An opinion, somewhat inconsistent with the one just controverted, has been advanced by La Rue, namely, that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Norman language was familiar to all classes in this country, and that England ran the greatest risk of losing her native language! Now, in the first place, our language during the period in question, though it had taken a form very different from the Anglo-Saxon, shows but little mixture of Romance, a fact difficult to explain, if the latter were familiar to the great bulk of the people; and, secondly, the Romance of England remained almost unchanged, while, on the continent, the same dialect was losing its final consonants, and gradually melting into the patois, which is at present spoken in Lower Normandy and Jersey. Must we not conclude, that in this country it was a dead language, learnt only from books, and therefore secure from those changes to which, as a living language, it was subject on the continent? We know that the schoolboy translated his Latin into Romance (as his successor turns Greek into Latin) in the vain hope of learning two languages by a process, which little promises to teach either. The Romance dialect, therefore, must have been more or less familiar to the scholar as to well as to the courtier, but that it did not reach to the great body of the people, is clear from the many versions of Romance poems, made "for the lewed man," a phrase, be it observed, which includes both "lord" and yeoman. "Uplandish men," indeed, such as the franklin or the country gentleman, sometimes aped the accomplishment, much for the same reason that the gentillatres of the little German courts affect French-not that they admired the foreigner, his language, or his literature, but because it marked a class, and distinguished them from the burgher. It is important, on several accounts, to ascertain how far and in what manner our native language has been affected, by admixture with this foreign dialect. Many mistakes have prevailed on the subject; and some of our critics have even confounded the Norman phrases of the twelfth century with the French* importations of the seventeenth. The latter, however, might be easily dispensed with, while the former have rooted themselves deeply in the language. There are some hundreds of words, which it would require the nicest skill in philology to say, whether they were originally Norman or AngloSaxon.† The little attention that is paid to the critical study of our language, and the slight regard which attempts to investigate its history have met with, reflect no less discredit on our patriotism than on our scholarship. While Frenchmen are sending agents over Europe to scrutinize every manuscript, which may shed light on their early literature, Englishmen are satisfied with knowing, that Anglo-Saxon MSS. may be found in France, in Holland, and in Sweden. The German publishes the most insignificant fragment connected with the antiquities of his language, while our manuscripts lie mouldering in our libraries, and our critics—some of them of no mean reputation-con * There are reasons for believing that "the French," which was brought into the country by Edward and his Norman favourites, was almost as much a foreign language at Paris as at London. For an example take the word number. If we were to ask whence did we get it? the triumphant answer would be, from the Latin, through the French. Now I have never met with the word in Anglo-Saxon, yet that it is native to our language may be shown almost to a certainty. There is an English law of composition, by reference to which we may resolve number into certain elements, which are found to have once existed in our language as independent words. There is one other language, widely differing in character from our own, in which, however, the same law prevails, and a like analysis may be effected. Will the French enable us to resolve nombre ? or the Latin to resolve numerus? The word was, in all probability, used both in Anglo-Saxon and in Norman Romance. There is one exception to this remark in the publication of the Paris Psalter by the University of Oxford. See p. 279. tent themselves with the vague and scanty notices of a Hickes and a Wanley. Yet the early literature, which is thus neglected, may be traced to the fifth century, and far surpasses the contemporary literature of every other nation in works of interest and of genius. In the first rank of those gifted men who have shed glory on our country, by the side of Shakespeare, of Milton, and of Spenser, we may place the two patriarchs of English song-Cadmon and Chaucer. If, instead of looking to the past, we speculate on the future, our language will hardly sink in our estimate of its importance. Before another century has gone by, it will, at the present rate of increase, be spoken by hundreds of millions! Of the five great temperate regions, threeNorth America, South Africa, and Australia-are fast peopling with our race; and some, now living, will see them overspread with a population, claiming in our language the same interest as ourselves. That language, too, is rapidly becoming the great medium of civilisation, the language of law and literature to the Hindoo, of commerce to the African, of religion to the scattered islanders of the Pacific. The range of its influence, even at the present day, is greater than ever was that of the Greek, the Latin, or the Arabic; and the circle widens yearly. Though it were not our mother tongue, it would still, of all living languages, be the one most worthy of our study and our cultivation, as bearing most directly on the happiness of mankind. NOTES TO THE SECOND VOLUME. (F). ACCENTUATION, &c. OF OUR MSS. AFTER the note in p. 10. was written, there appeared an article in the Gentleman's Magazine, explaining the system of accentuation, which was followed in the last edition of Beowulf. The writer dissents, and I think with much reason, from the principles on which Mr. Thorpe remodelled the accentuation of Cadmon, and then advances arguments in favour of his own system. These we will not examine, as it is a matter of minor importance what theory an editor may adopt, if he distinguish (and in Beowulf the distinction has been made) between his own notions and the contents of his MS. But there is one passage, very candidly quoted from an old grammarian, which deserves the reader's notice-I say candidly quoted, because it affords a very strong argument, in a case where, as it seems to me, strong arguments were not wanting, against the theory which the writer himself espouses. From this passage, which makes mention of "the short é," it is very properly inferred, that the accent was sometimes used for the same purpose as our modern italics. It must, I think, convince every one, who has not committed himself in controversy, how little we yet know of a subject, on which so much speculation has been hazarded. I would take this opportunity of again pressing on the reader the importance of copying our MSS. faithfully-I mean not only to the letter, but so as to show their peculiarities as regards punctuation, composition, &c. It is astonishing how much light may thus be thrown upon the structure of our language. For example, many Anglo-Saxon MSS. join the preposition to its substantive, and thus point to the origin of a numerous class of adverbs, aloft, asleep, aground, &c. underfoot, underhand, underneath, &c. today, tonight, tomorrow, &c. Again, in some MSS. several of the common prefixes are carefully separated from their compounds-the adverb gewisse, for example, being written ge wisse, or in Old English y wisse; and it is from these scattered elements of an adverb that modern scholarship has manufactured a verb and pronoun I wiss! Again, in many Old English MSS. the genitival ending is separated from its noun, thus Seint Benet is scurge, Saint Bennet's scourge, see p. 336.—a practice, which shows us the origin of those phrases to be met with in our Liturgy and other works of the same date, Christ his sake, God his love, &c. Other instances of the advantages, likely to accrue from a more careful editing of our manuscripts, might easily be collected. It has been said elsewhere (p. 29. n. *) that the scrupulous exactness of an editor would not be expected in a work like the present; but certainly the extracts quoted might, without additional trouble, have been laid before the reader in some respects more satisfactorily. Had all the rhythmical points been inserted, and the colon only used when the middle point was not marked in the MS. much needless reference to the notes might have been avoided. The capitals, also, at the beginning of a line or sentence might well have been spared; and lastly the breaks, which correspond with those in the MS. should have been more carefully distinguished from such as have been made only for the convenience of the reader. (G). THE ALEXANDRINE. The metrum, which may best dispute with the Asclepiad (see p. 229.) the honour of giving rise to the Alexandrine rhythmus, is the Trochaic Dimeter wanting half a metre. This metrum seems to have been well known during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The following rhythmus was certainly modelled upon it; The Annunciation. 1. Ave Maris | stella 2. Sumens illud | ave Gabrielis | ore Funda | nos in | pace| Mutans nomen | Euæ. 3. Salve | vincla | reis Profer | lumen | cæcis Mala | nostra pelle| Bona cuncta | posce, &c. where we may observe that such is the influence of the final rhime (see p. 230), as to throw all the accents of the rhythmus on the short syllables of the metrum. The rhythmus just quoted seems to differ from that noticed in p. 405. |