of the particular names are common to England and to the Continent. For instance we have plenty of names beginning with Wil, as Wilfrith, and we have plenty of names ending in helm, as Ealdhelm; but I never heard of an English Wilhelm, and I doubt your finding a Wilfrith or an Ealdhelm abroad. And some names which are common abroad are found, but very rarely, in England, as Carl, Karl, Charles; Hloðhere, Lothar; Hereberht, Charibert, Herbert; Frithric, Friedrich, Frederick. Two things have helped to make the Old-English names seem more strange and uncouth than they need be. One is that most of them have gone out of use, so that the foreign names are now more familiar. The other is that, oddly enough, the proper names, more than any other class of words, are mainly formed out of roots which have gone out of use. For instance, in such a name as Æthelwulf, the wulf is plain enough, but we have quite lost the word adel, though it still lives in High-Dutch as adel noble. So in Sigeberht, especially if I use the later spelling Sigebriht, I need hardly tell you the meaning of the last syllable; but we have quite lost the word sige, which means victory, though that too lives in High-Dutch. And even in a name like Ælfgifu, though we still use both the words of which it is formed, you might not at once see that it means elf-gift. It would be too long a business to tell you the meanings of all the names, but it will help you if you remember a few of the words which we have lost but which are often used in forming names. I have told you of arel and sige, which are found together as a name, Æthel

.

sige. Wig, war, here, army, ead, wealth or possession, wine, man, fellow, frið, peace, gar, spear, burh, pledge, mund, protection, red or ræd, counsel (rede), ric, kingdom or government, flæd, birth, will help you to the meanings of a good many. One thing you must always remember that in OldEnglish all names and words ending in a are masculine, never feminine, as they commonly are in Latin. Yet we are so much more used to Latin than to our own tongue that people will go and write women's names with an a, Elgiva, Editha, Etheldreda, and so on and I dare say they are sometimes surprised to find that Ida and Ælla are names of men.

Perhaps you may ask how you ought to pronounce all these old names and other Old-English words. I cannot always tell you. I know how people wrote a thousand years back, but I never heard them talk. And we may be quite sure that they pronounced, as indeed they wrote, differently in different parts of the country, as people do still. We see this both in names and in other words. In many words and names where a soft sound is now used in the South of England, a hard one is used in the North. Thus Carlton and Charlton, Skipton and Shipton are the same name. We may be quite sure that C was at first hard before all vowels, and that Sc was sounded hard like Sk. But it is also plain that, at all events in the South of England, the hard sounds got softened into Ch and Sh, so that we now say Church, Chester, Ship, &c., though we still talk of Kent and King. Now it is not easy to say exactly when this change happened,,

so that I cannot tell you for certain whether a thousand years back we sounded such a word as Esc, which we now call Ash, with the hard or the soft sound. But in any case we may be sure that there had been a time when it was sounded hard. Still I may tell you a few things which seem pretty plain. E before a vowel at the beginning of words, as Eadweard, Eoforwic, was clearly sounded like y or the High-Dutch j. Thus we still write York, and Yedward is found in Shakespeare, and Earl is in Scotland sounded Yerl, like the Danish Jarl. G at the beginning of words has in modern English often sunk into y, as we say year for gear, and as in some parts of England gate is called yett. So in names, you know that the old name Eadgyth has got softened into Edith. In Domesday it is written Eddid and Eddied, which looks as if the g was sounded like y. But in Eadgar the g keeps its place to this day; no one would call Edgar Edar. I think that, if you sound the two names several times, you will tell why the g got first softened and then lost in the one name, while it still abides in the other. G between two vowels or at the end of a word must have been sounded much as it is in High-Dutch. But it is plain that by the eleventh century it was sounded very faintly, for it is often left out. So in modern English it is always left out in the middle of a word, as Thegn, Thane; regen, rain; while at the end of a word it becomes y, as dag, day; weg, way. Hl at the beginning of words was no doubt sounded like ll in Welsh; a sound which we have quite lost, but which is easily made by breathing, neither before nor after the 7,

but as you sound it. Hw is simply what we now write wh; for I hope that everybody who reads this book takes care to distinguish whet, which, and whether from wet, witch, and weather. Long i with an accent, as win, wif, tim, rim, was certainly sounded as it is now, like ei in High-Dutch. We now mark the long vowel by an e at the end, wine, wife, time, and we ought to write rime, only printers choose to spell it rhyme, because they fancy it is a Greek word. Rím, meaning number, should thus be written rime without the h; while hrim, meaning hoar-frost, should be written rhime. Hr and cn at the beginning of words should be sounded fully, as a Welshman can still sound the hr and as a High-Dutchman can still sound the cn. H at the middle or end of a syllable, as Uhtred, Ælfheah, was doubtless a guttural, like the Scotch, Welsh, or High-Dutch ch. We commonly write it gh in modern English, but we either drop the sound or else sound it like f. Long a with an accent answers in modern English to o, as stán, stone, áð, oath; but I cannot be sure that it was sounded so, at least not everywhere, as in the North they still say stane and aith, while in HighDutch we have stein and eid. E at the end of a word, as Godwine, must have been sounded, but sounded very slightly. You should not sound the last syllable like wine, which, as I have just said, is wín.

In what I have now been saying, I do not at all pretend to say all that might be said, or even all that I might be able to say myself in a larger book. But I think I have said enough to make you think about the matter and to try

b

and find out more for yourselves. About proper names you may learn a great deal from the second volume of Miss Yonge's "History of Christian Names."

As I have had to bring in a few Welsh names, and as the Welsh sound many letters very differently from the English, I may as well tell you how they are to be sounded. F is sounded like v, but ff like f; w as a vowel is sounded like oo, and aw like ow; u is sounded like i in it, and y like u in but, except when it is in the last syllable of a word, when it is sounded like i in it. Dd is sounded like the English

or th; so you will see that the name Gruffydd, though it looks so odd, is sounded as we commonly spell it in English, Griffith. Also, remember in Welsh words of three syllables to put the accent on the second always, as Morganwg, Llywelyn, Carádoc, Merédydd. The last name is in English often wrongly sounded Méredith; Carádoc has got shortened into Craddock, which is not so bad a change.