JUNE 139 



blare of bugles from the barracks, and the measured 

 tramp of troops passing to the drill-ground. 



It has been shown how nearly the old capital of Wessex 

 became that of all England, and how it certainly would 

 have continued the capital if the Anglo-Saxon monarchy 

 had endured. Professor Skeat has indulged in some 

 curious speculations as to one result, at least, which 

 certainly would have followed had Winchester not yielded 

 the first place to London.^ 'English as she is spoke' 

 would have been but a dialect, and the literary language 

 imposed by the capital would have been the speech of 

 Wessex, instead of, as now, that of Mercia with a dash of 

 Northumbrian. John of Trevisa, who wrote good Southern 

 English in 1387, had a poor opinion of Mercian and 

 Northern English. 



' Also Englishmen,' runs one passage, rendered into modern 

 English, ' though they had from the beginning three manners of 

 speech, Southern, Northern, and Middle speech (in the middle 

 of the land), as they came of three manners of people of Germany 

 — none the less, by commixture, first with Danes and afterward 

 with Normans, in many of them the country language is im- 

 paired; and some use strange babbling, chattering, growling, 

 snarling, and gnashing of teeth. . . . All the language of the 

 Northumbrians, and especially at York, is so sharp, slitting, 

 grating, and unshapen, that we Southerners can scarcely under- 

 stand that language. I believe it is because they are nigh to 

 strangers and aliens that speak strangely, and also because the 

 kings of England always dwell far from that country. For they 

 turn rather towards the south country ; and if they go north- 

 wards, go with a great army. The reasons why they live more 

 in the south than the north may be, that there is better corn- 

 land there, and more people ; also nobler cities and more 

 profitable havens.' 



' Principles of English Etymology, 1887, p. 29 et seq. 



