Higden, writing about the year A.D. 1350, affirms, distinctly, the existence of three different forms of speech or dialects, namely, Southern, Midland, and Northern;[25] or, as they are sometimes designated, West-Saxon, Mercian, and Northumbrian. Garnett objects to Higden’s classification, and considers it certain “that there were in his (Higden’s) time, and probably long before, five distinctly marked forms, which may be classed as follows:-- 1. Southern or standard English, which in the fourteenth century was perhaps best spoken in Kent and Surrey by the body of the inhabitants. 2. Western English, of which traces may be found from Hampshire to Devonshire, and northward as far as the Avon. 3. Mercian, vestiges of which appear in Shropshire, Staffordshire, and South and West Derbyshire, becoming distinctly marked in Cheshire, and still more so in South Lancashire. 4. Anglian, of which there are three sub-divisions--the East Anglian of Norfolk and Suffolk; the Middle Anglian of Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and East Derbyshire; and the North Anglian of the West Riding of Yorkshire--spoken most purely in the central part of the mountainous district of Craven. 5. Northumbrian,” spoken throughout the Lowlands of Scotland, Northumberland, Durham, and nearly the whole of Yorkshire. Garnett’s division is based upon peculiarities of pronunciation, which will be found well marked in the _modern_ provincial dialects, and not upon any essential differences of inflexion that are to be found in our Early English manuscripts.[26] The distinction between Southern and Western English was not at all required, as the Kentish Ayenbite of Inwyt (A.D. 1340) exhibits most of the peculiarities that mark the Chronicles of Robert of Gloucester (Cottonian MS. Calig. A. xi.) as a Southern (or West-Saxon) production. The Anglian of Norfolk, Lincolnshire, and Nottinghamshire may be referred to one group with the Mercian of Lancashire, as varieties of the Midland dialect. A careful examination of our early literature leads us to adopt Higden’s classification as not only a convenient but a correct one. There is, perhaps, no better test for distinguishing these dialects from one another than the verbal inflexions of the plural number in the present tense, indicative mood. To state this test in the briefest manner, we may say that the Southern dialect employs _-eth_, the Midland _-en_, and the Northumbrian _-es_ as the inflexion for all persons of the plural present indicative:[27]-- Southern. Midland. Northern. 1st pers. Hop-_eth_. Hop-_en_. Hop-_es_. (we) hope. 2nd „ Hop-_eth_. Hop-_en_. Hop-_es_. (ye) hope. 3rd „ Hop-_eth_. Hop-_en_. Hop-_es_. (they) hope. It is the constant and systematic employment of these inflexions, and not their occasional use that must be taken as the criterion of dialectical varieties.