32 INTRODUCTION.
that writing was very little practised by the Britons previous to the coming of St, Augustine ; for, although suppositious alphabets of the aboriginal Britons have |^ produced, yet there is not extant a single manuscript that is written in them.
General Valancy, in his Grammar of the Irish tongw, considers the Irish langua^, to have been a Pimic Celtic compound ; and that Ireland was once inhabited by a colony of Scythians, which had originally emigrated from the borders of the Euxine and Gasman seas to Spain ; that they were instructed in the letters and arts of the Phoenicians, abd that finally, they settled in Ireland, about one thousand, or perhaps, only six hundred years before the birth of Christ, carrying with them their own elementary characters. As the ancient Irish alphabet, however, differs from that of any other nation, the general fmther supposes, that it might have been derived from a colony of Carthagenians, which also settled in their country, about six hundred years previous to the Christian era. Some of the native Irish historians have iidopted hypotheses concerning the origin ^f their nation, language, and letters, which are extravagant in the extreme. Thus, the antiquity of the -former has been endeavoured to be magnified by a quotation from a volume, entitled Leabhuir Drovinamachta, or the book with the white cover ; which states, that the three daughters of Cain took possession of Ireland, and that the eldest, who was called Bamba, gave her name to it.
In the beginning of the ninth century, the Danes invaded England, and became sole masters of it in about two hundred years, whereby the British language obtained a tincture of the Danish, but this did not make so great an alteration in the Anglo-Saxon,* as the revolution of WUham I. who has a monument of the Norman conquest,f and in imitation of other conquerors, endeavoured to make the language of his own country as generally received as his commands ; thus the ancient English became an entire medley of Celtic, Latin, Saxon, Danish, and Norman-French. Since the restoration of learning, innumerable terms have been borrowed from that inexhaustible source the Greek. Italy, Spain, Holland, and Germany, have contributed something, so that the present English may be considered as a selection from all the languages of Europe.
- The name Saxon orl^ally signified upon the continent, that of a Bingle state ; although it subseqoei
denoted an association of nations ; and Ptolemy mentions, that antecedent to Ul» a people called Saxones inhi the tenitorr now called JuUand, and three small islands at the mouth of the Elbe ; at present denominated Strand, Bnsen, and Heligoland.
The Saxon tongue, as it was ancienUy spoken in Britain, is divided into three periods ; namely, British Saxon, which extended from the entry of the Saxons, on the invitation of Vortigem, in 449, ui Invasion of the Danes under Ivar, in 887 ; secondly the DanUh Saxon, which extended from the DanUh in' till that by the Moimaos, in 1066 ; and thirdly, the Norman Saxon, which commencing at the Norman aixetmm, was very rude and irregular, and which continued till near the close of the twelfth century. After this, the VttaA tongue prevailed in England. Of the pure Anglo-Saxon, as it was spoken during the iirst period, there is bat ooe fragment now extant, which occurs in King AUred's version of Venerable Bcdc's Eceletiiutical UUtory. There are several specbncns of the Danish Saxon still preserved, especially some translations of the scriptures, flndy illuminated ; and of the third, there are also many manuscripts scattered through the kingdom. The first Saxon types were cut by John Daye, under the patronage of arthbishop Parker, about the year 1567.
t The Normans, Northmans, or People from the North, emigrated from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, &c. and spread themselves over Gaul, but particularly Neustria, which name they soon cluinged to Normandy. -
LjOOQ IC
