Page:The Sources of Standard English.djvu/204

Rh The verb ‘to squire’ came a hundred years later, in Chaucer's time.

There are some Kentish Sermons printed at page 26 of An Old English Miscellany (Early English Text Society). These seem to have been translated from the French about 1290: it was in Kent and Essex, as we can plainly see, that the old forms of King Alfred's day made their last stand against Northern changes. Forms like liesed (amisit), niede (necessitas), show us how a word such as belefe got turned into belief, the corrupt form which we still keep. Never did any tongue employ so many variations of vowels as the English, to represent the sound e: here is one more puzzle for the foreigner. Our word glare, first found here, is akin to the Low German. We light on goodman (paterfamilias) at page 32. An idiomatic repetition, well known to our lower orders, now appears: as at page 31, ‘a sik man seyde, Lord, lord,’ ‘ha seide,’ &c. The swiche (talis) is some&shy;times shortened into the siche, still often heard.

Robert of Gloucester wrote his Chronicle about 1300, or not much earlier, since he speaks of St. Louis as canonised. He shows us a few new idioms, especially as regards the word an, our one.

Þe more þat a man con, þe more worþ he ys. — I. page 364. Þe castel of Cary held one Wyllam Lovel. — II. page 448. Ac me ne mi&#x0293;te vor no þing in þe toune finde on. — II. p. 556.