There was no lack of service in Mary Washington's day. The negro was docile, affectionate, and quick to learn, at least these were the characteristics of those employed in households. But even as late as in Mary Ball's girlhood the negroes had no language intelligible to their employers. One of the Lancaster clergymen, Mr. Bell, writes that his congregation includes many "negroes, who cannot understand my language nor I theirs." There is something infinitely pathetic in this picture of the homeless savage in a strange land. The African, finding himself not understood, made haste to acquire the language spoken to him. His intimate association was with the indented white men who labored with him, and he then and there created a language distinctively known as his own, to which he still clings and which contains, I believe, no word that can be traced to African origin--at least this is true of the Virginia negro's dialect. "It appears that the indented servants from whom he learned must have come from Warwickshire. The negro dialect can be found in Shakespeare;[8] for instance, 'trash,' afterwards accentuated by 'po' white trash.' 'What trash is Rome, what rubbish, what offal,' says Cassius. 'They are trash,' says Iago, etc. 'Terrify,' for 'aggravate' or 'destroy,' is Warwickshire; also 'his'n,' 'her'n,' for 'his' and 'hers'; 'howsomdever,' for 'however' (_Venus and Adonis_); 'gawm,' for 'soiling hands or face'; 'yarbs,' for 'herbs'; 'make,' for 'kindle' (make the fire); 'like,' for 'likely' (I was like to fall); 'peart,' for 'lively'; 'traipsing,' for 'walking idly about'; 'ooman,' for 'woman'; 'sallit,' for 'green stuff'; 'yourn,' for 'yours.' These and many more negro words are taken from Warwickshire dialect, and are to be found in Shakespeare." Upon this root the negro grafted, without regard to its meaning, any and every high-sounding word which he happened to hear, and which seemed to him magnificent. The meaning signified so little that he never deemed it necessary to ask it. The result was, to say the least, picturesque. [8] "Warwickshire Dialect," by Mr. Appleton Morgan. The church being his earliest school, he was soon impressed by the names of certain of the Hebrew Patriarchs, and the first names with which he endowed his children were Aaron, Moses, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Isaiah. Why he scorned Jeremiah, Nahum, Ezekiel, and others, is best known to himself. Later, he caught from the companionship of the schoolboys the names of the heroes of antiquity, giving decided preference to Pompey and Cæsar. There was a Josephus in a Fredericksburg family, differentiated in the next generation by _Jim_sephus. Later still his fancy was caught by the shining lights of the Revolution. A goodly crop followed of Washingtons, Jeffersons, and Randolphs. There was even a Rochambeau, unhappily corrupted into "Rushingbow."