THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND OF THE EARLY LITERATURE IT EMBODIES BY GEORGE P. MARSH AUTHOR OF LECTURES ON THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE' ETC. ETC. LONDON SAMPSON LOW, SON, & CO., 47 LUDGATE HILL The right of translation is reserved ADVERTISEMENT. THE Lectures which form the basis of the present volume were delivered at the Lowell Institute, in Boston, in the United States, in the autumn and winter of 1860-1861. They were prepared in the preceding summer, with such aids only as my private library afforded, and my departure for Europe in the spring of the latter year has prevented me from giving them so complete a revision as I had hoped to bestow upon them. I have, however, made such additions and other improvements as the time and means at my command would permit, and, having been invited to publish the Lectures first in England, I have endeavoured to remove from them whatever might seem designed exclusively for the American public, and have adapted them, as far as I was able, to the common wants of all who desire to study the literary history of the English tongue. It is proper to add that the references in the footnotes and elsewhere to the First Series apply to the Fourth Edition of a former course of Lectures on the English Language, delivered by me, and published in 1861 by Scribner in New York, and Sampson Low, Son, & Co., in London. LONDON: September 1862. GEORGE P. MARSH. |