Specimens of English literature from the 'Ploughmans crede' to the ...

INTRODUCTION.Synopsis. § i. Obiect of the volume. §2. The period considered in it.§ 3. 'Edited' texts. § 4. Difficulties. § 5. The Alphabet. § 6. Abbreviations.§ 7, Spelling. § 8. Pronunciation. § 9. Vocabulary. § 10.Glossarial Index. § 1 1. Sources whence the Extracts are taken.General Hints. § 12. The Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. § 13. Anglo-Saxon or English Grammar. § 14. Words from the Old French. § 15-Contracted forms in Old French. § 16. Formation of French nouns.§ 17. French words not all of Latin origin. § 18. English as comparedwith German. § 19. The difference between 'derived* and 'cognate.'§ 20. Help to be obtained from the Allied Languages. § 21. Literature ofthe Fifteenth Century, &c. § 22. Chronological Table.§ I. The object of this volume is to supply the studentand general reader with trustworthy and useful extracts fromwritings of the fifteenth and part of the sixteenth centuries.Most of the existing books of the same character are insufficientin one or other respect ; either the extracts given aretoo short to represent adequately the style of the author,or they are more or less modernized in such a manner asto give no clue to the real state of the language at the timewhen he wrote. Besides this, many of the explanations ofwords given by the compilers of such works are whollywrong ; the mistakes, for example, in Ellis's Specimens of'