ESSAY ON ENGLISH POETRY. PART I. THE influence of the Norman Conquest upon the language of England was like that of a great inundation, which at first buries the face of the landscape under its waters, but which, at last subsiding, leaves behind it the elements of new beauty and fertility. Its first effect was to degrade the Anglo-Saxon tongue to the exclusive use of the inferior orders; and by the transference of estates, ecclesiastical benefices, and civil dignities, to Norman possessors, to give the French language, which had begun to prevail at court from the time of Edward the Confessor, a more complete predominance among the higher classes of society. The native gentry of England were either driven into exile, or depressed into a state of dependence on their conqueror which habituated them to speak his language. On the other hand, we received from the Normans the first germs of romantic poetry; and our language was ultimately indebted to them for a wealth and compass of expression which it probably would not have otherwise possessed. The Anglo-Saxon, however, was not lost, though it was superseded by French, and disappeared as the language of superior life and of public business. It is found written in prose at the end of Stephen's reign, nearly a century after the Conquest; and the 'Saxon Chronicle,' which thus exhibits it,* contains even a * [As the Saxon Chronicle relates the death of Stephen, it must have been written after that event.-Ellis, Early Eng. Poets, vol. i. p. 60, and vol. iij. p. 404, ed. 1801. What is commonly called the 'Saxon Chronicle' is continued to the death of Stephen, in 1154, and in the same language, though with some loss of its purity. Besides the neglect of several grammatical rules, French words now and then obtrude themselves, but not very frequently, in the latter pages of this Chronicle.-Hallam, Lit. Hist., vol. i. p. 59.] B fragment of verse, professed to have been composed by an individual who had seen William the Conqueror. To fix upon any precise time when the national speech can be said to have ceased. to be Saxon, and begun to be English, is pronounced by Dr. Johnson to be impossible.* It is undoubtedly difficult, if it be possible, from the gradually progressive nature of language, as well as from the doubt, with regard to dates, which hangs over the small number of specimens of the early tongue which we possess. Mr. Ellis fixes upon a period of about forty years, preceding the accession of Henry III., from 1180 to 1216, during which he conceives modern English to have been formed.† The opinions of Mr. Ellis, which are always delivered with candour, and almost always founded on intelligent views, are not to be lightly treated; and I hope I shall not appear to be either captious or inconsiderate in disputing them. But it seems to me that he rather arbitrarily defines the number of years which he supposes to have elapsed in the formation of our language, when he assigns forty years for that formation. He afterwards speaks of the vulgar English having suddenly superseded the pure and legitimate Saxon. Now, if the supposed period could be fixed with any degree of accuracy to thirty or forty years, one might waive the question whether a transmutation occupying so much * Introduction to Johnson's Dictionary. [Nor can it be expected, from the nature of things gradually changing, that any time can be assigned when Saxon may be said to cease, and the English to commence. and sudden transformations of a language seldom happen. . . Total About the year 1150 the Saxon began to take a form in which the beginning of the present English may be plainly discovered: this change seems not to have been the effect of the Norman Conquest, for very few French words are found to have been introduced in the first hundred years after it; the language must therefore have been altered by causes like those which, notwithstanding the care of writers and societies instituted to obviate them, are even now daily making innovations in every living language.— Johnson.] "We [It is only justice to Mr. Ellis to give his date correctly, 1185. may fairly infer," Mr. Ellis writes, "that the Saxon language and literature began to be mixed with the Norman about 1185; and that in 1216 the change may be considered as complete."] $ "The most striking peculiarity in the establishment of our vulgar English is, that it seems to have very suddenly superseded the pure and legitimate Saxon, from which its elements were principally derived, instead of becoming its successor, as generally has been supposed, by a slow and imperceptible process."-Ellis, Specimens of Early English Poetry, vol. iii. Conclusion. time could, with propriety or otherwise, be called a sudden one; but when we find that there are no sufficient data for fixing its boundaries even to fifty years, the idea of a sudden transition in the language becomes inadmissible. The mixture of our literature and language with the Norman, or, in other words, the formation of English, commenced, according to Mr. Ellis, in 1180 [5]. At that period he calculates that Layamon, the first translator from French into the native tongue, finished his version of Wace's 'Brut.' This translation, however, he pronounces to be still unmixed, though barbarous Saxon.* It is certainly not very easy to conceive how the sudden and distinct formation of English can be said to have commenced with unmixed Saxon; but Mr. Ellis possibly meant the period of Layamon's work to be the date after, and not at, which the change may be understood to have begun. Yet, while he pronounces Layamon's language unmixed Saxon, he considers it to be such a sort of Saxon as required but the substitution of a few French for Saxon words to become English.† Nothing more, in Mr. Ellis's opinion, was necessary to change the old into the new native tongue, and to produce an exact resemblance between the Saxon of the twelfth century and the English of the thirteenth; early in which century, according to Mr. Ellis, the new language was fully formed, or, as he afterwards more cautiously expresses himself, was " in its far advanced state.' The reader will please to recollect, that the two main circumstances in the change of Anglo-Saxon into English are the adoption of French words, and the suppression of the inflec"So little," says *[Mr. Ellis (p. 73) says, "very barbarous Saxon." Sir Walter Scott in his Review of Mr. Ellis's Specimens, 66 were the Saxon and Norman languages calculated to amalgamate, that, though Layamon wrote in the reign of Henry II., his language is almost pure Saxon; and hence it is probable, that, if the mixed language now called English at all existed, it was deemed as yet unfit for composition, and only used as a piebald jargon for carrying on the indispensable intercourse betwixt the AngloSaxons and Normans. In process of time, however, the dialect so much despised made its way into the service of the poets, and seems to have superseded the use of the Saxon, although the French, being the court language, continued to maintain its ground till a later period."-Misc. Pr. Works, vol. xvii. p. 8.] [It seems reasonable to infer that Layamon's work was composed at or very near the period when the Saxons and Normans in this country began to unite into one nation, and to adopt a common language.-Ellis, vol. i. p. 75.] tions of the Saxon noun and verb. Now, if Layamon's style exhibits a language needing only a few French words to be convertible into English, the Anglo-Saxon must have made some progress before Layamon's time to an English form. Whether that progress was made gradually or suddenly, we have not sufficient specimens of the language, anterior to Layamon, to determine. But that the change was not sudden, but gradual, I conceive, is much more probably to be presumed.* * Layamon, however, whether we call him Saxon or English, certainly exhibits a dawn of English. And when did this dawn appear? Mr. Ellis computes that it was in 1180 [5], placing it thus late because Wace took a great many years to translate his 'Brut' from Geoffrey of Monmouth; and because Layamon, who translated that 'Brut,' was probably twenty-five years engaged in the task.† But this is attempting to be precise *If Layamon's work was finished in 1180 [1185], the verses in the 'Saxon Chronicle,' on the death of William the Conqueror, said to be written by one who had seen that monarch, cannot be considered as a specimen of the language immediately anterior to Layamon. But St. Godric is said to have died in 1170, and the verses ascribed to him might have been written at a time nearly preceding Layamon's work. Of St. Godric's verses a very few may be compared with a few of Layamon's. ST. GODRIC. Sainté Marie Christie's bur! Maiden's clenhud, Modere's flur! Dillie mine sinnen, rix in mine mod, In English. Saint Mary, Christ's bower-Maiden's purity, Motherhood's flower-Destroy my sin, reign in my mood (or mind)-Bring me to dwell with the very God. LAYAMON. And of alle than folke The wuneden ther on folde, Wes thisses londes folk In English. And of all the folk that dwelt on earth was this land's folk the handsomest (people told); and also the women handsome of hue. Here are four lines of St. Godric, in all probability earlier than Layamon's; and yet does the English reader find Layamon at all more intelligible, or does he seem to make anything like a sudden transition to English as the poetical successor of St. Godric? [Wace finished his translation in 1155, after, Mr. Ellis supposes, thirty years' labour: Layamon, he assumes, was the same period, finishing it in 1185; "perhaps," he says, "the earliest date that can be assigned to it."Specimens of Early English Poetry, vol. i. pp. 75-6. "Layamon's |