Bigan he there for to erthe A litel hus to maken of erthe. That ther-offe speken alle, And so shulen men callen it ay, In Humber Grim began to land, in Lindsey, right at the north end: there sate his ship up on the sand, and Grim it drew up to the land. And there he made a little hut, for himself and for his crew. In order to dwell there, he began to make of earth a little house. And forasmuch as Grim owned that house-place, the homestead caught from Grim its name, so that all who speak of it call it Grimsby; and so shall they call it always between this and Doomsday. As this poem is associated with Lincolnshire, we might expect to find many Danish words in it. But the number of those that can be clearly distinguished as such, is small. Unless it be the verb to call, there is no example in the quotation above. It can hardly be doubted that the Danish population which occupied so much of the Anglian districts must have considerably modified our language. Their influence would probably have been greater, but for the cruel harrying of the North by William the Conqueror. The affinity of the Danish with the Anglian would make it easy for the languages to blend, and the same cause renders it difficult for us to distinguish the Danish contributions. The following short list contains those which I can offer with most confidence as words which have come in through Danish agency. For those who may wish to examine the grounds of this selection the Icelandic forms are added1. 1 Any one who has occasion to institute comparisons between English and Scandinavian, will do well to consult A List of English Words the Etymology of which is illustrated by Comparison with Icelandic. Prepared in the form of an Appendix to Cleasby and Vigfusson's Icelandic-English Dictionary. By the Rev. Walter W. Skeat, M.A. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1876. 60. The three works already noticed are in remarkably pure English. The old inflections are nearly all gone, and so far the language has suffered alteration, but the vocabulary remains almost unmixed with French. But in the Romance of King Alexander, the feature which claims our attention is the working in of French words with the English. This poem was the general favourite before the Romaunt of the Rose superseded it. The French original Rouman d'Alixandre' had been composed about the year 1184. It consists of 20,000 long twelve-syllable lines, a measure which thenceforward became famous in literature, and took the name of Alexandrine,' after this romance. It was Spenser who gave the Alexandrine metre an acknowledged place in English poetry. 6 But the English version with which alone we are here concerned, was made late in the thirteenth century, in a lax tetrameter. Unlike the poem of Havelok, a great proportion of the French words of the original are embodied in this English translation. The two languages do not yet appear blended together, but only mechanically mixed. The follow ing lines will illustrate this crude mixture of French with English : 1. That us telleth the maistres saunz faile. 2. Hy ne ben no more verreyment. 3. And to have horses auenaunt, To hem stalworth and asperaunt. 4. Toppe and rugge, and croupe and cors 61. Now we come to a great original work. The rhyming Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester is a fine specimen of west-country English, which touches the dialect of The Owl and Nightingale at many points:-the infinitives ending in - or -y, or -ie, as conseili to counsel; he wolde susteini he would sustain; he ne let nozt clupie al is folc, he let not call all his folk; duc William uorbed alle his to robby, duke William forbad all his (men) to rob; hoseli to housel; pis noble duc William him let crouny king, this noble duke William made them crown him king. In other points this dialect differs strongly from the Dorset, as exhibited in the Owl and Nightingale. The latter has the initial h very constant in such words as Ich habbe I have, þu havest thou hast, ho hadde she had; whereas in Robert of Gloucester it is adde. He writes is for his, ire for hire (her), om for home. The Dorset, on the other hand, retains the h in hit it; writes the owl down as a 'hule' and a 'houle'; never fails in sh, but rather strengthens it by the spelling sch, as scharpe, schild, schal, schame; whereas the Gloucester dialect eludes the h in such instances, and writes ss, as ssolde should, ssipes ships, ssriue shrive, ssire shire, bissopes bishops; and even Engliss English, Frenss French. 62. The following line offers a good illustration both of 60. The three works already noticed are in remarkably pure English. The old inflections are nearly all gone, and so far the language has suffered alteration, but the vocabulary remains almost unmixed with French. But in the Romance of King Alexander, the feature which claims our attention is the working in of French words with the English. This poem was the general favourite before the Romaunt of the Rose superseded it. The French original 'Rouman d'Alixandre' had been composed about the year 1184. It consists of 20,000 long twelve-syllable lines, a measure which thenceforward became famous in literature, and took the name of Alexandrine,' after this romance. It was Spenser who gave the Alexandrine metre an acknowledged place in English poetry. But the English version with which alone we are here concerned, was made late in the thirteenth century, in a lax tetrameter. Unlike the poem of Havelok, a great proportion of the French words of the original are embodied in this English translation. The two languages do not yet appear blended together, but only mechanically mixed. The follow ing lines will illustrate this crude mixture of French with English : 1. That us telleth the maistres saunz faile. 2. Hy ne ben no more verreyment. 3. And to have horses auenaunt, To hem stalworth and asperaunt. 4. Toppe and rugge, and croupe and cors 61. Now we come to a great original work. The rhyming Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester is a fine specimen of west-country English, which touches the dialect of The Owl and Nightingale at many points:-the infinitives ending in - or -y, or -ie, as conseili to counsel; he wolde susteini he would sustain; he ne let nozt clupie al is folc, he let not call all his folk; duc William uorbed alle his to robby, duke William forbad all his (men) to rob; hoseli to housel; pis noble duc William him let crouny king, this noble duke William made them crown him king. In other points this dialect differs strongly from the Dorset, as exhibited in the Owl and Nightingale. The latter has the initial ʼn very constant in such words as Ich habbe I have, bu havest thou hast, ho hadde she had; whereas in Robert of Gloucester it is adde. He writes is for his, ire for hire (her), om for home. The Dorset, on the other hand, retains the h in hit it; writes the owl down as a ‘hule' and a 'houle'; never fails in sh, but rather strengthens it by the spelling sch, as scharpe, schild, schal, schame; whereas the Gloucester dialect eludes the h in such instances, and writes ss, as ssolde should, ssipes ships, ssriue shrive, ssire shire, bissopes bishops; and even Engliss English, Frenss French. 62. The following line offers a good illustration both of |