P.S.--The _postscriptum_ of J. H. T. respecting the pronunciation of
English being preserved in Scotland, goes direct to an opinion I long since
formed, that the Lowland Scotch, as we read it in the Waverley Novels, is
the only genuine unadulterated remains we have of the Saxon language, as
used before the Norman Conquest. I formed this opinion from continually
tracing what we call "braid Scotch" to its root, in Bosworth's, and other
Saxon dictionaries; and I lately found this fact confirmed and accounted
for in a passage of Verstegan, as follows:--He tells us that after the
battle of Hastings Prince Edgar Atheling, with his sisters Margaret and
Christian, retired into Scotland, where King Malcolm married the former of
these ladies; and proceeds thus:
"As now the English court, by reason of the aboundance of Normannes
therein, became moste to speak French, so the Scottish court, because
of the queen, and the many English that came with her, began to speak
English; the which language, it would seem, King Malcolm himself had
before that learned, and now, by reason of his queen, did more affecte
it. But the English toung, in fine, prevailed more in Scotland than the
French did in England; _for English became the language of all the
south part of Scotland_, the Irish (or Gaelic) having before that been
the general language of the whole country, since remaining only in the
north."--Verstegan's _Restitution of Antiquities_, A.D. 1605.
Many of your accomplished philological readers will doubtless consider the
information of this Note trivial and puerile; but they will, I hope, bear
with a tyro in the science, in recording an original remark of his own,
borne out by an authority so decisive as Verstegan.