crier of a country town, in
any of England's fertile provinces, never proclaims the loss of a
yeoman's sporting-dog, the auction of a bankrupt dealer's
stock-in-trade, or the impounding of a strayed cow, until he has
commanded, in Norman-French, the attention of the sleepy rustics. The
language of the stable and the kennel is rich in traces of Norman
influence; and in backgammon, as played by orthodox players, we have a
suggestive memorial of those Norman nobles, of whom Fortescue, in the
'De Laudibus' observes: "Neither had they delyght to hunt, and to
exercise other sportes and pastimes, as dyce-play and the hand-ball, but
in their own proper tongue."

In behalf of the Norman _noblesse_ it should be borne in mind that their
policy in this matter was less intentionally vexatious and insolent than
it has appeared to superficial observers. In the great majority of
causes the suitors were Frenchmen; and it was just as reasonable that
they should like to understand the arguments of their counsel and
judges, as it is reasonable for suitors in the present day to require
the proceedings in Westminster Hall to be clothed in the language most
familiar to the majority of persons seeking justice in its courts. If
the use of French pleadings was hard on the one Anglo-Saxon suitor who
demanded justice in Henry I.'s time, the use of English pleadings would
have been equally annoying to the nine French gentlemen who appeared for
the same purpose in the king's court. It was greatly to be desired that
the two races should have one common language; and common sense ordained
that the tongue of the one or the other race should be adopted as the
national language. Which side therefore was to be at the pains to learn
a new tongue? Should the conquerors labor to acquire Anglo-Saxon? or
should the conquered be required to learn French? In these days the
cultivated Englishmen who hold India by military force, even as the
Norman invaders held England, by the right of might, settle a similar
question by taking upon themselves the trouble of learning as much of
the Asiatic dialects as is necessary for purposes of business. But the
Norman barons were not cultivated; and for many generations ignorance
was with them an affair of pride no less than of constitutional
inclination.

Soon ambitious Englishmen acquired the new language, in order to use it
as an instrument for personal advancement. The Saxon stripling who could
keep accounts in Norman fa