CONTENTS. - 105 - 158 · 177 - 195 - 212 - 219 244 - 265 - 294 MISCELLANIES BY SIR WALTER SCOTT. POETICAL CRITICISM. EARLY ENGLISH POETRY.* [Edinburgh Review, 1804.] It is obvious to every one who has studied our language, whether in prose or poetry, that a luminous history of its rise and progress must necessarily involve more curious topics of discussion than a similar work upon any other European language. This opinion has not its source in national partiality, but is dictated by the very peculiar circumstances under which the English language was formed. The other European tongues, such at least as have been adapted to the purposes of literature, may be divided into two grand classesthose which are derived from the Teutonic, and those which are formed upon the Latin. In the former class, we find the German, the Norse, the Swedish, the Danish, and the Low Dutch, all of which, in words and construction, are * Ellis's Specimen of the early English Poets. Third edition. 3 vols. 1803. + George Ellis, Esq., to whom the 5th Canto of Marmion is inscribed, was the coadjutor of Messrs. Canning and Frere, in the Anti-Jacobin, and the author of various separate works distinguished by extensive antiquarian knowledge, and elegant critical He died in 1815, at the age of 70. VOL. I.-2 taste. dialects of the Teutonic, and preserve the general character of their common source, although enriched and improved by terms of art or of science adopted from the learned languages, or from those of other kingdoms of civilized Europe. The second class comprehends the Italian, the Spanish, and the French, in all its branches. It is true, the last of these has, in modern times, owing to the number of French writers in every class and upon every subject, departed farther from its original than the two others; but still the ground-work is the Latin; and the more nearly any specimen approaches to it, it may be safely concluded to be the more ancient; for, in truth, we know no other rule for ascertaining the antiquity of any particular piece in the Romanz language, than by its greater or slighter resemblance to the speech of the ancient Romans, from which it derives its name. Thus every language of civilized Europe is formed of a uniform pattern and texture, either upon the Teutonic, or upon the Latin. But the same chance which has peopled Britain with such a variety of tribes and nations, that we are at a loss to conceive how they should have met upon the same spot-and that comparatively, a small one-has decreed that the language of Locke and of Shakspeare should claim no peculiar affinity to either of these grand sources of European speech; and that if on the one hand, its conformation and construction be founded on a dialect of the Teutonic, the greater number of its vocables should, on the other, be derived from the Romanz, or corrupted Latin of the Normans. It is interesting to observe how long these languages, uncongenial in themselves, and derived from sources widely different, continued to exist separately, and to be spoken respectively by the Anglo-Norman conquerors and the vanquished Anglo-Saxons. It is still more interesting to observe how, after having long flowed each in its separate channel, they at length united and formed a middle dialect, which, though employed at first for the mere purpose of convenience and mutual intercourse betwixt the two nations, at length superseded the individual speech of both, and became the apt record of poetry and of philosophy. The history of poetry is intimately connected with that of language. Authors in the infancy of composition, like Pope in that of life, may be said to " lisp in numbers." History, religion, morality, whatever tends to agitate or to soothe the |