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A survey of English nouns would indeed be deficient which should omit that curt, stunt, slang element to which we as a nation are so remarkably prone, and in regard to which we stand in such contrast with our adoptive sister. The French language shrinks from such things as it were from an indecorum. Our public-school and university life is a great wellhead of new and irresponsible words. Gradually they find their way into literature. For example:-

chaff.

'He wishes to confound the whole school of those who think that a faith is to be tested by the inward experience of life. And so he sets himself to overwhelm Mr. Hughes with ridicule, rioting in that kind of banter vulgarly described as "chaff," and bringing up against him the stock difficulties which can always be cast in the way of belief.'-J. Llewelyn Davies, The Gospel and Modern Life, p. xviii.

And as such words in shoals proceed from the gatheringplaces of young Saxons, so also a kindred work is being achieved by that young Saxon world which lives beyond the western main. It almost seems as if they, or a certain school among them, were bent on raising a standard of rebellion, and were resolved to dispute that superiority which the classic tongues have so long exercised over our barbarian language. Nothing in American literature bears such a stamp of originality and determination as those writings in which reverence for antiquity is utterly cast aside, and their old obedience to the King's English is thrown to the winds. The genial and suasive satire of the Biglow Papers, as well as the mocking horse-laugh of Hans Breitmann, are at one in their contemptuous rejection of the old senatorial dignity of language. It is in both cases an audacious renunciation of the long captivity in which our speech and literature have been held under classic sway, and it seems to us at first sight as little less than an impudent assertion of the prior claims

of familiarity and barbarism. But it cannot be denied that Mr. Lowell has practically demonstrated the power of mind over matter, the power of resolution over restraint, the superiority of thought in literature over every conventional limit that can be imposed upon the forms of expression. It

is an assertion of the natural freedom of dialect and language and diction. Who, with any feeling for humour, can refuse to condone the literary audacity of the following? Nay, who can refuse to it a certain degree of admiration?

'I've noticed thet each half-baked scheme's abettors
Are in the habbit o' producin' letters,

Writ by all sorts o' never-heerd-on fellers
'Bout as oridgenal ez the wind in bellers;

I've noticed tu, it's the quack med'cines gits
(An' needs) the grettest heap o' stiffykits.'

Or who with any love of nature can let the dialect blind him to the burst of real poetry that there is in this description of the New England spring, 'that gives one leap from April into June'?

Then all comes crowdin' in; afore you think

The oak-buds mist the side-hill woods with pink,
The cat-bird in the laylock bush is loud,
The orchards turn to heaps o' rosy cloud,
In ellum-shrouds the flashin' hangbird clings,
An' for the summer vy'ge his hammock slings,
All down the loose-walled lanes in archin' bowers ·
The barb'ry droops its strings o' golden flowers.
'Nuff sed, June's bridesman, poet o' the year,
Gladness on wings, the bobolink is here;
Half hid in tip-top apple blooms he swings
Or climbs against the breeze with quivering wings,
Or givin' way to 't in a mock despair

Runs down, a brook o' laughter, thru the air.'

Mr. Lowell's dialect is the true Yankee, the speech of the Northern farmer. It is difficult to believe that Mr. Leland's poetry represents any existing form of speech, but it is described as Pennsylvanian German.

Inflection of Substantives.

This consists almost entirely of the letter s attached to the noun for the expression of the genitive singular: and the same letter does duty for the plural. The latter feature is due to French influence. There was in Saxon a group of masculine nouns which made its plural in -as. Thus :

:

[blocks in formation]

This old plural s is one of the points by which our nearness to the Moso-Gothic is indicated. In that dialect the s plural has a very much larger incidence than in AngloSaxon. In fact it applies to all the masculine and feminine nouns of the dialect. In the Old- and Middle-High German it is untraceable. In the Scandinavian dialects it is represented by R. In the Old-Saxon alone (besides the MosoGothic) do we find the plural s: there it holds much the same sort of place as in Anglo-Saxon.

The Saxon influence of this plural will not be highly esteemed, when it is considered that of the nine Anglo-Saxon declensions made by Rask, this group occupies only one. The really dominant plural-form in Saxon times was that in -an, which later was written -en and -yn. Out of Rask's nine declensions three formed their plurals thus, one for each gender. Of these we still retain some little relics, as in the plural oxen. To this we may add the form eyne for eyes, which is not altogether obsolete. It is occasionally used even now in the higher forms of poetry. In Chaucer's time

it was spelt eyen, which comes nearer to the Saxon eagan. Thus, in the description of the Monk

'His eyen stepe and rollyng in his hed.'

In the northern dialect it appeared as ene. Thus in the Troy Book, 3821:

'Grete ene and gray, with a grym loke.'

Of another hero it is said, 3969:

All the borders blake of his bright ene.'

To this we might add the form shoon, for shoes, as being within the horizon of our reading if not of our speaking or writing. It is however extant in Scotch, as spoken.

'We will not leaue one Lord, one Gentleman :
Spare none, but such as go in clouted sbooen.'

2 Henry VI. iv. 2. 178.

Spenser has fone, meaning foes.

'Great Gormond, having with huge mightinesse
Ireland subdewd, and therein fixt his throne,
Like a swift Otter, fell through emptinesse,
Shall overswim the sea, with many one

Of his Norveyses, to assist the Britons fone.'

Faerie Queene, iii. 3. 33.

We have indeed other plurals in -en; but they are younger than Saxon times. They are a proof of the power to which this form had arrived, and they indicate that, had not a stronger external influence interfered, the plural -en would have become as general in modern English, as it is in modern German. Such forms are brethren, children, housen (Gloucestershire and Suffolk), hosen. The latter word is in our Bible, Daniel iii. 21. Mr. Barnes's Poems in the Dorset Dialect supply others, as cheesen, furzen.

Of these, the first two, bretheren and children, are cumulate plurals. They have added the -en plural-form on to an elder

plural; for brether and childer were plurals of 'brother' and 'child.' The form sisteryn is likewise found, as 'bretheryn and sisteryn1.' The form sistren is said to be in full use in America, in the phraseology of the meeting-house, as the counterpart of brethren. Another kind of cumulation sometimes takes place. The modern s gets added to the old N. In the passage just quoted from 2 Henry VI. the First and Second Folios have shooen, the Third has shoon, and the Fourth has shoons! With this may be classed the Norfolk boy-expression for birds' nests, which is buds' nesens.

It was by the French influence, leading the van of education for three centuries, that the plural in s, which held so small a place in Saxon grammar, became the all but universal law of English grammar.

Other plural-forms deserve a word of notice. The plurals feet, geese, men, teeth, made by internal vowel-change from foot, goose, man, tooth, as strong verbs make their preterites; the forms lice, mice, mere frenchified orthographies of the Saxon plurals lys (from singular lus) and mys (from singular mus),— are relics of an ancient class, never numerous within recorded knowledge, but which has been reduced by the domination of the prevalent forms. Thus, cu (cow) once had its plural cy, a form which survives in the Scotch kye; but with us it has been assimilated to the plurals in N, or else infected with the word swine, and has been converted into kine. So boc had for its plural bec, but now it is books. We also meet with gayte in the transition period as a plural of goat (Pricke of Conscience, 6134), and geet (Camden Society's Political Songs). Here also we get the cumulate plural. Even if kine is not to be so regarded, yet certainly we have

1 The Will of Dame Jane Lady Barre, 1484, printed in A Memoir of the Manor of Bitton, by the Rev. H. T. Ellacombe, sometime Vicar of Bitton.

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