66 'With the Norman conquest the French was introduced in the higher circles; the King alone retained his name, but the state and the court became French; the administration was carried on according to the constitution; treaties were concluded by the ministers in their cabinet and submitted for approval to the sovereign; the privy council was consulted on the affairs of the empire, and loyal subjects sent representatives to parliament. Here the members debated on matters of grave importance, on peace and war, ordered the army and the navy, disposed of the national treasury, contracted debts, and had their sessions and their parties. Brilliant feasts and splendid tournaments collected the flower of chivalry; magnificent balls where beauty and delicious music enchanted the assembled nobles, gave new splendor to society, polished the manners and excited the admiration of the ancient inhabitants, who, charmed by such elegance, recognized in their conquerors persons of superior intelligence, admired them, and endeavored to imitate their fashions." "But-to continue this illustration in Saxon-the dominion of the Norman did not extend to the home of the Saxon; it stopped at the threshold of his house; there, around the fireside in his kitchen and the hearth in his room, he met his beloved kindred; the bride, the wife, and the husband, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, tied to each other by love, friendship, and kind feelings, knew nothing dearer than their own sweet home. The Saxon's flock, still grazing in his fields and meadows, gave him milk and butter, meat and wool; the herdsman watched them in spring and summer, the ploughman drew his furrows, and used his harrows, and in harvest, the cart and the flail; the reaper plied his scythe, piled up sheaves and hauled his wheat, oats, and rye to the barn. In his trade by land and sea, he still sold and bought, in the store or the shop, the market or the street; he lent or borrowed, trusted his neighbor, and with skill throve and grew wealthy. He continued to love freedom, to eat and to drink, to sleep and to awake, to walk and to ride, to fish and to hunt, to sing and to play, to read and to write, to think and to feel, to speak and to do, to live and to die." THE RELATION OF THE NORMAN AND SAXON ELEMENTS. The Norman French imparted to the English nearly all the terms connected with the feudal system, as sovereign, prince, duke, marquis, count, viscount, baron, chancellor, treasurer, tournament, challenge, throne, sceptre, empire, realm, royalty, chivalry, domain, homage, villain, palace, castle; with the exception, however, of king and queen, lord and lady, which are Saxon, and earl, which is Scandinavian. The reason of this exception lies in the historical fact that the Norman conqueror claimed the throne of England not by a new title but by the regular line of succession. The French furnished also the terms of government and law, as state, government, honor, dignity, office, parliament, constitution, administration, privy council, treaty, court, warrant, esquire. But the word law itself is derived neither from lex nor loi, but from the Saxon verb lecgan, to lie down, or more directly from its passive participle lagu, pronounced laugu, laid down, fixed, like statute from statuere, and Gesetz from setzen. Several important military terms, as army, navy, peace, war, and names for the articles of luxury and ornament are likewise Norman. But the instruments of agriculture are called in true Saxon, plough, share, rake, scythe, sickle, spade; so are also the chief products of the earth, as wheat, rye, corn, oats, grass, hay, flax. It is characteristic that the truly Saxon names of living animals, as ox, steer, cow, calf, sheep, hog, deer, when killed and prepared for the table are changed into French, as beef, veal, mutton, pork, and venison. Even to this day French cookery retains the ascendency in fashionable hotels and restaurants all over the world. The names of common and indispensable articles of dress are Saxon, as shirt, breeches, hose, shoes, hat, cloak; but articles of a later form of civilization and subject to the changes of fashion are Norman, as gown, coat, boots, mantle, cap, bonnet. The common residence for all men is signified by the Saxon terms, house, and home; while the aristocratic residences of the few are named with the French terms, palace, castle, manor, mansion. From the Saxon we have "room" and "kitchen," with the necessary articles of furniture, as stool, bench, bed, board; but the French gave us chambers, parlors, galleries, pantries, laundries, with tables, chairs, and couches. The Latin gives us often the general term, as color, while the Saxon furnishes the concrete or particular terms, as white, black, green, red, blue. The one gives the more elegant and dignified, the other the more homely, but stronger expression, as sweat for perspiration, stench for bad odor, smear for anoint. It may be said, therefore, that the Norman represents the aristocratic, the Saxon the democratic element in the English language. The former supplied, as Grimm says, "the spiritual conceptions;" while the latter forms the material groundwork, and also the top (remember the words king and queen). The reason of this is not the incapacity of the Saxon, but the higher education and acquired dominion of the Normans. The French infused into the English a higher degree of intellectuality, vivacity, gravity and dignity, and enriched its vocabulary of chivalry, courtesy and fashion. Archbishop Whateley, in his " Elements of Rhetoric," makes the true remark "that a style composed chiefly of words of French origin, while it is less intelligible to the lowest classes, is characteristic of those who in cultivation of taste are below the highest. As in dress, furniture, deportment, etc., so also in language, the dread of vulgarity constantly besetting those who are half conscious that they are in danger of it drives them into the extreme of affected finery." The English is a happy medium between the French and German, more grave and forcible than the French, less harsh and cumbersome than the German, and simpler in grammar, more easily acquired and handled than either. ILLUSTRATIONS FROM MILTON AND WEBSTER. Milton is generally considered as the greatest master of the Latin element among the English poets (as Shakespeare certainly is the prince of the Saxon element); yet in his speech for a free press he severely reproves authors who are "apishly Romanizing, and whose learned pens can cast no ink without Latin." Charles James Fox, the great English orator, goes too far when he says: "Give me an elegant Latin and a homely Saxon word, and I will always choose the latter." The preference given to the one or the other should depend upon the nature of the subject and proper regard to the beauty, harmony and euphony of speech. The Saxon has always the advantage of force and expressiveness, but the Latin supplies the element of dignity and melody. We may say with Coleridge that Milton's Latin gives "a stately march and majestic, organ-like harmony" to his diction. Take for illustration his impressive sonnet on the persecution of the Waldenses in Piedmont : "Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Or his sublime Nativity Hymn :— "This is the month and this the happy morn, Our great redemption from above did bring." Gibbon is the most Latinizing of English historians. The stately march of his artfully constructed and well-rounded sentences suits his grand subject, the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, but it becomes as monotonous as a military procession. Daniel Webster, the most majestic orator that America has produced, was a close student of the English Bible and John Milton. The prose of the American Demosthenes blends Saxon strength and Latin dignity in beautiful harmony. Take the following classic passages from three of his most celebrated speeches. The proportion of Latin words to Saxon in these specimens is fully one-third. The first is his definition of true patriotic eloquence, from his eulogy on Adams and Jefferson, delivered in Faneuil Hall, Boston, August 2d, 1826 When public bodies are to be addressed on momentous occasions, when great interests are at stake, and strong passions excited, nothing is valuable in speech farther than it is connected with high intellectual and moral endowments. Clearness, force, and earnestness are the qualities which produce conviction. True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech. It cannot be brought from far. Labor and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshaled in every way, but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject, in the occasion. Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire to it; they cannot reach it. It comes, if it come at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force. The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied contri vances of speech shock and disgust men, when their own lives, and the fate of their wives, their children, and their country hang on the decision of the hour. Then words have lost their power, rhetoric is in vain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities. Then patriotism is eloquent; then self-devotion is eloquent. The clear conception, outrunning the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward, right onward to his subject, this, this is eloquence; or rather it is something greater and higher than all eloquence, it is action, noble, sublime, godlike action. The second specimen is the peroration of his national and patriotic anti-nullification speech against Colonel Robert Y. Hayne, delivered in the United States Senate, January 26th, 1830. Edward Everett pronounced it the most celebrated speech ever delivered in Congress, and I doubt whether any of the grand effusions of the elder or the younger Pitt, of Burke, Fox, or Brougham in the British Parliament are superior to it. "While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise! God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind! When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre,' not a stripe erased or polluted, not a single star obscured, 'An evident reminiscence from his favorite author, Milton, in his description of the imperial banner of hell, Paradise Lost, Book I., v. 535, s. 99 :"Who forthwith from the glittering staff unfurl'd Th' imperial ensign, which, full high advanc'd, Shone like a meteor, streaming to the wind, With gems and golden lustre rich emblaz'd, Seraphic arms and trophies; all the while Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds; At which the universal host up sent A shout that tore hell's concave, and beyond In Bk. V., 598, Milton speaks of " ten thousand thousand ensigns high advane'd. stream in the air. This description again was probably suggested by Tasso's description of the banner of the Crusaders, when first unfolded in Palestine. |