An Apology for the Study of Northern Antiquities

An Apology for the Study of
Northern Antiquities

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Title: An Apology For The Study of Northern Antiquities
Author: Elizabeth Elstob
Release Date: March 11, 2005 [EBook #15329]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Transcriber's Note: This text includes a number of citations from
languages other than English, and in scripts other than Roman. They
are shown as: *Saxon* +Greek+ ++Hebrew, Gothic++ #black-letter
type# (German, Middle English, Old French) ]

THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY
ELIZABETH ELSTOB
An Apology for the Study of Northern Antiquities
(1715)
Introduction by Charles Peake
Publication Number 61
Los Angeles William Andrews Clark Memorial Library University of
California
1956
* * * * *
GENERAL EDITORS RICHARD C. BOYS, University of Michigan
RALPH COHEN, University of California, Los Angeles VINTON A.
DEARING, University of California, Los Angeles LAWRENCE
CLARK POWELL, Clark Memorial Library
ASSISTANT EDITOR W. EARL BRITTON, University of Michigan
ADVISORY EDITORS EMMETT L. AVERY, State College of
Washington BENJAMIN BOYCE, Duke University LOUIS
BREDVOLD, University of Michigan JOHN BUTT, King's College,
University of Durham JAMES L. CLIFFORD, Columbia University
ARTHUR FRIEDMAN, University of Chicago EDWARD NILES
HOOKER, University of California, Los Angeles LOUIS A. LANDA,
Princeton University SAMUEL H. MONK, University of Minnesota
ERNEST C. MOSSNER, University of Texas JAMES SUTHERLAND,
University College, London H.T. SWEDENBERG, JR., University of
California, Los Angeles
CORRESPONDING SECRETARY EDNA C. DAVIS, Clark
Memorial Library
* * * * *
INTRODUCTION
The answerers who rushed into print in 1712 against Swift's _Proposal
for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue_ were
so obviously moved by the spirit of faction that, apart from a few
debating points and minor corrections, it is difficult to disentangle their
legitimate criticisms from their political prejudices. As Professor Landa
has written in his introduction to Oldmiron's _Reflections on Dr.
Swift's Letter to Harley_ and Mainwaring's The British Academy
(Augustan Reprint Society, 1948): "It is not as literature that these two

answers to Swift are to be judged. They are minor, though interesting,
documents in political warfare which cut athwart a significant cultural
controversy."
Elizabeth Elstob's Apology for the Study of Northern Antiquities
prefixed to her _Rudiments of Grammar for the English-Saxon
Tongue_ is an answer of a very different kind. It did not appear until
1715; it exhibits no political bias; it agrees with Swift's denunciation of
certain current linguistic habits; and it does not reject the very idea of
regulating the language as repugnant to the sturdy independence of the
Briton. Elizabeth Elstob speaks not for a party but for the group of
antiquarian scholars, led by Dr. Hickes, who were developing and
popularizing the study of the Anglo-Saxon origins of the English
language--a study which had really started in the seventeenth century.
What irritated Miss Elstob in the Proposal was not Swift's eulogy or
Harley and the Tory ministry, but his scornful reference to antiquarians
as "laborious men of low genius," his failure to recognize that his
manifest ignorance of the origins of the language was any bar to his
pronouncing on it or legislating for it, and his repetition of some of the
traditional criticisms of the Teutonic elements in the language, in
particular the monosyllables and consonants. Her sense of injury was
personal as well as academic. Her brother William and her revered
master Dr. Hickes were among the antiquarians whom Swift had
casually insulted, and she herself had published an elaborate edition of
_An English-Saxon Homily on the Birthday of St. Gregory_ (1709) and
was at work on an Anglo-Saxon homilarium. Moreover she had a
particular affection for her field of study, because it had enabled her to
surmount the obstacles to learning which had been put in her path as a
girl, and which had prevented her, then, from acquiring a classical
education. Her Rudiments, the first Anglo-Saxon grammar written in
English, was specifically designed to encourage ladies suffering from
similar educational disabilities to find an intellectual pursuit. Her
personal indignation is shown in her sharp answer to Swift's insulting
phrase, and in her retaliatory classification of the Dean among the
"light and fluttering wits."
As a linguistic historian she has no difficulty in exposing Swift's
ignorance, and in establishing her claim that if there is any refining or
ascertaining of the English language to be done, the antiquarian

scholars must be consulted.