Page:The New Forest - its history and its scenery.djvu/186

Rh for effets, voam for foam, as written by Chaucer, vail for fall, and fitches for vetches, as we find it in Ezekiel, ch. iv. v. 9.

To go further into these distinctions is here impossible. As are the people so is the language. By an analysis of the published glossaries of Dorsetshire, Wiltshire, and Sussex, I find that the New Forest possesses above two-thirds of the two former, differing here and there only in pronunciation, whilst of the latter it scarcely possesses one-tenth, proving plainly that the people are West-Saxons rather than South, descendants of Cerdic more than of Ella.

Turning from these minor characteristics, and looking at the people themselves as they once were, and as they now stand, much might be added as to the unequal race which the West-Saxon has run with the Anglian and the Northman, and its effect on his character. The most casual observer even, in going over so small a space as the New Forest, must have noticed how Nature has favoured the Northern and Midland counties in their sources of wealth and industry. The great home-trade of the Middle Ages has entirely deserted the South. Once, too, all our men-of-war sailed from what are now small ports on the south coast. Our fleets were manned by crews from the Isle of Wight, and Lymington, and Lyme, and the neighbouring harbours. The seamanship of the West-Country was England's 168