Now this indicates a class of writings which, in the critical history of our local dialect, must be used with great caution and address. An imitation of dialect may be so lax as to let its only merit consist in a deviation from the standard idiom.
In the Lear of Shakspeare we have speeches from a Kentish clown. Is this the dialect of the character, the dialect of the writer, or is it some conventional dialect appropriated to theatrical purposes? I think the latter.
In Ben Jonson's Tale of a Tub, one (and more than one of the characters) speaks thus. His residence is the neighbourhood of London, Tottenham Court.
Is it no sand? nor buttermilk? if't be,
Ich 'am no zive, or watering-pot, to draw
Knots in your 'casions. If you trust me, zo—
If not, praforme 't your zelves, 'Cham no man's wife,
But resolute Hilts: you'll vind me in the buttry.
Act I. Scene 1.