from the natural mutability of human fpeech (efpecially among an unlearned people) and how far they were owing to a fucceffive conflux of Danish and Norman invaders.

§ 2. The following obfervations, therefore, will chiefly refer to the state in which the English Language appears to have been about the time of Chaucer, and they will naturally divide themfelves into two parts: the first will confider the remains of the ancient Saxon mafs, however defaced or disguised by various accidents; the fecond will endeavour to point out the nature and effects of the acceffions which in the courfe of near three centuries it had received from Normandy.

$3. For the fake of method it will be convenient to go through the feveral parts of speech in the order in which they are commonly ranged by grammarians.

1. The prepofitive article re, roe, pat, (which anfwered to the o,, ro, of the Greeks, in all its varieties of gender, cafe, and number) had been long laid afide, and inftead of it an indeclinable the was prefixed to all forts of nouns in all cafes, and in both

numbers.

2. The declenfions of the nouns fubftantive were reduced from fix to one; and instead of a variety of cafes in both numbers they had only a genitive cafe fingular, which was uniformly deduced from the nominative by adding to it es, or only s, if it ended an e feminine; and that fame form was used to exprefs the (26) plural number in all its cafes, as

(26) It is fcarce neceffary to take notice of a few plurals which were expreffed differently, though their number was greater in the time of Chaucer than it is now: fome of them

nom. four, gen. fboures, plur. foures; "nom.' name, gen. names, plur, names.

The nouns adjective had lost all distinction of gender, cafe, or number.

3. The primitive pronouns retained one oblique cafe (27) in each number, as ic or I, we; obl. me, us thou, ye; obl. thee, you-be, ske; bi (28), or they; obl. bim, bire, bem, or them.

Their poffeffives were in the fame ftate with the adjectives, min, thin, bis, bire; oure, youre, bir, or their (29).

feem to retain their termination in en from the fecond declenfion of the Saxons, as oxen,eyen, hofen, &c.; others feem to have adopted it euphone gratiâ, as brethren, eyren, inftead of bɲoBrú ægru; and a few seem to have been always irregularly declined, as men, wimmen, mice, lice, feet, c. See Hickes, Gr. A. S. p. 11, 12.

(27) I take no notice here of the genitive cafes min, thin, oure, youre, c. as being at this time hardly ever diftinguithable from pronouns poffeflive. How are we to know whether min boke thould be rendered liber mei or liber meus? In the plural number however, in a few inftances, the genitive case seems to have retained its proper power, C. T. v. 825, oure aller cok -would be more naturally tranflated—noftrùm omnium gallus, than nofter omnium. And so in P. P. fol. cxi, youre aller hele, vefirúm omnium falus, not veftra.

(28) It is very difficult to fay from whence or why the pronouns they, them, and their, were introduced into our language. The Saxon pronouns bi, hem, and hir, feem to have been in conftant ufe in the time of Robert of Gloucetter. Sir John Mandeville and Chaucer ufe they for hi, but never, as I remember, (in the mff. of authority) them or their.

(29) The four laft of thefe poffeffive pronouns were sometimes expreffed a little differently, viz. hires, oures, youres, and birs, or theirs, as they are ftill when the noun to which they belong is understood, or when they are placed after it in a sentence. To the queftion, Whose book is this? we anfwer, ber's, ours,

'The interrogative and relative who had a genitive and accufative cafe, whos and whom, but no variety of number.

On the contrary the demonstrative, this and that, had a plural expreffion, thife and tho, but no variety of cafe.

The other words, which are often (though improperly) placed in the clafs of pronouns, were all become undeclined like the adjectives, except eyther, alteruter; neyther, neuter; other, alter; which had a genitive cafe fingular, eytheres, neytheres, otheres; other, alius, had a genitive cafe fingular, and a plural number, otheres; and aller (a corruption of calɲa) was ftill in ufe as the genitive plural of alle (30).

your's, or theirs; or we declare this book is her's, ours, &c. I can hardly conceive that the final s in these words is a mark of the poffetfive (or genitive) cafe, as a very able writer [Short In troduction to English Grammar, p. 35, 6,] seems to be inclined to think, because in the inftances juft mentioned, and in all which I have been able to find or to imagine, I cannot difcover the leaft trace of the ufual powers of the genitive cafe. The learned Wallis [Gram. Ang. c. 7,] has explained the use of thefe pronouns without attempting to account for their form; he only adds, "Nonnulli, bern, ourn, yourn, bifn, dicunt pro her's, ours, c. fed barbarè, nec quifquam (credo) fic fcribere fo"let." If it could be proved that these words were anciently terminated in n we might be led to conjecture that they were originally abbreviations of her own, our own, &c. the n being afterwards foftened into s, as it has been in many other words.

(30) It may be proper here to take a little notice of the pronoun or pronominal adje&ive self, which our best grammarians from Wallis downwards have attempted to metamorphofe into a substantive. In the Saxon language it is certain that fylf was declined like other adjectives, and was joined in constructions with pronouns personal and substantives, juft as ipfe is in Latin. They faid, Ic fylf, ego ipie; min fylfes, mei ip

4. The verbs, at the time of which we are treating, were very nearly reduced to the simple state in which they are at present.

fius; me fylfne, me ipfum, &c. Petrus fylf, Pétrus ipfe, &c. [See Hickes, Gr. A. S. p. 26.] In the age of Chaucer felf, like other adjectives, was become undeclined. Though he writes felf,felve, and felven, thofe varieties do not denote any diftinction of cafe or number, for he ufes indifferently himselfand himfelven, hemfelf and hemfelven. He joins it with fubftantives in the fenfe of ipfe, as the Saxons did. [See v. 2862. In that selve grove, in illo ipfo nemore-v. 4535. Thy felve neighbour, ipfe tuus vicinus.] But his great departure from the ancient ufage was with respect to the pronouns perfonal prefixed to felf: inftead of declining them thro' the cafes which they ftin retained, he ufes conftantly my felf for 1 felf and me felf, thy felf for thou felf and thee felf, bim felf and bire felf, for he felf and the felf, and in the plural number our felf for we self and us felf, your felf for ye felfand you felf, and hem felf for they felf.--It would be vain to attempt to defend this practice of Chaucer upon any principles of reafon or grammatical analogy; all that can be faid for it is, that perhaps any regular practice was preferable to the confufion and uncertainty which feems to have prevailed before: accordingly the writers who fucceeded him following his example, it became a rule, as I conceive, of the English Language that personal pronouns prefixed to self were only used in one cafe in each number, viz. thofe of the first and fecond perfon in the genitive cafe (according to the Saxon form) and thofe of the third in the accufative. By degrees a eufrom was introduced of annexing felf to pronouns in the fin. gular number only, and salves (à corruption, I fuppofe, of felven to thofe in the plural. This probably contributed to per suade our late grammarians that self was a fubftantive, as the true English adjective does not vary in the plural number. "Another cause of their mistake might be, that they confidered my, thy, our, your, (to which felƒ is usually joined) as pronouns poffeffive, whereas I think it more probable that they were the Saxon genitive cafes of the perfonal pronouns. The metaphyfical fubftantive felf, of which our more modern philoso

They had four modes, as now; the indicative, the imperative, the fubjunctive, and the infinitive; and only two expreffions of time, the prefent and the paft. All the other varieties of mode and time were expreffed by auxiliary verbs.

In the inflections of their verbs they differed very little from us in the fingular number, I love, thou lowej, be loveth; but in the plural they were not agreed among themselves, fome (31) adhering to the old Saxon form, we loveth, ye loveth, they loveth, and others adopting what feems to have been the Teutonick, we loven, ye loven, they loven. In the plural of the past tenfe the latter form prevailed univerfally, I loved, thou lovedeft, be loved; we loveden, ye loveden, they loveden.

The fecond person plural in the imperative mode regularly terminated in eth, as loveth ye (32), though the final confonants (according to the genius of the language) were frequently omitted, especially in verfe.

The Saxon termination of the infinitive in an had been long changed into en, to loven, to liven, &c. and they were beginning to drop the x, to love, to live.

The participle of the prefent time began to be generally terminated in ing, as loving, though the old form, which terminated in ende or ahde, was ftill in ufe, as lovende or lovande. The participle of the

phers and poets have made fo much use, was unknown, I believe, in the time of Chaucer.

(31) In the long quotation from Trevisa (which fee above, n. 21,) it may be observed that all his plural verbs of the prefent tense terminate in eth, whereas in Sir John Mandeville and Chaucer they terminate almoft as conftantly in en.

(32) Mand. p. 281. And at certeyn houres-thei seyn to certeyn officeres--- Maketh pees (i. e. make ye filence.) And than feyn the officeres, Now pees! lyfieneth (i. e. liften ye)...In the following page fondeth is used for fand ye, and puttoth for put ye.