"Annie! My wife!" he says; and Annie she kindo' give a little yelp like and come a-flutterin' down in his arms; and the jug o' worter rolled clean acrost the road, and turned a somerset and knocked the cob out of its mouth and jist laid back and hollered "Good--good--good--good--good!" like as ef it knowed what was up and was jist as glad and tickled as the rest of us. DIALECT IN LITERATURE DIALECT IN LITERATURE "_And the common people heard him gladly._" Of what shall be said herein of dialect, let it be understood the term dialect referred to is of that general breadth of meaning given it to-day, namely, any speech or vernacular outside the prescribed form of good English in its present state. The present state of the English is, of course, not any one of its prior states. So first let it be remarked that it is highly probable that what may have been the best of English once may now by some be counted as a weak, inconsequent _patois_, or dialect. To be direct, it is the object of this article to show that dialect is not a thing to be despised in any event--that its origin is oftentimes of as royal caste as that of any speech. Listening back, from the standpoint of to-day, even to the divine singing of that old classic master to whom England's late laureate refers as "... the first warbler, whose sweet breath Preluded those melodious bursts that fill The spacious times of great Elizabeth With sounds that echo still"; or to whom Longfellow alludes, in his matchless sonnet, as "... the poet of the dawn, who wrote The Canterbury Tales, and his old age Made beautiful with song";-- Chaucer's verse to us is _now_ as veritably dialect as to that old time it _was_ the chastest English; and even then his materials were essentially dialect when his song was at best pitch. Again, our present dialect, of most plebeian ancestry, may none the less prove worthy. Mark the recognition of its own personal merit in the great new dictionary, where what was, in our own remembrance, the most outlandish dialect, is now good, sound, official English. * * * * * Since Literature must embrace all naturally existing materials--physical, mental, and spiritual--we have no occasion to urge its acceptance of so-called dialect, for dialect _is_ in Literature, and _has_ been there since the beginning of all written thought and utterance. Strictly speaking, as well as paradoxically, all verbal expression is more or less dialectic, however grammatical. While usage establishes grammar, it no less establishes so-called dialect. Therefore we may as rightfully refer to "so-called grammar."