French wrote people for peuple; léal for loyal; réal for royal; realm for royaume; and so on. But both of these dialects (and every dialect of French) are simply forms of Latin —not of the Latin written and printed in books, but of the Latin spoken in the camp, the fields, the streets, the village, and the cottage. The Romans conquered Gaul, where a Keltic tongue was spoken; and the Gauls gradually adopted Latin as their mother tongue, and—with the exception of the Brétons of Brittany-left off their Keltic speech almost entirely. In adopting the Latin tongue, they had-as in similar cases-taken firm hold of the root of the word, but changed the pronunciation of it, and had, at the same time, compressed very much or entirely dropped many of the Latin inflexions. The French people, an intermixture of Gauls and other tribes (some of them, like the Franks, German), ceased, in fact, to speak their own language, and learned the Latin tongue. The Norsemen, led by Duke Rolf or Rollo or Rou, marched south in large numbers; and, in the year 912, wrested from King Charles the Simple the fair valley of the Seine, settled in it, and gave to it the name of Normandy. These Norsemen, now Normans, were Teutons, and spoke a Teutonic dialect; but, when they settled in France, they learned in course of time to speak French. The kind of French they spoke is called Norman-French, and it was this kind of French that they brought over with them in 1066. But Norman-French had made its appearance in England before the famous year of '66; for Edward the Confessor, who succeeded to the English throne in 1042, had been educated at the Norman Court; and he not only spoke the language himself, but insisted on its being spoken by the nobles who lived with him in his Court.

23. Latin of the Third Period (ii). Chief Dates.-The Normans, having utterly beaten down the resistance of the English, seized the land and all the political power of this country, and filled all kinds of offices-both spiritual and temporal-with their Norman brethren. Norman-French became the language of the Court and the nobility, the language of Parliament and the law courts, of the universities and the schools, of the Church

and of literature. The English people held fast to their own tongue; but they picked up many French words in the markets and other places "where men most do congregate." But French, being the language of the upper and ruling classes, was here and there learned by the English or Saxon country-people who had the ambition to be in the fashion, and were eager "to speke Frensch, for to be more y-told of,"-to be more highly considered than their neighbours. It took about three hundred years for French words and phrases to soak thoroughly into English; and it was not until England was saturated with French words and French rhythms that the great poet Chaucer appeared to produce poetic narratives that were read with delight both by Norman baron and by Saxon yeoman. In the course of these three hundred years this intermixture of French with English had been slowly and silently going on. Let us look at a few of the chief land-marks in the long process. In 1042 Edward the Confessor introduces Norman-French into his Court. In 1066 Duke William introduces Norman-Fiench into the whole country, and even into parts of Scotland. The oldest English, or Anglo-Saxon, ceases to be written, anywhere in the island, in public documents, in the year 1154. In 1204 we lost Normandy, a loss that had the effect of bringing the English and the Normans closer together. Robert of Gloucester writes his chronicle in 1272, and uses a large number of French words. But, as early as the reign of Henry the Third, in the year 1258, the reformed and reforming Government of the day issued a proclamation in English, as well as in French and Latin. In 1303, Robert of Brunn introduces a large number of French words. The French wars in Edward the Third's reign brought about a still closer union of the Norman and the Saxon elements of the nation. But, about the middle of the fourteenth century a reaction set in, and it seemed as if the genius of the English language refused to take in any more French words. The English silent stubbornness seemed to have prevailed, and Englishmen had made up their minds to be English in speech, as they were English to the backbone in everything else. Norman-French had, in fact, become provincial, and was spoken

only here and there. Before the great Plague commonly spoken of as "The Black Death"-of 1349, both high and low seemed to be alike bent on learning French, but the reaction may be said to date from this year. The culminating point of this reaction may perhaps be seen in an Act of Parliament passed in 1362 by Edward III., by which both French and Latin had to give place to English in our courts of law. The poems of Chaucer are the literary result "the bright consummate flower" of the union of two great powers-the brilliance of the French language on the one hand and the homely truth and steadfastness of English on the other. Chaucer was born in 1340, and died in 1400; so that we may say that he and his poems-though not the causes-are the signs and symbols of the great influence that French obtained and held over our mother tongue. But although we accepted so many words from our Norman-French visitors and immigrants, we accepted from them no habit of speech whatever. We accepted from them no phrase or idiom: the build and nature of the English language remained the same-unaffected by foreign manners or by foreign habits. It is true that Chaucer has the ridiculous phrase, "I n'am but dead" (for "I am quite dead"1)—which is a literal translation of the well-known French idiom, "Je ne suis que." But, though our tongue has always been and is impervious to foreign idiom, it is probably owing to the great influx of French words which took place chiefly in the thirteenth century that many people have acquired a habit of using a long French or Latin word when an English word would do quite as well-or, indeed, a great deal better. Thus some people are found to call a good house, a desirable mansion; and, instead of the quiet old English proverb, "Buy once, buy twice," we have the roundabout Latin-. isms, "A single commission will ensure a repetition of orders." An American writer, speaking of the foreign ambassadors who had been attacked by Japanese soldiers in Yeddo, says that "they concluded to occupy a location more salubrious." This is only a foreign language, instead of the simple and homely English: " They made up their minds to settle in a healthier spot." 1 Or, as an Irishman would say, "I am kilt entirely."

24. Latin of the Third Period (iii). Norman Words (a).— The Norman-French words were of several different kinds. There were words connected with war, with feudalism, and with the chase. There were new law terms, and words connected with the State, and the new institutions introduced by the Normans. There were new words brought in by the NorNew titles unknown to the English were A better kind of cooking, a higher and less homely style of living, was brought into this country by the Normans; and, along with these, new and unheard-of words.

man churchmen.

also introduced.

25. Norman Words (b).-The following are some of the Norman - French terms connected with war: Arms, armour; assault, battle; captain, chivalry; joust, lance; standard, trumpet; mail, vizor. The English word for armour was harness; but the Normans degraded that word into the armour of a horse. Battle comes from the Fr. battre, to beat: the corresponding English word is fight. Captain comes from the Latin caput, a head. Mail comes from the Latin macula, the mesh of a net; and the first coats of mail were made of rings or a kind of metal network. Vizor comes from the Fr. viser, to look. It was the barred part of the helmet which a man could see through.

26. Norman Words (c).—Feudalism may be described as the holding of land on condition of giving or providing service in war. Thus a knight held land of his baron, under promise to serve him so many days; a baron of his king, on condition that he brought so many men into the field for such and such a time at the call of his Overlord. William the Conqueror made the feudal system universal in every part of England, and compelled every English baron to swear homage to himself personally. Words relating to feudalism are, among others Homage, fealty; esquire, vassal; herald, scutcheon, and others. Homage is the declaration of obedience for life of one man to another-that the inferior is the man (Fr. homme; L. homo) of the superior. Fealty is the Norman-French form of the word fidelity. An esquire is a scutiger (L.), or shield-bearer; for he carried the shield of the knight, when

A vassal

they were travelling and no fighting was going on. was a "little young man,"-in Low-Latin vassallus, a diminutive of vassus, from the Keltic word gwás, a man. (The form vassaletus is also found, which gives us our varlet and valet.) Scutcheon comes from the Lat. scutum, a shield. Then scutcheon or escutcheon came to mean coat-of-arms-or the marks and signs on his shield by which the name and family of a man were known, when he himself was covered from head to foot in iron mail.

27. Norman Words (d).-The terms connected with the chase are: Brace, couple; chase, course; covert, copse, forest; leveret, mews; quarry, venison. A few remarks about some of these may be interesting. Brace comes from the Old French brace, an arm (Mod. French bras); from the Latin brachium. The root-idea seems to be that which encloses or holds up. Thus bracing air is that which strings up the nerves and muscles; and a brace of birds was two birds tied together with a string.-The word forest contains in itself a good deal of unwritten Norman history. It comes from the Latin adverb foras, out of doors. Hence, in Italy, a stranger or foreigner is still called a forestiere. A forest in Norman-French was not necessarily a breadth of land covered with trees; it was simply land out of the jurisdiction of the common law. Hence, when William the Conqueror created the New Forest, he merely took the land out of the rule and charge of the common law, and put it under his own regal power and personal care. In land of this kind—much of which was kept for hunting in-trees were afterwards planted, partly to shelter large game, and partly to employ ground otherwise useless in growing. timber.—Mews is a very odd word. It comes from the Latin verb mutare, to change. When the falcons employed in hunting were changing their feathers, or moulting (the word moult is the same as mews in a different dress), the French shut them in a cage, which they called mue-from mutare. Then the stables for horses were put in the same place; and hence a row of stables has come to be called a mews.- Quarry is quite as strange. The word quarry, which means

a mine of stones,