Richardson gives no earlier usage of the word 'coffined' than from the reign of James the First, forgetting that noble passage in Shakspeare's Coriolanus,

'Would'st thou have laugh'd, had I come coffin'd home,
That weep'st to see me triumph?'

Again, the latest usage of the word 'make-bate' as given by Richardson is in Holinshed, whereas it may be found a full century later in a tract by Andrew Marvell. Dr. Trench has some amusing observations upon the negative evidences with regard to a word's first appearance; arguing that if we can show that a writer did not employ a certain word, when his subject must have presented to him every inducement to employ it, we may infer that it was not then in existence. For the most part this inference may be a fair one, yet it is not so in every case. A certain modern author has thought proper to make use of the phrase thoroughfaresomeness of stuff,' meaning thereby what we generally term the 'penetrability of ' matter.' On the principle of negative evidence it may be argued at some future period, that inasmuch as the subject must have presented every inducement to use the phrase 'penetra'bility of matter,' and yet the phrase was not used,— ergo, it did not exist.

6

With Dr. Trench's remarks upon the successive modifications of meaning we entirely concur. The inventory of words must comprise also an inventory of meanings, and those meanings must be arranged in their natural succession. The simple cause of omissions in a dictionary we take to arise for the most part not so much from a doubt as to the principles of philology,, as from an inability to meet the vast amount of labour required in searching out the details. We should like to see a lexicographer who will steer his bark midway between the Scylla of omission and the Charybdis of redundancy; a course apparently more difficult to find than it might at first be supposed. We should like to have a dictionary the bulk of which is not increased to unwieldiness by the introduction of such words as 'acater,'' adaw,' afterundertaker,' alcoranish,' and 'unvulgar.' We could also dispense with to 'primp,' to 'dill,' to 'dit,' to 'sipe,' to 'dadder;' we do not care much for the meaning of the words 'dodd,' fouty,' fram'frim'; and as for such as 'belswagger,''mizmaze,' 'pigheaded,' pricklouse,' 'wraprascal,' and 'fustilug,' we shall not think the liberty of speech much endangered by the exercise of dictatorship which turns them out. We should like a better dictionary than those which tell us that brimstone' is sulphur,' and then reward us for the trouble we have had in turning to 'sulphur,' by telling us it is

'brimstone.' We think that the time of a lexicographer may be more profitably employed than in enumerating to us in detail the names of eighty-four different kinds of pears. We smile in amazement on seeing it actually in print that net-work' means anything reticulated, decussated at equal distances.' We would admit the words honied' and 'daisied' into our dictionary because we find them in Chaucer, Milton, and Shakspeare; and although the practice of giving to adjectives derived from substantives the form of participles is irregular, we would let the irregularity pass as a laudable effort on the part of the language to supply the place of an adjective which, if regularly formed, as from flower' flowery,' would be unpronounceable. We do not feel at all obliged to an English lexicographer for telling us the meaning of the Latin word 'pabulum'; especially if he takes credit for it as a new word not given by his predecessors. We think that the word coax'ation,' invented by Henry More as expressive of the act of croaking on the part of frogs (koܧ), is an unfortunate word to admit at all, especially when we find it explained as the act of 'coaxing.' We admire the industry with which Richardson has collected and arranged his quotations: but we should have liked it better if he had followed, not the order of writers, but the order of meanings. His definitions, too, seem to us rather scanty; and we would give as an instance the definition of 'wit, which surely means something more explicit than the 'power or faculty which kens, knows, perceives, understands.' By diving into his three columns of quotations we bring up something more to the point; but we should like to have found it without taking the trouble to dive. We should like to meet with a lexicographer equally brief, terse, and lucid in his definitions with the indefatigable Dr. Noah Webster: but we should prefer one who would give us fewer words and a greater number of illustrative quotations. Though he has discarded a considerable number of Todd's redundancies, there are still too many left; for instance, 'anti-monarchicalness,' and 'anti-patheticalness,' and 'connaturalness,' to say nothing of to 'dizz,' to 'flawter,' and the abbreviation "'em' for them.' What occasion is there under the word alkali' to run through a series of derivative words to the number of fourteen, including such as 'alkalifiable,' and 'alkilinity?' There are at least a hundred and twenty words of which the intensitive 'all' is a component part, and of which a large proportion, including such words as all-murdering,' all-piercing,' all-blasting,' and 'all-dimming,' might easily have been spared. Without stopping to argue the point as to whether, in his attempt to bring certain words back

6

to the purity of the Latin, he was justified in spelling the words 'favor, honor,' labor,' ' valor;' we must protest against the extension of the rule to such words as neighbor,' harbor,' ' endeavor,' and 'behavior.' With regard to Dr. Noah Webster's etymologies, we think that many of them, although the fruit of much learned research, are at least doubtful; and that those from the Semitic languages are mere freaks of fancy, realising in a singular manner the description written by Cowper a quarter of a century before, of

'those learn'd philologists, who chase A panting syllable through time and space, Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark

To Gaul-to Greece-and into Noah's ark.'

We agree with Dr. Trench that much remains to be done with regard to Synonyms; in fact there is no doubt that a due precision in marking the various shades of meaning will bring down the number of actual synonyms to a small proportion of what it appears to be at present.

we cannot

Dr. Trench estimates very highly, but not more highly than is their due, the value of quotations, illustrative of the first introduction of words and their etymology and their meaning. When a writer in the seventeenth century, for instance, protests against the introduction of the word suicide' in the place of self-homicide,'-' because it might seem as well to parti'cipate of sus, a sow, as of the pronoun sui,'. have a more satisfactory record of the word's first appearance. The value of illustrative and suggestive quotations was well known to Johnson. Although in his selection of them we may trace a predilection for the books which composed his own library, some of which were more estimable for their religious tendency or more acceptable to him for their political sentiments, than intrinsically valuable for literary excellence; and although his acquaintance even with these favoured volumes was imperfect, being the result of fortuitous and unguided 'excursions,' as he himself describes the process, in which all that he did was to glean as industry should find or chance 'should direct,'--still, it must be acknowledged that it is by the felicitous use of quotations, no less than by his wonderful faculty of discrimination, and of giving preciseness and force to definition, that his great work came to be regarded as one of unsurpassed authority in the world of letters.

Our friends of the Philological Society can frame no better wish than that their projected dictionary may stand forth in its generation, as noble a monument of learning, acuteness, and

industry, as that of the sturdy lexicographer, who pushed on his work, year after year, through difficulties of which he deemed it useless to complain, and brought it to the verge of completion, as he proudly states, without one act of assistance, one word ' of encouragement, or one smile of favour.' Their design is a magnificent one, but they will have difficulties of corresponding magnitude to contend with in carrying it out. That a vast amount of materials will be collected there can be no doubt; and these materials, when carefully arranged, will be an invaluable acquisition to the philological literature of England. But beyond the collecting and arranging of materials their prospect is at present, it must be confessed, rather hazy. Assume that all is ready, and that a general plan is laid down for the edifice, where is the wise master-builder? The hewers of wood and the drawers of water have done their work well, and an abundance of excellent material lies upon the ground-blocks of stone from the various quarries specified in the programme, every block, in the judgment of those who brought it, right in quality and right in dimension. But what if there be others who think differently upon that point? There must somewhere lie a power of arbitration. From the moment that the building begins, the republic must give place to a dictator. Let the dictator have, if it be needful, a board of assessors, three or five in number, with whom he may take counsel in cases of peculiar difficulty; but his power must be paramount, and his decision final. Cases will be constantly occurring in which it will be requisite to draw a line; as, for instance, to mark the precise limits of the several eras of the language, as well as of the class of books to be included in those several eras; and the hand that draws this line must be a firm one. In the whole department of the explanation of words, it is not industrious research alone that will be required, but a commanding intellect. The Philological Society may succeed in extracting an immense mass of materials; but the task of constructing the work is then to begin, if it is to have that authority which we require, and that mark of unity in design and execution which a perfect dictionary must possess.

ART. IV.

Correspondence of Charles, first Marquis Cornwallis. Edited, with Notes, by CHARLES ROSS, Esq. 3 vols. 8vo. London: 1859.

As s soon as nations emerge from that childlike state, in which every narrative of past events is accepted as historical, as soon as they begin to doubt and to inquire after the evidence of occurrences related to have happened in former ages, the distinction between contemporary and traditionary history is speedily apprehended. The modern critical historian draws this distinction with still greater precision. He points out, for instance, how history, founded on a consecutive narrative of well-informed contemporaries, begins, for Greece, with the Persian war, and for Rome, with the landing of Pyrrhus in Italy; and how the accounts of Greece and Rome for the earlier periods, are derived from oral traditions, assisted by fragmentary records in writing, and popular poems. Even in some periods of later history, where barbarous communities are concerned, the traditionary element occupies a large space. Mr. Muir, in his recent Life of Mahomet, has shown how much of the accepted history of the Arab prophet rests upon the uncertain basis of oral tradition *; and M. Amédée Thierry, in his History of Attila, has given a copious analysis of the legendary materials which have been accumulated around the exploits of the conqueror of the fifth century.†

The modern history of civilised nations is founded exclusively upon contemporary materials. It is derived from the written accounts of persons who lived at the time of the events which they narrate. But the contemporary materials of history are not all of the same character; they differ in value and authenticity, according as they emanate from mere spectators, or from actors in the events. The annals and chronicles from which the history of England and of other European states, for the period prior to the sixteenth century, is derived, were chiefly composed by monks or priests, who, living in retirement, knew no more of contemporary history than could be learnt by a spectator of passing events. A similar remark applies to such historians as Stowe and Holinshed, and even to Smollett. A contemporary writer cannot be mistaken about patent occurrences, such as a

See vol. i. introd. c. 1. (2 vols. 1858.)

+ Histoire d'Attila et de ses Successeurs (Paris, 1856), vol. ii. pp. 229-443.