The lines with which our chronicler now concludes this book, are very characteristic, and are very important, inasmuch as they prove that the popular notion of the Norman French wholly superseding the Saxon language, has no foundation in history. Norman French indeed became the language of the law courts; while of the nobility, and of the higher classes, it was the mother tongue; but it does not at all appear from what, after much inquiry, we have been able to ascertain on the subject, that the Saxon was ever more prescribed than the Gaelic is at this moment in the Highlands, or the Erse among the native Irish. The testimony of Robert of Gloucester indeed seems conclusive on the subject. "And the Normans ne couthe speke, but her (their) own speche, And speke French, as dude at om (home) and her chyldren also teche, So that hye men of this londe, that of her blode com Holdethe al thulke speche, that hii of hem nome (is derived from their name), Ich wene ther ne be man, in worldes contreys none, That ne holdeth to her kynde speche, bot England one. And with this very admirable remark, our Chronicler concludes his tale of what is commonly called the OXFORD PROFESSORS OF ANGLO-SAXON. MR. URBAN, Nov. 15. BEFORE I left England in the month of August, I read a letter in your Magazine, threatening me with a critique, in which all my pretensions to scholarship were to be annihilated, and the character of the University of Oxford, supposed to be attacked in some remarks of mine, was to be vindicated by the downfal of an arrogant assailant. As I never look for much proficiency in these matters from Oxford men, I confess this gasconade gave me very little concern ; I was content that your correspondents should rail now, in the hope that they might hereafter learn. In fact I looked upon the whole proceeding as no more than one bubble of the effervescence produced by the installation of their new Chancellor, and I thought that at least as much indignation was aimed against the Cambridge man and the Whig, as against the inaccurate scholar. Though my opinion upon this point remains unaltered, yet having read the remarks which were thus announced, paraded, and introduced with a flourish of drums and trumpets, I find them to be written in a spirit of such bitterness, and to be so filled with envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness, that I have relinquished the intention which I had at first, of treating your correspondent with a good-natured but entire disregard. He has struck too hard at me not to receive a lesson which I trust shall teach him for the future to be a little more cautious with whom he meddles. The opinion which I entertain of himself will be made pretty apparent in the course of these remarks; it is however of somewhat greater importance to reduce the ignorant respect which is paid to the school of which he has officiously constituted himself the champion, to its proper measure. I hope to put it upon the same footing at home, as it occupies abroad. Its foundations are neither wide nor deep; and I feel very curious to see whether a vigorous shake will not bring the clumsy edifice to the ground. The errors in my book were very numerous; a good scholar might have detected many; your Oxford correspondent, with all the will to do as much mischief as possible, has succeeded in finding a clerical error, in correcting which he commits a far greater; he objects to my writing fyren-bearfe, because, as he says, the MS, reads fyen-dearfe; the MS. reads no such thing, and could read no such thing; it reads fyren-dearfe. From whatever causes GENT. MAG. VOL. II. 4 G the errors in my text arose, or to what amount they exist, I shall leave your correspondent to seek in the edition of my book now printing; he will find them collected for him in a table of errata. But I tell him that he can charge me with none but clerical errors, and something more is necessary: for his querulous abuse of the German school, of my mysticism, &c. &c., are flowers of rhetoric, not of the newest or most effective kind. In order to make out the case which he imagined himself to possess against me, it was necessary to show that I was ignorant of the forms and construction of the Saxon language; that I had myself committed blunders which I laid to the charge of others; that I had mistaken adjectives for substantives, and substantives for adjectives; that I had made præterites of imperatives, and joined datives plural with genitives. I can see nothing of all this in the letters of your correspondent, or correspondents. T. W. is very indignant with me for having ventured to remark advisedly, "that we have hitherto witnessed little but the most incompetent ignorance,' and by a vast exertion of intellect he seems to have come to the conclusion, that the Oxford Professors might possibly be alluded to. He is right; they were alluded to, and advisedly; why they were so I will tell him anon; and if I do him justice in believing him to be incapable of having made the discovery for himself, he will probably feel no little surprise at the information. He continues-"Dare Mr. K. attribute the most incompetent ignorance to such scholars as Dr. Ingram, Professor Conybeare, and the learned and accurate Sharon Turner?" together with a long list of subordinate worthies * who must no doubt feel astounded at the honour of ranking with the first great names, and who perhaps may think that they owe their uncomfortable position less to any merits of their own, than to T. W.'s necessity of making up a long list of great men. With regard to Mr. Turner, I shall leave those who are interested in the question, to read the letter of your correspondent (Nov. number), who compares some of that gentleman's Layamon with the same portion of Sir F. Madden's work; only complimenting the latter editor on the great improvement which I see in his Saxon, since he wrote the notes to Havelok. Dr. Ingram must be contented to wait for the present, although I have several pages of my Adversaria at his service; at present I have higher game. I believe (and if there be any gentleman who considers himself to possess greater claims to my attention, I entreat that I may be informed of his name with all speed), that Professor J. J. Conybeare is considered to stand at the head of the modern Oxford school of AngloSaxon. He is more particularly fitted to be the subject of my examination, because he was the first person in England who gave any thing like an account of Beowulf, and was one of those who threw much light upon the poem, before I came with a system of German philology and accentuation, to throw it all into darkness again. I shall now investigate the nature of the light which this Professor of the University of Oxford threw upon Beowulf, leaving those who are in any way interested in the matter to return their thanks to the meddling friend, who compels me to bring that gentleman's merits into public notice. The account of Beowulf contained in the "Illustrations of A. S. Poetry," consists of two portions; the former, a collection of paraphrases in prose and verse, of some principal cantos of the poem: the latter, of a large selection from the original Saxon, with a Latin verbal translation. I have neither time nor space to give a detailed examination of the former portion; suffice it to say, that it is a slovenly and most inaccurate performance, and that in many cantos it plainly proves the Professor not to have understood the meaning of a single line. The second portion, however, beginning at p. 82, brings the question between me and T. W. to a speedy issue, requires no inferences on my part, but plainly takes the Professor as a literal translator. The errors which T. W. has not shown me to have committed, and which I have enumerated * I would carefully except Price from this general observation. Full of errors as the short specimens he has given us are, they contain fewer serious blunders than the works of any of T. W.'s luminaries. And why? Because Price's knowledge was gained in the same school as Thorpe's and my own. above, Professor Conybeare has committed. These things may do at Oxford; but they will not do at Göttingen, at Munich, or at Cambridge. Leaving unnoticed three inaccuracies in p. 82, I pass to the fourth line of p. 83, which in the book of the most celebrated Anglo-Saxon Professor in the University of Oxford, stands thus Buton folcscare and feorum gumena. præter populi turbam et pravos (v. peregrinos) homines. folc-scearu is populi portio, the people's share, which Hrothgar had it not to give; but this is not important. What is important, is that the Professor should have construed the dat. pl. feorum, in concord with the gen. pl. gumena. Feorh, vita, rejects its final h in all cases but the nom. et acc. sing, and this was a piece of knowledge which should have preserved us from an adj. Feor, peregrinus. The meaning of the passage is, that Hrothgar promised to distribute in his new hall such wealth as God had given into his hands, except the portion of the people, and the lives of men. I do not know at what school T. W. may have been brought up, but I do know that a second-form boy, who should have construed a dat. and gen. pl. in concord in the schools where I was brought up, would have got what he deserved, a sound flogging. In the same page of the same book, I find the following passage— he beotne aleh fortified by the following note: (ibi) invitatos collocavit. "I have considered beotne (with Thorkelin) as irregularly formed from biddan. If aleh be formed, as I apprehend, from alecgan, collocavit will be a closer translation than Thorkelin's excepit." Great joy to Oxford and T. W. from their Professor's closer translation! The ironbound system at which T. W. sneers, has, however, taught us that beotne can neither be an adj., nor formed irregularly from biddan; nay more, that it is two words, and not one, viz. beót, mina, promissio, and ne, non. The præt. of alicgan, to lie down, is alæg; the præt. of alecgan to lay down is alegde. The Professor therefore mistook the præt. of alicgan for that of alecgan; and very uselessly, seeing that áléh is the præt. of neither one nor the other, but an extremely common corruption of áleáh, the præt. of áleógan, mentiri. The sentence merely means he belied not his promise, and similar uses of áleógan, geleógan, are constant in A. S. poetry. If one were disposed to cavil, one might ask why in line 5 of p. 84, swútol manifestus was confounded with swéte, and rendered suavis? or why in line 15 of the same page, leóman, lumina, or radios if the Professor chooses, should be construed as if it were a dat. leómum? or why in line 3 of p. 85, Fifel-cyn, genus monstruosum, should be turned into populus quinque urbes habitans. But these are neither false concords, nor blunders in the forms of nouns and adj., and are of minor import. The fourth and fifth lines of p. 85 might pass unnoticed, were it not for the fatality which seems to attend this gentleman whenever parsing is concerned. The errors they involve are rendering the acc. sing. mæl-ceare (curam opportunam, not anxiam), as if it were the nom. sing. máel-cearu: and the nom. s. maga, as if it were the acc. s. magan. The constant occurrence of this and similar phrases, ought to have prevented this perversion of the sense. In the passage beginning with line 5 of p. 86, and which the Professor reads thus, Done siðfæt him snotere ceorlas lythwon logon Deah de him leof wære. istud navigium ei it is necessary to make a few alterations. In the fourth line, he (the reading of the MS.) must be substituted for de: iter for navigium; paullisper recusarunt for cito instruxerunt; and quanquam for quum. The reading navigium no doubt arose from the Professor's belief that six-fæt meant vas itineris, i. e. navigium ; yet a professor ought to have known that fæt vas is neuter, and that six-fæt iter is masculine, especially when he had the pronoun Done coupled with it before his eyes. Lógon is the præt. pl. of Leán vituperare, a word apparently hated, if applied within reach of the somewhat sleepy reputations which abound on the banks of the Isis. Where, save in this passage, lythwon ever meant cito, or Deáh, quum, I leave T. W. to show. In line 16 of the same page, we have fiftena sum. quindecim aliquos which apparent accus. pl. is construed in apposition with cempan, and after hæfde, instead of being, as it is, the nom. s. to sóhte. The Oxford Professors are apparently not aware that the acc. pl. of sum is sume; as little do they seem to be aware of the force of sum, when construed with the gen. pl. of a numeral, viz. (in this case) one, accompanied by fifteen others. In line 29 of the same page, I find— on bearm nacan in sinum (navis) vacuum. The context led the Professor, and rightly, to suspect that navis was necessary in this passage all that requires remark is, that navis is in the passage where the Professor did not find it, and that vacuum, which he did find, is not. I can excuse, strange as the ignorance is, a man for not knowing the A. S. word naca (m) cymba; old High Dutch, nahho; old Saxon, naco; old Norse nöckwi; and new French, nacelle; but I cannot excuse his not knowing that when indefinitely used, the acc. s. of the adj. nacod, vacuus, is nacodne, when definitely used, nacodan, but that it never was, or could be, nacan. I pass to line 9 of p. 88, where I find Gewat him da to warode accinxit se ad exercitum Weorod no doubt is exercitus, but then warod is littus; and no doubt weg is via, but then wicg is equus. There are no grammatical errors here. Line 22 of the same page does, however, contain two gross grammatical errors. The Professor reads Ic thæs endesæta ego hosce limites. The MS. reads pas; however, I fully concur in the alteration into þæs; but then I say that bæs is not the acc. pl. any more than endesæta is: bæs is the adverbial gen. s. of the pronoun, idcirco; endesæta is the nom. s. to heóld, and means limitis incola, as landsæta means terricola, colonus. Old High Dutch, Lantsazo. In line 31 of the same page, I find secgon searwum militari specie. A little knowledge of the forms of Saxon adjectives would have preserved the Professor from mistaking a noun, a participle, and its case, for a noun and its adjective; the line is— secg on searwum vir in armatura. The Professor may be excused for having made the false translation of the first line in p. 89, because, till I corrected næfre, the reading of the MS., into Næfne, the passage was sheer nonsense. Still it was only because næfre could not be construed with the subj. mood leóge, and that it requires næfne, that I ventured upon the alteration. These slight matters do not seem to be considered worth the notice of the Oxford Professors, any more indeed than their parsing. In line 6, of the same page, we have the following passage: ær ge fyr heonan antequam procul hinc sinam speculatores. The ge vos of the first line was omitted merely that the Professor out of the adj. leás falsus, might make a verb which does not exist. In line 9, page 90, we have the following passage: wes du us lare na god fuisti nobis conjecturá vix æquus. Is it conceivable that a Professor in the University of Oxford should not know that wes is the imperat. s. of wesan esse, and that fuisti is not wes but wære? Larena, not two words, but one, is the gen. pl. of lár doctrina. The Oxford Professors are, it seems, not aware that feminine nouns of this declension are frequently found not only with the strong gen. pl. in a, but the weak one also in ena. Examples of this: árna, Beów. I. 2375. Cædm. p. 130. 136. 147. 148. 234. Cod. Exon. árena, fol. 53 a. The translation of the line is simply sis tu nobis consiliorum bonus. Thus much for the principal, and only the principal errors of these translations, selected from the first nine pages of the Professor's book. There are others which at any time shall be at the service of your Oxford Correspondents, but I have no further space to waste; only before I close, I will note one more precious specimen of Oxford Anglo-Saxon, from p. 94,— cuðe he dugu e deaw. novit ille fidelem ministrum. The carelessness of mistaking deáw mos for čeów servus is not laudable; but what shall we think of making an adj. fidelis out of the substantive dúgúð, a feminine in the genitive sing. and putting the two words in concord? Dúgúð, I beg to inform T. W. is not only virtue, but also the important, the older, and wiser portion of a court, opposed to geógúð, the young men, but it also means pomp and ceremony of a court; and the passage, which refers to Wulfgar, not to Hrothgar, means— he knew the custom of a court. I shall carry this no further at present. Of or from your Oxford Correspondent I never again expect to hear, unless indeed he be the same sapient scholar who proposed to reprint Sir John Spelman's Psalter (an Interlinear Gloss) without the Latin text which alone makes the Saxon intelligible. I know not whether he has filled, does fill, or means to fill the Saxon Chair in that University; but from the specimen of his ability which he has supplied in these letters, I can assure him that he is worthy to take his place in the long list of illustrious obscures who have already enjoyed that cheap dignity. His ignorance would have obtained for him the pity of my learned German friends, and of myself; his malice, so happily tempered with impotence, has given him a juster title to that which he has obtained, our contempt. P. S. On some other occasion I shall trouble you with another letter explaining the system upon which our accentuation rests, and by which we are guided, when examining the length or shortness of our vowels. There are some among our scholars, who may not be uninterested in learning what that system is, which has been adopted by us from our conviction of its advantages. At all events, I faithfully promise T. W. that I will not forget the italics of his "honourably lays the blame upon Rask." Probably the preceding pages may have convinced him that I never promise but where I mean to pay. COLLEGE REMINISCENCES OF MR. COLERIDGE. Nov. 19. MR. URBAN, IN the various and numerous memoirs which have been published of the late Mr. Coleridge, I have been surprised at their accuracy in many respects, and at the same time their omission of a very remarkable and a very honourable anecdote in his history. In the memoir of him in your last Number, you do not merely omit, |