Page:The Sources of Standard English.djvu/254

Rh

If it be true, as some tell us, that the mingling of the Teutonic and the Romance in our tongue make ‘a happy marriage,’ we see in the author of the Ancren Riwle the man who first gave out the banns. He was, it would seem, a Bishop, well-grounded in all the lore that Paris or Rome could teach; and he strikes us as rather too fond of airing his French and Latin before the good ladies, on whose behalf he was writing. For sixty years or so no Englishman was bold enough to imitate the Prelate's style, at least, in a book. Those who weigh English authors of this age will find that, if we divide the Thirteenth Century into three equal parts, the first division will take in writers who have eight or ten obso&shy;lete English words out of fifty; the writers of the middle division have from five to seven obsolete English words out of fifty; and the writers of the last division have only three or four obsolete English words out of fifty.