Two easy tests for distinguishing the dialects are given by the present plural indicative of verbs, as well as by the form of the present participle. In the Northern dialect the present plural indicative ended in -es (sing-es, we, you, or they sing); in Midland, -en or -e (sing-en or sing-e, we, you, or they sing); in Southern, -eth (sing-eth, we, you, or they sing).

The present participle in the North ended in -and; in the Midland in ende; in the Southern in -inge. The last was changed into -ing, and completely superseded the other two.

V. THE STRUGGLE WITH THE NORMAN-FRENCH. 12. Books of Virtually Pure English.

However much the English dialects may have been in rivalry with one another, they made for a time a common front against their foe. The thirteenth century saw the production of several purely English books, written in the Northern, the Midland, or the Southern, most of them in verse, and all showing a strong desire to use the national tongue as bravely as possible. One of these books was Layamon's Brut in the Southern dialect, and appearing in 1205. It is a long fabulous poem, reciting the early history of Britain, freely translated from a French original by Wace. Layamon, a priest, who lived at Erneley, now called Arcley, in Worcestershire, towards the close of the twelfth century, undertook the work. It contains 32,000 lines, part of which are alliterative, after the Old English method, and part are rhymed after the manner of the original. The construction in both kinds is very loose, and the lines are mixed together indiscriminately. The old inflections, however, are preserved much more carefully by Layamon than by others who followed him. His grammar is neither regular nor correct; his language is obviously Anglo-Saxon, but he has treated it with the utmost negligence.

The following passage from the Brut illustrates Layamon's power of writing a full and effective description. It tells the story of the meeting of King Vortigern with the Princess Rowena, daughter of Hengist, and of the introduction of the Teutonic system of toasts amongst the British :

66 Hengest went to the abode
and caused her to be clad

All the garments that she wore
they were the best could be had,
She bore in her hand
filled with wine,

Men, high born,
before the king,

Rowena kneeled upon her knee,

where Rowena dwelt,
in splendour measureless.
were wondrously adorned;
encrusted with gold.
a golden bowl

than which was none better.
led her to the hall

the fairest of all things.
and cried to the king,

'Lord King, Wæs hæil!
The king this heard
So the King Vortigern
what was that speech
Then answered Keredic,
best of interpreters
'List now, Lord King,
what saith Rowena,
It is the custom

that a friend says to his friend,
Dear friend, Was hæil!
The same that holds the cup,
another, full, is fetched;
When that cup has come,
This is good law
and in Almaine

When Vortigern heard this,
and said, in British,

6 Maiden Rowena,

The maid drank up her wine,
and gave it to the king,
and he drank it up;

the law of Wes-hail came into
this land,

Was hail, Be hale.

thy coming makes me glad.'
but knew not what she said.
asked his knights quickly
the maiden had spoken.
a knight most illustrious,
that ever came there.
and I will tell thee
the fairest of women.

in the land of the Saxons
with kind look, and courteous,
the other says, Drink hail.
he drinks it up;

he entrusts it to his friend.
then kiss they thrice.
in Saxon land;

is held as noble.'
the cups he saw
(he could not in English),
drink ye blithely then.'
and brought the other in,
and thrice she kissed him;
and through this very game,

that many love so well."

Waes is the imperative of the verb wesan, to be. The amalgamation of the two words made Wassail. Almaine, Germany.

The next book of any value is the Ormulum, so called by its author after his own name, Ormin or Orm, an Augustinian monk, who lived in Lincolnshire. The Ormulum appeared between 1200 and 1215, but was written in a dialect quite different from Layamon's, although the space of time between them was so short. It was not Anglo-Saxon pure and simple, but Anglo-Saxon altered by contact with another tongue. That tongue was Danish, which had not only broken down and simplified the inflections in the East Midland dialect, but had encroached upon the dialect by forcing Danish words into it. The remains of this poem amount to some 20,000 short lines, divided into thirtytwo parts. They are founded on Gospel selections from the daily Church service, the narrative being first given in a loose paraphrase, with comments following it. The verses arranged in couplets, of eight and seven syllables respectively. Their accent is regular, though they have neither alliteration nor rhyme. A peculiarity of spelling marks the book-the doubling of the consonant to indicate a short vowel. Thus the words this, than, after, and under are spelt thiss, thann, afterr and unnderr.

are

The following passage will afford an example of Orm's quaint explanations of the Jewish sacrifices:

"The book of the Jewish people told them that they ought to bring two bucks at the same time to the priest at the church door; and they did so blithely as their book taught them, and brought the two bucks therewith to sacrifice to the Lord. At the church door the priest took the two bucks, and on one of them he laid there all their guilt and sin, and let it wander forth out into the wild waste; and he took and killed that other buck to make a sacrifice to the Lord. All this was done for their need, and also for our need. For it helped them before God to cleanse them of their sin; and so may it also help thee, if thou wilt also follow it, if thou wilt full inwardly with true faith believe all that was betokened there, which is what you should do. Then may this truth aid you to win the mercy of God. The two bucks signify to us one God of two kinds. It is the Lord Jesus Christ that is of two kinds; for Jesus Christ is verily, I believe, true God in divine nature, and He is also, in full truth, true man in man's nature. For Christ is both God and man, one person of two kinds; and this it is necessary for every man to believe who yearns for God's mercy. One buck ran away alive with all the folks' sins; and Christ's divine nature was all alive and undistressed, when Christ was upon the cross, nailed there for our need. And Christ's divine nature, all living and all without pain, bore our sins away, while Christ's human nature drank death's drink on the cross for our wicked deeds. And just as the other buck endured there the pains of death to honour the Lord by sacrifice for all folks' sin, so the human nature of Christ suffered death's pain on the cross, because He would offer Himself there to the Lord as a sacrifice to cleanse us, through His death, from the uncleanness of our sins.

"And so came Christ's divine nature quite alive up into Heaven, which, before the death of Christ, was as if it were waste land, since both angels and men had renounced it before. For the angels had deservedly lost the kingdom, because they would try to make themselves equal to God through pride, for which they fell quickly down from Heaven into Hell, into eternal woe, because that they had renounced eternal bliss. And all those that fell so, they are hateful devils, and continue in heat and envy to destroy men's souls. And thou mightest defend thyself from them through true love of Christ, and through the work that pertains thereto with Jesus Christ's help. And our two first men that the Lord created out of the earth lost also for their guilt, by righteous judgment, the bliss of heaven, since that they through the devil's counsel renounced the counsel of God; and because of this was the abode of Heaven like a wild waste, since both men and angels had forsaken it."

Another important work belonging to about the year 1220, is the Ancren Riwle, or Rule of Nuns, a book of instruction in conduct and behaviour for the younger sisters to obey. Some of these directions are curious in their frankness, as the accompanying specimens will show. The original text is a very valuable one, being a perfect specimen of the Southern dialect.

Directions as to Speech.

"First of all, when you have to go to your parlour window, enquire from your maiden who it is that has come, for it might be such a person as you ought to shun; but when you really must go forth, cross very carefully your mouth, ears, and eyes, and your breast also, and go forth with

God's dread to the priest. And first say Confiteor, and afterwards Benedicite. Listen carefully to what he has to say, and sit quite still, so that, when he goes from you, he knows neither good nor evil of you; then he can give you neither blame nor praise. Many are so well-informed, or so wisely worded, that they would like him to know it. They sit and speak to him, and requite him word for word, and take the place of master when they should be nuns, and they teach him that has come to teach them; they will by their talk soon be known and recognised as among the wise. Well recognised she is, for by the very thing that she expects to be thought much of he perceives that she is a fool. For she haunts after praise, and only catches blame. For at the last, when he is going away, "This nun,' says he, 'is of much speech.'

"Eve held in paradise a long talk with the serpent, and told him all that lesson that God had taught her and Adam concerning the apple; and so the fiend, by her words, understood immediately her weakness, and found a way to bring about her perdition. Our Lady, Saint Mary, did all the other way. She told the angel no stories, but asked him briefly about things she did not know. Ye, my dear sisters, follow our Lady, and not the cackling Eve. Therefore, let a nun, whoever she may be, as much as ever she can and may, hold her still; let her not have anything of the hen's nature. The hen, when she has laid, can do nothing but cackleand what gets she thereby? The raven comes immediately and deprives her of her eggs, and devours that from which she should bring forth her young birds; and exactly so the wicked chough, the devil, bears away from the cackling nun and swallows, all the good that she hath begotten, which, as birds, bear her upwards to heaven, if she had not cackled. The wretched pedlar makes more noise in crying his soap than the merchant all his precious ware. To some ghostly man that you may be trusting in-as ye may be of few-it is good if ye will ask advice, and pray him that he will teach you against temptations, and show in confession your greatest and your least sin, if he will pity you; and through his compassion will cry to Christ inwardly for mercy for you, and have you in his mind and in his prayers. 'But guard you, and be wary,' saith our Lord, 'for many come to you shrouded in lamb's fleece, but inwardly are ravening wolves.' Worldly men believe little; religious even less. Desire not too much their acquaintance. Eve, without dread, talked to the serpent. Our Lady was terrified of Gabriel's speech."

Between the years 1246 and 1250 a cheerful English poem by Nicholas of Guildford appeared, which is known by the name of The Owl and the Nightingale. It is the story of a quarrel between these two birds, each of whom brings before the other her own particular claims to admiration at the same time that she is careful to point out her rival's demerits. After a long dispute it seems that the birds called upon Nicholas of Guildford to act as judge between them.

Nicholas, in the course of the poem, tells us a little about himself. He appears to have been at first a gay young man of the world, but he had eventually entered the church, only to find that his talents were ignored; and in consequence he had to live as best he could in the dull village of Portesham in Dorsetshire.

The poem is written in the rhyming eight-syllable measure of the French romance; yet it is so very English, that in all its seventeen hundred lines there are only about twenty words of Norman origin. The dialect is that of the south of England, but it is wanting in any of the marked provincialisms which characterise some particular county.

"I was in a certain dale,

In a very secret spot,

I heard, holding a great tale,

An owl and a nightingale.

Their plea was stiff, and stark, and strong,
Sometimes soft, every now and then loud,
And each against the other swelled,

And let all its bad anger out.

And each said of the other's habits

The worst of all they knew;

And in between each other's song

They kept their quarrel very strong."

The dispute raged vigorously, and the nightingale made several long harangues, at the end of one of which

"She sang so loud and sharp,

As if one twanged a shrill harp
The owl gave ear thitherward,
And held her eyes downward,
And sat swollen and puffed-up,
As if she had swallowed a frog;
For she well knew and was aware
That the nightingale sang in scorn.
Nevertheless gave she answer,
'Why don't you fly into the open,
And show which of us two

Is of brighter hue, of fairer blue?'
'No, for thou hast sharp claws;

I do not care that thou should'st claw me,

Thou hast very strong claws;

Thou pinchest like a pair of tongs;

Thou thinkest, as do those like thee,
With fair words to beguile me.

I would not do what thou advisest me;

I know well that thou misadvisest me.
Shame on thee for thy bad advice;
Revealed is thy treachery!
Shield thy treachery from the light.
And hide the wrong among the right,
When thou wilt thy wickedness use,
Look that it be not seen.

The owl was rather taken aback by this vigorous harangue, and in a meek manner agreed to the nightingale's further proposal to refer to an arbitrator.

"Then quoth the owl, 'Who shall reconcile us?

Who can and will judge us rightly?'