the nation which had previously spoken French. And this adoption was plainly the cause of the intermixture. So long as it remained the language only of those who had been accustomed to speak it from their infancy, and who had never known any other, it might have gradually become changed in its internal organization, but it could scarcely acquire any additions from a foreign source. What should have tempted the Saxon peasant to substitute a Norman term, upon any occasion, for the word of the same meaning with which the language of his ancestors supplied him? As for things and occasions for which new names were necessary, they must have come comparatively little in his way; and, when they did, the capabilities of his native tongue were sufficient to furnish him with appropriate forms of expression from its own resources. The corruption of the English by the intermixture of French vocables must have proceeded from those whose original language was French, and who were in habits of constant intercourse with French customs, French literature, and everything else that was French, at the same time that they, occasionally at least, spoke English. And this supposition is in perfect accordance with the historical fact. So long as the English was the language of only a part of the nation, and the French, as it were, struggled with it for mastery, it remained unadulterated; — when it became the speech of the whole people, of the higher classes as well as of the lower, then it lost its old Teutonic purity, and received a larger alien admixture from the alien lips through which it passed. Whether this was a fortunate circumstance, or the reverse, is another question. It may just be remarked, however, that the English, if it had been left to its own spontaneous and unassisted development, would probably have assumed a character resembling rather that of the Dutch or the Flemish than that of the German of the present day. The commencement of this second revolution, which changed the very substance of the language, may most probably be dated from about the middle of the thirteenth century, or about a century and a half after the completion of the first, which affected, not the substance or vocabulary of the language, but only its form or grammatical system. THE chief remains that we have of English verse for the first two centuries after the Conquest have been enumerated by Sir Frederic Madden in a comprehensive paragraph of his valuable Introduction to the romance of Havelock, which we will take leave to transcribe: :- "The notices by which we are enabled to trace the rise of our Saxon poetry from the Saxon period to the end of the twelfth century are few and scanty. We may, indeed, comprise them all in the Song of Canute recorded by the monk of Ely [Hist. Elyens. p. 505 apud Gale], who wrote about 1166; the words put into the mouth of Aldred, archbishop of York, who died in 1069 [W. Malmesb. de Gest. Pontif. 1. i. p. 271]; the verses ascribed to St. Godric, the hermit of Finchale, who died in 1170 [Rits. Bibliogr. Poet.]; the few lines preserved by Lambarce and Camden attributed to the same period [Rits. Anc. Songs, Diss. p. xxviii.]; and the prophecy said to have been set up at Here in the year 1189, as recorded by Benedict Abbas, Roger Hoveden, and the Chronicle of Lanercost [Rits. Metr. Rom. Diss. p. lxxiii.]. To the same reign of Henry II. are to be assigned the metrical compositions of Layamon [MS. Cott. Cal. A. ix., and Otho C. xiii.]. and Orm [MS. Jun. 1], and also the legends of St. Katherine, St. Margaret, and St. Julian [MS. Bodl. 34], with some few others, from which we may learn with tolerable accuracy the state of the language at that time, and its gradual formation from the Saxon to the shape it subsequently assumed. From this period to the middle of the next century nothing occurs to which we can affix any certain date; but we shall probably not err in ascribing to that interval the poems ascribed to John de Guldevorde [MSS. Cott. Cal. A. ix., Jes. Coll. Oxon. 29], the Biblical History [MS. Bennet Cant. R. 11] and Poetical Paraphrase of the Psalms [MSS. Cott. Vesp. D. vii., Coll. Benn. Cant. O. 6, Bodl. 921] quoted by Warton, and the Moral Ode published by Hickes [MSS. Digby 4, Jes. Coll. Oxon. 29]. Between the years 1244 and 1258, we know, was written the versification of part of a meditation of St. Augustine, as proved by the age of the prior who gave the MS. to the Durham Library [MS. Eccl. Dun. A. iii. 12 and Bodl. 42]. Soon after this time also were composed the earlier Songs in Ritson and Percy (1264), with a few more pieces which it is unnecessary to particularize. This will bring us to the close of Henry III.'s reign and beginning of his successor's, the period assigned by our poetical antiquaries to the romances of Sir Tristrem, Kyng Horn, and Kyng Alesaunder."1 The verse that has been preserved of the song composed by Canute as he was one day rowing on the Nen, while the holy music came floating on the air and along the water from the choir of the neighboring minster of Ely, -a song which we are told by the historian continued to his day, after the lapse of a century and a half, to be a universal popular favorite,2—is very nearly such English as was written in the fourteenth century. This interesting fragment properly falls to be given as the first of our specimens: Merie sungen the muneches binnen Ely Roweth, cnihtes, noer the lant, And here we thes muneches saeng. That is, literally,— Merry (sweetly) sung the monks within Ely Row, knights, near the land, And hear we these monks' song. Being in verse and in rhyme, it is probable that the words are reported in their original form; they cannot, at any rate, be much altered. The not very clerical address of Archbishop Aldred to Ursus, Earl of Worcester, who refused to take down one of his castles the ditch of which encroached upon a monastic churchyard, consists, as reported by William of Malmesbury (who by-the-by praises its elegance) of only two short lines: Hatest thou Urse? Have thou God's curse. 1 The Ancient English Romance of Havelok the Dane; Introduction, p. xlix. We have transferred the references, enclosed in brackets, from the bottom of the page to the text. * Quæ usque hodie in choris publice cantantur, et in proverbiis memorantur. 3 That is, Hightest thou (art thou called)? Malmesbury's Latin translation is, The hymn of St. Godric has more of an antique character. It is thus given by Ritson, who professes to have collated the Royal MS. 5 F. vii., and the Harleian MS. 322, and refers also to Matt. Parisiensis Historia, pp. 119, 120, edit. 1640, and to (MS. Cott.) Nero D. v. :— Sainte Marie [clane] virgine, Moder Jhesu Cristes Nazarene, On fo [or fong], schild, help thin Godric, On fang bring hegilich with the in Godes riche. Maidens clenhad, moderes flur, Dilie min sinne [or sennen], rix in min mod, "By the assistance of the Latin versions," adds Ritson, "one is enabled to give it literally in English, as follows:-Saint Mary [chaste] virgin; mother of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, take, shield, help thy Godric; take, bring him quickly with thee into God's kingdom. Saint Mary, Christ's chamber, purity of a maiden, flower of a mother, destroy my sin, reign in my mind, bring me to dwell with the only God." Two other short compositions of the same poetical eremite are much in the same style. One is a couplet said to have been sung to him by the spirit or ghost of his sister, who appeared to him after her death and thus assured him of her happiness: — Crist and Sainte Marie swa on scamel me iledde That ic on this erde ne silde with mine bare fote itredde. Which Ritson translates:-"Christ and Mary, thus supported, have me brought, that I on earth should not with my bare foot tread." The other is a hymn to St. Nicholas : Sainte Nicholaes, Godes druth, Tymbre us faire scone hus. At thi burth, at thi bare, Sainte Nicholaes, bring us wel there. "That is," says Ritson, "Saint Nicholas, God's lover, build us a "Vocaris Ursus: habeas Dei maledictionem." But the first line seems to be inter rogative. fair beautiful house. At thy birth, at thy bier, Saint Nicholas, bring us safely thither." As for the rhymes given by Lambarde and Camden as of the twelfth century, they can hardly in the shape in which we have them be of anything like that antiquity: they are, in fact, in the common English of the sixteenth century. Lambarde (in his Dictionary of England, p. 36) tells us that a rabble of Flemings and Normans brought over in 1173 by Robert, Earl of Leicester, when they were assembled on a heath near St. Edmond's Bury, "fell to dance and sing, Hoppe Wylikin, hoppe Wyllykin, Camden's story is that Hugh Bigott, Earl of Norfolk, in the reign of Stephen, used to boast of the impregnable strength of his castle of Bungey after this fashion: "Were I in my castle of Bungey, Upon the river of Waveney, I would ne care for the king of Cockeney." THE HERE PROPHECY. WHAT Sir Frederick Madden describes as "the prophecy said to have been set up at Here in the year 1189" is given by Ritson as follows: : Whan thu sees in Here hert yreret, That other into Puille mid prude bileve, The thridde into Airhahen herd all wreken drechegen. These lines, which he calls a "specimen of English poetry, apparently of the same age" (the latter part of the 12th century), Ritson says are preserved by Benedictus Abbas, by Hoveden, and by the Chronicle of Lanercost; and he professes to give them, and the account by which they are introduced, from "the former," by which he means the first of the three. But in truth the verses do |