Page:The Sources of Standard English.djvu/14

Rh Garnett is as far above that of Horne Tooke as Ste&shy;phenson's engine outstrips Pharaoh's chariot. It is a loss to mankind that Garnett has left so little behind him. He seems to have been the nearest approach England ever made to bringing forth a Mezzofanti, and he combined in himself qualities not often found in the same man. When his toilsome industry is amassing facts, he plods like a German; when his playful wit is unmasking quackery, he flashes like a Frenchman. He it was who first called attention to the varying dialects of England and who first en&shy;deavoured to classify them. This work has since his death been most ably achieved by Dr. Morris.

To this gentleman I am under the greatest obliga&shy;tions, since he has looked over my proof-sheets as far as page 240; and many a correction do I owe to him. I have sometimes dared to differ from him, not with&shy;out fear and trembling. As to what he has done for English Philology, I may perhaps be looked upon as a prejudiced witness; I therefore prefer to quote from Mr. Murray's ‘Dialect of the Southern Counties of Scotland,’ p. 40, published in 1873 (Transactions of the Philological Society): ‘Very recent is our knowledge of any facts connected with the distribu&shy;tion and distinguishing characteristics of the dialects of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries — a region