English Past and Present | Page 2

hearers suggested as
necessary or desirable. I have found it convenient to keep the lectures,
as regards the persons presumed to be addressed, in that earlier form
which I had sketched out at the first; and, inasmuch as it helps much to
keep lectures vivid and real that one should have some well defined
audience, if not actually before one, yet before the mind's eye, to
suppose myself throughout addressing my first hearers. I have
supposed myself, that is, addressing a body of young Englishmen, all
with a fair amount of classical knowledge (in my explanations I have
sometimes had others with less than theirs in my eye), not wholly
unacquainted with modern languages; but not yet with any special
designation as to their future work; having only as yet marked out to

them the duty in general of living lives worthy of those who have
England for their native country, and English for their native tongue.
To lead such through a more intimate knowledge of this into a greater
love of that, has been a principal aim which I have set before myself
throughout.
In a few places I have been obliged again to go over ground which I
had before gone over in a little book, On the Study of Words; but I
believe that I have never merely repeated myself, nor given to the
readers of my former work and now of this any right to complain that I
am compelling them to travel a second time by the same paths. At least
it has been my endeavour, whenever I have found myself at points
where the two books come necessarily into contact, that what was
treated with any fulness before, should be here touched on more lightly;
and only what there was slightly handled, should here be entered on at
large.

CONTENTS
LECTURE I PAGE ENGLISH A COMPOSITE LANGUAGE 1
LECTURE II GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 40
LECTURE III DIMINUTIONS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 113
LECTURE IV CHANGES IN THE MEANING OF ENGLISH
WORDS 176
LECTURE V CHANGES IN THE SPELLING OF ENGLISH
WORDS 212
INDEX 257

ENGLISH PAST AND PRESENT

I
ENGLISH A COMPOSITE LANGUAGE
"A very slight acquaintance with the history of our own language will
teach us that the speech of Chaucer's age is not the speech of Skelton's,
that there is a great difference between the language under Elizabeth
and that under Charles the First, between that under Charles the First
and Charles the Second, between that under Charles the Second and
Queen Anne; that considerable changes had taken place between the
beginning and the middle of the last century, and that Johnson and
Fielding did not write altogether as we do now. For in the course of a
nation's progress new ideas are evermore mounting above the horizon,
while others are lost sight of and sink below it: others again change
their form and aspect: others which seemed united, split into parts. And
as it is with ideas, so it is with their symbols, words. New ones are
perpetually coined to meet the demand of an advanced understanding,
of new feelings that have sprung out of the decay of old ones, of ideas
that have shot forth from the summit of the tree of our knowledge; old
words meanwhile fall into disuse and become obsolete; others have
their meaning narrowed and defined; synonyms diverge from each
other and their property is parted between them; nay, whole classes of
words will now and then be thrown overboard, as new feelings or
perceptions of analogy gain ground. A history of the language in which
all these vicissitudes should be pointed out, in which the introduction of
every new word should be noted, so far as it is possible--and much may
be done in this way by laborious and diligent and judicious research--in
which such words as have become obsolete should be followed down
to their final extinction, in which all the most remarkable words should
be traced through their successive phases of meaning, and in which
moreover the causes and occasions of these changes should be
explained, such a work would not only abound in entertainment, but
would throw more light on the development of the human mind than all
the brainspun systems of metaphysics that ever were written".
* * * * *
These words, which thus far are not my own, but the words of a greatly

honoured friend and teacher, who, though we behold him now no more,
still teaches, and will teach, by the wisdom of his writings, and the
nobleness of his life (they are words of Archdeacon Hare), I have put in
the forefront of my lectures; seeing that they anticipate in the way of
masterly sketch all which I shall attempt to accomplish, and indeed
draw