in English. 
 
 Most abounding in examples of this kind is the Hebrew 
 
 r r 
 
6lO OF PROSODY. 
 
 language, where we have a glorious literature that was 
 formed under the conditions now spoken of; that is to say, 
 while the language was still sensitive to the grouping of 
 consonants in the chime of its words. The details cannot 
 here be produced, but an illustration or two may be given \ 
 
 It is no mere illusion which causes even a slightly imbued 
 Hebrew scholar to feel that in the kindly, soothing, 'nocturne' 
 sound of lailah, the Hebrew word for night, there is a sug- 
 gestion of that thought which some have supposed to be 
 etymologically expressed by the Greek ev<pp6vr], the thought 
 which is thus rendered in familiar lines from the Hebrew 
 fountain : — 
 
 ' And from the due returns of night 
 Divine instruction springs.' 
 
 644. The Hebrew word for ' righteousness,' zedakah, has 
 a melody which chimes admirably with the idea. Whatever 
 beauty of thought is embodied in the Themis and Dike and 
 Astrsea of the Greek personifications, may all be heard in the 
 sound of the Hebrew zeddkah. Nor is this mere fancy. 
 That the word spoke not to the mind alone through the 
 ear as a mere channel, but that the sound of the word had 
 a musical eloquence for the musical ear of the Hebrew, 
 we have such evidence as the case admits of. We find it 
 set against the cry of the oppressed zeghdkah, where the 
 dental has been exchanged for the most rigid of gutturals, 
 represented here by gh. In fact, there is a stage in language 
 when the musical appropriateness of the word is the chief care. 
 This is the age of the Hebrew antitheses and parallelisms. 
 In the passage alluded to, not only is there the contrast 
 
 1 If the reader desires to enquire further into the onomatopoetic theory, he 
 will find all that can be said in its favour in the philological writings of 
 Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood ; and there is a criticism of onomatopoeia by 
 Professor Max Mtiller in the Ninth Lecture of his First Series. 
 
SOUND AS AN OBJECT OF ATTRACTION. 6ll 
 
 already described, but also that of mishpat, 'judgment/ with 
 mishpach, ' oppression,'' and here also the gentle sound of the 
 dental is changed to the grating sound of a guttural, though 
 milder than in the other instance. 
 
 'He looked for judgment {mishpat), but behold oppression {mishpach); 
 for righteousness (zedakah), but behold a cry (zeghakab).' — Isaiab v. 7. 
 
 645. This class of cases has been sometimes inconsiderately 
 treated as if they approached in some sort to the nature of 
 the paronomasia or pun. But no two things could be more 
 distinct. The pun rests on a duplicity of sense under unity 
 of sound, and it is essentially of a laughter-provoking nature, 
 because it is a wanton rebellion against the first motive of 
 speech, whereby diversity of sense induces diversity of sound, 
 that the sound may be an echo to the sense. 
 
 A few years ago, in the time of spring, two men were 
 riding together across the fields, and observing how backward 
 the season was. Neither of them had seen the may-blossom 
 yet. Presently one dashed ahead towards something white 
 in a distant hedge., but soon turned round again, exclaiming 
 to his companion : ' No, it is not the may, it is only the 
 common sloe/ whereupon the ready answer came : ' Then 
 the may is uncommon slow!' That is a pun, where the 
 unity of sound between widely different words is suddenly 
 and surprisingly fitted into the sense of the conversation. 
 
 Different, but akin, is the Double-meaning, where the two 
 senses of an identical word are played upon. Mr. Wadge, 
 in his speech of thanks on the occasion of a presentation 
 banquet in his honour, at the Albion, June 1, 1866, was 
 dilating on the interest he had taken from earliest youth in 
 the study of mineral deposits ; how he found matter even in 
 his school-books to feed this enthusiasm ; how he devoured 
 Lucretius De Rerum Natura, but especially the passage 
 about the discovery of metals. This being delivered with 
 
 r r 2 
 
6l2 OF PROSODY. 
 
 some intenseness, was pleasantly relieved by the ensuing 
 remark, that only in one thing did the speaker differ from 
 the poet. Lucretius deplored that whereas in the good old 
 time, brass was highly valued and gold disregarded, now that 
 was changed,' — gold had dethroned brass, and the harder 
 metal was of no account by the side of the softer 
 
 ' I have nothing to say against gold, which certainly now, as when the 
 poet wrote, is in summum honor em ; but I must say something for brass. 
 (Laughter.) Whatever may have been the case when Lucretius wrote, it 
 cannot now be truly said turnc jacet aes ; for in my experience brass is, 
 next to gold, the greatest power that influences the world. (Great cheers 
 and laughter.) ' 
 
 Such are the double-meaning and the pun. But these 
 things are very wide of the feature now under consideration. 
 These are laughable from their eccentricity. They are funny 
 because they traverse the first law of language in a playful 
 manner. As an expression of wit they are perfectly legiti- 
 mate only so long as the rhetoric of the language turns on 
 word-sound. Hence we may observe that the mind of the 
 scholar, that is to say, the mind which is imbued with the 
 elder conditions of language, is ever prone to punning. But 
 in English they are now half-recognised, because the lan- 
 guage has passed beyond that stage of which they were a 
 wanton inversion. 
 
 646. In contradistinction to all this, the Hebrew antitheses 
 arise out of the legitimate exercise of the rhetorical pro- 
 perties of the language ; and their very consonance with the 
 present condition of the language is an element of their 
 solemnity. 
 
 In every successive stage of language there is a music 
 proper to that stage ; and if we seek the focus of that music, 
 we must watch the action of the language in its exalted 
 moods. When we see that the poetry and the oratory of a 
 language avails itself largely of the contrast of word-sounds, 
 
SOUND AS AN OBJECT OF ATTRACTION. 613 
 
 we cannot doubt that the national ear is most alive to that 
 particular form of speech-music which gives prominence to 
 individual words. This is the case of the Hebrew paral- 
 lelisms ; and it is the key also to alliteration in poetry, 
 where the echo of word to word is the sonorous organ of 
 the poet. But a period comes in the course of the higher 
 development of language, when the sonorousness of words 
 gives place to the sentiment of modulation, whereby a 
 musical unity is given to the sentence like the unity of 
 thought. It is to this that the foremost languages of the 
 world, and the English language for one, have now at- 
 tained. If we look at Saxon literature, we see two widely 
 different eras of language living on side by side, the elder 
 form in the poetry, and the later one in the prose. The 
 alliterative poetry belongs to an age in which the word-sound 
 was the prominent feature ; the prose is already far gone 
 into that stage in which the sound of the word has fallen 
 back and become secondary to the rhvthm of the sentence. 
 The development of rhythm had already become so full and 
 ample by the time of the Conquest, that the restraint of 
 iambic metre was needful, and it was readily accepted at the 
 hands of our French instructors. Rhyme also was adopted, 
 not indeed for the first time, for occasional examples occur 
 before ; but the general use of rhyme came in with the iambic 
 metre under French influence. 
 
 647. Rhyme is an attendant upon metre ; its office is to 
 mark the 'verse' or turn of the metre, where it begins again. 
 Rhyme is an insignificant thing philologically, as compared 
 with alliteration : for whereas this is, as we have before 
 shown, an accentual reverberation, and rests upon the most 
 vital part of words ; rhyme is but a syllabic resonance, and 
 rests most frequently upon those syllables which are vocally 
 of the lowest consideration. It is, however, one among the 
 
6 14 OF PROSODY. 
 
 many little tributaries towards the evidence of a fondness in 
 man for a sonorous accompaniment to his language. And 
 inasmuch as the turn of the verse is for the most part at a 
 rhythmical division, rhyme is thus wedded to rhythm, and so 
 far it is rescued from being a mere external appendage pro- 
 ductive only of a sensual effect. Rhyme is thus seen to act 
 as a medium between metre and rhythm. 
 
 Rhyme has developed its luxuriance in its native regions, 
 that is to say in the Romanesque dialects. The rhyming 
 faculty was not born with our speech, and it is still but 
 imperfectly naturalised among us. The English language 
 is found to be poor in rhymes when it is put to the proof, 
 as in the essay of translating Dante in his own terza rima. 
 
 Chaucer pointed to the difficulties of rhyming in English, 
 and said he could not keep pace with the French rhymes : — 
 
 ' Hit is a grete penaunce, 
 Syth ryme in Englissh hath such skarsete, 
 To folowe worde by worde the curiostie 
 Of Graunson, floure of them that make in Fraunce.' 
 
 The Compleynt of Mars and Venus. 
 
 648. Metre and rhythm must move together, in order 
 to produce poetic harmony. Metre is to rhythm what logic 
 is to rhetoric ; what the bone frame of an animal is to its 
 living form and movements. As the bony structure of a 
 beautiful animal is amply enveloped ; as the logic of a good 
 discourse is there, but undisplayed, — so the metre of good 
 poetry is lost to the view, while the ear is entirely occupied 
 with its rhythm. And as men use rhetoric before logic, so, 
 likewise, did they use rhythm before metre. Metre may be 
 artificially transplanted from one nation to another, as the 
 French metre was transplanted to our language. But 
 rhythm is more deeply rooted in the race and nation, and 
 the individual writer can only within a limited range play 
 
SOUND AS AN OBJECT OF ATTRACTION. 615 
 
 variations upon the natural rhythm of his mother tono-ue. 
 
 Up to a certain point we give a poet the credit of his 
 
 rhythm, as we do to Milton ; but the elemental stuff out of 
 
 which it is made is rather an inheritance than a personal 
 
 product. Every man inherits a certain national intonation. 
 
 This is that which is most ineradicable of all things which 
 
 go to constitute language. This is that which we call the 
 
 brogue of the Irishman, the accent of the Scotchman, or of 
 
 the Welshman. By great care and early training it may be 
 
 disciplined out of an individual, but we have no experience 
 
 of its wearing out of a population. The people of Devon, 
 
 who hardly retain two Welsh words in their speech, have an 
 
 intonation so peculiar, that it can only be interpreted as a 
 
 relic of the otherwise extinct West- Welsh laneqiasre. 
 
 Any one, with an ear for the melody of language, and 
 with a heart accessible to romantic feelings, must be drawn 
 towards the Irish people, if it were only for the singular and 
 mysterious air which constitutes the melody of their speech. 
 True, they speak Saxon now instead of Erse, but the rhythm 
 is unshaken. It runs up into, and is indistinguishable from, 
 that native music which is at once the surest exponent of 
 national character and its most tenacious product, over- 
 living the extinction of all other heirlooms. 
 
 649. The distinctiveness of all that which we call brogue, 
 accent, &c, is ultimately resoluble into a speciality of mo- 
 dulation or rhythm. Here is the stronghold of Nature and 
 the seat of national and provincial peculiarity. The de- 
 parture of the English language from the music of the 
 Saxon, is the greatest of all evidences how profound a 
 change was accomplished by the great French interval of 
 the transition. Had the new language started with a pro- 
 vincial basis, instead of springing up as it did in the Court, 
 the result might have been different. As it was, we got a 
 
6l6 of prosody. 
 
 new music, based on a new key-note, and one quite distinct 
 from any of its constituent elements. 
 
 But while we acknowledge in rhythm something pro- 
 founder than metre, we must not deny to the latter a certain 
 magisterial and interpretative function, which it obtains by 
 its position and office. As the man of formulas often directs, 
 and sometimes practically determines the action of his 
 superior, so metre exercises a sort of judicature even over 
 rhythm. 
 
 Metre acts as a stiffener to the rhythm. It has on the 
 one hand a repressive, and on the other a sustaining 
 agency. It helps to sustain elevation, while it controls the 
 natural swell of enthusiastic rhythm. This constraint exer- 
 cised by metre over the rhythmical movement is least felt in 
 blank verse, because terminal rhymes are like so many studs 
 or clasps, pinning down the metre from point to point, and 
 adding greatly to its stringency. 
 
 650. The relation of verse to syntax is undetermined. The 
 line may end with a grammatical pause, or it may end in 
 the middle of a phrase where the most lavish punctuationist 
 could not bestow a comma. But it must never mar the 
 rhythm : as a rule, the turn of a verse must coincide with 
 a rhythmical subdivision, and these are finer and more 
 frequent than grammatical subdivisions. 
 
 ' So thy dark arches, London Bridge, bestride 
 Indignant Thames, and part his angry tide.' 
 
 The poetry of the Anti-Jacobin is a good repertory for 
 varieties of verse-making, because it contains lawless as well 
 as lawful examples. In the above couplet the reader will 
 perceive that though there is not a grammatical division be- 
 tween the lines, there is a rhymthical one, and that there is 
 a real gain to the effect by the voice being made to rest 
 
SOUND AS AN OBJECT OF ATTRACTION. 6lJ 
 
 a perceptible time on bestride : the modulation so obtained 
 is a help to the picture on the imagination. 
 
 One of the commonest means for producing the effect of 
 drollery in verse, is by offending against this rule, and break- 
 ing the verse in spite of rhythm. 
 
 ' Weary Knife-grinder ! little think the proud ones, 
 Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike- 
 road, what hard work 'tis crying all day " Knives and 
 
 Scissors to grind O ! " ' 
 
 In the old alliterative poetry, the turn of the verse was 
 decided solely by the sentiment of rhythm, but in modern 
 times it hangs on metre and rhyme. 
 
 651. Of all the forms which the Romanesque metres have 
 assumed in the English language the blank verse is that 
 which we have most completely nationalised and made 
 our own ; and the probable explanation of this is, that 
 Rhyme is too confining for our native rhythm, when it 
 would put forth its full strength. On the other hand, 
 Metre, though it restrains, does unquestionably help to 
 sustain the elevation, by the way in which it brings out 
 the subordinate pauses and finer articulations in the rhythm. 
 I would ask the reader to consider the following lines, 
 lending his ear especially to the verse-endings which close 
 without punctuation : — 
 
 ' A gracious spirit o'er this earth presides, 
 And o'er the heart of man : invisibly 
 It comes, to works of unreproved delight, 
 And tendency benign, directing those 
 Who care not, know not, think not what they do. 
 The tales that charm away the wakeful night 
 In Araby, romances ; legends penned 
 For solace by dim light of monkish lamps ; 
 Fictions, for ladies of their love, devised 
 By youthful squires ; adventures endless, spun 
 By the dismantled warrior in old age, 
 Out of the bowels of those very schemes 
 In which his youth did first extravagate ; 
 These spread like day, and something in the shape 
 
6l8 OF PROSODY. 
 
 Of these will live till man shall be no more. 
 
 Dumb yearnings, hidden appetites, are ours. 
 
 And they mn*t have their food. Oar childhood sits, 
 
 Our simple childhood, sits upon a throne 
 
 That hath more power than all the elements.' 
 
 William Wordsworth, The Prelude, Bk. V. 
 
 Verse is the embodiment of poetic rhythm, and the turn 
 or transition from one line to another is in accordance with 
 the rhythmical articulation. I imagine that this coincidence 
 of verse with rhythm is never broken without a set purpose, 
 as when Spenser would produce the effect of levity and 
 mock-admiration (411). 
 
 652. Subject to the established conditions of versification, 
 each poet plays upon the rhythm of his native tongue, and 
 strives to produce a sound in harmony with his thought. 
 This is plainly perceived in the following lines from the 
 opening of Dryden's JEneid: — 
 
 'From hence the line of Alban fathers come, 
 And the long glories of majestic Rome.' 
 
 In Milton's description of the cock, the rhythm is imitative : 
 
 ' While the Cock with lively din 
 Scatters the rear of darkness thin ; 
 And to the stack, or the Barn-dore 
 Stoutly struts his Dames before,' — V 'Allegro. 
 
 All true poetry feels after, and grows towards, a responsive 
 musical accompaniment, which sounds to the ear of the 
 mind like the thing described, even though it should be the 
 process of nature, which marches in silence. The following 
 lines, from an unknown poet, who signs G. M., display this 
 harmony of the rhythm with the description : — 
 
 ' On that opposing hill, as on the stage 
 Of rural theatre, or Virgil's page, 
 I watch the shifting scenes of country life, — 
 Man's patient labour and his world-old strife. 
 First, the stout team drags on the biting plough ; 
 Thro' the hard clods it cuts and pierces slow ; 
 The careful yeoman guides the furrow'd way, 
 The rook succeeds, and lives another day. 
 
SOUND AS AN OBJECT OF ATTRACTION. 619 
 
 Then come the sowers, who with careless skill 
 Scatter the grain and every fissure fill ; 
 Then the light harrow the smooth soil restores. 
 And soon the field feels life in all her pores. 
 Next some bright morning, as I mark the scene, 
 My fancy soothes me with a shade of green, 
 Which after every shower more vivid grows, 
 Till em'rald brightly o'er the surface glows, 
 Then yellow clothes the scene, and soon, too soon, 
 Red ears bow heavy to the harvest moon.' 
 
 653. In making a poetical translation, the first thing is to 
 get hold of a melody. The metre, and even in some measure 
 the grammar, must be secondary; else there can be no 
 rhythm, and therefore no unity. Your verses may parse, 
 and they may scan, and be but doggerel after all. The 
 master-principle, then, is rhythm. In the following lines 
 from Mr. Griffith's translation of the Rdmay&na, we have 
 not only words and phrases and metre, but we have also a 
 rhythm, which gives the whole a unity and an individuality, 
 making it 'like something'; and we, who do not read 
 Sanskrit, can enquire whether that is a faithful rendering 
 of the effect of the original :— 
 
 ' Balmy cool the air was breathing, welcome clouds were floating by, 
 Humming bees with joyful music swelled the glad wild peacock's cry. 
 Their wing-feathers wet with bathing, birds slow flying to the trees 
 Rested in the topmost branches waving to the western breeze.' 
 
 But no English reader with a cultivated ear would be 
 likely to ask whether the following bore any resemblance to 
 Horace ; simply because, through lack of rhythm, it has no 
 unity, and it leaves on the mind no impression of having 
 any likeness or similitude of its own : — 
 
 ' Methinks Dame Nature to discriminate 
 
 What's just from what's unjust entirely fails; 
 
 Though doubtless fairly she can separate 
 
 What 's good from what is bad, and aye prevails 
 
 What to avoid, what to desire, to state ; 
 
 And Reason cannot prove that in the scales 
 
 The man who broke another's cabbage-leaf 
 
 Should weigh as guilty as the sacrilegious thief.' 
 
620 OF PROSODY. 
 
 654. It would lead us too far if we attempted to exemplify 
 in detail the conclusion at which these latter pages are pointed. 
 It is this: — Our language has passed on beyond the stage 
 at which the chime of words is a care to the national ear, 
 and it has adopted instead thereof the pleasure of a musical 
 rhythm, which pervades the sentence and binds it into one. 
 Ewald has happily described the perception of rhythm as 
 •Sinn fW ©anjc — a feeling or sentiment for the Whole. 
 When the English language is now used so as to display 
 a sonorous aptness in the words, we call it Word-painting. 
 
 Modern languages have a continuity of development 
 and a flexibility of action, and growing out of these a 
 power of following the movements of the mind, such 
 as was never attained by the classical languages. If we 
 take Demosthenes and Cicero as the maturest products 
 of the Greek and Latin languages, we feel that they do not 
 attain to the range of the best modern writers, or even to that 
 of the fine passages in the prose writings of Milton. Great 
 elasticity, great plasticity, has been added to language by 
 the development of symbolism ; great acquisitions have been 
 made both in the compass and in the rhythm of language. 
 This of course displays itself chiefly in the greater oratorical 
 efforts. The capacity of a language is seen best in the 
 masterly periods of great orators. In our day we have 
 heard much praise of short sentences ; and that praise for 
 the most part has been well bestowed. The vast majority 
 of writers are engaged in the diffusion of knowledge, in 
 popularising history or science ; or else they write with the 
 avowed purpose of entertaining. Wherever the object is to 
 make knowledge easy, or to make reading easy, the short 
 sentence is to be commended. But when the mind of an 
 original thinker burns with the conception of new thoughts, 
 or the mind of the orator is aflame with the enthusiasm of 
 
SOUND AS AN OBJECT OF ATTRACTION. 62 1 
 
 new combinations and newly perceived conclusions, it is 
 natural for them to overflow in long and elaborately sub- 
 ordinated sentences, which tax the powers of the hearer or 
 reader to keep up with them. These are among the greatest 
 efforts of mind, and their best expression naturally con- 
 stitutes the grandest exhibition of the power of human 
 speech; and this power has received great accessions by 
 the modern development of symbolism and its companion 
 rhythm (443). 
 
 655. Short sentences are prevalent in our language, as long 
 ones are in the German. In all things we incline to curtness 
 and stuntness. Not that this gives the full account of the 
 matter. German literature has been far more engaged in the 
 acquisition, while English literature has been employed more 
 in the diffusion, of knowledge. This is probably the chief 
 cause of our short and easy sentences. But we can use the 
 cumulate construction when needed, and there are places in 
 which force would be lost by dividing it into two or three 
 successive and seriatim sentences. The following affords 
 a fair example of a cumulative subject. It is all ' subject ' 
 down to the words printed in capitals. 
 
 ' The houses of the grandmothers and great-grandmothers cf this genera- 
 tion, at least the country houses, with front-door and back-door always 
 standing open, winter and summer, and a thorough draught always blowing 
 through ; with all the scrubbing and cleaning and polishing and scouring 
 which used to go on ; the grandmothers and still more the great-grand- 
 mothers always out of doors and never with a bonnet on except to go to 
 church ; these things, when contrasted with our present " civilized " habits, 
 entirely account for the fact so often seen of a great-grandmother who 
 was a tower of physical vigour, descending into a grandmother perhaps a little 
 less vigorous but still sound as a bell and healthy to the core, into a mother 
 languid and confined to her carriage and house, and lastly into a daughter 
 sickly and confined to her bed.' — Florence Nightingale, Notes on Nursing. 
 
 656. He who hopes that his writings may be an agreeable 
 accompanment to tea and bread-and-butter, may well 
 adopt as his literary type the conversational sentences of 
 
622 OF PROSODY. 
 
 Addison, the father of popular English literature, and the 
 founder of easy writing for recreative study : — 
 
 ' It is with much satisfaction that I hear this great city enquiring day by 
 day after these my papers, and receiving my morning lectures with a becom- 
 ing seriousness and attention. My publisher tells me that there are already 
 3000 of them distributed every day ; so that if I allow twenty readers 
 to every paper, which I look upon as a modest computation, I may reckon 
 about three score thousand disciples in London and Westminster, who I hope 
 will take care to distinguish themselves from the thoughtless herd of their 
 ignorant and inattentive brethren. Since I have raised to myself so great an 
 audience I shall spare no pains to make their instruction agreeable and their 
 diversion useful. For which reasons I shall endeavour to enliven morality with 
 wit, and to temper wit with morality, that my readers may, if possible, both 
 wavs find their account in the speculation of the day. And to the end that 
 their virtue and discretion may not be short, transient, intermittent starts of 
 thought, I have resolved to refresh their memories from day to day, till I 
 have recovered them out of their desperate state of vice and folly into which 
 the age is fallen. The mind that lies fallow for a single day sprouts up in 
 follies that are only to be killed by a constant and assiduous culture. It was 
 said of Socrates that he brought philosophy down from heaven to inhabit 
 among men ; and I shall be ambitious to have it said of me, that I have 
 brought philosophy out of closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell 
 in clubs and assemblies, at tea tables and in coffee houses. 
 
 I would, therefore, in a very particular manner, recommend these my 
 speculations to all well-regulated families, that set apart an hour in every 
 morning for tea and bread-and-butter ; and would earnestly advise them for 
 their good to order this paper to be punctually served up, and to be looked 
 upon as a part of the tea equipage.' — Spectator, No. 10. 
 
 But he who wishes for periods that will furnish a mental 
 gymnastic, must read page after page of Milton's prose 
 works, or of Jeremy Taylor, where, amidst much that is 
 almost chaotic in its irregular massiveness, he may from 
 time to time fall in with such a piece of architecture as 
 will reward his patient quest. If the following piece from the 
 close of Milton's Reformation in England appears to the 
 reader hardly to match this description, it will at least serve 
 to give a taste of what a really great sentence can be. 
 
 ' Then, amidst the Hymns, and Halleluiahs of Saints some one may 
 perhaps bee heard offering at high strains in new and lofty Measures to sing 
 and celebrate thy divine Mercies, and marvelous Judgements in this Land 
 throughout all Ages; whereby this great and Warlike Nation instructed and 
 
SOUND AS AN OBJECT OF ATTRACTION. 623 
 
 inur'd to the fervent and continuall practice of Truth and Righteous?iesse, and 
 casting farre from her the rags of her old vices, may presse on hard to that 
 high and happy emulation to be found the soberest, wisest, and most Christian 
 People at that day when thou the Eternall and shortly-expected King shalt 
 open the Clouds to judge the severall Kingdomes of the World, and dis- 
 tributing Nationall Honours and Rewards to Religious and just Common- 
 wealths, shalt put an end to all Earthly Tyrannies, proclaiming thy universal 
 and milde Monarchy through Heaven and Earth. Where they undoubtedly 
 that by their Labours, Counsels, and Prayers, have been earnest for the 
 Common good of Religion and their Countrey, shall receive, above the 
 inferiour Orders of the Blessed, the Regall addition of Principalities, 
 Legions, and Thrones into their glorious Titles* and in supereminence of 
 beatifick Virion, progressing the dateles^e and irrevoluble Circle of Eternity 
 shall clasp inseparable Hands with joy, and blisse in over-measure for ever.' 
 [4to edit. Lond. 1641, p. 89.] 
 
 657. It is a gain to our general literature that the long sen- 
 tence is but rarely used, for it is sorely out of place in ordinary 
 writing, such as historical narrative, or any other kind that is 
 produced at a moderate temperature. It is the defect of 
 Clarendon's style that his sentences are too long for their 
 energy. Long sentences are intolerable without enthusiasm. 
 It is only under the glow of passion that the highest 
 capabilities of a language are displayed. But the resources 
 of modern syntax for continuous and protracted structure 
 are so strong that to the beauty of the long sentence it is 
 not necessary that the passion be at all furious, but only that 
 the feeling be strong enough to sustain itself during the flight 
 from one resting-place to another. The following four 
 stanzas from In Memoriam constitute but one period, which 
 though quiet enough is yet well sustained : — 
 
 LXXXV. 
 
 ' I past beside the reverend walls 
 * In which of old I wore the gown ; 
 
 I roved at random through the town, 
 And saw the tumult of the halls ; 
 
 And heard once more in college fanes 
 
 The storm their high-built organs make, 
 And thunder-music, rolling, shake 
 
 The prophets blazon'd on the panes ; 
 
624 0F prosody. 
 
 And caught once more the distant shout, 
 
 The measured pulse of racing oars 
 
 Among the willows ; paced the shores 
 And many a bridge, and all about 
 
 The same gray fiats again, and felt 
 
 The same, but not the same ; and last 
 Up that long walk of limes I past 
 
 To see the rooms in which he dwelt.' 
 
 If we ask, What is this sustaining power, which bears 
 along more than a hundred words in one movement, with 
 all the unity of an individual organism? the answer is, 
 that it is Rhythm. 
 
 658. If we want to see lengthiness of language carried out 
 to an extreme and exaggerated development, unsupported 
 moreover and unbalanced by rhythm, we have only to read 
 a legal document, such as a marriage settlement, or a re- 
 lease of trust. Often whole lines are mere strings of 
 words, till the reader's head swims with the fluctuations 
 of the unstable element, and, like a man at sea, or in a 
 balloon, he longs to plant his feet on terra firma. 
 
 1 And also of from and against all and all manner of actions and suits 
 cause and causes of action and suit reckonings debts duties claims and demands 
 whatsoever both at Law and in Equity which they the said releasing and 
 covenanting parties or any or either of them their or any or either of their 
 heirs executors administrators or assigns or any other person or persons 
 whomsoever {sic) claiming or who shall or may at any time hereafter claim 
 by from through under or in trust for them him or her or any or either of 
 them may or can have claim challenge or demand of from or against the 
 said ' 
 
 And so it goes floating on, when it could almost all be said 
 by a mere passive verb ; as, ' The trust is discharged.' 
 
 659. We cannot define Rhythm, we can only say what it 
 does. It combines and braces language into a whole; it gives 
 compactness, unity, beauty. It does more; it gives a harmony 
 of speech with things or thoughts. As feeling is kindled, 
 language, spoken or written, is apt to chime in with the 
 
SOUND AS AN OBJECT OF ATTRACTION. 625 
 
 character of the thing described. Observe the closing words 
 of this quotation, which is taken from a report of the Thanks- 
 giving Day : — 
 
 * As from time to time during the service the assemblage stood up — the 
 movement travelling over the level of the dome area and rising as in waves 
 round the great piers — one gained some idea of the vast numbers. But it 
 was when they sat down that they most impressed one ; for then, indeed, 
 they had all the multitudinous aspect of a subsiding sea.' — The Times, 
 Feb. 28, 1872. 
 
 We have now gone to the limits and beyond the limits of 
 analysis. If Rhythm is irreducible, much more is eloquence, 
 or whatever we shall call that which is the life of literature. 
 Literature in its happiest moods has united more of the 
 properties of the everlasting harmonies than any other 
 product of the human mind. Beyond all analysis of 
 language, beyond all historic and philologic interest, there 
 is something in eloquence for which we have no definite 
 name, but which, when it is present in literature, imparts 
 to writings a perennial durability ensuring their preservation 
 and making men call them immortal. 
 
 ' Or wherein again resides the force of human eloquence in things 
 human ? Wherein lies that wondrous power, which not only convinces the 
 understanding, not only creates a passing emotion, or dazzles the imagina- 
 tion, but sways the human will, even when it has determined beforehand 
 not to be swayed ? It is not clearness of reasoning. Truth itself will 
 convince : it will not win. Man's free agency will look on unmoved. Still 
 less is it rich imagery, or power of thought, or loftiness of conception, or 
 beauty of diction, or measured rhythm, or any skill which human art can 
 analyse. These things have their delight, but they will not move. The ear 
 drinks in the cadence : the imagination admires : but the soul looks on 
 unwarmed, unreached, as at the cold unpiercing brilliancy of the summer 
 lightning. Only when the soul goes out of itself and speaks to the soul, 
 can man sway the will of man. Eloquence then is all soul, embodied, it 
 may be, in burning forceful words, but with a power above the power of 
 words, an electric force which pierces the soul addressed, transfuses into it 
 another's thoughts, makes it its own, by giving forth out of itself. Analyse 
 eloquence ! Analyse the whirlwind or the lightning ! Yes ! these you may 
 analyse, for they are material : eloquence you can no more analyse than the 
 soul itself, whose voice it is in the simplicity of its immateriality.' — E. B. 
 Pusey, University Sermons, 1859-1872; Sermon I. 
 
 S S 
 
626 OF PROSODY, 
 
 Conclusion — Concerning the Origin of Language. 
 
 660. There is an opinion that the origin of language may 
 be traced, that we may form a science of what has been 
 called Generative Philology, and that important data for 
 such a science might be drawn from the inceptive stages 
 of speech. 
 
 The first dawn of intelligence, the first smile of the infant 
 on the mother, is in response to the tones of her maternal 
 encouragements : — 
 
 'Incipe parve puer risu cognoscere matrem.' 
 
 Vergil, Eclogue iv. 60. 
 
 ' Smile then, dear child, and make thy mother glad.' 
 
 Translation by H. D. Skrine, 1868. 
 
 Before speech is attained by the infant, he gets a set of 
 notes or tones to express pleasure or offence, assent or 
 refusal. The first attempts to speak are mere chirruppings 
 and warblings ; that is to say, it is the music of what is said 
 that is caught at first, while the child has as yet no ears for 
 the harder sense. By a beautiful and true touch of nature, 
 and all the more noticeable because it is not a common- 
 place of poetry, a poet of our own day has coupled the 
 early speech of children with the singing of birds : — 
 
 ' I love the song of birds, 
 And the children's early words.' 
 
 Charles Mackay, A Plain Mans Philosophy. 
 
 John Keble has justified the teaching of divine truths to 
 children, on the ground that, if the sense is beyond them, 
 there is a certain musical path of communication : — 
 
SOUND AS AN OBJECT OF ATTRACTION. 62J 
 
 ' Oh ! say not, dream not, heavenly notes 
 To childish ears are vain, 
 That the young mind at random floats, 
 And cannot reach the strain : 
 
 Dim or unheard the words may fall, 
 
 And yet the heaven-taught mind 
 May learn the sacred air, and all 
 
 The harmony unwind.' 
 
 So Mr. Edward Denison, speaking of his East-end lectures 
 to the dockyard labourers : — 
 
 ' I indulge them largely with quotations from Wordsworth, Tennyson, and 
 even Pope, much of which it is of course impossible they can understand, 
 but which they delight to hear. I suppose the rhythm and cadence tickles 
 their ear, and somehow helps to lift their fancy to a higher level.' — 
 Letters, &c, (Bentley and Son). 1872. 
 
 660 a. The general effect of such observations is towards 
 this: — That the sentient and emotional parts of human nature 
 have a greater share in the origins of language than the intel- 
 lectual faculty. The first awakener of language is Love. 
 
 And the first developer is Sound. This seems to be testi- 
 fied by the whole body of nursery-rhyme literature. Nor 
 do we entirely lose in manhood the power of enjoying a fine 
 sonorous composition apart from its sense. The nursery- 
 rhyme passion has its mature forms. 
 
 ' But what do you think of Coleridge ? To me, when I cannot follow 
 him, there is always a fine ring, like bell-chimes, in his melody; not unlike 
 our best nursery rhymes, for it is curious the fine cadences we get in the 
 nursery. I like Coleridge's Kubla Khan for its exquisite cadence. That 
 whole passage beginning — 
 
 " In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 
 
 A stately pleasure-dome decree : 
 Where Alph, the sacred river, ran 
 Through caverns measureless to man, 
 • Down to a sunless sea " — 
 
 has a most fascinating melody. I don't know what it means, but it 's very 
 fine.' — John Duncan, Colloquia Peripatetica, p. 53. 
 
 S S 2 
 
628 OF PROSODY. 
 
 I knew a little orator, who, at the age of five years, would 
 make speeches of irresistible force, though he was more than 
 usually backward in grammatical sequence. It being one 
 morning said in his presence that he had been found half 
 out of bed, and the cause surmised that his brother had 
 elbowed him out, he exclaimed, ' Yes, he elbowed me 
 harder and harder — could be!' In modulation this was a 
 perfect utterance : the voice had risen very gradually and 
 plaintively so far as 'harder and harder' — then a pause, 
 as he was feeling after a climax — and then out broke in 
 an octave higher the decisive words ' could be ! ' 
 
 It was the same boy who once said it was not his bed 
 time ' this 'reckly,' a compromise between ' this minute ' and 
 ' directly/ but which, in the way it was delivered, very far 
 surpassed either of these forms of expression. 
 
 660 b. The fact is that children have a greater' appreciation 
 of sound than of sense, and that accordingly their early words 
 are in good melody and bad grammar. Their judgment of 
 the fitness of words for the office they fill, will often be very 
 distinctly pronounced. And this judgment rests, as indeed 
 it can rest, on nothing else than the chime of the sound 
 with their notion of the thing indicated. The judgment of 
 children is often found so firm and distinct on this matter, 
 that we must conclude a great part of the early exercise of 
 their wakening minds has been concerned with the discrimi- 
 nation of sounds. A little watching might supply many 
 illustrations on this head ; what is here produced is not the 
 result of any careful selection, but just what offered itself 
 about the time this chapter was in preparation. 
 
 A father who took an interest in some pigeons that were 
 kept for the amusement of his children, had the whim to 
 call them all by some fanciful name ; and as they multiplied 
 it became harder to invent acceptable names. So it hap- 
 
SOUND AS AN OBJECT OF ATTRACTION. 629 
 
 pened that, after many familiar names, there came in some 
 from classical sources. Of these it was observed (months 
 after) that one had fixed itself in the memory of the children. 
 They were chasing the kitten, and their inward glee was 
 venting itself in the name of Andromache, which they used as 
 a term of endearment. Some days later, when they were 
 again at play, and shouting ' Andromache,' their father asked 
 them, ' Which is Andromache ? ' The younger answered 
 with an exuberance of satisfaction : ' Johnnie 's calling me 
 Andromache ! ' Their father replied, ' If Johnnie calls you 
 Andromache, I'd call him Polyhymnia ! ' At this, Johnnie 
 (a boy of six years old) towered up like a pillar of moral 
 conviction, and in a tone of mingled disdain and depreca- 
 tion, said : c Augh ! Nobody couldn't be called that, I'm 
 sure ! ' 
 
 660 c. In the minds of children and savages the word and 
 the thing are absolutely identified. If they are able to grasp 
 the name, they seem to have a satisfaction analogous to that 
 which the mature mind tastes in description or analysis. 
 
 I was staying at the house of a friend, where the youngest 
 child was a brave, bold, golden-locked boy, under three years 
 old. As I was dressing in the morning he came into my 
 room, and we had a long and varied conversation. One 
 of the topics was broached and disposed of somewhat in 
 the following manner : — ' Are Mabel and Trixey coming 
 to-day ? ' he asked. ' I'm sure I don't know. Who are 
 Mabel and Trixey ? ' Thereat he took up a strong and 
 confident attitude, and with a tone which at once justified 
 himself and refuted me, he said : ' They are Mabel and 
 Trixey ; that 's their names ! ' — the last clause a perfect bar 
 of remonstrative music ; as much as to say, ' You surely are 
 satisfied with that ! ' 
 
 A boy of five years old was asked, ' Do you know where 
 
63O OF PROSODY. 
 
 your cousin Johnnie is at school ? ' ' No ! I don't know ; 
 where is he ? ' 'At Honiton.' ' At Hon-t-iton ? Isn't that 
 a funny place ? / call it ! ' 
 
 Here it will be observed the place is judged of by the 
 sound of its name ; there is no distinction between the name 
 and the thing. 
 
 The following most significant record of native talk in the 
 Aru Islands is from The Malay Archipelago, by Alfred Russell 
 Wallace (1869) 1 :- 
 
 ' Two or three of them got round me, and begged me for the twentieth 
 time to tell them the name of my country. Then, as they could not pro- 
 nounce it satisfactorily, they insisted that I was deceiving them, and that it 
 was a name of my own invention. One funny old man, who bore a ludicrous 
 resemblance to a friend of mine at home, was almost indignant. "Unglung!" 
 said he, " who ever heard of such a name ? — anglang, angerlang — that can't 
 be the name of your country; you are playing with us." Then he tried to 
 give a convincing illustration. " My country is Wanumbai — anybody can 
 say Wanumbai. I'm an orang-Wanumbai ; but N-glung ! who ever heard 
 of such a name ? Do tell us the real name of your country, and when you 
 are gone we shall know how to talk about you." To this luminous argument 
 and remonstrance I could oppose nothing but assertion, and the whole party 
 remained firmly convinced that I was for some reason or other deceiving 
 them.' — ch. xxxi. 
 
 All these are instances of the inability of man, in the 
 earlier stages of his career, to assume the mastery over lan- 
 guage. His mind is enthralled by it, and is led away after 
 all its suggestions. We are told by Professor Jowett that 
 the Greek philosopher, 'the contemporary of Plato and 
 Socrates, was incapable of resisting the power of any ana- 
 logy which occurred to him .... and he was helpless 
 against the influence of any word which had an equivocal 
 or double sense 2 .' 
 
 1 Indicated to me by my friend Prebendary Buckle; through whom 
 also I have authority from Mr. Wallace to add that it is a carefully 
 faithful record. He says it ' was written down on the spot the day after it 
 occurred, and is strictly accurate as far as I could reproduce the words and 
 tone of it in English.' 
 
 2 The Dialog?ies of Plato, vol. ii. p. 505. 
 
SOUND AS AN OBJECT OF ATTRACTION. 63 1 
 
 It may be imagined that we, in our advanced condition 
 of modern civilisation, are now completely masters over 
 our language, but an investigation of the subject might 
 produce an unexpected verdict. Philology is one of the 
 most instrumental of studies for investing man with the 
 full prerogative over his speech, for its highest office is to 
 enable him to comprehend the relation of his words to the 
 action of his mind, and thus to render the mind superior 
 to verbal illusions. 
 
 660 d. Those who think that the sounds of nature first 
 suggested language to man, hold a theory of language which 
 may be compared to that theory of music by which music is 
 derived from the cataract in the mountains, the wind in the 
 trees, or the sound of the ocean on the shore. It appears 
 to me that there is nothing in inward or outward experience 
 to justify such a theory. As there are sounds in nature that 
 may give an occasional suggestion to the musician, but none 
 that can be acknowledged either as his model to work by or 
 as the original source of his art, so it is with speech. Music 
 and language alike must have come from within, from the 
 greatest depths of our nature. 
 
 Man's conscious work upon language in fitting it to 
 express his mind, is the least part of the matter. The 
 greater part is worked out unconsciously. And long eras 
 pass after the perfecting of its processes, before intellectual 
 man awakes to perceive what he himself has done. This 
 only proves from what a depth within his own nature this 
 power of speech is evolved ; only proves what a mystery 
 man is to himself: and it casts a doubt over the prospect 
 of our ever tracing a scientific path up to those springs 
 which fancy calls the Origin of Language. 
 
 For me the poet speaks most appropriately on this 
 
632 OF PROSODY. 
 
 theme, because he speaks most vaguely, most wonderingly, 
 and most inquiringly: — 
 
 1 Ye wandering Utterances, has earth no scheme, 
 No scale of moral music, to unite 
 Powers that survive but in the faintest dream 
 Of memory? — O that ye might stoop to bear 
 Chains, such precious chains of sight 
 As laboured minstrelsies through ages wear ! 
 O for a balance fit the truth to tell 
 Of the Unsubstantial, pondered well ! ' 
 
 To make a path from the visible, ponderable, and cor- 
 poreal, up to that which is invisible, imponderable, and 
 spiritual, with no other building-material than vocal sound 
 to erect a bridge from matter to mind, — tempering it in the 
 finest filtered harmonies that can be appreciated by the 
 sentient, emotional, and intellectual nature of man; — this 
 seems to be the task and function of human speech. 
 
 Of its origin we can only say, it is of the same root 
 with that poetic faculty whereby man makes nature echo 
 his sentiments ; it is correlated to the invention of music, 
 whereby dead things are made to discourse of human 
 emotions; it is a peculiar property of that nature whose 
 other chief and proper attributes are the power of Love, 
 and the capacity for the knowledge of God. 
 
I. 
 
 INDEX OF LETTERS AND WORDS. 
 
 [Words belonging to the English vocabulary are printed in the ordinary 
 Roman type : Provincialisms in Italics : those in the Thick type are either 
 Scottish or of the Transition period, or highly antiquated : Saxon forms are 
 in Small Capitals.] 
 
 A, the article, 226,483, 
 495, 498, 621. 
 
 — the character, 229. 
 
 — particle, 254, 606 b. 
 
 — the prefix, 449. 
 
 — the vowel, 100, 103, 
 108, 109, 121, 177. 
 
 — (in Saxon), HO, 
 in, 340. 
 
 a-, 606 c. 
 ab-, 606 c. 
 aback, 192, 606 b. 
 abacus, 369. 
 abaft, 606 b. 
 
 ABBANDUN, 580 a. 
 
 abbey, 192. 
 abdicate, 309. 
 abed, 449, 606 b. 
 abet, 77- 
 
 abidden, 267, 268. 
 abide, 267. 
 Abingdon, 580 a. 
 -able, 402. 
 aboard, 606 b. 
 aboard of, 529. 
 abode, 267. 
 a-body, 477. 
 abominable, 75- 
 about, 178, 522, 559, 
 
 5S4, 606 b. 
 above, 192. 
 abroad, 192, 254. 
 abrogate, 606 c. 
 
 abs-, 606 c. 
 abstain, 606 c. 
 abstraction, 227. 
 abut, 82. 
 academic, 420. 
 academy, 364. 
 accept, 75, 402. 
 acceptable, 402. 
 acceptance, 402. 
 accepted, 402. 
 accessible, 402. 
 accident, 32, 75. 
 accidental, 404. 
 accord, 75. 
 according, 545. 
 account, 234, 402. 
 accountable, 402. 
 accountant, 402. 
 accounted, 402. 
 accusation, 358. 
 ace, 56. 
 ache, 192. 
 aches, 176. 
 acknowledge, 139. 
 acorn, 112. 
 acoustic, 420. 
 acoustics, 368. 
 acquaint, 75, 4°9- 
 acquaintance, 355. 
 acquittal, 360. 
 acre, 113, 192, 316. 
 act and deed, 77- 
 action, 358. 
 
 active, 192, 413. 
 acumen, 369. 
 
 ACW^L, 274. 
 ACWELE, 274. 
 ACWOLEN, 274. 
 
 -ad, 352. 
 ad-, 606 c. 
 -ada, 352. 
 adapt, 606 c. 
 add, 75. 
 adde, 61. 
 addle, ill. 
 -ade, 352. 
 adequate, 606 c. 
 adherent, 606 c. 
 adieus, 221. 
 adit, 32. 
 admiralty, 350. 
 admiration, 32. 
 admit, 606 c. 
 -ado, 352. 
 ado, 455. 
 adolescent, 192. 
 adown, 606 b. 
 advance, 75. 
 advancement, 333. 
 advantage, 75. 
 adventure, 75, 157. 
 adventuresome, 399. 
 adverse, 75. 
 advert, 606 c. 
 advertize, 310, 347. 
 advice, 260. 
 
6 3 4 
 
 INDEX 
 
 advise, 260. 
 advocate, 56, 75. 
 advowson, 332. 
 adze, in. 
 
 JECER, 316. 
 
 aegis, 369. 
 jElfred, 324. 
 aenglis, 49. 
 aestuary, 32. 
 JEtheling, 318. 
 ^Ethelred, 324. 
 aesthetick, 139, 420. 
 afar, 606 b. % 
 affair, 455. 
 affection, 75. 
 affluence, 356. 
 afield, 449, 606 b. 
 afloat, 192, 606 b. 
 afoot, 449, 606 b. 
 a-forlorn, 606 b. 
 African, 419. 
 after, 112, 113, 521. 
 after-, 606 a. 
 after all, 517. 
 after a sort, 517. 
 aftermath, 317. 
 afternoon, 606. 
 a-good, 449. 
 againe (Spenser), 160. 
 against, 38, 527. 
 
 -age. 335^ 336. 
 -ager, 336. 
 
 aggregative, 413. 
 
 a g°g. 449- 
 agone, 192. 
 
 agony, 364. 
 
 agreeable, 402. 
 
 aground, 606 b. 
 
 ahead, 192, 606 b. 
 
 a-high, 606 b. 
 
 aid and abet, 75. 
 
 air, 75, 189. 
 
 air-balloon, 601. 
 
 air-built, 192. 
 
 air-tight, 192. 
 
 m'sy = easy, 186. 
 
 ajar, 606 b. 
 
 Akemanchester, 20. 
 
 akin, 606 b. 
 
 -al, 360, 404. 
 
 alack, 201. 
 alas, 75, 201. 
 a-laughter, 606 b. 
 album, 369. 
 alchemy, 353. 
 alcohol, 353. 
 alcove, 353. 
 alder, 20, in. 
 alder-liefest, 138. 
 alderman, 114. 
 Aldress or Aldresse 
 
 (Doncaster), 384. 
 ale, 189. 
 ale-conner, 319. 
 Alfred, 113. 
 algebra, 353. 
 algorism, 353. 
 algorithm, 353. 
 alight, 198, 192. 
 alike, 198. 
 all, 103, 162, 189, 192. 
 
 486. 
 Alleluia, 209. 
 aller, 138. 
 all hail ! 208. 
 alliance, 56. 
 all of them, 591. 
 allow, 303. 
 allowed, 303. 
 all-powerful, 607. 
 ally, 75, 620. 
 almanac, 353. 
 alms, 112, 189. 
 aloft, 606 b. 
 along, 254, 449, 606 b. 
 along of, 529. 
 along on, 529. 
 alongside, 606 b. 
 aloof, 606 b. 
 aloud, 449, 606 b. 
 a-low, 606 b. 
 also, 520, 532, 535. 
 
 -ahy, 35°- 
 alumnus, 369. 
 Alwalda, 25. 
 alway, always, 515. 
 am, 189, 281, 282. 
 amain, 606 b. 
 amen, 210. 
 amend, 75. 
 
 amendment, 333. 
 
 amends, 82. 
 
 American, 419. 
 
 amiable, 75- 
 
 amid, 38. 
 
 ammiral, 353. 
 
 among, 526. 
 
 an (numeral and ar- 
 ticle), 32, 38, 168, 
 226, 483, 495, 498, 
 512. 
 
 an, ? form of ' and,' 
 
 544- 
 an- (Greek prefix), 5 10. 
 
 an- (Saxon prefix), 
 
 606 a. 
 
 -an (adj.), 419. 
 
 -an (inf.), 305, 580 a. 
 
 -an (Saxon plural form), 
 
 379; 
 analytic, 420. 
 
 anathematize, 310. 
 
 anatomize, 310. 
 
 -ance, 355. 
 
 ancient, 218. 
 
 ancienter, 422. 
 
 anchor, in. 
 
 -ancy, 355. 
 
 -and, 263. 
 
 and, in, 520, 532, 
 
 540, 544, 549, 550. 
 
 and-, 606 a. 
 
 andiron, 606 a. 
 
 and where, 540. 
 
 and which, 540. 
 
 and who, 540. 
 
 angelic, 405. 
 
 Angle, 23. 
 
 anglisce, 49. 
 
 animosity, 357. 
 
 animus, 369. 
 
 anis = once, 5 r 5- 
 
 anodyne, 510. 
 
 anonymous, 510. 
 
 another, 498. 
 
 answer, 606 a. 
 
 answerable, 402. 
 
 -ant, 417. 
 
 antagonistic, 420. 
 
 antarctic, 420. 
 
OF LETTERS AND WORDS. 
 
 635 
 
 ante-, 606 c. 
 antecedent, 606 c. 
 antechapel, 606 c. 
 antediluvian, 606 c. 
 anteroom, 606 c. 
 anti-, 606 c, 606 d. 
 anticipate, 606 c. 
 anticlinal, 606 d. 
 antidote, 606 d. 
 antipathy, 606 d. 
 antipodes, 606 d. 
 antiquity, 349. 
 antithesis, 369, 606 d. 
 antitype, 606 d. 
 anvil, in. 
 anxious, 192. 
 any, 189, 512. 
 anything, 234. 
 apathetic, 420. 
 ape, in, 260. 
 apex, 369. 
 aphorism, 192. 
 apiece, 192, 449. 
 apish, 393. 
 apo-, 606 d. 
 apocalypse, 606 d. 
 apocrypha, 606 d. 
 apogee, 606 c. 
 apologetic, 420. 
 apologue, 192. 
 apology, 606 d. 
 apostolic, 405. 
 apostrophe, 606 d. 
 apparatus, 369. 
 appeal, 371. 
 appear, 75. 
 appetite, 75. 
 apple, 20, in. 
 appreciable, 402. 
 appreciative, 413. 
 approachable, 402. 
 approval, 360. 
 approve, 192. 
 aquatic, 405. 
 a-right, 449. 
 Arabic, 405. 
 arcana, 369. 
 archaeological, 406. 
 archaeology, 192. 
 archaic, 420. 
 
 archbishop, 114. 
 architectress, 384. 
 Arctic, 420. 
 -ard, 342, 403. 
 ardor, 359. 
 ardour, 359. 
 arduous, 192. 
 are, 175, 192, 281, 
 
 282, 578. 
 area, 369. 
 arena, 369. 
 aright, 449, 606 b. 
 arithmetic, 368. 
 arize (Spenser), 346. 
 ark, 112. 
 arm, 316. 
 armada, 352. 
 armlet, 334. 
 arms of precision, 425. 
 am, 282. 
 aromatic, 420. 
 around, 254, 559. 
 arouse, 192. 
 array, 75. 
 arrearage, 56. 
 arrow-wounded, 607. 
 arson, 332. 
 art (verb substantive), 
 
 281, 282. 
 art, 75. 
 -art, 342. 
 artistic, 405. 
 -ary, 415. 
 as (Sanskrit root), 252, 
 
 2S0. 
 as, 221,486,535,536, 
 
 539- 
 as (Saxon plural"), no. 
 
 378- 
 as . . . so, so, 536. 
 
 ascendant, 75- 
 
 ascetick, 161. 
 
 ash, 20, 112, 315. 
 
 617. 
 
 ash-house, 617. 
 
 ashore, 606 b. 
 
 as it were, 579. 
 
 ask, in, 638. 
 
 asleep, 606 b. 
 
 -asm, 367. 
 
 aspect, 157. 
 
 aspen, 20. 
 
 ass, in. 
 
 assay, 75. 
 
 assays, 183. 
 
 assemble, 75. 
 
 assent, 75- 
 
 assize, 75. 
 
 associative, 413. 
 
 -ast, 367. 
 
 astern, 606 b. 
 
 asthma, 369. 
 
 -astic, 420. 
 
 astir, 606 b. 
 
 asumere, 254. 
 
 asunder, 495. 
 
 at, 103, 113, 226. 
 
 at all, 517. 
 
 at best, 448. 
 
 aS (of Saxon verb), 263. 
 
 at intervals, 448. 
 
 at large, 448. 
 
 at last, 448 
 
 at least, 448. 
 
 at leastwise, 518. 
 
 at length, 448. 
 
 at most, 448. 
 
 at no hand, 518. 
 
 at once, 517. 
 
 at present, 448. 
 
 at random, 448. 
 
 at worst, 448. 
 
 ate (preterite of eat), 
 
 184, 267. 
 -ate, 309, 361. 
 atheism, 365. 
 atheist, 366. 
 athletic, 420. 
 athwart, 606 b. 
 -ation, 321, 358, 372. 
 atmosphere, 192. 
 atomic, 420. 
 -atory, 416. 
 attainder, 330. 
 attempted, 557. 
 m attempting, 580 g. 
 attercop, 372. 
 attitude, 362. 
 auctioneer, 340. 
 audible, 402. 
 
6 3 6 
 
 I. INDEX 
 
 audience, 75. 
 auditor, 75. 
 aught, 479. 
 augrim, 353. 
 August, 159. 
 aulnage, 336. 
 aulne, 336. 
 aulneger, 336. 
 aunt, 177, 329. 
 auntie, 377. 
 authentic, 75, 420. 
 authoritative, 413. 
 available, 402. 
 avarice, 345. 
 avaunt, 75. 
 aventure, 157. 
 average, 335. 
 avert, 606 c. 
 Avon, 19. 
 avowal, 360. 
 away, 185, 198, 606 b. 
 awe, 315. 
 awfully, 440. 
 awinter, 254. 
 awl, in, 316. 
 awork, 449. 
 fljc = ask, 638. 
 axe, in. 
 Axe, 19. 
 ay, 102, 104, 181, 184, 
 
 185, 186. 
 aye, 202. 
 -aze, 367. 
 azure, 75. 
 azurn (Milton), 391. 
 
 B, the character, 229. 
 B, the consonant, 136, 
 
 137. 
 bace ( = base), 162, 
 BACE^bake, 274. 
 
 BACCN, 274. 
 
 back, 16. 
 bacon, 16. 
 bad, 388. 
 bade, 267, 
 badge, 112, 315. 
 
 B2ECERE, 319, 385. 
 B.ECISTRE, 385. 
 
 baggage, 335. 
 baile and borowe, 77. 
 bairn, 86. 
 bake, 267, 274. 
 bakehouse, 617. 
 baken, 267. 
 baker, 112. 
 balance, 75. 
 balcony, 619. 
 ball, 103. 
 ballad, 352. 
 balustrade, 352. 
 band, 123. 
 banish, 74, 75. 
 baptise, 75. 
 barbaresque, 407. 
 barbaric, 420. 
 bard, 20. 
 Bardic, 405. 
 bare, 267, 388. 
 barm, 316. 
 barn, 274. 
 barn-door, 226. 
 barricade, 352. 
 barrier, 339, 
 basin, 343. 
 basis, 369. 
 basket, 20. 
 bastard, 342. 
 baste = beast, 186. 
 bat, 103, 260. 
 bate, 103. 
 bath, 112, 113. 
 bathos, 369. 
 battle, 75, 325. 
 battlement, 333. 
 Baxter, 385. 
 
 be "> 159. 306, 559, 
 606 a. 
 
 be (verb), 5, 180, 255, 
 277, 278, 279, 281, 
 282, 284, 291, 559, 
 
 578, 579, 581. 
 be off, 524. 
 
 beacon, 316. 
 
 beadledom, 323. 
 
 beadsman, 607. 
 
 beah, 267, 274. 
 
 BEALH, 267. 
 
 beam, 20, 316. 
 
 bean, 20. 
 
 bear, 5, 189, 267, 315. 
 
 BEARH, 274. 
 
 beast, 75, 181. 
 beat, beaten, 183, 267. 
 beatify, 308. 
 beating (Yarmouth), 
 
 82. 
 beatitude, 362. 
 Beauchamp=:Beecham, 
 
 186. 
 beautify, 308. 
 beauty, 75. 
 
 BEC, 381. 
 
 because, 534, 548, 
 
 606. 
 bechance, 306. 
 become, 159, 267, 
 
 3o6, 559, 585, 
 
 606 a. 
 
 bed, 12, 315. 
 
 bee, 180, 315. 
 beech, 5, 20. 
 beef, 41. 
 
 been, 267, 278, 281. 
 
 beer, 104. 
 
 befal, 306. 
 
 befit, 306. 
 
 before, 159, 160, 220. 
 
 befriend, 306. 
 
 began, 124, 267, 296. 
 
 beget, 159, 267, 306. 
 
 begin, 117, 124, 267, 
 
 306. 
 beginning, 32. 
 begnaw, 306. 
 begrime, 306. 
 beguile, 306. 
 begun, 124, 267. 
 behalf, 234, 606 a. 
 behave, 306. 
 behead, 159, 306. 
 behest, 606 a. 
 behold, 199, 267, 306. 
 behoof, 606 a. 
 behove, 306. 
 behowl, 306. 
 being, 280,545, 580 c 
 beleeue, 148, 186. 
 
 BELGAN, 267. 
 
OF 
 
 LETTERS AND WORDS. 63; 
 
 belie, 306. 
 
 beshrew, 306. 
 
 billowy-bosomed, 608 
 
 belief, 606 a. 
 
 besides, 527. 
 
 bind, 123, 267. 
 
 belieffulness, 321. 
 
 besiege, 75, 79, 306. 
 
 binder, 319. 
 
 believe, 186, 262, 303, 
 
 BESITTAN, 79- 
 
 birch, 20. 
 
 306. 
 
 beslubber, 306. 
 
 bird, 638. 
 
 believed, 303. 
 
 besmear, 306. 
 
 biscophad, 326. 
 
 believes, believest, 262. 
 
 besmirch, 306. 
 
 bishopric, 328. 
 
 belike, 534. 
 
 besort, 306. 
 
 bissopes, 61. 
 
 bell, 20. 
 
 besot, 306. 
 
 bit, 105, 267. 
 
 bellicose, 412. 
 
 bespeak, 306. 
 
 bit bodie, 377. 
 
 belong, 306, 606 a. 
 
 bespice, 306. 
 
 bite, bitten, 105, 267. 
 
 belove, 306. 
 
 besprinckled (Spenser), 
 
 black, in. 
 
 below, 159. 
 
 160. 
 
 blackbird, 600, 618. 
 
 bemad, 306. 
 
 best, 431. 
 
 blade, 112. 
 
 bemete, 306. 
 
 bestain, 306. 
 
 blame, 75. 
 
 bemoan, 306. 
 
 bestead, 306. 
 
 blanch, 75. 
 
 bemock, 306. 
 
 bestill, 306. 
 
 blanc-mange, 75. 
 
 bemoil, 306. 
 
 bestir, 306. 
 
 blank, 401. 
 
 bend, 301. 
 
 bestow, 306. 
 
 blatant, 417. 
 
 beneath, 606 a. 
 
 bestraught, 306. 
 
 Blaunche, 177. 
 
 beneficence, 356. 
 
 bestrew, 306. 
 
 bleed, bled, 301. 
 
 benevolence, 356. 
 
 bestride, 306, 650. 
 
 blemish, 74. 
 
 benevolent, 418. 
 
 betake, 306. 
 
 blessing, 318. 
 
 Bengalese, 408. 
 
 beteem, 10, 306. 
 
 BLETSUNG, 3 1 8. 
 
 benign, 75. 
 
 bethink, 159, 306. 
 
 blew, 267. 
 
 benignity, 75, 349. 
 
 Bethlehemite, 363. 
 
 blight, 317. 
 
 benison, 332. 
 
 bethump, 306. 
 
 blincked (Spenser), 
 
 bent, 301. 
 
 betide, 306. 
 
 160. 
 
 beon, 267, 282. 
 
 betoken, 306. 
 
 blind, 117. 
 
 BEORGE, 274. 
 
 betoss, 306. 
 
 bliss, 315.. 
 
 BEORHT, I32. 
 
 betray, 79> 3°6- 
 
 blood, 12. 
 
 bepaint, 306. 
 
 betrim, 306. 
 
 bloodthirsty, 604. 
 
 bequeath, 159, 306. 
 
 betroth, 306. 
 
 bloody, 394. 
 
 bequest, 159. 
 
 between, betwixt, 
 
 bloom, 20. 
 
 berattle, 306. 
 
 606 a. 
 
 bloomy, 394. 
 
 berct, 132. 
 
 beuk (Scottish), 267, 
 
 blossom, 20. 
 
 Bercta, 132. 
 
 268. 
 
 blow, blown, 267. 
 
 BERCTFRID, 1 32. 
 
 bewail, 306. 
 
 board, 41. 
 
 BERCTGILS, 1 32. 
 
 beware, 159. 
 
 Board School, 565. 
 
 BERCTHUN, I32. 
 
 beweep, 306. 
 
 boast, 75, 189. 
 
 BERCTRED, 1 32. 
 
 bewet, 306. 
 
 boat, in, 315. 
 
 BERCTUALD, I 32. 
 
 bewitch, 306. 
 
 boatswain, 597, 601. 
 
 bere, 20, 41, 104. 
 
 bewray, 79? 306. 
 
 Bob, 373. ' 
 
 bereave, 306. 
 
 beyond, 159. 
 
 boc, 274, 381. 
 
 berhyme, 306. 
 
 bible, 75. 
 
 BOCERAS, 319. 
 
 berry, 133. 
 
 bid, bidden, 1 1 7, 267. 
 
 bodie, 377. 
 
 beseech, 306. 
 
 bier, 315. 
 
 bodkin, 377- 
 
 beseek, 306. 
 
 big, 278. 
 
 body, 477, 640. 
 
 beseem, 306. 
 
 bight, 317. 
 
 BOGEN, 274. 
 
 beset, 79, 306. 
 
 Bill -Will, 373. 
 
 boisterous, 411. 
 
6 3 8 
 
 BOLGEN, 267. 
 
 bombastic, 405. 
 bond, 123. 
 bondage, 335. 
 bone, in. 
 bone, 88. 
 bonnie, 88. 
 bonny, 86, 88. 
 books, 381. 
 boon, 174. 
 boor, 41. 
 boorish, 393. 
 boot (to-boot), 82. 
 bore, 267. 
 
 BORGEN, 274. 
 
 born, 267. 
 borne, 267. 
 borough, 315. 
 borowe, 77. 
 borrow, 274. 
 bosom, 316. 
 bote (noun), 82. 
 bote, 267, 268. 
 both, 12. 
 bought, 288. 
 bound, bounden, 267. 
 boun tilled, 326. 
 bounty, 75. 
 bow, 267, 274, 399. 
 bower, 119. 
 bowln, 267, 268. 
 bowne, 267, 268. 
 bow-wow, 228. 
 boy, 189, 328. 
 boyhood, 326. 
 ' Boz,' 373. 
 bracelet, 334. 
 
 BBJED, 274. 
 BR^GEN, 316. 
 
 braggart, 342. 
 braid, 274. 
 brain, 316. 
 brake, 267. 
 bramble, 20, 112. 
 bran, 20. 
 branchlet, 334. 
 brand (fire-), in. 
 brast, 267. 
 bravado, 352. 
 brave, 390, 401 
 
 I. INDEX 
 
 BREAC, 274. 
 
 bread, 12, 181, 315. 
 bread-and-cheese, 599. 
 breadloaf, 599. 
 breadth, 317. 
 break, 183, 186, 267. 
 breaking (inf.) 580 a. 
 breaking up, 501. 
 break-up, 501. 
 break-water, 597. 
 breast, 315. 
 breath, 260. 
 breathe, 252, 260, 
 280. 
 
 BREC, 381. 
 
 breeches, 20. 
 bred, 301. 
 brede, 274. 
 breed, 301. 
 breeks, 381. 
 brether, 380. 
 brethren, 380. 
 
 BRETWALDA, 25. 
 
 brew, 617. 
 
 brewhouse, 617. 
 
 brick house, 425. 
 
 bridal, 360. 
 
 bride, 315. 
 
 bridge by bridge, 450. 
 
 bridle, 117. 
 
 brigade, 352. 
 
 bright, 117, 132, 305, 
 
 388. 
 brighten, 305. 
 
 BRIHT, 132. 
 
 Brihthelm, 132. 
 Brihtnoth, 132. 
 Brihtric, 132. 
 Brihtwold, 132. 
 Brihtwulf, 132. 
 brim, 390. 
 brinded, 389. 
 brindle, 389. 
 brindled, 389. 
 bring, 288. 
 brisk, 431. 
 brittle, 389. 
 broad, in. 
 broaden, 305. 
 brocen, 274. 
 
 broad-shouldered, 607. 
 broden, 274. 
 
 BROC, 381. 
 
 broke, 267. 
 broken, 267. 
 brook (verb), 274. 
 broomstick, 612. 
 brother, 5, 316. 
 brotherhood, 326. 
 brought, 288. 
 bruce, 274. 
 bnitel ( = brittle), 389. 
 bruze (Spenser), 346. 
 
 BRYDLAC, 325. 
 
 bubble, 316. 
 buccaneer, 340. 
 buck, 119, 315. 
 buds' nesens (Norfolk), 
 380. 
 
 BUGE, 274. 
 
 build, 301. 
 buildress, 384. 
 built, 301. 
 bull, 118, 193. 
 bumptious, 411. 
 burden, 316. 
 
 bur g a ge, 335- 
 
 burgess, 348. 
 
 burial, 360. 
 
 burly, 394. 
 
 burn, 274. 
 
 burned, 74. 
 
 burnen, 274. 
 
 burst, 267. 
 
 bursten, 267. 
 
 'bus, 370. 
 
 bush, 118. 
 
 bushel, 316. 
 
 business, 83, 234. 
 
 bustard, 342. 
 
 busy, 83. 
 
 but, 119, 178, 219, 
 220, 226, 520, 
 5", 533, 549- 
 
 BUTAN, 178. 
 
 butcher, 338. 
 butt-end, 79. 
 buttony, 394. 
 buttress, 82. 
 buxom, 32, 399. 
 
OF LETTERS AND WORDS. 
 
 6 39 
 
 buy, 228. 
 buzzard, 342. 
 by, 189, 226, 447, 
 521, 522, 523, 525, 
 
 533' 559* 
 by-, 606 a. 
 
 -by, 278. 
 
 by cantelmele, 447. 
 
 by cause, 534. 
 
 by-lane, 602 a. 
 
 by my fey, 317. 
 
 by-path, 606 a. 
 
 by'r leave, 206. 
 
 byrne, 274. 
 
 by-stander, 606 a. 
 
 by-way, 606 a. 
 
 by-word, 606 a. 
 
 by-work, 606 a. 
 
 C (Saxon) = tch (Eng- 
 lish), 139, 149, 167. 
 
 C convertible with S, 
 162. 
 
 C, the consonant, 132, 
 139, 149, 150. 
 
 cab, 370. 
 
 cable, 216. 
 
 cmg, 149. 
 
 Caithness, 320. 
 
 caitiff, 75, 394. 
 
 calf, 41, 315. 
 
 calisthenics, 368. 
 
 call, 103, 139. 
 
 came, 267. 
 
 cameless, 384. 
 
 campanile, 353. 
 
 can, 32, 36, 170, 291, 
 294,587. 
 
 Canaanite, 363. 
 
 Candish = Cavendish, 
 
 633- 
 candle, ill. 
 
 cane, 189. 
 
 canine, 414. 
 
 cannonade, 352. 
 
 cantata, 353. 
 
 canteen, 343. 
 
 canto, 353. 
 
 cap, 260. 
 
 cape, 75. 
 Capital, 404. 
 capon, ill. 
 captainess, 384. 
 capting, 580 a. 
 captivate, 309. 
 capture, 344. 
 carcern, 18. 
 cards, 55. 
 care, ill. 
 careless, 605. 
 carelessness, 320. 
 carf, 267, 268. 
 caricature, 344. 
 cark and care, 628 a. 
 Carlylese, 408. 
 carnal, 404. 
 carpenter, 75. 
 carriage, 75, 335. 
 carry, 75. 
 cart, 113, 638. 
 crt-horse, 601. 
 carve, 267. 
 cascade, 352. 
 case, 75, 543. 
 cast, 267. 
 casten, 267, 268. 
 castle, 41, 75. 
 casualty, 350. 
 casuist, 366. 
 cat, 103, ill. 
 catastrophism, 365. 
 catch, 288. 
 cate, 103. 
 catechism, 365. 
 cathartic, 420. 
 catholick, 161. 
 Catholicism, 365. 
 cat-o'-nine-tails, 611. 
 cattle, 75. 
 cattle-disease, 565. 
 caught, 288. 
 cause, 75, 534. 
 caustic, 420. 
 cauterize, 310. 
 cavalcade, 352. 
 cavalry, 331. 
 Cavendish, 633. 
 cc (Saxon) = ch or tch 
 (English), 149. 
 
 ceafu, 149. 
 cease, 75- 
 ceaster, 149. 
 
 CEAW, 274. 
 
 cedarn (Tennyson), 
 
 39 T - 
 
 celestial, 75. 
 
 celestiall, 162. 
 cement, 333. 
 
 CEMPA, I39. 
 CEXE, I39, I49. 
 
 censure, 344. 
 census, 369. 
 cent, 139, 149. 
 centre, 139. 
 ceol, 149. 
 
 CEORL, I49. 
 CEO SAN, 1 49. 
 
 ceowe, 274. 
 
 CEP AN, I39, I49. 
 
 cere, 104. 
 
 certain, 75, 497. 
 
 certainly, 32. 
 
 certainty, 350. 
 
 certes, 75. 
 
 certitude, 362. 
 
 ch, 139, 140, 149. 
 
 193- 
 -ch, 393. 
 chafer, in. 
 chaff, 112, 149, 150, 
 
 374- 
 chaffare, 617. 
 
 cham= I am, 255. 
 
 chamber, 75. 
 
 champion, 75, 139. 
 
 chance, 32, 56, 75. 
 
 chancellor, 41. 
 
 change, changed, 75. 
 
 3°3- 
 
 changeling, 377. 
 
 chanon, 149. 
 chant, 149, 177. 
 chaos, 369. 
 chapman, 149, 617. 
 chapmanhode, 326. 
 chapelry, 331. 
 character, 369. 
 characteristic, 420. 
 charioteer, 340. 
 
640 
 
 I. INDEX 
 
 charity, 56, 75. 
 charm, 75. 
 chasm, 367. 
 chast, 149. 
 chaste, 75. 
 chastise, 347. 
 chastisement, 333. 
 chattels, 56. 
 chaunt, 177. 
 cheap, cheaper, cheap- 
 est, 217. 
 Cheapside, 617. 
 cheat, 184. 
 cheer, 75. 
 
 ckeesen (Dorset), 380. 
 chemist, 366. 
 Chester, 149. 
 chestnut horse, 565. 
 chew, 274. 
 cheyney, 175. 
 chick, 381. 
 
 chicken, 1 1 7, 3 1 6, 38 1 . 
 chickens, 381. 
 chicking, 580 a. 
 chid, chidden, 267. 
 chide, 149, 267. 
 chief, 75. 
 
 chiere and face, 77. 
 chiefety, 350. 
 chiefly, 441. 
 child, 117, 149, 428. 
 ehilder, 380. 
 childhood, 326, 605. 
 childring, 580 a. 
 childly, 398. 
 children, 380. 
 chill, 149. 
 chill = 1 will, 255. 
 chin, 117, 149, 315. 
 China, 175. 
 Chinese, 408. 
 Chippenham, 617. 
 Chipping Norton, 617. 
 Chipping Ongar, 617. 
 chivalrous, 75. 
 chivalry, 75. 
 ehode, 267, 268. 
 Cholmondeley, 633. 
 choose, chosen, 149 
 267. 
 
 christen, 305, 391. 
 Christendom, 323. 
 christian, 391. 
 Christianity, 323. 
 christianize, 310. 
 chud=l would, 255. 
 Chumley = Cholmon- 
 deley, 633. 
 church, 140, 149, 150, 
 
 4 2 5- 
 church-ale, 360. 
 churl, 41, 55, 149, 
 
 316. 
 churlish, 393. 
 Ciceter, 633. 
 cm an, 149, 
 cild, 149. 
 Cingalese, 408. 
 
 ClNNE, I49. 
 
 cink, 56. 
 cipher, 353. 
 
 CIRCE, 149. 
 
 circuit, 75. 
 circum-, 606 c. 
 circumference, 356. 
 circumlocution, 606 c. 
 circumnavigate, 606 c. 
 circumspect, 606 c. 
 circumstance, 75, 234. 
 
 355, 606 c. 
 circus, 369. 
 -cism, 365. 
 
 civility, 349. 
 ck, 161. 
 clad, 301. 
 class, 32. 
 classification, 227. 
 clave, 267. 
 Claverton, 633. 
 clean, 181, 431. 
 cleanliness, 322. 
 cleanly, 398. 
 clear, 75. 
 
 cleare (Spenser), 160. 
 cleave, 267. 
 clemency, 227, 356. 
 clerk, 171. 
 clever, 376, 392. 
 climacterick, 161. 
 
 climb, 137, 267, 274. 
 
 CLIMEE, 274. 
 
 cling, 267. 
 clock, 20. 
 cloister, 75. 
 clomb, 267. 
 closure, 344. 
 cloth, in, 315. 
 clothe, 301. 
 clothier, 338. 
 clout, 20, 119. 
 clove, cloven, 267, 
 clover, 20. 
 
 CLUMBEN, 274. 
 
 clung, 267. 
 clupie = call, 61. 
 cnapa, 149, 
 
 CNAWAN, 149. 
 CNEDAN, I49. 
 CNEOW, 149. 
 CNIHT, I49. 
 
 co — with, 606 c. 
 coal-layers, 598. 
 coal-producing, 598. 
 coast-line, 598. 
 coat, 189. 
 coat-of-arms, 609 , 
 coaxation, 358. 
 cobweb, 372. 
 cock-boat, 20. 
 cock-chafer, 316. 
 cockle, 20. 
 cod, 20. 
 codify, 308. 
 coeval, 606 c. 
 cognizance, 35 5„ 
 colour, 84. 
 colourable, 402. 
 comb, in. 
 come, 267, 585. 
 come by, 559. 
 come in, 597. 
 comelely, 438. 
 comen, 267, 268. 
 come on, 584. 
 comer, 339. 
 -Chester, 18. 
 comestibles, 218. 
 come up, 501, 
 comfort, 75. 
 
OF LETTERS AND WORDS. 
 
 641 
 
 comfortable, 402. 
 comlyng, 318. 
 commaundment, 333. 
 commencing, 32. 
 commend, 75- 
 commendatory, 416. 
 commeth, 148. 
 commission, 75. 
 common, 75. 
 company, 75, 606 c. 
 comparative, 413. 
 comparison, 332. 
 compass, 75- 
 compassement, 333. 
 compassion, 32, 75, 
 
 358. 
 compendium, 369. 
 competence, 356. 
 complain, 75. 
 complete, 159. 
 complexion, 75. 
 compo, 370. 
 composedness, 320. 
 composicioun 
 
 (Chaucer), 77. 
 comrade, 352. 
 con = to be able, 
 
 294. 
 con- = with, 606 c. 
 concede, 32. 
 conceave, 186. 
 conceive, 186. 
 concern, 234. 
 conclude, 75- 
 conclusion, 75. 
 conclusive, 413. 
 conculcation, 358. 
 condition, 32, 75- 
 confidence, 356. 
 confound, 75. 
 confusion, 75. 
 conjoin, 75. 
 Conkwejl, 633. 
 cornier, 319. 
 conquest, 75- 
 conscience, 75, 356. 
 conscionable, 402. 
 consciousness, 320. 
 conseili, 61. 
 consequence, 356. 
 
 conserve, 75* 
 consider, 75. 
 Consols, 371- 
 consonant, 606 c. 
 conspiring, 580 c. 
 constancy, 355. 
 constant, 417. 
 constitutionalize, 310. 
 consulate, 361. 
 contagion, 75. 
 contemplate, 619. 
 contemporary, 218, 
 
 415, 606 c. 
 contemptible, 402. 
 content, 75. 
 contentedness, 320. 
 contest, 157. 
 continence, 356. 
 contra-, 606 c. 
 contraband, 606. 
 contradict, 606 c. 
 contrariwise, 518, 
 
 605. 
 contrary, 75, 158. 
 contree, 157. 
 contrition, 358. 
 contro-, 606 c. 
 controversy, 606 c. 
 cook, 75. 
 coost, 267, 268. 
 cope, 75. 
 Copenhagen, 216, 
 
 617. 
 corage, 157, 
 coral-paven (Milton), 
 
 cordial, 75- 
 corfen, 267. 
 corn, 20, 315. 
 Cornwall, 22. 
 corny, 394. 
 coronation, 75, 358. 
 corpulent, 418. 
 correct, 75« 
 cosmos, 369. 
 cottage, 335. 
 cottage dames, 565. 
 cough, 155. 
 could, 170, 189, 291, 
 
 2 94» 5 8 7« 
 
 T t 
 
 counsell, 75> 162. 
 count, 41. 
 countenance, 75. 
 counter-, 606 b. 
 counteract, 606 b. 
 counterfeit, 75, 606 b. 
 countermove, 606 b. 
 countess, 41, 384. 
 country, 75, 157. 
 country-dance, 606 b. 
 country-house, 612. 
 courage, 75, 157. 
 course, 75- 
 court, 75. 
 
 courteous, 75, 41 *• 
 courtesy, 75, 78. 
 cousin, 343. 
 couth, 119, 632. 
 covenant, 75- 
 cover, 75. 
 cover-chief, 75. 
 eovetise, 345, 346. 
 covetize (Spenser), 
 
 346. 
 covetous, 411. 
 cow, 41, 119, 315. 
 coward, 342. 
 cowardice, 345, 347. 
 cowslip, 119. 
 crab, III. 
 crack, 139. 
 cradle, ill, 316. 
 craft, 315. 
 craftsman, 607. 
 crag, 20. 
 crane, in. 
 crap, 267, 268. 
 
 CRAWE, CRAWEN, 274. 
 CREAP, 274. 
 
 creating (inf.), 580 c. 
 creative, 413. 
 creator, 75. 
 creature, 75. 
 credence, 75. 
 creed, 104. 
 creep, 267, 274, 
 
 288. 
 creeped, 304. 
 creope, 274. 
 creow, 274. 
 
642 
 
 7. INDEX 
 
 crept, 288. 
 crescive, 413. 
 cress, 638. 
 crew, 267. 
 crime, 75. 
 criminatory, 416. 
 crisis, 369. 
 cristen = christian, 
 
 criterion, 369. 
 criticism, 365. 
 crock, 20. 
 crope, 267, 268. 
 
 CROPEN, 267, 268, 274. 
 
 cross-barred, 607. 
 crouny (inf.), 61. 
 crow, 267, 272. 
 crown, 75. 
 cruel, 75. 
 cruel 1, 162. 
 cruppen, 267. 
 crusade, 352. 
 cu, 381. 
 Cudbriht, 132. 
 cudto, cudtono (Lanca- 
 shire), 254. 
 culture, 344. 
 cuman, 118. 
 
 CUNNAN, 170. 
 
 cunningest, 422. 
 cupola, 353. 
 cup-shotten, 272. 
 cure, 75. 
 curiosity, 357. 
 curtain, 343. 
 curleisye, 78. 
 custom, 56, 75. 
 cut, 139. 
 cw = qu, 142. 
 cwa:?J, 142. 
 cwalm, 142.' 
 
 CWEN, I42. 
 
 cwic, 142. 
 
 CY, 381. 
 
 -cy, 322. 
 cygnet, 334. 
 
 CY5, I49. 
 CYLE, I49. 
 CYN, I39, I49. 
 CYNERIC, 328. 
 
 CYN1NG (A. S.), 3l8. 
 CYNG, I39. 
 
 cypman, 149. 
 
 CYRICE, 149. 
 
 D, the character, 229. 
 D, the consonant, 
 
 138. 
 -d as form of past 
 
 tense, 305. 
 dagas, no. 
 dagger, 103. 
 dainties, 75. 
 dainty, 394. 
 dale, 10. 
 dalfe, 267. 
 damage, 335. 
 damn, 75. 
 dance, 75. 
 danger, 75, 337. 
 Danish, 393. 
 Dantesque, 407. 
 dare, 291, 292. 
 daresay, 292. 
 darkling, 436. 
 darkness, darknesses, 
 
 320. 
 darksome, 399. 
 darling, 318. 
 dart, 260. 
 Dartmouth, 171. 
 dastard, 342. 
 date, 103. 
 daughter, 5, 10, 132, 
 
 I55> 3i6. 
 daunceress, 384. 
 day, 10, 127, 140, 
 
 181. 
 day by day, 433, 450. 
 
 da ) rl y, 433- 
 days, 110,435. 
 
 daysman, 607. 
 
 days of yore, 425. 
 
 de-, 606 c. 
 
 dead, 18 1. 
 
 deaT, io. 
 
 DEAF, 274. 
 
 deal, 10, 234, 288, 
 
 315, 479- 
 dealer, 319. 
 
 dealf, 274. 
 deanery, 331. 
 dear, 181, 183, 388. 
 death, io, 181, 183. 
 debate, 75. 
 debonair, 75. 
 deceive, 186. 
 deceiued, 148, 186. 
 decency, 322. 
 decimate, 309. 
 declare, 75. 
 deed, 10, 315. 
 deemster, 385, 
 
 dee P, 3°5» 430. 
 deepen, 305. 
 
 deep-throated, 607. 
 
 deer, 5, 41, 104, 133, 
 
 315, 3 § 2. 
 defence, 75, 356. 
 defend, defended, 303. 
 deficit, 369. 
 degree, 75. 
 dehonestation, 358. 
 deify, 308. 
 deject, 606 c. 
 dejectedness, 320. 
 delectable, 410. 
 delfe, 274. 
 delight, 75. 
 definition, 358. 
 delitable, 410. 
 delt, 288. 
 delve, 267, 274. 
 demand, 75- 
 demise, 56. 
 demurrer, 330. 
 den, 20. 
 
 Denge Ness, 320. 
 denomination, 32. 
 deodorize, 310, 606 c. 
 depart, 75. 
 depend, 546. 
 depend upon it, 545. 
 Derby, 171. 
 derogatory, 416. 
 Dertemouthe, 171. 
 Derwent, 19. 
 descend, 606 c. 
 describe, 75. 
 description, 75, 358. 
 
OF LETTERS AND WORDS. 
 
 ^43 
 
 desert, 75- 
 deserve, 75- 
 desirable, 402. 
 desire, 75- 
 despair, 606 c. 
 despise, 75. 
 despite, 531. 
 despite of, 531. 
 despotic, 420. 
 destiny, 75. 
 destruction, 75. 
 desyre, 162. 
 detecting, 580 c. 
 detective, 413. 
 determinate, 75. 
 detriment, 333. 
 deuce, 56. 
 devastation, 358. 
 development, 333. 
 developmental, 404. 
 devise, 56, 75. 
 devize, 346. 
 devotee, 341. 
 devotion, 75. 
 devour, 75. 
 dexterity, 349. 
 dexterous, 411. 
 
 diatonic, 420. 
 
 dice, 55. 
 
 Dick, 373. 
 
 did, 285, 296, 298, 
 
 305, 586. 
 diet, 75. 
 
 difference, 75, 356. 
 diffidence, 356. 
 dig, 108, 125, 267. 
 digestible, 75. 
 dignify, 308. 
 diker, 117. 
 dilettante, 353. 
 diligence, 75. 
 diligent, 75. 
 diocesan, 419. 
 dip, 10, 105, 189. 
 directly, 539, 541. 
 
 dirt y> 394- 
 
 dis-, 606 c 
 disadvantage, 606 c. 
 disastrous, 411. 
 
 disc = dish, 19. 
 disclaimer, 330. 
 discount, 606 c. 
 discover, 75- 
 discredit, 606 c. 
 discreet, 75. 
 discretion, 75. 
 disdain, 75, 606 c. 
 disese and wo, 77. 
 disguize (Spenser), 346. 
 dish, 117. 
 dislike, 606 c. 
 dislodge, 75. 
 dismissal, 360. 
 dispite, 75- 
 disport, 75. 
 disposal, 360. 
 disquietude, 362. 
 dissent, 606 c. 
 distinctive, 413. 
 distress, 75. 
 distributing, 580 c. 
 disturb, 606 c. 
 ditcher, 319. 
 diurnal, 404. 
 dive, 274, 276. 
 divers, 75. 
 divine, 159, 414. 
 divinity, 75. 
 division, 75. 
 do, 189, 242, 285, 298, 
 
 305, 453. 586, 587. 
 doctor, 75. 
 doctorship, 327. 
 doer, 339. 
 
 DOFEN, 274. 
 
 dog, 328. 
 dogge, 160, 222. 
 dog-kennel, 601. 
 dogmatist, 366. 
 dogmatism, 365. 
 dohter, 132. 
 
 DOLFEN, 274. 
 
 dolven, 267. 
 -dom, 319, 323, 328. 
 domain, 56. 
 dome, 41. 
 
 domestic, 405, 406. 
 domestical, 406. 
 done, 285, 298. 
 
 done-up, 501. 
 doom, 315. 
 door, 5, 10, 315. 
 dostu, 255. 
 dotard, 342. 
 doth, 66. 
 double, 75. 
 doubt, 75, 546. 
 dough, 10. 
 doughty, 394. 
 dove (noun), 178. 
 dove (verb pret.), 276. 
 down, 20. 
 
 down (of a peach), 315. 
 downward, 400. 
 dozen, 456. 
 draftsman, 667. 
 drag, 10. 
 drag-net, 112. 
 drank, 124, 267. 
 drastic, 420. 
 draught, 155. 
 draw, 267. 
 drawing, 580 c. 
 drawn, 267. 
 dreryhedd, 326. 
 dress, 75. 
 drew, 267. 
 drink, 10, 1 24, 267, 
 
 3I5- 
 drive, driven, 10, 267. 
 
 drone, III, 315. 
 
 dropping, 580 c. 
 
 drove, 267. 
 
 drunk, 124, 267. 
 
 drunkard, 342. 
 
 drunken, 267, 268, 
 
 39 1 - 
 
 duchess, 384. 
 
 duckling, 377. 
 due, 189. 
 dufe, 274. 
 dug, 267. 
 duke, 41. 
 dulcify, 308. 
 dullard, 342. 
 during, 86. 
 durst, 291. 
 dust, 119. 
 dusty, 394. 
 
 T t 2 
 
644 
 
 I. INDEX 
 
 Dutch, 393. 
 dwell, j So. 
 
 DYDE, 285. 
 
 E, the vowel, 100, 103, 
 
 104, 120, 121. 
 -e. final, 121, I4S, 160, 
 
 l6 3- 193. 346. 
 e-, = from, out of, 
 606 c. 
 
 ea, pronunciation of, 
 1S1, 1S3, 1S4, 1S5, 
 1S6. 
 
 each, 496. 
 
 Eadred, 324. 
 
 EAGAN, 379. 
 
 eagle-eyed, 607. 
 kala, 201. 
 ear, 315. 
 earl, 41, 316. 
 earlier, 502. 
 early days, 573. 
 earth, 12, 315. 
 ease, 75, 1S3. 
 easily, 75. 
 east, 315. 
 eastwards, 435. 
 easy, 75, 186. 
 eat, eaten, 12, 1S3, 
 
 1S4, 1S9, 267. 
 eating. 185. 
 ecchoed (Spenser), 160. 
 Ecgbriht, 132. 
 -ed, 301, 3SS. 3S9. 
 
 39 6 - 
 edge. 12, 189, 315. 
 
 edge-tool, 601. 
 edify, 308. 
 
 educate, educated, 303. 
 Edward, 329. 
 ee (sound), 1S6. 
 -ee, 1 So, 341. 
 eel, 1S9. 
 
 een = eyne, eyes, 379. 
 -eer, 340. 
 effect. 75. 
 effeminacy, 322. 
 efteminateness, 322. 
 eftsoones (Spenser), 
 435- 
 
 eggelinges = edge- 
 wise. 435. 
 egotist, 366. 
 egress, 32. 
 -eht, or -iht. 397. 
 ei (sound), 173, 1S6. 
 eject, 606 c. 
 
 -el- 3S9- 
 elective, 413. 
 
 electrify, 30S. 
 
 elegant. 409. 417, 423. 
 
 element, 75, 333. 
 
 elementary. 624. 
 
 elephantess, 3S4. 
 
 elf, 227. 
 
 elf-needled. 60S. 
 
 elixir. 353. 
 
 ell. 1S9. 
 
 elm. 20. 315. 
 
 elmen, 391. 425. 
 
 eloquenter, 422. 
 
 else, 226, 515. 
 
 elude. 606 c. 
 
 elves. 331. 
 
 elvisch. 393. 
 em-, 606 b. 
 V;/z = them, 4S9. 
 embalm, 606 b. 
 embarrass, 333. 
 embarrassment, 333. 
 embellish, 74. 
 embouchure, 32. 
 embrasure, 344. 
 eminence, 356. 
 empress. 384. 
 emprise, 75. 
 emprize, 346. 
 emulation, 35 S. 
 en-, 308, 606 b, 606 d. 
 
 -en. 305. 3 8 3. 39 J > 
 396. 5S0, 580 a. 
 
 -en (plural form), 379, 
 
 3So. 
 
 enact, 606 b. 
 
 encamp. 606 b. 
 
 enchantment, 75, 333. 
 
 -ence, 356. 
 
 encomium, 369. 
 
 encroach, 30S. 
 
 encroachment, 333. 
 
 -ency, 356. 
 
 ENDAS, IIO. 
 
 endeavour, 606 b. 
 endeavour ourselves, 
 
 5*8. 
 endite, 75. 
 ends, no. 
 endure, 75. 
 ene = eyes, 379. 
 enfranchise, 606 b. 
 engender, 75, 606 b. 
 -enger, 336. 
 England, 121. 
 Englis, 49. 
 
 EXGLISC, 25. 49. 
 
 English, 121, 393. 
 
 enhance, 308. 
 
 enjoy, 606 b. 
 
 enlighten, 606 b. 
 
 enlist, 606 b. 
 
 Ennglish. Enngliss, 
 49, 61. 
 
 enough. 155. 
 
 enquire, 606 b. 
 
 ensample, 75, 606 b. 
 
 ensue, 606 b. 
 
 -ent, 417. 41S. 
 
 enterprize, 346. 
 
 enthrall, 606 b. 
 
 enthusiasm, ^67, 
 606 d. 
 
 enthusiast, 367. 
 
 enthusiastic, 420. 
 
 enthymeme, 606 d. 
 
 entice, 60C b. 
 
 enticing. 402. 
 
 entire, 606 b. 
 entomology, 606 d. 
 entrance, 32. 
 envenom, 75. 
 envy, 75. 
 eo, 179. « 
 -eous, 411. 
 epi-, 606 d. 
 epicycle, 606 d. 
 epilogue. 606 d. 
 episcopate, 361. 
 epitaph, 606 d. 
 epitome, 369, 606 d. 
 equality, 349. 
 
OF LETTERS AND WORDS. 
 
 645 
 
 equilibrium, 369. 
 
 equity, 349- 
 equivalent, 418. 
 er (sound of), 171. 
 er (conjunction), 541. 
 
 -er, 330»338,339.34 > 
 
 392, 575- 
 eradicate, 309. 
 -ere (final), 319, 338, 
 
 340. 
 ere (conjunction), 541. 
 errant, 75. 
 erroneous, 41 1. 
 
 -ery, 331. 
 
 -es (verbal), 66. 
 
 '\ 572. 
 escape, 75. 
 escaper, 339. 
 eschew, 75. 
 esculent, 418. 
 -ese, 408. 
 Esk, 19. 
 espionage, 335. 
 esplanade, 352. 
 -esque, 407. 
 -ess, 348, 384. 
 -esse, 348. 
 -est, 575. 
 
 -ESTRE, 385. 
 
 Essex, 25. 
 estate, 32, 75. 
 estimable, 402. 
 estimate, 309, 361. 
 
 -et, 334, 377- * 
 etch, 189. 
 eternal, 75, 404. 
 eternall, 162. 
 etestu, 254. 
 -eth, 66, 596. 
 ethic, 420. 
 ethics, 368. 
 etiquette, 334. 
 -ette, 334, 377. 
 eulogium, 369. 
 euphemism, 365. 
 evading, 580 a. 
 evangelize, 310. 
 even, 137, 226, 391. 
 evenings, 434, 446. 
 ever, 541. 
 
 everlastingness, 320. 
 every, 496. 
 everybody, 477, 496. 
 everych, 496. 
 everychon, 496. 
 everything, 234, 479, 
 
 496. 
 evidence, 356. 
 evil, 316, 389. 
 evolutionism, 365. 
 ewe, 107. 
 ex-, 606 c. 
 exalt, 142. 
 excarnification, 358. 
 excellence, 75, 356. 
 excellences, 356. 
 excellencies, 356. 
 excellency, 356. 
 except, 528. 
 Ex-chancellor, 606 c. 
 exchange, 75. 
 exchange-stroke, 61 2. 
 exclusive, 413. 
 exculpate, 309. 
 exculpatory, 416. 
 excuse, 75. 
 Exe, 19. 
 executive, 413. 
 exercize (Spenser), 346. 
 exhaust, 142. 
 exigence, 356. 
 exist, 252. 
 exit, 32. 
 
 Ex-Mayor, 606 c. 
 exotic, 142. 
 expect, 606 c. 
 expedient, 417. 
 expence, 356. 
 expenditure, 344. 
 expense, 356. 
 experience, 356. 
 expiatory, 416. 
 expostulate, 309. 
 expound, 75, 138. 
 expression, 32. 
 extraordinary, 431. 
 extravaganza, 353. 
 extreme, 428. 
 extremely, 428. 
 -ey, 394- 
 
 eye, 102, 260, 315. 
 eyen, 379. 
 eyne, 379. 
 
 F, the letter, 136, 137. 
 fabulosity, 357. 
 face, 75. 
 facet, 334. 
 faculty, 75. 
 fade, 189. 
 fail, 75. 
 failure, 344. 
 fain, 391. 
 fair, 423, 388. 
 fairer, 58. 
 fairy, 227, 331. 
 fairy-cupped, 608. 
 faith, 56, 75, 317. 
 faithfull (Spenser), 162. 
 fall, 103, 189, 267. 
 fallen, 267. 
 fallow, 112. 
 false, 75. 
 fame, 75. 
 fan, in. 
 fancy-free, 604. 
 fantastic, 405. 
 far, 189. 
 far-fetched, 607. 
 far-seeing, 607. 
 fare, 1 1 1. 
 farewells, 221. 
 fashion, 332. 
 fast, 112, 189, 305. 
 fasten, 305. 
 fastidious, 409, 424. 
 fat, 12, 103, 112, 
 
 189. 
 fat, a vessel, 315. 
 fate, 103, 189. 
 father, 4, 108, 109, 
 
 110, 112, 189, 316. 
 fathom, 112, 316. 
 fatty, 394. 
 fault, 170. 
 faulty in the extreme, 
 
 428. 
 favour, 178. 
 fawn-skin-dappled,6o8. 
 
646 
 
 I. INDEX 
 
 FEALDE, FEALDEN, 2^4. 
 
 fealty, 56, 350. 
 
 fear, 183. 
 
 feast, 75. 
 
 feat, 184. 
 
 feather, 316. 
 
 feawa, 129. 
 
 feculent, 41S. 
 
 fed, 301. 
 
 feed, 4, 301. 
 
 feel, 288. 
 
 feet, 104, 128, 381. 
 
 felicity, 75. 
 
 fell, 4', 267, 268. 
 
 fellow-circuiteer, 340. 
 
 fellowship, 327. 
 
 felony, 75. 
 
 felt, 288. 
 
 feminine, 414. 
 
 feoffee, 341. 
 
 feoh. 4. 
 
 FEOLD, 274. 
 
 fer dayes, 573. 
 
 fervour and fervor, 359. 
 
 fetch, 288. 
 
 few, 129. 
 
 few of us, 591. 
 
 fey, 317. 
 
 fickle, 3S9. 
 
 fiddler, 319. 
 
 fidelity, 349. 
 
 fief. 56. 
 
 field, 315. 
 
 field-path, 566, 599. 
 
 fierce, 75. 
 
 fifth, 117. 
 
 fifty, 117. 
 
 fight, 260, 267, 317. 
 
 figure, 75, 303. 
 
 figured, 303. 
 
 filial, 1S9. 
 
 fill. 117. 
 
 filly, 4. 
 
 filthy, 394- 
 
 finale, 353. 
 
 finch, 117. 
 
 find, 267. 
 
 finding, 5S0 c. 
 
 fine, 409, 423, 42S. 
 
 finesse, 348. 
 
 finger, 117, 316. 
 
 finish, 74. 
 
 fire, 4. 
 
 fire-bote, 82. 
 
 firmament, 75, 333. 
 
 first, 460. 
 
 firstling, 318. 
 
 fish, 4, 315. 
 
 fisher, 319. 
 
 fishery, 331. 
 
 fishes, 110. 
 
 fishwife, 601. 
 
 fissure, 344. 
 
 fist, 4. 
 
 fit, 105. 
 
 five, 4, 117, 263,457. 
 
 FIXAS, I IO. 
 
 flagstaff, 226. 
 flail, 41. 
 flannel, 20. 
 flatling, 436. 
 flatteress, 384. 
 flatulent, 418. 
 flax, 4, 20, 112. 
 flea, 1S3. 
 
 FLEAT. 274. 
 
 fled, 288. 
 flee, 2S8. 
 fleece, 117. 
 fleote, 274. 
 flesh, 315. 
 Fletcher, 338. 
 flew, 267. 
 flighty, 394. 
 fling, 267, 
 flint, 117. 
 float, 274. 
 flock-mel, 437. 
 
 FLOTEX, 274. 
 
 flood, 315. 
 Florentine, 414. 
 florin, 343. 
 flourish, 74. 
 flower, 75. 
 floweret, 334. 
 flowery, 394. 
 flown, 267. 
 flung. 267. 
 
 fly, ^67, 315. 
 
 fl)' m g> 5 So g- 
 
 foal, 4, 
 
 foe, 58, 315. 
 
 foes, 380. 
 
 foil, 179. 
 
 foison, 332. 
 
 fold, in, 274, 315. 
 
 folk, 477. 
 
 folly, 75. 
 
 fone = foes, 380. 
 
 food, 189. 
 
 foody, 394. 
 
 fool, 75. 
 
 fool-liardise, 345. 
 
 foolish, 393. 
 
 foot, 4, 12, 1S9, 315. 
 
 . 381. 
 
 foot-sore, 604. 
 for, 4, 58, 160, 220. 
 226, 520, 522, 533. 
 
 549- 
 for-, 606 a. 
 
 forbid, 267, 606 a. 
 
 force, 75. 
 
 forcible, 402. 
 
 fore, 4, 160. 
 
 fore-, 606 a. 
 
 forego, 606 a. 
 
 forehead, 606. 
 
 fore-right, 606 a. 
 
 fore-shorten, 606 a. 
 
 forest, 75, 219. 
 
 forget, 606 a. 
 
 forgetive, 413. 
 
 forget-me-not, 597, 
 
 599- 
 forget-me-nots, 599. 
 
 forgive, 267. 606 a. 
 
 forlorn, 275, 606 a. 
 
 form, 75. 
 
 formal, 404. 
 
 formula, 369. 
 
 forsake, forsaken, 
 
 267. 
 
 forsook, 267. 
 
 forsooth, 62 S a. 
 
 forte, 353. 
 
 fortitude, 362. 
 
 forth, 4. 
 
 for the sake of, 530. 
 
 fortune, 75. 157. 
 
OF LETTERS AND WORDS. 
 
 647 
 
 forward, 77, 606 a. 
 fot, fought, 288, 289. 
 fought, fougMen, 
 
 267, 268. 
 foul, 178. 
 Foulness, 320. 
 found, 267. 
 foundling, 377. 
 founder, foundress, 
 
 384. 
 four, 91, 457. 
 
 four times, 461. 
 
 fowl, 41, 316. 
 
 fowler, 319. 
 
 fox, 383. ' 
 
 FR^T, 274. 
 
 franchise, 345. 
 frank, 401. 
 fraternity, 75. 
 fraternize, 310. 
 fraudulent, 418. 
 Frederick, 161. 
 fredom, 78. 
 free, 388. 
 free and easy, 388. 
 freedom, 78. 
 freemen, 388. 
 freeze, 193, 267. 
 French, 393. 
 Frenss, 61. 
 fresco, 353. 
 fresh, 388. 
 fret, 274. 
 
 FRETE, FRETEN, 274. 
 
 friend, 222, 306. 
 friendship, 327, 605. 
 frighten, 305. 
 
 frog, 3*5- 
 from, 4, 58, 226. 
 
 Frome, 19. 
 
 from hour to hour, 
 
 450. 
 from thence, 591. 
 from whence, 517* 
 frost, 315. 
 froward, 400, 605. 
 froze, 267. 
 frozen, 267. 
 fruit, 75. 
 fruitful, fruitless, 401. 
 
 fruit-shaped, 608. 
 
 fudge, 207. 
 
 ful, 178. 
 
 full, 108, 118, 162, 
 
 193, 189, 388. 
 -full, 388, 401, 607. 
 full-blown, 604. 
 fun, 376. 
 fungi, 382. 
 fungus, 369. 
 Furness, 320. 
 furnish, 74- 
 furniture, 344. 
 furrow, 119. 
 further, 503. 
 furze, 20, 315. 
 furzen (Dorset), 380. 
 Furzen Leaze, 391. 
 fusillade, 352. 
 fusty, 394. 
 -fy, 308. 
 
 G, the letter, 139, 141. 
 gablet, 377. 
 Gadite, 363. 
 Gaelic, 405. 
 gain, 189. 
 gain-, 606 a. 
 gainsay, 606 a. 
 gain-giving, 606 a. 
 gall, 103, 112. 
 Gallic, 405. 
 gallow, in. 
 gan, 296. 
 gander, 103, ill. 
 gang, 140. 
 gang-way, ill. 
 gap, 260. 
 gape, 103, 260. 
 garden, 260, 329, 
 
 343- 
 gardener, 338. 
 
 garden-herb, 566. 
 
 gar ding, 580 a. 
 
 garlic, III. 
 
 garniture, 344. 
 
 garrison, 332. 
 
 gastric, 420. 
 
 gat, 267, 299. 
 
 gate, 140. 
 gather, in. 
 gathering, 580 c. 
 gauze, 193. 
 gave, 267. 
 
 g a y, 75- 
 
 gayte = goats, 381. 
 
 GE = ye, 130, 140. 
 ge, GESE = yes, 503. 
 ge, 606 a. 
 
 GEAR, I3O, I4O. 
 
 gear, 183. 
 
 GEARD, 13O, I4O. 
 GEARO, I30, I4O. 
 GEAT, I4O. 
 
 geat (yote), 274. 
 
 GEBONED, 88. 
 GECOWEN, 274. 
 
 geese, 128,381. 
 geet = goats, 381. 
 
 GELYFAN, 263. 
 GEMLSCCA, I49. 
 
 general, 75. 
 generalize, 310. 
 generalization, 227. 
 Genoese, 408. 
 gent, 370. 
 
 gentle, 75, 222, 38S. 
 gentleman, 79. 
 gentrise, 345. 
 geometry, 75. 
 Georgy, 377. 
 
 GEORN, I30. 
 GEOTE, 274. 
 
 German, 393. 
 germinate, -ed, 303. 
 gese, 130, 503. 
 get, 267, 299. 
 get down = to be, 279. 
 
 GEbRUNGEN, 2 74- 
 GEWEAXDEN, 274. 
 GEWEORC, 602. 
 
 geyn, 431. 
 
 gh, 132, 154' I55i 
 
 181, 193. 
 gherkin, 377. 
 ghost, III, 315. 
 giantess, 384. 
 gibbet, 377. 
 giblet, 377. 
 
6 4 8 
 
 /. INDEX 
 
 GIELD, I30. 
 G1FAN, I40, 544. 
 gift, II7.3J7. 
 
 gifted, 396. 
 gift-horse, 601. 
 gigantesque, 407. 
 gigantic, 405. 
 gild = guild, 164. 
 gild, gilded, or gilt, 
 301. 
 
 GILPAN, I30. 
 
 giltif (Chaucer), 394. 
 gimlet, 377. 
 gird, 301. 
 girdle, 316. 
 girl, 328. 
 
 gir]-of-the-period, 425. 
 girt, 301. 
 gist, 141. 
 
 GIT, I3O, I4O. 
 
 give, 140, 267. 
 give me, 574. 
 given, 267. 
 giving, 580 c. 
 
 GLAD, 274. 
 
 gladsome, 399. 
 glass, 112, 315. 
 glen, 20. 
 glide, 267, 274. 
 
 GLIDEN, 274. 
 
 glisten, 305, 
 globose, 412. 
 glod, 267, 270. 
 glode, 267. 
 glorious, 75, 411. 
 gloriose, 412. 
 Gloucester, 20. 
 gluttony, 56, 75. 
 gnat, 112, 315. 
 gnaw, 267. 
 gnawn, 267, 270. 
 gnew, 267, 270. 
 go, 267, 285. 
 goad, III. 
 
 goat, goats, 315, 381. 
 God, 140, 315, 3S3. 
 goddess, 384. 
 godhead, 326. 
 godly, 398. 
 gold, 140, 175. 
 
 golden, 391, 
 golden-shafted, 607. 
 gone, 267. 
 good, 12, 88, 140, 
 
 218, 388, 430, 617, 
 
 632. 
 good-bye, 633. 
 goodelyhede, 326. 
 goodly, 398, 605. 
 goodman, 617, 618. 
 goodness, 83, 320. 
 goose, 263, 315, 381. 
 goodwife, 632. 
 goody, 632. 
 gosling, 318, 377. 
 gospel, 632. 
 gossip, 632. 
 gossipred, 324. 
 got, 267, 299. 
 goten, 274. 
 Gothic, 405. 
 go to, 584. 
 gotten, 267, 299. 
 gouty, 394. 
 govern, 75. 
 governance, 75. 
 governess, 384. 
 governor, 384. 
 gownd, 138. 
 grace, 56, 75, 216, 
 
 329. 
 graceful, 605. 
 
 gracious, 411. 
 
 grs:g, 1401 
 
 grafe, grafen, 267, 
 
 274. 
 
 graff, 217. 
 graft, 217. 
 grafting, 217. 
 grandiose, 412. 
 gra?idsir, 632. 
 grandsire, 632. 
 grant, 32, 75. 
 grantor, 341. 
 grantee, 341. 
 graphic, 420. 
 grass, 20, 112, 638. 
 grass green, 566. 
 grass ungreen, 566, 
 gratitude, 362. 
 
 gratuity, 349. 
 gravamen, 369. 
 grave, 274. 
 graven, 267, 270. 
 gray, 140, 388. 
 great, 12, 140, 181. 
 
 183, 186, 388. 
 green, 140, 388. 
 greet, 104. 
 grew, 267. 
 grieve, 75. 
 
 g"g> I4°- 
 grim, 140, 390. 
 grind, 117, 267. 
 grinder, 319. 
 grist, 117. 
 grocer, 338, 
 
 GROF, 267, 274. 
 
 grotesque, 407. 
 ground, 267, 315. 
 groundsel, 119. 
 groveling, 436. 
 grow, 267, 280. 
 grown, 267. 
 growth, 317. 
 guarantee, 341. 
 guardian, 329. 
 guardsman, 607. 
 guerdon, 164. 
 guess, 164. 
 guest, 164, 315. 
 
 GUOLAC, 325. 
 
 guide, 75. 
 
 guild, 164. 
 
 guile, 75. 
 
 guilt, 164. 
 
 guilty, 394. 
 
 guize (Spenser), 346. 
 
 gullet, 75. 
 
 gultyf, 394. 
 
 GYDEN, 383. 
 
 gymnastics, 368. 
 
 H, the letter, 132, 139, 
 
 Hi. 153- 
 
 habiliment, 333. 
 
 habitual, 404. 
 
 -HAD, 326, 328. 
 
 had, 61, 112,301, 577. 
 
OF LETTERS AND WORDS. 
 
 649 
 
 had better be, 583. 
 hadde-y-wiste, hady- 
 wist, 611. 
 
 H«L, 274. 
 
 hail! 208. 
 hale, 167, 388. 
 half, 114. 
 halidam, 323. 
 hall, 41, 103, 112. 
 Hallelujah, 209. 
 hallow, in. 
 hand, 111, 222, 315. 
 hand-, 606 a. 
 
 HANDGEWR1T, 603. 
 
 handicap, 215, 606 a. 
 handiron, 606 a. 
 handiwork, 602, 603. 
 handloom, 601, 606 a. 
 handsaw, 226. 
 handsome, 399. 
 handwriting, 603. 
 handy, 602. 
 hang, hanged, 267, 
 
 270. 
 hap, 32, 59. 
 haphazard, 59. 
 happen, happened, 
 
 303. 
 happily, 59. 
 
 happiness, 59, 605. 
 happy, 59. 
 harbinger, 336. 
 harbour, 75^ 
 hard, 112, 388. 
 harden, 305. 
 hardihood, 326. 
 hardy, 394, 
 hare, ill. 
 harness, 75. 
 harp, 112, 315. 
 harper, 319. 
 Harry, 373. 
 hasardery, 56. 
 hast, 61. 
 haste, 75, 305. 
 hasten, 305. 
 hastow, 255. 
 hat, 103. 
 hatchet, 334, 
 hate, 12, 103. 
 
 hater, 319. 
 
 hath, 66. 
 
 hatred, 324. 
 
 haughty, 394. 
 
 haunch, 177. 
 
 haunt, 75, 177. 
 
 have, 61, 214, 301. 
 
 having, 580 c. 
 
 have to be, 583. 
 
 havoc, 12. 
 
 haw, 20. 
 
 hay, 181. 
 
 hayt = heat, 183. 
 
 hazard, hazarded, 56. 
 
 hazel, 112. 
 
 he, 104, 189, 226,464, 
 
 489. 
 head, 183, 189, 306, 
 
 315- 
 
 -head, 326. 
 
 head and chief, 77- 
 headsman, 607. 
 heady, 394. 
 heal, 274. 
 
 heap, 12, 32, 36, 315. 
 hear, 133, 288. 
 hear, hear ! 203. 
 heart, 12, 181, 315. 
 heart-sick, 604. 
 heart-weary, 604. 
 heart-whole, 604. 
 hearth, 41. 
 hearty, 394. 
 heat, 12, 183. 
 heath, 12. 
 heathen, 391. 
 heathendom, 323. 
 heave, 267. 
 heaven, 316. 
 "Heaven's gate, 425. 
 heaviness, 320. 
 
 HEAWE, HEAWEN, 2 74- 
 
 -hed, -hedd, hede, 326. 
 hedge, 151. 
 hedge-flowers, 425. 
 heed, 104. 
 
 HEGE, 151. 
 
 heigh-ho, 202. 
 height, 305, 317. 
 heighten, 305. 
 
 he is it, 575. 
 helas, 201. 
 held, 267. 
 hele, 274. 
 helm, 316. 
 helmsman, 607. 
 help, 267. 
 hempen, 391. 
 hems, 221. 
 hence, 515. 
 heow, 267, 274. 
 her, 468, 482. 
 her (dative), 574. 
 herb-garden, 566. 
 herd, 288, 315. 
 herdsman, 607. 
 here, 104, 515. 
 hereabout, 516. 
 hereabouts, 515, 516. 
 hereafter, 516. 
 hereat, 516. 
 herebefore, 516. 
 Hereberct, 132. 
 hereby, 516. 
 herein, 516. 
 
 hereinbefore, 516. 
 
 hereinto, 516. 
 
 hereof, 516. 
 
 hereon, 516. 
 
 hereout, 516. 
 
 hereto, 516. 
 
 heretofore, 516. 
 
 hereunder, 516. 
 
 hereunto, 516. 
 
 hereupon, 516. 
 
 herewith, 516. 
 
 herewithal, 516. 
 
 hern, 484. 
 
 heroic, 405. 
 
 heron, 226. 
 
 hers, 484, 485, 575. 
 
 herself, 469. 
 
 hew, 267, 274. 
 
 hewn, 267. 
 
 hi, 489. 
 
 Hibernian, 419. 
 
 hide, 12, 117. 
 
 high, 105, 388. 
 
 highmindedness, 3 20. 
 
 high-toned, 607. 
 
650 
 
 /. INDEX 
 
 hight, 285. 
 hill, 118, 315'. 
 him, 464, 574, 622. 
 him (dative), 468, 
 
 489. 
 himself, 469. 
 himselfe (Spenser), 
 
 160. 
 hind, 41. 
 
 hind (cerva), 117. 
 hine, 255. 
 hing (Scotch), 267, 
 
 270. 
 hire, 61, 468. 
 hireling, 318. 
 his, 61, 189, 256, 468, 
 
 481, 482, 484, 572, 
 
 575- 
 hise, 481. 
 hisn, 484. 
 hiss, 189. 
 
 his thonkes, 434. 
 history, 371. 
 hit, 61, 105. 
 hither, 515. 
 
 HLEAPE, HLEOP, HLEA- 
 PEN, 274. 
 
 Hivite, 363. « 
 
 HL1NC, 334. 
 
 hoar, in. 
 
 hoarse, 111. 
 
 hoase, 111. 
 
 hobgoblin, 634. 
 
 -hode, 326. 
 
 hoised, 138. 
 
 hold, 267. 
 
 holden, 267, 271. 
 
 hole, 167. 
 
 holen, 274. 
 
 holp, 267, 270. 
 
 holpen, 267. 
 
 holt, 20. 
 
 holy, in. 
 
 holy - water - sprinckle, 
 
 618. 
 homage, 41, 56. 
 home, 41, 61, in, 166. 
 homeward, 400. 
 homewards, 435. 
 honest, honesty, 75. 
 
 honey, 119. 
 honey-coloured, 608. 
 honour, honor, 75, 78, 
 
 178, 359- 
 honourable, 156. 
 honourablest, 422, 
 honorable, 156. 
 honure, 156. 
 hood, 315. 
 -hood, 319, 326. 
 hoof, 315, 
 hope, 189, 301. 
 hopefulness, 321. 
 horizon, 369. 
 home (Spenser), 160. 
 horrible, 75. 
 horrify, 308. 
 horse, 315, 423. 
 horse chestnut, 565. 
 horse-race, 566, 599. 
 hoseli, to housel, or. 
 hosen, 380. 
 host, 75. 
 hot, 12, 133. 
 hound, 119, 142, 315. 
 hour, 75. 
 house, 41, 119, 260, 
 
 315.617. 
 housel, 61, 119. 
 housen, 380. 
 housewife, 632. 
 hove, 267. 
 how, 119, 226, 503, 
 
 538. 
 howbeit, 579. 
 how d' ye do? 242. 
 however, 518, 551. 
 howsoever, 518. 
 
 HREOWE, HREAWE, 
 
 HROWEN, 274. 
 HRYCG, 15I. 
 HuiETBERCT, 1 32. 
 
 hub, 372. 
 huckster, 385. 
 hue, 84. 
 human, 159. 
 humane, 159. 
 humanity, 349. 
 humble, 75. 
 humiliation, 358. 
 
 humour, 75. 
 hundred, 119, 324. 
 hung, 267, 270. 
 hunt, hunter, 119.) 
 huntynge and ve- 
 
 nerye, 77. 
 husk, 20. 
 husting, 233. . 
 huz'if = housewife, 63 2 . 
 hw = wh, 153. 
 hwa, 153. " 
 
 HWiEL, 153. 
 HWSR, I53. 
 HWSS, 153. ' 
 HW2ET, I53, 474. 
 HWSTE, 153. 
 HW^TSTAN, 153. 
 HWEOL, 153. 
 HWI, I53. " 
 HWIL, 153. 
 HWILE, 437. 
 HWILUM, 437. 
 HWISPERUNG, I53. 
 HWISTLERE, 1 53. 
 HWIT, I53. 
 HWYLC, I53. 
 
 hydraulic, 131. 
 hypocrisy, 131. 
 hypothesis, 131, 369. 
 hyssop, 131. 
 
 I, the vowel, 100, 103, 
 109, 148. 
 
 I, name and pronuncia- 
 tion, 102, 105. 
 
 I, affirmative, 202. 
 
 I, the pronoun, 226, 
 246, 254, 464. 
 
 I am it, 575. 
 
 -ian, 419. 
 
 -ible, 402. 
 
 ic, 105, 254. 
 
 -ic, 405, 406, 420. 
 
 -ical, 406. 
 
 -ice, 344. 347- 
 ice, 315. 
 Icelandic, 405. 
 ichave, 255. 
 icicle, 117. 
 
OF LETTERS AND WORDS. 
 
 65 1 
 
 -ics, 368. 
 icy-pearled, 607. 
 idealism, 365. 
 idle, 389. 
 idol, 75. 
 idolism, 365. 
 idolist, 366. 
 ie (sound of), 186. 
 
 -ie, 377- 
 -ien, 329. 
 
 -ier, 338, 339» 34°- 
 iest, 141. 
 iewel, 141. 
 if, 226, 544, 549. 
 if required, 236. 
 -if, 394. 
 
 -IHT or -EHT, 397. 
 
 ile = ril 256. 
 ilk, 494, 496. 
 ill, 189, 219,431. 
 I'll, 256. 
 
 ill-conditioned, 396. 
 im- 606 c. 
 image, 75. 
 imagery, 331. 
 imaginative, 55, 413. 
 imbue, 606 c. 
 impetuosity, 357. 
 implacable (Spenser), 
 
 402. 
 imposture, 344. 
 impotence, 356. 
 impound, 138. 
 impoverish, 606 c. 
 improve, 606 c. 
 improvement, 333. 
 in, 226, 525. 
 in- (Latin), 510, 606 c. 
 in- (Saxon), 606 a. 
 in a fashion, 51 7- 
 in a manner, 517. 
 in a sort of way, 
 
 517. 
 in a way, 517. 
 in despight, despite of, 
 
 529. 531- 
 in earnest, 448. 
 
 in effect, 448. 
 
 in existence, 448. 
 
 in fact, 448. 
 
 in good faith, 317, 
 
 448. 
 in jest, 448. 
 in lieu of, 529. 
 in presence, 448. 
 in some sort, 517. 
 in spight, spite of, 
 
 529- 
 in truth, 448. 
 
 in vain, 448. 
 
 incense, 75, 356. 
 
 incipient, 32. 
 
 incline, 75. 
 
 incog, 370. 
 
 income, 597, 606 a. 
 
 increase, 75. 
 
 indebtedness, 320, 321. 
 
 indeed, 205, 222. 
 
 indelible, 510. 
 
 index, 369. 
 
 Indian, 419. 
 
 indicate, 309. 
 
 indolent, 418. 
 
 - in » 343- 
 ^ine, 343, 414. 
 inextinguishable, 510. 
 infernal, 75. 
 infimus (Latin), 421. 
 influence, 356. 
 influential, 404. 
 -ing (nouns), 318, 388, 
 
 395. 436. 
 -ing (verbs), 580, 
 
 607. 
 ingoing, 32. 
 "inger, 336. 
 ingress, 32. 
 inject, 606 c. 
 injure, injured, 303. 
 ink, 260. 
 ink-horn, 601. 
 inky, 394. 
 inland, 606 a. 
 inmate, 606 a. 
 innocence, 75- 
 inquisitorial, 404. 
 insert, 606 c. 
 insight, 606 a. 
 insolent, 417, 418. 
 insolvent, 417. 
 
 inspect, 606 c. 
 instep, 606 a. 
 instrument, 75, 333. 
 integrity, 349. 
 intellect, 75. 
 intellectual, 404. 
 intelligential, 404. 
 intendiment, 333. 
 intent, 75. 
 intentional, 404. 
 intercede, 104. 
 interest, 32, 369. 
 interesting, 409. 
 interests, 382. 
 internecine, 414. 
 intervene, 104. 
 intolerable, 510. 
 intrude, 606 c. 
 intrudress, 384. 
 invalid, 620. 
 invalidate, 309. 
 inveigle, 186. 
 inventive, 413. 
 investigation, 358. 
 invincible, 510. 
 inward, 400, 606 a. 
 inwards, 515. 
 inwardness, 321. 
 ioin, 141. 
 iolly, 141. 
 -ion, 358. 
 iourney, 141. 
 ioust, 141. 
 ioy, 141. 
 Irish, 393. 
 irksome, 399, 
 irony, 364. 
 irrationals, 218. 
 irrepressible, 402. 
 is, 253, 280, 281, 
 
 578. 
 -isc, 407. 
 -ise, 311, 344. 
 -ish, 74, 393, 394, 
 
 407. 
 Isis, 19. 
 island, 193. 
 isle, 193. 
 islet, 334. 
 -ism, 364, 365, 367. 
 
652 
 
 1. INDEX 
 
 issue, 32. 
 
 -ist, 366, 367. 
 
 -istic, 420. 
 
 it, 12, 117, 226, 485. 
 
 Italian, 393. 
 
 it am I, 575. 
 
 -ite, 363. 
 
 item, 369. 
 
 items, 382. 
 
 -ition, 358. 
 
 it is me, 575. 
 
 it is I, 575. 
 
 its, 482" 484, 575. 
 
 itself, 469. 
 
 -ity, 349» 357- 
 iudge, 141, 148. 
 
 iustice, 141. 
 
 -ive, 413. 
 
 ivory, 75. 
 
 ivy, 117, 315- 
 iwis, 290. 
 
 -ize, 310, 311, 347, 
 365, 367. 
 
 J, the letter, 139, 141, 
 
 148, 188. 
 Jack, 139, 373. 
 jailor, 75. 
 jangle, 53, 75. 
 jangler, 53. 
 jangleress, 53. 
 jape, 53, 103. 
 japer, 53. 
 japery, 53. 
 japeworthy, 53. 
 jaunty, 394. 
 jealous, 411. 
 Jebusite, 363. 
 jeer, 104. 
 jeopardise, 347- 
 jeopardy, 56, 75, 179. 
 jewel, 75. 
 Jewry, 331. 
 jocose, 159. 
 jocund, 75. 
 Johnny, 377. 
 join, 75, 173. 
 joint, 173. 
 joke, joked, 303. 
 
 jolif, 394. 
 
 J°Uy, 75 . 394- 
 journal, 189. 
 journey, 75. 
 joviality, 349. 
 
 joy. 75- 
 
 joyous, 411. 
 jubilant, 417. 
 
 J ud ge, 75> I4 8 - 
 judgment, 333. 
 juggler, 53. 
 jump, 189. 503. 
 junket, 334. 
 just, 431, 503. 
 justice, 75, 227, 345, 
 
 347- 
 
 justifiable, 402. 
 
 K, the letter, 132, 139, 
 
 149, t6i. 
 keel, 149, 315. 
 keen, 139, 149. 
 keep, 104, 139, 149, 
 
 288. 
 kempa, 139. 
 ken, 5. 
 kene, 139. 
 Kent, 20, 139, 149. 
 kept, 288. 
 key, 149. 
 -kie, 377. 
 kin, 5, 139, 149. 
 -kin, 377. 
 kind, 5, 32, 189. 
 kindle, kindled, 303. 
 kindred, 324, 605. 
 kine, 381. 
 king, 41, 117, 139, 
 
 318. 
 king-cup, 601. 
 kingdom, 323, 605. 
 kinglet, 334. 
 kingly, 439. 
 -kinie, 377. 
 Kirk, 150, 425. 
 kirtle, 316. 
 kite, 105. 
 knave, 149, 315. 
 knead, 149. 
 
 knee, 5, 149, 315. 
 kneel, knelt, 288. 
 knight, 149, 260, 315, 
 
 4 2 5- 
 knightess, 384. 
 
 knighthood, 425. 
 
 knocked-up, 501. 
 
 knot, 315. 
 
 know, 5, 149. 
 
 knowledge, 151, 325. 
 
 konne, 294. 
 
 kye, 381. 
 
 kyind, 141. 
 
 kyth, 149. 
 
 L, the letter, 135, 170. 
 -1, 316, 318, 388, 389. 
 la ! 199. 
 labor, 178. 
 labour, 157, 223. 
 labouring, 580 g. 
 -lac, 325. 
 lack, 139. 
 lackadaysical, 201. 
 lad, 301, 302. 
 ladder, 112. 
 lade, laden, 267. 
 ladyship, 327. 
 m:ccan, 149. 
 laggard, 342. 
 laid, 301. 
 lain, 267. 
 lake, to play, 325. 
 lake fellow, 325. 
 lakers, 325. 
 lamb, in, 137, 315. 
 lambkin, 377. 
 lamentable, 402. 
 lamp-oil, 601. 
 lancet, 377* 
 
 land, 103,111,260,315. 
 landed, 396. 
 landscape, 327. 
 landsman, 607. 
 langage, 157, 164. 
 language, 75, 157,164, 
 
 335- 
 
 large, 75. 
 
 large-moulded, 607. 
 
OF LETTERS AND WORDS. 
 
 $53 
 
 largess, 75, 348. 
 
 latch, 149. 
 
 latchet, 334. 
 
 late, 103, 388. 
 
 lateward, 400. 
 
 Latin, 414. 
 
 latitude, 362. 
 
 lattice, 112. 
 
 laugh, 177,315. 
 
 laughed, 303. 
 
 laughter, 155. 
 
 launch, 177. 
 
 laund, 177. 
 
 laundress, 384. 
 
 law, 189. 
 
 lawn, 177. 
 
 lawnd, 177. 
 
 lawny, 394. 
 
 lay, 267, 301. 
 
 layed = laid, 148. 
 
 -le, 389. 
 
 lea, 183. 
 
 leac, 274. 
 
 lead, 12, 301. 
 
 leaden, 391. 
 
 leaf, 12, 315, 382. 
 
 leafy, 394. 
 
 league, 189. 
 
 leah, 274. 
 
 lean, 288. 
 
 leap, 12, 274, 288. 
 
 leapt, pronounced lept, 
 
 288. 
 learn, 183, 301. 
 learned, 396. 
 learnt or learned, 301. 
 
 LEAS, 275. 
 
 least, lest, 542. 
 leather, 316. 
 leave, 288. 
 leaves, 382. 
 leaving, 580 c. 
 led, 301. 
 -ledge, 325. 
 leek, 20, 189. 
 leer, 104. 
 leeward, 400. 
 left, 288. 
 legend, 75. 
 legibility, 349. 
 
 legislative, 413. 
 leisure, 344. 
 leisured, 396. 
 lemonade, 352. 
 lend, 301. 
 length, 305, 317. 
 lengthen, 305. 
 Lent, 315. 
 lent, 288, 301. 
 -lent, 418. 
 leof, 199. 
 
 LEOGE, 274. 
 LEOSE, 275. 
 
 lese, 267. 
 -less, 388, 401. 
 lessee, 341. 
 lesson, 332. 
 lessor, 341. 
 let, 297, 587. 
 -let, 334, 377- 
 lethargic, 405. 
 letter, 75. 
 Levite, 363. 
 ley = lea, 183. 
 leyloc, 175. 
 leiuth (Devon), 317. 
 libertine, 343. 
 Lie, 441, 640. 
 
 -LIC, 398, 438. 
 -LICE, 438. 
 
 lice, 381. 
 
 licence, 162, 356. 
 
 license, 162. 
 
 licht, 132. 
 
 lidless-eyed, 608. 
 
 lie (jacere), 267. 
 
 lie (mentiri), 274. 
 
 lief, 388. 
 
 liege, 56. 
 
 lien or lain, 267, 2 71 - 
 
 lieutenant, 155. 
 
 life, 12, 117, 260, 315. 
 
 life-long, 604. 
 
 LIF-LADU, 326. 
 
 lif-lode, 326. 
 
 light, 105, 117, 132, 
 
 154, 189, 301, 317. 
 
 388. 
 lighten, 305. 
 light-o-love, 611. 
 
 liht, 132, 154. 
 
 like, 220, 338, 486, 
 
 493. 52 2, 640. 
 -like, 398. 
 likelihood, 326. 
 likely, 398. 
 likeness, 640. 
 liketh you, 588. 
 liking, 640. 
 lilac, 175. 
 lilly (Spenser), 154, 162. 
 
 %. 75- 
 limb, 137. 
 
 limb-meal, 437. 
 
 lime, 20, 117. 
 
 Hnch, 334. 
 
 lincked (Spenser), 160. 
 
 lineage, 75, 335. 
 
 linen, 391. 
 
 -ling, 318, 320, 377, 
 
 436. 
 Link, 334. 
 lioness, 384. 
 liquidate, 309. 
 listener, 319. 
 lit, 301. 
 little, 117, 222. 
 live, 252, 260. 
 livelihood, 326. 
 liver, 117, 137, 316. 
 lo! 199. 
 load, 111. 
 loaf, in. 
 loaf-of-bread, 599. 
 loam, in. 
 loc, 199. 
 
 LOCEN, 274. 
 LOCIAN, 199. 
 
 lock, 274. 
 -lock, 319, 325. 
 loden, 267, 271. 
 
 LOGEN, 274. 
 
 logic, 368, 406. 
 logical, 406. 
 London, 20, 172. 
 long, ill, 133, 189, 
 
 388, 433, 607. 
 longitude, 362. 
 long-legged, 607. 
 long of, 529. 
 
^54 
 
 I. INDEX. 
 
 long on, 529. 
 longish, 393. 
 look, 32, 199, 576. 
 lookedst, 576. 
 lord, 315. 
 
 lording (inf.), 580 g. 
 lordly, 388. 
 lordship, 327. 
 lore, 111,315. 
 lorn, 267, 275. 
 
 LOREN, 275. 
 
 lose, lost, 275, 288. 
 
 lot, 12. 
 
 loud, 12. 
 
 louse, 119, 315. 
 
 love, 12, 137, 140, 
 
 178, 212, 315. 
 loyalty, 56, 350. 
 lubbard, 403. 
 i-uce, 274. 
 lufige, i4o. 
 lunching, 580 a. 
 Lunnon, 172. 
 lus, 381. 
 lust, 315. 
 lusty, 394. 
 luxation, 358. 
 luxurious, 411. 
 luxury, 75. 
 -ly, 219, 388, 394, 
 
 398, 432, 438, 441. 
 lynchet, 334. 
 lys, 381. 
 
 M, the letter, 135, 
 
 188. 
 -m, 188, 316, 388, 
 
 39°- 
 macadamize, 310. 
 
 Macaulayesque, 407. 
 
 macode, 301. 
 
 Madam, 75. 
 
 madden, 305. 
 
 madder, 1 1 2. 
 
 made, maked, 301. 
 
 m^gen, 316. 
 
 MJET, 274. 
 
 magazine, 353. 
 magic, 75, 368. 
 
 magnanimity, 75. 
 magnate, 361. 
 magnificence, 75, 356. 
 magnitude, 362. 
 maiden, 316. 
 maidenhed, -hood, 326. 
 main ( = strength), 217, 
 
 316. 
 mainspring, 601. 
 majestic, 405. 
 major, 141. 
 majority, 349. 
 make, 103, 301. 
 makyng, 580. 
 malady, 75. 
 male, 3. 
 
 malevolent, 418. 
 malice, 75, 345, 347. 
 malison, 332. 
 mallard, 342. 
 mallow, ill. 
 malt, 12, 103. 
 Maltese, 408. 
 maltster, 385. 
 man, 32, 33, 103,111, 
 
 118, 315, 3 8l >476, 
 632. 
 
 man (pronoun), 475. 
 manageable, 402. 
 Manassite, 363. 
 Manchester, 20. 
 manhood, 326. 
 Manichee, Manichean, 
 
 34i- 
 
 mankind, 597, 604. 
 
 manner, 75. 
 
 MANNERS MAKYTH MAN, 
 628 a. 
 
 mannie, mannikin, 377- 
 man-of-war, 599, 611. 
 manor, 20, 56. 
 mansion, 75, 332. 
 mantle, 75. 
 manure, 260, 344. 
 marehant, 171. 
 marchioness, 384. 
 Marcionite, 363. 
 mariage, 157. 
 marine, 414. 
 marionette, 334. 
 
 mark, 260, 315. 
 marketable, 402. 
 marksman, 607. 
 marmalade, 352. 
 marriage, 75, 157, 
 
 335- 
 marriage settlements, 
 
 566. 
 
 marrying (inf.), 580 c. 
 
 marry, 214. 
 
 martial, 404. 
 
 martyr, 75. 
 
 martyrdom, 323. 
 
 marvel, 32. 
 
 masculine, 414. 
 
 masquerade, 352. 
 
 mass, 75. 
 
 mast, 112. 
 
 master, 75. 
 
 masterpiece, 612. 
 
 materialism, 365. 
 
 math, 149, 317. 
 
 mathematical, 406. 
 
 mathematics, 368. 
 
 matins, 343. 
 
 matter, 75, 234. 
 
 maximum, 369. 
 
 may, 240, 291, 294, 
 
 295, 5 8 7- 
 mayoralty, 350. 
 
 me, 104, 180. 
 
 me = man, 254. 
 
 me (dative), 574. 
 
 meal, 181. 
 
 -meal, 437, 447. 
 
 mealy, 394. 
 
 mean, 183, 288. 
 
 meaned, 304. 
 
 meanness, 320. 
 
 meant, proncd. ment, 
 
 288. 
 
 MEARN, 274. 
 
 measure, 75, 183, 344. 
 measurable, 75- 
 meat, 75. 
 mechanical, 406. 
 mechanics, 368. 
 mediation, 75. 
 medium, 369. 
 meed, 104, 315. 
 
OF LETTERS AND WORDS. 
 
 655 
 
 meek-eyed, 607. 
 meet, 288. 
 melodious, 411. 
 melody, 75. 
 melt, 267. 
 memento, 369. 
 memorandum, 369. 
 memory, 75. 
 men, 128, 381. 
 men of learning, 425. 
 men of property, 425. 
 men of this generation, 
 
 4 2 5- 
 me not, one does not 
 
 know, 254. 
 
 -ment, 333,441. 
 
 mention, -ed, 303. 
 
 mercenary, 75. 
 
 merchandise (subst.), 
 
 345- 
 merchandise(verb),347. 
 
 merchant, 75, 171. 
 
 mercy, 56, 75. 
 
 mere, 104, 189, 564. 
 
 meres and bounds, 77- 
 
 merit, 75. 
 
 meritorious, 41 1. 
 
 merry, 423. 
 
 mesalliance, 606 a. 
 
 mesmerist, 366. 
 
 me semed, 588. 
 
 message, 75, 335. 
 
 messager, 336. 
 
 messenger, 336. 
 
 met, 189, 275, 288. 
 
 metaphorical, 393. 
 
 metaphysical, 393. 
 
 metaphysics, 368. 
 
 METE, METEN, 2 74, 
 275- 
 
 methinks, 574. 
 method, 368. 
 methodical, 393, 406. 
 methodist, 366. 
 meynie, 56. 
 mice, 123, 381. 
 mickle, 389. 
 mid, 38, 117. 
 middle, 117, 389. 
 Middlesex, 25. 
 
 midge, 117. 
 
 mien, 32. 
 
 might, 105, 117, 154, 
 
 240, 291,317,587. 
 mighty, 240, 394. 
 mignonette, 334. 
 migratory, 416. 
 miht, 154. 
 mil, 18, 117. 
 milce = miltse, 139. 
 milch, 425. 
 mild, 388. 
 milk, 117, 425. 
 milky, 394. 
 miller, 319. 
 millstone-grit, 598. 
 mil-pa'Sas, 18. 
 mine, 105, 117, 481. 
 
 482, 484, 574. 
 miniature, 344. 
 minimum, 369. 
 minister, 75« 
 ministerialist, 366. 
 mint, 12. 
 minutely, 433. 
 minutiae, 369. 
 miracle, 75. 
 mirror, 75. 
 mirth and jollity. 77. 
 mis-, 606 a, 606 c. 
 misadventure, 606 a. 
 mischief, 75, 606 a. 
 miscarry, 606 a. 
 misease, 183. 
 misgiving, 606 a. 
 mislike, 606 a, 606 c. 
 mismanagement, 606 a. 
 misnomer, 606 a. 
 Miss, 370. 
 misselmasse, 62. 
 missionariness, 321. 
 missionary, 415. 
 mist, 117, 315. 
 mistake, 606 a. 
 mistress, 75- 
 misty, 394. 
 mitigate, 309. 
 mixture, 344. 
 mnemonics, 368. 
 mockery, 331. 
 
 modernism, 365. 
 modicum, 369. 
 modify, 308. 
 moe, in. 
 moiety, 56. 
 moist, 75. 
 moldiwarp, 371. 
 mole (talpa), 371. 
 mollify, 308. 
 molten, 267. 
 moment, 333. 
 momentum, 369. 
 monarchize, 310. 
 -monger, 319. 
 monied, 396. 
 monk, 119. 
 Monophysite, 363. 
 monopolize, 310. 
 Monothelite, 363. 
 monster, 75. 
 mood, 12, 315. 
 moody, 394. 
 moon, 315. 
 moral, 75. 
 morality, 349. 
 more, III, 133, 189, 
 
 241, 421, 422. 
 Mormonite, 363. 
 mornen, 274. 
 mornings, 434, 446. 
 mortal, 75- 
 
 mortall (Spenser), 162. 
 mortgagee, 341. 
 mortgagor, 341. 
 mortify, 308. 
 moss, 20. 
 most, 421, 422. 
 moste, 291. 
 mote, 291, 295 
 motive, 413. 
 moth, in. 
 mother, 316. 
 mother earth, 565. 
 mould, 170. 
 mountaineer, 340. 
 mourn, 274. 
 mouse, 119, 315. 
 mouth, 32, 119, 263 
 
 315- 
 
 move, 178. 
 
6 5 6 
 
 I. INDEX 
 
 mow, 317. 
 mowe, 294. 
 much, 388, 503. 
 muleteer, 340. 
 mulierosity, 357. 
 multitude, 362. 
 multitudinous, 411. 
 munificence, 356. 
 munuc, 383. 
 muringer, 336. 
 murky, 394. 
 
 MURNE, 274. 
 MUS, 381. 
 
 music, 368. 
 
 must (verb), 214, 291, 
 
 295, 300. 
 must (brewing), 119. 
 musty, 394. 
 mutton, 41. 
 my, 483, 495. 
 mynchyn, 383. 
 
 MYS, 381. 
 
 myself, 469. 
 
 N, the letter, 135, 188, 
 
 504. 
 -n (participial) 266. 
 -n 57, 66, 188, 262, 
 
 263, 282, 305, 316, 
 
 388, 391. 
 n, absorbed, 263. 
 N, negative particle, 
 
 510, 512. 
 n = him, 255. 
 nabieh. = I have not, 
 
 255- 
 nadir, 353. 
 
 nail, 316. 
 
 nam = neam, 254. 
 
 name, 75- 
 
 nap, 103. 
 
 nape, 103. 
 
 narcotic, 405. 
 
 nasty, 394. 
 
 nat = ne wat = knows 
 
 not, 254. 
 
 nativity, 349. 
 
 natural, 75, 404. 
 
 naturall, 162. 
 
 naturalness, 321. 
 nature, 75, 157, 344. 
 nature and kind, 75. 
 navestu = nehavest 
 
 bu, 254. 
 nay, 181, 184. 
 ne, 495, 503, 504, 
 
 506,507,508, 513. 
 ?z£a = nay, 184. 
 near, 527. 
 neat (cattle), 183, 
 
 3I5- 
 neat-handed, 607. 
 
 necessitous, 411. 
 
 necht (Anglian), 132. 
 
 Ned-— Edward, 373. 
 
 need, 104, 315. 
 
 need-not<, 599. 
 
 needs, 435. 
 
 negligence, 356. 
 
 neighbour, neighbor, 
 
 i7 8 > 359- 
 neighbouress, 384. 
 
 neighbourhood, 324. 
 
 Nell = Ellen, 373. 
 
 nelt = newilt, 254. 
 
 -ness, 83, 319, 321, 
 
 322. 
 
 nest, 315. 
 
 nestling, 318. 
 
 net, 12, 127, 189, 
 
 315- 
 nettle, 12, 
 
 never, 226, 504. 
 nevertheless, 518, 541. 
 new, 107, 388. 
 new-fangled, 389. 
 next, 527. 
 new, 189. 
 nice, 409, 424. 
 nicety, 75, 350. 
 nigardise, 345. 
 niggard, 342. 
 nigh, 189, 388, 527. 
 night, 105, 117, 132, 
 
 . J 54> 6 43- 
 night-cap, 612. 
 
 nightshade, 20, ill. 
 
 niht, 132, 154. 
 
 nill = newill, 255. 
 
 nimble, 389. 
 
 nip, 105. 
 
 nithing, 318. 
 
 no, 479, 483, 495. 
 
 5°4> 5H- 
 noble, 75, 388. 
 
 nobody, 477. 
 
 no doubt, 545. 
 
 noisy, 394. 
 
 Noll = Oliver, 373. 
 
 nomenclature, 344. 
 
 nominate, 309. 
 
 nominee, 341. 
 
 no more than, 542. 
 
 non (Latin), 509. 
 
 none, 479, 483, 495. 
 
 504, 514, 621. 
 
 noontide solace, 565. 
 
 nor, 189, 506, 507. 
 
 Norsk, 393. 
 
 north, 315. 
 
 northness, 321. 
 
 northwards, 435. 
 
 nose, 315. 
 
 nostril, 597. 
 
 not = newot, 254. 
 
 not, 189, 226, 504. 
 
 5°7> 5H. 
 not a bit, 512. 
 
 not any, 512. 
 
 not a scrap, 512. 
 
 not at all, 512, 518, 
 
 542. 
 not in the least, 512. 
 not one, 512. 
 notable, 402. 
 note, 75. 
 
 nothing, 234, 479. 
 nothing but, 522. 
 no thynge, 503. 
 notice, 345, 347. 
 noticeable, 402. 
 notify, 75. 
 notoriously, 442. 
 not proven, 276. 
 notwithstanding, 518, 
 
 551. 
 nought, 504, 514. 
 nourish, 74. 
 nourishing, 75. 
 
OF LETTERS AND WORDS. 
 
 657 
 
 novelist, 366. 
 novelty, 350. 
 now, 189, 241. 
 now-a-dayes, 573. 
 now-a-days, 573. 
 now therefore, 551. 
 now whereas, 551. 
 noxious, 411. 
 nugatory, 416. 
 nullify, 308. 
 number, 137, 260. 
 nun, 119. 
 nuptial, 404. 
 nuptials, 360. 
 nurse, 75. 
 nurseling, 377. 
 nurture, 344. 
 nut, 119. 
 nut-cracker, 601. 
 
 O ! the interjection, 
 
 198. 
 o, the vowel, 100, 
 
 103, 106, 120, 121. 
 oak, 20, in, 315. 
 oak-apple, 601. 
 oar, in. 
 
 oasis, oases, 369, 382. 
 oaten, 391. 
 oath, in, 315. 
 oats, 41, 168, 169. 
 ob-, 606 c. 
 obeisance, 355. 
 obey, 32. 
 object, 606 c. 
 obleege, 175. 
 oblidge, 151. 
 obligatory, 4 1 6. 
 oblige, 175. 
 obloquy, 606 c. 
 obscurity, 349. 
 obstacle, 75, 606 c. 
 obstinate, 75. 
 obstreperous, 411. 
 obtaining, 580 c. 
 obverse, 606 c. 
 Odin, 169. 
 odium, 369. 
 oecumenical, 406. 
 
 of-, 606 a. 
 
 of, 425, 446, 466, 
 468, 523, 524, 529, 
 564, 589, 606 b, 
 611. 
 
 of a certainty, 517. 
 
 of a child, 445. 
 
 of a morning, 446. 
 
 of a truth, 446. 
 
 of an evening, 446. 
 
 of course, 517. 
 
 of it, 516, 
 
 of itself, 591. 
 
 of me, 481. 
 
 of my own, 591. 
 
 of necessity, 446. 
 
 of .old, 446. 
 
 of theirs, 591. 
 
 of to, 591. 
 
 of whom, 540. 
 
 of yours, 591. 
 
 off, 524. 
 
 off-, 606 a. 
 
 offal, 606 a. 
 
 offence, 356. 
 
 offense, 356. 
 
 office, 75. 
 
 officer, 75. 
 
 offscouring, 606 a. 
 
 offset, 606 a. 
 
 offshoot, 606 a. 
 
 offspring, 606 a. 
 
 often, 437. 
 
 oh! 198. 
 
 oh! oh! 196. 
 
 oi (diphthong), 173, 
 
 179. J 93. 
 oil, oiled, 303. 
 
 oily, 394. 
 
 old, 133, 388,609. 
 
 old-friendishness, 609. 
 
 olden, 391. 
 
 oldster, 385. 
 
 on, 32, 37, 168, 189, 
 
 226, 524, 526, 
 
 606 b. 
 once, 461, 515. 
 once on a time, 461. 
 one, 33, 38, 91, 168, 
 
 478, 479, 495, 496, 
 
 49 8 > 5 I2 » 5 J 4> 
 621. 
 
 one and the other, 168, 
 
 478. 
 one another, 478. 
 one of you, 591. 
 only, 498, 564. 
 onus, 369. 
 op-, 606 c. 
 ope, 1 89. 
 open, 391. 
 open-hearted, 607. 
 
 °P era > 353- 
 operate, 309. 
 
 operose, 412. 
 
 opiate, 361. 
 
 opinion, 75. 
 
 oppose, 606 c. 
 
 oppress, 75. 
 
 oppression, 75. 
 
 optics, 368. 
 
 opulence, 356. 
 
 opulent, 418. ' 
 
 or, 520, 532, 451. 
 
 -or, 359- 
 
 oratorio, 353. 
 
 orchestra, 353. 
 
 ordain, 75. 
 
 order, 32, 75, 260. 
 
 ordinance, 75. 
 
 or ere, 541. 
 
 or ever, 541. 
 
 organ, 75. 
 
 organizing, 580 c. 
 
 original, 75. 
 
 orison, 75, 332. 
 
 ornament, 333. 
 
 -ose, 412. 
 
 -osity, 357, 358, 372. 
 
 ostler, 75. 
 
 ostracism, 365. 
 
 other, 460. 
 
 other gates, 515. 
 
 otiose, 412. 
 
 ou (diphthong), 178, 
 
 193- 
 
 ought, 189, 289, 300, 
 
 479» 5M- 
 -our, 359. 
 
 ourn, 484. 
 
 U U 
 
6 5 8 
 
 I. INDEX 
 
 ours, 484, 485, 575. 
 
 P air . 75» 9°. 260. 
 
 ourselves, 469. 
 
 palace, 41. 
 
 -ous, 411. 
 
 pale, 75. 
 
 Ouse, 19. 
 
 palette, 334. 
 
 out, 119, 533. 
 
 palisade, 352. 
 
 out-, 606 a. 
 
 pall, 103. 
 
 outdo, 606 a. 
 
 palliative, 413. 
 
 out-going, 32, 606 a. 
 
 pamphleteer, 340. 
 
 outlandish, 393. 
 
 pan, 103, in. 
 
 outlaw, 606 a. 
 
 pane, 103. 
 
 out of, 529. 
 
 pantheist, 366. 
 
 out of which to, 59I. 
 
 para-, 606 d. 
 
 out-put, 606 a. 
 
 parade, 352. 
 
 outrageous, 411. 
 
 paradox, 606 d. 
 
 outrun, 606 a. 
 
 paralysis, 369. 
 
 outset, 606 a. 
 
 paraphrase, 606 d. 
 
 outshine, 606 a. 
 
 parasite, 606 d. 
 
 outstrip, 606 a. 
 
 parasol, 606 d. 
 
 outward, 400, 606 a. 
 
 pare, 90. 
 
 outwards, 515. 
 
 parental, 404. 
 
 outwork, 606 a. 
 
 parenthesis, 369. 
 
 over, 226, 524. 
 
 parlement, 75, 333 
 
 over-, 606 a. 
 
 359-. 
 
 overbearing, 606 a. 
 
 parochial, 75. 
 
 overcoat, 606 a. 
 
 parochialize, 310. 
 
 overcome, 606 a. 
 
 parson, 171. 
 
 overdrive, 606 a. 
 
 part, 234. 
 
 overlook, 606 a. 
 
 partial, 404. 
 
 overmuch, 606 a. 
 
 partialize (Shak- 
 
 overthwart, 606 a. 
 
 speare), 310. 
 
 overture, 344. 
 
 partisan, 620. 
 
 overturn, 606 a. 
 
 party, 75. 
 
 overwork, 606 a. 
 
 pass, 75. 
 
 owe, owed, ought, 235, 
 
 passage, 335. 
 
 288, 289. 
 
 passenger, 336. 
 
 owl, 61, 119. 
 
 passion, 75, 332. 
 
 own, 495. 
 
 passive, 413. 
 
 ownership, 327. 
 
 pasture, 344. 
 
 ox, 41, 315. 
 
 patched up, 501. 
 
 oxen, 379. 
 
 paten, 343. 
 
 Oxford, 19. 
 
 patent, 75. 
 
 oyer and terminer, 330. 
 
 path, 113, 136,315. 
 
 
 PATHAS, IIO. 
 
 
 path-field, 566, 599. 
 
 P, the letter, 136. 
 
 pathos, 369. 
 
 pace, 75. 
 
 paths, no. 
 
 paddock, 20. 
 
 patience, 227. 
 
 page, 329. 
 
 patient, 75. 
 
 pain, 75. 
 
 patristic, 420. 
 
 paint, 75. 
 
 patron, 75. 
 
 patronize, 310. 
 paunch, 177. 
 pavement, 333. 
 payee, 341. 
 payment, 333. 
 pays — pease, 186. 
 pea, 183, 381. 
 peace, 56, 75, 181. 
 peaceable, 402. 
 peaceableness, 320. 
 peal, 371. 
 pear, 90, 183. 
 pease, 183, 186, 381. 
 pease-cod, 20. 
 peason, 183. 
 peat bogs, 598. 
 pedantic, 405. 
 pedleress, 384. 
 peep, 104, 
 peevish, 393. 
 pen (verb), 301. 
 penance. 75? 82. 
 pension, 332. i 
 pensive, 413. 
 pent, 301. 
 pent-house, 345. 
 pentice, 345. 
 people, 75, 179, 477. 
 per-, 606 c. 
 peradventure, 75, 534. 
 perceave, 186. 
 perceive, 186,606 c. 
 perfect, 75. 
 perhaps, 534. 
 peri-, 606 d. 
 perigee, 606 d. 
 perihelion, 606 d. 
 periphery, 606 d. 
 periphrasis, 606 d. 
 periphrast, 367. 
 perish, 74. 
 Perizzite, 363. 
 permanent, 606 c. 
 perpetually, 75- 
 perquisite, 606 c. 
 perseverance, 75- 
 persevere, 75- 
 Persian, 419. 
 person, 75, 171, 477. 
 personable, 402. 
 
OF LETTERS AND WORDS. 
 
 659 
 
 personage, 335. 
 personality, 350. 
 personalty, 56, 350. 
 persons of strong 
 opinions, 425. 
 persuasible, 402. 
 persuasive, 402. 
 perverse, 75 • 
 pestilence, 75. 
 petitionary, 415. 
 petulant, 417- 
 Pharisee, 341. 
 phenonema, 382. 
 phenonemon, 369. 
 Philistine, 414. 
 philosopher, 75. 
 philosophize, 310. 
 philosophy, 75. 
 physic, 406. 
 physician, 75. 
 piano, 353. 
 picture, 344. 
 picturesque, 407. 
 piecemeal, 437. 
 Pig, 328, 382. 
 piggery, 331. 
 pight, 288. 
 pioneer, 340. 
 pious, 41 1. 
 pipe, 105. 
 pipkin, 377. 
 pitch, 288. 
 piteous, 75. 
 pith, 315. 
 
 pity. 32, 75, 189. 
 placard, 342. 
 place, 75. 
 plain, 75. 
 planet, 75. 
 plashy, 394. 
 plastery, 394. 
 plat, 267. 
 play, 136. 
 plea, 183. 
 plead, 276. 
 pleasance, 75. 
 pleasant, 75. 
 please, 75, 181, 183. 
 pleasure, 183, 189. 
 pled = pleaded, 276. 
 
 plenteous, 75- 
 pleonasm, 367. 
 pleonastic, 420. 
 plet, 267, 271. 
 plight, 78. 
 plough, 41, 155. 
 plow-bote, 82. \ 
 plush-breeches, 612. 
 Plutarchize, 310. 
 pocket, 334. 
 poetick, 161. 
 poetics, 368. 
 poetry, 331. 
 poignant, 75. 
 point, 75. 
 
 point of honour, 612. 
 point of view, 612. 
 pointsman, 607. 
 poison, 332. 
 poisonous, 411. 
 polemics, 368. 
 Polish, 393. 
 polite, 159. 
 politick, 139, 161. 
 politics, 368. 
 pollard, 342. 
 Polynesian, 419. 
 polytheism, 365. 
 polytheist, 366. 
 pomp, 75. 
 pomposity, 357. 
 pooh ! 202. 
 pooh-pooh, 221. 
 poor, 75. 
 pope, 75. 
 poppy-head, 612. 
 populosity. 357. 
 pork, 41. 
 porringer, 336. 
 port, 18, 75. 
 port (Chaucer), 75. 
 Portuguese, 408. 
 position, 413. 
 positive, 32. 
 Posset = Portishead, 
 
 633- 
 
 possible, 75. 
 
 post, 189. 
 post-, 606 c. 
 posterity, 349. 
 
 post-obit, 606. 
 post-office, 612. 
 postpone, 606 c. 
 postscript, 606 c. 
 postulate, 309. 
 posture, 344. 
 potato disease, 565. 
 pottinger, 336. 
 pouch, 75. 
 poultry, 331. 
 pound, 75, 119, 189. 
 poundage, 335. 
 pour, 189. 
 
 pourtraiture, 75, 344. 
 pourtray, 75. 
 poverty-stricken, 272. 
 powder, 75. 
 practicable, 402. 
 practice, 162, 346. 
 practise, 162. 
 practiser, 75* 
 practize (Spenser), 
 
 34 6 - e 
 prae-, 606 c. 
 
 pray, 75- 
 prayer, 75. 
 pre-, 606 c. 
 preach, 75. 
 preachers, 384. 
 precede, 606 c. 
 predestinate, 606 c. 
 predicting (inf.), 5 8 ° c - 
 preface, 75. 
 prefect, 75. 
 prefer, 606 c. 
 preferable, 402. 
 preference, 356. 
 prejudice, 345, 606 c. 
 prelating (inf.), 5 8 ° S* 
 premature, 606 c. 
 preparatory, 416. 
 Presbyterianism, 365. 
 presence, 75. 
 present, presented, 200, 
 
 3°3- 
 pressure, 344. 
 prest and boun, 77' 
 
 pretence, 350. 
 pretty, 394, 4 2 3» 43 l > 
 
 U U 2 
 
66o 
 
 7. INDEX 
 
 prevalent, 418. 
 preventive, 218. 
 pride, 75, 639. 
 prim, 390. 
 primitive, 390. 
 primogeniture, 344. 
 prince, 41, 75. 
 princess, 75, 384. 
 principal, 75. 
 prison, 75. 
 pritte, 394. 
 privateer, 340. 
 privily, 75. 
 prize, 75. 
 prize ox, 60 1, 
 pro- (Latin), 606 c. 
 pro- (Greek), 606 d. 
 procedure, 344. 
 proceed, 75. 
 process, 75. 
 proctorship, 327. 
 procurable, 402. 
 proffer, 75. 
 profitable, 402. 
 programme, 606 d. 
 prolegomena, 606 d. 
 prologue, 606 d. 
 promenade, 352. 
 promise, 75. 
 promontory, 606 c. 
 pronounce, 606 c. 
 propagandism, 365. 
 prophecy, prophesy, 
 
 162, 260. 
 prophesy, 606 d. 
 propitiatory, 416. 
 proportion, 606 c. 
 proposal, 360. 
 prose, 216. 
 prospectus, 369. 
 protest, 606 c. 
 Protestantism, 365. 
 protoplasm, 367. 
 protoplast, 367. 
 proud, 394, 639. 
 proudie, 394. 
 prove, 75, 178. 
 proven, 276. 
 prowess, 348. 
 prut, 394. 
 
 psha ! 202. 
 Ptolemaic, 405. 
 pubescence, 356. 
 publicist, 366. 
 pull, 118. 
 pullet, 41. 
 
 punish, 74, 118, 173. 
 pur-, 606 b. 
 purchase, 75, 606 b. 
 pure, 75. 
 pure-eyed, 607. 
 
 Purge. 75- 
 Puritan, 419. 
 
 purlieu, 606 b. 
 
 purloin, 606 b. 
 
 purport, 606 b. 
 
 pursue, 606 b. 
 
 pursuit, 56. 
 
 pursuivant, 56, 606 b. 
 
 purtenance, 606 b. 
 
 purvey, 606 b. 
 
 push, 118. 
 
 puss, 118. 
 
 put, 118. 
 
 PYRIGE, l8. 
 
 Q, the letter, 139, 142. 
 qu, the sound, 142,153. 
 quadripartition, 358. 
 quaint, 75, 409. 
 quake, 142. 
 qualify, 308. 
 quality, 349, 425. 
 qualm, 142, 316. 
 quantity, 75. 
 quarrel, 142. 
 quarrelsome, 399. 
 quarry, 1 42. 
 quart, 56, 142. 
 quarter, 142. 
 quarterne, 142. 
 quay, 186. 
 queen, 142. 
 queer, 104. 
 queintise, 345. 
 quell, 142, 274. 
 quern-stone, 601. 
 question, 75, 234, 260, 
 
 3°3- 
 
 questionable, 402. 
 questioned, 303. 
 quha, 153. 
 quhat, 153. 
 quhen, 153. 
 quhilk, 153. 
 quho, 153. 
 quick, 142, 305, 388, 
 
 43i- 
 quicken, 305. 
 
 quire, 142. 
 
 quit, 75, 142, 189. 
 
 Quixotic, 405. 
 
 R, the letter, 135. 
 -r, 316, 388, 392. 
 racehorse, 566, 599. 
 radish, 20, 1 1 2. 
 radius, 369. 
 
 RiECAN, 149. 
 
 rafter, 112. 
 rail-road, 612. 
 rain, 316. 
 rain-bow, 612. 
 rake, in, 315. 
 ram, in, 315. 
 rampart, 417. 
 ran, 125, 267. 
 ranc, 394. 
 rang, 267. 
 range, 260, 329. 
 rank, 329, 425. 
 ransom, 75, 332. 
 rapidity, 349. 
 rapine, 343. 
 rapture, 344. 
 rascaldom, 323. 
 rascally, 398. 
 rat, 103. 
 rate, 103. 
 rathe, 388, 502. 
 rather, 502. 
 rathe-ripe, 604. 
 ratify, 308. 
 rationalism, 365. 
 r aught, 167, 288. 
 raven, 54, 316. 
 raveners, 54. 
 ravenous, 54. 
 
OF LETTERS AND WORDS. 
 
 66 t 
 
 -rd, 301. 
 
 re-, 606 c. 
 
 reac, 274. 
 
 reach, 149, 167, 288. 
 
 reached, 167. 
 
 react, 606 c. 
 
 read, 183, 301. 
 
 readiness, 1 66, 320. 
 
 ready, 181, 394. 
 
 REAFLAC, 325. 
 
 reagent, 606 c. 
 realism, 365. 
 reality, 350. 
 realm, 41. 
 realty, 56, 350. 
 reason, 75, 157, 184, 
 
 332. 
 reasonable, 402. 
 reave, 288. 
 rebel, 159, 606 c. 
 rebut, 606 c. 
 recan, 167. 
 receave, 186. 
 receive, 75, 186, 606 c. 
 recital, 360. 
 reck, 167. 
 reckless, 167. 
 recklessness, 167. 
 recommend, 75. 
 record, 75, 1 59, 260. 
 red-, 606 c. 
 -red, 319, 324, 328. 
 red (verb), 301, 302. 
 red (adj.), 388. 
 red- integrate, 606 c. 
 red-start, 112. 
 reducyn, 580. 
 redundant, 606 c. 
 red-whot, 166. 
 reed, 20, 104. 
 reedify, 606 c. 
 reedy, 394. 
 reek, 274. 
 re-elect, 606 c. 
 refer, 606 c. 
 referee, 341. 
 reflective, 413. 
 reft, 288. 
 refugee, 341. 
 refusal, 360. 
 
 refuse, 75. 
 regard, 234, 606 c. 
 regimen, 369. 
 regiment, 333. 
 region, 75, 358. 
 rehearse, 75. 
 rehearsal, 360. 
 re-invest, 606 c. 
 reject, 606 c. 
 rejoinder, 330, 606 c. 
 relate, 606 c. 
 relation, 358. 
 release, 75- 
 remainder, 330. 
 remark, 606 c. 
 remarkable, 402. 
 remedy, 75. 
 remission, 75. 
 rend, 301. 
 renown, 75> 606 c. 
 rent, 56, 75, 301. 
 rental, 360. 
 reoce, 274. 
 
 REOW, 274. 
 
 reparative, 413. 
 repent, 75, 606 c. 
 repentance, 75. 
 report, 75. 
 representative, 413- 
 reprieve, 186. 
 repulsive, 413. 
 reputable, 402. 
 reputation, 358. 
 request, 75, 606 c. 
 requiem, 369. 
 require, 75. 
 resayve, 186. 
 resemble, 606 c. 
 residual, 404. 
 residuum, 369. 
 resin, 343. 
 reson, 157. 
 resources, 620. 
 respect, 234. 
 respectable, 402. 
 respiratory, 416. 
 respite, 75- 
 responsible, 402. 
 responsive, 402, 413. 
 rest, 166, 315. 
 
 restore, 75. 
 retentive, 413. 
 reticence, 356. 
 return, 606 c. 
 reunion, 606 c. 
 revel, 55. 
 revellers, 55. 
 revelling, 55. 
 revelry, 55. 
 revenge, 606 c. 
 revenue, 619. 
 revere, revered, 303. 
 reverence, 75. 
 review, 606 c. 
 revisit, 606 c. 
 revival, 360. 
 revolve, 606 c. 
 reward, 606 c. 
 rewth, 32. 
 rhetoric, 368. 
 rhetorical, 406. 
 rhime, 131. 
 rhyme, 131. 
 rhyme and reason, 6 20a. 
 rib, 117. 
 ribald, 54. 
 ribaldry, 54. 
 -ric, 328. 
 rich, 149. 
 riches, 348. 
 rick, 151, 315- 
 -rick, 319. 
 rick-yard, 601. 
 ride, rid, ridden, 1 1 7, 
 
 267, 271. 
 rider, 12. 
 
 ridge, 16, 117, 151. 
 right, 105, 117, 189, 
 
 3I7.43I- 
 righteous, 41 1. 
 
 rin, 125. 
 
 rind, 117, 315. 
 
 ring, 117, 267, 315. 
 
 ringlet, 334. 
 
 riotise, 345. 
 
 riotous, 411. 
 
 ripe, 388. 
 
 rise, 267. 
 
 risen, 267. 
 
 ritch (Spenser), 149. 
 
66z 
 
 I. INDEX 
 
 ritualist, 366. 
 river, 339. 
 rivulet, 334. 
 road, in. 
 roadster, 385. 
 roam, 174. 
 robby (inf.), 61. 
 robe, 75, 189. 
 Robinsonian, 419. 
 Rocen, 274. 
 rock, 3. 
 rode, 267. 
 roe, in. 
 
 Roman, 393, 419. 
 Rome, 174. 
 roof, 41, 315. 
 rookery, 331. 
 roomy, 390. 
 root, 20. 
 
 rope, in, 189, 315, 
 rose, 75, 267, 271. 
 rosette, 334. 
 rote, 75. 
 rough, 155, 388. 
 roune, 93. 
 route, 75. 
 routine, 343. 
 row, 274. 
 
 ROWE, ROWEN, 274. 
 
 rown, 94. 
 
 royally, 75, 350. 
 royal-towered, 607. 
 royalty, 41. 
 rubbishy, 394. 
 rude, 75. 
 rue, 274. 
 Rugby, 278. 
 
 ruin, 343- 
 rule, 107. 
 
 rum, 390. 
 run, 119, 125, 267. 
 rung, 267. 
 Runic, 93, 405. 
 runner, 319. 
 rush (juncus), 119, 
 Russian, 393, 419. 
 rustic, 405. 
 rusty, 394. 
 rath, 317. 
 
 - r y. 331. 
 
 rye, 20, 41. 
 
 S, the letter, 132, 133. 
 -s (possessive), 256. 
 s (final), 152, 262. 
 s-, 606 c. 
 sacrament, 333. 
 sacrifice, 3, 75. 
 saddle, ill. 
 Sadducee, 341. 
 
 S.E-NiESSAS, 32O, 
 
 safe, 189. 
 
 sail, 260, 316. 
 
 saint, 75. 
 
 sake, 530. 
 
 salad, 352. 
 
 sale, in. 
 
 sallow = willow, 20. 
 
 salt, 112, 133. 
 
 salutation, 358. 
 
 salvation, 75- 
 
 salve, 315. 
 
 Sam, 373. 
 
 same, 1 11, 398, 399, 
 
 494. 
 sanatorium, 369. 
 sand, in. 
 sang, 124, 267. 
 sanguine, 75, 414. 
 sanitary, 415. 
 sank, 124, 267. 
 sap, 315. 
 sapience, 75- 
 sarcasm, 367. 
 sardonic, 405. 
 sarmon, 171. 
 sarvant, 171. 
 sarvice, 171. 
 sat, 103, 267. 
 sate, 267. 
 satisfaction, 358. 
 satisfy, 308. 
 sauce, 75- 
 saucy, 394. 
 saugh = willow, 20. 
 savalion, 358. 
 save, 75, 189, 213, 
 
 528. 
 savement, 333, 
 savour, 75- 
 Savoyard, 342. 
 saw, 267, 576. 
 sawest, 576. 
 
 Saxondom, 323, 
 saysonne, saysoun., 
 
 184. 
 say en, 580. 
 scadu, 152. 
 scale, 152. 
 scar, 152, 315, 456. 
 scarify, 308. 
 sceaf, 152, 274. 
 
 SCEAFT, 152. 
 SCEAL, I52. 
 SCEAMU, 152, 
 SCEANCA, 152. 
 SCEAP, 152. 
 SCEAPEN, 274, 
 SCEARP, 152. 
 SCEL, I52. 
 
 scene, 104, 165. 
 scent, 165. 
 sceo, 152. 
 
 SCEORT, 152. 
 
 scepticism, 365 . 
 sceptre, 41, 165, 
 schal, 61. 
 schame, 61. 
 scharpe, 61. 
 schild, 61. 
 schism, 365. 
 scholar, 75 • 
 school, 75, 152. 
 School Board, 565. 
 scidwall, 45. 
 science, 75, 165, 356 
 
 SCILD, 152. 
 SCINLAC, 325, 
 
 scite, 165. 
 scituation, 165. 
 
 SCOFEN, 274. 
 
 scolemaester, 149. 
 scop, 274. 
 score, 152, 456. 
 scot, 152. 
 scot-ale, 360, 
 Scotticism, 365, 
 Scottish, 393. 
 scoundreldom, 323. 
 scrub, 152, 331. ' 
 scrupulosity, 357. 
 
 SCUFE, 274. 
 SCYPEN, 152. 
 SCYPPE, 274, 
 
OF LETTERS AND WORDS. 
 
 66 3 
 
 scythe, 165. 
 
 sdeigned, 606 c. 
 
 sea, 183, 185, 186, 
 
 315- 
 seal (phoca), 189, 
 
 315- 
 seam, 316. 
 
 season, 75, 184, 332. 
 
 seasonable, 402. 
 
 seasonal, 404. 
 
 seat, 183. 
 
 sechestu, 255. 
 
 second, 75, 460. 
 
 secondary, 415. 
 
 section, 32. 
 
 secure, 75. 
 
 security, 349. 
 
 see, 267, 272, 546. 
 
 seed, 104, 315. 
 
 seedsman, 607. 
 
 seeing, 545, 607. 
 
 seek, 288. 
 
 seely, 394. 
 
 seem, 189. 
 
 seen, 189, 267. 
 
 seest, seeth, seen, 1 21, 
 
 , 132. 
 seethe, 267. 
 
 SEGEL, 316. 
 
 seisin, 56. 
 seizure, 344. 
 seld, 437. 
 seldom, 437. 
 self, 469. 
 self-involved, 607. 
 selfish, 393. 
 sell, 288. 
 selves, 469. 
 semptress, 384, 385. 
 send, 301. 
 send an, 301. 
 
 SENDE, 3OI. 
 
 sense, 356. 
 
 sensitive, 413. 
 
 sensual, 404. 
 
 sent, 301. 
 
 sent (Spenser) = scent, 
 
 165. 
 sentement, 333. 
 sentence, 75- 
 
 sentiment, 333. 
 Sepherus, 134. 
 sequence, 356. 
 serenade, 352. 
 serfdom, 323. 
 sergeant, 75. 
 serious, 411. 
 serjeant, 56, 171. 
 sermon, 138, 171. 
 servant, 75, 462. 
 serve, 75. 
 service, 75, 345. 
 session, 75. 
 settle (a bench), 316. 
 Severn, 19. 
 sh, 150, 152, 189, 
 
 193. 393- 
 
 -sh, 388. 
 
 shade, 152. 
 
 shadowy, 394. 
 
 shaft, 45, 112, 152. 
 
 shake, shaken, 267. 
 
 shaked, 304. 
 
 shalbe, 255. 
 
 shall, 45, 57, 152, 235, 
 236, 237, 239, 255, 
 291, 293, 587. 
 
 shaltu, 254. 
 
 shame, 45, III, 152, 
 
 315- 
 shank, 152. 
 
 shape, shapen, 267, 274 
 
 share, 123, 315. 
 
 sharp, 45, 112, 152, 
 
 388. 
 shave, shaven, 267. 
 shaw, 20. 
 Shaxper = Shakespeare, 
 
 632. 
 she, 104, 189, 470. 
 sheaf, 152, 315. 
 shear, 45, 123, 267. 
 shears, 315. 
 sheath, 45. 
 sheep, 41, 152, 315, 
 
 382. 
 sheer, 117, 123. 
 shell, 152. 
 shepherd, 632. 
 shew, shewn, 267. 
 
 shield, 152, 315. 
 shields, 45. 
 shilling, 318. 
 shilly-shally, 401. 
 shine, 267. 
 -shion, 332. 
 -ship, 319, 327,328. 
 ship, 45, 117, 315. 
 ship-mate, 601. 
 ship-shape, 401. 
 shire, 61, 117. 123, 
 
 315. 
 shod, 288. 
 
 shoe, 152, 288, 315. 
 shof, 267, 272. 
 shone, 45, 267. 
 shooen, shoon = shoes, 
 
 380. 
 shook, 267, 272. 
 shoons = shoes, 380. 
 shoot, 267. 
 shope, 267. 
 shore, 45, 123, 267. 
 shorn, 267. 
 short, 45, 152, 305, 
 
 388. 
 shorten, 305. 
 shot, 45, 267. 
 shotten, 267, 272. 
 should, 61, 170, 235, 
 
 237. 291, 587. 
 shoulders, 45. 
 shove, 57, 178, 267, 
 
 274. 
 shoved, 272. 
 shovel, 316. 
 shower, 119. 
 shrank, 124, 267. 
 shriek, 288. 
 shrievalty, 350. 
 shright, 2 88. 
 shrike, 117. 
 shrine, 117. 
 shrink, 124, 267. 
 shrive, 61. 
 shroud, 57, 119. 
 shrubbery, 331. 
 shrunk, 124, 267. 
 shrunken, 267, 391. 
 shunned, 45 u 
 
66 4 
 
 I. INDEX 
 
 shunneth, 58. 
 sick, 388. 
 sicken, 305. 
 sickle, 41, 117, 316. 
 sic-like, 486. 
 side, 12. 
 sidwal, 45, 
 siege, 75. 
 sieve, 117. 
 sight, 105, 154, 317. 
 sighte = sighed, 288. 
 signet, 334. 
 sign, 75. 
 signatary, 415. 
 signature, 344. 
 siht, 132, 154. 
 sike, 288. 
 silk, 117. 
 silky, 394. 
 silly, 394. 
 silverling, 318. 
 similitude, 74, 640. 
 simple, 75. 
 simplifying, 508 c. 
 sin, 315. 
 since, 226, 515. 
 sincerity, 349. 
 sing, 124, 189, 267. 
 singe, 267. 
 sink, 124, 267.' 
 -sion, 332. 
 sir, 75. 
 sire, 75. 
 Sir-John, 172. 
 sister, 316. 
 sisterhood, 326. 
 sisteryn, 380. 
 sistren, 380. 
 sit, 105, 267. 
 site, 165. 
 sith, 117, 543. 
 sithence, 527. 
 sitten, 267. 
 situation, 358. 
 sixpence, sixpences, 
 
 599- 
 sixt-thou = seest thou, 
 
 132. 
 siz, 56. 
 skin, 152, 315. 
 
 skipper, 319. 
 
 skirmish, 75. 
 
 skittle, 152, 316. 
 
 skulk, 152. 
 
 skull, 315. 
 
 slacken, 305. 
 
 slain, 267. 
 
 slang (preterite), 267, 
 
 272. 
 slank, 124. 
 
 SLAPE, SLAPEN, 274. 
 
 slat, 267. 
 
 slaughter, 155. 
 
 slay, 267. 
 
 sleep, 274, 288. 
 
 sleeve, 117. 
 
 slep, 274. 
 
 slepestow, 255. 
 
 slept, 288. 
 
 slew, 267. 
 
 slid, slidden, 267. 
 
 slide, 267. 
 
 sling, 267. 
 
 slink, 124, 267. 
 
 slipper (adj.), 392. 
 
 slippery, 392. 
 
 slit, 267. 
 
 slod, 267. 
 
 sloe, iii. 
 
 slow, 431. 
 
 sluggard, 342. 
 
 slung, 267. 
 
 slunk, 124, 267. 
 
 small, 112, 127, 388. 
 
 SMEOCE, SMEAC, 274. 
 
 smite, 267. 
 
 smith, 32, 35, 117, 
 315. 
 
 SMITHAS, 1 10. 
 
 smiths, no. 
 
 smitten, 267. 
 
 smocen, 274. 
 
 smoke, 274. 
 
 smote, 267. 
 
 snaffle, 316. 
 
 snail, 316. 
 
 snegel, 316. 
 
 so, 222,471,486,503, 
 
 539. 62 5- 
 so . . as, 536. 
 
 sober, 75. 
 
 soccage, 335. 
 
 sod, 267, 272. 
 
 sodden, 267. 
 
 soft, 263. 
 
 soil, 179. 
 
 sojourn, 75. 
 
 solace, 75- 
 
 sold, 288. 
 
 solemn, 75. 
 
 solicitude, 362. 
 
 solid, 503. 
 
 soliloquize, 310. 
 
 solitude, 362. 
 
 solvent, 417. 
 
 -som, 332. 
 
 some, 119, 241, 399, 
 
 5°3- 
 -some, 388, 399. 
 somebody, 33, 477. 
 some folk, 477. 
 some people, 477. 
 something, 234, 479. 
 somnolent, 418. 
 So mote I thee, 
 
 2 54- 
 So mote it be, 
 
 210. 
 son, 119, 189, 315. 
 -son, 332. 
 sonata, 353. 
 sonderlypes, 515. 
 song, in, 315. 
 songster, 385. 
 songstress, 384, 385. 
 sooterkins, 377. 
 sooth, 263, 388, 
 
 628 a. 
 soothsayer, 628 a. 
 sooth to say, 628 a. 
 sorcery, 331. 
 sore, in. 
 sort, 32, 75. 
 so . . that, 536. 
 sough, 315. 
 sought, 288. 
 soul, 315, 316. 
 sound, 138. 
 sounding, 75. 
 sour, 119. 
 
OF LETTERS AND WORDS. 
 
 66 5 
 
 south, 315. 
 
 southwards, 435. 
 
 souverainety, 350. 
 
 soveraintess, 384. 
 
 soverainty, 350. 
 
 sovereign, 41, 56. 
 
 sow, 382. 
 
 space, 75. 
 
 spacious, 411. 
 
 spade, 41, in, 226. 
 
 sp<ec, 149. 
 
 spake, 267. 
 
 span, in, 124, 267. 
 
 Spaniard, 342. 
 
 Spanish, 393. 
 
 spasm, 367. 
 
 spat, 288. 
 
 spate, 288. 
 
 speak, 267. 
 
 speak loud, speak low, 
 
 43 l - 
 
 SPEARN, 274. 
 
 spec, 370. 
 special, 75. 
 speciality, 350. 
 species, 32. 
 specific, 405. 
 speciosity, 357. 
 specious, 411. 
 spectacle-bestrid, 604. 
 speculative, 413. 
 sped, 301. 
 speech, 149. 
 speed, 301, 315. 
 speedy, 394. 
 
 SPEL, 632. 
 
 spend, 75, 301. 
 spent, 301. 
 sphere-music, 601. 
 spet, 288. 
 spicery, 75, 331. 
 spight, 154, 606 c. 
 spill, 301. 
 spilt, 301. 
 spilth (Shakspeare), 
 
 317- 
 
 spin, 117, 124, 267. 
 
 spinner, 385. 
 spinster, 385. 
 spirit, 227. 
 
 spiritualty, 350. 
 spit, 117, 288. 
 spite, 154. 
 spittle, 316. 
 splotch, 372. 
 spoke, ill, 267, 272. 
 spoken, 267. 
 spokesman, 607. 
 
 SPORNEN, 274. 
 
 sportsman, 607. 
 spouse, 75. 
 sprang, 124, 267. 
 spread, 1 81. 
 spright, 154. 
 sprightly, 154. 
 spring, 124, 267. 
 sprit, 117. 
 sprite, 154. 
 sprung, 124, 267.'' 
 spun, 124, 267. 
 s.purn, 274. 
 spurne, 274. 
 spytt, 288. 
 squalor, 369. 
 squire, 75. 
 squirrel, 640, 641. 
 stable (adj.), 75. 
 stager. 316. 
 
 ST.ERF, 274. 
 
 staff, 315. 
 stair, 316. 
 stall, 112, 315. 
 Stamboul, 257. 
 stanas, stones, I IO. 
 Stanchio, 257. 
 stand, ill, 280, 288. 
 standard, 342. 
 Standish, 633. 
 stang, 125. 
 staniht, stony, 397. 
 stank, 267. 
 stanza, 353. 
 star, 112, 315. 
 start, 112, 388. 
 startleder, 422. 
 Start Point, 112. 
 starvation, 358. 
 starve, 274. 
 starveling, 318. 
 state, 103. 
 
 stately, 75. 
 stationary, 415- 
 stature, 344. 
 status, 369. 
 statute, 75. 
 steady, 394. 
 steal, 267. 
 stealth, 317. 
 steedes and pal- 
 freys, 77. 
 steelly, 398. 
 steer, 41, 315. 
 
 STEORFE, 274. 
 
 -ster, 385. 
 stercoraceous, 41 1. 
 stern, 391. 
 steven, 316. 
 
 STICCEM-ELUM, 437. 
 
 stick, 267. 
 stickle, 389. 
 stickle-back, 389. 
 Sticklepath, 389. 
 stigma, 369. 
 stiletto, 353. 
 still, 431, 501. 
 stimulus, 369. 
 sting, 125, 267. 
 stink, 267. 
 stirrup, 1 1 7. 
 stock, 315. 
 stockade, 352. 
 Stoicism, 365. 
 stole, stolen, 267. 
 stone, ill, 315. 
 stone age, 565. 
 Stonehouse, 633. 
 stone implements, 565. 
 stones, no. 
 stone-wall, 425. 
 Stonewall Jackson, 
 
 425. 
 stone weapons, 565. 
 stood, 288, 290. 
 
 STORFEN, 274. 
 
 story, 75, 371. 
 stoundemele, 437. 
 stow, 315. 
 
 STRAC, 267. 
 
 strait, 75. 
 strangeling, 377. 
 
666 
 
 I. INDEX 
 
 stranger, 339. 
 stream, 315. 
 street, 18. 
 strength, 305, 317. 
 strengthen, 305. 
 stress, 370. 
 strican, 267. 
 stricken, 267, 272. 
 stride, stridden, 
 
 267. 
 strife, 12, 260. 
 strike, stricken, 267. 
 string, 267. 
 stripling, 318. 
 strive, striven, 260, 
 
 267. 
 strode, 267, 431. 
 strong, in, 388. 
 strove, 267. 
 struck, 267. 
 strung, 267. 
 stuck, 267. 
 studio, 353. 
 study, 75. 
 stultify, 308. 
 stung, 267. 
 stunk, 267. 
 sturdy, 394. 
 sub-, 606 c. 
 subaqueous, 606 c. 
 sub-committee, 606 c. 
 subdivide, 606 c. 
 subject, 606 c. 
 subordinate, 606 c. 
 subsannation, 358. 
 subsidize, 310. 
 substance, 75, 355. 
 subtilly, 75. 
 subtle-cadenced, 599, 
 
 608. 
 subway, 606 c. 
 succeed, -ed, 303. 
 succulent, 418. 
 such, 471, 486, 
 
 496. 
 such . . as, 221. 
 such-like, 486. 
 such things, 234. 
 such . . which, 486. 
 such . . who, 486. 
 
 suckling, 377. 
 
 sudden in a minute, 
 
 448. 
 suffer, 75. 
 suffice, 75- 
 suggestive, 413. 
 suicidal, 404. 
 sulky, 394. 
 sulphuric, 405. 
 summer, 119, 133, 
 
 316. 
 summer grass, 565. 
 sun, 315. 
 sunder, 119. 
 sundry, 495. 
 sung, 267. 
 
 sung = singe-d, 272. 
 sunk, sunken, 1 24, 
 
 267. 
 superfluity, 75. 
 superlative, 413. 
 supper, 75. 
 suppleness, 320. 
 supplicatory, 416. 
 sure, 431. 
 surety, 350. 
 surgeon, 172. 
 surgical, 406. 
 survey, 185. 
 suspense, 356. 
 suspicious, 55. 
 Sussex, 25. 
 suture, 344. 
 swal, 125, 267. 
 swallow, in, 267. 
 swam, 267. 
 swannery, 331. 
 sware, 267. 
 swart, 388. 
 swealh, 274. 
 swear, 267. 
 Swedish, 393. 
 sweep, 288. 
 sweet, 12, 388. 
 sweetish, 393. 
 
 SWELGE, 274. 
 
 swell, -ed, 125, 267. 
 swept, 288. 
 swift, 117, 388. 
 swim, 267. 
 
 swine, 41, 117, 315, 
 
 382. 
 swing, 267. 
 
 SWOLGEN, 274. 
 
 swollen, 267. 
 sword, 315. 
 swore, 267. 
 sworn, 267. 
 swum, 267. 
 swung, 267. 
 syllogism, 606 d. 
 sym-, 606 d. 
 symbolize, 310. 
 symmetrical, 406, 
 sympathize, 310. 
 sympathy, 606 d. 
 syn-, 606 d. 
 synclinal, 606 d. 
 syndicate, 361. 
 synonomy, 364. 
 syntax, 606 d. 
 systematize, 310. 
 
 T, the letter, 138. 
 -t (final), 317. 
 table, 41, 75. 
 tablet, 377. 
 tackle, 11. 
 TiECAN, 149. 
 tail, 11. 
 
 take, taken, 267. 
 take off, 524. 
 tale, 11, 103. 
 talent, 75. 
 talented, 396. 
 talk, 103, 546. 
 talk of, 545. 
 tall, 103. 
 Tamar, 19. 
 tame, II, III. 
 tan, in. 
 tank, 342. 
 tankard, 342. 
 tapster, 112. 
 tardy, 394. 
 tare (verb), 267. 
 tarnish, -ed, 303. 
 taste, 75. 
 taught, 155, 288. 
 
PF LETTERS AND WORDS. 
 
 667 
 
 tavern, 7«. 
 
 tch, 139, 149' I 5 I » 
 167. 
 
 tea, 181, 182, 183, 
 
 187. 
 teach, 149, 288. 
 teah, 274. 
 team, II. 
 tear (subs.), 5, 10, n, 
 
 181, 316. 
 tear (verb), 10, 11, 
 
 267. 
 teat, 183. 
 tedium, 369. 
 teem, 10, 104. 
 teeth, 381. 
 telegraphic, 420. 
 tell, 11, 288,453. 
 tell him, 574. 
 tell me true, 431. 
 tempest, 75. 
 temporalty, 350. 
 ten, 5, 10, 11. 
 tenement, 333. 
 tent, 11, 75. 
 
 TEOGE, 274. 
 
 term, 75. 
 termini, 382. 
 terminus, 369. 
 terrific, 405. 
 tertiary, 415. 
 testament, 333. 
 testimonial, 360. 
 th, 138, 189, 193, 
 
 317. 
 
 TH.EC, I49. 
 p.£RSC. 274. 
 
 Thames, 19. 
 
 than, 125, 520, 536. 
 
 thane, 316. 
 
 thank, 10. 
 
 thankful, 401. 
 
 thankless, 401. 
 
 thanklesse (Spenser), 
 
 160. 
 that, 10, 12, 81, 97, 
 
 471. 472, 487, 4SS, 
 
 49°> 499' 549- 
 thatch, 149. 
 
 that . . that, 472. 
 
 that time, 503. 
 that way, 518. 
 that . . which, 472. 
 the, 97, 180, 226, 
 
 249, 491, 492, 499, 
 
 515, 621. 
 the . . the. 472. 
 the which, 493. 
 the while, 503. 
 
 THE AH, 132. 
 pEGEN, 316. 
 
 theatre. 75. 
 
 thee, 10, 104, 1S0. 
 
 theech, 254. 
 
 THEGEN, 383. 
 
 their, 482, 489. 
 their n, 4^4. 
 their>. 4S4. _p 
 
 575- 
 them, 10, 97, 469, 
 
 4 ? 9> 574 
 themselves, 469. 
 
 then, 10, 125, 515, 
 
 53<5. 
 
 theoretic, 420. 
 ther (Chaucer), 81. 
 there, 121, 222. 226, 
 
 515- 
 
 thereabout, 516. 
 
 thereabouts, 515, 516. 
 thereafter, 516. 
 thereafterward, 516. 
 thereagainst, 516. 
 thereat, 516. 
 thereby, 516. 
 therefor (American), 
 
 160. 
 therefore, 160, 226, 
 
 = 16. 
 therefrom, 516. 
 therehence, 516. 
 therein, 516. 
 thereinto, 516. 
 thereof, 516. 
 thereon, 516. 
 thereout, 516. 
 thereover, 516. 
 therethrough, 516. 
 bERscE, 274. 
 these, 488. 
 
 these things, 234. 
 they, 33»57» 226,476, 
 
 4§8 5 4 8 9» 
 they say, 476. 
 
 thick, 97. 
 
 thick-leaved, 607. 
 
 thievish, 393. 
 
 thief, 315. 
 
 thigh, 189. 
 
 thimble, 316. 
 
 thin, 97, 138. 
 
 thine, 97, 117, 138, 
 
 483, 484. 
 thing, 32, 34, 97, 117, 
 
 23 2 » 233, 234, 315. 
 
 382,479, 514. 
 things, 382. 
 think. 10, 277, 2SS. 
 third, 638. 
 thirst, 10. 
 this, 3, 97, 47 1 . 4 ? 7 
 
 488, 490. 
 this-e, 4 
 
 thistle, 20, 117. 
 tho'f, 1=5. 
 thole, 10. 
 thorn, 20. 
 thorough-, 606 a. 
 thorough, 219. 
 thoroughfare, 606 a. 
 thoroughgoing, 606 a. 
 boRSCEN, 274. 
 those. 4 
 
 those things, 234. 
 thou, 10, 217, 470. 
 thou art it, 575. 
 though, 10, 132. 155. 
 thought, 2SS, 317. 
 thousand, 119. 
 thraldom, 323. 
 thralless, 3^4. 
 PRANG, 274. 
 thread, 97. 
 threaden, 391. 
 three, 10, 91, 457. 
 threnody, 364. 
 thresh, 274. 
 threw, 267. 
 thrice, 461. 
 
 bRIXGE, 274. 
 
668 
 
 J. INDEX 
 
 thrive, 97, 267. 
 thriven, 267. 
 throne, 41. 
 throng, 274. 
 through, 10, 119, 155, 
 
 219. 
 throve, 267. 
 throw, thrown, 267. 
 thruf= through, 15$. 
 thruh = trough, 178. 
 thumb, 119. 
 thunder, 316. 
 thunder-struck, 604. 
 thy, 189, 483, 492, 
 
 495. 5^5- 
 Thyng, 233. 
 thyself, 469. 
 tick, 370. 
 ticket, 334, 370. 
 ticket-of-leave, 611. 
 tickle, 389. 
 ticklish, 389, 393. 
 tide, 389. 
 tide, 11, 306, 315. 
 tight, 305. 
 tighten, 305. 
 tigol, tile, 18. 
 tigress, 384. 
 tile, 11, 316. 
 till (verb), 179. 
 till, 10, 11, 162, 525, 
 
 533- 
 till then, 525. 
 till there, 525. 
 till to-morrow, 525. 
 timber, 10, 11, 137, 
 
 316. 
 
 TIMBRAN, 5. 
 
 time, 260. 
 time-piece, 601. 
 timidity, 349. 
 timorous, 411. 
 tinder, 10. 
 tinnen, 391. 
 -tion, 358. 
 tip, 189. 
 tirade, 352. 
 to-, 606 a. 
 
 to > ii, 37» 453, 466, 
 468, 502, 525, 
 
 526, 580 d, 580 e, 
 
 592. 
 to be, 463, 578, 580 c 
 
 585, 586. 
 to be off, 584. 
 to-brake, 606 a. 
 to come by, 584. 
 to-do (Devonshire), 454, 
 
 455- 
 
 TOGEN, 274. 
 
 to go in for, 584. 
 
 to her, 574. * 
 
 to him, 574. 
 
 toil, 179. 
 
 token, 10, 11, in, 
 
 316. 
 told, 288. 
 tolerable, 402. 
 toll, 11. 
 Tom, 373. 
 to make it out, 593. 
 tongs, in. 
 tongue, 5, 10, 119, 
 
 315- 
 tonnage, 335. 
 
 too, 502. 
 
 took, 267, 273. 
 
 tooth, 10, 11, 263, 
 
 315, 38i. 
 too . . to, 534. 
 tore, 267. 
 torment, 333. 
 tormentor, 75. 
 torn, 267. 
 Torquay, 186. 
 torture, 344. 
 to take to, 584. 
 Tothill, 11. 
 tour, 189. 
 tournament, 333. 
 tow, 274. 
 
 toward, 400, 606 a. 
 towards, 515. 
 tower, 75. 
 to whom, 540. 
 town, 119, 315. 
 toy, 10. 
 
 tradesman, 607. 
 traitress, 75. 
 transaction, 358. 
 
 translation,'75. 
 
 travail, 75. 
 
 tray, 185, 
 
 trea = tray, 185. 
 
 tread, 267. 
 
 treason, 75, 184, 332. 
 
 treasure, 183, 344. 
 
 treasurer, 41. 
 
 treaty, 56. 
 
 tree, 5, 8, 20, 
 
 315. 
 treen, 391. 
 
 Trent, 19. 
 
 trey, 56. 
 
 tribunate, 361. 
 
 tributary, 75. 
 
 trod, 267. 
 
 trodden, 267. 
 
 trombone, 353. 
 
 tropical, 406. 
 
 troth, 78, 317. 
 
 troublesome, 399. 
 
 trough, 178. 
 
 trouthe, 78. 
 
 troutlet, 334. 
 
 trover, 56. 
 
 truculent, 418. 
 
 true, 388. 
 
 trueth, 148. 
 
 trumpery, 331. 
 
 trumpet, 334. 
 
 trustee, 341. 
 
 trusteeship, 327. 
 
 trusty, 394. 
 
 truth, 317. 
 
 Tucker, 338. 
 
 -tude, 362. 
 
 Tuesday, 11. 
 
 TUN, II9. 
 
 turf, 119. 
 Turkish, 393. 
 turn, 7£. 
 turpitude, 362. 
 turret, 334. 
 tusk, 119. 
 tusks, 638. 
 Tuthill, 11. 
 Tweed, 19. 
 twice, 461. 
 twinkling, 318. 
 
OF LETTERS AND WORDS. 
 
 669 
 
 two, 5, 10, 91, 457, 
 621. 
 
 -ty. 349. 350. 357- 
 
 tyrannize, 310. 
 tyranny, 75, 364. 
 tyrant, 75, 131. 
 Tyrolese, 408. 
 
 U (consonant), 188. 
 
 U (vowel), 100, 101, 
 103, 107, 108, 109, 
 118, 121, 148, 155. 
 
 u = f, 155. 
 
 uair, 423. 
 
 ugh, 155- 
 
 ugly, 39 8 - 
 ultimatum, 369. 
 
 un-, 307, 509, 606 a. 
 
 'un (a good 'un), 168. 
 
 unanswerable, 402. 
 
 unapproachable, 402. 
 
 unbeliever, 307. 
 
 unborrowed, 509. 
 
 unchurch, 509. 
 
 uncle, 222. 
 
 unco, 632. 
 
 unconscionable, 402. 
 
 uncouth, 170, 632. 
 
 uncouthe and 
 
 strange, 77. 
 undead, 509. 
 under, 119, 226. 
 under-, 606 a. 
 undergo, 606 a. 
 underhand, 606 a. 
 underling, 318. 
 understand, 606 a. 
 undertake, 606 a. 
 unequall (Spenser), 
 
 162. 
 unfrock, 307. 
 -ung, 318. 
 ungodly, 439. 
 
 UNGRENE, 509. 
 
 unhesitating, 606 a. 
 uniformitarianism, 365. 
 unify, 308. 
 unit, 189. 
 
 unjust, 307, 606 a. 
 unlawful, 606 a. 
 unlikely, 606 a. 
 unlink, 307. 
 unlock, 307. 
 unmannerly, 398. 
 unmeet, 307. 
 unmitigated, 606 a. 
 unscrupulous, 606 a. 
 unset steven, 509. 
 unsmotherable, 402. 
 untie, 307. 
 until, 86, 533. 
 unto him, 469, 574. 
 untoward, 400. 
 unwilling, 606 a. 
 up, 119, 189, 501. 
 up-, 606 a. 
 upas tree, 601. 
 upheaval, 360. 
 upland, 606 a. 
 uplong, 606 a. 
 upon, 524, 606 a. 
 uppish, 393. 
 upright, 606 a. 
 uprootal, 360. 
 up-se-down, 518. 
 upset, 606 a. 
 upside down, 518. 
 up-so-down, 518. 
 up to a thing, 501. 
 up to him, 584. 
 up with a person, 
 
 501. 
 upward, 400, 606 a. 
 upwards, 435. 
 urbane, 159. 
 urbanity, 349. 
 -ure, 344. 
 usage, 75. 
 use, 260. 
 usefulness, 320, 
 user, 330. 
 usher, 260. 
 Usk, 19. 
 -ustic, 420. 
 utilize, 310. 
 utter, uttered, 303. 
 Ux, 19. 
 uze (Spenser), 346. 
 
 V, the letter, 136, 137, 
 
 148, 193. 
 vacillate,vacillated, 303. 
 vagary, 620. 
 vain, 75. 
 vaine, 137. 
 vair, vaire, 423. 
 vale, 103. 
 valour, 359. 
 valuable, 402. 
 value, -ed, 402. 
 valueless, 402. 
 valuing, 402. 
 van, 1 10. 
 vanish, 75. 
 vanity, 349. 
 varicose, 412. 
 vary, 75. 
 vast, 222. 
 vastly, 440. 
 vat, 103, 112, 189. 
 vaunt, 260. 
 veal, 41. 
 velocity, 349. 
 venerate, 309. 
 venerie, 137. 
 vengeress, 384. 
 venison, 41, 332. 
 venom, 343. 
 ventriloquism, 365. 
 veray, 137. 
 verbiage, 335. 
 verdure, 344. 
 verier, veriest, 497. 
 verily, 32, 222, 441. 
 vermeil-tinctured, 607. 
 vermin, 343. 
 verse, 216. 
 versing, 580 g. 
 vertue, 157. 
 vestment, 333. 
 very, 75, 398, 428, 
 
 497- 
 viage, 157. 
 vicarage, 335. 
 vice, 75. 
 vicious, 189. 
 vicissitude, 362. 
 victory, 75. 
 victual, 75. 
 
670 
 
 7. INDEX 
 
 view-point (American), 
 
 612. 
 village, 335. 
 villain, 41, 55. 
 villainous, 430. 
 villany, 75. 
 vine disease, 565. 
 vineyard, 601. 
 vintner, 338. 
 violent, 418. 
 violoncello, 353. 
 virgin, 75. 
 virtue, 75, 137, 157. 
 virtuoso, 353. 
 virtuous, 75. 
 virulent, 418. 
 visage, 137. 
 vision, 189. 
 visionary, 415. 
 visit, 75. 
 vixen, 383. 
 voice, 189. 
 volcanic, 405. 
 vortex, 369. 
 vouchsafe, 56. 
 voyage, 157, 335. 
 vulnerable, 402. 
 
 W, the letter, 129. 
 w (initial), 153, 166, 
 169. 
 
 WA, 200. 
 
 wade, 274. 
 w.eden, 274. 
 
 WiERLOGA, 325. 
 
 wag, 103. ' 
 wagon, 315, 316. 
 waileress, 384. 
 wain, 315. 
 waiver, 330. 
 wake, ill, 267. 
 wakefull (Spenser), 162. 
 wala, 200. 
 walawa, 200. 
 Wales, 22. 
 walk, 103. 
 walker, 319. 
 walk fast, 431. 
 walk slow, 431. 
 wall, 18, 103, 112. 
 
 Wallachia, 22. 
 wallinger, 336. 
 Wallis, the Canton, 22. 
 Walloons, 22. 
 wan, in. 
 wane, 103. 
 want, 20, 103. 
 ward, 74, 114. 
 -ward, 388, 400. 
 warden, 74, 329. 
 ware, 74. 
 warfare, 605. 
 warish, 74. 
 warlock, 325. 
 warm, 390, 431. 
 warp, 112. 
 wary, 74. 
 was, 113, 267, 278, 
 
 281, 578. 
 Wash, the, 19. 
 wash (verb), 267. 
 washen, 267. 
 wash off, 524. 
 wasp, 112. 
 waspish, 393. 
 wast, 281. 
 wastel, 74. 
 Wat (Walter), 373. 
 watch, 149. 
 water, 12, 103, 1 1 2, 
 
 I33» 3i6. 
 water-course, 618. 
 water-hole, 601. 
 Waugh, 155. 
 wave after wave, 450. 
 wax, 267. 
 waxen, 267, 273. 
 way, 315. 
 waybread, 20. 
 wayward, 400. 
 we, 33, 104, 476. 
 weakling, 318. 
 weal and woe, 628 a. 
 weald and wold, 628 a. 
 wealde, 274. 
 Wealden beds, 391. 
 wealh, 383. 
 
 WEAIXAN, 336. 
 
 wean, 183. 
 weapon, 316. 
 
 weaponed, 396. 
 wear, 267, 315. 
 WEAR'S, 267, 283. 
 weariness, 320. 
 weather-wise, 604. 
 weave, 267. 
 Webber, 319. 
 
 WEBBERE, 338. 
 
 Webster, 385. 
 
 WECG, 151. 
 
 wedge, 151. 
 
 wedlock, 325, 605. 
 
 wee bit mannie, 
 
 377- 
 weed, 20. 
 
 weedy, 394. 
 
 week, 169. 
 
 weep, 104, 288. 
 
 weird, 565. 
 
 welcome, 606 a. 
 
 welkin, 316. 
 
 well, 315. 
 
 well-, 606 a. 
 
 welladay ! 200. 
 
 well away, 200. 
 
 well-beloved, 606 a. 
 
 well-wisher, 606 a. 
 
 Welsh, 22, 393. 
 
 wend, 301. 
 
 wenestu, 254, 255. 
 
 went, 301, 302. 
 
 weold, 274. 
 
 weor'San, 267, 283, 
 
 400, 585. 
 wepely, 398. 
 wept, 288. 
 were, 281, 578, 579. 
 were being, 583. 
 ■weren, 282. 
 wert, 281. 
 wesan, 267, 282. 
 Wessex, 25, 26. 
 westwards, 435. 
 wet, 189. 
 wether, 12, 315. 
 wex, 267. 
 wh = hw, 153; =h, 
 
 166. 
 whale, 112, 153, 166. 
 
 315- 
 
OF LETTERS AND WORDS. 
 
 6jl 
 
 wharf, 1 66. 
 wharfinger, 336. 
 what, 12,81, 153, 166, 
 471,472, 473,474, 
 
 493, 539- 
 
 whatever, 517. 
 
 what-like, 493. 
 whatso, 471, 625. 
 what time as, 543. 
 wheat, 20, 41, 153, 
 
 166, 181. 
 wheel, 153, 166, 315. 
 whelp, 315. 
 when, 81, 166, 515. 
 whence, 81, 515, 517, 
 
 539- 
 whenever, 518. 
 
 whensoever, 518. 
 
 where, 81, 153, 166, 
 
 226, 515, 537, 585. 
 whereabout, 516. 
 whereabouts, 515,516. 
 whereas, 516, 537. 
 whereat, 516. 
 whereby, 516. 
 wherever, 516. 
 wherefore, 58, 516. 
 wherein, 516. 
 whereinto, 516. 
 whereof, 516. 
 whereon, 516. 
 whereso, 516. 
 wheresoever, 516. 
 wherethrough, 516. 
 whereto, 516. 
 whereunto, 516. 
 whereupon, 516. 
 wherewith, 516. 
 wherewithal, 516. 
 whether, 537. 
 whetstone, 153. 
 which, 81, 153, 166, 
 
 472, 493, 496, 539, 
 
 540. 
 whight (Spenser), 154. 
 while, 76, 153, 221, 
 
 315, 543- 
 whilome, 437. 
 
 whilst, whilest, 297. 
 
 whimsical, 406. 
 
 whin, 20. 
 
 whiskey, 19. 1 
 
 whispering, 153. 
 
 whistler, 153. 
 
 whit, 479. 
 
 Whitby, 278. 
 
 white, 12, 133, 153, 
 
 388. 
 white-handed, 607. 
 whither, 166, 515. 
 Whit Sunday, Whitsun 
 
 Day, 391. 
 who, 81, 153, 166, 
 
 226, 471, 472, 493, 
 
 539, 540. 
 whole, 167. 
 wholesome, 399. 
 whom, 472, 473, 493, 
 
 539, 574- 
 
 ivhome = home (Spen- 
 ser), 166. 
 whose, 153, 472, 473, 
 
 539, 574- 
 whoso, 471, 625. 
 
 whot = hot (Spenser), 
 
 166. 
 why, 81, 153, 515. 
 wick, 117. 
 wicked, 396. 
 wickedness, 83. 
 wicker, 392. 
 wicket, 20. 
 Wicliffists, 363. 
 Wiclifite, 363. 
 wide, 305. 
 widen, 305. 
 widowhood, 326. 
 width, 317. 
 wield, 274. 
 wif, 382. 
 
 wife, 117, 315, 632. 
 wight, 117, 3I7,479- 
 wild, 117. 
 wilderness, 320. 
 wilding, 395. 
 will, 315. 
 will (symbol-verb), 235, 
 
 236, 239, 291, 292, 
 
 293, 587. 
 Will (William), 373. 
 
 wiliest, 293. 
 willeth, 293. 
 willingly, 445. 
 will-o'-the-wisp, 61 1, 
 willow, 20. 
 wiltu, 255. 
 wilyness, 83. 
 win, 267. 
 Winchester, 20. 
 wind, 117, 267, 
 
 315- 
 wine, 105, 117. 
 wine-glass, 612. 
 wing, 260. 
 wink, 117. 
 winsome, 399. 
 winter, 1 1 7, 316. 
 wire, 216. 
 wis (? verb), 290. 
 -wis, 411. 
 wisard, 346. 
 Wisbech, 19. 
 wisdom, 323. 
 wise, 80, 117, 234. 
 wise and wary, 628 a. 
 wishy-washy, 401. 
 wiss, 290. 
 wist, 288, 290. 
 wit, 12, 105. 
 wit and wisdom, 628 a. 
 witchery, 331. 
 with, 32, 38. 
 with-, 606 a. 
 withal, 518. 
 withdraw, 306 a. 
 withhold, 606 a. 
 with one accord, 445. 
 withstand, 38, 606 a. 
 witness, 320. 
 witticism, 365. 
 wives, 382. 
 wizard, 342, 346. 
 wize (Spenser), 346. 
 wo, 200. 
 woad, III. 
 ivoak = oak, 168. 
 woats = oats, 168. 
 wod, 274. 
 
 WODEN, 169. 
 
 woe, 200. 
 
673 
 
 I. INDEX 
 
 woe worth the day, 200. 
 
 WOH, 200. 
 
 woke, 267. 
 
 WOLCEN, 316. 
 
 wold = old, 168. 
 wold, 315. 
 wolf, 119, 169, 315. 
 woman, 632, 
 womb, 315. 
 won (verb), 267. 
 wonder, 32, 316. 
 wonderfullest, 422, 
 wonderfully, 437. 
 wonder great, 430. 
 wonnes (Spenser), 
 
 160. 
 wood, 8,20, 119, 315, 
 
 617. 
 wooden, 391. 
 woodhouse, 617. 
 wool, 119, 169. 
 woollen, 391. 
 woolward, 400. 
 word, 12, 32,169, 315, 
 
 382. 
 word of command, 
 
 612. 
 words, 382. 
 wore, 267. 
 work, 288, 602. 
 workmanship, 327. 
 world, 315. 
 worm, 119, 315., 
 wormwood, 20. 
 Wormwood Scrubs,3 3 1 . 
 worn, 267. 
 worship, 327. 
 wort, 12, 20. 
 worth (adj.), 388. 
 worth (subs.), 119, 
 
 283. 
 worth (verb), 267, 
 
 273, 283, 291,585. 
 worthe (inf.), 283. 
 worthy, 218. 
 wot, 288. 
 would, 170, 235, 238, 
 
 2 39« 2 9 x > 5 8 7- 
 wound, 267. 
 
 wove, 267. 
 
 woven, 267. 
 wr = r, 166. 
 
 WIUEC, 267. 
 
 wrapt = rapt, 166. 
 wrat, 267, 273. 
 wrath, 166. 
 wreak, 166, 267. 
 wreath, 189. 
 wreathe, 189. 
 wreccea, 149. 
 ivrediness = readiness, 
 
 166. 
 wrest = rest, 166. 
 wrestle, 166. 
 wretch, 149, 166, 167. 
 wretched, 396. 
 wretchlessness, 167. 
 wright, 154, 166. 
 wriht (Chaucer), 77. 
 wring, 267. 
 wrist, 166. 
 writ, 267. 
 
 write, 154, 166, 267. 
 write oft", 524. 
 write slow, 43O0 
 writing, 580 f. 
 written, 267. 
 wrong, 166. 
 wrote, 267, 273. 
 wrote = root, 166. 
 wrought, 288. 
 wrought = raught, 167. 
 wrung, 267. 
 wultu, 254. 
 
 WUNDRUM, 437. 
 
 wush (Scottish), 267. 
 zvuts = oats, 169. 
 Wykehamists, 363. 
 366. 
 
 WYLEN, 383. 
 
 wyrd, 565. 
 "wys = wise, 80. 
 
 X, the letter, 139, 142. 
 
 Y, the letter, 129, 130, 
 
 131. 
 y = i, 162,346, 
 
 -y. 364. 3 88 > 394- 
 -y (diminutive), 377. 
 y- = GE, 606 a. 
 yable, 1 31. 
 yachen, 131. 
 yacre, 131. 
 yahker, 131. 
 yale, 131. 
 y allow, 175. 
 Yankee, 341. 
 yarbs, 131. 
 yard, 112, 130, 140, 
 
 315. 329- 
 yare, 130, 140, 388. 
 yarm, 131. 
 yarn, 131. 
 yarnest, 131, 
 yarrow, 20. 
 yate, 140, 
 ychain'd, 606 a. 
 yclept, 606 a, 
 ye, 130, 140. 
 ye (=the), 97. 
 yea, 183, 202, 503. 
 yean, 131. 
 year, 130, 140, 315. 
 yearn, 130. 
 yeast, 317. 
 yeaze, 131. 
 yell, 260. 
 yellow, 175. 
 yellow-girted, 608. 
 yellow-ringleted, 607. 
 yelp, 130. 
 Yenton, 633. 
 yeoman, 179. 
 yes, 130, 202, 431, 
 
 503- 
 yes, sure, 431. 
 yesterday, 435. 
 yet, 130, 140, 189, 
 
 226, 544. 
 yeve (Chaucer), 140. 
 yew, 20, 107, 131, 
 
 141. 
 yield, 32, 130, 303. 
 yielded, 303. 
 y lad, 301, 302. 
 •yn, or -yng (inf.), 
 
 580. 
 
OF LETTERS AND WORDS. 
 
 673 
 
 yoke, 315. 
 yoke-fellow, 601. 
 York, 20. 
 
 yote ( = pour), 274. 
 you, 33, ( 226, 246, 
 
 467, 470, 476. 
 young, 119, 130, 178, 
 
 189, 388. 
 youngling, 377. 
 youngster, 385. 
 your grace, 462. 
 your highness, 462. 
 
 your honour, 462. 
 your lordship, 462, 
 
 470. 
 your majesty, 462. 
 yourn, 484. 
 yours, 484, 485, 575. 
 yourselves, 469. 
 ypointing, 606 a. 
 y* ( = that), 97. 
 yule, 141. 
 ywis, 290. 
 ywroken, 267. 273. 
 
 Z, the letter, 130, 132, 
 
 134. 
 zeal, 189. 
 zealous, 411. 
 zeir (Scottish), 130. 
 zenith, 353. 
 zephyr, 131. 
 zero, 514. 
 zit (Scottish) 130. 
 
 
674 
 
 77. INDEX 
 
 II. 
 
 INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS. 
 
 [The numbers are those of the Sections.] 
 
 Ablaut, 123, 502. 
 Accents, 616, 621. 
 Accentuation, 156, 632. 
 Accidence, 212. 
 Addison, 161, 540, 656. 
 Adjections, 425. 
 Adverbiation, 451. 
 Agglutinate languages. 570. 
 Aldhelm, 27. 
 Alemannian dialect, 377- 
 Aleph, Hebrew letter, 229. 
 Alexandrine metre, 60. 
 Alfred, 27. 
 
 Alliteration, 626, 629. 
 Allophylian languages, 570. 
 Alpha, Greek letter, 229. 
 Alphabet, 91, 229, 614. 
 
 , Phonetic, 189. 
 
 ■ , Roman, 92, 
 
 , Runic, 93. 
 
 Ambidextral adjective, 84. 
 American usage, 156, 160, 276, 
 
 359» 375' 3 8o > 6l2 > 62 °> 6 32. 
 Ancient languages, 245, 654. 
 Anglian dialect, 23, 26, 28. 
 Anglo-Saxon, 17, 127, 467, 505, 
 
 575- 
 Arabic numerals, 230. 
 
 words, 353. 
 
 Area of words, 32, 37. 
 
 Arthur, 47. 
 
 Article, definite, 491. 
 
 , indefinite, 498. 
 
 , Danish and Swedish, 8. 
 
 Aryan languages, 2, 465, 570. 
 
 Aspirates, 4. 
 
 Authorised version, 54. 
 Auxiliaries, 291. 
 
 Baeda, 24. 
 
 Being, the expression of, 279, 280. 
 
 Ben Jonson, 165. 
 
 Beowulf, epic poem, 136, 320, 474, 
 
 525- 
 Beta, Greek letter, 229. 
 
 Beth, Hebrew letter, 229. 
 
 Bible translations, 13, 26, 147, 167, 
 201, 402, 449, 469, 475, 489, 
 498, 505, 524, 580 g, 602. 
 
 Bilingual period, 42, 84. 
 
 Bilingualism, 77- 
 
 British, 18, 19, 22. 
 
 Brogue, 649. 
 
 Brutes, language of, 247. 
 
 Burns, 268. 
 
 Caedmon, poet, 24, 136. 
 Caxton, 534, 580, 586, 588. 
 Chaldee, 3. 
 
 Chalmers, 358, 360, 362. 
 Chapman, 394. 
 
 Chaucer, 67, 73, 125, 140, 146, 
 157, 171, 181, 200, 232, 264, 
 
 283, 323, 328, 338, 394' 4°9> 
 483, 489, 493, 535, 577, 647. 
 
 Chinese writing, 90. 
 
 accidence, 223. 
 
 syntax, 570. 
 
 Chirt, 149. 
 
 Christian names, 373. 
 
OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS. 
 
 6?5 
 
 Christianity and languages, 13. 
 
 Clarendon, his style, 657. 
 
 Claudius, Emperor, 188. 
 
 Coleridge, 661. 
 
 Collocation, 630. 
 
 Comparison, 421. 
 
 Confusion, a cause of words dying 
 
 out, 167. 
 Consonantal transition, 2. 
 Contingency, how expressed, 577. 
 Court English, 85, 89. 
 Court hand, 68. 
 
 Coverdale, 167, 449, 474, 524, 584. 
 Cowley, 184. 
 Cowper, 185, 221, 260, 411, 431, 
 
 478, 619, 628. 
 Crabbe, 628. 
 Cryptograph, 121. 
 Cumulate forms, 380, 3S1, 484. 
 
 phraseology, 444, 44S. 
 
 syntax, 583. 
 
 Curt forms, 370. 
 
 Cypher. See Cryptograph. 
 
 Daleth, Hebrew letter, 229. 
 Danish, 8, 141, 169, 261, 278,393, 
 
 422, 455, 486, 562, 592. 
 Decimal arithmetic, 230. 
 Delta, Greek letter, 229. 
 Dialect, Brad Scots, 26. 
 , Devon, 104, 107, in, 116, 
 
 168, 236, 237, 332, 392, ^70, 
 
 578, 648. 
 , Dorset, 58, 61, 87, 131, 168, 
 
 380, 586. 
 
 , East Anglian, 107. 
 
 , Gloucestershire, 380. 
 
 , Hampshire, 334. 
 
 , Irish, 186, 648. 
 
 , Lake District, 325, 474. 
 
 -, Lancashire, 254. 
 
 , London, 168. 
 
 , Norfolk, 380. 
 
 , Northern Counties, 45, 87, 
 
 118, 154, 431. 
 
 — , Shropshire, 336. 
 -, Somersetshire, 168, 236, 561, 
 
 593. 6 4I- 
 
 — , Suffolk, 380. 
 
 Dialect, Sussex, 334. 
 
 , Welsh, 2, 3, 648. 
 
 , West Country, 61, 1 10, 129, 
 
 255< 334- 
 -, Yorkshire, 86, 169, 580 h. 
 
 (For other examples see Provin- 
 cialisms. 
 Dialects, local division of, 66. 
 Diminutives, 376. 
 Double-meaning, 645. 
 Drayton, 184. 
 Dryden, 155, 369. 
 Dual pronouns, 466, 467. 
 Dunbar, Scottish poet, 26. 
 Dutch, 17, 107, 142, 261, 327, 461, 
 
 470. 
 
 Egyptian, 90. 
 
 Emphasis, 621, 623, 6:6. 
 
 Enclitic, 198. 
 
 Englisc, 23, 29. 
 
 " English,"' 49. 
 
 English guilds, 164. 
 
 English language, 17, 67. 
 
 , peculiar characteristics of, 45 2. 
 
 565, 5 6 9- 
 -, sibilancy of, 152. 
 
 Explicit noun, 589. 
 verb, 581. 
 
 Families of speech, 2, 570. 
 
 Family Names, 185, 319, 338, 385, 
 
 633- 
 Fifteenth Century, 164, 409. 
 
 Finnish, 126, 544. 
 
 Flat adjective, 425. 
 
 adverb, 430, 432. 
 
 pronoun -adverb, 500. 
 
 syntax, 533. 
 
 Flemish, 7. 
 
 Flexion, 254, 378, 634. 
 
 Flexional stage of language, 253, 605 . 
 
 adjective, 425 (2), 427 (2). 
 
 adverb, 428, 434. 
 
 pronoun-adverb, 500, 515. 
 
 syntax, 571. 
 
 Formatives, 305. 
 
 French, characteristics, 47°. 5 I2 » 
 
 561, 581. 
 
 X X 2 
 
6 7 6 
 
 II. INDEX 
 
 French forms, 329, 347, 350, 368, 
 460, 632. 
 
 , in documents, 69. 
 
 influence, 217, 378, 380, 405, 
 
 455. 466, 523, 539. 
 - logicality, 596, 610. 
 orthography, 138, 141. 
 
 pronunciation, 169 
 
 substantive-verb, 278. 
 
 ■ versification, 627. 
 
 French contrasted with English, 157, 
 
 504, 588, 612. 
 French habit yielding to English, 619. 
 Froissart, French chronicler, 332, 
 
 538. 
 Fuller, Thomas, 409, 590. 
 
 Gaelic, 20. 
 Gender, 383, 468. 
 German influence, 556. 
 
 language, 7, 132, 138, 141, 
 
 169, 235, 261, 327, 384, 393, 
 397, 430. 460, 525, 575, 606 a, 
 
 655. 
 
 Goldsmith, 207, 219,321,394,431. 
 Gothic family, 2, 7, 261, 377, 422, 
 
 45 8 > 465. 5°3> 5 8l > 5 8 7> 6 °6 a, 
 
 655- 
 Gower, the poet, 60, 67, 73, 199, 
 
 264, 559- 
 
 Grammar, 211, 225. 
 
 Gray, 628. 
 
 Greek forms, 364, 3S2, 387, 606 d. 
 
 influence, 311, 369, 420, 613. 
 
 language, 2, 4, 138, 248, 251, 
 
 27 8 > 347- 5 6 7> 608, 625. 
 — letters, 229. 
 -, modern, 514. 632. 
 
 Grimm, Jacob, 285, 427, 508. 
 Grimm's Law, 2, 5, 10. 
 Guttural, 132, 139, 153. 
 
 Harmonies, 642, 659, 664. 
 
 Harris, James, the author of Hermes, 
 
 423, 490, 546. 
 Havelok, the Lay of, 59. 
 Hebrew, 3, 280, 386, 398, 567, 582, 
 
 600. ^25, 643. 
 
 Hebrew influence, 470. 
 
 letters, 229. 
 
 High Dutch, 7, 10. 
 
 Highway, why the Queen's, 68. 
 
 Hindu, 641. 
 
 Hindustani, 70. 
 
 Hooker, Richard, 350, 503, 527, 
 
 544- 
 Home Tooke, 490, 544, 546. 
 Hudibras, 176. 
 Hyphen, 598. 
 
 Icelandic, 9, 261, 278, 393, 467, 
 
 606 b. 
 
 versification, 627. 
 
 Impersonal pronoun, 33. 
 Indo-European languages, 2. 
 Infant speech, 245. 
 Infinitive, flat, 569. 
 
 , flexional, 580. 
 
 , phrasal, with ts, 452, 592. 
 
 Inflections, their nature and use, 14, 
 
 30, 254 (2), 378, 634. 
 Irish language, 133. 
 
 writing, 92. 
 
 modulation, 648. 
 
 Irishism, 186. 
 
 Italian characteristic, 376, 377. 
 
 ■ chirt, 149. 
 
 influence, 353, 408, 412. 
 
 ■ interjection, 203. 
 
 language, 141, 278, 332, 466. 
 
 Japanese, 91, 204, 561. 
 Johnson, Dr., 161, 376, 392. 
 Judgment, how expressed, 259,423. 
 Jutes, the nation, 18. 
 
 K, in Swedish, 150. 
 
 Keats, 219, 608. 
 
 Keble, 372, 446, 628, 660. 
 
 Keltic, 2, 20. 
 
 King's English, 67, 85. 
 
 Labials, 136, 153. 
 Langue d'oil, d'oc, 51 1, 
 
OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS. 
 
 677 
 
 Latin, contrasted with English, 30, 
 554> 5 6 7- 
 
 forms, 355, 387. 
 
 influence, 18, 198, 348, 359, 
 
 410. 
 
 567. 
 
 language, 2, 4, 141, 212, 278, 
 
 — particles, 251, 252. 
 
 , usurping it over French, 
 
 410. 
 Lautverschiebung, 3, 12. 
 Layamon, 44, 156, 208. 
 " Literature," 659. 
 Local names, 11, 20, 25, 134, 185. 
 
 186, 320, 331, 334, 338, 389, 
 
 391, 394,617,633. 
 Logic, 594, 648. 
 Logical, 423, 595. 
 Longfellow, 233, 426, 620, 641. 
 Low Dutch, 7, 10. 
 Luther, 318, 430, 573, 584, 609. 
 Lydgate, 184. 
 
 Maundevile, 333. 
 Medials, 4. 
 
 Metre, 648, 651, 653. 
 Middle High Dutch, 7. 
 
 voice, 299, 580 h. 
 
 Milton, 157, 162, 172, 184, 217, 
 
 275. 353. 3 8 9> 4 2 4- 436, 5°-- 
 578, 607, 628, 632, 656. 
 
 Mixed verbs, 265, 287. 
 
 Modern languages, 245, 654. 
 
 Moeso-Gothic, 7, 9, 14, 127, 133, 
 152, 262, 278, 285, 320, 323, 
 378, 421, 460, 467, 544, 558. 
 
 Mon Dieu ! French interjection, 
 204. 
 
 Music, 616, 644, 646, 664. 
 
 Mutes, 4. 
 
 Nautical terms, 606 b. 
 Negation, 504. 
 Nibelungen Lied, 7. 
 Nieder-Deutsch, 7. 
 Norman-French, 41. 
 Norwegian language, 393. 
 Notker, 7. 
 
 Nursery Rimes, 661. 
 
 Official adjectives. 423. 
 
 " Old English," 409. * 
 
 Old High German, 7, 127, 263, 460. 
 
 Old Saxon, 378. 
 
 Oldham, the'poet, 370. 
 
 Onomatopoeia, 639, 664. 
 
 Origin of Language, 660, 664. 
 
 Ormulum, 44, 49, 146. 
 
 Orthography, 50. 145, 187. 
 
 Otfrid, 7. 
 
 Owl and Nightingale, 58, 61, 254. 
 
 Paley, quoted, 402. 
 
 Palsgrave, 353. 
 
 Parsing, 211. 
 
 Particle-Composition, 254, 606. 
 
 Passive form of verb, 9. 
 
 Persian language, 2. 
 
 Pet words, 409. 
 
 Philology, what, 1. 66, 211, 22^. 
 
 663. 
 Phonetic alphabets, constructors of, 
 
 189. 
 
 spelling, 188. 
 
 ■ printing, 190. 
 
 Phrasal adjectives, 425. 
 
 adverbs, 445. 
 
 pronoun-adverbs, 517. 
 
 syntax, 581. 
 
 Picture-writing, 90, 91. 
 
 Piers Plowman, 65, 67. 73, 506. 
 
 Platt-Deutsch, 7, 17, 88. 
 
 Ploughman's Crede, 283. 
 
 Plural forms, 381. 
 
 Poetry, 615, 629. 
 
 Pope, Alexander, 182. 
 
 Prepositions, 31. 
 
 Presentive words, 227, 231, 244. 
 
 Printing, its effect on orthography, 
 
 146, 148. 
 Promptorium Parvulorum, 164. 
 Proper names, 161. 
 Provincialisms, 138, 140, 221, 239, 
 
 272, 302, 336, 385, 484, 489. 
 
 514, 522, 536, 634. 
 (For other examples, see Dialect. 
 
678 
 
 II. INDEX 
 
 Punning, the nature of, 645. 
 
 Quantity, 616. 
 Queen's English, 68, 89. 
 
 Ralegh, 166, 171, 273." 
 Red-Indian speech, 613. 
 Reduplication, 285. 
 Relative pronouns, the two main 
 
 sources of, 472. 
 Rhetoric, 648. 
 Rhetorical variation, 84. 
 Rhyme, 629, 647, 651. 
 Rhythm, 260, 616, 649, 654, 657, 
 
 659. 
 Robert of Brunne, 345, 515. 
 Robert of Gloucester, 61, 318, 345, 
 
 4 2 3- 
 
 Roman numerals, 230. 
 
 Romance of Alexander, 60. 
 Romanesque, 351, 638, 647- 
 Romaunt of the Rose, 337, 437. 
 Runes, 96, 129, 138. 
 
 Samoyedian language, 126. 
 Sanskrit, 2, 252, 280, 465, 581, 
 
 653- 
 
 "Saxon," 17, 25. 
 
 Saxon Chronicles, 134, 139, 297, 
 
 394, 423, 453, 481, 523, 603. 
 forms, 261, 263, 315, 325, 
 
 37 8 > 393, 397, 4 2I > 437' 457> 
 
 4^7' 544- 
 — , infected, 359. 
 
 literature, 28,31,40,148, 177, 
 
 646. 
 
 speech, 39, 136, 266. 
 vocabulary, 32, 41, 152, 153, 
 360, 394, 565, 602. 
 
 vocalism, 113. 
 
 Scandinavian languages, 8, 378, 455, 
 
 592. 
 Scottish language, 26, 377, 486, 
 
 632. 
 Secondary presentives, 387. 
 Semitic family, 3, 570. 
 Seventeenth century, 409. 
 
 Shakspeare, 2, 102, 146, 158, 166, 
 168, 171, 174, 184, 199, 205, 
 217, 249, 255, 270, 272, 283. 
 293, 3°6, 320, 323, 337, 347, 
 380, 402, 413, 423, 431, 485, 
 573, 617, 627, 632. 
 
 Shelley, 394. 
 
 Shenstone, poet, 264. 
 
 Sibilancy, 152. 
 
 Sixteenth century, 165, 166. 
 
 Skelton, poet, 73, 438. 
 
 Slang diction, 370, 374. 
 
 Slavonic, 2. 
 
 Spanish language, 28, 138, 408, 470, 
 
 556, 587- 
 
 Spectator, The, 394, 536, 591. 
 
 Speech of Animals, 247. 
 
 Spelling-reform, 188. 
 
 Spenser, 158, 160, 162, 165, 273, 
 289. 297, 326, 344, 346, 391, 
 402, 409, 436, 493, 507, 625, 
 
 651. 
 Stor Ting (Norway), 233. 
 
 Stress, 624. 
 
 Strong verbs, 261, 266. 
 
 Substantive verb, 277, 581. 
 
 Surrey, the poet, 155, 183, 268, 392, 
 
 580. 
 Swedish, 8, 140, 150, 393, 422. 
 Syllabarium, what, 90. 
 Symbol, verb, 281, 284. 
 Symbolic words, 227, 245. 
 Symbolism, 654. 
 Symphytism, 254. 
 
 Tennyson, Alfred, 391, 398, 411, 
 
 415, 478, 579, 607, 628, 657. 
 Tenues, 4, 139. 
 Tertiary presentive word, 428. 
 Thing-valla (Iceland), 233. 
 Transition period, 43. 
 Trevisa, 318. 
 
 Tyndale's New Testament, 168, 270. 
 Tynwald (Isle of Man), 233. 
 
 Ulphilas, 14, 15. 
 Umlaut, 126. 
 Unsymbolic speech, 245, 
 
OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS. 
 
 679 
 
 Variation, adverbial, 433. 
 
 , phrasal, 590. 
 
 , substantival, 84. 
 
 Veiled speech, 547. 
 Verse, 647. 
 
 Versification, Gothic and Roman- 
 esque, 629. 
 Voice, mechanism of the, 122. 
 
 Wallachian language, 592. 
 Watling Street, 18. 
 Weak verbs, 265, 301. 
 
 Welsh, 18, 20, 22, 132, 133, 138, 
 
 514, 600. 
 West- Welsh, 648. 
 Wiclif, 67, 263, 318, 506. 
 Word-painting, 654. 
 Wordsworth, 175, 407, 411, 413, 
 
 420, 527, 565, 619, 626, 651. 
 Writing, the art of, 230. 
 
 Yankee diction, 375. 
 Yon-strif, 561. 
 
 > 09 THS 
 
 
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 employed. " The notes are excellent of their kind. Mr. Frost seldom 
 
 passes over a difficidty, and what he says is always to the point." — 
 
 Educational Times. 
 
i2 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 Virgil.— THE WORKS OF VIRGIL RENDERED INTO 
 ENGLISH PROSE, with Notes, Introductions, Running Analysis, 
 and an Index, by James Lonsdale, M.A. and Samuel Lee, 
 M.A. Second Edition. Globe 8vo. $1*50 ; gilt edges, $2. 
 
 The original has been faithfully reridered, and paraphrase altogether 
 avoided. At the same ti?ne, the translators have endeavoured to adapt 
 the book to the use of the English reader. Some a?nount of rhythm in 
 the structure of the sentence has been generally maintained ; and, when in 
 the Latin the sound of the words is an echo to the sense (as so frequently 
 happens in Virgil), an attempt has been made to produce the same result 
 in English. TJie general introduction contains whatever is known of 
 the poet's life, an estimate of his genius, an account of the p7'incipal 
 editions and translatio?is of his works, and a brief view of the influence 
 he has had on modern poets ; special introductory essays are prefixed 
 to the " Eclogues, ' " Georgics," and li sEneid." The text is divided into 
 sections, each of which is headed by a concise analysis of the subject ; 
 the index contains references to all the characters and events of any 
 importance. "A more complete .edition of Virgil in English it is scarcely 
 possible to conceive than the scholarly work before its.'" — Globe. 
 
 Wright.— Works by J. WRIGHT, M.A., late Head Master of 
 Sutton Coldfield School. 
 
 HELLENICA ; OR, A HISTORY OF GREECE IN GREEK, as 
 related by Diodorus and Thucydides ; being a First Greek Reading 
 Book, with explanatory Notes, Critical and Historical. Third 
 Edition, with a Vocabulary. i2mo. $1. 
 
 In the last twenty chapters of this volume, Thucydides sketches the rise 
 and progress of the Athenian Empire in so clear a style and in such simple 
 language, that the editor has doubts whether any easier or more instruc- 
 tive passages can be selected for the t(se of the pupil who is commencing 
 Greek. This book includes a chronological table of the events recorded. 
 The Guardian speaks of the work as " a good plan well executed" 
 
CLASSICAL. „ 
 
 Wright — contin ued. 
 
 A HELP TO LATIN GRAMMAR ; or, The Form and Use of Words 
 in Latin, with Progressive Exercises. Crown 8vo. 61*25. 
 
 This book is not intended as a rival to any of the excellent Grammars 
 now in use ; but as a help to enable the beginner to understand them. 
 
 THE SEVEN KINGS OF ROME. An Easy Narrative, abridged 
 from the First Book of Livy by the omission of Difficult Passages ; 
 being a First Latin Reading Book, with Grammatical Notes. 
 With Vocabulary and Exercises. Fourth Edition. Fcap. 8vo. $1*50. 
 
 This work is intended to supply the pupil with an easy construing book, 
 which may at the same time be made the vehicle for instructing him in the 
 rules of grammar and principles of composition. The notes profess to 
 teach what is commonly taught in grammars. It is conceived that the 
 pupil will I ear 71 the rules of construction of the language much more 
 easily from separate examples, which are pointed out to him in the course 
 of his reading, and which he may himself set down in his note-book after 
 some scheiyie of his own, than from a heap of quotations amassed for him 
 by others. " The Notes are abundant, explicit, and full of such grammatical 
 and other information as boys require." — Athen^UM. " This is 
 really,' 1 the Morning Post says, "what its title imports, and we 
 believe that its general introduction into Grammar Schools would not 
 only facilitate the prop-ess of the boys beginning to learn Latin, but 
 also relicje the Masters from a very considerable amount of irksome labour 
 . . . a really valuable addition to our school libraries. " 
 
 Or, separately, 
 
 SEVEN KINGS OF ROME. $1, 
 
 VOCABULARY AND EXERCISES TO "THE SEVEN KINGS." 
 75 Cents. 
 
 FIRST LATIN STEPS; OR, AN INTRODUCTION BY A 
 SERIES OF EXAMPLES TO THE STUDY OF THE 
 LATIN LANGUAGE. Crown Svo. $2. 
 
i 4 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 Wright — continued. 
 
 The following points in the plan of the tvork may be noted: — I. 
 The pupil has to deal with only one construction at a time. 2. This 
 construction is made clear to him by an accumulation of instances. 
 3. As all the constructions are classified as they occur, the constrtiction 
 in each sentence can be easily referred to its class. 4. As the aut/wr 
 thinks the pupil ought to be thoroughly familiarized, by a repetition 
 of instances, with a construction in a foreign language, before he at- 
 tempts himself to render it in that language, the present volume contains 
 only Latin sentences. 5- The author has added to the Rules on Prosody 
 in the last chapter, a few familiar lines from Ovid's Fasti by way 
 of illustration. In a brief Introduction the author states the rationale 
 of the principal points of Latin Grammar. Copious Notes are appended, 
 to which reference is made in the text. From the clear and rational 
 method adopted in the arrangement of this elementary work, from the 
 simple way in which the various rides are conveyed, and from the abun- 
 dance of examples given, both teachers and pupils will find it a valuable 
 help to the learning of Latin. 
 
MATHEMATICS. 15 
 
 MATHEMATICS. 
 
 Airy. — Works by G. B. AIRY, Astronomer Royal :— 
 
 ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL 
 EQUATIONS. Designed for the Use of Students in the Univer- 
 sities. With Diagrams. Crown 8vo. cloth. $2. 
 
 // is hoped that the methods of solution here explained, and the instances 
 exhibited, will be found sufficient for application to nearly all the important 
 problems of Physical Science, zvhich require for their complete investigation 
 the aid of Partial Difcrcr.tial Equations. 
 
 ON THE ALGEBRAICAL AND NUMERICAL THEORY OF 
 ERRORS OF OBSERVATIONS AND THE COMBINA- 
 TION OF OBSERVATIONS. Crown Svo. cloth. $2-50. 
 
 In order to spare astronomers and observers in natural philosophy the 
 confusion and loss of time which are produced by referring to the ordinary 
 treatises embracing both branches of probabilities {the first relating to 
 chances which can be altered only by the changes of entire units or in- 
 tegral multiples of units in the fundamental conditions of the problem ; 
 the other concerning those chances which have respect to insensible grada- 
 tions in the value of 'the element measured), the preseiit tract has been drawn 
 up. It relates only to errors of observation, and to the rides, derivable 
 from the consideration of these errors, for the combination of the remits 
 of observations. 
 
1 6 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 Airy (G. B.) — continued. 
 
 UNDULATORY THEORY OF OPTICS. Designed for the Use of 
 Students in the University. New Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth. 
 $2*50. 
 
 The undulatory theory of optics is presejited to the reader as having the 
 same clai?ns to his attention as the theory of gravitation : na??iely, that it is 
 certainly true, and that, by mathe?natical operations of general elegatice, it 
 leads to results of great interest. This theory explains with accuracy a 
 ■vast variety of phenomena of the most complicated kind. The plan of this 
 tract has been to include those phenomena only which admit of calculation, 
 and the investigations are applied only to phenomena which actually have 
 been observed. 
 
 OX SOUND AND ATMOSPHERIC VIBRATIONS. With the 
 Mathematical Elements of Music. Designed for the Use of Students 
 of the University. Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged. 
 Crown 8vo. 83 "50. 
 
 This volume consists of sections, which again are divided into numbered 
 articles, on the following topics : General recog7iition of the air as the 
 medium which conveys sound ; Properties of the air on which the for??ia- 
 tion and transmission of sound depend ; Theory of undulations as applied 
 to sound, &c. ; Investigation of the motion of a wave of air through the 
 atmosphere ; Transmission of waves of soniferous vibrations through dif 
 fere7it gases, solids, and fluids ; Experifnents on the velocity of sound, 
 o^c. ; On musical sounds, and the manner of producing 'them ; On the 
 elements of??iusical harmony and melody, and of simple musical composi- 
 tion ; On instrumental music ; On the human organs of speech and 
 hear i Jig. 
 
 A TREATISE ON MAGNETISM. Designed for the use ot 
 Students in the University. Crown 8vo. $3. 
 
 As the laws of Magnetic Force have been experimentally exajnined with 
 philosophical accuracy, only in its connection with iron and steel, and in 
 
MA THEM A TICS. 1 7 
 
 the influences excited by the earth as a whole, the accurate portions of this 
 work are confined to the investigations connected with these metals and the 
 earth. The latter part of the work, hcnvever, treats in a more general way 
 of the laws of the connection between Magnetism on the one hand and gal- 
 vanism and thermo-electricity on the other. The work is divided into 
 Twelve Sections, and each section into numbered articles, each of which 
 stales concisely the subject of the following paragraphs. 
 
 Airy (Osmund). — A TREATISE ON GEOMETRICAL 
 
 OPTICS. Adapted for the use of the Higher Classes in Schools. 
 
 \',y Osmund Airy, I;. A. , one of the Mathematical Masters in 
 
 Wellington College. Extra fcap. 8vo. Si '25. 
 
 " This is, I imagine, the first time that any attempt has been made to 
 
 adapt the subject of Geometrical Optics to the read my; of the higher 
 
 classes in our good schools. 'J 'hut this should be so is the more a matter 
 
 for remark, since the subject would appear to be peculiarly fitted for Mich 
 
 an adaptation / have endeavoured, as much as possible, to avoid 
 
 the example of those popular lecturers who explain difficulties by ignoring 
 them. But as the nature of my design necessitated brevity, I have omitted 
 entirely one or two portions of the subject which I considered unnecessary 
 to a clear understanding of the rest, and which appear to me better learnt 
 at a more advanced stage." — AUTHOR'S PREFACE. " This book," the 
 ATHENAEUM says, "is carefully and lucidly written, and rendered as 
 simple as possible by the use in all cases of the most elementary form of 
 investigation. " 
 
 Bayma.— THE ELEMENTS OF MOLECULAR MECHA- 
 NICS. By Joseph Bayma, S.J., Professor of Philosophy, 
 
 Stonyhurst College. Demy 8vo. cloth. $375. 
 Of the twelve Books into which the present treatise is divided, the first 
 and second give the demonstration of the principles which bear directly on 
 the constitution and the properties of matter. The next three books contain 
 a series of theorems and of problems on the laws of motion of elementary 
 substances. In the sixth and seventh, the mechanical constitution of mole- 
 cules is investigated- and determined : and by it the general properties of 
 bodies are explained. The eighth book treats of litmiuifcrous a-thcr. The 
 
 B 
 
1 8 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 ninth explains some special properties of bodies. The tenth and eleventh 
 contain a radical and lengthy investigation of chemical principles and 
 relations, which may lead to practical results of high importance. The 
 twelfth and last book treats of molecular masses, distances, and powers. 
 
 Beasley. — an elementary treatise on plane 
 
 TRIGONOMETRY. With Examples. By R. D. Beasley, 
 M. A., Head Master of Grantham Grammar School. New 
 Edition, revised and enlarged. Crown Svo. cloth. $1*50. 
 
 This treatise is specially intended for use in schools. The choice of matter 
 has been chiefly guided by the requirements of the three days' 1 examination 
 at Cambridge. A bout four hundred examples have been added to this edition, 
 mainly collected from the Examination Papers of the last ten years. 
 
 Blackburn (Hugh). — ELEMENTS OF PLANE 
 
 TRIGONOMETRY, for the use of the Junior Class of Mathematics 
 in the University of Glasgow. By Hugh Blackburn, M.A;, 
 Professor of Mathematics in the University of Glasgow. Globe 
 Svo. 75 Cents. 
 
 The author having felt the want of a sho?'t treatise to be used as a 
 Text-Book after the Sixth Book of Euclid had been learned and some 
 knowledge of Algebra acquired, which should contain satisfactory 
 demonstrations of the propositions to be used in teaching Junior Students 
 t/ie solution of Triangles, and should at the same time lay a solid 
 foundation for the study of Analytical Trigonometry, thinking that 
 others may have felt the same want, has attempted to supply it by the 
 fmblication of this little work. 
 
 Boole.— Works by G. BOOLE, D.C.L., F.R.S., Professor of 
 Mathematics in the Queen's University, Ireland. 
 
 A TREATISE ON DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS. New and 
 Revised Edition. Edited by I. Todhunter. Crown Svo. cloth. 
 
 [In the press. 
 
 Professor Boole has endeavoured in this treatise to convey as complete an 
 account of the present state of knowledge on the subject of Differential Equa- 
 
MATHEMATICS. 19 
 
 turns, as was consistent with the idea of a work intended, primarily, for 
 elementary instruction. The earlier sections of each chapter contain that 
 kind of matter which has usually been thought suitable for the beginner, 
 while the latter ones are devoted either to an account of recent discovery, or 
 the discussion of such deeper questions of principle as are likely to present 
 themselves to the reflective student in connection zvith the methods and 
 processes of his previous course. " A treatise incomparably superior to 
 any other elementary book on the same subject with which we are 
 acquainted. " — Philosophical Magazine. 
 
 A TREATISE ON DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS. Supple- 
 'mentary Volume. Edited by I. Todhunter. Crown 8vo. cloth. 
 
 $3'5o- 
 This volume contains all that Professor Boole wrote for the purpose op 
 enlarging his treatise on Differential Equations. 
 
 THE CALCULUS OF FINITE DIFFERENCES. Crown 8vo. 
 cloth. $3-50. 
 In this exposition of the Calculus of Finite Differences, partictdar attetiiion 
 has been paid to the connection of its methods with those of the Differential 
 Calculus — a connection which in some instances involves far more than a 
 merely formal analogy. The work is in some measure designed as a 
 sequel to Professor Boole's Treatise on Differential Equations. " As an 
 original book by one op the first mathematicians of the age, it is out 
 of all comparison with the mere second-hand compilations which have 
 hitherto been alone accessible to the student:'— PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE. 
 
 Cambridge Senate-House Problems and Riders, 
 
 WITH SOLUTIONS :— 
 
 1848-1851.— PROBLEMS. By Ferrers and Jackson. 8vo. 
 
 cloth. $6. 
 1848-185 1. —RIDERS. By Jameson. 8vo. cloth. $3. 
 1854. — PROBLEMS AND RIDERS. By Walton and 
 
 Mackenzie. 8vo. cloth. $4. 
 1857. — PROBLEMS AND RIDERS. By Campion and 
 
 Walton. 8vo. cloth. $3-50. 
 
 B 2 
 
20 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 Cambridge Senate-House Problems — continued. 
 
 i860.— PROBLEMS AND RIDERS. By Watson and Routh, 
 Crown 8vo. cloth, $3. 
 
 1864.— PROBLEMS AND RIDERS. By Walton and Wil- 
 kinson. 8vo. cloth. $4. 
 
 These volumes will be found of great value to Teachers and Students, as 
 indicating the style and range of mathematical study in the University of 
 Cambridge. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE COURSE OF ELEMENTARY NATURAL 
 PHILOSOPHY, for the Degree of B.A. Originally compiled by 
 J. C. Snowball, M.A., late Fellow of St. John's College. 
 Fifth Edition, revised and enlarged, and adapted for the Middle- 
 Class Examinations by Thomas Lund, B. D., Late Fellow and 
 Lecturer of St. John's College, Editor of Wood's Algebra, &c. 
 Crown 8vo. cloth. $175. 
 
 This work will be found adapted to the wants, not only of University 
 Students, hit also of many others zuho require a short course of Mechanics 
 and Hydrostatics, and especially of the candidates at our Middle Class 
 Examinations. At the end of each chapter a series of easy questions is 
 added for the exercise of the student. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE AND DUBLIN MATHEMATICAL JOURNAL. 
 
 The Complete Work, in Nine Vols. 8vo. cloth, .$84. 
 
 Only a few copies remain on hand. Among Contributors to this 
 ■work will be found Sir W. Thomson, Stokes, Adams, Boole, Sir W. R. 
 Hamilton, De Morgan, Cayley, Sylvester, Jellett, and other distinguished 
 mathematicians. 
 
 Candler.— HELP TO ARITHMETIC. Designed for the use of 
 Schools. By H. Candler, M.A. Mathematical Master of 
 Uppingham School. Extra fcap. 8vo. $i.\ 
 
 This zuork is intended as a companion to any text-book that may be 
 in use. " The main diffiailties which boys experience in the diffb'ent 
 rules are skilfully dealt with and removed." — Museum. 
 
MATHEMATICS. 21 
 
 Cheyne.— Works by C. H. H. CHEYNE, M.A., F.R.A.S. 
 
 AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON THE PLANETARY 
 THEORY. With a Collection of Problems. Second Edition. 
 Crown 8vo. cloth. $2*50. 
 
 In this volume, an attempt has been made to produce a treatise on the 
 Planetary theory, which, being ele?nentary in character, should be so far 
 complete as to contain all that is usually required by students in the 
 University of Cambridge. In the A r ezv Edition the work has been carefully 
 revised. The stability of the Planetary System has been ?nore fully treated, 
 and an elegant geometrical explanation of the formula for the secular 
 variation of the node and inclination has been introduced. 
 
 THE EARTH'S MOTION OF ROTATION. Crown 8vo. 
 
 $1-50. 
 
 The first part of this work consists of an application of the method of the 
 variation of elemejits to the general problejn oj rotation. In the second 
 part the general rotation formula are applied to the Particular case of 
 the earth. 
 
 Childe. — THE SINGULAR PROPERTIES OF THE ELLIP- 
 SOID AND ASSOCIATED SURFACES OF THE Nth 
 DEGREE. By the Rev. G. F. Childe, M.A., Author of 
 " Ray Surfaces," " Related Caustics," &c. 8vo. $3*25. 
 
 The object of this volume is to develop peculiarities in the Ellipsoid ; 
 and, further, to establish analogous properties in the unlimited congeneric 
 series of which this remarkable surface is a constituent. 
 
 Christie. — A COLLECTION OF ELEMENTARY TEST- 
 QUESTIONS IN PURE AND MIXED MATHEMATICS; 
 
 with Answers and Appendices on Synthetic Division, and on the 
 Solution of Numerical Equations by Horner's Method. By James 
 R. Christie, F.R.S., late First Mathematical Master at the 
 Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. Crown 8vo. cloth. $3. 
 This series of Mathematical exercises is collected front those which the 
 author has, from time to time, proposed for solution by his pupils during 
 
22 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 a long career at the Royal Military Acade?ny. A student who finds 
 that he is able to solve the larger portion of these exercises, may consider 
 that he is thoroughly well grounded in the elementary principles of prure 
 and mixed Mathematics. 
 
 Dalton.— ARITHMETICAL EXAMPLES. Progressively 
 arranged, with Exercises and Examination Papers. By the Rev. 
 T. Dalton, M.A., Assistant Master of Eton College. i8mo. 
 cloth. %\. Answers to the Exaviples are appended. 
 
 Day. — PROPERTIES OF CONIC SECTIONS PROVED 
 GEOMETRICALLY. PART L, THE ELLIPSE, with 
 Problems. By the Rev. H. G. Day, M.A., Head Master of 
 Sedburgh Grammar School. Crown 8vo. $1*25. 
 The object of this book is the introduction oj a treatment of Conic 
 Sections which should be simple and natural, and lead by an easy transi- 
 tion to the analytical methods, without departing from the strict geometry 
 of Euclid. 
 
 DodgSOn.— AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON DETER- 
 MINANTS, with their Application to Simultaneous Linear 
 Equations and Algebraical Geometry. By Charles L. Dodgson, 
 M.A., Student and Mathematical Lecturer of Christ Church, 
 Oxford. Small 4to. cloth. §3 "50. 
 
 The object of the author is to present the subject as a continuous chain of 
 argument, separated from all accessories of explanation or illustration. 
 All such explanation and illustration as seemed necessary for a beginner 
 are introduced, either in the form of foot-notes, or, where that would have 
 occupied too much room, of Appendices. " The work,'" says the 
 Educational Times, "forms a valuable addition to the treatises we 
 possess on modern Algebra." 
 
 Drew. — GEOMETRICAL TREATISE ON CONIC SEC- 
 TIONS. By W. H. Drew, M.A., St. John's College, Cambridge. 
 Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth. $175. 
 
MA THEM A TICS. 2 3 
 
 D re w — continued. 
 
 In this work the subject of Conic Sections has been placed before the student 
 in such a for 771 that, it is hoped, after 77iastering the elements of Euclid, he 
 may fi,7id it an easy a7id i7iteresti7ig co7iti7iuatio7i of his geometrical studies. 
 With a view, also, of re7ideri7ig the work a complete 77ia7iual of what is 
 required at the U7iiversities, there have either bee7i o/ibodied i7ilo the text or 
 inserted a77i07ig the exa77iples, every book-work quest io7i, p7'oble77i, a7id rider ; 
 which has bee7i proposed I71 the Cai7ibridge exa7)ii7iatio7is up to the present 
 time. 
 
 SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEMS IN DREW'S CONIC 
 SECTIONS. Crown 8vo. cloth. $175. 
 
 Earnshaw (S.) — partial differential equa- 
 tions. An Essay towards an entirely New Method of Inte- 
 grating them. By S. Earnshaw, M.A., St. John's College, 
 Cambridge. Crown 8vo. $2*50. 
 
 The peculiarity of the syste7n expomided in this work is, that in every 
 equation, whatever be the number of original independent variables ; the work 
 of integratio7i is at once reduced to the use of one i7idependent variable 
 only. The author's object is 77ierely to render his 77iethod thoroughly intel- 
 ligible. The various steps of the investigation are all obedie7tt to one 
 ge?ieral principle, a7id though in soi7ie degree novel, are not really difficult, 
 but on the contrary easy when the eye has bcco7ne accustomed to the novelties 
 of J he notation. Many of the residts of the integrations are far more 
 general than they were in the shape in which they have appea7'ed informer 
 Treatises, and many Equations will be found in this Essay integrated 
 with ease infinite ter7/zs, which were never so integrated before. 
 
 Edgar (J. H.) and Pritchard (G. S.)— NOTE-BOOK ON 
 
 PRACTICAL SOLID OR DESCRIPTIVE GEOMETRY. 
 Containing Problems with help for Solutions. By J. H. Edgar, 
 M.A., Lecturer on Mechanical Drawing at the Royal School of 
 Mines, and G. S. Pritchard, late Master for Descriptive 
 Geometry, Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. Second Edition, 
 revised and enlarged. Globe 8vo. $1*25. 
 
24 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 In teaching a large class, if the method of lecturing and demonstrating 
 from the black board only is pursued, the more intelligent students have 
 generally to be kept back, from the necessity of frequent repetition, for the 
 sake of the less promising ; if the plan of setting problems to each pupil is 
 adopted, the teacher finds a difficulty in giving to each sufficient attention. 
 A judicious combination of both methods is doubtless the best; and it is 
 hoped that this result may be arrived at in some degree by the use of this 
 book, which is simply a collection of examples, with helps for solution, 
 arranged in progressive sections. The new edition has been enlarged by the 
 addition of chapters on the straight line and plane, with explanatory dia- 
 grams and exercises, on tangent planes, and on the cases of the spherical 
 triangle. 
 
 Ferrers. — AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON TRILINEAR 
 CO-ORDINATES, the Method of Reciprocal Polars, and the 
 Theory of Projectors. By the Rev. N. M. Ferrers, M. A., Fellow 
 and Tutor of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Second 
 Edition. Crown 8vo. §2. 
 
 The object of the author in writing on this subject has mainly been to 
 place it on a basis altogether independent of the ordinary Cartesian system, 
 instead of regarding it as only a special form of Abridged Notation. 
 A short chapter on Determinants has been introduced. 
 
 FrOSt.— Works by PERCIVAL FROST, M.A., formerly Fellow 
 of St. John's College, Cambridge ; Mathematical Lecturer of 
 King's College. 
 
 AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON CURVE TRACING. By 
 Percival Frost, M.A. Svo. $6. 
 
 The author has written this book under the conviction that the skill 
 and power of the young mathematical student, in order to be thoroughly 
 available afterwards, ought to be developed in all possible directions. The 
 subject which he has chosen presents so many faces, that it would be 
 difficult to find another which, with a very limited extent of reading, 
 combines, to the same extent, so many valuable hints of methods of cal- 
 culations to be employed hereajtcr, with so much pleasure in its present 
 
MATHEMATICS. 25 
 
 use. In ordtr to understand the work it is not necessary to have much 
 knowledge of what is called Higher Algebra, nor of Algebraical Geometry 
 of a higher kind than that which simply relates to the Conic Sections. 
 From the study of a work like this, it is believed that the student will 
 derive many advantages Especially he will become skilled in making 
 correct approximations to the values of quantities, which cannot be found 
 exactly, to any degree of accuracy which may be required. 
 
 THE FIRST THREE SECTIONS OF NEWTON'S PRINCIPLE. 
 With Notes and Illustrations. Also a collection of Problems, 
 principally intended as Examples of Newton's Methods. By 
 Percival Frost, M.A. Second Edition. 8vo. cloth. 83 '50. 
 
 The author's principal intention is to explain difficulties which may be 
 encountered by the student on first reading the Principia, and to illtistrate 
 the advantages oj a careful study of the methods employed by Neivton, by 
 showing the extent to which they may be applied in the solution of problems ; 
 he has also endeavoured to give assistance to the student who is engaged in 
 the study of the higher branches of mathematics, by representing in a 
 geometrical form several of the processes employed in the Differential and 
 Integral Calculus, and in the analytical investigations of Dynamics. 
 
 Frost and Wolstenholme.— a treatise on SOLID 
 GEOMETRY. By Percival Frost, M.A., and the Rev. J. 
 Wolstenholme, M.A., Fellow and Assistant Tutor of Christ's 
 College. 8vo. cloth. 85-50. 
 
 The authors have endeavoured to present before students as comprehensive 
 a view of the subject as possible. Intending to make the subject accessible, 
 at least in the earlier portion, to all classes of students, they have endea- 
 voured to explain co??ipletely all the processes which are most useful in 
 dealing with ordinary theorems and problems, thus directing the student 
 to the selection of methods which are best adapted to the exigencies of each 
 problem. In the more difficult portions of the subject, they have considered 
 themselves to be addressing a higher class of students ; and they have there 
 tried to lay a good foundation on which to build, if any reader should 
 wish to pursue the science beyond the limits to which the work extends. 
 
26 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 Godfray.— Works by HUGH GODFRAY, M.A., Mathematical 
 Lecturer at Pembroke College, Cambridge. 
 
 A TREATISE ON ASTRONOMY, for the Use of Colleges and 
 Schools. 8vo. cloth. $4 "50. 
 
 This book e?nbraces all those branches of Astronomy which have t from 
 time to titne, been recommended by the Cambridge Board of Mathematical 
 Studies : but by far the larger and easier portion, adapted to the first three 
 days of the Examination for Honours, may be read by the more 
 advanced pupils in many of our schools. The author's aim has been to 
 convey clear and distinct ideas of the celestial phenomena. ' ' It is a 
 working book," says the Guardian, "taking Astronomy in its proper 
 place in mathematical sciences. . . . It is a book which is not likely to 
 be got up unintelligently. n 
 
 AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON THE LUNAR THEORY, 
 with a Brief Sketch of the Problem up to the time of Newton. 
 Second Edition, revised. Crown 8vo. cloth. $2 '25. 
 
 These pages will, it is hoped, for?n an introduction to more recondite 
 works. Difficulties have been discussed at considerable length. The 
 selection of the method followed with regard to analytical solutions, 
 which is the same as that of Airy, Herschel, &c. was made on account 
 of its simplicity ; it is, moreover, the method which has obtained in the 
 University of Cambridge. " As an elementary treatise and introduction 
 to the subject, zue think it ?nay justly claim to supersede all former ones. " — 
 London, Edin. and Dublin Phil. Magazine. 
 
 Hemming.— AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON THE 
 DIFFERENTIAL AND INTEGRAL CALCULUS, for the 
 
 Use of Colleges and Schools. By G. W. Hemming, M.A., 
 Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. Second Edition, with 
 Corrections and Additions. 8vo. cloth. §3. 
 
 " There is no book in common use from which so clear and exact a 
 knowledge of the principles of the Calculus can be so readily obtained." — 
 Literary Gazette. 
 
MATHEMATICS. 27 
 
 Jackson. — GEOMETRICAL CONIC SECTIONS. An Elemen- 
 tary Treatise in which the Conic Sections are defined as the Plane 
 Sections of a Cone, and treated by the Method of Projection. 
 By J. Stuart Jackson, M.A., late Fellow of Gonville and Caius 
 College, Cambridge. $175. 
 
 This work has been written with a view to give the student the benefit oj 
 the Method of Projections as applied to the Ellipse and Hyperbola. 
 When this Method is admitted into the treatment of the Conic Sections, 
 there are many reasons why they should be defined, not with refei-ence to 
 t 'lie focus and direction, but according to the original definition from which 
 they have their name as plane sections of a cone. This method is calcu- 
 lated to produce a material simplification in these curves, and to make the 
 proof of their properties more easily understood and remembered. Itis also 
 a powerful instrument in the solution of a large class of problems relating 
 to tJtese curves. 
 
 Jellet (John H.)— A TREATISE ON THE THEORY OF 
 FRICTION. By John H. Jellet, B.D., Senior Fellow of 
 Trinity College, Dublin ; President of the Royal Irish Academy. 
 8vo. s 4 . 
 
 The theory of friction is as truly apart of Rational Mechanics as the 
 theory of gravitation. This book is taken up with a special investigation 
 of the laws of friction ; and some of the principles contained in it are 
 believed to be here enunciated for the first time. The work consists of eight 
 Chapters as follows :— I. Definitions and Principles. II. Equilibrium 
 with Friction. III. Extreme Positions of Equilibrium. IV. Movement 
 of a Particle or Sy stent of Particles. V. Motion of a Solid Body. VI. 
 Necessary and Possible Equilibrium. VII. Determination of the Actual 
 Value of the Acting Force of Friction. VIII Miscellaneous Problems— 
 I. Problem of the Top. 2. Friction Wheels and Locomotives. 3. 
 Questions for Exercise. " The work is one of great research, and will 
 add muchto the already great reputation of its author.'" — Scotsman. 
 
28 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 Jones and Cheyne. — ALGEBRAICAL EXERCISES. Pro- 
 gressively arranged. By the Rev. C. A. Jones, M. A., and C. H. 
 Cheyne, M.A., F. R. A. S., Mathematical Masters of Westminster 
 School. New Edition. i8mo. cloth. 75 Cents. 
 
 This little book is inte?ided to meet a diffictdty which is probably felt more 
 or less by all engaged i?i teaching Algebra to beginners. It is, that while 
 new ideas are being acquired, old ones are forgotten. In the belief that 
 constant practice is the only remedy for this, the present series of miscel- 
 laneous exercises has been prepared. Their peculiarity consists in this, 
 that though miscellaneous they are yet progressive, and may be used by 
 the pupil almost from the commencement of his studies. The book 
 being intended chiefly for Schools and Junior Students, the higher parts 
 of Algebra have not been included. 
 
 Kitchener. — A GEOMETRICAL NOTE-BOOK, containing 
 Easy Problems in Geometrical Drawing preparatory to the Study 
 of Geometry. For the Use of Schools. By F. E. Kitchener, 
 M.A., Mathematical Master at Rugby. New Edition. 4to. 75 Cents. 
 
 It is the object of this book to make someway i'n overco?ning the difficulties 
 of Geometrical conception, before the mind is called to the attack of 
 Geometrical theorems. A few si??iple methods of construction are given ; 
 and space is left on each page, in order that the learner may draw in the 
 figures. 
 
 Morgan. — A collection of problems and EXAM- 
 
 PLES IN MATHEMATICS. With Answers. By H. A. 
 Morgan, M.A., Sadlerian and Mathematical Lecturer of Jesus 
 College, Cambridge. Crown 8vo. cloth. $2. 
 
 This book contains a number of problems, chiefly elementary, in the 
 Mathematical subjects usually read at Ca?nbridge. They have been 
 selected from the papers set during late years at Jesus College. Very few 
 of them are to be met with in other collections, and by far the larger 
 number are due to some of the most distinguished Mathematicians in the 
 University. 
 
MA THEM A TICS. 2 9 
 
 Newton's PRINCIPIA. Edited by Professor Sir W. Thomson 
 and Professor Blackburn. 4to. cloth. $12. 
 
 It is a sufficient guarantee of the excellence of this cornplete edition of 
 Newtoifs Principia that it has been printed for and under the care of Pro~ 
 fessor Sir William Thomson and Professor Blackburn, of Glasgow Uni- 
 versity. The following notice is prefixed : — ' ' Finding that all the editions 
 of the Principia are now out of print, we have been induced to reprint 
 Ntavtoris last edition [0/ 1 726] without note or comment, only introducing 
 the '■Corrigenda'' of the old copy and correcting typographical errors.'''' 
 The book is of a handsome size, with large type, fine thick paper, and cleanly 
 cut figures, and is the only modern edition containing the whole of Newtori s 
 great work. " Undoubtedly the finest edition of the text of the ' Principia- ' 
 which has hitherto appeared." — EDUCATIONAL Times. 
 
 Parkinson. — Works by S. Parkinson, D.D., F.R.S., Fellow and 
 Tutor of St. John's College, Cambridge. 
 
 AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON MECHANICS. For the 
 Use of the Junior Classes at the University and the Higher Classes 
 in Schools. With a Collection of Examples. Fourth edition, revised. 
 Crown 8vo. cloth. $3. 
 
 In preparing this work the author's object has been to include in it 
 such portions of Theoretical Mechanics as can be conveniently investigated 
 without the use of the Differential Calculus, and so render it statable as 
 a manual for the junior classes in the University and the higher classes 
 in Schools. With one or two short exceptions, the student is not presumed 
 to require a knowledge of any branches of Mathematics beyond the elements 
 of Algebra, Geometry, and Trigonometry. Several additional propositions 
 have been incorporated in the work for the purpose of rendering it more 
 complete ; and the collection of Examples and Problems has been largely 
 increased. 
 
 A TREATISE ON OPTICS. Third Edition, revised and enlarged. 
 Crown 8vo. cloth. $3 -$o. 
 A collection of examples and problems has been appended to this work, 
 which are sufficiently numerous and varied in character to afford useful 
 
J 
 
 o EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 exercise for the student. For the greater part of them, recourse has been 
 had to the Examination Papers set in the University and the several 
 Colleges during the last twenty years. 
 
 Phear. — ELEMENTARY HYDROSTATICS. With Numerous 
 Examples. By J. B. Phear, M.A., Fellow and late Assistant 
 Tutor of Clare College, Cambridge. Fourth Edition. Crown 
 8vo. cloth. %2. 
 
 This edition has been carefully revised throughout, and many new 
 illustrations and examples added, which it is hoped will i-ncrease its 
 usefulness to students at the Universities and in Schools. In accordance 
 with suggestions from many engaged in tuition, answers to all the 
 Examples have been given at the end of the book. 
 
 Pratt. — A TREATISE ON ATTRACTIONS, LAPLACE'S 
 FUNCTIONS, AND THE FIGURE OF THE EARTH. 
 By John H. Pratt, M.A., Archdeacon of Calcutta, Author of 
 " The Mathematical Principles of Mechanical Philosophy." Fourth 
 Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth. $2*25. 
 
 The author's chief design in this treatise is to give an answer to the 
 question, " Has the Earth acquired its present form from being originally 
 in a fluid state? " This Edition is a complete revision of the former ones. 
 
 Puckie. — AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON CONIC SEC- 
 TIONS AND ALGEBRAIC GEOMETRY. With Numerous 
 Examples and Hints for their Solution ; especially designed for the 
 Use of Beginners. By G. H. Puckle, M.A., Head Master of 
 Windermere College. New Edition, revised and enlarged. Crown 
 8vo. cloth. $2-50. 
 
 This work is recommended by the Syndicate of the Cambridge Local 
 Examinations, and is the text-book in Harvard University, U.S. The 
 Athenaeum says the author "displays an intimate acquaintance 
 with the difficulties likely to be felt, togetJier with a singular aptitude in 
 removing them. " 
 
MA THEM A TICS. 3 1 
 
 Rawlinson. — ELEMENTARY STATICS, by the Rev. George 
 Rawlinson, M.A. Edited by the Rev. Edward Sturges,M.A., 
 of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and late Professor of the Applied 
 Sciences, Elphinstone College, Bombay. Crown 8vo. cloth. $175. 
 
 Published under the authority of Her Majesty's Secretary of State for 
 India, for use in the Government Schools and Colleges in India. 
 
 Reynolds.— MODERN METHODS IN ELEMENTARY 
 GEOMETRY. By E. M. Reynolds, M.A., Mathematical 
 Master in Clifton College. Crown Svo. $l'25. 
 
 This little book has been constructed on one plan throughout, that of 
 always giving in the simplest possible form the direct proof from the 7iature 
 of the case. The axioms necessary to this simplicity have been assumed 
 without hesitation, and no scruple has been felt as to the increase of 
 their number, or the acceptance of as many elementary notions as 
 common experience places past all doubt. The book differs most from estab- 
 lished teaching in its constructions, and in its early application of Arith- 
 metic to Geometry. 
 
 Routh.— AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON THE DYNA- 
 MICS OF THE SYSTEM OF RIGID BODIES. With 
 Numerous Examples. By Edward John Routh, M.A., late 
 Fellow and Assistant Tutor of St. Peter's College, Cambridge; 
 Examiner in the University of London. Second Edition, enlarged. 
 Crown 8vo. cloth. $3*50. 
 
 In this edition the author has made sroeral additions to each chapter. 
 He has tried, to make each chapter, as far as possible, complete in itself, 
 so that all that relates to any one part of the subject may be found in the 
 same place. This arrangement will enable every student to select his 
 own order in which to read the subject. The Examples which will be 
 found at the end of each chapter have been chiefly selected from the 
 Examination Papers which have been set in the University and the 
 Colleges in the last few years. 
 
32 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 Smith. — Works by the Rev. Barnard Smith, M.A., Rector of 
 Glaston, Rutland, late Fellow and Senior Bursar of St. Peter's 
 College, Cambridge. 
 
 THE METRIC SYSTEM OF ARITHMETIC, ITS PRINCIPLES 
 AND APPLICATION, with numerous Examples, written 
 expressly for Standard V. in National Schools. Fourth Edition. 
 i8mo. cloth sewed. 10 Cents. 
 In the New Code of Regulations issued by the Council of Education it 
 is stated "that in all schools children in Standards V. and VI. should 
 know the principles of the Metric System, and be able to explain the 
 advantages to be gained from uniformity in the method of forming multiples 
 and sub-multiples of the unit." In this little book, Mr. Smith clearly 
 and simply explaiiis the principle of the Metric System, and in con- 
 siderable detail expounds the French system, and its relation to the 
 ordinary English method, taking the pupil on as far as Compound 
 Division. The book contains numerous Examples, and two wood-cuts 
 illustrating the Metric Tables of Surface and Solidity. Answers to the 
 Examples are appended. 
 
 A CHART OF THE METRIC SYSTEM, on a Sheet, size 42 in. 
 by 34 in. on Roller, mounted and varnished, price $1*50. Third 
 Edition. 
 
 By the New Educational Code it is ordained that a Chart of the Metric 
 System be conspicuously hung up on the walls of every school under 
 Government inspection. The publishers believe that the present Chart will 
 be found to answer all the requirements of the Code, and afford a fill and 
 perfectly intelligible viezv of the principles of the Metric System. The 
 principle of the system is clearly stated and illustrated by examples ; the 
 Method of Forming the Tables is set forth ; Tables follcnu, clearly showing 
 the English equivalent of the French measures of— \. Length; 2. Surface; 
 3. Solidity j 4. Weight; 5. Capacity. At the bottom of the Chart is drawn 
 a full-length Metric Measure, subdivided distinctly and intelligibly into 
 Decimetres, Centimetres, and Millimetres. " We do not remember that 
 ever we have seen teaching by a chart more happily carried out. " — SCHOOL 
 Board Chronicle. 
 
 Also a Small Chart on a Card, price 5 Cents. 
 
MATHEMATICS. 33 
 
 Barnard Smith — continued. 
 
 AN EASY METHOD OF TEACHING ARITHMETIC IN 
 NATIONAL AND ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 
 
 This book will be accompanied by diagrams for the walls of school- 
 rooms, which will, it is hoped, readily explain Decimal A r otation, &c, 
 and make the acquisition of the Metric System by children an easy task. 
 The book will also be acco^npanied by a very large number of Examples 
 and Examination Papers. [Nearly ready. 
 
 THE METRIC ARITHMETIC. 
 
 This book will go thoroughly into the principles of the System, intro- 
 ducing the money tables of the various countries which have adopted it, 
 and containing a very large number of Examples and Examination 
 Papers. [Nearly ready. 
 
 Smith (J. Brook).— ARITHMETIC IN THEORY AND 
 PRACTICE. By J. Brook-Smith, M.A., LL.B., St. John's 
 College, Cambridge ; Barrister-at-Law ; one of the Masters of 
 Cheltenham College. Crown 8vo. $2. 
 
 Writers on Arithmetic at the present day feel the necessity of explaining the 
 principles on which the rules of the subject are based, but few as yet feel the 
 necessity of making these explanations strict and complete. If the science 
 of Arithmetic is to be made an effective instrument in developing and 
 strengthening the mental powers, it ought to be worked out rationally and 
 conclusively ; and in this work the author has endeavoured to reason out 
 in a clear and accurate manner the leading propositions of the science, and 
 to illustrate and apply those propositions in practice. In the practical 
 part of the subject he has advanced somezohat beyond the majority of 
 preceding writers ; particularly in Division, in Greatest Common 
 Measure, in Cube Root, in the Chapters on Decimal Money and tfie. 
 Metric System, and more especially in the application of Decimals to 
 Percentages and cognate subjects. Copious examples, original and selected, 
 are given. " This strikes us as a valuable Manual of Arithmetic of the 
 Scientific kind. Indeed, this really appears to us the best we have seen.'' 
 — Literary Churchman. " This is an essentially practical book, 
 
 C 
 
34 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 providing very definite help to candidates for almost every kind of com- 
 Hive examination. " — British Quarterly. 
 
 Snowball.— THE ELEMENTS OF PLANE AND SPHERI- 
 CAL TRIGONOMETRY ; with the Construction and Use of 
 Tables of Logarithms. By J. C. Snowball, M.A. Tenth Edition. 
 Crown 8vo. cloth. $2. 
 
 In preparing the present edition for the press, the text has been 
 subjected to a carejul revision ; the proofs of sotne of the more i?npor- 
 iant propositions have been rendered more strict and general ; and more 
 than two hundred examples, taken principally from the questions set of 
 late years in the public examinations of the University and of individual 
 Colleges, have been added to the collection of Examples and Problems for 
 practice. 
 
 Tait and Steele.— a treatise on dynamics of a 
 
 PARTICLE. With numerous Examples. By Professor Tait and 
 Mr. Steele. New Edition, enlarged. Crown Svo. cloth. $3*50. 
 
 In this treatise will be found all the ordinary propositions, conm 
 ■with the Dynamics of Particles, which can be conveniently deduced wit/, 
 the use of D^Alembert^s Principle. Throughout the book will be fbun 
 number of illustrative examples introduced in the text, and for the most 
 part completely -worked out ; others with occasional solutions or hints to 
 assist the student are appended to each chapter. For by far the greater 
 portion of these, the Cambridge Senate-House and College Examination 
 Papers have been applied to. In the new edition nutnerous trivial errors, 
 and a few of a more serious character, have been corrected, while many 
 new examples have been added. 
 
 Taylor. — GEOMETRICAL CONICS ; including Anharmonic 
 
 Ratio and Projection, with numerous Examples. By C. Taylor, 
 
 B. A., Scholar of St. John's College, Cambridge. Crown 8vo. cloth. 
 
 .^•50. 
 
 This work contains elementary proof s of the principal properties of Conic 
 
 Sections, together with chapters on Projection and Anharmonic Ratio. 
 
MA THEMATJCS. 
 
 Tcb = ".— ELI r FOB EOOLS 
 
 "- r ' Extra 
 
 f:ip. ;y;. ; ': if 
 
 :f Mey. 
 
 — - 
 
 - 
 
36 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 WORKS 
 By I. TODHUNTER, M.A., F.R.S., 
 
 Of St. John's College, Cambridge. 
 
 " They are all good, and each volume adds to the value of the rest." — 
 Freeman. " Perspicuous language, vigorous investigations, scrutiny of 
 difficulties, and methodical treatment, characterise Mr. Todhunter , s works." 
 — Civil Engineer. 
 
 THE ELEMENTS OF EUCLID. For the Use of Colleges and 
 Schools. New Edition. i8mo. cloth. $1*25. 
 
 No method of overcoming the difficulties experienced by young students of 
 Euclid appears to be so useful as that of breaking tip the demonstrations 
 into their constituent parts ; a plan strongly recommended by Professor 
 De Morgan. In the present Edition each distinct assertion in the argu- 
 ment begins a new line ; and at the ends of the lines are placed the 
 necessary references to the preceding principles on which the assertions 
 depend. The longer propositions are distributed into subordinate parts t 
 which are distinguished by breaks at the beginning of the lines. Notes, 
 Appendix, and a collection of Exercises are added. 
 
 MENSURATION FOR BEGINNERS. With numerous Examples. 
 New Edition. i8mo. cloth. $1 "25. 
 
 The subjects included in the present work are those which have tisually 
 found a place in Elementary Treatises on Mensuration. The mode of 
 treat7nent has been determined by the fact that the work is intended for the 
 use of beginners. Accordingly it is divided into short independent chapters, 
 which are followed by appropriate examples. A knovoledge of the elements 
 cf Arithmetic is all that is assumed; and in connection with most of the 
 Rules of Mensuration it has been found practicable to give such explana- 
 
MATHEMATICS. 37 
 
 tions and illustrations as will supply the place of formal mathematical 
 de?nonstrations, which would have been unsuitable to the character of the 
 work. " For simplicity and clearness of arrangement it is unsurpassed 
 by any text-book on the subject which has co?ne under our notice." — 
 Educational Times. 
 
 ALGEBRA FOR BEGINNERS. With numerous Examples. New 
 Edition. i8mo. cloth. $1*25. 
 
 Great pains have been taken to render this work intelligible to young 
 students, by the use of simple language and by copious explanations, hi 
 deterinining the subjects to be included and the space to be assigned to each, 
 the author has been guided by the papers given at the various examinations 
 in elementary Algebra which are now carried on in this country. The 
 book may be said to consist of three parts. The first part contains the 
 elementary operations in integral and practional expressions ; the second 
 the solution of equations and problems ; the third treats of various subjects 
 which are introduced but rarely into examination papers, and are more 
 briefly discussed. Provision has at the same time been ?nade for the 
 introduction of easy equations and problems at an early stage^for those 
 who prefer such a course. 
 
 KEY TO ALGEBRA FOR BEGINNERS. Crown Svo. cloth. 
 
 $2-25. 
 
 TRIGONOMETRY FOR BEGINNERS. With numerous Examples. 
 New Edition. i8mo. cloth. $1. 
 
 Intended to serve as an introduction to the larger treatise on Plane 
 Trigonometry, published by the author. The same plan has been adopted 
 as in the Algebra for Beginners : the subject is discussed in short chapters, 
 and a collection of examples is attached to each chapter. The first fourteeji 
 chapters present the geometrical part of Plane Trigonometry ; and contain 
 all that is necessary for practical purposes. The range of matter included 
 is such as seems required by the various examinations in ele?nentary Tri- 
 gonometry which are now carried on in the country. Answers are 
 appended. 
 
38 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 Todhunter (I.) — continued. 
 
 MECHANICS FOR BEGINNERS. With numerous Examples. 
 Second Edition. iSmo. cloth. Si'5o. 
 
 Intended as a companion to the two preceding books. The work forms an 
 elementary treatise on dettionsirative mechanics. A knowledge of the elements 
 at least of the theory of the subject is extremely valuable even for those who 
 are mainly concerned with practical results. The author has accordingly 
 endeavoured to provide a suitable introductioyi to the study of applied as 
 well as of theoretical mechanics. The work consists of two parts, namely, 
 Statics and Dynamics. It will be found to contain all that is usually 
 comprised in elementary treatises on Mechanics, together with some additions. 
 
 ALGEBRA. For the Use of Colleges and Schools. Fifth Edition. 
 Crown 8vo. cloth. 82*25. 
 
 This work contains all the propositions which are usually included in 
 elementary treatises on Algebra, and a large number of Examples for 
 Exercise. The author has sought to render the work easily intelligible to 
 students, without impairing the accuracy of the demonstrates, or con- 
 tracting the limits of the subject. The Examples, about Sixteen hundred 
 and fifty in number, have been selected with a view to illustrate every part 
 of the subject. Each chapter is complete in itself; and the work will be 
 found peculiarly adapted to the wants of students who are without the aid 
 of a teacher. The Answers to the Examples, with hints for the sohition of 
 some in which assistance may be needed, are given at the end of the book. 
 In the present edition two New Chapters and Three hundred miscellaneous 
 Examples have been added. The latter are arranged in sets, each set 
 :ontai?iing ten Examples. ^ It has merits which unquestionably place 
 it first in the class to which it belongs.'" — EDUCATOR. 
 
 KEY TO ALGEBRA FOR THE USE OF COLLEGES AND 
 SCHOOLS. Crown Svo. §3. 
 
 AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON THE THEORY OF 
 EQUATIONS. Second Edition, revised. Crown Svo. cloth. 
 82-25. 
 
MATHEMATICS. 39 
 
 Todhunter (I.) — conti?iued. 
 
 This treatise contains all the propositions which are usually included 
 in elementary treatises on the theory of Equations, together with Example- 
 for exercise. These have been selected from the College and University 
 Examination Papers, and the results have been given when it appeared 
 necessary. In order to exhibit a comprehensive view of the subject, the 
 treatise includes investigations which are not found in all the preceding 
 elementary treatises, and aLo some investigations which are not to befoz, 
 in any of them. For the Second Edition the work has been revised and 
 some additions have been made, the most important being an account of 
 the researches of Professor Sylvester respecting Newtorts Rule. "A 
 thoroughly trustworthy, complete, and yet not too elaborate treatise." 
 Philosophical Magazine. 
 
 PLANE TRIGONOMETRY. For Schools and Colleges. Fourth 
 Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth. $175. 
 
 The design of this work has been to render the subject intelligible to 
 beginners, and at the same time to afford the student the opportunity of 
 obtaining all the infortnation which he will require on this branch ot 
 Afathematics. Each chapter is follozved by a set of Examples : those 
 which are entitled Miscellaneous Examples, together with a few in some 
 of the other sets, may be advantageously reserved by the student for exercist 
 after- he has made some progress in the subject. In the Second Edition 
 the hints for the solution oj the Examples have been considerably increased, 
 
 A TREATISE ON SPHERICAL TRIGONOMETRY. Nev. 
 Edition, enlarged. Crown 8vo. cloth. $>i'75- 
 The present work is C07istructed on the same plan as the treatise on 
 Plane Trigonometry, to which it is intended as a sequel. In the account 
 of Napier's Rules of Circular Parts, an explanation has been given of a 
 method of proof devised by Napier, which seems to have been overlooked 
 by most modern writers on the subject. Considerable labour has been 
 bestowed on the text in order to render it comprehensive and accurate, and 
 the Examples {selected chiefly from College Examination Papers) have 
 all been carefully verified. "For educational purposes this work seems 
 to be superior to any others on the subject.^ — Critic. 
 
4 o EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 Todhunter (I.) — continued. 
 
 PLANE CO-ORDINATE GEOMETRY, as applied to the Straight 
 Line and the Conic Sections. With numerous Examples. Fourth 
 Edition, revised and enlarged. Crown 8vo. cloth. $2*25. 
 
 The author has here ejideavoured to exhibit the subject in a simple 
 manner for the benefit of beginners, and at the same time to include in one 
 volume all that students usually require. In addition, therefore, to the 
 propositions which have always appeared in such treatises, he has intro- 
 duced the methods of abridged notation, which are of more recent origin ; 
 these methods, which are of a less elementary character than the rest of the 
 work, are placed in separate chapters, and may be omitted by the student 
 at first. 
 
 A TREATISE ON THE DIFFERENTIAL CALCULUS. With 
 
 numerous Examples. Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth. 83*50. 
 
 The author has endeavoured in the present work to exhibit a compre- 
 hensive view of the Differential Calculus on the method of limits. In the 
 more elementary portions he has entered into considerable detail in the 
 explanations, with the hope that a reader who is without the assistance of a 
 tutor may be enabled to acquire a competent acquaintance with the subject. 
 The method adopted is that of Differeiitial Coefficients. To the different 
 chapters are appetided examples sufficiently nu?nerous to render another 
 book unnecessary ; these examples being mostly selected fro?n College Ex- 
 animation Papers. "It has already taken its place as the text-book 
 on that subject." — Philosophical Magazine. 
 
 A TREATISE ON THE INTEGRAL CALCULUS AND ITS 
 APPLICATIONS. With numerous Examples. Third Edition, 
 revised and enlarged. Crown 8vo. cloth. §3 "50. 
 
 This is designed as a work at once elementary and complete, adapted 
 for the use of beginners, and sufficient for the wants of advanced students. 
 In the selection of the propositions, and in the mode of establishing them, 
 it has been sought to exhibit the principles clearly, and to illustrate 
 all their most important results. The process of summation has been 
 repeatedly brought forrvard, with the view of securing the attention of 
 
MATHEMATICS. 41 
 
 Todhunter (I.) — continued. 
 
 the student to the notions which form the true foundation of the Calculus 
 itself, as well as of its most valuable applications. Every attempt has been 
 made to explain those difficulties which usually perplex beginners, especially 
 zuith reference to the limits of integrations. A new method has been adopted 
 in regard to the transformation of multiple integrals. The last chapter 
 deals zuith the Calculus of Variations. A large collection of exercises, 
 selected from College Examination Papers, has been appended to the several 
 chapters. 
 
 EXAMPLES OF ANALYTICAL GEOMETRY OF THREE 
 DIMENSIONS. Second Edition, revised. Crown 8vo. cloth. 
 
 $1-50. 
 
 A TREATISE ON ANALYTICAL STATICS. With numerous 
 Examples. Third Edition, revised and enlarged. Crown Svo. 
 cloth. $3 "50. 
 In this work on statics {treating of the laws of the equilibrium of bodies) 
 will be found all the propositions which usually appear in treatises on 
 Theoretical Statics. To the different chapters examples are appended, 
 which have been principally selected from University Examination Papers. 
 In the Third Edition many additions have been made, in order to illus- 
 trate the application of the principles of the subject to the solution op 
 problems. 
 
 A HISTORY OF THE MATHEMATICAL THEORY OF 
 PROBABILITY, from the time of Pascal to that of Laplace. 
 8vo. $8. 
 The subject of this volume has high claims to consideration on account of 
 the subtle problems which it involves, the valuable contributions to analysis 
 which it has produced, its important practical applications, and the emi- 
 nence of those who have cultivated it. The subject claims all the interest 
 which illustrious names can confer : nearly every great mathematician 
 within the range of a century and a half comes up in the course of the 
 history. The present work, though principally a history, may claim the 
 title of a comprehensive treatise on the Theory of Probability, for it assumes 
 in the reader only so much knowledge as can be gained froyn an eletnentarv 
 
42 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 Todhunter (I.) — continued. 
 
 book on Algebra, and introduces him to almost every process and every 
 species of problem which the literature of the subject can furnish. Tlie 
 author has been careful to reproduce the essential elements of the original 
 works which he has analysed, and to corroborate his statements by exact 
 quotations from the originals, in the languages in which they tvere 
 published. 
 
 RESEARCHES IN THE CALCULUS OF VARIATIONS, 
 
 principally on the Theory of Discontinuous Solutions : an Essay 
 to which the Adams Prize was awarded in the University of Cam- 
 bridge in 1871. 8vo. 83*50. 
 
 The subject of this Essay was prescribed in the following terms by the 
 Examiners: — "A determination of the circumstances under which dis- 
 continuity of any kind presents itself in the solution of a problem of 
 maximum or minimum in the Calculus of Variations, and applications to 
 particular instances. It is expected that the discussioji of the instances 
 should be exemplified as far as possible geometrically, and that attention be 
 especially directed to cases of real or supposed failure of the Calculus." The 
 Essay, then, is mainly devoted to the consideration of discontinuous solutions , 
 but incidentally various other questions in the Calculus of Variations are 
 examined and elucidated. The author hopes that he has definitely contri- 
 buted to the extension and improvement of our knowledge of this refined 
 department of analysis. 
 
 Wilson (J. M.) — ELEMENTARY GEOMETRY. Angles, 
 Parallels, Triangles, Equivalent Figures, the Circle, and Propor- 
 tion. By J. M. Wilson, M. A., late Fellow of St. John's College, 
 Cambridge, and Mathematical Master of Rugby School. Second 
 Edition. Extra fcap. 8vo. f'i'25. 
 
 The distinctive features of this work are intended to be the following. 
 The classification of Theorems according to their subjects ; the separation 
 of Theorems and Problems ; the use of hypothetical const, ructions ; the 
 
MA THEM A TICS. 43 
 
 5 
 
 adoption of independent proofs "where they are possible and simple ; the 
 introduction of the terms locus, projection, Sec. ; the importance given to 
 the notion of direction as the property of a straight line ; the intermixing 
 of exercises, classified according to the methods adopted for their solution ; 
 the diminution of the member of Theorems.; the compression of proofs, 
 especially in the later parts of the book ; the tacit, instead of the explicit, 
 reference to axioms ; and the treatment of parallels. " The methods em- 
 ployed have the great merit of suggesting a ready application to the solution 
 of fresh problems P — G uardian. 
 
 ELEMENTARY GEOMETRY. PART II. (separately). The Circle 
 and Proportion. By J. M. WILSON, M.A. Extra fcap. 8vo. 
 75 Cents. 
 
 SOLID GEOMETRY AND CONIC SECTIONS. With Appen- 
 dices on Transversals and Harmonic Division. For the use of 
 Schools. By J. M.Wilson, M.A. Extra fcap. 8 vo. $1-25. 
 
 This work is an endeavour to introduce into schools some portions of 
 Solid Geometry which are now very little read in England. The first 
 twenty-one Propositions of Euclid's Eleventh Book are usually all the 
 Solid Geometry that a boy reads till he meets with the subject again in the 
 course of his analytical studies. And this is a matter of regret, because 
 this part of Geometry is specially valuable and attractive. In it the atten- 
 tion of the student is strongly called to the subject matter of the reasoning : 
 the geometrical imagination is exercised ; the methods employed in it 
 arc more ingenious than those in Plane Geometry, and have greater diffi- 
 culties to meet ; and the applications of it in- practice are more varied. 
 
 Wilson (W. P.)— A TREATISE ON DYNAMICS. By 
 
 W. P. Wilson, M.A., Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, 
 and Professor of Mathematics in Queen's College, Belfast. 8vo. 
 
 $3- 
 "This treatise supplies a great educationa, need.'" — Educational 
 Times. 
 
44 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 Wolstenholme. — a book of mathematical 
 
 PROBLEMS, on Subjects included in the Cambridge Course. 
 By Joseph Wolstenholme, Fellow of Christ's College, some- 
 time Fellow of St. John's College, and lately Lecturer in Mathe- 
 matics at Christ's College. Crown 8vo. cloth. §3. 
 
 Contents: — Geometry {Euclid) — Algebra — Plane Trigono?nelry — 
 Geometrical Conic Sections — Analytical Conic Sections — Theory of Equa- 
 tions — Differential Calculus — Integral Calculus — Solid Geometry — Statics 
 — Eleme7itary Dynamics — Newton — Dynamics of a Point — Dynamics of 
 a Rigid Body — Hydrostatics — Geometrical Optics — Spherical Trigonometry 
 and Plane Astronomy. ii Judicious, symmetrical, and well arranged." — 
 Guardian. 
 
SCIENCE. 
 
 45 
 
 SCIENCE. 
 
 ELEMENTARY CLASS-BOOKS. 
 
 The importance of Science as an element of sound educa- 
 tion is now generally acknowledged ; and accordingly it 
 is obtaining a prominent place in the ordinary course of 
 school instruction. It is the intention of the Publishers to 
 produce a complete series of Scientific Manuals, affording 
 full and accurate elementary information, conveyed in clear 
 and lucid English. The authors are well known as among 
 the foremost men of their several departments ; and their 
 names form a ready guarantee for the high character of the 
 books. Subjoined is a list of those Manuals that have 
 already appeared, with a short account of each. Others 
 are in active preparation ; and the whole will constitute a 
 standard series specially adapted to the requirements of be- 
 ginners, whether for private study or for school instruction. 
 
 ASTRONOMY, by the Astronomer Royal. 
 
 POPULAR ASTRONOMY. With Illustrations. By G. B. 
 Airy, Astronomer Royal. Seventh and cheaper Edition. i8mo. 
 cloth. $1*50. 
 
 This work consists of six lectures, which are intended " to explain to 
 intelligent persons the principles on which the instruments of an Observa- 
 tory are constructed (omitting all details, so far as they are merely sub- 
 
46 ED UCA TIONAL B OKS. 
 
 Elementary Class- Books — continued. 
 
 sidiary), and the principles on which the observations made with these 
 instruments are treated for deduction of the distances and weights of the 
 bodies of the Solar System, and of a few stars, omitting all minutiae of 
 formiclce, and all troubleso?ne details of calculation." The speciality of this 
 volume is the direct reference of every step to the Observatory, and the full 
 description of the methods and instruments of observation. 
 
 ASTRONOMY. 
 
 MR. LOCKYER'S ELEMENTARY LESSONS IN ASTRO- 
 NOMY. With Coloured Diagram of the Spectra of the Sun, 
 Stars, and Nebulas, and numerous Illustrations. By J. Norman 
 Lockyer, F.R.S. Eighth Thousand. i8mo. §175. 
 The author has here aimed to give a connected view of the whole subject, 
 and to supply facts, and ideas founded on the facts, to serve as a basis for 
 subsequent study and discussion. The chapters treat of the Stars and 
 Nebula ; the Sun; the Solar System ; Apparent Movements of the Heavenly 
 Bodies ; the Measure?nent of Time; Light ; the Telescope and Spectroscope ; 
 Apparent Places of the Heavenly Bodies ; the Real Distances and Dimen- 
 sions; Universal Gravitation. The most recent astronomical discoveries 
 are incorporated. Mr. Lockyer 's work stipplements that of the Astronomer 
 Royal mentioned in the previous article. " The book is full, clear, sound, 
 and worthy of attention, not only as a popular exposition, but as a scientific 
 1 Index.' " — Athenaeum. " The most fascinating of elementary books 
 on the Sciences.'" — NONCONFORMIST. 
 
 QUESTIONS ON LOCKYER'S ELEMENTARY LESSONS 
 IN ASTRONOMY. For the use of Schools. By John Forbes- 
 Robertson. i8mo. cloth limp. 50 Cents. 
 
 PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S LESSONS IN ELEMENTARY 
 PHYSIOLOGY. With numerous Illustrations. ' By T. H. 
 Huxley, F.R.S., Professor of Natural History in the Royal School 
 of Mines. Twentieth Thousand. i8mo. cloth. Si'$o. 
 
SCIENCE. 47 
 
 Elementary Class-Books — continued. 
 
 This book describes and explains, in a series of graduated lessons, the 
 principles of Hitman Physiology ; or the Structure and Functions of the 
 Human Body. The first lesson supplies a general view of the subject. 
 This is followed by sections on the Vascular or Venous System, and the 
 Circulation ; the Blood and the Lymph ; Respiration ; Sources of Loss 
 and of Gain to the Blood; the Function of Alimentation ; Motion and 
 Locomotion; Sensations and Sensory Organs; the Organ of Sight ; the 
 Coalescence of Sensations with one another and with other States of Con- 
 sciousness ; the Nervous System and Lnnervation ; Histology, or the 
 Minute Structure of the Tissues. A Table of Anatomical and Physio- 
 logical Constants is appended. The lessons are fully illustrated by 
 numerous engravings. " Pure gold throughout ;" — GUARDIAN. " Un- 
 questionably the clearest and most complete elementary treatise on this 
 subject that we possess in any language." — Westminster Review. 
 
 QUESTIONS ON HUXLEY'S PHYSIOLOGY FOR SCHOOLS. 
 ByT. Alcock, M.D. iSmo. 50 Cents. 
 
 These Questions were drawn up as aids to the instruction of a class of 
 young people in Physiology. 
 
 BOTANY. 
 
 PROFESSOR OLIVER'S LESSONS IN ELEMENTARY 
 BOTANY. With nearly Two Hundred Illustrations. Twelfth 
 Thousand. i8mo. cloth. $i"50. 
 
 This book is designed to teach the Elements oj Botany on Professor 
 Henslow 's plan of selected Types and by the use of Schedules. The earlier 
 chapters, embracing the elements of Structural and Physiological Botany, 
 introduce us to the methodical study of the Ordinal Types. The con- 
 cluding chapters are entitled, "How to dry Plants" and "How to 
 describe Plants." A valuable Glossary is appended to the volume. In 
 the preparation of this work free use has been made of the manuscript 
 mato-ials of the late Professor Henslow. 
 
48 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 Elementary Class-Books — continued. 
 CHEMISTRY. 
 
 PROFESSOR ROSCOE'S LESSONS IN ELEMENTARY 
 CHEMISTRY, INORGANIC AND ORGANIC. By Henry 
 E. Roscoe, F.R. S., Professor of Chemistry in Owens College, 
 Manchester. With numerous Illustrations and Chromo-Litho of 
 the Solar Spectrum, and of the Alkalies and Alkaline Earths, 
 New Edition. Thirty-first Thousand. i8mo. cloth. $i'5o. 
 // has been the endeavotcr of the author to arrange the most important 
 facts and principles of Modern Chemistry in a plain but concise and 
 scientific form, suited to the present requirements of ele?nentary instruction. 
 For the purpose of facilitating the attainment of exactitude in the knowledge 
 of the subject, a series of exercises and questions upon the lessons have been 
 added. The metric system of weights and measures, and the centigrade 
 thermometric scale, are used throughout the work. The new Edition, 
 besides new wood-cuts, contains many additions and improvements, and 
 ■includes the ?nost important of the latest discoveries. " As a standard 
 general text-book it deserves to take a leading place" — Spectator. " We 
 unhesitatingly pronounce it the best of all our elementary treatises on 
 Chemistry. " — MEDICAL TIMES. 
 
 In ordering, please specify Macmillari 's Edition. 
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY FOR BEGINNERS. By Millicent 
 
 G. Fawcett. New Edition. i8mo. $i. 
 This work has been written mainly with the hope that a short and 
 elementary book might help to make Political Economy a more popular 
 study in boys' and girls' schools. In order to adapt the book especially for 
 school use, questions have been added at the end of each chapter. In the 
 new edition each page has been carefully revised, and at the end of each 
 chapter after the questions a few little puzzles have been added, which will 
 add interest to the book and teach the learner to think for himself. l ' Clear, 
 compact, and comprehensive."" — Daily News. " The relations of capital 
 and labour have never been more simply or more clearly expounded. " — 
 Contemporary Review. 
 
SCIENCE. 49 
 
 Elementary Class-Books — continued. 
 LOGIC. 
 
 ELEMENTARY LESSONS IN LOGIC ; Deductive and Induc- 
 tive, with copious Questions and Examples, and a Vocabulary of 
 Logical Terms. By W. Stanley Jevons, M. A., Professor of Logic 
 in Owens College, Manchester. Second Edition. i8mo. $1-25. 
 In preparing these Lessons the author has attempted to show that Logic, 
 even in its traditional form, can be made a highly useful subject of study, 
 and a pcnverjul means of mental exercise. With this view he has avoided 
 the use of superfluous technical terms, and has abstained from entering 
 into questions of a purely speculative or metaphysical character. For the 
 puerile illustrations too often found in works on Logic, examples drawn 
 from the distinct objects and ideas treated in the natural and experimental 
 sciences have been generally substituted. At the end of almost every 
 Lesson will be found rejerences to the works in which the student will most 
 profitably continue his reading of the subject treated, so that this little 
 volume may serve as a guide to a more extended course of study. The 
 Guardian thinks " nothing can be better for a school-book," and the 
 Athenaeum calls it "a manual alike simple, interesting, and scientific." 
 
 PHYSICS. 
 
 LESSONS IN ELEMENTARY PHYSICS. By Balfour 
 Stewart, F.R.S., Professor of Natural Philosophy in Owens 
 College, Manchester. With numerous Illustrations and Chromo- 
 liths of the Spectra of the Sun, Stars, and Nebube. Fifth Thou- 
 sand. 181110. $1*50. 
 A description, in an elementary manner, of the most important of those 
 laws which regulate the phenomena of nature. The active agents, heat, 
 light, electricity, etc., are regarded as varieties of energy, and the work is 
 so arranged that their relation to one another, looked at in this light, and 
 the paramount importance oj the laws of energy, are clearly bivught out. 
 The volume contains all the necessary illustrations, and a plate represent- 
 ing the Spectra of Sun, Stars, and Nebulce, forms a frontispiece. The 
 Educational Times calls this " the beau ideal of a scientific text-book, 
 clear, accurate, and thorough." 
 
 D 
 
50 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 MANUALS FOR STUDENTS. 
 
 Flower (W. H.)— AN introduction to the OSTE- 
 OLOGY OF THE MAMMALIA. Being the substance of 
 the Course of Lectures delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons 
 of England in 1870. By W. H. Flower, F.R.S., F.R.C.S., 
 Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology. 
 With numerous Illustrations. Globe 8vo. #2. 
 
 Although the present work contains the substance of a Course of Lectures, 
 the form has been changed, so as the better to adapt it as a handbook for 
 students. Theoretical views have been almost entirely excluded: and while 
 it is impossible in a scientific treatise to avoid the employment of technical 
 terms, it has been the author's endeavour to use 710 more than absolutely 
 necessary, and to exercise due care in selecting only those that seem most 
 appropi'iate, or which have received the sanction of general adoption, With 
 a very few exceptions the illustrations have been drawn expressly for i 
 work from specimens in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. 
 
 Hooker (Dr.) — THE STUDENT'S FLORA OF THE 
 BRITISH ISLANDS. By J. D. Hooker, C.B., F.R.S., 
 M.D., D.C.L., Director of the Royal Gardens, Kevv. Globe 
 8vo. 83-50. 
 
 The object of this work is to supply students and field-botanists with a 
 fuller account of the Plants of the British Islands than the manuals 
 hitherto in use aim at giving. T/ie Ordinal, Genei'ic, and Spa. 
 characters have been re-written, and are to a great extent original, and 
 drawn from living or dried ipecimejts, or both. " Cannot fail to perfectly 
 fulfil the purpose for which it is intended." — Land and Water 
 " Containing the fullest and most accurate manual of the kind that has yet 
 appeared:"— P all Mall Gazette. 
 
SCIENCE. 
 
 5* 
 
 Oliver (Professor).— first book of Indian botany. 
 
 By Daniel Oliver, F.R.S., F.L.S., Keeper of the Herbarium 
 and Library of the Royal Gardens, Kew, and Professor of Botany 
 in University College, London. With numerous Illustrations, 
 Extra fcap. 8vo. $2 "50. 
 
 This manual is, in substance, the author s "Lessons in Elementary- 
 Botany" adapted for use in India. In preparing it he has had in vino 
 the want, often felt, of some handy resume of Indian Botany, which might 
 be serviceable not only to residents of India, but also to any one about tt 
 proceed thither, desirous of getting some preliminary idea of the Botany ot 
 that country. " It contains a well-digested summary of all essential know- 
 ledge pertaining to Indian botany, wrought out in accordance with the best 
 principles of scientific arrangement." — Allen's Indian Mail. 
 
 Other volumes of these Manuals will follow. 
 
 Bail (R. S., A.M.)— EXPERIMENTAL MECHANICS 
 A Course of Lectures delivered at the Royal College of Science 
 for Ireland. By Robert Stawell Ball, A.M., Professor of 
 Applied Mathematics and Mechanics in the Royal College of 
 Science for Ireland (Science and Art Department). Royal 8vo. 
 $6. 
 
 T/i£ author's aim has been to create in the mind of the student physical 
 ideas corresponding to theoretical laws, and thus to produce a work which 
 may be regarded either as a supplement or an introduction to manuals of 
 tlworetic mechanics. To realize this design, the copious use of experimental 
 illustrations was necessary. The apparatus used in the Lectures, and 
 figured in the volume, has been principally built upfront Professor Willis's 
 most admirable system. In the selection of the subjects, the question of 
 practical utility has in many cases been regarded as the one of paramount 
 
 D 2 
 
52 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 importance. The elementary truths of Mechanics are too well known to 
 admit of novelty, but it is believed that the mode of treatment which is 
 adopted is more or less original. This is especially the case in the Lectures 
 relating to friction, to the mechanical powers, to the strength of timber and 
 structures, to the laws of motion, and to the pendulum. The illustrations, 
 drawn from the apparatus, are nearly all original, and are beautifully 
 executed. 
 
 Cooke (Josiah P., Jun.)— first PRINCIPLES OF 
 CHEMICAL PHILOSOPHY. By Josiah P. Cooke, Jun., 
 Ervine Professor of Chemistry and Mineralogy in Harvard College. 
 Crown 8vo. 
 
 * 
 
 The object of the author in this book is to present the philosophy of 
 Chemistry in such a form that it can be made with profit the subject of 
 College recitations, and furnish the teacher with the means of testing the 
 student" 1 s faithfulness and ability. With this view the subject has been 
 developed in a logical order, and the principles of the science are taught 
 independently of the experimental evidence on which they rest. 
 
 RoSCOe (H. E.)— SPECTRUM ANALYSIS. Six Lectures, 
 with Appendices, Engravings, Maps, and Chromolithographs. 
 By H. E. Roscoe, F.R.S., Professor of Chemistry in Owens 
 College, Manchester. Royal 8vo. $9, 
 
 A Second Edition of these popular Lectures, containing all the 
 most recent discoveries and several additional Illustrations. " In six 
 
 .lectures he has given the history of the discovery and set forth the facts 
 relating to the analysis of light in such a way that any reader of 
 ordinary intelligence and information wilt be able to understand what 
 1 Spectrum Analysis' is, and what are its claims to rank among the most 
 signal triumphs of science of which even this century can boast." — NON- 
 CONFORMIST. " The illustrations— no unimportant part of a book on 
 such a subject— are marvels of wood-printing, and reflect the clearness 
 which is the distinguishing merit of Mr. Roscoe s explanations." — 
 Saturday Review. " The lectures themselves furnish a most ad- 
 
SCIENCE. 53 
 
 mirable elementary treatise on the subject, whilst by the insertion in 
 appendices to each lecture of extracts Jrom the most important published 
 memoirs, the author has rendered it equally valuable as a text-book 
 for advanced students.''' — Westminster Review. 
 
 Thorpe (T. E.)_ A SERIES OF CHEMICAL PROBLEMS, 
 for use in Colleges and Schools. Adapted for the preparation of 
 Students for the Government, Science, and Society of Arts Exa- 
 minations. With a Preface by Professor Roscoe. i8mo. 
 cloth. 50 Cents. 
 
 In the Preface Dr. Roscoe says — " My experience has led me to feel more 
 and more strongly that by no method can accuracy in a kiwwledge of 
 chemistry be more surely secured than by attention to the working of well- 
 selected problems, and Dr. Thorpe's thorough acquaintance with the wants 
 of the student is a sufficient guarantee that this selection has beeji carefully 
 made, /intend largely to use these questions in my own classes, and I ca ft 
 confidently recommend them to all teachers and students of the science" 
 
 WurtZ.— A HISTORY OF CHEMICAL THEORY, from the 
 Age of Lavoisier down to the present time. By Ad. Wurtz. 
 Translated by Henry Watts, F.R.S. Crown 8vo. $2. 
 
 " The treatment of the subject is admirable, and the translator has 
 evidently done his duty most efficiently."— Westminster Review. 
 " The discourse, as a resume of chemical theory and research, unites 
 singular luminousness and grasp. A few judicious notes are added by the 
 translator" — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
54 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 Abbott. — A SHAKESPEARIAN GRAMMAR. An Attempt to 
 illustrate some of the Differences between Elizabethan and Modern 
 English. By the Rev. E. A. Abbott, M.A., Head Master of the 
 City of London School. For the Use of Schools. New and En- 
 larged Edition. Extra fcap. 8vo. $175. 
 
 The object of this work is to furnish students of Shakespeare and Bacon 
 with a short systematic account of some points of difference between Eliza- 
 bethan syntax and our own. A section on Prosody is added, and Notes 
 and Questions. The success which has attended the First and Second 
 Editions of the "Shakespfbrian Grammar," and the demand for a 
 Third Edition within a year of the publication of the First, have encouraged 
 the author to endeavour to make the work someivhat more useful, and to 
 render it, as far as possible, a complete book of reference for all diffiailties of 
 Shakespearian syntax or prosody. For this purpose the whole of Shake- 
 speare has been re-read, and an attempt has been made to include within 
 %is Edition the explanation of every idiomatic difficulty that comes within 
 'he province of a grammar as distinct from a glossary. The great object * 
 "ring to make a itseful book of reference for students, and especially for 
 * asses in schools, several Plays have been indexed so fully that with the aid 
 a glossary and historical notes the references tuill serve for a co?nplete com- 
 mentary. " A oitical inquiry, conducted with great skill and knoxvledge, 
 ind with all the appliances of modern philology .... We venture to believe 
 that those who consider themselves most proficient as Shakespearians will 
 find something to learn from its pages."— V all Mall Gazette. 
 " Valuable not only as an aid to the critical study of Shakespeare, but 
 as tending to familiarize the reader with Elizabethan English in 
 general." — Atheisleum. 
 
MISCELLANE O US. 5 5 
 
 Bates.— A CLASS-BOOK OF GEOGRAPHY. Adapted to the 
 recent Programme of the Royal Geographical Society. By H. 
 W. Bates, Assistant Secretary to the Royal Geographical Society. 
 
 [In the Press. 
 
 Berners. — FIRST LESSONS ON HEALTH. By J. Ber- 
 ners. i8mo. 
 
 This little book consists of the notes of a number of simple lessons on 
 sanitary subjects given to a class in a National School, and listened to 
 with great interest and intelligence. They have been made as easy and 
 familiar as possible, and as far as they go may be deemed perfectly trust- 
 worthy. One of the author's maiti attempts has been, to translate the 
 concise and accurate language of science into the colloquial nursery 
 dialect comprehensible to children. The book will be found of the highest 
 value to all who have the training of children, who, for zuaut of knowing 
 what this little book teaches, too often grow tip to be unhealthy, defective 
 men and women. The Contents are, — I. Introductory. II. Fresh Air. 
 III. Food and Drink. IV. Warmth. V. Cleanliness. VI. light. 
 VII. Exercise. VIII Rest. 
 
 Besant. — studies in early French poetry. By 
 
 Walter Besant, M.A. Crown 8vo. §2-50. 
 
 A sort of impression rests on most minds that French literature begins 
 with the il siecle de Louis Quatorze ;" any previous literature being for 
 the most part unknown or ignored. Few know anything of the enormous 
 literary activity that began in the thirteenth century, was carried on by 
 Rulebeuf, Marie de France, Gaston de Foix, Thibault de Champagne, 
 and Lorris ; was fostered by Charles of Orleans, by Margaret of Valois, 
 by Francis the First ; that gave a crowd of versifiers to France, enriched, 
 strengthened, developed, and fixed the French language, and prepared the 
 way for Corneille and for Racine. The present work aims to afford 
 information and direction touching these early efforts of France in poetical 
 literature. ' ' In one moderately sized volume he has contrived to introduce 
 us to the very best, if not to all of the early French poets ." — Athenaeum. 
 "Industry, the insight of a scholar, and a genuine enthusiasm for his 
 subject, combine to make it of very considerable value.'''' — Spectator. 
 
56 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 CAMEOS FROM ENGLISH HISTORY— See Yonge (C. M.). 
 
 Delamotte.— A BEGINNER'S DRAWING BOOK, By P. H. 
 Delamotte, F.S.A. Progressively arranged, with upwards of 
 Fifty Plates. Crown 8vo. Stiff covers. J $ Cents. 
 
 This work is intended to give such instruction to Beginners in Drawing, 
 and to place before them copies so easy, that they may not find any obstacle 
 in making the first step. Thenceforward the lessons are gradually 
 progressive. " Mechanical improvements too have lent their aid. The whole 
 of the Plates have been engraved by a new process, by means of which a 
 varying depth of tone — up to the present time the distinguishing character- 
 istic of pencil drawing — has been imparted to woodcuts. ' c We have seen 
 and examined a great many drawing-books, but the one now before us strikes 
 us as being the best of them all.'''' — Illustrated Times. "A concise, 
 simple, and thoroughly practical work. The letter-press is throughout 
 intelligible and to the point ." — Guardian. 
 
 D'Oursy and Feillet.— a FRENCH GRAMMAR AT 
 
 SIGHT, on an entirely new method. By A. D'Oursy and 
 A. Feillet. Especially adapted for Pupils preparing for Exa- 
 mination. Fcap. Svo. cloth extra. $i. 
 
 The method followed in this volume consists in presenting the grammar 
 as much as possible by synoptical tables, which, striking the eye at once, and 
 following throughout the same order — "used — not used;" "changes — 
 does not change " — are easily remembered. The parsing tables will enable 
 the pupil to parse easily from the beginning. The exercises consist of 
 translations from French into English, and from English into French ; 
 and of a number of grammatical questions. 
 
 Freeman (Edward A.) — OLD- ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 By Edward A. Freeman, D.C.L., late Fellow of Trinity 
 College, Oxford. With Five Coloured Maps. Second Edition. 
 Extra fcap. 8vo. half-bound. $175. 
 
 The rapid sale of the first edition and the tmiversal approval with which 
 it has been received, shotu that the author 's convictions have been zvell 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 57 
 
 founded, that his views have been widely accepted both by teachers and 
 learners, and that the work is eminently calculated to serve the purpose for 
 which it was intended. Although full of instruction and calculated highly 
 to interest and even fascinate children^ it is a work which may be and has 
 been used with prof t and pleasure by all. "I have, I hope " t lie author 
 says, * ' shown that it is perfectly easy to teach children, from the very 
 first, to distinguish true history alike from legend and from wilful inven- 
 tion, and also to understan i the nature of historical authorities and to weigh 
 one statement against another. I have throughout striven to connect the 
 history of England with the general history of civilized Europe, and 
 I have especially tried to make the book serve as an incentive to a 
 more accurate study of historical geography. " In the present edition the 
 whole has been carefully revised, and such improvements as suggested 
 themselves have been introduced. ' ' The book indeed is full of instruction 
 and interest to students of all ages, and he must be a well-informed man 
 indeed who will not rise from its perusal with clearer and more accurate 
 ideas of a too much neglected portion of English History." — SPECTATOR. 
 
 Hales.— LONGER ENGLISH POEMS, with Notes, Philological 
 and Explanatory, and an Introduction on the Teaching of English. 
 Chiefly for use in Schools. Edited by J. W. Hales, M.A., late 
 Fellow and Assistant Tutor of Christ's College, Cambridge, 
 Lecturer in English Literature and Classical Composition at King's 
 College School, London, &c. &c. Extra fcap. 8vo. <$i'75- 
 
 This work has been in preparation for some years, and part of it has 
 been used as a class-book by the Editor. It is intended as an aid to the 
 Critical study of English Literature, and contains one or more of the 
 larger poems, each complete, of prominent English authors, from Spenser 
 to Shelley, including Bums' "Cotters' Saturday Night" and " Twa 
 Dogs." In all casts the original spelling and the text of the best editions 
 have been given ; only in one or two poems has it been deemed necessary 
 to make slight omissions and changes, " that the reverence due to boys 
 might be well observed." The Introduction consists of Suggestions on 
 Teaching of English. The latter half of the volume is occupied with 
 copious notes, critical, etymological, and explanatory, calculated to give 
 
58 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 the learner much insight into the structure and connection of the English 
 tongue. An Index to the notes is appended. 
 
 Helfenstein (James). — a COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR 
 OF THE TEUTONIC LANGUAGES. Being at the same 
 time a Historical Grammar of the English Language, and comprising 
 Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, Early English, Modern English, Icelandic 
 (Old Norse), Danish, Swedish, Old High German, Middle High 
 German, Modern German, Old Saxon, Old Frisian, and Dutch. 
 By James Helfenstein, Ph.D. 8vo. $5. 
 
 This work traces the different stages of develop?nent through which 
 the various Teutonic languages have passed, and the laws which have 
 regulated their growth. The reader is thus enabled to study the relation 
 which these laugttages bear to one another, and to the English language in 
 particular, to which special attention is devoted throughout. In the 
 chapters on Ancient and Middle Teutonic languages no grammatical form 
 is o?nitted the knowledge of which is required for the study of ancient 
 literature, whether Gothic or Anglo-Saxon or Early English. To each 
 chapter is prefixed a sketch showing the relation of the Teutonic to the 
 cognate languages, Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit. Those who have mastered 
 the book will be in a position to proceed with intelligence to the more 
 elaborate works of Grimm, Bopp, Pott, Schleicher, and others. 
 
 Hole. — A GENEALOGICAL STEMMA OF THE KINGS OF 
 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. By the Rev. C. Hole. On 
 Sheet. 40 Cents. 
 
 The different families are printed hi distinguishing colours, thus 
 facilitating reference. 
 
 A BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. ^Compiled and 
 Arranged by Charles Hole, M.A., Trinity College, Cambridge. 
 Second Edition, i8mo. neatly and strongly bound in cloth. 81*25. 
 
 The inquiry is frequently made concerning an eminent man, when did 
 he live, or for what was he celebrated, or what biographies have we about 
 him ? Such information is concisely supplied in this Dictionary. It contains 
 
MISCELLANEO US. 5 9 
 
 more than 18,000 names. Extreme care has been bestowed on the verifica- 
 tion of the dates, and thus nmnerous errors currejit in previous works have 
 been corrected. Its size adapts it for the desk, portmanteau, or pocket. 
 "An invaluable addition to our manuals of reference, and from its 
 moderate price cannot fail to become as popular as it is useful." —Times. 
 
 Jephson.— SHAKESPEARE'S "TEMPEST." With Glossarial 
 and Explanatory Not2s. By the Rev. J. M. Jephson. Second 
 Edition. i8mo. 50 Cents. 
 
 It is important to find some substitute for classical study, and it is 
 believed that such a substitute may be found in the Plays of Shakespeare. 
 For this purpose the present edition of the " Tempest" has been prepared. 
 The introduction treats briefly of the value of the study of language, the 
 fable of the play, and other points. The notes are intended to teach the 
 student to analyse every obscure sentence and trace out the logical sequence 
 of 'the poet 's thoughts ; to point out the rules of Shakespeare 's versification , 
 to explain obsolete words and meanings ; and to guide the student's taste by 
 directing his attention to such passages as seem especially worthy of note for 
 their poetical beauty or truth to nature. The text is in the main founded 
 upon that of the first collected edition of Shakespeare 's Plays. 
 
 M'Cosh (Rev. Principal). — For other Works by the same 
 Author, see Philosophical Catalogue. 
 
 THE LAWS OF DISCURSIVE THOUGHT. Being a Text-Book 
 of Formal Logic. By James M'Cosh, D.D., LL.D. 8vo. 
 
 In this treatise the Notion {with the Term and the Relation of Thought 
 to language,) will be found to occupy a larger relative place than in any 
 logical work written since the time of the famous "Art of Thinking." 
 1 ' We heartily welco?)ie his book as one which is likely to be of great value 
 in Colleges and Schools." — ATHENAEUM. 
 
 Morris.— HISTORICAL OUTLINES OF ENGLISH ACCI- 
 DENCE, comprising Chapters on the History and Development 
 
60 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 of the Language, and on Word-formation. By the Rev. Richard 
 Morris, LL.D., Member of the Council of the Philol. Soc., 
 Lecturer on English Language and Literature in King's College 
 School, Editor of " Specimens of Early English," &c. &c. Fcap. 
 8vo. $175. 
 
 Dr. Morris has endeavoured to write a work which can be profitably 
 used by students and by the tipper forms in our public schools. English 
 Grammar, he believes, without a reference to the older forms, must appear 
 altogether anomalous, inconsistent, and unintelligible. His almost un- 
 equalled knozcledge of early English Literature renders him peculiarly 
 qualified to write a work of this kind. In the writing of this volume, 
 moreover, he has taken advantage of the researches into our language 
 made by all the most emine?it scholars in England, America, and en the 
 Continent. The author shows the place of English among the languages 
 of the world, expounds clearly and with great minuteness "Grimm's 
 Law" gives a brief history of the English language and an account op 
 the various dialects, investigates the history and principles of Phonology, 
 Orthography, Accent, and Etymology, and devotes several chapters to the 
 consideration of the various Parts of Speech, and the final one to Deri- 
 vation and Word- Formation. " 7/ makes an era in the study of the 
 English tongue." — Saturday Review. "He has done his work with 
 
 o o 
 
 a fdness and completeness that leave nothing to be desired." — Non- 
 conformist. "A genuine and sound book." — Athenaeum. 
 
 6' 
 
 Oppen. — FRENCH READER. For the Use of Colleges and 
 Schools. Containing a graduated Selection from modem Authors 
 in Prose and Verse ; and copious Notes, chiefly Etymological. By 
 Edward A. Oppen. Fcap. Svo. cloth. %\ '50. 
 
 This is a Selection from the best modern authors of France. Its dis- 
 tinctive feature consists in its etymological notes, connecting French with 
 the classical and modern languages, including the Celtic. This subject 
 has hitherto been little discussed ruen by the best-educated' teachers. 
 
 SHILLING BOOK OF GOLDEN DEEDS. See Yonge (C. M.). 
 
MISCELLANE OUS. 6 1 
 
 Sonnenschein and Meiklejohn. — THE ENGLISH 
 METHOD OF TEACHING TO READ. By A. Sonnenschein 
 and J. M. D. Meiklejohn, M.A. Fcap. 8vo. 40 Cents. 
 
 Comprising : 
 
 The Nursery Book, containing all the Two-Letter Words in the 
 Language. (Also in Large Type on Sheets for School 
 Walls.) 
 
 The First Course, consisting of Short Vowels with Single 
 Consonants. 
 
 The Second Course, with Combinations and Bridges, con- 
 sisting of Short Vowels with Double Consonants. 
 
 The Third and Fourth Courses, consisting of Long 
 Vowels, and all the Double Vowels in the Language. 
 
 A Series of Books in which an attempt is made to place the process of 
 learning to read English on a scientific basis. This has been done by 
 separating the perfectly regular parts of the language from the irregular, 
 and by giving the req^dar parts to the learner in the exact order of their 
 difficulty. The child begins with the smallest possible element, and adds to 
 that element one letter— in only one of its functions — at one time. Thus 
 the sequence is natural aud.complete. ' * These are admirable books, because 
 they are constructed on a principle, and that the simplest principle on which 
 it is possible to learn to read English." — SPECTATOR. 
 
 Thring. — Works by Edward Thring, M.A., Head Master of 
 Uppingham. 
 
 THE ELEMENTS OF GRAMMAR TAUGHT IN ENGLISH, 
 with Questions. Fourth Edition. i8mo. 75 Cents. 
 
 This little work is chiefly intended for teachers and learners. It took its 
 rise from questionings in National Schools, and the whole of the first part 
 is merely the writing out in order the answers to questions which have been 
 used already with success. A chapter on Learning Language is especially 
 addressed to teachers. 
 
62 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 Thri ng — continued. 
 
 THE CHILD'S GRAMMAR. Being the Substance of "The 
 Elements of Grammar taught in English," adapted for the Use of 
 Junior Classes. A New Edition. i8mo. 40 Cents. 
 
 SCHOOL SONGS. A Collection of Songs for Schools. With the 
 Music arranged for four Voices. Edited by the Rev. E. Thring 
 and H. Riccius. Folio. 
 
 There is a tendency in schools to stereotype the for ?ns of life. Any genial 
 solvent is valuable. Ganies do ?nuch ; but games do not penetrate to 
 domestic life, and are much limited by age. Music supplies the want, 
 TJie collection includes the " Agnus Dei," Tennyson" 1 s "Light Brigade," 
 Macaulafs " Ivry," &c. among other pieces. 
 
 Trench (Archbishop). — HOUSEHOLD BOOK OF ENG- 
 LISH POETRY. Selected and Arranged, with Notes, by 
 R. C. Trench, D.D., Archbishop of Dublin. Extra fcap. 8vo. 
 82*25. Second Edition. 
 
 This volume is called a ll Household Book,'''' by this na?ne implying that 
 it is a book for all — that there is nothing in it to prevent it from being 
 confidently placed in the hands of every member of the hotcsehold. Speci- 
 mens of all classes of poetry are given, including selections from living 
 authors. The Editor has aimed to produce a book " which the emigrant, 
 finding room for little not absolutely fiecessary, might yet find room for 
 in his trtmk, and the traveller in his knapsack, and that on some narrow 
 shelves where there are fetu books this might be one." " The Archbishop 
 has conferred in this delightful volume an i??iportant gift on the whole 
 English-speaking population of the world." — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 ON THE STUDY OF WORDS. Lectures addressed (originally) 
 to the Pupils at the Diocesan Training School, Winchester. 
 Thirteenth Edition. Revised and Enlarged. Fcap. 8vo. §r'25. 
 
 Tliis, it is believed, was probably the first work which drew general 
 attention in this country to the importance and interest of the critical and 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 63 
 
 historical study of English. It still retains its place as one of the most 
 successful, if not the only, exponent of those aspects of words of which it 
 treats. The stibjects of the several Lectures are, (i) Introduction ; (2) 
 On the Poetry of Woi'ds ; (3) On the Morality of Words; (4) On the 
 History of Words ; (5) On the Rise of New Words ; (6) On the Dis- 
 tinction of Words ; (7) The Schoolmaster 's Use of Words. 
 
 ENGLISH, PAST AND PRESENT. Seventh Edition, revised 
 and improved. Fcap. 8vo. $1*25. 
 
 This is a series of Eight Lectures, in the first of which Archbishop 
 Trench considers the English language as it ncrw is, decomposes some 
 specimens of it, and thus discovers of what element it is compact. In 
 the second Lecture he considers what the language might have been if the 
 Norman Conquest had never taken place. In the follozviug six Lectures 
 he institutes from various points of view a comparison between the present 
 language and the past, points out gains which it has made, losses which it 
 has endured, and generally calls attention to some of the more important 
 changes through which it has passed, or is at present passing. 
 
 A SELECT GLOSSARY OF ENGLISH WORDS, used formerly 
 in Senses Different from their Present. Third Edition. Fcap. 
 8vo. $1. 
 
 This alphabetically arranged Glossary contains many of the most im- 
 portant of those English words which in the course of time have gradually 
 changed their meanings. The author's object is to point out some of these 
 changes, to suggest how ?nany more there may be, to show Juno slight and 
 subtle, while yet most real, these changes have often been, to trace here and 
 there the progressive steps by which the old meaning has been put off and the 
 new put on, — the exact ?-oad which a word has travelled. The author thus 
 hopes to render some assistance to those who regard this as a serviceable 
 discipline in the training of their own minds or the minds of others. 
 Although the book is in the form of a Glossary, it will be found as interest- 
 ing as a series of brief well-told biographies. 
 
64 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 Yonge (Charlotte M.)— a parallel history of 
 
 FRANCE AND ENGLAND : consisting of Outlines and Dates. 
 By Charlotte M. Yonge, Author of "The Heir of Redclyffe," 
 " Cameos of English History," &c., &c. Oblong 4to, $i"25- 
 
 This tabular history has been drawn up to supply a want felt by many 
 teachei's of some means of making their pupils realize what events in the 
 tzvo countries were contemporary. A skeleton narrative has been con- 
 structed of the chief transactions in either country, placing a column 
 between for what affected both alike, by which means it is hoped that young 
 people may be assisted in grasping the mutual relation of events. " We 
 can imagine few more really advantageous courses of historical study for 
 a young mind than going carefully and steadily through Miss Yonge' 's 
 excellent little book.'" — Educational Times. 
 
 CAMEOS FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. From Rollo to Edward 
 II. By the Author of "The Heir of Redclyffe." Extra fcap. 
 8vo. Second Edition, enlarged. Si '50. 
 
 The endeavour has not been to chronicle facts, but to put together a series 
 of pictures of persons and events, so as to arrest the attention, and give 
 some individuality and distinctness to the recollection, by gathering together 
 details at the most memorable moments. The " Cameos' 1 '' are intended as 
 a book for young people just beyond the elementary histories of England, 
 and able to enter in some degree into the real spirit of events, and to be 
 struck with characters and scenes presented in some relief " Instead of 
 dry details," says the Nonconformist, "we have living pictures, faith- 
 ful, vivid, and striking.'''' 
 
 A Second Series of CAMEOS FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 The Wars in France. Extra fcap. Svo. pp. xi. 415. 81*50. 
 
 This new volume, closing with the Treaty of Arras, is the history of the 
 struggles of Plautageuet and Valois. It refers, accordingly, to one of the 
 most stirring epochs in the mediceval era, including the battle of Poictiers, 
 the great Schism of the West, the Lollards, Agincourt and Joan of Arc. 
 The authoress reminds her readers that she aims merely at " collecting from 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 65 
 
 Yonge (Charlotte M.) — continued. 
 
 the best authorities such details as may present scenes and personages to the 
 eye in some fulness ;" her Cameos area "collection of historical scenes 
 and portraits such as the young might find it difficult to form for themselves 
 without access to a very complete library." " Though mainly intended" 
 says the John Bull, " for young readers, they will, ifzve mistake not, be 
 found very acceptable to those of more mature years, and the life and 
 reality imparted to the dry bones of history cannot fail to be attractive to 
 readers of every age." 
 
 EUROPEAN HISTORY. Narrated in a Series of Historical Selec- 
 tions from the Best Authorities. Edited and arranged by E. M. 
 Sewell and C. M. Yonge. First Series, 1003 — 11 54. Crown 
 8vo. Si 75. Second Series, 108S— 1228. Crown Svo. #1 75. 
 
 When young children have acquired the outlines of History from abridg- 
 ments and catechisms, and it becomes desirable to give a more enlarged 
 view of the subject, in order to render it really useful and interesting, a 
 difficulty often arises as to the choice of books. Two courses are open, eii/ter 
 to lake a general and consequently dry history of facts, such as Russets 
 Modern Europe, or to choose some work treating of a particular period or 
 subject, such as the 'works of Macau lay and Froude. The former course 
 usually renders. history uninteresting; the latter is unsatisfactory because 
 it is not sufficiently comprehensive. To remedy this difficulty, selections, 
 continuous and chronological, have, in the present volume-, been taken from 
 the larger works of Freeman, Milman, Palgrave, and others, which may 
 serve as distinct landmarks of historical reading. " We know of scarcely 
 anything," says the GUARDIAN of this volume, "which is so likely to raise 
 to a higher level the average standard of English education." 
 
 THE ABRIDGED BOOK OF GOLDEN DEEDS. A Reading 
 Book for Schools and General Readers. By the Author of " The 
 Heir of Redely ffe." i8mo. cloth. 50 Cents. 
 
 A record of some of the good and great deeds of all time, abridged from 
 the larger work of the same author in the Golden Treasury Series. 
 
66 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 DIVINITY. 
 
 %* For other Works by these Authors, see Theological Catalogue. 
 
 Abbott (Rev. E. A.)— BIBLE LESSONS. By the Rev. 
 E. A. Abbott, M.A., Head Master of the City of London 
 School. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. Si '50. 
 
 This book is written in the form of dialogues carried en between a 
 teacher and pupil, and its main object is to make the scholar think for 
 himself The great bulk of the dialogues represents in the spirit, and 
 often in the words, the religious instruction which the author has been 
 in the habit of giving to the Fifth and Sixth Forms of the City of London 
 School. The Author has endeavoured to make the dialogues thoroug 
 unsectarian. " Wise, suggestive,' and really profound initiation into religious 
 thought. ," — Guardian. " I think nobody cotdd read them without being 
 both the better for them himself, and being also able to see how this difficult 
 duty of imparting a sound religious education may be effected." — From 
 Bishop of St. David's Speech at the Education Conference 
 at Abergwilly. 
 
 Arnold.— A BIBLE-READING BOOK FOR SCHOOLS. The 
 Great Prophecy of Israel's Restoration (Isaiah, Chapters 
 40 — 66). Arranged and Edited for Young Learners. By Mat- 
 thew Arnold, D.C.L., formerly Professor of Poetry in the 
 University of Oxford, and Fellow of Oriel. i8mo. cloth. 50 Cents. 
 
 " Schools for the people," the power of letters — which embraces nothing 
 less than the whole history of the human spirit — has hardly been brought 
 
DIVINITY. 67 
 
 to bear at all. Mr. Arnold, in this little volume, attempts to remedy this 
 defect, by doing for the Bible what has been so abundantly done for Greek 
 and Roman, as well as English authors, viz. — taking " some whole, of 
 admirable literary beauty in style and treatment, of manageable length, 
 within defined limits ; and presenting this to the learner in an intelligible 
 shape, adding such explanations and helps as mav enable him to grasp 
 it as a connected and complete work' 1 Mr. Arnold thinks it clear that 
 nothing could more exactly suit the purpose than what the Old Testament 
 gives us in the last twenty-s°ven chapters of the Book of Isaiah, beginning 
 " Comfort ye" &°c. He has endeavoured to present a perfectly correct 
 text, maintaining at the same time the unparalleled balance and rhythm oj 
 the Authorised Version. In an Introductory note, Mr. Arnold briefly 
 sums up the events of Jeivish history to the starting-point of the chapters 
 chosen ; and in the copious notes appended, ez>ery assistance is given to the 
 complete understanding of the text. There is nothing in the book to hinder 
 the adherent of any school of interpretation or of religious belief from 
 using it, and from putting it into the hands of children. The Preface 
 contains much that is interesting and valuable on the relation of " letters' 1 '' 
 to education, of the principles that ought to guide the makers of a new 
 version of the Bible, and other important matters. Altogether, it is 
 believed, the volume will be found to form a text-book of the greatest value 
 to schools of all classes. "Mr. Arnold has done the greatest possible service 
 to the public. We never read any translation of Isaiah which interfered 
 so little with the musical rhythm and associations of our English Bible 
 translation, -while doing so much to display the missing links in the con- 
 nection of the parts." — Spectator. 
 
 Cheyne (T. K.)— THE BOOK OF ISAIAH CHRONO- 
 LOGICALLY ARRANGED. An Amended Version, with 
 Historical and Critical Introductions and Explanatory Notes. By 
 T. K. Cheyne, M. A., Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. 
 Crown 8vo. §2 "25. 
 
 The object of this edition is simply to restore the probable meaning oj 
 Isaiah, so far as this can be expressed in modem English. The basis of 
 the version is the revised translation of 1611, but no scruple has been felt 
 in introducing alterations, wherever the true sense of the prophecies 
 
 E 2 ' 
 
68, EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 appeared to require it. ' ' A piece of scholarly work, very carefully and 
 considerately done." — Westminster Review. 
 
 Golden Treasury Psalter.— students' Edition. Being an 
 
 Edition of " The Psalms Chronologically Arranged, by Four 
 Friends," with briefer Notes. i8mo. $1*25. 
 
 In making this abridgment of " The Psalms Chronologically Arranged, " 
 the editors have endeavoured to meet the requirements of readers of a 
 different class from those for whom the larger edition zuas intended. Some 
 who found the large book useful j or private reading, have asked for an 
 edition of a smaller size and at a laiucr price, for family use, while at the 
 same time some Teachers in Public Schools have suggested that it zvould be 
 convenient for them to have a simpler book, which they coidd p>ul into the 
 hands of younger pupils. " It is a gem," says the NONCONFORMIST. 
 
 Hardwick. — A HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 
 Middle Age. From Gregoiy the Great to the Excommunication 
 of Luther. Edited by William Stubbs, M.A., Regius Professor 
 of Modern History in the University of Oxford. W T ith Four Maps 
 constructed for this work by A. Keith Johnston. Third Edition. 
 Crown Svo. S3. 
 
 Although the ground-plan of this treatise coincides in many points with 
 that of the colossal work of Schrockh, yet in arranging the materials a 
 very differ eiit course has frequently been pursued. With regard to his 
 opinions the late author avozved distinctly that he construed history with 
 the specific prepossessions of an Englishman and a member of the 
 English Church. The reader is constantly referred to the authorities, 
 both original and critical, on which the statements are founded. Ear this 
 edition Professor Stubbs has carefully revised both text and notes, making 
 such corrections of facts, dates, and the like as the results of recent 
 research warrant. The doctrinal, historical, and generally speculative 
 views of the late author have been preserved intact. ' ' As a manual for 
 the student of ecclesiastical history in the Middle Ages, we know no 
 English work which can be compared to Mr. Hardwick 's book." — 
 vGuardjan. 
 
DIVINITY. 69 
 
 H ardwick — continued. 
 
 A HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH DURING THE 
 REFORMATION. By Archdeacon Hardwick. Revised by. 
 Francis Procter, M. A. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 
 
 [In the Press. 
 This volume is intended as a sequel and companion to the " History oj 
 the Christian Church during the Middle Age." The authors earnest 
 wish has been to give the reader a trustzuorthy version of those stirring 
 incidents which mark the Reformation period, without relinquishing his 
 former claim to characterise peculiar systems, persons, and events according 
 to the shades and colours they assume, when contemplated from an English 
 point of view, and by a member of the Church of England. 
 
 Maclear. — Works by the Rev. G. F. MACLEAR, D.D., Head 
 
 Master of King's College School, and Preacher at the Temple 
 
 Church. 
 A CLASS-BOOK OF OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. Sixth 
 
 Edition, with Four Maps. iSmo. cloth. %\ -50. 
 This volume forms a Class-book of Old Testament History from the 
 earliest times to those of Ezra and iVehemiah. In its preparation the 
 most recent authorities have been consulted, and zuherever it has appeared 
 useful, Notes have blcn subjoined illustrative of the Text, and, for the sake 
 of more advanced students, references added to larger works. The Index 
 has been so arranged as to form a concise dictionary of the persons and 
 places mentioned in the course of the narrative ; while the Maps, which have 
 been prepared with considerable care at Stanford's Geographical Establish- 
 ment, will, it is hoped, materially add to the value and usefulness of the 
 Book. "A careful and elaborate though brief compendium of all that 
 modem research has done for the illustration of the Old Testament. We 
 know of no work which contains so much important information in so 
 small a compass." — British Quarterly Review. 
 A CLASS-BOOK OF NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY, including 
 
 the Connexion of the Old and New Testament. With Four Maps. 
 
 Third Edition. i8mo. cloth. $1*50. 
 A sequel to the author's Class-book of Old Testament History, continuing 
 the narrative from the point at which it there ends, and carrying it on to 
 
7 o EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 Made ar — continued. 
 
 the close of St. Pants second imprisonment at Rome. In its preparation, 
 as in that of the for?jier volume, the most recent and trustworthy authorities 
 have been consulted, notes subjoined, and references to larger works added. 
 It is thus hoped that it may prove at once an useful class-book and a 
 convenient companion to the study of the Greek Testament. "A singularly 
 clear and orderly arrangement of the Sacred Story. His work is solidly 
 and completely done. " — ATHENAEUM. 
 
 ABRIDGED CLASS-BOOK OF OLD TESTAMENT HIS- 
 TORY, for National and Elementary Schools. With Map. 
 iSmo. cloth. 50 Cents. 
 ABRIDGED CLASS-BOOK OF NEW TESTAMENT HIS- 
 TORY, for National and Elementary Schools. With Map. 
 i8mo. cloth. 50 Cents. 
 
 These works have been carefully abridged from the author's larger 
 manuals. 
 
 CLASS-BOOK OF THE CATECHISM OF THE CHURCH OF 
 ENGLAND. Second Edition. i8mo. cloth. 75 Cents. 
 This may be regarded as a sequel to the Class-books of Old and New 
 Testament History. Like them, it is furnished with notes and references 
 to larger works, and it is hoped that it [may be found, especially in th% 
 higher forms of our Public Schools, to siipply a suitable manual of 
 nstruction in the chief doctrines of the English Church, and a useful 
 help in the preparation of candidates for Confirmation. ' ' It is indeed 
 flic work of a scholar and divine, and as such, though extremely simple*, 
 it is also extremely instructive. There are few clergymen who would not 
 find it useful in preparing candidates for Confirmation ; and there are 
 not a few who would find it useful to themselves as well." — Literary 
 Churchman. 
 
 A FIRST CLASS-BOOK OF THE CATECHISM OF THE 
 CHURCH OF ENGLAND, with Scripture Proofs, for junior 
 Classes and Schools. iSmo. 20 Cents. 
 THE ORDER OF CONFIRMATION. A Sequel to the Class 
 Book of the Catechism. For the use of Candidates for Confirma- 
 tion. With Prayers and Collects. iSmo. 10 Cents. 
 
DIVINITY. 71 
 
 Maurice.— THE LORD'S PRAYER, the creed, and 
 
 THE COMMANDMENTS. A Manual for Parents and School- 
 masters. To which is added the Order of the Scriptures. By the 
 Rev. F. Denison Maurice, M.A. Professor of Moral Philosophy 
 in the University of Cambridge. i8mo. cloth limp. 50 Cents. 
 
 Procter.— A HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF COMMON 
 PRAYER, with a Rationale of its Offices. By Francis Procter, 
 M.A. Tenth Edition, revised and enlarged. Crown 8vo. 
 
 In the course of the last twenty years the tvhole question of Liturgical 
 knozoledge has been reopened with great learning and accurate research ; 
 and it is mainly with the view of epitomizing extensive publications, and 
 correcting the errors and misconceptions which had obtained currency, 
 that the present volume has been put together. * ' We admire the author's 
 diligence, and bear willing testimony to the extent and accuracy of his 
 reading. The origin of every part of the Prayer Book has been diligently 
 investigated, and there are few questions of facts connected with it which 
 are not either sufficiently explained, or so referred to that persons interested 
 may -work out the truth for themselves.*" — ATHENAEUM. 
 
 Procter and Maclear.— an elementary intro- 
 duction TO THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. 
 Re-arranged and supplemented by an Explanation of the Morning 
 and Evening Prayer and the Litany. By the Rev. F. Procter 
 and the Rev. G. F. Maclear. Fourth Edition. i8mo. 75 Cents. 
 
 As in the other Class-books of the series, notes have also been subjoined, 
 and references given to larger works, and it is hoped that the volume will 
 be found adapted for use in the higher forms of our Public Schools, and a 
 suitable manual for those preparing for the Oxford and Cambridge local 
 examinations. This new Edition has been considerably altered, and 
 several important additions, have been made. Besides a rearrangement 
 of the work generally, the Historical Portion has been supplemented by an 
 Explanation of the Morning and Evening Prayer and of the Litany. 
 
72 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 Psalms of David Chronologically Arranged. By- 
 Four Friends. An Amended Version, with Historical 
 Introduction and Explanatory Notes. Second and Cheaper 
 Edition, with Additions and Corrections. Crown 8vo. $2*25. 
 
 To restore the Psalter as Jar as possible to the order in which the Psalms 
 were written, — to give the division of each Psalm into strophes, of each 
 strophe into the lines which composed it, — to amend the errors of translation , 
 is the object of the present Edition. Professor Ewaldds works, especially 
 that 011 the Psalms, have been extensively consulted. This book has been 
 nsed with satisfaction by masters for private work in higher classes in 
 schools. The Spectator, calls this "one of the most instructive and 
 valuable books that has been published for many yea is.'" 
 
 Ramsay. — THE CATECHISER'S MANUAL; or, the Church 
 Catechism Illustrated and Explained, for the use of Clergymen, 
 Schoolmasters, and Teachers. By the Rev. Arthur Ramsay, 
 M.A. Second Edition. i8mo. 50 Cents. 
 
 A clear explanation of the Catechism, by way of Question and Answer. 
 " This is by far the best Manned on the Catechism we have met with." 
 —English Journal of Education. 
 
 Simpson.— AN EPITOME OF THE HISTORY OF THE 
 CHRISTIAN CHURCH. By William Simpson, M.A. 
 Fifth Edition. Fcap. Svo. %l. 
 
 A compendious summary of Church History. 
 
 Swainson. — A HANDBOOK to BUTLER'S ANALOGY. By 
 C. A. Swainson, D.D., Canon of Chichester. Crown Svo. 
 75 Cents. 
 
 This manual is designed to serve as a handbook or road-book to the 
 Student in reading the Analogy, to give the Student a sketch or oittline map' 
 of the country on which he is entering, and to point out to him matters of 
 nterest as he passes along. 
 
DIVINITY. 73 
 
 Trench.— SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. By 
 R. Chevenix Trench, D.D., Archbishop of Dublin. New- 
 Edition, enlarged. 8vo. cloth. §3 '50. 
 
 The study of synonyms in any language is valuable as a discipline 
 for training the mind to close and accurate habits of thought : more 
 especially is this the case in Greek — " a language spoken by a people of the 
 finest and subtlest intellect ; who saw distinctions where others sazu none; 
 who divided out to different words what others often were content to huddle 
 confusedly under a common term, This work is recognised as a valuable 
 companion to every student of the New Testament in the original. This, 
 the Seventh Edition, has been carefully revised, and a considerable number 
 of new synonyms added. Appended is an Index to the Synonyms, and an 
 Index to many other words alluded to or explained throughout the work. 
 "He is," the ATHEN7EUM says, "a guide in this department of know- 
 ledge to whom his readers may intrust themselves with confidence. His 
 sober judgment and sound sense are barriers against the misleading 
 influence of arbitrary hypotheses." 
 
 WeStCOtt.— Works by BROOKE FOSS WESTCOTT, B.D., 
 Canon of Peterborough. 
 
 A GENERAL SURVEY OF THE HISTORY OF THE 
 CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT DURING THE 
 FIRST FOUR CENTURIES. Third Edition, revised. Crown 
 Svo. 83-50. 
 
 The author has endeavoured to connect the history of the New Testament 
 Canon with the growth and consolidation of the Church, and to point out 
 the relation existing between the amount of evidence for the authenticity of 
 its component parts, and the whole mass of Christian literature. Such a 
 method of inquiry will convey both the truest notion of the connection of the 
 -written Word with the living Body of Christ, and the surest conviction of 
 its divine authority. Of this work the Saturday Review writes : " Theo- 
 logical students, and not they only, but the general public, owe a deep debt 
 of gratitude to Mr. Westcott for bringing this subject fairly before them 
 in this candid and comprehensive essay As a theological work it ts 
 
74 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 at once perfectly fair and impartial, a?id imbued with a thoroughly 
 religious spirit; and as a manual it exhibits, in a lucid for 771 and i?i a 
 narrow compass, the results of extensive research and accurate thought. 
 We cordially recommend it." 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE FOUR GOSPELS. 
 
 Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. $3 '50. 
 
 The Author's chief object in this work is to show that there is a true 
 mean between the idea of a formal harmonization of the Gospels and the 
 abandonment of their absolute truth. The treatise consists oj eight 
 chapters: — I. The Preparation for the Gospel. II. The Jewish Doctrine 
 of the Messiah. III. The Origin of the Gospels. IV. The Charac- 
 teristics of the Gospels. V. The Gospel of St. John. VI. &> VII. The 
 Differences in detail and of arrangement in the Synoptic Evangelists. 
 VIII The Difficulties of the Gospels. '* To a learning and accuracy 
 which commands respect and co7ifide7ice, he unites what are not always to 
 be found in union with these qualities, the no less valuable faculties of lucid 
 arrangement and graceful and facile expression.'''- — London Quarterly 
 Review. 
 
 A GENERAL VIEW OF THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH 
 BIBLE. Crown 8vo. $3-50. 
 
 " The first trustworthy account we have had of that unique and mar' 
 vellous monument of the piety of our ancestors." — Daily News. 
 
 " A brief scholarly, and, to a great exte7tt, an original contribution to 
 theological literature. He is the first to offer any considerable contribu- 
 tions to what he calls their internal history, which deals with their relation 
 to other texts, with their filiation one on another, and with the principles by 
 which they have been successively modified.'''' — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 THE BIBLE IN THE CHURCH. A Popular Account of the 
 Collection and Reception of the Holy Scriptures in the Christian 
 Churches. Third Edition. i8mo. cloth. %i'2$. 
 
 The present book is an attempt to answer a request, which has been made 
 from time to time, to place in a simple form, for the use of general readers, 
 
DIVINITY. 75 
 
 the substance of the author 's ' " 'History of 'the Canon of the New Testament." 
 A n elaborate and comprehensive Introduction is followed by chapters on 
 the Bible of the Apostolic Age ; on the Growth of the New Testament ; the 
 Apostolic Fathers; the Age of the Apologists ; the First Christian Bible; 
 the Bible Proscribed and Restored ; the Age of Jerome and Augustine ; 
 the Bible of the Middle Ages hi the West and in the Fast, and in the 
 Sixteenth Century. Two appendices on the History of the Old Testament 
 Canon before the Christia u Era, and on the Contents of the most ancient 
 MSS. of the Christian Bible, complete the volume. (i We would recommend 
 every one who loves and studies the Bible to read and ponder this exquisite 
 little book. Mr. Westcotfs account of the 'Canon' is true history in its 
 highest sense." — Literary Churchman. 
 
 THE GOSPEL OF THE RESURRECTION. Thoughts on its 
 
 Relation to Reason and History. New Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 
 
 § i -50. 
 
 This Essay is an endeavour to consider some of the elementary truths 
 
 of Christianity as a miraculous Revelation, from the side of History and 
 
 Reason. If the arguments which are here, adduced are valid, they will go 
 
 far to prove that the Resurrection, with all that it includes, is the key to 
 
 the history of man, and the complement of reason. 
 
 Wilson. — THE BIBLE STUDENTS' GUIDE to the more Correct 
 Understanding of the English translation of the Old Testament, 
 by reference to the Original Hebrew. By William Wilson, 
 D.D., Canon of Winchester, late Fellow of Queen's College, 
 Oxford. Second Edition, carefully Revised. 410. cloth. $10. 
 
 This work is the result of almost incredible labour bestowed on it during 
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 unacquainted with Hebrew, may derive great advantage from frequent 
 
76 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 reference to it. It is especially adapted for the use of the clergy. * ' For all 
 earnest students of the Old-Testament Scriptures it is a most valuable 
 Manual. Its arrangement is so simple that those who possess only their 
 mother-tongue, if they will take a little pains, may employ it with great 
 profit." — Nonconformist. 
 
 Yonge (Charlotte M.)— SCRIPTURE READINGS FOR 
 SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES. By Charlotte M. Yonge, 
 Author of "The Heir of Redely ffe." Globe 8 vo. 'JS Cents. 
 With Comments, $1*50. 
 
 A Second Series. From Joshua to Solomon. Extra fcap. 
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 of which is cither to assist the teacher in explaining the lesson, or to be 
 used by more advanced young people to whom it may not be possible to give 
 access to the authorities whence it has been taken. Professor Huxley, at a 
 meeting of the Loudon School Board, particularly mentioned the selection 
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 the Bible for School Reading. See Times, March 30, 1871. 
 
CLARENDON PRESS SERIES. 77 
 
 38, Bleecker Street, 
 
 New York. 
 
 CLARENDON PRESS SERIES. 
 
 The attention of College Lecturers, Schoolmasters, and all 
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 following series of works, most of which have been lately 
 issued from the Clarendon Press, and are written with imme- 
 diate reference to the present state of science and learning, 
 and to urgent educational needs. 
 
 "Such manuals, so admirable in matter, arrangement, and type, 
 were never before given to the world at the same moderate price.'" — 
 Spectator. 
 
 I.— PROFESSOR BREWER'S SERIES OF ENGLISH 
 
 CLASSICS. 
 
 Chaucer. — THE PROLOGUE TO THE CANTERBURY 
 TALES ; The Knightes Tale ; The Nonne Prestes Tale. Edited 
 by R. Morris. Extra fcap. 8vo., cloth, $1. 
 " With such assistance the ordinary reader will have no difficulty in 
 
 appreciating Chaucer, and will be grateful to Mr. Morris for having 
 
 guided him in such a pleasant path"— SPECTATOR. 
 
78 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
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 chiefly for the use of Schools. With Introduction, Notes, and 
 Glossary. By G. W. Kitchin, M.A. Extra fcap. 8vo., cloth, 
 $i each. 
 
 ' ' Admirably fitted for use in Schools and Colleges where the English 
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 lege. Extra fcap. 8vo., cloth, $i. 
 
 " This volume merits our commendation for the care and completeness 
 with which it is edited.'" — Educational Times. 
 
 Shakespeare, — Select Plays. Edited by W. G. Clark, M.A. , 
 Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge ; and W. Aldis Wright, 
 M.A., Trinity College, Cambridge. 
 
 I. THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. Extra fcap. 8vo. 
 40 Cents. 
 II. RICHARD THE SECOND. Extra fcap. Svo. 60 Cents. 
 
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 * 
 
 Milton. — POEMS. Edited by R. C. Browne, M.A., and Asso- 
 ciate of King's College, London. 2 vols. Extra fcap. Svo., 
 cloth, $2-25. Separately, Vol. I., $1-25 ; Vol. II., §1-25. 
 
CLARENDON PRESS SERIES. 79 
 
 Milton — continued. 
 
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So EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
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 " Mr. Earle s book commends itself as the mature fruit of -wide scholar- 
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 " We believe it will become a standard -work, superseding (as it ought to 
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CLAREND ON PRESS SERIES. 8 1 
 
 THE VISION OF WILLIAM CONCERNING PIERS THE 
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 TYPICAL SELECTIONS FROM THE BEST ENGLISH 
 AUTHORS from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century (to 
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 Notes, being a Contribution towards a History of English Litera- 
 ture. Extra fcap. 8vo., cloth, $1*50. 
 
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 A FIRST READING BOOK. By Marie Eichens, of Berlin 
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 1 ' // makes good its claim to special consideration, as proceeding on a 
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8 2 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
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 GRAMMATICAL ANALYSIS. By the same Author. Extra 
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 VOYAGE AUTOUR DE MA CHAMBRE, by Xavier de Mais- 
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CLARENDON PRESS SERIES. 83 
 
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 CAESAR. The Commentaries (for Schools). Part I. The Gallic War, 
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 F 2 
 
8 4 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 CICERO'S PHILIPPIC ORATIONS. With English Notes, by 
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CLARENDON PRESS SERIES. 85 
 
 CICERO. SELECTION OF INTERESTING AND DESCRIP- 
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86 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 SELECTIONS FROM THE LESS KNOWN LATIN POETS. 
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 PASSAGES FOR TRANSLATION INTO LATIN. For the use 
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 $3- 
 
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 Extra fcap. 8vo., cloth, $1. 
 
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 GREEK VERBS, IRREGULAR AND DEFECTIVE ; their forms, 
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CLARENDON PRESS SERIES. 87 
 
 THE GOLDEN TREASURY OF ANCIENT GREEK POETRY ; 
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 SOPHOCLES. THE PLAYS AND FRAGMENTS. With English 
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 Vol. I. CEdipus Tyrannus. CEdipus Coloneus. Antigone. 
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S8 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
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 SELECT CHARTERS AND OTHER HISTORICAL DOCU- 
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CLARENDON PRESS SERIES. 89 
 
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 ELEMENTS OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. By the same 
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9 o EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
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 EXERCISES IN PRACTICAL CHEMISTRY. By A. G. Vernon 
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 language." — Quarterly Journal of Microscoeical Science. 
 
 BOOK-KEEPING. By R. G. C. Hamilton, Accountant to the 
 Board of Trade, and John Ball (of the firm of Messrs. Quilter, 
 Ball, and Co.), Examiners in Book-keeping for the Society of Arts' 
 Examination. Third Edition. Extra fcap. 8vo., limp cloth, 
 60 Cents. 
 
 "How many a fine young, nay even old, fellow has been cast away and 
 
CLARENDON PRESS SERIES. 91 
 
 wrecked by not knowing how to keep a cash account, or to make up a 
 balance sheet. A prudent man ought to be 'aufait' at both, and Messrs. 
 Hamilton and Ball show in the most provokingly easy manner how the 
 tasks can be accomplished. The authors modestly say that their treatise is 
 one of an elementary character, but to us they appear to have exhausted 
 their subject '." — Army and Navy Gazette. 
 
 IX.— MENTAL AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 THE ELEMENTS OF DEDUCTIVE LOGIC, designed mainly for 
 
 the use of Junior Students in the Universities. By T. Fowler, 
 
 M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Lincoln College, Oxford. Fourth 
 
 Edition, with a Collection of Examples. Extra fcap. 8vo., cloth, 
 
 81. 
 
 "Mr. Foxvler appears to us to have accomplished his task skilfully and 
 
 usefully. His book contains all the essential details of its subject, is clearly 
 
 expressed, and embodies the result of much accurate thought"— GUARDIAN. 
 
 THE ELEMENTS OF INDUCTIVE LOGIC, designed mainly for 
 the use of Students in the Universities. By the same Author. 
 Extra fcap. 8vo., cloth, $1*50. 
 "A most useful handbook, mainly intended for University students, but 
 
 which will be a convenient book, also, for those whose student days are 
 
 over, but who wish to keep up with more recent methods.'''' — LITERARY 
 
 Churchman. 
 
 A MANUAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. By J. E. Thorold 
 Rogers, M.A., formerly Professor of Political Economy, Oxford. 
 Extra fcap. 8vo., cloth, $1-25. Second Edition, with Index. 
 
 "Political economy is not a subject of which in these days sensible men 
 can afford to be ignorant. Much of the ignorance zvhich prevails respect- 
 ing it will be cut at the root, if the able manual of Mr. Rogers is used 
 extensively in our schools and colleges.'''' — Guardian. 
 
92 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 X.— ART. 
 
 A HANDBOOK OF PICTORIAL ART By the Rev. R. St. J. 
 
 Tyrwhitt, M.A., formerly Student and Tutor of Christ Church, 
 Oxford. With coloured Illustrations, Photographs, and a chapter 
 on Perspective, by A. Macdonald. 8vo., half morocco, $8. 
 
 " Past experience of Air. Tyrwhitt' 's powers as an observer and a 
 writer had led us to anticipate a good book on the subject of art, and we 
 have not beeti disappointed. His work is not only well and pleasantly 
 written, but full of useful information and valuable suggestions.'''' — Cam- 
 bridge University Gazette. 
 
 A TREATISE ON HARMONY. By the Rev. Sir F. A. Gore 
 
 Ouseley, Bart., Mus. Doc, Professor of Music in the University 
 of Oxford. 4to., cloth, $4*50. 
 
 " The whole of the stcbject is expounded with such perspicuity that it 
 must be the fault of those who study it if they do not thoroughly master 
 all that is set before them.' 1 '' — St. James's Chronicle. 
 
 A TREATISE ON COUNTERPOINT, CANON, AND FUGUE, 
 based upon that of Cherubim. By the Rev. Sir F. A. Gore 
 Ouseley, Bart., M.A., Mus. Doc, Professor of Music in the 
 University of Oxford. 4to., $6. 
 
 " We can approve the work as one likely to do excellent service at a 
 time when the study of musical theory is fast spreading."" — Pall Mall 
 
 Gazette. 
 
 • 
 
 THE CULTIVATION OF THE SPEAKING VOICE. By John 
 Hullah. Crown 8vo., cloth, $i*25. 
 
 The volume, if rightly employed, may be one of the ?nost useful 
 hooks in the excellent series to which it belongs" — Glasgow Daily 
 Herald. 
 
CLARENDON PRESS SERIES. 
 
 93 
 
 XI.— LAW. 
 
 GAII INSTITUTIONUM JURIS CIVILIS COMMENTARII 
 QUATUOR; or, Elements of Roman Law by Gaius. With a 
 Translation and Commentary, by Edward Poste, M. A. Bar- 
 rister-at-Law, and Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. 8vo cloth 
 $6. 
 
 " Our author has given us an admirable version, and though he 
 often uses a paraphrase where the sentence could be literary translated, 
 it is allowable, because the paraphrase is the truest rendition of the idea 
 intended to be conveyed by the original. Mr. Paste's commentary 
 shows that he has read much, and that he has digested what he has 
 read. It is learned, searching, and suggestive.''' — School Board 
 Chronicle. 
 
 ELEMENTS OF LAW, CONSIDERED WITH REFERENCE 
 TO PRINCIPLES OF GENERAL JURISPRUDENCE. By 
 Wm. Markby, M.A., Judge of the High Court of Judicature 
 Calcutta. Crown 8vo., cloth, $2 '50. 
 
 ' ' One of the best works that have appeared on the subject of General 
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 minster Review. 
 
 OUTLINES OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM APPLIED TO THE 
 NEW TESTAMENT. By C. E. Hammond, M.A., Fellow and 
 Tutor of Exeter College, Oxford. Extra fcap. 8vo., cloth, $1*50. 
 
 " One of the most practically useful handbooks we have ever seen. . . 
 We wish that our Bishops were able to insist on all their candidates for 
 Holy Orders being well up in such a handbook as this.'" — The Literary 
 Churchman. 
 
 THE MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE IN ITS RELATION TO 
 ANCIENT GREEK. By E. M. Geldart, B.A., formerly 
 Scholar of Balliol College, Oxford. Extra fcap. 8vo., cloth, $1*25. 
 
94 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 
 
 A SYSTEM OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION : THEORETICAL 
 AND PRACTICAL. With 346 Illustrations drawn by A. Mac- 
 donald, of the Oxford School of Art. By Archibald Maclaren, 
 The Gymnasium, Oxford. Extra fcap. 8vo., cloth, $2*25. 
 
 ' ' The ivork before us is one zvkick should be in the hands of every 
 schoolmaster and schoolmistress. It is ?narked in every line by good 
 sense, and is so clearly written that no one can mistake its rules." — 
 Lancet. 
 
 LEXICONS. 
 
 A GREEK-ENGLISH LEXICON. By Henry George Liddell, 
 D.D., and Robert Scott, D.D. Sixth Edition, Revised and 
 Augmented. 1870. 4to., cloth, $12. 
 
 A GREEK-ENGLISH LEXICON, abridged from the above, chiefly 
 for the Use of Schools. Fourteenth Edition, carefully revised 
 throughout. 1871. Square i2mo., cloth, §3. 
 
 raW 
 
 LONDON : R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS. 
 

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