We can mark out a few guide posts in the path of ten centuries traversed by our language each distinguished by a great event. A reference to any good History of England will give the reader particulars which will be fascinating and instructive. We give a few of the important events and dates which we should endeavor to remember.

I.

King Alfred translated several Latin works into English, among others, Bede's ' Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation' ...... (851)

901

2.

The Norman Conquest, which introduced Norman-French

1066

3.

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, said to have been begun by King Alfred, and brought to a

1160

4.

Sir John Mandeville, first writer of the newer English Prose - in his ' Travels ' which contained a large admixture of French

1356

5.

Wyclife's Bible........

1380

6.

Geoffrey Chaucer, the first great English Poet, author of the 'Canterbury Tales '; born in

1400

7.

William Caxton, the first English printer, brings out in Germany the first English book ever

1471

8.

First English Book printed in England (by Caxton) the 'Game and Playe of the Chesse' ....

1474

9.

William Tyndale, by his translation of the Bible "fixed our tongue once for all." His New Testament has become the standard of our tongue: the first ten verses of the Fourth Gospel are a good sample of his manly Teutonic pith " . . . 1526-30

10.

Edmund Spencer publishes his 'Faerie Queene.' "Now began

the golden age of England's literature ; and this age was to last for about fourscore years" 1590

11. Our English Bible, based chiefly on Tyndale's translation. "Those who revised the English Bible in 1611 were bidden to keep as near as they could to the old versions, such as Tyndale's " . 1611

12. William Shakespeare carried the use of the English language to the greatest height of which it was capable. He employed 15,000 words. (Born 1564) . 1616

13. John Milton, " the most learned of

English poets," publishes his 'Paradise Lost,'-"a poem in which Latin words are introduced with great skill" . . . 1667

14. John Bunyan writes his 'Pilgrim's

Progress ' - a book full of pithy English idiom. " The common folk had the wit at once to see the worth of Bunyan's master-piece , and the learned long after- . wards followed in the wake ot the common folk" (Born 1628) 1688

15. Dr. Samuel Johnson was the chief supporter of the use of the " long-tailed words in osity and action," such as his novel called 'Rasselas,' published, .... 1759

16. Tennyson, Poet-Laureate, a writer of the best English - "a countryman of Robert Manning's, and a careful student of old Malory, has done much for the revival of pure English among us"............1890