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buckler.

He was his patron's parasite, bull-dog, and tool. Such was the ribald, and it is not to be wondered at that the word rapidly became a synonym for everything ruffianly and brutal; and having passed into an epithet, went to swell the already overgrown list of vituperations.

Such are a few of the words with which our language was endowed, in its first rude contact with the French language. Though we find nearer our own times, namely, in the reign of Charles the Second, some accordance of tone with the early feudal period, yet neither in that nor in any other age was there produced such a strain of injurious words, calculated for nothing else but to enable a man to fling indignities at his fellow.

The same period is stigmatised by another bad characteristic, and that is, the facility with which it disparaged good and respectable words.

55. Villan was simply a French class-name, by which a humble order of men was designated; ceorl was a Saxon name of like import: both of these became disparaged at the time we speak of into the injurious sense of villain and churl.

The furious and violent life of that period had every need of relief and relaxation. This was found in the abandonment of revelry and in the counter-stimulant of the gamingtable. The very word revelry, with its cognates to revel, revelling, revellers, are productions of this period. The rage for gambling which distinguished the habits of our NormanFrench rulers is aptly commemorated in the fact that up to the present day the English terms for games of chance are of French extraction. Dice were seen in every hall, and were then called by the same name as now.

Cards, though

a later invention, namely, of the thirteenth or beginning of the fourteenth century, are still appropriately designated by a French name.

56. The fashion of counting by ace, deuce, trey, quart, cink, siz, is French—not modern French, but of the feudal age. We find it in Chaucer, precisely as at present:

Seven is my chance, and thin is cink and treye.

Canterbury Tales, 12,587.

Chance itself is one of those gaming terms, and so is hazard, which was the prominent word in the phraseology of gambling, and accordingly very odious to the moralist. of that day. In the list of vices hasardery comes in next to gluttony, as being that which beset men next after the temptations of the table.

And now that I have spoken of glotonie,
Now wol I you defenden hasardrie.
Hasard is veray moder of lesinges,
And of deceite, and cursed forsweringes.
It is repreve, and contrary of honour,
For to ben hold a common hasardour.

Canterbury Tales, 12,522.

It is a comfort to observe that even a word may outlive a bad reputation. The word hazard, though still a gambling term in the last century, has now little association with disorderly excitement and the thirst for sudden wealth; it suggests to our minds some laudable adventure, or elevates the thought to some of those exalted aims for which men have hazarded their lives. Another word may be cited, which belonged originally to the same ill-conditioned strain, but which time has purified and converted into a picturesque word, no longer a disgrace but an ornament to the language. This is jeopardy, at first a mere excited and interjectional cry, Jeu perdu! game lost! or else, jeu parti! drawn game!but now a wholesome rhetorical word.

It would hardly be fair however to omit mention of the fact that other classes of words were also gained at this

period. Some theological and moral terms of the first quality, such as charity, faith, grace, mercy, peace, belong here; and so also a variety of commercial, legal, heraldic, and political words, as advocate, alliance, arrearage, chattels, custom, demise, devise, domain, fief, fealty, homage, liege, loyalty, manor, meynie, moiety, personalty, pursuit, pursuivant, realty, rent, seisin, serjeant, sovereign, treaty, trover, vouchsafe.

§ 8. Literature of the Transition. Second Period.

57. In this period, which may be rudely defined by the dates 1250-1350, we see strong efforts after a native literature; but desultory and without any centre of their own they hover provincially around the privileged and authoritative languages of French and Latin. They have not among themselves a common or even a leading form of speech. This period has been richly illustrated by the publications of the Early English Text Society.

The first example of the new group is the beautiful poem of Genesis and Exodus. Here the word shall is thus declined: sing. sal, salt; pl. sulen. Also srud for the Saxon scrud, modern shroud; and suuen as a participle of the verb which we now write shove. This speaks for its Anglian character. The date is about A.D. 1250. As a specimen of the language, we may quote the selling of Joseph:

de chapmen skiuden here fare,
in to Egipte ledden dat ware;
wid Putifar de kinges stiward,
he maden swide bigetel forward;
so michel fe dor is hem told;
he hauen him bogt, he hauen sold.

The chapmen hastened their departure,
into Egypt led that chattel;
with Potiphar the king's steward,
they made very profitable bargain;
so much money there is them told;
these have him bought, and those
have sold.

Here the form he represents the Saxon hi, and is equiva

lent to our modern pronoun they. The -n form of the present tense in hauen is a token of midland locality.

Worth quoting also is the butler's narrative of his dream

to Joseph in the prison:

Me drempte ic stod at a win tre,
dat adde waxen buges re.
Orest it blomede and siden bar
de beries ripe, wurd ic war:
de kinges kuppe ic hadde on hond,
de beries or inne me hugte ic
wrong,

and bar it drinken to Pharaon,

me drempte, als ic was wune to don.

I dreamt I stood at a vine-tree
that had waxen boughs three.
Erst it bloomed and then it bare
the berries ripe, as I was ware:
the king's cup I had in hand,
the berries therein me-thought I
wrung,

And bare it to drink to Pharaoh
(I dreamed) as I was wont to do.

At the end of his version of Genesis, the poet speaks of himself and of his work:

God schilde hise sowle fro helle bale
Je made it dus on Engel tale!

God shield his soul from hell-bale that made it thus in English tale!

58. The most facetious of the productions of this period is the poem entitled The Owl and the Nightingale. Its locality is established by internal evidence, as having been written at or near Portesham in Dorsetshire. It is a singular combination of archaic English with ripe wit and mature versification. The forms of words and even the turns of expression recall Mr. Barnes's Poems in the Dorset Dialect. A prominent feature is the frequent use of v where we write f; as vo for foe, vlize flies, vairer fairer, vram from, vor for; but so for vorb for 'so far forth'; ware vore wherefore. The old sc becomes sch, as schaltu, schule, scholde, schonde, schame, schaked, schende, schuniet shunneth, scharp.

The subject is a bitter altercation between the Owl and the Nightingale, such as might naturally be supposed to arise out of the neighbourhood of two creatures not only unlike in their tastes and habits but unequally endowed

with gifts and accomplishments. The following picture of the Owl's attitude as she listens to the Nightingale's song, will afford some taste of the humour as well as of the diction:

pos word azaf þe niztingale,
And after pare longe tale,
He songe so lude and so scharpe,
Rizt so me grulde schille harpe.
pes hule luste pider ward,
And hold hire ezen oper ward,
And sat to suolle and i bolze,
Also ho hadde on frogge i suolze.

These words returned the nightingale,
And after that there long tale,
He sang so loud and so sharp,
As if one trilled a shilly harp.
This owl she listened thitherward,
And held her eyen otherward;
And sat all swollen and out-blown
As if she had swallowed a frog.

This poem is one of the most genuine and original idylls of any age or of any language, and the Englishman who wants an inducement to master the dialects of the thirteenth century, may assure himself of a pleasure when he is able to appreciate this exquisite pastoral. Its date may be somewhere about

A.D. 1280.

59. The student of English will observe with particular interest the series of translations from the French romances which began in the thirteenth century. This was a courtly literature, which was originally written in the courtly French; and the copious translation of this literature is the first sign of the returning tide of the native language. Of these we will first mention The Lay of Havelok the Dane, which is in a midland dialect, but almost as free from strong provincial marks as it is from French words. It uses the sh, as will be seen from the following quotation, in which it is told how Grimsby was founded by Grim :

In Humber Grim bigan to lende,

In Lindeseye, rith at the north ende,
Ther sat is ship up on the sond,
But Grim it drou up to the lond.
And there he made a lite cote,
To him and to hise flote.

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