A. With the original Saxon, and with the Latin. through the medium of the Norman French.

Q. What peculiar characters does it receive from each?

A. From the former strength and vivacity, with sometimes considerable harshness of sound; from the latter smoothness, harmony, and greater pomp and dignity.

CHAPTER VIII.

OF THE MODERN HISTORY OF OUR LANGUAGE.

Q. What length of time did the Saxon and Norman French take to fuse and form themselves into the new language?

A. A period of nearly three hundred years; for, though the process was early begun, it required this long time to bring it to completion; so slow is the progress of human affairs in rude periods of society. Q. Were there many writers during this period?

A. A considerable number, though none of any very nigh reputation.

Q. Of what kind were they chiefly?

A. They consisted principally of the learned, who composed mostly in Latin, and upon religious and philosophical subjects; and of chroniclers and poets called minstrels, who wrote chiefly in the popular language of the country.

Q. Do the latter exhibit much uniformity of style?

A. Far from it; for the character of their compositions seems to vary not only according to the time, but even to the part of the country in which they lived and wrote.

Q. In whose reign might the change of language be said to have been completed?

A. In the reign of Edward the Third, which began in 1326, and ended in 1377.

Q. In what manner did he accelerate this event?

A. By making English the language of his court, and by discontinuing the Norman in all law proceedings.

Who may be regarded as the earliest writer of genuine English poetry?

A. Geoffrey Chaucer, who was born in 1328, and died in 1400, leaving behind him many monuments of his noble genius, the principal of which are the Canterbury Tales.

Q. Who were the principal prose writers of that period?

A. Sir John Mandeville, a distinguished traveler; and John Wicliffe, who is often regarded as the father of the Reformation.

Q. After the great celebrity of Chaucer, did English writers succeed each other in rapid succession?

A. Very much so indeed; though none gained such high reputation as Chaucer, prior to the period of Elizabeth.

Q. What were the principal changes which took place in the language during the 150 years from Chaucer's time?

A. It became for one thing more regular in its orthography, many of the old words were suffered to drop out of use, and new ones, chiefly from the Latin, were introduced; and altogether the language became more elegant, copious, and refined.

Q. What class of writers took the lead in this improvement? A. The poets chiefly, and of these Scotland can boast of more than her due proportion.

Q. What event tended to secure past and promote future improvements in the language?

A. The art of printing, which was invented in Holland early in the fifteenth century, and introduced into England by William Caxton, in the year 1474.

CHAPTER IX.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

Q. In whose reign did the English language and literature make greatest progress?

A. In that of Elizabeth, and of her successor, James.

Q. What characters did the language then assume?

A. Those of great copiousness, flexibility, vigor, and grandeur; and it acquired farther the character of a more regular orthography.

Q. To what had diversity of spelling been previously owing?

A. To the circumstance of there having been previously no fixed standard, every one spelling his words according as his own ear or fancy dictated.

Q. Who were some of the principal ornaments of English literature during these reigns?

A. Sidney, Spenser, Essex, and Raleigh; but especially Bacon, Shakspeare, and Hooker.

Q. What did the language still require to make it almost perfect as an instrument of thought?

A. Nothing but a little additional polish and refinement; a slight infusion of taste and elegance; a lopping off of redundancies and extravagances; and a greater closeness and condensation of thought.

Q. Who were among the next great improvers of our language? A. Milton, Dryden, Butler, Clarendon, Burnet, Tillotson, Hobbes, and Locke, with many others too numerous to mention.

Q. In what were many of the writers of the times of Charles the Second and William and Mary chiefly defective?

A. In correctness of taste, often substituting quaintness for originality, and mistaking affectation for wit. Q. During what reigns did our language receive its highest polish?

A. During those of Queen Anne, and of the Georges, and of their successors.

Q. Who have been mainly instrumental in this improvement? A. Addison, Steele, Pope, Swift, Hawksworth, Chesterfield, Goldsmith, Johnson, Gibbon, Hume, Robertson, Blair, Beattie, together with all our distinguished writers, whether of prose or poetry, who have adorned our literature during the important period of the last half century.

Q. What may be said to be the present character of our language?

A. It is copious, elegant, and energetic, well fitted for every species of subject, abounding in all the richest stores of literature, whether designed for improvement or pleasure, and adorned alike with the treasures of religion, science, and philosophy, the effusions of fancy, the records of history, the sublime inventions of imagination, and the majestic movements of the noblest oratory.

CHAPTER X.

OF PERIODICAL LITERATURE.

Q. What do you understand by Periodical Literature? A. Works published in detached portions, and at stated times; and devoted chiefly, if not exclusively, to literary or scientific subjects.

Q. Do not newspapers belong to this department of literature? A. Strictly speaking they do; though, from the circumstance of their being devoted almost entirely to political topics, and a detail of the remarkable occurrences that take place in the world, they are generally ranked as a distinct class by themselves, often styled the newspaper press. The first newspaper published in America was in 1604, called the News-letter. Q. Is periodical literature of high antiquity?

A. No; it is of comparatively recent origin, having never been apparently thought of by the ancients. Q. How can this oversight be accounted for?

A. By the want of that important instrument, the printing-press; for, had all works still to be written out by the hand, this species of literature, if known at all, must have been extremely limited.

Q. Where and when did periodical literature take its rise?

A. In France, in the year 1665, when the first work of the kind not properly political, was begun by one Dennis de Sallo, under the denomination of the Journal des Sçavans.

Q. From what time may we date its origin in England?

A. From February, 1704, when the celebrated Daniel De Foe commenced his work called the Review. Q. Did the Review continue long solitary?

A. No; for it was speedily followed by the Tatler, the Spectator, and the Guardian, which, though ranked with the British Essayists, were nevertheless periodicals.

Q. Has periodical literature extended much since that time? A. It is now, perhaps, the most extensive of all our departments of literature, and seems to command the attention of readers of all classes.

Q. At what intervals, and under what titles, do periodicals now generally appear?

4. Some are published weekly, some monthly, oth

R

ers quarterly, and not a few yearly; and under the various denominations of Journals, Magazines, Miscellanies, Reviews, and Annuals.

Q. In what does the principal attraction of this kind of literature consist?

A. In its containing a great variety of light, elegant, and amusing reading, with a good deal of general information, though commonly of a rather superficial character.

Q. What is supposed to be the effect of so much periodical literature upon the public mind?

A. While it induces some to read, who, probably, otherwise would not, it is supposed to withdraw the attention of not a few from the perusal of more regular and important works, and, by giving a mere smattering of many things rather than a thorough acquaintance with any one, to make our knowledge more superficial than solid, and more showy than useful.

CHAPTER XI.

THE COMPONENT PARTS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [From the Edinburgh Review, 1839.]

THE English language consists of about thirty eight thousand words. This includes, of course, not only radical words, but all derivatives, except the preterits and participles of verbs; to which must be added some few terms, which, though set down in the dictionaries, are either obsolete, or have never ceased to be considered foreign. Of these, about twenty-three thousand, or nearly five eighths, are of Anglo-Saxon origin. The majority of the rest, in what proportion we can not say, are Latin and Greek; Latin, however, has the largest share. The names of the greater part of the objects of sense, in other words, the terms which occur most frequently in discourse, or which recall the most vivid conceptions, are Anglo-Saxon. Thus, for example, the names of the most striking objects in visible nature, of the chief agencies at work there, of the changes we pass over it, are Anglo-Saxon.

This language has given names to the heavenly bodies, the sun, the moon, and stars; to three out of the four ele