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

XXINTRODUCTION.ihe words. It deserves to be particularly observed, moreover,that the fact of there being no very wide difference, inthe fourteenth century, between the French and Englishvowel-systems, must have greatly assisted in that introductioninto English of numerous French words which we knowto have taken place.§ 9. Vocabulary. The pieces here printed do not, afterall, present very many difficulties through the use of uncommonwords, except in a few cases which may be particularlymentioned. Section I is an extract from an alliterative poem.and poems in such metre are invariably remarkable for moreor less obscurity ;yet the obscurity is not, in this case, verygreat. Sections IV, VI, XI, XIII, XXII are in LowlandScotch, and therefore differ from the rest somewhat in thesame way in which the diction of Bums differs from that ofByron. A North-country man will understand them readily;a Southerner will have more trouble to do so. This remark,perhaps, hardly applies to Section XIII, from Gawin Douglas,a piece of quite exceptional character. Partly from his profuseemployment of Northern-English words, and partlyfrom the freedom with which he introduces Latin andFrench terms, the worthy bishop has succeeded in producingmany lines which puzzle even the experienced. Such alineas'Moich hailsum stows ourheldand the slak' (1. 46)does not carry with it its obvious meaning; but it would bea mistake to suppose this to be an average specimen ofI'^irly Englibh. \\c can hardly find lines as unfamiliar inappearance as this without going back at least to the four-