forts were successful. In England the Northern Germans were called the Old Saxons; Eald-Seaxan, Antiqui-Saxones; their instructors being the Anglo-Saxons. These last took with them their own proper alphabet; and out of this grew a comparatively creditable body of compositions. Some of them hardly deserve the name of literature; for they are mere muniments, or rolls of certain convents, i.e., of Essen and Frekkenhorst. But the Heliand, Healer, or Savior, a metrical harmony of the four Gospels, giving us the history of Christ during his ministry on earth, is a work of no small importance. Being written without any metrical divison of the lines, it was, at first, mistaken for a narration in prose, and for one composed in the Danish parts of England; by which supposition its divergence from the ordinary Anglo-Saxon was accounted for. It is now known to be a poem. As for its language it is amply explained by the doctrine that it was the Old Saxon of the original mother country in Germany. Add to this the fact that it is that of the rolls and muniments of the Westphalian convents already mentioned, and the evidence is complete.

Here, then, we have the Anglo-Saxon alphabet in Germany, where it may re-act on that of the Franks, just as that of the Franks acted upon the English. It is essentially Anglo-Saxon with differences. The Anglo-Saxon wis uu. The c is strictly adopted. The only word I remember as spelt with kis the proper name Isaak. The same claim, of having supplied either an alphabet as an actual model, or a standard to which writers might refer, may be made upon Scandinavia. In the present Icelandic, Swedish, and Danish we know that the k is paramount. Cappears oftenest in the Swedish; but it is only when it precedes a k, for the sake of indicating the shortness of the vowel which it follows, as dricka, in Danish drikke. Here the function of e is just what it is in thick. But in the older Icelandic manuscripts, though eis non-existent in the print, k is exceptional; or rather it is found subject to the rule we can so easily anticipate; the one connected with the broadness or smallness of the vowel by which it is followed. Thus while the print of the Völuspa runs:

Hljóðs bid ec allar
Helgar kinder,
Meiri ok minni,

Mögue Heimdallar,
Vildu at ek Valfödrs

Vél framtelja,

Fornspjöll fira,

þau er ek fremst um man

The manuscript on which it is founded runs:

Hliods bid ec allar kinder meiri miNi maugo heimdalar vildo at ec ualfas uel fýr telía porn spioli fira þæ e' fremst ū man.

But, even here, when two vowels follow, the spelling is with casin the manuscript

Sol skein sunnan
A' salar steina,
þá var grund gróin
Grænum lauki.

Sol scein suNa a salar steina þa var grvnd groin grono lauki. (5)

The earlier Anglo-Saxon prototype and the latter modifications of it are here manifest. In the Codex Regius, assigned to the beginning of the fourteenth century, k appears before n as kna. Upon this, however, Munch remarks that "cis used oftener than k." In the Arne Magnusson Codex the k is exclusively used.

From the Icelandic, or Old Norse, the present alphabets of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden are derived. They are of average merit; and such we may suppose the English would have been had there been nothing to interfere with it.

SECTION XLII.

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF ENGLISH SPELLING SUBSEQUENT TO

THE NORMAN CONQUEST. - THE MUTE E.

Though the mute e is mainly of French origin we must not suppose that it is wholly and absolutely foreign to our language. It appears, for the first time, after the Norman Conquest; and, at present, it is in words introduced from France that it chiefly occurs. So far, then, as it is conspicuous and prominent it is French; but it is probable that, even if no such an event as the Battle of Hastings had occurred, we might have mute e's to some extent at least, of native origin and independent growth. In all words where the penuttinate vowel is long, and the last is the letter e, (which in this case is sounded,) there is always a chance of the e becoming, sooner or later, obsolete; in which case it drops out of the pronunciation. If then, as generally happens, the spelling fail to keep pace with the pronunciation, and if the vowel be preserved in writing after it has been dropped in speaking, a mute e is the natural result; and as the syllable which precedes it is already long, the connection between the two vowels in the way of orthography, is invested with a character to which it has no claim. The two vowels look as if they belonged to a system, or a method, or had some connection with a principle, or a function, namely, that of indicating longness. The combination, however, has, as we have seen, a different origin; and is in fact, so far as the expression of quantity is concerned, merely accidental.

Now the extent to which a final e became thus obsolete in the earlier stages of our language was inordinately great; greater, perhaps, than in French, as may be seen by the merest inspection of an Anglo-Saxon grammar. In our language anterior to the Norman Conquest, there was a whole declension of substantives, in which the nominative case ended in -n, and the oblique cases in -e;-an e which was as clearly sounded as it is in the present German, or Danish. This was the case with heortan, tungan, eage, hearts, tongues, eyes, etc. Here the first step in the change was the ejection of the sound of the final consonant; then came that of e; which was long preserved in writing.

to

Besides this, there was a double inflection of the adjective. When it followed the definite article, -n or -e was the ending. Hence, there came a Definite, as opposed to an Indefinite, Declension; and this, also, at the present moment occurs in German. So important is this real and organic -e with its subsequent disappearance in speech, that it gives us one of the rules for the pronunciation of the adjective in Chaucer; where (whatever may be the case in other words) we are safe in treating it, for the purposes of metre, as sounded where it is Definite, or preceded by the. In this, then, go no farther, we get a measure of the degree to which the AngloSaxon orthography had, within itself, the germ of what we may call the mute e system; for it is the doctrine of the present writer that the final vowel was written, at least, as long as it was pronounced, and the hypothesis (we may almost say the certain fact) that it was retained in the writing after it had been dropped in the pronunciation are equally legitimate deductions from the history of our orthography. Hence, when, from two different causes-the one derived from our own language, and the other from the French, the two modes of spelling became confluent or united, the predominance of what looks like a very artificial way of expressing the length of a vowel, is explained by the very natural process of a change in language preceding the appropriate change in spelling; or the retention of a letter in writing after its proper function had become, both literally and figuratively, a dead letter. Then, when e final was made mute, the necessity of expressing it when sounded, led to orthographical expedients; and this, (as was shown in our remarks on the words quantity, quality, etc., which are spelt in French with an accented é, whereas with us, the accent was not recognised,) to say the least, favored the practice of writing y at the end of words; a thoroughly non-natural termination.

As for the mute e itself with a consonant between it and the vowel with which it was supposed to be associated, the orthographic process in which it plays its part is so exceptional, that the English and the French are the only two languages in which it is found. Its origin (as has been shown) was, to some extent, natural. It soon, however, became artificial; consciously, and designedly artificial. One of the worst instances of this is the word whose. The AngloSaxon was hwas. Here, the e pres presented itself in the diphthong. Then came hwaes; then the transposition; in which there is nothing natural; nothing even French. It is purely and simply artificial; and when considered with reference to its natural import, a combination of which the true signification is as different as can be from its conventional; in other words, it is an artifice of the worst kind. Pence is much such another word as whose, i.e., an example of the mute e in its most objectionable state.

SECTION XLIII.

HISTORICAL SKETCH, ETC. (continued). THE APOSTROPHE (') AS

A SIGN OF THE GENITIVE CASE.

The e mute, which presented itself at the end of words was dropped; or fell off. The e which preceded the s in words like scipes ships, and served as part of the sign of the genitive case, was elided; i.e., it lay in the middle of two other letters and slipped out from between them. Hence, it became obsolete as a sound: and so long as it was used in spelling was, as a letter, mute. In the plural number where there was the same termination in -s, the original vowel which preceded it was a; as wulfas wolves. Both vowels, however, suffered elision: the result being the use of the so-called apostrophe; as in the man's hat, the children's father, the ships' sails,-three different forms, each of which is a bad one, and each bad in a manner peculiar to itself. They deserve, however, notice; because of all the orthographical expedients with which the English language is overloaded, this use of the apostrophe has the least foundation in anything like a philological fact; while it presents on the other hand, the most decided signs of a conscious adaptation, invention, or construction. It is not, however, a mere sign of elision in general; for, if it were so, we should find it in the nominative and accusative plural as well as in the genitive singular. But in the plural it is conspicuous from its absence; and is meant to be so: for it is a sign not only of elision but of differentiation or distinction between two elided sounds. It is not, then, so much the sign of a vowel in the genitive case which has dropped out, as that of a difference in case and number between the word lions in such clauses as the following (1) the lion's den and (2) the lions are let loose. Now in respect to this expedient we may fairly say that, supposing an expedient of any kind to be needed, it is, as we here see it before us, one of more than average merit. All expedients, in the eyes of the Phonetic speller, are bad. But this is among the least bad. As a construction it is simple and natural; and as a sign adequate to the work it has to do; so that the only objection to it is its superfluousness.

Here, however, we must stop. Its extension to the genitive plural is utterly indefensible. Except in the few words like men, women, children, oxen, where we actually say the men's memories, the women's children, the children's parents, the oxen's horns, the s has no real existence: and as there is no genitive in 's there is no elision; and that for the simple reason that there is nothing to be elided. Hence the s' represents nothing. No one supposes that there were ever such words as ships-es, fox-es-es and the like; or that such a sentence as "the genitive plural is formed from the nominative by the addition of -es" ever existed as a real rule. The Anglo-Saxon genitive plural ended in -a, and when this became narrowed into -e, and the -e became mute, there was no sign of any case in the plural number except the nominative. This, however, is by no means, an intolerable condition for a language to be reduced to. The French has no sign for a genitive case in either number; and, by means of the preposition de, does very fairly without one. By a similar application of of we might have done the same: indeed, it is the opinion of the present writer, that in nine cases out of ten this is what we do. Still we have such constructions as the children's bread and the ships' sails; and the explanation of them is easy. Takenby itself, the notion that the genitive plural may stand to the nominative of that number in the same relation that genitive and nominative cases singular stand to each other, is one which when a language is (so to say) in difficulties and reduced to an alternative, naturally presents itself. The actual formation, however, of the new cases is, by no means, so simple. Thus the English nominative plural has already a sign; stone, stones, just like the Latin lapis, lapides; and before we can substitute another for it (for the the process is one of substitution rather than of addition) this sign has to be got rid of; for, it is clear, that we can no more say stones-es, than the Latin can say lapides-um ; though something like it is done with the word its; where t is the sign of the neuter gender, and s, the sign of the genitive case, is tacked on to it. Let this difficulty, however, be got over, a second remains. The signs of the cases, the nominative plural and the genitive singular, are alike; both ending in s. Yet we do not say ships'es, and still less fox-es-es. What then does this 's reresent? The best that can be said of it is that it represents a confluence, fusion, amalgamation, or unification of two ss'es, with different powers, and belonging to different numbers, and though this, being a purely historical fact, is not capable of being represented in speech, it is the high prerogative of orthography, in cases like these, to make good the want of a real distinction by an artificial one; and that, in the case before us, the apostrophe of the genitive singular with its change of position in respect to the s, does this. With the few words in (men's, oxen's) the addition is real; and, so far as there is a genitive plural at all, these are the words in which it occurs, Here, however, no (') is wanted. There has been no elision; and there is nothing with which the forms can be confounded: the singular genitives being man's, woman's, child's, ox's.

n

The apostrophe, then, in the genitive plural is much less defensible than that of the genitive singular. Neither is laudable; though the latter is less blameworthy than the former. It is the misfor