The verb 'to squire' came a hundred years later, in Chaucer's time.

There are some Kentish Sermons printed at page 26 of An Old English Miscellany (Early English Text Society). These seem to have been translated from the French about 1290: it was in Kent and Essex, as we can plainly see, that the old forms of King Alfred's day made their last stand against Northern changes. Forms like lieşed (amisit), niede (necessitas), show us how a word such as belefe got turned into belief, the corrupt form which we still keep. Never did any tongue employ so many variations of vowels as the English, to represent the sound e: here is one more puzzle for the foreigner.1 Our word glare, first found here, is akin to the Low German. We light on goodman (paterfamilias) at page 32. An idiomatic repetition, well known to our lower orders, now appears: as at page 31, 'a sik man seyde, Lord, lord,' 'ha seide,' &c. The swiche (talis) is sometimes shortened into the siche, still often heard.

Robert of Gloucester wrote his Chronicle about 1300, or not much earlier, since he speaks of St. Louis as canonised. He shows us a few new idioms, especially as regards the word an, our one.

pe more pat a man con, pe more worp he ys.-I. page 364. Pe castel of Cary held one Wyllam Lovel.-II. page 448. Ac me ne migte vor no ping in pe toune finde on.-II. p. 556.

This comes of our tongue being compounded in different shires; the form ie came from the South East, the form ea from the South West, the form e, and also ee, from the North.

? I quote from Hearne's edition,

Heo maden certeyne covenaunt þat heo were al at on.

6

I. page 113. The first phrase in Italics answers to quisque, the second to quidam, the third to unus. From the fourth, often repeated in this piece, comes to set them at one again,' and our word atonement. The Old English gleow had been hitherto seen as glew, gleu, and glie; it now approached its more long-lived form in gle. Makes (socii) is now seen as mates, II. 536. Formerly sceoppa had stood for a treasury ; it was now degraded in meaning, and became our shop : it occurs in Robert's account of the riot at Oxford (he may have been an eye-witness), not long before the battle of Lewes.1 It was a bowyer's shop that suffered; and this word is spelt bowiar: lawyer, collier, and such like forms were to follow.2 The adjective bad (malus) is now first found; it has much puzzled the brains of antiquaries, for there seems to be no kindred word nearer to it than the Persian bud. Different explanations have also been given of Robert's new word, balledness (baldness); Mr. Dasent (Jest and Earnest, II. 70) talks of the God Baldr, who had a glorious whiteness of face.

Our poet uses the Norse word tome for otium; and this lasted down to the Fifteenth Century, when it was confused with time. We still say, 'I have time' (vacat mihi); the Scotch toom (vacuus) is well known. John Balliol was nicknamed Toom-tabard, which well hits off his gaudy emptiness; Robert talks of 5,000 poundes of sterlinges this last word we owe to Germany.

1 This I take from Dr. Stratmann.

There may

2 The ending in ier is French; yet there must have been some Old English word like bog-er; the trade was so conimon. here be a confusion between the two endings.

When Richard I. came home from his German prison (II. page 490), 'he pleyede nywe king at ome.' This new idiom seems French; we now put a the after the verb. The poet is fond of using body for person, as 'mani god bodi, that ne com' (II. page 546). We are told, in the famous ballad on Lewes fight, that the King's brother'saisede the mulne for a castel.' Thirty-five years later, the Gloucestershire bard tells us that the aforesaid Prince was in a windmulle inome.' " The old n at the end of the word, clipped in England, is still kept by the Scotch Lowlanders.

Robert wrote, besides his Chronicle, a great number of Lives of Saints. Of these, that of Becket has been published by the Percy Society, Vol. XIX. At page 92, we see a new adverb compounded from an adjective, ‘to do the sentence al abrod.' We still keep this counterpart to the Latin latè in 'to noise abroad;' but the Norse abroad (foris) is of much later introduction. There are such new phrases as forasmoche as (page 28); pu mizt as wel beo stille (page 49); the kinges men were at him (page 63); hi dude here best (did their best), page 3. The old berewe now becomes barewe, our barrow.

A new adjective is found; Becket's mother, wandering about London unable to speak English, is called ‘a mopisch best' (page 5). This is akin to the Dutch moppen, to sulk. Buttock reminds us of the Dutch bout; and stout, which is pure Dutch, now first appears in England. We have seen in Sir Tristrem that bond came to mean servus; we find, at page 27 of the Becket, the word bonde man, with the same meaning. In other shires, such as near Rutland, bonde man still bore the old sense

N

of colonus and nothing more. In the former case, the word came from the English bindan; in the latter, from the Norse bua.

At page 126, we see both the old form Tywesdai and the new form Tuesdai. Two foreign words were pro nounced in 1300 just as we wrongly pronounce them now: Stevene (Stephanus), page 124, and yused (solebam), page 23.1 We find simple opposed to gentle (page 124), as in Scott's writings.

Another of these Saint's Lives is the Voyage of St. Brandan (Percy Society, Vol. XIV.). In this we first see her and thar, at page 26; the preposition bi is used by sailors in a new sense, for we read at page 28, 'hi seze an yle al bi southe.'

A line in page 30 is remarkable; speaking of an otter,

'Mid his forthere fet he brouzte a fur-ire and a ston.' We did not use the word forefeet in 1300; fire-iron is an old compound.

An idiom, already known, is seen at page 3; we are there told that if men had not sinned, 'herinne hi hadde zut ilyved' (vixissent).

We now see a new word which was to degrade the Old English smirk. At page 4, we read, 'bi the suete smyl of zou.' This word has kinsmen both in Norway and Germany.

Much about the year 1300, the great Romance of

One of our peculiarities now is, that we may say used for solebam, but may not say use for soleo. The latter remained in our mouths down to 1611, when it began to drop.

Alexander was Englished; perhaps in Warwickshire.1 Here we find als fer as, aloud, and aside for the first time; the noun side had a hundred years earlier been used to compound beside. At page 192, we see the origin of our 'to ride the high horse;' Alexander says of his friends, 'Y wolde sette heom on hyghe hors.' There are such new words and forms as bestir, drawbridge, fotman, notemugge (nutmeg), brother-in-lawe, overthrow, pecock, upper, kuin (kine), bewray, anhungred. Hnægan becomes neigh; the old geolo (flavus) is seen as yelow (page 191); and the old adjective cyse now takes the form of chis, our choice, as in the line,

'The lady is of lemon chis.'-Page 137.

The old ruh (hispidus) and hlihan are turned into rough (page 253), and laugh (page 296). Schill at length becomes shrill.

There are many words, akin to terms found in German dialects, now cropping up; such as cower, curl, to dab, to duck, girl,2 mane, pin, to plump, poll, scoff, scour, scrub, shingle, stamp, top (turbo); also hedlinge (præceps).

A few Scandinavian words are found, such as fling, ragged, tumble. The Celtic words, seen here in greater numbers than usual, may betoken that the Alexander was compiled not very far from the Welsh March; these words are bicker, wail, hog, and gun. This last is most likely some engine for darting Greek fire; the siege of

1 Weber's Metrical Romances, vol. i. It has new words in common with the Gloucester poems, such as bicker.

2 For this Dr. Stratmann refers to the Low German gör; this was in time to prevail over maiden and damsel alike.