PREFACE DEDICATORY. IX 



are as certainly the remains of an old 

 tongue once used in England even by the 

 educated. This dialect has greatly changed, 

 and is still changing, and we may both 

 live to find that it is destined to undergo 

 a still further mutation. 



It appears from Higden, whose Chronicle 

 was written in the 14th century, that in 

 his days the people of the West of England 

 could understand the language of their 

 countrymen in the Eastern parts of the 

 Island, but that the men of the South 

 actually could not understand those of the 

 North. He instances especially the dialect 

 of Yorkshire, which he describes as grating 

 and uncouth in the extreme.* Caxton, in 

 his edition of Trevisa's " Polychronicon " 

 (A. D. 1482), modernized the language and 

 adapted it to his time : " Therefore I, 

 William Caxton, a symple person, have 



* Tota lingua North umbrorum, max i me in Eboraco, 

 ita stridet incondita. Lib. i. 



