Dorset—Hants and Somerset.
Wilts.—Hants, Dorset, Somerset, Berks.
Buckingham, Beds, Northampton.—These connect the two most convenient provisional centres of the so-called West-Saxon of Alfred, &c., and mother-dialect of the present written English, viz.: Wantage and Stamford (or Huntingdon); and in doing this they connect dialects which, although placed in separate classes (West-Saxon and Mercian), were, probably, more alike than many subdivisions of the same group.
To investigate the question as to the Mercian or West-Saxon origin of the present written English without previously stating whether the comparison be made between such extreme dialects as those of the New Forest, and the neighbourhood of Manchester, or such transitional ones as those of Windsor and Northampton is to reduce a real to a mere verbal discussion.
Warwickshire, Staffordshire.—From their central position, probably transitional to both the north and south, and the east and west groups.
Celtic elements increasing.
Danish elements decreasing. Perhaps at the minimum.
[§ 708]. The exceptions suggested in [§§ 703], 704, lie not only against the particular group called West-Saxon, but (as may have been anticipated) against all classifications which assume either—
1. A coincidence between the philological divisions of the Anglo-Saxon language, and the political division of the Anglo-Saxon territory.