58 
JOURNAL OP THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
and Gloucester, corresponding to the kingdom of Wessex. Of all 
these three dialects we have distinct literary remains ; e.g. in the 
Northern dialect, Kolle's Pricke of Conscience (about 1 340) ; in the 
Southern dialect, Langlande's Vision of Piers Ploughman (about 
1362) ; and in the Midland dialect, Sir John Maundeville's Travels 
(1356). We have a contemporary account of these dialects in 
Trevisa's translation of Higden's Polychronicon (1387). The dialects 
were so distinct that translations were made from one to another. 
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the Midland dialect 
became established as the literary language, the language of the 
court and of educated persons. The position of London and of the 
Universities had no doubt much to do with this. The eminence of 
the writers who used this dialect — Wiclif, Gower, and Chaucer — 
perhaps had still more. The introduction of printing at the end 
of the fifteenth century contributed to establish and maintain the 
uniformity of the literary language. This then became the standard 
English ; and accordingly we find at the present day that the 
language of the people in and about the county of Huntingdon 
hardly varies from the received pronunciation. This is the true 
home of our standard English. Notwithstanding the establishment 
of a literary language, the dialects still continued to be spoken. 
They are noticed by Puttenham (about 1589), and are used by the 
dramatists; e.g. Edgar, in King Lear, speaks as a Kentish peasant of 
Shakspeare's time ; and in Jonson's Sad Shepherd we have a speci- 
men of the Northern dialect. The Northern dialect continued to 
have a rich literature ; for those whom we commonly call the 
Scotch poets are really Northern English in their language. Bar- 
bour, Wyntoun, Dunbar, and James I. of Scotland, always call 
the language in winch they wrote English; Dunbar addresses 
Chaucer as "of our Inglisch all the lycht, 
Surmounting eviry Tong terrestriall 
Als fer as Mayes inorow dois mydnycht." 
Latterly in Edwin Waugh the Lancashire variety of the Northern 
dialect has found a poet whose verses have attained a more than 
local fame ; and Mr. Barnes has used the Dorset variety of the 
Southern dialect in still sweeter verse ; while Tennyson, in his 
Northern Farmer, has used the East Midland — the Lincolnshire 
dialect — with a master's hand, and has given a bit of the Oxford- 
shire dialect in the conversation between Joan and Tib in Queen 
