An extract from Manning's _Handlyng Synne_ is given in _Specimens of Early English_, Part II, most of which can be read with ease. The obsolete words are not very numerous, and we meet now and then with half a dozen consecutive lines that would puzzle no one. It is needless to pursue the history of this dialect further. It had, by this time, become almost the standard language, differing from Modern English chiefly in date, and consequently in pronunciation. We pass on from Manning to Chaucer, from Chaucer to Lydgate and Caxton, and from Caxton to Lord Surrey and Sackville and Spenser, without any real change in the actual dialect employed, but only in the form of it. II. WEST MIDLAND We have seen that there are two divisions of the Mercian dialect, into East and West Midland. The West Midland does not greatly differ from the East Midland, but it approaches more nearly, in some respects, to the Northumbrian. The greatest distinction seems to be in the present and past participles of verbs. In the West Midland, the present participle frequently ends in _-and_, as in Northumbrian, especially in the Northern part of the Midland area. The East Midland usually employs _-ende_ or _-inge_ instead. In the West Midland, the prefix _i-_ or _y-_ is seldom used for the past participle, whilst the East Midland admits it more freely. In the third person singular of the present tense, the West Midland favours the Northern suffix _-es_ or _-is_; whilst the East Midland favours the Southern suffix _-eth_. The suffix _-us_ appears to be altogether peculiar to West Midland, in which it occurs occasionally; and the same is true of _-ud_ for _-ed_ in the preterite of a weak verb. There is a rather early West Midland _Prose Psalter_, belonging to the former half of the fourteenth century, which was edited for the Early English Text Society by Dr Karl Bulbring in 1891. The curious poem called _William of Palerne_ (Palermo) or _William and the Werwolf_, written in alliterative verse about 1350-60, and edited by me for the E.E.T.S. in 1867, seems to be in a form of West Midland, and has been claimed for Shropshire; nothing is known as to its author. The very remarkable poem called _The Pearl_, and three _Alliterative Poems_ by the same author, were first edited by Dr Morris for the E.E.T.S. in 1864; with a preface in which the peculiarities of the dialect were discussed. Dr Morris showed that the grammatical forms are uniform and consistent throughout, and may be safely characterised as being West Midland. Moreover, they are frequently very like Northumbrian, and must belong to the Northern area of the West Midland dialect. "Much," says Dr Morris, "may be said in favour of their Lancashire origin."