[4.] KING ALFRED.—Up to the year 866, Northumbria was the home of learning and literature; and the Northumbrian monks were its loving and diligent cultivators. But the incursions of the Danes, the destruction of the monasteries, and the perpetual danger to life and property arising from the troubled condition of the country, put a stop for some time to study and to letters. The cultivation of English as a book-language reappears, towards the end of the ninth century, in the south of the island. Alfred the Great, king of Wessex, is its great friend and promoter. Winchester was the capital of his kingdom; and it was at Winchester that Alfred and his colleagues laboured at the writing of English books. He invited great scholars from different parts of the world; he set up schools; he himself taught a school in his own court; he translated the Latin manuals of the time into English, and added largely to them from his own materials; he translated also the History of the Venerable Bede; and, most probably, he worked at the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and made it much fuller and more detailed than it had ever been before. He founded schools in the different parts of his kingdom, with the purpose and in the hope that ‘every free-born youth, who has the means, may attend to his book till he can read English writing perfectly.’ Alfred was born in the year 849, and died in 901. His own personal diligence—his unceasing head-work, are well known. He gave eight hours a day to the work of public affairs—of managing the business of his kingdom; eight hours to books and study; and he reserved only eight hours for sleep, meals, exercise, and amusement. The following is a passage from one of King Alfred’s writings:

Swa claenë heo waes othfeallen on Angel-cynne, thaet swithe feawa waeran be-heonan Humbre the hira thenunge cuthon understandan on Englisc, ohthe farthon an aerend-gewrit of Ledene on Englisc areccan; and ic wene thaet naht monige be-geondan Humbre naeron. So clean (completely) it was ruined (had ruin fallen) on the English folk (kin), that very few were on this side Humber who their service could understand in English, or out (forth) an epistle (errand-writing) from Latin into English declare (= translate); and I wene that not many beyond Humber were (who could do this).

[5.] THE ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE.—This chronicle was written chiefly by monks, and was, in its earliest forms, a dry register or record of events—of the births and deaths of kings, bishops, earls, and other distinguished persons. In Alfred’s time, it became more of a history; and even war-songs and battle odes are quoted in it. It was continued down to the death of King Stephen in 1154; and the last portions of it were composed and transcribed by the monks of Peterborough.

[6.] ARCHBISHOP ÆLFRIC.—Ælfric was Archbishop of Canterbury in the early part of the eleventh century; and he translated the first seven books of the Bible, and part of Job, into the oldest form of English, which is generally called Anglo-Saxon. The following is a specimen:

1. On anginnë gesceôp God heofenan and eordan. In beginning shaped God heaven and earth.
4. God geseah thâ, thaet hit gôd vaes, and he gedaeldë thaet leóht fram thâm theóstrum. God saw then, that it good was, and he dealed (divided) the light from the darkness.

[7.] ANGLO-SAXON GOSPELS.—This translation of the four gospels forms another land-mark in the history of our English tongue. This translation was made before the Norman Conquest—before French words had come into our language, and therefore before the inflections of English had dropped off from the words.

[8.] OLD ENGLISH DIALECTS.—For more than a century after the Conquest, English ceased to be used as a literary language—as a book-speech, except in the Saxon Chronicle, which was continued down to 1154. It still continued, of course, to be the language of the English nation. The Normans, when they used books at all, imported French books from France; and they never dreamed that English was a language worthy to be written down. Different English counties spoke different kinds of English; and this continued for many centuries—and still continues to a considerable extent. Thus the English spoken by a Yorkshire-man is very different from the English spoken by a Dorsetshire-man; and the English of both differs very much from that spoken in Kent. But, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries—and even much later—travelling was very difficult and expensive; working-men could not travel at all; there was little motive to travel for any one; and generations were born and died within the same village, or on one farm, or at least in one part of the ‘country-side.’ Thus different parts of this island pronounced their English in their own way; had their own grammar—that is, their own inflections; and each division of England looked upon itself as the right and correct speakers of the English tongue. But, among the large number of different dialects, there gradually emerged into distinct and even remarkable prominence three chief dialects. These are now known as the Northern, Midland, and Southern. The grammar of the three differs in several respects; but the chief grammatical mark is found in the plural ending of the present tense of verbs. This is ës in the North; en in the Midland dialect; and eth in the South. Thus we have:

N.M.S.
We hopës,we hopen,we hopeth.
You hopës,you hopen,you hopeth.
They hopës, they hopen, they hopeth.

This variety of the plural forms the test which enables readers of books written in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, to determine in what part of England and in what dialect they were written. The following are the chief books written in these dialects:

NORTHERN (spoken between the Forth and the Humber)—the Cursor Mundi, a version of Scripture in rhyme, written about 1320
MIDLAND (spoken in the East-Anglian counties, and the whole of the Midland district)—Orm’s Ormulum, a paraphrase in verse of the parts of the gospels given in the church service, written in 1215
SOUTHERN (spoken in all the counties south of the Thames, and also in several western counties)—Layamon’s Brut (a translation of a French poem by John de Wace), written in1205