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From The Saturday Review.

MARSH'S LECTURES ON THE ENGLISH
LANGUAGE.*

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that, in order to obtain a firm footing in grappling with many of the problems of philology, a knowledge, however elementary, of the language of the Brahmins is as indispensable as mathematics are in astronomy.

THESE Lectures on the English Language, delivered at New York by Mr. G. P. Marsh, before what he calls a It is partially true, as Mr. Marsh remarks, post-graduate," audience, at the Columbia College in the authat "if the inquirer's objects are limited to the actual use of his own tongue, the study tumn and winter of 1858-9, will be welcome in their collected form to many who take an of English authors is a better and safer guide than any wider researches in foreign philolinterest in the past and present of their naogies." What Mr. Marsh means is, that we tive tongue. They do not pretend to give either a complete history of all the changes ourselves completely masters of one language must begin with special studies, and make and chances which, from the days of Hengist before we enter on a comparison of that one and Horsa to the present time, have befallen with other cognate dialects constituting a the language of the British Isles; nor do natural group or family of speech. It is they enter on a full and systematic analysis of the grammatical and etymologcial struc- true, also, that there are periods in the histure of this remarkable branch of the Gothic tory of every language in which that lanstem of the Indo-European family of tongues. guage has acquired such complete indepenstem of the Indo-European family of tongues. dence and individuality that we may study Though fully acknowledging the important certain chapters or events in all their comresults obtained by a comparative study of the principal languages of Europe and Asia, to the right or to the left, or to inquire into pleteness without being obliged to cast about and looking forward with sanguine hope to the remote antecedents of every witness we a time when Sanskrit will probably in a great measure supersede the Latin as the self to that more limited sphere, Mr. Marsh may have to cross-examine. Confining himcommon standard of grammatical compari- has shown considerable skill in bringing toson," Mr. Marsh still looks upon the study gether from his large acquaintance with auof Sanskrit as a kind of esoteric doctrine, ac- thors little known and little read those chance cessible, as he says, to the fewest only-as a words and expressions which are so essential study for the future rather than for the pres-in dogging the steps of language in its gradent. He has thus deprived himself of the

valuable assistance which even a slender acquaintance with Sanskrit and a study of the works of Bopp and Grimm, which surely are accessible not to the fewest only, would have rendered him in tracing the ramifications of English words, and particularly of English grammar, to their true starting-point. The history of the English language does not begin on British soil; and even after the Saxon dialect of the early invaders of Britain has been traced back to that cluster of dialects which together form the Teutonic class, many problems belonging to a still earlier period must remain unsolved, unless we are able to confront the earliest Teutonic formation-the Gothic of Ulfilas-with the yet earlier formations of what may be called the Paleozoic period of Aryan specch. A scholar of Mr. Marsh's industry ought not to have been frightened by the apparent difficulties of Sanskrit; and he must have felt himself

*Lectures on the English Language. By George

P. Marsh. New York: 1860.

ual progress from the material to the abthe natural to the artificial, the accidental to stract, the matter-of-fact to the figurative, the customary and constant. It is here that

He

has evidently read the forgotten worthies of our author seems to us most successful. English literature with a loving and observing eye, and has noted down many a pasHis history of the word grain, for instance, sage which had escaped our lexicographers. in the sense of a dye, is a very favorable specimen of what can be achieved by carefully collecting the scattered expressions of poets and philosophers. Milton describes melancholy as clad

"All in a robe of darkest grain, Flowing in majestic train." What is the meaning of grain in this passage? Does it simply mean dye or hue? Most interpreters take it in the general sense of color, but Mr. Marsh supposes-and, as we think, rightly-that grain was intended by Milton for a special color.

Now, grain is clearly derived from the

No. 916.-21 December, 1861.

CONTENTS.

1. Concerning People who Carried Weight in Life, Fraser's Magazine,

2. In and Out of School,

4. Charles Knight,

5. Mr. Olmsted on the Slave States,

PAGE

531

All the Year Round,

544

3. Catlin's Life amongst the Indians,

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7. Marsh's Lectures on the English Language,

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6. Egyptian Hieroglyphics,

8. The Crusades,

9. Recovery of a Lost Work of Eusebius,

10. Isabell Carr-concluded,

11. Queen Hortense,

12. Home-Made Gas- A Simple Process,

POETRY.-Seceding Virginia, 530. Knitting Socks, 530. Our Union and Our Flag, 566. The Spark, 566. Welcome to Capt. Wilkes, 566. After the Storm, 566.

SHORT ARTICLES.-Modern-Antique Coffin, 543. Sir William Cubitt, 546. Meteorology, 550. A Good Editor, 553. Tide Power, 557. Fall of the Apple, 557. Lord Bacon, 557. Archives of Simancas, 565. Romance of a Dull Life, 583. Natural History Museum, at Liverpool, 583. Blanket Swallowed by a Boa Constrictor, 590. Monster Photographic Lens, 590. Perforation of Lead by Insects, 592. Bad Translation of Elsie Venner, 592.

NEW BOOKS.

how they are not Written: A Lyric and National New York: Rudd & Carleton.

National Hymns; How they are Written, and Study for The Times. By Richard Grant White.

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SECEDING VIRGINIA.

BY MRS. L. H. SIGOURNEY.

Ho! mistress of the rolling James,
And of its mountain strand,
The oldest, noblest, proudest one,
Of all our household band;
Thou of the stately form and step,
The flower-encircled hair,
Prime favorite of the fruitful earth,
And of the balmy air;

Thou who didst hold thy cresset forth
Ere early dawn had fled,

The morning star whose lambent ray
Our constellation led,

Yet when a comet madly rushed
Across the argent plain,

Why didst thou leave thy heaven-marked sphere,
And join its flaming train?

We loved thee well, Virginia!

And gave thee deferent place,
Pleased with thine ancient dignity,
And native, peerless grace,

And little deemed such sudden blight
Would settle on thy bays,
And change to discord and disgust
Our gratulating praise;

For thou hadst given thy great and good
Our helm of state to guide;

Thy Palinurus steered our barque
Safe through the seething tide;
And when we spake of Washington
With grateful, reverent tone

We called thine image forth, and blent
Thy memory with his own.

Our mother nursed thee at her breast,
When she herself was young;

And thou shouldst still have succored her,
Though fiery serpents stung;
Virginia Dare, the first-born bud
Of the true Saxon vine,

And old Powhatan, hoary chief
Who led the warrior-line;

And brave John Smith, the very soul
Of chivalry and pride,
And Pocahontas, princess pure,

The font of Christ beside,

Dreamed they that thou wouldst start aside,
When treachery's tocsin rang?
And in her heaving bosom fix
Thy matricidal fang?

Thou shouldst around her fourscore years
Have bent with hovering care,
Who steadfast at thy cradle watched,
And poured her ardent prayer;
Thou shouldst not to her banded foes
Have lent thy ready ear,
Nor seen them desolate her joys
Without a filial tear;

Though all beside her banner fold

Had trampled down and rent,

Thou shouldst have propped its shattered staff With loyalty unspent;

Though all beside had recreant proved,

Thou shouldst have stood to aid;

Like Abdiel, dreadless seraph,

Alone, yet undismayed.

Who sleepeth at Mount Vernon,
In the glory of his fame?

Yet, go in silent infamy,

Nor dare pronounce his name;
For thou hast of their sacred force,
His farewell counsels reft,
And helped to scatter to the winds
The rich bequest he left;

And in the darkest trial hour,
Forsook the endangered side;
And, ere the cock crew thrice, thy true
Discipleship denied.

Oh! that the pitying Prince of Peace
On thee his glance might bend,
And, from remediless remorse,

Preserve our long-loved friend!
Hartford, Conn., 21 May, 1861.

-National Intelligencer.

KNITTING SOCKS.

CLICK, click, click! how the needles go
Through the busy fingers, to and fro-
With no bright colors of Berlin wool
Delicate hands to-day are full;

Only a yarn of deep, dull blue,

Socks for the feet of the brave and true.

Yet click, click, how the needles go,
'Tis a power within that nerves them so.!
In the sunny hours of the bright spring day,
And still in the night-time far away,
Maiden, mother, and grandame sit
Earnest and thoughtful while they knit.
Many the silent prayer they pray,
Many the teardrops brushed away,
While busy on the needles go,
Widen and narrow, heel and toe.

The grandame thinks with a thrill of pride
How her mother.knit and spun beside
For that patriot band in olden days
Who died the "Stars and Stripes" to raise-
Now she in turn knits for the brave
Who'd die that glorious flag to save.

She is glad, she says, "the boys" have gone,
'Tis just as their grandfathers would have done;
But she heaves a sigh and the tears will start,
For "the boys" were the pride of grandame's

heart.

The mother's look is calm and high,
God only hears her soul's deep cry-
In Freedom's name, at Freedom's call,
She gave her sons-in them her all.
The maiden's cheek wears a paler shade,
But the light in her eye is undismayed.
Faith and hope give strength to her sight,
She sees a red dawn after the night.
O soldiers brave, will it brighten the day,
And shorten the march on the weary way,
To know that at home the loving and true
Are knitting and hoping and praying for you?
Soft are their voices when speaking your name,
Proud are their glories when hearing your fame,
And the gladdest hour in their lives will be
When they greet you after the victory.
-Transcript.

CONCERNING PEOPLE WHO
From Fraser's Magazine.

CONCERNING PEOPLE WHO CARRIED
WEIGHT IN LIFE.

WITH SOME THOUGHTS ON THOSE WHO
NEVER HAD A CHANCE.

You drive out, let us suppose upon a certain day. To your surprise and mortification, your horse, usually lively and frisky, is quite dull and sluggish. He does not get over the ground as he is wont to do. The slightest touch of whip-cord, on other days, suffices to make him dart forward with redoubled speed; but upon this day, after two or three miles, he needs positive whipping, and he runs very sulkily with it all. By and by, his coat, usually smooth and glossy and dry through all reasonable work, begins to stream like a water-cart. This will not do. There is something wrong. You investigate; and you discover that your horse's work, though seemingly the same as usual, is in fact immensely greater. The blockheads who oiled your wheels yesterday have screwed up your patent axles too tightly; the friction is enormous; the hotter the metal gets, the greater grows the friction; your horse's work is quadrupled. You drive slowly home; and severely upbraid the blockheads.

strong rope to a tree, or weighted with ten tons of extra burden. That horse cannot run, even poorly. The difference between their case and that of the men who are placed at a disadvantage, is like the difference between setting a very near-sighted man to keep a sharp look-out, and setting a man who is quite blind to keep that sharp lookout. Many can do the work of life with difficulty; some cannot do it at all. In short, there are PEOPLE WHO CARRY WEIGHT IN LIFE; and there are some WHO NEVER HAVE A CHANCE.

race.

And you, my friend, who are doing the work of life well and creditably; you who are running in the front rank, and likely to do so to the end, think kindly and charitably of those who have broken down in the Think kindly of him who, sadly overweighted, is struggling onwards away half a mile behind you; think more kindly yet, if that be possible, of him who, tethered to a ton of granite, is struggling hard and making no way at all; or who has even sat down and given up the struggle in dumb despair. You feel, I know, the weakness in yourself which would have made you break down if sorely tried like others. You know there is There are many people who have to go in your armor the unprotected place at which through life at an analogous disadvantage. a well-aimed or a random blow would have There is something in their constitution of gone home and brought you down. Yes, body or mind, there is something in their cir- you are nearing the winning-post, and you cumstances, which adds incalculably to the are among the first; but six pounds more on exertion they must go through to attain their your back, and you might have been nowhere. ends, and which holds them back from do- You feel, by your weak heart and weary would ing what they might otherwise have done. frame, that if you had been sent to the CriVery probably, that malign something exert-mea in that dreadful first winter, you ed its influence unperceived by those around certainly have died. And you feel, too, by them. They did not get credit for the strug-your lack of moral stamina, by your gle they were making. No one knew what a brave fight they were making with a broken right arm; no one remarked that they were running the race, and keeping a fair place in it, too, with their legs tied together. All they do, they do at a disadvantage. It is as when a noble race-horse is beaten by a sorry hack; because the race-horse, as you might see if you look at the list, is carrying twelve pounds additional. But such men, by a desperate There is no reckoning up the manifold imeffort, often made silently and sorrowfully, may-so to speak-run in the race, and do pedimenta by which human beings are weightwell in it; though you little think with how ed for the race of life; but all may be classified heavy a foot and how heavy a heart. There under the two heads of unfavorable influences are others who have no chance at all. They arising out of the mental or physical nature are like a horse set to run a race, tied by a of the human beings themselves, and unfa

feeble

ness of resolution, that it has been your preservation from you know not what depths of shame and misery, that you never were pressed very hard by temptation. Do not range yourself with those who found fault with a certain great and good Teacher of former days, because he went to be guest with a man that was a sinner. As if he could have gone to be guest with any man who was not.

vorable influences arising out of the circum- make a pretty country house on a site which stances in which the human beings are placed. had some one great drawback. They were alYou have known men who, setting out from ways battling with that drawback, and trying a very humble position, have attained to a to conquer it; but they never could quite sucrespectable standing; but who would have ceed. And it remained a real worry and reached a very much higher place but for vexation. Their house was on the north their being weighted with a vulgar, violent, side of a high hill, and never could have its wrong-headed, and rude-spoken wife. You due share of sunshine. Or you could not have known men of lowly origin, who had in reach it but by climbing a very steep ascent; them the makings of gentlemen; but whom or you could not in any way get water into the this single malign influence has condemned landscape. When Sir Walter was at length to coarse manners and a dirty, repulsive able to call his own a little estate on the banks home, for life. You have known many men of the Tweed he loved so well, it was the ugliwhose powers are crippled and their nature est, bleakest, and least interesting spot upon soured by poverty; by the heavy necessity the course of that beautiful river; and the for calculating how far each shilling will go; public road ran within a few yards of his by a certain sense of degradation that comes door. The noble-hearted man made a charmof sordid shifts. How can a poor parson ing dwelling at last; but he was fighting write an eloquent or spirited sermon, when against nature in the matter of the landscape his mind all the while is running upon the round it; and you can see yet, many a year thought how he is to pay the baker, or how after he left it, the poor little trees of his be he is to get shoes for his children? It will loved plantations, contrasting with the magbe but a dull discourse which, under that nificent timber of various grand old places weight, will be produced even by a man who, above and below Abbotsford. There is somefavorably placed, could have done very con- thing sadder in the sight of men who carried siderable things. It is only a great genius weight within themselves; and who, in aimhere and there, who can do great things, who ing at usefulness or at happiness, were hamcan do his best, no matter at what disadvan-pered and held back by their own nature. tage he may be placed; the great mass of There are men who are weighted with a ordinary men can make little headway with hasty temper; weighted with a nervous, anxwind and tide dead against them. Not many ious constitution; weighted with an envious, trees would grow well, if watered daily-let | jealous disposition; weighted with a strong us say—with vitriol. Yet a tree which would tendency to evil speaking, lying, and slanspeedily die under that nurture, might do very dering; weighted with a grumbling, sour, fairly, even might do magnificently, if it had discontented spirit; weighted with a dispofair play, if it got its chance of common sun-sition to vaporing and boasting; weighted shine and shower. Some men, indeed, though with a great want of common sense; weightalways hampered by circumstances, have ac-ed with an undue regard to what other peocomplished much; but then you cannot help ple may be thinking or saying of them; thinking how much more they might have weighted with many like things of which accomplished had they been placed more more will be said by and by. When that happily. Pugin, the great Gothic architect, good missionary, Henry Martyn, was in Indesigned various noble buildings; but I be- dia, he was weighted with an irresistible lieve he complained that he never had fair drowsiness. He could hardly keep himself play with his finest; that he was always awake. And it must have been a burning weighted by considerations of expense, or by earnestness that impelled him to ceaseless the nature of the ground he had to build on, labor, in the presence of such a drag-weight or by the number of people it was essential as that. I am not thinking or saying, my the building should accommodate. And so friend, that it is wholly bad for us to carry he regarded his noblest edifices as no more weight; that great good may not come of than hints of what he could have done. He the abatement of our power and spirit which made grand running in the race; but oh, may be made by that weight. I remember what running he could have made if you had a greater missionary than even the sainted taken off those twelve additional pounds! I Martyn, to whom the Wisest and Kindest dare say you have known men who labored to appointed that he should carry weight, and

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