History of English: A Sketch of the Origin and Development of the English Language with Examples, Down to the Present Day |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
34 King Street accent adjective already altered Anglo-Saxon Authorised Version borrowed Celtic Chaucer Chronicle consonant course Crown 8vo Danes Danish dative declension derived dialect of English early East Midland dialect East Midland English Edition England English Bible English Etymology English Sounds English words example French words genitive Gothic grammar Greek High German Indo-European language inflexions instance Kington Oliphant later Latin Latin words Layamon literary literature Lowland Scotch meaning Mercian Middle English Modern English neuter Norman Conquest Norman-French Northern Northumbrian Old and Middle Old English ordinary original Ormulum past participle past tense Peterborough Chronicle plural poems poetry present day Principles of English probably pronounced pronunciation Robert of Brunne Sanskrit seen Shakespeare singular sixteenth century Skeat sometimes Southern dialect speak specimen speech spelling spoken standard style subjunctive substantive syllable termination Teutonic language translation verb vowel West Saxon writing written þæt
Popular passages
Page 380 - Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions ; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making.
Page 340 - Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoics, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say ? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods : because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection.
Page 328 - Though justice be thy plea, consider this,— That, in the course of justice, none of us Should see salvation : we do pray for mercy; And that same prayer doth teach us all to render The deeds of mercy.
Page 190 - A knyght ther was, and that a worthy man, That fro the tyme that he first bigan To riden out, he loved chivalrie, Trouthe and honour, fredom and curteisie.
Page 375 - The potent traditions of childhood are stereotyped in its verses. The power of all the griefs and trials of a man is hidden beneath its words. It is the representative of his best moments, and all that there has been about him of soft and gentle, and pure and penitent and good, speaks to him for ever out of his English Bible. . . . . It is his sacred thing, which doubt has never dimmed, and controversy never soiled. In the length and breadth of the land there is not a Protestant with one spark of...
Page 380 - Truth, than there be pens and heads there, sitting by their studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions and ideas wherewith to present, as with their homage and their fealty, the approaching reformation: others as fast reading, trying all things, assenting to the force of reason and convincement.
Page 87 - I go, and it is done: the bell invites me. Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell That summons thee to heaven, or to hell.
Page 358 - A thousand ages in thy sight Are like an evening gone ; Short as the watch that ends the night Before the rising sun.
Page 328 - Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth : 6 And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away.
Page 379 - God is decreeing to • begin some new and great period in his church, even to the reforming of reformation itself; what does he then but reveal himself to his servants, and as his manner is, first to his Englishmen...