Those who would gladly have seen the Anglo-Saxon to have predominated over the Latin element in our language, even more than it actually has done, must note with regret that in many instances a word of the former stock had been dropped, and a Latin coined to supply its place; or where the two once existed side by side, the Saxon has died, and the Latin lived on. Thus Wiclif employed ‘soothsaw’, where we now use proverb; ‘sourdough’, where we employ leaven; ‘wellwillingness’ for benevolence; ‘againbuying’ for redemption; ‘againrising’ for resurrection; ‘undeadliness’ for immortality; ‘uncunningness’ for ignorance; ‘aftercomer’ for descendant; ‘greatdoingly’ for magnificently; ‘to afterthink’ (still in use in Lancashire) for to repent; ‘medeful’, which has given way to meritorious; ‘untellable’ for ineffable; ‘dearworth’ for precious; Chaucer has ‘forword’ for promise; Sir John Cheke ‘freshman’ for proselyte; ‘mooned’ for lunatic; ‘foreshewer’ for prophet; ‘hundreder’ for centurion; Jewel ‘foretalk’, where we now employ preface; Holland ‘sunstead’ where we use solstice; ‘leechcraft’ instead of medicine; and another, ‘wordcraft’ for logic; ‘starconner’ (Gascoigne) did service once, if not instead of astrologer, yet side by side with it; ‘halfgod’ (Golding) had the advantage over ‘demigod’, that it was all of one piece; ‘to eyebite’ (Holland) told its story at least as well as to fascinate; ‘shriftfather’ as confessor; ‘earshrift’ (Cartwright) is only two syllables, while ‘auricular confession’ is eight; ‘waterfright’ is a better word than our awkward Greek hydrophobia. The lamprey (lambens petram) was called once the ‘suckstone’ or the ‘lickstone’; and the anemone the ‘windflower’. ‘Umstroke’, if it had lived on (it appears as late as Fuller, though our dictionaries know nothing of it), might have made ‘circumference’ and ‘periphery’ unnecessary. ‘Wanhope’, as we saw just now, has given place to despair, ‘middler’ to mediator; and it would be easy to increase this list. {Sidenote: _Local and Provincial English_} I had occasion just now to notice the fact that many words survive in our provincial dialects, long after they have died out from the main body of the speech. The fact is one connected with so much of deep interest in the history of language that I cannot pass it thus slightly over. It is one which, rightly regarded, may assist to put us in a just point of view for estimating the character of the local and provincial in speech, and rescuing it from that unmerited contempt and neglect with which it is often regarded. I must here go somewhat further back than I could wish; but only so, only by looking at the matter in connexion with other phenomena of speech, can I hope to explain to you the worth and significance which local and provincial words and usages must oftentimes possess.