Page:Philological Museum v2.djvu/397

On English Prceterites. 387 the French^ adouber, Sp. adobar, which we call dtibb^ and which as early as the Saxon Chronicle (An. 1085.) was con- jugated diibbade. That weak forms progress may be seen in Shakspeare'^s dupped for did up, donned for did on, and in what I have elsewhere seen, to dout, for do out^. I have observed one word, and at present one only, which in old and trust-worthy documents appears to possess both forms, yet one meaning : If the strong form does not perhaps confine itself to the sense siispendo^ the weak to that of dependo. It is the Anglo-Saxon verb to hang. From the very first it was a strange verb ; two infinitives, one hon (Goth, hahan), another hangan (Ohd. hankan), made their appearance : of these the latter soon disappeared, and at the same time fixed its proeterite heng upon the usual infinitive hon, indicative present ho ; though Grimm asserts rather too broadly that no other tense of hangan remained, it is certain that they were very rare. But in Beowulf we have a hangian, (p. 104, 125. Ed. Thorkel.) which we must have considered a weak verb, even had we wanted the confirmation which we find in the prseterite hangode. (Bedw. p. 156.) Lajamon conti- nues to use the two forms. Of the word fangan, which is in every other respect similar to hangan, I am not at present able to say whether it did or did not appear in a weak form ; for such an expression as the "fanged wolf' does not imply a caught wolf, but a wolf armed with fangs. This should be enough, little as it is, to assure the reader that the English verbs are not quite so irregular as he may have been led to beheve. I have but one word of advice to give him, and that is, that he hasten to find in grammar the least capricious, the least arbitrary of all things : but that he do not trust to a form of language which the very operation of time itself, or a thousand other causes from without, may have altered widely from its ancient condition. Above all, that in every difficulty he seek those ancient forms, and the history of the tongue which he is investigating : he will find the study 6 Bringan is given by J. Grimm as a verb of the twelfth conjugation, as weU as a weak verb (bringan. bruhte). I have met with the word brungen in the Cod. Ex. fol. ii and this whether the participle, or an error of the transcriber for brun- gen (praet. pi.) is no doubt a strong form.