248 Miscellaneous Observations, reasonable, though nothing like so witty, as Voltaire^s mode of accounting for the beds of shells often found in the centre of vast continents, which shells, for fear that they should be regarded as a proof of a universal deluge, he maintained had been dropt there by pilgrims to the Holy Land. What the meaning of the termination is may be, must be learnt in the East. Mr Gilchrist indeed does not think it necessary to go so far, but makes it out by his own mother-wit: he tells us (Etymol. Interpreter p. 122) that s "is a contraction of is or ^5," and that this " is the sign of the genitive singular, third declension of Latin nouns; which was adopted by the Saxon writers to answer the same purpose in the native language which they were forming : and there can be no doubt that said is was originally a separate word answering in meaning or use to of with us : which o/, as well as the termination is^ is a contraction or fragment of some compound word.**^ This to be sure is a truly invaluable piece of accurate information. The former part of the passage refers to the author'^s bosom- fancy; that, " if not all, nearly all that very part of our lan- guage which is most confidently received as Saxon and Gothic, is, in fact, neither more nor less than a corruption of Greek and Latin (p. 5) ;'* and that the chief agents in this transfor- mation, by which the old language of the Saxons, if indeed they had any, was almost entirely extinguisht, were the men of letters : so that the influence of such persons upon the language of their countrymen, one must suppose, varies in- versely as their number and the quantity and circulation of their writings. For the pride of literature is sadly humbled when we examine the rustic dialects, whether of our own or of any other tongue, and perceive how very slight and minute is the influence exercised by books, even in the course of many centuries, on the spoken language of the people. A few extraneous words will now and then take root among them : but even if you sow the finest pippin, it comes up in the shape of a crab. So far are the lower orders from bor- rowing grammatical forms from the higher, that the very words which they do adopt, they almost always disfigure and dis- tort, in order to bring them under the analogies they them- selves are wont to be guided by. In truth this hypothesis, for the sobriety of judgement it indicates, the strength of
