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Other popular institutions display the same derivation.* The language of familiar inspirit. The meetings of the people at the tercourse, the terms of jest and pleasantry, courts for shires, hundreds, and tithings, at and those of necessary business, the idioms which the humbler classes were necessarily or peculiar phrases into which words natumore important than in the national assem- rally run, the proverbs, which are the conblies, contributed still more to cultivate the densed and pointed sense of the people, the generous principles of equal law and popu- particles, on which our syntax depends, and lar government; and though trial by jury which are of perpetual recurrence;-all was then unknown, it cannot be doubted these foundations of a language are more that the share of the people in these courts, decisive proofs of the Saxon origin of ours where all ordinary justice was administer- than even the great majority of Saxon words ed, must have led the way to that most in writing, and the still greater majority in democratical of juridical institutions. It is speaking. In all cases where we have prean ingenious and probable conjecture, that served a whole family of words, the supethe smaller of these courts produced the as-rior significancy of a Saxon over a Latin sembly immediately above it in regular or- term is most remarkable. Well-being der, from the folkmote of the hundred to the arises from well-doing," is a Saxon phrase witenagemote of the Saxon nation. In their which may be thus rendered into the Latin original seats, indeed, we learn from Taci- part of the language:-"Felicity attends tus that there were hundredors in the dis- virtue:" but how inferior in force is the tricts as well as in the supreme assemblies latter! In the Saxon phrase, the parts or of the whole people. roots of words being significant in our lanFrom the Anglo-Saxons we derive the guage, and familiar to our eyes and ears, names of the most ancient officers among throw their whole meaning into the comus; of the greater part of the divisions of pounds and derivations; while the Latin the kingdom, and of almost all our towns words of the same import, having their and villages. From them also we derive roots and elements in a foreign language, our language; of which the structure, and carry only a cold and conventional signifia majority of its words, much greater than cation to an English ear. It must not be those who have not thought on the subject a subject of wonder that language should would at first easily believe, are Saxon. Of have many closer connexions with the sixty-nine words which make up the Lord's thoughts and feelings which it denotes, than Prayer, there are only five not Saxon;- our philosophy can always explain. As the best example of the natural bent of our words convey these elements of the charlanguage, and of the words apt to be cho-acter of each particular mind, so the strucsen by those who speak and write it with- ture and idioms of a language, those propout design. Of eighty-one words in the erties of it which being known to us only soliloquy of Hamlet, thirteen only are of by their effect, we are obliged to call its Latin origin. Even in a passage of ninety spirit and genius, seem to represent the words in Milton, whose diction is more character or assemblage of qualities which learned than that of any other poet, there distinguish one people from others. As at are only sixteen Latin words. In four verses the beginning of these remarks we freely of the authorized version of Genesis, which observed on the shallow pedantry which contain about a hundred and thirty words, sought its own favorite system realized in there are no more than five Latin. In sev- the Saxon government, so we shall conenty-nine words of Addison, whose perfect clude them by remarking, that those who taste preserved him from a pedantic or con- look below the surface of Forms and Instistrained preference for any portion of the tutions will discover, that the spirit of language, we find only fifteen Latin. In later equity and freedom breathed into our govtimes the language has rebelled against the ernment by the Saxons has never entirely bad taste of those otherwise vigorous wri- departed from us; that a considerable disters, who, instead of ennobling their style parity of rank has been reconciled by us as like Milton, by the position and combina- it was by them, with nearer or more distion of words, have tried to raise it by un- tant approaches to legal equality; and that usual and far-fetched expressions. Dr. John- we follow their example in still employing son himself, from whose corruptions Eng-regal and aristocratical temperaments to lish style is only recovering, in eighty-render the ascendency of the people more seven words of his fine parallel between safe for public order, and therefore more Dryden and Pope, has found means to in- insured against dangerous attack. troduce no more than twenty-one of Latin Neither the limits of this history nor the attainments of the writer are suited to the

kind, it owes these advantages chiefly to the seeds implanted by those generous barbarians."-Hume, i. App.

* The examples are collected, and the materials for calculation prepared, in Turner, ii. App. i. 1828.

examination of the extensive subject of than the present; consisting of annual Saxon literature, farther than to lament the notes of occurrences taken and preserved humiliating contrast of the labor bestowed in monasteries. It is likely that there were by the continental nations on the legends several such documents. Copies of some of Iceland, with the incurious disregard would in time be allowed, and various adwith which the English nation have hith- ditions would be made to each, according erto treated the literary monuments of their to the knowledge or opinion of the posforefathers. sessors. In this manner, it should seem,

Only so far as the Saxon literature is that the Saxon Chronicle grew into its historical, or contributory to history, can present form. Though we are ignorant of the shortest observations on it be hazarded the authors of this composition, or of the here. No nation is more happy in its time of its commencement, and, in truth, earliest history than the English people. know nothing of it for our purpose but that Venerable Bede was born at Wearmouth, it begins with the landing of Hengist, and only a few years after the introduction of continues till the death of Stephen, yet its Christianity into Northumberland. He re- shortness and dryness are a tolerable proof sisted during a long life the most flattering of the honesty of the writers, and even of invitations to quit his monastery and his the truth of their outline. It also received birth-place. Such was the authority of his no small confirmation from the translations writings, that, though only an humble monk of many parts of it in the Norman writers, in the most remote, barbarous, and recently some of whom appear to have had before converted of the Saxon principalities, he them other chronicles of the same sort attained (what was even then) the singu- which are now lost.{ These Norman wrilar honor of being the most celebrated writers are in some measure become original ter of Christendom for more centuries than to us.

one. The celebrity of Bede is the only Little of a contemporary sort remained circumstance relating to foreign countries to be added to these sources of history, exmentioned by a very ancient chronicler of cept the invaluable life of Alfred by Asser. Holland for several years. The work of The vast collection of the lives of the saints the father of our history is entitled, an often throws lights on public events, and "Ecclesiastical History:" it is nearly of the opens glimpses into the life and habits of same nature with that of Gregory of Tours, men in those times; nor are they wanting who a century before the birth of Bede had in sources of interest, though poetical and laid the foundations of French history. Both moral rather than historical. Many of them joined ecclesiastical with civil affairs, which were the best men of their age; and the was indeed inevitable at a time when the reverence of their biographers, unconecclesiastics were the only men of know-sciously hiding their faults, and brightenledge; when they alone had some sort of ing their virtues, presented them as exammental ascendant, in the midst of brutal ples and models to those who felt more than force; when their authority, the only ele- vulgar ambition. In every age of the ment of order amidst general discord, had world, men above the common crowd have a great, and often a good, effect on political aspired after something more excellent than events. Both believed in miraculous inter-reality. The whole force of this noble atpositions, and honestly related them. To tempt to exalt human nature was at this Bede we owe all our knowledge of English period spent on the lives of the saints,—a history from the landing of the Saxons in sort of moral heroes or demigods, without Kent to his time (nearly three centuries,) some acquaintance with whom it is hard to and all our certain information respecting comprehend an age when the commemorathe various tribes who then inhabited the tion of the virtues then most venerated, as island: from him it is apparent that the they were embodied in these holy men, was work called the Saxon Chronicle often lite- the principal theme of the genius of Chrisrally copies long passages. tendom.

The original of that Chronicle was probably a document much shorter and simpler

* Born A. D. 663; died 26th May, 735.

↑ Chron. Holland. Vetustiss. sub anno 696. "Beda, presbyter et monachus, claret in Angliâ.”—1 Kluyt, Hist. Com. Hol. 7. Another chronicle quoted by Kluyt:-"Beda, presbyter et monachus, sanctâ vitâ, et scientiâ clarus, obiit."

"In the barbarous ages, priests and people were equally deceived."-Johnson in Boswell, April 5, 1776. The most remarkable instance of this honest credulity is that of George Fox, the founder of the Quakers, who betrays his belief that he had worked miracles in America, which, however, he is too humble expressly to claim.

The credit of the Welsh poems called. Triads has been unduly abated by some, in

§ The public will, doubtless, be farther instructed respecting these fountains of our history by the collection of the "Scriptores Rerum Anglicarum," which is expected from Mr. Petrie.

In justice to the see of Rome, it must be said, its power of canonization was much more used to restrain than to augment the number of saints. At first, every church called by that name those who were most revered on the spot. The pope abolished this promiscuous deification, and reserved the power to himself, by a bull, 996; and the first bull which mentioned the word canonization was that which canonized Edward the Confessor in 1165.

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consequence of injudicious attempts to ex- and savage people." The great historian aggerate their antiquity;-a fault into which who made the annals of Scotland a part of all nations fall, and which is not therefore European literature had sufficiently warnto be visited severely on any single people. ed his countrymen against such faults, by They are certainly the work of an early the decisive observation that their forefaage; and parts of them, if we had the thers were unacquainted with the art of means of distinguishing, would probably be writing, which alone preserves language found to be of an origin not much less than from total change, and great events from has been claimed for the whole. oblivion. Macpherson was encouraged to The Scottish chroniclers are too late to overleap these and many other improbabilbe sufficient authorities on this period, in ities by youth, talent, and applause: perwhich we know nothing certainly from haps he did not at first distinctly present to them but the general fact of the union of his mind the permanence of the deception. the Scots and Picts under a Scottish dy- It is more probable, and it is a supposition nasty. The Celtic tribes were celebrated countenanced by many circumstances, that for the love of poetry. The old songs of after enjoying the pleasure of duping so every people, which bear the impress of many critics, he intended one day to claim their character, and of which the beauties, the poems as his own; but if he had such whether few or many, must be genuine, a design, considerable obstacles to its exebecause they arise only from feeling, have cution arose around him. He was loaded always been valued by men of masculine with so much praise, that he seemed bound and comprehensive taste. Some fragments in honor to his admirers not to desert them. of the songs of the Scottish Highlanders The support of his own country appeared of very uncertain antiquity appear to have to render adherence to those poems, which fallen into the hands of Macpherson, a Scotland inconsiderately sanctioned, a sort young man of no mean genius, unacquaint- of national obligation. Exasperated, on the ed with the higher criticism applied to the other hand, by the, perhaps, unduly vehegenuineness of ancient writings, and who ment, and sometimes very coarse attacks was too much a stranger to the studious made on him, he was unwilling to surren world to have learnt those refinements der to such opponents. He involved himwhich extend probity to literature as well self at last so deeply, as to leave him no as to property. Elated by the praise not decent retreat. Since the keen and searchunjustly bestowed on some of these frag- ing publication of Mr. Laing, these poems ments, instead of insuring a general assent have fallen in reputation, as they lost the to them by a publication in their natural character of genuineness. They had been state, he unhappily applied his talents for admired by all the nations and by all the skilful imitation to complete poetical works men of genius in Europe. The last inciin a style similar to the fragments, and to dent in their story is perhaps the most rework them into the unsuitable shape of epic markable. In an Italian version, which and dramatic poems. softened their defects, and rendered their He was not aware of the impossibility of characteristic qualities faint, they formed poems, preserved only by tradition, being almost the whole poetical library of Napointelligible, after thirteen centuries, to read-leon;-a man who, whatever may be finalers who knew only the language of their ly thought of him in other respects, must own times; and he did not perceive the be owned to be, by the transcendent vigor extravagance of peopling the Caledonian of his powers, entitled to a place in the mountains in the fourth century with a race first class of human minds. No other imof men so generous and merciful, so gal- posture in literary history approaches them lant, so mild, and so magnanimous, that the in the splendor of their course. most ingenious romances of the age of chivalry could not have ventured to repre* Berner's Froissart, xi. 7. Lond. 1812. sent a single hero as on a level with their "Repententi mihi rerum Britannicarum memocommon virtues. He did not consider the riam supra duo millia annorum, illud in primis improdigious absurdity of inserting as it were pedimentum se objicit, quod in eis regionibus unde a people thus advanced in moral civilization, fuerunt. In ea parte Britanniæ quam Cæsar attigit nostræ originis eruenda est cognitio diu literæ nullæ between the Britons, ignorant and savage nulla prorsus vetustarum rerum erat memoria; apud as they are painted by Cæsar, and the High-interiores vero, qui longe incultius agebant, longe milanders, fierce and rude as they are pre- Mr. Laing himself admitted that Macpherson sented by the first accounts of the chroni- was a man of truly poetical genius, and that much clers of the twelfth and fourteenth centu- of the poems is of no inconsiderable merit; and ries. Even the better part of the Scots were, in the latter period, thus spoken of:In Scotland ye shall find no man lightly of honor or gentleness: they be like wylde

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They have, however, thrown a color of

nus."-Buchan. Rer. Scotic. lib. ii. in initio.

even adds, that he read them with pleasure after the detection. Yet no one will number a feeble administration of literary justice among the frailties of and inflexibly honest an inquirer as ever explored my late invaluable friend, as acute, learned, diligent, historical truth.

fraud over Celtic poetry which is not likely poems of Iceland, is so minute and characto be effaced: for the Irish and Scotch are teristic, that it is not only more interesting not even yet likely to join their exertions but seems more credible than that of the for the recovery, literal translation, and im- Gallo-Norman writers of a later period. partial illustration of such fragments of the Harold Harfager (or the Fair-haired), king ancient songs of both these nations as are paramount of Norway, who had formed the still extant. The fragments published in design of becoming the monarch, instead Ireland by Miss Brooke, in 1789, are, in- of the chief of that country, fought, in 885, deed, commendable for retaining the form a naval battle against the rulers allied of fragments; for not making too confident against his encroachments, in which sucpretensions to high antiquity; and for not cess was long doubtful; but the king havattempting to remove those anachronisms ing at length commanded the frantic band which the unlettered bards could hardly es- of his Berserker to attack the confederates, cape. But the translations give no picture he gained a most signal victory over them, of bardic style: they relate to Irish events which was as much celebrated by the poets of former days; but they are written in the of the north as the destruction of Troy was prevalent style of a very modern age. by the Hellenic bards. The twenty kings In one respect, Irish history has been em- who governed Norway were reduced to a inently fortunate. The chronicles of Ire- subjection from which some of them escaped land, written in the Irish language, from by leading colonies into vacant lands; others, the second century to the landing of Hen- by betaking themselves more exclusively to ry Plantagenet, have been recently pub-sea robbery. On this occasion a republic lished, with the fullest evidence of their was founded by them in Iceland, where litgenuineness and exactness. The Irish na- erature and liberty converted these barbation, though they are robbed of many of rians for two centuries into a civilized peotheir legends by this authentic publication, ple; others crowded to the freebooting are yet by it enabled to boast that they pos- commanders, who then ravaged the territosess genuine history several centuries more ries of the Franks and Saxons. Harold, ancient than any other European nation pursuing his victory over piratical vassals, possesses in its present spoken language: pillaged the Isle of Man and the Hebrides, they have exchanged their legendary anti- extirpated the sea kings of Orkney and quity for historical fame. Indeed, no other Shetland, and appointed Rognevald,‡ a pownation possesses any monument of its litera-erful Norwegian, who had early submitted, ture, in its present spoken language, which to be jarl or prince of Orkney. At the goes back within several centuries of the death of Rognevald, the succession to his beginning of these chronicles. The an- earldom was disputed, with many murders cient date of the MSS. concurs with the and cruelties, between his children and the same internal proof as in the Saxon Chron-sons of Harold, whose revolt alone disturbed icle to support the truth of the outline of the reign of the victorious monarch. One their narrative: they are edited by the of the sons of Rognevald, called in the Icelearned and upright* Dr. Charles O'Con- landic poems Hrolph, better known to us nor, the lineal descendant of Roderic by the name of Rollo, had, for reasons unO'Connor, king paramount of Ireland at known to our authorities, been excluded the time of the Anglo-Norman invasion. from all share in his father's domains, and Dr. O'Connor lived only to complete this had no resource but piracy, in the course monument of the literature of his country, of which he violated a law passed by Harof which his forefathers were the last na- old, which forbade freebooters under pain tive and independent rulers.

CHAP. III.

of death from destroying cattle on the Norwegian shore. He was tried in his absence by the Thing or diet of Norway, who condemned him to perpetual banishment.||

Out of these barbarous contests for the FROM THE NORMAN INVASION TO THE earldom of Orkney arose the conqueror of COMMENCEMENT OF A PARLIAMENTARY a great province in France. After many CONSTITUTION, AND THE FORMATION attacks by Rollo on that kingdom, Charles the Simple, in 912, ceded the province of Neustria to him, and gave him a daughter

OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

WILLIAM duke of Normandy proved the most formidable of the competitors of Harold. The account of his ancestor Rollo, who established a Scandinavian state in Neustria, given by the sagas, or ancient

*To whom we may justly apply, with small change, a line of Dryden :

"True to his faith, but not a slave of Rome."

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in marriage, on condition that he should his restoration. After that event, it is said submit to baptism. William, afterwards by contemporaries, with probability, that king of England, was the fifth duke of Nor- French became the language of his court. mandy in lineal descent from Rollo:* he From authentic documents we learn, that was the son of Robert the Magnificent, or some Norman barons were landholders in the Devil as he was called, perhaps with England in Edward's reign. The king equal justice, by a fair damsel of low con- was only restrained from altogether emdition at Falaise, of whom he was enamor- bracing the French party by the dread of ed, but whom he could not wed during the the house of Godwin. The Norman churchlife of the duchess, the sister of the great men began to be promoted, and William Canute. When about to undertake a pil- visited the childless Confessor when his grimage to the Holy Land, he presented visit is not likely to have been quite disinWilliam, then a new-born infant, to a great terested. Edward, says a contemporary assembly of nobles, who careless, like their writer, had almost become a Frenchman.‡ northern forefathers, of the distinction be- It was afterwards asserted by William, that tween concubinage and wedlock, hailed the either on this or on some other occasion child with acclamations as the heir of the Edward had, with or without writing, beduchy. In 1035, on the death of Robert, queathed to him the crown of England. when on his return, at Nice in Bithynia, Such a bequest might have been made with William, then only eight years of age, was little thought of the claims of the exile in raised to the ducal throne, which he filled Hungary, whom after his recall the king with renown for fifty-three years. Alan was either not disposed or not allowed to earl of Britany, and Gislebert count of Bri- see. At the death of Edward there indeed onne, the regents, maintained a submission, was no man living who had a title to the then very unusual in minorities; and Henry crown, or a reasonable expectation of it, I., king of France, who owed his crown to conformably to the prevalent usages of the Robert, and who had in requital made him Anglo-Saxons. Nothing was more repugcessions which brought the Norman terri- nant to their feelings, or perhaps, in genetory within six leagues of Paris, protected, ral, more unsuitable to their condition, than as became a liege lord, the minority of the choice of a boy who was alike feeble in William, who was his ward in chivalry. mind and body, however descended from As soon as the king conferred knighthood the regal stock. William and Harold were on William, he wielded his arms with vigor alike void of all claims founded on the modagainst his revolted subjects, and his neigh-ern rules of hereditary descent. William, bor, of ferocious valor, Geoffrey earl of An- as the grand-nephew of Emma the king's jou. In process of time, Henry, jealous of mother, was so related to him as to make it the young duke, made inroads into Nor- easy for the feelings of the people to conmandy, for which pretexts were never nect such a consanguinity with inheritance. wanting in the confused relations of a lord Harold took advantage of his sister being paramount with his great vassals. His fol- Edward's wife to amuse the minds of the lowers were twice repulsed by those of Saxons by a still more faint semblance of a William, who was strengthened by a mar- claim to inherit. The testamentary bequest, riage with Matilda, daughter of the puis- alleged by William, could not, by those who sant earl of Flanders, who soon after be- just saw the undisturbed acquisition of came regent of France, and by the acquisi- Maine, under the like title, be thought intion of the county of Maine, bequeathed to ferior to the turbulent vote of some Saxon him by the will of the last count. Mean-chiefs obtained by Harold. The reasons (if while the Norman name became illustrious they may be so called) set forth, might in by the exploits of Robert Guiscard, a pri- some degree content their partisans, but vate Norman gentleman, who by his ad- were at bottom no better than a jumble of venturous valor became master of Lower every topic that could be thought by either Italy, under the title of duke of Apulia party likely to give a slight color of plausiand Calabria; began the expulsion of the bility to their respective pretensions, withSaracens from the Italian islands, and left out regard to their solidity, or to their cona son sovereign at Antioch, and a nephew sistency with each other. The only efficacy who founded a monarchy in Sicily. of such topics is to divert the mind from

Edward the Confessor, the grandson of a contemplating the nakedness of the usurpaduke of Normandy, had passed twenty- tion, to varnish, however thinly, the exerseven years from boyhood to middle age at tion of brute force, and to lessen somewhat the court of Rouen. Robert the Magnifi- the angry wonder which is naturally roused cent had even fitted out an armament for by an open appeal to the sword. On this

*Familiæ Ducum Normanniæ, apud Duchesne.Script. Norm. Hist. 1069.

Gulielm. Gemitic. De Duc. Norm. v. 10.
"Pæne in Gallicum transierat."—Ingulph.

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