The history of England, from the time of Ecbert to the battle of Hastings, is the history of the Anglo-Saxon Language. During that time it was the language both of the learned and unlearned, and was a written language as well as a spoken one. Not only was it written, but it was one of the earliest cultivated languages of Modern Europe; so much so, that before there was a single line written either in French or Italian, in Spanish or Portuguese, there was a considerable Anglo-Saxon literature. Whilst a corrupted form of the Latin was the medium of communication through the southern half of Western Europe, the language of England was the language of legislators, annalists, and poets. So early, indeed, was the Anglo-Saxon applied to poetry, that the earliest specimens of Anglo-Saxon verse represent the manners and legends of a time previous to the introduction of Christianity, and during the time of German Paganism. Nay more, they represent the manners and legends of a time when our ancestors belonged to the continent of Germany rather than to the island of Britain. This is the earliest period of the Anglo-Saxon literature, the compositions being exclusively poems.

Next in order of time to the oldest Anglo-Saxon poems come the oldest Anglo-Saxon laws; such as the laws of Ina, Wihtred, Athelstan, and other AngloSaxon Kings.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is of uncertain date; indeed, it was put together at different periods. It

gives us, in the form of annals, the chief events that occurred in the Anglo-Saxon portions of England from the first settlement to the reign of Stephen.

A poem, written by a monk of Whitby in Yorkshire, named Cædmon, is one of the most remarkable of the Anglo-Saxon poems. Much of its sublimity is taken from the Old Testament, of which it is a metrical paraphrase. The poem of Cædmon is an example of what may be called the Sacred Epics of the Anglo-Saxons. Next in point of importance to the work of Cadmon, are the following poems:

a. Judith-A fragment on the actions of Judith, the slayer of Holophernes.

b. Andreas: The metrical life and acts of St. Andrew.

c. Helena The discovery of the true cross by Helena, mother of Constantine the Great.

Of the prose writers, known to us by name, the two most conspicuous are, Alfred the Great and Ælfric. The influence of the former upon the laws and learning of England is a matter of general history; whilst the most important collection of Anglo-Saxon homilies is the work of the latter.

§ 22. The Anglo-Saxon is the mother-tongue of the present English.—Nevertheless, if we compare the present English of the nineteenth century with the Anglo-Saxon of the ninth, the following points of difference will be observed:

1. The Anglo-Saxon language contained words that

are either wanting in the present English, or, if found,

These words, which are very numerous, although lost (or changed as to meaning) in the current English, are often preserved in the provincial dialects.

2. The present English contains words that were either wanting in the Anglo-Saxon, or, if found, used in a different sense-voice, people, conjugal, philosophy, alchemist, very, survey, shawl, and other words, to the amount of some hundreds. These have been introduced since the time of the Anglo-Saxons, from the Latin, Greek, French, Arabic, and other languages.

3. Words found in both Anglo-Saxon and English appear in different forms in the different languages.

4. The Anglo-Saxon contained grammatical forms

that are wanting in the present English.

5. The present English contains grammatical forms that were wanting in Anglo-Saxon. The words ours, yours, theirs, hers, were unknown in Anglo-Saxon.

6. Grammatical forms found both in the AngloSaxon and the English, appear in different forms in the different languages.

7. Phrases and sentences were used in AngloSaxon which are inadmissible in the present English.

8. Phrases and sentences are used in the modern English which were inadmissible in Anglo-Saxon.

§ 23. A fresh language was introduced into England by the Norman conquest. This may be called either Anglo-Norman, or Norman-French.

SPECIMEN,

From the Anglo-Norman Poem of Charlemagne.

Un jur fu Karleún al Seint-Denis muster,
Reout pris sa corune, en croiz seignat sun chef,
E ad ceinte sa espée; li pons fud d'or mer,
Dux i out e demeines e baruns e chevalers.
Li emperéres reguardet la reine sa muillers;
Ele fut ben corunée al plus bel e as meuz.

In the year 1066 A.D. Edward the Confessor died, and was succeeded by Harold, who was the last of the Anglo-Saxon Kings of England. Upon the 28th of September of the same year, William Duke of Normandy, landed at Pevensey in Sussex; and on the 18th of October was fought the decisive battle of Hastings. Now the language of William the Conqueror was by no means akin to the Anglo-Saxon: indeed it was as different from it as the Anglo-Saxon was from the original British. And the language of his followers was the same. It was wholly foreign to England. It was a language of France, just as the Anglo-Saxon was a language of Germany; and it encroached upon the Anglo-Saxon of England just as that language, some centuries before, had encroached upon the original British.

And just as the languages or dialects akin to the Anglo-Saxon are to be sought for in Germany, so are the languages, or dialects, akin to the Norman to be sought for in France. The Anglo-Saxon of the followers of Hengist and Horsa resembled the modern German, and Dutch.

The Norman of the followers

of William the Conqueror resembled the modern French.

The change effected upon the English Language by the Norman Conquest was not less than the change effected by the same event upon the property of the country, its habits, its liberties, and its constitution; and the results of the battle of Hastings upon the literature of England were proportionate to the altera