Page:The New Forest - its history and its scenery.djvu/191

Rh Latin and Greek hybridisms, which are daily coined to suit the exigencies of commerce or science.

Provincialisms are, in fact, when properly looked at, not so much portions of the original foundations of a language, as the very quarry out of which it is hewn. And as if to compensate for much of the harm she has done, America has wrought one great good in preserving many a pregnant Old-English word, which we have been foolish enough to disown. Provincialisms should be far more studied than they are; for they will help us to settle many a difficult point,—where was the boundary of the Anglian and the Frisian; how far on the national character was the influence of the Dane felt? how much, and in what way, did the Norman affect the daily business of life?

Still more important is a country's folk-lore, as showing the higher mental faculties of the race, in those legends and snatches of song, and fragments of popular poetry, which speak the popular feeling, and which not only contain its past history, but foreshadow the future literature of a country; in those proverbs, too, which tell the life and employment of a nation; and those superstitions which give us such an insight into its moral state.

Throughout the West of England still linger some few 173