recent critic[20] has curiously calculated that the English language, now consisting of about 38,000 words, contains 23,000, or nearly five-eighths, Anglo-Saxon in their origin; that in our most idiomatic writers, there is about one-tenth _not_ Anglo-Saxon, and in our least about one-third.[21] A cry of our desertion of our Saxon purity has been raised by those who have not themselves practised it in their more elevated compositions; but are we to deem that English corrupted which recedes from its Saxon character, and compels the daughter to lose the likeness of her mother? Are we to banish to perpetuity those foreigners who have already fructified our Saxon soil? In an age of extended literature, conversant with objects and productive of associations which never entered into the experience of our forefathers, the ancient language of the people must necessarily prove inadequate; a new language must start out of new conceptions. Look into our present "exchequer of words;" there lies many a refined coinage struck out of the arts and the philosophies of Europe. Every word which genius creates, and which time shall consecrate, is a possession of the language which must be inscribed into that variable doomsday book of words--the English Dictionary. Devotees of Thor and Woden! the day of your idolatries has passed, and your remonstrances are vain as your superstitions. FOOTNOTES: [1] Mr. Hallam. [2] Dr. Bosworth. [3] Of this recondite writer Ellis has said, "probably Layamon never will be printed;" but we live in an age of publication, and Layamon is said to be actually in the press. [Since this was written, the work has been published at the cost of the Society of Antiquaries, under the editorial care of Sir Frederick Madden.] [4] Dr. Bosworth, or Mr. Thorpe, has explained this attempt more fully. "From this idea of doubling the consonant after a short vowel, as in German, we are enabled to form some tolerably accurate notions as to the pronunciation of our forefathers. Thus, Orm (or Ormin) writes _min_ and _win_ with a single _n_ only, and _lif_ with a single f, because the i is long, as in _mine_, _wine_, and _life_. On the other hand, wherever the consonant is doubled, the vowel preceding is sharp and short, as _winn_, pronounced _win_, not _wine_."--"Origin of the Germanic and Scandinavian Languages," 24. [5] Guest's "Hist. of English Rhythms," ii. 186. [6] During the thirteenth century, the organic change proceeded so rapidly that there is quite as wide a difference between the language of Layamon and that which was written at the beginning of the fourteenth century (about the time of Robert of Gloucester), as there is between the English language of the reign of Edward the Second and the tongue of the present day.--See Mr. Wright's learned "Essay on the Literature of the Anglo-Saxons," 107.