SOURCE: “Scotch Dialect,” in The Nation, London, Vol. 102, No. 2653, May 4, 1916, p. 495.

In the following essay, the critic unfavorably compares James Wilson's Lowland Scotch to what the critic considers the superior work, Murray's Account of the Dialect of the Southern Counties of Scotland.

It is now more than a generation since Sir James A. H. Murray, in his Account of the Dialect of the Southern Counties of Scotland, laid the foundation for the scientific study of the Scottish dialects. He hoped that similar studies would be made of at least the seven or eight main dialects, and that thus material would be collected for a new and complete Scots dictionary. Something has indeed been done since, and the Scottish Branch of the English Association has set about preparing the dictionary; but until the appearance of Sir James Wilson's volume, Lowland Scotch, as spoken in the Lower Strathearn District of...