English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day

ely, in the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries; but its early documents have nearly all perished. If, with the excepti

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

that we owe our knowledge of the grammar, the metre, and the pronunciation of the older forms of English. Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Prim

uest, 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,

f 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

ber 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 ?neas. 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 (o

-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,

ect, 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. B?ddeker, 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,

ch 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 arrang

veral 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 edit

the most important is his translation into English, from t

nslations by Trevisa. But in quite modern times, an excellent example of it has a