how many of our idioms, seemingly modern, date from long before the Norman Conquest; and how many hundreds of our Romance words were used so far back as the Thirteenth Century.
With the help of our old writers, I mark the advance of our tongue; much as the changes in English Architecture for four hundred and fifty years may be traced by the man who visits in succession the Cathedrals of Durham, Lincoln, Exeter, and Winchester; or as the improvements in the English Constitution may be traced, from the woods of Germany to the Convention Parliament in 1689, by the documents printed in the small work of Professor Stubbs.
It is always well to begin from the beginning; I have therefore started from a point, that would have astonished the most keen-sighted of philologers. seventy years ago. Mighty indeed were the results wrought by the great discovery as to the true use of Sanscrit.[1] Of these results the best idea may be formed by any one who compares the writings of Garnett with those of Horne Tooke. The two men were for many years contemporary; yet, thanks to the great discovery, the philological knowledge of
- ↑ We have lately naturalized the German word umlaut, thus marking the nation - which has most claim on Philologers. A less peaceful age than our own naturalized plunder, which came from the same land.
