great cheeses, casks of beef, flitches of bacon, kegs of butter, sacks of pease, ankers of brandy. Not many hours before, half a pound of tallow and three-quarters of a pound of salted hide had been weighed out with niggardly care to every fighting man. The ration which each now received was three pounds of flour, two pounds of beef, and a pint of pease. It is easy to imagine with what tears grace was said over the suppers of that evening. There was little sleep on either side of the wall. The bonfires shone bright along the whole circuit of the ramparts. The Irish guns continued to roar all night, and all night the bells of the rescued city made answer to the Irish guns with a peal of joyous defiance. Through the three following days, the batteries of the enemy continued to play. But, on the third night, flames were seen arising from the camp; and when the first of August dawned, a line of smoking ruins marked the site lately occupied by the huts of the besiegers; and the citizens saw far off the long column of spikes and standards, retreating up the left bank of the Foyle towards Strabane.

So ended this great siege, the most memorable in the annals of the British Isles. It had lasted a hundred and five days. The garrison had been reduced from about seven thousand effective men to about three thousand. The loss of the besiegers cannot be precisely ascertained. . . . It was a contest not between engineers, but between nations; and the victory remained with the nation which, though inferior in numbers, was superior in civilization, in capacity for self-government, and in stubbornness of resolution.

-MACAULAY'S History of England, Chapter XII.,

"The Relief of Londonderry."

APPENDIX I.

Historical Sketch of the English Language.

Growth in the
Use of English.

THE English language has had a long and an honorable history. Beginning in a small section of the kingdom of England at the middle of the fifth century, it has not only become the standard speech of the whole of England, but as England has grown, it has become the speech of the British empire, and by the separation of the United States from the mother country in 1776, also the speech of a second great nation. English is to-day the most widely used speech in the western world, and it bids fair to become even more widely used in the near future. It is spoken by nearly twice as many people as any other language of modern Europe. It is estimated that in the year 1900, English was spoken by about 120 millions of people, German and Russian each by about 80 millions, French and Spanish by less than 50 millions each, and Italian by about 40 millions.

Of all the languages of Europe, either ancient or modern, English stands the best chance of becoming a worldlanguage. By this it is not meant that other nations will give up their own native speech in daily intercourse for English, for there is not the least likelihood of this ever happening.

English as the
World-Language.

It is probable, however, that English will become more and more, as it is already to a large extent, the language of international communication, the language of travel, of commerce, and of diplomacy. In this sense English may already be called a world-language, and it is likely to deserve this name more and more as time passes.

English as a Literary Language.

But the history of English is not merely one of its geographical and numerical expansion as a spoken language. It has been the language of a great literature which extends in an unbroken line from the seventh century to the present day. No other national literature of modern Europe goes so far back or presents such a complete picture of the changing life of the nation as does the literature of the English people. This heritage of language and literature is the common inheritance of all English-speaking peoples of the world to-day; and as it is one of the most venerable of the possessions of the English race, it need not be said that it should be diligently studied and cherished by all.

The Celts in
Britain.

The beginnings of the English language in England go back to the middle of the fifth century. For English was not the original native speech of England. When first we hear about England, or Britain as it was then called, it was occupied by a Celtic people who spoke the Celtic language. From the earliest historical times down to the present day, Celtic has always been spoken in certain parts of England, and the modern Welsh language spoken in Wales and the Gaelic of the Scotch High

lands are survivals of the original Celtic speech of ancient Britain.

The Romans in
Britain.

In the first century of the Christian era, Britain was visited by the Romans, who were then the most powerful nation in Europe. The Romans straightway set about the conquest of Britain, and they soon made of it a Roman military colony, such as they had established in various other parts of the world. The native Celts were made slaves or were driven back into the mountainous parts of the island. Finally, however, the Roman empire began to go to pieces. Rome itself was invaded by the barbarous Germanic tribes from the north of Europe, and the distant Roman colonies could be no longer defended. The Roman legions were consequently withdrawn from Britain, the last one leaving in the year 411, and the country was left to the mercy of its enemies.

The Coming of the Anglo-Saxons.

Now the most important of these enemies were naturally the subjugated Celts, who had been driven out of the fertile lands back into the hills and mountainous regions. As soon as the Roman legions left England, the Celts swarmed out of their retreats and began to attack the undefended Roman cities. The Romans of the cities, who were unaccustomed to warfare because they had always left the fighting to the Roman legions, were hard pressed, and in their extremity they turned to certain warlike Germanic tribes on the Continent, remote kinsmen of the very people who had conquered Rome, and invited them to come over to Britain and help them subdue the Celts. In answer to this invitation, in the year 449, two Saxon chiefs, Hengest

and Horsa, came over to Britain with their followers. At first they did fight against the Celts, but observing how rich the country was and how weak the Romans were, they sent back word to their friends and kinsmen in north Germany to come over that they might possess the country in common. And so more and more tribes came over, and fought not only against the Celts but against the Romans too, and in a short time they had gained possession of the whole country.

The Name of the
Anglo-Saxons.

The Germanic warriors who thus conquered Britain came from three tribes which were settled in the northwest part of Germany, the Jutes, the Angles, and the Saxons. The two most important of these tribes were the Angles and the Saxons, and so we speak of the nation which they established as the Anglo-Saxon nation, and of their language as Anglo-Saxon. The country itself came to be called Engla-land, literally "land of the Angles," from which comes our name England. The language was also called Englisc, a word also derived from the name of the Angles, from which we get our "English." Nowadays we usually speak of the early period of English, before the Norman Conquest, as Anglo-Saxon or Old English; of the period from the Conquest to 1500 as Middle English; and of the period from 1500 to the present as Modern English. The language which the Anglo-Saxons brought over to England was their own native tongue, and this was of

English and
German.

course a Germanic or Teutonic language. It was closely related to the language from which modern German has sprung, and this accounts for the fact that many words in English to