On the Approaches to the English Language [pp. 434-456]

1874.] ON THE APPROACHES TO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
abstruse terms and theories, he has made his treatise, which
should be simple and straightforward, a sort of om,dium
gatherun from Grimm, Bopp, Schleicher, Max Muller, and
Whitney. In the next place, by starting from An,glo-Saxon and
not from Gothic, Professor March is constantly under the necessity of explaining at length forms and compositions that would,
on the other plan, explain themselves. Besides these radical
defects, the book contains certain errors, or at least mis-statements, that lead us to suspect that its author has attempted to
build up Anglo-Saxon grammar from modern English. Thus, on
pp. 89 seq., we find a so-called periphrastic conjugation, ic maeq,
can, nmot scyle," I may, can, must, shall, &c." An. S. ic maeg is
not "I may," i. e. as expressive of possibility or wish, as "I
may do it,"" may you be happy," but is equivalent to" I can,"
"I am able." An. S. ic can is not "I am able," but "I know,"
"I know how," as in the Scottish ken. An. S. ic scyle is not the
future "I shall," but a sort of indirect imperative, "I am to" do
something either now or at some future time, at the request or
order of another. On p. 90, we encounter the paradigm of a
passive voice, ic beom nuimen (I am taken). Would Professor
March have us accept this as a passive voice? Are beginners
to learn such antiquated nomenclature from a book that claims
to be based upon modern science?
Napoleon I. said upon one occasion, that the history of France
should be written either in a hundred volumes or in one. Similarly we may say of Anglo-Sax.n grammar, that it should be
treated either exhaustively or in ai simple, compact form, adapted
to the needs of the beginner. Professor March, having attempted both plans, has succeeded in neither. We may doubt
whether it is possible to construct at the present day a complete
grammar of Anglo-Saxon, for the reason that the grammnarian has not before him the bulk of Anglo-Saxon literature
in a perfectly trustworthy shape. The most eminent living
scholar in this department, Professor Grein of M{arburg, says
expressly in the preface to the first volume of his Bibliothek der
Aityel~saichsischenz P rosa, that he has been obliged to suspend the
publication of the other volumes because of the recently discovered untrustworthiness of the English editions upon which
he had relied. This utterance, coming less than two years ago
from the man whose Bibliothek der Angyelseichsischen Poesie con
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