Layamon's Metrical Chronicle, the "Brut," which belongs to the end of the twelfth century, or the beginning of the thirteenth. The editor of the poem has subjected its language to a masterly analysis, the chief results of which are easily understood, and provide very valuable materials for those who study the early history of our English tongue. We have to take account, first, of the words constituting the vocabulary; and, secondly, of the manner in which these are dealt with when they are combined in sentences. The Vocabulary is especially instructive. Written a century and a half after the Norman Conquest, the Brut has hardly any words that are not Anglo-Saxon. Containing more than thirtytwo thousand lines, it has not, in the older of its two manuscripts, so many as fifty French words, although we include in the list new words taken through that tongue from the Latin; and, of those which it has, several had been introduced earlier, being found in the Saxon Chronicle. In a more recent text, supposed to belong to the reign of Henry the Third, about thirty of the French words are retained, and upwards of forty others are added. We have thus decisive proof of an assertion, which we found reason to believe when we reviewed the literature of the Norman period. The immediate effects of the Conquest, even on the Vocabulary of the Anglo-Saxon tongue, were by no means so considerable as they were once believed to have been. In respect of Etymology and Syntax, again, Layamon's deviations from the Anglo-Saxon are set down for us in several articles; and of them we may take, first, those (and the proportion is surprisingly large) of which it happens that instances have occurred to us in our short extract from the Saxon Chronicle. First: There is a general disregard of Inflections in the substantives and Masculine forms are given to neuters in the plural. Indeed, the inflections of the Anglo-Saxon nouns were so complex, that our grammars are not yet quite at one in describing them. Instances, which have just been noted in the Chronicle, lead us towards this very important fact; that the declension which lingered longest was the simplest of those that had been used for Masculine Substantives, a declension giving a genitive singular in -es, and a nominative plural in -as. The plural ending was, as we have seen, corrupted into -es; the declension, so changed, then usurped the place of the more difficult ones in a great majority of the most common words; and this was the foundation of our modern genitive in 's, and of our plural in 8 or es. Secondly: There was a like disregard of Gender, which had in most instances been fixed by termination, according to rules both difficult and uncertain, like those which still perplex learners in the continental Gothic tongues. Not only were the names of things without life masculine, feminine, or neuter, according to their endings; but some names of living creatures were neuter, the termination overbearing the meaning.* * Confusion was inevitable in a time when the language was neg.ected and a very obvious remedy presented itself, after a while, in our modern rule of determining all genders by the signification of the words. Thirdly: The Definite and Indefinite Declensions of Adjectives are confounded; and the Feminine terminations of adjectives and pronouns are neglected. We have seen, in the Chronicle, the inflectional terminations of the adjectives disappearing altogether; although some of these did not altogether lose their hold for many generations.t Fourthly: There is an occasional use of the Weak preterites and participles of verbs, (the forms which our grammarians have been accustomed to call Regular,) instead of the Strong or Irregular forms. Fifthly: There is a constant substitution of -en for -on in the Plurals of Verbs; and the final -e is often discarded. Sixthly: There is great uncertainty in the Government of Prepositions. Having already encountered all the corruptions thus enumerated, we have really few others to learn, and none that are nearly so important. A few there are, however, which throw light on the formation of the new tongue. Besides the article an (still used also as a numeral, and declined), our other article a now appears, being used as indeclin-. able, and prefixed to consonants, as with us. The gender of nouns, pretty correct in the earlier text, is less so in the later; and the feminine is often neglected altogether. In respect of pronouns, the accusative him for hine, (already traceable in the Chronicle,) *Thus, wif, a woman, was neuter. The word was not promoted to the dignity of real gender till it was compounded in wif-man (literally, a female-man), whence comes woman. "All the indefinite inflections of tne adjective may be found in the manuscripts of the thirteenth century; but there is much inconsistency in the manner of using them, and that sometimes even in the same man. uscript. The only inflections (of the adjective) which survived long enough to affect the language of Chaucer and his contemporaries, were those of the nominative and genitive plural." Guest: in the Transac ions of the Philological Society; vol. i.: 1844. appears frequently in the later text; and in it, too, the relative takes the undeclined form woche, instead of the older while or wulc. The conjugation of verbs is generally that of the AngloSaxon, with the exceptions already noted: but it suffers also certain other changes, which lead us fast towards English. The preposition to is inserted before infinitives; the common infinitive termination -an is changed into -en (as likewise elsewhere the final -a into -e); the final -n of the infinitive is omitted, sometimes in the earlier manuscript, and generally in the later; and a difficult gerundive form in -nne or ne, (which has not happened to occur to us,) is indeed retained, but is confounded with the present participle in -nde, the original of our participle in -ing. 5. A few lines of the Brut, with the scantiest annotation, may suffice to exemplify these remarks, and serve, in some degree, as a ground of comparison with the older diction of the Chronicle. Our extract is from the account of the great battle of Bath, in which the illustrious Arthur is said to have signally discomfited the Saxons. The semi-stanzas are separated by colons.* 6 Ther weoren Saxisce men: folken1 alre2 ærmest ;3 swá bith the wilde bar: as is the wild boar. * Thá isæh Arthur: athelest1o kingen :1 When saw Arthur, noblest For folca; genitive plural, of folc. of-kings, * Falra (sometimes alra) is the correct genitive plural of call or all. For leoda; from leod (German, leute). See Cædmon, Note 5. Literally, fey-ship; Anglo-Saxon, fæge; Scottish fey. See Guy Mannering. 7 For sona. 8 Good Anglo-Saxon from inf. abelgan. Good Anglo-Saxon. The verb beón, to be, gives, in the present, ic bed, thú byst, he byth; and wesan, to be, gives ic com, thú eart, he is. 10 Superlative from the Anglo-Saxon, athel or ethel (German edel). 11 The error marked in Note 1. * Madden's Layamon, iii. 468–471; the text of the older manuscript. Whar13 Colgrim at-stod: and æc stal's wrote: Then called the king, keenly * * * loud: Nú him is al swá there gat: ther he1 thene hul wat: Though the wolf be Ich am wulf, and he is gat: the gume1 12 Modern spelling, for hw-. * scal beon faie: 20 shall be fey! 13 Hence stall; perhaps here it means fight; whence stalwart, brave. The word gat is first used correctly as feminine, being joined with there and then it is held as masculine, being represented by he. But, possibly, he may be a corruption for the feminine heó, which seems to have sometimes taken that form in the later dialect of the west. Transactions of the Philological Society: vol. i. p. 279: 1844. 15 A noun from windan, to wind or twine. 16 Plural of subjunctive; wrongly used for singular. See 17 From man; as the Old English and Scottish word, menye or meinye, a company. 18 Witan, to depart. 19 Anglo-Saxon, guma. 20 See Note 6. The passage, with a translation, is also in Guest's "History of English Rhythms," vol. ii. 1838. CHAPTER III. THE OLD ENGLISH PERIOD. A. D. 1250-A. D. 1500. FORMATION OF THE STRUCTURE OF THE ENGLISH TONGUE 1. Principle of the Change-Inflections deserted-Substitutes to be found-The First Step already exemplified.-2. Stages of the Re-Construction-Early English-Middle English. EARLY ENGLISH.-3. Character of the Early English-Specimens.-4. Extract from the Owl and the Nightingale.-5. Extract from the Legend of Thomas Becket. MIDDLE ENGLISH.-6. Character of the Middle English-the Main Features of the Modern Tongue established-Changes in Grammar-Changes in VocabularySpecimens Chaucer.-7. Extracts from Prologue to the Canterbury Tales.-8. Extracts from the Knight's Tale.-9. Specimen of Chaucer's Prose.-10. Language in the Early Part of the Fifteenth Century-Extract from Lydgate's Churl and Bird.11. Language in the Latter Part of the Fifteenth Century-Its Character-The Structure of the English Tongue substantially Completed-Extract from The Paston Letters. THE LANGUAGE OF SCOTLAND.-12. A Gothic Dialect in North-Eastern Counties-An Anglo-Saxon Dialect in Southern Counties-Changes as in England.-13. The Scottish Tongue in the Fourteenth Century-Extract from Barbour's Bruce.14. Great Changes in the Fifteenth Century-Extract from Dunbar's Thistle and Rose. 1. ESCAPING from the perplexities of the Semi-Saxon, we have reached an era in which the language may reasonably be called English. The principles in respect of which our modern speech deviates from its Germanic root, now begin to operate actively. Some of the changes which have already been observed by us, suggest and illustrate these principles: others may seem to lead us away from them. The primary law is exemplified by very many of the words we have analyzed. It is this. The Anglo-Saxon, like the Latin, though not to the same extent, was rich in inflections: a given idea being denoted by a given word, many of the modifications of that idea could be expressed by changes in the form of the word, without aid from any other words. In the course of the revolution, most of the inflections disappeared. Consequently, in expressing the modifications of an idea denoted by a given word, the new language has oftenest to join with that word other words denoting relations. Such a change occurs when the inflections of a Latin verb have their place supplied by auxiliary verbs, and those of the noun by prepositions. It is exemplified when the genitive "Roma" |