In Verbs, we find ute, the old Imperative form, used for almost the last time. In page 47 Pilate, speaking of Christ, says, 'letep hyne beo.' We should now say, 'let him alone.' A new word for tremere now appears in English, in page 176: For ich schal bernen in fur And chiverin in ise. There has been so much wrangling as to whether our Indefinite one comes from the French on or from the Old English án used for man, that I once more return to the word, which has been seen already in the Ancren Riwle and the Bestiary. At page 40 we read: 'On me scal bitraye pat nu is ure yvere.' This on, which before the Thirteenth Century never stood alone, is a translation of the kindred Latin word in the well-known passage of the Vulgate, unus vestrum me traditurus est.' Latin, as well as French, had great influence upon the changes in English. Fifty years later, the on was to be used indefinitely like the Old English man. THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT. The following specimen must have been written much about the time that King Henry III. ended his worthless life, if we may judge by internal evidence. It was transcribed by a Herefordshire man about forty years later. Of the sixty nouns, verbs, and adverbs contained in it, one alone, pray, is French; and of the other fiftynine, only three or four have dropped out of our speech. In the poems of 1280 we shall find a larger proportion of French than in this elegant lay, which may be set down. to 1270. The writer seems to have dwelt at Huntingdon, or somewhere near, that town being almost equidistant from London and the three other places mentioned in the fifth stanza. The prefix to the Past Participle is not wholly dropped; and this is perhaps a token that the lay was written on the Southern Border of the Mercian Danelagh. The third Person Singular of the Present Tense ends in es, and not in the Southern eth. The Plural of the same Tense ends in the Midland en. We find ourselves speedily drawing near the time, when English verse was written that might readily be understood six hundred years after it was composed. THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT. (A.D. 1270.) When the nyhtegale singes, the wodes waxen grene, spere so kene, Nyht ant day my blod hit drynkes, myn herte deth me tene.b Ich have loved al this ger, that y may love na more, c d Ich have siked moni syk, lemmon, for thin ore; Suete lemmon, y preye the of love one speche, f Whil y lyve in world so wyde other nulle yf seche; ' I will not With thy love, my suete leof, mi blis thou mihtes eche, A suete cos of thy mouth mihte be my leche. h Suete lemmon, y preze the of a love bene; Ant zef hit thi wille be, thou loke that hit be sene, Bituene Lyncolne ant Lyndeseye, Norhamptoun ant Lounde, Ne wot y non so fayr a may as y go fore y-bounde; Suete lemmon, y preze the thou lovie me a stounde,' Y wole mone my song on wham that hit ys on ylong.1 • increase h boon i while THE CONTRAST TO THE EAST MIDLAND. (A.D. 1264.) Richard of Alemaigne, whil that he wes kyng, Maugre Wyndesore. Be the luef, be the loht, sire Edward, 1 Percy Society, vol. iv. p. 92. This is a transcript made by a Herefordshire man, who must have altered and into ant, nill into nulle, kis into cos, &c. Shalt thou never more breke foreward, Edward, thou dudest ase a shreward, These stanzas are from the famous ballad on the battle of Lewes, in 1264, and come from the same Herefordshire manuscript: they smack strongly of the South. We have here the first instance of our corrupt Imperative, Let him habbe, instead of the old hæbbe he (habeat). We also find the word bost (our boast) for the first time; this is Celtic. In another Southern poem of this date, the Proverbs of Hending, we see that we replaced e or eo; as bue for be, hue for heo. I give some of the homely bywords of the time, when Englishmen were drawing their swords upon each other at Lewes and Evesham.2 God biginning makep god endyng. Sottes bolt is sone shote. Tel pou never þy fo þat þy fot akep. But we still sometimes use the older form: 'Come weal, come woe, we'll gather and go.' 'Be Thine the glory, and be mine the shame.' How much more pith is there in these phrases, than in the cumbrous compound with let, as in the Lewes Ballad! This I have taken from the Camden Society's Edition of the Political Songs of England, p. 69. 2 The Proverbs of Hending may be found in Kemble's AngloSaxon Dialogues (Ælfric Society), No. 14, p. 270. Gredy is pe godles. When pe coppe is follest, penne ber hire feyrest. When pe bale is hest, penne is pe bote nest. highest Brend child fur dredep. Fer from eze, fer from herte. remedy nighest Of unboht hude men kervep brod pong. hide Dere is boht pe hony pat is licked of pe porne. The well-known phrase 'all and some is first found in this Manuscript. The old sum is here equivalent to one. Meanwhile, beyond the Humber, the French Romance of Sir Tristrem was being translated. The proportion of obsolete English words is rather greater than in the Havelok, and the former poem may therefore be dated about 1270. We unluckily have it only in a Southern transcript made sixty years later. The rimes give some clue to the true old readings; and when we see such a phrase as ich a side, we may be sure that the old Northern bard wrote ilka side. We find such new forms as fer and wide, and furthermore.1 'P. 169 of Scott's edition, in the year 1811. I give a stanza or two from p. 149. Strokes of michel might, Thai delten hem bituene; That thurch hir brinies bright, Her brother blode was sene; |