THE SOUTHERN DIALECT
We have seen that the earliest dialect to assume literary supremacy
was the Northern, and that at a very early date, namely, in the
seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries; but its early documents have
nearly all perished. If, with the exception of one short fragment, any
of Cædmon's poems have survived, they only exist in Southern versions
of a much later date.
The chief fosterer of our rather extensive Wessex (or Southern)
literature, commonly called Anglo-Saxon, was the great Alfred, born
at Wantage in Berkshire, to the south of the Thames. We may roughly
define the limits of the Old Southern dialect by saying that it
formerly included all the counties to the south of the Thames and to
the west and south-west of Berkshire, including Wiltshire, Dorsetshire,
Somersetshire, and Devonshire, but excluding Cornwall, in which
the Cornish dialect of Celtic prevailed. It was at Athelney in
Somersetshire, near the junction of the rivers Tone and Parrett, that
Alfred, in the memorable year 878, when his dominions were reduced to
a precarious sway over two or three counties, established his famous
stronghold; from which he issued to inflict upon the foes of the
future British empire a crushing and decisive defeat. And it was near
Athelney, in the year 1693, that the ornament of gold and enamel was
found, with its famous legend--ÆLFRED MEC HEHT GEWYRCAN--"Ælfred
commanded (men) to make me."
From his date to the Norman Conquest, the MSS. in the Anglo-Saxon or
Southern dialect are fairly numerous, and it is mainly to them that we
owe our knowledge of the grammar, the metre, and the pronunciation of
the older forms of English. Sweet's _Anglo-Saxon Primer_ will enable
any one to begin the study of this dialect, and to learn something
valuable about it in the course of a month or two.
The famous _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, beginning with a note concerning
the year 1, when Augustus was emperor of Rome, not only continues our
history down to the Conquest, but for nearly a century beyond it, to
the year 1154. The language of the latter part, as extant in the
(Midland) Laud MS., belongs to the twelfth century, and shows
considerable changes in the spelling and grammar as compared with
the Parker MS., which (not counting in a few later entries) ends
with the year 1001.
After the Conquest, the Southern dialect continued to be the literary
language, and we have several examples of it. Extracts from some of
the chief works are given in Part I of Morris's _Specimens of Early
English_. They are selected from the following: (1) _Old English
Homilies_, 1150-1200, as printed for the Early English Text Society,
and edited by Dr Morris, 1867-8. (2) _Old English Homilies, Second
Series_, before 1200, ed. Morris (E.E.T.S.), 1873. (3) _The Brut_,
being a versified chronicle of the legendary history of Britain,
compiled by Layamon, a Worcestershire priest, and extending to 32,240
(short) lines; in two versions, the date of the earlier being about
1205. (4) _A Life of St Juliana_, in two versions, about 1210; ed.
Cockayne and Brock (E.E.T.S.), 1872. (5) _The Ancren Riwle_, or Rule
of anchorite nuns (Camden Society), ed. Morton, 1853; the date of
composition is about 1210. (6) _The Proverbs of Alfred_, about 1250;
printed in Dr Morris's _Old English Miscellany_ (E.E.T.S.), 1872.
A later edition, by myself, was printed at Oxford in 1907. (7) A poem
by Nicholas de Guildford, entitled _The Owl and the Nightingale_,
about 1250; ed. Rev. J. Stevenson, 1838; ed. T. Wright, 1843; ed. F.H.
Stratmann, of Krefeld, 1868. (8) A curious poem of nearly 400 long
lines, usually known as _A Moral Ode_, which seems to have been
originally written at Christchurch, Hampshire, and frequently printed;
one version is in Morris's _Old English Homilies_, and another in the
Second Series of the same. (9) _The Romance of King Horn_; before
1300, here printed in full.
Just at the very end of the century we meet with two Southern poems
of vast length. _The Metrical Chronicle_ of Robert of Gloucester,
comprising the History of Britain from the Siege of Troy to the year
1272, the date of the accession of Edward I, and written in the
dialect of Gloucester, was completed in 1298. It must seem strange to
many to find that our history is thus connected with the Siege of
Troy; but it must be remembered that our old histories, including
Layamon's poem of _The Brut_ mentioned above, usually included the
fabulous history of very early Britain as narrated by Geoffrey
of Monmouth; and it is useful to remember that we owe to this
circumstance such important works as Shakespeare's _King Lear_ and
_Cymbeline_, as well as the old play of _Locrine_, once attributed
to Shakespeare. According to Robert's version of Geoffrey's story,
Britain was originally called Brutain, after Brut or Brutus, the son
of Æneas. Locrin was the eldest son of Brutus and his wife Innogen,
and defeated Humber, king of Hungary, in a great battle; after which
Humber was drowned in the river which still bears his name. Locrin's
daughter Averne (or Sabre in Geoffrey) was drowned likewise, in the
river which was consequently called Severn. The British king Bathulf
(or, in Geoffrey, Bladud) was the builder of Bath; and the son of
Bladud was Leir, who had three daughters, named Gornorille, Began, and
Cordeille. Kymbel (in Geoffrey, Kymbelinus), who had been brought up
by Augustus Cæsar, was king of Britain at the time of the birth of
Christ; his sons were Guider and Arvirag (Guiderius and Arviragus).
Another king of Britain was King Cole, who gave name (says Geoffrey
falsely) to Colchester. We come into touch with authentic history with
the reign of Vortigern, when Hengist and Horsa sailed over to Britain.
An extract from Robert of Gloucester is given in _Specimens of Early
English_, Part II.
The other great work of the same date is the vast collection edited
for the Early English Text Society by Dr Horstmann in 1887, entitled,
_The Early South-English Legendary_, or Lives of Saints. It is extant
in several MSS., of which the oldest (MS. Laud 108) originally
contained 67 Lives; with an Appendix, in a later hand, containing
two more. The eleventh Life is that of St Dunstan, which is printed
in _Specimens of Early English_, Part II, from another MS.
Soon after the year 1300 the use of the Southern dialect becomes
much less frequent, with the exception of such pieces as belong
particularly to the county of Kent and will be considered by
themselves. There are two immense manuscript collections of various
poems, originally in various dialects, which are worth notice.
One of these is the Harleian MS. No. 2253, in the British Museum, the
scribe of which has reduced everything into the South-Western dialect,
though it is plain that, in many cases, it is not the dialect in which
the pieces were originally composed; this famous manuscript belongs to
the beginning of the fourteenth century. Many poems were printed from
it, with the title of _Altenglische Dichtungen_, by Dr K. Böddeker,
in 1878. Another similar collection is contained in the Vernon MS. at
Oxford, and belongs to the very end of the same century; the poems in
it are all in a Southern dialect, which is that of the scribe. It
contains, e.g., a copy of the earliest version of _Piers the Plowman_,
which would have been far more valuable if the scribe had retained the
spelling of his copy. This may help us to realise one of the great
difficulties which beset the study of dialects, namely, that we
usually find copies of old poems reduced to the scribe's _own_
dialect; and it may easily happen that such a copy varies
considerably from the correct form.
It has already been shown that the rapid rise and spread of the
Midland dialect during the fourteenth century practically put an
end to the literary use of Northern not long after 1400, except in
Scotland. It affected Southern in the same way, but at a somewhat
earlier date; so that (even in Kent) it is very difficult to find a
Southern work after 1350. There is, however, one remarkable exception
in the case of a work which may be dated in 1387, written by John
Trevisa. Trevisa (as the prefix Tre- suggests) was a native of
Cornwall, but he resided chiefly in Gloucestershire, where he was
vicar of Berkeley, and chaplain to Thomas Lord Berkeley. The work
to which I here refer is known as his translation of Higden. Ralph
Higden, a Benedictine monk in the Abbey of St Werburg at Chester,
wrote in Latin a long history of the world in general, and of Britain
in particular, with the title of the _Polychronicon_, which achieved
considerable popularity. The first book of this history contains 60
chapters, the first of which begins with P, the second with R, and
so on. If all these initials are copied out in their actual order,
we obtain a complete sentence, as follows:--"Presentem cronicam
compilavit Frater Ranulphus Cestrensis monachus"; i.e. Brother Ralph,
monk of Chester, compiled the present chronicle. I mention this
curious device on the part of Higden because another similar acrostic
occurs elsewhere. It so happens that Higden's _Polychronicon_ was
continued, after his death, by John Malverne, who brought down the
history to a later date, and included in it an account of a certain
Thomas Usk, with whom he seems to have been acquainted. Now, in a
lengthy prose work of about 1387, called _The Testament of Love_,
I one day discovered that its author had adopted a similar device--no
doubt imitating Higden--and had so arranged that the initial letters
of his chapters should form a sentence, as follows:--"Margarete of
virtw, have merci on Thsknvi." There is no difficulty about the
expression "Margarete of virtw," because the treatise itself explains
that it means Holy Church, but I could make nothing of _Thsknvi_, as
the letters evidently require rearrangement. But Mr Henry Bradley, one
of the editors of the _New English Dictionary_, discovered that the
chapters near the end of the treatise are out of order; and when he
had restored sense by putting them as they should be, the new reading
of the last seven letters came out as "thin vsk," i.e. "thine Usk";
and the attribution of this treatise to Thomas Usk clears up every
difficulty and fits in with all that John Malverne says. This, in
fact, is the happy solution of the authorship of _The Testament of
Love_, which was once attributed to Chaucer, though it is obviously
not his at all.
But it is time to return to John Trevisa, Higden's translator. This
long translation is all in the Southern dialect, originally that of
Gloucestershire, though there are several MSS. that do not always
agree. A fair copy of it, from a MS. in the library of St John's
College, Cambridge, is given side by side with the original Latin in
the edition already noticed. It is worth adding that Caxton printed
Trevisa's version, altering the spelling to suit that of his own time,
and giving several variations of reading.
Trevisa was also the author of some other works, of which the most
important is his translation into English, from the original Latin,
of _Bartholomæus de Proprietatibus Rerum_.
I am not aware of any important work in the Southern dialect later
than these translations by Trevisa. But in quite modern times, an
excellent example of it has appeared, viz. in the _Poems of Rural
Life, in the Dorset Dialect_, by William Barnes.