YORKSFIER PUDDIN.*

THE attention paid to neglected languages, patois, and dia- lects of all sorts is characteristic of our time. Not only have forms of speech, previously tabooed by cultivated society as the mere jargon of the vulgar, become the subject of serious atten- tion for the scientific philologer, but they have been either taken up or resumed as vehicles of literary expression. In France, the various branches of the " Langue d'Oc " have started into new life, and the name of the barber jasmin is only the most familiar to English ears among those of a whole group of South- French poets. In Germany, Franz Reuter has shown that the long-overlooked Platt-Deutsch, under the pen of a novelist of genius, can produce masterpieces of humour, pathos, and dramatic power. Amongst ourselves, a Dorsetshire clergy- man has rivalled Theocritus more than once in the speech of the despised " Moon-rakers ;" whilst iu other * roadies. Puildin: a Collection of the most Popular Dialect Stories, from the pen of John Hartley. Wakefield: Winnow Nicboteon slid Son3. London; SImplen, Marshall, and 00.

parts of England various writers in dialect have attained

to local and, in one or two cases, more than local reputation. The most prominent of these are, perhaps,—for Lancashire, Edwin Waugh ; for Yorkshire, John Hartley ; and for the Eastern Counties, the author of Giles's Trip to London, A Nor-

folk Laboarer's First Peep at the World, now in its forty-fifth edition ; whilst of its companion work, Molly Mina's Trip to the Sea-side, the seventy-second thousand is on sale.

It is, however, a volume by the Yorkshire writer which has to occupy us. Mr. Hartley is the author of several other works,

two series of Yorkshire Ditties, The Clock Almanack, Sects i' London, Sects at the Paris Exhibishtun, &c. His Yorksher Pod- din would appear, from the publishers' preface, to be in the

main a reprint, since they speak of the majority of Mr. Hartley's publications as having been "out of print for many years." It consists of a number of short papers, chiefly narra- tive, and all of them under .twenty pages, intended, it would seem, mainly for public reading. Most of them are from be- ginning to end in dialect, but in the more serious ones the narrative portion is in ordinary English. Many of them are interspersed with snatches of verse.

Mr. Hartley is a writer of real power, both dramatic and humorous. He is not devoid either of pathos, as is shown by the first piece in the volume, the subject of which—belonging, fortunately, to times now long past—is that of little children earning, by factory labour, a living for their parents, and perishing in the snow through being too late at the mill of a winter morning. And although both in this piece, and still more in the one nearest approaching to it in character, "One Amang th' Rest" (a story of a pretty and vain workwomau coming to ruin through falling in love with a drunken young gentleman), Mr. Hartley's pathos in- clines too much to the melodramatic, i would be a relief, it must be confessed, to find a few more such pieces, as a set-off to the almost unbroken strain of humorous writing, extending over nearly the whole of the 379 pages of the volume.

The permanent value of the book consists in its pictures of working-men's life and thought in the Yorkshire of the nine- teenth century. Where, without straining after fun, Mr. Hartley confines himself to tracing such pictures, and letting the humour flow naturally out of them, his workmanship is, of its kind, simply perfect, and reminds one of nothing so much as of a first-rate Teniers. Mr. Hartley does not require, like too many a lady- novelist, to tell us at every step what his personages feel and how they look, in order to make up for the baldness and insipidity or the unintelligible wildness of their talk. He has the power of making his men and women portray themselves thoroughly, without needing to add a single touch of his own. Take, for instance, a piece like " Awr Emma : a False Alarm," in which a fidgety mother gets into her head that her daughter is mal- treated by her husband, till she is at last undeceived. There are but ten pages of it, and almost the whole is dialogue ; but the characters of the mother, the father, the daughter, all come out with a clearness which many a fair authoress would fail to achieve by the help of twenty pages of description and analysis, both inward and outward. We feel ourselves from the first taken into the midst of the life which the author seeks to describe, in a working-man's house, listening to the talk of working-men and working-women, occupied with their interests. The sense is theirs, and the folly is theirs, too, and yet both are thoroughly human, only taking precisely the shape which they would take in that particular sphere.

Not less perfect is the first half of a piece, entitled, "Ha' a Deead Donkey Towt a Lesson ;" but it so happens that it is just that portion of it with which the donkey has no concern which de- serves praise, the part relating to the practical joke of cutting a

steak out of a dead donkey, which is eaten by the wrong parties, beinglittle short of disgusting. The piece opens with a talk among several female gossips, about a tea-drinking to which all neigh- bours and friends are invited, the result of which is that one of them is too late to cook her husband's and children's dinner, and has to put him off with a fib about the chimney smoking. When they have left, she feels ashamed of herself, and instead of going, as she intended, to the tea-party, sets to work vigorously at home, by way of venting her feelings :—

"Women have a deal bettor way o' mansgin' that smart o' thing nor what men have. Thor are times when we're all brimful 0' Bunt- mat; th' steam's up, an' if we cannot find a safety-valve we shall burst. Nab, a woman drives up to th' elbows i' th' weshin'Aub, or rives all tit' carpets up, or pools all th pots aght o' th' eubboard, an' puts 'em back avail. Shoo lets her tongue have full liberty, an'

what wi' talkin', an' sweatin', an' scrubbin', au' brushin', shoo finds hersen reight dean tired; an' after a bit ov a wash an' snodclenin' her toppin', shoo sits dean to her knittin' or sewin', as cooil as a cucumber, an' as ful o' gooid.natur as an egg's ful o' ; an' her eon sparkle wi' pleasure, like clew-drops sparkle on a rose in a summer's rnornin'. But wi' a chap it's different. Nine times aght o' ten he flies to th' ale-pot, or else he begins growtin' at hooaxn 'Th' tealee hot,' or th' muffins cold,' or th' butter's war nor cart-grease,' 'th' childer's noisy,' or th' wife's quiet,' an' nom matter what's don' for him, it's all wrang. Some- times, bi th' way of a change, he'll pawse th' table owes, an' braik as many pots as it'll tak a geoid part ov a week's wage to replace ; an' at last, after makin' iverybody abaght him miserable, he'll gee to bed lukin' as black as a mule and sleep wol mornin', when (unions he's ov a bad sooart) he'll feel reight dean shamed ov hissel, an' set to vrark to put things right again. Nall, Zantippa wor just i' one of these moods, an' shoo made th' beds, coom dean stairs an' vveshed all th' pots, scared th' fire, an' took the ass aght, gave th' heart-stun another doom o' idle-back, scattered a bit o' fresh sand o' th' floor, an' after roveshie horsen, au' donin' a clean print dress, shoo laid th' table ready for th' teah, gate th' kettle onto th' rib, an' sat down wi' her bag ful o' worset an' a heap o' stockin's, an' as shoo Ink'd raand, shoo felt as pleased as Punch to see what a difference shoo'd been able ta mak in an haar or two."

The result is that 'both husband and wife forego the tea-party, and spend their evening at home, the husband enlivening it by the unsavoury tale of the dead donkey.

Another capital sample (although there is a little too much of a certain tea-pot, with gin-and-water in it, intended to be drunk from the spout) is "Hard to Pieces." Here two gossips condole with each other about the folly of the son of the one and the daughter of the other, each of whom is reported to have taken up with some good-for-nothing of the other sex, when it turns up that it is with each other that the two young people have fallen in love.

The great majority of the pieces, however, are purely farcical, and though the fun is generally good, except when driven to extravagance—as in a piece which unluckily stands second in the volume, and would deter many readers from going further," Pill Jim's Progress wi' John's Bunion "—there is un- questionably too much of it Of the pieces in this line, the

best is perhaps "Th' Hoil th' Hill Statty." A quiet little place of sixteen houses, four on each side of a big square yard,

with a pump in the middle, which is the common gathering- place, is startled by the abolition of its pump, in order that water may be laid on to the houses. The inhabitants begin, by way of respect to their old friend, by bury- ing it in the well. But they feel that the yard will never look like itself again without something to stand up in the middle, in the place of the pump. So, after consult- ing together, they determine to put up a statue to one of them- selves, named Elkanah. Simeon, the wood-turner, agrees to turn it in wood for thirty shillings. The speech of the chairman on the unveiling of the statue is delicious :—

Feller-citizens and citizenesses,—Under this bed-quilt is a statty, erected to the memory of Kann; an' it's put here astead o' th' pump. You all know Kane. He's a daycent Recast ov a chap, an' we thowt he owt to have a statty. At ony rate, we wanted a statty, an' it mud as weel be Rana's as onybody's else. He's a varry daycent chap, as aw sod bifoor, an' upright—varry upright—as upright—as upright as a yard o' pump-wetter. An' aw've noa cleat he's honest ; aw niver knew him trusted wi owt, but varry likely if he wor, he'd stick to it. He's a gentleman, th' bit ther is or him, an' he Mimi pays his rent. Aw could say a geoid deed l moor ; but th' least sed is th' soonest mended, an' as yo all want to see what's under this quilt, aw'll say no moor, but Show yo at once."

When the statue is waquilted, it turns out that the artist has given it no nose, because this would be sure to be broken off ; and has made it to turn round like a weathercock, because it was "hardly fair 'at fewk 'at live o' one side o' th' fowlci should have his face to Ink at anus, an' t'other side his back." And. as Elkanah (who has contributed ten shillings already towards the noseless impersonation of himself) refuses to stand/treat in honour of the occasion, his name is after all rubbed out, and

the place stands blank, for any one who will pay for a gallon of ale.

" Th' New Railroad" is another bit of excellent fooling. In anticipation of a railway being constructed, a "railway training.

class " for porters has been established, where young fellows meet twice a week for practice, under the teaching of a certain " owd Billy :"—

"When they're practisin', they stand o' th' side o' th' oven-door ther turns, an' when Billy whistles, one on 'ism oppens it, an' sheets aght, Change here for Bradford Beck, Halifax, Hull, and Vother shops !' Then he bangs it too agean, and sheets, All reight !' An' another comes an' does th' same. When they began at th' furst, they borrowed a tom cat o' th' old woman, an' used to put it i' th' oven for a passenger; but one o' th' chaps war son fussy, at he banged th'

door too befoor it had gotten reight aght, an' chopped its tail clean off Sea they have to tak' tiler lessons nab withaat passenger. Two on 'em at's passed tiler examination are studtlyin' nah for ticket collectors, an' they promise to mak' varry gooid uns. When they practise that, they call th' basso-door' th' fiord ease, th' cubbord th' second class, an' th' oven-door the third class. An' they start at th' harm-door furst,—' Gentlemen, your tickets, please;' then they goa to tit' cubbord-door,—' Tickets ;' an' then to th' oven-door,—' Nab then, Ink sharp wi' them tickets.' One on 'era borrowed' a wheel-barrow, as they couldn't get a luggage-lorry, an' they

had to wheel it up an' dean th' haase-floor ther. turns, callin' •

aght, 'By leave An' them 'at could manage to run ovver one th' tether's tooas, an' gee on as if nowt war, gate one geoid mark; but him 'at could run buzz agean a chap an' fell hini, wor th' next on th' list for a guard."

It will be Been that the peculiarities of " Yorkshire" are chiefly formal,—" haase " for "house," " aght " for "out," " aw " for "I." " Shoo " for "she," " druffen" for "drunken," are, at first sight, puzzling. The disintegration of the diphthong "ca," or the addition of a vowel after " o " or " oo "—" heeed," " soa," " goeid "—is more or less common to the whole East of England. " Nobbut," for "only," rules from Lancashire to Lincoln ; " nor " for "than," " lig " for "lie," are also widely diffused. There are a few characteristic words, "such as " addle " for "earn," or " wick " (quick) for "alive." Perhaps the greatest peculiarity is in the use of the conjunction "wol" (while), which is used also in the sense of "till" or "that."