Milton, and into the English of Macaulay and Tennyson.

Old words drop out from time to time, old grammatical forms die away or
become obliterated, new names and verbs are borrowed, first from the
Norman-French at the Conquest, then from the classical Greek and Latin
at the Renaissance; but the continuity of the language remains unbroken,
and its substance is still essentially the same as at the beginning. The
Cornish, the Irish, and to some extent the Welsh, have left off speaking
their native tongues, and adopted the language of the dominant Teuton;
but there never was a time when Englishmen left off speaking Anglo-Saxon
and took to English, Norman-French, or any other form of speech
whatsoever.

An illustration may serve to render clearer this fundamental and
important distinction. If at the present day a body of Englishmen were
to settle in China, they might learn and use the Chinese names for many
native plants, animals, and manufactured articles; but however many of
such words they adopted into their vocabulary, their language would
still remain essentially English. A visitor from England would have to
learn a number of unfamiliar words, but he would not have to learn a new
language. If, on the other hand, a body of Frenchmen were to settle in a
neighbouring Chinese province, and to adopt exactly the same Chinese
words, their language would still remain essentially French. The
dialects of the two settlements would contain many words in common, but
neither of them would be a Chinese dialect on that account. Just so,
English since the Norman Conquest has grafted many foreign words upon
the native stock; but it still remains at bottom the same language as in
the days of Eadgar.

Nevertheless, Anglo-Saxon differs so far in externals from modern