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conftrue their Latin leffons into French. From the difcontinuance of this practice, as well as from other caufes, the ufe, and probably the knowledge, of French as a feparate language received a confiderable check. In the 36 year of Edward III. a law (22) was

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and maner of alle other naciouns, beth compelled for to leve her owne langage, and for to conftrewe her leffouns and her thingis a Frenfche, and haveth fiththe that the Normans come firft into England. Alfo gentil mennes children beth "ytanzt for to fpeke Frenfche from the tyme that thei beth "rokked in her cradel, and kunneth fpeke and playe with a "childes brooche; and uplondith men wole likne hem felf to "gentilmen, and fondeth with grete bifyneffe for to fpeke "Frenfche, for to be the more ytold of."-Trevifa. "This "maner was myche yused to fore the first moreyn, and is fith"the fome del ychaungide; for John Cornwaile, a maiftre of 60 grammer, chaungide the lore in grammer fcole and con"ftruction of French into Englisch, and Richard Pencriche "lerned that manerteching of him, and other men ofFencriche; "fo that now the zere of oure Lord a thoufand thre hundred "foure feore and fyve, of the fecunde King Rychard after the "conqueft nyne, in alle the gramer fcoles of Englond children "leveth French, and conftrueth and lerneth an Englisch, and "haveth thereby avauntage in oon fide and defavauntage in another. Her avauntage is, that thei lerneth her gramer in laffe tyme than children were wont to do; defavauntage is, "that now children of gramer scole kunneth no more Frenfcit "" than can her lifte heele; and that is harm for hem, and thei fchul paffe the fee and travaile in ftrange londes, and in many other places alfo: alfo gentilmen haveth now mych ylefte "for to teche her children Frenfch."

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(22) This celebrated ftatute is said by Walfingham [p. 179,] to have been made ad petitionem communitatis; but no fuch petition appears upon the parliament-roll, and it seems rather to have been an act of grace moving from the King, who on the fame day entered into the fiftieth year of his age; unde in "fuo Jubileo populo fuo fe exhibuit gratiofum." Walf. ib. It is remarkable too that the caufe of fummons at the beginning of

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riade that all pleas in the courts of the king, or * of any other lord, fhall be pleaded and judged in "the English tongue;" and the preamble recites; "that the French tongue” (in which they had been ufually pleaded, 5c.) "was too much unknown" or difufed; and yet for near threefcore years after this (23) the proceedings in parliament (with very this parliament was declared by Sir Henry Greene, Chief Ju Rice, en Engleis, (fays the record for the tirll time) and the fame entry is repeated in the records of the parliaments 37 and 38 Edw. III. but not in those of 40 Edw. III. or of any later parlia ment, either because the custom of opening the cause of funmons in French was restored again after that thort interval, or perhaps because the new practice of opening it in English was fo well established (in the opinion of the clerk) as not to need being marked by a special entry. The reafons affigned in the preambie to this ftatute for having pleas and judgments in the English tongue might all have been urged, with at least equal force, for having the laws themfelves in that language; but the times were not yet ripe for that innovation; the Eng Jith feale was clearly beginning to preponderate, but the flowe nefs of its motion proves that it had a great weight to over

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(23) All the parliamentary proceedings in English before 1422, the first of Henry VI. are the few which follow. The confeffion of Thomas Duke of Gloucelter, taken at Calais by Wil liam Rickhill, and recorded in parliament, inter Plac. Coron. 21 Rich. II. n. 9.. It is printed in Tyrrel, v. iii. p. 793.-Some paffages in the depofition of Richard II. printed at the end of Knighton, int. X. Scriptores. The ordinance, between Wile liam Lord the Roos and Robert 'Tirwhitt, Justice of the King's Bench, 13 Hen. IV. n.. 13.-A petition of the Commons with the king's antwer, 2 Hen. V. n. 22.—A provifo in Englith, inferted into a French grant of a disme and quinzeme, 9 Hen V 1. 10. At the beginning of the reign of Henry VI. the two languages feem to have been used indifferently. The fubfidy of Wolle, &c. was granted in English 1 Hen. VI. n. 19. A pro

we exceptions) appear to have been all in French, and the ftatutes continued to be published in the fame language for above one hundred and twenty years, till the 1 of Richard III.

§ 8. From what has been faid I think we may fairly conclude that the English language must have imbibed a ftrong tincture of the French long before the age of Chaucer, and confequently that he ought not to be charged as the importer of words and phrafes which he only used after the example of his predeceffors, and in common with his contemporaries, This was the real fact, and is capable of being demonstrated to any one who will take the trouble of comparing the writings of Chaucer with thofe of Robert of Gloucefter and Robert of Brunne (24),

vifo in French was added by the Commons to the articles for the council of regency, which are in English, ibid. n. 33 Even the royal affent was given to bills in Englith 2 Hen. VI. n. 54. Be it ordeined as it is afked. Be it as it is axed. And again, n. 55.-I have flated this matter fo particularly, in order to thew that when the French language ceafed to be generally understood it was gradually difufed in parliamentary proceedings; and from thence, I think, we may fairly infer that while it was used in those proceedings conftantly and exclufively of the English, it must have been very generally understood.

(24) Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle has been published by Hearne, Oxf. 1724, faithfully, I dare fay, but from incorrect mfl. The author fpeaks of himself [page 560,] as living at the time of the battle of Evetham in 1265; and from another passage [p. 224,] he feems to have lived beyond the year 1278, though his history ends in 1270. See Hearne's Pref. p. 48.- -Robert Manning, of Brunne or Bourn in Lincolnthire, translated into English rhymes, from the French of Robert Goffetefte Bithop of Lincoln, a treatise called Manuel de Pechés, as early as the year 1303. This work of his has never been printed, but is preferved among the Harleian mff. n. 1701, and the Bodleian,

who both lived before him, and with those of 'Sir John Mandeville and Wickliffe, who lived at the fame time with him. If we could for a moment fuppofe the contrary, if we could fuppofe that the English idiom in the age of Chaucer remained pure and une mixed, as it was fpoken in the courts of Alfred or Egbert, and that the French was still a foreign or at leaft a feparate language, I would ask whether it is credible that a poet writing in English upon the moft familiar fubjects would stuf his compofitions with French words and phrafes, which (upon the above fuppofition) must have been unintelligible to the greatest part of his readers? or if he had been fo very abfurd, is it conceivable that he should have immediately become not only the most admired but alfo the most popular writer of his time and country?

PART THE SECOND.

HAVING thus endeavoured to fhew, in oppofition to the ill grounded cenfures of Verftegan and Skinner, that the corruption (or improvement) of the English Language by a mixture of French was not originally n. 2323. He also tranflated from the French an history of England, the first part, or Gefto Britonum, from Mr. Wace, the re mainder, to the death of Ed. I. from Peter of Langtoft. His tranf lation was finished in 1338: the latter part, with fome extracts from the former, was printed by Hearne in 1725 from a single mf.-Sir John Mandeville's Account of his Travels was written in 1356. In the last edition, Lond. 1727, the text is faid to have been formed from a collation of feveral mif. and feems to be tolerably correct:--Wickliffe died in 1384: his tranilation of The New Testament was printed for the first time by Lewis, Lond. 1731. There is an immense catalogue of other works, either really his or afcribed to him, fill extant in mf See his Life by Lewis, and Tanner, Eibl. Brit.

owing to Chaucer, I fhall proceed, in the fecond patt of this Effay, to make fome obfervations upon the moft material peculiarities of that Norman-Saxon dialect which I fuppofe to have prevailed in the age of Chaucer, and which in fubftance remains to this day the Language of England.

§ 1. By what means the French tongue was first introduced and propagated in this island has been fufficiently explained above; but to afcertain with any exactnefs the degrees by which it infinuated itfelf and was ingrafted into the Saxon would be a much more difficult task (25), for want of a regular feries of the writings of approved authors tranfmitted to us by authentick copies. Luckily for us, as our concern is folely with that period when the incorporation of the two Languages was completed, it is of no great importance to determine the precife time at which any word or phrafe became naturalized; and for the fame reafon we have no need to inquire minutely with refpect to the other alterations which the Saxon language in its feveral ftages appears to have undergone, how far they proceeded

⚫ (25) In order to trace with exactnefs the progress of any language, it feems neceffary, 1. that we thould have before us a continued series of authors; 2. that thofe authors should have been approved as having written at least with purity; and, 3. that their writings thould have been exacly copied. In the English Language we have fcarce any authors within the firft century after the conqueft; of thofe who wrote before Chaucer, and whofe writings have been preferved, we have no tefti nony of approbation from their contemporaries or fucceffors; and laffly, the copies of their works which we have received are in general fo full of inaccuracies as to make it often very difficult for us to be affured that we are in poffeflion of the genu ine words of the author.

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