Towards the end of the seventeenth century, the value of dialectal words as helping to explain our English vocabulary began to be recognised.  Particular mention may be made of the Etymologicon Lingu{ae} Anglican{ae}, by Stephen Skinner, London, 1671; and it should be noted that this is the Dictionary upon which Dr Johnson relied for the etymology of native English words.  At the same time, we must not forget to note two Dictionaries of a much earlier date, which are of high value.  The former of these is the Promptorium Parvulorum, completed in 1440, published by the Camden Society in 1865; which contains a rather large proportion of East Anglian words.  The second is the Catholicon Anglicum, dated 1483, ed.  S.J.  Herrtage, E.E.T.S., 1881, which is distinctly Northern (possibly of Yorkshire origin).

We find in Skinner occasional mention of Lincolnshire words, with which he was evidently familiar.  Examples are:  boggle-boe, a spectre; bratt, an apron; buffet-stool, a hassock; bulkar, explained by Peacock as “a wooden hutch in a workshop or a ship.”

The study of modern English Dialects began with the year 1674, when the celebrated John Ray, Fellow of the Royal Society, botanist, zoologist, and collector of local words and proverbs, issued his Collection of English Words not generally used; of which a second edition appeared in 1691.  See my reprint of these; E.D.S., 1874.  This was the first general collection, and one of the best; and after this date (1674) many dialect words appeared in English Dictionaries, such as those of Elisha Coles (1676, and four subsequent editions); John Kersey (1708, etc.); Nathaniel Bailey (1721, etc.); N. Bailey’s Dictionary, Part II, a distinct work (1727, etc.).  The celebrated Dictionary by Dr Johnson, 2 vols., folio, London, 1755, owed much to Bailey.  Later, we may notice the Dictionary by John Ash, London, 1775; and Todd’s edition of Johnson, London, 1818.  It is needless to mention later works; see the Complete List of Dictionaries, by H.B.  Wheatley, reprinted in the E.D.S.  Bibliographical List (1877), pp. 3-11; and the long List of Works which more particularly relate to English Dialects in the same, pp. 11-17.  Among the latter may be mentioned A Provincial Glossary, by F. Grose, London, 1787, second edition 1790; Supplement to the same, by the late S. Pegge, F.S.A., London, 1814; and Glossary of Archaic and Provincial Words, by the late Rev. J. Boucher, ed.  Hunter and Stevenson, 1832-3.  The last of these was attempted on a large scale, but never got beyond the word Blade; so that it was practically a failure.  The time for producing a real Dialect Dictionary had not yet come; but the valuable Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, by J. Jamieson, published at Edinburgh in 4 vols., 4to, in 1808-25, made an excellent beginning.