to the public interests that it would have to be put down by legislative interference. Private Charities.-Exclusive of the immense sums raised by compulsory assessment, there is no country in which such large sums are voluntarily subscribed for the support and education of the poor as in England. It appears from the summary of the returns annexed to the Reports of the Charity Commissioners, that the rent of the land and other fixed property, and the interest of the money left for charitable purposes in England and Wales, amounts to 1,209,3961. a year. It is believed by those best qualified to judge correctly of such matters, that with proper management this return might be increased to, at least, 2,000,000l. And, supposing such to be the case, still there can be no reasonable doubt that even that large sum would be far below the sums annually expended in voluntary donations to charitable establishments, and in gifts to individuals. In all parts of the country, hospitals, dispensaries, schools, and all descriptions of miscellaneous charities, are supported by such means. A mere catalogue of the names of such charities in London and other large towns would occupy a considerable space. A good deal of jobbing and abuse is believed to have insinuated itself into not a few of these establishinents: but, speaking generally, they are well managed, and have been productive of much good. No estimate can be formed of the sums expended in voluntary donations to individuals, but in the aggregate, they cannot fail to amount to an im mense sum. CHAPTER IX.-ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. A GREAT portion of Europe was at a remote period inhabited by wandering tribes of Celts, whom we may suppose to have been as uncivilised as the savage tribes who now inhabit the interior of Africa. Their early progress in Britain and Ireland may in some measure be ascertained from the records of history: but the rudest nations, although they furnish materials for history, do not themselves produce historians; and, when all other memorials have utterly decayed, we are sometimes enabled, by the names which they have permanently affixed to some of the great objects of nature, to trace their progress with as much certainty as the hunter of the forest can trace the footsteps of his prey. When we find rivers, mountains, and promontories described by Celtic names, in a country or district where history has never mentioned the settlement of a Celtic horde, we are at no loss to account for such names: we are satisfied with the application of a single hypothesis, and instantly arrive at the conclusion that Celtic names must have been imposed by Celtic inhabitants. When the Romans invaded the south of Britain, they found the country possessed by people of this generic origin. The invasion took place about fifty-five years before the Christian era; and the invaders retained their ascendancy till the commencement of the fifth century. During this interval the Romans imparted to the rude na tives some tincture of their own intellectual refinement, but must have left the British language as they found it: the foreign settlers were not sufficiently numerous to produce any change in the speech of the original inhabitants. When the Roman empire was tottering to its fall, the Britons recovered their independence. They divided themselves into many petty states, and exercised many petty animosities, which impaired the national strength, and rendered them an easy prey to foreign invaders. The pirates of Saxony had long been accustomed to make occasional depredations on their coasts. The Picts and Scots, that is, the Goths and Celts of Scotland, infested them from the north; and at length the sense of common danger produced some degree of union in their councils and exertions. In this condition of their affairs, the Saxons obtained a permanent footing in the country. In the year 449, as the Saxon Chronicle informs us," Hengist and Horsa, invited to his aid by Vortigern, King of the Britons, arrived in Britain in the place called Ipwinesfleet: they first came to the assistance of the Britons, but afterwards fought against them. The king directed them to fight against the Picts, and they did so, and were victorious whereever they came. They then sent to the Angles, and desired them to send more assistance, telling them of the worthlessness of the Britons, and the fruitfulness of the land. They then sent to them more assistance; then came men from three provinces of Germany, from the Old Saxons, from the Angles, from the Jutes." * The Saxons, like other Gothic tribes, derive their origin from a mighty horde which wandered from the east, and gradually overran the best portions of Europe. So early as the time of Ptolemy the geographer, this particular tribe had proceeded as far to the westward as the banks of the Elbe, and their primitive seat was between this river and the Eyder. Although at first they were not very formidable for their numbers, they gradually obtained a powerful ascendancy in Germany. Towards the middle of the third century, they entered into a league with the Franks for the purpose of opposing the Roman arms; and they afterwards enlarged their connexions and increased their influence, till it predominated in a territory of great extent, reaching from the Eyder to the Rhine. This wide tract of country was not entirely peopled by Saxons; it included various nations, united by the ties of a kindred origin, and actuated by a sense of common interest or danger; but such was the ascendancy of the Saxons, that they communicated their name to the entire confederacy, which, among other nations, comprehended the Jutes, who inhabited the south of Jutland, and the Angles, who inhabited the adjacent district of Anglen. Hengest and Horsa, the leaders whom we have already mentioned, were not Saxons, but Jutes. The subsequent immigrants were for the most part Angles, and their descendants were long distinguished by the appellation of Anglo-Saxons. The first part of the name denotes the predominant tribe; the second denotes the original relation of that tribe to the Saxon confederacy. The new country which they acquired was denominated Engla-land, or the land of the Angles. These Ger *Saxon Chronicle, p. 14. Ingram's edit. Lond. 1823, 4to. See likewise Mr. Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons, and Dr. Bosworth's Elements of Anglo-Saxon Grammar, p. 279. Lond. 1823, 8vo. man invaders established themselves in the most fertile districts, and gradually displaced the Celtic inhabitants, till at length they were chiefly confined to the fastnesses of Wales, where the prevalence of the ancient language still indicates the continuance of their race. Eight new states were formed by the Anglo-Saxons, who maintained their independence till the year 1016, when they were subjected to the yoke of a Danish conqueror. Canute and his two sons, Harold and Hardicanute, reigned in England for the space of 26 years. A Danish court, and a Danish army, with other settlers, must have had some influence on the common speech, especially as the language of the conquerors was not very dissimilar to that of the conquered. But the laws and other public documents continued to be written in the Saxon tongue, and this new dynasty soon finished its course. The Saxon line of kings, which was restored in 1042, terminated in 1066, when Harold II. was slain at the battle of Hastings, and William Duke of Normandy ascended the throne of England. The Saxon dominion had thus continued for the best part of three centuries; and as the great body of the people were still of this race, it is obvious that their national language must have survived their political power. A writ in the Anglo-Saxon tongue was issued by Henry the Third, who began his reign in the year 1216.* 66 In the language spoken by this ancient people, a great variety of literary reliques has been preserved. "The Anglo-Saxon literature," says Professor Rask, possesses, in many respects, even for its own sake, no small degree of interest. The numerous ancient laws throw considerable light upon the laws of the old Germans and Scandinavians, as well as upon their customs and civil institutions. The old chronicles and genealogies are important sources for the ancient history of the Low German and the Scandinavian nations. The various documents illustrate much in English history. Even the theological remains, showing the constitution and doctrine of the ancient church, are not devoid of value for ecclesiastical history, especially to the modern English and Scottish churches. The translation of several parts of the Scriptures may likewise be advantageously employed in biblical researches. But of all, the poetical pieces are the most interesting, especially the great Anglo-Saxon poem, in forty-three cantos, published at Copenhagen, in 1815, by the Royal Archivarius G. J. Thorkelin, which, from its commencement, he has aptly entitled * Dr. Wallis has made the following remark on the conqueror's attempt to introduce the Norman language: "Non autem quod aggressus erat, est assecutus ; quippe quod Normannorum qui huc advenerant, si ad Anglos quibus immiscebantur comparentur, exiguus erat numerus, qui ideo suam citius amiserunt linguam quam Anglicanam immutare potuerint." (Grammatica Linguæ Anglicana, p. xx. edit. Lond. 1765, 8vo.) + See Dr. Phillips's Versuch einer Darstellung der Geschichte des Angelsächsischen Rechts. Göttingen, 1825, 8vo. De Danorum Rebus gestis Secul. III. et IV. Poema Danicum dialecto AngloSaxonica. Havniæ, 1815, 4to. A more recent edition may be found in an elegant little volume, published under the following title: The Anglo-Saxon Poems of Beowulf, the Traveller's Song, and the Battle of Finnes-Burh; edited, together with a glossary of the more difficult words, and an historical preface, by John M. Kemble, Esq., M.A. of Trinity College, Cambridge. Lond. 1833, 8vo. Scyldingis. This is perhaps the only Angle-Saxon piece possessing value on account both of its matter and style, particularly for the nations of the north; the principal hero being Swedish or Gothic, though the action lies in Denmark.” * This ancient poem, more generally known by the name of Beowulf, has been translated into Danish verse by Dr. Grundtvig,† and ably illustrated by the late Mr. Conybeare. The language of the conquerors became the language of the king's court, and all the courts of law. The pleadings of counsel, and the decisions of judges, were couched in a dialect which is commonly described as Norman French, but which in the mouths of English lawyers became utterly barbarous; and more curious specimens of composition are scarcely to be found, than those which occur in the reports of cases written in a jargon half French half English. Lawyers have in all ages been conspicuous for their stiff adherence, with or without reason, to those forms and maxims in which they themselves have been duly trained. Long after French had ceased to be the language of legal proceedings, they adhered to the practice of reporting cases in the motley dialect used by their predecessors; for, as Blackstone remarks, "the practisers being used to the Norman language, and therefore imagining that they could express their thoughts more aptly and more concisely in that than in any other, still continued to take their notes in law Franch; and, of course, when those notes came to be published, under the denomination of reports, they were printed in that barbarous dialect; which joined to the additional terrors of a Gothic black letter, has occasioned many a student to throw away his Plowden and Littleton, without venturing to attack a page of them." § By the 36 Edw. III., c. 15, it was enacted, that for the future all pleas should be pleaded, shown, defended, answered, debated, and judged in the English tongue, but should be entered and enrolled in Latin. The statutes of the realm long continued to be promulgated in French; and it was only from the accession of Richard III. that Englishmen were governed by laws written in their native tongue.|| The Norman conquest proved fatal to the entire race of AngloSaxon nobility, many of whom lost their lives, and almost all of them their property. Not a few of the number sought refuge in different monasteries. Some of them became abbots, and others closed their career as monks. The lands of the Saxon earls were transferred to the Norman barous, who found it necessary to consult their personal safety by inhabiting fortified towns and castles. They must have had but little intercourse with their vassals, whom they probably did not re * Rask's Grammar of the Anglo-Saron Tongue, translated from the Danish by B. Thorpe, p. vii. Copenhagen, 1830, 8vo. + Bjowulfs Drape: et Gothisk Helte-Digt fra forrige Aar-Tusinde, af AngelSarisk paa Danske Riim, ved Nik. Fred. Sev. Grundtvig, Præst. Kiöbenhavn, 1820, 8vo. Conybeare's Illustrations of Anglo-Saxon Poetry, p. 30, Lond. 1826, Svo. § Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, vol. iii. p. 318. "The reign of Richard iII." says Barrington, " is a remarkable epoch in the legislative annals of this country; not only from the statutes having continued from this time to be in the English language, but likewise from their having been the first which were ever printed." (Observations on the more ancient Statutes, p. 389.) spect, and whom they had much reason to fear. They retained their native tongue, and seldom acquired any other. For a long period of time, the peasantry continued unmixed with foreign settlers; they continued to cultivate the same soil; and, when the written language of the kingdom had received many foreign accessions, the rustic dialect preserved its primitive elements with very few material changes. Much of the patois of different countries consists, not in adulterations of the modern, but in remnants of the ancient language. Many Anglo-Saxon words and idioms, unintelligible to persons of a refined education, are still current among the rural population of some particular districts of England.* The English monarchs of the Norman race were liberal patrons of such literature as they themselves understood. French poetry appears to have been relished at the court of England; and, according to a very competent judge, M. de la Rue, it was from England and Normandy that the French received the first works which deserve to be cited in their language. The works of many Anglo-Norman poets have been preserved, and they certainly form a curious subject of literary research. In this department, a learned lady, Marie de France, makes a prominent figure. Her poems have recently been edited by M. de Roquefort; † and one of the historical poems of Wace still more recently by M. Pluquet. A history of the Anglo-Norman poets and poetry has just been published by M. de la Rue, who long ago exhibited sufficient evidence of his being well qualified for such an undertaking. § Of the language spoken by the great body of the people about a century after the conquest, the reader may in some degree, be enabled to judge, from the following specimen of Lyamond's translation of Wace's Brut d'Angleterre. The translator describes himself as a priest of Ernlye upon Severn, and he is supposed to have completed his task about the year 1180: Tha the masse wes isungen, And mucle his dugethe: Tha quene, an other halve, * "Provincial words, accompanied by an explanation of the sense in which each of them still continues to be used in the districts to which they belong, would be of essential service in explaining many obscure terms in our early poets, the true meaning of which, although it may have puzzled and bewildered the most acute and learned of our commentators, would perhaps be perfectly intelligible to a Devonshire, Norfolk, or Cheshire clown.” Wilbraham's Attempt at a Glossary of some Words used in Cheshire, p. 4. Lond. 1826, 8vo. + Poésies de Marie de France. Paris, 1820, 2 tom. 8vo. Le Roman de Rou et des Ducs de Normandie, par Robert Wace. Paris, 1827, 2 tom. 8vo. M. Pluquet had previously published a Notice sur la Vie et les Ecrits de Robert Wace, Poète Normand du XIIme Siècle. Rouen, 1824, 8vo. § Essais Historiques sur les Bardes, Jongleurs, et les Trouvères Normands et Anglo-Normands, par M. l'Abbé de la Rue. Caen, 1834, 3 tom. 8vo. Ellis's Specimens of the Early English Poets, vol. i. p. 61. |