Thomas Tusser (1525-1580), born in Essex, wrote _A Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandrie_ (1557), and _Fiue Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie_ (1573); see the edition by Payne and Herrtage, E.D.S., 1878.

He employs many country words, presumably Essex.

The dialect assumed by Edgar in Shakespeare's _King Lear_ is not to be taken as being very accurate; he talks somewhat like a Somersetshire peasant, but I suppose his speech to be in a conventional stage dialect, such as we find also in _The London Prodigall_, Act II, Sc.

4, where Olyver, "a Devonshire Clothier," uses similar expressions, viz.
_chill_ for _Ich will_, I will; and _chy vor thee_, I warn thee.
Towards the end of the seventeenth century, the value of dialectal words as helping to explain our English vocabulary began to be recognised.

Particular mention may be made of the _Etymologicon Lingu{ae} Anglican{ae}_, by Stephen Skinner, London, 1671; and it should be noted that this is the Dictionary upon which Dr Johnson relied for the etymology of native English words.