NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13761, 28 May 1908, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

A LOSS WHICH SAVED OUR LANGUAGE. Mr. Theodore R. Lounsbup.y, the Professor of English in Yale University, lias a most interesting paper in Harper's Magazine on "The French Element in English." He makes a- striking point when 'lie says that " had the successors of Henry 11. continued to hold under their sway for all succeeding time the vast domains he ruled upon the Continent, there is little reason to believe that English would ever have become a language of literature. It would have sunk to the level of a. popular dialect, like its sister tongue, the Plattdeutsch. ■ All of —all educated men at least—would bo now speaking French or some closely' allied form of it. It was the expulsion of the English from the Continent that compelled the coalescence of the two tongues spoken on the island, converted them into the composite speech of a, homogeneous people, and made it ultimately-the vehicle of a great literature. Of all the descendants of the Latin, the French is the tongue with which the English has had from the beginning the closest relations. Two distinctly recognisable periods there are in which words from tliat quarter have made their way into our speech. The first is the inroad which after a. considerable interval followed the Norman Conquest; the second is that which followed the Restoration of the Stuarts. It is important to keep in view the essential difference in the character of these two invasions. The French element which entered into the English tongue during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries occupies a position entirely distinct from that which came later. English would not be English without it. Most of it lias become as much an integral part of the speech of common life as is the native element- by the side of which it took its place. It is absolutely essential to the communication of thought or the expression of feeling. To the large proportion of the terms then introduced no sense of strangeness attaches. Not even to the educated man does the word face suggest the thought of the remote Latin original from which it is derived. To the uneducated the Romance colour is much more familiar than the hue of native origin, which it finally displaced as the general term. A not dissimilar statement can be made about flower and bloom. Dinner and supper are words of French extraction ; they are just as near to all of us as the Teutonic breakfast. Accordingly it is not the mere introduction - of French words into the speech which distinguishes English from its immediately allied, tongues. It. is their absorption as an integral part of it. Other Teutonic languages can get rid of whatever romance element they possess, if they regularly set about the undertaking. English could not get lid of it if it would. It was political conditions which brought about this early wholesale introduction of the French element. French words that have come in since this early time stand on an entirely different footing. They are usually a convenience, sometimes a fashion, but not strictly a necessity. In this respect they resemble those which have made their way into the other Teutonic tongues. It was not until the seventeenth century that this new invasion began on any scale worth mentioning."- .

THE PEERS' LIBRARY. 1 ; _ I " The Peers*' Library contains about i 60,000 volumes, and is, of course, intended for the exclusive use of members of the House of Lords. There used to be an im- : pression," said Mr. E. Gosse, its librarian, . to a Great Thoughts interviewer, "that itwas a poor and unimportant library, but there could not be a greater mistake. Itwas true. that it does not contain rare old relics, as everything was burned when the ( Houses, of Parliament were destroyed by fire. But. my. great aim."' said Mr. OoSse, [ "has been to make a statesmen's library of it, and a great part of my attention lias been given to filling up the gaps, which I ' found to be very numerous. Ido not buy ' belles-lettres, novels, and essays, which ' Would be out of place here, but I try to ' see that the library contains even* book that any peer might conceivably want to refer to, either for the substance or ornament of his speech. In this respect I found, when ■ 1 came here, a remarkably rich basis of his:1 torical works, which, however, had not l#en i kept up tc very modern times. I have made it my business to bring it up to date, and it : is now probably one of the best historical collections in London. The library is es- ; pecially rich in county histories, and in books of reference in many languages; also r in memoirs and books on law and heraldry. We have a very rich collection of French memoiis, which I take great pleasure in . keeping up to date, and' of literature on I Napoleon. The improvement and enlargement of this library have been a source of . enormous interest to me, and I find myself very cordially supported in lite work by the "interest taken in it by many peers, : ■ who make use of the library in increasing numbers. It is an ideal collection in the ' sense that it contains 'all the books that 3 should 1>? in every gentleman's library.'"