Franciscan movement had been known in our island for six hundred years. The Old was being replaced by the New; a preacher would suit his tales to his listeners: they cared not to hear about hinds or husbandmen, but about their betters.[1] He would therefore talk about ladies, knights, or statesmen; and when discoursing about these, he must have been almost driven to interlard his English with a few French words, such as were constantly employed by his friends of the higher class. As a man of learning, he would begin to look down upon the phrases of his childhood as somewhat coarse, and his lowly hearers rather liked a term now and then that was a little above their understanding: what is called ‘fine language’ has unhappily always had charms for most Englishmen. It would be relished by burghers even more than by peasants. The preacher may sometimes have translated for his flock's behoof, talking of ‘grith or pais, rood or croiz, steven or voiz, lof or praise, swinkeldom or tricherie, stead or place.’[2] As
- ↑ Our humbler classes now prefer the fictitious adventures of some wicked Marquis to all the sayings and doings of Mrs. Gamp or Mrs. Poyser.
- ↑ I take the following sketch from Middlemarch, III. 156 (published in 1872): — ‘Mr. Trumbull, the auctioneer . . . was an amateur of superior phrases, and never used poor language without immediately correcting himself. “Anybody may ask,” says he, “anybody may interrogate. Any one may give their remarks an interrogative turn.” He calls Ivanhoe “a very superior publication, it commences well.” Things never began with Mr. Trumbull; they always commenced, both in private life and on his handbills, “I hope some one will tell me — I hope some individual will apprise me of the fact.”’ Many of our early Franciscans must have been akin to Mr. Trumbull. Our modern penny-a-liners would say that the worthy auctioneer was a master of English, and a better guide to follow than Bunyan or Defoe.
