ENGLAND AND IRELAND, CHURCH OF. found himself obliged to surrender the right of Investiture. Thus, too, Stephen's usurpation opened the way for further encroachments; and Henry II., who found the power of Rome greatly augmented, helped to extend it further, by accepting a grant of Ireland from the pope. Then followed the opposition of Thomas-à-Becket, which arose out of the question of the punishment of ecclesiastics by the civil power. For the moment, it seemed that the quarrel was healed by the Constitutions agreed on at Clarendon (q. v.), but it broke out more violently than ever. The pope discharged Becket from his oath, and condemned the Constitutions. Becket had fled from the kingdom; and his subsequent return, murder, and canonisation, all tended to strengthen the authority of the church. It was not, however, till the reign of John, when England was laid under an interdict, and the king resigned his crown to the pope, that the papal encroachments rose to their height; and the weak reign of Henry III., which followed, did nothing to abate them. Edward I. gave a check to the power of the clergy, subjected them to taxation, and passed the statute of Mortmain (1279), which prohibited the transfer of land without the king's consent. There is little to be said as to innovations in doctrine during these three centuries; but it may be noted, that about the middle of this period, viz., 1213, the council of St John Lateran declared transubstantiation, or the bodily presence of Christ in the consecrated elements, to be a tenet of the church. It was in 1356 that a new period commenced. Wickliffe then published his first work, entitled The Last Age of the Church, directed against the covetousness of the Church of Rome. His doctrines correspond in many points with those now taught by the Church of England, but he differed from her in regard to the necessity of Episcopacy, which he rejected; he also believed in purgatory, and permitted prayers for the dead. His chief objects of attack were the papal indulgences, and the doctrine of transubstantiation. It has been observed concerning the condemnation at Oxford of Wickliffe's opinions with respect to the latter, that 'this was the first plenary determination of the Church of England in the case, so that this doctrine, which brought so many to the stake, had but with us 140 years' prescription before the times of Martin Luther. In a limited sense, he upheld the efficacy of the seven sacraments. Wickliffe had a large body of followers. They were called Lollards, probably from a German word, lullen, to sing with a low voice. The storm of persecution which he escaped by death, fell upon them. Henry IV. thought it necessary to fortify his usurped position by assisting the bishops against the Lollards; and from this time to the Reformation, there was an uninterrupted succession of confessors and martyrs. Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, was the most illustrious of these sufferers. Fox gives a detailed account of nearly twenty individuals burned for heresy between the death of Lord Cobham and 1509, when Henry VIII. ascended the throne. To some extent, the blood of these martyrs was the seed of the Reformed Church; but we must not overlook the 'hidden seed' which was growing secretly, from the time that Wickliffe gave to his countrymen a translation of the Scriptures in their own tongue. The progress of learning, and especially the study of Greek, led to a better understanding of the sacred books, whilst the invention of printing (1442) caused a wider circulation of them. The above causes, however, would probably have proved insufficient to produce the great change which was now impending, had not Henry VIII's divorce from Catharine of Spain led to a quarrel between him and the pope, which ended in the total abolition of the papal authority within the kingdom. Then began the REFORMATION in earnest. For the details of that great event, consult the article under that head, and the lives of such men as Wolsey, Sir Thomas More, Fisher, Clement, Luther, Cromwell, Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, &c. From this period may be dated the existence of the Church of England as a separate body, and her final separation from Rome. For the opinions of the church in Henry's reign, two important books which were then published should be consulted-viz., the Bishop's Book, or the Godly and Pious Institution of a Christian Man, and the King's Book, which was a republication of the same in a more perfect form in 1543, and called The Necessary Erudition for any Christian Man, and was called the King's Book because put forth by royal authority. A book of Articles devised by the Kinges Highnes Majestie to stablyshe Christen Unitie, should also be consulted. It has been stated in the article ANGLO-CATHOLIC CHURCH, that the reformation in doctrine did not make much progress in Henry's reign; from these books, it will be seen that it was rather retrograde. The monks, too, who were dispossessed at the dissolution of the monasteries, were dispersed amongst local cures, and kept alive the old opinions, and the lower orders were not as yet favourable to the new doctrines. Cranmer was the leader and presiding genius of the Reformed opinions; and the youth of Edward VI. left the king pliant in the hands of the archbishop. The Book of Homilies, put forth in 1540, the New Communion Service and Catechism in 1548, the first Book of Common Prayer in 1549, and the Forty-two Articles in 1553, all bear the impress of his hand, and it was these which advanced and fixed the doctrines of the Reformation. Nor was the temporal authority idle on the same side-Bonner and Gardiner were committed to prison, and both were deprived of their bishoprics. In fact, the way in which all the institutions of the Church of England were established in Edward VI.'s reign by the help of the civil magistrate, have brought upon her the charge of Erastianism. The civil power had just delivered her from a foreign tyranny; and when the weak health of the young king, the known sentiments of his successor, Mary, the ignorance of the common people, and the interested views of the old clergy, are considered, it cannot be a matter of surprise, still less of blame, that the same arm was relied upon for the establishment of the new forms of religion. Although Mary promised at her accession that she would put constraint on no person's religion, her promise was not kept. Bonner and Gardiner were restored; the Book of Common Prayer and Catechism were declared heretical; the kingdom was reconciled to the see of Rome; a persecution of the chief reformers commenced-Rogers was burned at Smithfield, Hooper at Gloucester, Saunders at Coventry, Taylor at Hadley. The prisons were filled with 'heretics;' many fled beyond sea; some purchased safety by an outward conformity. Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley perished in the flames at Oxford. Cardinal Pole was made primate. One benefit was conferred on the church by Mary-she surrendered all the church lands, as well as the first fruits and tenths, which had been seized by Henry. At last the death of Mary, with which that of the cardinal was all but simultaneous, delivered the church from its oppressors. The passing of the Act of Uniformity in the first year of Elizabeth's reign, restored the Common Prayer-book to general use, and enjoined the same dresses as were in use at the time of the first Prayer-book of Edward VI. ENGLAND AND IRELAND, CHURCH OF. All the bishops except one, Kitchin of Llandaff, refused to take the oath of uniformity, and were ejected from their sees to the number of 14 (the eleven remaining sees were vacant by deaths), and 175 other beneficed clergy were deprived for the same cause-no very considerable number, when it is remembered that there were then 9400 benefices in England. There was some difficulty in filling up the vacant bishoprics, and perhaps some slight informalities. Matthew Parker was made Archbishop of Canterbury. For the refutation of the fable of the NAG'S-HEAD CONSECRATION, see the article under that head. In 1562, the Thirty-nine Articles were finally reviewed and subscribed. These, with the Book of Common Prayer, are the tests of orthodoxy in the Church of England. But what was done to satisfy the scruples of Protestant nonconformists ? An attempt in this direction was made in the reign of James I. at the HAMPTON COURT CONFERENCE (q. v.). The result was another review of the Common Prayerbook; and this, with the new translation of the Bible, and the passing of the canons of 1604, were the principal ecclesiastical events of James's reign. These canons received the sanction of the crown, but not that of parliament; they are not, therefore, binding on the laity, but they are still binding on the clergy to some extent, and they regulate the practice of the ecclesiastical courts, and are the only rule, on some points, to which the bishops and clergy can appeal. See the articles LAUD and CHURCH OF SCOTLAND for the events of Charles I.'s reign. The great rebellion overthrew both church and state. The bishops were declared 'delinquents,' robbed of their property, and abolished; and the clergy were ejected from their benefices. Laud was put to death in 1645. The Church of England had no corporate existence during this interval. With the restoration of the monarchy, 1660, came the restoration of the church. The reaction from Puritanism to Prelacy was complete. Attempts were made, but with small success, to win over the Puritan leaders; bishoprics were offered to Baxter, Calamy, and Reynolds; but the last only accepted. The SAVOY CONFERENCE (q. v.) was an unsuccessful, perhaps insincere attempt to comprehend the nonconformists in the Established Church. But the demands of the Presbyterians were most immoderate. Baxter went so far as to propose the substitution of an entirely new book of his own composition, in the place of the Common Prayer-book. After the failure of the Savoy Conference, this was once more reviewed; and a new Act of Uniformity in 1662 made its use, as it now stands, compulsory in all the churches. landed in England. It is worthy of remark, that out of these seven bishops three refused to swear allegiance to him, and were joined by a considerable number of the clergy; these were called Nonjurors. In the first year of William and Mary's reign, the Toleration Act was passed, and dissent ceased to be illegal. Another attempt was made to comprehend the nonconformists in the church, but the lower house of Convocation was in no tolerant mood, and the attempt failed, but chiefly in consequence of the disturbances in Scotland. In 1717, Convocation was dissolved. After slumbering for nearly 140 years, it has been once more called into life and action in the province of Canterbury. See the article CONVOCATIONS. That the Church of England, after fighting for its very existence against popery on the one hand, and against Puritanism on the other, should have subsided into inactivity during the dull reigns of the Georges, is less a matter of surprise than of regret. The peaceful enjoyment of her temporalities in a dull, irreligious, not to say infidel age, may easily account for, though it cannot excuse, her idleness. But that in the rise of John Wesley, 1730, she should have failed to see a grand opportunity for herself, is a matter of both surprise and regret; she, however, let it pass; nor can she hope that such another will ever again present itself. The utmost that can be hoped is, that she has seen her error. The next important event in the history of the church is the Act of Union, which came into effect on the 1st of January 1801, and united the churches of England and Ireland in all matters of doctrine, worship, and discipline. The Reformation had made some progress in Ireland under Edward VI. Five Protestant bishops were appointed in 1550, and the English Bible and Liturgy were introduced in 1551; but from a variety of causes, the Reformed doctrines have never found much acceptance with the native population; and although a Protestant church was established by law, it was and is the church of the minority (see IRELAND). In 1635, the English Articles were received; and in 1662, the English Book of Common Prayer was adopted by convocation. Before the political union of the countries, the two churches were in full communion. By an act of the imperial parliament in 1833, ten of the Irish bishoprics were suppressed, and the funds thus obtained were applied to the augmentation of small livings and the building and repair of churches. There are now twelve Irish bishops. In later times, two great controversies have shaken the English Church, but have led to nothing more than some internal divisions, and the The Church of England passed through one more secession of some members to Rome, and a few to critical period before reaching that tranquillity in the ranks of dissent. These were the Tractarian which, for upwards of a century, she slumbered too and the Gorham controversies. The former was securely. In 1687, James II. published the famous occasioned by some Tracts which began to be Declaration of Indulgence, which filled up the published at Oxford in 1833, the object of which measure of popular discontent, and finally cost him was to revive something of the spirit of Catholic his crown. Although by this declaration, which antiquity, and reform the abuses and slovenly was perfectly illegal, liberty of conscience was per- practices which had crept into every part of the mitted to all his subjects, it was clearly understood church system. See TRACTS FOR THE TIMES. The that the liberty was intended only for the papists. Gorham Controversy (q. v.) related to the doctrine The nonconformists refused to accept the treacher- of baptismal regeneration. The Tractarians are ous boon. Eighteen bishops out of twenty-five accused of Romanising tendencies; and their views, refused to publish the declaration, as ordered, in when carried to extremes, undoubtedly lead in their dioceses. Seven of them-Sancroft, Lloyd, that direction, as is proved by the numerous Ken, Turner, Lake, White, and Trelawny-drew up secessions to that church. With the extreme Low a remonstrance to the king; they were summoned Church party, Episcopacy is rather an expedient before the privy council, and sent to the Tower. than a necessary form of church government. They The whole city was in commotion; and great was think but little of the efficacy of sacraments, and the rejoicing when, on being brought to trial in deny that regeneration necessarily takes place in Westminster Hall, they were acquitted. On the 5th infant baptism. Justification by faith, the atoneof November following, 1688, the Prince of Orangement of the cross, and the Calvinistic doctrines on ENGLANTÉ ENGLISH. election, are their leading topics in preaching. See the life of SIMEON and of VENN for the views of this party. as What are called BROAD CHURCH views, are those which are attributed to men of the Arnold school, and the followers of Mr Maurice (q. v.). Those who hold them can scarcely be called a party, and are, indeed, unwilling to be so considered; but if their position must be defined, they might be described a party between, and somewhat antagonistic to, both the High and Low Church parties. The High Church party insist on the authority of the church and priesthood, the efficacy of sacraments when rightly received, and the necessity of apostolical succession in the matter of orders, and in their general teaching they take the Prayer-book as the exponent of Scripture. They are scrupulous in observing the rubrics, and have done much to revive the practice of daily prayer in the churches, and the observance of the festivals. Order, unity, antiquity, and catholicity are what they profess to have in view. 6 fabric, and the warming, lighting, cleaning, &c., of The The patronage of the church is in a great variety of hands-in the crown, the bishops, the nobles and gentry, and incorporate bodies such as colleges and cathedrals. Advowsons and next presentations may be sold as property, but a presentation may not be sold when a living is vacant. A clergyman is presented to his living by the patron, he is inducted by the bishop or his appointee; he must read himself in,' i. e., he must read the Thirty-nine Articles after the morning or evening prayer within two months after induction. The Episcopal Church in Scotland is not in union with that of England. The above sketch has been largely drawn from Short's excellent History of the Church of England; see also Marsden's able Dictionary of Christian Churches and Sects, and Hardwick; also Fuller's Church History, Collier, Strype, Mosheim, Burnet, and Clarendon. Among the great divines whose works should be consulted for further information regarding the views of the church, may be named Barrow, Pearson, Hooker, Jeremy Taylor, Lightfoot, Hammond, Sancroft, South, Tillotson, Bishop Butler, Atterbury, Bull, Sherlock, and others. ENGLANTÉ, in Heraldry, is bearing acorns or other similar glands. There are at present, in round numbers, 11,730 benefices in England and Wales, of which 1260 are new districts, which are being continually formed out of the old large and overpopulous parishes. Various acts of legislation have of late years facilitated this. These districts are called perpetual curacies, or incumbencies, and for the most part are but very slenderly endowed. The old benefices are either rectories, where the incumbent receives the great or corn tithes, or vicarages, where he receives the small tithe only. The great tithes had anciently been bestowed upon the neighbouring monasteries, who undertook the cure of the souls, and appointed vicars for the purpose, who lived on the small tithes and the offerings of the people. At the dissolution of the monasteries, many of the great tithes were given to laymen, and laymen now extensively hold them, and some to endowed colleges. There are two popular errors with respect to church property: one is, that the endowments were in some way made by the state; the other, that they are very rich. Neither of these is the case. The endowments were all by private beneficence, and there is no tenure so ancient as that by which the parish church holds her property. In the aggregate, the amount is very large, and was ascertained by the commission appointed in 1830 to be as follows: Bishops, £181,631; deans and chapters, £360,095; parochial clergy, £3,251,159: total annual revenue, £3,792,885. The revenues of the Irish branch are stated at £1,000,000, but this is probably in excess of the truth. Since 1830, the English revenues must have rather increased from private beneficence and the increase in the value of property. Divided equally amongst the whole number of benefices, this would give an average of less than £300 per annum for the joint support of incumbent and curates. It appears, from the last census, that there are in England and Wales 14,077 churches or chapels, served by E'NGLISH, forms the first part of several 17,320 ministers, or 123 ministers to every 100 geographical names.-1. English Cove is a bay buildings. The fixed character of the church of the Pacific Ocean, on the south-west coast of endowments, and their generally substantial build- New Ireland, in lat. 4° 54′ S., and long. 152° 35′ E. ings, have secured for the poorest and the most-2. English Harbour, on the south side of sequestered, and sometimes the most populous Antigua, is one of the best havens in the West neighbourhoods, from which wealth and civilisation Indies. It is situated in lat. 17° 3′ N., and long. have emigrated, at least a nucleus, and often a 61° 45′ W.-3. English Harbour is on the Pacific fruitful seed of moral and religious improvement; shore of Costa Rica, in Central America, lying in whilst the fixity of the church doctrines has been a lat. 8° 50′ N., and long. 83° 55′ W.-4. English standard of truth to restrain the license of individual River is an estuary on the west side of Delagoa opinion. The church rates, amounting to £500,000 Bay, an inlet of the Indian Ocean, in Africa. It annually, are no part of the ministers' endowment; is about lat. 25° 58′ S., and long. 32° 36′ E.— they are collected from time immemorial, and 5. English River, otherwise known as Mississippi or exclusively devoted to the repairs of the church Great Water, enters Hudson's Bay from the west, E'NGLESHERY, E'NGLESBURY, i. e., being an Englishman. The presentment of Engleshery is thus explained, Hale's Pl. of Crown, p. 446: Anciently, there was a law introduced by Canutus the Dane, that if any man were slain in the fields, and the manslayer were unknown, and could not be taken, the township where he was slain should be amerced to sixty-six marks; and if it were not unless it could be made appear before the coroner, sufficient to pay it, the hundred should be charged, upon the view of the body, that the party slain was an Englishman; and this making it appear was various according to the custom of several places, but most ordinarily it was by the testimony of two males of the part of the father of him that was slain, and by two females of the part of his law. Presentment of Engleshery was taken away mother.' William the Conqueror continued this 21 Edw. III. st. 1, c. 4. ENGLISH CHANNEL-ENGLISH LANGUAGE. at Fort Churchill, about lat. 59° N. and long. 94° W., after an estimated course of 630 miles. ENGLISH or BRITISH CHANNEL (La Manche or the Sleeve of the French, and the Oceanus Britannicus of the Romans) is the narrow sea which separates England and France, having on the north the English counties of Kent, Sussex, Hants, Dorset, Devon, and Cornwall; and on the south the French provinces of Artois, Picardy, Normandy, and Bretagne. On the east, it joins the North Sea, at the Strait of Dover, where it is narrowest, being only 21 miles wide from Dover to Cape Grisnez. From this strait it runs westsouth-west for 280 miles, and joins the Atlantic Ocean at the Chops, with a breadth of 100 miles between the Scilly Isles and Ushant Isle. With an average breadth of 70 miles, it is 90 miles wide from Brighton to Havre; 60 miles from Portland Point to Cape La Hague; 140 miles-its greatest breadth-from Sidmouth to St Malo; and 100 to 110 miles west of the latter line. It occupies 23,900 square geographical miles, and includes the Scilly Isles, Channel Isles, Ushant Isle, Isle of Wight, and many islets and rocks, especially off the coast of Bretagne. It is shallowest at the Strait of Dover, where a chalk-ridge at the depth of twelve to thirty fathoms joins England and France. West of this, it deepens to sixty fathoms, with some banks at three to five fathoms, and some hollows five to thirty fathoms deeper than the parts around. A coarse gravel covers the bottom. The English coast-line of the E. C. is 390 miles long, with an inshore depth of twelve to fifty-five fathoms, and the French coast-line of the E. C. is 570 miles long. Westerly winds prevail in the E. C., and the current, though imperceptible, is always from west to east. The E. C. abounds in fish, of which the chief are pilchard, mackerel, and oysters. ENGLISH CONSTITUTION. MENT. See PARLIA three words of Latin origin in the Lord's Prayer. ENGLISH DRA'MA. See DRAMA. ENGLISH LANGUAGE, which is now spoken by upwards of 50 millions of the earth's inhabitants, is in its vocabulary one of the most heterogeneous that ever existed; a fact, the causes of which are to be traced in the history of England (q. v.). Its composition and grammatical character are thus described by M. Müller in his Lectures on the Science of Language (1861). There is, perhaps, no language so full of words evidently derived from the most distant sources as English. Every country of the globe seems to have brought some As early as the 5th c., Teutonic invaders from of its verbal manufactures to the intellectual the continent settled in this country, and drove the market of England. Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Celtic, original Celtic-speaking inhabitants to the north Saxon, Danish, French, Spanish, Italian, German and west of the island; so that before the battle of -nay, even Hindustani, Malay, and Chinese words Hastings (1066), the Anglo-Saxon tongue had been -lie mixed together in the English dictionary. spoken in England for at least 600 years. The final On the evidence of words alone, it would be absorption, after a long conflict, by the kings of impossible to classify English with any other of Wessex, or West Saxons, of the various portions the established stocks and stems of human speech. of the Heptarchy, in the 9th c., went far to make Leaving out of consideration the smaller ingre- the ruling speech of the land identical with that dients, we find, on_comparing the Teutonic with of Berkshire and Hants, the recognised centre of the Latin, or Neo-Latin, or Norman elements in the predominant sept. The use, besides, of this English, that the latter have a decided majority Southern Anglo-Teuton speech as the instrument over the home-grown Saxon terms. This may of literary communication, was permanently conseem incredible; and if we simply took a page of firmed by King Alfred, a native of Berks. Further any English book, and counted therein the words back than the time of this literary monarch, few of purely Saxon and Latin origin, the majority existing remains of the language permit us to go; would be no doubt on the Saxon side. The yet, from the writings of Cadmon, who was a articles, pronouns, prepositions, and auxiliary verbs, all of which are of Saxon growth, occur over and over again in one and the same page. Thus, Hickes maintained that nine-tenths of the English dictionary were Saxon, because there were only In tracing the growth of the English language, the history is usually divided into four leading periods: the Anglo-Saxon Period (449 A.D.-1066 ̧ A.D.); the Semi-Saxon Period (from 1066 A. D.— 1250 A. D.); the Early English Period, comprising the two periods of Old and Middle English (from 1250 A. D.-1550 A. D.); and the Modern English Period (from 1550 A.D. to the present time). North Anglian, and a few ecclesiastical MSS. of the kingdom of Northumbria, which extended from the Humber to the Firth of Forth, it has been generally concluded that at least two dialectical peculiarities must have existed in the island-a ENGLISH LANGUAGE-ENGLISH LITERATURE. inflections, which the English has contrived to get rid of. It prefers to express the various modifications of an idea by some relational word or words attached to the leading idea. During the SemiSaxon period, as we have seen, the verbs suffered much less inflectional change than the substantives and adjectives; this will be found to hold throughout the entire 250 years of the era of reconstruction. In the fine poem of The Owl and the Nightingale, the Anglo-Saxon vowels a, e, u, in final syllables, are all represented by e, and the final n of the infinitive is beginning to disappear. In the Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester, we encounter, besides, a great number of French words, which had gradually become familiar to the people, through the presence of their Norman masters. The presence of French is, besides, very noticeable in the poetry of Chaucer and Gower. What fear could not accomplish, literary respect produced; for it is no doubt to the literary men of England, rather than to its masters, that we owe so large an admixture of French expressions and of French terminology. Our first complete translation of the Bible belongs to this period._ Piers Plowman has but few French words, while Lydgate and Bishop Peacock have too many; and More's Edward V. (1509), and the Nut Brown Maid (1500), are comparatively modern in their style and tone. As to Scotland, again, in the Anglian counties lying south of the Forth, the language in all respects was similar to its more southern neighbour, and underwent such northern and a southern one. The Anglian or Northern dialect, it has been presumed, was, to some extent, marked with Scandinavian features; while the Saxon or Southern dialect was more purely Low-Germanic, though the Anglian was also Low-Germanic in all essentials. Some have accounted for the partial approximation of the Anglian dialect to Scandinavian by the fact that the Danes, at a later period, effected a settlement in the north-east of England; but, on the other hand, it is argued that certain peculiarities of a Scandinavian character are to be found in the Anglian, even of a date anterior to the first Danish occupation of a part of England in the latter half of the ninth century.' Some philologers, again, insist on distributing the Anglo-Saxon language into more dialects than two; but it will be sufficient if the reader bear in mind the two which have been mentioned. Now, the question arises, which of the dialects of the Anglo-Saxon is specifically the parent of the English tongue? Two answers have been given to this question. It has been alleged that after the Norman Conquest, the classical Saxon of Wessex lost its temporary supremacy, and gradually gave way to a different dialect-namely, that of the Midland counties of England. This was the district where the universities sprung up, and where the rich monasteries and other religious foundations took their rise; and in support of this theory, it is argued by competent scholars, that the dialect which is most closely allied to the standard English of our day is that of Northamp-changes as we have noted in its more Saxon comtonshire and some neighbouring counties. On the other hand, it has been maintained by no less an authority than Sir Frederick Madden, and his conclusion seems not unlikely, that we must look for the real groundwork of our language in a gradual coalescence of nearly all the leading dialects of England. See his edition of Layamon's Brut, 1847. The period known as Semi-Saxon, in the history of our English tongue, dates from about the Conquest until near the middle of the 13th century. This was a transition era, and, like every era of the kind, one of confusion, both to those using the language, and to those desirous of tracing its history. The monks of the time, accustomed to the use of medieval Latin, had in a great measure forgotten the grammar of the Anglo-Saxon language; and In the Modern English Period, says Professor when they attempted to write their mother-tongue, Spalding, the organisation of the English language did so very badly. In fact, their language is just may be said to be complete. The laws determining ungrammatical Anglo-Saxon, and very probably had the changes to be made on words, and regulating its counterpart in the usus loquendi of the common the grammatical structure of sentences, had been people. The Saxon Chronicle, as it is called, which definitively fixed, and were generally obeyed; all bears date 1173, and Layamon's Brut, about 1190 that had still to be gained in this particular, was an or 1200, exhibit traces of the breaking-up of the increase of ease and dexterity in the application of Anglo-Saxon. The inflections and genders of the the rules. The vocabulary, doubtless, was not so substantives, the definite and indefinite declensions far advanced. It was receiving constant accesof adjectives, are for the most part disregarded; a sions; and the three-and-a-half centuries that have marked partiality is shewn for weak preterites and since elapsed, have increased our stock of words participles; there is a constant substitution of en for immensely. But this is a process which is still on in the plurals of verbs; and the final e is often going on, and which never comes to a stop in the discarded; besides a great uncertainty prevailing speech of any people; and the grammar being once in the government of prepositions. As regards the thoroughly founded, the effects of glossarial changes Semi-Saxon vocabulary itself, although employed are only secondary, until the time arrives when in literature a century and a half after the Norman they co-operate with other causes in breaking up a Conquest, it exhibits but few traces of Norman-language altogether.'-For further information, the French; proving beyond question, that the immediate effects of that great change were by no means so important on the Anglo-Saxon tongue as they were at one time believed to have been. When we come to the Early English Period, we have escaped most of the perplexities which attach themselves to the Semi-Saxon era of our language. The principles of the English tongue now assert themselves actively in contrast with those of its Teutonic origin. The Anglo-Saxon was rich in peer. Barbour, a Scottish contemporary of Chaucer, wrote purer English than Chaucer did, and his poems resembled in a striking degree the homely phraseology of Piers Plowman. Regarding the north-eastern dialects of Scotland, some diversity of opinion exists. Some antiquaries are of opinion, that the large infusion of Norse or Scandinavian elements in these dialects is to be accounted for by the fact of a Norwegian kingdom having been maintained in the east of Scotland during the 11th c. for a period of thirty years; while others allege with more probability, that the language of the north-east of Scotland is as decidedly AngloSaxon in its form and substance as that of Norfolk or Yorkshire. reader is referred to such accessible works as those of Latham, Craik, and Spalding. ENGLISH LITERATURE, like every other mental product, is qualified by the history of the nation to which it belongs. The great social eras of a country's history have always been found to correspond with the great intellectual eras of her growth. It will, however, be sufficient for our purpose to arrange the literary annals of England into three periods: 1. The period antecedent to the |