ANCIENT GRAMMAR.
pro THE &MOE OF THE "SPECTATOR:9
Sin,—Mr. Murphy's statement that "It is I" is a modern Latinism, is certainly not correct. A reference to the English versions of St. Matthew xiv., 27, and the parallel passages, St.
Mark vi., 50, and St. John vi., 20, will prove this. The Anglo- Saxon Gospels read " Ic hyt eom," "I it am ;" Wiclif, "I am Tyndale, Cranmer, and the translators of the Geneva, Rheims, and Authorised Versions, all read "It is I." The Anglo-Saxon, Wiclif's, and the Rheims version were translated from the Latin, the other versions from the Greek.
So also, in St. Matthew ill., 11, all the versions, from the Anglo-Saxon downwards, read, One stronger or mightier" than I." The instances given by your correspondents where " than " is followed by an oblique case, are all taken from poetry. The oldest existing manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon Gospels are not older than the end of the tenth century, but the version itself may probably be a century older. It would seem, therefore, that in the best English prose, "It is I" and "stronger than I" have been in use from the time of King Alfred until now.
But the vulgar tongue has not risen to the standard of Bible English ; the schoolchildren are practically bi-lingual, and such a sentence as "Them boys know'd I," would pass for excellent Saxon from the lips of a sixth-standard boy on the Cotswolds—out of school.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Bristol, May 5th. C. S. TAYLOR.
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