(a bout at wrestling), which Mr. Wedgwood derives from bugan (flectere), and bought, a word applied to the coils of a rope, and so to the turns of things that succeed each other. File, akin to the Dutch vuil, means a worthless person; we may still often hear a man called 'a cunning old file.' In 2499 of the Havelok, we read, We see the origin of the word deuce in the line 'Deus! lemman, hwat may pis be?' Storie appears clipped of the vowel that once began it; and Justice is used for a man in office, as well as for a virtue. It is curious to see in this Lay two forms of the same word that has come to England by different channels ; we have gete (custodire) from the Icelandic gæta; and also wayte, which means the same, coming from the French guaiter, a corruption of the wahten brought into Gaul by her German conquerors. Sad havock must have been wrought with English prepositional compounds in the eighty years that separated the Havelok from the Ormulum. In compound words, umbe, the Greek amphi, comes only three times throughout the long poem before us; for only five times; with only once; of not at all. The English tongue had been losing some of its best appliances. The preposition to, answering to the German zer and the Latin dis, is still often found in composition, and did not altogether drop until the days of James I. THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT. (About A.D. 1280).1 THE HAVELOK.-Page 38. On pe nith, als Goldeborw lay, So it were a blase of fir. She lokede no(r)þ, and ek south, And saw it comen ut of his mouth, e No ferlike pou she were adred. h i a tricked e very d clear e wonder f will be g nobleman h betokens i see 1 In this poem nith stands for night, and other words in the same way. 2 This way of pronouncing all the three vowels alike of the word Engelond had not died out in Shakespere's time. Panne she havede herd the stevene It was so hey, þat y wel mouthe Denemark, with mine longe bones. Sho answerede and seyde sone: b decree THE CONTRAST TO THE EAST MIDLAND. (About A.D. 1280.) Whan Jhesu Crist was don on rode And polede dep for ure gode, Pe teres feolle to hire fet. No wunder nas pez heo wepe sore, Whenne he pat of hire nam blod and fless, Heng inayled on pe treo. " Alas, my sone,' seide heo, 'Hu may ihc live, hu may pis beo?' The above is taken from the Assumption of the Virgin, printed by the Early English Text Society, along with the King Horn and another poem, all written about 1280 or rather later. In them we find that the Active Participle in inge, first used by Layamon, has almost driven out the older inde. The King Horn was written in some part of England (Oxfordshire ?), upon which the East Midland dialect had begun to act, grafting its Plural form of the Present tense upon the older form in eth. Here hwanon (unde) is replaced by whannes, our whence. In page 8 there is a curious instance of the Old English idiom, which piles up negatives upon each other: this survives in the mouths of the common folk. 'Heo ne mizte. . . speke . . . nogt in pe halle, We now light on scrip (pera), which comes from the Norse skreppa, and pore (spectare), akin to the Swedish pala.1 There are also three words akin to the Dutch or German, clink, flutter, and guess. Chivalrous ideas were now being widely spread under the sway of the great Edward, and we find that a verb has been formed from the substantive knight. 'For to knigti child horn.'-Line 480. 1 Pala i en bok is to pore on a book.—Wedgwood. |