Of these abstract merits the degree depends upon the chronological extent of Language that we make use of. To get them at their maximum the Two Stages must be taken in: and the Two Stages being taken in, it is more on a par with the Languages of Classical Antiquity, than it has generally been considered to be. Still (considered thus far only) it is inferior to them. For the Greek and Latin, exceeding it in the quantity of original Inflection, have run through an equal quantity of change. Considering, however, not the English only, but the whole range of allied Languages forming the Gothic Stock, the question takes a different shape. As a Magazine of Processes and Principles, the Gothic Stock not only equals the Classical, but exceeds, by far, the Greek Branch of it. The Hebrew from its quasi-symbolic form has Disciplinal merits of its own.
Let the Languages of Greece and Italy be learned for their own sake; and by those who have the privilege to appreciate them. One might think that the works of Homer and Demosthenes, of Lucretius and Cæsar, were a sufficient reason for turning with diurnal and nocturnal hands the copies that exhibit them. But let us not (as we often are) be told that it is necessary to study the Latin or the Greek Accidence for the sake of learning grammar in general. The self-deception that in taking up Latin and Greek we are studying a Grammar, instead of beginning a Literature, is too often the excuse for concluding our studies just where they might advantageously begin, and for looking with complacency upon limited acquirements just where limited acquirements are pre-eminently of little use.
Note 3, p. 8, l. 27.
I feel that the assertion here made requires modifying and explaining. I should be sorry to be supposed to have made it, under the old notion that in any written records of the Saxon Literature there is any ostensible admixture of Danish (i. e. Scandinavian); still less do I participate in the belief of the early Gothic Scholars in the existence of their so-called Dano-Saxon Dialect. I recognize, moreover, the criticism that refers the apparent Danish (Scandinavian) element of the East-Anglian, and Northumbrian Glossaries to the original affinity between the extreme Low German and the extreme Scandinavian Dialects: thus making it indirect. It was once my opinion (one which I have since modified but not given up) that in the present English, and consequently in the Low Germanic Branch of the Gothic Stock, obscure traces of the great Scandinavian characteristics (viz. the existence of a Passive Middle or Reflective Voice, and the peculiar expression of the sense of the Definite Article) could be discovered: but it was not upon this idea that I founded the assertion in the text.
The question has its peculiar difficulties. Words that have long passed for Scandinavian, are continually being detected in the Saxon; so that the Philologist who should say this word is Scandinavian and not Saxon has the difficult task of proving a negative. Again, the point is one upon which no single person's assertion should be received. Hastiness of Induction, in favour of particular Languages, when we know these Languages (as every Language, indeed as every kind of Knowledge, must be known) at the expense of some other, comes upon us unconsciously. The Languages of the Gothic Stock that I know best are those of Scandinavia; the Provincial Dialect of England which I have most studied is that of Lincolnshire, and the neighbouring maritime Counties. Here the preeminence of the Danish (Scandinavian) element being acknowledged, the question is whether it be Direct or Indirect. I am free to confess that this circumstance sharpens my sight for the perception (true or false) of direct Danish elements. As a counterbalance, however, the consciousness of it engenders a proportionate self-distrust.
Upon the whole, I would rather that the sentence had run thus: the Direct Scandinavian element in the English is still to be determined, and here (as in many other places) there is open ground for the original investigator.
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE,
DELIVERED
AT THE MIDDLESEX HOSPITAL,
OCTOBER 1, 1847.