th the names of the various grains, and the product of
the cheaper kinds when ground,--as _oat-meal_, _barley-meal_,
_rye-meal_; while the generic term for the crop becomes _grain_, and
the meal of the variety used by the higher classes is turned into
_flour_. To _bury_ remains Saxon, because both high and low must be
hidden under ground at last; but as only the rich and noble could
afford any pomp in that sad office, we get the word _funeral_ from the
Norman. So also the serf went into a Saxon _grave_, the lord into a
Norman _tomb_. All the parts of armor are naturally named from the
French; the weapons of the people, as _sword_, _bow_, and the like,
continued Saxon. So _feather_ is Saxon; but as soon as it changes into
a _plume_ for the knight, it turns Norman,--and Latin when it is cut
into a _pen_ for the _clerk_. _Book_ is Saxon; but a number of books
collected together, as could be done only by the rich, makes a
_library_. _Darling_ would be murmured over many a _cradle_ in Saxon
_huts_; but _minion_ came into the language down the back stairs of the
Norman _palace_. In the same way, terms of law are Norman, and of the
Church, Latin. These are familiar examples. But hasty generalizers are
apt to overlook the fact, that the Saxon was never, to any great
extent, a literary language. Accordingly, it held its own very well in
the names of common things, but failed to answer the demands of complex
ideas derived from them. The author of "Piers Ploughman" wrote for the
people, Chaucer for the court. We open at random and count the Latin[6]
words in ten verses of the "Vision" and ten of Chaucer's "Romaunt of
the Rose," (a translation from the French,) and find the proportion to
be seven in the former and five in the latter.

The organs of the Saxon have always been unwilling and stiff in
learning languages. He acquired only about as many British words as we
have Indian ones, and we believe that more French and Latin was
introduced through the pen and the eye than through the tongue and the
ear. For obvious reasons, the question is one that must be settled by
reference to prose-writers, and not poets; and it is, we think, pretty
well settled that more words of Latin original were brought into the
language in the century between 1550 and 1650 than in the whole period
before or since,--and for the simple reason, that they were absolutely
needful to express new modes and combinations of thought.[7] The
language has gained imm