loven; I may, or mow, loven; I can, or con, loven, &c. We shullen loven; We willen, or wollen loven; We mowen loven; We connen loven, &c. In the Past tense, I (35) shulde loven; I wolde loved ; I mighte, or han lov d, &c. I hadde (36) l ved t ou hadde t oved, h h dde love ; e, ye, th y, hadden loven, &c.

The Auxiliary To Haven was a complete Verb, and, being prefixed to the Participle of the Past time, was used to express the Preterperfect and Preterpluperfect Tenses. I have loved, Thou havest, or hast loved, He haveth, or hath loved; We haven, or han loved, &c. I hadde (36) loved, thou haddest loved, he hadde loved; We, ye, they, hadden loved.

The Auxiliary To ben was also a complete Verb, and being prefixed to the Participle of the Past time,

(35) Shulde and Wolde are contracted from Shulled, and Wolled, by transposing the d, according to method 2.

Mighte and Moughte are formed from maghed and moghed, according to method 3. Maghed, maghde, maghte; Moghed, moghde, moghte.

Coude is from conned, by transposition of the d, and softening the n into u. It is often written couthe, and always so, I believe, when it is used as a participle. In the same manner Bishop Douglas, and other Scottish writers, use Begouth as the Præterit of Begin. Begonned, begonde, begoude, begouthe.

(36) Hadde is contracted from Haved, as made is from maked. See Hickes, Gram. Fr. Th. p. 66.

with the help of the other Auxiliary Verbs, supplied the place of the whole Passive voice, for which the Saxon language had no other form of expression. I am, thou art, he is loved; We, ye, they, aren, or ben loved. I was, thou wast, he was loved; We, ye, they weren loved (37).

5. With respect to the indeclinable parts of Speech, it will be sufficient to observe here, that many of them still remained pure Saxon: the greatest number had undergone a slight change of a letter or two; and the more considerable alterations, by which some had been disfigured, were fairly deducible from that propensity to abbreviation, for which the inhabitants of this island have been long

(37) The Verb To do is considered by Wallis, and other later Grammarians, as an Auxiliary Verb. It is so used, though very rarely, by Chaucer. [See v. 14742,4.] He more commonly uses it transitively [v. 10074. Do stripen me. Faites me depouiller.— v. 10075. Do me drenche. Faites me noyer.] but still more frequently to save the repetition of a verb. [v. 269.

His eyen twinkeled in his hed aright,

As don the sterres in a frosty night.]

Dr. Hickes has taken notice that do was used in this last manner by the Saxons: [Gr. A. S. p. 77.] and so was faire by the French, and indeed is still. It must be confessed, that the exact power, which do, as an auxiliary, now has in our language, is not easy to be defined, and still less to be accounted for from analogy.

remarkable, though perhaps not more justly so than their neighbours.

§ IV. Such was, in general, the state of the Saxon part of the English language when Chaucer began to write let us now take a short view of the accessions, which it may be supposed to have received at different times from Normandy.

As the language of our Ancestors was complete in all its parts, and had served them for the purposes of discourse and even of composition in various kinds, long before they had any intimate acquaintance with their French neighbours, they had no call from necessity, and consequently no sufficient inducement, to alter its original and radical constitutions, or even its customary forms. Accordingly, we have just seen, that, in all the essential parts of Speech, the characteristical features of the Saxon idiom were always preserved; and we shall see presently, that the crowds of French words, which from time to time were imported, were themselves made subject, either immediately or by degrees, to the laws of that same idiom.

§ V. The words, which were thus imported, were chiefly Nouns Substantive, Adjectives, Verbs, and Participles. The Adverbs, which are derived from French Adjectives, seem to have been formed from

them after they were Anglicised, as they have all the Saxon termination lich or ly (38), instead of the French ment. As to the other indeclinable parts of Speech, our language, being sufficiently rich in its own stores, has borrowed nothing from France, except perhaps an Interjection or two.

The Nouns Substantive in the French language (as in all the other languages derived from the Latin) had lost their Cases long before the time of which we are treating; but such of them as were naturalized here, seem all to have acquired a Genitive case, according to the corrupted Saxon form, which has been stated above. Their Plural number was also new modelled to the same form, if necessary; for in Nouns ending in e feminine, as the greater part of the French did, the two languages were already agreed. Nom. Flour. Gen. Floures. Plur. Floures. Nom. Dame. Gen. Dames. Plur. Dames.

On the contrary, the Adjectives, which at home had a distinction of Gender and Number, upon their naturalization here, seem to have been generally stript of both, and reduced to the simple state of

(38) As rarely, continually, veraily, bravely, &c. which correspond to the French adverbs, rarement, continuellement, veraiment, bravement, &c.

VOL. I.

h

the English Adjective, without Case, Gender, or Number.

The French Verbs were obliged to lay aside all their differences of Conjugation. Accorder, souffrir, recevoir, descendre, were regularly changed into— according suffren, receiven, descenden. They brought with them only two Tenses, the Present and the Past; nor did they retain any singularity of Inflexion, which could distinguish them from other Verbs of Saxon growth.

The Participle indeed of the Present time, in some Verbs, appears to have still preserved its original French form; as, usant, suffisant, &c.

The Participle of the Past time adopted, almost universally, the regular Saxon termination in ed; as accorded, suffred, received, descended. It even frequently assumed the prepositive Particle ge, (or y, as it was latterly written,) which, among the Saxons, was very generally, though not peculiarly, prefixed to that Participle.

§ VI. Upon the whole, I believe it may be said with truth, that, at the time which we are considering, though the form of our Language was still Saxon, the matter was in a great measure French. The novelties of all kinds, which the Revolution in