[1] Mr. Hallam.
[2] Dr. Bosworth.
[3] Of this recondite writer Ellis has said, "probably Layamon never
will be printed;" but we live in an age of publication, and Layamon
is said to be actually in the press. [Since this was written, the
work has been published at the cost of the Society of Antiquaries,
under the editorial care of Sir Frederick Madden.]
[4] Dr. Bosworth, or Mr. Thorpe, has explained this attempt more
fully. "From this idea of doubling the consonant after a short vowel,
as in German, we are enabled to form some tolerably accurate notions
as to the pronunciation of our forefathers. Thus, Orm (or Ormin)
writes _min_ and _win_ with a single _n_ only, and _lif_ with a
single f, because the i is long, as in _mine_, _wine_, and _life_. On
the other hand, wherever the consonant is doubled, the vowel
preceding is sharp and short, as _winn_, pronounced _win_, not
_wine_."--"Origin of the Germanic and Scandinavian Languages," 24.
[5] Guest's "Hist. of English Rhythms," ii. 186.
[6] During the thirteenth century, the organic change proceeded so
rapidly that there is quite as wide a difference between the language
of Layamon and that which was written at the beginning of the
fourteenth century (about the time of Robert of Gloucester), as there
is between the English language of the reign of Edward the Second and
the tongue of the present day.--See Mr. Wright's learned "Essay on
the Literature of the Anglo-Saxons," 107.
[7] Hearne, in his preface, exclaims in ecstacy--"This is the _first
book_ ever printed in this kingdom, it may be in _the whole world, in
the black letter_, with a mixture of _the Saxon characters_, which is
the very garb that was in vogue in the author's time, that is, in the
thirteenth century." Hearne often claims our gratitude, while his
earnest simplicity will extort a smile. On our ancient Bibles he
could not refrain from exclaiming--"Though I have taken so much
pleasure in perusing the English Bible of the year 1541, yet 'tis
nothing equal to that I should take in turning over that of the year
1539." His antiquarianism kindled his piety over Cranmer's Bible.
Thomas was haunted by a chimera that whatever was obsolete deserved
to be revived. This honest spirit of antiquarianism, working on a
most undiscerning intellect, seems to have kindled into a literary
bigotry in his sateless delight of "the black-letter of our
grandfathers' days." Hearne set this unhappy example of printing
ancient writers with all their obsolete repulsiveness in orthography
and type. He was closely followed by RITSON, and by WHITAKER in his
edition of "Piers Ploughman;" and these editors assuredly have scared
away many a neophyte in our vernacular literature. RITSON printed his
"Ancient Songs" with the Saxon characters and abbreviations, which
render them often unintelligible. This literary antiquary lived to
regret this superstitious antiquarianism. He had prepared a new
edition entirely cleared of these offences, but which unfortunately
he destroyed at the morbid close of his life.
[8] Turner's "History of England," v. 217, will furnish the curious
reader readily with several of these specimens of the modes of
thinking and of acting of the middle ages, when monks only were the
preceptors of mankind.
[9] This term of "strange Ingliss" has yet been found so obscure as
to occasion some strictures, which, like the Interpreter in the
Critic, are the most difficult to comprehend. I must refer to
Monsieur Thierry's very delightful "History of the Conquest of
England," ii. 271, for a very refined speculation on our Robert de
Brunne's unlucky obscurity. Monsieur Thierry imagines that the
"strange Ingliss" was the refined English which had flown into
Scotland, and there become the cultivated language of the minstrels
and the court, and which our hapless Saxons on _this side of the
Tweed_ had sunk into a dialect only fitted for serfs. This finer and
more elevated English could not be understood by a base commonalty;
this was "strange Ingliss" to them. A very interesting event in the
history of both nations had transplanted the purer English to the
Scottish court:--Malcolm, whom the usurpation of Macbeth had driven
from the Scottish throne, was expatriated in England during an
interval of near twenty years; the affection of the monarch for the
English was such, that he adopted their language, and when the royal
family of England was expelled by the Conqueror, the king received
them and the emigrant Saxons, and married the English princess. This
gave rise to that intercourse with the south of Scotland, of which
the result in our literary, if not in our civil, history is
remarkable. Certain it is that much broad Scotch is good old English,
and the noblest minstrelsy cometh "fra the North Countrie."
[10] On the leaf appears, in the handwriting of the author, "This Boc
is Dan Michelis of Northgate ywrite an Englis of his ozene hand that
hatte _Ayenbyte of inwyt_, and is of the boc-house of Seynt Austyn's
of Cantorberi." The writer was seventy years of age; and he tells us
that he was not--
"Blind, and dyaf, and alsuo dumb,
Of zeventy yer al not rond,
Ne ssette by draze to the grond,
Uor peny nor mark, ne nor pond."