A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2

1. +The English Nation.+-- The English people have for many centuries been the greatest travellers in the world. It was an Englishman-- Francis Drake-- who first went round the...

1. +Science.+-- The second half of the nineteenth century is distinguished by the enormous advance made in science, and in the application of science to the industries and occup...

1. +New Ideas.+-- The end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century are alike remarkable for the new powers, new ideas, and new life thrown into society. The...

+Bacon+, Francis, 299 {V.3}. +Bæda+ (Venerable Bede), 275 {I.8}. +Barbour+, John, 285 {II.10}. _Beowulf_, 273 {I.5}. +Blake+, William, 334 {VII.20}. +Browning+, Robert, 358 {IX....

1. +Prose-Writers.+-- The four greatest prose-writers of the latter half of the eighteenth century are +Johnson+, +Goldsmith+, +Burke+, and +Gibbon+. Dr Johnson was the most pro...

1. +The First Half.+-- Under the wise and able rule of Queen Elizabeth, this country had enjoyed a long term of peace. The Spanish Armada had been defeated in 1588; the Spanish...

1. +The Age of Prose.+-- The eighteenth century was an age of prose in two senses. In the first place, it was a prosaic age; and, in the second place, better prose than poetry w...

1. +The Oldest English Synthetic.+-- The oldest English, or Anglo-Saxon, that was brought over here in the fifth century, was a language that showed the relations of words to ea...

1. The Wars of the Roses ended in 1485, with the victory of Bosworth Field. A new dynasty-- the House of Tudor-- sat upon the throne of England; and with it a new reign of peace...

1. +Literature.+-- The history of English Literature is, in its external aspect, an account of the best books in prose and in verse that have been written by English men and Eng...

1. +Grammar Fixed.+-- From the date of 1485-- that is, from the beginning of the reign of Henry VII.-- the changes in the grammar or constitution of our language are so extremel...

1. +Vocabulary and Grammar.+-- The oldest English or Anglo-Saxon differs from modern English both in vocabulary and in grammar-- in the words it uses and in the inflexions it em...

1. The opening of the fourteenth century saw the death of the great and able king, Edward I., the “Hammer of the Scots,” the “Keeper of his word.” The century itself-- a most ev...

1. +Tongue, Speech, Language.+-- We speak of the “English tongue” or of the “French language”; and we say of two nations that they “do not understand each other’s speech.” The e...

1. +Dead and Living Languages.+-- A language is said to be dead when it is no longer spoken. Such a language we know only in books. Thus, Latin is a dead language, because no na...

1. The fifteenth century, a remarkable period in many ways, saw three royal dynasties established in England-- the Houses of Lancaster, York, and Tudor. Five successful French c...

+African+ words in English, 263. +American+ words in English, 263. +Analytic+ English (= modern), 239 {III.2}. +Ancient+ English, 199 {I.4}. synthetic, 239 {III.1}. +Anglo-Saxon...

Page The English Language, and the Family to which it belongs 193 The Periods of English 198 History of the Vocabulary 202 History of the Grammar 239 Specimens of English of Dif...