[Footnote 9: The accusative or objective case is given in all these words.]

It may be remarked of the word fancy, that, in Shakespeare's time, it meant love or imagination—

"Tell me, where is fancy bred, Or in the heart, or in the head?"

It is now restricted to mean a lighter and less serious kind of imagination. Thus we say that Milton's 'Paradise Lost' is a work of imagination; but that Moore's 'Lalla Rookh' is a product of the poet's fancy.

46. Characteristics of the Two Elements of English.— If we keep our attention fixed on the two chief elements in our language— the English element and the Latin element— the Teutonic and the Romance— we shall find some striking qualities manifest themselves. We have already said that whole sentences can be made containing only English words, while it is impossible to do this with Latin or other foreign words. Let us take two passages— one from a daily newspaper, and the other from Shakespeare:—

(i) "We find the functions of such an official defined in the Act. He is to be a legally qualified medical practitioner of skill and experience, to inspect and report periodically on the sanitary condition of town or district; to ascertain the existence of diseases, more especially epidemics increasing the rates of mortality, and to point out the existence of any nuisances or other local causes, which are likely to originate and maintain such diseases, and injuriously affect the health of the inhabitants of such town or district; to take cognisance of the existence of any contagious disease, and to point out the most efficacious means for the ventilation of chapels, schools, registered lodging-houses, and other public buildings."

In this passage, all the words in italics are either Latin or Greek. But, if the purely English words were left out, the sentence would fall into ruins— would become a mere rubbish-heap of words. It is the small particles that give life and motion to each sentence. They are the joints and hinges on which the whole sentence moves. —Let us now look at a passage from Shakespeare. It is from the speech of Macbeth, after he has made up his mind to murder Duncan:—

(ii) "Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready, She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed!— Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come! let me clutch thee! —I have thee not; and yet I see thee still."

In this passage there is only one Latin (or French) word— the word mistress. If Shakespeare had used the word lady, the passage would have been entirely English. —The passage from the newspaper deals with large generalisations; that from Shakespeare with individual acts and feelings— with things that come home "to the business and bosom" of man as man. Every master of the English language understands well the art of mingling the two elements— so as to obtain a fine effect; and none better than writers like Shakespeare, Milton, Gray, and Tennyson. Shakespeare makes Antony say of Cleopatra:—

"Age cannot wither her; nor custom stale Her infinite variety."

Here the French (or Latin) words custom and variety form a vivid contrast to the English verb stale, throw up its meaning and colour, and give it greater prominence. —Milton makes Eve say:—

"I thither went With inexperienc'd thought, and laid me down On the green bank, to look into the clear Smooth lake, that to me seem'd another sky."

Here the words inexperienced and clear give variety to the sameness of the English words. —Gray, in the Elegy, has this verse:—

"The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, The cock's shrill clarion or the echoing horn, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed."

Here incense, clarion, and echoing give a vivid colouring to the plainer hues of the homely English phrases. —Tennyson, in the Lotos-Eaters, vi., writes:—

"Dear is the memory of our wedded lives, And dear the last embraces of our wives And their warm tears: but all hath suffer'd change; For surely now our household hearths are cold: Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange: And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy."

Most powerful is the introduction of the French words suffered change, inherit, strange, and trouble joy; for they give with painful force the contrast of the present state of desolation with the homely rest and happiness of the old abode, the love of the loving wives, the faithfulness of the stalwart sons.

47. English and other Doublets.— We have already seen how, by the presentation of the same word at two different doors— the door of Latin and the door of French— we are in possession of a considerable number of doublets. But this phenomenon is not limited to Latin and French— is not solely due to the contributions we receive from these languages. We find it also within English itself; and causes of the most different description bring about the same results. For various reasons, the English language is very rich in doublets. It possesses nearly five hundred pairs of such words. The language is all the richer for having them, as it is thereby enabled to give fuller and clearer expression to the different shades and delicate varieties of meaning in the mind.

48. The sources of doublets are various. But five different causes seem chiefly to have operated in producing them. They are due to differences of pronunciation; to differences in spelling; to contractions for convenience in daily speech; to differences in dialects; and to the fact that many of them come from different languages. Let us look at a few examples of each. At bottom, however, all these differences will be found to resolve themselves into differences of pronunciation. They are either differences in the pronunciation of the same word by different tribes, or by men in different counties, who speak different dialects; or by men of different nations.

49. Differences in Pronunciation.— From this source we have parson and person (the parson being the person or representative of the Church); sop and soup; task and tax (the sk has here become ks); thread and thrid; ticket and etiquette; sauce and souse (to steep in brine); squall and squeal.

50. Differences in Spelling.— To and too are the same word— one being used as a preposition, the other as an adverb; of and off, from and fro, are only different spellings, which represent different functions or uses of the same word; onion and union are the same word. An union[10] comes from the Latin unus, one, and it meant a large single pearl— a unique jewel; the word was then applied to the plant, the head of which is of a pearl-shape.

[Footnote 10: In Hamlet v. 2. 283, Shakespeare makes the King say—

"The King shall drink to Hamlet's better breath; And in the cup an union shall he throw."]

51. Contractions.— Contraction has been a pretty fruitful source of doublets in English. A long word has a syllable or two cut off; or two or three are compressed into one. Thus example has become sample; alone appears also as lone; amend has been shortened into mend; defend has been cut down into fend (as in fender); manoeuvre has been contracted into manure (both meaning originally to work with the hand); madam becomes 'm in yes 'm[11]; and presbyter has been squeezed down into priest.[12] Other examples of contraction are: capital and cattle; chirurgeon (a worker with the hand) and surgeon; cholera and choler (from chŏlos, the Greek word for bile); disport and sport; estate and state; esquire and squire; Egyptian and gipsy; emmet and ant; gammon and game; grandfather and gaffer; grandmother and gammer; iota (the Greek letter i) and jot; maximum and maxim; mobile and mob; mosquito and musket; papa and pope; periwig and wig; poesy and posy; procurator and proctor; shallop and sloop; unity and unit. It is quite evident that the above pairs of words, although in reality one, have very different meanings and uses.

[Footnote 11: Professor Max Mller gives this as the most remarkable instance of cutting down. The Latin mea domina became in French madame; in English ma'am; and, in the language of servants, 'm.]

[Footnote 12: Milton says, in one of his sonnets—

"New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large."

From the etymological point of view, the truth is just the other way about. Priest is old Presbyter writ small.]

52. Difference of English Dialects.— Another source of doublets is to be found in the dialects of the English language. Almost every county in England has its own dialect; but three main dialects stand out with great prominence in our older literature, and these are the Northern, the Midland, and the Southern. The grammar of these dialects[13] was different; their pronunciation of words was different— and this has given rise to a splitting of one word into two. In the North, we find a hard c, as in the caster of Lancaster; in the Midlands, a soft c, as in Leicester; in the South, a ch, as in Winchester. We shall find similar differences of hardness and softness in ordinary words. Thus we find kirk and church; canker and cancer; canal and channel; deck and thatch; drill and thrill; fan and van (in a winnowing-machine); fitch and vetch; hale and whole; mash and mess; naught, nought, and not; pike, peak, and beak; poke and pouch; quid (a piece of tobacco for chewing) and cud (which means the thing chewed); reave and rob; ridge and rig; scabby and shabby; scar and share; screech and shriek; shirt and skirt; shuffle and scuffle; spray and sprig; wain and waggon— and other pairs. All of these are but different modes of pronouncing the same word in different parts of England; but the genius of the language has taken advantage of these different ways of pronouncing to make different words out of them, and to give them different functions, meanings, and uses.

[Footnote 13: See p. 242.]



CHAPTER III.

HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR OF ENGLISH.

1. The Oldest English Synthetic.— The oldest English, or Anglo-Saxon, that was brought over here in the fifth century, was a language that showed the relations of words to each other by adding different endings to words, or by synthesis. These endings are called inflexions. Latin and Greek are highly inflected languages; French and German have many more inflexions than modern English; and ancient English (or Anglo-Saxon) also possessed a large number of inflexions.

2. Modern English Analytic.— When, instead of inflexions, a language employs small particles— such as prepositions, auxiliary verbs, and suchlike words— to express the relations of words to each other, such a language is called analytic or non-inflexional. When we say, as we used to say in the oldest English, "God is ealra cyninga cyning," we speak a synthetic language. But when we say, "God is king of all kings," then we employ an analytic or uninflected language.

3. Short View of the History of English Grammar.— From the time when the English language came over to this island, it has grown steadily in the number of its words. On the other hand, it has lost just as steadily in the number of its inflexions. Put in a broad and somewhat rough fashion, it may be said that—

(i) Up to the year 1100— one generation after the Battle of Senlac— the English language was a SYNTHETIC Language.

(ii) From the year 1100 or thereabouts, English has been losing its inflexions, and gradually becoming more and more an ANALYTIC Language.

4. Causes of this Change.— Even before the coming of the Danes and the Normans, the English people had shown a tendency to get rid of some of their inflexions. A similar tendency can be observed at the present time among the Germans of the Rhine Province, who often drop an n at the end of a word, and show in other respects a carelessness about grammar. But, when a foreign people comes among natives, such a tendency is naturally encouraged, and often greatly increased. The natives discover that these inflexions are not so very important, if only they can get their meaning rightly conveyed to the foreigners. Both parties, accordingly, come to see that the root of the word is the most important element; they stick to that, and they come to neglect the mere inflexions. Moreover, the accent in English words always struck the root; and hence this part of the word always fell on the ear with the greater force, and carried the greater weight. When the Danes— who spoke a cognate language— began to settle in England, the tendency to drop inflexions increased; but when the Normans— who spoke an entirely different language— came, the tendency increased enormously, and the inflexions of Anglo-Saxon began to "fall as the leaves fall" in the dry wind of a frosty October. Let us try to trace some of these changes and losses.

5. Grammar of the First Period, 450-1100.— The English of this period is called the Oldest English or Anglo-Saxon. The gender of nouns was arbitrary, or— it may be— poetical; it did not, as in modern English it does, follow the sex. Thus nama, a name, was masculine; tunge, a tongue, feminine; and ege, an eye, neuter. Like nama, the proper names of men ended in a; and we find such names as Isa, Offa, Penda, as the names of kings. Nouns at this period had five cases, with inflexions for each; now we possess but one inflexion— that for the possessive. —Even the definite article was inflected. —The infinitive of verbs ended in an; and the sign to— which we received from the Danes— was not in use, except for the dative of the infinitive. This dative infinitive is still preserved in such phrases as "a house to let;" "bread to eat;" "water to drink." —The present participle ended in ende (in the North ande). This present participle may be said still to exist— in spoken, but not in written speech; for some people regularly say walkin, goin, for walking and going. —The plural of the present indicative ended in ath for all three persons. In the perfect tense, the plural ending was on. —There was no future tense; the work of the future was done by the present tense. Fragments of this usage still survive in the language, as when we say, "He goes up to town next week." —Prepositions governed various cases; and not always the objective (or accusative), as they do now.

6. Grammar of the Second Period, 1100-1250.— The English of this period is called Early English. Even before the coming of the Normans, the inflexions of our language had— as we have seen— begun to drop off, and it was slowly on the way to becoming an analytic language. The same changes— the same simplification of grammar, has taken place in nearly every Low German language. But the coming of the Normans hastened these changes, for it made the inflexional endings of words of much less practical importance to the English themselves. —Great changes took place in the pronunciation also. The hard c or k was softened into ch; and the hard guttural g was refined into a y or even into a silent w. —A remarkable addition was made to the language. The Oldest English or Anglo-Saxon had no indefinite article. They said ofer stn for on a rock. But, as the French have made the article un out of the Latin unus, so the English pared down the northern ane (= one) into the article an or a. The Anglo-Saxon definite article was se, seo, aet; and in the grammar of this Second Period it became e, eo, e. —The French plural in es took the place of the English plural in en. But housen and shoon existed for many centuries after the Norman coming; and Mr Barnes, the Dorsetshire poet, still deplores the ugly sound of nests and fists, and would like to be able to say and to write nesten and fisten. —The dative plural, which ended in um, becomes an e or an en. The um, however, still exists in the form of om in seldom (= at few times) and whilom (= in old times). —The gender of nouns falls into confusion, and begins to show a tendency to follow the sex. —Adjectives show a tendency to drop several of their inflexions, and to become as serviceable and accommodating as they are now— when they are the same with all numbers, genders, and cases. —The an of the infinitive becomes en, and sometimes even the n is dropped. —Shall and will begin to be used as tense-auxiliaries for the future tense.

7. Grammar of the Third Period, 1250-1350.— The English of this period is often called Middle English. —The definite article still preserves a few inflexions. —Nouns that were once masculine or feminine become neuter, for the sake of convenience. —The possessive in es becomes general. —Adjectives make their plural in e. —The infinitive now takes to before it— except after a few verbs, like bid, see, hear, etc. —The present participle in inge makes its appearance about the year 1300.

8. Grammar of the Fourth Period, 1350-1485.— This may be called Later Middle English. An old writer of the fourteenth century points out that, in his time— and before it— the English language was "a-deled a thre," divided into three; that is, that there were three main dialects, the Northern, the Midland, and the Southern. There were many differences in the grammar of these dialects; but the chief of these differences is found in the plural of the present indicative of the verb. This part of the verb formed its plurals in the following manner:—

NORTHERN. MIDLAND. SOUTHERN. We hops We hopen We hopeth. You hops You hopen You hopeth. They hops They hopen They hopeth.[14]

In time the Midland dialect conquered; and the East Midland form of it became predominant all over England. As early as the beginning of the thirteenth century, this dialect had thrown off most of the old inflexions, and had become almost as flexionless as the English of the present day. Let us note a few of the more prominent changes. —The first personal pronoun Ic or Ich loses the guttural, and becomes I. —The pronouns him, them, and whom, which are true datives, are used either as datives or as objectives. —The imperative plural ends in eth. "Riseth up," Chaucer makes one of his characters say, "and stondeth by me!" —The useful and almost ubiquitous letter e comes in as a substitute for a, u, and even an. Thus nama becomes name, sunu (son) becomes sune, and withutan changes into withute. —The dative of adjectives is used as an adverb. Thus we find soft, bright employed like our softly, brightly. —The n in the infinitive has fallen away; but the + is sounded as a separate syllable. Thus we find brek, smit for breken and smiten.

[Footnote 14: This plural we still find in the famous Winchester motto, "Manners maketh man."]

9. General View.— In the time of King Alfred, the West-Saxon speech— the Wessex dialect— took precedence of the rest, and became the literary dialect of England. But it had not, and could not have, any influence on the spoken language of other parts of England, for the simple reason that very few persons were able to travel, and it took days— and even weeks— for a man to go from Devonshire to Yorkshire. In course of time the Midland dialect— that spoken between the Humber and the Thames— became the predominant dialect of England; and the East Midland variety of this dialect became the parent of modern standard English. This predominance was probably due to the fact that it, soonest of all, got rid of its inflexions, and became most easy, pleasant, and convenient to use. And this disuse of inflexions was itself probably due to the early Danish settlements in the east, to the larger number of Normans in that part of England, to the larger number of thriving towns, and to the greater and more active communication between the eastern seaports and the Continent. The inflexions were first confused, then weakened, then forgotten, finally lost. The result was an extreme simplification, which still benefits all learners of the English language. Instead of spending a great deal of time on the learning of a large number of inflexions, which are to them arbitrary and meaningless, foreigners have only to fix their attention on the words and phrases themselves, that is, on the very pith and marrow of the language— indeed, on the language itself. Hence the great German grammarian Grimm, and others, predict that English will spread itself all over the world, and become the universal language of the future. In addition to this almost complete sweeping away of all inflexions,— which made Dr Johnson say, "Sir, the English language has no grammar at all,"— there were other remarkable and useful results which accrued from the coming in of the Norman-French and other foreign elements.

10. Monosyllables.— The stripping off of the inflexions of our language cut a large number of words down to the root. Hundreds, if not thousands, of our verbs were dissyllables, but, by the gradual loss of the ending en (which was in Anglo-Saxon an), they became monosyllables. Thus bindan, drincan, findan, became bind, drink, find; and this happened with hosts of other verbs. Again, the expulsion of the guttural, which the Normans never could or would take to, had the effect of compressing many words of two syllables into one. Thus haegel, twaegen, and faegen, became hail, twain, and fain. —In these and other ways it has come to pass that the present English is to a very large extent of a monosyllabic character. So much is this the case, that whole books have been written for children in monosyllables. It must be confessed that the monosyllabic style is often dull, but it is always serious and homely. We can find in our translation of the Bible whole verses that are made up of words of only one syllable. Many of the most powerful passages in Shakespeare, too, are written in monosyllables. The same may be said of hundreds of our proverbs— such as, "Cats hide their claws"; "Fair words please fools"; "He that has most time has none to lose." Great poets, like Tennyson and Matthew Arnold, understand well the fine effect to be produced from the mingling of short and long words— of the homely English with the more ornate Romance language. In the following verse from Matthew Arnold the words are all monosyllables, with the exception of tired and contention (which is Latin):—

"Let the long contention cease; Geese are swans, and swans are geese; Let them have it how they will, Thou art tired. Best be still!"

In Tennyson's "Lord of Burleigh," when the sorrowful husband comes to look upon his dead wife, the verse runs almost entirely in monosyllables:—

"And he came to look upon her, And he looked at her, and said: 'Bring the dress, and put it on her, That she wore when she was wed.'"

An American writer has well indicated the force of the English monosyllable in the following sonnet:—

"Think not that strength lies in the big, round word, Or that the brief and plain must needs be weak. To whom can this be true who once has heard The cry for help, the tongue that all men speak, When want, or fear, or woe, is in the throat, So that each word gasped out is like a shriek Pressed from the sore heart, or a strange, wild note Sung by some fay or fiend! There is a strength, Which dies if stretched too far, or spun too fine, Which has more height than breadth, more depth than length; Let but this force of thought and speech be mine, And he that will may take the sleek fat phrase, Which glows but burns not, though it beam and shine; Light, but no heat,— a flash, but not a blaze."

It will be observed that this sonnet consists entirely of monosyllables, and yet that the style of it shows considerable power and vigour. The words printed in italics are all derived from Latin, with the exception of the word phrase, which is Greek.

11. Change in the Order of Words.— The syntax— or order of words— of the oldest English was very different from that of Norman-French. The syntax of an Old English sentence was clumsy and involved; it kept the attention long on the strain; it was rumbling, rambling, and unpleasant to the ear. It kept the attention on the strain, because the verb in a subordinate clause was held back, and not revealed till we had come to the end of the clause. Thus the Anglo-Saxon wrote (though in different form and spelling)—

"When Darius saw, that he overcome be would."

The newer English, under French influence, wrote—

"When Darius saw that he was going to be overcome."

This change has made an English sentence lighter and more easy to understand, for the reader or hearer is not kept waiting for the verb; but each word comes just when it is expected, and therefore in its "natural" place. The Old English sentence— which is very like the German sentence of the present day— has been compared to a heavy cart without springs, while the newer English sentence is like a modern well-hung English carriage. Norman-French, then, gave us a brighter, lighter, freer rhythm, and therefore a sentence more easy to understand and to employ, more supple, and better adapted to everyday use.

12. The Expulsion of Gutturals.— (i) Not only did the Normans help us to an easier and pleasanter kind of sentence, they aided us in getting rid of the numerous throat-sounds that infested our language. It is a remarkable fact that there is not now in the French language a single guttural. There is not an h in the whole language. The French write an h in several of their words, but they never sound it. Its use is merely to serve as a fence between two vowels— to keep two vowels separate, as in la haine, hatred. No doubt the Normans could utter throat-sounds well enough when they dwelt in Scandinavia; but, after they had lived in France for several generations, they acquired a great dislike to all such sounds. No doubt, too, many, from long disuse, were unable to give utterance to a guttural. This dislike they communicated to the English; and hence, in the present day, there are many people— especially in the south of England— who cannot sound a guttural at all. The muscles in the throat that help to produce these sounds have become atrophied— have lost their power for want of practice. The purely English part of the population, for many centuries after the Norman invasion, could sound gutturals quite easily— just as the Scotch and the Germans do now; but it gradually became the fashion in England to leave them out.

13. The Expulsion of Gutturals.— (ii) In some cases the guttural disappeared entirely; in others, it was changed into or represented by other sounds. The ge at the beginning of the passive (or past) participles of many verbs disappeared entirely. Thus gebrht, gebht, geworht, became brought, bought, and wrought. The g at the beginning of many words also dropped off. Thus Gyppenswich became Ipswich; gif became if; genoh, enough. —The guttural at the end of words— hard g or c— also disappeared. Thus halig became holy; eordhlic, earthly; gastlic, ghastly or ghostly. The same is the case in dough, through, plough, etc. —the guttural appearing to the eye but not to the ear. —Again, the guttural was changed into quite different sounds— into labials, into sibilants, into other sounds also. The following are a few examples:—

(a) The guttural has been softened, through Norman-French influence, into a sibilant. Thus rigg, egg, and brigg have become ridge, edge, and bridge.

(b) The guttural has become a labial— f— as in cough, enough, trough, laugh, draught, etc.

(c) The guttural has become an additional syllable, and is represented by a vowel-sound. Thus sorg and mearh have become sorrow and marrow.

(d) In some words it has disappeared both to eye and ear. Thus makd has become made.

14. The Story of the GH.— How is it, then, that we have in so many words the two strongest gutturals in the language— g and h— not only separately, in so many of our words, but combined? The story is an odd one. Our Old English or Saxon scribes wrote— not light, might, and night, but liht, miht, and niht. When, however, they found that the Norman-French gentlemen would not sound the h, and say— as is still said in Scotland— li+ch+t, &c., they redoubled the guttural, strengthened the h with a hard g, and again presented the dose to the Norman. But, if the Norman could not sound the h alone, still less could he sound the double guttural; and he very coolly let both alone— ignored both. The Saxon scribe doubled the signs for his guttural, just as a farmer might put up a strong wooden fence in front of a hedge; but the Norman cleared both with perfect ease and indifference. And so it came to pass that we have the symbol gh in more than seventy of our words, and that in most of these we do not sound it at all. The gh remains in our language, like a moss-grown boulder, brought down into the fertile valley in a glacial period, when gutturals were both spoken and written, and men believed in the truthfulness of letters— but now passed by in silence and noticed by no one.

15. The Letters that represent Gutturals.— The English guttural has been quite Protean in the written or printed forms it takes. It appears as an i, as a y, as a w, as a ch, as a dge, as a j, and— in its more native forms— as a g, a k, or a gh. The following words give all these forms: ha+i+l, da+y+, fo+w+l, tea+ch+, e+dge+, a+j+ar, dra+g+, truc+k+, and trou+gh+. Now hail was hagol, day was daeg, fowl was fugol, teach was taecan, edge was egg, ajar was achar. In seek, beseech, sought— which are all different forms of the same word— we see the guttural appearing in three different forms— as a hard k, as a soft ch, as an unnoticed gh. In think and thought, drink and draught, sly and sleight, dry and drought, slay and slaughter, it takes two different forms. In dig, ditch, and dike— which are all the same word in different shapes— it again takes three forms. In fly, flew, and flight, it appears as a y, a w, and a gh. But, indeed, the manners of a guttural, its ways of appearing and disappearing, are almost beyond counting.

16. Grammatical Result of the Loss of Inflexions.— When we look at a Latin or French or German word, we know whether it is a verb or a noun or a preposition by its mere appearance— by its face or by its dress, so to speak. But the loss of inflexions which has taken place in the English language has resulted in depriving us of this advantage— if advantage it is. Instead of looking at the face of a word in English, we are obliged to think of its function,— that is, of what it does. We have, for example, a large number of words that are both nouns and verbs— we may use them as the one or as the other; and, till we have used them, we cannot tell whether they are the one or the other. Thus, when we speak of "a cut on the finger," cut is a noun, because it is a name; but when we say, "Harry cut his finger," then cut is a verb, because it tells something about Harry. Words like bud, cane, cut, comb, cap, dust, fall, fish, heap, mind, name, pen, plaster, punt, run, rush, stone, and many others, can be used either as nouns or as verbs. Again, fast, quick, and hard may be used either as adverbs or as adjectives; and back may be employed as an adverb, as a noun, and even as an adjective. Shakespeare is very daring in the use of this licence. He makes one of his characters say, "But me no buts!" In this sentence, the first but is a verb in the imperative mood; the second is a noun in the objective case. Shakespeare uses also such verbs as to glad, to mad, such phrases as a seldom pleasure, and the fairest she. Dr Abbott says, "In Elizabethan English, almost any part of speech can be used as any other part of speech. An adverb can be used as a verb, 'they askance their eyes'; as a noun, 'the backward and abysm of time'; or as an adjective, 'a seldom pleasure.' Any noun, adjective, or neuter verb can be used as an active verb. You can 'happy' your friend, 'malice' or 'fool' your enemy, or 'fall' an axe upon his neck." Even in modern English, almost any noun can be used as a verb. Thus we can say, "to paper a room"; "to water the horses"; "to black-ball a candidate"; to "iron a shirt" or "a prisoner"; "to toe the line." On the other hand, verbs may be used as nouns; for we can speak of a work, of a beautiful print, of a long walk, and so on.



CHAPTER IV.

SPECIMENS OF ENGLISH OF DIFFERENT PERIODS.

1. Vocabulary and Grammar.— The oldest English or Anglo-Saxon differs from modern English both in vocabulary and in grammar— in the words it uses and in the inflexions it employs. The difference is often startling. And yet, if we look closely at the words and their dress, we shall most often find that the words which look so strange are the very words with which we are most familiar— words that we are in the habit of using every day; and that it is their dress alone that is strange and antiquated. The effect is the same as if we were to dress a modern man in the clothes worn a thousand years ago: the chances are that we should not be able to recognise even our dearest friend.

2. A Specimen from Anglo-Saxon.— Let us take as an example a verse from the Anglo-Saxon version of one of the Gospels. The well-known verse, Luke ii. 40, runs thus in our oldest English version:—

Slce aet cild weox, and waes gestrangod, wisdmes full; and Godes gyfu waes on him.

Now this looks like an extract from a foreign language; but it is not: it is our own veritable mother-tongue. Every word is pure ordinary English; it is the dress— the spelling and the inflexions— that is quaint and old-fashioned. This will be plain from a literal translation:—

Soothly that child waxed, and was strengthened, wisdoms full (= full of wisdom); and God's gift was on him.

3. A Comparison.— This will become plainer if we compare the English of the Gospels as it was written in different periods of our language. The alteration in the meanings of words, the changes in the application of them, the variation in the use of phrases, the falling away of the inflexions— all these things become plain to the eye and to the mind as soon as we thoughtfully compare the different versions. The following are extracts from the Anglo-Saxon version (995), the version of Wycliffe (1389) and of Tyndale (1526), of the passage in Luke ii. 44, 45:—

ANGLO-SAXON. WYCLIFFE. TYNDALE.

Wndon aet he on heora gefre were, comon hig nes daeges faer, and hine shton betweox his magas and his can.

Forsothe thei gessinge him to be in the felowschipe, camen the wey of day, and sou[gh]ten him among his cosyns and knowen.

For they supposed he had bene in the company, they cam a days iorney, and sought hym amonge their kynsfolke and acquayntaunce.

a hig hyne ne fndon, hig gewendon to Hierusalem, hine scende.

And thei not fyndinge, wenten a[gh]en to Jerusalem, sekynge him.

And founde hym not, they went backe agayne to Hierusalem, and sought hym.

The literal translation of the Anglo-Saxon version is as follows:—

(They) weened that he on their companionship were (= was), when came they one day's faring, and him sought betwixt his relations and his couth (folk = acquaintances).

When they him not found, they turned to Jerusalem, him seeking.

4. The Lord's Prayer.— The same plan of comparison may be applied to the different versions of the Lord's Prayer that have come down to us; and it will be seen from this comparison that the greatest changes have taken place in the grammar, and especially in that part of the grammar which contains the inflexions.

THE LORD'S PRAYER.

1130. REIGN OF STEPHEN. 1250. REIGN OF HENRY III. 1380. WYCLIFFE'S VERSION. 1526. TYNDALE'S VERSION.

Fader ure, e art on heofone. Fadir ur, that es in hevene, Our Fadir, that art in hevenys, Our Father which art in heaven;

Sy gebletsod name in, Halud thi nam to nevene; Halewid be thi name; Halowed be thy name;

Cume in rike. Thou do as thi rich rike; Thi kingdom come to; Let thy kingdom come;

Si in wil swa swa on heofone and on eoran. Thi will on erd be wrought, eek as it is wrought in heven ay. Be thi wil done in erthe, as in hevene. Thy will be fulfilled as well in earth as it is in heven.

Breod ure degwamlich geof us to daeg. Ur ilk day brede give us to day. Give to us this day oure breed ovir othir substaunce, Geve us this day ur dayly bred,

And forgeof us ageltes ura swa swa we forgeofen agiltendum urum. Forgive thou all us dettes urs, als we forgive till ur detturs. And forgive to us our dettis, as we forgiven to oure dettouris. And forgeve us oure dettes as we forgeve ur detters.

And ne led us on costunge. And ledde us in na fandung. And lede us not into temptacioun; And leade us not into temptation,

Ac alys us fram yfele. Swa beo hit. But sculd us fra ivel thing. Amen. But delyvere us from yvel. Amen. But delyver us from evyll. For thyne is the kyngdom, and the power, and the glorye, for ever. Amen.

It will be observed that Wycliffe's version contains five Romance terms— substaunce, dettis, dettouris, temptacioun, and delyvere.

5. Oldest English and Early English.— The following is a short passage from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, under date 1137: first, in the Anglo-Saxon form; second, in Early English, or— as it has sometimes been called— Broken Saxon; third, in modern English. The breaking-down of the grammar becomes still more strikingly evident from this close juxtaposition.

(i) H swencton wreccan menn (ii) H swencten the wrecce men (iii) They swinked (harassed) the wretched men

(i) aes landes mid castel-weorcum. (ii) Of-the-land mid castel-weorces. (iii) Of the land with castle-works.

(i) a castelas waeron gemacod, (ii) Tha the castles waren maked, (iii) When the castles were made,

(i) fyldon h h mid yfelum mannum. (ii) th fylden hi hi mid yvele men. (iii) then filled they them with evil men.

6. Comparisons of Words and Inflexions.— Let us take a few of the most prominent words in our language, and observe the changes that have fallen upon them since they made their appearance in our island in the fifth century. These changes will be best seen by displaying them in columns:—

ANGLO-SAXON. EARLY ENGLISH. MIDDLE ENGLISH. MODERN ENGLISH.

heom. to heom. to hem. to them. se. he. ho, scho. she. sweostrum. to the swestres. to the swistren. to the sisters. geboren. gebore. ibor. born. lufigende. lufigend. lovand. loving. weoxon. woxen. wexide. waxed.

7. Conclusions from the above Comparisons.— We can now draw several conclusions from the comparisons we have made of the passages given from different periods of the language. These conclusions relate chiefly to verbs and nouns; and they may become useful as a KEY to enable us to judge to what period in the history of our language a passage presented to us must belong. If we find such and such marks, the language is Anglo-Saxon; if other marks, it is Early English; and so on.

I.— MARKS OF ANGLO-SAXON. II.— MARKS OF EARLY ENGLISH (1100-1250). III.— MARKS OF MIDDLE ENGLISH (1250-1485).

VERBS.

Infinitive in an. Infin. in en or e. Infin. with to (the en was dropped about 1400).

Pres. part. in ende. Pres. part. in ind. Pres. part. in inge.

Past part. with ge. ge of past part. turned into i or y.

3d plural pres. in ath. 3d plural past in on. 3d plural in en. 3d plural in en.

Plural of imperatives in ath. Imperative in eth.

NOUNS.

Plurals in an, as, or a. Plural in es. Plurals in es (separate syllable).

Dative plural in um. Dative plural in es.

Possessives in es (separate syllable).

8. The English of the Thirteenth Century.— In this century there was a great breaking-down and stripping-off of inflexions. This is seen in the Ormulum of Orm, a canon of the Order of St Augustine, whose English is nearly as flexionless as that of Chaucer, although about a century and a half before him. Orm has also the peculiarity of always doubling a consonant after a short vowel. Thus, in his introduction, he says:—

"iss boc iss nemmnedd Orrmulum Forr i att Orrm itt wrohhte."

That is, "This book is named Ormulum, for the (reason) that Orm wrought it." The absence of inflexions is probably due to the fact that the book is written in the East-Midland dialect. But, in a song called "The Story of Genesis and Exodus," written about 1250, we find a greater number of inflexions. Thus we read:—

"Hunger wex in lond Chanaan; And his x sunes Jacob for-an Sente in to Egypt to bringen coren; He bilefe at hom e was gungest boren."

That is, "Hunger waxed (increased) in the land of Canaan; and Jacob for that (reason) sent his ten sons into Egypt to bring corn: he remained at home that was youngest born."

9. The English of the Fourteenth Century.— The four greatest writers of the fourteenth century are— in verse, Chaucer and Langlande; and in prose, Mandeville and Wycliffe. The inflexions continue to drop off; and, in Chaucer at least, a larger number of French words appear. Chaucer also writes in an elaborate verse-measure that forms a striking contrast to the homely rhythms of Langlande. Thus, in the "Man of Lawes Tale," we have the verse:—

"O queens, lyvynge in prosperite, Duchesss, and ladys everichone, Haveth som routhe on hir adversite; An emperours doughter stant allone; She hath no wight to whom to make hir mone. O blood roial! that stondest in this dred Fer ben thy frends at thy gret ned!"

Here, with the exception of the imperative in Haveth som routhe (= have some pity), stant, and ben (= are), the grammar of Chaucer is very near the grammar of to-day. How different this is from the simple English of Langlande! He is speaking of the great storm of wind that blew on January 15, 1362:—

"Piries and Plomtres weore passchet to e grounde, In ensaumple to Men at we scholde do e bettre, Beches and brode okes weore blowen to e eore."

Here it is the spelling of Langlande's English that differs most from modern English, and not the grammar. —Much the same may be said of the style of Wycliffe (1324-1384) and of Mandeville (1300-1372). In Wycliffe's version of the Gospel of Mark, v. 26, he speaks of a woman "that hadde suffride many thingis of ful many lechis (doctors), and spendid alle hir thingis; and no-thing profitide." Sir John Mandeville's English keeps many old inflexions and spellings; but is, in other respects, modern enough. Speaking of Mahomet, he says: "And [gh]ee schulle understonds that Machamete was born in Arabye, that was first a pore knave that kept cameles, that wenten with marchantes for marchandise." Knave for boy, and wenten for went are the two chief differences— the one in the use of words, the other in grammar— that distinguish this piece of Mandeville's English from our modern speech.

10. The English of the Sixteenth Century.— This, which is also called Tudor-English, differs as regards grammar hardly at all from the English of the nineteenth century. This becomes plain from a passage from one of Latimer's sermons (1490-1555), "a book which gives a faithful picture of the manners, thoughts, and events of the period." "My father," he writes, "was a yeoman, and had no lands of his own, only he had a farm of three or four pound a year at the uttermost, and hereupon he tilled so much as kept half a dozen men. He had walk for a hundred sheep; and my mother milked thirty kine." In this passage, it is only the old-fashionedness, homeliness, and quaintness of the English— not its grammar— that makes us feel that it was not written in our own times. When Ridley, the fellow-martyr of Latimer, stood at the stake, he said, "I commit our cause to Almighty God, which shall indifferently judge all." Here he used indifferently in the sense of impartially— that is, in the sense of making no difference between parties; and this is one among a very large number of instances of Latin words, when they had not been long in our language, still retaining the older Latin meaning.

11. The English of the Bible (i).— The version of the Bible which we at present use was made in 1611; and we might therefore suppose that it is written in seventeenth-century English. But this is not the case. The translators were commanded by James I. to "follow the Bishops' Bible"; and the Bishops' Bible was itself founded on the "Great Bible," which was published in 1539. But the Great Bible is itself only a revision of Tyndale's, part of which appeared as early as 1526. When we are reading the Bible, therefore, we are reading English of the sixteenth century, and, to a large extent, of the early part of that century. It is true that successive generations of printers have, of their own accord, altered the spelling, and even, to a slight extent, modified the grammar. Thus we have fetched for the older fet, more for moe, sown for sowen, brittle for brickle (which gives the connection with break), jaws for chaws, sixth for sixt, and so on. But we still find such participles as shined and understanded; and such phrases as "they can skill to hew timber" (1 Kings v. 6), "abjects" for abject persons, "three days agone" for ago, the "captivated Hebrews" for "the captive Hebrews," and others.

12. The English of the Bible (ii).— We have, again, old words retained, or used in the older meaning. Thus we find, in Psalm v. 6, the phrase "them that speak leasing," which reminds us of King Alfred's expression about "leasum spellum" (lying stories). Trow and ween are often found; the "champaign over against Gilgal" (Deut. xi. 30) means the plain; and a publican in the New Testament is a tax-gatherer, who sent to the Roman Treasury or Publicum the taxes he had collected from the Jews. An "ill-favoured person" is an ill-looking person; and "bravery" (Isa. iii. 18) is used in the sense of finery in dress. —Some of the oldest grammar, too, remains, as in Esther viii. 8, "Write ye, as it liketh you," where the you is a dative. Again, in Ezek. xxx. 2, we find "Howl ye, Woe worth the day!" where the imperative worth governs day in the dative case. This idiom is still found in modern verse, as in the well-known lines in the first canto of the "Lady of the Lake":—

"Woe worth the chase, woe worth the day That cost thy life, my gallant grey!"



CHAPTER V.

MODERN ENGLISH.

1. Grammar Fixed.— From the date of 1485— that is, from the beginning of the reign of Henry VII.— the changes in the grammar or constitution of our language are so extremely small, that they are hardly noticeable. Any Englishman of ordinary education can read a book belonging to the latter part of the fifteenth or to the sixteenth century without difficulty. Since that time the grammar of our language has hardly changed at all, though we have altered and enlarged our vocabulary, and have adopted thousands of new words. The introduction of Printing, the Revival of Learning, the Translation of the Bible, the growth and spread of the power to read and write— these and other influences tended to fix the language and to keep it as it is to-day. It is true that we have dropped a few old-fashioned endings, like the n or en in silvern and golden; but, so far as form or grammar is concerned, the English of the sixteenth and the English of the nineteenth centuries are substantially the same.

2. New Words.— But, while the grammar of English has remained the same, the vocabulary of English has been growing, and growing rapidly, not merely with each century, but with each generation. The discovery of the New World in 1492 gave an impetus to maritime enterprise in England, which it never lost, brought us into connection with the Spaniards, and hence contributed to our language several Spanish words. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Italian literature was largely read; Wyatt and Surrey show its influence in their poems; and Italian words began to come in in considerable numbers. Commerce, too, has done much for us in this way; and along with the article imported, we have in general introduced also the name it bore in its own native country. In later times, Science has been making rapid strides— has been bringing to light new discoveries and new inventions almost every week; and along with these new discoveries, the language has been enriched with new names and new terms. Let us look a little more closely at the character of these foreign contributions to the vocabulary of our tongue.

3. Spanish Words.— The words we have received from the Spanish language are not numerous, but they are important. In addition to the ill-fated word armada, we have the Spanish for Mr, which is Don (from Lat. dominus, a lord), with its feminine Duenna. They gave us also alligator, which is our English way of writing el lagarto, the lizard. They also presented us with a large number of words that end in o— such as buffalo, cargo, desperado, guano, indigo, mosquito, mulatto, negro, potato, tornado, and others. The following is a tolerably full list:—

Alligator. Armada. Barricade. Battledore. Bravado. Buffalo. Cargo. Cigar. Cochineal. Cork. Creole. Desperado. Don. Duenna. Eldorado. Embargo. Filibuster. Flotilla. Galleon (a ship). Grandee. Grenade. Guerilla. Indigo. Jennet. Matador. Merino. Mosquito. Mulatto. Negro. Octoroon. Quadroon. Renegade. Savannah. Sherry (= Xeres). Tornado. Vanilla.

4. Italian Words.— Italian literature has been read and cultivated in England since the time of Chaucer— since the fourteenth century; and the arts and artists of Italy have for many centuries exerted a great deal of influence on those of England. Hence it is that we owe to the Italian language a large number of words. These relate to poetry, such as canto, sonnet, stanza; to music, as pianoforte, opera, oratorio, soprano, alto, contralto; to architecture and sculpture, as portico, piazza, cupola, torso; and to painting, as studio, fresco (an open-air painting), and others. The following is a complete list:—

Alarm. Alert. Alto. Arcade. Balcony. Balustrade. Bandit. Bankrupt. Bravo. Brigade. Brigand. Broccoli. Burlesque. Bust. Cameo. Canteen. Canto. Caprice. Caricature. Carnival. Cartoon. Cascade. Cavalcade. Charlatan. Citadel. Colonnade. Concert. Contralto. Conversazione. Cornice. Corridor. Cupola. Curvet. Dilettante. Ditto. Doge. Domino. Extravaganza. Fiasco. Folio. Fresco. Gazette. Gondola. Granite. Grotto. Guitar. Incognito. Influenza. Lagoon. Lava. Lazaretto. Macaroni. Madonna. Madrigal. Malaria. Manifesto. Motto. Moustache. Niche. Opera. Oratorio. Palette. Pantaloon. Parapet. Pedant. Pianoforte. Piazza. Pistol. Portico. Proviso. Quarto. Regatta. Ruffian. Serenade. Sonnet. Soprano. Stanza. Stiletto. Stucco. Studio. Tenor. Terra-cotta. Tirade. Torso. Trombone. Umbrella. Vermilion. Vertu. Virtuoso. Vista. Volcano. Zany.

5. Dutch Words.— We have had for many centuries commercial dealings with the Dutch; and as they, like ourselves, are a great seafaring people, they have given us a number of words relating to the management of ships. In the fourteenth century, the southern part of the German Ocean was the most frequented sea in the world; and the chances of plunder were so great that ships of war had to keep cruising up and down to protect the trading vessels that sailed between England and the Low Countries. The following are the words which we owe to the Netherlands:—

Ballast. Boom. Boor. Burgomaster. Hoy. Luff. Reef. Schiedam (gin). Skates. Skipper. Sloop. Smack. Smuggle. Stiver. Taffrail. Trigger. Wear (said of a ship). Yacht. Yawl.

6. French Words.— Besides the large additions to our language made by the Norman-French, we have from time to time imported direct from France a number of French words, without change in the spelling, and with little change in the pronunciation. The French have been for centuries the most polished nation in Europe; from France the changing fashions in dress spread over all the countries of the Continent; French literature has been much read in England since the time of Charles II.; and for a long time all diplomatic correspondence between foreign countries and England was carried on in French. Words relating to manners and customs are common, such as soire, etiquette, sance, lite; and we have also the names of things which were invented in France, such as mitrailleuse, carte-de-visite, coup d'tat, and others. Some of these words are, in spelling, exactly like English; and advantage of this has been taken in a well-known epigram:—

The French have taste in all they do, Which we are quite without; For Nature, which to them gave got,[15] To us gave only gout.

The following is a list of French words which have been imported in comparatively recent times:—

Aide-de-camp. Belle. Bivouac. Blonde. Bouquet. Brochure. Brunette. Brusque. Carte-de-visite. Coup-d'tat. Dbris. Dbut. Djener. Depot. clat. Ennui. Etiquette. Faade. Got. Nave. Navet. Nonchalance. Outr. Penchant. Personnel. Prcis. Programme. Protg. Recherch. Sance. Soire. Trousseau.

The Scotch have always had a closer connection with the French nation than England; and hence we find in the Scottish dialect of English a number of French words that are not used in South Britain at all. A leg of mutton is called in Scotland a gigot; the dish on which it is laid is an ashet (from assiette); a cup for tea or for wine is a tassie (from tasse); the gate of a town is called the port; and a stubborn person is dour (Fr. dur, from Lat. durus); while a gentle and amiable person is douce (Fr. douce, Lat. dulcis).

[Footnote 15: Got (goo) from Latin gustus, taste.]

7. German Words.— It must not be forgotten that English is a Low-German dialect, while the German of books is New High-German. We have never borrowed directly from High-German, because we have never needed to borrow. Those modern German words that have come into our language in recent times are chiefly the names of minerals, with a few striking exceptions, such as loafer, which came to us from the German immigrants to the United States, and plunder, which seems to have been brought from Germany by English soldiers who had served under Gustavus Adolphus. The following are the German words which we have received in recent times:—

Cobalt. Felspar. Hornblende. Landgrave. Loafer. Margrave. Meerschaum. Nickel. Plunder. Poodle. Quartz. Zinc.

8. Hebrew Words.— These, with very few exceptions, have come to us from the translation of the Bible, which is now in use in our homes and churches. Abbot and abbey come from the Hebrew word abba, father; and such words as cabal and Talmud, though not found in the Old Testament, have been contributed by Jewish literature. The following is a tolerably complete list:—

Abbey. Abbot. Amen. Behemoth. Cabal. Cherub. Cinnamon. Hallelujah. Hosannah. Jehovah. Jubilee. Gehenna. Leviathan. Manna. Paschal. Pharisee. Pharisaical. Rabbi. Sabbath. Sadducees. Satan. Seraph. Shibboleth. Talmud.

9. Other Foreign Words.— The English have always been the greatest travellers in the world; and our sailors always the most daring, intelligent, and enterprising. There is hardly a port or a country in the world into which an English ship has not penetrated; and our commerce has now been maintained for centuries with every people on the face of the globe. We exchange goods with almost every nation and tribe under the sun. When we import articles or produce from abroad, we in general import the native name along with the thing. Hence it is that we have guano, maize, and tomato from the two Americas; coffee, cotton, and tamarind from Arabia; tea, congou, and nankeen from China; calico, chintz, and rupee from Hindostan; bamboo, gamboge, and sago from the Malay Peninsula; lemon, musk, and orange from Persia; boomerang and kangaroo from Australia; chibouk, ottoman, and tulip from Turkey. The following are lists of these foreign words; and they are worth examining with the greatest minuteness:—

AFRICAN DIALECTS.

Baobab. Canary. Chimpanzee. Gnu. Gorilla. Guinea. Karoo. Kraal. Oasis. Quagga. Zebra.

AMERICAN TONGUES.

Alpaca. Buccaneer. Cacique. Cannibal. Canoe. Caoutchouc. Cayman. Chocolate. Condor. Guano. Hammock. Jaguar. Jalap. Jerked (beef). Llama. Mahogany. Maize. Manioc. Moccasin. Mustang. Opossum. Pampas. Pemmican. Potato. Racoon. Skunk. Squaw. Tapioca. Tobacco. Tomahawk. Tomato. Wigwam.

ARABIC.

(The word al means the. Thus alcohol = the spirit.)

Admiral (Milton writes ammiral). Alcohol. Alcove. Alembic. Algebra. Alkali. Amber. Arrack. Arsenal. Artichoke. Assassin. Assegai. Attar. Azimuth. Azure. Caliph. Carat. Chemistry. Cipher. Civet. Coffee. Cotton. Crimson. Dragoman. Elixir. Emir. Fakir. Felucca. Gazelle. Giraffe. Harem. Hookah. Koran (or Alcoran). Lute. Magazine. Mattress. Minaret. Mohair. Monsoon. Mosque. Mufti. Nabob. Nadir. Naphtha. Saffron. Salaam. Senna. Sherbet. Shrub (the drink). Simoom. Sirocco. Sofa. Sultan. Syrup. Talisman. Tamarind. Tariff. Vizier. Zenith. Zero.

CHINESE.

Bohea. China. Congou. Hyson. Joss. Junk. Nankeen. Pekoe. Silk. Souchong. Tea. Typhoon.

HINDU.

Avatar. Banyan. Brahmin. Bungalow. Calico. Chintz. Coolie. Cowrie. Durbar. Jungle. Lac (of rupees). Loot. Mulligatawny. Musk. Pagoda. Palanquin. Pariah. Punch. Pundit. Rajah. Rupee. Ryot. Sepoy. Shampoo. Sugar. Suttee. Thug. Toddy.

HUNGARIAN.

Hussar. Sabre. Shako. Tokay.

MALAY.

Amuck. Bamboo. Bantam. Caddy. Cassowary. Cockatoo. Dugong. Gamboge. Gong. Gutta-percha. Mandarin. Mango. Orang-outang. Rattan. Sago. Upas.

PERSIAN.

Awning. Bazaar. Bashaw. Caravan. Check. Checkmate. Chess. Curry. Dervish. Divan. Firman. Hazard. Horde. Houri. Jar. Jackal. Jasmine. Lac (a gum). Lemon. Lilac. Lime (the fruit). Musk. Orange. Paradise. Pasha. Rook. Saraband. Sash. Scimitar. Shawl. Taffeta. Turban.

POLYNESIAN DIALECTS.

Boomerang. Kangaroo. Taboo. Tattoo.

PORTUGUESE.

Albatross. Caste. Cobra. Cocoa-nut. Commodore. Fetish. Lasso. Marmalade. Moidore. Molasses. Palaver. Port (= Oporto).

RUSSIAN.

Czar. Drosky. Knout. Morse. Rouble. Steppe. Ukase. Verst.

TARTAR.

Khan.

TURKISH.

Bey. Caftan. Chibouk. Chouse. Dey. Janissary. Kiosk. Odalisque. Ottoman. Tulip. Yashmak. Yataghan.

10. Scientific Terms.— A very large number of discoveries in science have been made in this century; and a large number of inventions have introduced these discoveries to the people, and made them useful in daily life. Thus we have telegraph and telegram; photograph; telephone and even photophone. The word dynamite is also modern; and the unhappy employment of it has made it too widely known. Then passing fashions have given us such words as athlete and sthete. In general, it may be said that, when we wish to give a name to a new thing— a new discovery, invention, or fashion— we have recourse not to our own stores of English, but to the vocabularies of the Latin and Greek languages.

LANDMARKS IN THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

[Transcriber's Note:

In the original book, the following chart was laid out much like a typical table of contents, with the date in a separate column along the right edge. It has been reformatted for this e-text. The date is repeated in brackets where appropriate.]

450 1. The Beowulf, an old English epic, "written on the mainland"

597 2. Christianity introduced by St Augustine (and with it many Latin and a few Greek words)

670 3. Caedmon— 'Paraphrase of the Scriptures,'— first English poem

735 4. Baeda— "The Venerable Bede"— translated into English part of St John's Gospel

901 5. King Alfred translated several Latin works into English, among others, Bede's 'Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation' (851)

1000 6. Aelfric, Archbishop of York, turned into English most of the historical books of the Old Testament

1066 7. The Norman Conquest, which introduced Norman French words

1160 8. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, said to have been begun by King Alfred, and brought to a close in [1160]

1200 9. Orm or Orrmin's Ormulum, a poem written in the East Midland dialect, about [1200]

1204 10. Normandy lost under King John. Norman-English now have their only home in England, and use our English speech more and more

1205 11. Layamon translates the 'Brut' from the French of Robert Wace. This is the first English book (written in Southern English) after the stoppage of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

1220 12. The Ancren Riwle ("Rules for Anchorites") written in the Dorsetshire dialect. "It is the forerunner of a wondrous change in our speech." "It swarms with French words"

1258 13. First Royal Proclamation in English, issued by Henry III.

1300 14. Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle (swarms with foreign terms)

1303 15. Robert Manning, "Robert of Brunn," compiles the 'Handlyng Synne.' "It contains a most copious proportion of French words"

1340 16. Ayenbite of Inwit (= "Remorse of Conscience")

1349 17. The Great Plague. After this it becomes less and less the fashion to speak French

1356 18. Sir John Mandeville, first writer of the newer English Prose— in his 'Travels,' which contained a large admixture of French words. "His English is the speech spoken at Court in the latter days of King Edward III."

1362 19. English becomes the language of the Law Courts

1380 20. Wickliffe's Bible

1400 21. Geoffrey Chaucer, the first great English poet, author of the 'Canterbury Tales'; born in 1340, died [1400]

1471 22. William Caxton, the first English printer, brings out (in the Low Countries) the first English book ever printed, the 'Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye,'— "not written with pen and ink, as other books are, to the end that every man may have them at once"

1474 23. First English Book printed in England (by Caxton) the 'Game and Playe of the Chesse'

1523 24. Lord Berners' translation of Froissart's Chronicle

1526-30 25. William Tyndale, by his translation of the Bible "fixed our tongue once for all." "His New Testament has become the standard of our tongue: the first ten verses of the Fourth Gospel are a good sample of his manly Teutonic pith"

1590 26. Edmund Spenser publishes his 'Faerie Queene.' "Now began the golden age of England's literature; and this age was to last for about fourscore years"

1611 27. Our English Bible, based chiefly on Tyndale's translation. "Those who revised the English Bible in 1611 were bidden to keep as near as they could to the old versions, such as Tyndale's"

1616 28. William Shakespeare carried the use of the English language to the greatest height of which it was capable. He employed 15,000 words. "The last act of 'Othello' is a rare specimen of Shakespeare's diction: of every five nouns, verbs, and adverbs, four are Teutonic" (Born 1564)

1667 29. John Milton, "the most learned of English poets," publishes his 'Paradise Lost,'— "a poem in which Latin words are introduced with great skill"

1661 30. The Prayer-Book revised and issued in its final form. "Are was substituted for be in forty-three places. This was a great victory of the North over the South"

1688 31. John Bunyan writes his 'Pilgrim's Progress'— a book full of pithy English idiom. "The common folk had the wit at once to see the worth of Bunyan's masterpiece, and the learned long afterwards followed in the wake of the common folk" (Born 1628)

1642 32. Sir Thomas Browne, the author of 'Urn-Burial' and other works written in a highly Latinised diction, such as the 'Religio Medici,' written [1642]

1759 33. Dr Samuel Johnson was the chief supporter of the use of "long-tailed words in osity and ation," such as his novel called 'Rasselas,' published [1759]

34. Tennyson, Poet-Laureate, a writer of the best English— "a countryman of Robert Manning's, and a careful student of old Malory, has done much for the revival of pure English among us" (Born 1809)



PART IV.

OUTLINE OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE



CHAPTER I.

OUR OLDEST ENGLISH LITERATURE.

1. Literature.— The history of English Literature is, in its external aspect, an account of the best books in prose and in verse that have been written by English men and English women; and this account begins with a poem brought over from the Continent by our countrymen in the fifth century, and comes down to the time in which we live. It covers, therefore, a period of nearly fourteen hundred years.

2. The Distribution of Literature.— We must not suppose that literature has always existed in the form of printed books. Literature is a living thing— a living outcome of the living mind; and there are many ways in which it has been distributed to other human beings. The oldest way is, of course, by one person repeating a poem or other literary composition he has made to another; and thus literature is stored away, not upon book-shelves, but in the memory of living men. Homer's poems are said to have been preserved in this way to the Greeks for five hundred years. Father chanted them to son; the sons to their sons; and so on from generation to generation. The next way of distributing literature is by the aid of signs called letters made upon leaves, flattened reeds, parchment, or the inner bark of trees. The next is by the help of writing upon paper. The last is by the aid of type upon paper. This has existed in England for more than four hundred years— since the year 1474; and thus it is that our libraries contain many hundreds of thousands of valuable books. For the same reason is it, most probably, that as our power of retaining the substance and multiplying the copies of books has grown stronger, our living memories have grown weaker. This defect can be remedied only by education— that is, by training the memories of the young. While we possess so many printed books, it must not be forgotten that many valuable works exist still in manuscript— written either upon paper or on parchment.

3. Verse, the earliest form of Literature.— It is a remarkable fact that the earliest kind of composition in all languages is in the form of Verse. The oldest books, too, are those which are written in verse. Thus Homer's poems are the oldest literary work of Greece; the Sagas are the oldest productions of Scandinavian literature; and the Beowulf is the oldest piece of literature produced by the Anglo-Saxon race. It is also from the strong creative power and the lively inventions of poets that we are even now supplied with new thoughts and new language— that the most vivid words and phrases come into the language; just as it is the ranges of high mountains that send down to the plains the ever fresh soil that gives to them their unending fertility. And thus it happens that our present English speech is full of words and phrases that have found their way into the most ordinary conversation from the writings of our great poets— and especially from the writings of our greatest poet, Shakespeare. The fact that the life of prose depends for its supplies on the creative minds of poets has been well expressed by an American writer:—

"I looked upon a plain of green, Which some one called the Land of Prose, Where many living things were seen In movement or repose.

I looked upon a stately hill That well was named the Mount of Song, Where golden shadows dwelt at will, The woods and streams among.

But most this fact my wonder bred (Though known by all the nobly wise), It was the mountain stream that fed That fair green plain's amenities."

4. Our oldest English Poetry.— The verse written by our old English writers was very different in form from the verse that appears now from the hands of Tennyson, or Browning, or Matthew Arnold. The old English or Anglo-Saxon writers used a kind of rhyme called head-rhyme or alliteration; while, from the fourteenth century downwards, our poets have always employed end-rhyme in their verses.

"{L}ightly down {l}eaping he {l}oosened his helmet."

Such was the rough old English form. At least three words in each long line were alliterative— two in the first half, and one in the second. Metaphorical phrases were common, such as war-adder for arrow, war-shirts for armour, whale's-path or swan-road for the sea, wave-horse for a ship, tree-wright for carpenter. Different statements of the same fact, different phrases for the same thing— what are called parallelisms in Hebrew poetry— as in the line—

"Then saw they the sea head-lands— the windy walls,"

were also in common use among our oldest English poets.

5. Beowulf.— The Beowulf is the oldest poem in the English language. It is our "old English epic"; and, like much of our ancient verse, it is a war poem. The author of it is unknown. It was probably composed in the fifth century— not in England, but on the Continent— and brought over to this island— not on paper or on parchment— but in the memories of the old Jutish or Saxon vikings or warriors. It was not written down at all, even in England, till the end of the ninth century, and then, probably, by a monk of Northumbria. It tells among other things the story of how Beowulf sailed from Sweden to the help of Hrothgar, a king in Jutland, whose life was made miserable by a monster— half man, half fiend— named Grendel. For about twelve years this monster had been in the habit of creeping up to the banqueting-hall of King Hrothgar, seizing upon his thanes, carrying them off, and devouring them. Beowulf attacks and overcomes the dragon, which is mortally wounded, and flees away to die. The poem belongs both to the German and to the English literature; for it is written in a Continental English, which is somewhat different from the English of our own island. But its literary shape is, as has been said, due to a Christian writer of Northumbria; and therefore its written or printed form— as it exists at present— is not German, but English. Parts of this poem were often chanted at the feasts of warriors, where all sang in turn as they sat after dinner over their cups of mead round the massive oaken table. The poem consists of 3184 lines, the rhymes of which are solely alliterative.

6. The First Native English Poem.— The Beowulf came to us from the Continent; the first native English poem was produced in Yorkshire. On the dark wind-swept cliff which rises above the little land-locked harbour of Whitby, stand the ruins of an ancient and once famous abbey. The head of this religious house was the Abbess Hild or Hilda: and there was a secular priest in it,— a very shy retiring man, who looked after the cattle of the monks, and whose name was Caedmon. To this man came the gift of song, but somewhat late in life. And it came in this wise. One night, after a feast, singing began, and each of those seated at the table was to sing in his turn. Caedmon was very nervous— felt he could not sing. Fear overcame his heart, and he stole quietly away from the table before the turn could come to him. He crept off to the cowshed, lay down on the straw and fell asleep. He dreamed a dream; and, in his dream, there came to him a voice: "Caedmon, sing me a song!" But Caedmon answered: "I cannot sing; it was for this cause that I had to leave the feast." "But you must and shall sing!" "What must I sing, then?" he replied. "Sing the beginning of created things!" said the vision; and forthwith Caedmon sang some lines in his sleep, about God and the creation of the world. When he awoke, he remembered some of the lines that had come to him in sleep, and, being brought before Hilda, he recited them to her. The Abbess thought that this wonderful gift, which had come to him so suddenly, must have come from God, received him into the monastery, made him a monk, and had him taught sacred history. "All this Caedmon, by remembering, and, like a clean animal, ruminating, turned into sweetest verse." His poetical works consist of a metrical paraphrase of the Old and the New Testament. It was written about the year 670; and he died in 680. It was read and re-read in manuscript for many centuries, but it was not printed in a book until the year 1655.

7. The War-Poetry of England.— There were many poems about battles, written both in Northumbria and in the south of England; but it was only in the south that these war-songs were committed to writing; and of these written songs there are only two that survive up to the present day. These are the Song of Brunanburg, and the Song of the Fight at Maldon. The first belongs to the date 938; the second to 991. The Song of Brunanburg was inscribed in the SAXON CHRONICLE— a current narrative of events, written chiefly by monks, from the ninth century to the end of the reign of Stephen. The song tells the story of the fight of King Athelstan with Anlaf the Dane. It tells how five young kings and seven earls of Anlaf's host fell on the field of battle, and lay there "quieted by swords," while their fellow-Northmen fled, and left their friends and comrades to "the screamers of war— the black raven, the eagle, the greedy battle-hawk, and the grey wolf in the wood." The Song of the Fight at Maldon tells us of the heroic deeds and death of Byrhtnoth, an ealdorman of Northumbria, in battle against the Danes at Maldon, in Essex. The speeches of the chiefs are given; the single combats between heroes described; and, as in Homer, the names and genealogies of the foremost men are brought into the verse.

8. The First English Prose.— The first writer of English prose was Baeda, or, as he is generally called, the Venerable Bede. He was born in the year 672 at Monkwearmouth, a small town at the mouth of the river Wear, and was, like Caedmon, a native of the kingdom of Northumbria. He spent most of his life at the famous monastery of Jarrow-on-Tyne. He spent his life in writing. His works, which were written in Latin, rose to the number of forty-five; his chief work being an Ecclesiastical History. But though Latin was the tongue in which he wrote his books, he wrote one book in English; and he may therefore be fairly considered the first writer of English prose. This book was a Translation of the Gospel of St John— a work which he laboured at until the very moment of his death. His disciple Cuthbert tells the story of his last hours. "Write quickly!" said Baeda to his scribe, for he felt that his end could not be far off. When the last day came, all his scholars stood around his bed. "There is still one chapter wanting, Master," said the scribe; "it is hard for thee to think and to speak." "It must be done," said Baeda; "take thy pen and write quickly." So through the long day they wrote— scribe succeeding scribe; and when the shades of evening were coming on, the young writer looked up from his task and said, "There is yet one sentence to write, dear Master." "Write it quickly!" Presently the writer, looking up with joy, said, "It is finished!" "Thou sayest truth," replied the weary old man; "it is finished: all is finished." Quietly he sank back upon his pillow, and, with a psalm of praise upon his lips, gently yielded up to God his latest breath. It is a great pity that this translation— the first piece of prose in our language— is utterly lost. No MS. of it is at present known to be in existence.

9. The Father of English Prose.— For several centuries, up to the year 866, the valleys and shores of Northumbria were the homes of learning and literature. But a change was not long in coming. Horde after horde of Danes swept down upon the coasts, ravaged the monasteries, burnt the books— after stripping the beautiful bindings of the gold, silver, and precious stones which decorated them— killed or drove away the monks, and made life, property, and thought insecure all along that once peaceful and industrious coast. Literature, then, was forced to desert the monasteries of Northumbria, and to seek for a home in the south— in Wessex, the kingdom over which Alfred the Great reigned for more than thirty years. The capital of Wessex was Winchester; and an able writer says: "As Whitby is the cradle of English poetry, so is Winchester of English prose." King Alfred founded colleges, invited to England men of learning from abroad, and presided over a school for the sons of his nobles in his own Court. He himself wrote many books, or rather, he translated the most famous Latin books of his time into English. He translated into the English of Wessex, for example, the 'Ecclesiastical History' of Baeda; the 'History of Orosius,' into which he inserted geographical chapters of his own; and the 'Consolations of Philosophy,' by the famous Roman writer, Bothius. In these books he gave to his people, in their own tongue, the best existing works on history, geography, and philosophy.

10. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.— The greatest prose-work of the oldest English, or purely Saxon, literature, is a work— not by one person, but by several authors. It is the historical work which is known as The Saxon Chronicle. It seems to have been begun about the middle of the ninth century; and it was continued, with breaks now and then, down to 1154— the year of the death of Stephen and the accession of Henry II. It was written by a series of successive writers, all of whom were monks; but Alfred himself is said to have contributed to it a narrative of his own wars with the Danes. The Chronicle is found in seven separate forms, each named after the monastery in which it was written. It was the newspaper, the annals, and the history of the nation. "It is the first history of any Teutonic people in their own language; it is the earliest and most venerable monument of English prose." This Chronicle possesses for us a twofold value. It is a valuable storehouse of historical facts; and it is also a storehouse of specimens of the different states of the English language— as regards both words and grammar— from the eighth down to the twelfth century.

11. Layamon's Brut.— Layamon was a native of Worcestershire, and a priest of Ernley on the Severn. He translated, about the year 1205, a poem called Brut, from the French of a monkish writer named Master Wace. Wace's work itself is little more than a translation of parts of a famous "Chronicle or History of the Britons," written in Latin by Geoffrey of Monmouth, who was Bishop of St Asaph in 1152. But Geoffrey himself professed only to have translated from a chronicle in the British or Celtic tongue, called the "Chronicle of the Kings of Britain," which was found in Brittany— long the home of most of the stories, traditions, and fables about the old British Kings and their great deeds. Layamon's poem called the "Brut" is a metrical chronicle of Britain from the landing of Brutus to the death of King Cadwallader, about the end of the seventh century. Brutus was supposed to be a great-grandson of neas, who sailed west and west till he came to Great Britain, where he settled with his followers. —This metrical chronicle is written in the dialect of the West of England; and it shows everywhere a breaking down of the grammatical forms of the oldest English, as we find it in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. In fact, between the landing of the Normans and the fourteenth century, two things may be noted: first, that during this time— that is, for three centuries— the inflections of the oldest English are gradually and surely stripped off; and, secondly, that there is little or no original English literature given to the country, but that by far the greater part consists chiefly of translations from French or from Latin.

12. Orm's Ormulum.— Less than half a century after Layamon's Brut appeared a poem called the Ormulum, by a monk of the name of Orm or Ormin. It was probably written about the year 1215. Orm was a monk of the order of St Augustine, and his book consists of a series of religious poems. It is the oldest, purest, and most valuable specimen of thirteenth-century English, and it is also remarkable for its peculiar spelling. It is written in the purest English, and not five French words are to be found in the whole poem of twenty thousand short lines. Orm, in his spelling, doubles every consonant that has a short vowel before it; and he writes pann for pan, but pan for pane. The following is a specimen of his poem:—

Ice hafe wennd inntill Ennglissh Goddspelless hallghe lare, Affterr thatt little witt tatt me Min Drihhtin hafethth lenedd.

I have wended (turned) into English Gospel's holy lore, After the little wit that me My Lord hath lent.

Other famous writers of English between this time and the appearance of Chaucer were Robert of Gloucester and Robert of Brunne, both of whom wrote Chronicles of England in verse.



CHAPTER II.

THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.

1. The opening of the fourteenth century saw the death of the great and able king, Edward I., the "Hammer of the Scots," the "Keeper of his word." The century itself— a most eventful period— witnessed the feeble and disastrous reign of Edward II.; the long and prosperous rule— for fifty years— of Edward III.; the troubled times of Richard II., who exhibited almost a repetition of the faults of Edward II.; and the appearance of a new and powerful dynasty— the House of Lancaster— in the person of the able and ambitious Henry IV. This century saw also many striking events, and many still more striking changes. It beheld the welding of the Saxon and the Norman elements into one— chiefly through the French wars; the final triumph of the English language over French in 1362; the frequent coming of the Black Death; the victories of Crecy and Poitiers; it learned the universal use of the mariner's compass; it witnessed two kings— of France and of Scotland— prisoners in London; great changes in the condition of labourers; the invention of gunpowder in 1340; the rise of English commerce under Edward III.; and everywhere in England the rising up of new powers and new ideas.

2. The first prose-writer in this century is Sir John Mandeville (who has been called the "Father of English Prose"). King Alfred has also been called by this name; but as the English written by Alfred was very different from that written by Mandeville,— the latter containing a large admixture of French and of Latin words, both writers are deserving of the epithet. The most influential prose-writer was John Wyclif, who was, in fact, the first English Reformer of the Church. In poetry, two writers stand opposite each other in striking contrast— Geoffrey Chaucer and William Langlande, the first writing in courtly "King's English" in end-rhyme, and with the fullest inspirations from the literatures of France and Italy, the latter writing in head-rhyme, and— though using more French words than Chaucer— with a style that was always homely, plain, and pedestrian. John Gower, in Kent, and John Barbour, in Scotland, are also noteworthy poets in this century. The English language reached a high state of polish, power, and freedom in this period; and the sweetness and music of Chaucer's verse are still unsurpassed by modern poets. The sentences of the prose-writers of this century are long, clumsy, and somewhat helpless; but the sweet homely English rhythm exists in many of them, and was continued, through Wyclif's version, down into our translation of the Bible in 1611.

3. SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE, (1300-1372), "the first prose-writer in formed English," was born at St Albans, in Hertfordshire, in the year 1300. He was a physician; but, in the year 1322, he set out on a journey to the East; was away from home for more than thirty years, and died at Lige, in Belgium, in 1372. He wrote his travels first in Latin, next in French, and then turned them into English, "that every man of my nation may understand it." The book is a kind of guide-book to the Holy Land; but the writer himself went much further east— reached Cathay or China, in fact. He introduced a large number of French words into our speech, such as cause, contrary, discover, quantity, and many hundred others. His works were much admired, read, and copied; indeed, hundreds of manuscript copies of his book were made. There are nineteen still in the British Museum. The book was not printed till the year 1499— that is, twenty-five years after printing was introduced into this country. Many of the Old English inflexions still survive in his style. Thus he says: "Machamete was born in Arabye, that was a pore knave (boy) that kepte cameles that wenten with marchantes for marchandise."

4. JOHN WYCLIF (his name is spelled in about forty different ways)— 1324-1384— was born at Hipswell, near Richmond, in Yorkshire, in the year 1324, and died at the vicarage of Lutterworth, in Leicestershire, in 1384. His fame rests on two bases— his efforts as a reformer of the abuses of the Church, and his complete translation of the Bible. This work was finished in 1383, just one year before his death. But the translation was not done by himself alone; the larger part of the Old Testament version seems to have been made by Nicholas de Hereford. Though often copied in manuscript, it was not printed for several centuries. Wyclif's New Testament was printed in 1731, and the Old Testament not until the year 1850. But the words and the style of his translation, which was read and re-read by hundreds of thoughtful men, were of real and permanent service in fixing the language in the form in which we now find it.

5. JOHN GOWER (1325-1408) was a country gentleman of Kent. As Mandeville wrote his travels in three languages, so did Gower his poems. Almost all educated persons in the fourteenth century could read and write with tolerable and with almost equal ease, English, French, and Latin. His three poems are the Speculum Meditantis ("The Mirror of the Thoughtful Man"), in French; the Vox Clamantis ("Voice of One Crying"), in Latin; and Confessio Amantis ("The Lover's Confession"), in English. No manuscript of the first work is known to exist. He was buried in St Saviour's, Southwark, where his effigy is still to be seen— his head resting on his three works. Chaucer called him "the moral Gower"; and his books are very dull, heavy, and difficult to read.

6. WILLIAM LANGLANDE (1332-1400), a poet who used the old English head-rhyme, as Chaucer used the foreign end-rhyme, was born at Cleobury-Mortimer in Shropshire, in the year 1332. The date of his death is doubtful. His poem is called the Vision of Piers the Plowman; and it is the last long poem in our literature that was written in Old English alliterative rhyme. From this period, if rhyme is employed at all, it is the end-rhyme, which we borrowed from the French and Italians. The poem has an appendix called Do-well, Do-bet, Do-best— the three stages in the growth of a Christian. Langlande's writings remained in manuscript until the reign of Edward VI.; they were printed then, and went through three editions in one year. The English used in the Vision is the Midland dialect— much the same as that used by Chaucer; only, oddly enough, Langlande admits into his English a larger amount of French words than Chaucer. The poem is a distinct landmark in the history of our speech. The following is a specimen of the lines. There are three alliterative words in each line, with a pause near the middle—

"A voice {l}oud in that {l}ight to {L}ucifer crid, '{P}rinces of this {p}alace {p}rest[16] undo the gats, For here {c}ometh with {c}rown the {k}ing of all glory!'"

[Footnote 16: Quickly.]

7. GEOFFREY CHAUCER (1340-1400), the "father of English poetry," and the greatest narrative poet of this country, was born in London in or about the year 1340. He lived in the reigns of Edward III., Richard II., and one year in the reign of Henry IV. His father was a vintner. The name Chaucer is a Norman name, and is found on the roll of Battle Abbey. He is said to have studied both at Oxford and Cambridge; served as page in the household of Prince Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the third son of Edward III.; served also in the army, and was taken prisoner in one of the French campaigns. In 1367, he was appointed gentleman-in-waiting (valettus) to Edward III., who sent him on several embassies. In 1374 he married a lady of the Queen's chamber; and by this marriage he became connected with John of Gaunt, who afterwards married a sister of this lady. While on an embassy to Italy, he is reported to have met the great poet Petrarch, who told him the story of the Patient Griselda. In 1381, he was made Comptroller of Customs in the great port of London— an office which he held till the year 1386. In that year he was elected knight of the shire— that is, member of Parliament for the county of Kent. In 1389, he was appointed Clerk of the King's Works at Westminster and Windsor. From 1381 to 1389 was probably the best and most productive period of his life; for it was in this period that he wrote the House of Fame, the Legend of Good Women, and the best of the Canterbury Tales. From 1390 to 1400 was spent in writing the other Canterbury Tales, ballads, and some moral poems. He died at Westminster in the year 1400, and was the first writer who was buried in the Poets' Corner of the Abbey. We see from his life— and it was fortunate for his poetry— that Chaucer had the most varied experience as student, courtier, soldier, ambassador, official, and member of Parliament; and was able to mix freely and on equal terms with all sorts and conditions of men, from the king to the poorest hind in the fields. He was a stout man, with a small bright face, soft eyes, dazed by long and hard reading, and with the English passion for flowers, green fields, and all the sights and sounds of nature.

8. Chaucer's Works.— Chaucer's greatest work is the Canterbury Tales. It is a collection of stories written in heroic metre— that is, in the rhymed couplet of five iambic feet. The finest part of the Canterbury Tales is the Prologue; the noblest story is probably the Knightes Tale. It is worthy of note that, in 1362, when Chaucer was a very young man, the session of the House of Commons was first opened with a speech in English; and in the same year an Act of Parliament was passed, substituting the use of English for French in courts of law, in schools, and in public offices. English had thus triumphed over French in all parts of the country, while it had at the same time become saturated with French words. In the year 1383 the Bible was translated into English by Wyclif. Thus Chaucer, whose writings were called by Spenser "the well of English undefiled," wrote at a time when our English was freshest and newest. The grammar of his works shows English with a large number of inflexions still remaining. The Canterbury Tales are a series of stories supposed to be told by a number of pilgrims who are on their way to the shrine of St Thomas (Becket) at Canterbury. The pilgrims, thirty-two in number, are fully described— their dress, look, manners, and character in the Prologue. It had been agreed, when they met at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, that each pilgrim should tell four stories— two going and two returning— as they rode along the grassy lanes, then the only roads, to the old cathedral city. But only four-and-twenty stories exist.