PREFACE.


The usefulness of works like the present is too generally admitted
to need any apology for their publication. There is,
notwithstanding, in their very nature a dryness, which requires
relief: the author trusts, therefore, that, in blending something
imaginative with the details of philological precision, his work
will afford amusement to the reader.

The Glossary contains the fruit of years of unwearied attention to
the subject; and it is hoped that the book will be of some use in
elucidating our old writers, in affording occasional help to the
etymology of the Anglo-Saxon portion of our language, and in
exhibiting a view of the present state of an important dialect of
the western provinces of England.

A late excursion through the West has, however, induced the Author
to believe that some valuable information may yet remain to be
gathered from our Anglo-Saxon dialect--more especially from that
part of it still used by the common people and the yeomanry. He
therefore respectfully solicits communications from those who feel
an interest in this department of our literature; by which a
second edition may be materially improved.

To a _native_ of the west of England this volume will be