Page:The Sources of Standard English.djvu/259

230 years went on, and as men more and more aped their betters, the French words would drive out the Old En&shy;glish words; and the latter class would linger only in the mouths of upland folk, where a keen antiquary may find some of them still. So mighty was the spell at work, that in the Fourteenth Century French words found their way into even the Lord's Prayer and the Belief; the last strongholds, it might be thought, of pure En&shy;glish. It was one of the signs of the times that the old boda made way for the new prechur; prayer and praise both come from France.

But the influence of the friars upon our speech was not altogether for evil. St. Francis, it is well known, was one of the first fathers of the New Italian; a friar of his Order, Thomas of Hales, wrote what seems to me the best poem of two hundred lines produced in English before Chaucer. This ‘Luve ron,’ addressed to a nun about 1250, shows a hearty earnestness, a flowing dic&shy;tion, and a wonderful command of rime; it has not a score of lines (these bear too hard on wedlock) that might not have been written by a pious Protestant. Hardly any French words are found here, but the names of a string of jewels. English poets had hitherto made but little use of the Virgin Mary as a theme. But her worship was one of the great badges of the