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by the substitution of the plural verb and pronoun; and, when used in poetry, it was often contracted, so as to prevent any syllabic increase. In old books, all verbs and participles that were intended to be contracted in pronunciation, were contracted also, in some way, by the writer: as, " call'd, carry'd, sacrific'd ;' fly'st, ascrib'st, cryd'st;" tost, curst, blest, finisht ;" and others innumerable. All these, and such as are like them, we now pronounce in the same way, but usually write differently; as, called, carried, sacrificed; fliest, ascribest, criedst; tossed, cursed, blessed, finished. Most of these topics will be further noticed in the Grammar.

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I. ENGLISH OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

6. Queen Victoria's Answer to an Address.-Example written in 1837. "I thank you for your condolence upon the death of his late Majesty, for the justice which you render to his character, and to the measures of his reign, and for your warm congratulations upon my accession to the throne. I join in your prayers for the prosperity of my reign, the best security for which is to be found in reverence for our holy religion, and in the observance of its duties."-VICTORIA, to the Friends' Society.

7. From President Adams's Eulogy on Lafayette.— Written in 1834.

"Pronounce him one of the first men of his age, and you have yet not done him justice. Try him by that test to which he sought in vain to stimulate the vulgar and selfish spirit of Napoleon; class him among the men who, to compare and seat themselves, must take in the compass of all ages; turn back your eyes upon the records of time; summon from the creation of the world to this day the mighty dead of every age and every clime; and where, among the race of merely mortal men, shall one be found, who, as the benefactor of his kind, shall claim to take precedence of Lafayette?"-JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

8. From President Jackson's Proclamation against Nullification.-1832. "No, we have not erred! The Constitution is still the object of our reverence, the bond of our Union, our defence in danger, the source of our prosperity in peace. It shall descend, as we have received it, uncorrupted by sophistical construction, to our posterity: and the sacrifices of local interest, of State prejudices, of personal animosities, that were made to bring it into existence, will again be patriotically offered for its support."-ANDREW JACKSON.

9. From a Note on one of Robert Hall's Sermons.— Written about 1831. "After he had written down the striking apostrophe which occurs at about page 76 of most of the editions- Eternal God! on what are thine enemies intent! what are those enterprises of guilt and horror, that, for the safety of their performers, require to be enveloped in a darkness which the eye of Heaven must not penetrate !-he asked, 'Did I say penetrate, sir, when I preached it?' 'Yes.' 'Do you think, sir, I may venture to aker it? for no man who considered the forco of the English language, would use a word of three syllables there, but from absolute necessity.' 'You are doubtless at liberty to alter it, if you think well.' 'Then be so good, sir, as to take your pencil, and for penetrate put pierce; pierce is the word, sir, and the only word to be used there.""-OLINTHUS GREGORY.

10. King William's Answer to an Address.-Example written in 1830.

"I thank you sincerely for your condolence with me, on account of the loss which I have sustained, in common with my people, by the death of my lamented brother, his late Majesty. The assurances which you have conveyed to me, of loyalty and affectionate attachment to my person, are very gratifying to my feelings. You may rely upon my favour and protection, and upon my anxious endeavours to promote morality and true piety among all classes of my subjects."-WILLIAM IV, to the Friends.

11. Reign of George IV, 1830 back to 1820.-Example written in 1827. "That morning, thou, that slumbered* not before,

Nor slept, great Ocean! laid thy waves to rest,

⚫ The author of this specimen, through a solemn and sublime poem in ten books, generally simplified the preterit verb of the second person singular, by omitting the termination st or est, whenever his measure did not require the additional syllable. But his tuneless editors have, in many instances, taken the rude liberty both to poil his versification, and to publish under his name what he did not write. They have given him bad prosody, or unutterable harshness of phraseology, for the sake of what they conceived to be grammar. So Kirkham, in

And hushed thy mighty minstrelsy. No breath
Thy deep composure stirred, no fin, no oar;
Like beauty newly dead, so calm, so still,
So lovely, thou, beneath the light that fell
From angel-chariots sentinelled on high,

Reposed, and listened, and saw thy living change,
Thy dead arise. Charybdis listened, and Scylla;
And savage Euxine on the Thracian beach
Lay motionless: and every battle ship

Stood still; and every ship of merchandise,

And all that sailed, of every name, stood still."

ROBERT POLLOK: Course of Time, Book VII, line 634—647.

II. ENGLISH OF THE EIGHTEENTII CENTURY.

12. Reign of George III, 1820 back to 1760.—Example written in 1800. "There is, it will be confessed, a delicate sensibility to character, a sober desire of reputation, a wish to possess the esteem of the wise and good, felt by the purest minds, which is at the farthest remove from arrogance or vanity. The humility of a noble mind scarcely dares approve of itself, until it has secured the approbation of others. Very different is that restless desire of distinction, that passion for theatrical display, which inflames the heart and occupies the whole attention of vain men. ** * *The truly good man is jealous over himself, lest the notoriety of his best actions, by blending itself with their motive, should diminish their value; the vain man performs the same actions for the sake of that notoriety. The good man quietly discharges his duty, and shuns ostentation; the vain man considers every good deed lost that is not publickly displayed. The one is intent upon realities, the other upon semblances: the one aims to be virtuous, the other to appear so."-ROBERT HALL: Sermon on Modern Infidelity.

13. From Washington's Farewell Address.-Example written in 1796.

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labour to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connexions with private and publick felicity. Let it simply be asked, where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of a peculiar structure; reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."-GEORGE WASHINGTON.

14. From Dr. Johnson's Life of Addison.-Example written about 1780. "That he always wrote as he would think it necessary to write now, cannot be affirmed; his instructions were such as the character of his readers made proper. That general knowledgo which now circulates in common talk, was in his time rarely to be found. Men not professing learning, were not ashamed of ignorance; and in the female world, any acquaintance with books was distinguished only to be censured. His purpose was to infuse literary curiosity, by gentle and unsuspected conveyance, into the gay, the idle, and the wealthy; he therefore presented knowledge in the most alluring form, not lofty and austere, but accessible and familiar. When he shewed them their defects, he shewed them likewise that they might easily be supplied. His attempt succeeded; inquiry was awakened, and comprehension expanded. An emulation of intellectual elegance was excited, and from this time to our own, life has been gradually exalted, and conversation purified and enlarged."-SAMUEL JOHNSON: Lives, p. 321.

15. Reign of George II, 1760 back to 1727.-Example written in 1751. "We Britons in our time have been remarkable borrowers, as our multiform Language may sufficiently shew. Our Terms in polite Literature prove, that this came from Greece; our terms in Music and Painting, that these came from Italy; our Phrases in Cookery and War, that we

copying the foregoing passage, alters it as he will; and alters it differently, when he happens to write some part of it twice: as,

Again:

"That morning, thou, that slumberedst not before,

Nor slept, great Ocean! laidst thy waves at rest,

And hushed thy mighty minstrelsy."-Kirkham's Elocution, p. 203.

"That morning, thou, that slumber' dst not before,

Nor sleptat, great Ocean, laidst thy waves at rest,

And hush'dst thy mighty minstrelsy."—Kirkham's Elocution, p. 44.

learnt these from the French; and our phrases in Navigation, that we were taught by the Flemings and Low Dutch. These many and very different Sources of our Language may be the cause, why it is so deficient in Regularity and Analogy. Yet we have this advantage to compensate the defect, that what we want in Elegance, we gain in Copiousness, in which last respect few Languages will be found superior to our own."-JAMES HARRIS Hermes, Book iii, Ch. v, p. 408.

.

16. Reign of George I, 1727 back to 1714.-Example written about 1718. "There is a certain coldness and indifference in the phrases of our European languages, when they are compared with the Oriental forms of speech: and it happens very luckily, that the Hebrew idioms run into the English tongue, with a particular grace and beauty. Our language has received innumerable elegancies and improvements from that infusion of Hebraisms, which are derived to it out of the poetical passages in holy writ. They give a force and energy to our expressions, warm and animate our language, and convey our thoughts in more ardent and intense phrases, than any that are to be met with in our tongue."-JOSEPH ADDISON: Evidences, p. 192.

17. Reign of Queen Anne, 1714 to 1702.-Example written in 1708.
"Some by old words to Fame have made pretence,
Ancients in phrase, mere moderns in their sense;
Such labour'd nothings, in so strange a style,
Amaze th' unlearn'd, and make the learned smile."
"In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold;
Alike fantastick, if too new or old:

Be not the first by whom the new are try'd,

Nor yet the last to lay the old aside."

ALEXANDER POPE: Essay on Criticism, 1. 324–336.

III. ENGLISH OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

18. Reign of William III, 1702 to 1689.-Example published in 1700. "And when we fee a Man of Milton's Wit Chime in with such a Herd, and Help on the Cry against Hirelings! We find How Eafie it is for Folly and Knavery to Meet, and that they are Near of Kin, tho they bear Different Afpects. Therefor since Milton has put himself upon a Level with the Quakers in this, I will let them go together. And take as little Notice of his Buffoonry, as of their Dulness against Tythes. Ther is nothing worth Quoting in his Lampoon against the Hirelings. But what ther is of Argument in it, is fully Confider'd in what follows."-CHARLES LESLIE: Divine Right of Tithes, Pref., p. xi.

19. Reign of James II, 1689 back to 1685.-Example written in 1685.
"His conversation, wit, and parts,
His knowledge in the noblest useful arts,
Were such, dead authors could not give;
But habitudes of those who live;
Who, lighting him, did greater lights receive:
He drain'd from all, and all they knew;
His apprehension quick, his judgment true:
That the most learn'd with shame confess

His knowledge more, his reading only less."

JOHN DRYDEN: Ode to the Memory of Charles II; Poems, p. 84.

20. Reign of Charles II, 1685 to 1660.-Example from a Letter to the Earl of Sunderland, dated," Philadelphia, 28th 5th mo. July, 1683."

"And I will venture to say, that by the help of God, and such noble Friends, I will show a Province in seven years, equal to her neighbours of forty years planting. I have lay'd out the Province into Countys. Six are begun to be seated; they lye on the great river, and are planted about six miles back. The town platt is a mile long, and two deep,-has a navigable river on each side, the least as broad as the Thames at Woolwych, from three to eight fathom water. There is built about eighty houses, and I have settled at least three hundred farmes contiguous to it"—WILLIAM PENN. The Friend, Vol. vii, p. 179.

21. From an Address or Dedication to Charles II.— Written in 1675.

"There is no [other] king in the world, who can so experimentally testify of God's providence and goodness; neither is there any [other], who rules so many free people, so many true Christians: which thing renders thy government more honourable, thyself more considerable, than the accession of many nations filled with slavish and superstitious souls."--ROBERT BARCLAY: Apology, p. viii.

22. The following example, from the commencement of Paradise Lost, first published in 1667, has been cited by several authors, to show how large a proportion of our language is of Saxon origin. The thirteen words in Italics are the only ones in this passage, which seem to have been derived from any other source.

"Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit

Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden; till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,

Sing, heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top

Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire

That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed,

In the beginning, how the Heav'ns and Earth

Rose out of Chaos."-MILTON: Paradise Lost, Book I.

23. Examples written during Cromwell's Protectorate, 1660 to 1650. "The Queene was pleased to shew me the letter, the seale beinge a Roman eagle, havinge characters about it almost like the Greeke. This day, in the afternoone, the vice-chauncellor came to me and stayed about four hours with me; in which tyme we conversed upon the longe debates." -WHITELOCKE. Bucke's Class. Gram., p. 149.

"I am yet heere, and have the States of Holland ingaged in a more than ordnary maner, to procure me audience of the States Generall. Whatever happen, the effects must needes be good." -STRICKLAND: Bucke's Classical Gram., p. 149.

24. Reign of Charles I, 1648 to 1625.-Example from Ben Jonson's Grammar, written about 1634; but the orthography is more modern.

"The second and third person singular of the present are made of the first, by adding est and eth; which last is sometimes shortened into s. It seemeth to have been poetical licence which first introduced this abbreviation of the third person into use; but our best grammarians have condemned it upon some occasions, though perhaps not to be absolutely banished the common and familiar style."

"The persons plural keep the termination of the first person singular. In former times, till about the reign of Henry the eighth, they were wont to be formed by adding en; thus, loven, sayen, complainen. But now (whatever is the cause) it hath quite grown out of use, and that other so generally prevailed, that I dare not presume to set this afoot again: albeit (to tell you my opinion) I am persuaded that the lack hereof well considered, will be found a great blemish to our tongue. For seeing time and person be, as it were, the right and left hand of a verb, what can the maiming bring else, but a lameness to the whole body ?"-Book i, Chap. xvi.

25. Reign of James I, 1625 to 1603.-From an Advertisement, dated 1608. "I svppose it altogether needlesse (Christian Reader) by commending M. VVilliam Perkins, the Author of this booke, to wooe your holy affection, which either himselfe in his life time by his Christian conversation hath woon in you, or sithence his death, the neuer-dying memorie of his excellent knowledge, his great humilitie, his sound religion, his feruent zeale, his painefull labours, in the Church of God, doe most iustly challenge at your hands: onely in one word, I dare be bold to say of him as in times past Nazianzen spake of Athanasius. His life was a good definition of a true minister and preacher of the Gospell."-The Printer to the Reader.

26. Examples written about the end of Elizabeth's reign-1603.

"Some say, That euer 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's Birth is celebrated,
The Bird of Dawning singeth all night long;
And then, say they, no Spirit dares walk abroad:
The nights are wholsom, then no Planets strike,
No Fairy takes, nor Witch hath pow'r to charm;
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time."

SHAKSPEARE: Hamlet.

"The sea, with such a storme as his bare head
In hell-blacke night indur'd, would haue buoy'd up
And quench'd the stelled fires.

Yet, poore old heart, he holpe the heuens to raine.
If wolues had at thy gate howl'd that sterne time,
Thou shouldst haue said, Good porter, turne the key."

SHAKSPEARE: Lear.

IV. ENGLISH OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

27. Reign of Elizabeth, 1603 back to 1558.-Example written in 1592. "As for the soule, it is no accidentarie qualitie, but a spirituall and inuisible essence or nature, subsisting by it selfe. Which plainely appeares in that the soules of men haue beeing and continuance as well forth of the bodies of men as in the same; and are as wel subiect to torments as the bodie is. And whereas we can and doe put in practise sundrie actions of life, sense, motion, vnderstanding, we doe it onely by the power and vertue of the soule. Hence ariseth the difference betweene the soules of men, and beasts. The soules of men are substances: but the soules of other creatures seeme not to be substances; because they haue no beeing out of the bodies in which they are."-WILLIAM PERKINS: Theol. Works, folio, p. 155.

28. Examples written about the beginning of Elizabeth's reign.—1558. "Who can perswade, when treason is aboue reason; and mighte ruleth righte; and it is had for lawfull, whatsoever is lustfull; and commotioners are better than commissioners; and common woe is named common weale?"-SIR JOHN CHEKE.

"If a yong jentleman will venture him selfe into the companie of ruffians, it is over great a jeopardie, lest their facions, maners, thoughts, taulke, and dedes, will verie sone be over like.' ROGER ASCHAM.

29. Reign of Mary the Bigot, 1558 to 1553.-Example written about 1555. "And after that Philosophy had spoken these wordes the said companye of the musys poeticall beynge rebukyd and sad, caste downe their countenaunce to the grounde, and by blussyng confessed their shamefastnes, and went out of the dores. But I (that had my syght dull and blynd wyth wepyng, so that I knew not what woman this was hauyng soo great aucthoritie) was amasyd or astonyed, and lokyng downeward, towarde the ground, I began pryvyle to look what thyng she would saye ferther."-COLVILLE: Version from Boëthius: Johnson's Hist. of E. L., p. 29.

30. Example referred by Dr. Johnson to the year 1553.

"Pronunciation is an apte orderinge bothe of the voyce, countenaunce, and all the whole bodye, accordynge to the worthines of such woordes and mater as by speache are declared. The vse hereof is suche for anye one that liketh to haue prayse for tellynge his tale in open assemblie, that hauing a good tongue, and a comelye countenaunce, he shal be thought to passe all other that haue not the like vtteraunce: thoughe they have muche better learning."-DR. WILSON: Johnson's Hist. E. L., p. 45.

31. Reign of Edward VI, 1553 to 1547.-Example written about 1550.
"Who that will followe the graces manyfolde
Which are in vertue, shall finde auauncement:
Wherefore ye fooles that in your sinne are bolde,
Ensue ye wisdome, and leaue your lewde intent,
Wisdome is the way of men most excellent:
Therefore haue done, and shortly spede your pace,
To quaynt your self and company with grace."

ALEXANDER BARCLAY: Johnson's Hist. E. L., p. 44.

32. Reign of Henry VIII, 1547 to 1509.-Example dated 1541.

"Let hym that is angry euen at the fyrste consyder one of these thinges, that like as he is a man, so is also the other, with whom he is angry, and therefore it is as lefull for the other to be angry, as unto hym: and if he so be, than shall that anger be to hym displeasant, and stere hym more to be angrye."-SIR THOMAS ELLIOTT: Castel of Helthe.

33. Example of the earliest English Blank Verse; written about 1540. The supposed author died in 1541, aged 38. The piece from which these lines are taken describes the death of Zoroas, an Egyptian astronomer, slain in Alexander's first battle with the Persians.

"The Persians waild such sapience to foregoe;
And very sone the Macedonians wisht
He would have lived; king Alexander selfe
Demde him a man unmete to dye at all;
Who wonne like praise for conquest of his yre,
As for stoute men in field that day subdued,
Who princes taught how to discerne a man,
That in his head so rare a jewel beares;

But over all those same Camenes,* those same

• Camenes, the Muses, whom Horace called Camone. The former is an English plural from the latter, or from the Latin word camena, a muse or song. These lines are copied from Dr. Johnson's History of the English Language; their orthography is, in some respects, too modern for the age to which they are assigned.

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