lege of a prescription, ancient and universal, than was that of goods among the Lacedæmonians by an enacted law; for so the Greeks robbed the Hebrews, the Latines the Greeks (which filching CICERO, with a large discourse, in his book De Oratore defendeth), and, in a manner, all Christian nations the Latine. The Italian is pleasant, but without sinewes, as still, fleeting water. The French delicate, but even nice as a woman, scarce daring to open her lippes for fear of marring her countenance. The Spanish majestical, but fulsome, running too much on the o, terrible like the Divell in the play. The Dutch manlike, but withal very harsh, as one ready at every word to picke a quarrell. Now we, in borrowing from them, give the strength of the consonants to the Italian; the full sound of words to the French; the variety of terminations to the Spanish; and the mollifying of more vowels to the Dutch; and so, like bees, we gather the honey of their good properties, and leave the dregs to themselves. And thus, when substantialnesse combineth with delightfulnesse, fullnesse with finenesse, seemlinesse with portlinesse, and currentnesse with staydnesse, how can the language which consisteth in all these sound other than full of all sweetnesse ?"-CAMDEN'S Remains, p. 38. In allusion to having advantageously borrowed from other languages, a Danish poet by the name of HARDERUS compliments the English in the following elegant allusion: Perfectam Veneris faciem picturus Apelles, Quicquid in electis pulchrum vel amababile formis Repperit, in Paphiæ transtulit ora deæ. Excessit nova forma modum; se pluribus una Debuit, at cunctis pulchrior una fuit, Effigies Veneris, quam sic collegit Apelles, COPIOUSNESS. § 99. From its composite character, we are prepared to expect that it would be copious in its vocabulary and phrases. What CAMDEN says of the Anglo-Saxon is more strikingly true of the English, enriched as it has been by contributions from the Norman, the Latin and Greek, and other languages. Indeed, there are large classes of words derived from the Norman or other languages, or from the classical languages, which are, in common parlance, synonymous with words derived from the Anglo-Saxon, so that a writer may have his choice whether to use the Romanic or the Gothic elements. Thus it has happened that, from the composite character of the language as well as from its natural growth with the growth of knowledge, there are abundant materials for every species of writing. It is said by DE PAW that no book can be translated into the Algonquin or the Brazilian languages, nor even into the Mexican or Peruvian, solely from their want of words. On the other hand, the vocabulary of the English language is perhaps as copious as any other. It contains, in WEBSTER's and WORCESTER's dictionaries, something like one hundred thousand words. THE NUMBER OF ANGLO-SAXON WORDS. § 100. Whether we take into view the number or the sorts of words, the Anglo-Saxon is less an element than the mothertongue of the English. In the English language there are as many as twenty-three thousand words of Anglo-Saxon origin. From an examination of passages from the Bible, Shakspeare, Milton, Cowley, Thomson, Addison, Spenser, Locke, Pope, Young, Gibbon, Johnson, it appears that in one thousand four hundred and ninety-two words in sentences taken from these authors, there are only two hundred not Saxon. Upon this basis of calculation, it appears that four fifths of the words in actual use are of Anglo-Saxon origin. See § 108. THE KIND OF ANGLO-SAXON WORDS. § 101. The names of the greater part of the objects of nature; as, sun, moon, stars, day, light, heat; all those words which express vividly bodily action; as, to sit, to stand, to stagger; all those words which are expressive of the earliest and dearest connections; as, father, mother, brother, sister, are Anglo-Saxon. Moreover, all those words which have been earliest used, and which are invested with the strongest associations; most of those objects about which the practical reason is employed in common life; nearly all our national proverbs; a large proportion of the language of invective, humor, satire, and colloquial pleasantry, are Anglo-Saxon. While our most abstract and general terms are derived from the Latin, those which denote the special varieties of objects, qualities, and modes of action are derived from the Anglo-Saxon. Thus, color is Latin; but white, black, green, are Anglo-Saxon. Crime is Latin; but murder, theft, robbery, to lie, are Anglo-Saxon. ear. THE EXPRESSIVENESS. § 102. From the last statement we can understand why the Saxon element is so much more expressive than the Latin part of the language. "Well-being arises from well-doing," is Saxon. "Felicity attends virtue," is Latin. How inferior in force is the latter! In the Saxon phrase, the parts or roots, being significant to our eyes and ears, throw the whole meaning into the compounds and derivatives, while the Latin words of the same import, having their roots and elements in a foreign language, carry only a cold and conventional signification to an English. "In one of my early interviews with Robert Hall," says his biographer, "I used the term 'felicity' three or four times in rather quick succession. He asked me, 'Why do you say felicity? Happiness is a better word, more musical, and genuine English, coming from the Saxon.' 'Not more musical,' said I. Yes, more musical, and so are all words derived from the Saxon, generally. Listen, sir: My heart is smitten and withered like grass. There is plaintive music. Listen again, sir: Under the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice. There is cheerful music.' 'Yes, but rejoice is French.' 'True, but all the rest is Saxon; and rejoice is almost out of time with the other words. Listen again: Thou hast delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. All Saxon, sir, except delivered. I could think of the word tear till I wept.'" The word Gospel, in the Anglo-Saxon, was Godspel, that is, God's speech. The Saviour they called All-heal, that is, all health; the Scribes, boc-men, that is, book men; the Judgment, dome-settle, the settling of doom. By dropping words like these for the Latin equivalents, the language has evidently lost in expressiveness, whatever gain there may have been in other respects. Some of them might be advantageously restored. ENGLISH GRAMMAR AND THE ANGLO-SAXON. § 103. English Grammar is almost exclusively occupied with what is of Anglo-Saxon origin. The few inflections that we have are all Anglo-Saxon. The English genitive, the general mode of forming the plural of nouns, and the terminations by which we express the comparative and superlative of adjectives, er and est, the inflections of the pronouns and of the verbs, and the most frequent terminations of our adverbs, ly, are all AngloSaxon; so are the auxiliary verbs. THE STABILITY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. $104. "Look at the English," says Halbertsma, "polluted by Danish and Norman conquests, distorted in its genuine and noble features by old and recent endeavors to mould it after the French fashion, invaded by a hostile force of Greek and Latin words, threatening by increasing hosts to overwhelm the indigenous terms. In these long contests against the combined might of so many forcible enemies, the language, it is true, has lost some of its power of inversion in the structure of sentences, the means of denoting the differences of gender, and the nice distinctions by inflection and termination; almost every word is attacked by the spasm of the accent and the drawing of conso nants to wrong positions, yet the old English principle is not overpowered. Trampled down by the ignoble feet of strangers, its spring retains force enough to restore itself; it lives and plays through all the veins of the language; it impregnates the innumerable strangers entering into its dominions, and stains them with its color; not unlike the Greek, which, in taking up Oriental words, stripped them of their foreign costume, and bid them appear as native Greeks."-BOSWORTH's Dict., p. 39. THE ENGLISH THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE. § 105. The time was when the Latin was the universal language of the civilized world, so far as any language can be said to have been universal. From Rome, as a common centre, went forth the Christian religion in the Latin language, which was read and written by all learned scholars. More recently, the French has had a stronger claim than any 66 other to be considered the universal language. It was more generally studied and spoken than any other in Europe. "Several foreigners," says Gibbon, "have seized the opportunity of speaking to Europe in the common dialect, the French; and Germany pleads the authority of Leibnitz and Frederick, of the first of her philosophers and the greatest of her kings." When Gibbon submitted to Hume a specimen of his intended history composed in French, he received a remarkable letter in reply. Why," said Hume, "do you compose in French, and carry fagots into the wood, as Horace says in regard to Romans who wrote in Greek? I grant that you have a like motive to those Romans, and adopt a language much more generally diffused than your national tongue. But have you not remarked the fate of those two ancient tongues in following ages? The Latin, though less celebrated, and confined to more narrow limits, has, in some measure, outlived the Greek, and is now more generally understood by men of letters. Let the French, therefore, triumph in the present diffusion of their tongue. Our solid and increasing establishments in America, where we less dread the innovations of barbarians, promise a superior stability and duration to the English language."-T. WATTS, Lond. Phil. Soc., vol. ii., p. 211. How have the prospects of the English language brightened since this prophecy of Hume was written, nearly a century ago! How are the evidences increasing of the final accomplishment of that prophecy in its becoming the universal language! It is calculated that, at the close of the present century, it will be spoken by at least one hundred and fifty millions of human beings. It should be added, that the English is a medium language, and is thus adapted to diffusion. In the Gothic family, it stands midway between the Teutonic and the Scandinavian branches, touching both, and, to some extent, reaching into both. A German or a Dane finds much in the English which exists in his own language. It unites by certain bonds of consanguinity, as no other language does, the Romanic with the Gothic languages. An Italian or a Frenchman finds a large class of words in the English which exists in his own language, though the basis of the English is Gothic. Thus it is adapted to spread among the |