Coming of the Saxons.

Danish Invasions.

The Norman Conquest.

Changes in Language.
LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.
There are two words in the English language which are now used to express the two great divisions of mental production--_Science_ and _Literature_; and yet, from their etymology, they have so much in common, that it has been necessary to attach to each a technical meaning, in order that we may employ them without confusion.
_Science_, from the participle _sciens_, of _scio, scire_, to know, would seem to comprise all that can be known--what the Latins called the _omne scibile_, or all-knowable.
_Literature_ is from _litera_, a letter, and probably at one remove from _lino, litum_, to anoint or besmear, because in the earlier times a tablet was smeared with wax, and letters were traced upon it with a graver.
Literature, in its first meaning, would, therefore, comprise all that can be conveyed by the use of letters.
But language is impatient of retaining two words which convey the same meaning; and although science had at first to do with the fact of knowing and the conditions of knowledge in the abstract, while literature meant the written record of such knowledge, a far more distinct sphere has been given to each in later times, and special functions assigned them.
In general terms, Science now means any branch of knowledge in which men search for principles reaching back to the ultimate, or for facts which establish these principles, or are classified by them in a logical order.
Thus we speak of the mathematical, physical, metaphysical, and moral sciences.
Literature, which is of later development as at present used, comprises those subjects which have a relation to human life and human nature through the power of the imagination and the fancy.

Technically, literature includes _history, poetry, oratory, the drama_, and _works of fiction_, and critical productions upon any of these as themes.
Such, at least, will be a sufficiently exact division for our purpose, although the student will find them overlapping each other's domain occasionally, interchanging functions, and reciprocally serving for each other's advantage.