ANGLO-SAXON AND MODERN ENGLISH.*
HORNE TOOKE, in the "Diversions of Parley," impresses upon his readers the importance of carefully searching out the true significa- tion of words, for, as he says, " the meaning of words is of the greatest consequence to mankind, and seems to have been strangely neglected by those who have made the most use of them." The task which Tooke attempted has, during subsequent years, been perse- vered in by more than one philologist, and since Tooke's death a large fund of knowledge has been gathered concerning the true origin and composition of the English language. The author of the volitme before us has done his best to trace out the Anglo-Saxon element in our tongue, and although his work is greatly inferior in value to the writings of Dean Trench on the same subject, still there is much in his researches that will be of service to future students, while many of his suggestions are deserving of close attention. Un- fortunately, the value of the book is diminished by faults and errors which, in a discourse on the true meaning of words, no one can be prepared to detect or to excuse. The author is slovenly in his ow choice of language; and the printers have added to the confusion of style by bad spelling and erroneous punctuation. Another fault which interferes with a calm perusal of the book is the introduction of common-place and irrelevant reflections, while, occasionally, con- jectures as to the degeneration of words are pushed to the verge of absurdity. Thus, we are told (p. 39), that "the ignorant abuse" of the word kerse, or curse, "has given rise to the corruption, now so common, 'I don't care a curse,' which has, in its turn, been also changed into the still more objectionable form, I don't care a damn !" It is as well that the author did not pursue this line of investigation with regard to many other words that have been cor- rupted into slang or foul language. Notwithstanding these defects, the author has given the fruits of diligent reading among certain old poets, and he has also taken con- siderable pains to obtain the derivation of certain obsolete words used in the "Breeches," or Genevan Bible. Dean Trench collected many instructive instances of words which have changed their mean- ing, and others that escaped his attention have been here brought together. Thus, while showing the alteration the word "chaffer"' has passed through, the Dean says nothing about the still more curious words " chapinan" and "cheap." Horne Tooke does little- more than allude to them, but in the present volume several quota- tions are adduced to show the sense in which these phases were formerly employed. Both take their origin from the Anglo.Saxon Cyp, signifying a measure, and Cypan, to sell, and front these words are also derived the names Chepstow (from eeap, a bargain, and stow-, a place), East-cheap, and Cheap-side. Tooke mentions the fact that good-cheap and bad-cheap were once terms signifying a good or a bad bargain, and our author bas quoted a passage from "Henry IV.," Part I., which illustrates the fact : "The sack that thou haat drunk me would have bought me lights as good-cheap at the dearest chandlers in Europe." The word chapman, the author does not appear to he- aware, is not entirely obsolete in some parts of the provinces, where it is used to denote a hawker, or "tally-man'." But the word "cheap" retains but one meaning in all parts of the country. A very curious change is that which the verb to disease has under- gone. The Genevan Bible has the following passage (Mark v. 35) "Thy daughter is dead, why diseasest thou the master any further ?" In Wickliffe's version the words are; "What travelist thou the maistir ferthere," and in our own we read, "Why troublest thou the master." The author truly observes that "the past participle diseased is still common enough to intimate a condition of ill health, but it is used in this sense only." The word was evidently of much wider signification formerly ; as Dean Trench says, it "once meant. any malease, distress, or discomfort whatever." "Passion," again, is no longer used in the sense of agony, the interpretation it bears in the Liturgy. The examples of "knave," which once meant simply a peasant, "boor," a farmer, "churl," a strong fellow, and others of a similar kind have been quoted by the author of "English Past and Present," and to these the writer of the book before us wide "avoided," once used in the sense of emptied, although he is unable to give the exact authority for the quotation; and some other words. of less interest and importance. There have necessarily been many most valuable words added to, the English language of late years from foreign sources, but oa the other hand we have suffered some loss by allowing expressive Avers- Saxon phrases to fall into desuetude. Shamefastness was a much better word than shamefacedness, and Dean Trench, in his "English Past and Present," laments the disuse of "those good old words rootfast and rootfastness." The word gin, or trap, has entirely superseded the Anglo-Saxon gryn, or grenne, found in Tyndale's version of the Psalms : "The proude have laide a snare for me, and spread a net with cordes in, my pathway, and set greener for me." Our author suggests that the words yarn, yard, garb, and gear are all derived from the same root, the Saxon georiviass, "to make ready, to prepare, to procure, to supply; " and though the theory is plausible enough with respect to some of these words, we cannot recognize its application to yard, which seems to be clearly derived from the last syllable in metegyrd, a word quoted by the author himself. Harberous is another curious obsolete word not mentioned by former writers qn this subject. It occurs more than once in the Tyndale version of the Scriptures, as in the following verse from the 1st Epistle of Peter : " Bee ye harberous one to another, without grudging." The verb to harbour is still occasionally used, although the old form has been relinquished. In the "Vision of Pierce Ploughman" there is the line " herberseed hym at an hostrie," and in Chaucer there is the true
• digital' Retraced. Cambridge: Warn& London: Bell and Dad?.
French word herbegege. "Prom the word herberg," says our author, "closely resembling the Saxon hereberga, our ingenious French cousins made two other substantives, herbergage, a lodging, and herbergeour, one who goes before to provide lodging. From [to] the latter of these we are indebted for our pretty word harbinger." Johnson quotes several instances from Shakspeare of the word harbour being used in the sense of a lodging. Wife, as the author points out, had, like the German Weil), a wider application in Anglo-Saxon than it has in our present language. "It was, in fact, a feminine affix, used to denote the female gender," as in the phrases wifchild, a ; ivifcynn, the female kind; wiflea, matrimony; and wifmann, a woman. The latter word also signified "a layperson who was permitted to marry." The cobbler's last is doubtless derived from the Anglo-Saxon last, a footstep, and hence the name shoemaker was leist-wyrlita, or lost- worker. The author has been able to collect few instances of alterations in the inflection of verbs, but these few are well worthy consideration. The past participle of to help was anciently holpen, and we concur with our author in the regret that the comparatively inelegant form helped should now be employed. The verb, To win, again passed into wan, or wanne, as in the following examples from the Tyndale Bible: "Thus Antiochus wan many strong cities ;" "Simon wanne the city of Joppa." "Stele" was used in the past tense instead of stole, " swomme" instead of swam, " hurted" instead of hurt— "Thou madest the sun that it hurted not them in their honourable journey." The word hurted remains in use in some parts of the country to the present day. Both at the beginning and the end of his book the author ex- presses a strong desire to see the study of Anglo-Saxon made a recognized part of the course of education at our Universities. Several other writers have, of late years, urged the same proposition, and it cannot be doubted that, if it were carried into practice, purer English would be written and spoken than at. the present day. The study is rendered especially desirable through the habit that some of even our best writers have acquired of importing into the language coined or foreign words, while the danger of American phrases creeping into use has to be more than ever guarded against. "The English language," Johnson complained in the Preface to his Dictionary, "has been suffered to spread, under the direction of chance, into wild exuberance, resigned to the tyranny of time and fashion, and exposed to the corruptions of ignorance, and caprices of innovation." The evil has certainly abated, although it cannot be said to have ceased. Such works as English Retraced must have a good effect, if only in awakening the attention of public writers to the temptation which besets them of deserting the ancient "well of English" for streams which are neither pure nor deep, and we may therefore justifiably pass by many faults in a book which contains much information worth possessing, and which embodies the results of a praiseworthy effort to reclaim many expressive old English words from oblivion.
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