review. The following are from Cædmon, the inspired Monk of Whitby, who, a thousand years before Milton, sang of Paradise Lost in a sacred epic worthy of the subject and the name, though, of course, as mere isolated lines, these extracts can give us no idea whatever of his poetic style :

"Under beam-sceade:

Bloede bereafod."
(Under tree-shadow

Of joy bereaved.)

"Geseah deorc-sceado
Sweart swithrian."
(He saw dark-shadow
Swart prevail.)

"Egor-streamas :

Swearte swogan:

Sæ's up stigon :

Ofer stæth-weallas:"

(Ocean-billows,

Black they boomed,

Seas uprose

O'er the strand-walls.)

You will notice in these extracts the constant occurrence of ea; the following lines from Beowulf illustrate both ea, and eo:—

"Nofre ic maran geseah :

Eorl ofer Eorthan:

Thonne is eower sum:

Secg on searwum."

(Never saw I a nobler

Earl upon earth,

Than one among you,—

A hero in harness.)

"Het tha in-beran :
Eofer-heafod segn;
Heatho-steapne helm :
Guth-sweord geatolic."

(Bade them in bear,

The boar-headed banner,

The tower-steep helm,

And shining war-sword.)

It will be seen that in this large and most characteristic class of medial vowels, the living dialect is the faithful reflex of the older language.

I will now look at the initial vowels; not that there is anything specifically different in these, the same vowels being often, of course, both medial and initial, only the position of the latter occasions a slight difference of treatment, which makes it convenient to notice them apart. You will remember that, at the last meeting, I stated there were a number of words beginning with two vowels, which had only a single, and that often a short vowel-sound in common English; and that the Somersetshire dialect retained the full sound of both, by prefixing to the first the semi-vowel sound of Y. The following are illustrations of this:—

I said, at the same time, that a similar process took place with regard to other initial vowel-sounds and combinations. The combinations referred to are those of oa and oi. To words beginning with

these vowels the Somersetshire dialect prefixes the semi-consonant W, in order to bring out the full sound of each; W thus securing in one set of cases exactly the same end that Y did in the other. following are examples :

The

Wo-ats oats.

=

Who-are hoar (frost).

Wo-ald = old.

Wo-ther other, &c.

=

This may be illustrated by an extract from the fireside reflections of Willum Little, sometime shepherd on the downs of Wessex:

"It's oondervul to me how things do move about whenever a body's got a drap o' zummut in 's yeäd. Last harrest, a'ter zupper, at th' houze yander, I walked whoam by myzelf, and zeed the moon and the zeven stars dancin' away like vengeance. Then they there girt elmen-trees in the close was a dancin' away like Bill Iles and his mates at a morris. 'My zarvice to 'e,' zays I; I haups you won't tread on my twoes;' zo I went drough a sheard in th' hedge, instead o'gwöin drough th' geät. Well, when I got whoam, I managed to vind the kay-hole o' th' dwooer; but 'twas a lang time afore I could get un to bide still enough, and got up stayers. Massy upon us! the leetle table (I zeed un very plain by the light o' th' moön) was runnin' round the room like mad, and there was th' two wold chayers runnin' a'ter he; and by and by, round comes the bed a'ter they two. 'Ha! ha!' zays I, 'that's very vine; but how be I to lay down while you cuts

zich capers?' Well, the bed comed round dree times, and the vowerth time I drowd myzelf flump atop ov un; but in th' marnin' I vound myzelf laying on the vlöor, wi' ael me duds on! I never could make out how thic was."

When I last addressed you, I did not illustrate this peculiarity; but the process is altogether so curious, so characteristic of the dialect, and so complete, that it certainly deserves, and, I think, will repay, a little examination. At first sight, indeed, such forms as yeät and woäts may seem very clownish, and the prefixing of y or w in either case quite accidental and capricious; but in reality this is by no means the case. The whole procedure is most systematic and consistent, and the reasons of it lie deep in the philosophy of language and of sound. A little illustration will soon make this elear. The process altogether depends on the use of y and w, and we may, therefore, naturally expect to find in the special character of these letters the key of its explanation. What are they, and how produced? They are, then, as we know, what are called semi-vowels: they stand midway between the vowels and consonants, sharing, to some extent, the nature, and at times performing the office, of both. They are half-vowels and halfconsonants; and if we look at the manner of their production, we see at once how it is they possess this character. The natural order of the vowels is—i, e, a, o, u, or i being equal to double e, and u to double o—ee, e, a, o, 00. This is the natural order, because it is that determined by the passage of the breath in uttering the vowel-sounds-this

passage gradually widening from the first (ee), where it is closest, to the last (oo), where it is most open. On slowly sounding each letter of the series, you will find that the space through which the breath passes is very much that from a straight or slightly curved line to a circle-the aperture in ee being a double line or loop slightly opened, and the loop widening with each succeeding vowel till it becomes an ellipse in o, and a complete circle in oo. The vowels ee and oo being thus the most distant, do not easily coalesce, and any attempt to pass quickly from the one to the other produces a sharp breathing, which has in it something essentially consonantal. The utterance is no longer a pure breath-sound, but one modified by the rapid change in position of the organs of speech. And this modification will obviously be twofold, as we begin at the bottom or the top. If we commence with the first vowel, ee, and pass rapidly to the last, oo, the modified sound produced is y, eeoo-you; while the process reversed gives w, ooee- we; the former being illustrated by the pronoun you, which in Anglo-Saxon is eow, and the latter by the French affirmative oui, sounded, as we know, we. Thus at either end of the vowel series a half-vowel is evolved; and y and w are neither more nor less than the extreme vowel-sounds sharpened into semiconsonants by being pronounced rapidly together.

You will now be able to see the principle and understand the philosophy of the Somersetshire pronunciation in the feature under review. In words beginning with such a combination as ea— where the passage is from the higher to the lower,