sun. When we import articles or produce from abroad, we in general import the native name along with the thing. Hence it is that we have guano, maize, and tomato from the two Americas; coffee, cotton, and tamarind from Arabia; tea, congou, and nankeen from China; calico, chintz, and rupee from Hindostan; bamboo, gamboge, and sago from the Malay Peninsula; lemon, musk, and orange from Persia; boomerang and kangaroo from Australia; chibouk, ottoman, and tulip from Turkey. The following are lists of these foreign words; and they are worth examining with the greatest minuteness :—

(The word al means the. Thus alcohol the spirit.)

10. Scientific Terms.-A very large number of discoveries in science have been made in this century; and a large number of inventions have introduced these discoveries to the people, and made them useful in daily life. Thus we have telegraph and telegram; photograph; telephone and even photophone. The word dynamite is also modern; and the unhappy employment of it has made it too widely known. Then passing fashions have given us such words as athlete and asthete. In general, it may be said that, when we wish to give a name to a new thing a new discovery, invention, or fashion-we have recourse not to our own stores of English, but to the vocabularies of the Latin and Greek languages.

266

LANDMARKS IN THE HISTORY OF THE
ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

1. The Beowulf, an old English epic, "written on the mainland" 2. Christianity introduced by St Augustine (and with it many Latin and a few Greek words)

3. Caedmon-'Paraphrase of the Scriptures,'-first English poem 4. Baeda-"The Venerable Bede "-translated into English part of St John's Gospel.

5. King Alfred translated several Latin works into English, among others, Bede's 'Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation'.

A.D.

450

597

670

735

(851) 901

6. Aelfric, Archbishop of York, turned into English most of the historical books of the Old Testament

7. The Norman Conquest, which introduced Norman French words

1000

1066

1160

1200

8. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, said to have been begun by King Alfred, and brought to a close in

9. Orm or Orrmin's Ormulum, a poem written in the East Mid-
land dialect, about
10. Normandy lost under King John. Norman-English now have
their only home in England, and use our English speech
more and more

11. Layamon translates the 'Brut' from the French of Robert Wace. This is the first English book (written in Southern English) after the stoppage of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. 1205 12. The Ancren Riwle ("Rules for Anchorites ") written in the Dorsetshire dialect. "It is the forerunner of a wondrous change in our speech." "It swarms with French words"

1220 13. First Royal Proclamation in English, issued by Henry III.. 1258 14. Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle (swarms with foreign terms) 1300

15. Robert Manning, "Robert of Brunn," compiles the 'Handlyng Synne.' "It contains a most copious proportion of French words

16. Ayenbite of Inwit (=“Remorse of Conscience")

17. The Great Plague. After this it becomes less and less the fashion to speak French

18. Sir John Mandeville, first writer of the newer English Prose— in his 'Travels,' which contained a large admixture of French words. "His English is the speech spoken at Court in the

latter days of King Edward III."

1303

1340

1349

1400

21. Geoffrey Chaucer, the first great English poet, author of the 'Canterbury Tales'; born in 1340, died

22. William Caxton, the first English printer, brings out (in the Low Countries) the first English book ever printed, the 'Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye,'- not written with pen and ink, as other books are, to the end that every man may have them at once"

1471

1474

1523

23. First English Book printed in England (by Caxton) the 'Game and Playe of the Chesse'

24. Lord Berners' translation of Froissart's Chronicle 25. William Tyndale, by his translation of the Bible "fixed our tongue once for all." "His New Testament has become the standard of our tongue: the first ten verses of the Fourth Gospel are a good sample of his manly Teutonic pith" 1526-30 26. Edmund Spenser publishes his 'Faerie Queene.' "Now began the golden age of England's literature; and this age was to last for about fourscore years"

27. Our English Bible, based chiefly on Tyndale's translation. "Those who revised the English Bible in 1611 were bidden to keep as near as they could to the old versions, such as Tyndale's "

28. William Shakespeare carried the use of the English language
to the greatest height of which it was capable. He employed
15,000 words. "The last act of 'Othello is a rare specimen of
Shakespeare's diction: of every five nouns, verbs, and adverbs,
four are Teutonic"
(Born 1564) 1616

29. John Milton, "the most learned of English poets," publishes
his' Paradise Lost,'- 66
a poem in which Latin words are intro-

duced with great skill

1667