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of the Border line — Cumberland or Dumfriesshire — and expressed 

 in a measure and dialect which are at times less Cumbrian than 

 Scotch. 



I now turn to the Poets and Poetry of Cumberland properly 

 so called. Their dialect is the dialect of Cumberland and Lake- 

 land, without connexion with Scotland and the Borders, and their 

 pieces valuable, not perhaps so much on account of any intrinsic 

 excellence, as from the fact that tliey give us a reflex of Cumberland 

 and Westmorland manners and customs without interruption for 

 almost two centuries ; in that they have embalmed in rhyme and 

 rhythm a dialect which the rapid advances of civilization, the 

 increased intercourse brought into the most out-of-the-way places 

 by railways; and lastly, but by no means leastly — the rooting out 

 of the dialect by the compulsory school system, will speedily make 

 it to become one of the things that have been. And yet we 

 Cumbrians, and I may venture to add — some of you of West- 

 morland, cling to it. The dialect speaks to us of home and friends. 

 The kind words of a father and a mother were first spoken to us 

 in the dialect ; and we still remember them in our heart in the 

 dialect, with all their utterances of care, of kindness, and of love. 

 It is the dialect that speaks to us of all the familiar scenes and 

 doings of our childhood and boyhood. And when separated by 

 the hard fate of circumstances, Cumbrians again meet in far distant 

 lands, it may be among men speaking a far different language, it is 

 often the dialect, with its masonic significance, that reminds them 

 — far distant from home though they are — of their bond of brother- 

 hood, and teaches them that in their case, at any rate — 



Man to man, the wide world o'er, 

 Shall brithers be for a' that. 



We can trace the Cumbrian poets down in almost unbroken 

 succession from the year 1700 until the present time. It is an 

 advantage to them in their representative character, that they have 

 sprung from almost every class, and filled almost every rank in 

 their native county. 



We have the quiet and retiring country clergyman and school- 



