l6 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1776- 



enrly date; for even in the first century we find, that the British lawyers derived 

 tlie greatest part of tlieir knowledge from those of the continent ; while, on the 

 other hand, the Gallic Druids are known to have resorted to Britain for instruc- 

 tion in their mysterious rites. The Britons therefore could not be totally igno- 

 rant of the Gallic language. And hence it will appear that Grimbald, John, 

 and the other doctors, introduced by Alfred, coulil find no great difficulty in 

 propagating their native tongue in this island ; which tongue, at that interval of 

 time, could only be the true Romance, since they were cotemporaries with 

 Lewis the Germanic. That the Romance was almost universally understood in 

 this kingdom under Edward the Confessor, it being not only used at court, but 

 frequently at the bar, and even sometimes in the pulpit, is a fact too well known 

 and attested, to need further authenticating it with superfluous arguments and 

 testimonies. Duclos, in his history of the Gallic Romance, gives the above- 

 mentioned oath of Lewis as the first monument of that language. The 2d he 

 mentions is the code of laws of William the Conqueror, whom the least pro- 

 ficient in the English history knows to have rendered his language almost uni- 

 versal in this kingdom. If we may credit Du Cange, who grounds his assertion 

 upon various instruments of the kings of Scotland during the I '2th century, the 

 Romance had also penetrated into that kingdom before that period. 



The same corruption, or coalescence, which gave rise to the Gallic Romance, 

 and to that of the Grisons, must also have produced in Italy a language, if not 

 perfectly similar, at least greatly approaching to those 2 idioms. Nor did it want 

 its Northern nations to contribute what the 2 other branches derived from that 

 source. But be the origin what it will, certain it is, that a jargon very different 

 from either the Latin or the Italian was spoken in Italy from the time of the 

 irruptions of the barbarians to the successful labours of Dante and Petrarca ; 

 that this jargon was usually called the vulgar idiom ; but that Speroni, the 

 father of Italian literature, and others, frequently call it the common Italian Ro- 

 mance. And if Fontanini's authorities be sufficient, it appears that even the 

 Gallic Romance, by the residence of the Papal Court at Avignon, and from 

 other causes, made its way into Italy before it was polished into the Proveni^al. 



As to Naples ^md Sicily, the expulsion of the Saracens by the Normans, 

 under Robert Guiscard in 1059, must have produced in that country nearly the 

 same effect, that a similar event soon after brought about in England. And in 

 fact we have the authority of William of Apulia to prove, that the conquerors 

 used all their efforts to propagate their language and manners among the natives, 

 that they might ever after be considered only as one people. And Hugo Falcland 

 relates, that in the year 1 ) 50, Count Henry refused to take upon him the ma- 

 nagement of public affairs, under pretence of not knowing the language of the 

 French ; which, he adds, was absolutely necessary at court. 



