here reverting to the form we have already noticed of the plural imperative ending in s. The full inflected form of the second plural imperative in West Saxon is -ath; thus bringath thá fixas, bring ye the fishes; gáth hider and etath, come ye hither and eat. The Old English of the south and west retains this inflection as eth, where it uses any inflection at all. Thus in Chaucer: : "Lordings, quod he, now herkeneth for the best." "Now draweth cut, for that is mine accord." "Goth now, quod she, Sin ye be strong, as is a great camaille; Ay clappeth as a mill, I you counsaille." In like manner Piers Ploughman, who is still further removed from the Anglian dialect : "For-thi I rede yow, riche, Haveth ruthe of the povere ; The old Anglian second person plural imperative is, when fully inflected, not ath but as. This is not a Scandinavian form, but is found frequently in the Anglian Gospels, and we often find it mixed in the same manuscript with the West Saxon inflection. Thus in the Lindisfarne MS. we have:--" Rehta doeth oththe wyrcas stiga his; rectas facite semitas ejus: sceacas oththe drygas that asca of fotum iurum; excutite pulverem de pedibus vestris." In the Old Northern English, and in Old Scottish of the fourteenth century, this inflection becomes es or is, so that, instead of hearkeneth, we have hearkens, instead of doth and beth, we have does and bees, or dois and beis. The distinction is tolerably well marked, so that often the first line of an old ballad will tell us if it is Anglian or Saxon, according as it addresses the audience with herkeneth, listeneth, or with herkens, listens. We may here observe, however, once for all, that several disturbing influences have been at work which introduce considerable uncertainty into our conjectures as to such matters. In the first place, the writers who lived in the debateable land between two districts employed alternately or miscellaneously the dialect of each; and in the next place, compositions which The Old Anglo-Scottish Dialect. 457 were framed at first in one dialect were copied by scribes in another, and adapted, partially at least, to their own dialect, or to that of their readers, so that often a very hybrid and incongruous compound was the result. We believe Robert de Brunne to have been a genuine Anglian, though a neighbour to the Southern; but if we remember right, for we have not the book at present within reach, his Sinner's Manual or Handlyng Synne, whether in consequence of his own or his transcriber's variations, has a strong tendency in a southerly direction. We now give some Anglian examples of the peculiar imperative which we have noticed, observing at the same time that here, as in the Saxon-English, there is often no inflection in this part of the verb. Robert de Brunne thus delivers the last advice of the Romans to the Britons on retiring from the island: "Waxes bold and fende yow fast. He thus expresses Merlin's orders for transporting Stonehenge from Ireland : Merlyn said: 'Now makes assay, To putte this stones doun if ye may. For ye salle welde them wele inough."" Here are other examples from North of England writers : "Lufes noght the world here,' says he, 'Ne that, that ye in world may se."'"-Hampole. "Lithes, and I sall tell yow tyll The Bataile of Halidon-Hyll."--Minot. "Listens now, and leves me."-Ibid. "Herkens now both mor and lasse. Herkyns now and ye schall here."-Hartshorne's Tales. Among our early Scottish writers we find the same form. Barbour thus shortly gives the directions of the dying Edward as to his Scottish prisoners : "Than lukit he awfully tham to, And said, girnand, Hangis and drawis.' Wyntown thus tells us that a prince in battle should lead on his men, and not bid them go before him : "Thus suld a Prynce in Battale say, 'Cum on Falowis,' the formast ay. In the remarks we have hitherto made, we have not taken much notice of the Anglian peculiarities so far as the vowels are concerned; and we shall not now dwell on this distinction, but shall merely say that as we proceed northward we find the vowel o freely exchanged for a. In particular, the long Saxon oa or o-e passes into the Anglo-Scottish ai or a-e: bone, bane; home, hame, etc. This peculiarity is ridiculed by Chaucer in his Reeve's Tale, where the two northern students at Cambridge are made to speak in this way, and for the most part say hame, gae, sae, for home, go, so. Here is a couplet put into the mouth of one of them : We shall now proceed to bring under the notice of our readers the principal compositions in the Northumbrian or AngloScottish dialect which we think preserve the best examples of its peculiarities. For the publication of these we have hitherto been indebted chiefly to individual or insulated exertions, often with an exclusive tendency; but we trust that a new era is commencing under the auspices of the Early English Text Society, just instituted; and that ere long many valuable works will have been given to the public, not only honestly and accurately, but also in such a form as to make them generally accessible to the students and lovers of early English literature. We have no doubt that among the treasures which are to be thus widely communicated, the Anglian dialect will be duly represented. Dr. Guest has remarked that the number of MSS. written about the year 1300 which, judging from dialect and other circumstances, must be referred to Lincolnshire or the neighbouring shires, is singularly great, and these, we have no doubt, will present us with the more Southern form of the Anglian dialect, such as it is seen in Robert de Brunne's Chronicle; and indeed a fuller edition than we yet have of the early part of that chronicle would seem to us to be a very clear desideratum. The portions of it which Hearne has given are expressed in admirable Anglian, and are a most instructive philological study, approaching more nearly in substance to the dialect of Barbour than any other work we can mention. We shall not here attempt the observance of any precise chronological order in our account of some of the principal remains of this Anglian tongue, and we shall commence our notices with those which, in all probability, belong to the southern side of the Tweed. The first composition we shall now mention is the metrical version of the early English Psalter published by the Surtees Society. The MS. followed is said to belong to about the middle The Old Anglo-Scottish Dialect. 459 of the reign of Edward the Second; and we may reasonably ascribe the work itself to the thirteenth century. We subjoin a few specimens which we think will particularly interest our Scottish readers. In illustration of the English where it is obscure, we recommend a comparison with the Vulgate. PSALM 8TH. "2 Laverd, our Laverd hou selcouth is For upe-hovene is thi mykel-hede 3 Of mouth of childer and soukand 5 What is man, that thou mines of him? PSALM 18TH. "2 Hevens telles Goddes blisse; The walken schewes handes werkes hisse. 3 Dai to dai word riftes right, And wisdome schewes night to night." "7 Oppenes your yates wide, Yhe that princes ere in pride; 8 Wha es he king of blisse that isse? "1 Noght til us, Laverd, noght til us nou, 3 Oure God soth-like in heven is kid; 1 5 Thai have mouth, and sal not speke with-al; Eghen thai have, and se thai ne sal. 1 Kid=kythed, shown, revealed. VOL. XL. NO. LXXX. 2 Simulchra gentium. 2 H 6 Thai have eres, and here ne sal thai oght; 7 Hend thai have, and noght sal thai PSALM 144TH. "14 Laverd raises alle that doune-falle, 15 Eghen of alle, Laverd, hope in the wide, We shall next pass to the English Metrical Homilies,1 edited with great care and success by Mr. Small of Edinburgh. This publication is chiefly printed from a Ms. preserved in the Library of the Royal College of Physicians at Edinburgh, which Mr. Small believes to belong to the early part of the fourteenth century, but some defects in that Ms. are supplied from others of nearly equal antiquity preserved at Cambridge, Oxford, London, and Lambeth. The "Homilies" is an interesting book written obviously in a Northern form of the Anglian tongue, and presenting some curious philological features, which explain the connexion between the several Anglian dialects or sub-dialects of different periods or localities. We subjoin an extract from the Prologus to the Homilies as a sample : "Forthi suld ilke precheour schau, The god that Godd hauis gert him knau, For than lif Ic in charite, For Godes wisdom that es kid, And na thing worthe quen it is hid. Forthi wil I of my pouert, Schau sum thing that Ik haf in hert, English Metrical Homilies, from Manuscripts of the Fourteenth Century. With an Introduction and Notes. By JOHN SMALL, M.A. Edinburgh: William Paterson. 1862. |