loves it not wisely but too well. He finds in its structure new and peculiar beauties; he overvalues its excellence, and he exaggerates its antiquity. Such are the men who talk—in Wales, of the ubiquity of the Celts; in Germany, of the Teutonic Origin of the Romans; and in Ireland of the Phœnician extraction of the Milesians.

Thus then, two out of the Thousand and One causes of bad Etymology are the reason psychological, and the reason patriotic. Nemini credendum de Patria sua.

I think that at the entrance upon an unsettled subject, a man should boldly say, and say at the very onset of his career, upon whose opinions he relies, and whose opinions he distrusts. He should profess himself, not indeed the implicit follower of any School, but he should name the School that he preferred. He should declare whose books he could recommend, and whose he would eschew. Thus, if I were lecturing upon Geology, I should say, at once, whether I were what is called a Scriptural Geologist or a Latitudinarian one: And thus, in the department in point, I name the writers I put faith in. In the works of Grimm and Rask I place much trust; in those of Horne Tooke some; and in those of Whiter and Vallancey (to name small men along with great) none whatsoever.

In the study of the Languages that have ceased to be spoken we find, in an Etymological view, one thing, and one thing only; words as they have been affected by previous processes of change; in other terms, the results of these processes. But in the Language that we hear spoken around us, and, still more, in the Language that we ourselves speak, we find something more than results; we find the processes that give occasion to them; in other terms, we see the change as it takes place. Within the lifetime of an individual, within even a very few years, those that look may find, not only that certain words are modified in respect to their meaning, and certain letters modified, in respect to their pronunciation, but they may also see how these modifications are brought about, ascertaining—of words the intermediate meanings, and of letters the intermediate sounds. We may trace the gradations throughout. We can, of our own Language, and in our own Times, see, with a certainty, what change our Language more especially affects; we can observe its tendencies. And we can do this because we can find towards what particular laxities (be they of meaning or be they of pronunciation) ourselves and our neighbours more especially have a bias. We can, as it were, prophesy. We cannot do this with the Latin of Augustus; we cannot do it with the Greek of Pericles.

Hence it is that what we will know, to a certainty, of Etymological processes, must be collected from Cotemporary Languages. Those who look for them elsewhere seek for the Living among the Dead; arguing from things unknown (at least unknown to a certainty), and so speculating laxly, and dogmatizing unphilosophically. Hence it is, that in Cotemporary Languages, and of those Cotemporary Languages, in our own most especially, we may lay deep and strong, and as the only true substratum of accurate criticism, the foundations of our knowledge of Etymological Processes. And, observe, we can find them in a sufficient abundance provided that we sufficiently look out for them. For Processes, the same in kind, though not the same in degree, are found in all languages alike. No process is found in any one language that is not also found (in some degree or other) in our own; and no process can be found in our own language which does not (in some degree or other) exist in all others beside. There are no such things as Peculiar Processes: since Languages differ from each other, not in the nature of their Processes, but in the degrees of their development. These are bold, perhaps novel, assertions, but they are not hasty ones.[1]

Simply considered as an Instrument of Etymology I imagine that the study of Cotemporary Languages is, in its importance, of the very first degree; while next in value to this (considered also, as an Instrument of Etymology,) is the study of Languages during what may be called their breakings-up, or their transitions.

There are two stages in Language. Through these two stages all Languages, sooner or later, make their way; some sooner than others, but all sooner or later. Of this the Latin language may serve as an illustration. In the time of Augustus it expressed the relations of Time and Place, in other words, its Cases and Tenses, by Declension and Conjugation, or, broadly speaking, by Inflexion. In the time of Dante there was little or no Inflexion, but there was an abundance of Auxiliary Verbs, and an abundance of Prepositions in its stead. The expression of Time and Place by independent words superseded the expression by Inflections. Now in all Languages the inflectional stage comes first. This is a Law. There are Languages that stay for ever (at least for an indefinite time) in their earlier stage. Others there are again, that we never come in contact with before they have proceeded to their later one. Languages of this latter kind are of subordinate value to the Etymologist. Those that he values most are such as he sees in the two stages: so being enabled to watch the breaking-up of one, the constitution of the other, and the transition intermediate to the two.

Now our own language (the Anglo Saxon being borne in mind) comes under the conditions that constitute a good and sufficient language as a disciplinal foundation in Etymology. It can be studied in two stages. When we come to the Times of the Conquest we must gird up our loins for the acquisition of a new Language.

The Breaking-up of the Latin (I speak for the sake of illustration and comparison) is a study in itself. It is a study complete and sufficient; not, however, more so than is the study of the Breaking-up of the Gothic. For in this stock of Tongues, not only did the Saxon pass into the English, but the Mœso-Gothic, the Scandinavian, and the Frisian, each gave origin to some new Tongue; the first to the High German, the second to the Languages of Scandinavia, and the third to the Modern Dutch. The study then of the Languages of the Gothic stock is something more than a sufficient disciplinal foundation in Etymology.[2]

In matters of pronunciation, living Languages have an exclusive advantage. For dead Languages speak but to the eye; and it is not through the eye that the ear is to be instructed.

It is well for the Geologist to classify rocks, and to arrange strata, to distinguish minerals, and to determine fossils; but it is far better if, anterior to this, he will study the Powers of Nature, and the Processes that are their operations: and these he can only study as he sees them in the times wherein he lives, or as he finds them recorded in authentic and undisputed histories. With this knowledge he can criticize, and construct; without it he may invent and imagine. Novel and ingenious he may, perchance, become; but he can never be philosophical, and he can never be Scientific. So it is with the Etymologist. Whenever, in a dead Language, he presumes a Process, which he has looked for in vain in a living one, he outruns his data. The basis of Etymology is the study of existing Processes.

Our Language has had its share; I must hasten to the consideration of our Literature.

The Early Literature of most modern Nations consists of the same elements; of Legends concerning their Saints, of Chronicles, and of Hymns and Romances. Too much of this fell into the hands of the Monks; and these were, too often, the prosaic writers of barbarous Latinity; for Prose (if not in language at least in idea) was, with them, the rule; and Poetry the exception. Such is the general character of the Early Modern Literature; in which, however, our Saxon ancestors were,