THE influence of the Norman conquest upon the language of England was like that of a great inundation, which at first buries the face of the landscape under its waters, but which at last subsiding, leaves behind it the elements of new beauty and fertility. Its first effect was to degrade the Anglo-Saxon tongue to the exclusive use of the inferior orders; and by the transference of estates, ecclesiastical benefices, and civil dignities, to Norman possessors, to give the French language, which had begun to prevail at court from the time of Edward the Confessor, a more complete predominance among the higher classes of society. The native gentry of England were either driven into exile, or depressed into a state of dependance on their conqueror, which habituated them to speak his language. On the other hand, we received from the Normans the first germs of romantic poetry; and our language was ultimately indebted to them for a wealth and compass of expression which it probably would not have otherwise possessed.

The Anglo-Saxon, however, was not lost, though it was superseded by French, and disappeared as the language of superior life and of public business. It is found written in prose, at the end of Stephen's reign, nearly a century after the Conquest; and the Saxon Chronicle, which thus exhibits it *, contains even a fragment of verse, professed to have been com[* As the Saxon Chronicle relates the death of Stephen, it must have been written after that event. ELLIS, Early Eng. Poets, vol. i. p. 60, and vol. iii. p. 404, Ed. 1801.

What is commonly called the Saxon Chronicle is continued to the death of Stephen, in 1154, and in the same language, though with some loss of its purity. Besides the neglect of several grammatical rules, French words now and then obtrude themselves, but not very frequently, in the latter pages of this Chronicle.-HALLAM, Lit. Hist. vol. i. p. 59.]

posed by an individual who had seen William the Conqueror. To fix upon any precise time when the national speech can be said to have ceased to be Saxon, and begun to be English, is pronounced by Dr. Johnson to be impossible. It is undoubtedly difficult, if it be possible, from the gradually progressive nature of language, as well as from the doubt, with regard to dates, which hangs over the small number of specimens of the early tongue which we possess. Mr. Ellis fixes upon a period of about forty years, preceding the accession of Henry III., from 1180 to 1216, during which he conceives modern English to have been formed ‡. The opinions of Mr. Ellis, which are always delivered with candour, and almost always founded on intelligent views, are not to be lightly treated; and I hope I shall not appear to be either captious or inconsiderate in disputing them. But it seems to me, that he rather arbitrarily defines the number of years which he supposes to have elapsed in the formation of our language, when he assigns + Introduction to Johnson's Dictionary. [Nor can it be expected, from the nature of things gradually changing, that any time can be assigned when Saxon may be said to cease, and the English to commence... Total and sudden transformations of a language seldom happen.

About the year 1150, the Saxon began to take a form in which the beginning of the present English may be plainly discovered: this change seems not to have been the effect of the Norman conquest, for very few French words are found to have been introduced in the first hundred years after it; the language must therefore have been altered by causes like those which, notwithstanding the care of writers and societies instituted to obviate them, are even now daily making innovations in every living language.-JOHNSON.] [ It is only justice to Mr. Ellis to give his date correctly, 1185. "We may fairly infer," Mr. Ellis writes, "that the Saxon language and literature began to be mixed with the Norman about 1185; and that in 1216 the change may be considered as complete."]

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