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cation, I cannot but have fome degree of parental fondnefs, it is natural to form conjectures. Those who have been perfuaded to think well of my defign, require that it should fix our language, and put a stop to thofe alterations which time and chance have hitherto been fuffered to make in it without oppofition. With this confequence I will confefs that I flattered myself for a while; but now begin to fear that I have indulged expectation which neither reafon nor experience can jullify. When we fee men grow old and die at a certain time one after another, from century to century, we laugh at the elixir that promises to prolong life to a thousand years, and with equal juftice may the lexicographer be derided, who being able to produce no example of a nation that has preferved their words and phrates from mutability, thall imagine that his dictionary can embalin his language, and fecure it from corruption and decay, that it is in his power to change fublunary nature, or clear the world at once from folly, vanity, and affectation.

With this hope, however, academies have been inftituted, to guard the avenues of their languages, to retain fugitives, and repulfe intruders; but their vigilance and activity have hitherto been vain; founds are too volatile and fubtile for legal rettraints; to enchain fyllables, and to lafh the wind, are equally the undertakings of pride, unwilling to measure its defires by its ftrength. The French language has vitibly changed under the infpection of the academy; the ftile of Amelot's tranflation of father Paul is obferved by Le Courayer to be un peu passè ; and no Italian will maintain, that the diction of any modern writer is not perceptibly different from that of Boccace, Machiavel, or Caro.

Total and fudden transformations of a language feldom happen; conquefts and migrations are now very rare: but there are other caufes of change, which, though low in their operation, and invifible in their progrefs, are perhaps as much fuperiour to human refiftance, as the revolutions of the fky, or intumefcence of the tide. Commerce, however neceffary, however lucrative, as it depraves the manners, corrupts the language; they that have frequent intercourfe with. ftrangers, to whom they endeavour to accommodate themselves, must in time learn a mingled dialect, like the jargon which ferves the traffickers on the Mediterranean and Indian coafts. This will not always be confined to the exchange, the warehouse, or the port, but will be communicated by degrees to other ranks of the people, and be at laft incorporated with the current fpeech:

There are likewife internal caufes equally forcible. The language most likely to continue long without alteration, would be that of a nation raised a little, and but a little, above barbarity, fecluded from ftrangers, and totally employed in procuring the conveniencies of life; either without books, or, like fome of the Mahometan countries, with very few: men thus bufied and unlearned, having only fuch words as common ufe requires, would perhaps long continue to exprefs the fame notions by the fame figns. But no fuch conftancy can be expected in a people polished by arts, and claffed by fubordination, where one part of the community is fuftained and accommodated by the labour of the other. Those who have much leifure to think, will always be enlarging the ftock of ideas, and every increase of knowledge, whether real or fancied, will produce new words or combination of words. When the mind is unchained from neceflity, it will range after convenience; when it is left at large in the fields of speculation, it will shift opinions; as any cuitom is difufed, the words that expreffed it must perish with it; as any opinion grows popular, it will innovate fpeech in the fame proportion as it alters practice.

As by the cultivation of various fciences, a language is amplified, it will be more furnished with words deflected from their original fenfe; the geometrician will talk of a courtier's zenith, or the excentrick virtue of a wild hero, and the

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physician of fanguine expectations and phlegmatick delays. Copioufnefs of fpeech will give opportunities to capricious choice, by which fome words will be preferred and others degraded; viciflitudes of fafhion will enforce the ute of new, or extend the fignification of known terms. The tropes of poetry will make hourly encroachments, and the metaphorical will become the current fenfe : pronunciation will be varied by levity or ignorance, and the pen muft at length comply with the tongue; illiterate writers will at one time or other, by publick infatuation, rife into renown, who, not knowing the original import of words, will ufe them with colloquial licentioufnefs, confound diftinction, and forget propriety. As politenefs increafes, fome expreflions will be confidered as too giofs and vulgar for the delicate, others as too formal and ceremonious for the gay and airy, new phrafes are therefore adopted, which muft for the fame reafons, be in time difmitted. Swift, in his petty treatife on the English language, allows that now words muft fometimes be introduced, but propofed that none fhould be fuffered to become obfolete. But what makes a word obfolete more than general agreement to forbear it? and how fhall it be continued, when it conveys an offenfive idea, or recalled again into the mouths of mankind, when it has once by difufe become unfamiliar, and by unfamiliarity unpleafing.

There is another caufe of alteration more prevalent than any other, which yet in the prefent ftate of the world cannot be obviated. A mixture of two languages will produce a third diftinct from both, and they will always be mixed, where the chief part of education, and the moft confpicuous accomplishment, is fkill in ancient or in foreign tongues. He that has long cultivated another language will find its words and combinations croud upon his memory; and haste and negligence, refinement and affectation, will obtrude borrowed ternis and exotic expreflions.

The great peft of speech is frequency of tranflation. No book was ever turned from one language into another, without imparting fomething of its native idiom; this is the most mifchievous and comprehenfive innovation; fingle words may enter by thousands, and the fabrick of the tongue continue the fame, but new phrafeology changes much at once; it alters not the fingle ftones of the building, but the order of the Columns. If an academy should be established for the cultivation of our ftile, which I, who can never wish to fee dependance multiplied, hope the fpirit of English liberty will hinder or deftroy, let them, inftead of compiling grammars and dictionaries, endeavour, with all their influence, to ftop the licence of tranflators, whofe idlenefs and ignorance, if it be fuffered to proceed, will reduce us to babble a diale&t of France.

If the changes that we fear be thus irrefiftible, what remains but to acquiefce with filence, as in the other infurmountable diftreffes of humanity? it remains that we retard what we cannot repel, that we palliate what we cannot cure. Life may be lengthened by care, though death cannot be ultimately defeated: tongues, like governments, have a natural tendency to degeneration; we have long preferved our conftitution, let us make fome ftruggles for our language.

In hope of giving longevity to that which its own nature forbids to be immortal, I have devoted this book, the labour of years, to the honour of my country, that we may no longer yield the palm of philology to the nations of the continent. The chief glory of every people arifes from its authors: whether I shall add any thing by my own writing to the reputation of English literature, must be left to time: much of my life has been loft under the preffures of disease; much has been trifled away; and much has always been spent in provifion for the day that was pafling over me: but I fhall not think my employment useless or ignoble, if by my afliftance foreign nations, and diftant ages, gain access to the propagators of knowledge, and understand the teachers of truth; if my labours

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afford light to the repofitories of science, and add celebrity to Bacon, to Hooker, to Milton and to Boyle.

When I am animated by this wish, I look with pleasure on my book, however defective, and deliver it to the world with the fpirit of a man that has endeavoured well. That it will immediately become popular I have not promised to myfelf: a few wild blunders, and rifible abfurdities, from which no work of fuch multiplicity was ever free, may for a time furnish folly with laughter, and harden ignorance into contempt; but ufeful diligence will at laft prevail, and there never can be wanting fome who diftinguish defert; who will confider that no dictionary of a living tongue ever can be perfect, fince while it is haftening to publication, fome words are budding, and fome falling away; that a whole life cannot be spent upon fyntax and etymology, and that even a whole life would not be fufficient; that he, whofe defign includes whatever language can express, must often speak of what he does not understand; that a writer will fometimes be hurried by eagerness to the end, and fometimes faint with wearinefs under a task, which Scaliger compares to the labours of the anvil and the mine; that what is obvious is not always known, and what is known is not always prefent; that fudden fits of inadvertency will furprize vigilance, flight avocations will feduce attention, and cafual eclipfes of the mind will darken learning; and that the writer fhall often in vain trace his memory at the moment of need, for that which yesterday he knew with intuitive readiness, and which will come uncalled into his thoughts to-morrow.

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In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewife is performed; and though no book was ever spared out of tenderness to the author, and the world is little folicitous to know whence proceeded the faults of that which it condemns; yet it may gratify curiofity to inform it, that the English Dictionary was written with little afiftance of the learned, and without any patronage of the great; not in the foft obfcurities of retirement, or under the shelter of academick bowers, but amidst inconvenience and distraction, in fickness and in forrow and it may reprefs the triumph of malignant criticism to obferve, that if our language is not here fully difplayed, I have only failed in an attempt which no human powers have hitherto completed. If the lexicons of ancient tongues, now immutably fixed, and comprised in a few volumes, be yet, after the toil of fucceffive ages, inadequate and delufive; if the aggregated knowledge, and co-operating diligence of the Italian academicians, did not fecure them from the cenfure of Beni; if the embodied criticks of France, when fifty years had been fpent upon their work, were obliged to change its oeconomy, and give their fecond edition another form, I may furely be contented without the praise of perfection, which if I could obtain, in this gloom of folitude, what would it avail me? I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please, have funk into the grave, and fuccefs and mifcarriage are empty founds: I therefore difmifs it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from cenfure or from praise,

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THE

HISTORY

OF THE

ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

TH

HOUGH the Britains or Welsh were the firft poffeffors of this ifland, whofe names are recorded, and are therefore in civil history always confidered as the predeceffors of the prefent inhabitants; yet the deduction of the English language from the earliest times of which we have any knowledge to its prefent ftate, requires no mention of them. for we have fo few words, which can, with any probe bility be referied to British roots, that we juftly regard the Saxons and Welf, as nations totally distinct. It has been conjectured, that when the Saxons feized this country, they fuffered the Britains to live among them in a state of vaffalage, employed in the culture of the ground, and other laborious and ignoble fervices. But it is fcarcely poffible, that a nation, however depreffed, fhould have been mixed in confiderable numbers with the Saxons without fome communication of their tongue, and therefore it may, with great realon, be imagined, that thofe, who were not fheltered in the mountains, perifhed by the fword.

The whole fabrick and fcheme of the English language is Gothick or Teutonick : it is a dialect of that tongue, which prevails over all the northern countries of Europe, except those where the Sclavonian is fpoken. Of these languages Dr. Hickes thus exhibited the genealogy.

GOTHIC K.

ANGLO-SAXON, FRANCICE, CIMBRICK,

Dutch, Frifick, English.

German.

Inandick, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish. Of the Gathick, the only monument remain ing is a copy of the gofpels fomewhat mutilated, which, from the filver with which the characters are adorned, is called the filver book. It is now preferved at Upful, and has been twice published. Whether the diction of this venerable manufcript be purely Gothick, has been doubted; it feems however to exhibit the most ancient dizle now to be found of the Teutonic race, and the Saxen, which is the original of the prefent Eng, was either derived from it, or both delcended from fome common parent.

What was the form of the Saxon language when, about the year 450, they first entered

Britain, cannot now be known. They feem te have been a people without learning, and very probably without an alphabet; their speech therefore, having been always cursory and extemporaneous, must have been artlets and unconnected, without any modes of transition or involution of claufes; which abruptness and inconnection may be obferved even in their later writings. This barbarity may be supposed to have continued during their wars with the Brifains, which for a time left them no leiture for folter ftudies; nor is there any reafon for fuppoing it abated, till the year 570, when Auguftine came from Rime to convert them to Christianity. The Chriftian religion always implies or produces a certain degree of civility and learning; they then became by degrees acquainted with the Roman language, and fo gained, from time to time, fome knowledge and elegance, till in three centuries they had formed a language capable of expreffing all the fentiments of a civilifed people, as appears by king Alfred's paraphrafe or imitation of Boethius, and his thort pretace, which I have felected as the firit fpecimen of ancient English.

CAP. I.

ON bene tice be Lotan of Siddi mazhe

pip Romana nice gepin upahopon. mib heona cyningum. Redzora and Єallenica panon hatne. Romane bunig abræcon, and eall Itaha nice pir berpux þar muntum Sicilia dam ealonde in anpaid gepehton. J þa agter bam Fonerpɲecenan cyningum Decdric feng to pam ilean nice re Deodric pæf Amulinga. he per Inisten. peah he on him Annianistan gedpolan Junhpunode. De gehe Romanum hir Freondrcipe. гpa hi mortan heopa ealdrihta pynde beon. Ac he pa gehat side ýfele gelæste. 7 spide prape gcendode mid mangum mane. per to eacan obɲum unanimedum plum. he Iohanner pone papan het ofFlean. Da per rum conful. pe heretoha hatap. Boetius par haten. re per in boc.peftum on popuid bearum re juhtpirerta. Se da ongea ha manigfealdan yfel be re cyning Deodnic pip han Gristenandome pip bam Romanircum pitum dyde. he pa zemunde dana epuerra para eaidrihta Se hi under dam Larenum hærdon heopa caidhlafordum. Da ongan he meagan leonnigan on him relpum he he ice dam popihtpiras

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striran cyninge aferran mihte. on nie ze eaffo'pa and in rihtpisra anpald getningan. Sende pa dizellice ærent gepritu to am Larene to Constantinopolim. þær s Ineca heah bung heora cynestol. For ham re Carene per hecna cynestol. For bam re Carene par becna ealdhlaf nd cynner hædon hine bat he him to heera Iristendome to beori caldriktum gefultumede. Da ongear re palherеopa cyning Deodric Ja het he hine gebungan on cancerne. par inne belucan. Da bi da gelomp pre anpynda par on Fpa celne neapanerre becom pa par he pra micle spin on his Wede gedrefed. spa hir Tad an sidor to ham foruld raibum ungepod par.he da rarne fлone be innan pam cancerne ne zemunde. ac he gepeol pol of dune on pa pony bine astrehte ribe annot. and onmod hine felfne ongan pepan bur ringende cpaþ. CA P. II.

DA bo pe ic precca geo lustberlice rong. real nu heopende singan, mid spi un geradum perdum gerettan. beah i geo hplum gecoplice pande. ac ic nu peperde preende of geradra perda misfo, me ablendan þar unterscopan penuld sælba, y me pa Forletan spa blinène on pir dimme hol. Da bereapedon alcene lustbannerse pa da ic hm afre bets trupode, da pendon hi me brera bee to and me mid calle fromzepitan. To phon sceoldan la mine friend sezzan þæt geral mon pane. hu mag re beon geralig Je de on dam geralbum durhpuman ne

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CAP. III.

DA IC pa dir leob. cprð Boetius, geom. niende arungen harde. Da com dan gan in to me heofencund Hisdom. man munnende od mid his pordum zegrette. & þus cpæþ. Du ne eart þu se mon be on minne reole pane afed gen ned. Ac hponon punde pu mid birrum peruld songum þur spibe zerpenced, buton ic pat þ þu hæffe dana papna to hrabe Forziten de ic pe an reaide. Da clipede se Pisdom cpeb Lepitab nu apingede penuld Fonga of miner begener Mode. forþam ge sind þa mæftan sceapan. Latab hine eft hpconfan to minum lanum. Da eode re Pirdom nean. cpap Boeties. minum breoffiendan geþohte. 7 hit spa mopolilapat hpega upande. adnigde þa minener Moder eagan, and hit fran bliþum pordum. hрæbn hit oncneope his fostermoder, mid dam pe da Mod pih bepende. da gecneop hit spibe rpeotele hir agne moden. par se Birdom be hit lange en tyde i lænde ac hit ongeat his lare spipe totorenne ripe tobɲocenne mid dyrigna hondum hice barran hu gepurde. Ɖa andspynde se Pirdom him rade. † his gingnan hardon hine spa totonenne par pan hi techhodon ht hine callne habban sceoidon. ac hi gegaderiað monipeald dyng on bere fortrupunga. on pam gupe butan heopa hpelc eft to hype bote gecirre:•

Thia may perhaps be confidered as a specimen of the Saxon in its higheft ftate of purity, for here are scarcely any words borrowed from the Roman dialects.

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N the days of Eroude kyng of judee ther was a preft Zacarye by name: of the fort of Abia, and his wyf was of the doughtris of

Aaron and hir name was Elizabeth.

2 An bothe weren jufte bifore God: goynge all the maundementis and justifyingis of the Lord withouten playnt.

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