Nugae literariae: prose and verse

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married among the natives, and setiled down With llieir families,

The Jurisprudelice of the Romans was as much their boastas their ProWess. Their ea gle bore not only the arroW and bolt in her taloris, but the scales of justico in her beati. One mayreadily conceive of the old Brigantes, the ancestors and prot types of York8hiremen, complaining of their oWn imperfect

alter his notion of scrip ς the prisoner Would he reconciled tobonds; thes vagabond Would do his ulmost to get into the stocks; und omnium Would be craved by all. But the Roman poWer Was becoming very languid in Britain. Iis empire Was oVergroWn. Rapid sympionis of internat decay portended iis dissolution. The neW and over-wholming millioris which had shattered, While they submerged, the European platform, especialty ilarea tened this mistress of nations. The love os pliander and the bitterness of revelage Were equalty vehement in their bosonis. The necessity of the case demanding that the refources of this great poWer should be concentraled, iis troops were gradually WithdraWn Dom the colonies and collected neu rer thoimperial city, Which Was the threatened potiat os attach. In consequence of this, the inhabitants of Britain wero te' expossedio thosse Warlike neighbours Which had long harassed them.

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Etius, thrice consul, the groans of the Britons.'' The appeat was unavailing,-Rome had not a contingent to spare. Our sor fathers Wore compelled to address it to another quarter. This

Was the Saxon poWer, including the Jutes and the Anglos whose character and position have Hready been noted. They had notbeen known hitherio as friends but as pirates. They had early in the third century made frequent and devastating descents

that the natives of Our country,-Whom a Caraetacus and a

but a Lind of prison-duty, a splendid watch and ward, insultingand quelling the spirits of the wretched Vassais, alWays Suspected

would bs stili more perfect could they derive Diu, as they Will

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Scotch and Picis, and success&lly repelled them. But theso primaevally evinced the indisposition of their successors to soback,-and the Saxons Were required to take up their station bytho Great Νortherii Barrier erected by the Romans, Whose remains stili excite the wonder of the traveller and antiquary. A presumption arises, theres are, that the Saxon speech wouldbe speedily grafted on the language of the Νorth of Englanii, whoro still we think it is most radicatly preserved. Tho termination of this deliverance Was in agreement with

generat experience. The Saxons liud done our state Some ser

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tho parallelism of the Saxon coast With the former, and iis great distanco froni the lalter. Νorth and South Wales Woro Britishstili, abhorring the Sassenach as much as the Gael himself. Cornia wali had iis peculiar langu age; and Daines Barrington, in acommunication to the Antiquartan Society in 1773, recording atour lio had made through that county in 1768, amrnis that a woman of the name of Pentraeth, aged eighty-Seven years, couldspeah it, and that it Was only just then that it was likoly tobecome quite eXtinet. Whether Heptarchy or Octarchy be the proper term tocharacterise these respective govern ments and Settiemenis,

excellerace are only permitted to appear at tediolas intervalf,- ages can only bring abo ut the revolutions of Auch luminaries. Αs a linguist, as an assertor und reformer of his native speech, he is Worthy of pre-eminence. Ηe was acquainted With Latinand translated Boethius and Bede. He Was no stranger to thesacred Greek. Ηe Was a poet, a statist, a legislator. He Stroveto vindicato learning and to dissuse seducation. Nor, in Shori,does there shine a name in human annals whicli can eclipse hisjUSt renoWD.-DW that cari venture to compare Willi iti The structure and condition os the Anglo-SaXon language, prexious to the time of Alsred, it foenis impossibie to setile

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It came froin the opposite Chersonesus: and it spread itselfthrough our land . No change very greatly assected it. Thoughtho Danos had osten landod and est lished thenaseives, theyWere alWays regarded With distriast, and Were as much as possibis dispersed and delached by Saxon jealousy. When after the cruei massacre Enaland was united to Denmark under Canute, the union Was shortlived, and reverted to tho Saxon linobesore the Norman invasion, a period of only tWenty-three yearS. Besides, there is no proof that the Danish speech Was essentiallydisserent froni tho Saxon, and incontestibie eviderico that theyare Shoots of the samo great Gothic Stock.We may observe that there is a great resemblance in thenorthern dialecis. How many Teutonic Words does any Englishman understood, When written, is not When pronouncedi Dr. Calamy, in visiting Friegeland, one of the United Provinces, Was convinced that this Was one of the Seuts of the old Saxons. IIo tostifies that the langu age of the Frigons in his day boro a great amnity to the then Englisti. He mentions a toWn neartho Zuydeo Zeo Whero he heard tho Lord's Prayer recited ina tono and dialect Which he very nearly comprehended. SirWilliam Tomplo's observations pollit to the fame fact. Tho doctrine of dialectica I peculiarities seems to be this. Tho Patois of a language is seldom iis deterioration. It is a prior state, Whicli circumstances have induced and onablod somo favoured ordors to desert. Is it be a residuum, the raciness of tho juico is in it: it is the experiment in iis base, it is Wine ontho loos. Ι will illustrate this With a reseretice to the Grook

DialectS. These Were not a S Some Suppose ignorant Violations os correciness, caSual corruptions os terna, Various dates of desuetudo,

hey a re perfeci, original, in themselves,-subsisting in thoirnative elements and poWerS. Greece Was invaded as Was Britain,-Greek became tholangvage of the one as Saxon did of the other. How Was the Greeli language subjected to so many modifications ΘWe must suppose that there Was a time When Greek existodin an entire and unique form. The Hellenes describe numerous

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streanas os emigration whicli floWed into Μacedonia, Achaia, Attica, and Peloponnesus. Whether the Pelasgi Were the sirsi,

whoever the Pelasgi Were,-there Was a succession of these

intruders or visitanis. The last territory being the farthest, it Would probably be the receptacle of those who had entered firstupon these region8, or they might stand in equi-distant relationto each other. We may conceive of them in the course of their progreSS,-DOrians, molimS, and Iones. These originalty spoliedisserently. The radix of their linguage Was common, but theiroWn varieties Were just and self-regulated. Doric, Molic, and Ionic Were distinct languages, though their distinctions Weresinali, and though ali proclaimed a similar parentage. TheseWere Dom peculiar circumstances retained, or Dom the want of intercourse With each other, he Boeotians in the use of tho Molic Dona contempt, the Peloponnesians of the Doric Dom their peninsular condition. But as there Will alWays be a metropolitan language in a large country, We may consider the Ionio, orold Attic, to be the language of the Archon, the Poet, and the Sage. This, in iis pristine state, is exhibited in the Homeric poenis. We know nothing purer and more complete than this. Thucydidos and the Greeli tragedians furnish also specimens. Butbeing the courtly language, it Was resined into the middie Attic, of whicli Plato has been quoted as furnishing illustrations. The

New Attic bocame the classical passpori os exhibition and inter- COUrse among the most polished scholars of that republic Whichwas called the eye of Greece. ' Demosthenes and Xenophon wrote in this most perfect dialeci. Α depravation of it soon occurred on the destruction of their liberty and independence,-but many suppose that this Was confined to books, or only tolerated among them Who had setiled in Asia Μinor, Italy, and Other countries Out of Greece, and who studied Greeli merely asany modern language is taught in Our schools. The truth Was, that When Greek Was spolien so accurately in Athens that the

herb-Woman detected Theophrastus as a Stranger, When eVery earWas modulated to iis tune and every mind was employed upon iis criticism, eat fornis of the original language uninpatred, DomWhicli ali dialects Were emanations, existed in Locris and Epirus,

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Argos and Messenia, not deteriorated but simply retained,-Οnce, PerhaPS, niceties and elegancies, though lese bellind by the researches os scholarship and the resinements of tasto. Philippi could not compete in iis dialect with Athens, ut alime contend for is, that the sirst is as much sui generis, in d pendent, native, and real as the other,-and far more So, sincethe other Was purposely elaborated hom iis ruder state in totis hioest expressions of courtesy, harmony, eloquence, Indverse. A peculiar dialect is never a deterioration of the langia age, it is iis earlier Stage, the Subject of sashionable aban-

donment.

This, then, We belleve to be the similar condition os thogenerat dialects of England and Southeria Scottand. Tho Picis,speaking a Gothic, took possession of the Lowlands of Scottand, and thero is much which a Yorkshireman can intercliange with their descendanis. Jamieson supplies a Dictionary of that dialeci, which with advantage We may consuli RS to Our ΟWD. The Danes carne, speaking a Gothic, very litile disturbing the Saxon, and their langvago explains many dissiculties Which Womeet in iis construction. Jute, Angle, and SaXon ali spolie a Gothic, but tho dialect varied in these nations, and was asdesensibie in one as in another. Αnd What is very remark le, When the Normans invaded our isto, even they produced litile alteration in tho language. This is, however, to be accounted sor. Who were the Νormans or Nor semen 8-a branch of tho Same great Gothic peopte With the Saxons, Who had previoustyentered Gaul and, setiling in iis Western paris, impressed theirname upon them. They, indeed, had adopted the language of the conqUered; perhaps at most it hecame the language of their noblesse and law ;-but Whether they retained any memory of the Gothic or not, When they conquered Englarid, the Saxontongue stili prevalled, and the victors Were obliged to employ it. Norman French included many Saxon words, and in Some reSpecis proved that a Saxon vernacular had not quite sunk into disuseamong them. Chartemagno had ondemoured to drive bach tho

Cimbrian nations, during the eighth century: and Rollo, havingled his band of these very nations, obtained, early in the ninth,

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the cession os that part of France Whicli is stili callod Nori

ther an immense store os authorities and quotations. The lalter has no other monument than the sinati, but most important, relicos tho Translated Scripturos by Uphilas, whicli is preserved inllis Codex Argenteus at Upsal. The fulness of these dialecis is conspicuous in the quantity of their synonyms. But hoW camethey to possess any amnity to the Latin and Greel Θ Μanymight ansWer, that the Romans tost a deposit of their languago in Britain, and that Anglo-Saxon mixod ii up with iiseis. This is possibie, but it is not perfectly satisfactory. The Latinis1ns Were more early infused. The Saxons had been os old contiguousto tho Romans, Who soland in Germany their hardest conquestand most intractabie victim. This mutuat striaggle, not of batile but for prevalence and increase, brought them more into intercourse than collision. Certainly many Words, and especiallyproper names, are deriVed froin the classic languages. In both the Anglo-Saxon and Μseso-Gothic there is more than accidentalconnection with the Greeh. Even in the characters of their alphabeis there is a striking consorinity. Six of the latior, there being only Unciais, are transcripis of some of the most

the Omega-though not always taking after them in their exactpoWers. This may be explained froni the historio intimation that the Saxons at a remote period had stret hed as sar as Thrace, and tho historic authority that the Alaeso Goths were found nearthe mouilis of the Danube in the fourth century. ΜΗ not thesebe tho remnants of tho hundred thousand Goths who nil uponthe Grecian country and were de aled by Constantine, Who WaSborn at York, and was himself, perhaps, more than amia Sed

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here almost last manifested their distinciness. It is peculiarly in this Riding of the county riding, a corruption os trithius, athirdino,) that this distinciness is most pure and Warrant te. The long prologiae I have spolien is toWards the elucidation of

found in the analysis of those phrases and terms Whicli arrestthe notice of the stranger. It is in consequence of this error, that derivation has been so much ridiculed. We again disclaim every purpose but the just decomposition and solution ofWritten Words, or Words cap te of heing Written as Weli as pro

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Thales speculated in oti, probably Gallipoli, buying up ali the

Olives he could, as Would any of iis importers: is that stood oniis Phaleron and Piraeus, this rises over a confluence of Walers, one a riVer, und the other that nondescripi, a beck: is the ono had a sculptured goddess, the other has What is far more true toeXperience, a carVed queen,-and While Alinerva had but ono