we should be compelled to conclude that the language had in one part of the country advanced a complete stage beyond the point to which it had attained in another,that the people of the west were still speaking Saxon while those of the eastern counties were speaking English. But, in truth, there is no evidence whatever that the two works are of the same age. The Ormulum, like many other pieces which have been assigned to the twelfth century, is much more probably of the latter part of the thirteenth.* In that case, Layamon and it will belong, according to the arrangement here adopted, to different periods in the history of the language.

The Ormulum, as Mr. Guest urges (Eng. Rhythms, ii. 209) "ought to be published, and all its peculiarities investigated." It is possible that if it were carefully examined throughout, some reference might be detected which would determine its age. Even Ormin's peculiar spelling, in so far as it can be ascertained, might probably be found to have preserved something of the history of the language. If it really was his practice to double the consonant after every vowel having the short or shut sound (as in our modern bad, bed, bid, not, bud), and to leave it single after the long or name sound (as in mate, meet, mite, mote, mute), then from the short

"It may be proper to observe here," says Price, in a note on the First Section of Warton's History,-in which several of these pieces are brought forward, although the Ormulum is not mentioned," that the dates assigned to the several compositions quoted in this Section are extremely arbitrary and uncertain. Judging from internal evidence-a far more satisfactory criterion than Warton's computed age of his MSS.-there is not one which may not safely be referred to the thirteenth century, and by far the greater number to the close of that period."

passage which has been quoted above we should learn that God, thus, till, up, forth, will, his, off, wit, for, edge, back, were probably all pronounced in his day, as at present, with the shut sound; thine, sheep, smite (or smiten), child, with the name sound; that the e in legge (lay) and in the first syllable of seggde (said) was sounded as in our egg; that snith and snath rhymed not to our lith and lath, but to our lithe and lathe; that bun was probably pronounced boon, and don, doon or dun; that toc was called took, and the first syllable of sothe, sooth, as at present; that hoff was probably sounded hofe, or hove; that they probably said, not luffest or lovest (as we do), but loofest or loovest; that an was sounded ain (as in bane); that heart was called hert (not heert), &c. In regard to some other words, we may, perhaps, doubt the accuracy of the MS. or of the transcript; as, for instance, that they should have ever said aind for and, or sometimes hand, sometimes haind; sometimes it, on, with, that, take; sometimes ite, oan, withe, thait, tack; that they should have given some other than the short sound to the vowel in son and in band; that they should have said weal for well, and wait for wat (or wot), and leet for let; and that they should have written in one place right, and in others drihhtenes and nohht,-unless, indeed, these differences, too, were designed to indicate a difference in the sound of the vowel, to give it the name sound in right, and the shut sound in the other two words.

XVI. After the middle of the Thirteenth century, the language assumes the general shape and physiognomy of the English which we now write and speak. It may be called English rough-hewn. The space from about the middle of the Thirteenth to the middle of the Fourteenth century may be designated the Period of Old or (better) Early English.

THIS division would accord sufficiently with the common statement which gives as our earliest specimen of English (as distinguished from Saxon or semi-Saxon) a proclamation of King Henry the Third to the people of Huntingdonshire in 1258. It may be found, with a literal translation interlined, in the 4th vol. of Henry's History of Great Britain (Append. IV.). This historian does not say where he got it. It is printed, from the original preserved among the Patent Rolls in the Tower of London, in the new edition of Rymer's Fœdera.

But this legal paper can scarcely be safely quoted as exhibiting the current language of the time. Like all such documents, it is made up in great part of established phrases of form, many of which had probably become obsolete in ordinary speech and writing. The English of the proclamation of 1258 is much less modern than that of the Ormulum, and fully as Saxon, both in the words and in

the grammar, as any part of Layamon's Chronicle, if not rather more so.

The two principal literary works belonging to this period (that of Early English) are the metrical Chronicles of Robert of Gloucester and of Robert of Brunne.

The Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester was edited by Thomas Hearne in 1724. The writer may be considered as belonging to the first half of the present period it has been shown by Sir Frederic Madden (Introd. to Havelok, lii.) that he must have survived the year 1297. The following passage is doubly curious in reference to the history of the language:—

"Thus come lo! Engelond into Normannes honde,

And the Normans ne couthe speke tho bote her owe speche, And speke French as dude atom, and here chyldren dude al so

teche;

So that heymen of thys lond, that of her blod come,

Holdeth alle thulke speche that hii of hem nome;

Vor bote a man couthe French me tolth of hym wel lute :

Ac lowe men holdeth to Englyss and to her kunde speche

yute.

Ich wene ther ne be man in world contreyes none

That ne holdeth to her kunde speche, bote Engelond one.

Ac wel me wot vor to conne both wel yt ys;

Vor the more that a man con, the more worth he ys." *

That is, in modern words :-Thus came lo! England into Normans' hand. And the Normans not could speak then but their own speech, and spake French as [they] did at home, and their children did all so teach; so that high men of this land, that of their blood come, hold all the same speech that they of them took; for but a man

*Hearne, 364; Harl. MS. 201, fol. 127, ro.

:

know French men tell [reckon] of him well little [bien peu] but low men hold to English and to their natural speech yet. I ween there not be man in world countries none that not holdeth to their natural speech, but England [al-]one. But well I wot for to know both well it is; for the more that a man knows, the more worth he is.

Some of the peculiarities in the language of Robert of Gloucester are probably to be attributed to the dialect he uses being that of the west of England. Robert of Brunne, that is, Bourne, in Lincolnshire, may be assumed to have written in that of the east country. His proper name appears to have been Robert Manning; and he may be placed perhaps half a century later than Robert of Gloucester, according to his own account of himself, in a Prologue to his Chronicle, in which he seems to say that the work was all written in the reign of Edward the Third, or after the year 1327. Hearne (Preface to Robert of Gloucester, lix.) says it was finished in the year 1338. It consists of two parts; the first of which is in octo-syllabic rhyme, and is a translation from Wace's Brut, the same original upon which Layamon worked; the second is in Alexandrine verse, and is translated from a French chronicle recently written by an Englishman, Piers or Peter de Langtoft, a canon regular of St. Austin, at Bridlington in Yorkshire. Only the second part has been printed: it was edited by Hearne in 1725.

Both in his Chronicle and in other works Robert de Brunne distinctly claims to be considered as writing in English; and he is perhaps the earliest writer after the Conquest who uniformly and pointedly gives that name to his language. A few extracts will illustrate this state