speak elegantly, nor write significantly,
except they do it in a language of their own
devising: as if they were ashamed of their
mother tongue, and thought it not sufficiently
curious to express their fancies. By means
whereof, more French and Latin words have
gained ground upon us since the middle of
Queen Elizabeth's reign than were admitted
by our ancestors, not only since the Norman,
but the Roman conquest." And Sir Thomas
Browne, who was himself a great Latinist,
says, "If elegancy still proceedeth, and
English pens maintain that stream we have of
late observed to flow from many, we shall,
within few years, be fain to learn Latin to
understand English, and a work will prove
of equal facility in either."

Our language has gone through its changes.
Spenser resisted affectations of Italian speech,
and went out of his way to be Saxon. Our
best authors, except Milton, have all been
maintainers of Saxon: but the Latin taste,
of which Heylin complained, which Milton
supported, and which overran much of our
literature in Queen Anne's time, after passing
through various stages, is only in our own
generation yielding before a restored love of
books written in Saxon-English, which will
conquer in time even the affectations of the
ignorant, and the tardier literary perceptions
of the man of science.

It must not, however, be supposed that the
mere use of Saxon words can stand for a
token of good writing; many a common
word of Latin-English is known better than
the corresponding Saxon. But if a man
wishes to write for all, he must know how to
use the speech of all, and he will come
nearest all hearts with words that are
familiar in every home, and find their way
even into the prattle of the nursery.

During the last twenty or thirty years great
attention has been paid by scholars, both in
England and in Germany, to the youth of
our language; its mother, its nurses, and its
schools, have been looked up, and we know
more than we did about its origin. We are
beginning, in fact, to understand the History
of the Language: and it may be worth while
to take a rapid view of the facts now most
commonly received.

Although we often speak of the Saxons or
Anglo-Saxons as the invaders of Britain in
the fifth century, yet it must not be forgotten
that other tribes, such as the Jutes and
Frieslanders, came over, too. Foremost,
however, were the Angles and the Saxons, and
these two names appear side by side in
various ways; the Angles gave their name
to the country, Engla-land; and the Saxon
version of the gospels is headed, "That
Godspell on Englisc." But, on the other hand,
to this day the Welsh call the English
language Saeson-aeg, or the Saxon speech; and
the Scotch Highlanders call an Englishman,
Sassenach. Some have maintained that a
few of the tribes, and particularly the Jutes,
were Scandinavians; but it is admitted that
the greater part of the invaders were men of
Teutonic (or Dutch) race, who came over from
the North of Germany, or the South of
Denmark. In the widest sense, we may look on
the terms German, Teutonic, and Dutch, as all
meaning the same thing: and we may say
that the same Teutonic race inhabits Europe
from the Alps to the North Sea, between the
Rhine upon the west, and the Elbe, or even
the Vistula, upon the east. This race
includes Austrians, Tyrolese, Northern Swiss,
Bavarians, Prussians, Hanoverians,
Hollanders, Flemings, and others: but when
speaking without reference to politics, they
are to be divided into High and Low Dutch;
Dutch of the highlands of Southern
Germany, and the Dutch of the low lands of
Northern Germany. High Dutch happens
to have become the polite dialect, the
language of German literature; and Low Dutch,
fallen into disrepute, is cultivated now in
Holland only. But to Low Dutch belongs
honour, as the parent of our modern English.
Our very sailors who trade to Rotterdam.
or Hamburgh, cannot help being struck
with the likeness of the two languages,
and their conclusion is, that "after all, Dutch
is only a sort of broken English."
English, in truth, is a sort of broken Dutch.
The Dutch skippers (that is, shippers) who
trade to Liverpool or Whitehaven, have no
great difficulty in understanding our own
northern dialects. A Lancashire boy, who
was sent to school at Hamburgh, happening
to land on a very hot day, went up to some
maid-servants who were drawing water at a
fountain, and said, " Will you give me a
drink?" "Wat sagt-en?" was the reply.
"Will you—give me—a drink?" he repeated.
"Ja, ja, du kanst drinken," (Yea, yea, thou
canst drink), was the ready answer. The
broad Lancashire and the broad Dutch were
soon at home together.

The Angles, the Saxons, and other Teutonic
tribes, made sundry descents on the kingdom,
of Britain for about one hundred years, and
at last conquered a large part of the country,
driving the native Britons (whom they called
the Welsh, or foreigners), to the fastnesses of
Wales, to Cumberland, and the Strathclyde.

They held possession till the year one
thousand and sixty-six; and as they adopted
few Welsh words, it follows that a pure
Teutonic was spoken in England for six
hundred years. It is true that divers dialects
of the same language were current in divers
parts; and it seems that the Angles, who
were settled in the north and east, spoke in a
broader dialect than Saxons who lived in the
south and south-west. To this day, therefore,
the pronunciation common in the North
of England remains broader and more open
than that of the South. But probably the
tribes could understand one another, as well
as in our day a Yorkshireman can
understand a Somersetshire peasant.