ments,
being subsequently enlarged and recast, were delivered in the autumn
somewhat more nearly in their present shape to the pupils of the
Training School, Winchester; with only those alterations, omissions and
additions, which the difference in my hearers suggested as necessary or
desirable. I have found it convenient to keep the lectures, as regards
the persons presumed to be addressed, in that earlier form which I had
sketched out at the first; and, inasmuch as it helps much to keep
lectures vivid and real that one should have some well defined audience,
if not actually before one, yet before the mind's eye, to suppose myself
throughout addressing my first hearers. I have supposed myself, that is,
addressing a body of young Englishmen, all with a fair amount of
classical knowledge (in my explanations I have sometimes had others with
less than theirs in my eye), not wholly unacquainted with modern
languages; but not yet with any special designation as to their future
work; having only as yet marked out to them the duty in general of
living lives worthy of those who have England for their native country,
and English for their native tongue. To lead such through a more
intimate knowledge of this into a greater love of that, has been a
principal aim which I have set before myself throughout.

In a few places I have been obliged again to go over ground which I had
before gone over in a little book, _On the Study of Words_; but I
believe that I have never merely repeated myself, nor given to the
readers of my former work and now of this any right to complain that I
am compelling them to travel a second time by the same paths. At least
it has been my endeavour, whenever I have found myself at points where
the two books come necessarily into contact, that what was treated with
any fulness before, should be here touched on more lightly; and only
what there was slightly handled, should here be entered on at large.

CONTENTS

LECTURE I PAGE
ENGLISH A COMPOSITE LANGUAGE 1

LECTURE II
GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 40

LECTURE III
DIMINUTIONS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 113

LECTURE IV
CHANGES IN THE MEANING OF ENGLISH WORDS 176

LECTURE V
CHANGES IN THE SPELLING OF ENGLISH WORDS 212

INDEX 257

ENGLISH PAST AND PRESENT

I

ENGLISH A COM