Northern Psalter. He speaks of twyse and thryse, but has unluckily the corrupt once instead of ones. Fadir and modir now become father and mother. We see almost the moment of their change, when we find in Tyndale's New Testament the three forms hidder, hydther, and hetherto; we also find gadther. Against and amongst appear with their last consonant, which they were never to lose. We have both the old coude (potui) and also the corruption into coulde from a false analogy; there is the good old Teutonic rightewes and also the new Latinized righteous: pity it was that Tyndale had no share in Leland's knowledge of Old English. The upstart kill comes as often as slay. Pecock's zou silf is corrupted into youre selves, as if self was a substantive. The symle (semper) of 1000, and the ever of 1380, now become all wayes. We find some old forms almost for the last time, as, do on hym a garment, anhongred, hedling, unethe, he leugh (risit). There are some forms which seem to be relics of the writer's native Gloucestershire: honde 2 (manus), awne (proprius), are (rogare), mooare (plus), lawears (juris periti), visicion (medicus). Tyndale sometimes goes much nearer to the Old English of the year 1000 than Wickliffe does; thus geve replaces yeve; he has one loofe instead of o loof; feawe, not fewe; brydegrome, not spouse; lende, not gyve borwynge; lett the deed bury, not suffre that deede men burie; in the middles, not in the middil. Tyndale brought in some

See p. 145 of the present work.

This is the form taken by the word in old Worcester charters drawn up seven hundred years before Tyndale wrote.

words hitherto unused in Scriptural translations; such as, at all, nor, lyke wyse, ado, God forbid: this last replaces Wickliffe's 'fer be it.' Whole (sanus) takes the hideous interloping letter that begins the word; the Salopian won is used for unus. The word abroad had been used earlier in a sense like the Latin latè: since 1525 we have used it to express also the Latin foris. This last meaning comes, not from the Old English brad, but from the Norse braut, a way.1 We see a few new terms; thus, the word already was beginning to come in, and was employed twice in the Gospels. Wickliffe's wawes (fluctus) are now turned into waves. The adjective sad had hitherto meant nothing more than gravis; it now began to take its new meaning, tristis. What was called unróte in the year 1000, and sorwful in 1380, is here called sadde; but this new sense comes only twice in the Four Gospels. Wickliffe had translated volvere by walew (wallow); but Tyndale uses this English verb in an intransitive sense only; he writes roll for volvere. The verb werian (induere) had been of old a Weak verb, and made its Perfect werode; but Tyndale turns this into a Strong Perfect, a change most seldom found in English. In his translation of St. Luke viii. 27, we read that the man which had a devil 'ware noo clothes.' We still say wore and worn. gave us a few words hardly ever used before his time, such as immediatly (he has also the old anon, to which he should have stuck), exceedingly, and streyght waye. He stands almost at the end of the old school of writers,

1 Dasent, Jest and Earnest, ii. 63.

He

before the Latin forms had come in like a flood, as they were to do all through this Century. He therefore leans to the old way, when writing baptim, advoutry, crysten, soudeour (miles), parfit, unpossyble. I could wish that he had kept to the English, instead of the French pattern, in such words as afrayed and defyle. He made a sad mistake in not writing 'Peter was to blame' in a well-known passage. He was too fond of similitude, conclusion, seniours; and we have to regret that by 1525 such words as certain, herbes,1 loins, physician had supplanted good old English equivalents. About forty Strong verbs, which we still keep, had by this time been turned into Weak verbs; since then, holpen has been corrupted into helped, though the former occurs in a well-known passage.

Tyndale, though hunted out of his own land, was always a sound and wise patriot; his political tracts are as well worth studying as his religious books. He uplifted his voice against the folly of England's meddling in foreign wars, at the time when Zwingli was giving the like wholesome rede to the Switzers. Tyndale's works fill two goodly volumes, yet these contain only about twelve Teutonic words that have become obsolete since his time; a strong proof of the influence his translation of the Bible has had upon England, in keeping her steady to her old speech. As to the proportion of Latin words in his writings, of his nouns, verbs, and adverbs, three out of four are Teutonic, and in this pure

1 This is pronounced yarbs in America, as we see in Cooper; and Tyndale wrote it yerbes.

style he is rivalled by his great enemy, the Chancellor.1 Never were two English writers better matched in fight than More and Tyndale; loud was the wrangling over the Reformer's rendering of the Greek Scriptural words charis, ecclesia, presbyteros, metanoia. All Greek scholars must see what an advantage Tyndale had over Wickliffe. when we read an absurd version of Wickliffe's in the parable of the son, who at first refused to work in his father's vineyard, but afterwards 'stirid by penaunce' went.2 The men that loved not the Reformation had a rooted mistrust of Tyndale's Bible. Long after the Martyr's death, Bishop Gardiner in 1542 brought forward a list of 102 Latin words (so he called them), which ought to be retained in any English version 'for the majesty of the matter in them contained.' Among these majestic words were olacausta (sic), simulacrum, panis, peccator, zizania, hostia, and others of the like kind.3 It was a happy thing that the Bishop was

1 King Alfred and Tyndale are alike in this, that three-fourths of their 'weighty words' are Teutonic, such as can be now understood; but as to the other fourth, Alfred's Teutonic has been replaced by the French and Latin that Tyndale was driven to use, owing to the heedlessness of the Thirteenth Century.

2

A corrupt religion will corrupt its technical terms. One of the most curious instances of the degradation of a word is St. Jerome's pænitentia, an act of the mind, which he uses of God Himself; this word in Italy (penitenza) now means no more than some bodily act of atonement for sin. This is as great a drop as when we find virtus and virtu expressing widely different things; the one suits Camillus, the other Cellini. Coverdale, who translated the New Testament ten years after Tyndale had done it, sometimes turns metanoia into penance, one of the many faults of his version. Words, like coins, get worn away by the wear and tear of ages. 3 Anderson's Annals of the English Bible,. ii. 151.

forbidden to meddle in the business; and this Protestants and philologers alike must thankfully acknowledge. But the old housel, which in the English mind was linked with the Roman idea of the Eucharist, was cast aside when the Reformation triumphed.1

In the wordy strife between Tyndale and More, the two best English writers of their day, we trace further changes in English. The Chancellor often employs the old form sith (quoniam), and we also find the corrupt since; the two lingered on side by side into the next Century. Are (sunt) sometimes replaces be, in spite of the Reformer having been bred in Gloucestershire. He is perhaps the first Englishman who used the word. popish. He speaks of a flock 'going to pot,' and gives us bo-peep and 'huker-muker,' which has been but little changed. He applies naughty, a new word, to a priest. The ever-waxing influence of classical learning was ere long to substitute victuals for the old vitaille, the sound of which we still partly keep: this influence may be traced in Tyndale's use of words like delectable and crudelity in the works he printed just before his death; these forms he would not have used when he fled from England a dozen years earlier. He kept his eye upon each succeeding edition of Erasmus' Greek Testament, and thus made his own English version more perfect. I now

1 Tyndale went wrong in using worship to translate many widely different Greek words. We have now almost lost the true sense of that good old verb. I have heard men find fault with that clause of the Marriage Service, with my body I thee worship;' of old, this verb meant nothing more but 'to honour.'

Mr. Marsh has pointed out More's rebuke to Tyndale for using yea and nay improperly.