When we read such lines as:
Than seyd echone that sate and stode,
Here comth Pers, that never dyd gode--
we have merely to modernise the spelling, and we at once have:
Then said each one that sat and stood,
Here cometh Pierce, that never did good,
These are lines that could be written now.
An extract from Manning's _Handlyng Synne_ is given in _Specimens of
Early English_, Part II, most of which can be read with ease. The
obsolete words are not very numerous, and we meet now and then with
half a dozen consecutive lines that would puzzle no one. It is
needless to pursue the history of this dialect further. It had, by
this time, become almost the standard language, differing from Modern
English chiefly in date, and consequently in pronunciation. We pass
on from Manning to Chaucer, from Chaucer to Lydgate and Caxton, and
from Caxton to Lord Surrey and Sackville and Spenser, without any real
change in the actual dialect employed, but only in the form of it.
II. WEST MIDLAND
We have seen that there are two divisions of the Mercian dialect, into
East and West Midland.
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