On the Letter 'k.' 
135 
the second person singular of verbs, corresponding to the s of the 
pronominal suffix in Sanski'it, Greek, Latin, Old German, &c. ; the 
formation of certain genitives in r, the usual genitive termination in 
the Indo-Germanic languages being s (e. g. Germ, des, der, des ; 
A. S. his, hire, his ; oui*, your, their, aller) ; and the formation of 
plurals in r in German, and yet more commonly in the Scandinavian 
languages, and in some cases in Anglo-Saxon, from which there sur- 
vives one instance (childer) in provincial English, as compared with 
the ordinary formation in Anglo-Saxon, (Moeso- Gothic), English, 
French, Latin, Greek, &c. of plurals in s. 
But there is one word that claims special attention. In the late 
Mr. H. Coleridge's " Glossarial Index " occurs the word chere. It is 
fi-om Rob. Glouc, p. 166, that he quotes the expression "the chere men 
of the land," which, with Hearne, he explains as = the high men of 
the land " : I believe the true meaning is "the chosen men." Of the 
rejection of the participial termination -n many examples will be 
found in a paper by Dr. Guest in the Proceedings of the Philological 
Society, Vol. 11, p. 197. Nor is there much difficulty in accounting 
for the e instead of the o which we have in chosen, so numerous are 
the double forms which we find in various stages of English, such as 
clothe and clethe, broad and brede. And so where, as in chere, an r 
follows ; as bor = beer (Owl and Nightingale), inore (Westrworeland) 
= me7X, }ome = )eme, siaore = sicere (= neck), lere = loss. None 
of these is indeed a participle, though the last quoted closely ap- 
proaches one in sense ; but the o would perhaps so much the more 
readily become an e in the past participle of this verb as the preter- 
ite tense was always ches (like les from lose). As to s for r in this case, 
we may compare the German erkiesen, part, erkoren, and A. S. cedsan, 
part, gecoren. The usual Early English foiTU is i-coren, as in the 
Castle of Love (Vernon MS.) : — 
Carfuliche he ha)j i-coren. 
{R and j}.) Now let us revert to the condition of those unhappy 
Frenchmen who wtually have no r in their language. Is it possible 
to throw any light on their case ? I am not prepared to discuss this 
subject fully, but will just throw out one suggestion based on the fol- 
lowing passage in Palsgi'ave's Lesclarcissement. " R in the frenche 
tonge, shalbe sounded as he is in latyn without any exception, so 
that, where as they of Parj^s sounde somtyme r like z, sayeng pazys 
for parys, pazisien for parisien, chaize for chayre, mazy for mary and 
suche lyke, in that thyng I wolde nat have them folowed, albeit that 
in all this worke I moost folowe the Parisyens and the countreys that 
be conteygned betwene the r^^ver of Seyne and the ryver of Loyrre." 
(Lesclarc. p. 34.) (I shall take for granted that in speaking of z 
here. Palsgrave sounded that letter as a sonant as we now do, though 
s 
