his elegant diction--I “score” as much my “peculiar views” as those on which he alleges I fail? “Of the Teutonic tribes, whose settlements grew into our old Heptarchy, or Octarchy, none, and no discoverable part of any, were Scandinavian proper. [This is mere arbitrary statement.] There was subsequently, of course, in certain districts, a large infusion of Scandinavian forms, proper names, &c. [What does he mean by _forms_? The Scandinavians brought their _names_ when they brought their bodies] in consequence of the invasions and settlements of the ‘Danes,’ but in spite of this, and of much more serious disturbance afterwards, our language from the Channel to the Forth, owing to its power of absorption, and assimilation, remained, and remains substantially ‘English.’” “Remained and remains substantially English.” These remarks are unanswerable, which it is said, is the happy property of all remarks sufficiently wide of the purpose. Is the language of the British nation less “English” because derived from the _Scandinavian_ rather than from the _Saxon_, two dialects of the same speech in their essential elements hardly distinguishable? If this be true--as beyond all question it is true--it demolishes utterly the bugbear which the suggestion he advocates sets up. While accepting with becoming humility the disparaging estimate of my performance, it is not desirable that a reviewer of this character should have his say uncontradicted, though in setting myself right with those whom his strictures might have influenced, I have perhaps honoured him with too much notice. It is not a very formidable matter to cope with such an adversary. “While these are censors, ’twould be sin to spare; While such are critics, why should I forbear?”--BYRON. THE END. FOOTNOTES: [1] The sonnets were originally discovered in the Monastery of the “Monks of Therfuse,” which stood on the site now occupied by the terminus of the “Glenmutchkin Railway.” They were afterwards placed for safe custody with the MSS. of Ossian. [2] “Well-known scholars,” the _Quarterly_ says, “have shown before him, and he is justified in adopting the conclusion, that the name of ‘Saxon’ must have been loosely applied to all the pirates that scoured the Narrow Seas. We may conjecture that many crews from Scania and the Danish Isles, or from the great bay by the Naze of Norway, which gave its name to the Vikings, must have been found among the roving fleets of the fourth and fifth centuries, when the Empire was crumbling into ruins.” [3] “The red-bearded Thor was called ‘The Englishmen’s God.’”--_Quarterly Review._ [4] I suspect these were not the savage Americans Pinkerton had in his mind. [5] A writer who, to denote that which is without foundation, makes use of the expression “mere fudge” cannot be a very competent judge of elegance.