here, rather than to leave over that subject to the chapter on the
Anglo-Saxon language, near the close of the work. A few notes on this
matter are therefore appended below.

[Transcriber's note: For this Latin-1 version, macrons have
been marked as [=x], and breve accents as [)x]. See the
Unicode version for a proper rendering of these accents.]

The simple vowels, as a rule, have their continental pronunciation,
approximately thus: [=a] as in _father_, [)a] as in _ask_; [=e] as in
_there_, [)e] as in _men_; [=i] as in _marine_, [)i] as _fit_; [=o] as
in _note_, [)o] as in _not_; [=u] as in _brute_, [)u] as in _full_; [=y]
as in _gruen_ (German), [)y] as in _huebsch_ (German). The quantity of
the vowels is not marked in this work. _AE_ is not a diphthong, but a
simple vowel sound, the same as our own short _a_ in _man_, _that_, &c.
_Ea_ is pronounced like _ya_. _C_ is always hard, like _k_; and _g_ is
also always hard, as in _begin_: they must _never_ be pronounced like
_s_ or _j_. The other consonants have the same values as in modern
English. No vowel or consonant is ever mute. Hence we get the following
approximate pronunciations: AElfred and AEthelred, as if written Alfred
and Athelred; AEthelstan and Dunstan, as Athelstahn and Doonstahn;
Eadwine and Oswine, nearly as Yahd-weena and Ose-weena; Wulfsige and
Sigeberht, as Wolf-seeg-a and Seeg-a-bayrt; Ceolred and Cynewulf, as
Keole-red and Kuene-wolf. These approximations look a little absurd when
written down in the only modern phonetic equivalents; but that is the
fault of our own existing spelling, not of the early English names
themselves.

G.A.

ANGLO-SAXON BRITAIN.

CHAPTER I.

THE ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH.

At a period earlier than the dawn of written history there lived
somewhere among the great table-lands and plains of Central Asia a race
known to us only by the uncertain name of Aryans. These Aryans were a
fair-skinned and well-built people, long past the stage of aboriginal
savagery, and possessed of a considerable degree of primitive culture.
Though mainly pastoral in habit, they were acquainted with tillage, and
they grew for themselves at least one kind of cereal grain. They spoke a
language whose existence and nature we infer from the remnants of it
which survive in the tongues of their descendants, and from these
remnants we are able to judge, in some measure, of their civilisation
and their modes of thought. The