Before this period swarms from the same "northern hive" had crossed the Straits of Dover, and descended upon the shores of France; and, although they had given up their own rude speech and adopted that of their vassals, they retained their connections with their kindred in the north and in England, and gave a new power and significance to the name of Norman. Intermarriages took place between the ruling families, and some of the refining influences of the more cultured South began to be felt among the sons of the Vikings. The natural effect of Norman rule upon language was in a measure anticipated. Before Duke Robert's son had thought of invading England, Norman-French was regarded as a polite and desirable language at the court of the Danish king. It is also proper to add that, as the whole island had been for a long period under Christian influences, the Latin liturgy of the church and the influence of the priests had made many Latin words and phrases familiar to those whose only speech was Anglo-Saxon. To this period are to be referred the corruption of monachus into "monk," claustra into "cloister," presbyter into "priest," kuriakon (belonging to the Lord, & Kúgios,) into “church," episcopus into "bishop," and also the profane rendering of the phrase used in the consecration of the wafer, Hoc est corpus, into the popular mummery over à sleight-of-hand performance, "hocus-pocus."

The Norman conquest produced a mighty effect. The whole island, except in a few remote districts, had a common language, and similar laws and customs. These were at once rudely overthrown. The language of court and camp was ordained to be Norman-French. The dignities and great estates of the realm were allotted on feudal principles by the conqueror among his military chiefs. All that a powerful government could do for three hundred years was done to extirpate the Anglo-Saxon, the language of the common people; but it was as firmly based as the island itself, and the Normans at the most could only complement its homely vocabulary with the emblems of their higher culture and more stately The memory of Norman rule is still preserved in the terms of the royal assent to acts of Parliament, and in many phrases

manners.

and usages in the law courts. An enduring record of the conquest is seen in the language, in which the harmonized Norman and Anglo-Saxon elements exhibit the results of the long conflict of opinions, customs, letters, and laws.

The fusion of Norman and Anglo-Saxon was very slowly accomplished. For four centuries at least there was one language for the nobleman and gentleman, and another for the common people. The currents of thought and expression had come together, forced into the same channel, but, like the waters of the Mississippi and the Missouri, they refused to mingle, and showed their diverse sources far below the point of union. In the end there was a tacit compromise. The facts of every-day life, the names of the heavenly bodies, the elements, the family relations, the house and home, domestic animals, crops, and tools of husbandry, the various modes of motion, simple articles of food and raiment, were all known by Anglo-Saxon names. But terms that belong to government, to the privileges of high birth, to the usages of courts, to the dress and equipment of knights and dames, to tournaments, crusades, and pilgrimages, to letters and art, were all of Norman origin.

Two paragraphs, the first wholly composed of Anglo-Saxon words, and the second of mostly Norman-French origin, will serve to illustrate the statement.

So the man (boor, or churl, as he was called by those above him) wedded a maid, and she became his wife (weaver), and bore him sons and daughters (milkers). They ate bread from corn grown in their lord's field; they cared for his swine, sheep, horses, hens, deer, and oxen, and were used to the axe, plough, flail, and sickle, as well as to rain, wind, hail, and snow. Their clothes, shoes, and hats were coarse, and their looks downcast. The moon and stars often found them at work. Their beds were of straw, and they rose from sleep before the sun to begin toil anew. When the goodman was near his end, and the skill of the leech was worthless, neighbors with friendly hands softly shut his dying eyes, then wrapped the dead body in a shroud, put him upon a bier, and buried him in a nameless grave in God's acre.

And the noble, nourished in the mansion or castle of his ancestors, trained from infancy to feats of arms, aspiring to a station among the chivalry of the realm, appeared in gay apparel at the court of his sovereign, and joyously received the royal command to battle against his liege's enemies. He is feasted at a sumptuous table, covered with poultry, veal, mutton, pork, beef, and venison. He quaffs delicate wine from an ornate goblet, and with graceful courtesy returns the monarch's salutation. The favor of stately and beautiful dames encourages him. In the campaign he is distinguished by his valor, but his career is finally closed by the lance of an adversary. A coffin now encloses his corpse; it is carried in a hearse to the cemetery, placed in the family tomb, and a marble monument or mural tablet commemorates his virtues.

It will be noticed that, while the former paragraph is wholly AngloSaxon, the latter is Norman only in part. Articles, pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions, the forms of the neuter verb to be and auxiliaries, and some adverbs must be drawn from the elder source; and this is sufficient to show that the basis of the language is AngloSaxon. The Norman-French element was a valuable addition, but it in nowise supplanted the original stock, and cannot be used by itself to form a single sentence.

We have now to consider the reciprocal influences of these two sources upon spelling and pronunciation. Before the general use of printing, orthography was but little regarded. The forms of words were generally expressed phonetically; and in passing, it may be observed, that in reading Chaucer, if a word looks puzzling, the sense will often come to mind by pronouncing it aloud and looking away. In time, the general license was much restricted, and now each word has its integrity guaranteed. But during the transition state the clerk or poet spelled as it seemed right in his own eyes. The hardening into unchangeable forms came while the elements were mixed confusedly, and the result was like freezing over a river-basin covered with heaped-up fragments of floating ice. Nearly all the Latin words had lost something of their form. The

pestilent u was inserted in honor, favor, error, and in countless analogous cases. The simple directness of Saxon spelling was lost. The word tongue will serve as an instance. Doubtless the pronunciation of this word has never undergone the least change; but our Saxon ancestors spelled it tung, just as it is sounded. Later it had a final e, and at length, after Norman scribes had bewitched it, it appeared as we now see it. A twist was given to every word capable of variation. On the other hand, the same influences softened the harshness of Saxon gutturals, so that the silent letters in fought, sought, and the like are now only mute evidences of a barbarous utterance heard no more.

In due time the English people had their revenge upon the Norman element, especially in the obliteration of the original accent of words derived through that medium. The appellatives remain, but with anglicized spelling and accent; so that the unskilled reader hardly recognizes the concluding word of the line,

And bathéd every vein in swiche licour',

as his homely acquaintance "liquor." Mange survived as vulgar "munch;" the servant valet as the rascal "varlet;" cœur méchant as the crabbed "curmudgeon ;" and quelques choses were contemptuously termed "kickshaws." Every scholar will be able to add many similar examples.

To recapitulate, we find in our language,

I. A complete groundwork of Anglo-Saxon; no other element complete.

2. An influx of words derived from Latin directly or through the French, mostly mangled by vicious spelling, and by the loss of original accent.

3. A change in the spelling of many Saxon words and a softening of original roughness in pronunciation.

4. A coalescing of the conflicting elements after centuries of resistance, and continual additions from classic languages.

The difference between the English of to-day and that of five or six centuries ago is so great that many persons are led to believe

that there may have been an epoch of sudden change. a catastrophe like those which we were once told had happened to the earth in its development; but, as enlightened science assures us that the forces at work upon the crust of our planet are as active in the present as in the remotest geological eras, so it seems likely that our language is undergoing changes in the number, power, and significance of its words, as great and as decisive as were experienced in any part of its history. He who stands by a glacier for the first time regards the mass of glittering ice as immovable, as eternal as the mountain it buttresses. But the patient observer knows that the huge volume of ice is in motion, and that ages hence the grinding of the rocks and the furrowing of the soil underneath will bear witness to its slow but resistless course. Such deep scratches and furrows are seen in every part of our literary history. Our poetry, our science, our sermons, even our familiar talk, show the marks made by the imperceptible but mighty movement of that speech which symbolizes the progressive thought of our race.

These changes are not due in any great degree to the influence of authors, no matter how popular they may be. No poet, historian, or essayist is equal to the task of ingrafting half a dozen new words that shall really thrive and endure on our old English stock. As in the beginning, we must look to the development of the arts, trade, commerce, and philosophy for the new words that come to us as strangers, are first made welcome by necessity, and then become our own by naturalization. To give instances would be to recount the history of the various modern sciences, and of the influence of commerce on civilization. Every navigator and explorer, every inventor, chemist, and naturalist, - every investigator into first causes, whether in the material world, or in the interior sphere of thought, must in a measure coin new symbols for new facts and new theories, and so make a new vocabulary to express his ideas. The English of two hundred years ago is a wonderful arsenal; it would seem to be ample for the poet or historian, the novelist or essayist; but neither Tyndall, Agassiz, Darwin, nor Huxley- neither Hamilton, Mill, Spencer, nor Peirce-could be restricted for a single page to the vocabulary that served Milton so well.