OPIXIOXS OF THE PRESS. 'That such a book can now be written in such a shape, is a sign of the vast steps which have been made within the last few years, by clear and scientific views of liistory and philosophy. It comes nearer to a History of the English Language than anything that we have seen since such a history could be written without confusion and contradic tions. Mr. Oliphant firmly grasps the truth, that English is English, and always has been English, and not anything else. In clearness and precision he is a centui'y or two in advance of Mr, Marsh and writers of that date. He shows all along that he has been working his philology, as alone it can be safely worked, under the wing of History.' Satueday Review. *Mr. Oliphant has produced a most useful and opportune book. He has traced, in an interesting and popular way, the changes of letters, inflexions, forms, and words during the whole course of our language. It is neither too technical nor too long to prevent the general reader understanding and enjoying the book, while he gets sound information from it.' Athen^um. ' The volume before us has all tlie force and flow of original com- position, all the freedom of an independent thinker, and is yet remark- able for fldelity to detail and historical precision in recording the facts of transition in our language.' John Bull. ' This book is in reality one of the most interesting works on the History of the Language which has yet been written for the use of the student. It is a book which should be read by all students of the good old tODgue ; a book which would help to form the taste of all intelligent readers.' Educationai, Times. The Sources of Standard English. ' An exceedingly able book, containing clear views clearly expressed. It is just such a work as general readers hare for several years been feeling the want of. Ample matenals lay ready for the work, and they could not have found a better exponent than Mr. Oliphant. He has produced by far the best history of our language yet written. It is a model of well-digested scholarship.' The Examiner. ' In a popular but yet scholar-like way, Mr. Oliphant has traced the gradual change of our language from Anglo-Saxon into modern English ; and has given an amusing account of Good and Bad English in 1873.' Keport of the Early English Text Society for 187i. 'Mr. Oliphant has done good service in bringing together, and making easily accessible, much of this hitherto rare learning. Ten years ago, not a page of this book could have been written.' The Nation (New York). ' To read the sixth chapter is as healthful an exercise as to walk thirty miles as the crow flies. It is from first to last a most exciting raid against Dr. Johnson run mad. Mr. Oliphant has managed to put together a rare variety of monstrosities, slang, bombast, twaddle, and general absurdity, all illustrative of the style of speech and writing of this age. There is, withal, a series of spicy anecdotes arranged as illustrative foot-notes. These form an entertaining reading in their way as Dean Ramsay or Hislop. Taken, however, along witli the text, they are specially effective.' Dumbarton Herald. * Mr. Oliphant has wrought out a good idea in a very able way. He is mercilessly severe on modern writers of gaudy English, and certain preachers, to whom he devotes a scarifying chapter.' British Quarterly Eeview. THE OLD AND MIDDLE ENGLISH w THE OLD AND MIDDLE ENGLISH BY T. L. KINGTON OLIPHANT, M.A. OF BAXLIOL COLLEGE MACMILLAN AND CO. 1878 AH rights reserved LONDON : PRINTED BY SP0TTI8WOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUAB.B ANO PARLIAMENT STREET PEEFACE. England assuredly is at last waking up to the im- portance of studying her old tongue in all its stages. I cannot otherwise account for the rapid sale of my late book on ' Standard English ; ' nearly 2,000 copies of this liave gone off within four years or so. In the present work I have embodied wliatever of the former book was worth preserving ; great additions have been made, since I take notice of about 3,000 P^nglish words and phrases. I have had much help from criticism, both in print and by letter. I cannot understand why an author need wliimper under the rod of Keviewers. If the criti- . 197 . 198 Contents. xv A.D. 1 180. Specimen of the East Midland Dialect 1180. The Contrast to the East Midland . Poem on the Soul and Body Changes in Vowels and Consonants Poems of Nigel Wireker 1200. King Alfred's Proverbs . The fondness for the hard g . Corruption of the Genitive Change in the Verb may Change in like, do, while A little French appears Loss of the power of Compounding . Orrmin's Poem .... The place where he wrote He resembles the Peterborough writer The change in Vowels The change in Consonants . The sh and j The or, nor, uppo, kneel The old hw transposed . The old sense of alderman . The change in world, boon Adjectives and Pronouns Theirs, that, same .... Change in Eelatives The new somewhat ; one . The alone, once, two first Development of the Passive Voice . The new senses of need, deal The mean, keep, take Strong Verbs turned into Weak . Forthwith, right, already No more, alway, as if . The Prepositions .... The upon and iintil The use of by, at, of, to . Orrmin's Compounds . a XVI Contents. A.D. 1200. 1205. 1210. 1220. His Scandinavian leanings The words sliift, stick, hurt . List of Scandinavian Words The mid and nim die out Specimen of the East Midland Dialect The Contrast to the East Midland Lay anion's Brut Change in Vowels Change in Consonants Horses, 'plight, nook Corruption of ol — Pronouns . The new Participle in inge . Gird, on ark, quickly The of and to ... . The hy and with New Scandinavian Words . The Legend of St. Margaret . Them; the ending /?(Z Whosoever, seem, downright The Legend of St. Katherine The Vowels and Consonants . Self, other ..... The Infinitive follows a Preposition The as, so, hei . The Legend of St. Juliana New phrases .... Wherefore, but The Hali Mcidcnhad . The Adjectives and Prepositions The Salopian pieces Low, ail, husband The ful, one, owe .... Influence of Salop . The Wohunge of ure Lauerd Cheap, who, tell The Ancren Riwle More than one Version of it PAGE . . 236 . 237 . . 238 . 239 240, 241 . 242 . 243 . 244 . 245 . 246 . 247 . 248 . 2it9 •(M .251 . 252 . 253 . 254 . 255 . 256 . 257 . 258 . 259 . 260 . 261 . 262 . 263 . 264 . 265 . 266 . 2^1 .^8J . 269 . 270 . 271 Contefits. xvii A.D. 1220. The change in Vowels and Consonants The form sc, the /w/ The which as a Relative Utterly, albeit, greathj Instead of. Ember days Scandinavian Words Low German Words Warwickshire Version of this pipce . Changes in y, c, sc, a,g PAGE . 274 , . . 275 . 276 . . . 277 . 278 , . . 279 . 280 , . . 281 . 282 CHAPTER IV. THE MIDDLE ENGLISH — NEGLECT. (1220-1280.) 1230. The Bestiary . . 283 Change iu Vowels and Consonants . 284 New Adjectives . . 285 The Genesis and Exodus .... . 286 Cliange in Vowels and Consonants . . 287 The hard g of East Anglia .... . 288 Faith, she, made . . 289 Seldom, thunder . 290 • The liJce, great . . 291 The Numerals ; do revived .... . 292 LiJce, beget, take . . 293 Wake, whilom . 294 BiU, of, beside . .^ The Scandinavian Words .... . 296 The German, Celtic, and French Words . . 297 1230. Specimen of the East Midland Dialect 298, 299 1230. The Contrast to the East Midland . . 300 A London Poem ...... . 301 1240. A Lincolnshire version of the Creed . . 302 1240. Specimen of the East Midland Dialect . 303, 304 1240. The Contrast to the East Midland . . 305 XVlll Contents. A.D. 1250. 1250, 1250. 1260. 1264. 1270. 1270. The Owl and Nightingale Morning, hollow, hondman . The rrnist, shmild .... The Scandinavian and Dutch Words The Poems in the Cotton Manuscript Eye, gear, ivench .... You, therewithal .... Celtic and French Words . A Nottinghamshire Poem Specimen of the East Midland Dialect The Contrast to the East Midland The Yorkshire Psalter Scandinavian Forms ... The change in Vowels and Consonants Morning, not, height The new Verbal Nonns . Cloud and sky .... The Pronouns, it, those . The Eelatives .... The Participles .... The Adverbial Forms . The Scandinavian AVords . The Low Grerman Words The Latin Forms .... Second Edition of Layamon's Poem The change in Vowels and Consonants Ever, since, leg . The Poems in the Jesus Manuscript Change in the Names of Counties The Proclamation of Henry III. The word owe discussed The Proverbs of Hending The use of better, best, do The Ballad on Lewes Fight Specimen of the East Midland Dialect Old English Proverbs The Contrast to the East Midland 315 PAGE 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 , 316 , 317 , 318 . 319 . 320 . 321 . 322 . 323 . 324 . 335 . 336 . 337 . 338 . 339 . 340 . 341 . 342 . 343 Coiients. XIX A.D. 1280. The Poem on the Fox The you, if, with .... The Herefordshire Poems Erst, head, one .... Unhappy character of the last Period PAGE , 344 , 345 , 346 , 347 . 348 CHAPTER V. MIDDLE ENGLISH — REPARATION. (1280-1300.) 1280. The Harrowing of Hell . The curious Dialogue .... The corruption of the Strong Verb . The revived use of do . The Charters of Bury 8t. Edmund's The Havelok Its Northern Forms. Much in common ^^ ith East Anglia The change in Vowels and Consonants The confusion of Letters . The coupling of Nouns . The change in Substantives and Adjectives The Pronouns ; use of t/ou Yours, it, one ..... The Pluperfect Subjunctive Prepositions and Interjections The Scandinavian Words Celtic and Dutch "Words 1280. Specimen of the East Midland Dialect 1280. The Contrast to the East Midland The Horn and Floriz The change in Pronunciation Knight, hereabout .... The Herefordshire Poems . Sell, sorry, dogged .... XX Contents. AJ3. 1290. 1290. 1290. The French way of compounding The Prepositions The Dame Siriz . Mixture of Northern and Soutliern The ing, and The Tristram .... Marks of transcription . The Verbal Nouns . The Adjectives Thd Infinitive en becomes ing . Take, stick, trow . Scandinavian and Dutch Words The Poem on the Body and Soul The Adjectives and Verbs Discussion upon ing Specimen of the East Midland Dialect The Contrast to the East Midland Change in these Kentish Sermons . • Eld, goodman The Digby Manuscript . The Herefordshire Poems A Hereford Charter The Cursor Mundi The change in Vowels The change in Consonants The nohot, mell, forefather New Substantives New Phrases Beggar, holiday, unhajp^py Kind, sad, mean, curst . Pronoims; she-beast Which, one . Whole, score, mo7i . 3fag be, outtaken, become The Passive Voice developed Scandinavian senses of Verbs PAGE 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 381 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 Contents. XXI A.D. The Transitive Verbal Noun Of all, since when, abaft Mighty, truly . The Prepositions The Interjections . The Dutch Words The Percival and Isumbras Swiftlier, goods, folks . Bight, even, yon What manner, get, fall to 1295. The Lives of the Saints . The Life of Becket Bond, silly, as. Verbal Phrases . The Life of St. Brandan Names of Counties New Phrases . To seek, draw, numb The Life of St. Margaret . 1300. Eobert of Gloucester's Chronicle . The influence of French . The change in Consonants . Proper Names discussed . 'Wassail, shop, dole Silly, stark, sometime New Phrases in Verbs The Adverbs ; as . Aside, up and down The Alexander The change in Consonants . The Verbal Nouns in ing. The use of the Infinitive Passive . German and Scandinavian Words Our synonyms from various quarters The different sources of our Speech 1300. Xo fixed Standard of English PAGE . 411 . 412 • 413 .^ . 416 . 417 . 418 . 419 . 420 . 421 • ^ . 423 . 424 . 425 . 426 .^ . 428 . 429 . 430 . 431 . 432 . 433 . 434 . 435 . 436 . 437 . 438 . 439 . 440 . 441 . 442 . 443 . 444 . 445 . 446 XXll Contents. CHAPTER VI. THE RISE OF THE NEW EI^GLISH. A.D. 1303. 1310. (1303-1310.) PAGE Eobert of Brunne's Handlyng Synne . . 447 Large proportion of French Words . 448 The Dialects meeting near Eutland . . 449 Much in common with the North . . 450 Much clipping and paring .... . . 451 Eighteous, could, smrow . . . . . 452 Toy, lost, meaning . . 453 Bench, score, hucJc . . . . . 454 Swag, jpitifid, right . . 455 Distinction between thou and ye . . 456 Between shall and ivill , - . . . 457 The new use of the Infinitive . 458 To con, set, waive ...... . . 459 Turn, run, troth . 460 Well, indeed, everywhere . . 461 The Interjections . 462 The Scandinavian "Words .... . . 463 The Meditaciuns of the Soper . 464 Homely ; in going ...... . . 465 Melted, bring about, wherefore . 466 Tale of Bishop Eobert . . 467 St, Paul's description of Charity . . 468,469 Discussion of Dinners ..... . . 470 Tale of a Norfolk Bondman .... . 471 Date of the Poem . . 472 Specimen of the Meditaciuns . 473 North Lincolnshire • . . . 474 Yorkshire— Durham . 475 Lowland Scotch ...... . . 476 Lancashire — Salop . 477 Herefordshire . . 478 Warwickshire — Gloucestershire . . 479 Contents. XXlll A.D. PAGF! English Pale in Ireland 480 Somerset — Wiltshire 481 Hampshire ......... 482 Oxfordshire — Kent ....... 483 Middlesex 484 Bedfordshire ........ 485 Norfolk 486 Anarchy of speech in England 487 CHAPTER VII. THE INROAD OF FREXCH WORDS INTO ENGLAND Evil done in the Thirteenth Century 1066. Loss in old English Poetry . The Old Stiindard dies out French used at Court . Changes in the Chronicle The new sound id or oi 1120. De Thaun*s French work . Eau, baptize, Jew Distinction between the high and low Sixty French words come in early 1160. The old English HomUies 1200. Layamon and Orrmin . 1210. TheHali Meidenhad 1220. The Ancren Eiwle The sounds oi an and oi . Bale, capital, anthem . Debt, large, poor .... The mingling of Teutonic and Komance Long list of kindred words The endings ier, us ... . The Norman Kings favoured English A brilliant futixre seemed to await it . French became the official language The chase after foreign fashions . 488 48 y 490 491 492 493 494 495 496 497 498 499 500 601 502 603 504 505 506 507 508 509 510 511 XXIV Contents. A.D. 1280. 1290. English was east aside by the noble Greatness of France at this time . It influenced many countries . There was no Standard English . Influence of Ladies . . . . Their articles of dress . Influence of Franciscan friars . Their way of life .... They unite various classes They make French words familiar The ' Luve Eon ' . . . . Two schools of teachers contrasted New Christian Names Evil done by the clergy Villehardouin easier than Layamon . Loss of Inflexions Loss of the power of Compounding . Comparison of passages in Writers The Period of Reparation ■Edward the First The great inroad of French AV'ords . All men were united . Our words for Soldiering Chronicles compiled in French English compilations Mixture of languages . Feasts described French rimes used Terms of hunting and cookery Terms of law The clergy practise medicine Indelicate words are dropped Herod's diseases described Terms of science . Terms of architecture Number of French words in the Tristrem The Kentish Sermons Contents. XXV A.D. 1300. 1303. 1310. The motive of Translators . Influx of French AVords . Foreign Words much wanted Evil done in Henry III.'s time A Northern version of a Southern poem The future .Standard The loss of the guttural accounted for F'rench words in the Havelok In the Horn and Floriz In the Lyric Poems In the Tristrem . In the Kentish Sermons . In the Herefordshire Poems In the Cursor Mundi Safe and .sound, Ban,, pelf Save, sacred, person Travail, country, march Serve, pain, round . Long lists of French "Words The Percival and Isumbras Robert of Gloucester . Messenger, the year of grace Close, commons, simple, fail The Lives of the Saints . Deliver, use, grape The Alexander The Handlyng Synne List of French Words Force, jolly, single, assize Geste, Sir, clerk, pain The Medytaciuns of the Soper Parsing, bondage French endings . French prefixes Words in ness and dom Corruption of the Franciscans Robert of Erunne and his transcriber PAGE . .549 . 550 . 551 . 552 . 553 . 554 . 555 . 556 . 557 . 558 . 559 . 560 . 561 . 562 . 563 . 564 . 565 . 566 . 567 . 568 . 569 . 570 . 571 . 572 . 573 . 574 . 575 . 576 . 577 . 578 . 579 . 580 . 581 . 582 . 583 . 584 . 585 xxvi Contents. A.D. PAGE Tricks of Language . ...... 58S Proportion of Obsolete and French Words . . . 587 Our future speech foreshadowed ..... 588 Discussion of Monos^dlables ..... 58& Use of the Teutonic . . . . . . . 590 APPENDIX. CHAPTER YIII. EXAMPLES OF EIS^GLISH. 680. Lines on the Euth-vvell Cross . . . . . . 591 737. Lines by Cadmon ....... 592 850. The Northumbrian Psalter . . . . . . 593 950. The Lindisfarne Gospels ...... 594 1000. The Eushworth Gospels 595 1090. The Legend of St. Edmund 596,597 1220. The Aucren Eiwle . . . . . . 598, 599, 600 Index 601 Errata. Page 44, line 5 ; for Boethius read Boethius. „ 105, „ 14 ; for Stinmuloeg read Sunnandoeg. „ 130, „ 19 ; for scehealfe read see healfe. „ 165, „ 17 ; for the Alfred's read Alfred's gh. „ 194, „ 3 ; strike out the sentence beginning mtli iSo. „ 250, ,, 3; strike out for tfiejirst time. „ 315, „ 1 ; for 138 read 303. ,, 337, „ 5; for one read o/ice. „ 374, „ 13 ; for sel iasse read seli asse. „ 442, „ 12 ; for Past read Passive. „ 535, Notes, last line but one ; transfer of from the end to the beginning of this line. THE OLD AND MIDDLE ENGLISH. CHAPTER I. ENGLISH IN ITS EARLIEST SHAPE. ^ Theee are many places, scattered over the world, that are hallowed ground in the eyes of Englishmen ; but the most sacred of all would be the spot (could we only ' know it) where our forefathers dwelt in common with the ancestors of the Hindoos, Persians, Greeks, Latins, Slavonians, and Celts — a spot not far from the Oxus. By the unmistakable witness of language we can frame for ourselves a pedigree more truthful than any heraldic tree boasted by Veres or Montmorencies, by Guzmans or Colonnas. Thanks to the same evidence, we can gain some insight into the daily life of the great Aryan fa- mily, whence spring all the above-named nations. The word ^Arya' seems to come from a time-honoured term for ploughing, traces of which term are found in the Latin arare and the English ear. Some have thought that Iran in the East and Erin in the West alike take * Gibbon begins his fiimoiis chapter on Mohammed by confessing his ignorance of Arabic ; even so, I must acknowledge that all my Sanscrit comes from Dr. Morris and Mr. Muir. 2 Old and Middle English. their names from the old Aryans, the ' ploughing ' folk, men more civilised than the roving Tartar hordes around them. Tliese tillers of the ground ' knew the arts of plough- ing, of making roads, of building ships, of weaving and sewing, of erecting houses ; they had counted at least as far as one hundred. They had domesticated the most important animals, the cow, the horse, the sheep, the dog ; they were acquainted with the most useful metals, and armed with hatchets, whetlier for peaceful or warlike purposes. They had recognised the bonds of blood and the laws of marriage ; they followed theii' leaders and kings ; and the distinction between right and wrong was fixed by customs and laws.' ^ As to their God, traces of him are found in the Sanscrit Dijaus, in the Latin Dies-piter, in the Grreek Zeus, in the English Tiw ; from this last comes our Tuesday. Moreover, the Aryans had a settled framework of grammar : theirs was that Mother Speech, whence nearly all the men dwelling be- tween the Shannon and the Ganges inherit the words used in daily life.^ The Sanscrit and the English are two out of the many channels that have brought the water from the old Aiyan well-head down to our days. Tbe Sanscrit lan- guage, having been set down in writing two thousand years before the earliest English, shows us far more of the great Mother Speech than our own tongue does. I now print a hundred and thirty words or so, the oldest » Max Miillcr, Science of Language, I. 273. 2 The Turks and Magyars are the chief exceptions to the rule. English in its Earliest Shape. used by us, which vary but slightly in their Eastern and Western shapes. How the one-syllabled roots first arose, no man can say. Sanscrit. {Old and New). Sanscrit. English {Old and New) pi tar father tara star inatar mother ajra {fold) acre hhr;'itar brother dru tree svasar sister madhu meodu, mead sunn son dama {hoasd) tim-her diiliitar daughter dvar door vidhava widow aritra ar, oar jani {woman) cwen, quean kalaiua haulm rajan rica {kiny) yiivan young man liridaya heart laglui ii'jht ]va})ala heafod, liead lagliishta lightest akshi t'age, eye niahan (f/reat) my eel, much iiasa nose mahiyan mar, more bhrii brow mafhhish^ha mjt'st, most dat, daiitam (tontha) tooth mridu {soft) mild hfinu cine, chin tanu thill iialcha nregel, nail riuihira red • liida foot glianna warm J rum cneo, knee purna full nab hi navel sania {liho) same lidhaa udder sthira {Jinn) stern yw-r^ yoke nava new go {o.r) cu, cow madliya middle ukshan ox svadu sweet sthura {hull) steer kas {to cough) has, hoarse avi ewe satya sooth, true sukara (Jiog) eugu, sow patatri feathered vrika wolf {winged) musha mus, mouse dvi two haiTisa {goose) gander dvis twice makshika midge trayas three diva by day tritiyas third naktara by night tris thrice masa mouth chatvaras fether, four B 2 4 Old and Middle English. Sanscrit. EngUsh (Old and Xew). SanscTt't. English^ (OldandXeic) panchan (finf) five pri (love) fri-end shaslitlias sixtb smi smile saptan (seoftan) seven miksbami I mix navan mne bbid (cleave) bite dasan (tebim) ten lu loose pratliamas foiTna, first snu ijlow) snivel ah am lb, I trisb tbirst Tavflm we vaksb wax tyam tbu, tbou sidami I sit yuyam ye sadas seat kas (bTvas) bwa. dam tame -who plu flow kad bu^et, what man (tMnJi) to mind kataras wbetber manas mind kdtra wbitber Yam wamble tatra tbitber svid to sweat ublia botb sveda sweat bM be vart (turn) weorjian ^ asti is bval (shales) bweol, wbeel dlia (place) do mri murder dar tear vid to wit stha stand vap weave star strew siv sew bhar bear (bbranj) bban i break lib lick (bbruj) bbuj brook jan (beget) cennan, kindle ' j'^ quicken janus kin i ma mete ja]iaka(y«7//?pr)cTni7ig. kinfr i bandb bind jna know 1 bbraj (shine) biigbt naman name stbag tbatcb ad eat skbad sbed Tab (ca)'7'y) weigb (ancbor) pu (be putrid) ful, foul Ta (hloiv) wind stigb (mount) stio'-rap, stirrup bbuj bngan, bow an • in dhn (blow) dust apa off dhrisb dare abbi bv As in v:oe north the day . Sanscrit. EiiglisJi ill its Earliest SJiape. 5 EnnUsk c u English ^ oanscrit. — ^ — {Old and New'). {Old and New). pra fore na ne, no nunan nu, now ' upan over upa ufa, above ud ut, out tiras {across) tlu'ough The greatest of all mistakes is, to think that English is derived from. Sanscrit. The absurdity of this notion, may be perceived from the fact, that the most untaught English plonghboy of our time in many respects comes nearer to the old Mother Speech than the most learned Brahmin did, who wrote three thousand years ago. Unhappily, we English have been busy, for the last four thousand years, clipping and paring down our inflec- tions, until very few of them are left to us. Of all Europeans, we have been the greatest sinners in this wa}'. Well said the sage of old, that words are like regiments : they are apt to lose a few stragglers on a long march. Still, we can trace a few inflections, that are common to us and to our kinsmen who compiled the Yedas. In Substantives, we have the Genitive Singular and the Nominative Plural left. It will be seen that Eng- lish, in respect of the latter case, comes nearer to the Mother Speech than German does. Sanscnt. Old English. \eic English. Nom. Sing. Yrika-s Wulf Wolf Gen. Sing. Yrika-sya Wulfes AVolfs Kom. Flur. Vriku-s "Widias Wolves ' The English bishop and the French eveque, two very modem forms of the same ■word, are much wider apart from each other than the hoary words in the long list given above. 6 Old mid Middle English. I give a few SuflBxes, common to Sanscrit and Eng- lish forms of the same root : — Ma ; as from the root pid^ know, we get the Sanscrit nciman and the English nama, name. B-a ; as from the root aj, go, we get the Sanscrit ajra and the English acre. Nu ; as from the root su, bear, we get the Sanscrit sunu and the English sunu, son, Der ; as from the root pa, feed, we get the Sanscrit pi-tar and the ^iic^lish. fee- dei^ father. U ; as the Sanscrit onadhu (honey) is the English meodio (mead). Compare our scddu (shadow), seonu (sinew). Oar word silvern must once have been pronounced as silfre-nas, (the Gothic sil'ubr-ei-7i-s) , having the suffix na in common with the Sanscrit phal-i-na-s. We may wonder why vixen is the feminine of fox^ carlme of carle. Turning to our Sanscrit and Latin cousins, we find that their words for queen are rdj-nt and reg-ina, coming from the root raj. Still, in these last, the n is possessive ; the vowel at the end is the mark of the feminine. What is the meaning of wa7'd in such a word as heaven-iuard ? I answer, to tur7i is vart in Sanscrit, vertere in Latin. There is no ending that seems to us more thoroughly Teutonic than the like in such words as tvorhnanlike. But this is seen under a slightly differing shape in the Sanscrit ta-drksha, in the Grreek te-lik-os, and the Latin ta-lis. These words answer to our old ]njlicj which sur- vives as thick or thuck in the mouths of Somersetshire English in its Earliest Shape. 7 peasants. So in Old English we find siuij-lic con-upted by us first into sivylc, and then into such. Our privative un is seen in the Sanscrit a?2, as an-anta-Sj un-end-ing. The Sanscrit ka-s^ led, Jca-t appears in Latin as quis, quce, quid, and in English as hwd^ hwdj hivcet (who, what). The Numerals, up to a hundred, are much the same in Sanscrit, Greek, Latin, and English. In the Comparison of our Adjectives, we have much in common with Sanscrit. There was a Comparative suffix ijjariis, a Superlative ishtha. Sanscrit. English. Theme Mah {(jreat) Mic-el, much Compar. mah-i-jas lua-r-a, more Suporl. mah-ishtha ma;-st, most So svddu (sweet) becomes svddhja, svddishtha, (sweeter, sweetest). The old Comparatives were formed in ra, tar a, the Superlatives in ma, tama. We have, as rehcs of the Comparative, other, whether, after • also, over, tonder. Of the old Superlatives we have but one left : Positive. Coinparative. Superlative. foreweard fyrra for-ma But this forma we have degraded into a Comparative, and now call it former. It is, in truth, akin to the Sanscrit jpra-tha-ma and the Latin pri-mus. Long before the Norman Conquest, we corrupted our old Aryan Superlatives in ma into mest, thinking that they must have some connection with mcest, most. Thus we find 8 Old and Middle EnzUsh '^>' botb. utema and utmest, utmost. Our word aftermost, if written at full length, would be af-ta-ra-ma-yans-ta, a heaping up of signs to express Comparison. In our Pronouns, we had a Dual as well as a Singular and Plural ; it lasted down to the year 1280. In our Adverbs, we find traces of the Sanscrit s, with which the old Genitive was formed. Hence comes such a form as ' he must needs go,' which carries us back, far beyond the age of written English, to the Sanscrit adverb formed from the Grenitive. Even in the earliest English, the Genitive of ned was oiSde, and nothing more. In later times we say, ' of a truth, of course,' &c., which are imitations of the old Adverbial Genitive. We have not many inflections left in the English Verb. The old form in mi, once common to English, Sanscrit, and other dialects, has long dropped ; our word am (in Sanscrit asmi) is now its only representative. It is thougrht that the old Present ran as shown in the following specimen : — Root 7iam, take : ^ 1. nama-mi 2. uama-si 3. nama-ti 4. nama-masi 5. nama-tasi 6. nama-nti 1st Pe)'. ma, me. 2nd Per. ta, thou. 37'd Per. ta, this, he. 1st Per. ma + ta, 1 + t/iou. 2nd Per. ta + ta, thou + thou. 3j-d Per. an + ta, he + he. The Perfect of this verb must have been na-nam-ma in its second syllable lengthening the first vowel of the Present ; in other words, forming what is called in English a Strong Yerb. 8 id- ami in Sanscrit has sa-sdd-a ' Hence comes ' to numb ' and ' Corporal Xym.' English ill its Earliest Shape. 9 for its Perfect, words of which we have clipped forms in I sit and I sat. I MgTd (once liciiluit), from Jidtan, and I did (once dide), are the only English Perfects that have kept any trace of their reduplication, and the former is our one rehc of the Passive voice. The Imperative in Sanscrit was, in the Singular, nama, in the Plural, namata, answering to the Old English nim and nimath. One verbal noun, used as an Infinitive in the Dative case, was nam-ana (the Greek nem-enai), which we had pared down into nim-an more than a thousand years ago. The Active Participle was iiama-nt, which runs through most of the daughters of the Aryan Tongue, and which kept its ground in the Scotch Low- lands until of late years, as ^ ridand^ instead of our corrupt word ^riding.' The Sanscrit and English alike have both Strong and Weak Passive Participles ; the former ending in na, the latter in ta, as stir-na, stretu-n.^ Sanscrit, yuh-ta Greek, zeulc-tos Latin, j^mc-tus English, yolc-ed (in Lowland Scotch, yoJc-it). Those who choose to write I was stopt instead of stopiied^ may justify their spelling by a reference to the first three forms given above. But this form, though admissible in the Passive Participle, is clearly wrong in the Active Perfect, I sto];)ped, as we shall see farther on.^ In the Aryan Speech there were a few Verbs which * Few Sanscrit verbs have this form, so common in English. * Archdeacon Hare always spelt preached as j^^cacht. Still, it is the English th, not t, that should answer to the Sanscrit t. lo Old and Middle English. had lost their Presents, and which used their old Perfects as Presents, forming for themselv^es new Weak Perfects. I give a specimen of one of these old Perfects, found both in Sanscrit and English. Sanscrit. Old English. Neio English. ved-a wat I wot yet-tha was-t Thou wettest ved-a wat He wots vid-ma wit-o-u We wot vid-a wit-o-n Ye wot vid-iis wit-o-n They wot It is easy to see that, thousands of years before Christ's birth, our forefathers must have used a Present tense, like wit or vid. Our verbs, may, can, shall, will, must, dare (most of which we use, with their new Per- fects, as auxiliary verbs), have been formed like luot, and are Irregulars. Our verb to &e is most irregular, since its tenses come from three roots, as, him, and vas. One of the points, in which English goes nearer than Sanscrit to the Mother Speech, is the first letter of the Third Person Plural of this verb. We still say are, the old ar-anti or as-anti ; in Sanscrit this word appears only as s-anti. The Ger- mans have no form of our am, the Sanscrit asmi. The old word, which in Sanscrit is da-dhd-mi, with its Perfect, da-dhdii, was brought to the N'orthumbrian shores by our Pagan forefathers in the shape of ge-do-m, di-de. Hence our irregular do, did, the latter of which plays a great part in building Weak Teutonic verbs. With our verb ga (go), we may compare the Sanscrit ji-gd-mi ; its Perfect is derived from another verb ; English in its Earliest Shape. ii we now say went, instead of the old eode, which Spenser used ; this came from a root /. The Lowland Scotch have a corrupt Perfect, gaecl, which has been long in use. Some of the compounds of our English verbs carry us far back. Thus, to explain the meaning of the first syllable in such words as forlorn, fordone, we must look to the Sanscrit para. The Aryan settlement on the banks of the Oxus was in the end broken up. Fii'st, the Celt marched towards the setting sun, to hold the Western lands of Europe, and to root out the old Turanian owners of the ground ; of these last, the Basques and Lapps alone remain in being. Hundreds of years later the English, with other tribes (they had not 3^et learnt to count up to a thousand), followed in the Celt's wake, leaving- behind them those of their kinsmen who were after- wards to conquer India and Persia, to compile the Vedas, and to leave their hand^\Titing on the rock of Behistun.^ Some streams flowed to the West of the great water- shed, others to the East. Many tokens show that the English must have long lived in common with the forefathers of Homer and Najvius. The ending of the Greek ^'ov(\. paid-ion is the counterpart of that of the English maid-en ; paid-islc-os of ciJd-isc, childish.'^ Latin is still nearer akin to us, and sometimes hardly a letter is changed ; as when we com- pare alias and else. Dom-unculus appears in Old English as hm-incle. The Latin fer and the Old English loire, ' The old Persian word ydre is the English year. - Sophocles' high-sounding TrojAoSo/xj/eTv "svoiild be our to foal- tame, if we chose to componnd a -word closely akin to Greek. 12 Old and Middle Ens'lisk. ' in truth, the same word, are attached to substantives, which are thus changed into adjectives. Vig-il and the Old English wac-ol (wakeful) are but different forms of one word ; and wittol still remains. The Latin rtialva is our mallow ; and the likeness was still more striking before we corrupted the old ending u into ovj. Aiei and cevum are the Gothic cimv, the English aye and ever. Latin and English alike slipped the letter u into the middle of a verb before g, as frango or frag, and gang or gag. ■ The Latin Future tense cannot be explained by Latin words alone ; but, on turning to Euglish, w^e at once see that donia-ho is nothing but our tame-he ; that is, I he to tame, or I shall tame. So likewise with ara-ho, or I ear he.^ English sometimes shows itself more primi- tive than Latin ; thus, our hnot has never lost its first letter, while gnoclus was shortened into nodus thousands of years ago. It is the same with hnoiv and gnosco. But all the Teutonic tribes have traces left of their nearness of kin to the Slavonians and Lithuanians, who seem to have been the last of the Aryan stock from whom we Teutons separated. "We have seen that, when living in Asia, we were unable to count up to a thousand. The Sanscrit for this numeral is sahasra, the Latin mille. The Slavonians made it tusantja, the Lithuanians tuhstanti, and with this the whole Teutonic kindred closely agrees. Further, it seems strange at first sight that we have not framed those two of our numerals that follow ten in some such shape as dn-tyne ' The verb ear is happily preserved in Shakespeare, and in the English Bible. It is one of the first -words that ought to be revived by our best writers, who should remember their Ar-yan blood. English ill its Earliest Shape. 13 and twd-tyne, since we go on to yreo-tyne, thirteen. Tlie explanation is, that the Lithuanian lilca answers to the Teutonic tiliOM, ten ; the Ita at the end of the former word changes to /a; just as the Primitive Aryan Z;afra?' changes to the Gothic fidwor (our four), and the Latin cado to our fall. If lifan then take the place of the common Teutonic tihan, dn-lifan and tiva-hfan (eleven and twelve) are easily framed. These Eastern kinsmen of ours had also, like ourselves and unlike the rest of the Aryan stock, both a Definite and an Indefinite form of the Adjective. But the time came when our fathers left off" hunting the auroch in the forests to the East of the Vistula, bade farewell to their Lithuanian cousins (one of the most interesting of all the branches of the Aryan tree), and marched Westward, as the Celts had done long before. Up to this time, we may fairly guess, we had kept our verbs in mi. It cannot be known when the great Teutonic race was split up into High Germans, Low Germans, and Scandinavians. Hard is it to explain why each of them stuck to peculiar old forms; why the High Germans should have kept the Present Plural of their Verb (a point in which Old Enghsli fails woefully), almost as it is in Sanscrit and Latin ; why the Low Ger- mans (this term includes the Goths and English) should in general have clung closer to the old inflections than their brethren did, and should have refused to corrupt the letter t into s ; ^ why the Scandinavians should have 1 Compare the Sanscrit sveda, English sweat, High German schweiss. English is at once seen to be far more primitive than German. 14 Old and Middle English. retained to this day a Passive Voice. I can here do no less than give a substantive and a verb, to show how our brethren (I may now at last drop the word cousins), formed their inflections. The Substantive Wolf. Old English. Gothic. Old High Get SINGULAE, Nom. wulf wulfs wulf Gen. wulfes w iilfis wulfes Dat. wulfe wulfa wulfa Ace. wulf wulf wulf PLURAL. Nom. wiilfas wulfos wulfa Gen. wiilfa wulfe wulfo Dat. wiilfum wulfam wulfum Ace. wiilfas wulfans wulfa ulfr ulfs ulfi ulf ulfar ulfa ulfum ulfa Pkesent Tense of the Veeb niman, to take ; whence comes our numh. Old English. Gothic, Old High German. Old Nors Ic nime iiima uimu nem ])u uimest m'lTiis nimis uemr he uimeS nimij? nimit nemr we nimaS nimam nemames nemum ge nimaS iiimi]> nemat nemiS hi nimaS nimand nemaut nema All these Teutonic tribes must have easily under- stood each other, about the time of Christ's birth ; since, hundreds of years after that event, they were using the English in its Earliest Shape. 15 above-cited inflections. They had by this time wan- dered far fi'om the old Aryan framework of speech. Thus, to take one instance — the Dative Plural in ur\i ; the Sanscrit Nominative sunn formed its Dative Plural in sunu-hlijas (compare the Latin ^ftcZ-i*6? sing-er, spinster, ivarn-ing^ good-ness, stead-fast, ma7i{' foldj stdn-ig (stony), aiv-ful^ god-less, ivin-some, riglit-vns (righteous) . Others, older still, such as silv-ern, vix-en, worhnan-lihe, cliild-ish, witt-ol, mall-ow, I have given before. Many old Teutonic endings have unhappily dropped out of our speech, and have been replaced by meaner ware. The Teutons, after turning their backs on the rest of their Aryan kin, compounded for themselves a new Perfect of the verb, known as the Weak form. The older Strong Perfect is formed by changing the vowel of the Present, as I sit, I sat, common to English and Sanscrit. But the new Perfect of the Teutons is formed by adding di-de (in Sanscrit, da-dhdu) to the stem. Thus, sealf-ie, I salve, becomes in the Perfect, sealfo-de, the de being contracted from dide. When we say, I loved, it is like saying, I love did. This comes out much plainer in our Gothic sister.^ Another peculiarity of the Teutons was the use of the dark Runes, still found engraven on stone, both in our island and on the mainland : these were in later times proscribed by Christianity as the handmaids of witchcraft. The Celts were roughly driven out of their old abodes, on the banks of the Upper Danube and elsewhere, by the intruding Teutons. The former were far the more civilised of the two races : they have left in their word hall an abiding trace of their settlement in Bavaria, and of their management of salt works. The simple word ^ The Latins set Prepositions before dhd and dadhciu, and thus formed ahdo, abdidi ; condo, condidi ; i^erdo, perdidi. This last is nothing but the English Ifor-do (ruin), 1/or-did. EnglisJi in its Earliest Shape. ij leather is thought by good judges to have been borrowed from the Celts by their Eastern neighbours.' Others suffered besides the Celts. A hundred years before Christ's birth, the Teutons forced their way into Italy, but were overthrown by her rugged champion Marius. Rather later, they matched themselves against Caesar in Gaul, and felt the heavy hand of Drusus. The two races, the Latin and the Teutonic, (neither of them dreamed that they were both sprung from a common Mother), were now brought fairly face to face. Our forefathers, let us hope, bore their share in the great fight, when the German liero smote Varus and his legions; we English should think less of Caractacus and Boadicea, more of Arminius and Velleda. Hitherto we have puzzled out our history from the words used by ourselves and our kin, without help from annalists ; now at length the clouds roll away, and Tacitus shows us the Angli, sheltered by their forests and rivers, the men who wor- shipped Mother Earth, in her own sea-girt island, not far from the Elbe. Little did the great historian guess of the future that la}'' before the barbarians, whom he held up to his worthless countrymen with so skilful a pen. Some of these Teutonic tribes were to take the place of Rome and become the lords of her Empire, to bear her Eagle and boast her titles ; others of them, later in the world's history, were to rule more millions of subjects than Rome could ever claim, and were to found new empires on shores to her unknown. She had indeed done great things in law and literature ; but her Senate might well have learned a lesson of public spirit from ' Garnett's Essays, pp. 150, 167. C 1 8 Old and Middle English. the assemblies held by these barbarians, assemblies to which we can trace a likeness in the later councils held in Wessex, Priesland, Uri, Norway. Rome's most renowned poets were to be outdone by Teuton Makers, men who would soar aloft upon bolder wing into the Unseen and the Unknown, and who would paint the passions of mankind in more lifelike hues than any Latin writer ever essayed. But among the many good qualities of ourselves and our kinsmen, tender care for conquered foes has seldom been reckoned; Western Celt and Eastern Slavonian know this fuU well. Hard times were at hand ; the old worn-out Empire of Rome was to receive fresh life-blood from the healthy Teutons. In the Fifth Century, our brethren overran Spain, Graul, and Italy ; becoming lords of the soil, and overlaying with their own words the old Latin dialects spoken in those provinces. To this time belongs the Beowulf, which is to us English (may I not say, to all Teutons ?) what the Iliad was to the Greeks. The old Epic, written on the mainland, sets before us the doughty deeds of an Englishman, before his tribe had come to Britain. There is an unmistakable Pagan ring about the poem ; and a Christian transcriber, hundreds of years afterwards, has sought to soften down this spirit, which runs through the recital of the feats of Ecgtheow's bairn. In the same age as the Beowulf were written the Battle of Finsborough and the Traveller's Song, In the latter, Attila, Hermanric, and the wealthy Caesar are all mentioned. Pity it is that we have not these lays in theii' oldest form, in the English spoken not long after the first great Teutonic writer had given the Scriptures to his Gothic countrymen in their own tongue.. English in its Earliest Shape. 19 The island of Britain was now no longer to be left in the hands of degenerate Celts ; happier than Crete or Sicily, it was to become the cradle where a great people might be compounded of more than one blood. Bede, writing many years later, tells us how the Jutes settled themselves in Kent and Wight ; how the Saxons fastened upon Essex, Sussex, and Wessex; how the Angles, coming from Anglen (the true Old England), founded the three mighty kingdoms of East Anglia, Mercia, and Nortlmmbria, holding the whole of the coast between Stirling and Ipswich. It is with this last tribe that I am mainly concerned in this work. Fearful must have been the woes undergone by the Celts at the hands of the ruthless English heathen, men of blood and ii'on witli a vengeance. So thoroughly was the work of extermination done, that but few Celtic words have been admitted to the right of English citizenship. The few that we have seem to show that the Celtic women were kept as slaves, while their hus- bands, the old owners of the land, were slaughtered in heaps. Garnett gives a list of nearly two hundred of these words, many of which belong to household management ; and others, such as spree, ham^ luliop, halderdasli, &c., can scarcely be reckoned classical English. Old Britain was by degrees swept away, after much hard fighting ; and the history of ]^ew England at lengtli begins ; her birth- throes were far sharper than any thing- known in Spain, Gaul, or Italy. Amid the shouts of the slayers and the groans of the slain, let us keep a steady eye upon the years 571 and 577, as recorded in the Chronicle. We there read of c 2 20 Old and Middle Ensilish. i> the Wessex Princes winning their way to Bedford and Grloucester; they seem to have been the first Teutons who bore their arms into Salop. This fact must be kept in mind, when we come afterwards to treat of the limits of English dialects. The South- West of Mercia (to use a name that arose rather later) was first settled by Western Saxons, though it was afterwards mastered by the Angles of the Midland. It is curious that the Danes, coming much later, never settled in any of the shires conquered by the Saxons, with the one exception of Essex ; the Scandinavian scourge came down almost wholly upon the Angles. Christianity, overspreading the land in the Seventh Century, did much to lighten the woes of the down- trodden Celts : a wonderful difierence there was between the Christian conquest of Somerset and the Pagan con- quest of Sussex. The new creed brought in its train scores of Latin words, such as candle, altar, hisJiop, &c,, which have been employed by us ever since the Kentish King's baptism. The Church in other lands scorned the popular speech ; such broken Latin as the Hymn of St. Eulalie in Prance (about the year 900), seemed to be a caricature of the language of the ' Te Deum.' But with us the Church made English her handmaid ; our greatest men translated the Bible or compiled Homilies in their own tongue. At this point I halt, finding no better opportunity for setting forth the grammar employed by our fore- fathers, traces of which, mangled as it is by the wear and tear of centuries, may still be found. English ill its Earliest Shape. 21 SUBSTANTIVES, DIVISION L CLASS I. 8INGT7LAR. Mase. Fern. Neut. No7n. Steorra TuDge Eage Gen. Steorran Tuniran Eiigan Dat. Steorrau Tungan Eagau Ace. Steorran Tungan PLTJPvAL. Edge Kom. ' Ace. ■ Steon-an Tuugan Eagan Gen. ' Steorrena Tungenam })^re jmm 6*ew. J)ara Ace. ]70iie ]?a ])8et -D«^. J)am AN. n SINGULAR. ]^y PLTTRAL. Masc. Fern. Neut. Nom. ])es |)e6s J?is iVom. 1 , ^ Gen. pises jiisse jnses Bat. )isum jnsse ])isum 6^en. ])issa Ace. usne ■1 ^ ]7as )is Bat. ]>isum PEONOUNS. Nom. Gen. Bat. Ace. I SINGTJLAPv. IC ]7U mill ]?in me J>e DUAL. Nom. wit G^e/i. uncer Bat. Ace. } unc git incer iiic English in its Earliest Shape. 25 PLTIKAL. Nom. -^e ge Gen. ure eower Dat. 1 ^ Ace. J eow SINGULAR. PLUPvAL. Mase. Fern. Neiit. Nom. he heo hit Nom. \ j^j Ace. J Gen. his hire his Bat. him hire him Gen. hii-a Ace. hine hi hit Dat. him Mase. and Fern • iV^'^M??. Nom. hwa hwset Gen. hwses hwaes Dat. hwam hwam Ace. hwone hwaet Abl. hwy hwy THE STRONG VERB. (Infinitive, heal dan.) INDICATIVE. Prese:^!. Perfect. Sing, healde hylst hylt Plur. healdaS healdaS heal da 5 Sing. Plur. heold heoldon heolde heoldon heold heoldon SUBJUNCTIVE. Present. Perfect. Sing. healde Plur. healdon heolde heoldon 26 Old and Middle English. IMPERATIVE. • Sing. heald miir. liealdaS Gerund. To healdanne AcTiTE Participle. healdende j Past Participle, geliealden THE WEAK VERB. (Infinitive, hijian.) INDICATIVE. Present. . Perfect. Sing. Plur. Sing. Plur. lufige lufast lufaS lufiaS ^ lufode lufodon lufiaS lufodest lufodon lufiaS lufode lufodon SUBJUNCTIVE. Present. Perfect. Sing. Plur. lufisre lufode lufion lufodon IMPERATIVE. Sing. lufa Plur. lufia'6 Gerund. Active Participle. Past Participle. To lufigenne 1 lufigende | gelufod English in its Earliest Shape. 2/ In tracing the history of English corrnptions, we must remember that the books npon which we have to depend were written at very different times. When we find any construction common to Gothic and EngHsh, we may feel pretty sure that this form was used by Hengist. There are some Charters, in Kemble's Collec- tion, of the Eighth Century with very old forms ; these we have in a transcript, made 300 years later. King Alfred's translation of Pope Gregory's Pastoral Care, printed for the first time in 1871 just as the great King wrote it (and not as his later transcribers corrupted it), teaches us what were the Southern forms of the year 890 or thereabouts. The bulk of Old EngHsh literature belongs to the next century. Then come the Southern Gospels, which were translated a little before the year 1000, and are more English in their idioms than Wick- lifi^e's later version is.' The Saxon Chronicle carries us thence to the great landmark, the year 1066 ; and for this last period we may also consult the mass of Old English printed by Mr. Thorpe in his ' Analecta Anglo- Saxonica,' and by Mr. Sweet in his 'Anglo-Saxon Reader.* There is, moreover, the Tale of Apollonius and the Legends of the Holy Rood, works that seem rather late, perhaps about 1050. There are, further, the more modern English Charters printed in Kemble's ' Codex Diplomaticus.' I have been careful to quote here none of these last that bear evident marks of later transcrip- tion. ^ For example ; in St. John xx. 22, occurs iiisufflavit with no pronoxm folloTviBg. The Gospels of 1000 translate, hleow he on hi ; "Wickliffe meagrely translates, he blew ynne. 28 Old and Middle Ens:lish u lyJist,. rather than from the First Person, ic leoge. The old scapan and sceapan (fingere) run side by side. It is a pity that we have lost our accents : we can now no longer distinguish between metan (metiri) and raetan (occurrere). We often see our vowels doubled, to mark a difference; thus god (bonus) became good, that it might not be confounded with our word for Deus ; goodly and godly have different shades of meaning. It ' is the same with tool and toll, cooJc and cocJc, and many others. King Alfred led the way, in doubling the letter o.^ We still keep the old hlendan (miscere), but we have changed hlendian (excsecare) into Mind, thinking it was too like the former verb. Wrath stood of old for both ira and iracundiis ; we now mark the adjective by substituting o for a ; this is an improvement. Cld^ stood for our cloth and our clothes alike. ' A slight vowel change makes a great difference in the gentility of proper names; see Blount and Blunt, Smythe and Smith.] English in its Earliest Shape. 33 We have had a sore loss, since Spenser's day, in parting with the e so often sounded at the end of words. This began very early, for we find uur\ (dignus) written as well as wur\e. The changes in pronouncing and spelling are all brought about by laziness in the speakers ; hence it came that even in the year 803 our English tongue was very far gone from old Aryan purity. In a Worcester Charter of that year (Kemble, I. 222), luxdde (our icouU) replaces ivolde ; monn and londe are written for man and land. Ninety years later. King Alfred, unlike the Germans, shows a distaste for the hard g in the middle of a word; he writes ren (rain), "(Senode^ gesced (said), U7iderled, instead of the right regn, ISegnode, gescegd, underlcegd. The English led of the last word is cut very short, when we compare it with the Gothic galagid. He sometimes softens g at the beginning of a word, writing ionga (young), not geonga ; just as yera (annus) in Gothic answered to the EngHsh gear. The ge of the Past Participle is by him often clipped, as drifen for gedrifen.^ He casts both the n and d out of the old endlefta (eleventh), writing humlcelleftiogu^an (Pastoral Care, 465). At page 307, we see the old sende turned into OUT se7it (misit), and at page 170, hegyrde becomes hegyrd, our begirt. The n, in which always of old the Wessex Infinitive ended, is beginning to be lost. Instead of the old heo^ ge, the slovenly heo ge (be ye) is coming ' The ge is replaced by i, prefixed to Participles, so early as the tenth century. See Mr. Sweet's note, Pastoral Care, 489. The com- mon form nothink shows how hard the g must have been sounded at the end of a word. 34 Old and Middle English. in ; it prevailed in most of the manuscripts of the next age. The o at the end of the Verb, as in ic hiddo, was now about to dfsajopear in the South. In the year 991 (Kemble's Charters, III. 256), hcefde is corrupted into hcedde (habuit). In 995 (III. 295), hetest (optimus) is changed for the Danish lezt, in a will ; but the z never became very common in our Teu- tonic words. We have preferred seol (phoca) to seolli ; though the Laird of Monkbarns, even so late as 1800, called it sealgli. The h was pronounced as a strong guttural, for ^Ifeah became the Latin Elphegus. The letter r must have been sounded strong, as the Scotch and Irish pronounce it now ; horen was written for horn (natus) even down to the Reformation: our laziness has mauled the fine old sound. The letter n was often added to roots in English verbs ; thus we have both to slake and to slacken, lieark and hearken, list and listen, wake and luaken; we Hack boots, but we blacken a good name. So in Icelandic we find both hlika and hlikna. Sometimes I is employed instead of n ; thus in Old English both nistian and nestlian were used, each derived from nest, and each having a different shade of meaning. There is a tendency in th, the English sound that answers to the Sanscrit and Latin /, to slide into d ; and this must have begun very early. In Gothic, both wlia]i and wliad are found for wMther. In English, we see not only civile, but ciuide (dictum). There is now a difference between tlirilling the soul of a man and drilling a hole in his body. The sceS, which must have been our oldest form of the Latin satur, has given way English ill its Earliest Shape. 35 to seed. Since the Conquest, rother has become rudder^ ■hyr^en hurden, and murtlier murder. As to cwce^an, we have kept nearer to the right spelling in bequeath than in quoth. We talk of a settle ; but in Hardwick's Saxon Gospels (St. Matt. xxv. 31) setl, se^el, and sedle are employed by three different writers between 950 and 1000, when Englishing. Christianity enriched our tongue with many new foreign words, as we see from one short sentence in a Charter of 831, ceghtvilc diacon arede twa passioiie (Kemble, I. 292). King Alfred shows us in his Pastoral Care how early letters and words that came through the Latin began to work a change in English. We there find not only Sacharias^ but Zacharias ; the z and ch were entire strangers to Pagan England : Bede had most likely naturalised them long before Alfred's time. We are not surprised after this to find the King spelling English words like ^ohcha, pouch, (343) ; tiohchode (385), and hliehchanf laugh (249), though in all these the ch must have been sounded hard. Lazarus was spelt Ladzarus, showing the Italian way of pronouncing z ; in the Rush- worth Gospels (St. Luke x. 10), hi plateas is Englished by on plcetsa (piazza), Alfred was not particular about his Latin cases ; he talks of ^iirh Patdiis (306), he has the Genitive Sancte Paides (290), also of leremie (441). ^a Saducie and So- Farisseos (363) — this last word, here used as a Kominative, would remind an Englishman of his national Plural ending in as. One of the first instances of the v^ which has driven out / from the middle of many an English word, is found in Alfred's phrase on Livano, in Lebanon. His spelling seems something D 2 36 Old and Middle English. "born out of due time ; he is a forestaller, as it were, of GUI' modern ways, for we have followed him rather than, later writers of the Tenth Century, especially in spelling hogh (ramus), not holi (Pastoral, 81) ; Ijurg, not hurli (hence the Borgo at Rome) ; and in words like friend and fiend, which rather later were written freond and feond. The old form was luckily kept in Kent and Essex. He has also our common au in nauht and auM, lief on for heofon, apla for ceppel, ascian for axian. The new ou was in the end, as a general form, to supplant ii, and Alfred writes nou'^er. He is fond of doubling 0, just as we have done since Chaucer's time : the King writes foot, doo, goody In Pages 28 and 103 he puts gecnewon (knew) and strewede (strewed) where later writers would have written gec7ie6iuon and streoiuode ; ed very early replaced od. He couples c and 7,-, the Southern and IN'orthern letters, in '^iche (P. 329) : this was not much imitated until 1180. He often puts h for c, and u for iv, like the Northum- brians. He writes orcgeard, our orcJiard, in Page 381 ; showing the close alliance there is between c and t, for the word was usually ortgeard} In Page 171 we see reeding e and leornunge ; the old ung at the end of a word was making way for ing, the new form for Verbal Nouns. He is not very fond of the diphthongs, in which Southern England rejoiced down to 1205 ; he puts let for Icet, and he writes Mew {color, Page 133), showing" us that we have not changed our pronunciation of this word for the last thousand years ; if we were to pro- nounce it as we spell it now, we should say lioo-y. Our * See page 86 of my Book. English in tts Earliest Shape. 37 true is more like Alfred's trua (Pastoral, 242) than it is to the more com.mon treoioe (confidence) . We know how many in our day sound neiva as if it was noos ; bnt we have in general faithfully kept the ew sound, unless when it follows I or r, as blew and reiv, rue. In writers a little later than Alfred, but living before the Norman Conquest, we find Indie for India, lulhcses for the genitive of Julius, and Theodor for Theodorus, (Thorpe's 'Analecta,' 43-51). The second example fore- shadows our cruises and crocuses. So early as the time of the Rushworth Gospels (St. John xix. 5) purjjle was written instead of the Southern purimr. The Latin castella is translated in the Gospels of 1000 by ceastra^ the crumbling casters or chesters still left in our land to bear witness how Rome of yore laid her iron grip upon Britain,^ Sometimes in the Gospels the Latin castelluni, meaning a village, is Englished by castel^ a word which fifty years later, when French ideas first began to take root in our land, was to be applied usually to a fortress. We of 1877 are sometimes more Teutonic than our fathers; thus we say cu2), not caZ/c, in the Eucharist. Latin was the official language of religion in Western Christendom ; it early gained a footing among foreign nations. We can guess how it was pronounced down to about the year 400, when we see saJcerdos imitated by the Irish soggarth, and luherna by the Gothic luharn. The Latin sound e was rendered by the Gothic ai, as ' Tadcastcr, and many another town with the same ending, keeps the old ca-sira alive in our mouths. 38 Old and Middle Eno-lish. taitrarJces. The influence of Latin soon made itself felt in England. Time was compnted by Kalends, Nones, and Ides. The Churchmen brought scores of Latin words into vogue, w^iich have kept their ground for the last twelve hundred years. Weevenformed new English verbs from the Latin : thus hedysan, our enclGse, must have sprung in early days from the noun dysing, which itself came from the foreign dausus, daustrum. One of the strangest compounds of Latin and English is the word sol-sece, the flower that seels the sun ; noontide is some- thing of the same kind. English sometimes throws light upon old Latin pronunciation. Thus, in the great Roman colonies of the Rhine land, the name of the huge earth-shaking beast must have been sounded elep-has ; and this our forefathers called yip, which lasted down to- 1230. When we see the Latin jj^yo Englished SiS pmua^ we get a hint as to the way the Latin v was pronounced, at least in some provinces ; the sound afterwards changed on the Continent, for fers and serfis, not tners and serwis, was written by Englishmen before the Norman Conquest for versus and servitium. Grimm's Law tells us plainly that words like temper smd foeinne, found in early English writings, were borrowed from the Latin, and that they have not always been in English ase. We have already seen the careful heed which the English bestowed upon the cases of their nouns, the in- flections which they had brought from the Oxus. King Alfred first shows us how these began to be corrupted in the South ; the um of the Dative Plural, which appears in every one of our old Declensions, seems to have always been the first inflection to be mauled. In the Pastoral English in its Earliest Shape. 39 Care, 347, we find mid ^cem y^on ; on ^cem miclan stormuviy 59 ; and many more such instances could be given. The process went on in the Gospels of a century later, and the um was all but gone by the year 1200. Our sweetmeat is very old, for it is found as swetmete. But sometimes two Substantives are yoked together, an wudu-hunig, wood-honey ; here the first substantive has the force of an adjective ; it is a peculiarly English idiom. Our country house is surely much less cumbrous than the French maison de campagne. The old phrase ' a Parliament man ' is better than ' a member of the Legislature.' Sometimes one of these old expressions seems to be wholly gone, and then is revived in very modem times. Thus our fathers spoke of a luif-freond ; this has come to life again in our ' lady -friend.'' ^ In St. Luke xi. 12, we read scorpioneTn, ^cet is an ivyrm cynn. Here once more two substantives are coupled ; we should now say, 'a kind of worm.' The old carl-catt has now become tom-cat - this change cannot well have taken place until after the death of St. Thomas of the English. We should carry on the process of coupling nouns as much as possible, if we wish to enrich our tongue, and our Poets should here take the lead. No language but English would now use so concise and handy a phrase as ' The Commons Enclosure Consolidation Act,' ^ A Substantive was sometimes dropped to save breath ; as in a sentence from the Chronicle of 982, JS]>elmceres lie li]> ^ I have heard lady-(hg in the mouths of nice people ever since 1813. Lord Karnes used to employ a far plainer word, as Scott tells us. "^ See Earle's Fhihlngy, p. 471. fc 40 Old and Middle English. (here), anH Badwines (there) ; lie should have been repeated after the second proper name. Matzner (III. 225) quotes ic wees on eMe ]>mum, ]>u wurcle on mmum\ here the eMe is not repeated. I have ah^eady remarked upon English terseness. This is seen in the phrase Gode ^onc, 'thanks (be to) God,' which comes like a parenthesis in the middle of a sentence in the Pastoral, p. 26. Again, in ^Ifric's Homilies (Sweet's ' Anglo-Saxon Reader,' p. 85), we find se apostol wees nigon geara ; here old has been dropped. In p. 57 of the same book we read for Godes lufan ; here we sTiould now say, *for love to God.' Hence comes ' the King's traitor,' and many such phrases, which lasted long. In this work I find it very convenient to talk, like the Greeks, of the Old and the New. In former days an Adjective was often used as a Substantive, as ure ieldran (Pastoral, 5), our elders, forefathers ; hence we say, 'your betters,' 'your superiors.' Thus the Substantive goods was formed from the Adjective, as in Latin. ' There is not his like ' is but the old his gelica nis (Thorpe's 'Analecta,' 34). Our on the loose is foreshadowed hjon'^awi drygean (St. Luke xxiii. 31). In the Pastoral, p. 399, Lot says, her is an lytele hurg . . . heo is an lytel ; in our days, we should add one to the last word. In p. 385 comes ^?t gionga, thou young un ; this un or one did not take the place of the final a until 1290. In this way the old hedrida became bedridden. Our well-known ' easy does it ' is a curious substitution of an Adjective for a Sub- stantive. The deep might stand for the Latin mare, as it does in our time. English in its Earliest Shape. 41 We know our poetic construction of Adjectives, as seen in Mr. Tennyson's ' a grey old wolf and a lean.' Some- thing like this, though not exactly the same, may be seen in St. Luke xxiii. 50, where Joseph is described as god wer and rihhuis. We sometimes see an English Adjective clipped in a way that the Latin would not bear. In the Chronicle of the year 980, nor^ sci^herige is put for ' the nortJiern army.' Now and then a word compounded of an Adjective and a Substantive is used as an Adjective, as barefoot ; harehead lasted down to the Fifteenth Centuiy. We might say of old both dn-edge and du-eged, one-eyed. We often compound a Substantive with an Adjective, as the oldhlodread, 'blood-red.' Our good, as we know, is sometimes used in a sense differing from virtuous. We might justify, from the Saxon Chronicle, our phrases ' a good while ago ' and *a good deal of work,' like Horace's hona ^ars homi- num. Our poets keep alive Old English epithets, dating from the earliest times; thus we find in Kemble's Charters, IV. 292, red gold mentioned. One of our heaviest losses is the almost total disuse of the un, so often prefixed to Adjectives, as in un-good, un- mightg, and many others. It was also prefixed to Sub- stantives as ■un-might, and I rejoice to see that such words as tmwisdom are once more comiDg to life in our land. We also talk of un- churching, just as Burnet wrote of uji-shrining and un-sainting. The Gothic opposes unhahands (he that hath not) to hahands. The 42 Old and Middle English. freer play tTiat is given to this good old Teutonic prefix, tlie better will it be for our tongue. It is a sliame to use non as a prefix where un will do ; this is as bad as svh- letting insead of underlettmg. The old jorefix luan, some- thing like im, now lives only in ^van-ton. Of all our parts of speech the Verb is the most pre- cious, for in its varied forms we find most traces of hoary Aryan eld. We keep many old verbal idioms with but little change, such as ' I am seeking,' ' I am come,' ' they are gone,' 'he thought to slay,' 'seek to come,' 'enough to eat,' ' worthy to bear,' ' this house to let,' ' fair to see,' ' I do you to wit,' ' he is going to read,' he gce^ rcedan. The Grerund was much used, as, ic to drincenne hmbhe, ' I have to drink,' like Cicero's liaheo dicere ; ivceron to farenne, ' they were to go.' Mxbi is me t6feran,is like the Grothic mel du hairan (St. Luke i. 57), Our curious idiom of Participles, ' he ceased commanding,' ' they dreaded ask- ing,' is found in Old English, as, geendude heheodende, ondredon dcsigende. So also, ' I heard him speaking,' ' I saw it burnt.' He licefde liine geivorhtne, 'he had him wrought,' common enough with us, is not often found in Greek or Latin. The Present Participle is often used as a Substantive, as ' the living and the dying.' It has always been allowed to prefix im, as ' the unbelieving,' ' the unbecoming.' The Past Participle was used in the same way, as, se muyrgda (the accursed). The Future was expressed by shall and will, but oftcDCr by the Present ; we still say, ' another word, and I go.' Ic mot, yil most, expressed permission, and was very seldom used in our sense of must, expressing need ; licet, not o^ortet, was the idea. The Second Person of the Ejiglish in its Earliest Shape. 43 Present sometimes replaced the Imperative, as, six, dagas ]>u ivircst, in the Fourth Commandment. We sometimes use the Fnture as a mild Imperative ; ymi ivill go there ; here viU keeps one of its old senses, (oportet). If an idea has to be presented both in the Present and Future tense, the Verb often stands in the Present, and is followed by tcill without an infinitive. This is true English conciseness. Miitzner quotes from Exodus : ]>is folc vjix]> and sivi^or uijle, 'this folk waxeth and will (wax) further.' On the other hand, the shcdl is some- times dropped before a second infinitive; Cadmon's Satan mourns ^cet Adam sceal luesan on ivynne and we 'pollen. The should is employed in a most curious old idiom, to be found. in King Alfred's tale about Orpheus ; ' they said that the harper's wife sceolde aciuelan ; ' we simply say ' that the wife died.' Hence comes our phrase ; * who should come up but Thomas,' that is ' who came up.' The shoidd is further used instead of shall; our fathers translated the Latin deheo by sceal ; but ELing Alfred shows us the idiom that we still keep, ^a reaferas ge^encea^, . . . . ac hi sceoldon gehieran, &c. (Pastoral Care, S-Io). The sceoldon in this passage clearly stands for debentj not for dehiierunt. The old meaning of shall is kept in the bidding prayer before University sermons; ' ye shall pray for all mankind,' &c. ; so too, ' Thou shalt not steal.^ The confusion between shcdl and will is very old. In St. John vii. 35, the Gothic has, ' whadre sa sladi gaggan?^ the English has, ^hiuyder vnjle ^esfaran?^ (whither will this man go ?) the Greek word here is iniellei. 44 Old and Middle English, There is a curious idiom of id'lII^ still often heard in the North, an idiom which may be found in the Pastoral Care, 451 ; lin^(Et wile ^cet nu heon weorca ? what work 'tiiust this be ? Matzner quotes other sentences of this kind from the Boethins ; it is to be remarked that these are all questions. I heard an old woman say at the Leeds Exhibition, as she stood before a portrait : ' That will be Shakespeare, a'm thinking.' Since the Norman Conquest, the bare Future has always been expressed, at least in Southern England, by 1 shall, thou luilt, he ivill ; a most curious anomaly, by which the Scotch, Irish, Welsh, and some of the American States, are thoroughly puzzled. Everyone knows the famous ' I will be drowned, and no man shall save me/ Even Thackeray, after travelling in Ireland, confused the two verbs, as may be seen in his ' Irish Sketch-book.' I ivill should never be used unless earnest intention or a promise is to be expressed ; thou shalt, he shall, should never be used unless fate, duty, or command, is to be ex- pressed ; shall answers fairly well to onust, as we now use the latter. As regards the bare Future, perhaps the reason for the aforesaid anomaly is, that a man has complete control over himself, and therefore employs the grave and weighty I shall ; he has no such absolute control over others, as a general rule, and therefore employs the lighter thou unit., he ivill} * Herodotus, as is well known, sometimes uses 8eAco, like our will, to express the bare Future. "We say ' I will gladly do it,' but on the other hand, ' I shall like to do it : ' in the last instance it is felt that the vjill, expressing earnest assurance, would be a pleonasm if used with the A'erb like. English i7i its Earliest Shape. 45 Let ns hope that we shall always cleave to the ancient Subjunctive form, ' as it were,' instead of ' as it might be.' The old Imperative n^ms (esto) is nowhere found now, except in vmssail (w83s hal). We have seen how useful the verb do has always been in framing our English speech. A phrase like he doth luithstand (not he vnthstaivls) seems modem ; but it is found in King Alfred's writings. Our emphatic do was sometimes prefixed to the Imperative. Christ said to the woman taken in adultery, * Do gd, and ne synga ))u ndefre ma' (St. John viii. 11). Bo not thou turn was expressed of old as ne do \u, pcet \u oncyrre. The verb do was also employed, both transitively and otherwise, to save the repetition of a former verb ; Alfred speaks of planting an assembly, sua se ceorl de^ his ortgeard (Pastoral, 293), ' as the churl doth his orchard.' We see an attempt to supply the want of a Middle Voice in such phrases as he hepohfe hine, 'he bethought him,' and the later ' I fear me.' ' It rained fire,' is a true Old English phrase. We have some Impersonal Verbs left, and one that is very precious, since no it comes before the Verb in question. This is me thinJcs (mihi videtur), which has nothing to do with thinh (putare). We should not confound the two, if the second were written in the right way, thenJc. The Germans, wiser than the English, have kept the two verbs distinct. We sometimes see the pronoun thou cast off after the Verb, especially in a question. Matzner quotes Eart nu fulfara ? Hence comes the later dost hear ? ichat sayst ? The disgusting v:}iat say ? one of our latest improve- ments, seems to belong here. 46 Old and Middle English. The Nominative is dropped before the Verb, in sen- tences like do what lean, go ivhere ive 10 ill. This is seen in the old hycge swd he iville. We speak of a horse sometimes as gone lame. In St. John iv. 6, we see he luces iverig gegdn ; the verb of motion having taken the sense of fieri ; rather later, hecome was to take the same meaning. The Infinitive of verbs of motion is often dropped after shall or '^niist. Ic hmi cefter sceal (I shall after him) is an old idiom. We see our common Infinitive, with should pre- fixed, very early encroaching upon the rightful Subjunc- tive. In the Pastoral, p. 381, comes 'hear what is written that the bridegroom, scolde sprecan.^ These last two verbs were usually expressed by one word, like the Latin loqiieretur. This sceolde with the Infinitive very often followed that in a dependent sentence. Now and then we find maij, might, used with the Infinitive, where the Subjunctive is most usual. We have always used I ivoidd for the Optative, like the Latin vellem. Matzner quotes from Boethius ic wolde ])cet he sceamode. The if could always be got rid of in English, and a shorter construction might be used ; as, ahte ic geiveald, ])onne ic iverods ; here the first clause would be in Latin, si potestatem haherem. The Subjunctive usually, but now and then the In- dicative, followed tliat, ere, though, when, and if. The Latin nisi was sometimes Englished by 7hoere ]>cet (were it not that), followed by the Subjunctive. English in its Earliest Shape. 47 Intransitive Verbs sometimes took an Accusative of tlie same stem ; live a life, fight a fight, deem a doom. Lord Derby imitated this very early idiom in his version of the IHad ; ' knee me no knees.' We sometimes find two Infinitives coupled together, as, 'Let her go hang,' This dates from the earliest times ; in the Beowulf is found, tve muto7i gangan .... Hru^gdr geseon. The phrases ' I heard say,' 'he let them speak,' &c., are equally old. But where the Gothic and Latin have the Accusative with the Infinitive, English commonly put that with a dependent sentence ; as, ^hit hetere wcere ]>CBt an inayi siuidte.' The English sometimes put a Past Participle where the Gothic set an Infinitive ; as in St. Luke iv. 23, we gehyrdon gedone. The Dative Past Participle Absolute is found early, as gefijlledum dagum, ' the days having been fulfilled.' We still say this done (hoc facto). Now and then we find a Verbal idiom which is very old, though it seems modern. Thus in the Pastoral Care, p. 393, Solomon, when he began to sacrifice to idols, forget liine selfne, ' forgot himself The Latin morte afficient (St. Matt. x. 21) is translated by a sound old English idiom, to dea]>e fordo]) (do to death). One curious fact about English is, that many idioms found in the oldest books disappear for hundreds of years, and then crop up again. Such a phrase as ' he doth with- stand ' seems to be dropped after the Norman Conquest, but comes up again fresh as ever two hundred years later. It is the same Avith words. The old teorian (deficere) disappeared for many centuries ; it is not 48 Old and Middle English. found in the Bible of Tynclale's time except in the French sense oi adorn ^ but about 1590 it crops up in the shape of tire (to weary), and is seen in Shakespeare. What in the English of 1000 was nCi geteorige (St. Luke xviii. 1) is in Tyndale not to he luerij. So frician (saltare) seems to be the parent of our modern freak. In our days, we put ' to speak shortly ' in the middle of a sentence ; this is an abridged form of our fathers' hra^ost is to cwe^enne, which comes in a catalogue of sins in p. 110 (Sweet's ' Reader '). We now come to Pronouns, Sometimes he is used, as well as a substantive, to govern a verb. Thus in St. Matt, xxvii. 19 he scet ^a Pilatus ; we now often hear say 'he sat then, did Pilate.' The idiom in 'thy rod and thy staff they comfort me ' dates from the oldest times. The hit in English may stand for any masculine or feminine object, or for an indefinite subject. Thus in St. Mark x. 47, hit ivces se HMend replaces the older Gothic Ies7is ist. In St. John xviii. 5 ic hit eom stands for the Gothic ih im, I am he. This it often goes before an Infinitive, as ' it is good to ijraise,^ or before a concessive sentence, as ' it is no wonder if I fear."* In St. Matt, xxvii. 6, nis hyt nd dlyfed is substituted for the Go- thic ni shidd ist, ' it is not allowed ; ' but sometimes we omit it, as in ' dydon siua hehoden luces,^ ^ acted as was ordered.^ In the Pastoral, 381, we see the first glimpse of our emphatic ' it was then that he did it,' ^cet hi^ ^onne ^ast mon gehiere, ^onne, &c. Sometimes, as we have just seen, ^CBt replaces hit, and may be followed by a Plural, as in the Pastoral, 409, ^cet sindan %a ^a 'Se ne heo^ hesmitene, ' these are they that be not defiled ; ' pcet wois god cyning, like our ' that is a good fellow.' English in its Earliest Shape, 49 Indefinite agency was expressed of old as mucli as now ; as \onne hig vjyria^ eow^ ' when tliey revile you.' Personal Pronouns are sometimes reflexives, as I lay tne down ; siYtoS emv (Pastoral, 385). They are sometimes even added to an intransitive verb, as gd '5e on sihbe, ' go in peace' (St. Mark v. 34), where the Gothic has gagg, with no Pronoun. Hence comes our ' get you gone,' and such like. Phrases like / shame me^ I repent me, are first seen in texts like ondred he him (St. John xix. 8). English is unluckily without the reflexive Gothic sih, the Latin se. The strange Dative reflexive has always been used, as Pilatus hym sylf dvjrdt. Indeed, there are old instances of this Dative Pronoun being employed as a Nominative by itself. The ^ylf sometimes stands as a Substantive ; for Miitzner quotes * hcefdon geweald lieora dgenes sylfes,' ' had power over their own person.' Wlien we look back upon the aforesaid Dative reflexive, we see that the Irish are right in saying meself, not myself; the former is the old Dative me sylf, brought to Erin by Strongbow's men-at-arms. In St. Mark ix. 2, sylfe stands for the Gotliic ainans ; Icedde hi sylfe on simdron^ 'he led them by themselves apart.' Before entering on the next subject, it is impossible to refrain from pointing out how much bad grammar would now be avoided had we English anything answer- ing to the Latin distinction between suus and illius, se and ilium. The Possessive Pronoun is often used without any substantive, as eall ficette his ne sie, 'all that is not his,' (Pastoral, 333) . It is sometimes tacked on to a Sub- £ 50 Old and Middle English. stantive, for Matzner quotes, ^nac his cynryn (Anak's kin), Numbers xiii. 29. We still use the Definite Article to express high respect, as The Macnah, The Duke, The Chronicle, The Charter. In the Pastoral, 801, we find se ure Aliesend^ ' our great Redeemer,' 'that Redeemer of ours.' What the Romans called Ccesar was known to the English as se Caser. The Definite Article is coupled with Participles, just as it is with Adjectives ; as the chosen of the Ahnighty, On the other hand, the Article is now omitted, just as it was omitted before the Norman Conquest, in phrases like send word, on earth, in hed, at heart, in hand. If we read of Sinai munt and Herode cyning, we are not astonished at our now using London toivn. King Herod, Twelfth Night. The seo, which usually stands for the Feminine Defi- nite Article, sometimes stands by itself, like heo. Hence comes our slie. In the Gothic version of St. Mark vi. 24, si qa]) is used where we should now say quoth she. Andsivarude se him (St. Matt.xxi. 30) ; here se translates the Latin ille. The Dative Singular Feminine, ])(^7-e, has still all the force of ista in the mouths of the vulgar, as in that there woman ; but they apply it to all genders. In St. Matt. x. 23, we see on ]>ysse hyrig . . . and on ]>cere. The tliem, representing the Latin illis, though found in Gothic (St. Mark ix. 16), did not make much way in England until about 1200. We find, however, ahcefen on ^cem (Pastoral, p. 371). Se, seo, ])(Bt, are old Demonstrative Pronouns, which have been used later as Definite Articles. In English in its Earliest Shape. 51 St. Luke X. 28 we find the Gothic ])ata taiuei, where Tyndale has this do. In the Pastoral, 48, we see an idiom still well known to us : ^cet vjces Hieremias, ' that was Jeremiah.' In St. Luke i. 39, the Latin in illis ■diehus is translated by the Gothic in ])aim dagam, and by the English 072, 'Sam dagum ; our lower classes in the South (as also the Irish) still hold to the right old way and say, ' in them days.' Our corrupt those came from Yorkshii'e, and was never heard of in written English until 1250. There was a Gothic Jains for isfe, and we find its kindred English form in AKred's Pastoral, 443, gong to <)eonre hijrg, 'go to yonder burgh.' This word did not become common in English until 300 years after Alfred's day. In the Rushworth Gospels illuc is translated by geond (St. Matt. xxvi. 36), our yonder. The old Sylic or "Silo is used where the Gothic swaleih, ■such, came ; as in St. Luke ix. 9, hiucet is Ses, he Sam io ^ilc gehyrc? The aforesaid tliilh afterwards became a De- monstrative, and has been used in the sense of iste in the South and "West ever since 1220. This seems to have been foreshadowed so early as 890 ; Sijllic is opposed to Sis in the Pastoral, 315, where Alfred is translating Isaiah Iviii. 5, 6 : 'I have not chosen that fast, but this fast.' In the Lindisfarne Gospels, fifty years later than Alfred's time, eos is translated by Sa ilea (St. Matt. xxvii. 10). One old English use of the Pronoun should be specially marked, since some mistakes have been made about it in our day. In tJieir midst is a thoroughly good K 2 ^2 Old and Middle English. idiom, for in medio eorum (St. Matt, xviii. 2) is Englished by on hyra niidlen} The well-known Latin phrase quo plus \ . . eo jplusy. becomes in English hi^ ]>y heardra, ])e sun\>6r hedta^, 'it becomes the harder, tlie stronger they beat.' This is, in our day, the one sole case in which tlie is not a Definite Article, but a Demonstrative. Matzner quotes from Cadmon the sentence \ces snottor weor^e ]>cEt, ^c, and we still sometimes hear the poor say, ' he was that clever^ that,' &c. ; eo sajnentice ventum est. Self follows the Definite Article, as we now use same ; don ^a?t selfe (Pastoral, 327). We still say ' the self-same.' The Neuter Interrogative, n-hat, refers sometimes to^ Masculine and Feminine Substantives, just as tliat does. The terse Gothic ivhas ist ? (in Latin, quis est ?} becomes the expanded English hivcet ys he ? (St. John xii. 25) ; hwcBt may go before a Plural, as hicmt synd 6a ]nng ? ' what are these things ? ' (St. John vi. 9) This lohat sometimes takes a Genitive Singular after it, as hwcet niiues ? what news ? Most men, I fancy, imagine this news to be a Plural. The Instrumental case of hwcet had two forms, hwy and 7m, still known to us as why and how. The English which (hwa-Uc, hunjlc) is in truth our form of the kindred Latin quails, though now most corrupted in its use ; the earliest sense of all lasted down to 1400. King Alfred shows us that in his day the * IVIr. Hall, in Modern English, p. 48, comes down pretty sharply upon earlier blunderers in this matter; but he does not go higher than WicklifFe for his authority. So late as 1792, 'I was delighted with your sight ' might be written ; we should now say 'the sight of EnglisJi in its Earliest Shape. 53 sense of qiiis was encroaclimg upon that of r^uaXis ; for he writes li%i:elc wundor ? where we put n^liat wonder ? The like change took place in German some centuries later. In St. Luke x. 22, liwijlc is used for the Gothic it^lias^ where Tyndale uses xclio. It was very early followed by a Partitive Genitive, as we say, u'luich of them ? There was an old somhwylc (aliquis) ; in imitation of this were formed sorueivhatj someivJierej and many others, in later years. There is sometimes a curious interlacing of construc- tions in our sentences ; as, ' Whom will ye that I release unto you ? ' This comes down from early days. We see in St. Luke xiii. 18, hwam ivene ic l^cet hit Leo (jelic 'f The omission of the Relative after a Substantive dates from before the Conquest. In the Chronicle for 907, we read her . . . cjefor j^lfred, luces on Bapum gerefa. Hence our ' the man I saw.' There has been a wonderful change since 1100 in the Enoflish construction of Relatives. These were of old commonly expressed by se, seo, ])cetj according to the an- tecedent's gender, or by the indeclinable ]>e. We see in St. Matt. ii. 9 ])d wees gefylled ]>CBt gecweden ivces (id quod), whence comes our later take that thine is. The Latin quis est qui, &c. ? becomes in English hwa is se tSe .'' The old indeclinable sicdj our as, had also a Relative force ; the hoary sica hwa sica (quicunque) means in truth that man toho, such nian as. We say ' as to this ' (quod ad hoc spectat), and the poor still say ' a man as I saw.' We find suilc man sue, ' such man as ' (Kemble's Charters, I. 296). The English swa hwxt sum (quod- cunque) was in Gothic \atawhah \ei (St. John xv. 7). 54 Old and Middle EnglzsL The Indefinite Article an (the Gothic ains, unus), might stand before Numerals, as, a hundred, an hund penega (St. Matt, xviii. 28) ; so also a few, dnefedwa worda'j here the dne is plural, and means only. Our lower orders imitate this idiom and say, ' a many times.' Sum other (alius) has been replaced by an other. In St. John xvi, 16 is found an lytel, where we now say 'a little while.' An is sometimes used standing by itself, like the Latin w-ims and the Gothic ains, as he sceolde him f orgy fan cenne, * he should deliver to them one man' (St. Lukexxiii. 17). Horace has cerehrosus jprosilit unus, where the U7iut stands for quidam. In this latter sense may be taken cwce]) an his leorning-cnihta (St. Luke xi. 1). But this free use of an by itself was far more common in the North than in the South. In St. Matthew xix. 16, unus ait is translated in all the Northern Gospels by a7i ciie^ ; this idiom rather jarred on English ears in the South, and is there replaced by an 'mann cwce^. In St. John xviii. 39,. the Gothic ainana becomes in Southern English anne ina7i. I have been careful to explain this an (one), since there is a wrong notion abroad that our one {one asked him) comes from the French on ; it is to Old English trans- lators of the Latin imus that we should look for an explanation of this idiom. New English idioms nearly always first appeared in the North. The Gothic m ainamma dage is seen with us as dnum dcege, it happened 07ie day (St. Luke v. 17). The oldest Latin had no Indefinite Article; ujia ancilla dixit ad me, a phrase that St. Jerome had no objection to, smacks more of Manzoni than of Cicero, English in its Earliest Shape. 55 and marks a wondrous change in the speech of educated Italians. Both the Gothic and Engh'sh employ this Indefinite Article ; in St. Matthew viii. 19, we find ahu hokareis and an hocere for what Tyndale afterwards called a scribe. One of the most marked tendencies of the oldest English, such as the Beowulf or Cadmon's Lay, is to leave out the Article. Hence our many pithy phrases like, 'Faint heart never won fair lady ;' we have here a great advantage over the Germans. The Article might even be dropped before an adjective with no sub- stantive following, as in St. Mark i. 7 ; sfrengra cyTrip cefter me; compare, handsome is that handsome does. An was used where we now say alone ; as in the Pastoral, 227, ket an ^cet gefeohf, ' let alone the fight.' Another idiom for this was lceta]> hi^ ' let them alone ' (St. Matthew xv. 14). In St. Luke ix. 38, we find mm dnlica sunu, my only son. We have our first glimpse of a common expression of ours in- he hit tiohchode eall to anura^ he ' thought it all one ' (Pastoral, 385). Man was used indefinitelj', where the Greeks would have written tis ; and the loss of this man leaves a sad gap in our modern English. Readers of ' David Copper- field ' will remember the collegian who uses the phrase a man for J; as 'a man is always hungry here ; ' ' a man might make himself very comfortable.' Dickens, like Tyndale and Shakespeare, was fond of another hoary old Teutonic idiom for his Indefinite Pro- nouns ; thus, 'he spoke, as ivho should say.' This may be traced back fifteen hundred years ; Ulphilas writes yahai vjhas, the Latin si quis (St. Matt. v. 39) ; we now 56 Gld mid Middle English, commonly say ' if any one."* This Indefinite wlio or man, as I showed before, comes into siva Jiwd swa, onr whoso. We still keep the Neuter of this Indefinite Pronoun in our 'I tell you what-/ in Latin, aliquid. 'To give somewhat,' is in Gothic, wlia gihan (St. John xiii. 29) ; the smiewliat I have just written is as bad as writing aliquid quid. Any relic of old idioms, standing quite by itself, puzzles modern speakers ; hence some insist on regarding the aforesaid wTiat as if it must answer to the dependent quid, and say, ' I tell you what it is.' There is yet another old use of this word left ; as in what ivith this, ivliat ivitli that. The word sum, our so7ne, might stand for either quidam or aliquis ; we now usually confine it to the latter sense. In St. Matt. xx. 20, aliquid is Englished by sum ]nng. The phrases ' some ten years,' * such and such (man),' date from before the Conquest. Few of us know what is the real construction in a phrase like ' they hate each other.' Here each is the Nominative singular, and other the Accusative singular; we see in^lfric's Colloquy (Thorpe's ' Analecta,' 113), that prosit unusquisque alteri is translated hj framige dnra gehwylc opron. Our first is a word of corrupt formation ; in the Pastoral, 121, we see the old form he iville fyrmest heo7i, the Gothic fru7nist. What of old was ]m fortnan tivd, is in our day the first two, as Cooper writes ; Sheridan wrote the tivo first. In the various versions of the Bible, we &ndj)ri?}ium translated by wrest ; in ^Ifric's Colloquy, which is rather late, this hecom.es fyrmest; 'seek je first the kingdom of God.' In St. Mark vi. 7, we see the distributive form of English in its Earliest Shape. 57 Numerals; ' sending out the disciples t warn and twdm,^ an idiom diflferino- from the Gothic. The Latin secundus was Englished by o^er ; of this we keep the trace in * every other man.' The old translation of the Latin alter . . . alter, was by the kindred English o^er . . . o^er. But in the Pastoral Care, 49, we see the beginning of a new form ; twa hehoduj an is ^(Et . . . o^er ^cet. Jn the Legends of the Holy Rood, a further step is made, for the Ai-ticle is prefixed ; forlet ]>a osnne dail . . . mid \am o]^rum dcele. In St. Matthew x\dii. 12, we hear of the hundred sheep, and of their owner seeking ^cet an ^e fonvear]), the one that is lost ; in Latin, earn qucc. This as yet is a most unusual idiom, though it is found also in -^Ifi'ic. In the same Gospel, xiii. 46, we see a cuinous idiom that is still alive ; una ;pretiosa margarifa is Englished by ]>cet an deoricyr^e meregrot. Here an represents some- thing that stands alo7ie hy itself. We may still write * the o)ie (solus) supremely able man,' ' the one perfect song.' The epithets in these sentences seem to be almost superlatives ; Dr. Morris, in his ' English Accidence,' p. 145, gives many instances from 1300 to 1600 of one the (mark the transposition) being prefixed to Superlatives, as, one the fairest. Scott, in his * Life of Napoleon,' uses this idiom so late as 1827. Sometimes the Cardinal and Ordinal ai*e combined ; as tm and ticen tigo^an, ' one and twentieth.' The construc- tion of our half differs from the Latin ; in St. Mark vi. 23, we find healf min rice, 'half my kingdom -/an half swulung (Kemble's Charters, I. 310), would now be * half a ploughland.' In the Chronicle for 894, we hear 58 Old and Middle English. of tlie army, that they were symle fiealfe cet ham, ' half always at home.' Many was followed by both Singular and Plural Substantives ; as, many man ; about 1200 we began to insert the indefinite article before man. There was a substantive mcenigeo ; which we still use, when we talk of a great many ; in confused imitation of this, in some parts of the country, they speak of a goodfeiv. We always placed the enough after a noun ; as, Jierst genog, * time enough ' (Pastoral, p. 415). Adverbs are often formed from Substantives, as in ealne weg (alway), used by King Alfred ; ferdon onweg, * fared away.' This class of words clings to life ; thus the old tcerriJite (continue), survives in the American ' I'll do it right away.' The points of the compass were used adverbially ; thus in the Pastoral (p. 9), me his ivriterum sende su^ and nor^. So in the Blickling Homilies, 129, we read, seo is west pojion (she is west thence) ; in p. 209, wceron nor^ of^mm stane (were north of the stone). This idiom is most unlike the Latin. We sometimes see two old forms of an Adverb, as wpweard and wpweardes ; either form is still allowable. The es in the latter form was in the Thirteenth Century to be added to many other Adverbs. JJmuoires (unawares) may be seen in the Chronicle of the year 1004. Hoiv and why, as I said before, are but two forms of one old pronoun ; the former asks as to the manner, the latter as to the cause, of a thing. But our hoiu still sometimes borders on the why ; as, ' how is it that ye did not believe ? ' Why is often used (Dr. Johnson always English in its Earliest Shape. 59 began •with Wliy^ sir) where no reason is expected, as a kind of expletive ; thus we see in St. John viii. 48, hvi ne cive^e ive ivel ]>cet ])u eaH Samaritanisc ? The repetition of Adverbs in a sentence is very old ; as, little and little ; so is the combination of opposite adverbs, as, /eor and neali, ' far and near.' King Alfred, in his Pastoral, p. 5, says, ic wundrade sici^e siui^e ; this reminds us of the later French heaucoup, heaucoup. In the Pastoral, p. 389, we read of afeorr land (far land), a curious English idiom. In p. 3, we find an idiom, still kept in our Bible ; Alfred tells us that in his day English learning was clcene o^feallenu (clean decayed). This sense of omnino is also attached to the French synonym ; as Moliere's c'est pure medisance. I have actually seen clean in this sense set down as mere slang by one of our would-be philologers ; his Bible might have saved him from this blunder. There was another phrase for omnino, to be seen in Sweet's ' Anglo-Saxon Reader,' p. 105 ; 'we have robbed God's house inne and nte ; ' we now talk of ' out and out.' In our word noicadays we have the old Genitive of a Substantive used as an Adverb ; the word was known of old as idceges (hodie). The adverb needs (he must needs go) is another relic of this Genitive. Many Adverbs are formed by adding He (now ly) to the root. The most curious instance of this form is the adjective nngellclic (unlikely), where lilce comes twice over. Others are formed by adding ly to a Participle, as laughingly. 6o Old and Middle English, The adverb here generally refers to place, but some- times (not often) to time. Thus the Chronicle names a year, and then adds ' here died the King.' This is the source of our hereupon, heretofore, &c. We often omit the verb in sentences like ' I did it when a boy,' ' I chmbed till out of breath.' This free play, in which English outdoes all other tongues, may be seen in the Chronicle for 901 : ' he died four weeks (Br J^lfred' The rightful cer ]mm ]>e vras very early replaced by cer (ere) before a Verb. But against took that after it, unlike our present usage, ledon lac on gen \atte Josep ineode (Genesis xhii. 25). The Expletive ]>mr, like the Indefinite hit, was com- monly used by the English to begin a sentence^ as ])mT was an cyning. This resembles nothing in German or Latin. Prepositions were often tacked on to this ]>cer, as thereout, thereunto, thus forming Compound Adverbs. Some think that yea is a more archaic form than yes ; but gese and ged are alike found in our oldest writers. There was also once a nese. As to negation, w^hen a man says ' I didn't never say nothing to nobody,' this is a good old English idiom that lasted far beyond 1600. Hamlet says ' Be not too tame neither,' and good writers of our own time have had something of the kind. Much harm has been done to our speech by attempts to ape French and Latin idioms, especially about the time of the Reformation. For instance, we are now told that an English sentence ought never to end with a Preposi- tion. This absurd rule is later than Addison's time, and is not sanctioned by our forefathers' usage. When English in its Earliest Shape. 6 1 Cadmon asked for the Eucharist on his death-bed, he said Bera^ me lw-ce\ere husel to.^ Onr word nai/ has probably never changed its sound, but it was of old written ncj as in our Lord's words, ' I say unto you, nay.' In St. Luke xiii. 3 there is another form, ne, secge ic, nd. This last is not far from our no, which King Alfred used much as the Scotch do now ; ' I am 110 fain to go.' In the History of Job (Thorpe's 'Ana^ecta,' 36) we read ic si /If and nd o])er, showing the parentage of our no other. The phrases no less, no more, haptized or no, are very old, though we have substituted no for nd. The negative was expressed by ne coming before a Verb ; but not long before the year 1000 we see this encroached upon by the Adverbial Accusative ndvnlit (nihil) . Matzner quotes nose hahha^ and ndwiht gestinca^, (Psalm cxxxiv. 17) ; also, w(es he ndwiht hefig, from St. Guthlac. This ndwiht in the Twelfth Century became noht, and was afterwards pared down to not. The latter form answers to the Latin non, while naught or nought answers to nihil ; one of the many instances of one Old English word becoming two-pronged, as it were, in later times. In the Pastoral Care, 240, nauht (nihil) is turned into a substantive, tSop^ nauht woes ^urhtogen, ' the wickedness was perpetrated.' Hence came nahtnes, naughtiness, and other formations of the like kind. Nan, like an, had a Plural, as in the Pastoi-al, 395 : ^a ^e vjif hcehhen, sien Sa sicelce hie nan hoebhen, ' let those that have wives be as though they had none.' * Thorpe's Analecta Anglo- Saxonica, 58. 62 Old a?id Middle English. Hence comes our ' Tlion shalt have none other Gods but me.' Bu was used just as we employ hotli in phrases like hotli he and I. We have lost certain other old forms for expressing this, such as ge ; still, in our version of II. Corinthians vii. 11, yea hut is used to English the Greek alia, repeated again and again. Gellce is now our liheivise. The Latin non solum appears in the oldest English as nd ]>cet an. We now omit the word in the middle. In St. John xiii. 9 we see the change beginning ; nd mine -^et dne, ac eac, &c. Our saTne was never used except adverbially ; thus wifmen feohta^, swd same swd wmpned men, ' women fight the same as men ; ' that is, in the same way, (Thorpe's ' Analecta,' 45). The Latin idem was expressed, not by same, but by ylc ; this lingers in Scotland, as in the phrase Bedgauntlet of that Ilk. The Scottish illia, from (eIg (quisque), should never be confused with the Scottish ilk from ylc (idem). Same (idem) began to come into vogue about the year 1200. We find tiSer . . . oS6e, ' either . . . or,' answering to the Latin aut . . . aid. In the like way nd^or is fol- lowed by ne, ' neither this nor that.' In Numbers xiii. 20 hwcB^er is followed by oS'Se, 'whether . . . or,' but this was plainly a new idiom. The Latin seu appears as siva in English, as in ^Ifric's Colloquy, swa Muce'per ])u sy, swa ceorl, swa Jcempa. The old ]>enden (dum) was being encroached upon by the Adverbial clause that has now quite driven it out. We see in the Pastoral, 331, Sa hwile Se. English hi its Earliest Shape. 63 Onr nov:) will translate not only nunc, bat quoniam ; 'pu me ne jorvnjrne, nu ic com. The sense of time, how- ever, still hangs about this quoniam. It is cnrions that we find sicCi lange sicd (the Gothic swa lagga wlieila sice, St. Mark ii. 19), and many such expressions, but only sona sivd : so Moore in his Canadian song says — ' Soon as the woods on shore look dim.' "We still employ tJiouyh (the German dock) at the end of a sentence, in the sense of tamen, just as our fore- fathers did. The first germ of our /or all that (tamen) may be seen in ^ gefor ])0)i ne gelyfdon Drihtne' (Deu- teronomy i. 32). "We sometimes find sentences and poems begin ab- ruptly with and, like Southey's ' And I was once like this.' This idiom is found before the Norman Conquest. Our if answers not only to the Latin si, but to one sense of the Latin an. It might be followed by the Indi- cative, as ' Gif he synful is, \cet ic ndt (St. John ix. 25). The English for quum was usually ]>d or ])onne ; but before the Norman Conquest hwcenne (the Latin quando) had begun to encroach upon the older forms ; still these lingered on until the Fifteenth Century. The old swa, or as, was also used for qw.im and dum.. It is hard to say which of these Latin words should translate as, in a sentence like Fielding's, ' they arrived just as dinner was ready.' Our as oft as is found in Gothic, swa ufta swe (I. Cor. xi. 25). The old opposition of so to so is still kept in ' so many men, so many minds.' This is a remnant of the old sivd micel swa, svjd lange swd, swa feorr stcd. 64 Old and Middle English. . 8wa^ like our modern form of it, as, was very early used for the Latin qumiiam : ' thou shalt suffer, sim ^n lathee wrohte.' It had also the sense of qiiamvis : ' sivd he ne maeg gestselan, he haefS ]>eah,' &c. Hence our ' bad as he is, he still,' &c. Sivd also stood for qitasi, and this is kept in our ' as it were.' It is coupled with forth, as in our common phrase, ' so forth.' The old geltce was used before siud, as in our ' like as a father pitieth.' Our though borders upon if: we know the Latin etiamsi. Matzner quotes from Canute's Laws, he si/lf sceolde, ])eah he Iff hcefde. Our 'no wonder though,' &c.; is equally old. The Eno'lish tong^ue cuts down its sentences as much as it can, and therefore often drops that, coming after a Verb ; as ' I grant the man is sane.' This chpping was in vogue before the Conquest. Matzner quotes scegde hi dry as wceron ; we wolden ]>u gesdwe. That not after a Negative sometimes answers to luith- out, as in Jerrold's ' We never met, tliat we did not fight.' Something like this is seen in the old ' hig foron ipri dagas ])CBt hig ndn vxeter ne gemetton ' (Exodus xv. 22). Tliat is used after a Comparative, like the Latin quod ; so Bulwer has ' fears, not the less strong that they were vague.' This that was of old written the ; as hit is ]>e imjrse ]>e sume hahha^ twd. Equally early instances of m that and /or that (quia) might be given. To ])am ]>cet stood for our to the end that. The old si^han (since) has always stood iov ]}ostqnam and guoniaiii alike. English in its Earliest Shape. 65 "We find d^ nu, ' until now.' This government of an Adverb by a Preposition, sjDaringly found in these early times, has had great development in later ages. Prepositions were prefixed to the Teutonic verb ; but they were often detached from it, even so early as the days of Ulfilas ; our language has therefore in this respect fallen below the level of Greek and Latin. How much better are the old fordo and aflet than our new do for and let off ! Bang Alfred writes (Pastoral, 101), Moyses eode inn amd ut ; enrjlas stigon up and of dune. In our own day, we have to say entrance and exit^ since (joing in and going out, albeit Scriptural, would sound most cumbrous. In St. Matthew, xxv. 11, the foolish Virgins say, Icet us in. The Gospels of 1000 have drifa]y ut, where the older Northumbrian version has the happier compound of earlier years. Both the Gothic and the English use ' he was out,' in St. Mark i. 45. The phrase bring for]> in St. Matt. xii. 35, is by no means so neat Sispro- fert, the Latin to be translated. Our modern lie uprose is surely better than the drds he upp of the year 1000. What in Gothic was afmait, became in the English of 1000 dceorf of (carve ofP), as we see in St, Matthew v. 30. King Alfred writes (Pastoral, 171), ne tio hie moii of, 'let not man draw them ofi".' We now write both of and off, making the latter usually an adverb ; this is one of the double forms so often seen in the New English. Of is now and then used for a verb ; thus Alfred (Pastoral, 239) writes ne moig he of, he cannot get off.^ In the * Shakespeare's 02U, 02it, brief candle ! is something like this ; a Freuchman translated it, Sortcz, sortez, coitrte ckandelle I thus show- P 66 Old and Middle Eng-lish. Legends of the Holy Rood, 103, (Early Englisli Text Society), we find, lie dyde of his jpurpuran ; tliis do off we afterwards contracted into doff^ and do on (St. John xxi. 7), into don in the same way.^ The uncoupling of Pre- positions adds to our store of expressions ; thus to tliroiu over and set ^ij) are different from to overthroiij and upset. The Preposition of is used instead of the old Genitive, to exoress material. Thus we find not only scennum sctran goldes, but also redf of Jicerum (St. Matt, iii. 4). Compare Virgil's tenipJum de onarmore ijonam. This of and this de have been the parents of a wide- spread offspring in modern times ; but our Old Euglish Grenitive Singular is happily still alive, though we use it more in speaking than in writing. The ttcegen of eow (St. Matt, xviii. 19, Southern version), seems very modern, especially when contrasted with the Rush- worth copy. The Partitive use of the of was be- coming more frequent about 1000 ; what in Gothic was sumai ]>ize hoharye became in the English of that year, sume of ^arii hoceruiu (some of the bookers, scribes), as we see in St. Mark ii. 6 ; cbIc of eoiu, is in St. Luke xiv. 33. This of follows the Singular as well as the Plural. In * ye are not of my sheep,^ we have a still unchanged idiom. But we find even in the Gothic (St. John xii. 42) iis paim reiJcam managai, ' many of the rich.' Coupling two pre- positions like out of is a regular Teutonic idiom. The ing how a Preposition can be turned into a verb. We hear people say, ' I up and told him.' ' In don and doff our do still keeps the sense of the kindred Greek ti-tke-mi, the Old English ge-do-m. English in its Earliest Shape. 6j following phrases date from very early times ; ' to heal of his wound,' 'eaten of worms,' 'to borrow of him,' * do nothing of myself,' ' he was of Bethsaida,' ' he sprang of (off) the horse,' 'fear of thee.' English often put 0/ where the Gothic has/ro/>i. In modern times, hij has encroached upon of. King- Alfred seems to use the former in the sense of instrumen- tality ; hi Mm self urn relc mon sceal rje^encean (Pastoral, 159), ' each should learn through his own case ; ' lie hine genime he leornunge (Ibid. 169) ; hi ^am oncnavjan (Ibid. 2G5), 'To fall out by the way,' 'to have a son by her,' ' less by one letter,' ' have it ready by Easter,' ' a hundred by weight,' ' word by word ; ' these phrases date from very early. In the phrase ' to do one's duty hij a man,' we are reminded of the Gothic hi ; this often stands where English would use ymhe (circum.). The English he recalls the Latin de. In the old Southern Gospels we find ' to live by bread,' and ' to die by the law' (secundum legem), a Gothic phrase. This hij is not as yet prefixed to the iJerson who is the agent. Another of the oldest uses of hy is kept by our sailors, who say ' !N'orth hij East.' With has two meanings, seemingly contradictory, in Latin, cum and contra. AYe say, to iccdh vjith a friend, and to fight v:itli a foe. It was used in both senses long before the Conquest. In the Rush worth Gospels we read, se^e nis mid mec ivi^ me is (St. Matt. xii. 30). With has also the meaning of the Latin versus, ' towards.' King Alfred (Pastoral, 113) writes, ernn wih o^re menn, * just towards other men.' Hence comes our 'I'll be even with you.' In later times luith has encroached upon F 2 6S Old and Middle English. for, hy, and others of its brethren ; it has moreover driven out the old mid, which expressed many of the old senses of with : some of these we still keep ; such as, * what will he do with it ? ' ' with that he departed/ ' filled with grace,' ' overgrown with wood,' ' weigh oath with oath,' ' with God it is possible,' ' hold up his head with the best ; ' in this last phrase with answers to the Latin i^iter. Many of the oldest senses of for remain ; such as, ' gave him wine for drink,' ' held him for king,' ' he came for bread,' 'grace for grace,' 'betrayed him for envy.' In this last, the English for reminds ns of the kindred Latin _per; in some of the other senses of for, the Latin j^^o appears. We read of sins ' for Gode and for worulde, ' we should now say, ' as regards ; ' the phrase is the parent of our common ' as for this,' quod ad hoc spectat. As to from, we find in the oldest English ; ' to hide from me,' 'to rest from work,' 'far from me.' This last appears in the later ' he is from home.' In the old idiom, fram, hegeondan Jordanen, ' from beyond Jordan,' we see two prepositions coupled together. We have a clear hint of the Scottish fornenst in foran ongean eoiv, (St. Matt. xxi. 2). The old meaning of hefore, in ' they were righteous before God,' dates from the year 1000, or earlier. The preposition after appears in ' made after His likeness ; * this is the Latin sectmdimi. There is also 'we sent after him,' ' we asked after him.' Toward was very early severed, that the substantive might be inserted in the middle ; our ' to Godtvard ' is English in its Earliest Shape. 69 well known. In the Chronicle for 1009 we find, ' to scijpa^i vjeard.^ There is an old sense of under, which is common to the Scandinavian and High German, and which answers to the Latin inter viam. This is ' to get under way.' The oldest senses of ta are seen in phrases like, ' eat to your fill,' ' mouth to mouth,' ' to this day,' ' I doom to death,' ' to this end,' ' to my knowledge.' ' Cut to pieces,' is slightly altered from the old ^ ceorfan to sticcon ; ' 'to my cost,' is foreshadowed by ' to miclum weor^e.^ The Dative after a Verb is sometimes replaced by to in Gothic as well as in English ; moreover, we know St. Jerome's ^ dixit ad me.' The phrase to night is found both in English and Gothic; our ujp to time, preserves a trace of the use of to as applied to matters of time. The preposition cet, the Latin cul, is near of kin to the last-mentioned to. We find among our oldest phrases, ' to have at hand,' ' have at heart,' ' at mid- night,' ' at home.' In the Chronicle for the year 1049, comes CEt Icestan (at least) ; in cet nextan, we have cut away the preposition, and now write iiext. We still say, 'run at him,' where hostile intent is meant; but we can no longer say, in the friendly sense of old days, *I was in prison, and ye came at me.' At is a prepo- sition which has been much encroached upon in later times. The oldest meanings of on are seen in ' he took on him,' ' he is on fire,' ' to avenge on him,' ' to gain on them,' ' to feed on thoughts/ ' on either hand.' The JO Old and Middle EnglisJi, words on and in intercliaiige in Old Englisli ; and even now either of them might stand in phrases hke, ' on thi& wise,' 'trust on him,' ' grace was on him.' The imitation of the Latin in and the French en^ in later times, brought in very forward ; we can therefore no longer say, ' on sheep's clothing,' ' there is life on you,' ' long on body/ ' on idle ' (in vain), ' took on hand,' ' cut on two.' As. to the old 'thrice on year,' the on is now corrupted into a. Very unlike the Latin idiom is the English con- struction in St. John xi. 51 ; Gaia^lias wees ^cet gear hisceo^ ; a construction that we still keep. Two verses before, we find, on geare hisceop. The old gehende, in Latin jiixta, still survives, as handy ; in St. John vi. 19 comes, lie wees gehende bam scype. We began very early to turn Prepositions into Adverbs. In the Pastoral, 395, is seen, bceiryhte cefter reJite Paidiis, ' Paul discoursed immediately afterwards.' We now even turn Prepositions into IS'ouns, for we talk of a man's nps and downs ; also into Verbal Nouns^ as, an outing ; also into Verbs, as, ' I doivned him with this.' On the other hand, it is curious to see an Adjective turned first into an Adverb, and then into a Pre- position. Thus, sib means late ; it then became sibba, meaning afterivards, since] last of all it is seen as a Preposition, taking an Accusative case ; ' since that time.' The resources of Language are truly wonderful. We follow very old usage when we put a !N'oun before its governing Preposition ; as in, ' this plea I turn English hi its Earliest Shape, yi from.' Sometimes the Relative is omitted, whicli should accompany the preposition, as, ' candles to eat by.' It is wrong to derive this omission of the Relative from the Scandinavian ; King Alfred often has something like it ; for instance, ' men took their swords Godes anclaii tnid to wrecanne ' (wherewith to avenge God's wrath), in the Pastoral, 381. Anything more unlike the Latin cannot be conceived ; here is the true English terseness. Rather later, the Preposition was to be made the last word in the sentence. Our sailors have kept alive breftan (abaft) as a Pre- position, though reft (aft) is with them only an Adverb. Bntan and hi/man (in Latin, extra et intra) still linger in the Scotch Lowlands; as in the old Perth ballad of Cromwell's time : — When Oliver's men Cam but and ben. Anent, which of old was oti-efn, is preserved in the same district ; and this most useful word seems to be coming into use among our best writers once more. But gelang (the Latin jpe?*) is now used only by the poor; as in 'it is all along of you.' We sometimes hear the old ouforan as afore, and ongean sounded as again, not the corrupt against. To is still used in America in one of its old senses, where we degenerate English should use at ; we find in the Beowulf secean to Seorote, ' seek at Heorote.' The old Northumbrian til is em- ployed in the K'orth, where we say to. I repeat a few other instances, where we still use Prepositions in the true Old English sense, though very 73 Old and Middle English. sparingly. To do one's duty hy a man ; to receive at Ms hands ; for all his prayers, i.e. in spite of; to go a hunting, which of old was written, gdn on liuntunge ; eaten cj/' worms {hij is hardly ever used before the Con- quest in this sense of agency) ; we have Abraham to our father ; made after his likeness ; to get them under arms. Our best writers ahould never let these old phrases die out ; we have already lost enough and too much of the g-ood Old Enoflish. As to Interjections, was Gothic, but is not seen in English until the Twelfth Century, when a (ali) also first appeared. We find eow me in Psalm cxix. 5, which Matzner quotes ; o?t is found about 1300. The place of the Gothic was supplied by ivdld, eald, and Id. Christ thus addresses his mother (St. Johnii. 4) Id imf. English school girls, I believe, still use this la. The eald was followed by ]Ket and gif, just as we now say that and if, when expressing a strong wish. i\'^^^. is used for the Latin ecce, in St. Luke xiii. 35, and seems the parent of our ' 'ii07f', what would you think?' J/eo/was em- ployed where we say sir (St. John xx. 15), and sometimes appears as Id leof. Perhaps something of the old world lingers about our ' Dear Sir.' In ^Ifric's Colloquy, etiawb is translated by ge leaf; the latter word seems but an expletive. In the same piece we see the Latin 0, 0, translated by liig, hig ; which explains why we shout hi, when wishing to stop any one ; (Thorpe, ' Analecta,' 102, 103). The English of old employed hivcet (quid) as an Interjection. This is the first word of the Beowulf, and answers to our Ho. The old usage ma^- be traced down English in its Earliest Shape. 73 to our times, thonsrli it "was thouofht to be somewhat overdone by King George the Third.* Sometimes an English word has always borne two different meanings ; thus from the earliest times, ?V?/e might be applied to either a man or a tale. But a word has now often lost one of the meanings it might bear of old ; thus fen has always translated the Latin jpalus, and it might once also have translated the Latin lutum. On the other hand, one word in New English often stands for what were two words in the older tongue. Thus our hoiu represents hoga (arcns)and the Icelandic hogr (prora), as well as the verb higan (flectere), the parent of the nouns. OuYsaiu is used for both sagu (dictum) and saga (serra). "Without reckoning rima (ora), the old hrwi (gelu) and rim (numerus) have but one representative in New English ; hence Pitt was able to punningly translate ' Aurora Musis amica ' by ' a rimy morning.' Our share stands for both scear (vomer) and scearu (pars) ; and our cleaix stands for both cllfan (hoerere) and clufan (findere) : Strong Verbs both. The many meanings of the one word box are well known ; it re- presents Old English, Latin, and Scandinavian words. ' In the Rolliad, the King meets Major Scott, and thns expresses himself: Rethinks I hear, In accents clear, Great Bruns-wick's voice still vibrate on my ear. ' "What, -what, what ! ' Scott, Scott, Scott ! ' Hot, hot, hot : ' What, what, what ! ' 74 Old and Middle English. It is the same with, sound. In Bums's line, ' weary fa tlie waefu' woodie ! ' the first word has nothing to do with the English term iov fessus ; it is a corruption of the old loerg (maledictio). A word has sometimes dropped, and has left such a gap that popular instinct coins a new word, as it w^ere, on the old lines. Thus, uijoliefednes is seen revived in our uppislmess ; gifol is gone, but in some parts of the country givish is used to express ojJen-hmided. Sylf-lic died out, and was replaced after many centuries by the selfish of the Puritans. Mr. Mxirray has lately revived a fine Old English word in hand-booh. We parted with dnlw ; we have, therefore, after a long in- terval, been driven to borrow unique from France.^ In some cases Verbs have become oddly corrupted, and the corruptions have, so to speak, run into each other. Thus we have now but one verb, own, to repre- sent both the old ahnian (possidere) and the old imuan (concedere). The modern leave is used both for lefan (permittere) and lifan (rehnquere). Thus too we have only settle to stand for both setlan and sahtlian. This slovenliness is seen elsewhere ; in French, louer has to do duty for both laudare and locare. We now talk of ^ healing a wound,' and of ' a wound healing ; ' the old verbs were hoelan and hdlian. The Dorsetshire pea- santry, as Mr. Barnes tells us, have an advantage over us ; for they pronounce in the true Old English way words that in polite speech have but one sound ; thus they say liedle for somus, and hail for gi'ando. We have made a sad mistake in confounding the once distinct ^ So the old quivis was lost in Italy, and was replaced by the later qualsivoglia. English in its Earliest Shape. 75 sounds of these words ; hence blunders sometimes arise.^ Thanks to our slovenly forefathers, English is now the punster's Paradise : Hood knew this well. We have not often kept the sound of the old vowel at the end of a word so faithfully as in vjortliy^ smithy ^ the former lueor^e, smi^^e. Sometimes one Old English word gives birth to two different modern verbs ; thus the old hellan has yielded us both to helloio and to hell, the one used of bulls, the other of deer. Scott tells us that he was glad to adorn his poetry with the latter form of the verb. Something of the same kind has happened with toil and till, both coming from the old tylian. In the English of our day are many words that are reckoned slang}^ but which have a good old pedigree. Such a one is tout, a word well known to racing men ; but we find King Alfred writing Sa heafiidio totodon lit, the heads projected, peeped out, (Pastoral, 105). To larh comes from the old Mean (ludere) ; this verb North of the Trent is pronounced layhe, coming from the kindred Icelandic leiha. An actor is there called a Iciker. To lioax comes from the old liusc, a slight. Newcastle men have been known to puzzle a stranger by saying that they have eaten a hrich ; this is but the old hrice (f ragmentum) . The verb dyderian (decipere) ' I remember at school, about the year 1843, that oiir class was given Scott's lines : ' Hail to thy cold and clouded beam,' &c., which we were to .turn into Latin longs and shorts. I still recall the disgust of the master (vir playosus) on reading one blockheads attempt : it began with yranclo ! ^6 Old and Middle English. lias sunk very low, since diddle cannot be used by any grave writer ; the r has changed into /, just as hridrian has become riddle. The old sldp^ an over garment, is the parent of our common sloys. Mrs. Barkis, in Dickens, allows that her husband is a little near (parens) ; this is the old hneaw, with the first letter clipped. Readers of ' Tom Brown's School-days ' will remember the Slogger ; his name must have come from slogan, the Plural Perfect of sledn (ferire). There was a good ■old English verb, s^mrran (claudere) ; this has had t attached of late years, to round it ofi" {ar, ' tu es,' became art) in the usual English way, and it is now seen in the College phrase 'to sport my oak,' or keep my door barred.^ To jj?*7?7j a man is not an elegant phrase now; but in the Pastoral, p. 296, ^jyngan (borrowed from the Latin pungere) is used of Abner when slaying Asahel. The verbal noun jjungetung is derived from this verb ; hence comes our piuicMng. ' He's a fell clever lad ' comes in one of Lady Nairne's ballads ; the adverb is one form of the old feel (verus) . Such phrases as, ' a heap of peoj)le,' 'swingeing damages,' 'to egg on,' 'unbe- known,' may all lay claim to the best of English pedi- grees. Our lower orders much enjoy a dish known to them as ' pig's innerds ; ' this is the old innewearde, (viscera). Locke, in 1678, wrote of the imvards of a beast; see his Life, by Fox Bourne, I. 402. To sing small seems slangy ; it may be found in King Alfred's Pastoral, p. 461. 'To sjjirit up a man to act' is not ' An antiquary, capable of seeing very far into a milestone, might derive the verb spoon, so well known to our young men and maidens, from the old spanan, with its Perfect spun, to allure. English hi its Earliest SJiape. 77 reckoned a classical phrase, thougli at first sight it seems to come from the Latin ; it is in truth a disguised form of the old to-s'^jvyttan (excitare) ; spurt and sprout come from the same root. In the Pastoral, 249, we read hahhan to gamene (hold in mockery) ; we here see the source of our scornfal cry, gammon ! Our svjindle may come from sivindan, to vanish. ' Here is a ^n'inkle for you ' must come from the obsolete wrence (dolus). Our Old English words are often sadly degraded. No writer could now use mmmish, sneak, shove, or smirk in a dignified sense ; but these had no debasing meaning of old: snican is used of 'creeping things.' Our nap (dormire) might be used in the loftiest of senses, as in the Northumbrian Psalter, I. p. 142. We have, in our tvheedle, rather changed the sense of the old ivcedlian^ ' to beg ; ' and the old gilpaii (gloriari) has come down to yelp. Fits was an adjective that might have been applied to Alfred or Athelstane ; our fnssy seldom rises now above an old woman, Stmk, like the Latin odor, had a good as well as an evil meaning. Puer might be translated by either cuiht or cnafa ; the former English word rose much higher in the world about 1050, the latter sank very low about 1360. There are many words which Ave have not wholly lost, but which we now use in a most restricted sense. The old wyrt (herba), so common of old, is now seen only in St. Johns tvort, and a few other such plants, Hrif (uterus) survives in midriff; luj^ (ora) in proper names like Eotherhithe. The said names are most useful in keeping alive old English words ; thus cine (scissura) survives in the many chines of the Isle of Wight; in yS Old and Middle English. Black Gang Chine, two words oat of the three have dropped out of the common speech of Southern Eng-land. Northfleet and Southfleet remind us of the old jieot (statio navinm), which at Bristol is still called the Float. The hills round Buxton are a fine preserve of the old names used by diflferent races, the Tor, the Law, the Knoll ; Deepden keeps up the old English den or vaXleij ; Holbourn reminds us that hum (brook) once prevailed in the South as well as in the North ; Port Meadow at Oxford speaks of the Roman 2>or^, used by our pagan forefathers as a name for Sitoivji; indeed, por^ and upland stood for toion and country. The Gut, a mile or two off, reminds us of the old geotan (fundere). Tadcaster is, in its last two syllables, a good imitation of the Roman castra, known elsewhere as caisfor and chester. Tvjijford reminds us that twi/ once stood for duo. Proper names keep alive the names of trades (such as Walker, Baxter, Boivyer, Lister, and Arroivsmith,') that have died out or are called by new terms. Perhaps an old relic, found in one or two towns, preserves an old word that has lono- been dropped elsewhere ; we cannot say that our Teutonic name for peace is altogether dead, so long as the Frith stool stands in Hexham Church. The old attercoi:> (aranea) has its last syllable alone left, as we see in coh~ web ; coiop (apex) remains in coping stone, and Hay Cop is a hill near Buxton. If we had kept efesian (tondere), we should now use eaves in the true old way, as a Sino-n- lar, not a Plural. We have lost the old verb wisnian, iDut we keep its Past Participle, wizened. Our glendrian (to swallow) has leffc a relic of itself in glauders. The old crumh (curvus) survives in Criumnie, the name often English in its Earliest Shape. 79 given to a cow in Scotland. The verb tverian was a great loss ; the substantive vjeir remains, which I have heard pronounced as riming both to hare and beer : we should make a point of prononncing it in the former way ; its sound must not be corrupted like that of eitJier. Trym- man (confirmare) is seen in its old uncorrupt sense in ' trim the boat ; ' it exists in other phrases with a rather different meaning. To iceigh anchor preserves a recol- lection of the kindred vehere. The substantive trenclel (orbis) is gone, but we still tnmdle a hoop, and a line trends towards an object. Though we hear of pig-stickiug in India, still we cannot now use stick freely in the sense of piercBj as our forefathers did. We talk of a fretted ceiling ; the old frcetwian (ornare) might have been used in a much wider sense. The hanns given out in Church still remind us of the old gehan (proclamatio). We sometimes hear ' I'll learn j^docebo) you this ; ' the verb represents the old Icerati, which has got confounded with leornian. We have sometimes thought that we could improve our forefathers' speech by yoking two of their synonyms together; when we say sledgehammer, it is like a Latinist writing mdlleus twice over. At the same time, it must be acknowledged that mam strength was always reckoned good English. The old wae was both a, substantive and an adjective ; both are kept in Scot- land, tcae '5 me , and Frii ivae for the man. The gradual decay of old words is most mournful ; their meanings seem to become more and more restricted. How narrow a sense has sake (causa) in our day, com- pared to what was its old power ! Loovii once stood for any household utensils ; it is now restricted to the 8o Old and Middle EnglisJi. weaver's trade : we also talk of lieir-looms. The word thing, in its sense of causa, remains in our phrases, ' I would not for any thing,' 'but for one thing.' The phrase, * to hear the rig Jits of it,' remains to show that riht would of old Eno:lish Veritas. The tale told by Milton's shepherds may bear two senses, as we know. The old wriglit (faber), still common in Scotland, has died out in England, except in the compounds ivTieel- ivriglit, sJiip-iurigJit, and such like. The old sihh (affinis) survives only in gos-sijp. It is curious to see more than one meaning given to an English word, and to know that these meanings run very far back. Thus weather had a second sense, that of procella ; this is kept alive by the saying, ' fear neither wind nor weather.' Thus also mail has always borne something like the sense of serves, as well as that of homo ; it implies inferiority ; an officer or a farmer speaks of his 7iien. The old iveorc meant dolor as well as opus ; the former sense remains in, ' I had sad ivorh with him. '' When we speak of a Jish-ivife, we bear witness to the fact that luife has always meant mulier, as well as uxor. The different meanings of one verb date very far back ; hahhan means trahere as well as hahere (Sweet's 'Anglo- Saxon Reader,' p. 63) ; sceotan (shoot) still means both torquere and mere, and of old it had a third meaning, solvere. It is curious that IMan (let) should have always had the contradictory meanings of sinere and ohstare. We may now both drive a trade, and drive cattle ; either sense dates from early times. We have good sanction both for sticJdng pigs, and for sticMng to a friend. Find has always had the sense both of invenire and English ill its Earliest Shape. 8 1 ^rovidere ; ' you mnst find yourself.' The adverb fceste has from the first had two meanings ; a Frenchman once complained that in England a horse was said to be fast when galloping, and also fast when tied to a gate. Our speech is now but a wreck of what it was. Thus ham, the old her-ern, alone remains of the many sub- stantives that had em (locus) tacked on to them. Of all the verbs that bore the prefix cet, only one is left, retaining that preposition sadly mangled ; this is cetwitan, our tirit ; its three last letters still linger in Scotland, in the shape of wyte (culpa). Answer alone remains to show us our old and, the Greek a7iti ; anew preserves a trace of the clipped ed in edniive, this lost prefix having commonly given way before the foreign re, Onlihtan has imitated the French by taking the shape of enligliten ; asteallan has become our install ; but the old a has been too often cast ofi" altogether.^ Sometimes there has been a confusion between two old prepositions ; thus, the last syllable of togenes has been tacked on to ongegn, and thus againes, against, has been fonned. We have no longer the substantive stoiv (locus), except in proper names, though we keep the verb stow (locare).. Many niceties of inflection have been lost : the Perfect of drinlc had of old dranc for its Singular, and druncoii^ for its Plural ; the like may be remarked in sing, and many other verbs. Our sorest loss is in our power of compounding ; how few know that ' wilderness ' is nothing- but wild-deor-ness, the place of wild beasts. We still ^ We have also clipped the a in the French avant-ward, and made it vanguard. Our Northern -writers tried to clip apostle and ejpistle in the same way, following their Scandinavian forefathers. G S2 Old and Middle EnzHsh. ^> keep manlwocl, but we have lost mansMpj and laave there- fore recourse to the Latin for humanity. However we must remember that our present tongue has compensating advantages. Old English prose, it must be allowed, was rather cumbrous in its construc- tion, the weightiest word, as in Latin and Grerman, often coming at the end. If ever English were to become the leading tongue of the world, this peculiarity woald have to be cast aside. The peasants of the I^orth-Eastern shires, in their daily talk, followed the far simpler Scandi- navian construction; if any chance were to bring their speech into vogue, on the ruins of the old classic English, the new dialect would be sure to add flexibility to the former pith and strength ; this is the heritage of all English speakers who are not false to their national traditions.^ There is also a tinge of poetry in our prose. Let us hope that we shall never leave writing sentences, so finely varied in construction as, ' spoke the maid,' 'holy is he,' ' gold have I none,' ' well have you done,' ' this done, he left,' ' with this I complied,' ' never spake man,' ' of noble race she came,' ' die you shall,' ' firm as steel, as marble hard,' 'lady mine,' 'come one, come all,' ' his daughters three,' ' a grey old wolf and a lean,' ' who answers dies,' ' it is gone, that sensibility ' How expressive are the three words, ' First, London, Eeturn.' If these were to be turned into classic English, they would be ex- panded into something like this : ' Will you give me a ticket that will entitle me to go to London and return thence by a railway car- riage of the first class ? ' Our speech, as spoken in common life, is wonderfully terse and pithy ; your average Englishman will never waste his breath more than he can help. His tongue is well fitted to be the language of the world in future years. English ill its Earliest Shape. ^t, of principles.' The writings of the great man, from whom I have taken the last phrase quoted, are a stand- ing lesson to his brethren the prose writers : we must steadily tread in the steps of the poets, at least so far as right reason will allow ; we must never let our written tongue reach the dead commonplace level to which underbred vulgarity would fain drag us down.' As it is, our English speech of 1877 rises far above the French in varied construction of sentences, and far above the German in flexible ease. There was one favourite art of our forefathers, which we have not yet altogether lost, prone though we have been to copy French rimes. This art was Allitera- tive poetry, as seen in Cadmon's lines on the Deluge : — For mid Fearme Ffere ne mostou Waeg liftenduiu Weetres brogau Hseste Ilrinon ac hie Ilalio; o-od Ferede and nerede. Fiftena stod Deop ofer Dunum sae Drence flod.* Conybeare traces this love of Alliteration in English ^ Lord Macaulay wrote in his History about cavalry jpricJcing over the plain. This fine old Spenserian verb was objected to by ]VIr. Croker, in the famous suicidal review of the History ; the differ- ence between the well-read scholar and the tasteless pedant could not bo more happily marked. Mr. Froude uses many fine old phrases, at which the Frenchified Gibbon would have shuddered. The scholar improves our tongue, just as the penny-a-liner debases it. - Conybeare's Anglo-Saxon Poetry, xxxiii. G 2 84 Old and Middle English. poets down to 1550, and Earle traces it on further to 1830. Byron's noble line on the Brunswicker's death at Qnatre Bras is well known. I can bear, witness, from my own schoolboy recollections, to the popularity of this old metre in 1849.^ This it is that has kept alive phrases like ' weal and woe,' ' born and bred,' ' sooth ta say,' ' fair or foul,' ' kith and kin,' ' bed and board,' ' make or mar,' ' might and main,' ' hang high as Haman,' ' forget and forgive,' ' fish, flesh, and fowl,' * meddle and muddle.' The Tory majority in 1874 was said to be due to ' Beer and Bible.' Wolsey was as- sailed as follows : — ' Begot by butchers, but by bishops bred, How high his Honour holds his haughty head.' Sydney Smith compared the curate of his day to Lazarus, 'doctored by dogs and comforted with crumbs.' This Alliteration was the soul of the earliest Eno-lish poetry. Poets and Priests are the two classes of men that have most influence in keeping a language tolerably well fixed ; with rare exceptions, they look back with loving eye to what is old. It is truly wonderful that the Gothic and English (without a written literature, so far as we know), should have kept their intricate in- flexions fairly well preserved for so many thousand years after leaving the old Aryan cradle. It was their poets and priests, no doubt, that prevented these tongues from sinking into a confused jargon. English poetry has always held to old forms, that have been long dropped ' We were fond of an old ballad, beginning with — ' All round the rugged rocks The ragged rascal ran.' English in its Earliest Shape. 85 in common life ; of this, Spenser and Thomson are the "best examples. The ' Erectheus ' of Mr. Swinbnme, and the ' Sigurd ' of Mr. Morris, show us the way in which we should go. Religion, in this noble race, has run abreast of Poetry. Christian ministers took up the old conservative tradition where the Pagan priests dropped it. All over the world the same effect may be seen. The Bible, translated into hundreds of tongues, has from first to last had a most conservative influence upon the languages spoken by mankind ; it has done its best to fix them, if we may apply the verb/?a3 to so fleeting a thing as language ; religion and philology go hand in hand. Bede and Aldhelm, Wickliffe and Tyndale, alike bear witness to this truth ; may the English pulpit ever cling fast to her old traditions ! It was the Anglican clergy that taught Dryden how to write English, as the poet himself acknowledges. Lord Macaulay, after a philological argument with Lady Holland, laughs at the idea of anyone, who has not the English Bible at his finger-ends, setting up as a critic of English. It was no mere chance that made one of our present Archbishops a foremost leader in reviving the lono'-nesrlected claims of our o-lorious Mother-tono-ue.^ Bishop Patteson, a new Hervas, was as renowned for his philological studies as for his missionary achievements. ^ Dr. Trench is a good Teuton, and is therefore heartily abused by professors of fine writing. One of them, who writes about scqua- ■cious diathesis, reviles the xlrchbishop as ' a contortionist and a fan- tast.' I have seen it affirmed that our language is healthily develop- ing itself, when every penny-a-liner scatters broadcast his bad grammar and newfangled Trench phrases, Avithout giving one thought to the writings of Defoe, Swift, and Fielding ! S6 Old and Middle English.. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER I. TABLE OF INTERCHAIsGES OF C0X80NANTS. AxT one who compares tlie kindred Sanscrit andEnglisli wordSy given at pages 3 and 4, will see a close connection, according to Grimm's Law, between the following sounds : — Sanscrit. English. Sanscj'it. English. bh b t th P dh d f d t gh g(j) k g c, k h It is needless to insist on the fact that the lip-sounds, b, ^:>, f (v), are closely linked together.^ This also holds true of the tooth-sounds, d, t, th ; and of the throat-sounds, g, c (k), h. But it is easy to see that one of these three diiferent groups of sounds will often get confused with another group. When we hear a child say ' 1 tan do ' for ' I can go,' we see at once that there is a link between t and c, d and g ; the child observes Grimm's Law with never failing exactness ; moreover, he shows the connection between the Latin cunudus and tumulus. What we call r«<^ (rough) is sounded in some parts of Scotland likeroA:/?, from the back of the throat ; here we see a further link between 1i and/. Our verb duck must come from the old dyjypan. Thus the throat-sounds touch the lip-sounds on the one hand, the tooth- sounds on the other. There is also a direct connection between the tooth-sounds and the lip-sounds, for Theodore becomes Feodor in Russian. These facts explain the diiferent forms of the English words given at page 31. In the Greek dialects pisures and tetores may be compared (as to their first letters) with the Irish ceathair, all three words" having the same mean- ing, that of our English (fethower) four. The like may be seea * Pope Pius IX. uses the form servare (keep) in a Bull ; but when he speaks to a servant, he calls it serbare. EnglisJi in its Earliest Shape, 8/ in the last consonants oiiiente^ kinke (quinque), ^^wwi^j (Welsh), answering to our English ^ye. So sliji, slide, and slick. The liquids I, n, and r, are always running into each other. "WTiat Virgil called Anagnia, Dante wiites Alagni. Bononia has become Bologna, and Banormus is now Balermo. Dyclei'ian has got corrupted into diddle (see page 75), and altare into autel. The Latin homines in Spain became homres, and then homhres', diaconus in French became diacre; the Gothic /o?? is our^re. The liquid m has a tendency to get confused with n, as mappa, nappe ; dama, daine ; semita, sente ; rem, rien. The old cemete has given birth to ant. There is also a close tie between m and h (see page 15). The High German h answers to the English / (liebe?- to liefer) in the middle of a word ; hence oiu* heofen (heayen) must once in German have been heheTi or hihel ; it is now himmel. So s«6- hati dies has become samedi. L and d interchange ; the Greek dakru is the Latin laci'uma, and the Greek deka is the Lithuanian lika ; dingua is the older form of lingua. There is a connection between r and s, as in the Latin honos and Ao/ior, or the cries huzzah and /iW7vaA; the Sanscrit aswit must have once been armi in English mouths, as we see by the Second Person, thou art ; the Primitive Aryan asanti became aranti, in English our are (sunt). The words loas (eram) and luere (erant) belong to one and the same tense. There is a connection between s and t ; th, that peculiarly English sound, seems to stand halfway between them. When a Frenchman pronounces our word thing, he will sometimes call it ting, sometimes sing. The Southern English icaliciath is akin alike to the Latin volvit and to the Northern English wahvias (lie wallows). We know the Greek forms tasso and tatto. The Low German t becomes s or 3 in High German ; thus our primitive to, toll, token, become at Dresden zu, zoll, zeichen. The c or k, on the Continent, slid into ch before the year 900 ; chief for cajjut is found in the Song of St. Eulalie, and the Latin Kikero is now pronounced in Italy Chichei'o. Sometimes the ch, both in English and French, went on further 8S Old and Middle En^lisJi i> and became jf'; as capeUa becomes javelle, and the verb ceoivan becomes jaio. So the Sanscrit / has replaced a far older Aryan g. In the Teutonic tongues g was early softened into y ; our geai' (annus) began -with y in Gothic. In the Twelfth Century the Eno-lish q very often became ?r, thouo:h this is traceable much earlier : the Sanscrit gharma is the English warm ; the Celtic gosper is the Latin vesper^ pronounced something like uesper. There is a close connection between v and v: ; see the Sans- crit words at pages 3 and 4. The Latin r, as in voho, must have been pronounced yery like our English xv ; and it is the same with the Scandinayian v. Our hw<2t (quid) has become in vulgar London speech icot, and this is sometimes heard as vot. The most refined Germans have done something like this last with their grand old iv. I have here given but few instances of the curious inter- change of consonants ; any one that reads Bopp's ' Comparative Grammar ' with due heed may find therein scores of other ex- amples in the different Aiyan tongues, and may work out the subject for himself. M. Brachet's French Grammar supplies many examples.! ^ In Chapter I. it will be remarked that I have not always ac- cented the Old English. In this respect I simply follow the author I am copying. 89 CHAPTER II. NORTHERN ENGLISH, 680-1000. EARLY CORRUPTIONS, 1000-1 120. The examples given in the last Chapter have been mostly taken from Wessex writers ; but Cadmon's Alli- terative lines on the Deluge remind us that in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries there was no Teutonic land that could match Northumbria in learning or civilisation. Thither had come earnest missionaries from Italy and Ireland. There Christianity had taken fast root, and had bred such men as Cadmon and Bede. Charlemagne himself, the foremost of all Teutons, was glad to welcome to his court Alcuin, who came fi'om beyond the Humber. It was the dialect of Northumbria, settled as that land was by Angles, that first sprang into notice, and was so much in favour, that even the West Saxons on the Thames called their speech English ; a fact never to be forgotten by students of our Mother- tongue. This English of the IS'orth, or Northumbrian, has bequeathed to us but few monuments, owing to the ravages of the Danes in the JSTorthern libraries. We have, however, enough of it left to see that in some points it kept far closer to the old Aryan Mother Speech 90 Old and Middle English. than the classical writers of Wessex did ; thus, it boasts the remnants of five verbs in mi — a??^, hemn (sum), geseom (video), fleom (fngio), gedom (facio). Bnt in other points it foreshadows the language to be spoken in Queen Victoria's day more clearly than these same writers of Wessex did. In tracing the history of Standard Enghsh, it is mainly on Northumbria that we must keep our eyes. About the year 680, a stone cross was set up at Ruth- well, not far from Dumfries ; and the Ruues graven upon it eushrine an English poem written by no mean hand. Cadmon, the great Northumbrian bard, had compiled a noble lay on the Crucifixion, a lay which may still be read at full length in its Southern English dress of the Tenth Century. Forty lines or so of the earlier poem of the Seventh Ceutury were engraven upon the Ruthwell Cross ; some of these I give in my Appendix, as the lay is the earliest English that we possess just as it was written.^ It has old forms of English nowhere else found ; and it clearly appeals to the feehngs of a warhke race, hardly yet out of the bonds of heathenism; the old tales of Balder are applied to Christ, who is called 'the young hero.' Mr. Kemble in 1840 translated the Ruthwell Runes, which up to that time had never unlocked their secret ; not long afterwards he had the delight of seeing them in their later Southern dress, on their being published * * Cadmon nice fau?e]?o ' (not CcBclmon) is the inscription lately discoTered on the cross ; and this confirms a guess made long ago by Mr. Haigh. Mr. Stephens assigns the noble fragment of the Judith to the great bard of the North. Noj'thern Engiish. — Early Comiptions. 91 from an old English skinbook at Vercelli. He found that he had only three letters of his translation to cor- rect. Seldom has there been such a hit and such a confirmation of a hit.^ These Ruthwell Runes are in close agreement with the dying words of Bede, the few English lines embedded In the Latin text. In the Runes, the letter li is found, which did not appear in Southern English until two centuries later. The word ungcet, the Dual Accusative, betokens the hoariest eld. The Infinitive ends not in the Southern an, but in «, like the old Norse and Friesic. The n, wdth which the Plural of the Southern Imperfect ended, has been clipped. There is a curious softening of the guttural h in celmihtiga (almighty) ; the word is here written ahnei/ottig.^ The speech of the men who conquered Xorthumbria in the Sixth Century must have been influenced by their Danish neighbours of the mainland. I give a few words from the Ruthwell Cross, compared with King Alfred's Southern English : — Southern. JRuthweil. Heofenas Heafiinces Stigan Stiga Gewimdod Giwundied Eal AP On gealgan On galgu ^ Archaologia for 1843, p. 31. - I can give a much earlier instance of the softening of the gut- tural. Kudicrlagamar was a famous Assyrian name, (Smith, As- syrian Discoveries, p. 223). We know that it afterwards appears as Chcdorlaamer. ^ We follow the North, which is more primitive than the South, 92 Old and Middle English. The English "dicier (thitlier) answered to the Latin illuc ; but here we find this word translated by ^er. So general has this corruption become, that to say, ' whither are you going ? ' would now be thought pedantic. Hurer replaces Invider in the Blickling Homilies, which seems to be another Northern work. The next specimen given by me in my Appendix, is about sixty years later than the Ruthwell Runes. It is another fragment of Cadmon's, which was modernized two hundred years after his time by King Alfred. But the text from which I quote is refen-ed by Wanley, a good judge, to the year a.d. 737. I set do^vn here those words which are nearer to the language spoken in our days than Alfred's version is — Southern. Northern. Modern. Feeder Fadur Father Swa Sue So Gesceop Scop Shaped Bearnuin Barniim Bairns pa Tlia The SVeard Uard Ward The word ' til ' (to), unknown in Southern speech, is found in this old manuscript, and is translated ' to ' by Alfred. The modern Th here first appears for the good old character that our unwisdom has allowed to drop. The whole of the manuscript is in Northern English, such as it was spoken before the Danes overran the land.^ in pronouncing this word. But in Dorset they still sound the e before a, as in yacre, yalc, yarni, and others. See Mr. Barnes' Poems. ^ Bosworth, Origin of the Germanic Languages, pp. 56-60. Northern English. — Early Corruptions, 93 One great mark of the North is, that a appears as e, pronounced like the French e ; the English hrdd (latus) was in Gothic braid. The next earliest Northumbrian monument that we have is a Psalter, which may date from about the year A.D. 850. It is thought to have been translated in one of the shires just south of the Humber.^ This Psalter, like the former specimen, employs a instead of the Southern ea, even as we ourselves do. There are many other respects in which the Psalter differs from later English ; the chief is, that the first Person Singular of the verb ends, like the Latin, in or u : as siito, I sit ; otidredu, I fear. The Second Person ends in s, not st ; as neusas, thou visitest ; less corrupt than King Alfred's form. The Lowland Scotch to this day say, iliou knows. The prefix rje in Past Participles is often dropped, as hledsad, blessed, instead of gehletsod. Old Anglian was nearer than any other Low German speech to Danish, and ge is not found in the Danish Parti- ciple. The old h, coming before a liquid, is some- times cast out ; roe^ (rough) replaces the Southern lirehe. We also remark the Norse eariin for siimus, estis, sunt', this in Southern speech is nearly always syndon.^ I give a few words from this Psalter, to show that our modern English in many things follows the Northern rather than the Southern form.^ ' Eushworth Gospels, iv. (Surtees Society), Prolegomena, cix. - We find, however, aran in Kentish Charters (Kemble, I. 234), and the form ic hiddo in the oldest Charters of Kent and Worcester- shire, ^ See an extract from the Psalter in my Appendix. 94 Old and Middle English. Southern English. Northern English. Modern. Ben Bee Boen Boec Boon (prayer"* Books Celan Ooelan Cool Deman Doeman Doom^ Xieolit Leht Light Fram From From Wseron Wermi Were Nawiht Nowilite Nouglit ^ Feldas Feldes Fields Twa Tu Two Syndrig Margen Syndrie Marne Sundry Morn linage Sealt Ege Salt Eye Salt Hebbe Hefe Heave Hefig Arison Hefie Ariosim Heavy Arose Slepon Swa hwylce Slypton swa Swe liwet Slept Whatso Best Gedoest Doest Fet FoedeS Feedeth. Heyt He iteS He eatetli Tyn Ten Ten Treow Tre Tree Getimbrod Timbred Timbered As to this Psalter, we may repeat a former remark, tbat the sound of English vowels in the l^orth. was very different from what was nsual in the South. We see here ctvece^, ferian, our qimJve, fare, wliich on the Thames were written ciuace^, faran. Frio and hiviol are written for the Southern /reo and hiueol, our free and wheel. We ' We still have both the Northern and Southern forms of this "word. Northern English. — Early Corruptions. 95 must pronounce all these old vowels as the French, would now. Our modern pronunciation has mainly come from the North : and this becomes very clear about the year 1290. Still, while pronouncing in the Northern way, we have often kept the old Southern spelling of words ; and this has caused our pronunciation of vowels to be so different from that used by other nations. The writer who Englished the Latin words, one by one, in this Psalter, must needs have been struck by the close tie between the two tongues, more especially in the following words, which are but a small sample of what m.ight be given : — Latin. English. Latin. English. Sedet SiteS Simul Somud Eepfit ReceS Semper Symhle Tegit DeeeS Duo Tu Genuit Cende Yir Wer Pisces Fiscas ^ Vidua AVidwa^ So the Goths were able to put lolias is ])u for the Latin C2UIS es tu. Sometimes the North of England kept far nearer to Aryan purity than did the South ; thus feo^ur (in Gothic, fidicur) is found in this Psalter for the primitive Aryan Jcatvar, instead of the usubI femver, our four. On * Since 1000 England and Italy alike have changed the sound of sc into sh. - It is very possible that the English scribe might think that his own commonest words were derived from the Latin ; I know that for many years of my life I thought that our long came from longus. Let us hope that a better system of education obtains now through- out our land ; perhaps in years to come our dictionary makers will cease to derive our ' he is man ' from Anglo-Saxon ' he is man.' 96 Old and Middle English. tlae otlier hand, corruption was plainly at work in tlie North. The Plural Perfect of the verb imjrce was, in the South wrohton, our ivrougM ; but this, in the Psalter, II. p. 183, is turned into wijrctun. The encroachment upon the Perfects of verbs has been going on ever since ; the Weak slypton, as marked above, has replaced the Strong slepon. Within the last few years, I see that some writers, who should know better, put mowed and sowed instead of mown and so^un. The Scotch are v/ell known for their love of vowels and dislike of consonants ; with them all wool becomes a 00, and in this Psalter, I. p. 126, we find mnjplius trans- lated by inee, not by the Southern mar : mo is seen in the Sermons of Lever, a ISTorthern man, and is still used by our poets for Tiiore. In I. p. 63, we see the Neuter S^'s (hoc) employed for other Grenders, just as we use it now ; ^es was of old the Masculine, and ^eos the Feminine. This is an early instance of a Northern corruption. In the Psalter, II. page 144, descendero is Englished by dune sticju ; this first word was elsewhere written ofdune, our adoivyi, which the poets still keep alive. Clipping and paring usually began in the North. There is now no commoner English word than bread ; I think it first appears in the phrase hio-hread, for Jioney- comh, in the Psalter, I. p. 52. Panis was Englished by Maf in the South down to the year 1100. We here see both cnol and hnol for what we call st, hnoll ; the li before I, n, or r, is always struck out (the process was now beginning), while the c or Ic similarly placed, is allowed to remain at the beginning of modern Northern English. — Early Corrnptions. 97 English words. Both c and li had a guttural sound, but this was probably more marked in c than in li. We have now nothing answering to the German Slodivig^ where the h was pronounced in the Fifth Century with such force as to be rendered Clovis, not Lovis. But in the Chronicle for 1050, a well-known English name appears as Hrodbert. We find no used just as the Scotch now use it ; ffif ic no foresettu, where na would, as a general rule, have been used in the South. A new element in English speech now comes into play. Rather before the time that the Northumbrian Psalter was compiled, the Danes began to harry unhappy England. The feuds of near kinsmen are always the bitterest ; and this we found true in the Ninth Century. Soon the object of the heathen became settlement in the land, and not merely plunder. The whole of England would have fallen under their yoke, had not a hero come forth from the Somersetshire marshes. In A.D. 876, we read in the Saxon Chronicle that the Danish king, ' NorShymbra land gedselde, and hergende weron and heora tiligende waeron.'^ In the next year, the outlandish host ' gef or on Myrcena land, and hit gedseldon sum.' In 880, ' for se here on East- sengle and geset ]>at land and gedselde.' Here we find • At the head of the Yarrow is a mountain, called of old by the Celtic name Ben Yair. To this the Komans prefixed their Mont, and the Danes long afterwards added their word Law. The hill is now called Mountbenjerlaw; in it kill comes three times over. — Garnett's Essays, p. 70. H 98 Old and Middle English. many Englisb. sMres, once thriving and civilised, par- celled out witliin four years among tlie Danes. The Angles were now under the yoke of those who four hundred years earlier had been their neighbours on the mainland. Essex seems to have been the only Saxon shire that Alfred had to yield to the foreigner. Now it was that the Orms, Grims, Spils, Osgods, and Thors, who have left such abiding traces of themselves in Eastern Mercia and ISTorthumbria, settled among us. They gave their own names of Whitby and Derby to older English towns, and changed the name of Roman Eboracum from Eoforwic to lorvik or Tork.^ The endings &?/, thwaite, ness, drop, haugli, and garth, are the sure tokens of the great Danish settlement in England ; fifteen hundred of such names are still to be found in our North-Eastern shires. The six counties to the North of Mercia have among them 246 places that end in hy ; Lincolnshu^e, the great Danish stronghold, has 212 ; Leicestershire has 66 ; Northamptonshire 26 ; Norfolk and Notts have rather fewer. The Danes were even strong enough to force their preposition mnell (inter) upon Northumberland, where it still lingers. Our verbs hash and hush are Middle Verbs, compounded of the Icelandic haha and hua with the ending sih (self).^ York and Lincoln were the great seats of Norse influence, as we see by the numbers of Norse ^ Layamon, I. p. 113, relates these changes. According to him, the town was first called Kaer Ebrauc ; then Eborac ; then foreign- ers called it Eoverwic ; and the Northern men by a bad habit called it ^eorc. - Dr. Morris was the first to point this out. Northern English. — Early Corruptions. 99 money-coiners who are known to have there plied their trade. English freedom was in the end the gainer by the fresh blood that now flowed in. When Doomsday Book was compiled, no shire could vie with that of Lincoln in the thousands of its freeholders ; East Anglia was not far behind.^ Danish surnames like Anderson, Paterson, and, greater than all, Nelson, show the good blood that our Northern and Eastern shires can boast. Thor's day was in the end to replace Thunresday. Another Norse God, he of the sea, bearing the name of Egir, still rushes up English rivers like the Trent and the Witham, the water rising many feet : the eagre is a word well known in Lincolnshire. The Norse felagi is a com- pound from fee and lay, a man who puts down his money, like the member of a club. This became in England felai^e, felaive, fellow. So early as 1300 it had become a term of scorn ; but the fellows of our Colleges will always keep alive the more honourable meaning of the word. Few of England's children have done her better service than Alfred's son and daughter, whose deeds are written in the Saxon Chronicle. King Edward's reign was one steady war against the Danish lords of Mercia and East Anglia ; the strife raged all along the line between London and Shrewsbury, the King's men throwing up works to guard the shires they were win- ning back foot by foot. Essex seems to have been mastered in 913, Staffordshire and Warwickshire within the next few years. In 915, the Danish rulers of Bed- * Worsaae, The Danes and Korthynen, pp. 71, 119, 170. H 2 100 Old and Middle English. ford and Nortliampton gave their allegiance to tlie great King of Wessex ; Derby and Leicester fell before bis sister. The N'orsemen struggled hard against Edward's iron bit ; but the whole of East Anglia and Cambridge yielded to him in 921. By the end of the following^ year, he was master of Stamford and N^ottingham ; Lin- colnshire seems to have been the last of his conquests. In 924, all the English, Danes, and Celts in our island chose Edward, the champion of Christianity against heathenism, for their Father and Lord. England, as we see, was speedily becoming something more than a geographical name. Alfred had been King of the South ; Alfred's son had won the Midland ; Alfred's grandsons were now to bring the ISTorth under their yoke. The Danes drove the many quarrelsome English kingdoms into unity in sheer self- defence ; much as in our own time the Austrians helped Italy to become one nation. The Saxon Chronicle in 941 names the Five Danish Burghs which overawed Mercia, and which have had so great an influence on the tongue now spoken by us. Burg-a fife And SnotingahRm Lio:oraceaster Swvlce Stanford eac And Lincolne And Deorahy Long had these been in Danish thraldom ; they were- now, as the old English ballad of the day says, loosed by Edward's son. Northumberland, under her Danish kings, was still holding out against the Southern Over- lord. At length, in 954, the last of these kings dropped out of history ; and, Eadred, the son of Edward and the Northern English. — Early Corruptions. lor srandson of Alfred, became tlie one Kinof of all Eno-. land, swaying the land from the Frith of Forth to the English Channel.' Wessex, it is easy to see, was to our island much what Piedmont long afterwards became to Italy, and Brandenburg to Germany. It is not wonderful then that in the Tenth Century the literature of Wessex was looked upon as the best of models, and took the place of the Northumbrian literature of Bede's time. Good English prose-Avriters must have formed themselves upon King Alfred ; English ' shapers ' or ' makers * m.ust have imitated the lofty lay, that tells how Alfred's grandsons smote Celt and Dane alike on the great day of Brunanburgh. The Court of Winches- ter must in those days have been to England what Paris has nearly always been to France : no such pat- tern of elegance could elsewhere have been found. For all that, were I to be given my choice as to what buried specimen of English writing should be brought to light, I should ask for a sample of the Rutland peasantry's common talk about the year that Eadred was callincr himself Kaiser of all Britain.^ Such a sample would be as precious as the bad Latin, the foretaste of the New Italian, w^hich may be read on the walls of Pompeii. By Eadi*ed's time, two or three gene- ^ Eadred was like King Victor Emmanuel, -who has no under- kings below him ; Eadred's father was like Kaiser \yilliam. 2 Kemble's Charters, II. 304. Little did I think, when writing thus in 1873, that three years later this title would he referred to by grave statesmen, as a reason for bestowing a new title upon Queen Victoria. 102 Old and Middle English. rations of Danes and Angles must have been mingled together ; tlie uncouth dialect, woefully shorn of inflec- tions, spoken in the markets of Leicester and Stamford^ would be found to foreshadow the corruptions of the Peterborough Chronicle after 1120. The country, falling within a radius of twenty miles drawn from the centre of Rutland, would be acknow- ledged, I think, as the cradle of the New English that we now speak. To go further afield ; all the land enclosed within a line drawn round from the Humber through Doncaster, Derby, Ashby, Rugby, Northampton, Bed- ford, and Colchester (this may be called the Mercian Danelagh) helped mightily in forming the new litera- ture : within this boundary were the Five Burghs, and the other Danish strongholds already named. Just outside this boundary was Yorkshire, which has also had its influence upon our tongue. Alfred's grandsons, on their way home to Winchester from their Northern fields, would have been much astonished, could it have been foretold to them that the Five Burghs, so lately held by the heathen, were to have the shaping of Eng- land's future speech. This New English, hundreds of years later, was to be handled by men, who would throw into the far background even such masterpieces of the Old English as the Beowulf and the Judith. Some writers, I see, upbraid the French conquei'ors of England for bereaving us of our old inflections ; it would be more to the purpose to inveigh against the great Danish settlement two hundred years before "Wil- liam's landing. What happened in Northumbria and Eastern Mercia will always take place when two kindred Northern English, — Early Corruptions. 103 tribes are thrown together. An intermingling either of Irish with Welsh, or of French with Spaniards, or of Poles with Bohemians, would breal: up the old inflec- tions and grammar of each nation, if there were no acknowledged standard of national speech whereby the tide of corruption might be stemmed. When such an intermingling takes place, the endings of the Verb and the Substantive are not always caught, and therefore speedily drop out of the mouths of the peasantry. In our own day this process may be seen going on in the United States. Thousands of Germans settle there, mingle with English-speakers, and thus corrupt their native German. They keep their own words indeed, but they clip the heads and tails of these words, as the Dano- Anglians did many hundred years ago. About the year 950 another work was compiled in Northern English, the Lindisfarne Gospels.^ It has some forms older than those of the Beowulf ; it has other forms more corrupt than those used by Roy, about 1530. I give specimens of words, taken from these Gospels, side by side with the corresponding Wessex terms. Southern English. Northern English. Modei-n English. Se De The Hi Da They Hvra Dsera Their Hi Hia Her An ])gera An of Ssem One of them Eom Am Am Eart Art Art Ge sjTit Arc gie Are ye ^ See a specimen of these in my Appendix. 104 Old and Middle English. Southern English. Northern English. Modern English. Na mara Nolit mara Not more Cildru Cildes Children Burgwaru Burguaras Burgbers Faeder willan Faderes vvillo Fatber's will Axode Ascade Asked Breost Brest Breast Sunu Sona Son Leofa]> Lifes Lives ("viyit) Bohton Bocbton Bougbt Gemang Inmong Among Begeondan Beyeonda Beyond Betweonan Bituien Between Beforan Before Before Claen-lieortan Olaene of bearte Clean of beart Eortlian sealt Eortbes salt Eartb's salt Gewefen Gewoefen Woven Ic secge eow Ic cueSo iub to Quotb I to you Hwitne gedon Huit geuirce To make wbite Magon ge Maga gie May ye Dearr Darr Dare Getimbrode Getimberde Timbered (built' Bm-li Bunig Borougb CwseS CuoeS Quotb" Feoh Feb Fee CymS Oymmes Comes Fynd Fiondas Fiends Don Doa Do (facere) Hund Hundrid Hundred Awriten be Awritten of Written of (de) Ge dydon Gie dide Ye did He sitt He sittes He sits Fulle bana Fulla miS banum Full of bones Seoc Sek Sick WedoS We doe We do De« Does Does Bycget5 ByeS Buyetb Northern English. — Early Corruptions. 105 Southern English. Northern English. Modern English. LosiaS Lose(5 Loseth Nigontig Neantih Ninety Feower Feor Four Fixas Fisces Fishes Feorr Farra Far Gesewen Geseen Seen SpiUde Spild Spilt (Perfect) Lgetra Lattera Latter XTnbinda?) Unbiiide Unbind (solyite) Ge biddaS Gie bidde Ye bid Been Becon Beacon Tacn Tacon Token Ic lia3bbe Ic hafo I have Sunnadseg Sumiedae Sunday We drifon We driofon We droye Dui'u Dor Door Gescy Scoeas Shoes Deah Dsech Though Cuppa Copp Cup Lyre Lose Loss (jactui-a) Ea]'elicre Eat^ur Easier SltepS Slepes Sleeps Wyrhta Wercmonu Workman Swurd Suord Sword Drige Diyia Dry Mu(5 twegra 0(5 (5e MuS tuoe o6Se Srea Mouth of two or three ]>reora gewitnesse witnesa witnesses Heonon Ilena Hence Driwa Driga Thrice Drydda Dirda Third Bryd Bhd Bird The Norsemen, breathing fire and slaughter, have for ever branded, as we see, their mark upon England's tongue. Northern English had become very corrupt since the year 800 ; as I before said, the intermingling io6 Old and Middle E^iglish. of two kindred tribes, like the Angles and Danes, must tend to shear away the endings of Nouns and Verbs. The Third Persons, both Singular and Plural, of the Present tense now often end in s instead of t\ as he misceces ; we follow the North in daily life, but we listen to the Southern form when we go to Church. The S of the Imperative also becomes s, as wyrcas instead of imjrca6 ; indeed, the as is sometimes clipped altogether. New idioms crop up, which would have astonished King Alfred; we find full of fiscum for plemis piscium. The Old English Plural of nouns in an is now changed, and liearfa replaces heartan ; sad havock is made in all the other cases. The Genitive Singular and Nominative Plural in es swallow up the other forms. Thus we came back to the old Aryan pattern, in all but a few plurals like oxen-^ there is a wrong notion abroad that the German Plural in en is more venerable than the English Plural in es. Such newfangled Genitives Singular as sterres, hrydgumes, lieartes, tunges, fadores, and such Nominative Plurals as stearras, hurgas, and culfras, are now found. There is a tendency to confound Definite with Indefinite Adjectives. The Dative Plural in urn is sometimes di'opped. In short, we see the foreshadow- ing of the New English forms. The South, where the Danes could never gain a foothold, held fast to the old speech ; and some forms of King Alfred's time, now rather corrupted, linger on to this day in Dorset and Somerset; though these shires are not so rich in old wwds as Lothian is. The North, overrun by the Danes, was losing its inflections not long after Alfred's death; the East Midland must have been in the same plight. Northern English. — Early Corruptions. 107 As to the spelling of the Lindisfarne Gospels, we find the e doubled, as in geseen ; we farther see two new combinations, ai and ei, which were to be wide spread in later English. These, Hke the Southern ce, ea, and le, had the sound of the French e} There is also au, as in King Alfred, for the more common aiv ; ou sometimes replaces oiv, having the sound of the broad Italian u : a fashion that was to spread wide in the Thirteenth Century. We find vowels often doubled ; there is 00 as well as ee. The Southern feower (pronounced like fewer) is now seen as feoi\ not far from /or, as we now pro- nounce the word for quatuor. That change of sounds, which has influenced our later speech, may be clearly seen in these Northern Grospels.^ Tamia7i becomes temma, stanas becomes stcenas, lua is ivce. Her (hie) is seen as hir, sceap (ovis) as scip. Tcehte (docuit) is found as tahte, our taught; celmessan becomes almissa, our alms. Many other such instances could be given ; the word reu (rue) is in oui- days sounded as if it was written ru (our roo) ; the old eu or eoiv always is sounded like u, if it follows r. So in these Gospels the Southern lareow is written laruu. We must look to the Northern shires for the first traces of our present pronunciation. We know the old controversy about Home and Hume in the last century ; the and the u have indeed been ' We here see '^eignas written for the Plural of the Southern word ])(Bgen ; this shows how easily the foreign word reign long after- ward took root in England. - All the words that follow must be pronounced as the French would do now. io8 Old and Middle English. mucli confused in later English, and we liere find both. fol and ful^ the Welsh ^wl, our 'y)ool. Heo (ilia) is here seen as hiu ; hence the Lancashire hoo, so well known to Mrs. Gaskell's readers. As to consonants, the Southern Ji is often turned into the hard ch ; Imcet becomes chuced ; the kindred Latin quid, which was the word translated, seems to have suggested the d at the end of this Northumbrian word. So the Latin redas is sometimes Englished by rectas, and not by the proper rihtas ; the likeness between the two tongues must in many a word have forced itself upon any shrewd translator's mind, as I said before. To this day, in the Scotch Lowlands, words like right ovniglit maybe heard sounded with a strong guttural in the middle, as in German. In these Gospels, inch is sometimes written for iuli (vos). There is another imitation of the Latin in St. Luke xxii. 39, where OUvarum is Englished by Olehearua, as if the varum answered to our word harrow. Alfred in the South reversed this process, for he turned Abiier into ^fnere. There are strong hints of Danish influence ; thus ulf is sometimes written for ^v^df, and the Old English seofo^a ( Septimus) is seen as seofmida : here the n and d come from Scandinavia. The Danish Active Participle is often used instead of the Old English, as gangande for gangende; and this long lingered in Scotland. Our foreign invaders, in this instance, brought English nearer to Sanscrit than it was before. Our tear is here seen in the very old form, teJier, the Gothic tagr and the Greek dahru. Northern English. — Early CorriLptions. 109 In the above instance, we have canght one of the last traces of the Old ; I now afford one of the first glimpses of the New. In St. Matthew, xxv. 24, the Southern Gospels give for the Latin seminasti the true old form, of the Second Person Singular of the Strong Perfect, seowe ; this, in the Lindisfarne Gospels, takes an s at the end, as if it belonged to a Weak Verb, and becomes ^usavjes, ' ihousoiuedest,* iiiidin St. Luke xix. 21 it is seen as S?t gesauadesd. This coiTuption made very- slow way in England ; even down to the Reformation we see the old form ; and when that was unhappily lost, one of the most remarkable links between English and Sanscrit was snapped for ever.^ There is another instance of the same corruption in St. Luke xiv. 22, where imjjerasti is Englished by ^u gehelites ; the last word Avould, in the South, have had no s at the end. In St. Luke, vii. 32, the Strong Perfect lueopon (plorastis) is replaced by the Weak fomi gie ivrepde, our ye wept. This process we saw beginning in the Psalter, I have already pointed out the close tie between the letters s and r. In these Gospels they were becoming confused ; in St, Luke, xv. 9, perdideyam is Englished by both forleas and forhire. The first instance of another corruption may be seen in St. Matthew ii. 9, (locus,) uhi erat picer; the uhi was always ])cer in Old English, but we now see it translated by Inver as well as ]^er. What led to the change is seen in St. John xii. 26 ; uhi is there Englished by sua huer, * See how the Strong Verb should be conjugated at p. 25. no Old and Middle English. our whereso : this in the Soutli would have been siva liwcer swa. In the same way, as time went on, the rela- tive that was replaced by the corrupt what. We have a remnant of the true Old English in take that thine is, though we look in vain for the similar stay there thou art. Another startling change comes in St. Matt, xviii. 21, reminding us of Cicero's Haheo dicere. The old dgan (making its Second Person Singular of the Present, pu age) meant no more than jpossidere, and this old sense lasted beyond the year 1600, as in Shakespeare's ' the noblest grace she owed.' But in the above Gospel text, ^u aht to geldanne is employed to English the Latin dehes ; hahes solvere. This aht, replacing the rightful age, is the parent of our ought ; a most useful auxiliary verb, which now stands for nearly all the Persons, Singular and Plural, of the Present and Past tenses alike of dgan. We have here, I think, the earliest instance of an English word sliding into a new meaning before our eyes ; we shall meet with many other examples of this. Rather later, the verb with its new sense is found in King Canute's laws, and afterwards in the Chronicle for the year 1070. The kindred Scandinavian verb eiga may have had some influence in ejffecting the change of meaninsr here. The Latin avewas Englished in the South by hal vjces ])u, the first word being an adjective. In the North, the verb was droj)ped ; for in St. Matt, xxvii. 29 ave becomes simply hal, our hail ; the Scandinavian helll is used like this. Our language is all the richer, since it comes from Northern English. — Early Corrupiiotis. in different sources. We now use o?i and in with different senses, but it was not so of old. We follow these Northern Gospels when we talk of having life in the Scriptures ; the Southern men substituted on for the iyi. We know that icliile is now used in Yorkshire for the French jusqua ce que, not for the French pendant que ; as in ' stay while I come.' In St. Matt. xxiv. 34 Sa liwile is used for our modern till in the phrase ' till all these things be fulfilled.' This usage is often found in these Lindisfarne Gospels. Our hwilum ( whilom) for quondam is first found in St. Luke xxiii. 19 ; it stood commonly for aliquando, like the Scotch whiles. In the South, the First Person Singular of the Per- feet was kept distinct from its Plural brother; as ic fand (inveni), wefundon. In the North our present way of jumbling the two together was foreshadowed about nine hundred years ago ; fund ic comes in St. Matt. viii. 10. In xiv. 30, the Glosser writes both ongann and ongunne over the same Latin verb. We have already seen hio breed for favus ; but in St. John vi. 23 we see the first use of bread for jpanis. This comes again in the Rushworth Gospels ; the old lilaf by degrees made way for the new term. Cove is seen in the glossary to Scott's Novels as a Northern term for a cave ; cofa, with this sense, is found in these Gospels. There is another English word, hof, meaning the same, which seems to be the nearest akin of all to the Latin cavus, according to established rules. The Latin agere 'pcenitentiam had a most lofty sense 112 Old and Middle English. (Bm (illis) used where in the South heotn would have come. This usage was continued 200 years later by Orrmin, who most I 2 no Old and Middle English. ' likely lived not far from tlie shire where these Homilies were compiled. In p. 49 comes hro^or 'mine (brethren mine), instead of the usual form. Another usage of Orrmin's is foreshadowed in p. 127 ; we see cet cGgliwylcum anum (at each one) : in the South, the last word, anuin, would not have been allowed. It was the indefinite man that stood elsewhere for the Greek tis ; but in p. 125 we read of the finest work that men could devise : an idiom that we still keep. In p. 243 dne tid stands for olim, and shows whence comes our once, in the sense of the Latin word. In p* 215 is he licefde twcem lees ])e tiventig (he had two less than twenty), a most terse English idiom. In p. 165 the Angel tells Zacharias ne wilt ]m J)e ondreadan (fear not) ; an early instance of will being used to soften a command. We find such phrases as e/we swa (just so), p. 75 ; ful leof (full dear), p. 131. A well-known Adjective is here used much like an Adverb : still had hitherto Englished the French tranqidlle, it is now further used for toujoiirs. We read in p. 209 of men pe on ^cere stowe stille vmnodan (that dwelt still in the place) ; the context shows that 5^77 was gaining a new sense, which was long peculiar to the North. In p. 121, five lines from the top, sica is evidently used for the Latin ergo ; a most striking innovation. As to Prepositions, the use of hy is much extended. In p. 213 comes ferdan he Mm' (went past him) ; in p. 185 is heoldan he Mm (hold by them, cleave to them). It had often been used to express the instrument ; it now introduces the agent, in p. 163, answering to the Latin Northern English. — Early Corruptions. 117 ah ; something is ongijten he eallum men (understood by all men). This last sense is most unusual, and is not found again, I think, until Mandeville's time, nearly four hundred years later. In p. 217 we get our first hint of iLiito ; St. Mai-tin, seeing men stand round a person's body, went into him. In p. 127 comes up 0)) hreost heah (high up to the breast), the source of our hr east-high. Latin words were losing their own endings, and were being stamped with the English mark; we here find discipidj apostol, tempi. The Rushworth Gospels were compiled in the North about the year 1000.^ One of the translators was a priest at Harewood in Yorkshire. I give a few words to show how much nearer the dialect is to our present speech than West Saxon is : — Southern. Northern. Modern. Ic Th I Eac Ek Eke ByreS BereS Beareth To cumenne eart Cwome scalt Shalt come EaUe gearwe All iare All yare (ready) Geoc loc Yoke Neara Naru Narrow Seolfer Sylfur Silver On middau In midle In middle Geonga lunge Young Pening Pennig Penny There were traces of Danish forms in the Lindisfame Gospels ; these are still plainer to the eye in the Rush- ' JVlr. Skeat has lately fixed the date of these Northern Gospels ; see his Preface to St. Mark. In my former work I was here misled by Grarnett. Ii8 Old and Middle English. worth Book. In St. Luke, xix. 21, tii es is translated by the kindred ]>u is, which is a sure mark of Scandi- navia ; the is in the old Northumbrian kingdom answered to the Latin sum, es, est, all alike. ^ There is another Danish form in St. Luke xxiii. 41, where the pronoun Mc is translated, not by ^es, but by 6er ; the tJiir may be remarked in the ' Cursor Mundi,' in Hampole, and in Scotch law documents almost down to the year 1700. In the North, words were pared down as much as possible ; the first letter of ajpostol is here cast out, much as in Orrmin's writings two hundred years later ; this is a Scandinavian usage, which lasted down to Wickliffe's time. The Southern geivorden became in Yorkshire muar^ ; where the Old English prefix ge lin- gers in our day, it commonly takes the form a. The Northern h is here much used for the Southern c, and cu is turned into qu, following the Latin. The combination oi may be remarked, which was very rare in England before this time, except in proper names like Boisil and LoicUs ; it seems to have been sounded like the French e. There is an early instance of v replacing /, in St. Matt. i. 24, where wive is found for tuif; we see in another place leovost. I often stands for g, at the beginning of words. Alfred's gh, so common with us, replaces the guttural h, as, neghihur, for the old neahhur. The sound of o is already confused with that of u, for we find undua^ (solvite). As happens in many other in- stances, we now write this word in the Southern way, ^ This may be seen in the Jacobite ballad : — ' Cogie, an the King come, I'se be foil, and thou's be toom.' Northern English. — tLarly Corruptions. 119 and pronounce it as the Northerners did. The old cet, &c. We should now prefix it to the is. The other Versions keep closer to the Latin. In St. Matthew xxvi. 68, we find the first instance, I think, of the Neuter Relative standing after a Mascu- line Antecedent ; hwa is ]>cet ]>e slog ? ' who is it that ? ' This is just as if a Latinist were to write, q^ds est quod ? There is a like innovation in St. Matt. xv. 34 ; li\v(2t Idafas, &c. ? ' wliat loaves ? ' This translates the Latin quot, which the Glosser perhaps took for a kindred word; but the English liwcBt had never been coupled with a Plural Nominative before, so far as can be known. In St. Luke xxiii. 34, hu^ixt for the first time stands as a Relative, like the Latin quod; vjutuii ]>cet hwcet hi doa^. We should now strike out the ]>cet. These three last instances of con'uption in Enghsh show what influence the intermingling of Anglians with Danes has had in our land. More than a hundi'ed years later, the corrupt Enghsh of the North was spreading downward to Peterborough. We should cast aside all the old notions about our grammar owingi its debasement to the Norman Conquest. Rich Kent, though overrun with foreigners, held fast to the Old English endings down to 1340, long after the greater part of the land had dropped 120 Old a?id Middle English, them ; Yorksliire had got rid of many of her endings long before the ISTormans came. It was not these last con- querors that substituted the Plural ending in es for the old Plural in en ; this e?i, with its Genitive in ene, lasted until 1340 in Kent. The old of gets a new meaning, our concerning, in St. John xviii. 23. In the South, the rightful he was main- tained ; cij]> geivitnesse he yfele, ' of the evil.' The ending es is seen added to Adverbs in St. Matthew viii. 32 ; we there find ni^erweardes. This is the parent of our corrupt ones (once), hence, always, and many such. We often find dol used for sttdtus, whence comes our dolt ; the t as usual rounding off the word. Pi]^er (tibicen), the Scandinavian j^z2:)(iW, seems pecu- liar to the North, as another word is employed in the Southern Gospels. We sound our word whelijs more correctly now than was done in the North nine hundred years ago ; for in St. Matthew xv. 27, it is written ivelpas. All who Avish to speak good English must clearly sound the h before the w in words like when, what. In St. Matthew xxi. 19, coyitimw is Englished by in styde, a Danish form. Hence comes our ' on the spot,' referring to time, not to place. The old tuna (enclosure), might stand for either a village or a garden ; it is here applied to Bethany and to Gethsemane alike. The Latin torrens is Englished by hlynne in St. John xviii. 1. This word is peculiar to the North; the Un7is of Scotland are well known. Norther7i English. — Early Corruptions. 121 When we talk of our hounden duty, we are more primitive than the author of the E/Ushworth Gospels was, who clips the last consonant, and has unhunde for sohitum ; the endings of Verbs were now much mauled. But he cleaves to his old dotn (facio), where the ni marks a very early date. In St. Mark v. 14, foed is found instead of foedon ; here the rightful ending disappears altogether. Wickliffe is far more primitive, for he has thei fedden, they fed. We follow the Southern Perfect spcetto7i (they spat), rather than the spittadun of these Gospels. In the Present, we prefer the Northern spit to the old Southern Present spcet. Our Standard English comes from many different shires far apart. The Southern Participle gecnyt (knit) has prevailed over the gecnyted of the Rushworth Gospels. I have kept one of the greatest changes till the last. In St. Matthew vi. 7, doan stands for facimd; in St. John xix. 15, liahbon vStands for hahemus. The n that ends these words in the Plural of the Present is some- thing altogether new ; it would have been replaced by S in the South, by s in the North. These chaugeswill be discussed a little later ; it is enough now to remark, that these Gospels could not well have been Englished far to the North of Doncaster, We may now return to Southern England. The effect of Latin upon English may be seen in ^Ifric's Grammar, which belongs to this time.^ He finds him- self obhged to use foreign terms ; as, * P;wiomma. habba^ * See Somner's edition of it. 122 Old mid Middle English. feower dedimmga^ p- 17 ; ' we liabbaS declinod . . . we wille secgan Jia seofan derivativa,^ p. 18 ; 'fa habbaS six casus. ^ Sutor is Bnglislied by sutere; murmur by ceowung (jawing). He can translate qiiadrupes hj fy]^erfete ; but there is a sad falling-oflf in onr power of compounding, when hivimn has to be Englished by the cumbrous kvegra wega gelcete. He is happy in having gemetu, wherewith to translate the kindred metra. His pupils cannot have gathered much new knowledge from this sentence ; ' syn- don indeclinahilia, ])set is, undeclinigendlice,' p. 51 ; a curious instance of a foreign word being fitted with an English head and tail. The names of the cases are given in Latin. We may remark in ^Ifi-ic's other writings, that he talks of a halig sand, thus coupling two synonyms ; and he cuts down the old geJidl (integer) to lidl, thus con- founding it with the English word for samis ; for these points see Sweet's ' Anglo-Saxon Reader,' 99, 100. Wifmen is pared down to wiminen, our ivo'inen, just as the Latin amavisse became amdsse, Gnaivod became Gnceo ; we still keep the sound of the old word iviminen, though we misspell it. The hard g is softened in the third letter of geiuhodan (jugati) ; Cerberus becomes Gerverus, and on the other hand Joves becomes JoheSj the Genitive of Jupiter.^ ^Ifric speaks of ce, ^cet is open laga ; here we have the Old EngUsh and the new Danish translations of lex.^ In the Chronicle for the year 994, mnig is cut down to ceni\ and in the year 998, "^urh is replaced by ^uruh, whence thorougJi and thoroughfare. In the year 1009, the old hlafmcesse loses its h in two 1 See Thorpe's Analecta, 37, 91, 92, 102, for these changes. - Sweet, Anglo-Saxon Header, 6-4, 90. Northern English. — Early Corruptions. 123 copies of tlie Chronicle, and loses its /in a third. Our Lammas was nearly formed. Kemble's ' Charters,' after the year 1000, show a great change going on in our tongue. In III. 353, we hear that a man undertakes to put nothing fals in a book ; the adjective is a foreign word. Danish words come in with Canute ; in IV. 37, we hear of silver weighed ' be hustinges gewihte.' In a WiU of 1046 (lY. 106), heriot replaces here-geatu; the Danish word laga (lex) is plainly about to drive out the Old English ce. In lY. 870, we come upon the true form of Edward the Confessor's Charters, and we can see how wretchedly other docu- ments of his reign have been mauled by later tran- scribers ; many of these latter papers are set out by Kemble. Mr. Wright has printed, in his Popular Treatises on Science, an English ^lanual of Astronomy, that dates from about 1000 or a little earlier. Bceda here becomes Beda,mcergen becomes merien (morn), and there is mceden, which has lost the g before its d ; orcerd, not far from our orcliard, comes in p. 10. In p. 16 we hear that lewd men call Septemtrio carleS'Woin ; it is curious that we have preserved the old letter a in our corruption of this name, and that we do not here talk o^ churl. In p. 18 we read of Elias and his cnapa ; this last word was adding the sense of servus to its old meaning puer, and nearly four hundred years later it was to take a third sense, that of nebido. The terseness of English comes out in the phrase, an igland he nor^an ])ysum syx daga fcer (an island six days' journey North of this) ; this fcer is the Accusative of measuring, 124 Old and Middle English. wHcli was in time to encroacli greatly upon other cases. In p. 13 Itissextus is Englished by twuioa syx, ' twice six ; ' this is not often found so early. A remnant of the old sound lasted down to Mandeville's time, who has two so much. In p. 17 we see our forcible idiom, w^hich replaces if, coupled with the Subjunctive, by the Imperative ; Lord Macaulay was very fond of this. Nime cenne sticcan, hit hatcc6 ; ' take a stick, it will become hot.' Even in those early days learned men found that they could not wholly express their meaning in pure English ; we read here of circul and firrnamentwn. We hear of the hlyd-mon^ (noisy month), which we now call March ; and we have also Februarius ; the old and the new. One of the tokens of change in a language is, that a Noun is brought in to express in a more lengthy way what had been denoted by a Preposition. In a Charter of 1046 (Kemble, IV. 106), the old wi"^ ]mn pe is exchanged for on ^ain gerad ^cet (on condition that). The ' Apollonius,' published by Mr. ThorjDe, cannot well be dated before 1050 ; the clippings are frequent ; Infinitives and Participles are sadly maimed. The old uncnawen (unknown) is seen as uncnawe, a corruption of the Past Participle that is a sure mark of the South. With us, a cup is hroken, an oflBcer is hroJce. The e, which should come at the end of words, often vanishes ; the Adverb o'ihte becomes riht. The y is often turned into i, thus hysig becomes hisy, p. 20. We see Northern English. — Early Corruptions. 125 jiiid. (fiend) in p. 7, just as we now pronounce the word. Many Consonants are thrown out, as we have re- marked before ; arUit is fomid in p. 3, I think, for the first time ; ancmnned loses its first n in p. 24 ; the Infinitive rowan loses its last n. Menigu ^multitndo) becomes mcenio in p. 12 ; hence Dryden's ' the many rend the skies.' In p. 18 the Article se becomes ])e, as we still have it. In p. 19 is an instance of the repetition of one and the same noun, an idiom in which England delights, ' the king held him hand on handa.' In p. 4 we see another change of meaning ; cniht had hitherto been nsed to English serf its ; it now bears somethinsr like onr sense of the word ; for ealdorman (prince) is written over it as an explanation. A word is often degraded, but not often promoted, as in this instance. In p. 12 we find sumne ]>cef ])e gemiltsirje ; here the Nenter Relative \cBt is nsed after a Masculine Antece- dent, as in the North. In the next page, to an is used instead of the proper to dnum. In p. 8 comes ic geJdrde secgan, * I heard say ; ' here Tnan, which should be the third word, is dropped. The AdYerh for^iverd seems to become an Adjective in p. 10, ' they were forbwerd on their way ; ' forvjard is now often used by us as an Adjective. In p. 14 efne is used in a new sense ' e/ne ]>es man, whom thou didst aid, is envious ; ' it seems something like the Latin i^se. There are changes in the Chronicle after the year 1000. Six years after that date the old Wmtanceaster is 126 Old and Middle English. seen as Wincesier, to wliich. we now add but one letter. In 1035, the g is thrown out of lilcefdige ; in 1049 the ]? is thrown out of Nor]>men. A Httle later, Petrus becomes Petre (Peter). In 1052 stsnids Miclialieles mcesse (Michael- mas) ; here the Saint at the beginning is dropped ; as also in Thames mcesse ; we often in our day hear the Genitive Thomases used, like the old Genitive Juliuses. In 1054, a bishop for ]>ces hjnges cerende, 'he went the king's errand ; ' a curious idiom of the Accusative after an In- transitive Verb. This is something more than the old 'live a life,' 'fight a fight.' In the year 1055 we hear of Hereford port (town) , an instance of English concise- ness, like Sinai muni. In the year 1061 word com (word came) that, &c. In 1064, a man marches against his enemy with many shires that are named ; here the shires stand for their inhabitants, hke Macaulay's 'fast fled Ferentinum.' In the same year, the Apostle Jude is mentioned. The land of Cambria appears about this time as Brijtland and Wealas (year 1048) ; the dwellers therein are ]>e Welsc. A few years later, in 1077, it is the land to the West of Normandy that is called Prytland, the Brittany of our time. There is an Impersonal idiom in 1052, ])a com hit to witenne '^am eorlum, 'then came it to the knowledge of the earls.' In 1044 we read of 'the Abbot of Abban- dune ; ' the of is here beginning to supplant the rightfal on. In the year 994 stands cet neaxtan, 'in the next place ; ' we should now say simply next ; at least dates from the same age, and at all was to come later. In the year 1066 a man lifede huton ^rij gear ; here the ne is Northern English. — Early Cormptions. 127 •s. dropped before tlie verb, and tbus huton gets the sense of the Latin tantum. We have seen the changes in the North ; even in the South, Danish words were taking root ; some are found in Canute's day ; and William I., addressing his Londoners in their own tongue, says that he will not allow ' J)8et senig man eow senig ivrang beode.' This wrang (malum) comes from the Scandinavian rangr (obhquus) ; it drove out the Old English ivoh. I shall consider elsewhere the effect of the Norman Conquest upon England's speech. I give in my Appen- dix a specimen of the East Anghan dialect, much akin to the Northumbrian, written not long after the battle of Hastings.^ In the Legend of St. Edmund, the holy man of Suffolk, we see the forms of ]>e, 6e, and the, all replacing the old se ; the cases of the Substantive and the endings of the Verb are clipped ; the prefix ge is seldom found, and iset stands for the old Participle geset. As to the Infinitive, the old dcdfan becomes dtdfe; the Dative Tieom replaces the old Accusative M, as heom wat geliwa, * each knows them,' The adjective does not agree in case with the substantive ; as mid ce]>ele ^eaivum. An Jieora is turned into tin moii of him ; a cori'uption that soon spread over the South. The first letter is pared away from hiaford; the Anglian alle replaces the Southern ealle. Bode is making way for wende (ivit) ; and we find such forms as child, nefre, healed, fologede, instead of did, ncefre, heeled, fyligde. ^ Mr. Thorpe, in his Analccta Aiiglo-Saxonica, looks upon the Legend, which he prints, as an East Anglian work. 128 Old and Middle English i> The Chronicle, after the Norman Conquest, shows new forms of spelling ; the ]!Torthem ei replaces e and cp, as in aiveig and togeines ; droef (pepnlit) becomes draf. A "Welshman is named in the year 1097, whose name was Gaduugaun ; here the au is employed to express the strong accent on the last syllable. The Plural as now becomes es, as casteles, in the year 1087. The old Gleaweceastre (pronounced Glewehaistre) , is written Glowe- ceastre in the year 1119 ; not far from our Gloucester. An u is sometimes inserted, for hosm becomes hosum. As to Consonants ; n is used to round off a word, for the Celtic Bonacha is written Bunecan in 1093. The ?i, on the other hand, is clipped in 1087, when ?t'fe re (erant) replaces wceron. We have seen that v^ was not a favourite letter in the North ; the Old English letter for w was disused so early as 1070 in the South, for in one of the Chronicles we read of Cantuitarehyri. The new th begins to usurp upon the old p, as in Theotford ; the hard g is dropped in the middle of halie, dria, and cenie. A well-known name is wi'itten Rogcer in 3076. The old eallgeador is lengthened to eall togcedere in the year 1095. The change of/ into v, in the middle of a word, proceeds. In the very year of the Norman Conquest, we read of a provost, and in the next year we find wisivernisse ; one version of the Chronicle, in 1078, talks of Eofesliamme, while another spells the word as Evesham. The inter- change of s and r (see page 87 of this book) is found ; in the year of the Conquest we see both the old gemtron and the new cusen (they chose). The Article stands by itself, followed by of, thus saving the repetition of a Noun that had gone before ; Northern English. — Early Corrnptions. 129 in the year 1096 is found, se eorl of Flandran and se of Bunan (he of Boulogne). This setting a Pronoun (such the Article is here) before a Preposition, is strange to Old English, though it might be done in Greek and Gothic. One of the first changes that followed the Conquest was the great development given to of; the old Genitive of ISTouns was now encroached upon, and French influ- ence may have been here at work. Within twenty-five years after 1066, we find — let Uhtlice of 0^ (recked of oath) oferede of heom (afraid of them) my eel dcel of Jn'fs mannon belando^ of ]mm ]>e (stripped of) he sende of his mannan (some of his men) yrfenuma of eallon (heir of all) As to this last, in the very next sentence we see the true old Genitive form yrfenuma eallef!. So in the sentence, that follows cyng of Denmearcan, comes the rightful Englalandes cyng. We stand here, in 1085, between the Old and the New. In 1095, there is a new idiom, Gothic but not Old English ; stars fall he anan oS(Se ttnam, * by one or tAvo.' A few sentences on, we see this ly stand for the Latin per ; sende Bomgesceot be him ; ]mrh would have been employed earlier. In 1076, something turns out to mycclan hearme ; this reminds us of the older to miclum weor^e, p. 69. Wi^utan of old meant no more than extra, but in 1087 it gained the new sense of sine, as we now mostly use it. The great William, we hear, would have won 130 Old and Middle E^iglish. Ireland wi^utan celcon ivcepnon.^ In 1076, a man is said to be Brittisc on Ms modor Jiealfe (side). In 1094, ujppon is nsed for prcster ; uppon ]>(Bt ; this is the source of our tJiousands upon thousands. In Pronouns, the confusion of cases has begun, as in the N^orth ; in the year 1067 we find heom, the Dative, stand for hi, the Accusative. There is a startling corruption in the account of Stamford Bridge Fight, added by a later hand after the year 1100 ; instead of the rightful o^er, we read ])a com an o])er, which is as though a Latinist should write unus alter for alter. There is also refre ]>e o^er man, ' every other man,' in 1087. In 1096, naping is found for nan \ing. In Substantives, there are tokens found that a great change has come over England ; hec is turned into bohes, (lihri) ; in 1070, we find a$ siverunge (oath-swearing) ; this prefixing an Accusative to a Verbal Noun became very common ; such a phrase as beam cennuiig had always been used. In 1073, comes on ])a, scehealfe (sea- side) ; here two nouns are packed together, most tersely. In 1098, we hear that a mere blod weoll (ran blood) ; a new use of the Accusative. In 1086, we read that the Conqueror dubbade his sunu Henric to ridere ; this French chevalier is in the next year Englished by cniht. The Dative in U7n was vanishing ; we find the phrase Tnid feavje mannan in 1088. In 1091, we read of 12 of fes cynges healfe and 12 of ]>es eorles ; the English ^ This of old would have been hutan. Our hut still expresses nisi, 'prater, quin, sed, verum ; in Scotland, I believe, it may still stand for extra and sine. Our fathers must have thought that too great a load was thrown upon one word. Northern English. — Early Corruptions. 131 ■seem to have resolved upon saving their breatli and not repeating their Substantives. As to Adjectives, there is a new construction in the year 1085, liu mycel hit wcere wiir^, * how much it was worth ; ' here the Accusative replaces the old Genitive after ivur^. Geiccer of old meant only caidious ; it now gets the sense of our aware, as we see in 1095. Three years later, trywe (fidus) takes a new meaning, that of Jiouestus; a prodigy is related on the faith of certain trywe men. The Comparative Adverbs, bet and leuy, are now cet stands for the old swa hwcet swa (quodcunque) ; we should now replace it by what. In 1095 we hear of pa feower foreivarde dagas (the four first days) ; the usual idiom here would be ^aforman tiud (the first two). Either idiom is used now, and is most venerable. In 1100 King Henry acts he poire rcede ]>e him ahidan ivceran (by the rede of them that were about him). It is most unusual, in Old English, to find this Relative pe detached from its Antecedent ; it should have followed as the very next word. Scott has ' tlieir lot 'who fled.^ In modern English composition the improper position of the Relative is the commonest of all grammatical pitfalls. We may here cast a glance at Domesday Book, which tells us how English words, pronounced by peasants and not by scholars, sounded in Norman ears. The ch was employed for h, as in Ghent, Berchelai ; gh expressed the hard sound of g before e or i, as Qhersintiine} The z ' This (7^ was much used in Tuilor times to express the hard ^ Lefore e or ^ ; this usage prevails in Italy. Northern EnglisJi. — Early Corruptions. 133 was often used for .§. The rj and \ in the middle of words were thrown ont ; Eadgijth and Swegen becamu Eddeva and Suen ; jEpelric became Ailric. The h was turned into c, as JBrictric. When we see Alfred written Alured, we light upon the first trace of a new form of the word. The ?t is often written for v and /. The English u is commonly written ou, in the French way. What we now call Hidland was set down in the Survey as Hoilant ; the French sounded oi as ou or ou-e} The ]? was always a puzzle to Frenchmen ; ^egu was written teign. There was a place in Derbyshire called Wilelm- storp (now WiUiamsthorpe), which was held in 1065 by one Swain Cilt ; this is a curious instance of a foreign Christian name taking root in English soil, as the name of a hamlet. One of the greatest changes is that of the old Wigeraceaster into Wuxestre, not far from our Worcester ; Darhie shows the new sound, still existing, of Deorahg. There can be no doubt about the Old English pronunciation of ow, when the Frenchmen write the old Stow as Stou ; the former combination has usually had to make way for the latter. In Lincolnshire and Derby- shire the old a was in some places getting the sound of the French e, for Staintone is found ; the Northern sound was coming Southwards. Fugelestou had not as yet been cut down to Fuhtow. We may examine the Peterborough Chronicle from 1100 down to the great fire in 1116. There is a tendency to get rid of g in every part of the word ; thus in the year 1100 we read that William Rufus was slain by Ms 1 We find in Scotland the two forms of one proper name, Mure and Moir, like the old Latin oimts, umis. 134 Old and Middle English. wian men ; the an slionld have been agen (proprius) ^ even our word own in 1877 keejDS more of tlie old form than the an of 1100. There are forms like sari and do7iy in the last the prefix ge is altogether pared away, as in Yorkshire. In 1104 gehrogden becomes gehroiden- (braided) ; we shall often find y or i replacing an old hard g. This oi differs from the oi in Hoilant, for it here has the sound of the French e, just as the French Moretom was pronounced ; our hroidered hair is a relic of the old form of the word just quoted. The diphthong ce was soon to vanish ; in 1105 we see ahwoer instead of ceghwcer ; the Northern ei, as well as oi, was becoming popular in the Midland, for we see reinas (rains) in 1116 ; a third combination for the French e, namely a^, was soon to follow oi and ei down from the North, The Indefinite an is used before a proper name of time in 1116 ; something happened on an Frlgdceg. We know the sense of our fatherland, borrowed of late years from the German; in the year VlOl, fc^derland' meant simply paternal estate. In 1110 we see the method of reckoning by nights, and not by days, in feowertijne nilda (fortnight). We read that when Rufus was buried, the Witan were nelt handa, nigh at hand, or handy. In the year 1104 there is a startling change, much like the one in the Lindisfarne Gospels which substituted huer (ubi) for the old ]ycer. The Earl of Moretoin worked against the King ; for hiuan (quam ob causam) the King punished him. This is an early Midland instance of hiua (it properly answered to the Latin quis, not to qui) being used as a Relative ; an older writer would have written /brj^a^^. The new form: /^">. Northerji English. — Early Corruptions. \ZS) is repeated in 1110. We have a rather curious idiom in our day, 'a castle of the earl's,' a kind of double Geni- 1 tive ; we see something like this in the year 1106, as Ipces eoi'les cenne castel. In the year 1114 comes ivolde he, nolde he, the ancestor of our tvilhj nilly. In 1116 appears ofnanan segcean, ' speak of none ; ' hi of yore would have been used instead of this of, which we saw in the Rush- worth Gospels. Since those days, of and bi seem to have changed places in our common talk. What we write 'nothing at all ' was in 1110 set do\vn as nan^ing inid ealle. In the same year comes nanying of him wees gescBwen (seen) ; a startling change in idiom. The help- ful word man now shrinks into me, answering to the French on, as me began to iveorcenne ; this was to last for 200 years. In 1119 we hear that an Earl died of wounds. Before this, in 1114, the Dative had been confused with the Accusative, as in the North ; for him> is put for hine. Our Southern peasants still use the latter, as ' hit un hard ; ' Squire Western, who was above a peasant (at least in rank), loved this old phrase. The article se is so confused in all its cases that we find he sende se arcebiscop, where it stands for the Accusative. Our muddling of the Dative and Accu- sative is very plain in the sentence he geaf ^one abbotrice an munec. The Plural hus now becomes husoes, our houses ; the ending as was to swallow up all its brethren ; this cannot be owing to French influence, as I have before said. I have now brought my readers to the threshold of a fresh Period, which was to sweep away nearly all our old Inflections, to weaken disastrously our power of com- 136 Old and Middle English. pounding, to s^et rid of thousands of our common words, and to pour Frencli adulterations into our word-store, which had been hitherto all but wholly Teutonic. There was to be a marked difference between the English of 1120 and the future Enghsh of 1303. I doubt whether any European language ever underwent changes such as have befallen our own Mother-tongue, at least within times traceable by History.^ ' As regards change, nearest to English comes Spanish ; with its Latin groundwork, and its later infusion, first of Grerman, then of Arabic. Grermany and Scandinavia never underwent any permanent foreign conquest, and therein differ from the other nations of Europe. Middle English: Cidtivation. 137 CHAPTER III. THE MIDDLE ENGLISH. Period I. — Cultivation. (1120-1220.) England has been happy, beyond her Teutonic sisters, in the many and various stores of her oldest literature that have floated down the stream of time. Poems scriptural and profane, epics, v^ar-songs, riddles, trans- lations of the Bible, homilies, prayers, treatises on science and grammar, codes of law, wills, charters, chronicles set down year by year, tales, and dialogues — all these (would that we took more interest in them !) are our rich inheritance. In spite of the havock wrought at the Reformation, no land in Europe can show such monu- ments of national speech for the 400 years after a.d. 680 as England boasts. And nowhere else can we so clearly mark the national speech slowly swinging round from the Old to the New. Take the opposite case of Italy. In 1190 we find Falcandus holding in scorn the everyday speech of his countrymen, and compiling a work in the Old Italian (that is, Latin), such as would have been easily read by Caesar or Cicero, Falcandus trod in the path that had 138 Old and Middle English. been followed by all good Italian writers for twelve centuries : but two or three years after his book had been written, we find his countryman, CiuUo d'Alcamo, all of a sudden putting forth the first known poem in the New Italian, a poem that would now be readily understood by an unlettered soldier like Garibaldi. In Italy, there is a sudden spring from the Old to the JSTew, at least in written literature ; but in England the change is most slow. I have already traced the cor- ruption shown in the Northumbrian writings. In the Peterborough Chronicle of 1120, we see an evident effort to keep as near as may be to the old Winchester standard of English. Some of the inflections indeed are gone, but the writer puts eall for the cill that came into his everyday speech, and looks back for his pattern to King Alfred's writings. In 1303, we find a poem, written by a man born within fifteen miles of Peterborough : the diction of this Midland bard differs hardly at all from what we speak under Queen Victoria. Nothing in philology can be more interesting than these 180 years, answering roughly to the lives of our first Angevin King, of his son, grandson, and great-grandson. The Middle English, ranging between the two last- given dates, may be divided into three ages, upon each of which I shall bestow a Chapter : — I. Cultivation : fi'om 1120 to 1220. II. Neglect : from 1220 to 1280. III. Eeparation : from 1280 to 1303. In Age I. English was fairly well cultivated, and few old words used in prose were allowed to slip ; it was Middle Eiiglish: Cidtivation. 139 different with our inflections, at least in the North. In Age II., English was cast aside as something vulgar, and nearly every cultivated writer in our island betook him- self to French or Latin ; our tongue almost lost its noble power of compounding, and parted with thousands of old words. A very few translations from French and Latin kept a feeble light burning during these baleful years. In Age III. English writers translated copiously from the French, though they gave birth to nothing original ; they thus stopped the decay of our fast perishing language, and French words in shoals were brought in to supply the place of the English lost in Age II. In going through these 180 years, the plan I follow is this. I first give sj^ecimens of prose and poetry written within the Mercian Danelagh and East Anglia, where our classic ISTew English was for the most part born. These sjoecimens are the first-fruits of the East Midland Dialect. To each specipien I add a contrast, being some poem or treatise, written outside the aforesaid district, either in the South, the West, or the North. The samples from within the Danelagh, and from its Yorkshire border, will be seen boldly to foreshadow what is to come ; the samples from shires lying to the South and West of the Danelagh will show tokens of a fond lingering love for what is byegone. In the East Midland there was the same minsflinof of Ano^les and Danes that we find in the shires where the Northumbrian Gospels were translated. In questions bearing on dialects, clearness and pre- cision are of the utmost importance ; I therefore here set up a new landmark, which will be of some use in 140 Old and Middle English. fixing the shires where different poems were compiled. If we draw a Hne from Shrewsbury through Northamp- ton and Bedford to Colchester, we shall roughly lay down the boundary between the shires that were wrested from the Celts by Saxon kings, and those other shires that were first settled by Angles and afterwards handed over to the Danes by Alfred.^ This line I make bold to call the Great Sundering Line ; I only wish I could write Tongue- slied^ like ivater-slied. To the ]S"orth and East of this Line (it answers fairly to the Loire in France) lived the men whose language, a mixture of Danish and Anglian, foreshadowed the New English. To the South and "West of this Line lived the descen- dants of the Old Saxons, such as Cerdic's men, whose purer tongue, down to 1400 and even later, showed a warm attachment to inflections that had elsewhere passed away. The Peterborough Chronicle, written about 1160, is far easier to a novice in Old English than is the renowned Kentish treatise of 1340. The difi*erence between the language of the two is explained by one simple fact : the Danish settlement of 870. ' Clip and pare ' was the watchword of the Danelagh ; ' Hold to the old ways ' was the watchword of King Alfred's * Essex, taken as a whole, belonged to the South. In the Chro- nicle of Ealph of Coggeshall, puLlished by the Master of the Eolls in IS?'*), we read that a ghost, appearing in Suffolk, loqiichcdur Ang- lice secundum idiomn regionis illius. — Page 3 20. This proves that about the year 1200 there was a difference between the speech of Suffolk and that of Northern Essex, where Ealph lived. I have therefore taken care to carry my line to the North of Coggeshall. Mr. Taylor {Words and. Places, 110) proves that there was a Danish colony in the North-east of Essex, for which I have made allowance. Middle English : Cultivation. 141 sbires. As to the corrnptions that distingnish New English from Old English, we may put two-thirds of these down to the Danelagh, the remaining one-third to the Southern shires. The two-thirds are represented by a line drawn between York and Colchester ; the one- third by a line drawn between Worcesterand Canterbury, There are various marks which show at once where English manuscripts were written. Thus, if the old word grcey, after the year 1160, be spelt riray or grai, we may in general set it down to the North of the Great Line ; if it be sjDclt grey or grei, to the South. Either gray ov grey is now good English ; in this respect the word (not being a proper name) stands quite by itself. ^ The c/?, that replaced c, spread easily over the South, but made its way slowly across the Line. The u in much, siicli, is a sure mark of the South, while tnikel, siuilc, betoken a Northern writer ; celc or ilc prevails in the North, gelncylc or uch is the favourite Southern form ; ech (our each) seems to be a compromise between the two. The Northern gilt and the Southern gidt, two forms of the old gylt, combine in our guilt. If a writer uses both sets of forms ; if he sometimes, not always, clips the Prefix to the Past Par- ticiple ; if he uses both heo and she (ilia), both hi and thei (illi), both he tahes and he talieth ; we may safely say that such a writer lived not far from the Great Sundering Line, and must have had much in common with North and South alike. Such writers we may trace from the compiler of the Essex Homilies in 1180 down to the blind Salopian bard of 1420. ^ The proper name Alarms -n-as written AJcyn by Eobert of Gloucester, p. 459 ; it is foiind later both as Allan and Allen. 142 Old and Middle Ejiglish. THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT. (About 1120.) Of all cities, none has better earned tlie homage of the English patriot, the English scholar, and the English architect, than Peterborough. Her Abbot was brought home, sick unto death, from the field of Hastings ; her monks were among the first Englishmen that came under the Conqueror's frown. Her Minster sufi'ered more from Here ward and his Danish friends than from her new French Abbot, Turold. At Peterborough our history was compiled, not in Latin but in English ; the English that had grown up from the union of many generations of Danes and Angles, dwelling not far from Eutland. Without the Peterborough Chronicle, we should be groping in the dark for many years, in striving to under- stand the history of our tongue. This Chronicle bears the mark of many hands. It is likely that various passages in it were copied from older chronicles, or were set down by old men many years after the events recorded had taken place. A fire, whereby the old Abbey and town of Peterborough w^ere burnt to the ground in 1116, marks a date both in English Architecture and English Philology. After that year arose the noble choir, which has happily escaped the doom of Glastonbury and Walsingham. After that year, monks were sent out to copy the English chronicles of other Abbeys, and thus to replace the old Peterborough annals, which must have been Middle English : Qdtivation. 143 burnt in the fire.^ The copyists thus handed down to us a mass of good EngHsh prose, a great contrast to the forged Charters, drawn up in the Midland speech of 1120, which were newly inserted in the Chronicle. It is with these last that my business lies, as also with the local annals of Peterborough, taken down from the months of old men who could remember the doughty deeds of Hereward and his gang fifty years earlier, when men of Danish blood in the East and North were still hoping to shake off William's yoke. I now show how the Old English had changed in the Danelagh before the year 1131, at which date the first Peterborough compilers seem to have laid aside their pens. This reign of King Henry I. is the most interest- ing of all reigns to a student of EngHsh ; the Yorkshire corruptions of the Tenth Century are seen travelling down to the South, a process that has always been going on in England, both in the forms and in the sounds of words. In Vowels, the combination eaw was being replaced by eu\ thus feaiua became feuna, which was perhaps meant for the corrupt Dative feuan (few). This is in the forged Charter, inserted in the year 656. Feoiuer becomes foiver ; heora and him (in Latin, eorum and eis) now change into here and hem ; this last we still use in phrases like ' give it 'em well ; ' and this Dative Plural • I here foUow Mr. Earle in his account of the Saxon Chronicles. The cock and bull tales in the forged Charters of the Abbey are most amusing to any one who knows the true history of England in the Seventh Century. Somewhat later, King Edgar it supposed to use the word market in one of these Charters ! 144 Old and Middle E7io;lish drove out the old Accusative Id. The combination eu was replacing the older eow^ for we find \eudom ; eowei becomes iure (your) : eo is turned into ^, as hetwix and liht for hehveox and leoht ; it sometimes changes into e, as Sre for tJireo. Fyr (ignis) appears as^r ; cb was soon to drop, for heed (jussit) becomes ted, sounded as we sound it now ; and cpfre (semper) becomes efre. The combination ou, found in very few English words before the Conquest, comes more forward ; it is pronounced as in France. It becomes confused with o (a circum- stance which has had a striking effect upon our English pronunciation) ; the old o'^er (aut) is seen written oiC^er ; ndi^ ]ntnon, become nun, tlienen. In the year 1124, lieftniufj appears ; and some old monk, who aimed at correctness, has put the u, the proper letter to be used, above the i in the manuscript. In the year 1123 the old Wealas becomes Wales. ■As to changes in Consonants, the old h sometimes becomes cA, as hurclb for hurh ; this prevailed over the Eastern side of England, from London to York ; though gh came later to be more used than cli. Our old S was often laid aside for th, the latter being better known to the Normans. There is a tendency to get rid of the letter 7 in every part of a word ; thus we £nd Scir-gei*efa becomes scirreve (sherriif) Gyt „ iett Da3g • „ dsei (day) Geatweard „ iateward (porter) ^ ^ G sometimes changed to y, and then centuries later, owing to East Anglian influence upon Standard English, changed back to q jigain ; as we see in this word gate, still called by the Scotch yctt. Middle English : Cultivation. 145 Cffig \ •ecorae s keie (key)* paegiiris ,v ^seines (thanes) Ealmihtig M aelmihti Peninp: 1^ peni Legdoii )f leidon Ssegde J> seide Laeg *J laei MfBg •» maei Geornden J> iomden (yearned) F in the middle of a word is often replaced by v ; tliiis ive geafon becomes ive gaven, and htfc becomes hive ; this change was still more marked in the South. In Nouns the Dative Plural in v/ni has Ions: vanished : there is a general break-up of case- endings ; and the Nominative Plural in as (now es) is swallowing up all the other Declensions. The Definite and Indefinite forms of Adjectives are jumbled together, and the asrreement of their cases with those of Substantives is no longer heeded. Seolfer becomes siluer Suna sunes (sons) Naman nam (name) Hlaford^ lauerd (lord) Heafod heafed (Tiead) Mimecan muneces (monks) Wif wlfes Laga laces (lakes) We saw before that the old hus became husas ; it is now huses, our houses. There is a curious instance Here the Northern k begins to replace the Old Southern c. The h before a liquid now begins to drop, in the approved Anglian fashion. 146 Old and Middle English of tlie way in which ISTonns become Prepositions to be found in the year 1129 ; we read le ]n'.s lidlf pa omtntes, ' on this side the mountains.' Here we hjave the last word in the Accusative, and not in the Geni- tive ; after this, a Preposition might easily be formed from heside, like heJmid or before. Rather earlier, in the year 1123, on an half him may be seen; we should now say, ' on one side of him.' The old swipre (dex- tera) was now giving way to right, just as the still older teso (in Gothic, taihsivo) had long before made room for sivipre. There is a chauge in Pronouns ; the Accusative hi (illam) is seen as hire (her) in the account of the year 1127. The Neuter Relative \>cet is no longer confined to the !N'euter Singular antecedent, but follows Plurals, just as we use it ; thus in the forged Charter of the year 656 we find ealle pa ping f. ic wat. In the forged Charter inserted in the year 675, swa hivylc siva (quicunque) is pared down to htuilc pe ; a great change, j^lc (quisque) becomes ilea, which still lingers in Scotland. We find al instead of the old Genitive Plural eaira (omnium). The old English Definite Article se, seo, pcet, becomes hopelessly confused in its cases and genders ; we are not far from the adoption of the to do duty for them all. The Yerb, as written at Peterborough in Henry the First's day, is wonderfully changed from what it was in the Confessor's time. Old English. Peterhorough. Liifige Lufe (love) Lufode luuede (loved) Sceolde scolde (should) Middle English: Cidtivation. 147 Old English. Peterhorough. Eom Am Beo be {sit) Beo« be {sunt) Wfes was YrnS renneth (currit) Bleowon blewen (blew) Ileald lield Habban hafen (have) The Infinitive now drops the n^ as in the Northum- brian Gospels. In Pope Agatho's forged Charter of 675, we find ' ic iville segge,^ I will say : this should have been secgan. The ge, prefixed to the Past Participle, now drops altogether in the Danelagh ; the Danes, having nothing of the kind, forced their maimed Participle upon us. Still, the ge, slightly altered, is found to this day in shires where the Danes never settled. Thus, in Dorset and Somerset they say, ' I have a-heanl,^ the old gehyrde. One Past Participle, gehaten, still lingered on in the Midland for fourscore years after the paring down of all its brethren. No Teutonic country was fonder of this ge in old times than Southern England. But we now come to the great change of all in Verbs, the Shibboleth which is the sure mark of a Midland dialect. The Old English Present Plural of Verbs ended in aS, as ive hyra^, ge hyra^, M hyra6. Some have thought that, after the common English fashion, an n which used to follow the cer wceron. Some new Adverbs are seen ; for hid in the forged Charter of 606 is the forerunner of our luherefore ; ichijjor remains in some dialects. The old for ]min (igitur) is now changed into ]>cerfore\ sona becomes son (soon). The old on an had formerly meant * in one body,' or * continually ; ' in the year 1122 it gets the new sense * at once ;' in the South it took the form of anon, and is not yet dead. In 1121), a Pope dies, and rjer he lucere ivel ded, two new Popes are chosen ; here ivel is used much as in the old tvell nigh. The JSIiddle English delights in adding es to old Adverbs ; cane and tLuiiva now be- comes (Jbues (once) and twiges (twice). As to Prepositions, we see for to employed in a new sense in the year 1127 ; this follows a Scandinavian and French construction; we read, se Jnjng hitdidefor to Jiavene sihhe, ' the king did it to have peace.' Hence the well-known ' AVhat went ye out for to see ? ' We suppress the strengthening for in our modern speech. This for now^ gets a new sense, that of ejiirn ; here a Pre- position becomes a Conjunction by dropping the ])am or ])at that used to follow. In the year 112o, we read that ' it did not last, for the bishop was against it ;' for\mv' ])e would have been used earlier, ^r also is used for cer ])atn. Our alutan (about) was now encroaching on the old ijmbe ; for in the forged Charter of 656, the phrase is used ' ahout three miles to a hamlet.' Many words common to us and to our brethren on 150 Old and Middle English. the mainlancl, live on in the months of the common folk for hnndreds of years ere they can win their way into books. ^ Thus Mr. Tennyson puts into the month of his Lincolnshire farmer the word huzzard- clock for a certain insect. No such word as clock can be found in the Anglo-Saxon dictionaries, though it is tacked on by our peasantry to many other substantives, to stand for various insects. But on turning to an Old German gloss of wondrous age, we find ' c/i^tZe^cA, scarabfeus.'^ We shall meet many other English words, akin to the Dutch and High German, which were not set down in writing until the Twelfth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Centuries, when these words rej^laced others that are found in the Anglo-Saxon dictionary. Some of the strangers are also used by Danish writers ; it is thus often hard to tell whether a Teutonic word came to England with Hen gist in the Eifth Century or with Hubba in the Ninth Century. Perhaps the safest dis- tinction is to keep in mind the Great Sundering Line : in the case of strange Teutonic words that crop up to the North of this line, we should lean to Scandinavia ; in the opposite case, to Friesland. Thus, in the account of the year 1118, we find wyrre, our war ; this reminds us of the Old Dutch werren ; in Latin, ■militare. In 1124, the new form hcerlic, our harley, replaces the old here, which still lingers in Scotland. Gnawlece (acknow- ledge) is seen for the first time in a forgery inserted in the account of the year 963. As might be expected, ^ Compare the Low Latin taliare (secare), singular is (aper), and many such words, which no good classic writer would employ. 2 See Garnett's Essays, p. 68. Middle English : Ctdtivation. 151 Scandinavian words, long used bj the Dano-Anglian peasantry, were creeping into wi'itten English prose. The Danish hitlie (ambo) drove out the Old English ha and hutii. In the forged Charter inserted in the annals of 656, we read of the hamlet Graetecros : the last sylla- ble of this conies from the Norse hross^ and it was this word, not the French croice, that supplanted our Old English rod (rood). In 1128, we find the phrase, ' ])urh his micele wiles ; ' this new word, which is still in onr mouths, comes From the Scandinavian vcela (decipere). In 1131, we see ' pa waes tenn ploges;' the substantive is from the Scandinavian plogr ; English is the only Teutonic tongue that of old lacked this synonym for aratrum ; the true old sulh still lingers in Dorset. The Scandinavian fra replaces the Old English fram ; and we still say, ' to and fro.'' Where an older writer would have written ' on 5e nor6 lialf the Peterborough Chronicler for 1131 changes on into ; we have already seen arilit ; and we may still write either ashore or on shore. The old English seofo])a had long been written siofund in Yorkshire ; it is now written seove\ende (seventh) in the Midland ; our present form of the word is a compound of Old English and Scandinavian. The letter g was, as a general rule, being thi^own out in the Midland ; but so strong was the Danish influence, that the first letter of their Perfect gehh (ivit) was set before the Old English synonym eode, and gaed (so well known in the Scotch Lowlands) is the result. The verb for-gede may be seen in the year 1129. This did not come to the South of the Great Sundering^ Line. One effect of the mingling of Danes and Englishmen 152 Old and Middle English. was tlie simplifying of our construction of sentences, whicli had hitherto been cumbrous ; the Verb had often come last, after the case governed by it. This was now altered ; about the year 1125 the Peterborough English becomes most easy in construction. Our tongue was, in this respect at least, to rise far above her High German sister. EAST MIDLAND DIALECT OF 1120. Extracts from a forged Peterborough Charter (in- serted in the year 656) : — Da seonde se kyning gefter ])one abbode ]>et he eeues- Thcn sent the king after the abbot that he sycedily telice scolde to him cumon. and he swa dyde. Da cwsed should come so did qicoth se kyning to pan abbode. La leof Sasxulf. ic haue geseond Lo, loved I have sent sefter j^e for mine saule jmrfe. and ic hit wile j^e wa^l thee soid's oieed it will well secgon for hwi. Min broSor Peada and min leoue freond sai/ why brother loved friend Oswi ongunnen an mynstre Criste to loue and Sancte began minster to Chrisfs glory Petre. Oc min broper is faren of pisse line, swa swa Crist But gone from lije as wolde. Oc ic wile ]'e gebidden. la leoue freond. pat hii ]oray to they wirce eeuostlice on \m:e werce. and ic ])e wile finden may work diligently the \ serto gold and siluer. land and ahte. and al pet pserto goods Middle English : Cidtivatioii. 153 behofe^. Da feorde se abbot Lam. and ongan to wii'cene. behoves went home began Swa lie spedde swa him Crist huSe. swa J^et in feana So 06 granted few geare wees pat mynstre gare. Da ])a kjning heorda Jiaet years ready. When heard gesecgon. pa \v£erd se swi^e gleed. heot seonden geond said was he right glad he bade through al hi peode agfter alle his peegne. aefter eercebiscop. and his joeople thanes aefter biscopes. and aefter his eorles. and sefter alle pa those pe Gode luuedon. pat hi scoldon to him cumene. and that come seotte pa dsei hwonne man scolde ]>at mynstre gehalegon. set day tvhen hallow And ic bidde ealle pa ]'a aefter me enmen. beon hi mine all those that be they sunes. beon hi mine breSre. ou])er kyningas ]»a aefter me or kings cumen. ])at ure gyfe mote standen. swa swa hi willen our gift may beon delnimende on pa ece lif. and swa swa hi wilen ixirtakers in the eternal fetbeorstan pet ece wite. Swa hwa swa nre gife ou]>er escape pimishment. Whosoever opre godene manne gyfe wansiaS, wansie him seo oj other good men lessens the heofenlice iateward on heofenrice. And swa hwa swa heavenly gatewa?-d htaven-kingdom hit ece6. ece him seo heofenlice iateward on heofenrice. increases Das sindon pa witnes ])e paer waeron. and pa pat gewriten These are wrote 154 Old mid Middle English. mid here fingre on Cristas mele. and ietten mid liere with their cross agreed tnnge. . . . Des writ wses gewriton geffcer nre. Drihtnes acennednesse DCLXIIII. J^es kyningas Lord's birth Wulhferes seone]?ende gear, fes sercebiscopes Deusdedit seventh IX gear. Leidon ])a Godes curs, and eaire iialgane curs. Thei/ laid then saints' and al cristene folces. ])e ani ]?ing undyde ])at ])8er waes gedon. swa beo bit sei6 alle. Amen. done so be it say THE CONTRAST TO THE EAST MIDLAND. (About A.D. 1120.) ^ Ure blaford almibtig God wile and us bot ]?at we bine lufie. and of bim smaje and spece. nabt bim to mede ac bus to fremg and to fultume. for bim sei^e alle biscefte. . . . Gif non man ne ]>obt of Gode. non ne spece of bim. Gif non of bim ne spece. non bine ne lufede. Gif non bine ne lufede. non to bim ne come, ne delende. nere of bis eadinesse. nof bis merb^'e. Hit is wel swete of bim to specene. pencbe jie eelc word of bim swete. al swa an buni tiar felle upe giure bierte. Hep is befone libt and eorSe bribtnesse. loftes leom. and all biscefte jimston. anglene blisse. and p;iancenne bibt and bope. ricbtwisen strenbcj^e. and niedfulle frouer.^ ' Old English Homilies, edited by Dr. Morris (Early English Test Society), p. 217. These go on to p. 245. The passage I give abore is an original one of the transcriber's, written long after ^Ifric's time. Middle English : Cultivation. 155 Page 219. Seraphim h irnincle oSer anhelend. God let hi habben ajen chirp^, to cliiesen.] 221. Forgang ])u ones tredwes westm. 235. He cweS a wunder worder. "^"^^ 223. pa weran ho^e deadlice. „ 225. Ic wille halden J>e and ti wif. 7?.(/vv Ic wille settan Tn^wed (covenant). ^,yyJl/^^ J, 233. He us forSteh cdse is cyldren. Feder, of icajn^y^e sielj'e habbeS. ,, 235. Barn of hire ogen innoS. "cicxjo^ Gif ic fader ham. '^ayv\^ Wer laSieres moche. ,, 239. ly/c jeie, icic dredness wurS. Birne alse longe as ic lefie. Aa^'m^*^ This Sonthern English, as anyone may see, is far more archaic than the dialect of Peterborough. After the year 1000, ^Ifric had written many homilies in the English of his day, and these were jDopular in our land long after his death. A clean sweep, it is true, was made of a Latin sentence of his, wherein he upholds the old Teutonic idea of the Eucharist, and overturns the newfangled Tran- substantiation, a doctrine of which Lanfranc, seventy years later, was the great champion in England.^ But otherwise ^Ifric's teaching was thought sound, and his homilies were more than once turned into the corrupt English of succeeding centuries. We have one of these versions, drawn up about the time of the forged Peter- borough Charters ; this is headed by the extract given * See Faber's Difficulties of Fomanism (Third Edition, p. 260) as to erasures made iu ^^Ifric's text by theologians of a later age. J 56 Old and Middle English. above. The East Midland, with, its stern contractions, . is like the Attic of Thucydides ; the Southern English, with its love of vowels and dislike of the clipping process, resembles the Ionic of Herodotus. The work we have now in hand, being written far to the South of the Mer- cian Danelagh, holds fairly well by the Old English foims ; thus, instead of the Peterborough "Sd, we find the older 5e, s/, \at\ and we sometimes meet with the old Dative Plural in wm^ though the old Genitive is often replaced by the form with o/j and the endings of Verbs are often clipjoed. A guess may be given as to the place where these Homilies were adapted to the common speech. Forms like/er (ignis) and gelt (scelus) point to some shire near Kent. The combination ^e, used by King Alfred, is here found ; for chiesen (eligere), Inert (cor), rien (pluvia), and hienn (esse), with many similar words, occur ; this ie does not appear later, except in Kent and Essex. We may perhaps pitch upon London as the place where these Homilies were compiled ; we know that many Danes were settled in that city, drawn thither by the same attraction that allured them to Havre and Waterford long before King Canute's day. It would seem that from this Danish settlement some little clipping and paring of English words must have resulted ; in the pre- sent work we see the aih of the Infinitive pared away, as in come (venire), gie/ (dare), write (scribere), do (facere), abide (manere). In other parts of the South, the old ending of the Infinitive lingered on until Caxton's press, and even later ; the poetic Earl of Surrey writes ' I dare well say en,' and there is an instance of the same form thirty years later still in a common letter. The endings of Middle English: Cultivation. 157 other tenses of the Verb are clipped ; we find reer vje go and vjer (erant). As to this last Verb, I would remark that we have turned the Singular number ivces into tuas, the Plural number lureron into ivere ; the corruption of the old diphthong is due, in the former case to the North, in the latter to the South. Another stronof token of Danish influence is in page 219 ; we there see not only the Old English form tio^e (decimus), but the Danish n intruding into the word, as teon^e ; the Danish sefenfije at p. 229 replaces the true Old English Mmd seofontiq. The word re (lex) was dropping out of use ; so the Danish larja (our Imv) is given as an explanation of the older word. New forms are found here which have already ap- peared in the North, such as \u ahst (debes), ho^e, hread, for fenim), }>er/b?*, ayio]ier^ sei^j anon, na ping, he ha^ ihi (he hath been), had, lie iuercte,7ne (mail) , for to, ahec (in Gothic ihnJcai, our ahaclc) ; in the is shortened into i^e. Shakspeare has ' digged i' the darJc.^ English dislikes n comino" before a fh, and lonof before this time had turned the old Aryan danta or tontha into fot>, our tooth. Hvjcer is made to do duty for a Relative as in the North ; in p. 241 we read of 'j'e funte iver (ubi) he ifulled his.' Oj is used most freely instead of the old Genitive. The Northern combination ei is found, as in peigne and ei'^er; we have not very often kept this.^ I have hitherto spoken of Danish and Northern in- ' We keep the true old sound of ei in words like eight ; but either is hopelessl}' degraded ; it is sometimes given as a puzzle in pronunciation, ■whether the ei here should be sounded like the Ger- man ci or the French /. Our ai preserves the true old sound. 158 Old and Middle English. fluence, as seen in these Homilies, and as bearing upon the question of the place where they were written. I now mark other new letters and forms, here to be seen. The old (B was corrupted into a or e ; instead of vxeter we find both vjater and loeter. The diphthong sometimes became ai or ej ; we see both mai and mei^ for the old nnceg (possum) ; rM (manducavit) becomes mat ; on the other hand, Icedde (duxit) becomes leclde. The a was sometimes turned into e, for \ies (the Latin lii) replaces ]Kis ; the y sometimes became e (a mark of the South East), for we find evyl and hedele, instead of the old yfel and hydel ; King Alfred's ie appears once more, and was used hence- forward in Kent and Essex ; we here see cliiese (p. 114) for ceosan. We find a change that is for ages the sure mark of a Southern dialect ; namely, the turning of i or y into u. Thus cwic^ tnycele, and sivi^eii ^ here become cwuce, niucele, and swupeyi. This change has not greatly affected our Standard English, except that we use the Southern much and such instead of the old mycel and swylc. In Anglo-Saxon dictionaries we often find two sets of forms for one word ; as wiht, ivuJit, hyrig, hiirug, higan^ hugan ; it ma}'' be that this difference of vowels, if carefully searched out, would help to fix the shire where the works in question were compiled. The vowel i is found to the North, the vowel u to the South, of the Great Sundering Line; it is strange that these are replaced by e near Shrewsbury and also near London. It is curious to mark in Stratmann's Dictionary the three forms taken in various shires by words like cun, fur, sunne, gult. ^ This old "word survives among cricketers only, who make good Middle English : Cidtivaiion. 159 In tbese Homilies we see herieles, cenne, and melsta- nent ; tlie first e in each of these words is somethinsr new in the South, and we still keep the sound of this e in heriel (burial), and also the sound of the old i in ]}ri smdisi (three and see). We further find replaced by 20, for tu us (ad nos) may be seen, which tu we still pronounce as it is •wTitten in these Homilies. No English word has under- gone more changes than scedwian in its progress to our present shoiu ; we here see sceaivode become scewede (p. 227) ; eoiu is seen as ^eic. There is a tendency to drop the vowel altogether at the end of the Weak Participle Passive ; rjeloefod becomes '^elifd, almost as we pronounce left now. The letter in this work begins to supplant the old a, though not often. This corruption is found in full vigour a hundred years later both in Suffolk and Dorset. Some town lying nearly half-way between the two shires may have given birth to the new form. We now find mo?*, long, non, ogen (own), and haJigost. for the old mar, lang, ndn^ dgen, and hdlig gdst. Moreover, as we learn from the Conqueror's English Charter to London, the great city was the abode of a large French-speaking population. From these men (Becket's father was one of them), it seems likely that their English fellow-sub- jects learned to turn the hard c into the soft ch ; ceosan and rice into chiesen and riche. Long before this time, the French castel had become chastel} The cli comes into other parts of the word ; nwche, a form long peculiar to the London neighbourhood, appears as well as mucele. ^ The French escole (schola) appears iu these Homilies (p. 243) as iscole. i6o Old and Middle En owlish ' The clianges of the a and the c, most sparingly found as yet, are the two main corruptions that our Standard English has borrowed from the South. There is another sound of* cli found here, as at Peterborough, in words like hurcli, richftvis, and licJite ; the Old and New are mingled in ^eworJwte ; this cli when following vowels took the hard sound, which it still keeps in the Scotch Low- lands. The h is of near kin to c ; it is here often wrongly used, or dropped at the beginning of words ; we see lua for hiva^ vjic for Jiiuylc, ham (sum) for am ; luat (quid) has held its ground in London till this day. Let us hope that speakers of good English will never drop the sound of h in hvcet, Tiivat. The g undergoes change, as at Peterborough ; genoh and agen become innoli and aienes ; we also see ojeS (debemus) and modinesse. The Peterborough twiges (bis) has become hvies ; this es was to be constantly added on to words for the next 140 years ; a'^enes, as I said before, replaces agen. The g is softened into y or ?', especially at the beginning of Past Participles. The letter 3 appears to replace the old hard g, and it lasted for 350 years ; we see je and jewr for the old ge and eower. This new letter adds to our store of words ; we may talk both of a guild and of the yield of fields, both words coming from the old gildan (solvere). There is a curious interchange of letters in his acemiende (generatio) ; this last word stands for the old verbal noun acennwig. Fourscore years later the aforesaid interchange of g and d was to work a baleful effect upon the old Active Participle. The n also is much clipped; on or an is often pared down into a., and our shortened Indefinite Article is now first found ; mm and ]nn are Middle EnoHsh : Cultivation. i6l "iy cut down into mi and ti ; the old myhistcin becomes viel- stanent (p. 241) ; after this the miln, still found in the Scottish Lowlands, became mullein Gloucestershire, about 1300. We have still both Milner and Miller as proper names. The /is also cast out; lia^ (habet) replaces hcef^; there is also had. But no word underwent so much clipp- ing as ealsiua ; it is here cut down into alse, and then into as, the speediest of all our changes. We find in these Homilies forms like alse long se and alse loncje as ; the w is thrown out of swa, for we read sa fid (p. '2SS). The I is moreover thrown out in simjlc, liwylc, and mycel, which now become sivice, luice, and mocJie ; further changes were to come forty years later. The letter s is dropped at the end of the word, for hyrgels (sepulchrum) becomes beriel, whence comes our burial. On turning from the changes in sound to the changes in the words themselves, we find that the 21, with which many Nouns formerly ended, is turned into en; cildru becomes cyldren. The South of England, unlike the North, always loved the Plural in en, of which the Germans are so fond. Hatrede is found for the first time, as well as hate. In page 231 the Substantive is dropped altogether after the Adjective, pat hi alle he ]>e Idtst to ])a depe per luere ; here tirtie would in former days have followed Idtst ; we should now say, * at the latest.' The whole sentence quoted is worth study ; we still say 'you must be there to the day,' a very old usage of to. The o/is used more freely than ever; we see not only the old his gastes ^ife, but the new gief of Ms gaste (the gift of his Spirit) ; there is also siner of (sure of), where 1 62 Old and Middle En dish i>' the of expresses the Latin de (anent) ; this sicer had not appeared since Alfred's time. A startling change has taken place in Pronouns ; we now find the first use of one of our New Enghsh Rela- tives. Hivd and Jmylc had never been so employed of yore ; they answered to the Latin q^iis, not to qui ; but our tongue had now come under French influence. As yet, the Genitive and Dative only of hwd, not the "NTomina- tive, are used in the Relative sense. We saw before that hivcet in Old English answers to allquicl ; we now see it used for qua . . . qua, the Romance que . . . que ; in page 237, we read, that they heo^ icome, watfrend, wat fa. In the year 1300 we shall meet with a further step in the development of this ivhat. Enough is now followed by the Gerundial Infinitive ; ceic had innoh to donne (p. 239). There are some changes in the Yerb ; we see the true Southern Shibboleth, the Active Participle ending in inde, as hir7imd for the old himende. Still, so early as the year 1000, we find utgangijnde in St. Matt. ix. 31. Another mark of the South is the clipping the n at the end of Past Participles ; we here find icome (ventum), -^ecnoive (notum), and others, such as ihi for gewesen. This in a short time prevailed all over Southern England; and we may still hear ' it is broke,' and such like, as I have said before. In these HomiHes we find come (venerunt), come (venire), and icome (ventum), all three. This is a specimen of Danish clipping. The sentence macede hine hli^e (p. 233) shows the con- struction that led to our maJce merry. The verb don is used for ponere ; do7i hine into ]>iesterness is in p. 239. Middle EnglisJi : Cidtivation. 163 In tlie older English, ' to live life ' may be found ; we now further see, dea^ siuelten. One chjange, here seen very clearly, is so strange that I must return to it. An Old English word sometimes, in this period of Middle English, is split up into two or three different forms, each with its own meaning. Thus, we here find ealswa becoming the parent, not only of also (etiam), but of as (ut). Chaucer sometimes uses both so and as for the Latin ut in the same sentence. This splitting is called hifurcation or two-pronging. Thus we find an splitting up into one and a, a process often repeated. Some of the grammars, which delude the youth of England, still tell us that the article a l3ecomes an before a consonant ! A few lines on The Grave, printed by Mr. Thorpe in Jiis 'Analecta Anglo- Saxon ica,' p. 142, seem to belong to this time. Here we find for the first time in Ensr- lish the word lali or lage (humilis) : ' Hit biS unheh and lali ; Se hele- wages beo6 lage.^ The Scandinavian and Frisian have words akin to this. Fourscore years later, we find the verb to lapienn (to lower) ; and almost two hundi'ed years further on, we light on hi loogh (below). We thus in Chaucer's time compounded a new preposition out of an adjective. THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT. (About 1160.) We now skip thirty years, and once more return io the neighbourhood of Rutland. The Peterborough •Chronicle seems to have been laid aside for many years M 2 164 Old and Middle English. after 1131. England was at this time groaning under some of the worst sorrows she has ever known ; we have come to the nineteen winters when Stephen was King. As soon as these evil days were over, and England had begun her happy course (this has lasted, with but few checks, for more than seven hundred years ^), the Peterborough monks went on with their Chronicle. Their language was becoming more and more corrupt ; but the picture they set before us ot King Stephen's reign is a marvel of power, and shows the sterling stuff that a Monastic writer often had in him. The English, which we are now to weigh, dates from about the year 1160. We here find forms that remind us of the North, such as wua sua (quicunque) ; we still pro- nounce the u, though we write 0, in who ; all replaces the former eall ; h is found instead of c, as smohe and snahe. From the South came forms such as the clipped Infinitive, cumm, sei ; also onoh (satis), azfines, alse, hi nainin ; get (gotten) ; in these two last the inflection is gone. The h is clipped, for lyiZe and it replace hwile and hit ; the Southern encroaches upon a, for tnore, onne, replace the old ondr, an ; this last is sometimes cut down into a. The n is clipped: there is both nan treuthe smd na justise. Still the Midland Participle in end is kept, asridend. Enough^ as in the South, is followed by the Gerundial Infinitive. The old eow is changed into eu and eo ; for we see both treuthe and treothe for treow^, towards the beginning of the year 1137. We still keep both truth and troth. ^ Even our few civil wars have commonly in the end furthered the good estate of the realm. Middle English : CidtivatioJi. 165 As to new combinations of Vowels : ce is often re- placed by a ; as lie bare, he was, he spac ; on siep becomes un slejp, not far from our asleep ; eo becomes ii, for sculde (sbould) replaces sceolde ; it becomes e, as in held {tenuit). Nearo is turned into nareu. The combina- tion ou is seen, which was in the end to encroach so much upon the old u, as is now seen in our (ur), house (hus), and many such. We now find Gloncestre, oiO'U^er, Poitou, Angou, following the ou^er (o(5er) of 1120 ; the extended use of this ou must be due to France. The true East Midland system of contraction is seen in the French word castles, written instead of castelas. There is a change in Consonants. The old ic (ego) is now i ; on the other hand, c is inserted, for seo (ilia) becomes scce (she) ; a most curious addition. In the account of the year 1138 we see a combination of letters, most common now in our speech ; ti^e Alfred's supplants ^ and h; as sloghen (they slew). This soon prevailed all over the East of England from London to York- shire. The g is sometimes thrown out in the middle of a word; Bristoice (Bristol), andZie?i, replace Bricgstoiu and liggen ; this g sometimes yields to 7/ or i, as in the new winicerd and iaf (dedit). The letter h is inserted in "^uman, which becomes ^umhes ; the foreign qu sometimes replaces the home-born cw, as in quarterne ; th is often found for the good old ]' and S. A iv is cast out, when suster is written for swuster (soror). As to Substantives : nefan hecomes neves; the Irish peasantry still keep this Teutonic form, nevvies, rejecting our French-born word nepheivs. The Dative in 21m is sadly mauled ; hi the fet replaces hi fotum ; we also see 1 66 Old and Middle English. midfmu men. Tlie Dative and Accusative are hopelessly confused ; in the year 1132, we read, iaf\cet ahhotrice an 2yrior; in 1135, pais Jie makede men. In Verbs : can and cuthe are used freely in the sense of the old may and might, just as Tyndale was to employ them later. In 1132, we read, lie dide Mm faren (he made him fare) ; in the old time, the Gerund with to would have been used after dide, and not this Infinitive. In the beginning of 1140, we read, he iaf him alse he dide alle o^re ; this is a continuation of the idiom employed long before by King Alfred. At the end of the year 1140 is found, he helde him for fader and he him for suae ; here the verb is left out, which should stand between the seventh and eighth words ; we catch a glimpse of the future freedom of construction in the New English. The transitive hon is a Strong^ verb, and its rightful Perfect is heng ; in the year 1137 this Perfect is confused with the intransitive henged (hanged) ; the jumbling of these two Perfects is often found in our day. The word cefre (semper) is prefixed to oeZc, which last already contained within itself «, another form of semijer; oevric (every) is the result ; a hint of this word has appeared before. But this newfangled addition ever was usually to come at the end of words. The word al is also often here prefixed to other words, as alsuilc als, and this became a common practice later. We have before met with ' some of the scribes ; ' we now read of Tnani of]'>e castles. What was before ^vritten ealgeador (omnino) now becomes altegcedere. A new phrase, nevr'e mare, is found ;, Middle English : Cidtivation. 167 here ^inore is applied to express time. The word efsones, with the usual adverbial es at the end, is a new word which lasted many hundred years in England as eftsoons. A new construction of Prepositions is seen in candles to ceten hi. We have before seen the Relative omitted, coming before a Gerundial Infinitive (see page 71), but we now further see, besides the omission of the Relative, the Preposition made the last word in the sentence. This gives wonderful freedom to our construction of sentences ; Orrmin, forty years later, was Often to imitate this idiom, which seems to be Danish. The noht (non), Avhich had already been used with verbs instead of the old Tie, is now seen once more, as in 1132, teas it noJit lang. We find to ]Ket (usque ad) used ; and also the Anglian and Danish til, which is now no longer followed by ]Kct ; til hi iafen up comes at the be- ginning of 1137 ; thus til imitated the new construction of for, and was soon to make an end of the Old English oS \>CBt (usque). The old ]>e hwile ]>e lasted down to 1300 in Glouces- tershire, but it is pared down at Peterborough ; for we read wile Stephne was king ; thus an old substantive is made to express the Latin dum. More Danish forms crop up ; we find cyrceicerd (kirk- yard) formed on the Danish pattern, instead of the Old English cirictune. When King Stephen lays hold of Earl Randolph, he is said to act through wicci rede. This is the first appearance in our island of the common word ivicJced, a word derived by Mr. Wedgwood from Lapland or Esthonia. The verb tahe is employed in its old Scandinavian sense. In that tongue, hann tSh at 1 68 Old and Middle English. yrhja means ' he took (began) to work.' In the Chroni- cle for 1135 we read David toe to loessien. A glance at Cleasby's Icelandic Dictionary will show many senses of take, which are not found in Old English books, but which are now common to England and to Iceland. In 1135 we see tocan ]^a o^re and lieldeii Iter castles (the others took and held) ; this take replaced the old fang (a verb that still lingers in Devonshire) ; we hear that King Henry II. toe to ]>e rice. There is a new word, scatter, akin to the Dutch sclietteren. King Stephen, we are told, in the year 1137, had treasure, but scatered sotlice, that is ' dispersed it like a fool.' EAST MIDLAND DIALECT OF 1160. Extract from the Peterborough Chronicle for the year 1137, compiled about twenty years later. pa the suikes undergseton ]?at he milde man was and When traitors understood softe and god and na iustise ne dide. |?a diden hi alle good no then they wunder. Hi hadden him manred maked and athes homage made oaths suoren. ac hi nan treuthe ne heolden. alle hi waeron for- but -=■ -^ held sworen. and here treothes forloren. for aeuric rice man """^ forfeited every 'mighty his castles makede and agsenes him heolden and fylden against J>e land ful of castles. Hi suencten suySe ]'a uurecce oppressed sore wretched Middle English : Ctdtivatiojt. 1 69 men of J?e land mid castelweorces. pa }>e castles uuaren castle-works were~ maked. J)a fylden hi mid deoules and yvele men. pa devils namen H ]>& men f>e lii wenden j^at ani god hefden. bathe took they thought property had be nihtes and be daeies. carlmen and wimmen. and diden men put heom in prisun efter gold and sylver. and pined lieom them for tortured untellendlice pining, for ne unser en nagnre nan martyrs unspeakable torture no swa pined alse hi wseron. Me henged up bi the fet and as they ^ ^j^i smoked heom mid f al smok^. rae henged bi the th nmbe g. ^ foul other bi the hefed. and hengen bryniges on her fet. Me or head hung burning things dide cnotted strenges abuton here haeved. and uurythen head twisted to J?at it gaede to ]'e heernes. Hi diden heom in g uar- C/^ went brains prison terne. J?ar nadres and snakes and pades wseron inne. and where adders " toads drapen heom swa. Sume hi diden in crucet hus. f>at is killed Some house in an ceste ]>at was scort and nareu and undep. and dide j^ chest short * shallow ^^^^0^ scaerpe stanes j^erinne. and ]>rengde f>e man ]:'erinne. ]?at sharp stones crushed him braecon all J^e limes. In mani of ]>e castles waeron broke limbs lof and grim ]'at waeron rachenteges. pat twa other thre neck-bonds or men hadden onoh to beeron onne. pat was sua maced. enough one I/O Old and Middle English. fat is fsastned to an beom. and diden an scserp iren abuton ]?a mannes Jn'ote and his hals. ]?at be ne mybte nowider- nech in any wardes ne sitten ne lien ne slepen. oc beeron al ])at iren. direction lie but Mani ]>nsen hi drapen mid hungeer. I ne canne i ne thoicsands mai tellen alle ]>q wnndes. ne alle ])e pines ]>at hi diden wrecce men on ])is land, and ])at lastede ])a XIX. wintre- wile Stepbne was J^ing. and sevre it was nnerse and — ye. /LMx y^ nnerse. ... ' 1154. — On pis gser wserd pe king Stepb. ded. and be- was byried J>er bis wif and bis sune waeron bebyried set Fanresfeld. peet minstre hi makeden. pa ])e king wa& ded. t5a was ]>e eorl beionde sae. and ne durste nan man. don ojjer bute god. for }:>e micel eie of him. awe The year 1135. Micel J)ing scnlde cumm. ^''^ ttkt^ ' 0> . -^JHW man sone rsevede. . Wua sua bare bis byrthen. . THE CONTRAST TO THE EAST MIDLAND. (About 1160.)! Ure feder |)et in heoiiene is, J)et is al so6 fiil iwis. weo moten to ])eos weordes iseon. ])et to Hue and to saule gode Jbeon. 1 Old English Homilies, First Series (Early English Text Society). p. 55. Middle English : Cultivation. 171 J»et weo beon swa liis sunes iborene. J)et he beo feder and we him icorene. ]7et we don alle his ibeden. and his wille for to reden. Loke weo us wi6 him misdon ]mrh beelzebubes swikedom he haiie(5 to us mudifil ni6. alle ])a deies of ure si5. abuten us he is for to bleudifiJi. Mid alle his mihte he wule us swench^n. Gif we leorni(S godes lare. ]?enne of])unche6 hit him sare. Bute we bileuen ure ufele iwune. Ne kepe(5 he noht J'et we beon sime. Gif we clepieft hine feder ])enne. al ])et is us to Intel wunne. halde wfi. godes laje. ])et we habbeS of his saxe . Page 75. Ic ileue in god ])e fede(r) almihti. scup- pende and weldende of heouene and of or6e and of alle iscefte. and ich ileue on |:»e helende crist. his enlepi snne. nre lauerd. he is ihaten helende for he moncun helede of ])an de]?liche atter. }?et ])e aide deonel blou on adam and on eue and on al heore ofsprinke. swa J^et heore fif-falde mihte bom wes al binumen. J>et is hore Inst, bore loking. hore blawing. hore smelling, heore feling wes al iattret. Page 53. Is afered leste ]>eo eor^e hire trnkie. 63. For ]>e saule of Mm is forloren. 73. Ec]]/ mon habbe mot. ,, Heo sculen heore hileue cunnen . . 83. De snnne soJiine^ ]>er J)urh . . „ Ho nime'S al swiich. 1^2 Old and Middle English. Page 127. Mucliele mare luae he scawede us. „ 141. Der stod a richt lialiie and a „ 145. Teclie^ us bi liwiclie weie. 5) 179. Were we .... swa vuele hicauhte^ 129. Him. ])nhte hiciimelic ])et we . . . weren alesede. The poem, part of which I have set out above, is the earliest long specimen of an English riming metre that is still popular.^ Having been compiled somewhere about 1160, the work stands about half-way between the Beo- wulf and the last work of Mr. Tennyson. The French riming lays, of which our Norman and Angevin rulers were so fond, must have been the model followed by the English bard, whoever he was. In the same volume are many Homilies, which give us a good idea of the English spoken in the South at this time. The following are the main points of difference between them and the Homilies of Henry the First's time. The old diphthong re, beloved of our fathers, was being got rid of in the South ; it is here replaced by e, ■ei, and ea; IcBwede becomes lewecl (indoctus) ; ceg^er becomes eiroitiuede (page 17). The u, replacing e and i, is always a token of the shires to the South of the Great Sundering^ Line. This change comes very often in the Homilies. TVe here see uch instead of the Midland celc or eacJi ; and 174 0^^ ^^^^ Middle English. Vlii^eliclie for our hlithely. The old eaw was now written e^o and eive ; we find deit and ])ewe for tlie former deaw and ])eaiu. In page 103 stands sleiv^ (slotb.) ; and in page 107 comes slau6 ; this a^i was now coming in, and must have had the sound of the French ou; we light upon Nauwen, naut, and hicauhte. The old gylt becomes guU in the South. Many English words are now changed ; as — Old. Neiv. H^s Heste Gescy Legere Sunnandaeg Sceos (shoes) Lihjare (liar) Sunedei FeowerSa Forth Geolo Handgeweorce 5eluwe (yellow) Hoiidiwork Seocnes Sicuess SlyS Wyl6 SlajeS (slayeth) WelleS The letter g interchanges with h, for geleafa here takes its modern form hileve (belief) ; just as gelitlian was to become belittle ; the English Imperative geyc (auge) is seen in Gothic as hiauJc. The g is also softened, as we saw before, into 5 or ?/, and this rather later became w in many cases. 8agu is here seen as sazfi ; we still have the phrase ' I have said my say.'' In page 35 esca replaces axe. His sometimes misused ; hester stands for Easier^ and alf for half. At page 139 the Peterborough ceveric (quisque) is found in its new shape, efri ; the East Mid- land corruptions were working down Southwards. The earlier lengtoi becomes leinten^ our Lent ; and Imute (nux) becomes mite. The new French c is used like the Middle English: Cidtivation. 175 English, s in niilce (mercy) and railcien (misereri). Hitherto near (propius) ha.d been the Comparative of neaJi (prope) ; but we now see a form like^r and neor (far and near) at page 137 ; the neor points to Scan- dinavia. France was now dictating much of our pronunciation, and many vowels must in this age have been sounded in the same way on either side of the Channel. Ch replaces c in countless instances. Cerran (verti) now becomes clierre ; we still say ' on the jar.'' ^ or ajar. We also find chirche, leclwy cliche, teache, hiseche (beseech). Moreover, we see, in page 83, the two forms seine and ecliine), the last being a new sound now creeping into English. So popular did it become, that two hundred years later we forced French verbs in ir to take the sound, as jperish. But the French cahus has become callage, just as Perusia became Perugia. The oldjiscas is now seen as jisses. The corrupt forms of 1120, swice, wice, and moche, now became siuulc, swuehe, and sulche (such) ; wilchej and Jiwiche ; muche and muchel. uElc (quisque) takes its modern shape of elche and eche ; and an is fastened on to it, though as yet very seldom. Thus, at page 91, we read ' heo it delden elchun ; ' that is, to each one. Latost (ultimus) is cut down to Jeste at page 143 ; -and ])y Ices ]?e is shortened into leste, which we still keep ; this is like throwing out the quo in the Latin quominus. Jjf replaces the old gif; the first is the Scandinavian ef, the Gothic i^. We sometimes find v substituted for / at the be- > Pickwick vriU keep this alive for ever. Mr. Justice Stareleigh -can have been no student of Anglo-Saxon. 176 Old and Middle English. ginning of a word, as vetie fov fette, page 81. It is the influence of the South-Western shires that makes us write vixen and vat instead of the o]d fixen and feet; it is a wonder that we do not write vox iorfox. In Substantives, the corruption of Plurals goes on ; wtf (mulieres) becomes wifes. The old endings were dying out, for in page 83 hcelencl becomes helere, our healer. We see a new Adjective in page 27, Godfurht, our God-feari7ig . In Verbs, we sometimes find the Midland heon and hafo7i, instead of the Southern heotJi (sunt), and liabhen (habent) ; this seems to show that these Homilies could not have been written far South of the Great Sundering Line ; it may be, at Oxford ; the Participle iturned becomes iturnd at page 157, with the clipped sound that we now use, except at church. The Perfect ahte, not the Present age, stands for dehet ; this had travelled to the South from Yorkshire. We have the first hint of our ado (at do) at 23age "77 ; mon mid me nefde to donne ; ' man had not to (at) do with me.' We see at page 71 a new idiom, \>ole us to hewepen ; this would have been earlier, ' suffer that we weep.' Again, at page 59, fu^el lete he maJcede ; ' he made fowl lout (stoop) ; ' this would have been earlier, ' he did fowl to lout.' What was before simply lest ])a^t ijfel, is now let pet uvele heon ; we still say ' let him be,' as well as ' let him alone.' There is a new idiom in page 45 ; weren efteriuard milce, ' were after mercy ; ' a construction strangely different from the Latin petehant. The most startling of all new idioms come at page 11 ; we are there told that Moses fasted, Middle English : Cidtivation. 177 a^ul ec Grist hit ivalde liabhen idon. In the older Englisli ivolde don must have stood for both faceret ajid. fecisset ; •we now see the first attempt made at forming our usual Pluperfect Subjunctive. The new idiom did not become common in England until 1290 ; the above sentence of 1160 seems something born out of due time. It is a French construction, most alien to the old Teutonic. As to Pronouns : we read siwi of \e sede in page 133 ; sum 0/ might have been followed of old by a Plural, but it is now for the first time followed by a Singular. We have seen the new Singular Relative hiva used in the Homilies of 1120 ; we now see the Plural of this, i^eten ]nirh Jnvam, * gates through which ' (page 153), and we find moreover the neuter Jnvat employed for the first time in a Relative sense in Southern England ; Godes worde, for Jnvat (per quod) he seal vorsahen, &c. (page 81), "We should now say ivhich, not ivhat; but it was a long time before this was settled ; we may still say, ' what (qwd) I did was this.' Change is at work among the Adverbs. At page 35 we see ic walde fein pinian, ' I would fain pine ; ' here the Adjective is used as an adverb, (Jihenter). At p. 53, we find in two lines both the new alse feire alse and the older siva sone se ; here the svja of right has no business to be. Oherlicor now becomes o^er-iceis (page 31). The Latin quum was of old Englished by \m or ]w, more seldom by hu-ceiine (quando) ; but in these Homilies when often translates quum, and three centuries later it swept away its rivals altogether. As to Prepositions : of is in constant use, a sure mark of the decay of Old English ; saide of him is put for his sold, simply to eke out a rime (hence came omy for the 1/8 Old and Middle English. life of me) ; the of is sometimes nsed as an Adverb, with a new spelling, as at page 29, ^if ])m Jiefet ivere offe. Here our New English has split one old word into two prongs, of and off. Moreover, we turn this off into an Adjective, the off horse, an off^ day. Before this time, of was set before the substantive, standing for material ; as ivrotight of gold. But now this idiom is stretched further ; at page 123, we find he mahede us freo of ]>eowan ; ' he made us free instead of our being thralls.' At page 87, we see an early instance of go to ; we read iwende Godes engel to. We find u;p followed by another Preposition, snaive up et mine chimie, ' snow up to my chin.' At (ad) and to are always interchanging ; at page 143 comes he make^ tiua to an, 'he maketh two (to be) at one,' an idiom kept in our Bible. We find not only ]mrh, but ])urhut (throughout). This had four hundred years' start of the corresponding High Grerman durchaics. The old on efn now takes an es at the end of the word (a process often repeated in Middle English), and is seen at page 55 as anundes, the later anentis or anent. We see id a is me in page 35 ; the Scotch prefer the old luea to iva, in pronouncing this Interjection, the Latin vce mihi. As to the pronunciation of these Homilies : there is ivih (hebdomada), grik (Greecus), feren (ire), spec (dixit) ; foreshadowing our modern utterance of these words. We find many instances of words getting a new meaning. Bicumaoi, which of old stood for accidere (what will become of us ?) now Englishes both decere and fie7'i (pages 45 and 47) ; in the latter case, the French devenir must have been imitated. The old Mot Middle EnglisJi : Cultivation. 1 79 meant nothing but sors ; a new meaning is given to the word at page 31, where we read of a \ridde lot (tertia fars) ; this comes from the Scandinavian lilidl^ differing from lilidr (sors). The word hrc&6re (rather) meant citius ; it now gets the further meaning of iJotius ; at page 45 is milcie ])es ]>e red\>er ])et, &c. The old scelig meant heatus ; in these Homilies it takes the sense of sapiens, page 31 ; but this meaning is not found else- where ; the word is in our day degraded as stultus, our silly, the exact opposite of what is seen here. I think that this is almost the only instance of one English word acquiring two directly opposite meanings at different times. We shall further see that it meant both felix and infelix in the Thirteenth Century. The old sceadan (separare) now gets the sense of fundere (page 157) ; the former meaning still lingers in watershed. Stcehvyr^ used to mean ' worth stealing ; ' at page 25 it gets its new sense, validus : perhaps it was confounded with sta^elferM. The verb scedwian loses its old meaning spedare, and gets its new sense monstrare, though we still call spedaculum a show. We know that the word afford has puzzled our antiquaries ; we find it employed in these Homilies, page 37 : 'do ])ine elmesse of ])on ])et ])u maht ifor^ien.^ Bishop Pecock uses avorthi in this sense three hundred years later. The old gefor^ian meant only ' to further or help.' Here, at least, we need not seek for help from France.^ The substantive cacliepol may be seen, in page 97, applied to St. Matthew's old trade. The verb catch is found for the first time with its Past ' This "was first pointed out by Dr. Morris in the AthencBUin. n2 i8o Old and Middle EiiQ-Ush ii' Participle caulde ; this Mr. Wedgwood derives from the Picard caclier, meaning the same as cliasser. There is hardly another instance of an English Verb, coming from the French, not ending with ed in the Past Participle.^ We may often find an old pedigree for a word that is now reckoned slangy. We are told at page 15 that we ought to restrain the evil done by thieves ; the verb used is wi^steiven, afterwards repeated as stewen in the Legend of St. Margaret. Hence comes the phrase, ' sfoiu that nonsense ; ' this may be found in Scott and Dickens.^ Our verb licJc, as used in polite society, can boast of the best of Teutonic pedigrees ; as commonly used by schoolboys, it is but a corruption of the Welsh llachiaiv (ferire). Prom this last may also come ouv flog, even as Lloyd and Floyd are due to one and the same source. Some Danish Avords and forms had crept Southwards. Thus wenrje (alao) is seen instead of the Old English fij^ru (page 81); tidinge, the Danish it^indi, our tidings (page 77) ; our amiss, the Icelandic d mis, is first seen at page 57, under the form of ouimis, that is, on amiss. Three Scandinavian words, shill, cast, and thrust, may be seen at pages 61, 47, 131. To put is found at pages 15 and 53 ; in the former instance it means trudere ; in the latter ca,pere, not far from ponere, our sense of the word; it seems to come from the CeMic pouta : there is also a Danish initten, and some point us to the French holder. Put is a Southern word, and has now much ' Can cacher have got confounded with the Old English gelceccan, gelahf, meaning the same? - In Hard Times comes the phrase, 'Kidderminster, stoio that;' i.e. ' be qniet.' Middle English: Cultivation. i8i encroached on the true Old English set and do. The puzzle about its derivation shows how many sources have contributed to form our langaage. The various meanings of hox come from Latin, Old English, and Scandinavian. There are a few words, now first found, that we have in common with the German and other kindred tongues. Such a word is vj'c^steiven. At page 43 we see our smother (there called smor^er), which is nearer akin to the Low German of the mainland than to the Old Eng- lish smorian. Our forefathers used to express the Latin sinister by imjnstre, something luanting in full strength ; in these Homilies this is changed into luft (left), to which we still cling. This is the Dutch hift or lucht^ an early instance of the interchange between c and / (see page 86 of my book) . We first find more (radix) at p. 103 ; this w^ord is common to Germany and to Southern England ; it was used by Hampshire witnesses on the impostor Orton's trial, in 1873. Another exclusively Southern word is 'ne studed liom nawilit ' (p. 77), 'it bestead them naught ; ' this is the Icelandic sty^ja (fulcire). The Moral Ode, printed along with these Homilies, (page 159), is a ti-anscript of some long English riming poem, written about 1120. I think the date cannot be put earlier than this, since the poem has the French words serve and caught ; the date cannot be much later, since in one copy we find se ])e (he that), a token of great age ; this was remarked by Dr. Morris. It is plain that this Ode w^as transcribed a few years later than the Homilies; for ouh here replaces oh, as in nouhte and 1 82 Old and Middh En dish. ci>' \oulite (nought and thougTit) ; inou stands for the old genoh. There is also vj instead of g and li ; foJeiued for fologode (p. 179), laive for lage (p. 177), sorewe for sorli (p. 181) ; these are new Southern corruptions.^ In line 347 are the words unie]^e to%eanes ; the ie of the first points to the South East of England, the ea of the second to the South West. The Ode must have been transcribed at some place like Reading, lying on the borders of the two. Never did any tongue employ so many variations of vowels as the Middle English did, to represent the French sound e ; the form tJiief came from the South East, leaf from the South West, reef from the North ; the enquiring foreign student must be much puzzled by these products of the different shires, which all helped to shape our Standard English. The interchange between o and ii, so often found in English, was now affecting the South ; we see lofiov hfed (amavit) in line 257, and iwoned for ivninod (solitus) in line 57 ; hence our wont. In line 361 fall becomes fou. The old an (solus) is replaced by one, and ]>o stands for ]^a (illi) ; this \o lingered on in the South down to the Reformation, when the Yorkshire those drove it out ; the other form, time, still lives in Scotland. On lif (in vita) is now seen as alive, in line 21 ; yet our lexicon-makers, even to this day, will have it that alive is an Adjective ; they might say as much of ahed^ and ashore. The old gelice becomes iliche (line 377), our alihe. The form alse ivel se (as well as) is in line 70. ' The verb gnagan (roclere) became gnaio in the South ; but the old form gnag remained in the North, and is our nag ; the latter verb, unlike gnaw, is not reckoned classic English. Middle English : Cultivation. 183 There is a wholly new form in line 130, a liioilhe time se evre, ' on what time so ever ; ' the ever was seen before prefixed to ceZc (every), but it was henceforth tacked on behind Pronouns like ivhat, whoso, &c. Did those who broughtthis in think of linquam and the Latin quicnnqiie r The hwilJce, (which,) seems here to be set apart to be coupled with a Neuter Substantive. The Nominative Jiwa is used for qui for the first time in line 133 ; mo7ii mon Imva rechf). We have seen the Suffix ever: we may once more see the Prefix al in line 144 ; our fathers were fond of setting* this al before to (nimis) ; we here see alto dore, ' all too dear,' They went on to place it before another to, the to answering to the German zer ; one solitary relic of this remains in our Bible, happily spared by the revisers of Tyndale, a lover of the old form ; we learn that a stone all to-hrahe (Abimelech's) slcull. We have already seen never more at Peterborough ; we now see ewe ma, evermore. As to Prepositions : we find a repetition of the new idiom in the Chronicle, ' nothing was seen of him ; ' of often follows to hear, but seldom to see. In line 381 is ]J0 scullen more of him seon ; ' see of the travail of his soul ' comes in our Bible. In line 18 we read eie stonde^ men of monne, which, if literally turned into Latin, would be timor stat horainibus de homine ; we have now changed the construction, and say meyi stand in atue of man. The old ymhe (the Greek amjphi) was used as a Preposition down to 1400, and still lives in umqtihile ; but we here see ahout beginning to en- croach upon it; in line 267, tliey iveren ahuten echte, 184 Old and Middle English. ' they were busy about property.' This foreshadows our Future Participle, 'he is aboui to tempt.' What was before to so^e now becomes /or soSe (forsooth) in Hne 174. In line 132 we see mucliel lie liave^ to heten, ' he has much to atone for.' The have here seems to halt between the meanings of ijossidere and clehere, and reminds us of the change in the old Northumbrian agan. In line 302 there is ich hmi heo, -^if I seal, liaclie ; ' I can be a leech, if I be called on, or if it be my duty.' The seal here explains a story in Mr. Earle's 'Philology of the English Tongue,' p. 204 ; a farmer drove a corner home into the ground, and then said, ' That one' 11 stand for twenty years, if he sliould ! ' This old sense of shall seems to have been kept in Wessex alone. The Gerundial Infinitive now follows an Adjective ;, in line 39 comes siher to hahhen, ' sure to have,' In line 137 we see how harely came to translate the Latin vix ; we read of tiua hare tide, two bare hours, or barely two hours. The process of the formation of new words may here be watched. We have seen the first aj)pearance of our wrang, wrong ; ivis is now added to it, just as liht became rihtwis. In line 256 we hear of lurongivise reven • the Scotch long kept the word ivrangous, corrupted much as righteous is; they also coined timeous (opportunus). We find an old English Verb, wealtian (welter), which has another form wealcan, the Latin solvere. This last takes the new meaning of amhulare in line 237 ; hi walked evre. The old hegetan meant adipisci ; it now gets the sense of generare in line 105, hwi weren ho hi'^eten ? Cunig (coney), akin to a German word, now appears. Middle English : Qdiivation. 185 Before leaving the South, we may glance at an old Winchester Charter, seemingly drawn up about 1050, and transcribed about 1160 (Kemble, lY. p. 2G0). The cje is allowed to remain, and the sc is not yet changed into sli ; but the old ce, is usually replaced by e, and ch appears. The writer is not certain whether to put eu or eow^ for he sets down \eiiwdoin. He rejoices in the letter -w, writing JjlsciLp^ wurscupe^ and munlzes ; he employs this ^L for the old eo, as hun for heon^ prust ior preost. This explains why the old heo (ilia) is pronounced in Lanca- shire as liu, or as we now write it, lioo ; strange it is that so old-fashioned and common a word should linger in a Northern shire, and not in the South. The interchange betAveen u and eo is very old ; for the Sanscrit hliu is the English heo. We find in the Charter the new "^erfore. The technical Latin magister (of a school) is now replaced by the French meistre. England had not yet lost her love of reading her own history written in her own tongue. A Kentish copy of the Chronicle seems to belong to this time, for we find such a form as grascliynnene (with the sli sound) in the account of the year 1075.^ In the beginning of the relation of the j^ear 1050, the old hyrig is written heri, and ^/e/ stands for geaf; these are true Kentish marks. Further on, amyrrende is written for amyrrenne (vastare) ; this shows how easily such a form as crienne merci (petere misericordiam) might become criende merci, in the phrase, 'crying mercy availed little-' ^ About this time, rather before the murder of St. ^ This copy is known as ' Cotton, Domitian, A. VIII. 2.' - "Wickliffe has was to doynge (factiirns), in St. Luke xxii. 23. 1 86 Old and Middle Eiis-lisJi. i> Thomas, we liglit upon a tale, wlaicli shows how fast Enghsh and French were blending together. The great- grandsons of those that met in deadly grapple at Hastings had become so nnited by intermarriage, that it was hard to tell, so a lawyer of the day says, whether a freeman was English or Norman by birth. ^ Hugh de Morville, a man of renown in his time, one of the future Canterbury murderers, could well understand his wife's English, when she wished to give him a sudden alarm ; ' Huge de Morevile, ware, ware, ware, Lithulf heth his swerd adrage ! ' Here the adjective v^cer (cautus) is treated as if it were a verb, the rightful heo (esto) being omitted before it ; this is the first instance of our shortened phrase, when speaking to a dog, ' war rabbit,' &c. The lietli (habet) is a chpped hafcc6. The adrage is the Past Participle, clipped in the true Southern way, for it is a Canterbury monk that tell-s the tale. I wish we had more specimens of the off-hand colloquial English.^ There is an English Charter of Henry the Second's that belongs to this time (Hickes, ' Thesaurus,' I. xvi.) ; here the Old English eow (you) is written •^eau ; the ait^ sounded like the French ou, was a sound common to London and Paris alike. Indeed, so late as 1417, Lisieux was written Leseaiix (' Paston Letters,' Gaird- ner, I. 7). About this time, the Old Southern English Gospels ' Dialogiis de Scaccario, Stubbs's Documents, 193. - Materials for Bechd's Life (Master of the EoUs), 128. See Kemble's Charters, II. 96, for a good specimen of the Kentish of this time, or a little later. Middle English : Cultivation. I Z"] of King ^thelred's time were fitted for modern use. These, known in their new form as the Hatton Gospels, are now accessible to all ; St. Matthew's Gospel was published in 1858.^ The main corruption is the change of c into c/i, as inycel into mychel, and celc into elcli. The endings are clipped as usual; thus sunu becomes sune. The old wylciom is turned into welcum (welcome), page 48. In page 142, something like our u'hereiuith is seen for the first time ; about the year 1000, it had been said that * a man has nothing hivanon (unde) he can pay ; ' this liwanon in the present version is turned into hivcermicl ; many changes of this nature were to follow. After this time, about 1160, there were to be no more English versions of the Bible, and no more English Charters, granted by the Crown. This scorn for our tongue, conceived in high places, was to last for about two hundred years, and was to do great harm. THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT. (1180.) The first specimen of this is the Anthem said to have been dictated by St. Thomas, soon after his martyi'dom, to a Norfolk priest. We have this as it was set down by William of Canterbury.^ The first four lines are — Hall Thomas of heyemiche, AHe postles eYe(n)liche. De martyrs Se imderstande Deyhuamliche on here hande. A/ ' Anglo-Saxon and Northumbrian Versions of St. Matthew's Gos- pel, by Hardwick. ■ Materials for Beckefs History (Master of the Eolls), I. 151. 1 88 Old and Middle EnoUsh. Here the East Midland liali and understande (snsci- piunt) have not been changed into the Kentish holl and understande^. The clipping of the a in apostles in the second line is a sure token of the Danelagh, and comes often in Orrniin. In the fifth line stands Driclitin (Dominus), not Drihten ; the change of h into cJi was to become common. In the tenth line, the Anglian sinne has been altered into the Kentish senne, even though it mars the rime. We must now for the third time cast an eye upon the Homilies, which throw such a flood of light upon Twelfth Century English.^ Those to which I now refer date from about 1180, and seem to have been written in Essex, according to evidence brought forward by Dr. MoiTis ; for some of their forms are akin to the Dane- lagh, others to the South. The}^ have i^eculiaritieSy found also in Kent ; such as the change of i into e, manhen for manhin, sennen for sinnen ; also, the com- bination ie to express the sound of the French e, as in lief^ hitwien, gier, ]nef, fiend, friend ; lie (page 229) for the older leaden ; glie for gleo ; fiehle (page 191) for what we call feeble. This combination is found in King Alfred's translation of Pope Gregory's Pastoral Care, and after 1120 was preserved nowhere else but in Kent and in the shire where the present Homilies were written. It is pretty clear that they must have been compiled not far from Colchester ; the forms peculiar to the North of the Great Sundering Line here mingle with those that ' Old English Homilies, Second Series (Early English Text Society), published hy Dr. Morris. These did not come out before the end of 3Iay, 1873. Middle English : Cultivation. 189 come from the South. We have hen^ &e5, Z>?6S, all three, for sunt : both ai\er and ei^e)\ had and heel, giltes and gidies, fire and fur, clepe ajid clique. The old tilian had the two meanings of colere and lahorare ; the older form of the verb we keep for the former meaning, while the tidien of these Homilies, now written toil, expresses the latter meaning. The Plural of the Present ends in both e^ and en. Some have affirmed that the London dialect was East Midland and not Southern. I would ask such critics to remark the strong Southern dash in these Homilies, written at some place to the North of London ; such words are here found as heo, icli, po, kingene (regum), quehhide, ac, lionden, urnen (currere). It is curious to compare the Moral Ode, as tran- scribed into this Essex dialect, with that version of it noticed at page 181 of this book. The following are some of the changes : — Soufheni. JEsse.v. Southern. Essed'. an (uuiis) on gleo glie dra^eu ech drawen afri leiojen (mentiri) I seal lie I sal a^Teu (proprins) cbep (sale) knau8 hlaweS owen ware cnoweS bloweS bicauhte bikeihte eorles jierles englene(angelorum) angles cunnes kennes fond la(5e fiendes lo(5e SeoT;e5 gieuS There are three decided tokens of Northern influence in these Homilies : the aren (sunt), the he^en (hinc), and the clipping of the prefix ge in Past Participles. The ce often becomes a, as sat, hrac, higat ; the a is 1 90 Old a7id Middle English. constantly changed into o, as /o, ?yro^, oZcZ, drof., moiu, sori, enow, two, soule, Paul ; the e replaces ea, as clieke, ehe, fewe, leve ; the i replaces eo, as ]yih, liJd ; in alum^ (p. 141) u replaces eo. The combination ai, hitherto not much known in England, comes pretty often ; we see miaiden, nail, slaine ; here the i stands for an older g. The new French ou is in great request, for we find fomoe^, hlouiven, and such like ; there are foiver, fmver, and foure, all three forms ; we see both the old nu and the new nou. The Peterborough luua (qui) may be found ; and potest is Englished by both mai and inuge. What was hihof^e in the Southern Homilies is here hi- houpe (behoof) ; wumme is found once more, and louo stands for wa (p. 149) ; there is both tvoreld and vmrld. The old Perfect com (veni) now becomes cam (came), p. 145, Some words were pronounced just as we sound them now, as teme, neme, ivel, hitwine; these we must here pronounce as the French would. As to Consonants : the ge is clipped at the beginning of Past Participles, and also the n, their last letter; the n of the Infinitive sometimes disappears. The g is cast out in the middle of a word, for the old syngode (peccavit) is sometimes sined ; the older form lasted in Salop down to 1400. Gedriged and liergode are now dride and herede (harried) ; the Perfect of tigian is teid (p. 217), leger becomes leire, our lair. There is here also a combination of consonants much used in the Eastern half of England, that of gh replacing the old h ; we now find ])oghte and aghte (debuit) ;^ this was as yet strange to the shires South of Thames. Another mark of the North and of the Eastern coast, the use of sal in- Middle EnglisJi : Cidtivation. 191 stead of s/ia7Z, is also found. The hard y sound was hence- forth little used, except in East Anglia and Northern Essex ; wc here find folegen, hurg^ gure (vester), heger (emptor), gier (annus); also the corrupt gede (ivit). The tv, which replaced g in so many words, is creeping up from the South ; we see muenj hruio^ huw, for agen^ i''>'6iJ, and hoga. Such forms occur as gres (gramen), hre^reuy reu (poenitet). In this last word we now transpose the vowels. We here see the old genemiied^ pyndan, turned into nemmed, ])en. The g sometimes becomes 5 as well as iv ; in page 205 we hear that Christ's body was ato'^en (distractum) ; from the old teogan (a three-pronged fork, as it were), we get three different corruptions, to tug, to toy, and to tow. The li is sometimes turned into g, B.sfleg (fugit), for the old fleah ; the h at the beginning of a word vanishes, as ivit (albus) for hiuit ; sheive em is in page 57. The cli often replaces c, as in chireche (cyrce), much, stenclie, ricJie. The fact that this new French sound often replaced the Old English hard c has en- riched our tongue with two sets of words, springing from the same root ; thus we have the two distinct verbs, ivahe and icatcli, both from the old iccec-an. But in 1180 their use w^as most unsettled ; at page 161 we hear that the Devil lueccJie^ (awaketh) evil. It is the same with dihe, ditch, shrieh, screech, drinh, drench, hirh, church, egg, edge, owing to this intrusive ch ; we even apply this system to French words, as tach, attach, tricl'enj, treachery. The new sound, sh instead of sc, seldom found hitherto, is established in the South-Eastern shires ; as 192 Old and Middle English. sliown in hissliup, sJiijje, shufe (shove), sliri/te, fishes. The S is sometimes changed into cl, as hirden (onus) for hyr^en ; this process went on in East Anglia. At page 111 the w is cast out ; for we see uppard instead of the rightful upiveard ; we now often hear forrad shouted instead of fonvard. The n in the middle of the word is cast out ; ]ninresdceg becomes ])iiresdai at page 61 . The 71 of on (unus) is clipped, for we see, at page 165, fram 6 stede to o^er ; this for on becomes common all through the South, and we have had a most narrow escape from corrupting all our Strong Past Participles in this way, as ' I have do ' instead of dojie. The Preposition on is clipped in page 109, for we see anes a dai, ' once a day; ' a Godes name. The od or ed of the Weak Verb's Past Participle is also clipped, as in lend and fild. An I is tacked on to an old Verb, for cneowian is now replaced by cneiul (kneel^. As to Substantives : the old geoc was Plural as well as Singular, and it remains so in our Bible ; but at page 195 we find the corruption giolies. How utterly the Dative has vanished may be seen in page 113, where liege dages, without any Preposition, stands for in festis diehns. In page 187 we see a new construction, a kind of Accusative Absolute ; he is fo7'lo7'en, lif and soiule. In page 173 we read, ' they shall fear, and no tuunder nis ; ' we should now drop the last word. At page 179 the old gemwyie (communis) is cut down to mene, our mean. There is a wonderful shortening in mest marine (p. 169), which Englishes maxima pars Jiommum; most is here applied to number and not to magnitude, though we may still say ' the most part.' In Middle English : Cidtivation. 193 page 165 comes /ram ivele to iverse, where the Adjectives stand witlioiit any Substantives. As to Verbs : the oldest English allowed of snch phrases as I do eow to ivitajine; this sense of do is extended to malce at page 213 ; speaking of buyers and sellers, he him malce^ to hen hihinden; the last word, shows how our behind hand in money matters arose. As the last sentence shows, the Gerundial Infinitive with to was coming in ; we see leren ]>e folc to understanden (p. 93) ; he ])enche^ to forleten (p. 201) ; hine Ia6e6 to drinlcen (p. 213) ; Ucumeliche to wunien (p. 171) ; helj) to feed, loth to do. We have seen that the Passive Parti- ciple might follow ha>:r, as 'he had it wrought ; ' we now see this usage extended to the Active Participle at page 145 ; he hadde luuniende on him ]>e holigost. We find the Infinitive dropped altogether, at page 193, to save a repetition ; no man us ne ivere^, . . . . ne Gode nele, ich ■adrade (I fear) ; the two last words are a foretaste of one of our commonest English idioms. The new Plu- perfect Subjunctive, the work of the Southern shires, has not yet reached Essex, as we see in the third line of page 133. On the other hand, there is an advance upon the former Southern idiom, eie stonde^ men ; this becomes, at page 39, he ]>at non eige ne stand of, not far from our he that stands in no aiue of &c. In page 187 we find another terse Enghsh sentence, fihte^ ealde neddre ; earlier writers would have set some Preposition answering to contra after the first word. The verb healdan was being freely used ; ich held mid hem (p. 211), holden hire mu6 (p. 181), holden iveie (p. 161). Verbs were now beino- run into each other; sencan was formerly the 194 ^^^^ ^''^^ Middle English. Transitive mergere, sincan the Neuter mergi; the two forms now get confounded, for in page 177 comes ]>8 \ storm hisinhe^ \e ship. iSo in page 109 the old 'penca'S (videtnr) becomes ]>inJce^, whence onr me thinlcs.^ As to Numerals : in page 224 we find on o^er tivo tiden, " one or two ; " a new phrase. At page 175 we hear of two brethren, ' "pat on is Seint Peter and]?«^ o^er Seint Andreu :^ this is a great change from the se an . . . se o'^er used of the two men who strove for the Papacy in 1129, as re- corded in the Peterborough Chronicle of that year. In Scotch law papers tlie fa?iand the M/iermay be remarked down to very modern times ; ^ the confusion between letters is like that seen in the nonce. The Masculine and Neuter of the Article were no longer to be distin- guished ; at least, in Danish shires. The o, which has so often replaced the old a, has added to our stock of synonyms for unus ; we now employ one and an in distinct ways, but this had not been settled in 1180 : at page 125 we read of ' on old man,' and two lines lower down of ' an holie child.' Many years later, the form such a one was to be written. In page 213 there is a most curious new idiom ; the old ifnan and the later an (see page 54 of my book) seem to be used together ; pe stecle per vie swo one drinJce^, ' th-e place where one drinks so ; ' the one here stands for ali- quis for the first time, not for guidam or wins, as in fore- Conquest days. The French on may perhaps have * So in the poem on the Chameleon : — * Sirs,' cried the umpire, 'cease your pother; The creature's neither one nor tother.' Middle English: Cidtivation. 195 had some influence here. In page 203 is a strong proof how idiomatic the old Indefinite man or 7?ie was in Eng- land ; swich hlisse me hihat us alle, ' such bliss is promised ns all (by God).' On looking at the Pronouns, we find that self has been turned into a Plural ; at p. 193 is us selven (our- selves). There is the old Genitive lire ech, which lasted for ages longer; there is also the new form ech of 11s, on of hem. At page 191 siva hiccet siva is pared down to ivhat ; attre^ hioat heo jprihe^ ; it may be that the quodcunque, which always translated the Old English swa hiocet siva, led our fathers to look upon hvmt as a good translation for the kindred quod. We see a new word, ivarhi (whereby), page 81 ; something like u-hereioith had already been coined in the South. The compounds with the Adverb luhere lead us on to those with here ; heroifter alone had been used before this time ; we find herin (herein) at page 113. So \ono)i-ioeard had hitherto been the only compound with \onon : at page 189 we see panenfor^ioard (thence for- ward). We know our phrase ' to cry off;' at page 213 we see ]>e soule . . . ujilne]> ut (desires out), that is, desires to he out. At page 181, we read that the soul tune^ to (shutteth to) hire gaten. For ]>ani ceiies^ or for "pan ceneSj becomes in page 87 for the nones, * for that alone, for the purpose ; ' a curious instance of the confusion of letters, where two words run into each other. We also see at work the Middle English tendency to ad 65 to words. The adverb ivel (bene) stands for riht (valde) in page 71 ; he is wel god ; we still say, well luorthy. The old vjell-nigh had been in very o 2 196 Old and Middle English. early use; at page 177 comes, they cjo^ ivel on hond. Among Prepositions, of is encroaching more and more upon older forms ; he ivas of rtiichel elde (p. 125) liere the earlier English would have used the Genitive so lete of ^oleburdnesse (^Dretence of patience, p. 79) ortrovje of 'inihte (distrust of power, p. 73) ; redde (rid) of dea^ (p. 171) ; emti of hileve (p. 191) ; ofshamede of hern (p. 173) ; foroisne of hhn selven (an example of himself, p. 149). From this last comes our ' make an example of, make an exhibition of,' &c. The sense of our off comes more to the front ; at page 39 we hear of a man ]>e loas of his wit ; hence our ' off his feed ; ' swiJce^ of ghtre sinnes (p. 203), we should now say leave off your sins. At page 125 there is a new sense of on ; on his spuse he child strende (begat) . The preposition to is making further way ; in page 141 we read leb^e to sunne, . . . luve to him; at page 157, fremfulle to sinhote; at page 73, hilimioe^ to godcimnesse ; the old Dative is here encroached upon. The Anglian til, which did not travel far to the South of the Great Sundering Line until two hundred years after this, is now used with a Substantive of time ; til amor eg en is in page 75. A wholly new Pre- position, formed from the N'oun side, crops up at page 31, supplanting the old luv^ ; hiside ]?e hurch.^ The old lU of now sometimes becomes ut fram, as at page 33. We see a wholly new phrase for the Latin quasi at page 117; ase ])eh it ivere ; here siva would ^ This slio"ws us how before, behind, beyond, between, were formed in very early days. Middle EnglisJi : Cidtivation. 197 have been used earlier. In page 107, qiiodcimque sit is Englished by he sivo it heo ; the Relative force of the old Siva (as) is here seen ; we often use ' be that as it may.' Many English words were now getting new meanings. Before this, ealdo feeder had been used for avus ; it now stands for socer, for the kindred English word of this latter, sweor, was unluckily dropped, at least in the East. At page 157 we see that the old syllan is hence- forward to keep its sense of vendere and to lose that of tradere. Among the works of darkness mentioned at page 13 are ' chest and cheiv,' translated by Dr. Morris ' contention and javj,^ one sense of the old cemvan, our cliew. Sir Charles Napier, when finding comfort, as he said, in ' jawing away ' at the powers that were, little suspected the good authority he had for his verb. There is a famous Mediasval phrase in page 113 ; Christ, it is there said, ^herede helle;' The Harrow- ing of Hell plays a leading part in our old literature from first to last. We know our phrase, ' to take to his bed;' we read in page 20, ' Jnt tahest to Imse,^ that is, ' thou keepest at home.' At page 201 we see a broad line drawn between 'najjping and sleeping. This distinc- tion had been unknown in Old English. At page 151, ivlacJie, the old wlcec, is the adjective applied to snow melted by the sun ; this may have been confused with hleoiv, and is seen in our hcJce-iuarm. "We find new forms like ' to croJce^ or ' make crooked,' page 61 ; sivoldren, our sivelter, page 7 ; snevi and snuve (snifi" and snuff), pages 37 and 191. TrustUcJie (trustfully) appears, akin to the Frisian trdst. 198 Old a7id Middle English. There are many Scandinavian words, wMcli we have followed, rather than the kindred Old English forms. Dufe, dove ^ from dufa Sleht, skill slaegS Holsiim, ivholesome heilsamr Mece, oneek iniiikr !Rote, root rote Sliurte, sliirt sk}Tta Shrike, shriek skiika SmoCj smock smokkr There are here also a few words common to England and Holland, such as twist, wimjjle, and shiver (findere). To scorn is here seen for the first time ; some have derived it from the French escornir, to deprive of horns. But it is used a few years later by Orrmin, the last of all men to use a French word ; secern (stercus) is the more likely parent of the term. Giraldus Cambrensis was flourishing at this time, but English philology had still much to learn. In page 45, the derivation of ki^ig is given ; ' he henne'6 (directs) evre to rihte.' This is something like Mr. Carlyle's well-known mistake, about cyning being the man that can act. In page 99 the word husel (the Eucharist) has to be accounted for ; we are told that no man can say ' Im sel (how blessed) it is.' At page 25, we get another bit of Old English philology ; God is called Father, we are there told, for two reasons ; * on ^ The Old English culver was long used all through the South of England, while the Danish dove was used in the North. Middle English : Cultivation. 1 99 bis for ))0 ]?e he . . . feide (joined) j^e lemes to ure licame . . . o^er is ])at he/e^ (feeds) alle ]>ing.' THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT OF 1180. Essex Homixies. Page 105. Seint Jacob ])e holie apostel, \q ure drihten sette to Lord lorj^eawe ]>e folc of Jerusalem, he nam geme of fe wune teacher took heed customs pe weren ]>o, and get bien mid mannen, fewe gode and then yet are among fele ivele, and bigan to turnen J)e ivele to gode mid his many wise wordes ])e he wi6 hem spec muS wiS muSe pe h-svile he wunede lichamliche among hem. And agen ]>e time dwelt bodily J)e ure drihten wolde him fechen fro ])is wreche woreld to his blisfulle riche, ]>o sette he on write J>e wise word kingdom • — ^^ pe he spec, and ]'at writ sende into chirchen ; and hit is cnmen into |)is holi minstre to dai, and biforen giu rad, yoit ]?eh ge it ne understonden ; ac we wilen bi Godes though hut wissinge and bi his helpe perof cu])en giu ]>ese lit guidance declare word. 200 Old and Middle English. THE OONTEAST TO THE EAST MIDLAND. (About A.D. 1180.) Da jet sei}? peo soule soriliche to hire l(ichani) ; aefre ])u were ln]>er peo hwile ]ni lif heefdest, ])u were leas and Inti and nnriht lnfede(st and) lu]>ere deden ; deredest Cristene men and mid worde and mid werke so ]>u wurst mibte. (Ic wses) from God clene to ])e isend, ac \Vi. havest nnc fordon mid ]:»ine luj^ere deden ; ]>u were gredi and mid gromen pe onfulled ; unneaj)e ic on ])e eni wcinung lia(fde)for liearde ni]?e and ofer mete fiille, for ]nn wombe was ]nn God and ])in wnlder ]?in iscend. Forloren ])u bavest ]7eo ece blisse, Biniimen ]ni bavest ];e Paradis, B(inu)meu pe is Jjset boll lond, Den deofle ]ni bist isold on bond, For noldest pii nefre (bab)beu inoub, Biiten })u befdest imifoub. Nil is J)9et swete al agon, Dfet bittere J^e bi(t)) f onion ; Daet bittere ilest ];e efre, Det gode ne cumeS ])e nefre. The above is taken from a Southern work, the Poem on the Soul and Bod}^, printed from a Worcester manu- script by the late Sir Thomas Phillipps, to whom English Philology owes much. We have here a foretaste of Layamon's well-kno^^ai work ; there are some things common to the present piece and to the Essex Homilies ; as soiile for saule, four, luuoso, chircJie, drawen, owen, where vj supplants cj ; qu is well established instead of cw, and hesides is used as a Preposition. But the sh has Middle English : Ctdtivatiori. 20 r not encroached upon the so ; the old seal and scrhi have not yet become sliail and shrine in the Severn country. In Vowels : aw is making way ; strau and clan appear ; ei is a favourite combination, for eilde^ clei, 7ieih, and ezje come ; we still pronounce the two first in the proper way, -with the sound of the French e ; the two last have been degraded. The diphthong ce sometimes vanishes ; Bceda becomes Beda, as happened before the Conquest ; we see the Old and the New in the short sentence, ^Ifric ahhot ]>e ive Alqitin hote]>. It is hopeless, after seven hundred years of ^^Tong spellmg, to talk now of King Alfred. The often replaces a; at p. 7, a (semper), the aye of the North, is written 0; rather later, in page 301 of this book, we shall find the phrase ejj and 0, an admission of the claims of both North and South. The old gat (hoedus) is written got ; but on the T3me, far to the North, Gateshead (Caput Caprae) has held its ground. Da (dama) and gad (stimulus) become do and gode ; rd-deor (capreolus) is changed into roa-deor, and shows us the steps by which the old a became the new ; we still write hroad, goad, and hoard J a compromise between the North and the South. ^ The sound of can in our tongue be expressed by about ten different letters or combinations of letters ; the stu- dent of our language must here long for the simplicity of the Italian. The oh becomes ouh, as in the Moral Ode (see page 181); we see souhte and inouh. The u is most popular, a sure mark of the South ; this vowel replaces ^, ^ The old hrcid, though now written hroad, is pronounced some- thing in the old way, very unlike the sound of oa in other words, such as toad and road. 202 Old and Middle English. for sdir (shire) becomes scur ; it also replaces o, for horn becomes hiwn. Bytt (uter) is now hutte, our hutt. Sometimes a Consonant is dropped in the middle of a word, for we see elleoven (eleven) for endleofan. The city Cantivarahurli is now changed into Cantoreburi; and thus the French way of spelling (did they ever yet spell a Teutonic word right ?) influenced us. The Infinitive dreogan (subire) becomes dricen, the Scotch di'ee ; manslaga is now monsleia. The g drops at the end of a word, for Jieg becomes hei ; we still keep the pro- nunciation of this word hay. Sometimes letters are transposed ; crcet (currus) becomes hert. Another budding change may be seen in spindel, which is here replaced by spindle. The Southern c and the Northern h are coupled together, as in crodce and ]yiclce. King Alfred had long before used the form orcgeard instead of the commoner ortgeard ; the word is now softened into orchard. In this way the Old English sjilot with us becomes splotch. Another word, where c has become ch, is cicen, chiken ; in this word both the old and the new sound of c are found. The old cealc now becomes chalc, our chalk. Dagas is now da^es ; but lo is the favourite letter in re- placing the old g\ we see elhowe, fuweles (fowls), and suwa (sow). What was lah (humilis) in 1120 is now loiue ; ]>u droge (traxisti) is droive at page 8. An attempt is even made to change days into dmves, a corruption that lasted long in the South. The word sorhfidl is turned into seoruhful. The Strong Verb changed into the Weak is seen in sleptest, as in the Rushworth Gos- pels ; the Weak Verb turned into the Strong (a most Middle English -/Cultivation. 203 unusual thing in Eriglisli) is found in rwigen for the rightful rinrjoden. There is scorede (secavit) for sccer-, we have now the two forms score and shear, both coming from the old sceran. We see the Latin word antenna Englished by seil-^erd, the first time that yard is found applied to ship-gear. Sartrix is here Englished simply by heo (ilia), referring to seariwere (sartor), which had gone before ; our seamstress still keeps some trace of the old seamestre, the right word to use.^ Lihte stands for jpidmo, our ' liver and lights.' Wealcan stands once more for cmibulare, as it did in the Southern Homilies : and the new word deave^ (become deaf) appears at page 5 ; this is Intransitive, but the Scotch deave has become Transitive. We have other sources open to us, besides the Eng- lish manuscripts. In the poems of Nigel Wireker, written about 1190, we come upon the names Willehin and BoheJdn. These are the names of boys, and are most likely due to Flemish immigrants into England. It is carious that the new Teutonic ending kin should be first attached to common French names like William and Hohert; it was long before Moliehin became Roh or Boh? About the same time, the Coggeshall Chronicle talks of MaleJdUf a pet name derived from Maid, or Matilda. ^ We find here pisfor EngHshed by hakestre, whence comes Bax- ter. Ster was the ending nsually reserved for the feminine, as spinster ; but Pharaoh's baker was called in Genesis bcBcistre, before the Conquest. See Earle's Philology, p. 320. - Wireker's poems were attributed, when published, to Brunellus Yigelli. I consulted the edition published at Wolfenbiittel in 1662. The names in kin are found in p. 94 of this work. 204 ^^^ ^^^^ Middle English. Later in the Thirteen tb. Century we hear of Janhin, and other snch ; of these names, PerJcin is the most renowned. -^Ifric, in his Grammar, written about two hundred years before this time, had told his pupils that some nouns were dmiinutiva, giving for an example ho~ 7nunculus, lytle mami. He knew not the word mannikm. THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT. (A.D. 1200.) I now return once more to the neighbourhood of Colchester. We have a collection of King Alfred's saws, dating from about the year 1200.^ It seems, like the Essex Homilies, to belong to the Grreat Sundering Line ; we find the thorough East Anglian forms gu, gung, sal, tvUj arren, dagis (you, young, shall, how, are, days); also hes ])u (page 32), where the rightful t is lost at the end of the hes. On the other hand, the Active Participle ends in both the Midland end and Southern i^id, and the i or y is prefixed to the Past Participle ; the Southern o is preferred to the Northern a, as in no ping, swo, lond ; such forms as cunne, Unglene (Anglorum), are truly Southern, As to Vowels ; mceg becomes may, moge, and mnge ; the different sounds thp.t might be given to one word are most curious, and show how unsettled a thing Middle English was. The o replaces i, for we find luole fovivill; * Dr. Morris prints this, along with a Southern version made sixty years later, in his Old English Miscellany (Early English Text Society), p. 103. Middle Etiglish: Cultivation. 205 of this we keep a trace in onr VjonH (will not). The old Snperlative lengest remains, but lengra becomes longer at page 113. The English oiv sometimes slides into the foreign ou, as in mouin, cnoidn. The Itco (ilia) becomes hue at page 119, and this change spread all over the South. The old cZo/i^er and nolit become douter and nout. The u seems to take an e before it in page 121, where the old heogan or hugan turns into hetven ; much about the same time, Layamon on the Severn was writing heouiveden. The sound of the French ou is now expressed by a combination of letters new to English scribes ; in p. 132 the old treoiu^ is written troy^e, sounded much as we sound truth. The Essex tiilien was later to be written toil. This French oi will be discussed in a later Chapter.^ We saw that King Alfr*ed was fond of doubling the letter ; this now crops up again ; the old hoc is here written hooc. Moreover, icudu (silva) is turned into ivood, but this must in Essex have been pronounced like loode. The words iDulfj ivulle, luitnd, hur (gebiir, colonus), have always been pronounced in one and the same way from first to last, though we have altered their spelling. In Consonants there is a great change at work. The h is sometimes wrongly used, as herl for erZ, vjad for what; it vanishes in the middle of hiovit (oportet). The fondness for the hard g is one of the peculiarities of East Anglia ; the old gesdwon and rowan are turned into sagin ' In the old Latin Inscriptions we find oinus written where later authors would have put unus. A famous Oxford scholar, examining a school in Perthshire about 1820, asked a boy to spell poison. There was no answer. ' Hoot, mon,' cried the schoolmaster, ' can ye no spell pooshun ? ' The boy at once spelt the word right. 2o6 Old and Middle English e>' and rogen} But mceg and saga (die) become may and say, as we liave since kept them ; and saga hit in page 117 is cut down to seit, a proof liow little the h in liit was now sounded. The h was replaced sometimes, as at Peterborough, by gli, as degh ; sometimes by c, as rict ; sometimes by cli, as ])ochte, \ii niicM, huch ; some- times by g, as migte, rigtin. We find the two forms muJcil and modi. This poem differs from the Essex Homilies in the resistance offered to the newfangcled sh,. which was replacing sc ; we find indeed scJiene and scJietey but sal is preferred to shal, and we shall find the same resistance to sh in the East Anglian works of 1230. The ]) is sometimes corrupted into d, as ividuten, guad (c^t;ce]>). Sir Thomas More, three hundred years later, imitated this, writing giiod he (dixit), which at that time was laughed at as old-fashioned by his enemies. The ]) is added to a word, for ivela becomes ivel]^e ; the con- fusion of this letter with / is seen at page 111, where hinseolfe (himself) is written hineselpe. The old ceceras is now acreis (acres), and ceorl takes the broader form of cherril (churl). In Substantives : we find that the Genitival es, known in the N^orth, but hitherto unknown to certain words in the South, is now added ; faderis hlisse is in page 129,. but the later version keeps the true old English fader hlisse. We find the corrupt alle cimne onadmes in page 127 (all kind of treasure) ; the later version sticks to the rightful Genitive, wjches cunnes madmes (all kind's treasures), 'treasures of all (every) kind,' showing how * This seems to show that in the Eastern counties the a of gesdwon and the o of rowan were not pronounced like the French ou. Middle English : Cultivation, 207 the idiom arose. The word tliinrj was about this time employed as a compliment ; Alfred is called in page 103 a lufsum ])i7ig ; a few years later it is applied even to Christ. We see a familiar phrase of ours for the first time at page 133; elde cumicl to tune, 'age comes to town,' that is, ' draws near us.' We find the old Itlanc rather changed at page 138, where it is written lonJce (lanky). There must have been some great difference in sound between h on the one hand, and c and g on the other, when they were pre- fixed to I, n, and r ; in such cases h is always lost, while c and g remain to this day. There is a further step made as to Relative Pronouns : at page 117 we see may he forfann, hvjo liave]> &c. Here the hivo stands after the antecedent lie for the first time ; the idea of Inuo so must have been in the writer's mind. In p. 137 lieure (vester) stands for tuus, the first instance of this French idiom in England; it comes amidst a crowd of French words. I have set out the passage at page 209 of this work. There is a gi'eat change in one of the Irregular Verbs ; the old ic mceg (possum) took ]nt miJit for its second person; this is now corrupted into Ipu maist at p. 117, thougrh the risrhtful ]ncmicht comes elsewhere. We saw in the Lindisfarne Gospels this paring down of the Strong Verb to the level of its Weak brother; even in the South, ])u cunne, ]>u diirre, had become in some parts ]m coAist, lp2(, dearst, long before the Norman Conquest. A new idiom starts up at p. 103; hsgin is cut down to gin, as Jiem he gon levin ; and this gon or gaii was used for ages as a kind of Auxiliary Verb, side by side with can ; Scott 2o8 Old and Middle EngLish. Las in his ' Lay of tlie Last Minstrel,' tlie earl gan spy. At p. 136 we see tlie Pronoun set before the Imperative, ]n(, gef hirii ; this has not yet gone out, for we still say ' you go there.' The verb like was of old Impersonal, and we may still say ' an it like you.' But at p. 105 it Englishes arriant; we see lovin Mm and lihin ; another instance of this comes rather later. The verb do gets a new mean- ing, finire ; inine dagis arren oiei done is in p. 135. Brifan is used intransitively, as we learn by the context, at p. 115 ; to duste it sidlin driven. "We have seen how ivrang (malum) was first found at London ; we now see a verb formed from it at p. 135, J>e ivronhe gume ])u rigtin, ' be sure to right the wronged man.' So mus (mouse) creates a new verb, applied to cats, at p. 121. Another verb crops up for the first time at p. 138, the small man icole grennen, cocJce^i, and cliiden ; from this cocheii must come our adjective cochy. The new verb hetide is seen in p. 129. The old nolit is turned into nout and nat; it had ah-eady, at Peterborough, begun to drive out ne, and we here find leve ]ni nout instead of the rightful ne leve ]ni ; but the old ne was used in prose so late as Campian's time. The Old English ]ye liivile ])e here takes the form of hwilis \at, which is kept in our Bible ; the is or es is tacked on to Adverbs in the usual Middle English way. We have already seen ivel used for siCL]>e (valde) ; at p. 103 the two are coupled together, icel siuipe strong. An idiom most common in our Ballads is here first found; ^on so dere (p. 135) ; here the so is not wanted. A new idiom was now coming down from the North ; at p. 133 we read iver (ubi) liachte is hid, ])er is armjie ; this wer Middle English : Cultivation. 209 was before this time in the Soutli written J^c^r. The new Relative forms were crowding- in. As to Prepositions : of as usual was employed with new meanings ; it replaced the old on in phrases like clesi of modj sot of loord. The confusion between on and of lasts still, when we hear people talk of ' the vjJwle lot on 'em ; ' iqjhraid of comes at p. 119 ; we should now turn the o/into ivith, though we still accuse of. The to was often used after loeor^an (fieri) ; this usage is now ex- tended, for we see raelten to noclit, hringen to nout. At always had in English a sense nearly akin to in ; we now find (p. 125) god ate 7iede, a phrase that Scott loved. Bi is turned into an adverb at p. 137, he icole he hi. The foreign word clerl: is now used for scholar as well as for priest ; for it is here said of Alfred that ' he was king and cleric,' p. 103. This old poem is most Teutonic; but at the end of the two last stanzas, the bard, perhaps wishing to show off his learning, brings in a few French words most needlessly : — Ac nim ])e to ])e a stable mon ]'at word and dede bisette con, and midteplien beure god, a sug fere ])e his help in mod. • • • • Hie ne sige nout bi |ian, ])at moni ne ben geutile man : Jnu-ii ])is lore and genteleri he amendit huge companie.' This is the first instance of our word gentleman. There are also letteris and gile. We find for the first time dote ^ The k is sadly misused in this piece, as we see. P 210 Old and Middle English, (dolt), akin to a Dutcli term ; besides a few Scandinavian words. Huge, from the Xorse ugga, to frighten. Scold, from the Swedish shalla. We have also added to our well-known word han the Danish sense maledicerej as seen in this poem ; the old geban meant edictum. I may here remark, that in these Proverbs of Alfred we see a great change clearly foreshadowed, that was soon to mar the beauty of our English speech. There is an evident distaste for compounding Verbs with Prepositions ; very few of such compounds are to be found here. Already in the Essex Homilies there had been a falling off from the old system ; it is hard to see why this should have been the case; for the Scandinavian, as well as the Old English, delighted in prefixing Pre- positions to Verbs. Thirty years after this time the same distaste will be remarked in other East Anglian works. The Eastern shires, lying between Colchester and Leicester, took the lead in robbing us of one of our choicest powers ; if Stratmann's Dictionary be consulted, we shall find many verbs, with o/, to, cet, an, j)refixed ; but these were used by writers, Northern and Southern alike, who dwelt far from Essex and East Anglia. In p. 115 our author uses letin lif (vitam perdere) ; the Southern transcriber alters the first word into forleten. It was unlucky that, of all England, the shires near London should have been the ones that started an evil habit, elsewhere unknown. One consequence of this clipping was, that English became more and more one- syllabled. A Latin Charter of King John's to York, in 1200, may be here mentioned ; we there see our word ivrech Middle English : Cultivation. 211 for the first time, the Scandinavian re/j, ' something drifted on shore,' (Stnbb's Docnments illustrative of English History,' p. 304). I now come to that writer who, clearlier than an}- other, foreshadows the growth of the New English. The monk Orrmin wi'ote a metrical Paraphrase of the Gospels, Avith comments of his o^vn, somewhere about the year 1200 ; at least, he and Layamon employ the same pro- ]3ortion of Teutonic words that are now obsolete, and Layamon is known to have \\Titten after 1204. Orr- min, if he were the good fellow that I take him to have been (I judge from his writings), was a man well worthy to have lived in the days that gave us the Great Charter. He is the last of our English Makers who can be said to have drunk from the nndefiled Teutonic well ; no later writer ever used so many Prepositional com- pounds, and on this account we ought jDerhaps to fix upon an earlier year than 1200 for his date. In the course of his lengthy poem, he nses only four or five French words ; his few Latin words are Church phrases known in our land long before the Norman Conquest.^ On the other hand, he has scores of Scandinavian words, the result of the Danish settlement in our Eastern shires 300 years before his day. He seldom uses the prefix he^ which is not Scandinavian. His book is the most thoroughly Danish poem ever written in England, that has come down to ns ; many of the words now in our months are found for the first time in his pages. Had ' When we find so thorough a Teuton using words like ginn and 6C0i'n, we should pause before we derive these from France. p 2 212 Old and Middle Eno-Ush. i> some of our late Lexicographers pored over him more, they would have stumbled into fewer pitfalls.^ It is most important to fix the shire in which Orrmin wrote, since no man did more to simplify our English grammar, and to sweep away all nicety as to genders and cases. He evidently dwelt not far from the Great Line ; he has I^orthern and Southern forms of the same word, like hone and bene (supplicatio), tre and treoia (arbor), erne]> and runne]> (currit), cues and cneiviuess (genua). Had he lived to the East or South of Rutland, he would not have employed their, them, for liei-, hem, at so early a time. He cannot well be put far to the "West of Ashby in Leicestershire, for so Scandinavian a writer can hardly have lived in any district that does not abound in hamlets with names ending in hi/. I should myself place him at the old Danish burgh of Derby, not far to the North of the Line. He uses jZio (the old Jieo) for ilia ; and somethino- like this is still heard in the mouths of old Derbyshire men. He must not be removed very far to the ISTorth of the Great Line, for he is most careful in writing the Infinitive in enn, which was clipped at Peterborough. Derby may be called the philological navel of England ; from Derby a man may go East to IS'orwich, and not step out of the East Midland country ; he may go North West to Lancaster, and not step out of the West Midland country.^ Eifty miles to the North of Derby is Yorkshire, a stronghold of one dialect ; fifty miles to ' Mr. "White has given ns a capital edition of Orrmin's poem, the Ormtihcm. Dr. Stratmann has made good use of it. - There are no regular West ^Midland ■vrorks before 1300, sol here take little notice of this district. Middle English : Cidtivation. 213 the South West of Derby is Worcestershire, a stronghold of another dialect. There are many links between Orrniin and the Peterborough Chronicler who wrote forty years earlier. The word qehaten or "^ehatenn is almost the only Passive Participle which they leave undipped of its prefix. They both use the two great Midland shibboleths, the Present Plural in eii and the Active Participle in eiide. They have the same objection to any ending but es for the Genitive Singular and the Nominative Plural of Nouns, following in this the old Northumbrian Gospels. They do not inflect the Article, and are thus far ahead of the Kentish writer of 1340. Orrmin uses that as a Demonstrative and not as a Neuter Article ; he knows nothing of the Southern thilh, used in Somersetshire to this day. He has no trace of the Genitive Plural in ene, which lingered on in the South for 200 years after his time ; he makes no distinction between Definite and Indefinite Adjectives, and their Plurals do not end in es. We find in Orrmin what we have already seen in other Dano-Anglians, like the Essex writers-far to the South East ; such forms as, forr the nanesSj com to tun, hum to ashes, at will, grim of heart, loel (valde), arm (sunt), he gan followed by the Infinitive, cnelinng instead of cneoivung, hidell, rna'^'^, cam, (venit). The new Subjunctive form that we first saw in the Homilies of 1160 is here repeated ; at line 151 of Orrmin's Preface comes — I shall hafenn adcUedd. As to Yowels : the cb is often preserved. But it some- 214 , Old and Middle English. times becomes a, as harrte for tlie old crcet, hculd (jussit) for heed, smacc for smcec ; sometimes it becomes e, as spekenn for sjpcecan, efenn for cefen. Orrmin evidently lived not far from tlie Great Line. A is often clipped at the beginning of a word ; thus apostles become posst- less, as in the Rushworth Gospels : arise and avxike are also clipped in the true ISTorthern way ; adnn is always replaced by dun, our dotmi, which is not yet a Preposition. On the other hand a is set before the old hiifan (supra), whence comes onr above, and the Scottish ahoon. A replaces ea, as cliappmann, hard, and darr, for ceapniawn, heard, and dear. Orrmin prefers a7u to a2{,, most likely sonndmg both like the French on ; he talks not of Faul, but of Paii'eU, though he has also Saul ; ^ with him claustrum becomes clawmstre. Orrmin puts e for a when changing hita (fragmentum) into htte, at I. p. 300 ; he takes care to mark that the i is short, thus distinguish- ing it from our word for morsiis. E replaces ea and eo, as in the Lindisfarne Gospels ; we now^ find hresf, calif, dep, frend, lernenn, ned, held, lesenn, fe, e'^he; nakedd (nudus) is found instead of nacod, and sleckenn instead of slacian^ this last has given us two verbs instead of one, slahe and slaclc. The interchange betw^een i and y, so common in Middle English, is seen in Magy, the wise men from the East ; the y must now have lost the sound of the French ii. i s hardly ever written for the N'orthern a ; we do find noivw]^err and noivwharr for the old naiv]>er and nahwar ; otherwise, this favourite Southern change is kept at bay. Orrmin writes both awihht and oht for ^ The Scotch "vrrite Laurence, the English Lawrence. Middle English : Odtivation. 215 aliquidy and we have kept both these forms. ^ replaces ea, as '\^ohli (etsi) for ])eali ; it also replaces e ; dost and do^ are fonnd instead of the older dest and f?e6 ; Orrmin writes both the Icelandic hon and the Old English hen for our prayer J but he sticks to the old grcef (nemns) ; our grove was to come later. He replaces by u in funnt and hide ; instead of Galileo (Galilee) he sometimes has Galilew, not Galilu ; this seems to show that eo was not always pronounced like u^ as some wish to make out. Orrmin writes 5/io for lieo (ilia), not lin. He has trovnv]^e, dropping the e that formerly came before the 0. When we see his lice/r, II. p. 4 (nunquam), shortened for the sake of the verse, it tells us how our poetic ne'er arose in the North. The old siofian now becomes suh~ Jv^hennj our sough. Orrmin is fond of running vowels into each other, and sometimes cuts short the last vowel in temple, maystref shuldre, when they are followed by a vowel sound ; liet is written for he it (II. 253), which shows how the old hit (id) had lost the sound of its first letter. As to Consonants, gelang becomes hilenge, ' belonging to,' just as we saw the interchange of h and g in belief. The p, of near kin to h, was hardly ever used to begin a word in English ; path and j^lciy are the only very early homeborn words, now in use, that commence with p ; nearly all Orrmin's words that begin with this letter are Church Latin phrases, for p is one of the chief letters in Greek and Latin. He will not turn/ into v in the Southern * Orrmin's amhht was written ewt and mit in othpr places, not long after this time ; lie writes straunvenn for our strew. Here we have a hint as to the sound of the old aw. 2i6 Old and Middle En owlish '^' way, for he writes silferr and hcefedd. Witli him the c is often turned into ch, as tcechenn, hennclie, IcecJie, macche, siomclie, chosenn; tuaJcemmi, however, holds its ground si,g&mst luatchnan. Orrmin was the second Enghsh writer, so far as is known, who pretty regularly used sh instead of the former so ; he wrote shceivenn, shall, and sliame. This change began in the South, and the older form had not altogether gone out in the North, for he writes both hishop and hishop. Nowhere more clearly than in the Ormulum can we see the struggle between the Old and the New. The g is often supplanted by 3 ; Orrmin seems to find this useful in distinguishing the Icelandic gate (via) from the English geat (porta) ; his word for the latter is still found in Scotland as yett. Orrmin first placed 5 at the end of a word after a vowel, as j^egg (they), iia^"^ instead of the old ne; ajj as well as a (semper). He gave us laij instead of the Peterborough lai. He drops the final h, turning fell (feoh) into fe. The words eorplic and ea^elice are softened down to erpli'^ and repeli'^ (easily).^ Drugd6 becomes druJihpe (drouth) ; we sometimes put the old g into this last word. We have still left the old ivce.gen (waggon) ; we have also vjcen, Orrmin's iva'^yi (wain). Not only he^he, hu.t heli, is written for our high ; hence we talk of the hey-day of youth. The old eagan (oculi) now became e-^hne, our poetical eyne, the Scotch een. But Orrmin will never soften the g into w ; he even holds aloof from the old gesaicon. Sometimes he throws out ge altogether in the middle of a word ; thus ungelic becomes unnlic (unlike). ^ I was amused at one critic rating me for using scholarlike as well as scholarly. Let him brush up his Middle English. Middle English : Ctdtivation. ' 217 Augustine is cut down to Aivwstin, as he still appears in our family names. The t is sometimes thrown out; haletan becomes he^Jenu (to hail). This is stni more the case with th ; the old o5Se (aut) is seen as o]>])r, and this is twice pared down to orr (or). Tyndale, 330 years later, sometimes has the old other for the new or. As o5Se became o]']'r, so did Orrmin give ne (nee) an r at the end ; we find at Vol. II. 223, Ne?' ete]yp ne, ne (h'innke]^]). This ner (written by Layamon no) ninety years later became our nor ; the newfangled word could not wholly drive out the old oie (used by Campian) until 1580.^ Orrmin seems to have had a foreknowledge of Grimm's Law ; he turns the Latin triplex into \mpeU. He once uses the corrupt ner of the South for the rightful 7ieh (prope). He has both the old wurrpsMpe and the new ivurrsMpe, worship. He often writes t^pj^o for upo7i ; this is one of the Derbyshire peculiarities that have been lately brought home to all lovers of good English by the authoress of ' Adam Bede ' ; the old uppe preceded the later uppan. The n replaces Z, for sceclode becomes sec- nedd (sickened), just as Sol and Sun are but two forms of one old Aryan word. The I is inserted, as in cnelenn; healfunga becomes halljiingess, a word still in Scotch use ; the es, as usual, is now added to round off the old Adverb. The as is cut off in Tohias, which becomes Tohi. Even Orrmin, good Teuton though he be, cannot * I do not refer to Spenser's ne here ; he did not use the language of his own day. 2i8 Old and Middle English i> resist putting tlie Frencli c for the old s in his word 7nillce (mercy). When he writes he'^'^sann^, (the coins so called,) we see that the 5 is beginning to stand for our z, as well as for our y. He keeps near to the Old English in his Judisshenn andJudevj (Judeeus) ; he knows nothing of the French way of throwing out the d here. He transposes letters when he writes gresslioppe, fressh, ivrohMe ; wyrhta (faber) becomes vjrihhte ; in his uthresstenn he follows the Scandinavian hresta rather than the Old English cetherstan. He unluckily transposes the old lmi\ writing ivliat instead of liwcef, and so with other words. If we had kept the h in its proper place, we should now have full in our view the link between the English hvjcet and the Latin cicid (quid).^ As regards the sound of Jiiccet^ Enghsh stands high above German. Orrmin, moreover, transposes consonants when he writes lliude and rliof. At Vol. II., p. 280, we read of talde la-zjie (ea antiqua lex) ; this change of th into t, and this running of vowels together, is still found in shires not far from Derby ; flie hayloft becomes iallot. As to Substantives : the old Plural cildrii now ap- pears as cMlldre, which still lingers in Lancashire ; ' gang whoam to thee childer and me,' as we read in the fine modern ballad. Our corrupt Plural children came from the South, as also did brethren and Idne. We still keep the old sunne hearn^ but Orrmin has a corrupt Genitive in sunness lihht (II. p. 112). He forms a ' The interchange "between c and h has not died out in our island ; I iiare heard Scotch peasants talk of a civirlwmcl instead of hwirhvind. A Tuscan talks of the Emperor Harlo Quinto ; a Roman calls him Carlo. Middle English: Cultivation. 219 wholly new Plural wlien talking of seffne goddnessess (virtutes), in his Preface, line 276 ; he also corrupts deor (the Latin /erce) into deoress (deers) ; we have hap- pily not followed him here. The old manna (hominum) is wonderfully altered, when we read, in I. p. 243, of * gode menness herrtess. He uses tnenn for males and females alike in I. p. 165 ; our wiser age would talk of individuals, which is a longer word than persons. The Dative is mishandled by him, as much as it is by ns ; we read that ivin luass hroht patt allderrmann ; to lenenn (lend) ]^a menn. The Accusative replaces the Genitive in the phrase vjliatt gate summ he gannge])]> ; there is a double Accusative in to ledenn liemm ])e vje^;^e. As in the Blick- ling Homilies, we get a hint of our 07i the spot (continuo) when we hear that Nathanael believed forr]>rihht i stede son summ he &c. II. p. 125. The stern terseness of old speech comes out when Christ heads his quotations from Scripture with hoc sejjp (liber ait), omitting the Definite Article, II. p. 41. A new piece of slang has arisen of late years, 'it will suit you down to the ground' (omnino). It seems to be hinted at in II. p. 133, ]nss winn iss drumilienn to \e grund. There is now and then a word used by Orrmin in a sense that seems strange to us ; the chariot that bore Elijah aloft is calleda Jcarrte ; the poor woman w^ho shared her scanty food with that prophet is addressed by him as laffdig ; the word allderrman still means a prince, and sometimes an abbot. Kather later, in a Latin Charter of 1255, given by Henry III. to Oxford, aldermanis used of nothing higher than burghers ; (Stubbs, 'Documents,' p. 368). We find for the first time such compounds as overJcing, overlord,^^OTds happily 220 Old and Middle Enolish. ^> revived in our own day.^ Weddlac (wedlock) now ap- pears where of old imjiac would have been used. The former word, before Orrmin's time, meant no more than the Latin ^ignus. The Old English imrulcl stood for sceciilum, and nothing more ; it now begins to stand for orUs.'^ The latter was earlier translated by middan-eard-, * Orrmin, at II. p. 256, compounds the Old and the New, talking of the middell iverelld. Lie was the Old English word for corpus, though it is in our day found only in Lichfield and lych-gate ; hodig usually meant the trunk or chest; but Orrmin uses hodi^ far oftener than lie, in our sense of the word. In one line he forms a new Substantive out of the two, speaking of hodi-^lich. The word fiail, akin to the flegil of the mainland, now first appears in English. Bom (boon) changes its meaning; it had meant j:>m^er, but it now sometimes mea.ns favour, as we use it ; in I. p. 263, comes patt hone ]>aU he leorrnde (craved) . In II. p. 125, the word troimv]>e, our troth, means lelief; this last sense was of old ex- pressed by treoiue. A new word, hinnessmann (cognatus), now appears; so does cld]nng (clothing). The North of England was soon to abound in Verbal Nouns. We read, in I. p. 247, that Herod was not crowned o Godess hallfe ; this is the Scandinavian af Gu^s halfu, and fore- * One critic is much disgusted at my using overlord; in this I simply follow my betters. He would probably prefer superior domi- oiator, or hyper-despot. He stands up for sociology as a neat com- pound ; so he would of all things, I suppose, prefer hypcr-dominator. - This word is still rightly pronounced as a dissyllable in Scot land ; as in Lady Nairne's Mithcrless Lammie : — ' But it wad gae witless the warald to see.' Middle Ejio-lish : Qdtivatio7i. 221 "ii shadows our helialf, which came a hundred years later ; the passage may be translated by on God's part. In II. p. 333, is the first example, I think, of our common use of folic without an article before it ; it no longer means a nation, but men ; Christ was baptizing folh. In Orr- min's luerliheda-^h, the new form of tueorc-dceg, we find the first germ of Shakspeare's ivorlcaday icorld. As to Adjectives : in I. p. 280, we see how they changed their meaning, hvliiUc mann vmss himmfull la]) to 7iehh'^henn • here the la]y means odioswn ; but as years went on the Dative hulullc mann was taken for a N'omi- native, and thus the la]> got the meaning of invitus. Orrmin's follhsumm (compliant) has not yet the de- grading sense of our fulsome ; indeed, the latter is said to be connected with foul. He uses sheepish in a sense far removed from ours, applying the word to a man who meeldy follows Christ's pattern. He has, in II. p. 182, when relating the miracle at Cana — yin forrme win iss sicipe god, ]nn lattre win iss hettre. Here we have the opposition between former and latter (posterior) ; the old lator meant only serior ; this new sense of the Comparative is found in Dorsetshire twenty 3'ears after this time. The ful was coming in, as an Adjectival ending ; we now light on pohfful. In his Pronouns, Orrmin shows that he is a near neighbour to Northumbria. He uses I and ice ; J'ejj, l>e55?'e, pe-^-^m ; but sometimes replaces the two last by heore, henim.^ It was two hundred and sixty years before their and them came into Standard English ; they are ' The Gothic \}aim for illis is in St. John. vi. 7- 222 Old and Middle English. ^> true Scandinavian forms. Unlike the Peterborough Chronicler, Orrmin sticks to the Old English lieo (in Latin, ea), which he writes 5/^0. In I. p. 42, there is an unusual form ; \u civennhesst i ]n sellf tnodv^nesse. This of old would have been ])e silf \ self seemed to be a Noun, something like persooi ; Shakspeare has ' her sweet self.' In I. p. 85, we see our common form theirs for the first time ; till ejjjjerr ]ye'^p-ess lierrte. Forms like ours and t/ozws were to come later. This Scandinavian form took long to reach the South ; three hundred years later, Skelton wrote both I am yours and I mn your. Orrmin employs that before Masculines for the Latin ille, w^hich is something quite new ; London kept this at bay and stuck to thilh for two hundred and fifty years longer. In I. p. 227, we see — whase itt iss ]mtt lufe]>]> gri\>]) ])att mcmn shall Jindenn Jesu Crist. For the Plural of this ]Kdt he employs ]hi, which fifty years later was to become ]ms (those) in the North. TJiis and that are for the first time coupled together in I. p. 323— Whatt tiss and tatt iwofete. That is set before iZZ/t-e (idem) in I. p. 158 ; ])att Hike 7nann ; that same is still used instead of the same in some parts of our country. This ylc was being encroached upon, though it still lingers in Scotland ; as Redgauntlet of that lie (de eodem). Orrmin has same once, and once only— Jfe mtlihte makenn czcike menn ])ar off]xi same staness. — I. p. 345. Middle English : CiLltivation. ' 223 This root same is good Sanscrit and Gothic ; the Norse sams means ejiLsdeni tjeneris. Nothing in English is stranger than that this Scandinavian word, which was confined to the North long after Orrmin's time, should have driven out the old ylc. We now once more see King Alfred's geonre (iste), after a long interval; yjnnd hallf ]>e jiumm (on yonder side the stream), II. p. 12. There is a great change in Relative Pro- nouns ; a very foreign idiom comes in II. p. 94 : her iss tuhamm "^um hirr]^ foll-^Tienn ; this is the first time that the antecedent se or lie before ivhamm is dropped. The old hivylc is employed as a Masculine Relative; all vjliillke shulenu cwemenn me (omnes qui), II. jd. 261 ; hence comes our famous loliich art in Heaven. The same hap- pened to the Geiinan ivelcher. It had not yet been settled how the Neuter Relative qaocl was to be Englished ; Orrmin uses the kindred word ivhat. We may see how this came to be employed as a Relative by comparing his all whattse iss sinne with his all ^att wliatt itt hitacne^\y, I. p. 36 ; he uses it sometimes without an antecedent, as in II. p. 91, tu shallt sen ]>ttirh luhatt tu sliallt 'ine cnawenn ; the phrase, they lierdenn wliatt lie se^dsy II. p. 188, has had a longer life. The old liwylc formerly expressed the kindred Latin tjnalis ; this livjylc was being replaced by the word we now use ; in II. p. 120, comes, he se]> ivhat lif J>e55 ledenn. Cleasby's Dictionary gives us the Scandinavian idiom hvat manna ertu. The phrase whatt time is used for lulien, I. p. 251, and this is still employed by our poets. This tvhat had already been coupled with the MascuHne Plui^al lilafas in the Rushworth Gospels, written not far to the North 224 Old and Middle English. of Orrmin's abode ; lie favoars something like this idiom when writing ivliatt 'iiiann, II. p. 202. The old Tiwcet had always stood for aliquid ; it seems now to English res, as well as qids, qttalis, and quod. The Essex sum del is in Orrmin's mouth summivhatt, which we still keep ; this was of old hwcet litles ; we also find sum o]>err and summiulicer. The phrase ^att illlce luliatt (eadem res) is in II. p. 293. The old swa hioa siua, followed by the Verb, is wonderfully expanded in Orrmin's vjhase itt iss ]yatt sti-^heV]), II. p. 20 ; this it was now being very freely used throughout England ; in II. p. 250, we find ])tirr]i Godess "^ife itt ivass patt &g. ; in I. p. 162, comes whatt ivitt itt iss i \>e to &c. ; in former times ]^cet would have been used instead of this itt. In I. p. 137 is the parent of our if so he that ; Orrmin has '^iff ]mtt iss patt he 'inisdop. Even earlier than this, ])CEt might have followed ealle ; we now hear that a man's wife must guard him all ]>att "^ho ma'^'^, I. p. 214. The all is prefixed by Orrmin in the usual way to Participles and Adjectives. The form first found in the Blickling Homilies, written not far from Orrmin's shire, was now being imitated ; celc was taking an after it, whence comes the Scotch ilha ; wc see illc an off alle pa, and also swillc an (such a) drunnhennesse patt, II. p. 137 ; a new idiom. So is ure hinde iss sioillc patt, I. p. 20. The Substantive is now dropped after enough ; we may find ino^lie patt ledenn &c., I. p. 10 ; here we must supply men. As to Numerals, an had long been used stand- ing by itself, answering to quidam ; it is now set before a proper name for the first time ; at I. p. 287, Middle English: Cidtivation. 225 we hear of an Fili])ije, (one Philip,) * Philippus qui- dam.' "We see a new phrase in I. p. 149 ; Ormiin talks of elihte si\^ess an (eight times one). We find all an used in two different senses : at II. p. 193, it means that Christ is vjliolhj one with God ; at II. p. 40 we hear that man cannot hi h'fsd all ane libhenn. This is our first glimpse of the future alone ; many such forms with dl prefixed were soon to follow. Another Middle English form for solus may be seen at II. p. 54 ; he ivass himm ane, a Reflexive Dative ; of this the Low- land Scotch have still traces.' The word cenes (once) had before stood for seniel, it now takes the meaning of olim ; I. p. 62, he ivass ceness iimr]>enn blind. The old meaning is found in I. p. 35, ]mtt ivass ajj ceness pe jer ; we here see that our a in once a year is but a clipped on. The old cerest (primus) was now rapidly giving way to first, which was to be the English word in future for this number ; we hear of the hva firsste menu (I. page 261) ; here ]m forman tiod would have been used before this time.^ We come upon the true old long form of our phrase three fourths, &c. ; we hear, at I. p. 320, of something divided fowwre feor\enn daless ; we now * This Eeflexive Dative may be seen in Lady Nairne's Poems, p. 211 :— ' Oh ! wha will dry the dreeping tear She sheds her lane, she sheds her lane ! This lane (ane) was at last mistaken for a Noun ; as in p. 209 : — ' The kettle, for me, sud hae couped its lane.' - Which is right, the first two or the two first ? Something like the former phrase has always been used ; the latter dates from later times, and both have been used by good writers down to 1800. Q 226 Old and Middle English, drop the last word. Hmmdredd, more akiii to the Scandinavian than to the Old English hu7idj is em- ployed. Orrmin has many changes in the Verb. For the Latin sunt, we find arm, as well as heoji and sinndenn. The first of these was hardly ever used in the South or West of England ; it comes from the Angles, as we saw in the Northumbrian Gospels. Hi wceron sometimes, as in the Southern Homilies, becomes ]w^-^ ivcere ; but a more wonderful change is ]>u wcere turned into ])u wass, the Gothic vxtst (eras); ic sceal heoomes I shall. We see the last of the pure form of the Old English si (in Latin, sit) ; it survives, somewhat clipped, in our yes, i.e. ge si. Bed is in the Ormulum cut down to he, and heon (esse) to hen. Orrmin uses the old ic mot, ]>u most, and also a new Scandinavian auxiliary verb, which is employed even now from Caithness to Derbyshire.^ Such a phrase as I mun do this is first found in his work ; the mun is the Scandinavian mima; but mune in the Ormulum implies futurity, not necessity. The new Pluperfect was taking fast root ; "^iff (he) hceffde frcf^piedd, ' if he had asked ; ' here the Imperfect would have followed if in the oldest English. Our phrase ' he is grown ' is more respectable than ' he has grown ; ' for we find in Orrmin g/zo ^uass loaxenn, also ivaterr wass floivedd ; the Passive, not the Active. Orrmin shows us the future extension that was to be given to the former voice in English ; he has in II. p. 58, Godd wass ])eowiutedd (served) ; in I. p. 294, pe ^ Some years ago I heard an old Derbyshire gamekeeper use the verb ; its Gothic form is in St. John vi. 15. Middle English : Cultivation. 227 land\attlumin ivass hedemi seJceuu ; in II. p. G3 mcumJdnn forrhodemi iss to fandenn. Xone of the Aryan tongues was to use the Passive so freely as the English now does ; Horace's erjo procurare imperor is something most unusual in Latin. In earlier times men talked of ' a lamh to offer; ' Orrmin has the great change, II. p. 80, an lamh to hen offredd ; we are more correct than he was when we say ' I am to blame,' ' this house to let,' * if the thing were to do again ; ' our true old Gerundial forms. He clips the Imperative, writing loc instead of lociaSf II. p. 90, where the word is specially addressed to many men. The Infinitive is used as the equivalent of a preceding Substantive in II. p. 223 ; all forrsokenn hiss lare, and hwwi to foU'^Tiemt ; so in I. p. 220, a man pleases God ivipp messess and iui]>p to letenn siuingenn himm ; we should now use the Verbal Noun, instead of these Gerundial Infinitives, and this must be kept in mind when discussing the hard question of ing final. There is a curious change of meaning in neden ; Orrmin uses it in its old sense cogere, but he also employs it for egere (in Icelandic, nau^-sijuja) ; menn \att nedenn to \nn helljJe, I. p. 213. He has the Scacdinavian verb lanit with the Accusative. We still keep the old meaning of dcelau (partiri) ; Orrmin gives it a new sense in I. p. 213, illc an mann yatt ohlit wipp ]>e shall dcelenn (have dealings with) ; this sense comes from Scandinavia. Miss here governs an Accusative, not a Genitive ; in I. p. 310, the parents luissten J'ejj/'e child. At I. p. 188, we read of ]>e hede ])att mann hitt in the Paternoster ; the hede here bidden still stands for some- thing abstract ; it was not until Chaucer's time that men Q 2 228 Old and Middle English err ; here Tveey means manere, a new sense of the word. We find ])aU iss to seggen, which is a continua- tion of an Old English idiom ; like ' do you to wit ' ; we follow Scandinavian forms in here liimm vjittnes?, h')'inngenn till ende. The Infinitive follows enough when the latter is preceded by an Adjective, as Strang inoh to weriyenn. The old Gothic instandan (perseverare) is here seen as stanndenn inn to ; the source of our 'I stand to win,' &c. On^min has lie strac inn, from the old strican (ire).^ But the Danish take is now greatly developed. We find, as at Peterborough, the phrase, ' he took to do so and so ; ' Orrmin carries this idea a step further ; we hear that some men toJcemi hemm till Crist, II. p. 230 ; also that the widowed Anna, I. p. 266, toe 2vi]>]^ nan o])err (husband) ; the common phrase now would be ' take up with.' At I. p. 256 comes the Scandinavian shade of meaning, takenn on Jiai^inng ; hence our ' take in joke.' At I. p. 86, the Virgin toe onn to fra'^^nenn, ' went on to ask ; ' hence our ' do not take on so,' that is, ' go on so.' At I. p. 323, comes * Sir Koger de Coverley at the theatre sfruck in, hearing some people talk near him. Addison would have been puzzled to give the deriration of this verb. Middle English: Odtivatiou. 229 tcikeW u^]^onn ■^uiv. At II. p. 148, Cain toe ni]) jfen Ahcel ; hence our * take a fancy to ' &c. The waterpots, II. p. 133, tokenn (contained) yrefald mett. At II. p. 117, Filippe toe Natanacel luipp ivordess (Grsecia victorem cepit) ; so in Burns, ' he takes the mother's eye.' It is not enough to study the meaning of the word take in Bosworth's 'Anglo-Saxon Dictionary;' Cleasby's Ice- landic Lexicon must be carefully searched ; this espe- cially holds good in the case of writers who lived to the North of the Great Sundering Line. Orrmin uses assken (rogare), instead of the Southern acsian^ and we have here followed him ; the Irish still employ axe, since the first English settlers in Ireland came from Bristol and the South. We find both hikceehedd and hikahht for caught. This new word, which we saw first in the South, must have spread fast in England. He sometimes turns a Strong Verb into a Weak one, a process begun long before his time. He uses hoifedd (elatum) as well as liofenn ; he has sleppte (dormivit), where it ought to be slep ; ive'ppteii (fleverunt), instead of weopon ; trededd (depressus), instead of treden. As might be expected, Orrmin follows the Northern hafau rather than the Southern habhan (habere). We find a near approach to our modern corruption hast in his line — Himm Jiaffst tu slajeim witterrlij. — I. page 154. Scorenedd (scorched) appears for the first time in English ; Wedgwood quotes the Low Dutch schroggen, which has the same meaning. 230 Old and Middle English. Orrmin uses both the Strong and the "Weak form for the Past Participle of sliou- \ he has hoih. slicev:enn 2in.di sJiceivedd. We now prefer the former, though the latter is the true form ; just as we mistakenly write streini for streived. But in the matter of Strong and Weak Verbs, we usually err on the other side. As to Adverbs : foT\nvi]>\^ appears for the first time, but is used only once by Orrmin, who sticks to the old/orr- ]>riJiJit. He was the first to use rilihf before an Adjective instead of siv{])e (valde) ; the foreign very has now almost driven out this old Adverb ; 7'ihJit is also employed by hira where we should SRjjust, jjejj 7'ihJit noliht 7ie wisstemiy II. p. 333. Wrang is here used as an adverb ; it was for- merly a substantive only; he toe tare all ivrang, II. p. 60. Another Scandinavian idiom appears ; wel is used as an Adjective in I. p. 251, it ivass ivel ]>at Crist tvass horenn. The old iiteiveard is changed into utferrlihe, which, how- ever, does not as yet take our sense of the word. We have seen ]nirJiut arise forty years earlier ; from this jmrrJiutJwe (our tJwronghhj) is now formed. The si^^an is here used much like our ago; nolilit lannge si]>\enn., like Scott's ' sixty years since ; ' this is the first hint of ' auld lang syne.' A new adverb suddenly appears at II. p. 302 ; ' thou makest future arks through the one that is all rmdij^ i ]nn herrte ' ; what before meant paratiis may henceforth Tne^njam, and this we shall see repeated in other Danish shires. Whilum is used in the sense of quondam, as in the Lindisfarne Gospels ; a proof that Orrmin lived not far from Yorkshire. The curious word hidene (in Dutch, hj that) is now first found in England ; we kept it in use for three hundred years.- Middle English : Cultivation. 231 In I. p. 254, the star, as is there said,^/?':e/i na fovr^err mar ; here more is needlessly added, something like Most Highest ; hence comes our furthermore, a word found eighty years later in the Sir Tristrem. Orrmin repeats his words in the Old English way, as hett and Lett, mar and mar ; he unites the opposing adverbs, nu u^p, nu dun; her and tcere (here and there). We use never in the sense of the Latin ne or oion, as ' never fear ; ' this sense of the word is seen in Orrmin, II. p. 4 ; St. John made known that he nass ncefr an off ]>e \reo .(non erat &c.). Na mare (non amplius) is used like no longer, referring to time ; ' God would care na mare to be served in that way,' I. p. 352. There is a change in I. p. 258, %iff]>ait te"^}, shoJldenn o]>err nohld luendenn (go or not) ; in the old time this nohht would have been nd. Hereof and whereof are found ; also lier uppe (hereupon), I. p. 38, though it in this passage means Jierein; tcer ahutenn (thereabout) appears. The adverb aivay is more freely used ; at I. p. 241, we hear ]mft Joscepj vxiss aioe^'^e (absent). Prepositions are now much employed as Adverbs ; as upp inn heoffne ; yff yu tvillt hahhenn off ]nn gillt, I. p. 188 ; the week luass gan all ut, I. p. 150 ; higgenn w^ (redimere), I. p. 271. We have already seen as though ; alls iff (quasi) now replaces the Old English svjilc. The Danish sumni is often used instead of the English svja, and it is still heard in vjhatsomever. Tyndale long afterwards used now to English the Greek oun, as in St. Luke x. 36 ; On^min foreshadows this in I. p. 153 ; after referring to what he had before said, he asks luhi se^'^de ice nu pat &c. In I. p. 69, he has ne talde ]>e^i nohht tei^re hinn, uppwarrd ne 232 Old and Middle English. dunmvarrd noiviv]>eTi' ; tliis new phrase is the one instance, I think, in which we may now use that true Old English idiom of the twofold negative. Many standard authors may be quoted for it, down to Knowles in his ' Yirginius : ' * we needn't say that neither.' Let us not allow this fine old relic to perish utterly. Orrmin somewhat alters the Old English shape of those Conjunctions that are formed from Prepositions : instead of cefter ]^arii \e followed by the Verb, he has affterr ]Kttt ; he has also hefore that, for that, in that, through that. He goes still further, and forms luhile that, if that, and rather than that; we are now apt to clip the that. As to Prepositions : there is a new sense of tcith at II. p. 34 ; Christ's generations, it is said, go through iveress (men) foiuiverti;^ annd an ujipp Crist himm sellfenn ; that is, if Christ be added. Orrmin has also to iced luith, to heremi upp ivi]>]) (hence our j?2t^ up with), 1. p. 128. The ivi])]> is made an adverb and repeated, for the sake of emphasis ; ' I will show you iui]>]> and iiji])]> ; ' some- thing like Orrmin's new withal (omnino). Layamon about the same time was writing through and through ; hy and hy was to come later. Orrmin uses the old hinnan of time ; he has also iui]>]yinne}in in the same sense, as ivi]>]nnnenn sexe "^eress. He employs for when referring to time, as forr lannge (for long) ; earlier writers would have had to instead of this for, and the same remark apphes in for the nonce. He has /on* nane gode (for no good), II. p. 182, and seek for-, the last word would have been after in Old English. There is a new Preposition in I. p. 354; St. John forbids the Publicans to take aught /orr]) hi ]>e Iciiigess fe ; this is the source of the Scotch /or&?/ (preeter). Middle English : Cidtivation. 233 The pair in and on interclaange as usual. We see don Mmm i J^ejgre walclej II. p. 221, (put him in their power). A wholly new idiom appears in I. p. 104 ; Christ is said to be Gocld inn hirmn selfenn, that is ' taken by himself,' {'per se), in his own nature. Earlier Englishmen called to heaven ; Orrmin shows us how the to was replaced by on at I. p. 58, Crist hiddeY\i u'lJ-pon his faderr; he has also ' to set a name upon him.' Where we say ' to draw men on to' &c., Orrmin substitutes upponn, II. p. 180. This 7ipon marks hostility ; in I. p. 248, Herod thinks that the Magi were iipponn hiimn cnmenn with views of their own ; the idea may be seen in the Chronicle about the time of Ruf as, and it survives in our seize upon^ encroach upon, find stolen goods upon a man. The old to is replaced by inntill (into) when Orrmin boasts of his turning a book inntill EnngUsshe ; he was not polished enough, I fear, to talk of semi- Saxon} He has also sammnenii (gather) '^ise inntill an. Indeed, his inntill seems to foreshadow our until, unto, when we read in I. p. 250, ledenn hemm ]>e ^yej^e iimtill ])att tun. Over is strength- ened by all, much as we use it ; the flood passed all of err er]>e. The old gelang on (per) is cut down ; we hear in II. p. 110 that something m lang Cristess hellpe ; Scott keeps this old phrase in his ' Dark Musgrave, it was long of thee ; ' but the common folk now prefer 'all along of thee ; ' the on and the of, as usual, interchange. Toivard replaces the old for and u-i]), as h(fe toivarrd * Omnin, in the eyes of some of oiir woxild-be philologers, must appear as ignorantly presumptuous as King Alfred himself. The idea of their barharous jargon being accounted English ! 234 Old and Middle English. Godess hus, II. p. 188 ; in the Essex Homilies tlie Prepo- sition here employed was togenes. Bi is now used before a Pronoun to express isolation, like the Greek hata ; St. John, we hear, grew np and cu]>e hen Mmyn ane hi hiiivm sellfemi, I. p. 25. We find at used after the verb hegm ; heretics say that Christ higann (ortus est) att Sannte Mar^e, II. p. 295; we should now, in such a phrase, use from. Another new employment of at comes from the Scandinavian ; he dices all att hiss wille, I. p. 120. From is put before the Danish ])e]>enn ; as fra ]^e\^enn- forrp (from thenceforward), a needless addition ; in Scandinavian, he^an fra stands for our hence. Orrmin has both free of and free from, with a Noun following. That Preposition, which has been encroached on hj from, is itself used in many new senses : we find ivare of, glad of, rich of, Mssti^ (liberal) of; this c/ replaces the old hi, (the Latin de), in thinJc of, hear of, ash of, hear ivitness of higripenn (rebuke) of, write of hoiv it ivas ; the old Genitive makes way for of in repent of, the tale of eight, the hope of, love of, need of, loss of, somewhat of, aught of two of, upper hand of; in II. p. 125, we find first Godess ^ife, and in the next line gife oft Godd ; there is the old form, Rome hurrh, and the new fiDrm, hurrh off "^errsalem. There are such phrases as see ifell ende off hionm, I. p. 174; off^ si])re (of late), I. p. 252; tvass off his hinn, I. p. 8 ; ^55 ne fundenn nohht off^ himm, I. p. 310 ; like * see more of him.' The to is as much developed by Orrmin as the of ; we find looh to himself, fresh to (his work), hum to ashes ; the Dative is replaced, in herrsum'in (obedient) till him ; the Infinitive, following another Verb, has to often prefixed, as forhid to go, help to do, Middle English: Cidtivation. 235 set }imi to do, cliose them to he, care to, doorn to, he loth to, forletan (neglect) to, hehoves to. The idiom give to wife is one of our oldest phrases ; Orrmiu carries this a little further in I. p. 255, ivhattse \u dost to gode ; we still say, ' I am so mucli to the good.' At II. p. 133, comes ]>iss ivinn iss drnnJcenn to \>e grund ; here the to replaces the old oS of tlie Southern shires. Orrmin's work proves that the Trent country had not yet lost the power of compounding words with Prepositions and such prefixes as even, fidl, un, and vjom. This gives wonderful strength and pith to his verse. "We degenerate writers of New English use few com- pounds but those with out, over, fore, and under ; in this respect England (it is the weak point of our tongue) falls woefully short of India, Greece, and Germany. Most striking is the number of Orrmin's words begin- ning with the privative un. We have lost many of them, and have thus sadly weakened our diction ; but our best writers are awaking to a sense of our loss, and such words as uniuisdovi are coming in once more. Orrmin had no need to write the Latin iraraortalitij when he had ready to hand such a word as unndce]>.shil- di^iiesse, implying even more than the Latin. ^ Orrmin writes feelingly on the duties of kings to their peoples, as would be natural in a born subject of the two sons of Henr^' II. 'A Christian King,' says he, * should be rihhtivis and milde, and god lui^ all hiss ' One professor of Jinc trnting was very -wToth in print with me for my ideas about English compounds. He -would be glad, I have no doubt, to substitute imfontadaptahility for 3Ir. Plimsoll's vulgarly Teutonic \rord, nnseawortlnncss. 236 Old and Middle English. folic, or God will hold him worse than that heathen Emperor who drove out Archelaus for oppression, and for nothing else,' L p. 286. Oirrmin had doubtless heard of the doings of a later Emperor, Henry VI., who was the cause of draining England of much gold ; the old bard writes of Augustus as an Bomanisshe Kaserrhing, a title which seems so much to puzzle the English of our day. Orrmin must have known all about that sove- reignty which was styled in the documents of his day, ' the Roman name and the German sway.' He talks of he^'^sann'^ (besants), and evidently has an eye to the Crusades in I. p. 153, where he says that no man ought to be killed unless he seeks to slay you, forr Crisstendo^n to cwemihenn (quench). One of the peculiar shibboleths brought hither by the Danes was the word gar (facere), still to be found in Scotland. Orrmin uses the compounds forrgart and oferrgarrt. The verb is found neither in High nor in Low German. The Scandinavian goiu is used by him for ohservare ; hence comes our a-gog, the Icelandic a gcegium (on the watch). Orrmin' s Danish Adjective, trigg (fidus), has not died out of our Northern speech; hutenn (vituperare) , Avhich first appears in Orrmin's work, is a puzzle to lexicographers, and may come either from the Welsh or the Scandinavian. England cleaves to her own old word leap ; Scotland to the Danish laujja (loup) ; they are both found in the Ormulum. The South of England is wont to larh (ludere), the Old English lacan ; the North of England follows Orrmin's le'^j^henn, the Iceland at leika. When we say ' follow my lead,'' we are using Orrmin's Icelandic word /ei'6 (ductus) ; the Middle English : Cttltivation. 237 Old Englisli IM meant only iter. We derive our modern use of the word sliijt (mutare) from the Scandinavian, and not from the Old English ; in the latter the Avord means * to distribute,' and nothing more. We see the two senses in On^min's work, I. p. 13, where he speaks of Zachariah's service in the Temple. Our word sMft (chemise) means only a clianrje of linen. We speak of * sticldng a man into a thing ;' this is Orrmin's steJcen (figere), akin to an old German word. The Scotch say * steke the door.' His "^errsalcem for Jerusalem is a true Danish form. His ma'^-^stredvjale (arch-heretic) is an early instance of compounding French and Teutonic Nouns into one word. He uses hurt for offenders, Icedere; this is akin to the Dutch. It would be endless to point out all Orrmin's Scan- dinavian leanings. In our word for the Latin stella, he prefers the Danish stierne to the Old English steorra, writing it sterrne. He even uses og, the Danish word for ' ei ' in a phrase lik ajj occ ajj. He employs the Danish ending Zejjc as well as the English ness in his Substan- tives, as 'inodi^le^'^c, mod^iiesse. In tende, his word for decimus, he follows the Danish f/e??(7e rather than the Old English teo^a ; our tenth seems to be a compound of the two. The English Church talks of tithes, the Scotch Kirk of teinds. He uses a crowd of Danish words which I do not notice, since they have dropped out of use. Like the Peterborough Chronicler, Orrmin has fra, wiche, wrang, tviless, ploh, JcirrJcegcerd. While weighing the mighty changes that were clearly at work in his day, we get some idea of the influence that the Danish settlement of 870 has had upon our tongue. I give a list of those 238 Old and Middle EnglisJi. Scandinavian words, used by him, whicli have kept their place in onr speech.^ Old English. Scandinaman. Orrmin. Tyuau Augra AnnoTenn, to anger Tinti'egian Beita Bejten, to hait Unscearp Blimda, dormire Bliinnt Ceapsetl BiiS Bo])e, booth Fear Boli Bule, hull Hr^d Buinn Bun, ready "^ SniSau Klippa Clip, tondere Seam Krokr, uncus Croc, a device Sweltan Deyja Deje, die Wuniau Dvelia, delay Dwelle^ Ataran Flytta Flitte, remove Pap Gata Gate, path Preme Gagn, co7nmodum Gajhenn, gain Geserepelice Gegnilega, conveniently ' Ge^gnlike^ Cr^ft Ginua, decipere Ginii, a contrivance Ceapman Okr, usury Hiiccster^ Yfel Ilk Tile, Ul Ticcen Kid T\ide, capreolus Teudan Kynda Kindle Up-heah a Lopti Lofft, aloft Neat Naiit Nowwt, hos Sige Overhaand Ofenhannd, upper hand Eax Paloxi Bulaxe, poll-axe ' I give in my list the origin of a few Scottish phrases, and the reason why Yorkshiremen talk of the gainest way to a place. ■■^ A ship is outward bound. 3 "We still have the old sense, ' to dwell long upon a thought.' The sense of kahifarc has not quite driven out the sense of raorari. * Hence comes our iingainly. But the verb ' to gain^ is from the French gagner. s Ster was the sign of the feminine for hundreds of years after this time, at least rn the South ; we see a change at work when Orr- min applies the ending ster to a man. _ Middle unglish : Cultivation. 239 Old English, Scandinavian. Orr7nin. Arasian Reisa Rejjsenn, to raise Scop SkaUd Scald, minstrel Forhtian Skierra Skerre, scare Crseftig Slaeofr Sleh, sly Spor Slodi Slo]?, slot Fsegr Sniuk^ Smikerr, beautiful peon prifask prile, thiive Fiiltume Uppheldi Upphald, an upholding Rod Vondr Wand, rod Waiisian Vanta Wantenn, carere Wyrse Vaerre Werre, luaur in Scotch Geol 161 Yol, Yule We have had a great loss in the Old English words mid (cum) and niman (capere).^ These are, with little change, good Sanscrit ; and the Germans have been too wise to part with them. Orrmin but seldom employs them, and they must have been now dying out in the North. He is fonder of the two words which have driven them out, i.e. ivitli and take. Had the banks of Thames been the birthplace of our Standard English, we should have kept all four words alike. In giving a specimen of Orrmin's verse, I have been careful to take the subject from scenes in Courtly life, where, after his time, numbers of French words must unavoidably have been used by any poet, however much a lover of homespun English. Orrmin's peculiar way of doubling Consonants will be remarked. He clings fast to the Infinitive in enn^ which had been dropped at ' Every one remembers Cowper's ' Sir Smug.' The old Danish word has been sadly degraded. 2 The last survives in niimh, and in Corporal Nym. 240 Old and Middle English. Peterborougli ; this is one of his few Southern leanings. If we wish to relish his metre, every syllable must be pronounced ; thu?^, Herode takes an accent on all three vowels alike. THE EAST ]\nDLAND DIALECT OF 1200. Oemxjlum, I. — Page 280. Herode king- majj swi]>e* wel ]>e \a]>e^ gast bitac nemi ; forr all hiss werrc and all hiss will wass ifell gast full cweme/ and onu himm sellfenn was inoh '^ his ajhenn ^ sinne sene ; for well biforenn j^att he swallt ^ wass binim ])att wa^ bigiinuenn J)att he shall drejhenn^ ax^ occ_a^ inn belle wi]']) pe deofeni forr he warr])' seoc, and he biganu to rotenn bufenn'' eor])e, and tohh^ be toco wi])]) mete swa ]>att nan ne mihhte himm fiUemi, and swa he stannc jmtt iwhillc™ mann was himm full lap to nehhghenn :^ and all himm waerenn fet and J^eos ° tobollemiP and toblawenn. ]}a laechess patt himm comenn to and himm ne mihhtenn haelenn he slob, and sejjde ])att tej^'^ himm ne kepptenn' nohht to berrjhenn. and be toe iwbillc nsefedd^ mann off all hiss kinericbe,* and let bemm stekenn " inn an bus, and haldenn swij)e fasste, and badd tatt mann bemm sbollde slsen, son summ^ be sbollde dejenn. a right b loathsome <= pleasing to d enow e own f died g ■woe h suffer i became k above 1 yet m every n approach o thighs p swollen. q they r heeded not to protect him s head t kingdom u had them shut X a^ soon as Middle E^iglish: Cultivation. he J^ohlite j'att mann miumde y "beon ' ' off hiss dee]) swipe Hij^e, and "wisste patt mann mimn^e ])a ^ for liemm full sare Avepenn, and wollde swa J>att all }»e folic |7att time shollde wepenn, J)att mann bimm sliollde iindeun dsed ]?ohh itt fori' hinmi ne wgjg. 241 y would z then Page 283. And affteiT J^att ta wass he daed In all hiss miccle sinne. ace J'ser wass.mikell oferrg-arrt* and modr^nesse^ gh^we^d abuteun ])att stinukeunde li£'= ])?er itt wass brohht till eoi'])e ; forr all ]ie baere'^ wass bilejjd « "vvij'jl haetenn gold and si^e^ and all itt wass eicjwhser^ Hsett wi|>]? deorewui'r])e ^ staness, and all Jjatt wjgiie ^ ])att tj?er wass uppo pe bcere fundenn, all wass itt off ])e bettste pall ]\itt aui;v mann majj ajhenn,^ and all itt wass wundenn wi])]) gold and sett wi|'j) deore staness, and all he wass wuiTj^like shridd ' alls iff he wsere o life, and onn hiss h^fedd waerenn twa gildene cruness sette, and himm wass sett ion hias rihht hannd an dere kinejerrde ; ^ and swa mann barr ])att fule ^ lie till ])a)r he bedenn haffde." and hise cnihhtess alle imcien° forth jedenn ° wi]?]? ])e btere, R a haughti- ness b pride c body d bier e everywhere f precious s apparel li O^Tl honourably clothed k seep 1 foul «» had bidden n together o went 242 Old and Middle English, wi])]? heore wsepenn alle "bmi,P swa summ. itt birrj^,*! -wij)]) like, and ec }»8er jedenn wi])|7 ])e lie full wel fif hiinndredd pewwess/ to strawwenn gode gresess * ])fer, ]>att stimnkenn swi])e swete, biforenn jmtt stinnkennde lie J^aer menu itt berenn sliolldenn. and tuss j^ej^ alle brohtenn himm wi|?]> mikell modijnesse till J)8er ])8er * he pe^^ bafFde sejjd ])att tej:^ bimm brinngenn sbolldenn. smile" mann wass ])att Herode king ]:»att let te cbilldre ewellenn, for ]mtt be woUde ewellenn Crist amaug bemm, jiff be mibbte. p ready q it befits r servants s herbs t where u such THE CONTRAST TO THE EAST MIDLAND. (About A.D. 1205.) (KiN^G Leae's A:n'gePv at Cordelia's Speech.) pe king Leir iwer^e swa blac^ swilcb bit a blae elot) weoreu. iwaer6 bis bude and bis beowe, for be was su])e ib^ined, mid J)?ere wraeSt^e be wes is^yeved, pat be feol iswowen ; late peo he up fusde, J)at mseiden wes afeared, ])a hit alles up brae, bit wes Tuel pat he spae : Hierne Oordoille, icb pe telle wille mine wille ; of mine dobtren pu were me durest, nu pu esert me aire IseSes : Middle English : Qtltivation. 243 ne scalt ]ni naever halden dale of mine lande ; ah mine dohtren ich wille deleu mine n£]ie. and ])u scalt worSen warclien, and woiHgn in wansiSe, for navere ich ne wende j^at ])u me woldes ]?iis scanden, jjarfore ])u scalt beon died ic wene : flig ut of mine eieh-sene, ])ine sustren sculen habben mi kinelond, and J2i§_me is iqueme ; Jje due of Cornwaile sjc^l habbe Gornoille, and pe Scottene kin<,^ Ref^an ]7at scone ; and ic hem Jeve all ))a winne J»e ich sem iv aldimf e over. and al pe aide king dude swa he hafvede idemed.^ The above lines are taken from Layaraon's Brut, compiled, as it would seem, in Worcestershire about the year 1205. The proportion of Teutonic words, now obsolete, to the whole is the same as in the Ormulum. The ea becomes cbov a-, thus eaiin (brachium) is written (Brm and arm. The diphthong ce is still found here, but hardly appears in English after Layamon's time ; this ce he sometimes alters into a and e, for he has not only hcer (sustulit), but har and her; he has ^cenne (tunc) and also ]^ane and ]>enne ; there is fceren as well as faren, ' Sir F, Madden's Layamon, I. 130. Layamon has added much of his own to the original in this story of King Lear ; and the addi- tions have been copied by later writers, Shakspeare among them. E 2 244 Old and Middle English. lafdies (dominse) and also leivedi. Tlie Old English Cdsere (Caesar) now becomes Kaisere. Tke a often "becomes o ; hat and hot both, stand for calidus, and tbe words lond, hond, are written for land, hand, as in tbe oldest Worcester Charters printed by Kemble (' Cod. Dip.' I. p. 100). This is also done by our Frisian kins- men. What Orrmin would have called o la7ide, Lay anion calls a londe. The Verb drcef (pepulit) becomes draf and drof; the former is used in our Version of the Bible, the latter in our common talk. Our modern oa^ is found as well as ceS and a^ ; the first-mentioned form reminds us of the Worcester manuscript quote at p. 200 of this book. There is nawit (nihil) and also nowit and nauyt ; into all three most likely came the sound of the French on. Orrmin's la (ecce) becomes leo and lou. The old tveorc is replaced by both were and wore ; this seems to show that both Vowels in the oldest form of the word were sounded ; the form luiirckes also apjDcars. The Perfect of ]njden (premere) was once ]?^cZcZe, but it now hecomes ]nidde ; hence our thud. The grwfess (nemora) of Orrmin is now seen as groven, our groves. The inter- change between o and lo is going on ; Orrmin's hule (taurus) appears ; there is mornede as well as the old murnede, wone and wune ; god (bonus) is found written goiid, just as we now pronounce it. The English counterpart to volo, vohd is seen in many shapes, as wille, luolle, widle ; walde, wolde, wulde ; the ic ivulle still lingers in our Western shires as J ool. Our word for the Latin est varies as Se'S, heo^, hi^, and hu8 ; and it is much the same with the Vowels in the Perfect of fall (cadere). The Plural hcec becomes in Layamon ]>as, ])es, Middle English : Ctdtivation. 245 J)e/)5, \is ; we now follow tlie sound of tlie last. There are both the old heoiven and the new heiven (secare) ; both 'peowe and ])eoio (servus). The supplanting of u by ou, sounded in the same way, goes on as before ; we find ])0Uj nou, and hour. In treoutve (true) there is a com- bination of the English ovj and the French ou. The latter sound might be expressed by oi ; we accordingly find Gloicliester written for Gloucester. As to Consonants : the old sc beginning a word held out against the new sh far more stedfastly on the Severn than in Orrmin's country ; there are but five exceptions to this rule in Layamon, which are scheld, scheaj), scMjj, scholde, schenches. But the ch often replaces c ; we find both die and dichj swilc and such, muccle, inuchel, mocJiul, and Tiiuche.^ There are hrecli and crucche ; the old cycene now becomes Jcuchene (kitchen). The Frencisc of former days turns into Frenchis and Frensce (French) ; the old form Franlds hngered a hundred and forty years longer in the North and East of England. The word doliter is seen as dochter ; the h becomes sometimes 5, sometimes IV ; for there are hiirhj h'nrij^e, and htiruwe, all three ; the g is clipped or softened, as peni, peni-^es, uphrceid (up- gebredan), iteied (getigod) ; the h disappears in wat, written as well as iclioet ; we find hrohte, Iro^ihte, hroute (obtulit). Some little confusion has been the result of all these changes ; thus with Jjajamon fltiicen (ourfleiv) ' We have the proper names MicJclc and Mitchell formed from the old mycel. By the way, what strange irony furnished the Celtic patriots of 1848 with a leader who boasted the most Teutonic of all names, except perhaps Smith I 246 Old and Middle English. replaces the old fiugon (volaverunfc) ; the likeness to Jloiuau (fluere) is rather puzzling, to say nothing oifleon (fugere). Letters are sometimes cast out in the middle of a word ; etullufon is turned into celleve7ie, and cujle (cucullus) into cule (cowl). "We keep the last letter of loaf, the old hldf; but Layamon in the Plural turns the / into V, and writes laves, our loaves. There is a great change in the tenses of leosan (amittere) ; in the Perfect losede (our lost) comes as well as the old les ; in the Past Participle ilosed (our lost), comes as well as the old iloren. Consonants are sometimes transposed, for we find both 6nic7e and hurde (mulier). In Substantives new Plurals are formed ; hors (equi) becomes horses ; the old form of the word lingers in ' horse and foot.' A great change in idiom, when measure is to be specified, now appears ; in Old English, age was expressed by the word wintre with a cardinal number, as he wees twelf wintre ; in St. John ii. 20, anrius is Englished by ivinter. This is now altered, for we find he ivas fiftene ge?- aid. The Accusative is further used in the phrase he j)leo'^ede his platen (played his play). Instead of the Accu- sative, we find cenes an ane tide (once on a time) ; here the cenes stands for olini, as in Orrmin. A few Substantives change their meaning ; pliht had hitherto meant periculum ; it now takes the sense of conditio, which we keep ; ])eau had hitherto been applied to the mind only ; it is now used of the body, as we talk of thews and sinews. Spenser used the word in its old sense. Layamon, speaking of a mere, says, ' Feower nohed he is ; ' hence our word nooh (angulus^, Middle English : Cultivation. 247 which may come from lnuegan (flectere). He uses tojp for caput. He forms an Adjective from the old hende (prope). He has indeed, in I. p. 206, an o^er stret he maJcede swibe hendi ; but he usually employs this word in the sense of courteous, and in this sense it was used for centuries. Scott's phrase, 'Wallace wight,' is seen in Layamon, who has iwiht (fortis). The Old English ending ol was being corrupted ; for swicol now becomes sivicful, just as rather later forgitol was to become forgetful. At III. p. 98, we see a spelling device for marking, as strongly as may be, the difference between two Adjectives ; * wunieS her hal and hceilj' ' whole and hale ; ' this of old would have been gehdl and hdl (integer et sanus). In Pronouns : hit ivces is used to emphasise a Verb following ; hit lues in ane ^eol-dmie ]yat &c., II. p. 532 ; hit is umbe seove "^ere ])at ]>u iveren here, I. p. 214, for- merly ]>a2t would have been used for this hit. One sense of ])C8t is found in I. p. 100 ; mahian an eor^ hus and ]>at inne swi^e feire stude ) this is like Cicero's 'audientem Cratippum idque Athenis.' In I. p. 136 comes ' seide to his hornen, \>at wes J)e hisie king,'' we should now alter the construction and say ' busy (eager) king that he was.' We sometimes find in Layamon ])eo (ilH) instead of the Old English Ai ; a token that he did not live very far to the South of the Great Line. The hwcet is em- ployed for the old hu in v:at heo ihoten weoren (what they were called), I. p. 2 ; ivhilc is used as a Relative. Half is now set before an Adjective ; heo iveoren hoelf y:iru (half-ready), I. p. 369. Layamon was the first to put the Indefinite Article after many, as moni 248 Old and Middle English. anne (many one), mony enne ])ing (many a thing), so also half an Imndred. A wonderful change occurs in he eou war, III. p. 399 ; here the Accusative eoti is employed for the ^Nominative ye. Our translators of the Bible were far more careful than Layamon in the use of these Pronouns.^ A form well known in later English comes in I. p. 132, qicene navede lie nane, ' queen had he none.' The great change in Yerbs that we owe to Layamon is the alteration of the Present Participle Active. This, which of old terminated in end^e, became inde in the South about 1100 ; and now, in 1204, it turns into inge ; we here find herninge, fraininge, singinge, and ivaldmge. A hundred years later this worst of all our corruptions reached Lincolnshire, and was unhappily adopted by the man who shaped our modern speech. The con- fusion between the Active Participle and the Verbal Noun is endless ; it led to a wholly new English idiom cropping up about 1770. Lest (ne) is followed by should and woidd with the Infinitive, instead of the old Sub- junctive. Orrmin used the old form wass luurr^enn (f actus est) ; for this Layamon has J)tt iveore his tnan hicumen ; he writes also Brennes ices awoii ifio'^en, I. p. 203. The construction of the old gewunian (solere) is altered ; the Auxiliary Verb is added to it, as ]>e utla'^en weoren iiuuned, II. p. 94. The Passive Voice, as in Orrmin, is further developed ; we light upon heo ives wel italif, 1. p. 268, even though teach governs the dative of the person; still more striking is the phrase pu cert ilete Mod, II. p. 372. This is the first instance of the Accusative following the * They made one slip in Genesis xlv. 8 : ' It was not yo7c that sent me.' Middle English: Cultivation. 249 Passive, a most English idiom in modern times ; as we say, ' I am forbidden meat.' We see tlie phrase habhen care, I. p. 16. Our draw takes the further sense of venire, as well as that of trahere, in II. p, 14 ; heo wulle^ to me dra'^en. Our lay on (ferire) appears in stcercUche lieom leggen on, II. p. 465. The expletive, ich wene, is found in I. p. 131. The old (jyrdan (cingere) gets the further sense of ccedere ; as he gurde Suard on ])at hcefd, I. p. 68 ; so Shakspeare has ' he will not spare to gird the Gods,' and we still talk of girding at a man. The old noun gyrd had borne the meaning of virga. Sivogan had hitherto meant sonare ; it now got the sense of sivoon, I. p. 130. Layamon has mcercoden in the new sense of videre ; of old it had expressed ostendere : this is just the converse of the change in the old sceawian. Our allot is first seen in Layamon's iloten (destinatum). The Perfect of our roam (vagari), a puzzling word, is first seen in his writings as rameden, I. p. 335 ; eighty years later the a of this verb became in the Danelaofh. A Sfcrono- Verb is turned into a Weak one when he says (I. p. 57), Ms scipen runden, where we more correctly say Ms sMps ran. As to Adverbs : quicliche changes its meaning and is used for cite in I. p. 200, though but once only ; it comes three times in the later version of Layamon's poem, drawn up about 1260. There is a new phrase, at ]>an Taste (denique), I. p. 160 ; this seems an imitation of the Old English construction cet nextan. Long seems to be used as an Adverb in Layamon's new phrases '^ene dcei longe and alle longe niM ; the livelong day was to 250 Old and Middle English. come later. Tlie word lialf seems employed as an adverb in his liit is lialf mon and halffisc, I. p. 57. We find lier cefter for the first time in II. p. 19. We see the combination iveonne so (when as) in II. p. 206 ; this lasted nntil 1670, and whereas came np after Layamon's day. We begin to find a distinction made between so and as ; swa he ]>er agon ase ]^e o^er hcefde idon, I. p. 288. In Old English the idea of difierence was expressed by ungeltce ])onne. Layamon changes this, for he has al hit iwar^ o^er ])ene heo iwenden (other than), II. p. 395 ; Chancer tnrns this other into otlierivise. In I. p. 142, we see no more used for no longer, heo nolden hem no more feden ; in I. p. 128 more is used in a different sense, heo ne seide na ]>ing seS, 710 more ]>enne hure suste. Something new appears in hit lihede loel ]>an hinge hutenfor ane ]>inge, III. p. 264; it is sometimes hard to tell whether hut stands for nisi or for prceter. There is a pleonasm in the sentence heden hine heom rcedeii, o^er celles &c., II. p. 82 ; here either o^er (aut) or else would have been quite enough. As to Prepositions : of is turned into an Adverb in of mid here hreches (off with), II. p. 332; the construc- tion of onid here is curious, there being no Verb. There is hisiuihen of richen (whence our cheat of), and tvei-i of sorjjen, a mon ' of ])riti "^eren, a king of mncle mcehte ; in the older tongue the Genitive was used instead of this of. The Latin de is Englished by otit of in mine gumen ut of Galwcei^a, II. p. 25. The to, like the of, is some- times used without a Verb, as nu heom to, nu heom to, II. p. 468, like Shakspeare's ' to it again ! ' This to begins to supplant the old 06 (usque ad), as stihen to pan Middle English : Cultivation. 251 hare liclien his hcerd, II. p. 428 ; Sydney Smith talked of preaching a Church ' bare to the sexton.' One Old English use of to is continued in iseten to mete ; ' stand to jour arms ' is a survival of this, though we now, in most cases of this kind, prefer at. In notions of time togeanes in early times was used to express near approach ; this is now changed, as in Orrmin, for we read tomuard \yau sumere. The old forait ongeau, whence comes the Scotch foment, is seen slightly altered at II. p. 353; scetforn ayin Mm. The on is used as an Adverb in he hefde hrunie on, I. p. 66. We have dropped the on or a used by Layamon to mark future time ; as, come^ to dcei a seoven nihte, I. p. 232. Our threatening phrase, ' on pain of,' is seen at I. p. 218, ujype tvite offeowerti punden. The upj)e is clipped and used in a new sense, sti^en up ])an hidle, III. p. 32. Layamon follows the Gothic Preposition rather than the Old English ]nirh when he writes siuor hi al hevenliche mam, I. p. 146. This hi he uses when repeating a Substantive in an adverbial sense, as side hi side. He has also hond wian he^sten, II. p. 74 ; whence Prior's line, ' the Colonel toasted with the best.' This ivith or mid had expressed inter in the Old English. I give a list of many Scandinavian words used by Layamon, which must have made their ' way to the Severn from the Korth and East ; we shall find many more in Dorsetshire a few years later. 252 Old and Middle English. Club, from the Icelandic hluhha Drabt (haustus), from the Icelandic clrattr Hap (fortune), from the Icelandic happ, good luck * Hit, from the Icelandic hitta Hustinge (house court), from the Norse hits and thincf Raken (rush), from the Swedish raka, to riot about ^ Riven, from the Icelandic 7'ifa (rumpere) Semen (beseem), from the Norse sama, to fit To-dascte (dash out), from the Danish claskey to slap Instead of the Old English. Trord for insula, Lajamon enplojs mite (ait), a word well known to all Etonians. It is the Danish ey with the Definite Article tacked on to the end in the usual Scandinavian way ; eij-it, eyt, as ]Mr. Dasent tells us. Layamon writes swain and sivein (puer), thus following the Yowel sound of the Danish sveinn, not that of the Old English swan. He has the Danish form cros (crux) ; but the French croice was the usual form in Western England. "We see the Scandina- vian Whitsuntide for the first time in English ; the term Pentecost had been employed in the Saxon Chronicle. There are some other common words, which he is the first English writer to use. Thus he, living near the Severn, has taken gyves (catenae) from the Welsh gevyn ; and cutte (secare) from the Welsh civtt, a little piece : this last has almost driven out the Old English carve. He employs stuHe (started), akin to the Old Dutch storten ; and has a new Verb talk, springing from tale. Bal (our hall), draf, 2iu.di picclien (pangere), * Hence happen, happy, haply, came into England and sup- planted older words. - Hence the Eake's Progress. Middle EnglisJi : Cultivation. 253 are akin to the Dutcli or German words &a7, draf^ ficken, jRuche^i is found both, in Dutch and in Layamon's work ; twenty years after his time it appears as rock (agitare). He has also haJede (duxit), the Frisian halia -, as often happens in English, the word hale remains, and by its side stands another form haul, which cropped up ninety years after this time ; at first, they were most hkely pronounced in the same way. Layamon says, ' tueo^eleden his fluhtes,' his flights became weak (I. p. 122) : the Verb has a High German brother, and from this may come our verb luohhle. At I. p. 275, we see for the first time the Avord agaste (terruit), whence comes our aghast. For the origin of this word we must go back to the Gothic usgeisjan. Our ghostly and gltasthj spring from wddely different sources. Soon after Layamon's time the Legend of St. Margaret seems to have been compiled.^ It has forms akin to the Worcester manuscript printed by Sir Thomas Phillipps, and in other particulars it resembles a well-known Dorsetshire work. But it touches the East Midland in its forms 1)60)1 and aren (sunt) ; and its Participles terminate sometimes in ende, sometimes in inde. The Past Parti- ciple islelii (page 11) resembles w^hat we saw iu the Peterborough Chi'onicle. There is Layamon's new word talk, and his expression to lay on. This piece may have been composed or transcribed not far from his county, but nearer to the Great Line ; es, not est, is sometimes the ending of the second Person Singular. The Southern fur and the Northern gast are found close together. We see here one Yowel-change that has had great influence ^ Early English Text Society. 254 Old and Middle English. upon Standard English ; words like dearc and mearc are written darch and inarche ; there is also smart. Hence it comes that we pronounce Derby as Darhy (see Domesday Book), a change that we owe to the North West. Layamon was fond of the Old English diphthong ce, but in the present work this is often altered to ea, as in the words clean, heal, least. It is to the Southern and Western shires that we owe the preservation of ea, a favourite combination of our forefathers ; the word fiea has never changed its spelling. We see in the Legend both the old swa and the new so ; tee]> replaces , te]) ; roa comes once more. The wiinman of the East Midland makes way for ivuminon ; we now follow the former sound in the Plural and the latter sound in the Singular ; a curious instance of the widely different sources of our Standard English. The old cwcb\> is replaced by our modern quoth. There is a struggle between the Old English ml and the Latin oleum ; eoli is the upshot. Layamon's luroestle becomes wrestle. The old leosani's, once written leowse (p. 13). As to Consonants : lagu becomes lahe, and Layamon's gullen becomes %ellen (clamare) ; the e here seems to point to Salop, where this vowel Avas used for the Southern u and the Northern i. On reading at p. 13 ^u fihest (tu fallis), we may perhaps derive from this verb our /?5, even as geleafa turns to belief. We find the old f in feat (p. 17), and our modern vet (vat) p. 18 ; these are two forms of one word. The t is inserted ; thus glisman becomes glistnian, our glisten. In 4-cy actives : the ending ftd was driving out its brethren ; we here find fearful (pavidus) for the first Middle English : Cultivation. 255 time. Orrmin's ga^Jienn is seen in a new compound, uiigeinliche (ungainly). A new phrase like steorcnaket (stark naked) crops up ; the first syllable probably stands for steort (cauda), with the usual interchange of t and c. Among the Pronouns we find Iiwcij so eaver (quicunque). The Numeral an bears new constructions ; in p. 8 we read hire moder lues an ]ye froureile hire, ' her mother was one (person) that ' &c. ; the old turn of the sentence would have been ' one of those that ' &c. Our phrase * it is all one to me ' is seen in p. 5, al ine is an. As to Verbs : seem gets a sense unknown to Orrmin and Layamon, that of vicleri ; his teef) semclen of irn (p. 9). We find a verb formed from ivrence (dolus), wrenchen ut of pe weie (p. 4) ; our wrench now implies brute force, not trickery.^ In the same page the old gelamp (accidit) is cut down to lomp ; Mrs. Pipchin, in Dickens, says of a thwarted child, ' she must lump it ; ' this must mean ' take what may chance.^ Amongr the Adverbs we see the first trace of our doiunright, in ' dashed him adunriht to the earth' (p. 12) ; anonright and forthright have now been swept away. Tlie Adverb far is dropped in the -phrase ffteiie milen from Antioche (p. 2). As to Prepositions : out of is employed in a new sense at p. 6, 'he was enraged almost ui of his iwitte,' out of his wits. The o/with a Substantive is employed instead of an Adjective in the same page ; eaivles of irne. The Old English had used phrases like mid ]nsum ivordum, ^ I have seen wrench used for dohcs hj Dr. Layton, after the beginning of the English Eeformation. 256 Old and Middle English. Ae' &c. ; a Pronoun is now substituted for the IS'oun. At p. 22 we read, ^ i^dS \at they began to yell.' There are many new words in this short piece ; among them are drupest (most drooping) and seemly, from the Icelandic dnij^ia and scemiligr. In the first syllable of ])iuertover (p. 10) we have followed the Icelandic ])vert (trans versus), rather than the Old English "pweorh (per- versus) ; our verb tMuert, thwart, cropped up twenty years later in East Anglia ; it was long before overthwart made way for atliivart. There are many words akin to Dutch and German, such as drivel, gajje, stutten (whence our stutter'), Qitiidi shudder; toggen (trahere) seems more akin in form to the Dutch tocheii than to the Old English teogan. The word scliillinde (sonans), at page 19, akin to both the High German and the Icelandic, tells us whence comes our shrill, one of the words into which r has found its way. The former wipstetv is now seen as stew (compescere). The verb studge (go haltingly) is found; schoolboys still say ' I was stodged in my lesson.' Put is used iov ^oiLere (p. 22), as well as for trudere. There is a new verb, diveri, which is coupled with to dread ; hence our dither. The Legend of St. Katherine (Abbotsford Club), seems to have been drawn up much about the same time as the foregoing piece. It must have been a translation from the French, if we may judge by the many French idioms ; Layamon, though he too was a translator, stuck far more closely to the old idioms. The Legend seems to belong to the neighbourhood of the Great Line, perhaps to Southern Salop ; we here see Layamon's agaste, and Orrmin's tooh on, an hivat (una Middle English: Cultivation. 257 res) sumwhat, ter (ibi), and dun; heo (ilia) becomes ha; the Latin clamas is Englished by depes, not clepest. Gucurrit is Englished by the Northern ro7i, not by am. There is a Southern version of this piece, where huhe^ (inclinat) is mistaken for bue^ (est), and is altered into beo^, at p. 20 ; tuiiS into tnid, ha into heo. At page 97 we find in one line buhsiome and beisume, meaning the same thing; the one comes from the old bugan (flecti), the other from begea?i, another form of the same word ; this is a curious instance of two variations of the Ensflish synonym for obediens running on together for 140 years after the Conquest. The former dwiht (aliquid) is now written eivt, showing us that aiu was sounded like the French oil. The old JVodnesdceg now becomes Wednesdei, and dol (hebes) becomes dul ; the ivimman of the East, as we here see, becomes wumman in the West and South. The oa appears again, replacing the more usual ; we find ]>na. The old cemtig now becomes einjpti, with a p insei-ted ; and the Verb strangian, taking a Consonant, becomes streng^en. Fault has often been found with the word metro- polis as applied to London, when capital is meant ; our true English mother-state is Anglen, far to the East. Still, in this piece (p. 3), we hear of ])e moder hurh (capital) of Alexander's kingdom. In p. 63 ti^nber gets the new sense of materia, just like the Greek word for tuood in Aristotle's 'Ethics.' The old Sub- stantive leof (vir amatus) is turned into luve, our love, at p. 82 : we have now run leof and hif2i, the person and the thing, into one word. The old mix (stercus) is here s 258 Old mid Middle English. used as a term of reproach, and perhaps gave rise to our far less severe word mmx. At page 90 comes sleCf whence our slush may come, since the old word is here coupled with sloJi, our slough. The word f ode (ciBus) took the further meaning of alumnus all through the Western half of England, and is used in that sense in the Legend of St. Katherine. We now see a French word made a Verbal Noun ; as desputing. A new Adjective, rudi (ruddy), is formed from rud (ruber). The ending ful was coming more into use, for we find the new compound loinful. In Pronouns : we see the word .§6^/" used (Orrmin had done this), as if it were the Noun person ; at p. 58 comes ]>e ilhe self (the same person) is Godes sune ; in the Southern copy of the Legend this has been altered into seolf ]w ilhe. A curious new French idiom crops up at p. 110 : wrecche Tnon ]>at ]>u hit art. At p. 74 comes he het hise (he bade his men) ; here the Noun is dropped after the Pronoan, as was often the case after mine and thine. In p. 128, the Pronoun stands for a Noun : hisohte him wi6 pe hrond, that is, ' besought the man who bore the brand.' Something like this may be found in Gothic, but not in Old English. As to Numerals, the old o^er had not yet been sup- planted by the French second ; at page 78, Katherine is promised that she shall be ]>e o^er after \e Given ; the old o^er stood for both secundus and alius. I have already touched upon our phrase, ' every other man.' The confusion between Strong and Weak Verbs was going on throughout England ; what in the South was ahongen (the right form of the Transitive Perfect), Middle English : Ctdtivation. 259 became liongeden in tlie vSevern country (p. 18); we even find arisede instead of aras (arose). At p. 102 we see the old idiom ' me longed to go,' where the Verb is Impersonal ; this is altogether changed at p. 84, where we find ])e cwen longede for to seon ; but it may be that mven is here a Dative. A Participle replaces a Noun at p. 131 ; ]ni min iweddet (bride). When we see such a phrase as that in p. 53, don it huten ewt to leosen (do it without Zosrn^ anght, the French sans perdre), we can- not help thinking that the Infinitive in p)i must have had some slight influence, in forming our new idiom as regards what are seemingly Verbal Nouns in ing. The old dugan. had always meant iirodssse ; it now begins to take the Scandinavian sense of decere ; in the Northern version we read (p. 99) as Brihtln deah ; the Verb in the Southern version is altered into al (debet) ; we still say ' that will do very well for him.' A Verb is now seen (p. 89) formed from the old gleam (splendor), and another from the old clatriuig. Among the Adverbs found in the Legend, Jiiderto is found for the first time at p. 24 ; Jnoen se eaver at p. 130 ; lieonne for^ wardes (henceforward) at p. 112. At p. 37 comes eaverihiver -, this is the old geJnccer (ubique) with the usual Twelfth Century prefix ever ; our every where is now spelt wrong, for this is one of the few words in which we still sound a corruption of the old ge, so beloved of our forefathers. In p. 110 a<5at tenne (till then) comes, instead of ' till that time.' We have seen that mid alle or vji\> alle had hitherto meant wholly ; it now takes the meaning of moreover, in which sense we still use it ; at p. 99 we hear that Christ came s 2 26o Old and Middle English. liimself witli many maidens vA^ alle. A new Adverbial sense (it seems to come from Scandinavia) is bestowed on up at p. 47; cice'^e ham up, 'give them up.' Tliis up was soon to follow many otlier Verbs. Tlie svja or as is used in new ways ; at p. 3 we read of a tyrant hea6ene as he ices ; at p. 72 hearninde al as he was ; tbe French qiie must liave been tbe pattern regarded in forming this new idiom. The as is used, where we should put that; in p. 86, 'they saw as (St, Jerome's quia) they smeared ; ' other Enghsh writers have both who so and v:ho that for quicunc[ice. Another French phrase, par si que, seems to have brought into England a new conditional idiom, instead of the old icith that ; at p. 102 we read ' let me live, sica ]>at (provided that) I lose nothing.' The whole of the Legend must be a translation from the French, and repays careful study. As to Prepositions : we find /or hireself, p. 6, where the for is used like the Scandinavian fyrir mer and the French '}:)our moi, ' so far as I am concerned,' This reminds us of the wis for icoridd, in the Chronicle of the year 1057. The upon is employed in a new sense at p. 53: piiig ])at is iwent upon him, 'a thing that is formed after his likeness ; ' as we now say ' to form himself upon Brummell.' The onont (anent) is used most freely. There are some new Interjections ; hei is used at p. 31, a cry of wonder or pleasure ; this French cry has taken deep root in England ; in Derbyshire I have heard persons (above the lower class) begin their sentences with hey, hut ; in other parts of our land it is sounded like eh, Chaucer's eij. Orrmin's la here Middle EnzUsJi : Cultivation. 261 %b becomes loiv, oTir lo. At page 113 comes hu nu, dame! which is something wholly new, and points to the French ; to them we owe most of onr Interjections. We find the Scandinavian word unticli, here applied to weather ; tidi is found in East Anglia not much later. The word scourge now appears. The French influenced the spelHng of the compiler of the St. Katherine ; we have seen eoli (oleum) ; this now follows the French, and is written eoile, pronounced e-ool-e, just as in Scott's ' Pirate ' they talk of a whale's ulyie or ulzie. The word (see Littre) was written oile in France until about 1280. Shakspearc writes unanealed, following the English form cel^ but the Verb anoyle was written in the year 1588 (' Reliquia? Antiquae,' I. 255). We also frnd^puison (venenum). The French lei, standing for religion, even as it did in France, is used just before the English lalies, our lans (p. 17). What was written mannisse in the Essex Homilies now becomes the Frenchified mamiesse (humanity) at p. 53. The Verb earn of the Northern copy is turned into ofserven (deserve) in the South (p. 121), J/e, the French tnais, is often used to begin a sentence. The Legend of St. Juliana (Early English Text Society) is probably due to the same hand as the fore- going Legends. It has Orrmin's words want and hiding ; it has Layamon's phrase no more, through and through, and his French Interjection ; stew, drivel, out of his wit, and many such, are repeated. As to Vowels : the a is sometimes aio, as Saiumuel (p. 62) ; showing us that aiv might stand for the broad Italian a as well as for the French ou. Na is found, and also our 262 Old and Middle Eno^Hsh, e seolven. Among the Adverbs we see hwerfore, hwer so ever, ase for^ as, (as far as, p. 47). In the Southern version (p. 61) ]>ear as is used for the Latin uhi ; it is the first hint of our ivhereas. In the same page we read 171 an weorre as he wes ; here the as stands for uhi, which in the other version is Englished by per. At p. 68 we see we huteri used in the unusual sense of vix ; nefde ha huten iseid ]>at &c., ' she had but spoken, when.' The Prepositions are used in new senses. In Old English, ' to mingle with,' was well known ; the idea is now carried a little further, and we read in p. 22, cu^ (acquainted) wi^ \e king. At p. 5 comes, he wes wel vnf) 264 Old a7td Middle English. ]>e hing. There is a curious idiom at p. 71 ; sici^e iciS hire ut of mine ehsih^e, * quick with her out of my sight ; ' we saw something of the kind in Layamon, who also dropped the verb. The ut of is used in a new sense, where the mental cpuse of an action is to be marked ; a tyrant began tendrin ut of teone, ' to burn, out of an- noyance,' p. 29. The verb scald, the Swedish sholla, appears in p. 71. There is a new word hista])et (constitutus), akin to the German ; eighty years later this vas to be written bestead. In p. 78 we see the Old and the New face to face ; hitherto England had reckoned the days of the month in the Roman way ; this was now to be changed ; we read o])e sixten^e dei of Feovereles mone^, ]>e fortende Jcalende of Mearch ])at cume^ efter. "We remark in the above sentence, that the Danish n has made its way into the numeral ; it was kept at bay in Gloucestershire even so late as 1300. A curious French word is seen at p. 56, gencling, better known to us as jangling ; the g seems to have already assumed its soft sound ; in the Southern version this word is exchanged for "^uhelunge. The treatise on Hali Meidenhad was most likely written by the compiler of the three foregoing Legends. Some of the old words reappear, as eoile, 'puisun, ivrenche, loiu (ecce) ; there is the same contraction in words, as ])ro/ for ]>erof, sworn for sworen-, the old sceawian (osten- dere), which had already undergone many changes, becomes scho (p. 17), as we still pronounce it. The c often becomes cli ; we see the two forms side by side at p. 35, where the pangs of childbirth are called a stikinde sticlie : this last substantive has been rather lowered Middle English : Cultivation. 265 since those days. The endiDg of the Plural of the Present is altogether clipped in the verbs twinni and totweane, p. 13. The old hreoidic (tristis) tad been altered into reowful ; from this we see a new Substantive formed, reowfulnesse. We find in the middle of a sentence, mare harm is, p. 9 ; an early instance of a parenthesis. The exchange between that and as goes on ; hiva ]>at seJie, * whoso sees,' comes at p. 17; se sihernesse as ha was in, p. 7 ; sei^ ase rauchel ase &c., p. 5, points to the future ' that is as much as to say.' Tliere is also as ivell as. At p. 39 we see moni an ; the last word stands for the old man. At p. 19 is a wonderful innovation ; d^i'es is used for the Genitive Plui'al (alionirn). At p. 5 of lah stands where we should say helow ; our hij has often replaced an earlier of. Our curious phrase for omnino is seen at p. 35, ' lease for gode.^ Our verb stickle seems to be^foreshadowed by stiJcelinde (steadfastly), at p. 17. In Verbs : our show forth comes for tlie first time, I think, at p. 3. As to the Prepositions : tliere is a new sense for of at p. 5 ; a good maiden is freo of hireself ' has command over herself;' hence comes 'free of the guild,' &c. There is a new form of the Partitive o/atp. 21,iuile heoii of ])e hit (turba) ; here one should come before the Preposition. How the of liad encroached on the old Genitive form is strikingly shown in lust of a lute hiuile (p. 47) ; we should here say ' a little moment's pleasure,' and this last construction would cleave fast to the Old English. Our /ace to face was before the Conquest of ansine to ansine ; this is pared down in the present 266 Old and Middle E?ie and htiste^ ])e ; ' this last verb is the Icelandic heysta, our haste (ferire). Hence also the French haston or baton. Our scream is found for the first time, and seems to be a con- fusion between the Old Eng-Hsh hream and the Welsh ysgarm, each meaning the same ; there is also a Scandi- navian shramsa.^ To this time belong a few pieces printed by Dr. Morris in his 'Old English Homilies' (pp. 183-217; 245-267). They seem to have been compiled in Salop; we find the ITorthern aren (sunt) and talden side by side with the Southern ido (factum), ivuUe^, and libhinde. The old mcenan (lugere) becomes "inone (p. 211), our moan, a change which was long in prevailing throughout England ; it was useful, since it distinguished this sense of the word from the obher sense, statuere (our mean). We also see dol (p. 199) instead of the old dcel (pars) ; we have now different senses for the nouns dole and deal. ^ The s that has got prefixed to hream reminds us of cwysan, that has now become sqiiceze. Middle EnglisJi : Ctdtivation. 267 On reading a sentence like Godd of alle goddfid (p. 209), we see what a loss we liave had in the disappearance of our accents ; in earlier times the accent distinguished goda (bona) from God (Deus). Lah (humilis) is changed into hive at p. 211 ; it may have been sounded like the French 02c, for it is written louh in other parts of England. The change of into ic is seen in the new hime, our boon; and scliute for the old sceotan. As to Consonants : the old hiirg becomes Ijuri, which is kept in names of places like Shrewsbury ; the other old form hurug is here seen as huruwe, whence comes our hurroiv. The verb eglian now becomes eilin, our ail. At p. 263 the old civce]> he is turned into quod he ; this we have already seen elsewhere. In Substantives the old declensions had been so completely lost that eagan (oculi) is constantly written ehnen, as if the old form had been eaganan. English was becoming very terse ; for we see in p. 205, ich habbe iheved of o^er Ttionnes ; we should say, ' I have had part of other man's goods.* The new rit hoiid (p. 217) was taking the place of the old right half. At p. 249, the phrase bi stale (by stealth) is used, implying secrecy, not robbery. Ir the treatise Satvles Warde we see husebonde bearing the two meanings of conjux and paterfamilias ; ^ it is here opposed sometimes to -wifj sometimes to husinf. At p. 265 we read in ure ende, 'in our quarters,' this sense of the old ende was soon to vanish, and to be pre- served in proper names only, like Audley End. * The latter sense was borne by hoschonde man in "Wickliffe ; se St. Luke xii. 39. Tyndale has here, gooci man of the house. 268 Old and Middle EnzUsh. -i milce, p. 211 ; where give me is not expressed. What was ahest (debes) in the Hali Meidenhad is here seen as oivest ; ' One critic was very angry with me for using this classic Old English form. Middle English : Cultivation. 269 this is the form, of the word we use to imply iyul.ehted- ness', while oucjlitest implies duiij. We have already seen cnawlece (confiteor) ; this becomes at p. 205 icnou- lechie, acknowledge. The idea of our ^ burst with rage ' is seen in liun ihurst (leo iratus), at p. 255. The old sone sioa becomes ase sone ase, at p. 213. Our yea is sometimes impressively used in the middle of a sentence ; at p. 265 we read, raihti to don alj je, mahie to cwalden &c. In Prepositions : the of is still further employed ; in p. 209 stands \e jeove (douum) of \e holi goste, that is, * the Spirit which was given ; ' at p. 213 comes go7i me hetere iif, ' turn out better for me,' eve'iiire. We light on the new word dingle, applied to a recess of the sea ; and schimme^ or sc1iimere6 (fulget) ; these are akin to German words. In Salop forms that were used in Lothian and Yorkshire seem to have clashed with forms employed in Gloucestershire and Dorset ; something resembling the OniiuUtm was the upshot. In each succeeding century Salop comes to the front. The Wohunge of nre Lauerd seems to have been written here about 1210, (Morris' 'Old English Homilies,' First Series, p. 269). In 1350, or so, the Romance of William of Palerne was compiled here. In 1420, John Audlay wrote his poems in the same dialect (Percy Societj^, Xo. 47). In 1580, Churchyard had not dropped all his old Salopian forms. Baxter, who came from Salop, appeared about 1650 as one of the first heralds of the change that was then passing over Standard English prose, and that was substituting Dryden's style for that of Milton. Soon 270 Old and Middle English, after 1700, Farquliar, in his ' Recruiting Officer,' gives us mucli of the Salopian brogue. This intermingling of Northern and Southern forms in Salop produced some- thing not unlike Standard English ; we must always keep the Great Sundering Line in view. One piece, which seems to belong to this shire is the Wohnnge of ure Lctuerd, which I have already named. We here see Orrmin's \>u ivas (eras), liwat herte, hinsman, uppo, and til (ad) ; also the Northern am (sunt), have "^ai, hiiliande, I (ego), sin (peccatum), raise, he maizes ; the strangest instance is \iai setis up (attollunt), page 283, which is a more Northern form than anything we have seen as yet in the Midland. There are also the more Southern forms ]>oa and huide. The combination ui for the old y was long peculiar to the Severn country. There is much paring of letters, as in cald (vocatus), offeard (timens). The old hleahtor (risus) becomes lahter. The old la (ecce) at last becomes lo, p. 283 ; we have preferred the Iciss found in this work to the cuss of the South ; hredden (liberare) becomes rid, p. 273, though Scotland still talks of the redding straiJc. Con- sonants are pared away, especially the guttural at the end of words ; we see gastli, hertili, rewli. At p. 271, ^u inacodest (fecisti) is replaced by ]m mades ; the same change may be remarked a few years later in East Anglia, at the other end of the Great Line. When we see such a form as hituhen (between) we may be pretty sure that the h in the middle of a word had lost much of its old guttural sound about 1210 ; ahful was used where we say awful. Middle EnglisJi : Cultivatio?i. - 271 We find the Substantive sweting, which was long confined to the shires near Salop. We see the change in the meaning^of cheap ; it was a Noan meaning hargaiuj as at p. 281, but at p. 273 we read ivinnen luve UhtlicJie cheape. The Preposition not being employed here, men in time came to look upon cheap as an Adverb. Turning to the Pronouns, we see how the Nominative hiva came to be used as a Relative ; at p. 275 is 'tnai he luve hwa ne luves his hro^er? the /ivjo-here stands for the old swa hwa siua (whoso). At p. 281 comes the idiom often used by Dickens, as hwa se seie (as who should say), 'as if a man should say;' the French used comme qui dirait. At p. 285 the writer gives an ofiering, swuch as hit is. In p. 281 we light on siva Strang a siving ; in earlier times there would have been no Article here. Among the Verbs, we may remark that cu^e is encroaching on mihte (potui) ; at p. 271 comes tin blod tie ciSes til wi^halde. In the same page make is followed by a Past Participle, just as have was in earlier times ; he maizes him Juved. The verb tell takes the new meaning of ' to have influence upon ; ' pi dea^ telJes riht in at my luve, p. 275. The old huh (inclinavi) becomes the Weak Perfect, I huhed, at p. 277. The forms hicils (dum) and as tah (quasi), first seen in the Essex neighbourhood, have now made their way to Shropshire, at the other end of the Great Line ; hivils becomes hiviIs ])at (p. 275), in Orrmin's fashion. In Prepositions: we find Iwve of]^e (p. 273), that is, ' love given to thee ; ' a distinction was wanted to prevent confusion with ]n' luve^ that is 'love coming from thee.' At p. 283 comes Jahhen ])e to hokere (laugh thee to scorn). 272 Old. and Middle English. At p. 281 is deore cheap Jiefdes tu on me (a dear bargain liadst tliou in me !) ; the on or in here is much the same as auent, which is used so freely in this piece. The in thus employed reappears in our ' I was mistaken in you.' At p. 287 comes carpe (loqui). The former 'pweor (transversus) is seen as querfaste (p. 285), whence our queer ; a word that we still apply to the doings of a poor man that acts in an odd way ; if the man be rich, his doings become eccentric. The Scandinavian i rattes (in rags) is in page 277 ; the original word is rbgg (villus) ; this is a good example of the interchange between t or d and g. A version of the Ancren Riwle (shortly to be described) was compiled in Salop about this time. The interchange between ^«. and is plainly seen, when "tnor (palus) becomes mure, our moor, p. 328. The old haluhful (p. 114) was kept in the South, but in Salop it was cut down to haleful. In pronouncing shoidd, we drop the I ; this is seen in schuden at page 416. The old Genitive Plural licdgana (sanctorum) is strangely altered at p. 94; the hale'^ene of another version becomes here halehenes ; the Scotch have pre- served licdloimen, the one Genitive Plural of this kind left in our island.^ At p. 184 we find a henginge, the Verbal Noun struck oif from the Verb. The old slipur now becomes slihhri (slippery). A new x^djective is ^ I suspect that it has been preserved, from the Scotch mistaking the last syllable for cen, evening. Some parish churches in England were called All holla/ids (Omnium Sanctorum), and this name may perhaps be still alive. Middle EnglisJi : Ctdtivation, 273 formed from leosan ; this is loivse (solutus), the sound of which we have kept unaltered; in the Southern version this was written Teste. At p. 74, we see three different forms for labitur ; in Salop it is slides, in another county not far off slide^, in the South sUt. Salop preferred undertoc (p. 114) to underfangen, and the new overtohen to of token (p. 244). At p. 272 a Past Participle is turned into an Adverb by adding liche ; masedliche (stulte). A curious instance of the true Old English alliteration is to be found at p. 334 ; the men and ivummen and children of one text is altered into ivei-e and wif and wencliel. The Scandinavian ;ploli, gris, ivindoh, and ^lggi (timere), replace the suhth, jpig, ]ntrl, and agrupie of the South. ^ Salop has the new scratte^ (scratcheth), where the other version has sc/i/-epe6; here is the interchange between t and p. In this copy there are many French terms, such as awter (altar), brought in, where the other copies had Teutonic words. We now come to the Ancren Riwle (Camden Society), as compiled in the Dorset Dialect, about 1220. We can see that this is the original version by a sentence at p. 76, je ]>at pleie^ (luditis), an idea which well suits the context. In one copy of the piece, this Verb has been altered into the French pleide^ ; in the Salopian copy into the English synonym for pleid, moten ; in either case the sense of the passage has been mistaken. Reference is made in the Ancren Riwle to the earlier Legend of St. Margaret ; but the has made further encroachments on the a, as tvjo, whoso, no, lone for IceUy ^ From this Salopian gris (porous) comes our griskin, T 2/4 Old and Middle EnglisJi. (commodatnm), oien (oats), c?o^, 5ope, Uflode. The combination ea is mucli in use ; Icene (macer) becomes leane ; hlalie^ (ridet) turns into lauliwe^, tlie vowels of whicli we still keep ; it is like the name Staunton. Here there can be no doubt that au stands for the sound of the Italian a. The sounds of o and u in- terchange, for luogan becomes woioen, our ivoo ; inoli (satis) and sloli become inouh and slouli (slew) ; the changed sound of the o was kept at bay for long in the Eastern shires. Ou is here often written for the old u. The gest (vadis) of this version was altered into gas in Salop, and into the longer-lived gost in some county still further to the South East. The eo becomes i ; feol and seocnes are now seen as file and sicness ; it sometimes becomes e, for herd (pecus) replaces lieord. Indeed, in the lexicons, heord, herd, and hord are put down under the same head, as varying forms of one Old English word ; herd in the present work is set apart for pecus, while hord had long before been appropriated to thesaurus. Much in the same way feoh had stood for pecus (the kindredword), j9rcemmm, and divitice, all three. Led and spred are found here, and not the lad and sprad of more Northern shires. The old OAvel (subula) becomes aul ; it was written both oivel and ewel rather later in Dorset. The swelgan of old now becomes sivoluwe (swallow) ; the insertion of the Vow^el between I and lu is curious. The letter n is altogether cast out, when nemde (named) replaces the old nemnede. The t is added to the old grunan, w^hich becomes grunten. The hard g is often softened ; hcelg (venter) becomes heli ; stige (hara) becomes sti ; Men and weien are in the same Middle English: Cultivation. 275 case. This cj is often changed into a v: ; as sav'e (dictum) for sagu, volewen (sequi) for folgian, -^uwe^e for geogvj^^ vawenunge for fcegnung. This last is a good instance how the change of a Consonant can mark off a difference in the sense of a word ; the harmless fain and the base faion are both corruptions of the same word, the old fcegnian, which had the two senses gaudere and hlandiri. In one sentence, in p, 348, we see the two forms scotten and schotten (solvere) ; townsmen pay scot, sailors have a shot in the locker. The French c is employed for *•, as in Jcusce (osculum) ; also milce (misericordia). The I sometimes makes its way into a word ; menge^ (miscet) now becomes mangled ; on the other hand, hcelg is turned into hag. A usage of Orrmin's reappears ; the s now ends, not only the Genitive Singular, but the Genitive Plural ; thus in page 106 we read of ' her tears, and te o^e Maries.' The last word is Plural. We hear of St. Jame in p. 10 ; hence comes our Jem. At p. 412, we read, of ham is lutel st rename ; eighty years later, this was to be * of them is little force ; ' one hundred years later still, force would become matter. We read in p. 418 of a parish officer who looked after hedges; he is here called the heiward, and the proper name Hay^A'ard still lingers among us. Among the Adjectives appears untoicen (untrained), which was afterwards to become wanton, the un and the ivan having* the same meaning. The ending /tiZ was coming in; we here find pinful (painful) and dredful ; earlier endings were disappearing ; thus the ]wrniht of old was changed into ]wrni. In ston-stille (p. 414) we have a Substantive prefixed to give strength to an Adjective. The French T 2 2/6 Old and Middle English. seems to have given us mi deore (ma chere), p. 98, where the Adjective stands alone. At p. 258 we read, Ms earlich ariste ; here early for the first time becomes an Adjective ; it had hitherto been only an Adverb. In p. '\7Q we find a wholly new idiom, which must have come from France, replacing the old English Superlative, ]>e meste dredful secnesse of alle. This new form became very common in the following Century. In Pronouns : Orrmin's Jiimf, standing for the Latin Relative quod, is laid aside in favour of Inuuclie, the word that we still use for the Neuter Relative ; at p. 354 comes ]ieawes, hi liiDuclie tne climbed to ]>e hlisse. This was to be found thirty years later in Yorkshire as well as in Dorset. Tet this hwuche is almost always employed in the present work to stand for the kindred Latin qualis ; this old sense lasted in the West down to 1400, "We find ancren liwas hlisse (p. 348) ; this translation of quarum would have astonished an earlier generation. The an (one) is seen, as before, standing for sum 'man, aliquis; ter on ge^ (p. 252), ' where a man goes.' We now say ' your enemy,' but not ' your traitor ; ' this last is found at p. 194. Orrmin's new idiom of Verbs is repeated in p. 344; we hear of sins of gruccJumge, . . .of sitten to longe ; this last Infinitive is used as a Verbal Noun, something like the Infinitive with the Article in Greek. At p. 360 we see side by side the old Imperative and the later one formed with let) let o^re atiffen . . . abide we.^ Here the ^ We still sometimes use the older form : ' Come weal, come woe, -we'll gather and go.' ' Be Thine the glory, and be mine the shame.' How much more pith is there in these Imperatives than in the cum- hrous compound with Id I Middle English : Cultivation. 277 writer does not use the Plural ?e/e6 (sinite) in addressing Hs Anchoresses. The Participle is yoked, like an Adjective, to a Substantive ; we hear of the vallinde vuel (falling sickness) ; hence come our vjrithig materials^ and roany such flexible forms. A pithy phrase was once applied to our two last Stuart Kings : it was said of Charles that he ' could if he would ; ' of James, that * he would if he could.' On looking to the Ancren Riwle, p. 338, we read he tis tnei hioon he ivule, ]>e nolde hiuule ]>et he muhte. This seems to have been a byword well known in 1220. The Transitive Yerb stojj is found in p. 72. In p. 106 is the phrase hring to noiild, and also heren him veolauredden (company). At page 210 we hear of jugglers who are said to iiiakien cheres (make faces). "We find new Adverbs cropping up, such as et eiies (at once), eiies a zviJce, hu se et?er, hwerse ever, sumetiiine, soinuche^erO^er, hivorenhond (beforehand), 7ieverthelesse ; offeor was later to be written afar ; ealliuiga vvas replaced by utterliche^ which now took a new sense. The al beo (our albeit) is remarkable ; something of the same kind occurs in Middle High German ; the a I prefixed shows the completeness of the concession made. In p. 288 we see a mistake, repeated six hundred years later by Lord Macaulay in his Lays ; what should be written iiuis (certe) is turned into a Verb, J ivis. Our sqiimt is found for the first time in the Adverb asquint, p. 212. There is vtcele inouli, very bad; inouhre^e, very readily (page 86). A new Adverb, great! ij, crops up by the side of much ; see p. 426. Nout (non) is sometimes used for the old ne. Hwar ase is in p. 200, translating ubicunqiie. 2/8 Old and Middle English. We now say ' as narrowly as ever she can,' instead of tlie ase iiieriMiclie ase lieo ever viei (p. 414). The word sona (mox) has new offspring, sonre and sonest. An attempt is made to bring into vogue a new form, to do duty for a Preposition ; at p. 260 comes ' iiie stiide of in, his cradel herbarned him ; ' his cradle sup- plied the lack of an inn; in. his stead had been used before, but only referring to a person, not to a thing. The foi\ which would have been used earlier all over England, Englishes the kindred Latin per at p. 300 ; for this the other versions of the Ancren Riwle use wi^^ and ])urch. In p. 110 we mark how the old onefne came to be changed ; in the Salopian copy it is found as 07ievent. in the Dorset copy as onont, not far from our anent. In the same page we see how the old Preposition -^eond (per) was dropping out of use ; it was still employed in Dorset, but was replaced in one shire by over, in another by in. At p. 426 we find our common expression, ]>et fur (ignis) go ut. The of was encroaching ; in p. 106 we find the old vor his hive and the new vor })e htve of him. The old hac-slitor now becomes hachbiter ; there are also cheffare (chaffer), overturn, withdraw, withhold. A new Substantive is formed from treow ; this is triws, onr truce. Our JEmher days, the Scandinavian Imbru- dorjar, appear for the first time in the guise of umhridei; this and U7nquhile are the sole survivors in English of the many words formed from our lost preposition umhe, the Greek amphi ; the old umstrolce (circumference) lasted down to 1660. At page 46 comes gluffen (to blunder), from the Icelandic glop (incuria) ; hence perhaps 'to cZnt?) a regiment.' Soi'h (dolor) had taken Middle EnglisJi : Cultivation. 279 the shape of seoruwe in Dorset, but it remained sorlie in Salop (see page 64). The old rcecen<^e becomes ringinde (page 140), whence onr ranfjing} In page 128, we are told that a false nun ' chefle$ of idel ; ' hence have arisen to chatter and to chaff. Toiyle (cadere) seems to be formed from toj) (caput) ; hence comes our topple. The East Midland dialect was pushing its conquests into the South, for many Scandinavian words are found for the first time in this work ; as Choupfh Kofa, Icelandic Crop, cai'pcre Kroppa, Icelandic Dog Doggr, Icelandic Dusk Dulsk, Danish Flask (Jiash) Flaksa, Swedish, ];olitare Groom Gromv, Icelandic Mased, delirus Masa, Old Norse, to chatter con- . fiiscdly 7 Muwlen, grow moiddy Mygla, Icelandic Shy Skj'gg, Swedish Scowl Skule, Danish SkuU Skal, Danish Scraggy Ski-ekka, Norse Sluggish Sloeki, Norse Smoulder Smul, Danish, i^^dvis AVituea Vitna, Icelandic, testari Many an Old English word has been driven out by these Scandinavian strangers. Moreover, I add a list of many words, which Southern England had in common with our Dutch and Low German kinsmen, England ^eems now to have rid herself of her old prejudice ' So in the Jja,tm, J icngo is formed from, jiiyo, and lingo from lico. 280 Old and Middle English. against beginning words with the letter f we were rather later to turn the Scandinavian hroddr (acnleus) into prod. Bounce, punch Bouzen PuiF Poffen Brink Brink Pick Picken, to use a Cackle Kakelen shajp tool Cleppe, dapper- Klappe Pack Pack Costnede, cost Kosten Scrape Schrapen Our^ Korre Snatch Snacken Gio:gle Giggen Spat, macula Spat Ha- Hacke Squint Squinte Hurl Horrelen Toot Toeten, hloiv a Pig- Bigge horn Pot Pot Tattle Tatelu We find also in this work harlot, a vagabond, from the Welsh herlaivd, a youth ; the word is used by Chaucer without any bad sense ; Shakspeare has ' harlotry players.' From the same Celtic source come cudgel and griddle, now first seen in English ; also hahan, our hahe. Peoddare, a pedlar, is also found for the first time ; Eorby derives it from ped, which in Norfolk is a covered pannier.^ There are many words in the Ancren Riwle, which, as Wedgwood thinks, are formed from the sound ; such as geiugaiv, chatter. The adjective in Shakspeare's ' little cwifer fellow ' is found in the Aucren Riwle ; it seems to come from the old cof (impiger). In p. 106 comes the new verb hlindfellen, which we have corrupted into hUndfold. ' This, as now, might express a poltroon. 2 The ending are proves that we ought to write, not pedler, but jpedlar ; the word is sometimes given as a puzzle in spelling. Middle English : Cultivation. 281 The Third version 01 the Ancren Riwle may have been drawn np in Warwickshire ; at any rate, it cannot have been done far to the South of the Great Line. The clokes of Salop become the more Southern cleches (clntches), p. 174. There is a great clipping of Conso- nants in Jialpenes and^enz (p. 96). The ending er was coming into vogue ; the old cerendraca became eriiide-here in Dorset, and erende beorere in the present version ; we also find the new word luffer (amator). For talis the Pronoun ]iullich was used (p. 44) ; yillce was coming in to express iste^ ])iUce fu'^eles is used at p. 14, where the Dorset version has ])eo ilTce fuiveles. In p. 68 this leads to a mistake ; the Dorset version has i^en ilke huse, o^er Iper &c. (in eadem domo autubi), but the present version has in Tpilhe Mis 'per (in ista domo ubi). This|>z?7te, used instead of Orrmin's ]mf, soon spread into Gloucester- shire, where in 1300 it is found as ]HilJie.^ At p. 26 we see the first instance of al o^er sum, the source of Dryden's forcible all and some ; the siim^ stands for one, ' one and all.' At p. 222 we find oxiv flatter for the first time, the Scandinavian fla'bra ; in Salop the word was not understood, for it is changed into falter, making nonsense ; in Dorset it isflaker. In a Southern Creed of this time (' Reli quite An- tiquse,' I. 282) wamhe becomes icumhe ; we still sound this u in the old way, though we write it u-07nh ; iche here stands for what was elsewhere written eche (quis- * In this shire thulk, or thucJc, seems to have been used for iste, "while thilk or thick changed its meaning to express hie. A Grlouces- tershire witness has been heard to say ' it was not thick wi as hit thuck un, but thuck un as hit thick un^ 282 Old and Middle English. que) ; we still keep tMs old sound of tlie i in pronounc- ing eacli. We have now beheld the changes wrought by 100 years ; the most weighty may be seen in the three short words, "much sliijp-oivning , for inycel, scijy, agen ; here the old sounds y, c, sc, a, and g have been all altered. Middle English: Neglect. 283 CHAPTER IV. THE MIDDLE ENGLISH. — NEGLECT. 1220-1280. Up to this time, 1220, English had been fairly well cnltivated ; it was now to be thrown aside by the en- lightened English public, as something altogether in- ferior to French or Latin. The disastrous period that "we are now about to consider is illustrated by very few EngHsh writers ; things were very different before 1220, and were, moreover, to be very different after 1280. Anyone, who reads -with due heed the specimens given in this chapter, will see that the obsolete terms by degrees become fewer in number ; in other words, much old Teutonic is being swept away. We begin, as before, with THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT. (About A.D. 1230.) I first call attention to a poem — The Bestiary- — that is printed in Dr Morris's Old English Miscellany (Early English Text Society). This poem is very nearly the same in its dialect as the Genesis and Exodus (Early English Text Society), a piece which Dr. Morris refers to Suffolk. The common marks of the East Midland 284 Old a7id Middle English. speecb. are found in both : the Present Participle ends in ande in the one case, in both ande and ende in the other ; the Plural of the Present tense ends in en^ or is dropped altogether, as liave instead of haven ; the Prefix to the Past Participle comes most seldom. The Northern Prepositions fra and til are found. The Bestiary bears some resemblance to the Proverbs of Alfred; it is a translation made much about the time that King' Henry the Third was beginning to play the part of Rehoboam in England, having got rid of his wise counsellors.^ Here we find the Old English sinden (sunt) for almost the last time ; on the other hand, what Orrmin wrote all ane (solus) has now become olon ; we also see 'ones (formerly wnes), the Latin semel. The Southern had long driven out the old Northern a in these Eastern shires. We find Orrmin's substitution of for on always recurring here, as live. But what he calls hracc (fregit) is seen in the present poem as hroTue ; our version of the Scriptures has adopted the former, our common speech the latter. We also find ut turned into out ; we saw something of the kind in the Proverbs of Alfred. Fugelas is pared down to fides (fowls). The old s2)lot (which meant both tnacula and locus^ here loses its l, though we still talk of a splotch. The Bestiary refers to * Now we have for the first time a new English metre, with the alternate lines riming : — ' His mil's is get wel unku^ Lidden bone to Gode, wi^ pater noster and crede ; and tus his mu'5 rigten, fare he nor^, er fare he su^, tilen him so "Se sowles fode, leren he sal his nede ; ^urg grace oif ure drigtin.' Middle Eiiglish: Neglect. 285 the Panther's spottes ; the Genesis and Exodus calls the Red Sea (p. 93) a salte spot. The poet prefers hirdeio (onus) to hyrf>en. At page 14 of The Bestiary a Verbal Noun is formed from the word fox ; the Devil do^ a foxing (dolus). This formation of Verbal Nouns was soon to become very common in the Dano-AngHan shires. A confusion was now arising between the endings of Adjectives and those of Adverbs ; we have long found it awkward to write godlily, formed from godly ; the East Anglian writers kept the old Adjective reuU (maestus), but formed the new Adverb reufidike, p. 21; the/?tZwas rapidly spreading through England. In p. 18 the Adjective mirie (merry) is used as an Adverb ; mirie ge singed. At p. 18 we find on leng^e it sal him rewen ; the first two words stand for in the end ; we see how we came to English tandem by at length. In p. 13 husehond takes a third sense besides those of conjux and paterfamilias ; it now means colonus, whence comes our hicshandman, which was expressed in the oldest English by honda} The old teorian (deficere) becomes tirgen at p. 12, where an elephant is said to tire. We find here for the first time horlic (burly) applied to elephants ; it is akin to the High German purllh. The word diver (clever) is applied to the Devil. ]\Ir. Wedgwood says it comes from claiv ; hence it in this passage has the sense of nimhle- fingered, much as rapidus comes fi'om rapio. The Adjective /i>ie, the Icelandic^mi, is seen here for the first time. The word sinite (snout), ' Lever, more than three hundred years later, used husband for colonus. 286 Old and Middle EnHish £>' used of the elephant, is akin to a German word ; as also is lic/cen (manere), p. 16. The old English ceafl is now found in the shape of chaiiel (in the account of the whale) : it is not far from our joivl. The Second Person Singular of the Perfect of the Strong Verb undergoes the change already marked in the Lindisfarne Grospels. What in Old English was J)w hehte, is turned at page 6 into tu liigtest (pollicitus es). In an East Anglian Creed of this time (' Reliquio^ Antiquee,' I. 234), we find ure onelic lover d, written where Orrmin would have used the old anleph, (unicus) for the second word. Thus a new form drove out an older one. However, in the oldest English we find the Adverb dnlice used for solum. In the Version of Genesis and Exodus, there is an interchange between a and e ; we find both fer and far, Jiali and heli. Orrmin's mcr^denhad hecomes maidenlied. A replaces cb ; slcelit and stcerf become slagJit and star/. The ea turns into ei, for we find eilond (insula) ; est (manducavit) becomes at (p. 97). The i is clearly opposed to the Southern u ; we meet Jciss, unhinde, and ])ride ; the Icelandic systir (soror), here written sister, (p. 109), is preferred to the Southern suster; the Old English had the form sweostor. The i kept its own sound, when coupled with a, in Sinai, for this is made to rime with hi (p. 96) ; fir (ignis) becomes fier; the ie was here no longer pronounced like the French e, for we meet with both drige and drie (aridus). We find both ^is and ^ese for the Latin Plural hi ; we now pronounce the word in the former way, and write it in the latter way. The old yldeste now becomes eldest ; and Middle English: Neglect. 287 titt (mamma) becomes tette, our teat. On the other hand, teo'6e (decimus) is seen as tig'&e ; hence onr tithe. The poet is fond of doubling his vowels, as in mood and feet. The combination oa appears, but the latter vowel was sounded, for at p. 117 ^oa is made to rime with Fas(/a; much as Escm rimes with ru (p. 44). The 0, creeping up from the South, often replaced a ; w^e find almost^ frowardf hoi, ivro^, lo^, bond, solde, and soi'l; there is even sowen (viderunt), at p. 88. The goven (dederunt), not gaven, suggests the ' he guv,' so well known to us. The old mcenan (queri), still written 77ie/ie in other shires, became inone in East Anglia ; wceron (erant) was written loore, which is still alive in some parts ; and cer (ante) makes room for or, p. 47, which is kept in our Bible ; or ever &c. But the had often to give place to 11 ; we see widde for wolde (voluit), muste for moste, slug for sloh, ynug for genoh. Both word and ivurd stand for verhum. Nu is once seen as nou, and tun as toivn. There is a tendency to contract words by throwing out vowels ; as hid, Jilt, set, fed. This clipping is equally apparent in the Consonants : great havoc is made with the letter / ; had comes as well as haved ; there is ha^, and Orrmin's ]nc hafst now becomes ]nc as (p. 51) ; sidde a sen is written for shoidd have seen at p. 78. The word evermore is found as ernwre at p. 9, whence comes our poetical contraction e'er for ever. Lord sometimes replaces Orrmin's laferd, and leman stands for leofnan. Other letters are thrown out ; we find forhi, or, and be ive ; at p. 71 we see both the old birigeles (sepulchrum) and the new biriele, our burial ; hagol (grando) becomes hail. On the other hand, 2S8 Old and Middle Eno^lish. a' we are stmck by tlie poet's sturdy cleaving to tlie Old English gutturals g and A; at the beginning of words. So, in the Bestiary, we find gevenlike, where the writer has gone out of his way to prefix a g before what was efen in English, iafn in Scandinavian. It is East Anglia that has kept these hard letters alive. But for these shires, whose spelling Caxton happily followed, we should now be writing to yive (donare), to yet (adipisci), ayain (iterum), and yate (porta). ^ We have unluckily followed Orrmin's corruption in yield, yelp, yearn^ and young. These East Anglians talked of a dyke (fossa), when all Southern England spoke of a ditch. Orrmin's dTulili]>e is now turned into drugte (drought), which we have followed. The most remarkable change is deigen (mori), instead of deye. There is also the Peterborough gede (ivit), frigt, nigenti, turogt, and, still more wonderful, preige (p. 114) for prceda. But even into Suffolk the Southern tu was forcing its way. We find owen (proprius) as well as ogen, and folwen (sequi) as well as folgen. Owing to the changes of letters in different shires, we sometimes have two words where our forefathers had but one, each word with its own shade of meaning. ' To drag a man out * is difierent from the phi^ase ' to dravj a man out : ' the hard North is here opposed to the softer South. More- over, we may speak of a dray horse. Our Standard English is much the richer from having sprung up in ' Our proper name Yeatman (ostiarius) cannot have arisen in East Anglia. It is curious that some people say ingwn and bayonet, instead of onion and bayonet, putting in a letter hard to pronounce. Meg Merrilies says, ' Sair I ])rigged and prayed.' Middle English: Neglect. 289 shires widely apart. As if the foregoing variations of drag were not enough, we have borrowed the kindred trig-ger from Germany. Some of the other consonants were undergoing change. The/eiS (fides) found here, represents the Old French Jeicl, which was early lost in France (about the Eleventh Century) ; fei was the commoner form, especially in the oath jyar ma fay. The contrary change takes place when cic^e (potuit) becomes atcZe, which we unluckily no longer spell aright ; the same change takes place in hurden and hventide ; )>eo/5 (furtnm) turns into ^efte ; both ]>yf^ and ]>yft existed in Scandinavia. The Peterborough scce (ilia) now becomes sche or she ; cwen is turned into guen. This -qu was favoured in East Anglia as much as in Scotland ; quow replaces hu^ and the former lasted two hundred years, as we see by the Paston Letters. The li at the €nd of a word is clipped ; Orrmin's fe is repeated, OUT fee \ ruli, our rough, is seen as ru at p. 44; this clipping of the final guttural went on all over the South. The c is thrown out, for macod (factus) becomes made, as in Salop ; seal turns into sal, as in Scotland ; this is just the reverse of the old seo turning into scce (she) abont 1160. The former gesamuian (congregare) becomes semelen (p. 110) ; here the kindred French word must have had some influence. The turtre of the Bestiary is changed into turtul (p. 27) in the present work; the Scandinavian had the two forms turturi and turtildufa. The r is added to a word ; hunter (the Scandinavian Imndter) and tilier (p. 43) replace the old hunta and tilia. The n is clipped at the end of a Participle, as do for don (factum) ; this is found in the Paston Letters. u 290 Old and Middle English. This letter is sometimes added, for oft becomes often (p. 109) and ahnildi becomes almiktin, a change which for a time spread all over the North ; the n is inserted, for daigening replaces dagung ; it is replaced by m, for seldon becomes seldum (seldom). The t is added, for "Simjrian (adversari) is found as divert (p. 38) ; the S is added, for stalu (fartnm) becomes stal^e. The insertion of d after n in the middle of a word is curious ; thig is- done for the sake of ease ; ^iinor becomes Sunder, and what was elsewhere written cunrede is here written Ivindred ; aire (omnium) gives place to aldre (p. 10) ; this form lasted to 1600. On the other hand, d is some- times dropped ; we find gol prenes (golden pins). The connexion between 2) and t is very plain, when jjodes m written for toads at p. 85 ; hence the Scotch iniddocli. Milk becomes milche at p. 79, the source of our milch cows ; tvreche and tvrahe, two forms of the same w^ord, are fonnd in line 552. As to Substantives : Orrmin's sense of ivorld was coming in ; we find at p. 4, mlddel luerld used for the old TYhiddan eard. The Latin causa nsed to be Englished by ]>ing, which lasted down to 1340 ; but sahe is now en- larging its meaning ; at p. 106 we find for is saJce. We know our common on the spot for ]}rotenus ; at p. 94, Moses throws a tree into the bitter water, which becomes sweet on 6e stede. At p. 10, in so nianie times, we see a substitute for so often ; at p. 88 comes hiseh God, ^is one sii&e (time) ; at p. 30 is ' I shall come ^is time o^er ger;' that is, 'this time in the second year,' 'a year hence.' The Accusative replaces the old Genitive in on ger sep (p. 89) 'a sheep of one year.' The same case Middle English: Neglect. 291 becomes prominent in liis name wur^ a lettre mor (p. 29), which would have been written formerly 'it became more (longer) by a letter.' At p. 73 we see the source of our 'go full speed,' where we drop a preposition; it is said that the Hebrews luaxen michil sped. The confusion between Dative and Accusative is very plain in to fecheii Ysaac Jiom a ivif (p. 39). At p. 43 we read of rights, ^e que^en hen 'Se Jirme sunes (which are promised the first- born sons). The English was becoming more and more terse, as we see in this piece. A new Substantive is formed in p. 62 ; hi cjure hering (your carriage) men mai it sen. Another is formed from the word ridan at p. 112, luente he his ride, the Scandinavian rei^. In compounding Adjectives, the ful of the South was employed, as dredful and friatt an and \att o^er is seen here in a new guise. Two likenesses ... he Gaf hire Se ton. — Page 77. Dis on wulde don 6e to^er wrong. — Page 78. At p. Q^ comes quat-so-evere ; at p. 60 quilJce is used, as in the Ancren Riwle, for the Neuter Relative. The o2 is much employed in strengthening phrases, as al Se hettre, p. 66. The great change in Numerals is that score is used for twenty ; it comes from the old habit of shearing or scoring notches on wood up to twenty. The Celts, Danes, and French counted something in this style, which was now first used in English. In p. 91 we read — ^Gon woren VII score ger.' At p. 97, the Numeral thousand is used as if it were a Noun ; ilc ^usent adde a tneister wold. A new idiom is in p. 44 ; an hundred so mikel wex his tile ; of old the first four words would have been expressed thus, hj/ hundred fold. As to Verbs, we find an old idiom revived after a long sleep ; ^efolc reste dede (p. 57) ; here did rest stands for rested ; seventy years later this usage of do and did hecame veiy common. In the Old English we find Middle English: Neglect. 293 sentences like ' wished him (to) be named ; ' this use of the Infinitive Passive is now coupled with the Verb hid ; at p. 74 Pharaoh's daughter had it hen brogt. The Past Participle had always been used with an Accusative after Transitive Verbs, Hke see ; this usage now began to embrace Intransitive Verbs ; at p. 48 is ^iigte it him misdon; ' it seemed to him misdone (^peccatum^^. The Passive Voice was spreading its conquests ; at p. 24 comes woven he hre^re sivoren ; ' they were sworn brothers;' at p. 110 comes 6e desert aren he lualkeden ^urg ; * they are walked.' We see the old use of like in him mnislihed ^at (p. 50) ; also the new use as in the Proverbs of Alfred, where the Verb changes its con- struction and becomes Transitive : Balaac misliked al 'Sis queSe, And ledde hem Sec. — Page 114. The Verb heget is seen both in its old sense, adipisci, and in its new sense gignere ; this last has driven out the old cennan. At p. 21, we see he higat a sune. A new Verb, in ^at hifel Sarrai, is used for the old gelimpen (accidere). Up to this time, niiiian had meant capere ; it here acquires the further sense of zVe, and this is one of the peculiar marks of the East Midland Dialect for the next hundred years ; our get has now both of the Latin meanings I have named. The Verb taJce is used in the same sense at p. 50 ; Laban toe and icente and folvjede on ; this sense of take is still alive ; it may be fm^ther seen in overtake. Orrmin's phrase of taking vjith a woman is repeated ; and at page 63 we hear of taking leave. When we hear that Lot's wife ivente in to a ston 294 Old and Middle English. (p. 32), it suggests tliat of the two old meanings of weiidan, the Latin ire and mutare, the latter is most present to onr minds in the phrase, ' he went into a rage.' The Verb do is mnch used ; we hear that Adam and Eve were don ut of Paradis (ejecti sunt). This must be the phrase that suggested our modern expression for cheating. At p. 69 comes it ivur^ mid Mm don (actum est de). At p. 101 the Israelites deden Aaron in age, ' put in fear.' At p. 109 they deden fin, ' made an end,' or ' died.' But mahe is beginning to encroach upon this do ; the people inaden suriuren (sojourn) in 'Se desert (p. 94). At p. 72, we see that the hard East Anglian form icaJce (vigilare) was to be set apart for one special meaning, while the Southern corruption watch was to be in more common use ; Joseph's body was icaJced after death. Clip is used in Orrmin's Scandinavian sense of tondere, not in the Old English sense of amplecti ; the Scandi- navian shift (mutare) comes at p. 50. When we see stinl-en smoke at p. 34, where the Participle has lost the de at its end, we understand how easily Layamon's corruption of ing for inde must have spread through England, and how easily the Infinitive and the Active Participle were confounded. A new Verb, which we still keep, is seen in p. 41 ; Isaac was mourning, but Eliezer e^^ede his sorge. This new for- mation from ea^e (facilis) may have been confounded with the French aaisier. Long before Chaucer's time it was settled that in this Verb we should use the French s, and not the Old English ^. Our uneasiness was formerly written unea^nes. Among the Adverbs are found quilum (ohm), which Middle English: Neglect. 295 had long been known in Yorkshire. This word, coming South, may have had some share in driving the old htviles (aliquando) away from the South. Another Yorkshire idiom is a stede wor (ubi), instead of the old ]>cer (p. 57). There are also moreover^ hi time (betimes). The e, that of old marked off the Adverb from the Adjective, is clipped in page 96; AmaleJc fagt (fought) hard. But the ending like was still in use, and was even tacked on to a French Adjective, as festelike (hilariter), p. 97. The old nii \>a (just now) is altered at p. 45 ; Esau is told, 'Sm broker was her nu. There is a great change in p. 113 ; Balaam gede qui (le) hute for^i^ ' he went but a moment for that purpose.' Here bute stands for nonnisi ; in the oldest English a ne must have come before the Verb. Orrmin had constantly used the ne compounded with Verbs, as nam, nis, and many such ; but our fine old compounds were now waning away throughout Ease Anglia. In this poem nil and nolde alone are left : we still say, luill he, nill he; a weighty link with the Latin volo, nolo.^ In Prepositions, of is further extended; at p. 47 is of '^is stede ic sal munen (remember) ; Dr. Guthrie, in his Life, constantly writes ' 1 remember of it ; ' our more classic rem.ind of is akin to this. Bisiden seems to get the new sense jjrceter, as well as its old sense jiixta ; at page 104 the Israelites, who had received light from heaven, were consumed with fire ; it is said, fier is on hem hisiden ligt. Amang or among is now turned into amougus, p. 47. The ofdun, which was now well estab- ' It is curious to find English more primitive than Gothic in this matter. Our old ndst '^u (nonne scis) is found in Ulfilas as niu waist (St, John xix. 10), 296 Old and Middle Eiiglish. lislied as diin^ is nsed more like a Preposition than an Adverb in lie figten dun Tierhi, p. 101, like onr down there. We find the ivel^e of King Alfred's Proverbs, the diuell of Orrmin, and the Salopian ?(;m(^02t?, here repeated. Readers of ' David Copperfield ' will remember that the Suffolk peasantry speak of a house as a heein ; this is explained by the Scandinavian higging, so well known in Scotland. At p. 90 we read that ivas non higing of al Egyijte without a corpse. This word kept its right spelling in East Anglia down to 1440 ; since then the g in the middle has been softened down. In page 61 Orrmin's verb cla])e7in (vestire) takes the Past Participle clad ; this is the Scandinavian Idceddr^ the Participle of Jdce^a ; we still keep this form, as well as Chaucer's clothed. There are other Scandinavian words found here, such as Busk, bush Buskr, Icelandic Dream, sommum'^ Draumr, Icelandic Glint Glanta, Swedish Levin, ligJdening ^ Lygne, Norse Muck Mykr, Icelandic Ransack Ransaka, Norse Rapen, to hurry, rap out Rapa, Norse Rospen, rasp Raspa, Swedish Skie ^ Sky, cloiid, Norse ' The Okl English dream meant only sonus or gaudium, and is so used in the Besfiary. - This is a curious instance of the interchange between g and/. ^ This as yet only means in English a cloud, and this sense of the •word lasted till Chaucer's time. Til skyia in Norse means ' up in the sky.' Twenty years after the present poem's date sky stood for acr in Yorkshire. Middle English: Neglect. 297 Spy Speja, Icelandic Tine, lose Tina, Norse Ugly '[J^^ffriyhteii, Norse We find the word irh for the first time ; it is akin to the German erhen (fastidire). Of manna he hen for/i irked to eten. — Page 104. We see, in p. 35, ' hem gan Sat water lahen ' (the water began to fail them). This new word for deesse is akin to the Dutch laeche (defect). In p. 26^ we find mention of tol and talcel and orf. The second of these Substantives comes from the Welsh taclau, accou- trements. Our word sJci}) comes from the Welsh ysgip (a quick snatch) ; hence locusts are called shifperes^ p. 88. At p. 88, Pharaoh uses the Interjection, Tiu ! when enraged Avith Moses ; this must have come from the French comment. What Orrmin had called ollfentess (a Teutonic usage of 800 years) now appears as kameles (p. 39) ; the old yJp was not to hold its ground much longer. The old dralce (draco) is written by the side of the new French dragun. A form like Egypcienis shows how the Old English endings of proper names were dying out. In p. 94 the road is said to be ]jert ; this form of the French aperf is strangely altered in our day as regards its meaning. We read of Abraham, p. 29, entertaining the angels with flures bred ; we now wisely make a difference when spelling Jlour and floiver. We see the French Verb lie sacrede, at p. 27, with its English ending ; the Past Participle of this has become so common that we now use it as an Adjective. This poem seems to have been written about 1230, and to 298 Old and Middle English. have been transcribed seventy years later ; by tbat time many of the old words had died out ; thus wcest'ni, luasteme (forma) conveyed no meaniDg to the trans- criber, who writes it was])ene. A Norfolk lad is referred to the Lanercost Chronicle for 1244, as bearing the name of WiUe (Willy), the short of William ; the intermediate form must have been the Willehin, found about 1190. THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT. (About A.D. 1230.) ACC0U]S^T OF THE FlOOD.1 Do * wex a flod 6is werlde wid-hiu and ouer-iiowged men & dares ^ kin wi^uteu'^ Noe and hise &e suuen, Sem, Cam, laphet, if we rigt munen,^ and here ^ foure wifes woren hem wi(5 ; (Sise viii hadden in 6e arche griS.^ Dat arche was a feteles ^ good, set and limed agen 6e flood ; Sre hundred elne was it long, nailed and sperd,*^ Sig and strong, and 1*' elne wid, and xxx*' heg'; ^or buten Noe long swing he di-eg""; an hundred winter, everic del,^ welken or"^ it was ended wel; of alle der Se on werlde wunen,'^ and foueles, weren fierinne cmuen bi seven and seven, or by two & two, Almigtin God him bad it so, and mete quorbi ° 6ei migten liven, Sor quiles he p woren on water driven. ^ Then ** animals •= except ^ consider e their ^ peace s vessel ^ closed ' high ^ bore toil 1 bit ™ passed ere n dwell o whereby p they Genesis and Exodus, p. 16 (Early English Text Society). Middle English : Neglect. 299 sexe liuudred ger Noe was hold 1 Quail he dede ■" him in 6e arche-wold. Two Susant ger, sex hundred mo, and sex and fifti forfi to 60,* weren of werldes elde numen * San " Noe was in to cSe arche ciimen. lie * wateres springe here strengSe imdede, and reyne jrette ^ dun on everilk stede fowerti dais and fowerti nigt, so wex water wi5 magti migt. so wunderlike it wex and get 6at fiftene elne it overllet, over ilk dune,^ and over ilc hil, Shurge Godes migt and Godes wil ; and 0(^er fowerti fSore-to, dais and nigtes stod et so ; So was ilc fieis * on werkle slagen, So gunnen'' Se wateres him wicVdragen. De sevend moned was in cumen, and sevene and xx^' dais numen, in Armenie Sat arche stod, So was wi6-dragen Sat ilc "" flod. Do Se tende moned came in, so wurS dragen Se watres win ^ ; dunes wexen, Se flod wiiS-drog, It adde lasted long anog.*" Fowerti dais after Sis, arches ivindof/e undon it is, Se raven ut-fleg/ hu so it gan hen, ne ^ cam he nogt to Se arche agen. Se duve fond ^ no clene stede, and wente agen and wel it dede ; Se seveudai eft ut it tog,' and hrogt a grene olives hog ; ^ seve nigt siSen ' everilc on he is let ut flegen,™ crepen, and gon, wiSuten ° ilc sevend clene der Se he sacrede on an aucter.° qoid "•put * beside those t taken " when ^ each y pouretl * mountain » flesh *> began = same ^ force e enough ' flew out e nor ^ found • went ^ bough 1 afterwards «n to fly " except o altar 300 Old and Middle English. Sex hundred ger and on dan olde Noe sag p ut of 6e arche-wolde ; p looked ■Se first moned and te first dai, lie sag erSe drie & te water awai ; get lie was wis and nogt to rad ; *i ** quick gede ^ lie nogt ut, til God liim bad. ' went THE CONTRAST TO THE EAST mDLAXD. (About A.D. 1230.) Ar ne kuthe icli sorgbe non, Nu icli mot inauen nun mon, Karful wel sore icli syclie ; Geltles ihc tbolve mucliele schame : Help God for tliiu swete name, Ivjng of lievene-riclie. Jesu Crist, sod God, sod man, Loyerd, tliu rew upon me, Of prisun thar icli in am Bring me ut and makre fre. Icli and mine feren sume, God wot icb ne lyglie noct. For otlire liabbet misuome, Ben in tliys prison ibroct. Almicti, that wel licth. Of bale is hale and bote, Hevene king, of this woning Ut us bringe mote. Foryhef hem, the wykke men, God, yhef it is thi wille, For wos gelt we bed ipelt In thos prisun hille. Ne hope non to his live, Her ne mai he belive^ Middle English : Neglect. 30 1 Heghe thegli he stighe, Ded Mm felled to grunde. Nu had man wele and blisce, Rathe he shal tharof misse, Worldes wele mid ywise Ne lasted buten on stimde. Maiden, that bare the heven king, Bisech thin sone, that swete thing, That he habbe of hus rewsing, And bring us of this woning For his muchele misse ; He bring hus ut of this wo, And hus tache werchen swo, In those live go wu sit go, That we moten ev and o Habben the eche blisce. The above poem is taken from the Liber de Antiqnis Legibus (' Reliquiae Antiquse,' I. 274), in the possession of the Corporation of London ; the manuscript has musi- cal notes attached to it. The proportion of obsolete English is much the same as in the Genesis and Exodus. The poem of page 300 seems therefore to represent the London speech of the year 1230, or so. What was cj in Suf- • folk becomes c here, as in the Twelfth Century Homilies ; it is hrod^ not hrogt; gelt replaces gilt, as in Kent. The 7; is sometimes misused, even as Londoners of our day misuse it. The gli sometimes replaces the old li, as we saw in the Essex Homilies : this change was now overspreading the greater part of the Eastern side of England between London and York. The change of ]> into d in many words is curious. The form hahhen (habere) is a mark of the South. 302 Old and Middle English. THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT. (About A.D. 1240.) The piece that comes next, a version of the Athanasian Creed, was most likely written in the ^Northernmost part of Lincolnshire, perhaps not far from Hull. We see the Northern forms in gi'eat abundance ; thus whilh is used for the Relative; als, til, sal, Ip air, &c., come often : the third Person Singular of the Present tense ends in es, not in efh ; hes (orit) replaces the old heo^. But the Southern o was making great inroads on the Northern a, as we saw in East Anglia ; in this piece we find so, non, no mo, wTios, ])Oio (tamen), lu/^o so ; in short, the whole poem foreshadows Manning's riming Chronicle. The a becomes e, as in the Northern Gospels ; heli (sanctus) replaces liali. The g is turned into yli ; and many endings are clipped. The Participle geboren is cut down to horn. The writer who Englished this Creed has little love for outlandish words ; sauf, sengellic, and jpersones are the only three specimens of French here found : he commonly calls jpersones by the obsolete name It odes. The deep theological terms of the Creed could still be expressed in sound English ; though the writer's mihel does not wholly convey the sense of our incom]3re- liensible. We see our hifore-said for the first time. Bot (sed) and tvltJi (cum) are preferred to their other English synonyms, as in Orrmin's writings. Unlike that poet, our present author will seldom use ne for the Latin non ; he prefers noht, as in the East Anglian pieces : but he once has nil (iiolunt). We see the Participle lastend, Middle Ejiglish: Neglect. 303 which Orrmin would have used. The new heaud (the French etant) replaces the old vjesende. This Creed, short though it be, shows us two gi'eat changes that were taking root in our spelling ; h was being turned, as in Essex, into yh, and u into oil One or two instances of these changes may be seen in the East Midland poems of 1230 ; but the alteration is now well marked. We see riyht, itoght, and thurijht, instead of the old riht^ uoht, and thurli. These words must have been pronounced with a strong guttural sound, which may still be heard in the Scotch Lowlands ; there riglit is sounded much like the German reclit. Tlioh is in this Creed written ])of, a sure mark of the North ; and this shows us how cough and rough came to be pronounced as they are now.^ The letters h and/ for rather p') are aldn to each other ; the primitive Aryan Tiatvar is the Gothic fid Ivor (four), and the Lithuanian dvnj-Ulca is our tvjd-lifa (twelve). With us, Livomo becomes Leghorn; and in Aberdeenshire hv;a (the Latin quis) is pronounced fa. EAST MIDLAND. (a.d. 1240.) Who ])at |ien will berihed * be, " saved So of ]>e jiriiines ^^ leve he, ^ Trinity And nede at hele '^ |)at last ai sal ' salvation Dat ])e fleshede ^ ai with al ^ incarnation Of om-e louerd Jhu Crist for])i ^ " therefore Dat he trowe it trewH. ' Why should cough be sounded differently from plough ? ' I hare 304 Old and Middle English. 8 begotten •^ reasonable Den ever is trautli ^ right ' belief Dat we leve with alle oure miht Dat oure loiierd Jhu Crist in blis Godes son and man he his, God of Mnde of fadir kinned ^ werld hiforn, Man of kinde of moder into werld born, FuUi God, fidli man livand Of schilful ^ saule and mannes flesshe beand, Even to the Fadir jnirght godhede, Lesse ]>en Fader |)urght manhede, Dat ])of he be God and man, Noght two ]n'W8e])er ' is, bot Crist an, On, noht jiurght wendinge "" of Godhed in flesshe, ^ changing Bot ])urght takynge of manhede in godnesshe, On al, noht be meuginge of stayehiess,^ Bot ]mrht onhede of hode ™ ])at is, Dat ]7oled " for our hele, doun went til helle, De ])red dai ros fro dede so felle, Upstegh ° til heven, sittes on right hand Of God Fadir alle mightand. And yhit for to come is he To deme ])e quik and dede that be, Ate whos come alle men ])at are Sal rise with paire bodies J^are, And yelde sal ]>ai, nil pai ne wil, Of ]jair awen p dedes il. And ])at wel haf doun ])at dai Sal go to lif ]mt lastes ai. And ivel haf doun sal wende still 1 substance "> person " suffered o went np Pown a cow in my box,' said a Frenchman, meaning a cough in his chest. In the short HQntence, a dough-faced 2^loughrnnn, coughing and hic- coughing, went thoughtfidly through Loughborough, we find ough sounded in eight different ways. The Scotch still sound rough and the proper name Brough as if the names ended in kh; this was, until lately, the usage in the Yorkshire dales. Middle English: Neglect. 305 In fire lastend withouten ende. Dis i3 ]?e trauht pat heli 1 isse, "^ iioiy Whilk hot' ilkon with miht liisse ' unless Trewlic and fastlic trowe lie, Saufe ne mai lie never be.^ THE CONTRAST TO THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT. (About A.D. 1240.) The Owl and Nightingale. — Line 993. Yut ]ni aisheist wi ich ne fare In to other londe and singe thare. No ! what sholde ich among horn do, War never blisse ne com to ? That lond nis god, ne hit nis este, Ac wildernisse hit is and weste, Knarres and eludes hoventino-e, Snou and hajel hom is genge ; That lond is gi-islich and un-vele, The men both wilde and unisele ; Hi nabbeth n other srrith ne sibbe ; Hi ne reccheth hu hi libbe. Hi eteth fihs an flehs un-sode, Siiich wulves hit hadde to-brode ; Hi diinketh mile, and wei thar-to. Hi nute eUes wat hi do ; Hi nabbeth noth win ne bor, Ac libbeth al so wilde dor ; Hi goth bi-tijt mid ruje velle, Ilijt s'^'ich hi comen ut of helle ; The^ eni god man to hom come, (So wiles dude sum from Rome) For hom to lere gode thewes, An for to leten hore unthewes, ' Hi ekes has mangled some of the "svords in this piece, which I leave as he printed it. It is in his Thesaurus, I. 233. X 3o6 Old and Middle English. He mijte bet sitte stille, Vor al Ms wile he sliolde spills ; He inijte bet tecbe ane bore To weje bothe sheld and spere, Than me that wilde folc i-bringe, That hi me segge wolde i-here singe. These lines are taken from a most charming Dorset- shire Poem, which, seems to have been no translation from the French. It was published by the Percy Society, No. 39. Most of the forms found in the Ancren Riwle are here repeated. We see from the present work how warmly King Alfred's name had been taken to England's heart. The proverbs attributed to him come again and again, 340 years after his death. In p. 44 we read that *his worde was goclclsioel.'' We find also other saws, such as * Dahet habbe that ilke best, That fuleth his owe nest.' ^ The Vowel o is encroaching upon its brethren ; movje replaces the old maive (metere). The former he lijst (amittit) becomes lie lost ; this form was not as yet transferred from the Present to the Perfect. The u is sometimes used for o ; the Past Participle ischud stands in p. 52 for the old gesceo-god ; we here get the first hint as to our present way of sounding shoe. The old prise (turdus) now becomes our thrusche. The most remarkable new effect in Consonants is the paring away of the n in the Past Participle of agon ; in p. 18 we read ivane thi lust is ago ; the corrupt Southern ^ The French imprecation dahet shows whence comes our ' dash it 1 > Middle English : Neglect. 307 form kept by us in long ago. The older form remains in woe-hegone ; the Participle here comes from hegangan (circnmdare) . In the same way as agon^ c^fen (vesper) here becomes eve. In another word the / is thrown out, for 7ire5/*^er becomes halter. The 7/ is prefixed to the OldEnghsh ule (bubo) ; we may still write either Jiotdet or oidet, like Hester and Esther. The n is inserted, for nihtegale becomes nv^tingale ; in ' Middlemarch,' Mr. Dagley is loud in praise of the Binform (Reform). When we find Alfred written Alvred (p. 9) we see a relic of the spelling of Domesday Book. The old hoga (ramus) is written sometimes Soje, sometimes hoiue. It is easy to see how Layamon turned the Active Participle .inde into inge, when we find at p. 30 singinge riming with avinde. One of the Substantives here used gains a syllable, for morgen becomes more'^eiing (morning), just as holh (ca- vus) becomes holeuh (hollow). The old rode had hitherto meant criix\ it is now seen as rodde, meaning virga. The word honda (colonus) becomes hondeman. We find the Substantive sprenge (trap), which comes from the Verb spring. As to Adjectives : the old gidig seems to have been preserved by the South and West alone. This poem has many forms, such as, in the derne (dark), into the hare, in the thick,, where the Adjective is used like a Substantive, as in Greek. Among Pronouns, we find thilhe, which is used only once (p. 36). One of our modern usages is to insert it is, when we wish to be emphatic. At p. 40 we read — Hervore it is that me the shuneth. X 2 3o8 Old and Middle English. This is stronger than ' on this account men shun thee.' At p. 4 we see otlier referred to past time, as we say 'the other day.' — That other ger afaukun hredde. The Article an and the I^umeral one^ both springing from the old dn^ were as yet anything but distinct ; in the 4th line of the poem we read of an Inde and one m^tingale. At 25 the on (unus) appears without a Sub- stantive and coupled with a Possessive Pronoun ; having spoken of arts, the bird says, hetere is win mi (craft). In Yerbs, we remark the change of meaning in the old mot, most ; this Verb, which earlier bore the sense of the Latin licet, now takes the meaning of oportet ; this may be plainly seen in p. 45, ]>u most of londe fleo. Still the Verb mot lasted in its oldest sense down to 1550 ; it is still, I believe, used in the Free- masons' formula, so mote it he. Must, used in the new sense, has driven out the Old English thearf; and it so entirely got the meaning of ojjortet, that '}nust its (it behoves us) is used in the Townly Mysteries, about the year 1430. At p. 39 comes the Passive tliu art ishote, as if the old sceotan had always governed an Accusa- tive. We have seen many Adjectives here used as Sub- stantives ; this usage is extended to Participles. At p. 50 comes Wanne ich iseo the tohte ilete. ' The taught (tensus) let out.' At p. 34 solde hi "pollen stands for ' if they yelled ; ' this use of should, in a con- ditional sentence, is something new. At p. 20 we hear Middle English : Neglect. 309 of a man that ne can no'ji hute singe ; here the Infinitive is used as it were in apposition to the nought^ something like Orrmin's idiom. At p. 56 comes thu nevre mon (homini) to gode ne stode ; this suggests that our ' stand me a pot ' is short for ' stand me to a pot,' ' be worth to me for so much as a pot.' The phrase let be, instead of let alone, is in p. 58. We use the verb bode always in a bad sense ; this is seen in the present poem. Break now becomes intransitive, as 'his heart nolde brehe,^ (p. 37). The verb bihemman is formed from hem (fimbria). We find the phrase for (far) a'iid wide, (p. 25), as well as the old far and near. The Prepositions to be remarked are, ' he would not for his life,' (p. 37) ; ' they are of thy mind,' (p. 52) ; ' to miss of faii'hede ; ' in this last the of stands for the Genitive that used to follow the Old English \>olian (carere). Hence /a?7 of come sliortof, disappoint of In p. 27 stands ' though all strength were at one^ that is, *in one place,' the old onaw, from this we have 'to set at one ' (whence comes atonement) ; the at often has the meaning of in. The Preposition behind is used as a Substantive at p. 21. There are a few Scandinavian words, such as misha]), cuTceiveald (cuckold), cogge (of a wheel), fait (falter), ntlete (outlet), and shrew; the last comes from sTcraa (sloping) ; we now apply shrew to women, and screw to horses. The verb beshreio was formed from this in the next Century. There are many words cropping up, akin to the Dutch and German, like clacli, clench, clute (gleba), cremp (contrahere), hacch (parere), luring (torvo vultu), 310 Old and Middle EnglisJi. 'mesh, isliked (wlience our sleeh), stuiniJ, twinge, ivi^ppen ; tlie last in its intransitive sense. In p. 27, we see tlie first use of a well-known Adjec- tive: Mon deth mid strengthe and mid witte ; That other thing nis non hi^JitteJ' That is, ' it is no matcli for man.' This is akin to the Dutch vitten (convenire). There is also cwesse (com- primere),at p. 48, akin to the Dutch quassen, whence conies our squash and squeeze ; and at p. 54 we read, at thi sputing schal aswinde ; here the Noun, akin to the Dutch s])uiten, stands for senna ; the race of sjyouters is anything but extinct. Among the few French words in this long poem are pie (picus), gente (still used in Scotland as genty,) at one acorde ; staMe is found with the French e at the begin- ning clipped. The word gahhing is used in the French sense of modcery, (p. 22), as in the Ancren Riwle ; this old word was English, Scandinavian, and French, each with a different shade of meaning ; we still talk of the gift of the gah. Master is for the first time prefixed to proper names ; as Malster Nichole ; in our surnames we now follow the form NicoU more than Nicholas. The Cotton Manuscript (about 1240), in which the last poem is embodied, contains many other pieces, mostly Southern. These are repeated in the Jesus Manuscript, compiled about twenty years later. ^ There are here Northern forms, such as ivhase, saide, and * These are printed by Dr. Morris, in his Old Englisli Miscellany , (Early English Text Society). \ Middle English: Neglect. 311 vjimmen ; also the Southern vayre. The poems may perhaps belong to Oxford, or thereabouts. The a en- croaches upon (B and ea, as in mass, chapman. The aio becomes prominent, as vje aulite (debemus) ; gleow becomes gle (p. 91). The old liu is wi'itten hovj at p. 142. "We here find our modern eye and youhye ; the old smyc becomes smyche (p. 75), whence our smiotch and smudge. The old geanva is cut down to gere, our gear, at page 164. Layamon's corrupt Present Participle is spreading over Southern England ; in the one page 180 we see both the old herninde and the new herninge (urens). As to Nouns : the Virgin says, at p. 100, ich am Godes ivenclie (ancilla) ; the word was henceforth used only of women, though Orrmin had called Isaac a loennchell.^ We light on many new English names at pp. 188-190 ; such as Janelcin (Jenkin), WadeJcm (Watkin), Bohiii, Gilot, besides the old MaleJcin. We have seen Past Participles coupled with the Possessive Pronoun, no Substantive following ; Adjectives are treated in the same way, after the fashion of the old mm gelica ; at p. 82 comes myne gode ; similarl}-, at p. 96, a maid is addressed as A swete, ' Ah, sweet.' At p. 86 we get an insight into the true meaning of freo ; it is there opposed, not to thralls, but to poure ; it must have fairly well expressed our gentle in gentleman. To this word we shall return thirty years later. At p. 144 comes the curious word clyhhe, which means avidus, to ^ Wickliffe uses xvench, ■w'hen writing of the danghters of wealthy men, in his translation of the Gospels. -312 Old and Middle English. judge by the context ; it may be anotber form of tbe East Anglian diver. Among the Pronouns, we see at p. 85 ^ilke (illi), which was slowly spreading through the South, and encroaching upon ]w. At p. 96 eu (vos) is evidently written instead of ])e (te) ; tliou and you come sometimes in a speech addressed to a single person ; this may be seen in Goldsmith and Knowles.^ At p. 73 we see say used as an Impersonal Verb, an imitation of the old it is writte7i ; we here light upon hit sey\ in pe godspelle. The olon of East Anglia now becomes al one (p. 85). In Old English we should have found hetter he hundredfold; this is changed at p. 98 into he is hetere an hundred f aide. What in Essex had been called ])at an now becomes ]?e 071, which we still keep (p. 101). Among the Verbs we remark moste used in the sense of oj>ortet, as we saw in Dorset. The old ute, followed by the Infinitive, is seen for the last time, I think, at p. 141. The Imperative heo'6 is cut down to heo at p. 78. The Infinitive faren is dropped in he schal heonne (hence) at p. 94 ; at p. 186 is he wiade Mm falle. The peculiar idiom with the verb stand, seen before in a Dorset poem, is now carried a step further ; at p. 99 comes hit wolde him stonde muchel stel (in great stead). We see the Adverbs ])eruppoii and ]>arimj]ml (pp. 78, 97) ; in the last, withal for the first time Englishes the Latin curii. At p. 139 after is used, not as a Preposition, but for postea. At p. 82 we see our Verb hivyne (whine), which ' See Matzner's English Grammar, III. 225. Middle English: Neglect. 313 follows the Icelandic veina rather than the Old English wanian. There is the Verb rusl'it (p. 92) applied to hounds rushing or racing about ; the true old form was rcesan. A new word for tremere comes at p. 176 : For ich schal berneu in fur And chivei'in in ise. TVe see in p. *?Q a Celtic word brought into English, a word which Shakespere was to make immortal. It is said that greedy monks shall be hitauht ]ye ^itke (given over to the Fiend). The Welsh pivcca and hwg mean ' hobgoblin ; ' hence come our hughears and bogies.^ Tyn- dale, who lived near the Welsh border, uses hug for something that frightens children ; hogle is employed in Scotland for a scarecroiv. The French influence in the poem is seen at p. 90, where ten or twelve long hues end in one rime ; but the English could never hope to rival the French in this riming system. At p. 98 we see ymsto7ie, a relic of the old gim-stdn^ that had been written for hundreds of years in England ; a few lines further back, vre find the new French gemme. The English of the year 600 had been able to couple words of their ovm. with outlandish terms ; the English of 1240 saw their own words dying away, and were glad to ' Good Bishop Bedell, in a letter to Usher, brands an oppressor named Cooke : ' he is the most cryed out upon. Insomuch as he hath found from the Irish the nickname of Pouc' — P. 105 of Bedell's Life, printed in 1685. This seems to show that ahout 1630 our 00 had already the sound of the French ou The interchange of c andp is curious. 314 Old and Middle English. replace them by purely foreign terms. The new ^ejiie, for instance, was used as well as folk ; \e 'pejile me tolde is in p. 92. In p. 122 ]>e hiwilen, which is in the Cotton Manuscript, is replaced by do ]>e gyle in the Jesus Manu- script. When we see quiten (pay for) her ale, at p. 190, we have the source of our ' lue are quits,' that is, ' we have paid each other.' THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT. (AlDout 1250.) I now give the Lord's Prayer, Hail Mary, and Belief, from a manuscript written in the middle of the Thirteenth Century, and printed in the ' Reliquias AntiquBB,' I. 22. This must have been used in the Northern part of Mercia, perhaps not far from Orrmin's abode ; for the a is not replaced by 0, as in East Anglia. We also find such Northern forms as til, fra, ah, alwaldand. But we have here the great Midland shibboleth, the Present Plural of the Verb ending in e/z- ; this is some- times altogether dropped. The Third Person Singular of the present now ends in s, which is most unlike the Genesis and Exodus. The Preposition /or is used in a new way ; it might always stand in a sentence like ' for God's sake ; ' it is now prefixed to the French merci. Omnis is translated by lievirilh ; this, to the North of the Humber, would have been ill: an. Sal is used for shall. Are is used for the Latin sunt. The Past Parti- ciple has no prefix. The letter h is sometimes set at the beginning of words most uncouthly. Acennede (genitus) is replaced by begotten. Sell stands for the old Middle English: Neglect. 315 ^a.%, as in the Athanasian Creed given at p. 138. The French lele (fidus) appears, which is N'orthem. On the other hand, we find liam (illos), not \am. We light upon the full forms raanhind and hingdom for the first time ; the latter was earlier written hinedom. Notting- ham would be as likely a town as any for the following rimes. We may imagine the great Bishop Robert hear- ing his Mercian flock repeat these same lines, while he turns aside for a short time from his wrangles with the Roman Court, and from the studies that made the name of Lincolniensis known throughout Christendom. THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT. (About A.D. 1250.) [I bjidde huve with milde steveue prayer raise voice til ure fader ])e king of hevene, to in J)e munmige of Cristis pine, rcincmbrance for ])e laverd of ])is bus, and al lele bine, faithful hinds for alle cristinfolk that is in gode lif, that God scbilde bam to dai fro sinne and fro sicbe ; for alle tbo men that are in sinne bunden, those that Jbesu Crist bam leyse, for is bali wndes ; loose woimds for qiiike and for deade and al mankinde ; and pat ws here God don in hevene mot par it finde ; may j^lace in heaven 3i6 Old and Middle English. and for alle })at on lier])e us fedin and fostre ; earth sale we nu alle |)e hali pater noster. Ure fadir j^at hart in lievene, halged be pi name with giftis sevene, samin ciime ]>i kingdom, likewise ]?i wille in herj^e als in hevene be done, lire bred pat lastes ai gyve it bus pis bilke dai, same and ure misdedis pu forgyve bus, als we forgyve pam pat misdon bus, and leod us intol na fandiuge, ternptation bot frels us fra alle ivele pinge. Amen. Heil jNIarie, ful of grace, pe lavird witb pe in bevirilk place, every blisced be pu mang alle wimmein, and blisced be pe blosme of pi wambe. Amen. Maidin and moder pat bar pe bevene king, wer us fro wre wyper-wines at ure bending ; defend enemies ending blisced be pe pappis pat Godis sone sank, sucked pat bargb iu*e kinde pat pe nedre bysuak. protected race servient tricked. jNEoder of milte and maidin Mari, mercy help us at ure bending, for pi merci. pat suete Jbesu ])at born was of pe, pu give us in bis godbed bim to se. Jbesu for |n moder love and for pin bali wndis, pu leise us of pe sinnes pat we are inne bunde. Middle English : Neglect. 317" ' Hi true in God, fader hal-miclittende, ])at makede heven and lierde]>e, and in Jhesu. Krist, is anelepi sone, hure laverd, ]>at was bigotin of J^e liali gast, and bom of the mainden Marie, pinid under Punce Pilate, festened to the rode, ded and dulvun, licht in til helle, ]>e }>ride dai up ras fra dede to live, stegh intil hevenne, sitis on is fadir richt hand, fadir ahvaldand, he ]'en sal cume to deme \q quike an J^e dede. Hy troue hy j^eli gast, and hely kirke, pe samninge of halghes, forgifnes of sinnes, uprisigen of fleyes, and life with-hutin hend. Amen.' ^ THE CONTEAST TO THE EAST MIDLAND. (a.d. 1250.) Psalm VIII. Laverd, oure Laverd, liou selkouth is Name ]nne in alle land )ns. For upe-hoven es |;i mykeUiede Over hevens J^at ere brade ; Of mouth of childer and soukand Made pou lof in ilka land, For ])i faes ; ])at ]^ou for-do "l^e fai, l^e wreker him mito. For I sal se J>ine hevenes heo-h, And werkes of |'ine iingres slegh ; ^ ^ We find the okl genitive still uncorrupted, as hevenc king, fadir hand. We still say hell fire. Lady day. It is most strange that snch words as fajiding, stegh, and samninge should ever have dropped out of our speech, since they must have been in the mouths of all Englishmen that knew the simplest truths of religion. - *S/?/ (sapiens) has here a most exalted sense ; it has been sadly degraded. ' Nasty sly girl ! ' says one of 3Ir. Trollope's matrons speaking of her son's enchantress. 3i8 Old and Middle English. ■]5e mone and sternes mani ma, -^at ])ou grounded to "be swa. What is man, pat poii mines of liim ? Or son of man, for ])ou sekes him ? •|;ou liteled liim a litel wiglit Lesse fra ]nne aungeles "bright ; With blisse and mensk ])ou crouned him yet, And over werkes of ]n hend him set. •]}ou under-laide all ])iuges Under his fete |)at ought forth-bringes, Neete and schepe hathe for to welde. In-over and heestes of ])e felde, Fogheles of heven and fissches of se, pat forth-gone stihes of j'e se . Laverd, our Laverd, hou selkouth is Name pine in alle land ])is. The above Psalm is a specimen of the Northumbrian Psalter (Surtees Society), a translation v^hich, from its large proportion of obsolete words must have been com- piled about 1250, though it has come down to us only in a transcript made sixty years later. This is the earliest well-marked long specimen of the Northern Dialect, spoken at York, Durham, and Edinburgh alike ; it was now making its way to Ayr and Aberdeen, and driving out the old Celtic dialects before it. This was the speech that long held its own in the Palaces and Law-courts of Scotland, the speech which was embodied in Acts of Parliament down to Queen Anne's time, and which has been handled by world-renowned Makers : may it never die out ! It will be found that our classic English owes much to Yorkshire ; some of its forms did not make their way to London until 1520. How different would our Middle English: Neglect. 319 speech have been, if York had replaced London as our capital ! This Psalter, most likely compiled in Southern York- shire,^ is nearly akin in its spelling to the Lincolnshire Creed in p. 303. We of course find the Active Participle in and, the old Scandinavian form ; sal is used for slmll ; thai, thair, thaim occur, something like the forms in the Ormulum. We see the correct ]>oic mines, where we now should say ]>ou mindest ; a twofold corruption. The Thii'd Person Singular of the Present ends in s, as gives, does, lias ; we follow this Northern usage in week-day life, but on Sunday we have recourse in church to the old Southern forms, givetJi, doetli, &c. A remarkable Scandinavian form, already found in the Rushworth Gospels, is seen in Vol. I. p. 301 ; ])0i6 is (tu es) ; ]wu lias, which is also found, is not yet grown into tliou hast. The old ending of the Imperative Plural is sometimes clipped, though not often ; as understande for intelliglte ; this we saw in the Lindisfarne Gospels. The Northern form of the Present Plural in es appears, as hates ^ (oderunt) ; and Shakespere sometimes follows this form. As to Vowels : the a replaces e and ce, as far, handy, hrahe, spalce ; it replaces 0, as sivare for the rightful sivore, and this wrong form has been forced into our Bible by Tyndale. The ai replaces a, as fai (hostis), • The Midland Present Plural ending in en is sometimes found, as wirken (laborant) ; I have already remarked on an instance of this in the Eushworth Gospels. Ninety years later, Higden said that this Yorkshire speech was so harsh and rough that it could be hardly understood in the South. 320 Old and Middle English. for tlie older fa ; and tliis sound remains in Scotland ; ocjaines stands for contra, but the first letter is clipped in compounds ; gaine-sagli is written where a Southerner would have put ayensawe. This gainsay is the only- Verb compounded with gain that we have left. The said of the Psalter has in the end beaten the Southern seid ; there is also slaine. The e stands in ineres (jumenta), which we still pronounce aright ; the e is often doubled, as in feet^ neet, heest. The old ]^encan (putare) is care- fally kept in the South, that there may be no confusion with ]mike^ (videtur) ; but in the North the former is seen as tlmik, Vol. I. p. 3. The o encroaches upon ce, for forgoet becomes forgot ; sioo and ]>o are found for swa and ^a. There is much confusion between o and u ; we see the old hive and the new love (amare) ; what was once gehundne Ms (vinctos suos) now becomes Ids honden^ Vol. I. p. 221 ; new words were soon to be formed from this Participle. The old dunt (ostium) becomes doer in the North, Vol. II. p. 153 ; the earlier form lives in the proper name Durivard. The words written arwe and sorwe lose their last letter, and are sounded like aru and so7'u ; the u was later to be replaced by o: The old Consonants were roughly handled in the North. The k is thrown out altogether in takes, taJcenj which become tas and tane ; the latter lives in our poetry. The old cneowun is cut down to neioe, Vol. I. p. 33. The ^sometimes becomes to ; the English word for arcus is written both hough and hoioe ; geat (porta) be- comes yliate, the Scotch yett ; here the North followed the Soath, and was perhaps glad to make a distinction between this word and the Danish gcet (iter). Heg Middle English: Neglect. 321 (^fo&nuni) becomes liai. The g is thrown out altogether in morrjen^ which becomes our morning (Vol. I. p. 157) ; ^ the Scandinavians wrote morncm as well as morginn. We also find hie for hijcgan (emere), slaei\ and slalne. The old li is replaced by gli ; we see heghest, sight, 7ieghbur, sagh. The guttnral sound in the middle of these words lingered in the Yorkshire dales long after the year 1800, and may still be heard in the Scotch Lowlands. We see not written for noht. The / is sometimes thrown out, for siqjer principes is Englished by our prmces (Vol. II. p. 43) ; hence the poetical o'er. The d is sometimes inserted, as in wrecchedness and ivichedness ; it is replaced by t, as in left and reft, where the Vowels also have been mauled. The t is added to a word, as when has (raucus) becomes haast ; hence the Scotch hoast. The Scandinavian form was hosti. We of the South a hundred years later put an r into th,e old Adjective and called it hoarse. On the other hand, we now too often drop the r in horse, and call it hoss. The ho,ast may have been formed from the old Verb hivostan (cough). The t replaces the old j', for heapo becomes heght, our height. The old lengan has a ]> inserted ; elongavi is translated I lengh])ed, Vol. I. p. 173. The ]? sometimes slides into s ; what in 850 was a^eastrade sind (obscurati sunt), is now seen as er sestrede, Vol. I. p. 241. What used to be inlihton (inluxerunt) is now lightnedy with a strange n. The old ^urh (per) has its ' Morgen of old meant both eras ard mane ; the latter meaning is expressed by the change of consonants seen here; the former meaning is expressed by the Southern w or w, replacing the old g. The old word becomes two-pronged. T 322 Old and Middle English. letters transposed and becomes thrugh. The y is some- times prefixed ; for yertlie (terra), the Scandinavian jar^a, is in p. 3 ; hence the Scotch talk of yill and yerl, ' ale and earl. ' A process, largely spread in the North, seemed to be replacing the number of old Substantives that England was fast losing at this time. We are struck by the number of newly-coined Verbal Nouns ; captio is Englished by ])e tctkeing, Vol. I. p. 105; there is also fulfilling, flying ; but far stranger are the number of Plurals, such as gahiges (gressus), not the old gong, Vol. I. p. 115 ; ]yair levinges (quae superfuerunt), Vol. I. p. 41 ; and many others. Romance words undergo this process ; fahulationes becomes fahlinges, at Vol. II. p. 91.* Other new Plurals are formed; iniqidtates had once been Englished by tinrelihvisnisse, this now becomes loicked^iesses, Vol. I. p. 75. The Yorkshire bard adds ness to old words, as ivelnes, lialowingnes ; even to this day, when we coin a new Substantive, it is ness that we mostly employ for the ending, as pigheadedness Enid long, luindedness. Sometimes he turns an Adjective into a Sub- stantive, for olera herharmn (Vol. I. p. Ill), is translated luortes of grenes ; hence our name for certain vegetables. Bona is goddes, our goods. Such phrases as name of might, man of mercy, hred of sorw, folk of Israel, become common ; this turn of speech we owe to translators from the Latin. Our noun understanding, appearing in 1250 for the first time, comes straight from intellectus, ' The verbal noun governessing is a curious instance of this tendency. Middle English : Neglect. 323 as we liere see ; thongli we always had tlie verb. The phrase nan me hneio a dele is used in Vol. II. p. 155 ; the last two words stand for aught, and hence conies ' a good deal,' ' a bit,' &c. There are the new Substantives foundling and Jiandmayden ; the last is formed like the old ivood-honey ; English delights in compounding two Nouns. The Scandinavian word Idtling is first seen.^ The old vjolcen had meant both Jirmamentum and ntibes ; the second of these meanings is here taken from the word, and laid upon a wholly new word, hloude ; it means that vapours are drawn up into clods or masses, the Dutch clote.'^ In Vol. I. p. 43, we read in ])e Jdoudes of ])e sJceiue, ' in nubibus aeris.' Shj has therefore at last got its modern meaning ; this shifting of the senses of words is most curious. In Adjectives, we see the ending fid growing apace ; it is found not only in gladfid, wonderful, hlithefid, but in the foreign fndtefid and mercyfid. We see adolescentior Englished by yongeddce in Vol. II. p. 101. Orrmin had used the Superlative innresst ; we now first find the other forms overest, netherest, utterest ; this last is the Scandinavian ntarst. An Adjective is used without a Substantive in Vol. 11. p. 177; ])air ivortld translates nohdes eorum. Molestus is Englished by a new word, hackande (Vol. I. p. 105) ; hence, perhaps, our 'hacking cough.' Fresh takes the new meaning of recens in Vol. I. ' This word is still alive in the North. Burke, -who was often a guest in Yorkshire, says, in his great speech before losing the Bristol election, that he \nll never throw the people any creature to tor- ment, ' no, not so much as a kitling.' - I have taken this from Wedgwood, and much besides. Y 2 324 Old and Middle English. p. 2/'3. What was slider in the South was slider in the North ; and we have followed the latter form for Juhricus. The Definite Article was dropped before an Adjective, as in our 'handsome is that handsome does;' in Vol. I. p. 23, peccator is Englished by sinful, no longer by se synfulla. As to Pronouns : the old mildsa min becomes Jiaf 'niercij of me, Vol. I. p. 71. We find ye wTongly used as the Dative, I sail telle al yhe (Yol. I. p. 205). In his self translates in semel ipso, Vol. I. p. 109; while ipsi inciderunthecomesfelle])am self, Yol. I. p. 181, where the Dative is used as a Nominative. We see an effort made after a new idiom in Vol. I. p. 265 ; no7i erat qui sepeliret IS there turned into was it nane ^at ivalde hiri. But this it could never drive out the old there. A wholly new form of Pronouns is found in this Psalter. We have seen that Orrmin, first of all our writers, used \at, the old Neuter virticle, to translate ille ; and its Plural ]>d, to translate illi. This ]>d is still to be found in Scotland (Scott talks of thae loons) : it held its ground in Southern England as ))o down to 1530. The old Dative of this, ]Ktm, is still in use among our lower orders ; as, ' look at them lads.' But in Yorkshire, about 1250, ]yas, our those, a confusion with the old Plural of ])es (hie), began to be used for ]>d.^ Vol. I. p. 243 : ' Superbia eorum qui teoderunt,' is translated j;?'z'c?e of ])as ]Kit pe hates; and many such instances could be given. The writer has elsewhere ]>ese, as in the Essex Homilies, to translate the Latin hi. • Hampole, ninety years later, has the same corruption, ][>as for \>d. Middle Enghsh : Neglect. 325 In this Psalter we see the beginning of the corruptions embodied in the phrase those ivlio speak ; a phrase which often with ns replaces tlie rightful they that speak, the Old Englisb ]>d ]>e.'^ There are new E-elative forms, which took a long time to find their way to the South ; as naue es whilhe saufe mas; yhe ivhilh standes (qui statis),/es^, God, ])at ivhilke ]>ou lorocjht. Orrmin had forms something like these Yorkshire phrases ; the Relative Nominative lolio was not commonly used in the South until the Reforma- tion ; we do not find in our Bible he ivho or he tvhich ; in our every- day talk we almost always make the old that our Relative. We now see the new forms iijhatJdns, nahin, a sure mark of the North ; the everilh of Peter- borough now becomes everilkane ; capita multa (Vol. II. p. 53) is Englished by hevedes of mani~ane. Among the Numerals is found four-shore. In Verbs : we see the Danish mon employed in On^min's sense of futurity ; not to translate oportet, as has been the usage of the North since 1440. The Strong Verbs delve, cleave, sumpe, and wepe take Weak Perfects, a process which unluckily has always been going on in England ; helped replaces the true hoJpen, which lingers in our Prayer-book. On the other hand, there is some- * Addison, in his Humhle Petition of ' Who ' a7id ' WhieJi,' makes these Relatives complain of the Jack Sprat That, their supplanter. He is wrong : That is the true Old English Eelative, representing \>e ; the others are Thirteenth Century upstarts. It is curious that Yorkshire had far more influence than Kent upon the language of the capital in 1520. If we wish to be correct, wa should translate * qui amant ' by they that love : those who love can date no higher than 1250. 326 Old and Middle English. times an attempt to turn a Weak Perfect into a Strong one ; as ]^ou herd, where the older version has the right ]ni gelierd.es. We see the Participial idiom \ou made dome herd in Vol. I. p. 247. The Participle is employed like an Adjective at Vol. II. p. 161, ten-strenged sautre (psalterium decern cordarum). The Active Participle had always been used absolutely, as hhii speaJdng ; this usage is now extended to the Passive ; at Vol. II. p. 131, we hear that God smote the firstborn of Egypt ; noght ane left ]>are. This sentence, standing by itself, can hardly be anything else than the Passive Participle absolute. In the English of 1000, heom gesprecenimi stands for the Active Participle absolute. Orrmin's change from the Active to the Passive Infinitive is seen in Vol. II. p. 75 ; mandasti mandata tua custodiri is EngHshed by ])0?t hade ]nne hodes to he yhemed ; in the version made four hundred years earlier the custodiri was translated by the Active haldan. The constant confusion between the Participle and other English forms is seen in Vol. II. p. 99 ; temi?us faciendi becomes time of mahande. A Substantive could be turned into a Verb, as Shakespere often does ; cjid dorninatur is translated by \at laverdes ; the like happens to a Comparative Adjective, I hetred (praevalui) ; and to a Preposition, for we find to under (subdere), like Dr. Johnson's 1 downed Mm. In Vol. I. p. 267 a new mean- ing is given to spill ; what of old was hlod is agoten (efFusus) now becomes hlode es spilte. One of the j^uzzles in our language is, how ever could the Old English geotan be supplanted by the Celtic pour ; this took j)lace about 1500. The former word survives in the Lincoln goyts, Middle English: Neglect. 327 cjowts, or canals, and in the Gut^ well known to Oxford oarsmen. The old meaning ois])iTl (perdere) is kept in our corrupt word s'lgoil. Sceaioian had changed its meaning in 1160 from viclere to monstrare; it now further became apjparere, at least in the North ; in Vol. I. p. 41 we find appareho translated I sal scheiue. Lady Nairne, in a letter to her brother, about 1790, talks of his shoiving aiuay in London. We see the sense of slum t given for the first time to scunian. Expidsi sunt (Vol. I. p. 291) is translated ere out-schouned ; the word, with a i at the end, had already been used in Salop, with a different shade of meaning. In Vol. II. p. 33, in translating quassatio cessavit, the Verb lefte is employed ; we should say left off. We find both Itnined of (niemor fui), and also I sal myne ]>are names (memor ero nominum). Vol. I. p. 37. In Vol. I. p. 107, tliinh becomes transitive ; swihedoines ware ]^ai thinJcand. The old Weak Verb hisencte (demersit) is turned into the Strong sanhe, Vol. I. p. 215, a corruption still kept by us. This confusion of two Verbs has appeared already. Tui inimici becomes \ine ille-willand, Vol. I. p. 59, something like ' the Queen's traitors.' Many new Adverbial forms appear, such as for ever- mare, fra fer (a longe) al at ones, in mides of, doiunriglite, yhates of ai (portse seternales). The old swe swe (sicut) now becomes als it ivare, Vol. II. p. 109. The old swipe gives way to r)iiJcel in Vol. I. p. 13 ; lytel nuget (pusillum adhuc) becomes yit a littel, Vol. I. p. 113. When we say that a man turns wj), we imply that he has been missed and reappears ; in Vol. I. p. 15 regredere is Englished by tome upe. It is curious to mark the 328 Old and Middle English. various compounds of %ml employed at different times to translate voluntarie. This about tlie year 850 was luil- Mtmlice ; about 1250 it was willi ; in a rather later copy of the Psalter it was, wilfuUi; we should now ss^j wil- lingly. A new phrase crops up to translate forsitan ; this is tlmrgh liap (Vol. II. p. 115) ; it is the forerunner of our mongrel loerliai^s. As to Prepositions : we have already seen intil at p. 233 of my work ; we now first light upon until, which translates ad, (Vol. I. p. 79) ; also usque in, (Vol. I. p. 189) ; until that is in page 315. Unto is seen for the first time in England ; multis is Englished by unto mani, Vol. I. p. 225. The Gothic has und halba (St. Mark vi. 23), where Tyndale has wito the halfe. In Vol. II. 113, ad imcem is translated by at fais ; of old, on would have been used. We see that the bard of 1250 was not so good a Latin scholar as the former poet of 850 ; eiige is now translated, not by the earlier ivel ]>e, but by zva, (Vol. I. p. 107). There are many Scandinavian words now found for the first time ; as, Brunstan (brimstone), from the Icelandic hrennistein. Dreg, from the Icelandic dregg (sediment). Gnaist (gnash), from the Norse gnista. Kitling, from the Norse ketlingr. Lm'ke, from the Norse lurke. Molbery, from the Swedish mulbaer.^ Slaghter, from the Norse slat?-. The Old English for this was mar-beam. Middle English: Neglect. 329 Scalp, from tlie Xorse skal (shell). Sculke, from the Danisli skidke. Snub, from the Norse snuhha (cut short). Hauk, from the Icelandic haukr. It is from this last, not from the Old English lieafoc^ that our word for accipiter comes ; in the same way we have preferred the Scandinavian sldtr (caedes) to the Old English slcege. A glance at Stratmann's Dictionary will show that the South held to the Old English forms long after the Scandinavian forms, now used by us, had appeared in the North. In our verb v:liiten, found in this Psalter, we follow the Icelandic hvitna, not the Old English hivttian. The Plural of hand (manus) in this Psalter is he7icl, following the Scandinavian form hendr. The Old English word for stultus used to be dysig ; this last is found with a new meaning in a Northern writer ninety years later, and in the Present Psalter insipiens is translated by fide (Vol. I. p. 169), pronounced as we pronounce the word now. This may come from the Icelandic /oZ, though the French /oZ is seen in the Ancren Riwle. What Orrmin called lefften (elevare) now gets our sound lift^ the Icelandic hjpta, Vol. I. p. 195. The Icelandic titt (celeriter) appears here as tite ; it is peculiar to Northern England, and stamps Grower, one of those who used it, as a Northern man. We see snere, akin to the Dutch snarren, to grumble ; stuhle (stipula), related to the Dutch stoppel. In Vol. II. p. 53 conquassare is translated in three different manu- scripts by squat, squacclie, sivacche (our squasli), all akin to the Dutch quassen. The Adjective smert answers to acerhtis, as before ; it takes also a new meaning, for in 330 Old and Middle English. I. 211 'pvos^ermn iter is Englished by sonart vjai : this is the source of the Adjective we apply to dress. We see yles for insulce ; the Psalter being a most Teutonic work, let us hope that our isle is not derived from the French, but that it is akin to the High German isila. In the more modern text of Layamon, eit-londe is turned into ilond. Scald (urere) is in Vol. II. pp. Ill, 115 ; the poet sometimes translates the Noun torrens by scalding ! The Noun chimhes is used where c?/m&aZtt7^ had been used 400 years earher, Vol. II. p. 179, and they are said to ring. Mr. Wedgwood affirms that the word is Finnish, and that it is an imitation of a clear sound. Scott employs the phrase, ' God sai^i them ! ' and the Verb is used in Germany ; in Vol. I. p. 195, benedicere is Englished by saine ; the old segnian was preserved in the North alone, as was the case w4th many other old words. In Vol. I. p. 79, laciis is Englished by jiosclie ; fiuse in Danish is ' to flow with violence.' The poet sticks as closely as he can to the Latin he is translating. Thus mansuetus is always hand-tame, legislator is lagh-herer. Sometimes the Latin word is imitated, as where henignitas is Englished by hetternes. Vol. I. p. 167 ; malitia is turned into malloc, insuper becomes in-over, I. p. 37 ; the Scandinavian inn yfir has the meaning of over. Two of Layamon's new words reappear ; 7ioJ:e and the Celtic Verb cut. There is the Latin oli, and also the French form oyle ; thus and the newer ou must both have been sounded by Yorkshire mouths in 1250 ; the old ele-treoiu was now replaced by olive, tor by tour. There is the old vjine- yherde and the new vinyhe for vinea ; lioun replaces leo7i. Middle English: Neglect. 331 Fantom comes pretty often, and straife (straiten) Eng- lishes crmstringere (Vol. I. p. 94). "When captivitas is translated tvrecchednesse (Vol. I. p. 211), we see that the word caitiff had already begun to take root in our land. In p. 315 finxit improperly becomes feinylies (feigns). Cry was becoming very common ; clamare is turned by maJce crie, II. p. 103. The old yl (porcupine) made way for the French irclion at II. p. 17, The obsolete French feres (decet) so often found in Scotch law papers, is to be seen in Vol. I. p. 95. A few other French words appear, such as fniitefuU, richesses ; the last being the usual translation of divitice, and thus the Plural form of our word is accounted for. The older ]jais is sometimes turned into peas (pax). The word ire is used to translate the Latin ira ; our kindred word irre, written by Alfred, cannot have died out at this time : the Poet would think the Latin form more dignified than the Old English. So after all we may hope that our ire is from a Teutonic, and not from a Latin source. The word ')najestas (I. p. 233), is EngHshed by an ingenious compound, masteliede. It is curious that some old French words, such as mavis and leal, linger in the North, after having been dropped by the South. About the year 1260 Layamon's old poem was turned into the English of the day ; many Teutonic words of 1205 are dropped, being no longer understood ; and some new French words are found. We may guess at the place where the new version was drawn up : it could not have been far from the Great Sundering Line, as both Northern and Southern forms are mingled ; urnen (currere), mocliel, soch, ivoch, ecli one, the old Grenitive 332 Old and Middle English. Plural Scottene (Scotorum), the Past Participle ago, and the new yllh, point to the South ; while alse (sicut), are (sunt), ]>aie (illi), hinesman, co^nes (venit), and higge (emere) point to the North. The transcriber's home may perhaps be fixed in the Northern corner of Hertfordshire ; the forms gi'er (annus) and sijJe (navis) show that he belongs to the neighbourhood of Essex ; he uses sal for our shall. The East Midland forms are seen to be encroaching on the South, and to be establish- ing themselves near London ; we have in this Version a foreshadowing of Sir John Mandeville a hundred years later. There is a change in the Vowels : Layamon had turned the old Perfect scet (sedit) into set ; the transcriber has sat, our form. is always replacing Layamon's a, as in ])oh, slion (micavit), roioe, oJinede (possidebat) ; o replaces u in ivont, love, sholder, tvonder, wor]), morn (lugere), worse ; we see wommaji, the source of the first syllable of our form which stands for both the Dorsetshire Singular immmnan, and the Northampton- shire Plural ivimmen. The French ou is much used, as J)02t for ]ni. The hemen (tubse) of the First Text is turned into humes ; we keep this sound in our hoom. As to Consonants : the li is misused ; it is wrongly prefixed in ham and hich, and wrongly docked in alf. Dcege is softened into daiije, and the old guttural hrohte (tulit) becomes hrofte and hro]yte; four hundred years later, Bunyan, who came from the same neighbourhood, pronounced daughter as dafter, making it rime with after. An s is added to henne, for hennes (hence) is found. An I is inserted, as loverdUng, our lordling. A t is added, for we light on a'^enest (contra) and hitivixte. Middle English : Neglect. 333 The former was repeated a hundred years later by Mandeville, a native of Hertfordshire. There are some new forms, such as icli hid no]nng nf his ; the three last words, a double Genitive, replace nanne ')na^7nes, Vol. I. p. 136. The new Relative is coming in ; where the First Text has moni ivif ])e, the Second Text has many wimmen hi wocJie, I. p. 1 13. The Plural of the Old Article was written ]m by Orrmin and \eo by Layamon ; it now becomes our ])aie ]>at (illi qui). In they that say, they is Old English ; in tJiey say, they is Scandinavian ; both they and pai are found in this Second Text of Layamon. The ever is added to vjhere in indirect questions ; they wondered ware evere . . . soch heved ivere ikenned, III. p. 37 ; this is not in the First Text. There is the phrase, for -ene and for evere, II. p. 435 ; hence our ' once for all.' There are some new constructions of Prepositions : si])])e (since) had never hitherto been employed before N^ouns ; but we see in I. p. 177 su])])e ]?e ilhe time ; in the First Text ives followed the S2i])]>e ; the Scandinavians employed sizt as a Preposition. He nom rmd cet his mo7inen was in theTirst Text, I. p. 70; this use of at was beginning to go out, at least in the South ; and of is now substituted for it. There is also in his da'^es for the former an his dceies, I. p. 259. The Icelandic sveipa with its Weak Perfect sveipta is now confused with the Old English swdpan, which had the Strong Perfect sweof (swoop). Beofs to him sivapte, III. p. 65 ; it is no longer sioijpte, as in the First Text. Our word leg (crus) is now seen for the first 334 Old and Middle English. time ; it comes from the Scandinavian legcjy^ a stem ; this soon encroached on the Old English slianh. Glohe (chlamys), which is found here, is a Celtic word. The French tumhe (tumulus), the sound of which we still keep, replaces the tunne of the First Text, I. p. 259. The French Verb use comes in the phrase liii usecle ]>at craft, IT. 598. We owe a great deal to the men who, between 1240 and 1440, drew up the many manuscript collections of English poems that still exist, taken from various sources by each compiler. The writer who copied many lays into what is now called The Jesus ]\Ianuscript, ranged over at least one hundred and forty years. In one piece of his, professing to give a list of the English Bishopricks, there is no mention of Ely ; hence the original must have been set down soon after the year 1100. In another piece in the same collection, mention is made of Saint Edmund, the Archbishop ; this fixes the date of the poem as not much earlier than the year 1250. Most of these pieces, printed in ' An Old English Miscellany ' (Early English Text Society), seem to me to have been compiled at various dates between 1220 and 1260 ; for the propoi'tion of obsolete English in them varies much. I have already glanced at the older pieces ; see p. 310 of this book. The Southern element is well marked, when we find ago and vulede (secutus est) ; there is the botte (fustis) used by Layamon and in the Ancren Kiwle, not the hatte of the Hertfordshire transcriber of Layamon. On the other hand, luymmon, not vmmman, is employed. Two very old forms are now seen for almost the last time ; erne moreive (p. 45), and sijndon sunt, (p. 145). The last Middle English: Neglect. 335 comes in a transcript of a prose piece drawn up soon after the year 1100, and was very likely not understood. The transcriber had been used to see au employed to express the broad a in French words ; this he now transfers to Old English, writing Engelaunde and Grauntehrugge, as well as Maudeleyne ; our French way of pronouncing Magdalen College is well known ; our pronunciation of haume (balm) and aunt is a relic of this time. We find at p. 155 the proper name Hng\ not Sugo. At p. 145, we see how the names of our English shires and towns had been pared down by 1260; there are Kanterhury and Cumherlond; the English Dunhohn was still preferred to the French Vuresme, which we have followed since 1300. But Scrohscir was written Slohschire, whence comes our Salop ; a curious instance of the interchange between r and Z. There is much paring of letters in common words ; for^ivard loecoTnes forivard, p. 42 ; 071 two is turned into a to, p. 50. An s is added to beside, as in Layamon ; and hisides is used as an Adverb in p. 149. Hond and long rime with each other in p. 51. In p. 43, more hold is used for the true English holder, to suit the rime. As in the second copy of Layamon, ])ill:e appears ; and hivat evere Englishes quodcunque (p. 52) ; the swa that should have come in the middle of the word is dropped. We find half taking the Numeral oyie before it ; on half hundred (p. 146). It is easy to see how an Adverb becomes changed into a Preposition, from the phrase hlod. orn adun ofliijm (p. 42) ; all that is wanted is to drop the of. In p. 45 we see siker used as an Adverb ; certe. There ■ are phi^ases like on after on (p. 40) ; malce (two) to one 336 Old and Middle English. (p. 145) ; neyli litre lieorte (p. 55). Tlie Latin vix had been hitherto Englished by unease ; but another phrase is seen in p. 42 : nedde he hute iseyd ; this is the parent of the Yorkshire nohhut. We find at p. 57 the English to (in Latin dis) set before the French Verb partir ; to-parhj ut of lyve. This paved the way for dejjart (sunder) ; the sense which hngered on in England until about 1660, when the old form in our Marriage Service, ' till death us depart,' was altered into ' till death us do part.' We must glance at the famous Engrlish Proclamation of Henry the Third in 1259 ; no English deed had issued from the Court, so far as is known, for about a hundred years before this time.^ The language used is such as never was spoken ; it is that of some French clerk basing his English upon old-fashioned deeds ; thus he has met with the ancient ageu (debent), and therefore thinks that ogen will be understood in Huntingdonshire ; he uses the obsolete diphthong oe, as in dcel (pars) ; his loande (terra) is a compromise between Northern and Southern English. The proper name James, not the old Jame, now appears ; and also Perres (Piers, Petrus). The Verb agan (debere) now governs an Accusative ; ])e treowj^e ]>cet heo us ogen; hence our, 'owe much to.' This seems to be a French idiom, and marks the com- piler's nationality. I may here observe that no word in the English tongue has a more curious history than the ^ I take the Proclamation from Stubbs, Documents on English History, p. 387. Middle English : Neglect. 337 old agoAi (owe). It is the first Englisli wordthat we can clearly see changing its meaning, as I have shown in p. 110 of this book. It now in 1259 again changes its construction by taking an Accusative (just as the old sceal did) ; and this is the work of a foreigner. One more, in 1455 it stands out as being the first word, I think, that paved the way for the disastrous confusion between the Verbal Noun and the Active Participle ; in Fastolf 's claims against the Crown (Gairdner's ' Paston Letters,' I. 364), we read, that money ijs owyng to the knight aforesaid. Here the in or on is dropped that should have come before the Verbal Noun, and the ovnjng therefore seems, most deceptively, to be a Participle. We do not now use the rightful 'a storm is a (in) brewing,' but say 'a storm is brewing;' hence we naturally come to think that hrew is an Intransitive Verb.^ Lord Macaulay, as we read in his Life, insisted on saying, ' the tea is a making * ; I only wish that he had put this fine old idiom into his ' History.' ^ The newfangled tea is being made, or any such- like construction, was not in vogue until about 1770. The owing did not stop here, but gave birth to a new English version of the Latin Preposition oh ; oiuing to ; this last is a rather late comer. Such are the various meanings and constructions that may be linked to one * Hood, about 1840, writes anent Miss KUmansegge : 'she is now screwing in ' (being buried). See Dilke's Papers of a Critic, p. 56. ^ His biographer prints a-making, which is hke printing ' bona in-transitu.' Mr. Earle (English Fhilology, 486) calls attention to the idiom used by all classes in Yorkshire : * I want the tea making.' I suspect that this stands for, ' I want the tea to be in making.' Z 338 Old and Middle English. Verb, within the space of about 850 years ; we have here a fine example of the freedom of the English tongue. For the Southern English of 1260 we must have recourse to the Harleian Manuscript drawn up in Here- fordshire about 1315, which takes in the works of the fore- going fifty years and more. "We may guess at their date, by reckoning the obsolete Teutonic and the French con- tained in each piece. ^ The Proverbs of Hending, (Kemble, ' Anglo-Saxon Dialogues,' ^Ifric Society, Part III., 270), and some of Wright's Specimens of Lyric Poetry (Percy Society), seem to belong to 1260. The Yowel a replaces e, as 'unar for tiierren ; this is later found in Salop. The Northern jule (stultus) is found as well as the Southern /oZ ; the old cymlic is seen as comely (Lyric Poems, p. 39) ; ue replaces eo, as hue and huen for heo (ilia) and heon (sunt). Consonants are cast out of the middle of a word, for liehste, levedy, become hest^ ledy, the last word being pronounced as it is now ; gehroM is pared down to hroht ; the d is clipped, as hende (bent) for the old bended ; on the other hand, the d appears at the end of wicked, as in Yorkshire ; likes sometimes stands for liJce]y. The old dayes-e-^es had not as yet been cut down to daisies. As to Substantives : Orrmin's go his gate is repeated. A drunkard, when pledging his friends, is said to do uch moil ryht (Hending, p. 279) ; this phrase was used long afterwards by Master Silence in his cups. The terseness of our English comes out in a proverb like * The proportion of these in the Thirteenth Century may be found in the Table at the end of my Seventh Chapter. Middle English: Neglect. 339 hjlit cJiep, Iu])ere ^eldes (Hending, p. 277) ; here there is no Verb at all ; this answers to our liigli interest^ had security. Among other Adjectives, the poet is fond of lylie- ivJiyt, applied to a lady ; this kind of compound comes down from the earliest times. Shakespere's turn of phrase, yott were best go, is foreshado^ved in Hending' s advice (p. 279), hetere ivere a rich inon for te spouse. At p. 30 of the Lyric Poetry comes hurde on of the best ; we should now put the Substantive, not first, but last. Among Verbs, we remark TJiust used in the Dorset- shire sense of oi:>ortet ; the do in do lystne me reminds us of the Ancren Riwle. The Old English idiom in fair to see is now further extended ; in Hending, p. 277, we read shulde non betne ylyche to be god ; that is, ' in being good.' The French a had most likely some influence here. There is anew idiom of the Past Participle, comingperhaps from the Latin ; hetere is afpel y^eve ^en y-ete (p. 273) ; it is odd that the last Participle stands without any Noun. Spillan (spoil) had hitherto been Transitive ; at p. 271, it becomes Neuter. We see for the first time our form histad (bestead) : so hit wes histad, (constitutum). Lyric Poems, p. 41. Orrmin had used the Verb imdertahe in the sense of reprehendere ; it now first gets the meaning of stiscijyere, p. 41. In Adverbs : Layamon's godliche (pulchre) is now pared down to godly (p. 38) ; and this is found after- wards in Salop ; we shall soon see other examples of the confusion thus created between the Adjective and the Adverb. The Advevh fay re gets a new meaning in Hending's Poems, p. 278 ; ^ve there read, ahyde fayre z 2 340 Old and Middle English. and stille ; sometHng like Cowper's fair and softly ; here there is a change of raeaning from pulcher to tran- quillus. The o/had followed cystig (prodigns) in Orrmin ; it here follows /re, when that Adjective keeps its early mea^mngpotens; a man make]) Mmfre of my god, Hending, p. 277, ' master of my goods ; ' we now say ' makes fi-ee with ' &c. At p. 29 of the Lyric Poems, we see Orrmin's contraction of gelang to long ; my lyf is long on the. At p. 42, away is used as an Interjection, like the French avaunt. The foreign Verb servir now gets the sense of tractare, that is now so common with us ; he ]mt me ene serve]^ so, Hending, p. 276. In the same Herefordshire manuscript is the famous ballad on the Battle of Lewes, in 1264.^ It may have been the work of some Londoner, for we see that most unusual word swijvyng, which is not repeated, I think, until Chaucer wrote. We here find the word host (our hoast), which is Celtic. We have already seen the word sh-ew ; this now becomes shreward, applied to the King's son ; the ard here is a short-lived attempt at an imitation of the French endings, such as cou-ard. Sire is prefixed to a proper name, as Sir Edivard. There is one great change ; French forms have always been found con- venient to lighten the load thrown on our Eno-lish Prepositions; and this has gone on for the last six hundred years ; for had many meanings, and one of these is now laid upon the French maugre, for we find maiigre Wyndesore. ^ Political Songs (Camden Society), p. 69. Middle English : Neglect. 341 THE EAST :\nDLAND DIALECT. (About A.D. 1270.) The following specimen must have been written much about the time that King Henry the Third ended his worthless life, if we may judge by internal evidence. It was transcribed by a Herefordshire man about forty years later. Of the sixty Nouns, Verbs, and Adverbs contained in it, one alone, pra?/, is French ; and of the other fifty- nine, only three or four have dropped out of our speech. In the Poems of 1280 we shall find a larger proportion of French than in this elegant lay, which may be set down to 1270. The writer seems to have dwelt at Huntingdon, or somewhere near, that town being almost equidistant from London and the three other places mentioned in the fifth stanza. The prefix to the Past Participle is not wholly dropped ; and this is perhaps a token that the lay was written not far to the South of the Great Sundering Line. The Third Person Singular of the Present Tense ends is es, and not in the Southern eth. The Plural of the same Tense ends in the Midland en. We find ourselves speedily drawing near the time when English verse was written such as might readily be un- derstood six hundred years after it was composed. THE EAST ^HDLAND DIALECT. (A.D. 1270.) When the nyhtegale singes, the wodes waxen grene, Lef ant gras ant hlosme springs in Averyl, y wane, 342 Old and Middle English. Ant love is to myn lierte gon witli one " spere so keue '^ ^ Nylit ant day my blod hit drynkes, myn herte deth me tene.^ ^ ^lami Icli have loved al this jer. that y may love na more, Ich have siked moni syk,'' lemmon, for thin ore :*^ ! ^^^^ J ; ^ •) A mercy Me nis love never the ner, ant that me reweth sore, Suete lemmon, thench on me, ich have loved the gore." ® long Suete lemmon, y preye the of love one speche, AVhil y lyve in world so wyde other nulle y ^ seche ; ^ I ^'^ "o* With thy love, my suete leof, mi blis thou mihtes eche,^ ? increase A suete cos of thy mouth mihte be my leche. Suete lemmon, y preje the of a love bene ; ^ '' boon Yef thou me lovest, ase men says, lemmon, as y wene, Ant jef hit thi wille be, thou loke that hit be sene. So muchel y thenke upon the, that al y waxe grene. Bituene Lyncolne and Lyndeseye, Northamptoun ant Lounde, Ne wot y non so fayr a may as y go fore y-bounde ; Suete lemmon, y pre^je the thou lovie me a stounde,' ' ^i^il^ Y wole mone my song on wham that hit ys on ^ y- ^ along of long.^ I Have already mentioned the Proverbs of Hending ; from this I give some of the homely bywords of the time when Englishmen were drawing their swords upon each other at Lewes and Evesham. God biginning make]) god endyng. Wyt ant wysdom is god warysoun. ' Percy Society, vol, lY. p. 92. This is a' transcript made by a Herefordshire man, who must have altered and into ant, nill into nulle, kis into cos, &e. Middle English : Neglect. 343 Betere is eyesor ]>en al blynd. Wei fy])t ])at wel flj]^. Sottes bolt is sone shote. Tel ])ou never |)y fo ])at ]>y fot ake]'. Betere is appel y-jeve \%m y-ete. Gredy is |)e godles. AVhen pe coppe is follest, ])enne her hire feyrest. Under boske (bush) shal men weder abide. When ])e bale is best, ])enne is pe bote nest. highest remedy nighest Brend child fur drede]). Fer from e^e, fer from herte. Of unboht hude men kerxe]' brod j'ong. hide Dere is boht ])e hony ])at is licked of ])e J^orne. Ofte rap rewep. haste Ever out come]' evel sponne web. Hope of long lyf gyle|> mony god wyf. THE OOXTRAST TO THE EAST MIDLAND. (About A.D. 1270.) A vox gon out of the wode go, Afingi-et so, that him wes wo ; He nes nevere in none wise Afingret erour half so swithe. He ne hoeld nouther wey ne strete. For him wes loth men to mete. Him were levere meten one hen. Then half an oundred wimmen. He strok swithe over al, So that he of-sei ane wal. Withinne the walle wes on hous, The wox wes thider ST\-ithe wous, For he thohute his hounger aquenche. Other mid mete, other mid drimche. 344 0^(^ ^^^^ Middle English. A"boiiten he "biheld wel geme, Tlio eroiist bigon the vox to erne.* This, evidently a translation from a French tale, is preserved in the Digby Manuscript, compiled rather later, about 1290. The Southern dialect is well marked in the forms thilhe, ago, erne (currere), dest (facis), sugge (dico), the Accnsative tJiene, and the Genitive Plural loidewene, which at once reminds us of the kindred Latin mdiiariim, root, ending, and all. On the other hand, the ISTorthern I have is encroaching on the Southern ich liahbe, for both alike are found ; and the form srift, not shrift, suggests that the piece was com- piled not far from Essex ; perhaps, like Layamon's Second Text, in Hertfordshire. At p. 65 we find isiist thou (vides), pronounced as we sound the word now. The o is encroaching on the old a ; at p. 59 we see both anne floh and on hoh in one couplet ; shame becomes shome. The o is also encroaching on the u ; ividf is turned into ^i:olf, though we still keep the right old sound ; we find, I was vjoned (solebam) at p. 61. As to Consonants, the guttural sound at the end of a word was evidently dying out about this time, all through the South of England; we find lou (risit), inou (satis), and dou for the Old English dah, our dough, Layamon's hroide (tulit) is here repeated ; the h should have come in the middle. The cZ is cast out, for godsih becomes gossip, p. 61. The /is cast out, for we see the old hofthuo'st at p. 67, and the new athurst at p. 60 : the latter form lingers in our Bible. 1 Hazlitt's Earli/ Foj)ular Poetry, vol. I. p. 58. Middle English: Neglect. 345 Among the Pronouns, we remark tlie Accusative on (vos) nsed for the Nominative ^e, a curious instance of the bad grammar that was flooding England ; togedere ou ley (jacebatis), p. 65. The Indefinite hit is used very freely now ; hit com to the time, that &c. (p. QQ) ; the hit also refers to a past sentence ; ' I have bled the hens, and the, chauntecler, hit luolde don goed (p. 59). We see half prefixed to Adverbs ; afingret half so swithe (p. 58). In Verbs : we see the progress of changes that were at work all over England ; such a form as might have been had been very rare hitherto, but was now freely used. The old Imperative had been flee thou ; this was changed into thou fie (p. 59) ; we still say, ' you go there.' The Erench was influencing our Verbs ; the fox in his trouble says (p. 61), nou of me i-don hit hiis, (actum est de me). Again, repetition by A. of B.'s previous words was something quite new in English. ' Sei wat I shaldoj' says the wolf. 'Do ? quod the vox,' &c. (p. 65). In the next page comes the wolf's question, ' Weder ivolt thou ?' ' Weder ich wille ? the vox sede.' At p. 59 we learn that five hens make a flock. As to Prepositions : /or in the sense of as might follow the Verb hold in the oldest English ; this usage is now extended to hnoiv ; the vox hine i-kneu wel for his kun (kinsman) . This for is now, in one of its senses, elbowed out by mid (with) ; since we find — Wat mid serewe, and 7md drede, Al his thiu'st him oyer-hede.^ * Only the other day, I heard a man say, ' I cannot see, toitk (ob) the smoke.' 34^ Old and Middle English. This ifiirii is now always tacked on to our partitive use of wliat : ' what with one thing, what with another,' &c. The poem we have just gone through is unmis- takeably a translation from the French. The old French names of the animals, renowned in fable, are brought into England : the cock is Sire Chauntecler ; the wolf is Sigrim (Isegrim) ; the fox is Reneuard. We now first hear in English of the freren or friars. Some say that the French ending in es had great influence in making England adopt es for the Plural ending of all her Nouns ; so far is this from the truth, that in the present piece the poet goes out of his way to alter the French fr&res into freren^ the old Plural form to which Southern England steadily clung. The French oath i faie (i'faith), which is hardly extinct even now, may be seen at p. 64. Every second line in the poem rimes with the line before it, until we come to the end ; then three lines end in the same rime ; a favourite usage of Dryden's is here fore- shadowed. In the Harleian Manuscript (Percy Society), men- tioned at p. 338 of my book, there are Herefordshire poems which seem to belong to 1270.^ They cannot have been compiled far to the South of the Great Line, for we see the Northern forms are^ 9^'<^'^y-) ^i^ ledes, he gos, made (factum), also the Midland we han. The poet was used to express the broad French a in the usual way, as romaunz ; indeed his haum is still pronounced much as he wrote it, though we spell it halm. The au might stand ^ In trjnng to determine the age of these poems, I look most to the proportion of French words in an Alliterative piece ; here the poet always strives to be as Teutonic as he can. Middle English : Neglect. 347 for either the broad a or the French ou ; this we know, by seeing the French reaume or royaume appear in later English pieces, sometimes as reame, sometimes as rewme. He employs the au for English words, ^vitmg faurung (p. 23), which is different from the vawenunge of the Ancreu Riwle ; unitoioeu becomes untoun (p. 32). The old cerest (primnm) is cut down to erst ; and swan (cygnus) is written swon, which comes near our pronunciation of the word. Seolc becomes syllc (silk). There is much clipping of Consonants; Ich liaf becomes y ha (p. 31) ; hcefed (caput) becomes hed (p. 34) ; and there is also forhed. Lihtloses the guttural in the middle, and is written lyt, riming with ivyt (p. 31). The old Participle gewcetod is in p. 30 pared down to ivet. A form peculiar to the poet is lossum, standing for lovesome (amabilis) ; it comes often. There are some new forms in Adjectives. At p. 97 comes the well-known feyr ant fre, here applied to the Virgin ; this is repeated in the Tristrem of nearly the same date, and it has been kept alive to our day.^ At p. 84 a sinful man is said to be more than unwis ; at p. 24 wyves vAlle is called ded wo ; hence comes our ' a dead loss.' There is one remarkable chanofe of idiom ; in 1260, a girl talks of women, and says that her lover will soon vachen an neive (capere novam). But a few years later, in a piece written about 1270, as I suppose, women are mentioned, and we then hear of the feyrest on ; here the one is added, to avoid the repetition of the Substantive that has gone before. * I refer to the fourth line of Billy Taylor : ' To a maiden fair and free.' Free here means liberalis, (ladylike). Burgoyne, in 1779, talked about ' the honour of an officer and the liberality of a gentle- man.' See his Life, by Fonblanque, p. 227. 348 Old and Middle English. Coming to Verbs, we find take hede^ and hit doth me god (p. 83). At p. 28 we read, hetere is tholien then mournen ; we cannot help suspecting that this Infinitive gave rise to ' better is tholing than mourning ; ' the corruption of form took place a few years later. Again, at p. 50, the question is asked, ivhet ys the teste bote ? Bote heryen him ; this Infinitive heryen (laudare) looks very like the parent of some of our seeming Verbal I*^ouns. At p. 35, a girdle, as it is said, ' triketh to the to ; ' hence comes tricJde, a puzzling word as to its derivation. The al prefixed is very common in these poems ; at p. 23 we find for the first time al thah (quamvis) ; it took about ninety years to make its way to London. We see the Danish hrag, at p. 24, here used as an Adjective. At p. 32, croune is employed in a new sense, standing for a clerk's shaven head ; in the Tristrem, rather later, the word stands for the top of any man's head. Lele (faithful) appears here ; it seems later to have been wholly confined to the North of England. There is the woman's name Alysoun at p. 28. The sixty years comprised in this Chapter are the unhapj)iest period in the whole of the English language, if we search through all the fourteen hundred years that separate the Beowulf from the Sigurd. Few indeed are the poems of this particular period, from 1220 to 1280, if we contrast them with the work done in the first twenty years of the Century, and also with the achieve- ments of its last twenty years ! As to prose, there is none at all, always excepting King Henry's Procla- mation. Middle English : Reparation. 349 CHAPTER V. MIDDLE ENGLISH — REPAEATION. (1280-1300.) We had now, by 1280, tided over the worst ; hencefor- ward, England was never again to throw aside her own tongue ; our ruined walls were to be repaired ; we were to light our old candle, now burning very dimly, at the blazing French torch. The heedfal reader will remark, in the EngHsh specimens that follow, an ever-increasing number of French words, wherewith the lost Teutonic was being replaced. "We turn once more to THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT. (About A.D. 1280.) King Edward was now fastening his yoke upon Wales. The first Mercian poem of this time that I shall notice is the piece called The Harrowing of Hell, the earliest specimen of anything like an English dramatic work. It may have been written at Northampton or Bedford. The text has been settled (why did no Englishman take it in hand, and go the right way to work ?) by Dr. Mall of Breslau. With true German 3 so Old and Middle English, insiglit into philology, he has compared three different English transcripts : a Hertfordshire (?) one, of 1290 ; a Herefordshire one, of 1315 ; and a JSTorthern one, of 1330. Again we see the Midland tokens ; the Present Plural in en, the almost invariable disnse of the prefix to the Past Participle, the substitution of nolit for ;/e, liave liov hahhe icli ; there are unto and refine (currere), he nam Jiim, like the later he gat him. The author wi'ote Jdn and ma/i, not the Southern hun and mon, since the words are made to rime T^^th him and Abraliam. The old a is sometimes, but not always, replaced by o ; the poet's rimes prove him to have written strong, not Strang ; he had both ygan and ygon, riming respectivelv with Satlian and martirdom. The Plural form honden, found in all the three manuscripts, and the absence of are (sunt), point io the Southern border of the Dane- lagh; at the same time, the Northern loi]) (cum) has driven out the Southern mid. Thei (illi) sometimes replaces hi ; both Icli and I are found. There is a thoroughly ]N"orthern form ; he areu (pitied) hem. The Midland form ]rrist (sitis) has been altered by all the thi^ee transcribers ; the two Southern ones use ^iirst, something like our sound of the word : Dr. Mall, by the help of the rime, has here restored the true readino-. Ch has replaced c, for micliel, not miJcel, is found in the Northern manuscript. The dialogue is most curious : Satan swears, _2mr ma fei, like the soundest of Christians; and our Lord uses a metaphor taken from a game of hazard. The comic business, as in the Antigone of Sophocles, falls to a warder. The oath God I'jot, else- where Goddot, comes once more ; and also the Danish Middle English : Reparation. 351 word gate (via), which never made its way into the South, except in the form algaies} The fondness for new Verbal Nonns was comino^ down from the North ; for at p. 31 we find )n' coming instead of the rightfnl cimie (adventus), which long lingered. The old terseness in the idiom of Pronouns is seen at p. 27 ; Christ talks of other people's property, and then says that Adam ^ves hoht tvi\> min ; here no Noun is coupled with the Pronoun. The old ivell nigh is now supplanted by almost, p. 27 ; the Scotch still use the true old mcest (fere). As to Verbs : the Dorsetshire meaning of oportet, as applied to moste, was creeping up from the South ; alle mosten to lielle te, p. 21 ; here the Verb is in the past tense. The old Past Participle iiviten is changed ; for at p. 23 we find ich have wist (known). A sad corrujDtion, seen in the Alfred Pro- verbs, is now repeated ; it is one of the few things that has escaped Dr. Mall's eye. The Second Person of the Perfect of the Strong Verb is brought down to the level of the Weak Verb. At p. 27 we see hou mihtest ])ou ' I give a specimen from page 33 of Dr. Mall's work. Abraham speaks : — Louerd, Crist, ich it am, pat >ou calledest Abraham ; pou me seidest, >at of me Shiilde a god child boren be, pat ous shulde bringe of pine, Me and wi)> me alle mine, pou art >e child, )?ou art \>e man, pat wes boren of Abraham ; Do nou J>at j^ou bihete me. Bring me to hevene up wi> >e. The New English, as we see, is all but formed. 352 Old and Middle English. (potes) ; here Orrmin would have used malit or 'miht for the Verb ; indeed the Northern transcriber fifty years later has altered it into "^naij. In line 11 ^ we see in the transcript of 1290, Siimie HQfoundest l»ou never non. In line 189, the transcriber of 1315 writes — Do nou J»at ])ou hyhihtest me. It was man}" years before this corruption could take root ; it is seldom found in Wickliffe, who tries to avoid translating dedisti by either the old gave or the new gavest, and commonly writes clidest give. At page 32, we find a line thus written in the tran- script of 1290, ' we pi comaundement forleten ; ' in the transcript of 1315, this is ' we pin heste dude forleten/ If this latter represent the original of 1280 best, it is an early instance of a revived Auxiliary Verb, of which I shall give instances in the next Chapter. Much ink was not long ago spent upon Byron's expression, ' there let him lay ' (jaceat) . The bard might have appealed to the transcript of 1315 : Sathanas, y hynde ]?e, her shalt |)ou lai/ j>at come domesdai. — Page 30. At p. 27 we read, of o])er mannes ]>ing make mar- chandi^e ; the French faire had most likely an influence here, and the idiom was now becoming common. The Herefordshire manuscript of this piece translates donee by the Saxon o pat, where the other two manuscripts have the Anglian and Danish til. The Herefordshire Middle EnglisJi : Reparation. 353 forms /^a]), losen, and huy]^ (emit), all smack of the West country ; as also foleived (baptizavit), p. 35, a fine Old English Verb that had now died out of the South East^ though it was well known in Gloucestershire down to 1520.1 Perhaps we may set down to this time the English Charters of Bury St. Edmund's in the form that they have come down to us. They fill many pages of Kemble's great work, from TV. p. 223 onwards ; one of them, as we learn by a note in the margin, was read before the Barons of the Exchequer. I think that the date of tran- scription cannot be earlier than 1260, for we see the old hande (manus) written haunde, in the French way, VI. p. 199 ; and this comes twice. But there is also the form squilh (talis), VI. p. 11 ; nothing like this is to be found elsewhere until the Cursor Mundi, about 1290. We know from Domesday Book that the old stoir (locus) was pronounced like the French stou ; we now see a further change of form, for in VI. p. 12 is the form staus (loca) ; another proof that the au must sometimes have had the sound of the French ou. The Consonants of the old Charters transcribed have been much altered ; we find Suffolk, Norfolk, lialiieni, \nirgh, lewed, schal, sal, everi, his owen, govel, holy, so, I, no man, oni, richte, lent. The town, which had sprung up around the great Abbey, is here called Eadmundes biri. We see the East Anglian change of ]> into d, as in 1230 ; the form livid (vivit) is * Tyndale, •who knew nothing about what in his day was called Saxon, makes a stupendous mistake about the West-country priest's popular title /o^(??/(?r or volou'er, deriving it from the Latin volo, which came into the Baptismal service ! A A 354 Old and Middle English. in YI. p. 12. The guttural is being dropped, for douter comes as well as douchter ; u is turned into the French form ou, as Cnout, hour. The h is wrongly prefixed ; ig hem (conceSo) appears. The East Anglian g is in full use ; as get (adhuc), ginger (junior). Some of the words transcribed could have been barely understood in 1280, such as sinden (sunt), ic auclite (habui), wefod (altare). But the greatest Midland work of 1280 is the Lay of Havelok, edited by Mr. Skeat for the Early English Text Society. This is one of the many poems translated from the French about this particular time, when King Edward the First was welding his French-speaking nobles and his English yeomen into one redoubtable body, ready for any undertaking either at home or abroad. The poem, which belongs to the Mercian Danelagh, has come down to us in the hand of a Southern writer, transcribed within a few years of its compilation. This renowned Lincolnshire tale was most likely given to the world not far from that part of England where Orrmin had written eighty years earKer ; the Havelok is certainly of near kin to another Lincolnshire poem, compiled in 1303. Mr. Garnett, in p. 75 of his 'Essays,' has suggested Derbyshire or Leicestershire as the birth-place of the author : Dr. Morris is in favour of a more Southern shire. We find the common East Midland marks : the Present Plural ending in e7i ; the Past Participle oftenest with- out a prefix ; are for the Latin sunt ; niman for the Latin ire ; and the oath Goddot, which is said to be of Danish birth. ^ But there is also a dash of the Northern ' It is spelt loduth (an interjection) in the old Danish rime- chronicle. See the Notes on the Havelok, p. 122. Middle English : Reparation. 355 dialect ; tlie Second and Third Persons Singular of the Present tense, and the Second Person Plural of the Im- perative, alike end in es now and then ; a fashion that lingers in Scotland to this day. The Danish Active Par- ticiple in ande is also found, and Danish phrases like thiiscjate, hetJien, gar, leylie, until, gate (via), til, Yerh (Eboracum). Orrmin's munnde has now led to moun or mone, which is almost the Scotch maun, as in line 840: ' I wene that we deye (die) mone.^ The poem was compiled to the East of Orrmin's sliire, for his 5/io (the old heo) is now seen as she and sJio ; his they and their are sometimes met with, but have been often altered by the Southern transcriber into hi and Mr. The Southern thilk (ille) is not found once in the whole poem. We now for the last time see the Old English Dual (this we must have brought from the Oxus) in the line 1882 : ' Gripeth e])er unker a god tre.' G~rip each of you two a good tree. This had of old been written incer. Strange tricks are played with the letter h. The letter d is dropped after liquids, for we find here shel, hel, hihel ; and the Danes to this day have the same pronunciation. But such words as ilc, sivilJc, mihel, hwilgate, prove that our modern corruptions of these words had not as yet made their way far to the North of the Great Line ; the Havelok shows us our Standard English almost formed, but something is still wanting. There are Northern forms, which could never have been used in the South in Edwardian days ; such as A A 2 356 Old and Middle English, sternes, intil, tinte^ coupe, loujoe, carle. The Plurals oi Substantives end in es, not en ; and to this there are hardly any exceptions. The Northern wi]) has driven out the Southern mid. There appear again many forms which we saw fifty years earlier in that other East Midland work, the Genesis and Exodus of East Anglia. Such are, sister, or, clad, fled, fee, they did rest, he had he hrought, they were hut a mile off, leren (discere), goven, side ye, wore (erant), at nede, aren (sunt), feytli. Understand of (recipere de) appears, as in the poem dictated by St. Thomas to the East Anglian priest. The qu often replaces the rightful hiu, as quanne for hivanne ; the alderhest of East Anglia is now adtherhest. The Southern transcriber, who went to work perhaps ten years after his original was compiled, has taken great liberties. He is fond of clipping the Northern guttural li ; for he writes ])oti (quamvis), 2)low, ante (habuit), though he sometimes leaves this word as he found it, auchte. He often writes noitth for the old oioht, and most likely dropped the guttural h in pro- nouncing, for he has Iwoth for Ivjot. He has michel, il (ilc) del ; we see the true form als (sicut) in p. 16, but this is sometimes wrongly changed into also, as in p. 10. He writes wrohheres (latrones), p. 2, which shows that the w had at that time no sound before the r, at least in the South. He makes little difference between id and u ; he has the old hlawe (flare), which, however, is altered into hlou at p. 18 ; oiuen (proprius) is written oune at p. 68 ; laive (humilis) is changed into lowe, and sawe (vidit) into soiue. Middle English: Reparation. 357 As to Vowels : the ea becomes a ; for hearli (texit) becomes harv:) ; tlie same vowel change is in the Ormnlum and the Genesis. The verb for monstrare is written shauiue, riming wdth hnawe, at p. 62 ; it is also written sheite, riming with hneive, at p. 43 ; spelling was as yet in a most unsettled state. Eorl now becomes erZ, and seol (phoca) is seen as sele. Orrmin's lefftenn (levare), a Danish word peculiar to the Xorth, is now written lift. The old grcpp (sulcus) becomes gri^j a word still in use. The u is in great request ; the old are (remus) becomes ore ; eac (etiam) is sometimes written ok. We may trace the Westward march, up from East Anglia, of the replacing the older a ; swa has become so, and is made to rime with Domino ; on the other hand, iva (dolor) still rimes with stra^ our straw. The also replaces ii ; as we see in p. 81, where the old treoivian (credere) is written tro, just as we pronounce it ; we see J^orit written for )nirh in p. 85 ; hence comes our tlwrouyh. They shoten replaces the old Perfect scuton. The iv is often w^ritten for ^(, ; we hear of BoJceshtiriu (p. 0) ; and lav (quomodo). The old form ]nt and the new form ]wic both appear, the Latin and the Greek forms of marking one and the same sound; our foiihten (pugnaverunt) now replaces Laya- jnon^ sfuhten. The muhte (potuit) of the Ancren Riwle here becomes moiide and mouthe : Tennvson's ' Northern Farmer ' savs, ' it mowt 'a bean so.' The old acofriari (recuperare) is pared down to cover e at p. 57 ; it is here intransitive. On turning to the Consonants, we see 5 inserted, for the old samening (conventus) of the Genesis must have 358 Old and Middle EnglisJi. become semeling and then semhling (p. 31). F is replaced bj v^ for cnafa becomes hnave. Tlie h is cast out in the middle of a word, for lolian is written Ion (p. 6). The g is cast out as usual; there are such forms as e?/7ze (oculi), still kept by our poets; also jpenies (p. 36). The g is replaced by w, for we see the proper name H-iiiue ; there is also drawen (tractus) and awe (terrere). The old galga becomes galive-tre at p. 2 ;, and further on, at p. 21, we hear of the gahies, our gallows. At Leicester, Gallow Tree Gate is found as the name of a street to this day. The s is inserted, for the old civile is now seen as q^iiste, our bequest. The sevende of the Genesis is now written seven])e ( Septimus) ; it is the Old English seofo]>a with the Scandinavian n inserted. We find, by a note of Mr. Skeat's at the end of p. 74, that instead of the first letter of ye, our 7jea, there is found a character that might stand for either ]y, for p (the Old English w), or for y. The like con- fusion may be remarked in other manuscripts compiled about 1290 ; we see at once why some still write ?/® for the.^ We find two lines in p. 55 which explain why the Irish to this day sound the r so strongly : ^ And he haves on ]?oru his arum (arm), perof is ful mikel harum (harm).' ' The Caxton Exhibition of July, 1877, has here enabled me to add a note. Caxton, in printing, well distinguishes the \> from the y. The Bibles of Tyndale and Coverdale, in 1536, make very little difference between these characters ; still, there is a difference, if the books are closely examined; the )> is still employed in writing the and that. In Grafton's Bible of 1.540, there is no difference at all made between )> and y. Middle English : Reparation. 359 So the Irisli sound Tjndale's horen (natus) in tlie trne old way. The Scotch war aid (world) is another relic of these sounds. We see the Old English word for a well-known bird, in line 1241 : ' Ne ])e hende, ne pe drake.'' The former substantive, akin to the Latin anas, anatis, was still to last two hundred years, before it was sup- planted by the word duck. As to drake, this Poem first shows us that the word had lost its old form end-rake, that is, anat-rex. There is hardly a word in English that has been so mauled ; one letter, d, alone remains now to show the old root, and this letter is prefixed to a word akin to the rajah of Hindostan. The poet is fond of coupling Nouns together, even when one of them is French ; we find luve-drurye, grith- sergeans, serf -bono, romanz-reding ; the noun is some- times qualified by another noun of value, as a fer]>mg ivastel (p. 27). The love for new Verbal Nouns was coming down from the North ; even French words were submitted to this process ; at p. 58 we see ivith ioynge (cum gaudio). The Accusative of Time is seen again; it is said that something happens ]ns tid nithes (p. 58), where we should say ' this time of night.' We find the Genitive employed, without the usual noun following, where property is meant ; ]?^5 clones aren ]>e kokes (the cook's), p. 35. At p. 48, Havelok is sent unto ]>e greyves (the grieve's house). The Genitive of the Substantive is now replacing the Adjective, when material is meant ; at p. 78, we hear of gode feteres al of stel ; and at p. 38 360 Old and Middle English. comes a hlase of fir. Still, at p. 43, a man is called a develes lime (m.embrum.). Folh now means not only ^ojpulus, but cotnitatus ; the retinne of a great lord is called his folk at p. 46. An Adjective is turned into a Substantive, when a criminal is said to be led outside tbe town ttnto a grene, p. 80. Men are said not to care a straw or a sloe for a thing. The old fealg (rastrum) now gives birth to a new 'Noun falwes, our fallows. The tan (digiti pedis) of the South now become tos ; the sound is well kept in our toes. On turning to the Adjectives, we see the new Southern form with most encroaching on the old Super- lative, as ^nest meke, p. 29. Loth had hitherto meant only 'inolestus ; it now, no longer governing a Dative, gets the further sense of invitus ; we hear that an oath is taken of the barons, lef and loth^ p. 9. We see the word cwic halfway between its old sense of vivus and its later sense of citus ; certain men are called quike, p. 41, meaning active. The word sarig gets another meaning besides its old sense of tristis ; a bad man is called pat sori fend^ p. 62. A new exhaustive definition of the conditions of men is coming in ; all men are summoned, \eu and fre, p. 62 ; in the Tristrem of the same date, this becomes hond and fre. This word fre has another side, which we see at p. 82 ; we there hear of a lady, that she is fayr and she is fre. The word scElig kept its old meaning of felix down to 1440 in Norfolk ; but it here means infelix ; a child, when about to be murdered, is called a seli knave, p. 15 ; the same sense of the word is found in Gloucestershire twenty years later. It is Middle English : Retaliation. 361 most remarkable that one word should bear two mean- ings wide as the poles asunder, at one and the same time. We may gather from this scelig^ that the Havelok was written in the Westernmost part of the Danelagh.' In this Poem, men are often exhaustively described, not as one and all, but as hroun and UaJc. The ballad phrase red gold is now in vogue ; the old phrase had been used long before this time, as we see in Kemble's Charters, IV. 292. An Adjective is qualified by having a Substantive prefixed ; we hear of stan~ded (p. 50), a phrase used by Lord Essex in 1641 ; the phrase is explained in p. 75, where an earl falls ded so ani ston. At p. 30 we light upon clones, al span neive; the word comes from the old sjjon, a chi]) ; we should now say, hrand new. The Scandinavian phrase for this was spcm-nyr. As to Pronouns : the French use vous, when address- ing the Almighty ; this took root in the Northern half of England. Havelok, when in earnest prayer, employs the word unmusical in Quaker's ear : For the hoh milce of you Have merci of me, loverd, nou.- — P. 41. I think we owe our freedom from this particular corrup- * The sense of infelix remained till 1600. James VI. was called by a Scotch minister ' God's silly vassal.' Our silly means stultus now, though it stood for bonus in Layamon's Second Text : this reminds ns of the Greek cucthcs. 2 This still lingers in Scotland ; see the Psalms turned intil Scottis by Mr. Waddell, published in 1871 ; such phrases as 'heigh, Lord, i' yer ain might,' come constantly. 362 Old and Middle English. tion to our version of the Lord's Prayer, where tu is rightly Englished by the kindred ]nt, tliou ; to this we have always steadfastly clung. We saw the sense in which Orrmin employed theirs ; this is now extended ; at p. 79 we read, Englond auhte for to hen youres. This is a sure mark of the North. At p. 2 we see the idiom, well known to ballad-makers, where it becomes something like an Indeterminate Pronoun, as in the Ancren liiwle : It was a king hi are daives That in his tiiue ivere gode laives. There is another use of the Indefinite it at p. 3 : ivo so dede im'oiig, were it clerc or tvere it knidh, &c. At p. 68 we see the earliest instance of a well-known vulgarism : ' Hwau Godard herde ]>at ])er ]n'ette.' The Oblique case of the old Article may have had some influence here ; ex ilia hord was Englished by of ]^CBre tide. At p. 29 'ino7'e is employed in a new sense ; Havelok would not rest more ]>an he were a hest ; we should now put any before this more. There is a change in the use of Numerals ; at p. 55, Havelok has a wound in the side, and on poru Ms armn ; here on is employed without repeating the Substantive. There is a new phrase in p. 75 ; two men fell down,^rs^ ])e croune; we should now say, crown first ; this is a kind of Dative Absolute. We see the Northern Strong Verb weakened in the Participle, as ])at he he henged (p. 70) ; the South stuck to the rightful hengen, our hung. At p. 57 knawed Middle English: Repai'atioji. 363 (notus) is written to suit the rime, instead of hnaiven. The Southern Participle do (factum), not don^ is found at p. 49, where it rimes with tvjo. We see both v^olde have do (fecisset) and liavede parned (caruisset) ; the two later forms of the Pluperfect Subjunctive. There is a startling new idiom in p. 79 ; the queen was brought, /or hem for to se, ' for them to see.' This is found 170 years later in the Coventry Mysteries, which were compiled not far from Leicester. We saw in 1160 the phrase, ' he would have done it ;' this usage is now extended to other verbs ; in p. 49 comes, he wende have slaive (him), ' he thought to have slain him ;' the Infinitive Present would here have been used earlier. 1 2vee7i comes often as a mere expletive, as in p. 58. The noun luassail is now turned into a verb ; men haveden ivosseyled (p. 47). To prick is used in the fine old poetical sense that Macanlay loved : An erl, ])at be saw 2>f'iken ])ore, Ful uoblelike upon a stede. — P. 75. We find such phrases as he let ]>e harre fleye (fly), to sey nay, claj) hiiii on ]>e crwie, crak his crune, hreh up mi dor. The old dugan (valere) appears here, and henceforward was confined to the North, except in our common phrase ' how do you do ? ' here the first do stands for facere, the last for valere. The Scotch, less careless than ourselves, make doiv their form for valere. We see an Adverb formed from a Preposition in \oruth-like (thoroughly), p. 21. The Scandinavian noer, like the Old English neh, expressed the Latin fere ; at p. 54, we find, ner ah naked so he was horn. At p. 58 364 Old and Middle English. comes the old Soandinavian plirase til ok fra in our form, to and fro. The over^ioert of p. 80, with its last unmistakeable Danish letter, has since been pared down to atlnvart. Some Prepositions are used in a new way. The 0/ was encroaching on the on ; a phrase such as the old gebletsod on (inter) idfum makes way for ricth lie lovede ofalle ]>inge, p. 3. We see at p. 56, it is of Mm miJcel sca^e ; hence Shakespere's ' O, the pity of it ! ' The of replaces/or in the phrase iVker tiventi hnilites havede of genge (p. 66). The tvith becomes prominent. Layamon had written of mid Tuere hreches; we now see heljj him doun with pe hir^ene, p. 28 ; and hwat sholde ich luith wif do ? p. 35. At p. 41 comes nini in with ])e, the forerunner of our ' get along with you.' The at is employed for the Preposition 0^, where something is specially marked out, as happening within a short time ; at a dint (blow) he sloiu hem pre, p. 50. In such-like phrases we see how near a and one are to each other. A new sense of against is seen at p. 60 : hrithter pan gold ageijnpe lith (light). In the Ancren Riwle, umhe stonde had stood for nonnunqiiam ; here it stands for guondam, when the Danes refer to a deceased king, at p. 64 ; the word was altered in Scotland into umhe hwile (umquhile), with the same meaning of guondam. There are a few Interjections ; at p. 36 comes pe devel him hawe ! at p. 56 comes God-panh in the middle of a sentence. In our thanJc God ! the first word must be a noun, the last word must be in the Dative case. The Scandinavian verb leijlce (ludere) is sounded in this Poem just as our I^orthern shires still pronounce it; we of the South call it larJc, following the Old Middle English: Reparation. 365 Englisli Iman} In our sound of v-eak., we lean to tlie Northern ivaike^ the Scandinavian veihr, rather than to the Old English v)dc, which was at this time pro- nounced woe all through Southern England. Chaucer ruled in this instance for the Northern form, which must have made its way to London by his time. The form ])olk, for pool, is peculiar to the Dano- Anglian shires, and appears both here and in the Tristrem. As might be expected, there are many Danish words in the Havelok. I give those which England has kept, together with one or two to be found in Lowland Scotch. Big, from the Icelandic holy a (tumere). Bleak, from the Icelandic hleikr (paUidus). Blink, from the Danish hlinke. Boulder (a rock), from the Icelandic ballafir. Coupe, as in hoi'sc-coujyer, from the Icelandic kaupa (emere). Crus (Scotch a-ouse), from the Swedish kriis (excitable). Diuof, from the Icelandic clenyia, to hammer.^ Dirt, from the Icelandic clrit (excrementa). Goul (to yowl, ululm-e), from the Icelandic gaula. Grime, from the Norse grima (a spot). Hemp, from the Icelandic hampr, not from the Old English Put^ (to throw), from the Icelandic j^oi^^a. Sprawl, from the Danish sprcelle. Stack, from the Danish stak. Teyte (tight, active), from the Norse teitr (lively). * This verb will soon once more find its way into Standard English. Wellington, before 1816, speaking of an officer who had got himself killed needlessly, said, 'What business had he larking there?' See Lord Macaulay's Life, II. 277. '^ Can our noun ' dig in the side ' come from this ? ^ Hence comes the phrase, putting the stone, first found in this Poem. 366 Old and Middle English. Besides these Scandinavian words, we find in tlie Have- lok other words now for the first time employed. Such are lad (puer), from the Welsh Uaiod^ ; strottte, our strut (contendere), a High German word; hoy (puer), akin to the Suabian huah ; to hutt, akin to the Dutch hotten ; hut, (a ho2it at wrestling), which Mr. Wedgwood derives from hug mi (flectere), and hought, a word applied to the coils of a rope, and so to the turns of things that suc- ceed each other. File, akin to the Dutch vuil, means a worthless person ; we may still often hear a man called ' a cunning old file.' In 2499 of the Havelok, we read, ' Here him rore, j^at hile Jlle.' foul To-tuse (divellere) is akin to a High German word ; from it comes the dog's name Towser. The Verbal Noun sohhing, first found here, is said to be a word formed from the sound imitated. It is. curious to see in this Lay two forms of the same word that has come to England by different channels ; we have gete (custodire) from the Icelandic gceta ; and also wayte, which means the same, coming from the French guaiter, a corruption of the vjahte^i brought into Gaul by her German conquerors. Sad havock must have been wrought with English prepositional compounds in the eighty years that separate the Havelok from the Ormulum. In compound words, umhe, the Greek am^M, comes only three times throughout the long Poem before us ; for only five times ; with only once ; of not at all. The English tongue had been losing some of its best ' Lodes, the "Welsh female of this word, has become our lass. Middle English : Reparation. 3^7 appliances. The Preposition to, answering to the Ger- man zer and the Latin dis, was still often found in com- position, and did not altogether drop until the days of James I. ; it was even prefixed to French Verbs. THE EAST MIDLAND DL-ILECT. (About A.D. 1280.)^ The Havelok. — Page 38. On ])Q nith, als Goldeborw lay, Sory and sorwful was she ay, For she wende she were hiswike,* pat sh[e w]ere yeven uuliyndelike.^ nith saw she ])er-inne a lith, A swij^e *^ fayr, a swij^e bryth, Al so brith, al so shir,'' So it were a blase of fir. She lokede no(r)]), and ek south, And saw it comen ut of his mouth, pat lay bi hhe in pe bed : No ferlike ^ ]'ou she were adred. pouthe she, ' wat may this bimene P He beth ^ hepuan yet, als y wene. He beth heyman = er he be ded.' On hise shuldre, of gold red She saw a swi])e noble croiz. Of an angel she herde a voyz, ' Goldeborw, lat ])i sorwe be. For Havelok, J)at have]^ spuset pe, He [is] kinges sone, and kinges eyr, pat bikenneth ^ ])at croiz so fayr. » tricked *> unnatu- rally J clear 6 wonder ^ ^\•ill be 8 nobleman •• betokens ^ In this Poem nith stands for night, and other words in the same way. 36S Old and Middle English. It bikenneth more, ]mt he slial Denemark hayen, and Englond al. He shal ben king strong and stark Of Engelond and Denemark. ^ pat shal |)u wit ])in eyne sen/ And \o shalt quen and levedi ben.' panne she havede herd the stevene '^ Of ]^e angel uth of he vena, She was so fele sij^es ' blithe, pat she ne mithe hire joie my the." But Havelok sone anon she kiste, And he slep and nouth ne wiste. Hwan |)at aungel havede seyd, Of his slep anon he brayd,'* And seide, ^lemman, slepes ]wu? A selkuth ° drem dremede me noii. Herkne nou hwat me haveth met,P Me ]:)outhe y was in Denemark set, But on on |)e moste "^ hil pat evere yete kam i til. It was so hey, J»at y wel mouthe Al J)e ward ' se, als me pouthe. Als i sat upon J)at lowe,^ I bigan Denemark for to awe, pe borwes * and ])a castles stronge ; And mine armes weren so longe, That i fadmede, al at ones, Denemark, with mine longe bones. And l^anne ^ y wolde mine armes drawe Til me, and hom for to have, Al that evere in Denemark liveden On mine armes faste clyveden.'^ And ]'e stronge castles alle On knes bigunnen for to falle, see ^ voice 1 many times ™ moderate " started wondrous p I dreamt 9 greatest ' world » hiU * boroughs ° when * clave ' This way of pronouncing all the three vowels alike of the word Engelond had not died out in Shakespere's time. Middle EnglisJi : Reparation. 369 pe keyes fellen at mine fet. Ano])er drem dremede me ek, pat ich fley ^ over J)e salte se Til Engeland, and al with me pat evere was in Denemark Ivves,' But * bondemen, and here wives, And pat ich kom til Engelond, Al closede it intil mine hond. And, Goldeborw, y gaf [it] |)e. Deus ! lemman, hwat may J'is be ? ' Sho answerede and seyde sone : ' Jhesu Crist, |>at made mone, pine dremes turae to joye ; pat wite ^ |nv that sittes in troue. Ne non strong king, ne caysere, So ])ou shalt 1)6, fo[r] ])ou shalt here In Engelond corune yet ; Denemark shal knele to ])i fet. Alle f)e castles ])at aren ])er-inne, Shal-tow, lemman, ful wel winne.' >■ flew == alive » except ^ decree THE CONTRAST TO TIIE EAST MIDLAND. (About A.D. 1280.) Whan Jhesu Crist was done on rode And I'olede de]' for ure gode, He clepede to hym seint Johan, pat was his oje qenes man. And his ojene moder also, Ne clepede he hym feren no mo. And sede, ' wif, lo her ])i child pat on ])e rode is ispild : Nu ihc am honged on pis tre Wel sore ihc wot hit rewe]> ])e. Mine fet and honden of blod . . . Bi])ute gult ihc ]>olie pis ded. B B 3/0 Old and Middle English. Mine men ])at ajte me to love, For whan ihc com from lievene albuve, Me have]? idon ])is ilke schame. Ihc nave no gnlt, hi "bu]? to blame. To mi fader ihc bidde mi bone, pat he forjive hit hem wel sone.' Marie stod and sore weop, pe teres feoUe to hire fet. No wunder nas J»e5 heo wepe sore. Of soreje ne mijte heo wite no more, Whenne he j^at of hire nam blod and fless. Also his suete wille was, Heno- inavled on l^e treo. *• Alas, my sone,' seide heo, ^ Hu may ihc live, hu may Jns beo ? ' The above is taken from the Assumption of the Virgin, printed by the Early English Text Society, along with the King Horn and the Floriz, written about 1280 or later. In them we find that the Active Participle in m^e, first used by Layamon, has almost driven out the older inde. The King Horn was written in some part of England (Warwickshire ?), upon which the East Midland dialect had begun to act, grafting its Plural form of the Present tense upon the older form in eili. We find also in the Horn, as in the Havelok, such Midland forms as \ei^ til^ childre, lie iiam (ivit), and ho'^e (puer). Forms like fiss (piscis) and diss were found rather later in Gloucestershire. It is convenient to discuss all the three poems of the one manuscript together ; the Assumption and the Floriz may perhaps come from Worcestershire, for we find Layamon' s forms feolle (cecidit), Imvren (conducere), and the Salopian preference of the e, as Icenne (genus), hesse, merie (hilaris), senfid; Middle English : Reparation. 37 1 the 'pvXte of the South is altered into peZfe, p. 40 ; it as yet means mere, not torquere. There is Orrmin's higge {emere) at page 49. The form hieiveling (genuflectio) is found in Layamon and Robert of Gloucester. The writer is fond of the u sound, as chi2^e for cZej^e, g^icl for god (bonus), p. 60 ; font (pes) for fot, p. 4 ; he has the Salopian shup (navis). At p. 27 we see ires (aures) riming with tires (lacrymse), where the first ■vowel is pronounced as we sound it now ; there is also strimes. The greatest change is that of liiva siva into Jio so, (whoso), in p. 59 ; the sound of the w is already got rid of, and this spread into Lincolnshire twenty years later. The y and the ]> are both cast out in the middle of a word ; we see both loverd and loi'd, A])elhrus and Aylbrus ; there is also he ha]), as in other parts. The s is added, for we find u'/zaTiwes (unde.) There is a curious interchange between ^y and h, which reminds us of the two ways in Greek for expressing the first letter of the name Virgil ; the old wylm (fervor) leads to the Verb hulmep (fervet), p. 59 ; the French hoil may have had its influence here. The ]> is written like 5, as usual in the manuscripts of this time ; at p. 69 comes hi crie^ (clamant). Among Substantives, we see the new hii^thod ; also cast (jactus). Horn and Floriz, the heroes of two of the poems here printed, were but children at the outset of the tale ; so the title child is given to them through- out. This synonym for hniglit is well known in our old ballads, and lasted down to Childe Harold's day. There is the phrase in p. 2, hit ivas upon a sonieres day. At p. 73, comes, ]'e Admiral he hid god day ; in the Digby B B 2 372 Old and Middle English. Manuscript of the same date the rightful Accusative (jodne day is still kept. At p. 52 an Adjective is employed for a Substantive, lieo fulde of a hrim ; ' she filled from a bro.wn (jack);' we now employ browns iovjpence. The like is seen at p. 34 ; he ivipede ])at hlaJce of liis sivere ; the hlachs are well known to Londoners. At p. 56 we find ^u were \e hetere ; this Nominative would earlier have been the Dative pe ; a little lower comes, ' hold him /or more ]>anefol.' The old interchange between it and there comes out clearly in the phrase hit sirrang dai li-^t, (p. 4). In p. 65 stands sf^lial me nevre ativite me ; the first me is the Gloucestershire form of the Indefinite one7i. There is a curious idiom of a Passive and an Active Participle being coupled, at p. 70 ; felo7is inome hond- hahhing. At p. 29 we see strike seil, the first instance of this. Chivalrous ideas were now being widely spread under the sway of our great Edward, and we find that a Verb has been formed from the substantive hnight : For to hni-p:i child horn. — P. 14. At p. 10 comes her abute ; we often now turn an Adverb into a Substantive, when speaking of a man's whereabouts. We see the Preposition at supplanting on at p. 61, because the former was most like the French a ; ]pleie at pe escheher, (chess) ; most of our indoor games at this time came from France ; there is another encroachment by at upon on in p. 36, he at di]ie (death) laie. Of supplants on at p. 69, hire wi-^t (weight) of gold. The of was being used as freely as in the Havelok ; at p. 29, Middle English : Reparation, 373 comes telle me al of ]rlne spelle ; the partitive use of this of after sum must have been the m.odel followed here. We now light on scrij) (pera), which comes from the ■Scandinavian shrejppa, and 2^ore (spectare), akin to the Swedish pala. , Mr. Wedgwood points to ^;a?a i en hoh (pore on a book) ; we have the Verb iieer as well ashore, like deem and doom. There are also three words akin to the Dutch or German; clench (our clink), flatter, ajid guess ; the latter means ' to weigh or calculate,' and has long lived as an expletive in America, much as Wickliflfe used it. Many of the Poems, which remain to us in the Harleian Manuscript compiled about 1315, seem to be- long to 1280 ; so old a form as maydenmon (virgo) is here found. They have been printed in the Specimens •of Lyric Poetry, (Percy Society) ; in the Political Songs, (Camden Society) ; in the Poems of Walter Mapes, (Camden Society) ; and in the ' Reliquias Antiquas,' We may safely set the compilation down to the shire where the St. Katherine was translated ; there are many forms and idioms common to both pieces. The greatest peculia- rity of the present compiler is his changing eo into ue ; he. has suen for seon (videre) at p. 100 (Lyric P.). We see onr schow (monstrare) at p. 196 (Political S.), though this must have had the sound of the French ou. The v is .cast out at p. Ill (Lyric P.), for deuel becomes del, the •Scotch deil. The form qtiaque (tremere) is curious, in p. 348 (Mapes' P.) ; here the first qu is pronounced in the English way, the second in the French way. The old form man kin is now altered into monJiunde {mankind), p. 81 (Lyric P.). Cro}) was much used in 374 Old and Middle English. the sense of ca^ut about this time, as in the phrase crop ant rote ; our cro]jper differs not much from header ; the one belongs to the land, the other to the water. Glierl is used in the sense of fellow^ p. Ill (Lyric P.). Score is now used for a written account, p. 155 (Political S.). The lad and hoi of the Havelok are here repeated. Women now bear the names of Magr/e and Malle, p. 158 (Political S.). At p. 349 of the Mapes' Poems, the grave is called cure Imig horn. Sell, in the Western shires, had changed its meaning from heatus to infelix (like our '' i?oor fellow') ; this we saw in the Havelok. An animal unjustly treated is on that account called the sel iasse, p. 198 (Political S.)^ In the next page comes dogged, applied to the wolf ; it seems here to stand for cr'udelis. Further on, at p. 203, we read of a sori wed, the sense that sori had begun to bear in the Havelok. At 68 (Lyric P.) we hear of a body beaten hlak ant hlo ; hlce (lividus) is English ; hhie (caeruleus) is French. At p. 152 (Political S.) we see the origin of our common as good as, where good stands for well ; ase god is swynden anon as so for te simjnhe.. We say ' that is as good as saying, &c.' ; here we see how the Infinitive in en became ing. Worthy had hitherto been followed by the Infinitive ; at p. 71 (Lyrie P.) comes "inahe me ivorthi that y so he. At p. 58 of the same, we see the Possessive Pronoun set after its Substantive ; sivete Iliesu, loverd myn, as in the Blickling Homilies. The Indefinite it is extended in meaning at p. 110 ; ' no wight, unless hit hue the hegge.^ The 7ie, even in this Southern shire, is making way for nout, as we see in p. 111. At p. 196 (Political Middle English: Reparation. 375 Songs) there is a great change ; we see al thai, whate hi evir be. The old swa hwat swa is a thing of the past ; and the Neuter hwat is now used for the Masculine hwa, or perhaps for hivylc. The modern Relative sense of the latter Pronoun is gaining ground at p. 205 ; the poet talks of the joy of heaven ; he then begins a new sen- tence ; to whochjoi Crist hrinrj us. As to Verbs : hist (tu es) is in 72 (Lyric P.) 5 i^ belongs to the South, and was used three hundred years later by the great Warwickshire bard. The mot and most were not quite settled as yet ; in 199 (Political S.) stands Godis grame most hi have ; here we should now put may for most. In p. 203 comes men mot it hide ; here we should now put must for mot. At p. 155, comes y shal rewen huere redes ; here rue, as in the Harrowing of Hell, is employed in our modern way ; it would have been earlier me shall rewen of &c. We see such phrases as he weojj aflod of teres, p. 70 (Lyric P.) ; do ivey, ' make way ' (p. 90) ; and thy wille ne welJc y ner a fote, (p. 100) ' I followed thy will never a foot.' We here see the beginning of our idiom, ' to walk the hospitals.' In the Political Songs, toed takes a new meaning, for it is used of a priest marrying a couple (p. 159). But the greatest change in the Verb is to be found in the ' Reliquige Antiques,' I. p. 122. Long before this time, we saw in Domesday Book French names such as Taillehosc and Passaquam. This compounding of a Verb with an Accusative is now passed on to English ; an old man is called by his wife spille-hred, or as we should now say, a hread-iuaster. This new idiom was to flood England with new compounds in the Reformation age; though it is ^iT^ Old and Middle English. now but little used ; our grooms call a horse a crib-hiter^ not a hite-crib ; we have in this stuck to the old Teutonic way of compounding. Almost six hundred years sepa- rate spille-hred and hnow-nothing, the last similar French- born compound that I can remember ; it was a word of great American renown about 1855. Another imitation of the French is seen in a piece of this age, in the ^ Reliquiae Antiqu^e,' I. p. 133 ; we read of animals called the go-hi-dich, the stele aivai, and many such. This idiom was imitated by Bunyan in his Mr. Dare-not-Ue, &c. ; the name Praise God Barehones was once well known. We now talk of a drink as a ' pick me up ; ' a slow man is called ' old stick in the mud.' At p. 94 (Lyric P.) we meet with the so needlessly set before an Adjective, the idiom well known to our ballad-makers : Levedi, seinte Marie, so fair ant so briht. Wei is used for rihte in p. 80, stond wel under rode, re- minding us of the old ivell nigh. At p. 68 (Lyric P.) we find tlie love of the ; we have hefore seen thi love. But this of was giving way to on ; at p. 91 we see the old idiom re^-ye of me ; at p. 90, comes the new reiue on me. This idiom is repeated in the Alexander and the Piers Ploughman, compiled in neigh- bouring shires. In the Grothic, ana with the dative sometimes follows Verbs of emotion. (Matzner, 11. 371.) In the Mapes' Poems, p. 347, comes al o fure, and the Alexander, rather later, has sette 07i fyre. With is now used like the Latin ab before a person ; tliou art wayted (watched) with fader ant al my hynne, p. 91 (Lyric P.) ; Middle English : Reparation. 377 this wifh is employed in the same way in Piers Plough- man ; we still say, ' I was taken with him.' There are some new Teutonic words ; the pains of hell are said to be tylcel., p. 346 (Mapes' Poems) ; we still speak of a ' ticklish business.' At p. Ill (Lyric P.) comes drynhe of fol god bous, whence comes our hoozij. At p. 150 (Political S.), we hear of men that _2^^7i;e^/i the jporeful dene ; this is akin to the Dutch j9icZ;e?i. At page 157, we light upon those Mvho polJceth a parosshe in pijne ; hence comes our Verb jjo/je, which is found often in Salopian writers of the following age with the I cast out ; this also is seen in Dutch. At p. 158, we hear that a woman is hy-onodered (distraught) ; hence perhaps our muddled, with the usual change of r and I. About this time, 1280, English was making a new start. Some of the pieces in the Lyric Poems, especially those in pages 80, 90, and 110, foreshadow the w^onder- ful power and ease that our tongue was soon to display. The English Hymn, as we now commonly have it, was beginning to appear : some specimens are to be found in this manuscript : the four lines of each stanza 'Cnd in one rime. I give an example, from p. 70 {Lyric P.) : — Jhesu, when ich theuke on the, Ant loke upon the rode tre, Thi suete body to-toren y se, Hit maketh heorte to smerte me. To this time, about 1280, belongs the tale of Dame Smz, a translation from the French ; it is printed in Wright's 'Anecdota Literaria.' It was written somewhere on the Great Sundering Line, from its mixture of 3/8 Old and Middle English. Norihern and Southern forms. We find, as in the^ Havelok, cjai\ gang, I man, hethen (hence), thoto bes- (eris), Godclot, fair and fre, we hel^e7i, til, have; there is also senne (peccatum), dare, and siueeting ; oil SevevTi forms. Perhaps the poem was written in South Staf- fordshire ; the Southern thiihe, onuchel, and ivomon (mulier) appear ; and also the Accusative of the Adjec- tive, have godne dai, a very late instance ; both selke and sulke express talis. Bed (jussit) keeps its vowel-sound to this day. The h is wrongly prefixed, as in hon and houncwteis -, n is added to Orrmin's old iiiJiJo, for we find oppon ; here- there must have been some confusion with 07i. Besides the form Siriz, we see Sirith (p. 9), which rimes with grith ; this confusion we have already seen in the York~ shire sestred. At p. 5 comes the expression treive as stel. The eft sone of Dorset now becomes efftsones (p. 11). At p. 7 an old woman says, I hidde mi paternoster and mi crede ;. this Possessive Pronoun has since been used of books that men ought to read ; ' I have studied my Gibbon,* says one of Mr. Trollope's heroines. At p. 8 appears the origin of the cumbrous ' if so be that,' well known in our Bible ; if hit he so that thou me helpe. In p. 7 we see go telle mi serene (sorrow) ; here and should have come after go. At p. 6 comes God the i-hlessi; in the next page this is shortened into hlesse the, hlesse the! Porms like 'save us' and 'curse it' were to come later. The old nmhe was now being dropped for ahoute ; at p. 4 comes ich am i-gon ahoute to spehen; the idea of earnest purpose is here prominent^ Middle English : Reparatiott, 379 and this lasted down to 1611. We find phrases such as to do for the (rem gerere pro te). The old ^e^ had hitherta meant adiinsci-, it now leans towards the meaning of suadere ; ich gette hire to mi wille (p. 8). There is a new sense of the verb run in the next page ; we hear of eyes running. A curious idiom, which we saw in the Chro-. nicle of 1096, is found in the following lines, in p. 9 : I sha] mak a lesing Of thin heie renning ; that is, ' I shall tell a lie about thine eye running.' Here the Verbal Noun has a Substantive prefixed. Some would wrongly say that the renning was an Infini- tive, following the of, just as the French de takes an Infinitive after it. As to Prepositions : we hear of a man being from horn (p. 5) ; this is a relic of the old fram J)e, ' apart from thee,' in the Psalms. This poem is a translation from the French ; we are not surprised therefore, on finding hate (but) used like the French mais at the beginning of a sentence (p. 7) : mais oui is a truly French idiom. And, had been long used to English si as well as ef : a distinction seemed to be called for ; so in the middle of p. 11 we see the d cut off and mi (si) used for the first time. In the third line of p. 12 we find and if used for si ; the two words are coupled, and this usage lasted down to 1611, for hut and if (sed si) begins a sentence in our New Testament.. We here find not only the proper name Wilehin, which had long been known, but also Margeri} The ' The Euglish Margeri seems common-place by the side of the 380 Old and Middle English. fair of Botolfston is mentioned, wliicli is not as yet cut down to Boston; the prefix Saint has been dropped. We see for the first time the French words ]jepis (pips), mustard, and jujjerti (jeopardy), p. 9. Along with Dame Siriz are printed a few other poems from the Digby Manuscript ; they seem to have been written about 1280, much further to the South ; for there are forms like axsetli (rogat) and hugen (emere). In p. 90 we see the phrases her and there, ev^te iverof thou luere louerd; here luhereof is used in a new way. In the next page comes to hen agast, teste &c. In another poem from the Digby Manuscript, The Thrush and Nightingale (Hazlitt, 'Early Popular Poetry,' I. 50) we find sheme for shame, filde for feld (campus), just as we now pronounce these words. In p. 57 we see a well-known proper name altered into Bedlehem, whence comes Bedlam. The last piece that seems to belong to 1280 is the Tristrem (Scott's edition), a poem which we owe to the North ; it was transcribed fifty years later, most likely in Salop.* The Northern forms are gif (si), titly, thou ses (vides), onen seis (aiunt), swalu (passer), untroweand, fiftend, tuarld, tan (captus), hate (calidus), hist (emis), ye (tu), which last is always coming. The poem may have been written in Yorkshire, not far from the Lancashire and Derbyshire borders; for we find hye (ilia), also Orrmin's thou was (eras), and han (habent). The dou7i right of the Northern Psalter is repeated. Verbal nouns abound, nobler Scotch Marjory. A wonderful difference is made by forms of spelling. ' I give a specimen of this in Chapter VII. Middle English: Reparation, 381 a snre mark of the North. But the Passive Participle, with the final n clipped, has made its way upwards ; the Poet certainly wrote might have be in p. 173, as we see by the rimes ; the Southern drmve has also come into Yorkshire (p. 181). The chief tokens of the Transcriber's alterations are to be found in tOj ich, hoathe, hrethern, no, where tiva, ilk (idem), hathe, hr ether, and na must have been written. He sometimes, but not always, turns ogain (iterum) into oyaiii; in p. 100 tho (quum) has been turned into though. The clearest marks of transcription are to be seen in the last lines of the two stanzas in p. 152. The Salopian form henne (genus) has been substituted for Icinne at p. 82, much to the injury of the rime ; and of life (de vita) has been turned into olive, which makes nonsense, in p. 105. As to Vowels : the old tcehte (docuit) now becomes taught; our form slain (ca?sus) comes at p. 93. The old gleive (cantus) is found, and also the new gle, (p. 82). The poet had no scruple in using Southern fonns, when he wanted a rime ; Icende (genus) comes in p. 150, and the Plural dayn (dies) in p. 153. At p. 30 we see 'penis, a word cut down to pens in the next page. We at last come upon our ought (debet), which had been long in gaining its abiding shape ; there is also anough (satis). There is a strong tendency to cast out Consonants : the Verb dronhen (mergere) of the Northern Psalter now becomes droun (p. 90), ouvdroiun; the old Verb sivogan is seen as sivoun (p. 16). The stigrdp of former days, the rope by which yon stie up, is now wi'itten stirop. The 382 Old and Middle English. old Icelandic mitlila was usually meddle in English ; but at p. 189 we see, tJie cuntre luith hem meld, a great con- traction ; our slang word mdll (pugnare) may come from this; Scott writes, dare ye melt wi* Donald Caird. The French weZee is well known. The iovTuev gehald (castel- lum) is pared down to liald (p. 168), our hold ; the French consistorie becomes constori. The old dare]y (jaculum), is now dart. On is pared down to a in a hed, a fot, and a loft ; we now run the Prepositions and the ^MTouns into one word. The wa'^es (fluctus) of Layamon's Second Text now become waives, a form that was to last until Tyndale wrote it iva,ves. The old verb siftan (cribrare) now forms the Noun sive (p. 114), which was written sift in Norfolk so late as 1440. Enough might even in the North be pronounced without the guttural at the end, as we see by the rimes in p. 182. The intru- sive n appears in m,essanger, p. 151. As to Substantives : the Verbal Nouns are fast in- creasing ; we find his luining, p. 53 ; her hlod leteing, p. 126, and many others. Orrmin's endedaj^ now be- comes ending day, p. 102. We hear of something being done o]po)i a somers day. We have seen Sir, Dame, and -Child prefixed to proper names ; we now find maiden Blaunchefloiir. Instead of see, have a sight of is used in p. 38. Yrland side is in p. 61 ; here the last word is not needed ; it shows the origin of our phrase, the tvhole comitry side. Drinh of main (p. 97) is used for a mighty ■drinTc. We see an idiom well known to our ballad-makers in p. 112 ; gavisus est is Englished by glad a man vkis he. In p. 32 the old honda (colonus) gives way to kushondman ; the poet has elsewhere a new meaning for Middle English: Reparation. 383 hond ; at p. 55 comes, to long ichave hen her bond, ' too long I liave been their thrall.' Hiishonde of old had meant only conjux and paterfamilias ; the confusion of the derivative from the Scandinavian hita with the derivative from the Old English hindan is likely to puzzle the modern student. It is strange that the servile mean- ing of bond should be found first in a shire much peopled by Danes. Already, in the Northern Psalter, bunden (vinctus) has been changed into hondeii. There is a tendency to use Adjectives as if they were Substantives: at p. 179 comes Ysonde ^nen calleth that _fre ; here lady should follow the last word ; we know Hood's ' one more unfortunate.' This hold (p. 116) re- minds us of the French ce brave. At p. 57 is thai seylden into the wide ; just as we talk of the open. At p. 170 we see the old liflic (vivax) gain a new meaning ; it is here applied to images that resemble life ; we now make a difference between lively and life-liJce. Orrmin's ^e-^nlihe is now seen as gain (promptus), p. 51 ; and the word is still well known in Yorkshire. The Adjective long is altogether dropped in the phrase, tlie loand ivas tuelve fete, p. 147 ; something like the idiom common in the oldest English, he ivces tioelfwintre (eald). A new idiom of time is seen in p. 154 ; a pair live in pleasure for tuelmoneth thre ^voukes las ; this would earlier have been ' less by three weeks.' The Pronoun his was now used freely without being coupled to a Noun ; in p. 57, two men sail forth, each in his own ship, Moraimt band his beside, And Tristrem lete his g-o. o 84 Old and Middle English. There is a new form for the Reflexive Pronoun in p. 18 ; thai maked hem houn ; ■we still say, ' I lay me- down.' The Indefinite it gains ground ; in p. 98, Tristrem would have been slain, no luere it for the Idng ; Orrmin would have written ncere for no were it. The as was being used for the Latin cpwd, just as our lower class still use it ; an Mile as he hadde mett, is in p. 154. In p. 151 comes a poetical idiom that Chaucer loved : — Who was blithe iu halle, Bot Ysonde the quen ? A touch of this lingers in Scott's ' Peveril,' chapter xxiii. • Everett says : ' he was who but he with the regents.' In Verbs : did is coming in fast ; as thai dede ohade, (manserunt), p. 54 ; [this revived idiom was making way elsewhere, as we see in the Havelok. The most, in the sense of oportet, had travelled up from Dorset to Yorkshire within forty years ; in p. 94 is 7iedes he most abide ; the most is also used for licuit (p. 164) ; ye moteii is used in the sense of oportet, in p. 106. The French idiom, first found in St. Katherine's Legend, is repeated in p. 160 ; we there see Tristrera went, withouten coming oyain ; here the Infinitive comen takes the form of the Active Participle.^ We should never, I think, presume that this ing after a Preposition represents an old Infini- tive, unless the Prepositions answer to sans, pour, or de^ which govern an Infinitive in French. We hear of men rid- ing out of haven; of laying money on a thing; these remind * An or en becomes ing, just as the old Abba^idun is now Abing- don, and some people turn captain and garden into capting and gar ding. Middle English: Reparation. 385 us of Scandinavia. We read, moreover, of hredldng heads ; of dealing strokes ; of setting a child to lore. The Verb hitahen, used for traclere in Layamon's Second Text, was now pared down to taJ:e ; at p. 21 comes, sclie toke Bouhant a ring ; at p. 92 comes, Tnsfrem toke asaid to that dragoun ; we still say, ' he took him a crack on the head.' The old Verbs lere (docere) and lent (discere) are no longer kept distinct ; ' in p. 24 comes, he lernd him. At p. 147, stand gets, as in Scandinavia, the sense of ferre as well as stare ; his stroh may no man stand.^ Layamon's Verb dash hatl been transitive ; but we now find, over the bregge he deste, p. 149. At p. 25 comes the enquiry, 'What wilt thou lay ? ' the answer is, tuenti schillinges to say ; we should now put, say twenty shillings. In p. 36 comes the challenge, loho better can lat se ; we should now say, let us see ; here the us is intrusive. The Past Participle of stician (pungere) had always been Weak; it is now confused with the Strong Verb stehen (claudere), and we see mine hert hye hath ysteJce (p. 177). Y troive is used as a mere expletive in p. 182 ; this is the Scandinavian triU eg ; y icene was elsewhere coming into use in the same sense. The Verb is dropped, after the French fashion, in the request, sivete Ysonde, thin are, (bestow pity), p. 123. We see such Adverbial phrases, as, ' to mate fair,' 'he was fasthj,'' ''out, traitour, of mi land!' (p. 50), * she wende al ivrong,' ' he hated him dedely.* In the ' I have seen lerji called the Passive Voice of lerc. - About the year 1848 there was a great dispute as to whether ' I stand no nonsense ' was a phrase of CromwelFs time. C C 386 Old and Middle E^iglish, last word, we see the loss that England was nndergoing, now that in the Dano- Anglian country she could not mark the distinction between an Adjective and an Adverb. The old lircedlice (protenus) is now seen as ■redilij (p. 39) ; this does not come from Orrmin's rcedi'^ (paratus). Than (tunc) is employed much as a Xoun, for we find er than and hi than, a usage which comes down from before the Conquest. The old Comparative of feor (procul) was ferre, which may still be heard in Scotland as farrer\ this was now confounded with further \ and ferther (p. 94), our farther, is the result. The old Adverb cwicliche is pared down to q^uih at p. 98. We have seen stille used as adhuc three hundred years before this time ; the idiom now comes up again ; it was loDg peculiar to the ISTorfch, and only slowly made its way to London. At p. 117 we find, yif he loveth the stille. At p. 18 we see over hord used of a ship. The replac- ing of i7ito by on or in is again seen ; it hrast on ^eces, p. 92. In p. 175 we find tvel in the sense of the French eh hien at the beginning of a sentence, luel, ivhi seistow so? Some Scandinavian words appear; such as husk (parare), from hua sig, Ho betake himself;' stilt, from the Swedish stylta, a support. To hohhle, which is here found, is akin to a Dutch word meaning ' to jog up and down.' Stout is also pure Dutch. At p. 42 we find stormes histayd hem ; this new form, something like heset, is akin to the High German. There are rimed versions of two sujDposed Charters of King Athelstane's to Beverley and Ripon ; these seem to Middle English : Reparation. 387 belong to 1280; they are in Kemble's Collection, II. 186. The forms are very like those of the Yorkshire Psalter ; the e is often doubled. We find the line darkj ^rest^ parson, or cJierel ; 'persona was Englished by parson, fol- lowing the French usage. The ije was wrongly written for you ; '^an say I ye ; give I ye. There is )ia man sal have at do ; the last two words, a Scandinavian form, have become the parent of our ado ; we have turned an Infinitive /acere into a Noun for neyotmm. THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT. (1290.) To this date seems to belong the Debate of the Body and the Soul, printed in the Poems of Walter IMapes, 334, (Camden Society). It may have been compiled somewhere near Rugby, for there is a mixture of Southern and Midland speech. Some of Orrmin's forms are repeated, as thou luas, siimivat; the Participle rjlowende ; his ner (neque) now becomes nor, p. 334. There is thertll, ding, to and fro, hirhe, renne, are, as in the Havelok ; and the trotevale (nonsense) a peculiar word found a few years later in South Lincolnshire.^ Asise is cut down to sise, another link with that county. Cloches (clutches) is seen ; it came before in the War- wickshire version of the Ancren Riwle ; to ride on hei^e horse (p. 337), is repeated in the Alexander, a few years later ; that poem too may belong to Warwickshire. On * Has the last syllable anything in common -with tilli/ mlli/y upon which the Laird of IMonkbarns discourses so learnedly ? c c 2 388 Old and Middle English. tlie other hand, tlie Soutliem forms in the present work are Intel, i-hiid, Jiahhe, nis, honden, he (illi). We find both suivilh and suiviche for fcdis ; cds and as, ivith and wiit, TniJihel and micliel : the poem is a work compiled close to the Great Sundering Line. The sley (sapiens) of the Havelok now becomes slij, p. 339 ; and god (bonus) becomes cjuod, p. 334 ; we see the Vowel in its passage from the old sound of to our modern sound ii, the French ou. The Consonants are much clipped ; sawe (vidi) becomes sau ; the old si\^an (post), is pared down to sin, p. 335 ; and this, like frotevcde, is repeated in a South Lincolnshire work, a dozen years later. Didst (fecisti) becomes dist. There is a curious combination of consonants in joy^e (joy). The hrunstan (sulfur) of Northern England now becomes hrmnston, p. 339 ; the u was elsewhere changed into i. An I is inserted into Layamon's Verb sturten, without changing the sense ; in p. 335 is come thow^ sterte- linde ; the meaning here is rather different from our startle. The Adjective minde now adds a new meaning to its old sense meuwr ; we hear at p. 336 that a man is mynde (inclined) to the world ; this is repeated in the Lincoln- shire work above referred to. We still say, ' I have a good mind to &c.' as well as ' mind you do it.* In Verbs, we light upon our expletive ic sey^e (I say), coming at the beginning of a sentence, p. 335. So lost was the governing principle of the old inflexions, that a new form of the Auxiliary Verb is struck off; ic mot, ]ni most, were not understood, and thou mostist (debuisti) is seen. We have seen fiedde as a new Perfect of the Verb Middle English : Reparation. 389 jieon (fngere) ; this is now found as the Past^Participle, thine frend heonfledde, p. 334. We have already marked in the poems of 1270, hetere is thoUen tlian monien; this Infinitive was now made to imitate the Active Participle ; at p. 338 comes merci crieyide lutel avaiJede, crijing laevcy (petere misericordiam) little availed.' ^ After this, it was easy to look upon criende, not as a Geruudial Infinitive, but as an Active Participle, and to write it crying. The whole of this subject is perhaps the most debated point in our English tongue ; I hope I have in this work thrown some light upon it. Witliin the last six hundred years, a great load has been cast on our ending iug ; it represents (1) tlie old Southern inde, the ending of Active Parti- ciples ; (2) the old ung of Verbal Nouns;(8)the old Infini- tive an and en^ as in the case just quoted. All three usages are found in the one sentence : ' Hearing the roaring^ without stir ring f I looked.' No. 1 and No. 2 seem to be jumbled together in the phrase, ' They left beating of Paul.' Owing to this confusion, a wholly new English idiom was produced about 1770. Where the English Gos- pels of 1000 have tf^/Ze Ae/ar(X?i(St. John vii.3'5),Wickliffe has, he is to goginge. Dr. Morris traces this usage dow^n to about the year 1-500. In the Poem now discussed, p. 336, we find the contrary form,io sunne ivas my hinder ' it was my nature to sin.' We have ah'eady seen luith used to express the Latin ah ; and in this poem, p. 335, comes hlov-en luith the luind. ' In the Essex Homilies of 1180, p. 39, \re find to inmiende .... and to driven ; both of these forms alike represent the old Geriindial Infinitive. Matzner (III. 77) gives many Fourteenth Century ex- amples of the use of this perplexing ing. 390 Old and Middle English. In the page before, this witli seems to express the Latin 'per ; now iviili tlii selve thmv^ art forlorn. A French idiom here appears in English, something- like si vienx honi com estes ; our as seems to get the meaning of quamvis. The poet, in p. 339, says, ' Christ shielded me, a sunfitl man as I lay tliore.^ At p. 337 we hear of a hotlielere in charge of slieep ; this new word reminds ns of the dwellers in a Scotch hothie. In the specimen that follows, Jiw is written jiu. THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT. (1290.) Jwan I bad to lave pride, thi manie mes,^ thi riche schroud, The false world that stode biside bad the be ful qiio\Tite and proud ; Thi fleychs ■v\'ith riche robes schride,'' nou;!;t als a beggare in a cloujt ; And on hei^e horse to ride, with mikel meyne in and oujt. Jwau I bad the erliche to rise, nini on me thi soule kep.'^ Thou^ seidest thonj mijtest a none wise lorgon the miu'ie morwe '^ slep. Jwan ge hadden set your sise,^ ye tbre traytours, sore I wep ; Ye ladde me wid oure enprise, as te bothelere doth is schep. Jwan thre traitours at a tale togidere weren agein me sworn. Al ye maden trotevale ^ that I baved seid biforn. feast ^ cover c thought •* morning e made your aiTange- ment f mock Middle English: Reparation. 391 Je ledde me bi doime and dale, as an oxe bi the horn, Til ther as him is hrowen bale, ther his throte schal be schorn. THE CONTRAST TO THE EAST I^HDLAND. (1290.) We redeth i j^e holi godspelle of to dai f'at ure lord ihesu Crist yede one time into ane ssipe and ise deciples mid him into pe see. And so hi were in \o ssipe so aros a great tempeste of winde. And ure lord was i-leid him don to slepe ine \o ssipe, er ])ane ]'is tempeste aroos. Hise deciples hedde gret drede of pise tempeste, so awa- kede hine, and seiden to him, lord, save us, for we perisset. And ha wiste wel ]>et hi ne hadde nocht gode beleave ine him; \o seide to hem; what dret yw, folk of litle beliave. po aros up ure lord and tok ])ane wynd and to see, and al-so ra])e hit was stille. This forms a part of the few Kentish Sermons, printed by Dr. Morris in his ' Old English Miscellany ' (Early English Text Society), p. 32 ; they are translated from the French. We see the old forms, especially the Article in its three Genders, lingering on in Kent, long after they had been dropped elsewhere. This shire, where Hengist landed, preserved his speech with pecu- liar carefulness ; nearly two hundred years after 1290, as Caxton tells us, the Kentish tongue sounded most strange in the ears of other Englishmen. We here find forms that remind us of the Homilies of 1120, such as fer (ignis), senne (peccatum), furti (quadraginta) , 392 Old and Middle English. ajpiered (visus est), where the ie of the South East is forced into a French word. The Vowel-combinations in thief, leaf reef, havebnt one sound (formerly the French e, but now the French i) ; the three forms come from dif- ferent parts of England, much to the puzzlement of foreigners. The tirgen (fatigari) of East Anglia now becomes targi (morari), p. 36 ; the Old English word has got confused with the French targier ; we now make a differe7ice between tire and tarry. In the same page we find yare (auris), and something similar is written in a famous Kentish work fifty years later ; this seems to show the oldest pronunciation of the English eare. So strong- was the Southern leaning to o in the place of a, that the foreign aiigel is here written ongel. The Dorsetshire u had not replaced i in Kent, for we find toyman and michel. The o is doubled, as in goodman. What had been written Giwes is now cut down to GeicSf just as we sound the word Jeivs, p. 26. On turning to the Consonants : we see that Kent, like East Anglia, employed forms like sal for shall, thefte, maden (fecerunt). There is both loverd and lord ; the old guttural in laghe (lex) is kept as strictly as in Yorkshire ; but there are tokens of a coming change, for we find both felaghe (socius) and felarede, p. 31. The nicht (nox) and nocht (non) still keep the guttural. The new Participle in ing had not yet overrun Kent, which is far fi'om Worcestershire. The h at the beginning of a word is sometimes clipped, and some- times wrongly prefixed- The v instead of / was making- way. There is siche (talis) as well as swiehe ; and the former may still be heard in our days. In p. 32 sollie Middle English: Reparation. 393 is put for slicdl ye ; this is the forerunner of a cor- ruption now widely spread, like ^do'ee noio.^ The sound of the g had become so softened in many instances, that tojanes is written for togeanes, p. 26. The form hink (rex) shows how strongly the g in hing was sounded. In Substantives, there is a falling away from the old standard ; the writer prefers fer of lielle to helle-fer. The word yldo had been used of old for both cetas and senectus ; we see in p. 35 a budding tendency to express the latter by elde, and the former by the new French word age, already employed in the Horn. He]>enesse is used in p. 26 for the old hce\>ennes ; this looks like a copying of the French ending. TheVerbal Nouns were coming in everywhere; heringe stands for birth, in p. 26. The old JicelendhsLd long gone out ; helere appears in its place, which had already been used twice before this time. The preacher addresses Ins flock as lording es and levedis ; we should now say, ' Ladies and gentlemen.' A new word, goodman, p. 33, Englishes paterfamilias. It is worth while to trace how a meaning leaps from word to word ; I place the old sense above the new sense in each : Goodman Hiisbonde Bonde ■il: Bonus homo. Paterfamilias. Paterfamilias. Colonus. Colonus. Servus. Here we see three English words, all within the Thir- teenth Century, add wholly new senses to their old 394 Old and Middle English. meanings. This shifting of ideas from word to word is most strange. An Old English idiom is kept up in, a sih man seyde ^ Lord, Lord,'' ha seide Sfc, p. 31 ; this repetition may be still heard. A new idiom is found in p. 30 : lecher ie, spushreche, roherie, \urch wyche ]){nJces, &c. ; here a new Sub- stantive, things, is coupled with the Relative, to represent several other Substantives. There is a strange union in p. 28 ; we read si mirre signejiet vastinge go ine ijelriinage .... and to do alle ]>e gode, &c. Here we have the Verbal N'oun, the pure Infinitive, and the Infinitive with to, all governed by- one Verb. The swa of the Blickling Homilies starts to life again, in the sense of igitur ; in p. 32, ' they feared, so they waked him.' The word also is used for sicut in p. 28, a remnant of the Old English form ealsvja ; elsewhere this also stood for etiam. There is a new Verb, glare, akin to the Low German. In the Egerton Manuscript of this time (' Old English Miscellany,' p. 198) we see the new phrase, of ])e hing he meden (made) game. The Digby Manuscript seems to have been drawn up about 1290, and contains poems of the previous twenty years: like Layamon's Second Text, it may belong to Hertfordshire ; for, amidst many Southern forms, we find sal for shall ; til ; and the writer has gone out of his way to write ]>at (illud), in the Harrowing of Hell, p. 35. The Passive Voice was widening its bounds, for at p. 21 comes, he was don some (shame). Lording is Middle English: Reparation. 395 put for lover ding ^ in the East Anglian way. The old manrcEden^ 'nianrede (homage) was at this time well understood in the North, and long survived in Scotch law deeds as manrent ; but the meaning of the word had been lost in the South ; the present compiler has altered manrede at p. 26 into riia7ii redes ^ making great nonsense of the passage. It was the North that kept old Teutonic words, while the South let them slip. The Poet could not understand ^ou bilevest all ]>in one in the same page (manes tu solus), and so turns it absurdly into ]mu letest ]>e alone. ^ He has the Southern forms Jiy (illi), sorewen, icndo (not undon), and the old Accusa- tive of the Article, ])ene. The French form neiveu (nephew) is preferred to the Old English oiefe, (p. 21) ; and this became common all through Southern England. Some Herefordshire pieces, from the Lyric Poems and the Political Songs (both quoted above at p. 373), seem to belong to 1290. The old Imperative hlaive had become first hlowe and then hloio (p. 51, Lyric P.) ; the community of sound between aiv and ou could not be more strongly marked. The old hreaiv (crudus) is now pared down to raiu (p. 37, Political S.). A new idiom, l*epeated afterwards in another Western poem, that of Piers Ploughman, comes in p. 52 (Lyric P.) ; we hear of legges, fet, ant al ; here all has a backward reference to several foregoing Nouns. We find the phrases, twynglyng of an eje, y mahe mournyng. At p. 52 (Lyric P.) comes God loolde hue (ilia) ivei'e tnyn ! Here the ivolde is Optative ; a few years later, we shall find the * Neither Halliwell, nor even Garnett (see his Essays, p. 121), could understand this passage in its first shape. 39^ Old a7id Middle Eiiglish. two first words transposed. In p. 54 we read, lieo wolle dele of tote tuith the ; this new idiom with the of seems to come from the French dispose of, ^artaJce of. In p. 106 up becomes almost a Verb ; up ant he god cliarapioun. The proper name Colyn appears ; also the Icelandic tyhe (canis), still in Yorkshire use. There are the Low Dutch words momel (mumble) and poll (caput) ; there is also pate ; it may come from the p?ai crown of a priest's head. There are the Celtic words, capel (cabal- lus), and gohlin (p. 238, Political S.) ; this last comes afterwards in Piers Ploughman, who wrote not far from Hereford. These Herefordshire poems lead to the mention of an Old English Charter, modernised not long after this in the same county, (Kemble, IV. 218) ; about this time the French faverahle must here have been inserted. In the Rubric the document is said to be, carta in lingua Saxonicd translata in linguam Anglicanain. This is one of the first instances of the mischievous distinction made by our wiseacres between the English of 1066 and the English of 1300 ; the Germans and the Irish have been too wise to write nonsense of this kind ; they set some store by the continuity of the names of their respective tongues. Robert of Gloucester, about 1300, opposes, though most seldom, Saxons to Normans ; the Chro- nicles of 1066 talked of JEnglisJi, not of Saxons. In a Catalogue of Glastonbury Manuscripts, drawn up in 1248, the old national Homilies, a sealed book to that generation, were described as Sermones Anglici.^ ' See Seinte Marherete, notes, p. 77. Middle English : Reparation. 397 About 1290, the long poem called the ' Cursor Mundi ' was translated from the French ; most likelv in the North of Yorkshire.^ We have not the original translation, for even the oldest version we possess often mistakes a word. The Scandinavian element is most obvious; there are forms like tliir^ our iliese (p. 24), a phrase that long lingered in Scotch law papers ; also (rocZcZofc, in p. 220; Jtirsalem, p. 530; with other such, hereafter to be noticed. In p. 1240, the Icelandic form stanga (pungere) is preferred to the English stingan. In p. 792, heliand, the Icelandic heiland, stands for the YerhsdNonnhealing. The piece cannot well be dated after 1290; for there are five obsolete Teutonic words in ever^' fifty Nouns, Verbs, and Adverbs ; if we looked only at the obsolete Teutonic, we must date the piece about 1260; if we looked only at the vast proportion of French words, we must put it as late as 1340. In this strange propor- tion of the Old and the New, the Cursor Mundi stands alone in English ; no more important piece has ever been printed, and Dr. Morris has done it full justice. In the Cui'sor Mundi, it is most important to pay attention to the chansre in the sounds of the Vowels : this change soon prevailed all over Northern England and Scotland ; it made its way to London about the year 1600, where it altered the sound, but not the spelling, of ' The plainest traces of the French original may be found in p. 1272 ; where we are told that French kings ought to wield the Koman Empire : For in |>aa kinges sal it stand Ai to-quils ^ai ar lastand. The last of all Roman Emperors is to be a King of France, who will go to Jerusalem, and there yield up his crown to Christ. '> 98 Old and Middle English. Englisli words. Northern words and idioms had long been working down Southwards ; the sound of Northern Vowels was, about 1600, to make the conquest of the South. A here replaces e, as liaredj (vastavit), farr (re- motus), warren (pugnare) ; rces (cursus) becomes ras. A replaces ^, as vmi yee (scitis) p. 996 ; it replaces 0, as suar^ (juravit), a corruption which Tyndale has brought into our Bible. In some words the Southern a was now sounded in the North like the French e ; there is nain (nullus), sten (lapis), draif (pepuHt), der (audeo). The ct replaces y in p. 710, where hynve becomes harit, our har- roiv. The a is dropped altogether in ' he droghhim hal-,' p. 908, zxidimang (inter), p. 698 ; also hide (manere). The French ^aralysie is cut down to parlesi, p. 678, and Avas long peculiar to the North. We see by the rime that in Ys-a-i all three vowels were distinctly sounded. The au seems to have been pronounced like the French ou^ for the old Iceioed (indoctus) is here written laud^ and Bauland stands for the French Roland, p. 8, showing the inter- change between and on. The e was sounded very broadly in the North, as we find yeit (adhuc); Orrmin's Jude (Judaea), is repeated here, and is still known as Judee in America ; the e replaced the of the South, for we find enent (anent) ; it was dropped before u, for there is Hehru ; the e at the end of a word vanishes, as in hridal ; also at the beginning, for we find Spaigne for Espaigne^ the Ispanie of 1087. The i replaced e, as in this are (hsec sunt) ; the Icelandic hlinda (csecare) comes instead of the Old English hlendan, gli (gaudium) instead of gle ; winnes (putat) instead of ivenes ; stile, Mr, are to be found, the sound of which we k eep in steel and Middle EiiglisJi : Reparation. 399 liere. The Perfect spcette becomes spitt, p. 776, which is still improperly used by us. I replaces u, for the h'lmstan (sulphur) of the Northern Psalter now becomes hrinstan, p. 170, not far from our hrimstone. The old cwell (occidere) now becomes cole, on the way to our hill ; in the Southern version, it is replaced by spillej p. 186. What had been written aric (sagitta) in the North, is now seen as aro, p. 576, just as we now pro- nounce the word ; follow, ha/rrow, and such like words were to take their new sound rather later. On the other hand, the u or ou was making great encroach- ments on the ; we find foul (stultus), huh (liber), diis (facit), jjztr (pauper), sun {mox), dtim Q-adicsive) , hute (remedium), lousen (solvere), and many such ; this is repeated later in the Townley Mysteries, which belong to Yorkshire. Our doubling the to express the sound of the French 02t reminds us that these words above cited once had the sound of 0. The u is inserted ; fcepm becomes fathum (fathom) at p. 136. The destrn at p. 378, shows what was the old sound of our destroij. The old celmesse becomes almus, the aumious of Scott ; see p. 1132. As to the Consonants : h is chpped at the beginning of a word, for hetwix becomes tuix, p. 404 ; hiheafdiiig becomes hefdiug, as in ' hanging and heading : ' um- heliivile is seen as umquhile. The p is inserted, as demjjt (damnatus), p. 1316 ; this must be an imitation of the French form. The / is cast out, for onefent becomes enent (anent), p. 1316 ; this letter in gifan is much mauled; in p. 38 we see gis (dat), and in p. 304 gin (datum), just as the Scotch sound these words now. 400 Old and Middle English, We find the proper name SteveUy with the modern sound of the last three letters. The g disappears altogether in the middle of herherd, herhergean, (har- boured), p. 886 ; we find forms like sigli, laghter, and rugh (rough) ; sometimes the guttural at the end is dropped, as in hit (ramus), and ]W20 (quamvis) ; noJif is replaced by not. The French ntrage becomes outralce, p. 244. The c is inserted, when siuilh (talis) becomes squilk, p. 194 ; and this insertion is most common in the Lancashire version of the poem. It is curious to find the old form hiscoj? still lingering in the North, p. 1208. The d is cast out, godspel now turning into gosjjel ; the t often stands for the old d at the end of Verbs, as in lent, reft, u'ont. The uoglit hut o^ the North now becomes nohot (tantiim) p. 1300 ; a word that Wickliflfe loved. We find mell (miscere), p. 1294, which may come either from the Icelandic or the French.^ The tendency to contraction is shown in an Apostle's name being pared down to Bartillmev, p. 762 ; hence comes our Bartle. There is a fondness for casting out I, m, and /z- ; carman replaces carlman (homo) , and /o/.-e (p. 692) stands for folk much as we now sound the word. A famous Northern form is first seen in p. 1292, where a, riming with fra, stands for all. At p. 318, forme fader follows the Scandinavian forfahvr, and he- Qome?, forfader, OUT forefatlier ; this form was unknown in the South, and is wi^itten in the Southern Version, formaste fadir. The n is dropped at the end of mine and thine, even when they come before Vowels ; we see forms like ]n auen, p. 224, and mi aght, p. 392, the old 07i ' Wickliffe talks of ' "wyn meddelid -with myrre.' Middle English: Reparation. 401 iniddan is now emedd, onr amid, p. 66. The /• is added to words ; the old lenge (morari) becomes lenge^r, p. 42 ; and nithemest (infimus) is seen as netliermad, p. 532. We also find the r inserted in anerli (anli, only), p. 1318 ; the alleyiarly of Scotch law documents is well known. The r is transposed in the middle of a word ; the old ]>urh)i (perforare) becomes tliril, p. 678 ; ih.Q forincr, (praecursor) , at p. 758, is a most shortened form of onr fore-runner. There is the curious French form of writing x for s, (Deus, Dex), so often found in the ' Paston Letters ' ; flexs is here written iovjfesh. The s is clipped at the end of a word ; for ridels (^enigma) becomes redel at p. 412, though the old form lingered on in the South. The Latin Julius is pared down to Jidy^ p. 8 ; whence comes one of our months. On the other hand, s is added to alway^ for we light on our alwais, p. 356. The IV is thrown out, for we find wantun, p. 686, for the old wanMoimn (lascivus). As to Substantives : we have already seen how ness was employed in the Northern Psalter as a favourite ending ; we now find new coinages, such as selines and drednes ; hliscednes (blessedness) appears for the first time, p. 976. At p. 436 it is hinted that Goliath trusts in his irinnes (armour) ; and this word rimes with wrangiuisnes, formed after the pattern of rihtwisnes. On the other hand, the new form hi-hede (p. 2-50) expresses Judaism ; there is also fakenhid (significatio), p. 1242. "We find new Substantives, like don fall (downfall), incom (entrance, the Scandinavian innl'vdma), stancast (Scan- dinavian sfeinhast), windingclath, ste]j, stint, crah ; fnte man, already used in the Lindisfarne Gospels, is now D D 402 Old and Middle English. repeated. But on the other hand, the old ness is sometimes cut off; the former wiclnesse now becomes icicle, p. 104, (the Scandinavian vidd) ; it is on the road to our luidth ; the old foreseonnes (providentia) appears as forsiglit, p. 1138; scipgehrocis sciphreging, p. 1200.^ An under- lote, p. 126, is the full form of what afterwards became Imot; the N"orthern phrase a smitt comes at p. 1072, and is altered in the other versions into a v:liit and a deal ; this smitt (frustum) may be the parent of smitlie- reen. The old koJf is making way for side, pp. 532 and 436, when family pedigrees are discussed, and when one person takes another's part. In p. 698 we find the !Noun hncmlage formed from hnow ; it seems here to mean achiowJedgmeut, and the age is not a true French ending, but a confusion of the French form with the Scandinavian leihr, as in JcunnleiJcr. The Southern version, about sixty years later, turns this hiaidage into hnovjleche. There are new phrases, such as, the Lord o iniglites (Lord of hosts), p. 1300; side and sid^e, p. 110, like our necJc and neck ; ' the feild (victoria) heleft with Mm,^ p. 442 ; ' they sought them don and dale ' (high and low), p. 1008 ; ])at tim it was, p. 1341, like Orrmin's an da"^"^ ; I ete my fill, p. 210, like the French manger son soul ; a tuel-moth stage, p. 424 ; gaf a scift to, p. 602, whence our made shift to ; hin and hyth, p. 734 ; make his ivai, p. 1324 ; wit wil, p. 832, whence ' do it with a will;' preching had he na niah (match), p. 1126; taJcens ]>at es na nede all recken, p. 1088. The old pith ' Onr wreck is seen in King John's Latin Charter of 1200, Stuhb's Documents Illustrative of English History, p. 304 ; in our Bible we read that ' ships were broken.'* Middle English : Reparation. 403 fmeclulla) takes the further meaning of vires^ p. 48. We see the phrase mans ivomb, p. 33 ; in the South, vjomh had begun to be restricted to women. We have already heard of Child Horn ; in p. 1114 St. Stephen's murderers hand over their clothes to 'a child hight Saulus.' In p. 784 we find heggar used as a term of reproach for the first time ; ' this beggar wishes to teach us,' say the Jews. In p. 470 comes the phrase fere (sanus) als ap'scJie, and in p. 682 we find hale sum ani tricte ; we still have the expression ' sound as a roach.' In p. 1330 fare adds to its old meaning iter the new sense of victus. In p. 704 we see, I think for the first time, an halidai connected with play. In p. 1320 an old phrase is pre- served, ful ivel is Imii ]yat &c. (bona fortuna est illi) ; this phrase, ivell is thee, was inserted in our Prayer- book by Coverdale, a Yorkshireman. The Latin Jacobus is Englished by Jacob, at p. 728 ; but we also hear of Jam at p. 720. The Substantive is sometimes dropped to avoid repetition, as in p. 1232 ; of three crosses, they knew not which was the Lord's cross and which tnoght pe theves be ; here the Substantive crosses is dropped before the last word. In p. 1312 a potter spoils his vessel, and then tries for to mah a, better. A new Adjective is formed by adding i to the root, as sunni, p. 1334 ; this was not understood in the South, and was altered into somer (summer) prefixed to daj/. Les is added to laiv, as laules (exlex) in p. 146, the Scandinavian loglauss • there is also unhappi, loili, nede (pauper) ; new Adjectives are formed by adding /^^Z, to the . root, as ireuful, woful. The ugliJce of East Anglia now D D 2 404 Old and Middle English. becomes iigli. Kind had hitherto meant naturalis ; in p. 1146 it gets the further sense of henigmts ; sua kind ar ])ou is addressed to the Virgin. These two senses lingered on side by side for nearly 400 years, as we see in Milton. The dignfied fus seems to get our modern sense of fiissi/ in p. IS, where it is applied to Martha ; in the Southern version it is turned into bisy. Sad seems to lose the old meaning satur, and to get the new sense of fessuSj not far from our tristis, when Adam is said to be sad of himself, p. 80 ; this sad becomes onade in the Southern version. The old gemcene kept its sense of communis in the South ; in the North, the Icelandic meinn (vilis) was coming in ; in p. 762 7nene men are opposed to lords ; this sense reappears in Manning, the Lincoln- shire bard. In p. 282 we hear of redi ])eniis, whence our ready money ; Orrmin's redi, in the sense of jam, is repeated in p. 998. In p. 1100 we hear that the Jews, who were eager to seize the Apostles, war ai curst ; the last word, to judge by the context, seems here to get its Shakesperian meaning, crabbed. In p. 70 we read of a ded ass-, in p. 226 of a nere cosin; in p. 1288 of dumb bestes; in p. 1080 of a colour that is nute brun; in p. 200 of a mantel of rede. In p. 36 comes the line — Frafid hei he fell fid Imu. We light on a phrase Avell known to our ballad- makers ; in p. 1162 St. John loas a fid sari man-, here the Adjective might Avell stand alone. In p. 184 we hear that Esau was archer wit best of an, a most curious idiom that was unknown to the Southern transcriber. Middle English : Reparation. 405 In p. 378 the people were ivar (aware) o 3Ioijses. It is seldom that Adjectives ending in f/d form their Com- parative like the sorf idler (tristior) of p. 1332. As to Pronouns : we here first find the greeting mi levedi used to the Virgin ; this uii is cut out of the Southern Version ; and the term was not applied to an earthly mistress till about 1440. The process first seen in Orrmin goes on ; in p. 1146 stands Mrs am I; in p. 850 we find ani of urs (any of our people) ; yours is also used without any Substantive in p. 294; this is repeated in p. 1034, noglit loit ]iair might hot his of heven ; the last three Avords are most terse and concise. In p. 742 Cln^ist is said to fast his Lententide ; this Possessive his is still very common in this sense. This his now begins to be used to express the Genitive, as in p. 1220, pe Ji7'st his gref; not ' the first's greff.' The form ]mi sai is used in p 1206 for the French on dit. The old distinctive Masculine and Feminine endings of Substantives had mostly gone out ; we now light on the cumbrous Scandinavian idiom that was to replace these endings ; in p. 44 is the line — ]>e bested all, bath sco and he. We afterwards hear of a he lanihe. Still in p. 590 we read of bairns, ne mai ne hnave. It is used in our Inde- finite sense ; ' all ought to believe, unless it be Saracen or Jew,' p. 1298. We have already seen that there threat', we now find this gilt here, p. 58. We know how in Latin hie and ille are opposed to each other ; in p. 1350 the contrast between the righteous and the wicked is drawn out for thirty lines by the employment 4o6 Old and Middle English, of tlie ScandiD avian ]nV (hi) and tlie English \ai, the old \m (illi). This Yorkshire nsagemuch puzzled the Lanca- shire and Southern transcribers. The Relative idioms- abound; there is an evident imitation of the French II qiieh (lequel) in gijfe \e Imv, ]>e quilh &c. ; and this comes very often in this translation. The Relative is dropped altogether after a Noun, as in our easy way ; Loth gee herd me tell of, p. 174; here Loth should be followed by that. The steward talks, in p. 194, of Isaac, and to him the following Relative refers : at (to) sehe a iviif to ivam, I fare ; this cumbrous construction was unknown earlier. The old hiuce]>er (uter) was unluckily droj^ping out of use ; two children are spoken of in p. 206, and it is asked c[idlh o yir tua ; the rightful hu'ce])er remains in our Bible. In p. 534 comes the remarkable new phrase, he cuu hnau quilh es quilh (which is which) ; in the Southern Version this is altered into ])e ton to hnovjc ]>e to]-'er fro, for two things are spoken of. We have seen Orrmin's siuillc cm-, we now read, in p. 840, quilh o mi gode dedis an ? Another idiom of Orrmin' s is carried a step further in p. 982 ; ash quat pou will ; this is a great paring down of the old swa hivcet stua (quodcun- que). There is a new form in p, 1122; priests ought to preach, in ah mihel als in ])aim es ; we now drop the first word in ; forasmuch was soon to arise in Gloucester- shire. There is a new phrase in p. 1210 : jmtfolh ilhan u-ald o]>er stemmi-, in our 'they stopped each other,' each is the x^ominative, other the Accusative. An had already been used iovman ; in p. 1030 we find it coupled with an Adjective, ]KLt so ony^tij oon ; this Northern phrase was used by Wickliffe long afterwards, as, a Middle English : Reparation. 407 y)ng omi (a young un). In p. 162 we find an allan (one alone) ; here the one comes twice over. "We are amused when we find in Scotch writers, such as Alison, phi'ases like ' the whole men,' instead of ' all the men.' This is seen in p. 178 ; he cold his men hale (omnes suos vocavit). In p. 972 we find the old noht turned into a Substantive ; it were als a noht. A new idiom is seen in p. 989, seven myle and a half; this would have been expressed earlier, like in German and Scandinavian, bj eighth half-, and the older idiom lasted down to 1400. In p. 254 a woman wishes to hear a vjoi'd or tua ; here the a plainly stands for an (one). In p. 1302 there is a new N'umeral form, which makes an Adjec- tive stronger ; ' it was not J)e tendj part sa clere ; * in p. 1352 we find, an hundret sith fairer. In the sentence his fader was ninety and nine, p. 162, there is a remarkable drojDping of the old form of ninety- nine years, and this is a wholly new use of the Car. dinal number. The word score was coming in as a Nu- meral, Ahram tvas fivescor and nine, p. 160. In p. 1136 we read of a linen cloth four squar, a most concise phrase. The use of did with the Infinitive, to express the Past tense, is not so common here as it became about 1300. There is a smack of French in the following : ' they told him what tree it sidd lia bene (erat),' p. 1234; hence our 'whom should I meet, but &c.,' which stands for ' whom did I meet. 'The Verb raon seems to be changing its meaning from erit to aportet ; in p. 276 comes ]>e folic mou dei ; in the Southern Version sli id deifi is substi- tuted, not v'il de'^e. In p. 1342 we see ])ai sal ciin tell 4o8 Old and Middle English. (poterunt dicere) ; this curious form lasted to about 1500, witli the substitution of mov:) for cun. In p. 1132 there is a translation of 'peui etre, for loel inai be comes in the middle of a sentence. The old idiom had been ic hit eom, but in p. 778 we find pat ilk es I; here, how- ever, the es is perhaps the Danish for the Latin simij as in Fse a lad (sum puer) . ^ There is a new-born conciseness in the phrase I am and ever sal he Jdr thrall, p. 1146. Can-not is seen, with its two parts joined, in p. 538. The Participle Absolute had hitherto always been in the Dative, and this lasted down to 1400 ; but in p. 500 comes, SCO laid it he nie, and I slepand in hedd. The Past Participle of a certain Verb is now used much Hke a Preposition, and has held its ground in Scotland ; in p. 314 we hear that nothing was left, ute-tan ]>e landes ; this is the first hint of our excejjt. There is a French idiom in p. 806, where Wei ansuard (bien repondu), begins a sentence. A curious idiom with the Infinitive, standing for an exclamation, is seen in p. 890 ; St. Peter says, I to leve ]>e ptts ! hence our ' to think of that ! ' ^ There is a great shortening in the phrase lok jee do ])tcs, p. 160. Became had long stood for /actus est ; a further advance is made in p. 626, he es hicummen sun. The change from esse to fidsse, after a Verb, has been seen ah'eady in the Havelok ; in p. 1026 a man comes, ]>at semed wd to have hen eremyte. ' Wickliffe has the old "^e it hen, that, in St. Luke xvi. 15. Tyn- dale has here, ye are they, which. 2 There is something like this in the Choruses towards the end of -S^schylus' Eumenicles. Middle EnglisJi : Reparation. . 409 In p. 998 appears tlie strange idiom v)e sal yeild Josejjh yee sal se ; this was not understood in tlie South. Another instance of a now familiar phrase crops up in p. 746 : ]?«s ivas not he, yee sal tru, or, as we should say, you must knoiv ; in the Southern Version it is altered into tuite je tvele. In p. 1358 stands * there are many of us, I drede, that &c. ; ' this must have been a peculiarly Yorkshire phrase, for the Lancashire and Southern Versions have altered it. In p. 1058 stands rpten ive sal liaf lialden, Orrmin's new form of the Subjunctive mood, which we most likely owe to the French, and which long sounded strange to English ears. In p. 856 Christ says, mi suinc standes me for norjlit, an unusual form. The old phrase 'man sends for me' was now dropped in the North; it was being replaced by the Passive voice ; in p. 806 comes lie ])at was mast for giveri till ; in p. 814, 1 am send after. This is one of the early instances of the wonderfully free handling that the Passive Voice was to undergo in England; Lord Palmerston wrote in 1848, ' he was offered to be Nuncio at Paris,' (Life, by Ashley, I. 51). In p. 138 comes a double Accusative : he reft ]>am liif; as we still say, ' he fined him a pound.' We come upon such phrases as, he am, folk fell to \air tare, they ware mette, ]>is forsaid Mari, penis suilk als ran (such as were current) ; yee er made freindes, tah til ur imttnes, the wai takes us, saiand mi hede (my prayer), com to hand, nil we %vil lue. We must remark in the Cursor Mundi the following, which smack of Scandinavia. ' To give back ' (regredi) reminds us that gefa ujpp means cessare. ' Tok his flight ' brings 410 Old and Middle Englts/u to mind the plirase taha flotta. ' The dais was runnen ute ' (in the South, loere al go7ie, p. 869) ; we know that the Scandinavian renna was transitive as well as intran- sitive. ' It fell Petre to call,' reminds us that the Scan- dinavian fall to means accidere. We find ' to head or hang ; ' the first Verb is the Scandinavian Jiof^a. The word get adds to its old meaning of adi])isci that of ircy something like niman ; in p. 456 the marscal is ordered to see that Uriah sidd never gette aiuai. This Yorkshire phrase is often found m the Percival, which belongs to the same date and place. The Scandinavian geta sjd means ' get to see ; ' here the get means something like venire. Long afterwards, get acquired a third meaning, that of j^e7'^ ; in our every* day talk, we work this Verb get very hard. The Verb Icetan (sinere) takes a fresh meaning, for in p. 1138 a cloth ivas laten (let down). The Verb hredan had meant fovere\ in p. 1202 it means educare, for St. John is there said to have been hred by Christ. The Verb loin gets a new sense, perve- nire, in p. 1214; this is common in Scotland. In p. 1224 hersten (burst) adds the sense of mere to its old sense of rumpere. In p. 832 Orrmin's word du'ell (morari) is used in the further sense of hahitare ; this word was to drive out the old Verb icon. Sj^are, in p. 1322, means something beyond parcere ; it is aliis prcehere ; this is something like one of the Scandinavian senses of the word. The old reajian (rapere) gets the further meaning of trahere; in p. 1006 stands 7? e es reft avjai ; the French ravist is used in the same sense ; it comes a few lines lower down ; the one word may have influenced the other. In p. 1016 a man is hidand (expectans) to Middle English: RepaTation. 411 at ; this Infinitive after hicland was not understood hj the compilers of the three other versions. In p. 1066 uii is prefixed to a Participle, lindeianrl (undying). In p. 1084 we find to nizcth a langage; this new word for loqioi (it is the Scandinavian mu6la) was not understood in the South. In p. 64 ]>u gafe (dedisti) is corrupted into pou gafs ; we have seen this change before. In p. 74 ciiaioen (notuni) is turned into Jc/iaud, which may still sometimes be heard. In p. 114 a French Verb takes a Strongr Perfect in English, a thins' almost unheard of ; we hear that the rain ne fane (fined not, non cessavit) ; the Scotch verdict, not pro- ven, is in our days the nearest approach to this Strong form. So common had the use of ye for tn become in the North that it influenced the Imperative mood ; in p. 270 is nai, sir, tas noght &c. (ne capias). The Verb is sometimes dropped for the sake of avoiding repetitions, as in p. 1140, ' Cornelius fears the Lord, na man more.' The Passive Participle stade (constitutus) comes over and over again in this work ; in p. 90 it is written staid ; perhaps our Verb stay may come from this, as well as from the French estaier. In p. 1360 comes \>ar es na. mending ]>e sfat. This is a further de- velopment of the Transitive Verbal Xoun ; the Accusa- tive now comes after it, not before it, as in bearn-cennung . In p. 1344 the new Noun being is formed from be, to express essentia. Among Adverbs, we B.ndforqui put into the middle of a sentence, just before a reason is given, p. 92 ; hence the cos luliy that we so often hear. We have now an expression, ' it is the best thing out ; ' this may be seeu 412 Old and Middle English. in p. 98, \e sin ]>at ]mn was ute (in being). In p. 830, each man holds his office, Jiis tuelvemotJi ute. This last word supplies the loss of the old ]^urli formerly prefixed to Verbs; liaf yee ]w dais al fasten ute ? p. 380. We see in p. 728, the first hint of the Irish at all at all (omnino) ; jless he ne ete of al and al; this is the Scotch ava. The Scandinavian of allt means, ' in every respect.' The poet is fond of dropping the ne that should come before hut ; folh wil hut foil do, p. 108 ; the h2it was now Englishing tantilm, as we saw much earlier. Another form of this, whence comes the Yorkshire nohhut, is found in p. 1216; ])at ivas noglit hot for to fie; in the other Versions, for comes before the noght. The old als lang sal (swa) 'as long as,' appears in p. 1170; but the other Versions have altered it into fo-quiles and ivMl. We use as for pretty often now ; it is seen in p. 156, I miglit hald it als for inine. In p. 196 the Adverbial endino^ is fastened on to the Active Parti- ciple ; sittandlik, which in the Southern Version is altered into sittyngly. In p. 330 comes sin giien (since when) in a question ; and fra ]>is time forth is in p. 240. Behind is used in a wholly new sense, that of deficiens ; a man es hehind for j)overt, p. 352 ; as we say, ' he is behind with his money.' The old heceftan (post) is now changed into o haft, our sailors' ahaft. The away was used to express intensity ; he dried aioay (tabescebat) p. 690. We have seen hal in the sense of ijiteger ; a new Adverb is now formed from this, to re- place the lost eallunga ; he sal he hali given is in p. 502 ; the Southern Version puts hool for this new hali, our ivholly. Still comes again in the Northern sense of Middle English: Reparation. 413 toujoiirs, p. 742. We find contra Englished by on o]>er side, p. 748 ; this is of a woman balancing argnments. An Adverb might be compounded by simply adding i to a Noun, as develi, p. 824; we use now the more cumbrous diaholically ; there is also folill (stulte) page 1332. In p. 824 we hear of a person being sa mightl melee, whence comes Pepys* miijhty merrij ; swl^e (valde) was now unhappily going out. In p. 830 we have the first hint of our doing things turn about. Biscops war \)(ii ]Hin ahute, llkan hot his tuelveinoth ute. The confusion between Adjectives and Adverbs is very plain ; a house is commli dight, p. 870. In p. 1054, a man is said to be ungodli (inhoneste) gert. The Danish sum is used for the English siva or as ; in p. 936 is the phrase sa feii se sum I can (as far as I can see). In p. 1336 comes the new form liu sum ever (how so ever). In p. 1028 comes, he may getehit no wayes; the last word stands for the old wise. We find phrases like fi'aferr and ner, go wrong, negh at hand, ^ar apon, her- efterward. In p. 402 is a wholly new adverbial form, cjuen ]Hit J)ai yede ; a similar High German form is found. By the side of the old su]ili, a new word for verb crops up ; in p. 284 comes, lyow sal trull ; this in the Southern Ver- sion is altered into ivitterly. To this day our true will English both fidus and venis ; sooth has almost wholly dropped out of sight. A tr^te man (not a thief) keeps the old sense honestus ; so we have had to invent truthful, to express another shade of meaning. The word namli had hitherto meant prcecipne ; it is now made to repre- 414 Old and Middle English. sent the jfTorse nefniliga, (by name, expressly) ; we see in p. 1094 ]ia Saduceis, — namli ]>at lede ^"c, (vide- licet). The Preposition of is used in new senses ; it smelJes piewent, p. 218 ; ^ay had might ]>am selveu, p. 206 ; hence Pope's mistress of herself ; Adam waxed sad (fessus) of himself, p. 80 ; we tnah urfa of w freind, p. 1076. In p. 1304 comes the eild (age) thritte yere. We have already seen to miss of a thing ; we now find, p. 682, to fail of ur art ; this is strange, as the French faillir was not followed by de. This of is prefixed to Verbal Nouns ; St. Panl is called a wessele mi chesing in p. 1126. As to at, we come npon at ese, p. 112 ; at an acord, p. 134i : at])air talking ])am tenid sare (irati sunt), p. 1094. To is not far removed from at ; we here find, it lay to hand, p. 148 ; hete him to }>e blod, p. 926 ; Jcest of al to his serJc (shirt), p. 1232. In p. 1104 comes mani sehe (sick) unto ]>am soght ; this foreshadows our version of Deuteronomy xii. 5 ; ' unto the place shall ye seek.' The Icelandic scehja til means 'have recourse to.' We see the that dropped after a Preposition in p. 164 ; ]>ou sal have ham hi I cum. Anew phrase is used to express intention ; something is done, ' hi wai to do ])e for to se,' p. 1128. With is much used ; loit quain it es noght at ha^n, p. 252 ; mad an luit his godd-hed, p. 1076 ; he toJc his hin (lodging) wit Nichodeme, p. 1012 ; wit ]>i leve, p. 984 ; guat yee ivill ivit me, p. 1140 ; the French must have had much influence here. The up is used in the Scandinavian way, to intensify a Verb, as ]>e folk mon dei up, p. 276, like our follovj up, use up ; though we may also say hill doiun. A new phrase comes in p. 426 ; seven suns in all. On, as Middle English: Reparation, 415 usual, marks hostility ; dome es given on us, p. 954 ; it also marks a state of future activity; the Apostles higan to fed ajwn a gret (fletus), p. 890; Defoe would liave written it, ' to fall a weeping,' an idiom which lasted to 1790. The French idiom pour (quod attinet ad), already seen in the St. Katherine, is repeated ; he sal for me he hunden ; the Southern transcriber was puzzled by the newfangled idiom (which is also the Scandinavian fijrir mer) and wrote hifore me. The Dorsetshire in stede is now made one word, In-sted 0, p. 74. Two Prepositions are coupled, in the phrase, ' he took them to beside the cross,' p. 1246. In p. 818, we see or nsed as it often is in poetry now ; it is prefixed to two diflferent Nouns in one sentence; qua trous in me, or man or vjiif, Ipai sal 8fc. There are here many new Interjections, derived from thie French,that have taken root in our tongue. It is this class of words that the poorer classes are most apt to copy from their betters ; French Interjections are easily pro- nounced, and give a supposed air of refinement to every- day talk. In p. 248 comes ha ! quat ]>aa hestes vjar hene ! it is plain that the two first words of the French original must have been ha que. In p. 286 comes ha, ha, traiturs ! in p. 682, this is, Aha, traiturs ! Herod, who utters this in his torment, deals in much hearty French abuse, like fiz aputains. In p. 696, they all cry ho ! a Scandinavian Interjection. In p. 256 is Goddforhedd I suld hiiu suihe ! this became afterwards so idiomatic that it was used to English the /i>) yspoiro of the Greek Testament. In p. 1288 stands A Laverd! at the begin- ning of a sentence, just as Pepys uses Lord! when he is 41 6 Old and Middle English. astonlslied at anything. In p. 34 comes herlz {Jiar'k^ for tlie first time ; it is addressed to a mob. A new phrase is in p. 242 ; lo quar |)e dremer es cwmnen, where lo is followed by an Adverb. Our why is here used simply as an expletive ; in p. 222 comes wi, quatJdn consail tnai I]>e give ? In p. 1186 stands alias, for scliame ! here the/or must stand for the Latin oh ; we now use the Interjection for shame ! without the alas, which governed it. Some English words are further developed : thus from the old crumh (curvus) is formed cru77ipled, p. 466 ; gruh,^ a new form of the old grafau (fodere) is seen in p. 390. The Yerb swedel (swaddle) is first seen in p. G44, coming from the old Noun swepel (fascia). We hear of a S7iau drif for the first time in p. 570 ; and of a scott (a shot, missile) in p. 576; this last is Scandi- navian. In p. 532 comes to-natne (agnomen), a strange form common to both Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. The cove (specus) of the Lindisfarne Gospels is repeated in p. 666, Some puzzHng words are now for the first time found; such as had (malus), lass (puella), hailed (calvus), midivife, which is said to mean * a woman who comes for meed.' In p. 28, a thing is said to be done faster than eje may wink ; we should now say, ' it was done like winking.' There are some English words here common to the Dutch and German ; such as duhen (mergere), lump, creul (sei^erej, pohe (trudere), hloiv (plaga), la^^as * Locke tells us that gncff was the Mendip miners' name for a pit. See his Life, by Mr, Fox Bourne, I. 125. Middle English: Reparation. 417 (lignla), p. 908, our ZasA, %i)eve (vapor), our wliiff^ p. 1310. The Scandinavian words found here are, harlc (cor- tex), scour, spar J sqiteal, dump (tundere), cZe/Y, fell (mons), grovelings, p. 674, aslant, harsh (harsh), slcirt, scall, sterii (sistere), slight^ smile, trump (tuba), fmi (stultus), our fond. The Scandinavian gcewia^r gives birth to yoman, p. 184 ; it is here evidently used for ' an able-bodied man,' and we still talk of ' doing yeoman's service.' The word often appears as yeraau in later times. There are a few words of this kind, still found here lingering in Scotland, as stot (buculus), gley (limis oculis spectare). A kirk is said to scale (disperse) ; this word, found in the Cursor, is the Danish verb sJcille. Our phrase, * I have no time,' comes, not from the Old English word, but from the Scandinavian torn (otium), as seen in p. 130. The Old English sceapend (creator) row makes way for the Scandinavian scaper (shaper), p. 740. SculJc now means ahdere and not tahescere, as in the Northern Psalter. Bi (oppidum) in p. 868 shows whence come our hye-laws. The Celtic words crag and Iran ai'e found in p. 568 and p. 888. Bid stands for mistalce in p. 1218 ; this noun does not appear again, I think, until Milton used it in his ' Apology for Smectymnuus.' To Yorkshire belong the Percival and the Isumbras (' Thornton Romances,' Camden Society) ; they seem to have been compiled about 1290 ; they have much in common with the Cursor Mundi ; such phrases as give away, stot, pith (vires), '^om an, overpasse, serve (tractare), E E 41 8 Old and Middle English. come once more. The Yowel-cliange is seen as nsnal in the North ; gCd (capra) is seen as cjayte ; and this sound is preserved in Gateshead (caput caprae) ; there is also mere (equa) ; u often replaces o, as gude for gode, luke for lolce ; we see the thoroughly Northern louse (solvere) for the old losian, p. 72 ; in Scotland the change is in our time carried a step further, and the word is there pronounced like the German laus. As to Consonants : we see how hnawlage (this came in the Cursor) was pronounced, in p. 41 ; the g was sounded hard, for the word rimes with make, tahe, hlal-e ; the ending, in spite of its form, was more akin to the Teutonic lac, as in tvedlac, than to the Romance dam^age. The former swiftliher (citius) loses its h and becomes siviftUere ; I see that some of our best modern writers are now reviving these Comparative Adverbs, and are disusing the cumbrous more swiftly. The letter tn is inserted, for midlest becomes medilmaste, p. 96. Among Substantives, we find the old Plaral gode (bona) turned into gude"^, our goods ; folhes are used for men, p. 45, and hodys have the same meaning, p. 44 ; hence comes our soiiiehody, nobody, &c. This use of body appeared in Gloucestershire about the same time. In those days, knights won their schone (shoes), not their spurs, p. 61. In p. *77 we hear that a club's head was tivelve stone weglite, the first instance of this measure. The phrase a sevenyght long (p. 84) was coming into use. Verbal Nouns are mainly due to the North ; they are found in the Plural, as sygheyngez (suspiria), p. 90. The word to^ was already used, in composition with other nouns, as a sea term ; the ioppe-castelles of a ship Middle English: Reparation. 419 are mentioned in p. 97. Score is used as a plural noun in p. 44 ; elleveue score of mene. As to Adjectives : we hear of the tliilcheste of tlie prese, p. 44. In p. 51 conies a sadde stroJce ; the sad had taken the sense of gravis, besides that of satur ; in the North they still talk of sad caJce. In p. 92 stands the phrase ' alle als nakede als they were borne.' The Adverb right was encroaching on the old sici\>e, as is plainly seen in the Percival ; a new sense of the word is in p. 31, where a man is cast reghte in the fyre. The Northern sense of still is perhaps found in p. 18 ; it is hard to say whether tranqidlle or toujours would be the right translation here ; unmoved is the connecting link between these two senses. Even had hitherto meant e before a Vowel, as \eir (the air) ; Caxton was fond of this usage. The words wra]>])e (ira) and u-ro]> (iratus) are distinguished in p. 98. The old Sumersete is now written Somersete^ p. 49, where many other counties are mentioned. The WiltonescMre, Slohscliire, and BimJiolme of 1260 now become Wilteschire, Scliropscliyre, and Durham. The Kaiser of the Ancren Riwle is written Cezar, p. 113 ; the former term was confined to the office, the latter to the family name ; the c must have been in the second instance taken from the French original of this poem. The n is inserted, when lytinge (fulgur) is seen as U^tninge, in p. 117. The h is cast out, for clemde is TST."itten for climhed, in p. 51. The n at the end is clipped, for we find gredire (gridiron), p. 60 ; the old gescoten is pared down to scliet, our Participle s/iof, p. 118. Serin now becomes sclii'in, p. 47. Among the Substantives, we see one English word encroaching upon its synonym in p. 80 : ^ In ano])er half of ]>e churclie, al in ])o])er side.^ The former of these Nouns was soon to drop in this sense. The old Plural of cv. (vacca), cy, is still used in the North ; but we find a new Plural of the true Southern pattern in p. 53, Jcyn ; a third Plural, cou's, was yet to come ; all three Plurals are still used in our island ; this instance, I think, is something quite by itself. It may be, that men thought they might talk of hine, since they already used the Plural sivine. There is another most pronounced Southern form, eirnionger (egg-monger), in p. 45 ; Caxton' s tale about eir and Middle English: Reparation. 427 e(jfjs, nearly two litmdred years later, is well known. There is the noun 'inase (error), p. 107; and the ex- pressions swete hurte (sweetheart), p. 51 ; find his macche, p. 50 ; meiiie a moder child (mother's son), p. 104. In p. 83 conies gode luyf, addressed to a woman ; nothing now more enrages a female in the witness-box than to be addressed by the opposing counsel as ' my good woman.' In p. 95 St. Katherine addresses a most bloodthirsty tyrant as gode man, something like our ' my good fellow.' In p. 71 we hear of gode men and true ; here true bears the meaning of honestus as in the Peterborough Chronicle; a true man is opposed to a thief. In p. 63, we first light on our gastliche (ghastly) ; this word, unlike ghosthj, has never changed its first vowel, and conies from agasten (terrere). In p. 94 is God almip;ie-es spouse ; so confused had our inflexions now become, that the Adjective, and not the Substantive, here takes a Genitive form. There are such new phrases as the liy: ivas oute ; he indkede moche of gode reule, p. 35 ^ ; moche a^en Ms vnlle ; his fader were betere hahhe, &c., p. 109 ; like Shakes- pere's * you were best go,' where the Pronoun is in the Dative. In p. 53 comes ])e valeij perdoune ; we should now say ' down there.' As to Pronouns : the sharp distinction between ]>u and je, made in Lincolnshire about this time, had not yet found its way to the Severn; in p. 59 and in p. 91 a superior uses both ]>u andjoz/j-e in one line, when addressing an inferior. The Virgin tells the Devil, ^ This phrase comes in Tyndale's version of St. Luke, vii. 2. 428 Old and Middle English. Hliou beast, your power is too great,' p. 59. In p. 114 siiYYi on replaces tlie old sum "inan. In p. 80 we hear that no rain fell, to disturb a tnaiies mod ; here man, with the Indefinite Article prefixed, stands for aliqids; this is something new. In p. 50 comes, no pe wors him nas ; we should now say, ' he was not the worse,' altering the case. As to Verbs : we see find out, Jiou go]> ]ns ? malcede hire mid cJiilde, Jiou sclial ic do (valere), p. 97 ; hence our * how do you do ? ' In p. 105 the phrase it he is used as a kind of expansion of etsi ; summe ]>e^ hit heo fewe. The Verb swear, when used of a future event, governs an Accusative, his de]) lie hadde iswore, p. 116 ; we also find in p. 51, hispeJce his de]), a new sense of this Verb. We know Person's clever but unfair lines, beginning. The Germans in Greek Are sadly to seek. In p. 78 we hear of the Devil, iio]nng to siclie (seek) he nas (non defuit). Our phrase 'cast up accounts* is foreshadowed in p. 77, caste his numhre. In the same line draiu gets a new meaning, ' draiu figures ; ' this is a Scandinavian sense of draw. When St. Dunstan was enraptured in p. 39, he sat as he were ynome ; this is the first hint of oui' modern numb, coming from the old niman (capere). Among Prepositions, we find, take ensamjple hi, take God to witness, for nought, no love hitueyie hem, hi were upe (upon) hirii. In p. 83 the old d, slightly changed, begins to be Middle English : Reparation. 429 used as an Affirmative ; a question is asked, and the answer is a^e, sire (aye). Our ugli of disgust is seen as ou in p. 115. We find vrrick, our wriggle, in p. 36 ; it is akin to a Dutch word. Shakespere talks of pashecl corpses ; this comes from the Scandinavian prt.s^*, found in p. 98. In Seyn Julian, (published by the Early English Text Society), we see marw (medulla), stntpe her nakedy maJce \>e eigne of ]>e crois, and tresses. The Life of St. Margaret was published by the Early English Text Society ; the version of the year 1295 may be found in p. 24, a wonderful contrast to the version put forth ninety years earlier. We find in p. 25 schip (oves) ; in p. 27 is cJius (elige), and in p. 28 ru]>e (misericordia), just as we now pronounce these three words. In p. 29 is atom (donii), just as we now slur over the h of the second word ; the Scandinavians said at husi. In p. 32 comes astoned, long afterwards inserted by Tyndale in the Bible; it is a compound of the English astundian and the French estonner. In p. 30 the French caccJie becomes catche, with the t in the middle. The proper name Laitrenz, in p. 24, follows the French and not the Latin form ; the name Stevene does just the reverse. We see the phrase, the hlod ran hi stremes ; this is a new meaning attached to In. The use of the of in phrases like of age is further extended; in p. 29 comes a man of mi strengpe. Bo, attached to another Verb, was becoming very common ; as ]m dost lede (ducis). From the same Manuscript comes a Treatise on Science, published by Mr. Wright, p. 132. Hdr (canus) 430 Old and Middle English, becomes lior (hoar) ; / replaces li in \urf (per), as it did before in \oli^ \oj. We see, in p. 138, a seeming pre- ference of French to English endings ; sioearer and looker become siceriere and ivahiere. Robert of Glon- cester, the probable anthor of this treatise, has howiar (bowyer) in his Chronicle ; this Gloucestershire crotchet comes out again in Tyndale, who sometimes writes laivear (lawyer) ; Chaucer has man of law. The Western Poet speaks of his forehead as his for-top, p. 137 ; our seamen use the word in another sense. In p. 139, the phrase comes wipinne fourti daijes and in lasse ; here the Substantive is not repeated after lasse, an instance of English conciseness. In p. 140 the soul go]> to gode, that is, ' to heaven ; ' here the Adjective stands for a Substantive. On the other hand, souls may heo in lijiere iveye (be in a bad way), p. 140 ; this is an early in- stance of a phrase common now. We know Pope's line ending with all that, meaning ' all such things ; ' this is foreshadowed in p. 133 ; many vices are named, and we are told that a good man may cleanse himself of alle 'pidke. Tyndale has often put in our Bible the corrupt sinned (micavit) as well as the rightful sJioiie ; scliynde is seen in p. 133. The Verb hegin is followed by an Accusative in p. 132 ; icli vjole higymie pe names. We find hidtoh, akin to the Dutch hout, and slah of ire (massa), which has puzzled the wise. We now turn to Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle, published by Hearne. We may safely call it a trans- lation from the French, when we see such forms as the March (Mercia), Picards (Picts), Baneis (Danes), ]>e Londreis (Londoners), Pountfreit (Pontefract, Pomfret), Middle English : Reparation. 43 1 p. 505 ; Hubert de Burgli is altered into Huhert de Born, p. 523. The French j:>ar (where ah would have been nsed in Latin for the agent) is Englished by jwi'tc in p. 271. The original author had to explain in two long lines the meaning of the old word A\>ely}ig, as applied to Edgar, p. 354. Homage is quite wrongly turned into manJiede, not manredCf p. 421. The poor translation, sijp:e for vision, is seen in p. 355. It is in this poem that we first find the habit of opposing the word Saxons to Normans, p. 363, though after all English, not Saxons, is the usual phrase employed. The Saxons and the Englysse both alike wage war on the Britons in p. 225. As to Englisch (lingua Anglica), we are told in p. 125, that \e Saxones speche it vjas, and ]>orw hem ycome yt ys ; just what King Alfred says, if we would only believe him. The letter a replaces e in the proper name "^arne- mou]ye, Yarmouth in the Isle of Wight, p. 164, though the old spelling is kept in p. 227; a replaces ce, for cemete (emmet) becomes amet, our ant (formica) ; there are also gras and hraJc, as in Layamon. Aic is found in aul, which is no longer written awel or al ; we find both Mold and Maud, the short of Matilda. The e replaces y, as in Welsse (Welsh) for Wylisc ; gle stands for gleow (gaudium). The i or y comes in often; at p. 370 we see the proper name Cecyly, which we now call either Cicely or Cecil. The y or i slips in before Vowels in Teu- tonic w^ords, as we saw in the Legends of the Saints ; in p. 416 comes the Verbal Noun bodyynge, our boding ; in p. 541 is boiuiar, our bowyer ; we need not derive this ending from the French ; it is one of the Severn country 432 ' Old and Middle Ens:lish forms. The o often supplants ?t, as in Layamon's Second Text ; it stands for e in ivorrede (pngnavit) ; there is also con for hen (scit), p. 364 ; hence ' to con a lesson ; ' stands for eo, as ssoppe (shop) for seeojpim^ p. 541 ; it stands for cm, as Morisse for Maurice, p. 516. The to supplants {, as in Wiio'cester ; we still keep the old sound of the u. in this proper name ; Paul is writ- ten Poul. We see the curious compromise between the Southern u and Northern y or i that makes us write guild, huild, and such words ; in this Poem we have fuyr (ignis), pruyd (superbia), and Bruyt (Brute). This usage was continued by the author of Piers Plough- man, another Western ^vi^iter. Hugo is now wiitten Ht(,e,the ue standing for eu; a proof how fondly England clung to her old sound eoiv, the French ioy. In p. 116 Layamon's \nvoiig is pared down to ])oug. As to Consonants : the / or v is cast out of cef e7i (vesper), which is seen as ene in p. 394, Holy Thore's ene. We see the old targynge in p. 207, and the new tarie (morari) in p. 109 ; Tyndale was fond of this word. The g is moreover thrown out in neyde (neighed) from the old lincegan, and in nmtene, where the first syllable has replaced nigon. The h is cut away from the old toll, which is now written tou (tough), p. 175; the South no longer pronounced the guttural at the end of words. The old maca (socius) becomes mate, p. 536, just as we find both condicio and conditio in Old Latin ; the relationship of tumidus and cumidus is well known. The |) is dropped in the middle of Norpivic, which now becomes Norvnclie ; forpu^eard is seen as for- ward, p. 17, and it may, in our days, be often heard Middle English: Reparation, 433 pronounced forrad. The name we now call Ethelhert is seen as Eylbnjt, p. 238. The mterchange between I and d is seen in p. 447, where the Gardoil of p. 4 is written Garloyl. The I is sometimes cast out, for pilJc (iste) and Walter become ]nl-e, p. 27, and Water, p. 553. The final n has been clipped in true Southera fashion in aje (iterum), p. 548 ; on the other hand, ]>7'eate]> (minatur) is first seen as ]>retne]), p. 457. In Proper Names, we had begun to follow French rather than Latin ; Sercjms is pared down to Sergy, p. 255. We also see Jude, Nel (Niel), Gemes (James, p. 534), George, Barnale, Umfray. King Richard's enemy was Duke of Ostrich, not Austria. There are forms of English places as yet new to English poetry, as Boucestre, Exetre, Bristowe, Harn/ptschire, Glas- tijnhury. Nothyngam has lost the s, which used to stand before her first n ; this alteration may be seen in Latin Charters of the foregoing Century. Grauntehrigge becomes Gamhrugge, p. 6, though the old form lasted a hundred years longer. In p. 44 the Poet explains why Lude^s town is now sHghtly changed ; "ine clepe\> it London, \at ys ly^ter in ]>e mou]K These last six words give a clue to the reason of the alterations in many an EngHsh word. Armorica is called j'e lasse Breteyne, p. 95, and is held by Bntones. The old Barh becomes Fetreshoru, p. 283. We hear of Dyvyses (Devizes), p. 448 ; in p. 523 this becomes The Vise. The old Eadgy]>, which had already been much mangled in Domesday Book, is written Edy]>e, p. 331. A man named Hohehin was hanged not long before the battle of Lewes, p. 544 ; Halhert must have been very early pared down to Hob. All Saints' Church in Oxford is called Alle Hahven, p. 541 ; this old Genitive Plural, F F 434 Old and Middle English. a South ern corruption of lialgcma (sanctorum), lives in Halloween, as already remarked. In Nouns, we find the Old English constrnction of time dropped, which prescribed Augustus mo)t6e ; it is now ])e moutJie of Jwi, "p. 410; something akin to this is ]?e art of lechecraft, p* 150. In the first page of the poem we see that the word England^ which used to be Neuter, has become Masculine ; we now make it Feminine. The noun hastinesse is formed from the verb, p. 109. The well-known legend about Rowena is set out in p. 118 ; and we here find the Substantive tvas- sayl, formed from ivces lial (esto salvus) ; we have already seen to luassail in the Havelok. Robert tells us that this cry became so popular, that it was not forgotten in his day ; men thought more of drink than of a7i holi prechottres tvord. Sceop^pa had meant treasury ; it now becomes ssoppe, sliop in the sense so well known to us, p. 541. A new word, reveri/e (rapina), is formed in p. 193, simply to suit the rime ; it was not to be long-Hved. We hear of ]>e hondredf p. 267, as a part of the shire ; also, of a loolpack. In p. 407, the Christian host comes on Tiiyd gode ernest. Arm is used for an inlet of the sea, p. 2 ; in p. 16 game is used, not for Indus, but as a synonym of the beasts killed for sport. Bout is used for turba in p. 17. Dole, p. 165, no longer means p)(^'>'s, but a distri- bution of alms ; to dole out money and to deal cards are two prongs coming from one old Verb ; here the Southern Dialect has given us a new form. Biht now gets the sense of claim ; nadde non ry^t ]>erto is in p. 359. We used to hear much of O'Connell's tail ; the word, applied in this sense to King Knout and his men, is Middle English : Reparation. 435 seen in p. 305. In p. 266, King Alfred learns the alphabet ; lie cou\g ys ahece^ a phrase used by Tyndale later. There are such phrases as Tiente (take) herte ; oute of horn arid hous^ p. 375 ; these nouns we now transpose ; Jot folc (infantry) ; smoke is puffed against the heathen r^5^ in her oiue (their own) tep, p. 407. In p. o-4-l conies a phrase dear to Tyndale, onen were atte mete (at meat). In p. 555, Sir Edward grants a garrison lif and lime. A mortel wound is translated de])es luonde in p. 49 ; Lord Macaulay, in his Lays, called it a death ivound. Among Adjectives, we find lere (vacuus), p. 81 ; it is curious that this old word should have died out of England, except in the South West, after 1310 ; it may still be heard in the mouths of Somersetshire peasants. In p. 119 a selij ivencJie is opposed to a hoU irrecJioiir ; sely here may perhaps bear the new meaning stultus. In p. 95 comes an sixti ])ousand gode ; we should now make good the second word. In p. 393, a Prince borrows a huge sum of money, and pat was somdel stare, like our * coming it strong.' In p. 430 a girl is described as a ten ^er old, a wholly new phrase. Boll pe more comes in p. 566, because pe holder would not suit the rime. As to Pronouns : yt refers to a Masculine Antecedent in p. 411 ; a Prince thinks it too much trouble to be King, and sayde ]mt lie nolde he yt no'^f. In p. 420 conies, *he was pidke ]>at ;' this Southern ])ulke (that one) is convenient here, as preventing pat coming twice over. In p. 409, the Crusaders helde her Ester (kept their Easter), a new sense of the Pronoun. In p. 435 some tyme is used where we should say 'once upon a time ;' the sum and an were synonyms of old. In p. 561 comes F F 2 43^ Old and Middle English. mani an o\er, a new form. In p. 532 we read of miiclie folc ; tlie phrase mucli ^eojple is kept in our Bible. In p. 509, we see noy: for no%t ; liere the first stands for our not, the last for our nought ; the old word had else- where been split into two different forms, as two shades of meaning had now to be represented. In p. 449 comes ' they knew not loat to do ;' the French que faire is preferred to the Old English idiom of the Subjunc- tive mood. A new French fashion of dating time comes in ; we see in p. 363 the phrase : m pe gere of Grace a ]>oiisencl and syxe and syxty ; here the Cardinal number stands for the Ordinal ; the Old English way of reckoning by wmters was being dropped. In p. 295 comes the Dorsetshire hii ivere at on ; the very Southern phrase, ' to set at one,' is in our Bible. Among the Verbs, we may remark many new French idioms. We find hicomen frendes gode, God yt schyld me, p. 58, (Dieu me defende) ; "^eve liym hatail ; smyte a hatayle ; do hataile ; to segge ssortlyclie (shortly to say) ; sette on fuyre ; lie ])leyede Mng ; here amines ; onyii herte ys on liym. Some Verbs undergo alteration ; thus in ■p. 29 a man falls from a great height and intclies ; this last verb had up to this time been transitive ; much in the same way, men are said to spread about, in p. 288 ; tuithdraw is intransitive in p. 388. Set also loses its active sense in p. 400, where two hosts sette togadere in fight. On the other hand, to swear a man, is in p. 348 ; to turn your hand to, is in p. 101. We see, it was vor]> ipult (proclaimed) ; it com to ])es (peace) ; they adde the stretes Her (they had, i.e. made, the streets empty), p. 541. We now talk of mooring a ship, but in -p. 499 the verb Middle English : Reparation. 43 7 is used of woods, whicli are mored up (rooted up). A town is harned at adoun in p. 294 ; up and doivii are both used in our day to express intensity, as ' to knock up,' and ' to kill down.' In p. 354, Harold made liys vjey (attained his end). We see a curious proof of the con- fusion between the Verbal Noun and the Infinitive in en, for in p. 291 we hear of a token ]^at to comynrj was ; it should be to conien (venturum). There is a strange idiom in p. 343 ; lie was ivel y)ng to he I'yng ; it is a great advance on Orrmin's ' good enough to do a thing.' In p. 419 we hear of Rufus' end ; then comes the moral, siLch yt ys to he ssreiue (a shrew) ; here a thing seems to be omitted after the such. Our easy idiom ' he swore he should hang ' comes in p. 448 ; no that follows the first verb here. The Verb is altogether dropped, to save a repetition ; in p. 523 four nobles ' found knights, ech of horn on* (each of them one). This idiom is rather hazy, and is not easy to construe at first sight. One of our Biblical phrases is seen in p. 515, so it luas that Sfc., * it was so, that.' Among Adverbs, the use of as is much developed. The old Siva siua had been used of yore, when a notion was to be expressed, illustrated by examples ; this swa siva now becomes as. Thus we hear, in p. 359, that the Conqueror built abbeys, as Teoheshury and Oseneye. As is further used to English the French comme ; in p. 37 Cordelia takes the kingdom as ]>e ry^t eyr. In p. 216 a hero carries off a man's body, ded as yt ivas. We know the phrase, 'as at this time,' in our Collect for Christmas-day ; something like this is seen in p. 552, * they made peace on the twelfth of May, as in a 43 S Old and Middle English. Tyioesday. In p. 56 conies 'on a hill, as (ubi) manj^ rocks were ' ; another manuscript lias tlier for the above as ; it is easy to see how thereas and ivliereas arose. Yet had hitherto been nsed of time ; it is now employed to restrict an idea : in p. 35 we see ' he is come with but one man, a7id gef ])ilke in fehle wede.^ We find oversore (nimis), which replaces the old overstvipe ; also asyde. Wei ynoiv (p. 284), means valde felix. One of our intensive forms is out\ this we see in p. 121, 'they forsook the king aT out ' (utterly) ; we find in this poem seeh out and hity out. We see more Sou]> used as an Adverb in p. 386. King- Alfred's clcene (omnino) becomes clanliche at p, 100. We see tip and doun, p. 552, but there is another form in p. 333, where a man yreu up to doun (fell upside down) . This is the first hint of a new English phrase, due to the West Country, which is further developed in 1320 as upsodoim ; the scribe most likely did not under- stand the phrase : it also occurs in Seyn Julian. The ])Teu here, like the Verb pitch, becomes intransitive. The word hut now answers to the Latin quin ; hou rny^te tve bote he overcome ? p. 306 ; here the French que must have had an influence. Wlien answers to quoniam in p. 47 ; weii ive he]> of on hlod. As to Prepositions: o/ stands for considering; 'strong of her age ' is in p. 110. A law phrase is seen in p. 510, to hold vor Mm and vor his eirs. The Interjection Oui, Lord, ])e nohle folic ! comes in p. 56 ; the common here got the sound of the French ou-,. the meaning is, ' Lord, Avhat noble folk,' &c. This Lord is still a favourite Interjection with us ; it seems a translation of the French Dam (dominus). Middle English : Reparation. 439 Among strange words, harl appears, as in the North. Orderic Vital had long before written about sterilensii-- moneta ; we now find a certein sume of sterlings^ p. 563 ; the word is said to come from Germany. The Southern Version of the Castel of Love (Philo- logical Society) dates from about this time ; it resemble^ Robert of Gloucester in forms like ijruide and huinde ; we here find ivelfare, p. 9, ouirihtj p. 13. Other poems of this date are in the other Volume of the Society, after the Play of the Sacrament. In p. 16 we see destrei (destroy) ; the oy in English, as in French, had the sound, sometimes of the French e, some- times of the French on or oue. The Verb hoh, in p. 14, has the sense offerire. , The long poem of the Alexander (Weber's ' Metrical Romances,' Vol. I.) seems to have been translated from the French about the year 1300. We may safely refer its translator to some shire near the Great Sunderino- Line. The dialect is mostly Southern ; but certain phrases, such as sJcet (cito), that (iste), they dispises, p. 70, til (ad), han (habent), hi(/(je (not hugge), unmis- takeably smack of the North. The translator seems to have lived not far from Gloucestershire, for he repeats the new form Jci&yn (vaccee) ; on the whole, Warwick- shire seems the most likely place of his abode. We seem to have a foreshadowing of Shakespere in words like horeson, p. 41, and in p. 52 comes Swithe mury hit is in halle, When the biudes (beards) wawen alle. As to Vowels : a replaces eo, as darling ; also e, for 440 O^^ ^^^^ Middle English. snacclie (rapere) replaces tlie snecclw of the Ancren Riwle ; also i, as in 'mangle, p. 303 (in the medley), hence our mingle-mangle. E rejDlaces y, as ' he had yment ' (in animo habuerat) ; here the old verb m^yntan gets confused with "iucenan (significare). The cole (occi- dere) of the North makes way for hill, p. 159. The Old English }>rect (dolor) becomes throive in p. 78 ; in the North it is thraiv, following the Scandinavian pm. The oi has the sound of the French ou ; for hu (pner) stands in p. 45 for what was called in the Havelok boy. As to Consonants : we find ' the ujo^oer Ynde ' in p. 285 ; this of old would have been ufor ; the old forms, up^lica or uj)-Jlor, may have had some influence on the new term. Overton still survives as the name of many a village. There is something like this in p. 272, where the Adverb doim is supplied with a Comparative douner ; there are such new forms as rough, laugh, trough. The gh seems not to have been sounded in the middle of a word; we find Hghed, (ligatus,) luonyghing, (habitatio). The expletive he gan with the Infinitive now becomes ca7i; he can chaunge (mutavit), p. 50. C turns into t, for the old st7xec (directus) is seen as streyte, whence conies our straightivay ; this form must not be confounded with the strait gate, coming from the French. The n is clipped at the beginning of ncedre (anguis), and adder appears. As in the Tristrem, the Infinite in eti changes into ing, a confusion with the Verbal Noun ; in p. 28 comes withoute doyng ; in p. 234 comes withouten lesyng. This is an advance on the huten eivt to leosen in the Legend of St. Katherine, at p. 259 of my work; the French sans, governing the Infinitive, was evidently the Middle English: Reparation. 441 model in all these cases. The r is inserted in schill, which is now seen sls slii'iU ; some ssij f oiler ing instesid oi following. When we see a form like scrilce (vagire), it is easy to imagine that the very common change of the r into a iv would long afterwards produce squeak. The s replaces the r when loren becomes lost ; the old loron (amiserunt) remains in p. 152. The s is added to words ; amidcle becomes aiiiiddes, our amidst. We find such new Substantives as hrother-in-laiv, a howe-scliote, cite-men^ p. 71. Dr^iwhridge is formed, just as sjnlbred had been. What had hitherto been Jupiter in England is now called Jouv, p. 18. The old felawe is used in the two widely different senses that still prevail: the abusive one is in p. 172, 'Fy, felaw, theof ; ' the friendly one is in p. 115, ' He was ryght good felaive.^ A noble top becomes in p. 74 a top of nohleys ; a strange construction. The old pa^va (pavo) is seen as iJecocTc ; and calhetrappe (calthrop) appears. Doppe, the bird named by us from its dipping or ducJdng, is mentioned in p. 239 ; though the form ende (in Latin, anat-is) lasted a hundred and forty years longer. The Verbal Nouns come in fast ; in his doyng is in p. 311. As in the Cursor Mundi, they govern the Accusative, bearing witness to English conciseness. This case may now be Plural as well as Singular; in p. 57 we hear that tliar ivas steden lesyng, losing of steeds. In p. 325 we are told of stryf for the hody heoriing, ' burying of the body.' The Accusative Absolute is often found in this poem, as she rod, theo heved al nalcid, p. 13. We see fine stand before another Adjective, just as we use it; in p. 204, fyiie hardy men. In p. 263 we 442 Old and Middle English. liear of a cite, on of the nohlest in CristianitS ; this is a new construction of the Superlative. Among the Pronouns, we see the Nominative put for the Accusative in Y^yray ye, maister, in p. 22 ; the French vous was here translated. As to Numerals : hundred takes a Plural for the first time ; the tayl they hit of hmidrodis fyve, p. 135. Among the Verbs, the use of have is much developed. In p. 55 comes they hadden leovere steorve, they had rather die ; here have reminds us of the Latin oiiihi est, and the leovere is a Neuter Adjective. The use of the Past Infinitive, an idiom so contrary to Old English, is now further extended ; it follows Adjectives, as u-orthy to he hongid, p. 75. In p. 47 a lady grauntid to heo spoused, a very French idiom ; in Old English '^at with a Past tense would have been used after the grauntid. The verb do is freely used ; in p. 11 comes do (put) to theo sioeord ; in p. 84 is do you honour. The corruption of the Second Person Singular of the Strong Perfect goes on: in p. 164 w^e find thovj smotest, instead of the old smote ; so peculiar a phrase proves the translator to have lived not far to the South of the Great Sundering Line. In p. 154 cleave (findere) makes its rightful Strong Perfect clef-; in p. 151 its Participle is corrupted into the Weak devyd ; we have happily kept the old cloven alive. There are the new Verbs bestir, hewray, overthrow. As to Adverbs : we have seen Orrmin's forr \e naness (for the purpose) ; this sense now slides into for the occasion ; in p. 20 a lady sees something, and is agrisen (frightened) for the nones. The old hivil, as at Colchester a hundred years earlier, takes the usual Middle English : RepaTatioii. 443 modern es at the end and becomes loMles, (whilst) . In p. 249 appears here-to-fore ; we also find als fer as, aloud, and aside. Along is now used as an Adverb, p. 141. The old cvjicliclie is pared down, as in the Tristrem ; the gates loeoren qiiyh wischut, p. 116. There are new uses of Prepositions. ' To bid (ask) of a man ; ' ' the place shon of brightness ; ' hence our ' smack of,' ' savour of.' In p. 270 comes the to of com- parison ; ther nys to hym no best so feloun ; hence our ' he was a fool to this fellow\' We follow the French in the idiom, p. 182 ; this was to Grece a sory fall. To had from the earliest times the meaning of secundum ; we now find in p. 307, folk that heon to your honour. In p. 41 is fy on the, and in p. 79, to turne on Darie. In p. 59 is seon him in face, which is very French ; as is, tel me, hytweone the and me, p. 68. We find luord for word, to-fore alle. The old idiom would have been ' before his horse's feet and under : ' this is now changed to our freer usage, tofore and under his horses fete, p. 136. The old inter- change between of and on comes out, when we see afhungred changed into anhungred ; a phrase inserted by Tyndale in our Bible. The Interjection so ho ! so ho ! may be found in p. 154. There are many works, akin to the German, now first cropping up in our island : such are girl, mane, piny scoff, shingle, top (turbo), and the Verbs cower, curl, dah, plump), scrub, stamp, rotle (rustle) ; there is also hedlinge (prseceps). The word dally appears for the first time. The new Scandinavian words are fUng, raggedy tumble, sturdy, shaiu. 444 0^*^ ^^^<^ Middle English, The Celtic words (we are not very far from the Welsh border) are, hicher, hoistous (boisterous), wail, hog, gun ; this last was most likely some engine for darting Greek fire. I may here point ont that it is seldom that we can express one idea by four words, representing the four races that have ruled our island since E-oman times. But for plangere we may use, (though there are shades of difference) either the Welsh tuail, the English Ttioan, the Danish sh'ieJi, or the French cry ; this is indeed a wealth of expression. We can often find three repre- sentative words of this kind, but seldom four ; either the Welsh or the Danish synonym is commonly wanting.^ The source of derivation is sometimes puzzling. Thus, our word cost may come either from the Welsh costiaiv, from the Icelandic Jcosta, or from the French couster ; there is, moreover, a Low German hosten ; it is the same with i:>ot. We have now traced the three periods of Middle English for 180 years : we have seen its Cultivation, from 1120 to 1220 ; its Neglect, from 1220 to 1280 ; and its Reparation, by translators of French works, from 1280 to 1300. We have seen the old Inflections pared away at Peterborough in 1160 ; the disuse of Old English compounds, to be remarked in East Anglia, about 1200 ; the rush of French words into English, about 1280, has yet to be explained. A greater contrast cannot be imagined, than if we compare the Legend of St. Juliana (1220), with the Havelok (1280). 1 Bard, Maker, Scald, Poet, are something similar ; but the first comes to us from the Welsh through the Latin, and not directly. Middle EnglisJi : Reparation. 445 Let a line be drawn from Whitby through. York> Shrewsbury, aud Hereford, to Weymouth. To the South and East of this line sprang up the many idioms that we have just considered ; all of which were in process of time to converge at London. The rough churls of many a shire were shaping the language, that in the fulness of time was to be handled by Shakespere and ^lilton ; while the better-educated priests were translating and bringing in French idioms, fresh from the mint over the sea. A strange jumble of words and idioms, Old English, Scandinavian, and French, goes to form the New English that we now speak. About one third of the changes arose in the Saxon shires, to the South of the Great Sundering Line.^ About two thirds of the changes come from the shires that lie between Colchester and York, where the new form of England's speech was for the most part compounded by the old Angles and the later Norse comers. Almost half-way between these two towns lived the man, whose writinsrs are of such first-rate importance that they are worthy of having a Chapter to themselves.^ After his time there came in but few new Teutonic changes in spelling and idiom, such as those that had been constantly sliding ^ I wish that the different idioms in French and German could be traced to their local sources, in many an outlying nook. Here is a work Trell befitting some patriotic scholar. - The Mercian Danelagh has claims upon architects as ■well as upon philologers. A rich treat awaits the traveller who shall go from Xortliampton to Peterborough and Stamford, and so to Hull, turning now and then to the right and left. Most of the noble churches he will see, in his journey of 120 miles, date from the time between 1250 and 1350. 44^ Old and Middle English. into our written speech between 1120 and 1300. There had been a fixed Standard of Old English, the last traces of which may be seen in King Henry the Second's Charter, about 1160. There was to be a fixed Standard of New English, the first traces of which we shall find in 1303. But between these two dates, there was no Standard of English common to the whole land ; every man spoke and wrote what seemed him good.^ ^ I return once more to the hard question of the VerLal Nouns in ing and the Infinitive at en. I advise the reader to look care- fully at page 259, at page 384, at page 389, at page 411, at page 441, and at page 465. Let him moreover rememoer the vast influ- ence exercised by translators from the French. The Rise of the Nezv Eiiglish. 447 CHAPTER VI. THE RISE OF THE NEW ENGLISH. (1303-1310.) We have seen tlie corruption of speech in the ^Mercian Danelagh and East AngHa : a corruption more strikingly marked there than in the shires to the South of the Great Sundering Line. We shall now w^eigh the work of a Lincolnshire man who saw the light at Bourne within a few miles of Rutland, the writer of a poem begun in the year that Edward the First was bringing under his yoke the whole of Scotland, outside of Stirling Castle. It was in 1303 that Robert of Brunne (known also as Robert Manning) began to compile the Handlyng Synne, the work which, more clearly than any former one, foreshadowed the road that English literature was to tread from that time forward.^ Like many other lays of King Edward the First's time, the new piece was a translation from a French poem ; the Manuel des Peches had been written about thirty years earlier by William of Waddington.'^ The English poem differs in its diction from all the others that had gone before ' This work, with its French original, has been edited for the Roxburgh Club by Mr. Furnivall. - The date of "NVaddington's poem is pretty well fixed by a passage in page 248 (Roxburgh Club edition of the Handlyng Synne). He writes a tale in French, and his translator says that the sad aflfair referred to happened ' in the time of good Edward, Sir Henry's son.' 448 Old and Middle English. it ; for it contains a most scanty proportion of those Teutonic words tliat were soon to drop out of speech, and it therefore stands in marked contrast to the Cursor Mundi. On the other hand, it has a most copious proportion of French words. Indeed, there are so many foreign words, that we should set the writer fifty years later than his true date had he not himself written it down. In this book we catch our first glimpse of many a word and idiom that were afterwards to live for ever in the English Bible and Prayer-book, works still in the womb of Time. The new Teutonic idioms that took root in our speech after this period were few in number, a mere drop in the bucket, if we compare them with the idioms imported between 1120 and 1300. This shows what we owe to Robert Manning ; even as the highest praise of our Revolution of 1688 is, that it was our last. The Handlyng Synne is indeed a land- mark worthy of the carefullest study. I shall give long extracts from it ; and I shall further add specimens of the English spoken in many other shires between 1300 and 1350. We are lucky in having so many English manuscripts, drawn up at this particular time : the con- trasts are strongly marked. Thus it will be easy to see that the Lincolnshire bard may be called the Patriarch of the New English, much as Cadmon was of the Old English six hundred years earlier. We shall also gain some idea of the influence that the Rutland neighbour- hood has had upon our classic tongue.^ This was ' Eobert seems to have been conscious that he was an innoyator, for in p. 267 he asks forgiveness For foule Englysshe and feble ryme, Seyde oute of resiin many tyme. TJie Rise of the New English. 449 remarked by Fuller in his time ; and in our day Dr. Latham tells us that ' the labouring men of Huntingdon and Northampton speak what is usually caUed hetter English, because their vernacular dialect is most akin to that of the standard writers.' He pitches upon the country between St. Neots and Stamford as the true centre of literary EngUsh.^ Dr. Guest has put in a word for Leicestershire. Mr. Freeman tells us (' Norman Conquest,' V. 543), that when very young he noticed how little the common language of Northamptonshire differed from Book English. Our classic speech did not arise in London or Oxford ; even so it was not in the Papal Court at Rome, or in the King's Palace at Naples, or in the learned University of Bologna, that the classic Italian sprang up ^vith sudden and marvellous growth. The Handlyng Synne shows how the different tides of speech, flowing from Southern, Western, and Northern shires alike, met in the neighbourhood of Rutland, and all helped to shape the New English. Robert of Brunne had his own mother- tongue to start with, the Dano- Anglian dialect corrupted by five generations since our first glimpse of it in 1120. He has their peculiar use of niman for the Latin ire, and other marks of the East Midland. From the South this speech had bor- rowed the change of a into and c into ch (hence Robert's oiwche,^ eclie, luhyclw, sivych), of sc into sh, g into I'j, and into ou. From the West came to him one ' I -insited Stamford in 1872, and found that the letter h -was sadly misused in her streets. - His moche was used by good writers down to Elizabeth's time. G G 1 sO Old and Middle E?i^lish. ^3 of tlie worst of all onr corruptions, Layamon's Active Participle in ing instead of the older form : Robert leans to this evil change, but still he often uses the old East Midland Participle in and. With the North Robert has much in common : we can see by his rimes that he wrote the Danish ye\)e}i (p. 81) and mylvel (p. 253), instead of the Southern ]^en and mochjl, which have been foisted into his verse by the Southerner who transcribed the Poem sixty years later. The following are some of the forms Robert uses, which are found, many of them for the first time, in the Northern Psalter : childer, fos, ylka, taTie, ire, gatte, hauh, slaglieter, handmayden, lighten, turecclied, abye, sle, many one, dounright, he seys, thou siveres, shj (coelum). He, like the translator of the Psalter, delights in the form gh ; not only does he write sygh, lagheter, doghe, nyghe, neghhour, but also hieugh and nagheer (our hneiv and noivhere). This seems to show that in Southern Lincolnshire, in 1303, the gh had not always a guttural sound. He also sometimes clips the ending of the Imperative Plural ; ^ but he turns the Yorkshire tho2i has into thoii hast. In common with another Northern work, the Sir Tristrem, Robert uses the new form ye for the Latin tit ; he has also the new senses oiven in that work to the old words smart and croun. He employs a multitude of idioms, that we saw first in the Cursor Mundi ; the same Danish influence was at work in Yorkshire and in Lincolnshire. Like his East Midland brethren at Colchester and Norwich, he has no love for Prepositional compounds. He holds fast to the speech ^ This is as great a change as if the Latin intelligite were to be written intellig. The Rise of tJie Nezv English. 451 of liis forefathers when wi'iting words like yole^ hirlc^ til vjerre (pejus). For the Latin iderji and vaccce he has both same and yclie, (probably written ylJ:,) both Joj and Jieijn. We can gather from his poem that England was soon to replace 2,e(:?e (ivit) by went, d^er by second, si]^e by time ; that she was soon to lose her siuWie (valde), and to substitute for it right and fidl: very is of rather later growth.^ Almost every one of the Teutonic changes in idiom, distinguishing the New English from the Old, the speech of Queen Victoria from the speech of Hengist, is to be found in Manning's work. We have had few Teutonic changes since his day, a fact which marks the influence he has had upon our tongue.^ In his writings we see clearly enough what was marked by Sir Philip Sidney almost three hundred years later : ' English is void of those cumbersome differences of cases, genders, moods, and tenses, which I think was a piece of the Towner of Babylon's curse, that a man should be put to schoole to learne his mother-tongue ; but for the uttering sweetly and properly the conceit of the minde, which is the ende of speech, that it hath equally with any other tongue in the world.' ^ The Elizabethan knight ought to have been well pleased with the clippings and parings of the Edwardian monk. 1 As to his Vowels : Robert is influenced by the Scan- ' The idea of sivithe is kept in Pepys's ' mighty merry,' and the common phrase, ' you be main heavy.' - Its, luiless, below, somehow, uppermost, outside it, bye and hye, he is being beaten, having been beaten, owing to this, are our main Teutonic changes since Manning's time. ^ Quoted by Marsh, Lectures on English Language, p. 88. G G 2 452 Old and Middle English. dinavian tradition, and sometimes clips the a at the beginning ; he thus makes syse (our size) out of assyse, p. 289 ; epistle loses its first e, which reminds us of Orrmin. In p. 251 Robert replaces i by o ; the Yerb ' they tuiteth ' becomes ' they wote,' though another copy of the work has the form ivete. He also replaces a by ; Idclmcm (dux) is turned into lodesmau, something like loadstar. We see not, and sometimes nat (non), instead of the Southern nout. In lady (domma) he throws the accent upon the last syllable, as is so often done in our ballads : For to be holde l>e feyryst lady. — P. 103. In this piece, the y having lost its old sound, is constantly used for ^, as in lady. The old heah (celsus) now becomes hyghe ; we keep the older sound in ' liey-day of youth.* The u is used for other letters : we find sunner, not so'iier (citius) ; tug, not teogan (trahere) ; ry^tivus, not rihtwis (Justus). This last shows ns why the Duke of York in 1452 wrote rigJituous (Gairdner, ' Paston Let- ters,* I. Ixxx), and why Tyndale, seventy years later still, wrote righteous ; French words like plenteuous had an influence here. The Jcude (potuit) of East Anglia is now spelt coude, p. 133 ; we have thrust an I into the middle of this, from a false analogy. The soru of the Cursor Mundi is now written soroiu ; of course, the sound is unchanged. The old fol (stultus) is \\TL'itten foyle, p. 94, thus agreeing with the Yorkshire fftl in pro- nunciation. The old teo]m (decimee) is seen as tyj^e, p. 288. There is much paring of Consonants. We see sJiust The Rise of the New English. 453 and n^ust for our sliouldest and vjouIrJest; asondre and afore replace older forms of these words, the a coming instead of on. The li is clipped, for he or ha becomes a, in Mrs. Quickly's style. Orrmin's /orr])6i (prgeter) appears asforhy, p. 361. In p. 374 ncRfre is pared down to neere, at the end of a line. Y felte (sensi) is in p. 380. We have already seen teogan as tug ; another form of the word appears, to express dalliance : xVnd makej> nat a mys pe toye. — P. 2^^. The Lindisfarne Gospels, St. Luke, p. 151, had losad wees for per ditus est; this Participle is now written lost, p. 94, as in the Alexander. The old ]vi lure (perdidisti) is seen as ]wu lostest in p. 373. There was still some uncertainty about the new sound for the hard g ; Robert has both eye and awe for timor, riming with seye and sawe. In p. 208 gate (via) rimes with -^ate (porta). Bruno, the German who became Pope Leo in Hildebrand's early days, is seen as Brimyng, p. 286 ; Caxton, long afterwards, used Broivnyng as well as Bruyn for the bear. Hence comes a well-known English surname. The most startling of of all our clippings and parings is seen in p. 325, where St. -^thelthryth is shortened into St. Audre ; the poet had doubtless knelt at her shrine on his way to Cam- bridge. Still later, Botolphston was to be cut down to Boston ; we know how we shorten words like Gholmon- deley and Cirencester. There is much to remark in the Substantives. The Yei'bal Nouns are often repeated ; as J»e mening (signi- ficatio), p. 138, he made hys endyng (mortuus est), p. 200. There are phrases like serving man, p. 28 ; riielh slope 454 0^^ ^^^^ Middle English. (milksop), p. 18, meaning a bag for milk ; a lujlij imtijr clerk., p. 360, used of an ignorant priest. The Substan- tive is dropped after the Participle, for le mort is Eng- lished by \m decle, p. 74, and in p. 197 we hear of ]?e dedys ry-^t ; we find the Passive Participle used in this way before the Conquest, as tJie accursed. We see the true Old English idiom of time-reckoning, when, at p. 154, de cine anz esteit is turned into loas hut fyve wyntyr olde. In p. 281 stands unto ])at tyme tuelvemonthe end; in Layamon's Second Text a would have come after the word ty^ne. The hench of Magistrates is fore- shadowed in p. 171 ; ^e stywardes on henclie. The old half now becomes behalf; on Goddes hehalve is in p. 281. Scui^e seems to get a new meaning, that of ratio, at p. 346 ; spe^e oute of shore. We see the cause ivhy, so often used by our lower orders, foreshadowed in gode shy I why, p. 6 ; resun why, p. 131; these come in the middle of sentences. In p. 276 stands at alle endeSy where we should now use the kindred phrase, at all events. In p. 361 comes : ' I have shewede myn owne lyfe, none ouper mannes y wyl dyscrye.' This Englishes ma vie, ne onie autrue ; Robert's sentence becomes very concise by dropping lyfe after mannes. In p. 86 we hear of Londun touiie, a continuation of the Old English idiom used before the Conquest. In p. 194 is the line Ne slepte onely a lepy ivynhe. Eton Buchs is the Dame that used to be giA'en to the lads bred at King Henry the Sixth's renowned College. In the Handlyng Synne (p. 102), we see how the Old English hucca (hircus) came to mean a dandy. The Rise of the New English. 45$ And of jjese herdede huckys also, Wyp hem self ])ey moche inysdo, pat leve Orystyn mennys acyse, And haimte alle ]7e newe gyse ; per whylys ]^ey hade J^at gyse on hande Was uevere grace ju ])ys lande. These are Robert's own rimes ; for Waddington, ■writing- earlier, had not thought it needful to glance at the beard movement, though he bore hard on the ladies and their dress. The Scandinavians used hoJihi, much like our 'old buck,' ' old fellow.' London thieves speak of their booty as sivag. The word of old meant nothing but a hag ; the connexion between the two ideas is plain ; schoolboys still talk of bagging their mates' goods. pere was a wycche, and made a hagge, A hely of lej:»yr, a grete swagge. — Page 17. A Substantive may be employed almost as an Inter- jection. In p. 322, a man, in sore need, wants a virtuous priest ; he calls out, using no verb : A prest ! a prest of clene h'fe ! Among the Adjectives, Ave see misproud, hostful. Yvom. pits is iovTci^di pitiful^ and bXso pitifulnesSj which is now found ; the form, pitous (piteous) was used in Kent. Bight is employed in a new sense in p. 359, ry^tvyleyn ! something as we use regular. "We have already seen the Old English god wer and riJitwis ; Robert slightly alters this by inserting a before both of the Adjectives ; ' a. gode man and a ryjt stede- faste,' p. 74. 456 Old and Middle English. In Pronouns, we are struck by the sharp distinction now first drawn between tlioii and ye ; the tlioii is used by a husband to his wife, (alas for the age of chivalry !) as to a person beneath him ; the ye is used by a wife to her husband, who is above her. See the long dialogue in p. 322. More than a hundred years before this time, Nigel Wireker had complained of the English students at Paris, who drank too much and were far too familiar in speech ; TVesseil et drinchail, necnon persona secunda ; Hsec tria sunt vitia quae comitantur eos.^ That is, the English would not lay aside their national and straightforward ])u, thou, for the polite French vous. The change was at length effected by 1303, and the distinction now made lasted for three hundred years. In 1603, an ignorant Irish servant, we are told, will tJiow his master, and think it no offence.^ Coke told Raleigh on his trial that he thou-ed him. Rather later, the Quakers held it wrong to make dis- tinctions between persons, and they therefore tJwived every one, from the King downwards ; they clave to the old Teutonic fashion, that had never been encroached on down to 1200, and they made an earnest protest against the Frenchified foppery of later times. King Alfred had used (jeon like the Latin iste, but always with a Substan- tive following ; Robert uses yon by itself ; ' Yole, is yone Vj P^g6 ? ' P- 1^"^ ; t^is idiom is still heard in Lincoln- shire. Our poet is fond of repeating a Pronoun after a * Wireker, p. 56. ^ See Ellis' Letters, vol. I. 1st Series, p. 194. The Rise of the New English. 457 Noun ; as rere sopers, \ey he Sfc, p. 226. The phrase al heo (quamvis) had been used in the Ancren Riwle ; liyi is now added in p. 241, and our albeit is still alive. The body of Gloucestershire is in full use, as sum body, p. 120. We see fyrst and last, p. 161 ; one or ouper, p. 205 ; ones for ever, p. 300 ; ones or twyys, p. 263 ; see no more of Mm, p. 341 ; one of \)ys dayys, p. 105 ; this last is a thoroughly French idiom. In p. 170 is ]>ey greve hym alle ])af ]>ey kan. In p. 324 comes a common idiom : Nat only for soiiles ys he herde, But also for &:c. As to Verbs : the shall is employed in a new sense, which lasted to Addison's day, and is even now used by those that affect quaint speech. In p. 258 is ' an old fool sJial become a dyssour, (a prater),' where the idea is semper fit, or solet fieri', 'you shall find so and so,' was most common in the Seventeenth Century. In p. 334 comes every man sludde have po^t ; this Pluperfect Sub- junctive seldom found before, was now coming in. I have already pointed out that ivill is used to express intense earnestness, as in the case of a threat or a promise ; as * I'll have you flogged ; ' ' I'll be down on you.' There is, in our days, one exception to this rule, whenever the Verb be is followed by a hostile Adjective ; we may say, 'I will be merciful,' or 'I will play the tyrant,' but not ' I will be harsh.' But in 1303, this exception was not allowed, at least in the Xorth, for we find in p. 180: y wyl he wro]', and ])ou shal he me lo]). Here the speaker is intensely earnest, bent upon work- 458 Old and Middle English. ing out liis own salvation. There is a great diflPerence between the North and South in this most difficult question of slioll and imll. In p. 256 comes Ifiijt may vjeyl he for fortasse : this is the Scandinavian md vera. We find, not only the Optative, God witlde, but the more long-lived ividde God. A Verb is dropped in p. 355 ; pou mayst me save, and (et) y have liele ; here of old another may would have followed the y ; we see the true New English conciseness. The do and did before an Infinitive are often found, as in Gloucestershire ; vje do jangle, \e netiles dyde hyte.^ The Infinitive to he is dropped in p. 153 ; hetter were ]>e cJiylde iinhore, than fayle chastysyng. Something of the same kind is seen in p. 299 j and also the phrase so unwyse for to crystene 1 we should now substitute as for the first Preposition, The Infinitive represents when with a Subjunctive, in the sentence at p. 8 ; he dede outrage, to maJce pe devyl omage. Orrmin's neden (egere), rej)lacing the old ]>arf, is now followed by the Infinitive ; nedy]> ye take ensami^le, p. 40 ; still terser is, Jephtliah avoivede, and nedyd naghte, p. 92. When we say ' he need not,' there is an attempt to imitate the old Irregular Verbs, like can and dare, which had no s at the end in the Third Person. There is an attempt at forming the Future Participle in p. 40 ; \ou art yn weye he hroghte to ])eyne ; ' he is about to tempt thee,' in this Poem, denotes not the simple Future so much as intense earnest purpose ; this last sense lasted until 1611, ' Why go ye about to kill me ? ' ' In Somersetshire, they say 'he do be' for est. Mr. Earle {Fhilology, p. 492), gives instances of this idiom from the old Romance of Eger and Grime. The Rise of the New English. 459 The Passive Voice makes f urtlier strides ; any Eng- lish writer before 1200 would have shuddered at such a sentence as, a man may he j^yve (given) jpenaunce, p. 334. The Passive Infinitive is put for the rightful Active (Orrmin had done this) in p. 50, pey he]) to he hlamede. To ]i07ie changes from scire to cUscere in p. 38, following the Scandinavian hynna; hence, to con a lesson. To lere stands for both docere and discere, as learn had stood in the Tristrem. To vnn adds the sense of allicere to that of acqidrere ; to vjyime a man fro synne to godenes, p. 151. Set has, besides i^onere^ the new meaning of cestimare in set at no'^t, p. 242 ; the old sense remains, for we hear of a lady setting her croJcet (arranging her chaplet), p. 102; in our day she would set her cap at a man. In p. 200, executors endyn (moriuntur) ; in p. 211 Lazarus wishes to yyhe crummes ; like the Salopian jpiche (peek, of a bird) in 1220. In p. 246 dwell means hahitare as well as morari ; a new sense of the word that was now coming in. The old iveyve had meant torquere ; it now means deserere : in p. 258 the Southern transcriber has written forsake above this Danish word, which was not understood in the South. In p. 305 a woman is said to "^yve (give) here to folye; this idiom is common to France and Scandinavia. In p. 332 comes she dede (acted) for hym ; this we have seen in the Dame Siriz. In p. 334 stands ])ey synhe here synne (forget it) ; hence our sinh the shop. There is another French idiom in p. 340 ; ]?e fame ran. Mr. Tennyson's Northern farmer complains of his parson casting itp (objicere) about a bairn ; in p. 366 the elder Lincolnshire bard has, pey haste a'^ens ])e prest, pat Sj'c. ; this is true Scandinavian. 4^0 Old and Middle English. In p. 393 tlie new turn supplants tlie old ii:ieoT\an (vertere or Y2bih.Qv fieri) ; we see to turn bright, the meaning whicli the Yorkshire get was to acquire. The verb hnou) takes the further -me^bXimg distinguere\ none knoiv i,ourefro cure hones. There is a new sense of hurst ; Yhrast on laglieter, p. 288. We have seen in the Cursor Mundi '- the feast was done;' we now find, in p. 31, the Imperative with no Accusative following ; comy]> alle home, and havy]> doun ; hence the well-known ha done, do ! of our lower orders. Wed takes no Accusative in p. 55 ; he ha]) ivedded ynne ]>y hyn. But, on the other hand, run takes one ; he ran hys cours, p. 81, like the Scandinavian rennashei^. Tut stands in the place of the old do in p. 89,p?'i him to swere ; in p. 186 is ])ey sivere^ ]>arto ; the Old English hind was followed by to, and seems to have had influence here. A new verb is formed from night in p. 241, he nyghetede, where we should say, 'he was benighted.' There are phrases like Ydar seye, sytte up at nyghte, holde her tunge, unwetyng. It falles him (accidit) is a Scandinavian sense of the verb, already seen in the Cursor. Shrew seems to become a verb, for in p. 155 we hear of shrewede sonys (filii) ; the verb heshreiv appears in later writers of the Century. The poet was used to write trotipe both for Veritas (as in the Cursor Mundi) and for pignus. The last is described in p. 330 as troii]>e yn hande wy]) hande leyde. From this he forms a new Verb in p. 56, ]>ey have troii^ede ; our hetroth was to come a few years later. The old treowsian had long been thrown aside. This reminds us of what has been said above, that often in our language a word is dropped, leaves a perceptible gap, aud then is revived in a slightly different form. Our common he here]> J>e hel is first seen in p. 135. The Rise of the New English. 461 Among tlie Adverbs, we remark a tendency to cut off the e at the end ; as she lovep treiv, swere fals ; truly stands for vere in p. 359. NeocUice is pared down to 7iedlyj p. 350 ; there is also ruefully, formed from the reou]>fid of the Ancren Riwle. We see the two senses of lusty, -ihQ bad lihidinosus and the good hilaris; a lusty pyng, p. 245 ; y drank lustyly, p. 101. Well is used for sanus, as we see in p. 324, he was iveyl. We find su^rn tyme (olim), p. 241 ; ^ fro henne forwarde, p. 220 ; be tymes, p. 221 ; told it up and dounne, p. 332 ; oftyn tyme, p. 388 ; yn dede (en effet, vere) p. 12. There is a form akin to what we have seen in the Cursor : For yn as moche |)at she dou]> men svnne, Yn so moche shal she have plyghte ynne. — P. 110. The sense of quantum here was soon to slide into that of qiLoniaiii . The so for^ and so feor of 1200 now becomes so fer fur]> ; and this may be seen in Tyndale ; we now cut off the last word. In p. 85 comes our Indefinite phrase, he ha]) do so or so. In p. 213 the omission of ne before hut produces the effect of the Latin tantuni, as we saw many years earlier; he dyde but lete an hounde hym to; the use of do is a novelty. In p. 247 comes hoiv as evere; there is also vjhat as evere ; the so and the as are but two forms of the old siva. The everihvmr (ubique) of the Ancren Riwle is replaced by our coiTupt every ivhere. The true English conciseness is seen again in p. 298, %yf je hunnat, (know not) lerne]-> how to save ])at Sfc. ; here Imn has neither Accusative nor Infinitive after it. Among the Prepositions, for stands instead of the old ^ We may compare sian tyme and whiles, ivhilum ; both of them express ali^uando and olivi too. 462 Old and Middle English. to; as, it ivasforno gode, p. 172 ; tlie Freiicli _pO'w?- had in- flnence in a phrase like he menep alle Yys for vian, p. 225 ; so, to answerefor, p. 231. The French a clearly prompted the poet's ' set at noghte ; ' to or on would have been used earlier. In he redy luy]) my do]>ys, p. 41, it would seem that some such phrase as lulien dealing should go before ivith\ it is a curious English idiom. ^ In p. 336 stands shepe goun wrong hesyde ])e "pa]^ ; here beside adds to juxta the further meaning of extra, and we have the key to Festus' phrase, 'thou art beside thyself.' We are told that harm is done, p. 346, hetwyxe fals ande coveytous ; the Preposition here implies the agency of more than one cause ; what with one, what with the other. We see the old Genitive making way for of; and this was further developed by ^the great wi^iters of the Fourteenth Century, rather later ; in p. 275 J)e sy;z,te of here comes instead of her sight, like Orrmin's life off himm. The Interjections are, the scomiMi Pritt for ]ry cursyng, jprest ! p. 96 ; ^ Lorde ! what shall swych 'inen seye f p. 137 ; this in the French was Deu ! and we have seen it in the Cursor. The Freuch hei of 1220 has now given way to the Scandinavian ce or ay ; ey comes in p. 121, and this is the eh, now so widely prevalent in the Noi'thern shires, standing at the beginning of a sentence, and expressing astonishment. In p. 136 is ivhat devyl ! ivhy 8fc. ; this is Hobert's own, and is not translated from the ^ I knew an Englishman, who thus addressed a waiter abroad : ' Soyez vite avec le diner.' - FriUta is a Scandinavian verb, ' to shout, when driving horses,* The Rise of the Nczu English. 463 French ; pj a dehles was a common phrase in French writings. The Scandinavian words are : first, the form ])ou are (tu es), p. 162, which comes more than once ; there are besides, Cunning (scieutia), from the N<:)rse kunnandi. Ekename (nickname), from the Swedish oknamn. Lowly, from the Norse Idgligr, Nygun (niggard), from the Norse nyygja, to scrape. Plank, from tlie Norse planki, Stmnble, from the Norse stumra. Squyler (scullion), from the Norse skola, to wash. In connexion with this last, sivele (lavare) is also found in the Poem. The Scandinavian Verb sehke was not understood in the South ; for the transcriber writes over it fyl ]>e hag, in the following couplet— Pe whyles ])e executom*s sekke, Of ])e soule ]7ey ne rekke. — P. 195. We have still the phrase (rather slangy), to sack a sum of money. The Verb hap is used, coming from the Ice- landic ; Layamon had used the word only as a Noun. The Verb hurhle represents the later huhhle. There is the Celtic Noun mattoc. There is a well-known by-word in p. 286 : The nere ])e cherche, ])e fyrjjer fro Gode. In p. ^Q stands ' many smale makep» a grete.* In p. 151 is — He ])at wyl nat whan he may, He shal nat when he w}d. 464 Old and Middle English. The last line is a good instance, how slioll implies fatey luill implies desire. We have another Poem, which is almost certainly by Robert of Brunne, belonging to the same date.^ This is ' The Medytaciuns of ]^e Soper of oure Lorde,' a trans- lation from Cardinal Bonaventura's original. There are some Northern forms, which have been left by the Southern transcriber, such as tliem and nor. In line 446, the original ])eylc has evidently been turned into \e'ke. In line 673 the Northern seys (dicunt) must have been writ- ten by Robert, riming with dystroyes (tu evertis) ; these have been altered into the Southern sejj]) and dystroy])^ much to the loss of the sense, as regards the last Verb. The Southern transcribe]' may have been a Kentishman, for he has a ver (afar), and teren (lachrymae). I have given at page 473 the close of the Poem, the part which is Robert's own, and no translation. There is here hardly a word, that cannot now be understood. In p. 35 we see the insertion of gh, a form beloved by Robert, in the Teutonic strait of the Alexander ; streyghi is accordingly found, which we have but slightly altered. Hampole writes it streh^ in the true old way. The isvjoive of the Severn has an n at the end, and becomes swowi, as we still sound it. The Verbal Nouns abound, such as yn here seyng (visus), pe doimjng of 8fc., just as we now pronounce doing; these are both in p. 17. We hear of a mysdoer in p. 16 ; in the same page people go ly a hyim^ ; thirty 1 Printed by the Early English Text Society, At p. xvii. of that work, I have set out my reasons for giving the authorship of the piece to Eobert of Brunne. TJie Rise of the New English. 465 years later Manning -was to write of a hiiuey (bye-way) in another Poem of his. Here a Noun and Preposition form a compound. In p. 2 we read, (it) ys hys dycyples fete wassJiyiig ; a curious instance of packing three JTouns together ; a foretaste of our ' Commons Enclo- sure Act.' On turning to the Adjectives, Orrmin's i'nir]^fid is replaced by a longer word, for we find iviirschypf idlest in p. 15 ; the fid with a Superlative ending is something 5.iew. The beautiful word homely is now coined from Jiome. to express St. John's familiarity in sleeping on Christ's breast, p. 9.^ Al is prefixed to lieyl (salve) in p. 12. Amone the Pronouns, we see both the Southern Item nnd the Northern ]>em, riming with each other in p. 12. The ^ow (vos) is used by the poet in addressing our Jjord, just as it had been employed in the Havelok, which, was written not far off. As to Verbs, shall and will are confused, or rather .^liall is used for must, in 7??///^ herte shidde ha hroste (burst), p. 32. There is a new idiom in p. 6 ; yn goyng, lie'' shewed oledyens; this must be a translation of the French Participle preceded by en, and it is something altogether new in English ; we need not here search for an Infinitive or Verbal Noun. In p. 12 comes, as ]>ou lest (sicut tibi placet) ; before this time, the Dative \>e would have been used. In p. 26 comes y V'yl do ]mt ys yn me (what I can.) In p. 28 is ])ey * Dandie Dinmont,' after kissing Miss Lucy, excuses himself by ,fe tre ; we have seen something like this in the Tristrem. On the other hand, in p. 31 comes melted instead of the rightful molten ; the first form is now used of the mind, the latter of metals. There are phrases like say grace, bring about ; there is also the Scandinavian farewel ; in p. 4, the expletive y seye comes in the middle of a sentence ; we now use it at the beginning of a sentence. A new Adverb is formed by adding ly to a Past Participle, as hrohedly, p. 18 ; such a form as laughingly had been long established. The East Anglian form feiji now produces fey]>fidlye, p. 9 ; the ending ful is in con- stant use, and is a pet form of Manning's. The where- Jore comes in, referring to a foregoing sentence, like the Latin qiiamobreni ', an instance of this may be found in p. 12. When we see in p. 27, y prey %oio of frenshepe, the of represents the Danish af, which stands in the same w^ay before Abstract Kouns; the French de is used in the same way. Hence comes ' of your charity,' ' of his own .accord.' The use of for is extended ; she fyl as for dede * Coleridge uses risi (surrexit) as a rime. The Rise of the New EnglisJi. 467 (dead), p. 27 ; the Scandinavian pjrir (for) sometimes stood for our as ; thus, ' to know for certain.' There is anew Verb, wrap, akin to the Frisian, in p. 31 . In my specimens taken from the Handlynge Synne, I have chosen parts that are wholly Robert's own and no translation from the French. I give first a tale of the _<=^reat Bishop of Lincoln, who died but a few years before our poet's birth : I then give St. Paul's descrip- tion of Charity, a well-known passage, which may be compared with our Version of the Bible put forth three hundred years after the Handlyng Synne : next comes a peep into English life in Edwardian days : next, a tale of a Norfolk hondeman or farmer ; last of all comes the bard's account of himself and the date of his rimes. Had the Handlyng Synne been a German work, marking ail era in the national hterature, it would long ago have been given to the world in a cheap form. But we live ill England, not in Grermany. I could not have gained ;l sight of the poem, of which a few copies have been [)i'inted for the Roxburgh Club, had I not happened to live witliin reach of the British Museum. Page 150. Y shall 50W telle as y have herde Of ])e bysshope Seynt Roberde, Ilys toname * ys Grostest * surname Of Lynkolne, so seyj) ])e gest.^ ^ story He lovede moche to here ])e harpe ; For mannys wyt hyt maky]> sharpe ; Next hys chaumbre, besyde hys stody, His harpers cbaumbre was fast perby. H H 2 468 Old and Middle English. Many tymes bs nyjtys and dayys, He liad solace of notes and layys. One askede liyna onys,*' resim wliy He liadde delyte jti mynstralsy : He answerede hym on J)ys manere, "Why he helde pe harper so dere : * pe vertu of ]>e harpe, Jnu-ghe skylle and ry^t, WVl destroye J^e fendes mygt, And to ]je croys by gode skylle Ys J'G harpe lykenede weyle.^ Ano]:>er poynt cumforteth me, pat God ha]> sent unto a tre So moche joye to here wy]:> eere ; Moche ])an more joye ys ]>ere "VVyJj God hym selfe ]?ere he wonys,^ pe harpe ])erof me ofte mones/ — Of ])e joye and of j?e blys Where Gode hym self wonys and ys. pare for, gode men, je shul lere,^ Whan ge any glemen here, To wurschep Gode at goure powere. As Davyde sey]) yn J^e sautere, Yn harpe, }ti thabour, and symphau gle, AVurschepe Gode, jti troumpes and sautre, Yn cordys, an organes, and bellys ryngyng, Yn al pese, wurschepe ^e heyene kyng.' once <5weU ^ dwells f reminds f learn Page 222. Se now what seynte Poule seys Yn a pystyl, ])e same weys, — * poghe y speke as weyl wyj? tung As any man or aungel haj) song, And y ly ye nat wy]> charyte, No ])}*ng avayle]> hyt to me. For y do ]\in ry^T,t ^ as ])e bras, And as ])e tympau, J^at bete ^ was ; * just ^ beaten The Rise of the New English. 469 pe bras to oper jyre]? grete sown, And bet liym self up and down. And |70ghe y speke al yn prephecye, And have ]?e kunnyng of eveiy maystrye,*= " knowledge And wy}) gods beleve myghte seye pe hylles to turne }"n to pe valeye, Eyf hyt ne be wyj) chary te wroghte, Elles, he sey]? j^at y am noghte. pogh y jyre all my wurldes gode Unto pore mennya fode, And ^yve my body for to brenne Opunly o])er men to kenne,^ ^ teach But jyf ^ ]?ar be chary te wyj> alle, • unless My mede ])arfore shal be ful smalle.' Loke now how many godenesse j^er are WyJ) oute charyte noghte but bare. Wylt pou know ])y self, and se Eyf |)ou wone * in charyte ? ' •^'"'ell * Charyte sufirej) boJ> gode and yl, And charyte ys of reuful wyl, Charyte haj) noun envye, And charyte wyl no felunnye ; Charyte ya nat irus, And charyte ys nat coveytous ; Charyte wjd no bostful preysyng ; He wyl nojhte but ryjtwys ])yng ; Charyte lovep no fantome, No pyuges 'pat evyl may of come ; He hap no joye of wykkednes, But love]) alle pat sothefast ^ es ; = truthful Alle godenes he up berep ; Alle he suffrep, and noim he derep,^ ^ haims Gode hope he hap yn ryghtewys pj'ng, And alle he susteynep to pe endyng ; Chaiyte ne fayle]) noghte, Ne no pyng pat wy]' him ys wroghte, AVhen alle prephecyes are alle gone, 470 Old and Middle English, And alle tung-es are levde echone, And alle craftys fordo • sliul be, pan laste]j stedfast cliar}i;e.'^ pus seyj> seyut Poule, and moche more, Yn pystyl of hys lore. > mined Page 227. As y have tolde of rere * sopers, pe same falle]) of erly dyners ; Dyners are oute of skyl and resun On J»e Smiday, or liye messe be doun.^ pogbe J»ou have haste^ here jyt a messe, Al holy,^ and no lesse, And nat symple a sakare,*' For hyt ys nat ynow for l7e, But ^ h}i; be for lordys powere Or pylgrymage ])at ha]> no pere. Are J)ou oghte ete, f'ys ys my rede. Take holy Avatyr and holy brede ; For, yn ayenture kas, hyt may }»e saye, Eyf housel^ ne shryfte ]'ou mayst haye. Alle o]?er tymes ys glotonye But hyt be grete enchesun ^ why. On of er hyghe da}ys, jj-f ])at ou may, poghe l^at h}i: be nat Sunday, Here J)y messe or pou dyne, Dyf ])0u do nat, ellys ys hit pyne \ ^ Lordes ]mt haye preste at wyl. Me ])enke]) J^ey trespas ful yl pat any day ete, are ])ey here messe, But gj^** hyt be ])urghe harder dystresse. late "^ completely « the conse cration part ^ unless - Eucharist reason e woe •> unless * In these twenty-two lines there are thirteen French words, not counting repetitions; in our Version of 1611, there are but twelve French words in the same passage. * "Ere appears in this piece as or and are. The Rise of the Neiv English. 471 pe men ]iat are of boly clierclie, pey wete weyl how ])ey shiil werche ; But swycli ' y telle hardyly, pat swj-ch a preste dou]) glotonye pe levy]:> hys messe on ]ie aiiter For to go to a d\Tier. So ne sbulde he do, for no 'f'j'ng, For love ne awe of no lordyng, But jyf "^ hyt were for a grete nede pat shulde hym falle, or a grete drede. such '' unless Page 269. Yn Northfolk, yn a tounne, Wonede a kny^t besyde a persona;* Fyl hyt so, j^e knyjtes manere ^ Was nat fro ])e cbercbe ful fere ; * And was hvt I'an, as oftvn falles. Broke were ]^e cbercbe xerde walles. pe lordes byrdes often lete Hys bestys yn to ]>e cbercbe ;verde and ete ; pe bestys dyde as ])ey mote nede, Fylede *• overal ])ere ])ey jede.* A bonde man say^ )mt, aude was wo pat ])e bestys sbulde ]'ere go ; lie com to }'e lorde, and seyde hym ])ys, ' Lorde,' he sejde, ' joure bestys go mys,^ Ijoure byrde do]) wi'ong, and ^^oure knavys, pat late ;vOure bestys fyle ]>us pese gi'avys ; pere menn^'s bonys sbulde lye, Bestes sbulde do no Tvleynye.' pe lordes answere was sumwbat vyle. And ])at falle]> evyl to a man gentyle ; ' AVeyl were hyt do ^ ryjt for pe nones To wurscbyp • swycb cberles bones ; AMiat wurscbyp sbulde men make Aboute swvcb cberles bodves blake?' ■ parson *' manor ' far ^ defiled <■ went ^ saw p amiss ^ done » honour A7^ Old and j\Iiddle English. pe bonde man answerede and seyde "Wiirdys to gedyr fill weyl leyde, ' pe Lorde ])at made of erj^e erles, Of }e same erpe made lie cherles ; Eries myjt and lordes stiit '^ As cileries sbal yn er])e be put. Erles, cbeiies, alle at ones, Sbal none knowe joiire fro oure bones/ pe lorde lestenede \q wiirdes weyl And recordede bem every deyl ; ^ No more to bym wiilde be seye, But lete bym ga fiu']7e bys weye ; He seyde l>e bestvs sbiilde no more By bys wyl come pore.™ Sel^eu"^ be closede })e cbercbejerde so pat no best myjt come ]?arto. For to ete ne fyle per ynne, So pogt bym sepen pat byt was syune. pyr are but fewe lordes now pat turne a wrde so wel to prow : ° But wbo sey]) bem any skylle,^ Mysseve ai.en i foiily |)ey wylle. Lordynges, pyr are }iiow of po ; ' Of gentyl meO; pyr are but fo." ^ * stout bit •n there " afterwards o advantage' p wisdor!! , Oute of ))e fendys bonde to ];e fre, And ]e fende bonde to make to pe. penk, also, pe grete dede of liys powers : He myjt ha sent an angel to save us here, But ]'an of oure salvacyun we shulde nat J^anko hym, But calle j-e aungel saver of alle mankyn. parfor hys fadyr so hertly loved us, He save us hys owene gete* sone Ihesus ; "* begotten pan we onely hym panke and do hym onoure. As fadyr, as former^ socoure, and savyoiu'e. pank we now oure savyoure, pat salve us ha]? bro^t, Oure syke soules to save, whan synne hap hem sojt. Of hys grete godenes gyn we hym grete, Seyyng pe wurde of Sakarye ])e holy prophete : '■ Lorde God of Israel, blessed mote pou be, * Py peple pou hast vysyted and bo^t hem to pe, 474 ^^^ ^^^^ Middle English. ' A^^lycIl set}Ti yn derkenes of de]7 and dysese, ' pou lyjtest hem and ledest yn to J^e wey of pese.' To })at pes peveles we prey pou us hryng, pat levyst and re3'nest witlioute endyng. Amen. NOKTH LINCOLNSHIRE. (a.d. 1338.) Now of kyng Robin salle I jit speke more, Sz Lis "broj^er Tomlyn, Thomas als it wore, & of Sir Alisandere, ]?at me rewes sore, pat boj'e come in skandere, for dedes ])ei did ]'ore. Of arte he had ]^e maistrie, he mad a corven lij'ng In Cantebrige to ])e clergie, or his broj^er were kyng. Sij^en was never uon of arte so ])at sped, Ne bifore bot on, ])at in Oantebrigge red. Robert mad his fest, for he was J^ore jiat tyme, & he sauh alle J^e gest, )mt wrote Sz, mad ])is ryme. Sir Alisander was hie dene of GLiscow, & his broj^er Thomas jed spiand ay bi throw, AVhere our Inglis men ware not in clerke habite, & non wikl he spare, bot destroied also tite. porgh ])e kyng Rob^m pei jede J^e Inglis to spie^ Here now of per fyn J^am com for ]mt folie.^ ' Hearne's Langtoft's Chronicle, II. 336. The lines were written by Planning, some thirty years after his Handlijng Synne, at a time when he lived further to the North. The Northern dialect is most apparent. We here read of his getting a glimpse of the Bruce family at Cambridge, about the year 1300 or earlier. I can trace the North Lincolnshire dialect to 1515. In the accounts for building Louth Broach come the words ^ar, ki'>'k, Ugging, sp7ire (rogare), they has. — Poole's Ecclesiastical Architecture, p. 360. Mr. Tennyson's Northern Farmer should also be studied. The Rise of the New English. 475 YOEKSHIRE. (About A.D. 1340.) Hampole. Dan waxes his liert hard and hevy, And his heved feble and dysj ; Dan waxes his gast seke and sare, And his face rouncles, ay mare and mare ; His mjTide es short when he oght thynkes, His nese ofte droppes, his hand stynkes, His sight wax dym, ]7at he has, His hax waxes croked ; stoiipand he gas ; Fyngers and taes, fote and hande, Alle his touches er tremblande. His werkes for-worthes that he beg}Tines 5 His hare moutes, his eghen rynnes ; His eres waxes deef, and hard to here, His tung fayles, his speche is noght clere ; His mouthe slavers, his tethe rotes, His w}i;tes fayles, and he ofte dotes ; He is lyghtly wrath, and waxes fraward, Bot to turne hvm fra wrethe it es hard.^ DUEHAM (?). (About A.D. 1320.) Small's Metrical Homilies. A tal of this fest haf I herd, Hougat it of a widou ferd. That lufd our Lefdi sa welle, That scho gert mac hir a chapele ; ' Morris, Speciyneyis of Ear h/ English, p. 172. This poem should be compared with the Northern Psalter, at page 317 of my work. 4/6 Old and ]\Iiddle Efiglisk. And like day deuotely, Herd scho messe of oiu' Lefdye. Fel auntour that liir prest was gan His erand, and messe liaved sclio nan, And com this Caudelmesse feste. And scho wald haf als wif honeste Hir messe, and for scho moht get nan, Scho was a ful sorfiil womman. In hir chapele scho mad prayer, And fel on slep bifor the auter, And als scho lay on slep, hir thoght That scho in tyl a lr)TC was broht, And saw com gret compaynye Of fair maidenes wit a lefedye, And al thai sette on raw ful rathe, And aid men and yong hathe. LOWLAND SCOTCH. (About A.D. 1320.) (Thai) has grantit (and) lias letin (the) purfcenaiincis evin in line thritti wyntir iere bi iere forutin oni mene foluand, that tliai sal grind for their fode, (and) sal gif grayting (and) uphalding abate thaim, (and) sal tak f aayl (fram) tha that comis in thair stede, (gif) thai haf mi >ter (of) gres, water, and other richtwis profitis ; (thai) sal ger be made (and) be yemit gaynand biging.^ ^ These, the oldest Teutonic words written in Scotland that have come down to its, were set down over the Lathi words in a Charter of Scone about 1320. Seo the Liber cle Seen (Baunatyne Club), p. 104, ■where a fac-simile of this Charter is given. I have strung the words together as well as I can. There are also the words, four and tuentiand fat (vas) ; cnavesehipe (servitium) ; laverdseapc (dominium). TJie Rise of the New English. 477 LANCASHIRE. (About A.D. 1350.) Sir Gaavatxe. * Where scliulde I wale pe/ quotli Gauau/ where is ])y place ? I wot never where ]'Oii wouyes, by hym ]'at me wrojt, Ne I know not ]ie, kuyT[;t, ]'y cort, ue ])i name. Bot teche me truly Jjerto, Sc telle me howe ])ou hattes, & I schal ware all my wyt to wpine me ])eder, & ])at I swere J^e for so])e, & by my seker trawe]?.' * "l^at is iimogh in nwe-jer, hit nedes no more/ Quoth ]'e gome in ])e gTene to Gawan j'e hende, * Gif I ])e telle triwly, quen I ])e tape have, & ])ou me smo])ely hatj smyteu, smartly I ]^e teche Of my hous, & my home, & myn owen nome, ^l^en may ])ou frayst my fare, and forwarder holde, & if I spende no speche, peune spedej J)ou J^e better, For ]?ou may leng in ])y londe, & layt no fyrre, bot slokes : Ta now ])y grjTume tole to j^e, & let se how ]>ou enokej.' * Gladly, &\r, for so])e,' Quoth Gawan; his ax he strokes.^ SALOP. (About A.D. 1350.) William and the Werwolf. Hit tidde after on a time, as tellus oure bokes, As pis bold bai-n his bestes blyj^eliche keped, ' Morris, Specimens, p. 233. In Alliterative verse obsolete words alwavs abound. 4/8 Old and Middle English. pe riclie emperour of Rome rod out for to hunte, In ]mt faire forest fei])ely for to telle ; \Vi]> alle Ills menskfiil me^Tie, ])at moche was c^' nobul ; pan fel it hap, ]\at ])ei founde ful sone a grete bor, ^ himtyug wi}) hound & horn harde alle sewede ; pe emperour entred in a way evene to attele, To haye bruttenet })at bore, & J)e abaie se])J)en, But missely marked he is way & so manly he rides, pat alle his wies were went, ne wist he never whider ; So ferforth fram his men, fe])ly for to telle, pat of horn ue of hound ne mijt he here sowne, it boute eny livino- lud lefte was he one.^ HEREFORDSHIRE. (About A.D. 1300.) pilke that nullej) ajeyn hem stonde Ichulle he habben hem in honde. • • • • • He is papejai in pyn that beteth me my bale. To trewe tortle in a torn*, y telle the mi tale, He is thrustle thryyen in thro that singeth in sale, The wilde laveroc ant wolc ant the wodewale, He is faucoim in friht dernest in dale, Ant with eyeruch a gome gladest in gale. From Weye he is wisist into Wyrhale, Hire nome is in a note of the nyhtegale. In a note is hire nome, nempneth hit non, AVhose ryht redeth roune to Johon.^ 1 Morris, Specimens of Earl y English, p. 243. - Percy Society, Vol. IV. 2(3. See the Preface to this yolume, where the writer of this Poem is proved to be a Herefordshire man. He here mentions the AVye. He in this piece stands for heo (ilia). The two detached lines at the beginning come from the version of the Harroxoing of Hell, in the same manuscript. The Rise of the New English. 479 WAEAVIOKSIIIRE (?). (About A.D. 1300.) The kyng sygh, of that cite, That they no myghte duyre : They dasscheth heom in at the gate, And doth hit schutte in hast. The tayl they kyt of himdrodis fyve, To wedde heo lette heore lyve. Theo othre into the wallis styj^h, And the kynges men Avith gonnes sleygh. Theo cite upon the see stod ; And hat is al Alisaundres hlod : He het his folk, so a wod wolf, Asaile the cite on the see half. So they dude with myghtly hond. The pore folk of the lond, And ladies bryght in hour, Seyen that heo ne myghten dure. Hy stolen the kayes under their yate ; The kyng there hy leten in whate, And fellen akuowe in the strete, Tofore and under his horses fete.^ GLOL'CESTERSimiE. (About A.D. 1300.) pus come, lo ! Eugelond into Xormannes honde. And })e Normans ne coupe speke J?o bote her owe speche, And speke French as dude atom, and here chyldren dude also teche. So pat heymen of pys lond, pat of her blod come, Holdep alle puDve speche, pat hii of hem nome. ' "Weber's Metrical EomancxSy I, 135. 480 Old and Middle EnglisJi. Vor "bote a man cou]'e FrencTi, me tol|:> of hym wel lute. Ac loT\'e men holde]:» to Englyss, and to lier kunde speclie jute. Icli wane J^er ne be man in "vrorld coimtreyes none, pat ne liolde]) to lier lamde speclie, bote Engelond one. Ac wel me wot vorto conne botbe wel yt ys, Yor J^e more ])at a man con, j^e more w-orp lie ys.^ THE ENGLISH PALE IN IRELAND. (About A.D. 1310.) Jbesu, king of lieyen fre, Ever i-blessid mot tbou be ! Loverd, I besecb the, to me tbou tak bede, From dedlicb sinne tbou jem me. wbile I libbe on lede ; Tbe maid fre, tbat bere tbe so swetlicb under wede, Do us to se tbe Trinite, al Tve babbetb nede. Tbis sang wrojt a frere, Jbesu Crist be is socure ! Loverd, bring bim to tbe toure ! frere Micbel Kyldare ; Scbild bim £ram belle boure, Wban be sal ben fare ! Leyedi, flur of al bonur, cast awei is care ; Fram tbe scboure of pinis sure tbou sild bim ber and tbare ! Amen.' ' Heame's Bohert of Gloucester, I. 364. ^ Beliquia Antique, II. 193. From tbe Southern dialect of tbis piece, "we migbt readily gather, even if history did not help us, that the eirly English settlers in Ireland came, not from Chester, but from Bristol and from ports near Bristol. The Wexford dialect is said to be very like that of Somerset and Dorset. The Rise of the New Efiglish. 481 SO^ilERSETSHIRE (?). (About A.D. 1300.) AMiarfore ich and Aunas To-fonge Jhesus of Judas, Tor thrytty panes to pare. We were wel faste to helle y-wrouge, Vor li}Tn that for jou was y-stonge, in rode a Godefridaye. • • • • • Man, at fidlojt, as cba"bbe yrad, Thy saule ys Godes hous y-mad, and tar ys wassche al clene. Ac after fuUoujt thoruj fulthe of synne, Sone is mad wel hory wythinne, alday hit is y-sene.^ WILTSHIRE. (About A.D. 1320.) Four tounes ther beoth of bras, Al for sothe thus hit was ; Feole thinges ther beth ynne, Craftilich ymad with gynne, Quic brumston and other alsuo, With wvlde fui' vmad therto, Salgemme and salpetre, Salarmouiac ther ys eke, Salnitre that ys briht. Berneth bothe day and nyth. ' Rcliqidce Antiques, II. 242. The chabhe (ich habbe) reminds us of Edgar's dialect in Lear, and of the Somersetshire Ballads in Percy's Reliques. The word bad (mains) occurs in this piece, which mad© its first appearance in the Cursor Mundi : it is also found in Robert cf Gloucester and the Handling Synne. I I ^Sz Old and Middle English. Tliis Ys in the tonnes vdon, Ant otlier tliinges moni on, Berneth Ijothe nylit and day, All never quencben bit ne may. In foiu: sprimg-es tbe tonnes liggetb, Ase this pbilosopbres snggeth, The bete witbynne, water witboute^ ]Maketh hot al aboute. The two sprunges urueth yfere ; Ah the other tiio betb more clere \ Therof 's-B maked, ful vwis, That hyngesbathe ycleped ys.^ HAMPSHIEE. (About A.D. 1350.) Everych siillere of bred in J)e lieyjestrete of Wyn- chestre, ])at is out of fraunclijse, shal to J)e kynge ta cnstome, by ]'e jere, tw^ey shullynges, and to j^e clerk a peny, ^if lie sellej> meclie by jere ; and jif he sells]? lasse,. upon ]5e qnantite. And at o])er stretes, sex pans oj^er ))re, oppon Y bandworke is. And do}> to wetynge, }>*^ non of bem ne sbolde feccbe here bred, but J)ere pe lapen stonde]?, upon peyne of ])e amercy of ])e byggere and of be sellere, to fore \q tyme of none. And ])at non of bem ne feccbe no bred of non bakere w^banne bii ne mowe babbe no warant ; and ^if bii do, ])at bem self byt ■waranty. And j'at everycb bakere babbe bys seal y-knowe upon bys loff, ]?at be ne mowe wij>segge jif be is of take o]'er ])an weel.^ ' This piece particularly mentions Bath, Malmsbury, Laycock, and Devizes. I think it may be put down to Wiltshire. It is i& Hitson's Bomances, II. 277- 2 Old usages of Winchester, Englkh Gilds, p. 355 ; Early Englisk The Rise of the New English. 483 OXFORDSHIRE. (About A.D. 1340.) That is fro old Hensislade ofre the cliff into stony londy wey ; fro the wey into the long lowe ; fro the lowe into the Port-strete ; fro the strete into Charewell ; so aftir strem til it shutt eft into Hensislade — De Bolles, Couele, et Hedyndon. Thare beth hide londeymere into Conelee. Fro Charwell brigge andlong the streme on that rithe. . . . This privilege was idith in Hedington .... myn owne mynster in Oxenford. There seint Frideswide .... alle that fredome that any fre mynstre frelubest .... mid sake and mid socna, mid tol and mid teme .... and in felde and alle other thinge and ryth that y . . . . belyveth and bid us for qnike and dede and .... alle other bennyfeyt.^ KENT. (A.D. 1340.) Aye ]?e vondigges of fe dyeule zay fis ]?et volje]?. * Znete Jesn |nn holy blod ])et ])ou sseddest ane fe rod vor me and vor mankende : Ich bidde J>e hit by my sseld Text Society. These usages seem to have been compiled about 1350 ; the document is the most valuable thing in the whole of the thick volume relating to Gilds. We here see what Standard English would have been, had not London supplanted the older capital of England. The meche reminds us of Alfred's swelc and hwelc. * Kemble, Codex Dipl. III. 329. This Charter is a late forgery, and seems much damaged. The proper names in it will be recog- nised by Oxford men. I I 2 484 Old and Middle English. avoreye ]'e wycked vend al to mi lyves ende. zuo by hit.' pis boc is Dan Micbelis of Northgate y- write an Englis of his o^ene hand, pet hatte : Ayenbite of inwyt. And is of ]'e boc-house of saynt Austines of Canterberi, mid ])e lettres : C : C : Holy arclianle Micbael. M. C. 0. Saynt Gabriel and Raphael. Ye brenge me to ])o castel. per alle zaulen yarep wel. Lhord Jhesu almijti kyng. ]:'et madest and lokest alle J»yng. Me pet am pi makyug. to pine blisse me pou bryng. Amen. Blind and dyaf and alsuo domb. Of zeyenty yer al yol rond. Ne ssolle by drage to ]je grond. Vor peny yor Mark ne yor pond.^ T^nDDLESEX. (A.D. 1307.) Of Syr Edward cure derworth kyng, Ich mette of him anothere faire metynof. Me thought he rood upon an asse, And that ich take God to witnesse ; Ywonden he was in a mantell gray, Toward Rome he nom his way. Upon his heyede sate a gray hure, It semed him wei a mesure. • • • • • Into a chapel I cum of ure lefdy, Jhe Crist her leye son stod by, On rod he was an loyeliche mon, ' Ayenbite of Inwyt (Early English Text Society), page 1. Here wo must read s for z, sk for ss, and / for v. The Rise of the New English. 485 Als thilk that on rode was don. He unneled his honden two. • ••••# Whoso wil speke myd me Adam the marchal In Stretforde Bowe he is ylmown and over al. Iche ne schewe noujt this for to have mede, Bot for God almijtties drede.^ BEDFORDSHIRE (?). (About A.D. 1340.) Godys sone |>at was so fre, Into J>is world he cam, And let hym naylyn upon a tre, Al for ])e love of man ; His fayre blod ])at was so fre, Out of his body it ran, A dwelful syjte it was to se ; His body heng blak and wan, Wij) an O and an I. • • • • His coroune was mad of porn And prilvkede into his panne, Bothe byhinde and a-forn ; To a piler y-bowndyn Jhesu was swi];e sore, And suffrede many a wownde pat scharp and betere wore. He hadde us evere in mynde, ' Warton, History of English Poetry, II. 2. This London dialect was to be somewhat altered before the time of Mandeville and Chaucer. The thilk (ille) held its ground in this city for 140 years longer. Compare this piece with the older London poem at page 300 of my work. 486 Old and Middle English. In al his harde frowe, And we ben so unkynde, ' We nelvn livm nat vknowe, Wi]) an and an I,^ NORFOLK.2 (1329.) This ys ye statuj of ye gylde of ye holy apostyl sente peter, bygunnyn in ye tonne of Lenne, in ye wrehepe of god and of onre lavedi sente marie, and of ye holy apostyl sente peter, in ye yere of our lord MCCCXX. nono. And yis gyld schal have foure morne-spechis in ye yer . . . And quoso be somund to any mome-speche, and he be in tonne, and wyl not come, ne make non atnrne for hym, he schal a peny to ye lythe . . . And ordeynid it is, y* y® catel of y^ gyld y® alderman schal delyvere to y® skeveynis, be sufficient boms to bryngyn y* catel ageine. . . . And y® dene schal have, for is travalye in y® jere, vi.d. Jis is y® verye copy of ye gylde of sent Petyr y® apostyle, holdyn in Lene aforeseyde, wrytyn on y® feste of seynte hillari, Anno Domini millesimo CCC** octo- gesimo octavo. ' Legend.^ of the Holy Bood (Early English Text Society, p. 150). This piece seems to me to be the link between Manning's Handlyng Synne and Mandeville's Travels sixty years later. It has forms akin to both, and seems to have been compiled half-way between Eutland and Middlesex. 2 English Gilds (Early English Text Society), p. 62. "We here see the East Anglian quo for vjho ; in other Norfolk papers of the Century, we find am (sunt) and everilka (quisque), kirke, sal, offrende, ujphald, toy (duo). The Rise of the New English. 487 We see what wild anarcliy of speech was raging ■thi'oughout the length and breadth of England in the first half of the Fonrteenth Century ; and this anarchy liad lasted more than two hundred years, simply because the old Standard had been swept away by foreign con- quest. But at the same time we plainly see that the dialect of the shires nearest to Rutland was the dialect to which our own classic speech of 1877 is most akin, and that Robert of Brunne in 1303 was leading the way to something new. In another work I hope to weigh the causes that led to the triumph of Robert's dialect, though this triumph was not thoroughly achieved until a hundred and sixty years after he began his great work. Strange it is that Dante should have been compiling his Inferno, which settled the course of Italian literature for ever, in the selfsame years that Robert of Brunne was compiling the earliest pattern of well-formed ISTew English. Had King Henry the Eighth known what we owe to this bard, the Lincolnshire men would not have Tjeen rated in 1536 as follows : * How presumptuous are ye, the rude commons of one shire, and that one of the most brute and beastly of the whole realm, and of least experience ! ' ^ * I talk of the dialect of the ' Kutland neighbourhood ; ' this takes in Leicester, Stamford, Peterborough, and Brunne ; a fiict to he borne in mind. 488 Old and Middle E^iglisJi. CHAPTER YII. THE IXEOAD OF FKENCH WORDS INTO ENGLANU, Clotli of gold, do not despise, Though thou be matched with cloth of iriese. Cloth of friese, be not too bold, Thouo-h thou be matched with cloth of gold.^ c The nearer we approach 1303, the more numerons be- come the French words upon which the right of English citizenship was being bestowed. In the Thirteenth Century was made the greatest change that ever played havock with our tongue. A baleful Century it was, when we look to English philology ; though a right noble Century in its bearing on English politics and English architecture. The last word suggests a comparison : if "we may liken our language to a fine stone building, we shall find that in that wondrous age a seventh part of the good old masonry was thrown down, as if by an earthquake, and was withdrawn from mortal ken. The breach was by slow degrees made good with bricks, meaner ware borrowed from France ; and since those times the work of destruction and reparation has gone on, though to a lesser extent than before. We may put * It is not, I need hardly say, the -vrords used by us in common ■with the Frisians, that I should call ' cloth of friese.' Inroad of French Words into England. 489- up "with the building as it now stands, but we cannot help sighing when we think of what we have lost. Of old, no country was more thoroughly national than Ensrland : of all Teutonic lands she alone set down her annals, year after year, in her own tongue ; and this went on for three Centuries after Alfred began to reign. But the grim year 1066, the weightiest year that England has seen for the last twelve centuries, has left its mark deeply graven both on our history and on our speech. Every time almost that we open our lips or write a sentence, we bear witness to the mighty change wrought in Eng- land by the Norman Conqueror. Celt, Saxon, Angle, and Dane alike had to bow their necks beneath a grind- ing foreign yoke. It is in English poetry that we can trace the earliest change. Poetry always clings fast to old words, long after they have been dropped by prose ; and this was the case in England before the Conquest. If we take a piece of Old English prose, say the tales translated by Alfred, or ^Ifric's Homilies, or a chapter of the Bible, we shall find that we keep to this day three out of four of all the Nouns, Adverbs, and Verbs em- ployed by the old writer ; but of the Nouns, Adverbs, and Verbs used in any English poem, from the Beowulf to the Song on Edward the Confessor's death, about half have dropped for ever. From Harold's death to John's grant of the Charter, English prose did not let many old words slip. But it was far otherwise with Eng- land's old poetic diction, which must have been arti- ficially kept up, for long before 1066. Of all the weighty words ^ used in the Song on the Confessor's ' Substantives, Adjectives, Adverbs, and Verbs, I call 'weighty 490 Old and Middle English. deatli, as nearly as possible half have dropped out of our speech. In the poems written a hundred years after the Conquest, say the rimes on the Lord's Prayer published by Dr. Morris, the proportion of words of weight, now obsolete, is one- fifth of the whole, much as it is in English prose of that same date.^ In the poem of 1066, nearly fifty out of a hundred of these words are clean gone ; in the poem of 1160, only twenty out of a hundred of these words cannot now be understood. I think it may be laid down, that of all the poetic words employed by English Makers, nearly one-third passed away within a hundred years of the Battle of Hastings. Henry of Huntingdon makes laughable mistakes, when he tries to turn into Latin the old English lay on Brunan- burgh fight, though its words must have been in the mouths of poets only fourscore years before his time. English poetry could not thrive without patrons ; and these, the Abbots and Aldermen that thronged the Win- chester Court of old, had been swept away to make room for men that cared only for the speech of Rouen and Paris. The old Standard of English died out : if Chronicles were written at Peterborough, or Homilies still farther to the South, they were compiled in corrupt English, at which Bede or Alfred would have stared. As to English poetry, its history for one hundred years is all but a blank. Old legends of England's supposed history, it ■«'ords ; ' thej may alter, -while the other parts of speech (except Interjections) hardly .change at all. I cannot see the use of counting, as Marsh does, every of and the and him, in order to find out the proportion of home-born English in different authors. ' Morris, Early Englkh Homilies, First Series, I. 55 (Early lEnglish Text Society). I gave a specimen at page 170. Inroad of French Words into England. 491 is trne, such as those that bear on Arthur or Havelok, were dressed up in verse ; but the verse was French, for thus alone could the minstrel hope that his toil would be rewarded. In 1066, England's King was praised in good ringing English lines, that may have been shouted by boisterous wassailers around the camp fires on the eve of Hastings ; sixty years later, England's Queen was taught natural history in French verse, and was complimented therein as being ' mult bele ferame, Aliz numee.' ^ Little more than a hundred years after the battle of Hastings, an English writer gave the names of the wise English teachers of old, Bede, Cuthbert, Dunstan, and others ; he then complained how woefully times were changed — new lords, new lore : [Nu is] ]^eo leore forleten. and ]>et folc is forloren. nu beo)> oj^re leoden. ]?eo lae[re)>] ure folc. and feole of ]?en lor])eiDes losise]). and j)at folc for]' mid.- What was it that supplanted the old lore, thus forsaken by this forlorn folk ? We naturally turn to the Chronicle, as the earliest record of the change referred to. It is easy to understand why the French word castel should be used for a much-hated foreign building.^ ' "Wright, Popular Treatises on Science, p. 74. - Page 5 of the Worcester Manuscript, referred to at p. 200 of this work. 3 About 1200, Orrmin uses casstell in one and the same page (II. 277) in two senses. He first applies it to a village, that of Salim, following the Latin of the Gospels, a sense in vogue with us long before the Norman Conquest. He then applies it to a fortress, 492 Old and Middle English, But why should the Chronicler of the year 1066 write the outlandish corona,^ instead of the old cineliehn, that had been good enough for all our Kings np to these times ? ^ Its new wearer is called Wyllelm Bojstard^ in that awful year. Englishmen soon got into the way of using needless French words, which supplanted their own old terms. The ancient cweartern makes way for pHsun in 1076. The ntterly nnneeded French word heandon comes in the Peterborough Chronicle for 1069. French and English Il^ouns are compounded, to form castehnenn in 1067. In 1079, a soldier is shot with an arhlast. A little later, we hear of the mynster cet ])cere Bataille (Battle Abbey), hallowed in 1094 ; three years more bring ns to the wall built by Rufus about the Tur in London ; the old form torr, a relic of the Romans, was making way for a new French form. The first French Verb, naturalised by taking an English ending, was duhhade, in the year 1086 ; we next find acordedan in the year 1119 ; demohiliser is, I think, the last French Verb that we have admitted to the rights of citizenship ; it recalls our watching the Russians on the Pruth earlv in 1877. It is cnrious to mark the chano^es of foreio^n woi^ls in the Chronicle. The Fili^oi^ns of 1075 becomes Philippe in 1087 ; the Francrice of 1085 becomes France in that same 1087. The Uncjevland of 1057 is seen as JECungrie in 1096. We get some idea of the old French "which we ought to build against the Devil ; this is the later French sense. * Corona,lio'weyeT, had heen used in the Lindisfarne Gospels for our Lord's crown of thorns. Inroad of Freiich Words info England. 493 pronunciation, when we find Englishmen writing Bains, Ou, Peitevin, Alveamie, Mortoin, Angeow, Blais, Pu7itm\ for well-known French proper names. In the Buna^i (Boulogne) of 1096, a relic of the old form Bcnonia still remains ; in the same year Gosfrei shows us the earliest English form of our Godfrey. A Vowel-sound, new to English ears, is first heard in the account of that year ; the Crusaders tarry in Piiille • this is the Normans' way of sounding Apulia, the rich land con- quered by them sixty years earlier. It might have been written Poille, for the two forms Corhoil and Corhuil are found in the Chronicle. The old Sexlande of 1129 becomes Alamanie thirty years later ; the Heanrig of 1105 appears as Henri in 1107 ; rather earlier, we hear of Flandres and Nativite'S. The months of the year lose their old Latin form ; in 1097 comes August ; and rather later. Mazes Tnon^e, Junies Tnoit^e, and Julies mon^e. The form Jolmn (John) is found in 1114. The names of Saints, if in common use, were shorn of their Latin endings ; in 1087, we hear of the Abbot of St. Augustine ; two years later, of Martines tncessan (Martinmas) ; here there is no Saint prefixed ; in 1098, we read of the Abbot on S" Edmund ; here the byrig is suppressed. The word evangelista, applied to St. Luke in 1119, shows the first inroad of the foreign ist, which now too often supplants the true Old English er ; some choose to write pTdJologist, instead of philologer, and I suppose astrologist will soon be reckoned the correct thing. About 1120, we had begun to prefer French forms to the older Latin ; for in the Homilies of that time, we find iscole written for the former scolu. 494 Old and Middle English, The Old French must always command earnest attention from a student of English, and we have a fine specimen of the language that was fashionable at King Henry the First's Court about 1120. Philip de Thaun's works have been printed by Mr. Wright (' Popular Treatises on Science,' pp. 20 to 131).^ We here find such good old forms as, Damnes-Des (Dominus Deus), meis (mensis), 'praier^ Ci'istien, salveur, pronounced like the present French salvimii\ one of the many French sounds that England has preserved more faithfully than France herself. The sound of the old oi may be easily guessed, when we find both croiz and cruiz, Join and Junie; there is also hull, which the French usually wrote hoil ; poi stands for the modem peu ; hloie for hleu. In Doomsday Book, the English Cruland (Crow- land) appears as Groiland and Cridland. The French have kept the true old sound of the oi in jouir ; they have lost it in joie. We must have recourse to Littre's noble French Dictionary, if we would know the old sound of oi or oy in French and English. Rectder and recoil were once pronounced alike. When we compare the Latin hidlire and houillir, its present corruption in Northern France, we may safely say that the 2i or owwas pronounced in the first syllable of the word from first to last. Yet the word was written boil by French authors in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Century; the oi was therefore one way of writing ic or ou ; it came to England soon after the Conquest ; we have already seen Hoilant written for what is now HidloMd. ' In a work on English, it is better to examine this poem of about 1120, than to go back to earlier French poems, such as the Hymn of St. Eulalie of 900, or the Legends of 1050. Inroad of French Words into England. 495 Of all the corruptions of Northern Gaul, none is more astounding than that of aqiia into what is now pronounced as 0. In the present work, p. 45, we see that acva, ava has already become eve, as sequi, seqicere became suivre ; a further step is taken in p. 36, where we find the Plural evjes, for v was often confounded with u or vj ; in this shape the word came to England, and was written ewe in 1320, whence comes our eiver. The confusion between and u is seen, for Hume re- places Rome ; nune stands for none (noon). In p. 42, quod becomes que, and two lines onward qui becomes hi. We see the insertion of h in numhre and tremhler. In p. 75, there is both the old demonstrance and the new demustre ; we English have both monstrance and muster , coming from the same Latin word. Filius has already become fiz, p. 83 ; and a few lines later, David loses its last letter in the Scotch fashion. Carnem is seen both as cam and charn; horas loses its first letter, and is written tires (hours) ; we English write this li, but do not sound it. In p. 124, there is both hume and nme (homo). Baptize, in p. 109, was perhaps the first word in ize that was adopted in England ; the outlandish endiuo: is now far too common. Tirant takes the intru- sive t at the end. "We see the confusion bet*veen the letters u and v, for the old Judeu and the new Juev, p. 124, are both found ; the form Jueu, was adopted in England, while France held to Juev, afterwards Juif. We have treated lieutenant in exactly the contrary way, Quarre (carre) is written in p. 75 ; hence our quarry, where we keep the old French sound. We have seen Bamnes (dominus) ; when this word 49^ Old and Middle English. was used of a man, it became danz^ p. 37; and the word Dan was applied to monks in England, down to the Reformation. We find, en vain^ verei, remanant^ Parais (Paradise), bruise, cars, Yncle, deservir, gravel, cuint (qnaint), mave (mavis), sa per (his peer, equal), Hclieises. Tei and sei are written, not toi and soi. Estre stands for a Substantive, and led the way to oar being. Defendre (p. 112), already stands for vetare. Juste is used in p. 84 for prope ; it was employed later in England for even. The favourite Interjection Deus is in p. 21. Prise (prize) is in p. 76 ; we have now bat one word in English for both cestimare and navis capta. Magister was always of old connected with learning ; hence in p. 86, maistrie stands for scientia, a meaning it long conveyed in England ; in France, it further expressed dominium at this time. In p. 94 we see both of the forms for venari, cacher and cJiacer ; whence our catch and chace ; the hard c comes from Picardy, the soft ch from Burgundy ; chastel is in the Song of Roland of the Eleventh Century, and lasted in this shape for five hundred years in France.^ The speech of the English castle and the English hovel for two hundred years after 1066 was almost as distinct as the Arve and the Rhone are when they first meet. We see, however, that a few French words very- early found their way into English. A shrewd observer long ago told us how ox, sheep, and sivine came to be called beef, mutton, and porh, when smoking on the board. Treading in his steps, I venture to guess how our bluff forefathers began their studies in the French * See the word in Littre's Dictionary. Inroad of French Words into England. 497 tongue. We may imagine a cavalcade of tlie new aristocracy of England, ladies and knights, men that perhaps fought at Hastings in their youth ; these alight from their steeds at the door of one of the churches, that have lately arisen throughout the land in a style nnknown to Earl God wine. The riders are accosted by a crowd of beggars and bedesmen, who put forth all their little stock of French : ' Lady Countess, clad in .ermine and saheline, look from ih.j 'palfrey. Be large of thy treasure to the poor and feehle ; of thy charity bestow thy riches on us. We will put up our orisons for thee, after the manere and custom of our religion. Ease our poverty in some 'Pleasure ; that is the best penance, as thy chaplain in his sermon says. By all the Prophets, Confessors, Patriarchs, and Virgins, show us onercy. Feed us from thy 7'ents and garners, chasten the glutenerie of jogelours, and seiu (follow) •after Paradise.^ Another speech would run thus : ^Worthy Baron, thou hast honour at Court; speak for my son in prison. Let him hskve J2cstice ; he is no rohber -or lecher, that men should blame him. The sergeants waited for him in the marliet ; he paid them noth- ing, so these catchpoles have wrought him sore miseise behind the bars. Mend all this ; so Christ accord thee peace at the day of livreison ! ' A priest would talk learnedly of the frut of the sacramens, the archangles , absolucion, the miracles, the processiun to the sepidcre, thefeste of the Circumcisiun, the tables of the Law, the tapers to be lighted ; and he would explain the Crede. The word Baptist, with its strange ending, would become K e: 498 Old and Middle English. familiar.^ Not one of these sixty Frencli words was in EnglisTi use before the battle of Hastings ; but we find every one of them set down in writing within little more than a century after that date, so common had they then become in English mouths.^ Those of the needy, who knew but little French, must have learnt at least how to bawl for ^iistice^ cliarihj, mercy, on seeing their betters. The first letter of the word justice shows that a new French sound was taking root in England. The words JEmperice and mercy, used in these times, brought in new hissing sounds; the s in English came already quite often enough. In the Homilies of 1160 we trace a new change. Foreign proper names had hitherto for the most part unbendingly maintained their Latin form in England. They were now being corrupted, owing to French in- fluence ; at pages 47 and 49 we find mention of Seint Gregori. At page 9 we see both the old form folc of ludeus and the new form J^e Giiois (Jews). Maria and Jacohas now become Marie and Jame. French words were being brought in most needlessly ; thus we read at page 51, ' crabbe is an manere (kind) of fissce.' In the Essex Homilies, the French is seen elbowing^ out the Latin from pro23er names. Andreas and MattJietts become Andreu and Matlieu. What was of old written leo is turned into leun (lion) ; celmesse into almes ^ ^ "We have already seen Evangelist. Now and then a French word puzzles an English scribe ; thus barrage is written for haraine (barren), in the Essex Homilies, p. 133. 2 They may be found in the Saxon Chronicle and in the Series of Homilies (Early English Text Society). Inroad of French Words into Etigland. 499 raarma into raarhelstone (page 145). Beciple replaces the old learning knight ; it had appeared as discipul in the Lindisfarne Gospels. An intruding letter is seen in common words ; mazere is found at page 163. This z did not become common in England for nearly three hundred years. ^ Layamon wrote his long poem the Brut about 120-5 ; but, though this was mainly a translation from the French, he seldom employs a French word, and hardly ever without good reason. In this poem we find Admiral, astronomy, hue (in our phrase hue and cry), messagere, montaine, nonne, pilgrim, image? We have seen that elep-has was known to our fathers as yip. Layamon borrows a new form, olifant, from the French ; the older English form of the word lasted down to 1230, the later French form to 1550, about which time the eagerness for classic learning changed Skelton's olifant into elephant, as we see in Udall's well-known play. Thus, within little more than two centuries, we in England employed three different forms of one Latin word. Layamon sometimes writes clarc instead of clerc, and we have followed his pronunciation ; Darby, instead of Derby, had come earher. Orrmin is even more Teutonic than Layamon in his scorn of outlandish words. About this time, the days of King John, one fifth of the weighty words in a pas- sage are such as have become obsolete in our days. Under John's grandson, this proportion was to be woe- fully altered. The only thing that could have kept up ' See the 'Paston Letters ' (Grairdner), I. 510. - I have mentioned here only the most common of XiSyamon's ■words, borrowed from the French ; he has many other foreign terms K K 2 500 Old and Middle Ejiglish. a purely Teutonic speech in England would have been some version of the Bible, a standard of the best Eng- lish of the year 1200. Bnt this was not to be ; Pope Innocent III. and his Prelates had no mind to furnish laymen with weapons that might be so easily turned against the Church. She was widely different now from what she had been in the days of those old translators, Bede and Aldhelm. Orrmin himself tells us that many found fault with him for bringing Scrip- ture truth down to the level of the common folk. We have missed much ; had he given us a good version of the Scriptures, accepted over all England, our tongue would have had the present flexibility of the New Eng- lish, and would have kept the power of compounding new words out of her own stores, the power that be- longed to the Old English. We may now glance at the Hali Meidenhad, about 1210 ; a few French words in it may be here mentioned. The word triikian is used not only in its Old English sense (deficere), whence comes trucMe, but also to express the French troquer, whence comes the truch system. The foreign heast had become so common, that the Adverb heasteliclie (p. 9), was formed. As to this word, I may remark that the Irish have kept its true pronunciation, which has been dropped by France and England. Caesar brought his Italian hestia to the Seine ; William brought his heste to the Thames ; and Strongbow's soldiery brought heste (bayste) to the Liffey. France has dropped the Consonant 5, England has cor- rupted the sound of the Vowel e, but Ireland keeps the word just as it was first given to her. This is a good Inroad of French Words mto Eiigland. 501 instance of the way that an outlying colony will keep words and sounds dropped by the parent country ; this was remarked of the Irish Pale by shrewd observers in Elizabeth's days. The same observation holds good of the American Colonies in our own time.* The old profian now takes a new sense; hitherto it had meant ' to try ; ' at p. 23 it means ' to make clear ; ' a third sense, ' to turn out,' was to come fourscore years later. One French word, now always in our mouths, may be seen in p. 41 ; oinnino is there Englished by al civite. Sometimes a writer would turn his English into French ; thus in Sawles Warde, p. 247, stands, ^mete, ])at me meosure hat.' The Ancren Riwle, written about 1220, is the fore- runner of a wondrous change in our speech. The proportion of Old English words, now obsolete, is therein much the same as it is in the writings of Orrmin and Layamon. But the new work swarms with French words, brought in most needlessly. What could we want with such terms as cuntinuelement, Deuleset (God knows), helanii, misericorde, and cogitaciun ? The author is even barbarous enough to give us the French sulement, where we should now write only. I set down a short sample, underlining the foreign words. ' Heo weren itentedj and J)uruh ]ie tentaciuns ipreoved to treowe chaiiijpiuns, and so mid rihte ofserveden kempene crune.^ * ' The nous soniines of Paris keeps far nearer to the nos sumus of old Rome than the iwi siamo of New Rome does. So also the somos of Madrid. - Page 236 of the Camden Society's edition. I have not under- lined 'proved, as that foreign -word was in EngHsh use before the Norman Conquest. 502 Old mid Middle English. Ivlany a word, embodied in tlie Englisli Bible and Prayer- book three Imndred years later, is now found for tbe first time in our tongue. These words were accented in the French way, on the last French syllable ; the usage held its ground for four hundred years. ^ Indeed, it still rules ns when we pronounce urbane and divine. As to Vowels, the French au is much employed to produce the broad sound of a, as saumple, haimcJief avaunce ; all that love pure English should sound the a in these words as broadly as in father.^ We see hame and sauter ; in these an I is dropped. The e of the Chronicle becomes a in Amperur (emperor), p. 244. The ea was the favourite way of writing the French sound e all through the South West of England ; one copy of the Ancren Riwle has beast for the French beste, p. 58. The foreign oi is sounded like the French ou or ou-e ; in the Ancren Riwle, the oi has not the sound of the French €, as in Moretoin. What is written a^igoise in p. 212 appears as anguise (anguish) in p. 110. In p. 94 anui (annoyance) appears in one copy, annu in another; a third has ennui.^ Noise is first found in p. 66; creoice (crucem) comes often, though it could not drive out the Danish Jcross ; we still keep the old sound of the French oi in crusade. It was not till about 1290 that oi was commonly used in England to express the French e. ' One of these words, accented in the French way, is preserved in the old rimes, ' Mistress Mary, quite contrary.' ^ I know some people, well educated, who sound baih something like hay-eth ; a horrible travesty of a fine old sound. ' How few suspect that annoy and ennui are but two forms of one word ? the first form lasted down to 1400 in France. Inroad of French Words into England. 503 As to Consonants : iire^ (liorse) is written without ilie 7i. Delit is wi'itten without the gli^ Avhich we long afterwards inserted, to imitate the Latin deJedor. The old regula, a Benedictine word, had hitherto been written regol in England ; we were now to throw aside the Latin for the French, and to write it rhvle (rule) . Three hundred years later, Tyndale was to bring in regiment (imperium) ; our physicians have long talked of a regimen ; and in our day, the British penny-a-liner writes regime for what in 1860 was called rule, government, or system.} Here are five different forms, coming from the old rego, applied to common life, as distinguished from royalty. The old capitle, founded on the Latin, was written in Norfolk down to 1440; but in the Ancren Riwle the French form cheapitre (chapter) is adopted. The French corruption of capitate is seen in p. 224 as chetel (chattels) ; the other form cattle was not set apart for beasts until after 1400 ; we may also talk of capital. In p. 42 we see the stages in the corruption of a well-known word, ■ antiphona, antempne, antefne ; anthem was to come later. When we find forms like lescuns and nohlesce, we see the source of such forms as scion. We long kept the Old French quarrel (bolt) ; we remark in p. 62 the more corrupt form quarreau, pronounced like quan'iou. When we find cruelte in the Ancren Riwle, we see at once that England has often kept Old French words in a purer form than France herself has done. Aivaitie in p. 174 shows us how strongly the ^c in aguetter was once pronounced in ' In my youth, we talked of the Feudal System ; the apes of sham refinement now talk of the Feudal Eegime, which would have astonished Hallam. 504 Old and Middle EnglisJi. France ; the form, ouaitter still lingers in Lorraine. The Willehn and reliciuicB of the Chronicle now become Willam^ p. 340, and relilceSj p. 18 ; Latin was thrown aside for French. Among the Substantives, we find rute (via), helami (long a familiar English term of greeting), cleinte, Giiverie (Jewry), which shows how g came to be softened in Eng- lish. The French Yei-bs give birth to English Verbal Nouns, as in his departunge, p. 250. We see maJce drupie chere (vultus), p. 88 ; in ancre persone (in an anchorite's person), p. 126 ; trusseau and triisse stand for bundles in p. 168; dame is used for mother. The inroad that French was to make even into the English Paternoster is foreshadowed ; in p. 26 dimitte nobis debita nostra is- Englished by ' forgif us ure dettes, al so as we vorjive^ to ure dettnrs.' We still pronounce these words in the French way, though hundreds of years later we imitated the Latin, when writing them. Many technical terms of relig-ion come in, as silence and wardein. We light upon spitel (hospital) and mester (ars), afterwards corrupted into mystery J a confusion with a well-known Greek word. There is givegou (gewgaw) and beaubelet (bauble). Among the Adjectives is folherdi. We must turn to p. 316, if we would know the source of maJce a fool of myself \ we there find ioh habbe ibeon fol of me sulven (de me ipso). In p. 46 we hear of ' a large creoiz ; ' this shows that the Adjective was adding the meaning of magnus to that of prodigus. At p. 202 we see the source of our phrase, ' he is but a poor creature ' ; for the term cowardice is there said to embrace the poure ilieorted. In p. 192 may be found the phrase gentile Inroad of French Words into E7igland. 505 wumyiien. Long before the Norman Conquest foreign words had been forced to take English endings before they could be naturalised, as hechjsan and regollice ; in the Ancren Riwle, French Adjectives have to take the English signs of comparison, as larger and tendrust. Among the Verbs is entermeten (meddle), p. 172, a word well known in Scotland ; also fail, lace, and cnj. This French crier is now beginning to drive out the Old English griclan. If it be true, as some tell us, that the mingling of the Teutonic and Romance in our tongue make ' a happy marriage,' we see in the author of the Ancren Riwle the man that first gave out the banns. He was, it would seem, a Bishop, well grounded in all the lore that Paris or Rome could teach ; and he strikes us as rather too fond of airing his French and Latin before the good ladies, on whose behalf he was writing. For sixty years^ no Englishman was bold enough to imitate the Prelate's style of composition. One curious effect, due to the new French words, must be pointed out. I have already said that crier was driving out griclan : these kindred words are often found alongside each other in this Century ; and, unhappily, it is usually the French one that has held its ground. It is now and then hard to tell whether some of our commonest words are home-born or of French growth,, so great is the confusion between the Teutonic words brought to the Thames by Hengist, and the kindred words brought to the Seine by Clovis and afterwards borne across the Channel by William the Conqueror. The kinsmanship in meaning and sound must have So6 Old and Middle Ejiglish. bespoken a welcome in England for many of these French strangers that follow. Teutonic. Romance. Teutonic. Roinance. Aheatan Ahattre Ouppa Coupe Acofrian Recouvrir Dare6 Dard Affsered Affi-aie Deman Damner Alecgan Aloyer Ea]> Eise Ange Ano-uisse Facen Feign Astundian Estonner Feoh Fief Befulan Defouler Feorme Ferme Beorn Baron Feorren Forain Bigalian Guiler Fersc Fraiche Biwrejen Bitraie Fin Fin Bl£e (blue) Bloie Fladra (Old Flatter Blencan (Menc !h)FlecHr Norse) (flinch) Flatr (Icelandic) Plat Bord Borde Frakele Fraile Band Bounde Gseta (Ice- Guetter BoUe Boiile landic) Brand Brande Gafol Gabelle Brec Breche Gagn (Icelandic) Gagner Bregdan Broder Geard Gardm Bricke (Old Brique Gem^ne Commune Dutch) Gesamnian Assembler Brysan Bruiser Gote Gouttiere Buskr (Old Bosche Gridan Crier Norse) Ham Hameau Burgher Burgeis Hasti Hastif Butten (Old Bouter Hatian Hadiri Dutch) Healsbeorga Hauberc Oempa Champioun Heard Hardi Ceosan Choisir Hereberg Herbier Cnif Canif Hreinsa (Old Rincer Cocer Ouivre Norse) Cost (Old Dutch) Couster Hrothgar Roger ' The Teutonic words in French are mostly High German ; but hadir (odisse), now hair, is an exception ; it is plainly derived from the Low German ; from hatian, not from hassen. The Franks lived on the border between the two great forms of German speech. Inroad of French Words into England, 507 Tevjtonic. Romance. Teutonic. Momance. Hiirlen Hareler Sinder Cendre Hiirten Hurler Solian Soillier Irre Ii-e Spendan Despender Isila (Higli Ger- -Isle Speja (Ice- E>spier man) landic) Lafian Laver Spillan Spuiller Laga Lei StatSol Estable Lag-u Lac Stedja (Ice- Staler Line Ligne landic) Logian Loger Stoppan Estufer Msenigu Maine Straec Estreit Mearc Marche Stri]) Estrif Mersc Marais Strudan Destruir Mi61a (Ice- Mesler Syfer Sobre landic) Targen Targier Mur]!er Meurtre Targe Targe Nefe Neveu Teld Tent Nesh Nice Trahtnian Traiter Pearroc Pare Trumpe (Ice- Trompe Pine Peine landic) Pocc Poche Tumba (Old Tomber Priss (Icelandic) Pris Norse) Bffit Rat Turnan Tourner Ring Rang WfBven AVeiver Reaf Robe Weardan Guarder Keafian Ravir AVearnian Guarnir Ric Riche AVeddian Gager Rypere Robeor AVestan Guaster Scsern Escomir Wimpel (Old Guimple Sceoh Eschuir Dutch) Seam Siimpter Wise Guise Secan, sechen Sercher Wyi-re Guerre Siker Secure AVe further see the English er and the French, ier alike used as endings, and the Englisli mis employed as a prefix side by side with the Erencli mes. The English in answers to the French en. In the Ancren Riwle we find hunsiler (councillor), hestly, ungracius. French and 5o8 Old and Middle English. EnglisL. endings and prefixes begin to jostle eacli' other ; in the Wohung of onr Lord, we find both dehonairtS and debonair sliip. Some of the terms, in the long list set out pp. 506-7, have an obvious resemblance to each other ; but it may be doubted whether the best philologers alive at this time — whether even Giraldus Cambrensis or Roger Bacon, suspected that the French dame was akin to the English tamer, and that ad and at, ^our and for, were but different forms of one old word. The year 1220 is a turning-point ; not only did shoals of French words effect a lodgement in the English of the Ancren Riwle, but many French idioms were transferred into the Enorlish Life of St. Catherine. The Old English poetic word-store, a luxury that must have been unknown to the great mass of the nation, had passed away immediately after the Conquest; the Old English prose kept its old words and its power of compounding fairly well (except in the neighbourhood of East Anglia), long after 1200. The reason is, that all through the hundred and fifty years after the Con- quest, some degree of cultivation had been bestowed upon the language. The mighty William, his son, and his great-grandson, sometimes worded their Charters in English.^ They were statesmen in the highest sense of the term ; they had none of that vulgar and overbearing spirit that finds its choicest trophy in sweeping away an ^ Some of these are set out by Hickes, Thesaurus, I. 15. In one Charter, about 1160, eow (vos) is written -^eau; this seems to show that the French eau had then the sound of their modern iou, and explains how we came by hewty. Inroad of French Words into England. 509 old language ; this brutish style of despotism was reserved for the masters of Poland and Lithuania in the days of railways and telegraphs. In the England of the Twelfth Centuiy, religion did not lag behind statecraft. More than one version of the Gospels was put forth in the English of 1150 ; and in the same way ^Ifric's Homilies were altered so as to suit more modern hearers ; this went on, as we have seen, all through the Twelfth Century. King Henry II. himself, though he was anything but an Englishman, seems to have understood English, as we learn from a well-known tale in Giraldus. About this time the English Chronicle was copied out at Canterbury, and the old inflections were preserved in writing, if not in common speech. From 1200 to 1220, avast quantity of English, both prose and verse, was given to the public. Orrmin and others were the champions of religion ; Layamon undertook to handle history, according to his lights.^ A brilliant future seemed to be in store for our tongue in 1220 ; much pains was being bestowed upon its cultivation : if it could outlive the Norman Con- quest, it need fear nothing ; so at least we might have deemed. But afi'airs took a very different turn ; EngHsh was thrust back, at the moment it seemed about to recover the ground lost a hundred and fifty years earlier. The next sixty years are the most disastrous in our history, from a philologer's point of view. English and Latin had run on, side by side, as the two exclusive vehicles of the language of our government, * People complain of his Arthurian Legends; but even these were better than no English History at all. 510 Old and Middle English. from 600 to 1160 ; from the latter date to 1215, Latin reigned without a rival. No Englishman could take offence if the language of the Church, revered alike by himself and by his French-speaking neighbour, were used as the organ of government. To come down to our own days, there was little strife between Croat and Magyar, when Latin was the official tongue of the whole of the Hungarian realm ; the disuse of this tongue, a silly innovation, was one of the causes of the bloody civil wars in 1848. In England, linguistic enmities never rose to the boiling-point, as on the Danube. On the contrary, in that renowned year 1215, a third official language was seen ; the Great Charter is said to have been put forth in French, not in Latin. ^ French and Latin henceforward ran on side by side down to 1362, when Enghsh was once more made the language of the Law Courts. It was no insult to the English of the Thirteenth Century that public affairs should be discussed and set forth in the tongue of the higher classes, who were doing their utmost for the common welfare of all, and who were working for the hovel every whit as much as for the castle or the monastery. True it was that the nobles in England talked French among themselves ; but they were more drawn to their English-speaking neighbours than to the Court favourites that came over here from Poitou and Savoy. The time, when another language besides Latin appeared as a mouthpiece of the English government, ushers in the darkest days of the history of our language ; ' Earle, PJdlology, 53. Inroad of French Words into England. 511 its cultivation all but ceased ; after tlie Ancren Riwle comes an ugly gap of sixty years tliat the philologer must ever hold accursed. No long original English poem, except the Owl and Nightingale, was put forth from 1220 to 1320. There is no English prose treatise at all (written in the easy idiom of the day), from 1220 to 1340, except a few Kentish scraps. Strange it is that the same period of time, which heaped upon England political boons unparalleled in the world's history, should have mangled England's speech in a way unknown to the literary records of other countries. What was the reason of the great change between 1220 and 1280, the Second Division of the Mddle English, the period of Decay ? I answer ; all English- men, high and low, were flinging themselves headlong into the chase after foreign fashions. Our Nobles and Bishops spoke French in their own homes, though they could make shift to understand the English spoken by a neighbour or a vassal. In 1215 they did a priceless service to England ; they acted boldly in the teeth of King and Pope alike. Never did any aristocracy so nobly earn the thanks of the whole land ; and this stout patriotism never slackened for generations. The wicked John, the weak Henry, the mighty Edward, all alike had to bow before a majesty greater than their own. Well may we be proud of our Bigods and Bohuns. It is no wonder if England imitated her leaders' speech ; in this course burghers and priests would be the most forward. If anything ever was fit to draw forth national poetry^ it was the great struggle that was going on about 1260, Of this date we have many Poems, in which the platform 512 Old and Middle English. of the national leaders is set out, and tlie English lieart jDOurs forth, its patriotic fire ; but all these Poems, with one short exception, are couched in French and Latin. If none of the great European literatures, as Hallam has said, was of such slow growth as the English, the reason is not far to seek. The French, Spanish, Pro- vencal, Italian, Norse, and German literatures were fostered by high-born patrons. Foremost stand the great Hohenstaufens, Emperors of the Romans, ever August ; then come Kings of England, of Norway, of Sicily, of Castile ; Dukes of Austria, Landgraves of Thuringia, Counts of Champagne ; together with a host of knights from Suabia, Tuscany, Provence, and Aragon. A far other lot fell to the English Muse : for many long years she basked not in the smiles of King or Earl ; her chosen home was far away from Court, in the cloister and the parsonage ; her utterance was by the mouths of a few lowly priests, monks, and friars. Too long was she content to translate from the lordly French ; in that language her own old legends, such as those of Havelok and Horn, had been enshrined for more than a hundred years. It was in French, not in English, that Stephen of Canterbury preached and Robert of Lincoln rimed, good home-born patriots though they were. In our island there was no acknowledged Standard of national speech ; ever since 1120, each shire had spoken that which was right in its own eyes.^ It was not until after ' Many standard French authors, who lived before 1525, are now ■commonly reprinted ; we reprint for general use two English authors alone, Chaucer and Mallory, of all that wrote before that date. Inroad of French Words into England. 513 1400 that all the land to the Sonth of Trent came to acknowledge one Standard, the King's English. The Court at Winchester might have made Eaglish the fashion, after the loss of Normandy in 1205 ; the slightest advance in that path would have been enough. Unhappily, the Court did not take the decisive step ; our tongue had to plod on for 150 years longer, before any English King would deign to smile upon her. She had a dangerous rival on the other side of the Channel. Ever since the year 1200, the French Court and nation had been waxing more powerful than ever before ; their influence was felt from the Tay to the Jordan. Pope Gregory IX., in 1239, likened France to the tribe of Judah overtopping all others as regarded valour and piety French knights were in request everywhere : to storra. Constantinople, to prop up the falling kingdom of Jerusa- lem, to champion the Pope's cause in Southern Italy, to root out the heretics of Languedoc, to make head against the German Kaiser, to save England from the ruthless grip of her tyrant, Rome's new vassal. French leaming^ kept well abreast of lYench prowess. Hundreds of Englishmen went to study at Paris ; little comparatively was thought of Oxford or Cambridge scholarship before 1230.1 French architecture was at this time (1200-1260) pushing its conquests in all directions, as may be seen by any traveller who shall visit Leon in Spain, Casa- mara in Italy, Cologne in Germany, Westminster in * Filii nobiliiim, dum sunt juniores, Mittuntxir in Franciam fieri doctores. L L 514 Old and Middle English. Eng-land; churclies all beo-uii about this time.^ It was France that taught other countries how to write. Italians such as Martin da Canale at Venice, and Bru- netto Latini at Florence, threw aside their own mother- tongue and wrote in French, the best vehicle, as they thought, of polite speech. Rather earlier in the Cen- tury, Germany was seeking inspiration from French sources. There are no fewer than three German metrical Romances extant on the tale of Sir Tristrem ; Gottfried von Strasburg is careful to tell us that he searched for his theme in books both Latin and WelscJi (French). 2 Still more did Englishmen, as was natural, turn to France, the marvellous centre that has always had a kind of magnetic attraction for those born with- out her pale. In Paris seemed to be united, at this particular time, all the learning of Athens and all the valour of Rome. Furthermore, a little later on, it was at Paris that a King ruled, in whose person (so it mio-ht well seem to Enorlishmen) their own Alfred had started once more to life ; this foreign King was chosen to make an award, famous in our history, between con- tending Englishmen. Legends about the mighty Charle- magne, who was fondly imagined to have been a typical Frenchman, were widely spread. From Paris came all the lore, the art, the chivalry, the fashion of the day ; something of the same kind may be remarked much later, in 1670.^ If an English scholar were minded to win a • We still see at Westminster two distinct inroads of French architecture ; that of 1060 and that of 1245. 2 See Scott's Sir Tristrem, p. 254. ' So in our own day, it is France thnt pirpplip?? the Enslish Inroad of F^-eiich Words into England. 515 name for himself, be had to write either in French or in Latin. There was no Standard Eno-lish that micrht be understood ahke at Durham and at Exeter; any patriot handling English (a few snch there were), translated his short little piece for the Jenxl men of his own neighbourhood, and not for outsiders. Our shires had become intensely local in their speech. The Northern Psalter could never have been aught but a puzzle in Warwickshire ; Layamon's Brut must have fallen flat on Lincolnshire ears. When the oreafc Bishop of Lincoln wished to teach the whole of England, he wisely wrote his Chasfeau cVamour in French ; fifty years after his death, it had to be turned into both Northern and Southern English. Yet, for all these French leanings, Bishop Robert was the best of patriots, and could make use of his mother-tongue to shame the greed of Papal underlings, athirst for the ffood thinsfs of Ensfland.' In the Encjlish Leofend of St. Edmund the Archbishop, another great Churchman, we find it stated, as if something wonderful, that he uttered a sentence in English on his deathbed. The famous English Proclamation of the year 1258 is plainly the work of some clerk, who tries to imitate the style of the old Charters, and who can only produce .stilted stuff that was never spoken ; the piece has been compared to the English that a Bengalee, taught in the Government schools, might put forth. theatre ; our playwrights translate (I beg their pardon, adapt) French pieces. ' Siirrexit et confessus est A nglice &c. See the story in Thomas of Eccleston, Monumcnta Franciscana, (Mast-er of the Rolls). L L 2 5 1 6 Old and Middle English. It cannot be too often repeated that tlie disuse of English for sixty years after 1220 was the eflfect of fashion, not of governmental effort ; and this disuse was- compatible with sound political feeling. Something of the like kind may be seen in Russia now : the higher classes at St. Petersburgh will speak nothing but French among themselves ; yet, let some danger threaten their country, they will show as much public spirit as their neighbours, the uncouth boors, who have never heard of Voltaire. To return to England : one sign of the times was the loss of her old Interjections ; for this I account in the following way. The great Lady of the Castle must have been the glass of fashion to all the neighbouring Franklins' wives who might be admitted into her august presence. The worthy women would take as careful heed of Madame's Court phrases as of her dress itself: of her 0, her «A, her allaz^ her liei^ her Deus,. and her par ma fai} These charming exclamations, coming with the weightiest authority from such well- bred lips, would speedily put to flight tlie vulgar old Teutonic eala, ivalaiva, and such like. The women,, humble missionaries of Fashion, would soon din the fine new phrases into the ears of their husbands and children. Of all words, an Interjection is the easiest to pick up and imitate ; and we have been always adding to our store of these expletives, from 1160 downwards.^ * The and a may be seen in the Homilies of 1160. A-wellaway, an ingenious combination, may be seen in the Essex Hcmilies, p. 183. - Miss Martinean tells us in her Autohiogra'pliy , published in 1877, that she •was much struck by the peculiar feminine oaths, relics of the Eighteenth Century, uttered by Miss Berry and other ladies Inroad of French Words into England. 5 1 7 Long before the Conquest, the ladies had discovered that homely Teutonic words could not express the deli- cate articles by which the feminine mind sets most store. In an English lady's will of 995 we find the foreign words mentel, tuneca, cuffian} In later days, Paris and Kouen became the oracles of the fair sex. These cities supplied articles of dress, wherewith the ladies decked themselves so gaily as to draw down the w^rath of the pulpit. One preacher of 1160 goes so far as to call smart clothing 'the Devil's mousetrap ;' yellow raiment and hlancJiet (a way of whitening the skin) seem to have been reckoned the most dangerous of snares to woman- kind, and therefore also to mankind.- In the Essex Homilies an onslaught is made upon the Priest's wife and her dress ; we hear of ' hire chemise smal and hwit, hire mentel grene, hire nap of mazere.'^ The Ancren Eiwle does not dwell on this topic of dress so much as might have been expected ; only a few French articles are there mentioned. A little later, the high-bred dames are thus assailed : peos prude levedies pat luyye]) drywories And breke]) spusyuge, For beore lecherye, Nidle]) here sermouye Of none gode Jjuige. bom about tbe same time (Vol. I. 369). I once heard of an Engbsbman, who had bis sons taught to swear in French by a French tutor, hired for that purpose only. ^ Kemble, Codex DipL VI. 130. - Homilies, First Series, p. 53. ^ Homilies, Second Series, p. 163. SiS Old and Middle English. Heo drawe]) lieore Avede, Mid seolkeiie j'rede Ilaced and ibimde.^ In the days of Edward I., we find scores of French words, bearing on ladies' way of life, employed by our writers. Many were the articles of luxury that came from abroad; commerce was binding the nations of Christendom together. The English ciLapman and monger now withdrew into low life, making way for the more gentlemanly foreigner, the marcliand ; the old seamer was replaced by the tailor. Half of our trades bear French names ; simple hues like red and blue do well enough for the common folk, but our higher classes must have a wider range of choice ; hence come the foreign scarlet, vermilion, orange, mauve, and such like. But other agents of change were at work in the land after 1220. Few of us have an idea of the wonderful revolution brought about in Latin Christendom by the teaching of St. Francis. Two Minorite friars of his Century, the one living in Italy, the other in England, give us a fair notion of the work done by the new Brother- hood, when it first began to run its race. Thomas of Eccleston and Salimbene ^ throw a stronger light upon its budding life than do all the documents published by the- learned Wadding in his Annals of the Minorites. Italy may claim the founder ; but England may boast that ^ Old English Miscellany, p. 77. - The work of the Englishman is in Momcmcnta Franciscanar published Ly the Master of the Eolls ; that of the Italian is in Mo7vumenta ad Provincias Parmensem et Placentinam 'pertincntia, to be found in tlie British Museum. Inroad of French Words into England. 519 slie carried out his work, at least for foarscore years after his death, better than any other land in Christendom. It was she that gave him his worthiest disciples ; the crreat Engrlish Franciscans, Alexander de Hales, Adam de Marisco, Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus, and Occam, vrere unequalled by any of their brethren abroad, with the two exceptions of Buonaventura and Lulli. Some of these men sought the mainland, while others taught in their school at Oxford; under the new guidance the rising University shot up with giant's growth, and speedily out- did her old rival on the Seine. The great Robert himself (he was not as yet known as Lincolniensis) lectured before the brethren at Oxford. English fi'iars, being patterns of holiness, were held in the highest esteem abroad ; when reading Salimbene's work, we meet them in all kinds of unlikely places throughout Italy and France : they crowded over the sea to hear their great countryman Hales at Paris, or to take a leading part in the Chapters held at Rome and Assisi. The gift of wisdom, we are told, overflowed in the Enghsh province. It was a many-sided Brotherhood, being always in contact with the learned, with the wealthy, and with the needy alike. The English Friar was equally at home in the school, in the bower, in the hovel. He could speak more than one tongue, thanks to the training bestowed upon him. We may imagine his every-day life : he spends his morning in di-awing up a Latin letter to be sent to the General Minister at Oxford or Paris, and he writes much as Adam de Marisco did. The fiiar of this age has no need to fear the tongue of scandal ; so in the afternoon he visits the Lady of the Castle, whose dearest 520 Old and Middle EnglisJi. wish is that she may atone for the little weaknesses of life by laying her bones in the nearest Franciscan Chnrch, mean and lowly though it be in these early days. He tells her the last tidings from Queen Eleanor's Court, points a moral with one of the new Lays of Marie, and lifts up his voice against the sad freaks played by fashion in ladies' dress. Their talk is of course in French ; but the friar, having studied at Paris, remarks to himself that his fair friend's speech sounds somewhat provincial ; and more than a hundred years later we are to hear of the school of Stratford-atte-Bowe. In the evening, he goes to the neighbouring hamlet, and holds forth on the green to a throng of horny-handed churls, stalwart swinkers and toilers, men who earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brows. They greedily listen when addressed in the uncouth English of their shire, English barely understood fifty miles off. Such burning words they never hear from their parish-priest, one of the old school. The friar's sermon is full of pro- verbs, tales, and historical examples, all tending to the improvement of morals.^ A new link, as we see, was thus forged to bind all classes together in godly fellowship ; nothing like this Franciscan movement had been known in our island for six hundred years. The Old was being replaced by the New ; a preacher would suit his tales to his listeners : they cared not to hear about hinds or hus- ' This last sentence I take from Salimbene. who describes the new style of preaching practised by the friars his brethren. Italy and England must have been much alike in the Thirteenth Century in this respect. Inroad of French Words into England. 52 1 bandnien, but about their betters.^ He would therefore talk about ladies, knights, or statesmen ; and when dis- coursing about these, he must have been almost driven to interlard his English with a few French words, such as were constantly employed by his friends of the higher class. As a man of learning, he would begin to look down upon the phrases of his childhood as somewhat coarse, and his lowly hearers rather liked a term now and then that soared a little above their understanding : what is called ' fine language ' has unhappily always had charms for most Englishmen. It would be relished by burghers even more than by peasants. INIany free men must have known French as well as English. The preacher may sometimes have translated for his flock's behoof, talking of ' cjriih or pais, roofl or croiz^ steven or voiz, lof or jpraisBj siciheldom or tricherie, stead or place.^ ^ As years went on, and as men more and more aped their ^ Our humljler classes now prefer the fictitious adventures of some ■wicked Marquis to all the sayings and doings of Mrs. Gamp or Mrs. Poyser. - I take the following sketch from Middle march, III. 156 (pub- lished in 1872):— * ]\Ir. Trumbull, the auctioneer . . . was an amateur of superior phrases, and never used poor language without immediately correct- ing himself. "Anybody may ask," says he, "anybody may inter- rogate. Any one may give their remarks an interrogative turn." lie calls Ivanhoe "a very superior publication, it commences well." Things never began with Mr. Trumbull ; they always commenced, both in private life and on his handbills ; *'I hope some one will tell me — I hope some individual will apprise me of the fact." ' Many of our early Franciscans must have been akin to Mr. Trumbull. Our modern penny-a-liners would say that the worthy -auctioneer was a master of English, and a better guide to follo"w than Bunyan or Defoe. 522 Old and Middle English. betters, the French words would drive ont the Old En- glish words ; aud the latter class would linger only in the mouths of upland folk, where a keen antiquary may find some of them still. The clergy were the one class that wrote for the people ; they could therefore make our Literature whatever they chose. So mighty was the spell at work, that in the Fourteenth Century French words found their way into even the Lord's Prayer and the Belief; the last strongholds, it might be thought, of pure English. It was one of the signs of the times that the old hoda made way for the new ^reclmr; ^ ]jrayer and praise both come from France."^ But the influence of the friars upon our speech was not altogether for evil. St. Francis, it is well known, was one of the first fathers of the New Italian ; a friar of his Order, Thomas of Hales, wrote what seems to me the best poem of two hundred lines produced in English before Chaucer.^ This ' Luve ron,' addressed to a nun about 1250, shows a hearty earnestness, a flowing dic- tion, and a wonderful command of rime ; it has not a score of Knes (these bear too hard on wedlock) that might not have been written by a pious Protestant. Hardly any French words are found here, but the names of a string of jewels. English poets had hitherto made * How often does the word predicai (prgedicavi) occur in the journal of the Franciscan, who afterwards became Sixtus V. ! 2 Krasinski tells us, that when the Jesuits began to sway educa- tion in Poland, the language was soon corrupted by a barbarous mixture of Latin phrases. — Reformation in Poland, II. 202. ^ Old English Miscellany, p. 93, (Early English Text Society). Dr. Morris thinks that the friar wrote in Latin, which was after- wards Englished. Inroad of French Words into England. 523 but little use of the Virgin Mary as a theme. But her worship was one of the great badges of the Fran- ciscan Order ; and from 1220 onward she inspired many an English Maker. However wrong it might be theo- logically, the new devotion was the most poetical of all rites ; the dullest monk is kindled with unwonted fire when he sets forth the glories of the Maiden Mother. To her Chaucer and Dunbar have offered some of their most glowing verse. The second copy of Layamon's Brut was written, it is thought, about 1260. Scores of old words set down fifty years earlier in the first copy of ]205 had now become strangle in the ears of Eng-lishmen ; these words are therefore dropped altogether. Some French words, unknown to Layamon, are found in this second copy. We have an opportunity of comparing the Old and the New school of English teachers, as they stood in the Middle of this Century. We find one poem, written shortly before 1250, about the time that Archbishop Edmund was canonized : this must have been composed by a churchman of the good old St. Albans' pattern, a preacher of righteousness after Brother Matthew's own heart. The rimer casts no wistful glance abroad, but appeals to English saints and none others ; he strikes hard at Rome in a way that would have shocked good Franciscans. He may have been a patriot, zealous for the old tongue : for he is an exception to the common rule ; the proportion of English words, now obsolete , in his lines is as great as in those of Orrmin fifty years earlier.^ Most different is another Poem, written ' Old English Miscellany, p. 89. 524 Old and Middle English. in a manuscript not later than 1260. The Maker may well have been a Franciscan ; he pours out his wrath on priests' wives and on parsons ; he handles the sins of Jankin and Malkin in most homely wise. He has some French words that he need not have employed, such as sire and dame instead of fatlier and mother ; his propor- tion of obsolete English is far less than that which we see in the lines of his brother-poet.^ I suspect that the Ancren Riwle (it still exists in many copies) must have been a model most popular among the friars, who per- haps did much to bring into vogue the French words with which it swarms. Long before the friars had fairly buckled to their work in England, a great change connected with our baptismal font had taken place. The old national •Christian names had died out soon after 1066, and had been replaced by French names ; boys and girls alike received newfangled appellations. ProjDcr names are the words most of all under Fashion's swav. Here and there parents might hold to the name of the special patron of their shire, as ISTorthumbria to St. Cuthbert, the West Midland to St. Chad, East Ang-lia to St. Ed- mund, and all England to St. Edward. Still, allowing for these exceptions, there was a general craving after Norman names ; the Teutonic father was always giving his equally Teutonic son a fine French name ; and this holds true even of villeins. We came across Willeldn and Robehin in 1190. When the author of the Ancren Riwle wishes to forbid the divulging of the names of ' Old English Miscellany, p. 186. Inroad of French Words into England. 525 particular sinners in shrift, he writes, ' jon need not say Wtllam or Water ' (Walter), p. 340. When a teacher thirty years later wishes to brand the sins of young men and maidens in general, he talks of Bohiu and Gilot j Jack and Gill were to come long afterwards.^ Robert of Brunne has occasion to mention names that may be given in baptism ; he at once refers to 'Robert, Willyam, and Joun.' (Handlyng Synne, p. 297.) Matthew Paris is a name dear to all true-hearted Englishmen; but we should have set the good monk upon a still higher pinnacle had he only trodden in the footsteps of the earlier Peterborough Chronicler and written in English. Down to 1220, the clergy had fostered our earliest Literature with earnest care ; after that time, with few exceptions, they seemed to throw it aside or to corrupt it. Of all the agents that wrought the great change in our speech, between 1220 and 1280, the friars, I suspect, were the class most mighty for evil. Law, learning, fashion, and chivalry are topics confined to the upper classes ; but religion comes home to all men alike, to high and to low. Hence, when the Old Euglish theological terms were dropped, the worst kind of mis- chief was done. We see something of this evil in our Bible at this day ; the Gospels and most parts of the Old Testament are readily understood over all the land, for they deal with every-day life. But the Epistles abound in deep theological terms, which repel rather than attract ' These names have replaced the old typical names for the sexes in England, Godric and Godgifu. See Freeman, Nonnan Conqiiest, V. 562. Oxirjilt, 1 Lelieve, has been derived from Gilot. We know our common ' every man Jack of them ; ' see Gower, II, 393. 526 Old and Middle English. tbe common folk. Here WicHiffe and Tyndale, when they translated the Scriptures, conld not help themselves ; they were driven to use Latin terms, such as sanctijication and regeneration, owing to the evil anti-national influence which had been at work in the Thirteenth Century long before their day. A poor man, unless he knows Latin, cannot understand the full force of the word Redeemer; but the old word Againhttyer exjAained itself. Such a word as p^'opitiation must be an utter puzzle to the great mass of Englishmen ; even though something like it appeared in the Cursor Mundi, so early as 1290. In our day, if writers on religion would be popular, they must be like Mr. Ryle, intensely Teutonic. An English word, that is understood by high and low alike, must take higher rank than an English word that commends itself to none but Latin scholars ; overlying and outcast stand high above superincumhent and eli- minated. The lovers of the ISTewfangled may talk as they list, but they will never convince us that England was not wounded in the tenderest point of all, during the Thirteenth Century; that age so righteously revered by the statesman and the architect, so accursed in the eyes of the philologer. There is yet another way in which we can measure the harm done in this Black Century. Villehardouin and Layamon were dictating or writing much about the same time, soon after the year 1200. Any fairly well educated English lady will now understand the old Marshal of Champagne with the greatest ease, after a little practice ; but the Worcestershire priest, though her own countrymaD, will be a standing puzzle to her, Inroad of French Words into Eiigland. 527 Tinless she already knows something of Old English.^ The reason for all this is plain : France has always had the good sense to hold fast to her old tongae, and not to follow foreign fashions ; in her literature there has never been any ugly gap since 1100. Silly England, for sixty disastrous years, threw aside her own home-bred speech, and thought of nothing but Parisian ways. In our day, a translation is always supplied for all English works written before the year 1220 ; after that year a few notes are all that is judged needful for learners. About 1160, our inflections were rapidly vanishing from written English, at least in the Dano-Anglian country ; in Kent, many of them lingered on down to 1340, and traces of them may be found in Somerset and Dorset at this day. One effect of the Conquest was, that the writing of Chronicles was no longer in the hands of learned men, but was given over to peasants. The Peterborough Chronicle of 1160 answers to what an Umbrian monk or peasant might now achieve, if he had a slight smattering of Latin lore and essayed to imitate Cicero. The preservation or loss of inflections is the great mark, whether a language be Old or New. Of the three great changes in written English, the loss of Inflections (at least in books) dates from 1160 ; the loss of the power of Compounding dates from 1200 in the East Midland, which was to set the fashion to the whole land ; the wholesale rush of new French words into oar tong;ue dates from 1280.* I may ' Any English writer of 1300 would have been puzzled, almost as much as ray imaginary lady, by Layamon's poem. - The Ancren Riwle abounds in French words ; but it was not imitated for sixty years, in this respect. 528 Old and Middle English, well call the wliole of this period, embracing these three dates, Middle English ; it differs alike from what went before, and from what was to come later. A prose piece of 1120 is nearer to King Alfred than to an East Midland piece of 1160 ; an East Midland piece of 1303 is nearer to what is written under Queen Victoria than to what was written in 1250. But the worst blow of all, inflicted by the sixty years of disaster, is the all but entire loss of the Old English power of compounding. We need not sigh over our lost Inflections ; they were waning away in the East Midland so early as 1160, as we see in the Chronicle ; and the more part must have gone, sooner or later, even had Harold conquered at Hastings. Owing to their departure, our speech is now the most easy and flexible in the whole world. But the loss of the power of compound-ing is a very different thing. This power is the truest token of Hfe in languages. It was found in the Ormulum as much as in the Ancren Riwle, in the Dano-Anglian country as well as in the Saxon shires. But in the fii'st thirty years of the Thirteenth Century, in the East Mid- land shires that have ruled our New English, we may remark a distaste for words compounded with Preposi- tions ; they become scarcer and scarcer, though we have kept to this day some Verbs which have fore, out, over, and under prefixed.^ This I have already remarked. "\'VTiat a noble instrument of thought and speech is the Greek, where every shade of meaning can be ex- pressed by simply prefixing a Preposition to some root ! ^ We sometimes even prefix these to Eomance words, as fore- ordain, out-general, over-balance, and under-mine. hiroad of French Words into England. 529 Kothing can make amends for England's loss in this respect. We have now to borrow from the French or Latin brick-kiln, instead of hewing stones out of our own quarry. How stands the matter ? A youth has his right arm shot off; it is replaced by a fine piece of French mechanism ; yet we are told by some wiseacres that any regret for the loss of the kindly old limb is a token of Retrogressive Barbarism. But a remnant of our old faculty is left to us. We have still kept, in some measure, the power of compounding with the weightier parts of speech ; though here Pai'ticiples are more employed than Substantives ; we niay talk of lioTse-feeding Argos, but not of fair-ivomaiied Achaia. When Shakespere speaks of fiery-footed steeds, we see at once that he is possessed of a noble power of striking off new words, a power that was denied to Dante and Corneille. English poets should stir up this gift, and should never weary of bestowing upon us new and happy compounds. The bards of our day set a worthy example, which should be followed by prose- writers. We must weigh the proportion of obsolete Teutonic Avords, found in English writers of the Three Periods into wliich we have divided the Thirteenth Century. Experiments should be made, by taking a passage in each anther's nsnal style, containing fifty Nouns, Verbs, and Adverbs. In such a passage, written between 1200 and 1'220, ten or nine words will be found to be now obsolete ; in such a passage, written between 1220 and 1280, from eight to four words will be obsolete ; in such a passage, written between 1280 and 1300, the 530 Old and Middle English. obsolete Tetitomc will comprise only four or three words. ^ Oar store of homespun terms, as we see, was being more and more narrowed. Compare Layamon's Brut with Robert of Gloucester's Poem ; we are at once astounded at the loss in 1300 of crowds of good old English words, though both writers were translating the same French lines. It is much the same in the lan- guage of religion, as we see by comparing the Ancren Hiwle with the Kentish Sermons of 1290, published by Dr. Morris. One seventh of the Teutonic words used here in 1200 seems to have altogether dropped out of written composition by the year 1290 : about this fact there can be no dispute. In the lifetime of Henry the Third, far more harm was done to our speech than in the six hundred years that have followed his death. I now approach the Thu'd Period of Middle English, reaching from 1280 to 1303 ; which I have called the Time of Reparation by translators. In the sixty years before 1280, the ugliest gap in the whole of our literature from Hengist down to Victoria, a vast multitude of English words had vanished for ever ; the power of compounding was all but gone. But about 1280, a sudden turn of fortune directed the eyes of all true Englishmen once more to their mother-tongue, which had been of late so shame- fully neglected. One long original poem, and but one, that of the Owl and Nightingale, had been put forth since 1220 ; '^ besides this, there had been some translations, mostly religious, from French and Latin ; ' See my Tables at p. 587. ^ At least, it is the only one that has cume down to us. Inroad of French Words into England. 531 these had been few and far between. At length, about 1280, men began to set themselves steadily to translate long poems from the French, snch as the Havelok, the Tristrem, the Cursor Mundi, the Lives of the Saints, the French Poems on the History of England, the Alexander, the Manuel des Peches, the Chasteau d'Amour. Trans- lations were better than nothing at all. From 1280 to our own day, English Literature has been thoroughly well cultivated. About 1320, England took a further step in advance ; she began to put forth long original Poems of her own ; soon afterwards Hampole, Minot, and the author of Piers Ploughman, fell to work. Both before 1220, and after 1280, works in English abound ; the interval between 1220 and 1280, it should be well under- stood, was the black gulf of ruin. The wonder is, that any one should have taken the trouble of modernising Layamon's Poem at that particular time, when, as Lord Castlereagh would have said, English Literature seemed to be turning her back upon herself. The few men who wrought at English in tliose evil days should be regarded as respectfully as that handful of patriots, who kept up true English feeling in the score of years after Charles the Second's return home. Edward the First, whatever he might have been in his youth, turned out a truly national King ; and what we owe to him is known far and wide. One thing, how- ever, was wanting to his glory: he never made English the language of his Court, though he affected to fear that his wily foe at Paris was plotting to wipe out this despised speech. It was not until long after Edward's death that our language could win Royal M M 2 532 Old and Middle English. favour. In his reign most letters were written, not in Latin, but in Frencli. He loved chivalry, tourna- ments, and single combats ; he had a high idea of French refinement, and this doubtless tended to throw back our speech. The courtly tongue drove all before it. For instance, a word like e]>eUug (princeps) was well under- stood in 1240 ; sixty years later, its meaning had to be explained to Englishmen. ^ Still, with every possible abatement, Edward's reign is every whit as great a land- mark in English Philology as in English Constitutional History. Now it was that the great rush of Erench words came into our tongue ; we cannot call it ' an ugly rush,' when we think of the gaps that had to be filled up. Any one that reads the Cursor Mundi, the Becket Legend, the Alexander, or the Handlyng Synne, will throw aside all his early ideas about Chaucer, who was long falsely supposed to have been the great corrupter of Eng-lish. So much sound Teutouic stuff had been lost before 1280, that vast repairs had to be undertaken, if our language thenceforward was to be copious. French was not needed in 1220 ; it was badly wanted in 1280. One evil resulted, that we grew careless of our old national endings, the lie, the dorn, the sum, the isc, and others ; and we ceased in a great measure to attach them to Teutonic roots, since we had always French synonyms ready at hand.^ Furthermore, the evil habits of Henry * See the Old English Miscellany, p. 106; and then compare Bohert of Gloucester, p. 354. 2 We may still talk of folk, but we cannot em-ploy fold ic, folcioc, and many other words derived from that root. Ilence it is that we Inroad of French Words into England. 533 the Third's reiGfn could not at once be shaken off; there •was a gi^adual loss of old words, even under Edward the First. In 1280, the proportion of Teutonic Xouns, Verbs, and Adverbs, now obsolete, is four out of fifty ; in 1290, it is but three out of fifty. About the latter year a firm check seems to have been given to careless dealing with old words ; comparatively few of them thenceforward were lost. The New English, as we know it, was now all but formed in the East ^Midland shires. Its loss of inflections, its neglect of the old power of compounding, and its substitution of French words for Teutonic terms, the three main changes in our speech, all these tendencies were as evident in 1280 as they are six hundred years later. Edward did not encourage English; hence it came that our Standard speech sprang up, not at his Court, but in cloisters on the Nen and the Welland. Still, Edward's reign was a time when all classes were drawing nearer to each other. The ballad on Lewes fight, in which a few French terms are used, seemed to bear witness to the union of the high and the low. The long political struggle of the Thirteenth Cen- tury knit all true men together, whether they spoke French or En^^lish. From Edward's time dates the revival of the glories of England's host, which has seldom since allowed thirty years to pass without some dought}" deed of arms, achieved beyond our borders ; for there were but few quarrels at home henceforward. Now it was, as I said before, that a number of warlike French \ise national, and hence nation has encroached upon foUc. Hundreds of other good old Teutonic words are in this plight. 534 O^^ and Middle English. romances were Englished. The word adventure^ brought from France, was as well known in England as in Ger- many,^ Onr j^er aventiire^ having been built into the English Bible centuries later, is likely to last. Old Teu- tonic words made way for the outlandish terms glorij, renoivn, victory, army, host, cJiarn/pion. England was be- coming, under her great Edward, the most united of all Christian kingdoms ; the yeomen who tamed Wales and strove hard to conquer Scotland looked with respecfc upon the high -bom circle standing next to the King. "What was more, the respect was returned by the nobles : we have seen the tale of the IsTorfolk farmer at page 471 ; and this, I suspect, could hardly have happened out of England. France has always been the country that has given us our words for soldiering : from the word casteJ, used as a military word in 1048, to the word ^mitrailleuse, brought over in 1870. Englishmen of old could do little in war but sway the weighty axe or form the shield- wall under the eye of such Kings as Ironside or God- Avine's son ; it was France that taught us how to ply the mangonel and trebuchet. We have always been a war- like, but never a military nation.^ ^ Our word adventurer seems to be sinking in the mire. A lady told me not long ago that she thought it unkind in Sir Walter Scott to call Prince Charles Edward ' the young Adventurer.' Thus, what Lut sixty years ago described a daring knight, now conveys to some minds the idea of a scheming knave. It is a bad sign for a nation, when wort Is that were once noble are saddled with a base meaning. We shoiild bestow some attention on the changed meanings of the Italian pcxiiitentia and viriux. 2 The Editor of Sir John Burgoyne^s Life, in 1873, complains of the poverty of the English military vocabulary, when he talks of a IfU'oad of French Words into England. 535 The kniglits were, moreover, the great patrons of Heraldry, which is altogether French in its diction ; it was an object of interest to all who laid any claim to nurture ; the lion couchant, or, argent, &c., must have been in the months of every low-born man who aspired to gentility, and tried back for a family. The French poem on King Edward's siege of Carlaveroc bears witness to the cultivation bestowed on this science in England.^ The nobles long clave to the French : I have already quoted Robert of Gloucester's lines about England's high men speaking one tongue in 1300, while her low men spoke another. After 1307, Piers of Bridlington compiled in French his long Chronicle of English history. In 1310 Master Rauf de Bonn compiled another Chronicle in French, at the request of the Earl of Lincoln. About 1332, a prose Chronicle, also in coup dc main and an attaquc hruaquee, Vol. II. 346. Even so late as 1642, wo were forced to call in French and German engineers, at the outbreak of the Civil Wars. I am sorry to see that the rank of Cornet Joyce and EnMcpi Northorton has been swept away ; we are hence- forward to talk of sub-lieiite?iants. Why should English History and Literature be so mauled ? * When describing war, ev^n poetry must use French words ; as in Byron's piece, that begins thus : ' Warriors and chiefs, should the shaft or the sword Pierce me when leading the host of the Lord.' Our naval terms are very different from this. But not long ago, I saw the crew (as Nelson called it) described by the British penny-a- liner as the * personnel of a vessel.' Oiir seamen were of yore stout heart and sound of limb ; they are now said to be ' conspicuous of for their morale and physique.' Hcec ego non agitem 1 53^ Old and Middle Efiglish. Frencli, was put forth, and was called ' The Brute ; ' of this many copies still exist. ^ The Scala Cronica was drawn up in French prose by an English knight, about 1362. Still later, the courtly poet Gower made bis first attempts in French, and most of the letters of Henry the Fourth are written in this language. Many of the Guilds all over the land drew up their laws in French ; as was done at Bristol in 1416.^ There is a French poem on the death of York, the father of Edward the Fourth, in 1461. The fashionable tongue was hard of dying in our land. For many years did French and English run on side by side. I have already remarked on what we owe to the collectors of the literature of the day. Of these, the most praiseworthy of all are the scribes that flourished in the Evil Sixty Years, the men that drew up the Cotton Manuscript about 1240, the Jesus Manu- script about 1260, not to mention Layamon's second transcriber. Between 1290 and 1440 some well-known English manuscripts were compiled : the Digby, Laud, Ashmole, Harleian, Auchinleck, Vernon, and Thornton compilations are famous names. I would here call attention to the Harleian Manuscript, drawn up rather before 1320. The compiler travels over the foregoing sixty years, and sets down Latin, French, and English poems alike with impartial pen. In some of these works the three vehicles of English literature jostle each other. Thus we have a Hymn to the Virgin : ' See Mr. Skeat's Preface to the Havelok, vi. xiii. 2 English Gilds (Early English Text Society), p. 286. Inroad of French Words into England. 537 Mavden moder milde, oiez eel oreysoun, From shome thou me shilde, e de ly malfeloun. For love of thine childe, me menez de tresoun. Ich wes wod and wilde, ore sit en prisoiin} A lady of more earthly mould is thus described : Ele est si bele et geute dame egreyia^ Cum ele fust inipcratonsjilia De heal semblant etpulcra continencia Ele est la flur in onini regis curia. Indeed, it seemed as if no English bard could do fair justice to a lady's cliarms, without a copious sprinkling of words drawn from the fashionable language of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. I take the fol- lowing from the same Harleian Manuscript ; lieo is what we now call she : — Heo is dereworthe in day, Graciouse, stout, and //«//, ' Lyric Poons (Percy Society), pp. 97, 65. Another manuscript {Old English Miscellany, 194) has the following: Of on hat is so fajr and hrijt, veUid maris stella, Brigter J^an )>e day-is ligt, parens ct pueUa, Ich crie to )>e, I'ou se to me, Levedi, prey )>i sone for me, tarn pia, pat ic mote come to )>e, Maria .' 538 Old and Middle English. Gentil, jolyf &o the jcii/ • • • » Heo is co7'aI of g-odnesse, Heo is ruble of rihtfulnesse, Heo is cristal of clannesse, Ant haner of healte, Heo is lilie of largesse, Heo \?> i)arvenke of j^^'ouesse, Heo is solsecle of swetnesse, Ant lady of lealte.^ The same Frenchified style is applied to the descrip- tion of the feasts and the amusements of these fair ladies and theii' lords ; we read as follows, in the Havelok of the year 1280. The heneysun is said, and then the guests see before them Kranes, swannes, veneysun, Lax, lampreys, and god sturgun, Pyment to drinke, and god clare, Win hwit and red, ful god plente. • • • • ■ Of J)e metes hidde I not dwelle, pat is f»e storie for to lenge, It wolde anuye |)is fayre genge. Afterwards, men might see pe moste joie ])at mouhte be. • • • • • Leyk of mine, of hasard ok, "Romanz reding on ])e bok. Per mouthe men here pe gestes singe, pe gleymen on ]}e taboiu: dinge.^ 1 Lyric Poetry, p. 52. - Pp. 47, 65. Inroad of FrencJi Words into England. 539 The old hwistlere now began to be called a minstrel. The singers of gestes, since 1220, had followed French rime, and had forsaken the Old English alliterative rhythm. In a poem of about 1230, sixteen lines running end in the sound ede or eden ; this is clearly an English imitation of one of the poetical effects, upon which the French bards prided themselves, as is well known. In the Havelok, fifty years later, nineteen lines end in the same sound ede ; lines 87-105. A vast number of French words must have been brought in by translators, simply to help themselves to a rime ; thus, in the Horn of 1280 : ])e stones beo|) of suche grace, )>at ])u ne schalt in noue place, ^'vrc. — P. 17. • ■ • • J)e kni-i;tes ^eden to table and Home ;?;ede to stable. — P. 1 7. • • • • hi gonue me assaile, mi swerd me uolde faille. — P. 18. It is the same in the Floriz and Blancheflur, of the same date : — ])e porter is culvert and felun, for|> he wule setten his resun, and here upon ])e felonie, and segge J)at ])u art a spie. — P. 60. We further read in this poem : — J>anne sede ])e burgeis, ])at was wel hende and curtais. Leaving the Minstrels, we pass on to other ministers to the pleasures of the great. The Tristrem, translated about 1280, abounds in words of hunting ; in pages 33 540 Old and Middle EuglisJi, and 34, we learn all the technical names for the parts of a stag, when cnt np ; in p. 165 we hear of the houaire knight, who bides Tepaire in the forest, who began chaci an hart, and blewpms. Our sire and dam, now con- fined to horses, are a relic of this age ; also a trace of birds. In 1280, it is hopeless to expect anything but French when the amusements of noblemen are set forth ; in p. 170 of the Tristrem comes this stanza: So it hefel acas, In Seyn Matheus toun, That a fair fest was, Of lordes of renoun : A baroun that higbt Bonifas Spoused a levedi of Lyoun ; Ther was miebe solas, Of al maner soun, And gle ; Of minstrals up and doun, Bifor the folk so fre.^ The technical terms of games of chance, like Chaucer's cinJc and treye, belong to the French-speaking class. ^ Cookery is a science that has always commanded the attention of the great ; indeed, it was as important a business in their eyes as war or hunting. Several of the French words used in this art may be read in the Lay of Havelok, who himself served for some time as a swiller of dishes: we here find ]jastees, wastels, veneysun, and many other terms of the craft ; our common roast, boil, * Contrast this •with the intense Teutonisni of Mr. Swinburne and Mr. Morris "«-hen riming 600 years later. - Our tre^'kee-ps more to the true old Vowel sound than the modern French troia, just as our deuce preserves the old sound of deux. Inroad of French Words into England. 541 fnj, hroili toast, grease, hraiun, larder, bear witness as to which race it was that had the control of the kitchen. We have spoken of the Lady, the Knight, and the Friar; we now come to the Lawyer.^ The whole of the government was long in the hands of the French-speak- ing class. Henry the Second, the great organiser of English law, was a thorough Frenchman, who lived in our island as little as he could ; the tribunals were in his time reformed ; and the law terms, with which Blackstone abounds {peine forte et dure, for instance), are the bequest of this age. The Roman law had been studied at Oxford even before Henry had begun to reign ; and Canceller was one of the earliest foreign words that came in. The Legend of St. Thomas, drawn up about 1300, swarms with French words when the Constitutions of Clarendon are described ; and a Charter of King Athelstane's, turned into the English spoken rather earlier, shows how many of our own old law terms had by that time been supplanted by foreign ware.- Our barristers still keep the old French pronunciation of their technical word record; the oijez of our courts is well known ; when we talk of an heir male, we use a French construction ; we do not begin, but commence an action at law. A bard of 1220, (' Old English Miscellany,' p. 1Q) ' Those •who administered the law wpre either churchmen or knights, - Kemble, Cod. Dip. V. 23-5. AVe here find grantye, confirmye, and custnrn.es. We are therefore not surprised to learn, that few or none in 1745 could explain the old English law terms in the Baron of Bradwardine's Charter of 1140, ' saca et soca, et thol et theam, et infangthief et outfangthief, sive hand-habend, sive bak-barand;' these had made way for French terms. 542 Old and Middle English. sets before us the playdurs, so keen in their red and green garb, men who give unright dooms ; for this they will suffer in the next world. We get another picture of the lawyers in 1280 ; there is the old fellow, who is the best sire; his clerkes, who pink with pen upon parchment, while they hreve a man. Then there are somenours (hence the proper name Sumner), who are the plague of the parish ; priests come to the County Court and boast of their privilegie from the Pope. Evil deeds are done at the cliajoitre and the constory ; this is the writer's experience, * seththen y pleicle at bisshopes pZee.' ^ In the Floriz, of the same date, we hear about — Felons inome hond-habbing For to suffre jiigement, Bijmte answere o])er acupement. — P. 70. The stately word Parliament is French, while King is Teutonic. The same rivalry may be seen in Lords and Commons, knights of the shire and burgesses, aldermen and 'mayor, horough and city. Since 1660, French has replaced Latin as the general language of diplomacy, and has therefore given us many new words and idioms, that would have astonished Bossuet as much as Dryden. We must now return to the clergy, who did not confine themselves to preaching ; all the lore of the day was lodged in their hands. Roger Bacon's life sets before us the bold way in which some of them pried into the secrets of Nature. One of the means by which ' Polifical Songs (Wright), pp. 156-159. Is there a pun here on the English j)lay and the French plaidcr ? Inroad of French Words into England. 543 tliey drew to themselves the love of the common folk was the practice of medicine; in the friars the leper fonnd his only friends. To these early forefathers of our leechcraft we owe a further change in onr tongne. There are many English words for sundry parts and functions of the human frame, words that no well-bred man can use; custom has ruled that we must employ Latin synonyms. The first example I remember of this delicacy (it ought not to be called mawkishness) is in Robert of Gloucester, writing about 1300. When de- scribing the tortures inflicted by King John on his subjects in 1216, and the death of the Earl Marshal on an Irish field in 1234, the old rimer uses terms borrowed from the French that he was translating, instead of certain English words that would jar upon our taste. ^ But a leech who flourished eighty years after Robert's time is far more plain-spoken, when describing his cures, made at Newark and London.^ Indeed, he is as ' On this head there is a great diiference between Germany and England. Teutonic words that no well bred Englishman could use before a woman may be printed by grave G-erman historians. See Von Eaumer's account of the siege of Viterbo in 12-i3, Gtschichte dec Hoheiistaufen. Of course I know that this does not prove Ger- mans to be one whit more indelicate than Englishmen ; custom is everything. * John Arderne's Account of himself Reliquia: AntiqtKB, I. 191. Charles II. was the best bred Englishman of his time, yet he writes to his sister: — 'Poor O'Nial died this afternoon of an ulcer in his (juts! — Curry's Civil JTar.s ia Ireland, I. 308. So swiftly does fji-shion change ! The amusing Life of the Rev. P. Skclton was pub- lished so late as 1792 by a worthy Irish clergyman ; still, this con- tains many phrases at which our more squeamish age would cry out. Boswell used a term struck out by Croker forty years afterwards. 544 Old and Middle English. little mealy-mouthed as Orrmin himself. It was not, however, until very late times that 'pers'^ration replaced in polite speech the English word akin to the Sanscrit 5i?ecZa, or that 1)611]) was thought to be coarser than stoiinaGli. The leeches, like the lawyers, knew very well what they were about when they couched the diction of their respective crafts in French or Latin, far removed from vulgar ken. A sad picture is drawn in the Cursor Mundi, about 1290, of the diseases of King Herod : — pe parlesi (palsy) has his a* side. one In his heved he has ]?e scall, pe scab overgas his bodi all. • • • • * Wit pe crache him tok ])e scurf, pe fester thrild his bodi thurgh, pe gutte (gout) ])e potagre es il to bete,^ " "^end It fell al dun intil his fete. Over al ]mn was he mesel "^ plain, ° leper And ])arwit had fever quartain ; Ydropsi held him sua in threst.^ So early as 1220, we read of the desjyntinge of scole- maistres in the Legend of St. Katherine. The best English scientific treatise of this Century is ' The Pit of Hell,' printed by Mr. Wright ; it deals with the shaping of the human frame. It is strange to contrast 1 Cursor Mundi, p. 678. As to the last evil, ydropsi,- M\hic had called it watcr-sichiess, when describing the same event. I may remark, that the common folk always talk of a doctor, but would be puzzled by the word leech, used l>y Scott and Byron. This is one of the few^ instances in which a Teutonic word commends itself more to the high than to the low. Inroad of French Words into England. 545 the diction found here with the obsolete English of a treatise on Astronomy, put forth three hundred years earlier, and printed in the same book of Mr. Wright's. A Poem by the author of the ' Pit of Hell ' gives us a peep into Oxford life in the days of St. Edmund the Archbishop ; we are first told, that he forgat not his oreisoun for no studie, ne for ]w^t of lessoun ; he soon undertook arithmetic, though he was not a Cambridge man :— Of art he radde six ger continuelliclie ynouj. And si])]'e, for beo more profoimd, to arsmetrike be drouj, And arsmetrike radde in cours, in Oxenford wel faste, And his figours drouj al dai, and his numbre caste. Arsmetrike is a lore pat of figours al is, And of draugtes as me drawej) in poudre and in numbre iwis.^ ^Ifric had employed some Latin terms in his day, but he would have been astonished at the number of these that were flowing in, could he have come to life again about the year 1300. Science in our land has always held fast to foreign words. The Old English liyge (mens) had given birth to many compounds ; none of these seem to have outlived Layamon's day. Science spurned the Teutonic and clung fast to the French and Latin. We are even driven to borrow the French savant, to express ' a man of lore ' in one word.^ A * lAfe of St. Edmund (Philological Society), pp. 76, 77. 2 When the savants unbend in the evening, after a Congress » they go to a Conversazione. Nothing proves the utter barrenness of English social life more than the fact, that we have had to borrow this Italian word. N N 54^ Old and Middle English. Social Science Congress would slindder if anthropology or 'biology were to be Teutonized. We now find it pretty- easy to understand the Clironicle or the Gospels of the year 1000 ; while King Alfred's Translation of the Pastoral Care is stiff reading indeed. This is because the changes wrought in the Thirteenth Century were peculiarly hostile to the Old English terms employed in philosophy and deep theology.^ Architecture was another craft in which the clergy took the lead ; Alan de Walsingham by no means stood alone.^ English w^ords were well enough when a cot or a farm-house was in hand ; but for the building of a ^ It would Le easy, I think, in our day to write a book on Meta- physics, wherein there should not be one Teutonic Noun or Verb, except am, is, shall, and such like. But it is hard to see why Natural History should resort to foreign terms, which seem chosen on purpose to confine this study to those who know Latin and Greek. A child in the National schools repeats like a parrot words Hke rodents and graminivorous ; he would at once attach a clear idea to gnawers and grass-eating. Our beautiful old English names of plants and flowers have been supplanted by Latin words ; arboricul- ture is one of our latest gems. Any man, who would Teutonize the name-system of certain sciences, would play the part of a sound English patriot. "We have made a beginning; compare the plain-spoken works on English History, which are now selling by thousands, with the bombastic stuff that was in vogue twenty years ago. The prig and the pedant wail over the change ; but our nation, taken as a whole, is much benefitted. Why should not other branches of knowledge be promoted to the level of History ? I have seen it remarked that children are no fools, but that their teachers very often are fools. Dickens, in one of his works, draws a good sketch of Mr. Macchokemchild, an inspector of schools. - The clergy were also great engineers in war, as we read in the accounts of the Crusades against the Albigenses and Eccelin da Eomano, The renowned Chillingworth wanted to play the same part at the siege of Gloucester in 1643. Inroad of French Words into Englatid. 547 castle or a cathedral, scores of Frencli technical words had to be called in : at Canterbury, WilHam the Eng- glishman doubtless employed much the same diction as his predecessor, William of Sens. Indeed, the new style of building, brought from France more than a hundred years before the time of these worthies, must have un- folded many a new term of art to King Edward's masons at Westminster. The iij)flor of Glastonbury Church, which beheld a mournful scene soon after the Conquest, has long since taken the name of triforium. In our own day, the great revival of Architecture has led to a won- derful enlargement of diction among the common folk ; every working mason now has in his mouth scores of words, for the meaning of which learned men forty years ago would have searched in dictionaries.* In the Cursor Mundi, the Tower of Babel is said to have been built Wit tile and ter, wituten stan, Oper morter was j'er uan ; Wit cord and plum ]iai wroght sa hei. They thus imagined their work : I rede we begin a laboure And do we wel and make a toure, Wit suire and scantilou sa even, pat may reche heghur ))an heven.^ The Tristrem had already employed more than two hundred French terms of war, hunting, law, leechcraft, ' Our words used in painting, sculpture, and music, come fronx Italy, not from France. '' P. 13G. N N 2 548 Old and Middle English. religion, and ladies' dress ; but the inroad of foreign words was to continne. About the year 1290, we find Church- men becoming more and more French in their speech. Hundreds of good old English words were now lost for ever ; and the terms that replaced them, having been for years in the mouths of men, were at length being set down in manuscripts. The Life of a Saint (many such are extant, written at this time) was called a Vie} In that version of the Harrowing of Hell which dates from the aforesaid year, the transcriber has gone out of his way to bring in the words delay, commandment (this comes twice over), and serve : all these are crowded into five lines. Still more remarkable are the few and short Kentish Sermons, translated from the French about the same time, 1290.^. Never were the Old and the New brought face to face within narrower compass. We see the old Article with its three genders, se, si, ]^et (in Sans- crit sa, sd, tat), still lingering on in Kent, though these forms had been dropped everywhere else in England. On the other hand, we find about seventy French words, many of which, as verray, defeiiden, signifiance, orgeilus, commencement, were not needed at all. When reading the short sentence, ' this is si signefiance of the miracle,' our thoughts are at one time borne back to the abode of our earliest forefathers on the Oxus ; at another time we see the fine language of the Victorian penny-a-liner most clearly foreshadowed. After 1290, we hardly ever ^ Long before this, the Legend of St. Juliana begins, ' her cum- sC^ (commence'^) }>e vie, &c.' In this piece Caldcy stands for Chaldaea. 2 Old English Miscellany, p. 26 (Early English Text Society). Inroad of French Words into Englmid. 549 find a passage in which the English words, now obsolete, are more than one seventeenth of the whole ; ^ the only exception is in the case of some Alliterative poem. This fact gives ns some idea of the havoc wrought in the Thirteenth Century. It was to translators in Edward the First's time (this cannot be too often repeated) that our New English owes its present Frenchified guise. I shall now give two passages from the Carsor Mundi, which will show, first the motive of the average translator, and next, the flood of outlandish words brought in by him.- pis ilk bok es translate Into Iiiglis tong to rede, For the love of luglis lede (people), Inghs lede of Ingland, For the commun at understand. Frankis rimes here I redd, Comunlilc in ilk sted, Mast es it wroght for Frankis man ; Quat is for him na Frankis can h' Of Inglaud the nacion, Es Inglis man ])ar in commun ; pe speche pat man wit mast may spede, Mast ])arwit to speke war nede ; Selden was for ani chance Praised Inglis tong in France ; Give we ilkan ]iare langage, !Me think we do ]'am non outrage. ' We must count only the Nouns, Verbs, and Adverbs. 2 "We may remark how this Yorkshireman clings to the rightful old Frankis, -which had been pronoimced French in the South, ever since Layamon's time. The Northern poet even turns the foreign charge into cark. — P. 1314. 550 Old and Middle English. To laud and Inglis man I spell pat miderstandes Jmt I tell. — P. 20. Our poet thus bears witness to the fact, that there was much poetry in the England of 1290, but that this poetry was all in French, unless some one took pity on the lewd folk and translated for their behoof. Of the effect of these translations the following is a specimen. I have underlined the French words, which form more than one third of the Nouns, Verbs, and Adverbs: — A saimipul her be paem I say, pat rages in ])are riot ay ; In riot and in ricjolage, Of all ]'ere liif spend j'ai ]'e stage ; For now is balden non in curs, Bot qua ]mt luve can paramurs ; patfolg luve ]>at vanite, pam likes now nan o|?er gle ; Hit neys hot fantum for to say, To day it is, to morn away, Wyt chaunce of ded, or chaunee of hert. — P. 10. This is a Yorkshire poem, and the passage alone is enough to overthrow the theory of those who hold that French made great conquests in the South of Eng- land, but did not much affect the North. Fifty years later, the Northern Hampole has thrice as much French in his prose treatises as his Kentish rival. ^ About 1300, the Southern translator of Bishop Robert's Chasfeau d' Amour states that we cannot all understand Latin, Hebrew, Greek, or French ; still every man ought to * There is a mass of French words, later still, in Barbour and Wyntoun. Inroad of French Words into England. 551 sing God's praises * wi]> such speche as he con leme.' The Bishop had written fifty years earHer : — En Roman z comenz ma reison, Por ceiLs ki ne sevent mie Ne lettrure ne clergie. This his translator adapts to the changed practice of a later day — On Englisch I chul mi resun schowen For him pat con not iknowen NouJ)er French ne Latyu.^ Much about the same time, another French poem was translated and enlarged, the Handlyng Synne, that we have already seen. By 1290, the mischief had been done ; we must not be hard on Colonel Hamley, or on Blackstone, or on the compilers of the Anglican Prayer- book, or on the describer of a fashionable wedding in the Morning Post, or on the chronicler of the Lord Mayor's feast, or on the Editors of the Lancet and the Builder, because they deal in shoals of foreign terms ; nearly six hundred years ago it was settled that the technical diction of their respective crafts must to a great extent be couched in French or Latin.^ There were about 150 Romance words in our tongue before 1066, being mostly the names of Church furniture, foreign plants, * Castcl of Love, published by Mr. Weymouth for the Philological Society, page 3. - It -was once my lot to treat of a code of law ; I find, on looking over my book, that at least one half of my Substantives, Adjectives, Adverbs, and Verbs deahng with this subject, are of Latin birth ; so impossible is it for the most earnest Teuton to shake off the tram- mels laid on England in the Thirteenth Century. 552 Old and Middle English. and strano-e animals. About 100 more Romance words a got the right of English citizenship before the year 1200. Lastly, 800 other Romance words had become common with our writers by the year 1300 ; and before these came in, many hundreds of good old English words had been put out of the way. Fearful was the havock done in the Thirteenth Century ; sore is our loss : but those of us who love a Teutonic diction should blame, not Chaucer or Wickliffe, but the foreign fashions of an earlier age. The time of King Henry the Third's death is the moment when our written speech was barrenest ; a crowd of English words had already been dropped, and few French words had as yet been used by any writer of prose or poetry, except by the author of the Ancren Riwle ; hitherto the outlandish words had come as single spies, henceforward they were to come in batallions.^ There was no Standard of English, accepted all over the country, from 1160 to 1360 ; and the proof of this lies ready to hand. Though the Cursor Mundi is mostly a translation from the French, there is one exception ; the matter from page 1148 to 1192 is copied from a Southern English poem. As the compiler of the Cursor says of this particular part, In Sotherin Englis was it draim, And turad it have I till our auu Langage o Northrin lede, pat can nan oi])er Englis rede. The Southern English original, compiled about 1280, 1 If any one wishes to divide English into two, not into three, parts, I think that 1270 would be the fairest point of division. Inroad of French Words into England. 553 seems to have perished ; but we may gain a good idea of what it must have been by comparing the two versions of the Assumption, printed in the ' King Horn,' pp. 44 and 75. The proportion of French words is here less than in the Cursor Mundi. The Southern version should be compared with the rather later Northern variation, for we may thus see how the tongue spoken on the Thames differed from that spoken on the Tees in 1290, when the great strife between the two kingdoms of Britain was about to begin. We have here an unu- sual privilege ; for, though Northern poems were often done into Southern English, the process was hardly ever reversed. The Old English lieo (ilia) had long vanished from Yorkshire ; the following Southern lines had therefore to be altered, even at the expense of the rime: * Alas, my sone,' seide heo, * Hu may ihc live, hu mav bis beo ? ' These became in Yorkshire, ' Alas, alas, alas,' said sco, ' How mai I live, how mai I be ? ' Southe)'n. Northern Translation. Wepe Grete No wunder nas Was na ferli Schal loky ]>e Sal ta kep to ]ie He wakede more Scho wok mar Kepte Keped pe whiles hi were To-quils J^ai lenged pu were ibore pou was bom Ne schaltu beo Tu mon noght be Belamy pou suet ami 554 Old and Middle English. Southern. Northern Translatiwi. Ihc Hdde j;e I prai te Into hire chaumbre Until liir cliamber lie bitraie]) He bisuikes Hem to amendy pam to mend pe devel pe feind pu ])oledest wo poii thold wa Wite hem pou kepe J)am He cliipede Scho cald To bio'.o^e To bii Jelde hit ^oii Foryeild it yuu Of ]>at ti])iuge O suilk bodes AVend ]m nogt pou part noght Nabbeth no drede Has ua dred No sorej schal come Na wa sal negh A\Tiei (where) hy be Qiiarsiim j^ai be What is pe ? Quat ails te ? The future Standard English, as we may clearly see,, was to follow blindly neither the Southern nor the Northern variety of speech, but was to look for her pattern to something that trimmed between the two ; the great step was to be taken rather later than 1290. If some dialect about midway between London and York were to come to the front, this would have the best chance of being understood all over England, in the South and the North alike. When we compare the two versions above, we must see that a Franciscan Chapter at Oxford or London, including brethren from all the English shires, could not well help having recourse to either French or Latin, if the business in hand was to be understood by all the members alike. ^ ^ When the Slavonians, from Carniola to G-allicia, met in Par- liament in 1848, they found it needful to use the hated German. Inroad of French Words into England. 555 I would here protest against a common habit of grammarians ; when they find themselves puzzled in English, they make the Norman Conquest answerable for anything and everything. In this way they account for the Teutonic guttural being suppressed in the middle or at the end of our words ; huxoin is one of the few that keep the sound of the old li (buhsom) in the middle. But the French speech, as we see in the Cursor Mundi, in Hampole, in Barbour, in Wyntoun, and in Dunbar, had quite as much influence in the North as in the South of our island. I would suggest that men who toil in a hilly country, such as extends from Derby to Edinburgh, are more likely to keep the hard rough sounds than are the easy-going dwellers in the rich level plains of Southern England.^ But it is curious that from 1290 downwards, the North lias always kept a far gi'eater proportion of old Teutonic words than the South has done ; Dorset must in this yield to Ayrshire. Yet the Scotch classic writers (as they are called), such as Hume and Robertson, had at least as much love for Romance diction as their Southern brethren had. The common folk in Scotland have kept the beautiful old form Zea/, a French word unknown in the South. Between 1220 and 1280 the new French words were but few; it was about the latter year that they were beginning to pour into written English. In the Havelok the old corune^ by which a priest's head had been meant, was now applied to any man's skull ; it is our crmmi. • Lord Brougham's name was sounded something like ' Brokham ' in the Yorksliire Dales long after 1800, as Professor Sedgwick tells us. 55^ Old and Middle English, In p, 26 the Erench tneifne stands for Jiov-seliold, whence comes menial. Darn, the French corruption of the Latin dowiimis, is in p. 70 ; it was prefixed, as Dan, to English names twenty years after this, and the title, used -of monks, lasted down to the Reformation.^ The female dame (domina) has been longer- lived ; Datne Leve comes in this poem, as Sir Ddward came twenty years earlier. The term mayster had hitherto been used as a title of honour ; at p. 35 it is applied to a kitchen- knave by a King. I remember, when a school boy, that we used to s'reet strangers with this title when asking a question : 'I say, master.' The Erench hiirgeys is encroaching on the English burgher, p. 40. At p. 79 comes the phrase to crie onerci. The word poure (pauper) here keeps its old French sound, for it rimes with Dovere (p. 5) ; there is also utrage. We hear, at p. 8, that a King dede sayse intil his hond al Engelond. It is easy to see how this French law term came into common use as a synonym for ca]jere. Storie appears clipped of the vowel that once began it, and Justice is used for a man in office as well as for a virtue. The Erench corruption of hceres was taking root in England, and was written eyr, just as we pronounce it. We see the origin of deuce in the line Deus ! lemman, hwat may pis be ? * A priest in Italy once told me the rule for the modern use of the word Dominus ; Ccelestem Bominmn, terrestrem dicite Bomnum. Bon is used in Italy, though not so much as in Spain. France talks of Bom Calmet, England of Ban Lydgate. Inroad of French Words into England. 557 The datheit, first found in Dorsetshire, is in constant nse. The old Interjection of sorrow, eala ]>cet! now takes a French form, Alias ! ])at he shal ferwith fare ! — P. 45. The French allaz, now helas, is often met with. In the poem on the Assumption, about 1280, space is used of time, not of place : ' give them space to amend,' p. 48. In the King Horn the French words are many, and some of them are forced into English idioms, as I me clute (p. 10) for I fear me.^ Sir is attached to words other than proper names, as sire hijng (p. 23). We see he is of age (p. 38) ; there is also scjuier, gravel, ivicl-ef, hitraie; the verb arrive is in constant use. We hear of a giant from Paynijme (p. 23), and of an oath hi Seint Gile (p. 33). We see gigoiir (violin-player) at p. 42; perhaps our jig comes from this. There are also cler, oste (hospes), porter, store. Another version of the Floriz and Blancheflur was compiled about twenty years after this time ; it is printed along with the other poems I have analysed, and begins at p. 101. ^ We have seen that in this Centuiy oi in English had the sound of the French ou or ou-i ; we now find it once more taking the sound of the French ai. At p. 106 the proper name Doijre rimes with fayre; soon afterwards the former is written Day re. The French oi was sounded like their ou-i in hoil, and like their ai in hi. The old coint 1 We may still hear doubt used for fear ; as ' I doubt you want a dose.' The French used it in this way. 2 In the second page of this we find faderlonde ; this long ago died out in England, but was brought over from G-ermany in our own times. 55^ Old and Middle English, (cognitas) about this time changed from the mdnt of Philip de Thaun to queint} The old faihle has given us two words, foible and feeble ; all three must have been formerly pronounced in the same Avay. In the Lyric Poems of 1280 the French words are many ; in p. 75 we see atsca'pen, a combination of the English cetstyrtan and the French eschaper. At p. 100 comes demjjned, a compromise between the English deman and the French damner. About this year, 1280, the two languages were beginning to mingle together. "We find expressions like make my pees (p. 100), hepe counte, p. 152 (Politicals.), commas a life,Y>- 202. There are also bailif, tax, lyaroshe, motim (ovis), crust. There is voucJisave, which stands alone, I think, as a combina- tion of an Adjective and Verb in one word. Fi7ie is used for a mulct, p. 202 (Political S.). Trotis (trowsers) may be found in p. 110 (Lyric P.) ; and douse, in p. Ill, is the French Adjective long afterwards applied to David Deans. Many new French words are seen for the first time in the Tristrem ; among them are the Nouns money , ^ In France the opposite took place ; for there the ou-i sound of oi has almost wholly driven out the e sound of oi. After this time on-i became ou-e in the Fifteenth Century and ozc-a in the Sixteenth. The oldfei/ (fides) lost its old sound and became fou-e, fou-a, and fo-a. Palsgrave, in 1530, tells us that droit and victoire were pro- noimced as droat and victoare. Frangois (the name of the nation) keeps the e sound of oi; Frangois (the name of the Saint) keeps the ou-e, oti-a, sound. Eoyau7ne, however, as Littre tells us, was pro- nounced rk-o-m by some even so late as the Seventeenth Century. On the other hand, even in 1830, Lafayette sounded roi as roue, imitating Louis the Fourteenth and Louis the Fifteenth. See Brachet, Etymological French Dictionary, LIX. Inroad of French Words hito England. 559 -quarter, harher, usher, present, lodge. Pain is found by the side of the English pine : there is also the French 9i€vou (nephew), which has now driven out the Old English tiefa and the Scandinavian neji, at least from polite speech. The Old French had two corruptions of scandalu/ni ; these were escandle and esdandre ; the former, with its head clipped, appears in the Ancren Riwle ; the latter is first found in the Tristrem under the form of slaunder (p. 123). Both of these foreign forms have thriven among us ; and I see that some of our fine writers have lately taken a great fancy to the form esdandre. Mariner is found ; it is one of our few French-born words that are more poetic than their English synonyms ; courser and selle stand on the same level ; the most earnest of Teutons would not, I think, object to the phrase ' Land of the Lea?.' Cattle killed at Martinmas for winter provision are still called 'inarts in Scotland; in our copy of the Tristrem this is written nnartirs (p. 32) ; it was a word that the transcriber did not understand. In p. 112 vertu is used for potentia ; we still say ' by virtue of this.' The French word cuntre had already been used by us for patria ; it now stands for popuJus ; in p. 148, we hear that tlie cuntre was y-gadred. A few years later, the word was further to stand for rus. At p. 92 we hear that a blow no vailed hotoun (button). The Adverb prest (cito) appears (p. 183). The Verbs yo^e7^ (enjoy), croise, ivage (wager), and depart (sunder) appear ; also bisege, where the English Preposition has been set before a French root. We hear of a fourched tre ; here a French word has the English Participial ending in ed fastened on. We first 560 Old and Middle English. see saunfaijl at p. 51, and we then, find, at p. 128, the French Preposition set before an English word ; san scliewe ; this usage lasted down to 1600 ; tyiaugre had been treated much in the same way. The oath DatJief . is in constant use. There is a new idiom in p. 20 : alias that ich (ilk) ivhile, like Chaucer's alas the day ! The was used only before a Vocative in Layamon ; it now becomes an exclamation, and no case need follow : thou slough (slew) Moraunt (p. 166). We see in the Tristrem, even more than in the other English works of 1280, how the compromise between French and Teutonic, henceforth to prevail in our land, was being carried out. The decay of our mother-tongue, that had being going on for sixty years, was now at last to be arrested. ^ In the Poem on the Body and Soul, the remarkable French words are caitif, and slave, opposed to maister, p. 336. The latter word had hitherto been usually a synonym for doctor. There is 'iiies (epula), and sise, which was generally written asise. I have already remarked upon the many new French words to be found in the Kentish Sermons ; ive hie^ i-entred into &c. is a curious idiom. We find ti'ojvail, divers, asoil, desever, move, ensamjjle, verray. Cors (cor- pus) lasted in this form to 1600. There are both jjaens * Scott, in adding a few stanzas to the Tristrem, was hardly so happy as when he imitated the old ballads in his rimes on the field of Harlaw. I will point out a few words and forms used by him which could never have been found in Yorkshire in 1280 : different, jprcpare, keildom, she tvas sent for, he layne (jacebat), sole (anima), flore (flos), tare (lachryma). The Active Participle sayling could not have been used in Yorkshire. Inroad of French Words into England. 561 (pagans) and Painhae whence comes our Paijnim. ^ The French word umhle is first found in p. 30 ; it is odd that this word should first appear in Uriah Heep's shire. When we borrow French Verbs with an Infinitive in ir, we form our new words from the Active Participle in issant; avo find^emsi, not per ir, (perish) in these Homi- lies ; in the next Century the doubled s was to become sh. Our distortion of these Verbs in ir is most curious. In the Herefordshire Poems of 1290, we see the French for the first time encroaching upon English numerals ; a doseyn of clog gen (p. 239, Political Songs.). Jolyfis applied to a lady (p. 52, Lyric Poems), and seems here, following the French, to refer more to her mind than to her body ; our jolly girl may be derived from this. The French jolif is said to come from the Yide of the conquerors of Normandy ; a few years later, we shall find the/ clipped. We see bealte (p. 53, do.); this re- presents an old hellitas; the word had been hitherto unchanged in England since the Xorman Conquest, but in the Twelftli Century, hel in some provinces of France A\as replaced by biau. This new form came to England ; the French an had the sound of their present 02/, for about this year 1290 we find heiite Avritten as an English word in Yorkshire ; eive stood with us for the French e-au (aqua) : long afterwards, about 1660, heau (ho) came to England, representing a third French sound of the Latin hell us ; the e in the French word was no longer pronounced, having been dropped after ^ The q\(\. paganu6 lasted down to 900 in France in the shape of jpagicns. 562 Old and Middle English. Beza's time.^ When we say, 'Mr. Bellamy has the bewi^y of a beau,' we bear witness to the fact, that three different French corrupt sounds of hellus have been brought to England in three different ages. Beaulieu in Hampshire is still called Beivly; Beivfort smd Meivs were written in England for Beaufort and Meaux down to 1470 or so. With this series of varying forms, we may compare our treat, trait, tract; leal, loyal, legal; candle, chandler, chandelier; gentle, genteel, Gentile.^ The Cursor Mundi is plainly a translation from the French, Bot, the French tnais, begins an Imperative sentence abruptly, in p. 1036. Quat is used to English the French que, in p. 940 ; quat yee er a felun folk ! Three hundred years later, this appears as ' what a felon folk ye are ! ' The French form Marz, not Orrmin's Marrcli, is used for the month. There are shoals of French words in the poem. We sometimes find them with an English prefix, as unmesur, nnresun, un^jes ; our astray is seen as strai in p. 394 ; there is also a-trott, p. 906. The French ess was coming in as a suffix ; we find leoness in p. 708. But the Old English endings were tacked on to French roots, as in faithless, clearness ; there is also faithful, tresunful ; over is prefixed to a French root, as overpas. The Greek Verb -ending ize, which had come through Italy to France, is now seen in England, where it was to form so many new Verbs in ' See Littre for the word beaio ; the Picards still sound hieute and hiaiite. 2 These different forms of one word seem to be most attractive to Englishmen; a worthy man, a novice in classic lore, has lately- put forth in print the verb dediccate. not being satisfied with deduce and deduct \ Inroad of French Words into England. 563 the Ninoteenth Century. At p. 18 we hear that Jesu haptist Johan, and that the latter was named the hajytist', we also find evangelist. The Teutonic learning (admonitio) is altered into ivarnissing, p. 1254, but only in tbe York- shire copies ; this is a confusion with the French giiarnlr^ garnir, and seems mere affectation. The imprecation ■da\>eit is seen, but was not to last much longer ; the three later copies throw it out. The old hal and sund (such was our love of Alliteration) becomes sauf and sond in p. 454; in p. 1348 men see God face icitface. The word sir now stands alone by itself, as in p. 590. We find the English corruption of dominus^ upon which I have already remarked; in p. 762 St. Matthew is called Dan Levi. There is both the old Petre and the new Peris (Piers) in p. 764. We see Dinis and Amhros, names of Saints. There is Simo7id instead of Simon, in p. 804, a curious way of rounding off a word ; it has left its trace in the proper name Simmonds. We see both Lazarus and the French form Lazar. Amons^ French words used about 1290 in Yorkshire, but not understood elsewhere, are canels (canals) , p. 114,/rm/cA-e- lain (dominus), p. 312, which is opposed to thain (servus) ; pelf (our pilfer), p. 356. The Substantive pelf came to stand for property, just as the Americans use the word plunder. At Lincoln is a place called the Grecian stairs ; we see the source of this in p. 608, where a flight of stairs is called a grece. In p. 123G we find ))e dai \>e mande ; hence Maunday Thursday. In p. 1246 we hear of the defend tre (forbidden). To hall (dance) was not understood out of Yorkshire (p. 754). We see the form atend in p. 1248, though this wa* o o 2 564 Old and Middle English. commonly written tend or tent in Yorkshire. The Verb cujAe had been used in England ; but we now first find the ISTonn, p. 584. The French save is used forproe^er; in p. 1116 we hear that all fled, sauve ])e a]postels. The French Verb sacrer gave us the Participle sacrid, p. 1116, which we have come to look upon as an Adjec- tive. In p. 1142 we hear that God regards not man's per sun ; this is what the irrosopon of the Greek Testa- ment expresses ; we now often use ^person for corpus.. Centurion becomes centener in p. 1140. The French venin is turned into venim (venom), p. 1204 ; just as the old Teutonic snacc (fishing boat) has been by us turned into smack. There is a curious French idiom in p. 1340 : ' they should have sorrow, es '^ar na dute; ' we should now simply say, oio doubt. In p. 1322, a man makes mend.es (amends) ; amendment is also found. We see two forms of one Adverb, in certes and certainlik, St. John is called in p. 634, a ivel godd pece ; we still speak of a man as ' a piece of affectation.' We were losing our English names for ' the Five Wits,' which we now call senses ; in p. 650 conies the phrase, * he had his tast toclied of the Holy Ghost.' The word caitif aj)pears again ; it was quite a JSTorthern phrase. We now use quantity in rather a loose way, as ' a quantity of goods ; ' this is first seen in p. 712 ; ' we sal it lengh (lengthen) a quantite ; ' the two last words must here mean somewhat. The French part had already appeared ; we now find, ' tell ])am, o mi parti ' (on my behalf), p. 736. The verb grudge had two meanings : one Intransitive, tnurmurare, which was to Hnger on in common use for three Centuries after its first appearance Inroad of Fniich Words into England. 565 in the Ancren Riwle ; ^ tlie other Active sense, that of invidere^ which we still keep, now first appears ; in p. 760 conies ]>air helincj groclied he ]^mii nogld. The French verb dam2) (damno) was replacing the English deme, as in p. 788. The word travail stands for jjartu- ritio as well as for lahor ; Rebecca's peculiar fravelling is described in p. 206, while in p. 212 we hear that life seems travail to an old man ; this word seems to have got confused with trouble in later times. In p. 200 wc first meet with the phrase ' to lose countenance ; ' the Noun was new in England. Country had before this been used for patria and looimlus, it now stands for riis ; in p. 250, Potiphar goes into the contre. We find a common idiom of ours in p. 910 ; ]?e time ivrts past inid- night; in the later copies over is inserted before the last word ; we now use pas^ like a Preposition. The French onarclie is here preferred to the English mearc ; and targe, common to both tongues, is pronounced in the French way ; see p. 574. Pinion stands for pinna.cle in p. 744. There is maumentri in p. 1258, the word for superstitious juggling, borrowed from the great Arabian; this lingered in England for 300 years. The form onalcdiglit (cursed) is an ingenious attempt to fit an English ending to a French word ; the French des is altered into English "inis in p. 858, where mismay comes instead of desmay. The technical word for metre, lastune, appears in p. 854. There is a curions attempt to turn a French ending into a kindred English ending, ' This old sense is kept in our Bible: 'grudge not against one another, Lruthren.' But grudge, where Tyudale used it in this sense, has been often struck out of the Bible hy the men of 1611. 566 Old and Middle English. wlien servand is written for servant, p. 738. In p. 876, Christ washes his disciioles' feet, and bids them bear with one another, sin I has ]>us-gat servicl yuu. The serve here seems to partake of both the meanings that we now apply to the Verb ; servire and tractare. In the earliest Yorkshire copy, we come upon spite, p. 890 ; in the other copies it is the old dispite ; we here get a hint of the quarter whence many of our clippings have come. In p. 896 spirit appears as spreit. On reading the line, to-quils he lai in orisun, p. 892, we see how the old French oreisun had to undergo that thoroughly English habit, the throwing back the accent to the third syllable from the end. The old homlr is pronounced honnr, line 66Q7. It is curious that ^tp is coupled with the French word liver (tradere), liver his maister up, p. 908 ; since that time the np has been placed after many other Verbs, in the Scandinavian way. Sometimes an English and French Adjective, with the same meaning, are coupled together ; as his aim propur might, p. 1074. We see quarner, p. 1096 ; in the three later versions this is altered into corner, the form that we still keep. In p. 1252 stands ' do ]>air dever ' (duty). In p. 442 comes ' hepaind him to make ' &c., and in p. 1358, ' we will do v.r pain-,' hence our 'take pains to;' but the French peine usually in England bore a harsher meaning than that of labor. There is another attempt at a Middle Verb, repentes yow, p. 1094. We hear of King Arthur's 7^onde tahell, p. 8 ; it was this that made round so com- mon a word that it even became a Preposition, and drove out the old nmhe (amphi). We find the jDhrase do justice, and also the Passive Participle ]>e baptist, *the Inroad of French Words into England. 567 baptized.' In hrek to pes, we see a foreign word brought in to get rid of the Old English compound to-hrek ; the North parted with these compounds long before the South West did. In the Havelok, the jjzeces of this phrase had been represented by the English grotes (fragmenta). Among other new French words are found prolong (prologue), prient (print), duhul (double), fable, fun- nel, archer, dinner, forest, odor, purveyor, tassel, force, simple, ribodi (ribaldry), page {puer, a word unknown, it seems, in France before 1200), nece (niece), cosing printiz (prentice), faciun (fashion), still (style), pas (pace), stanh (tank), monument, tenur (ienov^, par cliemin, visage, mesel (leper), litter, poudre, flourish, daunt, front, affair, allow, meschive, fortune, mer (mayor), handun (abandon), try, mace, lege lord, in vain, special, diademe, enterwal (interval), hrai, ahoiiive, surfeit, grievance, range, vice, principal, respite, valley, titel, square. Idiot is in the earliest copy alone ; in the three later ones (p. 600) the word, though at the end of a line, is changed into fole, and the other line is altered, so as to rime with the new word. Noah is ordered to have a luardropp (ward- robe) in the Ark, p. 104. A French word and an English word are coupled in term-dai, p. 1230. It is rather strange to find so pronounced a Latin form as auctorite, p. 123(5 ; but this form lasted in France down to 1600, though Palsgrave says that the c was not pronounced. Tyndale has the same form. Among French words made familiar to us by rehgion are, supplanter, santuare (sanctuary), propiciatori, sub- stance, respond, tasJc, testament, stature, conficnd, creatur, sesun, provide, concord, savour, vengeance, buels (bowels), 568 Old and Middle English. conceive, errour, avocat, organ, lamp, covenant, receive, violence, confirm, vessel, ravish, translate, transfigure, crucifij, faint, victory, honest, reherce, supper, remis- siun, resurrecciun, naciuyi, convert, restore, ascension, langage, puplicane, dampnaciun, multiply, condemn, descend, dissenciun, discord, sauveur (saviour), matter, avail, conquerour, enchanter, afiiiction, U7itment (ointment), promission, conclude, communli, genelogi (genealogy), elements, scripture, govern, ordain. The sacrament of haptim, a form that lasted with us down to the Reforma- tion, comes in p. 730 ; ^ the form seems to show that the French now no longer pronounced the s, which they always wrote in haptesme. We find also in this piece the Verbal Noun haptiszing, p. 734. We see ahime (abyss) in p. 1286. The old Cristendom makes way for the new French form cristianite, p. 130. Clergie means scientia in p. 488 ; we know our ' benefit of clergy.' But it takes another meaning, and stands for the Latin clerici in ^. 1236. Pharaoh's host mount cartes when they chase Israel, p. 360 ; but the French chare (chariot) is also employed, as in p. 302. As to the French words in the Percival and Isum- bras, the most important is our common just, used in the sense of right, even; in p. 11 comes his hode icas juste to his chynue ; it is curious that just should be found in this sense before its meaning of e^it//?/ appeared in Eno-land. The new words found in the Tristrem, ^ Littre does not give a French instance of the contraction bap- temc earlier than Bossuet ; the s seems always to have been inserted, at least in writing. I think that the Cursor Mundi is the earliest evidence as to the loss of the French s in pronouncing the word. Inroad of French Words into England. 569 -peml (pertinere) and hisege, are liere repeated. There are also paw and cushion, I think for the first time. Raije (rex) is in p. 8 ; the form roy was often nsed in Scotland down to the Reformation, but never took root in Southern Engl :;nd ; egle (aquila) is in p. 103, though the old earn made a long fight for existence, even in the South. A man is said to pray enterely (in good earnest), p. 106; hence the Irish 'I'm kilt entoirly.' Mercy is Tised in the sense of benejicLiim, p. 89. The word travel, as we saw in the Cursor, was being hard worked in the North ; the travellande man (viator) is first seen in p. 38. We hear of a imyte (watchman), p. 4/ ; the Noun is not yet extinct in England. The French w^ord study now stands for deep thotigJit ; in p. 66 comes ' (he) wanne owt of study.'' Fail takes an accusative : the Sarazenes faylede hym, p. 117 ; certeyne is used as an Adverb, p. 74. The French words in Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle abound, as was natural under the circum- stances. We see the French ante A^Ti-itten aunte, as we still write the first vowel : there is also auniperoiw. We now began to talk of Germanie and Saxonie ; in p. 162 we are told that the former land is Alimayne ; there is also Grece and Gasconye. We hear in p. 441 of the Abbey of Fonteynes. What w^e call Brittany is Brutayne in p. 459. We see both Beaumond and Beulu. King John's Abbey ; the latter word is in p. 493. I have already pointed out that the old sound of the Norman ■ean (ew) has not yet left the name of this Hampshire place. Chateiv is in p. 113. The oi is used to express the French e as well as ou. Hence arose endless confusion ; 570 Old and Middle English. we see creyserie for a derivative of the Latin cru-cem ; all this comes from the French having used oi to express two diflPerent sounds.^ We see prey e (praeda), p. 270 ; the French wrote it proie, and corrupted their old sound of this word, while we English keep the true pronuncia- tion. Ijstrange loses its first letter in p, 510. The Latin aer now appears as eyr. In verdyt, elit, and cors, which are all found here, we have inserted Con- sonants since Robert's time, preferring the Latin to the French form. The foreign loroijos becomes forpos (pur- pose), p. 558. The regn (reign) in p. 254 follows the French closely. In the forms Feverer and Jenyver (pp. 399, 408) Robert sticks closely to his original; there is also Jim. Robert Courthose is called quarry in p. 412, showing how the French once pronounced their present carre. The Fitz, so common in our proper names, is seen as Fiz, p. 551. The form messinger, with the n in the middle, is found in p. 128. Robert was the first man who dated in English from the ' year of grace.' A fashion is seen of rolling French and English words into one, as Courthose, pecemele ; but we must remember that gem-stone came long before the Norman Conquest. There are compounds like liauteness, va^itward (vanguard), a peyre liose, p. 390. Peace is freely used : ' make his pes,' p. 57, ' sit in pes,' &c. Peer is treated like a Substantive, as in Philip de Thaun's work : ' find here pere ' (their match), p. 103. ' Pyte yt was to ' &c., is in p. 305 ; in the same page we first hear of a 'poer (power) of folc,' like Virgil's canum vis. In ^ About 1530, one of Tyndale's friends was known as Joy, Jay, and Gee, showing that oi was then still pronounced as ay in England. Inroad of French Words into England. 571 ' no manere harm,' p. 359, an of is dropped before the last word. English asserts its growing terseness, even in translating ; the Northern men had a similar form, nakin harm. There are such very French forms as sous- prior and Sink Pors, p. 515 ; these are called in p. 51 \>e fyf jportes. The clos and the street are coupled in p. 7 ; Scott heartily loved the old term. Our modem penny- a-liners are trying to replace liotisehold by menage ; they may fairly appeal to a passage in p. 183. The word routier had an awful sound in our fathers' ears ; in p. 297 it becomes voter, and Tyndale writes it r utter. A well-known legal term comes in p. 517; an eire qfjustize goes about. In p. 528 we hear of the commune (com- mons) of the Oxford clerks. Among* the Adjectives we see jpur hlind, where yur answers to the old clean ; jpure dene comes in p. 434. We know Scott's ' ge^itle and simple '; the latter word is seen as humilis in p. 95. The French form of nescius is seen as nyce in p. 106. In p. 549 certain men ' hold themselves defensahle,^ that is, defend themselves ; hence comes our word Fencibles, clipped in the usual English way. This Adjective has an active, not a passive meaning, which is rather uncommon in words ending in able or ihle. Certain is used for quidamj not for certus, in p. 107 : hij certeyn messageres. The Verb fail governs an Accusative, p. 195, as in Yorkshire. The old Teutonic o'ber is now replaced by secitnd, a wonderful change, p. 414. The Teutonic adverbial ending is added to French roots, as pitosliche, feinteliclie, sodeinliche. In 515 we see our common scarseliclie (vix) ; enjin is translated 5/2 Old and Middle English. atte fine, p. 27 ; for ]m cas ]mt is a new way of Englisli- ing quia ; we are not far from hecause. There are new words like metal, concuhme, desinse, alied to, gransyre, oUigi, Partement, maim, fosse, haneret, cirurgian, mescliance, comfort, suit (of clothes, p. 191), collar, sou;ple, spicer, soveryn, tailor, chair, glose, sauf condut, lihel, tresjpas, carijenter. There are phrases like ' marry my daughter to a bachelor,' p. 30; 'have some colour of right,' p. 313; ' to be in company,'' p. 429 ; ' to amend such maners,' p. 533; 'to make 'wardens of Frenchmen,' p. 550; 'to compass a thing,' p. 109. Milton has a famous passage in his ' Areopagitica ' about an eagle muing her youth ; this French corruption of mutare is seen here in p. 550, where wardens of castles are iremewed (changed). In the Lives of the Saints (Philological Society), the French Proper ^ames come in ; such as Jahe (Jacques), Lucie, and the town of Athenes (Athens). An Archbishop elect speaks to certain messengers as leau freres, p. 82. A child addresses its mother as ma dame, p. 40. There are also the words uncle, percTie, 7:evercliief, fisicien ', this last word Tyndale used instead of leecli. Gontrai men stand for agricolce in p. 44. In p. 52 comes hi cas (by chance). In p. 76 a threat is made wi]y so gret eir\ hence, ' give himself great airs.' ^ The French jo??// is used as we now employ Jo% (l^etus), in p. 46. There is a piling up of the Comparative sign * Aire was used for manner in France in the Eleventli Century. It is strange that this meaning could ever come from the Latin aer ; Littre lias a long note on the point. Inroad of French Words into England. 573 in nohlerere (nobilior), p. 55 ; they could not as yet quite understand liow to make foreign words run smootlily in English. In p. 78 St. Edmund loses his bodily power, but has all his thoughts dehjvre ; this Adjective came to stand for the Latin liher, and it may have influenced our use of clever. We see a French Participle appear in p. 41 ; a man is repentant of his deeds. In p. 78 the French Verb iise supplants our own hrucan; {frui is the kindred Latin word). St. Ed- mund iisede our Lord's flesh (the Eucharist). In p. 117 a man wishes ' to parie an apple.' In the Legend of St. Brandan (Percy Society) we find herhs (a word afterwards much used by Tyndale), qtteor (choir), grape (uva), instead of the old ivin-herry^ p. 19. This seems to be the true old French phrase, now supplanted in France by raisin ; Littre quotes sane de grap)e (vinum) from a piece of the Twelfth Century, In p. 23 comes, ' have a good case of us.' In the Treatise of Science, belonging to the same manuscript, the new French words are qnalite, ocean, deserve (no longer ofserve), a hare's /or??i6. In the St. Margaret (Early English Text Society) come tourmentz, take cmisail., be in oreisons, hoil, vile, upe (at) his coust, entente, thou hast no part wip me, signe of \>e croiz ; in p. 26 crie and grede are found side by side. In the Becket of the same manuscript (Percy So- ciety), we remark thai in 1300 we pronounce use much as we do now, for it is there written yuse, p. 23. So, in this Severn country, eivt was written for 02iht. Tirant, p. 36, takes the intruded t at the end. The personce 574 Old and Middle English. ecclesice, mentioned in the Constitutions of Clarendon 130 years earlier, now appear as ])ersones, p. 124 ; ]jerso7ie is used for cure in French poems of that Century. We see accounts, lay fee, advowson, maner (manor), liold in chief, asoil, distrain, loardon, Uanlvet, in 'prejudice of him, profession, oJeggi, surance (assurance). There is the renowned peraventure, p. 91, which Tyndale has made immortal ; also the oath ijarde, p. 106. There are phrases like ' pay his court,' p. 11 ; ' do us grace,' p. 69. In p. 61 is the cry merci ! standing by itself. In the one page 31, St. Thomas calls himself both warde (custos) and wardeyn of the Church. In this poem, we can watch the change in the meaning of words ; a clerk is iproved for felon in p. 85 ; a son proves (evenit) evil, in p. 121.^ In p. 110 blood runs al round ahoute the Saint's head ; this is a mixture of Romance and Teutonic synonyms. In p. 21 St. Thomas promises to keep, the laws, ' sauve oure ri^te ; ' in p. 105 this Past Participle is turned, as it were, into a Preposition ; ' I love no man more, saufhis fader.' A new idiom for the Future Participle was coming in ; in p. 40 we see he ivas upe the poynte to he icast ; about to implied intense earnestness ; it could not express the bare Future until two hundred years later. In the Alexander, the chief French words are/mV?/e, ' JekylUs rimes, punning on three different words, are well known ; when Garrow, in Court, was in vain trying to badger an ■ugly old woman into the admission, that a legal tender had been made : ' Garrow, forbear ; that tough old jade Will never ^rore a tender maid' The meaning of the word ^rove slipped from p'ohare into -prohari, and then into evenire. Inroad of French Words into England. 575 snjour, ai)iblant (of a horse), heef and onotoun, p. 218 ; honie (bonny) londis, p. 161; reirwarde, p. 317; per- J^orce, gardin, terrene, the remenaunt, launche, p. 156, distingnished from the other form launce in p. 71 ; the kyngis persone, p. 305 ; he cerfeijn, give asaut ; dei'eworth is making way for preciotis, when jewels are mentioned. We have seen how round was coming in ; it now began to be used as a Preposition, ' this is round the mydell erd,' p. 29. In the Life of Becket, this takes an Enghsh prefix, and becomes around, hke a strai. The French saunz, so well known to Shakespere, is used in saunz fayle. The word pes (peace) is used much as an Interjection in p. 315. Romance Verbs imitated their English brethren ; thus, 'they huth passed over a water,' p. 87, is clearly copied from the Teutonic idiom, ' he is gone over,' &c. In the Handling Synne, the French form heaute takes in English the form heute ; see p. 394, where they stand side by side ; this is another proof that the French eau was once pronounced as they now sound iou. "We see the English tendency to contract, when parslie (parish) appears in p. 123 ; the French word to be translated was parochiens. The word parsone (clericus) comes in the French original, p. 152. The French deaherie (diaconus), p. 275, becomes deliene. In. p. 100, escharni}' is Englished by sewn, the word used by Orrmin a hundred years earlier. In p. 30, les tempestes cesserent is translated by tempest secede ; we have long confounded the sound of c with that of s. In p. 109 we see how liquid Consonants run into each other : What sey je, men, of ladvys pryde, pat gone traylyng over syde ? 57^ Old and Middle English. This in the French is trainant ; thus Bononia became Bologna, and Lncera was sometimes written Niicera. Our language is richer than the French, since we have both trail and train ; the latter is seen in Norfolk in 1440. The destresse of Robert of Gloucester here becomes stresse, p. 89, and this form appears in Norfolk 140 years later. The tie in defend is clipped in p. 231, where fende appears ; hence our fenced cities. French words, like their English brethren, underwent clipping in the Danelagh ; enticer becomes tyse in page 4. The r is thrown out, when pallesye (palsy) is written for ^aralysy, p. 370 ; again in p. 342 sacristan is written sehesteyn, whence comes sexton. The French Verb chaustier is sometimes translated chasty, but in p. 152 it becomes chastyse, without any need of rime ; this must have come from seeing the word written chasti-ijen ; the 5 (our 7/) was mistaken for a z ; Orrmin had already done this. There are new words like orryhle, ^rojperties, tene- me^d, prayere, renoun, 'morsel, tryfyl, usurer, valeu, a fair, affynyte, dy sport, pompes, vycary (vicar), p. 860, esquay. mous (squeamish), moreyne (pestis), pestelens, affray (tumultus), cztstomer (solitus), p. 273 ; i^^'overh, enter- hide, dance, carol, creme, abasched, hutch. Age stands for senectus in p. 239 ; it was to drive out eld for many years. Our bard finds it needful to give long explana- tions in English rime of the strange words mattoh, sacrilege, and miner (pp. 31, 266, and 381). There are phrases like on al manere (by all means), p. 62 ; oute of resoune, p. 71 ; tnahe mention of, p. 324 ; mahe hym \)6 mowe, p. 125, whence comes the phrase ' make mouths Inroad of French Words into England. 577 at me,' in our Prayer-book ; ^ ' revers to holijnes,' p. 3i3 ; ' yn comune,^ p. 322; ^ assoil a man clear,* p. 360; ^ go Jiome a gode ikls (pace),' p. 322; ^ crye yyw mercy, ^ p. 275 ; ' Gode is of huge suffraunce,* p. 302 ; ' hioiu for certeijUj* p. 265 ; ' "^yue lytel fors of liynij' p. 318 ; an exact translation from the French, though we now sup- plant fors by account ; the former word was in this sense to last down to Udall's time. The fashion now begins of conferring the masculine gender upon French Substantives ending in e or ie ; Byron, Bryant, and Longfellow, have continued this custom ; Robert speaks of Charyte as he, in p. 469 of my Book. The old word syf ernes is dropped, and the kindred French word sohrete is translated by soherte, our sobriety . In p. 149 nycete stands for folly ; it was soon to get the farther sense of wantonness, which it never had in France. In p. 56, joly stands for riotous ; yf a man he of joly life. In p. 228 there is a piling up of French and English synonyms ; on many maner dyvers ivyse. In p. 273 en le qem' is turned into yn ]>e c'haunsel. We find our county court in p. 276, where the French seculer plaij cum est cunte, is turned into lay court, or elles counte. In p. 75 the word jparty gets its modern meaning : pys aperyng, yn my avys, Avaylede to boj'e pai'tys. In p. 229 single is opposed to married; simples horn is Englished by sengle knave. In p. 152 assyse stands for a trial before a Judge ; it had borne this sense in France ' This is a good example of the confusion between a Romanc& and a Teutonic word. P P 57^ Old and Middle English. in tlie Twelfth Century. In p. 359, (jeste seems to add tlie meaning of ^ocus to that of historia ; the Magdalen laughs neither for game nor for geste. In p. 108, we learn that women set their hearts on being called Ma- dame or Lady; ' wurdys of wurschyp.' The Sir was freely used; we hear of Sir Simony, pp. 173-174; 'J^e parysshe prest Syre Robert,^ (the first instance of this clerical title of honour in English), p. 285 ; it was to last for 300 years. In p. 840 stands Syre Symahus the Pope ; in p. 345 folk are said to wed for the love of Syre Kateyl (propputy, propputy) ; in p. 363 the poet tells of his own experience, in reproving sinners : — Some sey, as y have herde, * A ! Syre ! so sinnej? alle ])e worlds.' In p. 224 we further hear of Seynt Charyte, a phrase that lasted down to Shakespere's time;^ in p. 149 charyte stands for alms, as in the French original ; la charite luy enveia. The word clerc is used, not of a priest, hut of a notary, in p. 180. An English ending is fastened on to a French root in the case of largeness, p. 219, and ^Aty fully, p. 49. In p. 72 we see the unhappy French word, which has driven out the true English afeard, at least from polite speech. Fu tant affraie is there turned into he was a frayde.^ In this poem we further see the French peyne driving out the older pine. ^ Tyndale, p. 21, not far from the end of Vol. II., has to defend his philology from More's attack, and so gives all the senses borne by charity in lo30 ; the whole passage is "well worth reading. He mentions ' sweet St. Charity.' "^ In Isaiah Ivii. 11, comes, 'of whom hast thou been afraid or /eared ? ' Inroad of French Words into England. 579 We find new Verbs like discumfyte, ])ele (spoliare), deyn, Mcppose, aim (sestimare) , revyle, tremle^ master (vincere). A child is daunted (dandled), p. 154 ; hair is dressed^ p. 136 ; Tve come upon to atnount unto synjie, p. 141 ; * quit thee well,' p. 296, though the Verb here means no more than liherare. In p. 95 we see a sense that has long been given in England to the French touch, * to speak of ; ' ?/ to^ichede of ]yys yclie lake. In p. 325 we light on the old cover de (convaluit) ; and in p. 222 we see the new French form recovere. In p. 352 comes ]wu shalt liaste hyt, a trans- lation of the French transitive verb. There are both verement and verryly ; the first in its foreign adverbial ending points to mind, the second in its English adverbial ending points to lie (body). In p. 323, we see the beginning of what was to become a well-known English oath — * Ye/ he seyde, ' yraunte mei'cy.^ In the Medytacyuns of the Soper of oure Lorde, the new French words are real (verus), devoutly, array, carry, accept, iwyme. Dame is used of a hen, p. 10; we now make a great difierence between dame and dam. The Vocative seres, our sirs, comes in p. 27. Preise had hitherto meant laudare in England ; in p. 11 it stands for CBstimare ; we now express this meaning of the Verb hj prize or appraise. In p. 13, a French Past Participle takes the English adverbial ending ; avysyhj (advisedly). In p. 11 the meaning of the Latin quia is expressed by hy cause ]>at, an improvement on the Gloucestershire for \e cas ]mt. In p. 29 comes the sentence, ' the others p p 2 580 Old and Middle English. Tbore all, save his mother bare his hand ; ' no tliat comes after the save ; and Horace's excejjto quod, &c. is thus pared down in English. ' Be of good comfort,^ is in p. 35. I again return to the Handlyng Synne, for I have kept to the last the greatest changes of all that are found in that poem ; in p. 321 we find a French Active Parti- ciple doing duty for a Preposition : Passync/ alle ]'yug byt lia]> powere. Mandeville has ' passynge old ' ; and sixty years later this French participle was to be used like an Adverb ; later still, like an Adjective. Chaucer has 'he is a passyng man.' In p. 180 comes My body y take J>e here to selle To simi man as yn bondage. This bondage (called hondeliede in the Lancashire version of the Cursor Mundi, p. 314) is the fiirst of many words in which a French ending was permanently tacked on to an English root. I say permanently, for Robert o£ Gloucester had already coined the word reverye (spoliatio) to rime with rohhery, meaning the same, p. 193 ; but this, term was not employed later in England ; shrevjard had also come in 1264, being coined to rime with Edward ; but it never took root. We see lestagium (lading-toll) in a Charter of Henry the First's to London.^ A great change indeed was coming over England about the year 1300, from the Severn to the Humber ;. the old Teutonic sources of diction had been sadly dried ^ Stisblbs, Documents illustrative of English History, p. 103. Inroad of French Words into England. 581 up, and could no longer supply all lier wants ; Germany was to have a happier lot, at least in speech. Nothing can more clearly set forth the inroad of the French than the following sentence, which is made up of words in the every-day use of the lowest among us : *In the mean time of course I immediately, at \ia\i jjast four, walked quite rouml the second of the walls, because jJer/mps it might have heen vei'i/ vfeidi, just as it used to he.' We should find it hard to change these foreign words in italics for Teutonic equivalents, without laying ourselves open to the charge of obsolete diction. England, too careless of her own wealth, has had to draw upon Franco even for Prepositions and Conjunctions. After reading such a sentence as the one above, we are less astonished to find words like face, voice, dress, floicer, river, uncle, cousin, pass, touch, pray, try, ylean, which have put to flight the commonest of our Teutonic words. Strange it is that these French terms should have won their way into our hovels as well as into our manor houses ! So barren had our tongue become by the end of this unlucky Thirteenth Century, that henceforward we had to import from abroad even our Terminations, if we wanted to frame new English Nouns and Adjectives. We were in process of time to make strange compounds like godd-ess, forhear-ance, odd-ity, nigg-ard, uplieav-al, starvation, trust-ee, fidfil-ment, latch-et, ivlinrf-inger, king' let, fish-ery, hehav-ioicr, tru-ism, love- able, whims-ical, talh-ative, slumbr-ous.^ What a falling off is here ! what a lame ending for a Teutonic root ! ' Let us keep happify at bay I The -worst compound I ever met 582 Old and Middle English. Desiiiit in piscem mulier formosa superne. We were also to forget the good Old English Ad- jectival isc or isli^ and to use foreign endings for proper names Ysk.^ Alger-iae^ Gael-ic, Syri-o.c, Chin-ese, Wyhelmnu ist, Wesley -an, Irving-ite, Vant-esqiie} Cromwell in his despatches talks of the Lincoln-eers. By-and-by French Prefixes drove out their English brethren, even when the root of the word was English ; we are now doomed to write emhoJden and enlighten, and to replace the old edniwian by reneiu. We keep the old mynan in ' mind you do it ; ' but mynegiaii has made way for remind. Mistrust has been almost wholly driven out by distrust. I remark a tendency in our days to substitute suh for under in composition, and non for un\ as sublet, non-jpossessive. We have happily two or three Teutonic endings still in use, when we coin new Adjec- tives and Nouns ; one of these is ness. It had English rivals in full vigour at the end of the Fourteenth Cen- tury, but they have now dropped out of use ; what our penny-a-liners now call inehriety might in 1380 be Englished not only by Chaucer's dronhenesse, but by Wicklilfe's drunhenhede, by Mire's dronhelec, and by with was moh'Ocracy . I half fear to point it out, lest the penny-a- liners should seize upon it as a precious jewel. What a difference does the Irish ending een make when added to sqtdrel In Miss Martineau's Life, Vol. III., we find such American gems as egg-and~ onilMsm, anti-amalgamationist. ^ In this last word the old Teutonic ending isc has gone from Germany to Italy, then to France, and at last to England. We get some idea of the influence Kome has had upon England, in various ways, when we find no less than four derivatives : Eoman, Eomish, Koraance, Eomanesque. Inroad of French Words into England. 583 G-ower's clrun'kGslie'pe} Our lately-coined yighecidedness and longwindedness show that there is life in the good old ness yet ; we should always write cuJvisahleness, promptness, exactness, not advisability, promptitude, exact- itude. The old er is well preserved in missioner; the common people call a Belgian a Belger. Such new Sub- stantives as Bumbledom and rascaldom prove that dom is not yet dead ; and such new Adjectives aspecJcisli and rubbishy show a lingering love for the Old English Adjectival endings. I have lately seen, not only ivordy, but viewy. There is a wonderful difference between a good book and a goody book. More than one Englishman might when a child have given ear to the first Franciscan sermons ever heard in Lincolnshire, and might at fourscore and upwards have listened to the earliest part of the Handlyng Synne. Such a man (a true NiBvius), on contrasting the number of newfangled Romance terms common in 1300 with the hundreds of good old Teutonic words of his child- hood, words that the rising generation understood not, mio-ht well mourn that in his old age England's tongue had become strange to Englishmen.^ But about this time, 1300, the Grenius of our language, as it seems, 1 Other roots, with all these four endings, may be found in Stratmann s Dictionary. - As to the speech of religion, compare the Creed at page 303, with the description of Charity at page 469 ; yet there are but sixty years between them. In later times, Caxton says that he found an amazing diflfereuce between the words of his childhood and those of his old age : Hobbes, Cibber, and Landor must have remarked the same, as to turns of expression. Language is so fleeting a thing, that it is wrong to talk of fixing it. 584 Old and Middle English. awoke from sleep, clntclied bis remaining hoards with, tighter grip, and thought that we had lost too many old words already. Their rate of disappearance between 1220 and 1290 had been most rapid, as may be seen by the Table in page 587 ; had this process been con- tinned at the same rate after 1290, we should not have had a single Teutonic Noun, Verb, or Adverb left by 1830, Some hundreds of these words were un- happily doomed to die out before 1520, but the process of their extinction was not speedy, as the same Table will show. After 1300, the Franciscans began to forsake their first love ; one of the earliest tokens of the change was the rearing in 1306 of their stately new London Convent, which took many years to build, and where hundreds of the hig-hest in the land were buried. It arose in marked contrast to the lowly churches that had been good enough for the old friars, the first disciples of St. Francis. Their great lights vanished from Oxford ; the most renowned name she boasts in the Fourteenth Century is that of their sternest foe. About 1320 they were attacked in English rimes, a thing unheard of in the Thirteenth Century. We now learn that a friar Menour will turn away from the needy to grasp at the rich man's gifts ; the brethren will fight over a wealthy friend's body, but will not stir out of the cloister at a poor man's death ; they ' wolde preclie more for a husshel of whete, Than for to hringe a soule from helle out of the hate.' ^ ^ Political Songs (Camden Society), p. 331. Churchmen, hxwyers, physicians, knights, and shopkeepers are all assailed in this piece. Inroad of French Words into England. 585 These rimes were written about the date of Wick- liffe's birth. Chaucer, rather later, brands the brethren as impostors ; and a bard sixty years further on prefers still worse charges against them.^ The Franciscans had by this time done their work in England, though they were to drag on a sluggish life in our shires for two hundred years longer. Curious it is, that the time of their fiery religious activity coincides exactly with the time of England's greatest loss in a philologer's eyes.^ Robert of Brunne began his Handlyng Synne, as he tells us, in 1303 ; he must have taken some years to complete it. We possess it, not as he wrote it, but in a Southern transcript of 1360 or thereabouts ; even in this short interval many old terms had been dropped^ and some of the bard's Scandinavian words could never have been understood on the Thames. The transcriber writes more modern equivalents above those terms of Robert's which seemed strange in 1360. I give a few specimens, to show the change that went on all through the Fourteenth Century : — Kohert of JBrunne, in 1303. JIis Tran- scribe)' about * 1360. Robert of Brunne, in 1303. His Tran- scriber about 1360. Gros Dred wlatys lo))e)) wede (insanus) made bale yn lowe lay]> sorow fyre foiile ' Let a freer of sum ordur tecum pernoctare, Odur thi "wyff or thi doughtour hie viilt violare. See BeliquicB Antiques, II. 247. 2 Happy had it been for Spain if her begging friars, about the year 1480, had been as sluggish and tolerant as their English brethren. 586 Old and Middle English. 'Robert of iris Tran- Robej't of His Tran- £7'unne, scribe)', about Brunne, scriber, about in 1303. 1360. in 1303. 1360. wry^tes carponters f^^i ende were kepe ])armys giittys mote (curia) plete mone warne ferly wndyr warryng cursing cele godly mysse fayle Ijyrde (decet) moste wonde spare estre touue dere harme yi-k slow teyl scorne mayu strenk]> tyne lese harnes brayn pele perche grete wepte myrke derke wliyle tj^me seynorye lordshyp yerue desyre rous proud wordys roiis boste ao^hte gode qued shrewe hals \ swyer J nek ay whore ever more VVLU'}) ])G most cuntek debate weyve forsake hote vowe gate wey ferde jede loJ)e harme ra])e sone lie nam he jede flytes chyde]> he nam he toke y-dyt stoppyd stoimde tyme syde long rape haste awe drede kenne teche dryghe suflfre tarne wenche wlate steyn Some of Robert's words, that needed explanation in 1360, are as well known to us in 1877 as those where- with his transcriber corrected what seemed obsolete. Words will sometimes fall out of written speech, and crop up again long afterwards. Language is full of these odd tricks. ^ It is mournful to trace the gradual Multa renascentur quae jam cecidere, cadentque Quae jam sunt in honore yocabula, si volet usus. Inroad of French Words into England. 587 loss of old words. This cannot be better done than by comparing three English versions of the Eleven Pains of Hell : one of these seems to belong to the year 1 260, another to 1340, another to 1420.^ Each successive loss was of course made good by fresh shoals of French words. Steady indeed was the flow of these into English prose and poetry all through the Fourteenth Centnry, as may be seen by the following Table. I take from each author a passage (in his usual style) containing fifty Nouns, Verbs, and Adverbs ; and this is the proportion in which the words are employed : — Old English Poetry, before 1066 Old English Prose, before 1066 . Orrmin and Layamon, about 1200 Ancren Riwle, about 1220 . Genesis and Exodus, Bestiary, about 12c)0 Owl and Nightingale, about 1240 Northern Psalter, about 1250 . Proverbs of Hending, about 1260 Love song (page 341), about 1270 ILivelok, Harrowing of Hell, about Kentish Sermons, about 1290 Cursor Mundi, about 1290 . Robert of Gloucester, about 1300 E-obert Mannino- in 1303 Shoreham, about 1320 Teutonic Words that Romance are noiv Words. Obsolete. • • 25 • . 12 • • 10 • . 9- tl230 8 — • • . 7 6 , . 5 , , 4 1 1280 . 4 2 • « 3 3 • . 5 5 • • 3 4 • . 2 6 • • 3 3 ^ Old English Miscellany (Early English Text Society), pp. 147, 210, 223. 588 Old and Middle EnglisJi. Teutonic Words that Romance are now Words. Obsolete. Auchinleck Romances, about 13c50 . 3 4 Hampole, about 1340 3 5 Minot, about 1350 . 3 6 Piers Ploughman, in 1362 2 7 Chaucer (Pardoner's Tale), in 1390 . 2 8 Pecock, in 1450 .... 1 10 Tyndale, in 1530 12 Defoe, in 1710 .... 17 Macaulav, in 1840 25 Gibbon (sometimes) 44 Morris's Sigurd (sometimes) 1 Robert of Brunne, tlie Patriarch of the New English, fairly well foreshadowed the proportion of outlandish gear that was to be the common rule in our land after his time. He has six French words out of fifty ; a little later Mandeville and Chaucer were to have eight French words of fifty ; this is the proportion in Shakespere's comic parts ; and it is also the proportion in the every- day talk of our own time, as may be seen in the dialogues of Miss Yonge's and Mr. Trollope's works. ^ We English are usually Teutonic enough in our careless ofi'-hand speech ; but the instant we prepare any prose to be printed, we scorn to tread our Teutonic mother earth with well assured step, and we hobble along, most of us ^ Only Nouns, Verbs, and Adverbs must be reckoned in these computations. As a general rule, these make up two-fifths of a sentence ; the other parts of speech (almost wholly Teutonic) make up the remaining three-fifths. Inroad of French Words into England. 589 very awkwardly, upon Latin stilts ; Dr. Johnson, not Defoe, then becomes our model. It may be, that the good example set by our poets, and the increasing heed bestowed upon the study of our noble tongue in all its stages, will in future years abate the Johnsonese nuisance ; ^ perhaps even our penny-a-liners and our Aldermen may learn good taste -. The Teutonic part of our tongue may be likened both to gold and to copper ; it is chosen by our poets, the best of all experts, as the noblest vehicle of thought ; ^ yet at the same time it is * One clever writer has lately attempted a defence of Dr. John- son's pompous style, saying that the sage drew distinctions as he drew his breath, and that he coidd not express these distinctions without couching his diction in Latin-born phrases. The answer ia most simple : ho drew distinctions with equal subtilty when he was talking, and ho expressed them in the homeliest Teutonic. He has had his reward : his Itamhlcr lies unread on oiir book-shelves ; his talk, as recorded by Boswell, is perused every year by thousands of delighted students. Any writer of our day, who has a mind to be read a hundred years hence, should lay the lesson to heart. ^ I wiis lately much amused by a passage in one of the penny papers ; the writer bade ' the gentlemen who are good enoiigh to watch over the purity of the English language ' consider, that our Teutonic words are mostly monosyllables, and are therefore very ugly. The British penny-a-liner, it would seem, does a service to the nation when he lugs in some long Latin word to express a simple idea. ' The minds of dull youths that thinJc ' is a poor and vulgar sentence to write ; the idiosyncrasies of tmintelligcnt adolescents that existimate, is of course a wondrous improvement. Monosyllables are no disadvantage; with them Shakespere and Milton produce most noble effects. The obnoxious words swarm in our version of Isaiah, perhaps the grandest pattern of English prose that we have. ^ I have in my mind Mr. Swinburne's 'Erechtheus' and Mr. Morris's • Sigurd the Volsuug.' These poems, in purity of diction, seem to go back six hundred years at least. 590 Old and Middle English, always being passed from hand to hand, as, it were, by seventy millions of our kin in their every-day speech. These ideas I hope to draw out still further in a future work. Examples of English. 591 APPENDIX. CHAPTER VIII. EXAMPLES OF ENGLISH. I. Etjnes ox the Ruthwell Cross, of abotjt the tear 680.^ (On-) geredae hiuae God almevottig ])a he walde on galg'ii gi-stiga modig fore (ale) men • • • • • (ahof) ic riicnae cuningc heafunoes hlafard hgelda ic (u)i darstse bismgerredu imgcet men ba 8etgad(r)e ic (w?es) mi]) blodoe bistemid • • • • • Krist woes on rodi Ii"we])rae |'er fiis?e fearran kwomii 8e|)|)il8e ti lanum ic ]>9et al bi(h)eal(d) s(are) ic wres nii(]7) sorgu(m) gi(d)r£e(fe)d * • • • • mi|> strelum giwimdced alegdmi bite hinse limwterignfB gistodduu him (oet) h(is l)i- caes (h)eaf(du)m Girded him God almighty when he w^oiild on g-allows mount proud for all men • • • ■ I heaved the rich king heaven's lord heel (over) I dm'st not men mocked us both together I was with blood besmeared Christ was on rood but there hurriedly From afar they came the Prince to aid I beheld all that sore I wa« with sorrows harrowed • • • • • with arrows wounded they laid him down limb-wearv the}^ stood at his corpse's head ' Stephens, Runic Mcmuments, I. 405. 592 Old and Middle English. n. Manuscript oe the tear 737, containing Lines by Cadmon.^ Nu scyliin hergan liefaeu ricaes uard metudaes maecti end his mod gidanc iierc uiildur fadur sue he uimdra gihiiaes eci drictin or astelidse He serist scop elda barnuni heben til hrofe haleg scepen tha middun geard mou cynnaes uard eci dryctin sefter tiadse firum foldu frea allmectig. Now must we praise heaven kingdom's Warden the Creator's might and his mind's thought glorious Father of men as he of each wonder eternal Lord formed the beginning He erst shaped for earth's bairns heaven as a roof holy Shaper then mid-earth mankind's Warden eternal Lord afterwards produced for men the earth Lord Almighty. ^ Bosworth, Origin of the Germanic Languages, p. 57. Examples of English. 593 III. The Eighth Psalm, froji the Northumbrian Psalter, C03IPILED ABOUT THE YeAR 850. Drybt', diylit' ur, liii wundurlic is noma Sin in aire eor'San, for-(^on up-ahefen is micelnis (Sin ofer heofenas, of muSe cilda and milc-deondra (Sii ge-fremedes lof. fore feondum (Sinum, Saet tSu to-weorpe feond and ge- scildend. for-6on ic ge-sie heofenas were fingra Sinra, monan and steorran "6a 6u ge-stea6iilades. liwet is mon (S^et ge-myndig Su sie bis, o36e sunu monues for-(5on 6u neosas hine 'i Su ge-wonedes liine hwoene laessan from englum, mid wuldre and mid are (Su ge-begades bine, and ge-settes bine ofer were bonda (Siura : all (Su under-deodes under fotmn bis, seep and oxan all ee ■Son and netenu feldes, fiiglas beofenes and fiscas saes, Sa geond-ga6 stige saes : Drvbt', drybt' ur, bu wundurlie is noma Sin in aire eor?ai'!. Q Q 594 Old and Middle English. TV. The Lindispaene Gospels, a.d. 950. Paeable of the Ten Virgins. — St. Matthew xxv. ] . Donne gelic biS ric heofna tewm lielistalclun, ■(Sa onfengon leht-fato heora ge-eodun ongeaen Sasm brydguma and ^asr bryde. 2. fifo nutetlice of Ssem weron idlo and fifo hogofeeste. 3. ah fifo idlo gefengon leht-fato ne gonomun oele miS Mm. 4. hogofeeste nutetlice onfengon oele in fetelsnm hiora miS leht-fatum. 5. suigo nutetlice dyde '8e brydgnm geslepedon alle and geslepdon. 6. niiddum nutetlice naeht lydeng geworden wses : heonn brydguma cwom, gses ongeen him. 7. (^a arioson alle hehstalde Sa ilco, and gehrindon leht-fato hiora. 8. idlo uutetlice 6am snotrum cuoedon : seles us of ole iuerre, for^an leht-fato usrse gedrysned biSon. 9. geonduordon hogo cuoeSendo : eaSe m^eg ne noh is us and iuh, gaas gewelgad to Saem bibycendum and bygeS iub. 10. mi66y uutetlice geeoden to bycganne, cuom 6e brydguma and 6a Se . . . weron innfoerdon mi6 him to brydloppum and getyned wses 6e dura. 11. hlsetmesto cwomon and 6a o6ro hehstaldo cueSendo: dribten, drihten, nntyn us. 12. so6 he onduearde cue6 : so61ice ic cuoe6o iuh, nat ic iuih. 13. wseccas for6on, for6on nuuto gie 6one dsege ne J^one tid. Examples of English. 595 V. The Rushworth Gospels, a.d. 1000. St. Matthew, Cliap. ii. 1. ^a soplice akenned wees Hselend ludeana in dagum Erodes j'ces kyninges, henu tungal-kraeftgu eastan quomon in Hierosolimam, 2. cwej>ende, hwser is sepe akenned is kining ludeana ? we gesegon so])lice steorra his in east-daele and cuomon to gebiddenne to him. 3. ]'8et })a geherde, soj'lice Herodes king w£es ofedroefed in mode and ealle Hierosolima mid hine. 4. . . . ealle aldur-sacerdos, bokeras J'aes folkes, ahsade heom hwasr Krist waere akenned. 5. hire ]>a cwa?don, in Bethlem ludeana, swa so|>lice awriten ])urh witgu, cwaej^ende. 6 uEenigtnnga l8es-a3st eart aldur- monnnm luda, of ]'e soj'lice gtej? latteuw se])e reeccet Isralicel. 7. Herodes dernunga aoaegde tungnl-kraef'tgum and georne geliornade aet ))a tid ])8es aeteawde him steorra. 8. sondende heom to Bethlem cwaep, gaej) ahsiaS georne bi Jiem cuEehte ]>anne ge gemoete]) hine saecgaS eft, |>8et ic swilce cymende gebidde to him. 9. pa hie pa ... . Sees kyninges word eodun jjonan, henu pe steorra pe hiee asr gessegon east-daele fore-eade hise oppaet he cumende bufan tSaer se cneht .... 10. hie geseaende soplice steorran gefegon gefea miecle swi])e. 11. ingangende ])a3t hus gemoetton pone cneht mid . . . forpfaDende gebedun to him . . . ontynden heora gold-hord brohtun lac recils muri*a. 12. andsuari onfengon slepe, hias ne cerdun . . . purh wege gewendun to heora londe. Q Q 2 Sg6 Old and Middle English. VI. (About A.D. 1090.) The Finding op St. Edmund's Head.^ Hw83t ]ja, 6e flot-here fevde ])a eft to scipe, and What then fleet-armament fared then again ship behyddon j^a^t heafod pges halgan Eadmundes on ])am. hid the head holy ■fiiccum bremlum, pset hit biburiged ne wurde. pa thick brambles buried should not be. sefter fyrste, sy6San heo ifarene waeron, com |)9et lond- a time after they gone folc to, ]>e ])£er to lafe pa wses, ]?£er lieorse lafordes lie left their lord's cor'pse bnton lieafde ]>a Igeg, and wurdon s^d6e sarig for his without head lay were right sorry slasgie on mode, and hure J^aet heo nsefdon j^set heafod to slaughter mind moreover had not ])am bodige. pa ssede Se sceawere, ]'e hit aer iseah, ])8et beholder erst saw ])a flot-men hsefdon j^^t heafod mid heom, and wees him toith them to him it i))uht, swa swa hit w^s fill soS, ])set heo hydden ];get seemed as true heofod on ]>am holte. For-hweega heo eoden J^a endemes However went at last alio to pam wude, saecende gehwaer, geond ])jfelas and everywhere through shrubs brymelas, gif heo mihten imeten J^aet heafod. WaBS eac if meet eke my eel wunder J^set an wulf wses isend, ])urh Godes ' Thorpe's Analecta, p. 87. He thinks that this is East Anglian. Here we see the Anglian diphthong cb at the end of words, just as on the Eiithwell Cross, four hundred years earlier. Examples of English. 597 willunge, to biwaerigenne ])83t heafod, wiS j^a ocSre deor, guard against ht-asts ofer dseg and niht. Heo eoden (Sa ssecende, and dai/ cleopigende, swa swa hit iwuuelic is ])8et (5a ]'e on wude calling customary those that gap oft : ' Hw&r eart ])u nu gerefa ? ' And him and- go governor swyrde ]'£et heafod : ' Her, her, her.' And swa ilome so often clypode andswarigende, ocSSet heo alle bicomen, j^nrh until came ])a clypunge, him to. pa Iseg ]je grsegas wulf |'e bewiste gray guarded J?8et heafod, ant mid his twam fotmn hgefde |>a?t heafod two feet bicljpped, gredig and hnngrig, and for Grode ne dyrste clasjnd paes hgefdes onburigen, ac heold hit wi5 deor. Da taste but held wurdon heo ofwundroden ])8es wulfes hordraedene, and became amazed at gwirdianship ]^3et hahge heafod ham feroden mid heom, j^ankende home carried }>ani Almihtigan aire his wundras, Ac ]'e wulf fologede for all forS mid ])am heafde, o^6et heo on tune comen, swylce toicn as if he tome wa3re, and wende seft sy55an to wude ongean. tame again Da lond-leodan ])a sySSan la3gdan ])^t heafod to J'am land- folk halige bodige, and burigdon, swa swa heo lihtlucost easiest mihten on swylce r^dinge, and cyrce arterdon onuppon such haste a kirk reared him. 5o8 Old and Middle English, VII. (A.D. 1220.) Anceen" RnvLE (Camden Society), 388.^ A lefdi was ]>et was mid liire voan biset al abuten^ lady foes and hire lond al destrued, and lieo al poure, A\a^innen she 'poor one eorSene castle. On mihti kinges luve was ])auli \y\- an earthen A however turnd ujDon Lire, so unimete swu^e ]?et lie vor wouli- boundless very wooing leccliunge sende liire liis sonden, on efter o5er, and ofte messengers, one somed monie : and sende liire beanbelet boSe veole and at once jeivcls many feire, and suknrs of liveneS, and help of his heie bird to supplies victuals army holden hire castel. Heo nnderveno- al ase on unrec- received careless heleas j'ing pet was so herd iheorted J>et hire Inve ne hard-hearted niihte he never beon ]?e neorre. Hwat wult tu more ? nearer He com himsulf a last, and scheawede hire his feire at neb, ase ]>e ])et was of alle men veirest to biholden, and face one spec swnSe sweteliche and so murie wordes ])et heo spake pleasant they muhten J>e deade arearen vrom deaSe to live. And might ' This is the only passage, of all the specimens in this Chapter, that was not written in the Anglian country, or that did not feel the Anglian influence. French words begin to come in. Examples of E7iglish. 599 wrouhte veole wundres, and dude veole meistries bivo- did, great works ren hire eilisih(5e, and scheawede hire his mihten : tolde hire of his kinedome, and bead for to makien hire cwene offered of al j'et he ouhte. Al ]>is ne help nout. Nes pis owned, helpednought. Was not this wnnderhch hoker ? Yor heo nes never wurSe vorte disdain to beon his schelchine. Auh so, |)nruh his debonerte, luve scullion But hefde overkumen hine pet he seide on ende, ' Dame, ]m had him at last ert iweorred, and pine von beo5 so stronge ]'et tu ne assailed foes meiht nonesweis, wiSnten sukurs af me, etfleon hore in no way escape their honden, ]>et heo ne don pe to scheomefale dea(S. Ich they chulle vor pe luve of pe nimen pis fiht upon me, and shall take aredden J^e of ham ])at schecheS pine dea^. Ich wot rid them ])auh for soSe j'et ich schal bitweonen ham underv'ongen must deaSes wunde, and ich hit wuUe heorteliche vorto ofgon win pine heorte. Nu, peonne, biseche ich pe, vor pe luve pet then ich ku6e pe, pet tu luvie me, hure and hure, efter pen show at least ilke dead deaSe, hwon pu noldes lives, pes king dude same since wmddst not in my life al pus, aredde hire of alle hire von, and was himsulf to wundre ituked, and isleien on ende. pumh miracle injured slain 6oo Old and Middle English. pauh lie aros from deaSe to live. Nere ]7eos ilke lefdi of Would not he vuele kunnes ktinde, jif heo over alle ping ne Inve him evil nature sprung her after ? pes king is Jesu Crist, Godes sune, ])et al o Jnsse wise wowude ure sonle, j^et })e deoflen heveden biset. And wooed our devils he, ase noble woware, efter monie messagers, and feole many god deden, com vorto preoven his luve, and scheawede jyrove })uruh knihtschipe ]>et he was Inve-wurSe, ase vs^eren worthy sumewhule knihtes i-svuned for to donne. He dude him sometimes wont do ine turnement, and hefde vor his leofmonnes luve his ladifs schelde ine vihte, ase kene kniht, on everiche half side i-])urled. pis scheld J'et wreih his Godhed was his leove pierced covered dear licome ]>et was ispred o rode, brode ase scheld buven in body above his i-streiht earmes, and neruh bineoSen, ase pe on vot, stretched narrow one foot efter J^et me weneS, sete upon pe oc^er vote. . . . Efter according to supposition kene knihtes deaSe me honge$ heie ine chirche his men hang schelde on his munegunge. Al so is |)is scheld, pet is, remembrance pet crucifix iset ine chirche, ine swuche stude pet me hit svx-h place sonest iseo, vorto penchen ])erbi o Jesu Cristes kniht- may see schipe pet he dude o rode. INDEX. tEiiglish words and k-tteis are here inserted in their most modem shape ; thus, which must be looked out, in order to find liwylc. Following this plan, I set down that a replaces oe, not that ce changes into «.] A A the Prefix, 15, 2U; it is , clipped, 81, 118,149, 188, 214, 320, 357, 387, 452; it is chauged, 160; it is droppea, 251 — replaces 6?, 36. 92, 105, 107. 128, 134, 147, 157, 158, 165, 189, 201, 214, 243, 244, 286, 311, 319, 332, 431 — replaces an in the Infinitive, .91 — replaces an in Nouns, 106 — replaces an as the Article, 155, 160, 163, 164, 424 — replaces e, 29, 286, 319, 338, 398, 422, 425, 431, 439, 499, 502 — replaces ea, 91, 94, 103, 104, 117, 127, 144, 164, 165, 214, 243, 254, 270, 311, 357 — replaces eo, 103, 105, 133, 147, 439 — replaces ^e, 118. 147 — replaces i, 249, 269, 398, 440 — replaces o, 190, 319, 398 — replaces of, 115, 277 — replaces on, 70, 71, 72, 104, 115, 182, 192, L'25, 244, 335, 382, 425, 453 ABL A replaces y, 398 — used as an Interjection, 72^ 421, 516 — stands for have, 287 — stands for he, 453 — stands for all, 400 — is set after an Adjective, 406 — its old sound in English, 28, 206, 502 — first sounded like French e, 30, 133 A better, 403 A few, 54, 58 A good man and a steadfast, 455 A hundred, 54 A hundred so much, 292 A letter more, 291 A little, 54 A man, 55, 428 A many times, 54 A sorry man was he, 404 A word or two, 407 Aliack, 157 Abaft, 71, 412 Aljece, a, b, c, 435 Aberdeenshire, 303, 318 Abingdon, 384 Able, the Eomance Suffix, 571, 581 602 Indc. A.. ABN Abuer, 76, 108 Aboon, 214 About, 149, 183, 413 About to, (standing for the Future), 378, 458, 574 Above, 5, 214 Abroad. 424 Abye, 450 Abyss, 568 Ac, the Eomance Suffix, 582 Accents, the Old English, 32, 88, 267, 502 Accord, 492, 497 Account, 577 Accusative, construction of the, 47. 5Q. 61, 123, 126, 130, 131, 146, 192, 219, 227, 246, 248, 268, 290, 291, 359, 409, 441 Acknowledge, 150, 269, 402 Acre, 3, 6, 206 Adam Bede, the Authoress of, 217. Sec Middlemarch. Adder, 440 Addison, 60, 228, 325, 457 Adjectival endings, 11, 12,221, 285, 581-583 ' Adjectives, 7, 13, 23, 24, 40, 41, 50, 70, 213, 307, 322, 324, 360, 372, 383, 505. See De- finite and Indefinite — uo longer agree in Number with Substantives, 145. 213 — used as Advei'bs, 116, 295, 386, 413 — coupled with a Participle, 262 Ado, 176. 387 AdowB, 96, 115, 295 Adventurer, 534 Adverbial Genitive, 8 Adverbs, 8, 58-65, 70, 71, 131, 285 — made Adjectives, 276 — made Prepositions, 333, 335 — formed from a Preposition,363 AIL Adverb formed from a Noun^ 413 Advisableness, 583 Advisedly, 579 M replaces a, 91, 107 — replaces ea, 145, 243 — replaces o, 91 — disappears, 134, 144, 243 — the Anglian diphthong, 213, 336 — the old sound of, 28, 30 iElfheah, 34 ^Ifric. 40, 56, 57, 72, 121, 122, 154, 155, 204, 266, 489, 509, 544, 545 ^schylus. 408 ^thelred. 187 Afar, 277 Afeard, 578 Afford, 179 Affray, 576 Afore, 71, 453 Afraid, 506, 578 After, 7, 68, 72, 232 — used as an Adverb, 70, 312 Aftermost, 8 Afterward, 176 Again, 71, 288, 433 Again-buyer, 526 Against, 60, 71, 81, 160, 164, 320, 332, 364 Agatho, Pope, 147 Age, the Eomance Suffix, 580 Age, 393, 576 Age of thirty, 414 Affhast, 253,' 256 Ago, 306, 332, 334, 344 Agog, 236 Aha, 416 Ai, the combination, 37, 107r 134, 157, 190 — replaces a, 319 ■ — replaces (sg, 157 Ail, 2(37 Index. 603. ATE Air, o7<^', 572 Ait, 252 Ajar, 175 Al, the Anglian for m/, 146 — is prefixed, 166, 183, 224,277, 292, 348 — is clipped in Scotland, 400 — the Romance Suffix, 08 1 Alamanie, Alimayne, 493, 569 Alas, 416. 516, 557, 560 Albeit, 277, 457 Alcuin. 89 Alderliefest, Alderbest, 290, 356 Alderman (a Prince), 219 Aldgate, 30 Aldlielm. 85, 500 Alexander, the Romance of, 112, 376. 387, 439-444, 464, 531, 532, 574 Alfred, King, 27, 29, 32, 33, 35- 38. 43, 45, 51, 52, 58, 59, 61, 65, 67, 71, 76, 77. 91-93, 98- 102, 106-108, 115, 118, 133, 138, 140. 156. 158, 162, 165, 166, 188, 201, 202. 223, 233, 3(16, 307, 331, 431, 435. 456, 483, 489. 490, 514, 528, 546. 8ec ' Pastoral Care.' — his Proverbs, 204-210, 284, 292, 293, 296, 351 Algates, 351 Alice, Queen, 491 Alike, 182 Alison, a woman's name, 348 Alison, the writer, 407 Alive. 182. 284. 381 All. 91. 127. 138, 164, 225 All and some. 281, 424 All at once. 327 All day long, 249 All hail, 465 All Hallows, 433 All Hollands. 272 All night long, 249 a:n All over, 233 All kind of, 206 All one to me, 255 All that. 430 All that she may, 224, 457 All the better, 292 All. its backward reference, 39a Allan. 141 Allenarly, 401 Alliterative Poetry, 83, 84, 273, 477, 539, 549, 563 Allot. 249 Almighty. 91. 145, 290 Almost. 287. 351 Alms, 107, 399, 498 Aloft, 288, 382 Alone, 225, 284, 312 Along. 443 Aloni? of. 71, 233 Aloud, 443 Already. 230. 404 Also, 161, 163, X')6, 394 Altar. 20, 87. 273 Although. 348 Altogether, 128, 166 Alway. 58 Always, 401 Am, 8. 10. 90, 103, 147, 160 Am and ever shall be &c. 408 Amell (inter), 98 Amends, 564 America, 44, 58. 373, 376. 398, 501. 563, 582. See United States. Amid, 401 Amidst, 441 Amiss, 180 Among, 104, 173, 295, 398 Amount, to. 579 An. the Indefinite Article. 55, 127. 134, 194, 164 — the Romance Suffix. 297, 582 — = alone. 55 — replacing and {si), 379 6o4 Index. AN An, tlielufiuitive ending, clipped, 156, 164 An eight days, 42-1 Anagni, 87 Analecta Anglo-Saxonica (ilr. Thorpe's), 27, 163. See Thorpe. Ance, the Romauce .Suffix, 581 Ancren Riwle, the, 272-281, 306. 310, 329, 334, 339, 347, 364, 387, 457, 461. 501-505, 507, 511, 517, 524, 527, 528, 530, 552, 559, 565, 587, 598 And, our form of anti^ 81 And, 63 And if, 379 Ande, the Northern Active Par- ticiple, 9, ]48, 270, 284, 355, 450 Andrew, St., 498 Anent, 71, 178, 260, 272, 278, 398, 399 Anger, 238 xVngeyin, 138, 172 xVnglen, 257 Angles, the. 19. 20. 89. 98, 102, 106, 119, 139, 142, 226, 445, 489 Angli, the. 17 Anglian, 19, 93, 127, 145. 167, 188, 196, 352, 596, 598 Anglican clergy, the, 85 Anglo-Saxon, 95. 150. 158, 175 — Chronicle. See Chronicle. — Reader, 27, 59 Ang-uish, 502, 506 Anhungred, 443 Anjou, 28, 165, 493 Anne, Queen. 318 Annoy, 502 Anon, 149, 157 Anonright, 255 Another (a corrupt form). 54, 130 AS Anoyle. 261 Answer, 81 Ant, 87, 431 Anthem, 503 Any. 122, 128 Apoilonius. the. 27. 124 Apostle, 81. 117, 118, 188, 214 Apulia, 493 Arabic, 1, 136 Arl last, 492 Arboriculture, 546 Architecture, its influence on English, 546, 547 Ard, the Romance Suffix. 340, 581 Arderne, John, 543 Are {sunt), 10, 87, 93, 103, 189, 213, 226, 314, 350, 354 — {tu es), 463 Aright, 125, 151 Arise, 214, 259 Aristotle, 257 Arm, 243, 434 Around, 575 Arrive at, 425, 557 Arrow, 320, 399 Arrowsmith, 78 Art (es), 76, 87, 103 Arthur, King, 491, 509, 566 Article, Definite (Demonstra- tive), 24, 50, 52, 125, 128, 135, 146, 194, 213, 252, 391, 548 — prefixed to one, other, 57 — Indefinite, 54, 55, 160, 271 — • dropped before an Adjective, 00 — used after many, 247 Arve, 496 Aryan, 1, 2. 7, 9, H, 12, 13, 15, 16, 33, 42, 84, 88,89,95,106, 157, 217, 227, 303 As {alse, swa), 63, 64, 155, 161, 163, 164, 302, 356, 388, 437 — distinguished from so, 250 Index. 605 AS As, standing for the Relative, 53, 197, 265, 384, 423, 438 — the old English Plural, 5, 22, 35, 104, 135 — is clipped, 217 As {quia), 260 As {uhi\ 263 As at this time, 437 As fair as, 177 As far as, 263, 413, 443 As for, 412 As good as, 374 As he was, 260, 390 As if, 231 As it were, 45. 327 As long as, 155. 161, 412 As much as. 265, 406 As oft as, 63 As soon as, 269 As though. 196, 231, 271 As to this, 53, 68, 423 As well as, 265 Ashhv, 102, 212 Ashore, 115, 151, 182 Aside, 438, 443 Ask, axe, 31, 36, 104, 174, 229 Aslant, 417 Asleep, 165 Assemble. 289. 358, 506 Assize, 560, 577 Assoil. 577 Assumption, the Poem on, 370, 557 Astonied. 420, 506 Astray, 562, 575 Astronomy, 545 Astrologist, 493 Asunder, 453 At, 69, 71, 72,81,178,234,251, 372, 414, 462, 508 — used in compounding, 210 At a blow. 364 At all, 126, 135,412 At all ends, 451 AUG At ease, 414 At heart, 50 At him. 425 At home, 429 At home with, 414 At least, 69, 126 At meat, 435 At need, 209, 356 At once, 277 At one, 178, 309, 436 At one accord, 310, 414 A peace, 328 At the last, 249 At will, 213 Ate {onanducavlt), 286, 422 Ath, the Plural Ending of the Present, altered, 147 Athanasian Creed, version of, 302-305 Atheling, 431, 532 Athelstane, 77, 541 — his supposed Charters, 386 Athens, 572 Athirst, 344 Athwart, 256, 364 Ation, the Romance Suffix, 581 Ative. the Romance Suff x, 581 Atonement, 309 Attend, 563 Attic, 156 Au, the coml)ination, 36. 107, 128, 201, 311,357 — replaces a, 253, 335, 353, 422, 431, 502, 569 — replaces See Dative. 149, 225 Reform, 307 Index. 649 134. 197, 276, REF Eeformation, the. 60, 137. 182, 255, 375. 496. 556. 568 Eeft, 321.400 Eegime, 503 Regimen, 503 Eegiment. 503 Reign, 107, 570 Relatives, 53, 71, 125,132. 146, 157, 162. 167. 177. 207. 209, 223. 247. 271. 292, 302, 325, 375, 394. 406 — dropped after a Noun, 406 Relics, 504 Religion, influence of, upon Eng- lish, 35, 37, 38, 84, 85 Reliquise xVntiquse, 314, 373. 375 Remember of. 295 Remind of, 295, 582 Remnant. 496, 575 Renard. 346 Renew. 582 Repent him, 566 Repentant of, 573 Repetition, idiomatic. 345 Restricted sense of old "svords, 77-80 Reverse to, 577 Revile, 579 Rhine, peasants of the, 147 Rich, 159, 191, 507 Riches, 331, 496, 497 Rick, the Teutonic Suffix. 15 Rid. to, 270 Riddle, 76, 401 Ride, 291, 384, 387 Rider, 130 Right. 80. 108, 124, 146. 172. 206, 230. 419, 434, 451, 455 Right away. 58 Righteous, 16, 160, 184, 452 Rime, 73 Rimes, English. 172. 539 Rince, 506 Ring, 203, 507 EUE Riou, 173 Ripon, 386 Rist, he. 466 Rive, 252 Road, 201 Roam. 249 Rol.her, 356. 497. 507 Robekin, 203. 524 Robert, 97, 203 Robert. Bishop of Lincoln, 315, 467. 512, 515, 519, 550 Robin, 311, 525 Rod, 307 Roe, 201, 254 Roger. 128. 506 Roland. 398 Rolliad, the, 73 Romance words, 322 — those akin to English words, 506. 507 — Suffixes. 418, 581, 582 Romance influence on English, 162. 505, 551, 552, 587, 588. 8ee French Rome. 17. 18, 37, 50, 78, 97, 236, 264, 315. 397. 449, 501. 505, 513, 519, 523, 541, 582 Rood, 151 Roof, 218 Root, 198 Rotherhithe. 77 Rough, 86, 93, 289, 303, 304, 400, 440 Round, 566, 574, 575, 581 Rout, 434 Route, 504 Routier, 571 Row, 206 Roxburgh Club, 467 Roy {rex), 569 Roy, the poet, 103 Royaume. 558 Ruddy. 258 Rue, 37, 107, 191, 263, 350,375 650 Index. HUE Eueful, 265. 268 Euefully, 285, 461 Ruefulness, 112, 265 Eufus. William, 133, 134. 233. 492 Eugby. 102, 387 Eule, 503 Eun. 31, 147. 212, 249, 257, 350, 379, 409, 459 Eun out. 410 Eun with blood, 251 Eun his coiu'se, 460 Eunes, the, 16, 90, 91, 92 Eunnel, 16 Eush, to, 313 Eushworth Gospels, the, 35, 37, 51, 66. 67, 111, 117-121. 135, 148, 202, 214, 223, 319, 595 Eussiaus, 86, 492, 516 Eustle. 443 Euth, 173, 429 Euthwell Cross, the, 90, 91, 92, 591, 596 Eutland. 101. 102, 142, 163. 212, 423, 447-449, 486, 487 Eyle. Mr., 526 813.498 , — the older form of the Second Person Singular of the Present, 93 — answers to t in High German, 13, 87 — replaces th in the North, 1 04, 105, 106, 141, 270, 294, 302, 314, 319, 321, 338, 341 — replaces r, 31, 32, 87, 105, 109, 128, 226, 441 — is added at the end of a word, 109, 265, 268, 275, 335, 371, 401, 441 — is dropped in a word, 161, 287, 401, 422, 433, 500, 568 SO S is inserted, 266, 358 Sack, to, 463 Sacred, 297, 564 Sacrilege, 676 Sad, 34, 404, 419 Safe, 302 Safe and sound, 563 Said, 145, 320 Sailyard, 203 Sain, to, 330 Saint, 122 Saint Charity, 578 Saith, 157 Sake, 79, 290 Salimbene, 518, 519, 520 Salisbury. 422, 423 Salop, 20, 29, 115, 141, 190, 254, 256, 266-274, 278, 279, 281, 289, 327, 335, 339, 370, 371, 377, 380,381,459, 477 Salt, 16. 94 Same, 3, 52, 62, 222, 451 Sample, 502 Sans, 560, 575 Sanscrit, U16, 86-88, 108, 109,. 185, 223, 239, 548 Savant, 545 Save, 564, 574, 580 Saviour, 494, 568 Saw, 29, 31, 73, 205, 206, 216, 275, 356 Sawles Ward, the, 267, 501 Saxon, 20, 98, 140, 352 , 445, 489, 528. See Chronicle Saxon, wrongly used for English, 353, 396, 431 Saxony, 569 Say, 147, 156, 164, 174, 206, 385 Say nay, 363 Say prayers, 409 Say grace, 466 Sc, preferred to sh, 245 — sounded like 5, 503 Index. 6qr sc Sc transposed, 104, lOo. 174 tScalacronica, the, 536 Scald (/;oe?'o), 239. 444 8cald, to, 264, 330 Scale, to. 417 Scall, 417 Scalp, 320 Scamp. 32 Scandinavian, 13, 20, 69, 71, 73, 81. 82, 88, 108, 110, 113,114, 136, 1.30.210. 212, 319, 321, 409-412. 419, 428, 445, 559, 585 — See Danes, Icelandic, Norse, Swedes Scandinavian "Words in English, 118, 127. 151. 163, 167, 168, 175, 179, 180, 181, 210, 211. 218, 220, 222, 223, 226- 228. 234, 236-239, 251, 252. 261, 266, 272, 273, 278, 279, 281. 289, 294, 296, 297, 309, 310, 319, 321-323. 328, 329. 330, 334, 358, 361, 363-366, 373, 383, 386, 397, 400-403, 405-407. 415-417, 421, 424, 429. 440, 443, 455, 458-460, 462, 463, 466 Scandinavian Idioms in English, 120, 149, 223, 231, 260, 291, 333, 384, 387, 414, 425, 467, 566 Scape, the Teutonic ending, 15 Scarcely, 571 Scare, 239 Scatter, 168 Scholarlike, 216 School, 159, 493 Science, the Treatise on, 429, 573 Science, its diction, 545, 546 Scoff, 443 Scold, 210 Scone Charter, 476 Scorch, 229 SEE Score, 203. 292, 374, 407, 419. 454 Scorn, 198, 211, 507, 575 Scot (solvere), 275 Scotland, Scotch, 9, 11, 30, 31, 34, 61, 68, 71, 79, 80, 81, 93^ 96, 97, 108, 111, 118, 120, 130, 133, 144, 146, 150, 151, 160, 161, 178, 182, 184, 194, 202, 203, 214, 216, 217, 220, 222, 224, 225, 232, 236-239, 270, 272, 289, 290, 296, 303, 304, 310, 318, 320-322, 324, 331, 351, 355, 359, 363, 364, 365. 380, 382, 384, 386, 395, 397, 399. 401, 407, 408, 410- 412, 417, 421, 447, 476, 495, 534, 556, 559, 569 Scott, 3Iaji r, 73 Scott, Sir Walter, 39, 57, 75, 111, 132, 180, 207, 209, 230, 233, 247, 261, 324. 330, 399, 534, 544. 560, 571 Scour. 417 Scourge, 261 Scowl, 279 Scraggy, 279 Scrape, 2S0 Scratch, 273 Scream, 206 Screech, 191 Screw, 309 Scrip, 373 Scriptures, the, 18,284. SeeBMe Scrub, 443 Scullion, 463 Sea, 172 Seal, 34, 357 Seamstress, 203 Seat, 4 Second, 451, 571, 581 SedgA^-ick, Professor, 555 See, 159 See of, 183, 457, 507 652 Index. SEE Seek, is to, (deessc), -128 Seek for, 232 Seek out, 438 Seek imto, 414 Seem, 255 Seemly, 256 Seize, 556 Seldom, 15, 290 Self, 49, 52, 98, 195, 222, 258, 324, 414 Selfish. 74 Sell, 197 Selle, 559 Semi-Saxon, 233 Send word, 50 Servant, 566 Serve, 181, 340, 417, 548, 566 Service, 88 Serving man, 453 Set, 181, 270, 287, 385,424, 459 Set about, 409 Set at nought, 459, 462 Set on fire, 376, 436 Set hand on, 424 Set together, 436 Settle, a, 35 Settle, stands for two old verbs, 74 Seven, 4 Seven-night. 418 Seventh,'l08, 151, 358 Seventy, for hund-seofontig, 157 Severn, the, 201, 205, 245, 251, 252, 259, 270, 378, 427, 431, 464, 580 Sew, 4 Sexton, 576 Sh or sch, replaces sc, 95, 171, 185, 191, 200, 206, 216, 245, 282, 449 Shake, 113 Shakespere, 12, 44, 48, 55, 65, 110, 115, 157, 221, 222, 243. 249, 250. 261, 262, 280, 313, i SHO 319, 326, 339, 364, 368, 404, 427, 429, 439, 445. 529, 575, 578, 588, 589 Shall, sal, 10, 42-44. 184, 189, 191, 201. 204, 206. 216, 289, 314, 319, 337, 353, 356, 392 — stands for soleo, 457 — contrasted with vjiU, 4:bl, 458, 464 — followed by can and may, 407, 408 — followed by have, 213, 409 Shame, 216 Shannon, the, 2 Shape, 32 Shaper, 417 Share, 73 Shaw, 443 She (the old seo), 50, 141-, 165, 289, 355, 419 She-beast, 405 Shear, 113, 203 Shed, to, 4. 179 Sheen, 206 Sheep, 23, 245, 4^9, 496 Sheepish. 221 Sheet, 206 Sheridan, 56 Sheriff, 144 Shift, 237, 294 Shimmer, 269 Shine. 175 Shined. 430 Shingle, 443 Ship, the Teutonic Suffix, 15,583 Ship, 22, 192, 245 Ship-breaking, 402 Shire, 113. 126, 202 Shirt. 198 Shiver {finderc), 198 Shiver {trrnnere), 313 Shoe. to. 306 Shoes, 105, 174, 418 Shone, 332 Index. 653 SHO Shoot, 80, 267, 308, 357 Shop, 432, 434 Shorehum, 587 Shortly to say. 436 Shot, 275, 416, 426 Should, 43, 46, 132, 146, 165, 245. 248, 272, 308, 457, 465 Should have been {esset), 407 Shoulder, 215 Shove, 77, 192 Show, 28, 159, 172, 179, 216, 230, 249, 264, 327, 357, 373 Sho:;^' forth, 265 Shrew, shrewed, 309, 340, 460, 580. 586 Shrewsbury, 99, 140, 158, 267, 445 Shrk-k. 191, 198. 444 Shrill. 256, 441 Shrine. 201, 426 Shropshire, 426 Shudder. 256 Shunt. 327 Shut to, 195 Shy. 279, 507 Si.' the Kentish Article, 548 Si (the Latin sit), 226 Sick, 104 Sicken, 217 Sickness, 174, 274 Side. 196, 382, 402,. 426 Side by side, 251, 402 Sidney, 451 Sieve, 382 Sigh. 400, 450 Sighings. 418 Sight. 431. 462 Sigurd, the, 85, 348 Siker (s2, 92, 128, 144, 165 — cast out in the middle of a word, 126, 133,217,287, 371, 388, 432, 453 THE Th cast out at the end of a word, 33, 104, 105, 312 — is inserted, 257, 321 — rounds oiFa word, 206, 290 — replaces d. 356 — replaces s, 87, 103, 121, 125, 127, 141 — a puzzle to Frenchmen, 133 Thackeray, 44 Thae, 222, 324 Thane, 107, 145, 157 Thames, the, 239, 553, 585 Thank God, 40. 148, 364 That, 24, 119, 125, 132, 232, 247, 394 — used as a Demonstrative, 48. 50, 51, 52, 213, 222, 281, 439 — used for the French q^ue, 262 — is dropped after a Verb, 437 — first follows Plural Nouns, 146 — the old Kelative, 53, 110, 325 That time twelvemonth, 454 That {quia), 46, 64 That, dropped, 64, 414 That ever I &c., 421 That is in me, do, 465 That is to say, 228 That same, 222 That there, 362, 405 That time, 402 That which, 325 Thaun, Philip de, 494, 558, 570 The, 24, 50, 53, 103, 125, 127, 135, 156 The one, 57, 312 The tother, 292 The two of them, 424 The which, 406 — the one case when the is not now a Definite Article, 52, 372 Thee, 24 Theft, 289, 392 hidex. 659 THE Their, 2-i, 103, 212, 221, .302, 319, 355 Their midst, 51 Theirs, 222, 362 Them, 24, 50, 51, 103, 115, 212, 221, 319, 324, 464, 465 Then, 173, 243, 259, 386 Thence, 144 Thenceforward, 195 Ther, representing the old Aryan Comparative Suffix, 7 There, replaces thither, 92 — an expletive before was, 60 — a Demonstrative, 24, 50 There {uhi), 109 Thereabout, 231 Thereas, 438 Therefore, 149, 157, 185 Thereupon, 312, 413 Therewithal, 312 These, 24, 158, 244, 286, 324 Thew, 174, 246 They, 24, 49, 103, 141, 182, 216, 221, 247, 270, 291, 319, 332, 333, 350, 355, 370, 406, 456 They say, 405 Thick, 36, 202, 307 Thickest of, the, 419 Thilk, 6, 51, 213, 222, 281, 307, 312, 332, 335, 344, 355, 378, 433, 435, 485 Thine, 24 Thing, 80, 207, 290, 394 Think, 45, 194. 320, 327 Thir. the Scotch, 118, 397, 406 Third, 3, 105 Thirst, 4 Thirteen, 13 This. 24, 96 This here, 405 This and that, 222 This one time, 290 This time of niglit, 359 Thither, 4, 92 TIC Thomas, St., 186. 187, 356,541, 574. See Becket Thomson, 85 Thong, 432 Thor, 98, 99 Thorny, 275 Thorough, 122, 357 Thoroughly, 230, 363 Thorpe, Mi'., Analecta Anglo- Saxonica, 124, 127, 163, 596 Those. (Jjo^), 51, 182, 222, 324, 325. 419 Thou, 4, 24, 45, 245, 357 — as distinguished from ye, 456 Though, 46, 63, 64, 105, 215, 302. 303, 356 Though it be {etd), 428 Thought, 182, 190 Thoughtful, 221 Thousiind, 11, 12 — used as a Noun, 292 Thrash, 114 Threaten, 433 Three, 3. 159, 144 Thrice, 3, 105 ThriU. 401 Thrive, 239 Throe, 173, 440 Through. 5, 303, 321, 322, 431 Through hap, 328 Throiigh and through, 232, 261 Throughout, 178, 230 Throw, 438 Thrush. 306, 380 Thrust, 180 Thucydides, 156 Thud, 244 Thumb, 165 Thunder, has d inserted, 31, 290 Thursday, 99, 192 ThAvart, 256, 290 Thy, for thine, 155, 160 Ticklish, 377 u u 2 66o Index. TID Tidings. 180 Tidv, 261 Tied, 190. 245, 440 Tight. 365 Till, the Northumbrian, 71, 92, 167. 196, 284, 302, 314, 352, 355, 370, 378, 439, 451 Till, to, 75, 189 Tillpr, 289 Tilly vally, 387 Timber, 3, 104, 257 Time, computed by the English in the Latin way, 38, 264 Time, see his, 423 Time, replaces s\\>e, 451 Timeous, 184 Tine, to, 297, 356, 586 Tire. 47. 48, 285. 392 Tite (cito^, 329, 380 Tithes, 237, 287, 452 To. its uses, 129, 209, 213. 234. 251. 262, 268, 271, 424, 425, 443, 458, 460 — its sound, 159 — before Infinitive. 42 — the senses of, 69, 161, 178, 193, 196 — used for at, 71, 414 To. the Latin dis, the G-erman zer, 183, 210, 336, 367 To-break, 183, 567 To-while. 421 To and fro, 151, 364, 387 To be (offered), 227 To his shirt, 414 To it, 250 To speak shortly, 48 To tLe end that, 64 To the good, 235 To the ground, 235 To your honour, 443 Toad, 201. 290 Toby, 217 Toes, 360 TRE Toil, to, 75, 189, 205 Tom Brown, 76 Tomb. 334 Tom-cat, 39 Tome (otiuTii), 417 To-name, 416 Tongue, 21 Toot, to, 280 Tooth, teeth. 3, 23, 30. 157 Top, 247, 418, 443 Top to toe, 262 Topple. 279 Tor, 78 Tother, 194 Touch, 504, 579, 581 Tough. 432 Tout, to, 75 Tow, 191 Towards, 68, 233, 251 Tower, 330, 492 Town, 120, 287 Town, come to, 207 Townley Mysteries, the, 308, 399 Towzer. 366 Toy, 191, 453 Trades, English, their names, 518 Trail. 575. 576 Train, 576 Translators, from the French, 549-552 Transubstantiation, 155 Travail, 560, 565 Travel, 569 Traveller's Song, the, 18 Tread. 229 Treat, 507. 562 Tree, 3, 94, 212 Tremble, 495. 579 Trench, Archbishop, 85 Trend, 79 Trent, the, 99, 235, 513 Tresses, 429 Trey {trois\ 540 Index. 661 TRI Trickery. 191 Trickle, 348 Triforium, 547 Trig, 236 Trigger, 289 Trim, 79 Triple, 217 Tristrem, the Poem, 231, 347, 348, 365, 380-386, 423, 450, 459, 466, 514, 531, 539, 540, 547, 558, 559, 560, 568 Troliope, Mr., 317, 378, 588 Trotevale, 387, 388 Troth, 164, 220, 460 Trouble, 565 Trowsers, 558 Trow, 357 Truck, 500 Truckle, 500 True, 37, 131, 173, 24,5, 413, 427 True as steel, 378 Trueful, 403 Truly, 413, 461 Trumbull, Mr., 521 Trump, 417,507 Truudle, 79 Truss, 504 Trusseau, 504 Trust, 197 Truth, 164, 205, 215, 460 Tr^ithful, 413 Try, 567, 581 Tudors, 132 Tuesday, 2, 422 Tug, 191, 256, 452, 453 Tumble, 443, 507 Turk, 2 Turn, 507 Turn about, 413 Turn bright, 460 Turn on him, 443 Turn up, 327 Turn your hand to, 436 U Turold, 142 Turtle, 289 Tuscan, 218 Twelfth night, 50 Twelfmonth, 115, 402 Twelve, 13, 303 Twice, 3, 149, 160 Twice six, 124 Twinge, 310 Twinkling of an eye, 395 Twist, 198 Twit, 8L Two, 3, 28, 94. 190, 273 Twofold of, 268 Two and two, 57 Two less than. 116 Two first, 56, 132, 225 Two-pronging of English words, 61, 65, 160, 163, 164, I78, 189, 191, 194, 203, 214, 264, 266, 274, 275. 288. 294, 309, 321, 383, 434, 436, 5U3, 558, Twyford. 78 Tyke, 396 Tyndale, 28, 29, 48, 55, 85, 112, 166, 183, 217, 231. 2G7, 313, 328, 353, 358, 359, 382, 398, 408, 421, 427, 429, 430, 432, 435, 443, 452, 461, 503, 526, 565, 567, 570-574, 578, 588 Tyrant, 30, 495, 573 Tyse, for entice, 576 u; the Aryan Suffix, 6, 12 - the old sound of, 28, 205, 494, 503 — the old ending of the North- umbrian Present Tense, 93 — is inserted, 122, 128, 144, 202, 274, 399 — is cast out, 272 — replaces «, 111, 117,173,281 662 Index. U, replaces a, 425 — replaces an, 91 — replaces eo, 3 65, 185, 190, 244, 267, 452 - — replaces eow, 37 — replaces e, 371, 399 — replaces % in the South, 29, 32, 173, 254,306, 452 — replaces 0, 33, 93, 107, 118, 159, 164, 174, 190, 202, 215, 244, 257, 267, 272, 287, 306, 338, 388, 399, 418, 432, 452, 495 — replaces oi, 133. 205 — replaces w, 36, 104 — replaces we, 92, 320 — replaces y, 29, 141, 158, 174, 201, 244, 262, 282 -- united with vo, 115 — united with y, 432 — written for t), 133, 495 Udall, 499, 577 Ue stands for wa, 92 — stands for eo, 205, 338, 373 — stands for eu, 422, 432 Ugh, 429 Ugly, 273, 291, 297, 404 Ui, a curious combination, 270, 493 Ulfilas, 55, 65, 295 Ulyie, 261 Um, Dative Plural in, 1 5, 38, 39, 130, 156 Umbe, 278, 366, 566 Umbrian, a, 527 Umquhile, 183, 278, 364, 399 Umstroke, 278 Un, the Teutonic Prefix, 7, 41, 42, 235, 411, 562 — replaces a, 40 — prefixed to Eomance roots, 507 Unanealed. 261 Unawares, 58 UPP Unbeknown, 76 Uncle, 572. 581 Under, 7, 69, 72, 235, 528 Under, to. 326 Understar.d, 356 Understanding, 322 Undertake, 273, 339 Undying, 411 Uneasiness, 294 Uneasy, 422 Ungainly, 238, 255 Ungcet, a very old form, 9 1 Ungodly, 413 Ungracious, 507 Unhappy. 403 Unique, 74 United States, 103. 8ee Ame- rica Unless, 451 Unlike, 216, 250 Unlikely, 59 Unseaworthiness, 235 Untidy, 261 Until, ^b, 233, 328, 355 Unto. 117, 233, 328, 350 Unwisdom, 41, 235 Unwitting, 460 Uo replaces a, 190 Up, 178,231, 251, 396 — is tacked on to Verbs, 260,. 414, 425, 437, 566 Up and down, 65, 70, 231. 438^ 461 Upbraid, 245 Upfloor, 440, 547 Upholding, 239 Upon, 130, 233, 260, 266, 378, 428 Upon a summer's day, 382 Upon pain of, 251 Upon his cost, 573 Upon the point to be, 574 Upper, 440 Upper hand, 238 Index. ^^1, UPP Uppermost, 451 Uppishness, 74 Uppo(upon), 217, 270 Uprise, 65 Upset, 66 Upside down, 438 Upward, 58, 192 Urchin, 331 Us, 25 Us, the ending, is clipped, 37 Use {solco), 334, 581 — {fruor), 573 Utan, utp, 312 Utmost, 8 Utterest, 323 Utterly, 230, 277 "Y replaces/ 35, 118, 128, 145, V 175, 246, 254, 262, 307. 358, 392 — replaces rt, 495 — cast out in the middle of a word, 338, 371, 373 — the Latin sound of, 38, 88 Vanguard, 81 Vat, 176, 254 Vedas, the, 5, 11 Venom, 564 Verbal Nouns, 36, 70, 112, 130, 160. 220, 227, 248, 258, 259, 272, 276, 285, 322, 337, 348, 351, 359, 382, 393, 394. 411. 418, 437, 441, 446, 453, 464, 504, 568 Verbs. See Strong, Weak, Ir- regular — how formed. 8, 16 — idioms of, 42-48 — changes in, 13, 147 — formed from Nouns, 326 — are dropped, 60, 166, 186, 339, 411, 437, 458 Verily, 579 WAD Very, 230, 451, 496, 548, 560,. 581 Victoria, 90, 101, 138, 451, 528, 530, 548 Viewy, 583 Vigelli, 203 Villehardouiu, 526 Vineyard, 330 Virgil, 371 Virgin, the, 523 Virtus, 534, 559 Vixen, 6, 16, 176 Volower, 353 Von Raumer, 543 Vouchsafe, 558 Vowels, sounds of, 28-30, 75 — changed in strong Verbs, 8, 16 — interchange of, 33, 113 — doubling of. See ee and oo, " — clipped at the end of a word, 215 — pronounced of old in the Italian way, 28, 29 ITT replaces g, 31, 88, 182, W , 191, 200, 202, 267,275, 282, 288, 320, 321, 358 — replaces 5, 382 — replaces //, 182, 245 — replaces r, 441 — replaces u, 357 — replaces v, 88, 495 — answers to Latin v, 38 — cast out in a word, 161, 165, 192, 401, 422, 432 — is disused, 128 — united with u, 115 — not sounded before h and r, 356, 371 Waddell, Mr., 361 Wadding, 518 Waddington, William of, 447, 455 664 Index. WAD Wadekin, 311 Wae, the Scotch, 79, 328 Wsestm, 298 Waggon, 216 Wail, 444 Waiu, 216 Wait, 366, 497, 506, 569 Waive, 459, 507, 586 Wake, 191, 294, 424 Wakeful, wacol, 12 Wales, 126, 144, 349 Walk, 184, 203, 293, 375 Walker, 78 Wallow, 31, 87 Walter, 433, 525 Wan, the Teutonic Prefix, 42, 235 — replaces un, 275 Wand, 239 Wanley, 92 Want, 227, 239, 261 AVanton, 42, 275, 347, 401 War, 150, 398, 432, 507 Ward, the old Suffix, 6 Warden, 504, 572, 574 Wardrobe, 567 Ware, 186, 405 Warm, 3, 31, 88 Warning, 563 Warwickshire, 99, 281, 370, 375. 387, 439, 479, 515 Was, 147, 157, 165 — {eras), 87, 226, 270, 387 Wasp, 31 Wassail, 45, 363, 434, 456 Waste, 507 Watch, 191, 216, 294 Water. 158 Waur, 239, 451 Waves, 383 Wax, 4 Waxen, he was, 226 Way takes us, the, 409 We, 4, 25 WES Weak, 365 Weak Verbs, how formed, 9, 10, 16,26 — replace Strong Verbs, 94, 96, 109, 166, 202, 207, 229, 249, 258, 259, 271, 325, 351, 362, 430, 442, 466 Wealth, 206, 296 Wear, 28 Weary, 74 Weather, 80 Weave, 4, 104 Wed, 232, 375. 460, 507 Wedgwood, Mr., 167, 180, 229, 280, 285, 323, 330, 366, 373 AVedlock, 220 Wednesday, 257, 422 Week, 32 Ween, I, 249, 398 Weep a flood, 375 Weigh, 4, 79, 274, 421 Weir, 79 Welcome, 187 Welfare, 439 Welkin, 323 Well, 149, 195, 208, 213, 230, 376, 386, 461 Well answered ! 408 Well enough, 438 AVell is thee, 403 Well nigh, 149, 195 Well with him, 263 Wellington, 365 Welsh, the! 44, 87, 103, 108. 126, 128, 180. 236, 252, 26(3. 280. 297, 313, 366, 431, 444 Welter, 184 Wench, 311 Went, 11, 127, 294, 451 Wept, 109, 229 Were, 32, 46, 87, 128, 155, 157, 226, 287, 356 Wessex, 18, 19, 20, 33, 89, 90, 100, 101, 103, 173, 184 Index. 66s WES West of England, 51, 226, 244, 252, 258, 353, 374, 438, 449, 524. See South-Wcst West Midland Dialect, 212 Western, Squire, 135 Westminster, 513, 514. 547 AVet, 347 Wexford, 480 Weymouth, 445 Wevmouth, Mr., 551 What, 4, 7, 25. 52, 53, 88, 108, 119, 160, 218, 245, 247, 562 — stands for qnis, 224, 270 — stands for qimd, 119, 177. 223. 276 — f<\.i\\\(\i>fov qiiodcunqiie, 195,406 — stands for aliquid. 56, 224 — stands for et, 162 — stands for r/.s, 224, 256 — r.places Mrt?-, 110, 132 — used as an Interjection, 72, 421 AVhatevor, 335, 375 WhMt devil, 462 What is your will? 421 Wliat say, 45 What time, 223 Whit to do, 436 What manner of, 420 Whatso, 94, 223 Whatsoever, 292, 461 Whatsomever, 231 Wheedle, 77 Wheel, 4 Whelp, 120 When, 46, 63, 177, 438 When that, 413 When as, 250 Whence, 371 Whensoever, 259 Where, for lohither, 92 Where, replaces there, 109, 134, 157, 208, 295 Whereal>outs, 373 WHO Whereas, 109, 250. 263, 277^ 438 WhereLy, 195 Wherever, 333 Wherefore, 149. 263, 419, 466 Whereof. 251, 380 Wheresoever. 263, 277 Where-with. 1»7, 195 Whether {uter), 4, 7, 62, 406 Which, 53, 53, 146, 155, 160, 161, 162, 172, 175, 183, 223, 247, 276, 302, 375, 449 — used as a Neuter, 276, 292, 325 — used for titer, 406 — its old sense dropped, 420 Which is which. 406 Which one, 406 Which so ever, 183 Which, the. 406 Whiff, 417 While, 62, HI. 164, 167, 232, 412 Whiles, 111, 295, 461 AVhilom, 15. Ill, 230. 294 Whilst that. 208, 271, 443 Wliine, 312 AMiip, 310 AVhirlwind, 218 Whitby, 96, 445 White, 104 White, Mr., 212 AVhiten, 329 Whither, 4. 34 Whitsuntide, 252 Who {ho). 4, 7, 25, 53. 55. 56, 134. 155, 160, 162, 177, 183, 190. 223, 265, 271, 276, 325, 422 — stands after he, 207, 271 Who but, 384 Wliole, 122, 247, 287 AVhole men, the, 407 Wholesome, 198 666 Index. WHO Wholly, 412 Whom, 25, 406. Whom should I meet, 407 Whoreson, 439 Whose, 25, 302 Whoso, b^, 164, 200, 207, 224, 260, 273, 302, 310, 371 Whosoever, 255 Why, 25, 52, 58 ; an expletive, 59, 416 Why for, 149 Wicked, 167, 237, 338 Wickedness, 321, 322 WickliflFe, 27, 52, 85, 112, 113, 118, 121, 185, 267, 311, 352, 373, 389, 400, 406, 408, 420. 526, 552, 582, 585 AVide, the, 383 Widow, 3, 344 Width, 402 Wife, 80, 145, 176 Wight {fortis), 247 Wight, isle of, 19, 77 AVilderness, 81 Wiles, 151, 237 Wilful, 268, 328 Will, to, 422 Will, the Auxiliary Verb, 10, 116, 204, 244 — contrasted with shall, 42-44, 457, 458, 464 Willekin, 203, 298, 379, 524 William, the name, 203, 422, 504, 525 William the First, 102, 127, 129, 132, 143, 492, 500. 505, 508. See Conqueror William the Englishman, 547 William of Sens, 547 William Eufu;?, 133. See Rufus Williamsthorpe, 133 AVillingly, 328 Willy, 298 Willy nilly, 135 WOL Wiltshire, 426, 481, 482 Wily, 403 Wimple, 198, 507 Win, 410, 421, 459 Winchester, 101, 102, 125, 'l38, 148, 185, 482, 490, 513 Wind and weather, 262 Winding cloth, 401 Window, 273, 296 Wing, 180 Winking, 416 Winter {annu^), 246, 454 Wireker, Nigel, 203, 456 Wis, the Teutonic Suffix, 16 Wist, 351 Wit, 10 With {mid), its meanings, 67, 68, 232, 239, 251, 263, 264, 302, 345, 346, 350, 356, 364, 376, 389, 390,414,462 — the Teutonic Prefix, 15 With that, 256 With the best, 251, 404 With will, 402 Withal, 232, 259 Withdraw, 278, 436 Withhold, 278 Within, 232 Without, 129, 206 ■ — followed by the Infinitive, as in French, 259, 384, 440 Witness, to, 279 Wits, the Five, 564 Wittol, 12, 16 Wizened, 78 Wobble, 253 Woe, 107, 190 Woebegone, 307 Woeful, 403 AVoe me, 173, 178, 190 Wohung of our Lord, the, 269, 270, 508 Wolf, 3, 5, 14, 108, 205, 344 Wolsey, 84 Index. 667 WOM Woman, 122, 254, 257, 334,378 Womb, 281, 403 Wonderful, 323 Wont {solere), 182, 244, 248, 332, 344, 400 AVon't, 205 Woo, 274 Wood, 205 Wood-honey, 39 Wool, 205 Wool-pack, 434 Worcester, 33, 93, 133, 141, 200, 213, 243, 244, <>53, 370, 392, 432, 526 Word came, 126 Word for word, 443 Work, 80, 96, 157, 244 Workaday, 221 Workmanlikf. 6, 16 World, 115, 190, 220, 290, 359 Worse, 332 Worship, 217 Worshipful, 465 Wort, 77 Worth {fieri). 4 Worthy, 33, 75, 131, 374, 442 Wot, 10, 356, 398, 452 Would, 33, 244, 287 — the old use of, 132, 177 Would God, 395, 458 Would have done, 177 Wound, 205 Wrap, 467 AVrath, 32 Wreck, 210, 402 Wrench, 255, 264 Wrestle, 254 Wretch, 290 Wretched, 450 Wretchedness, 321, 331 Wriggle, 429 Wright, 80. 218 Wright, Mr., 123, 338, 377, 429, 494, 544, 545 j YEA Wrinkle. 77 Write, 114 Wrong, 127, 184, 230, 237, 385 Wrong, to, 208 Wrongous, 184 Wrongousness, 401 Wroth, 190, 287. 426 Wrought, 96, 160, 218, 288 Wynstre {Javus), 181 Wyntoun, 550, 555 X written for s, as in French, 401 Tthe old sound of, 29 . — replaces g. 33, 88, 104, 105, 134, 144, 160, 165. 174, 206, 288 — represents the suffix /