On Some Deficiencies in Our English Dict

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BY\ RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH, D.D.'DBAlf 01' WESTJlDfBTBB.

SERMONS PREACHED IN WESTMINSTER:'ABBEY. ..octavo. 108. 6tl. "ON THE AUTHORIZED VERSION OF THENEW TESTAMENT.In conntWon with some recent Proposal8 for its Revision ' ' , Second Edition, enlarged., 78.

NOTES ON THE PARABLES.Seventh Edition.128.

NOTES ON THE MIRACLES.Sixth Edition.

128.SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

Fourth Edition.58.FIVE SERMONS, PREACHED BEFORE THEUNIVERSITY. OF CAMBRIDGE.

28.6d.HULSEAN LECTURES.

Two SerieS. Cheaper Edition. 08.ST. AUGUSTINE'S EXPOSITION OF THE

. SERMON ON THE MOUNT.With an Essay on St. Augustine as an Intrepreter of Scripture.Second Edition, revised and improved.

711.The Essay separately. 311. 6d.

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ON THE STUDY OF WORDS.Ninth Edition, enlarged.

41.A SELECT GLOSSARY OF ENGLISH WORDS

USBD J'ORKBRLY IN SBNSBS DIPPBRENT PRO.THBIR PRBSENT.Second Edition.41.

ENGLISH, PAST AND PRESENT.Fourth Edition.

41.PROVERBS AND THEIR LESSONS.

Fourth Edition.3,.JUSTIN MARTYR, AND OTHER POEMS.

Fourth Edition.&.

POEMS FROM EASTERN SOURCES, GENO.VEVA, AND OTHER POEMS.Second Edition.

5,.6d.ELEGIAC POEMS.

Third Edition.2I.6d.

CALDERON'S LIFE'S A DREAM:THE GREAT THEATRE OF THE WORLD.

With an Essay on his Life and Genius.4I.6d.

LONDON: JOHN W. PARKER AND SON, WEST STRAND.

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ON

SOME DEFICIENCIESDlOUll.

)BDS, ENGLISH DICTIONARIES.

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THE SUBSTANCE OF TWO PAPERSREAD BEFORE THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY,

Nov. S. AND Nov. 19. 1857.

BY

RICHARD CHENEVIX ~ R E N C H , D.D.DEAN O. WE$TJUNSTu.

TO WHICH IS ADDED

A LETTBR TO THB AUTHOR FROM: HBRBBRT COLBRIDGB, BSQ.ON TBB PROGRESS AND PROSPBCTS OF TBB SOCIETY'SNEW ENGLISH DICTIONARY.

LONDON:

. .-- ... . .

.. ,- .,"JOHN W. PARKER AND SON, WEST STRAND.

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ON

SOME DEFICIENCIES IN OURENGLISH DICTIONA.RIES.

THE course adopted by the Philological Society, in itssession of 1856-1857, with a view of removing someof the imperfections, and supplying some of the deficiencies,of our English Dictionaries, is now known to many besidesthe members of the Society itself. Many, too, are awareof the general acceptance with which the scheme wasreceived, as one at once practical and full of promise; ofthe large amount of co-operation which was freely tenderedboth by members of the Society and by others; so that, thehorizon of those who had undertaken the scheme enlargingby degrees, it was, finally resolved to publish, not a Supplement to existing Dictionaries, which it was felt would onlyimperfectly meet the necessities of the case, and wouldmoreover be encumbered with inconveniences of its own.but an entirely new Dictionary; no patch upon old garments, but a new garment throughout. The little Essaywhich follows is the substance of two papers which wereread before the Society, while the scheme was yet in itsinfancy. I t has been for some time out of print; and isnow republished with amendments and additions, and alsowith such alterations as the altered condition. of things mayrequire. I may be allowed, perhaps, to mention here whatI mentioned on that former occasion-namely, that I havethought it right to abstain from employing any portion orthose large materials already collected for the Dictionary,

B

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ON SOME DEFICIENCIES IN r,partly as being unwilling even. to seem to employ for a W1private end contributions made for a more public object; fbut with a further advantage; for I am thus able to show,that it needs no such combined effort of many to mak( ,-palpable our deficiencies, however it may need this to r e m o v ~ them; but that anyone who is not merely and altogethera guest and stranger in our earlier literature, has in hispower to bring forward abundant evidence even from hissingle, and it may be slenderly furnished treasure-house, ofthe large omissions which it is desirable to supply.

The title which I give to this little Essay that I amabout to read is as follows .....On BOmB ])eficienci68 in ourEngluk ])ictionaries. It deals, that is, with some, and notwith all their deficiencies. I t leaves wholly aside the ety.mological aspect of our preSent Dictionaries, and treatsonly of the imperfect registration in them of the words ofour language, and the imperfect use of our literature in theillustration of the words. The plan which I propose inthe following pages to adopt will be this. Rememberingthe excellent maxim of the Schoolmen, Generalia fW'/epungunt, I shall deal as little as possible with these generals,shall enter as much as I can into particulars in proof of myassertion. Such a course, indeed, will be attended witha certain inconvenience, which is this: the fact that thevocabulary of our Dictionaries is seriously deficient canonly be shown by an accumulation of evidence) each severalpart of which is small and comparatively insignificant initself only deriving weight and importance from the cir.cum.nce that it is one of a multitude of like proofs;while yet it will be impossible within the limits of onepaper, or even of two, to bring more than comparativelya very small portion of this evidence before you. Neithermy limits, nor your patience, would admit of more. Thisinconvenience, however, I cannot avoid. Even aB it is, I

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~ ~ G L I S H D I C T I O r 4 a R ~ 8fear I shall llatience to themake tha blli0ill'0b0my subjaall0present to you according to the following arrangement.

Our Dictionaries then appear to me deficient in thefollowing points; I do not say that there are not othermatters likewise in which they fail, but to these I woulddesire at the present to direct your attention.

I. are incompletslyi ~ ! i t h no reasonablainsertion of thooo

; some000'000',,0'0 for the

y%'OUPS of words aro somemembers inserted, whileIll. Much earlier examples of the employment of wordsoftentimes exist than any which are cited; indicating thatthey were introduced at an earlier date into the languagethan these examples would imply. So, too, on the otherhand, in the case of words now obsolete, much later ex-amples be produced0 their cur-rencyat and sometime0r that whenwe are that they passedIV. m000snings and use!over; later alone earlier,without which the history of words will be often maimedand incomplete, or even unintelligible, are unnoticed.V. Comparatively little' attention is paid to the distinguishing of synonymous words.VI. Many passages in our literature are passed by, which

might be 5!:lduced in illustration dR'st intro-duction, ond meaning ofVII. our Dictionariesthe too much as

aome things, anh thom manythings, which have properly no claim to find room in theirpages.Such are the principal shortcomings which I find inB2

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4 ON SOME DEFICIENCIES INthose books on which we must ever chiefly rely in seekingto obtain a knowledge of our native tongue. I mustdetain you one moment before I proceed to my proofs, andI will employ that m o m e n ~ in expressing my earnest trustthat nothing which I shall say may even seem inconsistentwith the highest respect, admiration, and honour, for thelabonrers, whether living or dead, in this field of Englishlexicography. It is comparatively easy to pick a hole here,or to detect a flaw there j to point out stones, it may bemany stones, lying in the way, which ought to have beenbuilt up into the wall; but such edifices as our greatEnglish Dictionaries could only have been reared byenormous labour, patience, and skill: and the eame some-what close examination which detects these little blemishes,and discovers these omissions, which shows us, what wemight have guessed betore, namely, that they underlie theinfirmity common to all other works of man's hands, doesto a far greater extent make us conscious how vast theamount is of that labour, patience, and skill which theyrepresent and embody.To come, then, now to my proofs. And yet before theseproofs can be considered to prove anything, I must ask youto be at one with me in r ~ g a r d of what the true idea ofa Dictionary is, what it ought to include, and what toexclude. I f we are not agreed in this, much that is adducedmay seem beside the mark. I will I!tate, then, very brieflywhat my idea of a Dictionary is, hoping to find that it isalso yours j and if not, endeavouring to persuade you tomake it yours, as that which on fuller deliberation alonecommends itself to your minds.

A Dictionary, then, according to that idea of it whichseems to me alone capable of being logically maintained, is"an inventory of the language: much more indeed, but thisprimarily, and with this only at present we will deal. I tis no task of the maker of it to select the good words of alanguage. I f he fancies that it is so, and begins to pick

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OUR ENGLISH DICTIONARIES. 5and choose, to leave this and to take that, he will at oncego astray. IThe business which he has undertaken is tocollect and arrange all the words, whether good or bad,whether they do or do not commend themselves to hisjudgment, which, with certain exceptions hereafter to bespecified, those writing in the l a n ~ e have employed.He is an historian of it, not a critic. The delectus ver-borum, on which so ;uch, on which nearly everything instyle depends, is a matter with which he has no concern.There is a constant confusion here in men's minds. Thereare many who conceive of a Dictionary as though it hadthis function, to be a standard of the language; and thepretensions to be this which the French IJictionary of theAcademy sets up, may have helped on this confusion. I t isnothing of the kind. A special Dictionary may propose toitself to be such, to include only the words on which thecompiler is willing to set the mark of his approval, as beingfit, and in his judgment the only fit, to be employed bythose who would write with purity and correctness. Of theprobable worth of such a collection I express no opinion.Those who desire, are welcome to such a book: but formyself I will only say that I cannot understand how anywriter 'with the smallest confidence in himself, the leastmeasure of that vigour and vitality which would justifyhim in addressing his countrymen in written or spokendiscourse at all, should consent in this matter to let oneself-made dictator, or forty, determine for him what wordshe should use, and what he should forbear from using. Atall events, a Dictionary of the English language such awork would not have the slightest pretence to be called.What SOl't of completeness, or what value, would a Greeklexicon possess, a 8cott and LiddeU, from whose pages allthe words condemned by Phrynichus and the other Greekpurists, and, so far as style is concerned, many of themjustly condemned, had been dismissed? The lexicographeris making an inventory;, that is his business; he may

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6 ON SOME DEFICIENCIES INthink of this article which he inserts in his catalogue, thatit had better be consigned to the lumber-room with allspeed, or of the other, that it only met its deserts when itwas 80 consigned long ago j but his task is to make his

I I

. inventory complete. Where he counts words to be needless,affected, pedantic, ill put together, contrary to the geniusof the language, there is no objection to his saying so; onthe contrary, he may do real service in this way: but lettheir claim to belong to our book-language be the humblest,and he is bound to record them, to throw wide with an im-partial hospitality his doo.rs to them, as to all other. A:J?ictionary is an historical monument.Jthe history of a rn ~ t i o i i - o o n t e m p l a t e d - - f r o ~ - o n e p ~ i n L o f __ v i e w j ~ _ and thewrong ways- into which a language has wandered, or beendisposed to wander, may be nearly as instructive as the , '1'right ones in which it has t.ravelled: as much may be I \learned, or nearly as much, from its failures as from its __ ;successes, from its follies as from its wisdom. I, 11,The maker, for example, of an English Dictionary \,may not consider 'mlllierosity/l or 'subsannation,'lI o r l I'coaxation,'S or 'ludibundness," delinition/ 6 or sep- 1temfluous,'6 or 'medioxumous,'7 or 'mirificent,'B or 'pal- 11I

1 "Both Gaspar Sanctus and he tax Antiochus for his mulierosityand excess in luxury."-H. MORB,MyBteryqj' Iniquity, h. 2, c. 10, 3.t "Idolatry is as absolute a aub8annation and vilification of God asmali('.e could invent."-IIl. ib. h. I , c. 5, 11.a "The importunate, harsh, and disharmonious coa:J:atiom of frogs."

- I l l . ib. h. I , c. 6, 16.4 "That lullibundne88 of nature in her gamaieus and such like sportfuland ludicrous productions."-IIl. ib. h. I, c. 15, 14., "The tlelinition altlOof the infant's ears and nostrils with the spittle."

- I l l . ib. h. I, c. 18, 7.8 "The main streams of this Bepttlflffl- river [the NileJ."-Id. ib.

h. I , c. 16, 11.7 "The whole order of the mellio3:umou8 or intemuntial deities."Ill. ib. b. I , c. 12, 6.8 "Enchantment Agrippa defines to be nothing but the conveyanceof a certain miri.ficent power into the thing enchanted."-Itl. ib. h. I,c. 18, 3.

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OUB. ENGLISH DICTIONA.RIES. .,miferous,'l or 'opime,'S or a thousand ether words of asimilar character which might adduced (I take all thesefrom a single work of Henry More), to contribute much tothe riohes of the English tongue; yet has he not thereforeany right to omit them, as all these which I have justadduced, with a thousand more of like kind} have beenomitted from 9ur Dictionaries.s I will not urge that one ortwo in this list might be really serviceable (' mulierosity,'for instance, expresses what no other word in the langqagewould do); but admitting them to be purely pedantic, thatthey would be quite intolerable in use, still they involve andillustrate an important fact in the history ofour language,the endeavour to latinize it to a far greater extent thanhas actually been done, the refusal on its part to adopt morethan a certain number of these Latin candidates for admissioninto its ranks,-and, therefore, should not be omitted fromthe archives of the language. indeed, the makers of ourDictionaries had, by a like omission, put the same stamp ofnon-allowance upon all other words of this character, onall whioh to them seemed p ~ d a n t i c , inconsistent with thetrue genius of thl! language, threatening to throw tOQ preponderating a weight into one of its scales, this course,although mistakeo, would yet have been cl)nsistent. Butthey have not done so. They all include, and rightly, a

1 "The palmiferoua company triumphs, and the Heavenly Jerusalemis seen upon earth."-Id. ib. b. 2, O. 6, 18.

I "Great 8.Jld opime preferments and dignities." ....Ill. b. b. 2, o. 15, 3.a I t may be objeoted to this statement, t h a ~ two or three of thoseabove quoted are found Johnson or in Todd. They are so; coaxation,' for instance, which the latter defines as "the art of coaxing"! butthey are there without examples of their use; and though I shall notoften refer to such words, when I do I shall deal with them as wordswholly wanting in our Dictionaries; for to me there is no differencebetween a word absent from a Dictionary, and a word there, but unsustained by an authority. Even i f Webster's Dictionary were in otherrespects a better book, the almost total.. absence of illustrative quotations would deprive it of all value in my eyes.

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8 ON SOME DEFICIENCIES INmUltitude of 'such words. But admitting these, such, forinstance, as Cfabulosity,' 'populosity,' Cnidorous,' 'ataraxy,'c'andabation,' C prosopography,' C exiconize,' 'diaphaneity,'-admitting these by the hundred, they had forfeited theirright, were it only on the ground of consistency, to excludesuch as I have just enumerated, not to say that the idea ofa Dictionary demands their insertion. I t is, let me oncemore repeat, for those who use a language to sift; the branfrom the flour, to reject that and retain this. They are tobe the true Delta Cru8can,: this title of fuifuratore, is ausurpation when assumed by the makers of a Dictionary,and their assumption of it can only serve to show how farthey are from having rightly apprehended the task whichthey have undertaken.

There is, moreover, a still graver complaint which wemake against them. One of the most effectual means ofreducing ns to the condition of r,PEpO{3tot, of bringing us tolive only in the present, is to cut us off from all knowledgeof the past. We can only live in the past, and draw anennobling inspiration from it, through acquaintance, andindeed through more or less familiarity, with it. Thisfamiliarity is acquired in many ways. The study ofhistory, of antiquities, of laws, of literature, all help to giveit; but I know not whether the study of language is notthe most potent means of all for planting us in the truepast of our country j and of this it is proposed in greatpart to deprive us by those who would make our Dictionariesthe representations merely of what the language now is,and not also of what it has been.These preliminary observations made, I proceed to sup-port by evidence in each case the several complaints whichI have made.I. In regard of obsolete words, our Dictionaries have nocertain rule of admission or exclusion. But how, it may beasked, ought they to hold themselves in regard of these?

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OUR ENGLISH DICTIONARIES. 9This question has been already implicitly answered in whatwas just laid down regarding the all-comprehensive character which belongs to them. There are some, indeed, whotaking up a position a little different from theirs whowould have them to contain only the standard words of thelanguage, yet proceeding on the same inadequate view oftheir object and intention, count that they should aim atpresenting the body of the language as now existing j thisand no more j leaving to archaic glossaries the gatheripg inof words that are current no longer. But a little reflec-tion will show how untenable is this position j how thisrule, consistently followed out, would deprive a Dictionaryof a large part of its usefulness. Surely if I am readingSwift, and come on the word ' to brangle,' or light upon'druggerman' in Pope, I ought to be able to find them inmy Dictionary. Yes, it will perhaps be conceded, we willadmit the few archaic words which are met with in writersso recent as Pope and Swift. But then if I find 'palliard'or ' mazer' in Dryden, must I be content to be ignorant oftheir meaning, unless besides my English Dictionary, I haveanother of the obsolete English tongue? Dryden's fe\varchaisms, it is allowed, should find place. But I plead then,that in reading Jeremy Taylor I come upon 'dorter,''spagyrical,' and other words, hard to be 'understood:surely I may fairly demand that my Dictionary shall helpme over any verbal difficulties which I may find in Taylor;and in this way I travel back to Shakespeare, to Spenser, toGascoigne, to Hawes, to Chaucer, Wiclif, and at lengthto Piers Ploughman, Robert of Gloucester, or whateverother work is taken as the earliest in our tongue. I t isquite impossible with any consistency to make a stand any twhere, or to admit any words now obsolete without includ-ing, or at least attempting to include, all.

What I complain of in our Dictionaries is that they donot accept this necessity, and in its full extent. They allundertake to give the archaisms of the language j and thus

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10 ON SOME DEFICIENCIES INthose which I have just instanced are all to be found int.hem; but they all undertake this with certain reservationsand, exceptions. U Obsolete words," says Johnson, "areadmitted when they are found in authors not obsolete, orwhen they have any forCe or beauty tha.t may deserve reviva!." I will not pause here to inquire what a lexico.grapher has to do with the question whether a word deservesrevival or not; but rather call your attention to the factthat Johnson does not. even observe his own rule of comprehension, imperfect and inadequate as that is. When thewords omitted may be counted by hundreds, I suppose bythousands, it seems absurd, almost a weakening of one'scase, to quote three or four, which yet is all that I canundertake to do. I have no choice, however, but to citethese. 'Grimsire,' or 'grimsir,' I meet everywhere in ourold authors, in Massinger, in Burton, in Holland,l in twentymore, some of them certainly authors not obsolete, but hehas not found place for it; nor yet Richardson. Thisword, it may be pleaded, presents no great difficulty, thoughthis would be no excuse for its omission; but here is 'hick.&corner,' of which the meaning is anything but obvious:(the 'hickscomer' is the loose ribald scoffer at sacred things);this word also, of continual recurrence in our old authors,Smight be sought for vainly in our Dictionaries. Mostreaders, I am inclined to think, wonld be at a loss i f theymet the word 'titivillars,'s which yet they might meet inFoxe and Stubs; but beyond a slight notice, in so far as it

1 "Even Tiberius C&lSar, who otherwise was known for a grimli'1', andthe moat unsociable and melancholic man in the world, required in thatmanner to be salved and wished well unto, whensoever he sneezed."-Plin!;. vol. ii., p. 297.S "What is more common in our days than, when Inch AiCMItCO'1'1UJ'1"will be merry at their drunken banquets, to fall in t.!llk of some oneminister or otherP"-PILXINGTON, Ezpolition on Nell.emia!, c. 2."A professed jester, a !icM'CO'I'M'1', a scoft'master."-G. HaVBY,Fifrrce'. Suptlret'ogation, .A'1'c!aica. p. 86.

"Satan, the author and dower of discord, stirred up his instru-

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OUR ENGLISH DICTIONARIES. 11goes, a correct one, in Wright's G10881Jry, no informationabout the word, no mention of it ever is to be found inDictionary or glOBBary.l I f in Milton's ])ifence of tAePeople of En!lland Salmasius is called fC an inconsiderablefellow and a jacl&8traw,"'" why should I not know what at jackstra.w is, without recurring to some archaic gloBBaryfor this knowledge? They indeed would not help me here,for the word is in none of them. Sir Philip Sidney'sArcadia is a work tc not obsolete," and one I .trust whichnever will be; but I looked in vain in J ohnson and inevery other Dictionary and glossary for an explanation oft shewel's (it means scarecrow), till Mr. Herbert Coleridgegave it in his G1088arial lrulefC, with a reference to an .earlymetrical romance, in which it occurs.Still less satisfactory is Richardson's rule of admissionand exclusion. fC Obsolete words," he says, fC have beendiligently sought for, and all such, but no other, ascould contribute any aid to the investigations of etymology,are diligently preserved.." But why those only whichwould fC contribute aid to the investigations of etymology?" why not those also which should enable us tomeasure in its length and hreadth the intellectual territorywhich our English language Aaa occupied as well as thatments (certain Frenchmen), titivillar, and makebates, about the king,which ceased not, in carping and depraving the nobles, to inflame theking's hatred and grudge against them."-FoXB, Book qfMartyr',Anno 13I2; cf. STUBS, Anatomy qfAbu,e" p. 73.

I The demon tutivillus' was one who picked up all the words ofthe mass-service, which the prieats either omitted or milpronounced,and carried them oft' to hell. The later meanings of makebate, mischief-maker, are easily to be deduced from this., Prf{/'ace to eAe Diftmce. A reference to Milton's original, where",tramin6V8 eques" are the words, throws abundant light on the mean

ing of ackstraw.'8 "So are these bugbears of opinion brought by great clerks into theworld, to serve as ,_eu o keep them from those faults whereto elsethe vanity of the world, and weakness of senses might pull them."

Sir P. SIDNBY, bcadia, 1674, p. 263.

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12 ON SOME DEFICIENCIES INwhich it occupies now, to form some estimate of its wonderful riches, as in other ways, so also by a contemplation of the enormous losses which it has endured withoutbeing seriously impoverished thereby? Why not preserveall those obsolete words which are necessary to enable thestudent to read his English classics with comfort and withprofit? In carrying out his scheme he has often omitted,and not without loss, archaic words which Johnson orTodd has inserted. Thus I observe 'lurry' (a word occurring in Milton and Henry More), 'privado' (in Fuller andJeremy Taylor), 'powldron' (iu Ralegh),' chdkepear' (inRogers), and two I just noticed, 'druggerman' and 'palliard,' duly registered and explained in their pages, butaltogether omitted in his.Sometimes the word thus omitted is very curious. T h u ~ no one of our Dictionaries, and I may say the same of ourglossaries, contains the word 'umstroke j' which is yetmost noteworthy, being, as it is, the sole survivor of itskind. For while there is abundant evidence that our earlyEnglish derived largely from the Anglo-Saxon the use ofthe preposition' um' or 'umbe' (= allr/JC) in composition,(thus umgang,' 'umhappe,' 'umbeset, ' 'umgripe,''umklip,' 'umlap,' and many more, for which see Halli.well), no single word with this prefix, excepting only thisone, has lived on into our later English j which yet theauthors of our Dictionaries, as I have said, have not observed, or, observing, have not cared to register. I inclineto think they did not observe it; for while most of Fuller'-soother works have been diligently used by our lexico-graphers, his Pugah Sight of Paleatine, one of his mostcurious and most characteristic, and in which 'umstroke'twice occurs,! has been, as far as my experience reaches,entirely overlooked by them.

I . . Such towns as stand (as one may say) on tiptoes, on the very'J,Tlutrolce, or on any part of the utmost line of any map, (unresolved ill

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OUR ENGLISH DICTIONARIES. IS. Not lesll curious from the other extreme of the language

are the Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, words, whichit has b e ~ n endeavoured to transplant without alterationinto English, but which have refused to take root here j arecord of the attempt to transplant which ought not theless to be preserved, while yet often it has not been. ThusHolland sought to introduce Aristotle's / C ( f ' { 3 L ~ , l thoughcertainly our early English was rich enough in words to ex-press what is exprest by this, so rich that we have let dropmore than half of them-' snudge/ 'curmudgeon,' 'chuff,''gripe,' (not in our Dictionaries in this sense, but so usedby Burton),2 'pinchpenny,' 'clutchfist,' 'penifather/ 'nipfarthing,' 'huddle' (not in our Dictionaries in this sense,but so used by LylyS}, and many more. For Latin words,, ardelio" figures in Burton, 'remulus,'5 in Drayton, and inAndrews 'rex' in the popular phrase, "to play re:c"8 or toplay the tyrant, but none of these in our Dictionaries.Sylvester, whose works, by the way, are a mine as yet very

a manner to stay out or come in), are not to be presumed placed accord-ing to exactness, but only signify them there or theresboutB."-Pt. I ,b. I , c. 14; cf. pt . 2, b. 5, c. 20.

1 "He that calleth a liberal man, wellknown to spend magnificently,a base mechanical lcumbi:e and a pinching penifather, ministerethmatter of good sport and laughter to the party whom he seemcth so tochallenge or menace."-Plutarclt, p. 665.

I . . Let him be a bawd, a g-ripe, an usurer, a villain."-Anatomy ofMelanc1oly, 1,2,4,6.a "This old miser asking of Aristippus what he would take to teachand bring up his son, answeroo, A thousand groats. ' A thousandgroats! God shield I' answered this old 1.ddk."-Bwpltue, and Ai,Ep1mb.,.

, "Striving to get that which we had better be without, ardeliOl, busybodies as we are."-Anatomy qfMelanc1oly, pt. I , 2,4,7.Ii ".As this brave warrior was, so no lell8 dear to usThe rival of his fame, his only _ul. , ."Polyolbi01l, Song 18. .. As helpers of your joy, not to domineer and play r e ~ . " - R o G B B 8 , Naaman tke Syrian, p. 217.

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14 ON SOME DEFICIENCIES INinadequately wrought for lexicographical purposes, employsthe Italian t farfalla.'l for butterfly.Sometimes the word is one capable of doing good servicestill. . Such to my mind is the verb t to cankerfret,'i andanother, t to witwanton,'S such t rootfast, and (rootfast.ness j'4. such a. 'neednot'5 (the word is, I believe, still in useamong the Quakers) to expreBS such a superfluity as wemight well do without. A (woodkern' for a forest.hauntingbandit, is a word expressive enough to deserve commemoration, i f expressiveness is to constitute the right of admiBSion.8

Let me observe here, and before quitting this importantbranch of the subject, that provincial or local words stand,so far as my single judgment goes, for I pledge no one else,on quite a different footing from olJ80lete. I do not complain of their omission. In my judgment we should, onthe contrary, have a right to complain i f they were admitted, and it is an oversight that some of our Dictionaries occasionally find room for them, in their avowedcharacter of provincial words j when indeed, aa BUC", they

1 "And, new farfalla, in her radiant shine,Too bold, I burn these tender wings of mine."f i B M a g m ~ . t " I f God break oft' the soul betimes from this sin, ere it havecankerjtetted the soul."-ROGERB, Naaman tluJ Syrian, p. 103.a "Dangerous it is to lIIitlllanton it with the II19Jestyof God."FULLER, f iB Holy State, b. 3, c. 2. The word is also a noun :" Al l epicures, lllitlllanton., atheists."

SYLVEBTER, LacrytTkS L a c ~ ~ . 4 State Paper., vol. vi. p. 534., "Divine Providence had so divided it that other lands should be at

the cost and care to bear, dig out and refine, and Judma the power andcredit to use, expend, yea, neglect such glittering neetlnou to humanhappiness."-FuLLBR,..4. P u g a ~ SigM ofPale.tine, b. I , c. 3.a "The same hath been said to me (who have been forlaid and whoselife hath been sought), which were more beseeming to speak to a lllooa.kern or robber by the highway."-HoLUND, Lit1!/, p. 1065; cf.Somers' ProcU, vol. i. p. 586.

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OUR ENGLISH D J C T I O N A R I E ~ . 15have no right to a place in a Dictionary of the Englishtongue. I have placed an emphasis On ff a8 IJUck;" forwhile this is so, it must never be forgotten that a word maybe local or provincial now, which was once current over thewhole land. There are many such, which belonging onceto the written and spoken language of all England, andhaving free course through the land, have now fallen fromtheir former state and dignity, have retreated to remoterdistricts, and there maintain an obscure existence still;citizens once, they are only provincials now. These properly find" place in a Dictionary, not, however, in rightof what they now are, but of what they once have heen jnot because they now survive in some single district, butbecause they once lived through the whole land. I regretthe absence of a number of these from our Dictionaries, andwill instance a few.

, Spong' is now a Suffolk, or, it may be, an East Anglian;word. HaUiwell deals with it as thus provincial, and rightlydescribes it as "an irregular narrow and projecting part of afield;" corresponding, therefore, very nearly to the' sling,''slang,' o r ' slinget,' of some of our Midland counties.Our Dictionaries know nothing of it; nor should they takenote of it on the score of its present provincial existence jbut they should on the ground that it once had free coursein our literary English, being often used by Fuller.l Oncemore, take the verb ' to hazle.' Halliwell and W rightexplain it rightly as "the first process in drying washedlinen," and assign to it also East Anglia as the regionwhere it is current; but it was once not East Anglian, butEnglish, as a noble passage, of which I cite a few words,from a great but little-known divine, will prove.1I Then,

I "The tribe of Judah with a narrow 'Pong confined on the kingdom of Edom."-...4. PiIIga1 Sigit of PaleBti1Ul, pt. 2. b. 4. Co 2 ; andofteu.2 "Thou. who by that happy wind of thine didst MlIlB and dry upthe forlorn dregs and slime ot' Noah'8 deluge, cause a new face of zeal

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]6 ON SOME DEFICIENCIES INonce more, the verb t to flaite,' signifying to scare, to terrify,and standing in the same relation to 'flit' that 'fugare'does to 'fugere'-this may be, as our glossaries teU us, aword of the North Country now; but it was a word of thewhole country once, and as such should have found placenot in our glossaries alone, but in our Dictionaries no less.1The same may be said o f ' to flask' in the sense of toflutter,lI and of 'bunch' in that of stroke or blow.s 'Tohopple' (the word is not in Richardson), Todd gives as anorthern word, and without example. Supposing he wasright in saying so, he had no business to give it at all; buthe is not; for it is employed by Henry M o r e . ~ , Roating,'an epithet applied to grass, and signifying coarse and rank,may be, and is, provincial now; but it was not so once ;Pilkington uses it.6 t Dozzled' our archaic glossaries assignto the Eastern Couuties, and explain rightly as meaningstupid, heavy; but we should not have to seek it, or at leastto find it, only in them; Bishop Racket employs it.s I

and grace to appear upou our age, drunken and soaked with ease andsensuality."-RoGER8, Naaman tke Syrian, p. 886.

1 . . Desire God to fla!Jte and glUlter thee out of that lap and bosom,as BamBOn out of Dalilah's."-Id. ib. p. 877; cf. pp. 138,453'

" Then Phrebus gathered up his steeds, that yet for fear did runLikejlaigkted fieuds."-GoLDING, Ovid'a Metamorplwaia, b. 2.I " In apeaking these or other words as sturdy Boreas gauTojlaaTt:e his wings, with waviugof the which he raised thanSo great a gale that all the earth was blustered therewithal."

GOLDING, O"id'a Metamorplwaia, b. 6.a .. I t is said of Peter that the angel gave him 1& bunch to-side, andthen his chains fell otr."-ROGER8, Naaman eke Syrian, p. 193., .. Superstitiously hoppkd [i. e. entangled] ill the toils and nets ofsuperfluous opinions."-On Godlinua, b. 9, c. 7, 8.i . . The Good Shepherd will not let his sheep feed in hurtful and"oating pastures, but will remove them to good feeding grounds." -Burning qf Paul!a.

8 . . In such a perplexity every man asks his fellow, What's best to bedone P and being dozzled wit.h fear, thinks every man wiser than himllelf."-LVe qf A."chbillhop Williama, pt. 2, p. 142.

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i

OUR ENGLISH DICTIONARIES. 11believe a corn-sieve is still called a (try'l in some parts ofEngland, a small enclosure a (pingle,'2 a pond a 'pulke,'3a child's hands i ts ' dolls' (the word has nothing to do with'doll'=puppet), the ornaments on the collar ofa cart-horse,the hounces;6 but the words had once nothing local aboutthem, that they should be relegated to these collections, andfound only in them.

While I am thus dealing with obsolete words, and beforeleaving this part of my subject, let me say a word or twoon what the Germans call nebenformen (we have no wordwhich, exactly answers to this, but might call them 'subforms'), and adduce a handful of these, in proof of the incompleteness with which they are given in our Dictionaries.I t was once attempted to make an English word of'analysis,' and to speak of the 'analyse :'6 examples of thisI have before me in Henry, More, Racket, Rogers; but ourDictionaries do not notice it. When' big' was intendedin the sense of proud. it often took the shape of 'bog.'7

1 "They will not pass through the holes of the sieve, ruddle, or try,i f they be narrow."-HOLLAND, Plutarck, p. 86.

2 "The Academy, a little pingle or plot of ground, was the habitation of Plato, Xenocrates, and Polemon."-Id. ib. p. 275.a Cl I t is easy for a woman to go to a pond or pullce standing nearto her door (though the water be not so good) rather than to go to afountain of living water further otr."-ROGERS, Naaman eke S!p"ian,

p.842 4 "Alas, let these same silly souls that in my bosom stretchTheir little arms (by chance her babes their pretty dol18 did retch)To pity move yoU."-GOLDING, Ovi!C8 Metamorpk08i8, b. 6.6 Cl The spokes were all of silver bright; the chIysolites and gems .That stood upon the collars, trace, and kOU1lC68 in their hems

Did cast a sheer and glimmering light."-Id. ib. b. 2. "The anal!J8e of it [a little tractate] may be spared, since itis in many hands."-HAcxET, Life qf Arckbiallop William8, pt. 2,P 1047 "The thought of this should cause the jollity of thy spirit to quail,and thy bog and bold heart to be abashed."-RoGERs, Naaman ekeSyrian, p. 18. c

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18 ON SOME DEFICIENCIES IN'To clitchll was current as well as 'to clutch,' , Flox'iwas a variation of 'fiax' as well as 'fiix;' it was appliedlike 'fiix' to the down of animals. Like almost all otherwords of the same kind, 'stick,' for instance, which varieswith 'stitch,' 'belk' with 'belch,' so 'prick' appears oftenas 'pritch ;'8 'ruddle'4 existed as well a s ' riddle' or'raddle.' 'To strinkle,' another form of 'to sprinkle,' is usedby Henry More.6 'To wanze' is the constant form inwhich 'to wane' occurs in some of our writers;6 our glossaries take notice of the word, characterizing it as a formof East Anglia, but it ought to find place in our Dictionaries as well.

H. Families of words in our Dictionaries are often in .complete, some members inserted, while others are omitted;the family being really larger and more widely spreadthan they leave us to suppose. Thus ' awk,' which survives in our ' awkward,' has not merely' awkly,' but 'awk.ness,7 which none of them have found room for. Coleridge,

1 le I f any of them be athirst, he hath an earthen pot wherewith toeliteA up water out of the running river,"-HoLLAND, X6floplum',Oyroptedia, p. 4,, "They dress it [their nest] all over with down feathers, or fineJlO31."-ld. PUny, pt. I , p. 288."'.! :' The least word uttered awry, the least conceit taken, or pritek,the breaking in of a cow into their grounds, yea, sheep or pigs, isenough to make suits, and they will be revenged."-RoGBR8, NaIMfUJ4ttAe Syrian, p. 270.

4 . . The holelhof the sieve, rtufdle, or try."-HoLUND, PZ"tarek,p.86.

cc Men whose brains were seasoned with some lItri"lcZi"!I' atleast of madness and phrensy."-On Gotllinu" 1. 8, Co 14, 11.e cc Many bewrayed themselves to be time-Bervers, and "anzed awayto nothing, all fast as ever they seemed to colne forward."-RoGBBS,N(Jaman tlte Syrian.. Hi . lively hue of white and red, his cheerfulness and Btrength,And all the things that liked him did "a, ," away at length."- - G o L D I N ~ , Ovii:, MetamorpTtoail, b. 3.

7 cc Come, my child, I see thou fearest thou Bhalt never get anythiBg J

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OUR ENGLISH DICTIONARIES. 19I am inclined to believe, supposed he had formed upon'aloor the very serviceable word, 'aloofness j ' l but, thoughit has found its way into none of our Dictionaries, it alsois two hundred years old.' 'Nasute' should have heencompleted with 'nasuteness j 'S 'exorable' with t exorableness ; '4 elvish' with' elvishness j'G , fume' and' famish' with'fumishness ;'8 'bitch' with 'bitchery ;'1 'rove' and 'rover 'with. 'l'o"terie ; '8 , verb' and' verbal' with' verbalist j ' l I conculcate,' as its legitimate consequence, has' conculcation,'lObui look not thou at thine own atOknBaa, look at the Lord'8 ease."-ROGEB8, Naaman tke Syrian, p. 378. .

1 Bwgrap!t.ia Literaria, vol. ii. p. 19, ed. 1847.I "[God] stings him by unthankfulness of such as owe most love, byunfaithCulnesll and aloofnB88 of such as have been greatest friends."

Naamo.n tke 8!Jrian, p. 95.a "Al l which, to any man that has but a moderate 'lUUU,tBnB88, cannotbut import, that in the title of this sect that call themselves the Family

of Love, there must be signified no other love than that which is merelynatural or animal."-H. MOBE, On GodlinB88, b. 8, c. 2, 2.4 "A spirit of mildness, mercy, e!l:orablene88, and eaiiness to be en-

treated."-ROGEBS, Naaman tke 8!Jrian, p. 55.i "The mere spirit that is in you luRts to envy, inclines to crossness,elvisknB8a, and self-willedn8llS or spirit."-RoGEB8, MatrimonialHonour, p. 195. "Drive Thou ont of us all ftumiskne88, indignation and self-will."-COVEBDALE, IJIruiij'ul LeaaO'll8 (Parker Soc. ed.), p. 284.7 "The quip sat as unseemly in his mouth 8S for a whore to repre-

hend bitcMry, or for an usurer to condemn simony."-STANIHUBST,Deacription of Ireland, p. 14; cf. NORTH, Pl'Utarck'a LifJB8, p.786.

8 cc He laid the whole fault of all the rofJeNe and piracy at sea uponGentiu8, the king of the Illyrians."-HoLLAND, LifJY, p. 1086.9 cc The frothy discourses of empty verbaliata."-GELL, A ~ n t

q f tM Englisi TranalatWn of tie Bible, 1659, P r ~ a c e . cc Yet not ashamed these fJerbalista still are,From youtl1, till age or study dims tl1eir eyes,To engage tl1e grammar rules in civil war."

-LORD BROOJ[E, 01& Humma Learning.10 cc The conculcatwn of the outward Court of tl1e Temple by tl1e

Gentlles."-HEWRY MORE, M,aHry of InipKa. b. 2, C. 12, I.02

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ON SOME DEFICIENCIES INand 'co-inquinate' I co-inquination.'l If I cauponize' and'cauponate' are worthy of a place, then so also I cauponation;'2if 'latitant,' then 'latitation;'S if 'larceny,' then 'larcination." If' uadripartite,' why not 'quadripartition ;'5if 'afterwit, ' why not 'afterwitted,'6 as an epithet appliedto those who deal in 'hadiwist,' (had-I-wist) or wisdomwhich always arrives too late for the occasion-a morepregnant word than should be willingly lost sight' of?I f 'say' as equivalent to essay or proof, why not also'sayman,'7 above all, having Bacon's authority for itsllBe?

Again, i f our Dictionaries find room, as they ought, for'kex,' the old English name for hemlock, (or one of themrather, for only Richardson has it), why not also for'kexy'?8 if they find place for 'fog' (I mean in the senseof rank grass), they should do so for ' foggy,'9 stuffed with

1 "Fleeing from the co-i'llquinations of the world."-2 Pet. ii. 20 ,(Rheims).t " I shall now trace and expose their corruptions and cauponation8

of the Gospel."-BENTLEY, Sermon upon Pope1'!J.a " [Women] buried their children alive, lest their timorous outcriesmight bewray the place of their abode or latitation."-JAcJr.8oN, ATreatise qf tke Divine E886nce, b. 6.

4 "Undoubtedly Judah's portion made many incisures and larcinations into the tribe of Simeon, hindering the entireness thereof."FULLER, A Pisgak Sight qf Palestine, b. 5, c. 12.

6 "The quadripartition of the Greek Empire into four parts."-Id.ib. b. 2, c. 8, 3'S "Our fashions of eating make us slothful and unlusty to labour and Istudy, afterwitted (as we call it), incircumspect, i n c o n s i d e r a ~

heady, rash."-TYNDALE, E:rpontion qfMattltew vi.7 " I f your lordship in anything shall make me your sayman, I will

be hurt before your lordship shall be hurt."-Letter to tke Earl q fBuclcingkam.8 "The earth will grow more and more dry and sterile in succession

of ages; whereby it will become more lcezy, and lose of its solidity."H. MORE, 0" Godli1UJ8s, b. 6, c. 10, 3; cf. HAlfHOND, Tke &ventnSernwn, p. 513.

g "Those who on a Budden grow rather foggll than fat by feeding OD

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22 ON BOME DEFICIENCIES IN'prowlery;'l 'brim' (in the sense of fierce, vehement), and.not ' brimly;'!! 'shrimp' and not 'shrimpish,'3 a good equivalent for dwarfish; 'gingerly,' that is, youngherly, andnot ' gingerness,'4 also?Many verbs, su,ch as ' to ease,' ' to merit,' ' to toll,' ' toextirp,' the older form of ' to extirpate,' have substantivesformed on them- ' easer," 'meriter/ IS 'toller," extirper.nI f t be urged that this is assumed of course, and that ittherefore is superfluous to note them, I cannot assent tothis explanation of their absence; and seeing that 'forfeiter,' 'lapper,' 'thirster,' and other little-used words ofthe same formation, are introduced, there is at least an inconcinnity in omitting these, as they have been omitted bytens and by hundreds.

Let me observe, while on this matter of faulty grouping,an error in the opposite extreme into which Richardsonhas fallen. 'Rantism' has nothing to do with ' rant,''rent,' and' ranter ;' it is not., as Johnson, who shares theerror, explains it, "tenets of the wretches called ranters,"but simply the Greek p a v T U r p . o ~ , as is evident from thefollowing passage in Bishop Andrews :_CC We, but a handful to their heap, but a rantism to their "baptism."8

But further, to work back from later formations to earlier,as UIled by the faskionist, of that age."-Id. ib. pt. 2, 6, 4, 7. l'heword is in Richardson, but without an example.

1 "Thirty-seven monopolies, with other sharking prowlerie" weredecried in one parliament."-HA.cXBT, Lift qf .Arckbishop Williama,pt. I , p. 51.t "A. man sees better, and discerns more brimly his colours."-PuT

TBNBA.lI, .Art oJ Poetry, p. 256. " I t cannot but a burden be, and that right great, to bearWith those same ,krimpish arms of his A.chilles' mighty spear."

-GOLDING, Ovid', Metamorphosis, b. 13 . .. I t is a world to consider their coyness in gestures, theirgingernell in tripping on toes like young goats." STUBS, PM .Anatomyqf .AbuseB, 1585, p. 42.

I ROGBBS, Naaman tAB Syrian, p. 40. Id. ib. p. 341.7 .. Founders of states, lawgivers, e:etirper, of tyrants, fathers of thepeople, were honoured."-BA.coN, Of tAB Interpretation qf Natul'tJ.8 Of tM Bending qf tM Holy Ghost, Serm. 2.

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OUR ENGLISH DICTIONARIES.on which they are snperinduced, a.nd which they: not merelypre.suppose as possible, but which actually exist. I f sortilegions' is admitted, 'sortilege'l should be so as well; if'pervicacious,' then 'pervicacy/i which it assumes, andwhich has been in actual use, should not be left out, as it isby Richardson, and, which is the same thing, left withoutan example by Todd; 'garish' should not stand without, gare ;'8 nor ' soporous' and ' soporiferous,' without'sopour!' 'Excarnification' stands in Todd (it is not inRichardson) without 'excamificate,'S from which it grew;in like manner we have 'dehonestation,' but not the verb'todehonestate,'6 which yet is employed by Jeremy Taylor;'fellowfeeling,' but not the verb 'to fellowfeel ;'7 'compact,'but pot the verb' to compack,'B of which it is the participle.

I " I have good hope that as the gods in favour have directed this801'tiiege, so they will be pre$ent and propitious unto me."-HoLLAlIID,Liv!I, p. 1183. ., .. The Independents at last, when they had refused with tlufficientpervicM!J to associate with the Presbyterians, did resolve to show theirproper.strength."-SYLVE8TBB, Life of Rickard Bareter, p. 104.

I "The multitude hastened in a fell and cruelgare to try the utmosthazard of battle."-HoLLAlIID, Ammianm MarcellinlU, p. 412." In a gare and heat they will run, ride, and take any pains; butonly 80 long as the pang holds."-RoGBRs, Naaman tke B!/rian, p. 390.4 "To awake the Christian world out of this deep 8DpOu,r or lethargy.

-H . MOBB, M!J8tery; of Iniquit!J, Prtiface to tke Second Part.6 "What [shall we say] to the racking and ezca1'1lijicating theirbodies, before this last punishmentP"-Id. ib. b. 2, c. 15.8 "The excellent and wise pains he took in this particular no mancan dekoneBtate or reproach, but he that is not willing to confess that

the Church of England is the beat reformed Church in the world."Sernwn Preacked at tkeFuneraloftke Lord Primate; cf. RBYNOLDS,Berm. 21, Works, 1826, voI. v., p. 297.

7 " We should count her a very tender mother which should bear thepain twice, and fellowfeel the infant's strivings and wrestlings thesecond time, r a t h ~ than want her child."-RoGBRs, Naaman tkefWrian, p. 339.

8 . . But the art of man not only can compat'kFeatures and forms that lite and motion lack,But also fill the air with painted shoalsOf flying creatures."-SYLVB8TEB, Du Bartu. Si:&t! Da!J of tke First "Week.

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24 ON SOME DEFICIENCIES INAgain, why a word, and not the negative of that word,

if such exists? Thus, why 'remission,' and not 'irremission ;'1 i f ' evident,' why not also 'unevident;'ill i f'wily,' why not 'unwily ;'8 if 'give,' why not also 'ungive ?'40 Or, once more, if 'parricide,' why not 'filicide ?'5I f 'italianate,' why not ' spaniolize ?'6The designation of a female person, by changing" t er'into 'ess,' as 'flatterer,' 'flatteress,' or by the addition of'ess,' as 'captain,' 'captainess,' was once much morecommon than it is now. The languag-e is rapidlyabdicating its rights in this matter. Bllt these forms, thoughnow many of them obsolete, are very indicative of theformer wealth of the language, and have good claim to beregistered. I have noted the following: 'sleeress (slay-"eress),' 7 'buildress,'8 , captainess,'1I , fiatteress,'IO , in-

I " I t is ' I t shall not be forgiven;' I t is not, ' I t cannot be forgiven: I t is an irremission; it ill not an irremissibleness."-DoNNE,Sermon on Wkitsunda!l.2 "We conjecture at unevident things by that which is evident."

RACKET, Life of Archbishop Williama, pt. I , p. 197.8 "Note but the plain husbandman or the un'Wil!l shoemaker:'

FLOBIO, MontaigM's Essa!ls, p. 63.4 "Truly it is a daring that deserves castigation in him, that he

~ h o u l d throw dirt into the face of the Scripture, and deny the purity ofthe Greek text, before he will ungive any thing of his own groundlessopinioll:'-LIGHTFOOT, Commentaryj on tke Acts, ch. 6.

6 I have lost the reference, but the word occurs in HOLLAND.8 "It was charged against the Earl of Bristol that he was whollyspaniolized, which could not be, unless he were a pensioner to thatState:'-HACXET, Life of Archbishop Williams, pt. I, p. 134.7 "See wee no more of thee sone or douter up on earthe, thousleeresse ofthe men."-Tobit, iii. 9, Wiclif.s "Sherah, the daughter of Ephraim the younger, the greatestbuildress in the whole Bible:' FULLER, A Pisgah Sigltt of Palestine,pt. I , b. 2, C. 9.

9 " . Dar'st thou counsel meFrom my dear captaine8s to run away P"-SIR P. SIDNEY, A8tropkel and Steila, 88.10 "Those women that ill times past were called in Cypres, Colacide8,i. e.ftatteres8e8:'-HoLLAND, Plutal'ch, p. 86.

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OUR ENGLISH DICTIONARIES. 25trudress,'l t s o v e ~ a i n t e s s , ' l I t waggoness,'s which have notso been.A vast number of diminutives exist in the language,which have never found their way into our Dictionaries.Here are eight with a single termination: t wormling,'4t loveling,'5 t dwarfling,'8 t streamling,' t chasteling,'7(= eunuch), ttimeling,'8 'setling,'9 tniceling.'lo Those,too, in t ock' are very imperfectly catalogued.ll

1 "Joash sbould recover his rightful throne from the unjust usurpation of Athaliah, an idolatrous intrudres, thereinto."-FuLLER, APis ala Sight of Pale,tine, pt. 2, b. 3, c. 10.

t " 0 second honour of the lamps supernal,Sure calendar of festivals eternal,Sea's soverainte", sleep-bringer, pilgrim's guide,Peace-loving queen."-SYLVESTER, Du Bartas. Fourtk Day of tke First Week.a "That she might serve for waggOneBS, she plucked the waggonerback,And up into his seat she mounts."

-CHAPMAN, Homer', Riad, 5, 838,9,t "0 dusty wormling! dar'st thou strive and stand

With heaven's high Monarch P wilt thou (wretch) demandCount of his deeds P"-Id. The Imposture.I "These frolic lovelings fraighted nests do make."-Id. ib. "When the rlwarfling did perceive me."-Id. Tlae Woodman'sBear, 33. Id. The Handicrafts.1 " I t [Matthew xix.] entreateth of three kinds of ckasteling'."BECON, Oontents of Bt. Mattkew's Gospel.8 "Divers ministers are faint-hearted, and were, as it seemetb,

but timeling,."-Id. The Supplication.t "Such as be newly planted in the religion of Christ, and havetaken no sure root in the same, are easily moved as young ,etling,/'

Id. PrWac6 to Various Tracts.10 "But I would ask these nicelings one question, wherein i f hey canresolve me, then I will say, as they 88Y, that scarfs are necessary, and

not flags of pride."-STuBs, Tlae Anatomy of Abuse" 1585, p. 42.11 There is an interesting article on these, and a collection, I should.think, very nearly complete in the Tran,actions of tke PlailologicalSociety, by Hewitt Key, Esq. Let me, however, add one which evenhe has past over, &tock,' the diminutive oC fist,-.. Scarce able Cor t{) stay hisfiBtock from the servant's face."-GOLDING, Ovid', MetamorplaOBis, b. 9.

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26 ON SOME DEFICIENCIES INAdjectives in l en,' of the same formation as our still

existent l brazen,' l earthen,' l wheaten,' and noting, like tbeGreek adjectives in LVO,", vaXLVo,", l glassen,' ~ V X L V O " , Cwooden,' and the like, the "tuff or material of which anything is made, have been far more numerous than our Dictionaries would imply, I can only adduce tbese five, flouren,'l Celdern,'2 'tinnen,'s Cyarnen," C wispen," ashaving found no place in them j but am disposed to thinkmany more will yet be found. I t is only in the Supplementto Richardson that C stonen' has for the first time made itsappearance.I must class under this rubric words which appear in ourDictionaries as subsisting only in one part of speech, whenindeed they are two or more. Thus they have C a snag,'but not C to snag, '8-Todd, indeed, has the word, but asprovincial, and giving no example of it. 'To snig,'7(another form of the word) is entirely wanting. They haveC cranny' and C crannied,' this last as an adjective, but not, to cranny,'8 the participle of which it really is; C ignoble,'but not, with Lord Bacon, C to ignoble ;'9 'unactive,' but

1 HEBBBBT COLBBIDGE'S GI088o-r,J, 8. V.t . . Her chierest pride is in the multitude ofher suitors, and by themshe gains; for one serves to draw on another, and with one at last she

shoots out another, 8S boys do pellets in eldem gunS."-SIB TaoJU.8OVEBBUBY,Oka'1'acter8. An Ordi_ry W"adotD.3 . . Thy tinftell chariot, shod with burning botoses,

Through twice six signs in twice six twelve months Cl'OIIIIeB."-SYLVBSTBB, Du Barta.. FOlWtla Day 01 llae FW8t Week.

4 cc A pair of ya'l'ftlm stocks to keep the cold away."-TuBBBVILLB , Letter out of MU8COfI!J.

.. She hath already put on her tDUp6ft garland."-G. HABVEY,Pierce'8 8vp6'l'61'Ogatkm, Arckaica, vol. ii . p. 149.8 . . Beware of magging and snarling at God's secrets."-RoGBBS,Naa_n eke Syrian, p. 14; cf. p. 291.7 cc Others are 80 dangerously worldly, migging and biting, usurers,hard and oppresaing."-lb. id. p. 211.8 cc The ground did cranny everywhere, and light did pierce to hell."

-GoLDING, OvUC8 MetamO'1'pkoaU, b. 2. .. Igft01!ling many shorel! and points of land by shipwreck."-ADi8COV'1'86 in p1'o,U6of QlIBeIl Elizabetk.

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OUR ~ G L I S a : l'HCTIONARIES 27.not c to unactive.'l And then, reversing the case, we findin them c to cancel,' but not Ca cancel,'i with JeremyTaylor.l Cto arrive,' but not an arrive ;'8 c to strut,' and' astrut,' while Cstrut," 8f$ an adjective, is wanting; so, too,is 'diary ;'6 they have 'please.nt,' but not '.fJ plelUlant'6:;oa buffoon. The o m i ~ s i o n s in this kind are indeed innu-merable.I might have found a f i t ~ r opportunity for noticing, yet,rather than not J).otice at all, I will notice here that, whilewe have a vast company of energetic words, formed lIBf telltale,' f spitfire,' Cspendthrift,' still current among us, afar larger company has past out of use, and of these manyremain to this day unnoted in our Dictionaries. I instancethe following: C getnothing,'7 C stroygood,'8 Cspitpoison,'D

1 . . The fatness of their Boil 80 stuck by their sides, itunaetivBtl themfor foreign adventures: ......FuLLBR, A PiBgah, SigAt qfPale8tine, b. 2,C.IO.

S . . Whose spirit d e ~ i N s no enlargement beyond the CllflCBU of thebody, till the state of separatioR caJlII it forth into a fair liberty."-LifBqlOArid, pt. g, sect, Ig. 9.a "Whose forests, hills, an!! floods then longed for her f1I1"I'ifJ.From Lancashire:'

......DUYTON, Polyolbi01&, 28.4 . . He beginneth now to return with his belly 8trut and ful l"

HOLLAND, Ammian..MarClllinw, p. rug.& "The offer of a usurpation, though it was but. as a tlia'r!j aglle.'

BA.CON, Letter8, 83.S . . They bestow their silver on t.ourte&anll, pleluane" and flatterers."

-HOLLAND, PlvttJrck, p. 169.. Ridiculous Jesters andplefUane,: ....Itl. ib. p. 106.7 .. Every gdnotAing is a thief, Dd laziness is a/ stolen water.' " - .

ADA.lIB, TAe Devil'. Banquet, 1614, p. 76.8 "To thia same turret up they went. and there with sighs beheldThe oxen lying everywhere stark dead upon the t)eld,ADd eke the cruel .Woyg90tl with. his blo04y mouth and

hair."-GOLDING, O"itl'8 M'IItIl1ft01fJ1wBiI, b. 11.e "The scourge of society, a BpitpoiBon, a v i p e r : ' ~ u T B , 8ermontJ,

1744, vol. It. p. 291.

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28 ON SOME DEFICIENCIES INI swillbowl/1 I quenchcoal/i I kindlecoal,'8 I kindlefire,'.I pickpenny," I nipfarthing,'8 I telltrnth,'1 l makeshiAi,'8 asapplied to a person, I bitesheep9-a frequent title in Foxegiven to a persecuting prelate-' turntippet,J10 Richardsonindeed has l to turn tippet,' but not the noun.

Ill. Our Dictionaries do not always take sufficient careto mark the period of the rise of words, and, where theyhave set, of their setting. The length of life which belongsto different words is very different, some describing muchlarger arcs than others. There are those which rose withthe first rise of the language, and which, we may confidently

I "Wantonness was never such a 8'Willbowl ofribaldry."-G .HUVEY,Pierce's BupererogatiO'1l., Arckaica, vol. ii. p. 141 .I I t s used by the Puritan writers of a cold heartless professor in the

things of God. .. You are quenckcoal; no sparkle of grace can kindleupon your cold hearth."-RoGERs, Naaman tke Syrian, p. 868.B . . In these civil wars among saints Satan is the great kindlecoal."

GURNA.LL, Tke Okristian in Complete Armour, c. 2, 3.4 "In a word such a kindlefire sin is, that the flames it kindles flynot only from one neighbour's house to the other, bllt from one nationto another."-lb. id. c. 25, 4.6 "He [the Pope] sending out and dispersing these birdsof his to behis hungry pickpennies throughout the whole pasturage of the empire."

-H . MORB, Mystery of Ini'luit!1o b. 2, c. 9, 8.S . . I would thee not a nipfartking,Nor yet a niggard have:Wilt thou, therefore, a drunkard be,A dingthrift. and a knave P"-DRANT, The Satires ofNONce, Sat. I .

7 cc Caleb and Joshua, the only two telltrotks, endeavoured to undeceive and encourage the people."-FuLLBR, .A Pisgak Sight ofPales-tine, pt. 2, b. 4, c. 3.B "A rakehell, a make"kV!, a scribbling fool."-G.HuVEY, Pierce'sSupererogation, .Arckaica, vol. ii . p. 2. "Still keep that order with those bloodthirsty biteskefJ]J' (bishops,I should say), that you have begun."-Letter of Jol"" Oa1'eles", in

FOXB'S Book ofMartyr'.10 . . The priests, for the most part, were doublef8{'.ed, turntippetB, andflatterers."-CRANMER, Oonfutation of Unwritten VeriUe,.

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OUR ENGLISH DICTIONARIES. 29

prophesy, will always remain above the horizon. Others,rising as early, have already sunk and disappeared. Othersrising later, will yet, so far as we can judge, continue solong as it continues. Others, again, describe far lesser arcsthl1n any of these; rising at a comparatively late period,they are already lost to our sight again; they lived only thelife of some single man; or, it may be, used only once byhim, their rising and their setting was at the same instantof time. But for all this, if their author and proposer wasanything better than one of that rabble of scribblers whohang on the skirts of literature, doing their worst toprofane and degrade it and language which is its vehicle,these words should not on this account the less find placeamong those archives of a language which it is the businessof a Dictionary to preserve. Now these arcs, wider ornarrower, which words describe, are well worthy of beingmeasured, so far as they come within the scope of ourvision; and our complaint is that adequate care has not.been bestowed on this matter.

I t is in every case desirable that the first authority fora word's use in the language which occurs should be ad.duced; that the moment of its entrance into it (that is,into the written language, for this only comes under ourcognizance), the register of its birth, should thus be noted.Of course no Dictionary can accomplish this completely.Every lexicographer must be content to be oflen set righthere, and to have it shown that earlier authority existedfor a word than that which he assumed the earliest, tillthus by repeated corrections something of an approach tocomplete accuracy in this matter is attained. But I doubtwhether Johnson even so much as set this before him as anobject desirable to be obtained. To a certain extent Toddevidently did so. Thus he has sometimes thought it worthhis while expressly to note that authorities exist for a wordearlier than any which Johnson has quoted; see for in-stance under the words, ' canaille,' 'financier,' 'privateer!

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so ON SOME DEFICIENCIES INRichardson has accomplished far more than either in thismatter; though, Strangely enough, he sometimes goesback from the vantage ground which his predecessors hadalready won, and satisfies himself with a later authority,when they had furnished him ready to hand with an earlier,and therefore a better. I t cannot be brought as any chargeagainst him, the first deliberate and consistent worker inthis field, that he has left; much in it for those who comeafl;er him to accomplish. For this is a work, as I havesaid, in which every one who engages will have for a longtime to come to submit to innumerable corrections fromthose who succeed him.To bring a few instances in proof,-one might supposefrom Richardson that the word 'scoundrel' first came upin the eighteenth century, for the first authority which hegives for it is Swift;; and in discussing its etymology hesays, "the instances of its nsage are so modern, that itseems difficult to connect it with an Anglo-Saxon origin."Johnson has here the advantage of him; for he traces itback as far as Butler (Huai/mu); but, in fact, 'scoundrel'is much older than this, being found not merely in Beau .mont and Fletcher, and in Shakespeare (only once), but inWarner's Albion'8 Englana,l which was first 'published in1586. Again, our Dictionaries would leave us tosnpposethat ' committee' arose about the period of our great CivilWars; but from Holland's Livy,B published in 1600, wemay learn that it was current nearly half a century before.'Puberty' does not make its first appearance in Bacon;Wiclif had used it long before.s O f ' economize' Richardson obsenes, "the verb is now in common use," implyingthat it is quite of modern coinage; and Todd speaks of it

1 "That 8COUM1'6l or this counterfeit."-B. 6, e. 31.I "The committeu of the captives had audience granted them in thesenatehouMe by the Dietator."-p. 468. "The Lord witnesaide betwixe thee and the wijf of thi p,,6erlee."

-MaL ii. 14.

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OUR ENGLTSH DICTIONARIES. 81as" of very recent usage S" ......an entire mistake I it is as oldas Milton, though the meaning of the word haS beenpartially modified since his time.1 'Apostate, or 'apostata,'which form of the word lasted long, did not first comein about the time of the ReformatIon, as all our Dic.tionaries might lead us to conclude, but is in fact as oldas Pier, Ploughman.s

But if it be thus desirable to note in every case, so faras this is possible, the first appearance of a word, then allthose tokens which will sometimes cleave to words forawhile, and indicate their recent birth, ought also to bediligently noted. None are more important in this aspectthan what one may fitly call "marks of imperfect natu-ralization." Many words, as is familiar to us all, have onlyby degrees made themselves a home among us: denizensnow, they were at first strangers and foreigners, and boreplainly on their fronts that they were so; the foreign ter-mination which for a while they retained, but now havedropped, being commonly that which betrayed their aliencharacter, their as yet imperfect adoption among us. I t iscleat that in no way is the date of a word's incominglikely to be more effectually marked than by the markingand adducing of passages in which it still wears its foreignaspect; not to say that in other ways the history of a wordis incomplete unless this be done. There has hitherto beencomparatively little attention bestowed upon this point byany of our lexicographers, and, on the whole, less byRichardson than by his predecessors. They show us in-deed, either one or all, how 'pyramis' and ' pyramides'went before r pyramid' and 'pyramids,' 'energia' before

I .. [Men] under tyranny and servitude, are wanting that power whichis the root and BOurceof all liberty, to-dispose and tBCq1IOmizll in the landwhich God. has given them."-Tke Tenure of King8 and Magistrate8,ad finem.

I "And whoso passed that pointWas apa.tata in the ordre."-Line 667, 8.

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82 ON SOM.E DEFICIENCIES IN, energy,' 'statua' before' statue,' 'pl'eludium' before 'prelude,' 'caricatura' before 'caricature j ' that 'phantasma,''classis,' 'syntaxis,' preceded 'phantasm,' 'class,' 'syntax,'with something more in the same kind j but a vast numberof examples, passed over by them, still remains to be noticed.Of these I propose to adduce a few.I will notice first some Greek immigrations, the time ofwhose incoming may in this way be pretty accurately noted jbut which have either escaped the attention of our lexicographers, or have seemed to them unworthy of note. Weshould scarcely suspect 'biography' to be so recent as itis, were it not for the fact that Dryden continually uses'biographia.'l 'Cynosura," employed by Hacket and HenryMore, preceded' cynosure j ' 'demagogi,'s employed also byHacket, went before 'demagogues: Bearing out thenovelty of this last word in the middle of the seventeenthcentnry, let me just remind you that Milton in his El"ovo,,:\aaT'If: finds in the use of ' d ~ m a g o g u e ' 4 in the Icon Baai-like,-" this goblin word," as he callsit,-an argument thatKing Charles could not have been author of the work.'Chasma'6 is employed by Henry More and others, long

1 "Biographia, or the h i ~ t o r y of particular men's lives, comes nextto be considered:'-Life of Plutarck., "The Countess of Buckingham was the cynolfUra that all thePapists steered by."-Lif6 of Archbishop Williams, pt. I . p. 171; cf.H. Mon, Immortality of tke Soul, b. 3, c. 17, 7.a "Those noted demagogi were but hirelings, and triobulary rhetoricians."-Life of Arckbiskop Williams, pt. I. p. 175.

4 His words are so curious that, though quoted by Richardson andreferred to by Todd, I will append them here : - " Setting aside theaffrightment of this goblin word [demagogue], for the King, by hidleave, cannot coin English as he could money to be current, and it isbelieved this wording was above his known style and orthography, andaccuses the whole composure to be conscious of some other author."- 4., "Observe how handsomely and naturaRy .hat hideous and unproportionate ckasma betwixt the predictions in the eleventh chapter ofDaniel and the twelfth is in this way filled up with matters of weightyconcernment."-Mlstery of Inirluitl, b. 2, C. 10, 8. "Between a

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OUR ENGLISH DICTIONA.RIES. 33before 'chasm' was naturalized in our tongue. ' Dosis,'also, which he employs, and, I think, Bacon before him, preceded 'dose.'l 'Heros,'la too, is in constant use by him, andthe plural 'heroes' is a trisyllable in Spenser. 'Idioma'soccurs in the Hetico-nia, also in Dray on ; , parallelogrammon'4 in Holland, 'prototypon'6 in Jackson, 'hemistichion'l in Bishop Andrews, 'extasis'7 in Burton, 'prosodia'8 in Dray ton, 'zoophyton'lI in Henry More, , epitheton'lOin Foxe.I will now pass on to the Latin, dealing with all as such,minister [of Christ] and Popery le t there be a great cluuma."-J ANBS,Ab8tinenc. from all Appearanc. of Evil, p. 78.. "Mount Olivetshall be parted into a great cAaBma, half eastward and half westward."-BBOUGHTON, A Reply to Dr. Bi18on, 1605, p. 13; cf. FULLBR,OkurcA Hutory, b. 4, cent. IS, 4.

1 "A certain d08i8 of sanguine mixed with melancholy, is the spiritthat usually inspires enthusiasts."-A BriId' Di8COfWI' of Ent"uft(Jl17J, sect. 21.

t .. But to retum to the description of this heavenly kBr08: a sharpedged sword is said to go out of his mouth."-MY8tBJ:v of Iniquity,b. 2, c. '4, 6.

a "Impartial judge of all save present state,Truth's idioma of the things are past."

-Heliconia, vol. 3, p. 461.t . . Suppose, then, there be a figure set down in form of a tile, called

l'aralklogrammon, with right angles A, B, C, D."-Pluta1'c", p. 1036.I "No type in Scripture agrees better with the ideaor protot!l1'on thanSampson and John Baptist with our Saviour."-1r.atu. oftkB DivineE88BnCe, b. 7.

8 . . The charge is short , ye see, an kBmutic"ion, but half averse."-O f tM Oonapiracy of t", GowriB8, Serm. 3.1 "In the same author is recorded Carolus Magnus' viRion, an. 885,

or ezta8i8, wherein he saw heaven and hell."-Anatomy ofM.lanckoly,pt. 3, 4, I . 2.

8 "Every grammarian in this land hath learned his pr08odia, andalready knows all this art ofnumbers."-Al'ologYfor R"yme.I " A zoopkyton may be rightly said to have a middle excellency

betwixt an animal and a:pll.nt."-Myltwy of Iniquity, b. I , c. 9, 3."Alter the epitk.t01l8 [these epithetons' are horrible,' heretical,'

damnable,' and the like, applied to the doctrines of the Reformation]and I will subscribe."-Book of Martyr8, &cond E:eami1lation ofJuliUl Palmer.

D

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84 ON SOME DEFICIENCIES INwhose terminations are such, and which, Greek though theymay be, have come to ua by the Latin. ' Chylus'l is frequentin Bacon, and, i f the examples of ' chyle' in our Dictionaries. are the e a r l i ~ t , preceded it by at least half a century j 'anti.dotum' occurs in the State Papera,9 'adulter' for adulterer inTyndale,s JlICkson uses 'abyssusj' Andrews' nardusj'5 Hol-land ' heliotropium j'6 North 'helleborum j' 7 Baxter andHenry More 'archiva j'8 Worthington 'diatriha j'9 HenryMore 'folliculus j'10 Jeremy Taylor ' expansum j'l1 Fuller, interstitium ;'I!! Reynolds 'vehicula j'IS Chillingworth ' in.

1 Cl Mists, smoke, vapours, ek!Jlua in the stomach."-Nat.ralHill-ttWJ/, cent. ix. 837.

2 Vol. ii. p. 17; with date 1515.a " We receive unto our mass open sinners, the covetous, the extor-tioneI'll, the ad.Uer, the backbiter."-Ezp. of t"e Firat Bp. of St.Jokn, ch. 5.

4 "This is a depth, or ab!Ja8U8, which may not be dived into."-Oom_tanea on tke Oreed, b. 11, c. 19, 6.6 "Yea, when the great and glorious acts of many monarchs shall

be buried in silence, this poor box of nardaa shall be matter of praise,and never die."-Tke Third Sermon preached in Lent.e "Two kinds there be of this keliotropi.m or turn80lI."-Pliny.vol ii. p. 1:16.7 "Attaius would plant and set physical herbs, as kelleboram."Pl.tare"'a LiveB, p. 739.8 "The Christians were able to make good what they asserted byappealing to these records, kept in the Roman arekiva."-H. MORE,0", Godlin68B, b. 7, c. 12, 2.t "That excellent diatriba upon St. Mark."-Prifaoe to Mede'.WorkB, p. I .10 Cl With her fore feet she works thatfollicalua or clue of silk above-named."-Immortalit!J oftke Soul, b. 3, c. 13.11 Cl The light of he world in the morning of creation was spread abroadlike a curtain, and dwelt nowhere, but filled the eqanaum with a dis .semination great as the unfoldings of the air's looser garment, or the

wilder fringes of the fire."-fie MiracleB of tke DifJine Mercy; cf.HBNRY MORB, M!JBt6r!J of Iniquity, b. I , c. 5, 7.12 Of There was an inter,titium or distance ofseventy years between thedeBtruction ofSolomon's and erection ofZorobabel's temple,"-A PiBgaASigkt ofPale8tine, pt . I , b. 3, c. 6.11 Cl Graces are like the waggons which Joseph sent to carry J &COb his

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OUR ENGLISH DICTIONARIES. 85tervalla ;'1 HammoD.d9 and Henry More t machina ;'8 thelatter 'mystagogus ;'4 Culverwell t philtrum's and r ves-tigium ;'8 North 'mdilis ;'1 Burton t spectrum ;'8 Howet vestibulum.'D 'Mummy,' not a Latin word, but comingto us through the low Latin, appears for some time as'mummia,' still wearing its Latin dress,10 and '-pedantry,'as 'pedanteria,' still wearing its Italian.,n

father; they are the fleAicula, like Elijah's chariot or fire, to transportthe souls of believers unto Chrillt."-Tke RicA M_'s CAarge.1 "They conceive that if they should have the gQOd fortune to be takenaway in one of these interflalla, OBe of these sober moods, they shouldcertainly be aaved."-Nine Sermons, p. I I . .I cc Thus is art a macAina or invention to furnish us with thOlleabilities which Nature was aniggard in."-Work" 1684, vol. iv., p. 627.a "Three such contextures shall one fatal day

Ruin at once, and the world's macAina,Upheld so long, rush into atoms rent,"-O n Godlinesf, p. 42.

4 "That true interpreter, and great m!Jleagog"" the Spirit of GodHimself."-On Godlinesl, b. I , c. 2, 2., " Lucretius, a Roman of very eminent parts, which yet were muchabated by apAiltrum that was given him."-Ligkt o f Nature, c. 17.a "His ways are in the deep l there is no fXlIOr of them, nor theleast print or flutigium, no tracing of a deity."-SpiritualOpticks,P190 7 cc How cometh it to pass thou art thus rich. that thou dost sue tobe fBdilisl"-Pl",tarcA's Lifl6S, p. 822.

8 cc Lavater puts solitariness a main cause of such spectrums or apparitions."-.A.natom;y of Melanckol!J, part 3, 4, I , 2.8 cc Nor could anything be more congruous than that having the keys

of the celestial hO\llle of God, He should also have the keys of the terrestrial Bethel; which is but a sort of portal or flutibulum to theother,"-Works, London, 1832, p. 3I1.

10 cc Your followersHave swallowed you up like mummia, and being sickOf such unnatural and horrid paysia,Vomit you up i' th' kennel,"

WBBSTBR, Tke 'WAite D6flil, Act I , SC. I.11 cc Nay, to 80 unbelieved a point he proceeded, as that no earthlything bred Buch wonder to a prince as to be a good horseman. Skill ofD2

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'.

ON SOME DEFICIENCIES INSometimes we can only tell by aid of the plural that

the word was once regarded as foreign, though now it is soregarded no more. Thus 'phalanx' in the singular wouldtell us nothing, because this is the form which we haveultimately adopted; but the plural' phalanges,ll instead of'phalanxes,' leaves no doubt that he who employed itregarded the word as a Greek one still. 'Cento' in likemanner is not indicative, but 'centones'i is; we may saythe same of 'uri' and 'bisontes,'s as compared with' urus'and 'bison.' 'Idea," specimen,' leave us doubtful, butnot'idelll,'4 , s p e c i m i ~ a . ' 6 'N octambulo,' which for a longtime did the duty which 'somnambulist' does now, andwas thoroughly naturalized in Arbuthnot's time, for hespeaks of 'noctambuloes' (see Richardson), was plainly farfrom so being in Donne's, for whom the plural of it is'noctambulones.'6 And to take example of a single Ital ianword; 'bravo,' being the form in which we have ultimatelymade this word our own, has no information for us; butwhere I bravi,'1 and not 'bravoes,' appear as the plural,this marks it for him who so used it as Italian stil1.8government was but a pedenteria in comparison."-SIR P. SIDNEY,Difenre ofPoe8!J.

I "Aforetime they had their battalions thick and close together, likethe Macedonianpkalangcs."-HoLLA.ND, Livy, p. 286.I " OentOMB are pieces of cloth of divers colours Metaphoricallyit is a poem patched out of other poems by ends ofverses."-L. VIVES,Augu,tine'B Oity of God, b. 17, c. 15, note.

S "Neither had the Greeks any experience of those neat or buftles,called un or bisonte . "-HoLLA.ND, PUny, pt. 2, p. 323.4 "Socrates and Plato IIUpPOse that thell8 ideO! be l'ubstances separateand distinct from matter."-Id., Plutarck, p. 813.I "Tbere constantly appeared in him such Bpecimina of serious piety

as were very comfortable to his parcnts."-HoWB'S Work., London.1832, p. 324.8 "They say that our floctambulonea, men that walk in their sleep.will wake if they be called by their nsmes."-Sermon 46, p. 467. InHenry More, floctambuli.-Immortality oftlie Soul, b. 2, Co '5.7 .. Hired fencers, called bravi."-MoBISON, Itinera'l'!/, pt. 2, p. 25.8 I t is an omission in the opposite direction, when examples are given

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OUR ENGLISH DICTIONARIES. 87I t must at the same time be freely acknowledged that

these are not perfectly infallible signs; that one writer willstill deal with a word as a stranger, and lead us to supposeit so, while another, who wrote earlier, had already treatedit as an homeling. Thus I find' depositum'l used by morewriters than one, and that a considerable time after LordBacon had employed 'deposit;' 'balsamum' in Jackson,though 'balsam' was already in Gower; 'commentnm' inHenry More/a though his namesake Sir Thomas had longago written 'comment; , 'prosodia ' in South, with'prosody' in Ben Jonson. Some, too, persisted in constantly using' hostia,'S long after 'host' was completelyadopted in the language. ' Funambulo' makes its plural, funambulones' in Wilkins, but ' funambuloes' in Bacon.

There are many other ways nearly related to this one, bywhich the date of a word's first appearance may be approximately gained; passages by aid of which we may prettyconfidently affirm that, at the time they were written, theword was not in existence: these also I should desire tosee gathered in. Thus if Sir Walter Raleigh speaks oft t strange visions, which are also called panici te"orea,"4 itis tolerably plain that the word 'panic' was not yetof a word, as it still wears its foreign aspect, but none to mark its morecomplete naturalization among us. Thus Todd has an example of eUl'ipus,' used not of the strait between Greece and EulxBa, but applied to any other strait; none however of euripe' employed in thesame sense, which he might have given; as this: re On the other sidethere is an euripe or arm of the sea."-HOLLAND, Livy, p.lI77. Theword in neither form is in Richardson.

1 "They [precious souls] are laid up as rich depositum in the handofa Saviour,"-(JULVBB.WELL, TM Wortk ofSouls; cf. ROGBR8, NawmantM Syrian, 10 tM Reader.S I suspect that it is only a witty comment"". of the bishop's tomake himselfmeITY withal,"-MyBtery of Iniquity, b. 2 , c. 5, 8.

I "'Let them stay at home who are so zealOUs. as they will pull thekOBtia or sacrament out of the priest's hands,"-MoEISON, Itinerary,pt. 3, p. 32, and passim., HiBtO'l'!J oftke World, b. 3, Co 5, 8.

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88 ON SOME DEFICIENCIES INrecognized when he wrote. Or take this quotation fromHacket's Life of .il.rclzIMkop Willia7IUI: 1 "When wars brokeout, they crept out of their crannies like the cimici in thehouses of Italy, out of rotten bedsteads ;"-can I doubtthat the ugly English equivalent for t cimici' had not yetobtained the name by which we know it now? The wordindeed existed, but not our present appropriation of it. llI meet in a book published in 1659,S the followingpassage: Cl But all these owned a 1 r O ) . V ( M f T f l O ~ , a pluralityof gods." I am not very rash in concluding that in 1659t polytheism' had not yet found its way into the language;just as when Cicero writes d8w).ov, a V T [ 1 r o 8 E ~ , one is surethat t idolum,' f antipodes,' were not Latin yet. Again if! findt acme' written in Greek characters, as I do in South, inCulverwell,4 and again in Phillips' excellent Preface to hisNew World of WordB,5 if in addition to this I find it alsoexplained, I have right to assume, that in the middle ofthe seventeenth century t acme' was not yet naturalized inour tongue, although the time of its naturalization couldnot be far ofi'. Other words, t zoophyte,'8 t axiom,'7 t phe-

1 Pt. 2, p. 182.I We have further proof of this in such a passage as the following:

"Do not all as much and more wonder at God's rare w o r k m a n ~ h i p inthe ant, the poorest bug that creeps, as in the biggest elephantP"ROGEB8, Naaman tke Synan, p. 74.a GELL, Essa!! toward tke Amendment qf tke Engli,,. Tran,la-tion qf tile Bible, p. 336.

4 'l.'lte Ligkt qf Nature, c. 4. "The Latin language was jlldged not to ha.ve come to its Iuc".;" orflourishing height of elegance, until the age in which Cicero lived."-

3rd ed. 1671.8 "Another degree or rank of animate or living creatures there ill,which the Grecians call Co>!Sqwra."-JAcx80N, OkM's EverlastingPriestlwod, h. 10, c. 25, 2.7 " I mean the common principles of Christianity, and those dEu{,p.arawhich men use in the transactions of the ordinary occurrences of civillIooiety."-J. TAYLOB, The Libert!! qf Propke8!Jing, Epistle Dedi-cator!!.

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OUR ENGLISH DICTIONARIES. 89nomenon,J\ t criterion,' t zoology," t pathos,'s t chrysalis,"t apotheosis,'6 t ophthalmia,'6 t metropolis,'7 t prolegomena,'Btell in the same way the same story. Or, once more, i f Inotice that at a certain ep

On Some Deficiencies in Our English Dict

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