PREFACE DEDICATORY. XI 



provincialisms in our old MSS. are not so 

 plain as some writers would lead us to 

 suppose. It seems rather, that most of 

 the works which have been preserved were 

 written with a view to their being gene- 

 rally comprehensible to Englishmen, and 

 not in the dialects of particular districts. 

 Robert of Gloster is a singular exception: 

 we have nothing so decidedly characteristic 

 of the language of the West of England, 

 and this so closely resembles the speech of 

 the Berkshire, Wiltshire, and Gloucester- 

 shire peasant of our day, that if read to 

 him carefully, it would be far from unin- 

 telligible. 



It is well known to those who have 

 made our provincialisms their study, that a 

 certain dialect and its modifications pre- 

 vails in a certain division of England, the 

 geographical limits of which may thus be 

 sketched : East and West, from Dover to 

 the Land^s End, and North and South 



