— 2—

lights; the combinations which have been employed by them are varied. Nevertheless, we meet with a notion that certain combinations have an inherent tendency to represent certain sounds, and that certain sounds are naturally represented by certain combinations.

Rapid communication of individuals does an immense deal towards producing unifor- mity of speech and pronunciation. The war of the roses, which raged from 1455 to 1486, caused an unprecedented communication between all parts of England, and hereby, as Trevisa says, an effect both on the structure and pronunciation of the language. This effect was still more felt in consequence of the civil war in the XVIIH çentury. Since by this time chiefly, a different mind reigned in the nation and demanded another instrument to express itself, the style was to change. This change which, by needs, took place, did not only refer to altering words and composing sentences, but extended itself also to pronunciation which, at the end of the XVIIa century, was much varying from that at the close of the XVIR. No wonder that a good number of writers paid attention to pronunciation, which they zealously sought to ascertain; the rules they gave, became so abundant towards the end of the XVII century, that we are enabled to follow and observe the gradual phases of alterations the words went through; and to trace the giving away of the sounds of the XVIüh to those of the following century.

From the long and violent disturbances of the XVin œPentury, when the French element was fusing with Anglo-Saxon into the speech of XVIH century, when the language was, so to say, put out of order, for some time men of the north, middle and south justled with each other, an English was produced which became a common dialect acknowledged by all writers; but to render the language easy to the men of the north as well as of the south, the inflexional system was given up. Unfortunately, we do not meet with writers giving such rules and lists, as were necessary to refer to for the pronunciation of the XVa. The only way of making an estimate, is to narrow somewhat the range of diversity by comparing the XIVEH with the XVIE century pronunciation, and estimating hazardously the time required to effect it. Through such a comparison, we can find out some- rough practical method of reading works of the XVi century.

The grammatical forms of the language in the Vision of Piers Ploughman, the pro- bable author of which is Langland, being found to be very nearly, if not exactly, the same with those of Chaucer's, and both having been contemporaries in the strictest sense of the word, we might dispense ourselves with making researches into the language and pronunciation of the former. Chaucer has not, as was supposed by some learned editors, introduced äny new mode of pronunciation; a man as Chaucer, who was remarkable for his common sense and practical view of things, really meaning to form a standard style in language, could not begin by introducing a new mode of pronouncing, which was contrary to common usage; it could not have been generally adopted. The pronunciation of the language found in Chaucer's poetry was the common pronunciation of the time. What he introduced, and borrowed from the poetry of France or Italy, was not the occasional pronunciation of the final e as a distinct syllable, but the general principle of metrical regularity.