lology would, it is thought, be premature; and, moreover, adequate time and means for the execution of an undertaking, involving so vast an amount of toil, have not yet been given. That must be the work, if not of another laborer, at least of other years, and our present readings must be regarded only as a collection of miscellaneous observations upon the principles of articulate language, as exemplified in the phonology, vocabulary, and syntax of English; or, in other words, as a course preparatory to a course of lectures on the English tongue. Such as I describe the course, too, I shall endeavor to make each individual lecture, namely, a somewhat informal presentation of some one or more philological laws, or general facts, in their connection with the essential character, or historical fortunes, of our own speech.

The lectures are, under the circumstances, essentially an experiment, the character and tastes of the small audiences I was encouraged to expect, uncertain; but the necessities of the case have decided the character of the series for me, and, as in many other instances where external conditions control our action, in a way which my own judgment would probably have approved.

The preparation of a series of thoroughly scientific discourses upon the English tongue, within the time and with the means at my command, was impossible; and I therefore adopted the plan I have described, as the only practicable course, and, not improbably, also the best. This point being disposed of, there remained only the embarrassment arising from the uncertainty of the amount of philological attainment generally possessed by my audience. I have thought. myself authorized to presume that, however small in number, it would embrace persons somewhat widely separated in

degree of culture, and as I desire to make my discourses, so far as it lies in my power, acceptable, if not instructive, to all, I shall ask the scholar sometimes to pardon familiar, even trite statements of principle, illustrations which can scarcely claim to be otherwise than trivial, and repetitions which clearness and strength of impression may render necessary for some, while I shall hope the less advanced will excuse me when I indulge in speculations designed for those to whom long study has rendered recondite doctrine more intelligible. In the main, I shall address you as persons of liberal culture, prepared, by general philological education, to comprehend linguistic illustrations drawn from all not widely remote and unfamiliar sources, but who, from unexcited curiosity, or the superior attractions and supposed claims of other knowledges, have not made the English language a matter of particular study, thought, or observation; and such I shall hope to convince that the subject is possessed of sufficient worth and sufficient interest to deserve increased attention, as a branch of American education.

LECTURE II.

ORIGIN OF SPEECH AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

ALTHOUGH, for the reasons assigned in the introductory lecture, the plan I propose to pursue does not conform to philosophic method, it will not be amiss to follow the example of more scientific speakers, by prefacing these lessons with a formal announcement of the subject to be discussed, and a definition of the terms of art employed in propounding it.

The course upon which we are now about to enter has for its subject the ENGLISH LANGUAGE, the mother-tongue of most, and the habitual speech of all, to whom these lectures are addressed. It may seem that the adjective English, and the noun language, are so familiar to the audience, and so clearly and distinctly defined in their general use, that no inquiry into their history can make their meaning plainer. But our business is with words, and it will not be superfluous to examine into the origin and grounds of the signification ascribed even to terms so well understood as those which express the subject of our discourse.

Neither the epithet nor the substantive is of indigenous growth. The word language is derived, through the French,

from the Latin lingua, the tongue, a name very commonly applied to speech, because the tongue, from its relative bulk, its flexibility, and the greater power of the voluntary muscles over it, is the most conspicuous, if not the most important organ concerned in the production of articulate sounds. The Anglo-Saxons had several words for language, as gereord, gepeode, lyden, reord, spell, spæc, spræc, peodisc, tunge. Some of these cannot be traced back to any more radical form; and we therefore cannot positively say, as we can of the corresponding words in most other tongues, that they are of a figurative character. Lyden is recognizable in our modern English adjective loud, and Chaucer, and other early writers, use leden for language; spæc, in speech; tunge, in tongue; and spell still subsists in the noun spell, a charm, the verb to spell, and as the last member of gospel.*

It is not clear whether the first syllable of this word is the name of the divinity, God, or the adjective gód, good. Bosworth (under God) and many other etymologists, adopt the former supposition; and this view is supported by the analogy of the Icelandic, which has guðspjall, God's word. On the other hand god-spell, as a compound of the adjective gód and spell would be the exact etymological equivalent of the Greek évayyéλov, and the author of the Ormulum, who lived at a period when Anglo-Saxon was not yet forgotten, evidently adopts this derivation.

and preach there God's gospel, a phrase not likely to be employed if gospel had been understood to mean, of itself, God's word. See Appendix, 2.

The word language, in its most limited application, is restricted to human articulate speech; but in its metaphorical use, it embraces every mode of communication by which facts can be made known, sentiments or passions expressed, or emotions excited. We speak not only of the audible language of words, the visible language of written alphabetic characters, or other conventional symbols, whether arbitrary or imitative, the dumb and indefinable language of manual signs, of facial expression and of gesture, but of the language of brute beast and bird; and we apply the same designation to the promptings of the silent inspiration, and the lessons of the intelligible providence, of the Deity, as well as to the voice of the many-tongued operations of inanimate nature. Language, therefore, in its broadest sense, addresses itself to the human soul both by direct intuition, and through all the material entrances of knowledge. Every organ may be its vehicle, every sense its recipient, and every form of existence a speaker.

Many men pass through life without pausing to inquire whether the power of speech, of which they make hourly usage, is a faculty or an art-a gift of the Creator, or a painfully-acquired accomplishment-a natural and universal possession, or a human invention for carrying on the intercommunication essential to social life.* We may answer this

A similar question has been raised with regard to the cries of animals, which, for certain purposes at least, perform the office of speech. About the beginning of this century, Daines Barrington, a member of the Royal Society, tried a series of experiments to determine how far the notes of birds were spontaneous and uniform, and how far dependent on instruction and imitation. The result, (which, however, has been questioned by later observers,) was that though there is much difference in flexibility, power, and compass of voice in birds of different species, yet, in general, the note of the bird is that which he is taught in the nest, and with more or less felicity of imitation, he adopts the