PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.


In preparing this second edition of my relative's work, I have
incorporated the results of observations made by me during several
years' residence in Somersetshire, in the centre of the district.
I have also availed myself by kind permission, of hints and
suggestions in two papers, entitled "Somersetshire Dialect," read
by T. S. Baynes in 1856, and reprinted from the Taunton Courier,
in London, in 1861.

During the forty years which have elapsed since the first edition,
very much light has been thrown on the subject of Provincial
Dialects, and after all much remains to be discovered. I consider
with Mr. Baynes that there is more of the pure Anglo-Saxon in the
west of England dialect, as this district was the seat of
classical Anglo-Saxon, which first rose here to a national tongue,
and lasted longer in a great measure owing to its distance from
the Metropolis, from which cause also it was less subject to
modern modification.

I shall be happy to receive any suggestions from Philological
scholars, which may increase the light thrown on the subject, and
by which a third edition may be improved.

_Hagbourn Vicarage, August,_ 1869.