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A. Geoffrey Chaucer, who was born in 1328, and died in 1400, leaving behind him many monuments of his noble genius, the principal of which are the Can terbury Tales.

Q. Who were the principal prose writers of that period?

A. Sir John Mandeville, a distinguished traveler, and John Wicliffe, who is often regarded as the father of the Reformation.

Q. After the great celebrity of Chaucer, did English writers suc ceed each other in rapid succession?

A. Very much so indeed; though none gained such high reputation as Chaucer, prior to the period of Elizabeth.

Q. What were the principal changes which took place in the language during the 150 years from Chaucer's time?"

A. It became for one thing more regular in its orthography, many of the old words were suffered to drop out of use, and new ones, chiefly from the Latin, were introduced; and altogether the language became more elegant, copious, and refined.

Q. What class of writers took the lead in this improvement? A. The poets chiefly, and of these Scotland can boast of more than her due proportion.

Q. What event tended to secure past and promote future im provements in the language?

A. The art of printing, which was invented in Hol land early in the fifteenth century, and introduced into England by William Caxton, in the year 1474

CHAPTER IX.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

Q. In w.ose reign did the English language and literature make greatest progress?

A. In that of Elizabeth, and cf her successor James.

Q. What characters did the language then assume? A. Those of great copiousness, flexibility, vigor, and grandeur; and it acquired farther the character of a more regular orthography.

Q. To what had diversity of spelling been previously owing?

A. To the circumstance of there having been previously no fixed standard, every one spelling his words according as his own ear or fancy dictated.

Q. Who were some of the principal ornaments of English li erature during these reigns?

A. Sidney, Spenser, Essex, and Raleigh; but es pecially Bacon, Shakspeare, and Hooker.

Q. What did the language still require to make it almost per fect as an instrument of thought?

A. Nothing but a little additional polish and refine ment; a slight infusion of taste and elegance; a lopping off of redundancies and extravagances; and a greater closeness and condensation of thought.

Q. Who were among the next great improvers of our language? A. Milton, Dryden, Butler, Clarendon, Burnet, Tillotson, Hobbes, and Locke, with many others too numerous to mention.

Q. In what were many of the writers of the times of Charles the Second and William and Mary chiefly defective?

A. In correctness of taste, often substituting quaintness for originality, and mistaking affectation for wit. Q. During what reigns did our language receive its highest polish?

A. During those of Queen Anne, and of the Georges, and of their successors.

Q. Who have been mainly instrumental in this improvement? A. Addison, Steele, Pope, Swift, Hawksworth, Chesterfield, Goldsmith, Johnson, Gibbon, Hume, Robertson, Blair, Beattie, together with all our distinguished writers, whether of prose or poetry, who have adorned our literature during the important pe riod of the last half century.

Q. What may be said to be the present character of our lan guage?

A. It is copious, elegant, and energetic, well fitted for every species of subject, abounding in all the richest stores of literature, whether designed for improvement or pleasure, and adorned alike with the treasures of religion, science, and philosophy, the effusions of fancy, the records of history, the sublime inventions of imagination, and the majestic movements of the noplest oratory.

CHAPTER X.

OF PERIODICAL LITERATURE.

Q. What do you understand by Periodical Literature? A. Works published in detached portions, and at stated times; and devoted chiefly, if not exclusively, to literary or scientific subjects.

Q. Do not newspapers belong to this department of literature? A. Strictly speaking they do; though, from the circumstance of their being devoted almost entirely to political topics, and a detail of the remarkable occurrences that take place in the world, they are generally ranked as a distinct class by themselves, often styled the newspaper press. The first newspaper published in America was in 1604, called the News-letter. Q. Is periodical literature of high antiquity?

A. No; it is of comparatively recent origin, having never been apparently thought of by the ancients. Q. How can this oversight be accounted for?

A. By the want of that important instrument, the printing-press; for, had all works still to be written out by the hand, this species of literature, if known at all, must have been extremely limited.

Q. Where and when did periodical literature take its rise?

A. In France, in the year 1665, when the first work of the kind not properly political, was begun by one Dennis de Sallo, under the denomination of the Journal des Sçavans.

Q. From what time may we date its origin in England?

A. From February, 1704, when the celebrated Daniel De Foe commenced his work called the Review Q. Did the Review continue long solitary?

A. No; for it was speedily followed by the Tatler, the Spectator, and the Guardian, which, though ranked with the British Essayists, were nevertheless peri odicals.

Q. Has periodical literature extended much since that time? A. It is now, perhaps, the most extensive of all our departments of literature, and seems to command the attention of readers of all classes.

Q. At what intervals, and under what titles, do periodicals now generally appear?

4. Some are published weekly, some monthly, oth

ers quarterly, and not a few yearly; and under the various denominations of Journals, Magazines, Miscellanies, Reviews, and Annuals.

Q. In what does the principal attraction of this kind of litera ture consist?

A. In its containing a great variety of light, elegant, and amusing reading, with a good deal of general information, though commonly of a rather superficial character.

Q. What is supposed to be the effect of so much periodical lit erature upon the public mind?

A. While it induces some to read, who, probably, otherwise would not, it is supposed to withdraw the attention of not a few from the perusal of more regular and important works, and, by giving a mere smattering of many things rather than a thorough acquaintance with any one, to make our knowledge more superficial than solid, and more showy than useful

CHAPTER XI.

THE COMPONENT PARTS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [From the Edinburgh Review, 1839.]

THE English language consists of about thirty eight thousand words. This includes, of course, not only radical words, but all derivatives, except the preterits and participles of verbs; to which must be added some few terms, which, though set down in the dictionaries, are either obsolete, or have never ceased to be considered foreign. Of these, about twenty-three thousand, or nearly five eighths, are of Anglo-Saxon origin. The majority of the rest, in what proportion we can not say, are Latin and Greek; Lat in, however, has the largest share. The names of the greater part of the objects of sense, in other words, the terms which occur most frequently in discourse, or which recall the most vivid conceptions, are Anglo-Saxon. Thus, for example, the names of the most striking objects in visible nature, of the chief agencies at work there, of the changes we pass over it, are Anglo-Saxon.

This language has given names to the heavenly bodies, the sun, the moon, and stars; to three out of the four ele

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ments earth, fire, and water; three out of the four seasons, spring, summer, and winter; and, indeed, to all the natural divisions of time except one; as day, night, morning, evening, twilight, noon, midday, midnight, sunrise, sunset, some of which are among the most poetical terms we have. To the same language we are indebted for the names of light, heat, cold, frost, rain, snow, hail, sleet, thunder, lightning, as well as almost all those objects which form the component parts of the beautiful in external scenery, as sea and land, hill and dale, wood and stream, &c. It is from this language we derive the words which are expressive of the earliest and dearest connections, and the strongest and most powerful feelings of nature, and which are, consequently, invested with our oldest and most complicated associations.

It is this language which has given us names for father, mother, husband, wife, brother, sister, son, daughter, child, home, kindred, friends. It is this which has furnished us with the greater part of those metonymies and other figura'ive expressions, by which we represent to the imagination, and that in a single word, the reciprocal duties and enjoy ments of hospitality, friendship, or love; such are hearth, roof, fireside. The chief emotions, too, of which we are susceptible, are expressed in the same language, as love, hope, fear, sorrow, shame; and what is of more consequence to the orator and the poet, as well as in common life, the outward signs by which emotion is indicated, are almost all Anglo-Saxon; such are tear, smile, blush, to laugh, to weep, to sigh, to groan. Most of those objects about which the practical reason of man is employed in common life, receive their names from the Anglo-Saxon. It is the language, for the most part, of business; of the counting-house, the shop, the market, the street, the farm; and, however miserable the man who is fond of philosophy or abstract science might be, if he had no other vocabulary but this, we must recollect that language was made not for the few, but the many, and that portion cf it which enables the bulk of a nation to express their wants and transact their affairs, must be considered of at least as much importance to general happiness as that which serves the purpose of philosophical science.

Nearly all our national proverbs, in which it is truly said so much of the practical wisdom of a nation resides, and which constitute the manual and vade mecum of hobnailed" philosophy are almost wholly Anglo-Saxon.

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