36. +Losses of English from the Incoming of Norman-French.+-- (iii) When once a way was made for the entrance of French words into our English language, the immigrations were rapid and numerous. Hence there were many changes both in the grammar and in the vocabulary of English from the year 1100, the year in which we may suppose those Englishmen who were living at the date of the battle of Hastings had died out. These changes were more or less rapid, according to circumstances. But perhaps the most rapid and remarkable change took place in the lifetime of William Caxton, the great printer, who was born in 1410. In his preface to his translation of the ‘Æneid’ of Virgil, which he published in 1490, when he was eighty years of age, he says that he cannot understand old books that were written when he was a boy-- that “the olde Englysshe is more lyke to dutche than englysshe,” and that “our langage now vsed varyeth ferre from that whiche was vsed and spoken when I was borne. For we Englysshemen ben borne ynder the domynacyon of the mone [moon], which is neuer stedfaste, but euer wauerynge, wexynge one season, and waneth and dycreaseth another season.” This as regards time. --But he has the same complaint to make as regards place. “Comyn englysshe that is spoken in one shyre varyeth from another.” And he tells an odd story in illustration of this fact. He tells about certain merchants who were in a ship “in Tamyse” (on the Thames), who were bound for Zealand, but were wind-stayed at the Foreland, and took it into their heads to go on shore there. One of the merchants, whose name was Sheffelde, a mercer, entered a house, “and axed for mete, and specyally he axyd after eggys.” But the “goode-wyf” replied that she “coude speke no frenshe.” The merchant, who was a steady Englishman, lost his temper, “for he also coude speke no frenshe, but wolde have hadde eggys; and she understode hym not.” Fortunately, a friend happened to join him in the house, and he acted as interpreter. The friend said that “he wolde have eyren; then the goode wyf sayde that she understod hym wel.” And then the simple-minded but much-perplexed Caxton goes on to say: “Loo! what sholde a man in thyse dayes now wryte, eggës or eyren?” Such were the difficulties that beset printers and writers in the close of the fifteenth century.