Among those causes which aided the growth of English, the revival of the study of the common law

people, and how far they were owing to a successive conflux of Danish and Norman invaders.

1. The Saxon Article se, seo, wat,—which answers to the o, й, ro, of the Greeks, in all its varieties of gender, case, and number,-are laid aside, aud instead of it an indeclinable the is prefixed to all sorts of nouns, in all cases, and in both numbers.

2. The Declensions of the Nouns Substantive are reduced from six to one; and instead of a variety of cases in both numbers, they have only a Genitive case Singular, which is uniformly deduced from the Nomative by adding to it es; or only s; if it ended in e feminine; and the same form is used to express the Plural number in all its cases; as, Nom. Shour, Gen. Shoures, Plur. Shoures, Nom. Name, Gen. Names, Plur. Numes.

There are a few exceptions to this principle, which retain their termination in en from the second Declension of the Saxors; as oxen, &c. Others seem to have adopted it from euphony; as brethren, eyren, instead of brodru, aeyru. And a few seem to have been always irregularly declined; as, men, wimmin, mice, lice, feet, &c.

The Nouns Adjective lost all distinction of Gender, Case, or Number.

3. The primitive Pronouns obtain one oblique case in each number: as Ic, or I; We: Obl. Me; us:-Thou; Ye: Obl. Thee; You. He, She: They: (Hi, Hem, and Hir, were used as late as the time of Robert of Gloucester, instead of, Thy, Him, and Their,) Obl. Hem, Him.

The Interrogative and Relative Who, had a Genitive and Accusative case, Whose and Whom, but no variety of Number.

On the contrary, the Demonstrative, This and That, had a Plural expression, Thire, and Tho, (This and Those,) but no variety of case.

The other words, which are often, though improperly, placed in the class of Pronouns, are all undeclinable like the Adjectives.

It may be proper here to take a little notice of the Pronoun, or Pronominal Adjective, Self, which our best grammarians, from Wallis downwards, have attempted to metamorphose into a substantive. In the Saxon language, it is certain that Sylf was declined like other Adjectives, and was joined in construction with Pronouns Personal and Substantives, just as ipse is in Latin.

They said, Ic, Sylf, Ego ipse; Min sylfes, Mei ipsius; Me sylfre, Me ipsium, &c. Petrus sylf, Petrus ipse &c. [See Hickes, Gr. A. S. p. 26.] In the age of Chaucer, self, like other Adjectives, was become undeclined. Though he writes, self, selve, and selven, those varieties do not denote any distinction of

deserves to be mentioned. Through the middle ages, in addition to the study of ancient literature in a for

case or number; for he uses indifferently, himself and himselven: hemself and he mselven.

He joins it with Substantives, in the sense of ipse as the Saxons did. But this great departure from the ancient usage was with respect to the Pronouns Per. sonal prefixed to self. Instead of declining them through the cases which they still retained, he used constantly, My self, for I self, and Me self; Thy self, for Thou self and Thee self; Him self and Hire self, for He self and She self; and in the Plural number, Our self, for We self, and Us self; Your self, for Ye self and You self; and Hem self, for They self.

It would be vain to attempt to defend this practice of Chaucer upon any principles of reason or grammatical analogy. All that can be said for it is, that perhaps any regular practice was preferable to the confusion and uncertainty which seems to have prevailed before. Accordingly, the writers who succeeded him following his example, it became a rule of the English language, that Personal Pronouns prefixed to Self, were only used in one case in each number, viz : those of the First and Second Person in the Genitive case, according to the Saxon form, and those of the Third in the Accusative.

By degrees a custom was introduced of annexing Self to Pronouns in the Singular number only, and Selves, (a corruption of Selven) to those in the Plural. This probably contributed to persuade our late Grammarians that Self was a Substantive; as the true English Adjective does not vary in the Plural number. The metaphysical Substantive Self, of which our more modern Philosophers and l'oels have made so much use, was unknown in the time of Chaucer.

4. The Verbs reduced to the simple state, retained four modes; the Indica. tive, the Imperative, the Subjunctive, and the Infinitive; and only two expres sions of Time, the Present and the Past. All the other varieties of Mode and Time are expressed by Auxiliary Verbs.

In the inflections of the verbs, in the Plural number, the old Saxon form, We loveth, Ye loveth, They loveth, was a long time retained; and the Teutonic forms; We loven, Ye loven, They loven, were occasionally adopted till after the time of Chaucer.

The Saxon termination of the Infinitive in an, changes into en; to loven to liven, &c., when the n is finally dropped; to love, to live.

The Participle of the Present Time; lovende or ande, changed its terinination into ing; though both forms are found some times, used indiscriminately.

5. The indeclinable parts of Speech, remain pure Saxon; a great number undergo a change in the letters that compose them; but the more considerable alterations, by which some are disfigured, are fairly deducible from that propensity to

eign language, the study of the civil and canon law, consequent upon the recovery of the imperial code in the twelfth century, was unfavorable to modern tongues; although this study tended to civilize society, by introducing more correct ideas concerning the nature of government, and by creating a necessity for

abbreviation, for which the inhabitants of the island have been long remarkable. The French Adjectives which had a distinction of Gender and Number, upon this naturalization, were generally stripped of both and reduced to the simple state of the English Adjective, without Case, Gender or Number.

The French Verbs layed aside all their differences of Conjugation. Accorder, soufrir, recevoir, descendre, were regularly changed into-accorden, suffren, receiven, descenden, and these are farther abreviated into-accord, descend, &c.

They brought with them only two Tenses, the Present and the Past; nor did they retain any singularity of Infexion, which could distinguish them from other verbs of Saxon growth.

The Participle of the Past time adopted almost universally, the regular Saxon termination in ed; as accorded, suffred, received, descended. It even frequently assumed the prepositive particle ge ze (or y, as it was latterly written) which among the Saxons was very generally, though not peculiarly, prefixed to the Participle.

Thus it will be seen that the Saxon language was complete in all its parts, and had served for the purposes of discourse, and even of composition in various kinds, long before there was any connection with the French, and there was no necessity nor inducement to alter its original and radical constitution, or even its customary forms. Accordingly, we have just seen, that in all the essential parts of speech, the characteristic features of the Saxon idiom are always preserved; and so far is our language from yielding to, or partaking of the nature of the French idiom, as it is often though unjustly alleged, we shall find upon examination, that the crowd of French words, which from time to time were imported, are them. selves made subject either immediately or by degrees, to the laws of the Saxon idiom,

The words which were thus imported are chiefly Nouns Substantive, Adjectives, Verbs, and Participles. The Adverbs, which are derived from French Aljectives, seem to have been formed from them after they were Anglicised, asthey have all the Saxon termination lich (old Saxon) or ly, instead of the Frenchment. As to the other indeclinable parts of speech, our language, being sufficiently rich in its own stores, has borrowed nothing from France, except perhaps an Interjection or two,

a higher standard of learning in the framing of laws, and the administration of justice, still by giving such a decided direction to the study of jurisprudence and the affairs of state, it proved injurious to polite learning. Its adoption as a scholastic science, thereby rendering a knowledge of it a necessary recommendation to promotion of any kind connected with learning,— even to obtain ecclesiastical dignities,-gave a wrong impulse to the mind. During those ages, society was absorbed with one idea, and its study become universal. It was esteemed the most important branch of study in the plan of academical education, and the study of true science and polite learning being neglected, the mind of those times was absorbed in the study of the law, which was treated with the same spirit of finesse and mysticism which had been carried into theology and philosophy: and thus, overwhelmed with commentaries that disclaimed all elegance of language, it served to exercise the mind only as it afforded materials for framing the flimsy labyrinths of casuistry.

Upon the revival of the common law, this tendency was in part checked; and in the reign of Edward I. a number of writers arose: the law was suddenly perfected, its outlines defined, and its foundations established; and it at once imparted to society an element of stability and regularity.

This was no unimportant element in a confused and fluctuating state of affairs such as then prevailed. This period was employed in effecting that great revolution which changed Europe from its primitive to

its modern state; the elements of society were in constant commotion and nothing was regular or stable. Hence the advantage of an organized institution, the wise and restrictive influences of civil liberty.

This too was almost the only thing that rebuked or tended to allay the spirit of romance and fiction which pervaded every thing. For ages, reason, judgment and taste seemed to slumber for no other purpose than to allow fancy to create a universe for herself, and paint it in her own bright and varied hues. Her boundaries were undefined, her empire undisputed, and the genius of fiction had all the departments of life and all the kingdoms of nature at her command. Not content with clothing every known form with some fairy shape, and exhausting and garnishing this world, it proceeded to imagine new. The passion for romance became universal: the honor of the delightful author outshone the laurel, and the sturdy knight laid aside his mail and trophied lance to administer to the taste for reading romance which was popular and prevalent, alike, among the great, the fair, the learned and the unlearned; the clergy yielded to the passion of the times, laid aside the sacredotal robe, and read, translated and composed. The exercise of the imagination became the great characteristic of the intellect of Europe; it was exercised in every thing, and gave an impulse to all: all life, all religion became a romance. "Prevailing in the established theology it filled heaven with saints: purgatory with sinners: and earth with relics, transubstantiation, heresies, miracles, and monks." History, chemistry, geogra