own. It is only to be wondered at how the Dutch should have done otherwise.

The natural tendency of the western civilization, apart from other influences, would be to shrink from such a use of thou. The French have been led by this feeling, and in all addresses to God they use vous. It is not, therefore, from any radical difference, but only from the effect of circumstances, that the western languages are divided in this matter. A sensitiveness as to the social use of the second pronoun is common to all the nations of the West, but it exhibits itself in unequal degrees. We are influenced by it less than any of the other great languages. We have indeed dropped thou, but we remain tolerably satisfied with you, although we shrink from the use of it where reverence is due. At such times we are sensible of a void in our speech, unless the personage has a title, as your Lordship. Here it is that the pronominal use of Monsieur and Madame in the French language is felt to be so admirable a contrivance. Only, be it noted, that there is a substitution of a thirdperson formula to obviate the awkwardness of the second. This is what all the great languages have done. The German has done it in the directest manner by simply putting they (fie) for you (ihr). Not more direct, but much dryer, is the (now I imagine rather obsolete) Danish fashion of calling a man to his face han, that is, he, as a polite substitute for the second person. It is common in Holberg's Plays. In Italian it is an abstract feminine substantive. But the most ceremonious of all in this matter is the ancient language of chivalry. The philologer who goes no deeper into Spanish, must at least acquaint himself with the formula which it substitutes for the second person. To say vos, that is you, is with them a great familiarity, or even a great insult. At least, in the short

form of os. Something like this exists in Devonshire, where 'I tell ee what' (ee being disrespectfully short for yee) is often heard when altercation is growing dangerous. This is just the yo os digo of the following vivacious interview.

The archbishop had remained, while the ambassador was speaking, dumb with anger and amazement. At last, finding his voice, and starting from his seat in fury, he exclaimed:

"Sirrah1! I tell you that, but for certain respects, I would so chastise you for these words that you have spoken, that I would make you an example to all your kind. I would chastise you, I say; I would make you know to whom you speak in such shameless fashion."

"Sirrah!" replied Smith, in a fury too, and proud of his command of the language which enabled him to retort the insult, "Sirrah! I tell you that I care neither for you nor your threats."

Quitad os! Be off with you!" shouted Quiroga, foaming with rage; "leave the room! away! I say."

66

"If you call me Sirrah," said Smith, "I will call you Sirrah. I will complain to his majesty of this." -J. A. Froude, Reign of Elizabeth, v. 66.

But to return to our table. While the above table indicates great permanence of the personal pronouns in general, it also shows us that this quality is weakest in the third person of both numbers: as between the Saxon and English, it is only in the third person plural that there is a real change. In that place a new word has been admitted to supersede the Saxon hi. It was a demonstrative pronoun, the ancient plural of the word that. In Icelandic and Danish we see the analogous form, and this may partly explain the influence that made our people substitute they for hi. There was most likely a demand for a new word in this place, in consequence of the decay of the old vowelsounds. For a long time he had been the singular and hi the plural; and while this was the state of the pronoun,

1 ""Yo os digo." Sirrah is too mild a word; but we have no full equivalent. "Os" is used by a king to subjects, by a father to children, more rarely by a master to a servant. It is a mark of infinite distance between a superior and inferior. "Dog" would perhaps come nearest to the archbishop's meaning in the present connexion.'-Mr. Froude's note.

there must have been a plain distinction in the sounds of these words which became obliterated as the vowels e and i both underwent vocal modifications. In this predicament the demonstrative was drawn upon, as will be more fully shown in the next section.

But in leaving this for the present, we must notice a kindred point. What is the origin of our affirmative YES? The Saxon form is gese. The former syllable in this word is one of which we can at present give no better account than to call it a particle. But the second member -se looks to some eyes like a part of the demonstrative pronoun, which is declined in the next section. To others it appears like a part of the symbol-verb is. The former view has a certain support from analogies in sister dialects. Thus, in the German of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries we find the affirmative particle ja in combination with pronouns of all persons, genders, and numbers, like any verb!

Jacob Grimm's Deutsche Grammatik, iii. 765.

Grimm does not admit that our ge se is analogous to this Mid-High-Dutch ja er! because it would have to be not ge se but ge he. To this it may be replied, that in proportion as we have evidence that the personal and the demonstrative were nearing one another, so in the same proportion this objection loses its force. It is, I believe, admitted that the French oui is from the Latin hoc-illud (Kitchin's Translation of Brachet, p. 161), and that the affirmative oc of the dialect named the 'Lange d'oc' was just the Latin hoc. But though the pronominal affinity of the affirmatives is in many cases certain, this does not interfere with their relation to the

symbol-verb, for between all these there is much of communism. The further prosecution of this enquiry I leave for the exercise of the young student.

We must now consider the Interrogative and Relative pronouns.

Who, what, and which, with their inflections, of which we retain only two in their place 1, namely, whose and whom, are now both interrogative and relative. But in Saxon they were only interrogative, and not relative. Their change of character took place in the great French period, and was a direct consequence of French example. For that language, in common with all the Romance languages, uses the same sets of pronouns as interrogatives and as relatives.

The Saxon relative system was based upon the demonstrative, and we retain a relic of it in our use of that as a relative. Where we now say that . . . which, the Saxon was that... that (þæt. þæt). We have another interesting

...

relic of this demonstrative-relative in our use of the . . . the in such expressions as, 'the more the merrier.' Our modern relative system is simply an adaptation of the Saxon interrogatives, in imitation of the French. We went even further in this imitation, and combining the definite article with the relative pronoun, after the example of the French lequel, laquelle, we got our old familiar the which :

I will not ouerthrow this citie, for the which thou hast spoken.' Genesis xix. 21.

--

'Ie ne subvertirai point la ville de laquelle tu as parlé.'-La saincte Bible, Rochelle, 1616.

So in the following beautiful stanza :—

'Where making joyous feast theire daies they spent
In perfect love, devoide of hatefull strife,

2 Why, where, when, whence, are indeed inflections of who, what, and they are retained in the language; but they are moved to another place; namely, the company of the adverbs.

D d

Allide with bands of mutuall couplement;
For Triamond had Canacee to wife,

With whom he ledd a long and happie life;
And Cambel tooke Cambina to his fere,

The which as life were to eache other liefe.

So all alike did love, and loved were,

That since their dayes such lovers were not found elsewhere.'
The Faerie Queene, iv. 3. 52.

This change is more than superficial; it amounts to a transposition of internal relations in the fabric of our language. This and other organic changes into which we have been led by French example, must certainly be unperceived by those who go on affirming that the influence of French upon English has been only superficial.

It belongs, however, to the nature of imitations that a large proportion of them are short-lived. They differ from the native growth as cuttings differ from seedlings. Only a reduced number gets well and permanently rooted. We proceed to notice an instance of this.

The relative which, as a personal relative, is no longer used, and it is a well-known peculiarity of the English of our Bible, that it is so common there. Instances of this use are indeed numerous beyond the pages of that version. The following is from a brass in Hutton Church, near Westonsuper-Mare:

Pray for ye soules of Thomas Payne Squier & Elizabeth hyis wiffe which departed ye xvth day of August ye yere of or lord god m.ccccc.xxviij.'

But when this relative is used of persons, it has generally a noun closely antecedent; and a case like the following has the effect of a solecism :

'Of us who is here which cannot very soberly advise his brother? Sir, you must learn to strengthen your faith by that experience which heretofore you have had,' &c.—Richard Hooker, Sermon I, ed. Keble, vol. iii. p. 479.

Instead of this first which we should now put that: 'Of the present company, who is there that cannot very seriously advise his brother?'