Sir; The copy of your printed letter on the English and German languages, which you have been so kind as to send me, has come to hand; and I pray you to accept of my thanks for this mark of your attention. I have perused it with singular pleasure, and, having long been sensible of the importance of a knowledge of the Northern languages to the understanding of English, I see it, in this letter, proved and specifically exemplified by your collations of the English and German. I shall look with impatience for the publication of your "English and German Dictionary." Johnson, besides the want of precision in his definitions, and of accurate distinction in passing from one shade of meaning to another of the same word, is most objectionable in his derivations. From a want probably of intimacy with our own language while in the Anglo-Saxon form and type, and of its kindred languages of the North, he has a constant leaning towards Greek and Latin for English etymon. Even Skinner has a little of this, who, when he has given the true Northern parentage of a word, often tells you from what Greek and Latin source it might be derived by those who have that kind of partiality. He is, however, on the whole, our best etymologist, unless we ascend a step higher to the Anglo-Saxon vocabulary; and he has set the good example of collating the English word with its kindred word in the several Northern dialects, which often assist in ascertaining its true meaning.
Your idea is an excellent one, in producing authorities for the meanings of words, "to select the prominent passages in our best writers, to make your dictionary a general index to English literature, and thus to intersperse with verdure and flowers the barren deserts of Philology." And I believe with you that "wisdom, morality, religion, thus thrown down, as if without intention, before the reader, in quotations, may often produce more effect than the very passages in the books themselves;"—"that the cowardly suicide, in search of a strong word for his dying letter, might light on a passage which would excite him to blush at his want of fortitude, and to forego his purpose;"—"and that a dictionary with examples at the words may, in regard to every branch of knowledge, produce more real effect than the whole collection of books which it quotes." I have sometimes myself used Johnson as a Repertory, to find favorite passages which I wished to recollect, but too rarely with success.
I was led to set a due value on the study of the Northern languages, and especially of our Anglo-Saxon, while I was a student of the law, by being obliged to recur to that source for explanation of a multitude of law-terms. A preface to Fortescue on Monarchies, written by Fortescue Aland, and afterwards premised to his volume of Reports, developes the advantages to be derived to the English student generally, and particularly the student of law, from an acquaintance with the Anglo-Saxon; and mentions the books to which the learner may have recourse for acquiring the language. I accordingly devoted some time to its study, but my busy life has not permitted me to indulge in a pursuit to which I felt great attraction. While engaged in it, however, some ideas occurred for facilitating the study by simplifying its grammar, by reducing the infinite diversities of its unfixed orthography to single and settled forms, indicating at the same time the pronunciation of the word by its correspondence with the characters and powers of the English alphabet. Some of these ideas I noted at the time on the blank leaves of my Elstob's Anglo-Saxon Grammar: but there I have left them, and must leave them, unpursued, although I still think them sound and useful. Among the works which I proposed for the Anglo-Saxon student, you will find such literal and verbal translations of the Anglo-Saxon writers recommended, as you have given us of the German in your printed letter. Thinking that I cannot submit those ideas to a better judge than yourself, and that if you find them of any value you may put them to some use, either as hints in your dictionary, or in some other way, I will copy them as a sequel to this letter, and commit them without reserve to your better knowledge of the subject. Adding my sincere wishes for the speedy publication of your valuable dictionary, I tender you the assurance of my high respect and consideration.
Thomas Jefferson."
Of the Essay itself we have room for only the initial paragraph, which is as follows:
"The importance of the Anglo-Saxon dialect towards a perfect understanding of the English language seems not to have been duly estimated by those charged with the education of youth; and yet it is unquestionably the basis of our present tongue. It was a full-formed language; its frame and construction, its declension of nouns and verbs, and its syntax were peculiar to the Northern languages, and fundamentally different from those of the South. It was the language of all England, properly so called, from the Saxon possession of that country in the sixth century to the time of Henry III. in the thirteenth, and was spoken pure and unmixed with any other. Although the Romans had been in possession of that country for nearly five centuries from the time of Julius Cæsar, yet it was a military possession chiefly, by their soldiery alone, and with dispositions intermutually jealous and unamicable. They seemed to have aimed at no lasting settlements there, and to have had little familiar mixture with the native Britons. In this state of connection there would probably be little incorporation of the Roman into the native language, and on their subsequent evacuation of the island its traces would soon be lost altogether. And had it been otherwise, these innovations would have been carried with the natives themselves when driven into Wales by the invasion and entire occupation of the rest of the Southern portion of the island by the Anglo-Saxons. The language of these last became that of the country from that time forth, for nearly seven centuries; and so little attention was paid among them to the Latin, that it was known to a few individuals only as a matter of science, and without any chance of transfusion into the vulgar language. We may safely repeat the affirmation, therefore, that the pure Anglo-Saxon constitutes at this day the basis of our language. That it was sufficiently copious for the purposes of society in the existing condition of arts and manners, reason alone would satisfy us from the necessity of the case. Its copiousness, too, was much favored by the latitude it allowed of combining primitive words so as to produce any modification of idea desired. In this characteristic it was equal to the Greek, but it is more specially proved by the actual fact of the books they have left us in the various branches of history, geography, religion, law, and poetry. And although since the Norman conquest it has received vast additions and embellishments from the Latin, Greek, French, and Italian languages, yet these are but engraftments on its idiomatic stem; its original structure and syntax remain the same, and can be but imperfectly understood by the mere Latin scholar. Hence the necessity of making the Anglo-Saxon a regular branch of academic education. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was assiduously cultivated by a host of learned men. The names of Lambard, Parker, Spelman, Wheeloc, Wilkins, Gibson, Hickes, Thwaites, Somner, Benson, Mareschal, Elstob, deserve to be ever remembered with gratitude for the Anglo-Saxon works which they have given us through the press, the only certain means of preserving and promulgating them."
THE OBELISKS OF EGYPT.
In the last number of the International we gave an interesting article from the London Times respecting "Cleopatra's Needle." The subject of its removal has since been largely discussed in England, and Mr. Tucker, a civil engineer, has been sent out to Alexandria to "report on the condition and site of the obelisk," and Lord Edward Russell has been appointed to the Vengeance to proceed to Egypt for the purpose of bringing it to England. On the publication of these facts Mr. Nathaniel Gould writes to the Times as follows:
How far a "man-of-war" is a proper vessel for this purpose may be seen hereafter. The Premier is, however, ready enough to appropriate some little éclat to a member of his own family. I stated that, so far as I could make out, the bringing the obelisk of Luxor to Paris had cost the French Government 40,000l.; but it is stated by Mr. Gliddon, late United States Consul at Cairo, that it actually cost France 2,000,000f., or 80,000l.! Private offers have been made to bring the Needle to England for from 7,000l. to 12,500l. within a twelvemonth; it remains to be seen what it will cost when brought on Government account.