Phenix gazette. [volume] (Alexandria [D.C.]) 1825-1833, 1832-08-22

II ~" v Sukobu
which has given models to Europe of the most
mastery productions in every class Of learning,
and every province Of genius, SO late ~ within
these last three centuries, was herself destitute
of a native literature.
How "that was performed, or preferred. eli.
Their to insolent Greece or naughty Rome" as
one of our great poets has nobly expressed him
self, becomes a pathological tale for an English
philosopher, who discovers in the history of the
human mind the gradual expansion Of public OPT
MON.
The vernacular literature Of every European
nation was long impeded by the predominance Of
that universal language which the Gothic nations
of Europe, from accident, if not from necessity,
had adopted from that mighty Rome which they
had themselves conquered. Ecclesiastical Rome,
whence the novel faith Of Christianity was now
to emauate, far more potent than military Rome,
perpetuated the Roman language. The clergy
through the diversified realms Of Europe, held
together by a common bond, chaiued to the
throne of the priesthood-one faith, one disci-
pllne, one language!
The Latin language, in verse and 10 prose,
was domlclIiated among people of the most op-
pOsits interests, customs, and characters. The
prlmi tive fathers, the later schoolmen, the mon
kish annalists, all alike composed in Latin; char
tiers, even marriage contracts, in q word, all lie.
gal instruments were drawn in Latin, and even
the language Of Christian prayer was that Of
abolished Paganism.
The idiom of their father.land, or, as we have
affectionately called il, our mother tongue-those
first human accents which their infant ear had
caught, and which, from their boyhood, were as
ISOLATED with the most tender and Joyous recol-
lectiOns-every nation left to ~1uctuate on the
Ups OF the populace, rude and neglected; all men
! who looked towards advancement in the world,
and were members of the higher classes in socie-
ty, cultivated the Latin language. 1t is All Oh,
~servation Of the learned historian of our Anglo.
Saxon history; that owing to this circumstance
s'the Latin language and the classical writer's
were preserved by the Christian clergy from that
destruction which has entirely swept from US the
language and the writings of Phenecia, Carthage,
Babylon, and Egypt" But we must also recol-
lect that the influence Of the Latin language be-
came far more permanent when the great master.
works Of antiquity were gradually unburied from
| their concealments. In this resurrection of taste
aud genius amidst the most barbarous ages. they
survived BY the secret charm of their stile and the
imperishabte art OF their composition.
III. But we in England, while we shared in
common with our neighbours this bondage of a
foreign ldioln, had likewise the peculiar unilap-
piness Of bearing a double chain, and the ignomi-
nv Of a double servitude. Not only the general
cultivation Of the LAIN language crushed every
native attempt, and long procrastinated the day
Of our emancipation. but our cOuntrymen had
been compelled to adopt that Norman French
which a foreign race had imposed on us-a hate
full intruder. with which We had long to wrestle.
Thus while the learned only communicated in
Latin. the English at large, from their cradle,
were also taught to speak French, the court lam
guaSe. The vernacu!ar ldiOm seemed utterly
extirpated. So much was our nation kept under,
that we were glad TO dissemble our tongue and
learn theirs; whereupon came the proverb, Jack
would be a gentleman if he could speak French
as we gather from Sir Thomas Smith, the learned
Secretary of Elizabeth. who was himself intent
on refining the unpublished English of his day.
lis remarkable, that when John de Trevisa,
IN 1881, translated the "Polychronicon" into
English, and stated his reason in a dialogue be-
tween "Clericus and Patronus," the patron
deemed It a su%pernumerary labor, since the La.
tin was the mure general language; and even Ire
visa himself doubted the utility of his own labor.
at a time when the national antipathy to our old
masters, the NOrmans. was at its height; when
Edward Ill, had recently abolished the practice
Of carrying on the pleadings in our law courts in
French; when a crisis had come. and a revolu-
ton was occurring in our grammar -schvols, where,
as Trevisa tells, - the children leaveth French
and con,;rueth IN English" Our native trans
lator still considers this important innovation not
to be so wholly an advantage as some conceived;
for Trevisa feared that the neglect of the French
idlom would be sensibly felt in their intercourse
and s.travaile in strange londes and in many
other places also" So unsettled was the Eng.
lish language az that day, that Trevisa notices
its unintelligibie orthoepy. In different parts
OF the Island a diversity Of pronunciation occur
red, so that the northern, and the mlddle-land-
men, an mtermixture of the Danish, the Saxon,
and the Norman races, could not often under
stand one another.
But the history Of this ancient translation Of
the .Polychronicou' offers a still more remark.
able circumstance in the history Of our language.
At a subsequent period, when it was printed by
Caxton, not more than one hundred and twenty
years had elapsed since the translator's death,
and we find Caxton complaining of Trevisa's
crude and old English, that is to wit, certain
words which IN these days he neither used nor