The Sun.
London, England, 1861-07-08 00:00:00

West of Europe by succeeding nations; and lastly, about
the dawn of history, and at various epochs afterwards, the
other great tides poured in, i.e. Pelasgic, Teutonic, and
Sclavonic;
My present business is,however, with the moth er totigue,
arid I have only alluded to the great family of other lan-
guages to show the birth, growth, and kindred of our
own. The large map of Europe before you, which I have
coloured " glosso-graphically," shows you the present
localities of the Indo-European languages. The Indian
and Mcdo-Persian branches belong to Asia; and I have
made Scandinavian a distinct division. The table
beat& the map contains five columns, ono for each great
stem, with its languages and dialects ranged below. It is
to the second, the Teutonic or Germanic (and to the Frisian
variety thereof) that English must be traced, though it has
borrowed largely from the Grace-Roman stem, and a little
from other languages. Its kindred are the ancient Meese-
Gothic, Anglo-Saxton and Icelandic, with modern German,
Dutch, Danish, and Swedish. The growth of the
English tongue may be best shown by this diagram,
divided into nineteen equal parts representing centutier.
The white portion at the head stands for the Celtic, once
the only language in the island. The small dotted lines
indicate the Roman element, blending with the Celtic for
nearly 400 years, and then disappearing. From A.D. 450,
You will observe the inroad and steady growth of the
Saxon (marked by stars), till all Southern Britain except.
Wales, Cumberland and Cornwall loses its Celtic. The
banes too made frequent raids (from 800 to 1066), leaving
a decided impress on some of the provincial dialects. In
1066 came Norman French, which prevailed in the palace,
the castle, the courts of law, and even the grammar-
Schools, Saxon holding its own as the speech of the people
of the landt and Latin being the( language of the Church
and of literary men. For two hundred years the work of
mingling went on, till at last the Teutonic, richer in itself,
and also the speech of the majority, overcame the French
of the Normans ; and in the 13th century, English,
'which had all along existed under an Anglo-Saxon garb,
took something like its present shape, though very far
from possessing its modern richness, flexibility, and
power. During the next two hundred years it had gathered
strength enough to furnish the prose of Wycliffe and the
poetry of Chaucer. From Queen Elizabeth to Queen Anne,
or rather from Shakespeare to Addison, English may be
regarded as substantially the language of out own day;
though many words have become wholly or entirely obso-
lete, and thousands of new ones have been introduced. We
have thus a completely formed, if not absolutely stereotyped
language—one rarely inferior to the classical tongues, often
their equal, and occasionally their superior—one which
abundantly justifies the well-known eulogium of Grimm,
The English tongue possesses a veritable power of ex-
pression such as perhaps never stood at the command of any
other language of man."
.I have hitherto spoken of literary English, the language
of books and of the educated classes. All members of the
?fluidic) and upper ranks speak English, though it may be
in some instances with imperfect grammar, or with marked
provincial accent. But I must now invite you to notice
another kind of English, vernacular or dialectic, besides the
other languages still spoken in these islands, though totally
distinct from English. This map of Great Britain and Ire-
land, coloured on the same plan as that of Europe, will
Make this evident. The portion south of a line drawn from
the Mersey to the Humber represents the region of English
Proper (Mercian, as distinguished from Dano-English),
'with its nine 'dialects, the nearly unmixed legacies of our
Saxon forefathers. From the North of Derbyshire to the
Scottish border we have Dano-Saxon or Northumbrian with
"yen dialects Saxon in most of its roots, but strongly
tinged with Danish, and slightly with Celtic. Between Car-
lisle and Glasgow, Border Scotch prevails, a mixture of
Norse, Dano-Saxon, and Celtic, the last a feeble remnant of
Strathclyde and Cumbria. The whole east of Scotland repre-
"nts the Lowland Scotch, i.e., Saxon with a stronger intu-
ition of Norse, the latter once the sole speech of the Orkneys
and Shetlands. In Ireland, English is the language of the mi-
nority, being found chiefly in Ii lster and on the eastern coast.
Celtic under the various names of Erse, Gaelic, Welsh, and
Manx, is daily used by nearly six millions in the British
Islands. The Armorican er Cornish perished last century;
and the Cumbrian, the language of a kimgdom once ex-
tending from the Mersey to the Clyde, died out long ago,
at a date unknown. _ _

From this rapid sketch you will easily infer that literary
English is not the speech of the great mass of the people.
Deduct six millions of Celts and fifteen millions using pro-
vincial dialects, and there remains barely a third part of our
population able to understand the language of books and of
the educated classes.
The table I now exhibit shows the proportion of Anglo-
Saxon in written English. The Bible of 1611 has 97
per cent. of Anglo-Saxon, Shakespeare 85,. and even
Gibbon, our most Latinised writer, 55. The inference is
obvious. And if tho genius of our tongue is Teutonic in
writing, it is still more so in speaking. The lower we de-
scend in society, the more the Saxon element prevails, till
among the peasantry, Latin words " of learned length and
thundering sound" are practically " an unknown tongue."
Whoever, then wishes to find his way into the heads and
hearts of Englishmen, I mean not merely the tillers of the
ground, but the masses of the people, must clothe his
thoughts not in the elegant phraseology and elaborate
Periods of Roman origin, but in that clear, strong, glowing
speech first brought to our shores by the fair-haired
followers of Hengist and Horsa. I trust, however, that
I shall not be misunderstood in thus contending for a
greater use of Saxon. English as it now exists is a com-
posite language, in which, while Saxon has undoubtedly
the largest share, Latin, Greek, and other tongues play no
Unimportant parts, and serve as vehicles of ideas, for whose
'impression unaided Saxon can furnish no suitable terms.
An exclusive use of Saxon derivatives is therefore, im-
practicable. Even those purists who contend for the
Saxon element, employ a full proportion of Latin or
French terms in the very sentences in which they plead
most earnestly for the Germanic words I It is quite true
that justice has not hitherto been done in our schools and
colleges to our old English tongue, but the ends of justice
are never promoted by overstating the merits of a case.
The reader can scarcely judge by mere detached
passages, such as the foregoing, of the general ex-
cellence and sr)n.ndjudgmentby which Mr.D'Orsey's
lecture is marked from the beginning to the end ;
but we trust we have said enough in its favour to
induce the public, but especially educators and pro-
fessional men generally, to read M. D'Orsey's little
'volume and judge for themselves, and form their
own conclusions. We are much mistaken if those
conclusions will not be the same as those come to
by M. D'Orscy himself, and in which we do not
hesitate to express our hearty concurrence.

TILE COMET.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

SlR,—The present comet appears to me to ex-
hibit some peculiarities which I have not seen
hitherto noticed ; and I think it right to describe
them, so that my observations may be either con-
firmed or found erroneous before that body disap-
pears from the earth.

The tail, on Sunday evening, seemed slightly
curved in the direction of the comet's motion—that
is, outwards towards the left of the observer; and
in this it agreed with the general rule which was
so well illustrated by the comet of '5B ; but since
then it has become curved the other way, and has,
in fact, more than one curve, as I shall describe
below.

Last night the tail increased in breadth to a
place a little beyond a line between Gamma of the
Lesser, and Eta of the Great Bear. Here the
groat breadth ceased ; but the right side of the tail
was prolonged in what might be called a hetero-
cereal fashion, like a narrow beam, for 60 degrees
farther to the limits of Ophiucus. The length of
the first curve was about the same as the distance
'between the stars Alpha and Beta of Ursa Major.
Here there was an indent, or short carve inwards,
and then, again, a long outward curve, very slight,
but, I think, plainly perceptible, to the end.
The border of the tail was sharply defined on
the right only, which was in accordance with the
general rule relating to the direction of curvature ;
but the curvature itself, as I have already stated,
differed from the usual direction indicated by the
motion of the comet.

If my observations are correct, they must show
that the curving of a comet's tail, and its superior
definition on one side, must be attributed to some
other cause besides the motion, or at least the direct
motion, of the body.

Mr. Hind, in his letter appearing in the 7 zmes
of this day, alludes to the probability of the earth's
having passed through the tail of the comet in the
course of last Sunday, and suggests that the bright-
ness of the northern heavens in the evening of that
day may be attributed to the proximity of come-
tary matter. This brightness was very evident,
and in my first communication I called it " the
northern twilight of summer," believing it to be a
phenomenon which I am accustomed to see at this
time of the year in two degrees, or so, of more
northern latitude.—l remain, Sir, your obedient
servant, JOHN BIRMINGHAM.
Cecil-street, Strand, July 6.

A letter from Berlin of the 2d says:—"
The for-
motion of a flotilla of steam gunboats for the North
Sea forms at the present moment the subject of
very active negotiations between Prussia on the
orte hand and Oldenburg and Bremen on the other.
Hanover has declined taking any part in the affair,
because the idea is to place the flotilla under the or-
ders of Prussia, and make it consequently a part of
the Prussian fleet. According to the project in ques-
tion the expense of the first establishment would be
borne, one half by Prussia, and the other half between
the three States above mentioned. The expenses of
all repairs would fall on .the latter, while Prussia
would furnish and keep the. cre
iw a. The difficulty
'which impedes the negotiations s the demand made
by the petty States that they should have a dimi-
nution made in their military contingent, a favonr
which can only be granted by the Diet. in conse-
quence of the feelings which are well known to pre-
vail at Frankfort, with regard to Prussia, and the
'delay in arranging any affairs there, the Fowers
Interested in the question of the flotilla are desirous
Diarranging it without the intervention of the
et"

New York harbour is defended by 12 forts, car-
rying 1,025 guns; 2 additional forts are now building to
carry 337 guns, and works have been proposed for 602 more
pus. This does not include floating batteries, which might
ueeasily constructed in largo numbers and used to greSt
Eta vautage,—Afechanics'