GREEK TEXT OF EIGHTH CHAPTER OF MATTHEW.

1 Καταβάντι δὲ αὐτῷ ἀπὸ τοῦ ὄρους ἠκολούθησαν αὐτῷ ὄχλοι πολλοί· 2 καὶ ἰδοὺ λεπρὸς προσελθὼν προσεκύνει αὐτῷ λέγων Κύριε, ἐὰν θέλῃς, δύνασαί με καθαρίσαι. 3 καὶ ἐκτείνας τὴν χεῖρα ἥψατο αὐτοῦ λέγων Θέλω, καθαρίσθητι. καὶ εὐθέως ἐκαθαρίσθη αὐτοῦ ἡ λέπρα. 4 καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς Ορα μηδενὶ εἴπῃς, ἀλλὰ ὕπαγε σεαυτὸν δεῖξον τῷ ἱερεῖ, καὶ προσένεγκον τὸ δῶρον ὃ προσέταξεν Μωυσῆς, εἰς μαρτύριον αὐτοῖς.

5 Εἰσελθόντι δὲ αὐτῷ εἰς Καφαρναούμ προσῆλθεν αὐτῷ ἑκατόνταρχος παρακαλῶν αὐτὸν 6 καὶ λέγων Κύριε, ὁ παῖς μου βέβληται ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ παραλυτικός, δεινῶς βασανιζόμενος. * λέγει αὐτῷ Ἐγὼ ἐλθὼν θεραπεύσω αὐτόν. 8 καὶ ἀποκριθεὶς ὁ ἑκατόνταρχος ἔφη Κύριε, οὐκ εἰμὶ ἱκανὸς ἵνα μου ὑπὸ τὴν στέγην εἰσέλθῃς· ἀλλὰ μόνον εἰπὲ λόγῳ, καὶ ἰαθήσεται ὁ παῖς μου. 9 καὶ γὰρ ἐγὼ ἄνθρωπός εἰμι ὑπὸ ἐξουσίαν, ἔχων ὑπ ̓ ἐμαυτὸν στρατιώτας, καὶ λέγω τούτῳ Πορεύθητι, καὶ πορεύεται, καὶ ἄλλῳ Ερχου, καὶ ἔρχεται· καὶ τῷ δούλῳ μου Ποίησον τοῦτο, καὶ ποιεῖ. 10 ἀκούσας δὲ ὁ ̓Ιησοῦς ἐθαύμασεν καὶ εἶπεν τοῖς ἀκολουθοῦσιν ̓Αμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, παρ' οὐδενὶ τοσαύτην πίστιν ἐν τῷ Ἰσραὴλ εὗρον. Η λέγω δὲ ὑμῖν ὅτι πολλοὶ ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν καὶ δυσμῶν ἥξουσιν καὶ ἀνακλιθήσονται μετὰ ̓Αβραὰμ καὶ Ἰσαάκ καὶ Ἰακὼβ ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ τῶν οὐρανῶν· 12 οἱ δὲ υἱοὶ τῆς βασιλείας ἐκβληθήσονται εἰς τὸ σκότος τὸ ἐξώτερον· ἐκεῖ ἔσται ὁ κλαυθμὸς καὶ ὁ βρυγμός τῶν ὀδόντων. 13 καὶ εἶπεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς τῷ ἑκατοντάρχῃ Ὕπαγε, ὡς ἐπίστευ σας γενηθήτω σοι. καὶ ἰάθη ὁ παῖς αὐτοῦ ἐν τῇ ὥρᾳ ἐκείνῃ.

14 Καὶ ἐλθὼν ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν Πέτρου εἶδεν τὴν πενθερὰν αὐτοῦ βεβλημένην καὶ πυρέσσουσαν. 15 καὶ ἥψατο τῆς χειρὸς αὐτῆς, καὶ ἀφῆς κεν αὐτὴν ὁ πυρετός, καὶ ἠγέρθη, καὶ διηκόνει αὐτῷ. 16 ὀψίας δὲ γενομένης προσήνεγκαν αὐτῷ δαιμονιζομένους πολλούς, καὶ ἐξέβαλεν τὰ πνεύματα λόγῳ, καὶ πάντας τοὺς κακῶς ἔχοντας ἐθεράπευσεν, 17 ὅπως πληρωθῇ τὸ ῥηθὲν διὰ Ἡσαΐου τοῦ προφήτου λέγοντος Αὐτὸς τὰς ἀσθενείας ἡμῶν ἔλαβεν, καὶ τὰς νόσους ἐβάστασεν. 15 Ἰδὼν δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς πολλοὺς ὄχλους περὶ αὐτὸν ἐκέλευσεν ἀπελθεῖν εἰς τὸ πέραν. 19 Καὶ προσελθὼν εἷς γραμματεὺς εἶπεν αὐτῷ Διδάσκαλε, ἀκολουθήσω σοι ὅπου ἐὰν ἀπέρχῃ. 20 καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς Αἱ ἀλώπεκες φωλεοὺς ἔχουσιν, καὶ τὰ πετεινὰ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ κατασκηνώσεις, ὁ δὲ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου οὐκ ἔχει ποῦ τὴν κεφαλὴν κλίνῃ. 21 ἕτερος δὲ τῶν μαθητῶν αὐτοῦ εἶπεν αὐτῷ Κύριε, ἐπίτρεψόν μοι πρῶτον ἀπελθεῖν καὶ θάψαι τὸν πατέρα μου. 22 ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς λέγει αὐτῷ Ακολούθει μοι, καὶ ἄφες τοὺς νεκροὺς θάψαι τοὺς ἑαυτῶν νεκρούς.

23 Καὶ ἐμβάντι αὐτῷ εἰς πλοῖον ἠκολούθησαν αὐτῷ οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ. 24 καὶ ἰδοὺ σεισμὸς μέγας ἐγένετο ἐν τῇ θαλάσσῃ, ὥστε τὸ πλοῖον καλύ πτεσθαι ὑπὸ τῶν κυμάτων· αὐτὸς δὲ ἐκάθευδεν. 25 καὶ προσελθόντες οἱ μαθηταὶ ἤγειραν αὐτὸν λέγοντες Κύριε σῶσον, ἀπολλύμεθα. 28 καὶ λέγει

αὐτοῖς Τί δειλοί ἐστε ὀλιγόπιστοι; τότε ἐγερθεὶς ἐπετίμησεν τοῖς ἀνέμοις καὶ τῇ θαλάσσῃ, καὶ ἐγένετο γαλήνη μεγάλη. 27 οἱ δὲ ἄνθρωποι ἐθαύ μασαν λέγοντες Ποταπός ἐστιν οὗτος, ὅτι καὶ οἱ ἄνεμοι καὶ ἡ θάλασσα ὑπακούουσιν αὐτῷ ;

28 Καὶ ἐλθόντι αὐτῷ εἰς τὸ πέραν εἰς τὴν χώραν τῶν Γαδαρηνῶν, ὑπήντησαν αὐτῷ δύο δαιμονιζόμενοι ἐκ τῶν μνημείων ἐξερχόμενοι, χαλεποὶ λίαν, ὥστε μὴ ἰσχύειν τινὰ παρελθεῖν διὰ τῆς ὁδοῦ ἐκείνης. 29 καὶ ἰδοὺ ἔκραξαν λέγοντες Τί ἡμῖν καὶ σοί, υἱὲ τοῦ θεοῦ; ἦλθες ὧδε πρὸ καιροῦ βασανίσαι ἡμᾶς ; 30 ἦν δὲ μακρὰν ἀπ' αὐτῶν ἀγέλη χοίρων πολλῶν βου σκομένη· 31 οἱ δὲ δαίμονες παρεκάλουν αὐτὸν λέγοντες Εἰ ἐκβάλλεις ἡμᾶς, ἀπόστειλον ἡμᾶς εἰς τὴν ἀγέλην τῶν χοίρων. 32 καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς Ὑπάοἱ δὲ ἐξελθόντες ἀπῆλθον εἰς τὴν ἀγέλην τῶν χοίρων· καὶ ἰδοὺ ὥρμησεν πᾶσα ἡ ἀγέλη τῶν χοίρων κατὰ τοῦ κρημνοῦ εἰς τὴν θάλασσαν, καὶ ἀπέθανον ἐν τοῖς ὕδασιν. 33 οἱ δὲ βόσκοντες ἔφυγον, καὶ ἀπελθόντες εἰς τὴν πόλιν ἀπήγγειλαν πάντα, καὶ τὰ τῶν δαιμονιζομένων. 34 καὶ ἰδοὺ πᾶσα ἡ πόλις ἐξῆλθεν εἰς συνάντησιν τῷ Ἰησοῦ· καὶ ἰδόντες αὐτὸν παρεκάλεσαν ὅπως μεταβῇ ἀπὸ τῶν ὁρίων αὐτῶν.

γετε.

II.

PSALM CII. (CIII.) FROM PURVEY'S REVISION.

Mi soule, blesse thou the Lord; and alle thingis that ben with ynne me, blesse his hooli name. Mi soule, blesse thou the Lord; and nyle thou forgete alle the geldyngis of him. Which doith merci to alle thi wickidnessis; which heelith alle thi sijknessis. Which agenbieth thi lijf fro deth; which corowneth thee in merci and merciful doyngis. Which fillith thi desijr in goodis; thi gongthe schal be renulid as the zongthe of an egle. The Lord doynge mercies; and doom to alle men suffringe wrong. He made hise weies knowun to Moises; his willis to the sones of Israel. The Lord is a merciful doer, and merciful in wille; longe abidinge, and myche merciful. He schal not be wrooth with outen ende; and he schal not thretne with outen ende. He dide not to vs aftir oure synnes; nether he geldide to vs aftir oure wickidnessis. For bi the hiznesse of heuene fro erthe; he made strong his merci on men dredynge hym. As myche as the eest is fer fro the west; he made fer oure wickidnessis fro vs. As a fadir hath merci on sones, the Lord hadde merci on men dredynge him; for he knewe oure makyng. He bithougte that we ben dust, a man is as hey; his dai schal flowre out so as a flour of the feeld. For the spirit schal passe in hym, and schal not abide; and schal no more knowe his place. But

the merci of the Lord is fro with out bigynnyng, and til in to with outen ende; on men dredinge hym. And his rigtfulnesse is in to the sones of sones; to hem that kepen his testament. And ben myndeful of hise comaundementis; to do tho. The Lord hath maad redi his seete in heuene; and his rewme schal be lord of alle. Aungels of the Lord, blesse ze the Lord; ze myzti in vertu, doynge his word, to here the vois of his wordis. Alle vertues of the Lord, blesse ze the Lord; ze mynystris of hym that doen his wille. Alle werkis of the Lord, blesse ze the Lord, in ech place of his lordschipe; my soule, blesse thou the Lord.

III.

CHANGE OF IRREGULAR INTO REGULAR VERBS.

This is an instance of the same tendency to regularity of form which was mentioned in a note on the Italian dialects, in a former lecture.

I think it much to be regretted that English grammarians have so generally adopted the designations weak and strong, instead of the old terms regular and irregular conjugation. I do not contend for the importance of a descriptive nomenclature in any branch of science, and I have given my opinions on the subject, at some length, in the ninth lecture in my First Series. But scientific designations which assume to be descriptive ought to be truly so, and this the terms regular and irregular, as applied to the English verb, eminently are, while the epithets weak and strong are not so in any sense. That is regular which conforms to the rule or type most generally adopted; or, if there be several models or standards, of equal authority, then that is regular which conforms to any of them. Now the only general rule for the conjugation of modern English verbs is that the past tense and passive participle are alike, and that both are formed by the addition of d or ed to the stem. It is true that among the few English verbs which inflect by letter-change, instead of by augmentation, small groups may be formed which agree in their mode of changing the stem; and these are often the modern forms of verbs which once were numerous enough to constitute an entire conjugation, sufficiently regular to be referred to a fixed type. But, in most cases, so large a proportion of the verbs composing these conjugations have been lost, and those remaining have been so much varied in inflection, that the ancient regularity is gone, and they can no longer be divided into normal classes. Goold Brown, in his valuable Gramınar of Grammars,' states the number of very

'irregular' verbs in English at about one hundred and ten;' but as, though he introduces keep into his list, he omits creep, it is probable that he has overlooked others, and the real number is, no doubt, considerably larger. Of these strong or irregular verbs, not more than five agree in any one mode of inflection; in most cases but two or three are conjugated alike, and in very many the verb has no parallel at all. It is further to be observed, that in several instances these pairs or triplets of verbs, though now conjugated alike, were not so originally, and therefore they are doubly irregular, as conforming neither to the most frequent present mode of conjugation, nor to their own primitive type. For example, creep, keep, and sleep form the past tense and passive participle alike—crept, kept, slept : but the AngloSaxon creópan made past créap, plural crupon; cepan, cepte; and slápan, slep, participle slápen. Keep, then, is the only one of the three which conforms to ancient precedent. It should however be noted that in Matthew viii. 24, the Lindisfarne text has geslepde, the Rushworth slepte, and both Wycliffe and Purvey slepte, for the regular Anglo-Saxon slep.

It is objected to the term regular, that the forms it designates are more modern than the inflections by letter-change, which, it is insisted, are remains of primitive modes of regular conjugation; but this objection has no force, because we may admit a form to be regular, without insisting that it is primitive; and what are called the strong verbs in English are most truly described as irregular, because they do not agree in conjugation, either with each other, or with the Saxon verbs from which they are descended. For all the purposes of English grammar, regular and irregular are the best inflectional designations that have been proposed; and though, in the nomenclature of comparative philology, terms are wanted which shall distinguish augmentative inflections from those by letter-change, it is better to employ, in teaching English, the old phraseology, until some more appropriate, or at least less misleading, terms than weak and strong, shall be suggested.

379

LECTURE IX.

CHAUCER AND GOWER

BEFORE entering upon the special subject of the present lecture -the literary and philological merits of Chaucer and of Gower - it will be well to take a retrospective view of the condition of the English language at the period of Chaucer's birth, to glance summarily at the causes of the revolution it soon after underwent, and to consider the mode in which great authors influence the development of their native tongue in primitive eras of literature.

The controlling power and wealth of a nobility, French in parentage or descent, and the consequent adoption of the AngloNorman as the dialect of the court, of parliament, of the judicial tribunals, and of such of the foreign clergy as resided upon their ecclesiastical benefices in England, had, at the end of the thirteenth century, reduced English to little more than a lingua rustica, which was thought hardly worthy, or even capable, of literary culture; and the slender merits of Robert of Gloucester and Robert of Brunne were little calculated to raise the vulgar patois in the estimation of educated men.

Had the British crown won the permanent and established extension of its territorial possessions on the Continent, which the splendid series of victories that marked the best years of the reign of Edward III. seemed to promise, the relative importance and more advanced refinement and civilization of the Anglo-French provinces — which embraced the whole extent of