13.  But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias; for thy prayer is heard, and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shall call his name John.”

Common Bible, 1610.

See Dr. Johnson’s History of the English Language, in his Quarto
Dictionary.

X. ANGLO-SAXON IN THE TIME OF KING ALFRED.

61.  Alfred the Great, who was the youngest son of Ethelwolf, king of the West Saxons, succeeded to the crown on the death of his brother Ethelred, in the year 871, being then twenty-two years old.  He had scarcely time to attend the funeral of his brother, before he was called to the field to defend his country against the Danes.  After a reign of more than twenty-eight years, rendered singularly glorious by great achievements under difficult circumstances, he died universally lamented, on the 28th of October, A. D. 900.  By this prince the university of Oxford was founded, and provided with able teachers from the continent.  His own great proficiency in learning, and his earnest efforts for its promotion, form a striking contrast with the ignorance which prevailed before.  “In the ninth century, throughout the whole kingdom of the West Saxons, no man could be found who was scholar enough to instruct the young king Alfred, then a child, even in the first elements of reading:  so that he was in his twelfth year before he could name the letters of the alphabet.  When that renowned prince ascended the throne, he made it his study to draw his people out of the sloth and stupidity in which they lay; and became, as much by his own example as by the encouragement he gave to learned men, the great restorer of arts in his dominions.”—­Life of Bacon.

62.  The language of eulogy must often be taken with some abatement:  it does not usually present things in their due proportions.  How far the foregoing quotation is true, I will not pretend to say; but what is called “the revival of learning,” must not be supposed to have begun at so early a period as that of Alfred.  The following is a brief specimen of the language in which that great man wrote; but, printed in Saxon characters, it would appear still less like English.

“On thaere tide the Gotan of Siththiu maegthe with Romana rice gewin upahofon. and mith heora cyningum.  Raedgota and Eallerica waeron hatne.  Romane burig abraecon. and eall Italia rice that is betwux tham muntum and Sicilia tham ealonde in anwald gerehton. and tha aegter tham foresprecenan cyningum Theodric feng to tham ilcan rice se Theodric waes Amulinga. he wass Cristen. theah he on tham Arrianiscan gedwolan durhwunode.  He gehet Romanum his freondscype. swa that hi mostan heora ealdrichta wyrthe beon.”—­KING ALFRED:  Johnson’s Hist. of E. L., 4to Dict., p. 17.

CHAPTER VIII.

OF THE GRAMMATICAL STUDY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.