y_
13: _golden_
14: _honeyed_
15: _overgilt_
16: _ere_
17: _undertook_
18: _pleasant_
19: _composition_}

CHAPTER VI

THE SOUTHERN DIALECT

We have seen that the earliest dialect to assume literary supremacy
was the Northern, and that at a very early date, namely, in the
seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries; but its early documents have
nearly all perished. If, with the exception of one short fragment, any
of C{ae}dmon's poems have survived, they only exist in Southern versions
of a much later date.

The chief fosterer of our rather extensive Wessex (or Southern)
literature, commonly called Anglo-Saxon, was the great Alfred, born
at Wantage in Berkshire, to the south of the Thames. We may roughly
define the limits of the Old Southern dialect by saying that it
formerly included all the counties to the south of the Thames and to
the west and south-west of Berkshire, including Wiltshire, Dorsetshire,
Somersetshire, and Devonshire, but excluding Cornwall, in which
the Cornish dialect of Celtic prevailed. It was at Athelney in
Somersetshire, near the junction of the rivers Tone and Parrett, that
Alfred, in the memorable year 878, when his dominions were reduced to
a precarious sway over two or three counties, established his famous
stronghold; from which he issued to inflict upon the foes of the
future British empire a crushing and decisive defeat. And it was near
Athelney, in the year 1693, that the ornament of gold and enamel was
found, with its famous legend--{AE}LFRED MEC HEHT GEWYRCAN--"{AE}lfred
commanded (men) to make me."

From his date to the Norman Conquest, the MSS. in the Anglo-Saxon or
Southern dialect are fairly numerous, and it is mainly to them that we
owe our knowledge of the grammar, the metre, and the pronunciation of
the older forms of English. Sweet's _Anglo-Saxon Primer_ will enable
any one to begin the study of this dialect, and to learn something
valuable about it in the course of a month or two.

The famous _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, beginning with a note concerning
the year 1, when Augustus was emperor of Rome, not only continues our
history down to the Conquest, but for nearly a century beyond it, to
the year 1154. The language of the latter part, as extant in the
(Midland) Laud MS., belongs to the twelfth century, and shows
considerable changes in the spelling and grammar as compared with
the Parker MS., which (not counting in a few later entries) ends
with