A Handbook of the English Language

Here not to refuse = to accept; and is probably a Grecism. To not refuse would, perhaps, be better.

The next expression is still more foreign to the English idiom:—

Here not is to be taken with could.

§ 517. In the present English, two negatives make an affirmative. I have not not seen him = I have seen him. In Greek this was not the case. Duæ aut plures negativæ apud Græcos vehementius negant is a well known rule. The Anglo-Saxon idiom differed from the English and coincided with the Greek. The French negative is only apparently double; words like point, pas, mean not not, but at all. Je ne parle pas = I not speak at all, not I not speak no.

§ 518. Questions of appeal.—All questions imply want of information; want of information may then imply doubt; doubt, perplexity; and perplexity the absence of an alternative. In this way, what are called, by Mr. Arnold,^[65] questions of appeal, are, practically speaking, negatives. What should I do? when asked in extreme perplexity, means that nothing can well be done. In the following passage we have the presence of a question instead of a negative:—

CHAPTER XXVIII.

ON THE CASE ABSOLUTE.

§ 519. Broadly speaking, all adverbial constructions are absolute. The term, however, is conveniently limited to a particular combination of the noun, verb, and participle. When two actions are connected with each other, either by the fact of their simultaneous occurrence, or as cause and effect, they may be expressed within the limits of a single proposition, by expressing the one by means of a verb, and the other by means of a noun and participle agreeing with each other. The door being open, the horse was stolen.

Considering the nature of the connection between the two actions, we find good grounds for expecting à priori that the participle will be in the instrumental case, when such exists in the language: and when not, in some case allied to it, i.e., the ablative or dative.

In Latin the ablative is the case that is used absolutely. Sole orto, claruit dies.

In Anglo-Saxon the absolute case was the dative. This is logical.

In the present English, however, the nominative is the absolute case. He made the best proverbs, him alone excepted, is an expression of Tillotson's. We should now write he alone excepted. The present mode of expression is only to be justified by considering the nominative form to be a dative one, just as in the expression you are here, the word you, although an accusative, is considered as a nominative. A real nominative absolute is as illogical as a real accusative case governing a verb.

PART VI.

PROSODY.

§ 520. The word Prosody is derived from a Greek word (prosodia) signifying accent. It is used by Latin and English grammarians in a wider sense, and includes not only the doctrines of accent and quantity, but also the laws of metre and versification.

§ 521. Observe the accents in the following lines:—

Here the syllables accented are the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th, 12th, 14th, 16th, 18th, 20th, 22nd, 24th, 26th, 28th; that is, every other syllable.—Again,

Here the syllables accented are the 3rd, 6th, 9th, 12th, 15th, 18th, 21st, 24th, 27th, 30th, 33rd, 36th, 39th, 42nd, 45th, 48th; that is, every third syllable.

§ 522. Metre is a general term for the recurrence within certain intervals of syllables similarly affected. The syllables that have just been numbered are similarly affected, being similarly accented. Accent is not the only quality of a syllable, which by returning at regular intervals can constitute metre. It is the one, however, upon which English metre depends. English metre essentially consists in the regular recurrence of syllables similarly accented.

§ 523. Measures.—For every accented syllable in the following line, write the letter a, and for every unaccented one, the letter x, so that a may stand for an accent, x for the absence of one—

or expressed symbolically

where x coincides with the, a with way, &c.

§ 524. Determine the length of the line in question.—It is plain that this may be done in two ways. We may either measure by the syllables, and say that the line consists of eight syllables; or by the accents, and say that it consists of four accents. In this latter case we take the accented syllable with its corresponding unaccented one, and, grouping the two together, deal with the pair at once. Now, a group of syllables thus taken together is called a measure. In the line in question the way (x a) is one measure, was long (x a) another, and so on throughout; the line itself consisting of four measures.

§ 525. Trisyllabic measures.—The number of measures consisting of two syllables, or dissyllabic measures, is necessarily limited to two, expressed a x and x a respectively. But beyond these there are in the English language measures of three syllables, or trisyllabic measures. The number of these is necessarily limited to three.

The first of these is exhibited in the word mérrily (a x x).

The second is exhibited by the word disáble (x a x).

§ 526. The third is exhibited by the word cavaliér (x x a).

When grouped together according to certain rules, measures form lines and verses; and lines and verses, regularly arranged, constitute couplets, triplets, and stanzas, &c.

§ 527. The expression of measures, lines, &c., by such symbols as a x, x a, &c., is metrical notation.

§ 528. Rhyme.—We can have English verse without rhyme. We cannot have English verse without accent. Hence accent is an essential; rhyme an accessory to metre.

§ 529. Analysis of a pair of rhyming syllables.—Let the syllables told and bold be taken to pieces, and let the separate parts of each be compared. Viewed in reference to metre, they consist of three parts or elements: 1. the vowel (o); 2. the part preceding the vowel (t and b respectively); 3. the parts following the vowel (ld). Now the vowel (o) and the parts following the vowel (ld) are alike in both words (old); but the part preceding the vowel is different in the different words (told, bold). This difference between the parts preceding the vowels is essential; since, if it were not for this, the two words would be identical, or rather there would be but one word altogether. This is the case with I and eye. Sound for sound (although different in spelling) the two words are identical, and, consequently, the rhyme is faulty.

Again—compared with the words bold and told, the words teeth and breeze have two of the elements necessary to constitute a rhyme. The vowels are alike (ee), whilst the parts preceding the vowels are different (br and t); and, as far as these two matters are concerned, the rhyme is a good one, tee and bree. Notwithstanding this, there is anything rather than a rhyme; since the parts following the vowel (th and ze) instead of agreeing, differ. Breathe and beneath are in the same predicament, because the th is not sounded alike in the two words.

Again—the words feel and mill constitute only a false and imperfect rhyme. Sound for sound, the letters f and m (the parts preceding the vowel) are different. This is as it should be. Also, sound for sound, l and ll (the parts following the vowel) are identical; and this is as it should be also: but ee and i (the vowels) are different, and this difference spoils the rhyme. None and own are in the same predicament; since one o is sounded as o in note, and the other as the u in but.

From what has gone before we get the notion of true and perfect rhymes as opposed to false and imperfect ones. For two (or more) words to rhyme to each other, it is necessary

Beyond this it is necessary that the syllables, to form a full and perfect rhyme, should be accented syllables. Sky and lie form good rhymes, but sky and merrily bad ones, and merrily and silly worse. Lines like the second and fourth of the following stanza are slightly exceptionable on this score: indeed, many readers sacrifice the accent in the word mérrily to the rhyme, and pronounce it merrilý.

§ 530. In matters of rhyme the letter h counts as nothing. High and I, hair and air, are imperfect rhymes, because h (being no articulate sound) counts as nothing, and so the parts before the vowel i and a are not different (as they ought to be) but identical.

§ 531. Words where the letters coincide, but the sounds differ, are only rhymes to the eye. Breathe and beneath are both in this predicament; so also are cease and ease (eaze).

§ 532. If the sounds coincide, the difference of the letters is unimportant.

§ 533. Single rhymes.—An accented syllable standing by itself, and coming under the conditions given above, constitutes a single rhyme.

§ 534. Double rhymes.—An accented syllable followed by an unaccented one, and coming under the conditions given above, constitutes a double rhyme.

§ 535. An accented syllable followed by two unaccented ones, and coming under the conditions given above, constitutes a treble rhyme.

§ 536. Metres where there is no rhyme are called blank metres.

§ 537. The last measure in a line or verse is indifferent as to its length.—By referring to the section upon single rhymes, we shall find that the number of syllables is just double the number of accents; that is, to each accented there is one unaccented syllable, and no more. Hence, with five accents, there are to each line ten syllables. This is not the case with all verses. Some rhymes are double, and the last accented syllable has two unaccented ones to follow it. Hence, with five accents there are to each line eleven syllables. Now it is in the last measure that this supernumerary unaccented syllable appears; and it is a general rule, that, in the last measure of any verse, supernumerary unaccented syllables can be admitted without destroying the original character of the measure.

§ 538. See the verses in the section on double rhymes. Here the original character of the measure is x a throughout, until we get to the words disséver and for éver, and afterwards to men doúbt it, and aboút it. At the first view it seems proper to say that in these last-mentioned cases x a is converted into x a x. A different view, however, is the more correct one. Disséver and for éver, are rather x a with a syllable over. This extra syllable may be expressed by the sign plus ( + ), so that the words in point may be expressed by x a +, rather than by x a x. It is very clear that a measure whereof the last syllable is accented (that is, measures like x a, presúme, or x x a, cavalíer), can only vary from their original character on the side of excess; that is, they can only be altered by the addition of fresh syllables. To subtract a syllable from such feet is impossible; since it is only the last syllable that is capable of being subtracted. If that last syllable, however, be the accented syllable of the measure, the whole measure is annihilated. Nothing remains but the unaccented syllable preceding; and this, as no measure can subsist without an accent, must be counted as a supernumerary part of the preceding measure.

§ 539. With the measures a x, a x x, x a x, the case is different. Here there is room for syllable or syllables to be subtracted.

In all these lines the last measure is deficient in a syllable, yet the deficiency is allowable, because each measure is the last one of the line. The formula for expressing faír, sléep, chaír, &c. is not a, but rather a x followed by the minus sign (-), or a x-.

A little consideration will show that amongst the English measures, x a and x x a naturally form single, a x and x a x double, and a x x treble rhymes.

§ 540. The chief metres in English are of the formula x a. It is only a few that are known by fixed names. These are as follows:—

1. Gay's stanza.—Lines of three measures, x a, with alternate rhymes. The odd (i.e. the 1st and 3rd) rhymes double.

2. Common octosyllabics.—Four measures, x a, with rhyme, and (unless the rhymes be double) eight syllables (octo syllabæ).—Butler's Hudibras, Scott's poems, The Giaour, and other poems of Lord Byron.

3. Elegiac octosyllabics.—Same as the last, except that the rhymes are regularly alternate, and the verses arranged in stanzas.

4. Octosyllabic triplets.—Three rhymes in succession. Generally arranged as stanzas.

5. Blank verse.—Five measures, x a, without rhyme, Paradise Lost, Young's Night Thoughts, Cowper's Task.

6. Heroic couplets.—Five measures, x a, with pairs of rhymes. Chaucer, Denham, Dryden, Waller, Pope, Goldsmith, Cowper, Byron, Moore, Shelley, &c. This is the common metre for narrative, didactic, and descriptive poetry.

7. Heroic triplets.—Five measures, x a. Three rhymes in succession. Arranged in stanzas. This metre is sometimes interposed among heroic couplets.

8. Elegiacs.—Five measures, x a; with regularly alternate rhymes, and arranged in stanzas.

9. Rhymes royal.—Seven lines of heroics, with the last two rhymes in succession, and the first five recurring at intervals.

This metre was common with the writers of the earlier part of Queen Elizabeth's reign. It admits of varieties according to the distribution of the first five rhymes.

10. Ottava rima.—A metre with an Italian name, and borrowed from Italy, where it is used generally for narrative poetry. The Morgante Maggiore of Pulci, the Orlando Innamorato of Bojardo, the Orlando Furioso of Ariosto, the Gierusalemme Liberata of Tasso, are all written in this metre. Besides this, the two chief epics of Spain and Portugal respectively (the Auraucana and the Lusiados) are thus composed. Hence it is a form of poetry which is Continental rather than English, and naturalized rather than indigenous. The stanza consists of eight lines of heroics, the six first rhyming alternately, the last two in succession.

11. Terza rima.—Like the last, borrowed both in name and nature from the Italian, and scarcely yet naturalized in England.

12. Alexandrines.—Six measures, x a, generally (perhaps always) with rhyme. The name is said to be taken from the fact that early romances upon the deeds of Alexander of Macedon, of great popularity, were written in this metre. One of the longest poems in the English language is in the Alexandrines, viz. Drayton's Poly-olbion, quoted above.

13. Spenserian stanza.—A stanza consisting of nine lines, the first eight heroics, the last an Alexandrine.

Childe Harold and other important poems are composed in the Spenserian stanza.

14. Service metre.—Couplets of seven measures, x a. This is the common metre of the Psalm versions. It is also called common measure, or long measure. In this metre there is always a pause after the fourth measure, and many grammarians consider that with that pause the line ends. According to this view, the service metre does not consist of two long lines with seven measures each; but of four short ones, with four and three measures each alternately. The Psalm versions are printed so as to exhibit this pause or break.

In this matter the following distinction is convenient. When the last syllable of the fourth measure (i.e. the eighth syllable in the line) in the one verse rhymes with the corresponding syllable in the other, the long verse should be looked upon as broken up into two short ones; in other words, the couplets should be dealt with as a stanza. Where there is no rhyme except at the seventh measure, the verse should remain undivided. Thus:

constitute a single couplet of two lines, the number of rhymes being two. But,

constitute a stanza of four lines, the number of rhymes being four.

15. Ballad stanza.—Service metre broken up in the way just indicated. Goldsmith's Edwin and Angelina, &c.

16. Poulterer's measure.—Alexandrines and service metre alternately. Found in the poetry of Henry the Eighth's time.

PART VII.

THE DIALECTS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

§ 541. Certain parts of England are named as if their population were preeminently Saxon rather than Angle; viz., Wes-sex ( = West Saxons), Es-sex ( = East Saxons), Sus-sex ( = South Saxons), and Middle-sex, ( = Middle Saxons).

Others are named as if their population were preeminently Angle rather than Saxon; thus, the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk once constituted the kingdom of the East Angles, and even at the present moment, are often spoken of as East Anglia.

§ 542. It is safe to say that the dialects of the English language do not coincide with the distribution of these terms. That parts of the Angle differ from parts of the Saxon districts in respect to the character of their provincialisms is true; but it is by no means evident that they differ on that account.

Thus, that the dialect of Hampshire, which was part of Wes-sex, should differ from that of Norfolk, which was part of East Anglia, is but natural. There is a great space of country between them—a fact sufficient to account for their respective characteristics, without assuming an original difference of population. Between the Saxons of Es-sex and the Anglians of Suffolk, no one has professed to find any notable difference.

Hence, no division of the English dialects into those of Saxon or those of Angle origin, has been successful.

Neither have any peculiarities in the dialect of Kent, or the Isle of Wight, verified the notion of the population for those parts having been originally Jute.

Nor yet has any portion of England been shown by the evidence of its dialects, to have been Frisian.

§ 543. Yet the solution of such problems is one of the great objects of the study of provincial modes of speech.

§ 544. That Jute characteristics will be sought in vain is the inference from §§ 7-13.

That differential points between the Angles and Saxons will be sought in vain is also probable.

On the other hand, differential points between the Frisians and Angles are likely to be discovered.

§ 545. The traces of the Danes, or Northmen, are distinct; the following forms of local names being primâ facie evidence (at least) of Danish or Norse occupancy.

a. The combination Sk-, rather than the sound of Sh-, in such names as Skip-ton, rather than Ship-ton.

b. The combination Ca-, rather than Ch-, in such names as Carl-ton rather than Charl-ton.

c. The termination -by ( = town, habitation, occupancy,) rather than -ton, as Ash-by, Demble-by, Spills-by, Grims-by, &c.

d. The form Kirk rather than Church.

e. The form Orm rather than Worm, as in Orms-head.

In Orms-kirk and Kir-by we have a combination of Danish characteristics.

§ 546. In respect to their distribution, the Danish forms are—

At their maximum on the sea-coast of Lincolnshire; i.e., in the parts about Spills-by.

Common, but less frequent, in Yorkshire, the Northern counties of England, the South-eastern parts of Scotland, Lancashire, (Ormskirk, Horn-by), and parts of South Wales (Orms-head, Ten-by).

In Orkney, and the northern parts of Scotland, the Norse had originally the same influence that the Anglo-Saxon had in the south.—See the chapter of the Lowland Scotch.

This explains the peculiar distribution of the Norse forms. Rare, or non-existent, in central and southern England, they appear on the opposite sides of the island, and on its northern extremity; showing that the stream of the Norse population went round the island rather than across it.

§ 547. Next to the search after traces of the original differences in the speech of the Continental invaders of Great Britain, the question as to the origin of the written language of England is the most important.

Mr. Guest has given good reasons for believing it to have arisen out of a Mercian, rather than a West-Saxon dialect—although of the Anglo-Saxon the West-Saxon was the most cultivated form.

This is confirmed by the present state of the Mercian dialects.

The country about Huntingdon and Stamford is, in the mind of the present writer, that part of England where provincial peculiarities are at the minimum. This may be explained in various ways, of which none is preferable to the doctrine, that the dialect for those parts represents the dialect out of which the literary language of England became developed.

Such are the chief problems connected with the study of the provincial dialects of England; the exhibition of the methods applicable to their investigation not being considered necessary in a work like the present.

NOTE.

That Saxon was the British name of the Germanic invaders of Great Britain is certain.—See § 45.

The reasons which induce me to consider it as exclusively British, i.e., as foreign to the Angles, are as follows,—

a. No clear distinction has ever been drawn between, e.g., an Angle of Suffolk, and a Saxon of Essex.

b. The Romans who knew, for some parts at least, every inch of the land occupied by the Saxons of Germany, as long as there is reason for believing that they took their names from German sources, never use the word. It is strange to Cæsar, Strabo, Pliny, and Tacitus. Ptolemy is the first who uses it.

c. Ecbert, who is said to have attached the name of England, or Land of Angles, to South Britain, was, himself, no Angle, but a West-Saxon.^[66]

QUESTIONS ON PARTS IV. V. VI. and VII.

Part IV.

1. What is Johnson's explanation of the word Etymology? Into what varieties does the study fall? What is the difference between Etymology and Syntax?

2. How far are the following words instances of gender—boy, he-goat, actress, which? Analyze the forms what, her, its, vixen, spinster, gander, drake.

3. How far is there a dual number in the Gothic tongues? What is the rule for forming such a plural as stags from stag? What are the peculiarities in monarchs, cargoes, keys, pence, geese, children, women, houses, paths, leaves? Of what number are the words alms, physics, news, riches?

4. To what extent have we in English a dative, an accusative, and instrumental case? Disprove the doctrine that the genitive in -s (the father's son) is formed out of the combination father his.

5. Decline me, thee, and ye.

6. How far is there a true reflective pronoun in English?

7. What were the original powers and forms of she, her, it? What case is him? What is the power and origin of the in such expressions as all the more? Decline he in Anglo-Saxon. Investigate the forms these and those, whose, what, whom, which, myself, himself, herself, such, every.

8. What is the power (real or supposed) of the -er in over, and in either?

9. What words in the present English are explained by the following forms—sutiza in Mœso-Gothic, and scearpor, neah, yldre, in Anglo-Saxon? Explain the forms, better, worse, more, less.

10. Analyze the words former, next, upmost, thirty, streamlet, sweetheart, duckling.

11. Translate Ida wæs Eopping. Analyze the word Wales.

12. Exhibit the extent to which the noun partakes of the character of the verb, and vice versâ. What were the Anglo-Saxon forms of, I can call, I begin to call?

13. Investigate the forms, drench, raise, use (the verb), clothe.

14. Thou speakest. What is the peculiarity of the form? We loven, we love, account for this.

15. Thou rannest = (tu cucurristi). Is this an unexceptionable form? if not, why?

16. What are the moods in English? What the tenses? How far is the division of verbs into weak and strong tenses natural? Account for the double forms swam and swum. Enumerate the other verbs in the same class. Explain the forms taught, wrought, ought, did, (from do = facio), did (from do = valeo), minded.

17. Define the term irregular, so as to raise the number of irregular verbs, in English, to more than a hundred. Define the same term, so as to reduce them to none. Explain the form could.

18. What is the construction of meseems and methinks? Illustrate the future power of be. Werden in German means become—in what form does the word appear in English?

19. To err is human,—the rising in the North. Explain these constructions. Account for the second -r in forlorn; and for the y in ycleped.

20. Explain the difference between composite and de-composite words, true and improper compounds. Analyze the word nightingale.

21. How far are adverbs inflected? Distinguish between a preposition and a conjunction.

22. Explain the forms there, thence, yonder, and anon.

23. What part of speech is mine?

24. What is the probable origin of the -d in such preterites as call-ed.

Part V.

1. Explain the terms Syntax, Ellipsis, Pleonasm, Zeugma, Pros to semainomenon, Apposition, and Convertibility, giving illustrations of each.

2. What is the government of adjectives?

3. What is the construction in—

a. Rob me the Exchequer.—Shakspeare.

b. Mount ye on horseback.

c. His mother.

d. If the salt have lost his savour.

e. Myself is weak.

f. This is mine.

4. What are the concords between the relative and antecedent? How far is, whom do they say that I am, an exceptionable expression?

5. Eteocles and Polynices killed each other. What is the construction here? Ils se battaient, l'un l'autre—Ils se battaient, les uns les autres. Translate these two sentences into English. My wife and little ones are well. What is the origin of the word ones here? It was those who spoke. These was those who spoke. Why is one of those expressions correct, and the other incorrect?

6. What is the difference between—

The secretary and treasurer,

and

The secretary and the treasurer?

What is that between—

The first two—

and

The two first?

7. What is the construction of—

He sleeps the sleep of the righteous?

8. Whether do you say—It is I your master who command you, or It is I your master who commands you!

9. Barbican it hight. Translate this into Latin.

10. Explain in full the following constructions—

a. I have ridden a horse.

b. I am to blame.

c. I am beaten.

d. A part of the body.

e. All fled but John.

11. What is meant by the Succession of Tenses? Show the logical necessity of it.

12.

Or hear'st thou rather pure ethereal stream,

Whose fountain who can tell?—Milton.

Give the meaning of this passage, and explain the figure of speech exhibited in the words in Italics.

13. The door being open the steed was stolen.—In what case is door?

Part VI.

1. The way was long, the wind was cold. Express the metre of this symbolically.

2. Define rhyme.

3. Give instances of Service metre, Blank heroics, Alexandrines.

Part VII.

1. How far do the present dialects of England coincide with the parts, that took their names from the Angles and the Saxons respectively.

2. What traces of Danish or Norse occupancy do we find in local names?

NOTES.

---

[1] The immediate authority for these descents, dates, and localities is Sharon Turner. They are nearly the same as those which are noticed in Mr. Kemble's Saxons in England. In the former writer, however, they are given as historical facts; in the latter they are subjected to criticism, and considered as exceptionable.

[2] It is from Beda that the current opinions as to the details of the Anglo-Saxon invasion are taken; especially the threefold division into Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. These migrations were so large and numerous that the original country of the Angles was left a desert. The distribution of the three divisions over the different parts of England was also Beda's.

The work of this important writer—the great luminary of early England—is the Historia Ecclesiastica, a title which prepares us for a great preponderance of the ecclesiastical over the secular history.

Now Beda's date was the middle of the eighth century.

And his locality was the monastery of Wearmouth, in the county of Durham.

Both of these facts must be borne in mind when we consider the value of his authority, i.e., his means of knowing, as determined by the conditions of time and place.

Christianity was introduced among the Anglo-Saxons of Kent A.D. 597. For the times between them and A.D. 740, we have in Mr. Kemble's Codex Diplomaticus eighty-five charters, all in Latin, and most of them of uncertain authenticity. They are chiefly grants of different kings of Kent, Wessex, the Hwiccas, Mercia, and Northumberland, a few being of Bishops.

[3] Gildas was a British ecclesiastic, as Beda was an English one. His locality was North Wales: his time earlier than Beda's by perhaps one hundred years.

He states that he was born the year of the pugna Badonica, currently called the Battle of Bath.

Now a chronological table called Annales Cambrenses, places that event within one hundred years of the supposed landing of Hengist.

But there is no reason for believing this to be a cotemporary entry. Hence, all that can be safely said of Gildas is that he was about as far removed from the seat of the Germanic invasions, in locality, as Beda, whilst in point of time he was nearer.

As a writer he is far inferior, being pre-eminently verbose, vague, and indefinite.

Gildas, as far as he states facts at all, gives the British account of the conquest.

No other documents have come down to our time.

Beda's own authorities—as we learn from his introduction—were certain of the most learned bishops and abbots of his cotemporaries, of whom he sought special information as to the antiquities of their own establishments. Of cotemporary writers, in the way of authority, there is no mention.

For the times between the "accredited date of Hengist and Horsa's landing (A.D. 449) and A.D. 597 (a period of about one hundred and fifty years) the only authorities are a few quotations from Solinus, Gildas, and a Legendary Life of St. Germanus."—Saxons in Engl. i. 27.

[4] This account is from Jornandes, who is generally considered as the chief repertory of the traditions respecting the Gothic populations. He lived about A.D. 530. The Gepidæ were said to be the laggards of the migration, and the vessel which carried them to have been left behind: and as gepanta in their language meant slow, their name is taken therefrom.

[5] Widukind was a monk of Corvey in Flanders, who wrote the Ecclesiastical History of his monastery.

[6] Geoffry of Monmouth, like Gildas, is a British authority. His date was the reign of Henry II. The Welsh traditions form the staple of Geoffry's work, for which it is the great repertory.

[7] The date of this was the reign of Marcus Antoninus. Its place, the Danubian provinces of Rhætia, and Pannonia. It was carried on by the Germans of the frontier or march—from whence the name—in alliance with the Jazyges, who were undoubtedly Slavonic, and the Quadi, who were probably so. Its details are obscure—the chief authority being Dio Cassius.

[8] The reign of Valentinian was from A.D. 365 to A.D. 375.

[9] The date of this has been variously placed in A.D. 438, and between A.D. 395 and A.D. 407. Either is earlier than A.D. 449.

[10] The Saxon Chronicle consists of a series of entries from the earliest times to the reign of King Stephen, each under its year: the year of the Anglo-Saxon invasion being the usual one, i.e., A.D. 449. The value of such a work depends upon the extent to which the chronological entries are cotemporaneous with the events noticed. Where this is the case, the statement is of the highest historical value; where, however, it is merely taken from some earlier authority, or from a tradition, it loses the character of a register, and becomes merely a series of dates—correct or incorrect as the case may be. Where the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle really begins to be a cotemporaneous register is uncertain—all that is certain being that it is so for the latest, and is not so for earliest entries. The notices in question come under the former class. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle had been edited by the Master of Trinity College, Oxford (Dr. Ingram), and analyzed by Miss Gurney.

[11] Asserius was a learned Welsh ecclesiastic who was invited by King Alfred into Wessex, and employed by that king as one of his associates and assistants in civilizing and instructing his subjects. Several works are mentioned as having been written by Asserius, but the only one extant is his history of King Alfred, which is a chronicle of various events between the year of Alfred's birth, A.D. 849, to A.D. 889.

Asserius is supposed to have died Bishop of Sherborne, A.D. 910.

[12] The compounds of the Anglo-Saxon word ware = occupants, inhabitants, are too numerous to leave any doubt as to this, and several other, derivations. Cant-ware = Cant-icolæ = people of Kent: Hwic-ware = Hviccas = the people of parts of Worcestershire,^[67] Glostershire, and (to judge from the name) of War-wickshire also.

[13] The Annales Saxonici, or Saxon Chronicles, embrace the history of Britain, between the landing of Cæsar and the accession of Henry II. They are evidently the work of various and successive writers, who were Saxon ecclesiastics. But nothing certain can be affirmed of the authors of their respective portions.—See Note 10.

[14] See Note 2.

[15] Adam of Bremen was a Minor Canon of the Cathedral of Bremen, about the years 1067-1077. He travelled in Denmark, and was in great favour with King Sweyn of that country. He wrote an Ecclesiastical History of the spread of Christianity in the North, to which he appended a description of the geography, population, and archæology of Denmark and the neighbouring countries.

[16] Ethelward was an Anglo-Saxon nobleman, who wrote a chronicle of events from the creation of the world to the death of King Edgar, A.D. 875.

[17] The following is a specimen of the Frisian of Gysbert Japicx, in metre. It is part of a rustic song, supposed to be sung by a peasant on his return from a wedding feast. Date about A.D. 1650.

"Swíet, ja swíet, is't oer 'e míete,

'T boáskiere fóar é jonge lie,

Kreftich swíet is't, sizz ik jiette,

As it giet mei alders ríe.

Mai óars tiget 'et to 'n pléach,

As ik óan myn geafeunt seach."

Translation of the same from Bosworth's Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, p. lxxiii.

"Sweet, yes, sweet is over (beyond) measure,

The marrying for the young lede (people);

Most sweet is it, I say yet (once more),

When (as) it goes with the rede (counsel) of the elders.

But otherwise it tends to a plague,

As I saw on (by the example of) my village fellow."

[18] Of the early constitution of states of East Friesland, we have a remarkable illustration in the old Frisian Laws. These are in the native Frisian tongue, and, except that they represent republican rather than monarchical institutions, are similar in form, in spirit, to the Saxon.

[19] The great blow against the sovereignty of Rome, and the one which probably prevented Germany from becoming a Roman province, was struck by the Cheruscan Arminius against Quintilius Varus, in the reign of Augustus. The date of the organized insurrection of Arminius was A.D. 9; the place, the neighbourhood of Herford, or Engern, in Westphalia. Drawn into an inpracticable part of the country, the troops of Varus were suddenly attacked and cut to pieces—consisting of more than three legions. "Never was victory more decisive, never was the liberation of an oppressed people more instantaneous and complete. Throughout Germany the Roman garrisons were assailed and cut off; and, within a few weeks after Varus had fallen, the German soil was freed from the foot of an invader.

"Had Arminius been supine or unsuccessful, our Germanic ancestors would have been enslaved or exterminated in their original seats along the Eyder and the Elbe. This island would never have borne the name of England, and we, this great English nation, whose race and language are now overrunning the earth, from one end of it to the other, would have been utterly cut off from existence."^[68]

[20] Heliand is the gerund from helian = heal, and means the Healer or Saviour. It is the name of an old Saxon poem, in alliterative metre, of the tenth or eleventh century, in the dialect supposed to have belonged to the parts about Essen, Cleves, and Munster in Westphalia. It is a sort of Gospel Harmony, or Life of Christ, taken from the Gospels. It has been edited by Schmeller.

[21] Hildubrand and Hathubrant, father and son, are two legendary heroes belonging to that cycle of German fiction of which Theodoric of Verona is the centre. A fragment containing an account of their hostile meeting, being mutually unknown, in alliterative metre, represents the fictional poetry of the old Saxons in the same way (though not to the same extent) that the Heliand represents their sacred poetry. The "Hildubrand and Hathubrant" have been edited by Grimm.

[22] In a language which for a long time was considered to be the Dutch of Holland in its oldest known form, there is an imperfect translation of the Psalms; referred by the best writers on the subject to the reign of Charlemagne, and thence called the Carolinian Psalms. The best text of this is to be found in a Dutch periodical, the Taalkundig Magazijn.

[23] Beowulf is by far the most considerable poem, not only in Anglo-Saxon, but in any old Gothic tongue. It has been admirably edited and translated by Mr. Kemble. The subject is the account of Beowulf, an Angle hero—Angle but not English, as the scene of the poem is on the Continent. In its present form it shows traces of the revision of some Christian writer: the basis, however, of its subject, and the manners it describes, are essentially Pagan. The most remarkable feature in the poem is the fact that no allusion is made to England—so that, Anglo-Saxon as the work is—it belongs to the Anglo-Saxons of Germany before they became English.

[24] A Gospel Harmony translated from the one of Tatian, exists in a dialect too little purely High German, to pass absolutely as such, yet less Low German than the Dutch of Holland. This belongs to the Middle Rhine, and is called Frank.

[25] The Alemannic is the German of the Upper Rhine; the dialect out of which the Bavarian and Swiss grew. Its chief specimens occur in—

a. The Glosses of Kero—

b. The Psalms by a monk named Notker.

c. A life of Anno of Cologne.

d. The Song of Solomon, by Willeram.

e. Musrpilli, an alliterative poem.

f. Krist, a life of Christ, by Otford, and others less important.

Most of these (along with Tatian), are to be found in Schilter's Thesaurus.

(Original footnotes)