Part 6 (1/2)
14 In tracing the history of our language, Dr Johnson, who does little ive exalish, a portion of king [sic--KTH] Alfred's paraphrase in ie of Alfred's is not English; but rather, as the learned doctor hihest state of purity This dialect was first changed by admixture ords derived fro coe accessions froradual changes, which the etye bearing a sufficient reselish at this day
15 The fore cannot with propriety be dated earlier than the thirteenth century It was then that a free and voluntary aamation of its chief constituent materials took place; and this was so
The English of the thirteenth century is scarcely intelligible to the modern reader Dr Johnson calls it ”a kind of interlish;” and says, that Sir John Gorote in the latter part of the fourteenth century, was ”the first of our authors who can be properly said to have written English” Contelish poetry, was the still greater poet, his disciple Chaucer; who e of the spirit of the reforun
16 The literary history of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is full of interest; for it is delightful to trace the progress of great and obvious iion and the revival of learning were nearly simultaneous Yet individuals may have acted a conspicuous part in the latter, who had little to do with the forreat piety, though, as Dr
Johnson observes, ”the Christian religion always i”--_Hist Eng Lang before his 4to Dict_ ”The ordinary instructions of the clergy, both philosophical and religious, gradually fell into contempt, as the Classics superseded the one, and the Holy Scriptures expelled the other The first of these changes was effected by _the early graave considerable aid to the reforh it had no ilish Bible, however, coh its appearance was late, and its progress was retarded in every possible th equally rapid, extensive, and effectual”--_Constable's Miscellany_, Vol xx, p 75
17 Peculiar honour is due to those who lead the way in whatever advances human happiness And, surely, our just admiration of the character of the _reformers_ must be not a little enhanced, e consider what they did for letters as well as for the church Learning does not consist in useless jargon, in a multitude of mere words, or in acute speculations remote from practice; else the seventeen folios of St Thoelical doctor of the thirteenth century, and the profound disputations of his great rival, Duns Scotus the subtle, for which they were revered in their own age, had not gained the the lucid reasoning of the reformers delivered the halls of instruction The school divinity of the es passed away before the presence of that which these e the Aristotelian philosophy before that which Bacon drew from nature
18 Towards the latter part of the fourteenth century, Wickliffe furnished the first entire translation of the Bible into English In like manner did the Germans, a hundred and fifty years after, receive it in their tongue froe, he hilish style is elegant for the age in which he lived, yet very different frolish translation of the Bible, beinginto England, could not have been very extensively circulated A large specimen of it uage Wickliffe died in 1384 The art of printing was invented about 1440, and first introduced into England, in 1468; but the first printed edition of the Bible in English, was executed in Germany It was completed, October 5th, 1535
19 ”Martin Luther, about the year 1517, first introduced metrical psalmody into the service of the church, which not only kept alive the enthusias point for his followers This practice spread in all directions; and it was not long ere six thousand persons were heard singing together at St Paul's Cross in London Luther was a poet and musician; but the same talent existed not in his followers Thirty years afterwards, Sternhold versified fifty-one of the Psalms; and in 1562, with the help of Hopkins, he completed the Psalter These poetical effusions were chiefly sung to Gerood taste of Luther supplied: but the Puritans, in a subsequent age, nearly destroyed these ger as a reason, that music should be so simplified as to suit all persons, and that all may join”--_Dr Gardiner's Music of Nature_, p 283
20 ”The schools and colleges of England in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were not governed by a system of education which would render their students very eentlemen: and the monasteries, which were used as seht only the corrupt Latin used by the ecclesiastics The ti, when the united efforts of Stanbridge, Linacre, Sir John Cheke, Dean Colet, Eraser Aschaue in all its purity; and even in exciting a taste for Greek in a nation the clergy of which opposed its introduction with the same vehemence which characterized their enion The very learned Erase at Oxford,Oxford was the seat of nearly all the learning in England”--_Constable's Miscellany_, Vol xx, p 146
21 ”The priests preached against it, as a very recent invention of the arch-eneuided zeal, the very foundation of their faith, with the object of their resentment, they represented the New Testaerous book,' because it ritten in that heretical language Even after the accession of Henry VIII, when Erasust, returned under his especial patronage, with the support of several eress was still ie opposed The University was divided into parties, called Greeks and Trojans, the latter being the strongest, fro favoured by the monks; and the Greeks were driven from the streets, with hisses and other expressions of contempt It was not therefore until Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey gave it their positive and powerful protection, that this persecuted language was allowed to be quietly studied, even in the institutions dedicated to learning”--_Ib_, p 147
22 These curious extracts are adduced to show the _spirit of the times_, and the obstacles then to be sur This popular opposition to Greek, did not spring frolish literature; for the ireat promoters of it were all of thelish, not because they preferred it, but because none but those ere bred in colleges, could read any thing else; and, even to this very day, the gralected in what are called the higher institutions of learning In alleging this neglect, I speak co upon the practical business of life, will find it of far e of his own country than to be distinguished for any knowledge which the learned only can appreciate ”Will the greatest Mastershi+p in Greek and Latin, or [the]
translating [of] these Languages into English, avail for the Purpose of acquiring an elegant English Style? No--we know just the Reverse from woeful Experience! And, as Mr Locke and the Spectator observe, Men who have threshed hard at Greek and Latin for ten or eleven years together, are very often deficient in their own Language”--_Preface to the British Gralish literature in early times was sloill not seeress of other arts, more immediately connected with the coreater part of the houses in considerable towns, had no chiainst the wall, and the smoke found its way out as well as it could, by the roof, the door, or the s The houses were , plastered over with clay; and the beds were only straw pallets, with a log of wood for a pillow In this respect, even the king fared no better than his subjects; for, in Henry the Eighth's tiht the straw of the king's bed, that no daggersof the progress of luxury, s especially, that were 'land;' the ings, and the exchange of treen platters into pewter, and wooden spoons into silver and tin; and he complains bitterly that oak instead of as e of houses”--REV ROYAL ROBBINS: _Outlines of History_, p 377
24 Shakspeare appeared in the reign of Elizabeth; outlived her thirteen years; and died in 1616 aged 52 The English language in his hands did not lack power or cos are now e; nor has any very considerable part of his phraseology yet becoht to be known, that the printers or editors of the editions which are now read, have taken extensive liberty in raphy, as well as that of other old authors still popular How far such liberty is justifiable, it is difficult to say Modern readers doubtless find a convenience in it It is very desirable that the orthography of our language should be made uniform, and remain permanent Great alterations cannot be suddenly introduced; and there is, in stability, an advantage which will counterbalance that of a slow approxiy may sometie of the learned rarammarians, was Ben Jonson, the poet; who died in the year 1637, at the age of sixty-three His graly calls ”the _first_ as well as the _best_ English gra published in the several editions of his works It is a small treatise, and worthy of attention only as a ned chiefly for the aid of foreigners Grammar is an unpoetical subject, and therefore not wisely treated, as it once very generally was, in verse But every poet should be familiar with the art, because the formal principles of his own have always been considered as ee must needs be particularly indebted; because their cohly finished than works in prose, are supposed to present the language in its reeable form In the preface to the Poems of Edmund Waller, published in 1690, the editor ventures to say, ”He was, indeed, the Parent of English Verse, and the first that shewed us our Tongue had Beauty and Nue owes more to Him, than the French does to Cardinal Richelieu and the whole Acadeh diaree, that all artists since hi to mend it”--_British Poets_, Vol ii, Lond, 1800: _Waller's Poems_, p 4
26 Dr Johnson, however, in his Lives of the Poets, abates this praise, that he reater part of it to Dryden and Pope He adhts and rugged metre, some advances towards nature and harmony had been alreadythe praise of this improvement, he adds, ”It may be doubted whether Waller and Denham could have over-born [_overborne_]
the prejudices which had long prevailed, and which even then were sheltered by the protection of Cowley The new versification, as it was called,its establishlish poetry has had no tendency to relapse to its foreness”--_Johnson's Life of Dryden: Lives_, p 206 To Pope, as the translator of Hoives this praise: ”His version ue; for since its appearance no writer, however deficient in other powers, has wanted melody”--_Life of Pope: Lives_, p
567 Such was the opinion of Johnson; but there are other critics who object to the versification of Pope, that it is ”h Hunt's Feast of the Poets, the following couplet, and a note upon it:
”But ever since Pope spoil'd the ears of the town With his cuckoo-song verses half up and half down”
27 The unfortunate Charles I, as well as his father Jaood scholar, and wrote well in English, for his time: he ascended the throne in 1625, and was beheaded in 1648 Nor was Croious and military enthusiasm, wholly insensible to _literary_ s of Milton, Dryden, Waller, Cowley, Denhan of Charles II, which is ee of English literature” But that honour, if it s rather to a later period The best works produced in the eighteenth century, are so generally known and so highly esteemed, that it would be lavish of the narrow space allowed to this introduction, to speak particularly of their rauage was, in general, written with great purity and propriety by Addison, Swift, Pope, Johnson, Lowth, Hume, Horne, and many other celebrated authors who flourished in the last century Nor was it reat pains to be accurate in the use of their own language;
”Late, very late, correctness grew our care, When the tir'd nation breath'd froan to be printed in the early part of the sixteenth century; and, as soon as a taste for reading was fore, the strea, but too often turbid tide, upon all the civilized nations of the earth This ine afforded a means by which superior minds could act eneral And thus, by the exertions of genius adorned with learning, our native tongue has beentruths, and of the e copious, strong, refined, and capable of no inconsiderable degree of harmony Nay, it is esteeest, the richest, the ery, of all the languages in the world
CHAPTER VII
CHANGES AND SPECIMENS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
”Quot enim verba, et nonnunquam in deterius, hoc, quo viviente, mutata sunt?”--ROB
AINSWORTH: _Lat Dict, 4to_; Praef, p xi