THE EAST MIDLAND DIALECT.
(About A.D. 1230.)
I now bring forward a poem that may perhaps come from Cambridge — the Bestiary — that is printed in Dr. Morris's Old English Miscellany (Early English Text Society). This is very nearly the same in its dialect as the Genesis and Exodus (Early English Text Society), a poem which Dr. Morris refers to Suffolk; but the former piece seems to have been written nearer to Peterborough, since it uses who, where the latter poem has quho. The common marks of the East Midland dialect are found in both: the Present Participle ends in ande in the one case, in both ande and ende in the other; the Plural of the Present Tense ends in en, or is dropped altogether, as have instead of haven; the Prefix to the Past Participle comes most seldom. The Northern prepositions fra and til are found. The Bestiary bears a resemblance to the Proverbs of Alfred; it is a work such as might well have been compiled at Cambridge; being a translation made much about the time that King Henry the Third was beginning to play the part of Rehoboam in England, having got rid of his wise counsellors.
Here we find[1] the Old English sinden (sunt) for
- ↑ Now we have for the first time a new English metre, with the
alternate lines riming: —
His muð is get wel unkuð
wið pater noster and crede;
fare he norð, er fare he suð,
leren he sal his nede;bidden bone to Gode,
and tus his muð rigten,
tilen him so ðe sowles fode,
ðurg grace off ure drigtin.
