ANGLO-SAXON ROOTS. 393 
the earth. We are sprung from the sea—a sea- 
girt island is our dwelling-place—and the sea 
itself our ample dominion, covered throughout its 
vast extent with our fellow-subjects, in their 
wooden houses filled with our wealth, which we 
commit to the winds and the waves to distribute 
to the extremities of the four quarters of the 
world. We are, therefore, no common people ; 
nor are they common events which form eras in 
our history; nor they common revolutions which 
have differently combined and modified the ele- 
ments of our speech. And though we have kept 
no genealogies to record to us from what particu- 
lar horde of settlers we are sprung—no family 
chronicles to tell us whether Saxon, Dane, Norse, 
or Norman owns us as progeny—still our names 
serve partly to distinguish us, and words them- 
selves thus still remind us of what otherwise 
would be totally forgotten. 
These names show that about two-thirds of 
us are sprung from Anglo-Saxons; and had our 
language kept pace only with our blood, we should 
have had about two-thirds of our modern English 
of Anglo-Saxon origin. But we have more. Our 
tongue is hence less mixed than our blood. It 
will, therefore, be easier to trace out the histories 
