LECTURE I.

"Words are things."

Mirabeau.

ALMOST every thing the people of the United States now possess, has grown from their own sagacity, industry, and perseverance. The little patrimony they had, has been multiplied ten thousand fold; for they have been blessed by a kind providence, in their basket and their store. Their institutions, if in some measure copied from those of other countries, have been modelled to suit the genius and habits of the people, and have been changed and enlarged to correspond with the growth of the nation. Their language alone is theirs by inheritance. They received it from their progenitors, and have kept it unpolluted and unchanged. It has been in different ages here a little modified, as in England, to be a more explicit medium of thought; and taste and euphony have, at times, made some exertions to drop one class of words and assume another; but they have destroyed none; and as occasion requires, those left out of fashionable use, for a season, have, after a while, been called up and restored to their former places in good company.

From the extension of commercial relations, and from the numerous conquests of the mother country, it would have been natural to expect that her language would have, in process of time, become somewhat a different one from that of her colonies in this country: but our commerce has followed hers so closely, and we have had so entirely the benefit of her mass of literature as soon as it was known to her own people, that the first adoption of a foreign word, or the slightest change in the use of one of her old stock, has been noticed on this side of the Atlantic; and we have wisely followed the public taste of the mother country, nor vainly thought that it would be wisdom to struggle for an independency in letters, as far as they regarded the use of our vernacular. This language was our birthright as Englishmen, and its preservation in its purity clearly shows how much we value it. The language that is addressed to the ear alone is soon changed or lost, but that which is addressed to the eye as well as the ear, is long preserved by a twofold impression upon the mind. The sight is more faithful than the ear, and preserves her knowledge longer; both are necessary to keep a

language alive in its purity. The study of the language of a people is one of the best methods of sounding the depths of their knowledge, and of measuring their advancement in arts and arms, and of ascertaining the nature of their general pursuits and habits; and perhaps it may not be going too far to say, that geographical positions may be known by the examination of a nation's vocabulary alone. The soft air of Italy and France has given, in a long succession of years, by natural causes, operating upon body and mind, and which might be easily analyzed, if we would take the pains to do it, a delicious sweetness to the tones of the human voice, a melody to the sounds of words, and a harmony in the construction of sentences, which the inhabitants of the colder regions of the north can never know among themselves. This principle is tested by the still softer and more musical notes of the West India creoles. With them almost every word is vitiated in pronunciation, and reduced to a sort of infantile imbecility, yet it is most musical. The English language has not with us, generally speaking, been deeply studied by those who use it, either for the common business of life, or by those who make it a vehicle of matters of high import in enlightening and directing their countrymen.

English etymology has not, until lately, been a part of a classical education. Our scholars have been content to take, and use, words as they found them, sanctioned by good writers, without much enquiry into their derivations, or primitive significations; nor is it my object to go further in these remarks than to show, that we have kept a constant watch over our mother tongue, and if we have sometimes, after great English models, laboured to sink many of the good old words of our language, and to supply their places by those formed from the Latin and Greek languages, yet that we were ready, from taste and judgement, to go back again, and take those discarded, home-bred words of strong meaning and peculiar fitness, whenever the established writers have led the way. Several modern scholars have shewn us the force, precision, and even beauty of our old English, and we hail this returning to the homestead as an unfailing sign of good judgement. I have thrown together a few observations upon our language, to induce the English scholar to, examine the treasures he is in possession of, and to shew the reader, that if our fathers' style does not always suit the present taste, yet that they were masters of their vernacular, as well as deeply read in the learned languages. And this I shall do, not by pointing out particular passages, but by calling the attention of the reader to the general tenour of their works.

It is the belief of the learned, that all languages had a common origin; for there are words in all the languages they have examined,

which bear relationship to each other. Sometimes the resemblance or kindred features are near and strong, at other times remote, but containing such resemblances as cannot be mistaken: and until some other account more satisfactory is given by some retrospective seer, I am willing to take the account given by Moses of the confusion of tongues, as sufficiently true to answer the phenomenon which has no other solution. I am a lover of words, for I do not believe that there can be much reasoning of a moral nature without them; and sure I am, that no man ever despised the science of words who understood it to any considerable extent. It may be true, that the mind may be so much engaged in the pursuit of various tongues as to enfeeble its force in more severe studies; but the literary world exhibits so few instances of this nature, that we need not fear the effects of a pretty liberal attention to the languages; certainly, a careful examination of our mother tongue will not be thought improper by those who object to the attention paid to the learned languages. The origin, the history, the sweetness, the copiousness, the force and majesty, and importance of the English language, are subjects worthy the attention of the English scholar in our country at the present day, when so many facilities are offered him for the study of it; such facilities, that one may learn more in six months upon this branch of knowledge now, than he could have done in ten years if he had commenced half a century ago.

The language of the ancient Britons, from the time they were first known to the Romans, was Teutonic, or Scythian. The people were rude and fierce, and their language had the same cast of character, as far as we know any thing about it. When Julius Cæsar first landed on the shores of Albion, the people exhibited the highest traits of courage, and met the polished armour of the skilful Roman soldiers in dauntless nakedness. From this time, which was before the christian era, until the conquest of Alaric, more than four centuries these rude people were instructed by the Romans in arts and arms. The sons of the native kings and chiefs were taught the philosophical and polished language of their conquerors; and this instruction was pursued and enforced as a mean of bringing the Britons to a state of quietude and obedience. During this time many of the Roman words had found their way into the native language, or at least those formed from the Latin were in use. This is more evident in the names of places, perhaps, than in any other class of words. Those Britons who acquired the Latin, wrote the native language in the Roman character, as we now write the Indian dialects, or different languages of the several tribes, in the same character at this day. If the Scythians brought letters with them from Asia, they had probably been lost; or if any relic of them was left, they were only used

as a sort of a Cabala, as the fragments of some languages were by the Druids--such as by them were called Runic characters, something out of which to make a charm.

About the middle of the fifth century (449) the Saxons made their first invasion, of any importance, of the island of Britain. Soon after Hengist gained a foothold, Horsa followed; and Cedric and other invaders took the same course; but it was not until after a lapse of many years, that the island was conquered; and then, not from the strength of the invaders, but from the dissensions of the natives. This conquest was, however, a blessing; for, notwithstanding the Saxons were barbarous as well as the Britons, yet they were a fearless, roaming race of men, who had made more improvements in the arts of life than the ancient Britons, and their habits of thinking were more enlarged and approximated nearer to civilized life than those of the natives of the island. The laws and institutions of the Saxons were of a higher mental character than those of most other nations then about them on the continent; but the Saxons recieved a vast accession to their stock of knowledge, by the introduction of christianity into the island in 596, through the auspices of Pope Gregory, a most benevolent representative of Saint Peter. This father of the Church sent the learned and pious Augustin on a mission to Britain, who after many struggles succeeded in diffusing the doctrines of the gospel amongst them, and in inspiring a taste for learning, and the arts of industry, and social life. If not before, certainly at this time, the Saxon tongue became a written one, and was soon expanded and improved by the attentive study of it among those ecclesiastics, who wished to diffuse through it the knowledge of the scriptures, until then a sealed book to the Saxons, and then only partially opened.

About ninety years after the introduction of christianity into the island of Britain, Alfred the wise, of Northumbria, began his reign. He had passed his youthful days, when by the death of his brother he came to the throne of his father. His early years, and many of his riper ones, had been spent in study in the cloisters of Ireland, whose ecclesiastics were then more learned than all those on the continent, if we except a few in Italy. The Irish institutions of learning at this period furnished professors for those of France, Germany, and many other places. Alfred, when in possession of power, did not forget his taste for letters, but gathered about him as many learned men as he could obtain. Adhelm, a West-Saxon poet, wrote for his instruction and amusement " Flowers of the Bible," probably a sort of dramatic paraphrase on some portions of scripture; and also treated his royal patron with some touches of the philosophy of that age. The wise king bent his mind to improving his people and

their language at the same time, and shone conspicuously as a firm supporter of Christianity and letters. He was the first to give a relish for these pursuits to his nobles, who had hitherto found no delight but in war, or the chase.

The improvement of the Saxon tongue was, generally speaking, constantly going on, although the knowledge of the Latin had greatly declined from the time of Alfred the wise, until the time of Alfred the great, who was born in eight hundred and fortynine. This monarch fills a wider space in the Saxon history than all his predecessors, or those Saxon kings who came after him, although his grandson was quite as great a man as himself. Alfred was a pet child of his father, who took his son to Rome when he was quite young, and brought him to France also, when Athelwelph, the father, married Judith the daughter of Charles of France; but in all these journeyings the young Alfred had never learned to read. It was his fond step-dame who set about this task, and succeeded in laying the foundation of making him one of the greatest scholars of that age. He sought learned and good men from Ireland, France, and in his own country, and commencing with the poetry of his own language, which had taken fast hold of his affections when young, he pursued it, until he had exhausted all the ballads and legends which were written in Saxon, and then set about enlarging the narrow limits of the Saxon muses, by compositions of his own, which, in fact, surpassed in excellence all the poetry of his country, as he did his predecessors in civilization and knowledge. He was not content with this, but learned the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and assisted to bring the rich treasures of these repositories of wisdom into his own market for the supply of his own people, and the refinement of his own court. He was not a mere book-worm neither, for he was as ready to fight as to write; to enforce laws as to make them. He was no pedant, but the great instructor of his people, anticipating ages by the power of his understanding, and the reach of his genius. Institutions of learning arose under his fostering care. The son of Alfred, Edward the elder, was not a whit behind his father in his attention to the encouragement of learning, but having a regular education, there was no necessity for such efforts as were made by his father; and the infant institutions his father established were in a flourishing state. The son of Edward, Athelstan, was a more powerful Prince than his father or grandfather had been, and extended his intercourse with the world more widely. The monastic institutions which Alfred founded, Athelstan endowed, and gave them books collected from every country to which he had access. Whatever we may think of monasteries now, they were the protectors and preservers of all the learning of antiquity, and the faithful

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