Mr. President and Members of the Society: The very pleasant task has been assigned me of welcoming you to Cincinnati. What I say shall have the merit of brevity, for I know the importance and interest of the paper to which you are yet to listen. We are heartily glad to see you here because we have felt that the session of the Association would be education to us and to the community. We can do but little to rival the hospitality of the eastern cities in which you have usually held your meetings, but we hope that from your educational standpoint it will not prove unwise to have accepted an invitation west of the Allegheny mountains. Our interest in your work will be stimulated and the public appreciation of its value will be strengthened by thus bringing it and its ripening fruits to the attention of the people in the newer as well as the older parts of the country. For your work's sake, then, if not for your own, we hope that your visit may seem profitable.

The question concerning the origin and nature of the so-called impersonals is one of great interest to the philosopher as well as to the philologian; for it is here where logic and grammar meet to solve a problem that belongs to both of these sciences. The impersonals and the sentences formed by them, seem to present an exception, if not a contradiction, not only to the syntactical rule that every sentence should consist of a subject and a predicate, but also to the law of logic, according to which a judgment is composed of two members. A linguistic investigation of this problem can, therefore, not be made without seeking aid from logic and psychology, and the results of such an inquiry may help to throw light on the relation of grammar to logic, and on the psychological basis of language. We could, of course, also proceed exclusively according to the historical method by inquiring after the origin of the impersonals in general as well as in particular cases. But such an investigation, too, would have had to be assisted by psychological and logical considerations without which it would scarcely rise above a mere collection of material Before we attempt, however, an explanation of this apparently irrational linguistic phenomenon we may do well to cast a glance at the history of the various attempts made in the direction of a solution of the problem.

Gentlemen of the Association:—As vessels of various lines and nationalities dip their colors in graceful recognition when they pass each other on the high seas, so those who represent any single department of human knowledge may well accept every occasion for the manifestation of friendly courtesies toward such as are the acknowledged representatives of learning in other spheres, however remote or foreign in outward appearance. For, as it is one and the same ocean which washes the shores of islands and continents far distant from each other, and binds them into a physical unity otherwise unattainable, so this vaster ocean of human knowledge, with its cosmic commerce of thought and attainment, makes friends of all who traverse its magnificent ranges, whatever cargo they may carry, and whatever be the port toward which they are hastening.

The subject of the present paper was chosen some time ago. As to why a preference was shown for this and not for something touching on the better known, more widely appreciated French and German, would lead me to answer with as much justice, but perhaps the same amount of human nature, as that other enlightened citizen of another free country: “I am tired of hearing Aristides called the Just”—weary of learning that in spite of Volapük, the revised English e tutti quanti, French is still the language of the world, Parisian the language of the Gods; worn out by the constant refrain, that German is the “Open-Sesame” to all questions, physical, metaphysical, theological, psychical. This feeling is legitimate not only with me, as Montaigne says, “simply because it is it and I am I” but from a wider point of view, including all who sympathize with struggling humanity, and the above-named title suggests a question replete with interest for its historical importance as well as its literary claims and one that cannot fail to be attractive; for, what was Italy's literary position at the beginning of this century, when England, Germany, France, even Spain and America were sending into the arena champion after champion who recoiled before no question the human brain can propound ? What could be expected of a country overrun by foreign troops, split up into petty states, down-trodden and oppressed, without authority in the councils of Europe, without commerce, without colonies ? Could it ever repeat its superb record, still retain the ancient stamp and not belie Leopardi's proud claim, “Ancor per forza italian si noma, quanto ha più grande la mortal natura?”

In a dissertation on “The Anglo-Saxon Metaphor,” Professor Gummere has shown conclusively that while the metaphor, “the corner-stone of all poetical style,” is a figure native to our literature, the simile had no existence in Old English poetry, until it was brought in through the influence of the Bible and of sacred Latin poetry. He also refutes the position taken by Professor Heinzel in his essay “Ueber den Stil der altger-manischen Poesie,” that the simile existed in Old English poetry previous to the introduction of Christianity, but was given up as a concession to a foreign culture; showing that, on the contrary, only a few sporadic cases of the simile occur before the sacred writings were made known to our ancestors, and that the development of that figure was distinctly hastened by the influence of the church.

In the undergraduate classes in modern languages, there is a certain line of work to be pursued by every teacher, whatever be the further details to which his taste, the direction of his own private studies, or his conception of the demands of his chair may lead him to give most emphasis. This line of work, briefly stated, consists in teaching such matters, lexical and grammatical, as are needed for the purpose of simple translation, from the English or into the English.

The xxivth, xxvth and xxvith books of the ‘Paradiso’ consist chiefly of what has always been something of a puzzle to me, the examination of Dante by Peter, James and John, on Faith, Hope and Love. The allegory of the ‘Divina Commedia,’ clear enough in its main outlines, becomes matter for endless discussion as soon as we descend into details, but nowhere else, so far as I have observed, is there any difficulty in interpreting the general significance of so large a body of verse as these three books, if we take the literal sense, or in adapting it to some one theory, if we take the allegorical sense. The fact that I do not find any discussion of this puzzling examination in the Dante literature accessible to me has made me somewhat fearful of committing an offense very common in the study of all masterpieces in all literatures; but I console myself by the reflection, that in the vast number of Dante students who have found difficulties where none existed, I should feel myself in good company.

Our knowledge of the phonology of Old English, and more especially of Old English vowels, is as yet comparatively limited. Nor can this afford much occasion for surprise, when we consider how short a time has elapsed since the initial steps were taken in what could justly be considered a scientific treatment of the subject. The phonology of Old English therefore offers a broad field for investigation, and it has been the purpose of the author of this monograph to cover some portion, however small, of the unexplored territory.

The progress of English prose is a subject of great interest, and one that has not as yet been thoroughly treated from the historical point of view. Here, as elsewhere in literary, as well as scientific subjects, the inductive method must be employed, and by selection and comparison the advance made from century to century may be indicated. Any treatment of the subject making the smallest pretension to fullness should begin at least as early as the second half of the fourteenth century, with the prose of Wyclif and his contemporaries, after the native and foreign elements of the language had become so blended into one that what was once foreign was no longer felt to be so. The progress should be traced through the fifteenth century, marked by the names of Mandeville—whose so-called ‘Travels’ has at last found its true historical position,—Pecock, Malory and Caxton, to the first half of the sixteenth century, when prose-writers become more numerous, and the language becomes more flexible and better suited to the purposes of prose, as seen in the writings of Sir Thomas More and his controversial opponent, William Tyndale, Sir Thomas Elyot, whose “Boke called the Governour” is a real land-mark of English prose, Bishop Hugh Latimer, the most forcible and witty preacher of his time, and Roger Ascham, who connects the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth, and who deliberately uses English for his works, although it would have been “more easier” for him to write in Latin.

In a paper read a year ago before this body I endeavored to sketch the main features of the Anglo-Saxon element in the pronunciation of Charleston, reserving for some future occasion the Huguenot, German, and negro influences upon the same. In the present paper, I purpose investigating the influence which the Huguenots may have had upon the English sounds; for it is evident that such a large foreign element as that of the Huguenots of Charleston, could not have been incorporated into the body politic of the State in its very infancy without exerting a considerable influence upon the manners and customs, the politics and legislation, the grammar and language, of the whole community.—But a short sketch of the Huguenot refugees in South Carolina, of their first settlements and incorporation into the state, and the gradual disappearance of the French language will, however, be necessary in order to show clearly the conditions under which the two languages met and struggled for the mastery. The conflict resulted in the supremacy of the English and the suppression of the French.

The ‘Geste’ of Auberi le Bourgoing, or Bourgignon (it is variously written) is contained in three MSS. all of which are in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. The first and most important of these is No. 860, Fonds français, containing besides our poem a series of other ‘Gestes’ of leading importance. The ‘Auberi’ of this MS. is the most lengthy of the three, it numbers some 27,264 lines and is in excellent condition except that two or three of the last folios are wanting. The MS. is of about 1250 and is divided into two principal branches: that of Auberi and that of Lambert d'orridon; Auberi, however, being the most prominent character in both. The beginning of the second, which might escape attention unless one were reading the whole, is on the sixty-ninth folio of the poem which itself commences on page one hundred and thirty-four of the entire codex. A second MS. is No. 859, Fonds français, also of about 1250. It is shorter than the first, containing a little over 23,000 verses. The MS. is an interesting one. It was damaged in some way but has been very deftly repaired. The fly-leaves consist of portions of a Code of Justinian and of a book of devotions, both in Latin; its second branch, that of Lambert d'Orridon, commences on folio ninety-nine. The third MS. is No. 24,368, Fonds français, and contains 22,648 verses, ending, instead of the usual explicit, with the note: “ce fut fet l'an de grace MCC IIII XX XVIII le prochain mardy devant la nativité.” The second branch of this commences on folio fifty-two. There have been other MSS. of this ‘Geste’ but they are lost. C. Fauchet, the sixteenth-century philologist and critic, in a note he makes on the margin of folio one hundred and thirty-six of MSS. 860, speaks of another which has disappeared. Immanual Bekker in 1829, speaks of “eine dem Herrn Professor von der Hagan gehörige Pergamenthandschrift” of ‘Auberi,’ but where this may now be I was not able to discover (vide the preface to Bekker's ‘Roman von Fierabras,’ Berlin 1829). A search which I made in the manuscript catalogues of the Arsenal and Mazarin libraries and in those of the Department libraries which I. could find in the Bibliothèque Nationale, did not reveal anything further upon the subject.