History of the English Language and Literature in one shyre varyeth from another.â—— And he tells an odd story in illustration of this fact. He tells about certain merchants who were in a ship â——in Tamyseâ—— (on the 227 Thames), who were bound for Zealand, but were wind-stayed at the Foreland, and took it into their heads to go on shore there. One of the merchants, whose name was Sheffelde, a mercer, entered a house, â——and axed for mete, and specyally he axyd after eggys.â—— But the â——goode-wyfâ—— replied that she â——coude speke no frenshe.â—— The merchant, who was a steady Englishman, lost his temper, â——for he also coude speke no frenshe, but wolde have hadde eggys; and she understode hym not.â—— Fortunately, a friend happened to join him in the house, and he acted as interpreter. The friend said that â——he wolde have eyren; then the goode wyf sayde that she understod hym wel.â—— And then the simple-minded but much-perplexed Caxton goes on to say: â——Loo! what sholde a man in thyse dayes now wryte, eggës or eyren?â—— Such were the difficulties that beset printers and writers in the close of the fifteenth century. 37. Latin of the Fourth Period.—(i) This contribution differs very essentially in character from the last. The Norman-French contribution was a gift from a people to a people—from living beings to living beings; this new contribution was rather a conveyance of words from books to books, and it never influenced—in any great degree—the spoken language of the English people. The ear and the mouth carried the Norman-French words into our language; the eye, the pen, and the printing-press were the instruments that brought in the Latin words of the Fourth Period. The Norman-French words that came in took and kept their place in the spoken language of the masses of the people; the Latin words that we received in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries kept their place in the written or printed language of books, of scholars, and of literary men. These new Latin words came in with the Revival of Learning, which is also called the Renascence. The Turks attacked and took Constantinople in the year 1453; and the great Greek and Latin scholars who lived in that city hurriedly packed up their priceless manuscripts and books, and fled to all parts of Italy, Germany, France, and even into England. The loss of the East became the gain of the West. These scholars became teachers; they taught the Greek 228 and Roman classics to eager and earnest learners; and thus a new impulse was given to the study of the great masterpieces of human thought and literary style. And so it came to pass in course of time that every one who wished to become an educated man studied the literature of Greece and Rome. Even women took to the study. Lady Jane Grey was a good Greek and Latin scholar; and so was Queen Elizabeth. From this time began an enormous importation of Latin words into our language. Being imported by the eye and the pen, they suffered little or no change; the spirit of the people did not influence them in the least—neither the organs of speech nor the ear affected either the pronunciation or the spelling of them. If we look down the columns of any English dictionary, we shall find these later Latin words in hundreds. Opinionem became opinion; factionem, faction; orationem, oration; pungentem passed over in the form of pungent (though we had poignant already from the French); pauperem came in as pauper; and separatum became separate. 38. Latin of the Fourth Period.—(ii) This went on to such an extent in the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century, that one writer says of those who spoke and wrote this Latinised English, â——If some of their mothers were alive, they were not able to tell what they say.â—— And Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) remarks: â——If elegancy (= the use of Latin words) still proceedeth, and English pens maintain that stream we have of late observed to flow from many, we shall, within a few years, be fain to learn Latin to understand English, and a work will prove of equal facility in either.â—— Mr Alexander Gill, an eminent schoolmaster, and the then head-master of St Paulâ——s School, where, among his other pupils, he taught John Milton, wrote a book in 1619 on the English language; and, among other remarks, he says: â——O harsh lips! I now hear all around me such words as common, vices, envy, malice; even virtue, study, justice, pity, mercy, compassion, profit, commodity, colour, grace, favour, acceptance. But whither, I pray, in all the world, have you banished those words which our forefathers used for these new-fangled ones? 229 Are our words to be executed like our citizens?â—— And he calls this fashion of using Latin words â——the new mange in our speaking and writing.â—— But the fashion went on growing; and even uneducated people thought it a DIAGRAM OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
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