One of our old chroniclers, writing in the reign of Elizabeth, informs us that by the English colonists within the Pale in Ireland a great many words were preserved in common use, "the dregs of the old ancient Chaucer English" as he contemptuously calls it, which had become quite obsolete and forgotten in England itself. For example they still called a spider an 'attercop'-a word by the way, which in the North has not even now gone out of popular use; a physician a 'leech;' a dunghill was still for them a 'mixen;' a quadrangle or base court a 'bawn;'* they employed 'uncouth' in the earlier sense of unknown-nay more, their general manner of speech was so different, though continuing English still, that Englishmen at their first coming over often found it hard or impossible to comprehend. We have another example of the same in what took place after the revocation of the Edict of Nantz, and the consequent formation of colonies of Protestant French emigrants in various places, especially in Amsterdam and other chief cities of Holland. There gradually grew up among these what came to be called "refugee French," which within a generation or two diverged in several particulars from the classical language; its divergence being mainly occasioned by this, that it remained stationary, where the classical language was in motion; it retained usages and words, which the latter had consented to let go.. *The only two writers of whom I am aware as subsequently using this word are, both writing in Ireland and of Irish matters, Spenser and Swift. The passages are both quoted by Richardson. PROVINCIAL ENGLISH. 95 Nor is it otherwise in respect of our English provincialisms. It is true that our country people who in the main employ them, have not been separated by distance of space, nor yet by insurmountable obstacles intervening, from the main body of their fellow-countrymen; but they have been quite as effectually divided by deficient education. They have been, if not locally, yet intellectually, kept at a distance from the onward march of the nation's mind; and of them also it is true that a great number of their words, idioms, turns of speech, which we are ready to set down as vulgarisms, solecisms of speech, violations of the primary rules of grammar, do merely attest that those who employ them have not kept abreast with the advance of the language and nation, but have been left behind by it. The usages are only local in the fact that, having once been employed by the whole body of the English people, they have now receded from the lips of all except those in some certain country districts, who have been more faithful than others to the traditions of the language. It is thus in respect of a great number of isolated words, which were excellent Anglo-Saxon, which were excellent early English, and which only are not excellent present English, because use, which is the supreme arbiter in these matters, has decided against their further employment. Several of these I enumerated just now. It is thus also with several grammatical forms and flections. For instance, where we decline the plural of 'I sing,' 'we sing,' 'ye sing,' 'they sing,' in Lancashire they would decline, 'we singen,' 'ye singen,' 'they singen.' This is not indeed the original form of the plural, but it is that form of it which, coming up about Chaucer's time, was just going out in Spenser's; he, though we must ever keep in mind that he does not represent exactly the language of his time, affecting a certain archaism both in words and forms, continually uses it, while after him it becomes ever rarer, the last of whom I am aware as occasionally using it being Fuller, until it quite disappears.* The termination of the participle present in 'ande' or 'and,' which was first changed into 'end,' and then further softened into 'ing;' 'sendande,' 'sendend,' 'sending,' may be observed in Scotch poetry down to a very recent date. In the earlier shape in which we possess Wicliff's Bible 'and' or 'end' is predominantly, and in some parts of it invariably, used as the participial termination; while in the somewhat later revision 'ing' has taken its place. In Chaucer the old form still occasionally struggles with the new; thus 'lepande,' 'criande' for 'leaping,' 'crying;' but it has nearly given * Ben Jonson (English Grammar, c. 17) does not hesitate to express his strong regret that this form has not been retained. "The persons plural," he says, "keep the termination of the first person singular. In former times, till about the reign of King Henry VIII., they were wont to be formed by adding en; thus, loven, sayen, complainen. But now (whatsoever is the cause) it hath quite grown out of use, and that other so generally prevailed, that I dare not presume to set this afoot again; albeit (to tell you my opinion) I am persuaded that the lack hereof, well considered, will be found a great blemish to our tongue. For seeing time and person be as it were the right and left hand of a verb, what can the maiming bring else, but a lameness to the whole body?" OLD ENGLISH NOT BAD ENGLISH. 97 way. In Spenser a solitary example of it crops up in the term 'glitterand arms,' which he is fond of employing. Of such as may now employ forms like these we must say, not that they violate the laws of the language, but only that they have taken their permanent stand at a point of it which was only a point of transition, and which it has now left behind, and overlived. Thus to take examples which you may hear at the present day in almost any part of England-a countryman will say, "He made me afeard;" or "The price of corn ris last market day;" or "I will axe him his name." You would probably set these phrases down for barbarous English; but they are not at all so; in one sense they are quite as good English as "He made me afraid;" or "The price of corn rose last market day;" or "I will ask him his name.' " Afeard,' used by Spenser, is the regular participle of the old verb 'to affear,' as 'afraid' is of 'to affray,' and just as good English; 'ris' or 'risse' is an old præterite of 'to rise;' 'to axe' is not a mispronunciation of 'to ask,' but a genuine English form of the word, the form which in the earlier English it constantly assumed; it is quite exceptional when the word appears in its other, that is its present, shape in Wiclif's Bible; and indeed axe' occurs continually, I know not whether invariably, in Tyndale's translation of the Scriptures. Even such a phrase as "Put them things away," is not bad, but only antiquated, English. While I say this, I would not imply that these forms are open to you to use; I do not say they would be good English for you. They would not; inasmuch as they are contrary to present use and custom, and these must be our lawgivers in what we speak and in what we write; just as in our buying and selling we are bound to use the current coin of the realm, and not attempt to pass that which long since has been called in, whatever merits or intrinsic value it may possess. All which I affirm is that the phrases just brought forward represent past stages of the language, and are not barbarous violations of it. The same may be asserted of certain ways of pronouncing words, which are now in use among the lower classes, but not among the higher; as, for example, 'contrary,' 'mischievous,' 'blasphemous,' instead of 'contrăry,' 'mischievous,' 'blasphemous.' It would be abundantly easy to show by a multitude of quotations from our poets, and those reaching very far down, that these are merely the retention of the earlier pronunciation by the people, when the higher classes have abandoned it.* Another example of that which is commonly accounted ungrammatical usage, but which is really the retention of old grammar by some, where others have substituted new, is the constant application by our rustic population in the south of 'his' to inanimate objects, and to these not personified, as well as to persons; where 'its' would be employed by others. I shall * A single proof may in each case suffice: "Our wills and fates do so contráry run."-Shakespeare.` |
