an instance should be pointed out, and Wiclif there used no it would be pretty well decided that he acknowledged the usage.
With yea and yes there is not so much difficulty. In Matth. IX. 28, XIII. 51, Acts v. 8, xxii. 27, (all affirmative questions,) yea is used by Wiclif, by Tyndal, and by our own version. Whereas in Rom. iii. 29, " Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles?" Yes, is he answer in all these translations. I am aware that the number of instances I have cited is too small to form a complete induction; but I trust that some other person whose reading in the older writers is more extensive than my own, may point out such others as may decide the question. As it is, it seems as if there was some foundation for More's rule, though it evidently soon ceased to be observed. At any rate, trifling as such speculations are, I trust, one or two points may have been recalled to the reader's mind in these few pages, bearing on that most interesting fact[1] "that we too are sprung of Earth's first bloody and that our speech is the title deed of our descent from it,"
- ↑ See p. 212 of this work. Vol. ii.
