2. That whether, as was indicated by the author of [Greek: Metron ariston],

we pronounce the anapaest _p[)a]t[)u]lae_, precisely as we pronounce the

dactyle _T[=i]t[)y]r[)e]_, or draw a distinction between them is also

indifferent. However much, as is done in some of the schools, we may say

_scri-bere_ rather than _scrib-ere_, or _am-or_, rather than _a-mor_, under

the notion that we are lengthening or shortening certain syllables, one

unsurmountable dilemma still remains, viz., that the shorter we pronounce

the vowel, the more we suggest the notion of the consonant which follows it

being doubled; whilst double consonants _lengthen_ the vowel which precedes

them. Hence, whilst it is certain that _patulae_ and _Tityre_ may be

pronounced (and that without hurting the metre) so as to be both of the

same _quantity_, it is doubtful what that _quantity_ is. Sound for sound

_T[)i]tyre_ may be as short as _p[)a]tulae_. Sound for sound _p[=a]ttulae_

may be as long as _T[=i]ttyre_.

Hence, the only assumptions requisite are--

_a._ That Englishmen do _not_ read the classical metres according to their

quantities.

_b._ That, nevertheless, they find metre in them.

s. 660. _Why are the classical metres metrical to English

readers?_--Notwithstanding the extent to which quantity differs from

accent, there is no metre so exclusively founded upon the former as to be

without a certain amount of the {517} latter; and in the majority (at

least) of the classical (and probably other) metres _there is a sufficient

amount of accentual elements to constitute metre; even independent of the

quantitative ones._

s. 661. _Latitude in respect to the periodicity of the recurrence of

similarly accented syllables in English._--Metre (as stated in p. 499), "is

the recurrence, within certain intervals, of syllables similarly affected."

The particular way in which syllables are _affected_ in English metre is

that of _accent_.

The more regular the period at which similar accents recur the more typical

the metre.

Nevertheless absolute regularity is not requisite.

This leads to the difference between symmetrical and unsymmetrical metres.

s. 662. _Symmetrical metres._--Allowing for indifference of the number of

syllables in the last measure, it is evident that in all lines where the

measures are dissyllabic the syllables will be a multiple of the accents,

_i. e._, they will be twice as numerous. Hence, with three accents there

are six syllables; with four accents, eight syllables, &c.

Similarly, in all lines where the measures are trisyllabic the syllables

will also be multiples of the accents, _i. e._, they will be thrice as

numerous. Hence, with three accents there will be nine syllables, with four

accents, twelve syllables, and with seven accents, twenty-one syllables.

Lines of this sort may be called symmetrical.

s. 663. _Unsymmetrical metres._--Lines, where the syllables are _not_ a

multiple of the accents, may be called unsymmetrical. Occasional specimens

of such lines occur interspersed amongst others of symmetrical character.

Where this occurs the general character of the versification may be

considered as symmetrical also.

The case, however, is different where the whole character of the

versification is unsymmetrical, as it is in the greater part of Coleridge's

Christabel, and Byron's Siege of Corinth. {518}

In the y['e]ar since J['e]sus di['e]d for m['e]n,

E['i]ghteen h['u]ndred ye['a]rs and t['e]n,

W['e] were a g['a]llant c['o]mpan['y],

R['i]ding o'er l['a]nd and s['a]iling o'er s['e]a.

['O]h! but w['e] went m['e]rril['y]!

We f['o]rded the r['i]ver, and cl['o]mb the high h['i]ll,

N['e]ver our ste['e]ds for a d['a]y stood st['i]ll.

Wh['e]ther we l['a]y in the c['a]ve or the sh['e]d,

Our sle['e]p fell s['o]ft on the h['a]rdest b['e]d;

Wh['e]ther we c['o]uch'd on our r['o]ugh cap['o]te,

Or the r['o]ugher pl['a]nk of our gl['i]ding b['o]at;

Or str['e]tch'd on the be['a]ch or our s['a]ddles spr['e]ad

As a p['i]llow bene['a]th the r['e]sting h['e]ad,

Fr['e]sh we w['o]ke up['o]n the m['o]rrow.

['A]ll our th['o]ughts and w['o]rds had sc['o]pe,

W['e] had h['e]alth and w['e] had h['o]pe,

T['o]il and tr['a]vel, b['u]t no s['o]rrow.

s. 664. _Many_ (_perhaps all_) _classical metres on a level with the

unsymmetrical English ones_.--The following is the notation of the extract

in the preceding section.

_x x a x a x a x a_

_a x a x a x a_

_a x x a x a x a_

_a x x a x a x x a_

_a x a x a x x_

_x a x x a x x a x x a_

_a x x a x x a x a_

_a x x a x x a x x a_

_x a x a x x a x a_

_a x x a x x a x a_

_x x a x a x x a x a_

_x a x x a x x a x a_

_x x a x x a x a x a_

_a x a x a x a x_

_a x a x a x a_

_a x a x a x a_

_a x a x a x a x_

Now many Latin metres present a recurrence of accent little more irregular

than the quotation just analysed. The following is the accentual formula of

the first two stanzas of the second ode of the first Book of Horace. {519}

_Accentual Formula of the Latin Sapphic._

_a a x a x | a x a x a x_

_a x x a x | a x a x a x_

_a x x a x | a x a x a x_

_ a x x a x_

_a x x a x | a x a x a x_

_a x x a x | a x a x a x_

_a x x a x | a x a x a x_

_ a x x a x_

_Latin Asclepiad._

_Horace, Od._ I. I., 1-6.

_ x a x a x x | a x x a x x_

_ a x x a x x | a x a x a x_

_ a x a x a x x | a x x a x x_

_ a x a x a x | a x x a x x_

_ a x a x a x | a x x a x x_

_ x a x a x x | a x x a x a x_

_Latin Hexameter._

_Aen._ I., 1-5.

_a x x a x a x a x x a x x a x_

_x a x x a x a x x x a x x a x_

_a x x x a x a x x x a x x a x_

_x a x x a x a x x x a x x a x._

A longer list of examples would show us that, throughout the whole of the

classical metres the same accents recur, sometimes with less, and sometimes

with but very little more irregularity than they recur in the

_unsymmetrical_ metres of our own language.

s. 665. _Conversion of English into classical metres._--In the preface to

his Translation of Aristophanes, Mr. Walsh has shown (and, I believe, for

the first time), that, by a different distribution of lines, very fair

hexameters may be made out of the well-known lines on the Burial of Sir

John Moore:--

Not a drum was

Heard, not a funeral note as his corse to the rampart we hurried,

Not a soldier dis-

Charged his farewell shot o'er the grave where our hero we buried.

{520}

We buried him

Darkly at dead of night, the sods with our bayonets turning;

By the struggling

Moonbeams' misty light and the lantern dimly burning.

Lightly they'll

Talk of the spirit that's gone, and o'er his cold ashes upbraid him,

But little he'll

Reck if they let him sleep on in the grave where a Briton has laid him.

s. 666. Again, such lines as Coleridge's--

1. Make r['e]ady my gr['a]ve clothes to-m['o]rrow;

or Shelly's--

2. L['i]quid P['e]neus was fl['o]wing,

are the exact analogues of lines like--

1. Jam l['a]cte dep['u]lsum le['o]nem,

and

2. Gr['a]to P['y]rrha sub ['a]ntro.

s. 667. The rationale of so remarkable a phaenomenon as _regularity of

accent in verses considered to have been composed with a view to quantity

only_ has yet to be investigated. That it was necessary to the structure of

the metres in question is certain.

s. 668. _Caesura._--The _caesura_ of the classical metrists is the result

of--

1. The necessity in the classical metres (as just indicated) of an accented

syllable in certain parts of the verses.

2. The nearly total absence in the classical languages of words with an

accent on the last syllable.

From the joint effect of these two causes, it follows that in certain parts

of a verse no final syllable can occur, or (changing the expression) no

word can terminate.

Thus, in a language consisting chiefly of dissyllables, of which the first

alone was accented, and in a metre which required the sixth syllable to be

accented, the fifth and seventh would each be at end of words, and that

simply because the sixth was not.

Whilst in a language consisting chiefly of either dissyllables or

trisyllables, and in a metre of the same sort as before, {521} if the fifth

were not final, the seventh would be so, or _vice versa_.

s. 669. _Caesura_ means _cutting_. In a language destitute of words

accented on the last syllable, and in a metre requiring the sixth syllable

to be accented, a measure (foot) of either the formula _x a_, or _x x a_

(_i. e._, a measure with the accent at the end), except in the case of

words of four or more syllables, must always be either itself divided, or

else cause the division of the following measures--_division_ meaning the

distribution of the syllables of the measure (foot) over two or more words.

Thus--

_a._ If the accented syllable (the sixth) be the first of a word of any

length, the preceding one (the fifth) must be the final one of the word

which went before; in which case the first and last parts belong to

different words, and the measure (foot) is divided or _cut_.

_b._ If the accented syllable (the sixth) be the second of a word of three

syllables, the succeeding one which is at the end of the word, is the first

part of the measure which follows; in which case the first and last parts

of the measure (foot) which follows the accented syllable is divided or

_cut_.

As the _caesura_, or the necessity for dividing certain measures between

two words, arises out of the structure of language, it only occurs in

tongues where there is a notable absence of words accented on the last

syllable. Consequently there is no caesura[71] in the English.

s. 670. As far as accent is concerned, the classical poets write in

_measures_ rather than _feet_. See p. 505.

{522}

s. 671. Although the idea of writing English hexameters, &c., on the

principle of an accent in a measure taking the place of the long syllables

in a foot, is chimerical; it is perfectly practicable to write English

verses upon the same {523} principle which the classics themselves have

written on, _i.e._, with accents recurring within certain limits; in which

case the so-called classical metre is merely an unsymmetrical verse of a

new kind. This may be either blank verse or rhyme.

{524}

s. 672. The chief reason against the naturalization of metres of the sort

in question (over and above the practical one of our having another kind in

use already), lies in the fact of their being perplexing to the readers who

have _not_ been {525} trained to classical cadences, whilst they suggest

and violate the idea of _quantity_ to those who have.

_Why_ his idea of quantity is violated may be seen in p. 165.

{526}

s. 673. _Convertible metres._--Such a line as--

Ere her faithless sons betray'd her,

may be read in two ways. We may either lay full stress upon the word _ere_,

and read--

['E]re her fa['i]thless s['o]ns betr['a]y'd her;

or we may lay little or no stress upon either _ere_ or _her_, reserving the

full accentuation for the syllable _faith-_ in _faithless_, in which case

the reading would be

Ere her fa['i]thless s['o]ns betr['a]y'd her.

Lines of this sort may be called examples of _convertible metres_, since by

changing the accent a dissyllabic line may be converted into one partially

trisyllabic, and _vice vers[^a]_.

This property of convertibility is explained by the fact of accentuation

being _a relative quality_. In the example before us _ere_ is sufficiently

strongly accented to stand in contrast to _her_, but it is not sufficiently

strongly accented to stand upon a par with the _faith-_ in _faithless_ if

decidedly pronounced.

The real character of convertible lines is determined from the character of

the lines with which they are associated. {527} That the second mode of

reading the line in question is the proper one, may be shown by reference

to the stanza wherein it occurs.

Let ['E]rin rem['e]mber her d['a]ys of ['o]ld,

Ere her fa['i]thless s['o]ns betr['a]y'd her,

When M['a]lachi w['o]re the c['o]llar of g['o]ld,

Which he w['o]n from the pr['o]ud inv['a]der.

Again, such a line as

For the glory I have lost,

although it may be read

For the gl['o]ry I have l['o]st,

would be read improperly. The stanza wherein it occurs is essentially

dissyllabic (_a x_).

He['e]d, oh he['e]d my f['a]tal st['o]ry!

['I] am H['o]sier's ['i]njured gh['o]st,

C['o]me to se['e]k for f['a]me and gl['o]ry--

F['o]r the gl['o]ry ['I] have l['o]st.

s. 674. _Metrical and grammatical combinations._--Words, or parts of words,

that are combined as measures, are words, or parts of words, combined

_metrically_, or in _metrical combination_.

{528}

Syllables combined as words, or words combined as portions of a sentence,

are syllables and words _grammatically combined_, or in _grammatical

combination_.

The syllables _ere her faith-_ form a metrical combination.

The words _her faithless sons_ form a grammatical combination.

When the syllables contained in the same measure (or connected metrically)

are also contained in the same construction (or connected grammatically),

the metrical and the grammatical combinations coincide. Such is the case

with the line

Rem['e]mber | the gl['o]ries | of Br['i]an | the Br['a]ve;

where the same division separates both the measure and the subdivisions of

the sense, inasmuch as the word _the_ is connected with the word _glories_

equally in grammar and in metre, in syntax and in prosody. So is _of_ with

_Brian_, and _the_ with _Brave_.

Contrast with this such a line as

A chieftain to the Highlands bound.

Here the metrical division is one thing, the grammatical division another,

and there is no coincidence.

_Metrical_,

A ch['i]ef | tain t['o] | the H['i]gh | lands b['o]und.

_Grammatical_,

A chieftain | to the Highlands | bound.

In the following stanza the coincidence of the metrical and grammatical

combination is nearly complete:--

To ['a]rms! to ['a]rms! The s['e]rfs, they r['o]am

O'er h['i]ll, and d['a]le, and gl['e]n:

The k['i]ng is de['a]d, and t['i]me is c['o]me

To cho['o]se a chi['e]f ag['a]in.

In

W['a]rriors or chi['e]fs, should the sh['a]ft or the sw['o]rd

Pi['e]rce me in l['e]ading the h['o]st of the L['o]rd,

He['e]d not the c['o]rse, though a k['i]ng's in your p['a]th,

B['u]ry your st['e]el in the b['o]soms of G['a]th.--BYRON.

there is a non-coincidence equally complete.

s. 675. _Rhythm._--The character of a metre is marked and prominent in

proportion as the metrical and the grammatical {529} combinations coincide.

The extent to which the measure _a x x_ is the basis of the stanza last

quoted is concealed by the antagonism of the metre and the construction. If

it were not for the axiom, that _every metre is to be considered uniform

until there is proof to the contrary_, the lines might be divided thus:--

_a x, x a, x x a, x x a,_

_a x, x a x, x a x, x a,_

_a x, x a, x x a, x x a,_

_a x, x a x, x a x, x a._

The variety which arises in versification from the different degrees of the

coincidence and non-coincidence between the metrical and grammatical

combinations may be called _rhythm_.

s. 676. _Constant and inconstant parts of a rhythm._--See s. 636. Of the

three parts or elements of a rhyme, the vowel and the part which follows

the vowel are _constant_, _i.e._, they cannot be changed without changing

or destroying the rhyme. In _told_ and _bold_, _plunder_, _blunder_, both

the _o_ or _u_ on one side, and the _-ld_ or _-nder_ on the other are

immutable.

Of the three parts, or elements, of a rhyme the part which precedes the

vowel is _inconstant_, _i.e_, it must be changed in order to effect the

rhyme. Thus, _old_ and _old_, _told_ and _told_, _bold_ and _bold_, do

_not_ rhyme with each other; although _old_, _bold_, _told_, _scold_, &c.

do.

_Rule 1._ In two or more syllables that rhyme with each other, neither the

vowel nor the sounds which _follow_ it can be _different_.

_Rule 2._ In two or more syllables that rhyme with each other, the sounds

which _precede_ the vowel cannot be _alike_.

Now the number of sounds which can precede a vowel is limited: it is that

of the consonants and consonantal combinations; of which a list can be made

_a priori_.

_p_ _pl_ _pr_ _b_ _bl_ _br_

_f_ _fl_ _fr_ _v_ _vl_ _vr_

_t_ _tl_ _tr_ _d_ _dl_ _dr_

_th_ _thl_ _thr_ _dh_ _dhl_ _dhr_

_k_ _kl_ _kr_ _g_ _gl_ _gr_

_s_ _sp_ _sf_ _st_ _sth,_ _&c._

and so on, the combinations of s being the most complex. {530}

This gives us the following method (or receipt) for the discovery of

rhymes:--

1. Divide the word to which a rhyme is required, into its _constant_ and

_inconstant_ elements.

2. Make up the inconstant element by the different consonants and

consonantal combinations until they are exhausted.

3. In the list of words so formed, mark off those which have an existence

in the language; these will all rhyme with each other; and if the list of

combinations be exhaustive, there are no other words which will do so.

_Example._--From the word _told_, separate the _o_ and _-ld_, which are

constant.

Instead of the inconstant element _t_, write successively, _p_, _pl_, _pr_,

_b_, _bl_, _br_, &c.: so that you have the following list:--_t-old_,

_p-old_, _pl-old_, _pr-old_, _b-old_, _bl-old_, _br-old_, &c.

Of these _plold_, _blold_, and _brold_, have no existence in the language;

the rest, however, are rhymes.

s. 677. All words have the same number of possible, but not the same number

of actual rhymes. Thus, _silver_ is a word amenable to the same process as

_told--pilver_, _plilver_, _prilver_, _bilver_, &c.; yet _silver_ is a word

without a corresponding rhyme. This is because the combinations which

answer to it do not constitute words, or combinations of words in the

English language.

This has been written, not for the sake of showing poets how to manufacture

rhymes, but in order to prove that a result which apparently depends on the

ingenuity of writers, is reducible to a very humble mechanical process,

founded upon the nature of rhyme and the limits to the combinations of

consonants.

* * * * *

{531}

PART VII.

THE DIALECTS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

s. 678. The consideration of the dialects of the English language is best

taken in hand after the historical investigation of the elements of the

English population. For this, see Part I.

It is also best taken in hand after the analysis of the grammatical

structure of the language. For this, see Part IV.

This is because both the last-named subjects are necessary as

preliminaries. The structure of the language supplies us with the points in

which one dialect may differ from another, whilst the history of the

immigrant populations may furnish an ethnological reason for such

differences as are found to occur.

For a further illustration of this see pp. 4, 5.

s. 679. By putting together the history of the migrations into a country,

and the grammatical structure of the language which they introduced, we

find that there are two methods of classifying the dialects. These may be

called the ethnological, and the structural methods.

According to the former, we place in the same class those dialects which

were introduced by the same section of immigrants. Thus, a body of Germans,

starting from the same part of Germany, and belonging to the same section

of the Germanic population, even if, whilst at sea, they separated into

two, three, or more divisions, and landed upon widely separated portions of

Great Britain, would introduce dialects which were allied _ethnologically_;

even though, by one of them changing rapidly, and the others not changing

at all, they might, in their external characters, differ from each other,

and agree with dialects of a different introduction. Hence, the

ethnological principle is essentially historical, and {532} is based upon

the idea of _affiliation_ or affinity in the way of descent.

The _structural_ principle is different. Two dialects introduced by

different sections (perhaps it would be better to say _sub_-sections) of an

immigrant population may suffer similar changes; _e. g._, they may lose the

same inflexions, adopt similar euphonic processes, or incorporate the same

words. In this case, their external characters become mutually alike.

Hence, if we take two (or move) such dialects, and place them in the same

class, we do so simply because they are alike; not because they are

affiliated.

Such are the two chief principles of classification. Generally, they

coincide; in other words, similarity of external characters is _prim[^a]

facie_ evidence of affinity in the way of affiliation, identity of origin

being the safest assumption in the way of cause; whilst identity of origin

is generally a sufficient ground for calculating upon similarity of

external form; such being, _a priori_, its probable effect.

Still, the evidence of one in favour of the other is only _prim[^a] facie_

evidence. Dialects of the same origin may grow unlike; dialects of

different origins alike.

s. 680. The causes, then, which determine those minute differences of

language, which go by the name of _dialects_ are twofold.--1. Original

difference; 2. Subsequent change.

s. 681. The original difference between the two sections (or

_sub_-sections) of an immigrant population are referable to either--1.

Difference of locality in respect to the portion of the country from which

they originated; or 2. Difference in the date of the invasion.

Two bodies of immigrants, one from the Eyder, and the other from the

Scheldt, even if they left their respective localities on the same day of

the same month, would most probably differ from one another; and that in

the same way that a Yorkshireman differs from a Hampshire man.

On the other hand, two bodies of immigrants, each leaving the very same

locality, but one in 200 A.D., and the other in 500 A.D., would also, most

probably, differ; and that as a Yorkshireman of 1850 A.D. differs from one

of 1550 A.D. {533}

s. 682. The subsequent changes which may affect the dialect of an immigrant

population are chiefly referable to either, 1. Influences exerted by the

dialects of the aborigines of the invaded country; 2. Influences of simple

growth, or development. A dialect introduced from Germany to a portion of

Great Britain, where the aborigines spoke Gaelic, would (if affected at all

by the indigenous dialect) be differently affected from a dialect similarly

circumstanced in a British, Welsh, and Cambrian district.

A language which changes rapidly, will, at the end of a certain period,

wear a different aspect from one which changes slowly.

s. 683. A full and perfect apparatus for the minute philology of the

dialects of a country like Great Britain, would consist in--

1. The exact details of the present provincialisms.

2. The details of the history of each dialect through all its stages.

3. The exact details of the provincialisms of the whole of that part of

Germany which contributed, or is supposed to have contributed, to the

Anglo-Saxon immigration.

4. The details of the original languages or dialects of the Aboriginal

Britons at the time of the different invasions.

This last is both the least important and the most unattainable.

s. 684. Such are the preliminaries which are wanted for the purposes of

investigation. Others are requisite for the proper understanding of the

facts already ascertained, and the doctrines generally admitted; the

present writer believing that these two classes are by no means

coextensive.

Of such preliminaries, the most important are those connected with 1. the

structure of language, and 2. the history of individual documents; in other

words, certain points of philology, and certain points of bibliography.

s. 685. _Philological preliminaries._--These are points of pronunciation,

points of grammatical structure, and glossarial peculiarities. It is only

the first two which will be noticed. They occur in 1. the modern, 2. the

ancient local forms of speech. {534}

s. 686. _Present provincial dialects._--In the way of grammar we find, in

the present provincial dialects (amongst many others), the following old

forms--

1. A plural in _en_--_we call-en_, _ye call-en_, they _call-en_. Respecting

this, the writer in the Quarterly Review, has the following doctrine:--

"It appears to have been popularly known, if not in East Anglia proper, at

all events in the district immediately to the westward, since we find it in

Orm, in an Eastern-Midland copy of the Rule of Nuns, saec. XIII., and in

process of time in Suffolk. Various conjectures have been advanced as to

the origin of this form, of which we have no certain examples before the

thirteenth century.[72] We believe the true state of the case to have been

as follows. It is well known that the Saxon dialects differ from the

Gothic, Old-German, &c. in the form of the present indicative

plural--making all three persons to end in _-ath_ or

_-ad_;_--we--[gh]e--hi--lufi-ath_ (_-ad_). Schmeller and other German

philologists observe that a nasal has been here elided, the true ancient

form being _-and_, _-ant_, or _-ent_. Traces of this termination are found

in the Cotton MS. of the Old Saxon Evangelical Harmony, and still more

abundantly in the popular dialects of the Middle-Rhenish district from

Cologne to the borders of Switzerland. These not only exhibit the full

termination _-ent_, but also two modifications of it, one dropping the

nasal and the other the dental. _E.g._:--

Pres. Indic. Plur. 1, 2, 3 liebent;

" " lieb-et;

" " lieb-en;

--the last exactly corresponding with the Mercian. It is remarkable that

none of the above forms appear in classical German compositions, while they

abound in the Miracle-plays, vernacular sermons, and similar productions of

the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, specially addressed to the

uneducated classes. We may, therefore, reasonably conclude from analogy

that similar forms were popularly current in our midland counties,

gradually insinuating themselves into the {535} written language. We have

plenty of examples of similar phenomena. It would be difficult to find

written instances of the pronouns _scho_, or _she_, _their_, _you_, the

auxiliaries _sal_, _suld_, &c., before the twelfth century; but their

extensive prevalence in the thirteenth proves that they must have been

popularly employed somewhere even in times which have left us no

documentary evidence of their existence."

I prefer to consider this termination as _-en_, a mere extension of the

subjunctive form to the indicative.

2. An infinitive form in _-ie_; as to _sowie_, to _reapie_,--Wiltshire.

(Mr. Guest).

3. The participial form in _-and_; as _goand_, _slepand_,--Lincolnshire

(?), Northumberland, Scotland.

4. The common use of the termination _-th_ in the third person present;

_goeth_, _hath_, _speaketh_,--Devonshire.

5. Plural forms in _-en_; as _housen_,--Leicestershire and elsewhere.

6. Old preterite forms of certain verbs; as,

_Clom_, from _climb_, Hereford and elsewhere.

_Hove_, -- _heave_, ditto.

_Puck_, -- _pick_, ditto.

_Shuck_, -- _shook_, ditto.

_Squoze_, -- _squeeze_, ditto.

_Shew_, -- _sow_, Essex.

_Rep_, -- _reap_, ditto.

_Mew_, -- _mow_, ditto, &c.

The following changes (a few out of many) are matters not of grammar, but

of pronunciation:--

Ui for _oo_--_cuil_, _bluid_, for _cool_, _blood_,--Cumberland, Scotland.

Oy for _i_--_foyne_, _twoyne_, for _fine_, _twine_,--Cheshire,

Cambridgeshire, Suffolk.

Oy for _oo_--_foyt_ for _foot_,--Halifax.

Oy for _o_--_noite_, _foil_, _coil_, _hoil_, for _note_, _foal_, _coal_,

_hole_,--Halifax.

Oy for _a_--_loyne_ for _lane_,--Halifax.

Ooy for _oo_--_nooin_, _gooise_, _fooil_, _tooil_, for _noon_, _goose_,

_fool_, _tool_,--Halifax. {536}

W inserted (with or without a modification)--as _spwort_, _scworn_,

_whoam_, for _sport_, _scorn_, _home_,--Cumberland, West Riding of

Yorkshire.

Ew for _oo_, or _yoo_--_tewn_ for _tune_,--Suffolk, Westmoreland.

Iv for _oo_, or _yoo_ when a vowel follows--as _Samivel_ for _Samuel_;

_Emmanivel_ for _Emmanuel_. In all these we have seen a tendency to

_diphthongal_ sounds.

In the following instances the practice is reversed, and instead of the

vowel being made a diphthong, the diphthong becomes a vowel, as,

O for _oy_--_boh_ for _boy_, Suffolk, &c.

Oo for _ow_--_broon_ for _brown_,--Bilsdale.

Ee for _i_--_neet_ for _night_,--Cheshire.

O for _ou_--_bawn'_ for _bound_,--Westmoreland.

Of these the substitution of _oo_ for _ow_, and of _ee_ for _i_, are of

importance in the questions of the Appendix.

[=E][=e] for _a_--_theere_ for _there_,--Cumberland.

[=E][=e] for _[)e]_--_reed_, _seeven_, for _red_, _seven_,--Cumberland,

Craven.

[=A] for _[=o]_--_sair_, _mair_, _baith_, for _sore_, _more_,

_both_,--Cumberland, Scotland.

[)A] for _[)o]_--_saft_ for _soft_,--Cheshire.

O for _[)a]_--_mon_ for _man_,--Cheshire. _Lond_ for _land_,--East-Anglian

Semi-Saxon.

_Y_ inserted before a vowel--_styake_, _ryape_, for _stake_,

_rope_,--Borrowdale; especially after _g_ (a point to be noticed),

_gyarden_, _gyown_, for _garden_, _gown_,--Warwickshire, &c.; and at the

beginning of a word, as _yat_, _yan_, for _ate_, _one_

(_ane_),--Westmoreland, Bilsdale.

_H_ inserted--_hafter_, _hoppen_, for _after_, _open_,--Westmoreland, &c.

_H_ omitted--_at_, _ard_, for _hat_, _hard_,--_Passim_.

_Transition of Consonants._

_B_ for _v_--_Whitehebbon_ for _Whitehaven_,--Borrowdale.

_P_ for _b_--_poat_ for _boat_.--Welsh pronunciation of many English words.

See the speeches of Sir Hugh Evans in Merry Wives of Windsor.

_V_ for _f_--_vind_ for _find_,--characteristic of Devonshire, Kent. {537}

_T_ for _d_ (final)--_deet_ for _deed_,--Borrowdale.

_T_ for _ch_ (_tsh_)--_fet_ for _fetch_,--Devonshire.

_D_ for _j_ (_dzh_)--_sled_ for _sledge_,--Hereford.

_D_ for _th_ (_th_)--_wid_=_with_; _tudder_=_the other_,--Borrowdale,

Westmoreland. Initial (especially before a consonant)--_drash_,

_droo_=_thrash_, _through_,--Devonshire, Wilts.

_K_ for _ch_ (_tsh_)--_thack_, _pick_, for _thatch_,

_pitch_,--Westmoreland, Lincolnshire, Halifax.

_G_ for _j_ (_dzh_)--_brig_ for _bridge_--Lincolnshire, Hereford.

_G_ preserved from the Anglo-Saxon--_lig_, _lie_. Anglo-Saxon,

_licgan_,--Lincolnshire, North of England.

_Z_ for _s_--_zee_ for _see_,--Devonshire.

_S_ for _sh_--_sall_ for _shall_,--Craven, Scotland.

_Y_ for _g_--_yet_ for _gate_,--Yorkshire, Scotland.

_W_ for _v_--_wiew_ for _view_,--Essex, London.

_N_ for _ng_--_bleedin_ for _bleeding_,--Cumberland, Scotland.

_Sk_ for _sh_--_busk_ for _bush_,--Halifax.

_Ejection of Letters._

_K_ before _s_, the preceding vowel being lengthened by way of

compensation--_neist_ for _next_, _seist_ for _sixth_,--Halifax.

_D_ and _v_ after a consonant--_gol_ for _gold_, _siller_ for

_silver_,--Suffolk. The ejection of _f_ is rarer; _mysel_ for _myself_,

however, occurs in most dialects.

_L_ final, after a short vowel,--in which case the vowel is

lengthened--_poo_ for _pull_,--Cheshire, Scotland.

_Al_ changed to _a_ open--_hawf_ for _half_, _saumo_n for

_salmon_,--Cumberland, Scotland.

_Transposition._

Transpositions of the liquid _r_ are common in all our provincial dialects;

as _gars_, _brid_, _perty_, for _grass_, _bird_, _pretty_. Here the

provincial forms are the oldest, _gaers_, _brid_, &c., being the

Anglo-Saxon forms. Again; _acsian_, Anglo-Saxon=_ask_, English.

s. 687. _Ancient forms of speech._--In the way of grammar--

1. The _ge-_ (see s. 409), prefixed to the past participle

(_ge-boren_=_borne_) is, in certain localities,[73] omitted.

{538}

2. The present[74] plural form _-s_, encroaches upon the form in _-n_.

Thus, _munuces_=_munucan_=_monks_.

3. The infinitive ends in _-a_, instead of _-an_. This is Scandinavian, but

it is also Frisian.

4. The particle _at_ is used instead of _to_ before the infinitive verb.

5. The article[74] _the_ is used instead of _se_, _seo_, _thaet_=[Greek:

ho, he, to], for both the numbers, and all the cases and genders.

6. The form in _-s_ (_use_, _usse_) replaces _ure_=_our_.

In the way of sound--

1. Forms with the slenderer, or more vocalic[74] sounds, replace forms

which in the West-Saxon are broad or diphthongal.[75] Beda mentions that

_Coelin_ is the Northumbrian form of _Ceawlin_.

2. The simple[74] sound of _k_ replaces the combination out of which the

modern sound of _ch_ has been evolved.

3. The sound of _sk_ replaces either the _sh_, or the sound out of which it

has been evolved.

The meaning of these last two statements is explained by the following

extract: "Another characteristic is the infusion of Scandinavian words, of

which there are slight traces in monuments of the tenth century, and strong

and unequivocal ones in those of the thirteenth and fourteenth. Some of the

above criteria may be verified by a simple and obvious process, namely, a

reference to the topographical nomenclature of our provinces. Whoever takes

the trouble to consult the Gazetteer of England will find, that of our

numerous 'Carltons' not one is to be met with south of the Mersey, west of

the Staffordshire Tame, or south of the Thames; and that 'Fiskertons,'

'Skiptons,' 'Skelbrookes,' and a whole host of similar names are equally

_introuvables_ in the same district. They are, with scarcely a single

exception, northern or eastern; and we know from Aelfric's Glossary, from

Domesday and the Chartularies, that this distinction of pronunciation was

established as early as the eleventh century. 'Kirby' or 'Kirkby,' is a

specimen of joint Anglian and {539} Scandinavian influence, furnishing a

clue to the ethnology of the district wherever it occurs. The converse of

this rule does not hold with equal universality, various causes having

gradually introduced soft palatal sounds into districts to which they did

not properly belong. Such are, however, of very partial occurrence, and

form the exception rather than the rule."--_Quarterly Review_, No. CLXIV.

_Bibliographical preliminaries._--The leading facts here are the difference

between 1. the locality of the authorship, and 2, the locality of the

transcription of a book.

Thus: the composition of a Devonshire poet may find readers in

Northumberland, and his work be transcribed by Northumbrian copyist. Now

this Northumbrian copyist may do one of two things: he may transcribe the

Devonian production _verbatim et literatim_; in which case his countrymen

read the MS. just as a Londoner reads Burns, _i.e._, in the dialect of the

writer, and not in the dialect of the reader. On the other hand, he may

_accommodate_ as well as transcribe, _i.e._, he may change the

_non_-Northumbrian into Northumbrian expressions, in which case his

countrymen read the MS. in their own rather than the writer's dialect.

Now it is clear, that in a literature where transcription, _combined with

accommodation_, is as common as _simple_ transcription, we are never sure

of knowing the dialect of an author unless we also know the dialect of his

transcriber. In no literature is there more of this _semi_-translation than

in the Anglo-Saxon and the early English; a fact which sometimes raises

difficulties, by disconnecting the evidence of authorship with the

otherwise natural inferences as to the dialect employed; whilst, at others,

it smoothes them away by supplying as many specimens of fresh dialects, as

there are extant MSS. of an often copied composition.

Inquiring whether certain peculiarities of dialect in Layamon's Brut,

really emanated from the author, a writer in the Quarterly Review, (No.

clxiv.) remarks, that to decide this it "would be necessary to have access

either to the priest's autograph, or to a more faithful copy of it than it

was the practice to make either in his age or the succeeding {540} ones. A

transcriber of an early English composition followed his own ideas of

language, grammar, and orthography; and if he did not entirely obliterate

the characteristic peculiarities of his original, he was pretty sure, like

the Conde de Olivares, 'd'y meter beaucour du sein.' The practical proof of

this is to be found in the existing copies of those works, almost every one

of which exhibits some peculiarity of features. We have 'Trevisa' and

'Robert of Gloucester,' in two distinct forms--'Pier's Ploughman,' in at

least three, and 'Hampole's Pricke of Conscience,' in half a dozen, without

any absolute certainty which approximates most to what the authors wrote.

With regard to Layamon, it might be supposed that the older copy is the

more likely to represent the original; but we have internal evidence that

it is not the priest's autograph; and it is impossible to know what

alterations it may have undergone in the course of one or more

transcriptions."

Again, in noticing the orthography of the Ormulum (alluded to in the

present volume, s. 266), he writes: "It is true that in this instance we

have the rare advantage of possessing the author's autograph, a

circumstance which cannot with confidence be predicated of any other

considerable work of the same period. The author was, moreover, as Mr.

Thorpe observes, a kind of critic in his own language; and we therefore

find in his work, a regularity of orthography, grammar, and metre, hardly

to be paralleled in the same age. All this might, in a great measure,

disappear in the very next copy; for fidelity of transcription was no

virtue of the thirteenth or the fourteenth century; at least with respect

to vernacular works. It becomes, therefore, in many cases a problem of no

small complication, to decide with certainty respecting the original metre,

or language, of a given mediaeval composition, with such data as we now

possess."

From all this it follows, that the inquirer must talk of _copies_ rather

than of _authors_.

s. 688. _Caution._--Differences of spelling do not always imply differences

of pronunciation; perhaps they may be _prim[^a] facie_ of such. Still it is

uncritical to be over-hasty in {541} separating, as specimens of _dialect_,

works which, perhaps, only differ in being specimens of separate

_orthographies_.

s. 689. _Caution._--The accommodation of a transcribed work is susceptible

of _degrees_. It may go so far as absolutely to replace one dialect by

another, or it may go no farther than the omission of the more

unintelligible expressions, and the substitution of others more familiar. I

again quote the Quarterly Review,--"There are very few matters more

difficult than to determine _[`a] priori_, in what precise form a

vernacular composition of the thirteenth century might be written, or what

form it might assume in a very short period. Among the Anglo-Saxon charters

of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, many are modelled upon the literary

Anglo-Saxon, with a few slight changes of orthography and inflection; while

others abound with dialectical peculiarities of various sorts. Those

peculiarities may generally be accounted for from local causes. An

East-Anglian scribe does not employ broad western forms, nor a West of

England man East-Anglian ones; though each might keep his provincial

peculiarities out of sight, and produce something not materially different

from the language of Aelfric."

s. 690. _Caution._--In the Reeve's Tale, Chaucer puts into the mouth of one

of his north-country clerks, a native of the Strother, in the north-west

part of the deanery of Craven, where the Northumbrian dialect rather

preponderates over the Anglian, certain Yorkshire glosses. "Chaucer[76]

undoubtedly copied the language of some native; and the general accuracy,

with which he gives it, shows that he was an attentive observer of all that

passed around him.

"We subjoin an extract from the poem, in order to give our readers an

opportunity of comparing southern and northern English, as they co-existed

in the fifteenth century. It is from a MS. that has never been collated;

but which we believe to be well worthy the attention of any future editor

of the Canterbury Tales. The italics denote variations from the printed

text:--

{542}

"John highte that oon and Aleyn highte that other:

Of _oo_ toun were thei born that highte Strother,

Ffer in the north I can not tellen where.

This Aleyn maketh redy al his gere--

And on an hors the sak he caste anoon.

Fforth goth Aleyn the clerk and also John,

With good swerde and bokeler by his side.

John knewe the weye--hym nedes no gide;

And atte melle the sak a down he layth.

Aleyn spak first: Al heyle, Symond--in fayth--

How fares thi fayre daughter and thi wyf?

Aleyn welcome--quod Symkyn--be my lyf--

And John also--how now, what do ye here?

By God, quod John--Symond, nede has _na_ pere.

Hym bihoves _to_ serve him self that has na swayn;

Or _ellis_ he is a fool as clerkes sayn.

Oure maunciple I hope he wil be ded--

Swa _werkes hym_ ay the wanges in his heed.

And therefore is I come and eek Aleyn--

To grynde oure corn, and carye it _ham_ agayne,

I pray yow _spedes_[77] us _hethen_ that ye may.

It shal be done, quod Symkyn, by my fay!

What wol ye done while it is in hande?

By God, right by the hoper wol I stande,

Quod John, and see _how gates_ the corn gas inne;

_Yit_ saugh I never, by my fader kynne,

How that the hoper wagges til and fra!

Aleyn answerde--John wil _ye_ swa?

Than wil I be bynethe, by my crown,

And se _how gates_ the mele falles down

In til the trough--that sal be my disport.

_Quod John_--In faith, I is of youre sort--

I is as ille a meller as _are_ ye.

* * * * * *

And when the mele is sakked and ybounde,

This John goth out and fynt his hors away--

And gan to crie, harow, and wele away!--

Our hors is lost--Aleyn, for Godde's banes,

Stepe on thi feet--come of man attanes!

Allas, oure wardeyn has his palfrey lorn!

This Aleyn al forgat bothe mele and corn--

{543}

Al was out of his mynde, his housbonderie.

What--whilke way is he goon? he gan to crie.

The wyf come lepynge _in_ at a ren;

She saide--Allas, youre hors goth to the fen

With wylde mares, as faste as he may go.

Unthank come on this hand that _band_ him so--

And he that _bet_ sholde have knet the reyne.

Alas! quod John, Alayn, for Criste's peyne,

Lay down thi swerde, and I _wil_ myn alswa;

I is ful _swift_--God wat--as is a ra--

By Goddes _herte_ he sal nought scape us bathe.

Why ne hadde thou put the capel in the lathe?

Il hayl, by God, Aleyn, thou _is_ fonne."

"Excepting the obsolete forms _hethen_ (hence), _swa_, _lorn_, _whilke_,

_alswa_, _capel_--all the above provincialisms are still, more or less,

current in the north-west part of Yorkshire. _Na_, _ham_(e), _fra_,

_banes_, _attanes_, _ra_, _bathe_, are pure Northumbrian. _Wang_ (cheek or

temple) is seldom heard, except in the phrase _wang tooth_, _dens molaris_.

_Ill_, adj., for _bad_--_lathe_ (barn)--and _fond_ (foolish)--are most

frequently and familiarly used in the West Riding, or its immediate

borders."

Now this indicates a class of writings which, in the critical history of

our local dialect, must be used with great caution and address. An

imitation of dialect may be so lax as to let its only merit consist in a

deviation from the standard idiom.

In the Lear of Shakspeare we have speeches from a Kentish clown. Is this

the dialect of the character, the dialect of the writer, or is it some

conventional dialect appropriated to theatrical purposes? I think the

latter.

In Ben Jonson's Tale of a Tub, one (and more than one of the characters)

speaks thus. His residence is the neighbourhood of London, Tottenham Court.

Is it no sand? nor buttermilk? if't be,

Ich 'am no zive, or watering-pot, to draw

Knots in your 'casions. If you trust me, zo--

If not, _pra_forme 't your zelves, '_C_ham no man's wife,

But resolute Hilts: you'll vind me in the buttry.

_Act_ I. _Scene_ 1.

{544}

I consider that this represents the dialect of the neighbourhood of London,

not on the strength of its being put in the mouth of a man of Tottenham,

but from other and independent circumstances.

Not so, however, with the provincialisms of another of Ben Jonson's plays,

the Sad Shepherd:--

---- shew your sell

Tu all the sheepards, bauldly; gaing amang hem.

Be mickle in their eye, frequent and fugeand.

And, gif they ask ye of Eiarine,

Or of these claithes; say that I ga' hem ye,

And say no more. I ha' that wark in hand,

That web upon the luime, sall gar em thinke.

_Act_ II. _Scene_ 3.

The scene of the play is Sherwood Forest: the language, however, as far as

I may venture an opinion, is not the language from which the present

Nottinghamshire dialect has come down.

s. 691. _Caution._--Again, the word _old_, as applied to language, has a

double meaning.

The language of the United States was imported from England into America in

the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The language of South Australia has been

introduced within the present generation. In one sense, the American

English is older than the Australian. It was earliest separated from the

mother-tongue.

The language, however, of America may (I speak only in the way of

illustration, and consequently hypothetically), in the course of time,

become the least old of the two; the word _old_ being taken in another

sense. It may change with greater rapidity. It may lose its inflections. It

may depart more from the structure of the mother-tongue, and preserve fewer

of its _old_ elements. In this sense the Australian (provided that it has

altered least, and that it retain the greatest number of the _old_

inflections) will be the older tongue of the two.

Now what may be said of the language of two countries, may be said of the

dialects of two districts. The one dialect may run its changes apace; the

other alter but by degrees. {545} Hence, of two works in two such dialects,

the one would appear older than the other, although in reality the two were

cotemporary.

Hence, also, it is a lax expression to say that it is the old forms (the

archaisms) that the provincial dialects retain. The provincial forms are

archaic only when the current language changes more rapidly than the local

idiom. When the local idiom changes fastest, the archaic forms belong to

the standard mode of speech.

The provincial forms, _goand_, _slepand_, for _going_ and _sleeping_, are

archaic. Here the archaism is with the provincial form.

The forms _almost_, _horses_, _nought but_, contrasted with the

provincialisms _ommost_, _hosses_, _nobbot_, are archaic. They have not

been changed so much as they will be. Here the archaism (that is, the

nearer approach to the older form) is with the standard idiom. A

sequestered locality is preservative of old forms. But writing and

education are preservatives of them also.

s. 692. With these preliminaries a brief notice of the English dialects, in

their different stages, may begin.

_The districts north of the Humber._--There is so large an amount of

specimens of the dialects of this area in the Anglo-Saxon stage of our

language, the area itself so closely coincides with the political division

of the kingdom of Northumberland, whilst the present arrangement (more or

less provisional) of the Anglo-Saxon dialects consists of the divisions of

them into the, 1, West-Saxon; 2, Mercian; and 3, Northumbrian, that it is

best to give a general view of the whole tract before the minuter details

of the different counties which compose them are noticed. The _data_ for

the Northumbrian division of the Anglo-Saxon dialects are as follows:--

1. _Wanley's Fragment of Caedmon._--The north-east of Yorkshire was the

birth-place of the Anglo-Saxon monk Caedmon. Nevertheless, the form in

which his poems in full have come down to us is that of a West-Saxon

composition. This indicates the probability of the original work having

first been re-cast, and afterwards lost. Be this as it may, the {546}

following short fragment has been printed by Wanley, from an ancient MS.,

and by Hickes from Bede, Hist. Eccl., 4, 24, and it is considered, in the

first form, to approach or, perhaps, to represent the Northumbrian of the

original poem.

1. 2.

_Wanley._ _Hickes._

Nu seylun hergan N['u] we sceolan herigean

Herfaen-ricaes uard, Heofon-r['i]ces weard,

Metudes maecti, Metodes mihte,

End his modgethanc. And his m['o]dgethanc.

Uerc uuldur fadur, Weorc wuldor-faeder,

Sue he uundra gihuaes, Sva he wundra gewaes,

Eci drictin, Ec['e] driten,

Ord stelidae. Ord onstealde.

He aerist scopa, Ne ['ae]rest sc['o]p,

Elda barnum, Eordhan bearnum,

Heben til hrofe; Heofon t['o] r['o]fe;

Haleg scepen: H['a]lig scyppend:

Tha mittungeard, D['a] middangeard,

Moncynnaes uard, Moncynnes weard,

Eci drictin, Ece drihten,

Aefter tiadhae, Aefter te['o]de,

Firum foldu, Firum foldan,

Frea allmectig. Fre['a] almihtig.

_Translation._

Now we should praise For earth's bairns,

The heaven-kingdom's preserver, Heaven to roof;

The might of the Creator, Holy shaper;

And his mood-thought. Then mid-earth,

The glory-father of works, Mankind's home,

As he, of wonders, each Eternal Lord,

Eternal Lord, After formed,

Originally established. For the homes of men,

He erst shaped, Lord Almighty.

2. _The death-bed verses of Bede._

Fore the neidfaerae, Before the necessary journey,

Naenig uuiurthit No one is

Thoc-snotturra Wiser of thought

Than him tharf sie Than he hath need

To ymbhycganne, To consider,

{547}

Aer his hionongae, Before his departure,

Huaet, his gastae, What, for his spirit,

Godaes aeththa yflaes, Of good or evil,

Aefter deothdaege, After the death-day,

Doemid uuieorthae. Shall be doomed.

From a MS. at St. Gallen; quoted by Mr. Kemble, _Archaeologia_, vol.

xxviii.

3. _The Ruthwell Runes._--The inscription in Anglo-Saxon Runic letters, on

the Ruthwell Cross, is thus deciphered and translated by Mr. Kemble:--

. . . . . . . mik. . . . . . . me.

Riiknae kyningk The powerful King,

Hifunaes hlafard, The Lord of Heaven,

Haelda ic ne daerstae. I dared not hold.

Bismerede ungket men, They reviled us two,

B[^a] aetgaed[r]e, Both together,

Ik (n)idhbaedi bist(e)me(d) I stained with the pledge of crime.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . geredae . . . . prepared

Hinae gamaeldae Himself spake

Estig, dha he walde Benignantly when he would

An galgu gist[^i]ga Go up upon the cross,

M[^o]dig fore Courageously before

Men, . . . . . Men . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Mid stralum giwundaed, Wounded with shafts,

Alegdun hiae hinae, They laid him down,

Limw[^e]rigne. Limb-weary.

Gistodun him . . . They stood by him.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Krist waes on r[^o]di; Christ was on cross.

Hwedhrae ther f[^u]sae Lo! there with speed

Fearran cwomu From afar came

Aedhdhilae ti laenum. Nobles to him in misery.

Ic that al bih (e[^o]ld) I that all beheld

. . . . . sae (...) . . . . . . . . . .

Ic w(ae)s mi(d) ga(l)gu I was with the cross

Ae (. . . .) rod . ha . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

{548}

"The dialect of these lines is that of Northumberland in the seventh,

eighth, and even ninth centuries. The first peculiarity is in the _ae_ for

_e_ in the oblique cases, and which I have observed in the cotemporary MS.

of Cudhberht's letter at St. Gallen. This, which is strictly organic, and

represents the uncorrupted Gothic genitive in _-as_, and dative in _-a_, as

well as the Old Saxon forms of the substantive, is evidence of great

antiquity. But that which is, perhaps, the most characteristic of the

Northumbrian dialect is the formation of the infinitive in _-a_ and _-ae_,

instead of _-an_ (_haeldae_, _gistiga_). The Durham Book has, I believe,

throughout but one single verb, which makes the infinitive in _-an_, and

that is the anomalous word _bean_=_to be_; even _wosa_ and _wiortha_

following the common rule. The word _ungket_ is another incontrovertible

proof of extreme antiquity, having, to the best of my knowledge, never been

found but in this passage. It is the dual of the first personal pronoun

_Ic_, and corresponds to the very rare dual of the second personal pronoun

_incit_, which occurs twice in Caedmon."[78]

4. _The Cotton Psalter._--This is a Latin Psalter in the Cotton collection,

accompanied by an Anglo-Saxon interlineation. Place uncertain. Time, ninth

century or earlier. The following points of difference between this and the

West-Saxon are indicated by Mr. Garnett, Phil. Soc. No. 27.

COTTON PSALTER. WEST-SAXON.

Boen, _prayer_ Ben.

Boec, _books_ B['e]c.

Coelan, _cool_ C['e]lan.

Doeman, _judge_ D['e]man.

Foedan, _feed_ F['e]dan.

Spoed, _fortune_ Sp['e]d.

Swoet, _sweet_ Sw['e]t.

Woenan, _think_, _ween_ W['e]nan.

5. _The Durham Gospels--Quatuor Evangelia Latine, ex translatione B.

Hieronymi, cum gloss[^a] interlineat[^a] Saxonica._ Nero, D. 4.

{549}

_Matthew_, cap. 2.

midhdhy arod gecenned were haelend in dhaer byrig

Cum ergo natus esset Jesus in Bethleem Judaeae

in dagum Herodes cyninges heonu dha tungulcraeftga of eustdael

in diebus Herodis Regis, ecce magi ab oriente

cweodhonde

cwomun to hierusalem hiu cwoedon huer is dhe acenned

venerunt Hierosolymam, dicentes, Ubi est qui natus

tungul

is cynig Judeunu gesegon we fordhon sterru his in

est rex Judaeorum? vidimus enim stellam ejus in

eustdael and we cwomon to wordhanne hine geherde wiototlice

oriente et venimus adorare eum. Audiens autem

dha burgwaeras

herodes se cynig gedroefed waes and alle dha hierusolemisca midh

Herodes turbatus est et omnis Hierosolyma cum

mesapreusti

him and gesomnede alle dha aldormenn biscopa

illo. Et congregatis (_sic_) omnes principes sacerdotum

geascode

and dha udhuutta dhaes folces georne gefragnde fra him huer crist

et scribas populi, sciscitabatur ab iis ubi Christus

acenned were.

nasceretur.

6. _The Rituale Ecclesiae Dunhelmensis._--Edited for the Surtees Society by

Mr. Stevenson. Place: neighbourhood of Durham. Time: A.D. 970. Differences

between the Psalter and Ritual:--

_a._ The form for the first person is in the Psalter generally _-u_. In the

Ritual it is generally _-o_. In West Saxon, _-e_.

PSALTER.--_Getreow-u_, I believe; _cleopi-u_, I call; _sell-u_, I give;

_ondred-u_, I fear; _ageld-u_, I pay; _getimbr-u_, I build. Forms in _-o_;

_sitt-o_, I sit; _drinc-o_, I drink.

RITUAL.--_Feht-o_, I fight; _wuldrig-o_, I glory. The ending in _-u_ is

rarer.

_b._ In the West Saxon the plural present of verbs ends in _-adh_: _we

lufi-adh_, _ge lufi-adh_, _hi lufi-adh_. The Psalter also exhibits this

West Saxon form. But the plurals of the Ritual {550} end in _-s_: as,

_bidd-as_=_we pray_; _giwoed-es_=_put on_; _wyrc-as_=_do_.

_c._ The infinitives of verbs end in the West Saxon in _-an_, as

_cwed-an_=_to say_. So they do in the Psalter. But in the Ritual the _-n_

is omitted, and the infinitive ends simply in _-a_: _cuoetha_=_to say_;

_inngeonga_=_to enter_.

d. The oblique cases and plurals of substantives in West Saxon end in

_-an_: as _heortan_=_heart's_; _heortan_=_hearts_. So they do in the

Psalter. But in the Ritual the _-n_ is omitted, and the word ends simply in

_-a_ or _-e_; as _nome_=_of a name_ (West Saxon _nam-an_);

_hearta_=_hearts_.

7. _The Rushworth Gospels._--Place, Harewood in Wharfdale, Yorkshire. Time,

according to Wanley, the end of the ninth century.

Here observe--

1. That the Ruthwell inscription gives us a sample of the so-called

Northumbrian Anglo-Saxon, and that as it is spoken in Scotland, _i.e._, in

Galloway. For the bearings of this see Part II., c. 3.

2. That the Rushworth Gospels take us as far south as the West Riding of

Yorkshire.

3. That there are no specimens from any Cumberland, Westmoreland, or North

Lancashire localities, these being, most probably, exclusively Celtic.

s. 693. The most general statements concerning this great section of the

Anglo-Saxon, is that--

1. It prefers the slenderer and more vocalic to the broader and more

diphthongal forms.

2. The sounds of _k_ and _s_, to those of _ch_ and _sh_.

3. The forms without the prefix _ge-_, to those with them. Nevertheless the

form _ge-cenned_ (=_natus_) occurs in the first line of the extract from

the Durham Gospels.

s. 694. The Old and Middle English MSS. from this quarter are numerous;

falling into two classes:

1. Transcriptions with accommodation from works composed southwards. Here

the characteristics of the dialect are not absolute. {551}

2. Northern copies of northern compositions. Here the characteristics of

the dialect are at the maximum. Sir Tristram is one of the most important

works of this class; and in the wider sense of the term _Northumbrian_, it

is a matter of indifference on which side of the Border it was composed.

See s. 190.

s. 695. Taking the counties in detail, we have--

_Northumberland._--Northern frontier, East Scotland; the direction of the

influence being from South to North, rather than from North to South,

_i. e._, Berwickshire and the Lothians being Northumbrian and English,

rather than Northumberland Scotch.

West frontier Celtic--the Cumberland and Westmoreland Britons having been

encroached upon by the Northumbrians of Northumberland.

Present dialect.--Believed to be nearly uniform over the counties of

Northumberland and Durham; but changing in character in North Yorkshire,

and in Cumberland and Westmoreland.

The Anglo-Saxon immigration considered to have been Angle (so-called)

rather than Saxon.

Danish admixture--Very great. Possibly, as far as the marks that it has

left on the language, greater than in any other part of _England_.[79]--See

s. 152.

_Cumberland, Westmoreland, North Lancashire._--Anglo-Saxon elements

introduced from portions of Northumbria rather than directly from the

Continent.

Celtic language persistent until a comparatively late though undetermined

period.

Northern frontier, West-Scotland--the direction of the influence being from

Scotland to England, rather than _vice vers[^a]_; Carlisle being more of a

Scotch town than Berwick.

Specimens of the dialects in the older stages, few and doubtful.

Topographical nomenclature characterized by the preponderance of compounds

of _-thwaite_; as _Braithwaite_, &c.

{552}

_North_ Lancashire, Westmoreland, and Cumberland, "exhibit many Anglian[80]

peculiarities, which may have been occasioned in some degree by the

colonies in the south, planted in that district by William Rufus (Saxon

Chronicle, A.D. 1092.) A comparison of Anderson's ballads with Burns's

songs, will show how like Cumbrian is to Scottish, but how different. We

believe that Weber is right in referring the romance of Sir Amadas to this

district. The mixture of the Anglian forms _gwo_, _gwon_, _bwons_,

_boyd-word_ (in pure Northumbrian), _gae_, _gane_, _banes_, _bod-worde_,

with the northern terms, _tynt_, _kent_, _bathe_, _mare_, and many others

of the same class, could hardly have occurred in any other part of

England."[81]

_Yorkshire, North and part of West Riding._--The Anglo-Saxon specimens of

this area have been noticed in s. 692.

The extract from Chaucer is also from this district.

The modern dialects best known are--

1. _The Craven._--This, in northern localities, "becomes slightly tinctured

with Northumbrian."--Quart. Rev. _ut supra_.

2. _The Cleveland._--With not only Northumbrian, but even Scotch

characters. Quart. Rev. _ut supra_.

Danish admixture--Considerable.

All these dialects, if rightly classified, belong to the Northumbrian

division of the Angle branch of the Anglo-Saxon language; whilst, if the

_prim[^a] facie_ view of their affiliation or descent, be the true one,

they are the dialects of s. 692, in their modern forms.

s. 696. The classification which gives this arrangement now draws a line of

distinction at the river Ribble, in Lancashire, which separates _South_

from North Lancashire; whilst in Yorkshire, the East Riding, and that part

of the West which does not belong to the Wapentake of Claro, belong to the

class which is supposed to exclude the previous and contain the following

dialects:--

s. 697. _South Lancashire and Cheshire._--Sub-varieties of {553} the same

dialects, but not sub-varieties of the previous ones.

The plural form in _-en_ is a marked character of this dialect--at least of

the Lancashire portion.

Supposed original population--Angle rather than Saxon.

Original political relations--Mercian rather than Northumbrian.

These last two statements apply to all the forthcoming areas north of

Essex. The latter is a simple historical fact; the former supposes an

amount of difference between the Angle and the Saxon which has been assumed

rather than proved; or, at any rate, which has never been defined

accurately.

The elements of uncertainty thus developed, will be noticed in ss. 704-708.

At present it is sufficient to say, that if the South Lancashire dialect

has been separated from the north, on the score of its having been

_Mercian_ rather than _Northumbrian_, the principle of classification has

been based upon _political_ rather than _philological_ grounds; and as such

is exceptionable.

s. 698. _Shropshire, Staffordshire, and West Derbyshire._--Supposing the

South Lancashire and Cheshire to be the Mercian (which we must remember is

a _political_ term), the Shropshire, Staffordshire, and _West_ Derbyshire

are Mercian also; transitional, however, in character.

Shropshire and Cheshire have a Celtic frontier.

Here, also, both the _a priori_ probabilities and the known facts make the

Danish intermixture at its _minimum_.

s. 699. _East Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire._--Here the language is

considered to change from the mode of speech of which the South Lancashire

is the type, to the mode of speech of which the Norfolk and Suffolk dialect

is the type.

Danish elements may now be expected, Derbyshire being the most inland

Danish area.

Original political relations--Mercian.

Specimens of the dialects in their older stages, preeminently scanty.

_Hallamshire._--This means the parts about Sheffield {554} extended so as

to include that portion of the West Riding of Yorkshire which stands over

from s. 696. Probably belonging to the same group with the _South_

Lancashire.

_East Riding of Yorkshire._--It is not safe to say more of this dialect

than that its affinities are with the dialects spoken to the _north_ rather

than with those spoken to the south of it, _i.e._, that of--

_Lincolnshire._--Frontier--On the Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire

frontier, passing into the form of speech of those counties. Pretty

definitely separated from that of Norfolk. Less so from that of North

Cambridgeshire. Scarcely at all from that of Huntingdonshire, and North

Northamptonshire.

Danish admixture.--The number of towns and villages ending in the

characteristic Danish termination _-by_, at its _maximum_; particularly in

the neighbourhood of Spils_by_.

Traditions Danish, _e. g._, that of Havelok the Dane, at Grimsby.

Physiognomy, Danish.

Language not Danish in proportion to the other signs of Scandinavian

intermixture.

Specimens of the dialects in its older form--Havelok[82] the Dane (?),

Manning's Chronicle (supposing the MS. to have been transcribed in the

county where the author was born).

Provincial peculiarities (_i.e._, deviations from the written language)

nearly at the _minimum_.

_Huntingdonshire, North Northamptonshire, and Rutland._--_Anglo-Saxon

period._--The latter part of the Saxon Chronicle was written at Peterboro.

Probably, also, the poems of Helena and Andreas. Hence, this area is that

of the _old_ Mercian in its most typical form; whilst South Lancashire is

that of the _new_--a practical instance of the inconvenience of applying

_political_ terms to philological subjects.

s. 700. _Norfolk, Suffolk, and the fen part of Cambridgeshire._--Here the

population is pre-eminently Angle. The political character East-Anglian

rather than Mercian.

{555}

Specimens of the dialects in the Anglo-Saxon stage.--The Natale St.

Edmundi, in Thorpe's Analecta Anglo-Saxonica.

Early English--The Promtuarium Parvulorum.

s. 701. _Leicestershire, Warwickshire, and South

Northamptonshire._--Mercian (so-called) rather than West-Saxon (so-called).

Probably, approaching the written language of England more closely than is

the case with the dialects spoken to the south of them.

Certainly, approaching the written language of England less closely than is

the case with the dialect of Huntingdonshire, North Northamptonshire, and

South Lincolnshire.

s. 702. These remarks have the following import. They bear upon the

question of the origin of the _written_ language of England.

Mr. Guest first diverted the attention of scholars from the consideration

of the West Saxon of the chief Anglo-Saxon writers as the mother-dialect of

the present English, to the Mercian; so turning their attention from the

south to the centre of England.

The general principle that a _central_ locality has the _a priori_

likelihood in its favour, subtracts nothing from the value of his

suggestion.

Neither does the fact of the nearest approach to the written language being

found about the parts in question; since the doctrine to which the present

writer commits himself, viz., that in the parts between Huntingdon and

Stamford, the purest English is most generally spoken, is, neither

universally recognised, nor yet part of Mr. Guest's argument.

Mr. Guest's arguments arose out of the evidence of the MSS. of the parts in

question.

That the dialect most closely allied to the dialect (or dialects) out of

which the present literary language of England is developed, is to be found

either in Northamptonshire or the neighbouring counties is nearly certain.

Mr. Guest looks for it on the western side of that county (Leicestershire);

the present writer on the eastern (Huntingdonshire).

s. 703. It is now convenient to pass from the dialects of {556} the

water-system of the Ouse, Nene, and Welland to those spoken along the lower

course of the Thames.

These, to a certain extent, may be dealt with like those to the north of

the Humber. Just as the latter were, in the first instance, and in the more

general way, thrown into a single class (the Northumbrian), so may the

dialects in question form the provisional centre of another separate class.

For this we have no very convenient name. The dialects, however, which it

contains agree in the following points.

1. These are considered to be derived from that variety of the Anglo-Saxon

which is represented by the chief remains of the Anglo-Saxon literature,

_i.e._, the so-called standard or classical language of Alfred, Aelfric,

the present text of Caedmon, &c.

2. About half their _present eastern_ area consists of the _counties_

ending in _-sex_; viz., Sus_sex_, Es_sex_, and Middle_sex_.

3. Nearly the _whole_ of their _original_ area consisted in _kingdoms_ (or

sub-kingdoms) ending in _-sex_; viz., the districts just enumerated, and

the kingdom of Wes_sex_.

Hence they are--

_a._--_Considered with reference to their literary history._--They are

dialects whereof the literary development began early, but ceased at the

time of the Norman Conquest, being superseded by that of the central

dialects (_Mercian_ so-called) of the island. The truth of this view

depends on the truth of Mr. Guest's doctrine noticed in page 555. If true,

it is by no means an isolated phaenomenon. In Holland the present Dutch is

the descendant of some dialect (or dialects) which was uncultivated in the

earlier periods of the language; whereas the Old Frisian, which was _then_

the written language, is _now_ represented by a provincial dialect only.

"In speaking of the Anglo-Saxon language, scholars universally intend that

particular form of speech in which all the principal monuments of our most

ancient literature are composed, and which, with very slight variations, is

found in Beowulf and Caedmon, in the Exeter and Vercelli Codices, in the

translation of the Gospels and Homilies, and in the works {557} of Aelfred

the Great. For all general purposes this nomenclature is sufficiently

exact; and in this point of view, the prevalent dialect, which contains the

greatest number of literary remains, may be fairly called the Anglo-Saxon

language, of which all varying forms were dialects. It is, however, obvious

that this is in fact an erroneous way of considering the subject; the

utmost that can be asserted is, that Aelfred wrote his own language, viz.,

that which was current in Wessex; and that this, having partly through the

devastations of heathen enemies in other parts of the island, partly

through the preponderance of the West-Saxon power and extinction of the

other royal families, become the language of the one supreme court, soon

became that of literature and the pulpit also."--Kemble. Phil. Trans. No.

35.

_b._--_Considered in respect to their political relations._--Subject to the

influence of the _Wessex_ portion of the so-called Heptarchy, rather than

to the _Mercian_,

_c._--_Considered ethnologically_--_Saxon_ rather than _Angle_. The

exceptions that lie against this class will be noticed hereafter.

s. 704. _Kent_--_Theoretically_, Kent, is Jute rather than Saxon, and Saxon

rather than Angle.

Celtic elements, probably, at the _minimum_.

Predominance of local terms compounded of the word _-hurst_; as,

Pens_hurst_, Staple_hurst_, &c.

_Frisian hypothesis._--The following facts and statements (taken along with

those of ss. 15-20, and ss. 129-131), pre-eminently require criticism.

1. Hengest the supposed father of the Kentish kingdom is a Frisian

hero--Kemble's _Saechsische Stamtaffel_.

2. The dialect of the Durham Gospels and Ritual contain a probably Frisian

form.

3. "The country called by the Anglo-Saxons Northumberland, and which may

loosely be said to have extended from the Humber to Edinburgh, and from the

North Sea to the hills of Cumberland, was peopled by tribes of Angles.

Such, at least, is the tradition reported by Beda, who adds that Kent was

first settled by Jutes. Who these Jutes were is {558} not clearly

ascertained, but from various circumstances it may be inferred that there

was at least a considerable admixture of Frisians amongst them. Hengest,

the supposed founder of the Kentish kingdom, is a Frisian hero, and Jutes,

'eotenas,' is a usual name for the Frisians in Be['o]wulf. Beda, it is

true, does not enumerate Frisians among the Teutonic races by which England

was colonized, but this omission is repaired by the far more valuable

evidence of Procopius, who, living at the time of some great invasion of

Britain by the Germans, expressly numbers Frisians among the invaders. Now

the Anglo-Saxon traditions themselves, however obscurely they may express

it, point to a close connection between Kent and Northumberland: the latter

country, according to these traditions, was colonized from Kent, and for a

long time received its rulers or dukes from that kingdom. Without attaching

to this legend more importance than it deserves, we may conclude that it

asserts an original communion between the tribes that settled in the two

countries; and consequently, if any Frisic influence is found to operate in

the one, it will be necessary to inquire whether a similar action can be

detected in the other. This will be of some moment hereafter, when we enter

upon a more detailed examination of the dialect. The most important

peculiarity in which the Durham Evangeles and Ritual differ from the

Psalter is the form of the infinitive mood in verbs. This in the Durham

books is, with exception of one verb, be['a]n, _esse_, invariably formed in

_-a_, not in _-an_, the usual form in all the other Anglo-Saxon dialects.

Now this is also a peculiarity of the Frisic, and of the Old Norse, and is

found in no other Germanic tongue; it is then an interesting inquiry

whether the one or the other of these tongues is the origin of this

peculiarity; whether, in short, it belongs to the old, the original Frisic

form which prevailed in the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries, or whether

it is owing to Norse influence, acting in the ninth and tenth, through the

establishment of Danish invaders and a Danish dynasty in the countries

north of the Humber."--Kemble. Phil. Trans. No. 35.

The details necessary for either the verification or the overthrow of the

doctrine of a similarity of origin between {559} portions of the

Northumbrian[83] and portions of the Kentish population have yet to be

worked out.

So have the _differentiae_ between the dialects of _Kent_, and the dialects

of Sus_sex_, Es_sex_, Middle_sex_, and Wes_sex_.

_Probable Anglo-Saxon of Kent._--Codex Diplomaticus, No. 191.

s. 705. _Sussex._--The characteristics are involved in those of Kent--thus,

if Kent be simply Saxon the two counties have the same ethnological

relation; whilst if Kent be Frisian or Jute(?) Sussex may be either like or

unlike.

_Hampshire._--_Theoretically_, Saxon rather than Angle, and West Saxon

(Wessex) rather than south, east, or Middle-Saxon.

Jute elements in either the Hants or Isle of Wight dialects, hitherto

undiscovered. Probably, non-existent.

Present dialect certainly not the closest representative of the classical

Anglo-Saxon, _i. e._, the so-called _West_ Saxon.

_Berkshire._--Present dialect, probably, the closest representative of the

classical Anglo-Saxon.

_Cornwall._--Celtic elements at the _maximum_.

_Devonshire and West Somerset._--Present dialect strongly marked by the use

of _z_ for _s_ (_Zomerzet_=_Somerset_).

Celtic elements probably considerable.

_Worcestershire._--The language of the Anglo-Saxon period is characterized

by the exclusive, or nearly exclusive, use of _s_ in the forms _usse_ and

_usses_ for _ure_ and _ures_. See Codex Diplomaticus, Nos. 95 and 97.

The affiliation of the present dialect has yet to be investigated.

_North Glostershire._--_Politically_, both North Gloster and Worcestershire

are Mercian rather than West-Saxon.

Now the language of Layamon was North Gloster.

And one at least of the MSS. is supposed to represent this language.

Nevertheless its character is said to be West Saxon rather than Mercian.

What does this prove? Not that the West Saxon dialect {560} extended into

Mercia, but that a political nomenclature is out of place in philology.

_The Welsh frontier._--_Herefordshire, &c._--Celtic elements. General

character of the dialects, probably, that of the counties immediately to

the east of them.

_Essex._--_Theoretically_, Saxon rather than Angle. No such distinction,

however, is indicated by the ascertained characteristic of the Essex

dialects as opposed to the East Anglian, Suffolk, and the Mercian.

_Hertfordshire._--I am not aware of any thing that distinguishes the South

Hertfordshire form of speech from those of--

_Middlesex._--Here, as far as there are any characteristics at all, they

are those of _Es_sex. The use of _v_ for _w_, attributed (and partially

due) to Londoners, occurs--not because there is any such thing as a London

dialect, but because London is a town on the Essex side of Middlesex.

_Surrey._--The name (_Sudh rige_=_southern kingdom_) indicates an original

political relation with the parts _north_ rather than _south_ of the

Thames.

The evidence of the dialect is, probably, the other way.

s. 706. _Supposed East-Anglian and Saxon frontier._--For the area just

noticed there are two lines of demarcation--one geographical, and one

ethnological.

_a._ _Geographical._--The river Thames.

_b._ _Ethnological._--The line which separates Middle_sex_ and Es_sex_

(_so-called_ Saxon localities) from Herts and Suffolk (_so-called_ Angle

localities).

Of these the first line involves an undeniable fact; the second a very

doubtful one. No evidence has been adduced in favour of disconnecting Saxon

Essex from Anglian Suffolk, nor yet for connecting it with Sus_sex_ and

Wes_sex_. The termination _-sex_ is an undoubted fact; the difference

between the Saxons and Angles which it is supposed to indicate is an

assumption.

s. 707. The dialects of the remaining counties have, probably, the

transitional characters, indicated by their geographical position.

_Dorset_--Hants and Somerset. {561}

_Wilts._--Hants, Dorset, Somerset, Berks.

_Buckingham, Beds, Northampton._--These connect the two most convenient

_provisional_ centres of the so-called West-Saxon of Alfred, &c., and

mother-dialect of the present written English, viz.: Wantage and Stamford

(or Huntingdon); and in doing this they connect dialects which, although

placed in separate classes (West-Saxon and Mercian), were, probably, more

alike than many subdivisions of the same group.

To investigate the question as to the Mercian or West-Saxon origin of the

present written English without previously stating whether the comparison

be made between such extreme dialects as those of the New Forest, and the

neighbourhood of Manchester, or such transitional ones as those of Windsor

and Northampton is to reduce a real to a mere verbal discussion.

_Warwickshire, Staffordshire._--From their central position, probably

transitional to both the north and south, and the east and west groups.

Celtic elements increasing.

Danish elements decreasing. Perhaps at the _minimum_.

s. 708. The exceptions suggested in ss. 703, 704, lie not only against the

particular group called West-Saxon, but (as may have been anticipated)

against all classifications which assume either--

1. A coincidence between the philological divisions of the Anglo-Saxon

language, and the political division of the Anglo-Saxon territory.

2. Any broad difference between the Angles and the Saxons.

3. The existence of a Jute population.

* * * * *

s. 709. _English dialects not in continuity with the mother-tongue._--Of

these the most remarkable are those of--

1. _Little England beyond Wales._--In Pembrokeshire, and a part of

Glamorganshire, the language is English rather than Welsh. The following

extracts from Higden have effected the belief that this is the result of a

Flemish colony. "_Sed {562} et Flandrenses, tempore Regis Henrici Primi in

magna copia juxta Mailros ad orientalem Angliae plagam habitationem pro

tempore accipientes, septimam in insula gentem fecerunt: jubente tamen

eodem rege, ad occidentalem Walliae partem, apud Haverford, sunt translati.

Sicque Britannia ... his ... nationibus habitatur in praesenti ...

Flandrensibus in West Wallia_."

A little below, however, we learn that these Flemings are distinguished by

their origin only, and not by their language:--"_Flandrenses vero qui in

Occidua Walliae incolunt, dimissa jam barbarie, Saxonice satis

loquuntur_."--Higden, edit. Gale, p. 210.

On the other hand, Mr. Guest has thrown a reasonable doubt upon this

inference; suggesting the probability of its having been simply English.

The following vocabulary collected by the Rev. J. Collins,[84] in the

little peninsula of Gower, confirms this view. It contains no exclusively

Flemish elements.

Angletouch, n. s. _worm_.

Bumbagus, n. s. _bittern_.

Brandis, n. s. _iron stand for a pot or kettle_.

Caffle, adj. _entangled_.

Cammet, adj. _crooked_.

Cloam, n. s. _earthenware_.

Charnel, n. s. _a place raised in the roof for hanging bacon_.

Clit, v. _to stick together_.

Deal, n. s. _litter, of pigs_.

Dotted, adj. _giddy, of a sheep_.

Dome, adj. _damp_.

Dreshel, n. s. _a flail_.

Eddish, n. s. _wheat-stubble_.

Evil, n. s. a _three-pronged fork for dung, &c._

Firmy, v. _to clean out, of a stable, &c._

Fleet, adj. _exposed in situation_, _bleak_.

Flott, n. s. _aftergrass_.

Flamiring, s. _an eruption of the nature of erysipelas_.

Fraith, adj. _free-spoken_, _talkative_.

Frithing, adj. _a fence made of thorns wattled_.

Foust, v. act. _to tumble_.

Flathin, n. s. _a dish made of curds, eggs, and milk_.

Gloy, n. s. _refuse straw after the "reed" has been taken out_.

Gloice, n. s., _a sharp pang of pain_.

Heavgar, adj. _heavier_ (so also _near-ger_, _far-ger_).

Hamrach, n. s. _harness collar made of straw_.

Hay, n. s. _a small plot of ground attached to a dwelling_.

Kittybags, n. s. _gaiters_.

Lipe, n. s. _matted basket of peculiar shape_.

{563}

Letto, n. s. _a lout_, _a foolish fellow_.

Main, adj. _strong_, _fine_ (_of growing crops_),

Nesseltrip, n. s. _the small pig in a litter_.

Nommet, n. s. _a luncheon of bread, cheese, &c._--_not a regular meal_.

Noppet, Nipperty, adj. _lively_--_convalescent_.

Ovice, n. s. _eaves of a building_.

Plym, v. _to fill_, _to plump up_.

Plym, adj. _full_.

Planche, v. _to make a boarded floor_.

Peert, adj. _lively_, _brisk_.

Purty, v. n. _to turn sulky_.

Quat, v. act. _to press down_, _flatten_.

Quapp, v. n. _to throb_.

Rathe, adj. _early, of crops_.

Reremouse, n. s. _bat_.

Ryle, v. _to angle in the sea_.

Riff, n. s. _an instrument for sharpening scythes_.

Seggy, v. act. _to tease_, _to provoke_.

Semmatt, n. s. _sieve made of skin for winnowing_.

Shoat, n. s. _small wheaten loaf_.

Showy, v. n. _to clear_ (_of weather_); (show, _with termination_ y,

_common_).

Soul, n. s. _cheese, butter, &c_. (_as eaten with bread_).

Snead, n. s. _handle of a scythe_.

Songalls, n. s. _gleanings_: "to gather _songall_" _is_ to glean.

Sull, _or_ Zull, n. s. _a wooden plough_.

Stiping, n. s. _a mode of fastening a sheep's foreleg to its head by a

band of straw, or withy_.

Susan, n. s. _a brown earthenware pitcher_.

Sump, n. s. _any bulk that is carried_.

Suant, part. _regular in order_.

Slade, n. s. _ground sloping towards the sea_.

Tite, v. _to tumble over_.

Toit, n. s. _a small seat or stool made of straw_.

Toit, adj. _frisky_, _wanton_.

Vair, n. s. _weasel_ or _stoat_.

Want, n. s. _a mole_.

Wirg, n. s. _a willow_.

Wimble, v. _to winnow_.

Weest, adj. _lonely_, _desolate_.

Wash-dish, n. s. _the titmouse_.

s. 710. _The baronies of Forth and Bargie in the County Wexford._--The

barony of Forth "lies south of the city of Wexford, and is bounded by the

sea to the south and east, and by the barony of Bargie to the west. It is

said to have been colonized by the Welshmen who accompanied Strongbow in

his invasion of Ireland; but by the term Welshmen, as here used, we must no

doubt understand the English settlers of Gower and Pembroke. Vallancey

published a specimen of their language. Some of the grammatical forms can

hardly {564} fail to interest the English scholar, and we may venture more

particularly to call his attention to the verbal ending _th_. In no other

of our spoken dialects do we find the _th_ still lingering as an inflection

of the _plural_ verb."

ADDRESS IN THE BARONY OF FORTH LANGUAGE.

_Presented in August 1836, to the Marquis of Normanby, then Earl of

Mulgrave, and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; with a Translation of the

Address in English._

_To's Excellencie Consantine Harrie Phipps, Earle Mulgrave, "Lord

Lieutenant-General, and General Governor of Ireland;" Ye soumissive

spakeen o' ouz Dwellers o' Baronie Forthe, Weisforthe._

Mai't be plesaunt to th' Excellencie,

Wee, Vassales o' "His Most Gracious Majesty" Wilyame ee 4th an az wee

verilie chote na coshe an loyale Dwellers na Baronie Forth, crave na

dicke luckie acte t'uck necher th' Excellencie, an na plaine garbe o'

oure yola talke, wi' vengem o' core t'gie oure zense o'ye grades wilke

be ee dighte wi' yer name, and whilke wee canna zie, albeit o'

"Governere" Statesman an alike. Yn ercha an ol o' whilke yt beeth wi'

gleezom o'core th' oure eene dwitheth apan ye vigere o'dicke zovereine,

Wilyame ee Vourthe unnere fose fatherlie zwae oure deis be ee spant, az

avare ye trad dicke lone ver name was ee kent var ee _Vriene o'

Levertie_, an _He fo brack ge neckers o' Zlaves_--Mang ourzels--var wee

dwitheth an Irelone az oure general haime--y'ast bie' ractzom homedelt

tous ye lass ee mate var ercha vassale, ne'er dwith ee na dicke wai

n'ar dicka. Wee dewithe ye ane fose deis bee gien var ee gudevare o' ee

lone ye zwae, t'avance {565} pace an levertie, an wi'out vlinch ee

garde o' general riochts an poplare vartue.--Ye pace--yea wee ma' zei

ye vaste pace whilke be ee stent o'er ye lone zince th' ast ee cam,

prooth, y'at we alane needed ye giftes o' general riochts, az be

displayte bie ee factes o' thie governmente. Ye state na dicke die o'ye

lone, na whilke be ne'er fash n'ar moil, albeit "Constitutional

Agitation" ye wake o'hopes ee blighte, stampe na per zwae ee be rare an

lightzom. Yer name var zetch avanct avare y'e, e'en a dicke var hie,

arent whilke ye brine o' zea, an ee crags o'noghanes cazed nae balk. Na

oure glades ana whilke we dellte wi' mattoc, an zing t'oure caules wi

plou, we hert ee zough o'ye colure o' pace na name o' "_Mulgrave_." Wi

"Irishmen" oure general hopes be ee bond, az "Irishmen," an az dwellers

na coshe an loyale o' Baronie Forthe, w'oul dei an ercha dei, oure

maunes an aure gurles, prie var lang an happie zins, home o'leurnagh an

ee vilt wi benizons, an yersel an oure zoverine 'till ee zin o'oure

deis be var ay be ee go t'glade.

* * * * *

_To His Excellency Constantine Henry Phipps, Earl Mulgrave, Lord

Lieutenant-General and General Governor of Ireland: The humble Address

of the Inhabitants of Barony Forth, Wexford._

May it please your Excellency,

We, the subjects of His Most Gracious Majesty William IV., and as we

truly believe both faithful and loyal inhabitants of the Barony Forth,

beg leave, at this favourable opportunity to approach Your Excellency,

and in the simple garb of our old dialect to pour forth from the

strength (or fulness) of our hearts, our strength (or admiration) of

the qualities which characterize your name, and for which we have no

words but of "Governor," "Statesman," &c. Sir, each and every

condition, it is with joy of heart that our eyes rest upon the

representative of that Sovereign, William IV., under whose paternal

rule our days are spent; for before your foot pressed the soil, your

name was known to us as the _Friend of Liberty_, and _He who broke the

fetters of the Slave_. Unto ourselves--for we look on Ireland to be our

common country--you have with impartiality (of hand) ministered the

laws made for every subject, without regard to this party or that. We

behold you, one whose days devoted to the welfare of the land you

govern, to promote peace and liberty--the uncompromising guardian of

common rights and public virtue. The peace, yes we may say the profound

peace, which overspreads the land since your arrival, proves that we

alone stood in need of the enjoyment of common privileges, as is

demonstrated by the results of your government. The condition, this

day, of the country, in which is neither tumult nor confusion, but that

constitutional agitation, the consequence of disappointed hopes,

confirm your rule to be rare and enlightened. Your fame for such came

before you, even into this retired spot, to which neither the waters of

the sea yonder, nor the mountains above, caused any impediment. In our

valleys, where we were digging with the spade, or as we whistled to our

horses in the plough, we heard in the word "Mulgrave," the sound of the

wings of the dove of peace. With Irishmen our common hopes are

inseparably wound up; as Irishmen, and as inhabitants, faithful and

loyal, of the Barony Forth, we will daily, and every day, our wives and

our children, implore long and happy days, free from melancholy and

full of blessings, for yourself and good Sovereign, until the sun of

our lives be for ever gone down the dark valley of death.[85]

s. 711. _Americanisms._--These, which may be studied in the excellent

dictionary of J. R. Bartlett, are chiefly referable to five causes--

{566}

1. Influence of the aboriginal Indian languages.

2. Influence of the languages introduced from Europe anterior to the

predominance of English; viz.: French in Louisiana, Spanish in Florida,

Swedish in Pennsylvania and Delaware, and Dutch in New York.

3. Influence, &c., subsequent to the predominance of the English; viz.:

German in Pennsylvania, and Gaelic and Welsh generally.

4. Influence of the original difference of dialect between the different

portions of the English population.

5. Influence of the preponderance of the Anglo-Saxon over the Anglo-Norman

element in the American population in general.

s. 712. _Extract._--In a sound and sagacious paper upon the Probable Future

Position of the English Language,[86] Mr. Watts, after comparing the

previous predominance of the French language beyond the pale of France,

with the present spread of the German beyond Germany, and after deciding in

favour of the latter tongue, remarks that there is "The existence of

another language whose claims are still more commanding. That language is

our own. Two centuries ago the proud position that it now occupies was

beyond the reach of anticipation. We all smile at the well-known boast of

Waller in his lines on the death of Cromwell, but it was the loftiest that

at the time the poet found it in his power to make:--

'Under the tropie is our language spoke,

And part of Flanders hath received our yoke.'

"'I care not,' said Milton, 'to be once named abroad, though perhaps I

could attain to that, being content with these islands as my world.' A

French Jesuit, Garnier, in 1678, laying down rules for the arrangement of a

library, thought it superfluous to say anything of English books, because,

as he observed, 'libri Anglic[^a] scripti lingu[^a] vix mare transmittunt.'

Swift, in the earlier part of the eighteenth century, in his 'Proposal for

correcting, improving, and {567} ascertaining the English Tongue,'

observed, 'the fame of our writers is usually confined to these two

islands." Not quite a hundred years ago Dr. Johnson seems to have

entertained far from a lofty idea of the legitimate aspirations of an

English author. He quotes in a number of the 'Rambler' (No. 118, May 4th,

1751), from the address of Africanus as given by Cicero, in his Dream of

Scipio:--'The territory which you inhabit is no more than a scanty island

inclosed by a small body of water, to which you give the name of the great

sea and the Atlantic Ocean. And even in this known and frequented continent

what hope can you entertain that your renown will pass the stream of Ganges

or the cliffs of Caucasus, or by whom will your name be uttered in the

extremities of the north or south towards the rising or the setting sun? So

narrow is the space to which your fame can be propagated, and even there

how long will it remain?' 'I am not inclined,' remarks Johnson, 'to believe

that they who among us pass their lives in the cultivation of knowledge or

acquisition of power, have very anxiously inquired what opinions prevail on

the further banks of the Ganges.... The hopes and fears of modern minds are

content to range in a narrower compass; a single nation, and a few years

have generally sufficient amplitude to fill our imagination.' What a

singular comment on this passage is supplied by the fact that the dominions

of England now stretch from the Ganges to the Indus, that the whole space

of India is dotted with the regimental libraries of its European

conquerors, and that Rasselas has been translated into Bengalee! A few

years later the great historian of England had a much clearer perception of

what was then in the womb of Fate. When Gibbon, as has been already

mentioned, submitted to Hume, a specimen of his intended History of

Switzerland, composed in French, he received a remarkable letter in reply:

'Why,' said Hume, 'do you compose in French and carry faggots into the

wood, as Horace says with regard to Romans who wrote in Greek? I grant that

you have a like motive to those Romans, and adopt a language much more

generally diffused than your native tongue, but have you not remarked the

fate {568} of those two ancient languages in following ages? The Latin,

though then less celebrated and confined to more narrow limits, has in some

measure outlived the Greek, and is now more generally understood by men of

letters. Let the French therefore triumph in the present diffusion of their

tongue. Our solid and increasing establishments in America, where we need

less dread the inundation of barbarians, promise a superior stability and

duration to the English language.'

"Every year that has since elapsed has added a superior degree of

probability to the anticipations of Hume. At present the prospects of the

English language are the most splendid that the world has ever seen. It is

spreading in each of the quarters of the globe by fashion, by emigration,

and by conquest. The increase of population alone in the two great states

of Europe and America in which it is spoken, adds to the number of its

speakers in every year that passes, a greater amount than the whole number

of those who speak some of the literary languages of Europe, either

Swedish, or Danish, or Dutch. It is calculated that, before the lapse of

the present century, a time that so many now alive will live to witness, it

will be the native and vernacular language of about one hundred and fifty

millions of human beings.

"What will be the state of Christendom at the time that this vast

preponderance of one language will be brought to bear on all its

relations,--at the time when a leading nation in Europe and a gigantic

nation in America make use of the same idiom,--when in Africa and

Australasia the same language is in use by rising and influential

communities, and the world is circled by the accents of Shakspeare and

Milton? At that time such of the other languages of Europe as do not extend

their empire beyond this quarter of the globe will be reduced to the same

degree of insignificance in comparison with English, as the subordinate

languages of modern Europe to those of the state they belong to,--the Welsh

to the English, the Basque to the Spanish, the Finnish to the Russian. This

predominance, we may flatter ourselves, will be a more signal blessing to

literature than that of any other language could possibly be. The English

is essentially a {569} medium language;--in the Teutonic family it stands

midway between the Germanic and Scandinavian branches--it unites as no

other language unites, the Romanic and the Teutonic stocks. This fits it

admirably in many cases for translation. A German writer, Prince Pueckler

Muskau, has given it as his opinion that English is even better adapted

than German to be the general interpreter of the literature of Europe.

Another German writer, Jenisch, in his elaborate 'Comparison of Fourteen

Ancient and Modern Languages of Europe,' which obtained a prize from the

Berlin Academy in 1796, assigns the general palm of excellence to the

English. In literary treasures what other language can claim the

superiority? If Rivarol more than sixty years back thought the collective

wealth of its literature able to dispute the pre-eminence with the French,

the victory has certainly not departed from us in the time that has since

elapsed,--the time of Wordsworth and Southey, of Rogers and Campbell, of

Scott, of Moore, and of Byron.

"The prospect is so glorious that it seems an ungrateful task to interrupt

its enjoyment by a shade of doubt: but as the English language has attained

to this eminent station from small beginnings, may it not be advisable to

consider whether obstacles are not in existence, which, equally small in

their beginnings, have a probability of growing larger? The first

consideration that presents itself is that English is not the only language

firmly planted on the soil of America, the only one to which a glorious

future is, in the probable course of things, assured.

"A sufficient importance has not always been attached to the fact, that in

South America, and in a portion of the northern continent, the languages of

the Peninsula are spoken by large and increasing populations. The Spanish

language is undoubtedly of easier acquisition for the purposes of

conversation than our own, from the harmony and clearness of its

pronunciation; and it has the recommendation to the inhabitants of Southern

Europe of greater affinity to their own languages and the Latin. Perhaps

the extraordinary neglect which has been the portion of this language for

the last {570} century and a half may soon give place to a juster measure

of cultivation, and indeed the recent labours of Prescott and Ticknor seem

to show that the dawn of that period has already broken. That the men of

the North should acquire an easy and harmonious southern language seems in

itself much more probable than that the men of the south should study a

northern language, not only rugged in its pronunciation, but capricious in

its orthography. The dominion of Spanish in America is, however,

interrupted and narrowed by that of Portuguese, and to a singular degree by

that of the native languages, some of which are possibly destined to be

used for literary purposes in ages to come.

"At the time when Hume wrote his letter to Gibbon, the conquest of Canada

had very recently been effected. The rivalry of the French and English in

North America had been terminated by the most signal triumph of the English

arms. Had measures been taken at that time to discourage the use of French

and to introduce that of English, there can be little doubt that English

would now be as much the language of Quebec and Montreal as it is of New

York and the Delaware. Those measures were not taken. At this moment, when

we are approaching a century from the battle of the Heights of Abraham,

there is still a distinction of races in Canada, nourished by a distinction

of language, and both appear likely to continue.

"Within the United States themselves, a very large body of the inhabitants

have remained for generation after generation ignorant of the English

language. The number is uncertain. According to Stricker, in his

dissertation 'Die Verbreitung des deutschen Volkes ueber die Erde,'

published in 1845, the population of German origin in the United States in

1844 was 4,886,632, out of a total of 18,980,650. This statement, though

made in the most positive terms, is founded on an estimate only, and has

been shown to be much exaggerated. Wappaus (in his 'Deutsche Auswanderung

und Colonisation'), after a careful examination, arrives at the conclusion

that the total cannot amount to a million and a half. Many of these are of

course acquainted with both {571} languages--in several cases where

amalgamation has taken place, the German language has died out and been

replaced by the English,--but the number of communities where it is still

prevalent is much larger than is generally supposed. In Pennsylvania, Ohio,

and Missouri, to say nothing of other states, there are masses of

population of German origin or descent, who are only acquainted with

German. This tendency has of late years increased instead of declining. It

has been a favourite project with recent German emigrants to form in

America a state, in which the language should be German, and from the vast

numbers in which they have crossed the Atlantic, there is nothing

improbable in the supposition, that, by obtaining a majority in some one

state, this object will be attained. In 1835 the legislature of

Pennsylvania placed the German language in its legal rights on the same

footing with the English.

"It may be asked if any damage will be done by this? The damage, it may be

answered, will be twofold. The parties who are thus formed into an isolated

community, with a language distinct from that of those around them, will be

placed under the same disadvantages as the Welsh of our own day, who find

themselves always as it were some inches shorter than their neighbours, and

have to make an exertion to be on their level. Those of them who are only

masters of one language are in a sort of prison; those who are masters of

two, might, if English had been their original speech, have had their

choice of the remaining languages of the world to exert the same degree of

labour on, with a better prospect of advantage. In the case of Welsh, the

language has many ties: even those who see most clearly the necessity of

forsaking it, must lament the harsh necessity of abandoning to oblivion the

ancient tongue of an ancient nation. But these associations and feelings

could not be pleaded in favour of transferring the Welsh to Otaheite; and

when these feelings are withdrawn, what valid reason will remain for the

perpetuation of Welsh, or even, it may be said, of German?

"The injury done to the community itself is perhaps the greatest; but there

is a damage done to the world in general. It will be a splendid and a novel

experiment in modern society, if a single language becomes so predominant

over all others as {572} to reduce them in comparison to the proportion of

provincial dialects. To have this experiment fairly tried, is a great

object. Every atom that is subtracted from the amount of the majority has

its influence--it goes into the opposite scale. If the Germans succeed in

establishing their language in the United States, other nations may follow.

The Hungarian emigrants, who are now removing thither from the vengeance of

Austria, may perpetuate their native Magyar, and America may in time

present a surface as checkered as Europe, or in some parts, as Hungary

itself, where the traveller often in passing from one village to another,

finds himself in the domain of a different language. That this consummation

may be averted must be the wish not only of every Englishman and of every

Anglo-American, but of every sincere friend of the advancement of

literature and civilization. Perhaps a few more years of inattention to the

subject will allow the evil to make such progress that exertion to oppose

it may come too late."

* * * * *

s. 713. Of the Gypsy language I need only say, that it is not only

Indo-Germanic, but that it is Hindoo. Few words from it have mixed

themselves with our standard (or even our provincial) dialects.

Thieves' language, or that dialect for which there is no name, but one from

its own vocabulary, _viz._ Slang, is of greater value in philology than in

commerce. It serves to show that in speech nothing is arbitrary. Its

compound phrases are either periphrastic or metaphorical; its simple

monosyllables are generally those of the current language in an older form.

The thieves of London are conservators of Anglo-Saxonisms. In this dialect

I know of no specimens earlier than the reign of Queen Elizabeth. In the

dramatic literature of that age they are rife and common. The Roaring Girl,

the Jolly Beggars, amongst the plays, and Deckar's Bellman amongst the

tracts, preserve us a copious vocabulary, similar to what we have now, and

similar to what it was in Gay's time. Of this the greater part is Saxon.

Here and there appears a word of Latin origin, _e.g._, _pannum_, bread;

_cassons_, cheese. Of the Gypsy language I have discovered no trace. {573}

s. 714. The Talkee-Talkee is a Lingua Franca based on the English, and

spoken by the Negroes of Surinam.

It is Dutch rather than English; it shows, however, the latter language as

an element of admixture.

SPECIMEN.[87]

1. Drie deh na bakka dem holi wan bruiloft na Cana na Galilea; on mamma

va Jesus ben de dapeh.

2. Ma dem ben kali Jesus nanga hem discipel toe, va kom na da bruiloft.

3. En teh wieni kaba, mamma va Jesus takki na hem; dem no habi wieni

morro.

4. Jesus takki na hem: mi mamma, hoeworko mi habi nanga joe? Tem va mi

no ben kom jette.

5. Hem mamma takki na dem foetoeboi; oene doe sanni a takki gi oene.

6. Ma dem ben poetti dapeh siksi biggi watra-djoggo, na da fasi va Djoe

vo krieni dem: inniwan djoggo holi toe effi drie kannetjes.

7. Jesus takki na dem [foetoeboi]: Oene foeloe dem watra-djoggo nanga

watra. Ed dem foeloe dem teh na moeffe.

8. En dan a takki na dem: Oene poeloe pikinso, tjarri go na

grang-foetoeboi. En dem doe so.

9. Ma teh grangfoetoeboi tesi da watra, dissi ben tron wieni, kaba a no

sabi, na hoepeh da wieni komotto (ma dem foetoeboi dissi ben teki da

watra ben sabi): a kali da bruidigom.

10. A takki na hem: Inniwan somma njoesoe va gi fossi da morro switti

wieni, en teh dem dringi noeffe kaba, na bakka da mendre swittiwan; ma

joe ben kiebri da morro boennewan.

11. Datti da fossi marki dissi Jesus ben doe; en datti ben passa na

Cana na Galilea va dem somma si hem glori. En dem discipel va hem

briebi na hem.

1. Three day after back, them hold one marriage in Cana in Galilee, and

mamma of Jesus been there.

2. But them been call Jesus with him disciple, for come to that

marriage.

3. And when wine end, mamma of Jesus talk to him, them no have wine

more.

4. Jesus talk to him, me mamma how work me have with you? Time of me no

been come yet.

5. Him mamma talk to them footboy, ye do things he talk to ye.

6. But them been put there six big water-jug, after the fashion of Jew

for clean them; every one jug hold two or three firkins.

{574} 7. Jesus talk to them (footboy): ye fill them water jug with

water. And them fill them till to mouth.

8. And then he talk to them, ye pour little, carry go to grandfootboy.

And them do so.

9. But when grandfootboy taste that water, this been turn wine, could

he no know from where that wine come-out-of (but them footboy this been

take that water well know): he call the bridegroom.

10. He talk to him, every one man use of give first the more sweet

wine; and when them drink enough end, after back the less sweety wine:

but you been cover that more good wine.

11. That the first miracle that Jesus been do, and that been pass in

Cana in Galilee, for them men see him glory. And them disciple of him

believe in him.

s. 715. That the Anglo-Norman of England was, in the reign of Edward III.,

not the French of Paris (and most probably not the Franco-Norman of

Normandy), we learn from the well-known quotation from Chaucer:--

And Frenche she spake ful feteously,

After the scole of Stratforde at Bowe,

For Frenche of Parys was to her unknowe.

_Prologue to the Canterbury Tales._

s. 716. The concluding extract from the Testamenta Eboracensia, published

by the Surtees' Society, is from the will of a gentleman in Yorkshire. To

me it seems to impugn the assertion of Higden, that the Norman was spoken

throughout England without a variety of pronunciation: "Mirandum videtur

quomodo nativa propria Anglorum lingua, in unica insula coartata,

pronunciatione ipsa fit tam diversa, cum tamen Normannica lingua, quae

adventicia est, univoca maneat penes cunctos."--_Ed. Gale_, p. 210.

_Testamenta Eboracensia_, CLIX.

En le noune de Dieu, et de notre Dame Sante Marie, et en noun de teuz

le sauntez de Paradyse, Amen. Moi Brian de Stapylton devise m'alme a

Dieu et a notre Dame Saunte Marie, et a touz lez Sauntz de Paradyse, et

mon chautiff corps d'estre enterre en le Priourie de le Parke decoste

ma compaigne, que Dieu l'assoille, et sur mon corps seit un drape de

blew saye; et ma volunte ett au l'aide de Dieu d'avoire un herce ov

synke tapirs, chescun tapir de synk livers, et tresze hommes vestuz en

bluw ov tresze torchez, {575} de queux tresze torchez, si ne saiount

degastez, jeo voile que quatre demore a le dit Priorie.

Item jeo devyse que j'ay un homme armes en mes armes et ma hewme ene sa

teste, et quy soit bien monte et un homme de bon entaille de qil

condicon que y sort.

Item jeo devyse que touz ceaux, qui a moy appendent meignialx en ma

maison, soient vestuz en bluw a mes costagez. Et a touz les poores,

qils veignent le jour de mon enterment jeo devise et voile que chescun

ait un denier en ovre de charrte, et en aide de ma chitiffe alme, et

jeo voile que les sires mes compaignons mez aliez et mez voiseignez,

qui volliont venir de lour bone gre prier pour moy et pour faire honour

a mon chettife corps, qi peue ne vault, jeo oille et chargez mez

executour que y soient mesme cel jour bien a eise, et q'il eient a

boiere asseth, et a cest ma volunt['e] parfournir jeo devise ci marcae

ove l'estore de maison taunke juiste seit.

s. 717. _Relations of dialects_ (_so-called_) _to languages_

(_so-called_).--"It is necessary clearly to conceive the nature and

character of what we call dialects. The Doric, Aeolic, and Ionic for

example, in the language of grammarians, are dialects of the Greek: to what

does this assertion amount? To this only, that among a people called the

Greeks, some being Dorians spoke a language called Doric, some being

Aeolians spoke another language called Aeolic, while a third class,

Ionians, spoke a third language called, from them, Ionic. But though all

these are termed dialects of the Greek, it does not follow that there was

ever a Greek language of which these were variations, and which had any

being apart from these. Dialects then are essentially languages: and the

name dialect itself is but a convenient grammarian's phrase, invented as

part of the machinery by which to carry on reasonings respecting languages.

We learn the language which has the best and largest literature extant; and

having done so, we treat all very nearly resembling languages as

_variations_ from what we have learnt. And that dialects are in truth

several languages, will readily appear to any one who perceives the

progressive development of the principle of separation in cognate tongues.

The language of the Bavarian highlander or High Dutch, the language of the

Hanoverian lowlander or Low Dutch, are German dialects: elevate, as it is

called, regulate, and purify the one, and it assumes the {576} name and

character of a language--it is German. Transplant the other to England, let

nine centuries pass over it, and it becomes a language too, and a language

of more importance than any which was ever yet spoken in the world, it has

become English. Yet none but practised philologists can acknowledge the

fact that the German and English languages are dialects of one Teutonic

tongue."

s. 718. _Relation of dialects to the older stages of the

mother-tongue._--This has been noticed in s. 691. The following extract

from Mr. Kemble's paper just quoted, illustrates what he calls the

_spontaneity_ of dialects:--