LATER HISTORY OF THE DIALECTS With the ascendancy of East Midland, and its acceptance as the chief literary language, the other dialects practically ceased to be recorded, with the exception (noted above) of the Scottish Northumbrian.

Of English Northumbrian, the sixteenth century tells us nothing beyond what we can glean from belated copies of Northern ballads or such traces of a Northern (apparently a Lancashire) dialect as appear in Spenser's _Shepherd's Calendar_.

Fitzherbert's _Boke of Husbandry_ (1534) was reprinted for the E.D.S.in 1882.

It was written, not by Sir Anthony Fitzherbert, as I erroneously said in the Preface, but by his brother, John Fitzherbert, as has been subsequently shown.

It contains a considerable number of dialectal words.