Mr. Guest, in his work, of which we hope erelong to give an account, brings to the story of English verse far more extensive research than had hitherto been bestowed upon it; and that special scholarship which was needed--the Anglo-Saxon language, learned in the new continental school of Rask and Grimm. His examination of our subject merges in a general history of the Language, viewed as a metrical element or material; and hence his exposition, which we rapidly collect _seriatim_, is plainly different in respect of both order and fulness from what it would have been, had the illustration of Chaucer been his main purpose. He follows down the gradual Extinction of Syllables; and in this respect, our anciently syllabled, now mute E, takes high place, and falls first under his consideration. This now silent or vanished Vowel occurred heretofore, with metrical power, in adopted FRENCH Substantives, as--eloquenc-E, maladi-E; and in their plurals, as--maladi-ES. And in Adjectives of the same origin, as--larg-E. It remained from several parts of the ANGLO-SAXON grammar.--From A, E, U, endings of Anglo-Saxon substantives--as nam-A, nam-E; tim-A, tim-E; mon-A, (the moon,) mon-E; sunn-E, (the sun,) sonn-E; heort-E, (the heart,) hert-E; ear-E, (the ear,) er-E; scol-U, (school,) scol-E; luf-U, lov-E; sceam-U, sham-E; lag-A, law-E; sun-U, (a son,) son-E; wud-U, (a wood,) wod-E.--(To Mr Guest's three vowels, add O:--as braed-O (breadth) bred-E.)--From the termination THE; as--streng-THE; yow-THE.--From a few adjectives ending in E; as--getrew-E, trew-E; new-E, new-E.--From adverbs, formed by the same vowel from adjectives; as from beorht, (bright,) is made, in Anglo-Saxon, beorht-E, (brightly,) remaining with Chaucer, as bright-E.--Inflexion produces the final E. In substantives, the prevalent singular dative of the mother speech was in E. Chaucer, now and then, seems to present us with a dative; as in the second verse of the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, from rot, (root,) rot-E. And Mr Guest thinks that he has found ONE instance of a genitive plural E from A; namely, from the earlier ath, (an oath,) genitive plural, ath-A; with Chaucer--oth, oth-E. The German family of languages exhibits a fine and bold peculiarity--a double declension of its Adjectives, depending on a condition of syntax. The Anglo-Saxon adjective, in its ordinary (or, as grammarians have called it, Indefinite) declension, makes the nominative plural for all the genders in E; and this remains as the regular plural termination of the adjective to Chaucer. Thus we have, in the more ancient language--eald; plural, eald-E; with Chaucer--old; plural, old-E, &c.