ture, with which modern English abounds, can, in the majority of cases, be fully accounted for by referring back to the language in its pre-Norman stage.

The student of English who has mastered AngloSaxon has reached the fountain head of the English language, and can give both the "an sit" and "cur sit" of its grammar. It is true that in the English, as, indeed, in all the languages of the so-called Aryan family, the process of "phonetic decay" has been at work, so that terminations, originally significant words, have, after the lapse of time, either disappeared altogether, or have undergone so great a change from the falling out of letters, as to require a lengthened study to enable the student to recognise them. It is not pretended that a knowledge of Anglo-Saxon will disclose the full form of English inflections of which, perhaps, only a single letter remains at the present day. This is the province of comparative grammar. But it will, at any rate, disclose what a given form was, or must have been, at a much earlier stage of the language, and will throw light upon many a point which would sorely puzzle him who is unable to refer to the Anglo-Saxon.

Unfortunately, the works from which most people acquire their early grammatical ideas are, as a rule, based on Latin models, and show, throughout, how little such writers have understood the nature and

structure of a Teutonic language. Those who place themselves under the direction of these Latinised guides, necessarily acquire views which are not only imperfect, but unsound into the bargain. A thorough acquaintance with Anglo-Saxon prevents or counteracts the effect of these erroneous teachings. But it accomplishes more than this. It has been well said, that to know the grammar of a language it is necessary to know the reasons of the grammar. It is not sufficient to know simply the forms of words; we ought to know why such forms exist, and why in their place we do not find some other forms; and this canon of the science of Language is one of universal application.

What can be easier to the Saxonist than to explain why the form "I sang" is more correct than "I sung"; or why the est in "livest" becomes t in "wilt"; or why such a sentence as "Neuyr after she coude be blythe," the form "coude" is more correct than the modern form "could"; or why, in the phrase "if any man say aught to you, ye shall say," the form "you" is used in one instance and "ye" in the other; or why we find "yes" in one place and "yea" in another; or "no" in one place and "nay" in another; or to explain the structure of such a phrase as "all the more"; or finally to explain why, in the universal use of the pronoun

"it," educated Englishmen and Americans alike are as thoroughly "Cockney," from an etymological standpoint, as the veriest ignoramus born within hearing of Bow-church Bell ?

It is the same in matters of pronunciation. Most of the peculiarities of modern English speech in this respect, which at first seem to court the criticism of those who are not of English birth, belong legitimately to the English nation as heirlooms of its Anglo-Saxon ancestry, and can be shown to be correct on strict philological lines.

At times too, a modern word, traced back to the Anglo-Saxon, will throw a perfectly electric light upon a point of language or of history or of national character. We call a sullen, dogged, obstinate boor a "churl." Whence this epithet? In Saxon times, the thanes, the ceorls, and the théows formed the three classes of society, corresponding to the nobility, the yeomanry, and the domestic slaves of a later age. The ceorl or yeoman was the ancestor of that sturdy race of freemen which has grown into the powerful "middle class" of our own day; the lineal ancestors of the men who, from the time of King John to the present hour, have fought the great battle for civil liberty, till to-day they form the bone and sinew of England and, in spite of the clamour of the demagogue, are more truly the "ruling classes"

than the mightiest peers of the realm. Such was the Saxon ceorl or churl. How, then, has this word of true nobility become degraded from its high meaning? The history of the Norman period in England supplies the true answer. The haughty barons, holding their lands, however small, by military tenure, looked down upon and despised, as beneath contempt, these sturdy Saxon tillers of the soil, and treated them as low-born. The ceorl, in turn, hated with bitter hatred the insolent foreigner whose iron arm was crushing him to the earth. Helpless, yet high-spirited, he repaid hauteur with blunt words. and sullen looks, till the Norman, in deep disdain, exclaimed "Churl," and the word has lived.

Seclusiveness of character and love of privacy are often laid to the charge of those of Anglo-Saxon descent; and in England, where these characteristics are very distinctly marked, they are invariably attributed by foreigners to national vanity or personal affectation. The most elementary knowledge of Anglo-Saxon social life would show that the English come rightfully by this characteristic, and that it is no mark of mere pride or affectation, but was a characteristic of the whole of the Teutonic race, which did not escape the keen notice of Tacitus. Speaking of the Germans, before the Saxon invasion of England, this writer says: "They dwell in villages,

not according to our custom, formed of houses one. adjoining the other, but each man surrounds his own home with an open space." And this seclusiveness of character the Saxons carried with them to Britain. Anyone who has travelled in England must have noticed that it is pre-eminently the land of hedges and enclosures,

"Little lines of sportive wood run wild"

whereas, on the Continent, almost the first thing that one notices is the absence of the hedge-rows of England. If, now, we examine English local names, (one of the surest tests by which to arrive at the national characteristics of a by-gone age,) we shall find that for more than a thousand years England has been distinctively the land of hedges or enclosures. The termination ton, which so frequently occurs on both sides of the Atlantic, proves how eager every Anglo-Saxon was to possess some spot which he could call his own, and guard from the intrusion of his neighbour. The primary meaning of this suffix ton* is an enclosure, or that which is bounded by a hedge; and originally signified the single homestead or farm which the owner or occupant desired to mark out as his hám or home or sacred spot. This restricted meaning of the word ton or town was * Anglo-Saxon týnan to enclose, hedge in, etc.