11 While Tyrwhit was busied on the “Canterbury Tales” his attention was excited by the old cataloguer of the Cottonian manuscripts to a Chaucer exemplar emendate scriptum. On a spare leaf the name of Richard Chawfer had been scrawled, which might have been that of some former possessor. There are two fatalities which hang over the pen of a slumbering cataloguer—ignorance and indolence. Our present one caught an immortal name and never travelled onwards; and, struck by the fairness of the writing, inferred that it was a copy of Chaucer critically accurate. It turned out to be the compositions of an unknown poet who not willingly relinquished his claim on posterity, for he has subscribed his name, Laurence Minot. [The manuscript is marked Galba, E. IX.; specimens were first published from it by Tyrwhit and Warton, and the entire series ultimately by Ritson.]
12 Ritson’s first edition (1795) of Minot having become very difficult to procure, an elegant re-impression, and apparently a correct one, was published in 1825.
13 “Philobiblion, sive de Amore Librorum et Institutione Bibliothecæ,” ascribed to Richard of Bury, Bishop of Durham; but Fabricius says it was written by Robert Holcot, a learned friar, at his desire.—Fab. “Bib. Med. Ævi,” vol. i. It is the bishop, however, who was the collector, and always speaks in his own person. It has been recently translated by Mr. Inglis.
14 Barrington on the Statutes.
In Blackstone’s “Commentaries,” book iii. chap. 21, we find much curious information, and some philosophical reflections. The use of the technical law-Latin is adroitly defended. Under Cromwell the records were turned into English; at the Restoration the practisers declared they could not express themselves so significantly in English, and they returned to their Latin. In 1730, a statute ordered that the proceedings at law should be done into English, that the common people might understand the process, &c. But after many years’ experience the people are as ignorant in matters of law as before, and suffer the inconveniences of increasing the expense of all legal proceedings by being bound by the stamp-duties to write only a stated number of words in a sheet, and the English language, through the multitude of its particles, is so much more verbose than the Latin, that the number of sheets is much augmented. Two years subsequently it was necessary to make a new act to allow all technical terms to continue Latin, which were too ridiculous to be translated, such as nisi prius, fieri facias, habeas corpus. This last act, in 1732, has defeated every beneficial purpose intended by the preceding statute of 1730.
One hardly expected to find philological acumen in the dry discussion of law-Latin, but when the three words, “secundum formam statuti,” require seven in English, “according to the form of the statute,” one easily comprehends the heavy weight of the stamp-duty for writing English. The Saxons, who made no use of particles of speech, had more merit than we were aware of.
15 By the Rev. John Lewis, 1731, fo., and republished by the Rev. H. H. Baber, 1810, 4to.
The censure of Fabricius deserves our notice. After mention of Wickliffe’s version of the Bible, he adds, “Mirum est Anglos eam (versionem) tam diu neglexisse quum vel linguæ causa ipsis in pretio esse debeat.”—“Bib. Lat.,” v. 321.
It is provoking to be reminded of our neglected duties by a foreigner. We might assuredly be curious to learn how the sublimity and the colloquial and narrative parts of this vast treasure of our ancient language were produced under the primitive pen of Wickliffe. A fine copy of Wickliffe’s Bible was in the library of Mr. Douce, and I have heard, with great satisfaction, that it will probably be edited by Sir Francis Madden.
16 Herbert’s “History of the City Companies.”
17 I derive this curious fact from Mr. Tyler’s “History of Henry of Monmouth,” ii. 245.
18 These wills are preserved in Mr. Nichols’ “Collection of Royal Wills.”
19 Le Comte de Neufchateau, “Essay on French Literature,” prefixed to the late edition of Pascal’s works.
20 “Edinburgh Review,” Oct., 1839.
21 See “Quarterly Rev.,” lix. 34.—The critic is deeply imbued with his delight of Saxon-English. “The first bursts in our literature (probably the noblest are meant) are in almost pure Saxon.” The critic particularly appeals to Milton for two instances; yet surely the Greekised, the Latinised, and even the Italianised Milton will not serve to assert the pre-eminence of our venerable dialect. “A country congregation” is its more certain test; where the language of the people is the only language required. Cobbett’s writings throughout are Saxon-English. Coleridge considered Asgill and De Foe the most idiomatic writers.
VICISSITUDES OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
The vicissitudes of the English language are more evident than its origin. In the history of a language we are perpetually reminded, by the remonstrances of the critics, of the corruptions of its purity, the perils of innovation, and the obtrusion of neologisms, while we find these same critics fastidiously rejecting what they deem the antiquated and the obsolete; many causes are constantly operating these changes of language. The style of one age ceases to be that of another; new modifications of thought create new modes of expression; and as knowledge enlarges its sphere, and society changes its manners, novel objects imperiously demand adequate terms.
Our language has been subjected to those dominant events in the history of our country which have so powerfully influenced our genius and our destiny; and, our insular position occasioning a general intercourse with all the Continental nations, our national idiom has been mottled by foreign neologisms.
For more than five centuries was the Saxon language the language of England; the awful revolution of 1066 produced novelties of all kinds, but none greater than the entire change in our Saxon language, which, however, our Norman masters could never eradicate from among the people. During three centuries most of our English writers composed in French. When Greek was first studied in the reign of Henry the Seventh, it planted many a hellenism in our English; the translation of the Scriptures in that of Edward the Sixth, while it transmitted many latinisms, at the same time revived the simplicity of the Saxon-English, which seemed to bear a sort of evidence that a primitive language was most suitable for primitive Christianity in contrast with the pompous corruptions of Rome.
Under Elizabeth favourite phrases were insinuated into the dialect by over-refined travellers, who spoke “minionlike,” while the revolution of the Netherlands incorporated among us many a rough but vigorous inmate. In the days of James and Charles, the long residence of the Spanish Gondomar at our court, and the romantic pilgrimage of love to Madrid, and the political ties which bound the two nations, framed the style of courtesy, as well as set the fashions.
The puritanic commonwealth under Cromwell sunk down the language to its basest uses. Stripped to nakedness, the jargon of the market and the shop hid itself under the gibberish of its cant. Writers then abounded equally illiterate and fanatical. Perhaps we owe to these mean