D.S. in 1882. It was
written, not by Sir Anthony Fitzherbert, as I erroneously said in
the Preface, but by his brother, John Fitzherbert, as has been
subsequently shown. It contains a considerable number of dialectal
words. Thomas Tusser (1525-1580), born in Essex, wrote _A Hundreth
Good Pointes of Husbandrie_ (1557), and _Fiue Hundred Pointes of Good
Husbandrie_ (1573); see the edition by Payne and Herrtage, E.D.S.,
1878. He employs many country words, presumably Essex. The dialect
assumed by Edgar in Shakespeare's _King Lear_ is not to be taken as
being very accurate; he talks somewhat like a Somersetshire peasant,
but I suppose his speech to be in a conventional stage dialect, such
as we find also in _The London Prodigall_, Act II, Sc. 4, where
Olyver, "a Devonshire Clothier," uses similar expressions, viz.
_chill_ for _Ich will_, I will; and _chy vor thee_, I warn thee.
Towards the end of the seventeenth century, the value of dialectal
words as helping to explain our English vocabulary began to be
recognised. Particular mention may be made of the _Etymologicon
Lingu{ae} Anglican{ae}_, by Stephen Skinner, London, 1671; and it should
be noted that this is the Dictionary upon which Dr Johnson relied for
the etymology of native English words.
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