JOHNSON.

Of genius, that power, which constitutes a poet; that quality, without which judgment is cold and knowledge is inert; that energy which collects, combines, amplifies, and animates, the superiority must, with some hesitation, be allowed to Dryden. It is not to be inferred that of this poetical vigor Pope had only a little, because Dryden had more ; for every other writer since Milton must give place to Pope; and even of Pryden it must be said, that if he has brighter paragraphs, he has not better poems.

"From the preceding instances we may form an idea of the power of the Saxon language, but by no means a just idea; for we must not conclude that the words which are not Saxon could not be supplied by Saxon words. On the contrary, Saxon terms might be substituted for all the words not marked as Saxon.

"To impress this sufficiently on the mind of the reader, it will be necessary to show how much of our ancient language we have laid aside, and have suffered to become obsolete; because all our writers, from Chaucer to our own times, have used words of foreign origin rather than our own. In three pages of Alfred's Orosius, I found 78 words which have become obsolete, out of 548, or about one-seventh. In three pages of his Boetius I found 143 obsolete out of 666, or about one-fifth. In three pages of his Bede, I found 230 obsolete out of 969, or about onefifth. The difference in the proportion between these and the Orosius proceeds from the latter containing many historical names. Perhaps we shall be near the truth if we say, as a general principle, that one-fifth of the AngloSaxon language has ceased to be used in modern English. This loss must of course be taken into account when we estimate the copiousness of our ancient language, by considering how much of it our English authors exhibit.”SHARON TURNER-Hist. of the Anglo-Saxons, Vol. I., App. I., Chap. III.

APPENDIX C.

"THE Greeks and Romans, counting only by tens, composed their numbers from ten to twenty, with dɛka,' ‘decem,' ten; vdeka,' 'undecim,' eleven; duwdɛka,' duodecim,' twelve. The German tribes formed the same numerals in a similar manner, except eleven and twelve, which were composed with Ger. 'lif;' A. S. 'laefan;' 'lif,' 'lef,' 'l'f,' in other dialects. But as this anomaly entered our numeral system in a period anterior to the history of our tongues, and is common to all the Germanic languages, the analogy between the kindred dialects is not disturbed by these irregularities, but rather advanced.

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"18. The cause of this disturbance lies in the old practice of using both ten and twelve as fundamental numbers. “The advance was by ten, thus 'thrittig,' Country Friesic tritich; feowertig,' Ab. 2, &c.; but on arriving at sixty the series was finished, and another begun, denoted by prefixing 'hund.' This second series proceeded to one hundred and twenty, thus: hund-nigontig,' ninety; 'hundteontig,' a hundred; hund-enlufontig,' a hundred and ten; 'hund-twelftig,' a hundred and twenty: here the second series concluded. It thus appears that the Anglo-Saxons Idid not know our hundred = 100, as the chief division of numbers; and though they counted from ten to ten, they, at the same time, chose the number twelve as the basis of the chief divisions. As we say, 5 × 10 = 50; 10 × 10= 100; they multiplied 5 and 10 by 12, and produced 60 and 120. When the Scandinavians adopted a hundred as a chief division-100 = 10 × 10-they still retained one hundred and twenty; and calling both these numbers hundred, they

-

distinguished them by the epithets little or ten hundred, 'lill-hundrad' or 'hundrad tiraed,' and great or the twelve number hundred, 'stor-hundrad,' or 'hundrad tólfraed.' The Danes count to forty by tens, thus: tredive,' thirty; 'fyrretyve,' forty; and then commence by twenties, thus: halvtrediesindstyve,' literally in A. S. thridda healf sithon twentig'*—two twenties—and the third twenty half, i. e. fifty. The Icelanders call 2500 half thridie thusand,' --Dut. ‘derdehalfduizend,' i. e. two thousand, and the third thousand half; 'firesindtyve'-four times twenty-eighty, and so on to a hundred. The Francs being a mixture of kindred nations from the middle of Germany, when they entered Gallia, partly adopted the Anglo-Saxon mode of numeration, and partly that of the Danes, and they afterwards translated verbally their vernacular names of the numerals by Latin words. From twenty to fifty it proceeds in the usual manner, vingt,' trente,' 'quarante,' cinquante,' soixante;' but having arrived at seventy, the same place where the Anglo-Saxons commenced with 'hund,' ‹ hundseofontig,' it uses 'soixante-dix,' 'quatre-vingt,' just as the Danes express eighty by 'firesindstyve,' four times twenty. As it appears that the old Germans had two fundamental ́numbers, ten and twelve, it follows that eleven and twelve are the last two numerals of the twelve series, and the first two in the ten series; hence perhaps the same use of the termination 'lif' or 'lef' in eleven and twelve."-BoswORTH, Origin and Connection of the Germanic Tongues. London, 1838.

*"The ellipsis of the two twenties is supplied in the expression 'twá geare and thridde healf,' two years and half the third year, literally in Frs. c. 'twa jier in t' tredde heal,' but custom contracts it to 'tredde heal jier.' Hickes compares this ellipsis with the Scotch expression, half ten, which is also the Dut. half tien,' but in this he is not accurate. The country Friesians not having this ellipsis, proves that it must be supplied in another way. They say, 'healwei tsjienen,' half way of the present hour to ten o'clock. Dr. Dorow has also fallen into the same mistake, p. 127, Denkmäler, I., 2 and 3."

APPENDIX D.

"ON THE STRUCTURE AND MECHANISM OF THE ANGLOSAXON LANGUAGE."

"To explain the history of any language is a task peculiarly difficult at this period of the world, in which we are so very remote from the era of its original construction.

"We have, as yet, witnessed no people in the act of forming their language, and cannot, therefore, from experience, demonstrate the simple elements from which a language begins, nor the additional organization which it gradually receives. The languages of highly civilized people, which are those that we are most conversant with, are in a state very unlike their ancient tongues. Many words have been added to them from other languages; many have deviated into meanings very different from their primitive significations; many have been so altered by the change of pronunciation and orthography, as scarcely to bear any resemblance to their ancient forms. The abbreviations of language, which have been usually called its articles, pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions, and interjections; the inflections of its verbs, the declensions of its nouns, and the very form of its syntax, have also undergone so many alterations from the caprice of human usage, that it is impossible to discern any thing of the mechanism of a language, but by ascending from its present state to its more ancient form.

"The Anglo-Saxon is one of those ancient languages to

which we may successfully refer, in our inquiries how language has been constructed.

"As we have not had the experience of any people forming a language, we cannot attain to a knowledge of its mechanism in any other way than by analyzing it; by arranging its words into their classes, and by tracing these to their elementary sources. We shall perhaps be unable to discover the original words with which the language began, but we may hope to trace the progress of its formation, and some of the principles on which that progress has been made. In this inquiry I shall follow the steps of the author of the Diversions of Purley, and build upon his foundation, because I think that his book has presented to us the key to that mechanism which we have so long admired, so fruitlessly examined, and so little understood.

"Words have been divided into nine classes: the article, the substantive or noun, the pronoun, the adjective, the verb, the adverb, the preposition, the conjunction, and the interjection.

"Under these classes all the Saxon words may be arranged, although not with that scientific precision with which the classifications of natural history have been made. Mr. Tooke has asserted, that in all languages there are only two sorts of words necessary for the communication of our thoughts, and therefore only two parts of speech, the noun and the verb, and that the others are the abbreviations of these.

"But if the noun and the verb be only used, they will serve not so much to impart our meaning, as to indicate it. These will suffice to express simple substances or facts, and simple motions of nature or man; but will do by themselves little else. All the connections, references, distinctions, limitations, applications, contrasts, relations, and refinements of thought and feeling-and therefore most of what a cultivated people wish to express by language,