174 



KNOWLEDGE, 



[July 1, 1897. 



not missed this poetical term. 

 Scene 1) he speaks of — 



In " King John " (Act II., 



'This 'fore- wearied' flesli." 



One of the " broad " uses of the mother tongue is the 

 sounding of the letter " o " as if it were " w." This truly 

 is a broad and curious characteristic, and really comes some- 

 what harshly upon the car of those in search of the expres- 

 sive and picturesque in diction. The harvester I sometimes 

 meet in the neighbourhood of the Red House Farm at 

 Lillington, astonished me one hot summer day by saying : 

 "Hey, the weather's uncommon — uncommon it be. The 

 wuts be a'most ready for the blade now." Oats are " wuts " 

 in the dialect of the Warwickshire peasant, and in this 

 and similar uses of the "w" for " o," he betrays that 

 broadness of speech which is the one blemish upon his 

 simple, direct, and entertaining tongue. 



As an illustration of the wealth of curiosities studding 

 this interesting language, mention may be made of the 

 original additions which the uncultured peasant tacks on 

 to the orthography of his native greenwood. This is one 

 of the most amusing, and, at the same time, stedfast 

 features of the Warwickshire rural dialect. I allude to 

 the permanent addition of " n " to many of the words in 

 use by the rustic. As countrymen of a genius in the art 

 of dialectical expression, the peasantry of Shakespeare's 

 greenwood are not content to say " his " ; with them it is 

 always " hisn." This peculiarity proceeds through quite a 

 range of familiar terms. " That be a nice row of housen," 

 is Strephon's way of saying ' ' That is a nice row of houses." 

 In like manner, " ours " is " ourn " with him, " yours " is 

 " yourn," " hers " is " hern," " theirs " is "theirn," and so 

 on ; making the language quite original in its grip and 

 quaintness. 



A similar perversion of the letters of the alphabet is to 

 be seen in the rural substitution of " y " for " h " or " i." 

 This has a striking effect, as anyone who has been amongst 

 the Warwickshire rustics can readily testify. To hear a 

 man who has been accidentally struck on the head by a 

 fellow worker crying out, " Come, butty ! my yed yent 'ard 

 enough for that sort o' game, ye know," when he means 

 that his " head is not," is very quaint and amusing indeed. 

 Nearly every Warwickshire rustic, devoted to his own rood 

 of native earth, or migrating to " fresh woods and pastures 

 new," uses the word "yent" for is not, and "yed" for 

 " head." With him, too, are such pronounced peculiarities 

 of speech as " wevver " for " however," and " yarbs " for 

 "herbs"; as, " Ye hev a good bed o' yarbs there, yent ye ? " 

 In this sense " yent " stands for ♦' haven't" or " have not." 



As might readily be imagined, bearing in mind the 

 isolated and lonely nature of some portions of Shakespeare's 

 greenwood, the word " uuked " is constantly heard. 

 Speaking of a certain farm, my shepherd friend one day 

 said to me, " 'Tis a martal unked place, I can tell thee ; 

 there's 'ardly a cow's yed on't, so you can tell." In rural 

 Warwickshire this word " unked " is used in a variety of 

 ways. It is applied to person, animal, place, or thing. 

 One meaning of the term is lonely, dull, solitary ; as, for 

 instance, " 1 feel very unked wi' nobody to speak to." 

 Another applies to sights and scenes. A maiden will say, 

 " Oh, but I had such a unked dream last night." In fact, 

 the general significance of the word seems to be that any- 

 thing of an unpleasing nature to the sight, or affecting the 

 well-being of the person, is " unked " in the imderstanding 

 of these picturesque woodlanders. 



The what I may call poetic touch in the language of 

 Shakespeare's greenwood is very happily seen in the word 

 " favours." No true peasant of leafy Warwickshire ever 

 neglects the use of this pretty word. Whenever two 

 mothers are discussing the comeliness of a child at the 



garden gate of their cottage, one of them is sure to say, 

 " I think she favours her father." To " favour " is to look 

 like, to resemble. " 'Tis said as I favour you, mother, 

 more nor father," a fond daughter wLU cry with delight, 

 her mother being pretty ; and in like manner the shepherd, 

 after tracing the lineaments of a lamb, will sagely remark, 

 " I judge as her favours her dam." 



That word "judge," too, so extensively used by the 

 peasantry, has quite a Shakespearean ring about it. What, 

 for example, could be prettier than the expression of an 

 aged parent to her newly assembled children : " God bless 

 all on ye ; I judged ye'd be coming to see me this 

 motherin'" — meaning "I thought you would." In another 

 way "judge " is used as an accusation, as, " I judge ye o' 

 havin' tolled that lie." To "judge" literally means to 

 think or to accuse, and the sense in which it is uttered has 

 quite a charm as it issues from the rustic's tongue. 



These are a few selections of the principal characteristics 

 peculiar to the language of Shakespeare's greenwood. 

 They have been taken at random with a view to making 

 these two papers both interesting and informing ; but they 

 will suffice, I think, to clearly evince the grip, the direct- 

 ness, and the picturesque quality of the dialect of this 

 woody and classical county. There are few tongues so 

 exclusive, and so little prone to change, as the tongue of 

 the Warwickshire peasant ; and yet, as I have pointed 

 out, this county, well called (Drayton) 



" The heart of England," 



is, perhaps, more assailed by the influences of modern 

 change than many other shires not so frequently visited. 



Living so far in the core of nature's heart, it may be 

 that the rustic of Shakespeare's greenwood has become what 

 Gilbert White of Selborne would call " a stationary man," 

 devoted alike to his language and his soil. Certain it is 

 that the homely, direct speech written more than three 

 centuries ago by the great dramatist of Stratford-on-Avou, 

 is practically the same as the peasantry speak to-day. 



And the manners, moreover, are much the same, as I 

 will show by one single illustration. Human nature being 

 nearly akin in any time, clime, or under any condition, it 

 is, perhaps, by no means remarkable that sometimes the 

 Warwickshire lasses will fall out with one another, and 

 eventually wage war. In such a case, one of the girls — 

 or both — is almost sure to say, " I'll set my ten com- 

 mandments in your face ! " which, in more vulgar language, 

 means, " I'll scratch your face with my ten nails." This 

 remark is directly conveyed from Shakespeare, to whom 

 this country and all the world owe so much, for in the 

 Second Part of " King Henry VI" (Act I., Scene 3) occurs 

 the following couplet : 



" Could I eome near your beauty with my nails, 

 I'd set my ten commandments in your face " — 



a very expressive example, indeed, of the language of 

 Shakespeare's greenwood. 



THE FACE OF THE SKY FOR JULY. 



By Herbert Sadler, F.R.A.S. 



THERE will be an annular eclipse of the Sun on the 

 29th, quite invisible in Europe. 

 Mercury is not well situated for observation this 

 month. On the 1st he rises about a quarter to 

 three a.m., or about one hour before the Sun, with 

 a northern declination at noon of 22° 35', and an apparent 

 diameter of (>". Shortly after this he approaches the Sun 

 too closely to be visible, being in superior conjunction with 

 him on the 15th. He is an evening star towards the end 

 of the month, but is still too close to the Sun to be visible. 



