ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS. 1. From the Voyage of Ohther in Alfred's Translation of Orosius, book i. :-before A.D. 900 8. MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD:-From Minot's Battle of Halidon Hill:-about A.D. 1350 .. 10. From Mandevil's Travels :-about A.D. 1370 11. From Wycliffe's Translation of the Bible:-about A.D. 1380 12. From Trevisa's Translation of Higden's Polychronicon :- 23. From Ascham's "Schoolmaster: "-about A.D. 1563 24. From Sydney's "Apologie for Poetrie: "-about A.D. 1580 25. From the Rheims New Testament:-A.D. 1582 26. From Spenser's "Faerie Queene :"-about A.D. 1590 27. From Spenser's "View of the State of Ireland : "—about 28. From the Authorised Translation of the Bible :-A.D. 1611 OUTLINES, &c. I. There are two kinds of Evidence by which the origin or composition of any product may be attested:the Internal; and the External, or Historical. THE distinction is, that the Internal Evidence is furnished by the product itself; the External, by something else. And any fact considered in reference to the causes or circumstances out of which it may have arisen, or by which it may have been brought about, is a product. External Evidence is usually the clearer and more precise in its intimations, as well as the more obtrusive or the more readily come by; it is in these respects like other superficial or outside things; but Internal Evidence, when its interpretation is free from doubt, is the more trustworthy and conclusive. It is the pure reason of the case, speaking to us directly, by which we cannot be deceived if we only rightly apprehend it. The mind, however, is not satisfied without a concurrence of the two kinds of evidence whenever the case seems to admit of it. It is very rarely, if ever, that Internal Evidence is ab B solutely wanting; External Evidence frequently is. A familiar instance of evidence which is purely internal, and yet sufficient, is that with which Paley sets out in his work on Natural Theology, of a watch in motion found by a person who had never seen or heard of such a contrivance, but who at once and without any doubt infers it to be the work of an intelligent and designing mind. His inference to that extent could hardly have been strengthened by the addition of any amount of external evidence. In other questions, however, such as that of who wrote a book of unknown or disputed authorship, or who painted a particular picture, the internal evidence, which we always have, and without which in such a case no accumulation of external evidence would be enough to produce perfect conviction, at least to a mind of any critical sagacity, is usually endowed with much greater power of securing our acquiescence and reliance when it has the support of external evidence. It is the same with questions relating to the origin, or affiliation and connexion, of languages. Here, too, the internal evidence, or that presented by the languages themselves, is indispensable, and is the main consideration; but such external evidence as is to be had is not to be disregarded. It demands, at least, always to be explained, and to be shown to be consistent with the internal evidence; and it sometimes serves as a useful index to the direction in which the internal evidence is to be looked for or pursued. Were it only for the latter reason, it would be convenient in questions of this nature to take the External or Historical evidence as the basis of our inquiries; but it is also natural to begin with that, as consisting usually of facts that were well known long before much or almost any attention was drawn to the Internal evidence. II. The First of the facts constituting the External or Historical Evidence that we have in regard to the sources of the English language is, that the country in which it is spoken and has grown up appears clearly to have been once occupied, in whole or in part, by a Celtic population. I. THE earliest express statement that has come down to us in regard to the language spoken in the country now called England is that of Tacitus, who, writing in the first century of our era, says (Agricola, 11) of those of the Britons of his day who were nearest to Gaul, that they were probably of Gallic extraction, and that their speech was not very different from that of the Gauls (sermo haud multum diversus). But Cæsar (B. G. v. 12), writing a century before Tacitus, although he says nothing about the language of the Britons, in asserting as a fact what Tacitus advances as a probability, that the Britons dwelling along the coast opposite to Gaul had originally come from that country, particularises Belgium as the part of Gaul whence they had emigrated; and elsewhere (I. 1, and II. 4) he tells us that the Belge were for the greater part of Germanic descent, and that both they and the Aquitani differed in language, as well as in institutions and laws, from the proper Gauls, or Celts as they were called in their own tongue. It has thence been argued by some speculators that the language of this portion of the population of Britain must, when the country first became known to the Ro |