In Verbs, we find ute, the old Imperative form, used for almost the last time. In page 47 Pilate, speaking of Christ, says, ‘leteþ hyne beo.’ We should now say, ‘let him alone.’
A new word for tremere now appears in English, in page 176:
For ich schal bernen in fur
And chiverin in ise.
There has been so much wrangling as to whether our Indefinite one comes from the French on or from the Old English ân, used for man, that I once more return to the word, which has been seen already in the Ancren Riwle and the Bestiary. At page 40 we read:
‘On me scal bitraye þat nu is ure yvere.’
This on, which before the Thirteenth Century never stood alone, is a translation of the kindred Latin word in the well-known passage of the Vulgate, ‘unus vestrum me traditurus est.’ Latin, as well as French, had great influence upon the changes in English. Fifty years later, the on was to be used indefinitely like the Old English man.
THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT.
(About A.D. 1270.)
The following specimen must have been written much about the time that King Henry III. ended his worthless life, if we may judge by internal evidence. It was transcribed by a Herefordshire man about forty years later. Of the sixty nouns, verbs, and adverbs contained
