Sir:
I have certainly great pleasure in complying with your request,
although I fear that any communication it is in my power to make,
will be of little use to you in your curious work on the West
Country dialect. The lines you desire are these:
Bread and cheese 'e' have a had,
That 'e' had 'e' have a eat,
More 'ch wou'd 'e' had it.
Sounds which, from association no doubt, carry with them to my ear
the idea of great vulgarity: but which might have a very different
effect on that of an unprejudiced hearer, when dignified by an
Anglo-Saxon pedigree. The Scotch dialect, now become _quite
classical_ with us, might, perhaps, labour under the same
disadvantage amongst those who hear it spoken by the vulgar only.
Although I am a native of Somersetshire, I have resided very
little in that county since my childhood, and, in my occasional
visits since, have had little intercourse with the
_aborigines_. I recollect, however, two or three words, which
you might not, perhaps, have met with. One of them of which I have
traditionary knowledge, being, I believe, now quite obsolete.
_Pitisanquint_ was used in reply to an inquiry after the
health of a person, and was, I understand, equivalent to _pretty
well_, or _so so_. The word _Lamiger_, which
signifies an invalid, I have no doubt you have met with. When any
one forbodes bad weather, or any disaster, it is very common to
say _Don't ye housenee_. Here you have the verbal
termination, which you remarked was so common in the West, and
which I cannot help thinking might have been originally vised as a
sort of diminutive, and that _to milkee_, signified to milk
_a little_.
As my knowledge of these few words is merely oral, I cannot answer
for the orthography; I have endeavoured to go as near the sound as
possible, and I only wish it were in my power to make some
communication more worth your attention. As it is, I have only my
best wishes to offer for the success of your truly original work.