have been expected, and was limited to the Dano-Saxon, or Northumbrian dialect, in which the noble fragment of a paraphrase of the book of Judith is composed. The enlightened and amiable Alfred translated several Latin works into the Anglo-Saxon tongue, and thus gave to the West Saxon dialect the same preponderance over the others which Luther, by his version of the Bible, secured for the High-German of modern times. But the most distinguished name in Anglo-Saxon literature is that of Aelfric, Archbishop of Canterbury, who died A. D. 1006. In order that he might be understood by unlettered people, he wrote, as he himself informs us, in the purest Anglo-Saxon, avoiding the use of all obscure words. Edward the Confessor, who, during the reigns of Cnut, Harold, and Hardicnut, had been an exile in Normandy, returned to England in the year 1042, and brought with him many of the customs, manners, and expressions of the Norman nobles; and thus commenced the formation of that mixed language which is known under the name of English. Before we proceed to describe the changes which were effected by the introduction of a new element, we must briefly revert to the history of the peculiar language which is called the Norman-French. The confederation of the Franks (freemen) was chiefly composed of the Chatti, Cherusci, and other tribes originally dwelling on the banks of the lower Rhine, and between that river and the Weser, who during the fourth century made themselves masters of a great part of Gaul. At the commencement of the fifth century, they had acquired a considerable degree of importance, and were divided into Ripuarii and Salii; the latter first chose a king in the year 420, and at the same time established a written code, the famous Salic laws. The third king was Merovig, the founder of the Merovingian dynasty, which reigned until 771, and is noted for its strange imbecility, and for the great power which the Frankish nation acquired under the able government of their ministers, who were styled mayors of the palace. The Franks were among the Low-German tribes ; but except a few proper names, we have but scanty remains of their original dialect. That which is called the Franco Theotistic was the language of the High-German tribes whom they conquered. In this dialect there are some very valuable and beautiful remains, among which may be mentioned translations of a Latin homily by Isidore, Bishop of Seville, of the hymns of St. Ambrose, and of the Gospel of St. Matthew; but above all, a poetical harmony of the Gospels, written at the commencement of the ninth century, by Otfrid, a Benedictine monk, in the convent of Weissenburg. The Franks from the time of their entering Gaul had held a close connection with the Romans, whose allies they had generally been, and in whose armies great numbers of them had repeatedly fought. So intimate was this connection, that the Franks gradually assumed the use of the Roman language, and the Šalic laws themselves were written in corrupted Latin. Upon the death of Ludwig (Louis), son of Charlemagne, A. D. 840, his three sons divided the empire between them; Charles, the youngest, took France; Ludwig had Germany; and Lotharius, the eldest, received Italy, Burgundy, and Lorraine, with the imperial dignity. Two years afterwards, the two younger brothers formed an alliance, and in a solemn assembly held at Strassburg they and their subjects took oaths of mutual fidelity, on one side in the Franco-Theotistic dialect, and on the other in the so-called Romance, from which the modern French and a considerable part of the English language derive their origin. It may be interesting to see a few lines of this document, which exhibits very clearly the change that the language was undergoing. 11 4 "Pro deo amur et pro christian poblo 1 et nostro commun salvament, dist2 di in avant,3 in quant deus savir et podir me dunat,5 si salvarai eo cist 6 meon fradre Karlo et in adjudha et in cadhuna cosa,9 si cum 10 12 dreit per son fradra salvar dist,13 in o quod il mi altresi 14 fazet,15 et ab Ludher nul plaid 16 nunquam prindrai,17 qui meon vol 18 cist meon fradre Karle in damno sit." om 1 Lat. populus, Fr. peuple. Lat. de ista. Lat. ab ante, Fr. en avant. Lat. sapere el potere (for posse), Fr. savoir et pouvoir. 5 Lat. donat, Fr. Lat. ecce iste, Fr. cet, ce. 7 Lat. adjutare, Fr. aide. 8 Lat. usque donne. # During the reign of Charlemagne, the German tribes were for the first time collected into one body, and assumed the name thiot, diot, deot, a people; from which their modern appellation of Deutsch, or Teutsch, is derived. 10 Lat. quam, Fr. ad unum (omnes), Fr. chacun. Lat. causa, Fr. chose. comme. 11 Lat. homo, Fr. homme. 12 Lat. directum, Fr. droit. 13 Lat. debet, Fr. doit. 14 Lat. alterum sic, Fr. aussi. 15 Lat. faciat, Fr. fasse. 16 Lat. placitum, Old Fr. plaid (Engl. plead and pledge). 17 Lat. prehendere, Fr. prendre. 18 Lat. volle (for velle), Fr. vouloir. Almost every word in this sentence shows the transition from the old Latin to the corresponding term in modern French and English, and, yet more strongly, the great change which seems about this period to have taken place in all the languages of modern Europe, by the rejection of inflections and distinctive terminations. The cause of this change is very obvious, and we shall have occasion to refer to it again. Even before the death of Charlemagne, the repeated depredations of the Normans (Northmen) upon the coasts of France had drawn tears from the eyes of that monarch, and after his death their ravages became terrible, and spread desolation over the fairest provinces of France. At the commencement of the tenth century, Rolf, a Norwegian Yarl, who had been driven from his own country, landed with his followers on the French coast, and established the Norman dominion in Brittany and Neustria. The fifth in a direct line from Rolf was William, surnamed the Conqueror, who gained possession of England in 1066. But during the one hundred and fifty years which had elapsed, the Normans had abandoned their own Danish, and had adopted in its place the corrupted Latin of the people whom they had subdued. William formed the ambitious design of changing the language of his new dominions; and his successors persisted in the experiment while any hope of its accomplishment remained. The Norman-French undoubtedly exerted very great influence on the Anglo-Saxon, but it effected a change of the inflections and terminations rather than of the words themselves; for any person conversant with old English must have observed, that the greater part of the French words which are now so abundant were not introduced until after the Norman-French had become entirely obsolete. It is a general rule, that a conquered nation gives its language to the conquerors, except where, as in the case of the early Britons, they are altogether expelled from the country. It was so with the Northmen who settled in France; it was so with their descendants, who conquered England. But on the other hand, the national language of the conquered is usually found to undergo a considerable change; the conquerors are obliged to learn the words of their new subjects, in order to make themselves understood; but they will not take the trouble to acquire the syntax of the language. The infinitive moods of verbs, the nominative cases of nouns, the roots of adjectives, suffice for their necessities; and thus the entire form of the language undergoes a change. The trunk of the tree remains standing; but the spreading branches, the slender twigs, and the luxuriant foliage perish in the storm. The Norman nobles for a long time refused to learn the Anglo-Saxon language. When Robert, brother of Matilda, was taken prisoner in 1142, and his followers endeavoured to escape in disguise, they were recognized by their ignorance of the language. When William of Longchamps, minister of Richard the First, attempted to fly from the country as a dealer in linen, the same cause led to his detection. Richard Coeur-de-Lion understood not a word of a speech addressed to him by his Anglo-Saxon subjects. The first Romance words seem to have found their way into the language through preachers and religious writers; thus, we find gemartyrod in 1013, chor in 1083, clerecas in 1085, processionem in 1125, martyrs and miracles in 1137. Soon afterwards, lawyers introduced such words as prisun, justice, rentes, tresor, privilegies; and at a somewhat later period, the rhymers began to add grace to their verses by adopting rose, lily, odour, flower, fruit, joy, &c. Translators are under peculiar temptation to adopt words of the language in which the original is composed. About the year 1160, Wace wrote, in his native French, a narrative poem entitled Le Brut d'Angleterre (Brutus of England). There is a metrical English translation of this work by one Layamon, a priest of Ernely on the Severn, of which Mr. Chambers says the date is not ascertained. It is, however, generally acknowledged to have been executed about the year 1200, and it is remarked by Mr. Ellis, that it does not contain a single word "which we are under the necessity of referring to a French origin." At the same time," the or 1801. Published in Ellis's Specimens of the Early English Poets. London, thography of this manuscript, in which we see for the first time the admission of the soft g," and many other peculiarities in the form of the words and the construction of the sentences, seems to prove that little more than the substitution of a few French for the present Saxon words was now necessary to produce a resemblance to that Anglo-Norman, or English, which came into use in the thirteenth century. Mr. Chambers has given a passage from Wace, and also Layamon's translation, and we here make another short extract from the same works, which, as is justly observed, "we must consider as throwing a valuable light on the history of our language at perhaps the most important period of its existence." It is part of a description of the ceremonies supposed to have taken place at the coronation of King Arthur. NORMAN-FRENCH, A. D. 1160. "Quand li service fut finé, LAYAMON'S VERSION, A. D. 1200. And mucle his dugethe: Drem wes on hirede. Tha quene, an other halve Heo hafde of wif-monne Wunder ane moni en.' These specimens show, that, at the end of a century and a half after the Norman conquest, the Anglo-Saxon language remained free from Norman words. But after the commencement of the thirteenth century, they begin to appear; |