tion to the Early Scottish Laws, of which the
vernacular translations partly belong to the fourteenth century.

I have now mentioned the chief authorities for the study of the
Northern dialect from early times down to 1400. Examination of them
leads directly to a result but little known, and one that is in direct
contradiction to general uninstructed opinion; namely that, down to
this date, the varieties of Northumbrian are much fewer and slighter
than they afterwards became, and that the written documents are
practically all in one and the same dialect, or very nearly so, from
the Humber as far north as Aberdeen. The irrefragable results noted by
Dr Murray will probably come as a surprise to many, though they
have now been before the public for more than forty years. The Durham
dialect of the _Cursor Mundi_ and the Aberdeen Scotch of Barbour
are hardly distinguishable by grammatical or orthographical tests; and
both bear a remarkable resemblance to the Yorkshire dialect as found
in Hampole. What is now called Lowland Scotch is so nearly descended
from the Old Northumbrian that the latter was invariably called
"Ingliss" by the writers who employed it; and they reserved the name
of "Scottish" to designate Gaelic or Erse, the tongue of the original
"Scots," who gave their name to the country. Barbour (_Bruce_, IV 253)
calls his own language "Ynglis." Andro of Wyntown does the same, near
the beginning of the Prologue to his _Cronykil_. The most striking
case is that of Harry the Minstrel, who was so opposed to all
Englanders, from a political point of view, that his whole poem
breathes fury and hatred against them; and yet, in describing
Wallace's French friend, Longueville, who knew no tongue but his
own, he says of him (_Wallace_, IX 295-7):

Lykly he was, manlik of contenance,
_Lik to the Scottis_ be mekill governance
_Saiff off his tong_, for _Inglis_ had he nane.

Later still, Dunbar, near the conclusion of his _Golden Targe_,
apostrophises Chaucer as being "in _oure Tong_ ane flouir imperiall,"
and says that he was "_of oure Inglisch_ all the lycht." It was not
till 1513 that Gawain Douglas, in the Prologue to the first book of
his translation of Virgil, claimed to have "writtin in the langage of
Scottis natioun"; though Sir David Lyndesay, writing twenty-two years
later, still gives the name of the "Inglisch toung" to the vulgar
tongue of Scotland, in his _Satyre of the three Estaitis_.

We should particu