Camden's, and it is a reasonable one. If so, the island is the modern Sayn, which, in its final form, emerges after a long series of transformations and false analogies in L'Isle des Saintsholy enough, perhaps; holy, perhaps, in a modern sense of the word; but originally holy as the island of the Bacchic orgies of the nearest kinsmen of the women of Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney and Sark. Such is the obscure and scarcely legible page of the early Channel Island mythology, which, after Camden, we venture to reproduce.

Some of the names connected with the cromlechs are, decidedly, Keltic.

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In Worcestershire, at least, the well-known Broomsgrove Licky, or Broomsgrove Rock, tells us who were the men and women that first dwelt under its shadow and on its side. The same term appears in Poque-laye; for, whatever may be our doubts as to the meaning of its first element, the second is simply a Gallicized form of the word lech stone; a word of remarkable longevity; a word, almost as indestructible as the very rocks to which it applies. In this manner, the Poque-laye is the stone connected with something or other, though what that something was is uncertain. Some have suggested that it was the stone of the hobgoblin Puck; which is anything but unlikely. The derivation, however, of the latter part of the word may be relied on.

It is safe, too, to make the Autel de Dehus, the Devils (or Deuce's) altar; notwithstanding certain differences of pronunciation, which tend to disguise its origin. In the parish of the Vale, for instance, it is pronounced du thus. Elsewhere, the h is sounded so strongly, as to make it look like two words.

That the Dusii were Keltic deities, is expressly stated in a passage of St. Augustine, often quoted.

The Creux es Fées, the Chambre es Fées, and the Fontaine es Fées, tell their own story. Upon the Rocque Balan and the Trepied, there is room for a difference of opinion. None of the

EARLY CHURCH ARCHITECTURE.

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names, however (except so far as they are French), are of Latin, and none of German origin.

Of Roman remains there are few; more, perhaps, in Alderney than the other islands put together. These, however, consist of pottery and bronze instruments, rather than fortifications. The coins, too, are few, being chiefly those of the third century, i.e., of the Antonines, the Commodus, and the Severus.

Across the isthmus of the peninsula of Jerburg is a true Cardyke, i. e., a fosse, connected with a fortification, the fortification bearing the Keltic name of Caer, as in Caernarvon, Carlisle, Caerleon, and other towns in Britain. That this word is the root of the first syllable in Jer-burg (as well as Cher-bourg), is almost certain.

In ecclesiastical architecture, if we look at it from an English point of view, the style, which, for the oldest parts of the oldest buildings is, as we anticipate, pre-eminently Norman, falls into two varieties (1) the early Norman, of the Norman of what was in England the Saxon period; and (2) the Norman of the times subsequent to the Conquest.

In the Norman of the Saxon period, we have in Guernsey the notice of eleven chapels, that of:

There is also the chapel of the Priory of Lihou, of which there are some small portions still remaining.

Of these one only remains, represented in the engraving on the next page. It is the second on the preceding list. Of rough masonry, with thick walls, unhewn stones, and mortar made from limpet shells, the chapel of St. Apolline is simply a

chamber of cyclopean architecture, twenty-seven feet by thirteen, with a round arch to its door, and a narrow window, or light, divided horizontally by a transom, consisting of a single stone, resting upon two monolithic uprights, themselves placed on a stone of similar character with the upper one. The bottom of this unambitious window, with its opening of forty-eight inches by thirteen, is but four feet from the ground. Traces of painting appear on the walls; these being of later origin than the masonry of the building itself. In the Catel church, there are three frescoes of a similar rude character. These were common. During the Reformation, however, they were either destroyed, or washed over.

In Jersey, the church of St. Brelade, of which a view is given in page 328, is the oldest. There is in the churchyard a small chapel, with frescoes, considered older than the principal building. There are many others in different parts of the island, but this is the only one in decent preservation.

CHAPTER XIX.

LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.

THE language of the Channel Islands is essentially that of the opposite coast of Normandy; being which, it is, in the eyes of a Frenchman, French. In England, however, from the fact of its being a clear and lineal descendant of not only the French, but of the French which was introduced into England by the Norman Conquest, we are more inclined to call it Anglo-Norman. Nor is the name an improper one, even from a continental point of view. The tongue took deep root in England and flourished well. It was, until the time of the kings of the house of Lancaster, or for upwards of three centuries, the language of the English court, and the English nobility. It was, to a great extent, the language of the church and cloister; and, until the time of Edward I., the language of the most important portion of our literature. That its encroachments upon the native English have been exaggerated by able writers and high authorities, is true; but this only shows that its use was less exclusive than is generally believed. When all deductions from its influence and importance, that can fairly be supported, have been made, it was still essentially the chief language of England.

More than this. Notwithstanding the fact that the French of England was but an offset from that of the Continent, it was in England that it was most especially cultivated. It is scarcely too much to say that it was in England that it took the form of

the mother-tongue of the present French; i.e., that in England (if not first reduced to writing) it was first made the vehicle of any compositions which made even a distant approach to any literary merit. Whatever was written in it before the Conquest, belongs, of course, to the soil of France alone, and by France alone can be claimed. But it surprises us to find how little there is of this that even the most acute industry of the French antiquaries have discovered. The earliest works of either merit or magnitude, are of English origin; and it was in London, rather than in Paris, that the literary French of the present time took its origin. The start, so to say, was on British ground; though, after a time, a concurrent literature arose on the other side of the Channel as well.

The cultivation of the early Norman began in England, not only when compared with Parisian, but with Norman, France. But little was written in Rouen; though many of the writers of England were of Norman birth and education. The French, then, of Normandy, was Norman French; of which that great moiety which was transplanted into England, and flourished in England so successfully, was Anglo-Norman-i. e., the French of Normandy on English soil.

As the true French of the parts more immediately around Paris grew into cultivation, the French of England, against which the original English was steadily effecting a reaction, waned both in purity and importance, and by the time of Edward III. there was a notable difference between the two. During that reign English had so far re-asserted its original rights, that French, even to the sons of the nobility, had to be taught—so far was it from coming naturally to them. A wellknown passage in Chaucer tells us how the nun of the Canterbury Pilgrimage spoke French :

"After the schole of Stratford at-le-Bow,

For French of Paris was to her unknowe."