revived by
our Swiss mountain-climbers in the form _arete_; _a-sew_, dry, said
of cows that give no milk (cf. F. _essuyer_, to dry); _assoilyie_,
to absolve, acquit, and _assith_, to compensate, both used by Sir
W. Scott; _astre_, _aistre_, a hearth, a Norman word found in 1292;
_aunsel_, a steelyard, of which the etymology is given in the
_E.D.D._; _aunter_, an adventure, from the A.F. _aventure_; _aver_,
a beast of burden, horse, used by Burns, from the A.F. _aveir_,
property, cattle; _averous_, A.F. _averous_, avaricious, in Wyclif's
translation of 1 Cor. vi 10.

Here is ample proof of the survival of Anglo-French in our dialects.
Indeed, their chief philological use consists in the great antiquity
of many of the terms, which often preserve Old English and Anglo-French
forms with much fidelity. The charge often brought against dialect
speakers of using "corrupt" forms is only occasionally and
exceptionally true. Much worse "corruptions" have been made by
antiquaries, in order to suit their false etymologies.

CHAPTER X

LATER HISTORY OF THE DIALECTS

With the ascendancy of East Midland, and its acceptance as the chief
literary language, the other dialects practically ceased to be
recorded, with the exception (noted above) of the Scottish
Northumbrian. Of English Northumbrian, the sixteenth century tells us
nothing beyond what we can glean from belated copies of Northern
ballads or such traces of a Northern (apparently a Lancashire) dialect
as appear in Spenser's _Shepherd's Calendar_. Fitzherbert's _Boke
of Husbandry_ (1534) was reprinted for the E.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_