before the Latin forms had come in like a flood, as they were to do all through this Century. He therefore leans to the old way, when writing baptim, advoutry, crysten, soudeour (miles), parfit, unpossyble. I could wish that he had kept to the English, instead of the French pattern, in such words as afrayed and defyle. He made a sad mistake in not writing ‘Peter was to blame’ in a well-known passage. He was too fond of similitude, conclusion, seniours; and we have to regret that by 1525 such words as certain, herbes,[1] loins, physician had supplanted good old English equivalents. About forty Strong verbs, which we still keep, had by this time been turned into Weak verbs; since then, holpen has been corrupted into helped, though the former occurs in a well-known passage.
Tyndale, though hunted out of his own land, was always a sound and wise patriot; his political tracts are as well worth studying as his religious books. He uplifted his voice against the folly of England's meddling in foreign wars, at the time when Zwingli was giving the like wholesome rede to the Switzers. Tyndale's works fill two goodly volumes, yet these contain only about twelve Teutonic words that have become obsolete since his time; a strong proof of the influence his translation of the Bible has had upon England, in keeping her steady to her old speech. As to the proportion of Latin words in his writings, of his nouns, verbs, and adverbs, three out of four are Teutonic, and in this pure
- ↑ This is pronounced yarbs in America, as we see in Cooper; and Tyndale wrote it yerbes.
