14. +Influence of the Scandinavian Element.+-- The introduction of the Danes and the Danish language into England had the result, in the east, of unsettling the inflexions of our language, and thus of preparing the way for their complete disappearance. The declensions of nouns became unsettled; nouns that used to make their plural in +a+ or in +u+ took the more striking plural suffix +as+ that belonged to a quite different declension. The same things happened to adjectives, verbs, and other parts of language. The causes of this are not far to seek. Spoken language can never be so accurate as written language; the mass of the English and Danes never cared or could care much for grammar; and both parties to a conversation would of course hold firmly to the +root+ of the word, which was intelligible to both of them, and let the inflexions slide, or take care of themselves. The more the English and Danes mixed with each other, the oftener they met at church, at games, and in the market-place, the more rapidly would this process of stripping go on,-- the smaller care would both peoples take of the grammatical inflexions which they had brought with them into this country. 15. +The Latin Element in English.+-- So far as the number of words-- the vocabulary-- of the language is concerned, the Latin contribution is by far the most important element in our language. Latin was the language of the Romans; and the Romans at one time were masters of the whole known world. No wonder, then, that they influenced so many peoples, and that their language found its way-- east and west, and south and north-- into almost all the countries of Europe. There are, as we have seen, more Latin than English words in our own language; and it is therefore necessary to make ourselves acquainted with the character and the uses of the Latin element-- an element so important-- in English.[3] Not only have the Romans made contributions of large +numbers+ of words to the English language, but they have added to it a quite new +quality+, and given to its genius new +powers+ of expression. So true is this, that we may say-- without any sense of unfairness, or any feeling of exaggeration-- that, until the Latin element was thoroughly mixed, united with, and transfused into the original English, the writings of Shakespeare were impossible, the poetry of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries could not have come into existence. This is true of Shakespeare; and it is still more true of Milton. His most powerful poetical thoughts are written in lines, the most telling words in which are almost always Latin. This may be illustrated by the following lines from “Lycidas”:-- “It was that _fatal_ and _perfidious_ bark, Built in the _eclipse_, and rigged with curses dark, That sunk so low that _sacred_ head of thine!”