§ 19. Without knowing the exact extent to which the Anglo-Norman displaced the Anglo-Saxon, we may believe in the following particulars:

a. Letters even of a private nature were written in Latin till the beginning of the reign of Edward I., when a sudden change brought in the use of French.

b. Conversation between the Members of the Universities was ordered to be carried on in either Latin or French.

c. The Minutes of the Corporation of London were in French, as well as the proceedings in Parliament and the Courts of Justice.

A tract, however, of the beginning of the fourteenth century gives reasonable grounds for believing, that before the accession of Edward II., the Norman-French had ceased to be the exclusive language of even the aristocracy. At the request of the noble Lady Dionysia de Mounchensy, Walter de Biblesworth composed a poem in French. verse, with interlineations in English, in order to teach the rising generation French-ke les enfauns pussunt saver les propretez des choses ke veyunt, et kaunt dewunt dire moun et ma, soun et sa, le et la, moy et ji.

§ 20. Semi-Saxon Stage. -From about 1150 A.D. to 1250, the language is called Semi-Saxon, or half-Saxon, being intermediate to the early English and the Anglo-Saxon anterior to the Conquest.

Old English Stage. The language from the time of Henry III. to Richard II. is called Old English. It agrees with the Anglo-Saxon more than with the present English.

Middle English.-From the reign of Richard II. to that of Queen Elizabeth the language is called Middle English.

Modern English.-To an Englishman of the present day the language under James I., and of the writers of the later part of Queen Elizabeth's reign, although presenting several peculiarities, is sufficiently like the English of the present day to be easily understood. This we may prove

STAGES OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

19

by referring to the works of Shakspeare, Ben Jonson, or any of the writers of the time in point. This is the period of the Modern (or New) English.

Such is the exhibition of the stages of the English language; through which it has passed between the period of the Anglo-Saxons and the present day. The divisions. thus established are of practical convenience in the consideration of the history of our language. Nevertheless, it must not be supposed that the transition from one stage to another is by any means so sudden and definite as it shows itself in the preceding dates. It cannot be believed that, exactly at the death of King John, the language changed from Semi-Saxon to Old English, or exactly at the accession of Edward the Third, from Old English to Middle. The change was gradual. The reigns, however, of the kings are taken for the sake of putting the epochs in question in the form best fitted for being remembered. For the sake, too, of explaining the real nature of the changes of the English Language, the following sketch of its history is annexed:

The first four reigns after the Conquest were unfavourable to the cultivation of literature at all: since the NormanFrench, although sufficient to depress the Anglo-Saxon, was not sufficient to establish a flourishing literature of its own. Some works were composed in both languages. They were, however, in each case both few and unimportant.

The reign of Henry the Second was a favourable period for one of the languages of England, viz. for the NormanFrench.

A proclamation of Henry the Third's to the people of Huntingdonshire is generally considered to be one of the first specimens of English, properly so called, i. e. of English, as opposed to Semi-Saxon. The date is A.D. 1258. Still the preponderating language for written compositions, is the Anglo-Norman.

A reaction, however, begins. The father of English poetry, Geoffrey Chaucer, wrote under Edward III.; so did his cotemporary Wycliffe, and others of almost equal importance; their predecessors, who had written in English at all, having written either in the Old English, or the Semi-Saxon.

In the reign of Edward IV., printing was introduced into England by William Caxton. By this time, the Anglo-Norman language had become almost wholly superseded by the English, remaining only as the language of a few of the Courts of Law. The English, however, as may be expected, has changed from the English of Chaucer, and is approaching the character of the English of the writers under Henry VIII. In south Britain no poetical successor worthy of comparison with Chaucer has appeared. In Scotland, however, there is the dawning of a bright period.

The establishment of the Protestant religion, and the revival of Classical Learning, are the two great influences in the reign of Henry VIII.; the effects of both upon the style of our writers and the language itself being beneficial. The works of Sir Thomas More, and the earliest translations of the Bible, are the chief instances of the now rapidly increasing English literature.

During the long reign of Queen Elizabeth the language underwent considerable change, and the early Elizabethan writers are much less like the writers of the present century than the later ones. Indeed, what is called the age of Queen Elizabeth comprises the reign of James the First, and part of that of Charles. This is the age of Shakspeare and his cotemporary dramatists. It is also the time when the present translation of the Bible was made. The extent to which the English of the time in question is marked by peculiar indications of antiquity is generally known; so that the present general sketch of the history of the English language ends with the death of James the First.

§ 21. It is now necessary to look to the languages of the Continent to which the English is allied. The first of these is

The Old Saxon of Westphalia and Osnaburg.

Specimen.

Heliand, pp. 12, 13. (Schmeller's Edition.)

LUC. II. 8-13.

§ 22. Old Frisian.-This was the language of the present province of Friesland, and of the parts north and south of that district.