Was fixed before the seventeenth century, most of the case-endings having entirely van-vanished. The vocabulary of the language, however, has gone on increasing, and is still increasing; for the English language, like the English-speaking peoples, is always ready to offer hospitality to all peaceful foreigners - words or human beings - that will land and settle within their coasts. And the tendency at the present time is not only to give a hearty welcome to newcomers from other lands, but to call back old words and old phrases that had been allowed to drop out of existence. Tennyson, Lowell and other of our modern writers have been among the chief agents in this happy restoration.