those of the plural by as many different endings. The Anglo-Saxon confounds the three persons in the plural of the indicative, and in both numbers of the subjunctive; but still distinguishes between the singular and the plural. Even this last distinction is, to a great extent, lost in modern English. The Teutonic imperative has only a second person.

§ 23. Verbs of Primary and Secondary Inflection. The Teutonic verbs divide themselves into two well-marked classes, which may be called verbs of primary, and verbs of secondary, inflexion: they are often called verbs of strong and of weak inflexion. To the first class belong words like fall, fell; know, knew; swear, swore; drive, drove; choose, chose; lie, lay; come, came; sing, sang, etc. In these, the past tense adds nothing, except personal endings, after the root or stem of the verb. They are further characterized by that variation of the radical vowel (internal inflexion), which has been already noticed as a striking peculiarity of the Teutonic. To the second class belong words like kill, killed; lie, lied; lay, laid; lead, led (for leaded); leave, left (for leaved); have, had (for haved); make, made (for maked); etc. In these, the past tense adds d (in high German, t) to the root or stem. Only a few of them have also the change of radical vowel, as sell, sold; bring, brought, etc. In most forms of the Gothic perfect, this d is doubled, as in lag-i-dedum, we laid, lag-i-deduth, ye laid, etc. apparently it is the reduplicated perfect of a verb corresponding to our do; thus, lag-i-dedum laydid-we, we made a laying. In Gothic, this class

=

embraces the derivative words, while nearly all primitive verbs have the inflexion of the first class. But the tendency in all Teutonic languages has been to increase the second class at the expense of the first. Many Anglo-Saxon verbs of the first class belong in Old English to the second: thus, A-S. wealdan, to wield, pf. weóld, but O. Eng. welded ; lifan, to leave, láƒ, O. Eng. left; leósan, to lose, leás, O. Eng. lost. And many Old English verbs of the first class belong in modern English to the second: thus, O. Eng. shope (pf. of shape), now shaped; O. Eng. glode (pf. of glide), now glided; O. Eng. gnow (pf. of gnaw), now gnawed. The result of these changes is, that in modern English, the verbs of the first class when compared with those of the second, have the appearance of anomalous and capricious exceptions to a general law of inflexion.

THE ANGLO-SAXON AS A LITERARY LANGUAGE.
§ 24. Name. The emigrants from Germany,
who invaded Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries,
and after long struggles conquered most of the
island, appear to have come in great part from the
districts now called Sleswick and Holstein, on the
eastern shores of the North Sea. The Angles, who
seem to have been the most numerous portion,
established themselves in the east and north of
Britain, but left the Scottish Highlands to their
Gaelic population.
and west, but left
Cymric population.

The Saxons occupied the south
Wales and Cornwall to their
A third fraction, of far inferior

numbers, the Jutes, had possession of Kent in the south-east of England. There is reason to believe that there was a difference of dialect among these settlers; and, particularly, that the idiom of the Angles varied in some degree from that of the Saxons; but it cannot well be doubted that they all spoke substantially the same language. This common language bears a close resemblance to the Friesic and to the Old Saxon, holding in some respects an intermediate position between them. In its literary monuments, it is sometimes designated as the Saxon, sometimes as the English (Englisc, belonging to the Angles); but the latter became at length the established name for the language, as England (Engla-land, land of the Angles) for the country. The name Anglo-Saxon, which recognizes the claims of both parties, is of later introduction.

§ 25. Alliterative Verse. There was no written Anglo-Saxon literature until after the conversion of the people to Christianity. The earliest productions were poetical, and like all Anglo-Saxon poetry, indeed like all early Teutonic poetry, they are alliterative. The verses are not confined to a uniform number of syllables or succession of accents, nor do they have final rhyme. But in each couplet of two short lines, several prominent words, two, three, or four, either all begin with the same consonant, or all begin with vowels, which are not required to be the same. In the most common arrangement, there are three alliterative words in the couplet, two in the first line, and one in the second. A word which has an unaccented prefix is

treated as if the prefix were no part of it. To illustrate the description, we subjoin what is perhaps the earliest specimen of Anglo-Saxon verse, the opening lines of Cädmon's Scripture paraphrase, as they are quoted by Bede. We mark the initial letter of the alliterative words. In the annexed translation, other objects are sacrificed in order to represent the alliteration.

Nû we sceolon hêrian, heofon-rîces weard, metodes milite, and his môd-gethanc, weorc wuldor-fäder, swâ he wundra gehwäs êce dryhten ord onstealde. He ærest gescop eordhan bearnum heofon to hrôfe, hâlig scyppend: thâ middangeard moncynnes weard êce dryhten äfter teóde,

firum foldan,

freá älmihtig.

Now must we glorify

the guardian of heaven's kingdom, the maker's might,

and his mind's thought,

the work of the worshipped father,
when of his wonders, each one,
the ever living lord
ordered the origin.
He erst created
for earth's children
heaven as a high roof,
the holy creator:

then this mid-world
did man's great guardian
the ever living lord

afterward prepare,

for men a mansion,
the master almighty.

§ 26. Works of Poetry and Prose. Among the longer Anglo-Saxon poems, the most remarkable is the epic called Beowulf, from the name of its Danish hero. It is preserved in a manuscript of the tenth century, but is certainly much more ancient in its origin. In substance, it must have come down from heathen times, though the form in which we have it shows the work of Christian hands. We

have also a long series of Scripture narratives in Anglo-Saxon verse: these, too, are found in a manuscript of the tenth century; but they have been generally regarded as productions of Cädmon, a monk who lived in the last half of the seventh. A manuscript of the eighth century contains the last two thirds of a metrical version of the Psalms, which may perhaps be the work of Aldhelm of Malmesbury, a contemporary of Cädmon. Of shorter poems, the most interesting are the Traveller's Song, the Death of Byrhtnoth, Athelstan's Victory at Brunanburh, the very peculiar and artificial Rhyming Song, and a collection of metrical enigmas: most of these poems are preserved in the famous Exeter manuscript of the eleventh century. In prose, besides versions of different parts of the Bible, the most important works are the translations made from the Latin by King Alfred in the ninth century (including the History of Orosius, the Ecclesiastical History of Bede, and Boethius on the Consolations of Philosophy); the Homilies of Alfric, who was Archbishop of Canterbury in the earlier part of the eleventh century; and the Saxon Chronicle, in which the principal events of Anglo-Saxon times are recorded in the form of dry and meagre annals, apparently by several successive writers, the last of whom wrote about a century after the Norman conquest.

INFLUENCE OF OTHER LANGUAGES ON THE

ANGLO-SAXON.

$ 27. The Celtic. The Saxons and Angles, when they entered Britain, were brought into