I THE BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AN historical account of English literature would have for its outline a description of the best books of all kinds that have been written in the English language. It would therefore necessarily involve some account of the history of the language itself, - of its beginnings, so far as they can be traced, of its successive modifications, and of the several influences that have affected it. The English language was formed and grew to its maturity in the British Islands. It is now spoken in our own country and in British colonies and dependencies throughout the world, — in all by more than one hundred millions of people. By the close of the twentieth century it will doubtless be the language of three times that number of men. The speech from which our present English derives the greater part of its structural characteristics was spoken fourteen hundred years ago in the lowland countries bordering upon the Baltic and North seas. In Schleswig there is a district which still bears the name of Angeln. The speech of the inhabitants of this region was rough and guttural, and consisted at the most of about two thousand words. The language of the lowlanders of to-day is Teutonic, and so was that of their ancestors, the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons, of whom we are speaking. It did not in those early times have the name English, but was most probably called Deutsch, or Teutish. About the middle of the fifth century this speech was carried by adventurers and colonists across the North Sea to the shores of Britain. These invaders from the mainland found the island that is now called Great Britain peopled by a race of men who spoke a strange language, and who were poor, halfbarbarous, and unable to offer much resistance to the encroachments of the new-comers. Little by little the native Britons were driven southward and westward, until at last they found refuge in Cornwall and Wales, and their lands were possessed by their Teutonic conquerors. The language of the conquered Britons was Celtic; and it is noteworthy that very few words of it have found their way into the English vocabulary. The three groups of Teutons who thus colonized the most of England settled themselves in different parts of the island. They used different dialects of the same language, and these dialects continued distinct from one another for several centuries. Then, by reason of growth of population, community of interest, and the closer relations which resulted, the three dialects merged into a common speech, one which could for the first time properly be called English. It is a familiar fact that the first literary utterances of every language take the form of verse, and accordingly the earliest Anglo-Saxon composition of which we have any record is the "Beowulf," the authorship of which is unknown. Its date has been variously placed in the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries; the doubt as to its period arising out of the fact that it was not committed to writing until about the beginning of the eighth century. It is a war-poem, composed to celebrate the heroic deeds of Beowulf, who, hearing that the Danish king was harassed by the attacks of a man-eating monster, set sail from Sweden to bring him succor. After many advent ures, Beowulf slays the monster, returns home, there to lead a long life of good deeds crowned with honor. The poem consists of several thousand lines, and is alliterative; that is, three or more accented words in each line begin with the same letter. Thus, an old poem has these lines: "But in a May morning on Malvern hills, I was weary of wandering and went me to rest And as I lay and leaned, and looked on the waters, All early English verse is of this alliterative form, the end-rhyme of poetry as we know it having a much later origin. The earliest poem that may fairly be regarded as English is the metrical paraphrase of the Pentateuch and the New Testament by Cadmon, a monk of Whitby. According to the legend, Cadmon was employed in menial service about the stables of the ancient monastery. Obey ing what he believed to be the behests of a supernatural vision, Cadmon set himself to sing of "Creation, and the Beginning of All Things." Report of his verse coming to the ears of his superiors, they caused him to be educated. His translation was put into writing, and was read, memorized, and recited for a thousand years. It was composed probably in the seventh century, but was not printed until the seventeenth. By general consent of critics, the most striking passages of this first English poem occur in the earlier part, where Cadmon sings of the revolt of the angels and the fall of man. These are the themes of Milton's great epic, and since Milton was well acquainted with the possessor of the Cadmon MS., we may fairly conjecture that the Puritan poet derived some inspiration from the work of his predecessor. As Cadmon was the first English poet, so Bæda, or as he is generally called, the Venerable Bede, was the first writer of English prose. He also was a monk, and was born in the latter part of the seventh century. Bæda entered at an early age the monastery of Jarrow. He wrote voluminously, and mainly in Latin. He was, however, the author of one English book, -- a translation of the Gospel of Saint John. Upon this, according to the tradition, Bæda was engaged up to the hour of his death. This first English prose work is unfortunately lost. Two works of Old English, written later than the Norman invasion, deserve notice, because they show little evidence of the influence that the Norman-French was destined to have upon our language. These are Layamon's "Brut," and Ormin's "Ormulum." Layamon was a priest who, about the year 1200, translated from the French a poem entitled "Brut." It purports to be a chronicle of British events from the time of the Roman invasion to the end of the seventh century. In the whole course of this metrical translation there are only about two-score words of Latin origin, and even of these several were in familiar use in English before the Norman Conquest. The vocabulary of this translation is, accordingly, Saxon-English of a very pure type; and the work serves to show at once how much and how little our language was capable of in strength, amplitude, and beauty before it had absorbed the French-Latin element. The "Ormulum," supposed to have been written, about the year 1225, by a monk named Ormin, is a rhythmic version of the Gospels. It is still freer than Layamon's work from words of Latin origin, and shows our language in a state of considerable advance over the English of any preceding writer. The following verses will give some notion of the nature of the vocabulary: It remains to speak of the most extensive prose work of the centuries immediately preceding and following the Conquest. This work, known as "The Saxon Chronicle," was written, not by one, but by a succession of monastic authors. It was, as its name denotes, an historical record of events; and as might be expected from the circumstances of its authorship, has a peculiar value as showing the changing conditions of our language, as respects both vocabulary and structure, throughout the long period of time covered by it. It is the first history of any Teutonic people written in language of their own. From the date of the Norman invasion (1066) there was not, in two centuries and a half, any original English composition that is worthy of mention. The speech of our forefathers was, during this period, undergoing its greatest change. The rigorous administration of the Conqueror sufficed to insure political order, but unity of intellectual life was wanting. The very strength, however, of the monarchy, together with the absence of religious differences, worked powerfully for the interfusion of the two elements of the population. Those of the English who desired to move among the educated and titled classes, and to associate with persons of authority or influence, found it necessary to acquire some knowledge of the French tongue. Little 1 Ormin, in his spelling, doubles every consonant that has a short vowel before it, thus affording useful clews to pronunciation in his time. 2 turned |