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PREFACE.

ix

edition of the Gospel of St. Mark' I derived great
help in obtaining an insight into the "Period of Confusion " in early English. I have had the less hesitation in
occasionally referring to statements and examples about
early English found in the Shakespearian Grammar,
because all of these were supervised and many of them
originated by Mr. Skeat, but for whose kindness and
learning I should scarcely have ventured on ground of
which it may be said, no less than of the field of
criticism, that"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."
The chapter on Poetical Constructions will, I hope,
be found as useful as any in the book. It is an attempt
to draw out in grammatical detail the principles of
poetry as laid down by Professor Seeley and myself in
English Lessons for English People, and to lead the
pupil to see the reason and the beauty of "poetical
irregularities."
In the Appendix on the "Growth of the English
Language," I have ventured so far to differ from Dr.
Morris, in his account of the " Periods of the English
Language," as to assign a separate period to the sixteenth century, and also to give names to the several
periods. I do not think boys will find it easy to remember the periods without epithets of a rather more picturesque nature than ordinal numbers. I have also
added some remarks on the Elizabethan period.
A few tables of the Early Forms are added in the
Appendix with the view of illustrating remarks scattered through the book. But no attempt has been
made to give any complete system of Accidence. To
try to do this completely, in the face of Dr. Morris's
Accidence, would have been superfluous: and to do it
imperfectly, in the way in which it has been done in
many Grammars, under the title of "Etymology,"
1 The Gospel according to St. Mark, in Anglo-Saxon and Northunibrian Versions. Synoptically Arranged. Edited for the Syndics
of the University Press by the Rev. Waltei W\. Skeat, M.A. Cambridge: Deighton, Bell, & Co. 1871.